The 6/21 Edition of New York Jewish Life

The Six-Day War: Lessons in Retrospect

New President of American Friends of the Hebrew University

Triumphs and Setbacks: The New York Times’ Jodi Kantor Talks Refugee Issues

VOL. 1, NO. 16 | JUNE 21 – 27, 2017 | NEWS THAT MATTERS TO JEWISH COMMUNITIES IN THE NEW YORK CITY METROPOLITAN AREA | NYJLIFE.COM | FREE

PHOTO BY MAXINE DOVERE

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

BUSINESS Michael Tobman PUBLISHER

Andrew Holt Generally speaking, I’m an optimistic guy. I don’t alarm easily, have enormous faith that people will eventually do the right thing, and have been told by friends with social-work degrees that I have a deep reservoir of forgiveness. I enjoy decisions and projects that take a long time. I find people to be endlessly fascinating, though clearly I can work on being more modest.

My faith in people extends to government and elections. Despite popular opinion to the contrary, I believe voters are very sophisticated thinkers. I have confidence in the electorate, trust public institutions, and respect news sources and the professionals who staff them.

Despite all the above, I’ll admit that I’m very worried. Things are a mess in government and politics, and it doesn’t look like improvement is forthcoming.

Our public discourse—nationally and internationally—is close to broken and needs more thoughtful attention than is currently being given.

We seem to be in the midst of a scripted revival of the cold war, with one party, America, refusing to memorize its lines. Britain’s recent national election flummoxed its Conservative majority and prime minister, forcing a minority governing coalition and muddying an

already-chaotic Brexit vote to leave the European Union. France recently elected a new president—though charismatic and thankfully triumphant over a neo-fascist—with recordlow voter turnout. Latin American countries continue to be gripped with high unemployment, mismanagement, impeachment, a wrenching man-made food shortage and gang violence. Asia is struggling with North Korea, which is governed by a madman with nearnuclear capability. Our own country is facing massive cuts to popular and much-needed social service programs, and a dismantling—through intentional neglect—of large swaths of the federal government. The European Union is facing an identity crisis, and NATO is waiting for more bad news about its mission.

It’s enough to make an optimist weary, but I have faith.

I have faith in our communal institutions, which thrive on charitable contributions and volunteers. I have faith in philanthropy and donors.

I have faith in nongovernmental organizations to fill the gaps in vital care. I have faith in social service providers and public hospitals. I have faith in schools.

Our cover last week highlighted Jewish communities from throughout the globe looking to AJC to speak up

in the face of government inaction.

There are many other groups filling similar roles, expanding their outreach and efforts to better serve their constituents and, by extension, everyone else. This is when we see people, and the groups they belong to, shine.

It’s not just constituency-based groups stepping forward. Issuebased advocates are more active, as are professional associations.

Criminal-justice reform efforts are being continued, and food-insecurity issues addressed. Lawyers are putting themselves on the frontlines of immigration controversies, and healthcare providers are standing up for women’s health.

Should it be otherwise? Should there be less of a need for private actors to step in? Of course, but wishing it were otherwise doesn’t make it so. New York Jewish Life lives in the world as it is, and we work with you to make it better.

Michael Tobman, Publisher

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CANDLE LIGHTING

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

Shabbat Ends: 9:22 p.m.

Friday, June 30 Candles: 8:13 p.m.

Shabbat Ends: 9:21 p.m.

JUNE 21 – 27, 2017 | NYJLIFE.COM | 3

BDSWatch

Free Speech

BY ANDREW TOBIN

JERUSALEM (JTA) – Israel’s minister of education says he wants to protect students from political coercion in the classroom. But critics of a new code of academic conduct he is proposing say it’s a power play meant to stifle leftwing opinions in higher education.

The code of ethics for institutes of higher education, which would bar the expression of political views in classrooms, was drafted at the request of Education Minister Naftali Bennett, head of the pro-settler Jewish Home party.

The chiefs of Israel’s universities have rejected the code. In a statement on June 11, the Committee of University Heads said it “severely and fundamentally violates the concept of academic freedom.”

The statement continued, “A careful study of the code shows that although it is defined as an ‘ethical code for appropriate behavior in the areas of overlap between academic activity and political activity,’ many of its articles deal with general activities in academic research and lectures. As such, this code is a collection of state rules to dictate our conduct as faculty members.”

Academics and politicians widely criticized the code, which has yet to be made policy. But a number of right-wing voices on campus praised it as a solution to the politicization of academia, which is widely seen as left-leaning.

At the weekly Cabinet meeting in Jerusalem on June 11, Bennett said the code would help protect students’ freedom of speech.

“Today, we are working to prevent the silencing of voices in academia, to prevent a situation in which a student can be hurt because of his political opinions and a lecturer who gets wages from taxpayers can put out a call for an academic boycott,” he said.

Asa Kasher, an Israel Prize-winning philosopher at Tel Aviv University who wrote the initial version of the Israeli

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army’s code of ethics, drafted the new code at Bennett’s request.

The document addresses a variety of topics. But critics have been most troubled by the limitations it would impose on how lecturers talk about politics on the job—prohibiting opining on political candidates, parties or “a recognized public dispute,” a broad phrase that could be applied to many issues in Israel.

The code also would prohibit lecturers from calling for or supporting academic boycotts against Israeli educational institutions—a tactic used by pro-Palestinian activists around the world. Academic institutions are encouraged to establish a unit to “monitor political activity on campus” and field complaints about lecturers from students. Lecturers found to be speaking inappropriately about politics could be disciplined.

Bennett plans to bring the code for approval to the Council for Higher Education, the state body for making higher-education policy that he heads.

But the Israeli daily Haaretz reported Monday that the necessary majority did not plan to vote in favor.

As a leading voice of the right, Bennett has been accused of attempting to strengthen right-wing views in education. Israel’s current government has sought to reshape various Israeli institutions in its image, leading some to accuse it of undermining democratic values.

Israeli President Reuven Rivlin appeared to condemn the code of ethics, and perhaps other recent government actions, in a June 11 speech at the Knesset in Jerusalem.

“The freedom to express a different opinion, different thought, requires protection,” he said. “The voices of the minority are essential to scientific research, to art and the humanities and social sciences.”

At the June 11 Cabinet meeting, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he was considering legislation that would limit the ability of leftwing advocacy groups to appeal to the

High Court of Justice—a prominent bugbear of the right. Earlier this month, Culture Minister Miri Regev threatened to defund a major arts festival for including nudity, which she said threatened Israeli values. And since May, Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked has held up the appointment of a new Supreme Court president in a reported bid for greater influence over other nominees to the bench.

Politicians from the left and centerleft sought to portray the code as part of a larger antidemocratic trend. In a Facebook post Sunday, Zionist Union lawmaker Erel Margalit said it simply aimed to “silence voices and make lecturers afraid.”

“No one believes this document is aimed at improving the academy or benefiting students,” he said. “This is a struggle not just for academic freedom but for freedom in general.”

Zehava Galon, who heads the leftwing Meretz party, tweeted Sunday that it is a “Bolshevik code that undermines education for democracy and pluralism.”

Kasher dismissed much of the criticism that his code is political.

He said he was inspired in part by policies of the Association of American University Professors, or AAUP, which has long maintained that teachers “are entitled to freedom in the classroom in discussing their subject, but they should be careful not to introduce into their teaching controversial matter which has no relation to their subject.”

However, the AAUP is a professional group, not a state one. In addition, it supports political activism by faculty outside the classroom, and discussion of controversial material in the classroom, as long as it fosters “genuine debate and learning that is germane to the subject matter of a course.”

One university head who was not included in the statement issued by his eight counterparts is defending the draft code. Yigal Cohen Orgad, a former Knesset member from the rightwing Herut party and the chancellor of Ariel University in the West Bank, has not been accepted as a member of the Committee of University Heads. The committee publicly opposed Ariel’s successful but controversial bid in

2012 to be upgraded from a college to a university.

“By any logical standard, there is a place for such a guiding code of ethics that guides proper behavior,” he told the JTA on June 12. “You can be in deep dispute about whether Ariel should exist or not; if Hebrew University has the right to exist despite the fact that some of its dormitories are on private [Palestinian] land. But it’s not legitimate for an Israeli scholar to go abroad and preach for people to boycott an Israeli university.”

Elisha Haas, who runs the biophysics program at Bar-Ilan University near Tel Aviv, from which Ariel broke off in 2005, questioned whether many critics had even read the code. He said the proposed policies were reasonable steps to ensure that students felt comfortable and were treated fairly in their classes, especially given Israel’s unique circumstances.

“Israel is a small system, and small systems by definition have many more fluctuations and extremes. We need to make sure it doesn’t jump from one extreme to another,” he told the JTA. “Also, Israel is the only country in the world that people think should not exist, that its existence is not justified, and people teach this concept, which is a problem Israel should not tolerate.”

For their part, university students have rallied against the code.

The National Union of Israeli Students threatened to organize a strike if the code was implemented, and already this week, student protests are being held on at least three university campuses. An invitation to protest at Hebrew University read, “Bennett is pushing for silencing of lecturers in academia under the guise of an ethical code. We say no to silencing, yes to academic freedom. We can’t allow for a situation in which a lecturer is unable to express his opinion, or the university is subjugated to the whims of politicians.”

But the right-wing student group Im Tirtzu said the code would restore “sanity to Israeli academia.”

“The ethical code compiled by Professor Asa Kasher is a correct and appropriate step toward the goal of ending politicization in academia,” Matan Peleg, the head of the group, said June 12 in a statement.

BDSWatch

Jewish Scholars Say Dartmouth Prof Who Signed Pro-BDS Statement Was Treated Unfairly (JTA) — A group of Jewish academics who oppose the Boycott Israel movement decried a campaign against a Dartmouth professor who backed BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions), saying it has negatively impacted academic freedoms.

N. Bruce Duthu, an associate dean and faculty member in Native American studies at Dartmouth College, declined his nomination as dean of faculty earlier this year due to intense controversy over his past statements supporting the BDS movement against Israel.

In response, eight members of the Alliance for Academic Freedom, a proponent of Liberal Zionism, noted Monday in an opinion piece in Inside Higher Ed that while Duthu signed a petition supporting academic boycotts of Israel, he “embraced” Dartmouth’s official opposition to academic boycotts and pledged to continue to do so as dean of the faculty.

Pro-Israel critics of Duthu, the op-ed writers suggested, treated Duthu “unfairly” and did a disservice to “the cause of Jewish studies [and] Israel studies.”

Signers of the op-ed included Deborah Dash Moore,

a professor specializing in Jewish history at the University of Michigan, and Cary Nelson, the former president of the American Association of University Professors.

