The Jewish Star

Long Island’s #1 Jewish Newspaper

STAR

Yitro • Jan. 25, 2019 • 19 Shevat 5779 • Torah columns pp 18–19 • Luach p 18 • Vol 18, No 3 • The Newspaper of our Orthodox Communities

‘Never again‘ era is ending Perspective by Eric Rozenman Filmmaker Steven Spielberg told NBC News he thinks society must take the possibility of genocide more seriously now than it has in the past generation. In an interview marking the 25th anniversary of Schindler’s List, Spielberg referred to the massacre at Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life synagogue and warned that “hate leading to genocide is as possible today as it was during the Holocaust.”

He was behind the curve. The era of “nev-

THE LEADER IN PROPERTY TA X REDUCTION Si

gn up today. It Apply online at only takes seconds. m or call 516.479. ptrg.com/herald 9176

Hablamos Espa ñol

Maidenbaum Pro perty Tax Redu ction Group, LLC 483 Chestnut Str eet, Cedarhurst, NY 11516

MB_99801_Nass

1016463

JEWISH

Protect your rig hts!

Challenge your REASSESSMEN T!

Herald_3x3Note

_Protect.indd 1

12/18/18 4:57 PM

er again” is ending in Western Europe, fading in North America and never penetrated the Middle East. Relentless demonization of the Jewish state renormalizes demonization of Jewish people.

Examples of post-Nazi genocide and attempted genocide abound, including Muslim Indonesia’s seizure of largely Christian East Timor, the auto-genocide perpetrated

by Cambodia’s Khmer Rouge, suppression of See Again page 22

Fire-damaged HAFTR eyes elementary school’s future

By Jeffrey Bessen, Nassau Herald With the Hebrew Academy of the Five Towns and Rockaway on winter break until Jan. 28, school officials are assessing when, or if, classes can resume at the elementary school this academic year after a Jan. 10 fire destroyed part of the building.

The early-morning blaze began in a second-floor STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) lab, resulting in water and smoke damage to other parts of the

school. Cleanup was underway last week.

The Nassau County fire marshal determined that the fire was accidental.

Before the break, nearly 480 HAFTR elementary students were moved to three locations. Kindergarten classes were shifted to HAFTR Middle School, also part of the Lawrence campus; first- and second-grade students went to the Congregation Beth Sholom in Lawrence; and the third- and fourthSee HAFTR page 22

A decade on, a HAFTR reunion

Members of HAFTR’s class of 2008 returned for a ten-year reunion evening. Over 100 guests, including graduates and spouses, attended. “It was so much fun to be back together with my friends from high school in one room,” said Aliza (Friedman) Romanoff, a reunion committee member and current HAFTR parent. After receiving their “swag bags” and saying goodnight, the alumni promised to keep in touch.

Literal case Koren erodes ArtScroll dominance against BDS New books add focus on State of Israel and prayer by women Analysis by Sean Savage, JNS Over the past decade, the BDS movement has emerged as one of the principle challenges to the legitimacy of the State of Israel. A distortion of the heroic campaign against apartheid in South Africa, the movement seeks to pressure Israel economically and isolate it politically.

While Israel continues to thrive on both fronts — with a booming economy and expanding relations throughout the developing world — the ongoing threat of boycotts remains a constant challenge, especially for pro-Israel advocates in the Diaspora.

At the same time, emerging evidence suggests that the BDS movement has extensive ties to Palestinian terrorist orgaSee BDS page 16

By Ben Sales, JTA For decades, one name dominated the bookshelves and pews of American Orthodox synagogues: ArtScroll.

The Brooklyn-based publisher of Jewish books put out the most widely used Orthodox siddur, as well as a popular text and translation of the Chumash. But that dominance appears to be fading.

In 2009, Koren Publishers Jerusalem, an Israeli label, issued a competing HebrewEnglish prayer book with commentary by Jonathan Sacks, the former chief rabbi of the United Kingdom. Now another prayer book has entered the fray.

Since the 1980s, the Rabbinical Council of America had put its seal of approval on a version of the ArtScroll prayer book. But the RCA has ended that partnership and in October released its own prayer book, called Siddur Avodat Halev, through Koren.

The original Koren Siddur, and Art Scroll’s RabiniThe Jewish Star cal Council of America edition.

Koren also released a new Chumash in September, with a translation and commentary based on the teachings of Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz, a leading Jewish scholar who also

translated the entire Talmud from Aramaic to Hebrew.

The new books reflect a shift in the priorities and profile of today’s American Jewish Orthodox community, their creators say.

ArtScroll revolutionized Jewish books by providing an accessible translation of prayers and clear instructions on Jewish ritual. The new books also try to do that, but have much more content focused on the State of Israel.

The new RCA siddur also has broken barriers by including more prayers geared toward women. In Hebrew, nearly all words are grammatically gendered, and in Orthodox Judaism, men traditionally lead major prayers. The new siddur prints prayers in the two genders, and adds specific prayers to be recited by women.

When it was first printed in 1984, ArtScroll’s siddur was itself revolutionary as a user-friendly alternative to earlier publications. But its lanSee ArtScroll page 22

Hungarian Jews clash over hunt for Shoah victims

By Cnaan Liphshiz Relations between Hungary’s two Jewish federation groups have recently deteriorated from stony silence to full-blown row.

The fight between the Mazsihisz group, which is critical of the Hungarian government, and the Chabad-affiliated EMIH group, which is an advocate of the government, is essentially over government cooperation and funding.

How to work with the government is an understandably divisive issue in a country whose government is often accused of encouraging anti-Semitic rhetoric.

But late last week, the fight veered away from politics and spilled over into one of the major dilemmas facing Eastern European Jewish populations: How to treat the remains of Holocaust victims.

The new dispute over giving such remains a proper burial marks a new and worrisome low in the internal fight, which now has been extended to include a core issue of the Jewish faith. It raises concerns as to the depths of division among the 100,000 Jews living in Hungary — by far Central Europe’s largest Jewish community.

The burial fight began with a sonar sweep Jan. 15 of the floor of the Danube River. Commissioned by EMIH’s leader, Chabad Rabbi Slomo Koves, the sweep ended without meeting its aim of identifying bones of some of the thousands of people that Nazi collaborators shot and dumped into the river during the Holocaust.

But what started out as an example of innovative technology being used to bring dignity to unburied victims quickly devolved into a vociferous exchange that included even Israel’s interior minister, Aryeh Deri.

The sweep “insults the calm and dignity of Jewish or non-Jewish dead people who may be found during the exploration,” Mazsihisz wrote a day after the scan. “Moreover, it breaks halacha,” or Orthodox Jewish law, the federation group

A ZAKA Divers Unit uses a special sonar device and integrated underwater camera to search for Holocaust victims’ bones at the Danube River in Budapest, on Jan. 15.

ZAKA

said in its statement. Rabbi Zoltan Radnoti, the chairman of the rabbinical council of Mazsihisz, told JTA that any bones found likely would be from one of the thousands of non-Jewish German, Soviet and local troops and civilians who died in fighting along the riverbank.

“Come on,” he told JTA, “the Danube is not a grave. It’s a fast-running river.”

Mazsihisz itself organized in 2016 a Jewish burial for bones that had been found in the Danube in 2011 amid renovations on the foundations of Budapest’s Margaret Bridge. “We had a multifaith burial ceremony, with two priests and rabbis from various denominations,” Radnoti said of the ceremony. “It’s true that these were likely Jews but the truth is there is no way

of knowing for certain.”

Koves said that most people killed in the Danube were Jews. He cited DNA testing on the bones found in 2011. Of the 15 people identified from the bones, at least nine had Ashkenazi Jewish DNA, the tests showed.

Both groups can cite principles from halacha, which state that bones should be buried when there is a danger to the dignity of the dead but forbids disturbing Jews’ remains in all but the most extreme circumstances.

EMIH, for its part, described the retrieval mission as fulfilling the “major mitzvah of bringing the victims to burial.”

But the core of EMIH’s dispute with Mazsihisz is not about halacha. Rather, it is a fight

over attitudes toward Hungary’s controversial government and its funding for Jewish groups, where EMIH clearly seems favored.

“This fight over the Danube is part of the bigger fight,” Radnoti acknowledged.

The two groups have clashed publicly recently over EMIH’s taking over of a state-funded Holocaust museum. The person tapped to head the museum, Maria Schmidt, is a rightwing historian who has been accused of distorting the Holocaust. In light of this, Mazsihisz criticized EMIH’s decision to head the House of Fates museum, which has not yet opened.

“There is no way this museum will operate independently,” Radnoti said in explaining his group’s objections. But EMIH said they would have total discretion over the museum’s content.

For those seeking unity among Jews, internal fights about the memory of the Holocaust are painful. But in Hungary, politics spilled over to disagreements about one of the fundamentals of being Jewish.

Deri, who heads Israel’s Sephardic Orthodox Shas Party, decided to wade into the fight and turn it into an interdenominational religious conflict with a statement that inaccurately labeled Mazsihisz as a “Reform” community. (Mazsihisz does have many members of the Neolog stream, an endemic movement that is fairly liberal but far closer to modern Orthodox streams than to either Reform or Conservative Judaism.)

“I was deeply shocked by the [Mazsihisz] statement, in which it used false pretenses to oppose, in violation of the Jewish conscience, bringing to burial the remains of the martyrs,” Deri wrote. “It is shocking and appalling that some are carrying out political score settling on the backs of those murdered in the Holocaust,” he added.

Radnoti said that Deri’s characterization of Mazsihisz was “a disgusting form of character assassination.”

Celebrating 30 years of service to our community

Draperies • Valances Wood Blinds • Roman Shades Roller Shades • Zebra Shades Since 1988 Lenny Koegel • Daniel Simon

516-594-6010

DistinctiveWindowFashions.com Save on Select operating SyStemS • Free meaSuring + inStallation • Hunter DouglaS liFetime guarantee

1009654

January 25, 2019 • 19 Shevat 5779 THE JEWISH STAR

2

By Cnaan Liphshiz, JTA BELMONTE, Portugal — To a casual observer, the weekend routines of the Jewish community of this placid town of about 6,000 in eastern Portugal are deceptively normal.

There are Shabbat services at the local synagogue on Friday night and Saturday morning, and receptions at the local Jewish museum. Once a year, a small Sunday kosher market is held by the approximately 70 members of its Jewish community of Belmonte — the only one in Portugal outside the larger cities of Lisbon and Porto.

But the community here is the only one on the Iberian Peninsula that has retained rituals and other quirky elements of identity that date back to the Spanish Inquisition, thanks to the sacrifices and commitment of successive generations of crypto-Jews — Jews who were forced to convert to Christianity under the Inquisition, but continued to practice Judaism in secret.

This year, the Jewish community of Belmonte is for the first time seeking from the government equal status and access to funding as those enjoyed by Portugal’s two larger Jewish communities of Lisbon and Porto.

The post-Inquisition Jewish presence in Belmonte was first documented in 1917 by Samuel Schwarz, a Jewish engineer from Poland who was working at a nearby tin mine when he noticed peculiar habits of certain families in the town.

In a 1925 book titled New Christians in Portugal in the 20th Century, he chronicled how only three Jewish holidays were observed in Belmonte: Passover, the Fast of Esther, and Yom Kippur.

On Yom Kippur, Jews would meet to play cards so as not to appear to be worshipping, and they’re still following the custom today.

Shabbat was regularly observed, featuring three daily prayers, Schwarz wrote. On that day, Belmonte’s crypto-Jews did not eat pork. Today, pork is off the menu for most Belmonte Jews, who eat mostly kosher food — some of it locally produced.

The food is on display at the annual kosher market during the High Holidays period, where actors dressed in medieval costumes regale visitors with scenes from that period. Some of the enactments show Jews sobbing upon learning of the Inquisition’s arrival in Portugal and Jewish merchants haggling while peddling textiles. The members of the Jewish community don’t seem to mind.

“The story of Belmonte’s Jews is like something out of a fairy tale or science fiction series,” Eliyahu Birenboim, a former chief rabbi of Uruguay and the head of Israel’s Strauss-Amiel Rabbinical

Rabbi Elisha Salas, with beard and kippah, celebrates Tu b’Shvat Courtesy Shavei Israel with Belmonte Jews, in 2017.

Seminary, wrote in a 2012 essay detailing his research of the place.

There are darker sides to the community’s strict adherence to centuries-old customs. The inmarriage that helped sustain the community has created endemic health problems to many of its members. Many community members suffer from night blindness, among other afflictions. One family has a gravely ill daughter due to genetic complications, said Elisha Salas, a Chile-born rabbi who led the community for eight years.

This issue exposes Belmonte Jews to ridicule by some of their coreligionists from elsewhere in Portugal.

“They are all pretty much married to their cousin,” Salas said.

Then there are the normal challenges of life in a small and remote Jewish community. Belmonte’s rural area offers few employment opportunities, and there are only a handful of Jewish children there, raising concerns about the community’s long-term viability. Several dozen people have left for Israel in recent years.

The Jewish communities in Lisbon and Porto announced last year with a Chabad rabbi the formation of a national rabbinical council, but omitted Belmonte. In fact, the community wasn’t even informed in advance of the council’s creation, Salas said.

Belmonte also is not recognized by the state as qualified to vet citizenship applications by descendants of Sephardic Jews. (Portu-

gal passed a law in 2015 that will aim to naturalize descendants of Sephardic Jews who can prove their heritage.) At the time of the law’s passage, the community had not yet been officially registered with the state for a required minimum of 30 years. But the community will hit the mandated mark later this year.

It will be at the Justice Ministry’s discretion to recognize Belmonte as vetters once its application is complete; the application is in its early stages.

When asked, representatives from the communities in Lisbon and Porto would not explain why they excluded Belmonte from the rabbinical council. Gabriel Szary Steinhardt, the president of the board of directors of the Jewish Community of Lisbon, said JTA’s questions on the matter “do not deserve any response at all.” Meanwhile, the Jewish Community of Porto accused a JTA reporter of working “for proselytizing organizations,” which it did not specify.

The vetting issue is more than about prestige. It has been an unexpected cash cow for the two larger communities, which charge hundreds of dollars for each application. Salas said the Jewish Community of Belmonte has hired a lawyer and is taking legal action to obtain recognition as a certified vetter.

The dispute underscores the historical differences between the community in Belmonte and those in Lisbon and Porto. While Belmonte Jews are the descendants of those who steadfastly stuck to tradition in secrecy, and against harsh odds, the two others are made up of a mix of Ashkenazi and Sephardi Jews who immigrated in or after the 19th century, and bnei anusim or forced converts who reverted to Judaism as individuals.

Despite the challenges, the Belmonte Jewish community may cheat death yet again, Salas suggested.

The Sephardic citizenship law is bringing dozens, perhaps even hundreds, of Jewish immigrants to Portugal, primarily from Latin America and Israel. At least three Jewish families have bought homes in Belmonte in recent years. There are also hopes that this trend will increase with the completion of the first train station here, connecting it with major cities.

And if Portugal allows Belmonte to vet citizenship applications, its Jewish community would come by a substantial source of income for communal activities and institutions, such as a school, which the community does not have.

“It could go either way for Belmonte’s Jewish community,” Salas said. “But if there’s one thing we do know, it’s that it has a pretty good track record of surviving.”

Treasury Bill Indexed Money Market Account

2 38  For balances of $100,000 and up

% APY*

Indexed at 100% of the 30-day US Treasury Bill**

 Enjoy high money market rates.

214

% APY*

 For balances of $50,000-$99,999

Indexed at 90% of the 30-day US Treasury Bill**

 Fully liquid account.

 FDIC insured money market account.

Visit us today!

115 Cedarhurst Avenue, Cedarhurst, 516-295-2698 1693 Hempstead Turnpike, Elmont, 516-437-5966

Established 1863 · Member FDIC

*These rates are effective through January 31, 2019. $100,000 minimum deposit to earn the advertised 2.38% Annual Percentage Yield (APY). $50,000 minimum deposit to earn the advertised 2.14% APY. **Treasury Bill Indexed Money Market rate is based on an index calculated by taking the rate of the closing “asked” discount basis of the 30-day Treasury Bill as quoted and published in The Wall Street Journal on the last business day of the prior month as set forth below. If there are no exact Treasury Bills with a 30-day maturity, then the “asked” rate used shall be for Treasury Bills with a maturity date closest to, but not to exceed 30 days. These new APYs will then take effect on the first calendar day of each subsequent month and will remain in effect through each subsequent month-end.

Balances of $25,000 to $49,999 earn an APY of 1.54%, which is 65% of the indexed rate, balances of $50,000 to $99,999 earn an APY of 2.14%, which is 90% of the indexed rate, and balances of $100,000 or more earn an APY of 2.38%, which is 100% of the indexed rate. There is no interest paid on deposits under $25,000. $10,000 minimum deposit is required to open this account. A monthly service fee of $10.00 will be charged each month at the end of the statement cycle if the account balance falls below $10,000 on any day of the month. Fees may reduce earnings and principal if the account balance falls below $10,000 on any day during the statement cycle. Please see disclosure for other terms and conditions. This offer may be withdrawn without prior notice.

apple bk - JEWISH STAR - TREASURY BILL MM - 1-31-2019.indd 1

1017696

www.applebank.com

1/4/2019 9:37:57 AM

THE JEWISH STAR January 25, 2019 • 19 Shevat 5779

Rural Portugese community thrives, with quirks

3

Did you know?

NYU Winthrop is a leader in cancer care on Long Island.

For thousands of patients and families, NYU Winthrop’s Center for Cancer Care has provided comprehensive leading edge care from diagnosis to survivorship. Here are just a few examples of our ongoing initiatives and leadership.

• Accredited by the Commission on Cancer for over 50 years • Only robotic epicenter for lung surgery on Long Island • A unique team approach tailored to each patient • First nurse navigator program for cancer on Long Island • Number one CyberKnife radiation center in the country ®

• State-of-the-art infusion center adjacent to the hospital • First low-dose CT screening program for lung cancer on Long Island

259 First Street, Mineola, New York 11501 • 1.866.WINTHROP • nyuwinthrop.org

1013968

January 25, 2019 • 19 Shevat 5779 THE JEWISH STAR

4

By Josh Hasten, JNS Israel has found itself under attack by international media and the Palestinian Authority, who have accused the Jewish state of carrying out a policy of apartheid against its Arab population.

The allegations followed the opening of a new 5-kilometee stretch of highway east of Jerusalem, with separate lanes for Israeli citizen and non-citizen traffic divided by a concrete wall.

Motorists and Israeli officials, however, are praising the new Route 4370, which bypasses an overtaxed entrance to Jerusalem, as a game-changer that alleviates recurrent traffic jams in the area.

Jewish and Arab leaders participated in a ribbon-cutting ceremony earlier this month launching traffic on the new road.

Rachel Greenspan, senior advisor for foreign affairs and media to Jerusalem Mayor Moshe Lion, told JNS that the road would ease congestion and movement for the city’s Arab residents, especially those in the Shuafat Camp and in Issawiyya, and that it would “allow Arab and Jewish residents alike to move throughout the city more efficiently, improving day-to-day life for all.”

One of those in attendance at the ribbon-cutting ceremony was Akram Abdel-Rachman, a retired business leader in the Jerusalem Arab community and resident of the city’s southern Sharafat neighborhood. He told JNS that he supports “any project that eases the life of residents in the area. It’s a blessing.”

“So many families have multiple cars, and there is so much traffic in the area,” he said. “What difference does religion make?”

He added, “We are not politicians; we just want quiet here, and the ability to make a living. We don’t look at the politics; we just want services like all residents here.”

In addition to Lion, Minister of Transportation Yisrael Katz, Minister of Internal Security Gilad Erdan were joined by AbdelRachman and the mukhtar, or Muslim spiritual leader, of neighboring Anata, who wanted to show his appreciation of the project.

