October 4 Edition of New York Jewish Life

Shabbos Shorts: Kol Nidre at Greenpoint Synagogue

“Torah Trumps Hate” Marches in NYC

On the Trail: NYJL Checks in with Jack Martins, Candidate for Nassau C.E.

VOL. 1, NO. 27 | OCTOBER 4–10, 2017 | NEWS THAT MATTERS TO JEWISH COMMUNITIES IN THE NEW YORK CITY METROPOLITAN AREA | NYJLIFE.COM | FREE

5778:

NYJL’S FINAL HIGH HOLIDAY ISSUE

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

A New Year—Filled with Promise, Responsibility and Sadness A new year is before us, filled with promise and possibility. The weather is finally cooler, new school schedules are more routine, and there are now months of mostly uninterrupted time to get things done.

But events—national and local—have also presented this year as one of immediate, serious responsibility and obligation.

Responding to national disasters, marching for justice and, just overnight Sunday, a horrific mass shooting in Las Vegas all demand our immediate attention.

First and right away, our prayers are with those who were slaughtered in Sunday night’s mass shooting in Las Vegas. The scope of this carnage grew from 20 originally reported killed to some 59, with more than 500 wounded.

A concert turned into the worst mass shooting in modern American history.

Those out enjoying music with friends and family were, in an instant, killed or injured in a barrage of gunfire. The scale and scope of this tragedy is too much to comprehend right now.

Too little is currently known about this horrific attack to draw conclusions or discuss policy, but surely we will again be having a discussion on responsible gun ownership and gun control. We will also be discussing mental health and the broader sickness in our society concerning violence.

A massive hurricane has leveled Puerto Rico, creating a humanitarian crisis. Houston will be recovering

BUSINESS Michael Tobman PUBLISHER

Andrew Holt SENIOR PUBLICATION ADVISOR

EDITORIAL Maxine Dovere NYC BUREAU CHIEF

and rebuilding for a long time after torrential rains and flooding. The Virgin Islands have essentially been blown over, as have the Florida Keys. The people impacted are all Americans in America, and there should be no delay in providing as much aid as is needed.

In Puerto Rico, this will likely be a “ground up” rebuilding of roads, water and sanitation, healthcare, energy delivery and communications.

The confrontation, nastiness and thinly veiled racism that have been heaped on Puerto Rico demean and diminish our national discourse. The only response to the cries for help from our island commonwealth should be, “We’re on our way.” I’m sure that New York’s diverse Jewish communities are supporting this vital effort.

Social-media feeds were filled with pictures from this past Sunday’s #TorahTrumpsHate march. Families and neighbors gathered on the day after Yom Kippur to extol Torah values in the face of increasingly confrontational, sometimes toxic, public discussions around social justice, racism, sexism and equity. As Rabbi Levi Welton once said to me over breakfast, “Nothing bad has ever come from Kiddush HaShem;

we could all use more of it all of the time.”

Activism grounded in faith, whether progressive or conservative, is a proud aspect of American politics. In matters of civil rights, education, social justice and gender equity, American Jewry has always been active. As such, it was troubling that the March for Racial Justice in Washington—in which Sunday’s march should have been included—was scheduled for Shabbos, which was also Yom Kippur. That scheduling offense was not accidental: Lately, progressive politics and activism have taken a decidedly anti-Israel and anti-Semitic tone, which is a larger conversation this column and paper discuss often.

New years are new beginnings.

It’s appropriate and healthy to make resolutions; it’s important to try for positive change. As we start in on 5778, we are again new but, as is too often the case, we are also deeply saddened.

Michael Tobman, Publisher

Lucy Cohen Blatter Jenny Powers Tammy Mark CONTRIBUTORS

Marjorie Lipsky COPY EDITOR

LETTER7 DESIGN

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

CANDLE LIGHTING

Friday, Oct. 6 Candles: 6:11 p.m.

Shabbat Ends: 7:08 p.m.

Friday, Oct. 13 Candles: 6:00 p.m.

Shabbat Ends: 6:57 p.m.

OCT. 4 – 10, 2017 | NYJLIFE.COM | 3

SCHUMER IN THE NEWS

Schumer: Letter of Law Allows for Safety-Grade System on Buses—Anything Less Spells F-A-I-L Following the deadly Dahlia bus crash in Queens, U.S. Sen. Charles E. Schumer on Sunday urged that the U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT), in concert with the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA), fully implement an alreadypassed-into-law bus safety rating system and develop letter grades comparable to the one New York City restaurants follow.

“On the heels of the terrible Dahlia crash and new information that shows there are other bad actors out on the streets, some worse than Dahlia, your gut reaction is to ask what more can be done to prevent these kinds of crashes and improve the culture of safety,” said Schumer. “But in this case, we have a law I passed in 2012 that can not only help solve this problem, but can better inform the public, too. That is why I am asking the federal Department of Transportation to hit the gas on a federal letter-grade system for private bus companies. The companies that spend money to ensure a culture of safety will rise to the top, and the bad actors who disregard the value of safety and human life will fail to survive unless they improve. We need a federal letter-grade system for bus safety that mirrors the one we have for New York City restaurants because the public is in the dark on just who is violating the law and how dangerous their charter may be.”

Schumer said that in many cases, the bus safety warning signs are there, but the public doesn’t know about the violations, and in some cases, people are boarding potential disasters waiting to happen. In 2012, Congress passed legislation requiring bus operators to post their safety records on buses and at ticket counters. Schumer said this legislation gives the USDOT all the authority it needs to develop and implement a letter-grade system for all buses.

Schumer said it is shocking that, despite accumulating 11 unsafe

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violations, the Dahlia bus company was allowed to continue its operation, putting passengers and others on the road at risk. The private charter bus operated by Dahlia Travel collided with a New York City MTA bus on September 18 in Flushing, Queens, killing three people and injuring 16 others. The Dahlia bus sped across an intersection at 58 miles per hour— double the street’s speed limit—hitting the MTA bus as it completed a turn onto Northern Boulevard. The momentum sent the MTA bus through the side of a fast-food restaurant, igniting a small fire. The victims of the crash include Henry Wdowiak, 68, a pedestrian; Gregory Liljefors, 55, a passenger on the city bus; and Richard D. Mong, the Dahlia bus driver.

Numerous violations over the past few years have raised serious questions about Dahlia and the safety oversight of the charter bus industry. For instance, Dahlia hired Mong despite a criminal record. Mong was fired from the MTA in 2015 after hitting two cars with his sedan on Interstate 95. He was later convicted of driving under the influence and evading arrest. Last year, a Dahliaowned bus flipped over in snowy weather on its way to Connecticut and injured 30 people. According to the

DOT, Dahlia buses have received a total of 11 violations over the course of 24 months.

According to the DOT, a variety of discount bus companies have accumulated violations over the past 24 months. For instance, Eastern Coach has 25 violations, Eagle Bus has 68 violations, Golden Horse has 11 violations, Fox Bus has 67 violations, Rockledge Bus has 43 violations and Lily Travel has 17 violations, among others.

Schumer also pointed to a New York State Senate report released last week showing that nearly half of the private bus charter companies in New York City had unsafe driving violations.

The report, titled “Violations by the Busload,” found that 121 out of 249 private bus companies incurred federal violations. The report showed that there are companies worse than the Dahlia Group on the streets of New York right now.

Schumer on Sunday said he already passed a bill to help inform the public about these companies and make the roads safer. The 2012 bill mandates that the FMCSA create clear and understandable safety ratings to be posted on buses and at terminals, and requires ticket sellers and bus

companies to make their full safety record and history easily accessible at the point of sale. Schumer’s push for disclosing charter and intercity bussafety records was included in the Transportation bill that also contained numerous provisions that allow federal regulators to crack down on rogue operators and truly raise the bar for safety in the industry.

Specifically, the legislation requires safety performance ratings to be displayed at the point of purchase for bus tickets, the departure terminal and on each bus. By providing a clear rating in the form of a letter-grade system, Schumer has made the case that passengers would be better informed about the safety of the buses before they purchase tickets and would be able to make a more-informed decision as to which carrier to use. The system would also reward companies with strong safety records and serve as an incentive for companies to improve their safety records.

Despite being signed into law, Schumer said that an adequate safetyperformance rating system has not yet been implemented. Currently, customers have to navigate a difficult website and spend time tracking down the identification number for their potential bus carrier on their own in order to locate the safety information.

