June 14th edition of New York Jewish Life

Lessons Learned from First Jobs

Governor Cuomo Memorializes Shimon Peres

JCRC Celebrates Pluralism at City Hall

VOL. 1, NO. 15 | JUNE 14 – 20, 2017 | NEWS THAT MATTERS TO JEWISH COMMUNITIES IN THE NEW YORK CITY METROPOLITAN AREA | NYJLIFE.COM | FREE

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Publisher’s Note News that matters to Jewish communities in the New York City metropolitan area

These Days, Washington, D.C., Has a Lot in Common with Brooklyn Courts Events in Washington, D.C., since the start of this year, and certainly since President Trump’s inauguration, have me thinking, among many other things, of the brief time I worked in the New York City courts.

After law school, I had the pleasure of serving as court attorney to a newly elected civil court judge. We were quite the pair, neither of us with judicial experience, but we soldiered through early uncertainty fast enough. We learned from experienced judges and staff, and were soon making a difference in tackling a substantial backlog of cases in the building. After just a few weeks, I was conferencing cases to encourage settlement, hearing arguments on legal motions, and meeting with litigants and attorneys all day every day. We also covered arraignments in Criminal Court, in the vast first-floor courtrooms of 120 Schermerhorn St. Very quickly I learned to spot, within a few minutes (or less) of a meeting, if one of the parties was unhinged, mentally ill, delusional, incompetent or, for all intents and purposes, insane.

I’m not now, and wasn’t then, judging anyone—people have problems and struggle—but it was a numbers game.

Among the thousands of lawsuits and parties involved, some were bound to be not well. And given that matters in Civil Court deal with lawsuits under a certain amount, Housing Court issues its own stresses, Small Claims Court predominantly handles consumer complaints, and Criminal Court addresses law-breaking, there was a built-in tendency for challenging or troubled personalities to be present most of the time.

What makes it all work, historically and still, is that the system is filled with structures that respect rights and processes, sometimes despite the individuals to whom those rights are attached. Or as a prosecutor I know put it, “We take their rights more seriously than we take them.”

Donald Trump, as a candidate and as president, has proven again and again that he is prone to outbursts and temper tantrums, has no regard for typical restraints on presidential power, appears to have no interest in the history or positions of other world actors, and proudly has no regard for the deliberations that go into successful policy making. Concerning press, communications and media relations...I don’t know where to start.

His heavy-handed, erratic management of White House staff and lack of interest in important agency appointments have created—intentionally or not—a chaotic mess in which critical work simply isn’t getting done. While every president grumbles about Congress and is frustrated by the courts, this president has no comprehension of the roles of co-equal branches of government. And, as former FBI Director James Comey’s testimony last week revealed, President Trump is absolutely at sea when it comes to the rhythm and cadence of power politics at the highest levels.

Support President Trump or not, the above is factual. Some see this as proof of his carrying through on campaign promises to dismantle the federal government’s bureaucracy and the legacy of President Obama.

Others believe the above is proof of

Trump’s inability to govern, evidence of a temperament completely illsuited to governing, and proof of his being imbalanced. His recent Cabinet meeting was a bizarre exercise in forced adulation and tribute. To Trump supporters it was a show of strength; to his detractors it was another instance of a world turned upside down.

Yet things continue. Like Brooklyn Civil and Criminal courts, the systems and processes of getting things done grind on. Whatever the president says or does, the day-to-day work continues.

Well-meaning, qualified professionals do their best to keep the ship upright and moving in the direction of some civic consensus. As in conferencing a case in which one party is occupying a different reality, federal officials—and those in state and local governments immediately impacted—struggle and scramble to smooth over contradictory proposals and demands.

Seeking a settlement, working out a criminal plea, getting parties to agree to a payment schedule for back rent and repairs, keeping a mechanic from lunging across the table at an aggrieved car-repair customer, or court officers’ restraining a litigant who threatened a judge—it’s organized chaos that has too much in common with the current White House. The troubling thought is that more is getting done these days in Brooklyn’s courthouses than in all of Washington.

Michael Tobman, Publisher

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CANDLE LIGHTING

Friday, June 16 Candles: 8:11 p.m.

Shabbat Ends: 9:20 p.m.

Friday, June 23 Candles: 8:13 p.m.

Shabbat Ends: 9:22 p.m.

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SCHUMER IN THE NEWS

Chuck Schumer Parodies Trump’s Awkward Cabinet Meeting in Video

BDSWatch

Roger Waters performing at Yankee Stadium in New York City, July 6, 2012

BY RON KAMPEAS

(JTA) — President Donald Trump convened his first full Cabinet meeting on Monday, and Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), the Senate minority leader, quickly transformed it into farce.

In his opening remarks, in a meeting held in full view of the media, Trump focused on his accomplishments.

“We have done about as much as anybody ever in a short period of time in the presidency,” he said.

Then, in a weird bit of theater that might have played well in Pyongyang, Trump’s senior staff and Cabinet, one by one, praised his leadership in effusive terms.

It started with Vice President Mike Pence: “This is the greatest privilege of my life to serve as vice president to a president who’s keeping his word to the American people.”

So it went, but no one was as, um, salutary as chief of staff Reince Priebus, who said, “On behalf of the entire senior staff around you, Mr. President, we thank you for the opportunity and the blessing that you’ve give us to serve your agenda and the American people, and we’re continuing to work very hard every day to accomplish those goals.”

Schumer couldn’t resist his own bit of theater, assembling his staff around a boardroom desk for a video parody of

Trump went around the table listening to his Cabinet praise him.

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PHOTO BY JASON KEMPIN/GETTY IMAGES

Sen. Charles Schumer talking to reporters at the Capitol, May 16, 2017 PHOTO BY CHIP SOMODEVILLA/GETTY IMAGES

the Trump meeting. There were selfdeprecatory references to Schumer’s well-known affection for the attentions of the media.

“How’d we do on the Sunday show yesterday?” the senator asked.

“Your tone was perfect,” a staffer replied.

Another staffer began to compliment Schumer’s hair, when a male staffer interrupted to mimic precisely Priebus’ praise for Trump.

“You know before we go any further, I just want to say thank you for the opportunity and blessing to serve your agenda.”

A silent beat, and then the room erupted into laughter.

Roger Waters, Radiohead and BDS (JTA) — Roger Waters said he personally reached out to Radiohead frontman Thom Yorke requesting that the band cancel its upcoming show in Israel.

Waters, the Pink Floyd bassist who is a leading proponent of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel, responded Monday to an interview Yorke gave to Rolling Stone last week in which he objected to an open letter, co-written

by Waters, urging the band to cancel the July show.

“The kind of dialogue that they want to engage in is one that’s black or white,” Yorke said. “I have a problem with that. It’s deeply distressing that they choose to, rather than engage with us personally, throw shit at us in public.”

Waters says that isn’t what happened. In a statement to Rolling Stone, Rogers says he sent three emails to Yorke before publishing the open letter. Waters’ statement says Yorke responded to the first email, but not the second. Whether he replied to the third is unclear.

“On February 12th, hoping to start

a dialogue, I sent an email expressing my concern about Radiohead crossing the BDS picket line to perform in Israel,” Waters said. “A few hours later, Thom replied. He was angry.

He had misinterpreted my attempt to start a conversation as a threat. So I tried again.…I didn’t hear back. So silence prevailed for three weeks until March 4th, when I sent a long, heartfelt entreaty to Thom asking him again to talk.”

In his interview, Yorke said Radiohead will perform because the band doesn’t agree with BDS and the effort to cut off cultural contact with Israel.

“It’s offensive and I just can’t understand why going to play a rock show or going to lecture at a university [is a problem to them],” Yorke said.

Waters didn’t directly address Yorke’s objections in his statement, saying that BDS “exists to shine a light on the predicament of the occupied people of Palestine, both in Palestine and those displaced abroad, and to promote equal civil rights for all the people living between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea no matter what their nationality, race or religion.”

or a Jewish education piece,” said Dyonna Ginsburg, Olam’s executive director. “You have a tendency among the non-Israeli organizations to be more focused on the volunteer aspect, and among the Israeli organizations to be more focused on professional areas of expertise.”

The field has expanded rapidly since 2000, and is increasingly centered in Israel.

Some Jewish global-service groups are more than a century old. But two-thirds—20 of the 30 that responded to the survey—were founded in the 21st century. In addition to helping countries across the globe, the organizations also come from countries the world over. While many are based in the United States and Canada, others are found in South Africa, Australia or Mexico.

But the plurality of the groups come from the country that’s also the biggest beneficiary of Jewish charity: Israel. The Jewish state is home to 27 of Olam’s 46 member groups—ranging from Brit Olam, an international volunteering group, to Innovation: Africa, which provides solar and agricultural technology to African villages.

Ginsburg says the Israeli global-service world has ballooned in recent years due to Israelis’ increased affluence. In Participants in a 2011 Yeshiva University Alternative Break program in addition, she said, Israeli groups Nicaragua, run through the American Jewish World Service can focus on specific areas of PHOTO COURTESY AMERICAN JEWISH WORLD SERVICE international development handful focus directly on goals like alleviating hunger without having to worry about being their country’s “Jewish” representative in the field, like the American or expanding access to technology.

All together, through seminars, direct aid, education Jewish World Service or Australia’s StandUp. “There’s this general sense at least among some or employment programs, the groups help three million people. As with the budget figures, five of the that Israel is in a place where it cannot just think groups dominate the field, accounting for 92 percent of meeting its own needs, but [can] share some of of the people reached. Because the groups’ individual that with others,” she said. “Many of those are niche data have been kept confidential, the survey does not organizations with specific areas of expertise, in agriculture, in clean tech, in healthcare, education, indicate which five groups these are. etc., so they don’t see themselves as the Israeli or …and enlist nearly 2,000 volunteers.

