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Ki Tisa • Feb. 22, 2019 • 17 Adar 1, 5779 • Expanded Torah section pages 18–20 • Luach page 18 • Vol 18, No 7

Please, Mr. President, don’t repeat Obama’s failed ‘peace process’ stephen M. Flatow

ast American administrations invested so heavily in fruitless attempts to facilitate Arab-Israel negotiations that American envoys came to be known as “peace processors” — that is, they were so focused on maintaining the appearance of a “process,” that they couldn’t face up to the obvious fact that the Palestinian Arabs just don’t want peace. In other words, for the Obama administration and its predecessors, process was more important than peace. Is the Trump administration repeating Obama’s mistake? US envoys Jason Greenblatt and Jared Kushner have announced that they will soon be heading back to the Mideast for yet another round of diplomacy concerning their not-yet-revealed “peace

rightly pointed out, “PA laws will provide [the killers] financial rewards. Look no further to why there is no peace.” The PA responded by calling the ambassador a “son of a dog” and demanding that he be added to the US “global terror list.” n an address last September, Ambassador Friedman remarked that “Since 1994, the United States has thrown more than $10 billion in humanitarian aid to the Palestinians,” yet “we found that these expenditures were bringing the region no closer to peace or stability, not even by a millimeter.” In December, the ambassador tweeted: “The Pal Authority maintains laws that will compensate these terrorists and their families for their heinous acts. The PA can be a political body OR a sponsor of terror, not both.” It’s pretty obvious which one of those the PA has chosen. White House envoy Jason Greenblatt likewise has shared some blunt See Peace on page 3

President Trump on Sept. 11, 2011.

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plan.” The administration’s persistent courtship of the Palestinian Authority is puzzling precisely because it seems to be odd with the statements of senior US officials and envoys. After the murder of Israeli rabbi Raziel Shevach a year ago, the US ambassador to Israel, David Friedman,

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Pink donuts were sponsored by Molly Klein and family in honor of Molly’s Aunt Lisa Altman a”h. Proceeds from the donut sale — along with the sale of pink lemonade, Pink Day Challah, special shirts from Make It, and raffle tickets for prizes donated by Clementine, Kiss & MakeUp, Mike’s

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A student from HAFTR at the Auschwitz-Birkenau site in Poland in 2016.

Shoah clash cools Israel-Poland ties By Sam Sokol, JTA JERUSALEM — It was meant to be a diplomatic triumph for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu: a much-touted diplomatic summit in Jerusalem on Monday with four Central European states. Instead, harsh words from Israel’s acting foreign minister opened a diplomatic rift threatening to severely damage Israeli-Polish relations, and the summit was cancelled. See CLASH on page 16

HAFTR goes pink to support Sharsheret HAFTR middle and high school students joined Sharsheret last Wednesday for the school’s annual Pink Day to support breast cancer awareness and raise money for this important organization. In the middle school, students had the opportunity to ditch school uniforms for a day, dressing in their Pink Day best in exchange for a $2 donation.

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Burgers, Jus by Julie, and H2O — were donated to Sharsheret. HAFTR HS welcomed Rebecca Cohen (in center of picture), Long Island Outreach Coordinator for Sharsheret. She presented a moving video of breast cancer survivors and described how Sharsheret has helped many people in the community.

Israel’s pick for E’Vision Kobi Marimi, who mixes pop and opera, will represent Israel at Eurovision. Marimi on Tuesday won the Israeli reality show “Kochav Habah” with performances of Bon Jovi and Beatles hits. The show went forward without Shalva Band, which announced last week that it would pull out over a required Eurovision rehearsal on Shabbat.

Correction

Last week’s headline above a commentary on Shalva Band emphasized a political angle that was not central to the story, which is the band’s decision to put the honor of Shabbat ahead of transitory fame — as the commentary itself emphasized. We regret any confusion the headline may have caused.

Korea’s first mikvah features Asian aesthetics Binah Messinger was faced with a unique challenge when her husband, Capt. Joseph Messinger, a US Army chaplain, was stationed in South Korea. With no mikvah on the Korean peninsula, observing the laws of family purity required some time, expense, and, when necessary, a little maneuvering. “You could go to Japan or China to a mikvah there, and that’s a whole ordeal,” said Messinger.

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“I went to Japan one time after my daughter was born, and it took me 22 hours round trip. I didn’t want to go to China because that was even more complicated and came with a visa issue.” Of course, using the waters of a nearby beach was a possibility, with someone there to ensure that her immersion was complete, but that required waiting until very late when the beaches in Korea were empty. Other women she knew went with ChabadLubavitch emissary Mussy Litzman to the ocean about 90 minutes from Seoul. But with the military base two hours away without traffic, that, too, wasn’t an ideal solution. Women who choose to fly overseas have to deal with last-minute flights, since they can’t always time in advance when they will need the use of a mikvah. That can translate into paying premium-priced ticket rates and scrambling to arrange childcare — all to observe what is one of Judaism’s most private and important mitzvahs. Now the Litzman and her husband, Rabbi Osher Litzman, co-directors of Chabad of Korea, are building South Korea’s first mikvah. To do so, the couple have become de facto designers, making sure that the community mikvah is aesthetically pleasing, in keeping with the natural themes of Asia. “We wanted to have a mikvah that every woman would be happy to use,” said Mussy Litzman. “We didn’t skimp to make that happen. If we were building a mikvah for people to use, why not make it the best possible? “Thank G-d, the feedback is unbelievable, and we haven’t even finished it yet.” The mikvah is expected to open in about six weeks. At any given time, several hundred Jews call South Korea home. This number includes educators, US Army personnel and their families, students, diplomats, tourists and businesspeople from around the world, mostly the United States and Israel. —Chabad.Org

Korea’s first mikvah — pictured outside and inside — is expected to open in a few weeks. Rabbi Osher Litzman, seen oveseeing construction, is not an interior designer, but he and Mussy Litzman conceived of the mikvah’s unique raindrop layout, which they used instead of a square pool of water. Chabad.org

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February 22, 2019 • 17 Adar 1, 5779 THE JEWISH STAR

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‘Killing fields’ of social media’ are blamed for rising anti-Semitism

Continued from page 1 words about the PA. In a December 3 tweet, he wrote that it was “absurd” that the PA “now tries to defend Hamas & terrorism by undermining a condemnation of Hamas at the UN. It’s time to speak the truth.” And in a Dec. 11 op-ed on FoxNews.com, he wrote: “The Palestinian Authority continues to reward terrorists and their families and fails to condemn Palestinian terrorist attacks against Israelis. It also defends Hamas, an unrepentant terrorist organization.” Just last week, Greenblatt tweeted to a PA spokesman: “You’re doing nothing [for peace]. You can’t claim to want peace and also try to sabotage the potential for an agreement.” Greenblatt also accused the PA of wanting “only benefits and no responsibilities” from its relationship with the United States. Meanwhile, two congressmen have just managed to pry loose from the US Government Accountability Office a previously classified report on schools in the Palestinian Authority areas. The 65-page report states that the PA school curriculum uses “militaristic and adversarial imagery, and preaches the values of resistance.” Even math equations are “problematic,” the report found, citing math problems based on the numbers of Arabs allegedly killed by Israelis in various conflicts. I guess that would

stantially,” said Herzog, a former Labor Party leader, citing Saturday’s verbal attack against French Jewish philosopher Alain Finkielkraut in central Paris. The incident was captured on camera, with protesters yelling “Dirty Jew,” “you’re a hater, you’re going to die, you’re going to hell,” “Dirty Zionist,” “France is ours,” and “return to Tel Aviv.” This “is another shocking example of a phenomenon we are seeing all over the world,” Herzog said. “Pittsburgh doesn’t stand alone.” Eleven people were killed when a gunman entered the Tree of Life synagogue building in Pittsburgh last October during Shabbat morning services and opened fire. “We live in one of the darker eras of modern times” with regard to bigotry against Jews, he also said. Addressing the gathering at the Inbal Hotel, Israeli President Reuven Rivlin said that he felt like he was at a family reunion, saying that “like families we are united in times of celebration and unfortunately, in times of tragedy. We in Israel felt such pain when we heard about the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting. And I know that you cried, with all of Israel, over the murder of Ori Ansbacher z”l, of blessed memory, and all the other victims of terror. “Like the best families we share a mutual commitment,” Rivlin said. “Like the best families, we argue, but we know that what unites us is more important than what divides us. This year, our reunion is more important than ever. We continue to witness growing anti-Semitic incidents around the world, including in North America.” Herzog called on Jewish organizations in the Diaspora to work with the Jewish Agency to lobby governments to increase anti-Semitism and Holocaust education, and to promote the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of anti-Semitism. be something like: “One glorious Palestinian martyr viciously murdered by Israeli Nazis while trying to liberate Palestine, plus two heroic Palestinian fighters savagely slaughtered by Israeli criminals while battling against the evil occupation, equals what?” et US envoys Greenblatt and Kushner are on their way back the region, in order to tell Arab representatives about “the economic portion of the US peace proposal for Israel and the PA … which is expected to include a combination of aid and investment to help the Palestinian people,” an unnamed US official told Reuters. Translation: the Trump plan includes the US and others pumping billions of dollars into the corrupt terrorist Palestinian Authority regime and the Palestinian state that the plan will reportedly propose to establish. Talk about throwing good money after bad! One of the most reprehensible images of the pre-Trump Middle East “peace process” years was that of then-Secretary of State Madeleine Albright taking off her high heels to run down the hallway after Yasser Arafat, when he stalked out of the negotiations over some triviality. John Kerry’s diplomatic efforts, while not involving high heels, followed the same approach. And yielded the same results. The Trump administration needs to learn from its predecessors’ mistakes, not repeat them. Running after the Palestinians with armloads of cash has never brought peace, and never will.

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THE JEWISH STAR February 22, 2019 • 17 Adar 1, 5779

By Sam Sokol, JTA JERUSALEM — Social media are spreading anti-Semitism, Jewish Agency chief Isaac Herzog told American Jewish leaders meeting here, and are “a hotbed of the lunatics of the world.” “The real dirt of the world comes up from the killing fields of social media,” he told the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations at its annual gathering on Monday. The meeting opened just days after France and Germany announced major increases in anti-Semitic incidents and amid a diplomatic spat between Jerusalem and Warsaw over Polish complicity in the Holocaust threatened to derail relations with one of Israel’s most important European allies. In decrying the “culture of hate” online, Herzog cited a recent CNN poll of Europeans in seven countries that found that more than one-quarter of people believe Jews have too much influence in business and finance, and more than one-third said they have no substantial knowledge of the Holocaust. According to the Anti-Defamation League, “37 percent of Americans have experienced severe online harassment, which includes sexual harassment, stalking, physical threats, and sustained harassment.” Some 16 percent of Jewish respondents to the ADL’s survey, which was released last week, reported experiencing “identity-based harassment” on the Internet. Anti-Semitic activities rose 37 percent in the United States in 2017, according to figures released by the FBI late last year. Earlier this month, the Community Security Trust, a Jewish watchdog group in Britain, reported that anti-Semitic incidents there had risen by 16 percent in 2018, and last week France and Germany reported 74 percent and 10 percent jumps, respectively. “In recent months we have seen data facts and events which should bother all of us sub-

In Brussels, once vibrant shuls are dying or sold By Cnaan Liphshiz, JTA BRUSSELS — Growing up, Joel Rubinfeld went with his parents to their downtown shul. The sermons were OK, he said, but the real clincher was the full-size ping-pong table at the Sephardic Synagogue on Pavillion Street. “Placing that table was a stroke of genius,” Rubinfeld, 50, smiled. “Children and teenagers would play for hours as others scampered around the building’s spacious yard.” Three decades on, the former synagogue stands deserted in one of the Belgian capital’s seediest areas. This area, once the beating heart of a Jewish community of about 20,000, has seen the shuttering and sale of two of its four synagogues, as well as the closure of the Maimonides School, once Belgian Jewry’s flagship institution. With rising anti-Semitism, a government crackdown on religious freedoms, and growing emigration by Belgian Jews, the decline seems ominous. But there is also evidence that the community is moving to the city’s more affluent south, adapting to urban demographic changes. “Of course it saddens me when an institution that was one of our community’s most important assets closes down and dies out of security concern,” Yohan Benizri, the president of Belgium’s CCOJB federation of French-speaking Jewish communities, said about Maimonides’ closure. The sale of two downtown synagogues reflects “more than anything the fact that Jews in Belgium and throughout Western Europe are less interested in going to shul,” he said. But at the same time, Brussels’ two remaining Jewish schools, in the capital’s south, “have never had higher attendance,” Benizri said. At least three new synagogues have opened there. The change began in the 1970s with the arrival of Arab and African immigrants who settled in the affordable downtown neighborhoods where Jews of Eastern European descent had lived. By the mid-1980s, many Jews left for more affluent

At right: A commemoration for the four people killed in May 2014 took place at the Jewish Museum of Belgium in Brussels. Above: Joel Rubinfeld outside the former Sephardic Synagogue. Cnaan Liphshiz

neighborhoods. Their major cultural institutions remained into the 1990s, but the area became a hub for criminal and extremist activity. Many Jews left not to get away from their Muslim neighbors, but because they could afford a richer neighborhood, said Daniel Rozenberg, president of the Stalingrad Synagogue, one of two shuls still in downtown Brussels. The synagogue — a cavernous space rich with wood furniture — can barely rely on a minyan, a quorum of 10 Jewish men required for public prayer in Orthodox Judaism. Stalingrad Synagogue, the capital’s secondoldest Jewish house of worship, “is dying,” said Rozenberg. “In truth, it’s been dying since before I became its president in 2002.” Not far from Stalingrad, the larger Clinique Synagogue faces similar challenges. An imposing corner building with a capacity of more than 500, it stands mostly empty. Rubinfeld’s father, a Holocaust survivor who opened a bag factory downtown, celebrated his bar mitzvah at Clinique many years ago. “I can’t say I feel too safe here,” Rubinfeld

said outside Clinique, which in 2014 survived an attempted arson attack. “Two able-bodied men may not mind being eyeballed,” he said. “But consider the elderly Jew. Would you come to pray here if you were him?” The Sephardic Synagogue and nearby Rogier Street Synagogue were sold in 2016. Perhaps fearing vandalism, the new owners of the Sephardic removed the Star of David from its facade, even though it was registered for preservation. Amid attacks like the attempted arson at Clinique and the murder of four people at the Jewish Museum of Belgium that year, Belgian immigration to Israel increased to what was termed “a silent exodus” by Rubinfeld, who heads the Belgian League Against Anti-Semitism. From 2010 to 2018, an average of 205 Belgian Jews made aliyah annually — a 54 percent increase over the annual average of 133 in 2005 to 2009, according to Israeli government data. Generally wealthier and more polyglot than their French counterparts, more Belgian Jews have left for English-speaking countries. In 2015, the chief rabbi of Brussels, Avraham

Guigui, made headlines when he said after a wave of terrorist attacks that “people understand there is no future for Jews in Europe.” In addition to immigration to Israel, “there is immigration by Jews to Canada and America. Recession is driving the young people to leave Belgium,” the rabbi said. Rubinfeld concurs. “You see the absence of people, former schoolmates who now live in Florida, Melbourne, London,” he said. The passing last year of laws forbidding kosher slaughter in two of Belgium’s three states — though not Brussels — has dealt another blow to the kingdom’s Jewish minority. Designed to limit the larger halal industry, the bans are hurting the production of kosher meat. Even in the relatively secular community of Brussels, the bans are “worrying because once one religious freedom is targeted, then there is the possibility of others following suit, like brit milah,” Benizri said. He said he would feel “less comfortable living in Belgium” unless legal efforts to reverse the bans are successful. Still, Benizri does not feel that his community is in decline — Brussels has about a dozen synagogues, two schools and a radio station. “The focus of Jewish life has shifted from the synagogue to cultural activities. We still have a strong sense of Jewish identity,” he said. “Declining communities tend to be graying, with few young members. And I don’t think this our situation.” Benizri cited the annual Lag b’Omer sports event in southern Brussels attended by hundreds of Jews from Belgium’s five large Jewish youth movements. Asked about the viability of his community’s future, he said, “No one has a crystal ball.” “There will always be a Jewish presence in Brussels,” he said. “Instead of making predictions about the future, I just try to serve them as best I can.”