Despite support from local Arab leaders, images of parallel roads separated by a barrier have drawn the ire of international media.

Some view the move as a land grab by Israel in Judea and Samaria.

In Haaretz, Shaul Arieli, considered one of Israel’s experts on the future Israeli-Palestinian border, said that while the new road may ease travel time for Palestinians, he believes Israel had an ulterior motive in building it — “to pave the way for the construction of the Mevasseret Adumim neighborhood, also known as E1, which was planned to create a continuum of Jewish construction between Ma’aleh Adumim and the capital [Jerusalem].”

From left: Israeli Minister of Transportation Yisrael Katz, Jerusalem Mayor Moshe Lion, Minister of Internal Security Gilad Erdan, the mukhtar (Muslim spiritual leader) of Anata and retired business leader Akram Abdel-Rachman.

View of Route 4370, northeast of Jerusalem, which connects the Geva Binyamin area to Route 1, and separates vehicles of Israeli citizens and non-citizens, on Jan. 10.

Yonatan Sindel/Flash90

The opening of Route 4370 represents the completion of the initial stage of a major transportation project in the northern Jerusalem area — to benefit both Jews and Arabs — that so far has cost around NIS 30 million (about $8.1 million).

Elnatan Scharia, spokesman for the Yesha Council of Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria, explained that “Arabs under the PA can’t enter Jerusalem [without a permit], so instead of having to get stuck in checkpoint traffic outside the city, the new bypass road allows them to get to places like Jericho more easily.”

He emphasized that despite allegations of “Jewish-only” roads,

Jewish and Arab motorists share all of the main arteries throughout Judea and Samaria, commonly known as the West Bank.

While Arabs can travel freely throughout Judea and Samaria, Jews are limited in which roads they can travel. Under Israeli law, it is illegal for Jews to enter any “Area A” territories, or those under full Palestinian Authority administration.

The division of land in Judea and Samaria into pockets of Israeli and Palestinian control, known as Areas A, B and C, followed the signing of the Oslo Accords in the 1990s.

Prior to Oslo, Israelis were able to travel freely throughout Judea and Samaria, including major Arab cities, such as Ramallah.

At the same time, Palestinians were able to travel freely through Israel, with restrictions introduced in 1989 after the start of the First Intifada. Security measures were expanded after a wave of deadly terror in 1993, shortly after Oslo was signed.

In the wake of the violence, Israel built an extensive series of roads that bypass Palestinian cities. While the roads provide safe travel for Jewish commuters, they are also used by Palestinian drivers to avoid downtown traffic jams. All major traffic routes, including Highway 60, the main highway from northern Samaria to southern Judea, are open to both Israeli and Palestinian motorists.

Project partners, including the Ministry of Transportation, the Jerusalem Municipality and the Binyamin Regional Council, say there are logical reasons to separate Israeli and Palestinian traffic.

Katz said the road “constitutes an important step in connecting the residents of the Binyamin region to Jerusalem and in strengthening the metropolitan area of Greater Jerusalem.”

The western spur, which is open to cars with Palestinian Authority license plates, serves as a bypass for Arabs to travel from north of Jerusalem towards Palestinian towns east and south of the city without having to stop at checkpoints. The eastern spur connects Israeli communities north of Jerusalem to the city itself via the checkpoint at the Naomi Shemer Tunnel or the French Hill Junction, both on the eastern side of the city.

The road, therefore, offers drivers another way to enter the city, bypassing the busy Hizma checkpoint, which connects Pisgat Ze’ev with the rest of Jerusalem.

For years, the checkpoint has been a daily bottleneck for Jews and Arabs seeking to enter the city.

Yisrael Gantz, head of the Binyamin Regional Council, described the new road as “nothing short of an oxygen pipe for the residents of Binyamin and the entire region.”

Our services include: Physical, Occupational and Speech therapy 7 days a week.

Extensive respiratory care and ventilator dependent services.

Onsite dialysis.

the five towns towns premier premier nursing & rehab center rehabilitation & nursing center

All meals prepared Glatt Kosher under supervision of the Five Towns Vaad by our culinary chef.

1050 Central Ave • Woodmere, New York | 516.588.3200 • fivetownspremier.com

1004852

Brand new 280 bed skilled nursing facility!

THE JEWISH STAR January 25, 2019 • 19 Shevat 5779

Israeli and Palestinian drivers cheer Route 4370

5

January 25, 2019 • 19 Shevat 5779 THE JEWISH STAR

6

The JEWISH STAR

School News

Send news and hi-res photos to Schools@TheJewishStar.com • Deadline Monday 10 am

At a gala for Far Rockaway’s Yeshiva Darchei Torah, a presentation was made to individuals who were instrumental in securing the refinance of the Yeshiva’s mortgage. From left: Rabbi Avrohom Bender, Rabbi Avraham Schachner, Rabbi Yaakov Bender, Shia Ostreicher, Samuel Krieger, Ronald Lowinger, Thomas Hunter of KeyBank, Rabbi Lloyd Keilson, John Manginelli of KeyBank, Rabbi Moshe Bender, Ben Orlofsky and Yossi Gross. The dinner drew over 2,000 guests to Darchei’s Beach 17th Street campus to celebrate its “Darchei Way” — a compassionate, individualized approach to Jewish education.

Gala in Far Rockaway celebrates ‘The Darchei Way’

From left: Meir Fried, Parents of the Year awardee, with Rabbi Yaakov Bender; Guest of Honor Dov Karfunkel; Rabbi Yaakov Bender makes a surprise presentation to Rabbi Lloyd Keilson, co-chairman of the YDT board, in recognition of his tireless efforts on the mortgage refinance; Rabbi Shmuel Feldman, Harbotzas Torah awardee, is presented with a portrait of his parents; and Young Leadership awardee Pinny Heskiel.

DRS for a day SKA Dads & Daughters DRS hosted nearly 130 prospective applicants from 15 elementary schools for a chance to experience life as a DRS student. Eighth-graders from YCQ, HANC, Har Torah, South Shore, Yeshiva Ketana, HAFTR, HALB, Derech HaTorah, and others were greeted at the doors of DRS by administrators and student leaders and received personal schedules.

Over the course of the day, students had the opportunity to study Gemara in Rabbi Kaminetsky’s shiur, practice creative writing techniques with Mrs. Prestifillipo, solve mathematics tricks in Mrs. Flynn’s math class, dissect contemporary psak halacha in Rabbi Farber’s halacha shiur, travel the world with Mr. Levin’s social studies class, explore the DRS science curriculum, and meet and ask questions to Rabbi Storch and Dr. Broder in small groups.

Following a lunch catered by Carlos and Gabby’s, the students moved to the gym, where they participated in a multimedia trivia game covering Gemara, Tanach, science, math, sports, English, Ivrit, and general knowledge.

Fathers joined their ninth-grade daughters for a morning at the Stella K. Abraham High School.

During a breakfast buffet, the pairs posed for portraits, which were given out as a framed memento with a tefillah at the end of the event.

Welcoming remarks were delivered by Rabbi Yosef Zakutinsky, SKA Director of Student Programs.

Elisheva Kaminetsky, the Judaic Studies principal, spoke about the school-home partnership. “We are so happy fathers are able to see how their daughters experience learning at SKA; we are partners with the same mission — to nurture the girls to be the best they can be.” Bluma Drebin, General Studies principal, recalled the impact her own father had on her learning. Student Sara Blass gave a d’var Torah on women’s empowerment.

Fathers and daughters then learned together b’chavruta from prepared handouts and heard a shiur from Rabbi Daniel Eisenbach, SKA Mashgiach Ruchani.

The second half of the program divided participants into groups for a game of “Jeopardy.”

SKA’s Father-Daughter Breakfast was generously sponsored by Dr. and Mrs. Judd Boczko, Mr. and Mrs. Tuvia Breuer, Mr. and Mrs. Ari Ellenberg, Mr. and Mrs. Elisha Graff, Mr. and Mrs. Yehuda Konig, Mr. and Mrs. Avi Muchnick, Mr. and Mrs. Heshy Shtern and Mr. and Mrs. Kenny Sicklick.

Auction fun at HANC

Rabbi Aharon Friedler holds up a prize while students place bids at HANC’s annual Student Senate Chanukah auction.s

Brandeis Bar Mitzvah

Benjamin Katz is flanked by his grandfather Leo Simpson and family friend Joey Hoenig as he reads parshat Bo for his bar mitzvah at the Brandeis School in Lawrence.

7 THE JEWISH STAR January 25, 2019 • 19 Shevat 5779

From left: Daniel Retter, Esq., member of the Touro board of governors; Dr. Alan Kadish, Touro president; Alex Rovt, donor; Dr. Robert Goldschmidt, dean of Touro’s Lander College of Arts & Sciences in Flatbush; Rabbi Moshe Krupka, Touro executive vice president; Dr. Stanley Boylan, Touro vice president of undergraduate education; David Weisz, cousin of Alex Rovt; Maxwell Rovt, son of Alex Rovt; and Alfred Weisz, cousin of Alex Rovt.

Hands-On Fun & Learning

Touro’s Flatbush campus dedicated in the memory of Simon and Lenke Roth The flagship campus of Touro’s Lander College of Arts Sciences on Avenue J in Flatbush was renamed in memory of Simon and Lenke Roth, parents of donor Dr. Alex Rovt.

Dr. Robert Goldschmidt, executive dean, said Dr. Rovt’s gift would help “build productive citizens who will contribute to the Jewish and larger community for years to come.”

Dr. Alan Kadish, president of the Touro College & University System, spoke of Mr. Rovt’s remarkable life and path to success: “Born in Munkacs, Hungary, Rovt remains a devoted Munkacser chasid until this day. From humble beginnings, he distinguished himself as a successful student and later used his smarts, hard work and faith in G-d to become extremely successful in international business and real estate.”

Kadish described Rovt as a leader of the Jewish people.

“Yosef Hatzadik described two essential qualities leaders must possess — that of a chacham and a navon,” said Kadish. “A leader must be one who cares for others and he also must possess the savvy necessary to create and maintain systems that work for the community. Alex Rovt has demonstrated this kind of leadership

through his roles as chairman of the board for One Brooklyn Health Systems, founder of the Zvi Dov Roth Academy in memory of his grandfather and as member of the Touro Board of Governors. He has the winning combination of caring and concern for others and business know-how.”

Rovt described his background, and his parents’ values that shaped his life. “I am so honored to dedicate this building in memory of my parents who truly valued education and community service,” said Rovt. “They taught me that writing a check is not enough. We all must give of ourselves to help others.

“In the old country, my grandmother used to travel by bicycle daily to bring food packages to the needy. My mother went through the Holocaust and Soviet regime and lost her parents and numerous family members at a young age.

Both my parents worked very hard at menial jobs when they came to this country, but despite that, their focus was on helping others, and they passed that passion on to me.”

Touro’s Lander College of Arts & Sciences opened its doors 40 years ago. The school moved into the current building in 1995.

YU to open a NY-based hub for Israeli startups

Religious School

seeking proposals to install fencing.

For info contact

savelez@haftr.org 1017687

“One of the foundations of Yeshiva University’s strategic vision moving forward is to continue to build the YU-Israel Superhighway,” said Stephanie Strauss, executive director of YU in Israel.

“By bringing students to see these companies and absorb their entrepreneurial energy, we make it easier for our students to envision their own futures in Israel and help them build connections and knowledge to make this future possible.”

Students visited more than 15 startup firms in sectors such as cyber security, medicine, biotech, agrotech, finance and artificial intelligence, as well as Facebook and Google. They met YU alumni, including executives at places such as Wix, Vayyar, Hometalk, OurCrowd, Innovation: Africa and Freightos.

The students also heard lectures related to the intersection between Torah and business. Yehudit Abrams, a former NASA researcher who is now CEO and founder of MonitHer, which produces an at-home hand-held monitor for early detection of breast cancer, addressed the group.

“Being here with the students on my first trip to Israel has enabled me to learn so much about the beliefs and values that bring them here, especially the humanitarian ideas and products that will make our world a better place for so many people,” said Susan Bauer, executive director of the Yeshiva University Career Center. “I believe this trip has increased the likelihood of both current and future students pursuing opportunities in Israel.”

Exhibits • Early Childhood Theater • Workshops LICM programs are made possible with funding from New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.

Long Island Children’s Museum 11 Davis Avenue • Garden City NY 11530 www.licm.org • (516) 224-5800

1014663

Yeshiva University is set to launch New York City-based hub for Israeli startups, giving entrepreneurs access to business infrastructure and access to students, among other tools.

The YU Innovation Lab will “host professional workshops and events, fostering economic development and building local community partnerships with the wider NYC tech ecosystem. The synergy between YU students, faculty, Israeli startups and the greater YU network, together with access to NYC business resources and local stakeholders, will create a launching pad for the startups to jump-start in the U.S.,” according to a statement.

This development comes as 20 YU undergraduate students visit Israel to engage the “Start-Up Nation,” including meeting Israeli entrepreneurs.

January 25, 2019 • 19 Shevat 5779 THE JEWISH STAR

8

The JEWISH STAR

Wine & Dine

Shabbat dinner: Both traditional and evolving Kosher Kitchen

Joni SChoCKEtt

Jewish Star columnist

T

here is nothing as wonderful to me as a “traditional” Shabbat dinner. But what does that even mean anymore? While it once meant wine, challah, chicken soup, roasted chicken, and more, now it may mean GF challah and a vegan meal. The foods have changed too much to cite here.

But, since Shabbat is more than the food, that idea of “traditional” has changed in other ways too. In fact, traditional celebrations — traditions themselves — change all the time, from generation to generation and even in between.

My grandparents’ traditional Shabbat meant that my grandmother started cooking on Thursday morning making her lokshen and challot and stuffed hoelzel and maybe even her schmaltz and gribenes. On Friday she made chopped liver, chickens and brisket and cholent and more. On Friday night we would arrive at her apartment and the festival began. There were 11 grandchildren and at least 10 adults — often more. The tables formed a “T,” the long part in the living room and the top along her long hallway. That meant we could not see my grandfather at the head of the table, but we could sure hear him. In fact, I think at times all of Roxbury could hear him as he sang Shabbat prayers in tunes from “the old country.” He then sang some songs in Yiddish and finally we could eat!

Those wonderful years ended too soon, and my traditions changed as my mother took over. She called herself an “adequate” cook.

She really did not like cooking all that much, so those homemade challot and noodles, schmaltz and more were replaced with salads, vegetables and simpler fare. The challah came from a very good kosher bakery, but it was from a bakery and it was different. These new traditions were not the old ones, but they became our traditions, nonetheless.

Something in me must have longed for the days of my childhood Shabbat dinners, because I found myself trying to recreate that ideal for my children. I made challah and chicken soup and more and we sang songs while eating on my grandmother’s cream-colored, Irish linen Shabbat tablecloth. This was a new tradition born from sweet memories of past ones.

Now my children are grown and we have yet more new traditions. Every Shabbat, my son-in-law serenades our daughter with Eishet Chayil. We bless all our children and our daughter and her husband bless their son. To accommodate bedtime, dinner is often earlier than we are used to, but that, too, is part of this new tradition. Happily, my table can grow and we have a long L-shaped space for more family members and guests.

Someday, my children will all create their own “traditional” Shabbat and will take from ours what works for them. Yet another way of celebrating will begin. “Traditional” Shabbat is an ever-changing concept that is the thread that holds generations together — past, present and future.

Crunchy Asian Chicken Drumsticks (Meat) Sauce 3-1/2 cups pineapple juice 1 cup dark brown sugar 1/4 cup tamari sauce 1/4 cup rice vinegar 2-1/2 Tbsp. fresh grated ginger

5 large cloves garlic, minced 1/3 cup Sriracha sauce (less or none for a less or non-spicy dish) Drumsticks 18 to 24 chicken drumsticks, patted dry 3 to 4 extra-large egg whites beaten until frothy 3/4 cup unbleached flour or GF flour 4 Tbsp. tapioca or corn starch 1 Tbsp. salt, scant 1 tsp. black pepper 1 Tbsp. onion powder Finishing 1 bunch scallions, thinly sliced, divided Sesame seeds Cooked jasmine or basmati rice Line two rimmed baking sheets with foil and then parchment (saves clean-up). Set aside.

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees.

Place the pineapple juice and all remaining sauce ingredients in a large pot. Stir to combine.

Bring to a boil, reduce the heat and simmer until reduced by half, 20 to 30 minutes. Cover and set aside.

While the sauce is simmering, pat the chicken pieces dry and place on a plate.

Beat the egg whites in a large bowl just until frothy.

Whisk the flour, corn or tapioca starch, salt, pepper and onion powder together in a large bowl.

Dip each drumstick into the egg whites, let the excess drip off and dredge in the flour.

Place on the parchment evenly spaced apart, alternating bone end to meat end for more space. Continue until all drumsticks are done.

Bake the drumsticks for 20 minutes, turn-

ing once.

While the drumsticks are baking, make the rice according to directions.

Season as desired and, when cooked, add half the scallions and mix well.

After 20 minutes of baking, remove the pans from the oven and drizzle half the sauce evenly over the drumsticks. Carefully, using tongs, turn the drumsticks to coat them completely. Place back in the oven and bake another 15 to 20 minutes until deep mahogany. Sprinkle with half the sliced scallions and sesame seeds. Serve with the rice and the remaining sauce. Serves 6 to 12.

Maple Glazed Winter Vegetables with Roasted Garlic (Pareve) 2 heads garlic, cut in half crosswise and roasted 2 lbs. yams or sweet potatoes, peeled and cut into inch-thick slices, then quarters 2 lbs. butternut squash, peeled and cut into inch-thick slices, cut to size of yams 1 lb. turnips, cut into inch-thick pieces, then in half 2 lb. carrots, peeled and cut into inch-thick pieces Extra-virgin olive oil 1 to 2 Tbsp. grated fresh ginger, to taste 4 Tbsp. (rounded) dark brown sugar, to taste 1/4 cup freshly squeezed orange juice 1/3 cup Canola or Corn oil, divided 1/3 cup pure maple syrup, grade Dark Amber Parsley and sesame seeds for garnish, if desired Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.

Cut the top ends off of the garlic bulbs and place on a piece of aluminum foil. Drizzle generously with olive oil and wrap the foil over the bulbs. Roast in the oven for about 40 to 50 minutes, until the garlic is soft and golden.

When done, set aside and let cool. At some point while the veggies are roasting, remove the cloves from the skins, place in a small cup and discard skins. Set aside the garlic.

Increase the oven temperature to 400 degrees.

Generously grease a large casserole dish.

Place the sweet potatoes, squash, turnips

and carrots into it. Add about a quarter cup of water to the pan and drizzle with 1 to 2 Tbsp. of oil. Cover tightly with aluminum foil. Bake for 20 minutes until fork tender. Remove from oven and uncover carefully to avoid a steam burn.

Peel the ginger and, using a micro plane grater, grate about 1 to 2 tsp. into a small bowl. Mix the ginger with 3 to 5 Tbsp. brown sugar. Add the orange juice and 2 Tbsp. oil and mix well. Add the maple syrup and whisk to emulsify. Scatter the roasted garlic over the veggies.

Pour the glaze over the vegetables and toss gently to coat. Place back in the oven and roast, uncovered, until the vegetables are golden and soft, about 20 to 25 minutes.

Remove once during roasting to mix gently.

Replace in oven to finish roasting.

Place on a serving platter and spoon any glaze over the veggies. Sprinkle with sesame seeds and minced fresh parsley, if desired.

Serves 8 to 10.

Quick and Easy Jerusalem Kugel (Pareve) 2/3 cup canola oil plus 1 Tbsp.

