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Black, Jewish and challenging ideas about the face of federation

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The Good-Faith Exception to the Warrant Requirement

Jewish community in Germany looking to improve future

By Kurt Grossman Guest Columnist

Director for Cedar Village Foundation is passionate about community

T H E R E

The place is Berlin; we are voluntarily walking down a narrowing hallway into a three story high, dark, dank concrete cavern. A heavy steel door slams shut leaving only the despair of that space broken by a sliver of light from on high. Was that what it felt like to be herded into the container cars at Station 17 for deportation to the concentration camps? Was that what it was like to be herded into the gas chambers? The sensation was chilling.

Fortunately for us, we were at the end of the Axis of the Holocaust at the Liebeskind-designed Jewish Museum of Berlin, safe to leave and go on our way.

The German Government is no longer hiding from its past and the horrible atrocities of the Holocaust. As the immigration chair for American Jewish Committee Cincinnati, I was privileged to join the President of AJC Houston, and seven others from around North America as guests of the German Federal Government for a week to learn about Jewish Life in Germany, Past, Present, and Future.

My first reaction was, quite bluntly, a sense that the last time anyone in my family went anywhere courtesy of the German Government, it did not end so well. The Jewish community in Germany was decimated during the “dark time” as some call it. For decades after the war, Nazi perpetrators freely roamed the streets of Berlin (both East and West); they were simply not called to account. But something changed. The children of Germany were growing up and demanding answers about what their parents had done, or let happen.

The Jewish community in

Berlin, slashed from nearly 180,000 before the war to a mere 7,000 after, is now some 50,000 strong. Jews are welcomed and even openly courted to settle in Berlin. Yet, there is still the looming shadow of xenophobia, much of it anti-Semitic in nature. The various officials and institute personnel we met made

clear that some 20% of the German population continue to hold Right Wing Extremist views.

Like the sliver of light in the museum cavern showed that the Shoah was not able to snuff out our light or our hope, the German government embraces its past and hopes for a brighter future for Jews. That

past is not condoned nor is it white-washed. Like the steel door slamming closed in that cavern, the German people face the shocking realities of their past so that they and the world do not live it again.

School children are taught about the Holocaust and terrible costs it put on humanity.

Denial of the Holocaust is a crime in Germany.

Significant numbers of institutes are funded to battle antiSemitism in the streets, in the schools, and in the communities. Memorials are built, and the terror of Nazi Germany exposed.

Certainly, my travels ended far better than for others of my kind 70 years ago.

I applaud Germany for confronting the reality of the Jewish past in Germany, and even for all they do to allow a Jewish future to develop. But will the Jews of present-day Germany survive and thrive?

Many of the members of the Jewish community do not practice the religion, know little about it, and are intermarrying out of the faith at an alarming rate. Germany has made much of the 18,000 Israelis that have relocated to Berlin in recent years. But most did so for economic reasons, and may not themselves, be practicing Jews.

Much of the Jewish Community in Germany today is made up of Russian Jews who used their Jewish identity to flee Russia; they have little or no understanding of Jewish lore or custom.

That would not be problematic as one can learn these things; the Rabbis tell us that, sadly, most make no such effort.

So while the German Government desperately wants a good future for Jewish Life in Germany, I believe it is up to the Jewish community in Germany to make that happen in the present.

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THURSDAY, DECEMBER 4, 2014

Hadassah Coffee Talk deals with adolescents Hadassah’s next Coffee Talk will offer help in getting through adolescence with adolescents in "I love them but I don't like them," a discussion with clinical psychologist Dr. Hillary Wishnick on Monday, December 8th at 7:30 pm. Tobe Snow is Cincinnati Chapter of Hadassah Coffee Talk Chair and Programming Vice President.

Hillary Wishnick, Ph.D., is a licensed psychologist in the states of Ohio and Indiana. She graduated Phi Beta Kappa from The University of Massachusetts at Amherst and received her Masters and Doctorate degrees in Psychology from the University of Cincinnati. She has worked with a wide range of clients in different settings including community mental health, college counseling, hospitals and prisons. Dr. Wishnick currently maintains a private practice in Mason, where

Dr. Hillary Wishnick

she works with adults, adolescents and couples. She specializes in adolescents who are highly emotional and who self-harm or engage in other self -destructive behavior and has run a group program for these teens since 2009.

Dr. Wishnick is a member of the Ohio Psychological Association, The Cincinnati Academy of Professional Psychology, and the

Cincinnati Academy of Collaborative Professionals.

Coffee Talk is a monthly casual get-together, usually on the second Monday of each month, to socialize, nosh, hear about Hadassah's latest lifesaving feats, listen to speakers discussing topics of interest and have fun.

Evening and morning times alternate each month. Past Coffee Talk topics have included cooking demonstrations, how important it is for women to be knowledgeable about their finances, women's heart health, why male and female brains function so differently, how to get rid of "stuff" in your life, and how to prevent identity theft.

This month’s Coffee Talk will be held at the home of Amy Perlman. Refreshments will be served. Coffee Talk is open to the public, and there is no charge to attend, but RSVPs are requested.

New Director for Cedar Village Foundation is passionate about the Jewish community Stewart L. Bromberg, who has devoted most of his career to serving Jewish nonprofits because of his passion for the Jewish community, has been appointed executive director of the Cedar Village Foundation, the fundraising and investment arm of Cedar Village Retirement Community.

Bromberg comes to Cedar Village from the Jewish Community of Louisville, the organization that was formed five years ago with the merger of Louisville’s Jewish Federation and Jewish Community Center. He served there as vice president and chief development officer.

He was attracted to Cedar Village because of its growth in recent years as well as its reputation for innovative, high-quality programs. “I wanted to be part of that.”

Past generations built a strong base for the Jewish community, he noted. “It’s our generation’s responsibility to do that same for future generations.”

Bromberg traces his devotion to Jewish communities to the time he spent as a camper and counselor at a Jewish overnight camp, Camp Kingswood in Bridgeton, Maine.

“My experiences at this camp taught me that while we might all be Jews, the way we experience our Judaism and what brings us closer to our personal spirituality can be entirely different from person to person,” he said. “I am passionate about helping people be Jewish in ways that are relevant to them.”

So as a fund-raising professional, he identifies with the passions of donors. “It is my role to help donors fulfill their philanthropic visions and

Stewart L. Bromberg

goals while also helping Cedar Village become stronger and more self sustainable. The only way to do that successfully is by demonstrating how Cedar Village can help them share their vision and passion through the addition of programs and services that will benefit the community.”

In the weeks since his appointment, Bromberg has enjoyed watching Cedar Village residents participating in fun, artistic programs with therapeutic benefits, including for people with dementia. He recalled seeing a resident dance with the aid of a walker. “It’s wonderful to see people enjoying themselves, no matter their age.”

He also appreciates how older adults speak from the heart. He especially appreciated a comment from Zell Schulman of Cincinnati, who is in her mid-80s and was honored this year at Cedar Village’s Eight over

Eighty fund-raising dinner. “Each day is a gift,” she said. “Open the package.”

Louise Roselle, chair of the Cedar Village Foundation, said: “We are so pleased that Stewart has joined Cedar Village. He has a wealth of experience and we are looking forward to working with him.”

Bromberg replaces Sally Korkin, Cedar Village’s new senior director of community relations and outreach.

The Foundation’s major annual fund-raising events this year included the Cedar Village Golf Classic and Eight over Eighty, which recognized people in their eighties who have made an impact on the Jewish community through volunteerism.

The Foundation also oversees several funds that support special programs for residents. For example, the various funds support opportunities for residents to attend concerts and other cultural events downtown and at Cedar Village, participate in exercise, music therapy and art therapy programs, and buy prayer books and Judaica for the Cedar Village chapels.

Bromberg began his Jewish community work at the LeventhalSidman JCC in Newton, Massachusetts as marketing-membership director and strategic marketing director. Later, he served as director of the JRC Charitable Foundation for the Jewish Rehabilitation Center for the Aged of North Shore near Boston and vice president of development for Jewish Family & Life, an organization that nurtured Jewish identity in North America with publications, websites and more.

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the guest families.

Now in its 12th year, Wise Temple Sisterhood’s “Bedtime Bundles” program will run through Friday December 19.

Anyone can put together a “Bedtime Bundle” for a girl or boy, infant to teen, which should include new pajamas, socks, underwear and a book or stuffed animal, placed in a pillowcase and tied with shoe laces. These can be delivered to the Temple lobby any time before December 19. These Bedtime Bundles are a welcome gift for children and teens residing at the YWCA Battered Women’s Shelter.

Hadassah welcomed Dr. Michal Lotem at Leading Gifts reception Cincinnati Chapter of Hadassah thanked its leading donors with a festive dessert reception on Wednesday evening, October 29, 2014, at the home of Michele and Greg Young in Indian Hill. Dr. Michal Lotem, a Hadassah doctor from Israel, was special guest speaker. Sue Green and Faye Sosna are Giving Committee Co-Chairs. Other speakers included Ghita Sarembock, Cincinnati Chapter President, Paula Jarnicki, Teri Junker and Carol Ann Schwartz, all former Chapter Presidents.

Hadassah doctors Dr. Gilad Hamdani and Dr. Oded Volovoski, and Dr. Shelly Ben Harush Negari, currently serving fellowships at Cincinnati Children's Hospital, were also in attendance.

Dr. Michal Lotem is head of the Center for Melanoma and

Cancer Immunotherapy at the Hadassah Medical Center’s Sharett Institute of Oncology. She spoke about her research and clinical work that employs anti-cancer vaccines to enhance her patients’ immune responses to malignant melanoma, and illustrated with a PowerPoint presentation. The customized vaccines, made from the patient’s tumor cells or ones with a high degree of similarity to the patient's cells, are given to individuals who are at high risk for disease recurrence. Currently, Dr. Lotem is working on the development of a more powerful vaccine by adding molecules that enhance the stimulation of the immune response.

Dr. Lotem’s work has been published in prestigious journals.

Believing that physicians must master both research and clinical

skills to address human needs, Dr. Lotem dedicates her time to both patient care and research. She holds the largest bank of melanoma tissue samples in the Middle East, with doctors from across the region sending her samples from every surgery and procedure that they perform.

While in Cincinnati, Dr. Lotem visited Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center as part of a medical exchange program with Hadassah Medical Organization to share research, have medical staff travel between the two medical facilities and share in new joint research projects. Dr. Lotem met with: Dr. Brian Weiss, Associate Professor, Division of Oncology; Dr. James Geller, Associate Professor, Division of Oncology; Dr. Brian Turpin, Assistant Professor, Division of Oncology;

Dr. Edith Janssen, Associate Professor, Division of Immunobiology; Dr. Dave Hildeman, Faculty Professor, Division of Immunobiology; Dr. Kasper Hoebe, Associate Professor, Division of Immunobiology; Dr. Susanne Wells, Faculty Professor, Division of Oncology; Dr. John Morris, Professor, University of Cincinnati Cancer Institute, Lung Cancer Center (Associate Director), Translational Research; and Dr. Zalfa Abdel-Malek, University of Cincinnati Professor, Melanoma.

Following their meeting, Dr. Lotem had a tour of some of the research facilities at the hospital.

By working with the medical staff there, her goal is for future cooperative research projects.

Workum Fund internship program now accepting applications upon last year’s immersion into Cincinnati, with interns taking part in events in the Jewish community and larger city to become connected and passionate about Cincinnati.”

In addition to the new internship opportunities and expanded cohort activities, the Workum internship is now open to any college student who is willing to spend the summer here. Previously, the internship was only available to students who attended high school in Cincinnati.

“By opening up the internships to any college student, I believe we’re positioning ourselves to be a Jewish destination and more welcoming city to all,” Kanter said.

“This fulfills our goals of Cincinnati 2020 and the Becker Center to attract and connect more young adults to Cincinnati.”

The Workum intern alumni have gone on to successful roles in our Jewish community and in national

Jewish organizations. Whether a student is interested in non-profit work or just looking to gain realworld, working experience, past interns agree this is the program to do that.

“I think working at the Jewish Foundation made me especially aware of the Cincinnati Jewish community,” said Genevieve Pecsok, student at Washington University in St. Louis and intern at the Jewish Foundation of Cincinnati last summer. “I saw that the opportunities in our Jewish community are continually expanding, and that Cincinnati offers many, many different ways to explore our Judaism.

It is comparable to larger cities all over the US, and that's something to be proud of.”

There are many new internship opportunities this year, including an exciting internship at Camp Livingston.

“The intern will get to be the leader of a communications strategy that will touch thousands of people over the summer,” said Aaron Slovin, Executive Director of Camp Livingston. “The Workum Intern will be able to contribute in a meaningful way, leaving their mark on Camp for years to come. And lastly, who doesn't want to spend their summer at camp?”

The internship begins on June 10 and runs until August 5, 2015 (8 weeks). Interns work a 30 hour work week and are paid.

“The Workum internship instilled a sense of pride in me.

Pride in my city, pride in my temple, and pride in my Judaism,” said Jay Burgin, student at Denison University and intern at Isaac M. Wise Temple last summer. “I will move forward in my professional development with a strong sense of where I came from.”

The American Israelite “LET THERE BE LIGHT” THE OLDEST ENGLISH-JEWISH WEEKLY IN AMERICA - EST. JULY 15, 1854

VOL. 161 • NO. 20 THURSDAY, DECEMBER 4, 2014 8 TISHREI 5775 SHABBAT BEGINS FRIDAY 4:55 PM SHABBAT ENDS SATURDAY 5:56 PM THE AMERICAN ISRAELITE CO., PUBLISHERS 18 WEST NINTH STREET, SUITE 2 CINCINNATI, OHIO 45202-2037 Phone: (513) 621-3145 Fax: (513) 621-3744 publisher@americanisraelite.com editor@americanisraelite.com production@americanisraelite.com RABBI ISAAC M. WISE Founder, Editor, Publisher, 1854-1900 LEO WISE Editor & Publisher, 1900-1928 RABBI JONAH B. WISE Editor & Publisher, 1928-1930 HENRY C. SEGAL Editor & Publisher, 1930-1985 PHYLLIS R. SINGER Editor & General Manager, 1985-1999 MILLARD H. MACK Publisher Emeritus NETANEL (TED) DEUTSCH Editor & Publisher BETH KOTZIN SAUNI LERNER Assistant Editors YOSEFF FRANCUS Copy Editor JANET STEINBERG Travel Editor ROBERT WILHELMY Dining Editor MARIANNA BETTMAN NATE BLOOM IRIS PASTOR ZELL SCHULMAN PHYLLIS R. SINGER Contributing Columnists JENNIFER CARROLL Production Manager TARI SASSER Assistant Production Manager BARBARA ROTHSTEIN GREG SPITZ Advertising Sales JULIE BROOK Office Manager e Oldest Eng Th

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The Workum Fund internship program is now accepting applications for the summer of 2015, with some exciting new internships!.

This year, Camp Livingston, Rockdale Temple, Cincinnati Hebrew Day School, and the Halom House are offering unique opportunities. These are in addition to the American Jewish Archives, Jewish Federation of Cincinnati, Jewish Community Relations Council (JCRC), Jewish Family Service, The Jewish Foundation of Cincinnati, Cedar Village, JVS Career Services, Center for Holocaust and Humanities, the Jewish Community Center, and Cincinnati Hillel.

“I am thrilled about the new opportunities for internships in Cincinnati this summer,” said Sammy Kanter, Director of the Workum internship program. “We also have the opportunity to expand

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25 volunteers, led by Debbie Westheimer, will wrap gifts, serve lunch and entertain needy families at the Northern Kentucky Convention Center to support the Mental Health Association of Northern Kentucky.

Wise Temple member will house the homeless at Wise Temple during Christmas week.

Wise Temple will hosts guests from the Interfaith Hospitality Network at Wise Center the entire week of December 21 – 28. IHN chairs Deb LaFrance and Peggy Markstein, along with 70 volunteer families will work hard to make this holiday week festive for

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locations this December. Many of the volunteers make it a family tradition, bringing their college age children who return to Cincinnati for the holiday break. Project Leaders Amy Marmer and Sandy and Tom Deters will work with Wise Temple volunteers at the St. Francis Seraph Soup Kitchen on December 22. On December 25, Project Leaders Stacey Bie and Lew Ebstein and 12 volunteers will cook and serve about 150 people at the Over-the-Rhine Soup Kitchen. On that same day, 10 Wise Temple volunteers will cook for about 150 people at the Drop Inn Center. Another group of 15 –

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Wise Temple congregants will participate in a wide range of Social Justice projects this December. First on the calendar, Wise Temple members roll up their sleeves and give the gift of life at the annual Wise Temple Blood Drive on December 7. The blood mobiles will be at the offices of Temple member Dr. Mindy Hastie ready to help with the quick and painless process which allows hundreds of patients to receive the gift of live. This blood drive is open to anyone at least 17 years old.

Wise Temple members will serve Christmas dinner at many

r in Am ape er sp i

Wise Temple December social justice projects

THE AMERICAN ISRAELITE (USPS 019-320) is published weekly for $44 per year and $1.00 per single copy in Cincinnati and $49 per year and $2.00 per single copy elsewhere in U.S. by The American Israelite Co. 18 West Ninth Street, Suite 2, Cincinnati, Ohio 45202-2037. Periodicals postage paid at Cincinnati, OH. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to THE AMERICAN ISRAELITE, 18 West Ninth Street, Suite 2, Cincinnati, Ohio 45202-2037.

The views and opinions expressed by the columnists of The American Israelite do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of the newspaper.

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THURSDAY, DECEMBER 4, 2014

Congregation B’nai Tzedek to host two special events in December Congregation B’nai Tzedek will be hosting two events in December.

On Sunday, December 7, at 4:00pm, they will remember Pearl Harbor Day with an “Americana” supper and the viewing of a documentary film about Chiune Sugihara, who defied his own nation to rescue thousands of Jews during the Nazi era.

In 1939, Japan’s consul to Lithuania Chiune Sugihara risked his career, his family, and his life by writing transit visas for desperate Jewish refugees to escape through Russia to safe havens abroad. The documentary film “Conspiracy of Kindness” uses home movies, photos, interviews and more to tell the monumental story of one man who defied Tokyo and saved thousands of lives.

All are invited to reserve a spot for the supper (there is a cost), movie, and discussion by calling the congregation office no later than December 1. The event

will take place at B’nai Tzedek in Blue Ash. Then, on Sunday, December 21, from 2:00-5:00pm, Congregation B’nai Tzedek will celebrate its golden anniversary with “A Jubilation Celebration” of appetizers, desserts, and entertainment. This event takes place at B’nai Tzedek during the holiday of Hanukkah, the season during which the congregation held its first services.