On May 22, Duthu declined the nomination as dean of the faculty of arts and sciences at Dartmouth and decided to step down as associate dean of interdisciplinary studies after concerns were raised over his signature on a statement calling for a boycott of Israeli academic institutions. The statement, by the council of the Native American and Indigenous Studies Association, or NAISA, calls on its members “to boycott Israeli academic institutions because they are imbricated with the Israeli state and we wish to place pressure on that state to change its policies.”

Earlier in May, Dartmouth economics professor Alan Gustman had authored a faculty-wide letter calling on Duthu to publicly denounce the BDS statement or resign his position as dean, The Dartmouth newspaper reported.

Duthu responded by writing, “I continue to believe in the right of private citizens to express criticism of any country’s government policies. At the same time, I

do not believe that a boycott of academic institutions is the appropriate response. Instead, I support sustained, open and collegial engagement with fellow academics, including collaborative research and teaching.”

Gustman pointed out that Duthu’s statement did not say he was withdrawing his support for the NAISA letter.

Duthu’s defenders include Dartmouth faculty member and Jewish studies head Susannah Heschel, who told the Alliance for Academic Freedom that she had “never heard anything from him that I would consider even remotely problematic about Israel, and I believe several of my Jewish colleagues who are far more right-wing than I feel the same way.”

She noted that Duthu helped her set up visits by faculty at Hebrew University and Tel Aviv University.

“Plus,” she wrote, “Bruce has been invited to lecture at Hebrew University and accepted with enthusiasm.

Truth: he is no boycotter.”

Duthu said that as of July 1 he will return to the Native American studies department as a faculty member.

JUNE 21 – 27, 2017 | NYJLIFE.COM | 5

British Jewish Leaders Condemn London Van Attack on Muslim Worshippers

National Front leader Marine Le Pen addressing activists at the Espace François Mitterrand in Henin Beaumont, France, April 23, 2017 PHOTO BY JEFF J MITCHELL/GETTY IMAGES

Marine Le Pen, Manuel Valls Re-Elected to French Parliament (JTA) — France’s far-right leader Marine Le Pen and former Prime Minister Manuel Valls both secured a seat in a parliamentary election that was dominated by the party of President Emmanuel Macron.

The centrist party, La Republique En Marche, which was created last year, clinched 361 seats out of 577 in the National Assembly, giving it an absolute majority following the final round of the parliamentary elections in France.

This provides Macron and his party, whose name means “Republic Onward,” a majority in parliament to pass economic reforms that he said during his presidential campaign were necessary to end the country’s financial stagnation.

National Front, Le Pen’s anti-Muslim and Eurosceptic party, garnered eight seats in the election—two fewer than polls predicted for the party.

Macron won the final round of the presidential vote on May 7 with 66 percent of the vote. Le Pen received 34 percent, the best result ever by her party.

Valls, a centrist member of the Socialist Party, narrowly defeated the

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far-left politician Jean-Luc Melenchon, who has been accused of espousing anti-Semitic rhetoric in speeches, in the Essonne region in northern France.

Valls won 50.3 percent of the vote there, according to FranceInter, a major French public radio channel.

In a speech last year, Valls called antiZionism a form of anti-Semitism. In 2009, he said he has an “eternal bond” with the Jewish people because of his marriage to a Jewish woman.

Meyer Habib, a lawmaker for the UDI centrist party and a former leader of the CRIF umbrella of French Jewish communities, was re-elected to parliament as the representative of the 8th District.

Israel is home to more than 70,000 French citizens eligible to vote out of 111,736 throughout the district. During his campaign, Meyer was endorsed

by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is a longtime personal friend.

For the first time in history, turnout in a legislative election slumped to below 50 percent in both rounds.

On Sunday, 43 percent of voters cast ballots.

(JTA) — The deadly van-ramming attack at a mosque in London is “a painful illustration of why we must never allow hatred to breed hatred,” Britain’s chief rabbi said.

Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis said his thoughts were with those affected by the attack just after midnight Monday in which a van drove into a group of people standing in front of the Finsbury Park Mosque in North London, killing one person and injuring 10. All the victims are Muslims, according to reports.

Some bystanders told reporters that the van’s driver said “Kill all Muslims” and “I did it” following the attack, and he reportedly smiled and waved at the crowds as he was taken away in a police cruiser.

The Board of Deputies of British Jews condemned the attack in a statement issued shortly after it occurred.

“All good people must stand together and join in rejecting hatred and violence from wherever it comes.

The way forward is to strengthen the moderate majority and repudiate and marginalize extremism of every type,” the statement said.

The statement added, “Hatred of people because of their religion has no place in our society.”

British police said the incident was being investigated as an act of terrorism, which would make it the

fourth such attack in England since March, including two van-ramming and stabbing attacks on and near London Bridge, and a bombing outside an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester.

The van driver in the mosque attack was arrested after being seized and prevented from fleeing by bystanders; a Muslim imam reportedly stopped the crowd from injuring the attacker. The attacker’s mental health reportedly will be assessed.

The European Jewish Congress (EJC) in a statement called the attack “unconscionable.”

“We condemn this attack and its attempt to escalate tensions in the U.K. and we stand firmly beside our Muslim brothers and sisters in the aftermath of this attack,” EJC president Dr. Moshe Kantor said in the statement. “An attack on one religion is an attack on all religions, and all people and faiths must stand together against terror.”

An Early Test for Macron

BY CNAAN LIPHSHIZ

(JTA) — Before he threw Sarah Halimi to her death from a window of her third-story apartment in Paris, 27-year-old Kobili Traore called his Jewish neighbor “Satan” and cried out for Allah.

These and other facts about the April 4 incident that shocked French Jewry are known from testimonies and a recording made by a neighbor, according to the National Bureau for Vigilance Against Anti-Semitism watchdog.

Years before the attack, Traore called a daughter of his 65-year-old victim, whom he beat savagely before killing, “a dirty Jewess,” the daughter said.

Despite these accounts, Traore, who reportedly has no history of mental illness, was placed under psychiatric evaluation per his temporary-insanity claim. Prosecutors presented a draft indictment against him for voluntary manslaughter that contains no mention of the aggravated element of a hate crime.

The omission, along with the perceived indifference of authorities and the media in France, has left many members of the country’s Jewish community feeling angry at a society they say is reluctant to confront antiSemitism head on.

“The authorities’ failure to state the terrorist and anti-Semitic nature of this murder is nothing unusual,” Shmuel Trigano, an author of 24 books and a scholar on anti-Semitism, said in an interview on Radio J three weeks later.

Trigano for years has been accusing French authorities of turning a blind eye to anti-Semitism.

Yet amid silence by authorities and the national media about the April 4 killing, “l’affaire Halimi” has emerged as a rallying issue for Jewish leaders, activists and prominent thinkers. They say the investigation is indicative of a deeper problem in French society and the community’s first major test for the administration of the newly elected president, Emmanuel Macron.

“Everything about this crime suggests there is an ongoing denial of reality” by authorities, 17 French intellectuals wrote this month in an open letter published in Le Figaro. “We demand all the truth be brought to light in the murder of Sarah Halimi,” added the authors, including Alain Finkielstein, a Jewish philosopher and member of the Academie Française—the guardian of French language and culture.

Amid growing criticism by its constituents, CRIF, the umbrella group of French Jewish communities, substituted its calls for patience for authorities’ handling of the investigation with open criticism over its handling and bid to intervene legally.

“A Jewish woman, a physician who ran a kindergarten, was murdered at her home amid cries of ‘Allah hu akbar,’” CRIF Vice President Robert Ejnes wrote in a statement titled “An Increasingly Heavy Silence” nearly two months after the incident. The phrase “Allah hu akbar,” which means “God is great” in Arabic, is sometimes linked to terrorist attacks.

The judiciary, Ejnes added, “has not referenced the anti-Semitic character of the murder but it is clear that Ms. Sarah Halimi of blessed memory was killed because she was Jewish by a murderer motivated by Islamism.”

And the media “has practically not spoken about this, as though the defenestration of a woman is not unusual in Paris in 2017!” he wrote, giving voice to one of the aspects of the affair that many French Jews say is among its most painful aspects.

But it was the open letter by the 17 intellectuals on June 4 that broke the silence in the national media about that affair, according to Hervé Gardette, a journalist for the France Culture state radio station. On June 8, Gardette investigated the case in a program titled, “Is There a Denial of AntiSemitism in France?”

Long before the Halimi case, Jewish leaders and thinkers have been

complaining for years of a reluctance in society to face inconvenient truths about crimes when their victims happen to be Jewish.

Gardette, who is not Jewish, acknowledged this on his show.

“Strikingly, this murder immediately brings to mind another older murder, of Ilan Halimi in 2006, 24 days after his abduction, and how long it took back then for the anti-Semitic character of the crime to be admitted by the detectives and journalists. So nothing has changed,” he said. “Is there a denial of anti-Semitism in France?”

Ilan Halimi (no relation to Sarah), a Jewish phone salesman, was abducted, tortured and murdered by a gang led by a career criminal with a history of targeting mostly Jewish victims.

In an open letter addressed to French Interior Minister Gerard Collomb, the French-Jewish philosopher and historian Alexandra Laignel-Lavastine suggested the silence around the Sarah Halimi case stems from the establishment’s desire not to offend Muslims—and to deprive the antiMuslim far right, led by the leader of the National Front party Marine Le Pen, of campaign fodder.

“Insisting on not calling a spade a spade, minimizing (‘isolated acts’ and ‘lone wolves’), euphemizing (‘children lost to jihad’), justifying, banalizing and playing psychiatrist will get us nowhere,” Laignel-Lavastine wrote.

As for Macron, his official platform speaks of “fighting with determination against all radical streams that distort the values” of Islam, and the distrust of institutions, conspiracy theories and anti-Semitism they represent.

But Macron has remained vague on solutions, proposing to conduct the fight by “helping French Muslims to achieve the [restructuring] of their institutions.”

Those who believe that France, despite its previous government’s strong mobilization to protect Jews, has a denial problem cite a long list of cases that they say have been swept under the carpet.

According to Trigano’s research, the French government under former President Jacques Chirac suppressed the anti-Semitic characteristics of at least 500 assaults recorded in the years 2000-’02, when anti-Jewish incidents grew from a few dozen annually to hundreds of incidents each year.

More recent cases included the omission of an anti-Semitic motive in

a draft indictment against the alleged perpetrators of a 2014 rape and robbery of a Jewish family in the Paris suburb of Creteil. The hate-crime element was added following a public outcry.

In 2015, a man who stabbed three Jews near a synagogue in Marseille while crying Allah’s name was initially labeled mentally ill by police, who revised their indictment to omit any reference to mental health following criticism by Jewish leaders.