1-1/4 cups dark brown sugar 4 extra-large eggs 1 tsp. salt 3/4 to 1 tsp. black pepper, more if you like it really hot 1 pound fine egg noodles Spray a glass 9 or 10-inch round cake pan or 3 quart oblong baking pan generously with non-stick spray. Set aside. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Bring a large pot of water to a boil and cook the noodles as directed. Drain and place the noodles back into the pot. Add 1 Tbsp. of oil and mix well.

Place the sugar and remaining oil in a medium, heavy saucepan. Heat over medium heat until the sugar is melted, stirring almost constantly with a wooden spoon. Stir until a bubbly liquid caramel has formed. Immediately pour the caramel over the noodles and stir with the wooden spoon. Sprinkle the salt and pepper over the noodles and mix well.

Let cool for 5 minutes. Add the eggs, one at a time and mix well.

Pour into the prepared pan and bake at 350 degrees 60 to 90 minutes until golden and completely set. Serve hot or warm.

Serves 8 to 12.

9 THE JEWISH STAR January 25, 2019 • 19 Shevat 5779

WHEN IT HAS TO BE

Your Butcher is Waiting to Hear From You!

> Rack of Veal

Pick up this recipe card at a Gourmet Glatt near you.

Prefer to have your meat order processed directly through the butcher department? Have a question about a particular cut or cooking method? Who better to reach out to than your local Gourmet Glatt meat department manager?

Email your questions, comments or meat order any time of the day or night. butcher@gourmetglatt.com (Cedarhurst) butcher@gourmetglattwoodmere.com (Woodmere)

137 Spruce Street Cedarhurst, New York T: 516-569-2662

1030 Railroad Ave Woodmere, New York T: 516-295-6901

GourmetGlattOnline.com GourmetGlatt.com /gourmetglatt

1015662

For meals guaranteed to impress, start with tender, delicious meats from Gourmet Glatt.

January 25, 2019 • 19 Shevat 5779 THE JEWISH STAR

10

The JEWISH STAR

Wine & Dine

Scones that are fit for a Queen Who’s in the Kitchen

JudY Joszef

Jewish Star columnist

U

nlike many of my contemporaries, I wasn’t a crazy concertgoer in my younger days. Sure, I liked music, and had a few favorite bands, but I was never a rabid fan of anyone specific. I saw Queen at MSG in 1977 and Jethro Tulle in 1978. I saw Billy Joel, Pat Benatar, and Paul Simon. In later years, I saw The Stones with my kids, Bruce Springsteen with my daughter. Although I enjoyed them, I didn’t think it worth the price of admission.

Then along came Bohemian Rhapsody, the movie about Queen, and that was it. I became a rabid fan.

I came home that night and Googled Freddie Mercury and Queen until about 4 am. I was addicted. It was ridiculous. I wanted to know everything Queen. Then I watched all the interviews with Rami Malek, who basically morphs into Freddie Mercury for the film. I was thrilled when he was nominated for Best Actor, and the film for best picture, at the Golden Globe awards.

I didn’t think he was going to win, because word was that awards were going to go to A Star is Born, including Bradley Cooper as Best Actor.

When Rami’s name was announced as Best Actor, I was thrilled. Then came Bohemian Rhapsody as Best Picture. All you movies critics who panned the movie, what do you have to say now?

All my friends think I’m crazy. We were able to see the movie on TV on New Year’s Eve, at a friend’s house, and I made all 12 adults watch it again, although they had seen it already. Then, to my delight, there were showings in certain

movie theaters that allowed audiences to sing along when the songs were played. Of course we went.

What can I say? I guess I’m making up for the lost concerts of my youth, or I’m having a midlife crisis. Either way, I feel young at heart.

Our recent cruise offered a show based on Queen music. Just my luck! Of course I made sure to get there early and get seats front and center. I’m embarrassed to say I behaved like one of those rabid fans. Jerry, who also became a Queen fan late in life, joined in during the rendition of We Will Rock You. Much as I loved the fact that Jerry was in love with Queen as much as I was, the foot stomping and clapping that accompanies the song was a bit of a problem. Jerry has no sense of rhythm whatsoever. I’d had a feeling that they were going to play that song and that everybody would be stomping and clapping, so I tried to teach it to him before the show. “It’s simple,” I said, “two stomps with foot followed by a clap. Just follow the music and the audience.” He tried, but just couldn’t get it. Good thing it was dark and he was drowned out by everyone else.

Talking about the British rock band Queen, here is a favorite food of British people and one of Queen Elizabeth’s.

Authentic British Scones 2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour 2 Tbsp. sugar 4 tsp. baking powder 1/2 tsp. salt 3 Tbsp. unsalted butter , cold 2/3 cups milk 1 egg yolk, beaten with 1 Tbsp. milk (for glaze) Strawberry jam (to serve) Clotted cream at room temperature (to serve) Preheat your oven to 425 F. In a medium

bowl, place the flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, and butter. Rub the mixture together with your fingers to break up the butter, until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs.

Add the milk slowly, mixing as you add, using enough of the milk to get your dough to come together with no lumps remaining. (Your dough should be quite sticky.)

Spoon the dough out until a well-floured surface. Generously dust the top of the dough and knead the dough 2 to 3 times to coat it with flour and smooth the surface. Press the dough into a round that is roughly 1 inch thick.

Using a well-floured cookie-cutter, cut the dough into 2 inch circles. (Be sure to press the cookie cutter straight down and up. Twisting the cookie cutter will impact the amount of rise you get on your scones.) Place the rounds onto a greased and floured baking sheet. Brush them gently with the egg yolk and milk mixture.

Bake the scones for 12 to 15 minutes, until golden and firm. Remove the baked scones from the oven and let them cool for 30 minutes (if you can resist). If you like softer scones, cover them with a clean tea towel as they cool.

This scone batter freezes well. We like to freeze pre-cut rounds of dough for easy baking

(just thaw and bake as directed). Alternately, freeze the baked scones and reheat in a low oven for 5 to 10 minutes after thawing on the counter.

Recipe via curiouscuisiniere.com. Check the website for a recipe for clotted cream.

Vegetarian schnitzel: You won’t miss the real thing

By Sonya Sanford, The Nosher Schnitzel is one of the ultimate comfort foods. It’s hard not to like a food that is fried and golden brown. Schnitzel is commonly made from chicken or veal, but you’ll also find vegetarian versions made from celery root or, in this case, cabbage.

Any recipe for schnitzel always catches my eye, and I’ve often come across cabbage schnitzel in Russian and Eastern European cooking. Meat in that part of the world could be scarce, and cooks came up with creative solutions to make vegetables taste richer.

Cabbage also often was one of the only fresh vegetables available during the long winter months. Even after immigrating to the United States with its year-round abundance of all foods, cabbage is still a favored vegetable among families from the former Soviet Union. We ate a lot of it in my own Russian Jewish home: cooked, fermented, in soups or in salads. I especially love cabbage as a meat stand-in for its texture, volume and versatility.

Cabbage schnitzel can be made with boiled cabbage leaves that are folded into envelope shapes and then battered, coated with breadcrumbs and fried just like a chicken schnitzel. But my preferred style of cabbage schnitzel requires less work and instead employs a thick batter of shredded cooked cabbage, breadcrumbs and beaten eggs to form the schnitzels. This style of cabbage patty ends up with a schnitzel shape and thickness, golden brown outer layer and crispy edges.

You can serve this unexpectedly rich entrée with a squeeze of lemon and fresh dill for added brightness. Cabbage schnitzel can also be topped with a dollop of sour cream, and I’ve used hot sauce for heat.

While there are a few steps to this recipe, each one is simple, the ingredients are few, the cooking time is quick and the payoff is big. Cabbage schnitzel tastes little of cabbage and instead transforms into something savory, caramelized, meaty and satisfying.

Ingredients: 1-1/2 lbs. cabbage, about 16 cups shredded 1/2 small yellow onion 3 large eggs 1/3 cup plain breadcrumbs or matzah meal 1/4 cup all-purpose flour

Salt and pepper, to taste Oil, as needed Fresh dill, for garnish Lemon wedges, for garnish Directions: 1. Start by shredding your cabbage thin. This can be done with a mandoline, a food processor with the shredding disc attachment, or even a sharp knife.

2. Fill a large pot with water and bring to a boil. Salt the water generously and then add the shredded cabbage to the boiling water. Cook until the cabbage is tender, about 3 to 4 minutes.

Drain in a colander, then allow the cabbage to sit and continue

to drain and cool for at least 10 minutes.

3. While the cabbage is cooling and draining, prepare the remaining ingredients.

Grate the onion or chop it very fine. Beat the eggs and reserve.

4. Once cooled, squeeze out any excess liquid from the cabbage and add it to a large bowl.

To the cabbage, add the onion, beaten eggs, breadcrumbs, flour, and salt and pepper. Stir until the cabbage is evenly and well-coated in the breadcrumb and egg mixture. The mixture should be thick and stick together to be formed into patties. If the mixture is too liquidy, add more breadcrumbs/ flour. If you want to taste for seasoning, take a small spoonful of the mixture and cook and brown it in a pan before cooking all of the schnitzels.

5. Over medium-high heat, heat a large skillet filled with a 1/4 inch of neutral cooking oil (like avocado or canola). Once the oil is hot, form the cabbage mixture into schnitzel-shaped patties in the pan, about 1/2 inch thick. Cook the patties in batches, so as not to crowd the pan and cause the cabbage to steam instead of brown. Cover the pan with a lid and brown for 3 to 4 minutes.

Lift the lid, carefully flip over the patties (a fish spatula works well for this), cover again, and brown for an additional 2 to 3 minutes or until the schnitzels are golden brown and crisp on each side.

6. Once cooked, transfer to a paper towel-lined plate or rack to drain some of the excess oil. Serve the schnitzels immediately, garnished with fresh dill and lemon wedges if desired. Serves 4 to 6.

11

(

Free Parking

much

Over 150 Spaces!

Y DA R E V E S T C U NEW PROD

More for Less

TM

Prices Good Sunday, January 27th through Friday, February 1st, 2019

BIG GAME SALES! Ortega 16 oz Salsa, 12 Count Taco Kit or Fiesta Flats

Order Big Game Specials from the Deli for Pick-Up on 2/3/2019 kolsavedeli@gmail.com

Plain or Flavored

PopCorners

1199

1

$ 49 5 oz Snack Factory Pretzel Crisps

1

2999

$ 49 7.2 oz

Tribe Hummus All Varieties

1

$ 49 10 oz

Silver Tip Roast

6

$ 49 LB

Grape Tomatoes

5

4/$

Viennese Crunch

7

$ 49

LB

4

3/$

LB

$

100 Count Assortment

15

$

1

$ 99 11 oz

EA

Spring Valley Party Platter

99 72.5 oz

5 oz

Post Fruity or Cocoa Pebbles

Deli 1 Foot Hero Sandwich

Assorted

3

Hot Poppers

Season Albacore Tuna

$

Assorted

$ 99 12 oz

$ 99 1 Liter

5

1

Regular or Reduced Fat

3

Buffalo Wings

$ 99 LB

$ 99

Meal Mart Beef Franks

Seltzer

Avenue A Flour Glick’s High All Purpose or Unbleached Gluten Flour

1 2

$ 99$ 5 LB49 5 LB

Sabra Guacamole

Turkey Hill Iced Tea

3

$ 49 64 oz

Plain or Spicy

2/$

8 oz

Extra Lean Beef Stew

Assorted

1

Chicken Bones

4

89¢

Italian Kiwi

All Colored Peppers

$ 89 LB

2

LB

1

8/$

$ 89 LB

Tilapia Family Pack

Sesame Chicken

5

$ 49 LB

$

1099

LB

Keilim Mikveh on Premises | Pre-Shabbos Buffet Every Thursday & Friday!

Savings Plaza | 11 Lawrence Lane, Lawrence, NY | (516) 371-6200 | info@kolsavemarket.com | /kolsavemarket Hours: Sunday-Tuesday: 9am-7pm | Wednesday: 9am-10pm | Thursday: 9am-11pm | Friday: 8am-till 2 hours before Shabbos We reserve the right to limit quantities. No rain checks. Not responsible for typographical errors.

THE JEWISH STAR January 25, 2019 • 19 Shevat 5779

ng in all of i c i r p y a d y r Best eve ong Island!

L & s n e e u Q Brooklyn, Y!

‘The Invisibles’: Jews who survived in Nazi Berlin

By Curt Schleier, JTA In May 1943, after years of killings and deportations, the Nazis declared Berlin judenfrei, or free of Jews. What they didn’t know was that approximately 7,000 Jews remained in hiding in the city, and not only in attics and basements — often in plain sight.

“The Invisibles,” a German film that begins a limited run on Thursday, Jan. 25, in New York and Los Angeles, tells the story of four of these real-life Jews who hid from their oppressors in everyday Berlin society. It’s a story that has been told before — in 1982, Leonard Gross published “The Last Jews of Berlin,” a critically acclaimed bestseller that covered similar ground — but never in such a unique way. Part documentary, part cinematic re-creation, the movie weaves together footage of interviews with four of these survivors into a slightly fictionalized docudrama.

For co-screenwriter and director Claus Rafle, the project started in an unlikely place: a bordello. He was shooting a documentary in 2004 about the legendary Salon Kitty, a brothel bugged by German intelligence to get dirt on patrons, both Germans and visiting dignitaries. In the research phase, an old man told him that he had information about a young Jewish woman who was hidden by the establishment’s owner and immigrated to America after the war.

Supposedly, Rafle was told, she was a subject of the popular mid-1950s Ralph Edwards documentary show “This is Your Life. That a Jew managed to survive in Berlin during the war amazed and fascinated Rafle, and his mind filled with cinematic possibilities.

With the help of historians, he tracked down and interviewed 20 or so survivors who had stayed in Berlin. He ultimately decided to concentrate the film on two women and two men: Hanni Levy, Ruth Gumpel, Cioma Schonhaus and Eugen Friede.

The four had hid in abandoned buildings or were hidden by righteous Germans, and all had

Alice Dwyer as Holocaust survivor Hanni Levy in “The Invisibles.”

epic stories. Schonhaus, for instance, forged hundreds of passports and used one of them to cross the border into Switzerland before he could be captured. Friede joined the Jewish resistance, spending much of his time handing out leaflets and hunting Jewish traitors and informants cooperating with the Nazis.

“The Invisibles” is Rafle’s first theatrical film; his previous documentaries aired on German television. In part because of the bigger canvas, he decided to forego the traditional mix of headand-shoulder interviews combined with archival footage. Instead he chose to add re-creations of actual events, believing it would provide audiences a “deeper understanding” of the events.

The approach has resonated. Only 55 prints of the film were made for German distribution

Greenwich Entertainment

— a comparatively small number, even for the small German film market — but over 100,000 Germans saw it. That led to an international release; a national rollout will follow this week’s openings in New York and Los Angeles.

Rafle, 57, has a dark connection to the subject matter: His grandfather was a Nazi.

“He was one of those Germans who thought the Nazi movement was one of the best things to happen to Germany,” Rafle said. “I remember when I was 13 or 14 years old, I asked him if he was in the army. He just didn’t want to talk about it.”

In part because of this, Rafle was uncertain how the film would be received when it was shown in Israel in April.

“I was a little bit nervous about how the people would feel about it. I’m not Jewish. The

movie touches a very sensitive point of [Jewish] history,” he said.

But crowds in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv liked it very much.

“The people of Israel liked it because it showed some [German] people with a heart, who wanted to do something to help,” Rafle said.

“There weren’t many, but there were some. And there were people in this terrible dark age who survived in Berlin because of them.”

While in Israel, he visited the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial and museum in Jerusalem and was happy to find that the people who aided the four survivors in his film were all honored as Righteous Among the Nations.

Feedback wasn’t all positive though: Following the film’s successful release in Germany, neo-Nazis responded on social media.

“I didn’t get emails or anything like that because I’m not really on social media,” Rafle said. “I heard about those negative comments, but I didn’t read them.”

After Hanni Levy appeared on a French television show with Rafle, she was subject to threats so potentially serious that the matter was turned over to the police.

But aside from that, reaction to the film has been positive and emotional.

“The Invisibles” debuted last year at the New York Jewish Film Festival, and Rafle remembers watching one of the last climactic scenes, when Russian troops capture two young men they assume are Nazis. They say they are actually Jewish, but the Russians can’t imagine Jews surviving the war in Berlin and don’t believe them.

One of the Russians is Jewish, and he insists his prisoners say a Jewish prayer. So they recite the Shema.

“My wife and I were standing at the side [of the auditorium] and we were watching the people, many of whom were Jewish, and some of them were moving their lips,” Rafle said.

“They were saying the prayer as well.”

Individualized Dental Care from a Knowledgeable, Caring Dentist With Exceptional Skills and a gentle touch!

New Patient Special!

ChIlD ClEANINg*, EXAm, X-RAYS AND FlUORIDE

ADUlt Cleaning*, Exam, and X-rays

• Friendly Doctor & Staff who listen to your concerns and clearly explain your treatment options • For your convenience, same day treatment available • Efficient office with highest standards of cleanliness • Same day emergency appointments available • We see children starting at 2 years old

0% Financing Available

OPEN SUNDAYS

Only $

99

*In absence of gum disease

Reg. $200

Only $

75

*Children up to 12 years old.

Reg. $150

One time Offer with coupon. Exp. 2/28/19.

Call For Your Appointment Now!

516-203-4556

Alina Bergan D.D.S.

650 Central Ave., Suite F • Cedarhurst, NY 11516 www.alinabergandds.com

1014714

January 25, 2019 • 19 Shevat 5779 THE JEWISH STAR

12

By Cnaan Liphshiz, JTA LONDON — Like countless world-class pianists, Nelly Ben-Or began playing piano at age 5 and never stopped. That discipline helped Ben-Or, 86, became an international concert pianist and the person most widely recognized for adapting the Alexander technique for posture and movement improvement for musicians.

But unlike her peers, much of Ben-Or’s training took place while hiding in Nazi-occupied Warsaw. Her mother, Antonina Podhoretz, risked everything to afford her daughter access to the instrument.

Ben-Or, who now lives in London and still teaches master classes in piano and the Alexander technique, unfolds the story of her unlikely survival in a recently-published autobiography titled Ashes to Light: A Holocaust Childhood to a Life in Music.

The book was celebrated as a “brilliant and deeply moving personal account” by Jonathan Vaughan, a director of the prestigious Guildhall School of Drama & Music.

The strength of Ben-Or’s story stems partly from the author bearing witness to momentous wartime events, including the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. But its uniqueness lies in how it marries opposites, such as betrayal and heroism, hunger and artistic creativity, and survival and self-sacrifice.

Throughout the 180-page narrative, one character — the piano — makes repeated and unlikely appearances. The instrument features in Ben-Or’s earliest memories, from her childhood home in Lwow, now Lviv in Ukraine. At 6, German soldiers carried off the piano in her family’s living room.

“I shivered in fear and despair, huddled against my mother’s body as I watched them taking away the instrument which had become for me such a wonderful source of magic,” Ben-Or writes.

Her family was about to lose much more than their prized possessions. Ben-Or’s father, Leon, was taken away and, she later learned, killed at the Janowska concentration camp.

Her mother and older sister were able to obtain false “Aryan” identities, but they became homeless, exchanging one hiding place for another. Her sister was left to hide on her own. Ben-Or and her mother scrambled to leave Lwow for Warsaw, where they had a better chance of surviving.

The pair missed the last train to Warsaw and ended up as hitchhikers aboard a military train full of Nazi SS officers. One SS man even tucked in Ben-Or with his green army coat when she feigned sleep on the long journey, she recalls in the book. The civilian train they missed was searched. Several Jews traveling under false

Nelly Ben-Or sitting by one of her two pianos in her London home on Dec. 13.

Cnaan Liphshiz

identities were caught, Ben-Or’s mother later learned.