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As Venezuela collapses, Jews watch and wait By Shiryn Ghermezian, JNS The economic and political unrest in Venezuela has left the country’s Jewish community in a “wait and see” mode, as residents hope for an end to the political crisis that will hopefully improve living conditions for them. Juan Guaidó, the president of the Venezuelan National Assembly, declared himself interim leader of Venezuela on Jan. 23 after President Nicolás Maduro was sworn in for a second term that same month in what was widely believed to be a fraudulent contest. Under Maduro, the country has fallen into turmoil, with inflation expected to rise to 10 million percent this year. Venezuela has also been experiencing a humanitarian crisis with food and medicine shortages, as well as an economic and political calamity that has resulted in 3 million people fleeing the country as migrants and refugees, according to the Washington Post. Measles and diphtheria — once controlled in Venezuela — have re-emerged, and it is now the only country in South America to have regressed to infant mortality levels from the 1990s, according to new research published in the Lancet Global Health journal. Jenny Garcia, the lead researcher on the study, blamed the regression on government cuts to health-care funding. Those problems are only the tip of the iceberg, said Alex Rosenberg, a Venezuelan Jew now living in the United States. “It is years of corruption,” he told JNS. “It’s years of failed economic policies, it’s printing money, it’s regulation that strangles businesses, or rather, any business that is not government-owned. Most businesses are not thriving or doing well right now. Employment is low; people are leaving for security and business reasons. I saw people who really struggled and needed social services from the community to put food on the table.” He added, “It’s been 20 years of a single

Food is scarce throughout Venezuela, with citizens facing empty supermarket shelves and experiencing widespread malnutrition and lack of access to health care. Above: A Venezuelan eats from garbage on the street in 2017.

party ruling and a single government ruling the country. At this point, even if it wasn’t for these failed policies and the authoritarian rule and everything else, a change of government should have happened already.” Born in Venezuela’s capital of Caracas, Rosenberg came to the New York three-and-a-half years ago to have surgery for a sports-related injury. He ended up staying after the rehabilitation process took longer than expected and an opportunity arose for him to obtain a green card. He also met his wife there. Many of his relatives continue to live in Venezuela, including his mother, older sister, brother-in-law, aunt, uncle and cousins. He said he still has what remains of a clothing business in his home country. In late January, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu threw his support behind Guaidó, making Israel the first Middle Eastern country to recognize him. A growing list of nations followed suit, including the United States, Canada and most Latin America countries, such as Venezuela’s neighbors Brazil and Colombia.

Guaidó welcomed Netanyahu’s support on Twitter, writing that “74 years ago the Auschwitz extermination camp was liberated, and today, as our country fights for its independence, we are thankful for the support we received from the Prime Minister of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu.” “Anti-Semitism was used as a political tool in the past by Chávez and continued with Maduro, particularly in the official media,” said Dina Siegel Vann of the American Jewish Committee. Rosenberg said that under Guaidó’s leadership, “I do think that freedoms would be a lot better, respected, [and] I think that there would be no more rhetoric of dismissiveness with the Jewish community or any other religious or national group as it has been during the last 20 years. With the current [Maduro] government, they do have a policy of dismissive language [towards the Jewish community].” ‘A deep sense of vulnerability’ Maduro and his government have been accused of promoting anti-Semitic and extreme anti-Israel views. The country has had expand-

ing relations with Iran, which dates back to Maduro’s predecessor Hugo Chávez, as well as with Iran’s terror proxy Hezbollah. Israeli officials have until recently kept silent on the unrest due to fears that it might backfire and result in violence towards the Jewish community in the Latin American country after Maduro broke off diplomatic ties with the United States. “So far, the 6,000 Venezuelan Jews who remain in the country [from an original estimated 25,000] are safe, but affected like the rest of their fellow citizens by the same political, economic and social ills haunting the country as a whole,” Dina Siegel Vann, director of the American Jewish Committee’s (AJC) Arthur and Rochelle Belfer Institute for Latino and Latin American Affairs in Washington, told JNS. “The lack of relations with Israel since 2009, the use of anti-Semitism as a political tool resulting in violence against institutions in the past and attacks in the media created a deep sense of vulnerability resulting in the exodus of two-thirds of the community.” See Venezuela on page 7

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February 22, 2019 • 17 Adar 1, 5779 THE JEWISH STAR

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THE JEWISH STAR February 22, 2019 • 17 Adar 1, 5779

Continued from page 6 She continued, “In the current environment, with so much confusion and possible changes on the horizon, the community remains in a ‘wait and see’ mode, with active channels of communication to the many domestic and international actors [including government and opposition, international organizations], which can ensure its present and future safety and well-being.” Israel’s war against the Palestinian terror group Hamas in the Gaza Strip in the winter of 2008-09, also known as “Operation Cast Lead,” was a turning point for the treatment of Venezuela’s Jews, said Rosenberg. He recalled the largest and oldest Sephardic synagogue in Caracas being ransacked and desecrated in 2009. He said people automatically assumed that it was government-sponsored attack; evidence was later found that the government was trying to extort the Jewish community in some way. Prejudice against Venezuela’s Jews spiked when then-President Chávez demanded that the Israeli ambassador leave Venezuela over the “Holocaust that Israel was perpetrating in Gaza.” Since 2009, Venezuela has had no diplomatic relations with Israel. “He once cursed the State of Israel, on national television,” Rosenberg remembered about Chávez’s rule. “At another time, he said those who killed Christ were the same ones who killed [former Venezuelan military and political leader] Simón Bolívar, who is viewed locally in Venezuela as some sort of god.” Siegel Vann explained that “until Chávez’s arrival, anti-Semitism in Venezuela was negligible, and remained either in the margins and/or was considered politically incorrect. Attacks in the official media allowed for the permanent and systematic channeling of anti-Israel and anti-Jewish diatribes. And vandalism against Jewish institutions has been used as measures of intimidation… “Anti-Semitism was used as a political tool in the past by Chávez and continued with Maduro, particularly in the official media. Israel has been linked together with the U.S. with conspiratorial implications. With Iran and Venezuela entering a strategic relationship in 2005, Jews and Israel became the focus of systematic attacks. “Today, these attacks have diminished as the government’s attention is focused on survival, and it does not want to open a new front by being accused of anti-Semitism.” ‘Everybody sends their kids away’ Rosenberg noted that he thinks the government discourse against the Jewish community has not died down, but simply that Jews in the country are forced to “play nice because most of the kashrut-related implements and food that is imported for Pesach and other holidays has to be authorized by the government.” Venezuela’s small Jewish community continues to live in a besieged state, in a sense, and are sometimes targeted because they appear to do well economically, even though they are suffering like the rest of the country, said Rosenberg. For example, Jews who wear nice attire on Shabbat fear being robbed or kidnapped, an unfortunately common occurrence in Latin American and South American countries. The younger generations tend to leave Venezuela after they graduate high school if the family has the economic means to support them abroad — be it to Europe, Spain, the United States or Israel, according to Rosenberg. His sister is a doctor and not licensed to work outside of Venezuela. If she decides to leave the country, like so many others she will have to start her career from the beginning, including her residency. So for now, she has decided to stay in her home country, though her two college-aged children have left. Rosenberg said “most families don’t want to worry about their kids’ well-being, opportunities and safety because of the turmoil that is constantly happening and brewing, and so they send the kids away. Everybody sends their kids away.” With the Jewish population in Venezuela continuously shrinking, the community is looking more and more “lifeless” and “empty,” he said, as they wait for a political shift that may play in their favor.

February 22, 2019 • 17 Adar 1, 5779 THE JEWISH STAR

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Happy SKAers reunite in Israel Graduates of the Stella K. Abraham High School for Girls, now attending Israel seminaries, greeted each other, Judaic Studies Principal Elisheva Kaminetsky and Israel Adviser Paghit Ralbag at in the Old City of Jerusalem. Alumna also had the opportunity to “see” their former teachers via Facetime. They heard from four alumna who have made aliyah — Shana Margules Wurtzburger ’01, Nava Lauer Feigenbaum ’03, Elana Schreier Glatt ’11 and Talia Williams Eisen ’02. A second reunion, for SKA graduates who stayed in Israel after Shanot Aleph and Bet to attend university and other institutions, was held at the Leonardo Plaza Hotel. They heard Israeli radio personality Sivan Rahav Meir and greeted Chani Aryeh ’17, who just made aliyah.

Meet and greet new principals at Shulamith Incoming Shulamith High School Principal Mrs. Sara Munk and incoming Assistant Principal Mrs. Danyel Goldberg spoke with current Shulamith students, faculty, parents, and prospective parents. Their chemistry and upbeat attitude was immediately clear. “I really liked the vibe,” one eighth-grader remarked. “Think about what it’s like when you buy a piece of furniture and build it yourself,” Mrs. Munk said. “You follow the directions, you put in the different screws … When we build something ourselves, we tend to value it more. As Shulamith is set to embark on this next chapter, let’s build together, value the product, and change ourselves in the process.” Students and parents had an opportunity to ask questions, and Mrs. Munk was thoughtful

Mrs. Sara Munk (left) & Mrs. Danyel Goldberg and articulate in her responses. “No decision is unilateral,” she said. “A lot of time and consideration of all the people involved are going into every decision.” Mrs. Munk is eager to connect with students and parents and plans to have an opendoor policy. “It is a privilege to be trusted by Shulamith parents and students,” Mrs. Goldberg added. Both stressed their enthusiasm in educating, inspiring, and encouraging girls to thrive academically and spiritually.

DRS fathers, sons bond The sounds of music and dancing filled the air at DRS Yeshiva High School’s 22nd annual Parent-Son Melave Malka. In an email to families, menahel Rabbi Yisroel Kaminetsky remarked that the goal of the Melava Malka is to celebrate “the joy, fulfillment, and meaning that there is in being a Jew,” and to highlight the “positive Jewish energy that [the Yeshiva] strives to inculcate in its Talmidim with song, divrei Torah, food and dancing.” The evening commenced with a kumzitz in the beit midrash, led by Rabbi Kaminetsky and the DRS student band. Two sets of awards were presented to students: the Torah Growth Award, to the student in each Gemara shiur who displayed aptitude in learning; and the

Midot Awards, to a student in each grade voted by fellow classmates as having the most refined character. This year, Rabbi Eli Brazil, Director of Student Activities, was honored for over 17 years of dedication and commitment to the yeshiva. Rabbi Brazil has inspired hundred of students throughout his years in DRS through his incredible programs, student activities, and chessed opportunities. After video tribute in his honor, Rabbi Brazil was presented with an award for his dedication. The melava malka continued in the gym where parents and students enjoyed a delicious dairy buffet. Students, parents, and the faculty then danced together for hours.

Brandeis eye is on water Problem: How can we clean up oil spills from our waters to save wildlife? Fourth-graders in Mrs. Weiss’s class explore mixing oil and water, while attempting to remove the oil from the water.

Salute to top daveners at HAFTR MS HAFTR Middle School celebrated the Daveners of the Month with a special breakfast. Each student was also presented with a certificate. We hope that they continue to pray with the same heartfelt kavanah throughout their lives.

CAHAL and HANC celebrate winter Kindergarten students in the CAHAL class at HANC have been learning about winter weather, which means snow and ice. Unfortunately (from a five-year-old’s perspective!), we have not had much. However, that has not deterred them from the learning and experiments that go on in the classroom. The children know that both rain and temperature below 32 degrees must come together to form snow, so until that happens, they have made snow pictures from white paint and sponge brushes, papercut snowflakes, and eaten a snow cake that they baked. Liquids turn into solid ice from the freezing cold. so they made liquid lemonade into solid lemon ice pops that melted when they licked them. They also made all shapes of blue ice cubes and had fun popping them in and out of the molds like puzzle pieces. The children were so excited to welcome 12 sixth-grade students to partner with them in completing a page in their science journals. Teaming up to look through magazines, they cut out pictures of objects that are solids and liquids and glued them into the appropriate categories on their page. So many interactive and hands on activities have brought the winter weather unit to life and into the classroom for our students to enjoy. CAHAL is accepting applications for 2019-20. For more information and to donate, email cahal@cahal.org or call (516) 2953666.

