Steinhardt to Make History
Can Ashkenazi Food be Cool?
Remembering Ruth Sulzberger Holmberg
VOL. 1, NO. 8 | APRIL 26 – MAY 2, 2017 | NEWS THAT MATTERS TO JEWISH COMMUNITIES IN THE NEW YORK CITY METROPOLITAN AREA | NYJLIFE.COM | FREE
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It’s about great public schools
2 | NYJLIFE.COM | APRIL 26 – MAY 2, 2017
THE DECL ARATION OF THE ESTABLISHMEN
T OF
The State of Israel
ERETZ-ISRAEL [(Hebrew) - the Land of Israel, Palest ine] was the birthplace of the Jewish people. Here their spiritual, religious and political identity was shaped. Here they first attained to statehood, created cultural values of national and universal significance and gave to the world the eternal Book of Books. After being forcibly exiled from their land, the peop le kept faith with it throughout their Dispersion and never ceased to pray and hope for their return to it and for the restoration in it of their political freedom. Impelled by this historic and traditional attachment , Jews strove in every successive generation to re-establish themselves in their ancient homeland. In recent decades they returned in their masses. Pioneers, ma’pilim [(Hebrew) - immigrants coming to Eretz-Israel in defiance of restrictive legislation] and defenders, they made deserts bloom, revived the Hebrew language, built villages and towns, and created a thriving community controlling its own economy and cultur e, loving peace but knowing how to defend itself, bringing the blessings of progress to all the country’s inhabitants, and aspiring towards indep endent nationhood. In the year 5657 (1897), at the summons of the spiritu al father of the Jewish State, Theodore Herzl, the First Zionist Congress convened and proclaimed the right of the Jewish people to nation al rebirth in its own country. This right was recognized in the Balfour Declaration of the 2nd November, 1917, and re-affirmed in the Mandate of the League of Nations which, in particular, gave international sanction to the historic connection between the Jewish peop le and Eretz-Israel and to the right of the Jewish people to rebuild its National Home. The catastrophe which recently befell the Jewis h people - the massacre of millions of Jews in Europ e - was another clear demonstration of the urgency of solving the problem of its home lessness by re-establishing in Eretz-Israel the Jewis h State, which would open the gates of the homeland wide to every Jew and confer upon the Jewish people the status of a fully privileged member of the comity of nations. Survivors of the Nazi holocaust in Europe, as well as Jews from other parts of the world, continued to migrate to Eretz-Israel, undaunted by difficulties, restrictions and dangers, and never ceased to assert their right to a life of dignity, freed om and honest toil in their national homeland. In the Second World War, the Jewish community of this country contributed its full share to the strugg nations against the forces of Nazi wickedness and, le of the freedom- and peace-loving by the blood of its soldiers and its war effort, gaine d the right to be reckoned among the peoples who founded the United Nations. On the 29th November, 1947, the United Nations General Assembly passed a resolution calling for the establishment of a Jewish State in EretzIsrael; the General Assembly required the inhab itants of Eretz-Israel to take such steps as were neces sary on their part for the implementation of that resolution. This recognition by the United Natio ns of the right of the Jewish people to establish their State is irrevocable. This right is the natural right of the Jewish peop le to be masters of their own fate, like all other nation s, in their own sovereign State. ACCORDINGLY WE, MEMBERS OF THE PEOPLE’S COUNCIL, REPRESENTATIVES OF THE JEWISH COM THE ZIONIST MOVEMENT, ARE HERE ASSEMBLED MUNITY OF ERETZ-ISRAEL AND OF ON THE DAY OF THE TERMINATION OF THE BRITIS H MANDATE OVER ERETZ-ISRAEL AND, BY VIRTUE OF OUR NATURAL AND HISTORIC RIGH T AND ON THE STRENGTH OF THE RESOLUTIO N OF THE UNITED NATIONS GENERAL ASSEMBLY, HEREBY DECLARE THE ESTABLISHM ENT OF A JEWISH STATE IN ERETZ-ISRAEL, TO BE KNOWN AS THE STATE OF ISRAEL. WE DECLARE that, with effect from the moment of the termination of the Mandate being tonight, the eve of Sabbath, the 6th Iyar, 5708 (15th May, 1948), until the establishment of the electe d, regular authorities of the State in accordance with the Constitution which shall be adopted by the Elected Constituent Assembly not later than the 1st October 1948, the People’s Council shall act as a Provisional Council of State, and its executive organ, the People’s Administration, shall be the Provisional Government of the Jewish State, to be called “Israel”. THE STATE OF ISRAEL will be open for Jewish immig ration and for the Ingathering of the Exiles; it will foster the development of the country for the benefit of all its inhabitants; it will be based on freedom, justice and peace as envisaged by the prophets of Israel; it will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhab itants irrespective of religion, race or sex; it will guarantee freedom of religion, conscience, language, education and culture; it will safeguard the Holy Places of all religions; and it will be faithfu l to the principles of the Charter of the United Nations. THE STATE OF ISRAEL is prepared to cooperate with the agencies and representatives of the Unite d Nations in implementing the resolution of the General Assembly of the 29th November, 1947, and will take steps to bring about the economic union of the whole of Eretz-Israel. WE APPEAL to the United Nations to assist the Jewis h people in the building-up of its State and to receiv nations. e the State of Israel into the comity of WE APPEAL - in the very midst of the onslaught launched against us now for months - to the Arab inhabitants of the State of Israel to preserve peace and participate in the upbuilding of the State on the basis of full and equal citizenship and due representation in all its provisional and permanent institutions. WE EXTEND our hand to all neighbouring states and their peoples in an offer of peace and good neighbourliness, and appeal to them to establish bonds of cooperation and mutual help with the sovereign Jewish people settled in its own land. The State of Israel is prepared to do its share in a common effort for the advancement of the entire Middle East. WE APPEAL to the Jewish people throughout the Diaspora to rally round the Jews of Eretz-Israel in the tasks of immigration and upbuilding and to stand by them in the great struggle for the realization of the age-old dream - the redemption of Israel. PLACING OUR TRUST IN THE “ROCK OF ISRAEL”, WE AFFIX OUR SIGNATURES TO THIS PROCLAMA TION AT THIS SESSION OF THE PROVISIONAL COUNCIL OF STATE, ON THE SOIL OF THE HOMELAND, IN THE CITY OF TEL-AVIV, ON THIS SABBATH EVE, THE 5TH DAY OF IYAR, 5708 (14TH MAY,1948). David Ben-Gurion Daniel Auster Mordekhai Bentov Yitzchak Ben Zvi Eliyahu Berligne Fritz Bernstein Rabbi Wolf Gold Meir Grabovsky
Yitzchak Gruenbaum Dr. Abraham Granovsky Eliyahu Dobkin Meir Wilner-Kovner Zerach Wahrhaftig Herzl Vardi Rachel Cohen Rabbi Kalman Kahana
Saadia Kobashi Rabbi Yitzchak Meir Levin Meir David Loewenstein Zvi Luria Golda Myerson Nachum Nir Zvi Segal Rabbi Yehuda Leib
Hacohen Fishman David Zvi Pinkas Aharon Zisling Moshe Kolodny Eliezer Kaplan Abraham Katznelson Felix Rosenblueth David Remez
Berl Repetur Mordekhai Shattner Ben Zion Sternberg Bekhor Shitreet Moshe Shapira Moshe Shertok
* Published in the Official Gazette, No. 1 of the
5th, Iyar, 5708 (14th May, 1948).