Schumer has a long record of fighting to improve the safety of the bus industry. In 2011, Schumer successfully pressured the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) to launch an industrywide investigation into the safety regime of the tour-bus industry.

Schumer also urged the DOT to speed up its efforts to remove unsafe buses and unsafe drivers from the road, and crack down on the tour-bus industry by implementing tough safety standards.

Schumer continues to call for the USDOT to approve a federal rule that would require electronic speed limiters in trucks and buses.

OCT. 4 – 10, 2017 | NYJLIFE.COM | 5

ISRAEL & THE WORLD

Barcelona Chaos Had This Israeli Reporter-TurnedLawmaker Dodging Bullets

BY CNAAN LIPHSHIZ

(JTA) — Seeing armed police in riot gear outside a school in Barcelona, the Israeli lawmaker Ksenia Svetlova felt the instincts kick in from her days as a Middle East reporter for Russian-language media.

“One look was enough to see these officers were preparing for something bad,” said Svetlova, a Zionist Union lawmaker who was in the Catalan capital Sunday at the invitation of the local government as part of a team of international observers monitoring voting in a controversial referendum on independence.

Svetlova, who immigrated to Israel from her native Moscow in 1991 when she was 14, was on her way to the relative safety of a dark doorway when police shot rubber bullets into the crowd of people who had gathered to vote at the school on Sunday afternoon.

Spain’s top court deemed the vote illegal, and authorities moved to suppress it with unusual force.

“What I saw was shocking,” she recalled in an interview Monday with the JTA about one of the many confrontations that occurred Sunday across Catalonia between voters and police. “Officers of the law in a European Union member state were beating with batons and firing on people who were not even demonstrating but simply trying to exercise a democratic right.”

Svetlova viewed the clashes, in which 800 people were injured, as stark reminders not only of the decades-long aspiration for sovereignty in Catalonia—a region of Spain with distinct traditions and its own language—but also of what’s at stake for the European Union as its leaders pursue an

unpopular federalist agenda amid growing resentment and nationalism.

The clashes occurred two weeks after the president of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, vowed greater unity in legislation, finance and security in the bloc despite the United Kingdom’s 2016 vote to leave the union. The Catalan referendum underlined how nationalism threatens not only inter-European federalism but also the integrity of the EU’s members.

This is especially true in Spain, not only among Catalan separatists but also among Basques and residents of the northern region of Galicia. In Belgium, the seat of the European Union, the proindependence New Flemish Alliance has become a major powerbroker along with the separatist Vlaams Belang party.

In the United Kingdom, the Scottish National Party plans to hold a second referendum on independence following a 2014 vote in which the plan did not receive a majority. In Italy, the rising nationalist right has been promoting secession for decades.

These phenomena, coupled with huge advances in the popularity of anti-EU nationalist politicians in the Netherlands and France—where Marine Le Pen of the National Front party won a historic 34 percent of the presidential vote—have raised the stakes for European governments. The trends may have contributed to the Spanish government’s decision to crack down on polling in a referendum deemed illegal.

Spain, emerging from a deep recession, has economic reasons to fear Catalan secession. The

Ksenia Svetlova standing in front of a polling station in Barcelona, Oct. 1, 2017 PHOTO COURTESY OF SVETLOVA

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region’s 7.5 million inhabitants account for only 16 percent of Spain’s population, but their Mediterranean region supplies 20 percent of the kingdom’s gross domestic product with its huge international seaports and airports and booming tourism industry.

But by “beating old women at polling stations, it seems to me the Spanish government not only risked eroding democratic principles, but quite simply shot itself in the foot,” Svetlova said. From talks with Catalan leaders and ordinary people, “I learned that the violence only hardened the resolve of those seeking independence and helped them make the case to those who are still undecided.”

When it comes to the future of the effort to achieve statehood for Catalonia, “the Oct. 1 referendum was a watershed moment,” she said.

Some 90 percent of the 2.6 million Catalans who voted supported independence, according to the president of Catalonia’s regional government, Carles Puigdemont. He also said Catalonia now “has the right” to independence and that his government will sue Spain in European courts for alleged violation of human rights.

The independence issue divides Catalonia’s Jews—there are about 15,000 of them, constituting a third of Spain’s Jewish population. Their communal representatives opted for neutrality, Victor Sorenssen, the leader of Barcelona’s Jewish community, told the JTA. On Facebook, a small group calling itself Jews for Independence declared independence a basic right guaranteed in Judaism to all. Another group calling itself Jews of Catalonia asserted in statements that its members are grateful and proud to be Spanish citizens and that rebelling against a tolerant government was against Jewish tradition.

Ultimately, however, “the community’s institutions are cultural and religious,” Sorenssen said. “This is a political matter that doesn’t directly concern Judaism, so the community has no position on it as such.”

Svetlova, the Knesset member, is also mum on where she stands when it comes to Catalan independence—perhaps out of the realization that declarations by Israeli officials risk harming Israel’s relations both with Spain and potentially a future Catalan independent state.

But she is outspoken against what she calls the hypocrisy exposed in the referendum. Svetlova scoffs at the claim by Spanish authorities that allowing the referendum to take place would have compromised democratic principles because Spain’s top court, a guardian of its democracy, deemed it illegal.

“There have been 57 referenda on independence in recent decades in Europe, including in the Baltic states and the former Yugoslavia, and in many of those votes, which led to the birth of independent nations, the parent country opposed the referendum,” she noted. “So that doesn’t mean much.”

As an Israeli, though, seeing “unrestrained use of force against peaceful citizens” reminded her how Spain often condemns Israel’s “disproportionate use of force” against Palestinians.

“I think that in Barcelona, Spain lost the moral right to make these claims,” Svetlova said.

OCT. 4 – 10, 2017 | NYJLIFE.COM | 7

NEW YORK & NATIONAL

Five Key Takeaways from a New Survey about Modern Orthodox Jews

BY BEN SALES

NEW YORK (JTA) — The Orthodox Jewish world is even more fragmented than you think.

That’s the key takeaway from a study published Thursday of Modern Orthodox Jews in the United States, a group that adheres to traditional Jewish law while engaging with the secular world.

Some of them think women should be rabbis and others think they shouldn’t be synagogue presidents. Some say God controls their day-to-day lives, while others doubt God wrote the Torah.

Some oppose West Bank settlements; others the two-state solution. And they’re about evenly split between Republicans and Democrats.

Although Nishma Research, the Jewish polling firm that conducted the survey, did not provide an explicit definition of Modern Orthodoxy, the term tends to indicate Orthodox Jews who attempt to synthesize Orthodox observance with modernity, and more often than not have connections with Yeshiva University and its related institutions. Respondents were reached through synagogues “primarily” associated with the Rabbinical Council of America, the largest Modern Orthodox rabbinic organization.

(Haredi Orthodox Jews, who tend to be more insular and less likely to engage in secular education or culture, were excluded from the survey. The survey, citing a 2013 Pew Research Center study, says that among the country’s 500,000 Orthodox Jews, 220,000 identify as “Modern” in one way or another.)

Nishma conducted the survey of nearly 4,000 Modern Orthodox Jews in June. It divided the respondents into five subgroups according to the respondents’ self-definition, from left

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Children sitting at the Park East Synagogue, a Modern Orthodox congregation in New York City, March 3, 2017 PHOTO BY DREW ANGERER/GETTY IMAGES

to right: Open Orthodox (12 percent), Liberal Modern Orthodox (22), ( just plain) Modern Orthodox (41), Centrist Orthodox (14) and Right-Centrist Orthodox (11). The survey has a 1.7 percent margin of error.

Despite the differences among Modern Orthodox Jews, there are some points of commonality: The vast majority believe in God, send their kids to Jewish day schools and make incomes well above the national average.

Here are five key takeaways from the survey: More than 90 percent keep kosher and Shabbat.

Unsurprisingly, Modern Orthodox Jews observe Jewish ritual at high rates. More than 90 percent observe the sometimes Byzantine rules of kashrut and Shabbat, with nearly twothirds saying they observe both strictly.

Nearly three-quarters of men put on tefillin all or most days, and four-fifths of married couples observe the Jewish laws surrounding sexual relations and

menstruation.

Nearly all men, and most women, attend synagogue almost every Saturday morning. Moreover, the study found that 40 percent of respondents became more observant over the past decade, while only 23 percent became less observant.