In Warsaw, mother and daughter became subtenants of a Polish working class family. Their hosts quickly caught on that Ben-Or and her mother were Jewish but, at great personal risk, did not report them. Still, neighbors became suspicious, forcing them to seek a new hiding place. Ben-Or’s mother found employment as a maid with a wealthier non-Jewish Polish family, the Kowalskis.

That’s where Nelly, then 7 or 8, again saw a piano.

“My desire to get to that instrument and play it made me nag my mother” to ask the Kowalskis for permission to play, Ben-Or writes. But doing so would have blown their cover as a working class maid and her daughter, her mother feared. “Musical gifts were so often associated with the Jewish people,” Ben-Or writes.

But “a part of my mother wanted me to keep playing,” Ben-Or told JTA in an interview at her home near London, where she keeps two pianos in a study full of books and orchid plants. Antonina relented, but on the condition that Nelly pretend not to know how to play. At the height of World War II, when the Nazis were hunting and executing people on the streets below, Ben-Or was playing mu-

sic on a grand piano that brought her brief hope of normalcy.

The Kowalskis suggested that Ben-Or join their granddaughter’s weekly piano lessons, to which her mother reluctantly agreed.

The teacher suggested that Ben-Or attend a music school, but Antonina vetoed it. The fewer people who noticed her, the safer.

As a little girl, “playing the piano for chosen periods in the day became moments of paradise on Earth,” Ben-Or recalls. The teacher insisted that Nelly play at a students’ concert, and she was allowed to play, becoming the talk of the block for a while.

But her mother’s fears turned out to be justified. Soon after the concert, rumors that Antonina and Nelly were “not who they pretended to be” started circulating among the neighbors, forcing the two to leave yet another hiding place, Ben-Or writes.

They were rounded up in German army operations targeting Warsaw citizens who had joined a resistance operation following the doomed ghetto uprising. In yet another narrow escape, Nelly and Antonina eventually were released in the countryside because the concentration camp where the Germans had planned to place them was full. Penniless and hungry, the two found shelter in a pigsty that locals had made livable for refugees.

But even there, “my ear caught the sound of piano from a neighboring house,” Ben-Or writes. It was the home of the piano teacher of Pruszkow, and again Ben-Or’s mother allowed her daughter to play. The teacher allotted her half an hour a day.

“I went on eagerly from one piece of music to the next, playing anything that was available,” including Johann Strauss waltzes considered too demanding for 8-year-olds, Ben-Or writes.

“Yet today, as a concert pianist, I am convinced that I owe to that unorthodox but invaluable experience of piano playing.” It helped her hold onto her humanity and hope, she says.

After the war, Ben-Or enrolled in a school for gifted musicians.

She and her mother emigrated from Poland to Israel in 1950. A decade later, Ben-Or went to study in England. She married in 1964. She and her husband have a daughter who lives in London.

The book describes her development as an artist and her experiences as a survivor in three countries.

“It seems as if my voracious appetite for academic and musical progress was partly a reaction to the years of repression,” Ben-Or writes. “It was as if the darkness of the war years had been lifted, and the bright light and fresh air of freedom filled my whole being with the need to receive as much as possible of all that I had missed before.”

HEWLETT

Commercial & Residential

E WE HAVN WOME ONLY S CLASSE

Licensed & Insured

1 0

$ $

ENROLLMENT PROCESSING SAVE $129

PROMO CODE: 1DOWN • EXP. 2/2/19

MEMBERSHIPS STARTING AT

19 99

$

PER MONTH

& GUARANTEED FOR LIFE SEE RETRO FITNESS FOR DETAILS

www.iknowaguyinc.com 461 Central Ave Cedarhurst NY 11516 Lic #H04398900 • NYC Track #GC611686 @iknowaguyinc

we have classes, tanning and child sitting!

We have Women only Classes!

NEW YEAR!

FiRst MOnth FRee WITH 1 YEAR MEMBERSHIP

MUST PRESENT COUPON / AD FOR SPECIAL

12

Hewlett location only. W/ coupon. First time users only.

Not to be combined. Expires 2/2/19.

NEW YOU!

1014656

855-I-KNOW-A-GUY

Take advanTage of The besT value in fiTness

1255 Hewlett Plaza • 516-374-0402 • hewlettny.retrofitness.net 1009531

(Next door to the Hewlett Post Office)

THE JEWISH STAR January 25, 2019 • 19 Shevat 5779

Risking all to play piano, it helped her survive Shoah

13

We met 70 years after she sang at Theresienstadt vince the world that Jews under Nazi control were well treated. Ela was made to perform the role of the Cat 55 times. On the night of the last performance, most of the children in the cast were sent to Auschwitz, where they perished.

“Brundibar” also survived the Holocaust, and is now performed to memorialize the children who were murdered. And Ela became its most loyal champion.

After surviving the war, she spent much of the rest of her life traveling the world to attend every production of “Brundibar” that she could.

She gave speeches and spoke with the children, and followed the opera in hopes of preserving the message of music and friendship that it portrays.

Ela was thrilled to see the resurgence of “Brundibar,” as it kept alive the memory of her friends.

first person

Music and hope went hand in hand for her.

When Ela died in March at 87, her passing was little noted outside of North Carolina, where she was living. But for those, like me, who got to know her through “Brundibar” — and others who learned her story through newspaper articles or her own oral testimony and videos, or the 1991 documentary “The Journey of Butterfly” — her life was a defiant message of hope amid the destruction.

“Brundibar” tells the story of a brother and sister who need to earn money to buy milk for their sick mother but must defeat the evil organ grinder Brundibar to do so. With the help of a dog, a cat, a bird and a group of children, they defeat Brundibar and celebrate by singing a victory march. It was known in Theresienstadt that the character of Brundibar represented Hitler, and

singing its climactic victory march was a thrilling rebuke of the horrors of life in the ghetto.

Despite its use as propaganda, Ela loved performing “Brundibar.” She had always loved to sing and was excited to be cast in the production at Theresienstadt. Ela said that music and “Brundibar” were everything to the prisoners, and that when she was singing all of her troubles disappeared. She told us that music brought joy and hope to a place where there was none.

Ela was 15 when she, her sister and her mother miraculously evaded Auschwitz and survived the Ela Weissberger war at Theresienstadt. After the liberation they returned to Prague, but Ela eventually moved to Israel, where she served in the army and Israel’s equivalent of the Secret Service.

In Israel, she met her husband, Leopold, and eventually they moved to New York with their children.

“Brundibar” came into my life in 2016 during a performance arranged by the New Orleans Opera Association, the National World War II Museum and Cantor Joel Colman of the city’s Congregation Temple Sinai.

I was honored to play Aninka, the sister. The production took place at the National World War II Museum on a stage set in a hangar with World War II-era planes strung overhead. Robert Lyall conducted an orchestra and a cast of children from the Greater New Orleans area. Most special of all, Ela attended the performances and addressed the packed audience after each show, sometimes joking and sometimes serious.

At 18, I was one of the oldest members of our cast (I could pass for much younger, a fact Ela found very funny) and initially I understood the weight of our task more than some of the younger kids. But Ela had a talent for storytelling and she shared her experiences in Theresienstadt with the cast before our dress rehearsal.

She helped us understand the deep significance of our performances. At the end of each show, after addressing the audience, Ela joined us in an encore of the victory march, singing in Czech while we sang in English and wrapping her arms around as many children as she could reach.

I was heartbroken when I heard of Ela’s passing. Her presence at “Brundibar” performances around the world touched so many lives. Countless children learned about the Holocaust from Ela, and were changed by her words and indomitable spirit. Ela made history come alive for us.

While it was sobering to learn the history behind the opera, Ela was a comforting presence not just to me but to countless other children worldwide.

“I always thought the opera died with the children, but when I hear it here in a reunited state, singing it by children free, it will never die,” she said in an interview for the USC Shoah Foundation.

This was the message of remembrance that she had kept throughout her life, and her eyes would always light up when we sang, for she was remembering her friends and we were bringing them back to life for her.

I treasure my copy of the book The Cat with the Yellow Star, a memoir for young adults she wrote with Susan Goldman Rubin in 2008. She wrote a message in my book: “Remember me and my friends, Love Ela.”

1008737

By Annie Cohen, JTA NEW ORLEANS — Ela Weissberger, though tiny and elderly when I met her, was the strongest woman I have ever known.

Her energy was indefatigable, her personality vibrant and sunny, her wit sharp and charming. Her magical rapport with children was undeniable.

Ela was a Holocaust survivor, sent at age 11 to Theresienstadt, or Terezin, in Czechoslovakia, from her home in Prague. At the concentration camp, Ela performed in the children’s opera “Brundibar,” written for the Prague Children’s Opera by Hans Krasa and later smuggled into Theresienstadt.

The Nazi guards there paraded the children to perform “Brundibar” in front of the Red Cross for propaganda purposes, hoping to con-

1018104

January 25, 2019 • 19 Shevat 5779 THE JEWISH STAR

14

Commercial & Residential Licensed & Insured

855-I-KNOW-A-GUY www.iknowaguyinc.com 461 Central Ave Cedarhurst NY 11516 Lic #H04398900 • NYC Track #GC611686

12

Backgrounder by Ben Sales, JTA A decade ago, the publisher of the Jewish Daily Forward asked his board to believe in miracles.

“We are supposed to believe in miracles; we are forbidden to rely on them, ” Sam Norich wrote in an email to the board of the Forward Association on Dec. 25, 2008. “That means that miracles only happen if we do our part to help them along.”

And according to the attached minutes of a November 2008 board meeting, the venerable Jewish newspaper could have used a little divine intervention. Just five years after selling its radio signal for a reported $78 million, the Forward began that September with $63 million in invested assets. By the end of the month, as the stock market plummeted, that number had dropped even further, to $54 million — a $9 million loss within 30 days. A couple months later, the board would discover that it lost $355,000 in Bernard Madoff’s Ponzi scheme.

But Norich had good news: Months earlier, the Forward had appointed a new editor, Jane Eisner. Norich called Eisner, an alumna of the Philadelphia Inquirer, a “phenomenal professional with very high aspirations.” Her appointment, he said, “augurs well for the future of the Forward.”

Ten years later, the picture looks grimmer: Last Wednesday, news broke that after 121 years, the Forward would cease what remains of its print edition and lay off 10 people — 20 percent of its staff — including Eisner.

For years, the Forward has been running a loss of about $5 million per year, financial documents show. In 2015, the Forward transferred the vast majority of its assets to a nonprofit called the Forward Fund, allowing it to protect its assets in case of a libel suit. The Forward Fund’s records show a 2016 drop in net assets from $44.3 million to $38.5 million. In 2017, the Forward’s annual report shows that it broke even by virtue of $4.9 million in “funds drawn from investment accounts.”

Neither the Forward Association nor the Fund made its 2017 financial records available to JTA. But Feddersen told JTA that at the end of 2017 the Forward Fund had $37,728,140 in the bank.

(Norich, Forward publisher from 1997 to 2016, declined to comment, as did Jacob Morowitz, chair of the Forward’s board. Mark Mlotek and Ron Sernau, current and past board treasurers, did not return calls seeking comment.)

“We are making many changes at the company, and that comes with saying goodbye to some treasured colleagues,” Rachel Fishman Feddersen, the Forward’s publisher since 2016, wrote to the newsroom in an email. “And that hurts.”

The death of the Forward’s print edition and

the slashes to its masthead cap off decades of financial bleeding at one of the country’s most storied Jewish newspapers. And they usher in an era of uncertainty at a publication that has helped define the American Jewish experience — and hold its institutions accountable — since the beginning of the 20th century.

“Running a media business is really expensive,” Feddersen told JTA in a phone interview on Thursday. “The Forward has been running at a loss since 1945 and it has supported itself by selling off assets.”

Feddersen told JTA that Eisner was let go because the publication needs an editor with more digital experience. But it was not long ago that the Forward was putting Eisner front and center. Last month, Eisner was an honoree at a Forward gala that highlighted “#Fearless-

Women in Journalism.”

In 2017, the Forward launched a weekly email newsletter called “Jane Looking Forward” that featured Eisner’s perspective on recent events. In 2016, the Forward hired an external public relations firm to pitch her to other publications as an expert. In 2015 she interviewed then-president Barack Obama.

“We are extremely proud of our association with her and of everything she’s done here,” Feddersen said of Eisner. A board member who wished to remain anonymous told JTA that “there’s such affection for Jane.”

But a former board member, Tom Freudenheim, said that firing Eisner and other senior staff does not track with the goal of maintaining strong reporting.

“I’m an admirer of Jane Eisner and Dan

Friedman,” said Freudenheim, a retired museum director, referring to the laid-off executive editor. “I don’t know how you can run a newspaper, whether it’s online or in print, if you don’t have seasoned, senior, professional journalists running it.”

Eisner declined to comment to JTA, pointing to a statement she gave to the New York Times in which she said she had “embraced visionary, fearless and impactful journalism that served our community with distinction.” She added that she has “cherished my time at The Forward.”

While she was still at the Forward, Eisner oversaw the shift away from print. In 2017, the Forward switched from being a weekly newspaper to a monthly magazine with a glossy cover. The Forward has 2 million monthly visiSee Forward on page 23

The newspaper of our Orthodox communities is the #1 Jewish newspaper on Long Island.

Have The Jewish Star delivered to your Long Island shul, organization or business (it’s free!). Email a request to Publisher@The JewishStar.com

Stunning Kosher Mamilla Apartment Available for Short Term Rental

Luxury apartment located above Mamilla mall, 2 bedrooms and 2.5 bathrooms, 2 balconies with an Old City view and a roofop garden with a `360 view of Jerusalem.

This apartment is different from virtually all the others because we actually live in it when we’re in Israel and only rent it out selectively.

I assure you that the furnishings, kitchen accessories, linens, towels etc will surpass your expectations as they all have to meet the highest standard possible — namely my wife’s.

10-12 minutes to the Kotel or to the centre of town.

1018103

You can view the apartment at

jerusalemrentapartments com/listings/mamilla-808/

You can contact the manager Revital directly by email at revipie@gmail.com and mention this ad.

1017160

Photo by Christina Daly

THE JEWISH STAR January 25, 2019 • 19 Shevat 5779

Low on cash — and miracles — Forward cuts back

15

January 25, 2019 • 19 Shevat 5779 THE JEWISH STAR

16

The (literal) case against BDS....

Continued from page 1 nizations. By using the social justice movement as a shield for anti-Israel ideology and activism, terror groups are now succeeding in reputational and commercial warfare against Israel.

Evidence of this surfaced in a recent court case in Arizona where, for the first time, a US government body formally acknowledged that the BDS movement aids actors engaged in terror.

In a brief filed by Arizona’s Attorney General Mark Brnovich as part of a case before the US Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals concerning his state’s anti-BDS law, Brnovich noted that the BDS campaign was not only motivated by anti-Semitism, but that it aids Palestinian terrorist groups, including Hamas and the Palestinian Liberation Organization.

“That is particularly true as the effect, and often goal, of BDS boycotts is to strengthen the hand of the Palestinian Liberation Organization, which pays cash stipends to the families of terrorists, and its governmental coalition partner and terrorist organization, Hamas,” said Brnovich.

Israeli Strategic Affairs Minister Gilad Erdan called Brnovich’s stance “a significant achievement in the fight against the boycott organizations. … This step strips the mask off the boycott organizations, most of which maintain deep ties with terrorist groups while seeking to enjoy immunity as human-rights groups.”

Marc Greendorfer, founder of the Zachor Legal Institute, said ties between BDS and terror organizations are “extensive and quite serious.”

“Some of the BDS groups, like Dream Defenders, send members to the Middle East to meet directly with terror groups like the PFLP [Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine], and there has been testimony before Congress that financial backers of Hamas are also providing support to BDS groups,” he explained. “Further reports to Congress showed that the PLO has a ‘war room’ in Europe from which they coordinate and fund BDS groups in the US.” Last year, the Zachor Legal Institute submitted a letter to the Department of Justice urging the US government to investigate ties between Palestinian terror groups and several US-based BDS groups, including American Muslims for Palestine (and its affiliated entity, Americans for Justice in Palestine Educational Foundation), Dream Defenders, the Muslim Students Association, Samidoun and Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP).

“We believe — and there is copious evidence to support the allegation — that these organizations are working with designated foreign terror organizations in the United States, often as part of the BDS movement to target Israeli companies, academics and institutions,” Zachor stated in a memo provided to JNS. Greendorfer said Zachor has used publicly available information to document these group’s ties with terror organization.

“As part of our research into BDS groups, we developed reports on each of the groups we named in the letter and how they provide support for designated terror groups,” he said.

“The evidence comes from reviewing social media and other publicly available information, such as congressional testimony.”

Greendorfer added: “Taken as a whole, the reports demonstrate that BDS groups have frequent contact with representatives of terror groups, disseminate propaganda from terror groups and are funded by terror groups.”

Concern has been generating over links between terror and BDS groups for several years now.

In testimony before the House Foreign Affairs Committee in 2016, Jonathan Schanzer, senior researcher for the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, presented evidence that former leaders of the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development, the Islamic Association for Palestine and KindHearts for Charitable Development — three organizations implicated in financing Hamas between 2001 and 2011 — have gravitated towards a new organization, American Muslims for Palestine.

“AMP is a Chicago-based organization that is a leading driver of the BDS campaign,” Schazner said. “AMP is arguably the most important sponsor and organizer for Students for Justice in Palestine, which is the most visible arm of the BDS campaign on campuses in the United States.

“The overlap of former employees of organizations that provided support to Hamas who now play important roles in AMP speaks volumes about the real agenda of key components of the BDS campaign,” said Schanzer.

He noted that the IRS, unlike its European

Is Israel set for cyber-vote threat?

By Yaakov Lappin, JNS As Israeli elections approach, the country’s cybersecurity watchdogs are warning about attempts by foreign actors to disrupt and manipulate the democratic process.

The issue came to the fore earlier in January, when the head of the Shin Bet domestic intelligence agency, Nadav Argaman, reportedly told a closed-door conference that a “foreign state is planning to intervene in the elections. I don’t know at this stage in favor of whom or at whose detriment,” the intelligence chief said, adding, “I know what I’m talking about.”

Thought Argaman did not mention it by name, Russia responded days later that Moscow does not intervene in the elections of other countries, and advised others to refrain “from reading the Israeli media.”

Meanwhile, Israel’s intelligence community, together with the Foreign Ministry, the National Cyber Directorate and private cyber defense firms, are preparing to repel foreign intervention.

But the way state agencies have worked until now needs to change, according to Eli Bachar, a former legal adviser to the Shin Bet. He recently completed an in-depth study with colleague Ron Shamir, former head of the Technological Branch of the Shin Bet. The study, carried out with the Israel Democracy Institute and the Cyber Security Center of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, examined the critical question of how democratic states can defend themselves against this growing threat.

“We took all of the attacks that occurred in recent years, in the US and Europe, drew lessons from them, and then made recommendations,” Bachar told JNS. The study identified three main spheres of action: election process, political parties and actors, and influencing public opinion.

Israel uses paper ballots, making it less vulnerable to foreign meddling, said Bachar. But computer systems still surround the process, and those “have to be defended against forgery, disruption or denial of access attacks.” Voter lists and computers used by Israel’s Central Elections Committee need to be secured, he added.

The world of political parties and figures “is much more problematic,” he stated. “In the US, we saw break-ins into Democratic and Repub-

In addition, the report recommends that elections be defined by Israeli law as a “critical infrastructure,” which will make new levels of protection available. All political ads and messages should be required to inform the public which political body stands behind them, the report said.

It also called for the Central Elections Committee, rather than the Prime Minister’s Office, to take the lead in responding to cyber-attacks during an elections season.