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THE JEWISH STAR February 22, 2019 • 17 Adar 1, 5779

Cub Scout Pack 1818, the only shomer Shabbos and kosher Cub Scout pack in the Long Island area, chartered by the Marion and Aaron Gural JCC, had the opportunity to hear from their community’s real-life heroes when representatives from the Woodmere Fire Department and Hatzalah volunteers gave presentations to about safety at their Pack meeting. First, everyone got an emergency contact sheet to fill out and to hang up at home. Scouts recorded important phone numbers, including their parents’ cell phone numbers, 911, Hatzalah, and Poison Control, so that they can quickly find them in case it’s ever needed. The Scouts were then introduced to firefighters Dovid Simon and Darren Moritz, who reviewed what to do in case of a fire: have an escape plan, keep low to the floor to avoid inhaling smoke, and never hide from a fire by going into a closet. The lesson was a little scary at times, but the boys learned how important it is to be prepared. The firefighters also demonstrated how they get into their uniforms and gear so quickly when they get a call — there’s no time to lose during an emergency! Next, Hatzalah members Eli Langer and Yaakov Kitay showed the Scouts a stretcher. They explained how it is used to transport patients by moving them in and out of an ambulance safely. They also displayed some of the gear they use on the scene to help people before they get to a hospital. After the presentations, the Scouts went outside and had a chance to see a real fire truck and ambulance, which are used to help people every day. In fact, they were warned to be prepared, because the vehicles were still on duty and might need to leave at a moment’s notice if there was an emergency. The Scouts were excited for the opportunity to go inside the trucks and look around at the instruments and equipment. “The fire truck has a lot of hoses,” Wolf Den member Avraham Levine remarked. “The kids had a great time,” said parent Sori Levine. “They were really impressed with what the Fire Department and Hatzalah had to say about their jobs and how they help the community.” Cub Scout Pack 1818, formed last year, is

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February 22, 2019 • 17 Adar 1, 5779 THE JEWISH STAR

The JEWISH STAR

Wine & Dine

Hadassah ladies saved the Bundt. Let’s eat cake! Kosher Kitchen

Joni SChoCKEtt

Jewish Star columnist

he history of Jews and cake is a long one. Jews made sweet pastries as far back as is traceable. Coffee cakes, sponge cakes for Pesach, tarts and tortes have been part of the Jewish menu for almost as long as Jews have been eating. We love our sweets, and we love cake. Our connection to cakes of all kinds is so strong that even one of America’s most popular cakes is a result of a request by a Jewish cook. A member of a Hadassah group in Minneapolis asked H. David Dalquist, a local metallurgist, to make a replica of a cake pan she loved back in Germany. She wanted to make the cake for her family, but could never find the strangely shaped pan. Dalquist was intrigued, so he spoke to several of the Hadassah women who also wanted the pan and modeled a design after their description. Dalquist’s Nordic Ware created an acceptable prototype, and the pan went into production in 1950. And then? Nothing. For the next 15 years, the most frequent buyer of the old world-style pan were Jewish housewives from Minneapolis who had parents from the old country. Then, 15 years later, a woman in Texas made a cake that changed the history of the Bundt pan forever and saved it from being sent to the scrap heap. This women made a cake called the “Tunnel of Fudge Cake.” It won the Pillsbury Bakeoff and people went crazy. The demand for the Bundt pan increased so much that the factory could barely keep up! By the early 2000s, more than 60 million Bundt pans had been sold by Nordic Ware in North America. So Bundt pan was saved, and now comes in over a dozen shapes and more sizes, ensuring that Jewish women and women everywhere could have their Bundt pan apple cakes, coffee cakes, honey cakes and more. Cake is so frequently a part of holiday dinners that we rarely think about it. Rosh Hashanah is closely connected with honey cake and apple cake. My mother always made a coffee cake for a bris, a bar mitzvah or a shiva house. From birth and beyond, there was always a cake. Birthday cakes were always wonderful, even in the days before Duncan Hines and homemade cakes are easy to make and are delicious. Make a cake today, relax with a cup of coffee or tea, and enjoy the comfort of this delicious, home-baked dessert no matter what the occasion. Best Dairy Birthday Cake Ever (Dairy) 2-1/2 cups cake flour 2 tsp. baking powder 1/2 tsp. baking soda 3 large eggs, room temperature 2 tsp. pure vanilla extract Seeds from 1/2 vanilla bean 7 oz. butter, softened for several hours at room temperature 1-1/3 cups sugar 1 cup buttermilk Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease two 9-inch round cake pans and set aside. In a large bowl, place the cake flour, baking powder and baking soda. Whisk to blend. Set aside. In another bowl, whisk the eggs and vanilla together with the scraped seeds from the vanilla bean. You may need to use a fork to break apart any clumps. Set aside. Place the butter in the bowl of an electric mixer and beat until light and fluffy. Slowly add the sugar and scrape the bowl as needed. Beat

for about 3 minutes. Very slowly add the egg mixture while beating on medium. This should take about 2 minutes. Make sure to scrape the bowl as needed. Beat for another minute. Add the flour and the buttermilk, alternating in thirds, ending with the milk. Scrape bowl often and beat for another minute on medium. Scrape the batter evenly into the two pans. Shake the pan a bit to even and smooth the batter and remove any air bubbles. Bake in the middle of the center rack for 25 to 35 minutes, until golden and a tester come out clean. Cool for 15 minutes and then invert one cake layer onto a platter and the other one onto a parchment lined rack to cool. Frost as desired and then invert the second layer over the first. Makes one 2-layer cake. Serves 10 to 12. NOTE: To make this pareve, substitute transfat free margarine or shortening for the butter and use almond, cashew, soy or rice milk for the buttermilk. Add 1 tsp. vinegar to the mix. Best Pareve Chocolate Birthday Cake (Pareve) 1 cup water 3/4 cup canola oil 3/4 cup canned coconut milk, well mixed 3 large eggs, warmed in a bowl of very warm water for 5 minutes before breaking. 2 tsp. pure vanilla extract 3/4 cup plus 1 generous tbsp. cocoa powder, not Dutch processed 2 cups unbleached flour 1-1/2 cups sugar 1/4 cup firmly packed dark brown sugar 2 tsp. baking powder 1/2 tsp. baking soda 3/4 tsp. salt 3 Tbsp. finely grated semi-sweet pareve chocolate Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease two 9-inch round cake pans. Line the bottoms with parchment and dust the pans with cocoa. It will stick to the sides and fall off the bottom. Pour out the excess. Set aside. In a large bowl, whisk the water, oil, coconut milk, eggs and vanilla until blended as much as possible. Set aside. Place the cocoa powder and flour in a strainer over a large bowl. Add the baking soda, baking powder and salt and sift the mixture through the strainer, pressing through any lumps. Strain the sugars into the same bowl and whisk to blend. Add the wet ingredients to the dry and whisk until smooth. Add the grated chocolate and whisk to blend. Divide the batter between the two cake pans and bake in the center rack for 25 to 30 minutes, until a tester comes out clean and the cake pulls away from the sides of the pans. Remove from the oven and let cool for 15 minutes. Invert one layer onto the serving platter, and the other onto a parchment lined cake rack. Let cool before frosting. Serves 10 to 12. Sour Cream Coffee Cake with Apricots and Prunes (Dairy) CRUMB TOPPING: 3/4 cup chopped walnuts 2 tsp. cinnamon 2 Tbsp. white sugar 3/4 cup dark brown sugar, firmly packed 1 tsp. pure vanilla extract 2 Tbsp. melted butter BATTER: 1/2 cup butter, softened to room temperature 1/4 cup vegetable shortening (You can use all butter and omit this) 1 cup sugar 3 extra-large eggs 2 tsp. pure vanilla extract 1 cup sour cream (generous) 2-1/4 cups unbleached flour

3 tsp. baking powder 1 tsp. baking soda pinch salt 3/4 cup finely snipped dried apricots (packed) 3/4 cup finely snipped pitted prunes (packed) 2 Tbsp. flour Grease and flour a tube pan with a removable center, line the sides with waxed paper and grease the waxed paper. Set aside. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Combine the topping ingredients and set aside. Combine the snipped (I use a pair of small kitchen scissors for this and snip each apricot and prune into about 5 to 7 pieces) apricots and prunes. Place in a bowl and sprinkle with the 2 Tbsp. flour. Toss to coat evenly and set aside. Combine the flour, salt, baking powder and soda in a large bowl and set aside.

Place the butter, the shortening, and sugar in the bowl of an electric mixer and beat until light and fluffy. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each. Add the vanilla and beat well. Add the flour mixture alternating with the sour cream beginning and ending with the flour. Remove the bowl from the stand and fold in the fruit. Pour half the batter into the pan. Spoon half the crumb mixture onto the batter and spoon the remaining batter over the crumbs. Spoon the rest of the crumbs over the batter and gently press into place. Bake for 50 minutes or until a tester comes out clean. Remove from the oven and let cool for 15 minutes. Remove the tube insert and cake to a plate. Let cool completely and, either loosen the cake from the tube and place on a serving platter or serve as is. Serves 10 to 15.

11 THE JEWISH STAR February 22, 2019 • 17 Adar 1, 5779

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February 22, 2019 • 17 Adar 1, 5779 THE JEWISH STAR

The JEWISH STAR

Wine & Dine

Working up to working out Who’s in the Kitchen

JudY JoszEf

Jewish Star columnist

he time had finally come. There was no putting it off anymore. It was time to start some sort of exercise routine. I thought back to years ago when, with the help of my friend Carol Grob, I had embarked on a twice-a-week, one-on-one exercise regime. Those of you who know Carol know that she is an amazing personal trainer. I would show up at her house and hate every minute of it. Don’t get me wrong, it was an amazing hour, if you enjoy exercising. I don’t! I can stay up all night prepping, cooking and baking for a party. I can get by sleeping two hours a night for two nights and then not sleep at all the night before. I can be on my feet all day and spend three hours washing, drying and packing up all my set-up glass. I just can’t seem to build up the stamina or enthusiasm for weight repetitions, treadmills, stair masters and ellipticals. And to make matters worse, there was no cheating allowed with Carol. L-rd knows I tried. I was in the best shape of my life, and I felt great. But after two years, I thought I could do all the exercises on my own, because I was motivated. But what I was motivated for was thinking up excuses not to exercise. Over the years I would start again every now and then, but never really got into it. And with digital scales I could always hop off when it reached the weight I wanted. That was a joke! It always amazed me how my husband Jerry loved to exercise. That’s why he’s in amazing shape and I’m not. I’d rather be strict about what I eat than exercise, but the truth is I’m about to hit a big birthday, and it’s in my best interest to build up my core, to protect my back and posture.

Every now and then, my friend Renee Zylberberg and I talk about getting together and doing a twenty-minute exercise video routine once or twice a week, but we never got around to it. After months of talking, we decide last week would be a good time. I was dog sitting for my son and daughter-in-law’s English cocker spaniel, Penny. She and Renee’s golden retriever could have a play date, and Renee and I could exercise. I was almost looking forward to it. Emphasis on “almost.” Penny and I arrived, and the time had come. Of course I had no yoga mat or weights, so Renee supplied me with a mat, and I was so out of shape it was good that I had no weights. She put on the video, and I thought, “How bad could this be? It’s 20 minutes.” Let me tell you, it wasn’t pretty. Jillian Michaels of The Biggest Loser fame, along with two other women, stood before us. Jillian represented the regular workout, the woman on the left was there to demonstrate an intensified workout, and the woman on the right was going to do a low-intensity workout. I think she was there just for me. We started with some sort of arm rows. I was doing pretty well. This wasn’t so hard, I thought. Until Renee pointed out that I was doing the backstroke, not the correct exercise. (Well, it worked for Mark Spitz, he was in great shape back in 1972!) Next came jumping jacks, which I was able to master, then lunges. I don’t like lunges. I hate them, but I weathered through. Push-ups, unfortunately, were next. For the life of me I couldn’t get the hang of it. I kept arching my back. Renee tried to teach me the technique, but I was pathetic. Thankfully, every time I had to get down on the mat, Penny would come over and kiss my face until I got up. Thank you, Penny, I thought. Good girl! The next morning I bent over to the hamper and felt something pop in my back. It was

two days before I could stand up straight. I chalked it up to the fact that I was really out of shape and needed to work my way up to a real workout. Since then, I bought an exercise mat and found all the weights I used 20 years ago, when I was in shape. I’m all set. To be continued … but don’t hold your breath! This is a great recipe that happens to be healthy as well. BBQ Chicken En Papillote This quick and easy recipe combines chicken, sweet potato, butter beans, green beans and tangy BBQ sauce. It’s simple, the meat turns out tender, and there’s virtually no clean up! Be sure to slice the sweet potato very thin, as you want it to be tender at the end of the 30-minute baking time. This is also why we are using thin sliced chicken breast, in order to make sure that the meat is cooked through. Courtesy of RealHealthyRecipes.com. Ingredients 2 shallots, thinly sliced into half moons 1 sweet potato, peeled and thinly sliced into half moons 1 cup green beans, trimmed and cut into 1 inch pieces 1 16-oz. can butter beans 1/2 cup natural BBQ sauce (avoid ones with added sugars) 4 chicken breast, thin sliced 2 Tbsp. fresh chives, minced Instructions 1. Preheat the oven to 400º F. 2. In a large bowl toss the shallots, sweet

potatoes, green beans and butter beans with half of the BBQ sauce. Rub the remaining sauce over the chicken breasts. 3. Cut four 12-by-16-inch pieces of parchment paper and fold each in half. Open the parchment paper and arrange 1/4 of the sweet potato and green beans and a chicken breast in the center of the top half of each parchment. Generously season with salt and pepper. Top with a sprinkle of chives. 4. Fold the bottom half of the parchment paper over the chicken and veggies. Start folding and crimping the parchment paper ends together from one end all the way around to the other end, creating a sealed envelope. Fold the end under the packet. The packet should be fully encased, with no breaks in the parchment paper for steam to escape — we need that steam as part of the cooking process! Place the packets on a pan. 5. Bake the chicken and veggie packets for 30 minutes and remove from the oven. Serve the packets on plates, tearing them open just before serving. Serves 4. Nutritional Analysis One serving contains 268 calories, 4g fat, 22g carbohydrate, 3g sugar, 625mg sodium, 5g fiber, and 35g protein.

