Jewish Post & Opinion

The Jewish

Post&Opinion Presenting a broad spectrum of Jewish

National Edition

News and Opinions since 1935.

Volume 79, Number 8 • May 8, 2013 • 28 Iyar 5773 www.jewishpostopinion.com

Cover art by Jackie Olenick (see About the Cover, p. NAT 2).

2 The Jewish Post & Opinion – NAT May 8, 2013

Editorial Recently three different programs – a

movie, an interview and a sapling planting – demonstrated how far we have advanced as a society in looking past our differences to treat each other with more fairness and compassion. We still have a long way to go but we have made much progress in a relatively short span – approximately 70 years since the end of World War II. I have several nieces and nephews who are in their 20s and 30s. One who is thinking about marriage and children recently expressed concern about being able to be a good parent and wondering what life will be like for children growing up in what seems to be a turbulent world.

I grew up in the 1960s when major changes were taking place relating to racism and sexism. Widespread demonstrations were held to help bring more rights for women and minorities, and against the war in Vietnam. Those were the years that President John F. Kennedy, his brother Robert F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King were assassinated.

Just before I started college the university library I was about to attend was set on fire by protesting students. That same year unarmed student protestors were shot by Ohio National Guardsman at Kent State University in Kent, Ohio, killing four and wounding nine.

Many brave individuals risked their lives to help bring needed changes to our society.

Two of those were my older sisters Miriam Glickman and Debbie Cohen. Miriam went to Albany, Ga., in 1963 after graduating Brandeis University to help African Americans register to vote. She was arrested for vagrancy. The police thought it was suspicious for whites and blacks to be working together. Debbie traveled to Fayette, Tenn., in 1965 as part of the same civil rights movement.

Recently I saw the movie titled, 42. It takes place in 1947 when Jackie Robinson was the first modern African American major league baseball player. This was a huge challenge for him and his family as they endured unrelenting racist hostility on and off the field from players and fans alike. He wore jersey number 42, hence the movie’s title.

Those born after 1970 did not live through some of these major conflicts that brought improvement, they only read about them. Even I had forgotten about some of those advances in justice for blacks until I saw the movie.

Today with an African American president, before him a Joint Chiefs of Staff, a Secretary of State, and a talk show host

About the Cover Inside this Issue Ruth and Naomi

By Jackie Olenick “Wherever You Go I Shall Go.” This is a 13”x13” limited edition, signed and numbered print. It is a favorite for all lovers and especially appropriate for anyone who has converted to Judaism.

Olenick creates Judaic illuminations in several mediums based upon her favorite Torah text, psalms and prayers. She also designs personalized, illuminated ketubot for Jackie Olenick the bride and groom. The images created are joyful, contemporary, inspirational and speak to issues that guide us on our dayto-day journey. They are intended to bring blessing and holy reminders to every Jewish home. She also creates beautiful spiritual jewelry appropriate for men, women and teens. All jewelry is designed with words and symbols, to bring one closer to the sacred, to lift one up and open ones heart.

Olenick presents and teaches hands-on workshops for temples, schools and organizations where participants of all ages and all levels of skill can learn about Judaic art and create their own unique pieces for their home.

Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi has honored Olenick as an artist and artisan in the Sacred Guild of the Disciples of Betzalel. Two of her images are included in the set of the Coen Brothers movie, A Serious Man.

Editorial.....................................................2 About the Cover ......................................2 Rabbi Benzion Cohen (Chassidic Rabbi).....................................3 Rabbi Jon Adland (Shabbat Shalom).....................................3 Rabbi Irwin Wiener, D.D. (Wiener’s Wisdom)..................................4 Amy Hirshberg Lederman (Jewish Educator) ....................................4 Jim Shipley (Shipley Speaks) ......................................5 Melinda Ribner (Kabbalah of the Month) .........................6 Ted Roberts (Spoonful of Humor) ...............................7 Dr. Miriam Zimmerman (Holocaust Educator) ..............................8 Anne Frank sapling planting..............10 Rabbi Moshe ben Asher and Magidah Khulda bat Sarah (Gather the People)................................12 Henya Chaiet (Yiddish for Everyday) ..........................13 Rabbi Elliot B. Gertel (Media Watch).......................................14 Sybil Kaplan (Seen on the Israel Scene)......................15 Rabbi Israel Zoberman (Book Review)........................................16 Comfort and hope (Book Review)........................................16 Dr. Morton I. Teicher (Book Reviews) ......................................17 Sybil Kaplan (My Kosher Kitchen).............................18 Mensch on a Bench ...............................19

(see About the Cover, page 5)

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popular the world over, it’s hard to imagine now how they could have been treated so poorly. African Americans were not allowed to stay in hotels even when their band was providing the musical entertainment there. Restaurants refused to serve them.

Much worse treatment took place, but a poignant scene in the movie showed when simply using a public restroom and a drinking fountain was forbidden.

The second program was an interview with Jewish author and feminist MS Magazine co-founder Letty Cottin Pogrebin.

I watched this on my computer at the following site: http://www.makers.com/ letty-cottin-pogrebin.

Again many issues that have not been thought about in the last 20 years were mentioned. For example, when Pogrebin graduated college in 1959, even a woman with a Ph.D. had these choices for a career – secretary, receptionist, telephone operator, nurse or teacher.

When she first started working after

The Jewish

Post&Opinion Jewish News and Opinions

since 1935.

1427 W. 86th St. #228 Indianapolis, IN 46260 email: jpostopinion@gmail.com phone and fax: (317) 405-8084 website: www.jewishpostopinion.com publisher & editor: Jennie Cohen graphic designer: Charlie Bunes college, Pogrebin said women had to put up with constant sexual harassment. A woman had to cooperate and be cheery about this, because otherwise she couldn’t get through the day so “you made your bargain with the devil and simply laughed it off”. Because a woman who made trouble was fired, Pogrebin had times when she thought,“What’s my job worth?

How much of this am I going to tolerate?”

In 1971 when she and fellow activist and writer Gloria Steinem published the first issue of MS, woman’s magazines (see Editorial, page 18)

Chassidic Rabbi

BY RABBI BENZION COHEN

W

e will soon be celebrating Shavuos, the holiday of the giving of the Torah.

Every year at this time Hashem gives us the Torah again. I bless all of our readers and all of the house of Israel to receive the Torah with happiness and to learn and internalize as much of it as possible.

On the first day of the month of Iyar we observed the yartseit of our beloved father, Gavriel Moshe, the son of Yitzchak Michoel Cohen, of blessed memory. He edited and published the Jewish Post & Opinion for almost 75 years. On this occasion I would like to share some stories that I heard from him.

My father grew up in Louisville, Ky. In those days there was no Jewish Day School, so he went to public school. His parents made him a Bar Mitzvah, and brought him a pair of tefillin. For a few months he put on tefillin and prayed every morning in his room before eating breakfast and going to school. After a while he lost interest and decided to stop praying. (I understand this. He was only 13 years old, and praying all by himself).

His mother told him that he won’t get breakfast until he puts on tefillin. He continued putting on tefillin until one day he got an idea. He took a piece of rope and wrapped it 7 times on his forearm to leave signs as if he had put on tefillin. This worked fine until one day his mother caught him red-handed. She lifted her hands to heaven and said “Dear G-d, What more can I do?”Forty-six years went by until my father started to put on tefillin again.

I was 18 years old, and I left Hebrew University to learn in the Lubavitcher Yeshiva in Kfar Chabad, Israel. Soon after this my father had a private audience with the Lubavitcher Rebbe. They spoke for an hour. The Rebbe told him how important his work was, that for some of his readers this was their only connection with their Judaism. After seeing the Rebbe my father stopped going to his office on Shabbos afternoons. When I would visit he would be happy to put on tefillin. I lived in Israel, but I tried to come to Indianapolis every year or two to see my parents and siblings.

On one visit I took out my tefillin and asked Dad if he wanted to put on tefillin.

He said,“No”. I said,“Why not?” He said, “I already put on tefillin today! I now do this mitzvah every day! “ Wow! What a pleasant surprise! I asked him how this came about, and here is the story he told me: “Rabbi Ronald Gray’s wife gave birth to a baby boy, after three daughters. We were all very happy to hear this good news. However, the baby was

May 8, 2013 The Jewish Post & Opinion – NAT 3 world have come to an end, but looking out my window and seeing how beautiful it is outside is truly inspiring. I know that I am strange, but I look forward to cutting my grass today and taking a few minutes to work the fresh compost into our new

BY RABBI JON ADLAND vegetable garden that will get planted May 3, 2013, Behar/B’chukotai soon. I look forward to planting annuals Leviticus 25:1–27:34, 23 Iyar 5773 and some perennials in the next couple of weeks when we know all chance of frost or my friends in Kentucky, it is Derby has passed us by. I look forward to sitting weekend. Maybe this is the year for a new on the deck and just enjoying the life God Triple Crown winner. For the Brotherhood has blessed me with – family, friends, a of Temple Israel, this is reverse raffle loving congregation. weekend when the community enjoys Our Torah portion this week challenges good food, good friends, and a chance to us with the concept that if we follow win the big prize. Tonight at Temple is our God’s commandments, then God will religious school Shabbat which will be led bring the rains to produce the food, grant by our students – the future of our Jewish peace in the land, and that we will be community – lights that shine each and blessed with progeny. Lev. 26:13 says, “11I every day. will establish My abode in your midst, and For Northeast Ohio, spring has officially I will not spurn you. 12I will be ever present arrived though summer is right behind. in your midst: I will be your God, and you The trees are in bloom and the grass is shall be My people.” Thus, with all the green. At the Adland home, the fishpond blessings that I listed above, I must be is open and working. The goldfish are following God’s commandments because busy doing whatever it is they do while God is obviously walking with me. Yet, I swimming around and the frogs are in full struggle knowing that there are many voice. Though it is always good to be able people who are better than me, kinder to wake up and see the sunrise and than me, more loving than me who seem breathe in the breath of life, this is always to be “cursed.” a particularly wonderful time of year as Will they look out their windows today everything outside is coming back to its and see what a beautiful day it is or full life and glory. will their struggles in life to just live one This is not to say that the world is healed day at a time keep them from breathing in and all the ills that plague our society and the breath of God? For me to be truly blessed, then I need to give back, to make a difference, to do Tikkun Olam so that all not healthy, and they had to put off people will know that God walks with making his bris. The baby’s health got them and listens to them. This is not my worse, and his life was in danger. Rabbi world, but our world. My life is not lived Gray called the Lubavitcher Rebbe and alone, but in connection with my family, asked for a blessing for his son. The Rebbe friends, and community. My joys are blessed the baby and told the father to heightened knowing that others are being check his tefillin. lifted up, even just a little.

“There is no one in Indianapolis who Shabbat is a great opportunity to step can check tefillin, so he sent his tefillin to back from the everyday and think about a tefillin scribe in Chicago to be checked. what is truly important and how we can There they found that there was a problem take those thoughts and feelings and with the leather boxes of his tefillin. They translate them into creating a beautiful fixed them and made them kosher. The day throughout more than our backyards. baby’s health started to improve, and after Shabbat is a foretaste of the world when it a few weeks he was ready to have his bris. has come to fulfillment and completion, Rabbi Gray told us this story at the bris. but that time is determined by what we do That gave me the push to put on tefillin today, you and me – all of us – in creating every day.” a better society. Lighting candles, sipping Here we see two miracles. The baby’s wine, eating challah, saying prayers, life was saved, and my father started to put singing songs, are all a part of Shabbat, on tefillin. But many more miracles but they are just symbols and signs followed. My father put on tefillin every helping to lead us down the path toward day before going to work for the next 25 this better time and place. We must do the years, until he was 95. He drove to work work and then we will truly get to rest on (8 miles each way) 6 times a week in his God’s eternal Shabbat.

90s. Not too many people live to 98, and When you light your Shabbat candles even less drive to work every day in their this week, light one for the beauty that 90s. I would guess he was the only one in surrounds us. May our senses help us to all of the Midwest. (see Benzion, page 19) (see Adland, page 19)

Shabbat Shalom

F

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4 The Jewish Post & Opinion – NAT May 8, 2013

Wiener’s Wisdom

Jewish Educator

BY RABBI IRWIN WIENER, D.D.

BY AMY HIRSHBERG LEDERMAN

this happen? Where are the days filled with laughter? We search for answers and realize that there are none.

God can be found in our reaching out to each other to offer comfort and solace to a grieving mother, widow, children or siblings who are searching as they begin to adjust to the emptiness. God can be found in turning to Scripture, because that is our direct link to our connection with Him. Scripture offers us the opportunity to talk to God in ways that are unimaginable.

God is there to provide a certain balance in life. On the one hand, He extends His hand to lift the spirit, as the other hand understands the affliction. The Prophet Isaiah reminds us that God will comfort us and give us the ability to cope. No words alone can suffice to bring solace, and no action taken by others will give us the ability to forget the anger and frustration.

It is up to us to return to the center of life through reliance on our family, our memories, and ourselves.

On this Memorial Day, we should pause, not only to pay our respects, but also to ensure that through this endeavor we will honor those who are still with us as well.