The question about denial “needs to be asked, and in those terms,” Alain Jakubowicz, president of the International League Against Racism and Anti-Semitism—the French counterpart of the Anti-Defamation League—said during the June 8 radio broadcast. “There is a denial of reality when it comes to this new form of antiSemitism, which is as deadly as the previous and which poses a problem particularly in France.”

Scholars and watchdogs also worry that anti-Semitic acts are labeled and minimized as “anti-Israel.” The scrapping this year of a documentary about this phenomenon—what some call the “new anti-Semitism”—by the Franco-German Arte television channel “shows the specific treatment of this subject in France, as opposed to other countries,” said Jakubowicz.

Magali Lafourcade, president of the French government’s National Consultative Commission on Human Rights, said she welcomes the debate over whether authorities downplay antiSemitism and hate crimes. However, referring to the Halimi case during the France Culture broadcast, she said that “we need to let the judiciary do its job” and detectives need time to review all aspects of the case.

In March, Lafourcade’s commission reported a 50 percent drop in the number of anti-Semitic crimes, which it attributed to the deployment of troops outside synagogues, Jewish schools and other institutions deemed at risk of anti-Semitic attacks. But her report questioned the existence of the “new anti-Semitism” and noted only far-right perpetrators of anti-Semitic crimes, stating that other perpetrators could not be classified one way or another.

Jakubowicz rejected Lafourcade’s call to wait for word from the judiciary on the Halimi case.

“The entire reason for this mobilization,” he said in the radio program, “is that the judiciary is not doing its job.”

JUNE 21 – 27, 2017 | NYJLIFE.COM | 7

Delegates and Diplomats: AJC Holds Global Forum in DC

BY MAXINE DOVERE

More than 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. They spent three days in early June reviewing international outreach and discussing plans for future programming.

The 111-year-old organization has 22 U.S. regional offices, 10 overseas posts and 34 “agreements” with international Jewish communities.

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The AJC has no official government sanction, 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 the Jewish people—a sort of community state department, sometimes able to override politics with an application of reality. On this, the 50th anniversary of the Six-Day War, the organization stated that it seeks “to make a difference for the Jewish people and the state of Israel.”

The AJC’s 2017 annual Global Forum was titled “The Power to Act.” The meeting was characterized as an “inspiring, thought-provoking and energizing experience” by AJC chief executive David Harris. Its

agenda included policy addresses by senior American and foreign government officials, Israeli journalists’ interpretation of the country’s outlook, and analysis by politicians and policymakers. There were ample opportunities for one-on-one interaction during small group sessions, and some 200 advocacy encounters with members of Congress followed the forum.

The initial plenary presented Japanese State Minister for Foreign Affairs Kentaro Sonoura, who delivered a message from Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, sharing perspectives on regional and global challenges.

The AJC has been active in Japan since 1988, and developed the Asia Pacific Institute (API), chaired

by Jeffrey Stone and directed by Shira Loewenberg.

Harris called Japan a “powerhouse in Asia, an essential ally and partner of the United States.”

U.S. National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster, recently returned from Israel, and Italian Foreign Minister Angelino Alfano participated in the opening plenary session, which included a discussion on Jewish perspectives and global trends with American political analyst Bill Kristol, French “public intellectual” BernardHenri Lévy, and Israeli MK (member of Knesset) and former Minister of Foreign Affairs Tziporah “Tzipi” Livni.

A highlight of the Monday afternoon plenary was the remarks by Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer. New York State’s senior senator began his comments with a story about his first day as a senator, when his grandmother repeatedly asked Sen. Patrick “Tip” O’Neill to “take care of Chuckinue.”

Called to the senior senator’s office, the newbie began his senatorial career by explaining the affectionate diminutive Yiddish term.

Schumer’s remarks turned serious.

“The global community faces global threats,” he said, stressing the importance of the United States’ standing shoulder to shoulder with Israel. He discussed the need for awareness of rising anti-Semitism in Europe, calling it “an outrage that ought to be condemned by leaders of the world from every faith and nationality.”

Anti-Semitism in the United States, said the senator, has been much more troubling in recent months. He called on the governors of all 50 states to “call BDS [Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions] what it is: anti-Semitism.”

He applauded New York State Gov. Andrew Cuomo for his strong anti-BDS position. (Cuomo has stated that “if you boycott Israel, New York State will boycott you.”) “Every governor of every state,” said Schumer, “should pass the same legislation….Let’s be clear: Many of the BDS supporters have the same goal as the Arab armies had in 1948—to annihilate the Jewish state.”

In a discussion of attitudes at the United Nations, the senator said, “Anti-Semitism lurks in the halls of the U.N., especially in the Human Rights Council.” He praised new Secretary General António Guterres—who has proclaimed that Israel must be treated as any other nation—and applauded Israel’s permanent representative to the U.N., Amb. Danny Danon, on his recent election as vice president of the

72nd General Assembly.

“At the United Nations, Israel can never let its guard down,” said Schumer. “I hope Israel will be treated normally. We can’t be silent when the U.N. singles out Israel.”

The senator stated that the United States should work to reverse Resolution 2334, which concerns the Israeli settlements in “Palestinian territories occupied since 1967, including East Jerusalem.” Historically, he noted, “the state of Israel and the Jewish people are judged by a double standard. Continuation of this policy is counterproductive to achieving a peace between Israel and the Palestinians.”

Stressing the need for American leadership, Schumer said, “If America does not live up to its commitments, the world suffers. America must be a beacon for freedom and tolerance….

The best thing for Israel and the world over is a strong, engaged United States.” Schumer complimented the American Jewish Committee on its understanding that “global engagement is the only way.”

Schumer’s concerns were mirrored in the statements of former Ambassador Wendy Sherman during the AJC Global Forum “Great Debate.” Sherman, of the Albright Stonebridge Group, was undersecretary of state for Political Affairs in the Obama administration.

She debated conservative strategist Michael Doran of the Hudson Institute, who served as a senior director in the National Security Council under President George W. Bush. Their debate elicited applause, boos and not a small amount of laughter from an audience usually notable for its decorum.

“I believe that President Trump is leading in retreat, a dangerous position,” said Sherman. She characterized the “America First” concept as similar to the 1939 antiwar and anti–international-involvement movement led by Charles Lindbergh.

It, too, she noted, was called “America First.” This attitude, according to Sherman, “should concern Americans, and especially Jews.”

Doran contended, “President Obama believed if you got the nuclear deal out of the way temporarily, he would come up with an accommodation with Iran over the region: Iraq, Syria and elsewhere. And Iran would moderate.

It’s failed right before our eyes and the consequences have been catastrophic.”

Throughout, Doran expressed approval of the Trump administration’s

approach.

Another highlight of the Global Forum 2017 program was the two presentations by Dr. Tal Becker, a senior fellow at the Hartman Institute and former legal adviser to then-Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni. His topics covered philosophical challenges and practical applications.

“The case for Israel” focused on “an idea that says simply, ‘Not making the case for Israel is the best case for Israel,’” said Becker. He called the ongoing debate about Israeli religious and political attitudes “a return to the normal state of Jewish thinking,” noting that “Zionism is an ongoing experiment of different opinions. The essence of Jewishness is to argue about what is its essence...resulting in a life that is relevant.”

Becker launched a discussion of the peace process, which he cautioned “always repeats the mistakes we least remember making.” He said that the “convergence of interests” between Israel and the Sunni countries, while not a new idea, offers “an opening that can be pursued.” However, he warned that success is far from assured.

Though his podium was at a Jewish organization’s forum, Becker said that a distinction must be drawn between Jewish organizations and Israel.

“Israel does not have the luxury of being completely principled all the time. Ours is a tough neighborhood; precisely because of that, we must stand for the things as we view them.” He underscored the important difference between stagecraft and statecraft, defining “stage” as “if you announce your intentions it’s too in your face....The future of a community is determined by the way it determines its outcome. It is important to the Jewish community to determine who we are.”

Addressing the concept of Zionism, Becker defined Zionist philosophy as “the rejection of victimhood....

The guiding mantra is ‘never again.’”

He stated that the Holocaust “still casts long shadows—even on young American Jews who have no direct contact.” Current political arguments directly affect the Jewish dialogue, especially on university campuses, noted Becker. There is an active “loss of the search for truth and knowledge.” He explored the concept of “intersectionality...now a litmus test applied solely to Israeli issues” as an example. “Most liberal movements,” he

said, “demand opposition to Israel” as a condition of participation.

With regard to the term “occupation,” Becker suggested the need for an alternative term. There is “a big difference between the popular conception and the legal term,” he explained. “‘Occupation’ is conceptually seen as an illegitimate foreign presence.” By international law, however, the same term describes “a state of affairs when territory is captured in an armed conflict,” and is thus a legal geopolitical designation.

A consequence of Israel’s “occupation” has been the emergence of the BDS movement. “Those drawn to BDS circles are not necessarily against peace,” said Becker. “They may think BDS is a way to get to peace. However, hardcore proponents are simply about undermining the legitimacy of Israel and include neo-Nazis driven by hate.”

Others, he said “see themselves as sympathetic to ‘victims’”; still others actually see BDS as “an influencer of Israel policy.”

One of the Global Forum’s most warmly received dialogues was the conversation between Israeli ambassador to the United States Ron Dermer and AJC Director Harris, which focused on managing the relationship with the Trump administration and a deeply politically divided American Jewish community. The ambassador greeted colleagues and fraternity brothers and talked about Israel’s continuing status as a strong, valuable American ally through both the Obama and Trump administrations. He noted the importance of maintaining bipartisan U.S. support.

Acknowledging that the controversy over the “Iran Deal” had caused “a split,” he assured the audience that, on other issues, Israel maintains “friends on both sides of the aisle.”

Dermer noted the administration’s acknowledgment of the “fatal flaw”— the “sunset clause,” which would allow development of a nuclear infrastructure that could support nuclear weaponry at the conclusion of the Iran Deal.

“If those restrictions didn’t have an expiration date, then we could have a debate,” he said. “The view of the new administration is that this deal is not in the interest of the U.S. I think you can expect a very real push back [against Iran]. They have to be smart about it and get their ducks lined in a row....I think you’ll see this play out over the next couple of years.”

JUNE 21 – 27, 2017 | NYJLIFE.COM | 9

Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump walking down the West Wing Colonnade, Feb. 10, 2017

PHOTO BY CHIP SOMODEVILLA/GETTY IMAGES

Jared and Ivanka Do Their Own Thing as Observant Jews.

And That’s Normal.

BY BEN SALES

(JTA) — So apparently Jared and Ivanka play golf on Shabbat. Cue the handwringing.

The New York Post reported June 14 that the president’s Jewish daughter and son-in-law like to hit the links on the holy day, and stay within the bounds of the Sabbath rules by walking the course (instead of driving a cart) and tipping the caddie the next day (instead of handling money). Of course, the newspaper also noted that even according to the “less strict” Conservative movement, merely playing the game is a violation of Shabbat.