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Publisher’s Note News that matters to Jewish communities in the New York City metropolitan area
BUSINESS Michael Tobman PUBLISHER
Diversity is a strength, though it’s also stressful. Now check yourself for a moment—when I said “diversity,” what did you think about? The easy and obvious answer is racial diversity. Certainly it’s always in the news, pervading American history, class, education, and discussions about opportunity and outcomes. Race informs so much of our national conversation, and with good reason. Social movements rise and fall, and recent trends linking racial equality with other civil rights pose new challenges for supporters and critics alike. Maybe you thought about economic diversity: the shrinking and stretched middle class, anger against elites driving national and international politics, the self-segregating of wealthy families and the fading horizon for those who struggle to make ends meet. President Trump’s election depended on economic worry and resentment. The British referendum vote to leave the European Union was a triumph of economic nationalism over globalism. This past weekend saw a first round of French presidential voting in which a rebranded far-right party secured over 21 percent. Consumers are being pushed to the breaking point, taking their anger to social media, where corporate executives respond slowly and clumsily. Gender diversity and equity is a constant national discussion. Women still make less than equally credentialed men for the same work, are passed over for deserved professional advancement, and are subjected to hostile and
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abusive work environments without practical recourse. Policies (or lack thereof ) on childcare and healthcare disproportionately impact women, and women of color in particular. Popular culture, in all its forms, disadvantages women in ways large and small. Addressing these issues has itself become a heated discussion. Lowerincome households insist they have little to gain from corporate workplace equity where annual salary discussions can involve hundreds of thousands of dollars, instead seeing more in common with traditional labor organizing. Highly educated and affluent women, the “liberal corporate feminists” criticized by some, understand that change also requires top-down change and narrative shifts. Religious diversity is a warm, understanding embrace. Spiritual acceptance is a moral imperative, but historically difficult almost beyond comprehension. Of particular interest to this paper is diversity within New York’s Jewish community. Old-line German Jewish families in Manhattan, Bukharians in Queens, Sephardim in Gravesend, Russian-speaking families throughout the city, progressive Jews with roots in the Lower East Side, Holocaust survivors, Persians in Great Neck, Hasidim in Williamsburg and the Hudson Valley, Modern Orthodox families in the Rockaways—all of it is beautiful. We’re charitable institutions, schools, philanthropists, artists and politicians. And what of geographic diversity? New York is a state of varied regions. The old “upstate/downstate” divide is
a relic of antiquated, ineffective thinking. Brooklyn and Nassau County, both downstate, have little in common other than not being, say, Buffalo, which in turn has little in common with Albany. Rochester is very different from Orange County, and Tribeca has little about it resembling Mineola. Sheepshead Bay and East Moriches may both be on the water downstate, but try getting Russian food in a coastal village in Suffolk County. There have always been important differences between cities and rural areas, and between suburban areas and the cities they orbit. In ancient times, Cain was a farmer forced to live in cities as punishment for killing his brother Abel, a shepherd, but the urban-or-not divide is still very real. Just ask Hillary Clinton where her votes came from, or didn’t come from, in Florida, Ohio and Wisconsin. Professional diversity, varied family arrangements, gender identity, political party affiliation, ethnicity, immigration status, neighborhood—all are characteristics around which diversity can drive creative energy. New York Jewish Life celebrates the diversity of all communities—the differences among them and the differences within each. Celebrating doesn’t always mean agreeing, but it does mean always recognizing those differences. In these pages, we’ll do that together.
Michael Tobman, Publisher
Andrew Holt SENIOR PUBLICATION ADVISOR
Liza Kramer DEVELOPMENT ASSOCIATE
EDITORIAL Maxine Dovere NYC BUREAU CHIEF
Lucy Cohen Blatter, Jenny Powers, Tammy Mark, Grace Wong CONTRIBUTORS
Marjorie Lipsky COPY EDITOR
LETTER7 DESIGN
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CANDLE LIGHTING
Friday April 28 Candles: 7:31 p.m. Shabbat Ends: 8:35 p.m. Friday, May 5 Candles: 7:38 p.m. Shabbat Ends: 8:43 p.m.
SCHUMER IN THE NEWS
BDSWatch
Over $229 Million in Federal Funding for Repairs to the Holland Tunnel Announced SCHUMER, GILLIBRAND, MENENDEZ AND BOOKER SECURE FEMA FUNDS TO COVE R RE PAIR S TO 22 DAMAG E D S ITE S ON THE HOLLAND TUNNEL F E M A F U N D S TO C OV E R 90 PE R C E NT O F TH E $2 55 M PR I C E TAG FO R R E PA I R S A N D R E N OVATI O N S
NEW YORK, NY — U.S. Sens. hit by Superstorm Sandy have all the Charles E. Schumer, Kirsten Gillibrand, resources they need to fully rebuild.” Bob Menendez and Cory Booker “Superstorm Sandy not only wreaked today announced $229,627,041.30 havoc on our homes and communities, in new federal funding to the Port but also accelerated the deterioration Authority of New York and New Jersey. of our aging infrastructure, including The funding was our roads, bridges allocated through the and tunnels,” said Federal Emergency Sen. Menendez. “The Management Agency safety and resilience (FEMA) to make of the Holland Tunnel necessary repairs is vital to New Jersey’s to 22 sites on the and the regional Holland Tu n n e l e c o n o m y. This damaged as a result of welcome investment Superstorm Sandy. from FEMA will help “The Holland advance critically Tunnel was needed repairs and severely flooded by ensure that New storm surge after Jersey’s infrastructure Superstorm Sandy, emerges safer and and repairs were stronger than ever sorely needed in order COURTESY OF SEN. SCHUMER’S OFFICE before.” to ensure it would “Hurricane Sandy continue to serve as a main commuting l e f t our already-crumbling artery in New York City,” said Sen. transportation networks in dire need of Schumer. “I am pleased that FEMA is repair,” said Sen. Booker. “This federal providing the federal funds needed to investment will help strengthen the restore this critical infrastructure and Holland Tunnel and make this critical help make the Holland Tunnel better infrastructure more resilient in the face protected in the event of a future of future disasters while prioritizing storm. This investment also means that driver safety.” local taxpayers will not bear the entire FEMA provides funding for burden of these necessary repairs.” infrastructure upgrades under Section “This investment will help 406 of the Stafford Act, the federal strengthen critical transportation disaster law that supplies aid to states infrastructure here in New York City,” and localities to implement long-term said Sen. Gillibrand. “These FEMA resiliency measures after a major funds will help secure the Holland disaster. The purpose of these grants is Tunnel by reinforcing areas damaged to reduce the loss of life and property by Hurricane Sandy and making long- due to natural disasters and to enable overdue repairs to keep drivers safe. I mitigation measures to be implemented will continue to do everything I can to during the immediate recovery from a make sure that the places in our state disaster.
Taglit Birthright participants visiting the Western Wall in the Old City of Jerusalem, Aug. 18, 2014 FLASH90
Will Birthright Reject Israel’s Boycott Law? JERUSALEM (JTA) — Jewish American college students have called on Birthright Israel to take a stand against Israel’s new law that would prevent boycott supporters from entering the country. Some 575 students from 97 colleges and universities and three high schools across the United States sent a letter to Birthright senior executives, Haaretz (an Israeli newspaper), which saw the letter, reported. The letter was sent before Passover to Birthright executives Izzy Tapoohi and Gidi Mark. It asked if the program would screen applicants about their views on the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions or BDS movement against Israel; if Birthright would give assistance and support to participants stopped at the airport; and if Birthright had been in touch with the Israeli program about how the new law would affect the trips. The letter was signed both by students who had already participated in a Birthright trip and those who planned to attend in the future. J Street U, the campus arm of the
dovish pro-Israel lobby, is behind the initiative, Haaretz reported, though it said that some 25 percent of the students who signed the letter are not affiliated with the group. Birthright is planning to take 30,000 participants to Israel in its free 10-day trips to Israel this summer. The students noted in the letter that Birthright does not travel to the West Bank, and thus recognizes a distinction between Israel proper and the settlements. “Some of us do not buy settlement products as a personal choice. Others have no problem doing so. All of us are concerned about the impact of this new legislation on our own and our peers’ ability to travel to Israel,” the students wrote, according to Haaretz. Birthright has not yet responded, according to Haaretz. When queried by Haaretz, Birthright referred the newspaper to its Frequently Asked Questions section in which it says that “Birthright Israel does not inquire about the political views of its applicants and welcomes all Jewish young adults from around the globe to visit Israel.”
