July 12 Edition of New York Jewish Life

Brooklyn Eats Showcases Best Brooklyn Has to Offer (with a Bit of Kosher Food to Boot!)

Opinion: American Jews Care About Pluralism

NYU Tandon’s Popular STEM Program in Ma’ayanot Yeshiva High School and Others

VOL. 1, NO. 18 | JULY 12-18, 2017 | NEWS THAT MATTERS TO JEWISH COMMUNITIES IN THE NEW YORK CITY METROPOLITAN AREA | NYJLIFE.COM | FREE

THE ENDLESS SUMMER In Search of the Perfect Story

…25,000 owners of 1 million rent-stabilized apartments in the five boroughs…

• The largest providers – the backbone – of quality, affordable housing in New York City.

• In good times and bad, a vital economic engine for New York City – we pay hundreds of millions of dollars in property taxes and water rates that help fund police, fire, sanitation, public education and other municipal services.

• A vast majority of small owners have buildings with 20 apartments or less – many of them immigrants, and all of us committed to providing quality, affordable housing to our tenants.

• We put the rent money back into our buildings for repairs, maintenance and upgrades – that’s the formula to maintaining and preserving affordable housing for New Yorkers.

Owners of Rent-Stabilized Apartments…

Good for Neighborhoods, Good for Tenants, Good for Affordable Housing

WE HOUSE NEW YORK 2 | NYJLIFE.COM | JULY 12 – 18, 2017

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

BUSINESS Michael Tobman

Summer Lovin’ Summer is everywhere. You can see it in parents’ social media feeds, with pictures of them dropping smiling kids off at sleepaway camp. You can taste it in the summer drink specials at your favorite spot—rosé slushies, craft beers, chilled white wine and cool negronis. You can hear it in the pop music coming out of tiny speakers producing big sounds, so different from the foam-covered headphones on your Walkman back when. You can read about it with the seasonal newspaper tilt towards human-interest stories.

Graduations are past us, and most parents aren’t shopping for school supplies just yet.

It’s not that difficulties have abated, or the severity of crises lessened.

Things are still tough, mostly for tragic reasons, but there is more lightness about things, more optimism. Perhaps events, and how they’re covered in the news, are more hopeful.

How else to explain Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi walking in the Dead Sea, shoes off and pants rolled up? If they weren’t who they are, they could be anybody. Just two guys catching up. Because that’s what summer bring us—less local news (everyone is away), with an increased number of broader discussions about larger topics. Think of it as a more meta to-do list talked about at a backyard bbq or, in this case, at the beach.

This week’s NYJL has a compelling article from the JTA on this budding “bromance.” As reported, “‘Prime Minister Modi’s visit to Israel is a watershed moment that reaffirms the strong political, economic and security ties between two important partners of the United States who share our interests and democratic values,’ Marshall Wittmann, the spokesman for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, told the JTA.” Or, as I like to say, “Don’t tell me what you can’t do; tell me what you can do.”

Coverage of Israel has felt increasingly balanced lately, shifting from relentless criticism to more forward-looking engagement. Perhaps it’s a product of a changed foreign policy in America towards the region.

Maybe it’s a market phenomenon, or maybe it’s a summer romance. Perhaps it’s a combination of things, as another favorite saying of mine is, “Nothing is ever just about one thing.”

Summer is also when unexplained, improbable things get started. Summer projects take root in the heat, mature in the early fall and come to fruition before winter cold dampens energy.

Republican mayoral candidate, Assemblywoman Nicole Malliotakis, is (noticeably) working very hard to highlight incumbent Democratic Mayor Bill de Blasio’s shortcomings. New York City has elected Republican mayors,

PUBLISHER

and Nicole’s demographic—young, moderate, female, accomplished— makes her a compelling candidate.

She has articulated a clear vision and rationale for her candidacy, and has literally been everywhere in the city discussing it. Mayor de Blasio, it can be reasonably admitted even by his supporters, has an arrogance that produces self-inflicted wounds and unforced errors for Malliotakis to leverage. I mean, really, why did the mayor go to Germany?!

Lastly, summer is a time for true love and real commitments. Congratulations to friends Jessica Proud and Dave Catalfamo on their recent engagement.

She’s a Republican political consultant; he was Governor Pataki’s spokesman and is now a lobbyist—two great people who will, I expect, never run out of things to talk about.

We at New York Jewish Life wish you and your family a restful summer. Take a break—you’ve earned it. We’ll keep things going in the meantime, so please look for us in your neighborhood.

Andrew Holt SENIOR PUBLICATION ADVISOR

Liza Kramer DEVELOPMENT ASSOCIATE

Kim Rosenberg Amzallag ADVERTISING CONSULTANT

EDITORIAL Maxine Dovere NYC BUREAU CHIEF

Lucy Cohen Blatter Jenny Powers Tammy Mark CONTRIBUTORS

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Send tips and editorials to news@nyjlife.com. For more information on advertising and sponsored content, email sales@nyjlife.com.

Michael Tobman, Publisher CANDLE LIGHTING

Friday, July 14 Candles: 8:08 p.m.

Shabbat Ends: 9:14 p.m.

Friday, July 21 Candles: 8:03 p.m.

Shabbat Ends: 9:08 p.m.

JULY 12 – 18, 2017 | NYJLIFE.COM | 3

BDSWatch

Fed-Up Reform Leaders Are Thinking Twice about Their Donations to Israel

BY BEN SALES

NEW YORK (JTA) — Daryl Messinger knows she’s going to visit Israel again. But the next time she flies there, it won’t be on El Al. Messinger, the chair of the Union for Reform Judaism, will be boycotting Israel’s national airline as part of her protest of the Israeli government’s two votes last week that empowered its Orthodox sector at the expense of more liberal groups. She’s also going to make a point of buying non-kosher wines produced in Israel—a show of support for Jews who don’t observe traditional kosher laws.

“I want to make sure my dollars are working for my needs and for a pluralistic Israel,” Messinger, of Palo Alto, Calif., told the JTA last Wednesday.

“The Israeli economy is the place where our American dollars are really impactful, so we need to be really clear about what goods and services we want to support and see thrive in Israel.”

Like many liberal Jewish leaders, Messinger is angry about the recent Israeli Cabinet votes to suspend the expansion of a non-Orthodox prayer area at the Western Wall and to give Israel’s chief rabbinate sole authority over official Jewish conversions performed in the country.

The votes have outraged American Jewry’s organizational elite, who see them as a betrayal of Jewish pluralism and of Israel’s symbolic obligations to non-Orthodox Jews around the world.

With limited leverage, Jewish leaders and pundits are now suggesting that they use the power of the purse to get their point across. Pundits have dared American Jews to stop giving money to Israeli causes—from tourist attractions to hospitals—and its national carrier.

And Reform officials have called on their members to redirect their money to groups that advance their ideals.

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an umbrella for expansive Jewish giving. Not any longer, he says. He’s going to donate more to Reform institutions in the United States and around the world, as well as to liberal Zionist organizations like the New Israel Fund and J Street, the dovish pro-Israel lobby.

“I will be much more selective to make sure what I give will not be used against me, and by ‘me’ I mean liberal Jews anywhere in the world,” Price said. “I will not let Israel fail, but I believe that the right-wing government of Israel, Netanyahu and A view of the Western Wall in Jerusalem during Sukkot 2015 the rabbinate PHOTO BY GIL COHEN/AFP/GETTY IMAGES in Israel are absolutely American Jews may not vote in blind or mean-spirited, blind to the Israel, but they do give money there. contributions of liberal Jews.”

URJ officials aren’t the only ones to According to a 2014 analysis by the Forward, American Jewish groups give publicly question their giving to Israel.

This week, Isaac “Ike” Fisher, a board nearly $1.8 billion to Israel each year.

“My original gut reaction when I member of the Israel lobby AIPAC read about what happened was to say, from Coral Gables, Fla., threatened ‘The heck with this,’” said Harry Levy to suspend his Israel philanthropy IV, treasurer of the Union for Reform and wrote in an email to the JTA that Judaism, or URJ. “Why should I give he hopes “Jews in the Diaspora will my money to Israel if they don’t want recognize the threat that a creeping to recognize me as a Jew, much less theocracy can have on a democratic believe in egalitarian prayer? My only state.”

Steven Nasatir, president of the vote is with my pocketbook. I don’t Chicago Jewish Federation, told The have a vote as an Israeli.”

Levy will not be suspending his giving Times of Israel that any lawmaker who to Israel, but he and Messinger are two votes for the conversion bill is not of several active Reform Jewish donors welcome in his community. (Bowing to who will be reapportioning their Israel such outrage, Israel’s Cabinet agreed philanthropy. A handful of members to postpone the conversion law for six of URJ’s Oversight Committee—a months. It has not taken further action 35-member body mostly elected from on the Western Wall deal.) Nasatir among the organization’s 253-member later put out a statement with his board—told the JTA that they would federation’s chairman, saying, “We and be giving more to nonprofits that our fellow Jewish community leaders champion pluralism rather than large, will continue to actively engage with general-interest Jewish fundraising Israeli officials, lawmakers, civic and religious leaders, to raise our voices and bodies.

Michael Price, a retired musical our concerns.”

Usually wary of wading into Israeli theater producer from Connecticut, gave frequently over the past six controversies and alienating any of decades to his local Jewish federation, their diverse donors, North American

federations were nonetheless quick to criticize the Israeli government decisions two weeks ago.

“We are outraged at two Israeli government actions today that would destroy the fundamental principle that Israel, our Jewish homeland, is a place where all Jews can and must feel at home,” the New York Jewish Federation, the country’s largest, said in a statement.

Like other federations, it warned Israel that the issue could rupture the relationship between diaspora Jews and Israel, which is often measured in dollars and cents.

“There’s been a remarkable change of stance by federations in North America backing away from what had previously been an unconditional support of the Israeli government,” said David Baskin, a URJ board member from Toronto. “Everyone is worried that liberal Jews in particular will stop giving to federations, to the extent that federations are supporting Israel, and that’s a well-founded fear.”

Other Reform donors demurred at the idea of withholding money from mainstream Jewish groups as a pressure tactic. URJ Vice Chair Jennifer Kaufman said she would not ask anyone to stop giving to federations—just to consider giving to other organizations as well.

“I’m not about to suggest that someone shouldn’t be giving money to where they’ve been giving money,” she said. “I think that’s something everyone has to decide for themselves. I would not be comfortable telling people what they should do with their philanthropic donations.”

Even as they spoke of pressuring Israel financially, Reform donors denied any parallel to the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement (BDS) against Israel, which in its official form is anti-Zionist. Instead of isolating Israel economically, these donors are considering increasing their giving—but changing which Israelis are the recipients.

“This is about redirecting funds strategically,” Messinger said. “It’s not about spending less. It’s about investing in areas where it’s clearly promoting democratic, pluralistic Israel—an Israel we’d like to all be part of.”

SCHUMER IN THE NEWS

Schumer, Gillibrand Announce Over $397 Million in Federal Funding for Public-Housing Programs Across New York State FEDERAL CAPITAL FUND PROGRAM PROVIDES FUNDING FOR HOUSING AUTHORITIES TO DEVELOP, MODERNIZE, IMPROVE FACILITIES FOR LOW-INCOME FAMILIES, ELDERLY AND PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES NEW YORK — U.S. Sens. Charles E. Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand announced $397,628,820 for housing authorities across New York State.

The funds were allocated through the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) Public Housing Capital Fund. Schumer and Gillibrand said the funding will help housing authorities develop, finance and modernize their public-housing facilities.