The Sunday afternoon program will feature in-house entertainment interspersed with background and DJ dance music as well as Israeli dancing accompanied by appetizers and desserts. At the end of the celebration, the evening Hanukkah candles will be lit and, in keeping with the traditions of the biblical 50 years jubilee, a final closing shofar will sound.

The community is invited to celebrate with the congregation.

Please notify the office to indicate your attendance.

Rockdale Temple participates in Mitzvah Palooza 7 On Sunday, November 9th, congregants and their families rallied to the 7th Annual Mitzvah Palooza project hosted at Rockdale Temple and off-site locations to perform and be informed about community awareness opportunities for good deeds and for personally making a difference.

The program began with a light breakfast, many volunteer donors then proceeded to the Blood Drive Van parked in front of Rockdale for most of the day.

The blood drive was co-sponsored by the Women of Rockdale Sisterhood and the Temple's Brotherhood.

Other groups participated as part of the Social Advocacy Sessions. Larry Falkin, Director of the Cincinnati Environment and Sustainability Department led a group on Climate Change and its effects on the Cincinnati area. Mr. Falkin expressed opportunities for those attending to help create jobs and improve public health.

Ms. Stacey Hall, Interim Executive Director of the Interfaith Hospitality Network explained Rockdale's part in

assisting the homeless in our community. The Temple is a support congregation for the IHN Christmas week projects.

After lunch, other groups assembled for off-site participation at Cedar Village with Rabbi Sigma Coran, and the Jewish Family Service Food Pantry on the campus of UHC-JIR, co-ordinated by Rockdale Assistant Rabbi Meredith Kahan.

On-site activities included circulation of resource cards for youth and seniors in English and Spanish. The Knitting/Crocheting group made items for Jewish Family Service, the Hopple Street Medical Center and Project Linus.

The Meaningful Crafts for Kids group used recycling talents with items to be sold as a benefit for the Ethan Kadish Fund at HelpHopeLive.

Mitzvah Palooza ended the day with Taking Root: A Family Project for an Afternoon of Planting Trees at Salway Park, where children collected seeds and did seedling painting.

Rockdale Temple's Mitzvah projects continue year-round.

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Despite ‘incitement,’ Abbas seen by Washington as bulwark

By Ron Kampeas WASHINGTON (JTA) – The Mahmoud Abbas whom Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has accused of incitement has said the Jewish state practices genocide and called the temporary closure of the Temple Mount after a terrorist attack a “declaration of war.” Yet virtually no one in Washington wants Abbas to do anything but what he’s done for nine years: be president of the Palestinian Authority.

For that matter, neither does Netanyahu.

That means the $500 million annually that the Palestinian Authority receives in U.S. funding is unlikely to stop, and that warnings from American politicians to Abbas are relatively mild, if expressed at all.

“The Palestinian Authority will be getting aid from America because we want a two-state solution, but you better get your act together,” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), who as incoming chairman of the foreign operations subcommittee of the Senate Appropriations Committee will hold considerable sway over foreign assistance, told the Israeli American Council earlier this month in reference to the P.A.

Courtesy of Issam Rimaw Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, center, visiting the Ramallah grave of Yasser Arafat during a ceremony to mark the 10th anniversary of the Palestinian leader’s death, Nov. 11, 2014.

Keeping Abbas in power and the Palestinian Authority in place reflects Israeli policy, said Dan Arbell, a former deputy chief of mission at the Israeli Embassy.

“The Israeli government is not interested in the collapse of the Palestinian Authority,” said Arbell, a guest scholar at the Brookings Institution who teaches at American University here. “There may be faults in Abbas and the leadership and in what they’re doing, but they’re still the safest bet.”

That’s because Abbas is presid-

ing over a West Bank where the violence that wracked the Hamascontrolled Gaza Strip over the summer and Jerusalem in recent weeks is barely simmering. Should Abbas and the P.A. go, Hamas could take its place.

“There is a bipartisan consensus on the significance of the PLO and the Palestinian Authority, while there is a lot of disagreement on Capitol Hill about every other thing,” Husam Zomlot, a foreign policy adviser to Abbas who last month met with government officials in Washington, told JTA.

“They know that the situation in the West Bank is relatively calm because of the PLO,” Zomlot said.

The Obama administration is not encountering congressional resistance to continued assistance to the Palestinian Authority in part because of strict oversight that ensures the funds reach their designated targets and because the cooperation between Israeli and Palestinian security services is seen as key to keeping the West Bank from boiling over.

Natan Sachs, a fellow at the Brookings Institution’s Center for Middle East Peace who focuses on Israel, noted that Israel’s Shin Bet chief, Yoram Cohen, last week pushed back against Netanyahu’s claims that Abbas is an inciter.

Sachs said that the recent crisis in Jerusalem underscored the utility of Israeli-P.A. cooperation.

“It’s not coincidental this wave of violence is in Jerusalem, where P.A. forces can’t operate,” he said.

At the same time, congressional appropriators last week wrote to Abbas asking him to end incitement.

U.S. law “clearly stipulates that the Palestinian Authority must act to counter the incitement of violence against Israelis in order to continue receiving U.S. assistance,” said the letter from Reps.

Hal Rogers (R-Ky.), the chairman of the U.S. House of Representatives Appropriations Committee; Nita Lowey (D-N.Y.), its top Democrat; and Kay Granger (R-Texas), the chairwoman of its foreign operations subcommittee.

But the letter does not directly threaten a cutoff. Instead, it urges Abbas to “return to direct negotiations with Israel.”

Last April, after the collapse of the U.S.-brokered peace talks, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, reflecting Netanyahu’s policies, urged lawmakers to review funding for the Palestinians.

Abbas’ overtures to Gaza’s Hamas rulers, with both his Fatah party and Hamas backing a government of technocrats, may have made the P.A. ineligible for funds, AIPAC argued.

Now, in the wake of the summer’s Gaza war and the violence in Jerusalem, AIPAC frames funding for the P.A. as a necessary means of ensuring that Abbas keeps cooperating with Israel on security.

In a memo last week, after Palestinian terrorists murdered four worshippers and a policeman at a Jerusalem synagogue, AIPAC listed Abbas’ alleged incitements, including his call on Palestinians to INCITEMENT on page 19

With Iran talks extended, some in Congress are rushing to step in

By Ron Kampeas WASHINGTON (JTA) – Two factors make congressional intervention on Iran almost inevitable: The inability of nuclear negotiators to reach a deal by the deadline and the Republican sweep of midterm elections on Nov. 4.

The talks, centered on the status of Iran’s nuclear program, were extended from Monday’s deadline to June 30.

Meanwhile, the pro-Israel community, led by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, is seeking support for proposed legislation that would insert Congress into the process.

“It is now essential that Congress take up new bipartisan sanctions legislation to let Tehran know that it will face much more severe pressure if it does not clearly abandon its nuclear weapons program,” AIPAC said in a statement after it was announced Monday that the major powers and Iran had extended the deadline.

Without substantive Democratic support, no bill is likely to reach a veto-busting majority of 67 in the Senate. Republicans, who have taken a harder line on Iran’s nuclear program, will control no more than 54 seats in the next Congress.

Lawmakers in Congress and

mainstream pro-Israel groups blamed Iran for dragging out the process.

“Seven months of more talks tells me that the negotiators aren’t close to agreement,” said Rep. Ed Royce (R-Calif.), the chairman of the U.S. House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee.

“Unfortunately, time is on Tehran’s side as it continues its research and development of centrifuges.”

Republicans in the incoming Senate majority have already laid out two legislative initiatives: One, backed by Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), would require congressional approval for any deal. Another would carry over this year’s failed attempt by Sens. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) and Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) to enhance existing sanctions on Iran.

U.S. sanctions currently in place target Iran’s energy and banking sectors, as well as any trade that might benefit its nuclear enterprise. Some sanctions have been rolled back, allowing Iran to retrieve about $5 billion of the $100 billion per year that the penalties cost its economy, according to U.S. estimates. The sanctions in a bill proposed earlier this year would have expanded targets to include anything in Iran’s “strategic sector,” a term that would have allowed much broader punish-

Courtesy of Win McNamee Sen. Lindsey Graham, shown in Washington on July 30, 2014, is backing an initiative that would require congressional approval of any nuclear deal signed with Iran.

ment and tightened congressional oversight.

Graham, announcing his initiative earlier this month at a conference of the Israeli American Council, was unable to name a Democrat supporting the proposed bill.

The other bill is a likelier magnet for Democratic support in part because Menendez, the top Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee, was a lead sponsor of the version that failed to advance this session. The measure was held up at the behest of the Obama administration and through parliamentary maneuvers by the outgoing majority leader, Sen. Harry Reid (DNev.). The White House argued that

any new sanctions bill would drive away the Iranians from the talks.

Kirk said he plans to reintroduce a sanctions bill.

“Now more than ever, it’s critical that Congress enacts sanctions that give Iran’s mullahs no choice but to dismantle their illicit nuclear program and allow the International Atomic Energy Agency full and unfettered access to assure the international community’s security,” he said.

Menendez, however, was more cautious in his statement, not directly mentioning sanctions as a weapon going forward.

“I intend to work with my Senate colleagues in a bipartisan manner in the coming weeks to ensure that Iran

comprehends that we will not ever permit it to become a threshold nuclear state,” he said.

Rep. Eliot Engel (D-N.Y.), the senior Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, was even more restrained.

“It’s premature to comment on an extension of the negotiations with Iran, as the details have not yet been announced,” Engel, one of the most ardent supporters of Iran sanctions in the past, said in a brief statement.

Congressional insiders said one key to garnering Democratic support for a renewed and enhanced sanctions bill is whether it includes the triggers that the Menendez-Kirk bill had in its last iteration: Sanctions would not kick in until Iran erred, either by violating the terms of the agreement governing the talks with major powers or by walking away.

Rep. Ted Deutch (D-Fla.) has already said triggers should be included, but Republicans may feel that they have the upper hand and press for immediate enhanced sanctions.

Alireza Nader, an Iran analyst at the Rand Corp., a think tank that consults frequently with the Pentagon, said that any new sanctions could kill talks, as they would give Iran a way out while blaming IRAN TALKS on page 19

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THURSDAY, DECEMBER 4, 2014

Black, Jewish and challenging ideas about the face of federation

By Rebecca Spence (JTA) – When Ilana Kaufman, a program officer at the San Francisco Jewish Community Federation, arrived at San Quentin State Prison for a meeting with the Jewish chaplain at California’s oldest correctional facility, the chaplain couldn’t seem to find her — even though Kaufman was standing in plain sight.

As Kaufman waited in the receiving area, a security officer by her side, the spiritual leader of the prison community — largely composed of men of color — turned her head left and right trying to locate the federation representative whose name she knew but whose face she had never seen.

“Finally the officer says, ‘Chaplain, this person standing right next to me,’” Kaufman recalled. “And the chaplain says, ‘You know, you are not who I expected.’”

It wasn’t the first time that Kaufman, 42, had heard such a comment.

In her two years as the federation officer responsible for regional grant making in Marin and Sonoma counties, Kaufman had seen her fair share of jaws drop when she walked into a Jewish communal space.

National Briefs U.S. judge rejects inmate’s motions in kosher prison food lawsuit (JTA) – A federal judge in Connecticut rejected motions by a death row inmate who is suing the state for not providing him with kosher prison food.

U.S. District Court Judge Alvin Thompson in his ruling issued last week said Steven Hayes, who was convicted in the 2007 murder of a woman and her two daughters, receives meals that are certified by two rabbis who monitor the preparation of kosher food in the state’s prison system, The Associated Press reported.

In his lawsuit filed in August, Hayes said that the state’s Department of Corrections was not serving him kosher food.

Hayes had requested a trial by judge and asked for an injunction ordering the Department of Corrections to provide pre-packaged kosher meals to all Jewish

Kaufman is black — the daughter of an Ashkenazic Jewish mother and an African-American father.

“There is a deeply established set of assumptions about who represents federation,” said Kaufman, who stands nearly 6 feet tall. “So when I walk into a space where they’ve seen my name, which is a very traditional Jewish name, they cannot fathom that a person of color is going to walk in the door.”

The Jewish Federations of North America, the umbrella group of 153 federated charities, does not track the racial and ethnic composition of its approximately 2,700 employees.

Kaufman was raised in San Francisco’s Western Addition neighborhood by a hard-working single mother who spoke to her in Yiddish. Kaufman, who is a lesbian, now lives with her almost 9year-old-daughter, Noa, in Berkeley, Calif., and has a longterm partner. While she was growing up, her struggling family often benefited from Jewish philanthropy, and Kaufman attended a Jewish summer camp on scholarship.

She spent 20 years working in independent school education and administration. Most recently, Kaufman served as director of the Windrush School, a private prisoners in Connecticut’s prisons. He also sought $15,000 in punitive and compensatory damages for “intentional infliction of pain, suffering and resulting weight loss from the deliberate denial of a kosher diet.”

An amended complaint filed earlier this month said he has not eaten any non-kosher food since Aug. 24 and is now down to 120 pounds. In the lawsuit, Hayes describes himself as an Orthodox Jew and says he has been asking for kosher food since May 2013.

He said that the prison’s kitchen is not certified to provide strictly kosher food and that the staff told him the food served at the prison is “kosher-like.’

Israel and U.S. renewing emergency oil supply agreement (JNS) – The United States will renew its agreement to supply oil to Israel in emergency situations. The 35-year-old deal expired last week.

The U.S. “is in close contact with the government of Israel on extending the long-standing memorandum of understanding” on emergency oil supplies, an anonymous State Department official said, Reuters reported.

Courtesy of Ilana Kaufman Ilana Kaufman: “My purpose in the world has always been to be a bridge.”

elementary school in the East Bay city of El Cerrito, which was forced to shut down in 2011 as a result of the economic downturn.

After the school closed, Kaufman embarked on a search to find a job that would “totally rock my world,” she said.

Kaufman was steeped in her Jewish identity: Her daughter had attended Hebrew school since the age of 6, and she was as part of a diverse Bay Area social network that included other Jews of color and LGBT Jews. But she had never considered a career in Jewish communal life.

That changed when she visited Afikomen Judaica, a Jewish bookstore and Judaica shop in Berkeley, and encountered the shop’s co-owner, Nell MahgelFriedman, an old friend from her Jewish Student Union days at Humboldt State University.

Mahgel-Friedman said she remembered Kaufman’s passionate commitment to social justice issues and deep spiritual connection to Judaism — as well as her role in bringing Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach to the Humboldt campus in 1994. She looked Kaufman squarely in the eyes and said, “I

The original agreement was signed in 1979 by U.S. Secretary of State Cyrus Vance and Israeli Foreign Minister Moshe Dayan in the wake of the Iranian revolution, which caused oil prices to rise and created anxiety about supply disruption in the Middle East. According to the deal, after making sure it has enough of its own oil during emergency situations, the U.S. is committed to providing Israel with crude oil for purchase and to making “every effort” to help transport the oil.

now lives in Rio de Janeiro, and Weglowski remains in Poland.

“In the many years we have worked with survivors and their rescuers, I continue to be amazed by the heroism of the thousands of Christian rescuers who risked their lives to save Jews from certain death,” said JFR Executive Vice President Stanlee Stahl.

Holocaust survivor and rescuer reunite after 69 years (JNS) – A Holocaust survivor met with her rescuer for the first time in 69 years at JFK International Airport in New York on Nov. 26. The meeting between Mira Wexler and her Polish rescuer, Helena Weglowski, was organized by the Jewish Foundation for the Righteous (JFR).

With the help of her brother, Weglowski hid Wexler and her mother on a farm and in the woods, and secretly brought them groceries. Wexler and her mother survived the Holocaust and later moved to Brazil. Mira Wexler

Rabbi Barry Freundel fired by his D.C. synagogue, Kesher Israel (JTA) – The board of Rabbi Barry Freundel’s Washington synagogue, Kesher Israel, fired the rabbi and said he must vacate his residence by Jan. 1.

Freundel had been on suspension without pay since his Oct. 14 arrest on voyeurism charges for allegedly installing secret cameras in the shower room of the mikvah adjacent to the Orthodox shul. Freundel’s residence is owned by the synagogue.

“The decision by the Board of Directors was made under extraordinarily difficult and unfortunate circumstances,” the board said in its announcement.

“The alleged acts leading to this step were a gross violation of law, privacy, halakha, and trust.

just want you to consider working in the Jewish community.”

The statement resonated so deeply, Kaufman said, that for the first time she could envision a career that would bring her social, spiritual and professional lives into tighter alignment. By October 2012, she had begun her work at the San Francisco federation, known officially as the Jewish Community Federation of San Francisco, the Peninsula, Marin and Sonoma Counties.

In her role at the federation, Kaufman allocates grants in Marin and Sonoma counties. Her program officer portfolio includes the Early Childhood Education Initiative and the Affordability Initiative, which provides federation scholarships for Jewish education from preschool to day school.

According to a 2005 study conducted by the late Jewish demographer Gary Tobin, 10 percent of America’s approximately 6 million Jews identify as black, Latino, Asian or mixed race. A 2011 Jewish Community Study of New York, the American city with the largest Jewish population, found that 12 percent of the city’s Jewish population is nonwhite.

They breached the high moral and ethical standards we set for ourselves and for our leadership.”

The ritual bath, known as the National Capital Mikvah, has been scrutinized to make sure no other hidden devices remained.

Last week, Freundel also was formally terminated as the mikvah’s supervising rabbi.

Freundel also has been suspended without pay from his position as associate professor at Towson University in suburban Baltimore, where he taught in the philosophy and religious studies department. The rabbi apparently took students on field trips to his synagogue and the mikvah, and university officials said last month they were concerned that some students may have been secretly videotaped at the mikvah in varying states of undress.

The next court date for Freundel, who has pleaded not guilty to six counts of voyeurism, a misdemeanor crime, is Jan. 16.

Misdemeanor charges in Washington carry maximum sentences of 12 months. In theory, if found guilty Freundel could be sentenced to six successive yearlong terms.

8 • NATIONAL

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Extreme views on Arabs don’t inhibit Orthodox embrace of Rabbi Pruzansky

By Uriel Heilman NEW YORK (JTA) – If Rabbi Steven Pruzansky of Teaneck, N.J., had his way, Arab rioters and stone throwers would be shot with live ammunition. Arabs would be barred from the Temple Mount for six months. Any village from which two or more terrorists originated would be razed and its residents deported.

Arab terrorists would be executed, their bodies cremated and buried with dead pigs, their families deported and their homes destroyed or given to Jews.