Persian-inspired stuffed peppers make cozy meal By Leanne Shot, The Nosher I love finding the commonalities among different global cuisines, and it seems that every culture has its own version of stuffed vegetables. Each tradition has variations of spices and stuffings, but the idea is always the same: They are the kind of cozy, home-cooked recipes that remind me of the grandmas and aunts who have big tables, open doors and warm hearts. Although I am not Persian, I’ve always felt connected to Persian food and find comfort and familiarity in the spice blends that are so closely related to my own Yemenite roots. Israel has somewhat of an obsession with stuffed vegetables, and they are often served at big Shabbat dinners. I was introduced to these dishes from friends and family when I visited, and I was struck by how each family took so much pride in their dishes and the balance of flavors — it really seemed like every vegetable could be stuffed. And while some stuffed vegetables take a little longer to prepare, stuffed peppers are easy enough for a weeknight dinner. These Persian-style stuffed peppers are both seriously comforting and wholesome. It’s also a one-pot meal that’s perfect to bring people together on a weeknight or for a Friday night Shabbat dinner. Filled with fresh herbs like mint and cilantro and aromatic spices such as saffron, cinnamon, and cumin, they are flavorful and hearty, but not heavy. Ingredients: 6 large bell peppers (a combination of colors looks great) For the filling: 3/4 cups basmati rice 1-1/4 cups water 3/4 tsp. kosher salt 2 Tbsp. olive oil 1 lb. ground beef 1 medium onion, chopped 4 garlic cloves, chopped 1 tsp. kosher salt

2 Tbsp. tomato paste 1/2 cup chopped cilantro 1/4 cup chopped Italian flat leaf parsley 1/4 chopped fresh mint 1/4 cup chopped scallions For the spice mix: 3/4 tsp. ground cinnamon 1 tsp. ground cumin 1/2 tsp. ground black pepper 1/2 tsp. ground turmeric 1/4 tsp. ground coriander 1/2 tsp. sumac For the sauce: 2 cups water 2 Tbsp. tomato paste 2 tsp. saffron

juice of 1 lemon Directions: 1. Rinse basmati rice well until water runs clear. In a small saucepan, combine the rice, 1-1/4 cups of water and 3/4 tsp. kosher salt. Cook per package directions, fluff with a fork and set aside. 2. In a large skillet, heat the olive oil over medium heat. Add the onions, ground beef and 1 tsp. kosher salt. Using a flat wooden spatula to break up the ground beef, cook for about 10 minutes, until the meat is cooked through and just starting to brown, but some juices are still left in the pan. Add the tomato paste, mix well to incorporate and set aside off the heat. 3. Combine all of the ground spices in a small bowl, whisk, set aside. 4. Preheat the oven to 350 F. In a large bowl, combine the cooked rice, chopped cilantro, parsley, mint and scallions. Add the beef and onions mixture, and the spice blend. Using a large spoon, combine all filling ingredients thoroughly. 5. Carefully cut off the tops of the peppers, trying to keep the stem intact. Using a spoon or small paring knife, scoop out the membranes and the seeds. If the peppers are wobbly, you can carefully slice off a tiny bit of the bottom to level it, careful not to cut a hole in the skin. Arrange the peppers tightly together in a baking dish or cast iron skillet. 6. Generously spoon the filling mixture in each pepper all the way to the top, packing it down slightly. Top each pepper with its stem top. 7. In a small saucepan, combine the 2 cups water, saffron, 2 Tbsp. tomato paste, lemon juice and 1/2 tsp. salt. Whisk to dissolve the tomato paste, then pour the sauce mixture between the peppers to fill the bottom of the baking dish. 8. Bake for 50 to 60 minutes until the peppers are fragrant and slightly wilted. Spoon some pan sauce into each pepper, and serve with slices of fresh lemon and a big green salad if desired. Serves 4 to 6.

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THE JEWISH STAR February 22, 2019 • 17 Adar 1, 5779

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By MEMRI Michigan-based Shi’ite Imam Bassem AlSheraa says in a lecture uploaded to the YouTube channel of the Al-Zahraa Islamic Center in Detroit on Jan. 27 that the Jews have distorted sacred texts and sanctioned the killing of Jesus and John the Baptist. He accuses the Jews of employing tricks and fraud in matters of religion and morality, and of amassing gold and spreading usury. Explaining that usury is a “peculiar Jewish philosophy,” Imam Al-Sheraa said that the Jews have used it as a means of attaining power, even though it contradicts their religious teachings, and that even the modern banking system is based on the Jews’ “instructions and vision.” He further said that Jewish women have historically established and managed “dens of female iniquity” and headed the brothels of Europe, and that the Jews allow their faith to be passed down maternally so that their women could increase the Jewish population through prostitution. “Yahya [John the Baptist] was a prophet, as was his father,” Al-Sheraa said. “[The Jews] excommunicated him and then sanctioned his killing … Jesus, son of Mary, was also declared a heretic by them. … When the Romans wanted to arrest Jesus, they got a religious ruling from the Jews that said that he did not represent them and that he had been excommunicated. “Following the [Babylonian] captivity, when Nebuchadnezzar exiled them and destroyed the Temple, the Jews said: ‘Money and women are our most powerful weapons.’ So they would amass

gold and money, and they would spread usury. “Even in the modern world, global banks are based on the culture of usury, which is a Jewish concept. Since a long time ago, the Jews have been lending people money and collecting interest, even though it is forbidden according to their religious law… “Look at the global banks, the billionaires. … All those are from among [the Jews] … The financial culture of the world was founded according to their instructions and their vision. Why? Because they consider [usury] to be an instrument of control… “In addition … the brothels of Europe were established by them … Most dens of gambling, usury, and so on were run by them. They are always like that. They control people’s resources through such tricks and deception. They consider it to be a reward and a way to serve their religion. They employ these means to control rather than be controlled… “The Old Testament and the Torah say that a child belongs to his father … But in the Talmud, the priests changed this. They said that the son of a Jewish woman is a Jew. Therefore, they sent their women around and said to them: ‘Go [fornicate], and if you get pregnant, bring us the children and we will accept them as Jews.’ This is their way to increase their numbers.” Al-Sheraa is a graduate of the Najaf Hawza in Iraq. He emigrated to the United States and serves as the imam of the Al-Zahraa Islamic Center of Michigan. He also founded the Scholarly Najaf Hawza in Northern America–Michigan.

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February 22, 2019 • 17 Adar 1, 5779 THE JEWISH STAR

By Nikki Guttman, Israel Hayom Vandalism and theft continue to plague Israeli farmers. Two weeks ago, beekeeper Yinon Arkin discovered that 20 of his hives had been destroyed three months before the honey was collected. The damage is estimated at tens of thousands of shekels. Arkin, 34, who lives in the settlement Avigayil in the South Hebron Hills, owns hundreds of hives at various locations throughout southern Israel. While this latest attack was not the first time his beehives have been vandalized, it was the first time the damage has been so severe. When Arkin arrived at the hives he maintains at Beit Guvrin, he was shocked to find the honeycomb hacked up, the hives scattered and hundreds of thousands of dead bees. Arkin’s wife Achinoam says that a month ago, the couple had five beehives stolen from another location. “And two years ago, 10 hives were stolen. Two years ago, 70 hives were stolen from a friend of Yinon’s in exactly the same area,” she says. What made the latest theft different, Achinoam explains, was the violence with which the hives were broken. “They hacked up all the honeycomb and threw the frames away across a large area. Just collecting it all took time. There are millions of dead bees left behind.” The hives were located not far from Israel’s security barrier and a crossing that leads to the Palestinian village Tarqumiyah. Arkin thinks that the hives were stolen by Palestinians. “It’s been this way for years. This is how things are done. They cut up the honeycomb

and put it into sacks and smuggle it back to the P.A.,” say Arkin. Agricultural crime, criminal or terrorist in nature, is rampant throughout Israel. Farmers find themselves helpless in the face of it. The issue is worsened by the fact that insurance companies often refuse to compensate farmers. “Even though I suffered a severe blow, I’ll get back on my feet,” says Arkin. “This was a big part of my hives, but it’s a more widespread phenomenon. The government isn’t aware of how serious the issue is because we don’t report most of the thefts,” he said. “The government doesn’t know how to handle agriculture crime or at least include it in insurance that covers natural disasters or [compensate farmers] through property taxes. Either way, a solution must be found,” he says. Many farmers seek the aid of the organization Hashomer Hachadash, which helps them guard their livelihoods. Amichai Blut, who is in charge of the southern district of Israel for Hashomer Hachadash, told Israel Hayom that “Hashomer Hachadash started work right after we were informed about the incident. Various field units are active in the area, and technological means have also been erected. We won’t leave farmers to deal with criminals on their own.” Said Blut: “We are calling on every farmer who has been the victim of agricultural crime to contact us so we can bolster Israeli agriculture and work to implement governability and sovereignty in open areas.”

15 THE JEWISH STAR February 22, 2019 â&#x20AC;˘ 17 Adar 1, 5779

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February 22, 2019 • 17 Adar 1, 5779 THE JEWISH STAR

Polish diplomats used passports to rescue Jews By Cnaan Liphshiz, JTA AMSTERDAM — Growing up, Heidi Fishman knew that she was alive thanks to her grandfather’s Paraguayan passport. A Jewish author from Vermont, she was told as a little girl that Heinz Lichtenstern’s passport was the only reason that her maternal grandparents and mother managed to avoid being sent to a Nazi death camp in occupied Europe. But only long after his death did Fishman, 56, begin to wonder how the passport got to her grandfather, a Germany-born Jew with no known ties to Paraguay. “I never knew where the passport came from,” she said earlier this month at a lecture about her family’s survival story. “I just accepted the story from my mom: We had a Paraguayan passport. But where did it come from?” This question last year led Fishman and others to lift from the shadows one of the most remarkable and large-scale Holocaust operations of its kind. Partly thanks to the power of social networks, she learned last year that the passport was one of thousands of forgeries that a group of six Poles in Switzerland had risked their lives to prepare and distribute. Hundreds of recipients used the life-saving documents to escape genocide in Nazi-occupied Europe. Known as the Bernese Group, the group operated in such secrecy that their actions remained undocumented for decades after the Holocaust. Yet they left enough evidence behind to allow researchers to compile a detailed understanding of their efforts, according to Jeffrey Cymbler, a New York lawyer who has spent decades putting together the puzzle. The six Bernese Group members “never told anyone about what they had done,” Cymbler said. “For decades, we knew only half the story.” The full story, put together by Cymbler and a research team with help from the Polish government, involves four Polish diplomats in exile in Bern, Switzerland. They conspired to make fake South American passports for Jews in Poland and beyond, and then delivered the documents, with help from two Polish Jews, to hundreds of recipients. The operation required bribing South American diplomats, at the risk of being deported and handed over to Nazis by Swiss authorities — who were on to the rescuers’ game and not happy about it. Cymbler has known since the 1980s about attempts to give Paraguayan passports to Jews from his family’s ancestral town of Bedzin in Poland. But he had no evidence of anyone using such passports to survive the Holocaust, said Cymbler, a genealogist and founder of the Bedzin-Sosnowiec-Zawiercie Area Research Society. That changed last year, when he found on Facebook descendants of people like Fishman, who were saved thanks to the passports. “Up to that point, I had basically thought the passports arrived too late to help anybody

Clash... Continued from page 1 Warsaw decided to pull out of the meeting on Monday after Yisrael Katz, citing the late Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir, told Israel’s Channel 13 that Poles “suckle anti-Semitism with their mother’s milk,” causing a national furor in both countries. Netanyahu has been promoting the meeting of the so-called Visegrad Group — an alliance of Hungary, the Czech Republic, Poland and Slovakia that represents the nationalist and conservative wing of the European Union — as heralding a nationalist bloc within the E.U. that supports Israeli policies more strongly than many in the west. However, he has also come under harsh criticism from domestic critics on both the right and the left, who have alleged that he has shown an overly solicitous attitude toward

escape,” said Cymbler. His great-uncle tried to obtain a Paraguayan passport, but perished with his family in the 1943 liquidation of the Bedzin ghetto. As evidence of the Bernese Group emerged in declassified Swiss archives and elsewhere, the Polish embassy in Switzerland under Ambassador Jakub Kumoch set up a small research team. For the first time, it documented how the passports were produced, delivered and used to save people from under the noses of the Nazi occupation forces and Swiss authorities. The forgeries were made on genuine blank passport pages purchased illegally by the Bernese Group from diplomats like Paraguayan honorary consul Rudolf Hügli. Each blank passport cost hundreds of dollars, paid by the recipients. The Bernese Group did not make any money off the effort, Cymbler’s research showed. A key member was Konstanty Rokicki, a Polish vice consul in Bern, who was not Jewish. He filled out recipients’ details and forged other parts of the fake passports. Rokicki had three Polish diplomat co-conspirators: Ambassador to Switzerland Aleksander Łados, his deputy Stefan Ryniewicz and attaché Juliusz Kühl, the only Jewish diplomat in the group. The diplomats obtained the names and some of the money for buying blank passports from two Polish Jews living in Switzerland: Abraham Silberschein, a World Jewish Congress representative, and Chaim Yisroel Eiss, a Zurich-based businessman and activist for the haredi group Agudat Israel. Contact with recipients was conducted by Alfred Schwarzbaum, a Jewish rescue activist from Bedzin who fled to nominally neutral Swit-

zerland in 1940. Eiss, Silberschein and Schwarzbaum had the passports smuggled to recipients. “Schwarzbaum, who helped the Bernese Group, used coded letters to run an important part of the passport forgery factory right under the German censorship’s nose,” Cymbler said. One letter, written by Cymbler’s great-uncle to Schwarzbaum, feigned familiarity in order to send him passport photos without raising the suspicion of German censors. “Dear Alf, how are your wife and kids? All is well with us, we’re well, working. To remember us, we’re sending you our photographs,” read the letter. The prints had on the back the names of the people pictured. In some letters, recipients used Yiddish words to keep the Bernese Group abreast of developments inside the ghetto. “Uncle Geirush is coming this week,” one letter read, using the word for deportation. “We are awaiting the imminent arrival of our friend Malachamavet,” another read, meaning “angel of death.” For Cymbler’s great-uncle, his wife and their two children, the passports came too late. They were killed during a deportation to Auschwitz. But hundreds used the passports either to escape the Nazi occupation or obtain foreign prisoner-of-war status that kept them out of the death camps. Newly declassified files from Schwarzbaum’s interrogation by Swiss police indicate that they had the Bernese Group firmly in their sights. All of its members had been detained for questioning at some point, raising the prospect of their deportation to occupied Poland by the Swiss, who were neutral but anxious not to anger the Germans.

The Bernese Group had gradually undertaken providing passports from additional South American states to Jews in occupied Netherlands, and even Germany itself. They were the center of an international conspiracy which the Germans would no doubt have crushed with the full force of the Gestapo secret police. Any member of the Bernese Group sent back to occupied Poland would have almost certainly been executed, merely for being either Jewish or associated with the Polish government in exile. The risk required such secrecy that many recipients of Bernese Group passports had no idea who made them, or even that they were fake. This was certainly the case in the family of Heidi Fishman’s mother, Ruth. Deported in 1944 from Amsterdam to the Theresienstadt ghetto with her father and mother, the family was withdrawn from death camp transports after showing a copy of their Paraguayan passport. Before obtaining the exemption, Ruth’s father embraced her and wept in front of her for the first time in her life, in what he thought was a last goodbye, Heidi Fishman said. The current Polish embassy’s interest in the case coincides with a broader effort by Poland to highlight the efforts of Poles who saved Jews during the Holocaust. Critics of that effort say it is whitewashing the actions of Poles who betrayed Jews to the Nazis or killed them. The debate on Polish complicity — which was exacerbated by the passing last year of a law making it a crime to blame the Polish nation for Nazi crimes – was raging as Cymbler, Fishman and others were discovering the truth about the Bernese Group, Fishman said. She said that at first she was “uncomfortable” working with officials representing Poland’s right-wing government, which some critics accuse of Holocaust revisionism. “I didn’t want to be used as a puppet, as a Jew who says Poles did only nice things during the Holocaust,” she told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. But so far, she added, “I have seen no attempt to use the Bernese Group story to push any narrative.” Cymbler, the Jewish lawyer from New York who started researching the Bernese Group in the 1980s, says he does not think of his discoveries in the context of the current debate. “It’s simply a question of learning the truth,” he said. Although the Polish government in exile had endorsed the Bernese Group’s actions, Cymbler said, “This is not a story about any Polish government. It’s a story about six Polish citizens, three of them Jews. It was about human beings trying to save other human beings: Jewish ones, not necessarily Polish, throughout Nazi Germany.” Kumoch, the current ambassador to Poland, has a different view. Whatever his wartime predecessor, Aleksander Łados, did, Kumoch said, “he did in the name of the Polish State. The State that fought the Nazis and tried to rescue its Jewish citizens.”

