September 20 Edition of New York Jewish Life

Ro S sh pe H c Pg Trib ash ial s. ut an 12 e, a h -2 7

Who Are the Jewish Dreamers?

A Q&A with Morton Williams’ Avi Kaner

NYJL Visited Congregation Mt. Sinai Last Shabbos

VOL. 1, NO. 25 | SEPTEMBER 20-26, 2017 | NEWS THAT MATTERS TO JEWISH COMMUNITIES IN THE NEW YORK CITY METROPOLITAN AREA | NYJLIFE.COM | FREE

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

Like You, I’m Exhausted Summer camps ended two weeks before schools started back up for the kids, so that was a scheduling runaround. Then it was high school ramp-up for the girl and fifth grade for the boy. Anyone who has spent time around me knows I call the kids “the boy” and “the girl,” but I promise they have names. School supplies, curriculum night, new teachers, new routines, homework, exams already, swim team, flag football and travel basketball soon. Work also gets hectic.

None of which is a complaint; it’s all a blessing all the time, and it’s not supposed to be easy.

The news is exhausting: serious danger from North Korea, severe weather uprooting and upending families in Texas, Florida and the Caribbean. The global migrant crisis continues unabated, with over 65 million people forced from their homes throughout the world. Families and children, parents and the elderly—all desperate for a safe place to make a life—will carry the baggage and scars for generations to come. Nations once oil-rich now cannot feed their citizens.

Political turmoil threatens to upend long-established, widespread stability.

I was raised to face out towards the world, to be grounded at home but also be interested in elsewhere, to consider foreign cities accessible, and to think about other people and places as I do my own family and home. It’s wrenching, every day, to see all the events that are unfolding.

National politics is certainly exhausting. President Trump’s policy

pronouncements (which sometimes turn so quickly you can get Twitter whiplash), the nonstop reporting on White House palace intrigue, and figuring out how and who get things done are enough to make you want to stay on the couch binge-watching Netflix and never leave the house.

Real issues are not getting tackled, and important policies are either being rolled back or suffering from malicious neglect. Recrimination and a shocking lack of honest introspection, alongside a certain high-profile book tour, are still consuming attention that could be better focused. Reports say the American economy is strong, but clearly not all are benefiting.

But as bewildering as the above continues to be, I enjoy discussing it on TV and in print. Talking about politics and policy, elections and public personalities—having a role in explaining and framing these important issues—is a responsibility and privilege I take seriously. While we often disagree, discussions with fellow contributors in studios while waiting to go live are always cordial and usually informative. The feedback I get from columns on this page runs 80-20 positive, and half of the criticisms make good points.

New York can be exhausting. Our city never stops; our state is a national leader in trends and practices and culture and politics, but we’re always working. City politics have taken a turn towards nearly unbearable smugness, and it’s always really tough to find a parking spot. Friends who left the

area report that living elsewhere is like shedding chainmail from under your clothes: They feel so much lighter.

Still, there’s no place quite like New York. Everyone, it seems, wants to be here, and our diversity—even when it’s stressful—is exciting and dynamic. Like the Dutch before us, we do more and get more done. We’re national trendsetters because we make ourselves leaders.

As Al Pacino said in City Hall, all good things flow into the city.

All of which is to say this: The holidays are again here right on time. We’re all in need of some rest and renewal. We all need a break. I’m looking forward to some quiet reflection and starting again with a sense of newness. Already, as I write this, I feel better, remembering that everything is always unsettled, so we do the best we can.

As we turn the page to start a new year filled with promise, reflection, learning and love, I close this week’s column with this: Of anyone I may have offended, hurt or harmed knowingly or unknowingly, intentionally or otherwise this past year, I ask forgiveness. To those who may have offended or harmed me in any way, I give forgiveness. Happy New Year.

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CANDLE LIGHTING

Michael Tobman, Publisher

Friday, Sept. 22 Candles: 6:35 p.m.

Shabbat Ends: 7:31 p.m.

Friday, Sept. 29 Candles: 6:23 p.m.

Shabbat Ends: 7:20 p.m.

SEPT. 20 – 26, 2017 | NYJLIFE.COM | 3

ISRAEL & THE WORLD

Netanyahu Praises Trump

BY RON KAMPEAS

WASHINGTON (JTA) — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with President Donald Trump at the launch of this year’s U.N. General Assembly and praised his “unequivocal” defense of Israel.

“I want to say that under President Trump, America’s position towards Israel at the U.N. has been unequivocal; it’s been strong; it’s got both clarity and conviction,” Netanyahu said Monday at a meeting with Trump in New York.

“And I want to thank you on behalf of the people of Israel and Israel’s many friends around the world.”

Trump’s predecessor, Barack Obama, also routinely defended Israel at the United Nations, but at the end of his term infuriated the Netanyahu government by allowing through a Security Council resolution condemning Israeli settlements.

Additionally, Trump’s envoy to the body, Nikki Haley, has been far more outspoken and public in her defenses of Israel than her predecessors.

Netanyahu also drew an implied and flattering comparison between Trump and Obama on the 2015 Iran nuclear deal.

“I look forward to discussing with you how we can address together what you rightly call is the terrible nuclear deal with Iran and how to roll back Iran’s growing aggression in the region, especially in Syria,” Netanyahu said.

The deal brokered by the Obama administration traded sanctions relief for a rollback in Iran’s nuclear program.

Netanyahu reviles the deal and Trump has said he wants to amend or scrap it; the president has said to expect “dramatic” action by next month.

In his remarks, Trump, unlike Netanyahu, emphasized his hopes for a brokered Israeli-Palestinian peace. Moreover, the U.S. leader said Palestinians and Israelis equally aspire to a deal—a posture Netanyahu has dismissed repeatedly, saying the

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think the Palestinians would like to see it. And I can tell you that the Trump administration would like to see it.”

Prior to the meeting, Trump had tweeted, “Looking forward to meeting with Prime Minister @Netanyahu shortly. Peace in the Middle East would be a truly great legacy for ALL people!”

Following the meeting, the White House, in a readout, said Netanyahu and Trump “stressed their goals of countering Iran’s malign influence in the region and resolving the Syria crisis in a manner consiste nt with American and Israeli security interests.

“They also discussed their continuing efforts to achieve an enduring Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, left, meeting Israeli-Palestinian with President Donald Trump at the Palace Hotel while he is in New York City for the U.N. General Assembly, Sept. 18, peace agreement, the optimism in the 2017 region about peace, PHOTO BY BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP/GETTY IMAGES and expanding economic opportunities to improve Palestinians are not ready for peace.

“We’re going to be discussing many conditions for peace,” the White House things, among them peace between statement said.

Trump’s top negotiators on the issue, the Palestinians and Israel—it will be a fantastic achievement,” Trump said. “I Jason Greenblatt and Trump’s son-inthink Israel would like to see it, and I law, Jared Kushner, had met separately

with Netanyahu and his team on Sunday. On Monday, Greenblatt attended meetings of the U.N.’s Ad Hoc Liaison Committee, which supervises Palestinian development toward a final-status peace deal.

On his Twitter feed, Greenblatt said he had “great” and “productive” meetings with Palestinian and Israeli delegations to the committee about spurring the Palestinian economy.

On Sunday, Netanyahu met privately with leaders of four Jewish organizations—the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, the Jewish Federations of North America, the American Jewish Committee (AJC) and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.

According to The Times of Israel, the Jewish leaders pressed Netanyahu on his reneging on a pledge to allow multidenominational prayer at the Western Wall. Also discussed, according to the report, was Iran and the civil war in Syria.

Jason Isaacson, the AJC director of international affairs, declined to comment on the range of topics discussed at the meeting, saying it was off the record. However, in a brief interview with the JTA he described the meeting as “candid and positive.”

An array of Jewish groups also met Sunday with Jordan’s King Abdullah.

Balfour Declaration Was “Humanitarian” Gesture (JTA) — A descendant of Lord Arthur Balfour said during a visit to Israel that his ancestor’s 1917 declaration about favoring a Jewish state was “humanitarian” in nature.

Roderick Balfour, the fifth earl of Balfour, made the comment Thursday at an event in Jerusalem celebrating British-Israeli ties and the 100th anniversary of the Balfour Declaration.

In the declaration, the British government vowed to help establish a national home for the Jewish people in the Land of Israel without jeopardizing the rights of other area inhabitants.

The declaration followed several drafts and extensive negotiations between Zionist leaders and British officials including Arthur Balfour, the United Kingdom’s foreign secretary at the time. But it did not say why the United Kingdom viewed favorably the

establishment of a Jewish home in Palestine.

This led to a still-ongoing debate on whether the declaration was a humanitarian gesture following pogroms in Eastern Europe, the result of a political calculus on Britain’s part during World War I or the expression of a scripture-based belief that the Land of Israel belongs to the Jewish people.

Favoring the first view, Roderick Balfour said, “I see it very much as a humanitarian gesture against the background of what was happening at the time.” But, he added, “as a reader of the Bible, it is axiomatic that there is a connection of the Jewish people to the Land of Israel.”

Also attending the event, titled “From Balfour to Brexit,” was former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who reiterated in a speech his hope

for regional cooperation between Arab countries and Israel that in turn would facilitate the signing of a peace agreement with the Palestinians.

“There is an Arab leadership starting to formulate a view of their history which does not involve a demonization of Israel,” Blair said.

David Dangoor, a British-Jewish businessman and philanthropist, said in a speech at the event that AngloIsraeli ties have become particularly important and promising following the Brexit vote last year, in which a majority of referendum voters supported a British exit from the European Union.

Dangoor inaugurated the Sir Naim Dangoor Center for UK-Israel Relations, a think tank that will operate under the auspices of the Mishkenot Sha’ananim cultural center in Jerusalem.

ISRAEL & THE WORLD

Immigrants and DACA supporters rallying across the street from the Trump International Hotel & Tower in Las Vegas, Sept. 10, 2017 PHOTO BY ETHAN MILLER/GETTY IMAGES

Who Are the Jewish “Dreamers”?

BY RON KAMPEAS

(JTA) — Our email inboxes were stuffed last week with statements from Jewish organizations urging continued protection for “Dreamers,” undocumented immigrants who arrived in the United States as children.

Last Monday, President Donald Trump said he was giving six months’ notice to end the DACA, or Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, program, launched by his predecessor, Barack Obama, in 2012. Trump has signaled a willingness to sign congressional legislation that would codify its provisions.

One statement, though, from Agudath Israel of America, stood out in its concern not just about Dreamers, but Jewish Dreamers.

“It affects hundreds of thousands of young people, including many in the Jewish community, who have grown up

and been educated in the United States, the only home they have known,” the haredi Orthodox organization said in its statement issued Sept. 7.

We covered one such Dreamer who has become an activist, Elias Rosenfeld of Boston, but I was curious about the “many in the Jewish community” in the release. Agudath put me in touch with David Grunblatt, the lay chairman of its immigration taskforce and the cohead of the immigration department at Proskauer, a major law firm.

Grunblatt told me that he started hearing from Jewish Dreamers almost as soon as Agudath put out a release offering to assist them, soon after DACA was launched in 2012.

He said the number of Jewish Dreamers among the 800,000 known to have applied for protections under DACA was “not huge but not

negligible,” and there were a variety of reasons for their illegal status among the cases he has handled.

“They tried to apply for a green card or for employment sponsorship, and it went wrong and they’ve been here five or six or seven years and they’re not going anywhere,” Grunblatt said. “Or a family comes here because someone in the family needs medical treatment, they stay six months, another six months, another six months and the situation is resolved one way or the other—but the family is here.”

