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Pekudei • March 8, 2019 • 1 Adar 2, 5779 • Expanded Torah section pages 16–18 • Luach page 16 • Vol 18, No 9

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Bibi and the generals PM continues to fight for term 5

How Blue-White view P’stinians

An explainer by Ben Sales, JTA Benjamin Netanyahu is up for re-election on April 9, running for his fifth term. He was first elected in 1996 for one term, then returned to office in 2009 and hasn’t left.

After years of investigation, Israel’s attorney general is charging Netanyahu in three separate corruption cases. Netanyahu maintains that he is innocent.

Two cases have to do with Netanyahu buying himself positive press, and the third alleges that he received illegal gifts from a rich donor. The Israeli Police have numbered them Case 1000, Case 2000 and Case 4000. (Don’t worry about 3000 — that investigation was dropped.)

Case 1000: Netanyahu is accused of acceptSee Bibi on page 4

Analysis by Yaakov Lappin, JNS According to polls, the Blue and White Party is the largest in Israel at this time. Three of its four senior members are former chief of staffs of the Israel Defense Forces. Led by former IDF Chief of Staff Benny Gantz, other senior members are retired lieutenant generals Gabi Ashkenazi and Moshe Ya’alon, the latter also serving as Israel’s defense minister until his resignation in 2016. Former Finance Minister Yair Lapid is the only civilian in the party’s leadership.

This heavy representation of ex-generals, who collectively have vast experience in dealing with Israel’s array of security challenges, raises the question of how their past is shaping their current political outlooks, particularly regarding See Blue-White on page 5

‘Moneybag’ Jews parade in Belgium

Puppets of Jews on display at the Aalst Carnaval in Belgium on March 3.

FJO

By Cnaan Liphshiz, JTA Participants in a street celebration in the Belgian city of Aalst paraded giant puppets of Orthodox Jews and a rat atop money bags.

Dutch Chief Rabbi Binyomin Jacobs condemned the depiction Sunday at the annual Aalst Carnaval street celebration as “shocking.” It contains “typical, anti-Semitic caricatures from

W. Europe’s Jew-hatred is nothing new: page 3

1939,” he told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

Umbrella groups representing Flemish and French-speaking Jews in Belgium, FJO and CCOJB respectively, complained to the federal UNIA watchdog on racism. “In a democracy like BelSee Moneybag on page 7

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process — do not represent the diverse views within our individual synagogue communities.”

Local Young Israel signatories included Rabbi Heshie Billet and President Steven Myers of Woodmere; Rabbi Yehuda Septimus and President Yaakov Aspir of North Woodmere; Rabbi Jonathan Muskat and President Ben Lipschitz of Oceanside; Rabbi Elie Weissman and President David Gross of Plainview; Rabbi Yaacov Lerner and President Avi Goldberg of Great Neck; and Rabbi Moshe Taub and President Seth Goldstein of Holliswood.

Rabbi Kenneth Auman and President Norman Rosenblum of the YI of Flatubsh were among other Young Israel leaders in the New York area signing on to the protest.

Also on Friday, 38 religious Zionist American rabbis signed a statement con-

demning the merger of Otzma Yehudit with the more moderate Jewish Home.

Netanyahu had helped broker the deal in a bid to boost right-wing partners ahead of April elections.

“This violent, racist party has no place in the Religious Zionist movement,” the rabbis’ petition, organized by clergy at Congregation Kehilath Jeshurun, the Upper East Side shul affiliated with the Ramaz School, read.

Days earlier, a prominent scholar of the Holocaust, Deborah Lipstadt, quit her Young Israel synagogue in Atlanta in protest of the NCYI’s support for Netanyahu.

The National Council of Young Israel had defended Netanyahu’s orchestration of the merger. While many major American Jewish groups condemned the merger as normalizing bigotry, NCYI, joined See NCYI on page 7

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2/25/19 4:25 PM

A Shoah ballad in the key of 4G EdWin black

Jewish Star contributor

T Local YIs rip national organization More than 20 Young Israel shuls — including at least six in Nassau and Queens — want no part of the National Council of Young Israel’s support of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s political deal with Otzma Yehudit, an extremist party inspired by the late Rabbi Meir Kahane.

The local Young Israels called on the National Council (NCYI) to stop making political statements.

“In recognition of the current, highly divisive political environment in the United States, Israel, and beyond, we ... call upon NCYI leadership to immediately cease making all political pronouncements,” the shuls said Friday.

They went on to say that “all past statements issued by NCYI leadership about political matters — including but not limited to its recent statement about Otzma Yehudit and the Israeli political

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his is a deeply personal story that begins before I was born, when my grandmother Fanya seized her slender teenaged daughter — my mother Edyka — and pushed her out of the small vent at the top of a suffocating boxcar rumbling inexorably from Bialystok, Poland, toward the Treblinka death camp.

My mother became a “jumper,” entering a hostile and dangerous Polish forest. She was shot by local forces and buried in a hastily-arranged mass grave in the snow.

Buried, yet one nearly lifeless limb protruded.

Teenaged Herschel, a forest fighter, came upon the area. Spying Edyka’s leg moving, he pulled her out of the pile. For two years, under cloak of night and by raw courage, they lived in the woods as brave partisans. They survived, and after two years in a displaced persons camp, found

their home in Chicago. Their courage and determination allowed me to be born.

Growing up, I inhaled my Jewish heritage and love of Israel and devoted my life to unmasking the hidden hands behind the darkest evils and injustices. I adopted the identity of a Second Generation author long before the larger Second Generation movement developed its own national identity.

Among the survivors, one group was determined to keep the memory of Nazi crimes illuminated as a warning beacon to all humanity — that was my family’s group. A second group preferred not to talk about the unspeakable experience except among themselves.

Like many in the corridors of the communally aware, I have been repeatedly shocked by the eruption of open anti-Semitism and anti-Jewish violence in Europe, the mainstreaming of antiSemitism in the United States, and the eroded position of Israel within certain flanks of the Jewish community. My outlook was bleak. Then two things happened. See Shoah on page 7

Lipstadt’s eyes ‘Antisemitism: Here and Now’

By Jackson Richman, JNS Professor Deborah Lipstadt is one of the world’s most prominent scholars on the Holocaust and anti-Semitism. In 1996, she was famously sued for libel by self-proclaimed historian David Irving for characterizing his work as Holocaust denial in her 1993 book Denying the Holocaust: The Growing Assault on Truth and Memory. Lipstadt wrote about her victory in her 2005 book History on Trial: My Day in Court with a Holocaust Denier, which became a 2016 film starring Rachel Weisz as Lipstadt.

She released her eighth book, Antisemitism: Here and Now, this month. This interview with Lipstadt has been edited for brevity and clarity.

How does your latest work stand out from your other published books?

This book is very different from my previous books, which dealt with history. This book is about contemporary events, so that made it very different to write. There were pages I wanted to add: A Holocaust survivor in Paris murdered in her apartment, [British Labour Party leader] Jeremy Corbyn going to the burial of a perpetrator behind the 1972 [massacre of Israeli athletes and coaches at the] Munich Summer Olympics. Every day there seemed to be something.

The irony is that while it was a harder book to write, it was a hard book to finish with all that was [and is] going on. I was willing to predict — and I don’t usually make predictions — that by the time the book was finished, something will have happened that should’ve been in this book.

Then came the Tree of Life*Or L’Simcha Synagogue shooting in Pittsburgh [on Oct. 27, 2018].

You have likened anti-Semitism to a conspiracy theory. Is it more than that?

Of course. Part of the reason I wrote the book as a series of letters is so that people understand what’s going on, understand the phenomenon of anti-Semitism, which makes no sense, is com-

pletely irrational. This is different than other forms of racism because the racists see power as diminishing their majority gene pool. The antiSemite sees the Jew as smarter than them. Whereas racism is punching down, anti-Semitism is punching up.

Having said that, let me go back to the conspiracy part. It is very important to understand the conspiracy theory because conspiracy theories make no sense. People turn to them when they can’t make sense of some event, or something happened to them and they need someone to blame. It’s irrational, and that’s what anti-Semitism is. Anti-Semitism is totally irrational: The Jews are Communists, the Jews are capitalists. You can’t be a Communist and a capitalist at the same time.

The fact that it’s a conspiracy theory helps explain why it keeps popping up.

What is your response to those who say that the 57 percent rise in antiSemitic incidents in 2017 was inflated because 24 percent were attributed to a disturbed teenager in Israel and a fired reporter from The Intercept?

One of the reasons I don’t rely on statistics, certainly not statistics alone, is because of incidents such as these. There are a number of ways of looking at this. Yes, the [Israeli] teenager [who threatened violence at Jewish Community Centers in North America] was a Jew, but he was clearly aware of the fear he would cause. So what is 24 percent of 57 percent? It is still a significant rise. Anyone who makes this argument is looking for a way to ignore reality. There have been too many incidents — from both the right and left ends of the spectrum, and from Islamist

extremists — to say all is well. Yes, this information is anecdotal, but when you hear it in the United Kingdom, Sweden, Paris, and New York City, you begin to pay attention to anecdotes.

What’s your reaction to the anti-Israel verbiage coming from House representatives Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib?

Yair Rosenberg wrote in Tablet that Omar may be salvageable. But I think it’s horrific; posting “It’s all about the Benjamins baby.” She didn’t understand the connotations of what she was saying. What it shows is an inebriate kind of anti-Semitic stereotype … I feel very disturbed by it, and I hope some of these people get educated.

Otherwise, I hope they get relegated to the far corner of the political [world].

Of course, anti-Semitism isn’t just coming from the left, it’s also coming from the right.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy a couple months ago said that [donors to the Democratic Party] Michael Bloomberg, George Soros [and Tom Steyer] were trying to “buy” the midterm elections. And then there was a pipe bomb found in the mailbox of Soros.

In the aftermath of tragedies such as the Tree of Life shooting, why do we still see divisiveness among Jews?

Jews are a people. We’re a feisty people. The Torah even says am keshei oref (“a stiff-necked people”). We fight with one another, and we’ll continue to do so. Rather than to say, “Oh they’re terrible Jews, they fight with one another. Why can’t they get it together?” often the differences of opinion come out of caring. A lot of Jews care very deeply. Often, the differences of opinion

come from that [place], as opposed to saying, “I’m going to fight you because you’re on the other side, and I don’t like you.” So I’m going to give people the benefit of the doubt. But I don’t know what can bring us together. In the Warsaw Ghetto, when the resistance was wanting to fight the Nazis, there was a difference of opinion.

Are you working on future projects?

I have another book in the offing on a very different topic. I’m not yet ready to talk about it because it’s sort of just brewing in my mind.

But there’s a lot of interest in this [latest] book, and I’m very gratified by it. It was a tough book to write. I want people on the left to understand what’s happening on the left, and I want people on the right to understand what’s happening on the right, so that people will understand how things often morph into anti-Semitism.

What else would you like readers to know about anti-Semitism?

I hope people read my book with nuance, with care. I didn’t set out with a political agenda to attack one side or the other. I found antiSemitism on the left and on the right and among Islamist extremists and in portions of the Muslim community among people who might never think about doing any physical harm in the Jewish community, but have been inculcated with the anti-Semitism by imams, by others.

In London, the secretary general of the Labour Party [Jennie Formby] said that there’s nothing we can do about anti-Semitism in the party, we just have to learn to deal with it. Can you imagine her saying that about racism? About misogyny? It’s just mind-boggling. I hope people read the book and take off their political lenses.

Rather than only look on the other side of the political spectrum — people on the left only care about anti-Semitism on the right and on the right they only see anti-Semitism on the left — so I hope people read with care, and I hope it helps people understand this phenomenon.

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March 8, 2019 • 1 Adar 2, 5779 THE JEWISH STAR

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Protesters against anti-Semitism rally at Republique square in Paris AFP/Getty Images on Feb. 19.

told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

Reflecting the change is how rhetoric on Jewish domination of finance — often personified in the Rothschild banking family — has become “pervasive” in Labour since the far-left politician Jeremy Corbyn was elected to lead the party in 2015, according to Euan Philipps, the spokesman for the Labour Against Anti-Semitism action group.

Last month a former lecturer at the University of Liverpool, who chairs a local branch of the Labour Party, was reported to have shared conspiracy theories about the Rothschild family on a talk show. Another party activist retweeted Rothschild memes from the anti-Semitic conspiracy theorist David Icke. A former Labour parliamentary candidate in Essex endorsed an online post in 2017 claiming the “Rothschild Family” was behind a Zionist plot to “take over the world.”