The organizations defending the elections should be subordiIsraeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addresses the Eighth nate to the Elections Committee, Annual International Cybersecurity Conference at Tel Aviv Univer- Bachar argued, since the comsity on June 20, 2018.

GPO/ Amos Ben-Gershom mittee chairman is a High Court judge — a non-political figure. lic computers. We saw email accounts hacked. “This way, the organizations will not receive orIn general, it is very important to defend the ders from the prime minister, who is a political many things we want as democracies to func- actor, regardless of which prime minister this is. tion, such as elections strategies, supporters list We want to make sure that the medicine is not and message promotion.” worse than the disease,” he said.

All primary elections within political parties While the US intelligence community has are computerized, but unsupervised, so a gap named Russia as being behind attempts to inexists for advanced attackers.

When it comes to the sphere of public opin- fluence American elections, and similar accuion, Bachar said, “this whole area is breached.” sations have surfaced in France and Germany, Bots, trolls and micro-targeting of voters via so- Bachar noted that US National Security Advisor cial media are all used by manipulators around John Bolton also recently named China, North the world, and have begun to appear in Israeli Korea and Iran as threats.

“Non-state organizations that are sophistisocial media as well.

“This is a world that is much harder to de- cated can do this, too. Therefore, it is best to fend,” said Bachar. “It requires online supervi- look at this broadly and not just in terms of one sion, but as a democracy, you do not want to potential adversary,” he said.

Israel is particularly vulnerable, he cautioned, give that job to state security services. This is a because of tensions between Jews and Arabs, conceptual challenge.”

Israel must guard the public’s trust in the right and left, and religious and secular. In fact, elections, emphasized Bachar, describing this as he said, “Israel is more sensitive to such attacks the prime goal. The report’s recommendations compared to more homogenous societies.” include calling for new legislation, which would “There is an attempt underway to influence require political parties to allocate a percentage public opinion,” said Ran Margaliot, CTO of of their budget to cyber defense. “Otherwise, we Communit360, which allows Israeli journalknow the parties will use their money for other ists to report suspicious online activity and the things that are more urgent to them, like elec- promotion of fake news. “In which direction — tions messages and conference,” he said. that is open to interpretation.”

counterparts, pays only scant attention to the prior histories of Section 501 entities and their officers or directors, and he urged lawmakers “to look at legislating a more transparent disclosure process for charity employees and board members previously implicated in terror finance.”

“Americans have a right to know who is behind the BDS campaign. And so do those members of the BDS campaign who may not fully understand its history,” he told lawmakers.

Earlier this year, Tablet Magazine reported that the U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights (USCPR), which coordinates the efforts of 329 pro-BDS organizations, helps facilitate tax-exempt donations “to a Palestinian coalition that includes Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and other groups the U.S. State Department designates as terror organizations.”

According to the report, the USCPR is the “fiscal sponsor” of the Palestinian BDS National Committee (BNC). The BNC operates Bdsmovement.net, which educates and updates readers on the BDS movement and allows American supporters to make tax-deductible donations to the group through the Education for Just Peace in the Middle East, a 501(c)3 charitable organization linked to the USCPR. In the memo, Zachor noted that a group called the Palestinian National and Islamic Forces (PNIF), a founding member and managing entity of BNC, includes five organizations designated by the United States as foreign terror organizations, as well as the PLO. One organization that evinces the ties between BDS and terrorism is a group called Samidoun.

“While other BDS groups like SJP tend to have layers of obfuscation between their operations and the terror groups, Samidoun appears to act as a direct proxy for the PFLP,” Greendorfer said.

According to Greendorfer, two of Samidoun’s leaders (Khaled Barakat and his wife, Charlotte Kates) are also PFLP members. Other officials, like Mohammed Khatib and Mustafa Awad, are also PFLP members. Samidoun members have close ties to Hamas, and Hamas’s chief of security (Tawfeek Abu Naim) in particular. Furthermore, Samidoun member Sayel Kayed is a board member of another BDS group, American Muslims for Palestine, and Lamis Deek is a board member of Council of American Islamic Relations (CAIR), an unindicted co-conspirator in the funding of Hamas.

“While Samidoun is not the most visible promoter of BDS, they definitely are active in BDS, especially behind the scenes,” said Greendorfer.

“Samidoun is a perfect example of a BDS group that operates in the U.S. having direct ties to terror groups, as well as involvement in sister BDS organizations.”

While Israel continues to see trivial effects from the BDS movement, supporters of Israel in North American and Europe face a more challenging situation. This is especially true on college campuses, where pro-Israel and Jewish students confront mounting boycott challenges from fellow students and even faculty.

Similarly, concern for bipartisan support of Israel is growing, with the election of several new congress members who openly support the BDS movement.

“BDS is a proxy for foreign terror groups, and it is becoming increasingly popular with the American left,” said Greendorfer. “BDS promotes discrimination and normalizes the message of terror groups by cloaking it in the vernacular of civil rights. It is a mistake to take BDS lightly.

The most important thing that the pro-Israel community can do is to spread the facts that BDS is discriminatory, a front for terror and is the nonviolent arm of terror groups whose ultimate goal is to disenfranchise Jews from their right to their own country.”

Greendorfer said his organization has resubmitted its letter to investigate BDS groups to Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker and will urge nominee William Barr to do the same once confirmed.

“We have been able to obtain copious evidence of the ties between BDS and terror, but we don’t have the power to actually investigate BDS groups to find how deep the terror ties are,” he said. “Only government has that power and we have provided the DOJ with more than enough evidence to start an investigation.”

Christian Zionists make their case to DC’s liberal Jews

Sign up for coupons and specials: Text: HERSHEYSICECREAM To: 22828

& more...

Hershey’s Pre Made Ice Cream Cakes are 1009606

2890 Hempstead Turnpike • Levittown, NY 11756 516-731-CONE (2663) • Open 7 Days

1008816

RNSP

24 HOUR HOTLINE

(516) 858-7300 POLICE - 911 @rockawaynassau

.com/RockawayNassauPatrol

@Rockaway_Nassau_Patrol

TO RECEIVE SECURITY ALERTS, SIGN UP AT: SECURITYALERTS@ROCKAWAYNASSAU.ORG 1015845

5 Towns Computer Services • Virus and Spyware • Consulting from Purchase to Setup Removal • Computer Repair and Tuneup

• PC, Mac and all Smartphone Training

We Make Housecalls

718-490-0192

5TownsComputerServices.com Expert Personal Care 1015830

1017084

Bar / Bat Mitzvah Favors

We Also Carry Klein’s Non Dairy - Lactose Free Vegan Certified Fresh Scooped Treats

THE JEWISH STAR January 25, 2019 • 19 Shevat 5779

up for its action alerts, as opposed to Jewish

By Ron Kampeas, JTA WASHINGTON — Christians United for Is- groups, which usually count as members those rael has become a key player in recent years who have paid a fee or donate to their coffers.

Nonetheless, it has proven formidable. It in Congress’ passing of pro-Israel legislation, often of the kind favored by the more hawkish helped pass last year’s Taylor Force Act, which slashes funding to the Palestinians as long as elements of the pro-Israel community.

In D.C., two top officials met with one of Palestinian authorities continue to compensate the country’s most liberal Jewish communities. Palestinians who attack Israelis. Last month, The mission: to assure them that whatever else followers unnerved Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., with newspaper ads and phone calls after he placed they’ve heard, CUFI is on their side.

Reaching out to Jewish communities is a hold on $38 billion in defense assistance to Ishardly unprecedented for the organization: rael. Paul, who had complained about the CUFI CUFI instructs new chapters to make local federations their first stop, coordinate strategy and reassure local communities about their intentions. Jewish groups are historically leery of evangelical support for Israel, but CUFI insists that its love for Israel is not about converting Jews or bringing about the end times, a theology that mainstream evangelicals say they have long disavowed.

“We tell our leaders, ‘get to know your federation director’,” Shari Dollinger, the group’s co-executive director, said in an interview Tuesday.

“We want the Jewish community to know us.”

But this quickie tour by Pastor John Hagee at CUFI’s Washington summit, on July 23, 2018.

Michael Brochstein/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images Dollinger and Pastor Victor Styrsky, its outreach director, was unusual: Their pitch was tailored spe- onslaught, on Tuesday voted to advance a vercifically toward reassuring liberal Jews that sion of the legislation for the new Congress.

Dollinger and Styrsky are meeting with Jewthe organization was not an enemy, and it was coordinated by the local Jewish community re- ish officials, donors and clergy across the spectrum over two days. The meetings are off the lations council, although CUFI footed the bill.

Ron Halber, executive director of JCRC of record, and the liberal participants are abiding Greater Washington, said diminishing support by the rule: JTA canvassed a number of the for Israel in the broader community, exacerbat- groups and none would confirm the meeting.

Halber, Dollinger and Styrsky said the meeted by infighting, led him to organize the fly-in.

“Where screaming has become the norm and ings went well, and were launched with Strysky civil discourse has become the rarity, we owe it explaining that CUFI represented evangelicals to the Jewish community, we owe it to the pro- who are not interested in converting Jews or Israel community” to facilitate reconciliation, he bringing about the end times. CUFI’s founder, said. “Whatever position someone comes to, as a Texas megachurch Pastor John Hagee, has argued in evangelical forums for formally dropcommunity the doors should not be shut.”

The D.C.-area community is among the na- ping policies that have alienated Jews.

That was the easy part — CUFI appears to have tion’s most liberal, Halber said. It includes the District and its Maryland and Virginia suburbs, succeeded in making the case that it rejects theologies that Jews have found toxic. which overwhelmingly vote Democratic.

What persists among liberal groups, howDollinger said that the increased boldness of anti-Israel activity has drawn CUFI closer to ever, is wariness of CUFI’s alliances with the pro-Israel groups. “The Jewish community in broader right wing, particularly in an era where the United States needs the support of Chris- the majority of Jews feel alienated by the rhetotians to secure the U.S.-Israel relationship in ric and policies of President Donald Trump.

CUFI embraces pro-Israel policies that the a way it didn’t 10 to 15 years ago,” she said.

Halber said that CUFI, with nearly 6 mil- left wing of the pro-Israel community have said lion members, could not be ignored, and is “a are counterproductive, including the Taylor Force Act, which targets Palestinians who doves tremendous political force in America.”

CUFI counts as members people who sign say are Israel’s best chance for a peace deal.

CUFI also supports far-reaching anti-boycott legislation on the state and federal levels that civil libertarians and liberal Jewish groups say impinges on freedom of speech.

Hagee, too, has been lacerating in his rhetoric, especially during the presidency of Barack Obama, who remains popular among Democrats. Hagee accused Obama of being anti-Israel.

Styrsky said that he hoped Jewish groups would look beyond those particulars and focus on the broader shared affection for Israel.

Custom sCreen Printing At the CUFI summit held here last summer, he said, “98 percent of congressional represenembroidery & graPhiC design tations had pre-set meetings with us, both sides Call: 516-676-0900 9am-5Pm of the aisle. We find common ground because text: 516-669-1400 9am-8Pm it’s Israel and Israel only.”

17

‫כוכב של שבת‬

SHAbbAT STAR

January 25, 2019 • 19 Shevat 5779 THE JEWISH STAR

18

Justice thrives on multiple viewpoints Parsha of the Week

Rabbi avi biLLet Jewish Star columnist

I

am a big of a fan of Menachem Begin. One of the things I most admire about him is his tenacity in serving as opposition in Israeli politics for close to 30 years before becoming Prime Minister in 1977.

Opposition is good. Sometimes it helps us fine-tune our thoughts and beliefs. Sometimes it exposes us to new ideas and forces us to at least consider the validity of a different point of view. Sometimes it gets us to reconsider and even change our own views. In the best case, even when we have ideological and philosophical differences, the best of humanity can emerge when people who think and believe differently keep their disagreements on policy in one arena and stay very good friends in “real life.”

I have friends who live their Judaism differently than I do, friends who think very differently politically, and friends with whom I share very little in common. I’m not sure how to explain it beyond, “I just like the guy.”

In Parashat Yitro, Moshe’s father-in-law shows up, not having been with the Israelites through slavery, plagues, Exodus and salvation at the sea. After formalities, Yitro watches his son-in-law judge the people. All day long, people stand in line waiting for their turn with Moshe.

Yitro is critical (what father-in-law would not be?) because he is sure he has a better system.

And what is his system? “You must be G-d’s representative for the people, and bring [their] concerns to G-d. Clarify the decrees and laws

for [the people]. Show them the path they must take, and the things they must do. But you must [also] seek out from among all the people capable, G-d-fearing men — men of truth, who hate injustice. You must then appoint them over [the people] as leaders of thousands, leaders of hundreds, leaders of fifties, and leaders of tens.

Let them administer justice for the people on a regular basis. Of course, they will have to bring every major case to you, but they can judge the minor cases by themselves.

They will then share the burden, making things easier for you. If you agree to this, and G-d concurs, you will be able to survive. This entire nation will then also be able to attain its goal of peace” (18:19-23).

The nation needs multiple judges. Different viewpoints need to be considered and brought in. Life is filled with subtlety and nuance. You can’t possibly do it alone. Your life experience is not necessarily their life experience. You can teach law! But you need other people, who are G-d-fearing and who seek truth.

While the personality-traits of these judges focused on their hatred of injustice and love of truth, we know nothing of their politics or their views on any aspect of life. here is a fascinating rule of the Sanhedrin: Rav Kahana says, “A Sanhedrin who unanimously see the defendant as guilty?

He is exempt” (Talmud Sanhedrin 17a). While majority rules, when consensus is all on one side and there is no opposition, no one to advocate for the other side and for the defendant to have a fair hearing, then the case is thrown out.

If everyone is biased against the defendant, it’s

not a court case — it’s an execution.

In high school, we were assigned to watch the film “Twelve Angry Men.” It is a play that was turned into a movie. The story opens on a young man on trial for murder. The jurors are warned to be impartial, to consider all the evidence, and to remember that “one man is dead.

The life of another is at stake. If there is a reasonable doubt in your minds as to the guilt of the accused … then you must declare him not guilty. If, however, there is no reasonable doubt, then he must be found guilty.”

They are not a Sanhedrin.

As a jury, they must come to a unanimous decision.

So twelve men file into the jury room. Each juror has his own reasons to want to get it over with and leave. Before discussing the case, they have a preliminary vote in which everyone but one juror (number eight) votes “Guilty.”

The play touches on a number of issues of racism and bigotry, mistrust of the other, of the foreigner, and the way each member of the jury slowly changes to “not guilty” as they examine the evidence is an incredible journey.

This is how Juror Number Eight begins the drama: TEN: (to EIGHT). Well, do you believe his story?

EIGHT: I don’t know whether I believe it or not. Maybe I don’t.

SEVEN: So what’d you vote not guilty for?

EIGHT: There were eleven votes for guilty.

It’s not so easy for me to raise my hand and send a boy off to die without talking about it first.

SEVEN: Who says it’s easy for me?

‘I think maybe we owe him a few words.’

T

Yitro: Accepting what we know From Heart of Jerusalem

Rabbi biNNY FReeDMaN

Jewish Star columnist

A

t the recent wedding of the daughter of very old friends, I was enjoying the palpable joy at the tisch when the father of the bride asked me to lead Maariv.

I had a moment of angst as I did not have a siddur on me, nor did anyone else. But I did not want to hold things up, and so elected to lead the prayers from memory.

Thinking about it later it was interesting that the prospect of davening from memory caused me angst; after all, I say these prayers every day and almost always do it from memory. Had I not been asked to lead the service would have done so again, so why the stress?

In sports they have a name for this phenomenon, which describes a seasoned player who can’t perform a simple task because he gets too nervous: choking.

This is different from panic. Panic is when a person cannot think. Choking is the opposite: it’s what happens when a person thinks too much. I knew all the words and have said them a thousand times, but with everyone watching and listening, it became easy to question myself, to think too much about what I was doing.

The solution was to stop thinking about it and

rely on the routine that was already there.

It reminded me of the intense fear I felt the first time I had to throw a live grenade in training. I had already thrown a ‘dummy’ grenade dozens of times, but now, as part of the test at the end of basic training, everyone including all of my commanders, was watching. I started thinking too much: about everything that could go wrong and all the mistakes one could make when throwing a live grenade, so for a moment I froze.

And the commander overseeing the test finally yelled at me, “Stop thinking! Just throw it!”

Sometimes, we think too much, and we need to rely on what is deep inside of us, what we really already know. his week, we read the portion of Yitro, famous for its introduction of the commandments.

There is a fascinating discussion about the nature of the opening statement of these Commandments: “Anochi Hashem Elokecha, I am the Lord your G-d…”

Is this an actual commandment, or simply an introduction? Maimonides says it is a mitzvah: to know that a G-d exists (Sefer Hamitzvot 1). The Ramban, in his commentary on the Sefer HaMitzvot, disagrees, and suggests it is a preamble to the Ten Commandments that follow.

There is a fascinating insight on this question suggested by Rav Elchonon Wasserman, in his Kovetz Ma’amarim. But to understand his comment, a brief introduction is in order.

Rav Elchonon was a student and close con-

If I do not believe, what good is the commandment?

T

fidant of the Chofetz Chaim in the years before World War II. In fact, Rav Elchonon sent his children to learn in the yeshiva in Radin to be close to the Chofetz Chaim, while the Chofetz Chaim sent many of his grandchildren to Baranovich to study in the famed yeshiva of Rav Elchonon.

Rav Elchonon visited the United States as late as 1939, and many begged him to stay, sensing the danger of returning to Europe. But Rav Elchonon could not abandon his flock. He was caught up in the storm of the Holocaust and ended up in the Kovno ghetto, where he was murdered by the Nazis in 1941.

He is known famously for his Kovetz Chiddushim: novel ideas on difficult questions in the Talmud. Lesser known is his Kovetz Ma’amarim, a collection of essays based on talks he gave in the ghetto before his ultimate death, and published posthumously by his students.

In this book he asks our question: How, according to Maimonides, can we be obligated to believe in G-d? His response is remarkable no less for the fact that he delivered it in the ghetto to an audience that must have been struggling with this question. elief, Rav Elchonon says, is a psychological state. A command to achieve it is of no use; I either believe or I don’t. If I already believe, there is no need for the commandment, and if I do not believe, what good is the commandment?

Working under the premise that the Torah would never ask of us something of which we are not capable, his conclusion is that everyone believes in G-d. We are created with an innate See Yitro on page 23

B

EIGHT: No one.

SEVEN: What, just because I voted fast? I think the guy’s guilty. You couldn’t change my mind if you talked for a hundred years.

EIGHT: I don’t want to change your mind.

I just want to talk for a while. Look, this boy’s been kicked around all his life. You know, living in a slum, his mother dead since he was nine. That’s not a very good head start. He’s a tough, angry kid. You know why slum kids get that way? Because we knock ’em on the head once a day, every day. I think maybe we owe him a few words. That’s all.

Maybe Yitro was trying to ease a tremendous burden off his son-in-law. But maybe he was also trying to say, “Having many voices is also good! Have dialogue. Have dissent. Hash it out. Keep it civil — but each side needs to be heard. There’s a reason why you need to have an opposition!”

“Moses took his father-in-law’s advice, and did all that he said” (18:24).

He brought in the judges, he had multiple viewpoints presented, and the dialogues begun. Different sides and different views had their day in court. In short, it was an honorable symphony of disagreement.

It’s a good lesson to put in practice — to consider another point of view, to see the other view as valid even when there is disagreement, and to remember that our love of our fellow Jew should always triumph over our disagreement.

Menachem Begin was in the minority for 29 years, and then he became Prime Minister.

Winds change. Today’s majority might one day become the minority.

And when that happens, we will still need to live together in peace.