“Having a roof over your head is one of life’s basic necessities, so we must do everything we can to help provide those truly in need with a decent and

affordable place to live. This federal funding will help support affordable housing initiatives throughout New York that assist needy families, the elderly and persons with disabilities to find an affordable place to live,” said Schumer.

“We need to invest more federal funds to help more low-income families, the elderly and persons with disabilities in New York with access to affordable and safe housing,” Gillibrand said.

“These resources are vital for vulnerable communities and I will continue to do everything I can in

the Senate to make sure that all New Yorkers have the opportunity to reach their full potential.”

HUD’s Office of Capital Improvement administers the Capital Fund Program, which provides financial assistance in the form of grants to public-housing agencies (PHAs) to carry out capital

and management activities—acting as the primary tool to preserve New York’s affordable-housing stock. These federal dollars are used to increase a PHA’s ability to maintain the physical infrastructure of developments and improve the safety and security of its residents.

For a full listing of disbursements, go to Schumer.Senate.gov

JULY 12 – 18, 2017 | NYJLIFE.COM | 5

Here’s Why Israel and India’s Leaders Couldn’t Get Enough of Each Other Meanwhile, India’s first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, bought into the Arab narrative that Israel was instead a leftover of colonialism. That was WASHINGTON (JTA) – Barefoot walks on the compounded by the influence on the Nonaligned beach, warm hugs, lots of mutual admiration, hesitant Movement of another one of its five founders: Gamal attempts to speak each other’s language. And giggles. Abdel Nasser, then the president of Egypt.

“Part of the reason the The bromance between distance has always been prime ministers Narendra there stems from India Modi of India and Benjamin taking leadership of the Netanyahu of Israel— nonaligned, and concerns culminating last week about colonialism and in Modi’s historic Israel Israel” that circulated visit—played out like a in the movement, said young-adult summer novel.

Richard Rossow, the But “India and Israel” Wadhwani chair in U.S.was never written in the India policy studies at the stars: One of the world’s Center for Strategic and largest democracies kept International Studies. its distance from one of its The justification for the loneliest for years. India existence of a nonaligned recognized Israel in 1950, movement has ebbed since and Israel soon opened the 1991 collapse of the a consulate in Mumbai, Soviet Union, said Clifford home to a substantial May, the president of the Jewish community. But it Foundation for Defense of took until 1992 for India Democracies. America is to establish full ties, and now the only major power. until the middle of the last “It’s 2017,” he said. decade it was slow going.

“With whom are you not “Prime Minister Modi’s aligned?” visit to Israel is a watershed Prime ministers Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel and moment that reaffirms the Narendra Modi of India visit the water desalination strong political, economic plant at Olga Beach in Haifa, Israel, July 6, 2017.

Friends in high and security ties between PHOTO BY KOBI GIDEON/ISRAELI GOVERNMENT PRESS OFFICE places, and two important partners of the United States high-tech who share our interests Fresh from the U.S. success in leading the ouster and democratic values,” Marshall Wittmann, the from Kuwait of Saddam Hussein’s Iraqi forces, spokesman for the American Israel Public Affairs President George H. W. Bush had a message for allies Committee, told the JTA. and would-be allies hoping to join the post-Soviet What has happened? Here’s a rundown: New World Order: “In order to have a relationship

BY RON KAMPEAS

The nonissue of nonalignment

India was one of the five co-founders in 1956 of the Nonaligned Movement, an attempt by emerging nations to establish a vanguard against American and Soviet influence. Israel’s first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, was intrigued by the movement, but ultimately believed it was in Israel’s best interests to throw in with the West.

6 | NYJLIFE.COM | JULY 12 – 18, 2017

with the United States in the early 1990s, you have to have a relationship with Israel,” said Jason Isaacson, the American Jewish Committee’s associate executive director for policy, who was in Israel helping to coordinate events surrounding the Modi visit.

India was one of the first to sign up, establishing full relations in 1992. At first, trade was limited more or less to diamonds, Isaacson said—Israel is a major diamond-cutting center. But as successive Indian

governments encouraged market-driven economies, it expanded to the technical, agricultural and security sectors—and also to Israeli arms sales to India. The trade relationship is now worth more than $4 billion annually.

Indians crave Israeli technology and Israelis crave Indian markets. The signature photo op of the Modi visit was the Indian leader and his Israeli counterpart wading into the ocean near Haifa and talking Israeli desalination techniques.

There were important markers in the emerging relationship under governments led by both of India’s major parties, the Congress Party founded by Nehru, and the more Hindu nationalist BJP, now led

by Modi. In 2003, then-Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon visited India, and since the beginning of the 21st century there have been multiple visits by top ministers to both countries.

BJP governments, which led the country from 1998 to 2004 and since 2014, have been prone to accelerate the relationship. David Makovsky, the Ziegler distinguished fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said this was in part because the pro-Hindu BJP—and Modi in particular—were less sensitive to the sensibilities of the country’s huge Muslim minority.

“You have in the case of Modi someone who is identified with a kind of an India-first orientation that is not inhibited in a way previous Indian leaders may have been because of the domestic makeup of their country,” he said.

The Sunni Arab world, another force that once drove Israel’s isolation, is itself more open to dealing with Israel, primarily because of shared threats posed

by Iran and radical Islamist terrorist groups.

“Some of it plays into the regional changes in the Middle East,” said Ken Jacobson, the Anti-Defamation League’s deputy national director. “The fact that the Saudis can be more open in relations with Israel” paves the way for other countries.

Band of (transactional) brothers

There’s a third party to this bromance: President Donald Trump. Netanyahu, Modi and Trump share an outlook that renounces “globalism,” or permanent international alliances advancing lofty universal goals.

Instead they favor more-flexible relationships based on self-interest—currently, countering the perceived threat posed by Islamists.

“All three of them seem very simpatico in their meetings with one another,” Jacobson said. “There’s a feeling of ‘I’m talking to someone who understands me.’”

It’s terrorism, stupid

Clifford May of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies recalled a meeting that Modi had a year ago with representatives of think tanks during a U.S. visit. The Indian leader asked all the representatives to say what was on their minds about the IndiaU.S. relationship, and an array of topics came up: educational exchanges, trade, employment. Only May mentioned Islamist terrorism, and recalled that

when Modi launched into his response, the terrorist threat constituted at least three quarters of his time.

“He was clearly concerned about threats from Islamists and jihadists in Pakistan,” May said. “That is part of the reason he would see Israel surrounded by jihadists who want to destroy it” and seek its expertise in preventing such attacks.

One of the Indian cities most afflicted by terrorist attacks in recent years has been Mumbai, and another signature moment in the Israel trip was Modi’s meeting with Moshe Holtzberg, 11, the son of Chabad emissaries who were killed in a 2008 terror attack in the city.

Speaking at the airport, Modi also cited—to a visibly moved Netanyahu— the heroism of the Israeli prime minister’s martyred brother, Yonatan, who died leading the 1976 raid on hijackers in Uganda.

But it’s also the Indian diaspora…

Isaacson said one of the drivers of the renewed relationship was an IndianAmerican community eager to forge

ties with its Jewish counterpart—and a Jewish community, led by the American Jewish Committee in this particular case, eager to engage.

“It’s a sister minority-faith community, with immigrant roots, dedicated to education, dedicated to the same basic values that have mobilized our community,” he said.

“They’re natural partners and friends.”

Modi, perhaps more than any of his predecessors, believes in engagement with the Indian diaspora. He made a point of meeting with Indian Israelis, believed to number about 100,000, during his visit. Some 10,000 turned up.

…and it’s traveling Israelis

India for decades has been a favored destination for Israelis taking a year’s break after completing army service. Bumping into Hebrew speakers in Modi’s home state of Gujarat has become commonplace.

Correspondingly, tangents of Indian culture have spread throughout Israel.

An Israeli Foreign Ministry video features scenes from a mass yoga experience at an Israeli park

captioned, “Indian culture continues to impact and enhance Israeli society.”

Netanyahu, clapping his hands, greeted Modi with a hearty Sanskrit “Namaste.”

(Modi responded by saying in fractured Hebrew that he was honored to be in Israel, to Netanyahu’s giggling delight.)

But don’t get too excited

Makovsky said one of the factors driving Israeli enthusiasm for India is growing tensions with Europe, Israel’s traditional trading partner, over the Palestinian issue, with European countries increasingly willing to impose economic sanctions on Israel’s settlement enterprise.

“There is a jitteriness that as they put all their eggs in the European basket, that if the environment in Europe turns hostile relating to BDS and other issues, they remain vulnerable,” he said, referring to the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement.

Jacobson of the Anti-Defamation League cautioned against any Israeli outlook that veered too sharply from its Western alliances.

“There’s a long discussion and debate among Israelis about how

Israel conducts its foreign policy, its dependency on the United States,” he said. “There have always been people who say we need to diversify our support. For those of us who care deeply about Israel, there’s no substitute for America.”

India is unlikely to give up purchasing oil from Iran, or its other development projects and investments in that country, although the Islamic Republic is Israel’s enemy number one.

“There’s a comfort level” in the United States and Israel “with India maintaining its relationship with Iran—because they will,” said Rossow of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, citing the trade relationship and India’s vested interest in maintaining regional relationships.

Only Pakistan and Afghanistan separate India from Iran, and all three countries are deeply invested in Afghanistan’s development.

“There’s no good reason for Modi to be picking a fight or getting on Iran’s bad side,” said May, whose Foundation for Defense of Democracies is one of the leading think tanks that otherwise advocate Iran’s isolation.

JULY 12 – 18, 2017 | NYJLIFE.COM | 7

How Gaza’s Electricity Crisis Could Spell Trouble for Israel

BY ANDREW TOBIN

JERUSALEM (JTA) – An internal Palestinian dispute has left the Gaza Strip’s nearly two million Palestinian residents dangerously vulnerable to a heat wave, and Israel vulnerable to a diplomatic and security crisis.

The West Bank Palestinian Authority has recently sharply reduced electricity to Gaza with Israel’s cooperation. The electricity cuts are part of a power play by the Palestinian Authority against Hamas, its rival Palestinian faction that governs the territory.

In response, Hamas has looked to Egypt for help—a development that could augur further division between Gaza and the West Bank and possibly greater bloodshed in the next Israel-Hamas war.

An immediate consequence of the electricity cuts has been suffering for Gazans. A new U.N. report said Gaza gets electricity just four to six hours a day, down from the recent normal flow of eight to 12 hours a day.

Water is available at most homes for a few hours every three to five days with desalination plants operating at 15 percent of capacity. And 29 million gallons of sewage are flooding into the Mediterranean Sea every day and threatening to overflow into the streets.

In recent days, temperatures in the region have soared to over 98 degrees, with Israel reporting

record-breaking demand for electricity last Sunday and Monday.

“The situation in Gaza has becoming increasingly precarious over recent months,” Robert Piper, the United Nations’ humanitarian coordinator for the Occupied Palestinian Territory, said in a plea to diplomats here last Monday for $25.2 million of emergency funding. “No one is untouched by the energy crisis.”

How did Gaza get to this point?

In 2007, Hamas violently seized control of the territory from Fatah, the political faction that dominates the Palestinian Authority government. In the decade since the coup, Israel—along with Egypt— has largely sealed off Gaza from the land, air and sea.

According to Israel, the blockade is necessary to keep weapons and material out of the hands of Hamas, which has terrorized and warred with the Jewish state and vowed its destruction. Israel has allowed humanitarian goods to enter Gaza and permitted some Gazans to come for medical care.