“There is a war for the land of Israel that is being waged, and the Arabs who dwell in the land of Israel are the enemy in that war and must be vanquished,” Pruzansky wrote in a Nov. 21 post on his personal blog.

“Measures need to be implemented that encourage Arab emigration — the payment of stipends, compensation for property, etc. They must be made to feel that that they have no future in the land of Israel — no national future and no individual future,” he wrote.

Though Pruzansky removed the post, titled “Dealing with Savages,”

by Sunday, he told JTA it was because of threats that he would not specify — not because he had any regrets about the content.

“I don’t think I’m saying anything outlandish,” Pruzansky told JTA in an interview.

Who is Pruzansky and why should his views matter? He’s a pulpit rabbi in America, not an Israeli politician. He does not have a national following.

But he is the spiritual leader of the largest synagogue in Teaneck in what may well be the biggest modern

Courtesy of Sliman Khader Thousands of Muslims praying at the Al-Aksa Mosque on the Temple Mount at the end of the holy month of Ramadan, July 28, 2014. :Rabbi Steven Pruzansky’s deleted blog post suggested relocating the mosque.

Orthodox suburban community in America. And the largely insouciant response among the 800 member families at his shul, Congregation Bnai Yeshurun, to the stream of similar commentary offered by the rabbi over the years on his blog and from the pulpit is a sign of where political discourse is in some corners of the American Jewish community — particularly in Orthodox synagogues, where right-wing views on Israel tend to dominate.

It’s not clear how widely espoused viewpoints like Pruzansky’s are, but they are certainly widely tolerated.

ABnai Yeshurun board member, Stan Steinreich, said Pruzansky — a one-time lawyer who was born in the Bronx and grew up in Monsey, N.Y. — enjoys broad support in the synagogue. Steinreich noted that anyone who finds him an objectionable spiritual leader has ample alternatives in

Teaneck, a township located a few miles from New York City that is filled with Orthodox shuls.

Bnai Yeshurun is a selfdescribed “mega shul” that’s so big it holds six weekday morning services (seven on Shabbat) and is open from 5:30 a.m. until 11 p.m. daily.

“Bnai Yeshurun is lucky to have a spiritual leader of Rabbi Pruzansky’s intellect, of his depth,” said Steinreich, who runs an eponymous communications firm. “Along with that comes a broad spectrum of opinion, and there will always be some things — as I think with any rabbi — where you sometimes agree and other times disagree.”

Abraham Foxman, the national director of the Anti-Defamation League, denounced Pruzansky’s latest screed, published at the end of a week in which five Israelis were killed in a terrorist attack at a synagogue in the Har Nof neighborhood

of Jerusalem.

“This is outright racism and bigotry,” Foxman told JTA. “We all feel the anguish and pain of the tragic loss, but our response isn’t death and destruction. Coming from a rabbinic authority, it’s just hideous.”

Foxman, who lives in New Jersey’s Bergen County, used to be a Bnai Yeshurun member but quit in 1995, a year into Pruzansky’s tenure, to protest the rabbi’s vitriol toward Israeli leaders. Not long before, Pruzansky had called the government of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin a Judenrat — the term used to describe the Jewish councils that did the Nazis’ bidding during the Holocaust.

Foxman said he finds the community’s continued tolerance of Pruzansky particularly troubling.

“We’re not immune from extremism on either side. The issue is: Is it tolerated, for how long and in what circles?” Foxman said. “I certainly don’t believe the majority of his congregation supports these views, but now that they’re aware I would hope that they would care.”

Despite his controversial positions and writings, including strident criticism of President Obama, Pruzansky for years has enjoyed the embrace of the Orthodox establishment. He is an executive committee member and a former vice president of the Rabbinical Council of America, the main modern Orthodox rabbinic association. Pruzansky was slated to speak at next month’s annual Orthodox Union convention, though he recently informed event organizers that he wouldn’t be able to make it.

And for seven years, Pruzansky led the RCA’s conversion beit din, or

rabbinical court, in Bergen County, of which Teaneck is a part. He resigned last month to protest the RCA’s appointing of a multigender committee to review its conversion process and suggest safeguards against possible abuses. The RCA’s review was launched in the wake of the Oct. 14 arrest of Barry Freundel, a prominent Orthodox rabbi in Washington and the head of the conversion rabbinical court there, on charges that he spied on women in the mikvah.

The RCA’s review committee “consists of six men and five women, bolstering the trend on the Orthodox left to create quasi-rabbinical functions for women,” Pruzansky wrote in an Oct. 30 blog post announcing his resignation. “I do not wish to be coerced to apply standards and guidelines that, to my thinking, may not comport with the requirements of Torah, and the makeup of the committee will almost ensure that outcome, however it is presented.”

Pruzansky then got into a public spat with The New York Jewish Week after the newspaper mischaracterized his role with the beit din and his association with Freundel.

Pruzansky wrote of The Jewish Week’s editors: “They should apologize. But, I guess, to follow their way of reporting, both The Jewish Week’s publisher and Julius Streicher (Der Sturmer) published newspapers that dealt a lot with Jews. Same business, I suppose. That’s bad company to be in.”

The Jewish Week — whose publisher, Gary Rosenblatt, also lives in Teaneck — said in an editorial that it found the Der Sturmer comparison EXTREME VIEWS on page 19

With Herzliya condo project, East End rabbi pitches Hamptons-style Zionism

By Uriel Heilman NEW YORK (JTA) – If they buy it, they will come.

That’s the philosophy behind a new luxury apartment project in Israel called The Hamptons in Herzliya Pituach that’s attempting to link two very swanky locales in the service of strengthening Diaspora Jews’ connections to Israel — and selling high-end apartments.

The 34-unit building is the brainchild of Rabbi Marc Schneier of The Hampton Synagogue, an Orthodox congregation on Long Island’s posh East End. The synagogue has one of the most affluent memberships in the country and is also very generous toward Israel: In just two weekends last summer, congregants raised more than $1 million for an Israel emergency campaign and another $535,000 for United Hatzalah, the Israeli emergency rescue service.

But this project aims to get community members to go beyond open-

ing their checkbooks for Israel.

“This is a campaign to challenge Jews in the Diaspora to raise their commitment from giving to Israel to owning a piece of Israel,” Schneier, who used to work in real estate, told JTA. “Owning only strengthens your commitment, it only intensifies your relationship, it only reinforces your dedication and devotion.”

It’s unabashedly Hamptons-style Zionism. Prices start at $1 million, and the two- and three-bedroom units and penthouses feature high-end finishes, swimming pool access and Mediterranean views. The building will also feature a Hampton Synagogue prayer room, complete with replicas of the engraved donor plaques that adorn the Long Island synagogue — so as to “create a presence for these donors and benefactors also in Israel,” Schneier says.

The exhortation is not for congregants to move to Israel, but to buy real estate there — not such a stretch for wealthy New Yorkers who own in the

Hamptons, where homes often carry eight-figure price tags. Now on the market in Westhampton Beach is a nine-bedroom waterfront estate asking $17.8 million. In nearby East Hampton, an 11-acre compound is on the market for a cool $140 million.

Shelly Levine, the real estate agent in Israel working on the project, says buying a home in Israel is a first step to getting Diaspora Jews to spend more time in the country.

“Once they own, they’ll come,” she said. “This is a project to make people not only give their donation from a distance, but to feel a part of Israel, a part of the land, a part of the people.”

The idea for the project, which is being developed by the Ofer Investments Group, grew out of a conversation between Schneier, Levine and her late husband, PR guru Charley Levine, who died last week at age 62 following an aneurysm suffered over the summer. The Levines immigrated to Israel from the United States in

1978.

Ownership is not limited to members of Schneier’s synagogue. In addition to the Hamptons, the project will be marketed in affluent areas elsewhere in the Diaspora, including Miami and Paris. Schneier says he wants The Hamptons in Herzliya Pituach to become a model for other affluent Diaspora communities.

With Israeli real estate increasingly out of reach for ordinary Israelis, advocates for affordable housing in Israel have complained about absentee foreign owners driving up home prices and spurring developers to focus on the luxury market for overseas buyers at the expense of building affordable units for locals. In Jerusalem, parts of some neighborhoods are largely dark except for holiday periods when their foreign owners are in town. Levine says that phenomenon is not a factor in Herzliya Pituach, where foreign ownership is relatively scarce.

An upscale Tel Aviv suburb on the Mediterranean coast just north of the

city, Herzliya Pituach is a natural choice for a “sister city” for the Hamptons. Like the Hamptons, it’s on the beach, expensive – and residency there is a status symbol.

The condo project, part of a larger complex that is to be made up of seven other buildings, is situated a short walk from the beach. Developers estimate that the Hamptons building will be ready for occupancy in about three years.

Schneier says the condo project is a crowning achievement of his synagogue’s 25th anniversary next year.

Since Schneier founded it in 1990, The Hampton Synagogue has become a place not just to pray, but for the affluent and the influential to see and be seen. Hillary Clinton and Steven Spielberg have stopped by, and its roster of summer speakers has included top Israeli political figures, performers and intellectuals. Last summer’s highlights included Broadway star Harvey HERZLIYA CONDO on page 20

INTERNATIONAL • 9

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 4, 2014

Iran nuclear talks extended while threats against Israel continue

By Alina Dain Sharon (JNS) – The Nov. 24 deadline for negotiating a deal on Iran’s nuclear program expired on Monday, as the P5+1 powers (U.S., U.K., France, Russia, China, and Germany) were unable to reach an agreement with the Islamic Republic. But the talks were extended to June 30, 2015.

At the same time, an Iranian official said over the weekend that his country gave the Hezbollah terror group—which is based in Lebanon, Israel’s northern neighbor—hundreds of missiles with 160-220 mile ranges.

“Our strategic guiding principle is the appropriate arming of Hezbollah and Hamas with advanced, modern weapons in order to allow the resistance groups to deal with the bloodthirsty Zionist regime,” said Iranian Revolutionary Guard Aerospace Force Brig. Gen. Seyed Majid Moussavi, Iran’s Fars news agency reported.

Iran’s transfer of the missiles, which are capable of hitting the southern Israeli city of Dimona, add evidence supporting the narrative of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has repeatedly called for a complete dismantling of Iran’s nuclear program.

Earlier this month, Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei released a Twitter post titled “9 key questions about the

International Briefs France urges last push for two-state solution amid vote on Palestinian statehood (JNS) – France is calling on the international community to make one “final” push towards resolving the diplomatic impasse between the Israelis and Palestinians amid debate over Palestinian statehood in the French parliament.

According to French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius, France is working at the United Nations on a Security Council resolution that will relaunch peace talks between the Israelis and Palestinians.

“An international conference could be organized, France is prepared to take the initiative on this and in these talks, recognition (of the Palestinian state) would be an instrument … for the definitive resolution of the conflict,” Fabius said, AFP reported.

“If these efforts fail. If this last attempt at a negotiated settlement does not work, then France will have to do its duty and recognize the state of Palestine without

elimination of Israel.” As part of the tweet, Khamenei proposed a referendum that would serve as a means for building consensus on Israel’s destruction. “[Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei is] publicly calling for the annihilation of Israel as he is negotiating a nuclear deal with the P5+1 countries,” Netanyahu said.

The first answer provided within Khamenei’s nine points accuses “the fake Zionist regime” of trying to achieve its goals via “infanticide, homicide, violence & iron,” with the only solution to these “Israeli crimes” being the “elimination of this regime.”

The “practical & logical mechanism for this,” according to Khamenei, is through a “public and organized referendum” for all the “original people of Palestine including Muslims, Christians, and Jews,” excluding “the Jewish immigrants who have been persuaded into emigration to Palestine,” who “do not have the right to take part.”

In addition to the referendum, the Iranian leader called for Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza to fight against Israel, rejecting any U.N.moderated negotiation.

“So far as I know, Khamenei’s idea of a referendum has not been proposed by the Islamic Republic of Iran until now. It suggests that the Iranian leadership wishes to make delay and we are ready to do that,” Fabius said.

Australia’s capital gets first official rabbi to lead Jewish community SYDNEY, Australia (JTA) – The Jewish community in Australia’s capital inaugurated its first official full-time rabbi.

Rabbi Alon Meltzer, 26, of New Zealand will lead the Australian Capital Territory’s National Jewish Memorial Center in Canberra.

Meltzer was inaugurated last week by Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis, chief rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth, and becomes the first rabbi in the community’s 63year history. The Jewish center houses Orthodox and Reform services.

“I realize that this is an appointment of national significance,” Meltzer said.

Canberra has about 1,000 Jews live – some 300 are affiliated with the Jewish center.

In Turkey, Pope Francis calls for interfaith dialogue to protect Mideast Christians (JNS) – In his first visit to the Middle East since Israel last spring, Pope Francis called on

Courtesy of State Department.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry (in center, left side) prepares to sit down with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif (in center, right side) in Vienna, Austria, on July 14, 2014, before they begin a bilateral meeting focused on Iran's nuclear program.

common cause with the leftists also wanting to see Israel disappear,” Daniel Pipes, founder and president of the Middle East Forum think tank, recently told JNS. Many leading U.S. Republican legislators, ahead of their party’s forthcoming control of both houses of Congress in January, are taking Netanyahu’s side on the issue and have promised to block any “bad deal” with Iran that allows the country to retain enrichment capability.

“Iran is a unique issue because Democratic members of Congress tend to be closer to their Republican colleagues than to the administration,” Pipes said. “The question ahead is whether there will be a vetoproof majority. One ranking House member told me [recently] that he thinks this is possible.”

The Emergency Committee for Israel (ECI) said Monday that Congress “should act now to reimpose sanctions and re-establish U.S. red lines that will prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapons capability.”

“To that end, such legislation must limit the president’s authority to waive sanctions, an authority the president has already signaled a willingness to abuse in his desperate quest for a deal with the mullahs,” ECI said in a statement.

The original interim deal between Iran and the P5+1 powers was signed in November 2013 and led to an easing of some sanctions on Iran. The interim deal allowed for further negotiations to produce a final framework, but the deadline for that framework has been repeatedly

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to engage in interfaith dialogue in order to protect Middle East Christians and other persecuted minority groups.

“It is essential that all citizens – Muslim, Jewish and Christian – both in the provision and practice of the law, enjoy the same rights and respect the same duties,” Francis told Erdogan, Vatican Radio reported.

“Mr. President, interreligious and intercultural dialogue can make an important contribution to attaining this lofty and urgent goal, so that there will be an end to all forms of fundamentalism and terrorism which gravely demean the dignity of every man and woman and exploit religion,” Francis said.

in barrack 52,” museum spokeswoman Agnieszka KowalczykNowak told AFP. “After counting the shoes, we found eight missing. ... It’s in this barrack where all the shoes are on display so that visitors can begin to comprehend the sheer scale of Nazi crimes,” she said.

The Nazis killed more than 360,000 people at Majdanek during the Holocaust.

Holocaust victims’ shoes stolen from Majdanek death camp museum (JNS) – Eight shoes that belonged to Holocaust victims of the Poland-based Nazi death camp Majdanek, which had been on display in the museum at the camp’s former site, have been stolen.

“An employee noticed shoes were missing during a routine check on Saturday. A hole was cut in the metal mesh on a display containing several hundred shoes

Far-right rally, concert held in Milan despite protests ROME (JTA) – A far-right rally and concert went ahead in Milan despite protests by the Milan Jewish community and other groups.

Reports said the event Saturday drew far fewer participants than anticipated. No incidents were reported.

The Italian media said about 300 skinheads and other far-right militants attended Hammerfest 2014, which was held in a privately owned outbuilding in an outlying district of Milan. According to reports before the event, some 1,000 participants had been expected.

Many of the crowd had “shaven heads, swastikas, and all the repertoire of the ‘Nazi look,’ “ the Italian news agency Ansa

pushed back, including last July.

Iran wants to retain its ability to enrich uranium, but refuses to cooperate with a probe by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), a U.N.-affiliated nuclear watchdog. Iran had agreed to provide the IAEA with information on experiments with nuclear detonators, work on high-explosive charges used in nuclear blasts, and studies on the calculation of nuclear explosive yields.

But the IAEA said this month that Iran has only provided information on the detonators.

Yet a push for greater Iranian cooperation with the P5+1 powers is coming from within the Islamic Republic itself. Some in Iran are calling for a change in the country’s direction, following years of isolation and economic stagnation.

“Overall the economic situation is quite bleak,” Dr. Hooshang Amirahmadi—a professor of planning and public policy at Rutgers University in New Jersey and a candidate in Iran’s 2013 presidential race—told JNS earlier this month.

“Unemployment, inflation, and debt remain very high, economic growth remains around zero, and international trade remains extremely constrained due to the sanctions on banking, oil, and other sectors,” he said.

According to analysts, the NUCLEAR TALKS on page 22 wrote.

The Milan Jewish community was among the organizations that had called on authorities to bar the concert, which Milan’s mayor criticized as “unacceptable.” A similar concert was held in 2013.

New Dutch app offers original writings of Anne Frank THE HAGUE, Netherlands (JTA) – A publisher in Amsterdam released the first smartphone application to contain Anne Frank’s diary in its original language.

Uitgeverij Prometheus unveiled the Dutch-language app earlier this month at the Theater Amsterdam, a 1,100-seat auditorium that was built in the Dutch capital earlier this year for the show “Anne,” about the Jewish teenage diarist’s life.

The app, which costs approximately $8.50 to download, contains the international bestseller “The Diary of a Young Girl” – a version of Anne’s writings edited and brought to print by her father, Otto. d.

But the app also contains several unedited versions written by Anne Frank, Uitgeverij Prometheus said in a news release.

10 • ISRAEL

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To pray or not to pray: that is the Temple Mount question

By Deborah Fineblum Schabb/ (JNS) – There are few subjects in Israel these days that arouse greater passion than prayer rights at the Temple Mount.

The dramatic uptick in Palestinian terror attacks on Jews in Jerusalem in recent weeks, including Tuesday’s killing of four at a synagogue in Har Nof, has raised the temperature of the long-simmering debate over control of the holy site to a boiling point. Rabbi Yehudah Glick, a promoter of Jewish access to the Temple Mount, is still recovering from being shot by an Arab gunman on Oct. 29. Increased Muslim riots have prompted police to further clamp down on Jews visiting the site, especially for anyone making any gesture that could be interpreted as prayer.