Luach Fri Jan 25 / 19 Shevat Yitro Candlelighting: 4:46 pm Havdalah: 5:56 pm

Fri Feb 1 / 26 Shevat Mishpatim Candlelighting: 4:54 pm Havdalah: 6:04 pm

Fri Feb 8 / 3 Adar 1 Terumah Candlelighting: 5:03 pm Havdalah: 6:13 pm

Fri Feb 15 / 10 Adar 1 Tetzaveh Candlelighting: 5:11 pm Havdalah: 6:21 pm

Fri Feb 22 / 17 Adar 1 Ki Tisa Candlelighting: 5:20 pm Havdalah: 6:30 pm

Fri March 1 / 24 Adar 1 Vayakhel Candlelighting: 5:28 pm Havdalah: 6:38 pm Five Towns times from the White Shul

Kosher bookworm

AlAn JAy geRbeR

Jewish Star columnist

T

his week marks the shloshim commemorating the passing of one of our community’s leading scholars of the Jewish literary tradition, and one of the leading Jewish book dealers in New York, Rabbi Yecheskel Kaminsky, of blessed memory.

We are known as the people of the book, and Rabbi Kaminsky was among the leaders of that legacy — not a teacher, but a seller of high-quality Jewish books in a small store on Mott Avenue called KITOV, for over 35 years.

KITOV served our community in an era when such literary facilities were rare. All who came into the store — rabbis, teachers, and students — were served to perfection by his devotion and knowledge of the latest books, the sacred writ, as well as biographies and books on Jewish history.

In memory of Rabbi Kaminsky, I asked three distinguished rabbis and educators in our com-

munity to share their impressions of his contribution to our community.

Rabbi Yaakov Bender of Darchei Yeshiva writes, “Rabbi Kaminsky was not just a bookseller. He became personally involved with most of the customers and knew which sefarim would interest them most, and he delivered them personally to their homes.

“In order to sell sefarim properly, one should be a talmid chacham … and that he was. He loved learning the Torah. He may have spent more time learning than in the store.

“His wonderful wife, Chani, was always standing by his side, and, together they built a magnificent family; children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren who should live and be well.” he next tribute was written by Rabbi Mordechai Kamenetzky of South Shore, a longtime colleague of Rabbi Bender in the enhancement of Jewish education and religious observance in our community. He wrote the following tribute to his dear friend: “Reb Chezkel was not just a lover of Jewish books, he was a lover of every volume of the people of the book.

“As a native of the Five Towns that was barren of any real Jewish bookstore, or sefarim gesheft

T

in the yeshiva vernacular, Rabbi Kaminsky’s maverick establishment of a store whose main focus was not menorahs and Judaic baubles but rather geared to scholarly tomes that analyzed the complex Talmudic tractates Rabbi Yecheskel Kaminsky was indeed quite a The Jewish Home gamble.

“But as he lived the messages contained within those sacred volumes, his infectious personality enlivened the young yeshiva students who entered the old portals of the KITOV bookstore on Mott Avenue.

“As a yeshiva boy in the early 1970’s, I had to shlep into Brooklyn to obtain just about every essential sefer that contained insights into the Chumash and Talmud. It was not until Rav Chezkel opened his store was it then, here on Long Island, possible to buy a Ketzos HaChoshen, one of the most basic commentators on the Shulchan Aruch.

Moshe, a leader set apart Torah

RAbbi dAvid eTengoff

Jewish Star columnist

T

he first pasuk of our parasha, Yitro, states, “Now Moshe’ father-in-law, Yitro, the chieftain of Midian, heard all that G-d had done for Moshe and for Israel His people…”

Our Sages’ approach to this pasuk focuses primarily on the content of what Yitro heard, which is left unstated in the verse. Rashi is representative of this school of thought: “What news did he hear, that he came [to the Sinai Desert to meet with Moshe]? The splitting of the Red Sea and the war with Amalek” (Shemot 18:1).

This comment fills a major gap in our narrative — namely, what motivated Yitro, the leader of Midian, to uproot his family and bring them to join his son-in-law in the wasteland of the Sinai Desert? Little wonder, then, that Rashi’s interpretation was embraced by the vast majority of commentators.

The near-universal aacceptance of this explanation, however, tends to obscure a second challenge in our pasuk: Why does the Torah mention Moshe separately from the Jewish people? In other words, why does it state that Yitro “heard all that G-d had done for Moshe and for Israel His people,” and not that Yitro “heard all that G-d had done for Israel”? Is Moshe not by definition included in the expression “the Jewish people?”

One of the meforshim who directly ad-

dresses our question is Rabbi Kalonymus Kalman Halevi Epstein (1753-1823), known as the Meor VaShemesh after his commentary on the Torah. He posits the existence of two types of passionately observant Torah personalities: the tzaddik m’ikaro, one who is righteous from his youth; and the ba’al teshuvah, one who returns to the path of Torah and mitzvot after a variety of trials and tribulations: The tzaddik m’ikaro serves G-d from “the early days of their youth, and accept the yoke of the Torah upon themselves from that time onwards,” out of their love for G-d (Meor VaShemesh, Introduction to Parashat Yitro). The ba’al teshuvah, on the other hand, spends his formative years “follow[ing] the freewheeling desires of their heart — yet, when they encounter a variety of situations wherein they suffer, they bestir themselves, search and discover, and repent.” ccording to the Meor VaShemesh, Moshe epitomizes the tzadik m’ikaro, whereas the Jews who were enslaved by Pharaoh exemplify ba’alei teshuvah. At a young age, Moshe “rejected physical desires and all yearnings for the temporary goods of this world, and acted as if he was ‘a stranger in a strange land.’”

Instead, of following the prevailing immoral behaviors of his time, Moshe dedicated himself to the pursuit of holiness and developing his relationship with the Almighty.

In stark contrast, the Jewish people fell to the 49th level of tumah (spiritual impurity) as a result of their “assimilation into the non-Jewish culture and emulation of the [Egyptians’ behavior].”

A

The Meor VaShemesh notes that these two paths resulted in two very different outcomes: “[Moshe] merited Hashem’s revelation unto to him, the Almighty’s direct communication with him, and [the ability to act as Hashem’s agent in order to perform] all of the wonders and miracles in Egypt and upon the Sea of Reeds.”

Our ancestors’ negative trajectory in Egypt, however, took them on a decidedly different course. As a result of the slavery experience, the Me’or Va’Shemesh explains, “[The Jews] became awakened spiritually and returned in complete teshuvah. As it is written: ‘Now it came to pass that the king of Egypt died, and the children of Israel sighed from the labor and cried out, and their cry [of prayer] ascended to G-d’ (Shemot 2:23). Then, [following their teshuvah,] G-d in His overwhelming mercy and kindness, took them out from the burdens of Egypt.”

We can now answer our question, “Why does the Torah state that Yitro ‘heard all that G-d had done for Moshe and for Israel His people,’ and not that Yitro ‘heard all that G-d had done for Israel’?”

Quite simply, while Moshe was a proud member of the Jewish people, he is mentioned separately from his beloved nation in recognition of the unique spiritual heights he achieved, and his unequaled relationship with Hashem.

This interpretation is reminiscent of the verse in Yigdal, sung in most Ashkenazi synagogues every Shabbat evening: “No one amongst the Jewish people has ever risen [to the ultimate spiritual heights] like Moshe — the sole prophet who had the ability to gaze upon the vision of the Almighty.”

“But walking into that small, inconspicuous storefront at 1847 Mott Avenue in Far Rockaway was not only about finding the latest volumes to hit the Torah world market. It was about spending an evening with Reb Chezkel, simply shooting the breeze, discussing the latest on-goings in the vernacular of the yeshiva world. ‘Nu? So what are they learning in Philly? What about Long Beach?

What did your Rosh Yeshiva say about the recent attack in Israel?’ And so on.

“Whether it was a good vort, a good kashya, or even a great story, every sefer was sold with a story. Esrogim and lulavim were not just laid out to be scanned like pairs of shoes, he would tell you the history of the orchard and its cultivator.

“Like the contents of the sefarim he sold, he always had a great story … and it is extremely sad to have read of his final chapter.” inally, Rav Yaakov Feitman of Cedarhurst’s famed Red Shul writes, “My first memories of Rabbi Yecheskel Kaminsky zt”l are from the time that I was a young principal attending and speaking at Torah Umesorah conventions.

“Rabbi Kaminsky was called the ‘sefarim guy,’ who set up thousands of sefarim for the many rebbeim and menahalim to peruse. He immediately drew my attention because I drew his. “‘Shalom Aleichem,’ he bellowed. ‘What is your name? What do you do? What are you interested in and what can I do for you?’

“And he actually meant it. He was perhaps the first businessman I had ever met who did not seem in it for the money or the business. In fact, he undercut his profit by offering to loan me [and many others] sefarim to learn from. If I liked it, I could pay him later. If I didn’t, just return the sefer, no questions asked.

“But more importantly, he took my number, later called me, and none of the conversation was about sefarim sales. In fact, his first call to me, since I was a bachur, was to suggest a shidduch. That led to a long discussion about me, my background, and what I was looking for … I made a mental note that this was a person who was not judgmental at all. In fact, I suddenly realized, the conversation was totally about me, not him.

“As I shared with his sons at the shiva, he literally had no ego at all. He lived for his wonderful family, for others, for Hashem. His own needs, interests or proclivities took a back seat to all others. That is what I call a tzaddik and a true ba’al mussar.

“Many years later, when I visited his magical KITOV store, a name that embodied that man as much as the store itself, he would ask about my children, discuss their shidduch situations and always make practical suggestions. Sometimes, he was on the phone calling a potential mechutan before I could even think about the idea. That was Reb Yecheskel, an ish emes, an ish hama’aseh and an incredible ba’al middos.”

Rabbi Feitman concludes his heartfelt tribute: “Some teach by speaking, some by writing.

Rabbi Kaminsky zt”l taught by being. He will be sorely missed. I can only hope to try to emulate, to some small extent, his selflessness and his wonderful neshama. Yehi zichro baruch.”

To which we all join with a heartfelt Amen.

F

Yitro, Iyov, and the bystander problem Angel for Shabbat

RAbbi mARc d. Angel

A

Talmudic passage (Sotah 11a) offers a scenario relating to Pharaoh’s decision to enslave the Israelites and murder their male babies. “Said Rabbi Chiya son of Abba in the name of Rabbi Simai: Three were involved in that decision: Bilam, Iyov and Yitro.”

Bilam, who advised in favor of these evil decrees, ultimately died a violent death. Iyov, who remained neutral, was later punished with

horrible suffering. Yitro, who opposed Pharaoh’s decrees, had to flee, but was ultimately rewarded: his descendants were great teachers of Torah.

The moral lesson of this teaching is that those who promote evil — like Bilam — are eventually punished. Those who courageously resist evil — like Yitro — may suffer in the short run, but will ultimately be rewarded. Those — like Iyov — who remain neutral in the face of wickedness will endure horrible sufferings.

Bilam went along with Pharaoh’s decisions either because he actually agreed with Pharaoh, or because he thought it was in his own best interest not to resist. By being a “yes man,” Bilam would gain power and favors from Pharaoh. He

had no qualms about becoming an accomplice to enslaving a whole nation and murdering their babies. Justice demands that Bilam be punished for his moral turpitude.

Yitro resisted Pharaoh’s decisions, even at personal risk. He would not be party to wicked decrees. He stood up on behalf of the endangered Israelites and was compelled to flee from Pharaoh’s wrath. Justice demands that Yitro be rewarded for his moral heroism.

But what about Iyov? What is the nature of his sin? After all, Iyov did not say that he agreed with Pharaoh; he did not validate Pharaoh’s decrees. He simply stayed silent. He was prudent.

He may have thought: “Pharaoh is going to do this regardless of what I say. Why should I en-

danger myself? Why should I incur his anger?

Why should I stand up for the Israelites, or for righteousness, or for compassion? The safest thing for me is to remain neutral.” For his neutrality, Iyov was punished. bstaining from moral responsibility is also taking a stand! When evil is not resisted directly, it is thereby allowed to flourish. As the great 19th century political thinker Edmund Burke said: “All that the forces of evil need to prevail is that enough good men do nothing.”

Evil flourishes in a moral vacuum. It cannot be extirpated without active resistance. Individuals and nations who “abstain” in the face of evil are accomplices of evil. Neutrality in the face of See Bystander on page 23

A

THE JEWISH STAR January 25, 2019 • 19 Shevat 5779

A tribute to Rabbi Yecheskel Kaminsky, zt”l

19

January 25, 2019 • 19 Shevat 5779 THE JEWISH STAR

20

Content: The Publisher endeavors to ensure that this newspaper’s content is within the bounds of normative halachah and hashkafah.

A reader who feels anything we publish may be inappropriate in this regard is urged to bring the item in question to the attention of the Publisher.

The JEWISH

Advertising is accepted at the sole discretion of the Publisher. The Publisher expects all advertising to conform to standards of content appropriate for distribution in an Orthodox community.

The newspaper of our Orthodox communities • Established 2002

Kashrut: The Jewish Star is not responsible for the kashrut of any product or establishment featured in its pages. If you have questions regarding any establishment or product, including its supervision, please consult your rabbi for guidance.

Submissions: All submissions become the property of The Jewish Star and may be edited and used by the Publisher, its licensees and affiliates, in print, on the web and/or in any media that now exists or will exist in the future in any form, including derivative works, throughout the world in perpetuity, without additional authorization or compensation. The individual or entity submitting material affirms that it holds the copyright or otherwise has the right to authorize its use in accordance with The Jewish Star’s terms for submissions.

STAR

TheJewishStar.com

Produced and printed on Long Island by The Jewish Star LLC 2 Endo Blvd, Garden City NY 11530 • 516-622-7461 Publisher & Editor: Ed Weintrob

EWeintrob@TheJewishStar.com 516-622-7461 ext 291 • cell 718-908-5555 Advertising Sales: Tovah Richler

516-622-7461 ext 306 • TRichler@TheJewishStar.com

Copy Editor: Rachel Langer

516-622-7461 ext 241 • RLanger@TheJewishStar.com

Editorial Designer: Stacey Simmons Photo Editor: Christina Daly

Send us your news!

General news: EWeintrob@TheJewishStar.com Calendar@TheJewishStar.com by noon Friday Schools@TheJewishStar.com by 5 pm Monday Shuls@TheJewishStar.com Send photos as high resolution JPEGs

Let’s do business!

Ads@TheJewishStar.com.

Distribution: Publisher@TheJewishStar.com.

Simcha Papers: Publisher@TheJewishStar.com

Editorial contributors: Rabbis Avi Billet, David Etengoff and Binny Freedman; Jeff Dunetz, Alan Gerber, Judy Joszef, and Joni Schockett.

Opinions: Views expressed by columnists and other writers do not necessarily reflect the position of the Publisher or of The Jewish Star LLC. Distribution: The Jewish Star is available free in kosher food establishments, stores, synagogues, and curb-side newsboxes on Long Island, in New York City and elsewhere.

To request free delivery to your location, write Publisher@TheJewishStar.com.

Subscriptions: To receive The Jewish Star by first class mail in the continental United States, send $150 for one year or $75 for six months, prepaid. Rate subject to change.

Employment opportunities: Visit TheJewishStar.com/jobs.html. Send inquiries to Publisher@TheJewishStar.com.

Copyright: All content in The Jewish Star is copyright and may not be republished or otherwise reproduced without written permission by The Jewish Star LLC; to do so without permission is both against the law and against halacha. To inquire about content reproduction write to the Publisher@TheJewishStar.com.

The Jewish Star subscribes to the JNS and JTA news services. They, or their contributors, own the copyrights on material attributed to them.

This newspaper contains words of Torah; please dispose of properly.

Despite sunlight, Women’s March still anti-Semitic Politics to Go

JEff DuNEtz

Jewish Star columnist

T

he first American Jew appointed to the Supreme Court, Justice Louis Brandeis, famously said, “Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants.”

Two months ago, one of the Women’s March founders, Teresa Shook, publicly called for the co-chairs of the movement — Bob Bland, Tamika Mallory, Linda Sarsour and Carmen Perez — to step down. She wrote on her Facebook page in part, “In opposition to our Unity Principles, they have allowed anti-Semitism, anti-LBGTQIA sentiment and hateful, racist rhetoric to become a part of the platform by their refusal to separate themselves from groups that espouse these racist, hateful beliefs.”

Since Ms. Shook’s statement, the mainstream media has begun to unmask the Women’s March, exposing its leaders’ anti-Semitism to sunlight.

The Chicago and New Orleans Women’s Marches, scheduled with the rest of the country for Saturday, January 19th, were cancelled.

Last week began with Women’s March organizer Tamika Mallory’s national media appearances to promote the march. On The View, she claimed that she didn’t agree with anti-Semitic statements made by Louis Farrakhan, but

stopped short of condemning them. Sponsors began to pull out, including the NAACP, the Human Rights Campaign and, notably, the Democratic National Committee, which has its own issues.

Then, on PBS’s Firing Line, Mallory explained to host Margaret Hoover why march organizers believed that “Jews, as white people, uphold white supremacy” even as they are targeted by supremacists.

She went on to claim that Palestinians are native to Israel since they have been there for a very long time, prompting Hoover to ask, “Do you feel that the Jewish people are native as well?”

Mallory answered, “I know, I understand the history, that, you know, that there are people who have a number of sort of ideologies around why the Jewish people feel this should be their land,” and said that it wouldn’t be fair of her to answer the question because she isn’t Jewish.

(As Hoover pointed out, Mallory is not Palestinian, but was willing to declare Palestinians native anyway.) Later, she refused to say that Israel has the right to exist.

You would think that the exposure would have forced Women’s March leaders and speakers to keep their bias under wraps during this past Saturday’s national event. But you would be wrong. If anything, the anti-Semitism became more blatant.

On Saturday morning, March organizers released an agenda for the group decrying the anti-BDS bills, passed in 26 states, that prohibit government agencies from doing business with

Women’s March leaders Tamika Mallory, Bob Bland, Carmen Perez and Linda Sarsour. Screenshot

companies that boycott Israel. The BDS movement bases its attacks on fabricated human rights violations, double standards, false comparisons to apartheid South Africa, and false accusations of “war crimes.” The movement’s purpose is to delegitimize Israel and deny the Jewish people their right to self-determination.

At the Women’s March on Saturday, many spoke in support of BDS. Co-chair Linda Sarsour implied that reports of anti-Semitism in the March were contrived by the media to protect President Trump, and announced that the Women’s March was calling for defending “freedom of speech and the constitutional right to boycott, divestment, and sanctions in these United States of America.”

Tamika Mallory, who has taken the stance

Know the enemy: Corbyn Brexit test Viewpoint

BEN COHEN

T

hey used to call them “pea-soupers:” dense, choking fogs caused by smoke from burning coal that frequently enveloped London until the middle of the last century, leaving a person unable, according to legend, to see further than their outstretched hands.

That more or less describes the situation of the British people with regard to their impending departure, Brexit, from the European Union.

Jews outside the United Kingdom who are following the Brexit debacle with particular interest are probably concerned that, from somewhere within the depths of this political fog, there’s a possibility that Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn will become prime minister.

They are concerned because Corbyn has presided over his party’s emergence as — to quote

Conservative Prime Minister Theresa May during this week’s House of Commons debate on Labour’s no-confidence motion in her government — “the banner under which racists and bigots whose worldview is dominated by a hatred of Jews could gather.” ’m not going to rule out the prospect of Corbyn becoming prime minister of the United Kingdom, if only because nothing can be ruled out at this moment. But I am going to argue that getting there will require Corbyn to navigate a road more twisted and strewn with obstacles than his many adversaries around the world might appreciate.

To begin with, despite being blessed with the kind of political opportunity that most opposition leaders pray for — in this case, the crushing of May’s Brexit plan by the largest House of Commons majority against a British government in nearly a century — not one single political pundit or member of parliament gave a second thought to the idea that Corbyn might actually win the no-confidence vote the following day.