Much Jewish international aid work is done either Jewish voice.”

South Asia and East Africa attract the most by funding local nonprofits or sending professionals to coordinate aid. But some of the nonprofits’ most groups.

Jewish service efforts span what activists sometimes visible work is through volunteer programs that send young Jews to work on the ground in the developing call the “global south,” where much of the world’s world. In total, 19 of the groups surveyed send 1,850 poverty is found. In total, the groups provide services volunteers to do aid work. Of those volunteers, most or aid in 69 countries. But two regions are especially of them went on short-term programs lasting a week popular aid destinations: South Asia and East Africa.

A dozen groups are active in India, with its vast or two, most were college students and nearly all were Jewish. Like the overall Jewish population, nearly geography and massive population, while eight are active in Nepal, four in Myanmar and three in four-fifths came from North America or Israel.

The survey found that organizations also use the Sri Lanka. East Africa’s countries also attract the volunteer trips to reinforce Jewish identity. Eighty- attention of a range of groups, from 11 that are active one percent of volunteer experiences had some form in Uganda to nine in Kenya to six in Rwanda.

Notably, both regions have remote Jewish of Jewish curriculum, as well as a structured way to communities. The Abayudaya Jewish community live observe Shabbat.

“The [diaspora] Jewish organizations—many of in the hills of central Uganda, and the B’nei Menashe them were started with a Jewish identity experience hail from the eastern Indian province of Manipur.

Inside the $125 Million Jewish International Aid Industry

BY BEN SALES

NEW YORK (JTA) — Eighty percent of Jews live in two countries—Israel and the United States—but Jewish organizations are spending more and more of their money elsewhere.

Jewish aid to the developing world—the impoverished set of countries your zayde called the “third world”—has grown quickly in the past couple of decades. What used to be a handful of groups has grown to become a constellation of organizations working on anything from solar power in Rwanda to agricultural sustainability in Nepal. Together, the groups aid millions of people.

Jewish global service efforts come from across the Jewish world and provide funding and personnel to a range of causes and places. Now, for the first time, a survey has quantified the industry’s basics: where it does its work, how many people it helps and how much money it spends. The survey was conducted in March by Olam, an umbrella organization for Jewish global service groups, and was shared with the JTA Monday.

Here are five indicators that explain this booming sector.

Jewish groups spend at least $125 million in the developing world.

While it doesn’t compare to the billions Jews give every year to Israel, the amount Jews give in this sector tops well over $100 million annually. Of the 47 groups Olam covers, 26 reported operating budgets that total $125 million in funding for international development.

Some of those groups are small initiatives, with a budget of under $100,000—all of which goes to the developing world. Others are sprawling organizations like the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, which dedicates a small but still sizable portion of its $300 million budget to international development.

The reported budgets range from $60,000 to $45 million—with a median budget just shy of $1 million.

Some of the largest are the American Jewish World Service and the refugee aid group HIAS, each of which has a budget of approximately $40 million.

The groups reach three million people…

The Jewish global-service world spans a wide range of causes: Many of the groups work on some form of women’s empowerment and education, while a

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From left, Yael Cobano, Ruth Timon, Rabbi Stephen Berkowitz and Zohar Ben-David participate in the Torah reading at the Reform Jewish Community of Madrid.

PHOTO BY MARGARITA GOKUN SILVER

Reform Synagogue Started

by Women Is Shaking Up Jewish life in Spain

BY MARGARITA GOKUN SILVER

MADRID (JTA) — At the conclusion of a recent Friday-night service at the Reform Jewish Community of Madrid, the space quickly transforms from a meeting hall into a dining room. Several people assemble a long table. They adorn it with a white tablecloth, place chairs on both sides and set two challahs topped by a cover in the center.

Men and women lay out plates of knishes and bourekas, shakshuka and kugel, a Spanish tortilla and an almodrote, a Sephardi eggplant dish. When the table is set, everyone gathers around for the Kiddush prayer. A monthly communal Shabbat dinner begins.

While such a scene may be typical in Jewish communities across the United States, in Spain it is something of a rarity. The existence and evolution of a progressive congregation, as Reform congregations

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are typically known outside the United States, is a departure from Madrid’s traditionally Orthodoxdominated Jewish life. For the people gathered around the Sabbath table it’s a welcome development, one they believe the Spanish capital needed for some time.

The Reform Jewish Community of Madrid— the only Madrid congregation affiliated with the European Union for Progressive Judaism (EUPJ)— was founded three years ago by four women: Yael Cobano, Ruth Timon, Keren Herrero and Leidy Andrade. They’re the “núcleo duro,” the hard core, as Timon, the synagogue’s treasurer, calls them. Since 2014, the congregation has grown from a gathering of some 20 regulars to a viable community of 26 families, complete with a rabbi, a Torah, and a host of cultural

and educational events, from Hebrew classes to book clubs.

Across Europe, there are fewer than 200 active congregations practicing progressive forms of Judaism—and just six of them are in Spain.

“Spain has been one of [our] three key emphases for the last five years or so,” said Leslie Bergman, the immediate past president of the European Union for Progressive Judaism. At least four more Reform congregations are in the works, he added, and he expects a national federation of Spanish Reform communities to open by the end of this year.

Looking back at the congregation’s beginnings, “we found that [Jewish] community life in Madrid didn’t fulfill us,” said Cobano, the congregation’s president. “[We saw] the possibility of a community model that’s inclusive, happy, where you can have a Jewish identity of the 21st century,” she said, pointing to the Reform movement in the United States and United Kingdom, as well as to Bet Shalom, the 10-year-old Progressive Jewish Community of Barcelona.

A large part of that “modern” model is egalitarianism and inclusiveness. The founders, all female, have led the congregation and women lead Shabbat services.

The members come from Panama, Colombia, Venezuela, Argentina, Brazil and Israel. Additionally, members of Madrid’s LGBTQ community, people who come from interfaith families and those at various stages of conversion have found their Jewish home here.

There are about 50,000 Jews in Spain; 10,000 of them reside in Madrid. At the time when the “núcleo duro” formed, Jewish life in the city—although quite developed for a country that dispensed with its Jews more than 500 years ago—was limited to the main Orthodox synagogue, a handful of smaller Sephardic Orthodox synagogues, Chabad and the Masorti (Conservative) Bet-El congregation.

“There was no pluralistic alternative to look at Judaism from other perspectives, and especially, the liberal [one],” said Cobano. “Where a woman’s role would be different from what existed until now—for example, women officiating [at services], a community open to the society, contributing as ‘Spanish Jews’ and open to [ideas] of social justice, in a sense of wanting a better society for everyone—including the Jews, but not only.”

When the congregation first formed, it met in a small space rented from a local wine shop.

“We didn’t even know if we were going to be able to pay the rent that first Kabbalat Shabbat,” Timon recalled.

The event was a success, and many more monthly Shabbat services followed—each one accompanied by a potluck dinner. As the word spread, the congregation soon outgrew the space and found a home in a building with flexible hours and a kitchen.

The kitchen plays a crucial role—communal Shabbat meals are central to the life of the congregation.

“Staying for dinner [and] sitting down at a table [together] has always been connected with [us],” said Cobano. “It creates community, family spirit, links, audacious hospitality.”

Eighteen months in, in the fall of 2015, the

community decided to bring in a rabbi, as study of texts was important to the congregation’s members. Moreover, the community realized that hiring the only non-Orthodox rabbi in Spain would be a draw for those intrigued by progressive Judaism.

To reduce expenses, the congregation teamed up with Barcelona’s Bet Shalom to hire a full-time rabbi whom the two communities could share.

With the financial assistance of EUPJ, the congregations found a French-speaking American rabbi who was willing to relocate to Barcelona from Paris. Since then Rabbi Stephen Berkowitz has learned enough Spanish to lead services—although often with Cobano’s help—and he visits Madrid once a month. Berkowitz divides his time between the two congregations during the High Holy Days and he’s available for Jewish lifecycle events as well as ongoing pastoral support.

“It’s a privilege to be a part of the current Jewish cultural and religious revival in Spain,” Berkowitz told the JTA in an email. “It is also a great honor to both teach and accompany individuals eager to deepen their involvement in the Jewish tradition through the approach of Progressive Judaism. The Reform Community [of Madrid] offers a unique community spirit which is warm, creative and participatory.”

The congregation also recently got its first Torah—albeit on a temporary basis. As part of the EUPJ’s Torahlending initiative, they received the scrolls last year. The community will need to return the Torah in 2018, however, to make it available for the next small progressive Jewish community.

What happens next? “We’ll keep

looking,” Cobano said. “We cannot afford [a Torah] ourselves yet, but perhaps there is a community out there, either in the U.S. or the U.K., that would help and give us one.”

Although now more established— with both the Torah and the rabbi—the Reform Jewish Community of Madrid remains true to its roots. Women continue to lead services, its doors are open to those in search of their Jewish origins and members are involved in Madrid’s social-justice work.

This last aspect—interactions with the city’s non-Jews—is somewhat anomalous in Madrid, where Jewish communities are often seen as closed. The Reform congregation has participated in an event for refugees at the Madrid Central Mosque, given presentations to non-Jews about Jewish spirituality and has taken part in a collection of groceries for Madrid’s Food Bank. It is also beginning to collaborate with a restaurant that’s helping to feed the homeless.

Members of the congregation cite the inclusivity and the communal atmosphere as the reasons they joined.