In some cases, he said, parents successfully obtain green cards but fail to obtain them for their children.

The case of Rosenfeld, a Venezuelan native, involved an illness: His mother, a media executive, traveled to the United States on an L1 visa, which allows specialized, managerial employees to work for the U.S. office of a parent company. When he was in the fifth grade, his mother was diagnosed with kidney cancer. She died two years later.

Grunblatt said that in one case, he was contacted by an all-girls school.

“They discovered one of the girls in the school was undocumented because they were going on a school trip to Canada and the kid didn’t even know [if ] she was documented,” he said.

That’s fairly common, said Melanie Nezer, a vice president at HIAS, the lead Jewish organization handling immigration advocacy.

“If a child is brought over when they’re a baby or a very young child, they just grow up American,” she said.

“They speak English—why would they think they’re different from anyone else?”

While support for the Dreamers has been fairly bipartisan, and Jewish

organizational consensus is for a solution that lets them stay in the country, some Jews have major qualms about the program—especially with the way it was created by executive order under Obama.

“If the Obama administration wanted to implement the DACA program, it should have made the case to Congress and tried to pass its proposal into law,” Rep. Lee Zeldin of New York, one of two Jewish Republicans in Congress, said in a statement. “The administration absolutely did not have the authority to write its own ‘laws.’

“If the proposal did not have the support to pass, then it should not go into effect. That is how our process is designed and must be respected.”

Zeldin said he is “open” to debating the issue with his colleagues, but “[my] priority will always unapologetically remain with fighting for the people following the laws rather than the ones breaking them.”

Nezer said her impression was that the majority of Dreamers fit the profile that gets the most prominent play in the media: those who arrive here as babies or toddlers with their parents from Mexico or Central America.

But, she said, that the population is more diverse than that template—and includes Jews—should not surprise members of the Jewish community.

“Our parents and grandparents took these risks not for themselves but for us,” Nezer said. “And that’s exactly what the Dreamers’ parents did.”

Few lives track an easy trajectory, Grunblatt said, and Dreamers are no different.

“It’s life,” he said. “Things happen in life, plans go awry, ambitions fail and people end up here.”

On behalf of all Americans, I want to wish Jewish families many blessings in the new year. The High Holidays are a time of both reflection on the past year and hope for renewal in the year to come.

Jewish communities across the country, and around the world, enter into a time of prayer, repentance and rededication to the sacred values and traditions that guide the incredible character and spirit of the Jewish people. We reaffirm the unbreakable bond between the United States and Israel, and we ask God to deliver justice, dignity and peace on Earth. Melania and I wish everyone a sweet, healthy and peaceful year, which we hope will bring many blessings to all. Thank you, God bless you and God bless America.

–President Donald Trump

SEPT. 20 – 26, 2017 | NYJLIFE.COM | 5

ISRAEL & THE WORLD

they most trust, a plurality of Israelis, 39 percent, chose the Supreme Court over the government, the Knesset, the chief rabbinate or the rabbinical courts.

The least-trusted institution is the chief rabbinate, followed by the government.

The survey indicates that the state’s handling of issues of religion and state is one cause for its lack of public support. A large majority of Israeli Jews, 78 percent, are dissatisfied with the current government on such issues. Only a majority of voters of the Mizrahi haredi political party Shas are satisfied.

According to Regev, there is growing frustration in Israel with political kowtowing to the haredi parties. After their opposition led to the suspension of the Western Wall deal, the parties in July pushed through a law allowing state-run mikvahs, or ritual baths, to bar nonOrthodox Jews from entry. In September, they brought to a sudden halt Shabbat repair work on train tracks across the country by threatening to bolt the government over the issue, wreaking havoc on the workday commutes of tens of thousands of Israelis.

A woman praying during a Women of the Wall service at the However, Regev predicted, the haredi Western Wall in Jerusalem, Oct. 24, 2014 community will continue to call the shots as PHOTO BY MIRIAM ALSTER/FLASH90 religion-and-state issues remain low on the priority list of most Israelis. A Channel 10 state, 65 percent want it to explicitly protect religious poll ahead of the 2015 election found that for most freedom for all.

The survey did not ask about the agreement to Israelis, cost-of-living and social issues would be the create an egalitarian prayer section at the Western main determinants of their vote, followed by security.

Wall—the government retreated from the deal in Only 9 percent said they would vote primarily based June, outraging many Diaspora Jews and inspiring on religion-and-state issues.

Regev, who issued a statement last week signed by petitions now being considered by the Supreme Court.

But a June survey by Hiddush found that 63 percent of dozens of leaders from across the religious spectrum of Judaism calling for sweeping reforms to Israel’s Israeli Jews oppose the government’s action.

In general, support among Jewish Israelis for official religious establishment and its policies, separation of religion and state, and pluralistic suggested a shift in focus to those issues that most policies, is correlated with secularity and voting for affect the daily life of Israelis. In a December survey, more left-wing and less-religious parties. Voters for Hiddush found that the chief rabbinate’s monopoly over Jewish marriage and divorce in Israel is by far haredi political parties overwhelmingly oppose both.

Despite recently escalating political rhetoric and the most important religion-and-state issue to Jews, legislation aimed at weakening the Supreme Court while prayer at the Western Wall is by far the least for its alleged disregard of Israel’s Jewish values, the important one. The same survey found that 60 percent survey found widespread support for the principles of Israeli Jews support American Jewish involvement underlying many of its recent rulings and, at least in the marriage issue.

“There is dissymmetry between areas Israelis feel are relative to other government institutions, for the important and the focus of many American Jews in the court itself.

The Supreme Court last week broke the chief past few years,” Regev said. “But Israelis are frustrated rabbinate’s monopoly over kosher certification and with the status quo when it comes to marriage and so struck down legislation from 2015 meant to delay are more open to Diaspora intervention.”

There are reasons to believe religion-and-state efforts to increase the rate at which haredi yeshiva issues will not remain on the Israeli political back students are drafted into the military.

According to the survey, public support for opening burner indefinitely. According to the Hiddush survey, the kosher market to competition with the state acting Israeli Jews think the political conflict between haredi as a supervisor continued to rise, to 80 percent of and secular Jews is among the most challenging in Jewish Israelis. Among secular Jews, the number was the country, at least as much as the one between the 95 percent, with 80 percent backing the introduction political right and left. Seething secular anger has of non-Orthodox certification. As in previous years, 83 erupted at the ballot box before, notably with the rise percent think yeshiva students should be required to of Yair Lapid in 2012 and his father, Tommy, in 2003.

“Politicians should be wary,” Regev said. “They do military or national service, though a third would settle for national service and 14 percent are OK with don’t know when the hurricane is going to hit. It hit before. It will hit again, and it may be this time some exemptions.

Asked for the first time this year which institution around.”

Jewish Pluralism in Israel?

BY ANDREW TOBIN

JERUSALEM (JTA) — For non-Orthodox Diaspora Jews worried by the Israeli government’s unfriendly policies toward them this year, a new poll has some good news.

The 2017 annual survey by Hiddush given to the JTA ahead of its release Monday offers indications that the Israeli Jewish public is as supportive as ever of religious pluralism, if not more so. Few are happy with how the state handles religion, and a record number would like to disentangle Judaism and politics.

“When you look across the years, there is a consistent high level, and on many issues a growing level, of support of freedom of religion and equality,” said Hiddush CEO Uri Regev. “As a result, the gap between the public and the political leaders is growing.”

The Rafi Smith Institute in July conducted the survey for Hiddush—a group that promotes religious pluralism in Israel—based on a representative sample of 800 Jewish Israeli adults. The margin of error is 3.5 percent. Hiddush has commissioned a version of the survey since 2009.

Many of this year’s findings are in line with those of previous years. Notably, 65 percent of Israeli Jews support giving Reform and Conservative Judaism equal official standing with Orthodox Judaism. Among secular Jews, who account for some 40 percent of Israeli Jewry, the number was 92 percent.

Such a radical move would amount to dismantling the chief rabbinate, Israel’s haredi Orthodox rabbinical authority, which controls marriage and other Jewish services in the country.

Also, 84 percent of Jews agree Israel should uphold the freedom of religion and conscience promised in its Declaration of Independence, 67 percent support state recognition of non-Orthodox marriage and 50 percent would personally prefer it.

At the same time, the survey reveals a significant spike in support for separation of religion and state. Fully 68 percent of Israelis Jews embrace this principle, which Regev said is interpreted as entailing a depoliticization of religion rather than a more complete American-style division. Support is up 5 percent from last year and 13 percent since 2010.

Zooming in on recent government policies on religion and state, the Hiddush survey found 73 percent of Israeli Jews oppose the new conversion law, which grants the chief rabbinate a monopoly over officially recognized Jewish conversions in Israel. As to the government-backed nation-state bill, for the first time enshrining in law Israel’s status as a Jewish

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ISRAEL & THE WORLD

ISRAEL GEARS UP TO HOST PRESTIGIOUS ITALIAN CYCLING RACE

Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat, in blue, bicycling with retired cycling champions Ivan Basso and Alberto Contador in Jerusalem PHOTO COURTESY OF THE GIRO

BY ANDREW TOBIN

JERUSALEM (JTA) — Stressing the chance to show off Israel to the world, Israeli officials joined with their Italian counterparts in announcing Monday that three stages of the prestigious Giro d’Italia cycling race will be held in the country, starting in Jerusalem.

It will mark the first time that any leg of cycling’s Grand Tour races—the Giro, the Tour de France and the Spanish Vuelta—will take place outside Europe, and just the 12th time the Giro has gone outside Italy in its 101-year history.

Israeli officials said the race will be the biggest sporting event ever held in their country and touted it as an opportunity to showcase the Jewish state—and its capital—to the world.

“Hundreds of millions of viewers around the globe will watch as the world’s best cyclists ride alongside the walls of Jerusalem’s ancient Old City and our other historic sites,” Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat said at the hotel gathering. “Our message to the world is clear: Jerusalem is open to all.”

The race will bring more than 175 of the world’s best cyclists to Israel, along with tens of thousands of tourists and cycling enthusiasts.

Culture Minister Miri Regev called on “everyone who loves the Giro to come here to Israel.”

“This bike race across the Holy Land will be a fascinating journey through time covering thousands of years,” she said. “I’m sure it will be a thrilling experience for everyone.”

Israel will host the first three stages

of the Giro, or “the Big Start,” on consecutive days from May 4 to 6. Stage 1 will be a 6.3-mile individual time trial in Jerusalem, passing the Knesset and ending near the walls of the Old City.

Stage 2, in the north, will start in Haifa with riders pedaling 103.8 miles down the Mediterranean coast to the Tel Aviv beach. Stage 3, in the south, will cover 140.4 miles through the arid Negev from Beersheba to Eilat on the Red Sea. Italian officials told the Israeli newspaper Haaretz earlier this month that they were being careful to avoid crossing into politically sensitive areas, like the West Bank or eastern Jerusalem, which they feared could spark protests.

An official map of the Stage 1 route shows it approaching but not entering the Old City, which is located in eastern Jerusalem—where much of the world, but not the Israeli government, envisions a future Palestinian capital.

According to the Italian daily Corriere della Sera, the route will pass the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial as part of a tribute to Gino Bartali, an Italian cycling champion credited with saving hundreds of Jews during the Holocaust.

While ostensibly training in the Italian countryside, Bartali, who won the Giro four times and the Tour de France twice, would carry forged papers in the frame and handlebars of his bicycle to Jews hiding in houses and convents. He also hid a Jewish family in his cellar.