Despite the rift, the Palestinian Authority has continued to pay for most of Gaza’s electricity, which Israel has supplied in exchange for a cut of the taxes it has collected on behalf of the West Bank government.

A Palestinian boy cooling off during a heat wave at the al-Shati refugee camp in Gaza City, July 2, 2017 PHOTO BY AFP/GETTY IMAGES

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Gaza’s sole power plant and, to a smaller extent, Egypt, have supplied the rest.

The ongoing electricity crisis began in April, when the Gaza power plant shut down for lack of diesel fuel.

Hamas refused to buy more fuel from the Palestinian Authority, complaining the taxes it charged were too high. In June, the Palestinian Authority announced it would reduce its payments to Israel for Gaza’s electricity by 40 percent. In response, Israel has gradually decreased the power supply to the territory—by 35 percent as of Sunday, July 2.

The Palestinian Authority has said its goal is to pressure Hamas to hand over control of Gaza. To that end, it has also since April slashed the salaries it has paid to tens of thousands of employees of the preHamas government for not working and dramatically reduced medical aid to Gaza. On Tuesday, July 4, the Palestinian Authority fired more than 6,000 of those employees.

Rather than capitulating, Hamas has looked to Egypt for help. In late June, Cairo began supplying fuel for Gaza’s power plant—though not enough to compensate for the Israeli cuts. Hamas has also apparently been working toward forming a new government in Gaza with Mohammed Dahlan, a former Fatah strongman in Gaza with close ties to Egypt who helped broker the fuel shipments.

Making nice with Dahlan appears to be an attempt

by Hamas to win an opening of its Rafah border crossing with Egypt, which would give it a portal with the outside world and alleviate the humanitarian crisis. Neither Hamas nor the Palestinian Authority has been on good terms with Dahlan. Hamas chased him out of Gaza in 2007, and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas exiled him from the Palestinian territories in 2011, deeming him a political threat.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman have said the electricity cuts are an internal Palestinian issue, and Israel would restore full power were someone to foot the bill. But some officials have questioned whether Gaza’s suffering is in Israel’s interest.

Energy Minister Yuval Steinitz, a close associate of the prime minister, last month said it was “unacceptable” for Abbas to dictate Israeli policy.

And two weeks ago, municipal and regional leaders in Israel rejected the announcement of a governmentplanned pipeline that would require them to treat the sewage that has flowed into their communities from waterways in northern Gaza.

“Israel’s interest is to allocate electricity to Gaza for civilian causes,” Alon Schuster, the head of the Shaar Hanegev Regional Council, told the JTA. “I believe our policy should be to give the Palestinians what they need, and not to torture them in any case.”

Hamas’ political maneuvering could also have security implications. An alliance with Abbas’ political nemesis might well widen the rift between Hamas and Fatah. Further, if history is any guide, Hamas would make use of any increase in the flow of people and goods through Rafah to bolster its military capabilities. That would make another war with Israel all the more devastating.

Temple Mount activist Yehuda Glick, later to become a Knesset member, shows religious Jews a diagram of the Jewish temple that once stood where the Dome of the Rock stands today in Jerusalem, Sept. 17, 2013.

PHOTO BY CHRISTA CASE BRYANT/THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR/GETTY IMAGES

These American Jews Are Looking Beyond the Western Wall—to Prayer on the Temple Mount

BY ANDREW TOBIN

JERUSALEM (JTA) – Liberal American Jews are feeling thwarted in their yearslong campaign for the right to pray as they wish at the Western Wall. Long frustrated that the plaza in front of the wall is run as an Orthodox synagogue, they were doubly incensed when Israel’s political establishment scrapped an agreement that would have boosted access to their own space nearby.

Meanwhile, another group of Jewish worshippers has gained public approval and political traction by setting their sights a bit higher—on the plaza just above the Western Wall, where the ancient Jewish Temple once stood.

Often led by Orthodox American immigrants to Israel, the movement to gain greater access for Jews to the Temple Mount—site of the Dome of the Rock Muslim shrine and the Al-Aqsa Mosque—has moved from the margins nearly to the mainstream.

“Our movement is growing for sure,” said Yehuda Glick, a Brooklyn-born Israeli lawmaker and longtime

Temple Mount activist. “The number of people ascending to the mount has doubled, and you see there’s a lot more activity, a lot more public support.”

Yaacov Hayman, a white-bearded Orthodox native of Southern California, has worked for decades alongside other American-Israeli leaders of the Temple Mount movement. He recently took the helm of a new government body called the Temple Mount Heritage Foundation, which is charged with preserving the holy site and educating about its Jewish history.

Hayman cited the American civil rights movement as an inspiration for his activism, which ultimately aims to rebuild the temple and usher in the messianic era. He said the status quo on the Temple Mount, where Jews’ access has been limited and Jewish prayer banned, reminded him of the 1960 Louisiana school desegregation crisis.

“When I first went to the mount, I was shocked.

This is a Jewish and democratic state, and I can’t pray here? What’s going on?” Hyman said. “I thought back

to being a kid, 6 years old, watching on TV when that little black girl walked into an all-white school. It made me proud of my country.”

Glick, whose beard is fiery red, has avoided calls for any kind of violence and framed his advocacy for Jewish prayer rights on the Temple Mount in terms of liberal values, which he said overlapped with Jewish values. Although Glick acknowledged that he also would eventually like to see the temple restored, he was quick to add that it would be “a world center of peace” and a “house of prayer for all nations.”

“In a society that believes in human rights and liberal rights, the fact that you’re not allowing a person to pray just because he doesn’t belong to your religions, that’s something that’s unacceptable,” he said. “If you support freedom of speech, how can you support prayer for just one people?”

The Temple Mount has long held religious significance for both Jews and Muslims. Although the Romans destroyed the temple in 70 C.E., Jews have continued to pray facing in the direction of the site, and mourned the temple’s destruction on fast days and even weddings with the groom’s breaking of a glass. The Western Wall is a retaining wall of the mount, built by the Jewish ruler Herod at a time when Jewish pilgrims would ascend the plateau to offer sacrifices and witness rites led by the kohanim, or Jewish priests.

The Dome of the Rock and the Al-Aqsa mosque were built on what the Muslims call Haram al-Sharif beginning in the seventh century C.E. under the Muslim Umayyad dynasty.

Since Israel captured the Temple Mount from Jordan in the 1967 Six-Day War, the site has become a flashpoint in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Some Jews, mostly from the Orthodox national religious community, never accepted Israel’s decision to keep the mount an exclusively Muslim prayer site after the war. Although Israel insists it has no plans to change the status quo, Palestinian suspicions to the contrary helped fuel the first and second intifadas, or uprisings, and the wave of stabbings and car-ramming attacks that started in October 2015.

In 2014, a Palestinian terrorist shot and seriously wounded Glick for his Temple Mount activism.

For decades, support for Jewish claims to the Temple Mount came mostly from the fringe of Israel’s national religious community. In the most famous example, the Jewish Underground terrorist group plotted to blow up the Dome of the Rock in 1984 to pave the way for the rebuilding of the temple. Orthodox American Jews like Era Rapaport, a Brooklyn-born civil rights activist turned convicted Jewish Underground terrorist, brought liberal ideas even then to Temple Mount activism.

In recent years, however, the Temple Mount movement has surged. According to Yedidia Stern, who researches religion, state and Orthodoxy at the Israel Democracy Institute, Israel’s national religious community experienced a series of setbacks in the movement to settle the territories that Israel won in 1967—including the intifadas, the Israeli-Palestinian

continued on page 10

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TEMPLE MOUNT from p9

Oslo peace accords, and Israel’s evacuation of settlements in the Sinai Peninsula in 1982 and the Gaza Strip in 2005. As a result, many shifted their biblically inspired fervor toward the Temple Mount.

“The settlers’ messianic interpretation of reality suffered a real blow to the face with these events. I think most Israeli Jews realized the day will come when we’ll either willingly or by force sign a peace accord with our enemies, and we’ll have to retreat from Judea and Samaria, the heart of the ancient Jewish homeland,” Stern said, referring to the West Bank by the biblical names widely used in Israel.

“Many Jews have looked to revive the messianic dream on the Temple Mount. It’s a replacement, one that’s even more important in their minds.”

Right-wing rabbis, and and even some haredim Orthodox ones, have also issued rulings that permit Jews to visit and pray on the Temple Mount, despite a tradition that says Jews should not walk on the mount out of fears that they might step on the site of the Holy of Holies, the inner sanctum of the Temple.

According to Temple Mount activists, just a few years ago, only a few thousand Jews visited the Temple Mount every year. By contrast, more than 14,000 Jews and their supporters have come since October, by the count of the activist group Yeraeh-Connecting to the Temple Mount. That was already more than Yeraeh recorded in the previous 12 months.

Israeli Jewish organizations that champion the cause have proliferated as well, from just a couple five years ago to more than half a dozen major active groups today. In addition to leading the Temple Mount Heritage Foundation, Hayman started the Yishai Organization for Building Synagogues on the Holy Mountain in 2013 and Friends of the Temple Mount this year. Yeraeh, Students for the Temple Mount, Women for the Temple and Returning to the

Temple Mount were all started in the past few years.

At the same time, older groups have flourished.

The Temple Institute, co-founded in 1987 by Chaim Richman, an Orthodox rabbi born in Massachusetts, in 2013 moved from a small side street in Jerusalem’s Old City to an expansive space just outside the Western Wall plaza, where it has hosted thousands of visits by tourists every year with government support. A man-sized gold-plated menorah the group commissioned for use in the temple was installed overlooking the Temple Mount in 2007 in a ceremony attended by the Ashkenazi chief rabbi at the time.

Temple Mount activists have not just grown in number, but also moved closer to power in Jerusalem.

Glick, who previously held leadership positions in the Temple Institute and a group called the Temple Mount Faithful, in May 2016 entered the Knesset as a member of the ruling right-wing Likud party.

He claimed credit for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s decision last Tuesday lifting the ban on Israeli lawmakers’ visiting the mount, albeit on a trial basis. Glick had petitioned the High Court of Justice against the ban, which Netanyahu implemented in 2015 amid Palestinian violence.

In November Dorshei Zion, an annual event that brings together Temple Mount activist groups, was held for the first time at the Knesset and attracted hundreds of attendees, more than ever before. Several leading right-wing politicians, including secular ones, attended.

Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein and Glick used the forum to announce a new Temple Mount Knesset lobby. Months later, in March, Culture Minister Miri Regev and Jerusalem Minister Zeev Elkin spearheaded the creation of the Temple Mount Heritage Foundation. Modeled on the Western Wall Heritage Foundation, which oversees that site, the

A group of Jewish worshippers visiting the Temple Mount complex in Jerusalem, Nov. 7, 2016 PHOTO BY SEBI BERENS/FLASH90

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Temple Mount Foundation was allocated an annual budget of more than $500,000.

The new body was explicitly inspired by a controversial UNESCO resolution last October that ignored the Jewish connection to the Temple Mount.

The Israeli government called the resolution part of a “delegitimization campaign based on a distortion of facts regarding the history, tradition and culture of the Jewish people.” United Nations bodies have issued similar Arab-backed resolutions before and since, including as recently as last Tuesday.

Temple Mount activists said Arab and international questioning of Jewish roots in their biblical homeland has helped their movement gain traction with the Israeli public. The perceived attacks have appealed to nationalist sentiment even among the nonreligious.

Tom Nisani, a secular student at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the chair of Students for the Temple Mount, and his fiancée, Sara Lu, made headlines on June 29 by covertly marrying on the mount in violation of the ban on Jewish rituals. His group of Jewish students from across the religious spectrum has promoted awareness of Jewish claims to the mount, and ultimately the rebuilding of the temple.