Articles of this type—I’ve written a couple—are premised on the idea that if Javanka are Orthodox Jews, they should be observing Jewish law, called

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halacha, strictly by the book. Anything less is hypocrisy or blasphemy.

On the surface, that assumption seems to make sense. But it’s wrong.

That’s because Jared and Ivanka have never claimed to strictly observe halacha. And among Jews who identify with Orthodoxy and belong to Orthodox synagogues, they are far from alone.

In general, Orthodox Jews tend to structure their lives around obligations and restrictions called mitzvot, from observing the Sabbath and praying three times a day to making sure their clothes don’t include a mix of wool and linen. But a broad spectrum of observance exists among the country’s half-million

Orthodox Jews, according to the Pew Research Center’s 2013 “Portrait of Jewish Americans,” the study every American Jewish journalist is statutorily required to cite at least twice a month.

Unsurprisingly, Haredi Orthodox Jews—the fervent “black hats” who populate enclaves like Monsey, New York; and Lakewood, New Jersey— abide by halacha. Indeed, a whole subculture has grown around adopting “chumras,” or more stringent ways to observe Jewish law.

But among self-identified modern Orthodox Jews, the picture is more diverse, says Pew. Nearly a quarter say religion isn’t “very important” in their lives, more than a fifth aren’t certain of their belief in God and 18 percent hardly attend services.

When it comes to Judaism’s legal particulars, nearly a quarter of modern Orthodox Jews don’t light candles on Friday night, 17 percent don’t keep kosher in the home and about a fifth handle money on Shabbat. Alas, the survey did not ask about golfing.

Orthodoxy is theoretically centered around halachic obligation, and today’s modern Orthodoxy is represented by strictly halachic institutions like Yeshiva University and the Orthodox Union. So what to make of these apparently non-Orthodox Orthodox Jews? Actually it’s not all that strange. There are any number of reasons to affiliate with a movement whose rules you occasionally or even often break. Maybe it’s how you grew up. Maybe you appreciate Orthodoxy’s aesthetic of rigor and tradition. Maybe you like the local Orthodox rabbi or synagogue.

Or maybe, when you do observe Jewish customs, you prefer to do so in what feels like a more traditionalist atmosphere—praying a full service in Hebrew with a text mostly unchanged for centuries. There’s a longrunning joke in Israel—which isn’t really a joke—that the synagogue secular Israelis don’t go to is Orthodox.

“A lot of people really enjoy the intensity of commitment in the Orthodox community, but they would provide confidentially that they don’t agree with the doctrines or dogmas,” said Rabbi Moshe Grussgott of Congregation Ramath Orah, an Orthodox synagogue in New York City. “They socially find meaning in that community. Every Orthodox rabbi knows such people exist, but there’s an openness. We don’t check to see who believes what.”

Chabad, the sprawling Hasidic outreach movement, has built a global empire on the idea that Orthodox ritual and affiliation can appeal to non-Orthodox Jews. Chabad emissary couples accept that many of those who attend their synagogues are picking and choosing among the mitzvot, perhaps enjoying a Friday-night meal and the Saturday morning service before heading off to the golf course or the garden.

Jared and Ivanka undoubtedly adhere more to traditional Jewish customs than most American Jews.

(Pew says only one in seven Jews avoids handling money on Shabbat; only 25 percent of Jewish parents say they have a child who was enrolled in a yeshiva or Jewish day school in the past year.)

But despite the swirling rumors, they’ve—wait for it—never actually claimed to fully observe halacha.

Ivanka has discussed her Shabbat observance at length at least twice in the past couple of years, and neither

time did she say the family observes Shabbat in the most traditional sense.

In a 2015 Vogue profile, Ivanka said, “We’re pretty observant, more than some, less than others.”

She went on to say, “Yeah, we observe the Sabbath….From Friday to Saturday we don’t do anything but hang out with one another. We don’t make phone calls….We don’t do anything except play with each other, hang out with one another, go on walks together.

Pure family.”

Jared added that they both “turn our phones off for 25 hours. Putting aside the religious aspect of it; we live in such a fast-paced world.”

Ivanka repeats this description in her new book, Women Who Work, writing that “From sundown Friday to Saturday night, my family and I observe the Shabbat. During this time, we disconnect completely—no emails, no TV, no phone calls, no internet. We enjoy uninterrupted time together and it’s wonderful.”

(A 2016 New Yorker profile of the couple did call them “shomer Shabbos,” a term that denotes full halachic observance, but never quotes them to that effect. Like Jared and Ivanka themselves, the article mentions unplugging and family time.)

So let’s break that down. Jared and Ivanka say they unplug for Shabbat: no phone, no computer, no TV. Nowhere do they mention forgoing sports (or not flying in a plane!). Nowhere do they mention Jewish commandments.

Instead, they talk about the thing many observant Jews value about Shabbat: the chance to disconnect from work stress and their numerous devices, and reconnect with family.

Yes, Jared grew up in Orthodox institutions. Yes, the family now attends an Orthodox synagogue.

Yes, they play golf on Shabbat, eat at nonkosher restaurants and don’t dress in “Orthodox” garb. And yes, there are many other observant Jews like them—you can find them living in Jewish communities from New York to California to Jerusalem. Frumshaming people like this doesn’t really make sense when they’ve never actually claimed to be frum (devoutly observant).

“Orthodox rabbis have to have that balance,” Grussgott said. “We uphold what halacha and observance should be in the abstract—we don’t compromise on that—but we have to be accepting of everybody.”

Rabbis at Influential NY Synagogue to Officiate at Intermarriages NEW YORK (JTA) — Rabbis at B’nai Jeshurun (“BJ”), an influential nondenominational synagogue in New York City, will officiate at the weddings of interfaith couples who commit to creating Jewish homes and raising Jewish children.

The new policy, which was announced at the synagogue’s annual meeting on Thursday night, is intended to welcome the participation of interfaith families within the bounds of Jewish law, or halacha. Interfaith couples will not not sign a ketubah, the traditional document sealing a marriage between a Jew and a Jew, but a ritual contract called a tenaim, a traditional engagement agreement that lays out the conditions of marriage.

“We are embracing a significant change in how we approach the future of Jewish life at BJ,” J. Rolando Matalon, the synagogue’s senior rabbi, said in a video shared with congregants, according to The Forward. He called the decision a “shift in emphasis in the way we relate to and invite in intermarried couples.”

The synagogue’s rabbis also announced that they will continue to hold to the traditional matrilineal definition of Jewish identity, in which a child is considered Jewish at birth if its mother is Jewish by birth or choice.

Patrilineal adults and children will continue to immerse in a mikvah as part of a conversion ceremony at the synagogue.

B’nai Jeshurun is a large and trendsetting congregation on the Upper West Side of Manhattan that has led a renaissance of sorts among tradition-minded, egalitarian worshipers living in that heavily Jewish section. Although the synagogue has roots in the Conservative movement, it is unaffiliated with any denomination and has set its own course between the liberalism of Reform and the stricter

The new policy is intended to welcome the participation of interfaith families within the bounds of Jewish law, or halacha.

traditionalism of Conservativism.

For example, the Reform movement has embraced patrilineal descent, while Conservative rabbis affiliated with their movement may not officiate at intermarriages.

The BJ decision comes amid a renewal of the debate over the growing numbers of interfaith marriages involving Jews.

Last week, the Jerusalem-based Jewish People Policy Institute published a study saying that barely 40 percent of Jews are marrying Jewish spouses and that among non-Orthodox JewishAmerican adults, only 32 percent were

raising their children Jewish in one way or another. Only about 8 percent of grandchildren of intermarried couples are being raised as “Jews by religion.”

In an essay in The Forward, one of the study’s authors, Steven M. Cohen of the Hebrew Union CollegeJewish Institute for Religion, noted the dilemmas facing rabbis, especially in the Conservative movement, who are torn between upholding Jewish “norms” and encouraging interfaith couples to engage in Jewish life.

This month, the leader of another influential New York congregation, Lab/Shul, also announced that he will officiate at weddings between Jews and non-Jews following a learning series ahead of and after the wedding ritual.

Although ordained in the Conservative movement, Rabbi Amichai Lau Laurie said he expects to resign its Rabbinical Assembly in favor of a policy that, he wrote, “may enable more rabbis to welcome more people into our community with open arms.”

B’nai Jeshurun announced its new policy after a yearlong series of classes and discussion on the topic to prepare the community and earn its buy-in.

JUNE 21 – 27, 2017 | NYJLIFE.COM | 11

This 136-Year-Old Jewish Agency for Refugees Has a New Mission in the Trump Era: Fighting Back

BY BEN SALES

NEW YORK (JTA) — On Jan. 27, President Donald Trump made Mark Hetfield’s job impossible.

Hetfield is the president and CEO of the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS), an organization that resettles refugees in the United States. A week into his presidency, Trump issued an executive order barring refugees from entering the country, leaving Hetfield’s group bereft. Its supporters joined the protests that weekend at airports across the country.

But with HIAS unable to pursue its core mission, Hetfield wasn’t sure what the next step might be.

“All we can do is continue to make noise,” he told the JTA that Sunday.

Nearly five months later, that noise has only gotten

louder. More than a century old, HIAS has seen its activist profile rise higher this year than perhaps at any point in its history. It’s brought thousands of people to demonstrate in the streets and organized hundreds of synagogues to take action. And it’s about to stand before the Supreme Court as a plaintiff in a suit challenging the second version of Trump’s ban, which two judges blocked in March.

And it’s still resettling refugees.

“The problem we have now is [American Jewish volunteers] want to do much more in terms of servicing refugees, welcoming refugees than we can give them, because the refugees are simply not arriving in the numbers they should be,” Hetfield said

Activists gathering in front of the White House to share stories of their family members who were refugees or immigrants, March 1, 2017 PHOTO BY TED EYTAN

12 | NYJLIFE.COM | JUNE 21 – 27, 2017

two weeks ago. “It’s really important that American Jews have our back because our biggest partner is the United States government, and that’s going to be changing over time to our biggest partner being the American Jewish community.”

The activism is a change of pace for a group accustomed to navigating bureaucracy and staying apolitical. Founded in the 1880s, the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society was a shelter and resource for newly arrived Jewish immigrants. During and after World War I and the Holocaust, it worked to resettle waves of Jewish refugees. And it took a leading role in the movement to free and resettle Soviet Jewry.

As the waves of Jewish immigration slowed to a trickle in the 2000s, HIAS began resettling nonJewish refugees. Now it is one of nine agencies tasked with resettling refugees in the United States.

Trump’s vociferous opposition to admitting Syrian refugees has thrust the group into a paradox: Its officials portray themselves as reluctant activists who would prefer to remain outside the partisan fray—working with the government, not against it.