“My inclusion in the Reform Jewish Community of Madrid has a primordial place in my life,” says Liliana Levy, a member. “Without these experiences [my life] wouldn’t be what it is today.

Each of its members is essential.

Why not another community? Simply because [here] I feel at home.”

Cobano agrees. “Nowadays people want to live their Jewish identity in a more cheerful manner, [with] more culture, more knowledge,” she said.

“They come because they see [our] community as more friendly, more open—like a model with ‘more’ of everything.”

Members of the Reform Community celebrate Israel’s Independence Day in Madrid’s Retiro Park.

PHOTO BY MARGARITA GOKUN SILVER

Tel Aviv University Study: EARLIEST MAN-MADE CLIMATE CHANGE TOOK PLACE 11,500 YEARS AGO

BY STAFF

TEL AVIV — The vast majority of climate scientists agree that climatewarming trends over the past century have been due to human activities, despite President Donald Trump’s announcement of America’s departure from international environmental goals and protocols.

A new Tel Aviv University (TAU) study has uncovered the earliest-known geological indications of man-made climate change—from 11,500 years ago.

Within a core sample retrieved from the Dead Sea, researchers discovered basinwide erosion rates dramatically incompatible with known tectonic and climatic regimes of the period.

“Human impact on the natural environment is now endangering the entire planet,” said Prof. Shmuel Marco, head of TAU’s School of Geosciences, who led the research team. “It is therefore crucial to understand these fundamental processes. Our discovery provides a quantitative assessment for the history and commencement of significant human impact on the Earth’s geology and ecosystems.” The results of the study were published in Global and Planetary Change.

The research was conducted by TAU postdoctoral student Dr. Yin Lu and in collaboration with Prof. Dani Nadel and Prof. Nicolas Waldman, both of the University of Haifa. It took place as part of the Dead Sea Deep Drilling Project, which harnessed a 1,500-footdeep drill core to delve into the Dead Sea basin. The core sample provided the team with a sediment record of the

past 220,000 years.

The newly discovered erosion occurred during the Neolithic Revolution, the widescale transition of human cultures from hunting and gathering to agriculture and settlement.

The shift resulted in an exponentially larger human population on the planet.

“Natural vegetation was replaced by crops, animals were domesticated, grazing reduced the natural plant cover, and deforestation provided more area for grazing,” said Marco. “All these resulted in the intensified erosion of the surface and increased sedimentation, which we discovered in the Dead Sea core sample.”

The Dead Sea drainage basin serves as a natural laboratory for understanding how sedimentation rates in a deep basin are related to climate change, tectonics and man-made impacts on the landscape.

“We noted a sharp threefold increase in the fine sand that was carried into the Dead Sea by seasonal floods,” said Marco. “This intensified erosion is incompatible with tectonic and climatic regimes during the Holocene, the geological epoch that began after the Pleistocene some 11,700 years ago.”

The researchers are currently in the process of recovering the record of earthquakes from the same drill core.

“We have identified disturbances in the sediment layers that were triggered by the shaking of the lake bottom,” Marco said.

“It will provide us with a 220,000-year record—the most extensive earthquake record in the world.”

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Warren Buffett Is Trying to Raise $200 Million in Israel Bonds NEW YORK (JTA) — Business magnate Warren Buffett is encouraging the purchase of Israel Bonds at private events in New York.

Guests attending the events with Buffett on Thursday have pledged to buy $1 million to $5 million in Israel Bonds in order to meet the American billionaire, whose net worth of $75.6 billion makes him the second-richest person in the world, according to Forbes magazine.

Buffett, CEO of the American conglomerate Berkshire Hathaway, hosted an event last November in his

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hometown of Omaha, Neb., that led to investments of $60 million in the Jewish state. Buffett also bought $5 million worth of Israel Bonds at the event.

Israel Bonds said that following Thursday’s events, Buffett was expected to have helped bring in about $200 million in bonds investments.

“Israel Bonds is proud to call Warren Buffett a friend,” Israel Maimon, president and CEO of Israel Bonds, said Monday in a statement.

“By supporting the Israel Bonds organization through these events

Warren Buffett speaking at Fortune’s Most Powerful Women Summit in Washington, D.C., Oct. 13, 2015

PHOTO BY PAUL MORIGI/GETTY IMAGES FOR FORTUNE/TIME INC.

and investing directly in Israel Bonds himself, Mr. Buffett is helping to ensure that the state of Israel will continue to prosper, and will continue to be a model of innovation and economic growth for decades to come,” Maimon added.

Buffett spoke highly of the Jewish state at the November event.

“If you are looking for brains, energy and dynamism in the Middle East,

Israel is the only place you need to go,” the billionaire said.

In 2013, Buffett made the Israeli firm Iscar his first foreign acquisition, buying the remaining 20 percent of the metalworking company after having acquired 80 percent in 2006.

Later in the same year, it was announced that Buffett would donate $10 million to the Rambam Hospital in Haifa.

In Jerusalem, Nikki Haley Calls UN a “Bully” (JTA) — Nikki Haley, the American ambassador to the United Nations, called the U.N. a “bully” against Israel during a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem.

Netanyahu thanked the envoy for “standing up for Israel” in the U.N. “You know, that’s all I’ve done is tell the truth, and it’s kind of overwhelming at the reaction,” Haley said in response.

She called Israel-bashing at the U.N. “a habit.”

“It was something that we’re so used to doing,” she said. “And if there’s anything I have no patience for it’s bullies, and the U.N. was being such a bully to Israel, because they could.”

She added, “We’re starting to see a turn in New York. I think they know they can’t keep responding in the way they’ve been responding. They sense that the tone has changed.”

She said that some members of the Human Rights Council in Geneva, where she attended a meeting before arriving in Israel, were “embarrassed”

by the council’s permanent Agenda Item Seven, which discusses “the human rights situation in Palestine and other occupied Arab territories,” and routinely singles out Israel for condemnation.

At the Human Rights Council meeting on June 6, Haley said the United States is reconsidering its membership in the U.N. Human Rights Council, citing among other things bias against Israel.

“It’s hard to accept that this council has never considered a resolution on Venezuela and yet it adopted five biased resolutions in March against a single country—Israel,” Haley said.

In the afternoon of June 6, Haley, together with Deputy Secretary of State John Lerner, visited the Western Wall in the Old City of Jerusalem. Though her security detail assigned her a place to stand in the women’s section of the Western Wall plaza away from the other worshippers, Haley plunged into the crowd and took a spot amid the worshippers directly in front of the wall. According to a statement from the office of the rabbi of the Western

Wall, Haley, who was raised Sikh and converted to Christianity, asked the women around her to help her pray, saying, “I want to be here as a person.”

Before she left, Haley signed the Western Wall guestbook, writing, “My heart is full, and my life will change following the visit. It was a blessing to experience a holy place with spiritual people full of love, for G-d to bless everyone who comes here.”

Haley also met Wednesday with Israel’s President Reuven Rivlin at his residence in Jerusalem.

Rivlin called Haley a “dear friend of Israel. We appreciate your strong stand on the world’s most important stage, in support of the security of the people and the state of Israel. With your support, we see the beginning of a new era. Israel is no longer alone at the U.N. Israel is no longer the U.N.’s punching bag.”

During her three-day visit to Israel, Haley was expected to fly over the country’s northern and southern borders in a helicopter, visit Tel Aviv and lay a wreath at Yad Vashem, Israel’s Holocaust memorial center.

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BY BEN SALES

MT. KISCO, N.Y. (JTA) — Michael Steinhardt has poured millions of dollars into ventures for American Jews. But he’s no fan of American Judaism.

The hedge-fund billionaire turned megaphilanthropist is best known as the founder of Birthright Israel, the 10-day free trip to Israel for Jewish young adults. More recently, he founded a network of publicly funded Hebrew-language charter schools. His latest endeavor is a natural history museum at Tel Aviv University that will host exhibits on the flora and fauna of Israel and the Middle East.

The JTA visited Steinhardt at his New York estate, where he spoke about why he thinks American Jewish education needs to change, what to do with the hundreds of thousands of Birthright alumni once they return home, and why he’s not worried about college students who rail against Israel.

JTA: You’ve spoken a lot about how the American Jewish community needs to promote secular Jewish culture. Is that what you’re trying to do with your network of charter schools? Can that work if the schools are publicly funded and most of the students aren’t Jewish?

(Steinhardt): These are charter schools, and as charter schools they are open to anyone and they have, on average, no more than 50 percent Jewish students in the school. But these schools teach Hebrew in a way that is demonstrably superior to Jewish day schools.

Jewish kids in the charter schools will learn a great deal about Israel in these charter schools. The schools fund a trip to Israel and there’s a great deal of emphasis on Israel, Zionism, stuff like that, but zero [on Judaism] as a religion.

And you prefer it that way, as an atheist?

I don’t think you came here to talk about my theology, but it’s tempting me to say I truly believe that the time of Jewish history that we have to devote far more energy to is the last 300 years. The last 300 years is the most enlightened—it is when Jews really shined. I would use the word ‘superior,’ except people blanch when I use that word. But it’s really what I mean: Jews have accomplished so much, so inexplicably out of proportion to their numbers, in these 300 years, and it’s one of the great failures of Jewish education that that’s not focused on at all.

Israel is also getting more religious, and you’ve criticized its government and business world. Why do you feel so positively about Israel if it has some of the same flaws you criticize in American Jewry?