“We certainly do not need to receive permits from the world regarding our right to the Temple Mount,” he said. “Every Israeli and Jew has a place on the Temple Mount, and accordingly, the support we receive is extensive and varied.”

In contrast with the Temple Mount, Stern noted, the Western Wall has been securely in Jewish hands since 1967. While most Israelis may have opposed the government’s decision to withdraw its support for the Western Wall agreement under pressure from the haredi Orthodox political parties, the issue does not resonate on a religious or nationalist level in Israel, where liberal Judaism has not taken root.

But Stern also doubted the Israeli mainstream would embrace the Temple Mount movement’s radical long-term aims and the likely costs of pursuing them.

“From a symbolic point of view, everyone says the Temple Mount is ours. It should be ours. You can hear that from almost everyone here,” he said. “But does it really mean we have to do anything about it? I’m not sure the majority wants to push forward this agenda.”

Hayman acknowledged that force would likely be required to establish Jewish prayer on the Temple Mount, just as the U.S. National Guard had to be sent in to enforce school desegregation.

“They sent National Guardsmen to line the streets.

That’s what it took to end segregation,” Hayman said.

“The same thing needs to happen here. Let the Arabs riot over the Temple Mount, and let them get shot. If you ignore the monster, it just gets bigger.”

However, he predicted, when it comes time to build the temple, even the Arab world will welcome it.

“We have to realize we’re not alone in this whole thing. God is our senior partner,” Hayman said.

“When God wants the temple to be rebuilt, he’ll get involved. We’ll get to a point in time when the entire world will come say to us, ‘Build your temple.’”

140 Jewish Leaders Vow to Help US Reach Paris Climate Accord Goals (JTA) — Over 140 Jewish organizational leaders signed a letter encouraging Jewish institutions across the United States to support the goals of the Paris climate accord.

“We call upon all Jewish federations, JCCs, synagogues, camps, day schools, Jewish organizations, leaders, businesses, and community members to identify ways in which we, the organized and powerful American Jewish community, can and must respond to this climate crisis,” read the letter, which was released Thursday by the nonprofit Hazon and the Pearlstone Center.

The letter calls for Jewish leaders to commit their organizations to the specific goals laid out in the Paris Agreement, which include lowering carbon emissions by at least 26 percent over the next seven years; ensuring their institutions have teams of employees focused on sustainability, and encouraging their employees to “live more lightly,” or use more renewable energy and produce less harmful emissions

A chemical plant in Oberhausen, Germany, January 2017 PHOTO BY LUKAS SCHULZE/GETTY IMAGES

in their daily lives.

The letter’s signees include Steven Wernick, CEO of the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism; Robert Bank, president and CEO of the American Jewish World Service; Cheryl Cook, the executive director of Avodah; and Sharon Alpert, president and CEO of the Nathan Cummings Foundation.

“As Jews, we are also proud of our long history of economic innovation and entrepreneurship, so we are baffled by the false premise that withdrawing from the Paris Accords somehow prioritizes American jobs,” the letter reads. “On the contrary, our 21st century economy is driven by new energy technologies and our solar sector already far surpasses coal.”

President Donald Trump pulled the United States out of the landmark 2015 agreement to fight climate change, saying the U.S. obligations under the accord hurt American business and that it is “very unfair at the highest level to the United States.” Syria and Nicaragua were the only countries not to sign the accord.

Twelve More Charged with Welfare Fraud in Orthodox N.J. Community

Arrests made in a crackdown on welfare fraud in Lakewood, N.J., June 27, 2017 COURTESY OF OCEAN COUNTY PROSECUTOR’S OFFICE

(JTA) — Twelve people were charged with illegally obtaining government benefits as part of a crackdown on a haredi Orthodox community in New Jersey.

The probe in Lakewood has resulted in the arrest of or charges against 26 people to date since the initial arrests two weeks ago.

On Thursday, authorities charged 12 people with thirddegree theft by deception for having unlawfully obtained nearly $400,000 worth of public benefits, including Medicaid, food and home energy assistance, and children’s illness relief programs, USA Today reported.

Those facing charges include five couples—Eliezer and Elkie Sorotzkin, Samuel and Esther Serhofer, Yisroel and Rachel Merkin, Tzvi and Estee Braun, and Moshe and Nechama Hirschmann—as well as Jerome Menchel and Mottel Friedman, according to USA Today.

Unlike those who were charged two weeks ago with fraud, the 12 defendants from Thursday were not arrested and instead were instructed to appear in court at a certain date, a spokesman for the Ocean County Prosecutor’s Office, Al Della Fave, told USA Today.

Last week, seven couples were arrested for allegedly illegally obtaining more than $1.6 million in government benefits.

At the time of the first arrest, Ocean County Prosecutor Joseph Coronato said his office had warned the Lakewood community about committing welfare fraud.

“My office gave clear guidance and notice to the Lakewood community in 2015 of what is considered financial abuse of these programs,” Coronato said.

“Those who choose to ignore those warnings by seeking to illegally profit on the backs of taxpayers will pay the punitive price of their actions.”

During the weekend of July 1-2, anti-Semitic fliers were left on cars and a banner was hung over a synagogue’s Holocaust memorial in Lakewood. Police said they believed the incidents were related to the arrests and that they were being investigated as hate crimes.

The influx of haredim in Lakewood has been the major factor behind the central New Jersey township’s growth to a population of some 100,000 from 60,000 in 2000.

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According to a JTA tally of the 65 U.S. rabbis on the list, at least one-fifth are Orthodox, including one alumnus of the Baltimore haredi Orthodox seminary Ner Yisroel. The vast majority of U.S. rabbis on the list are Reform or Conservative.

Weiss’ inclusion is the latest blow he has absorbed from the right wing of Orthodox Judaism, whose leaders have objected to his efforts to expand women’s participation in Orthodoxy.

“The way they’re conducting themselves is so painful, so unfortunate,” Weiss told the JTA on Friday.

“The pain that I feel is not personal. It’s that this rabbinate is an arm of the state of Israel, and that we have reached this point is nothing less than a tragedy.”

In 2013, the rabbinate rejected a proofof-Judaism letter from Weiss, and then reversed course and accepted it following complaints from American Jewish leaders.

Last year, the rabbinate rejected a similar letter from Rabbi Haskel Lookstein, Kehilath Jeshurun’s former rabbi and the rabbi who oversaw the conversion of Ivanka Trump. It also rejected conversions overseen by Rabbi Gedalia Dov Schwartz, the chief presiding judge of the National Beth Din of the Rabbinical Council of America, the main modern Orthodox rabbinical court in the United States.

In some cases, Tubul made the rejection.

But in Lookstein’s case, a district rabbinical court in the central Israeli city of Petah Rabbi Avi Weiss leading a vigil and march in New York City in remembrance of the three Israeli teenagers who were kidnapped Tikvah rejected his imprimatur when a woman who converted under his auspices and killed in the West Bank days earlier, June 30, 2014 applied for a marriage license there and PHOTO BY ANDREW BURTON/GETTY IMAGES was denied.

These rejections have caused consternation bureaucracy, and was obtained Thursday by the JTA. In 2015, Itim filed a freedom-of-information request among American Orthodox leaders who are invested in a Jerusalem municipal court demanding a list of in maintaining a good relationship with the Chief approved foreign rabbis, and received this list as part Rabbinate. But following Weiss’ initial rejection in 2013, former rabbinate spokesman Ziv Maor told the of that case.

Rabbi Seth Farber, Itim’s executive director, called JTA that examining the credentials of Orthodox rabbis it a “blacklist” because it shows which rabbis the is crucial to the integrity of the evaluation process.

“The testimony needs to be according to Jewish rabbinate has not trusted in the past. He has called repeatedly for greater transparency in the rabbinate’s law and the witness needs to have the fear of heaven,” evaluation of rabbis, and said the way it is being Maor told the JTA. Regarding Weiss, he added, “We’re talking about someone on the fringes of Orthodoxy.” handled is a “stain on the state of Israel.”

Rabbi Baruch Goodman, who runs the Chabad“They’re effectively creating a blacklist,” Farber told the JTA. “The dimensions are greater than we could Lubavitch center at Rutgers University in New Jersey, have ever imagined, and the disregard with which they said he was surprised to find out he was on the list.

Goodman, who declined to be quoted, told the JTA he treat rabbis from around the world is astounding.”

The Chief Rabbinate’s spokesman, Kobi Alter, said has been writing proof-of-Judaism letters for nearly in a phone interview Thursday that “there is no list two decades without incident.

Scheier, the Montreal rabbi, said he was unfazed of unrecognized rabbis” and did not respond to a follow-up inquiry via email. Last year, the rabbinate by his inclusion. He said he is working with Itim promised to release criteria regarding which rabbis to encourage transparency and consistency in the can be approved. Alter told the JTA that the criteria evaluation of rabbis.

“I know I’m in good company on the list,” he told are still being composed.

In an email to Itim obtained by the JTA, Tubul, the JTA on Friday. “There are wonderful, honest, the rabbinate official, wrote that letters are approved unparalleled rabbis that have been blacklisted by the “based on a collection of data, not based on the name state of Israel. No one who knows me or knows my of the rabbi,” and added that “unequivocally, the community or knows my rabbinate could question attached names do not imply recognition or rejection my capacity to attest to the Jewish identity of the members of my congregation.” of other rabbis not mentioned here.”

Israeli Rabbinate “Blacklisting” American Rabbis

BY BEN SALES

(JTA) — Some 160 rabbis, including several prominent American Orthodox leaders, appear on a list of rabbis whom Israel’s haredi Orthodoxdominated Chief Rabbinate does not trust to confirm the Jewish identities of immigrants.

Rabbis from 24 countries, including the United States and Canada, are on the list. In addition to Reform and Conservative rabbis, the list includes Orthodox leaders like Avi Weiss, the liberal Orthodox rabbi from the Riverdale section of New York; and Yehoshua Fass, the executive director of Nefesh B’Nefesh, a group that encourages and facilitates American immigration to Israel.

The Chief Rabbinate controls all Jewish marriage in Israel, and immigrants who wish to wed there must first prove they are Jewish according to Orthodox law.

This proof often comes via a letter from a community rabbi attesting to the immigrant’s Jewish identity.

One midlevel bureaucrat at the rabbinate, Rabbi Itamar Tubul, handles every claim.

The publication of the list comes on the heels of a clash between American Jewish leaders and the Chief Rabbinate over how to determine Jewish identity. In June, Israel’s Cabinet advanced a bill that would give the Chief Rabbinate authority over all official Jewish conversions within Israel. Following an outcry from Jewish leaders in America, the bill was shelved for six months.

The Chief Rabbinate’s antipathy to Reform and Conservative rabbis is well documented. Its distrust of some Orthodox rabbis abroad was seen last year, when the rabbinate omitted several prominent Orthodox figures from a list of rabbis it trusts to confirm the authenticity of Jewish conversions.

The rabbinate’s latest list comprises rabbis whose letters it rejected during 2016. In addition to Weiss and Fass, the list includes Joshua Blass, a New York congregational rabbi and student adviser at the modern Orthodox Yeshiva University’s rabbinical seminary; Joseph Potasnik, executive director of the New York Board of Rabbis; Adam Scheier, a past president of the Montreal Board of Rabbis; and Daniel Kraus, director of education at Kehilath Jeshurun, a tony modern Orthodox synagogue on Manhattan’s Upper East Side.