Modern Orthodox Jews also have the traditionalist beliefs to match their practices. Ninety percent either believe fully or tend to believe that God created the world, and more than three-quarters believe God intervenes in everyday life. Large majorities also believe God authored the Torah and the Jewish Oral Law, an expansive set of rabbinic writings and dictates that includes the Talmud.

But adherence to traditionalist beliefs and observance decline on the liberal side of the spectrum. Only 58 percent of Open Orthodox respondents believe God wrote the Torah, and less than half of Open Orthodox men regularly put on tefillin. And there’s a widening

gulf between the left and the right: The study found Open and Liberal Modern Orthodox Jews tended to become less observant over the past decade, while centrists and those on the right increased their observance.

They make almost three times the median U.S. household income.

Modern Orthodox Jews are affluent. The study found that the group had a median household income of $158,000, nearly triple the American median of $59,000 in 2016.

The highest-earning were the Open Orthodox, at $185,000.

A large portion of the income is dedicated to day school tuition, which in some places can top $40,000 per child per year. The survey found that 83 percent of Modern Orthodox parents send their kids to Orthodox day school; 90 percent of respondents called the cost of tuition a “serious problem.”

The group is also highly educated.

More than 90 percent attained a bachelor’s degree, and more than 60 percent have a postgraduate or professional degree. And nearly onefifth attended Yeshiva University, the flagship academic institution of Modern Orthodoxy.

And while Orthodox Jews may have gotten a reputation recently for political conservatism—another study found a majority supports President Donald Trump—this study found that Modern Orthodox Jews are evenly split, 52-48, between Republican and Democrat. The vast majority of nonOrthodox American Jews, by contrast, vote Democrat, and 71 percent of all Jews voted for Hillary Clinton last year, while the Orthodox community leaned toward Trump.

Most want an expanded role for women in the clergy.

Perhaps no issue has roiled the Modern Orthodox world in recent years as much as the debate over whether women can serve as clergy. A liberal Modern Orthodox seminary, Yeshivat Maharat, began ordaining women in 2009, and five Orthodox synagogues have hired its graduates as clergy.

(Nearly all eschew the title “rabbi” and are referred to by other designations.)

But there’s been a backlash: In February, the Orthodox Union issued a ruling barring women from holding a title such as “rabbi,” or even from serving without title in a role in which she would be performing “common” clergy functions such as ruling on legal matters, officiating at lifecycle events,

delivering sermons from the pulpit during services, leading services and serving as a synagogue’s primary authority. The same ruling urged an expanded role for women as teachers and pastoral counselors, and as lay leaders and professionals.

According to the survey, a majority of Modern Orthodox Jews—53 percent—either fully or somewhat agree that women should have “expanded roles in the clergy.” More than one-third either fully or somewhat support a woman’s holding a position with “rabbinic authority.” Sixty percent of Open Orthodox respondents strongly supported women clergy, while only 14 percent of the rest of the Modern Orthodox did.

The traditionalist segment of the community believes in a much more limited public role for women. Only 29 percent of Right-Centrist Modern Orthodox Jews believe women should serve as synagogue presidents. Only 6 percent support an expanded clergy role for women, and only 4 percent among the Centrist Orthodox and right-leaning Centrists support some type of title signifying a woman’s “rabbinic authority.”

Most support admitting gay synagogue members.

The survey did not ask about attitudes regarding same-sex marriage or other LGBT issues. But it did note growing acceptance of gay people in the Modern Orthodox world. Fifty-eight percent of respondents supported synagogues’ accepting gay people as members, with 12 percent opposed and the rest unsure.

One-third of respondents said their attitudes toward sexuality have changed in recent years. An open-ended follow-up question found that a plurality cited increasing acceptance of gay people and “more openness in general.”

Young Modern Orthodox Jews are less attached to Israel than their elders.

Modern Orthodox Jews form the core of the religious Zionist settlement movement in Israel, and their counterparts in the United States tend to have right-wing views on Israel. But the younger generation in the United States is less committed to the Jewish state, according to the survey.

Overall, more than three-quarters of respondents strongly support a unified Jerusalem (presumably under Israeli control), and a majority strongly support West Bank settlement building. Only 17 percent strongly support even considering a negotiated twostate solution, which under most models would entail a withdrawal from much of the West Bank. By contrast, the Pew study of American Jews found that only 17 percent overall feel settlements help Israel’s security, and 60 percent are optimistic about the chances for Israeli-Palestinian peace.

But on the Modern Orthodox front, this study found that younger Modern Orthodox Jews are less attached to Israel than their parents. While 87 percent of those over 55 say their emotional connection to Israel is very important, the number drops to 65 percent for those aged 18 to 34. In the younger group, only 43 percent feel it’s important to be personally active in support of Israel.

Support for Families of Fallen Druze Israeli Police

BY STAFF

Letter of thanks from families read aloud at Clifton Jewish Center at event attended

by Israeli diplomat and police attaché CLIFTON, NJ — On Tuesday evening, the Clifton Jewish Center and Rabbi Bob Mark hosted the deputy consul general of Israel to New York, Amir Sagie, and Israel national police attaché to the United States and Canada, (L-R) Eric Mark, Deputy Consul General Amir Sagie, Commander Yitzhak Almog Commander Yitzhak Almog, and Rabbi Bob Mark as the synagogue marked its PHOTOS BY HOWARD J. COHN community’s fundraising drive to compensate the three families of Druze police sent by the two families whose sons were killed in officers who have been hurt or killed in recent terror the attack on the Temple Mount: officers Haiel Stawi, attacks in Israel.

30; and Kamil Shnaan, 22. In the letter, the families Rabbi Mark said that he was determined to help thanked the Clifton Jewish Center for their support, the families after learning about the sacrifice of non- wished them a Shana Tova, and said that “Israel is Jewish, in particular Druze, officers in defending the the Jewish national home, and the Druze people Old City of Jerusalem, and that he hoped his small will continue to protect it. Your love shows that our community’s efforts would serve as an example to sacrifice is not in vain. We will continue to march other Jewish communities in the country. together in pursuit of life.”

Rabbi Mark’s son, Eric Mark, read aloud a message Sagie praised the community, saying, “I am honored to be here with this amazing community, under the leadership of Rabbi Mark. This bond between American Jewry and Israel is extremely deep, and we are thankful for our relationship as one people. The fact that this community has decided to take a stand, and also support those who tie their fate in with our people, is even more praiseworthy.”

Almog accepted the donation with thanks, saying that “our resistance and resilience is stronger than the attacks we face.” He brought messages of thanks from police commanders in Israel, saying they had all heard of the fundraising efforts.

Rabbi Mark concluded the event with a prayer for the Israeli security services, and announced that he and his son would be traveling to the Druze villages and towns in northern Israel in December in order to deliver additional funds raised between now and their visit. He expressed hope that other communities would join in their Commander Yitzhak Almog, Rabbi Bob Mark and Deputy efforts.

Consul General Amir Sagie

OCT. 4 – 10, 2017 | NYJLIFE.COM | 9

NEW YORK & NATIONAL

Shabbos Shorts: Old but Gold Exclusive

BY AARON SHORT

A few minutes before sundown president, Naomi Wolfensohn, who led on the holiest night of the year in a fundraising campaign to renovate the the Jewish calendar, a stream of building.

The temple is Orthodox but congregants in dark clothes walked briskly past commuters and happy- welcomes Jews of all denominations. hour revelers to a small shul on a quiet Services are largely in Hebrew, save for Appelbaum’s explanatory interjections, block in Greenpoint.

Located on Noble Street since 1886, and a waist-high barrier runs along the aptly named Greenpoint Shul claims the edge of an aisle of the sanctuary to be Brooklyn’s oldest continuously separating men and women. Only men read from the Torah and approach the running congregation.

At one point a century ago, five bimah, but women participate in the synagogues thrived in the heavily Polish service by opening the ark, reciting neighborhood, including two in an psalms and carrying Torahs through adjoined complex on Noble Street. Four their section.

Keeping everyone comfortable is a have closed and the Greenpoint Shul delicate balance, but nearly shuttered Appelbaum’s charm its doors a decade and his cantor’s ago as it struggled to hold a regular On Friday it was nearly brisk readings allow minyan. overflowing with 150 c o n g r e g a n t s to reflect while keeping On Friday it was people crammed in the pace moving. nearly overflowing And the two-story with 150 people first-floor aisles and the crammed in first- balcony. Many of them sanctuary is a jewel.