Today, a waqf (Islamic religious committee) manages the Temple Mount, though Israel provides security and enforces the waqf’s policies on access. The 37-acre compound is currently home to the Muslims’ AlAqsa Mosque and Dome of the Rock, sites that date back to the 7th century CE. But long before that time, the Temple Mount was revered

by Jews as the spot where God created Adam, where Abraham was willing to offer his son Isaac as a sacrifice, and centuries later, where both Jewish Temples stood. Jewish tradi-

Israel Briefs Tel Aviv synagogue vandalized in reaction to Jewish state bill JERUSALEM (JTA) – A Tel Aviv synagogue apparently was vandalized in protest of Israel’s nation-state bill.

“In a place where the Jewish State bill will be legislated, books will be burned,” read the graffiti painted Sunday on a wall of the Tel Aviv International Synagogue.

A pile of burned books – none of them religious texts – were left next to the wall.

The vandalism occurred hours after an Arab-Jewish school in Jerusalem was set on fire.

Hundreds protest in Jerusalem against nationstate bill JERUSALEM (JTA) – Hundreds of Israelis protested in Jerusalem against the nation-state bill enshrining Israel’s status as a Jewish state.

The protesters gathered Saturday night in front of the

Courtesy of Godot13 An aerial view of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.

tion also says the third Temple is destined to be built there.

Yet Jews are banned from praying on the Temple Mount, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said that Israel intends to maintain the “status quo” at the site.

“From the day we captured the Old City [of Jerusalem] in ‘67, the whole question of whether we should have the right to pray on the Temple Mount has been nothing short of bizarre,” said Jeff Bell, a resident of Ramat Beit Shemesh, which is located about 20 miles west of Jerusalem. “The real question is, why would we not have the right to pray at the Temple Mount, the holiest spot in the Jewish world? But

now, if you are caught swaying, you can be arrested.”

The office of Rabbi Binny Freedman, director of both the Jewish education organization Isralight and the Orayta Yeshiva, is located just blocks away from the Temple Mount in the Old City.

Freedman said he is concerned about the Israeli government’s attempts to limit Jewish prayer rights whenever Muslims become violent because that amounts to “rewarding the aggressor, a strategy that has been demonstrated to fail time and again, particularly in the Arab mindset.”

Freedman added that the controversy about Jews praying at the site

Prime Minister’s Residence in Jerusalem.

The original version had been scheduled to go to the Knesset floor this week for a first reading before Netanyahu decided to delay the action.

On Sunday, in protest of the bill, photos of Israeli politicians in Nazi SS uniforms were uploaded to Facebook by someone using the pseudonym Natan Zoabi.

intercepted a ship smuggling weapons from Iran to Gaza.

“My life’s dream is coming true,” Cohen said.

First woman to command vessel in Israeli navy (JNS) – For the first time a woman has been appointed a vessel commander in the Israeli Navy.

Captain Or Cohen, who is currently a navigation officer on a missile boat, will become deputy chief of a patrol boat pending final confirmation by the Israeli Navy’s commander Maj.-Gen. Ram Rothberg, who gave the initial approval Thursday.

“The navy made the decision as part of a policy to promote and integrate women on its ships and in meaningful command positions,” said Rothberg, Yedioth Achronoth reported.

During this summer’s Operation Protective Edge, Cohen participated in a mission that

Canadian-Israeli woman fighting with Kurds reportedly captured by ISIS JERUSALEM (JTA) — A Canadian-Israeli Jewish woman who joined Kurdish forces in their fight against the Islamic State reportedly was taken captive by the jihadist group.

The capture of Gillian Rosenberg, 31, and several other female fighters was reported on blogs and Islamist websites, the Israeli media reported.

Rosenberg immigrated to Israel from Canada in 2006 and served as an instructor in an Israeli army search-and-rescue unit.

In 2009, Rosenberg was extradited from Israel to the United States for her involvement in what the FBI called a lottery prize scheme that mostly targeted the elderly, the Canadian Jewish News reported. She spent four years in an American prison.

3 Palestinians charged with plotting to attack Glick, Feiglin on Temple Mount JERUSALEM (JTA) – Three

“is not really about the Temple Mount.”

“This issue is being used by Muslim and Arab protagonists with an agenda that is much broader. It is part of a struggle against the legitimacy of having a Jewish state to begin with,” he said.

Yet Israeli-Jewish opinion on the issue is divided. That schism is reflected in a recent “Peace Index” survey by the Guttman Center at the Israel Democracy Institute and the Evens Program for Solution Conflict Resolution at Tel Aviv University.

The findings said that nearly 40 percent of the Jewish population in Israel believes the policy governing Jewish prayer on the Temple Mount needs to be allowed, whereas 56 percent maintain that Jews should not be permitted to pray there in order to “prevent friction with the Muslim world.”

Kfar Saba resident Gaby Feigin describes the Temple Mount situation as “wide and explosive.”

Though he is in favor of Jews being able to pray “in well-defined areas of the Mount,” he said he is “pessimistic about our future there” because there are advocates of Jewish prayer at the site who “don’t want dialogues between the various religious and ethnic groups, and some of them also want to destroy the mosques of Muslims on the Temple Mount and rebuild the

Temple.”

Mitzpe Jericho resident Leah Edelblum believes the Temple Mount issue is currently at a stalemate because “back in ‘67 we got ourselves into this mess.” What she is referring to is Israeli general Moshe Dayan’s controversial move—after Israel won back Jerusalem’s Old City in the Six Day War of 1967—to give jurisdiction over the Temple Mount to the Muslims, who had centuries earlier built a mosque on the former site of the Jewish Temples. Israeli police still oversee the Temple Mount compound, in part to protect the vulnerable population of Jews praying around the clock nearby at the Western Wall.

“We gave [the Temple Mount] away when it was not ours to give, but God’s. Now we are dealing with the ramifications of that bad decision,” Edelblum said.

At the same time, many observant Jews stay away from the Temple Mount out of fear of accidentally walking over the spot of the Holy of Holies, the room in the former Jewish Temple where the high priest entered each Yom Kippur to beseech God on behalf of the entire nation.

Among the observers endeavoring to de-mystify the complexities of

Palestinian men were indicted for planning to attack activist Yehuda Glick and right-wing lawmaker Moshe Feiglin during a visit to the Temple Mount.

The men, ages 18 to 21 from eastern Jerusalem, were charged over the weekend with conspiracy to injure a person using weapons and with nationalistic motivation.

The attack was to occur on Oct. 30, the day after Glick was shot four times outside the Menachem Begin Center in Jerusalem after taking part in a conference in which he spoke about the Jewish right to pray on the Temple Mount. Feiglin attended the conference.

wrote Friday on his Facebook page, adding, “Israel should even encourage them to do so with a system of economic incentives.”

Arabs make up about 20 percent of Israel’s population.

Israeli foreign minister suggests paying Arabs to move to Palestinian state (JNS) – Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman suggested that Israeli Arabs who consider themselves part of the Palestinian people should be offered financial incentives to move to a future Palestinian state.

“Those (Israeli Arabs) who decide that their identity is Palestinian will be able to forfeit their Israeli citizenship and move and become citizens of the future Palestinian state,” Lieberman

TO PRAY OR NOT on page 22

Israel plans to build 22 new Negev communities JNS) – The Israeli cabinet is set to vote Sunday on a plan for increased development in the Negev Desert, including the establishment of 22 new communities.

The new plan, nicknamed the “Negev Progress Plan,” references the Jewish Agency’s historic 11 Points in the Negev plan, which established 11 settlements in 1946. The new plan will establish settlements from Sderot to Yeruham, near the original 11.

The plan will involve building about 490,000 new housing units in the Negev, 17,000 of them in the new communities.

“The Negev development plan is a long-term plan, but its initial implementation is expected to yield benefits for the Negev in the short term as well,” said Housing and Construction Minister Uri Ariel.

12 • GIFT GUIDE

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GIFT GUIDE 2014 Please visit these fine retailers for all of your Chanukah needs.

Appointments When looking for the finest in pens, look no further than Appointments, located downtown in Carew Tower.

For over 20 years, Appointments has been the leader in Cincinnati for fine pens. Specializing in fountain pens, they carry over 20 different lines in stock.

Shopping for the men on your Hanukkah list is easy at Appointments; choosing from wallet, luggage, luggage tags, globes, clocks, and walking sticks, you can find just about anything a man could want.

They also carry Rookwood Pottery tiles, bookends, and much more.

The proprietor, Doug Kennedy, and his associates Labron Miller and Jay Plogman, are on-hand to help you with your gift needs, and they’ll take the time to assist you with your selections, especially fountain pens.

In addition, Appointments also carries a wide array of stationary, journals, and calendars.

Bell’s House of Tobacco Looking for the largest variety of premium cigars, humidors, lighters and general cigar accessories in Cincinnati? Bell’s House of Tobacco is the only stop you need to make.

Since 1999, Bell’s has worked hard to provide their customers with superior products and service. They offer a unique and personable experience, delivered by a knowledgeable, courteous staff.

An excellent place for Hanukkah gifts for the cigar aficiando on your list, Bell’s is also perfect for the cigar and pipe “newbie”. With their passion for products and customer service, anyone looking to learn about the current and future trends in premium cigars and pipes will feel right at home. Bell’s staff takes the time to find out exactly what you want or need in a cigar or pipe tobacco, and work with you to find the best fit for your tastes and budget.

If you’re not quite sure what you are looking for, Bell’s accommodates people wanting to sample their wares.

There is a private smoking lounge for guests to enjoy these fine tobaccos, filled with comfortable leather chairs and televisions, and there’s always some blues or jazz on the sound system. Great for holiday shopping, great for lounging...that’s Bell’s House of Tobacco.

Beth Goldstein Designs Beth Goldstein Designs features clever, novel and beautiful designs for Judaic giftware that is sure to renew one’s take on tradition. Beth’s choice of out-of-the-ordinary, vibrant colors make her items one-of-a-

kinds. Her website highlights her fun, handpainted Judaica items, and she is always creating new designs and adding new pieces to her Jewish giftware collections.

There are also examples of custom and special order work to give you an overview of her artistic style and some new ideas for Hanukkah gift-giving. Goldstein provides a lovely opportunity to order hand painted, original, customized Ketubahs; you can order special occasions gifts she creates and produces, one at a time, in signed, limited editions exclusively for you.

Browse her Judaica Gallery and Shop - if you don’t see exactly what you have in mind, just relax - Beth can make it for you! More than a gift of art - it is a “gift of heart.”

Gattles In 1904, German immigrant Henrietta Gattle began selling imported lace curtains door-to-door in Cincinnati. By 1920, she and her son, Otto, opened the first Cincinnati location, located downtown on West Seventh Street. This downtown store later moved and expanded in size and stature, and is now located in Olde Montgomery on Cooper Road.

As the market and demand changed, the Gattle's stores shifted focus to dining linens. The stores then began to evolve from exclusively selling dining linens to selling luxurious bedroom and bathroom linens as well. The Gattle's name soon became synonymous with fine linens assembled from around the world. The elegance of Gattle's has been experienced by Popes and presidents alike.

Gattle's features elegant lines of fine bed and bath linens and accessories, home accents, intimate apparel, handkerchiefs, infant bedding and gifts.

Third generation owner, Tom Gattle, eventually sold the Cincinnati and Petoskey businesses to family friends, the Cheney's, who continued to uphold the family-owned ideals and values.. For the past 25 years, the Cheney family has continued to uphold the store's reputation and tradition for comfort and excellence.

Today's store incorporates the Gattle's old-time service commitment to the customer with the Cheney's quality touch for luxurious living.

Gilson’s Why choose Gilson’s?

Engraving, Engraving, Engraving!

They engrave metals, glass, and acrylics, from gold and silver pieces to wine bottles and swords. They will hand engrave or computer engrave on items purchased here, or even on ones that you bring in. Many fonts and logos are available for one or two day service.

Gilson’s has been selling personalized gifts and awards for over 30 years, and they carry products from

only the finest manufacturers including Waterford, Seiko, Bulova, Wilton Armetale, Reed & Barton, A.T. Cross, Nambe, Lunt, Empire Silver, and Rembrandt Charms, specializing in custom gift and recognition pieces in crystal and metal. They are proud to specialize in custom corporate gifts and awards.

There are so many gift ideas for the holidays at Gilson’s; stop by and consider their selection today.

Kramer’s Sew and Vac For over 65 years, Kramer’s Sew and Vac has been serving the Cincinnati community. Located on Montgomery Road, in the Kroger shopping plaza, Kramer’s offers a wide array of products and services for those who love to sew, quilt, and embroider.

Kramer’s carries a complete line of sewing furniture as well as stocks 40 different models and 9 brands of vacuums.

Every month they offer classes in all sorts of fabric crafts such as machine applique, zipper applications, making items like tote bags and basic sewing and embroidery techniques.

Kramer’s is an authorized Bernina and Brother sewing machine repair center, and they repair and service most major brands of sewing machines and vacuums. Warranty work is done in-store, and trade-ins are always welcome. They also offer a sharpening service for knives, scissors, and pinking shears with one-day turnaround. Look for valuable coupons on their website to help you with your holiday shopping!

Macy’s Downtown Dazzle Holiday shopping is magical when enjoyed during the Macy’s Downtown Dazzle. Come downtown and shop for Hanukkah at all your favorite places while experiencing fun events on Fountain Square, seeing the sights while riding the Downtown Trolley, delighting in a carriage ride through the heart of Cincinnati, and taking advantage of gift wrapping services through the Boys & Girls Club of Cincinnati.

There’s no better way to enjoy the holiday season!

The Richter & Phillips Co. Richter & Phillips has been Cincinnati’s trusted jeweler since 1896, providing customers with quality diamonds, jewelry, giftware and watches year after year.

The holiday season is the perfect time to purchase a gift of fine jewelery. Not only does Richter & Phillips offer stunning loose diamonds for your selection, they also have exquisite necklaces, bracelets, rings and watches available, as well as handpicked designer jeweler for the discerning eye.

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 4, 2014

Planning to propose over the holidays? Richter & Phillips has a wide variety of engagement rings, from the simple to the ornate and they also feature an extensive collection of wedding bands, all from top designers. If you’re looking for giftware, such as pens, crystal pieces or serveware, there are many offerings to choose from.

Shop Richter & Phillips for all your holiday needs.

Victoria Travel Vicky Mary, owner of Victoria Travel, has been all over the world; with her expertise and her staff’s combined 250 years of travel experience, you can be sure that Victoria Travel will plan the most wellplanned, highest-value trip for you, from a cruise, to a tour or a hotel.

Their association with a consortium of independent travel agencies allows them to offer exclusive amenities, not available to other agencies.

GIFT GUIDE • 13 Vicky herself has travelled to hundreds of hotels in cities and villages all over the world, so her firsthand knowledge is the perfect tool for planning a tailored vacation or business trip. Her comprehensive knowledge of hotels, restaurants and things to see and do is what gives Victoria Travel a unique edge in the travel industry. From island getaways, to European tours, there is no trip that Vicky and her expert team can’t make magical.

Happy Hanukkah "Serving Cincinnati Since 1947"

Open Monday, Tuesday, Thursday & Friday 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.

Wednesday 10 a.m. to 7:00 p.m., Saturday 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

9907 Montgomery Rd., Cincinnati, Ohio 45242 PHONE (513) 891-5005 ¥ FAX (513) 891-9272 email: kramers@fuse.net ¥ website: http://kramersews.com

There’s more music out there than ‘Dreidel, Dreidel’: fun Hanukkah tunes perfect for giving

By Amy Deutsch Kveller

to blast and sing with your kids at the top of their lungs.

Maybe it's the Christmas "competition," but it seems like there are more songs about Hanukkah than about any other Jewish holiday. And why not? It's fun and delicious and lasts for eight amazing days. So if the only Hanukkah song you know is "Dreidel Dreidel," read on.

4. The Klezmatics: "Happy Joyous Hanuka" (Woody Guthrie’s Happy Joyous Hanukkah) Though the country twang of this song conjures up images of people square-dancing around their menorahs, it's got a great beat that makes your toes tap. The whole album is filled with upbeat and fun music for dancing around the kitchen with your kids, but my favorite is "Happy Joyous Hanuka."

1. Michelle Citrin, "Left to Right" In 2008, Michelle Citrin and William Levin created this music video (reminiscent of the Dunder Mifflin Paper Company ad from The Office) with help from people across the world who submitted short clips of themselves lighting Hanukkah candles and then passing the candle on to someone else. It’s an awesome video and a catchy and sweet song. And even better, it reminds you which way you’re supposed to light the candles. (I forget every year!)

2. Erran Baron Cohen: “Hanukkah Oh Hanukkah” (Songs in the Key of Hanukkah) Yes, he's the brother of Sacha Baron Cohen (Borat, Da Ali G Show, etc.) and he’s even done a lot of the music for Sacha’s movies. But Erran also has this Hanukkah album with remixes of some of the classic songs. We like "Hanukkah Oh Hanukkah"--it's a little bit klezmer but with a fresh sound that’s unlike any Hanukkah song you’ve heard before.

3. Shira Kline, "Chanukah Bamba" (ShirLaLa Chanukah!)

It is really hard to choose the best Hanukkah song on Shira Kline's album ShirLaLa Chanukah! Shira is an incredible live performer who gets kids up and dancing to every song. Even on the CD her music is infectious.

If we had to choose one, though, it would have to be "Chanukah Bamba." Yes, it's a play on "La Bamba," but it's also a great one

5. The LeeVees: "How Do You Spell Channukkahh" (Hanukah Rocks) This band is fronted by Adam Gardner (from Guster) and Dave Schneider (from the Zambonis) who, when together, make rockin Hanukkah music on their album Hanukah Rocks (if they do say so themselves). Some of their songs are ridiculously silly (an examination of life at the timeshare), and others are serious explorations of the important issues of our time (applesauce vs. sour cream). My favorite is "How Do You Spell Channukkahh."

6. Peter, Paul & Mary, "Light One Candle" (Around the Campfire) "Light One Candle" is my absolute favorite Hanukkah song, and that’s not just because I loved "Puff the Magic Dragon." It starts out slowly and calmly, and builds to a crescendo of "don’t let the light go out!" It always made me feel like it was my personal responsibility to be sure not to let that light go out--in whatever metaphorical way you interpret light. Peter talks about the light being justice, memory, and peace.

And especially in this season of the year, I like to sing this song and feel like I’m recommitting myself to pursuing that.

7. Julie Silver, "Chanukah Blessings" (It's Chanukah Time)

This is a more traditional Hanukkah album with all of the classic songs you might remember from when you were a kid. And yes, it might be a little bit overproduced, but she's got a beautiful and easy to sing-along-with rendition of the Hanukkah blessings.

For those of us who don’t always like to advertise our tone-deafness, it's nice to have some backup!