The rabbinate sent the list to Itim, a nonprofit that guides Israelis through the country’s religious

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Jay-Z performing at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, Oct. 20, 2015 PHOTO BY JAMIE MCCARTHY/GETTY IMAGES FOR TIDAL

Jay-Z Jewish Lyric Spurs Concerns from ADL WASHINGTON (JTA) — The AntiDefamation League expressed concern about a Jay-Z lyric that “Jewish people own all the property in America,” but emphasized that it did not believe that the rapper intended to promote anti-Semitism.

“The lyric does seem to play into deep-seated anti-Semitic stereotypes about Jews and money,” said an ADL statement released Friday. “The idea that Jews ‘own all the property’ in this country and have used credit to financially get ahead are odious and false. Yet, such notions have lingered in society for decades, and we are concerned that this lyric could feed into preconceived notions about Jews and alleged Jewish ‘control’ of the banks and finance.”

The song, “The Story of O.J.,” on Jay-Z’s latest album, “4:44,” has

attracted negative social media attention for its lyric, “You wanna know what’s more important than throwin’ away money at a strip club? Credit/You ever wonder why Jewish people own all the property in America? This how they did it.”

Jay-Z’s defenders say the lyric is typical of his use of exaggerated stereotypes to make broader points about social problems—in this case, counseling African-American empowerment through emulation of Jewish business leaders.

“We do not believe it was Jay-Z’s intent to promote anti-Semitism,” the ADL said.

“On the contrary, we know that Jay-Z is someone who has used his celebrity in the past to speak out responsibly and forcefully against the evils of racism and anti-Semitism.”

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How a ChineseJewish Chef Finds Inspiration on a North Dakota Farm

ABOVE:

Molly Yeh has taken the food-blogging world by storm with her bubbly personality and creative recipes.

PHOTO BY CHANTELL QUERNEMOEN LEFT: COURTESY OF MOLLY YEH

BY GABE FRIEDMAN

(JTA) — Not much could have prepared Molly Yeh for moving from New York City to Grand Forks, N.D.—a city of a little over 50,000 residents near the state’s eastern border with Minnesota.

At the time of her move in 2013, Yeh (pronounced “yay,” as her website explains with several exclamation points) was a Juilliard graduate and classically trained percussionist playing professional gigs around New York City. She often hosted concerts in her Brooklyn apartment and enjoyed biking around the city with her then-boyfriend to see how many shows and events they could cram into one day.

She was passionate about food—especially when it came to Jewish staples like the matzah-ball soup and hummus she had loved since childhood in a Chicago suburb, where she grew up with an Ashkenazi mother and Chinese father. But her casually updated food blog, which she had started a few years before during a family vacation, was of secondary concern.

When she chose to follow her boyfriend-turnedhusband to his family beet farm in North Dakota, food gradually became more of a priority. Newly unemployed, Yeh took a job in a local bakery working a late-night shift. She began to put more energy into her food blog, which then started to gain some traction online. Betty Crocker soon contacted her to contribute recipes.

Four years later, the 28-year-old Yeh is one of the internet’s most popular food bloggers, with 245,000 followers on Instagram. Her site, my name is yeh—it

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Yeh often incorporates family farm ingredients, such as rhubarb, into her culinary creations. She calls these Mini Rhubarb Princess Cakes.

uses only lowercase letters as an aesthetic choice— offers a cornucopia of impeccably photographed culinary treats. (She also takes all the photos.) Many of her creations incorporate foods and ingredients that are popular in Jewish and Israeli cuisine, such as challah, shakshuka, hummus, tahini and shawarma.

Some of the entries on her site, such as the scallion pancake challah and hummus dumplings, point to her dual heritage.

Besides the recipes and photos, Yeh is known for her personal, funny and engaging blog voice. She often mentions her husband, Nick Hagen, whom she calls “eggboy” in blog posts because he used to eat several eggs each day. Sometimes she gives her recipes humorous names, such as the “ex-boyfriend latkes.”

Yeh’s move to North Dakota kickstarted her efforts to make her work stand out in the crowded food blogosphere, but it also gave her an unexpected narrative that only added to her unique appeal—and gave her a lot to write about. Last fall, she released a book on the whole story (with plenty of recipes) titled Molly on the Range: Recipes and Stories from An Unlikely Life on a Farm.

At first, she experienced some “culture shock” in her new North Dakota community, which she called “challah-less” and “babka-less.”

“Growing up in the suburbs of Chicago and living in New York, it didn’t even strike me as a possibility that a place could really exist without tons of Jews,” Yeh said. “If I wasn’t going to be maintaining Jewish identity and celebrating Jewish holidays and cooking Jewish food on the farm, nobody was going to be.”

She made it her mission to inject some Jewish food and culture into the farm community. Perhaps

none of her recipes captured the goal as well as her Hummus With Meat All Over It, which she wrote about in the Forward, a Jewish publication to which she occasionally contributes.

“Question: How do you make a plate of hummus filling enough for a bunch of big burly farmers?

Answer: Put meat all over it,” she wrote.

The Hagen family quickly took to Yeh’s Jewish food-making ways. During her first year on the farm, for example, Passover coincided with Easter—so the family invited her to bake loaves of challah to include in their Easter meal.

“My mother-in-law is a hummus-making machine now,” Yeh said.

In turn, Yeh took to the Midwestern flavors she was surrounded by. She now often includes ingredients grown on the farm, such as beets and rhubarb, in her recipes.

She admitted that it can be hard to find ingredients she needs for some of her more unusual recipes— tahini and hibiscus flour were two that she had recently ordered online while speaking with the JTA recently from her North Dakota home. She often longs for the array of quirky ingredients that can be found in New York markets like Fairway or Zabar’s.

The tradeoff, she says, is that in summer she can walk outside and snatch fresh vegetables from the farm, such as cucumbers and tomatoes, to make an Israeli-style breakfast salad.

Reproducing some of her other New York Jewish food staples has been a little more difficult—even for an accomplished chef. Her first attempt at bagels was, in her words, a complete failure.

“I have no choice—I have to keep going!” she said.

Brooklyn Eats, Literally!

BROOKLYN, NY — The Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce shattered records at its annual Brooklyn Eats event on Friday, hosting more exhibitors and attendees than ever before in the event’s 21-year history. Ninety-two vendors served Brooklyn-made food and drinks to more than 1,000 attendees. The event’s popularity showcased the broader success of Brooklyn’s food-and-beverage manufacturing scene, an economic force that accounts for the greatest portion of manufacturing jobs in the borough.

Brooklyn food manufacturing created more than 6,000 jobs during the first half of 2015, and 35 percent of New York City’s food-manufacturing jobs are located in the borough.

The Chamber also conducted its first-ever survey of Brooklyn Eats manufacturers, which provided an insightful snapshot of some of the recent Brooklyn growth in that industry. Seventy-five percent of respondents to the survey indicated that they planned to hire more people in the future. In addition, respondents had a median income of $2 million and had been in business for a median of six years. The latter statistic varied; vendors had been in business for as little as two months and as long as 87 years.

Respondents had an average of 14 employees. The survey also showed that a common difficulty Brooklyn Eats vendors face is the cost of commercial space in the borough.

Brooklyn Eats exhibited cuisines from all over the world, such as Brooklyn Delhi, which produces the Indian relish achaar, and Island Pops, which makes Caribbean ice cream flavors. This year’s Brooklyn Eats also featured producers and purveyors of kosher foods such as Gold Star Smoked Fish, King Solomon Foods, The Matzo Project and others.

“We were incredibly pleased to be able to honor over 80 food manufacturers and over 1,000 guests at this year’s Brooklyn Eats,” said Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce president and CEO Andrew Hoan.

“Food-and-drink manufacturing represents a thriving portion of the Brooklyn economy; in 2015, more jobs opened up in the food-and-beverage industry than in any other retail segment in the borough. We’ll continue to encourage such spectacular growth by promoting the food-and-drink industry throughout Brooklyn and beyond. Many thanks to our sponsors and the city and state legislatures for their essential support.”

“Brooklyn Eats was a huge success this year, thanks to the hard work and dedication of our food manufacturers, buyers and Brooklynites,” said Brooklyn Chamber Board chair Denise Arbesu. “It’s great to see not just the delicious products that come out of the borough, but also the dedication

producers show in making and manufacturing here, which leads to job creation and economic development.”

“Congratulations to Brooklyn Eats for another successful trade show,” said Brooklyn Borough President Eric L. Adams. “Our borough has such a wonderful array of PHOTOS COURTESY OF THE BROOKLYN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE food and beverage producers and distributors ranging across all kinds of cuisines, together we are promoting sustainable growth and products and tastes. The food industry employs creating an environment where businesses can thrive thousands of people across the borough, fueling and grow.” our economy and filling our stomachs. I encourage The Brooklyn Chamber has produced Brooklyn further collaboration among our culinary creators Eats in some fashion since 1997, when it began as a to grow more jobs, cross-pollinate innovative ideas trade show for Brooklyn restaurants. The aim was and further cement Brooklyn as a global foodie to encourage attendees to patronize the restaurants destination.” after the show.

“One of my favorite times of the year is when I get Today, Brooklyn Eats vendors represent a variety the date for Brooklyn Eats. The Brooklyn Chamber of of types of businesses, from restaurants to food Commerce knows the importance of food and drinks manufacturers. Some have production facilities in the to Brooklynites, which is why this event is such a great borough, and others work out of smaller spaces. success. It provides an opportunity for all our local Brooklyn businesses to highlight their delicious food and drinks. While many people love Brooklyn because it’s “hip” or has a great music scene, I love it because of the food,” said Assemblyman Joseph R. Lentol.

“Building on our successful Cinderella communitydevelopment program, National Grid is increasing its economic-development initiatives to help create jobs, stimulate growth and deliver new energy sources in the New York region,” said Ken Daly, National Grid New York president. “National Grid is proud to partner with the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce to showcase Brooklyn-made products. By working

(L to R) Brooklyn Chamber President Andrew Hoan, Assembly Member Joe Lentol, Citibank’s Denise Arbesu, Assembly Member Nicole Malliotakis

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Patti LuPone Isn’t a Jew, but She Often Plays One on Stage and Screen

BY LINDA BUCHWALD

(JTA) — Patti LuPone recently discovered that she has something in common with Helena Rubinstein, the makeup mogul and Polish Jewish immigrant she is currently portraying in the Broadway musical War Paint.

Using the genealogy website 23andMe, she found out that she is 87 percent southern Italian and 12 percent Eastern European and North African.

That means she may have some of the Jewish roots casting directors have seen in her all along.

Rubinstein is the latest in LuPone’s string of iconic roles on Broadway, including Eva Peron in Evita, Mama Rose in Gypsy and Mrs. Lovett in the 2005 revival of Sweeney Todd.

“They’re all quite different and they’re all really great female parts,” she says.

In addition to Rubinstein, LuPone played a rabbi in the CW series Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, the Jewish sister-in-law of Robert De Niro’s title character in The Comedian (2016) and the socialclimbing Atlanta Jewish daughterin-law Florine in Driving Miss Daisy (1989).

She considers herself lucky to find significant female stage roles of any ethnicity at this stage in her career.

“This will probably be my last musical because I’ll never be a leading lady again. I’ll never have a part like this again,” LuPone says of War Paint.

Going forward, she hopes to do more television and comedy.

LuPone spoke to the JTA about the similarities between Jews and Italians, playing an immigrant in 2017, and more.

JTA: Is there a reason you think you are frequently cast in Jewish roles?

LuPone: Yes, because I’m Italian.

Do you think they’re pretty similar?

They must be. A lot of people say, “What’s the difference between Jews and Italians?” and I say, “I don’t

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know.” I look very ethnic.