Worshipers sit in floor aisles and were young couples smooth wooden the balcony. Many with newborns and pews that are soft to of them were the touch, and face young couples older children who the bimah, which is with newborns ran freely through surrounded by four and older children brass candelabra who ran freely the aisles before through the aisles scampering downstairs on wooden posts.

At ni ght, the before scampering bounce downstairs for a for a youth service held l i g h t s off the creamyouth service held in in the basement. colored interior, the basement. emblazoning stained “This is the most glass windows set in crowded I’ve ever seen it here,” one longtime congregant geometric patterns of triangles.

Over the summer, the congregation said.

It helped, of course, that Kol Nidre, replaced the front doors, restored the service the night before Yom Kippur, windows and the back wall facing fell on Shabbat. And it certainly helps Noble Street, and fixed the wroughtthat the synagogue does not charge a iron fence at its entrance.

The next step is patching up the fee for the services unlike other shuls, where a High Holiday package can cost roof and overhauling the building next door—itself home to a former shul that several hundred dollars.

But much of the credit for the closed decades ago—which has since Greenpoint Shul’s vitality belongs to its been condemned by the city. The plan energetic rabbi, Maurice Appelbaum, is to convert the property to a preschool who took over in 2009, and its with apartments, including a residence

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for the rabbi, on the floors above.

It’s a multimillion-dollar job, and Wolfensohn gently reminded the congregation an hour into the service to chip in by buying a membership.

“To cover our costs it would take 400 individual memberships or 250 family memberships,” she told congregants, while pointing out the large number of children and her hope to expand next door in the coming years.

The service itself started at about 6:40 pm and ran two and a half hours, thanks to a number of lengthy prayers, or amidahs, and special recitations on the eve of atonement.

The typical Orthodox Union prayerbook used on Shabbat was packed away, and scores of light-brown bound “High Holiday” siddurs were piled high next to a basket of kippot on a bookshelf at the entrance.

Appelbaum’s voice boomed throughout the service, projecting for those seated in the back rows and deep in the balcony. But the congregation prayed in near silence during the amidahs. The only sound I could discern came from a small boy, who stood in an aisle next to me softly beating his chest when he reached a passage asking God to forgive the congregation’s transgressions from the past year.

At the end of the service, Appelbaum wished everyone an easy fast and announced that congregants must introduce themselves before leaving, since he worried he didn’t remember everyone’s name. Then he hustled through the sanctuary and planted himself at the entrance as attendees slowly trickled into the warm September night.

Deport Ex-Nazi Guard, NY Congress Members Urge Rex Tillerson (JTA) — The entire New York congressional delegation has sent a letter to Secretary of State Rex Tillerson urging him to deport a former Nazi concentration camp guard.

Jakiw Palij, 92, of Queens, was a guard at the Trawniki concentration camp in Nazi-occupied Poland in 1943.

The 29 members of Congress representing New York—Democrats and Republicans—signed the letter calling for his deportation, the New York Daily News reported. In August, 21 members of New York’s House delegation wrote a similar letter to Tillerson.

Palij, who has lived in the United States as a war refugee since 1949, has claimed that he was forced into working as a guard and never actually killed anyone. His U.S. citizenship was revoked 13 years ago after a federal judge ruled that he lied on his application for immigration, but Poland, Germany and Ukraine all declined to take him.

“Removing Mr. Palij from American soil will send a message not only to the citizens of New York, but to the entire world,” the letter said. “It has been 13 years since Mr. Palij lost his right to remain here, and it has taken far too long for these court orders to be carried out.”

NEW YORK & NATIONAL

Eli Rowe’s team of 12 delivered supplies to the San Juan Chabad, as well as to vulnerable areas throughout Puerto Rico’s capital, Sept. 25, 2017.

PHOTO COURTESY OF ROWE

Puerto Rico’s Jews Turn to Helping Neighbors Ravaged

by Hurricane Maria

BY BEN SALES

(JTA) — After he managed to bribe three van drivers to load their vehicles with aid supplies and drive him and his crew from the San Juan airport, Eli Rowe felt his humanitarian mission was off to a good start.

Gas was scarce in Puerto Rico, but now all the food, medicine and hygienic supplies he had flown over from the mainland were making it into the Caribbean island’s capital.

Then he laid eyes on the city. It was devastated.

“We saw sheer destruction everywhere,” said Rowe, the CEO of Jet911, a service that arranges emergency medical flights. “Roofs were off; buildings were destroyed; houses were destroyed; there was flooding in the middle of the street; stores were abandoned.”

Rowe’s crew of 12 paramedics and emergency medical technicians was one of a few Jewish aid missions trying to help Puerto Rico begin recovering from the impact of Hurricane Maria, which hit the island directly on Sept. 20. The storm created what aid workers and residents describe as a post-apocalyptic

scenario: Power is out for much of the island, cellphone service is hard to find, gas is even more scarce and food supplies are dwindling. Roads are crumbling. Hospitals are on the brink.

On Sept. 28, President Donald Trump waived a law called the Jones Act, allowing international aid shipments to offload on the island. FEMA has more than 600 workers on the island, a U.S. territory with 3.4 million residents.

Puerto Rico’s Jewish community of 1,500, living mostly in San Juan, has largely been spared the worst of the damage, says Diego Mendelbaum, community director at the San Juan Jewish Community Center, which shares space with a Conservative synagogue. The city is also home to a Reform synagogue and a Chabad.

The JCC’s fence and two of its gates were knocked down and its roof sustained damage, but it fared much better than synagogues in Houston, which were ruined by Hurricane Harvey. Even so, the synagogue canceled services on the first day of Rosh Hashanah,

when the storm hit.

Mendelbaum said the Jews’ homes—like those of their San Juan neighbors—avoided destruction because their buildings are built with concrete and other reinforced materials. But the community is still suffering, he said, from the same lack of power, fuel and infrastructure as the entire island. Mendelbaum said it could take 14 hours to get gas and six hours waiting in “eternal lines” to buy food at one of the few functioning supermarkets.

“Everyone has difficult problems here,” he said.

“There’s other people whose buildings don’t have a power generator, or they did have a generator but it broke. Other people have to go up and down stairs and can’t do it. People are trying to leave the island.”

With the Jewish community’s buildings intact and population healthy, its members have turned to helping more vulnerable neighbors. The JCC had collected supplies to help the Virgin Islands recover from the impact of Hurricane Irma earlier last month, and then took the surplus it had stored and distributed it among shelters in San Juan.

Jewish volunteers distributed clothing, canned food and 2,000 gallons of water from the JCC’s cistern. In one instance, Mendelbaum saw twin babies sleeping on the floor of a shelter and brought them cribs.

“That was a drop in the bucket,” he said. But for their mother, he added, “it was lifesaving.”

IsraAid, the Israeli disaster relief group, sent a team of five that is stationed in Haiti. The team landed Sept.

26 in San Juan and is focused on providing physical and psychological first aid and distributing filters that can purify contaminated water.

The workers are also distributing food and training local social-work students to provide post-trauma care. But the filters, said team leader Natalie Revesz, might make the biggest difference, as they have a capacity of 400 gallons a day and can make public canal water drinkable.

“They were shocked that I was drinking dirty water from their buckets,” Revesz said.

The Jewish Federations of North America also opened a mailbox for hurricane relief in Puerto Rico.

Rowe, who also volunteers in New York for the Jewish paramedic service Hatzalah, received a call for aid on Sept. 24. He’d already gone on missions to Houston and the Florida Keys following the recent natural disasters there. He and his team spent that Sunday night gathering food and medical supplies, and obtained a large private plane, free of charge, from Ralph Nakash, a fashion mogul who also went on the aid mission with two of his sons.

The team dropped supplies at the San Juan Chabad, and then drove around the city distributing to residents of San Juan of all religions everything from pita bread to toothbrushes to Tylenol. At one point, Rowe went door to door giving out food and cases of water.

Though he is proud of the work his volunteers have done, he could see that difficult days remain ahead.

“For us to bring a ray of light was really humbling and a beautiful experience,” he said. “At the end of the day, we’re going back to our homes with a roof over our head, and these people could be for weeks or months without electricity or food.”

OCT. 4 – 10, 2017 | NYJLIFE.COM | 11

NEW YORK & NATIONAL

Assemblymember Helene Weinstein, third from left, was among the many Flatbush lawmakers helping prepare care packages for the victims of Hurricane Maria.