In 2013, years after his death in 2000, he was recognized as a Righteous Among the Nations by Israel’s Holocaust authority, Yad Vashem.

Italian Sports Minister Luca Lotti said Monday that the race would celebrate

Bartali’s memory. In addition to being a great sports champion, he said, Bartali “was also an extraordinary champion of life, and a man of heroic virtues, and this needs to be commemorated, and shared, especially with the young generations—never to be forgotten.”

Retired Giro champions Alberto Contador of Italy and Ivan Basso of Spain, both two-time winners, also were on hand for the Jerusalem announcement.

Sylvan Adams, a Canadian real estate magnate and philanthropist who recently immigrated to Israel, helped bring the Giro to Israel and will serve as its honorary president. Adams said he was motivated by love of cycling and a desire to help his adopted country.

“I would call this the antidote to BDS,” he told the JTA, referring to the global Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign against Israel. “The media sometimes portrays our country in a negative way, and this is a way to bypass the media and go straight into the living rooms of 800 million people.

They’ll see our country exactly as it is, and my experience is people almost universally have positive experiences when they encounter Israel.”

The Giro is just part of Adams’ larger plan to make Israel a cycling powerhouse. A co-owner of the Israel Cycling Academy, Israel’s first professional cycling team founded in 2014, he is building the first velodrome in the Middle East in Tel Aviv to be finished in time for the race.

“My plan is to bring Israeli athletes to the highest level of the sport,” he said.

Ran Margaliot, an Israeli former professional cyclist and the general manager of the Israel Cycling Academy, said the team has applied to compete in the Giro and will find out if it qualified in December. It is among 32 seconddivision teams jockeying for a wildcard spot, but he is hopeful.

“I certainly think we deserve an invitation,” Margaliot told the JTA. “No one can tell me we’re not good enough, and we work as hard as the Europeans—even harder.”

Margaliot said that while he failed to achieve his ambition of becoming the first Israeli to race in a Grand Tour, the next best thing would be for an Israeli member of his international team to do it.

“You can imagine what it would mean for an Israeli rider to be racing in his own country, passing near his home and friends and family,” he said before catching himself. “But we have a lot of work to do to get ready.”

Israeli Gov’t to Amend Adoption Law to Give Same-Sex Couples Equal Rights JERUSALEM (JTA) — The Israeli government said it would amend adoption law in the country to give same-sex couples equal rights.

The state made the announcement on Sunday during a hearing at the Supreme Court in response to a petition regarding adoption by samesex and common-law couples filed by the Association of Israeli Gay Fathers— along with the Israel Religious Action Center of the Reform movement— against the Social Affairs Ministry and the attorney general.

The state said it would introduce the new legislation by June 2018. The agreement comes less than a month after the Ministry of Welfare and Social Affairs reversed its opposition to allowing same-sex couples to adopt in the country. The government had initially told the court that given the “reality of Israeli society,” same-sex parents put an “additional burden” on their adopted children.

The agreement to introduce the new legislation led to the court’s dismissing the lawsuit, though the court reminded the two sides that if the legislation is not forthcoming, the petitioners could return to court.

“The court recognized the merits of the petition presented to them and decided to encourage a fundamental change in Israel’s adoption policy. From now on, same-sex families, who deserve the right to adopt like any other family, will have that right,” said Riki Shapira Rosenberg, lead attorney for the Israel Religious Action Center, in a statement.

“We will continue to closely monitor the legislative processes following the petition to ensure that the government follows through on its commitment and soon.”

Although adoption by same-sex couples has been legal in Israel since 2008, in practice it has been nearly impossible. Because opposite-sex couples have been given priority, only three same-sex couples have adopted in Israel out of 550 applicants. More than 1,000 opposite-sex couples have adopted in the past nine years.

SEPT. 20 – 26, 2017 | NYJLIFE.COM | 7

Attention Manhattan, Queens & Brooklyn Families

FAMILY REIMBURSEMENT PROGRAM! New

Program Details

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NEW YORK & NATIONAL

A Q&A with Avi Kaner, Owner of Morton Williams Supermarkets

BY NYJL STAFF

Could you describe to our readers what Morton Williams is in a sentence or two?

Morton Williams Supermarkets is a family-owned and -operated chain primarily in Manhattan. We have a deep focus on fresh and prepared foods, and have chefs in most of our stores. Unlike traditional supermarkets, organic, allnatural, specialty and international foods are abundant in our stores.

How did you get involved in the supermarket business?

Our first store opened in the Bronx in 1952 under the name “Associated.”

The chain evolved over the years to focus primarily on Manhattan neighborhoods.

Our headquarters and hiring office is still in the Bronx, and we employ over 1,000 people from the Bronx. I joined the business after starting my career at Deloitte & Touche and Booz Allen Hamilton consulting. My wife, Liz, and I were about to have our second child and we sought less travel.

What has been the most challenging part of running a supermarket in the metro area with constant new competition, including Amazon’s entering the marketplace through its recent purchase of Whole Foods?

The cost of doing business in the city is staggering, in terms of rent, electricity, taxes and labor. The broad

competition requires continuous investment in the business and staying up to date with new trends. Amazon/ Whole Foods has a foothold in the city and it is a formidable competitor with deep pockets. Having said that, even Amazon doesn’t have a magic wand to reduce the cost of doing retail business in the city. Our chain is based here, instead of Austin, Texas [Whole Foods] or Seattle, Washington [Amazon], which gives us an advantage of knowing the pulse of our customers.

In 2014, Morton Williams boycotted Turkish food products because of a rise in anti-Semitism in Turkey. How does your Jewish background help guide your b u s i ne s s instincts and decision-making?

Our boycott of Turkish products was directly at tributable to statements and incitement by Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, particularly during Israel’s war against the Hamas terrorist group in Gaza. The boycott was lifted after the rapprochement between Israel and Turkey, although that relationship remains tense.

Do you feel the rise of the BDS movement, or a growing anti-Israel sentiment in general, is changing the marketplace as it relates to Morton Williams or the broader food industry?

We are proud to feature “Made

in Israel” sections in our stores. We have received only praise from our customers, and the items sell very well.

We are proud to not only support Israel, but to do so with actions in addition to words.

Are you currently involved in any Jewish organizations or related issues?

Our family is involved in a number of Jewish and Israel-related organizations including AIPAC, Chabad, FIDF, Hadassah Hospital and Technion University. Our focus over the past few years has been on “Innovation: Africa,” This organization utilizes Israeli electric and water innovations to provide water to the people of Africa. Various family members have traveled to Uganda to dedicate Morton Williams’ solar-powered water wells, each providing water to thousands of people.

What is your favorite item of food at Morton Williams?

I am proud of our prepared foods.

Many of our offerings are restaurant quality, available at affordable prices.

Busy Manhattan consumers are able to have a “home-cooked meal” at home, without having to prepare it themselves.

Do you sell many kosher products?

Many of the products we sell have kosher supervision stamps. We do offer kosher meat, poultry and cold cuts.

Our stores’ Israel sections are kosher as well.

Any upcoming sales you want to tip off our readers to?

We literally have hundreds of items on sale every week. We send out a mass weekly email to our customers with the sale items. I encourage everyone to visit www.mortonwilliams.com and to like us on our new Facebook page.

SEPT. 20 – 26, 2017 | NYJLIFE.COM | 9

NEW YORK & NATIONAL

Surf’s Up at Mount Sinai Exclusive

BY AARON SHORT

Congregation Mount Sinai has snagged itself a star, but its members may not realize it yet.

Three years ago, The New York Times trekked out to East Hampton to commune with Hanniel Levenson, whose main task as associate rabbi at the Jewish Center for the Hamptons was to hold Shabbat services and teach Hebrew to youngsters cramming for their bar and bat mitzvahs. He drew the Times’ attention because he would take students surfing one day a week as part of their studies.

Earlier this summer, Levenson paddled into Congregation Mount Sinai in Brooklyn Heights, a small synagogue nestled among concrete residential low-rises off Cadman Plaza.

He continues to lead Shabbat services while dreaming of surfing.

“I’m hoping to get a surf in this weekend,” he told me at one Friday night service in September.

The Mount Sinai gig is one of the top rabbinical posts in the city, thanks to the strength and longevity of its congregation, which dates back to 1882.

Levenson replaced Rabbi Seth Wax, who left Mount Sinai after four years to become Williams College’s new Jewish chaplain in Massachusetts. Wax had taken over the shul when its longtime spiritual leader, Joseph Potasnik— currently serving as the city’s fire chaplain and New York Board of Rabbis vice president—retired in 2013.

Potasnik keeps an “emeritus” title and comes around once in a while.

Now the shul is in the hands of the 35-year-old former competitive gymnast and personal trainer who also runs a surfing and yoga retreat through his company House of Surf and Prayer.

Programming at the shul will likely get a lot more interesting. High Holiday services probably will too.

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On the Friday before Rosh Hashanah, Levenson led an intimate prayer service for half a dozen congregants, who sat around a square table near the back of the sanctuary.

I had asked which denomination the synagogue was, and Levenson said that everyone was welcome.

Indeed, the shul is “independent egalitarian,” welcoming “people of all ages, backgrounds, affiliations, family structures, and sexual orientations,” according to its website.

As we flipped through glossy copies placed on a table in front of us of “A Siddur for Erev Shabbat” by Rabbi Marcia Prager, Levenson lit two Shabbos candles with a match and waved his hand over the flame.

Levenson’s 45-minute Shabbat service consisted of a mix of English and Hebrew recitations and psalms, including a lively rendition of “Lecha Dodi” sung to the tune of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah.” Whenever he started a psalm he put a small wooden box on his lap and opened it to play a minor chord that kept him in tune.

We finished just before 7:30 p.m., downing plastic thimbles of wine and grape juice and passing around torn handfuls of challah from the center of the table.

At the front of the sanctuary, nearly a hundred fabric-padded chairs were set in five rows behind a small bimah in near-darkness.

Levenson is excited to see many families and newcomers at Mount Sinai for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.

His challenge, like many rabbis in the city, will be encouraging congregants to return after the holidays are over.

And if Levenson can foster a thriving spiritual community in Brooklyn Heights—well that would be pretty radical.

Edie Windsor speaking in New York City, June 19, 2017 PHOTO BY JAMIE MCCARTHY/GETTY IMAGES FOR THE TREVOR PROJECT

Edie Windsor, Whose Supreme Court Victory Paved the Way for LGBTQ Marriage, Dies at 88 WASHINGTON (JTA) — Edie Windsor, whose fight for marriage equality ended with a historic victory and was suffused with her Jewish sensibility, has died at 88.

The New York Times on September 12 quoted her second wife, Judith KasenWindsor, as confirming her death.

In 2009, Windsor was denied a spouse’s exemption and forced to pay federal taxes on the estate of her late wife, Thea Spyer, who also was Jewish, although their Canadian marriage was recognized as legal by the state of New York, where they resided. She pursued her case all the way to the Supreme Court, and in a narrow ruling in 2013, the court decided that the federal government must abide by the laws of individual states in its dealings with couples from those states.

That set the stage for a ruling two years later that removed all barriers to equal marriage rights.

“Because of today’s Supreme Court ruling, the federal government can no longer discriminate against the marriages of gay and lesbian Americans,” she said then in a statement. “Children born today will grow up in a world without DOMA,” the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act that denied federal benefits to partners of gay people. “Those same children who happen to be gay will be free to love and get married—as Thea and I did— but with the same federal benefits, protections and dignity as everyone else.”