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Israel Signs Deal for 6,000 Chinese Workers—But They Can’t Work in Settlements JERUSALEM (JTA) — Israel signed a deal with China to bring in 6,000 construction workers after agreeing that the workers would not work in West Bank settlements or eastern Jerusalem. Israel’s housing minister, Yoav Galant, and the Chinese vice minister of commerce, Fu Ziying, signed the agreement on Sunday in Jerusalem. Israel’s Foreign Ministry said Sunday that the decision to exclude work in the settlements “is based on the concern for the safety and security of the workers” and not politics. The agreement comes after several years of negotiations over allowing Chinese laborers to work in Israel, with talks stalling over the Chinese demand that the workers not work in
the settlements, according to Haaretz. Israel reportedly needs the laborers in order to provide more housing, thus lowering housing prices by increasing supply. The agreement allows Israel to save face by saying the workers would only be allowed to work in areas agreed to by Israel and China from time to time, according to Haaretz. A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman said in a briefing to reporters in January, after a statement of principles on the pact was signed, that “China’s position on the PalestineIsrael issue is consistent, clear and unchanged. We oppose building Jewish settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories including East Jerusalem and West Bank.”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with Chinese Premier Xi Jinping
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Israelis Marking Memorial Day, from 1950 to the Present
Yom HaZikaron, Israel’s memorial day for fallen soldiers, falls each year on the fourth of Iyar. The day was established in 1951— before that, soldiers were remembered on Yom HaAtzmaut, Israel’s independence day. Because most Jewish Israelis serve in the army, and few families have not suffered wartime losses, the day is widely observed.
Israeli scouts of the Modiin Tribe during a ceremony commemorating the fallen Israeli soldiers, on the eve of the Israeli memorial day at the Mount Herzl military cemetery in Jerusalem, April 21, 2015 HADAS PARUSH/FLASH90
Below are some of our favorite photos of Yom HaZikaron commemorations over the years. Unfortunately, we were only able to obtain photos from before 1970 and after 2000.
LEFT: Women soldiers marching in a Yom HaZikaron parade in 1968 PIKIWIKI ISRAEL
LEFT: Ceremony at Kiryat Atta, circa 1950 KIRYAT ATTA MUSEUM/PIKIWIKI ISRAEL
RIGHT: Ceremony outside the office of the Beit Shemesh Regional Council, circa 1960 PIKIWIKI ISRAEL
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An Israeli bereaved boy kisses his brother’s grave on Mount Herzl military cemetery in Jerusalem in preparation for Israel’s marking of memorial day, April 22, 2007. OREL COHEN /FLASH90
A young Israeli soldier places a rose among the names of those soldiers who have fallen for the state of Israel, on the memorial day ceremony at Latrun Armoured Corps Museum, 2003. SHARON PERRY/FLASH90
An Israeli woman stands next to the grave of an Israeli fallen soldier in Mount Herzl Military Cemetery in Jerusalem, May 5, 2008. NATI SHOHAT/FLASH90
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Birthright Co-Founder Michael Steinhardt to Make History Lighting Israel Independence Day Torch JERUSALEM (JTA) — Jewish American investor and philanthropist Michael Steinhardt has been selected as one of two Diaspora Jews to light an official torch at the state Israel Independence Day ceremony. Steinhardt, the co-founder and major funder of Taglit-Birthright Israel, will join Rabbi Marvin Hier, founder of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, who delivered a prayer at the inauguration of President Donald Trump in January, as the first non-Israelis to light a torch in the ceremony on Mount Herzl scheduled for May 1. This year’s Yom Ha’atzmaut theme is the 50th anniversary of the reunification of Jerusalem. Another torch lighter with American roots is Rabbanit Chana Henkin, who moved to Israel from the United States in the 1970s with her husband, Yehuda. She founded and serves as the dean of the Nishmat institute, a Jewish learning
institution that was one of the first to teach women Talmud and Jewish law. The Henkins’ son Eitam and his wife were killed in an attack on a West Bank road by Palestinian gunmen in October 2015. Other torch lighters include Amnon Shashua, a computer-science professor at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and co-founder of the Mobileye and OrCam startups; Yehoram Gaon, 78, a Jerusalem-born singer, actor, director and producer, as well as a TV and radio host; Uri Mammalian, one of Israel’s most famous former soccer players and a Jerusalem native; Arab Israeli Dr. Ahmed Eid, the head of the Department of General Surgery at Hadassah University Hospital, Mount Scopus; Eli Mizrahi, who has led the revitalization of Jerusalem’s Mahane Yehuda market; and Yaakov Hetz, who fought in the battle for Ammunition Hill during the Six-Day War in 1967.
Michael Steinhardt PHOTO COURTESY OF THE STEINHARDT FOUNDATION
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Rabbi Marvin Hier, founder of the Simon Wiesenthal Center PHOTO COURTESY OF JTA
Trump’s Inauguration Rabbi to Be First Noncitizen Honored on Israel’s Independence Day (JTA) — Rabbi Marvin Hier, founder of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, is slated to become the first non-Israeli to light a torch during Israel’s main Independence Day ceremony in Jerusalem. Hier, who in January delivered a prayer during the Trump inauguration in Washington, D.C., is one of three individuals selected for the honor by the Ministry of Culture and Sport, the Calcalist financial supplement of the Yedioth Ahronoth daily reported Friday. Culture Minister Miri Regev decided last year to include non-Israeli Jews in the Independence Day torch lighting, saying their participation would symbolize the stake that Jewish people all over the world have in the Jewish state. This year’s theme for the ceremony is “Jerusalem: the Eternal Capital of the State of Israel and the Jewish People.” During his two-minute prayer at the inauguration, Hier recited the Psalm 137 passage reading, “If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, may my right hand forget its
skill. The doer of all these shall never falter.” Hier founded the Simon Wiesenthal Center in 1977 as an organization devoted to fighting anti-Semitism, bringing Nazis to justice and promoting tolerance through the Los Angeles-based Museum of Tolerance. Longstanding plans to build another museum in Jerusalem have foundered, in part over objections that it is to be located on land that includes part of a historic Muslim cemetery. Another honoree this year at the ceremony is said to be Amnon Shashua, a computer-science professor at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and co-founder of the Mobileye and OrCam startups. Yehoram Gaon, a Jerusalem-born singer and actor, reportedly is the third honoree. The official list of torch lighters is scheduled to be published next week following its final approval by the selection committee, Calcalist reported.
French Jews Worried About Marine Le Pen’s Success in Presidential Vote’s First Round
Marine Le Pen addressing supporters at the Espace François Mitterrand in Henin Beaumont, France, after advancing to a runoff in France’s presidential election, April 23, 2017 RAPHAEL LAFARGUE/ANADOLU AGENCY/GETTY IMAGES
BY CNAAN LIPHSHIZ
(JTA) — Leaders of French Jewry had mixed reactions to the success of Marine Le Pen and Emmanuel Macron in the first round of the French presidential elections. “Satisfaction and concern,” Francis Kalifat, president of the CRIF umbrella group of French Jewish communities, wrote Sunday on Twitter after exit polls showed that Macron, a centrist independent, won the first round with 23.8 percent of the vote, followed by Le Pen, the far-right leader of the National Front, with 21.7 percent. Kalifat has called Le Pen, who will run against Macron in the final round on May 7, a “candidate of hate.” He called on voters to elect Macron regardless of their opinion of his policies just to make sure Le Pen does not become president. The pattern, known in France as a “Republican front,” has been used to keep the National Front out of power. Such a vote is “indispensable” in the second round, Kalifat wrote. Kalifat said he was “worried to see National Front making it to the main event of French democracy,” but “satisfied to see a Republican in the lead”— a term that means a person who is attached to the French nation’s founding values. National Front won the first presidential round in
France only once before—in 2002, with 18 percent of the vote—and was soundly defeated in the second round. National Front has made considerable electoral gains since Le Pen became its leader in 2011, succeeding her father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, a Holocaust revisionist and openly anti-Semitic nationalist. The party advocates pulling out of the European Union, stopping immigration from Muslim countries and imposing limitations on religious freedoms, as well as harsh punishments for violence and incitement. Marine Le Pen ejected her father from the party in 2015 following his conviction for inciting racial hatred against Jews. (He suggested a Jewish singer critical of the party be “put in the oven.”) She has ejected several party members for anti-Semitic rhetoric. Earlier this month, however, she said France was not responsible for its authorities’ rounding up of Jews for the Nazis. Marine Le Pen recently called for banning the wearing of the kippah in public and for making it illegal for French nationals to also have an Israeli passport—steps she said were necessary because of the principle of equality in order to facilitate similar limitations on Muslims. Le Pen has said radical Islam is a “threat to French
culture” and has called on Jews to make certain “sacrifices” in order to fight jihadism. Macron, 39, is a former banker who is 18 years younger than the average age of past presidents in France. Fears over growing radicalization in society and recent upsets within the political establishment have made Macron the best bet among centrists, including many Jews. Macron has never held elected office, but served as a Cabinet minister under François Hollande, a Socialist. He also served as a senior finance official under Nicolas Sarkozy of the Republicans. Macron’s good looks, profound understanding of the economy, social media skills and unassuming style have helped his campaign despite the fact that no independent candidate has been elected president in France in decades. He has won over many voters with concerns about radical Islam by vowing to act tough whenever it conflicts with French laws—but has courted liberals by promising not to harass Muslims who abide by those laws. He also supports closer cooperation with Germany and a deepening of France’s role in the European Union.