Israel’s Eastern and Central European allies. According to this view, Jerusalem has downplayed concerns over anti-Semitism and Holocaust memory in favor of closer engagement. Poland’s decision to pull out, which effectively cancelled the summit and caused the other Visegrad, or V4, nations to downgrade their diplomatic visits to merely bilateral ones, came after several days of furious denunciations and diplomatic scrambling. Controversy began last Friday when The Jerusalem Post reported that Netanyahu, in Warsaw for a conference on the Middle East, accused “the Polish nation” of collaborating with the Nazis. Netanyahu later clarified that he had not implicated the Poles collectively. The Post subsequently amended its story and it initially appeared that the crisis had been averted. Katz’s comments on Monday morning, however, revived the diplomatic crisis. “I am a son of Holocaust survivors and I was even born and grew up in a community made up of Holocaust survivors,” Katz, a senior Likud minister just tapped by Netanyahu as acting

foreign minister, said on Sunday. “The memory of the Holocaust is something we cannot compromise about; it is clear and we won’t forget or forgive. “In diplomacy you try not to offend, but nobody will change the historical truth to do something like that,” Katz continued. “Poles collaborated with the Nazis, definitely. As Yitzhak Shamir said, they suckle anti-Semitism with their mother’s milk.” Poland’s ambassador to Israel, Marek Magierowski, tweeted that he was astonished that Katz, who is the child of Holocaust survivors, had uttered “such a shameful and racist remark.” The Polish Foreign Ministry reprimanded Israeli Ambassador to Poland Anna Azari and is reported to be considering withdrawing Magierowski from Tel Aviv in protest. Katz was unapologetic, telling i24 News that “no one will tell us how to express ourselves, or how to remember our fallen.” By early afternoon in Jerusalem the summit had been officially cancelled, a stunning reversal of last year when Netanyahu had appeared to endorse a Polish

narrative of the war years and released a joint statement with his Polish counterpart, Mateusz Morawiecki, defending Poland’s wartime record. That statement was itself an effort to repair ruptured ties after Jerusalem condemned Poland for a controversial law that made it a crime to hold Poland responsible for Nazi crimes. The release of the joint statement led to an unprecedented rebuke of the prime minister from the usually apolitical Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial. It termed the joint statement “an offense not only to the historical truth, but also to the memory of the heroism of the Righteous Among the Nations.” Yad Vashem has recognized over 6,800 Poles as Righteous Among the Nations for having risked their lives to save Jews — far more than in any other country. Netanyahu’s joint statement with Morawiecki last year also seemed to equate antiSemitism with animus toward Poles, stating immediately after a condemnation of anti-Semitism that “both governments also express their See Clash on page 17

Jeffrey Cymbler examining documents tied to the Bernese Group in Switzerland.

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Continued from page 16 rejection of anti-Polonism and other negative national stereotypes.” It was later reported in the Polish press that Morawiecki had emphasized that the declaration was the first to put anti-Polonism on the books as a recognized form of discrimination. “One should read the current Polish reactions to Israeli expressions in this context,” noted Havi Dreifuss, a historian of the Holocaust in Eastern Europe at Tel Aviv University. “Yet, one should also note that much of what was said lately in the Israeli media is far from being accurate. The fact that many Poles took part in harming Jews doesn’t mean that all Poles killed Jews. And the Holocaust was first and foremost the product of Nazi Germany and its murderous ideology.” “Moreover,” Dreifuss continued, “anti-Semitism was one important motive for Polish readiness to harm Jews, but was definitely not the only one. Updated research and the vast documentation available exposed how alongside Polish anti-Semitism, Jews were harmed for various reasons, including greed, revenge, terror and more. We must remember to describe the Holocaust and Polish Jewish relations in the Holocaust in a much more complicated manner.” Addressing the controversy at a gathering of American Jewish leaders in Jerusalem on Monday morning, Diaspora Affairs Minister Naftali Bennett said Jerusalem “deeply value[s its] friendship with the Polish government and people but we cannot in any way allow anyone to revise history. That’s not the way to build a good relationship.” While the Polish people were also victims of the Nazis, “they also had many Poles who were involved in anti-Semitism,” Bennett told members of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations. He went on to describe how his wife’s grandfather’s mother and brothers were murdered near the end of the war by a gang of Polish teens. According to Rafal Pankowski, a Polish academic and the founder of the Never Again Association, recent days have seen an uptick in anti-Semitic sentiment in Poland that appears to mirror the atmosphere that prevailed last year during the previous diplomatic crisis. A state TV personality, Jakub Pacan, announced that he believed that recent Israeli comments were the moral equivalent of Pearl Harbor. While acknowledging the complicity of “a number of Poles” in the Holocaust, the Union of Jewish Communities in Poland responded harshly to Katz’s words, saying in a statement that “accusing all Poles of anti-Semitism offends the Righteous; it also offends all those who today want to see in them the true representation of Polish society. And it also offends us, Polish Jews, who are a part of that society.” “One does not clarify lies by another set of lies. It is not honest [and] it is not moral to fight lies with another set of lies,” Polish Chief Rabbi Michael Schudrich told JTA. Katz “functionally said that all Poles are anti-Semites. So how do you expect the Poles to react?” Rabbi Schudrich told JTA. “There are irresponsible people on both sides and when an irresponsible statement is made it empowers other irresponsible people to react. This in no way justifies anti-Semitism in Poland, just as it does not justify distortion of the truth by Israeli leaders.” The Simon Wiesenthal Center’s Efraim Zuroff, a harsh critic of Poland’s attempts to quash its complicated historical recor , likewise reacted harshly to Katz’s statement, calling it “the kind of blanket generalization that should never be made.” The diplomatic spat between Jerusalem and Warsaw also coincided with conflict over the issue of Holocaust restitution. On Sunday, Prime Minister Morawiecki rejected U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s call “to move forward with comprehensive private property restitution legislation for those who lost property during the Holocaust era,” stating that the issue had been “definitely resolved.” According to the World Jewish Restitution Organization, Poland is the only European Union

Photo by Christina Daly

THE JEWISH STAR February 22, 2019 • 17 Adar 1, 5779

Clash...

member without such legislation. “Jewish and non-Jewish rightful owners and their families have been waiting for many years for Poland to pass legislation to provide them some measure of justice for the property wrongfully taken from them in Poland,” the WJRO said in a statement. “We urge Prime Minister Morawiecki and his Government to seize this opportunity to do justice for those who lost so much.” Addressing the Conference of Presidents on Monday evening, Netanyahu did not acknowledge the diplomatic breakdown that led to the cancelling of the V4 summit, instead praising himself himself for expanding Israeli diplomatic relations around the world while pointing to a map labeled “expanding Israel’s diplomatic horizons.” Poland remained on the map. “There has been a tremendous change in Israel’s acceptance around the world by just about every country,” he said.

SHAbbAT STAR ‫שבת‬ It’s hard to let go of our idols

February 22, 2019 • 17 Adar 1, 5779 THE JEWISH STAR

From Heart of Jerusalem

Rabbi biNNY FReeDMaN

Jewish Star columnist

ast year, I spent a week in Poland with Orayta, and had an experience I still cannot get out of my head. The wind was howling as we walked into the forest of Zvilitovska Gora, a suburb of Tarnow, but we could not have imagined what awaited us there. How do you make a people die? You kill all the children. We came to a clearing in the forest and saw a mass grave surrounded by a blue fence with a Magen David, where 800 children lie buried, brothers and sisters forever. Eight hundred children below the age of 10, because of what use were children in the German empire? They would not have even made good slaves... We all fell silent. The trees swayed as if in mourning, and you could hear the moaning of the wind. We had no words. Our incredible guide, Rav Yitzchak Rubenstein, helped us fill in the picture. He showed us a family photo from a Tarnow family before the war and pointed out a beautiful four-year-old boy named Benny. Benny’s family heard they were rounding up Jewish children, so they told him to stay inside. But four-year-olds are naturally curious. He heard something interesting and went outside. He was never seen again. Four years old, he is

now buried with 799 other children, none of whom were more than 10 years old. nd then Rav Yitzchak read us a moving letter a mother had written the night before she gave her two-year-old daughter away. Not knowing if they would ever see her again, she sewed it into the girl’s undershirt. The girl kept it with her forever as an adult; it was all she had left of her mother. How do you share a lifetime of love in a few pages? What do you write to your two-year-old daughter who you will likely never see again and who will probably not even remember you? All this, as you wonder who will take her in — will they love her? Could anyone ever love her as much as her own parents? The mother explained that they had put off this decision, but this was the last child rescue, and word on the street was that the last big roundup would be happening the next day. And as she described holding her daughter one last time, our eyes filled with tears. The letter was simply signed “Mama.” Three times, they had a chance to get some of their children out, but how do you give your child away? And yet you have seen so much already. Deep inside, you know they are killing all the children, even as your mind cannot bring itself to grasp this reality. Why do we vacillate? They say you can’t have your cake and eat it too, but why not? Why else

‫כוכב של‬

would you have your cake, if not to eat it? Why do we try so hard to keep all our options open? This week we read the portion of Ki Tisah, which tells the tragic story of the Golden Calf. And, possibly because its central point concerns the worship of idolatry, we also read the haftarah of the prophet Eliyahu’s famous battle with the prophets of Baal (Melachim I 18), when Eliyahu confronts the fact that the majority of the Jewish people seem to be worshipping the Baal. So Eliyahu challenges the prophets of Baal to a duel. Just as he is about to perform the greatest miracle of his career, bringing fire down from the heavens to consume his sacrifice, he exhorts the Jewish people: “How long will you vacillate between the two opinions?” (ibid. v. 21) In other words, how long will you straddle the fence and try to keep both G-d and the Baal as open options? One wonders why Eliyahu did not just lambast the people for worshipping idolatry. What does it mean that they vacillated? How can a person worship idols and G-d at the same time? What is the difference between worshipping idols outright, and vacillating between idolatry and belief in G-d? he Rambam makes clear that the essence of idolatry is to confuse the means and the ends (Hilchot Avodah Zarah 1:1). The sun, moon and stars were magnificent manifestations of Hashem’s greatness, but if they them-

The essence of idolatry is to confuse the means and the ends.

We can’t wash our hands of this Parsha of the Week

Rabbi avi biLLet Jewish Star columnist

he very last of the vessels of the Mishkan is finally described in chapter 30, as we learn of the kiyor, the washbasin the kohanim were to utilize before involving themselves in the service of the Tabernacle. “When they come to the Tent of Meeting, they are to wash with water [in order] not to die, or [they must wash] when approaching the altar to perform the divine service, presenting a fire offering to G-d. They must first wash their hands and feet [in order] not to die. This shall be for [Aaron] and his descendants a law for all time, for all generations” (30:20-21). It is rather curious that in the span of two verses, the same warning that — “they not die” — is repeated. This should seem superfluous, as the context hasn’t changed at all, and both verses are connected to how the washing must take place in association with Mishkan service. he Pesikta notes on verse 21 that there are a number of things kohanim are warned could cause their death — performing the service drunk, with heads uncovered, without having made atonement, missing a garment, or having neglected the washing of hands and feet. As an aside, the end of Tetzaveh’s focus on both the sanctification of G-d that will take place at the dedication of the Mishkan, along with the instructions for the construction of the small mizbeiach where incense spices are to be burned, along with our double reminder of how unwashed hands can lead to priestly death, might combine to form a premonition that kohanim

will be dying soon. We who have read the story before know what is coming in Vayikra 10. Leaving that aside, we are meant to understand, if at all possible, why the Torah would have the exact same warning twice, so close to each other. The Or Hachaim notes a small difference in how the washings are presented. The repeat is meant to emphasize that even if the kohen has just emerged from immersion in a mikvah or other body of water, he is still required to wash his hands and feet. It’s not about the removal of tumah alone, it is that the specific act of washing hands and feet is intentional and necessary. One could take the leap to the perspective of the Shach, who argues that the second washing — which is for all time, for all generations — refers to washing before eating. He is not suggesting that one who neglects to wash one’s hands before eating will die, but rather that one who does not wash is getting sustenance from tameh, the breeding ground of death. Thus the word rachatz, to wash, has its letters rearranged to read ratzach, to be killed. Washing one’s hand elevates the fingers to holiness, allowing for eating to become a holy act. Again, what we are seeing is that the washing of hands is not merely ritualistic but most intentional. A look at some of the classic commentaries shows us the following explanations: Rashi: The repetition shows that someone who serves on the mizbeiach without having washed hands is also culpable, because the first passage is only referring to those who enter the

Mishkan without having washed. Ibn Ezra: The Torah is emphasizing how important and significant it is that every new entry requires a new handwashing. Chizkuni: They are being reminded of how important this rule is forever. The Netziv takes it a step further, comparing the “death warning” to that of the kohen who approaches missing one of his clothes. The warning for wearing the proper garments is only for when the kohanim are engaged in doing actual avodah. The warning for washing hands and feet, however, applies even if they are just entering the Mishkan for a perfunctory task unrelated to holy activity of holiness, such as to fix something. It is clear here that the “death” the kohanim are warned of is at the hand of heaven. As such, it behooves the kohen to make sure he has done what he needs to do to avoid anything happening to him. ow much is it everyone else’s responsibility to oversee the kohen? It would seem that, more than anything, the kohen must learn the laws pertaining to his own conduct, so that he can self-monitor his situation and not bring any terrible consequences on himself. For the rest of us, and certainly in the absence of a Mishkan, there are certainly spiritual obligations we have, and personal self-monitoring we should all be doing, related both to tumah and taharah and to not bringing bad consequences on ourselves. But we must always remember that our places See Hands on page 23

Why would the Torah have the exact same warning twice?

selves are worshipped, awe becomes idolatry. And when we see a mere vehicle and make of it the goal, it is essentially idolatry. Money, as an example, can be a magnificent tool for good in the world, but if it is the goal then it becomes a form of idolatry. Perhaps, then, when we vacillate between G-d and such idols, it is because we find it difficult to let go of them as the real purpose. Deep down we know that money and power, honor and success, should not be the goal, but it’s hard to let go of what we seem to get from them. And perhaps that is actually worse than the pure idolater. After all, if you believe money or power are the goal, or the worship of nature for that matter, while you are living a life based on a flawed perception, maybe you just don’t know any better. But the person who vacillates between G-d and the Baal, or money and spirituality, deep down knows the truth. We know money should not be the goal. It’s just hard to let go. How many times have we heard stories of those who deep down knew that something was wrong, but it was too hard to leave Poland, to let go of everything that had been built up over centuries of Jewish life there? Interestingly, this connects as well to the festival of Purim. As Mordechai taught the Jews of the Persian Empire, there comes a time when you have to take a stand; you have to decide who you really are. One of the most powerful moments I had in Poland was with our son Yair, who joined us for a few weeks before drafting into the IDF (he now serves in a Special Forces unit in the paratroopers). We stood in the main square of the city of Tarnow, an hour east of Krakow. Tarnow had a Jewish community since the early fifteenth century, and before the Holocaust nearly half of the 45,000 people who lived there were Jewish. Tarnow was the same story that happened town by town, city by city, and village by village all over Poland. First they discriminated against Jews and humiliated them by forcing them to perform menial tasks in public streets and squares. Then they were made to wear yellow stars. Then they were forced into the ghetto. And eventually, broken, starved and beaten, with no fight left in them, they were rounded up in the central square and sent off in waves to Auschwitz and Belzec. And in this same square, Yair thanked his great-great-grandfather Moishe Shmiel Schiff for getting off the fence and making the decision to leave while the going was still good. Moishe Shmiel was from Tarnow. We were standing in the exact place where all my Schiff cousins had been sent to their deaths. In life we often struggle to let go of one path and choose another. Eliyahu was teaching us, all those centuries ago, that sometimes not choosing one path leaves us without any path at all. Shabbat shalom from Jerusalem.