After her win, she attended services at her Manhattan synagogue, Beit Simchat Torah, which was founded to serve the gay community, and listened to her lawyer, Roberta Kaplan, deliver a sermon on the win. Kaplan said

Windsor’s victory was a landmark for Jews in particular.

“The Jewish Theological Seminary, for the first time in its entire history, submitted an amicus brief in a court case,” Kaplan said in the sermon.

‘Which case?’ one might ask. Edie Windsor v. the United States, when JTS, along with the entire Conservative movement, joined an amicus brief urging the Supreme Court to strike down DOMA as unconstitutional.

“Think about this for a moment if you will: Less than 10 years ago, any gay rabbi ordained at the Jewish Theological Seminary had to be in the closet. Today, JTS signed on to a brief at the United States Supreme Court arguing that the marriages of gay people should be respected under the law.”

Windsor, who retired as a senior programmer at IBM, remained Jewishly involved. In 2016, she was one of 90 Jewish LGBTQ activists who signed a letter saying that anti-Israel protesters who forcibly shut down a reception at the National LGBTQ Task Force’s Creating Change conference displayed “dangerous” behavior.

Her first date with her second wife, Kasen-Windsor, whom she married last year, was at a Hanukkah party.

Former President Barack Obama marked her passing, saying in a statement that he had spoken with Windsor in recent days. He also recalled the 2015 Supreme Court decision removing bars to marriage equality two years after Windsor’s win.

“I thought about all the millions of quiet heroes across the decades whose countless small acts of courage slowly made an entire country realize that love is love—and who, in the process, made us all more free,” Obama said.

SEPT. 20 – 26, 2017 | NYJLIFE.COM | 11

ROSH HASHANAH

Ten Inspiring Jews Who Died in 5777 makes up nearly a third of our world.

Rubin, who passed away in December, once said that science was separate from religion: “I’m Jewish, and so religion to me is a kind of moral code and a kind of history,” she said. “I try to do my science in a moral way, and I believe that ideally, science should be looked upon as something that helps us understand our role in the universe.”

BY GABE FRIEDMAN

(JTA) — It’s always difficult to whittle down the list of influential Jews who died in a given year, but this year the task seemed to be especially tough. The number of Jews who left historic marks on their fields—and, more broadly, on Jewish culture—was remarkable.

As 5777 draws to a close, here are some members of the tribe— representing areas as diverse as pop culture to politics—we’ve mourned since last Rosh Hashanah.

Ruth Gruber, 105

Carrie Fisher, 60

Most know Carrie Fisher because of her iconic role as Princess Leia in the original Star Wars films, but her tumultuous career extended beyond that. The actress, who struggled with addictions to cocaine and prescription medications, also wrote four novels and three memoirs along with acting in dozens of other films. Fisher landed the Star Wars role as a relative unknown despite being the daughter of Jewish singer Eddie Fisher and movie star Debbie Reynolds. After she died of a heart attack in December, her only child pointed out that Fisher’s real cause of death was her substance-abuse issues.

Leonard Cohen, 82

This grandson of a rabbi who grew up in an Orthodox home in Montreal became one of the most beloved folk artists of the 20th and 21st centuries.

Leonard Cohen launched his musical career late, releasing his first album at 33 after writing multiple books of poetry. But he would go on to release 13 more records and often incorporate Jewish themes into his meticulously crafted songs. His song “Hallelujah” became one of the most covered and revered songs in pop music history. Just weeks before his death in November, Cohen released his final album, which included a track featuring a chorus saying, “I’m ready, my Lord.”

Simone Veil, 89

Fewer than 70 people have been awarded France’s Grand Cross of the Legion of Honor; Simone Veil, a

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Clockwise from top left: Carrie Fisher, Jerry Lewis, Leonard Cohen and Zsa Zsa Gabor PHOTOS COURTESY OF GETTY IMAGES

Holocaust survivor who became a pillar of French politics, was one of them.

After making it out of Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen, Veil became a lawyer and served as France’s minister of health and later as president of the European Parliament. She was also one of the few female members of the prestigious Académie Française and spearheaded the legalization of abortion in France in the 1970s. Veil died in June, less than a month before her 90th birthday.

Jerry Lewis, 91

Don’t let the funnyman’s stage name fool you: Jerry Lewis was born Joseph Levitch to parents who performed on the Borscht Belt hotel circuit. Lewis, who died of cardiac disease in August, rose to prominence as part of a duo with Dean Martin, with whom he made over a dozen wacky comedy films from 1949 to 1956. He would go on to star in dozens of other films, including The Nutty Professor (yes, the original one, well before Eddie Murphy’s 1996 remake) and Martin Scorsese’s The King of Comedy.

Zsa Zsa Gabor, 99

Though this legendary Hollywood socialite and sex symbol was buried in a Catholic cemetery, she had Jewish roots. Born to Hungarian Jewish

parents in Budapest, Sari Gabor (her real name) was married nine times and appeared in films such as Moulin Rouge and Lovely to Look At. Her love life was a tumultuous public affair, and she has been called the first celebrity to be famous for being famous. Zsa Zsa Gabor died in February, less than two months before her 100th birthday.

Don Rickles, 90

The well-known comic nicknamed “Mr. Warmth,” who loved to hurl insults at his audience members, was also a serious actor trained at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts.

He appeared in countless TV shows, performed standup into his 80s and acted alongside legends such as Clark Gable and Clint Eastwood on the silver screen. Younger audiences know him as the voice of Mr. Potato Head in the Toy Story series. He passed away in April from kidney failure.

Vera Rubin, 88

Without this groundbreaking scientist, we still might not understand what 27 percent of the universe is made up of: dark matter. Rubin, an astronomer from Philadelphia, discovered that galaxies don’t rotate the way previous scientific models led us to believe, which led to the proof of the invisible, undetectable stuff that

Among the impressive accomplishments on Ruth Gruber’s résumé are a pioneering reporting stint in the Soviet Arctic, a trip ordered by President Franklin Roosevelt to comfort post-Holocaust Jewish refugees, and reportage of the Nuremberg trials and Operation Moses. The writer, who will be remembered as one of the 20th century’s most important journalists, Jewish or not, began her career at the New York Herald Tribune in 1947.

Henry Heimlich, 96

Yes, that Heimlich—the person who invented the famous Heimlich maneuver that has saved countless numbers of choking people since its inception in 1974. Dr. Henry J. Heimlich was a thoracic surgeon born to Jewish parents in Wilmington, Delaware.

Besides the famous lifesaving method, he also invented the chest-drainage flutter valve, known as the Heimlich valve. He died last December of complications following a heart attack.

Sara Ehrman, 98

This longtime Democratic Party activist, adviser on the IsraeliPalestinian conflict and friend of the Clintons described herself as “first a Jew, second a Democrat and above all a feminist.” Sara Ehrman may be most famous for advising Hillary Clinton not to move to Arkansas to marry Bill, though she worked on George McGovern’s 1972 presidential campaign and later advised President Clinton on Israeli-Arab peacemaking. She also helped organize Bill Clinton’s first trip as president to Israel, served as AIPAC’s political director and later worked with J Street. She died in June, more than 50 years after her entrée into politics.

ROSH HASHANAH

The Top-10 Moments that Mattered to Jews in 5777 couple, both of whom are observant Jews, would take on critical roles in the administration as senior advisers to the president, with Kushner in charge of a thick portfolio that included brokering a peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians.

BY JOSEFIN DOLSTEN

(JTA) — This Jewish year was not a quiet one, to say the least. From the tumultuous first eight months of Donald Trump’s presidency, to a wave of bomb threats against Jewish community centers, to a neoNazi protest in Charlottesville that turned violent, to the twin weather catastrophes of hurricanes Harvey and Irma, Jews, like so many others, found it hard to take their eyes off the news.

As the year 5777 comes to a close, the JTA looks back at some of the moments that had the most significance for Jews, sorted below by date.

Bob Dylan is awarded the 2016 Nobel Prize in Literature.

In an unexpected move, the Swedish Academy bestowed the iconic Jewish American singer—born Robert Zimmerman—with the highly coveted prize in October. Though Bob Dylan’s fame is indisputable—he wrote some of the most well-known and culturally significant songs of the 1960s—the decision raised eyebrows because the prize has traditionally been given to novelists and poets, not songwriters.

Dylan did not seem as enthusiastic as some of his fans: He took two weeks to acknowledge the award and said he was unable to travel to Sweden for the official ceremony, though he traveled there at a later date to accept the award and present the required lecture.

U.N. criticizes Israeli settlement, and the U.S. abstains.

In December, the United Nations sharply condemned Israeli actions in a resolution calling settlements “a flagrant violation of international law” that damage the prospects of a twostate solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Traditionally, the United States has vetoed such resolutions—but in its waning days, the Obama administration chose not to follow suit. The move prompted outrage from Israel, centrist and right-leaning Jewish groups, and then–President-elect Donald Trump, who called the resolution “extremely unfair.” Samantha Power, then the American envoy to the U.N., defended the abstention, saying the resolution was in line with longstanding U.S. opposition to Israeli settlements.

Trump takes office, bringing Ivanka and Jared with him.

Trump took office in January after his unexpected victory over Hillary Clinton in November, pledging in his inaugural address to put “America first.” The use of the slogan—the name of an isolationist and often anti-Semitic movement leading up to World War II—alarmed some Jews, but Trump said the phrase had no connection to the earlier usage. Trump brought with him a cadre of Jewish advisers, including his daughter, Ivanka Trump, and her husband, Jared Kushner. The

JCCs in the U.S. and Canada are targeted with more than 100 bomb threats.

From January to March, Jewish community centers, Jewish schools and other institutions were hit with more than 100 bomb threats. None of the threats, many of which were called in, turned out to be credible, but they forced evacuations and spread fear among local communities. Several Jewish cemeteries were also vandalized, prompting some to blame the rise of the “alt-right”— some say the movement was legitimized following Trump’s election—for the threats. However, neither of the two men arrested for making the threats turned out to be motivated by far-right beliefs.

One of the accused, Juan Thompson, was arrested for making bomb threats against eight Jewish institutions in the name of an ex-girlfriend in a revenge plot. The main suspect, however, turned out to be an Israeli-American teenager, Michael Kadar of Ashkelon, who was arrested for making hundreds of threats.

Kadar reportedly sold his bomb-threat services online and suffers from a brain tumor, according to his lawyer.

Trump shouts down reporters who ask him about a rise in anti-Semitism.

In February, the president shouted at two journalists who asked him about an increase in anti-Jewish sentiments and incidents, and said he “hates” being called an anti-Semite, although

neither reporter called him one. After asking for a “friendly” reporter, Trump interrupted a question by a haredi Orthodox journalist—he accused the journalist of lying about his intentions— and claimed to be the “least antiSemitic person that you have ever seen in your entire life.” Trump’s response drew criticism from Jewish groups, many of which had already criticized him a month earlier for releasing a statement on International Holocaust Remembrance Day that notably did not mention Jews. His defenders said the president’s critics were politically motivated.

On first overseas trip, Trump visits Israel.

Trump paid a visit to the Jewish state in May on his first overseas trip as president, which also included stops in Italy and Saudi Arabia. The two-day trip included a stop at Yad Vashem and meetings with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Reuven Rivlin, as well as Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.