We should honor the infirmed, sick, wounded warriors who struggle day after

1993 would bring peace between Israel and the Palestinians. Tragically, that momentum was halted when the Second Intifada erupted in 2000. Today, peace seems less than remote: the wall being erected between Israel and the Palestinians stands as testimony to how far apart both sides are now from the hopes of peace that existed a decade ago.

When I first lived in Israel in 1974 during my junior year of college, I read a poem that has held a special place in my heart ever since. Written by the late Yehuda Amichai, considered by many to be the greatest modern Israeli poet, it describes an Arab shepherd who is searching for his goat on Mount Zion and on the opposite mountain, a Jewish man who is searching for his little boy. These few lines poignantly depict their angst: “An Arab shepherd and a Jewish father Both in their temporary failure…

Our two voices met above The Sultan’s Pool in the valley between us.

Neither of us wants the boy or the goat To get caught in the wheels Of the ‘Had Gadya’ machine.”

The “temporary failure” that Amichai describes is what all of us fear most: the loss of what is most precious to us, be it our children or the animals we tend for our livlihood. Arab and Jew come together in their desparate search, fearful that what they love most will be lost in the death machine.

The poem concludes with an image of the two men laughing and crying, as the goat and the son are found together in the bushes. We witness for a second time, the coming together of Jew and Arab, as love and life overcome fear and death.

“Afterward we found them among the bushes And our voices came back inside us, laughing and crying.

Searching for a goat or a son Has always been the beginning Of a new religion in these mountains.”

Amichai was no romantic. He saw Israel for what it was – and portrayed it through all of its grit, humor, tragedy and complexities. Almost 50 years ago, he had the vision to imagine a moment in history when the love for our children and what is most precious to us conquered the fear, anger, and hatred that has led two people, historically linked as brothers, to destroy each other’s families.

Amichai refers to the sacrifices – the goat and the son – that are part of the narratives from which Judaism and Islam were born. A ram, found in the bushes, was offered by Abraham in lieu of sacrificing his beloved son, Isaac. And Ishmael, Abraham’s other son, was banished with Hagar, yet survives to become the family

(see Wiener, page 7)

(see Lederman, page 5)

Remembering The search the sacrifices – for peace on in memoriam, Mount Zion Memorial Day 2013 We sat with our friends on the rooftop Each year we pause to pay tribute to

the men and women who gave so much in the cause of freedom. Yet, it seems that is really not sufficient. There are memories that cannot and will not leave us. The pain seems to be unbearable. All we have are words to offer as an indication of our gratitude – words of remembrance. As long as we have breath, they will never die. This is our respect, because to forget would desecrate their memories.

On this day perhaps we should pray to Almighty God to help us remember the great and the small, the tall and short, the stout and thin, the black and white. We are sad and at the same time, we are glad.

We are sad that they are no longer with us because they gave their all for their country. We are glad because we had them with us however short the time. They walked with us, laughed with us, cried with us, and died knowing that their nation cares for them and will always acknowledge their deeds.

As our words ascend to You, God, we should also pray that they will be accepted as an indication of Your appreciation, goodness and mercy as You continue to caress the brave souls we honor at this time of the year.

Our prayers should also contain the wish for the safe return of those still on a mission of mercy to relieve human suffering. For all these things and more, we need to implore our Father in Heaven to not only listen to our supplications, but also to hear the sincerity in our hearts.

Memorial Day has become a day of celebration and relaxation. Some criticize that we take the solemnity of the experience and make it a festival. That is the essence of renewal. We pause, reflect, remember, and cry. And, when we wipe away the tears, we rejoice in this exercise of remembering and rejoicing.

This is life in full cycle. People live and die, but what happens in between can be daunting. Hearing news that a loved one has fallen in battle, traps us in a cycle of pain. Once there was vibrancy, gaiety, now there is misery. Where is God? Why did

of their apartment building, a glorious display of fireworks exploding over our heads in the Jerusalem night sky. In the streets below, thousands of men, woman and children cheered and sang in joyous celebration. Children on roller-skates passed mischievous teens spraying colorful, plastic string on passers-by while Israeli’s danced until dawn. It was a night to be remembered and savored, one that only 50 years before seemed improbable. This was Yom HaAtzmaoot, Israel’s Independence Day in 1998.

It is 15 years since my family and I lived in Israel and celebrated her 50th birthday.

But Israel at 50 was a very different Israel than the one we now know at 65. In 1998, we were optimistic that the progress made since the signing of the Oslo Accords in

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Shipley Speaks

BY JIM SHIPLEY

Planting the seeds I

and most of the world was struck by the photo of young Martin Richard, tragically killed by the bombing at the Boston Marathon. Martin is holding a poster he created saying simply: “No More Hurting People” and underneath “Peace”. Martin will never get to know who set the bomb or why. Nor will the youngsters killed while sitting at the Sbarro Pizza Parlor in Jerusalem.

One wonders, what, no matter their religious views or governmental concepts would make someone actually take the action of killing and maiming innocent people who have little or nothing to do with the particular cause or causes that motivate these killers. The nation of Australia is concerned about young Lebanese émigrés and migrants who headed to Syria; afraid of them becoming “radicalized”.

Ahlam Tammimi, the convicted conspirator in the Sbarro bombing was released from a life sentence as part of the deal to free Galid Shallit. She has no repentance. Her “act” was to “liberate” Palestine and the death of young innocents she feels, was a just step towards that goal.

A baby is not born with this twisted view of humanity and how to make a “point”. It has to be taught – but beyond that, is there a basic flaw in the human that absorbs the seed and permits it to grow? To think so little of yourself that you can allow a philosophy of causing death and crippling injury to permeate your being is beyond most of our capabilities no matter who is telling us different.

If you feel that the “system” is working against you, anger is a natural response.

And from that the need to “get even” can come next. “Even” with whom or what?

What is it that makes a prejudice burn so deep within that a mass killing or a series of them seems justified?

Within my lifetime there was a lynching within an hour’s drive from our home.

The lynchings that took place throughout the South were attended in many cases by crowds of onlookers. Why? What burns so deep within someone that an act like that feels justified?

As Jews we think that this is abhorrent behavior and we are right. Killing of the innocent is ingrained in our religion, our peoplehood and our tradition. But do we, the Jews, being human of course, have

May 8, 2013 The Jewish Post & Opinion – NAT 5 prejudice of some sort within us? Well, yes ABOUT THE COVER – but only if it has been taught. (continued from page 2) You are not born racist or homophobic or a religious fanatic. All that has to be The Union of Reform Judaism (URJ) has taught to you by someone else. But having selected several of Olenick’s images for been taught, as we mature and learn book, CD and songbook covers. Many about real life – it becomes less sensible. images adorn greeting cards, which can be We know the world is not flat in a purchased at fine gift and Judaica shops geographical sense. We know that the throughout America. This year the URJ has world is a great deal older than 5,000 selected Jackie’s artwork exclusively for years. I mean what year is this on the their calendar.

Jewish calendar? Climate change? Give The artist’s work has been exhibited and me a break! Look at downtown Beijing extensively collected throughout America and tell me all that grime headed for the and is in private, organizational and atmosphere has no effect on us below. synagogue collections.

We know that nobody is gay by choice.

She works in several mediums including Most of us know that killing others who acrylic and collage/multimedia, for which do not believe as we do will not help the she is noted. Olenick has created bold and future of mankind. But we are a long way bright, large pieces that are appropriate for a from Martin Richard’s hope that there will temple or can serve as a focal point in a home. be “No More Hurting People”.

She is married to Rabbi/Chaplain Leon Islam is a complicated religion. The Olenick. They have three grown children hate between Shia and Sunni makes the and nine grandchildren, from whom she arguments between Orthodox and constantly draws inspiration and naches.

Conservative or Reform Jews looks silly. To see more of her artwork visit her Some Ultra-Orthodox throw stones, but website at www.jackieolenickart.com or they do not bomb synagogues. email her at jackieolenick@gmail.com.

As this is being written, the hunt for the Also check on Facebook and Twitter. A perpetrators of Boston is making progress.

Did they really believe that there would be no consequences? They set bombs LEDERMAN designed to maim rather than kill where (continued from page 4) the world could and would see it.

Whatever and whomever, this you can be from which Islam is born. From the sure of. There is a basic flaw within those beginning of Biblical time, sacrifices have people. If they were taught that this is just been required in order to survive and behavior – something inside allowed that there is hardly an Israeli today who would to take root. debate that a lasting, meaningful peace In a world where Midrashim in Pakistan will require them. The Oslo Accords were and Saudi Arabia are teaching that premised on that belief. violence and death is justified because Sacrifices cannot be unilateral; they someone does not accept your belief – must be made on both sides. Amichai’s something is being planted inside young poem inspires us to believe that peace is minds that is like a tumor. It will grow still possible. When Jew and Arab search unless it is treated and treated early. together to save rather than to destroy Otherwise, by the time they mature, they what is most precious to them, be it their become like Ahlam Tammimi or Jeffrey children or their land; when Jew and Arab McVeigh or those who bombed the mutually agree to educate their children Marathon where the internal rot is incurable. about the necessity and benefits of peace, We all have beliefs and feel we are right. rather than to deploy them as suicide I remember when it was conventional bombers; and when love for life trumps wisdom that blacks were inferior – for that hatred and revenge, then we will see a matter women could not achieve what new beginning in the land of Israel. men could in business or science. Both of Amy Hirshberg Lederman is an author, these prejudices had been proven false Jewish educator, public speaker and long before their rebuttal finally became attorney who lives in Tucson. Her columns conventional wisdom. in the AJP have won awards from the Boston is not a wake-up call, unfortunately. American Jewish Press Association, the Too many insides have been rotted out. Arizona Newspapers Association and the Best we can do is fight prejudice wherever Arizona Press Club for excellence in we find it or we could be sitting in a commentary. Visit her website at amy grandstand one day when the unthinkable hirshberglederman.com. A happens.

Jim Shipley has had careers in broadcasting, distribution, advertising, and telecommuni- column for more than 20 years and is director cations. He began his working life in radio of Trading Wise, an international trade in Philadelphia. He has written his JP&O and marketing company in Orlando, Fla. A

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6 The Jewish Post & Opinion – NAT May 8, 2013 from time to time and sometimes even out loud. My mother would call me “sweetheart”at times. So I call myself that when I need comfort.

Why is it that I could move on easily after my father’s death and not my

BY MELINDA RIBNER mother’s? It was not a difference of love. I loved my father as much as my mother.

Family was my father’s priority more than anything else in the world. My father was there for me as much as my mother. Was it because I had my mother longer than my father and I was so much younger when my father died? Was it because I lived with s a Jew, I am saturated with holidays. my mother prior to her death and served Every seventh day is a holiday. Almost as her caregiver during the last months of every month, there is a holiday of some her life? Was it that I was older and my sort. I do not feel the need for any more. mother’s death forced me to confront my So for the most part, I ignore American own mortality in a way that I would not do holidays like Thanksgiving, for I have when I was much younger? I am not sure.

Hanukkah. For Halloween, I have Purim. All of these factors definitely significantly But with Mother’s Day and Father’s Day impacted on my expression of grief. They approaching, I regret that I did not honor do not however sufficiently address the these holidays more when my parents difference between the loss of a father and were alive. I was blessed with two loving a mother. What is the difference? parents. I wish I could tell them directly I have come to understand that the just one more time how much I love them greater grief I experienced for my mother and how grateful I am for all the love and lies more in the unique nature of a caring they gave to me. mother and a woman. Previous to our My father died in 1981. I was sad. I cried, birth, most of us spent nine months in her but I was able to easily move on with my womb, when we were actually a part of life. My adult life was just blossoming with her. She is the only person who was my dream job, lots of dates, great spiritual always with us, from even before we had teachers and a rich community life. And physical life, independent of her. What she most of all, I still had my mother. My ate, how she was feeling, what she was mother died in 2009 on Tisha B’Av. doing affected us deeply, unconsciously in Because of the date of her death, I ways that we can never fully know. Just compared my mother to the ancient Holy because we do not remember this time, Temple in Jerusalem. Just like the Temple does not mean that it does not impact on was the foundation of the Jewish people, who we are. What is hidden, what is my mother was my foundation. When my unconscious, is even deeper than what we mother died, it was like the floor I was know consciously. standing upon collapsed from under me. I Our mother is the very first person we now had to learn how to stand on air. see when we enter the world. She is the How does one live without a mother? first person who loves us. How she holds During the first year, I cried almost us, speaks to us, responds to our cries, and daily. I did not anticipate the emotional even plays with us when we are infants devastation and anguish I experienced informs us whether the world is safe for us over my mother’s death. I had lived to be authentically true to who we are. We independently from my mother most of cannot overestimate the impact she has my adult life. I only moved to be near her had on our lives. Unfortunately, many of for the last years of her life. I was surprised us did not receive the message that we by the depth of my grief. I had to fortify were unconditionally loved by our mother. myself with reminders that I would get Our mother was herself wounded and through this time of intense grief, but I defensive. Consequently, she could not wondered if I would ever get over it. By give this transmission to us as much as continuing to live in her home, I was she may have wanted. We deserve to seek reminded of her constantly, more keenly remedial therapeutic help to re-parent aware of her presence and also her ourselves so we know the experience of absence than I might had I been living unconditional love. This is fundamental to elsewhere. our life and our health.