The modern state of Israel is the Jewish miracle of the 20th century, but it’s the secular part of Israel that’s the miracle. It’s the extraordinary achievement; it’s the technology, the military, the development of a society out of nothing using Zionist ideals, taking

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MICHAEL STEINHARDT ON AMERICAN JEWS

Michael Steinhardt in New York, April 12, 2012 PHOTO BY SCOTT EELLS/BLOOMBERG/GETTY IMAGES

people from terrible places and making them Israeli citizens. Israel has become, for me, the substitute for religion.

Are you worried that that secular society is not nearly as dominant in Israel as it was 40 years ago?

The people I know in Israel are overwhelmingly secular. Tel Aviv University, the natural history museum, are truly modern, secular institutions. I’ve been critical of a few things in Israel, [but] Israel is to me the most moral state on this planet, [even] with the occupation, with the differences between rich and poor, with the other issues…but it’s really an exceptional place.

I have a house in Jerusalem and I like Jerusalem a lot, but if you go to Tel Aviv, it’s a phenomenal world.

It’s a world unto itself.

More than half a million young Jews have gone on Birthright, but when they come home they’re caught by the same Jewish institutions you’ve criticized. Is that an issue?

Guess what? They don’t succeed in catching them.

The way I dealt with it, and still deal with it, is to create Birthright post-programming.

Some organizations that we created seem to be doing OK, such as OneTable [a group that facilitates Shabbat dinners]. There are other organizations that seem to be doing better.

But it’s a real issue. There are all sorts of things to deal with. There’s 60 to 70 percent intermarriage rates [among young non-Orthodox American Jews], a falloff in synagogue attendance. There’s all sorts of things like that. There are no easy answers, but the best answer to date is Birthright. I’m tempted to say it has saved a generation.

But there are reports that Birthright’s numbers are shrinking. It recently began accepting applicants who attended an organized Israel trip in high school.

Why is that?

The numbers we’re taking this year will be a record.

If you’re saying we used to have huge waiting lists and we don’t anymore, you’re absolutely correct. I think Birthright has almost become a community norm, and a large percentage of the age cohort of 18 to 26 go on Birthright.

Having trips to Israel has become a popular engagement for the Jewish world and that may be one of the reasons we don’t get the huge excess of waiting lists.

I think I’m too old, too ornery to be a believer that 10 days, Birthright, can change your life. You can’t imagine how many people come back and say, ‘This has changed my life.’ But it’s still 10 days, and they’re 18 or 21 or 26. Has it really changed their life? I don’t know.

Do you see criticism of Israel’s policies as a threat to Birthright’s impact on Jewish college students?

You can’t avoid that being part of the message.

Israel is a complicated place in a strange part of the world, and there are plenty of issues to deal with.

There are a substantial number of Jews who believe that Israel should leave the settlements, leave the West Bank.

I think most of us understand the occupation for what it is and what it isn’t. The more one understands about Israel, the more comfortable one becomes with the politics of the Israeli government.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Covenant Awards for Excellence in Jewish Education Announced Polsky founded Matan in 2000 with the (JTA) — The founding principal of a Modern Orthodox Jewish high school, the national director understanding that children with special needs and of an organization that works for the inclusion of their families were living on the margins of Jewish children with special needs, and the co-founder of an education due to a community severely lacking the adult Jewish-learning organization are the recipients vocabulary, approaches and awareness to create paths to engagement and of the 2017 Covenant Awards full participation. Under for excellence in Jewish Polsky’s leadership and education. design, Matan began working The New York-based At SAR High School, synagogues, Jewish Covenant Fo u n d a t i o n Harcsztark introduced with agencies, and religious and announced the recipients of day-school administrators and the awards, among the highest a concept he calls the not only to increase honors in Jewish education, “Grand Conversation”— teachers awareness of special needs on June 6. Each recipient will receive $36,000, and each reflecting his belief that and the obligation of the Jewish community to embrace of their institutions will get Jews should be deeply inclusion, but also to help $5,000.

The winners are Rabbi Tully rooted in Torah while create educational programs, and lesson plans for Harcsztark, founding principal embracing the broader curricula this population. At Temple of SAR High School in the Riverdale section of the Bronx, culture in which they live. Beth Ami Nursery School in Rockville, Md., meanwhile, she N.Y.; Meredith Englander supports teachers in working Polsky, national director with children with special of Institutes and Training learning needs. at Matan in New York, and Covenant’s statement said that Polsky has developmental support coordinator at Temple Beth Ami Nursery School in Rockville, Md.; and Dr. Jane dramatically advanced Jewish communal dialogue Shapiro, co-founder of Orot: Center for New Jewish and practices for inclusion of children with special needs and their families in Jewish life and learning.

Learning in Skokie, Ill. With Orot, Shapiro is building a new model for In a statement announcing the 2017 winners, Harlene Appelman, executive director of the Covenant engaging Jewish adults in the Chicago area and Foundation, said, “Each of the 2017 Covenant Award beyond, according to the statement. When Orot began recipients is a dreamer, and each brings with them a in the Chicago area in 2014, 70 people attended a halfday of learning to prepare for the High Holidays. It breadth of optimism for the field.”

At SAR High School, Harcsztark introduced has since grown to serve more than 500 students each a concept he calls the “Grand Conversation”— year through weekly classes and meditation sessions; reflecting his belief that Jews should be deeply yoga workshops; immersive-learning experiences; rooted in Torah while embracing the broader culture weekend retreats; and training of Jewish educators, in which they live. The 15-year-old Modern Orthodox social service workers and communal professionals.

Shapiro was previously associate director of the high school “has become a national model of Jewish education adapting to and embracing 21st-century Florence Melton School of Adult Jewish Learning in realities and equipping students and teachers in new, Northbrook, Ill.; and coordinator of mentoring for students in the Master of Arts in Professional Jewish novel and empowering ways,” the statement said.

Prior to becoming SAR High School’s founding Studies program at Spertus Institute for Jewish principal, Harcsztark served as associate principal of Learning and Leadership in Chicago.

The 2017 Covenant recipients will be honored Judaic Studies at SAR Academy, the affiliated lower school; rabbi at Congregation Keter Torah in Teaneck, on Nov. 12 in Los Angeles at an annual awards N.J.; and a Judaic Studies teacher at the Frisch School dinner during the General Assembly of the Jewish Federations of North America. in Paramus, N.J.

Kapparot Can Continue in NY, Appeals Court Rules (JTA) — The pre-Yom Kippur ritual of kapparot can continue in New York, a New York appeals court found.

The Appellate Division First Department in Manhattan on June 6 upheld a lower-court decision that declined to block the pre-Yom Kippur slaughter of chickens in 2015, when the Alliance to End Chickens as Kaporos and 19 Brooklyn residents living near where the ritual was performed sued to stop it, the New York Daily News reported.

Kapparot involves swinging a live chicken over one’s head three times and reciting a prayer to transfer sins to the bird. The chicken is then slaughtered and donated to the poor. In recent years, money has replaced the chicken in the rite for many Jewish groups.

The lawsuit, which named several rabbis, synagogues, the New York Police Department and the City of New York, accused the police and health departments of assisting the ritual by blocking off streets and sidewalks, and not enforcing city and state laws that regulate health and prevent animal cruelty.

“Although they may be upsetting to nonadherents of such practice, the United States Supreme Court has recognized animal sacrifice as a religious sacrament and decided that it is protected under the Free Exercise Clause of the Constitution, as applied to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment,” the appellate court ruling said.

The alliance said it would appeal the decision to the state Supreme Court, saying the 3-2 appellate court vote left the door open to a reversal, according to the report.

“Although they may be upsetting to nonadherents of such practice, the United States Supreme Court has recognized animal sacrifice as a religious sacrament and decided that it is protected under the Free Exercise Clause of the Constitution....”

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Because global warming might lead to human deaths, it falls into the category of “safek nefashot,” or occasions when human life might be at risk. And Jewish law is unambiguous when life might be at risk: You are obligated to “err” on the side of caution.

Judaism Requires Us to Pursue the Goals of the Paris Climate Accords

BY DAVID KRAEMER

(JTA) — The Trump administration’s decision to withdraw from the Paris climate agreement has demanded that we all ask ourselves where we stand on questions of climate change, global warming and our collective responsibility for the planet we call home.

That the earth has been warming in recent years is indisputable. At issue are the causes of this warming and its consequences.

The vast majority of scientists agree that human activities are a significant contributor to global warming, and that the consequences will be significant and even catastrophic. If average global temperatures rise just a little farther, not only will vast populations be “inconvenienced,” but environments will shift, food supplies will be disrupted, severe weather events will be more common, animal species will be eradicated and more—all at a rate unprecedented in

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human history.

In other words, this is not merely a matter of principle. If scientists are right, this is a matter of life and death for potentially large numbers of creatures, including humans. Matters of life and death are central to the concerns of Jewish thought and religion. So we Jews must ask, What do Jewish teachings demand of us in the matter of global warming?

From a Jewish perspective, it makes no difference that there are those, including a small number of scientists, who dispute the science and therefore dispute that the conclusions are the source of alarm. Because global warming might lead to human deaths, it falls into the category of “safek nefashot,” or occasions when human life might be at risk. And Jewish law is unambiguous when life might be at risk: You are obligated to “err” on the side of caution.

So on Yom Kippur, if a pregnant woman says she is

fine without eating but a doctor says her life is at risk, you are obligated to feed her. By the same token, if the doctor says she is fine but she says she is failing, you are similarly obligated to feed her. What this means is that even if the “alarmists” only might be right, we are obligated to take the steps they advise. If human life might be at risk, we must act to avert the risk.

One might respond that the Yom Kippur case pertains to someone who is already alive, while the concern for global warming extends to those who will live (and die) in the future. But Judaism is also clear in insisting that our obligations extend not only to those who live today, but also to future generations.