But for all intents and purposes, HIAS has joined the frontlines of what anti-Trump protesters call “the Resistance.”

“That’s the most troubling thing—refugees were really a bipartisan issue,” Hetfield said. “Some people say HIAS is a liberal agency or progressive Jewish agency. We’re really not. Our whole focus has been refugees, and refugees are not a partisan issue. It really became politicized over the past couple of years.”

The group’s anti-Trump activity has had the most impact in court. HIAS is one of nine plaintiffs in the federal lawsuit against Trump’s second travel ban, which the Supreme Court is set to rule on this month. The suit claims the focus on Muslim countries violates the Constitution’s prohibition on preferring one religion over another, and asks for an injunction against the ban because it would cause HIAS to lose revenue and possibly cut staff. (To move forward with the lawsuits, plaintiffs have to prove harm, or “standing.”)

A Maryland District Court judge, Theodore Chuang, granted the injunction, and it was upheld by an appeals court. The Supreme Court will probably rule on the injunction by June 26. But Chuang’s federal court still must rule on the legality of the ban itself, so the legal road for HIAS remains long.

“Usually litigation takes years,” said Melanie Nezer, the senior vice president of public affairs for HIAS. “This has all happened so fast. I don’t think anyone predicted the outcome of this, but we felt pretty strongly that we had good, solid arguments against the Muslim and refugee ban. It’s not over yet. We’re really still at the preliminary stages of litigation.”

While it fights the administration in court, HIAS has capitalized on Trump’s opposition to refugees to mobilize a growing base of Jewish American supporters. HIAS began building that base in 2014, when its leaders realized that most American Jews were unaware of its work since the Soviet Jewry movement faded 25 years ago following the breakup of the Soviet Union.

The group began a welcome campaign for

Linda Sarsour’s Brother Works at a Kosher Restaurant. This Fringe Group Wants Him Fired.

Activist Michele Freed, center, with other young professionals in front of the White House, March 1, 2017 PHOTO BY KATIE JETT WALLS

synagogues that wanted to assist refugees—from a few that have headed hands-on resettlement efforts to others that have committed to advocacy and education about refugee issues. HIAS also began organizing activists to help lobby for its goals.

As many social-justice causes have experienced, the Trump presidency has turbocharged the work. Before the election, the welcome campaign included just over 200 synagogues. Eight months later the number is up to 360. On a national Day of Action two weeks after the initial refugee ban, HIAS mobilized protests in 20 cities, including 1,000 people opposite the Statue of Liberty in New York City and 600 in Washington, D.C. An organizing meeting for young professionals in Washington on Feb. 6 was expected to draw 30 people; 500 showed up. HIAS is now organizing them to advocate for its issues and to volunteer with refugees.

And Hetfield said the group has seen a “significant rise” recently in private donations. In 2015, the group’s operating expenses totaled $41 million. This year its budget is $55 million.

Over the weekend following Trump’s initial refugee ban, HIAS raised more than $100,000 and garnered 1,800 new donors. In 2016, the group exceeded its fundraising goal by 25 percent.

“The silver lining of Trump coming into the presidency has been the uptick in a sense of urgency and an uptick in activism,” said Rabbi Jennie Rosenn, vice president of community engagement for HIAS. “There are rabbis and other community leaders who were more reluctant before to take stands or say things that were quote-unquote political, who after the election have been less cautious.”

HIAS is championing an issue of particular consensus in the usually fractious American Jewish community. The Jewish organizational world, with the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) among the few exceptions, opposed the refugee ban nearly unanimously. (ZOA included HIAS in what it called an “unholy consortium of Jewish and anti-Israel groups” ignoring the potential of ISIS sympathizers among Syrian refugees.)

But Rosenn said HIAS has still encountered

opposition to refugees, especially in communities she called “inward looking,” based on concerns about security threats from radical Islam. The group has attempted to assuage those concerns by describing the vetting and resettlement process for refugees and drawing a parallel between today’s refugee crisis and the plight of European Jewry in the 1930s.

“As we explain the very rigorous vetting processes that are already in place, that goes a long way in reassuring people,” Rosenn said, as does “reminding people that throughout history, Americans have been fearful of refugees, and reminding nezfolks that people didn’t want to welcome Jews.”

The group’s public profile is a shift from its strategy during previous refugee crises, said American Jewish historian Hasia Diner. As Jews in the 1930s faced rising anti-Semitic persecution in Europe and restrictive immigration laws in the United States, HIAS lobbied federal and local governments and published prorefugee pieces in the media. The efforts secured some refugees a place in the country, but were of little avail to many others who could not get visas from an unsympathetic government.

Back then, said Diner, the Jewish community was largely made up of working-class immigrants. And decades before the civil rights movement, public protest was not in vogue. Now, she said, following the massive Women’s March in January and a range of other public actions, HIAS would be remiss not to take to the streets.

“It’s a different America we’re talking about,” said Diner, a professor at New York University. “I’d be shocked if they weren’t engaging in that kind of protest because that’s become a civic norm.”

HIAS officials hope the era of opposition won’t last long and at some point the group can again focus on finding refugees food and shelter. Whenever that happens, HIAS hopes the Jews that have come out to protest will still be behind it.

“This is not something that’s going away,” Nezer said.

“The refugee crisis is not going away. Millions of people who hadn’t thought about it before are now aware of it and want to help. I can’t imagine that will stop.”

(JTA) — A fringe Jewish group is demanding that a kosher restaurant fire the brother of PalestinianAmerican activist Linda Sarsour.

Mohammed Sarsour, known as Moe, is a manager at Izzy’s Brooklyn Smokehouse restaurant, The New York Jewish Week reported. His sister has clashed with proIsrael groups over her support of the movement to boycott Israel and a one-state solution to the IsraeliPalestinian conflict.

The Jewish Defense Organization (JDO), which advertises a Jewish self-defense camp and runs a sporadically updated website, posted throughout Crown Heights in Brooklyn a flier calling Linda Sarsour a “hard core Hamas Islamic Nazi terrorist” and her brother a “pro-Hamas terror [sic] who works at Izzy [sic] Smokehouse.… Let us run him out now not before it is too late!!”

Linda Sarsour is executive director of the Arab American Association of New York and was one of the lead organizers of the Women’s March on Washington in January. In addition to her pro-Palestinian activism, she ran a crowdfunding campaign that raised more than $100,000 for a vandalized Jewish cemetery outside St. Louis.

Mohammed Sarsour did not comment to The Jewish Week on the movement to get him fired. A JDO representative told the newspaper that while more extreme elements of the group put out the flier, the organization would continue to work toward Sarsour’s ouster.

Prior to working at Izzy’s, Mohammed Sarsour worked next door at his father’s neighborhood market, which has since closed.

Simcha Bard, 26, a Jewish Republican strategist, condemned the flier.

“Linda Sarsour is problematic; Mohammed isn’t,” he told The Jewish Week. “Quite frankly, anything you might associate with Linda in any way, shape or form shouldn’t define her brother. Linda is fair game, but to attack Mohammed is truly unfair considering his decency and his record of public service, having saved a stabbing victim.”

Bard said he was calling on all his friends to eat at the restaurant in support of Mohammed Sarsour.

Muslim activist Linda Sarsour at SiriusXM event “Muslim In America” at SiriusXM Studios in NYC

PHOTO BY ROBIN MARCHANT/GETTY IMAGES FOR SIRIUSXM

JUNE 21 – 27, 2017 | NYJLIFE.COM | 13

Football Hall of Famers Touch Down in Israel

BY HILLEL KUTTLER

RAMAT HASHARON, Israel (JTA) – An Israeli soldier clapped football great and Vietnam War veteran Roger Staubach on the shoulder at a soccer field here, telling the 1963 Heisman Trophy winner and U.S. Naval Academy grad that he and his brother serve in the paratroopers.

The introduction Thursday evening prompted Staubach to hark back to early June 1967, when he was serving in Vietnam and heard a report on his walkietalkie that Israel was about to be attacked. Staubach recalled being concerned for Israel—and then a week later learning that the country emerged victorious in the Six-Day War. Staubach, who went on to play 11 seasons as quarterback for the Dallas Cowboys and win two Super Bowl championships, was among 18 Pro Football Hall of Famers who came to Israel on a weeklong goodwill visit sponsored by New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft.

The group included Jim Brown, Joe Montana, Eric Dickerson and Marshall Faulk.

For all but two it was their first time in Israel. Some told Kraft they were afraid to come. Others were drawn by their religious convictions. On Friday, they visited Christian sites near the Sea of Galilee, and many underwent baptism in the nearby Jordan River.

“I love bringing people from America to the Holy Land who’ve never been here,” Kraft told the JTA in an interview following Thursday’s event in this coastal city near Tel Aviv. “I think bringing these Hall of Famers—it’s a treat for them, and they see that [Israel] is not like it is [described] in the media.”

Former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Joe Montana, right, with New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft, drew the loudest applause when a group of football Hall of Famers was introduced in Ramat Hasharon, Israel, June 15, 2017.

PHOTOS BY HILLEL KUTTLER

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Noting the fear, he added, “If I didn’t come on this trip, they wouldn’t have come. If I was willing to come, they’d come.”

The visit was kept under wraps until just before their arrival last Wednesday over concerns that anti-Israel activists might pressure the players Robert Kraft, in black shirt, with Hall of Famers Marshall Faulk, right, and, in rear, to boycott the country. from left, Ron Yary, Roger Staubach and Dave Casper in Ramat Hasharon, Israel, Before returning to June 15, 2017 America on Tuesday, the Hall of Famers were to attend the dedication of a told the JTA that their religious convictions drew sports complex in Jerusalem with a regulation-size them to accept the invitation from Kraft and the Hall football field that Kraft is building. In between, the of Fame.

“When they talked about coming here, the delegation visited Tel Aviv, the Old City of Jerusalem birthplace of our Lord and savior—I could’ve walked and the Dead Sea. In Ramat Hasharon, a lineup of Israeli high school here,” said Barney, who serves as associate minister at players excitedly awaited the legends on the field as they Empowerment Church in Southfield, Mich.

As to sites he looked forward to visiting in Israel, alighted from two charter buses along with their spouses, Kraft and his staff, and Hall of Fame officials. The heroes Barney wasn’t particular.

“Just seeing a puddle of water. Just being here—the of yore wore their Hall of Fame yellow blazers.

The group was introduced to hearty applause from great spirituality it holds,” he said. “Being here, where an audience of adult Israeli tackle football players I know my Lord and savior is from, is just so amazing. sitting in the grandstand, and then settled in to watch This is a dream come true.”

Barney believes that most NFL players have a game featuring high schoolers.