After the first year, my pain magically In our adult life, we may run to many subsided, but it did not end. To this day, different teachers, we may study many three years later, a day still does not go subjects, practice many disciplines, never by without my mourning her passing in fully acknowledging that it was our some way for at least a few moments. I mother who was our first and primary even continue to talk to her in my mind spiritual teacher in our life. There is a

Book Excerpt

A tribute to my mother on Mother’s Day A

reason why the Jewish religion is passed through the woman and not the man. If a woman marries a non-Jew, the offspring is a full, fledged Jew. It is not true if a Jewish man marries a non-Jewish woman. This is not a matter of biology but the Torah recognizes the supreme influence that a woman has in raising a child. Similarly, an ill person is identified by his or her mother’s name because it is the mother who is acknowledged as the one who can draw down blessings of healing more than the father.

It was only in the wake of my mother’s death that I realized and fully acknowledged that it was she who was my greatest spiritual teacher and my best friend, as she often reminded me, especially when she would offer me instructive criticism that I may not have required. It was my mother who transmitted to me the deep sublime women’s Torah that could not be found in books. I did not understand this until after my mother’s passing. Like so many things in life, it is only when we no longer have them that we fully value them.

I dedicated my newest book, The Secret Legacy of Biblical Women; Revealing the Divine Feminine to my mother. It was only then that I was able to work on this book with fervor and devotion. This book was now not just for me. It was my gift to her. Knowing that, I was empowered and even driven. I wanted her to get credit in heaven as soon as possible.

My mother was not particularly interested in my other books. I do not even recall her ever saying to me that she enjoyed or even read them. But she was passionate about this newest book. She had read earlier chapters of the book, and challenged me to find my unique voice as a woman. “If you would be authentic, brutally honest, and courageous, you could do something important, that would be redemptive to her, to all women and especially to me.” Her words empowered me to write from the heart.

Like many women and men today, my mother was what is often called assimilated.

Most of these Jews like my mother believe deeply in God, but they stand outside of the Jewish religious establishment, not identifying with any of the streams of Jewish life. My mother would sometimes go to synagogue but that was only because she wanted to be with me. She would tell me that she prayed in the synagogue in her own words in the same way she had prayed on her own alone since she was a child.

God for my mother was everywhere equally. Isn’t that the deepest teaching?

Her worship of God, her experience of God, was perhaps the greatest during those moments of creativity when she stood before a blank canvas. As if in (see Ribner, page 7)

Spoonful of Humor

BY TED ROBERTS

My Yiddeshe mama – Let’s remember Mama on her day I

t’s appropriate this time of year to praise and glorify an old fashioned, low maintenance support system that dispenses love, advice, tears, caresses, wisdom, supper, and bedtime prayers.

MAMA – the best of all four-letter words.

Appropriately, every infant’s first word.

“A man assured of his mother’s love can conquer the world,” said Ludwig Bemelmens, a children’s storyteller and insightful essayist. Ludwig, who had a fine, loving mama, sure got that right.

So, now in early May when the planet is panting with new birth, we elevate Mom. Mom, in her apron, stained with barbecue sauce, or sukiyaki, or cinnamon kugel, or baklava, or cabbage shreds – depending on your ethnic home. Mom, who wouldn’t even know how to hitchhike along the shoulder of the information highway.

Definitely not a 20th century goddess.

Now picture a visitor from the outermost planet of Andromeda III, where life-forms bubble up from a great central swamp on the planet’s skin. He’s come here – to planet earth – to study our human biopropagation technique.Touring suburbia, he wanders into an open kitchen door and confronts his first earthling.

“Who are you? What do you do, frumpy lady in a blue and white apron?”

“I’m only a mother. I’m the system who molds the next generation so it can participate wholesomely in the human adventure.”

Shocked, the alien voyager retreats to a local bar to meditate over this mystery.

Next to him sits a friendly imbiber who’s willing to explain the human condition in exchange for a Corona Lite.

Interplanetary visitor: “Okay, so you’re telling me a mixed gender couple with a fondness for each other does this incredible trick (they’ll never believe it back home). Then, lemme make sure I got this right – later, the new creature materializes out of the flesh and blood of the female creature. And it consumes her nutrients? Sucks the nourishment right out of her? For this she gets a box of candy every year – IF the new life form remembers! We hear this rumor on Xyphon, but our best scientists believe

May 8, 2013 The Jewish Post & Opinion – NAT 7 the stork concept. It sounds so much RIBNER more logical.” (continued from page 6) Earthly Informant: well the stork story is full of baloney. It’s like I just told you – response to a spiritual call within her, she but even wilder. You won’t believe it. would embody a message of love from the There’s some bond as invisible and higher spiritual realms in each of her powerful as gravity between the life giver paintings of beauty and color. Interesting and the birthling. The mother creature enough, she primarily painted women. seems dedicated to the well being and Unlike most artists, my mother never survival of the new creature. To protect attempted to capture what was physically it, if it’s threatened, she will surrender before her, but rather she was inspired to her time on this earth for the offspring. express on the canvas the inner stirrings of And this force is universal throughout her own soul.

I conclude this essay with a rhetorical the female of the mammalian species. We find it in snakes and hawks – wolves and question. Can we ever repay our mothers for all the love and all that they have done hula dancers.”

Visitor; “Well, after the ‘mother’ – is that for us? Can we ever sufficiently honor what you call it? – is deceased – if you biblical women for the courageous and take her apart and examine all her independent choices that they made to mechanisms, can you isolate and analyze change the world for the better? the machinery that motivates this Nevertheless, we owe it to ourselves and to them to hear their stories, heed their altruistic behavior?”

Earthly Informant; “Nope. It’s as well wisdom and honor them as best as we can.

For those with living mothers, may you hidden as another compartment of the human condition we call the soul – even celebrate Mother’s Day with your full more complex. We’ve never found it either heart and presence. May my book on and we’ve been arguing about it for 4–5 biblical women and this article inspire millenia. But let’s save that puzzle for your everyone to show their appreciation and gratitude to their mothers, and to all next trip.

Finally, the inquisitive visitor rushes up women who gently embody the love and the ramp to his space ship – all eight depth that is unique to women and is too legs in a blur. He needs to get back to often unappreciated. Happy Mother’s Day. Melinda Ribner L.C.S. W. is the author Xyphon before “Swamp Day” – an annual celebration of the great Bog that of The Secret Legacy of Biblical Women, Everyday Kabbalah, Kabbalah Month periodically repopulates his planet.

His earthly guide gives him two parcels by Month, and New Age Judaism. to take back home that further explain Internationally known for her pioneering this mothering phenomenon; a big work in kabbalistic meditation and healing, cardboard box with a tabby cat and five she is also a spiritual psychotherapist and for nursing kittens lined up on her belly; and more than 30 years has used kabbalistic a video of the best maternal melodrama wisdom as part of treatment. She offers a ever produced in our galaxy – I Remember free newsletter on meditation, healing, Mama. A fine, old movie without a kabbalistic energies of the months, holidays, single vulgarity, explosion, fistfight, and so forth – www.kabbalahoftheheart.com. A maiming, disrobing, seduction, robbery, or sociopolitical message except; remember Mama and try to emulate WIENER her. They don’t make that kind any (continued from page 4) more. Who’d play Mama, Sharon Stone? day to forge a new life from the shattered Demi Moore?

You could, in fact, invite the old lady one that is in the process of healing.

Memorial Day is not only to remember over this Mother’s Day. Give her a flower, a fat pizza with four toppings of her the past. Memorial Day should remind us choice, and sit her down in front of a TV lit to be grateful for all that God has to offer, up with that old movie I Remember Mama. always remembering that life is eternal and is the very core of God. There is no She’ll love it.

Ted Roberts, a Rockower Award winner, is end. There is continuation of life. There is a syndicated Jewish columnist who looks at immortality. There is life after death. There Jewish life with rare wit and insight. Ted is grace and forgiveness. This is why we lives in Huntsville, Ala., where for 25 years should also rejoice. May God continue to he has served as bar mitzvah teacher. His bless the United States of America.

Rabbi Wiener is spiritual leader of the Sun inspiration is his patient wife, Shirley. Check out his website: www.wonderwordworks.com. Lakes Jewish Congregation near Phoenix, Ariz.

Blogsite: www.scribblerontheroof.typepad He welcomes comments at ravyitz @cox.net. .com. His collected works The Scribbler His new book Living with Faith was published on The Roof can be bought at Amazon.com in April 3, 2013 (see review p. NAT 16). It can be obtained on Amazon.com. A or lulu.com/content/127641. A

j i

8 The Jewish Post & Opinion – NAT May 8, 2013 Briefly put, the macro- micro- continuum posits that the same psychological motivations and dynamics that exist between two individuals in conflict also apply to conflicts in families and organizations; conflicts among ethnic and

BY MIRIAM L. ZIMMERMAN tribal groups; and among nation states at war. Comparing the macro-level of conflict to the micro- is, to borrow a metaphor from Tolstoy, like “the sun reflected in a drop of water.”The corollary that I tried to teach my students was that immud means “learning” in Hebrew. the more we understand the dynamics of The international grass-roots Limmud interpersonal conflict and how to manage movement promotes Jewish learning and them, the more able we will be to manage culture and taps into local talent around the conflict on the macro-level: world war. world to celebrate Jewish life in all aspects.

But how were we expected to concentrate on head-spinning presentations by rabbis, researchers, and lay leaders at the 2nd annual Bay Area Limmud during President’s weekend 2013? The rustically beautiful beachside Asilomar Conference Center in Pacific Grove, Calif., with deer roaming freely among the wooden cabins, ensured that nature was an omnipresent Rabbi Eilberg’s handout began with guest in all programs. two quotes from Martin Buber’s seminal As a retired university professor of text, I and Thou: “All actual life is communication and fulltime mediator, I encounter” and “In the beginning is the was pleased to attend Rabbi Amy Eilberg’s relation.” One of my takeaways from this session,“Martin Buber on Conflict in Our concentrated hour and ten minutes of lives and in Our World.” In 1985, Rabbi learning with Rabbi Eilberg was that the Eilberg became the first female rabbi more one is in genuine dialogue with ordained by the Conservative Jewish another, the less there will be conflict. I Theological Seminary. Rabbi Eilberg was wish I could tell that to my warring clients, an early pioneer in the Jewish healing intent on obtaining a divorce. Successful movement and demonstrated an ability negotiation, I would like to tell my clients, to relate to a diverse group on a deep is about the quality of your relationship, spiritual level during the AIDS crisis. not about the conflict per se. But then, not According to her Limmud bio, she “serves having a good relationship is probably why as a peace educator, conflict specialist, and they are getting a divorce in the first place. spiritual director. She is at work on a book The Rabbi cited longer passages from a on Judaism, peace and conflict, with the variety of Buber texts that supported this working title, From Enemy to Friend: the conclusion.“Dialogue is the way we were Sacred Practice of Jewish Peacemaking.” meant to be … yearn to be,”she asserted, Rabbi Eilberg began her session with citing Buber. “It (dialogue) defines our what she called the “macro- micro- humanity – that moment of encounter…” continuum” regarding conflict. As with another human being. The teachings someone who included a hefty segment of Martin Buber have“widened our awareon conflict resolution in every relevant ness” of the dimensions of dialogue. She communication class I taught for more pointed out that to be in dialogue with than 25 years, I, too, developed such a another can “feel like a spiritual practice.” continuum. I was delighted to learn that Yet one can be halachically (according what I thought was my unique idea, was to traditional Jewish law) observant but also espoused by such a national luminary not practice the “I-Thou” relationship as as Rabbi Eilberg. advocated by Buber.

Interesting side note: the same idea Buber distinguishes between real and arising from different sources in different false dialogue. There must be something places at the same time is an example intentional in one’s relationship, an of what psychiatrist Carl Jung called awareness of mutual presence and regard “synchronicity.” If Freud had not for the other’s wellbeing, for the discovered the unconscious, someone encounter to be truly “dialogic.” Based on else would have. If Shakespeare had Buber’s works, the Rabbi has synthesized not written Hamlet, then someone else requirements for genuine dialogue, would have; or, would have written a play resulting in the “I-Thou” relationship. that served the same place in literature. First and probably foremost, there must But I digress… be an awareness of the other’s humanity

Holocaust Educator

For the sake of heaven L

…the more one is in genuine dialogue with another, the less there will be conflict.

(emphasis mine throughout). Because of their intrinsic value, persons “should always be treated as an end in themselves,” and not as a means to an end.

A second key ingredient to I-Thou encounter is “acceptance of the other as different from ourselves.”It is not expected that participants must agree with each other (emphasis mine). There must be a willingness to affirm the very person with whom we might have a conflict. This acceptance and affirmation permits trust so that the parties are ready to enter into dialogue, despite those very differences.

A third characteristic is a willingness to enter into the life of the other as they live it. She quotes Buber’s The Knowledge of Man: A Philosophy that describes this characteristic as “a bold swinging … into the life of the other.”The Native American prayer to the Great Spirit, “Grant that I may not criticize my neighbor until I have walked a mile in his moccasins,” came to my mind at this point in her presentation.