And I think because I look ethnic and because I have a prominent nose—not that that’s necessarily a feature of anything, but it’s certainly Italian and I suppose it could be Jewish—I’m cast in ethnic parts more often than not. I’m not your allAmerican. That’s to my advantage, quite frankly. I get to play more interesting roles.

In order to play Helena Rubinstein, did you do any research into the Jewish immigrant experience?

I didn’t do it necessarily about the Jewish immigrant, but about her, Helena Rubinstein. Her trajectory Patti LuPone in her role as the cosmetics mogul Helena Rubinstein in the Broadway musical War in life was quite different Paint, performing at the Tony Awards in New York City June 11, 2017 than a Jewish immigrant (THEO WARGO/GETTY IMAGES FOR TONY AWARDS PRODUCTIONS) experience. She was fiercely independent and rejected typical immigrant story to America or variety in the character. There’s her father’s choice for marriage, so he threw her out of the to South America. She encountered conflict. There’s humor. There’s house, and she was shuttled between prejudice. In the books that I’ve read, vulnerability.

This season on Broadway has felt Vienna and finally landed in Australia, it doesn’t necessarily talk about any and that’s where she began her business. prejudice that she received in Australia particularly Jewish with War Paint, Because she was an organically strong or London, but she encountered Oslo, Indecent, Falsettos. Have you woman, she survived potential sexual prejudice in America. She was also an noticed that?

I think it’s probably just a incredibly shrewd woman. She was abuse from an uncle. coincidence.

When she came to the States, she was very, very smart.

You also recently played a rabbi on What do you like about playing her? already established. What she did do is I think she’s a very colorful character. Crazy Ex-Girlfriend. I read that you pretty much save her family. She got her family out of Poland before the war. One [Librettist] Doug Wright wrote a had asked to be on that show. What of her sisters died in a concentration wonderful part. It’s just wonderful to do you love about it so much?

First of all, it’s extremely funny. camp, Regina. And the irony here is that be able to have humor in a character. It Helena Rubinstein was sold to L’Oreal relieves the audience if they can laugh And Rachel [Bloom], as far as I’m and L’Oreal has Nazi affiliations. [In and I have a lot of laugh lines. And there concerned, is the only person that is 1991, the chairman of L’Oreal’s Helena are two direct quotes: “There are no working in film that knows how to do Rubinstein unit resigned after French ugly women, only lazy ones” and “I’m a musical number. It’s spontaneous. It papers reported his 1948 conviction for extravagant in my anger as I am in all makes sense. When you think about things.” Those are things that Helena musicals, it’s just heightened talk. wartime crimes.]

Beauty is an ugly business. So her said. I like the fact that she’s humorous When people are talking and then experience I think is different than a and I like the fact that there’s great they break into song, it really should

be an extension of talk. And she knows how to do that. Her film crew knows how to shoot it so that you’re seeing the entire picture, not just a closeup, not just from the neck up, not just from the chest up; you’re seeing the legs. In a musical, you want to see the legs. And it’s laugh-out-loud funny.

And the musical number that you did, “Remember That We Suffered,” was one of the best of the season. What was it like to film that?

It was hysterical. It’s difficult. You do it over and over and over again and you do it all day. But because of who she is and who she surrounds herself with—the people that are in the fold of that show—it is dedicated, but it is lighthearted, so there was a lot of laughter. A lot of laughter and a lot of fun.

Have you ever spoken to Mandy Patinkin, your Evita co-star, about his Jewish heritage?

I’ve never talked to him about it.

Actually, I think I have, but I’m old. I can’t remember anything anymore. I think if he weren’t an actor, he would have been a cantor. At least that’s what his voice sounds like. And he’s a very compassionate, passionate, committed human being, and I just adore him. I adore every bit of Mandy Patinkin.

Playing an immigrant right now— though as you said, it’s not necessarily the typical immigrant experience— does it feel particularly timely?

Oh yeah. And believe me, don’t I hit the word “immigrant” when I say it in the show. I’m devastated at what’s happening in this country. I’m confused. I’m depressed. I’m scared.

I think we’re heading in the wrong direction with this horrible human being for our president, and sometimes I feel absolutely ridiculous prancing around the stage when I feel I should be doing more in protest. Nobody is looking into the souls of these people.

We’re shutting out potential doctors who could cure cancer. We are shutting out nuclear physicists. We are shutting out great artists and novelists. I can’t go there. I’ll just burst into tears.

Does it help at all to be doing this show?

Well, yes, because I think there’s a lot that we’re saying about women.

And when was the last time you saw two leading ladies on the stage? But my social conscious is, I don’t feel like I’m doing enough in protest of what’s happening in our country.

Labne and Fig Tart with Olive-Oil Crust A sweet seasonal dessert perfect for summer

BY CHAYA RAPPOPORT | THE KNOSHER

Summer desserts have to fit a few criteria for me. First off, they’d better be worth turning on the oven for.

Second, if you don’t need to turn on the oven? Even better. Third, make it quick, make it cold, make it refreshing. And lastly, if it incorporates any seasonal fruit, I’m way, way in.

This tart fits all those criteria and more.

Drawing inspiration from Middle Eastern sweets and ingredients, I used olive oil to make this crisp, crumbly press-in crust. The filling, delightfully reminiscent of cheesecake but decidedly less finicky, is a simple, no-bake mousse made of creamy labne, rich heavy cream, and a bit of sugar and vanilla. The filling firms up in the fridge, and once the tart has set, it’s topped with sweet, pulpy figs and drizzles of lemon and cardamominfused honey. Pop it into the fridge to set for a bit more and voilà—you’ve got an impressive, stunningly simple dessert.

Would you like to make this even simpler? Just skip the crust and layer the figs, cardamom honey and labne mousse in little glasses. Another idea?

Turn the filling and fruit into a trifle with the addition of cubed pound cake. The flavors are versatile, and

any way you serve it, you’ll love the combination of the slightly tart labne and the honeyed, floral figs.

Ingredients

For the olive-oil tart crust: 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour 1/4 tsp fine sea salt 1 tsp sugar 1/2 cup mild-flavored olive oil 2 Tbsp ice-cold water For the labne mousse filling: 1 cup whipped cream, cold 1 1/4 cups labne, cold 1/2 cup superfine sugar 1 tsp vanilla extract For the cardamom figs: 10 fresh figs, stems removed and sliced thinly lengthwise 1/3 cup honey 3-4 cardamom pods, crushed 3 Tbsp fresh lemon juice 1/3 cup crushed, salted pistachios

Directions

To make the tart dough: Preheat the oven to 375° F. In a mixing bowl, stir together the flour, salt and sugar.

In a small bowl, whisk together the olive oil and ice water. Pour this mixture into the flour mixture and mix gently with a fork, just enough to dampen; do not overwork it.

Transfer the dough to a 10-inch tart pan with a removable bottom.

Use your hands to pat out the dough so it covers the bottom of the pan, pushing it up the sides to meet the edge. It should be about 1/8-inch thick

all around; trim and discard excess dough.

Prick the tart dough with a fork and refrigerate it for 30 minutes. Then cover it with foil and fill it with pie weights or beans.

Bake it for 15 minutes. Afterwards, remove the foil and the pie weights and bake the crust for another 8-10 minutes, until it is slightly browned. Let it cool on a wire rack for 20 minutes.

To make the labne mousse: In the bowl of stand mixer, with the whip attachment, combine all the ingredients. Whip, on medium-high, until mousse reaches medium peaks and is light and fluffy. Refrigerate until needed.

When the tart shell is cool, fill the tart: Smooth the labne mousse over the tart, smoothing the top. Refrigerate for two hours, or until mousse sets.

While the tart sets, make the cardamom honey: Combine the cardamom, lemon and honey in a small saucepan over medium heat. Bring to a boil and let bubble for a minute or two, until the flavors have infused the honey.

Remove from heat and set aside until needed.

To decorate: Cover the surface of the tart with circles of overlapping fig slices. Drizzle with the lemon cardamom honey and the crushed, salted pistachios. Serve.

JULY 12 – 18, 2017 | NYJLIFE.COM | 17

NYU Tandon STEMNow Making Waves POPULAR STEM PROGRAM IN MA’AYANOT YESHIVA HIGH SCHOOL FOR GIRLS AND OTHERS BROOKLYN, New York – In July and August, hundreds of teachers and students will gather in Downtown Brooklyn for the fifth annual STEMNow—one of New York City’s largest and most comprehensive lineups of summer workshops, classes and labs designed to immerse middle- and highschool students in science, technology, engineering and math—the STEM subjects.

Throughout the summer, middle- and high-school students will get hands-on experience in fields such as robotics and mechatronics, entrepreneurship, smart cities, 3D printing, integrated circuit design and cybersecurity.

STEMNow also teaches New York’s teachers: For the past five years, public-school educators have come to NYU Tandon to learn how to incorporate robotics, mechatronics and other exciting technology into their STEM curricula. All told, STEMNow has enhanced the science, mathematics, engineering and research skills of 350 teachers, thereby positively affecting the lives of more than 22,000 students between 2013—when the program launched—and the end of this summer.

PHOTO COURTESY OF NYU TANDON SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING

18 | NYJLIFE.COM | JULY 12 – 18, 2017

One noteworthy new program pairs New York City high-school teachers with two of their own students to learn techniques of tech entrepreneurship. Another, a perennial favorite, gives 10th and 11th graders who don’t have access to strong STEM programs at their schools—students of color and those from lowincome backgrounds—scientific training and deep research opportunities in NYU laboratories. Both of these programs exemplify how STEMNow reflects NYU Tandon’s longstanding commitment to opening engineering—with its high salaries and many career opportunities—to students from a wide range of backgrounds and economic means.

“Since 2013, STEMNow has given thousands of New York City middle- and high-school students their first immersion in engineering and science,” said NYU Tandon Dean Katepalli R. Sreenivasan.

“And when a youngster is exposed to high-level research in a university lab or encounters a passionate NYU Tandon student mentor, he or she realizes unimaginable possibilities. When teachers return to their classrooms with innovative ideas for engaging

their students in STEM, it has a ripple effect on entire generations of future engineers and scientists. We’re pleased to open NYU Tandon’s doors so that others can be inspired by our stellar faculty and students, work in our labs and classrooms, and immerse themselves in our culture of intellectual curiosity and technology in service to society.”

Why STEM Matters at NYU Tandon

According to a 2017 study by the National Science Foundation’s National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics, African Americans earn less than 4 percent of the bachelor of science degrees in engineering, and fewer than 5 percent of African Americans are in the science and engineering workforce.

By contrast, 85 percent of students who are ultimately served by STEMNow—thanks in part to teachers who participate in its teacher-training programs—come from communities historically underrepresented in STEM disciplines. About one third of the students come from families in which no one has attended college. The goal of STEMNow is to democratize access to the kind of high-quality instruction required to succeed in STEM higher education and the competitive global economy.

The opportunity gaps in STEM are not just racial and economic: Nationwide, only a quarter of the labor force in STEM fields is female, and, according to a recent study by research firm Frost & Sullivan, women make up just 11 percent of the global cybersecurity workforce.

In contrast, young women constitute nearly 60 percent of STEMNow participants. STEMNow Computer Science for Cyber Security (CS4CS) is exclusively for young women, and NYU Tandon also hosts a workshop run by Girls Who Code, a national organization dedicated to closing the gender gap in technology. NYU Tandon’s focus on bringing more women to engineering is reflected in its own student population. For the fall 2017 class, a record 40 percent of NYU Tandon freshmen will be female, well above the national average for all engineering undergraduates of 21 percent.