Nearly 2,000 players—males and females— a religious conviction, and “couldn’t have done participate in adult and youth football leagues in what they did in the league without the spiritual” Israel, according to Steve Leibowitz, the president of dimension.

Casper said he doesn’t like to travel, and 10 years American Football in Israel.

Kraft said such delegations serve to deepen interest ago he would not have taken off from his job in the insurance industry in his native Minnesota to go in football.

“It’s a great thrill for kids in the country that they abroad for a week. But coming here with his wife, Susan, was different. can meet guys they look up to,” he said.

“Israel is the center of what’s happening, and it’s Brown, widely considered the greatest running back ever, was helped up from his chair by Cris Carter, good to see it,” Casper said.

Casper said approximately 25 percent of his a wide receiver voted to an all-1990s team, and waved to the crowd. Dickerson, whose single-season record clients are Jewish, and he frequently asks them about of 2,105 yards has stood for 32 years, took a bow, Judaism. Several urged him to visit Israel, including those with business interests in the Jewish state. followed by Faulk.

Israel apparently is good for the business of the Carter, sitting near Bettis and Brown, exclaimed, Patriots, too.

“We’ve got some running backs!”

Kraft told the JTA that his team won Super Bowl IL Montana, winner of four Super Bowls while quarterbacking the San Francisco 49ers, was over Seattle ahead of the first visit of Hall of Famers he sponsored in 2015, and Super Bowl LI, in equally introduced last and drew the biggest ovation.

As with Staubach, the visit to Israel was fraught thrilling fashion, over the Atlanta Falcons in February.

Will he continue the every-other-year pattern of with meaning for several of the players.

Lem Barney, a former Detroit Lions cornerback, championship wins and Israel trips?

Said Kraft, “I hope so.” and Dave Casper, an ex-Oakland Raiders tight end,

APPETIZER RECIPES

Israeli Salad Ceviche

BY MELINDA STRAUSS | VIA THE KNOSHER

Summer is here and it’s time for fresh, easy and quick recipes so you can be out at the beach or by the pool instead of working hard in the kitchen. And hey, it never hurts to make dishes that you can eat outside while you’re enjoying the beautiful weather. With only a few simple ingredients and a sharp knife, this light and refreshing ceviche will definitely become a staple in your house.

Unlike a traditional ceviche, which can include tons of ingredients to chop like jalapenos, avocado, red onion, bell peppers and garlic, I’ve developed a simple recipe inspired by Israeli salad using tomatoes, cucumbers, parsley and fresh lemon juice.

Not too much chopping but an incredible amount of flavor.

Since I usually enjoy Israeli salad with fresh pita bread and I love to snack on ceviche with crunchy taco chips, I decided to bake my own healthy and oil-free homemade tortilla chips for this combination Israeli Salad Ceviche. I flavored my baked corn tortillas with cumin and salt, but you can use whatever spices you want on your own chips, including garlic, chili powder, turmeric or whatever else your heart desires. They’re your chips!

Ingredients Ingredients for Ceviche: 2-3 Persian cucumbers (½ cup chopped) 8 oz. heirloom cherry tomatoes (½ cup chopped) 3 Tbsp chopped fresh parsley 4 oz. sushi-grade tuna 1 Tbsp fresh lemon juice 1 Tbsp extra-virgin olive oil salt and pepper to taste Ingredients for Tortilla Chips: 5 corn tortillas 1 Tbsp cumin 1 Tbsp salt

Directions To make the Homemade Tortilla Chips: Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F and prepare a baking sheet with cooking spray.

Slice the corn tortillas into triangles and place them on the baking sheet in one layer, making sure

the tortilla pieces aren’t touching. Sprinkle the tortillas with the salt and cumin and bake for 8-12 minutes, until the chips are crunchy. Set them aside to cool and harden even further.

Store the chips in an airtight container for up to 1 week.

To make the Israeli Salad Ceviche: Chop the Persian cucumbers, heirloom cherry tomatoes and sushi-grade tuna into small pieces, making sure that the pieces are all similar in size.

Add the chopped fresh parsley, lemon juice, olive oil, salt and pepper, and stir to combine.

Set the ceviche aside for 5 minutes for the tuna to cook slightly in the acidic lemon juice.

Ceviche is better fresh but can be refrigerated for 1-2 days. The fish will cook in the lemon juice so be prepared for cooked fish if you are eating leftovers the next day.

JUNE 21 – 27, 2017 | NYJLIFE.COM | 15

children, aged 3 to 6, played in a grove of pine trees alongside a dusty onelane road on the edge of town. A group of boys carved sticks to be fashioned into bows and arrows, and a girl built a rope ladder between the branches of a tree. Others sat on picnic mats drawing pictures, reading books and stacking wooden building blocks.

Several children helped Meltzer cook Druze-style pita bread over a stone firepit for breakfast—adding kindling to the fire and putting dough on the convex iron “saj.”

Despite the apparent lack of boundaries, there are rituals and rules providing structure. In the rising heat, the children stayed within a mostly shady football-field–size area marked A boy tending a fire in Mitzpe Ramon, Israel, June 13, 2017 off on each of four sides by trees and PHOTO BY ANDREW TOBIN rocks that all the children could readily identify.

At about 9:30 a.m., after orderly hand-washing and water-drinking ceremonies, everyone gathered around a large ring of stones for “morning circle.” They sang songs and listened to a story ahead of breakfast—vegetables wrapped in the pita.

When the story, about a friendly giant, was interrupted by the announcement of an earthquake drill over a nearby elementary school’s loudspeakers, Meltzer explained that outside would be the safest place to be if the earth started shaking.

“But we’re already outside!” a blonde 6-year-old named No m i e xc l a i m e d

BY ANDREW TOBIN triumphantly.

As morning circle wrapped at 10 a.m., a group of about 30 MITZPE RAMON, Israel (JTA) teaching instructors – It sounds like a Jewish mother’s from the Negev region nightmare: a preschool class held showed up in a bus to outdoors in the desert. observe the preschool.

But parents in this remote Israeli The idea was to town drop off their children at Gan incorporate some Keshet every weekday during the of its principles into school year, setting them free to cook their own classrooms. on a campfire, whittle sticks with Me l t z e r, shaggy switchblades and search for scorpions. Ron Meltzer leading the “afternoon circle” at the Gan Class goes on rain (rare) or shine Keshet kindergarten in Mitzpe Ramon, Israel, June 13, 2017 haired and in shorts and sandals, gave an PHOTO BY ANDREW TOBIN (intense). overview and fielded “The kids meet real life when they come here,” said Ron Meltzer, the country’s first “forest kindergarten”— questions. His dog, Laurie, lay nearby school’s soft-spoken principal and and it’s public. Thanks to local media in the shade.

Hundreds of educators, students visionary. “Spending time in nature— coverage and word of mouth, parents without an iPhone or computer—gives have lined up to enroll their children, and parents have come to Gan Keshet them many important gifts. I think it’s and educators across Israel have sought this year alone. The school has become somewhat famous in Israel since the a solution for a major problem in our to emulate the model.

On Tuesday, school started as usual Channel 1 TV station ran a news story culture today.”

Gan Keshet, which means “rainbow at 7:30 a.m. Under loose supervision about it in April. The video has been kindergarten” in Hebrew, is the by Meltzer and two other teachers, the viewed one million times on Facebook.

Israel’s First Outdoor Preschool Incorporates Switchblades and Scorpions

16 | NYJLIFE.COM | JUNE 21 – 27, 2017

Yoav Donyets, Mitzpe Ramon’s education director and a committed advocate for Gan Keshet, said a halfdozen families had moved to the city to enroll their children in the school.

For the first time this term, Donyets said, he could not accommodate all the requests for new students. And he expects the demand to be higher next year.

“It’s crazy a kindergarten in Mitzpe Ramon is so interesting for people,” Donyets said in an interview at his office. “It’s something where people say if they can do it down there, of course we can also.”

The visiting instructors agreed that parents at their schools wanted Gan Keshet-like programming. A few educators from rural schools said they had started taking their children outside once or twice a week to learn to live in nature for at least a few hours.

But Mitzpe Ramon is a fairly remote town hugging the lip of the vast, craterlike Makhtesh Ramon, 50 miles from the major southern city of Beersheba.

Most of the visiting educators come from Beersheba, and they described challenges adapting the model to an urban environment.

Idit Harel, a teacher and instructor for 18 preschools in the city, said she doubted she would find support to do more than visit a nearby park.

“Our parents are stressed that the kids will come home with sand in their shoes or in their clothes or in their hair. I get telephone calls saying they want their children clean,” she said.

“There are also lots of concerns about security.”

Meanwhile, the children largely ignored the visiting instructors. A group of boys took a break from wrestling under the tent to show off their technique for checking under rocks for scorpions or centipedes.

Carmi, a 6-year-old girl covered head to toe in dirt, offered a tour of the restroom, a clearing at the edge of the kindergarten’s designated area, and explained how to dig a hole to “do a kaki” and then mark it with a stick.

“You put it here so no one else goes in the same spot,” she said, giggling.

Meirav Perry, a teacher at a local elementary school, brought her firstgrade class to visit Gan Keshet on Tuesday afternoon, as she does every week. She has seen the results of its approach: Two of her daughters have gone through the kindergarten, and her youngest daughter will start in a couple

of years.

“The kids don’t always love it at first. Like their parents, they think they would prefer to be inside in the air conditioning,” she said. “But look, they are very happy and independent. They know how to play alone. They don’t need people all the time to tell them what to do. They are creative, and they are strong.”

Meltzer, 33, moved to Mitzpe Ramon in 2011. Having previously lived with cave dwellers in southern Spain and in a yurt (collapsible tent) in a village in northern Israel, he and his wife were looking for a simple way of life close to nature. They and their year-and-ahalf–old daughter still sleep in a yurt attached to their house.

Despite having no formal training as an educator, Meltzer was soon hired as a teacher at Gan Keshet. The next school year he took over as the principal and began moving classes outdoors. There was some pushback from parents and local officials, especially during the winter months, but he quickly won allies like Donyets and Perry.

By the end of the 2012-’13 school year, Meltzer and his allies persuaded Israel’s Education Ministry to designate Gan Keshet an “experimental school” and let him move class entirely outdoors. In 2015, the ministry upgraded Gan Keshet to a “model school,” meaning it would support other schools in adopting its approach.

A ministry spokeswoman said “a lot of local municipalities” were expressing interest in forest kindergartens and that a new experimental school was approved this term in northern Israel.

Donyets and Meltzer said several private forest kindergartens opened this school year, and more public pilots A girl helping her classmates wash their hands in Mitzpe Ramon, Israel, June 13, 2017

were planned for next year.

Meltzer has twice visited forest kindergartens in Germany to get inspiration and guidance. Germany has more than 1,500 such schools, one of which was profiled recently in The New York Times. Forest kindergartens were first developed in Scandinavia and now exist in the United States, Britain, Australia, Japan and South Korea.