As I read more of the good Rabbi’s handout, I realized I had before me a philosophical justification of my work for the last 15 years of sustained dialogue with Palestinians. Not that I need such a justification for myself, but now, I have tools to deal with my detractors, some of whom are very close to me. “What good does it do for a group of American Jews and Christian Palestinians to get together each month to talk?” or “How can you expect to bring peace to the Middle East by such a waste of your time?”is criticism I often encounter.

Now I can say, citing Buber and Eilberg, that dialogue enables one to enter into relationship such that conflicts can be dealt with effectively. Jews and Palestinians, if they are to achieve a lasting peace between them, must change the quality of their relationship (emphasis mine). That goal is exactly what JewishPalestinian dialogue is all about. With Buber backing me up, I can assert that we are not just a bunch of Jewish-Americans or Palestinian-Americans talking, we are transforming our relationship from enmity to amity so that we can each become an emissary for the other.

Just as Rabbi Eilberg synthesized Buber, so, too, will I synthesize her thoughts on dialogue, in my own words and from my own teaching experience. A course that I designed many years ago at Notre Dame de Namur University, “Persuasion and Presentation,” incorporated these thoughts, even though I did not name them as “dialogue”or as having emanated from Martin Buber.

The course was equal parts public speaking skills, rhetorical theory (argument), and use of PowerPoint to create persuasive presentations. I explained to students

that the most compelling arguments were ones that included the logic of the other. It is a risk to be open to your opponent’s arguments, to affirm them, to understand them completely. To do so in a persuasive presentation means you must have complete confidence in your own point of view and not be afraid to present and respond to the other’s perspective.

Certainly, in interpersonal relationships and the divorce mediation context in which I work professionally today, it could mean the difference between saving a marriage and ending it. In acknowledging the validity of the other’s argument, one takes a risk in making oneself vulnerable to perhaps the superior arguments of your partner. Especially in close intimate relationships, it is essential to realize that before you have the right to change your partner (it’s always their fault!), you must be open to be changed by your partner.

This is very tricky to do since at that same time, there must be an acknowledgment of the non-negotiable right of the other to be affirmed and valued by you.

Communication must remain respectful at all times. Maintaining respect when a conflict appears to attack one’s very identity is extremely difficult.

Unfortunately, most of our families do not teach their children how to accomplish this with the result that, as adults, many cannot manage conflict in their most intimate of relationships: the marital one.

This rationale for including the other’s perspective that I used in my course is an application of Rabbi Eilberg’s theories that she presented at Limmud. I have incorporated her teaching for years, without knowing that I have done so. I was to find out the next day at Limmud that what we both have been doing is teaching people how to argue“for the sake of heaven.”

Rabbi Eilberg’s talk provided a bridge into Rabbi Daniel Roth’s presentations on conflict resolution as grounded by the Talmud. Rabbi Roth is the first director of the Pardes Center for Judaism and Conflict Resolution in Jerusalem. According to his Limmud bio, he is a Ph.D. candidate at Bar-Ilan University’s Program for Conflict Resolution and Negotiation. He writes on themes of Jewish models of conflict resolution, peacemaking and reconciliation.

He is also an Israeli certified court mediator. The Rabbi received his ordination from Yeshivat Har-Etzion and holds an M.A. in Talmud from Hebrew University. At Limmud, I was fortunate to attend two of Rabbi Roth’s three sessions on conflict resolution.

“Remember What Amalek Did to You! – Reconciling Intractable Identity Conflicts in our Tradition and Society Today,” the title of Rabbi Roth’s second session

May 8, 2013 The Jewish Post & Opinion – NAT 9 (I missed the first), filled in a lot of be constructive. As an example, the core of information gaps for me. Rabbi Roth’s democracy is constructive conflict. handouts from both sessions that I The bulk of Rabbi Roth’s presentation attended included Hebrew and English explained how arguments can be columns of relevant texts from the Talmud, constructive. In true Talmudic style, the sometimes with his own comments.

Rabbi began his explanation by asking a Rabbi Roth began by answering the question: “What will continue after the question, “Who was Amalek over the conflict?” and then answered it: “The generations?” He distributed a handout people and the connection between them that pictured Amalek in a variety of still exists.” Controversy can strengthen incarnations over the centuries, beginning and not destroy the relationship. with the biblical Edomites, descendants He cited Jewish law regarding the of the grandson of Esau, and ending up enemy from the Mishna: “the definition with today’s Palestinians. His scholarship of an enemy is when there is no longer exceeded my ability to sum up the communication (between the parties).” complexity of the Talmudic sources and When done properly, when each side commentaries he cited, Jewish texts that argues thoroughly, better solutions can guide one as to how to think about emerge, according to this learned rabbi. and act on conflict.

A question that needs to be active Rabbi Roth never did fully answer my throughout such arguments: “Can we question after he called on me, “Who learn from each other?” gets to decide who is Amalek?”It seemed Agreements between disputing parties to me that naming someone as “Amalek” need to be active as well. Such agreements opens up doors to treating that person/ include: acknowledge where your ego is group/nation as the enemy with negative in the argument, acknowledge that consequences for the relationship. My contradictory points may each have an unconfirmed takeaway: Amelek was element of truth, and activate curiosity whomever the Rabbis decided was Amelek. and respect throughout. At the end, each The consequences of “naming” someone party is to concede to the other. as the enemy are profound. Jewish texts “You are not a Torah scholar until you can help us better understand not only can explain 49 ways of controversy – how to treat the enemy but also how to defend each side passionately. The avoid such a relationship altogether. essence of Talmud Torah is to be able to argue both sides,” according to this Talmudic scholar. He continued,“The goal of Talmud Torah is to be able to explain why both sides are right.”

Rabbi Roth distributed a seven-page English/Hebrew handout titled, “Sources for the Jewish Day of Constructive Conflict.” All of his explanations that he cited in his lecture had bases in In his final presentation on conflict Jewish texts. My takeaway: the process of resolution, “The 9th of Adar/ February resolving conflict, that is, the way it is 19th – The Day Peaceful Constructive done is as important as the content of the Conflict Became Violently Destructive,“we arguments. True to Talmudic form, the participants learned how to “argue for the handout ended with a question: can sake of heaven.” The title of his talk was readers think of one way they could based on the Pardes Center for Judaism practice constructive conflict? and Conflict Resolution (PCJCR) having In my Jan. 16, 2013 JP&O column, declared an international Jewish Day of “Neuroscience Explains Gaza,” I talked Constructive Conflict on the 9th of Adar. about recent research in the exploding Anyone can participate by reading and field of neuroscience that has begun to studying more about conflict resolution map out the physiological basis of the and by attempting to manage conflicts in a experience of conflict in the brain. This more constructive and cooperative spirit. column attempts to portray different ways According to tradition, on the 9th of the Jewish religion teaches about conflict Adar about 2,000 years ago, an argument resolution. With the help of empirical for the sake of heaven (Machloket l’shem science and creative religious leaders shamayim) between the House of Hillel like Rabbis Eilberg and Roth, may all our and the House of Shammai ceased being arguments soon become arguments for peaceful and constructive. The ensuing the sake of heaven. violence resulted in the loss of up to 3,000 Dr. Miriam L. Zimmerman is professor lives, according to some sources; a tragic emerita at Notre Dame de Namur day for the Jewish people.

University in Belmont, Calif, where she The key ingredient in arguing for the continues to teach the Holocaust course. She sake of heaven is that the argument must can be reached at mzimmerman@ndnu.edu. A

The key ingredient in arguing for the sake of heaven is that the argument must be constructive.

10 The Jewish Post & Opinion – NAT May 8, 2013 He said he had seen the Super Heroes Philanthropists Dorit and Gerald Paul, funders of the Peace Park. Thanks to the exhibit inside the museum and it is very generosity of Dow AgroSciences, TCM good. He continued about how appropriate was able to provide essential care and this banner is for this program because not all of our Super Heroes wear costumes feeding for several of the saplings.

When Rabbi Krichiver came to podium, like the ones in the exhibit, and sometimes he admitted his first comment was not even a teenage girl can be a Super Hero.

BY JENNIE COHEN A very interesting speaker was John written down. It was about the Super Heroes xcitement filled the air in front of banner on the outside of the Skywalk to Goodson (photo opposite) who portrays The Children’s Museum (TCM) in the museum (see photo below). He said he Otto Frank, Anne’s father and the only Indianapolis, Ind. on April 14 as noted had not noticed it before because he usually survivor of their family. A few times every speakers prepared to plant a sapling from walks into the museum via the Skywalk. day in the Anne Frank exhibit inside the chestnut tree that stood outside the One cannot see the banner from inside, TCM, he and an actress who portrays Secret Annex in Amsterdam where Anne but from the outside, it cannot be missed. Anne, give short monologues. This brings Frank hid with her family and others from 1942–1944. Although saplings from this tree have already been planted all over the countryside in Holland, this was the first one planted in the United States.

All the local television stations and newspapers were on hand to capture this event for their audiences on this warm and sunny but windy morning. This was in stark contrast to the time period in history this event recalled when racial prejudice was rampant.

The purpose of the Anne Frank Peace Park where the sapling was planted is to remind us of what can happen when intolerance and hatred go unchecked. A variety of people of different ages, races, and religions were on hand to show their support of this purpose and to concur how important it is to never cease striving for the time when humanity will no longer need this reminder.

Three of the speakers were Jeffrey Patchen, President and CEO of TCM; Yvonne Simons, Executive Director of L to R: David Sousa, Public Affairs Manager of Dow AgroSciences; Yvonne Simons, The Anne Frank Center USA (see photo Executive Director of The Anne Frank Center USA; David Gray, Chairman of the Board of below); and Rabbi Brett Krichiver of The Children’s Museum (TCM); Philanthropists Gerald and Dorit Paul, Rabbi Brett Krichiver Indianapolis Hebrew Congregation (see of Indianapolis Hebrew Congregation; and Jeffrey Patchen, President and CEO of TCM. excerpts of their speeches on p. 3). Other speakers were David Sousa, Public Affairs Manager of Dow AgroSciences; David Gray, Chairman of the Board of TCM; and

Anne Frank sapling planting ceremony at TCM E

L–R: Yvonne Simons, Executive Director of the Anne Frank Center USA and TCM President and CEO Jeffrey Patchen.

Rabbi Brett Krichiver of Indianapolis Hebrew Congregation extemporaneously noted how appropriate the Super Heroes exhibit banner was for the sapling planting because not all of our Super Heroes wear costumes, sometimes even a teenage girl can be a Super Hero.

Rabbi Brett Krichiver (R) speaks with John Goodson (L ) who portrays Otto Frank, Anne’s father, at TCM. the story to life, making it seem more than a distant history.

After the planting was over, I attended his live performance. Goodson talks with a German accent and comes across as somber, yet uplifting. After the performance, he leaves the “room”and comes back with no accent. He says he is there to answers any questions the audience has about the diary, the family, and Miep Gies who helped hide and bring food to the family.

Gies is the woman who found Anne’s diary and kept it safe for Otto.

Dr. Caryn Vogel of Indianapolis, daughter of Holocaust survivors Michael Vogel, of blessed memory, and Agnes Vogel, who was also in attendance (see photo above), had the following comments about this event.

“Each year there are fewer living Holocaust survivors and each year it seems that the memory of the Shoah fades (both for Jews and non Jews). This living tree will serve as a tangible memory of those who died in the Holocaust, but also a tangible reminder of how good can triumph over evil. It is wonderful that The Children’s Museum has chosen to highlight the story of Anne Frank as an important educational tool.

“On a personal level, my father, Michael Vogel, worked closely with Jennifer Pace Robinson (Vice President of Experiential Development and Family Learning at TCM) on one of their first Holocaust related exhibits. He and my mother volunteered many hours as docents and school lecturers for that project. They forged a close relationship with Jennifer and other staff at the museum. I am touched that they still remember my parents and honor my father’s memory by including us!”

I saw how pleased the Vogels, likewise other Holocaust survivors and their children, were with this program. It was obvious that many hours of planning and preparation had taken place. This was greatly appreciated not only by this writer, but everyone in attendance.

Editor’s note: I would like to give a special “Thank you” to Director of Public and Media Relations at TCM, Kimberly Harms, who helped provide so much information for this sapling planting story.

May 8, 2013 The Jewish Post & Opinion – NAT 11 Excerpts of speeches (TCM) on the planting of the first of the Jeffrey Patchen: Anne Frank saplings in the United States.

Today is a day where what we are about The Anne Frank Center is a partner to do truly matters, not just for children organization of the Anne Frank House in and families here in Indiana, but also for Amsterdam. Located in Lower Manhattan children and families throughout the 2 blocks north of the 9/11 Memorial and country and across the world who are Museum, we occupy a large gallery and familiar with the Anne Frank story and educational space. It is our mission to who understand that everything we do as raise awareness on the consequences of a society to perpetuate that story and its intolerance – all kinds of intolerance – lessons are incredibly important and through our educational programs and meaningful. traveling exhibits, which have been viewed It is a real privilege for the Museum to by nearly 6 million people in this country. be a permanent site of one of the Anne This week is Yom HaShaoh, Holocaust Frank Tree saplings and to have had the Remembrance week, in which we opportunity over the past three years to commemorate the murder of 1.5 million serve as host for eight other saplings as children. No children anywhere in the they were in quarantine pursuant to world, under any circumstance, on either Indiana and federal DNR regulations. side of any conflict, should be victimized.