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

Fri March 1 / 24 Adar 1 Vayakhel Candlelighting: 5:28 pm Havdalah: 6:38 pm

Five Towns times from the White Shul

Orthodox Union

t was over 40 years ago, but I remember the feelings very well. They were overwhelming, and were not dispelled easily. It was just after I had completed all of my course requirements and dissertation defense in the process of obtaining my doctorate in psychology. Like any graduate school experience, it was the culmination of years of study and hard work. A celebration was in order. And celebrate I did, together with my wife, my young children, other students, and assorted friends. But then the celebration was over. I found myself inexplicably moody and depressed. A sense of emptiness enveloped me. At first I thought it was just the transition to a state of boredom. However, the feelings lingered. I tried to rid myself of my moodiness, and it must have been difficult for those close to me. Luckily, the feelings were soon gone, as suddenly and as mysteriously as they had come. I learned that this curious phenomenon was very common. When people achieve great accomplishments, having put great effort and toil into them, they experience a sense of exhilaration and excitement. A “high.” Soon afterwards, there is a comedown from that high.

It is as if, now that the goal with which one had been long preoccupied was reached, life had become meaningless. There is nothing further to do, no ongoing purpose. A sense of emptiness ensues. In my own case, the emptiness thankfully passed in short order, with no harm done and no unusual “acting out” on my part. But others in similar predicaments frequently attempt to fill that emptiness in ways that result in great, and sometimes tragic, difficulties. he psychology helps to explain a most puzzling event in this week’s Torah portion, Ki Sisa (Exodus 30:1134:35). I refer, of course, to the episode of the Golden Calf. Just a few short weeks ago, in Yitro, we read of how the children of Israel experienced the most momentous occasion in human history. The Almighty revealed Himself to them at Mount Sinai in an awe-inspiring atmosphere of thunder and lightning. They heard the voice of G-d and were spiritually elevated by His revelation. They were, almost literally, on a “high.” Moshe then ascends Mount Sinai, and remains there for 40 days and 40 nights. The people come down from their high. His disappearance mystifies them. They become impatient and irritable. We can empathize with their sense of emptiness, although we are shocked by the way they choose to deal with it.

How can one explain deterioration as drastic as this?

Uniqueness of Moshe Torah

Rabbi david eTengoff

Jewish Star columnist

three times we find Moshe’s name in our pasuk reflects our ancestors’ ongoing ability to recognize that Moshe was Moshe. His second reason once again focuses upon the Divine light that emanated from Moshe’s face, and teaches us about the singular nature of his prophetic experience: “The second matter that is made known to us regarding Moshe, and the [mystical] activity of the Divine light emanating from his face, is that he neither sequestered nor removed himself from his four senses — unlike the actions of all the other prophets at the time of their prophecy. We know this since he, himself, after receiving the Word from Hashem, returned his veil to his face. This shows that he never ceased to be aware of his senses, and that [during his prophetic communications] he was as totally awake as he had been prior to receiving his prophecy.” iven the Abarbanel’s analysis, we are now in an ideal position to briefly explore the exceptional elements of Moshe’s prophecy. Maimonides addresses precisely this topic in his classic work Perush HaMishnah. • Unlike all other prophets, Moshe communicated with G-d directly, without an intermediary. • In contrast to other prophets, Moshe spoke to G-d during the day, completely conscious. • All other prophets trembled and became weak due to their meeting with Hashem. Moshe remained fully in control of his physical and psychological powers throughout his prophetic engagements with Hashem. • All prophets, except Moshe, received their visions whenever Hashem appeared to them, without their control. Moshe, however, spoke to Hashem whenever he so chose. (Perush HaMishnah, Sanhedrin, Introduction to Perek Chalek). The Rambam describes the spiritual intimacy that existed between Moshe and Hashem. The portrait that emerges is that of a unique individual who enjoyed unparalleled access to the Almighty due to his exceptional spiritual gifts. Moshe and his prophetic encounters were unique in the annals of Jewish history. As the Torah teaches us, “And there was no other prophet who arose in Israel like Moshe, whom the L-rd knew face to face” (Devarim 34:10). While none of us are capable of achieving his exalted level, each of us can do our utmost to reach out to Hashem, and establish a meaningful connection with Him.

‫בס״ד‬

‫לעיר‬

‫צדיק בא‬

he Tanach contains a number of instances when Hashem calls to individuals and repeats their name within the same verse. For example, just before G-d commands Avraham not to offer Yitzchak upon the altar, we find: “And an angel of G-d called to him from heaven and said, ‘Avraham! Avraham!’” (Bereishit 22:11). In his commentary, Rashi explains that this reflects G-d’s love for the person being called. In contrast, our parasha contains a verse that is unlike the usual name repetition: “It was when Moshe descended from Mount Sinai, and the two tablets were in Moshe’s hand when he descended the mountain, and Moshe did not know that the skin of his face had become radiant while He spoke with him” (Shemot 34:29). This is by no means a classic case, where Hashem summons people by repeating their names. Our verse is narrative, not dialogue. In addition, this is the only verse in the five books of the Torah of which I am aware wherein a name is found three times. This suggests that Moshe’s name is not repeated because of Hashem’s love for him, but for some other significant reason. n his commentary, Rabbi Don Yitzhak Abarbanel suggests two reasons for this formulation, both focusing on the spiritual-physical change that Moshe underwent. He notes that normally, Moshe’s radiance would have made it difficult for the Jews to recognize him. “Instead, the Jewish people perceived Moshe’s face as they always had done, and recognized that this was, indeed his face — even with the brilliant Divine light coming forth from him.” It was crucial for our ancestors to continue to be able to identify Moshe’s face, eliminating the possibility of their once again proclaiming, “Come! Make us gods that will go before us, because this man Moshe who brought us up from Egypt, we don’t know what has become of him” — as they did two chapters earlier at the Golden Calf (Shemot 32:1). Moshe remained the Moshe they had always known, and his, and their, continuity remained intact. As we see, the Abarbanel’s first reason for the

“When the people saw that Moshe delayed to come down from the mountain, the people came together to Aaron, and said to him: ‘Make us a G-d’ … And all the people took off all the golden earrings that were in their ears and brought them to Aaron … he … made a molten calf and they said: ‘This is thy god, O Israel’ … he built an altar before it … and the people sat down to eat and to drink, and rose up to make merry” (Exodus 32:1-6). What a comedown! How can one explain deterioration as drastic as this? Just weeks ago the Jewish people were on the highest possible level of commitment to the one G-d. Now they are dancing before a golden idol. Is this not inexplicable? es, it is inexplicable, but it is a common human phenomenon. People are capable of attaining greatness, but they are not as capable of sustaining it. They can achieve “highs” of all kinds, but they cannot maintain them. There is an inevitable “comedown.” This concept is expressed in the verse (Psalms 24:3) “Who may ascend the mountain of the Lord? Who may stand in His holy place?” Homiletically, this has been interpreted to mean that even after the first question is answered, and we learn “who may ascend the mountain,” the question still remains: Who can continue to stand there? It is relatively easy to ascend to a high level; much more difficult is remaining at that high level and preserving it. My colleague, one of the most insightful spiritual thinkers of our age, Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz, believes that the best example of deterioration following an exciting climax is childbirth. He points to the phenomenon known as “postpar-

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19 THE JEWISH STAR February 22, 2019 • 17 Adar 1, 5779

The inevitable comedown after Sinai

tum depression.” A woman has just experienced what is probably the highest of all highs, the emergence of a child from her womb. But commonly, that experience is followed by a sense of depression, sometimes incapacitating and sometimes even disastrous. The physiological process of giving birth calls upon every part of the woman’s body, from her muscles and nerves to her hormonal system. Her body has exerted itself to the maximum. In the process, she has achieved the greatest of all achievements: the production of another human being. But soon afterwards when the body, as it were, has nothing left to do, she feels depleted and empty. She can easily sink into a depression, sometimes deep enough to merit a clinical diagnosis of postpartum depression. his is an important lesson in our personal spiritual lives. Often we experience moments of intense spirituality, of transcendence. But those moments are brief. When they are over we feel shortchanged, and we despair of ever returning to them. We must take hope in the knowledge that almost all intense human experiences are transitory, and are followed by feelings of hollowness. We can ascend the mountain, but we cannot long stand there. We must humbly accept our descent, our frustrating failures and limitations, and persist in climbing. Ups and downs, peaks and valleys, are to be expected. We will experience highs, but we must expect the inevitable comedown. And we must hang in there, and try and try again to recapture those highs. This is the lesson of this week’s parsha. Our people ascended a spiritual mountain. They then descended into an orgy of idolatry. But they persisted, and with G-d’s bountiful mercy, as we read later in the Torah portion, received this divine assurance (Exodus 34:10): “Behold, I make a covenant: Before all thy people I will do marvels such as have not been done in all the earth … and all the people… shall see the work of the Lord.”

February 22, 2019 • 17 Adar 1, 5779 THE JEWISH STAR

Golden Calf: Truth or consequences I Angel for Shabbat

RAbbi mARc d. Angel

jazz pianist complained to the club owner about the piano, but the owner did nothing. Angry and frustrated, the pianist announced that he would not show up for work until the piano was repaired. A week later, he received a call from the owner that the piano was now fine. The pianist returned to work, but found that the piano was still badly out of tune. He confronted the owner: “I thought you told me the piano was now fine, but it is not fine at all.” The owner replied with a surprised look: “I did have the piano fixed. Don’t you see that it has been freshly painted?” This story epitomizes a massive and ubiquitous problem that faces human beings. We are confronted with items, individuals, and institutions that are seriously flawed. Instead of analyzing the problem and coming to a reasonable solution, there is a tendency to seek superficial

cover-ups that merely serve as camouflages. We think that if we paint the piano, put on makeup, or do a PR job for an institution, we have solved the problem. But, of course, the core problem is intact; it will surface soon enough in spite of the artificial cover-up job. n this week’s Torah portion, Ki Tisa, we read the truly startling story of the Israelites and the Golden Calf. Moshe had ascended Mount Sinai and the people were awaiting his return at a certain time. In their calculation, the time had elapsed. Immediately they panicked and compelled Aaron to make a golden calf for them to worship. When Moshe came down from the mountain and saw the Israelites worshiping the golden calf, he cast the Tablets of the Law to the ground and shattered them. The Israelites suffered great punishment for their foolishness. When Moshe failed to appear at the time they expected him, how did the Israelites evaluate the situation? What options did they have? They could have waited another day or two to see if Moshe would return, or they could have appointed Aaron or Chur to become their leader in place of Moshe. But instead of going to the core of the problem and finding a solution, they

A stiff-necked people RAbbi SiR JonAthAn SAcKS

t is a moment of the highest drama. In Ki Tisa, the Israelites, forty days after the greatest revelation in history, have made an idol. G-d threatens to destroy them. Moshe, exemplifying the character of Israel as one who “wrestles with G-d and man,” prays for mercy for the people. Coming down the mountain and facing Israel, he smashes the tablets, symbol of the covenant. He grinds the calf to dust, mixes it with water, and makes the Israelites drink it. He commands the Levites to punish the wrongdoers. Then he re-ascends the mountain in a prolonged attempt to repair the shattered relationship between G-d and the people. G-d accepts his request and tells Moshe to carve two new tablets of stone. However, Moshe makes a strange appeal: “If I have found favor in Your eyes … may my L-rd go among us, because [ki] it is a stiff-necked people, and forgive our wickedness and our sin, and take us as Your inheritance” (Ex. 34:8–9). The difficulty in the verse is self-evident. Moshe cites as a reason for G-d remaining with the Israelites the very attribute that G-d had pre-

viously given for wishing to abandon them: “I have seen these people … and they are a stiffnecked people. Now leave Me alone so that My anger may burn against them and that I may destroy them” (Ex. 32:9). How can Moshe invoke the people’s obstinacy as the reason for G-d to maintain His presence among them? What is the meaning of Moshe’s “because” — “may my L-rd go among us, because it is a stiff-necked people”? here is a striking line of interpretation that can be traced across the centuries. In the twentieth century it was given expression by Rabbi Yitzchak Nissenbaum. The argument he attributed to Moshe was this: “Almighty G-d, look upon this people with favor, because what is now their greatest vice will one day be their most heroic virtue. They are indeed an obstinate people … but just as now they are stiffnecked in their disobedience, so one day they will be equally stiff-necked in their loyalty. “Nations will call on them to assimilate, but they will refuse. Mightier religions will urge them to convert, but they will resist. They will suffer humiliation, persecution, even torture and death

sought a quick fix. They wanted a golden calf, even though the idol surely could not replace Moshe, nor could it provide proper leadership. Why would anyone want a glittering calf instead of a real human leader? Why would anyone forsake G-d in order to worship idols? Sometimes people are simply perverse or misguided. Sometimes they are fearful or confused. In desperation, they may turn to a physical entity that they think is “good luck” or to which they attribute magical powers — even divinity. What is the essence of idolatry? It is the attribution of false value to an object. Idolaters think that if they worship an idol, bow to it, bring it offerings — then it must be G-d! They convince themselves that a falsehood is actually true. If they can get others also to foster the falsehood, this gives it the appearance of being true. The evil of idolatry is: believing in falsehood, abandoning truth. The Torah warns us not to fall into this trap. This applies not only to idols, but to everything and everyone. Demagogues and PR experts try to make us believe things we know to be wrong or unnecessary; a great many people succumb to these falsehoods. The Torah commands us to cling to truth, to reject lies.