8. Mare Winningham, "A Convert Jig" (Refuge Rock Sublime) So this isn’t really a Hanukkah song.

Sorry.

But Mare Winningham, who you might remember from such films as St. Elmo's Fire, Turner & Hooch, and Wyatt Earp, converted to Judaism in 2003 and came out with her own Jewish album. It's Jewish country…kind of awesome.

9. Kenny Ellis, "Sevivon Sov Sov Sov" (Hanukkah Swings) For a different take on Hanukkah, check out this album

by Kenny Ellis. It makes you feel like you’ve gone back in time to the Big Band Era. It’s kind of amazing how much the Hanukkah classics really go with the swingin’ feel. I like "Sevivon Sov Sov Sov"-'it just sounds goooood.

10. Peter & Ellen Allard, "Judah Maccabee, The Hammer" (Sing Shalom: Songs for the Jewish Holidays) The Allards are the king and queen of Jewish preschool music, so it's only natural that they'd make our top 10 list. Their song about Judah Maccabee tells a little bit of the story of Hanukkah and has an almost bluesy-rock feel.

And the rest of the album goes through all of the Jewish holidays-so if you want to buy just one CD for the whole year, this is probably it.

Editor’s note: Don’t forget about Adam Sandler! His original Hanukkah song is a classic, and is always fun to enjoy this time of year.

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14 • GIFT GUIDE

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Clever gifts for Hanukkah

By Beth Kotzin Assistant Editor Looking for something really unique to give this Hanukkah?

Following are some fabulously cool ideas for gifts...unless you decide to keep them for yourself!

1. Waterproof notepad: perfect for writing your shopping list while in the shower. Or jotting down things those things that pop into your head while washing your hair. Just don’t wash away your notes!

2. Transparent book weight: For those of us still reading actual books, this is great for weighing down the pages. It would also be great for cookbooks, keeping the page open and protecting it from splatter.

3. Gigantic wine glass: It can hold an entire bottle of wine. That’s right: an entire bottle of wine. This thing sells itself.

4. Divided pasta colander: This is genius. Each little colander can hold a healthy serving of pasta, plus if you put several in a pot at once, you can cook different pasta shapes at the same time. For those with the son who wants elbow noodles, the daughter who wants bowties, and the husband who likes rotini, this is a life-saver.

5. Multitasking storage water bottle: This brilliant little bottle doesn’t just hold liquids, it also has a flipdown compartment that can hold cash, credit cards and/or your I.D. Perfect for the walkers, joggers and runners on your list.

6. Bluetooth virtual keyboard: for anyone who likes to work on the go, this little gadget can project a keyboard onto any flat surface.

7. Personal water fountain spout: Got a germaphobe in your life?

This attaches to a faucet to create their own personal water fountain!

8. Floating coffee mug: No more searching for a coaster...this coffee mug hovers over its own personal resting place.

9. 3D Printing pen: The future is here: create a 3D image of whatever you can draw.

10. Portable humidifier cap: Transform an ordinary water bottle into a live-giving source of air moisture. Great for dry offices!

11. Tape/Scissor Combo: That’s right - get a pair of scissors with the tape dispenser built in. Gift wrapping just got a whole lot easier.

12. USB Mini Fridge: Just big enough to keep a can of soda cold.

Diet Coke afficionados, rejoice!

13. The Balcony BBQ: Hangs right onto your balcony railing so you can cook up a few burgers while enjoying the view.

14. Nibble Cake Pan: Baking pan that has a little shot-glass sized extension so the baker can have a little taste of their creation without eating a hole in the cake.

15. Car swivel tray: The base fits in your cupholder, and extends to lift the tray to french-fry eating height.

Eating on the go just go easier.

16. Sriracha key chain: A little bottle of this delicious sauce on a key-

chain. So you’re never without a little extra kick for your food again.

17. The Cutest Little iPhone Stand Ever: Little tiny feet to attach to your iPhone. Because who doesn’t want to pretend their phone can walk?

18. iPad Lapdesk: Has a slot for your iPad to rest in, then a tray for your coffee and bagel. Breakfast time!

19. Ceramic soup and cracker mug: The bowl holds soup and the built-in attachment holds your crackers. Also good for veggies and dip, apples and peanut butter, or salad and dressing (for those who like it on the side).

20. Elastic lacing system: Keeps your shoes tightly laced but these stretchy bands are just flexible enough to turn those sneakers into slipons.

Don’t forget the kids?! You can go beyond the usual video games and gift cards with these options: 1. Mug with a Hoop: A cup perfect for hot chocolate, complete with a little hoop to toss the mini marshmallows through.

2. Retro Lunchbox: Pick one up and fill it with retro candy for a fun, sweet holiday treat.

3.

Personalized Engraved Baseball Bats: Boy or girl, the sports lover in your life will love having a bat with their name engraved on it.

4. Kickball Ice Cream Maker: They want ice cream. You want them to get some exercise. Put the ingredients in this ball and let the kids kick it around to get the ice cream ready!

DINING OUT • 15

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 4, 2014

Johnny Chan 2 features better buffet, quality menu choices

The Best Japanese Cuisine, Asian Food & Dining Experience In Town

By Bob Wilhelmy Johnny Chan 2 has been a regular advertiser for many years on the Dining Out pages of American Israelite. If you have not tried the restaurant, you are missing an opportunity. I say this because I have been around the block a time or two in the Chinese-food circuit, and there are differences.

At any given time, there are dozens of Chinese and/or Asianinfluenced restaurants from which you could choose. So why choose Johnny Chan 2, you might ask?

One reason is the luncheon buffet.

All buffets are not created equal, for starters. The reason Frank Shi, owner/operator of the restaurant, claims superiority in his buffet offering is freshness and quality.

“My buffet—always fresh, always the food is good and not dried out,” he says.

And he is correct. The food on the buffet is watched constantly by the kitchen staff, and the trays of food are replenished regularly.

That’s a major focus Shi insists upon. The second part of the buffet offering is selection. You will find such crowd-pleasing entrée items on the buffet, such as the very popular sesame chicken.

That entrée—sesame chicken—is a higher-end selection from the general menu, and thus is a major differentiation separating Johnny Chan 2 from many of its competitors. The way restaurants, Chinese and otherwise, generally make money on buffet systems is to place the low-end foods on the buffet, hoping to satisfy diners with quantity rather than quality.

Shi’s approach is different. His feeling is that some higher-end entrée items make the buffet more appealing to customers, so he will win by attracting more diners to his luncheon trade. Judging by the seats filled the day I stopped in, his strategy is working.

Over the years, Johnny Chan 2 has regularly gained awards of both local and national prominence. One of the most prestigious is from Chinese News, a periodical with a devotional focus.

The publication rated Johnny

9521 FIELDS ERTEL ROAD, LOVELAND

(513) 239-8881 asianparadiserestaurant.com

Pictured, are: Miki Zhuang, server, with a plate of sesame chicken and fried rice from the buffet table at Johnny Chan 2

Chan 2 among the top 100 best Chinese restaurants in the United States! Frankly, I have no clue how many Chinese restaurants there may be in the US of A, but a safe bet is many thousands, I would think. New York City alone probably has hundreds. So does San Francisco, and travelers usually can find at least one Chinese restaurant even in tiny villages and wide spots in the road all across nation.

The point to consider here is that being voted in the top 100 is a big deal. Link that up with kudos from Cincinnati Magazine as “Top Spot for Chinese,” and top ratings from the Cincinnati Enquirer and you get the picture.

Of course, there is more than the luncheon buffet. You’ll find the typical broadsheet menu, loaded with choices. Having eaten many meals at Johnny Chan 2, I have my favorites. Among these are: orange beef and sesame beef; Mongolian beef and beef pepper steak; chicken with eggplant and yu hsiang chicken; General Tao’s chicken and the aforementioned sesame chicken (the sesame chicken is exceptional!); the steamed walleye, at market, and big enough to share with one or two others; and the vegetarian eggplant Shanghai style, and spicy

Szechuan string beans.

All the entrée dishes in my personal-favorite category are generously large, and I regularly resort to doggie bags for takehome and another meal at least.

As with most Chinese restaurant menus, Johnny Chan 2 features an array of Chinese dishes, including moo shu selections, soups, seafood, vegetarian, noodle entrees, fried rice, and a long list of house specialties that include entrees such as sizzling pan-fried noodles, mango chicken and walleye filet Shanghai style.

Also, there is the Christmas Eve and Christmas day service at Johnny Chan 2, featuring a much more elaborate holiday buffet.

The buffet on these days is a tradition at the restaurant, and attracts crowds that are not involved in Christian traditions. Each year, Shi makes a special plea to the Jewish community, because his buffets on December 24 and 25 are in part designed to serve that community.

See you at Johnny Chan 2!

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16 • OPINION

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Stop reckless sponsorship of anti–Israelism

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Do you have something to say? E-mail your letter to editor@americanisraelite.com

By Sara K. Greenberg CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (JTA) – I never imagined that a day would come when some of the world’s leading corporations would fund calls for Israel’s destruction, let alone at one of the world’s most prestigious universities. But that is exactly what happened last week at Harvard.

My invitation to “Harvard Arab Weekend” promised to provide a “mosaic of perspectives and insights on the most pressing issues in the Arab world.” Many of the panels appeared worthy of the conference’s corporate support from McKinsey & Co, The Boston Consulting Group, Booz Allen Hamilton, Bank Audi, Strategy& and the energy giant Shell. Yet featured prominently on the conference agenda was a panel devoted to the destruction of Israel: “The Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) Movement: Accomplishments, Tactics and Lessons.”

The panel’s moderator, Ahmed Alkhateeb, began by noting that a primary goal of the BDS movement is “promoting the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and properties” in what today is Israel. As President Obama pointed out in 2008, this goal stands in opposition to a “two-state solution” and “would extinguish Israel as a Jewish state.” And in an Op-Ed published in Al Akhbar newspaper, Cal State professor As’ad AbuKhalil, an outspoken advocate of the BDS movement, affirmed that “the real aim of BDS is to bring down the state of Israel.” This is the “unambiguous goal … [and] there should not be an equivocation on the subject.”

He’s right. While Jews are the majority in the democratic state of Israel today, the BDS movement imagines and seeks a state in which Jews would ultimately become the minority, implying the end of the Jewish people’s right to self-determination.

Of course, students have a right to speak their minds freely, and corporate sponsors have a right to donate their money and institutional backing to any political view. But is it appropriate for Harvard University to lend its facilities to a group of

activists who are working to eradicate the one Jewish state?

Not everyone at Harvard thinks so. Former Harvard president and current professor Lawrence Summers spoke out in 2002 against calls for Harvard to divest from Israel. When I asked him about last week’s panel, he told me that “promoting BDS is exactly the kind of thing I had in mind when I warned years ago about actions that were anti-Semitic in effect, if not intent.”

“Avoiding censorship, which is right, should not equal sponsorship, which is wrong,” Summers explained. “I am sorry that Harvard, not for the first time, has allowed its good name to be associated with calls to delegitimize Israel.”

The panel at Harvard was not a debate about the goals and merits of BDS — it was an endorsement.

Panelists included a vocal supporter of BDS who frequently accuses Israel of “apartheid,” a professor who initiated the American Studies Association academic and cultural boycott and a Presbyterian minister who led the church’s boycott of Israel, as well as MIT professor Noam Chomsky.

Student organizers of the panel told me that Chomsky would provide the “anti-BDS” perspective, and he was introduced as the only voice on the panel to be critical of BDS “tactics.” But Chomsky would have none of it, saying: “It’s interesting that I’m introduced as someone that has criticized BDS tactics; actually I have strongly advocated for BDS.” Chomsky also encouraged antiIsrael activists to take a phased approach toward the annihilation of Israel as a Jewish state.

“The one-state option is a good idea in the long run,” he said,” but there’s only one way that I can imagine we can reach it, and that’s in stages.”

The panel discussion left me with an overwhelming sense of sadness. I was sad to see firsthand how BDS encourages Palestinians to reject compromise in pursuit of the destruction of Israel; sad that the student organizers of the conference were unwilling to create a panel of diverse, honest views that would STOP RECKLESS on page 21

Correction In the November 27, 2014 issue of the Israelite, the front page obituary contained an error. Rabbi Splanksy’s first name is Donald, not David as it was printed.

In the article entitled “UC Hillel working hard at building bridges”, in the same issue, Hillel should be referred to as “Cincinnati Hillel,” not “UC Hillel;” “Career Cincinnati” should be called “Careers Cincinnati” and this program should have been listed as being in collaboration with the Hillel at Miami University.

We apologize for these errors.

Dear Editor

Dear Editor,

As you are aware, I am never one to ignore the 800 pound gorilla in the room. Will someone please explain to me why the Jewish Foundation just donated 16 million dollars to Mercy Health aka Catholic Charities hospitals?

Even though Chuck Hagel wasn't my choice for Secretary of Defense two years ago ,because he didn't appear well qualified and had made some controversal statements about Israel, I have "rachmones"(compassion) about the way he has been treated. A few days before and after his recent resignation, several unnamed administration officials trashed him by making statements to the media like "Make no mistake, Secretary Hagel was fired", "You don't send a sergeant to do a Secretary's job",

Paul Glassman Amberley Village

"He wasn't up to the job," etc...

Chuck Hagel, a former senator, combat veteran and business leader deserves respect.

This unethical episode brings to mind the Jewish Ethics of Speech.

"Lashon Hara" (bad tongue). This refers to statements that even if true, if it lowers the status of the person it is forbidden. To put it a different way, if we (including government officials) can't say something good about somebody, don't say it.

Bob Schneider cincinnati

Can the political left tackle anti-Semitism?

By Ben Cohen (JNS) – While I’ve never been a big fan of celebrity interventions in politics, I will concede that, on occasion, a big-screen actor or a rock star will achieve the kind of impact that mere mortals can only dream about.

Case in point: Maureen Lipman, a much-loved British Jewish actress whom American audiences will recognize from her role in Roman Polanski’s 2002 film about the Holocaust, “The Pianist,” in which she played the mother of the film’s main protagonist, Wladyslaw Szpilman.

Last week, Lipman wrote an article for Standpoint, a British political magazine, entitled “Labour has Lost Me.” (She’s referring to the current opposition party in a country where they spell ‘labor’ with a ‘u.’) In that piece, she did two things.

First, she relayed one of the best Jewish jokes I’ve encountered in a long time, about a rabbi so overcome with the desire to try a steamed pigs head that he ventures in secret to a distant restaurant famed for this dish, only to have a congregant walk in on him as he’s poised for his first bite.

The rabbi exclaims, “Can you believe this farshtinkener place?

You ask for an apple and this is how they serve it!”

Second, so disillusioned is Lipman with the stance on Israel of current Labour leader Ed Miliband, who is also Jewish, that she will not, she wrote, vote for the Labour Party “for the first time in five generations.”

“Just when the virulence against a country defending itself, against 4,000 rockets and 32 tunnels inside its borders, as it has every right to do under the Geneva Convention, had been swept aside

by the real pestilence of the Islamic State, in steps Mr. Miliband to demand that the government recognize the state of Palestine alongside the state of Israel,” Lipman thundered. She then told Miliband that his “timing sucked,” as he had turned on Israel when there were so many more pressing problems in the world, from the genocidal Islamist rampage to the machinations of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

In her final flourish, Lipman declared that she’d only vote Labour once the party was again led by “mensches.”

(Oh yes, the pig joke—that followed an anecdote about Miliband eating a bacon sandwich shortly after meeting Lipman at a party in London, where he asked whether he might join her for a Shabbat dinner.)

Clearly stung by the mauling he received from Lipman, Miliband has now demanded a “zero tolerance” approach to antiSemitism, citing the vile antiSemitic attacks on social media upon his parliamentary colleagues Luciana Berger and Louise Ellman as an immediate cause. He also decried the “violent assaults, the desecration and damage of Jewish property, anti-Semitic graffiti, hate-mail, and online abuse,” and revealed that some Jewish parents have told him they are scared for their children.

All in all, it seems to have been much more personal for Miliband than for Prime Minister David Cameron, who issued an equally strong statement against anti-Semitism at the end of a summer stained by anti-Jewish violence. “I am deeply concerned by growing reports of anti-Semitism on our streets in Britain,” Cameron said. “Let me be clear, we must not tolerate this in our

country. There can never be any excuse for anti-Semitism, and no disagreements on politics or policy should ever be allowed to justify racism, prejudice or extremism in any form.”

Beyond the specific personalities in this particular situation, the knotty question here for the left— whether in the U.K., in America, in Europe, in South Africa, or elsewhere – is whether it can adequately address the issue of antiSemitism without also examining how the obsession with the Palestinian cause among progressives has contributed to its growth.

Certainly, Britain’s Labour Party is a pertinent example of how much the “Palestine” issue dominates discussion of wider foreign policy considerations. In his excellent book, “Blair, Labour and Palestine,” the British academic Toby Greene notes former Labour leader Tony Blair’s “refusal to criticize Israeli government policy” in the run-up to the Iraq war. “However,” Greene observes, “it is not clear that if Blair had been more critical of Israel, there would have been less of an opportunity for the far left to promote anti-Zionism”—which it duly did by aligning the slogan “Freedom for Palestine” alongside exhortations to oppose the war that toppled Saddam Hussein.

While the far left miserably failed to turn the anti-war protests into an electorally successful political movement, it did succeed in exporting its anti-Zionist principles into much of the mainstream liberal left—which helps explain why one of the the first acts of Sweden’s new left-wing government was to recognize Palestine as an independent state.

POLITICAL LEFT on page 22

JEWISH LIFE • 17

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 4, 2014

Sedra of the Week

Shabbat Shalom: Parshat Vayishlach Genesis 32:4 - 36:43

“Let us travel together and move on; I will go alongside of you”

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T EST Y OUR T ORAH KNOWLEDGE THIS WEEK’S PORTION: VAYISHLACH (BRAISHITH 32:1—24:30) 1. Where did Esav live? a.) Aram b.) Seir c.) Egypt d.) Land of the Philistines

Esav?? a.) Shechem b.) Be'er Sheva c.) Sukkot

2. Where did Jacob meet Esav? Where did Jacob meet Esav? a.) Shechem b.) Pnuel c.) Gilaad 3. Where did Jacob travel after meeting

4. Where did Jacob meet his Father? a.) Hebron b.) Be'er Sheva c.) Special well Lchai Roi 5. Did Esav attend his father’s funeral? a.) Yes b.) No

Ramban 2. B 32:32-33:1 3. C 33:17 He spent 18 months in Sukkot.