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Bret Stephens at alumni weekend at the University of Chicago, June 7, 2014
PHOTO BY JASON SMITH
Four Things to Know About Bret Stephens, the Latest Jewish New York Times Columnist NEW YORK (JTA) — At first glance, The New York Times’ hiring of another white, Jewish, male opinionpage columnist is anything but news. But the arrival of Bret Stephens, formerly the foreign-affairs columnist for The Wall Street Journal, may be especially resonant for American Jews. Stephens, 43, is the former editor of The Jerusalem Post, a Pulitzer Prize laureate, and an assertive defender of Israel and its current government’s policies. He, along with several other Jewish conservatives, has also been one of the loudest critics of President Donald Trump on the right. “He’s a beautiful writer who ranges across politics, international affairs, culture and business, and, for the Times, he will bring a new perspective to bear on the news,” said an April 12 statement from the Times, whose op-ed roster already includes Jewish writers Thomas Friedman, David Brooks and Roger Cohen. Stephens has also drawn criticism for his statements about the Arab world and for columns seeming to deny human-caused climate change. Here are four things you need to know about the Times’ latest addition to its op-ed stable. Stephens took the helm of The Jerusalem Post at the age of 28. Stephens was raised in Mexico City and educated at the University of Chicago and the London School of Economics. He began his career at The Wall Street Journal, but moved to Israel at age 28 to become
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editor-in-chief of The Jerusalem Post in 2002 during a tumultuous time. He led the Post through the worst years of the Second Intifada, pointed it in a neoconservative direction (as opposed to what the Post’s then-owner, Conrad Black, called the “Jabotinskyan inflexibility” of one of Stephens’ predecessors, David Bar-Ilan), and wrestled with conflicts between the paper and its management. A news brief announcing the decision in Haaretz, a rival publication, reported that Stephens’ hiring “triggered speculation and some unease” because Stephens wasn’t Israeli. But in his new role, says veteran Post political reporter Gil Hoffman, Stephens was a quick study. “He has a presence well beyond his years,” Hoffman told the JTA (Jewish Telegraphic Agency). “He’s absolutely brilliant. Bret came in and learned so much, so quickly.” In 2004, Stephens explained at an event held by the UJA-Federation of Greater Toronto that he moved on from the Journal because he believed Israel was getting an unfair hearing in the press. “One of the reasons I left The Wall Street Journal for the Post was because I felt the Western media was getting the story wrong,” Stephens said. “I do not think Israel is the aggressor here. Insofar as getting the story right helps Israel, I guess you could say I’m trying to help Israel.” At the event, he also praised Likud Prime Minister
Ariel Sharon for “uniting the country behind him.” In 2003, the Post named the then-U.S. deputy secretary of defense, Paul Wolfowitz—an architect of the Iraq War—its man of the year. And in a 2002 column, Stephens wrote that Europe’s “capitulation” to Muslim anti-Semites was comparable to Vichy France, the French puppet state controlled by Nazi Germany. One of Stephens’ biggest challenges as editor, said Hoffman, was standing up to management that wanted to cut costs and staff. When the paper’s publisher, Thomas Rose, was fired in 2004 by Hollinger International, Black’s former media company, Stephens sent a celebratory memo to the paper’s staff, according to the Observer. “For those of us who have seen up close the damage Tom did to this newspaper, this is a happy event indeed,” Stephens wrote in the memo. “For those Tom damaged personally, with his abusive behavior and bizarre management style, it is happier still. So good riddance, Tom, good riddance. You will not be missed.” Rose sued Stephens for defamation based on the memo, but the suit was dismissed. Stephens’ right-leaning, pro-Israel bona fides may come as a relief to frequent critics of the Times’ Israel coverage. Shortly after his hiring was announced, for instance, the newspaper admitted it erred in publishing an opinion piece written by jailed Palestinian leader Marwan Barghouti for not noting that he is serving a prison sentence in Israel for murder and terror convictions. He won the Pulitzer Prize for Commentary in 2013. Stephens left the Post in 2004 and returned to the Journal, where he later began writing the Global View column on foreign affairs. Stephens wrote from a conservative perspective, covering regions from South Asia to Russia to China, and addressing topics like safeguarding democracy, defending Israel and preserving America’s leading role in foreign affairs. He has been critical of the international effort to combat global warming. Stephens was a consistent critic of President Barack Obama, whom he charged with abdicating America’s responsibility to lead the international community. He won the Pulitzer “for his incisive columns on American foreign policy and domestic politics, often enlivened by a contrarian twist.” “After World War II the U.S. created a global system of security alliances to prevent the kind of foreign policy freelancing that is again becoming rampant in the Middle East,” he wrote in 2013. “It worked until President Obama decided in his wisdom to throw it away.” But Stephens hasn’t shied away from criticizing Republicans, either during the Obama era or afterward. In 2012, he wrote a column headlined “The GOP Deserves to Lose” because of what he called its field of weak candidates. His reporting from around the world yielded a 2006 award from the South Asian Journalists Association for his “outstanding coverage” of the previous year’s earthquake in Kashmir. “I challenge you to name another columnist in this country that can pack that many insights and ideas, week to week, into 800 words,” said Bari Weiss, a
OBITUARY
Journal book-review editor (and former news and politics editor of the Jewish magazine Tablet), who was also just hired by the Times’ opinion desk. “Bret is deeply driven by principle, and even if the party that once reflected his principles shifts, he’s unafraid to stick to the principles rather than the party.” He’s been an outspoken critic of President Trump. The past couple of years have seen Stephens turn against the Republicans’ standard-bearer with abandon. Stephens has compared Trump to the Italian fascist dictator Benito Mussolini. He has called Trump an “unreliable narrator” and “a man who embarrasses—or terrifies—much of the free world.” “Mr. Trump’s genius for tearing things down will not be matched by an ability to build things up,” Stephens wrote on Jan. 16. “Half-valid points will not be made whole. In the bonfire of discarded truisms and broken institutions will lie more than the failure of one man’s presidency.” In criticizing Trump even after his electoral victory, Stephens joins other leading Jewish conservative voices, including David Brooks, Jennifer Rubin and William Kristol. He’s been accused of denying climate science and criticized for saying anti-Semitism infects “the Arab mind.” Not everyone is happy about Stephens’ move to the Times. Several journalists and liberal commentators— including some from the Times itself—have called out Stephens for positions he’s taken on global warming and anti-Semitism in the Arab world, to name a few. Media Matters for America, a left-wing press watchdog, called him “a serial misinformer.” After an Egyptian competitor refused to shake the hand of his Israeli opponent at a judo match during the 2016 Olympics, Stephens wrote that anti-Semitism is the “disease of the Arab mind” and “the short answer for why the Arab world is sliding into the abyss.” Declan Walsh, the Times’ Cairo bureau chief, tweeted that the statement was “not cool” and that “ascribing a pathological condition to an entire race of people is not” fair. Max Fisher, who writes on international affairs for the Times, also tweeted that “I guess we just all have to agree to disagree as to whether it is acceptable or correct to call racial groups pathologically ‘diseased.’” Stephens tweeted back to Walsh, “The column is about the tragic ubiquity of anti-Semitism in the Arab world. Which, I’m sure you’ll agree, isn’t cool.” He called Fisher’s reading “tendentious.” Stephens has also appeared to reject or minimize the scientific consensus that human activity is causing global warming on an unprecedented scale. He called global warming an “imaginary enemy” in 2015. Six years earlier, he wrote of those who prioritize global warming, “Their intellectual methods are instructively similar” to those of Stalinists. In a statement last week to The Huffington Post, Stephens said he does not deny climate science. “Is the earth warming?” Stephens’ statement said. “That’s what the weight of scientific evidence indicates. Is it at least partially, and probably largely, a result of man-made carbon emissions? Again, that seems to be the case. Am I ‘anti-science’? Hell, no.”