Participating schools in this year’s STEMNow include Ma’ayanot Yeshiva High School for Girls, Teaneck, N.J.; the Al-Noor High School, which serves the Muslim community of Brooklyn; and St. Joseph High School, an all-girls school serving 300 young women of all faiths and backgrounds.

For middle- and high-school students, highlights of STEMNow include: Applied Research Innovations in Science and Engineering (ARISE): This is a tuition-free, sevenweek program designed for 10th- and 11th-grade students with little or no access to high-quality STEM education experiences, students of color and those from low-income backgrounds. Students are mentored by graduate students, postdoctoral fellows and faculty members, and are immersed in challenging college-level coursework and lab research in such fields as civil and urban engineering, composite materials, mechanics, molecular design, robotics, sensors and protein engineering.

Creative Circuit Design Workshop: In this one-week hands-on program for high-school juniors and seniors, students explore the architecture of basic circuit blocks—the electronics in virtually all interactive devices.

They create radios, design circuits with conductive ink and breadboards, learn to reduce the carbon footprint of their devices and more, all under the supervision of experienced undergraduate and graduate electrical engineering students.

CrEST (Creativity in Engineering, Science and Technology): In this “camp within a camp,” highschool students who were trained during the CrEST spring term work with NYU Tandon graduate and undergraduate students to run a series of one-week workshops for hundreds of middle-school students in summer camps run by some of the city’s most prominent nonprofit organizations, including CAMBA, Good Shepherd Services and Grand Street Settlement. Participants learn about electronics, circuitry, mechanical systems, physical computing, robotics and other STEM disciplines.

CS4CS (Computer Science for Cyber Security): This initiative introduces young women in high school to programming, virtuous hacking and digital forensics during an intensive and supportive threeweek program designed to encourage them to pursue educational opportunities in cybersecurity—a field that is growing at more than 10 times the overall job market. At the conclusion, students get to be cyberdetectives in a mystery involving the theft of Wonder Woman’s iconic lasso.

Science of Smart Cities: In this highly successful program developed by NYU Tandon and shared internationally, middle-school students learn about energy, urban infrastructure, transportation and wireless communications—aspects of science and engineering that make cities safer and more livable, efficient and sustainable. At the conclusion of the program, participants stage a Smart Cities Exposition, demonstrating their ideas, devices, smart buildings and infrastructure. More than 600 students have completed the program since its inception.

Innovation, Entrepreneurship and the Science of Smart Cities (ieSoSC): Taught by NYU Tandon graduate and undergraduate students, this intensive new program introduces high schoolers to innovation and entrepreneurship. After five weeks of handson instruction and mentoring, participants enter a three-week team-based workshop to create smartcities devices or ideas that offer solutions to urban challenges.

Tech Kids Unlimited: Technology can be a great equalizer for those with learning or emotional difficulties. Workshops by Tech Kids Unlimited aim to provide special-needs students with the 21st-century technology tools they require for success. Youths ages 7-13 create digital projects based on their affinities and interests. Topics include 3D printing, logo design, game design, website creation, viral videos/memes/

“Since 2013, STEMNow has given thousands of New York City middle- and high-school students their first immersion in engineering and science.”

–NYU Tandon Dean Katepalli R. Sreenivasan gifs, animation and coding with music, along with learning programs such as Adobe Photoshop and iStop Motion. Teens in the T3 (Talented. Tech. Team.)

Digital Agency, ages 14-20, work on digital projects including a fire truck wiki, an app and a website for clients such as the NY Transit Museum, Ohel Agency and Semblance AR. Teens delve into 3D printing, UX and logo design, game design, website creation, video editing, stop-motion animation, and 360-video virtual and augmented reality.

Girls Who Code: NYU Tandon is partnering with the national nonprofit organization dedicated to closing the gender gap in technology and coding and teaching girls how to be change agents in their communities. The program immerses high-school girls in computer science for projects in art and storytelling, robotics, video games, websites, apps, guest lectures and field trips.

College-Credit Courses: High-school students who want to get a jump on college-credit courses or simply explore hot fields of study can enroll in a variety of subjects. These tuition courses include several sections of calculus as well as Introduction to Engineering and Design, which provides a working knowledge of contemporary engineering practice and will culminate in designing and building a robot.

Others include Introduction to Cell and Molecular Biology and Introduction to Science and Technology Studies, which explores the relationships among science, technology and society from philosophical, historical and sociological points of view.

Injecting Ethics and Humanities into STEM

STEMNow infuses science, math and engineering with humanities and even acting classes: Dimensions of Scientific Inquiry: When autonomous drones are used in warfare, who is giving orders and who is responsible when the drone makes a targeting error? How do race and gender affect what gets funded for research and, more broadly, how we set scientific priorities? How do we teach a self-driving car how to make a snap decision about what to collide with when there is no other choice?

These are topics that Brendan Matz, professor of science and technology studies at NYU Tandon and the Gallatin School of NYU, and Leah Aronowsky, a doctoral candidate in the history of science at Harvard University, explore in this course, in which ARISE participants tackle science writing and ethical

and moral considerations raised by contemporary research.

Acting techniques taught by the renowned Irondale theater company: The Brooklyn-based theater company teaches improvisational acting skills to help students in the ARISE, Science of Smart Cities and ieSoSC classes prepare for their final presentations to audiences of engineers, urban planners, businesspeople and smartcities experts.

Touching Those Who Reach the Next Generation

In addition to hosting the students, STEMNow plays an integral part in helping NYU Tandon fulfill its pledge to the White House to educate 500 teachers and positively impact 50,000 public-school students throughout New York City in the coming decade. This summer, teachers take part in the following: Discovery Research (DR) for Teachers: Twentyfour middle-school science and math teachers spend three weeks at NYU Tandon as part of a comprehensive year-round STEM professional development program, funded by a $2.5 million grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) DR K-12 program. NYU experts in robotics, engineering, education, curriculum design and assessment make robotics central to and sustainable in the city’s science and math classrooms. Math and science teachers return to their schools supported by NYU Tandon graduate students.

SMARTeR (Science and Mechatronics Aided Research for Teachers with an Entrepreneurship Experience): Public-school teachers enhance their STEM curricula with a hands-on, mechatronicsbased exploration of mechanical engineering, control theory, computer science and electronics. Participants also learn such entrepreneurship skills as business planning, social entrepreneurship and technology, new product development, intellectual property and fundraising. During the last four weeks, teachers conduct engineering research alongside graduate and undergraduate researchers and faculty.

ITEST Robotics and Entrepreneurship: With this new program, robotics and engineering drive professional development and educational enrichment for high-school teachers and their students. Teachers, joined by two of their students, learn about business planning, new-product development, intellectual property and fundraising. Students participate in entrepreneurship competitions, develop working models in STEM and improve their laboratory skills.

At program’s end, teachers receive a kit of robotics equipment for summer courses that they take back to their schools.

The NYU School of Engineering STEMNow program receives generous support from the NSF, Siegel Family Endowment, Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, BHS/STEAM Center Schools, National Grid, Con Edison, Northrop Grumman, Autodesk, DTCC, ExpandED Schools, and The Pinkerton Foundation.

JULY 12 – 18, 2017 | NYJLIFE.COM | 19

ANALYSIS

American Jews Really Care about Pluralism—but It’s Not Just about Pluralism

BY ANDREW SILOW-CARROLL

(JTA) — The Great Jewish Revolt of 2017. The Bar Kotel Rebellion. The Diaspora Strikes Back.

Whatever you call it, last week’s clash between American Jewish leaders and the Netanyahu government felt louder, angrier and more significant than previous clashes over pluralism in Israel.

That may be because it wasn’t only about pluralism.

That’s not to say that pluralism isn’t important. The non-Orthodox Jewish groups who fought hard for a space and a say at the Western Wall—only to see the agreement frozen—want their versions of Judaism to be treated with respect in Israel. They knew that granting more control over conversions to the haredi Orthodox Chief Rabbinate, as a controversial conversion bill would have done, would present another signal that Reform and Conservative leaders have no authority, or legitimacy, in Israel.

Reform and Conservative Jews will tell you how galling it is that Israel may be the only place in the Western world where the freedom of Jews to marry and worship as they wish is restricted by law. They find it baffling and hurtful that their religious identity—generations old and shared with a majority in the Diaspora—has at best only symbolic legal standing in the homeland of the Jewish people.

(Consider what happened in May when boys and girls from Conservative day schools in New York and New Jersey tried to pray from a Torah scroll at a pair of kibbutzim far away from the fevered Western Wall: Local Orthodox authorities threatened to take away the kibbutz kitchens’ kosher certification if the egalitarian service went on as planned. The service was scrapped.)

And they find it more than insulting when Orthodox politicians in Israel denigrate liberal Judaism as worse than no religion at all when their own religious leaders have so little to say to, and so little positive influence on, the near majority of Israelis who are secular.

All this is enough to understand the anger of U.S. Jewish groups last week. But there is reason to believe there are other factors at play: politics, psychology and strategy.

Politics: This Is the Thanks We Get?

Mainstream Jewish groups by and large are liberal when it comes to domestic issues: abortion, immigration, a solid social safety net. These liberal

20 | NYJLIFE.COM | JULY 12 – 18, 2017

Conservative Jews praying at Robinson’s Arch in Jerusalem July 30, 2014 PHOTO BY ROBERT SWIFT/FLASH90

groups are seeing everywhere the consequences of their support for Israel. The exclusion of the Star of David flag from the Chicago Dyke March was a funhouse reflection of more mainstream erosion of support for Israel on the left. Israel may not be a pariah for most of the Democratic Party, but you are far more likely to find unquestioning support for Israel on the right. On a list of things Jewish groups share with other progressive groups, Israel stands out as a glaring exception—usually unfairly, but nevertheless.

As a result, leaders of the major groups feel they are doing the heavy lifting when it comes to supporting Israel—defending it not just to the Republicans and evangelicals whose support for Israel is unconditional, but fellow liberals who are either confused, indifferent or hostile. That task was hard enough when Israel was seen as a democratic darling of the West; it’s only gotten harder as Israel’s nationalist government has proposed everything from trying to hobble left-wing NGOs to banning supporters of the BDS movement to attempting to enshrine Hebrew as the country’s only official language.

To then see Israeli officials ignore them or backtrack on an issue they care deeply about—pluralism—feels doubly ungrateful.

Psychology: Saying One Thing, Meaning Another

Many of the biggest Jewish groups, and a majority

of their constituents, are well to the left of the current Israeli government on the Palestinian issue. Poll after poll suggests that American Jews support a two-state solution to the conflict and are growing more wary of what they see as undemocratic tendencies in Israel.

The younger they are, the more this wariness—and disconnection—grows.

But Jewish groups generally will not challenge Israel on what both sides have agreed to call security matters. American Jews do not vote in Israel and their children do not fight in its wars. Despite a diverse membership, the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations and AIPAC see their role as defending the sitting Israeli government.

Rabbis also tend to be more dovish than the current government, but often hesitate to say so from the pulpit. Peace issues are considered too “divisive,” too “political.” As a result, a third of American rabbis told a pollster in 2013 that they are “fearful” of expressing their views on Israel, and half said they had refrained from publicly voicing their views on Israel at least once in the previous three years.

Rabbis have fewer qualms expressing their views about pluralism, however. One can only guess how many sermons this past Shabbat were devoted to the Western Wall and conversion issues. Federations that would hesitate to invite a speaker from Peace Now or J Street often staff committees and fund projects devoted to fighting for the rights of Reform

OPINION

and Conservative Jews in Israel. And groups that are hesitant to wade into the Israeli-Palestinian debate let the rhetoric fly when it comes to pluralism.