PHOTO BY MICHAEL WRIGHT

Diversity on display as the Flatbush community pitched in to lend a hand to Hurricane Maria victims in Puerto Rico PHOTO BY MICHAEL WRIGHT

At the Bridge, a Unified Front in Support of Puerto Rico

PHOTO BY MICAHEL WRIGHT

BY STAFF

The Bridge Multicultural & Advocacy Project, located on Flatbush Avenue in Brooklyn, sponsored an emergency relief drive to assist the victims of Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands this past Sunday, Oct. 1. Hundreds of people donated an abundance of food, clothing, shoes, nonperishable items, first-aid kits, medical supplies, feminine-hygiene products and much more during the five-hour donation drive.

The Bridge’s emergency drive was endorsed by prominent local and citywide elected officials, such as City Public Advocate Letitia James, Comptroller Scott M. Stringer, NYS assemblymembers Helene E. Weinstein and Rodneyse Bichotte, as well as City Council members Jumaane D. Williams and Mathieu Eugene.

Also supporting and actively involved in the drive to gather supplies

12 | NYJLIFE.COM | OCT. 4 – 10, 2017

The humanitarian effort at The Bridge

for Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands were prominent religious organizations such as the Rabbinical Alliance of America (RAA—the Igud HaRabonim), the Interfaith Dialogue Project, the Haitian American Caucus, the Yemeni American Association, the American Council of Minority Women, and the New York Rescue Response Team.

An emotional Mark Meyer Appel, the founder and CEO of The Bridge Multicultural & Advocacy Project, introduced the co-chairs of the emergency hurricane drive: Brooklyn district leader Josue Pierre and Rabbi Mendy Mirocznik. Mirocznik, the executive vice chairman of the Rabbinical Alliance of America/Igud HaRabonim—an organization with well over 800 member rabbis representing communities all across the United States and Canada—addressed the gathering.

“The mission of all of us in our respective communities is to support each other in times of crisis. I am so proud that our community has unified and is working hard to support those victims who were adversely affected by this terrible tragedy,” declared Mirocznik.

Joining Rabbi Mirocznik were Rabbi Yaakov Klass and other members of the executive committee of the Rabbinical Alliance of America.

Speaking from the vantage point of his impressive experience as a community leader, Pierre told the assemblage how Brooklynites from all walks of life always band together and unify in times of desperate need.

“Today, we join our Muslim, Jewish and Christian brothers and sisters in showing our love and deep concern for all those adversely affected by Maria’s unforgiving wrath by providing them

with everything they will need to survive,” said Pierre.

Abu Khaliquzzaman, an esteemed and highly respected leader of Brooklyn’s Muslim community, is the founder of the Interfaith Dialogue Project.

Khaliquzzaman focused his remarks on the treasured legacy of Brooklynites’ always “stepping up to the plate” and showing compassion for the needy.

Appel offered plaudits for the remarkable work done through the partnership with the New York Rescue Response Team to save lives in the aftermath of the string of hurricanes that wreaked disaster on Florida and the Caribbean.

Appel was also generous with his words of high praise for Mayor Bill de Blasio and New York City’s elected officials. He particularly applauded their rapid response to the devastation those hurricanes inflicted.

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OCT. 4 – 10, 2017 | NYJLIFE.COM | 13

NEW YORK & NATIONAL

Dershowitz Voices His Opinions in the Face of Audience Dissension

BY MAXINE DOVERE

At the invitation of the pro-Israel SSI—Students Supporting Israel—Harvard Law professor Alan Dershowitz arrived at the extremely well-controlled Columbia campus on the evening of Sept. 27 to compliment and chastise Israel, and discuss his positions and expectations.

“I am a liberal supporter of Israel, a democracy,” he told the filled-to-capacity auditorium at Lerner Hall.

The famed lawyer stated that he has been a defender of Israel for 70 years and an advocate of the two-state solution—with a peaceful Palestine—since 1970.

Later in the evening he would note, “Israeli politicians don’t understand how to deal with an issue; they do not understand about keeping a domestic issue domestic.”

A major focus of the evening was Dershowitz’s

14 | NYJLIFE.COM | OCT. 4 – 10, 2017

sharp criticism of “university professors [who] use the classroom as a propaganda podium…not teaching students how to think.” He acknowledged the difficulty of having a serious, nuanced discussion on one topic: Israel.

Dershowitz, now at the close of his eighth decade, touched on many topics, from the personal to the professional. He called Noam Chomsky, once his counselor at a Zionist summer camp, “a smart guy,” but noted that “I have never heard more confused views.”

Speaking about human rights, he said that university students believe that Israel has the worst humanrights record in the world based on “propagandistic, anti-Israel speech” which he termed “corrupted.”

“Do not be advocates for the current government— or everything Israel does,” he said. “Make the 80 percent case for Israel’s right to survive, Israel’s right to defend against terrorism and economic and existential threats.”

He called on students to “acknowledge the problems and acknowledge the complexity.”

The professor categorized intersectionality as “the phoniest academic doctrine, a theory that all oppressed groups are oppressed in the same manner, and that Israel oppresses. It makes for the strangest of bedfellows. Diverse groups find a common oppressor,” creating a complete symmetry between the radical left and the hard right. “We must never let Israel become a partisan issue.”

Dershowitz described himself as a Zionist and a liberal who will never give up on the Democratic party. He pledged to remain a liberal and a strong supporter of Israel. He called the many pro-Israel liberal professors “a bunch of cowards,” challenging them to “come out of the closet! Stand up for what you believe in! Speak in favor of Israel. Don’t remain silent.”

Dershowitz, a criminal-defense lawyer, has a strong pro-First Amendment penchant. He has defended the right of Nazis to march in Skokie, Illinois, home to many Holocaust survivors: “I had to explain I was on the side of civil liberties. You can’t have a double standard. You can’t defend only those with whom you agree.”

He noted that the “human rights” group Amnesty International “has become a defender of human wrongs,” establishing a double standard and becoming antiIsrael. He stressed the need to call it as it is and establish a single standard of critical review.

Dershowitz, whose invitation to speak on the University of California, Berkeley, campus was recently rescinded, offered “a dialogue,” especially with those in opposition, and promised to “stay as long as there are questions.” He suggested that while universities must assure safe spaces physically, “Woe unto any university that provides safe spaces for ideas.…Ideas can be challenged—must be challenged.”

collection of Jewish dress in the world.

The climate-controlled basement of its sprawling campus in downtown Jerusalem houses some 10,000 items worn by Jews in dozens of countries over the past few hundred years.

The museum’s collection is the result of Israel’s unique role as a refuge for world Jewry: Most of the items were donated by the immigrants who rushed to the country by the millions after its founding in 1948.

“The large scope of this collection is only possible because all the communities from around the world came to Israel,” Assaf-Shapira said. “It’s a rare meeting of cultures that happened at the edge of modernization.”

Still, the collection is inevitably PHOTO COURTESY OF THE ISRAEL MUSEUM/MAURO MAGLIANI limited by the forces of history.

According to Assaf-Shapira, Jews were already beginning to trade their traditional clothing for Western-style garb when they began immigrating to Israel, and this was especially true of men. Also, because of the Holocaust, European Jews brought very little of their culture with them, with the partial exception of those from the southern portion of the continent.

As a result, the clothing preserved by the Israel Museum largely represents the styles worn by Jewish women in North Africa, Yemen and Asia during the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Most of the items are the kind of ceremonial

BY ANDREW TOBIN garb that such women packed away in their closets as heirlooms, especially wedding JERUSALEM (JTA) — When the dresses.

Israel Museum put a burka-style Over the decades, garment on display in an exhibition the Israel Museum has on Jewish clothing, some visitors were displayed its clothing confused: What does a full-body cloak collection in a series associated with Islam have to do with Efrat Assaf-Shapira shows off a Bukharan women’s coat Jewish fashions? from the Jewish clothing collection at the Israel Museum of exhibitions focused on Jews from specific in Jerusalem, Sept. 27, 2017 A lot, it turns out. regions. In 2014, for the “This was actually traditional PHOTO BY ANDREW TOBIN first time, it showcased clothing for high-society Jewish women until even the mid-20th century,” are part of the museum’s collection of global Jewish fashion under the title “Dress Codes: Revealing the Jewish Efrat Assaf-Shapira, a curator of the Jewish clothing. museum’s vast collection of Jewish Now the Israel Museum is preparing Wardrobe.”