n our society, there are many who foster an idolatrous worldview. They attempt to convince us that a painted piano is fixed, even if it is out of tune. They promote products or people or institutions by spinning superficial images that are false and rotten at the core. They seek to make us fall into line with the crowd, so that we suspend our own clear judgment. The Torah warns us: do not be an idolater, do not veer from truth, do not falsely evaluate things or people. The Talmud (Chagigah 14b) tells of four great sages who entered the pardes, i.e. the world of profound speculation. Rabbi Akiva, one of the four, warned the others: “when you reach the domain of pure marble, don’t call out ‘water, water,’ as it is written (Psalms 101:7), one who speaks falsehoods will not be established before My eyes.” Rabbi Akiva knew how easy it is to mistake clear marble for water, a metaphor for how easy it is to succumb to falsehood instead of clinging to truth. The marble looks so much like water, but it is not water, it is cold stone. If you wish to pursue truth, you need to evaluate people and things as they really are — not as they appear to be. Golden calves do not bring redemption. Painted pianos do not produce good music if the piano is out of tune. Fakes and demagogues cannot lead us to a promised land. If we succumb to falsehood, we will surely pay the consequences.

because of the name they bear and the faith they profess, but they will stay true to the covenant their ancestors made with You. They will go to their deaths saying Ani ma’amin, I believe. “This is a people awesome in its obstinacy — and though now it is their failing, there will be times far into the future when it will be their noblest strength.” That Rabbi Nissenbaum lived and died in the Warsaw ghetto adds poignancy to his words. As Ralbag explained in the fourteenth century, a stubborn people may be slow to acquire a faith, but once they have done so they never relinquish it. e catch a glimpse of this extraordinary obstinacy in an episode narrated by Josephus, one of the first recorded incidents of mass nonviolent civil disobedience. During the reign of the Roman emperor Caligula (37–41 CE), Caligula had proposed placing a statue of himself in the Temple in Jerusalem, and had sent the military leader Petronius to carry out the task. “There came ten thousand Jews to Petronius at Ptolemais to offer their petitions to him that he would not compel them to violate the law of their forefathers. ‘But if,’ they said, ‘you are wholly resolved to bring the statue and install it, then you must first kill us, and then do what you have resolved on. For while we are alive we can-

not permit such things as are forbidden by our law … We will not by any means make war with Caesar, but we will die before we see our laws transgressed.’ Then they threw themselves down on their faces and stretched out their throats and said that they were ready to be slain.” Faced with heroic defiance on so large a scale, Petronius wrote to Caligula urging him “that if he were to slay these men, he would be publicly cursed for all future ages.” Nor was this unique. Rabbinic literature and the chronicles of the Middle Ages are full of stories of martyrdom. Yhe very concept of kiddush Hashem came to be associated in halacha with the willingness “to die rather than transgress.” Of these many episodes, one stands out. It was recorded by Jewish historian Shlomo ibn Verga and concerns the Spanish expulsion. “One of the boats was infested with the plague, and the captain of the boat put the passengers ashore at some uninhabited place … There was one Jew among them who struggled on afoot together with his wife and two children. The wife grew faint and died … The husband carried his children along until both he and they fainted from hunger. When he regained consciousness, he found that his two children had died. “In great grief he rose to his feet and said: ‘O L-rd of all the universe, You are doing a great deal that I might even desert my faith. But know You of a certainty that — even against the will of heaven — a Jew I am and a Jew I See People on page 23

Their greatest vice will one day be their most heroic virtue.

Unmasking the hidden story of Queen Esther Kosher bookworm

AlAn JAy geRbeR

Jewish Star columnist

erhaps among one of the greatest Jewish theologians in the United States today is Rabbi David Fohrman of Woodmere. His writings about the story of Purim will be the main focus of this week’s essay. In his work, The Queen You Thought You Knew (OU Press, 2011), Rabbi Fohrman presents his unique interpretation of the Purim story. In an interview some years ago, he shares his take on Bible interpretation and Jewish theology that speaks to us directly, absent the fancy words of so many pompous intellectuals. “More than any other holiday, we associate Purim with children. We dress up, clown around,

and everything seems so very jolly — the Megillah included. We view characters as caricatures: Esther seems like Cinderella; Haman is a scowling villain wearing an oversized pirate hat; the king, a kind bumbling fool. But are these childhood pictures of the characters really accurate?” Rabbi Fohrman explains the real theme of the Purim festival: “When you stop to think about it, Purim was deadly serious. The Jewish people faced the very real prospect of genocide. Long before the world ever heard of that word, or of concentration camps, we were almost wiped out on one, single, terrifying day. The story of Purim was no fairy tale, it was real — and it was harrowing. We owe it to ourselves to look at the story as adults and ask ourselves what is the real,

true to life meaning that this experience with tyranny really comes to teach us.” wanted to know more about Rabbi Fohrman’s methodology, to which he responded as follows: “I think Biblical stories can sometimes lull us to sleep, almost like a lot of lullabies; these stories have really serious questions buried in them that are screaming to us — we just have to read them with fresh eyes, open our ears, and listen. “Imagine a kid started analyzing Rockabye Baby. He wouldn’t fall asleep so fast. His mind would be flooded with questions: How high off the tree was the cradle? Who put the cradle there? Did anyone call 911 when it fell? “The same goes for stories in the Bible. Ob-

vious questions are everywhere, questions that are hidden at times by our familiarity with the texts: ‘Why would G-d forbid us to eat of a tree that grants knowledge of good and evil? Aren’t we better off knowing the difference between good and evil?’ And ‘Why would we name a holiday like Purim after Haman’s lots? These are the devices our enemy used in attempting to kill us. Why name the holiday after that?’ “These are the questions that the text demands of us that we ask of it. They are windows as it were, into deeper understandings of the text. We owe it to the Torah to ask these questions, or we risk ignoring what the Torah is trying to communicate to us.” These teachings by Rabbi Fohrman, and his book, deserve your attention. Taken together, they will surely enhance your understanding and appreciation of the themes and readings of the Purim holiday. A version of this column was published in 2016.

tehilla r. goldberg

Creating a world of peace for Ori

he murder of Ori Ansbacher — raped, tortured, mutilated and left in a Jerusalem forest — was so barbaric it almost echoed the story of the concubine in the Book of Judges. Ori means “my light.” Her life was one of light and kindness and service, ended in a shroud of piercing darkness. I couldn’t stop thinking of her final moments. The moment she was caught off guard. The moment her blood ran cold. The moment she understood this attacker was a demon of death. The moment she knew her fate was sealed. The moment she became like just another tree in a forest, violently cut down before her time. And then there was the response to the bloodcurdling news — the usual disturbing photos of Palestinians celebrating, passing around candies and baklava. Gratefully, there were Palestinians who condemned this heinous act and even paid condolence calls to the Ori’s family. Of course, leftist progressives were simply silent, as though nothing had happened at all. And there were the primal cries for justice and even revenge. Where are our Shimon and Levi who acted to protect the honor of their sister Dina? Where is Phineas’s spear? Where is David’s shield? Where are the powers that be that would demonstrate an immediate and radical response to so radical and violent an act? Besides the instinctual desire to retaliate and create a sense of control over the situation, the Israeli response was motivated by a search for deterrence. Families are shaking for the safety of their vulnerable daughters and sisters. Not that Israel uses the death penalty, but even when invoking the desire for it, people are wrestling with the understanding that it is not a deterrent. A terrorist who slaughtered a young Jewish girl with his bare hands and a knife, and as a consequence was killed at Israel’s hands, will become a Palestinian celebrity with a town square named for him. Already, regardless of the punishment that awaits the terrorist, with this one brutal act he has guaranteed lifelong financial support for his family, thanks to the Palestinian Authority’s perverse, incentivized “pay for slay” program. efore Ori’s murder, she had already in her young life managed to scatter beautiful seeds, her good deeds. She was young but she was wise. As a hobby, she wrote poetry. One particular poem of hers that has been shared, now being called “Ori’s Poem,” includes this line: “Create for yourself a world of peace.” It can be read as a double entendre: a poem about her emotional state, but also about the Israeli reality. This poem is becoming one of Ori’s legacies. She is planting seeds of peace with this poem. I understand the emotional reactions and fantasies in the face of such horror, to exact justice and revenge against so evil a creature. Emotionally, I get it. What I don’t get is the Israeli hotel-like prison conditions, replete with dental care, university degrees, culinary abundance and more. See Ori on page 22

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Little new in Omar’s anti-Jew tropes Viewpoint

beN CoheN

hen the late German writer Günter Grass decided seven years ago to denounce Israel as the greatest threat to the planet’s existence, he chose the medium of poetry to do so. Starting from the observation that there was lots of fuss about Iran’s nuclear program, but none about Israel’s, Grass deemed himself the victim of “a troubling, enforced lie/leading to a likely punishment the moment it’s broken/the verdict ‘Anti-Semitism’ falls easily.” According to Grass, the guilt the world felt at the past persecutions of the Jews, and especially the Germans, meant that there was a reluctance to speak the plain truth: “Israel’s atomic power endangers/an already fragile world peace.” Nonetheless, he threw himself forward as courageous enough to say just that, despite knowing in advance of the opprobrium that would be poured on his head by the political guardians of the Western guilt complex (i.e., the Jews). “I’ve broken my silence/because I’m sick of the West’s hypocrisy,” he declared. “And I hope too that many may be freed/from their silence.” In case his message wasn’t clear enough, Grass titled his poem “What Must Be Said.” ut what Grass did not say was that the sentiments he expressed about Jewish influence had been uttered many times before, by many different people, at many different points throughout modern history. And each time, Grass included, the persons who believed they were exposing the true nature of Jewish political power also believed that they were speaking a truth that everyone else was too cowed to acknowledge. (Hence, the need for additional melodrama; you can’t call your poem “What Must Be Said” if you are merely recycling something that’s already been said more times than some of us care to remember.) Last week, Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), one of two Muslim women elected to the House of Representatives for the first time last year, stepped up to say “what must be said.” AIPAC, she opined on Twitter, lavishes money on U.S. politicians to maintain an immoral, self-defeating special relationship with Israel. According to Omar, that explains why Congress voted earlier this month on Middle East-related legislation that, among other things, maintains sanctions on the blood-drenched regime of Bashar Assad in Syria, extends American defense cooperation with Jordan against ISIS and other Islamist insurgents, and strengthens U.S. state and local provisions to prevent a domestic implementation of an economic boycott of Israel.

he furor that followed Omar’s comment was largely unhelpful. There were far too many patronizing calls on the congresswoman to apologize, as if she’d naïvely strayed into language about the influence of pro-Israel forces on Capitol Hill that most Jews find antiSemitic. To the contrary, Omar’s statement reflected the enduring nature of one specific anti-Semitic trope in a country that, at least when compared with Europe, pretty much despises them. That trope, which feeds on the 250-year dispute about the role of special interests in American politics, concentrates on the mobilization of American Jewish political and financial influence on behalf of Israel, at all costs and under any conditions. Omar is not the first U.S. legislator to have trafficked in this image, which is rooted in the anti-Semitic idea that Jewish power is, by definition, financially driven, tribal in interest and ruthless in the effects that it has upon non-Jews. James Abourezk, a Democrat from South Dakota who became the first Arab-American elected to the U.S. Senate, was a consistent opponent of American policy in support of Israel during his tenure from 1973-79. In a 2006 interview, he gave this explanation for why legislative opposition to the U.S.-Israel alliance was so difficult to muster. “I am realistic enough to know that, because the Congress is pretty much reliant on money from radical Zionists, stopping the flow of American taxpayers’ money to Israel will not come soon,” he said. (That, incidentally, is among the more mild of the many observations that Abourezk has made about the scope of pro-Israel influence in America.)

There was also Paul Findley, a former Republican Congressman from Illinois who became a professional opponent of “Zionist interests” after he lost his bid for re-election in 1981. Although he attracted the disapproval of AIPAC and other pro-Israel groups because of his budding political relationship with the late PLO leader Yasser Arafat, Findley acknowledged that such opposition to his re-election “was only one of several factors” in his defeat. But apparently piqued by AIPAC officials bragging that they were responsible for such — a routine tactic used by political fundraisers — Findley went on to found the Council for the National Interest, whose mission is to persuade American legislators that said national interest is fatally compromised by a relationship with Israel imposed from above by powerful financial interests working on behalf of a foreign power. Findley also wrote a book about his experience. Much like Günter Grass later on, Findley needed a touch of melodrama to sell his story, so he called it They Dare to Speak Out: People and Institutions Confront Israel’s Lobby. Alongside Findley’s story were the accounts of other U.S. officials and politicians — among them Adlai Stevenson, the Rev. Jesse Jackson and one of the original Jewish proponents of anti-Semitism in America, Dr. Alfred Lilienthal — who had run afoul of the “lobby’s” control of both policy towards and speech about the Middle East. That ever-present threat is why, of course, one has to summon the courage to say “what must be said.” It is why one must “dare to speak out.” Above all, it clarifies why — in the words of The Israel Lobby, a notoriously flawed 2006 See Omar on page 22

21 THE JEWISH STAR February 22, 2019 • 17 Adar 1, 5779

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February 22, 2019 • 17 Adar 1, 5779 THE JEWISH STAR

How Palestinians made Labor Zionism irrelevant Jonathan S. tobin

lections in Israel are less than two months away, and so far the campaign has been dominated by two main stories. One is speculation about whether Israel’s Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit will indict Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu prior to the voting. The other is the rise of former Israeli Defense Forces Chief of Staff Benny Gantz and his new centrist party. But there is another angle to the election that deserves some attention: the virtual collapse of the once-dominant Labor Party, and the marginalization of the parties of the left. The slow-motion collapse of the movement that was primarily responsible for building the state began with its first electoral defeat in 1977, when Menachem Begin led the Likud to victory after 29 years of unbroken Labor-led coalition governments. Since then, Labor has had its ups and downs. Up until 2000, the parties of the left and the right were in a state of near equilibrium, as Israel was seemingly split down the middle on the issues of peace with the Palestinians and West Bank settlements. Labor won clear victories in both 1992 and 1999 under Yitzhak Rabin and Ehud Barak, after Likud faltered in power. But since the outbreak of the Second Intifada, the war of terrorist attrition that destroyed faith in the Oslo process and its hopes of an end to the conflict with the Palestinians, Labor has become increasingly irrelevant. That has never been more obvious than now.

Polls show that the contest is between Netanyahu’s Likud and the parties of the center, led by Gantz and Yesh Atid’s Yair Lapid, with Labor no more than a marginalized afterthought. Labor wasn’t really a factor in 2009 or 2013, as Netanyahu began his current decade-long stay in power. It finished third in both of those elections. But in 2015, Labor won 24 seats operating under a new name: the Zionist Union. That was its highest total since 1999, when it gained its last election victory under Bara. But it had to form a coalition with the remnants of the Kadima Party led by Tzipi Livni. Finishing a respectable second to Netanyahu’s Likud did nothing to inspire confidence in the party. Avi Gabbay, its current leader, unceremoniously kicked Livni and her Hatnua faction to the curb at the start of the current campaign. Since then, polls showed Labor dipping perilously close to the point where it might be shut out of the next Knesset altogether. But even after an uptick in the polls following its primaries and the shift of the Meretz Party even further to the left, Labor is out of serious contention. Its only hope now would be to be a junior partner in a government led by the two centrist parties, though that seems an unlikely scenario. Not even the most optimistic polling would give them a majority in a new Knesset, even if they welcomed the anti-Zionist Arab parties into their coalition. hat killed Labor? Historians may ultimately say that it was destroyed by its success in Israel’s first decades, when it was the natural party of government in a state that was in the process of becoming a modern nation. When Israel ceased to be the embodiment of one party’s ideology — and instead developed into a country where other ideas and

Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion in the Knesset on Jan, 1, 1957. National Photo Archive

those who had been shut out of power by the old Ashkenazi elite had a say — Labor had to adapt. But as much as Israel’s transformation undermined the party that had ruled without serious challengers under its first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, and his successors, the collapse of Labor had more to do with Oslo than with generational, sociological or economic changes. The late Yitzhak Rabin led Labor to victory in 1992 on a platform of tough-minded security, not territorial withdrawal. But most Israelis, as well as Jews in the Diaspora, embraced the hope of peace that the Oslo process engendered. Under Rabin and Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, Labor reluctantly embraced the makeover of Israel’s economy from the old socialist model to that of the free market. But after the signing of the Oslo Accords in 1993, the party tied its fortunes to the willingness of its Palestinian partners to embrace peace.

Though Labor’s supporters would blame subsequent disasters on Rabin’s tragic assassination or the Likud government led by Netanyahu, the responsibility for the failure of the peace process falls almost completely on Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and his successor, Mahmoud Abbas. Their refusal to give up a century-old war against Zionism and their embrace of terrorism, as well as a culture of rejectionism, doomed Oslo. When Arafat responded to Barak’s offer of an independent state at Camp David in 2000 with a terror campaign, it put an end to the Israeli public’s faith in Labor’s vision or judgment. oday’s Labor wants no part of the Oslo legacy. Its head, Gabbay, has articulated positions on the peace process that, boiled down to actual proposals, sounds little different than those of the center parties or Likud. Only the radicals of Meretz still have faith in the landfor-peace formula that half of Israeli voters once supported. But the Israeli left appears to be dead on its feet. Shorn of a once innate pioneering spirit and betrayed by its peace partners, its irrelevance reflects the consensus that stretches across the center of the Israeli political spectrum, which holds that peace is impossible in the foreseeable future and managing the status quo is the best the country can hope for. That’s still a shock to liberal Zionists in the Diaspora, who don’t seem to have paid much attention to the events that caused Israeli voters to reject Labor. But if they want to understand Israel — as opposed to joining the war on its existence being waged by radical anti-Zionists — then they should study the strange death of Israel’s Labor Party and draw the appropriate conclusions about the prospects for peace. Jonathan S. Tobin is editor-in-chief of JNS.

Terror victim recalled, thanks to killers’ friends Stephen M. Flatow

ike most victims of Palestinian Arab terrorism, Avraham Bromberg would have been completely forgotten — if not for the persistence of the murderers’ many admirers and financial sponsors. Bromberg was just 20 years old when he was murdered, the same age my daughter Alisa was when she was murdered by Palestinian Arab terrorists in 1995. Avraham was hitchhiking. In those days, all young Israelis hitchhiked. Nobody thought of it as a potentially lethal activity. A car with Israeli license plates stopped to give him a ride. The driver and his front-seat passenger were Israeli Arabs. Avraham might have noticed that they were Arabs. But so what? Most Israeli Arabs aren’t terrorists. But these two were. Karim Younes and his cousin Maher Younes kidnapped Avraham Bromberg, shot him in the head and threw him into a roadside ditch. Several days later, he died from his wounds.

Omar... Continued from page 21 study by the political scientists John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt — “Congress almost always votes to endorse the lobby’s positions, and usually in overwhelming numbers.” Now that Ilhan Omar has dared to speak out — from within the walls of the U.S. Congress, this time — some will wonder whether is a watershed moment

The Younes cousins were caught, convicted and sentenced to life in prison. That would have been the end of the story, as far as the Jewish public is concerned. Some older Israelis might still remember his name. But the number of American Jews who remember Avraham Bromberg can be counted on one hand. And the number of American Jewish or Zionist organizations that have mentioned Bromberg’s name in one of their fire-and-brimstone press releases is zero. So, Avraham Bromberg would be gone and utterly forgotten — if not, ironically, for the Palestinian Authority. Yes, the PA regime that is bound by the Oslo

that disrupts the close relationships that many U.S. legislators have with Israel. For my part, I am skeptical. A Gallup poll last March revealed that 74 percent of Americans retain a favorable view of Israel. The findings were “as strongly pro-Israel as at any time in Gallup’s three-decade trend,” the company noted. Despite Rep. Omar’s best efforts, the elephant in the room — American public opinion that is as warm towards Israel as the Europeans are cold — isn’t going anywhere.

Accords to reject terrorism, to disarm and extradite terrorists, to shut them down and imprison them, but instead honors, praises and finances them. The Jews may have forgotten Avraham Bromberg, but the Palestinians have not forgotten his murderers. Palestinian Media Watch reports that last week, a ceremony honoring Karim Younes was held at the Palestinian Ministry of Education. That’s right, the Ministry of Education. Not in some private residence. Not out in the forest. Front and center, in the very seat of the Palestinian government. And who led the ceremony? Not a clerk or secretary or fringe figure, but the Minister of Education himself, Sabri Saidam. As Karim Younes’s mother smiled approvingly, the minister called the gathering “a gesture of loyalty to prisoner Younes and his family.” Saidam added that he was “conveying the greetings of the Palestinian leadership and the Fatah Central Committee members” to the Younes family. Fatah, by the way, is chaired by

Ori... Continued from page 21 At the same time, I am grateful Israel is a society of law and order that acknowledges that full justice can never be meted out by man. That is not society’s role. But finding deterrence — real deterrence — is. While I obviously don’t endorse torture, this brutal murder must become a watershed. It must generate policies that will instill fear and

PA leader Mahmoud Abbas. The ceremony was held at “the Martyr Yasser Arafat Auditorium.” Saidam presented the mother of the murderer with a plaque featuring a photo of Arafat. I suppose it was fitting that an event honoring a murderer should be so closely tied to the memory of one of the most notorious mass murderers of the 20th century. Minister Saidam hailed the murderer Younes as one of “the symbols who have defended the national enterprise.” The ceremony was featured prominently in the official PA daily newspaper Al-Hayat Al-Jadida. A few days earlier, a PA university awarded Karim Younes an honorary certificate, and a program broadcast on the PA’s official television station showed posters glorifying him and presented fawning interviews with the killers’ family members. And last year, Abbas appointed the imprisoned Karim Younes to serve on the Fatah Central Committee. Not that the other killer, Maher Younes, has been neglected. Not at all! Last year, the PA named a plaza after him in the city of Tulkarem. At the naming ceremony, complete with a live band and a march by Palestinian Boy Scouts, the murderer’s mother cut the inaugural ribbon, and PA official Isam Abu Bakr declared: “We are proud of this great man, this fighter, this leader.” How has all this despicable glorification of murderers kept Avraham Bromberg’s name from being forgotten? Simple. Every Israeli or foreign news media report about the PA honoring the Younes’ cousins has mentioned the name of their victim. And so, in a bitter and ironic twist, American Jewish and Zionist leaders may have forgotten Avraham Bromberg, but the actions of his murderers and their cheerleaders have forced his name back into the news — and back into our too-short memories.

Avraham would be forgotten — if not for the Palestinian Authority.

cause a potential terrorist to stop and think twice before committing a terrorist act. Jewish blood has become cheap these days in Israel. The recent list of beautiful lives cut short is getting longer and longer. A genuine policy of deterrence by the Israeli government must be put in place. Along with, somehow, simultaneously, finding a way to grow the seeds of peace that Ori Ansbacher already scattered in her life, and nurture them into a forest of harmony and healing. Copyright Intermountain Jewish News

Continued from page 18 of worship and study are and should be open for all who seek to have a connection with G-d. Even if the death we face is not a physical one, when the spirit is snuffed out or torn away from the Jew, the death of the soul follows close behind. Perhaps the Torah is warning us of the most dire consequences which come if we “wash our hands” of the spiritual needs of our coreligionists. The job of the kohanim was to take care of their own needs vis-à-vis G-d so they can serve as the conduits for the People in their own service of G-d. Surely if we are all doing our part as G-d has instructed us, we will be blessed to see neither physical or spiritual deaths in our places of worship and study.

People... Continued from page 20 shall remain. And neither that which You have brought upon me nor that which You may yet bring upon me will be of any avail.’” One is awestruck by such obstinate faith. Not by accident does the main narrative of Esther begin “And Mordechai would not bow down” (Esther 3:1). His refusal to make obeisance to Haman sets the story in motion. Mordechai too is obstinate — for there is one thing that is hard to do if you have a stiff neck: bow. At times, Jews found it hard to bow to G-d — but they were never willing to bow to anything less. That is why, alone of the many peoples in history, Jews — exiled, everywhere a minority — neither assimilated to the dominant culture nor converted to the majority faith. “Forgive them because they are a stiffnecked people,” said Moshe, because the time will come when that stubbornness will be not a tragic failing, but a noble and defiant loyalty.

The JEWISH STAR

CAlendar of Events

Send your events to Calendar@TheJewishStar.com • Deadline noon Friday • Compiled by Rachel Langer

Friday Feb. 22

Family Shabbaton: Yehuda Daphna shares “Memoirs of an intelligence officer” at a Friday night dinner at Cong. Bnai Avraham. Evening services 5:20 pm; dinner 6:20 pm. 117 Remsen St, Brooklyn Heights. 718-598-4840. Members $36; non-members $45.

Saturday Feb. 23

Tanach Shiur: Please join us for the 23rd season of the community-wide Tanach shiur. Rabbi Shaya Cohen will be learning Perakim 62-63 of Tehillim. 7:15 pm. 8 Spruce St, Cedarhurst. Scholarship Concert: Young Israel of Long Beach’s annual Robert Chiger Scholarship concert, featuring Uri Davidi. 8 pm. 405 East Broadway, Long Beach. 516-431-9715. $30.

Sunday Feb. 24

Lox and Learn: Which Adar is the real one? Shiur at the Roslyn Synagogue, following 8:30 am Shacharit. Presented by Uri Eckmann. 9:15 am. 257 Garden St, Roslyn Heights. Jews in America: West Hempstead Public Library hosts Howard Shurdut, who will address major current issues within the Jewish community, including anti-Semitism, assimilation, and support for Israel. Audience participation is encouraged. 2 pm. 500 Hempstead Ave, West Hempstead. 516-481-6591. Rambam Dinner: 27th annual scholarship dinner for Rambam Mesivta. Honoring Dr. Alex & Ilyse Sternberg; Joseph and Estee Lichter; Michael Edery; and Avi Herschman. 5 pm. 1395 Beech St, Atlantic Beach. 516-371-5824 ext. 102. Chabad Dinner: Chabad of the Five Towns celebrates the heart of the community at its 24th annual dinner. 6:30 pm. 775 Branch Blvd, Cedarhurst. RSVP at 516-295-2478 or chabadfivetowns.com/dinner.

Night of Inspiration: Chazaq & Beth Gavriel present a night of inspiration with Rabbi Paysach Krohn, Rabbi Eli Mansour, and Rabbi Ilan Meirov. Chinese and sushi buffet. 8 pm. 66-35 108th St, Forest Hills. 718-285-9132. Free admission.

Tuesday Feb. 26

Homestretch with the Hochbergs: Join Rabbi & Karen for the next get-together at Bagels & Co. for an interactive discussion and Jewish reflections on life issues we confront daily. Buy breakfast or a beverage and pull up a chair! 9:30 to 10:30 am. 188-02 Union Tpk, Fresh Meadows. Shaare Emunah Dinner: Shaare Emunah, The Sephardic Congregation of the Five Towns, invites you to its second annual dinner. Honoring Rabbi & Mrs. Yonatan & Avital Saban, Mr. & Mrs. Raphael & Annie Afriat, and Dr. & Mrs. Ralph & Betty Benzakein. Keynote address by Charlie Harary. 6:30 pm. 390 Broadway, Lawrence. ShaareEmunah.org. $450 per couple. Chazaq Women’s Program: Uniting women worldwide in our yearning for geulah, through song and prayer. Presented at the Young Israel of Kew Gardens Hills by Chazaq, Rivka Malka, Shabbat.com and TorahAnytime. 8 pm. 7011 150th St, Flushing. 718-285-9132. Free admission.

Wednesday Feb. 27

Explore Creativity: Adult art classes with Clarisse—find your inner artist! Sketch and paint in a relaxing atmosphere. All levels of experience welcome. Charcoal, pastels, watercolor, acrylic, oil. 10 sessions! 8 pm to 9:30 pm. 83-10 188th St, Jamaica. Sign up at YIJE.org. $300.

Thursday Feb. 28

Talking Anti-Semitism: Michael D. Cohen, Eastern Director of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, addresses the rise of anti-Semitic hate crimes. Includes Q&A session. 7 pm. 140 Central

Ave, Lawrence. 516-239-1140. Tzaddik Ba La’Ir: We have the honor of welcoming the Spinka Rebbe, Rabbi Avraham Yitzchok Kahana shlit”a, who will spend Shabbos in our community. For more information or to schedule a private audience, call 516-216-0605.

Saturday March 2

YCQ Dinner: Yeshiva of Central Queens holds its 78th Annual Scholarship Dinner. Guests of Honor Dr. Eve & Rabbi Todd Sullivan and Drs. Rachel & Joshua Sisser. Educator Award Rabbi Moshe Hamel; Alumni Award Randi Beeber Luxenberg ’73. Special guest singer Avi Perets. 21 Old Westbury Rd, Old Westbury. YCQdinner. com; 718-793-8500 ext. 300.

Sunday March 3

Kidz Zone Expo: RichnerLive hosts the Kidz Zone Expo at the Friedberg JCC, featuring a slime bar by Mad Science, live DJ, free giveaways, arts and crafts, balloon art, face painting, and goodie bags. 11 am to 3 pm. 15 Neil Ct, Oceanside. LIHerald.com/kidzzone. Free admission.

Wednesday March 6

Saturday March 9

HALB Dinner: HALB, SKA, and DRS host their 64th annual dinner, honoring Shani & Gavri Butler as Parents of the Year; Jessica & Jay Lampert as Guests of Honor; and Elana & Rabbi Ashie Schreier as Alumni of the Year. 523 Church Ave, Woodmere. Dinner.HALB.org.

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