Trump, accompanied by his daughter Ivanka and her husband, Jared Kushner, also stopped at the Western Wall for a private visit, making him the first sitting U.S. president to visit the holy site and earning him high praise across Israel. A few months after the visit, Trump dispatched a team of top aides, including Kushner, Jason Greenblatt and Dina Powell, to visit Israel and other Middle Eastern countries in an attempt to revive peace talks. continued on page 14

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ROSH HASHANAH

TOP-10 MOMENTS from page 13

Israel freezes pluralistic Western Wall agreement.

A June decision by Netanyahu’s Cabinet to put a hold on the creation of an egalitarian section of the Western Wall, a deal passed in 2016, drew the ire of American Jewish leaders.

Some leaders, also angered by the advancement of a bill to give the Orthodox chief rabbinate complete control of conversions performed in Israel, warned of a growing schism between American Jews and Israel.

Natan Sharansky, the chairman of the Jewish Agency for Israel, also joined critics of the decision, saying it “will make our work to bring Israel and the Jewish world closer together increasingly more difficult.” In August,

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the Israeli Supreme Court said the government must either reinstate the agreement or provide an explanation as to why it had put a hold on it.

Chicago Dyke March bans three women for carrying flags with Jewish stars.

In June, a Chicago lesbian march ejected three women for carrying Gay Pride flags with Jewish stars, saying the march was “anti-Zionist” and “pro-Palestinian.” The decision drew heated debate, and the Jewish reporter who first wrote about the incident for a Chicago LGBTQ newspaper said she was removed from her reporting job as a result of the article. The Dyke March controversy—as well as similar debates about the role of Zionists in the feminist movement and whether demonstrators could bring banners with Jewish stars to

a Chicago feminist march—illuminated a growing challenge for Zionist Jews who feel unwelcome in liberal spaces.

Neo-Nazis rally in Charlottesville.

Neo-Nazis and white supremacists gathered in a Virginia park in August to protest the removal of a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee. The far-right protesters chanted anti-Semitic and racist slogans, including “Jews will not replace us,” and brawled with counterprotesters.

One counterprotester, Heather Heyer, was killed when a suspected white supremacist rammed his car into a crowd. Trump waffled on condemning the protest, calling out neo-Nazis and white supremacists in one remark, but blaming both sides for the violence at other times, and saying there were “some very fine people” in both groups.

Jewish groups, lawmakers from both sides of the aisle and the president’s top economic adviser, Gary Cohn, criticized Trump for his response, saying he was not doing his part to condemn hate.

Hurricane Harvey floods Houston.

Homes were flooded and lives were turned upside down as Hurricane Harvey hit Texas in August, forcing mass evacuations across the state.

Over 70 percent of the city’s Jews live in areas that experienced high flooding, and synagogues, schools and other Jewish community buildings sustained significant damage. Recovery from the hurricane is expected to take years, but the disaster also served to unite the community, as Jewish groups rallied to distribute donations and local Jewish camps offered housing to those with nowhere to go.

ROSH HASHANAH

Hill of Beans

BY RABBI LESTER BRONSTEIN

I love Rick’s tochechah (reproof ) to Ilsa near the end of Casablanca: “Look, pretty soon you’ll realize that the problems of two little people don’t amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world.”

He’s trying to get her to think beyond her personal trauma at a time when the fate of the entire free world hangs in the balance.

Sorry, but this is how I often feel when I read some of the contemporary poems, meditations and interpretations relating to our Days of Awe. So much of it is directed toward our own inner turmoil, our private regrets, our need to apologize to one another and to forgive one another—for hurt feelings, for stray comments, for thoughtless words and actions, for neglect of friends and

loved ones.

Of course all of these things are important. They’re always important.

They are the stuff of our daily lives. We ignore our relationships at our peril.

We neglect our own inner growth at our peril.

But this is Rosh Hashanah. This day and its grand themes belong to the whole Jewish people, even to the whole universe. We individual Jews—and yes, we are unique individuals with our own individual problems—belong to a people much bigger and older than our singular selves. That people—that identity—lays claims on us, especially on this day. Our Jewishness, both our link to tribe and our link to covenant, constitutes the major claim of this day. This day has tokef. Importance.

Sobering awe.

The service of the kohen gadol (high priest) on Yom Kippur gives us some

instruction here. The text reminds us that the kohen started out his ancient observance of the Day of Atonement by asking forgiveness for himself. Then he moved to a recitation on behalf of his entire family. After that, he prayed for atonement for the whole people of Israel. Finally, he directed a prayer to God for the totality of God’s universe.

That model found its way into our modern prayer books for a good reason.

It was meant to suggest that each of us is like the kohen gadol. Each of us needs to “clean up our own act” first, to “come ’round right,” as the Shaker hymn phrases it. But then we need to go much, much further in our working toward teshuvah (repentance). We need to see ourselves as humble servants in the greater task of helping our people, and ultimately of allowing our people to contribute to universal redemption.

In our day, there is no shortage of concrete matters burdening the Jewish people specifically, or our planet generally. You know as well as I what they are. I’m not suggesting that we simply get over our own problems and concentrate on bigger matters. Rather, I hope we can learn to move through our personal agenda swiftly so that we can

work together to meet our collective challenges.

Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur— and the days that intervene—provide space for that work. What a shame if we left the magnificent Neilah service having cleansed our souls, as it were, but not having thought a whit about Israel’s dilemmas, about starvation and oppression around the globe, about unemployment and undereducation in the United States, or about the mistrust that continues to prevail among the various factions of our Jewish people, especially when we discuss Israel’s existential quandaries.

We need to think and act collectively if we are to make something of our private repentances. We need to recall what matters most about human wellbeing, and then we need to gather strength on these holy days for the work of meeting those crying needs.

Instead of a hill of beans, we can build a mountain of hope and redemption.

That task will take a kehillah , a community, lifting one another up.

That’s an admirable goal for our own kehillah in the days to come.

Rabbi Lester Bronstein is the vice president of the New York Board of Rabbis.

SEPT. 20– 26, 2017 | NYJLIFE.COM | 15

High Holidays After Harvey

BY BEN SALES

(JTA) — A few weeks ago, Holly Davies was getting ready to homeschool her kids and preparing the family for the High Holidays. When Hurricane Harvey hit, she helped evacuate 150 people from her neighborhood by airboat and shelter nearly 100 people in a local church.

Then came the hard part.

For the past three weeks, Davies has been leading a force of up to 300 volunteers who have mobilized to repair homes and synagogues in and around the heavily Jewish housing development of Willow Meadows. Davies has spent September coordinating teams who are clearing Sheetrock, stripping floors, preventing mold and distributing aid.

Her volunteer operation is headquartered in Beit Rambam, a Sephardic synagogue that was spared flooding, and has helped rehabilitate the homes of about 100 families. But Davies is also helping lead the effort to make sure those families have a place to pray when Rosh Hashanah begins Wednesday.

“It’s very important for the community to have their central worship place, to not feel fragmented, not only in their homes but in their community,” she said. “A lot

of people are staying with friends or other people in the community.”

As the entire Houston area recovers from Harvey, synagogues face the added difficulty of drying out their buildings days before the holiest and busiest days of the year. Three large synagogues sustained substantial damage from the flood, forcing them to improvise, relocate or make do with whichever floors, books and ritual objects remain intact.

“There was not any part of the synagogue that was immune to the flooding,” said Rabbi Brian Strauss of Beth Yeshurun, a Conservative congregation. “There was water covering the first seven rows of the sanctuary. You couldn’t even see the seats.”

Strauss said his synagogue sustained about $3 million worth of damage.

Along with cutting out floors, cabinets and Sheetrock, and disinfecting the building—the basics of flood recovery— the synagogue will have to bury nearly 1,000 holy books that were ruined in the flood. The synagogue will set up a Harvey memorial at the burial space.

United Orthodox Synagogues, another Houston congregation, had up to six feet of flooding in some places and also lost most of its prayer books. Congregation Beth Israel had damage in its sanctuary, mechanical room and offices. No Torah

A room in United Orthodox Synagogues of Houston, stripped of its furniture and floors PHOTO COURTESY OF UNITED ORTHODOX SYNAGOGUES

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Piles of ruined books from United Orthodox Synagogues of Houston; the congregation lost many of its prayer books and replenished them through donations.

PHOTO COURTESY OF UNITED ORTHODOX SYNAGOGUES

scrolls were damaged at any of the congregations, as they were in high places when the flooding began.

United Orthodox isn’t sure if the building can ever be completely repaired, while Strauss is shooting for his building to be back to normal for the High Holidays— in 2018. In the meantime, the synagogues have found makeshift solutions. United Orthodox’s 300-some families have been praying, meeting and eating in a large social hall that avoided the worst of the water.

The synagogue has also had hundreds of new prayer books donated from publishing companies and synagogues outside Houston, including 400 machzors, or High Holidays prayer books.

Beth Yeshurun has been holding bar and bat mitzvah services in a nearby high school auditorium, and otherwise has joined with Brith Shalom, a nearby Conservative synagogue that was not flooded. For the High Holidays, Beth Yeshurun will be meeting at Lakewood Church, a Houston megachurch that’s donating its space and support staff. To give the building a Jewish feel, Beth Yeshurun will be projecting photos of its artwork on the church’s walls.

“Everyone is being incredibly cooperative and patient,” said Rabbi Barry Gelman of United Orthodox Synagogues. “This is an incredibly responsive community. Despite this, we’re really looking forward to a beautiful Rosh Hashanah.”

The rabbis have handled their synagogues’ recovery while also dealing with personal crises. Both Gelman and Strauss had flooding in their houses.

Gelman, along with a few dozen Jewish families, has moved to an apartment complex near the synagogue that he now calls a “kibbutz.” Other religious families

are hosting displaced neighbors who want to stay within walking distance of their synagogues.

Houston’s Jewish community has also been buoyed by outside donations. Aside from approximately $9 million raised by the local federation, Israel pledged $1 million in aid, and the Orthodox Union and Chabad also sent money and volunteers.

A kosher barbecue food truck from Dallas drove down and has been making up to 1,000 meals a day. Seasons, a kosher supermarket chain, and Chasdei Lev, a charitable organization in New York, sent truckloads of kosher perishable items and dry goods, including clothes.

“Food is getting semi-back to normal,” said Tzivia Weiss, executive director of the Houston Kashruth Association.

Weiss said that while donations are plentiful, people are hesitant to take them because they “want to feel like people that can go to stores and buy their own clothes.”

The flood has also affected what’s usually troubling rabbis the most ahead of High Holidays—their sermons. Strauss, who was going to talk about pressures affecting teens and young adults, will instead be discussing his family’s personal experience during Harvey and how to avoid fixating on material possessions. Gelman will talk about the connection between homelessness and repentance, as well as how to respond to the flood while thinking of the future.

“I’ll talk about long-term thinking, and not relying on short-term answers to life’s difficulties,” Gelman said, describing his Rosh Hashanah sermon on the second day.

“Rosh Hashanah is the anniversary of the birthday of the world. We see this as an opportunity for our own rebirth.”

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ROSH HASHANAH

Deflection, Reflection

BY MAXINE DOVERE

There was a time, still remembered by many, when the gentlemen ushers in their High Holiday bowler hats most decorously guided congregants to designated seats. For almost half a New York block, row upon row faced the temporary bimah (stage) from where the congregation’s clergy led the services. As is true of every anniversary, it was a time of transition—of beginnings known and endings yet unwritten.

There was a Rosh Hashanah that I recall as though it were yesterday, though in fact it was a yesterday more than 30 years past. Near the middle of the congregation, in a “seat by the eastern wall,” a man and his soul engaged in prayer that went far, far beyond words.