Ruth Sulzberger Holmberg, Newspaper Publisher and Civil Rights Stalwart, Dies at 96 (JTA) — Ruth Sulzberger Holmberg, a newspaper publisher and civil rights activist in Tennessee, has died at 96. Holmberg, a member of the family that controls The New York Times, challenged racial barriers, political skulduggery and environmental adversaries as publisher of the Chattanooga Times for nearly three decades, the newspaper reported Thursday. She died in Chattanooga. Growing up in a newspaper family in New York, Holmberg went on to lead the Chattanooga daily and became known for aggressive, analytical reporting and editorials that denounced racial segregation, exposed government corruption and demanded cleaner air in a city of heavy industry, according to the Chattanooga Times article. For years she was a pariah in a city where many regarded her as an eastern liberal interloper, and also because she was Jewish, according to the article. Holmberg served as publisher of the Chattanooga Times from 1964 to 1992. She then stayed on as publisher emeritus and chairwoman until 1999, when the paper was sold to a small chain and merged with a rival newspaper. She was a granddaughter of Adolph Ochs, who bought the Chattanooga Times in 1878 and The New York Times in 1896. She was the second of four children of Iphigene Ochs and Arthur Hays Sulzberger, the publisher of The New York Times from 1935 to 1961. Her brother, Arthur Ochs Sulzberger, who died in 2012, became publisher of The New York Times and
chairman and chief executive of the Times Company. One sister, Marian Sulzberger Heiskell, became a New York civic and philanthropic leader. Another sister, Judith Sulzberger, who died in 2011, became a doctor affiliated with the College of Physicians and Surgeons at Columbia University. A Red Cross volunteer in England and France during World War II, she had four children with her first husband, Ben Hale Golden, before they divorced in 1965. She had replaced him as publisher of the Chattanooga Times in 1964. The Chattanooga Times championed the racial integration of schools and universities, supported civil rights legislation in Congress and backed cleanair laws, provoking anger in a city where industrial pollutants shrouded scenic mountain backdrops and whose air, according to a 1969 federal report, was the dirtiest in the nation. The newspaper also endorsed reforms to root out corruption in government, expand the voting franchise and give black residents, a third of the population, a larger voice in municipal affairs. In 1972, she married Albert William Holmberg Jr., who oversaw the production, advertising and circulation departments at the paper. He was later named its president. In 1987 she became the second woman, after Katharine Graham, the longtime publisher of The Washington Post, to be elected a director of the Associated Press, the dominant news service in the United States.
APRIL 26 – MAY 2, 2017 | NYJLIFE.COM | 13
diets, these young Jewish chefs are buying their ingredients at farmers’ markets, avoiding processed foods and making sure their dishes have color. “A lot of people we knew really loved cooking locally sourced, high-quality meat, but when it came to Jewish cooking, like when it came to making a brisket, they didn’t care, really,” Alpern said. “The ways this is different is it’s a coming together of our values as a generation around food, and our love of Jewish cooking and authenticity and tradition.” Plus, tasty food can be an accessible entry point for many into other modes of Jewish life. More events like this, Posner said, could draw young Jews to large synagogues that may fail to attract them to Shabbat services. David Minkus, rabbi of Rodfei Zedek, which hosted the Passover pop-up, agreed that a synagogue can, for various reasons, be the right place for a Jewish culinary event. “I thought it was an opportunity to reshape the way people think about having kosher food, how they think about eating in a synagogue,” he said of Aviv. “I didn’t understand why synagogues didn’t use their kitchens, which are usually large, industrial and kosher, to do something beyond serving kugel on Saturday afternoon.” Posner was raised in an observant Jewish family and was trained as a chef in The Pickle Platter at Aviv included pickled cucumbers, pickled downtown Chicago’s fancy restaurants. asparagus tips, beet-pickled eggs, olive tapenade, citrus-carrot As he returned to Jewish observance as horseradish, Tam Tams and matzah. ALEYA CYDNEY PHOTOGRAPHY an adult, he knew that working Friday and Saturday nights—the busiest times horseradish and borscht with an emphasis on local for restaurants—would prevent him from keeping the seasonal ingredients. There’s the Wandering Chew, Sabbath. So he left the restaurant scene and two years which creates artisanal Montreal-style Jewish food ago founded Wandering Foods. Last year he entered and conducts culinary walking tours of Mile End, the rabbinical school at the Conservative movement’s Canadian city’s Jewish neighborhood, complete with Jewish Theological Seminary in New York. In addition to elevating the quality of Ashkenazi tastings of bagels and smoked meat. Zak Stern, aka Zak the Baker, a kosher-deli owner in an artsy Miami recipes, Posner aims to fuse them with other cuisines, neighborhood, makes his sandwiches with fresh- from Sephardi dishes to other American and global culinary traditions. The matzah-ball soup, for baked sourdough bread. Despite the accolades garnered by these food example, included shiitake mushrooms; for dessert, entrepreneurs, Posner still feels that Ashkenazi foods the flourless chocolate cake was accompanied by like brisket and kugel get short shrift. He asks why green-tea ice cream and espresso. “It’s not just a Sephardic-Ashkenazic mashup,” said other international cuisines, from Italian pasta to Chinese stir-fry, have become common in a home Posner, who will also be hosting a regular supper club cook’s repertoire, but traditional American Jewish on the Upper West Side of Manhattan beginning in food—even among American Jews—is generally May. “It’s taking specific items, specific techniques, relegated to Rosh Hashanah and Passover, if prepared specific ingredients; understanding them in their own contexts; and then making something that’s greater at all. “The base for most Jews in America is that Jewish than the sum of its parts.” Posner isn’t sure what he’s going to do after food at best is bland, except the one or two things that someone does really well, that someone does once a rabbinical school or how long he can sustain year,” Posner said. “Jewish food is really holiday food Wandering Foods with a full course load. But he said and doesn’t exist in the daily kitchen of most American working in a kitchen and behind a pulpit aren’t all Jews. In what ways can Jewish food have a cuisine the that different. In both cases, he said, Posner feels he’s leading “a life in service.” way we have French cuisine or Italian cuisine?” “People seek out rabbis for a lot of the reasons they According to Liz Alpern, the Gefilteria’s co-founder, she and other Jewish foodies are merging their go to restaurants,” he said. “They go for the most generation’s culinary sensibilities with Jewish culture. momentous occasions of their lives. People want Just like previous generations cared about low-fat experiences. People want to feel cared for.”