In many ways, these saplings have been What the Children’s Museum stands for, the Museum’s most precious and fragile together with the Anne Frank Center, is artifacts over the past three years. Our the celebration of children – ALL children work… in caring for these fragile saplings in this world – because they signify hope and that which we plan in the coming and innocence. years around telling the Chestnut Tree’s Anne Frank saw the tree only from a story and the meaning it gave to Anne small window in the attic, and it gave her during her time in hiding is truly one of a sense of hope, beauty and renewal. We those opportunities where science, art and hope that in her absence many generations humanistic elements come together in ways of children will see this Chestnut tree that will change the lives and perspectives grown into all she wanted it to represent. of children and families who visit.

Please go to our website www.anne I am pleased to introduce Yvonne franktreeusa.com and become part of this Simons, Executive Director of the Anne mission by confronting intolerance.

Frank Center, whose foresight in conceiving Rabbi Brett Krichiver: the Sapling Project truly made all that we Once while walking along a road, Honi celebrate today possible. saw a man planting a carob tree. He asked Yvonne Simons: him: “How long will it take for this tree to On behalf of the Anne Frank Center bear fruit?” “Seventy years,” replied the USA, I am very pleased to collaborate with man. The sage then asked: “Are you so The Children’s Museum of Indianapolis healthy a man that you expect to live that length of time and eat its fruit?” The man answered: “I found a fruitful world, because my ancestors planted it for me.

Likewise I am planting for my children.”

(Babylonian Talmud Ta’anit 23a) Trees have a particular significance in the Jewish tradition. In Proverbs we read that our Torah is a Tree of Life to those that hold tight to it and everyone who upholds it is happy. Its ways are ways of pleasantness, and all its paths are peace (after Proverbs 3:17–18).

It takes 70 years for a tree to bear its full fruit, according to the ancient texts. This symbolism is not lost on us today, especially as we consider the lessons learned almost 70 years since the death of Anne Frank. We consider the thoughts she had while peering out the window of her hiding place, when she wrote: “I want to go on living even after my death!”– Anne L–R: Dr. Caryn Vogel with her mother, Frank (April 5, 1944) Holocaust survivor Agnes Vogel, and We bless this occasion, when we strive Jennifer Pace Robinson, vice president of to bring new life to the memory of Anne experiential development and family Frank, young victim of the Shoah, the learning at TCM. Behind: Howard Vogel, Nazi Holocaust, who teaches us so much Caryn’s brother. from her inextinguishable optimism. A

12 The Jewish Post & Opinion – NAT May 8, 2013 people through their assumption of a shared moral “yoke.” No longer were we alone in finding the path and staying on it.

Liberation shattered the ancient paradigm of social life and relations – that all existed in permanently fixed orbits. For the first

BY RABBI MOSHE time it was possible to conceive of human BEN ASHER, PH.D. life uplifted for thousands, even millions.

AND MAGIDAH This radical transformation of consciousness was the underpinning for all subsequent KHULDA BAT SARAH social and political revolutions – and a source of everlasting hope.

Much later, about a century after the first exiles returned to Jerusalem following the Babylonian galut, “a solemn convocation ope is the palpable feeling that took place in which the law of God was goodness is going to emerge in the world, formally enacted as binding upon the the uplifting, sometimes even joyful community with ‘a curse and an oath.’” experience of anticipating good things to That action is preserved in the narrative come. It’s like warm bread; it not only fills prayer of Ezra. The painful experiences of us up, it fuels our contentment – whatever the community, its poverty and subjugation, else is happening in our lives, things look were attributed to the failure of the people and feel better when we’re hopeful. We to observe the law. So the priests, Levites, run on hope; when it fades or disintegrates, and princes declared an official orthodoxy, despair and depression replace it, and we that “the covenant is primarily the oath become immobilized or worse. to obey the accumulated tradition…as But how are we to feel hopeful when the canonized in the Torah.” possibilities are so bleak, when what we The Torah is the method of achieving love and cherish is threatened, and hope – in effect it embodies the principles nagging fear has replaced what once and pathways that sustain hope. seemed to be an impenetrable security?

Our greatest pain and suffering – the Is hope always accessible, even in the challenges to remaining hopeful – often worst of times? And, if so, how are we come not from events themselves, but to regain it? To what extent are we from our confusion and uncertainty when responsible for our own hopefulness or faced with moral dilemmas. The problem, lack of it? And what’s the link between typically, is not about choosing between being Jewish and our hopefulness? right and wrong – most of us see that Our deepest source of hope as Jews choice, agonize briefly, and make it quickly. is the history of our people and our No – despair comes when the choice is civilization – that we’ve survived! – and between two seemingly evil or seemingly what has followed throughout the world good possibilities. It’s in making those from that history. choices and living with the consequences Our common historical root is the that we need concrete help to sustain our liberation and exodus from Egypt, and the hope when it’s strained. extraordinary events at Mount Sinai – Our continued hope lies in the Mattan Torah, giving and receiving the covenantal commitment to Torah as the law, the covenant between God and the unimpeachable guide for our day-to-day “mixed multitude,” which then became lives, our recognition that “even in the the Israelites. For the first time morality worst of times, in your mitzvot was understood as the supreme moral will (commandments) our hope is found.” of God. Prescribed behavior reflected not The covenant, brit or cutting, is an the fickle will of warring gods, but eternal archaic form in social life that is related definitions of moral right and wrong. to hope. Its antecedent is the cutting of a The law reflected predictable uplifting or sacrificial animal in two parts and having degrading consequences, given the will parties to a contract pass between of the One Creator, as revealed in the them, a symbolic identification of those workings of creation. making promises with the animal that Moreover, morality was never again to was slaughtered. It’s a graphic way of be an entirely private matter. The whole demonstrating the fate of one who people, acting together as one, accepted contemplates violating the covenant, the covenant, thus the whole people thereby disappointing the hope of the became responsible for one another’s other party to the agreement. observance and moral lapses. The The brit milah, the rite of circumcision, covenant is not merely a theological idea, which is an adjunct to the Covenant, is then, but marks the creation of a moral another important Jewish source of hope. spiritual community, binding together in a The circumcision itself is but a momentary nation the communal life of a body of and quickly passing instant of discomfort

Gather the People

A Jew doesn’t lose hope H

for the newborn baby, without meaning until much later in life. It is the parents and, to a lesser extent, family and friends and members of the community, for whom the rite is a powerful and long lasting source of hope.

The power of the physical act itself, when connected with the religious ritual, cannot go unnoticed or be experienced with indifference by the parents. In a manner of speaking, it bludgeons them into consciousness of their newly acquired responsibility for the moral career of this individual that they have brought into the world. To a lesser extent, most of the family and friends and community members who are present also feel some pull of responsibility for that individual’s moral career.

Our continued hope lies in the covenantal commitment to Torah as the unimpeachable guide for our day-to-day lives…

Not only is the new life a source of hope in itself, but the commitment of the parents, family, friends, and community to ensure that that life will be one dedicated to righteousness cannot help but reinforce over the years their hopefulness with every act they contribute to the child’s moral career.

We pass each year with weekly Shabbat observance, each of which is not only an ongoing training ground for our moral careers, but an extraordinarily deep well of hope for the Jewish people. Shabbat marks an incremental step toward the Days of Mashiach (Messiah) and our redemption, over which we exercise great control.

Although we are commanded to “keep” and “guard” the Sabbath, possibly more important is the expression la’asot, that we are “to make” the Sabbath. Shabbat is not something that happens to us, but something that we cause to happen.

What is it we do to make it happen?

Shabbat happens when we cease trying to control the creative forces in our environment, in other people, and in ourselves. It’s a time of not living in the ordinary sense, but learning how to live extraordinarily. It’s a time of recreation, re-creating our selves by reclaiming our Torah tradition of wisdom, which holds out a vision and path of liberation for our spirits and bodies. It’s a time to be with those we love, a time of gemilut hasadim (loving-kindness). It’s a time when we discover that we are loved and lovable and that the world need not always be a cold, (see Ben Asher/Bat Sarah, page 13)

Yiddish for Everyday

BY HENYA CHAIET

10 wise sayings from my mother G

eh nisht mit shlechteh chaverim.

(Don’t associate with bad friends.)

Ess ah bisseleh nor zaul daus zein eppes goot. (Eat a small amount but be sure it is something special.)

Zizeye nisht farnotisht. (Don’t be a fanatic!)

Vaus der mensch lehrent zich aus gait nisht farloren. (Whatever a person learns never gets lost.)

Ah mol iz besser ahz nieh shvaikt.

(Sometimes the best answer is none at all.)

Ahz meh lehpt der lehpt mehn. (If you live long enough everything will happen.)

Der mensch dahf zach tzoo grayten tzoom shtarben, nor meh darf nisht varten. Ahz der malach ahmauvess haut dein kvitel vet err deer gehfinen. (We should prepare ourselves for the inevitable death, but don’t sit around waiting for it to happen. When the angel of death has your ticket, he will find you wherever you are.)

Ah zay vee meh lept ahzay shtarpt mehn. (The way you live your life is the way you die.)

Ahz meh kaucht shane, macht mehn ah bissel mere effshare veht imehtzer kumen. (When you’re already cooking, cook a bit more – never can tell when someone might drop in.)

Ah mol iz besser ahz meh hert nisht ah zay goot. [On her deafness] (Some things are better not heard.)

Henya Chaiet is the Yiddish name for Mrs. A. Helen Feinn. Born in 1924 ten days before Passover, her parents had come to America one year prior. They spoke only Yiddish at home so that is all she spoke until age five when she started kindergarten. She then learned English, but has always loved Yiddish and speaks it whenever possible.

Chaiet lived in La Porte and Michigan City, Ind., from 1952 to 1978 and currently resides in Walnut Creek, Calif. Email: afeinn87@gmail.com. A

j i /B S

BEN ASHER

AT

ARAH

(continued from page 12)

cruel place.

There is a crucial link between the covenant, the Sabbath, and the Days of Mashiach – each leads to the next.

May 8, 2013 The Jewish Post & Opinion – NAT 13 When the skeptics and cynics dismiss the stimulus, its manifestation in our action to potential of bringing Days of Mashiach, create goodness is the most important those who keep Shabbat answer that they source of reinforcement for our hopefulness. have already experienced it, if only for one So every completed act of goodness that day in the week. That experience is made we create through our own initiative gives possible through our covenantal learning us greater hope that goodness will emerge and teaching every week that God and in the world. And to the extent that we humankind have an ability to respond choose to associate with other people who together to “complete” the creation, to are also committed to actively creating co-create a world of righteousness, truth, goodness, consciously avoiding people and justice, freedom, peace, and kindness. who are not doing so, we stimulate and There are two competing kinds of faith reinforce our own hopefulness. that underpin our ability to respond – one Yet withal, one might reply: that’s all directed externally and the other directed well and good, but the world in which I’m internally. The external faith is a conscious living is a devastating destroyer of hope. confidence or trust that, if we satisfy the Is it possible to open our eyes and look conditions established by Torah, God directly into the sickliness and deathliness will act lovingly and compassionately to around us – and not lose hope? Can we provide for our needs. This is mostly look into the world of terrorism, war, faith in God’s responsibility or ability to violent crime, toxic pollution, and political respond. The internal faith can be thought corruption – and somehow remain hopeful? of as an internalized conviction or Is it possible to feel sustained and hopeful motivation (i.e., not in the conscious as we read King Solomon’s words in mind yet usually demonstrated in our Kohelet (Ecclesiastes), that, “all is vanity” action) regarding the possibility for good (i.e., emptiness)? How can there be hope to emerge in the world, despite our in the consciousness that everything is futile? consciously recollected reason and Because from Solomon we learn that experience to the contrary. This is faith we’re not alone in this vale of tears. All in our responsibility or ability to respond. of us together share these painful Both types of faith regard the human circumstances, and together we can help capacity for goodness to be created by to bring Days of Mashiach.

God. The external type of faith reflects a But of course there are no quick or belief that God has created within us the simple solutions. Our God with whom wherewithal to believe that God can act in we covenant is a God of history, willingly ways that are entirely outside of our sharing with us the power of creation as reason and experience. Here“leap of faith” co-producers, but over the course of means we set aside our reason and decades and centuries, if not millennia. experience to believe that God will create So we can understand why it’s said in greater goodness in the world. The Midrash Rabbah that,“everything is bound internal type of faith reflects a belief that, up with waiting”? But in what ways are because of what God has created within suffering, sanctification of God’s Name, us, we can act in ways that are entirely and desire for Days of Mashiach bound up outside of our reason and experience. with waiting?