As Moses, speaking for God, says in Deuteronomy 29:13-14, “I make this covenant...not with you alone, but both with those who are standing here with us this day before the Lord our God and with those who are not with us this day.” The covenant, with its obligations to save lives, is a “generation to generation” covenant.

Finally, our obligation as Jews extends not just to our own species, but to the world as a whole and to all of God’s creatures within it. Psalms declares that “the earth and its fullness are the Lord’s” (24:1). We are, as Leviticus announces, mere “resident-aliens” (25:23) on the land. But doesn’t Psalms (115:16) also teach that “the heavens belong to the Lord while He gave the earth to the children of men”? Yes, says the Talmud, but only after we take responsibility for the earth by recognizing its creator and following the creator’s commandments to care for it (see Berakhot 35a–b). The earth is not ours to exploit—let alone to destroy—at will. It is ours only if we are good stewards. As Genesis 2:15 says, we are placed in this “garden” of ours “to work it and to guard it.”

It would be unfair to say that Judaism requires us to stay in the Paris climate agreement; biblical and rabbinic prescriptions are not simplistically translatable into the details of 21st-century policy.

But Judaism does require us to pursue the goals of the Paris accords and even more. The fact that questions remain does not change this conclusion. In the view of Judaism, the survival of the earth and its creatures is our responsibility.

David Kraemer is the Joseph J. and Dora Abbell Librarian and professor of Talmud and Rabbinics at the Jewish Theological Seminary.

Andrew Cuomo Memorializes Peres at Park East Synagogue On June 4, Governor Andrew M. Cuomo delivered remarks at the Shimon Peres Day Breakfast in New York City. While in Jerusalem in March, Governor Cuomo proclaimed the first Sunday in June “Shimon Peres Day” as a tribute to his legacy of extraordinary leadership and dedication to promoting peace across the world.

A transcript of the governor’s remarks follows: This past March when I was in Israel, I said unequivocally that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel and the embassy should be in Jerusalem, period. Our support is strong and solid and it will not change. But today is not just the 53rd annual salute to Israel. It is also the first day proclaimed in the state of New York in honor of Shimon Peres. I met, in person, Shimon Peres when he was minister of regional coordination.

I was the HUD secretary under the Clinton administration—Housing and Urban Development secretary.

I was being sent to Israel because President Clinton wanted to set up a binational commission on housing and community development.

I was telling my father about it and he said, “Well, one person you have to see is Shimon Peres.” My father was governor; Shimon was prime minister.

So my father said, “You have to see him.

I’ll call.”

My father and I were a little competitive, not just on the basketball court. I said, “No, there’s no reason for you to call. I’m a Cabinet member; I’m going over; I’ll set up the meeting.”

He said, “He won’t meet with you.”

I said, “Why won’t he meet with me?”

He said, “He’s an important world leader. He’s not going to meet with you.”

I said, “No, he’ll meet with me.

I’m coming over, the secretary to the president of the United States setting up the binational.”

We left the conversation like that. I called everybody I knew to call Shimon Peres to meet with me.

A couple of days before the trip, I’m about to leave, my father says to me, “So, are you meeting with Shimon Peres?”

I said, “Nobody can meet with him

right now. He’s indisposed. He’s on a special mission for the prime minister.

He’s under guard, secret….”

He said, “All right, I’ll call.”

Next day, he said, “Shimon Peres will meet you 10 o’clock at the office. Don’t be late.”

But I have worked with presidents, senators, world leaders all across the globe. When you were in the presence of Shimon Peres, you knew you were in the presence of greatness. I’ll never forget what he said to me that first meeting, which was about 20 years ago.

He said, “Right now, you think terrorism is Israel’s problem. Terrorism is not Israel’s problem. Terrorism is a global problem. It’s just that Israel is here; Israel is proximate. It is our location. But one day, they will be able to get to you and that day will come for you.”

That was 20 years ago. That was before 9/11, when it was unheard of, but talk about visionary. That is exactly what has happened. The world has gotten smaller. Travel is faster. The internet communication and terrorism has spread like wildfire.

Now, it’s almost so frequent that people aren’t even surprised. Just last night—an attack in London. Our brothers and sisters in London have our thoughts and prayers.

But that’s the first thing Mr. Peres said to me and he was so, so right. I had a number of opportunities to see him again on a number of different trips. We went again at the Second Intifada. We went on the last visit, was 2014, and we had gone at the discovery of the tunnels dug by Hamas.

We had a series of meetings and Mr. Peres said, “I want to show you the tunnels.”

And I thought he would arrange a

trip that I would—he meant, I want to literally show you the tunnels. We went to the tunnels, right on the Gaza border. It must have been 100 degrees.

It was in the middle of the desert. Your father was in a full suit [addressed to Peres’ son Chemi, who was in attendance]. Tie up tight, the tie tight— perfect gentleman. I’m perspiring.

Everyone’s perspiring and he looked with such class and elegance, which is how he always represented himself and he wanted me to see the tunnels because he wanted me to understand how sophisticated the tunnels were.

When you hear they dug a tunnel, you think of a prison escape movie. These were concrete tunnels with electrical conduit through them and it showed

the intensity of the enemy that they would go through this much trouble just to get near one kibbutz because the tunnel came up a few hundred yards from a kibbutz. And Mr. Peres’ point was, this is how dedicated these people are to the destruction of Israel.

He was extraordinary and anyone in his presence knew that. I believe great leaders have an additional dimension to an afterlife. The strength of their character is so powerful, their voices are so resonant, their wisdom is so prophetic, that in many ways they never die and in many ways they are still with us and I believe that Mr. Peres is still with us and that’s why it is my honor to proclaim today, June 4, Shimon Peres Day in the state of New York.

Proclamation

Whereas, all New Yorker s are proud to join in hon oring the life and legacy of president of Isra el Shimon Peres, a leader and statesman of extraordinary caliber wh o inspired New York and the rest of the world with his lifetime commit ment to engendering pea ce; Whereas, President Per es dedicated his life to Isra el and its people, serving in nearly every high office of governme nt from prime minister to president; and during his more than 50 years in public service, he worked tirelessly to rea ffirm citizens’ rights and freedoms, promote economic and social em powerment, and establ ish an independent Jewish state; Whereas, President Per es has earned the las ting respect and admiration of countle ss others across the globe and inspired generations of politician s and statesmen; his crit ical role in negotiating the Oslo Accords earned him a Nobel Peace Prize in 1994 and confirmed his position as one of the world’s most important advocates for peace; Whereas, New York is home to more than 1.7 million Jews—the largest Jewish community outside of Israel in the world—and always had a special relationshi p with Israel, and Presid ent Peres served as a tremendous ally in promo ting and strengthening this bond; Whereas, all New Yor kers join in honoring and remembering Pre sid ent Per es’ ind elib le leg acy of lea der shi p, ser vic e and commitment to building a better future for Israel and the world; Now, therefore, I, Andre w Cuomo, governor of the state of New York, do hereby proclaim the first Sunday of Jun e, 2017, as Shimon Peres Day in New Yor k State, as a fitting trib ute to his legacy of extraordinary leadershi p and dedication to pro moting peace across the world.

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Dating Site that Connects Jews of Middle Eastern Descent

Eldelala connects Jews of Middle Eastern descent who are looking for love.

BY JOSEFIN DOLSTEN IMAGE BY LIOR ZALTZMAN

NEW YORK (JTA) — These days, there’s a dating age from 21 to 72. Shamash is hoping to introduce the site or app for just about any group you can imagine, site in Israel as well.

Initially, she intended the website to be only for from men with beards (and their admirers) to a farmers-only site. There’s even an app that matches Jews of Iraqi descent, but shortly after its launch, people based upon shared dislikes — as in “I saw that she decided to expand it to all Mizrahi Jews. Current members trace their family histories to countries you, too, hate paying extra for guacamole.”

But one day it dawned upon Cynthia Shamash, a including Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Syria and Morocco.

The site works a little bit New York-based dentist, that it was differently from dating apps such as still hard for Mizrahi Jews—Jews from Tinder, in which users swipe “yes” or the Middle East and North Africa—to “no” on profiles that provide scant meet each other. information other than photos. On Shamash, who published a book Eldelala, users answer a questionnaire in 2015 about her Jewish family’s about themselves regarding topics 1972 escape from Iraq, was traveling such as religious observance, around the United States giving talks willingness to relocate and what they about her background. Iraqi Jews who are looking for in a partner. had come to hear her speak would Matches are made the oldfrequently come up and introduce fashioned way—by Shamash and two themselves. other matchmakers, who read the “We are so dispersed,” she told the profiles and introduce members who JTA. “They felt a connection.” they think are compatible.

These conversations got Shamash, Cynthia Shamash founded Sharon Arazi, a 28-year-old retail 53, thinking about how the next Eldelala, a dating site for manager from Great Neck, N.Y., has generation of Jews of Iraqi descent Mizrahi Jews. would stay connected to their PHOTO COURTESY OF SHAMASH Iraqi, Syrian and Lebanese ancestry.

She signed up for Eldelala in May heritage. because she prefers to date someone “I thought of a way to perhaps make things approachable for their children,” she who shares her Mizrahi background, she said, noting said. “I sensed that they would have liked the children common food, music and mentalities.

“We understand each other, so that would be to meet Mizrahi Jews, but geographical issues are a important to me,” Arazi said. problem, [and] it wasn’t going to happen.”

She said she is drawn to how the site uses real-life She thought that connections made online could be matchmakers, as opposed to algorithms. the answer.