As The Times noted, a study by a German doctoral student found that graduates of that country’s forest kindergartens had a “clear advantage” over their peers who completed regular kindergartens, outperforming them in cognitive and physical ability and in creativity and social development.

Forest kindergartens may have an emotional appeal for some Israelis.

Living close to the land is a central tenet of Zionism, the country’s founding ideology. But Meltzer said he takes a wider view.

“I never meant to be a teacher. I just knew that I wanted to take people from Western society and connect them to nature,” said Meltzer, who is studying education part time at a local college. “Now I see potential to have a big influence on Israel and the world by helping children build a strong foundation, physically and emotionally.”

At 1:30 p.m, with the instructors on the bus back to Beersheba, Meltzer gathered the children for “afternoon circle,” where they ate roasted potatoes and freshly sliced fruit. About a third went home with their parents, and the rest made the 30-minute walk to their schoolhouse in central Mitzpe Ramon, where they stayed until 4. Almost everyone spent the final hours in the backyard, playing in the dirt.

I Had an Anxiety Attack in School, and a Social Worker Saved Me. What About the Students Without One?

BY ZUBAIDA BELLO

My first anxiety attack was in a school hallway. Nestled between a doorway and a red bulletin board of exemplary student work, I collapsed. My sight became hazy. My breath became nonexistent. My limbs became numb.

Tears stained my cheeks. My heart beat like a broken machine.

I raised my head up to see a teacher closing the door and pulling the blinds, isolating me from the eyes of curious students inside the classroom. I felt like I was merely a nuisance interrupting her lesson.

“Zubaida! Zubaida!” I turned my head to see the school social worker, Ms. McNeil, running down the hall.

She sat next to me, held my hand and slowed down my breathing. I had never talked to the social worker before.

However, after my first anxiety attack, she became an important part of my life.

Sadly, I am not the only student of color who suffers from anxiety or other related mental issues. According to the Anxiety and Depression Association of America, around 41 percent of college students struggle with anxiety.

Furthermore, 25 percent of adolescents will struggle with some form of anxiety and 12.5 percent struggle with depression, according to the National Institute of Mental Health.

We also know that not everyone has the courage to reveal his or her mental issues. Who knows how many students struggle with mental issues and aren’t able to seek help?

The most distressing part is the response to students of color with emotional issues. It is no secret that communities of color can attach a certain stigma to mental illnesses.

Sometimes, parents actively refuse to seek help or ignore the signs of mental illness.

A national survey in 2015 revealed that Hispanic and black students who have felt overwhelmed are more likely than white students to keep their concerns to themselves. White students were more likely to feel academically

and emotionally prepared for college.

White students were also twice as likely to get treated for emotional distress.

Why? Meanwhile, many New York City students don’t have access to a social worker or counselor. In fact, there were only 2,902 guidance counselors and 1,275 social workers in New York City this school year. That’s a ratio of one counselor or social worker to every 241 students.

Without professional help, many students turn to substance abuse to cope with their mental illness. Other students continue to accumulate stress from academics and family issues. If parents and teachers want to help their minority students to succeed, they need to invest in mental support.

This isn’t to say we’ve been neglected completely. Counselors in the Bronx have worked on initiatives this past year to help students reach their potential, prepping them for life after high school, and school-based health centers have opened to provide mental health support. As with all things, however, there is more work to be done.

The stigma surrounding mental illness and mental illness patients in communities of color is certainly unfair and detrimental to our health.

However, the fact that this stigma is impeding the success of students of color is even more enraging. We deserve better. Administrators, politicians and educators must realize the importance of having more social workers and guidance counselors.

Right now, somewhere in the Bronx, there is a young girl like me, having her first anxiety attack. Her fingers are numb. Her sight is hazy. Her heart is beating like a drum as she watches somebody close the door in her face.

She can’t move, a mere witness to her breakdown. But there is no Ms. McNeil who can save her.

Zubaida Bello is a junior at Uncommon Preparatory Charter High School in Brooklyn. She has performed original poetry at the Apollo and New York Live Arts and has been honored by the Black Lives Matter Club at her school. In her free time, she enjoys reading and skateboarding.

JUNE 21 – 27, 2017 | NYJLIFE.COM | 17

Triumphs and Setbacks

BY STAFF

Hundreds of community members were inspired to action Sun., June 11, at Westchester Jewish Center with a coalition of interfaith groups under the umbrella of Friends with Neighbors for Refugees.

Featured guest speaker Jodi Kantor who covered Syrian refugee resettlement in Canada talked about her investigative piece and the painstaking process covering both triumphs and setbacks of strangers helping strangers start a new life in a new country.

Attendees broke up into interactive sessions to write postcards and take specific actions to help refugee families. Thank you to Holly Rosen Fink for organizing and bringing this wonderful event to Westchester Jewish Center.

Students from Scarsdale High School’s Students for Refugees discussing their work with interested community members

WJC Rabbinic Intern Jama Purser making brief remarks to open the event

RIGHT:

WJC member Herb Leventer speaking to representatives of HIAS about refugee resettlement efforts in Westchester

LEFT:

WJC members learning how to donate to a community collection for Syrian refugees

PHOTOS COURTESY OF WESTCHESTER JEWISH CENTER

18 | NYJLIFE.COM | JUNE 21 – 27, 2017

New President of American Friends of the Hebrew University PROMINENT NEW YORK CIVIC LEADER RECOGNIZED FOR HIS COMMITMENT TO THE HEBREW UNIVERSITY OF JERUSALEM NEW YORK — Marc O. Mayer was elected president of the Board of Directors of American Friends of the Hebrew University (AFHU) during a meeting of the AFHU National Board in New York City on May 21. Daniel I. Schlessinger, who served as president of AFHU for two terms, was appointed board chairman. AFHU is a national nonprofit organization that works in support of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel’s leading institution of higher education and research, and among the top-100 universities worldwide.

Mayer heads North American Distribution at Schroders plc, a company that manages $520 billion in global assets. An active lay leader who champions varied causes related to education and the arts, he has been involved with AFHU for more than two decades. He has served on the National Board and Northeast Region Board, previously chaired the Audit Committee, and until May served as campaign chair. He is a member of the Executive, Audit and Investment committees. Dedicated to the Hebrew University’s academic and research community of 1,000 faculty and 23,000 students, Mayer is a governor of the Hebrew University’s International Board of Governors and serves on the university’s Executive Committee.

Marc and his wife Meera Mayer are benefactors of the university and received the Maimonides Award in 2007 in recognition of their humanitarianism and leadership.

In 2016, Marc Mayer and Patricia L. Glaser, vice chairman of AFHU’s Western Region, co-chaired an AFHU National Mission to Israel. He recently served on the Advisory Committee for “Nexus: Israel, Hybrid Solutions to Global Challenges,” an innovation conference showcasing technologies developed at Hebrew University in fields such as cybersecurity, food safety

and neuroscience.

Prior to joining Schroders plc, Mayer was a partner and CEO of GMO LLC, a privately owned global investment management firm. He joined GMO in 2009 after 20 years at AllianceBernstein LP and its predecessor firm, the privately owned Sanford C. Bernstein & Co., Inc. Mayer was a partner and member of the Bernstein Board of Directors. Before joining Sanford Bernstein, he worked at the Squibb Corporation for six years in strategic planning, business development, marketing and marketing research. He earned his B.A. in Philosophy from Yale University and received an M.B.A. from Columbia Business School.

Stated Schlessinger, “We are privileged to have Marc’s exemplary leadership in support of Hebrew University and Israel. In addition to being a consummate professional and expert in his field, Marc has a profound commitment to advancing higher education. We are honored to have his service.”

Engaged in numerous civic, educational and cultural activities, Mayer serves on the Board of Overseers of Columbia Business School. He also serves on the Board and Executive Committee of the Berklee College of Music in Boston, where he chairs the Finance and Budget Committee. He is on the Board and Executive Committee of Saint Ann’s School in Brooklyn Heights, where he serves as treasurer.

He is a trustee emeritus of the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, whose board he previously chaired.

Meera Mayer, an executive director at Morgan Stanley, is similarly dedicated to lay leadership, serving on the Advisory Board of the Chazen Institute for Global Business at Columbia Business School. She plays an active role in Women in Science at Rockefeller University. The Mayers have three children and a tortoise, and reside in New York City.

FRIEDMAN EXPECTS STRONG U.S.-ISRAEL COOPERATION

BY MAXINE DOVERE

No question about it: The excitement in the room was special—greater than might be expected even for the beginning of the 16th annual Young Israel of Jamaica Estates Coalition for Israel Action L’Chaim 5K Run/Walk. The event honoring the memory of Chaim Bohorozaner is sponsored by his widow, Helen, and the Bohorozaner family. For years, the family’s machatunim (in-laws) have also participated.

Rebbitzin Karen Hochberg is pictured at the opening of the L’Chaim 5K Run/Walk at Young Israel of Jamaica Estates.

From right: Rabbi Shlomo Hochberg, Amb. David Friedman, United States Ambassador to Israel Janna Borozaner and Rebbitzin Karen Hochberg at the opening of the L’Chaim 5K Run/Walk

“What’s happening inside the beltway is confined to the beltway and will eventually be cured.

There are only so many bullets Democrats can fire.”

- David Melech Friedman, ambassador of the United States to Israel

Leslie Pere of West Hempstead took first place in the Women’s category. NYJL asked why she participated and she responded, “I’m running for a good cause.”

Amb. David Friedman with pro-Israel activist Dr. Joseph Frager, sponsor of the annual Celebrate Israel Concert in the Park

Amb. David Friedman with Assemblyman David Weprin, representative of District 24 in Queens

JUNE 21 – 27, 2017 | NYJLIFE.COM | 19

OPINION

Keeping Pro-Israel Politics Bipartisan in an Age of Polarization

BY SHALOM LIPNER

WASHINGTON (JTA) — America. Bipartisanship.

Compulsory. The literal ABCs of Israel’s national security doctrine remain Jerusalem’s airtight bond with the United States.

The tangible friendship expressed for Israel by elected officials at all levels of the U.S. government; the robust cooperation among their business, scientific, defense and intelligence communities; and grassroots American support for the Jewish state endure as the sine qua non of Israel’s success.

None of this would have been possible unless Democrats and Republicans—recognizing the partnership’s inherent value to America—had united in common cause to embrace Israel.

The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) has long known this. Reeling from the fallout of its 2016 policy conference, when then-candidate Donald Trump took to the podium to castigate President Barack Obama as “the worst thing that ever happened to Israel,” AIPAC management was determined to prevent this year’s event in March from turning into a partisan battlefield.