Rashi 4. A 35:27

5. A 35:29 Esav went ahead of Jacob at Isaac's burial as opposed to Avraham's funeral where Isaac went ahead of Yishmael

EFRAT, Israel – The biblical kashrut laws for Jews have always been a powerful tool in keeping us a “nation set apart.”

We left Jacob last week leaving Laban and Laban-land behind, heaven-bent on returning to the land of Abraham and to the house of Isaac.

Jacob understands that his inner self has been overtaken by the deceitful and aggressive hands of Esau, that he must return to his ancestral home in order to recapture the Abrahamic birthright. But what exactly are the building blocks of this birthright? Is it possible that Esau is now even more deserving, or at least as deserving of it as is Jacob? What is the real content and significance – of our Jewish birthright? The very first prerequisite for the carrier of the birthright is a very strong Hebrew identity, a powerful familial connection which contributes – and defines – the link to a specific and unique heritage and ancestry.

Abraham established his commitment to the Hebrew identity when he insisted upon purchasing a separate gravesite for his wife Sarah, when he was willing to spend a small fortune in establishing a Hebrew cemetery beyond the various sites of the Hittites. He defines himself as an alien resident, sees himself as living amongst the Hittites but certainly not as being existentially a Hittite, and therefore refuses an “of right” burial for Sarah in any Hittite plot of land (Gen. 23:3-20).

Esau certainly is biblically described as having a strong sense of familial identity. He demonstrates strong feelings of filial respect and devotion; the Bible even records that Isaac loved Esau because he made certain to provide his father with the venison he dearly loved (Gen. 25:28).

He even has strong sibling ties to his brother, despite Jacob’s underhanded deception surrounding the blessings.

In the Torah portion this week, the Bible tells us how Esau first seemed to have set up a greeting brigade of 400 potential warriors to “welcome” the return of the prodigal brother (32:7); but once Esau actually sees his younger brother and his family, his heart apparently melts with brotherly love: “Esau ran to meet him; he hugged him, fell upon his neck and kissed him.” (33:4). Esau even wishes for the two of them to travel together and to settle down together. “Let us travel together and move on; I will go alongside of you” (33:12). It is Jacob

(Gen. 33:14, Obadiah 1:21, Bereshit Raba 78, 14).

Jacob then continues to travel to Succoth, which implies the tabernacle and the Holy Temple, the place in Jerusalem from where our message to the world will eventually emanate (Isaiah 2, Micah 4). But before Jacob can affirm his covenantal continuity and begin to achieve his destiny, he must first disgorge the grasping hands of Esau which have overtaken his personality and substituted the Jacob (Yaakov) of “he shall emerge triumphant at the end” with “heelsneak”; he must restore his “image of God” which was the source of that “wholehearted individual who was a studious dweller in tents.” This is the purpose of that mysteriously eerie nocturnal struggle with an anonymous assailant, a wrestling match which must precede the Esau-Jacob face-to-face confrontation. Jacob is all alone (32:25); his struggle is an inner battle, to rid himself of the heel-sneak Esau in his soul. And he wins, both over divine forces and human powers (32:29); he has seen God (Elohim) face-to-face, and succeeded in restoring his own divine image by exorcising Esau the heel-sneak. He now proudly stands Israel, the righteous representative of God and the fitting recipient of the Abrahamic birthright.

Written by Rabbi Dov Aaron Wise

ANSWERS 1. B 32:4,33:16 Isaac lived in the south of Canaan, near Seir/Edom is south of Canaan.

Yakov contacted Esav because he feared that Esav would hear of his coming to his father.

by Rabbi Shlomo Riskin

who politely refuses: “You know that my children are weak and I have responsibility for the nursing sheep and cattle Please go ahead of me I shall eventually come to you in Seir” (33:13-14).

Yes, Esau has strong familial identity. However, Abraham had two other crucial characteristics which Esau lacks: continuity and destiny.

Continuity is most meaningfully expressed in marrying a suitable mate: from our modern perspective, taking a Jewish spouse (so that the children will remain Jewish), and from the biblical perspective, not marrying an immoral Canaanite. Esau takes Hittite wives (26:34), “Judith the daughter of Beeri and Basemath the daughter of Elon.” Perhaps he comforted himself with the fact that his first wife had a Jewish name (Judith) and the second had a name which means sweet-smelling perfume. Esau’s mentality is apparently as superficial as the name “Edom” he acquired from his exterior red complexion as well as the red colors of the lentil soup he exchanged for his birthright and the venison he gave his father. Moreover, when he realizes how upset his parents are with his marital choice, he still doesn’t look to his mother’s family in Aram Naharayim for a mate, but rather chooses a daughter of Ishmael, the “wild ass of a man whose hand is over everything.” And he takes this wife not instead of but in addition to his Hittite wives (28:9).

Another test for continuity is a unique daily lifestyle, the ability to delay gratification and act with discipline, especially in the sexual and gustatory realms. The biblical kashrut laws for Jews have always been a powerful tool in keeping us a “nation set apart” which didn’t fall prey to assimilation. Esau sells his birthright for a portion of lentil soup - a thick, juicy filet mignon steak in our contemporary language. He even expresses his desire to have the broth “poured into his mouth” as one would feed a camel (25:30, see B.T. Shabbat, P.155 b, Rashi ad loc). To have one’s eyes on a historic mission, to realize the goal of having “all the families of the earth blessed by us” (Gen. 12:3) through our vision of a God of compassionate justice, morality and peace (Gen. 18:19), requires a lifestyle of commitment to an ideal and delayed gratification which is foreign to - and even impossible for - the character displayed by Esau. When Jacob tells Esau that he will meet up with him in Seir, our Midrash connects this rapprochement to the messianic period when “the saviors will go up to Mount Zion to judge the mountain of Esau”

18 • JEWZ IN THE NEWZ

JEWZ

IN THE

By Nate Bloom Contributing Columnist Shore and Santa I’ve never been a fan of PAULY SHORE, 46. But the fact that Showtime picked-up a documentary about him (“Pauly Shore Stands Alone”) intrigues me. Maybe the serious side of Shore will be more interesting than his comedy. The publicity release for the documentary, which was directed by Shore, says: “Tracks [him] as he embarks on a stand-up tour across the Midwest while grappling with aging, fading fame and his relationship with his mother, Comedy Store founder MITZI SHORE, 84, who has Parkinson’s. Unlike his 2003 directing debut 'Pauly Shore Is Dead,' the new documentary peels back the curtain on the raw, more serious side of Shore’s life on the road. “ (Premieres the evening of Dec. 4. Many encores) I usually don’t mention any of the veritable blizzard of XMAS specials that begin around Thanksgiving. But this one is different. “How Murray Saved Christmas” is an animated special, with some musical numbers, that will be shown on NBC on Friday, Dec. 5 at 8PM. The special is from a best-selling 2004 book of the same name by MIKE REISS, 54, a principal writer of “The Simpsons.” Here’s the “official” plot description: “When Santa’s knocked out cold by a Jack-in-the-Boxer’s walloping punch, Jewish deli owner Murray Kleiner (voiced by JERRY STILLER, 87) reluctantly agrees to take his place.

The suit doesn’t fit, Murray smells a bit like pickles, and there’s no way he can remember the names of all those reindeer.

But with the help of a pushy elf (Sean Hayes) and an eager-tobelieve young boy, Murray finds out that even though he’s not big enough to fill Santa’s suit, he’s got more than enough heart to get the job done.” Murray” features JASON ALEXANDER, 55, as the voice of “Doc Holiday.” This wryly amusing character is a physician who treats famous holiday icons (like Santa and the Groundhog Day Groundhog).

At the Movies Opening on Dec. 5, is “The Homesman,” a rare 19thC. Western that focuses on the often-difficult lives of women living on the frontier. Directed and co-written by Tommy Lee Jones, the film stars Hilary Swank as Mary Cuddy, a former teacher from New York state who has done pretty well financially

WWW.AMERICANISRAELITE.COM

NEWZ

in Nebraska. But she is racked by depression and no man is interested in her because she is viewed as ugly or very plain.

Then, three local women suffer various traumas that cause them to have mental breakdowns and Cuddy volunteers to take them, by horse wagon, to Iowa where a local minister and his wife (John Lithgow and Meryl Streep) have agreed to take them in and help them. (One of the women is played by Streep’s daughter, Grace Gummer). During the difficult trip, Cuddy and the women meet a low-down drifter, George Biggs (Jones). No more “spoilers”, except to mention that HAILEE STEINFELD, 17 (“True Grit”), appears near the end of the film as a possible love interest for the much older Briggs.

Robert Klein on Jewish Funerals Last October, Jay Leno was given the prestigious Mark Twain Award for his comedy career and most PBS stations showed the ceremony last week. No doubt, it will be repeated several times in the next year and the ceremony is viewable on-line. ROBERT KLEIN, 72, worked in some stand-up shtick as he praised Leno. This bit tickled me: “Jay will never retire. You’ll never see him in Florida with an aluminum thing under his chin.

Anyway, I have a beef with Florida. I sent two, vital, 65-yearold parents to South Florida and 30 years later they were dead!

What the hell is going on down there? Anyway, I am feeling my mortality. And I am a few years older than you, Jay, about 7 or 8.

One thing I am hopeful about.

Jews bury quickly. We don’t fool around. No wakes or anything— 5 showings like in Vaudeville. A Jew dies, ‘Zoom! Into the Ground! ‘What the hell happened to Irving?’ ‘He was here a second ago!’ I mean there’s no wasted time. A Jew dies at noon—‘Call the relatives in Phoenix! The funeral is a 2.’! There could be some Talmudic philosophic reason. I don’t know. Maybe it’s get on with life. Maybe let’s remember you as you were. To tell you the truth, the older I get, around my relatives I’m afraid to take a nap lest I be buried prematurely.

PJB---‘Premature Jewish Burial’ is a real epidemic thing in America. As a matter-of-fact, “60 Minutes” was going to do a story on it. But MIKE WALLACE dies and disappeared quickly.

Couldn’t find him.”

FROM THE PAGES 150 Y EARS A GO 150 Years Ago The undersigned inform their friends, and the traveling public in particular, that they have opened a Kosher restaurant at 418, 420 and 422 Broadway, corner of Canal Street, where table d’hote is daily served from 11 1/2 am to 3:30 pm.

As the locality is the most convenient to travel in the city, your patronage is therefore respectfully solicited. Felix Marx and Isaac Ederheimer.

While passing along Fourth Street we noticed at Werner & Gerard’s fashionable Piano store, the arrival of two pianos from the New York Pianoforte Company. Curiosity to hear these celebrated instruments made us wait till they were put upon their legs, and a few touches of their keys convinced us that they were they “ne plus ultra” of Piano manufacturing. What must have gratified the proprietors most was, that during the quarter of an hour we spent there, both instruments were sold, the one to our worthy Provost Marshall, Colonel Roberts, the other one to a wealthy gentleman of Covington. – December 30, 1864

125 Y EARS A GO Again has a woman truly devoted to the cause of Israel gone to that bourne whence none return. Mrs. Henrietta Wolfstein, nee Steinberg, wife of Samuel Wolfstein, of Cincinnati, departed this life on November 26th, after a long illness, and was borne to her last resting place in Judah Touro Cemetery by a large concourse of friends and relatives on November 28th. She was a faithful wife, a tender and self-sacrificing mother, charitable to the poor, and a pious mother in Israel. Her greatest delight was to give with a free hand.

May the earth rest lightly upon her, and may those left behind find comfort in the knowledge that her memory is venerated by all who knew her.

Forty-five children assembled at the residence of Mrs. Gus Rexinger, of Richmond Street, last Monday evening, to celebrate the birthday of her daughter, Lily. The little folks were delightfully entertained.

Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Bohm, celebrated their twenty-fifth marriage anniversary, surrounded by their family, last Saturday evening. – December 12, 1889

100 Y EARS A GO Mr. Milton Dragul and Miss Bertha, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Max Ortner, were married at the residence of the bride’s parents, 306 Sycamore Street. Dr. Grossmann performed the service.

The Cincinnati Section Council of Jewish Juniors gave a very enjoyable entertainment at the Home for Incurables, in which the Misses

Helen Branham, Hannah Cohen, Ruth M. Levi, Helen Glasser and Jean Helen Einstein took part. Each girl brought a large cake, which was much enjoyed. The Council has set aside one Saturday each month to be devoted to entertaining the people at the Home for Incurables, and the young ladies want to say that they enjoyed giving the entertainment fully as much as the people enjoyed listening to it.

Mr. Theodore E. Stroheim, and Miss Hazel H. Hilpp, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Alex C. Hilpp, were married at the Hotel Alms, Dr. Grossmann officiating. – December 3, 1914

75 Y EARS A GO Mr. and Mrs. Sam Bein celebrated their golden wedding anniversary Sunday, December 10th, with a dinner at their residence on Carplin Place.

Mr. and Mrs. William Natorp, 4400 Reading Road, announce the coming marriage of their daughter, Marian, to Mr. Louis Ach, son of Mrs. Lawrence Ach, Thursday, Dec. 28, at 8 p.m., at the home of the bride’s parents and in the presence of the immediate family. Dr. H.G. Hill will officiate. A reception will be held following the ceremony at the Hotel Alms.

On Tuesdays, December 19th, Mrs. Edward Kuhn will give her annual party for the directors and nurses of the Visiting Nurse Association. This custom was originated by Mrs. Kuhn’s mother, the late Mrs. Joseph Ransahoff.

Rabbi Eliezer Silver is chairman of the Emergency Committee which has issued an “Appeal to the Jews of America” for relief of co-religionists abroad. The drive will extend from Hanukkah through two months. – December 14, 1939

50 Y EARS A GO The marriage of Miss Elaine Effron, daughter of Mr. and Mrs.Leon Effron, to Mr. Sami Ninio, son of Mr. and Mrs. Marco Ninio of Tel Aviv, Israel, took place Nov. 25 at Golf Manor Synagogue.

Rabbi David I. Indich officated.

A reception followed at the home of the bride’s parents. Mr. and Mrs. Ninio reside in Bond Hill.

Mr. and Mrs. Harry Rubin announce the marriage of their daughter, Leslie Joy, to Mr. Murray Paul Deckelbaum, son of Mr. and Mrs. Myron Deckelbaum. Mr. Deckelbaum attends Ohio State University. After Jan. 1 the couple will reside in Columbus.

Mr. and Mrs. Richard Fagin (Margaret Strauss), 4506 Perth Lane, announce the birth of a son, Steven, Saturday, Dec. 6. The infant has a brother, David.

The grandparents are Mr. and

Mrs. William Strauss of this city and Mr. and Mrs. Harry Fagin of St. Louis. The great-grandparents are Rabbi and Mrs. Meyer Lovitt of Cincinnati.

Robert D. Friedman, president of Valley Temple, announced that Rabbi David L. Zielonka of Temple Shaarai Zedek, Tampa, Fla. will fly to Cincinnati to deliver the sermon and participate in the installation services for his son, Rabbi David M. Zielonka as rabbi of Valley Temple. – December 10, 1964

25 Y EARS A GO Dr. and Mrs. Eric Orenstein announce the birth of a daughter, Shari Alyce, Dec. 1. Shari has a sister, Marcie Jill, and a brother, David Solomon.

Maternal grandparents are Vivian Goodman and the late Meyer Goodman of Balitmore. Paternal grandparents are Dr. and Mrs. Joseph Orenstein of Silver Spring, MD. Charles and Sharon (Stein) Jordan announce the birth of a son, Eddie Jamel, Nov. 10. Eddie has two brothers, Joseph Asher and Benjamin Gabriel.

Maternal grandparents are Esteel and Al Stein. Paternal grandparents are Bernice Harrison and the late Charlie Jordan of Cleveland. – December 14, 1989

10 Y EARS A GO Jenny and Howard Simons of Mason, Ohio, announce the marriage of their daughter, Andrea, to Joshua Becker of Potomac, Maryland.

The groom is the son of Dr. and Mrs. Matthew Becker of Potomac, Maryland.

Andrea graduated from Sycamore High School and Indiana University. She is employed by Aon Corporation.

Her husband, Joshua, graduated from Indiana University and is employed by Glenco Equity. The couple resides in Chicago.

Pike and Bev (Friedman) Levine will celebrate 60 years of marriage on Sunday, Dec. 26, 2004. They were married at the Netherland Hilton while Pike was on a very short “leave” from the 8th Air Force, where he was a ball turret gunner on a B-17 bomber.