“I really like the idea of matchmaking,” she said. “I To that end, Shamash launched Eldelala, which means “the matchmaker” in Arabic, in April. So far, find it very difficult to meet people out and about.”

Arazi has already received two suggested matches the site has only about 50 members from around the world—including from the United States, Canada, from Shamash. She declined to meet the first match England, the Netherlands and Sweden—who range in after realizing that he was much more observant than

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she was, but she is hoping to meet a second possible suitor soon. (Out of the handful of matches Eldelala has initiated since April, one pair are still in touch, according to Shamash.)

Arazi tried other dating platforms without success, she said. At the moment, she’s using only Eldelala and Sephardic Connection, a site run by Torah Ohr Hebrew Academy in Great Neck.

Around half of the members of Eldelala’s stillsmall user base indicate that they would be willing to relocate for love.

“That’s pretty telling of how important it is to them” to find a partner with a shared background, Shamash said.

Still, Shamash’s goal is not to discourage marriage between Jews of Middle Eastern descent and those from other backgrounds, she said, pointing out that she has been married to her husband, an Ashkenazi Jew, for 25 years.

“I didn’t make it in any way so there should be no mixing [between Mizrahi and non-Mizrahi Jews],” she said. “I just believe that this availability should be there.”

Members do not have to be 100 percent Mizrahi to join the site. In fact, Eldelala is open to Jews of other backgrounds who are interested in Mizrahi culture.

The site will remain free until December, when it will cost $20 per month. But Shamash said that no one will be excluded from joining the site due to financial constraints.

Ultimately Shamash—who has not returned to her native Iraq since leaving as a refugee—sees Eldelala as a way to connect Mizrahi Jews who are no longer living in their home countries.

She explained, “If we don’t have the land under our feet and we’re floating—it’s a culture that is floating and dispersed—why not use [technology] as the ground under our feet, and find each other?”

Smoking Is Making a Comeback in Israel

BY ANDREW TOBIN

TEL AVIV (JTA) — Israel has one of the highest life smoked in 2015, according to the U.S. Centers for expectancies in the world—82.5 years, on average. But Disease Control.

Litzman, a member of the haredi Orthodox United a surprising increase in smoking rates may threaten Torah Judaism party, has recently come under that status.

In line with global trends, the smoking rate in Israel fire for hindering some efforts to curb cigarette fell from about 45 percent in the early 1980s to about advertisements and for opposing regulations that 20 percent or less in the years since 2011. However, would require manufacturers to put warning images in its annual report on smoking released last week, on cigarette packages, saying, “It’s not aesthetic.”

In January, reporters for Israel’s Channel 2 TV Israel’s Health Ministry recorded the biggest singleyear setback in more than a decade, with the rate station, posing as agents for a company that imports rising to 22.5 percent in 2016 from 19.7 percent the electronic cigarettes, paid thousands of shekels to a go-between to schedule meetings with Litzman and previous year.

“This is unheard of in the developed world,” the Health Ministry’s head of public health services.

Leah Rosen, who heads Tel Aviv University’s Health The undercover reporters were assured on camera Promotion Department, told the JTA. “There’s an that no legislation restricting the sale of e-cigarettes epidemiological curve of tobacco use, and as people in Israel was expected.

Although e-cigarettes are not tobacco products, start to get sick from smoking, the [smoking] rate starts going down, and it never goes back up. We have they often contain nicotine and other chemicals that could pose health risks to users. now broken that trend.”

At the time of the Channel 2 report, a Health Health professionals and antismoking activists have long been sounding the alarm about smoking in the Ministry spokesperson said Litzman had not been Jewish state—the decline of the national smoking rate aware of the payments and that he has a well-known had slowed before 2016. And while numerous factors “policy of keeping his door open to any person or are likely in play, many have accused the government organization or company that wishes to see him.”

Rosen said Israel should introduce additional of not taking the threat seriously enough.

Smoking is one of the leading causes of death warnings on cigarette packages, as well as strict in Israel. According to the Health Ministry, limitations on how tobacco can be marketed and approximately 8,000 Israelis die each year for reasons where it can be used. One of the most impactful policy linked to smoking, among them 800 nonsmokers changes, she said, would be to close a loophole in the exposed to secondhand smoke inhalation. The taxation of cigarettes that allows for loose tobacco to Jewish state’s new smoking rate is comparatively high—ranking 28 out Smoking in Israel of 35 European countries, according to is on the increase, the World Health Organization. Europe partially due to has the highest rate of any region of the lower taxes on world. loose tobacco.

In the Health Ministry report, Health Minister Yaakov Litzman acknowledged “a decline in efforts” to combat smoking and pledged to introduce a package of new measures to reverse the upward trend.

“The increase in smoking rates, which brings Israel back above the 20 percent mark, demands that the healthcare system reexamine its policies for coping with tobacco products and whether to allocate more resources to contend with the problem,” he said.

About 15 percent of Americans

be taxed at a rate lower than pre-rolled cigarettes.

Taxes on packs of cigarettes have risen in the past few years—the most recent increase, in 2013, brought the toll to three shekels (about 85 cents) a pack, up from 2.5 shekels. The price of a pack of cigarettes is now between 22 and 35 shekels (about $6 to $10).

But a growing number of Israelis have started smoking loose tobacco, which costs about 43 percent less than buying the same amount of tobacco in a pack, according to the Israeli daily Haaretz.

Elad Sheffer, an activist with the antismoking group Clean Air, said it was nonsensical to tax loose tobacco at a lower rate.

“There is no case in terms of health or economics because cheaper cigarettes aren’t any less dangerous than expensive ones,” he said in a 2015 policy statement.

Amit Farag, a 24-year-old waitress in Tel Aviv, told the JTA she started smoking in high school. She switched to hand-rolled cigarettes a few years ago, at the end of her army service, because packs had gotten too expensive.

Still, she and most of her friends would prefer to smoke Marlboros, she said.

“When they can have a regular cigarette they want to,” she said. “Sometimes I still take a box from my parents, and it’s like, yeah, I have a box, and it’s nice.”

If rolled cigarettes cost as much as packs, she would have to quit, she added. It’s still something she plans to do “one day” because “we all know it’s bad for us,” she said.

Yehuda Glick, a Knesset member for the ruling Likud party, said he recently sent a letter to the Finance Ministry, which formulates the budget, requesting a boost in the tax on loose tobacco, but was told no increases were being introduced for now.

Glick said he personally brought up the matter with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last week, who said he would look into the matter.

In the meantime, Glick is working on a bill to reduce smoking among Israelis under the age of 21, since many young Israelis begin smoking in high school or during their army service.

Rosen agreed that Israel’s antismoking policies should focus on young people.

Although Israel last year enacted a ban on smoking at educational institutions, she said it needs to be better enforced. The Health Ministry found that 24.8 percent of males and 14.9 percent of females were smoking by the time they began their mandatory military service after high school.

A study Rosen spearheaded in January found that by the time they were discharged from the army, 40 percent of men and 32 percent of women smoked—a 42 percent increase during the course of service.

The good news, Rosen added, is that as one of Israel’s most powerful institutions, the army is in a position to get Israel back on the wagon.

PHOTO BY HADAS PARUSH/FLASH90

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Latin-Inspired Vegetarian Cholent Recipe Add some meat-free spice to your Shabbat

BY SANDY LEIBOWITZ | VIA THE KNOSHER

Even before slow cookers were invented, Jews all around the world were making their slowcooked meals out of necessity and in observance of Shabbat. And as it turns out, slow-cooked meals over a low flame are also incredibly delicious.

Jewish law prohibits the practice of cooking on a flame during the Sabbath; therefore cholent (and its Sephardic cousins hamin and dafina) was born. Essentially, it is a stew—usually containing beef or poultry—that is braised slowly for many hours and then enjoyed as a warm meal on Shabbat.

Jews from every country have their own way to make it, and the ingredients vary. Typically, an inexpensive cut of beef is used; the long cooking process breaks down the muscle fibers and connective tissue, allowing the meat to fall apart and melt in your mouth. There are also potatoes or sometimes barley or other types of grains.

Here, I decided to embrace my South American roots and make a Latin-inspired, vegetarian version of this traditional dish. Not only do these flavors come together beautifully, but you don’t have to worry about breaking down any tough meat!

I used ripe (yellow-brown) plantains, batatas (sweet potatoes) and yuca along with a variety of beans—which are all starches that come to mind with Latin American cooking. You can certainly use the green plantains; just keep in mind that they take longer to cook. Also, the ripe plantains add a hint of sweetness that works well with the other earthy flavors.

While portobello mushrooms may not be Latin American, I added them for nutrition and a meatier depth of flavor. The squeeze of fresh lime before serving really brightens this dish and brings it to the next level.

Ingredients • 1 portobello mushroom, diced • 4 garlic cloves, minced • 1 onion, sliced • ½ green pepper, sliced • ½ red pepper, sliced • 10.5 oz can of black beans, rinsed • 10.5 oz can of garbanzo beans (chickpeas) rinsed

Note: The less you cook this dish, the more texture will remain. Cooking longer will decrease the texture but increase the depth of flavor. Substitute parsley for cilantro if you’re not a fan of cilantro, but definitely don’t leave out the fresh lime—it really ties this dish together and makes it taste authentic.

• 10.5 oz can of red kidney beans, rinsed • ½ yuca, cut in 2-inch pieces (Make sure to remove the fibrous stem that runs inside the center; it looks like a vine.)