This Young Chef Is Trying to Make Ashkenazi Food Cool BY BEN SALES
CHICAGO (JTA) — The platter, served during Passover, contained a green, a bitter herb, an egg and matzah. But it was no seder plate. Instead, it was the appetizer served during a sixcourse prix fixe meal at Aviv, a pop-up, kosher-forPassover restaurant housed for one night at Rodfei Zedek, a Conservative synagogue in the Hyde Park neighborhood on this city’s South Side. The course, a pickle platter, featured pickled cucumbers, pickled asparagus tips and beet-pickled eggs, along with olive tapenade, citrus-carrot horseradish and—de rigueur for a Passover meal— Tam Tam crackers with everything topping. The first course also came with a soft, gluten-free matzah that resembled a tea cracker and, as guests noted approvingly, didn’t really taste like matzah. Aviv had taken over what was usually the synagogue’s social hall, with guests seated at long tables covered with disposable white tablecloths. The courses, served on biodegradable dishes, included a shaved Brussels sprouts salad with lemon-ginger dressing and micro-herbs, as well as whole-roasted spiced cauliflower with seared halloumi cheese, parsley gremolata and marinated Fresno chilies. The pop-up restaurant was the latest creation of Wandering Foods Productions, a kosher food caterer that aims to create kosher fine-dining experiences that fuse traditional Jewish recipes with other cuisines. Wandering Foods is the brainchild of Jonathan Posner, a lanky 26-year-old rabbinical student with a baritone voice and five years of experience working in upscale Chicago restaurants. “How to rethink what Passover is like and what it means to eat on Passover” is how Posner, dressed in a black T-shirt with a pinstriped apron, described Aviv as he welcomed 35 people to the first of two sold-out seatings on April 13, the holiday’s fourth night, for $54 a head. “This is a meal and a pop-up restaurant that celebrates spring. The food will be green, the food will be bright and it will be delicious.” While success stories like Michael Solomonov and Einat Admony may have made Israeli food all the rage in the United States, Wandering Foods is one of several recent enterprises that are aiming to make Ashkenazi food hip. There’s the Gefilteria, which has resurrected traditional recipes for gefilte fish,
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Norman: A New York Image Through a Broken Looking Glass NYJL’S Q&A WITH RICHARD GERE, OTHER CAST MEMBERS AND THE DIRECTOR BY MAXINE DOVERE
Norman: The Moderate Rise and Tragic Fall of a New York Fixer is the fifth film from New York-born Israeli director Joseph Cedar, and his first English film. Opened in New York on April 14, this poignant, sometimes heartbreaking film offers a glimpse into a very specific section of New York’s Jewish community. Perhaps it’s a caricature, perhaps it’s real, perhaps it’s a bit of both; the film mirrors the world Norman has created for himself. Addressing whether meaning gets lost in translation between Hebrew and English, Cedar remarked, “The work itself is the same. Trying to get every moment in the story to feel true and meaningful requires digging into the layers under the script. Language makes no difference. Being able to work in both languages is a tremendous advantage.” Israeli storytelling, particularly on television, is currently being celebrated. Hit series such as Showtime’s Homeland and HBO’s In Treatment, which ran from 2008 through 2010, were adopted from Israeli shows. Norman, convincingly played by Richard Gere, fancies and brands himself more important than he is, but usually in a harmless way. The currency of his influence is the affection and generosity truly important people have for him. They know Norman for what he really is, but enjoy the exalted estimation in which he holds them. He gets a pass. “I gravitate to the hustler,” said Gere. “Norman is all phony—always improvising a scheme. He is completely original: I can play him, but I cannot explain him,” Gere admitted. In choosing to be part of a smaller
film, Gere said that he was entering a new phase of his career. “I don’t feel like I’m making difficult choices....Maybe I made some mental transition about five years ago—to make interesting films.” Norman was filmed entirely in New York on a 30-day-maximum production budget. “It’s only about the work— only about telling stories, within the structure of independent movies, in New York,” said Cedar. Asked why he cast non-Jews in such archetypal “Jewish” roles, Cedar responded that he is aware of the sensibilities around casting people solely in their ethnic group. He reminded New York Jewish Life (NYJL) that the last people who cast Jews according to ethnicity were the Nazis. “Being Jewish is not like being other ethnicities: You can choose to be Jewish Director Joseph Cedar and Richard Gere
PHOTO BY MAXINE DOVERE
or not. Jewish actors can choose—a Jew in a Jewish role is not necessary.” And so Cedar chose qualification over ethnicity, placing non-Jewish actors in most of the major American Jewish roles. The Israeli roles are mostly ethnic, except for a key role played by French star Charlotte Gainsbourg. Welsh actor Michael Sheen plays Philip Cohen, Norman’s nephew. Steve Buscemi, who is at home in both feature and independent films, plays a rabbi. “Norman is someone I needed to investigate,” said Cedar. “The process makes me see the world through his eyes. Now I understand why Norman does what he does and what his contributions are. Norman is the glue for Tikkun Olam—repair the world. His actions are completely benevolent—as long as he gets his 7 percent.” Overall, Norman wants everything to work out for everybody. Finally, Norman is forced to see himself as he really is, a man no one will save because what he contributes can be set aside when necessary, and can then be easily replaced. “Everybody gets what they want, as long as Norman is eliminated,” Cedar said. The film exposes layers of the inner workings and networking tactics that are not exactly clean or correct, yet are very common and very acceptable. Norman tries to play with the big boys, making deals that benefit some and obligate others. Each is a domino in a multilane game that Norman usually handles well, but then the players and consequences get too large.
Norman’s need for approval and for proximity to the people who make serious decisions threatens the position of fictional Israeli Prime Minister Micha Eshel, played by Lior Ashkenazi. Ashkenazi told the attentive crowd at the Q&A that “Eshel is the counterpoint to Norman....Everybody knows a Norman; everyone becomes Norman at some point in life.” NYJL asked Ashkenazi about the political reality of the film. “I do not want to judge...the MKs [members of Knesset, Israel’s parliament] did not want to talk with me,” he replied. “So I asked myself, ‘Who is this guy?’” He noted that “Israeli politicians like being abroad, attending conventions and conferences, even if they don’t need to be abroad. Being in New York is the starting point.” NYJL asked Ashkenazi if the portrayal of Jews in Norman gives anti-Semites yet another negative impression of the Jewish community, noting that Micha’s adviser describes Norman as “scheming” and “bloodsucking.” Ashkenazi replied, “They [antiSemites] will find negatives anyway. It doesn’t matter if they see the movie from the start to the end. It doesn’t matter because you won’t change what they’re thinking about Jews. Joseph and Richard made a full portrait. It’s not a silhouette, not a caricature of a Jew. It doesn’t matter who sees it—if you’re anti-Semitic, you’ll stay anti-Semitic.” “The first time I was in a shul in New York I was amazed,” Ashkenazi continued. “It’s so different from what’s going on in Israel—it’s like a whole other religion. In New York, it’s like a show. In Israel, it’s more intimate. We do things very differently. There are so many different things about Judaism.” NYJL asked the assembled filmmakers about the complicated relationships the film portrays. The consensus was that Norman accurately describes the relationship between American and Israeli Jews and politicians. The film depicts the tension inherent in trying to influence, as well as the dangers of mixing money, people and politicians. It uses humor to touch on some of the core issues of the American Jewish community: conversion, synagogue support and Jewish identity. The assembled talent concluded that Norman is intended to make the audience think, reevaluate, smile and consider different aspects of personality and relationships between people and countries.
APRIL 26 – MAY 2, 2017 | NYJLIFE.COM | 15
IN THE COMMUNITY
Mayor Bill de Blasio Announces Plan to Expand Universal Pre-K to 3-Year-Olds SEAN GALLUP/GETTY IMAGES
BY CHRISTINA VEIGA
Mayor Bill de Blasio wants to offer prekindergarten to every 3-year-old child in New York City, he said Monday in one of his most ambitious education announcements to date. Calling the initiative “3-K for All,” de Blasio said the plan will start by expanding pre-K seats for younger children in District 7 in the Bronx and District 23 in Brooklyn over the next two years, and encouraging more families to enroll in existing seats. The plan builds on de Blasio’s signature education initiative—a push to provide free pre-K to every 4-year-old in New York City—which he highlights as a major success. “We have proven through the growth of Pre-k for All that it can be done, and it can be done quickly,” de Blasio said at a press conference Monday at P.S. 1 in the Bronx. The latest initiative will take a while to reach every 3-year-old in the city. The city plans to fund eight districts on its own by 2021, but also wants to raise enough outside funding to make it universal by that time. Once the plan is fully rolled out, the city expects to serve 62,000 children in 3-K at a cost of more
than $1 billion—though de Blasio called that price tag “an early estimate.” The city expects to contribute $177 million, on top of the $200 million already being spent by the Administration for Children’s Services. The remaining $700 million would come from state and federal sources. During the past two years, the city has enrolled at least 50,000 additional students in pre-K programs for 4-yearolds, bringing the total to more than 70,000. Still, research has shown the city’s program is highly segregated—a reality Schools Chancellor Carmen Fariña has described as a product of parental choice. Given the uncertain political climate, officials cautioned the rollout would probably be even more difficult than expanding pre-K to 4-year-olds. The city will need more classroom space and 4,500 new teachers to staff the effort. “This is going to be a game-changer,” the mayor said, “but it’s also going to be hard to do.” Chalkbeat reporters Alex Zimmerman and Monica Disare contributed to this report.
Mayor Bill de Blasio delivers his State of the City address at the Apollo Theater in Harlem.
