The JEWISH STAR
TheJewishStar.com
Shemos • Friday, January 5, 2018 • 18 Teves 5778 • Luach page 19 • Torah columns pages 18 – 19 • Vol 17, No 1
The Newspaper of our Orthodox communities
Hoping that Iran avoids another ‘09 By Sarah N. Stern, founder and president, Endowment for Middle East Truth In 2009, shortly after President Barack Obama entered office, millions of people rose up against the ruling theocratic regime of Iran. The demonstrations began in response to the disputed election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who had been favored by the ruling mullahs. The election had taken place on June 12, 2009, and two hours after the polls had closed, the results were announced, causing people to immediately take to the streets. By the next day, the peaceful demonstrators were met with the club-wielding Basij, a pro-government paramilitary group. By June 19, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei called the election a “divine assessment” and declared that protests would no longer be tolerated. By June 22, video footage of a beautiful young woman, Neda Agha-Soltan, 26, who had been fatally shot by the Basij while demonstrating, quickly spread throughout the internet and grabbed international attention. Unfortunately, there were many more anonymous Nedas. The government used this time to purge the opposition party as well as to conduct arbitrary arrests of journalists and human rights activists. The Basij See Iran on page 21
Transmitting the mesorah, l’dor va’dor Our Jewish day schools assist parents in transmitting the mesorah to the next generation, with the parents joining in at school on special occasions. At left, Meir Katz, a fifth grader at Yeshiva of South Shore, is ac-
companied by his father and grandfather at a multi-generational celebration of his class’ Haschalas Gemarah. At right, SKA ninth grader Priva Halpert studies with her father at the school’s father-daughter breakfast.
Food fight! Foes say Israel stole hummus By Ben Sales, JTA Are hummus, za’atar and cucumber salad Israeli foods? Celebrity chef Rachael Ray said they are — and the floodgates of Middle Eastern conflict opened: Palestinians claimed the foods as their own and are accusing her of cultural erasure. [One wacky critic, a leader in the Democratic Party, accused Ray of “cultural #genocide.” See column on page 15.] Israelis thanked Ray and accused her critics of ignoring Jewish Israelis of Middle Eastern descent. Ray (who isn’t Jewish) sparked the debate last
week — likely without meaning to — with a series of tweets about an “Israeli nite” meal. The foods she tweeted about included hummus, tabouli, stuffed grape leaves, chicken fried in za’atar and cucumber salad. The posts spurred a cascade of replies, most of them critical. Twitter users noted that the foods’ names are all Arabic and pounced on her for labeling them Israeli, rather than Arab or Palestinian. The criticism started out as jokey and satiri-
cal, with people labeling photos of hamburgers, tacos and pizza as “Israeli:” But the conversation took a darker and more serious turn, as some accused Israel of stealing Palestinian culture and land. The conversation rapidly became another bitter, repetitive debate between pro-Palestinian and pro-Israel activists. One side tweeted a series of four maps meant to illustrate “Palestinian loss of land.” The other See Food fight on page 15
Zioness women: Progressives can be Zionists too a “rape culture,” 20 Zionist progressive friends marched together in support of the rally. But similar to what occurred at another radical feminist march in Chicago in June, their support was met with a ban on Zionist “symbols of nationalism and oppression.” “It was one of those moments that exposed the fictitious line between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism,” Berman told JNS. Berman felt attacked and ostracized when Palestinian activists wearing shirts that read “Palestine versus the world” were accepted at the SlutWalk, but her Jewish star was not. “Palestinian activists were allowed to hold that identity, so why weren’t we allowed to hold our identity as Zionist activists?”
Amanda Berman in Hadassah’s “Defining Zionism” video series.
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By Eliana Rudee, JNS Salt and pepper, peanut butter and jelly, Zionism and progressivism. Few question the inherent, irrefutable bond between the first two of those pairs, but civil rights attorney and co-founder of the Zioness Movement, Amanda Berman, argues that the latter is just as natural—and she has several thousand left-leaning Jews with strong Zionist identities backing her up on that sentiment. The four-month-old Zioness Movement was born in a “watershed moment,” several months after the inauguration of President Trump. At a radical feminist march in Chicago on Aug. 12, the stated aim of which was to dismantle what organizers described as
she asked. “Why such double standards, especially at a march for social justice?” In October, 50 Zioness members took on the March for Racial Justice, hoping to activate and empower progressive Zionists in New York, but they were met with a similar sentiment. “We were told that we don’t care about racial justice,” Berman said. “That was heartbreaking because we care very much about these issues.” Zioness was created as a civil rights movement that seeks to undermine “bigotry, misogyny, and social and economic inequality,” said Berman, who thinks there is nothing revolutionary about coming out as proud, progressive Zionists. “It’s the most natural alliance in See Zioness women on page 5