• ½ batata, cut into medium dice • 1 ripe plantain (choose one that is yellowish and has only a few black specks, or choose a green plantain) • 1 Tbsp olive oil • ¼ cup tomato paste

Directions

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• 1 tsp oregano • ½ tsp cumin • 1 tsp ground coriander • ½ tsp granulated garlic • ½ tsp onion powder • ¼ tsp red pepper flakes (optional) • 1 tsp salt (Adjust seasoning as needed.)

• 3 cups of fresh, cold water (It should barely cover your ingredients.)

• Fresh lime for serving • Cilantro, chopped for garnish

1. Sauté the portobello mushroom in a small sauté pan until caramelized well. Add to the bottom of your slow cooker.

2. Layer all the ingredients on top of the mushrooms.

3. Mix the tomato paste, olive oil, spices and water in a bowl and stir well.

4. Pour water and spice mixture over everything inside the slow cooker and combine.

5. Cook on low for 6-8 hours.

Got $500,000?

Buy This Koufax Jersey!

BY GABE FRIEDMAN

“Oslo” writer J.T. Rogers, second from right, at the 2017 Tony Awards in New York City, June 11, 2017 PHOTO BY MIKE COPPOLA/GETTY IMAGES FOR TONY AWARDS PRODUCTIONS

This jersey is from Koufax’s first season in 1955.

PHOTO COURTESY LELANDS

(JTA) — If you want to buy this Sandy Koufax jersey, you might need the salary of a Major League Baseball player.

Lelands.com is auctioning a Sandy Koufax rookie jersey from 1955. As of the morning of June 6, the current bid is close to $200,000, but the auction site estimates that it could sell for as much as $500,000. The auction, which started last month, ends June 30.

According to the site, the jersey is in great condition; its only noticeable blemishes are a few moth holes on the back of the collar and under the Koufax name, which is stitched on the bottom right corner of the jersey’s front. A Dodgers Minor League player acquired it directly from Koufax in 1957.

Though he was only 19 in 1955, Koufax helped lead the Brooklyn Dodgers to their first-ever World Series, with a 2-2 record with a very respectable 3.02 earned-run average. From there, of

course, the Jewish southpaw would go on to become one of the best pitchers of all time, but memorabilia from an athlete’s rookie (first full) season is always worth more than from later years.

The Lelands auction also includes a baseball that may have been used in a 1963 World Series game in which Koufax beat the New York Yankees and recorded 15 strikeouts. Koufax pitched that gem in the series’ first game, but Lelands can only confirm that the ball is from one of the first two games in the series.

Lelands also recently auctioned off an extremely rare baseball signed by Jewish player Moe Berg for $35,000.

Berg, who played for five teams between 1923 and 1939, was a catcher who later became a spy for the CIA (then the Office of Strategic Services).

He spoke seven languages and was once called the “strangest man ever to play baseball.”

“Oslo,” Bette Midler and Ben Platt Take Tony Awards (JTA) — “Oslo,” a play about the 1993 Oslo Accords, won the Tony Award for best new play, and its Jewish lead actor, Michael Aronov, was recognized as best featured actor in a play.

Bette Midler, the veteran Jewish actress and singer, won for best actress in a musical for “Hello Dolly” as Broadway handed out its highest honors on Sunday night in New York.

The play also won for best musical revival.

“Oslo,” a J.T. Rogers play in which Israeli and Palestinian negotiators struggle to hammer out a peace deal, received rave reviews for turning a complicated history into a fast, entertaining three hours. Aronov plays

Uri Savir, an Israeli negotiator in the 1990s talks.

The musical “Dear Evan Hansen,” about a boy who gets caught up in a lie after the death of a classmate, was named best new musical and led the way with six Tonys, including for its star, the Jewish actor Ben Platt, as best actor in a musical; and Rachel Bay Jones for best featured actress. Benj Pasek, who is Jewish, and Justin Paul also won for best book, best orchestration and best original score. Paul won the Oscar this year for “La La Land.”

Rebecca Teichman won best director for “Indecent,” which recounts the bumpy journey to Broadway of Sholem Asch’s controversial Yiddish play “God of Vengeance.”

JUNE 14 – 20, 2017 | NYJLIFE.COM | 17

Governing By Press Release MAYOR “UNVEILS” DIVERSITY PLAN WITH NO PUBLIC APPEARANCE

BY ALEX ZIMMERMAN / VIA CHALKBEAT NY

Last summer, Mayor Bill de Blasio stepped into one of the most racially divided school districts in New York City and promised a “bigger vision” for promoting school diversity.

On the morning of June 6, that vision was unveiled— with no public appearances from city officials.

Neither Schools Chancellor Carmen Fariña nor de Blasio held public events or press conferences to explain the plan, nor did they publicly take questions from reporters. In recent months, de Blasio has made appearances to promote initiatives large and small: to announce more air conditioning in city schools, an expansion of universal pre-K and a summer reading drive. On June 5, both leaders appeared at a press conference about physical education.

Mayor Bill de Blasio PHOTO BY PATRICK WALL

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The mayor and chancellor have faced criticism for not being aggressive enough in integrating the city’s schools, and have often described the plan released June 6 as their attempt to tackle the problem. The decision not to take questions about their plan or explain it in person, some observers said, may showcase their reluctance to embrace the cause.

“When the leadership of a school system and a city does not make a public statement or press availability, it signals something about their desire to truly make this a stake in the ground,” said Josh Starr, a former schools superintendent in Connecticut and Maryland, who is currently the CEO of PDK International.

Their press strategy for making the announcement also contributed to the perception that they were not

interested in a vigorous public debate.

Before the plan was unveiled, city officials approached several publications—including Chalkbeat—to offer exclusive glimpses of certain portions of it. But the officials insisted that reporters not contact outside sources for comment on the plan. (The city’s education department often asks for embargoes when it offers advance notice of policy announcements, but almost never asks reporters not to solicit outside perspectives.)

Education department spokesman Will Mantell said the way the city announced the plan is not unusual. He noted that reporters would be allowed to individually interview senior education officials June 6—including the chancellor.

“I would push back on the idea that we are taking fewer questions or doing less interaction with the press than we would normally do,” Mantell said in an interview.

Asked why there was no press conference to announce a plan that had been in the works for many months, a mayoral spokeswoman wrote in an email that “the mayor has spoken about this plan countless times and will happily continue to now that the plan is out.”

Key integration advocates had previously complained that there had not been sufficient public discussion of the plan before it was released, but Mantell said there would be a public process going forward. The city has created an advisory group that will evaluate the city’s current diversity goals and come up with formal recommendations by June 2018.

“The crux of the plan,” Mantell said, “is that we’re putting together a public school advisory group that is going to put together public recommendations.”

Starr, the former schools chief, said the political sensitivity of school segregation may help explain the decision not to come forward with a full plan all at once.

School integration “deals with issues of white people recognizing the privilege that they have and it confronts the very design of the system that currently exists,” Starr said. “I understand the desire to put it out in bits and pieces.”

JCRC Hosts Pluralism Awards Ceremony At City Hall Honoring Toby Nussbaum On Wednesday, June 7, the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York (JCRC) hosted an awards ceremony at City Hall for the winners of the Toby Nussbaum Jewish Heritage Student Essay Contest. Toby Nussbaum was the former vice chair of the Metropolitan Council on Jewish Poverty and vice president of the JCRC. Schoolchildren’s writing addressed the vital issue of cultural pluralism. New York City Deputy Mayor Richard Buery welcomed the assembled guests, and Toby Nussbaum’s family spoke as well. New York Jewish Life is pleased to print the winning entries below.

JUNE 14 – 20, 2017 | NYJLIFE.COM | 19

OPINION

The Five Most Important Things I Learned From My First Job With new college graduates now out in the world with their new degrees and enthusiasm, New York Jewish Life is pleased to share this column on new professional beginnings.

–Michael Tobman, Publisher

BY JENNY MAENPAA

I’ve had a lot of first jobs. There was my first job ever where someone paid me for doing something, my first job where I had to punch a clock, my first job out of college, my first job after completing my master’s degree and finally the first business I ever started.

Each one taught me an extremely valuable lesson that I was then able to bring with me to the next experience.

The five most important things I learned from all of my first jobs are as follows: 1. You can’t just be your normal, casual self everywhere and in every situation.

Babysitting is a funny gig. You’re usually barely older than the kids you’re watching, yet suddenly you have absolute authority. Even if you regularly play with these kids informally, when you are babysitting you are in charge of everyone’s health and well-being.

Suddenly I couldn’t look around for an adult to pass the kids off to when they were whining or, heaven forbid, actually hurt.

Learning to think on my feet and try a few solutions myself before asking someone above me has served me well in every subsequent job I have ever had. I have received performance reviews where supervisors explicitly highlighted my inclination to work through challenges myself first, or with peers, before asking my bosses for help. Learning all the facets of how to do my own job to the best of my ability meant the bosses were freed up to do the same, and I could reserve going to them for actual emergencies. An added benefit to this tendency of mine was that when I did go to managers with questions, they automatically assumed

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I had tried everything else, and we didn’t waste time running through all the obvious options that I had already thought of and tried on my own.

2. You have to earn the freedom to make the rules.

In my first adolescent job with a punch card and a uniform, I learned that as long as I work for someone else, my time is not my own. One day while things were slow, I told my co-worker I was going to wander over to the snack shop next door where my friend worked and get some fries. By the time I came back, my boss was there, and she was not pleased. My co-worker looked guiltily at the floor. Secondary lesson learned: Co-workers are not automatically your friends. They will not necessarily cover for you.

Now that I own my own business, I determine how my time is spent. I don’t do busy work; I only do things that are in service of my big goals, and if I want fries, I go get them.