“Veiled Meaning” at the New York costumes, told the JTA. “Jews around to bring its cosmopolitan Jewish the world mainly wore whatever their fashions to New York for the first museum will be a version of that surrounding societies wore.” “comprehensive U.S. exhibition” of exhibition, including about 100 items So, for example, white silk Tunisian Jewish costumes. “Veiled Meaning: from dozens of Jewish communities as wedding pants with a 10-foot waist to Fashioning Jewish Dress” will be far flung as Italy and India.

Assaf-Shapira said the sheer variety accommodate pleasingly plump brides, on display at the Jewish Museum in of the materials, colors and designs a purple silk Iranian skirt inspired by Manhattan from Nov. 3 to March 18. the tutus of the Parisian ballet, and a Since its opening in 1965, the Israel challenge the notion that Jews white cotton Ethiopian dress and belt Museum has accumulated the largest preserved their identity by rejecting A Bukharan Jewish couple posing in coats lined with ikat weaving

When Jews wore burkas: An exhibit showcases unexpected Jewish fashion

A bridal outfit worn by Tunisian Jews in the early 20th century PHOTO COURTESY OF THE ISRAEL MUSEUM/ MAURO MAGLIANI

outside influences. In most cases, she said, Jews dressed in the style of the surrounding society.

“There is a shared core of the religion and the ceremonies,” she said of these Jewish communities. “But surrounding this shared core, there is a whole area of traditions which were shared with Muslims and Christians.”

In some cases, Jews even contributed to popular fashion, she said, citing a Bukharan woman’s coat lined with colorful ikat weaving at which local Jews were skilled.

Even when Jews did wear distinguishing clothing, Assaf-Shapira said, they were typically preserving and appropriating outmoded local fashions, not uniquely Jewish ones.

Which brings us to the burkalike veiled garment that confounded visitors to the Israel Museum and will be on display in New York.

In Mashhad, Iran, Jewish women wore the chador along with a veil—just like their Muslim neighbors. After they fled persecution and forced conversion in the 19th century and resettled in Herat, Afghanistan, they preserved their Iranian-style shawl rather than adopt the local burka like their Jewish contemporaries in nearby Kabul. Many continued to wear the chador until they immigrated to Israel, as late as the 1970s.

“These items going to New York tell the story of the diversity of the Jewish communities all around the world,” Assaf-Shapira said, “and actually how you keep your identity through changing times.”

OCT. 4 – 10, 2017 | NYJLIFE.COM | 15

HIGH HOLIDAYS

The Best Lox to Buy at the Supermarket Not to fret—you can find great-quality smoked salmon right at the grocery store.

(THE NOSHER) — Good smoked salmon can actually be hard to come by, maybe even harder than good bagels! Of course if you live in a place like Manhattan—where there is Zabar’s and Russ & Daughters—or Los Angeles, where there is Wexler’s, then there is ample high-quality lox to be found.

But what if you don’t live near a good appetizing shop? You can try your hand at making your own cured lox, called gravlax. It’s an easy process, but it does require at least four days of planning to prepare.

If you don’t feel like going through the patchke of making gravlax, or don’t have the time, there are also some pretty great lox varieties to be found at major supermarkets. Here are a few of our top-rated choices: Acme (at various supermarkets including Wegmans)

16 | NYJLIFE.COM | OCT. 4 – 10, 2017

You may not realize this, but most appetizing restaurants in New York City and supermarkets around the country are all getting their smoked salmon from Acme Smoked Fish in New York. Many supermarkets throughout the country sell Acmebrand smoked salmon, so if you find it, you can be sure it will be good quality.

Blue Hill Bay (at Costco) For all you Costco lovers, you can purchase a partysize quantity of Blue Hill Bay smoked salmon, which is actually produced by Acme.

Daniel Boulud Artisanal Cut Smoked Salmon (Whole Foods) Whole Foods carries a pretty sizable selection of smoked salmons, but we recommend trying Daniel

Boulud’s artisanal cut smoked salmon, smoked using fruitwood. You can also find this fancy-pants smoked salmon through Fresh Direct and at Dean & DeLuca.

Charlie Trotter’s Citrus-Cured Salmon (Whole Foods) Another brand from a famous restaurateur, we love the hint of citrus in this bright and not overly smoky fish.

Trader Joe’s Smoked Copper River Sockeye Salmon (Trader Joe’s) When in doubt, hit up Trader Joe’s, which carries several varieties including our favorite, the smoked sockeye salmon. It also carries smoked-salmon spreads and pretty much everything else you need for a last-minute bagel and schmear.

HIGH HOLIDAYS

Swedish Jews Celebrate Yom Kippur under Heavy Security as Neo-Nazis March in Major City that in pre-World War II Europe, praised the response.

“The threats exist, but they don’t dominate society.

Civil society in Sweden stood up for us in a way that (JTA) — Jews in the Swedish city of Gothenburg the civil society in Germany didn’t do in the ’30s. We expressed relief on Monday after a neo-Nazi march have received a lot of support,” he told the JTA. on Yom Kippur bypassed the city’s main synagogue Last month, the Jewish community appealed a and the community received hundreds of messages of police decision to allow the NRM to march along a support from groups and individuals. route that would have taken them only about 200 On Saturday, 30 members of the far-right nationalist yards from the city’s main synagogue on the Jewish Nordic Resistance Movement, or NRM, were arrested holiday. The neo-Nazis had originally wanted to when they did not follow their assigned route, clashed march on the main streets of Gothenburg, but the with counterprotesters and tried to walk toward the police offered the alternate route near the synagogue.

Scandinavian Book Fair, the largest literary festival in After appeals from the Jewish community as well as Scandinavia. Among those arrested was the group’s from several other groups in Sweden, an administrative leader, Simon Lindberg. court in Gothenburg rerouted the protest. The AntiJews had worried about harassment and vandalism Defamation League and the World Jewish Congress during the march, which was rerouted after appeals also urged the Swedish government to ensure the by the Jewish community that Jewish community’s safety. it not pass the synagogue on Still, the fact that the march Judaism’s holiest day. Police took place was worrisome, presence around the synagogue Stutzinsky said. was heavy, with cars patrolling “We have people who openly the area as well as a helicopter follow Nazism and who publicly and a boat in a nearby canal. show that they are Nazis and The synagogue also provided that they have that agenda,” he additional security. said of the marchers.

Despite this, Yom Kippur Aron Verstandig, chairman services went on as usual and of The Official Council of had a large turnout, community Swedish Jewish Communities, chairman Allan Stutzinsky told said Monday that the incident the JTA. represented a larger trend of the The Gothenburg community, rise of the far right, citing recent which is typically under tight Members of the far-right Nordic demonstrations across Sweden. security and has approximately Resistance Movement marching in Last Thursday, Verstandig spoke 1,000 official members, Gothenburg, Sweden, Sept. 30, 2017 with Swedish Prime Minister feared not only the neo-Nazi PHOTO BY FREDRIK SANDBERG/AFP/GETTY Stefan Lofven about the march. marchers but potential left-wing IMAGES Lofven denounced the rise of counterprotesters, Stutzinsky neo-Nazi groups and said the told the JTA earlier this month. People affiliated with government needed to combat such organizations. the NRM were responsible for anti-Semitic threats Though the far right is worrisome, the largest threat that led to the shuttering in April of the Jewish to the community comes from Islamist terrorism, said community center in Umea, a city in northeastern Verstandig, who also serves as chairman of the Jewish Sweden, according to Stutzinsky. community in Stockholm. He cited recent terror Jews in Gothenburg had worried that the synagogue attacks against Jewish institutions across Europe, would be vandalized with swastikas over the weekend, including in 2015 against a synagogue in nearby Stutzinsky said. Instead, they woke up on Sunday to Copenhagen that left one dead. find that people had drawn hearts with chalk around The community isn’t going anywhere, but the the building in support. various security threats take a toll, he told the JTA. Amid wide media coverage of the march, the The synagogue in Stockholm uses more than a fifth community received hundreds of messages of support of the money it raises from membership dues to pay from groups and individuals. Stutzinsky, who earlier for security, in addition to members volunteering to this month compared present-day anti-Semitism to patrol the synagogue.