Andy Slack, who represented Labour on the City Council of Chesterfield, near Manchester, was suspended in 2016 for posting on Facebook an image of a hook-nosed Israeli soldier whose mouth and hands are covered in blood. The caption read “Israel was created by the Rothschilds, not G-d … And what they are doing to the Palestinian people now is EXACTLY what they intend for the whole world.”

In Spain, the leader of the rising far-left Podemos party, Pablo

Iglesias, has hosted guests many times who inveigh against “the Jewish control on Wall Street,” as one of them defined it recently on his show “Fort Apache,” which airs on the Iranian regime’s propaganda channel HispanTV. In France, which is home to nearly half of Western Europe’s approximately 1.3 million Jews, similar rhetoric has emerged in a wave of yellow vest demonstrations over fuel prices and taxes that began in November.

From the onset, supporters of that mass movement took up anti-Semitic language, including a banner that called French President Emmanuel Macron “a whore of the Jews” and “President Rothschild.”

Last week, yellow vest protesters mobbed a Jewish philosopher who has declared his principled support for their cause. As police officers escorted Alain Finkielkraut to safety, the crowd chanted for him to “go to Tel Aviv” and called him “dirty Zionist.”

Leaders of that chaotic movement have either ignored these incidents or downplayed them as marginal while professing their general opposition to all forms of discrimination.

More than any other incident, the exchange involving Finkielkraut led to a wave of indignation in France over anti-Semitism. Thousands gathered in Paris on Tuesday for a rally against that form of racism following Macron’s condemnations. Other rallies were held across the country.

But that case was an example of the so-called new anti-Semitism that erupted in 2000, in which anti-Israel sentiment played an outsize role.

What’s different now?

The proliferation of theories about Jewish financial power and the Rothschilds do not involve Israel. And while this form of classic anti-Semitism, associated with “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion,” never entirely left Europe, it certainly had been marginalized after the Holocaust.

“Its return in a big way is a new development,” according to Marc Weitzmann, a French author and journalist who has written extensively about anti-Semitism in France.

The main components of modern anti-Semitism in France are not new, Weitzmann said. What has changed, he said, is how the narratives of the far left, far right and Muslim extremists “have begun to mirror each other and are now converging against the Jews and toward violence in ways that would haven been unthinkable See W. Euro on page 6

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By Cnaan Liphshiz, JTA AMSTERDAM — The working assumption about 21st-century anti-Semitism is that it is making a comeback in Western Europe due to a “perfect storm” driven by Muslim immigrants and European white ultranationalists.

This basic model has corresponded with the flowering of hate speech and crimes against Jews in Western Europe that began around 2000. That year, Muslim extremists for the first time torched several French synagogues over Israel’s war on Palestinian terrorists during the second intifada. It was the onset of a phenomenon that later became known as “new anti-Semitism,” in which Jews are targeted as Israel’s agents or as payback for the Jewish state’s perceived abuses.

Two years later, the Holocaust denier and anti-Muslim agitator Jean-Marie Le Pen took his far-right National Front party to the second round of the presidential elections for the first time.

These coinciding developments heralded a new and disturbing reality in which two rival and relatively small groups appeared to be growing and, through their rhetoric and actions, eroding the taboo placed on anti-Semitism after the horrors of the Holocaust.

But over the past four years, anti-Semitism in Western Europe has mutated yet again, reverting to its 20th-century economic elements and gaining a foothold in populist movements. Purveyors don’t necessarily share political views, but they agree that Jews are exemplars of an establishment they seek to overthrow.

This mutation, most visible in France’s yellow vest protests and the spreading of anti-Semitism within the British Labour Party, is remarkable in how quickly it has moved from the fringes of public discourse into mainstream frameworks.

The yellow vests blame Jewish financial interests for economic and social woes. Labour members have targeted Israel and Zionists using familiar language about Jewish power and foreignness.

But the main and possibly most troubling distinction of the latest new anti-Semitism is how it cuts across major religious and ideological differences among its propagators, uniting unlikely bedfellows such as neo-Nazis, communists and jihadists under a single cause.

“Go to Tel Aviv” “Anti-Semitism in Western Europe is morphing again,” said Mike Whine, the government and international affairs director at the Community Security Trust, British Jewry’s watchdog group.

“It may take government a long time to recognize the change,” he

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THE JEWISH STAR March 8, 2019 • 1 Adar 2, 5779

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March 8, 2019 • 1 Adar 2, 5779 THE JEWISH STAR

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Continued from page 1 ing illegal gifts from Hollywood producer Arnon Milchan, including Cuban cigars and pink champagne. The gifts totaled about $200,000. In return, Netanyahu allegedly helped secure a U.S. visa for Milchan and supported a law that would give tax breaks to the billionaire if he moved back to Israel.

Case 2000: Netanyahu is accused of advancing a law that would have hurt one newspaper in exchange for positive coverage from a rival paper. In Israel, the two leading papers are Yediot Acharonot and Israel Hayom. Yediot is generally anti-Netanyahu. Israel Hayom is almost always pro-Netanyahu — and it’s also free, thanks to funding from the American casino mogul Sheldon Adelson.

Case 2000 alleges that Netanyahu made this deal with Yediot’s publisher: Netanyahu would support a law banning free daily papers — that would hurt Israel Hayom. In return, Yediot would give Netanyahu positive coverage.

Case 4000: Netanyahu is accused of supporting looser regulation of Israel’s telecom giant, Bezeq, in exchange for favorable coverage from a news website Bezeq owns called Walla.

Sounds like Netanyahu really wants positive news coverage.

Allegedly. But Netanyahu and the Israeli press don’t really get along. Like his ally, President Donald Trump, Netanyahu says the local press is out to get him. He accuses the media of being left-wing and dishonest, and likes to use the term “fake news” a lot. He doesn’t translate it: He just says “fake news” while speaking Hebrew.

That’s a big part of his defense: Since the investigations began a couple of years ago, he has attacked the media again and again for accusing him of corruption — seeking to depose him in court because he keeps winning elections.

Netanyahu does have a few allies in the media, including Israel Hayom, which has consistently supported him since it was founded by Adelson, a Netanyahu ally, in 2007. (Yes, this is the same paper he allegedly said he’d hurt through legislation. Kind of ironic.)

And this year, as part of his re-election campaign, Adelson launched a pro-Netanyahu TV channel.

How else is Netanyahu defending himself?

Defiantly. Since the investigations began in 2016, Netanyahu has insisted that “Nothing will happen — because nothing happened.”

In a speech following the announcement of the indictment Thursday, Netanyahu didn’t give an inch. He called the criminal proceedings a left-wing conspiracy and said he would beat the charges.

“For three years, they’ve gone after us politically — an unprecedented hunting expedition, with one goal — to depose the right-wing government led by me,” the prime minister said.

“The primary goal is to influence the elections, even when they know this house of cards will

completely collapse after the elections.”

But wait — Netanyahu is facing criminal charges. Will he have to step down?

Nope. There’s no law that forces a sitting prime minister to resign if indicted. Plenty of people — including Netanyahu’s opponents — have said that he should resign for the good of the country. They say a sitting prime minister can’t be tied up in court while he has to run the country. But Netanyahu is standing his ground, and legally, it looks like he’s within his rights.

A final hearing, probably after the election, will determine whether the charges go forward.

Has this ever happened before?

Yes and no. Netanyahu is the first prime minister to be indicted for corruption — but that’s only because previous prime ministers have resigned before the process got this far. In 2008, Ehud Olmert resigned amid allegations of bribery, even before police recommended that he be indicted. Olmert eventually was convicted and served time in prison.

And in 1977, Yitzhak Rabin resigned after it became public that he and his wife held illegal foreign bank accounts totaling $10,000. Rabin ran again 15 years later and won. He would sign a historic peace treaty with the Palestinians but two years later be assassinated by a Jewish extremist.

Netanyahu, though, hasn’t backed down, staying in office even after police recommended that he be indicted, and after the indictment came through. That’s never happened before; we’re in uncharted waters now.

What does this mean for the election?

Unclear. Netanyahu is in a tight race with a new centrist party called Blue and White (the colors of Israel’s flag), which has a narrow lead in the polls. And a poll by The Times of Israel published Thursday says the indictment could hurt Netanyahu at the polls, moving some rightwing voters over to his rival.

But here’s where it gets complicated: Even if Netanyahu wins fewer votes in the election on April 9, he could still win the election. Israel has a parliamentary government, so what matters is which party can get a majority in the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, to back them. So even if Netanyahu finishes second, he will stay as prime minister if there is a right-wing majority overall — and it’s willing to back him.

So Netanyahu could still serve another term, even under indictment?

Maybe. Let’s talk on April 10.

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Continued from page 1 the Palestinian question and other key issues.

‘It’s time for a bottom-up approach’ Ya’alon’s position on the Palestinians is detailed, and he has taken opportunities to share it.

For example, in 2017, Ya’alon published an op-ed in Foreign Affairs magazine titled How to Build Middle East Peace. In it, he rejects the traditional Oslo model of land-for-peace as failed.

He also rules out the idea of large-scale annexation of West Bank territory, which he argued would imperil the critical goal of preserving Israel’s Jewish and democratic character.

In between the two positions of land-forpeace and annexation, Ya’alon stakes out his own long-term, “bottom-up” solution, which is based on two components. The first is political separation between Israelis and Palestinians; the second is a series of economic boosts to the Palestinian economy until circumstances make real peace possible in the distant future.

“Like many Israelis, I believed in the idea that territorial concessions might be the key to achieving peace. But over time, I became disillusioned,” Ya’alon wrote in his op-ed. He recalled how, as military intelligence chief, he delivered a strategic warning to the late Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in 1995, stating the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat was “feeding his people a steady diet of hatred and vitriol toward Israel,” and that “the PLO leadership was planning to maintain the conflict against Israel regardless of Arafat’s signature on the White House lawn.”

“Regrettably, more than two decades later, my assessment has not changed,” wrote Ya’alon, adding that “the vitriol from Gaza — what I call ‘Hamastan’ — is even worse.”

Ya’alon also rejects the idea that Israeli settlements are the problem. “The persistence of the Arab-Jewish conflict for more than 150 years is not because Jews have settled in a particular part of the land of Israel, but because Arabs have rejected the Jewish right to settle anywhere in the

land of Israel.”

In his bottom-up, incremental approach, Ya’alon calls for economic and infrastructure development, including letting more Palestinians work at Israeli industrial zones and settlements, Moshe Ya’alon, Gabi Ashkenazi, Benny Gantz and Yair Lapid of the Blue Noam Revkin Fenton/Flash90 and more Israeli-Pales- and White Party on Feb. 21. tinian joint ventures.

“More Palestinian industrial zones should be with the Palestinians in the West Bank as well. developed,” he added, “and Israeli natural gas “I’m always asked if I am in favor of one state should be delivered to the West Bank and Gaza. or two, and I always answer: I’m in favor of the A Palestinian power station should be construct- State of Israel,” he said, according to the report. ed near Jenin, the capacity of the power station He also reportedly said that “only half of the in Gaza should be increased, and there should be public gets drafted [for military service], and a solar field installed adjacent to the Gaza Strip.” this is a dangerous situation,” a reference to the “There should be a desalination facility built fact that just 50 percent of Israelis end up in the in Gaza, and the agricultural sector should be IDF (the result of Arab Israeli exemptions, and promoted across the territories. And the success Israeli Jews who cite religious commitments as a of Rawabi, the new planned city, should be repli- reason to avoid the draft). His observation could cated in other regions of the West Bank.” be seen as a warning that if the situation does ‘We must set borders for Israel’ not change, an increasing amount of military duAshkenazi, who served as chief of staff be- ties will fall on a decreasing proportion of the tween 2007 and 2011, oversaw one of the IDF’s population that answers the call for service. most important recent phases, dubbed a “return ‘We will shape new reality’ to basics.” It was based on the idea that the Benny Gantz’s own outlook regarding the ground forces be highly trained, and prepared conflict with the Palestinians has begun to befor war at any time, rather than Israel relying come clearer in light of his growing yet still limmainly on airpower and long-range firepower. ited public statements on the issue. His policy Ashkenazi’s policy is seen by many defense seems to be based on the idea of trying to reanalysts as a key rehabilitation stage of the army. start negotiations with the Palestinian Authority, Publicly, his comments on Palestinians have though he appears skeptical that talks will bear been vague and limited. Last month, Israel’s fruit. If diplomacy fails, Gantz has hinted heavily Channel 13 news quoted him as stating, “We that he would favor unilateral steps. must set borders for Israel with an emphasis on Prior to officially launching his bid for the the Jordan Valley being in our hands.” premiership, Gantz was quoted in December by This comment appears to affirm the need for Channel 13 as telling a gathering of Mexican Israeli military presence on the valley, between Jews that Israel’s “No. 1 interest is to find a soluJordan and the West Bank. But the additional tion [to the conflict with the Palestinians]. This reference to setting borders could also be refer- is not just a political question of left and right.” ence to the need for Israel to mark out its border

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5 THE JEWISH STAR March 8, 2019 • 1 Adar 2, 5779

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Gantz recounted a meeting with an unnamed Middle Eastern leader, who told him that there are 14 million people living between the Mediterranean and the Jordan River — Jews and Palestinians. “None of them are going anywhere, and we have to find a way to live together,” the leader said. “I could not agree more,” he added.