And sure enough, Corbyn’s motion lost by the

I

predicted margin, as the rebel Conservatives and Northern Ireland Unionists, who only 24 hours earlier inflicted abject humiliation upon the prime minister, came to her rescue so as not to risk a Corbyn government.

Ah, people will say, but these are distinctly abnormal times in Britain, and that’s why May’s government survived. To say that, and nothing more, is to coddle Corbyn with a generosity that he does not deserve. Being singularly unable to bring down the weakest government the British people have known in their lifetime is a sign of his profound political failure. As each day passes, he is less likely to realize his goal of a general election.

All of which means that Corbyn has to think and talk about a subject he would rather avoid: Brexit. It’s here that we get to one of the Monty Pythonesque ironies of this mess. Theresa May, who supported remaining in the European Union, leads a party whose majority is clamoring to leave. But for Corbyn, who personally loathes the E.U. as a bankers club that ultimately serves See Brexit on page 23

that the very creation of Israel was a human rights crime, didn’t apologize. “To my Jewish sisters, do not let anyone tell you who I am,” she said. “I see all of you. No matter what they say, no matter what they write, I will not bend … I am who I am for over 20 years and no media outlet and no one else will tell you — I’m telling you, I love all people and no one will define for me who I am. Only I can do that.”

New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, who has said that she rejects the organizers’ antiSemitism, spoke at a Women’s March event in Iowa. (Conveniently, the presidential candidate attended a rally in the state whose caucus next February will be the first votes of the 2020 race for the Democratic Party nomination.) icole Guzik, who leads a Reform congregation in Los Angeles, was promised that her local march would not be an anti-Israel hate fest. When that promise was broken, she wrote an open letter to the organizers, which was published in the Los Angeles Jewish Chronicle.

“I was assured by you, the founders of this March, countlessly in a private meeting, that this March was different. That in Los Angeles (unlike the National March) Israel would not be attacked, labeling Israel as an apartheid state would be unwelcome on the stage and if a speaker went off script, the managers of the program would raise the music. In the very first hour of the Women’s March L.A. program at Pershing Square, all those promises were broken.

“Marwa Rifahie, representing the Council on American-Islamic Relations used her allotted time to focus on the Palestinian agenda, a conversation that I was told would not be a focus. I waited. When she called Israel an apartheid state … I waited. Where was the music? Where was someone asking her to remain on script?

“I used my voice, opinion and reputation to defend you, the founders that assured me, a Jewish woman was welcome and needed. I know I’m needed but today, I was not welcomed.”

Some contend that the Women’s March leaders don’t have a problem with Jews — just Israel.

But the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr., whose life we celebrate this week, would disagree.

The late sociologist Seymour Martin Lipset, a professor of government and sociology at Harvard, related that shortly before he was assassinated: “Reverend King was in Boston on a fundraising mission, and I had the good fortune to attend a dinner which was given for him in Cambridge …

He wanted to find what the Negro students at Harvard and other parts of the Boston area were thinking about various issues, and he very subtly crossexamined them for well over an hour and a half.

He asked questions, and said very little himself.

“One of the young men present happened to make some remark against the Zionists. Dr. King snapped at him and said, ‘Don’t talk like that!

When people criticize Zionists, they mean Jews.

You’re talking anti-Semitism!’”

N

Jonathan S. tobin

R

ep. Steve King (R-Iowa) is the poster child for the Republican Party’s problem with right-wing extremism. His fate also provides an object lesson in how American democracy has always dealt with people who challenge the nation’s basic values.

Unfortunately, Democrats aren’t prepared to apply the same standards to their own caucus.

In the same week that House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) stripped King of all of his committee assignments for making a series of statements that seemed to endorse white supremacy, Democrats rewarded one of their own extremists when they gave Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) a coveted seat on the House Foreign Relations Committee.

Omar was one of the 2018 midterm elec-

tions’ most uplifting stories: among the election of a record number of women to Congress, she became the first Somali-American immigrant elected to the House of Representatives, and with Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), the first Palestinian-American woman to enter Congress, the first Muslim women.

The pair’s success is a tribute to American democracy, which continues to prove that neither religion nor immigrant background is a barrier to high office in the United States.

However, while both exemplify the American dream, they also demonstrate that hatred and prejudice are not the exclusive preserve of middle-aged white males like King. But Omar’s and Tlaib’s status as groundbreakers for women, immigrants and Muslims seems to have given them a degree of impunity. ing’s defenders on the far-right claim that he was unfairly pilloried when the House voted to rebuke him last week after he was quoted in The New York Times questioning why terms like “white nationalism,” “white supremacy,” or “Western civilization” had be-

K

come offensive.

King has a long history of hateful comments, as well as association with hatemongers. He endorsed white supremacist Faith Goldy for mayor of Toronto. His suggestion that “other people’s babies” cannot preserve Western civilization was hateful as well as inaccurate — as I pointed out in National Review at the time, so-called “other people’s babies” have been fighting and dying to preserve American democracy since before Iowa became a state. It was high time House Republicans made it clear that King’s brand of nativism hate had no place in their party.

But Democrats’ silence about Tlaib and Omar exposes them as hypocrites.

Tlaib made headlines for using profanity as she vowed to impeach Trump. She received less attention for tweeting that those who support an anti-BDS bill being debated in the Senate were guilty of dual loyalty, a classic anti-Semitic smear intended to brand supporters of Israel as part of a nefarious conspiracy.

Like Tlaib, Omar is a supporter of BDS — a

The miracle in the mourning View from Central Park

tehilla r. goldberg

Intermountain Jewish News

O

ne of the most dramatic and visual scenes in the Torah is that of the splitting of the Red Sea. To see nature reverse its natural course — rupturing a natural pattern of flowing water, splitting it as it transforms into two walls of water on each side of dry land — this alone is breathtaking.

But coupled with the timing and pressure of the Israelites being pursued by the Egyptians, this scene is doubly stunning. Not for nothing has the dramatic splitting of the sea been the centerpiece of a number of movies.

To imagine Moses and his staff, standing over the waters as they split, cries of desperation be-

hind him, death hovering over some three million people, is indeed mesmerizing. And in the last second, the sea parts; a miracle redeems the people from the fate of death by drowning.

In English, this biblical scene is often referred to as the splitting of the sea, the crossing of the sea or the parting of the sea. But in Hebrew, this miracle is referred to as keriat Yam Suf, meaning the ripping of the sea. nterestingly, when you read the biblical text depicting the dramatic scene, the words keriat Yam Suf are nowhere to be found. The words with which we traditionally and routinely refer to this incident are absent. Instead, the Torah employs the word bekia, as in bekiat Yam Suf. The word bekia is used a number of times in the Torah. For example, in the story of Korach, when the earth opens and engulfs Korach and his followers, the root for the word bekia is used for the earth opening. Bekia is regularly used in conjunction with splitting, or opening, often in

I

conjunction with nature.

So, according to the Torah, the miracle of the Red Sea is bekiat Yam Suf. Yet none of us refers to the miracle that way.

Only as the “ripping” of the sea.

Famously, in the narrative of Yosef and his brothers, when Reuven, the eldest son, returns to rescue Yosef but instead finds the pit empty and understands that he is too late — in those painful moments of realization that the unthinkable has happened to Yosef, Reuven’s instantaneous response is to rend his garments. In the Torah, to rip one’s clothes is a symbol of grief and mourning.

Similarly, when Yaakov is presented with Yosef’s signature coat of many colors — soaked in blood — he rips his clothes as a sign of bereavement at the implied death of his beloved son.

When King Shaul loses the kingdom of Israel and the prophet Shmuel is parting from him, See Miracle on page 23

B

From many faces, Al Jazeera spreads hate Samantha roSe mandeleS

I

n the years since the Arab Spring’s eruption, Qatari news network Al Jazeera has successfully positioned itself as an authoritative news source on Muslim world matters. It has thus become a primary conduit for Qatar to disseminate Muslim Brotherhood messaging.

Qatar’s support for the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood is well-established. It is unsurprising, then, that Al Jazeera, owned and funded by Qatari former Emir Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani, is an Islamist mouthpiece. Al Jazeera uses its three separate outlets — the original Arabic-language division, the BBC-style English branch and the Millennials-focused online-only platform, AJ+ — to spread anti-Western propaganda across the globe.

Al Jazeera’s most vitriolic language is reserved for Arabic-language content focusing on Jews and the United States. One longstanding component of Al Jazeera’s Arabic division is the broadcasts of Muslim Brotherhood spiritual leader Yusuf al Qaradawi. For more than 15 years, while living comfortably in Qatar, the Islamist cleric has spread some of the network’s worst rhetoric. In one sermon, Qaradawi asserted: “Throughout history, Allah has imposed upon the [Jews] people who would punish them for their corruption. The last

punishment was carried out by Hitler. By means of all the things he did to them, even though they exaggerated this issue, he managed to put them in their place. This was divine punishment for them.

Allah willing, the next time will be at the hand of the believers.”

Other Al Jazeera broadcasts have featured interviews with prominent Islamist clerics from all over the Arab and Muslim world who incite violence against Jews and Americans.

In 2006, in an interview broadcast in Qatar, Iraqi Shi’ite cleric Ayatollah Ahmad Al-Baghdadi insisted that “we will conquer the world, so that ‘There is no God but Allah, and Muhammad is the Prophet of Allah’ will be triumphant over the domes of Moscow, Washington, and Paris … we will annihilate America.” l Jazeera’s English-language broadcasts, directed towards Western audiences, are not as overt or virulent in their Brotherhood-inspired propaganda. Instead, as Qatar and Al Jazeera have long portrayed themselves as defenders of the Palestinian cause, much of Al Jazeera English’s anti-Semitism and anti-Americanism is disguised as anti-Zionism or anti-imperialism — rhetoric carefully selected to chime with progressive activism in the West.

For example, Al Jazeera English mostly avoids its Arabic counterpart’s fascination with “Jewish

power,” preferring to discuss “Zionist influence” instead. One recent Al Jazeera English article argues that “every American administration over the past three or four decades was subject to major Zionist influence.” Such wordplay is a thin smokescreen for socially acceptable anti-Semitism, in which motifs about secretive Jewish control continue to appear but are passed off as — in Al Jazeera columnist Avi Shlaim’s words — “legitimate criticism of Israeli policies.”

Case in point: In early 2017, Al Jazeera released a four-part documentary film series called The Lobby, a name that harkens to the widely discredited and anti-Semitic text by professors Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer (The Israel Lobby), in which the authors recycle the Jewishpower conspiracy. Al Jazeera’s documentary, centered on Jewish influence on British politics, does the same; a second version of the series, filmed in the United States, so harped on Jewish power that its episodes were republished by the neo-Nazi Daily Stormer. inally, AJ+ takes care to spread its ideology with an “anti-racist” slant. One AJ+ video is titled “Why White Feminism Is Racist.” In the clip, a pink-haired journalist named Zab Mustefa claims that white feminism’s racism is exemplified by outspoken femi-

Vitriolic language is reserved for Arabiclanguage content.

A

F

nist Israeli actress Gal Gadot. Mustefa contends that Gadot’s feminism — and indeed, Gadot herself — is racist because she “supports the Israeli army, which oppresses Palestinian women on a daily basis.”

Mustefa does not elaborate on how the Israel Defense Forces oppresses Palestinians, or on how Gadot’s support of her own nation’s army indicates racism. Instead, the clip then shifts into an interview with Women’s March coordinator Tamika Mallory, whose association with the notoriously bigoted Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan has recently made headlines.

As a mouthpiece for Qatari Islamist ideals, Al Jazeera’s strength lies it in its adaptability; each branch displays a unique approach to distorting news, disseminating propaganda, and boosting anti-Semitic and anti-American feeling.

While Al Jazeera Arabic appeals to the Islamist hard right, Al Jazeera English encourages reasonable center-left viewers in the West to adopt anti-Semitic and anti-American ideas.

Meanwhile, AJ+ gives momentum to anti-Jewish, anti-American extremism within the growing, influential far left in the United States.

Despite its many distortions, Al Jazeera has succeeded in branding itself as a hard-hitting example of “real news.” It is crucial that this facade be exposed, and that the network — and its Qatari benefactors — is held accountable for the Islamist bigotry it promotes.

Samantha Rose Mandeles is the coordinator of Islamist Watch, a project of the Middle East Forum.

21 THE JEWISH STAR January 25, 2019 • 19 Shevat 5779

Tolerating hate in name of inclusion

movement that aims to single out the Jewish state for pariah status. While it’s possible to oppose the anti-BDS bill without embracing hate, advocacy for BDS is an expression of prejudice against Jews and indistinguishable from antiSemitism.

Support for BDS is not the only proof of Omar’s hate. In 2012, she invoked classic antiSemitic conspiracy theories about the nefarious powers of Jews when she tweeted that “Israel has hypnotized the world. May Allah awaken the people and make them see the evil doings of Israel.”

Given a chance to disavow that comment this week in an interview with CNN’s Christiane Amanpour, she refused. Instead she said they “were the only words I could think about expressing at the moment,” and that Jews shouldn’t be offended by her attacks on the Israeli “regime.” ut far from being pilloried for her hate, Omar is still being feted as a progressive heroine, as Amanpour’s softball interview demonstrated. While, as Amanpour prompted Omar to say, criticism of Israel’s government isn’t anti-Semitic, accusing Jews of hypnotizing the world and supporting the elimination of the only Jewish state most definitely is.

But instead of being placed in the dock alongside King, Omar has been rewarded with a seat on the Foreign Relations Committee. While she will be just one voice on a panel whose new chairman, Rep. Eliot Engel (D-NY), is an ardent friend of the Jewish state, she will nevertheless be able to use her position as a bully pulpit that Israel-haters have lacked until now.

There are those who dismiss complaints about either Omar or Tlaib as merely diversionary tactics by Republicans who aren’t as fastidious about Trump’s offensive comments.

But that sort of “whataboutism” is as disingenuous as attempts to excuse King. If he doesn’t deserve any committee assignments — and he doesn’t — then neither do they.

More to the point, it ill behooves those who, in spite of the president’s close connections to Jews and exemplary support for Israel, attempt to connect the dots between Trump and anti-Semitism to decide that the same scrutiny shouldn’t apply to Democrats.

Those who are willing to tolerate Omar’s and Tlaib’s hate in the name of inclusiveness or solidarity, which appears to be the party’s official position, are in no position to criticize King or, for that matter, the president.

Jonathan S. Tobin is editor-in-chief of JNS.

Again...

Continued from page 1 southern Sudan’s Christian and animist Darfur region by the government of the Muslim north, the murder of much of Rwanda’s Tutsi minority by the Hutu majority, and today’s oppression by Myanmar’s Buddhist majority of its Rohingya Muslim minority.

Two post-Holocaust mass murders of Jews already have been attempted.

In 1948, five invading Arab countries committed to the destruction of the fledgling Jewish state. The United States no sooner became the first nation to recognize Israel than it slapped an arms embargo on the region. Though intended to diminish general tensions, in practice the move undercut Israel, since the other side continued to receive British arms and advice.

In 1967, Israel preempted a potentially overwhelming attack by Egyptian, Syrian and Jordanian forces mobilized on its border. Afterward, the philosopher Eric Hoffer noted that “had [Egyptian President Gamal Abdel] Nasser triumphed … he would have wiped Israel off the map and no one would have lifted a finger to save the Jews.”

Today, Iran builds ballistic missiles and seeks to develop nuclear warheads for them, functionally asserting that “the Holocaust never happened and we intend to finish it.” The European Union, smarting at American insistence that it reimpose economic sanctions on Tehran at the expense of trade, has sought a way around potential penalties.

Nazism obsessed over racially inferior Jews destroying the German people. The accused Pittsburgh murderer fantasized that pro-immigration Jews threatened “his people.” The man charged with mailing letter bombs to prominent Americans reportedly wanted “to go back to Hitler times.” The U.S. “alt-right”– also described as the “alt-reich” — imagines the Israeli tail wags the American dog.

Not entirely dissimilar, leaders of the Women’s March movement demand that Jewish activists check their white privilege and apologize for the Jews’ racist suppression of black and brown people.

From medieval allegations of “Christ killers” to contemporary indictments of Jews as killers of Palestinian Arabs, those who portray Jews and the Jewish state as demonic — as Louis Farrakhan did yet again shortly after Pittsburgh — serve to reopen “the Jewish question.” As in, what shall be done with this never quite assimilated, always stubborn people?

Infinitely adaptable, ever-enduring Jew hatred — today regressing to its pre-Auschwitz mean through the gateway drug of anti-Zionism — retains its eternal answer: the elimination of Judaism and those who proclaim it. Among polite circles, like those who insist they are never antiSemitic, “only anti-Zionist,” marginalization and social-cultural re-ghettoization will be sufficient.

The original ethical monotheism, with its damned “thou shalts” and “thou shalt nots,” contradicts the West’s increasing secular funda-

mentalism just as it called into question Christianity and then Islam’s claims to supersession.

Including this small chosen people with their tiny promised land in that now-you-see-it, nowyou-don’t multicultural rainbow remains one diversity too many.

The Holocaust must be understood not only as an event halted by the Allies’ defeat of Nazi Germany in 1945 but also as a process interrupted. As the survivor and author Primo Levi put it, “It happened, and therefore, it can happen again. This is the core of what we have to say.”

The words are inscribed at the entrance to Berlin’s Holocaust memorial.

Twenty percent of French respondents between 18 and 34 tell CNN they’ve never heard of the Holocaust. So does a similar proportion in the United States. A Labor Party unit in northern Britain rejected a proposed resolution condemning the Pittsburgh murders because there’s too much talk of “anti-Semitism this, anti-Semitism that.”

Today the spread of neo-Nazism anti-Zionist anti-Semitism makes continued war against, and potential genocide of the majority of the world’s Jews — that is, those living in Israel — a renewed possibility.

Eric Rozenman, communications consultant for the Jewish Policy Center in Washington, is a former Washington director of CAMERA and editor of the Washington Jewish Week .

ArtScroll...

Continued from page 1 guage is geared toward men — using the word “he” in explaining how to pray, including only masculine language for some personal prayers, and without any ceremony for a bat mitzvah or the birth of a baby girl.

It also includes no prayers for or about the State of Israel, in deference to more traditionalist Orthodox Jews whose attitudes toward Zionism vary. The RCA edition does include traditional prayers for the state, as well as the Israel Defense Forces, but they wanted more.

“There was a mutual agreement that this was not the usual ArtScroll type of fare,” said Rabbi Basil Herring, the editor of the new RCA prayer book and a former executive vice president of the RCA. “ArtScroll caters or projects itself as being very loyal to tradition … and the haredi community. It would never encroach in those areas outside of what the haredi community would embrace.”

Rabbi Gedaliah Zlotowitz, ArtScroll’s president, said his publishing house continues to put out new editions of the Chumash, including one with corresponding teachings of the Talmud and another that focuses on a traditional Aramaic translation.

He said that ArtScroll does not plan to focus on the women’s prayer experience because it released a women’s prayer book in 2005. That book does not denote ways that women can lead prayers and omits prayers that women are not obligated to say under traditional Jewish law.

Commercial & Residential • Licensed & Insured

855-I-KNOW-A-GUY www.iknowaguyinc.com 461 Central Ave Cedarhurst NY 11516 Lic #H04398900 • NYC Track #GC611686

11

990877

January 25, 2019 • 19 Shevat 5779 THE JEWISH STAR

22

“The RCA went with their own siddur and we wish them a lot of hatzlacha,” Rabbi Zlotowitz said. “We feel we did a wonderful women’s siddur. We feel it’s very well received.

It helps people. It gives women very clear direction. There’s no reason to do something over and to spend a lot of time and effort if we can spend time and effort opening up Torah to Jews around the world.”