The Levines have three children: Iris (Steven) Pastor; Steve (Karen) Levine; and Lori (Jeff) Luckman, the latter of Newport News, VA. Their grandchildren are: Harry Cohen of Tampa, FL.; Frank (Julie) Cohen of New York City; Max (Jenny Woolf) Pastor of New York City; Sam Pastor of Gainesville, FL.; Louie Pastor of Columbus, OH.; and Suzanne and Courtney Luckman of Newport News, VA. – December 23, 2004

COMMUNITY DIRECTORY / CLASSIFIEDS • 19

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 4, 2014

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(513) 761-3200 • bigbrobigsis.org Camp Ashreinu (513) 702-1513 Camp at the J (513) 722-7258 • mayersonjcc.org Camp Chabad (513) 731-5111 • campchabad.org Camp Livingston (513) 793-5554 •camplivingston.com Cedar Village (513) 754-3100 • cedarvillage.org Chevra Kadisha (513) 396-6426 Cincinnati Community Kollel (513) 631-1118 • kollel.shul.net Cincinnati Community Mikveh (513) 351-0609 •cincinnatimikveh.org Eruv Hotline (513) 351-3788 Fusion Family (513) 703-3343 • fusionnati.org Halom House (513) 791-2912 • halomhouse.com Hillel Jewish Student Center (Miami) (513) 523-5190 • muhillel.org Hillel Jewish Student Center (UC) (513) 221-6728 • hillelcincinnati.org Jewish Cemeteries of Greater Cincinnati 513-961-0178 • jcemcin.org Jewish Community Center (513) 761-7500 • mayersonjcc.org Jewish Community Relations Council (513) 985-1501 Jewish Family Service (513) 469-1188 • jfscinti.org Jewish Federation of Cincinnati (513) 985-1500 • jewishcincinnati.org Jewish Foundation (513) 214-1200 Jewish Information Network (513) 985-1514 JVS Career Services (513) 936-WORK (9675) • www.jvscinti.org Plum Street Temple Historic Preservation Fund (513) 793-2556 Shalom Family (513) 703-3343 • myshalomfamily.org

The Center for Holocaust & Humanity Education (513) 487-3055 • holocaustandhumanity.org Vaad Hoier (513) 731-4671 Workum Fund (513) 899-1836 • workum.org YPs at the JCC (513) 761-7500 • mayersonjcc.org CONGREGATIONS CONGREGATIONS Adath Israel Congregation (513) 793-1800 • adath-israel.org Beit Chaverim (513) 984-3393 • btzbc.com Beth Israel Congregation (513) 868-2049 • bethisraelcongregation.net B’nai Tikvah Chavurah (513) 284-5845 • rabbibruce.com Congregation Beth Adam (513) 985-0400 • bethadam.org Congregation B’nai Tzedek (513) 984-3393 • btzbc.com Congregation Ohav Shalom (513) 489-3399 • ohavshalom.org Congregation Sha’arei Torah (513) 620-8080 • shaareitorahcincy.org Congregation Shevet Achim (513) 426-8613 • shevetachimohio.com Congregation Zichron Eliezer (513) 631-4900 • czecincinnati.org Golf Manor Synagogue (513) 531-6654 • golfmanorsynagogue.org Isaac M. Wise Temple (513) 793-2556 • wisetemple.org Kehilas B’nai Israel (513) 761-0769 Northern Hills Synagogue (513) 931-6038 • nhs-cba.org Rockdale Temple (513) 891-9900 • rockdaletemple.org Temple Beth Shalom (513) 422-8313 • tbsohio.org Temple Sholom (513) 791-1330 • templesholom.net The Valley Temple (513) 761-3555 • valleytemple.com

EDUCA EDUCATION Chai Tots Early Childhood Center (513) 234.0600 • chaitots.com Chabad Blue Ash (513) 793-5200 • chabadba.com Cincinnati Hebrew Day School (513) 351-7777 • chds.shul.net HUC-JIR (513) 221-1875 • huc.edu JCC Early Childhood School (513) 793-2122 • mayersonjcc.org Kehilla - School for Creative Jewish Education (513) 489-3399 • kehilla-cincy.com Mercaz High School (513) 792-5082 x104 • mercazhs.org Kulanu (Reform Jewish High School) (513) 262-8849 • kulanucincy.org Regional Institute Torah & Secular Studies (513) 631-0083 Rockwern Academy (513) 984-3770 • rockwernacademy.org Sarah’s Place (513) 531-3151 • sarahsplacecincy.com Yeshivas Lubavitch High School of Cincinnati (513) 631-2452 • ylcincinnati.com ORGANIZATIONS ORGANIZATIONS American Jewish Committee (513) 621-4020 • ajc.org American Friends of Magen David Adom (513) 521-1197 • afmda.org B’nai B’rith (513) 984-1999 BBYO (513) 722-7244 • mayersonjcc.org Hadassah (513) 821-6157 • cincinnati.hadassah.org Jewish Discovery Center (513) 234-0777 • jdiscovery.com Jewish National Fund (513) 794-1300 • jnf.org Jewish War Veterans (937) 886-9566 • jwv.org NA’AMAT (513) 984-3805 • naamat.org National Council of Jewish Women (513) 891-9583 • ncjw.org ORT America (216) 464-3022 • ortamerica.org State of Israel Bonds (513) 793-4440 • israelbonds.com

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IRAN TALKS from page 6 U.S. intransigence.

“It undermines U.S. diplomacy to have sanctions before the deadline,” Nader said Tuesday in an interview.

She said new sanctions could lose the United States the backing of the international community, which President Obama was careful to garner before pushing broad sanctions through the United Nations in 2010.

“If Iran wins the battle of perception, that would make it harder for the U.S. to win concessions from Iran,” Nader said.

Ed Levine, a former top Senate foreign affairs staffer and now a member of the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation’s advisory board, suggested that it was unlikely that Congress would pass new sanctions, if only because of its historical reluctance – even in an adversarial posture toward the White House – to pass legislation that “kills” diplomatic initiatives as opposed to offering an alternative.

EXTREME VIEWS from page 8

INCITEMENT from page 6 prevent settlers from entering the Temple Mount by “any means” and to keep the Temple Mount from being “contaminated” by extremists. (Abbas condemned the synagogue murders.)

But the AIPAC memo, while noting that tamping down incitement was a condition for aid, also reflected in its recommendations the Israeli investment in Abbas as a bulwark against further violence and Hamas.

“The P.A. must continue security cooperation with Israel and take responsibility for controlling the border crossings into Gaza,” the memo said.

Jonathan Schanzer, the vice president of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and the author of the book “State of Failure” about the P.A., said Abbas was walking a high wire – accommodating anti-Israel sentiment while helping to rein in violence.

The danger, Schanzer said, is that the violence may not be easy to control, something Abbas’ prede-

cessor Yasser Arafat discovered amid the second intifada in the early 2000s.

“What he’s doing now is trying to ride the wave of this sentiment,” he said. “He’s flirting with embracing a popular uprising. You get a sense he’s walking in Arafat’s footsteps.”

Zomlot, the Abbas adviser, said Palestinian security forces were not simply a sop to Israeli needs but also a means of improving quality of life for Palestinians. He accused Israel of undercutting the P.A.’s authority with raids into parts of the West Bank, for instance during the searches for the men who kidnapped and murdered three Jewish students over the summer.

“The premise of security cooperation is you do not come into my territory unless we work together,” he said. “Israel has been wrecking this principal, invading Palestinian Area A on a daily basis. You break the contract and ask yourself for how long this commitment will be one sided.”

Palestinian Area A refers to those areas of the West Bank where

the Palestinian Authority is meant to prevail, per the Oslo Accords of the 1990s.

Zomlot said the Palestinians wanted to review other aspects of the relationship, saying that much of what the Oslo agreements outlined no longer held, especially with a substantial portion of Netanyahu’s governing coalition opposing the two-state solution.

This month, the P.A. signed a $660,000 per year contract with the major Washington lobbyist Squire Patton Boggs to “help manage the P.A./U.S. bilateral diplomatic and political relationship” and review the 1994 Paris Protocol governing economic relations, according to O’Dwyer’s, a PR industry newsletter.

“The Paris Protocol assumed a state would emerge within five years,” Zomlot told JTA, noting that its provisions keep the Israeli and Palestinian economies tightly interwoven. “It is no longer capable of serving the needs of the Palestinian economy.”

SENIOR SERVICES

“outrageous, particularly coming from a leading community rabbi and RCA executive member. And to date, the lack of a public expression of remorse from the rabbi and the institutions he serves, or is affiliated with, speaks volumes.”

Meanwhile, in Israel, officials across the political spectrum — from Justice Minister Tzipi Livni of the centrist Hatnua party to Economy Minister Naftali Bennett of the farright Jewish Home party — have spoken out forcefully in recent days against the kind of collective punishment that Pruzansky seems to advocate. And Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last week weighed in with a statement saying, “There can be no discrimination against IsraeliArabs. We must not generalize about an entire public due to a small and violent minority. The vast majority of Israel’s Arab citizens are law abiding and whoever breaks the law, we will take determined and vigorous action against him.”

In his blog post, Pruzansky faulted Israelis for failing to recognize their enemies.

“Israel has to act, especially as the violence has spiraled out of con-

• • • • •

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(513) 531-9600 “Most of the proposals [Congress has] made over the last year or so have died in subcommittee,” Levine said at an event Tuesday organized by the Brookings Institution. “You want a piece of legislation that will help the negotiations rather than antagonizing our allies,” although he said that also was unlikely given the “maximalist” conditions some in Congress have embraced.

Dennis Ross, a former top Iran adviser to Obama, said the mere threat of additional sanctions may be useful as leverage as the talks go forward.

“The administration could go to the Congress and suggest, ‘Give us a chance to negotiate this; imposing new sanctions would make it problematic,’ “ Ross, now a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said in a conference call convened Tuesday by the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs. “ ‘How about making it clear new sanctions will be forthcoming if there isn’t an agreement?’ “ trol,” he wrote. “At a certain point, the unrestrained behavior of unruly animals becomes the fault of the zookeeper, not the animals.”

Among other things, Pruzansky suggested relocating the mosque atop the Temple Mount to Saudi Arabia and said Arab-Israelis who support terror should forfeit their citizenship, though “those who wish to stay and be peaceful, acknowledging the sovereignty of the Jewish people in the land of Israel, are welcome to stay.”

In the interview with JTA, along with saying he didn’t believe his views were outlandish, Pruzansky said his mosque suggestion was a bit tongue in cheek.

“My words properly understood find a very receptive audience,” he said.

Within his own synagogue, Pruzansky said the response to his commentary on Israel, Arabs and the Obama administration’s Middle East policies range from complete agreement to complete disagreement, with everything in between.

“I think and write the truth as I know it,” he said. “Some people accept it fully, some people accept parts and some reject it. I respect that.”

20 • LEGALLY SPEAKING

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The Good-Faith Exception to the Warrant Requirement Legally Speaking

by Marianna Bettman This began as a routine case. In November 2011, a Toledo police detective filed three criminal complaints and requests for arrest warrants to a deputy clerk of the Toledo Municipal Court, charging a man named Brandon Hoffman with the misdemeanor offenses of theft, criminal damaging, and house stripping. Each complaint cited the pertinent statute, the elements of the charged offenses, and contained a short narrative statement of the victim, the location of the offense, and the property taken.

The clerk issued the warrants, which are supposed to be based on probable cause. Two weeks after the arrest warrants were issued, police responded to a call to Scott Holzhauer's house. They found Holzhauer's dead body and an open, empty gun safe.

One of Holzhauer's neighbors stated that a man named Brandon had recently visited Holzhauer, and had been interested in buying guns from him.

Further information identified Brandon as Hoffman, and a computer check disclosed the active misdemeanor arrest warrants.

The officers decided to execute the arrest warrants. They went to the address listed on the warrants and, after knocking and being let in the door, found and arrested Hoffman. At the time of the arrest, they discovered a gun on the floor and a cell phone, both later identified as belonging to Holzhauer.

On December 6, 2012, Hoffman was indicted for aggravated murder and aggravated robbery. He was later convicted of both offenses and sentenced to life without parole. Hoffman challenged the legality of his arrest and filed a motion to suppress all evidence obtained, on the ground that the arrest warrants were invalid because they were issued without a finding of probable cause.

HERZLIYA CONDO from page 8 Fierstein, author Joseph Telushkin, singer David Broza and Bill Bratton, the New York City police commissioner.

The synagogue is open yearround, but Schneier is only there from May through November; the peak is the summer season. Schneier divides the rest of his time between New York

The Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution states that “no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.” The Ohio Constitution has an almost identical provision.

What happened in this case was truly shocking. The deputy clerk of the Toledo Municipal Court admitted under oath that she had never asked a police officer a single question before issuing warrants. She just gave the officer the oath, issued the warrants, and entered them into the computer system.

She issued arrest warrants without making any probable cause determination, does not know what probable cause is, and has no qualifications to make such a determination. This has apparently been the practice in the Toledo Municipal Court for seventeen years. Toledo Municipal Court guidelines for clerks issuing warrants backed up her testimony. Nowhere in the guidelines are clerks instructed on making a finding of probable cause. The supervisor who created the guidelines also admitted she didn't know what probable cause was and had never made a probable cause determination.

The trial judge found there was clearly a constitutional violation herethe issuance of the warrants without probable cause. So now what? One remedy established long ago by the U.S. Supreme Court for such violations is the exclusionary rule. Under that rule, evidence seized in violation of the Fourth Amendment can be excluded from a trial. This rule was designed to deter police misconduct.

But in recent years, the justices have become very concerned about the cost to society and to the justice system itself because of the exclusionary rule.

The “bottom line” of exclusion, in the words of a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision, “is to suppress the truth and set the criminal loose in the community without punishment.” So an exception to that rule, known as the goodfaith exception to the exclusionary rule, has gotten more and more currency.

Under this rule, evidence obtained by way of a defective search warrant is admissible at trial, so long as the warrant was obtained in good faith and the officer had reasonable grounds for believing the warrant was properly issued. This exception has been extended to arrest warrants. In these kinds of cases, mistakes weren't made

by the police officers, but by those in the judicial branch, so police misconduct is not the problem that needs to be remedied.

Hoffman argued that the 17 year pattern and practice of the Toledo police submitting bare bones complaints which were then rubber-stamped by the Toledo Municipal Court, without any probable cause determination, was so egregious as to warrant exclusion of the evidence in his case.

The state argued that the exclusionary rule was designed to deter police misconduct, and it should not be applied to hold law enforcement responsible for the errors of judicial employees. The state further argued that the officers relied in good faith on the arrest warrants, and couldn't reasonably have been expected to question their validity when the court of appeals in their jurisdiction had approved the procedure in question.

In the Ohio appellate district where this happened, this improper warrantissuing practice had been okayed in an old decision that was still on the books and had never been overruled. That proved to be key to the court's decision.

In a 6-1 opinion written by Justice Judy Lanzinger, the court held that the officers involved had no reason to doubt the validity of the warrants, and had relied in good faith with what to them was an approved procedure. So suppression of the evidence was not required.

Nevertheless, the court-and Justice Lanzinger in particular, who is from Toledo--was clearly embarrassed by this situation. Going forward, things are going to be very different in the Toledo Municipal Court. The old appellate precedent was disapproved.

The court made it crystal clear that the procedure had to change immediately, and that police officers could no longer rely in good faith on warrants issued under the old system.

Justice Paul Pfeifer dissented in the case. To Pfeifer, the officer involved did not have a good faith reason to believe the warrants were properly issued. He would have suppressed the evidence in the case. He wrote, “the facts of this case suggest that the residents of Lucas County have been the subject of innumerable warrants that were issued as if by the police department itself. The warrants were issued virtually without scrutiny, and it is inconceivable that the officers did not realize this.”

and Palm Beach, Fla., where he is a guest rabbi twice a month, and traveling around the world promoting the Muslim-Jewish reconciliation work he does as part of his Foundation for Ethnic Understanding.

Schneier says he hasn’t decided yet what his presence in Herzliya Pituach will be, but he expects to have a residence there – which he’ll get at a discounted rate because of his role in

the project. A promotional video that the project recently released features Schneier standing in front of the Long Island coast and talking about his personal connection to Herzliya Pituach (he summered there in 1989).

“This is not a mass appeal to make aliyah,” Schneier said. “This is really about trying to find a conduit to elevate people’s commitment to Israel.”

“Don’t let auto insurers off the hook” Recovering diminution of value/loss of use damages.

A LEGAL LOOK

by Michael Ganson Prior to 2007, the only two recognized but mutually exclusive methods for determining the amount of recoverable damages to a vehicle in a car crash in Ohio were: (1) the difference between the vehicle’s fair market value immediately before the collision and its fair market value immediately after the collision, i.e., usually the salvage value of the wreckage, where the vehicle could not be repaired; or (2) the cost of repairs plus the loss of use of the vehicle for the reasonable time necessary to make the repairs where the vehicle was reparable. Noteworthy, in the situation where the vehicle is a total loss, Ohio law did not allow a claim for a rental car substitute or loss of use once the vehicle is deemed to be a total loss. The basic, controlling legal principle for both of these methods for the measure of property damages to motor vehicles was to make the injured party “whole.”

After July 2007, the Franklin County Court of Appeals added an additional measure of damages. It decided that where there is proof that the value of the vehicle after repairs is less than its pre-market value, recovery of the residual diminution in value of the vehicle in addition to the cost of repairs is permitted; provided that one may not recover money for damages in excess of the difference between the market value of the vehicle immediately before and immediately after the collision.

The rationale for allowing the recovery of residual diminution in value is the same as for the two previously recognized alternative methods of calculating property damage involving a motor vehicle: to make the person who’s vehicle is damaged in a crash caused by another “whole.”

Diminished value means a vehicle that is properly repaired to industry standards following a collision may be worth less than it was immediately before the collision. The burden of proof

necessary to establish diminution in value of a vehicle requires: (1) the introduction of evidence to establish the difference in the value of the vehicle pre-collision and the post-repair value of the vehicle; and (2) the introduction of evidence to establish the difference in the fair market value of the vehicle immediately before and immediately after the collision since the cost of repair together with the residual diminution in value of the vehicle cannot exceed this difference.

To meet this burden, what kind of evidence is available to establish the pre-collision value, the post-collision value and the post-repair value of the vehicle to allow for the calculation and justification of an award of residual diminution in value damages?

The most reliable (and most expensive) source of valuation evidence can be obtained through the use of a qualified and experienced automobile appraiser, who will inspect the vehicle and prepare a detailed evaluation taking into account the multiple individualized factors particular to your vehicle upon which a determination of the diminution in value of the vehicle can be based.

Qualified, competent and experienced automobile appraisers can be obtained through such organizations as the American Society of Appraisers/Automobile Specialties Appraisals whose appraisers are required to be compliant with the Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice or the National Association of Automobile Dealers. There are also a myriad of private automobile appraisal groups from which valuation appraisers can be obtained. Another wellspring of competent and experienced automobile valuation appraisers may be your local car dealership owners or managers. Remember that regardless of the source of the appraiser retained, the appraiser hired must be able to qualify as an expert and provided proper foundations for their valuation opinions pursuant to Ohio law.

There are other ways to determine the amount of the diminished value of the vehicle postrepair, but they are subject to challenge by the lawyer hired by the auto insurer in the absence of live testimony by a qualified appraiser - the expense of which may be more than the amount of the diminished value of the vehicle post-repair being sought.

FIRST PERSON • 21

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 4, 2014

This Year in Jerusalem This Year in Jerusalem

by Phyllis Singer In last week’s edition of the New York Jewish Week, editor and publisher Gary Rosenblatt wrote about attending the annual conference of Chabad shluchim (emissaries) that was then taking place in New York City.

While Rosenblatt was most impressed by “the passion, commitment and joy of these men: for their beloved Rebbe, Menachem M. Schneerson, even 20 years after his death; for each other, bound together in service; and for their fellow Jews, to whom they dedicate their lives in the hope of bringing them closer to Yiddishkeit,” he wrote that the shluchim themselves “seemed most impressed with the keynote address by speaker of the Knesset Yuli Edelstein – not because of his title in the Israeli government but because of his very personal story. “[Edelstein] spoke of how he found Judaism through Chabad in his native Communist Russia and how it sustained him during the dark years he spent in a Siberian hard labor camp after being arrested for teaching Hebrew and seeking to emigrate to Israel.

“He recalled putting on a pair of tefillin that had been smuggled into the prison and secretly praying in them for several weeks until they were discovered and destroyed by guards. His punishment was 15 days in solitary confinement. “‘I am here today because of a debt I can never pay back,’” Edelstein said. ‘A debt I owe to the Rebbe and to the shluchim … You are the best Torah ambassadors in the world.’”