“I believe that for us Israelis, it is important to find a solution without compromising our security needs and the safety of our citizens.”

This suggests that Gantz finds the status quo unacceptable. During his inaugural address in January as the head of a new political party, Gantz vowed that any government he would lead “will strive for peace and will not miss any opportunity to create a regional change. This is what the Israeli patriot Menachem Begin did, who signed a peace treaty with Egypt. This is what the Israeli patriot Yitzhak Rabin did, who forged a peace treaty with Jordan. This is what Benjamin Netanyahu — yes, he too, is an Israeli patriot — did, when he delivered the Bar-Ilan speech [committing himself to a two-state solution] and signed the Hebron evacuation agreement at Wye with the arch-murderer Yasser Arafat.”

But Gantz also indicated that if efforts at diplomacy with the Palestinian Authority fail once again, he will turn to unilateral steps, saying, “if we learn that there is no way to reach peace at this time, we will shape a new reality.”

He called for strengthening settlement blocs and the Golan Heights, which he said “we will never withdraw from.” He also emphasized that Jerusalem must remain Israel’s united capital.

And like Ashkenazi, Gantz said “the Jordan Valley will remain our eastern security border.”

During his term as chief of staff, Gantz commanded a 2012 air operation including an airstrike on Hamas’s chief of staff, Ahmed Jabari.

He referred to that event when delivering a warning to Israel’s enemies. While Israel should “allow all humanitarian assistance to Gazan citizens” and help Gaza’s economic development, at the same time, he said, “The heads of terror organizations should know that Ahmed Jabari was not the first, and he does not have to be the last.”

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Continued from page 3 in France prior to 2015.”

Weitzmann said the catalyst for this convergence are jihadist terrorist attacks that have claimed hundreds of lives in France and Belgium since ’15.

“Terror has freed a general violence” in society, he said.

As for the return of anti-Semitic conspiracy theories to mainstream debate in Europe, it does not come as a shock to Whine, the Community Security Trust executive from Britain.

“You’ve always had this sentiment under surface,” he said. “It’s coming out as a result of the collapse of the political center, loss of faith in democratic institutions and economic crises, for which Jews are being blamed.”

The mainstreaming of classical anti-Semitism by the far left was seen in 2013 when Corbyn publicly defended a London mural depicting Jewish bankers playing Monopoly on the backs of black people. The incident “in many ways represents the problem,” Whine said. (Corbyn has since apologized for defending the work.)

On the right, politicians who were considered centrist not long ago have also taken up language reminiscent of 1930s vitriol about Jews.

Last year, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said in a speech that his government was fighting an enemy that is “not open but hiding; not straightforward but crafty; not honest but base; not national but international; does not believe in working but speculates with money; does not have its own homeland but feels it owns the whole world.”

President Donald Trump’s election amid his expressions of disdain for “globalists” has coincided with a marked increase in hate crimes against American Jews — some by perpetrators who identify those globalists as Jewish.

Amid widespread discontent with the European Union, vilification of Israel and radicalization in Muslim communities, the number of antiSemitic incidents reported in Western Europe has increased in Germany (10 percent over 2017 to 1,646 incidents); France (74 percent to 541 cases) and the United Kingdom (16 percent to a record 1,652 incidents last year).

The government response Western European governments, several of which have recently adopted a far-reaching definition of anti-Semitism, have not been idle as all this was happening.

In France, where soldiers were posted to guard synagogues in 2015 following a jihadist’s slaying of four Jews at a Paris kosher shop, the judiciary has cracked down on anti-Semitic hate crimes. Last month, the anti-Semitic author Alain Soral was given a rare one-year prison sentence for his writings.

Addressing the advent of new anti-Semitism, Macron in 2017 became the first French president to publicly call anti-Zionism a form of antiSemitism. He said this at his country’s main Holocaust commemoration event.

In Britain, the government last year pledged $17.5 million in security funding for the Community Security Trust, which fights anti-Semitism in addition to providing protection to British Jews.

And in Germany, the government created a new role of commissioner for fighting anti-Semitism, among other actions.

So why has this action and awareness failed to lower the flames of ant-Semitism?

To Weitzmann, the answer is in the conspiratorial sentiments that fan the flames of anti-Semitism in the first place.

“Government efforts to curb anti-Semitism fail precisely because they’re coming from the government, which anti-Semites believe is controlled by globalist Jews,” he said. “It’s a vicious cycle.”

Still, talk of a return of 1930s anti-Semitism to Europe is inaccurate, said Weitzmann, whose book about these issues, “Hate,” will be coming out next month.

“Back then, anti-Semitism was implemented from governments down,” Weitzmann said. “Today it’s the other way around: It’s rising from the base and governments are trying to stop it, although not very successfully.”

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Continued from page 1 ast year, my operatically trained, rock-pop singer/songwriter and cantorial soloist daughter Rachel Black wrote a haunting Holocaust ballad. It is among the first songs of the Shoah written in contemporary musical style. It was titled “Edyka,” named for my mother.

In piercing rhythms and searing lyrics, “Edyka” retold the story of my grandmother saving my mother from that ghastly boxcar, making it possible for me and my daughter to exist, keeping the memory alive. My mother has passed, but her inspiring struggle lives on. I have written about my parents’ story, and now my daughter has ignited a new vector of remembrance in song.

Then, Rachel was invited to sing and deliver a keynote address at her state’s official Yom Hashoah commemoration in 2018. She previewed her song in a solo performance, evoking a rousing, emotional reception.

Soon, Rachel performed “Edyka” elsewhere in Kansas, where she lives, with accompanying musicians. Crowds teared up and stood in applause when she chanted the song’s pulsing injunction to survive. The Kansas City Star published an extended Mother’s Day feature about Rachel, her grandmother, her great-grandmother, and the song linking them all, and videoed a performance of the song for its website. Its coverage was picked up by the Associated Press and published in several dozen American newspapers.

In October 2018, Rachel flew to Washington to perform at the National Press Club before a gathering at a Holocaust Legacy ceremony. A few weeks later, she rendered a house-chilling performance at a large commemoration of the 80th anniversary of Kristallnacht in Manhattan.

My outlook was bleak.

Then two things happened.

Continued from page 1 by the ZOA, called it a matter of political calculus necessary to win the upcoming election.

Following the backlash, the president of the National Council of Young Israel clarified that the statement does not necessarily speak for individual synagogues.

This is the full text of the statement by the dissident Young Israel shuls: “The leadership of the National Council of Young Israel (NCYI), an umbrella organization of synagogue communities, regularly issues public statements about a variety of political matters.

“In recognition of the current, highly divisive political environment in the United States, Israel, and beyond, the undersigned rabbinic and lay leadership of individual Young Israel synagogue communities, call upon NCYI leadership to immediately cease making all political pronouncements.

“Such statements are currently formulated without any input of authorization from the rabbinic and lay leadership of individual Young Israel synagogue communities. Therefore, we further state that all past statements issued by NCYI leadership about political matters — including but not limited to its recent statement about Otzmah Yehudit and the Israeli political process — do not represent the diverse views within our individual synagogue communities, or the gamut of views across the diverse synagogue communities under the NCYI umbrella.

“Finally, we recognize that future extraordinary circumstances may arise such that NCYI leadership may wish to issue a public statement addressing a political matter on behalf of all YI synagogue communities. We therefore call upon NCYI leadership to develop and publicize a transparent process for soliciting input from all individual NCYI synagogues in order to ensure that such a statement will properly reflect their diverse views.”

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Continued from page 1 gium, there is no room for such things, carnival or not,” they wrote.

The group Vismooil’n created the two puppets as their 2019 theme for the Aalst carnival, the local edition of celebrations that take place throughout parts of Europe and Latin America in anticipation of Lent, the 40-day period before Easter. Participants prepare floats and dance routines, parading them through town on Carnaval.

The group, a veteran participant that specializes in realistic puppets, created the display to address rising prices, they told a Belgian blogger last month. They titled the work “Shabbat Year.”

The display features two giant puppets with streimels, hats favored by some Orthodox Jews, in pink suits. They both have sidelocks. One of the puppets is grinning while smoking a cigar and extending a hand, presumably to collect money. That puppet has a white rat on his right shoulder. Both puppets are standing on gold coins and have money bags at their feet.

In the background is a round window reminiscent of European synagogue architecture and a small box resembling a mezuzah on its right.

“Everything has become so expensive [we though that] if we do 2019, there would be no more money left for next year,” a member of the group was quoted as saying. “So we all went quiet until we smartly decided to go for the Shabbat Year and that was that. So simple.”

In 2013, a different group designed for the Aalst carnival a float resembling a Nazi railway wagon used to transport Jews to death camps.

The people who designed the float, known as the FTP Group, marched near the float dressed as Nazi SS officers and haredi Orthodox Jews.

A poster on the wagon showed Flemish Belgian politicians dressed as Nazis and holding canisters labeled as containing Zyklon B, the poison used by the Nazis to exterminate Jews in gas chambers in the Holocaust.

7 THE JEWISH STAR March 8, 2019 • 1 Adar 2, 5779

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wo things happened. One was my daughter’s song about my mother and grandmother. The second was learning that Rachel would bring into the world another descendant, made possible by my grandmother and mother, eternalized in song by my daughter. Second Generation, Third Generation, now Fourth Generation.

The new 4G arrival is baby Cora Edyka: Korach gave rise to the original cantors who sang at the Ark of the Covenant; Edyka was in the boxcar. Thus comes Cora Edyka, fit and fighting to take her place in the legacy of survival.

I received a video of Cora Edyka’s first moments in the world as her mother gently sang to her in Hebrew — Hinei Mah Tov. “How good it is … to dwell together.” Hence, the first sounds heard in Cora Edyka’s existence were not Sesame Street cheeps or baby doll squeaks, but the very sounds the Nazis worked so hard to extinguish.

The generations of the Shoah have been determined to fortify and protect the ones to follow. Soon, all the survivors will be gone. The Second Generation, including me, will also soon be gone.

The Third Generation has the duty to ensure that the Fourth Generation will carry the torch. It will be their challenge that we “Never Forget,” for ourselves and for the world. This challenge will be immeasurably more difficult in the decades to come than it was for me over the past half century.

At issue is whether the next generation of Jews will walk furtively looking over their shoulder, or boldly toward a gleaming horizon. I know Rachel and Cora will be among the bold. But they will need plenty of strength and help.

Edwin Black is the New York Times bestselling author of IBM and the Holocaust and many other books. He can be found at www.edwinblack.com.

March 8, 2019 • 1 Adar 2, 5779 THE JEWISH STAR

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The JEWISH STAR

School News

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

Virtual reality at HAFTR Eighth grade girls at HAFTR Middle School capped off a unit about the Beit HaMikdash by experiencing the Beit Hamikdash in virtual reality. MikdashVR came with virtual head sets to give our students a walk through simulation of the Beit Hamikdash.

With a kohen as their guide, they got to see all the keilim in the Beit Hamikdash as well as the kohanim doing their service. Shouts of “Cool!” and “Whoa!” could be heard through the experience.

SKA Tefilah In a departure from the activities of Color War, students of Stella K. Abraham High School for Girls were able to learn and connect to tefilah outside of the formal liturgy.

SKA’s student-directed TTYL Committee (Turning Tefilah into Your Life) designed a tefilah workshop program, giving girls the chance to choose from ten different workshops ranging from meditation and mindfulness to in depth understanding of what we say during davening. The goal of the workshops: making time to focus on how we can make tefilah more meaningful everyday.

In addition to the stellar roster of SKA faculty members — Penina Bernstein, Avital Braun, Rochel Chafetz, Rabbi Daniel Eisenbach, Esti Engel, Rikki Fishbein, Shalva Goldshein, Penina Kranzler, Shira Manne, Paghit Ralbag, Leanne Taylor and Rabbi Yosef Zakutinsky — Dr. Hillel Broder, principal of general studies at DRS, and Rabbi Manu Hass, day school coordinator of NSCY Long Island, also delivered powerful workshops.

“The workshop I attended was titled ‘You are In-

Limudei Kodesh electives electrify HANC High vited to a Date with Hakadosh Baruch Hu’ and really helped us understand how to connect with Hashem,” one student noted. Another student shared that the workshop helped her reflect on what is important to daven for and how.

By Courtney Isler, senior HANC continuously looks for innovative and unique learning opportunities for its high school students. Over the past few years, the Limudei Kodesh department has created elective courses based on student and teacher recommendation that focus on relevant and interesting topics such as Jewish Snopes, Living as a Jew 24/7, Creating Your Best Life, Women in Halacha, Business Ethics, Bioethics, and the like.

This semester, a group of junior and senior

girls began a course in Bioethics and Halacha.

The course, taught by Rabbi Etan Ehrenfeld, will explore many important and contemporary topics in the field of bioethics and how they intersect with halacha. Sources are introduced from a multitude of Torah scholars to further discuss the topics, and the conflicts surrounding them. Some of the topics include organ donation, vaccinations, and surrogate motherhood.

The course exemplifies how the worlds of Torah and science intersect in our classrooms and in the lives of students.

Service inductees at DRS DRS held its eighth annual Nedivei Lev Service Society Induction Ceremony to recognize seniors for their exemplary service through acts of chessed and kindness. Rabbi Eli Brazil, drector of student activities discussed the Nedivei Lev Service Society as well as the concept of chessed.

Rabbi Aryeh Lebowitz offered a d’var Torah on the importance of being a Ba’al Chessed.

Students were given awards by leaders of many of the organizations that were the beneficiaries of the chessed done by DRS students. Andy Lauber of i-Shine presented Akiva Aryeh, Yaakov Weissman, and Shmulie Shafler with an award for their involvement mentoring boys who have a family member struggling with illness. Ariella Newman honored Joseph Greenberg for his volunteer

work with the TOVA Mentoring Program. Madeline Rosenberg spoke about Yosef Mehlman’s accomplishments at DRS. Rabbi Ahron Rosenthal, assistant director of Yachad, honored Jacob Penstein, Jonathan Wenger, Yehudah Fuchs and Josh Trauring. Batsheva Borenstein, director of Five Towns Chabad, thanked Yishai Attias, Yehuda Frankel, Josh Goldfeder and Jonah Neiman for their service to Chabad’s Friendship Circle.

Rabbi Ephraim Polakoff lauded Yaakov Fuchs for his dedication to the DRS-NCSY Jump Team, and Rabbi Aaron Fleksher offered words of Hakarat HaTov to Chaim Schwartz for leading the charge of the DRSLive team. And John Goldhirsch, community engagement coordinator for the Gift of Life, presented an award to Aiden Englander.

YHT uses theater in bullying fight As part of a yearlong focus on empathy, Yeshiva Har Torah’s fourth graders created and performed an original show about dealing with bullying. The show was the culmination of Stand Up/ Speak Up, a drama-based bullying prevention program by Envision Theater.

In a series of workshops, fourth graders discussed how to approach difficult situations. The students brainstormed solutions, problem solving, and using dramatic role play. They then wrote a play based on those ideas, using directed drama activities and creative writing to dramatise and teach

other students how to be an upstander when they see someone being bullied.

According to Rebecca Lopkin, Envision Theater’s founder and Artistic Director, Envision is “thrilled to be partnering with Yeshiva Har Torah. We developed StandUp/SpeakUp several years ago to address the bullying issue in schools.

“These students can now use these real-life skills on the playground, bus or anyplace they may see bullying.”

The workshop is part of YHT’s comprehensive, homegrown middot curriculum, created by Principal Ms. Pesha

Kletenik. This year’s theme is #YHTyouandme with a focus on empathy and friendship through monthly projects, and Jewish and General Studies lessons. Weekly “Table Talks” are sent home to help parents guide discussions connected to the middot lessons at school at their Shabbat tables.

Assistant Principal Sara Duani noted that the program is a natural fit with YHT’s curriculum. ”Teaching empathy is a core value at Yeshiva Har Torah and using drama through our partnership with Envision Theater was a way to bring a different approach to that.”

THE JEWISH STAR March 8, 2019 • 1 Adar 2, 5779

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March 8, 2019 • 1 Adar 2, 5779 THE JEWISH STAR

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The JEWISH STAR

Wine & Dine

Fill your cookie jars as we prepare for Purim Kosher Kitchen

JONi SChOCKeTT

Jewish Star columnist

A

s I sit here waiting for another snowstorm to arrive, it is hard to believe that Purim is just around the corner. That means it is time to start making shalach manot and almost time to start using up the chametz for Pesach!

Time marches on, and to get everything done in time, planning and freezing is imperative.

I love the story of Purim, especially all the intrigue and duplicity that saved our people. From plots and secrets to more, it is more mystery movie than holiday, but it is a fun and boisterous celebration, and getting more so every year.

In Israel, there is the Adloyada parade, a combination of Mardi Gras and the Rose Bowl.

There are several videos on Youtube, if you want to see them. These parades are loud, fun, and energetic, and people of all ages participate. Why don’t we do that here?

In the evening, people gather and read the Megillah and make even more noise. Synagogues give out candy to the children and shots of schnapps to the adults. In fact, adults are supposed to get so drunk that they cannot differentiate between Haman and Mordechai. Not sure that one appeals to me, but making shalach manot is an activity I completely enjoy and, because I begin so many days or even weeks before Purim, I get to think about the holiday and celebrate it for a lot longer than one day and loud and raucous night.

When my children were young, creating the perfect costume was a month-long activity. It was fun to see them so involved. Purim meant getting a lot of treats and also giving teats to our friends and more. We often participated in making bags of goodies for a local nursing home and my children learned that some people did not have all that they had. The tradition of giving to those less fortunate is biblical and an important lesson for all to learn. Distributing treats that they loved

was a powerful way to instill that idea.

It’s time to think ahead and make lots of shalach manot this year. You can freeze a lot of these treats for a week or so with no problem, which will help you manage your time. Then you can spend that time with your children or grandchildren decorating bags and filling them with your delicious treats. Chag sameach!

Chewy Oatmeal Cookies (Dairy) 2 cups rolled oats, not instant 1/4 cup almond milk 1-1/4 cups unbleached flour 1/2 tsp. baking powder 1/2 tsp. baking soda 1 tsp. cinnamon 1/8 tsp. ground cloves 1/8 tsp. freshly ground nutmeg 2 sticks butter 1 cup firmly packed dark brown sugar 1 large egg 2 Tbsp. molasses 1 tsp. vanilla extract 1-1/4 cups raisins 3/4 cup chopped walnuts (optional) 1/2 cup sunflower seeds 1/4 cup sesame seeds Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Place the oats in a small bowl and add the almond milk.

Stir to combine. Let sit to soften.

In another bowl, mix the flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, cloves and nutmeg together. Set aside.

Melt the butter (just until barely melted) either in a small saucepan or in the microwave.

Pour into a large bowl and add the molasses, vanilla and sugar and mix until blended. Add the egg and mix vigorously. Add the flour mixture and mix until moistened. Add the oats and mix well. Add the nuts, raisins, sunflower seeds, and sesame seeds, and mix thoroughly. Cover and refrigerate the dough overnight.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Drop the dough by rounded spoonfuls onto ungreased or parchment lined pans about 3 inches apart. Bake for 10 to 12 minutes or until golden on top. Let cool before moving to a rack.

Makes about 40 cookies.

Brown Sugar Pecan Pie Goldies (Dairy) 1-1/3 cups flour 1/2 cup light brown sugar, firmly packed 4 Tbsp. dark brown sugar, firmly packed 1/2 tsp. baking powder 1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened Topping 3/4 cup dark corn syrup 1/8 cup dark brown sugar 1/8 cup light brown sugar 3 Tbsp. flour 2 extra large eggs 1 tsp. vanilla 1/4 to 1/2 tsp. salt 1 cup chopped pecans Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 9 by 13 pan and set aside.

Put the flour, sugar and baking powder in a bowl. Add the butter by pieces and rub together with your clean hands to incorporate the butter into the flour. When the mixture is all small crumbs, pour them into the pan and press them evenly over the bottom.

Place the corn syrup, sugars, flour, eggs vanilla and salt in the bowl of an electric mixer.

Set to medium speed and beat until mixture is well combined. Remove the bowl from the stand and add the pecan pieces. Mix with a spoon and pour the topping evenly over the crumb mixture.

Spread the topping evenly.

Bake at 350 degrees until lightly golden brown, 20 to 25 minutes. Let cool completely before cutting. Wrap individually to freeze.

Best Toffee Crunch Blonde Brownies (Dairy) 1 box dark brown sugar (1 pound) 1 stick plus 3 tablespoons butter 3 extra-large eggs 2-2/3 cups flour 1 tsp. pure vanilla extract 1/2 tsp. salt 2 tsp. baking powder 8 oz. toffee bits 10 to 12 oz. semi or bittersweet chocolate chips or chunks Optional: 1/2 cup toasted, chopped walnuts or hazelnuts Melt the butter and add the brown sugar. Mix over low heat until the sugar is smooth and pulls away from the pan when stirring vigorously.

Pour the sugar mixture into the bowl of an electric mixer and set aside to cool for about 10 minutes.

While mixing on low speed, add the eggs one at a time. Add the vanilla and mix to blend.

Add the salt, baking powder and flour. Mix on slow until blended, scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed. Remove the bowl from the stand and stir in the toffee bits and chocolate chips by hand. Pour into a greased and floured 9 by 13 pan. Bake at 350 degrees until golden brown and a toothpick comes out clean (except

for the chocolate), about 25 to 35 minutes. Let cool before cutting. Makes up to 24 bars.

No Bake Peanut Butter Marshmallow, Pretzel Treats (Dairy) 1 cup dark brown sugar, firmly packed 1 cup light corn syrup 2 cups mini marshmallows or large marshmallows snipped 3/4 cup creamy natural unsweetened peanut butter 2 tsp. pure vanilla extract 3 cups thin pretzel sticks, or mini pretzels, broken 2 cups graham crackers, broken into small pieces 3 cups unsweetened puffed wheat cereal or rice cereal 3 oz. bittersweet chocolate, melted 1/2 cup toffee bits 1/2 cup mini M&Ms or chocolate chips 2 oz. white chocolate or 4 ounces melted soft caramel candies 1/2 to 1 tsp. kosher salt or sea salt crystals Grease a 9 by 13 Glass baking dish and set aside.

Place the corn oil and the brown sugar in a large (4 to 6 quart) heavy saucepan over medium heat. Bring to a boil and stir for 1 minute.

Remove from heat and add the marshmallows.

Stir vigorously until all melted. Add the peanut butter and vanilla and mix until completely combined.

Add the pretzel pieces, graham cracker pieces, and cereal and mix well. Scrape into the prepared pan and smooth the top with your hands (I use a food prep glove). Set aside.

Heat the chocolate in a microwave safe bowl until just melted. Using a fork, drizzle the chocolate evenly over the top. Sprinkle with mini chips and toffee bits.

Melt the white chocolate or caramel and drizzle that over the toffee bits and dark chocolate.

Let cool and refrigerate for at least one hour or until set. Use a sharp knife dipped in hot water to cut into squares. Makes 18 to 24 bars.

11 THE JEWISH STAR March 8, 2019 • 1 Adar 2, 5779

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March 8, 2019 • 1 Adar 2, 5779 THE JEWISH STAR

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The JEWISH STAR

Wine & Dine

These 3 easy tahini sauces will spice up dinner

By Sonya Sanford, The Nosher Basic tahini sauce is made with a mixture of tahini paste, water, lemon juice and garlic.

Tahini paste itself is made from toasted ground sesame seeds. Both tahini paste and tahini sauces are staples of Israeli cooking. Tahini has a nutty flavor with subtle bittersweetness. Its flavor is mild, its texture is creamy, and it can act as a canvas for an array of flavors from fresh herbs and spices to sweeteners and yogurt.

Here are three of my favorite takes on tahini sauces: spicy gochujang (Korean red pepper paste) tahini sauce, beet tahini sauce, and preserved lemon and basil tahini sauce, each which can add spice and brightness to so many dishes.

After spending over a decade living in Los Angeles, the abundance of the city’s amazing Korean food and ingredients started making their way into my cooking. One night, I wanted to spice up my tahini sauce and a container of gochujang caught my eye. Gochujang is a spicy, sweet red pepper paste that is made from fermented chilis, glutinous rice and soy. It is ubiquitous in Korean cooking as a base for condiments, sauces and soups. You can find it in many grocery stores (sometimes even at Trader Joe’s) or at any Asian market.

The first time I used it with tahini I mixed in a spoonful, and thinned the mixture with water. It took seconds to make, was a big hit at the table, and now I can’t live without this simple Koreaninfluenced tahini sauce. It’s especially good drizzled on crispy tofu or sautéed string beans.

Beet tahini sauce combines the earthy sweetness of roasted beets with the rich nuttiness of tahini. This sauce turns bright pink

from the beets and livens up falafel, grilled chicken or simple roasted vegetables.

The last sauce combines tahini with a popular North African ingredient: preserved lemon.

The strong citrusy floralness of the preserved lemon mellows with the addition of tahini, and the aromatic minty anise of the basil heightens the sauce and makes it a complex addition to anything it tops. I use it as a dressing or dip for fresh veggies, as a topping on roasted garlicky potatoes, or even spooned over crispy spinach

and feta bourekas.

These recipes are guides to play around with. You can add or leave out garlic in any of these, cumin would be a nice addition to the beet sauce, and yogurt would go so well with the preserved lemon and basil. If you like your sauces thicker, add more tahini. If you like them thinner, add more water. Taste and adjust each to your liking, use immediately or store in the fridge for up to a week, and make sure to drizzle liberally.

Spicy Gochujang Tahini Sauce 1/2 cup tahini 1/2 cup water 1 Tbsp. gochujang paste (Korean red pepper paste), or to taste 1 Tbsp. soy sauce, or to taste Add the tahini, gochujang and soy sauce to a bowl. Slowly whisk in the water, a little at a time, until the sauce is smooth. Taste and adjust the seasonings to your liking: add more gochujang for spiciness, more soy sauce for saltiness, and more or less water for consistency.

Beet Tahini Sauce 1 medium cooked beet, quartered 1/2 cup tahini paste 1/3 cup water, or more if desired 2 Tbsp. lemon juice (about ½ a lemon) 1 clove garlic, finely grated 1 tsp. kosher salt, or to taste In a food processor or blender, combine the beet and tahini. Pulse until roughly combined.

With the machine on, slowly drizzle in the water and blend until smooth. Transfer to a bowl and whisk in the lemon juice, grated garlic and salt. Taste and adjust to your liking.

Preserved Lemon & Basil Tahini Sauce 1/2 cup tahini paste 1/2 cup basil leaves (packed) 1/2 cup water 2 Tbsp. lemon juice (about 1/2 a lemon) 1 Tbsp. chopped preserved lemon Salt and pepper, to taste In a food processor or blender, pulse to combine the tahini, preserved lemon and basil leaves. With the machine on, slowly drizzle in the water and lemon juice. Taste and season with salt and pepper.

Pink pickled turnips taste as good as they look

By Sonya Sanford, The Nosher Pink pickled turnips are a fixture of Middle Eastern cuisine, and it’s hard to find a restaurant shawarma plate without them. Their rose-like magenta color makes you forget that these pickles are in fact made from an often-overlooked root vegetable. Their seemingly unnatural pink color is not a result of synthetic food colorings, but comes from the addition of red beets

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that impart their deep-hued color to the whitefleshed turnips as they ferment.

Turnips have a sharp mustardy flavor that is similar in pungency to a radish, and that becomes mellower and sweeter when cooked or pickled.

Turnips are usually found tucked away next to rutabagas and parsnips in the produce section of most grocery stores. If you pick them up at a farmer’s market, you might get lucky enough to find some small-sized tender turnips with their greens still attached. Don’t let go of those greens; sautéed with butter and garlic, they’re a delicious side all on their own. Turnip greens can also be used in their raw form, and make a spicy leafy addition to a salad or sandwich.

Pink pickled turnips taste as good as they look. They are salty, vinegary and peppery, and their aromatic acidity helps cut through the richness of crispy fried falafel, grilled meats or spicy foods. I also like them alongside brunch.

They are less sour than pickled cucumbers and nicely complement a buttery omelette and fried or roasted potatoes.

You can buy pickled turnips at any Middle Eastern or Persian market, but they are surprisingly easy to make at home. Peeled and cut into small pieces, the turnips go into a jar with some sliced beets. A simple brine of salt, water, vinegar and a few aromatics gets added to the vegetables. Let the turnips hang out in the brine for less than a week, and then they’re ready to go and can last in the fridge for a month. The recipe is simple, the ingredients are minimal and inexpensive, and the finished product adds beauty and tangy brightness to any plate of food.

Ingredients: 3 cups water 1/3 cup kosher salt 1 Tbsp. sugar (optional) 2 bay leaves 1 tsp. black peppercorns (optional) 1 cup white vinegar

2 lbs. turnips 1 small beet 2 cloves garlic Directions: 1. Add water, salt, sugar, bay and peppercorns to a pot and bring to a simmer. Simmer for 3 to 5 minutes until the salt and sugar are completely dissolved and the bay and pepper have begun to flavor the brine. Allow the liquid to cool slightly before adding the vinegar.

2. While it’s cooling, peel the turnips and cut them into batons or pieces that are about ½ an inch thick. If using baby turnips, you do not need to peel them. You can halve or quarter them depending on their size. Peel and thinly

slice the beet. Peel and slightly crush the garlic cloves.

3. Add a few sliced beets to the bottom of a clean mason jar (or jars). Fill the jar with the cut turnip and garlic, and top with a few more slices of beet.

4. Add the vinegar to the cooled water and salt solution. Pour the brine into the jar(s) so that the vegetables are fully covered in the liquid. Add the bay leaves and peppercorns from the brine. Close the jars, and place in a cool dark place for 5 days.

5. After the turnips ferment for 5 days, they are ready to eat. You can refrigerate them for up to a month. Serves 6 cups.

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14

Rabbi Meir Kahane and Israel’s far right

By Emily Burack, JTA When Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu brokered a partnership between the extreme right-wing party Otzma Yehudit (Jewish Power) and the more moderate rightwing Jewish Home, the late American-born Rabbi Meir Kahane was suddenly all over the news.

Rabbi Kahane, whose extremist Kach party was outlawed in Israel several years after his assassination in 1990, is the ideological father of Otzma Yehudit . By extending a welcoming hand to the party ahead of Israel’s April elections, Netanyahu was accused of legitimizing Rabbi Kahane’s deep legacy of racism, violence and hatred.

But understanding Rabbi Kahane — and his ideas — goes much deeper than just knowing that he has a link with Otzma Yehudit.

Who is Meir Kahane?

He was born Martin Baruch Kahane in Flatbush in 1932, and grew up a member of youth group affiliated with Revisionist Zionism. Founded by Zeev Jabotinsky in 1925, the Revisionists were the more militant wing of the Zionist movement, insisting its Labor movement rivals were too passive in efforts to establish a Jewish state in all of the land of biblical Israel.

Let’s skip ahead a few decades, to 1968.

What happened in 1968?

So much!

New York City was a racial and an ethnic powder keg in the late 1960s. In May that year, in the aftermath of a racially charged New York City teachers strike that set AfricanAmerican parents against a largely Jewish teachers’ union, Rabbi Kahane and two pals decided to form the Jewish Defense League.

The first ad for the JDL appeared in The Jewish Press: “Anti-semitic Black racists are battling for control of cities,” the advertisement claimed. Rabbi Kahane’s JDL would go on to fixate on supposed examples of black antiSemitism.

Plenty of Jewish groups battle antiSemitism. What made JDL different?

Rabbi Kahane wanted Jews to embrace “Jewish power,” modeled after the Black Panthers and other ethnic militant groups of the era. (Ironically he was styling the JDL after the Black Panthers while using racist sentiment in equating Black Power groups to Nazis.) He called it self-defense; critics called it vigilantism.

Rabbi Kahane believed his JDL would fight for the “forgotten Jew” that the American Jewish establishment had supposedly left behind, and that the JDL would inspire young Jewish men to fight back when they saw what they perceived as anti-Semitism.

Rabbi Kahane would popularize the slogan “Never again!” (also the title of his manifesto) long before it became a rallying cry for Holocaust memory and numerous other movements. For Rabbi Kahane, when another Holocaust came around — and it would, he believed — Jews would be ready to fight back.

Rabbi Kahane saw the threat to Jews not only from black militants at home in New York, but in worldwide communism — remember, this is the Cold War era — and the plight of Soviet Jewry.

Wait, Soviet Jews are involved here?

Yes, the Soviet Jewry movement was sort of Rabbi Kahane’s claim to fame in America.

And by fame, we mean violence.

In the early 1970s, Rabbi Kahane led the JDL in a domestic terror campaign of bombings, in addition to civil disobedience tactics (sit-ins, demonstrations, harassment) to put pressure on the Soviet Union to allow Jews to emigrate. (An article in JTA, from 1971, reported the firebombing of a Soviet attache’s car.)

In July 1971, Rabbi Kahane stood trial for violating the Federal Fire Arms Act of 1968, entered a guilty plea and was placed on five years federal probation. Two months later, he and his family immigrated to Israel.

an explainer

Rabbi Kahane did not found the movement to free Soviet Jewry — the Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry was launched in 1964 by New York college students — but Rabbi Kahane and the JDL raised the profile of the issue in American politics.

Yossi Klein Halevi, a former member of the JDL who has since denounced the group, explained in an interview, “Kahane’s classic line was ‘It’s time to take the Soviet Jewry issue out of the obituary pages and onto page 1.’

And he did. He put the Soviet Jewry movement on page 1.”

Rabbi Kahane’s in Israel.

What does he do there?

After arriving in Israel, he soon pivots to Israeli politics, with a brief one-year hiatus in American prisons, when he returns in 1975 and violates his parole.

He founds a political party called JDL-Israel that he quickly renames Kach (“Thus”).

He continues with what he knows best: antiblack racism. The first action he takes is related to the Black Hebrew Israelites cult in Dimona: In October 1971, JTA reported on a Kahane speech about “guarding Israel’s honor” against “insults” from the Black Hebrew community.

Soon he moves on to targeting the IsraeliArab community and Palestinians. In August 1972, Rabbi Kahane and the JDL distribute fliers in Hebron calling for the mayor to stand trial for his alleged part in the 1929 Hebron massacre.

When does Rabbi Kahane run for office?

In 1973 Rabbi Kahane (and Kach) win some 13,000 votes, or 0.8 percent — not enough for a Knesset seat. In 1977 and 1981 elections, the total drops to less than 5,000 votes. But (ominous drum roll please) by 1984, Kach receives nearly 26,000 votes, or 1.2 percent — enough to land Rabbi Kahane a seat in the Knesset.

First, however, there is some drama. In June of ’84, ahead of the July elections, Israel’s Central Elections Committee votes to ban Kach from participating in the elections.

It cites Rabbi Kahane’s call for deportation of Arab and Druze citizens, and his characterization of Israel’s Declaration of Independence as a “schizophrenic document.” It is, as JTA reports, “the first time in Israel’s history that a Jewish political faction was banned from an election.”

Rabbi Kahane leads an appeal to the Supreme Court, arguing that a political faction can be barred only if it poses a danger to the existence of Israel. He calls the committee’s ruling political bias. The court rules that Kach can run.

How’d he get elected after all that?

In the lead-up to the ’84 elections, Rabbi Kahane’s profile in Israel rises. In April 1982,

following the Egypt-Israel peace treaty — Israel agreed to give back the Sinai in exchange for peace — a group of his followers refuse to evacuate a settlement in Yamit, in the Sinai Peninsula. Some of the more extreme protesters threaten to take their own lives rather than leave.

At the request of Prime Minister Menachem Begin, Rabbi Kahane intervenes to negotiate a resolution to have them evacuate.

Somehow this leads to a rise in Rabbi Kahane’s popularity, and also a near-universal condemnation of Rabbi Kahane by Israeli parties across the spectrum, American Jewish groups and the Chief Rabbinate.

What is Rabbi Kahane’s platform?

Mainly it’s no Israeli citizenship for nonJews and expelling Arabs from the country and the territories controlled by Israel. He also wanted to ban intermarriage and sexual relations between Jews and non-Jews. A Kach advertisement in May 1981 warns of Jewish women being seduced by Arabs, and proposes prison sentences for “every Arab who has sexual relations with a Jewish woman.”

Rabbi Kahane also demanded Jewish sovereignty over the Temple Mount, but the antiArab ideology was the major plank.

So what does Rabbi Kahane do in the Knesset?

Lawmakers immediately move to introduce an anti-racism bill to stop Rabbi Kahane from using his platform as a means to expel Arabs from the parliament. Mayor Teddy Kollek of Jerusalem tells Knesset members that Rabbi Kahane undermines “the basic moral tenets of the state.” Knesset members also boycott Rabbi Kahane’s speeches. No one wants him there. Except, of course, his supporters.

A month after his election, Rabbi Kahane tries to visit an Israeli-Arab village, Umm ElFahm, to “encourage” its inhabitants to immigrate. Israeli police block him from entering. Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir calls the “Kahane phenomenon” “negative, dangerous and damaging,” and Attorney General Yizhak Zamir warns Knesset members in November 1984 that it is “shameful, disgusting and dangerous.” Yet Rabbi Kahane’s mere presence in the Knesset increases his popularity in Israel, with many feeling like he is speaking a truth that others won’t.

So does he get re-elected?

In July 1988, Rabbi Kahane is suspended from the Knesset for threatening an Arab member with a noose. Yes, a noose.

A few months later, Kach is banned from competing in the elections that year. (In 1985, a year after Kach is allowed to run and Rabbi Kahane is elected, the Knesset passed an amendment to the Basic Law, Israel’s notquite constitution, barring parties that are “engaged in incitement to racism.” This includes Kach.) Polling at the time shows the

party winning some 100,000 votes — three or four seats.

In October 1988, Rabbi Kahane appeals to the Supreme Court, saying “I am neither a Nazi nor a racist.” His appeal is rejected and the Kach election ban stands. (Rabbi Kahane later accuses the Likud of treason, for they are the party that stands to benefit from Kach not participating in the elections.)

What happens to Rabbi Kahane?

In 1990, two years after he is deemed too racist for the Knesset, he is assassinated by a gunman in New York City posing as an Orthodox Jew. Is it connected?

Not directly — he is shot dead in New York speaking to a crowd of Orthodox Jews urging them to make aliyah. He is killed by Egyptian-American and Muslim extremist El Sayyid Nosair. Over 5,000 mourners at his funeral carry signs labeled “Never Again!” and “N’kama” (revenge), as well as Israeli flags, and chant “Am Yisrael Chai” (the people of Israel live).

Why does he still matter?

His ideas live on. Following Rabbi Kahane’s death, Kach split into two factions: Kahane Chai (Kahane Lives), headed by Rabbi Kahane’s son, Binyamin, and Kach, led by Rabbi Avraham Toledano, who later was replaced by Baruch Marzel.

Four years after Rabbi Kahane’s assassination, the American-born Dr. Benjamin (Baruch) Goldstein walks into the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron and opens fire on Muslim worshippers. Goldstein fires more than 100 rounds of bullets, killing 29 and injuring 125, before survivors beat him to death.

Goldstein had belonged to the JDL in his youth in Brooklyn and is a devoted follower of Meir Kahane. His terror attack leads the Israeli government to outlaw Kach and Kahane Chai.

So they are outlawed. End of story?

First, the legacy of Goldstein’s attack is still painful, even 25 years later.

Second, even though Kach and Kahane Chai do not technically exist, there are parties that are their ideological descendants. Most relevant for us in 2019: Baruch Marzel, Michael Ben-Ari and other Kach followers created Otzma Yehudit in 2013.

OK, I’m with you now.

Can you explain what went down with Otzma Yehudit and Netanyahu?

We’ve finally made it full circle.

This month, Netanyahu brokered the Otzma Yehudit-Jewish Home deal in an effort to ensure he has enough partners in the Knesset to form a ruling coalition. Knesset seats are handed out according to the percentage of the total vote, but parties must meet a minimum threshold. Individually, Otzma Yehudit would not have crossed the threshold, but as a bloc with Jewish Home it could, ensuring Netanyahu another partner for a right-wing coalition. If the combined faction can get five seats, Michael Ben-Ari will make it into the Knesset, as he’s fifth on the list.

Netanyahu defends his overtures to the Otzma Yehudit party as a standard political maneuver, likening it to left-wing parties partnering with non-Zionist Arab groups to form their own coalitions. But the backlash to the move is widespread, especially among American Jews, who think Rabbi Kahane’s legacy taints Israel’s image abroad.

Even the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, which hesitates to interfere in Israel’s internal politics, dittoes a statement by the similarly non-confrontational American Jewish Committee, saying “The views of Otzma Yehudit are reprehensible. They do not reflect the core values that are the very foundation of the State of Israel.”

So what does this all mean?

Kahane’s legacy is alive and well in Israel.

15 THE JEWISH STAR March 8, 2019 • 1 Adar 2, 5779

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SHAbbAT STAR ‫שבת‬ All of the events that find us

March 8, 2019 • 1 Adar 2, 5779 THE JEWISH STAR

16

From Heart of Jerusalem

Rabbi biNNY FReeDMaN

Jewish Star columnist

I

n a cattle car in Poland, in the summer of 1942, Reb Azriel Dovid Fastag, a composer for the Modzitzer Rebbe, was headed to his death in Treblinka. Over a hundred Jews, forced to stand for days on end with only a bucket in the middle of the car for waste, no room to sit or lie down, no food or water, in the stifling heat, all crammed together heading to whereabouts unknown, for reasons they could not even imagine.

Listening to the clickety-clack of the wheels of the train, a tune sprang into his mind, and he composed the now-famous Ani Ma’amin tune: “I believe, with complete faith, in the coming of the Messiah, and though he may tarry, I await him nonetheless…”

He began to hum and then to sing the haunting melody, in the crowded cattle car full of despair hurtling into the darkness. One by one, the Jews in the car picked up the tune and begin to hum, and then to sing with him. And when the Jews in the car next to them heard the singing, after a time, they picked up the tune as well, and began to sing along.

Overwhelmed by the power of this tune, he wrote down the notes and shared them, determined to ensure the tune would survive.

One of the young students in that car, who eventually escaped and survived the war, made

his way back to the court of Modzitz, now in Brooklyn, and shared the tune with the Modzitzer Rebbe. It became the unofficial anthem of the Holocaust in the Jewish religious world.

Imagine singing about the coming of the messiah in a cattle car on the way to Treblinka! his week, we will conclude the second of the five books of the Torah, Sefer Shemot. And the way in which the Torah concludes this book, which shares the story of the Exodus from Egypt, is interesting.

With the building of the Mishkan complete, the Torah tells us: “When the cloud arose above the Mishkan, the Children of Israel would travel on all their journeys, but if the cloud would not rise, then they would not travel until it rose. For the cloud of G-d was on the Mishkan by day, and a pillar of fire at night before the eyes of Israel, on all of their journeys” (Shemot 40:36-38).

After all of the events of the book of Shemot — the ten plagues, the Exodus, the splitting of the sea and the revelation of Sinai, not to mention the building of the Mishkan — why do we conclude this book with the cloud above the Mishkan and the system that signaled the Jews to travel? This is the big finale of the book of Exodus: traffic control?

And there is an interesting detail which begs a question: When it was time for the Jews to journey again, the cloud would rise and go be-

T

‫כוכב של‬

fore them to lead the way, so why does the last verse suggest the cloud was on the Mishkan on their journeys? If it was on the Mishkan, that meant they were encamped. Rashi explains that their encampments were part of the journey. What does this mean? And why is this the conclusion to the book of Shemot?

Fast forward to the beginning of the book of Yehoshua.

After forty years in the desert, Yehoshua is getting ready, with the Jewish people and an army of 600,000 men, to enter and conquer the land of Israel. He decides to send two spies to the land.

It is difficult to understand why, especially after the debacle of the spies nearly forty years earlier, but even stranger is the mission itself. The two spies cross the border and head straight for … a brothel!

(Though some suggest it was an inn.) They are discovered almost immediately. (One can only imagine two individuals, who spent forty years learning Torah from Moshe under clouds of glory, eating manna every day, walking into a Canaanite bar in yarmulkes and tefillin debating what blessing to make on beer. However were they caught so fast?)

But Rachav the righteous innkeeper hides them on the roof under bales of flax. She then advises them to escape westward into the mountains, as the king’s men will look for them to east. Heeding her advice, they indeed hide for three days in the hills before subsequently

Big finale of the book of Exodus: Traffic control!

The Mishkan was built by a team Parsha of the Week

Rabbi avi biLLet Jewish Star columnist

T

his past Shabbos, someone asked me, “How many people were involved in making the items for the Mishkan?”

My answer: “We have no idea.” We are only told the names of two people, Betzalel and Oholiav, and beyond them we are informed of many men and women who volunteered their resources, talents and time to the production of the Mishkan’s items.

But even in the realm of Betzalel and Oholiav, we are given strange information which counters my actual assumption, which has always been that Betzalel was the foreman, and Oholiav either his equal partner or right-hand man.

As the Torah begins our parsha with a preliminary accounting of all that was brought in, it mentions that “Betzalel son of Uri son of Chur, of the tribe of Yehuda, [used these materials] to make all that God had commanded Moshe. With him was Oholiav son of Achisamach, of the tribe of Dan, who was a skilled carpenter, and [was also expert in] brocading and embroidering with sky-blue, dark red and crimson wool, and fine linen.”

Does this mean that Betzalel was a jack-ofall-trades while Oholiav was merely a master-ofsome? al Haturim and Netziv both point to Betzalel and Oholiav as auditors, making sure that all the donations were accounted for and utilized properly for the necessary items to which they were designated.

B

This role is different than the role of accountant, the role taken up by Itamar and the Levites (as notes in 38:21) under the overall supervision of Moshe.

Abravanel notes that the three roles described — Moshe as “donation collector,” Itamar and co. as accountants, and Betzalel and Oholiav as auditors, were all essential to the process. On top of these roles, Betzalel and Oholiav were also able to discern how to designate and apportion the materials they processed.

So our question is not adequately addressed.

How much of a difference was there in the skillset of the Betzalel vs that of Oholiav? Ibn Ezra on 38:22 essentially equates their abilities in saying they were the top-tier artisans who did all that Moshe had been commanded. Rashi suggests Betzalel was even able to discern that which Moshe had heard on the mountain, including things he inadvertently neglected to tell Betzalel (see also Ramban, Chizkuni, Rabbenu Bachaye, etc.).

Interestingly, Rabbenu Bachaye notes that despite all the skills he may have had, the only item Betzalel made personally was the Aron (based on 37:1).

I believe all of this information, in the final analysis, is more of an exercise in futility, because it doesn’t really matter who was more involved or less involved, who was more skilled or who was less skilled. The point is that the job got done, and that these two artisans — of the tribe of Yehuda and of the tribe of Dan — are given just about equal billing throughout the process.

In the end, it does not matter. Their job was to see that the Mishkan’s vessels, walls, covers and garments were created. They had to oversee a lot

of people, be ready to advise, to answer questions, and make sure that everyone had what they needed to check off the supply list item by item, and to fashion the vessels on the “made in the midbar” inventory list of the Mishkan.

Or Hachaim says at the beginning of Vayakhel that one of Betzalel’s jobs was to create the necessary tools for the various forms of labor needed to create the Mishkan’s vessels, and that skill — creating new tools — was unique to Betzalel. ll of this reflects a reality that we all know.

Everyone is blessed with a different skill set. Some people can excel at new skills, some are blessed to have incredible hands or incredible coordination, and some can work with numbers like no one else can.

I do not think it is advisable for parents to ever say to a child, “You’re the artistic one” or “You’re the musical one” or “You’re the doctor.” Why limit a child, or an adult child, by putting them in a box?

At the same time, there is what to be said about knowing where our talents are and bringing them out in full force in our contributions to larger efforts. Some people have no money to speak of, but are great at getting those with excess to donate to the right causes.

Some people can’t read a blueprint but have an intuitive sense of carpentry. Some people can fashion gold, others can fix cars. Everyone has something that is of value and benefit.

Parents have the awesome and noble responsibility to support their children’s best talents, and when possible, to help guide them in a direction in which those talents can be utilized in a professional arena where it can be beneficial to the individual in helping to give

A

The point is that the job got done.

making their way back east over the border. nd then comes the most incredible part of the story: rather than apologize for their failed mission, they clearly feel they have succeeded! “Hashem has given the land into our hands,” they say (Yehoshua 2:24). This, despite getting no further than the underside of a pile of flax!

There is a unique phrase the two spies employ when they report on the events of their mission: “kol hamotzot otam” (ibid v. 23), which literally means “all that found them.”

We find this word again at the end of the book of Bamidbar, in the portion of Masei, which literally means “journeys.” The Jewish people traveled 42 journeys in their forty years in the desert, and the Torah describes them as motza’eihem: “that which found them” (Bamidbar 33:2).

Because the places described in these 42 journeys are not really places. A rock or a sand dune in the wilderness is not a place we normally encounter. There were no towns or Bedouin encampments; no hospitals or lakes.

Refidim was where rafu yadam, their hands became weak and they needed water. Di-Zahav means gold; it was here that the Golden Calf occurred. These are not places, they are events.

We don’t travel to events; events find us.

There is a blessing we say every morning as part of the morning blessings: “Hameichin metzadei gaver,” He prepares the steps of man. And the Talmud (Brachot 60b) shares that originally, this blessing was said when we put on our shoes. Really? A blessing for putting on shoes?

But in truth, this blessing hides a deep idea: We wake up in the morning full of plans for the day — but we must remember, with all our best-laid plans, Who really prepares our steps.

We may think we are headed off for a job interSee Events on page 22

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and get the most out of life — both in terms of personal satisfaction, and means of supporting oneself and one’s family.

Betzalel and Oholiav were a dynamic duo — bringing certain shared strengths to the table, but also each bringing a particular skill set that elevated their partnership into one that was able to see the Mishkan-project to its completion.

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

Fri March 15 / 8 Adar 2 Vayikra Candlelighting: 6:43 pm Havdalah: 7:53 pm

Thurs Mar 21 / 14 Adar 2 Purim

Fri March 22 / 15 Adar 2 Shushan Purim Tzav Candlelighting: 6:51 pm Havdalah: 8:01 pm

Fri March 29 / 22 Adar 2 Shemini Candlelighting: 6:58 pm Havdalah: 8:08 pm

Five Towns times from the White Shul

RAbbi SiR jonAthAn SAckS

P

ekudei has sometimes been called the accountant’s parsha, because it begins with audits of the money and materials donated to the Sanctuary. But beneath the dry surface lie two extraordinary stories, one told in last week’s parsha, the other the week before, teaching us something deep about Jewish nature.

The first has to do with the Sanctuary itself.

G-d told Moshe to ask people to make contributions. Some brought gold, silver, copper. Some gave wool, linen or animal-skins. Others contributed acacia wood, oil, or incense. Some gave gems for the breastplate. What was remarkable was the willingness with which they gave: “The people continued to bring donations morning after morning. So all the skilled workers who were doing all the work on the Sanctuary left what they were doing and said to Moshe, ‘The people are bringing more than enough for doing the work the Lord commanded to be done.’

“So Moshe gave an order and they sent word throughout the camp: ‘No man or woman is to make anything else as an offering for the Sanctuary.’ And so the people were restrained from bringing more, because what they already had was more than enough” (Ex. 36:3-7).

That is not the Israelites we are accustomed to seeing: argumentative, ungrateful. This is a people that longs to give. ne parsha earlier, we read a very different story. The people were anxious. Moshe had been up the mountain for a long time. Was he still alive? If not, how would they receive the Divine word telling them what to do and where to go? Hence their demand for a calf — essentially an oracle, an object through which Divine instruction could be heard.

Aaron, according to the favored explanation, realized that he could not stop the people directly, so he stalled. He did something with the intention of slowing them down, trusting that if the work could be delayed, Moshe would reappear. He said: “Take off the gold earrings that your wives, your sons and your daughters are wearing, and bring them to me” (Ex. 32:2).

According to the Midrash, he thought this would create arguments within families and

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the project would be delayed. But immediately thereafter, without a pause, “all the people took off their earrings and brought them to Aaron.”

Again the same generosity.

These two projects could not be less alike.

The Tabernacle was holy. The calf was close to being an idol. Building the Tabernacle was a supreme mitzvah; making the calf was a terrible sin. Yet their response was the same. Hence this comment of the sages: “One cannot understand the nature of this people. If they are appealed to for a calf, they give. If appealed to for the Tabernacle, they give” (Yerushalmi Shekalim 1, 45).

The common factor is generosity. Jews may make the wrong choice in giving, but they give. n the twelfth century, Maimonides twice interrupts his customary calm legal prose in his law code, the Mishneh Torah, to make the same point. Speaking about charity, he says: “We have never seen or heard about a Jewish community which does not have a charity fund” (Laws of Gifts to the poor, 9:3). The idea that a Jewish community could exist without a network of charitable provisions was almost inconceivable. Later in the same book, Maimonides says: “We are obligated to be more scrupulous in tzedakah than any other positive commandment

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Clouds of glory that were seen by all torah

RAbbi dAvid etengoff

Jewish Star columnist

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ur parasha contains the final verse of Sefer Shemot: “For the cloud of the L-rd was upon the Mishkan by day, and there was fire within it at night, before the eyes of the entire house of Israel in all their journeys” (Shemot 40:38).

The beginning of our pasuk highlights “the cloud of the L-rd [that] was upon the Mishkan by day.” This was not the first time we have encountered Hashem’s cloud of glory. Rather, in His overwhelming kindness and mercy, the Almighty provided this miraculous wonder for us during the Exodus from Egypt, leading the people in a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire at night.

In his commentary on our verse, Rashi notes that this pillar of cloud played a dual role as both Hashem’s messenger, and our fledgling nation’s guide during their travels in the Sinai Desert wasteland:

“Now who was that messenger? [It was] the pillar of cloud, and the Holy One, blessed be He, in His glory, led it before them. In any case, it was the pillar of cloud that He prepared so that they could be led by it, for they would travel by the pillar of cloud, and the pillar of cloud was not [meant] to provide light but to direct them [on] the way.”

At first glance, it would seem quite logical to equate the cloud of Hashem that was upon the Mishkan with the pillar of cloud of the Exodus. After all, they were both miracles from Hashem.

The Vilna Gaon, however, carefully contrasts these two instances and urges us to focus upon their significant differences, rather than their apparent similarities: “Even though there was a Cloud of Glory that accompanied and went before them during the Exodus, it was short-lived and remained with them only until the Sea of Reeds). Moreover, it was invisible to the vast majority of the Jewish people, since it was seen solely by the prophets

that were among them. This was not the case in this instance [i.e. our parasha’s verse]: ‘For the cloud of the L-rd was upon the Mishkan by day … before the eyes of the entire house of Israel in all their journeys’” (Chumash HaGra, Parashat Ki Tisa 34:10, based upon Aderet Eliyahu). ccording to the Vilna Gaon, there were two essential differences between the original pillar of cloud that went before our people on their journey of redemption, and the one that rested upon the Mishkan: the Cloud of Glory of the Exodus was temporary in nature, whereas the cloud resting upon the Mishkan was permanent in nature.

Moreover, the Cloud of Glory of the Exodus was invisible to the majority of our nation, while the cloud of Hashem that rested upon the Mishkan was manifestly present before the entire people.

What might account for these notable differences? Here, too, we are fortunate, since we can once again rely upon the Vilna Gaon’s trenchant analysis:

All of the Jewish people could apprehend the vision.

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Religious music and muzak Angel for Shabbat

RAbbi mARc d. Angel

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hen we visit malls, take elevators, or get put on hold on telephone, we frequently find ourselves hearing some sort of music. Actually, this is often called muzak, after the Muzak corporation, which first developed it.

It’s a strange kind of music. It is played in order to influence our psychology as the purveyors wish. It can subconsciously induce shoppers to spend more time and money at malls;. Muzak sounds like regular music, but has no beginning, middle or end. We hear it in the background and hardly pay attention to it. After hearing muzak, we don’t walk out whistling a tune we just heard.

Indeed, we hardly remember having heard it.

Real music is an art form. Muzak is a psychological device. Real music seeks to elevate us or move us emotionally. Muzak seeks to generate background noise.

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ust as there is a vast difference between music and muzak, there is a vast difference between real and pseudo-education. Genuine teachers provide us with skills; they provide us with ways of thinking on our own. Genuine teachers open our minds, encourage us to work independently, stimulate creativity.

On the other hand, there are teachers who are stale, who talk at students rather than with them. There are teachers who are more interested in being popular with students than with challenging them. They pretend to teach, but lack the content and vision of real teachers.

If we think back to the many with whom we’ve studied, we can rejoice in those who actually taught us and pushed us to our limit. But we can also remember those who provided “muzak,” who blathered, who lacked originality, who joked around instead of opening our minds.

The difference between genuine and pseudo education is particularly problematic when it comes to religion. Real religious teachers not only teach us the dos and don’ts of Judaism; even more importantly they teach us how to approach our holy texts and observances with

a sense of awe. They provide us with spiritual uplift; they expand our range of ideas and experiences. When we are in the presence of genuine religious teachers, we feel their authenticity and honesty, their idealism, their quest for truth, their innate humility.

“Muzak” types of religious teachers give the external impression of teaching religion but they lack content and authenticity. They teach religion by rote. They do not convey a grand religious vision but are satisfied to present anecdotes and platitudes that don’t inspire and don’t allow us to grow or to think for ourselves. They preach about prayer but don’t take prayer too seriously themselves. They speak about Torah study but their own study is shallow. They tell us to observe mitzvot, but they lack gravitas in their own religious behavior. n describing the building of the Mishkan, the Torah indicates that G-d chose Betzalel to head the project. Betzalel is described as a person endowed with the spirit of G-d, with wisdom and understanding. He not only was gifted as an artist; he had the ability to teach others.

In his commentary on the Torah, the 19th

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because tzedakah is the sign of the righteous person, a descendant of Abraham our father, as it is said, “For I know him, that he will command his children … to do tzedakah” … If someone is cruel and does not show mercy, there are sufficient grounds to suspect his lineage, since cruelty is found only among the other nations” (Laws of Gifts to the poor, 10:1-3).

Maimonides is here saying more than that Jews give charity. He is saying that a charitable disposition is written into our DNA. It is one of the signs of being a child of Abraham, so much so that if someone does not give charity there are “grounds to suspect his lineage.” Whether this is nature or nurture or both, to be Jewish is to give.

The land of Israel contains two seas: the Sea of Galilee and the Dead Sea. The Sea of Galilee is full of life. The Dead Sea is not. Yet they are fed by the same river, the Jordan. The difference is that the Sea of Galilee receives water and gives water. The Dead Sea receives but does not give.

To receive but not to give is, in Jewish geography as well as Jewish psychology, simply not life.

So it was in the time of Moshe. So it is today.

In virtually every country in which Jews live, their charitable giving is out of all proportion to their numbers. In Judaism, to live is to give.

“These changes came about from the time of Moshe’s prayer [following the Sin of the Golden Calf] and onward: ‘For how then will it be known that I have found favor in Your eyes, I and Your people? Is it not that You will go with us? Then I and Your people will be distinguished from every [other] nation on the face of the earth’ (Shemot 33:16).

“Then the Holy One answered Moshe: ‘Behold! I will form a covenant; in the presence of all your people, I will perform wonders such as have not been created upon all the earth and among all the nations…’ (Shemot 34:10) [What was this?] This is what is meant by the expressions, [in our verse, ‘before the eyes of the entire house of Israel in all their journeys,”] and “the eyes of the entire Jewish people’ (Devarim 31:7, 34:12).

And it is for this that we wait once again.”

Thus, according to the Vilna Gaon, Moshe’s prayer for reconciliation after the Sin of the Golden Calf altered the very nature of the Clouds of Glory. For the first time, all the men, women and children of the Jewish people could apprehend the vision of the Cloud of Glory resting upon the holy Mishkan. Suddenly, everyone could feel the Divine Presence of the Master of the Universe.

The Vilna Gaon’s words, “And it is for this we wait once again,” resonate through the ages, until our own time. With Hashem’s boundless kindness, may we witness the Cloud of Glory in the soon to be rebuilt Beit Hamikdash. century Italian Rabbi Yitzhak Shemuel Reggio notes: “Added to the amazing qualities with which G-d endowed Betzalel and Oholiav, He added also the power to teach building skills to the wise of heart; for there are many sages who have deep ideas in their hearts, but are unable to explain them to others. The Torah testifies that Betzalel also had the power to teach the aspects of construction [of the Mishkan] to other wise people, and these people were able to perform according to the instructions they received.”

Betzalel was a genuine artist who had the talent to communicate his skills and vision to others. This is the mark of a special kind of genius — the ability to instruct, inspire and empower.

All parents and grandparents — indeed all of us — are either conveyors of real Jewish education or pseudo Jewish education. Through our knowledge, commitment and example, we teach — for better or for worse — how Judaism is lived. Authentic, honest, humble religionists are able to communicate the music of Jewish living.

Careless, insincere and egotistical people preach the muzak of Jewish living. It may sound like Judaism, but it is inauthentic and unconvincing. Just as music is different from muzak, so genuine religious teaching is different from pseudo religious teaching. Our responsibility is to choose the way of authenticity.

THE JEWISH STAR March 8, 2019 • 1 Adar 2, 5779

Taking account of the Jewish character

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Tribute to Rav Pelcovitz on his first Yahrzeit Kosher Bookworm

AlAn JAy GerBer

Jewish Star columnist On the first Yahrzeit of Rabbi Raphael Pelcovitz of the White Shul, I am reprinting Rabbi Dr. Shnayer Leiman’s contribution, which appeared in this space last year. Rabbi Leiman, who knew Rav Pelcovitz for many years, is the author of “Rabbinic Responses to Modernity.” t is important to stress Rabbi Pelcovitz’s enormous impact, not only on the Far Rockaway and Five Towns Jewish communities and their many Jewish educational institutions.

Jews came first to Arverne at the turn of the 19th into the 20th centuries. During the summer months, they were escaping from the sweltering heat of their tenements in New York City, seeking respite at the beaches of Arverne in the pre-air conditioner age. From Arverne, they made their way to permanent residency in Far Rockaway. It was in Far Rockaway that Rabbi Pelcovitz would leave an indelible imprint on Orthodox Jewish life. Prior to his arrival in Far Rockaway in 1951, Orthodox Jewish life barely existed in the Five Towns.

Rabbi Pelcovitz assumed the rabbinate of the White Shul in 1951. His levayah took place almost 70 years later. Virtually no one was left of the many tireless ba’alei batim who were his closest associates and who helped build the Far Rockaway and the White Shul that one sees today. Yet Rabbi Pelcovitz touched so many lives, that second, third, and fourth generations of White Shul ba’alei batim came to pay tribute to their mentor and teacher.

The main sanctuary of the White Shul, large

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as it is, even with the opening of additional side rooms, could not contain the massive crowd that came to honor for one last time the Rabbi Pelcovitz they loved and admired. Yehei zikhro barukh!

••• In December 2016, on the occasion of Rav Pelcovitz’s celebrating 65 years of service at the White Shul, I published in the Kosher Bookworm two columns focusing on his career, which I’m pleased to excerpt here: During a communal tribute at the White Shul, Rabbi Leiman devoted a large portion of his Shabbos Toldot presentation to the career of Rabbi Pelcovitz, who was ordained by Yeshiva Torah Vodaath in Brooklyn and served several out-of-town synagogues before coming to the White Shul in 1951. He “was part of a long tradition of dedicated rabbis who not only transmitted Torah teaching from one generation to the next, but who also was particularly sensitive to the needs, spiritual and mundane, of his congregants,” Rabbi Leiman said, adding a personal note: “I was present in the White Shul 65 years ago, in 1951, when Rabbi Pelcovitz gave his first sermon. He was the first rabbi of the White Shul to speak regularly in the vernacular. The two previous rabbis delivered their sermons in Yiddish.

“Derashos, sermons in English! And, every sermon had a beginning, a middle and an end.

Every sermon had a message based upon the teaching of our sages. He was articulate, and sweetened his presentations with stories and parables and even aphorisms from the wisdom of the nations. He taught us Torah — not with fire and brimstone, but with love, sensitivity, and tolerance.

“He learned from the teachings of the gedolim of the past, from the likes of Rabbi Chaim of Volozhin, and transmitted that teaching to

The way of the world rABBi Dr. tzvi hersh weinreB Orthodox Union

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any people have a misconception about Judaism that impedes their ability to take it seriously and to commit to living the Jewish way of life. Let me tell you about one such person and the conversation that I had with him. Let’s call him Richard.

Richard was a dedicated participant in a class I once gave for individuals with limited familiarity with the Jewish faith. As I recall, the title of the course was “Fundamentals of Judaism for Beginners.” Besides my weekly lectures, I invited students to meet with me for informal conversations, during which we would discuss

their personal reactions to what we were studying formally in the classroom.

Richard took me up on the invitation a week or two before the course concluded. “Rabbi,” he began, “Let me get to the point. I am a practical guy. My friends refer to me as ‘the last of the great pragmatists.’ I hope you don’t mind my candor, but I must say that much of what you’ve been teaching us turns me off. It is all about symbolic religious practices, miracles, angels, an invisible deity, and belief in a world to come. What about this world, the real world of day-to-day living? I’m an architect, married with two little children. What does the Judaism you’ve been teaching have to say to me?” ichard’s objections were not new to me. I had heard them many times before from a variety of people, and I’ve responded in many different ways. But in Richard’s case, my impulsive self got the better of my philosophi-

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thousands of young men and women here at the White Shul, and to audiences throughout the U.S.” om Dr. Zev Eleff’s recent anthology, Modern Orthodox Judaism (Jewish Publication Society), I first learned of Rabbi Pelcovitz’s views of the future of Orthodox Judaism and especially that of the Orthodox shul and its youth.

With the assistance of Rabbi Simon Posner of the Orthodox Union, I obtained the original essay, titled The Yeshiva Alumnus and The Synagogue. It is excerpted here: “A careful study of various communities where a concentration of yeshiva alumni is found will reveal some strange and startling facts. True, a goodly number of yeshiva-trained laymen, among them some former practicing rabbis, are congregants of synagogues and do take an active part in community affairs.

“A sizable group, however, carefully avoid the synagogue and are conspicuous by their absence in many areas of community endeavor.

They establish smaller private minyonim or

patronize a local shtibel. They avoid the synagogue, both as congregants and participants, though it should be noted that many are members in name only for reasons best known to themselves and/or the energetic membership chairman of the local synagogue.”

Further on, Rabbi Pelcovitz notes that “the hands of the rabbi would certainly be greatly strengthened in guarding the pristine traditional character of the shul if there were but a nucleus of strongly committed and articulate Orthodox laymen in the congregation.”

Lastly, consider the situations we currently face with at-rise youth — as well as at-risk adults — in our community: “What is so often overlooked by yeshiva graduates is the effect of their detachment upon their own children. What attitude toward the kehillah, its rabbi, communal responsibility, and unity is fostered when children are withdrawn from the mainstream of the Jewish community in which they live? Certainly this is an integral part of chinuch, on a par with formal academic education.”

Rabbi Pelcovitz asks: “What guarantee is there that those of the next generation will be properly trained to take their places in the Jewish community of their choice, once they leave the homes and shtibelach in which they have been reared?”

And lastly: “Where shall they turn in their shtibel-less suburbia for anchorage, affiliation and identification?”

My dear reader, these are the words of a very wise and scholarly rabbi, reflecting the situation still current in many spiritual venues unto this very day.

And consider that these teachings by Rabbi Pelcovitz were written in October 1960!

A version of this column appeared last year.

cal self, so here is how I answered him: “Richard, you are making the same mistake as did Moshe Rabbeinu!”

Richard was taken aback. “You’re comparing me to the biblical Moses? Furthermore, I’m shocked to hear you, Rabbi, insinuating that Moses was capable of error!”

“Let me explain myself, Richard, and you will understand where I’m coming from. Did you ever hear of a man named Bezalel?”

Richard was only familiar with the major heroes and heroines of the Bible. He had hardly any knowledge of the so-called “lesser” characters. So I quickly filled him in. I began by informing him that Bezalel too was an architect, with divinely granted gifts of wisdom and skill sufficient to qualify him as the chief architect of the Mishkan, or Tabernacle.

I shared with him the thought-provoking anecdote related by Rashi, in his commentary on the second verse in this week’s Torah portion, Pekudei (Exodus 38:21-40:38). The verse reads: “And Bezalel, son of Uri … made all that the L-rd commanded Moses.” Rashi notes that the verse does not read, “all that Moses commanded Bezalel.” Rashi, based on a passage in the Babylonian Talmud (Berachot 55a), tells of the following fascinating dispute between Bezalel and Moses: “Even with regard to those details that Moses, Bezalel’s master, did not transmit to him, Bezalel was able to discern the precise instructions that Moses was given by the Almighty.

Moses had commanded Bezalel to first fashion the sacred furnishings of the Tabernacle and only then to construct the Tabernacle itself.

Bezalel protested that this was not ‘the way of the world,’ the minhag ha’olam. Rather, the ‘way of the world’ was to first construct the house and only later to fashion its furnishings and place them in the finished structure. Moses responded, ‘You are right, Bezalel. That is precisely what I heard from the Holy One Blessed is He. Your name means, “In the shadow of the L-rd.” Indeed, you must have been in the L-rd’s very shadow to have intuited His divine instructions accurately, whereas I myself failed to “get it right.”’ And so, Bezalel proceeded to first complete the tabernacle itself and only then to

fashion its sacred furnishings.”

Courageous commentators such as the venerable Maharal of Prague insist that Moses erred and forgot what he was originally told by the Almighty. They even propose reasons for his memory lapse. ichard was duly impressed by the story.

Astute young man that he was, he immediately got my point. However, courteous young man that he was, he permitted me to elaborate in my own fashion.

I explained to Richard that Moses is described in rabbinic literature as a kind of “split personality.” The upper half of his body was heavenly, and only the lower part of his body was of this earth. Moses was the only human being ever to have spent a significant number of days in heaven. He conversed with the angels and indeed debated them victoriously. He had little tolerance for human foibles, and because of his emphasis upon sublime values and spiritual priorities, he sometimes lost sight of the “real world” and its need for practical solutions to mundane challenges.

“Moses,” I said to Richard, “was, in a sense, prone to the same misconception as are you and so many others. Surely, there is a component of our religion which deals with otherworldly matters, and which sounds so alien to those of us whose priorities are practical and of this world. Bezalel, on the other hand, knew of the necessity for pragmatism and practicality in everyday life. He well understood that often, the way to determine the Almighty’s will is not by awaiting voices from heaven, but by ascertaining what is useful and effective in the world we live in.”

I went on to remind Richard of the late Rabbi Simcha Zissel Broide, whose tutelage I was privileged to experience in person and whose writings I cherish to this very day. He devotes the last essay in his commentary on the Book of Exodus, V’sam Derech, to the subject of Bezalel’s wisdom. He teaches that careful observation of simple facts often leads to profound knowledge.

In this essay, he makes the vital point that many of us frequently overlook: “The way of the world is also the will of the L-rd.”

Rabbi Raphael Pelcovitz

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These feathered friends are exhausted and hungry after flights of more than 1,000 miles, many having crossed the Sahara Desert.

“They’re attracted by the greenery, the water and the sound of frogs croaking in the spring,” says JBO director Alena Kacal. “They pass this way on their flight between Europe and Africa in the fall and the reverse in the spring.”

This little warbler represents an endangered world, she adds, as the pressures of loss of habitat, global warming and continued hunting in Africa and Mediterranean countries take their toll on migrating birds.

Now, two decades after Oppenheimer first stumbled upon the sanctuary, there’s a newly renovated visitor center, serving up information on the birds that migrate over Israel as well as their routes. It also hosts movies and

talks.

Though birds drop by in all seasons, March, April and May are peak months for human visitors to see those returning to Europe after the snows melt. