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Terumah • Feb. 8, 2019 • 3 Adar 1 5779 • Torah columns pages 18–19 • Luach page 18 • Vol 18, No 5

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Dem ‘20 hopefuls: The Jewish angles

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This is part of a continuing series on 2020 presidential hopefuls. Previous reports (on Kamala Harris, Elizabeth Warren and Kirsten Gillibrand) can be found at TheJewishStar.com.

Booker: Cred’ & questions

By Ron Kampeas, JTA Sen. Cory Booker literally carried a rabbi on his back until he (figuratively) cast same rabbi into the waters, like a forgotten sin.

Booker, who is African-American, announced his presidential bid last Friday, the first day of Black History Month.

The senator’s rise has been full of headlines. He was a heralded football player in high school who failed to live up to his billing at Stanford, and he is a former mayor of Newark who rescued a woman from a fire and a dog from freezing temperatures. Booker

was at the center of a bizarre nonscandal during last year’s Senate hearings confirming Brett Kavanaugh as a Supreme Court justice after he leaked embarrassing emails that Kavanaugh had sent while he was counsel to President George W. Bush.

Booker proudly said he was breaking Senate protocol by doing so, inviting the Senate to censure him, and calling himself “Spartacus.” The committee’s Republican chairman, Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, said, basically, no harm, no foul — Booker had not actually vioSee Booker on page 16

Schultz: Jew from B’klyn

By Josefin Dolsten, JTA Former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz has said he is “seriously thinking of running for president,” and a lot of people aren’t happy about it.

Schultz, who stepped down as chairman of the coffee chain in June, is a lifelong Democrat but has said he would run as a “centrist independent.” That has many on the left worrying that he could split the vote and help reelect President Donald Trump.

“He should stick to coffee,” Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., joked.

Zeldin-Omar clash amplifies partisan divide over Israel Commentary by Jonathan S. Tobin ne of the constant refrains of pro-Israel activists is the need to keep support for the Jewish state a bipartisan concern, rather than something the major parties battle over. They’re right about that. But what happens when bipartisanship fails?

More to the point, how is bipartisanship possible in a political environment where the center has collapsed?

Polls consistently show that the overwhelming majority of Americans back the Jewish state, either on its own or in questions asking whether they support Israel or Palestinians. The only disturbing thing about those polls is that the numbers are skewed along partisan lines, with 79 percent of Republicans backing Israel and only 27 percent of Democrats agreeing.

But one point that gets lost in that discussion is that most Democratic officeholders, especially the leadership of their congressional caucuses, are solidly pro-Israel. This means that despite the vitriol that See Zeldin-Omar on page 21

O

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., who has announced her intentions to run for her party’s 2020 nomination, grouped Schultz with other “billionaires who think they can buy the presidency to keep the system rigged for themselves while opportunity slips away for everyone else.”

Others think that Schultz, who has publicly lamented the polarization of the Democratic Party, has actually done Democrats a favor by warning them that there is still a large contingent of moderate voters who they shouldn’t neglect leading up to ’20. See Schultz on page 16

Sanders: On Israel, it’s oy

By Ron Kampeas, JTA WASHINGTON — If Bernie Sanders runs for president again, the one thing we know for sure is that Bernie, the sequel, will not be a retread.

Much about Bernie 1.0 was attention-getting precisely because his campaign defied convention.

The Independent senator from Vermont attached “socialist” to his name; he hadn’t done foreign policy, and it showed; and his campaign overall was a seat-of-itspants mess because it didn’t occur

Reps. Lee Zeldin and Ilhan Omar have been feuding on Twitter over Omar’s support of BDS. WikiCommons

to anyone until he won nominating contests that he could win.

At 75, Sanders was the oldest candidate ever to win primaries in the double-digits and, as we’ve typed countless times, the first Jewish candidate to win majorparty nominating contests.

This time around, Sanders will have popularity and name recognition on his side and, likely, better organization.

Here are five things to look out for in Bernie 2.0.

See Sanders on page 16

It’s more than BDS S

Commentary by Jeff Dunetz elected as Ranking Member of a House foreign relations subcommittee, Long Island Rep. Lee Zeldin was surprised to learn that freshman Rep. Ilhan Omar, a BDS supporter who once accused Israeli Jews of “mind control” over the rest of the world, was on the same committee that has an oversight role of US foreign policy.

Zeldin complained on Twitter about Omar’s placement on the committee, to which Omar responded by retweeting an accusation of Islamophobic dog whistling. “Don’t mind him, he is just waking up to the reality of having Muslim women as colleagues who know how to stand up to bullies!” the tweet said. “It’s gonna be fun watching him lose his marbles.”

Zeldin responded, “Those poor innocent ISIS fighters & Palestinian terroristst, right? Give me a break! That’s a problem no matter your religion or gender Ilhan. Your anti-Semitic & anti-Israel hate is strong & wrong & those terrorists have US blood on their hands as well.”

See BDS on page 21

Anti-Semitism draws UK Jews closer to roots

By Cnaan Liphshiz, JTA For most of her life, Rachel Riley was only vaguely aware of her Jewish ancestry. A daytime game show host, Riley, 33, is one of countless unaffiliated Jews in the United Kingdom — a country with 250,000 Jewish citizens and where synagogue attendance is at a historic low.

“My mum would give us pepperoni pizza,” she told the Times of London. They didn’t keep kosher. On Chanukah, “we’d light the menorah candles but we didn’t go to synagogue and I’ve never done Friday night [Shabbat].”

But after experiencing anti-Semitic abuse online for criticizing Britain’s Labour party — whose far-left leader Jeremy Corbyn has been called anti-Semitic for his rhetoric and antiIsrael views — Riley was compelled to speak out against the proliferation of that hatred and about how it has affected her own family.

“My family came over in the pogroms. For centuries Jews have been persecuted and kicked out of countries,” she said in the Times interview.

Riley’s revisiting of her Jewish identity is part of a larger process creating “an unparalleled unity and sense of solidarity amongst Jews of all persuasions” in the United Kingdom, said the London-based Campaign Against Antisemitism.

The crisis generating this unity centers on the 2015 election of Corbyn to head Labour.

Thousands of his followers joined Labour, creating a toxic atmosphere for Jews and thousands of cases of hate speech in the party’s ranks.

Last year, Margaret Hodge, a veteran Labour lawmaker in the upper house of the British parliament, was probed by her own party over her criticism of Corbyn’s anti-Semitism problem. She said the party’s decision made her think of what it felt like to be a Jew in Germany in the 1930s.

It was a highly unusual statement from a person so unaffiliated that many British Jews didn’t even know she was Jewish.

“I have never been active in the Jewish com-

munity; my two marriages were to non-Jews,” she wrote in the Guardian in July. But, she added, “I am a Jew.” Hodge’s mobilization against anti-Semitism is not entirely unexpected — she wrote in the Guardian piece that she had joined Labour in the 1960s to fight racism.

But Riley’s was less predictable. Before she began speaking out against anti-Semitism, she was best known as a host on Chan- Rachel Riley with campaigners outside of the Houses of Parliament in nel 4’s puzzle show “Count- London before delivering a petition to Downing Street on Oct. 8, 2018. down.” Her other claim to fame was her ability to solve math puzzles. Few not a real Jew, a child bully, conspiracy theorist.” knew that Riley, a blue-eyed blonde, is Jewish.

She also got physical threats, leading her stuThat began to change in September, when dio to increase security for her show. she took to Twitter to express her concerns about In the same speech, she said that had somebillboards that had been illegally placed across one told her a year ago that she’d be commemoLondon reading, “Israel is a racist endeavor.” rating the Holocaust in parliament, “I wouldn’t The signs, part of a war of words and bill- know where to begin with my incredulity.” boards between Corbyn supporters and his Historically speaking, the effect that anticritics, were over Corbyn’s objection to Labour Semitism has on Jewish identity “is neither suradopting a definition of anti-Semitism that in- prising nor unusual,” Keith Kahn-Harris, a Loncludes anti-Israel sentiment. don-based sociologist, told JTA. “It often takes But as soon as Riley spoke out, she exposed violent, crude anti-Semitism to make people disherself to anti-Semitic abuse online, she said. cover what you might call ‘latent Jewishness.’”

Her Twitter account — usually full of requests Riley’s experiences show how “anti-Semitism from students for help with math — was inun- in the United Kingdom has gone from being a dated with insults by Corbyn fans. containable issue to a major public issue.”

“In the name of Labour I’ve been called a Anti-Semitism in Britain can be measured in hypocrite, lying propagandist, tits-teeth-and-ass the number of incidents reported (last year had clothes horse, dolly bird, weaponizer of anti- 1,382 — an all-time record). British media has Semitism, fascist, right-wing extremist, Nazi begun devoting unprecedented levels of attensympathizer, Twitter cancer,” she said during tion to the issue. Much of the debate centers on a speech in parliament ahead of International Corbyn, who in 2013 defended an anti-Semitic Holocaust Remembrance Day. Other insults in- mural in London (he later expressed regret). In cluded: “Brainwashed, an anti-Semite, white su- 2009, he called terrorist groups Hezbollah and premacist, hate preacher, Zio political trollster, Hamas his “friends,” adding that the latter is

Tom Nicholson for Bauer Media via Getty Images

“dedicated towards the good of the Palestinian people and bringing about long-term peace.”

He laid a wreath at a monument for the killers of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics and said in 2015 that “Zionists” who have “lived in this country for a very long time, probably all their lives,” don’t “understand English irony.”

Even British Jews who rarely speak about politics find themselves under attack online.

Another Jewish celebrity, “Game of Thrones” actress Laura Pradelska, told the BBC she turned off comments on her Instagram because of antiSemitic abuse that’s “mostly to do with Israel,” though she hardly ever posts about that country.

The leaders of the UK’s Jewish community prefer low-profile action. But the previous chief rabbi, Jonathan Sacks, has called Corbyn an anti-Semite — which Corbyn denies, saying he will fight anti-Semitism in Labour and beyond. Last year, Britain’s three leading Jewish newspapers united to publish a front-page editorial warning that a Corbyn premiership would constitute an “existential threat to Jewish life in this country.”

The events have even rallied unaffiliated Jews who have not experienced abuse themselves.

“I usually avoid politics but Corbyn is making the Jews feel really bad,” a Belgium-born Jewish woman from north London. For the first time in her life, she joined a protest against anti-Semitism last year outside parliament.

To her, the debate on anti-Semitism in Britain is catching up with local Jews who “did not suffer as much as other European Jews,” she added, because Britain was never occupied by the Nazis.

Murray Lee, an unaffiliated Jewish real estate agent from London, said that Britain’s antiSemitism problem “saddens” him primarily as a Brit, not necessarily as a Jew. Asked whether the problem makes him think of his ancestors, Murray, a third-generation UK-born Jew, said: “It’s very hard to say no to that, but in principle, my ancestors are pretty much British.”

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Iranian-backed Argentinian killers remain free

By Clifford D. May and Toby Dershowitz Israel Hayom For more than a decade, Alberto Nisman had been investigating the worst terrorist attack ever committed on Argentine soil: the 1994 bombing of the AMIA Jewish community center in Buenos Aires that killed 85 people and wounded as many as 300.

Four years ago this week, the federal prosecutor was putting the finishing touches on a report that would accuse then-President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner and a dozen others of helping cover up the Islamic Republic of Iran’s responsibility for the attack.

On Jan. 18, the day before he was to present that report to Argentina’s Congress, Nisman was found dead in the bathroom of his locked 13th-floor apartment. A .22-caliber bullet had been fired at close range into his head.

Kirchner initially called his death a suicide, even though his fingerprints were not found on the Bersa pistol left close to his body, and there was no gunpowder residue on his hands.

A little more than a year ago, however, an investigation by 28 forensic experts and law enforcement officials conclusively determined that he did not kill himself. In fact, they were able to deduce that two people roughed him up, sedated him and then shot him.

Who were those people? And from whom were they taking orders? Argentines attempting to answer such questions place themselves in danger.

Late last month, Federal Judge Sandra Arroyo Salgado, who also is Nisman’s former wife and the mother of their two daughters, withdrew from formal involvement in the investigation. The reason: ongoing threats — the “need to guarantee the protection and safety of the family,” as she phrased it in a written statement.

Nisman used wiretapped conversations to build his case against Kirchner. Among them was one concerning an ally, former intelligence offi-

Remains of the AMIA Jewish center after the 1994 bombing in Buenos Aires.

cial Antonio Stiuso. Kirchner says on tape: “We have to kill him.” Her defenders claim she did not intend to be taken literally. Stiuso, unconvinced, subsequently fled the country with his family.

In September 2017, former Argentine Ambassador to Syria Roberto Ahuad revealed in testimony that Foreign Minister Hector Timerman had visited Syria in January 2011 to finalize an agreement with Iran, at a meeting hosted by Syrian dictator Bashar Assad. A message sent to Ahuad asked: “When are you committing suicide?” Another warned: “Beware of an induced suicide.”

And Eduardo Taiano, the head prosecutor investigating Nisman’s murder, has received messages threatening to do to him and his son what was done to Nisman.

Nevertheless, Taiano is continuing to investigate, focusing most immediately on calls made over more than 150 phone lines — many of them reportedly to intelligence agents — on the day Nisman’s body was found.

Long before implicating Argentine officials in

La Nación via WikiCommons

a conspiracy, Nisman had found solid evidence that officials of the Islamic Republic of Iran planned and financed the AMIA bombing, and that Hezbollah, its terrorist proxy, carried it out.

Mohsen Rabbani became cultural attaché at the Islamic republic’s embassy in Buenos Aires just months before the AMIA bombing. In 1997, after Argentine authorities issued an arrest warrant for him, and INTERPOL a red notice (a request to locate and provisionally arrest an individual pending extradition), he managed to return to Tehran. Red notices for four other Iranian officials in connection with the bombing remain in effect to this day.

Evidence points also to Hezbollah’s responsibility for the bombing of the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires in 1992, in which 29 people were killed, and more than 200 wounded. Argentine authorities charged Imad Mughniyah, Hezbollah’s infamous former military commander, who also masterminded the bombing of the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut in 1983. (He was killed in

Damascus in 2008 in what may have been a joint Israeli/U.S. operation).

The most likely motive for the AMIA attack: Iran’s rulers, in their own special way, were conveying displeasure over the Argentine government’s suspension of nuclear cooperation.

As for the cover-up, Nisman believed a deal was in the works to lift the red notices in exchange for oil.

Tehran and Hezbollah have long been seeking influence and power in Latin America, not least through illicit means. As far back as 2004, the U.S. Treasury Department designated Assad Ahmad Barakat, a Lebanese-born citizen of Paraguay, as a terrorist and Hezbollah financier. He and other members of his family are believed to have provided logistical support for both the AMIA and embassy bombings.

Recently, Argentina froze the assets of 14 members of the Barakat clan. That sent a message that Mauricio Macri, elected Argentina’s president in 2015, is unwilling to give Hezbollah free rein.

A few weeks ago, the U.S. State Department hosted a ministerial meeting with key Latin American officials that sent another message: Hezbollah operatives in the Western hemisphere must be thwarted.

That said, it remains to be seen whether Hezbollah or Iran will ever be held accountable for the terrorist attacks of 1992 and 1994, and whether anyone will be brought to justice for attempting to cover their tracks and for the murder of the investigator who followed the facts wherever they led him.

That investigator, just days before he was assassinated, said prophetically: “With Nisman around or not, the evidence is there.” Argentines now face a choice: to act on that evidence or to surrender to terrorists and murderers. To put it another way, they must decide what kind of nation Argentina is, and what kind of nation Argentina will become.

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Jews feud over fallout from fatal bombing

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BUENOS AIRES (JTA) — The political fallout from the 1994 terrorist attack on Argentina’s AMIA Jewish center has driven a wedge between AMIA and the Jewish political umbrella DAIA. AMIA’s president Agustín Zbar has asked DAIA to remove itself from a lawsuit charging former President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner with treason over a pact signed with Iran in 2013.

That agreement called for a joint investigation of the deadly bombing, which claimed 85 lives.

Critics of the pact called it a cover-up of Iran’s role in the attack. The government of Kirchner’s successor, Mauricio Macri, canceled the agreement in December 2015, during his first week in office.

In its letter to DAIA, the AMIA leader suggested the Jewish community should remain neutral in the political and legal dispute that has caused a deep divide, known as “la grieta,” in Argentina.

La grieta, wrote Zbar, is “a division that does not represent us.”

Kirchner is leading the main opposition to the Macri government ahead of presidential elections slated for October.

DAIA answered on Friday in a statement saying that it does not want to abandon its role in the trial but will submit AMIA’s request for the consideration of all its affiliated institutions, including AMIA. “The DAIA does not know the reasons why the AMIA, one of its more than 120 member organizations, has made this issue public,” the statement said.

Mainstream media in Argentina have reported widely on the tension between the Jewish community institutions. On Sunday, Feb. 3, local media reported that Zbar had apologized for his letter to AMIA and requested an indefinite leave of absence. He explained that he had not meant to imply that Iran and its proxy, the terrorist group Hezbollah, were not responsible for the bombing. He only meant to suggest that the case was best prosecuted by the government, not in a civil lawsuit to which the Jewish groups are parties, he said.

Zbar said he meant to protect Jewish institutions “from a national political dispute.”

No trial date has been set in the case that is investigating whether the pact was meant to whitewash the Iranian role in the 1994 AMIA bombing.

Iran has denied any involvement. Besides the former president, other former government officials also face charges involving the cover-up and abuse of power.

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Israel maintains warm ties with woeful Myanmar

By Charles Dunst, JTA

This is the second article in a series about Jews in Southeast Asia.

YANGON, Myanmar — Myanmar’s treatment of its Rohingya Muslim minority has earned the country widespread condemnation in recent years. Last August, the State Department tallied atrocities in the Buddhist-majority country’s northern Rakhine State, concluding that violence there was “extreme, large-scale, widespread, and seems geared toward both terrorizing the population and driving out the Rohingya residents.”

Some 1.1 million Rohingya have fled Myanmar.

Despite the widespread condemnation, however, Israel remains on friendly terms with Myanmar despite what the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum has called “compelling evidence” of genocide in the country that straddles South and Southeast Asia.

Israel allowed its arms companies to sell weapons to Myanmar’s military through the fall of 2017, long after most Western countries had banned such sales by its firms. It remains unclear if Israeli firms are still supplying Myanmar’s military with assistance besides weapons, including surveillance technology, training and intelligence. Contacted by JTA, most of the firms refused to clarify. One firm, TAR Ideal Concepts, refuted reports that it had sold arms to Myanmar.

Observers say Israel’s cooperation and selective silence reflects both the Jewish state’s closeness with Myanmar and its demonstrated foreign policy preference for prosaic diplomacy over human rights.

“A general trend of Israel’s foreign policy is to give priority to interests over values,” David Tal, an Israeli historian who chairs the University of Sussex’s Modern Israel Studies program, told JTA. “Having good relations with Myan-

Myanmar State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi. Getty Rohingya Muslim refugees crowd a canal as they flee over the border from Myanmar into Bangladesh on Nov. 1, 2017 Kevin Frayer/Getty Images

mar … I would assume is worth any moral price Israel accrues.”

The trend can also be seen in Israel’s historical cooperation with apartheid South Africa and recent friendly relations with Viktor Orbán’s Hungary, Rodrigo Duterte’s Philippines and, most recently, Idriss Déby’s Chad — countries with questionable records.

Myanmar, then Burma, was Israel’s “first friend” in Asia. Both countries secured independence from the British in the same year, 1948. Burma’s first prime minister, U Nu, had a “soft spot for Israel” and was close with David Ben-Gurion, his Israeli counterpart. U Nu also was the first prime minister of any country to visit the Jewish state, doing so in 1955.

In 2011, Yaron Mayer, then the Israeli ambassador to Myanmar, told Moment magazine that Myanmar was “one of Israel’s few, true friends.”

In an interview with JTA in December, Ronen Gilor, the Israeli ambassador to Myan-

mar, noted the historical friendship and the nation’s geopolitically advantageous proximity to China and India — countries that have had limited relations with Israel.

“They respected Israel,” Gilor said. “This was a first for Southeast Asia, which was so important for us.

“Now,” he added, “Israel they know as a beautiful country.”

While relations waxed and waned, Israel always maintained an embassy in Myanmar and was one of the few countries to offer direct aid to the pariah state after Cyclone Nargis left 150,000 dead in 2008. Israel only stopped selling advanced weaponry to Myanmar’s military in 2017 following domestic and international uproar –– and a legal challenge that reached its High Court. (The court, at the behest of the government, kept its late December 2017 ruling secret.)

Asked about current Israeli intelligence sharing, military training or assistance in the

Rakhine State, the Myanmar Embassy in Tel Aviv referred questions to Israel.

“According to our knowledge and understanding, there is no[t] any information and any updated data in such kind of field as your concerns,” the embassy wrote to JTA in an email. “If you would like to know further and more clarified data, facts and figures about those matters, you may approach the relevant institutions of the Israeli Side. Functions of the Myanmar Embassy in Tel Aviv are very well transparent in every area and also in bilateral cooperation between two countries.”

The issue of Israeli cooperation with Myanmar is, however, far from “transparent.” In December 2017, Myanmar’s ambassador to Israel, U Maung Maung Lynn, said that Israel was still selling weapons to his country. Israel promptly reprimanded and “rebuked” the ambassador, who apologized and retracted his statement.

Israel’s Ministry of Defense, when contacted

by JTA, provided no clarification on current military exports to and cooperation with Myanmar.

“The defense export policy of Israel is constantly examined according to various considerations, including human rights status in the target country, as well as the policy of the UN Security Council and other international authorities,” the ministry wrote in an email.

Gilor in an interview with JTA refused to answer questions regarding Israeli cooperation with Myanmar’s military, saying that they were not related to the topic of JTA’s requested interview: the relationship between Judaism and Myanmar.

“I cannot see the connection,” the ambassador said when asked about military cooperation. He said the same thing when asked about Israeli officials’ refusal to utilize the term “Rohingya.” (Myanmar rejects the term and does See Myanmar on page 23

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Israelis enter huddle, embrace American football

By Josh Hasten, JNS Many Israelis came to work bleary-eyed on Monday morning, having stayed up all night watching the New England Patriots defeat the Los Angeles Rams in Super Bowl LIII. While the low-scoring affair wasn’t the most exciting of championship games, that didn’t dampen the jubilation.

As Steve Leibowitz, president and co-founder of the American Football in Israel (AFI) organization, told JNS, “the Patriots are Israel’s team.”

The Most Valuable Player in Sunday’s game was Julian Edelman, who identifies as Jewish and who several years ago made a special visit to Kraft Family Stadium in Jerusalem to run drills with the younger players and give them advice on football and life.

“Football in Israel has a new hero,” in addition to Tom Brady and Patriots owner Robert Kraft, says Leibowitz.

“It will take us a little while to process that fact,” he says, “We hope to have him back here very soon in the future.”

Leibowitz says that the Patriots became Israel’s favorite NFL franchise thanks to the nearly two-decade old friendship between the AFI and Kraft and his late wife, Myra. The Krafts have been the biggest supporters of football in Israel, assisting in the funding of the Kraft Family Stadium in 2000, near the Machane Yehuda outdoor market, and new Kraft Family Sports Campus on the outskirts of the city, which opened in 2017, boasting the country’s only full-sized regulation football field.

The sports complex is a multimillion-dollar facility built in partnership between the Krafts, the city of Jerusalem and Israel’s lottery authority. It was inaugurated in the presence of the Kraft family, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell and 18 NFL Hall of Famer’s — some of the best to ever play the game — who were invited to Israel for a week of touring by the Krafts.

Two teams in Israel lining up.

Erel Taly

While American football in Israel remains the fifth most popular sport behind soccer, basketball, volleyball and handball, the game has exploded in popularity since Leibowitz and his friend, Danny Gewirtz, started the AFI in 1988 with a handful of players playing “touch football.”

Today in Israel, more than 2,000 men, women and youth participate in seven different leagues of flag and tackle football. In addition, Israel sends delegations of both men’s and women’s teams to complete in international tournaments.

In fact, both the men’s and women’s flag squads are ranked in Europe, and according to Leibowitz, for the first time ever, “Israel is hosting the European Flag Football Championships from Aug. 29 to Sept. 1 at the new Kraft Family Sports Campus.”

Betzalel Friedman is the AFI’s director of

tackle football and commissioner of the adult men’s Kraft Family Israel Football League (IFL).

He tells JNS that currently more than 800 adults and high school players, who are in a separate league known as the Israel High School Football League (IHFL), currently play the traditional form of the sport with full pads and helmets.

Friedman points out how the sport is growing in Israel: while the flag leagues originally consisted of American players who were studying in Israel after high school or were American expats, “in the tackle football leagues, over 80 percent of the players are born Israelis and don’t have American parents.”

He believes that “tackle football appeals to Israelis — the physicality, the camaraderie, the strategy. It’s actually good preparation for military service because football shares so many aspects, including hard work, perseverance, disci-

pline and teamwork. And it also prepares you for life in general.”

Friedman says some teens start playing football in high school, take a break to fulfill their service in the Israel Defense Forces, and rejoin the game after they finish, playing in the adult league. “Those soldiers who aren’t in combat units usually play on through during their time in the IDF,” he says.

Several players who started playing competitively in the IFL ended up playing NCAA football in the United States. One former IFL player is currently an offensive lineman for a Division II school. Another made the team as a walk-on for Michigan, a Division I Big Ten powerhouse, but spent his career on the bench. That said, Friedman feels that the level of play in the IFL is on the rise as kids start to play at an earlier age.

But in order to have a professional sports league, in addition to players, certified coaches are necessary to enhance players’ skill sets, as are accredited referees to oversee games. That is where Ori Shterenbach comes in. He is the AFI’s sports director, and in addition to player development, also oversees the certification of coaches and referees.

Shterenbach tells JNS that to coach football in Israel, a coaching license through the Wingate Sports Institute near Netanya is required. Two or three times a year, professional coaches are flown in from the United States to run clinics for players and boost their skills.

In terms of referees, Shterenbach says that in the past two years, a training course for officials has been established, while the International Federation of American Football has sent representatives to assist in the training. Israeli referees have also flown to Europe for additional clinics.

He believes that the future for football in Israel is bright.

Like Friedman, Shterenbach tells JNS that See Football on page 23

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8

dle East, warned Freilich.

“Here, at least one state is calling for the destruction of others. The Americans, Soviets, Indians or Pakistanis never had that objective,” he noted. “The Americans wanted to end communism; the Soviets wanted to topple capitalist democracy. No one wanted to destroy the other.”

The Shi’ite theocratic regime in Tehran is “a very rational player, [but] its rationality is different from others. Its willingness to take risks is higher.”

Freilich said “the Saudis disconnected diplomatic relations with the Iranians. The Egyptians and the Iranians have not had links for decades. How do you manage a nuclear crisis without communications, and when you have seconds or minutes to act?”

And he echoed Shaul’s call that the key to avoiding a nuclear arms race rests, first and foremost, with stopping Iran from going nuclear.

At the same time, if Iran did end up going nuclear, there would be “no real solution” to a Middle East with multiple nuclear states, Freilich said. Israel ending its nuclear ambiguity would not have a major effect, he assessed, since all regional actors already assume that Israel is a nuclear state.

Freilich said he wouldn’t be surprised if the Syrians are trying to renew their nuclear program under the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad. Israel destroyed the nuclearweapons production site in eastern Syria in a 2007 airstrike.

In his report, Shaul noted that in 2017,

Egypt and Russia’s Rosatom energy cooperation signed a document to launch an Egyptian nuclear power plant west of Alexandria.

Saudi Arabia announced in 2011 that it planned to build 16 nuclear-power reactors by 2030 at a cost of $100 billion, which would generate around 20 percent of the country’s electricity needs.

Jordan, which currently imports more than 95 percent of its energy needs, plans to create nuclear power to generate 30 percent of its electricity needs by 2030. South Korean constructors built the Kingdom’s first nuclear reactor in 2013.

The UAE has built the first nuclear power plant in the Arab world. A further three South Korean-designed reactors are under construction.

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By Yaakov Lappin, JNS The danger of a Middle Eastern nuclear arms race in the near future is casting a shadow over the long-term future of a region that already has its fair share of security problems.

While such a race has yet to break out, former Israeli security officials have told JNS that several Sunni states in the region are watching Shi’ite Iran’s nuclear project with concern and could in future set up their own nuclear programs to counter the threat of a “Shi’ite bomb.”

Recent reports of an alleged new Saudi ballistic missile base have served as a reminder of a vow by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who warned in 2018 that if Iran acquired nuclear weapons, Saudi Arabia would follow suit.

For now, a number of Sunni states are creating civilian nuclear-energy programs. But such programs could in the future act as “shortcuts to military projects,” said Shaul Shay, a former deputy head of the National Security Council of Israel.

“Russia is the main supply source for the technology and the building of cores, as part of its economic and strategic interest,” he said.

A key to avoiding the outbreak of runaway nuclear proliferation in the Middle East is to stop Iran’s atomic ambitions, he argued.

“Israel must activate its influence to curb the Iranian nuclear project, in cooperation with the U.S. and Arab states,” Shay stated.

“There also needs to be tight supervision of the civilian projects in Arab states.”

The international community, for its part, must plays its role in restraining Tehran’s nuclear program, he added, noting that “there are states like Saudi Arabia that declare that if Iran will have nuclear weapons, it, too, will obtain this capability.”

Ultimately, he said, Israel has a “limited ability to influence the situation, and most of the burden is on the U.S., which must lead the processes.”

In a report published by Shay in February 2018 for the Institute for Policy and Strategy at the Herzliya Interdisciplinary Center, he wrote that countries in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) “have legitimate reasons to develop nuclear energy programs, but the nuclear initiative among the MENA countries can be also viewed as a response to the Iranian nuclear program in the context of their strategic competition with Iran.”

Shay warned that “the Middle East is in the process of going nuclear … several countries including Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and UAE have announced plans to build nuclear power plants and over the next decade.”

“Iran’s program has already triggered a number of civilian nuclear programs in other Sunni Arab countries,” he stated.

Chuck Freilich, a former deputy Israeli national security adviser and author of Israeli National Security: A New Strategy for an Era of Change, told JNS that prospects of a multilateral nuclear Middle East do not form “an immediate threat.”

“The Iranians, who are more advanced and sophisticated, certainly in nuclear scientific studies, have been working on this for 30 years and still don’t have nuclear weapons. Israel has prevented it. The other candidates — the Saudis, Egyptians and Turks — are 10, 20, perhaps 30 years away from reaching a capability. Maybe only the Saudis can do it faster, if they buy turnkey technology from Pakistan.

But it is not simple,” explained Freilich.

While not immediate, prospects of a nuclear arms race in the Middle East would be a “strategic nightmare” if they materialized, he cautioned. “These are not the capabilities that the Soviets and the U.S. had; it would not be the end of humanity. But the chances that someone might use these weapons in the Middle East are much higher,” Freilich argued.

The kind of deterrence and de-escalation paths that were available to Washington and Moscow during the Cold War, or “even to India and Pakistan,” are not present in the Mid-

THE JEWISH STAR February 8, 2019 • 3 Adar 1 5779

Nuke race in Mideast casts long-term shadow

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February 8, 2019 • 3 Adar 1 5779 THE JEWISH STAR

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The JEWISH STAR

Wine & Dine

How to weather your winter simcha Kosher Kitchen

JONI SCHOCKETT

Jewish Star columnist

T

here is nothing like a beautiful simcha to make the winter warm and wonderful. We live for these celebrations. No matter the weather, the freezing temperatures, the snow and ice, we make them work.

Making a beautiful simcha dinner for a crowd is not difficult. I have done a Shabbat dinner for 35 and brunches for the same several times. No matter the number of guests or the menu, with some planning, some help from family, some good friends, and some extra freezer space, we can make any home made simcha a success.

My wonderful daughter decided that she wanted a winter wedding for many reasons — most importantly, all the vendors would be less expensive in February. She loved the idea of a winter wonderland, and the wedding could be on Saturday night without a late start time.

So we planned. I made a brunch for the bridesmaids and new in-laws. Three weeks in advance, I froze and cooked and froze some more. Then I thawed and reheated and cooked some more. Some local culinary students from a nearby college helped serve, and over 50 guests ate well. We had a wonderful time. First event, a true success.

Then came February. I began to watch the weather like a hawk. Why? Because my treasured daughter was getting married on February 15, 2015. Remember that winter? The most snow — most blizzards — in the history of Massachusetts!

As the 15th approached, more bad weather was on its way. Still, we did not let a huge blizzard on February 14th get in the way. That night, the rehearsal dinner for 125 was familycatered by in-laws, family and friends. Several of my daughter’s local friends and I made about 2 dozen pies, the favorite dessert of the bride and groom. We ate, we sang, and we left at 11 in the midst of yet another raging storm. I was petrified! Can you postpone a wedding?

The next day, despite two feet of snow, the sun was blazing, the snow sparkled and the wedding went off without any problems. The few empty seats for out-of-town guests who could not get here were filled by local friends who were happy to celebrate with us.

So, should snow and the cold arrive, know that you can make anything work with some ingenuity, imagination, a little luck, and lots of love. After all, that’s what a simcha is about!

PS. Don’t be afraid to cook for your own simcha. Choose favorite recipes, make, freeze and enjoy!

Super Simple Eggplant Parmesan for a Crowd (Dairy) 8 eggplants 1 cup extra-virgin olive oil (more if needed) 2 to 3 lbs. shredded mozzarella cheese 1 to 2 lbs. grated Parmesan cheese 4 to 5 large jars (32 to 40 ounces) of your favorite marinara sauce 4 Tbsp. finely minced garlic Other Italian seasonings to taste, such as oregano, rosemary, basil red pepper flakes Peel and thinly slice the eggplants crosswise, about 1/3-inch thick slices. Place in a large bowl and sprinkle liberally with kosher salt. Set aside for 15 minutes, tossing the eggplant to evenly coat with the salt several times.

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Line three large rimmed baking dishes with aluminum foil.

Place a piece of parchment on each pan.

Rinse the eggplant thoroughly and place on paper towels to dry, turning once.

Meanwhile, brush the parchment liberally with olive oil. Place the eggplant slices on the parchment, crowding them as needed. Brush the top side with oil and place in the oven. Roast until softened and golden, about 15 to 20 minutes.

Rotate the pans once to ensure even roasting.

Remove from the oven and let cool.

Pour about 2 cups of sauce in the bottom of a 3-quart oblong casserole dish or a disposable half steam table pan. Drizzle with about 1 Tbsp. of olive oil and sprinkle with about 1 tsp. of garlic and any other spices and herbs you may like.

Place a lightly overlapping layer of eggplant over the sauce, sprinkle generously with mozzarella cheese and then a thin layer of Parmesan cheese, add more sauce, more garlic, spices and herbs, and another layer of eggplant. Press down gently with the back of a large spoon or a spatula.

Continue layering until the pan is about 3/4 full.

End with a generous layer of mozzarella cheese.

Place in the oven and cook for 30 minutes, until bubbly and the cheese is melted. Remove from the oven, sprinkle with grated Parmesan and return to the oven for 5 to 10 minutes, until melted.

Let sit for 10 minutes before serving. Each pan serves 6 to 10. Make enough for about 4 pans.

Can be wrapped tightly in foil and frozen for a week or so. Thaw overnight in the refrigerator and then cook covered with a sprinkle of fresh Parmesan at the end.

Baby Field Greens with Goat Cheese and Toasted Walnuts (Pareve) 25 cups mixed field greens 4 cup coarsely chopped walnuts 2 cups shredded carrots 1 lb. sliced mushrooms 2 cups dried cranberries 1-1/2 lb. herbed or plain goat cheese, crumbled or crumbled feta cheese Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Place the walnuts on a baking sheet and toast them in the oven for about 5 to 7 minutes, until they are fragrant. Check them at 5 minutes to prevent burn-

ing. Allow to cool.

Toss the field greens with the carrots and add the mushrooms and cranberries. Toss gently. Top with crumbled cheese and nuts and toss gently.

Add croutons, if you like. Serves 25.

Lemony Italian Vinaigrette (pareve) 3 cups extra virgin olive oil 1-1/4 cups freshly squeezed lemon juice 1/3 cup finely minced shallots 3 Tbsp. (scant) Dijon mustard 1 Tbsp. finely grated lemon zest 1 to 2 Tbsp. sugar (or to taste) Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste Place all ingredients in a jar with a tight-fitting lid. Shake well to emulsify. Either dress the salad before serving or serve in a gravy boat or in a bowl with a small ladle. Makes about 5 cups.

Can be made 3 to 5 days in advance.

Herbed Butter (dairy) 3 sticks salted butter at room temperature 2 cloves garlic, finely minced 1/2 cup fresh parsley, finely minced 1 tsp. tarragon, minced 1/2 tsp. freshly cracked mixed peppercorns (black, green, red, white) 1/3 cup snipped chives 1 tsp. Grated fresh onion or 2 tsp. onion powder 1 tsp. freshly squeezed lemon juice Mix all ingredients together with a whisk or with an electric mixer. Scrape into two or three small bowls or shape into a log, wrap tightly and refrigerate.

Can be made 3 to 5 days in advance or wrapped in several layers and frozen for several weeks.

11 THE JEWISH STAR February 8, 2019 • 3 Adar 1 5779

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Wine & Dine

Mushrooms in the kitchen: They grow on you Who’s in the Kitchen

JUDY JOSZEF

Jewish Star columnist

M

ushrooms are one of my favorite foods.

They’re an irresistible source of extraordinary flavors, textures, and aromas, and can be baked, fried, sautéed, mixed with meat, chicken, turkey, eggs or a myriad of vegetables.

I love them in my baby lamb chop appetizer, mixed into my stuffed baked potatoes, sautéed and baked into a quiche, mixed with caramelized onions and smothered on rib steaks and veal chops, and stuffed into Cornish hens — all of which I love to serve on Friday nights when having company.

Everyone I know loves mushrooms, except for my friend David Weber. His wife, Aviva, warned me that he didn’t like mushrooms, but in the 29 years since I met him and Aviva in Forest Hills, he never turned down my baby lamb chops in pastry dough, which were stuffed with mushrooms and smothered with mushroom sauce.

Just goes to show that even to those who dislike mushrooms, if prepared properly, they can taste really good!

Most of us don’t realize that mushrooms are not plants. They were reclassified in the 1960s as fungi. The part of the fungus that we see is only the “fruit” of the organism. The living body of the fungus is a mycelium, made out of a web of tiny filaments called hyphae and usually hidden in the soil, wood, or another food source.

All mushrooms are fungi but not all fungi are mushrooms. Fungi also include yeasts, slime molds, rusts and several other types of related organisms. There are an estimated 1.5 to 2 million species of fungi, of which only about 80,000 have been identified.

In some ways, mushrooms are more closely

related to animals than to plants. Like us, mushrooms take in oxygen for their digestion and metabolism and “exhale” carbon dioxide as a waste product. Fungal proteins are similar in many ways to animal proteins. Mushrooms grow from spores, not seeds, and a single mature mushroom will drop as many as 16 billion spores!

Here are some more interesting facts about mushrooms: Hieroglyphics found in the tombs of the Pharaohs suggest that the ancient Egyptians believed the mushroom to be “the plant of immortality.”

The mushroom’s distinct flavor so intoxicated these demigods, that they decreed mushrooms to be food for royalty alone, and prohibited any commoner from handling the delicacies.

Some South American Amazon tribes have one word that refers to both meat and mushrooms; they consider mushrooms as equivalent to meat in nutritive value.

Early Romans referred to mushrooms as the “food of the gods.”

Lastly, mushrooms are an excellent source of niacin, selenium, dietary fiber, potassium, Vitamins B1, B2, and D. They contain no cholesterol, are low in calories, fat and sodium and contain anti-oxidants to support a strong immune system.

One of my favorite types of mushrooms is the Portabella variety. One Portabella mushroom generally has more potassium than a banana.

It also is often used in place of meat in many dishes, making them great for vegetarians and earning them the name “beefsteak for the poor.”

Mushrooms, particularly the Portabella, are often used in place of meat in many dishes, making them great for vegetarians.

Stuffed Portabella Mushrooms 4 portabella mushroom caps 4 tsp. extra-virgin olive oil, plus additional for oiling pan and baking dish 1 cup red pepper, chopped 4 large green scallions, white and light green parts, chopped

1 large clove garlic, minced 1 tsp. fresh thyme, chopped 1 tsp. fresh garlic, chopped 1/2 tsp. sea salt 1/4 tsp. freshly ground black pepper 4 slices whole wheat bread, crusts removed, torn into small pieces 1 cup pasta sauce, homemade or from a jar 1/3 cup shredded mozzarella cheese, or cheese of your choice Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Wipe mushroom clean with a dry paper towel. Carefully scrape out black part underneath mushroom cap to reveal the off-white skin below. Lightly oil a small skillet or grill pan over medium heat. Place top part of mushroom down first and cook 3 to 5 minutes until slightly brown and mushroom begins to “sweat.” Turn over and cook for just another minute or two to soften slightly. Remove and set aside.

To make stuffing mixture: In another small skillet, over medium heat, place 4 tsp. olive oil and sauté red pepper and green onion for 2 to 3 minutes, just until vegetables begin to soften.

Add minced garlic, thyme and oregano. Stir and cook about one minute. Add torn bread pieces.

Stir together for an additional 30 to 45 seconds.

Season lightly with a little salt and pepper, stir again.

Place the stuffing mixture in the portabella caps and place in a lightly oiled baking dish. Cover with pasta sauce and grated cheese.

Cover with aluminum foil, making sure foil is not touching the cheese, and bake ten minutes.

Remove foil and put the dish under the broiler for about another minute, just to slightly brown the top.

This dish can be served as a main for lunch or brunch, an appetizer for dinner or on a buffet table. It’s sure to be a hit with your guests … unless you’re having David Weber.

A version of this column was published in 2012.

Bistritzky reboots Pomegranate roasted carrots the Seasons chain

By Jeffrey Bessen, Nassau Herald Joseph Bistritzky, son of a rabbi known for owning an iconic kosher deli on Manhattan’s Lower East Side, now owns the six-store Seasons supermarket chain, along with his family and a group of investors. The chain filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy last fall.

Bistritzky’s father, Rabbi Leibel Bistritzky, who passed away in 2013 at age 86, owned Bistritzky’s Kosher Gourmet Food and was a founder of Hatzalah of Crown Heights. His family left Nazi Germany when he was 12.

“We have redeveloped the operational side of many businesses by forming and training managerial teams to have a keen understanding of community relations and family interface,” Joseph Bistritzky said. “Each member of our family brings a different strength to our team. Together we have years of familiarity with kosher food manufacturing and distribution.”

Seasons said its former owner, Mayer Gold, will serve as vice president of operations.

Two Seasons locations are in the Five Towns — a supermarket on Central Avenue in Lawrence, and a 24/6 Seasons Xpress near the Inwood train station. Others stores are in Kew Gardens Hills and New Jersey.

A Scarsdale store is set to reopen in a new 10,000-square-foor space on March 3, four times its former size. Markets in Manhattan, Baltimore and Cleveland are now closed, and plans to open another Seasons Xpress on Peninsula Boulevard in Cedarhurst have been shelved.

Bistritzky spokeswoman Regina LoBiondo declined to comment on the status of new stores.

“We are not ready to comment on any other locations, but would be happy to share information when we have it,” she said.

Zeke Kreitner, general manager of the Seasons in Lawrence, said, “Seasons is looking to welcome our family back into the store for a long future. When the family comes back, we’re ready to start the party!”

By Leanne Shor, The Nosher Roasting vegetables is one of the easiest ways to prepare vegetables, not to mention the most delicious.

Roasting at a high heat caramelizes veggies, creating an amazing depth of flavor and natural sweetness that I find completely addictive.

For these pomegranateroasted carrots with sumac, I coat the carrots in pomegranate molasses before roasting.

Pomegranate molasses is a common ingredient used in Middle Eastern kitchens, and is basically concentrated, reduced pomegranate juice that has thickened and becomes syrupy. It is beautifully tart and sweet and can be found in any Middle Eastern grocery store or online. I also love adding pomegranate molasses to roasted chicken and slow-cooked meats like brisket.

Since this recipe is all about the carrots, the quality of the ingredients is very important. I always go for smaller carrots with the tops still attached, if I can find them. They tend to be more tender, less bitter, sweeter and much fresher than the larger variety in the 5-pound bags.

After the carrots have roasted, just before serving, I shower them with lots of fresh herbs like dill, mint and scallions, then generously sprinkle ground sumac all over. Like pomegranate molasses, sumac is another Middle Eastern ingredient that may be new to you. It

provides a natural tart, almost lemony flavor that counters the sweetness of the carrots. I finish it all off with some fresh pomegranate seeds on top that turn a simple carrot side dish into an absolute showstopper.

Ingredients: 2-1/2 to 3 lbs. carrots, with the leaves and tops still on 1/4 cup pomegranate molasses 3 Tbsp. olive oil 2 tsp. kosher salt 1 tsp. freshly ground black pepper 2 Tbsp. fresh dill sprigs 2 Tbsp. chopped scallions 1/4 cup chopped mint 1/2 cup pomegranate seeds 1 Tbsp. ground sumac Directions: Preheat the oven to 425 F. Peel the carrots, then cut the leaves and most of the tops off, leaving about 2 inches of the stems.

Place the carrots on a large rimmed baking sheet. Drizzle with olive oil, pomegranate molasses and toss to coat.

Sprinkle kosher salt and ground black pepper evenly over all of the carrots. Roast for 30 to 35 minutes or until caramelized and golden brown on the tops and bottoms. Don’t rush this part!

Place the carrots on a platter and sprinkle generously with the ground sumac. Top with freshly chopped herbs and pomegranate seeds. Can be served warm or at room temperature with salads.

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Mostly, abortion is murder. There are exceptions.

By Ben Sales, JTA When New York state liberalized its abortion law last week, the Catholic Church and Southern Baptist Convention unsurprisingly released statements slamming the action. And they were joined by two large Orthodox Jewish religious organizations: the Rabbinical Council of America and Agudath Israel of America.

“Jewish law opposes abortion, except in cases of danger to the mother,” read an RCA statement. “Most authorities consider feticide an act of murder; others deem it an act akin to the murder of potential life.

“The RCA maintains that ‘abortion on demand,’ even before twenty-four weeks from the commencement of pregnancy, is forbidden,” the statement continued. “There is no sanction to permit the abortion of a healthy fetus when

the mother’s life is not endangered.”

The Agudah in its statement declared that “Jewish tradition teaches that a human fetus has status and dignity, and that abortion is prohibited in the vast majority of pregnancies.”

Both groups said their statements merely reflect age-old Jewish legal opinions on when and how it is permissible to terminate a pregnancy. They also said they are not nearly as absolute as Christian groups on the issue.

Abortion, however, isn’t usually at the top of the Orthodox Jewish establishment’s legislative agenda. What’s different now is that a distinctly liberal abortion law has been passed in a state with a large number of Orthodox Jews. And it comes at a time when the Orthodox Jewish world is moving to the right politically and voting along the same lines as

conservative Christian communities.

“As you go to the right [religiously], you see people whose politics are more in line with those of the political right,” said Rabbi Mark Dratch, executive vice president of the RCA. “What our statement does is give a very centrist, traditional understanding of what the issues of abortion are that’s divorced from the politics of it.”

One other major Orthodox organization, the Orthodox Union, demurred from commenting on the issue.

“Because of the complexities involved with the halachic aspects of abortion, the OU has long refrained from lobbying on laws governing these issues,” the group told JTA in an email.

Agudah and RCA emphasized that they are not opposed to abortion in all cases, as Catholic

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and evangelical groups tend to be. Both said that Jewish law not only permits but in some cases requires abortion — for example, if the expectant mother’s life is threatened. And both said abortion could be permitted in other cases as well, like if it would prevent serious psychological harm to the expectant mother.

Under New York State’s new law, called the Reproductive Health Act, there are no barriers to abortion in the first 24 weeks of pregnancy.

Abortion is allowed until the end of the pregnancy if the woman’s life or health is in danger, or if the fetus is not viable. And abortion is decriminalized and moved into the state’s health code.

This conflicts with halacha, Agudah and the RCA said. Some Jewish legal opinions consider abortion to be murder, while others say it is prohibited either as damage to the mother or as a waste of a potential life. The two Orthodox groups said abortion is prohibited for non-Jews as well because the Torah prohibits murder for everyone, not just Jews.

“Halacha permits, indeed requires, a Jewish woman to terminate her pregnancy if there is any reasonable concern for her life, even, some major decisors have explained, if the concern is psychological in nature,” Rabbi Avi Shafran, Agudah’s director of media relations, wrote in an email to JTA. “Otherwise, abortion is forbidden (though not necessarily considered murder, as some other faith systems feel). From a public policy perspective, the devaluation of even potential human life is a societally unhealthy one. It will perforce spill over to the devaluing of all human life.”

Agudah has consistently opposed abortion in most cases. The statement noted that the group opposed the landmark Roe v. Wade decision permitting abortion nationally. And the Orthodox Union also opposed New York state’s 1970 law permitting abortion, which the new law replaces.

But Rachel Fryman, an Orthodox social worker on Long Island, supports the new law because it will remove some hardship from what already is a difficult decision for Orthodox women. Before the law passed, Fryman said, women who received rabbinic guidance to have a late-term abortion would have had to travel out of state and find a new health provider. Now they can have the abortion in-state.

“As a clinical social worker, a frum woman who has experienced infertility and multiple pregnancy loss, who has asked [for rabbinic guidance], I do not understand why this statement was necessary,” Fryman said. “When a woman has consulted with a rabbi and been given the religious recommendation to have an abortion, this gives her the opportunity to do it locally, without the emotional and financial hardship of finding a provider and having to travel out of state.”

Both Rabbis Shafran and Dratch said that all decisions about abortion should come after a conversation between a woman and her rabbi. For Sara Hurwitz, president of Yeshivat Maharat, an Orthodox seminary that ordains women clergy, that case-by-case sensitivity is why “no statement” is the best option for Orthodox organizations.

Hurwitz, who describes herself as a Rabba and emphasized that she was speaking only for herself, pointed toward a 1990 statement from the RCA on abortion that she felt was more nuanced. The statement opposes abortion in most cases but “[t]akes note of the different values of the many religious communities in America that are often at variance with one another, in the nature of a politically pluralistic society.” It also “[p]roclaims that neither the position of ‘pro-life’ nor the position of ‘pro-choice’ is acceptable to Halacha.”

This week’s statement from the RCA, Hurwitz said, may make Orthodox women afraid of seeking out the necessary guidance when considering whether they should have an abortion.

“The process and the decisions that go into a woman needing an abortion are complex and need to be carefully considered between the rabbi, doctor and family in any woman’s life,” she said. “To have a concrete, black-and-white See Abortion on page 22

15 THE JEWISH STAR February 8, 2019 • 3 Adar 1 5779

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Continued from page 1 lated protocol. That settled that — except no one has yet to figure out the Spartacus reference.

Booker champions reforming the justice system and has been known to play nice with Republicans — in 2012 he criticized the Obama campaign for demonizing Republican nominee Mitt Romney’s background in capital investment.

He’s 49, not married and a vegan — that should take care of the non-Jewish stuff. Now: He keeps a Hebrew Bible on his desk.

OK, Booker also keeps the New Testament, the Quran and the Bhagavad Gita, according to a 2013 Tablet profile, but as keen-eyed author Yair Rosenberg noted, the senator’s is not just any Tanakh — it’s an ArtScroll, which rhymes with “hardcore” for those who know from serious Bible study.

The Boteach bromance A friend invited Booker, a Rhodes scholar at Oxford University, to an event at L’Chaim, the university’s Jewish society. The friend didn’t show, but Booker quickly bonded with the group’s founder, Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, and they became fast and longtime friends.

Booker, a Baptist, went on to become president of L’Chaim.

“I would give him Baldwin and DuBois,” Booker told the New York Times in 2002 during his first run for Newark mayor, describing his relationship with Boteach, “and he would give me Hillel.”

Alex Edelman/Getty

Booker’s got cred and there are questions…

There’s video of a Purim party from the early 1990s with Boteach, wearing an outfit that appears to be decorated with pizza slices, riding on Booker’s back.

The boys went on to glory — Booker in 2006 winning the job of Newark mayor (he had lost the 2002 race) and Boteach writing manuals on “kosher sex” (what “kosher sex” is, exactly, remains as mysterious as Spartacus).

Things went south in 2015 when Booker, a senator since 2013, backed the Iran nuclear deal, and Boteach, who saw the deal as an existential threat to Israel, was heartbroken — and very publicly heartbroken in blogs, on Twitter and on the phone with whomever would listen.

Boteach was even more heartbroken when Booker did not mention him in his 2016 book “United,” on bringing Americans together.

“The book is not about my relationships with lots of friends or even different communities, such as the Latino community which embraced me, that have been impactful,” Booker told HuffPost. “He certainly was impactful. It’s not about that. It’s a book about a specific path. I am not sure why he’s reacting the way he is.”

He does Jewish weddings.

OK, he does them for his former chief of staff, Matt Klapper, who is now a senior adviser to his presidential campaign. Booker participated in the exchange of vows at Klapper’s 2016 wedding to Victoria Edelman.

He delivers drashas.

Booker likes to open his speeches, to Jews and non-Jews alike, with Torah analysis — and he likes to make a big deal about how weird it seems.

“Today I want to do something a little different than you were probably expecting from this Christian man from Newark, New Jersey,” Booker told Yale’s 2013 graduating class. “I want to do something that has probably never been done before at this university. I want to stand here as a Christian goy in all of my non-Jewish self and give you all a dvar Torah.”

Two years earlier he told Chabad of Greenwich, Connecticut, that “a tall black man from New Jersey” is about to talk about the week’s parsha. He advised the crowd to “get over it.”

The senator also likes to intimidate Jewish journalists with his knowledge.

“Booker at points seemed to know more about my Jewish culture than I did,” Jonathan Tepperman wrote in a 2002 profile in The New York Times Magazine.

“I’ve met most of the Senate’s other Jews, and I can say with a high degree of certainty

that Booker knows more Torah than they do,” Jeffrey Goldberg, now editor of The Atlantic, wrote in the New York Post in 2013.

In his first run for Newark mayor in 2002, when he tried to unseat incumbent Sharpe James, rumors circulated that Booker was a front for Jewish interests — and even that he was Jewish.

Flash forward to last October, and a wouldbe mail bomber who targeted prominent Jews — using anti-Semitic invective in at least one instance — also targeted Booker.

He changes his mind on Israel boycott laws.

Booker equivocated a long time before deciding to sign on to legislation last year that would penalize businesses that comply with Israel boycotts. Some of his fellow Democrats are concerned that the bills would impinge on speech freedoms. In fairness, he’s not alone: Another senator in the running for president, Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, at first backed the antiboycott bills, and now opposes them.

At a conference for progressives last year, Booker posed with an activist holding up a sign saying “From Palestine to Mexico, all the walls have got to go.”

“He didn’t have time to read the sign, and from his cursory glance he thought it was talking about Mexico and didn’t realize it had anything to do with Israel,” a spokesman told JTA at the time.

Continued from page 1 Regardless of perspective, the potential for a Schultz campaign has shaken up the political landscape. The 65-year-old, who Forbes estimated last year has a net worth of approximately $2.9 billion, has an intriguing backstory, from growing up in a working-class household in Brooklyn to making Starbucks into the global giant it is today.

Asked “what effect” his Jewishness would have on a campaign, Schultz said that “I am not running as a Jew if I decide to run for president, I’m running as an American who happens to be Jewish.”

Still, there are a few interesting Jewish tidbits about the coffee magnate and possible presidential contender.

He was raised in a working-class Jewish family Schultz grew up in federally subsidized housing in Brooklyn. His father, a World War II veteran, had a series of blue-collar jobs, including delivering cloth diapers. In a 2011 article for the Jewish website Aish, Schultz recalled coming home to find his father on the couch with a broken leg.

“He hated this job bitterly, but on this one day, he wished he had it back,” Schultz wrote.

“In 1960 in America, most companies had no workers’ compensation and no hospitalization for a blue-collar worker who had an accident. I saw firsthand the plight of the working class.”

That experience influenced Schultz, who said that at Starbucks, “What I wanted to try to do was build a kind of company that my father never got a chance to work for.”

He had a transformative encounter with an Orthodox rabbi In the Aish essay, Schultz recalled his meeting with the late Rabbi Nosson Tzvi Finkel on a trip to Israel with a group of American businessmen. Finkel, who led the prominent Mir Yeshiva, asked the group what the lesson of the Holocaust was, but no one could come up with a satisfactory answer. The rabbi shared a story of Jews in a concentration camp that made a point related to Schultz’s business.

“As they went into the area to sleep, only one person was given a blanket for every six. The person who received the blanket, when he went to bed, had to decide, ‘Am I going to push the blanket to the five other people who did not get one, or

am I going to pull it toward myself to stay warm?’

And Rabbi Finkel says, “It was during this defining moment that we learned the power of the human spirit because we pushed the blanket to five others.”

And with that he stood up and said, “Take your blanket. Take it back to America and push it to five other people.”

Talking to the rabbi clearly had a big impact on Schultz. In a 2015 article in The New York Times, he shared another anecdote from the meeting.

“A decade ago, I visited the Western Wall in Jerusalem with Nosson Tzvi Finkel, a widely respected rabbi in Israel. As we approached one of the holiest sites in Judaism, the rabbi halted about 10 yards away as a crowd of admirers gathered nearby. I beckoned him further. “‘I’ve never been closer than this,’ the rabbi told me. Astounded, I asked why. “‘You go,’ he said. ‘I’m not worthy.’”

Spencer Platt/Getty

Shultz is a Jew from the Brooklyn ‘hood…

Award from Aish Hatorah In 1998, Schultz traveled to Israel to receive the award from the outreach group and met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Among his fellow honorees were then-Sen. Joe Biden and former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. The Aish award is given to “men and women who have made dramatic contributions to American society and Jewish heritage.”

Starbucks once said Schultz does not donate to the Israeli government or army In 2014, the company clarified that neither it nor Schultz provide financial support to the Israeli government or army. Starbucks spokesman Jim Olson told CNN that the company released the statement because there had been an “uptick in false rumors out there about Starbucks and the Middle East.” At the time, a campaign calling for a boycott of the coffee chain due to its support for “the occupation of Palestine” had gained more than 240,000 supporters, according to CNN. It wasn’t the first time Schultz caught fire from pro-Palestinian activists. They have claimed See Schultz on page 22

Sanders’ views on Israel remain a big ‘oy’…

Continued from page 1 The Israel thing Sanders was the standout speaker at both of the post-election annual conferences of J Street, the Jewish Middle East policy group that’s critical of Israeli policies. His message jibed perfectly with the group’s: One can support Israel while criticizing its government for its settlement policies and for neglecting opportunities for peace.

Sanders has become a forceful and outspoken critic of how Israel handles its relationship with the Gaza Strip, posting multiple online videos packed with data about the dire humanitarian crisis in the strip and why he believes Israel is (in part) to blame.

That marshaling of facts and figures is quite a contrast with the Gaza-related foreign policy fumble that drew attention in 2016 to his lack of foreign policy cred: he vastly overestimated the number of Palestinian civilians killed in the 2014 Gaza war.

Sanders has become the de facto leader of

Sean Rayford/Getty Images

February 8, 2019 • 3 Adar 1 5779 THE JEWISH STAR

16

progressives in the Democratic party and his willingness, at times eagerness, to criticize Israel may be a signal of where the party is headed in terms of its relationship with the Jewish state.

Sanders also spent months on a kibbutz in his 20s and harbors an affection for Israel. If there’s one aspect of pro-Israel dogma that he has embraced, it’s that it is ridiculous to attack the country and not note the real threats posed to it by radical neighbors, and the worse human rights records in those countries.

He’s been consistent in decrying what he sees as a double standard applied to Israel. In 2017 he excoriated an Al Jazeera interviewer who challenged him for signing a Senate letter that called for fairer treatment of Israel at the United Nations.

In the same interview he also firmly rejected the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement

targeting Israel. (He is also outspoken opposing bills that would penalize boycotters, saying they infringe on speech freedoms.)

That’s Sanders off the cuff. The left that Sander represents has lost patience with Israel, and say that comparing Israel to its neighborhoods is classic “whataboutism.” It will be interesting to see if his campaign highlights the tough-love critic who supports Israel, or plays to a disinterested, even non-Zionist left.

Interestingly, one of the Gaza videos Sanders posted includes the criticism of Israel he offered in a J Street speech — but omits his defense of the country. He clearly gets along with even the party’s strongest critics: Rep. Rashida Tlaib, DMich., a Palestinian American who embraces BDS, calls him Amo (Uncle) Bernie.

The Jewish thing Sanders, historically, did not like talking in public about his Jewish upbringing, although his two best friends in Vermont are strongly identified Jews and he is involved there in the Jewish community. He isn’t the first Jew of

his generation to not make his Jewish identity front and center in his politics.

Times have changed, and politicians are encouraged, even expected to describe how culture and ethnicity imprint their beliefs. At a point during the campaign, Sanders started talking about how being raised Jewish had shaped him.

It’s a trajectory that has continued postcampaign. He shows emotion in considering families that perished during the Holocaust.

The identity thing Sanders campaigned for the candidate who defeated him for the nomination, Hillary Clinton, but wounds remain. Clinton, in her campaign biography, “What Happened,” said Sanders was not committed enough to the party.

More significant was the rift that opened up between the candidates’ supporters over whether Clinton’s embrace of identity politics among women and minorities was the party’s future, or whether it alienated the working class whites who eventually voted for Donald Trump. SandSee Sanders on page 22

Public Notices Nassau County does not discriminate on the basis of disability in admission to or access to, or treatment or employment in, its services, programs, or activities.

Upon request, accommodations such as those required by the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) will be provided to enable individuals with disabilities to participate in all services, programs, activities and public hearings and events conducted by the Treasurer’s Office.Upon request, information can be made available in Braille, large print, audio-tape or other alternative formats.

For additional information, please call (516) 571-2090 ext. 1-3715.

Dated: January 18, 2019THE N A S S A U COUNTYTREASURER Mineola, NewYork _____________________ TERMS OF SALE Such tax liens shall be sold subject to anyand all superior tax liens of sovereignties and other municipalities and to all claims of record which the County may have thereon and subject to the provisions of the Federal and State Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Civil Relief Acts.

However, such tax liens shall have priority over the County’s Differential Interest Lien, representing the excess, if any, of the interest and penalty borne at the maximum rate over the interest and penalty borne at the rate at which the lien is purchased.

The Purchaser acknowledges that the tax lien(s) sold pursuant to these Terms of Sale may be subject to pending bankruptcy proceedings and/or may become subject to such proceedings which may be commenced during the period in which a tax lien is held by a successful bidder or the assignee of same, which may modify a Purchaser’s rights with respect to the lien(s) and the property securing same.

Such bankruptcy proceedings shall not affect the validity of the tax lien.

In addition to being subject to pending bankruptcy proceedings and/or the Federal and State Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Civil Relief Acts, said purchaser’s right of foreclosure may be affected by the Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery and Enforcement Act(FIRREA),12

U.S.C. ss 1811 et.seq., with regard to real property under Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation(FDIC) receivership.

The County Treasurer reserves the right, without further notice and at any time, to withdraw from sale any of the parcels of land or premises herein listed. The Nassau County Treasurer reserves the right to intervene in any bankruptcy case/litigation where the property affected by the tax liens sold by the Treasurer is part of the bankruptcy estate. However, it is the sole responsibility of all tax lien purchasers to protect their legal interests in any bankruptcy case affecting their purchased tax lien, including but not limited to the filing of a proof of claim on their behalf, covering their investment in said tax lien. The Nassau County Treasurer and Nassau County and its agencies, assumes no responsibility for any legal representation of any tax lien purchaser in any legal proceeding including but not limited to a bankruptcy case where the purchased tax lien is at risk.

The rate of interest and penalty at which any person purchases the tax lien shall be established by his bid.

Each purchaser, immediately after the sale thereof, shall pay to the County Treasurer ten per cent of the amount for which the tax liens have been sold and the remaining ninety per cent within thirty days after such sale. If the purchaser at the tax sale shall fail to pay the remaining ninety per cent within ten days after he has been notified by the County Treasurer that the certificates of sale are ready for delivery, then all amounts deposited with the County Treasurer including but not limited to the ten per cent theretofore paid by him shall, without further notice or demand, be irrevocably forfeited by the purchaser and shall be retained by the County Treasurer as liquidated damages and the agreement to purchase shall be of no further effect. Time is of the essence in this sale. This sale is held pursuant to the Nassau County Administrative Code and interested parties are referred to such Code for additional information as to

terms of the sale, rights of purchasers, maximum rates of interest and other legal incidents of the sale.

Furthermore, as to the bidding, 1. The bidder(s) agree that they will not work with any other bidder(s) to increase, maintain or stabilize interest rates or collaborate with any other bidder(s) to gain an unfair competitive advantage in the random number generator in the event of a tie bid(s) on a tax certificate. Bidder(s) further agree not to employ any bidding strategy designed to create an unfair competitive advantage in the tiebreaking process in the upcoming tax sale nor work with any other bidder(s) to engage in any bidding strategy that will result in a rotational award of tax certificates.

2. The tax certificate(s) the Bidder will bid upon, and the interest rate(s) bid, will be arrived at independently and without direct or indirect consultation, communication or agreement with anyother bidder and that the tax certificate(s) the Bidder will bid upon, and the interest rate(s) to be bid, have not been disclosed, directly or indirectly, to any other bidder, and will not be disclosed, directly or indirectly, to any other bidder prior to the close of bidding. No attempt has been made or will be made to, directly or indirectly, induce any other bidder to refrain from bidding on any tax certificate, to submit complementary bids, or to submit bids at specific interest rates.

3. The bids to be placed by the Bidder will be made in good faith and not pursuant to any direct or indirect, agreement or discussion with, or inducement from, any other bidder to submit a complementary or other noncompetitive bid.

4. If it is determined that the bidder(s) have violated any of these bid requirements then their bid shall be voided and if they were the successful bidder the lien and any deposits made in connection with said bid shall be forfeited.

Dated: January 18, 2019 THE NASSAU COUNTY TREASURER Mineola, New York 106473 Place a notice by phone at 516-569-4000 x232 or email: legalnotices@liherald.com

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LEGAL NOTICE PUBLIC NOTICE OF NASSAU COUNTY TREASURER’S SALE OF TAX LIENS ON REAL ESTATE Notice is hereby given that commencing on February 19th, 2019, will sell at public on-line auction the tax liens on certain real estate, unless the owner, mortgagee, occupant of or any other party in interest in such real estate shall have paid to the County Treasurer

by February 14th, 2019 the total amount of such unpaid taxes or assessments with the interest, penalties and other expenses and charges against the property.

Such tax liens will be sold at the lowest rate of interest, not exceeding 10 percent per six-month period, for which any person or persons shall offer to take the total amount of such unpaid taxes as defined in Section 5-37.0 of the Nassau County Administrative Code.

Effective with the February 2019 lien sale Ordinance No. 175-2015 requires a $175.00 per day registration fee for each person who intends to bid at the tax lien sale.

Ordinance No. 175-2015 also requires that upon the issuance of the Lien Certificate there is due from the lien buyer a Tax Certificate Issue Fee of $20.00 per lien purchased.

Pursuant to the provisions of the Nassau County Administrative Code at the discretion of the Nassau County Treasurer the auction will be conducted online. Further information concerning the procedures for the auction is available at the website of the Nassau County Treasurer at: https://www.nassaucountyn y.gov/526/County-Treasurer Should the Treasurer determine that an in-person auction shall be held, same will commence on the 19th day of February 2019 at the Office of The County Treasurer 1 West Street, Mineola or at some other location to be determined by the Treasurer.

A list of all real estate in Nassau County on which tax liens are to be sold is available at the website of the Nassau County Treasurer at: http://www.nassaucountyny .gov/DocumentCenter/View/ 17674 A list of local properties upon which tax liens are to be sold will be advertised in this publication on or before February 14,2019.

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THE PORT AUTHORITY OF NY & NJ NOTICE OF AVAILABILITY

Federal Aviation Administration Documented Categorical Exclusion/Record of Decision For the Rehabilitation of Runway 4-22 and Associated Taxiways LaGuardia Airport, Flushing, New York Notice is hereby given that a copy of the Documented Categorical Exclusion/Record of Decision for the Rehabilitation of Runway 4-22 and Associated Taxiways at LaGuardia Airport, are available for review at the following locations:

Commercial & Residential • Licensed & Insured

The Documented Categorical Exclusion/Record of Decision for this project will be available at these locations until March 8, 2019. In addition, a copy of this document is available for public review online at: http://www.panynj.gov/about/studies-reports.html

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THE JEWISH STAR February 8, 2019 • 3 Adar 1 5779

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SHAbbAT STAR ‫כוכב של שבת‬ Foundations for our castles in the air

February 8, 2019 • 3 Adar 1 5779 THE JEWISH STAR

18

From heart of Jerusalem

RABBI BINNY FREEDMAN

Jewish Star columnist

M

any years ago, long before we founded Yeshivat Orayta, I was privileged to direct a program called Isralight, which was what some would call a kiruv, or outreach, program. The students, mostly post-college and young professionals, usually had a limited Jewish background and sought spirituality and meaning in their lives.

One day, as we were beginning a new threeweek program, a student walked in who looked vaguely familiar. Bareheaded, with a lumberjack beard and wearing jeans and a T-shirt, it took me a minute to realize that he had been in yeshiva with me, a few years younger. He came with his non-Jewish girlfriend with whom he was living. As he did not introduce himself, I decided to pretend I did not recognize him.

After a few days of class and discussion, we spent Shabbat in the Old City, and I decided to do something a little different. Usually at Shabbat meals I would teach and sing niggunim (tunes) without words, as most of the students did not know the traditional Shabbat zemirot songs.

But I recalled that this student had a beautiful voice. So that Friday night, I started singing a traditional Friday night zemer, thinking he might enjoy the memory. And as we sang, he started to cry.

I

sat up with him that Friday night, reminiscing about our days in yeshiva. I had a vivid memory of our rosh yeshiva, Rav Aharon Lichtenstein, asking him a difficult question during a class, and his deft response. How had someone in one of the top Talmud classes in the world, with one of the previous generation’s greatest Torah minds, ended up living with a non-Jew? He told me that after yeshiva high school and a year in Israel, he had gone on to a top Ivy League university.

He had maintained his learning and Jewish practice. He had a chavrusa twice a week.

All seemed fine, until one day someone asked him why he was studying all this Talmud, and he was not sure how to answer. It was just something you did.

The straw that broke the camel’s back happened not long after that, in a philosophy course he was taking. The professor asked if anyone believed in G-d, to which he readily responded in the affirmative. But when the professor asked, “So what is G-d?” he suddenly realized he had no idea. The walls came tumbling down.

He had built for himself over years of study a magnificent castle, a structure of Jewish practice and Talmudic analysis. But he had built it entirely in the air; it had no foundations, so it was only a matter of time before the winds of doubt would knock it down.

T

his week, we read the portion of Terumah.

After receiving the Torah we are enjoined

by G-d to build a Tabernacle, a place in the finite world where we can taste the Divine and experience the spiritual depth of a close relationship with Hashem.

As part of this project, the Jews were encouraged to donate and collect all that would be needed to build the Mishkan (Tabernacle) and all its magnificent vessels.

Rashi’s commentary points out that there were three funds set up. One was for sacrifices. Another was a half shekel from each person, for the general needs of the Mishkan. But the third special collection, mentioned first by Rashi (implying it is the fund with which the Torah begins the collection for the Mishkan) was for the sockets, the adanim, into which the walls of the Mishkan were inserted so that they could stand securely.

And one wonders: why a special collection for the sockets? There was no special collection for the Ark or menorah, so why for this insignificant piece of the building?

The last Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rav Menachem Mendel Schneerson shares that the sockets represent the foundation. They are the reason the structure can stand. A building is only as strong as its foundation.

Before we get too caught up in the magnifi-

It was only a matter of time before the winds of doubt would knock it down.

Inviting G-d to dwell among us Parsha of the Week

RABBI AVI BILLET Jewish Star columnist

I

n one of the opening statements of his essay “The Lonely Man of Faith,” Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik writes, “The nature of the dilemma can be stated in a three-word sentence.

I am lonely.”

He goes on to explain that he is not lonely in the sense of not having friends and loved ones.

That would be categorized as being “alone.” He is lonely, as in misunderstood by others, as in having thoughts and feelings that others don’t share, see, or relate to.

He relates this loneliness to the verse of “For my father and mother have abandoned me, and G-d has gathered me in” (Tehillim 27). I don’t even have my parents to lean on — all I have is G-d.

It is a fantastic essay.

Different life choices, and in particular some professions, can lead anyone to a similar kind of feeling. Several times have I heard Dr. David Pelcovitz tell the story of the Rebbe RaShab, the fifth Lubavitcher Rebbe (Sholom Dovber Schneersohn), who wrote in his diary of feeling similarly alone. He describes how he went to a famous doctor (possibly Freud) for help. The guidance he was given, which he found helpful, was to ask people for feedback on the work he was doing, as a rebbe, in helping them.

How does one fill the existential loneliness one might feel? For Rabbi Soloveitchik, having family, friends, colleagues, students, helped counter feeling alone. But it could not undo the

loneliness. Only G-d could do that.

It’s a fascinating concept that King David introduces us to: when parents are gone, G-d gathers me in.

But the truth is that this teaching is one of the oldest teachings in Parshat Terumah.

On the verse “They shall make for Me a sanctuary and I will dwell in them,” the literal interpretation or translation is hard to understand.

The verse should say, “And when you make a sanctuary for Me, I will dwell amongst you.” ost divrei Torah on this parsha that focus on this verse follow the interpretation that the creation of a sanctuary will translate to G-d being found in the hearts, minds, and bodies of the Israelites.

And I think that is really what Rabbi Soloveitchik was getting at. How does a person create a sanctuary of G-d in oneself, in order to, with G-d’s help, overcome loneliness?

Each of us ought to ask ourselves, does G-d dwell in me?

For those who are naturally more spiritual, perhaps the answer is an easy “Yes.” For others, each of us can hopefully find a way that “G-d’s presence in me” is tangible and noticeable.

What does it take? I think one important step is tapping into our tefillah experience. Of course, finding the strength to put away the phone during the week is paramount! Between the words of the siddur, the words of Psalms, and just the atmosphere we can easily create in the right space and with the right group of peo-

M

ple, we can let the words we say penetrate our hearts. I find the very familiar songs of Adon Olam and Yigdal to be so profound in helping us achieve that — except that we tend to view them as children’s songs. I have found sitting down, and reading the English while reciting the familiar Hebrew words, to be an absolute game-changer in remembering to Whom we are praying.

In explaining why Aharon became the High Priest over Moshe, the Slonimer Rebbe noted there are two kinds of humility. Moshe’s type came from an understanding of the infinity of G-d, and realizing that man is nothing in comparison. Aharon’s humility came from going through a broken heart, through feeling oneself as the lowest of the low, only able to stand in the presence of the Almighty because of G-d’s graciousness in accepting teshuvah. This is something Moshe couldn’t relate to. He hadn’t sinned with the Golden Calf. Aharon had.

If we can approach G-d with either kind of humility, we are well on our way of having G-d dwell in us.

Rabbi Soloveitchik’s loneliness was a type which should challenge each of us. How can I build to have such a relationship with G-d? How can I make my regular tefillah, my learning, my dedication, my service of G-d turn into an insurance policy, that I build on and continue to foster, so that when I need G-d, He carries me? Because I know if He is carrying me, if He dwells in me, I will never feel alone.

This teaching is one of the oldest in Parshat Terumah.

cent beauty of the Ark, and the intricate design of the menorah, representing the brilliance and light of Jewish wisdom, we have to be sure we have a strong foundation.

This student had effectively created a beautiful menorah of Torah study, and a palace of Jewish life and rituals. But he had never had the chance to build the strong foundations to ensure the palace would last.

The Ramchal, in the introduction to his classic eighteenth-century work Mesilat Yesharim, writes that many people in the traditional Jewish world are invested in advanced Torah study, while neglecting the foundations of a deeper connection with Hashem and the spiritual underpinnings of Judaism. e live in challenging times. Discounting the Orthodox community, over 70% of Jews in the West today marry outside the faith. And an Avi Chai Foundation study ten years ago concluded that even 25% of Orthodox Jewish students who attend secular colleges abandon their traditional identity (“Particularism in the University: Realities and Opportunities for Jewish Life on Campus,” Jan. 2006).

We need to take a closer look at the sockets of Jewish life and ensure the next generation is prepared for the challenges of life in a secular world. How do we connect with G-d? Is G-d relevant in our lives? Why keep kosher? Why pray? Why put on tefillin every morning? And the list goes on.

As we continue to build the Tabernacle of Judaism with our children, we need to be sure the sockets are secured as well.

Shabbat shalom from Jerusalem.

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Luach 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

Fri March 8 / 1 Adar 2 Pekudei Candlelighting: 5:35 pm Havdalah: 6:46 pm

Fri March 15 / 8 Adar 2 Vayikra Candlelighting: 6:43 pm Havdalah: 7:53 pm Five Towns times from the White Shul

The legacy of Moshe Arens ALAN JAY GERBER

Jewish Star columnist

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his week marks the Sheloshim commemorative of the passing of one of my heroes and a hero of our people, Moshe Arens.

Seven years ago I had the honor to have interviewed him in Jerusalem, focusing upon his authorship of his classic Flags Over The Warsaw Ghetto (Gefen Publishing). While my review focused primarily upon the inspirational role played by Rabbi Menachem Ziemba Hy”d, the face-to-face experience with Mr. Arens was in and of itself a memorable experience.

Arens’s role as a leader of our people was coupled with his private life as an aeronautical engineer, researcher, diplomat and politician.

Born in Lithuania to a family whose mother was a dentist and father an industrialist, Arens saw his world change when the family immigrated to the United States in 1939, just one step ahead of the outbreak of World War II and the Holocaust.

During the war, Arens served in the United

States Army Corps of Engineers as a technical sergeant. He was to settle in Israel in 1948 and join the Irgun. In 1951 he returned to the United States and studied engineering at MIT and aeronautical engineering at the California Institute of Technology. He later married Muriel Eisenberg, and together they had two sons and two daughters.

Arens returned to Israel and in 1957 became a professor at the Technion. He later devoted much of his study to the role of the Jewish Military Union in the Warsaw Ghetto, which fought alongside the Jewish Combat Organization in the Warsaw ghetto uprising, and most of his public career to politics, rising within the Likkud Party to serve in several prominent capacities: foreign minister, defense minister, member of the Knesset. n their tribute to his memory, the editors of The New York Sun wrote, “We didn’t know Arens well. In each of the several times we interviewed him, though, he made an impression for the shrewdness of his analysis and the quiet strength of his character.”

They focused on Arens’s devotion to the War-

saw ghetto revolt and its uniqueness in both the left and right uniting in their common struggle to defeat the Nazis.

“This emerged in sharp relief with the death, in 2009 in Poland, of Mark Edelman, leader of the vestige of the General Association of Jewish Workers known as the Bund…”

The Bund was a left-wing organization, and Arens, a right-wing leader, gave the Bund its due in his history of the struggle against the Nazis. “‘The Bund’s lofty ideas took precedence over reality,’ Arens wrote in 2009, ‘And cruel reality put an end to the Bund.’”

That, though, “was not because most Polish Jews deemed its ideology superior, but because the human base of the Bund was exterminated along with the rest of Polish Jewry, by the Germans during World War II. “Arens was no socialist. He reminded his readers, though, that the Bund had won among millions of Polish Jews a ‘loyalty that sustained them during the war years, and gave them the courage to heroically fight the Germans along

We didn’t know Arens well, but he made an impression.

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Why build the Mishkan?

Torah

RABBI DAVID ETENGOFF

Jewish Star columnist

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ur parasha, Terumah, focuses upon the mitzvah of constructing the Mishkan (portable desert Sanctuary). The verse that conveys this commandment is found early on in our Torah reading: “And they shall make Me a sanctuary (Mikdash) and I will dwell in their midst” (Shemot 25:8).

The Rambam (Maimonides) formulates this mitzvah in the following manner: “We are commanded to build a House of Service. In it we offer sacrifices, burn the eternal flame, offer our prayers, and congregate for the festivals each year … The source of this mitzvah is G-d’s statement, ‘And they shall make Me a sanctuary’” (Sefer HaMitzvot).

As the Mechilta d’Rabbi Yishmael notes, however, the very act of constructing a Mikdash for Hashem is quite problematic: Does G-d not fill the heavens and earth? How can any dwelling contain Him? This question is echoed in Yeshayahu’s wellknown declaration: “So says the L-rd, ‘The heavens are My throne and the earth is My footstool; which is the house that you will build for Me, and which is the place of My rest?’” (Yeshayahu 66:1) Rashi underscores the prophet’s proclamation in his commentary: “‘The heavens are my throne’ — [therefore] I do not need your Temple; ‘which is the house that you will build for Me’ — that is fitting for My Presence?”

We now have a true conundrum: If there is no need for a Mikdash, why did the Torah command us to build one, and why do we pray three times a day following the conclusion of Shemoneh Esrei, “May it be Your will, Hashem, our G-d and the G-d of our forefathers, that the Holy Temple be rebuilt, speedily in our days?”

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y rebbi and mentor, Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik zt”l, addresses our question in his analysis of the rationale for the construction of the Mikdash. He notes, “G-d created the world to reside in it, rather than reside in transcendence” (Chumash Mesoras HaRav, Shemot, page 226).

According to the Rav, this was precisely the extraordinary environment in which Adam and Chava initially lived: “Man could have continually experienced [G-d] instead of trying to infer His Presence through examining nature. But in the wake of the original sin by Adam and Eve, He retreated.”

Tragically, as a result of Adam and Chava having eaten from the Tree of Knowledge, Hashem withdrew into otherworldliness, and, as the Rav explains, humanity’s ability to continually experience Him abruptly ceased:

with other Jewish fighters, outnumbered and outgunned, in the Warsaw Ghetto uprising.’ His elegy to Edelman is one of the most affecting newspaper columns we’ve ever read.”

The Sun editorial concludes: “As Arens himself is laid to rest, the question nags at us still — why did Arens make such a bow to a hero at the other end of the ideological spectrum? Certainly Arens understood that if we are not vigilant, the dream of Herzl could yet be dealt as cruel a fate as what befell the Bund. Yet he also understood how hard it is to predict whence, in the depths of combat, heroism will be revealed.”

Arens was a man of great integrity.

May the legacy of Moshe Arens, now of blessed memory, teach us to continue to fight for our people’s rights to peace everlasting in our homeland, the Land of Israel.

“Had they not sinned, G-d would always have been close. As a result of Adam’s hiding and fear of communicating with G-d in the wake of his sin, G-d removed His Divine Presence.”

In sum, as a result of Adam’s sin and abject fear of further direct communication with Hashem, the Almighty removed His Shechinah and left mankind’s deep-rooted need for a dynamic connection to the Almighty unmet. Little wonder, then, that the Rav teaches us that the ultimate “…purpose of the tabernacle was to restore the relationship between man and G-d,” in order that His Shechinah could reside amongst us.

With Hashem’s help, may we strive to live lives wherein we continually seek the Almighty and search for his Holy Presence.

Moreover, “May it be Your will, Hashem, our G-d, and the G-d of our forefathers, that the Holy Temple be rebuilt, speedily in our days” in order that our relationship will be complete once again.

How can any dwelling contain G-d?

Some taxing thoughts for Parashat Terumah Angel for Shabbat

RABBI MARC D. ANGEL

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his week’s Torah portion describes the “fundraising campaign” of the ancient Israelites in connection with building the Mishkan, the temporary sanctuary while they were in the wilderness. The people were called upon to contribute according to the willingness of their hearts. The sanctuary was to be a reflection of the donors’ generosity and devotion.

Since those olden times, we have been involved in a never-ending series of campaigns — for our synagogues, schools, charitable institutions etc. A day hardly goes by when we are not solicited by one worthy cause or another, beseeching our support. Although we must necessarily make priorities in determining our contributions, we generally have the feeling that we are generous and kind people who contribute to the best of our ability.

In the United States, this is the season when we are involved in tax preparations, when we gather our financial data for the past year so that we can submit our taxes by April 15. This

process gives us a clear idea of our economic history for the past year. But it also tells us much about who we are, well beyond the category of economics.

People spend money on the things that are important to them. Our financial records are a clearer reflection of our values than anything we say.

Are we generous? We all like to think that we are. Now let us examine our actual financial records for the past year. How much charity did we give? The Shulchan Aruch teaches that one who gives 10% of income to charity is considered an average person. One who gives 20% is considered generous. One who gives less than 10% is considered stingy. Our tax forms will reveal our level of real — not imagined — generosity. o we value spiritual and religious life above materialistic concerns? We like to think we do. But our tax records will reveal the truth about ourselves. Did we spend more money on recreation than on our spiritual and religious needs? Did we spend more on vacation than we did on Jewish education for our-

selves and our children?

I have known people who claimed financial inability to pay synagogue dues but who spent considerable amounts on their summer homes.

Others regularly spend hundreds of dollars for an evening at a restaurant and theater, but say they cannot afford to donate to the annual UJA-Federation campaign or other communal charities. Or they send in $18! I know of families who have spent many thousands of dollars staying in luxurious hotels for Passover, but who contribute very small amounts to their synagogues and local day schools.

Our tax records show us what we did, not what we claimed to believe. How much did we spend in support of Jewish causes, humanitarian causes? How much did we donate to the institutions which are the backbone of our religious, charitable, medical and cultural infrastructure?

If promoting vital Jewish life is an uppermost concern of ours, this concern must be reflected in the way we invest our charitable dollars. The amounts we give — or do not give — are a stark and objective reflection of our priorities.

The amounts we give are a reflection of our priorities.

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If all Jews were merely “average” and contributed 10% of their annual incomes on charitable causes, then our synagogues, schools and communal institutions would not have deficits.

On the contrary, they would be so well-funded that they could provide more services and be more generous to those who could not afford these services.

A story is told that the accusing angel came before G-d on Yom Kippur, and cast aspersions of the prayers of the Jews. This angel said: “The Jews are not sincere. Put their prayers in this machine and grind them out. Then you will find the essence of their prayers.” G-d took the prayers and ground them through the machine.

In went the prayers and out came the words: “money, money, money.” The accusing angel rested his case. Then the defending angel asked G-d to put the prayers back into the machine a second time. G-d did so, and out came the words: “money for our synagogues, money for our yeshivot, money for the poor and downtrodden.” The defending angel won the day.

The money we earn is the fruit of our labor.

The money we spend is a reflection of our values. The way we allocate our funds — as evidenced in our tax records — tells us much about the meaning of our prayers and aspirations, and about who we really are.

THE JEWISH STAR February 8, 2019 • 3 Adar 1 5779

Kosher Bookworm

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February 8, 2019 • 3 Adar 1 5779 THE JEWISH STAR

20 View from Central Park

TEHILLA R. GOLDBERG

Short stories, big inspirations I

’m old school. My social media is limited.

I’m on Facebook, but I’m not that active.

While I have met some interesting people on Facebook, it is rare for me to really follow anyone. I do my socializing face-to-face.

One harmless surprise of social media has been video clips. At first, I found them annoying and a waste of time, but every once in a while I stumble upon a gem. Once there were short stories. These days, the brief video is that platform.

This week, I’ve seen quite a few powerful clips. There was the one about a musician who has devoted his retirement to playing classical music in elephant sanctuaries. He plays for elephants who were abused in circuses and tries to bring them a sense of calm. There was a sweet clip of two siblings playing basketball.

The older, age three or four, helped his toddler sibling get a ball into the hoop. ince it was International Holocaust Memorial Day, I encountered quite a few Holocaust videos, stories summing up the resilience of survivors.

There was the juxtaposed photo of a young IDF soldier on the left, and on the right a concentration camp victim. A grandchild in IDF uniform alongside his survivor grandparents.

Another showed iconic black-and-white World War II photos, recolored. I think this is powerful, for these people did not live their lives in black-and-white, in one dimension.

While normally I would be a stickler for black-and-white classics remaining in their original splendor, I thought this approach, bringing color and dimension to real-life stories and tragedies, has merit.

There were a couple more videos I came across. One was about Yehoshua Hershkowitz, an elderly Brooklyn Jew who recently passed away. He spent his life feeding the poor. Another was about a Jewish Good Samaritan who was relaxing at the beach when he saw a surfer crash into the boulders. He immediately ran to hold the surfer’s head above water, and valiantly stayed there for 30 minutes until emergency help arrived. No one knows who the mystery man is. He was seen walking away from the scene with his hand over his head, replacing the kippah he lost in the water. ut one video that stands out to me is from a few months back. It’s called “The Line Rider’s Beethoven’s 5th,” produced by someone named DoodleChaos. Trust me, it’s worth your four minutes and 25 seconds.

This clip is an engineering feat. From a few lines that become the outlines of two bikers and a road, brilliantly animated to Beethoven’s 5th, this is storytelling at its finest.

In a few minutes an epic journey is conveyed, with depth of emotion but without a word uttered — without any actual image or facial features but figures animated from lines on a keyboard. Whoever DoodleChaos is, he’s a master storyteller and a digital genius. The clip is a fusion of thoughtful film and classical music, the story of the little digital bikers laced with a true sense of loss, joy and meaning, defined with profundity and vulnerability. By the end of the four minutes, you might shed a tear.

Social media is good for more than just socializing and networking. It’s good for bursts of inspiration and feel-good videos you can always count on.

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Whether or not you are ‘visibly’ Jewish, they’re coming to get you Viewpoint

BEN COHEN

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ne evening about 30 years ago, my girlfriend, who is now my wife, returned to her small flat in London with her eyes swollen with tears, and the backs of her knees and thighs covered in painful bruises.

An hour earlier, she had been walking through Kings Cross train station when a young chassidic visitor to the city, lost in the web of the London Underground, approached her asking for directions. She duly took him to the correct platform for Heathrow Airport, picking up one of his suitcases along the way.

As she dropped him off and started walking back in the direction of her train, she heard footsteps behind her. Before she could turn around, she felt a series of brutal kicks to her legs. A voice hissed “You Jewish ----” in her ear as the kicks landed again.

Her assailant, a white male whose face she only glimpsed, ran off, leaving her terrified and dazed, while everyone around her carried on as if nothing had happened.

I have to admit I did a lousy job of comforting her. I was shocked and worried and angry, but I was also confused when she mentioned, with touching sweetness, her relief that the young chassid had been safely away from her when the attack occurred.

“Wait, what do you mean?” I blurted, as she sat down on the sofa with a cup of tea. “He attacked you because he thought you were Jewish, or because he saw you helping the chassidic kid?”

Exasperation flashed across her face. “What difference does it make?” she snapped. y stupid question was a lesson in how I’d internalized anti-Semitic stereotypes more than I cared to admit. It dawned on me that I’d asked it because, with her blonde hair and blue eyes, my wife didn’t “look Jewish.” But to the lout who assaulted her, she was as much of a Jew as the young chassid she’d assisted — and she was, therefore, unambiguously the victim of an anti-Semitic attack.

Like many victims of anti-Semitic violence, she didn’t report the assault to the police, and neither did I, processing the incident instead as an ugly and painful memory. To this day, it still troubles me that my first reaction was to wonder why the assailant had identified my wife as a Jew. If the assailant had spotted my wife helping the young chassid with his suitcase, then, to my mind, there was a rational explanation for why she’d been targeted. But what if the assailant had

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just decided on the spot that she was Jewish and therefore a legitimate target? That was too unpleasant to contemplate.On a purely empirical level, it’s a distinction that makes sense, insofar as hate-crime statistics show that “visible” Jews are more likely to face random violence than are “non-visibles” because, of course, they are identifiable as such by their clothing. But on a moral and political level, it is a distinction without value.

It reinforces, among both Jews and nonJews, the notion that violence against visible Jews can be explained away; lunatics prowl the streets of our cities, and some of them are antiSemites and racists with no self-control, so a Jew took a beating because he was unfortunate to be wearing a kippah in the wrong place at the wrong time. Next time, wear a baseball cap.

These generic platitudes are of little help in Crown Heights, home to the Chabad-Lubavitch movement, where in the last three months about a dozen Chassidic men have been brutally beaten up, leaving many in the community fearful, as one rabbi told me this week, of walking a couple of blocks to go to the store or visit a relative.

The most recent incidents took place within a few minutes of each other. Three AfricanAmerican youths attacked a 22-year-old yeshiva student who was chatting on his cell phone, leaving him bloodied and disoriented on the sidewalk. Minutes later, the same youths attacked a 51-year-old chassidic man, dragging him to the ground as they kicked and punched him without mercy. Two have since been arrested by the NYPD and charged with hate crimes.

It’s a miracle, frankly, that none of the vic-

tims have been killed, but if the trend is allowed to continue, that can easily change. ince the anti-Semitic riots of August 1991 in Crown Heights, there has been real progress in relations between the Orthodox Jews and African-Americans who live in the neighborhood side by side. And yet there is clearly a counter-process at work, expressed in the kind of violent and delinquent anti-Semitism that has become horribly familiar to French Jews living in poor neighborhoods of Paris alongside much larger Muslim immigrant communities.

Jewish community leaders in Crown Heights are right, therefore, when they insist on a proper investigation by city authorities into the circumstances underlying the current spate of antiSemitic violence. To casually invoke “historical grievances,” the Black Lives Matter movement, or any other convenient filter as the sole reason for these attacks doesn’t help anyone.

Similarly, that the Crown Heights situation is an exception, not the rule, for most American Jews shouldn’t lead us to complacency.

Violence against “visible” Jews is an expression of hatred towards all Jews. True, the “nonvisibles” among us are not on the frontlines — at least, not when we are casually walking the streets of our cities — but that is no reason for us to pretend that what’s happening in Crown Heights is not our problem.

Make no mistake: The fundamental impulse behind these assaults is the same impulse behind the Oct. 27 mass shooting of 11 men and women who became visibly Jewish as soon as they entered Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life Synagogue.

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GARY SCHIFF

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or the better part of the past century, Israel and Jewish leadership around the world have been trying everything possible to make peace with our Muslim Arab neighbors. Interfaith dialogue. International summits. Offering land for peace. Yet nothing has worked. In fact, the situation has been gotten worse as our neighbors are emboldened by territorial gains, hence the concern surrounding the much-anticipated “deal of the century” to be released by the Trump administration after Israeli elections.

Why has nothing worked? Because the underlying issue is that this is a religious war, not a political territorial dispute. So why not engage our religious leaders, especially those who speak our neighbors’ language and understand their culture?

The Mufti of Jerusalem, as well as Palestinian leaders, have said in speeches and inter-

Zeldin..

JONATHAN S. TOBIN Continued from page 1 is inescapable in 2019 politics, there ought to be no trouble finding common ground in support of key issues concerning the US-Israel alliance.

The trouble is that in a political environment in which the center really has collapsed, the space for Democrats and Republicans to come together is shrinking.

That’s what happened in the last week, in the latest controversy concerning Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.). Omar apologized for a past tweet in which she used a classic anti-Semitic

BDS… Politics to Go

JEFF DUNETZ

Jewish Star columnist Continued from page 1 The ISIS mention addressed the revelation that in 2016, Omar, then a Minnesota state legislator, wrote a letter to Judge Michael Davis seeking a light sentence for nine Minnesota men charged with trying to join the terrorist group.

The national media reported the Zeldin/ Omar tweet fight as a kind of “tit for tat.” Jew calls Muslim anti-Semite, Muslim calls Jew Islamophobe. This is a false equivalency. Zeldin based his charge of anti-Semitism on Omar’s support of BDS and her tweet about the Jewish powers of hypnosis. Omar’s charge of Islamophobia was based on Zeldin’s criticism. ut this story goes beyond a Twitter fight, as the anti-Semitism of the Democratic Party continues to come out of the closet, reflected in their support of the BDS movement.

The BDS movement grew out of the 2001 UN World Conference Against Racism, held in Durban, South Africa. It was an anti-Jewish hate fest. Copies of The Protocols of the Elders

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views for Arabic-speaking audiences that this is a religious war. Here is a classic excerpt from the Mufti of Jerusalem (courtesy of MEMRI): “I am filled with rage toward the Jews. I have never greeted a Jew when I came near one. I never will. They cannot even dream that I will.

The Jews do not dare to bother me because they are the most cowardly creatures Allah has ever created.”

Palestinian leaders have openly admitted that they purposely hide the religious aspect of the dispute; that for them, Israel is conquered Muslim territory.

If there is any hope of peace, maybe Jewish religious leaders who understand Arab culture, have lived in Arab lands, and can converse in Arabic can make some progress.

Maybe they hold the keys. nterestingly, these are also the people who garner the greatest respect in the ArabMuslim world. Here are two counterintuitive glimpses to illustrate the point.

Rabbi Ovadia Yosef was openly critical of

our neighbors, and vehemently opposed the disengagement. He called on the government to have “no mercy” on our enemies. Yet in the recent biography Maran by Yehuda Azoulay, Rabbi Yosef relates that Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak sought him out and asked for a blessing.

“After we finished, the President (Mubarak) asked everyone to leave the room … and told me, ‘Rabbi, please bless me. I believe in your blessing.’ I put my hands on his head and blessed him: May your presidency last many years.” (It lasted more than three decades.)

In June 1967, immediately after the Israel Defense Forces captured the Cave of Machpelah, an imam appeared and began chastising the soldiers for placing their dirty shoes on the rugs in a holy place. Rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu, who was there with the troops, told the imam to back off.

“These Jewish boys haven’t seen their imahot (matriarchs) and avot (patriarchs) in 2,000 years,” he said. “Their parents are

trope about Israel “hypnotizing” the world, but she then doubled down by comparing the Jewish state to Iran, mischaracterizing the nationstate law it passed last year, and reiterating her support for BDS and anti-Zionism, which is by definition an expression of anti-Semitism.

Rather than being punished by her party, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi gave her a coveted spot on the House Foreign Relations Committee.

While some Democrats — like the new Democratic Majority for Israel group — took issue with Omar, most were either silent (like Pelosi) or forgiving, such as the chairman of the House Foreign Relations Committee, Democrat Eliot Engel of the Bronx, who could do nothing more than say he hoped Omar would “grow” in the future. t was left to Rep. Lee Zeldin, Republican of Long Island, to publicly challenge Omar in a way that most in her party refused to do.

None of the moderates in the Democratic leadership thought to back his stand, or to defend him against the libelous claim of Omar and her left-wing allies that calling her to account

for her hate was “Islamophobic.”

After Zeldin prompted Omar to denounce an anti-Semitic voicemail he had received, the congresswoman invited him to Somali tea in her office. But it will take more than that to bridge the gap between her anti-Zionism and his ardent support for Israel.

The point here goes beyond a kerfuffle involving two junior members of Congress. It is that as much as some in both parties would wish it otherwise, this incident proves that the center is disappearing.

Under those circumstances, the lesson goes beyond the need to back Zeldin and resist Omar. It’s that when the loudest voices in both parties are not moderates who are capable of working across party lines, then the notion of a bipartisan consensus on any issue — let alone Israel — becomes a dubious theory rather than a reality.

Jonathan S. Tobin is editor-in-chief of JNS. This is an abridged version of his column, “The death of bipartisanship and Israel,” which can be found at TheJewishStar.com.

Respect comes from strength and religious commitment.

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of Zion were sold on conference grounds; antiIsrael protesters jeered “Zionism is racism, Israel is apartheid,” and “You have Palestinian blood on your hands”; fliers depicting Hitler with the question, “What if I had won?” circulated among conference attendees. The answer: “There would be NO Israel and NO Palestinian bloodshed.”

The conference was so anti-Semitic that U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell walked out.

A report issued by the NGOs (non-governmental organizations) at the conference urged a policy of complete and total isolation of Israel as an apartheid state, the imposition of mandatory and comprehensive sanctions and embargoes, the full cessation of all links (diplomatic, economic, social, aid, military cooperation, and training) between all states and Israel. Additionally, it called for condemnation of states who are supporting, aiding and abetting the Israeli apartheid state and its perpetration of racist crimes against humanity.

The BDS movement which grew from that conference bases its attacks on fabricated tales of human rights violations, double standards, comparisons to apartheid South Africa, and false accusations of war crimes. This movement has just one purpose: to delegitimize Israel and to deny the Jewish people their right to self-determination. The founders and leaders of BDS support a “one-state solution” that will destroy Israel as the Jewish state. Both the U.S. State Department and Pope Francis have declared that denying Jews the right to their own country is a form of anti-Semitism.

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ongress has been working on an antiBDS bill based on the premise that anti-Semitism is as evil as any other form of bigotry. The Democratic Party is trying to defeat the bill, saying it restricts first amendment free speech. They didn’t care about free speech when the Obama administration attempted to force the Washington Redskins to change their name. Nor did free speech matter when the DOJ sued a group of nuns because they wouldn’t recognize birth control as part of their company health plan, or when Oregon tried to force an observant Christian baker to make a cake for a same-sex wedding.

The Senate anti-BDS bill restricts the U.S. government from working with vendors that participate in BDS, the same way previous efforts restrict it from dealing with racist or misogynistic companies. It also allows state and local governments to impose the same restrictions.

The anti-BDS bill is expected to pass the GOP-controlled Senate this week despite 22 Senate Democrats voting against cloture, trying to stop the bill’s advancement in the upper chamber last week.

An anti-BDS bill is probably dead on arrival in the Democratic-controlled House. The House version is watered-down from the Senate one, allowing the president to make exceptions that enable the federal government to work with companies that participate in BDS. That won’t matter with Trump or other Republicans in the White House, but an anti-Semitic Democrat would render the bill useless.

It doesn’t help that some of the most recog-

thrilled to see them, and it’s just fine if their shoes are a little dirty.” He then turned to the imam and reminded him that he, on the other hand, was the son of a slave — Hagar.

The imam left in a huff, and the IDF commander began chastising the rabbi for his strong words to the imam. But a short while later, the imam appeared again and apologized to the rabbi. Rabbi Eliyahu turned to the soldiers and said to them, “I know these people. I grew up with them. You tell them the truth, and they understand it.” n these two snapshots, though you would not expect it, you can see that Rabbi Eliyahu was respected by Muslim religious leaders. So was Rabbi Ovadia Yosef. Imams sought their perspectives. Jordanian papers noted Rabbi Yosef’s fluent command of Arabic; even Palestinian Authority Mahmoud Abbas expressed condolences at his passing. In the Middle East, respect comes from strength and religious commitment.

There may be something to be learned from the Christian world and their enhanced connection to Israel in the past two decades.

Obviously, there are vast differences between Christians and Muslims. However, it was Rabbi Fabian Schoenfeld, an Orthodox rabbi, and Texas-based pastor John Hagee who planted the seeds and nurtured the creation of “Christians United for Israel.”

Their work was foundational in developing strong U.S. support for Israel. Strong religious leaders who spoke the same language and understood each other’s cultures were able to build connections and change the previously prevailing Christian perspective on Israel. Perhaps this is an important analogous lesson for us.

So, a note to the next government: Nothing else has worked. If there are any discussions aimed at reaching understanding, please give the Sephardic religious leadership, especially those with Arabic-speaking skills and a history of living together in the region with Muslims, a pivotal role.

Gary Schiff, a new immigrant to Israel, lives with his family in the eastern sections of Jerusalem bordering several Arab villages.

I

Find more opinions online at TheJewishStar.com/columns nizable newbies in the Democratic House are pro-BDS. These include, in addition to Omar, Reps. Rashida Tlaib of Michigan and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of Queens. dding fuel to the anti-Semitic fire, after her Twitter fight with Zeldin, Omar retweeted a message claiming that “Israel is like the south before 1963: millions of people under Israeli control are denied the right to vote, speak freely or assemble because of their ethnicity. It’s a democracy for Jews only. That’s not a real democracy.”

Omar added: “Many of them truly know this, but don’t want to accept it. In the same way, many Americans knew separate yet equal was immoral but remained silent until brave few were silent no more. They can attack, spin my words and vilify me, but they will not succeed in silencing me!”

Who are the “they”? It is clear that she is talking about the Jews — either American, Israeli or both. She is also lying. Every citizen of Israel can vote and run for office. That includes the 18 percent of the country who are Muslim, and another 8 percent who are neither Jewish or Muslim. Every citizen of Israel is eligible to run for public office. Arab Muslims serve in the Israeli government, as judges, and even in the IDF. Omar’s statement is meant to label Jews as bigots, and is an anti-Semitic lie.

Along with Omar, and other Democrats who publicly announced their support for BDS, the Democratic Party’s refusal to fight the anti-Semitic BDS movement should legitimately label the party itself as bigoted.

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THE JEWISH STAR February 8, 2019 • 3 Adar 1 5779

Do Sephardim hold key to dealing with Islam?

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February 8, 2019 • 3 Adar 1 5779 THE JEWISH STAR

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CAlendar of Events Wednesday Feb. 6

Networking: At Young Israel of Kew Gardens Hills, with Amb. Dani Dayan.

Hosted by the Queens Jewish link and the Bukharian Jewish Link. Free parking available. 7 pm. 7011 150th St, Flushing. 718880-2622. $15 in advance; $20 at the door.

Saturday Feb. 9

Chai Dinner: Chofetz Chaim Torah Center of Cedarhurst-Woodmere holds its 18th anniversary dinner at Lawrence Country Club, paying tribute to dedicated members and friends. 8:30 pm. 101 Causeway, Lawrence. CCTCdinner@gmail.com Tanach Shiur: Please join us for the 23rd season of the community-wide Tanach shiur. Rabbi Mordechai Sitorsky will be learning Perakim 58-59 of Tehillim.

7:15 pm. 8 Spruce St, Cedarhurst.

Sunday Feb. 10

Celebrating a Yovel: Yeshiva of Far Rockaway 50 years of Torah. Dinner chairmen Benjamin Brafman and Jonah Lobell.

The Sands, 1395 Beech St, Atlantic Beach.

Dinner@YOFR.org; 718-327-7600.

Monday Feb. 11

Inaugural Event: Yeshiva Nishmas HaTorah hosts its first dinner at the Seawane Country Club. 1300 Club Dr, Hewlett Harbor. 516-939-1526.

Yad Batya L’Kallah: 31st annual benefit auction, at the home of David & Bilhah Moradi. Event speaker: Rav Gav. Auction viewing 10 am to 5 pm; evening program begins at 7 pm. 72 Muriel Ave, Lawrence.

929-244-9255. $25.

Tuesday Feb. 12

Good Times Roll: Gourmet Glatt 9th Annual Bowl, to benefit Madraigos. Strike a better future for our youth. Registration at 8 pm; bowling begins at 9. 948 Broadway, Woodmere. Contact rlock@madraigos.org or call 516-371-3250 ext. 102.

Wednesday Feb. 13

Anniversary Dinner: Yeshiva Gedolah of the Five Towns celebrates 16 years.

Honoring Dr. & Mrs. Joshua Fox, Mr. & Mrs. Zev Hertz, and Rabbi & Mrs. Nesanel Snow. 7 pm. 728 Empire Ave, Far Rockaway. 516-295-8900 ext. 4; dinner@YGFT. org.

Saturday Feb. 16

Parent-Child Learning: Torah, pizza, raffle prizes, hosted by Young Israel of Jamaica Estates. Bring your own material, or have it provided for you! Open to children and teens of all ages. 7 pm. 83-10 188th St, Jamaica. Email youth@YIJE.org.

Tanach Shiur: Please join us for the 23rd season of the community-wide Tanach shiur. Rabbi Eytan Kobre will be learning Perakim 60-61 of Tehillim. 7:15 pm. 8 Spruce St, Cedarhurst.

Sunday Feb. 17

Beth Din Seminar on contemporary Beth Din practice, with sessions by Rabbi Mordechai Willig, Rabbi Yona Reiss, Michael Helfand, and more. presented by Beth Din of America, YU, RCA, and OU. CLE credit available. 9 am to 1 pm. 8 Spruce St, Cedarhurst. BethDin.org/register.

Sefer Torah: Rabbi & Mrs. Mordechai & Devorah Yaffe invite the community to participate in a Hachnasas Sefer Torah in memory of their parents. 10:30 am. 131 Washington Ave, Lawrence. AteresYaakov. com/yaffetorah.

Strangers at a survivor’s funeral

By Marcy Oster A rabbi in Toronto thought no one would show up in 13-degree weather for the funeral of a Holocaust survivor with virtually no family.

At 11 pm on the night before the noon funeral of Eddie Ford on Jan. 31, Rabbi Zale Newman posted the request for members of the Jewish community to attend the funeral.

“Won’t take long but please dress warmly,” he wrote.

Ford had survived the Holocaust by being hidden with a Christian family. Newman met him seven months ago, when the 85-year-old from Budapest was hospitalized with cancer that had spread throughout his body. Newman visited weekly before Shabbat and prior to Jewish holidays, writing in his post that Ford would recall his time as a young member of the choir in the Dohány Street Great Synagogue of Budapest. He

could only remember the tunes to the Shema sung when the Torah was taken out, and some lines of the Aleinu prayer.

Ford renewed his interest in Judaism while hospitalized, and one of his last requests, Ynet reported, was to have a Jewish funeral.

In response to the Facebook post, Newman wrote in a follow-up, three people responded that they would attend. So when he arrived at the Pardes Chaim Cemetery in north Toronto, he assumed that the long line of cars waiting to get in to the parking lot was for another funeral.

Newman soon learned that his Facebook post had been shared multiple times. The crowd was there for Ford’s funeral.

“I had to park far away and walk in the freezing wind to join an estimated 150 people in a huge, warm circle of love, as we gave Eddie a sweet, proper, fitting, loving send off to

the Next World,” Newman wrote.

“I am in tears just thinking about how humbling and awesome it is to be part of the Jewish People, who on very short notice would drop everything, leave whatever they were planning on doing, drive a long distance, to stand outside in an open field, on a super freezing, blowing, windy day to escort a sweet, little Jew from Budapest, who was unknown to almost all them, on his final journey,” he wrote. “And so tell me, WHO is like you, dear Nation of Israel?? G-d clearly chose wisely.”

The plot and funeral services were provided by the local Bikur Cholim organization, the same group that sent Newman to visit Ford.

In an essay on the Aish.com website, Newman said that Ford’s long-lost brother from a small town in Ontario arrived at the funeral after someone he knew read about the death on the internet and made the connection.

Abortion... Schultz... Sanders...

Continued from page 14 statement doesn’t allow for nuance, and I think it scares women from being able to seek out the care and help they may need, and to me that’s dangerous.”

This week’s RCA statement, said Sarah Mulhern, seems to adopt the language of the Christian right. Mulhern, a faculty member at Shalom Hartman Institute, a Jewish think tank, noted the statement uses the phrase “abortion on demand” and speaks of abortion in terms of murder.

Mulhern said most Jewish legal authorities don’t see abortion as equivalent to murder.

“I think the categories of personhood and murder are not really the native categories the Jewish discourse has used to evaluate the ethics of abortion,” she said, also speaking personally and not on behalf of her institution. The statement, Mulhern said, seems to “import the language of the normative American right. I don’t think it’s the most helpful and I wish they would have made different choices.”

But Rabbi Dratch of the RCA said his organization’s statement differs from the strictly prohibitive language of the Christian right, and that women’s needs are a core part of any conversation about abortion.

“What’s important to us is to understand facts and what our tradition tells us,” he said. “On this issue our position differs significantly from the Catholic Church or others on the right who are opposed to abortion in all circles. We’re not deaf to the impact on women in terms of their emotional and physical health.”

Very little Jewish discussion of abortion is black and white. Just as Orthodox groups do not advocate a blanket prohibition on abortions, the liberal Reform Jewish movement does not condone abortion in all cases, says Reform spiritual leader Audrey Korotkin.

While Reform Judaism says that Jewish tradition clearly prioritizes the life of the expectant mother over that of the fetus, Korotkin said the movement would discourage using abortion as a form of birth control. But as a matter of public policy, the Reform movement has repeatedly opposed any legislative limits on abortion access.

“It’s not just that the woman’s life is in danger,” said Korotkin, a member of the Reform movement’s responsa committee.

“There could be a situation of extreme illness, extreme emotional health. We believe that women ought to have access to the full range of reproductive medical services.”

Continued from page 16 his receiving the Aish award, as well as remarks he made at a Seattle synagogue in 2006 regarding the rise of anti-Semitism in the Middle East, show that he is anti-Palestinian.

Is Starbucks kosher?

It depends on who you ask, and when The question of whether kosher observers can enjoy Starbucks coffee isn’t straightforward. StarK used to keep a list of beverages that were “kosher-friendly,” meaning the agency deemed them permissible to consume without certification. But in July, Star-K said it could no longer vouch for those products. The agency now provides a more limited list of kosher-friendly products.

The list also includes items from Teavana, the tea company Starbucks acquired in 2012, although it deems that three of the items are only acceptable for people who are traveling. In 2013, Schultz indicated that the tea store would be certified kosher in the future. The clock apparently is still ticking on that one.

After the far-right rally in Charlottesville, Schultz spoke about being Jewish to his employees Days after the violence in Virginia, where neo-Nazis and white nationalists gathered and clashed with counterprotesters in August 2017, Schultz held a meeting with Starbucks employees.

“I come to you as an American, as a Jew, as a parent, as a grandparent, as an almost 40year partner of a company I love so dearly,” Schultz told them. “I come to you with profound, profound concern about the lack of character, morality, humanity and what this might mean for young children and young generations that are growing up at a time that we are imprinting them with behaviors and conduct that are beneath the United States of America.”

Starbucks came under fire for including a Jewish group in its diversity training After a Starbucks employee at a Philadelphia shop called police on two black men and had them arrested last year, the company announced that it would launch a new diversity training program. Starbucks said it consulted five civil rights leaders, including Anti-Defamation League’s national director, Jonathan Greenblatt, to develop the anti-bias training.

The inclusion of Greenblatt drew criticism from the anti-Zionist group Jewish Voice for Peace and Women’s March organizer Tamika Mallory, who accused the ADL of “constantly attacking black and brown people.”

In a statement following the criticism, Starbucks dropped Greenblatt’s name from the leaders of the training, though the coffee giant later denied that it had “demoted” the Jewish group.

Continued from page 16 ers, despite a strong civil rights history, appeared allergic to what he called pandering, especially to African-Americans. It cost him, especially in southern states where, he notes in his campaign autobiography, we “got decimated.”

He has worked hard to make up for the support he lost among minorities. He chose South Carolina, a nominating state where blacks turn out in large numbers in the Democratic primary, to forcefully denounce Trump as a racist. What’s worth watching is whether he backslides and the wounds reopen: He may be under pressure to distinguish himself from other Democratic candidates who will be seen as empowering women and minorities.

And he may be falling into old habits. His initial response to recent allegations that sexual harassment proliferated during his 2016 campaign was wanting: He said he’d been too busy to notice. In a recent deep dive by GQ, he once again denounced identity politics in less than sensitive terms “There are people who are very big into diversity but whose views end up being not particularly sympathetic to working people, whether they’re white or black or Latino,” he said. “They think that all that we need is people who are candidates who are black or white, who are black or Latino or woman or gay, regardless of what they stand for, that the end result is diversity.”

The age thing Sanders will be 79 when he runs again, which would, should he win the nomination, make him the oldest major party nominee ever.

Democrats are loath to appear ageist, but the issue already has reared its head in the campaign of Pete Buttigieg, the 37-year-old mayor of South Bend, Indiana. Buttigieg once lionized Sanders for daring to call himself a “socialist,” but gently suggested in a recent Washington Post profile that perhaps it was time for the senator to make way for the next generation.

“The politics of conviction that appealed to young people, with Bernie in 2016, can also be articulated successfully by the next generation,” Buttigieg said.

The Trump thing Sanders waited in 2016 until the end of the campaign to focus his energies on Trump, perhaps because, like many others, he did not believe Trump had a serious shot until it was too late.

That’s changed. In addition to calling Trump a racist, he has articulated his foreign policy as the anti-Trump: embracing and emphasizing human rights in dealing with other countries, and confronting autocrats.

As for Trump, we have an idea of what his anti-Sanders gambit would be: The nick-namer in chief refers to the senator from Vermont as “Crazy Bernie.”

Football...

Continued from page 8 “American football fits for Israelis in more ways than you would expect — the strategy, tactics and the aggressiveness. It is my job to open the world of football to the youth in a way so they can understand that football is a way of life. It is something that they can grow more and more through, and develop their skills more and more, and one day represent our country on the international level.”

While some may consider football a man’s game, that’s certainly not the case in Israel.

Myra Kraft was the driving force behind the launch of the women’s program. During one of her many visits to Kraft Stadium, she noticed that the girls were casual observers watching the boys play, and she felt passionately that they deserved a shot to lace up their cleats as well.

Rachel Shmidman, director of the Flag Football Leagues and also a player in both the women’s league — Women’s American Football in Israel (WAFI) and on the women’s national flag team — notes that the women’s national flag team has medaled at international tournaments. She says 140 women currently play football in Israel either in WAFI or in one of the coed leagues.

She tells JNS that she is hopeful that the women’s national team will win the European Championships as the host country this August. When asked what playing football means to her, Shmidman, 27, says “football has been my home, my friend, my escape and my center of gravity since I was about 13 years old. It’s a sense of belonging — knowing there are other women who share your passion for a sport we all love.”

She adds, “I was the weird kid in high school who walked around with a funny eggshaped ball. [I was] the commander in the army who gave up precious hours of sleep to watch games at 1 a.m., the college kid who had to debate between watching the Super Bowl and taking a final at eight the next morning (the Super Bowl usually won). Football has been the one constant in my life for almost 15 years, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

Yonah Mishaan, a legendary player and coach in both the flag and tackle leagues, currently serves as the vice president of Football in Israel. He tells JNS he is grateful for the

JEWISH STAR

New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft and Super Bowl MVP Julian Edelman at the Kraft Family Sports Complex in Jersualem.

support shown by the Kraft Family, as well as the support from Ayelet, an organization representing non-Olympic sports in Israel.

Regarding American football, he says “we are slowly but surely climbing the ladder as one of the powerhouse team sports in Israel.”

He believes that through the establishment of more and more after-school youth clinics and additional leagues, football will continue to grow.

Both Mishaan and Leibowitz say that to accomplish that, Israel requires more fullsized fields and facilities in strategic locations throughout the country akin to the new field at the Kraft Family Sports Complex.

“The next step, or as Mr. Kraft calls it in Hebrew, hachalom hagadol [the big dream],” says Leibowitz, “is to build several more football sports centers around the country. One in the south, one in the north and one in the center to compliment the one in Jerusalem, and we will be well on our way to becoming the third strongest team sport in the country.”

As for big dreams, the Patriots celebrated their sixth Super Bowl win on Sunday night.

In addition to supporting football in Israel, Kraft has business interests in Israel, and is well-known for his philanthropic work in Israel and around the world. This June, he is set to receive the Genesis Prize — what some consider to be the “Jewish Nobel” — at a ceremony in Jerusalem. Kraft has already decided to donate the $1 million monetary award to projects that combat anti-Semitism and the delegitimization of Israel.

But for now, Leibowitz is savoring victory — and the fact the MVP in the game was Julian Edelman.

Schools

will return next week

A policeman observes charred rubble and the corpses of workers following the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in March 1911.

Hulton Archive/Getty Images

Deadly Triangle fire inspires a composer

By Curt Schleier, JTA Was it coincidence or fate that the New York Philharmonic commissioned Julia Wolfe to compose a new piece about the deadly fire at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory?

For years, she has passed the site on New York’s Greene Street and Washington Place where 146 young women, all Eastern European Jewish and Italian immigrants, died on March 25, 1911. The factory was overcrowded and its exits locked or inaccessible, and the sight of women and girls leaping to their deaths haunted Greenwich Village for generations.

In the aftermath, there were massive protests led by the teenager Clara Lemlich and militant trade unionist Rose Schneiderman, the “farbrente Yiddishe meydlekh” (firebrand Jewish girls), that ultimately led to improved conditions in garment factories.

“The subject is really close to my heart, and I’ve been thinking about it for years,” said Wolfe, a music professor at nearby New York University.

For three nights at Lincoln Center beginning Jan. 24, her composition for full orchestra and voices, “Fire in My Mouth,” will be the centerpiece of a two-week outreach program by the orchestra called New York Stories: Threads of Our City, which examines the city’s immigrant roots.

The piece takes its title from Lemlich, who two years before the fire had helped inspire what then was the largest strike by female workers in the United States. Recalling her activist youth, an aging Lemlich told an interviewer, “Ah, then I had fire in my mouth!”

In several ways, this is familiar terrain for Wolfe. She has written about labor previously, most famously in “Anthracite Fields,” a piece about Pennsylvania coal miners that earned her a Pulitzer Prize. When she won a MacArthur “genius” grant in 2016, the foundation cited her “highly physical, large-scale narrative compositions that reimagine folk traditions and lore and address issues of the American worker.”

Her father-in-law, an immigrant from Poland, was a cutter in the garment business.

She lived 10 years in the Hillman Houses, a Manhattan cooperative originally built by the Amalgamated Clothing Workers for its members and named after the ACW’s founder and first president, Sidney Hillman.

Wolfe, a Sabbath observer and self-described “kosher vegetarian,” is a member of the Stanton Street Shul, a 10-minute walk from the ill-fated factory, now known as the Brown Building. On its walls are three plaques recalling the fire and its victims.

In the program notes, Wolfe describes the factory workers and their working conditions.

“They arrived to these shores with sewing skills and were eager to work on the large factory floors,” she writes. “They sat at long tables, working long hours, amidst the roar of hundreds of sewing machines. The garment workers had no recourse against intolerable conditions, no worker protections. They began to organize. I became fascinated by the young women who led the fight for reform — Clara Lemlich, Rose Schneiderman, and others, who persevered against extreme obstacles.”

Though not exclusively, Wolfe’s compositions largely combine music and words. She has used religious texts in her work, notably an eightminute piece for a large ensemble called “Guard My Tongue,” which adapts the last prayer said thrice daily at the conclusion of the Amidah.

“Fire in My Mouth” pays homage to the victims using text drawn from oral histories, contemporary accounts and the protests that followed. Factory sounds can be heard. A snippet from a speech by Schneiderman condemns the public for ignoring the working conditions of the day.

“I would be a traitor to those poor burned bodies if I were to speak of good fellowship,” the speech says. “I have tried you good people of the public, and I have found you wanting.”

Wolfe read more than 20 books as part of her research about the fire and “women in the workplace at that time. So it requires time and energy to read and then write the text to music.”

Still, preparing the text first has an upside, as it provides a road map for the tone of the music — for example, where mournful and joyful sounds should be placed.

“The text is sort of a gift,” Wolfe explains, “it builds the logic of the piece for you.”

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Continued from page 6 not recognize them as citizens, instead considering them to be “Bengalis” or foreigners.)

But Sammy Samuels, the de facto leader of Myanmar’s Jewish community, told JTA that the Burmese largely consider Israel and Judaism to be inseparable.

“The Burmese population, if you tell them ‘Judaism,’ they don’t know, but if you tell ‘Israel,’ they feel like Israel is a religion. They fully respect Israel,” Sammy told JTA. Israel has remained largely steadfast in its support for Myanmar’s civilian government, which is led by Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi. Her disdain for the Rohingya is well-documented, and human rights groups have criticized her widely for refusing to condemn the military’s actions.

In 2012, Suu Kyi said that she did not know if the Rohingya could be regarded as citizens, and she has refused to use the term “Rohingya.” Myanmar’s military leaders — over whom Suu Kyi wields no control — say their

23 THE JEWISH STAR February 8, 2019 • 3 Adar 1 5779

Myanmar...

actions in the Rakhine State are a response to attacks by Muslim militants, including the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army, who they say have a separatist agenda and are funded by foreign groups.

Gilor refused to speak with JTA about the Rohingya issue, although a few days before he spoke more openly with Mizzima, a Myanmar news site.

“Humanity is full of conflicts, and along the way of the democratization of Myanmar you also have conflicts that you have to solve,” Gilor said of the Rohingya crisis. “It is not easy — you have the media, you have the international community, you have expectations of all kinds.”

The ambassador also praised Suu Kyi. “Suu Kyi now is a leader of a country. She is not any more a human rights activist. She is a leader and, as a leader, she has to take care of many things. For example the relationship with the Myanmar military, which is very important,” he said. “Now OK, the international community has many demands for help because of the long history of, you know, between her and the international community.”

As Ambassador Gilor told JTA: “Suu Kyi has an open invitation to visit Israel.”

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