His youngest, an unexpected joy, was a babe in arms, 6 months old, dressed in his first “pinstripes” and bowtie. The

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brown curls of his oh-so-serious 6-yearold brother, who sat wrapped under his father’s tallit (prayer shawl), peeked out from the silver-collared garment. The first-born, his princess, hovered like a guardian angel.

The image, a last memory of a holiday with family complete—of odds seemingly beaten and future assured— remains forever vibrant in my mind’s eye. A dream unfulfilled.

“Who shall live and who shall die?” asks “Unetaneh Tokef”—the piyut (prayer poem) thought to have originated in the sixth or seventh century—which is a central part of the High Holiday liturgy. “We shall ascribe holiness to this day,” it begins. “...On Rosh Hashanah it is written; on Yom Kippur it is sealed,” the prayer continues, going on to list many possible fates that

may befall the congregants. Make no assumptions, it teaches. Destiny is not in one’s own hands; even if the offered path of teshuvah, tefillah and tzedakah (penitence, prayer and righteousness) is followed, it may not avert the divine decree. “Who in their time, and who not their time?”

A year passed; the baby became a toddler and the then 7-year-old sat in his father’s seat, wearing his daddy’s tie.

The tallit was folded away and carefully placed in a bureau drawer. Being the “other adult” should not have been a 16-year-old daughter’s responsibility.

“May his memory be for a blessing,” the traditional greeting to an individual in mourning, becomes congregational during Yizkor (the memorial service).

After so many years, its words still evoke a quiet smile or perhaps a tear.

The pain of loss loses its hard edges, but never goes away.

Our family tradition was to break the fast with a shared extra-large “black and white” cookie that magically appeared as the recitation of “Neilah,” the closing prayer of Yom Kippur, concluded. Its sweetness, we hoped, would be symbolic of the character of the year ahead.

Present becomes past; the moment becomes memory. Though the sweetness remains on the tongue, children grow, becoming accomplished adults with children of their own. Their father, my husband, who survived a wartime childhood in Siberia, would have kvelled.

The shofar sounds, heralding the New Year. May we, all of us, be written for a year of peace, of heath and of joy.

Shanah Tovah!

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ROSH HASHANAH

President Donald Trump has issued few apologies and asked for many in the past year.

PHOTO BY CHIP SOMODEVILLA/ GETTY IMAGES

Apologies and Non-apologies in the Year of Our Trump 5777

You can rely on The New York Times to bring the same level of fairness, the same level of scrutiny, the same independence to our coverage of the new president and his team.”

In a fiery speech in Phoenix last month, Trump still hoped to shake out the nugget of an apology in the Times letter.

“How about this?” Trump said. “The New York Times essentially apologized after I won the election because their coverage was so bad, and it was so wrong, and they were losing so many subscribers that they practically apologized. I would say they did.”

A sorry state of affairs Becoming the most powerful man on earth has barely slaked Trump’s thirst for deference.

“Fake News is at an all time high,” he said on Twitter in June. “Where is their apology to me for all of the incorrect stories???

Michelle Cottle, writing in The Atlantic in February, compiled a partial list of the people from whom Trump and his surrogates had demanded apologies during and since the campaign. They included Sen. John McCain, the cast of Hamilton, CNN’s Jim Acosta, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Megyn Kelly and Hillary Clinton.

BY RON KAMPEAS

WASHINGTON (JTA) – There are apologies, there are non-apologies and there are apologies that never were.

Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur are approaching: We are in the season of repentance and its most apt expression, apologizing to our fellow women and men.

The Trump presidency presents special challenges to apology trackers: Donald just doesn’t do them, but he loves them when he gets them. And sometimes he insists he got them when he didn’t.

To be fair to Trump, his ambivalence, if not hostility, toward self-reproach is not unique, and certainly not among presidents. It took Bill Clinton months—until just days before Rosh Hashanah of 1998—to fully apologize for embarking on, and lying about, his affair with Monica Lewinsky. George W. Bush still blames the Iraq War on bad intelligence. Barack Obama took his time before eventually apologizing to Americans who lost their health insurance despite his repeated promises that they wouldn’t.

Clinton’s apology, at least, included a direct apology to Lewinsky for having called her a liar, and thus met the conditions for “teshuvah,” or genuine repentance, laid out by the Jewish sage Maimonides 900 years ago in his Mishneh Torah: One must seek forgiveness for sins against one’s fellows not from God, but directly

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from the wounded party. Beg forgiveness directly, Maimonides prescribed. Resolve not to repeat your transgression, and do what you can to make it up to the victim. Anything less is not a real apology.

In that regard, 5777 wasn’t a great year for Maimonidean apologies. Take a look: The failing, if not sorry, New York Times Trump very much wants to believe The New York Times apologized for its coverage of the election last year. But The Times insists it never apologized.

Trump’s hopes for an apology lie buried in a letter the newspaper posted five days after the election.

“After such an erratic and unpredictable election,” the editors wrote to readers, “there are inevitable questions: Did Donald Trump’s sheer unconventionality lead us and other news outlets to underestimate his support among American voters?”

Trump reads that sentence as a mea culpa.

“The failing @nytimes, which has made every wrong prediction about me including my big election win (apologized), is totally inept!” Trump tweeted as recently as Aug. 7.

The Times has responded by tweeting, “We stand by our coverage” and pointing to the language of the original letter: “We believe we reported on both candidates fairly during the presidential campaign.

Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski speaking in Pasadena, Calif., Jan. 7, 2012 PHOTO BY FREDERICK M. BROWN/GETTY IMAGES

“If anything, a grudging, coerced apology seems to delight him even more than a wholly voluntary one,” Cottle wrote.

Failing to extract an apology, by contrast, seems to enrage Trump. In June, New York magazine reported that Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner failed in his bid to get MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough to apologize to Trump for his show’s critical coverage of the president. The exchange culminated with the president’s attack on Scarborough’s fiancée and cohost, Mika Brzezinski, as “bleeding from the face” from a facelift.

Sorry, not sorry Trump’s best-known apology, delivered Oct. 8 between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, was a classic of the “sorry, not sorry” genre.

It came after the Access Hollywood tape showed Trump boasting about sexual assault in 2005.

ROSH HASHANAH

“I’ve said and done things I regret, and the words released today on this more-than-a-decade-old video are one of them,” Trump, then a candidate, said in his videotaped apology.

Translation: It was over a decade old, when I was a mere child of 59. Why bother with it now?

“Anyone who knows me knows these words don’t reflect who I am. I said it, I was wrong and I apologize,” he said.

Better; even Maimonides might approve. But Trump wasn’t done.

“Let’s be honest: We are living in the real world. This is nothing more than a distraction from the important issues we are facing today,” he said.

Uh-oh. Sounds like he is diminishing the significance of the thing for which he just apologized. But at least Trump didn’t say that others have done things that are far worse.

Wait—there’s this: “Hillary Clinton and her kind have run our country into the ground. I’ve said some foolish things, but there’s a big difference between the words and actions of other people,” he said. “Bill Clinton has actually abused women, and Hillary has bullied, attacked, shamed and intimidated his victims.”

Trump, moreover, did not apologize to his direct targets: the actress he was lusting over in the audio or the married friend he claimed he had hoped to seduce. Melania Trump, who was already married to Trump at the time the tape was made, said her husband apologized to her. Trump has said he did not.

The evening the tape emerged, his daughter Ivanka Trump reportedly pleaded for him to make a real apology.

He refused. She left the room in tears, according to The New York Times.

Trump recorded his apology on Oct. 8. He won the election on Nov. 8.

Atonement for the Day of Atonement There have been plenty of other apologies in the Trump era.

Jewish social justice activists were miffed when they learned that the March for Racial Justice in Washington, D.C., was scheduled for Sept. 30, which happens to be Yom Kippur. The organizers dithered for a bit, but on Aug. 16 issued a statement saying the scheduling “was a grave and hurtful oversight on our part.

It was unintentional and we are sorry for this pain as well as for the time it has taken for us to respond.

anticipated response to the Borderfree Free Shipping promotion, we are unable to deliver order [number] and had to cancel it. We apologize for this inconvenience,” read the letter sent to Israeli customers.

The pool at the Paradies Arosa hotel in Switzerland SCREENSHOT FROM PARADIES AROSA

Our mistake highlights the need for our communities to form stronger relationships.”

The date of the march will not be changed, but related events may be held on that Saturday night or the next day.

Rabbi Jill Jacobs, the executive director of T’ruah: The Rabbinic Call for Human Rights, welcomed the apology, saying the organizers “have modeled teshuvah in the past few days.”

Swiss miss A Swiss hotel owner made all the wrong kinds of headlines when she posted signs at her place urging Jews to shower before entering the pool and telling them they could only access a hotel refrigerator at set times.

Even Israel’s deputy foreign minister, Tzipi Hotovely, chimed in, saying the incident reflected the prevalence of anti-Semitism in Europe.

But the story was somewhat more

complicated. Ruth Thomann, who runs the hotel, tearfully told the JTA that she meant no offense to Jews and that she merely sought to convey information relevant only to the Jewish guests (who, she said, store their kosher food in the hotel fridge and tend to swim wearing T-shirts and other outerwear, presumably out of modesty).

“I may have selected the wrong words; the signs should have been addressed to all the guests instead of Jewish ones,” she said, adding, “My God, if I had something against Jews, I wouldn’t take them as guests!”

On Target Target apologized to Israelis when it couldn’t make good on orders after a shipping company offered a brief freeshipping promotion. The U.S. retail giant said it was overwhelmed by the orders from Aug. 18 to 20.

“Due to the much higher than

A Target store in Novato, Calif.

PHOTO COURTESY OF GETTY IMAGES

“It’s over for me” An Irish journalist, fired for writing what critics called an anti-Semitic newspaper column, apologized to those he offended—although he insisted his intentions were good.

“I am very, very sorry to them. I really mean it. I’m not rescuing anything as far as I can see; it’s over for me,” Kevin Myers said, referring to the two Jewish female BBC broadcasters who were described in his column as hard bargainers. “I am issuing an apology for no other reason than contrition of the hurt I have caused them.”

Jews, he had written in July, “are not generally noted for their insistence on selling their talent for the lowest possible price.”

Said Myers, “I said those words out of respect for their religion.”

Um, thank you?

Flag politics Also in July, a Jewish camp in Washington State apologized after flying a Palestinian flag “as a sign of friendship and acceptance” to visiting Palestinian Muslim and Christian students. Critics of the flag said it was offensive and represented a regime that still incites violence against Jews.

Supporters said welcoming Palestinian students on a peace mission was the menschy thing to do.

The critics won the debate.

“We sincerely apologize that we upset some in our CSS and larger Jewish community by introducing the Palestinian flag into our educational program,” Camp Solomon Schechter wrote in a letter to parents and supports. “Camp Solomon Schechter reiterates our unwavering support for the State of Israel as the Jewish homeland.”

The camp’s executive director and co-board president also issued a statement.

“Camp Solomon Schechter regrets raising the Palestinian flag alongside US, Canadian and Israeli flags on Thursday and Friday mornings…,” the statement said. “We neglected to foresee in such actions the serious political implications and for that lapse in judgment, we are deeply sorry.”

SEPT. 20 – 26, 2017 | NYJLIFE.COM | 21

ROSH HASHANAH

I’M ISRAELI, AND ROSH HASHANAH IS JUST NOT THE SAME IN THE U.S.

BY LIOR ZALTZMAN

NEW YORK (JTA) — Last year, in a fit of desperation and loneliness, I booked tickets for a five-day trip to Israel for Rosh Hashanah. I didn’t tell my friends I was coming—the sole purpose of my travel was to have a holiday dinner with my family.