BY JOSEFIN DOLSTEN

Crowds confronting police in Sant Julia de Ramis, Spain, Oct. 1, 2017 PHOTO BY DAVID RAMOS/GETTY IMAGES

Sukkot Services to Go On in Barcelona

BY CNAAN LIPHSHIZ

(JTA) — Violence between police and proindependence protesters in Barcelona will not disrupt holiday services there, a leader of the Jewish community said.

Victor Sorenssen, a leader of the Jewish community of the capital of Catalonia—an autonomous region with its own language and many residents who seek independence from Spain—said the city’s Jewish congregations will not “be affected by something that is essentially a political discussion.”

Sorenssen made this declaration following riots Sunday during the independence poll in which more than 300 people were injured in clashes with police, who were under orders to prevent the referendum of independence that the Catalonian government held even though a top court in Spain had ruled it illegal.

Community events, including Sukkot celebrations and Simchat Torah, are at present to go on as scheduled despite the tension around the referendum, Sorenssen added. He said he was not aware of injury to any of the community’s members in the clashes, he added.

Like the Catalonian population at large, the Jewish community is also divided on the independence issue, Sorenssen also said, prompting the Jewish community to “not make any statement or declaration” on the issue at hand.

“The Jewish community is a religious and a cultural institution and we respect all the different approaches and points of view of our members, which range from pro-independence to being against,” he explained.

Barcelona has approximately 15,000 Jews out of 45,000 living in Spain, according to the European Jewish Congress.

OCT. 4 – 10, 2017 | NYJLIFE.COM | 17

EDUCATION

PHOTO BY STEPHANIE SNYDER

students to rise together.”

A growing number of schools are participating in the city’s district-charter partnership. This year, 36 schools are joining the program. And this past summer—through the program—25 rising seniors from three district high schools took part in the KIPP charter network’s Through College Summer Bridge initiative, where they learned about the social, academic and financial aspects of college life.

Melissa Harris—the education department official tasked with overseeing the district-charter program— may be uniquely qualified for the job: Her daughter previously attended a Success Academy charter school and now attends a district school. (Harris said she switched schools because her daughter was interested in programs at the district school, not because of any problems with Success.)

Harris said that even though the political fights around charter schools attract the most attention, when it comes to actual schools, cooperation is the norm.

“When you hear about district and charters having tension, usually you hear about that on a very high level,” said Harris, the senior executive director of the education department’s Office of School Design and Charter Partnerships. “But once you get down to the ground, everyone’s working together.”

The partnership program has several components.

Some are aimed at smoothing the relationship between schools that share the same building, while others are designed to get district and charter-school leaders to share tips about math instruction, serving students who are still learning English, or adopting less-punitive discipline policies.

A program by Uncommon Schools—a network with 23 schools in New York City—trained 172 district-school educators last year, and 500 total, on everything from how to call on students to how to check if a student on topics ranging from classroom understands a problem. discipline to working with families to Some of the partnerships sprang improving teaching. from the ground up, Harris said.

While the political clashes between For instance, the superintendent the charter sector and Mayor Bill de of Brooklyn’s District 16 organized Blasio’s administration often grab a “crawl” across the Bedfordheadlines, behind the scenes there is a Stuyvesant neighborhood that growing collaboration that—contrary encourages parents to visit the local to de Blasio’s occasional critiques of district and charter schools. charter schools—his administration The program has also been helpful is trying to nurture. to independent charter schools, which “While there remain real policy Melissa Harris cannot lean on the built-in support disagreements,” said James PHOTO PROVIDED BY THE group of a charter-school network or Merriman, CEO of the New York City DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION a traditional district. Richard Berlin, a Charter School Center, “there is also a very positive attempt to work across them or around founding member of Harlem RBI’s DREAM Charter School, which has a large population of students with them.”

For de Blasio, the program may serve as an olive disabilities, said the partnership allowed the school branch to the charter sector, and allow him to show to compare its special-education program to that of his concern for all students—no matter the type other schools.

“As a non-network charter, we’re always looking for of school they attend. For the charter sector, it’s a chance to learn from traditional schools while also partners we can learn from,” Berlin said. “We have to sharing their innovations, which many consider a core create our own network.”

An indirect benefit of this collaboration is that purpose of charter schools.

“At the end of the day,” said Jane Martinez Dowling, it can break down charter- and traditional-school head of programs for KIPP NYC, “we want all of our leaders’ preconceived notions about each other.

Even as Political Battles Persist, More District and Charter Schools Join Partnership Program

BY MONICA DISARE

(CHALKBEAT) — Recently, Dawn Brooks DeCosta, the principal of a traditional elementary school in Harlem, was looking for ways to boost her students’ social and emotional skills. Her search led her to an unlikely event: a charter school assembly.

She watched as students at the Bronx Lighthouse Charter School publicly shared life updates. Some had lost a tooth, others celebrated a birthday and still others were earning A’s in math. Later, students competed to put the scattered lines of a poem back in order.

There was “a lot of cheering; a lot of excitement,” said DeCosta, the principal of Thurgood Marshall Academy Lower School. She was so impressed she decided to replicate the assembly at her school once a month.

“If it’s really good,” she said, “maybe we can do it twice.”

DeCosta was introduced to Bronx Lighthouse through the city’s District-Charter Partnership program, a city initiative kicked off in 2015 that brings together schools from both sectors to share ideas

18 | NYJLIFE.COM | OCT. 4 – 10, 2017

EDUCATION

At the beginning of the partnership, Principal DeCosta said she took part in an awkward conversation where she and some charter-school leaders shared assumptions about each other. She told them she was under the impression they did not serve many students with disabilities, while they shared their negative perceptions of teachers unions.

“It was uncomfortable,” DeCosta said. However, “It definitely did shift my perspective.”

Despite the ground-level collaboration, political battles continue—with most revolving around school space. Charter leaders have long argued that the de Blasio administration has made it unnecessarily difficult for charter schools to get space, while the administration argues that it is a complicated and inherently timeconsuming process.

Recently, it appeared the charter sector and de Blasio were headed for a truce after the mayor struck a deal with lawmakers this summer in exchange for their extending his control of the city’s schools. It included providing MetroCards to charter-school students and streamlining the process for finding or paying for space for charter schools.

Yet, even after the deal, the charter sector is still demanding school space for this year and insisting that de Blasio hasn’t held up his end of the bargain.

Though Harris wants to focus on the relationship-building aspect of her job, she is also charged with carrying out the deal and responding to schools’ questions—and complaints—about building space. That involves acting as a liaison to Success Academy, the city’s largest charter network and the one that’s been involved in the most highprofile clashes over space with the de Blasio administration.

Harris said she is doing her best to respond to Success’ space requests, but added that the city is required to get input from community members before making space decisions—and that takes time.

“We’re in constant conversation,” Harris said, referring to her office’s interactions with the charter sector.

“So I don’t think that anyone can say that we’re not meeting, answering the telephone, trying to be as honest as we can about what we can do to support their organizations.”

This story has been updated to clarify that Uncommon Schools trained 172 district-school educators last year.

SCHOOL SAFETY: The Fatal Stabbing in a Bronx Classroom Was Horrific—but Also Extremely Rare

BY ALEX ZIMMERMAN

(CHALKBEAT) — Mayor Bill de Blasio, flanked by police Commissioner James O’Neill and Chancellor Carmen Fariña, held a press conference on school safety at M.S. 88 in Brooklyn last month.

The fatal stabbing at a Bronx school on Sept. 27 comes amid continuing debate over school safety and the use of metal detectors in schools—but also as serious crimes in schools are at nearrecord lows.

Details about the incident at the Urban Assembly School for Wildlife Conservation are still coming in, but city officials have confirmed that two teenage students were stabbed during a history class, one fatally, by a classmate wielding a switchblade.

The incident is extremely rare: One student has not killed another inside a school for more than two decades, officials said. And though last Wednesday’s events have put some families on edge, they come in the context of a wider downturn in crime inside schools and citywide.

The number of major crimes committed in schools—from murder to grand larceny—are at their lowest levels since the city began keeping track in 1998.

Arrests, summonses and suspensions have also fallen in recent years.

Less than two months ago, Mayor Bill de Blasio highlighted those trends at a press conference, declaring the last school year “the safest year on record.” At a briefing last Wednesday, he noted that it had been “many, many years” since a student was killed inside a school.