Here “leap of faith” means that we allow Rabbi Enoch Zundel ben Joseph of ourselves to create greater goodness in Bialystok (d. 1867), commentator on the the world even though our reason and Midrash, reminds us that when we suffer experience reject that possibility. Most of and struggle together, we hope with faith us experience these two types of faith to for relief. We hope to sanctify the Name of a greater or lesser degree; they’re not God, to do an important act with our lives mutually exclusive. that praises God and goodness. We hope What are the connections between faith for Days of Mashiach, through willingness and hope? to wait, not in passive receptivity, but With external faith, we become more refusing to give up hope by constant hopeful when our confidence in God’s initiative and application of Torah action is borne out by events, although we teaching, working at tikun olam (repairing can sustain hope by prayer, notwithstanding the world). discouraging events. With internal faith, A Jew doesn’t lose hope because, even sometimes we fail to recognize this faith when waiting for goodness to emerge, a as faith, and thus we fail to act on it. That Jew refuses to give up working to create is, although for inexplicable reasons we goodness – which in turn sustains hope. feel motivated to create more goodness in © 2013 Moshe ben Asher & Khulda bat Sarah the world, maybe even taking first steps Rabbi Moshe ben Asher and Magidah to do so, when we begin to reason and Khulda bat Sarah are the Co-Directors of recollect our experience we decide that we Gather the People, a nonprofit organization must be “out of our mind”to continue. that provides Internet-based resources for But if we don’t misunderstand our faith congregational community organizing and and, instead, allow it to operate as a development (www.gatherthepeople.org). A

14 The Jewish Post & Opinion – NAT May 8, 2013

Media Watch

BY RABBI ELLIOT B. GERTEL

Bar Mitzvah on Raising Hope By

any standard of good taste, the penultimate episode of this season’s Raising Hope would have to be classified as one of television’s most vulgar depictions of Jews and of Judaism. Yet writers Mark Torgrove and Paul A. Kaplan, while still fully responsible for this rather irksome and unoriginal fare, are not fully to blame for the half hour’s tastelessness.

At least some of that blame rests with the bar and bat mitzvah process in most synagogues and the rhetoric and rationale (not to mention the rituals of conspicuous consumption in the gifts and the celebrations) which often attend the popular ceremonies.

With the advent of Easter, Burt Chance’s parents (Shirley Jones and Lee Majors) visit with astounding news. They have attended a bar mitzvah, and Mom claims that she learned that she is not only a cousin to someone named Goldberg that she is fully Jewish, and that Burt is therefore Jewish, too. Mom wants Burt (Garret Dillahunt) to “get bar-mitzvahed” and to “become a man” because he has never followed through with anything (like graduating from high school). As Dad points out, Mom has really learned how to lay on the guilt since finding out that she is Jewish. He also complains, “I haven’t had a healthy stool since your mother changed religions.”

The revelation makes things a bit awkward and hard, especially for Burt’s wife, Virginia (Martha Plimpton), who has resourcefully and proudly acquired a monumental ham for a landmark Easter dinner. Burt’s mom declares, “We no longer celebrate Easter. We’re Passover people.” Virginia tries to put a positive spin on the “different songs, more holidays” that will probably change their lives, but Burt, who, although blessed with good looks is challenged in the intelligence departments, both emotional and intellectual, wonders whether he should punch a friend “for that hilarious [anti-Semitic] joke he told me last week.”

In their pillow talk Virginia speculates that there must be some amazing Passover recipes for the Easter ham. Burt suggests that they keep asking themselves, “What would Jesus do?”

Burt shows signs of thinking more

Burt Chance (Garret Dillahunt) in Raising Hope imagines what makes a Jew a Jew. deeply than had been thought possible when he wonders aloud, “I don’t feel Jewish. Maybe that’s why they call it ‘Jewish.’ If people find out and don’t feel full Jew they feel ‘Jew-ish.’”This is the best line in the whole episode, which quickly degenerates into cheap shot stereotypes, then becomes momentarily touching until a deception is revealed and the closing, cheapest shots are delivered.

The half hour even provides a few extended musical sequences. They are a far cry from the Fiddler on the Roof musical tradition, though, perhaps, one routine is a kind of homage to it. Burt visits a kosher deli to inquire about Judaism, and witnesses, at least in his mind’s eye, all of the employees and customers, including a chasid, dancing to lyrics about “what makes a Jew a Jew” – like “over-bearing mothers,” “movie-making brothers,” “fathers who earn money,”“books about the Holocaust and Streisand on CD.” In a second musical montage in the supermarket, when Burt’s wife inquires about a seder, the clerk croons a rather nasty song about his ex-wife who, though “shrewish,” was genuinely “Jewish,” but taught him how to do a seder despite her frigidity. (“Seder” is rhymed with “never laid her.”) I suppose I should have seen the rhapsody on“shrewish”Jewish women coming as soon as the word “Jewish” was “parsed” and the rhymes began to flow.

I won’t even go into the third musical number, a Gothic rock deal in which a “modern”rabbi hurls a Sefer Torah and the bar mitzvah man and son literally ride one.

(In that number, the rabbi is depicted as dancing with a couple of chorus girls but the “bar mitzvah”maintains his dignity.)

Burt does decide to have a bar mitzvah ceremony, hoping that his parents grant him atonement for never having graduated from high school or even finished a book report. “I never followed through on anything because I never became a man,” he confesses. “I think I need to get bar mitzvahed.” His wife asks: “Are you sure you really want to do this? The Jewish thing is a lot of work.”But the determined young father finds the nearest synagogue and Hebrew School and doesn’t seem to

have to do much convincing for the rabbi to give him a crash (week’s!) course.

“Young father” is particularly apt here because the standing joke on the series is that Burt became a father at age 17 after “knocking up”his high school sweetheart, now his wife, and that his son has followed in his footsteps, becoming a young father of baby Hope whose mother is a serial killer. This standing joke is milked in this episode for all that it is worth, especially in the Hebrew School classroom where Burt (rather halfheartedly) warns the adolescent boys against becoming fathers at age 17.

It is interesting that there are no girls in the class. Is this supposed to be a more “traditional” synagogue? The men and women sit together during services, where the rabbi has to correct every word read by Burt for hours. If the rabbi is traditional, he certainly did not do due diligence in determining whether or not Burt is Jewish, not to mention in preparing him for the occasion. As it turns out, Burt learns that his parents made up the whole Jewish thing just so that they could bank his bar mitzvah presents as payback for all their gifts for the graduations and other life cycle ceremonies of their friends’ more accomplished children. (Mom refers to those children as “horrible.”)

After services, the rabbi overhears Burt’s discovery that he is not Jewish. When Burt apologizes,“My goyim parents told a little fib,” the rabbi totally cuts him off, saying, “You wasted enough of my time. Shalom, sir.” To Burt’s, “But, rabbi,” the rabbi responds emphatically and dismissively,“I said, ‘Shalom.’” Surely such a turn of events would require pastoral attention – and understanding. But the writers obviously want everyone to be at their worst in this episode, if not in the entire series. So the rabbi cannot look good.

Neither can the very ceremony of bar mitzvah which is reduced here to how it is described, as “the first major pay day for a Jewish kid.”

I must confess that it bothered me a bit to see everyone’s jumping joy at the end of this episode in putting the whole “Jewish thing”behind them. One suspects that the rabbi’s dismissiveness was hardly a factor in the jubilation to be rid of Judaism.Virginia speaks for all when she proclaims,“O.K., the Jewish thing is officially over. Everybody back to our house for some glazed ham.”

Nowadays Jewish educators strenuously point out that“bar mitzvah”or“bat mitzvah” is not a verb but a noun, that one becomes a bar mitzvah but does not get“bar mitzvahed.”

Whether intentionally or unintentionally, this episode betrays the fallacy in the rationalization of bar or bat mitzvah ceremonies as object lessons in following (see Gertel, page 19)

Seen on the Israel Scene

BY SYBIL KAPLAN

Celebrating Israel and Jaffa’s Maine Friendship House Yom Hazikaron, April 15, 2013

T

oday is Yom Hazikaron which is Memorial Day for the fallen soldiers. A siren sounded last night at 8 p.m.to mark the start of the day and another one sounded at 11 a.m. Thank G-d, we do not know anyone personally who was killed as a soldier although we do know some families who have lost sons. This evening it will end and roll over into Yom Ha’atzmaut, Israel Independence Day. Yom Ha’atzmaut, April 16, 2013 As a Zionist from the age of 16, Israel has always played a central role in my life. I made aliyah in 1970 and every experience, every day, for ten years was special for me as I lived and worked as a foreign correspondent. As my autobiographical account of those years is titled, I was a “Witness to History” and loved every minute of it – because I belonged here.

Yom Ha’atzmaut back in the old country was wearing blue and white and participating in whatever community activity was being held wherever I was living.

Returning almost five years ago to live in Israel was not so much because I was a Zionist but from a more practical point of view – whether my husband and I could make it here financially – and to give support to my daughter who had come before us – because we belonged here.

I’m thrilled my feelings are in my genes (and in her jeans!).

All of this background is by way of saying that today, Yom Ha’atzmaut has a special meaning for me. I am home. We have a large circle of friends here, we belong to a nice synagogue where we are active, I muddle through lots of situations with my fairly good Hebrew, I am busy with my writing, I am sending hasbara to my papers to enlighten others, and I belong here.

Tonight, when Yom Hazikaron ends, we will do what we have done for many years before – go downtown and breathe in the fair-like atmosphere of people on the streets, eating, talking, enjoying, being part of Israel Independence Day. I’m hoping the disgusting idea of bopping people on the head with plastic hammers

May 8, 2013 The Jewish Post & Opinion – NAT 15 has disappeared. I’m looking forward to century, who started the myth that there falafel or shwarma or ice cream or maybe our was a Muslim connection to the city.

In a piece called “A Letter To the World favorite, café afukh. And I know as I walk From Jerusalem,”the writer says: through the streets that I belong here.

“There was a Jerusalem before there a New York. When Berlin, Moscow, London Yom Yerushalayim – Jerusalem Day, and Paris were miasmal forest and swamp, May 7-8, 2013 “Ten measures of beauty were bestowed there was a thriving Jewish community upon the world; nine were taken by here. Three times a day we petition the Jerusalem and one by the rest of the Almighty: ‘Gather us from the four corners world.”This is read in Tractate Kiddushim of the world, bring us upright to our land; return in mercy to Jerusalem, Thy city and 49:2 of the Babylonian Talmud.

May 7–8 is the 28th of Iyar, the newest dwell in it as Thou promised.’

“For the first time since the year 70, holiday on the Jewish calendar, established in 1998 by the Israeli government. From there is now complete religious freedom the time King David made Jerusalem his for all in Jerusalem. For the first time since capital, it has remained the eternal capital – the Romans put the torch to the Temple, whether it was conquered by Christians or everyone has equal rights.

“Let me add, in conclusion, Jerusalem Muslims or others.

With the War of Independence in 1948, has been a remarkable city for 5,000 Jerusalem was divided and the eastern years. What other city can say it has been section was occupied by Jordan and ruled fought over by Babylonians, Macedonians, from its capital, Amman. On June 5, 1967, Seleucids, Romans, Byzantines, Persians, Israel’s neighbors challenged her borders. Arabs, Crusaders, Mamelukes, Turks, Syria fired at the north and in the air; British and Jordanians. All have left their Egypt closed the Straits of Tiran and sent impressions upon the city. “’If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, may my 100,000 troops into Sinai. Jordan opened right hand wither! May my tongue cleave fire on Jerusalem.

On June 7, the third day of the Six-Day to the roof of my mouth, if I do not War, the Israel Defense Forces broke remember you, if I do not count Jerusalem through Jerusalem’s dividing wall, fighting the greatest of my joys.’”

Fact: On March 22, 1990 the U.S. against the Jordanian army which had occupied, desecrated, destroyed and Senate unanimously adopted a resolution devastated Jerusalem’s Old City for 20 declaring that “Jerusalem is and should years. The Israel Defense Forces liberated remain the capital of the State of Israel” and reclaimed the Old City for the Jewish and “must remain an undivided city in people and made United Jerusalem the which the rights of every ethnic and religious group are protected.” nation’s capital.

On April 30, the House adopted a resolution declaring Jerusalem to be the Jerusalem – the holy city Fact: Jerusalem has always been described undivided capital of Israel in language and revered in Jewish law. Jews pray facing identical to that passed by the Senate.

Fact: In 1995, the United States east to Jerusalem. At the Passover seder, Congress overwhelmingly passed a law we say,“Next year in Jerusalem.”

Fact: For 3,000 years, Jerusalem has requiring the U.S. government to move its been at the heart of the Jewish people. The Embassy to Jerusalem. Presidents, however, city has only been divided twice in history may invoke their authority to waive the – once in the period of the Maccabees, 22 law based on the “national security” centuries ago, and from 1948 to 1967 interests of the United States, and this is when Jordan occupied its eastern part. why the move has not taken place.

Jerusalem Day is a day for all Jews to The only time it was a capital was under celebrate!

Jewish rule.

Fact: The holiest place in Jerusalem for Jews is the Western Wall, the remains of Visit the Maine Friendship House – the wall built around the Second Temple Heritage and Museum If you happen to drive down Auerbach and the Temple mount above.

Fact: There is no mention of Jerusalem Street in Jaffa, you will stop suddenly to in the Koran, because there is no historical see a wooden house with a plaque on the evidence to suggest Mohammed ever front. It is open Fridays noon to 3 p.m. and visited Jerusalem. Mecca and Medina are Saturdays, 2 to 4 p.m. The 12-minute video shown in the basement and a visit with Muslim holy sites, not Jerusalem.