Reading Rosenblatt’s article reminded me of a session I attended several months ago at the Jewish Media Summit where I heard Edelstein and his dear friend Natan Sharansky discuss their stories of imprisonment in the former Soviet Union and, ultimately, their aliyah to Israel – Sharansky in 1986 and Edelstein in 1987.

At that session, the bond and the friendship between the two men were palpable – as was their shared sense of humor as they bounced jokes off one another. Also evident was their unshakable commitment to Israel and

the Jewish people.

Discussing his life as a prisoner, Sharansky said, “You know you are in the center of a historic struggle.

You don’t know how the saga is going to end, [but] you have to decide to remain a free person until the end of your life. That is the challenge.”

“It is really believing that you can make it,” Edelstein added.

Both former Prisoners of Zion demonstrated tremendous love and respect for their wives. Each woman played an important role during her husband’s imprisonment. Avital (then Natalya) Sharansky, who was separated from her husband as he was imprisoned the day after their wedding, traveled the world to try to convince leaders and politicians to use their influence to convince the Soviets to release Natan (then Anatoly).

(Among her visits in the United States was a stop in Cincinnati – I don’t remember the year – where she met reporters from various newspapers, including The Israelite. Several years ago, I met her at a reception and reminded her that I had interviewed her when she visited Cincinnati while traversing the United States. She told me that she can’t remember all the cities that she visited in those days.)

On the other hand, Edelstein’s wife, Tatiana, who died last January, stayed in the Soviet Union to bring strength to her imprisoned husband and traveled thousands of miles to visit him in the Gulag, often to arrive at the prison and be told the visit had been canceled.

Natan and Avital arrived in Israel in 1986, Yuli and Tatiana in 1987.

Both men joined “the establishment,” even though they had said they would not. “We realized after a few years that if we wanted to get things done, we had to get our hands dirty,” Edelstein said.

Finally, after the massive influx of immigrants from the former Soviet Union, they formed the Yisrael b’Aliyah party to help new olim.

“We’re a different kind of party,” Sharansky quipped. “We go to prison first.”

After three times being elected to the Knesset, they began to think of different avenues. After the 2003 election when Yisrael b’Aliyah didn’t do so well, they decided to become part of Likud. Edelstein became minister of absorption, then minister of diaspora affairs and finally, after the 2013 elections, speaker of the Knesset. Sharansky never felt comfortable in politics, and so he left and is now chairman of the Jewish Agency. “I find the Jewish Agency comforting,” he said, “even with all the headaches.”

“Sharansky is dying to be speaker of the Knesset,” Edelstein said, “but he just doesn’t know how to put on a tie.”

Kutsher’s documentary captures the eclectic legacy of a Borscht Belt relic

By Jeffrey F. Barken (JNS) – When young independent music enthusiasts descended on the antiquated Jewish resort of Kutsher’s for an international indie rock concert series in 2008, it was “kind of like ‘Cocoon’ meets ‘The Shining,’” Barry Hogan recalls in the forthcoming documentary film “Welcome to Kutsher’s: The Last Catskills Resort.”

The comment by Hogan, founder of the All Tomorrow’s Parties music festival organization, exemplifies the widening generational gap that ultimately forced Kutsher’s to close in December 2013. Yet despite the hotel’s obvious state of physical decline, Hogan observes, the venue still had the right charm and “intimate” stage for bands and indie “nerd” fans to raise the roof during electric performances.

Similar nostalgia, pride, and humor characterize the other interviews in “Welcome to Kutsher’s,” which is premiering Dec. 6 in Palm Beach, Fla. Viewers will be treated to a quirky smorgasbord of “Borscht Belt” culture. Directors Ian Rosenberg and Caroline Laskow explore the origins of Jewish American investment in the Catskill Mountains, beginning in the late 19th century. Next, the filmmaking pair visits Kutsher’s Country Club. This prominent hotel was a magnet for vacationing Jewish families, as well as a springboard to success for prominent entertainers and gifted athletes, throughout the latter half of the 20th century.

Now that the Catskills region is in decline, the film honors the legacy of those who made summer memories so colorful for so many generations, and sheds new light on a vibrant chapter of the American Jewish experience.

Mark Kutsher, then the hotel’s owner, was proud to host the indie rock concert series in 2008.

Staying true to his family’s inviting and experimenting business

STOP RECKLESS from page 16 have led to true dialogue; sad that Harvard administrators allowed an event promoting an end to the national existence of the Jewish people to take place under Harvard’s auspices; and said that the names and institutional prestige of major corporations were used to give legitimacy to the BDS campaign.

I sent inquiries to senior executives at every sponsor company before the conference, but the panel went on. After the conference, a senior

style, he admires the youthful spirit and dedication of the festival participants, even though he finds their loud music “physically damaging.”

Indeed, the famous concert hall at Kutsher’s is a cherished relic of an illustrious past. Ray Charles performed there. Jay Leno, Jerry Seinfeld, the late Joan Rivers, and many other stars made regular appearances at the hotel at some point in their careers.

Assembling this cast of characters epitomized the inclusive spirit that was at the heart of the Borscht Belt experience.

We shouldn’t forget that the Jewish resorts in the Catskills “were created in large part because other hotels in the region refused to admit Jews around the turn of the century through the 1930s,” Rosenberg reminds audiences.

“The phrase, ‘No Hebrews or Consumptives’ were included in advertisements for these restricted hotels,” he says.

The culture of Kutsher’s and other Jewish hotels in the Catskills evolved to accommodate religiously observant patrons, providing Friday night and holiday services as well as kosher cooking.

For the first time in history, it was possible for strictly religious Jewish families to go on holiday.

The story of Kutsher’s is also a tale of assimilation. Ironically, the oppressed population that initially sought refuge and release in the form of an affordable and accessible family vacation ultimately outgrew the resorts that had nurtured their prospering culture. The Catskills no longer appealed to newly affluent Jews.

One poignant moment in the film recounts the effect the advent of jet travel had on the hotel. “As things went on, people were asking for all the amenities with the hotel,” family matriarch Helen Kutsher, regarded the “First Lady of the Catskills,” says.

“Do you have an indoor pool?

Do you have a golf course?”

callers would often ask before making a reservation, according to Helen. “They wanted everything. … I asked many people, ‘Do you play golf? Do you like swimming?’ ‘No,’ they’d answer, ‘but I like to know that you have it.’”

Competition for Kutsher’s was intense, as luxury hotels proliferated around the country, offering deluxe packages with no discriminatory barriers to entry. Likewise, Caribbean cruises came into vogue. Even more alluring, the prospect of buying property in Florida, where aging patrons could live on what became known as “permanent vacation,” defined decades of exodus from the Catskills tradition.

Perhaps the most nostalgic description of a vacation culture in decline can be found in the popular film “Dirty Dancing,” which depicts a Jewish resort “largely believed to be based on Kutsher’s,” says Laskow. Towards the end of the film, Max Kellerman (Jake Weston), a fictional hotel owner, watches the season-ending pageant and remarks, “It all seems to be ending. You think kids want to come with their parents to take foxtrot lessons? Trips to Europe, that’s what the kids want. Twenty-two countries in three days.”

From the 1970s through the 1990s, diverging interests and a widening generation gap unraveled the close-knit traditions that Jewish families had established at their favorite Catskills resort.

What exactly are these traditions?

“Welcome to Kutsher’s” won’t leave you “hungry” for details.

The documentary focuses on the Jewish home cooking that earned the region its “Borscht Belt” nickname. Viewers will enjoy learning about the unique personalities in the Kutsher family that contributed to the hotel’s family-oriented atmosphere. Dedicated employees recount the warm feelings they harbor for the owners, and guests share fond memories of their family vacations.

McKinsey spokesman wrote to me to apologize for the firm’s involvement with the conference: “The firm does not knowingly associate its name with political issues and debates.”

I believe it is likely that the other corporate sponsors also did not intend to have their funds used to promote the BDS movement.

Corporations and universities should not lend mainstream legitimacy to such a radical and odious movement, nor should they provide funding or resources to events that demonize Israel as this one did.

I hope Harvard and the corporations that sponsored Harvard Arab Weekend — and in doing so sponsored the BDS panel — will publicly pledge to be more vigilant in the future and never again associate their names or provide funding to any movement that seeks to destroy Israel.

(Sara K. Greenberg is a joint master’s degree student at the Harvard Business School and Harvard Kennedy School. This piece first appeared in the Harvard Crimson. You can listen to the full audio of the BDS panel here.)

22 • OBITUARIES D EATH N OTICES STRICKER, Peggy K., age 90, died November 24, 2014; 2 Kislev, 5775.

HAUENSTEIN, William F., age 74, died November 26, 2014; 4 Kislev, 5775.

MAYERSOHN, Judith Knoop, age 75, died November 27, 2014; 5 Kislev, 5775.

LISCOW, Beverly J., age 84, died November 29, 2014; 7 Kislev, 5775.

CHERNYAKOV, Vera, age 87, died November 29, 2014; 8 Kislev, 5775.

LICHTIN, Beverly, age 90, died November 30, 2014; 9 Kislev, 5775.

KWIATEK; Jack, age 90, died December 1, 2014; 9 Kislev, 5775.

O BITUARIES BUCHHEIM, Gerd Gerd Buchheim was born to Willy Buchheim & Rose Oppenhein in 1925 in Bad Wildugen, a small resort town in Germany. His early years were spent in Nazi Germany and his family was fortunate enough to miraculously escape shortly after his bar mitzvah, and Kristallnacht.

Just before Kristallnacht, Gerd was able to save and hide a Torah scroll in the city of Kassel and later one from his synagogue. He, his brother Fitz, and his father were sent to Buchenwald. The officer sent Gerd home since he was too young and his brother and father were both released shortly after. Gerd’s father managed to secure visas to Bolivia and the family settled in Cochabamba in 1938. Somehow, Gerd managed to bring both Torahs with him and donated them to local synagogues.

Mr. Buchheim began his career as a pastry chef extraordinaire in Bolivia first serving as an apprentice and later working in hotels in Argentina. His son Jay recalls, “Dad loved German and South American culture, music and dancing. He was particularly fond of a Bolivian dish called Salteñas and even asked my brother Gary to bring some from Washington D.C. just a week ago.”

Mr Buchheim’s journey as a chef continued with his lifelong partner, Edith Amalie Block, who he married on September 26, 1953. Edith was another German émigré living in Argentina. Shortly after their wedding Gerd and Edith moved to New York and within a year to Cincinnati, Ohio. After 5 years working for the local Busken Bakery he opened up his own shop.

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Buchheim Bakery opened in 1960 and was located in Golf Manor. The bakery was kosher and was frequented by the Cincinnati Jewish community. Gerd worked there with his wife Edith, brother Fred, and sister-in-law Lore. He sold his interest in the bakery in 1973 to his brother.

Although Gerd spent some time working in the baking supply business, his real love was always baking and pastry creations. In 1980 he took the position of Executive Pastry Chef at the Cincinnati Westin Hotel, assisted by his wife Edith who worked there as Assistant Pastry Chef. After 6 years he and Edith again opened a place of their own, The Pastry Shoppe, in Montgomery.

In 1990 the business moved to Blue Ash and was renamed Maya’s after Gerd’s first granddaughter. One of Maya’s specialties was the saltenas that Gerd learned to loved in Bolivia. His son Jay joined the enterprise as well. Mr. Buchheim was named Entrepreneur of the year by the Blue Ash/Montgomery Rotary in 2000. Edith, passed away in 2000; they had been married for 48 years.

The store closed in 2003.

Even without a business to run Gerd remained busy as a volunteer at a number of Jewish institutions and agencies. From 2004 – 2012 he served as a volunteer with the Jewish Vocational Service, working with handicapped adults, and then as a baker at Golf Manor Synagogue. He received honors from both organizations. Gerd was recognized by the Jewish Federation of Cincinnati as one of their volunteers of the year.

He continued to bake at Golf Manor Synagogue until the age of 87 when his health forced him to retire.

Gerd Buchheim passed away on Sunday, November 23, 2014, at Cedar Village in Mason, Ohio.

Survivors include Linda and David Tadir of Moshav Nir Moshe, Israel, Rebecca and Shmuel Birkan of Blue Ash, Ohio, Gary and Anita Buchheim of Springfield, Virginia, and Jay Buchheim and Thom Maxwell of Cincinnati. He also leaves eight grandchildren and four great- grandchildren.

Other survivors include his brother-in-law and sister-in-law, Lothar and Anita Haas of Cedar Village, Mason, Ohio; his sister-inlaw Lore Buchheim of Coconut Creek, Florida, and his dear friend and companion Juanita Weiss of Cedar Village, Mason, Ohio.

Services were held on November 24th at Weil Funeral Home, Rabbi Hanan Balk & Rabbi Stuart Lavenda officiated. Shiva was observed at the home of Rebecca & Shmuel Birkan.

Contributions in his memory can be sent to Cedar Village Nursing Home or charity of one’s choice.

POLITICAL LEFT from page 16 If the left-wing Italian philosopher Gianni Vattimo is correct when he gushes that “anti-Zionism is synonymous with leftist world politics,” then responsible voices on the left need to consider where that will take them.

The fact is that, in the west, “Palestine” is now the primary cause of anti-Jewish violence and anti-Semitic sentiment. That is less shocking when you realize that incitement against Jews, demonization of Zionism, and terNUCLEAR TALKS from page 9 difficult economic situation in Iran is largely attributed to the Western sanctions placed on the country and a recent decline in the price of oil— Iran’s largest source of income. The tough economic climate has created added pressure on the Iranian government to deliver a nuclear deal that would relieve sanctions and end the country’s international isolation.

Within the Iranian government, there are two factions maneuvering to formulate a deal with the P5+1 powers. The more hardline faction is led by Khamenei, who has rejected proposed nuclear deals in the past, including in 2009. The so-called “moderate” faction is led by Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, who came to power in 2013 with a promise of improving Iran’s foreign relations and reviving the economy, and would seemingly be a more flexible negotiating partner for the West.

TO PRAY OR NOT from page 10 the Temple Mount is Rabbi Stewart Weiss, a Jerusalem Post columnist whose day job is directing the Ra’anana-based Jewish Outreach Center. Though many Israelis don’t think Jews should be able to pray at the Temple Mount—whether it be out of fear of angering Muslims or accidentally trampling over the Holy of Holies—Weiss argued “that we not allow ourselves to be intimidated by rioting, which then results in the police clamping down further on Jews on the site.”

The claim that a Jewish presence on the Temple Mount “inflames” Muslim sensitivities and invites disaster is disingenuous, according to Weiss. “While today the Mount may indeed be a flashpoint for [Muslims], last week it was the light rail, and tomorrow it may be the Malcha Mall [in Jerusalem],” he said.

“What shall we do when they riot en masse at the Kotel, or at the Cave of Machpela (Hebron’s Cave of the Patriarchs)… Shall we forbid Jewish worship there, too?”

rorist violence against Israelis is what defines the present strategies of the main rival Palestinian groups, Fatah and Hamas.

But it would take a left-wing leader with guts to declare that there is no place for these politics in our societies, that neither civic, nor social, nor racial equality are advanced by their presence here, that it is time for progressives to give their solidarity to the Yazidis of Iraq and the Rohingya of Burma, and not just the Palestinians.

It would take guts to say that

critics of Israeli policy need to dissociate themselves from antiZionist, eliminationist rhetoric if they want to be taken at face value. And it would take guts to defend Muslim minorities from bigotry and racism while, at the exact same time, urging their leaders to confront the anti-Semitism plaguing these same communities.

Yet if there does turn out to be a leader on the left who is willing to say these things, then he—or she—is fully deserving of the title “mensch.”

Many within the Iranian government, however, also view nuclear weapons as a necessary deterrent against instability in the Middle East.

“Iran, like Israel, sits in a region surrounded by the Arabs and is a minority Shi’a religion,” Amirahmadi said.

“It has problems with the Kurds, the Turks, and of course the Arabs. It is a very isolated in many ways and security is always an issue. … I think if Iran could be assured about its security, it would be persuaded to give up its nuclear weapons program [and] its missile development, and become a more friendly state,” he said.

Ultimately, all sides of the debate within Iran itself are united on promoting what they call “Iran’s basic nuclear rights” such as maintaining uranium enrichment capacity on Iranian soil, which is one of the key sticking points between the P5+1 and the Islamic Republic.

“The Iranian leadership is absolutely committed to building nuclear weapons and will use any agreement to further that end,” said Pipes.

Amirahmadi also believes that Israeli fears regarding Iran’s incitement against the Jewish state are also not necessarily exaggerated. While he said there is “no historical animosity between Iran and the Jewish people,” he also argued that Islamic fundamentalism has hijacked the Iranian-Israeli relationship.

“If you go back to the very history early of Islam, you see that many Muslim leaders massacred Jews, such as the first Shi’a Imam Ali,” he said.

“Governments come and go, what remains is the people. I am concerned that the animosity between the two governments spreads into the minds of the two people,” added Amirahmadi.

Yitzhak Sokoloff agrees that the issue goes well beyond this trapezoidal piece of land. A veteran political analyst and the president of Kesher, an educational tour business, Sokoloff called the Temple Mount situation “very dangerous stuff.”

“It’s being used to manipulate the Muslims—anytime their political leadership wants to create violence on the streets, they fire up their followers with talk about the Jewish ‘settlers’ attacking the Temple Mount,” he said. “In recent years it’s become a very clever rallying cry.”

Indeed, in October, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas warned that “we have to prevent the settlers from entering the Temple Mount by any means.

It is our mosque and they have no right to enter and desecrate it.”

So what is likely to be the fate of the Temple Mount? Like Feigin, many Israelis are pessimistic about the situation. The “Peace Index” survey found that less than onethird of Israeli Jews (31 percent) believe there is now a chance to reach an agreement that will allow

both Jews and Muslims to pray there on a regular basis.

But Sokoloff sees a ray of hope, however thin.

“We will always stick to the idea that holy places have to be shared,” he said. “We make it clear that we are not fighting to turn it into the third Temple but that, yes, Jews have a right to pray up there, as do Muslims.”

Weiss said a synagogue should be built on the Temple Mount, at a reasonable distance away from both Al-Aqsa and the Dome of the Rock.

“It wouldn’t threaten [Muslims worshippers] in any way,” he said.

“There is plenty of room up there, that’s not an issue, and it can be built in a place that in no way raises halachic concerns [about trespassing on the Holy of Holies].”

“It can be done peacefully,” added Weiss. “But when it comes to the Muslim ideology that Israel is Muslim land and they’re the only ones who should be allowed to pray in this country, we need to make it very clear that this is our country and we can’t be gun-shy.”

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