PHOTO COURTESY OF NYC MAYOR’S OFFICE
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Orthodox Families Won’t Identify Circumcisers Who Gave Babies Herpes, NYC Health Spokesman Says NEW YORK (JTA) — The New York City Health Department said it cannot complete an investigation into who infected four infants with herpes through a circumcision rite because the boys’ fervently Orthodox families will not identify the mohels. “Unfortunately, some in the community are resistant to sharing the names of the mohels,” Health Department spokesman Christopher Miller told DNAinfo New York on Tuesday. “This is a very insular community.” According to DNAinfo, six families in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, have seen children contract herpes since 2015 from metzitzah b’peh, which involves cleaning the circumcision wound through oral suction by the ritual circumciser, or mohel. Among the six families, only two have provided the names of their mohels, Miller said. In March, the city ordered those two mohels to stop performing metzitzah b’peh. A herpes infection in a newborn baby can cause brain damage and death. Rabbi David Niederman, head of the United Jewish Organizations of Williamsburg and North Brooklyn, told
DNAinfo that the community was “fully cooperating” with the investigation. However, an unnamed source said the community is skeptical about the allegations against the two named mohels because it believes the city wants to make the entire practice of metzitzah b’peh illegal. “That’s why we’re not willing to give out the mohels. We know the city is going to ban them without giving them due process,” the source said. “There is not proof that they actually infected the baby.” The custom, rarely practiced outside the Haredi, or fervently Orthodox, community, has become a political football in New York City with its large Haredi population. In February 2015, the city eliminated a parental consent form mandated by former Mayor Michael Bloomberg. In return, the community pledged to test a mohel after an infant contracts herpes. City Health Commissioner Dr. Mary Travis Bassett said her department considers metzitzah b’peh an “unsafe practice,” but that as a religious practice it enjoys several legal protections.
OPINION
One People, We Remain
Rabbi Elie Abadi, M.D.
BY RABBI ELIE ABADI, M.D., and MAXINE DOVERE
In the Nazi regime, no distinctions were made between Ashkenazim and Sephardim: All Jews were targeted for annihilation. An individual’s fate was determined mainly by geography, the nature of the Nazi occupation and the degree of local cooperation. An often-overlooked chapter is the profound effect of the Holocaust on the Sephardic Jewish communities of the Balkans, North Africa and the Middle East. The Nazis and its collaborators all but obliterated the European Sephardic population: 80 percent of the Sephardic European Jews were annihilated. More than 200,000 Sephardim perished in the Holocaust, shattering the small but precious Sephardic Jewish communities of Europe. All of the centers of Sephardic life in Central and East Central Europe were affected by the Holocaust. Some were completely destroyed. Salonika—the center of Sephardic culture and life in Europe and termed the “Jerusalem of the Balkans”—was practically emptied of its Jews. The fate of the North African Sephardic communities differed one from the other, but the horror they suffered under the Nazi Regime and its subordinates was the same. The Holocaust succeeded, to a large degree, in completing the destruction of Sephardic Jews that was started by their expulsion from Spain more than four centuries earlier. In France, Italy and Holland, where the Sephardic Jewish communities were a minority within a minority, they suffered along with the rest of the Jewish population during that time. What the expulsion and the Inquisition could not accomplish throughout centuries of horrors, the Nazis succeeded in accomplishing in just a few short years. The great Sephardic culture was destroyed together with almost all of its living centers. Its body and spirit were equally crushed by the Holocaust, but never its faith in the Almighty. There are significant—and unique—stories that should be told. Here are just a few examples: Sephardim were the main prisoner work force in Auschwitz/Birkenau beginning in the spring of 1943.
An often-overlooked chapter is the profound effect of the Holocaust on the Sephardic Jewish communities of the Balkans, North Africa and the Middle East.
They were sent to rebuild the destroyed Warsaw Ghetto. The Greek Sephardim initiated the failed revolt in Birkenau on Oct. 6, 1944. Fourteen-year-old Salonikan Jacko Maestro knew how to speak German and became a translator. He coordinated the labor assignments for 16,000 Jews in Auschwitz, helping the sick and weak and saving many Jewish lives in the process. Salonikan boxer Jacko Razon saved hundreds by smuggling soup from the Nazi kitchen to give to the Jewish inmates. Greek Jews were victims of the “medical” experiments in Auschwitz/Birkenau, suffering sadistic procedures on twins, castration, freezing and other horrors. Yugoslavians Estreya Ovadia, Victor Meshulam and Moshe Piade; and Greeks Lazaros Azaria, Julia Bibi, Sarika Yehoshua and Captain Yishak Moshe Kitsos were recognized for their contribution to the antiGerman struggle and liberation. Rabbi Elie Abadi is a Sephardic Jew. In Auschwitz during the March of the Living, he lit a torch in memory of the more than 60,000 Sephardim from Salonika; the Sephardim in Croatia and Serbia; the massacred Sephardim of Bulgaria, used as a strategic commodity and traded for political gains by the Nazis; the 7,000 Sephardim from Sarajevo; the 7,000 from
Thrace; the uncounted thousands from Albania, Romania, and Hungary; the 2,200 from the Island of Rhodes; the 2,000 from Corfu; the 300 from Crete; and the 300 from Zante, all of whom perished in the Holocaust. He recalled the 179 Iraqi Jews killed June 1, 1941, during the episode known as the Farhud. Inspired by Nazi propaganda, Iraqi Jewish women were raped, babies were smashed or thrown into wells, pregnant women were mutilated, and a Sifrei Torah was burned and desecrated. Sephardic Jews of Italian-held Libya served as forced labor, suffering fatalities and deportation to Europe’s death camps. The Jews of Morocco, under Vichy forces, faced racial laws, confiscation and isolation. The Sephardim of Algeria and Tunisia suffered in notorious forced-labor camps and were deported to death camps. Despite unspeakable circumstances, the Sephardic Jewish survivors “kept their faith in the Almighty and in humanity,” said Abadi. He noted that Sephardic Jews have established and strengthened new communities all over the world, including Israel, where they comprise more than 50 percent of the population. Sephardic Jews have prospered and continue to preserve the beautiful and most colorful traditions and customs of the golden age of the Sephardim.
APRIL 26 – MAY 2, 2017| NYJLIFE.COM | 17
OPINION
A National Teacher of the Year on Her Most Radical Teaching Practice
Author Shanna Peeples speaking at the American Jerusalem High School in Jerusalem while touring as national teacher of the year PHOTO COURTESY OF CHALKBEAT
BY SHANNA PEEPLES
This whole national conversation about whom we should and shouldn’t let go into which bathrooms got me thinking about the most controversial thing I ever did as a teacher. I’d love to tell you it was teaching a banned book or something intellectual, but it was really all about the bathroom. I allowed kids to quietly leave class whenever they needed to go without asking my permission. My principal hated it; some of my colleagues viewed me as some sort of hippie. It made people question my professional judgment, my classroom management and even my intelligence. “So, you just let them leave when they want to?” “If they need to go, yes.” “Without a pass?” “My hall pass is on a hook by the door so they can quietly take it and then replace it when they come back.” “I bet you replace it a lot.” “Actually, no. It’s the same one. I keep it around because it has a picture from my first year when I looked a lot younger and skinnier.” Usually, people walked off before I could tell them any more of my crazy commie ideas. They would have died if they knew kids could take my pass to the nurse or their counselor if they needed to go. My only rule was that they had to show the same decorum that they would at the movies: No one gets up in a theater and loudly announces their business.
18 | NYJLIFE.COM | APRIL 26 – MAY 2, 2017
And in 15 years, no one used it as an excuse to skip the class or wander the campus or otherwise engage in shenanigans. Actually, no — one kid took the pass and didn’t come back until the next day. But that was because he was an English-language learner on his second day who didn’t quite understand that it wasn’t meant as a “go home in the middle of the school day” pass. When I began teaching, it was in a seventh-grade classroom in a “portable,” which is really just a converted double-wide trailer. The bathrooms were the separation space between my classroom and the reading teacher’s classroom. It seemed mean to me to control the bathroom needs of children in 90-minute– block classes seated so close to one another. That was the origin of the policy. Years later, one of my students wrote about me in an essay. I was prepared to read some sort of “Freedom Writers” love letter about the magic of my teaching. What she wrote instead was, “The first day in her class I learned that she had the best bathroom policy ever. She treated us like human beings who could be trusted to take care of our own private needs.” I kept scanning the essay for the parts about the teacher magic, but that was really the only part about me specifically. The best bathroom policy ever. That’s my legacy. But seriously, kids really can be trusted to take care of their own private needs—especially those who are teenagers who drive cars; or who are responsible in their after-school jobs for locking up a store’s daily receipts in the safe; or who are responsible for getting four siblings to school on time because Mom works the morning shift.