But noble aspirations are the first victims in the era of the perpetual political campaign. Addressing the assembly on the first evening, Vice President Mike Pence stoked the coals of divisiveness, proclaiming that “for the first time in a long time, America has a president who will stand with our allies and stand up to our enemies.” He was only echoing the sentiments expressed at that same morning’s opening plenary by Israel’s ambassador to the United States, Ron Dermer, who said, “For the first time in many years...there is no daylight between our two governments.”

To be sure, Obama clashed with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu repeatedly. But he was still the same president who ultimately signed off on a multiyear, $38 billion memorandum of understanding on security assistance—the one that compelled Netanyahu to “thank President Obama and his administration for this historic agreement.”

Israel has been fortunate to enjoy sustained, exceptionally high levels of coordination and collaboration under U.S. administrations of both political stripes. And it is bipartisanship that enables that consistency, allowing Israel both to thrive today and plan for its future.

Skeptics in Israel and within the Republican Party are not wrong: Israel does have a conspicuous problem within the present-day Democratic Party.

Its sources range from the raging currents of

20 | NYJLIFE.COM | JUNE 21 – 27, 2017

globalization to differences over Israeli policy vis-àvis the Palestinians. The incontrovertible fact today is that Republican sympathies for Israel far outstrip Democratic ones, thus posing a challenge from which friends of this bilateral relationship dare not shirk; capitulation is an unaffordable luxury for them.

Because the White House switches hands, congressional majorities are not eternal, and even governments in Jerusalem have been rumored to change, neither side of the aisle can be written off. If the Israeli leadership ever had to deal with a hostile and alienated counterpart in the United States, the consequences could be catastrophic.

Ironically, for bipartisanship to be restored to full health, a particular aspect of Israel’s awkward synthesis of identity politics is both relevant and instructive here.

Governance in America is anchored in a two-party system, but Israel’s proportional representation has birthed dozens of parties since its inception; the current Knesset boasts 11 caucuses. Among them are boutique factions championing narrow constituencies, namely religious Jews and Israel’s Arab citizens, but counterintuitively, an independent voice has not always served their needs.

One byproduct has been that these factions are deputized as chief lobbyists for basic services such as religious education and functional neighborhood policing for their communities. In more familiar terms: The fundamental deliverables of liberal democracy have been turned into horse-traded special interests.

And if these smaller parties then fail at their polls, whole sectors of society risk being marginalized.

Meanwhile, with people voting their parochial concerns, the state becomes almost ungovernable.

A more effective way to guarantee themselves a hearing would have been for these groups to set up shop within Israel’s two major political blocs. That way, their core requisites would become integrated into the platforms of all governments, no matter which way the winds were blowing. In fact, signs of greater consolidation are now underway in Israel, with talk of mergers and some newer contenders fielding slates with greater in-house diversity.

Such thinking is a piece of cake for Americans. The Republican and Democratic universes are seeded with multiple affinity groups that toil to ensure their pet causes are well represented in both parties. Among those promoting a strong U.S.-Israel bond, in this context, are the National Jewish Democratic Council

(NJDC) and Republican Jewish Coalition (RJC), institutions that liaise with their respective party apparatuses and work to foster closer ties between the two nations.

But bipartisan fellowship is becoming ever more tenuous, and I’ve witnessed personally how hyperpoliticization can inflict damage to the cause— with supporters of this relationship “colluding” to turn it into a wedge issue when they hammer each other as only fair-weather friends. Since the mission of both the NJDC and the RJC is to help elect members from their own parties, they almost have a vested interest in undermining the bipartisan foundations of U.S.-Israel relations.

This same spirit of polarization has also consumed much of the cohort advocating on behalf of America’s alliance with Israel. AIPAC’s commitment to providing a warm bipartisan home for this community is being assailed by less-politically-inclusive outfits on both flanks. For the past eight years, J Street’s decidedly pro-Obama bent challenged the kumbaya of pro-Israel orthodoxy. And today, prominent Jewish funders and evangelical groups are calling for a more hard-hitting approach than AIPAC’s, one attuned to the sensibilities of Trump’s America.

How to square this circle when bipartisanship is indispensable but politics is king?

Friends of America’s partnership with Israel might best consider performing triage to stem the bleeding. If the relationship is to recoup its “unifier” status, the most immediate order of business should now be to neutralize the acrimony. AIPAC’s professionalism will remain a formidable asset—but only if the organization is not transformed into a boxing ring where political rivals come to exchange blows without regard for the injury that causes to bipartisanship.

Unless supreme efforts are invested to insulate this neutral ground, it could conceivably implode.

Participants in last week’s AIPAC joint trip to Israel for Republican and Democratic campaign operatives’ officials—reportedly it “helped them dial down the bitter partisanship of current-day Washington”— would be the first to vindicate this approach.

At the same time, the current environment has prescribed an increasingly important role for tapered and cohesive silos of the like-minded. Enjoying the cachet of intellectual traction among their natural allies, partisan groups are equally potent messengers on issues ranging from foreign aid to the Iranian nuclear threat that they can cast skillfully in the vernacular of their particular guild. Ideally this task would be performed without too much emphasis on why the opposing team is “weak” on the issue; rather, the mutual objective would be for all sides to be “strong.”

Psalm 133 is correct: It is good and pleasant for brothers to dwell together. But to ensure that Democrats and Republicans keep forging ahead to advance the alliance between the United States and Israel—a “best interest” of both countries—parallel inclusive and exclusive tracks of communal activism might just be a sign of the times. Perhaps it’s time for Bipartisanship 2.0—“bipairtisanship,” if you will.

OPINION

The Six-Day War: Lessons in Retrospect

BY UZI RABI

The Six-Day War was burned into the Arab consciousness as a “naksa,” meaning “defeat.” The war represents a crossroads in the history of the Arab world, a proverbial fall into a bottomless abyss.

Bound together with the military defeat was the decline of the revolutionary ideology that sought to create a unified Arab world. The Egyptian president, Gamal Abdel Nasser, had captured the imagination of the Arab public by championing Arab unity and the “new Arab man,” but the false promises of Arab nationalism, Arab socialism and Nasserism shattered following the ‘67 defeat, and left the Arab public exhausted, disillusioned and in mourning.

The Palestinian national movement turned to armed struggle and terrorism to pursue its objectives.

Revolutionary Islamist movements, inspired by Sayyid Qutb and others, found a growing constituency in the wake of the Six-Day War. Today’s Salafi-Jihadi ideology and terrorism were influenced by Qutb’s ideas and their advocates in the Arab world.

The immediate result of the ’67 defeat was the increasing fragmentation of the Arab region. In other words, every state increasingly adhered to its own particular interests. Since then, a core group of authoritarian states was able to survive until the events of the “Arab Spring” in 2011. But this survival was achieved through fear rather than the rule of law. In tandem, substate elements—ethnic groups, tribes, extended families and regional communities— persevered but were nevertheless forced to accept the state’s coercive power.

Religion, having been sidelined by the secular banner of Arab nationalism, demonstrated its resilience through the popular slogan, “Islam is the solution” (“al-Islam huwa al-hall”).

Since the naksa, the Arab world has moved from bad to worse, and each crisis—from the Lebanese Civil War of 1975-’90 to the 1990 Iraqi invasion of Kuwait—has only further shattered the stability of the Arab region. During each crisis, the public asked, “Where are the Arabs?” in a broad allusion to the great idea of unity whose demise was revealed by the 1967 defeat.

The decline of the Arab world was mirrored by the gradual rise of non-Arab regional actors. Iran and Turkey emerged as contenders for regional hegemony during the last 20 years of the 20th century, as they attempted to fill the vacuum left by the Arab states.

Interestingly, both countries—once viewed as solidly pro-Western—now embraced Islamist (Sunni and

Uzi Abi

Shi‘i, respectively) ideologies. It is an irony of history that both countries had emerged from the maelstrom of the First World War as ostensible beacons of antireligiosity and anti-clericalism, but now wrapped themselves in the cloaks of rival Islamist sectarian

The intractable challenge of a political solution to the conflict with the Palestinians, with no prospect of resolution in sight, has also led to polarizing polemics and serious moral questions alongside significant security burdens.

identities.

The third state to benefit from the Six-Day War was the victor, Israel. The dramatic results transformed the country into a miraculous example of economic, technological and military success. More broadly, the conception held by Israel’s founders of a hostile and monolithic Arab world evaporated in the aftermath of the war. Arab dogmatism was to be replaced by a more pragmatic approach that facilitated the signing of peace treaties between Israel and its neighbors (Egypt and Jordan) and the building of discrete alliances with Arab states on the basis of shared interests.

Of course, Israel’s ostensible victory was far from complete, and the spoils of success have been bittersweet. The political unification of Jerusalem, and the rapid conquest of the West Bank, which includes many of Judaism’s most holy places, introduced many Israelis to the Land of Israel, whose interests are often in tension with those of the State of Israel.

The intractable challenge of a political solution to the conflict with the Palestinians, with no prospect of resolution in sight, has also led to polarizing polemics and serious moral questions alongside significant security burdens.

The traditional binary equation in which the struggle of the Arab states against Israel was the one and only framework through which the Middle East was viewed has been proven false. In light of the events of the past decade, that struggle is clearly neither the most acute nor the bloodiest, given the mass slaughter between Sunnis and Shi’is, Turks and Kurds, Arabs and Persians.

One broad lesson that we may take away from the aftermath of the Six-Day War and the present reality is that incremental practical solutions—those that take into account the depth of the challenges facing the region—have a greater chance of success than the grand designs and revolutionary ideas that lead to disaster. Israel was able to make peace first with Egypt’s Anwar Sadat, and later with Jordan’s King Hussein, on the basis of very sober calculations of power and mutual state interests.

Israel’s history, including the 1967 war, has taught that whatever security decisions Israel and its neighbors face in the future will also be made on the same kind of cold calculations of power and interests.

Uzi Rabi is the director of the Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies; and a senior researcher at the Center for Iranian Studies—both at Tel Aviv University.

JUNE 21 – 27, 2017 | NYJLIFE.COM | 21

Stories of Strength at Parker Jewish “Stories of Strength,” a Holocaust remembrance program, was hosted June 15 by the Parker Jewish Institute in its New Hyde Park facility. The agenda focused on the memories of survivors of the Nazi horror with commentary by Beth Lilach, director of the Holocaust Memorial Center in Glen Cove, Long Island.

Mia Feuer shares a smile with husband, Sam Feuer.

(Seated) Survivors Chana Pfeifen and Alice Tenenbaum with Mia Feuer, wife of survivor Sam Feuer (Second row) Rabbi Hillel Fox, chaplain, Parker Jewish Institute; Beth Lilach, senior education director, Holocaust Memorial and Tolerance Center, Nassau County

22 | NYJLIFE.COM | JUNE 21 – 27, 2017

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