Financially, logistically and even physically, it was an ill-advised decision, I know. But for my soul, it was the right thing to do.

I left Israel for New York in 2009.

I feel at home in my lush Brooklyn neighborhood with its beautiful brownstones, in an apartment my husband and I have filled with paintings and books. I love that the city has so much to offer as far as diverse faces and stories and religions. I love how New Yorkers refuse to meet a stranger’s gaze, but if you drop your wallet or

MetroCard on the sidewalk (as, um, I often do) they will come running after you to make sure you retrieve it.

But there are some days when I feel like moving to the U.S. was a huge mistake. These feelings are most acute on the Jewish holidays—especially on Rosh Hashanah.

Celebrating Rosh Hashanah with my family in Israel is the best. We’ve never gone to synagogue; we rarely even mention the fact that it’s the new year. We stain our hands eating juicy pomegranates; we clear our sinuses by slathering horseradish on my grandmother’s homemade gefilte fish.

For the main course we eat all kinds of treif delicacies like seafood paella and blue crabs, the preparation of which my mom has long perfected, having become fast friends with the local fishermen.

We assure my grandmother and my mother that, yes, there is enough food, and yes, the dishes are just as good as

Best wishes for a happy,healthy and sweet New Year

Congresswoman

GRACE MENG Paid for and authorized by Grace for New York 22 | NYJLIFE.COM | SEPT. 20 – 26, 2017

they were last year.

But most important, we are together, and that fills us all with giddy delight and a certain spiritual awe.

My husband, a nice American Jewish boy, has told me about his own family’s habits on the High Holidays, particularly the long services at his Kansas City synagogue. He COURTESY OF LIOR ZALTZMAN does not seem too gung ho about celebrating the new year. than that?

Sure, he’ll fast on Yom Kippur, but he When you’re an Israeli outside is happy to forgo any rituals when it Israel, it becomes increasingly hard comes to Rosh Hashanah. to take Jewish secularism for granted.

Once, when we visited his parents on Certainly I am still Israeli—but I feel the holiday, I attended synagogue with disconnected from my culture, my his mother, just to see what it was like. rituals. In America, doing Jewish things While the service was warm and filled usually means making a religious with music, it felt completely alien. It choice, and with so many diverse and reminded me of a time a few years ago open synagogues, the choices do seem when I snuck into a Midnight Mass with abundant. a few other restless Jews. Certainly I Secularism, on the other hand, could see the awe that came with such a implies a fast track to assimilation— ritual, but I felt very distinctly that this which isn’t my thing, either. You wasn’t for me. would think that in eight years in the What does it mean to be Jewish when United States, I would have found you’ve lost your faith? Most secular some solution that works for me for Israelis consider themselves Israelis the Jewish holidays. Yet I still feel first and then Jewish, according to a just as helpless and lonely whenever recent Pew study. To them, Judaism September rolls around. isn’t about religion—it is about culture, Most of my Israeli friends don’t ancestry and history. seem to have solutions, either. Many of When you are an Israeli living in them just choose to ignore the Jewish Israel, it is so easy to take your Judaism holidays or find a certain comfort in for granted. Judaism is in the language hanging out with other Israelis eating you speak every day; in a golden Star of shakshuka at a local Israeli restaurant.

David necklace; in the foods of myriad Some institutions have tried to Jewish cultures that intermingled; in introduce Israelis to synagogue culture the Friday-afternoon rush to get your on their own terms. weekend groceries before the stores None of these have felt right to me, close for Shabbat. nor has celebrating the new year at But more than anything, it’s in services, American style. So this year, family. And in my family, it means my family is doing something really Shabbat dinners where candles don’t radical for Rosh Hashanah: My parents get lit and blessings don’t get recited, and brothers are flying in from Israel, yet everyone is laughing and talking as and then we’re all heading to Chicago, roasted eggplant and matzah ball soup where my in-laws will be waiting. are passed around. After centuries of For the holiday meal, we’ve reserved a persecution, here we are sitting as a large table at a seafood restaurant, where family, strongly anchored and aware of we will most certainly delight in treif our history, but confident in our future delicacies. I suppose I have found a way together. Is there anything more Jewish to keep some traditions alive after all.

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ROSH HASHANAH

Hug a Chicken and Other Twists on Traditional High Holidays Rituals

BY BEN SALES

NEW YORK (JTA) — Picture services for the High Holidays: What likely comes to mind is a roomful of congregants sitting with heavy books in their laps listening to a rabbi sermonize or a cantor chant.

Baking pizza? Embracing a chicken under a tree?

Not so much.

But those are some of the things that Jewish clergy, educators and activists are doing to zetz up observance of the holiest days of the year.

In recent years, Jewish educators have tried to reclaim these rituals—changing and innovating them to be more engaging, understandable and relevant.

Here are several ways Jews are getting creative with the High Holidays this year.

committed.

So in 2013 he created AtoneNet, a bare-bones Tumblr where people can anonymously post the sins they would like to confess and receive forgiveness for.

While the response rate has tapered off in the four years since it launched, the past couple of weeks have seen a fresh batch of posts regarding “sins,” such as not giving enough charity or getting angry.

One post reads, “For caring more about being perceived as woke [socially aware] or the least racist than about the actual impact I have on the people of color around me.”

Or another: “For taking housemates’ food that isn’t mine without asking.”

Kalman prints out the entire site as a booklet each year and ships it to those who order it for use on Yom Kippur. He hopes the booklet allows them to atone for sins they feel are closer to their lived experience.

“A lot of people have specific regrets about the way they treated a family member in the time of illness,” said Kalman, a doctoral student in Near Eastern languages at the University of Pennsylvania. “You don’t see a recognition of that in the traditional confession.”

Yizkor for gun victims

Forgiveness is a warm chicken

If you walk into a haredi Orthodox neighborhood the day before Yom Kippur, don’t be surprised to see men swinging live chickens above their heads. The ritual, called kapparot, aims to symbolically transfer a person’s sins onto the chicken, which then is donated to the poor and slaughtered for food.

Some observant Jews, unable or unwilling to gain possession of a live chicken, now swing money over their heads which then goes to charity. Others have taken to protesting communities that still use chickens.

But at the Isabella Freedman Jewish Retreat Center in rural Connecticut, Sarah Chandler has a different response: Instead of grabbing the chicken and whipping it through the air, just give it a hug.

Chandler, who was ordained as a Hebrew priestess at the Kohenet Institute and also goes by Kohenet Shamira, will take a group to the center’s chicken coop on the Sunday before Yom Kippur and begin to recite the kapparot prayers. Then, if the chickens agree, the assembled will take them, retreat to a shaded area and individually embrace them while completing the prayers, confessing their sins or meditating.

At the end of the ritual, the worshipers will simply let the chickens walk free.

Although Chandler is a vegan, she appreciates the parts of ancient Jewish rituals that involve connecting to animals. This version of kapparot, she said, strengthens the relationships between people and animals while causing the animals no harm.

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Yizkor, the memorial service for deceased relatives, is among the best-known and -attended parts of the High Holidays service. But what to do if you live in a place where people are regularly getting killed?

That’s the challenge confronted by Tamar Manasseh, a rabbinical student and anti–gun-violence activist on Chicago’s South Side. Manasseh runs Mothers Against Senseless Killing, a group of moms that patrols a street corner in the violence-plagued neighborhood of Englewood. Given the local strife affecting the largely non-Jewish neighborhood, Manasseh felt a service focused only on relatives who passed would be inadequate.

So last year, Manasseh organized a Yom Kippur service on her street corner for the community. Along with a shofar blast and prayers, there was a reading of the names of Chicago’s gun-violence victims that year. Just reading the list, she says, took 15 minutes— and she hopes to do it again this year.

“A lot of times the funeral is closure,” she said, referencing the families of victims. “It’s not like their loved ones are spoken of after that, and they’re definitely not prayed for.”

At the Yizkor service, she said, “You get to remember. You get to pray.”

Sarah Chandler leads a twist on the kapparot ritual in which participants hug chickens rather than swinging them over their heads.

PHOTO COURTESY OF CHANDLER

“How can we include these chickens in our Jewish life?” she asks. “I want the ritual to be so embraced that people really, really believe that this chicken, and this moment looking into the chicken’s eyes, will help them be written in the Book of Life.”

The crowdsourced confession

Every year on Yom Kippur, no matter where he’s lived, David Zvi Kalman has joined other congregants at synagogue in standing through a long list of communal sins recited by the entire congregation.

The confessional prayers, known as the Viddui (Hebrew for “confession”), all begin, “For the sin we have sinned before you.…”

The laundry list of transgressions, covering everything from eating impure foods to berating a friend, is a central piece of the day’s liturgy and is repeated eight times. Worshipers are supposed to gently beat their chests at each line.

Kalman had trouble identifying with the prayers, finding the confessions to be overly general and prescriptive. They’re the sins the liturgy says you should regret, not necessarily the ones you actually

ROSH HASHANAH

A Special Request for 5778

BY RABBI JOSEPH POTASNIK

Some years ago, The New York Board of Rabbis received a special request from U.S. military officials.

They asked if we could provide Torahs for Jewish personnel serving in Kuwait and Iraq during the High Holidays. We put out an urgent appeal and immediately received four Torahs from congregations of different denominations.

Interestingly, when the Torahs arrived, I asked our staff if they could identify the denomination by simply looking at each holy scroll. Of course, it was impossible to specify because each Torah was identical on the inside while only the outside cover looked different.

It should also be noted that the middle letter of the entire Torah is “vav”—a conjunctive meaning “and,” connecting the five books that belong to our entire people.

Rosh Hashanah teaches us that we as a people must embrace diversity of thought and unity of spirit. As Rabbi Harold Schulweis wrote in his book In God’s

Mirror, “The Jewish community would not have been better off without a Heschel or a Soloveitchik, without a Kaplan or a Buber, without a Leo Baeck or a Shneur Zalman. Not all wisdom or truth is mine; not all revelation is limited to my school, to my movement, to my denomination.”

Jewish tradition tells us that the schools of Hillel and Shammai had some 310 arguments regarding Jewish practice, and yet they maintain the highest regard for one another.

My father taught me years ago that whatever Judaism I practice, I should be proud of that Judaism.

I will always remember Senator Joseph Lieberman campaigning for vice president during the intermediate days of Sukkot. A photographer snapped a picture of a Secret Service agent taking the palm branch (lulav) and citron (etrog) out of the car. That lulav symbolizes Jewish pride within us.

Sadly, in our country we have witnessed a spirit of divisiveness separating red and blue, left and right.

Compromise has become anathema to various groups who refuse to acknowledge the legitimacy of the others. It must be remembered that Rosh Hashanah is

“The Jewish community would not have been better off without a Heschel or a Soloveitchik, without a Kaplan or a Buber, without a Leo Baeck or a Shneur Zalman. Not all wisdom or truth is mine; not all revelation is limited to my school, to my movement, to my denomination.” a new year commemorating the birthday of one world and the beginning of one Jewish peoplehood. It is a reminder that we are many and one simultaneously.

A Jewish theologian said, “The most difficult commandment in the Bible is, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself ’—especially when you have a neighbor like mine.”

May this new year of 5778 be one where difference and unity reside in one people in one country.

Rabbi Joseph Potasnik is the executive vice president of the New York Board of Rabbis.