More than any previous major Orthodox prayer book, the new RCA version’s language includes women in the prayer experience. It provides feminine alternatives in Hebrew to the masculine texts, makes more of the instructions gender-neutral, and includes prayers for a bat mitzvah and a ceremony for the birth of a girl.

It is also the only major Orthodox prayer book to include a Birkat Hamazon led by women. Jewish law provides the option for women to lead the prayer in certain circumstances.

Still, the book is not egalitarian: Orthodox Judaism maintains that daily prayers must be led by men, and language about leading those prayers uses the word “he.”

“Our community should recognize … and has recognized that women today are getting an advanced Jewish education, much more so than in previous ages,” Rabbi Herring said.

“Women are rightfully demanding that they take their place in the synagogue and Jewish communal life.”

Leah Sarna said the new RCA prayer book’s inclusion of women is “awesome” and that the Chicago synagogue where she works, Anshe Sholom B’nai Israel, may order it for use by the congregation.

“I’ve never seen the pronoun ‘one’ used more in a document,” said Sarna, the congregation’s director of religious engagement. “I’m sure that took a lot of work to make that happen, and it’s very much appreciated. The assumption that the user of this siddur is not a man is a wonderful thing.”

The RCA prayer book, like Koren’s, includes prayers relating to Israel. In addition to traditional prayers for the state and its army, there is a section with prayers for Israeli holidays like Memorial Day, Independence Day, Holocaust Remembrance Day and Jerusalem Day. These prayers reflect the increasing centrality of Israel to American Orthodox life. Many Orthodox families send their children for a year of study in Israel after high school.

“For our community, the connection with Israel has become very strong over the years and is only growing stronger and stronger,” Rabbi Herring said. “In terms of our community and our constituency, there’s a recognition that Israel — it has to be a central part of our religious life.”

Rabbi Herring is proud as well of the prayer book’s new translation and commentary, which draws on an array of sources and is based on historical research into the evolution of Jewish prayer. It shares that with the Steinsaltz Chumash, which draws on a range of commentaries to provide an easy reading experience for Jews across the spectrum.

“My father’s emphasis was for years to make as transparent a commentary as possible,” said Rabbi Meni Even-Israel, Rabbi Steinsaltz’s son, who oversaw the translation. “It’s very fluid and it doesn’t stop you from asking questions — very clear. There’s no agenda. The agenda is your understanding.”

The book has an unordinary format: Alongside the Hebrew is a mix of literal translation (in bold) and commentary (in regular print).

Below that is more commentary. The book is also full of illustrations and diagrams, as well as maps and photographs of Israel. Even-Israel hopes that reading it will be like reading a regular book aimed at a mass audience.

“Our dream is that you’re going to have a teacher in your pocket,” he said. “From here you can go anywhere you want. Secondly, you can go to sleep with this book. This is the people’s book.”

The question, of course, is how many synagogues will adopt these books. The Koren Sacks prayer book has sold hundreds of thousands of copies and provides a popular alternative to ArtScroll. A wealth of Koren books provides a religious ritual focus on Israel and

Zionism. And countless other offerings have come out in recent years, though not all with the imprimatur of a major Orthodox rabbinical association or scholar.

Rabbi Herring is confident that as time passes and synagogues look to replace their stock, they will turn to Avodat Halev. The book is already on its second printing, and about 5,000 copies have been sold. ArtScroll does not release its sales figures One Orthodox congregation, the Boca Raton Synagogue in South Florida, has ordered a thousand copies for its 900 member families to use every week. It had used ArtScroll — and will keep a few in stock.

“We decided to switch because it’s more aligned with the values and practices of the community,” said the synagogue’s rabbi, Efrem Goldberg. “It’s more sensitive to some of the prayers we recite and practices that we have.

It enables us to practice our observance more fully.”

HAFTR...

Continued from page 1 graders were moved to the Young Israel of Lawrence-Cedarhurst in Cedarhurst.

“It’s a mess. Everything close to the fire has to be inspected and cleaned,” said Yaron Kornblum, president of HAFTR’s board. “We sent the books out to be repaired and removed soot from rooms.

The books may have to be replaced.”

Though the fire was contained to the server room and computer lab, the smoke and water damage was extensive, school officials said.

All of the air-conditioning units and duct work throughout the Washington Avenue building will have to be replaced. Several classrooms, the school library and the computer room will have to be rebuilt, and ceiling tiles must be replaced.

“We had double shifts going 24 hours, with 50 people doing the cleanup,” said Neil Wiener, chairman of HAFTR’s board of directors. “Typically, with an insurance company, you are out of the building for a length time,” he added, referring to insurance adjustors taking time to survey the damage.

Kornblum and Wiener said the break will offer school officials an opportunity to develop a longer-term plan detailing where students will attend classes for the remainder of the school year, which will end June 19. “The first week, no one was in the building. Now everyone is the on scene,” Kornblum said. “We are still assessing and talking to people.”

HAFTR Executive Director Ari Solomon said the teachers and administrators have done an excellent job of keeping elementary school classes going, despite the loss of the building. “Four walls don’t make an educational institution,” he said. “The kids remain engaged in the educational curriculum.”

In looking into what could be done to find a longer-term temporary home, HAFTR officials contacted the Lawrence School District, which is no stranger to moving students out of a damaged building. After Hurricane Sandy in October 2012, district officials reopened the Cedarhurst high school in November, but in January 2013 closed it when officials discovered that electrical wires were corroding because of saltwater intrusion. The roughly 900-student high school was split between the middle school and the Number Five School.

“That’s the first thing I thought of was Hurricane Sandy,” said Dr. Ann Pedersen, who was Lawrence’s assistant superintendent of curriculum and instruction at that time and is now superintendent. “We have the top floor of the Number Four School to house some people.”

Kornblum said that he appreciated the community’s help, from the fire departments that responded to the blaze to 4th Precinct police, HAFTR’s administrators and parents, and the local organizations and institutions that offered assistance.

Wiener stressed that HAFTR officials will do what is best for the students. “We are concerned most about the safety and welfare of the children,” he said.

Continued from page 15 tors online, and had 16,000 print subscribers, according to Feddersen.

“Over the last couple of years this was a preordained process,” the anonymous board member said. “People even a couple years ago knew we’d go from weekly to monthly and probably not have a print publication.”

The move marks a new era for a publication that has had many lives. Under the leadership of Belarusian immigrant Abraham Kahan as a Yiddish daily with socialist leanings, the Forward became a circulation powerhouse with more than 275,000 subscribers at its peak in the early 1930s. It also owned a radio station, WEVD. The Forward headquarters on the Lower East Side were a local landmark.

In 1974, a Chinese-American real estate family bought the Forward Building, and the newspaper moved to Midtown Manhattan, sharing space with the Workmen’s Circle, a Jewish socialist organization.

In 1990, the newspaper launched a weekly edition in English under the leadership of Seth Lipsky, a veteran of The Wall Street Journal.

Lipsky put the reinvigorated weekly back on the map, mixing his own neoconservative leanings, knack for hiring young talent and a penchant for scoops with a formidable culture section headed by Jonathan Rosen, the critic and novelist. Forward alumni from that era include Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor in chief of The Atlantic; Philip Gourevitch, a New Yorker staff writer and former editor of The Paris Review; and Lucette Lagnado, a memoirist and reporter for The Wall Street Journal.

Lipsky and the board parted ways in 2000, after which Lipsky launched the daily New York Son. His successor was J.J. Goldberg, a veteran Jewish journalist whose politics were more in line with the newspaper’s left-wing roots.

The Forward’s financial prospects looked substantially brighter in 2003, when Disney bought WEVD for a reported $73-plus million; previously, a Spanish broadcasting network had paid the Forward $32.5 million for its coveted spot on the FM dial. At the time, The Forward Association said “proceeds from the sale would serve as an endowment, ensuring that English, Yiddish and Russian-language editions would carry on regardless of the advertising market.”

In 2010, the Forward and Workmen’s Circle split the proceeds from the $18.5 million sale of their midtown building to a developer who resold it the same day for $20 million.

Enviable revenues from those sales did not, however, ensure the newspaper’s long-term financial health.

“Part of the goal of a responsible board of any organization is to make sure the assets don’t get pissed away, which is what they’re trying to deal with now,” Freudenheim said. “Those assets were used to prop up the print Forward, and we’re living in a different age.”

Ken Doctor, a news industry expert at the Nieman Lab, said the decision to fire the most senior staff suggested a news operation in tough straits.

“Usually it’s among organizations that have hit the panic button,” Doctor said. “When you have such a sudden lurch and you take out the top positions, that tells me this is not well planned. It sends a note of desperation.”

Fedderson said it was responsible for the Forward to act as it did when it did.

“The company was slow to evolve when all the changes hit the media landscape for a bunch of reasons,” Feddersen said in her email. “I was brought on to ensure the Forward continues to survive and thrive, and that includes curbing our expenses. This is by far the most responsible, best move we can make to fulfill our mission.”

The Yiddish edition, which has continued printing alongside the English paper, will also cease printing and maintain its digital presence.

In addition to retaining its left-wing leanings, the Forward has a tradition of investigative reporting on Jewish institutions. In the past year, its reporters uncovered funders of Canary Mission, a shadowy blacklist of pro-Palestinian activists, as well as the history and misdeeds of Stan-

Yitro...

Continued from page 18 knowledge that Hashem exists. This begs the obvious question: why there are so many people who do not believe?

Suggests Rav Elchonon: there is something that gets in the way of our accepting that innate belief in G-d, and that is what he calls ‘mother’s milk.’ From the moment we are born we discover that when we are hungry all we have to do is cry and pretty soon we will be rewarded. This teaches us that we can control our lives, we can get what we want when we want it if we are just willing to make a little noise. We become the center of our own universe; we assume that we are in control and that we can have pleasure whenever we want it.

And when we begin to struggle with the existential questions of G-d and creation and the obligations that might entail, we naturally have a hard time giving up on that control, realizing that we are not at the center of the universe and that we are vehicles for bringing the consciousness of G-d into it. he mitzvah, then, of knowing Hashem, according to Rav Elchonon, is to accept what we already know, what is true and the source of all truth deep inside each of us.

It is to rely on being part of something so much greater than ourselves, and to access the inner instinctive knowledge we already have that we are not random, we are created, with purpose and meaning that allows us to be vehicles and partners in making a more beautiful and meaningful world.

We would do well to ask ourselves what is holding us back from doing and accepting things we already know to be true. Why we allow ourselves to get into petty arguments with the people we love the most, when deep down we know how much we love them and how petty these debates can be.

Perhaps in accessing those inner truths, we can remind ourselves just how great the world, and let go of the tendency to live in a much smaller reality just so we can remain at its center.

Shabbat shalom from Jerusalem.

T

Bystander...

Continued from page 19 injustice and cruelty is not a morally acceptable position.

Psychologists have written extensively on the “bystander problem.” Why do so many stand aside when they witness violence, cruelty, injustice? Why doesn’t everyone feel a moral commitment to stand up on the side of righteousness?

Why are there so many Iyovs and so few Yitros?

Iyov’s neutrality — the “bystander problem” — might stem from perceived self-interest. Why should I get involved? Why should I take risks that might have negative consequences for me?

Why should I antagonize those in power?

A main reason for the “bystander problem,” though, seems to be that people do not assume personal responsibility. They rationalize: there are others who can intercede, there are others who are better able to help, somebody else will take responsibility so it isn’t necessary for me to get involved or to make personal sacrifices.

It isn’t that bystanders are necessarily immoral or heartless; rather, they may simply not take things personally. They think: It isn’t my issue, it isn’t my responsibility, it’s for others to solve.

Erich Fromm observed: “Most people fail in

the art of living not because they are inherently bad or so without will that they cannot live a better life; they fail because they do not wake up and see when they stand at a fork in the road and have to decide.”

This is the root of Iyov’s sin: he did not wake up and realize he was at a fork in the road where he had to make a decision. That decision would define the nature of his character, his life itself. By remaining silent, he chose to be a “bystander,” to let the forces of evil gain sway. He forfeited personal responsibility, not because he was a bad person but because he was a weak or self-centered person. The sufferings of others did not awaken moral indignation within him.

As a result, he himself ultimately underwent horrendous sufferings.

The Talmudic lesson reminds us that we must not be part of the “bystander problem,” but must take moral stands in the face of injustice, corruption and wickedness. We must accept personal responsibility, and not assume that others will solve the problems for us.

The world is full of Pharaohs who promote wickedness and injustice. The world is full of Bilams who are only too happy to go along with the powerful Pharaohs. The world is very full of Iyovs who stay silent and neutral in the face of evil.

The world has a shortage of Yitros who realize that they stand at a fork in the road and decide to take personal responsibility.

Brexit...

Continued from page 20 American corporate and national security interests, it’s the other way around. ow that he can’t shift the public focus by forcing a general election, Corbyn is effectively boxed into the Brexit debate. Each option available to him carries significant risks.

If Corbyn backs a deal that sees Britain remaining in a customs union with the E.U. — an outcome that the pro-Brexit camp believes is just as bad as remaining in the E.U. itself — he has to go against his own hard-left political leanings, as well as subject himself to the scorn of the working class, pro-Brexit voters that he believes can be won back to the Labour Party.

If he comes out against a second referendum on Brexit — a position for which there is strong support throughout Labour’s ranks — he has to contend with potentially alienating the younger voters who want Britain to remain inside the E.U. If he decides to put country before party by joining May in negotiating a cross-party consensus on a revised deal — a task that is nearly impossible — he may find himself making compromises he wished he hadn’t in order to prop up a dying Conservative government.

None of these avenues provides Corbyn with a clear means of escaping the Brexit debate, so that he can channel, as one of his leading supporters explained to The New York Times, “the existing economic anger and, rather than mobilizing it against migrants, mobilize it against elites and the establishment that have rigged the economy.”

As long as the subject remains Brexit, then Corbyn will be feeling queasy.

Corbyn’s present position is that he wants May to guarantee that a no-deal Brexit will be avoided, but without having to participate in the negotiations himself. The deadline for a final deal with the E.U. is March 29, which is why there is so much hair-pulling going on in London and Brussels as the clock winds down.

But from Corbyn’s vantage point, that’s one hell of a long time from now, a whole nine weeks, more or less, in which he will be under enormous pressure to declare where he stands.

If he fails this coming test, his leadership of the Labour Party might not survive.

But before you start feeling too optimistic, even if Corbyn was somehow ousted as Labour leader, it’s still unlikely to mean an end to the anti-Semitism that has scarred his party. Indeed, as things stand now, his successor would probably come from the same hard-left factions that produced Corbyn himself. This is the new era of British politics, and its pernicious challenges, exemplified by Corbyn, will outlast him.

N

Miracle...

Continued from page 21 Shaul’s loss of the kingdom is symbolized by the tearing of a cloak (it is ambiguous whether it was Shmuel’s or Shaul’s garment that was torn), whereupon Shmuel says to Shaul: “G-d has torn the kingdom from you…”

And to this day, the Jewish ritual of mourning is expressed in the ripping of a garment. Emotional loss is expressed with keria, a symbolic ripping of fabric.

When you consider the miracle of the splitting of the Red Sea, the Torah’s word bekia fits perfectly as a description of a cut, of a split, of division. ut the Sages wanted to amplify another perspective for us about this miraculous moment.

While the Israelite collective was saved, the pursuing Egyptians drowned in the same waters that moments prior stood as two pillars enabling the Israelites to walk between them on dry land.

There is a certain dissonance that the Sages are calling our attention to. The splitting of the sea was our miracle, but it was the Egyptians’ tragedy.

The same waters. The same moments.

Of course the Egyptians were evil. They enslaved and tortured the Israelites. Their end was just. Nonetheless, they were still drowning.

As the Midrash famously comments in a rebuke of Moshe’s Song at the Sea, “The work of My hands are drowning in the water, and you are singing?”

There is a mourning within the miracle.

Hence the sages coined the term for the splitting of the sea, keriat Yam Suf, which simultaneously encapsulates the miracle and the mourning of the miraculous splitting of the sea.

As heard from Yael Schlossberg.

B

CAlendar of Events Sunday January 27

Film Screening: The Holocaust Memorial and Tolerance Center of Nassau County presents a screening of “Who Will Write Our History” on International Holocaust Remembrance Day. The film tells the story of historian Emanuel Ringelblum and his secret archive in the Warsaw ghetto. 1 p.m. 100 Crescent Beach Road, Glen Cove.

516-571-8040. $18 suggested donation.

Thursday January 31

Public Safety: An active shooter workshop, sponsored by the White Shul & JCCRP, made possible by our State Senators & Assembly Members and the NYPD. Be prepared in case of tragedy. 6:30 pm. 728 Empire Ave, Far Rockaway. 718-471-7014.

Sunday Feb. 3

Super Sunday: Sixth annual Super Bowl Sunday concert, presented by the Park East Day School Grandparents’ Circle.

Ticket purchase includes performance by the Maccabeats, tailgate lunch, and meetand-greet. 11 am. 164 East 68 St, Manhattan. $25 in advance, $36 at the door.

Deborah@parkeastdayschool.org Rambam Exhibit: Rambam Mesivta hosts an exhibition “Who Will Write Our History: Resistance comes in many forms.”

10 am. 15 Frost Lane, Lawrence.

Tuesday Feb. 5

Evening with PEYD: Learn how to take your family on vacation using miles and points, and how to best use credit cards for business success. Program to benefit the Levi Yitzchak Library. Space is limited. 8:15 pm. 564 Central Ave, Cedarhurst. $36.

23 THE JEWISH STAR January 25, 2019 • 19 Shevat 5779

Forward...

ley Rosenfeld, a Jewish educator who assaulted underage boys for decades at Jewish schools.

In 2017 it reported on former Trump White House aide Sebastian Gorka’s connections to a Hungarian nationalist group with roots in the Nazi era.

“I’m sad because I’ve enjoyed having it but it wasn’t supported by the public,” the board member said of the print edition. “It’s a difficult time for all of us.”

January 25, 2019 • 19 Shevat 5779 THE JEWISH STAR

24

Do We Have Deals?

Of Course We Do! 154

219

d$ a r G e g e Coll 2019 Ram 1500 Classic Quad Cab Express 4x4

2019 Nissan Rogue S AWD

199

$

with Backup Camera, and Bluetooth

$

month*

d$ a r G e g e Coll

2019 Nissan Sentra SV

with Backup Camera, and Automatic Emergency Braking

229

36 month lease 7,500 miles per year

with Backup Camera, and Bluetooth

164

$

month*

36 month lease 12,000 miles per year

month*

36 month lease 12,000 miles per year

Pre-Owned Lease Specials!

8 Passenger, and Backup Sensors

$

349

month*

24 month lease 10, 000 miles per year

2018 Land Rover Range Rover Sport HSE with Leather Seating, and Sunroof

$

799

month*

36 month lease 10,000 miles per year

2018 Land Rover Range Rover SE Leather Seating, and Fwd Collision Warning

$

829

month*

24 month lease 10,000 miles per year

Don’t delay.

Call us today for your deal

718.975.9000 2750 Nostrand Avenue Brooklyn, NY 11210 www.PlazaAutoLeasing.com

ArtFriedCreative.com

2017 Ford Expedition XLT 4x4

Lowest prices. Any make. Any model. Any time. Huge inventory. *Ad expires on 1/31/2019. Due at lease signing is 1st month payment, Bank Fee (Nissan $595, Ford & Land Rover $695, Ram $995), Registration Fee and applicable taxes. Some deals may require lease loyalty or lease conquest. Residency restrictions may apply. Not responsible for typographical errors. DCA Lic#: 1312589 DMV#: 7084665

1015810

Open: Sunday 10am - 1pm | Monday - Thursday 9am - 7pm | Friday 9am - 1pm