Fact: It was Arafat’s uncle, grand Jean and Dr. Reed Holmes, tells it all.

Jean and Reed met in 1980 when mufti of Jerusalem, in the 1920s and 1930s who concluded for the first time that Reed (now a sprightly 96 years old) was Mohammed ascended into heaven from bringing groups to Israel. On Jean’s first the site known as the Dome of the Rock trip in 1981, they came to a neighborhood (see Kaplan/Israel, page 20) on the Temple Mount. It was he, in the last

16 The Jewish Post & Opinion – NAT May 8, 2013 deprived for too long of its essential and multiple gifts.

Born in India to marginally practicing Muslim parents, 13-year-old Rushdie came to London in 1961 to attend the boarding Rugby School where he REVIEWED BY RABBI ISRAEL ZOBERMAN discovered that he had three strikes against him: being a foreigner, smart, and bad at sports. However, his trying transition as a young immigrant probably helped shape Rushdie’s resolve later to persevere. He studied history at oseph Anton (A Memoir). By Salman Cambridge University – his father’s alma Rushdie. New York: Random House. 2012. mater – instead of economics that his 633 Pages. $30.00. father expected of him, and further Upon picking up shocked him by opting for writing as a Salman Rushdie’s career. Curiously, he was the only student latest book, Joseph at Cambridge in 1967 to take a course on Anton, I took a “Muhammad, the Rise of Islam and the vow to read every Early Caliphate”. page of this heavy It took him five years to write his first tome written by a book, Midnight’s Children, about his literary genius who homeland India. The book’s success led has earned our him to quitting his advertising job in 1981 profound apprecito fully devote himself to writing. The ation not only Satanic Verses publication in England on for his dazzling Sept. 26, 1988, resulted in threats to writing skills, but no less, for his admirable Rushdie’s life along with the book’s courage and fortitude facing a death burning on Dec. 2, in Bradford, England, sentence in the form of a fatwa, meted with its highest Muslim presence in out by Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini in Britain. The burning is compared to the February, 1989 for his “blasphemous” The Nazis’ books’ burning at Berlin’s Opera Satanic Verses.

House on May 10, 1933.

The author’s life was instantly turned Firebombing of bookstores occurred in upside down. For eleven unfathomable London, and Sidney, Australia, as well as years he became a fugitive, secretly threats against publishers. The Japanese moving from one secure hiding place to translator, Professor Hitoshi Igaroshi, was another. For nine of those years living with stabbed to death and the Italian translator, protecting Scotland Yard officers in Dr. Ettore Capriolo was wounded in a “Operation Malachite,” while trying to knife attack. William Nyaard, the maintain a semblance of normalcy in a Norwegian publisher was shot in the world gone mad. Much of his own money back and survived. People died in was spent on safe houses. His choice for demonstrations, particularly in India. All the required alias of Joseph Anton (the that weighs heavily on the author as he book’s title) reflects his bond with the remains proud of the freedoms he fought great writers Conrad and Checkhove whose for, finally reaching the conclusion that he first names he borrowed. The incredible does not have to be liked by all – what ordeal took its toll on his family life. matters is being faithful to his principals.

He once panicked when unable to reach For twelve and a half years he was his son Zafar and Zafar’s mother Clarissa banned from visiting India, and for nine in Rushdie’s “worst day of his life”. and a half years he could not fly British He even pondered death as a preferred Airways and other international carriers option. His humor helped him cope, “ refused him as well. Rushdie is most A fatwa was not the only way to die. grateful to the United States for the There were older types of death sentences warm welcome he received here at the that still worked very well”. If he has a U.S. Congress, Columbia University, weakness, it is his apparent need for the and elsewhere. famous and beautiful whose company he Most ironically, his book, Fury, a sought though they sought him as well. satirical rendition of New York was due This unique memoir and exhaustive to be published in the United States on diary narrated in third person, challenges the fateful Sept. 11, 2001. That attack the reader with its myriad of details. reaffirmed for him that his own enemy Abundantly revealing with brutal honesty was also the enemy of Western of the author’s tumultuous personal life Civilization, with his insightful of troubled marriages and relationships, observation, “the fundamentalist seeks it is nonetheless an inspiring defense to bring down a great deal more than of freedom even as he himself was buildings…How to defeat terrorism?

Book Review

Inspiring defense of freedom J

Comfort and hope L

iving with Faith: A Guide to Understanding Ourselves, Others and God.

By Rabbi Irwin Wiener. Tate Publishing, $11 paperback, e-book available.

Rabbi Irwin Wiener’s first book is a quick, meaningful read designed to “enhance faith,”he writes in the preface.

“The purpose of (the book) is to try to give people a better understanding of how faith can play an important role in your life. You don’t have to be religious or irreligious to have faith – it’s primary having faith in yourself and others, and ultimately, you will have faith in God.” The spiritual leader of Sun Lakes Jewish Congregation has pulled together previously written articles and sermons and compiled a book full of advice and stories on a variety of topics from relationships and anti-Semitism to our purpose on Earth and the role of God in our lives.

Wiener uses a number of illustrations from popular culture to help people unfamiliar with religious concepts understand and relate to the ideas of the book. He says he hopes that the book appeals to a wide audience.

“My only ambition in writing it was to try to encourage people to understand that there is hope, and there is the value of prayer and the value of feeling a connection to God even though you don’t know Him or you can’t see Him.” Jewish News of Greater Phoenix, 5-3-2013. A

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Don’t be terrorized. Don’t let fear rule your life. Even if you are scared.” The author proved it through his own agonizing experience.

While still in hiding Rushdie was elected President of the International Parliament of Writers, creating the International Cities of Refuge Network to offer a safe haven for writers who, like himself are fleeing oppression. He also expresses gratitude to his fellow writers who stood by him. Rushdie insists that “the storytelling animal must be free”so that human beings can grow beyond those boundaries stifling our imagination and the ability to embrace those who are different from us, that we may enlarge our universe, the inner and outer one.

Rabbi Israel Zoberman is the spiritual leader of Congregation Beth Chaverim in Virginia Beach. A

Book Reviews REVIEWED BY MORTON I. TEICHER

The hero of heroes H

ank Greenberg. By John Rosengren.

New York: New American Library, 2013.

392 Pages. $26.95.

There are and have been more than enough prominent Jewish athletes to warrant the establishment of several Jewish sports halls of fame. Netanya, Israel has an international one; California has two; Canada has one; and there are many others throughout the United States.

Lists of inductees (easily found on the Internet) show the many sports in which Jews have excelled such as swimming, basketball, boxing, and baseball. Ask a group of Jewish sports fans who was the greatest Jewish athlete and you’ll start an interminable argument. But – of one thing you can be sure. If you limit the roll to baseball, Hank Greenberg’s name will be at the top of most lists although some will contend that Sandy Koufax deserves to be first.

There’s little doubt as to how John Rosengren, author of this biography, would answer the question. He is a journalist, specializing in sports, who has written several other books and numerous articles. Hank Greenberg is a special individual and celebrity to Rosengren as clearly demonstrated by his referring to Greenberg as “the hero of heroes.”

Moreover, in his epilogue, resolving any possible doubt, Rosengren writes, “Hank Greenberg remains the greatest Jewish baseball player – nay athlete – of all time.”

The book opens with Greenberg’s dilemma about playing on the High Holidays since he was brought up in an Orthodox home. He resolved the issue by participating on Rosh Hashanah but not on Yom Kippur. His first year in the big leagues was 1933 when he was the first baseman for the Detroit Tigers. Having been born and grown up in New York, he would have preferred playing for the Yankees but Lou Gehrig had a firm lock on serving as the Yankee first baseman.

In Greenberg’s second year, he led the Tigers to their first pennant in 25 years.

Rosengren details what happened in the ensuing years as Greenberg became a star.

In 1941, he was drafted into the army and

May 8, 2013 The Jewish Post & Opinion – NAT 17 released two days before Pearl Harbor. He deficiency – the 1939 voyage of the SS St. immediately re-enlisted and wound up Louis from Europe to Cuba to Europe with serving four years in the military. He its 937 Jewish passengers. Made into a returned to play for three years, retiring novel and a movie, this incident aroused after the 1947 season. His final season considerable attention. The Cuban visas coincided with Jackie Robinson’s initial held by the passengers were revoked year in the majors and Greenberg helped while the ship was still at sea and him to get started despite the hostility when the ship reached Havana, only 28 shown by many players. For Greenberg, passengers were allowed to land. The it was reliving the anti-Semitism he ship sailed along the Florida coast while encountered when he started out. He efforts were made to find a solution to the continued to support black players from problem. Immigration quota restrictions the front-office jobs he held after he was barred the admission of the passengers to no longer active on the field. the United States.

Although the book’s emphasis is on The State Department made feeble Greenberg as a baseball player, Rosengren efforts to deal with the issue but the ship briefly describes his personal life, eventually returned to Europe with its including his two marriages and his three passengers aboard. They disembarked in children. Greenberg died in 1986 at the England, France, Belgium, and the age of 75. “His legacy,” Rosengren Netherlands. Some critics assert that most concludes,“shines a light for all Americans of these people died in the Holocaust. to follow.”

Breitman and Lichtman claim that this is an exaggeration and that “about half of the original 937 passengers eventually immigrated into the United States.” Also, most of the 288 passengers who landed in Great Britain survived the war. Moreover, they assert that Roosevelt was minimally DR and the Jews. By Richard Breitman involved in the St. Louis affair having been and Allan J. Lichtman. Cambridge, MA. in Hyde Park or confined to his room in The Belknap Press of Harvard University the White House because of illness as the Press. 433 Pages. $29.95. events unfolded.

From 1932 to 1944, Roosevelt ran for Another charge by Roosevelt’s faultfinders president an unprecedented four times. is that he refused to bomb the gas chambers, The vast majority of Jews enthusiastically rail heads, and crematoria at Auschwitz. supported him although some expressed The authors claim that Roosevelt was not concern as to whether or not he did involved in targeting decisions nor is there everything possible to save the Jews of any hard evidence of his reviewing this Europe. For the most part, however, Jews particular issue. In any case, it is their view tended to accept his assertion that the best that Roosevelt would have responded by thing he could do for European Jews was asserting his conviction that the best way to defeat the Nazis. Almost 40 years after to help Europe’s Jews was to win the war.

Roosevelt died, this difference of opinion While Breitman and Lichtman do not came to a head in 1984 when David S. uniformly laud Roosevelt, they generally Wyman published his harsh criticism of come down on his side in the debate Roosevelt in The Abandonment of the Jews. about his relationship to Europe’s Jews.

Defenders and antagonists followed, In any event, they have provided a wellwriting a number of books on the subject. written analysis of the controversy, using The latest contribution to the often the latest evidence generally to refute his strident debate is this new book critics and to support his adherents. Their by two American University history easy-to-read contribution deserves to be professors, Richard Breitman and Allan widely read.

J. Lichtman. Their extensive research, using a wide variety of sources, documented in 76 pages of footnotes, has resulted in this iding Places. By Diane Wyshogrod. thoughtful assessAlbany, NY: State University of New York ment that disparPress, 2012. 307 Pages. $24.95. ages die-hard Born in New York in 1955 to Holocaust extremists on both survivors Helen and Morris Wyszogrod, sides of the debate.

Diane Wyshogrod has written a moving The authors forthrightly tackle one biography of her mother who hid for 16 incident that is frequently utilized by months in a Polish Christian couple’s Roosevelt’s critics as evidence of his (see Teicher, page 19)

Thoughtful and easy-to-read F

Warm and tender Holocaust memoir H

18 The Jewish Post & Opinion – NAT May 8, 2013 Remove from pan.

I am often asked to give recipes for people who live alone or when there is only a couple, so here is a small cheesecake for two.

My Kosher Kitchen

REVIEWED BY SYBIL KAPLAN

Cheesecakes for Shavuot and summer A

nthropologists have found cheese molds dating back 2,000 years. Matthew Goodman, a writer of the “Food Maven” column in The Forward newspaper, once wrote that he learned from British cookbook author, Evelyn Rose, that Jews first encountered cheesecake during the Greek occupation of then Palestine in the third century BCE. He also says a recipe for cheesecake even appears in a second century BCE cookbook.

Kraft Foods, which produces Philadelphia cream cheese, advertises that Greek athletes at the first Olympic Games ate a cheesecake-like confection in 776 BCE, and a version of the dessert was described by Roman historian, Cato, 600 years later.

Cheesecake was also a favorite of Eastern European Jews who made it with curd cheeses from cows, such as farmer’s cheese and pot cheese, and flavored it with lemon rind, eggs and sugar. The creamy cheesecakes favored by Central and European Jews were called kaesekuchen. Below are some different cheesecake recipes.

Mini Mocha Cheesecakes (approx. 30) 1/2 cup crushed chocolate cookies 1 tsp. sugar 1 Tbsp. melted margarine 2 (2 ounces) squares semi-sweet chocolate 8 ounces soft cream cheese 1/4 cup sugar 1 egg 1 tsp. espresso coffee powder 1/8 tsp. cinnamon 1 tsp. vanilla Preheat oven to 350°F. Line miniature muffin pan cups with paper liners. Blend chocolate cookies, 1 tsp. sugar and melted margarine. Press 1/2 tsp. into each paper-lined muffin cup. Melt chocolate.