3. Not everything can be reframed positively, but a lot more can than we usually assume.

My first job out of college was working with families whose babies were suspected of being

developmentally delayed. I realized quickly that the same information could be presented in different ways.

I learned how to be asset-based in my disclosure of information to a family rather than deficitbased. Being assetbased is not the same as glossing over truly devastating diagnoses.

Having an assetbased mindset means framing challenges as opportunities for growth. Families who were able to see next steps through a lens of possibility had consistently better outcomes for their babies than families who were paralyzed by their fear and anxiety.

The same is true of any workplace.

Any challenges, regardless of magnitude, can be seen as either roadblocks or detours. Only one of those will keep you moving forward.

4. Sometimes you have to start over to move in the direction of your dreams.

By the time I finished my master’s, I had been working steadily in advocacy and education for six years. I was finally ready for my first opportunity to supervise other people! But, as it turns out, all of my experience in the fields of public service did not automatically qualify me to be a supervisor of clinical therapists, primarily because I had never been one. Being an advocate, a teacher and an enterprising graduate student did not mean anything in terms of psychotherapy skills. I had to start at the bottom again.

Initially, I was resistant to what I felt was moving backwards. I tried every workaround I could think of to leapfrog to the next level. Finally, I realized that all those people were very smart, and very right. I had no idea how to be a therapist just because I had been in fields adjacent to it, and I definitely had

no idea how to supervise those doing therapeutic work. I learned more in my first clinical therapist job than I can put a name to, including the mindsets and skills that make me an excellent coach.

5. You have to know what your personal mission is.

By the time I had settled into being a therapist and was working at an alternative high school, I was burning out quickly and spectacularly. I loved working with my students and their families, but my bosses made me feel like Sisyphus eternally pushing a boulder up a hill. Organizational management was a mess, there was constant turnover at the most senior levels, and each individual leader was trying to serve his/her own vision. I, and many of my colleagues, experienced sleeplessness, emotional eating, hypervigilance, exaggerated startle reflexes and—as an overall result—increased absenteeism.

I finally sought advice from a professional mentor, baring my anxiety over potentially leaving the school and abandoning its mission. He said to me, “You keep talking about ‘abandoning the mission’ of the school, but what about your personal mission? If you stay in this job, you will burn out of the entire field of social services completely. You keep prioritizing what everyone else needs from you. When will what you need be as important, or more important, than what everyone else needs?”

It was a complete turning point for me, and forced me to identify my own personal mission statement. I realized that the way I want to show up in the world did not align with the school, and I left to start my own coaching business.

I have never been happier and know that I am doing the work I was meant to do, in the way I was meant to do it.

Learning to trust and prioritize myself was a long road, and I stumbled many times along the way. I still stumble, and every time I do, having a written personal mission statement brings me back to my purpose in life and allows me to recalibrate.

OPINION

Ban on Partisan Pulpits Key to Protecting Religious Freedom

Child-Abuse Reform—a Need for Balance

BY ROGER BENNET ADLER

BY RABBI JACK MOLINE

(JTA) — That small little law known as the Johnson Amendment, which prohibits electioneering by houses of worship and other charities and which President Trump has vowed to repeal, is exceptionally important to preserve.

Even if it is not widely enforced, the permission it grants to the Internal Revenue Service to pursue violators is critical to the protection of religious communities and the integrity of government.

A 16th-century rabbi told me so.

There exists a teaching in the scholarly discussions of Jewish law that translates roughly as, “It may be the rule, but we do not teach about it publicly.” It is invoked sparingly, almost always when a person is technically allowed to do something that would nonetheless prove harmful to others. Think of the straw that used to be left on the roadside for people to use when cleaning up after their animals. The straw was technically ownerless and could be taken by any passerby for private use, but the Talmud directs us not to encourage such behavior.

Why? Rabbi Bezalel Ashkenazi, best known as the author of the 16th-century Talmud commentary “Shitah Mekubezet,” offers this relatable explanation: Even when you can get away with something without penalty, we do not encourage it for the sake of a better world.

I can think of many corners of our society that would benefit from this sort of restraint. The Johnson Amendment, which has been targeted by the religious right for elimination, is near the top of the list.

The amendment is a part of the tax code governing tax-exempt charities. In exchange for the opportunity to offer tax deductions to donors, the nonprofits—including, but not limited to, houses of worship—agree that neither the organization nor anyone representing it will endorse or oppose a candidate for office. Issue advocacy is fully permitted, but electioneering is not. It seems an eminently reasonable standard, especially since no one, including clergy, is restricted from endorsing in a personal capacity.

It is no secret that this law is rarely enforced.

The process of investigating and prosecuting violations is costly and complicated. No one has ever gone to jail for it, and only one house

of worship is known to have lost its tax-exempt status for a violation. Given the many thousands of houses of worship in America, that does not exactly seem excessive.

But of all the things right-wing preachers might get exercised about—poverty, inequality, war, bigotry, personal immorality—they seem to be sinking millions of dollars and almost as many words into claiming that their First Amendment rights have been trampled by the Johnson Amendment, and they are demanding its repeal.

President Trump has promised to do just that.

Fortunately, as with other promises made by the president, he does not have the unilateral authority to change the law. His recent executive order encouraged the IRS to look the other way when people violate the Johnson Amendment, but this accomplishes little in practical terms.

However, Congress could wipe out the law altogether.

That would be exactly the wrong move for American democracy and religious freedom. The Johnson Amendment may be rarely enforced, but it is a critical guidepost. And just because people could get away with violating it, that doesn’t mean they do so.

I believe that people of integrity follow the law even without the threat of punishment. We typically stop at red lights, correct a bank teller who gives us too much money, vote only once in an election and settle our disagreements with words. We do so because the rules of civil society are important, enacted to promote the general welfare, as the Constitution suggests. And for those people with less integrity, even a small threat of sanction makes them think twice about the consequences of getting caught.

I can think of times when the bully pulpit of the presidency could rightly be used to call for passive resistance against an immoral law.

Plunging houses of worship into partisan politics does not strike me as one of those times.

If you are clergy or congregant, you should oppose the assault on the Johnson Amendment.

Thankfully, polling shows that you already overwhelmingly do.

Rabbi Jack Moline is president of Interfaith Alliance.

Discussions concerning how to investigate, litigate and compensate child-abuse victims, now in adulthood, are again at the front of legislative debate. These talks raise important questions concerning the need to revisit the statute of limitations for sex crimes, and within which to sue for money damages. State Sen. Jeff Klein has clearly done yeoman’s work in trying to strike a compromise to balance the need for reform with the rights of the accused.

Absent, however, from the discussion is any indication of the likely costs attendant to the passage of this proposed legislation, and the difficulties with which government and employers would be confronted—both in conducting investigations and mounting defenses in court—long after potential witnesses are no longer available, memories have faded, and employment records have been destroyed or long ago discarded.

New York law has long held that statutes of limitation are to be liberally construed in favor of the accused. The current proposed legislation singlemindedly (and understandably) focuses on the alleged victims, and scrupulously ignores the impact of these proposed changes upon the alleged accused.

Striking an appropriate balance is easier said than done.

In criminal cases, experienced prosecutors and their lawenforcement colleagues may scrupulously weigh whether criminal charges with a reasonable-doubt burden of proof can be successfully initiated.

By contrast, in the case of civil damage, the burden of proof is the lower “preponderance of evidence” standard.

Many institutional employers, not-for-profits and charitable organizations may face financial ruin, and so opt to settle rather than confront the risk of financial annihilation.

The impact upon liability-insurance coverage is also problematical.

Klein’s suggested creation of a “screening panel” to evaluate otherwise term-barred civil claims is an imaginative, creative proposal. That being said, the issue of justice for those asserting victimhood is one of serious public concern. The New York Archdiocese’s creation of a committee to evaluate time-barred cases and award appropriate compensatory damages marks a commendable act of atonement for decades of institutional stonewalling.

It is unclear how some of the prestigious private schools that have been the subject of similar disclosures are confronting their responsibilities.

Perhaps the prudent path is to continue to broaden the scope of inquiry and to address it at a special legislative session this autumn, after a full public hearing by the Legislature.

Roger Bennet Adler is a practicing attorney in New York City, and previously served as counsel to various state Senate committees.

JUNE 14 – 20, 2017 | NYJLIFE.COM | 21

AJC GLOBAL FORUM DISCUSSES WORLD AFFAIRS, PLANS FOR FUTURE Over 2,500 delegates from throughout the United States, and 70 countries, came to Washington, D.C., to participate in the annual American Jewish Committee (AJC) Global Forum. The assembled activists and community leaders spent three days in early June reviewing international outreach and plans for future programming. The 111-yearold organization has 22 U.S. regional offices, 10 overseas posts and 34 agreements with Jewish communities across the globe. The AJC has no official government position, yet its “diplomats” are received by domestic and foreign government officials at the highest levels. The organization works to influence positive policy on behalf of Jewish people everywhere.

Fifty years later: Four Israeli journalists discussed the impact of the Six-Day War on contemporary Israeli society. (Left to right) Sivan Rahav Meir, journalist, Channel 2 Israel and Galei Tzahal Radio; Barak Ravid, diplomatic correspondent, Haaretz; Amit Segal, chief political correspondent and commentator, Channel 2 Israel; Ilana Dayan, investigative journalist, Channel 2 Israel

ABOVE:

Israeli ambassador to the United States Ron Dermer during a luncheon discussion with AJC Executive Director David Harris LEFT:

Dr. Tal Becker, a Senior Fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute, fielded a wide range of questions from an enthusiastic audience.

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