People complain to me, when they find out I used to teach high school, about “how lazy and irresponsible kids are these days.” That just irritates the fire out of me. What if so much of that behavior is because we don’t allow kids to try on trust and responsibility with little things like taking care of their bathroom business? And maybe what looks like “laziness” is really a trained helplessness and passivity born of so many rules and restrictions against movement of any kind. Don’t get up without permission, don’t talk without permission, don’t turn and look out the window without permission and for Pete’s sake, don’t you put your head down on your desk and act like you’re tired because you were up all night at the hospital with your father who just had a heart attack. Trust is a thing we create through small daily interactions—simple things like extending the same courtesies to them as we would want for ourselves. I’m always so appreciative of professional-development presenters who take the time to tell you where the coffee, water fountains and bathrooms are. That communicates respect and consideration.As teachers, we have to be willing to be the first to extend trust. When we do, kids will return it. Shanna Peeples’ teaching career, all in Title I schools, began as a seventh-grade writing teacher at Horace Mann Middle School in Amarillo, Texas. She later taught English at Palo Duro High School, and as the 2015 National Teacher of the Year, worked to shape the conversation in this country about working with students in poverty. She now serves as the secondary English Language Arts curriculum specialist for Amarillo ISD.
OPINION
Never Fail to Protest
BY MELISSA MARK-VIVERITO
Yom Hashoah marks the remembrance of the Holocaust and is a sober reminder of the lessons we have learned from history. As we remember the atrocities committed against the Jewish people during the Holocaust and think about how to continue helping survivors, we must reject complacency. New York City is home to an estimated 50,000 Holocaust survivors—nearly half of the survivor population in the United States. Our country received 200,000 of these refugees, who fled the violence and genocide that would have awaited them in their home countries. Some were still reeling from the harrowing experiences of surviving death camps that were designed to kill them or destroy their will to live. But their worries did not stop once they arrived on these shores. Even after finding shelter and making their homes here, Holocaust survivors have continued to fight the odds that are stacked against them. One of the most pressing problems they face—which often goes overlooked—is poverty. In New York City, this issue is particularly acute: Over half of the 50,000 survivors who live in the New York metro area live on an individual income of less than $18,000. According to The Blue Card, a nonprofit organization that provides assistance to Holocaust survivors, approximately one third of the 100,000 Holocaust survivors in the United States experience poverty. Daily routines can become difficult for the aging population, and aging Holocaust survivors here in New York City are particularly impacted. Having faced the unimaginable, living through concentration camps, losing their friends and family, and then enduring the difficulty of resettling into “regular” life in America, now they must deal with a financial burden during years of their lives during which they should not have
PHOTO COURTESY OF THE NEW YORK CITY COUNCIL
to worry about having their basic needs met. That is why the City Council has made sure that these survivors do not have to continue living in the shadows. Last year, the council voted to rename our Holocaust Survivors Initiative in honor of Nobel laureate, human rights activist and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel. This $2.5 million program provides Holocaust survivors living at or below the federal poverty line with a wide range of services, including preventive healthcare, medical appointment transportation, case-management support and homedelivered meals to help maintain and improve their quality of life. We also remain focused on the safety of our Jewish communities. Recently, we have seen a spate of antiSemitic threats and hate crimes due to the hateful rhetoric of the current administration. Between January 1 and February 26, there was a 94 percent increase in hate crimes against Jews compared to the same period of time in 2016. That is why the council has called on the mayor to fund a $25 million security grant program to help community centers, advocacy groups, and cultural and religious institutions
defray the increased costs of increased security, surveillance and more. Unfortunately, many of these organizations, many of which are cherished parts of our communities and protect and promote identity, are at increased risk during this time. Yom Hashoah is a day of reflection and remembrance. This year, as we mark Holocaust Remembrance Day, let us make sure to support the survivors who still need us. An entire generation who lost years of their lives being locked in concentration camps should not have to struggle with hunger, homelessness and illness, despite compensation payments. As Elie Wiesel himself said, “There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest.” So let us recognize that our work does not stop here. May we always remember the power of our voices to make change, to insist upon justice, to speak out for those who struggle to be heard. Together, we will continue to work to heal the traumas of the past—whether they remain visible or not. Melissa Mark-Viverito is the speaker of the New York City Council.
APRIL 26 – MAY 2, 2017 | NYJLIFE.COM | 19
Remember for Tomorrow BY MAXINE DOVERE
It is a time for passing the torch of remembrance, a time for the Third Generation to take its place on the pathway of memory, giving voice to the past, reaching from the present to the future. As the generation of survivors who suffered the horrors of the Holocaust dwindles with each passing year, the obligation to remember is passed to the next generations. Zahor! Remember! “Even as the numbers of the survivors lessen, it is their generations that seek their memory and bring them honor,” intoned Michael Glickman, president of the Museum of Jewish Heritage, a living memorial to the Holocaust. “The Jewish people persist, and we will not forget. We will not forget.” Glickman addressed the museum’s annual Gathering of Remembrance at Temple Emanuel in New York City. He spoke of the importance of the testimonies of the survivors, saying that the museum “focuses on the importance and design of Holocaust education that will prevent falsification of the magnitude and significance [of
the Holocaust] when there will be none of the generation.” Rabbis and cantors from across the Jewish religious spectrum; the consul general of Israel in New York, Dani Dayan; community leaders; and Zamir, a choir of the young, sang songs of past loss and future determination. Survivors and the inheritors of their legacy recalled loss and survival, and thought of the righteous who helped save each of them—the collective remnant of a vibrant European community declared subhuman by the Nazis and virtually destroyed. Memories once told by those now old were recalled by their middle-aged children or young-adult grandchildren, each reaching forward to capture a fading history. Harry Witkin spoke, honoring the righteous family of farmers who hid his own family as the Nazis invaded his town. “We must remember...to keep the flames of memory alive,” said Charles Schumer, New York’s senior senator. “The burden lies on us to remember, to commemorate the Shoah.” He added that “we must speak out against any effort to minimize the Holocaust. We must be sure we fulfill our moral obligation to make sure we never forget.”
Harry Wittlin, survivor, with his daughters Lisa Nadler and Abby Tochinsky
U.S. Senator Chuck Schumer enters the Holocaust remembrance ceremony at the Museum of Jewish Heritage
City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito (center); Cantor Joseph Malovany (right) and Rabbi Joseph Potasnik, Vice President of the New York Board of Rabbis (left)
20 | NYJLIFE.COM | APRIL 26 – MAY 2, 2017
Museum of Jewish Heritage Chairman of the Board Bruce Ratner (left) with Michael Glickman, Museum President
Stories Survive: Remembering the Holocaust at the Museum of Jewish Heritage The Museum of Jewish Heritage held its annual Yom Hashoah remembrance ceremony this past Sunday to honor and remember the victims of the Holocaust. A theme and corresponding social media effort focused on “Stories Survive,” for which there were many survivors and their families in attendance and participating in the ceremony. Here is a selection of photos from Sunday’s event. For more information on the Museum of Jewish Heritage, please visit www.mjhnyc.org.
Yom Hashoah candle-lighting ceremony with Holocaust survivors and students; “Remember—Never Forget” is carved into the wall.
LEFT: Ambassador Dani Dayan, Israel’s consul general in NY, spoke of the Jewish obligations to mourn, to know, to feel and to learn.
Rebecca Levy, a third-generation Holocaust survivor, shares stories of her family’s fight for survival during the Holocaust.
ABOVE: New York Senator Chuck Schumer spoke about keeping the flame of memory alive, feeling the meaning of the Shoah and actively remembering. LEFT: Audience looks on as Bruce Ratner closes the ceremony of remembrance. PHOTOS COURTESY OF THE MUSEUM OF JEWISH HERITAGE
During the memorial candle-lighting ceremony, the six candles are lit by survivors, accompanied by their children and grandchildren.
APRIL 26 – MAY 2, 2017| NYJLIFE.COM | 21
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