Beat cream cheese until smooth. Add sugar, egg, coffee powder, cinnamon and vanilla. Add in melted chocolate and blend until mixture becomes thick. Fill each muffin cup with 2 teaspoons. Bake in oven for 18 minutes or until tops are firm when pressed with finger tip. Remove from oven and let cool 15 minutes.

Cheese Cake (2 servings) 3 Tbsp. flour 1 Tbsp. sugar 1 Tbsp. margarine 3/4 cup cream cheese 1 Tbsp. sugar 1/8 tsp. grated lemon peel 1/4 tsp. vanilla 1 egg 2 Tbsp. sour cream, strawberry or pineapple yogurt 1 tsp. sugar Preheat oven to 325°F. Combine flour, sugar and margarine. Press into a 4 1/2–5 inch diameter pan. Bake in oven15–20 minutes. Remove from oven. Mash cream cheese in a bowl. Blend in sugar, lemon peel, vanilla and egg. Pour into baked crust. Bake in oven 15 minutes. Mix sour cream or yogurt with 1 tsp. sugar. Remove cake from oven and spread on top. Chill.

My Mother’s Fancy Cheesecake (8 servings) Crust 2 cups crushed graham crackers 1/2 cup margarine 1/4 cup sugar dash cinnamon Preheat oven to 350°F. Blend crackers, margarine, sugar and cinnamon. Pat into a spring form pan. Bake in oven for 10 minutes.

Filling 1 1/2 cups cream cheese 2 eggs 1/2 cup sugar 1/2 tsp. vanilla Whip cream cheese, eggs, sugar and vanilla with a hand mixer until fluffy. Pour into baked crust. Bake in oven 30 minutes.

Topping 2 cups sour cream 2 Tbsp. sugar 1/2 tsp. vanilla Beat sour cream, sugar and vanilla in a bowl. Remove cake from oven, spread on top. Return to oven and bake 10 more minutes. Remove from oven. Top with pie cherries, crushed pineapple or strawberries on top.

Lemon Cheesecake Squares (16 squares) Crust 9 graham crackers, crushed 5 Tbsp. margarine

EDITORIAL (continued from page 2)

were publishing articles about “how to make pot holders into lamp shades”. For 17 years, the two women published articles on serious subjects such as equal pay for equal work, childbearing, rape and domestic violence.

The third program was the planting of a sapling from the chestnut tree that Anne Frank wrote about in her diary. It stood outside the Secret Annex in Amsterdam where she was hiding with her family and others. It had given hope to a 13-year-old girl for whom the outside world was off limits. The planting took place in front of The Children’s Museum in Indianapolis.

Read about this event and three speech excerpts on page NAT 10-11, to get a flavor of what it was like to be there.

The purpose of having that same chestnut tree grow inside the Anne Frank Peace Park in front of the museum is to teach children and adults about the hideous injustice caused by racism and to make sure that humans never treat others as subhuman simply because they appear different. This may not seem like a monumental endeavor by today’s standards, but this sapling serves as a reminder about the rampant racism aimed at Jews and other minorities in the worst genocide in human history.

It was especially heartwarming that 90 percent of the attendees and 75 percent of the speakers were not Jewish.

For my nieces and nephews concerned about their future, I have the following advice. Judging from these recent programs, it looks like a very promising future is in store for you and your descendants.

Jennie Cohen, May 8, 2013 A

j i

Preheat oven to 350°F. Cover a square baking pan with foil and butter the foil.

Melt margarine and add to crumbs and toss. Press onto bottom of pan. Bake in oven 12 minutes or until brown. Remove from oven and cool.

Filling 8 ounces cream cheese 1/3 cup sugar 3 Tbsp. sour cream 1 egg 2 Tbsp. lemon juice 2 tsp. grated lemon peel 1 tsp. vanilla Beat cream cheese and sugar. Add sour cream and egg then lemon juice, lemon peel and vanilla. Spread batter over crust.

Bake in oven 30 minutes. Cool then chill 2 hours. Cut into 16 squares.

Sybil Kaplan lives in Jerusalem.

Reprinted from 5-19-10. A

BENZION (continued from page 3)

When you do mitzvahs and pray every day, life is easier and much more meaningful. If you believe in Hashem, life has meaning. Hashem created everything, and sent us down to this world to make it holy, by learning Torah and doing mitzvahs. Each mitzvah that we do brings more good into the world, bringing us closer to the days of Moshiach. Then the world will be completely good and holy.

We want Moshiach Now! Rabbi Cohen lives in K’far Chabad, Israel.

He can be reached by email at bzcohen@ orange.net.il. A

ADLAND

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(continued from page 3)

acknowledge the beauty in this world and our responsibility to it. Light the other candle to help lead us toward the time when all people shall hear liberty proclaimed and recognize that it is for everyone everywhere.

Rabbi Adland has been a Reform rabbi for more than 25 years with pulpits in Lexington, Ky., Indianapolis, Ind., and currently at Temple Israel in Canton, Ohio.

He may be reached at j.adland@gmail.com. A

TEICHER

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(continued from page 17)

cellar during World War II. The author of this sensitive, wellwritten biography grew up in New York where she attended Jewish schools, including the Ramaz High School, before enrolling at Barnard College. She started out majoring in English literature but soon switched to psychology after testing her interest by volunteering on the psychiatric ward at Bellevue Hospital. She then went on to earn her Ph.D. in clinical psychology at Long Island University. Five years later, in 1991, she fulfilled a long-standing ambition by moving to Jerusalem with her husband, Chaim, and their three sons, Yonatan, David, and Yehoshua.

As a youngster, Wyshogrod urged her parents to tell her about their experiences in surviving the Holocaust. Her mother was reluctant but her father wrote A Brush With Death which she edited and which was published in 1999 by the State University of

May 8, 2013 The Jewish Post & Opinion – NAT 19 New York Press. Wyshogrod’s mother finally agreed to tell her story and did so over a period of years when she and her husband visited Jerusalem to be with their daughter’s family. Wyshogrod taped her mother’s recollections, using her skills as a INCINNATI – Premiering March 29 psychologist to elicit information.

In 1995, to supplement her tapes and on Kickstarter.com, Mensch on a Bench her notes, Wyshogrod and her parents was created in the spirit of fun and visited Zolkiew, the town in Galicia, inclusion for Jewish children during the Poland where her mother grew up and hid. winter holiday festivities.

The goal of the Mensch is to serve as a It is now in Ukraine. The occasion for the visit was the dedication of a monument to center point for young Jewish families to the town’s 3,500 Jews who were murdered inspire them to honor age-old traditions, by the Nazis in 1943. A few survivors had while also enjoying the opportunity to add paid for the monument and had organized new ones. “The idea for Mensch on a the trip. The description of this experience Bench dawned on me when my son had is especially poignant as Wyshogrod’s “Elf Envy” this holiday season,” said Neal mother describes some places she recog- Hoffman co-creator of the Mensch. “I nizes although she fails to find the house wanted to find a way to make Hanukkah where she hid. On subsequent visits to more of an event in our household and by Israel, she arranged to have the names of creating this new tradition was able add a the family that hid her inscribed on the little more Funukkah in Hanukkah.”

Mensch on the Bench tells the story Righteous Honor Wall at Yad Vashem.

Before she died in 2007, Wyshogrod’s of Moshe the Mensch, who was in the mother read the completed manuscript of temple with the Maccabees when they this book, declared it to be a “nice piece of won the war against the Greeks. There writing” and authorized her daughter “to was only enough oil for one night and everyone was exhausted from the war and send it out.”

This warm and tender book must be wanted to go to sleep. But what if the oil ranked high among the large number of went out while the Jews were sleeping?

The Mensch loves to play dreidel, eat Holocaust memoirs that preserve our recollections of Nazi brutality and that Latkes (potato pancakes), sing songs, and enable us to safeguard and perpetuate the be with family…all the things families memory of the six million Jews whose should be doing as part of Hanukkah.

The Mensch on the Bench will be martyrdom must remain forever in our hearts and in our minds. We are deeply available as a hardcover book and plush indebted to the author, her mother, and character. The book will tell the eight rules her family. Wyshogrod has given us “a of having a Mensch, which are meant to book about knowing, and not knowing, drive Jewish family traditions and values.

“The Mensch is a tool by which we can and all the intersections in between.”

Dr. Morton I. Teicher is the Founding teach our children what it means to be a Dean, Wurzweiler School of Social Work, Mensch...a true and honorable friend”said Yeshiva University and Dean Emeritus, co-creator Erin Hoffman.

For more information please log on to School of Social Work, University of North www.theMenschonaBench.com. A Carolina at Chapel Hill. A

“Elf on the Shelf” inspires Jewish version “Mensch on a Bench” C

GERTEL

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through on things. Surely, in Judaism, becoming a bar or bat mitzvah means more than “follow-through.”It is, after all, a commitment to a covenant between the Divine and a people with a purpose in the world. In all fairness, the writers suggested this when they had Burt say, “It’s weird.

This morning I was just a normal, average guy and tonight I’m a Jew.” In any event, despite its attempt at being a spirited romp through Jewishness, this episode left a bad taste in my mouth precisely because it is so spiritless and tasteless.

Rabbi Gertel has been spiritual leader of Conservative Congregation Rodfei Zedek in Chicago since 1988. He is the author of two

books, What Jews Know About Salvation and Over the Top Judaism: Precedents and Trends in the Depiction of Jewish Beliefs and Observances in Film and Television.

He has been media critic for The National Jewish Post & Opinion since 1979. A

20 The Jewish Post & Opinion – NAT May 8, 2013

KAPLAN/ISRAEL (continued from page 15)

in Jaffa, which Jean describes as “in shambles with people living in hovels.”

This was the American Colony.

“Jean saw great potential in the American Colony on that first trip to Israel,” says Reed, and soon she, as construction engineer, was going to the municipality of Jaffa to campaign to save the colony.

Reed had written a book which was published in 1981 called Forerunners, telling the amazing story of the 1866 wood building. Jean and Reed then began a love story with the house and its history, first renting the upstairs then buying it in 2002 and renovating it until 2004.

Subsequently, they moved to the 1892 stone addition next door where they now live four to six months a year.

Reed, who is from Maine, learned of the group of 157 Christian lovers of Zion (including 48 children) who left Jonesport, Maine, to sail to Palestine with 22 wooden houses and farming equipment. These members of the Church of the Messiah, an offshoot of the Mormons, led by George J. Adams, felt a calling to help the Jewish people. They did not believe in converting Jews but “to become practical benefactors of the land and people, to take the lead in developing its great resources.”

George Adams had made one trip to Palestine, then he began traveling along the East Coast of the U.S. in 1861 preaching the principles of Zionism until he gathered the group to join him.

They set sail Aug. 11, 1866. After 42 days on the sea, they arrived in Jaffa and set up camp on the beach. Nine children died during the first month. They purchased land, built the wooden houses and planted seeds with the farming equipment they had brought. By 1868, most of the members left. The Templars (a Protestant sect from southern Germany) built some public buildings nearby.

A new road was built from Jaffa to Jerusalem in 1869 and the first wheels

The Maine Friendship House museum.

Photographs by Barry A. Kaplan.

The Jewish

Post&Opinion

PRESORTED STANDARD US POSTAGE PAID INDIANAPOLIS, IN PERMIT NO. 1321

1427 W. 86th St. #228 Indianapolis, IN 46260

Lag B’Omer Jerusalem 2013 This fire was so hot that the people surrounding it had to move all the way across the street.

May all our fires represent an acceptable Yahrzeit candle for the Holy Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai.

(Caption and photo

by Rabbi Reuven Schwartz.) were on a carriage of Ralph Floyd, a member of the 1866 group. Soon he owned a fleet of light carriages and became the founder of modern tourism in Palestine. The Emanuel church was built nearby, but the houses of the 1866 group were abandoned, leaving a neglected site.

Many years before, Dr. Reed Holmes, an historian, storyteller and photographer, happened to meet a woman who had been 13 years old and one of the original settlers in 1866. She told Reed about their life in Jaffa.

“I was getting the feeling that this story had to be told.” This led to his research and writing the initial book, The Forerunners in 1981 and its updating in 2003. Reed, who comes from Jonesport, Maine, recalls finding a rafter in the wood house with the initials of one of the builders – MW – Mark Wentworth. He then recalled in college, his cousin – Mark Wentworth Holmes.

Reed and Jean named the wooden house, the Maine Friendship House, and opened a window to the 19th century people through the ground floor museum.

A video of the history is shown in the basement whose walls are adorned with paintings by Israeli artist Yonatan Kislev.

A plaque now also sits on a Tel Aviv beach commemorating where this group originally landed and lived.

For more information on visiting the

Inside the museum.

Jean and Dr. Reed Holmes.

Maine Friendship House, or, if you are fortunate enough to meet Dr. Reed and Jean Holmes, phone 03-681-9225 or email jaffacolony@yahoo.com. There is also a website, www.jaffacolony.com.

Sybil Kaplan is a journalist, food writer, lecturer and cookbook author. She also leads walks though Machaneh Yehudah, the Jewish produce market in English. A