SEPT. 20 – 26, 2017 | NYJLIFE.COM | 25

ROSH HASHANAH

Healthy Apple Bread

Mini Honey Cakes

BY RACHEL PATTISON | THE NOSHER

The whole family will love this healthy whole-wheat apple bread for Rosh Hashanah. One slice is great for a quick breakfast on the go or as a delicious lunchbox treat for your kids. The bread is free of refined sugar and dairy, and is made with almond milk, coconut oil and coconut sugar.

The whole-wheat flour and rolled oats pack a good dose of fiber and provide some extra staying power before your next meal.

Ingredients • 2 cups whole-wheat or white whole-wheat flour • ½ cup oat flour 3. In a medium bowl whisk together the • 2 tsp ground cinnamon eggs, almond milk, coconut oil and • 1 ¼ tsp baking soda vanilla extract. Stir in the coconut • ½ tsp ground nutmeg sugar and whisk to combine.

• ½ tsp salt 4. Pour the wet ingredients into the • 2 eggs bowl with the dry ingredients and • ¾ cup unsweetened almond milk mix until mostly combined. Fold in • ¼ cups coconut oil, melted the chopped apples. Pour the batter and cooled into the greased loaf pan and set • 1 ½ tsp vanilla extract aside.

• ½ cup coconut sugar (can also 5. To make the streusel topping: In a substitute light-brown sugar) small bowl combine the chopped • 1 large Granny Smith apple, peeled, pecans, oats, whole-wheat flour, cored and finely chopped (about 1 ¾ coconut sugar and cinnamon. Add cups) the coconut oil and use your fingers • For the pecan-streusel topping: to create a “crumble.” Sprinkle the • ¼ cup chopped pecans streusel evenly on top of the bread • 4 Tbsp old-fashioned rolled oats and bake for 40 minutes.

• 2 Tbsp whole-wheat or white whole6. Remove the bread from the oven and wheat flour let cool completely on a wire rack.

• 2 Tbsp coconut sugar Once cooled, remove the loaf from • 1 tsp ground cinnamon the pan very carefully and slice into • 2 Tbsp coconut oil, room 12 slices (or as desired). temperature Directions 1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F and grease the inside of a bread loaf pan.

2. In a large bowl combine the whole wheat flour, oat flour, cinnamon, baking Note: To make oat flour, grind old-fashioned rolled oats in soda, nutmeg and a food processor until they resemble fine sand. salt.

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BY THE MONDAY MORNING COOKING CLUB | THE NOSHER

These bite-size cakes are actually biscuits dipped in honey syrup. They take a bit of patience to make but keep for ages, so you can make them the week before Rosh Hashanah. They are perfect as a gift or to serve for afternoon tea. This recipe was published in the Monday Morning Cooking Club’s second book, The Feast Goes On. Ingredients • 3 cups (15 ¾ oz/450 g) plain flour • 1 tsp baking soda • 2 tsp ground cinnamon • ½ tsp ground cloves • ½ tsp freshly ground nutmeg • pinch of sea salt • 1 cup (250 ml) light olive oil • ¾ cup (5 ¾ oz or 165 g) caster sugar • ¼ cup (60 ml) sweet sacramental wine or port • finely grated zest of one orange • strained juice of one orange (1/3 cup) • ¹∕₃ cup (1¾ oz or 50 g) pistachio nuts, toasted and finely chopped For the honey syrup • ½ vanilla bean, split lengthwise • 1 cup (12 oz or 350 g ) honey • ½ cup firmly packed (3 ½ oz or 100 g ) light-brown sugar • finely julienned rind and juice of 1 small lemon • 1 cinnamon stick Directions 1. Preheat the oven to 390°F (200°C).

Line 2 baking trays.

2. For the honey syrup, scrape the seeds from the vanilla bean into a saucepan. Then add the bean and the remaining ingredients. Slowly bring to a boil, reduce the heat and simmer for five minutes.

3. Sift the flour, bicarbonate of soda, spices and salt into a large bowl. In a separate bowl, whisk the oil and sugar until well combined. Then stir in the wine or port, orange zest and juice.

4. Gradually pour the oil mixture into the dry ingredients and mix to form a rough dough. Place in the bowl of an electric mixer. Using a dough hook, beat for around 5 minutes until smooth, shiny and glutinous, adding extra flour if the dough is too sticky.

5. Roll mixture into small walnut-size balls and place 3 cm (1.2 inches) apart on the prepared baking trays. Lightly flatten each ball with the back of a spoon to make a slight indentation and bake for 12 minutes or until firm.

6. Remove the vanilla bean and cinnamon stick from the warm syrup.

Pour into a shallow dish and soak the cakes in the syrup for 30 seconds on each side.

7. Using two forks, lift the cakes from the syrup and place on a wire rack positioned over a tray. Sprinkle with the pistachios and allow to stand for one hour.

The cakes will keep in an airtight container for up to two-three weeks.

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OPINION

Embracing the New Year while Recalling the Past

BY SEN. CHARLES E. SCHUMER

Each Rosh Hashanah, as I gather with my family and loved ones, I spend time reflecting on the year that has passed and spend time thinking about the Jewish practice of tikkun olam: repairing the world. This year in particular, these thoughts will be even more compelling.

Last month, cowards carrying tiki torches marched through the streets of Charlottesville and the University of Virginia, chanting racist and antiSemitic slurs. And, along the way, neo-Nazis armed with semiautomatic rifles lurked outside Congregation Beth

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Israel chanting “Sieg Heil” and “There’s the synagogue” while congregants inside the temple continued on with their Shabbat service. Even before the events in Charlottesville, we saw alltoo-frequent reports of swastikas in our neighborhoods, Jewish cemeteries vandalized and desecrated, and a wave of bomb threats to Jewish community centers and day schools.

As Hebrew Year 5778 commences, we are reminded of the struggles that the Jewish people have overcome and we are re-energized on our path to a better

future. Many of us use this time to think about our goals for the year ahead.

This year, I ask that you think about what you can do to promote the American virtues of pluralism, democracy and human rights—for Jews and non-Jews alike. I ask that you speak out and fight against injustice and intolerance when it arises. We must stand together and show those who traffic in hatred and bigotry that we will

not abide their hate but rather carry the day.

As Senate minority leader, I will continue to speak loudly and fight vigilantly against hate in the new year.

And I promise to continue working hard on behalf of all of New York’s communities.

I wish you all peace and prosperity.

L’shana tovah, best wishes and a sweet new year to you and your loved ones!

OPINION

A Good Year

BY STEPHANIE MINER

“May you be inscribed and sealed for a good year.”

That is the familiar greeting shared throughout the season of the new year. It reminds us to take care of one another, pray for blessings and embrace the hope that the fresh start of a new calendar holds for each of us.

The power of those simple words is magnified as we see our world in such darkness. With anti-Semitism rearing its ugly head once again at home and serious conflict abroad, we must pray for a good year ahead—for ourselves, our families and those across the globe.

Many cannot look ahead to the new year with such alacrity; rather, countless people look forward with despair. Millions across the globe live in countries that do not want them.

These men, women and children have no homeland. Violence, oppression

and fear are part of their lives. For many, their destiny is preordained by regimes of blind hate and uncontrolled rage.

During a recent trip to Israel along with other mayors and the American Jewish Committee, I visited sites that had been torn apart by years of war. But I learned of the spirit of Israel’s people through this: They persevered in hopes of better times ahead. They know that through their faith in God and their belief in their country, progress is possible and justice is within reach.

Israel’s Declaration of Establishment appeals to Jews around

the world to support the new state and the immigration of millions of Jews to a new land of freedom.

That history of immigration has, for the past 69 years of statehood, brought together a diverse nation united by its commitment to building a better life. The declaration boldly declares that Israel will be a home for exiles and a bastion for Jewish immigration, but also will ensure the equality of rights for everyone regardless of race or sex; it guarantees the freedom of worship and culture.

This is the hope that is enshrined in the words of Israel’s national anthem, which proudly calls for Israelis “to be a

free people in our land.”

Israel has been a historic home for refugees seeking a better life. Its commitment to displaced people— the Exiles separated across the globe during the Diaspora—is a lesson the United States should remember.

American cities, like Syracuse, serve as beacons of hope across the world.

We see Dreamers from Central and South America, the Rohingya escaping genocide in Myanmar, Sudan’s Lost Boys and freedom-seekers from all corners of the earth. In Syracuse, we are especially proud to be a sanctuary city because in providing shelter to those in the greatest need, we honor those who came before us seeking a new home, often with nothing and in the face of adversity.

This belief in delivering the promised land to those who wander in the deserts of their lives is one I hope we can inscribe and seal again in the New Year: a respite for those seeking a better life to live their values across the world. Let us, in this new year, continue to be that light for everyone.

Stephanie Miner is the mayor of the city of Syracuse.

SEPT. 20 – 26, 2017 | NYJLIFE.COM | 29

OPINION

Wishing our friends and their families a very happy and sweet New Year Officers of The New York Board of Rabbis 2016-2018 President:

A Strong Connection with Israel

Rabbi Gideon Shloush

Vice President: Rabbi Lester B. Bronstein, Rabbi Elliot Cosgrove, Rabbi Elie Weinstock Treasurers:

Rabbi Ammiel Hirsch, Rabbi Elie Abadie, M.D., Rabbi Jeremy Wiederhorn

Re Recording Secretaries: Rabbi Deborah K. Bravo, Rabbi Howard A. Stecker Financial Secretaries: Rabbi Susie Heneson Moskowitz, Rabbi Rachel Ain Corresponding Secretaries: Rabbi Moses A. Birnbaum, Rabbi Jason Herman

Staff of the New York Board of Rabbis Executive Vice President:

Rabbi Joseph Potasnik

Program Director:

Rabbi Diana S. Gerson

Counsel:

Alan Abramson, Elyse A. Marcus

Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr. praying at the Western Wall PHOTO COURTESY OF THE BRONX BOROUGH PRESIDENT’S OFFICE

BY RUBEN DIAZ JR.

I want to wish the Jewish community of the Bronx, New York City, New York State and across the world a happy Rosh Hashanah and a wonderful beginning to the new year.

Part of my job entails bridging communities so that we may learn from one another despite what seem like various differences. Throughout my career, first in the New York State Assembly and now as Bronx borough president, I have been committed to bringing the Jewish community and the Latino community closer together both at home and abroad.

At one point, more Jews lived in the Bronx than in Israel, and our Jewish community remains vibrant and strong.

Across the entire city, Jews and Latinos are already working hand in hand on the issues that unite us, be they economic development, housing, education or many others.

The Jewish and Latino communities have a lot more in common than one would think. While I was in Israel, I was communicating with people in Spanish.

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What other Latinos need to understand is that we have this strong connection with the people of Israel, with the Jewish community.

In fact, in Israel there are schools named after all the Latin American countries that voted at the U.N. for the state of Israel. In addition, Israel is working with many Latin American countries on improving water conditions and vegetation issues that they face.

As borough president, I want to remind my friends in both communities that the doors at Borough Hall are always open to you. I will continue to work to join the Latino and Jewish communities in new bonds of strength, and I will help create new friendships during difficult times.

And, once again, I wish my Jewish friends all over the world a happy Rosh Hashanah and a sweet beginning to their new year.

Ruben Diaz Jr. is the Bronx borough president.

The Retail, Wholesale & Department Store Union UFCW Wishing all of our friends the happiest of holidays.

"Justice, Justice shalt thou pursue."

[Deut. 16:20]

Stuart Appelbaum President

Jack Wurm Secretary-Treasurer

SEPT. 20 – 26, 2017 | NYJLIFE.COM | 31

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