The last time a student was killed at the hands of another student inside a school building appeared to be in 1993, when a 15-year-old student fatally stabbed another 15-year-old boy in the crowded hallway of a Manhattan junior high school. (In 2014, a 14-year-old boy stabbed another boy to death outside

Mayor Bill de Blasio, flanked by Police Commissioner James O’Neill and Chancellor Carmen Fariña, held a press conference on school safety at M.S. 88 in Brooklyn last month.

PHOTO BY MICHAEL APPLETON/MAYORAL PHOTOGRAPHY OFFICE

I.S. 117 in the Bronx.)

Still, the mayor’s critics have painted a different picture of overall school safety, relying on state data and other statistics that show more weapons are being recovered from city schools.

Last school year, 1,429 weapons were recovered, according to police data, up from 1,073 the year before. De Blasio said last month that the increase could indicate greater vigilance from school personnel and police as opposed to a less-safe environment.

Last Wednesday’s episode may also complicate the debate about the city’s deployment of metal detectors in school buildings. The building did not have a metal detector, and a police official said in a briefing that there was “no question” the knife used in the attack would have been caught during screening.

After rushing back to school to pick up their children, parents at the School for Wildlife Conservation reportedly began calling for the city to set up metal detectors. De Blasio said temporary metal detectors would be brought into the school the next day.

Police Chief Joanne Jaffe, who oversees the community-affairs bureau, said it had previously been determined that the school did not require metal detectors, but now, “We’ll review that and take a look at that.”

Some have argued that metal detectors make students feel like criminals and “normalized the idea of getting shot or stabbed,” as one student put it. Black and Hispanic students are more likely to have to pass through metal detectors, a public radio station WNYC analysis found.

Eighty-eight buildings currently have metal detectors, education department spokeswoman Toya Holness said.

The city conducts annual reviews to determine if scanners are needed, and principals can also request that they be added or removed.

Last year, Schools Chancellor Carmen Fariña acknowledged voiced concerns about the use of scanners, but said they had to be weighed against students’ safety.

“You want to make sure that when you remove something,” she said, “that the school stays as safe.”

OCT. 4 – 10, 2017 | NYJLIFE.COM | 19

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20 | NYJLIFE.COM | OCT. 4 – 10, 2017

PERSPECTIVE

When Jewish Justices Got the Supreme Court to Shut Down on Yom Kippur

BY NATHAN LEWIN

WASHINGTON (JTA) – Since 1995, the U.S. Supreme Court has not held public sessions on Yom Kippur. Because the court opens its term on the first Monday in October, it is not unusual for the Jewish Day of Atonement to arrive just as the court begins its public work.

How the Supreme Court came to observe the Jewish High Holiday is a story about religious diversity on the court, the quiet perseverance of two justices and an unexpected illness.

In an impromptu appearance at a synagogue here on Rosh Hashanah, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg recounted how she and fellow Jewish justice Stephen Breyer approached Chief Justice William Rehnquist and explained that Jewish lawyers who had been “practicing their arguments for weeks” should not be required to choose between religious observance and representing their clients before the court. According to Ginsburg, Rehnquist agreed.

But Ginsburg was being respectful of the memory of Rehnquist; cognoscenti have slightly–less-gracious memories of his role in the change.

There were no Jewish justices on the Supreme Court in the almost quarter century between the resignation of Abe Fortas on May 15, 1969, and Ginsburg’s swearing-in on Aug. 10, 1993. (Breyer joined the court on Aug. 3, 1994.) I appeared before the court as private counsel a number of times between 1971 and 1994, and the Supreme Court clerk was always accommodating to Jewish religious observance. Cases in which I was scheduled to argue orally were scheduled for dates that would not conflict with Jewish holidays.

In 1994, I was scheduled for two appearances during a Supreme Court session in March that coincided with Passover. At my request, the arguments were scheduled so as not to conflict with the first and last two days of the holiday.

But a lawyer’s asking for an argument to be rescheduled was one thing; a Supreme Court justice’s sitting out an argument was quite another.

Yom Kippur in 1993 and 1994 came in September, so there was no religious conflict during Ginsburg’s first two years and Breyer’s freshman year on the court. But in 1995, Yom Kippur was on Oct. 4—a Wednesday on which the court was scheduled to hear oral argument. No counsels apparently had requested

that their cases be rescheduled. Although the court’s Hearing Calendar had arguments scheduled for that date, they were abruptly postponed. The court took the day off on Yom Kippur, as it has done ever since.

Those of us who followed the court closely and were battling for recognition of Jewish religious rights were curious as to how this happened. The story—as I heard it at the time from a knowledgeable source—did not portray Rehnquist as cordially accommodating to Jewish religious observance.

The account I heard then was that Ginsburg and Breyer had approached Rehnquist after oral arguments were scheduled for that Oct. 4. The two Jewish members asked the chief justice to be respectful of their religious identity and postpone the arguments scheduled for Yom Kippur.

Rehnquist, however, had not accommodated Jewish observance in a 1986 case in which I had argued on behalf of an Orthodox Jewish Air Force psychologist who wanted to wear a yarmulke with his military uniform. Rehnquist had written the Supreme Court’s majority 5-to-4 opinion rejecting the First Amendment claim.

Before she was nominated to the Supreme Court,

Ginsburg as a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals— along with Antonin Scalia and Kenneth Starr, judges at the time—had voted in favor of the psychologist’s motion to rehear the lower court’s rejection of the yarmulke request. (Following the high court’s rejection, Congress would enact a law, still in effect, that grants military personnel in uniform a statutory right to wear a neat and conservative religious article of clothing.)

In 1995, according to the version of the story I heard, Rehnquist turned down the request of Ginsburg and Breyer to reschedule the court date to accommodate Yom Kippur. He told them that they could, if they chose, absent themselves on Yom Kippur and still vote, pursuant to the court’s practice, after listening to the audio tapes of the oral arguments.

Soon thereafter, however, Rehnquist found that he, too, would be unable to sit with the court on Oct. 4 because his painful back condition required medical treatment on that day.

According to my sources, this gave the two Jewish justices an unexpected opportunity. They approached John Paul Stevens, the most senior justice who would be presiding if Rehnquist was absent. They pointed out to Stevens that if the two of them were not on the bench on Oct. 4, only six justices would sit to hear oral arguments on that day. Although that number is technically a Supreme Court quorum and the absent justices could vote after listening to audio tapes, Stevens agreed that the optics of such a diminished panel would be less than ideal. Stevens then postponed the Yom Kippur session, and the practice stuck.

This year’s Yom Kippur fell on Friday night and Saturday morning, Sept. 29-30, and the court didn’t convene until Monday, Oct. 2.

But thanks to justices Ginsburg, Breyer and Stevens, the next time a public session falls on Yom Kippur, a sign of respect for Jewish observance will again prevail.

Nathan Lewin is a Washington lawyer who has argued 28 cases before the Supreme Court and is on the adjunct faculty of Columbia Law School.

Supreme Court justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer listening to President Barack Obama deliver his State of the Union address before a joint session of Congress in the U.S. Capitol, Jan. 28, 2014

PHOTO BY BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

OCT. 4 – 10, 2017 | NYJLIFE.COM | 21

COMMUNITY AND EVENTS

“TORAH TRUMPS HATE” MARCH Per the Facebook page of Torah Trumps Hate, the group who hosted the march, “Torah Trumps Hate is a coalition of Torah focused Jews who see the current administration as an anathema to Torah values and corrosive to not only the United States but to the Jewish community. Our spiritual mesorah [Jewish tradition] together with our ancient as well as recent history as a people demand that we stand up to injustice, racism, corruption and fascism whenever we see it.”

22 | NYJLIFE.COM | OCT. 4 – 10, 2017

COMMUNITY AND EVENTS

Martins Hits the Trail!

SENATOR JACK MARTINS, CANDIDATE FOR NASSAU COUNTY EXECUTIVE, CAMPAIGNS AT VARIOUS EVENTS

Mayor Benjamin Weinstock in Cedarhurst meeting with residents

Jack Martins spent some time with members of the Chabad of Hewlett at their Back to School BBQ.

At Avigdor’s Helping Hand’s 12th annual Labor Day event in Lawrence; Avigdor’s Helping Hand is an allvolunteer, nonprofit organization that provides financial assistance to families in the community who have suffered a recent loss.

A town hall meeting at the Great Neck House in Great Neck with county comptroller candidate Steve Labriola to discuss how to fight corruption with ethics reform, fix the county’s finances and protect property taxpayers

OCT. 4 – 10, 2017 | NYJLIFE.COM | 23

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