Freud had a term for swapping unwanted impulses for socially approved expressions: sublimation. For the members of a largely liberal community, pluralism is not only a vital issue in its own right but a steam valve.

It allows them to voice their independence from and occasional displeasure with the Israeli government without second-guessing security decisions or— and this may be key—giving ammunition to Israel’s most hostile critics, who care about the Palestinian issue and not at all about the religious debate. Tired of holding their tongues, Jewish groups have found in pluralism a meaningful, focused subject through which they can help shape the Jewish state.

Strategy: What about the Kids?

For the past few years, American Jews have been preoccupied with the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel, and attempts to delegitimize Israel in European capitals, in U.N. bodies and on college campuses. The antidote, say many Jewish organizations, is educating and empowering young, often indifferent Jews, and giving them the tools to counter negative perceptions about Israel. At the same time, there is a cottage industry of organizations worried that Diaspora Jews care less and less about Israel.

Now some are beginning to make the connection between the pluralism debate and the generational challenge. Benjamin Mann, the head of school of the Solomon Schechter School of Manhattan—one of the day schools denied the use of a Torah—put it this way: “If Schechter Manhattan students, and students like them throughout North America, are made to feel that their Jewish communities, their very religious identities are devalued and rejected in the Jewish state, they will not sustain positive connections with Israel.”

Or as Natan Sharansky, chairman of the Jewish Agency, said in his Western Wall statement, “Today’s decision signifies a retreat from that agreement and will make our work to bring Israel and the Jewish world closer together increasingly more difficult.”

I imagine AIPAC leaders said pretty much the same thing when they flew to Israel last week to warn Netanyahu about the consequences of the anger over the Kotel and conversion decisions. Even a number of U.S. lawmakers made it known that they disapproved of the freezing of the Kotel deal.

Mainstream defenders of Israel prefer that the pluralism debate and security issues stay on separate tracks. Advocating for pluralism is a sincere, vital and “safe” way to fight for North American Jewish values in Israel without plowing into the Palestinian question. The steam valve is a good thing for the Jewish community, keeping the Jewish mainstream from tearing itself up over the West Bank.

But the June Uprising may have been a moment when Jewish impatience with Israel, and the tactics for defending her, jumped from one track to another.

The Complex Nature of Intersectionality Writer Erika K. Davis reflects on the Chicago Dyke March and provides perspective as a Queer Jew of Color.

BY ERIKA DAVIS

(KESHET / MY JEWISH LEARNING) — When I moved to the Pacific Northwest from Brooklyn, N.Y., almost three years ago, I started receiving emails from Jewish folks who wanted to meet with me. Finding Jewish community in a city that prides itself on a cool lack of religion and a focus on liberalism and spirituality, I was stoked to receive these emails. Yet as I clicked the messages open, I felt disappointed.

Most went a bit like this: “Hey Erika, so-and-so told me that you were moving to Seattle and that I should reach out. I’m a queer, anti-Zionist Jew….” Others invited me to Jewish Voice for Peace Shabbat services aimed at furthering BDS movements in the area.

As a black, lesbian, Jewish, American woman I sit at the crossroads of a variety of identities. Yet when I show up in the world, most folks peg me as straight, and possibly Christian. I’ve worked hard through my work with organizations like the Jewish Multiracial Network and through my writing to remind folks that Jews of Color have always been a part of the Jewish narrative. The vast majority of Jews in the world are people who would be defined as nonwhite, yet to Americans, to be Jewish is to be white.

It is this association with whiteness vis-à-vis Jewishness that seems to be at the heart of the Chicago Dyke March’s (CDM) recent statement defending its removal of Jewish dykes carrying Jewish Pride flags. Since I am not privy to the conversations that happened between CDM and the folks removed, I won’t make assumptions about what did and did not happen. However, the fallout has been marked. Folks in my life who are either not Jewish or who have never talked about Judaism had vocal opinions, and antiIsrael posts showed up on the social media platforms of people I’ve had around my Shabbat table. Black friends of mine and black queer folks seemed to agree with CDM’s choice of citing Black Lives Matter and equating Zionism with white-supremacist ideology.

The concept of Israel is one of nuance. The state of

Israel is complex, layered, problematic and divisive.

Being in Israel, in my experience, elicits a balance of emotions that I’ve never quite been able to articulate.

While I am swept away by the beauty and majesty that is the Old City, the historical complexities of the land are just as real as the bullet and cannonball impressions on Jaffa Gate. It has been my experience that sitting with the complexity and nuance makes for a better understanding of something that can’t be fully understood.

Do I think Israel should exist? Yes. Do I think Palestine should exist? Yes. I don’t believe that the two are mutually exclusive. When I see the Pride flag with a Jewish star, I see just that. I don’t see an Israeli flag; I don’t see “pinkwashing”; I don’t see the state of Israel. I see the Magen David, which has been a Jewish symbol since as early as the 17th century—long before the state of Israel adopted it for the flag.

When that flag—a symbol that I believe represents me—was rejected by my own community, I wondered where I belong and how I can show up in queer spaces as a Jew. Since there is nuance, I understand why folks view this issue differently than I do, but hard lines and black and white don’t make for good conversation.

Understanding of personal experience can only happen through dialogue. If we can’t even talk to one another, how can we move toward the acceptance and inclusion that LGBTQ+ people are fighting for every day?

KESHET From queer text study and institutional inclusion to profiles of queer clergy and youth voices, the Keshet blog features new ideas and reflections by and for LGBTQ Jews and their allies. The blog is produced by Keshet, a national grassroots organization with offices in Boston and the Bay Area that works for the full inclusion and equality of LGBTQ Jews in all areas of Jewish life.

JULY 12 – 18, 2017 | NYJLIFE.COM | 21

OPINION

A History of the WJC Is a Portrait of Modern Jewry

BY MENACHEM Z. ROSENSAFT

NEW YORK (JTA) — Rabbi Stephen Wise and Nahum Goldmann convened the founding plenary assembly of the World Jewish Congress (WJC) in Geneva, Switzerland, in August 1936, in the shadow of ever-increasing persecution of Jews in Nazi Germany.

It was the first time that Jewish leaders from different countries joined together as a decidedly activist and political body, rather than a philanthropic one, for the express purpose of representing Jews around the world.

Since then, the WJC’s sometimes hotly debated endeavors have included obtaining reparations and restitution for Holocaust survivors, repairing frayed ties with the Catholic Church, and publicly countering resurgent neo-Nazi parties and movements in various European countries.

About two years ago, when WJC President Ronald Lauder and CEO Robert Singer first told me they wanted to publish a comprehensive history of the WJC’s first eight decades, we rapidly came to the conclusion that such a book had to reflect the diversity of voices that has always characterized the organization and, indeed, the Jewish people.

Instead of asking a single historian to write an academic, chronological study based primarily on archival research, we opted instead for a mosaic, with chapters about specific episodes or themes written either by individuals who had personally participated in the WJC activities and accomplishments in question, or by scholars with expertise in the subject matter.

The result, The World Jewish Congress, 1936-2016, is not just a history of the preeminent international Jewish human rights organization. It is a reflection of the tensions, energies and accomplishments that have characterized global Jewish activism in the 80 years since the WJC came into existence.

Thus, author Gregory Wallance chronicles the WJC’s rescue efforts during the Holocaust years, and legal historian Jonathan Bush discusses the invaluable assistance provided by the WJC’s legendary attorney Jacob Robinson to the prosecutors at the post-World War II International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg.

Monsignor Pier Francesco Fumagalli, vice prefect of the Biblioteca Ambrosiana in Milan, recalls the pioneering role of the WJC’s Gerhart Riegner in crafting a new Catholic-Jewish relationship.

Gregg Rickman, who led the U.S. Senate Banking

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initiatives in fighting anti-Semitism around the world and the ever-increasing efforts to delegitimize the state of Israel.

For the past 10 years, the WJC’s persona has been shaped primarily by Lauder. He has imbued the organization with a distinct sense of purpose focusing on the challenges confronting the Jewish people and Jewish communities across the globe in the 21st century, as well as, perhaps most importantly, on providing opportunities for the young Jewish leaders of tomorrow.

“There is an old Hasidic tradition,” Lauder writes in the concluding chapter, “that inside every Jew there burns a flame. Sometimes that flame is obscured, and the person can’t see it. But it is always there, it is always burning. All you have to do is dust off your heart and you will find it….And this is the job before us now. We have to help our children and our grandchildren dust off their hearts. We have to help them rediscover that Jewish flame inside them.”

The book also contains speeches delivered by Lauder’s predecessors at critical moments in the recent history of the Jewish Louise Waterman Wise, a Jewish activist and wife of World Jewish Congress people.

“We Jews do not profess to be President Stephen Wise, second from right, addresses the WJC’s War neutral as between democracy Emergency Conference in Atlantic City, N.J., November 1944. Nahum and dictatorship,” Rabbi Goldmann, co-founder of the WJC, is second from left.

Wise declared prophetically PHOTO COURTESY OF WORLD JEWISH CONGRESS at the WJC’s War Emergency Committee’s examination of Swiss banks and Conference in Atlantic City, N.J., on Nov. 26, 1944, their treatment of Holocaust-era assets during and “as between freedom and enslavement, as between after World War II, describes how the WJC and its religion—which is the worship of God the Father then-president, Edgar Bronfman, spearheaded the and the doing of justice to one’s brother man—and... campaign to force Swiss banks to disgorge more than idolatry, which is the worship of man and the unjust $1 billion they had wrongfully withheld from Jewish enslavement of one’s fellow man.”

“The state of Israel requires a strong Jewish Holocaust victims and their heirs.

Eli Rosenbaum, the longtime head of the U.S. Diaspora,” Goldmann said at the WJC’s second Justice Department’s Office of Special Investigations plenary assembly in Montreux, Switzerland, on June who oversaw the WJC’s exposure of the Nazi past 27, 1948, “just as the Jewish [Diaspora] requires the of a former U.N. secretary-general and Austrian state of Israel. The greatest reserve line in support of presidential candidate, gives a fascinating insider’s this Jewish state...will for years be a strong and united Jewish people, ready to support it morally, spiritually account of the notorious Kurt Waldheim Affair.

Natan Lerner, the director of the WJC’s Israel and practically. The existence of the state of Israel, on branch from 1966 until 1984, writes about the WJC’s the other hand, will...give the Jewish people a voice relationship and interactions with the state of Israel, among the nations of the world, and put an end to the while Evelyn Sommer, chairperson of the WJC’s North anonymity of Jewish existence.”

These words remain as relevant for us today as they American section, depicts the instrumental part played by the WJC in fighting against and ultimately were when they were first uttered. It is our hope that rescinding the U.N. resolution equating Zionism with the WJC’s past accomplishments will continue to be a foundation for its future, and that The World Jewish racism.

Other chapters in the book are devoted to the Congress, 1936-2016 will become an essential resource organization’s successful diplomatic negotiations not just for an understanding of the WJC, but for on behalf of Jews from North Africa in the 1950s anyone interested in Jewish political history of the and ’60s; the moral and intellectual debate over the 20th and early-21st centuries.

Menachem Z. Rosensaft is general counsel of the World post-Holocaust future of Jewish life in Germany; and the controversies surrounding the plight of Soviet Jewish Congress, and teaches about the law of genocide at Jewry. Singer describes the organization’s array of the law schools of Columbia and Cornell universities. He present-day programs and activities, including major is the editor of The World Jewish Congress, 1936-2016.

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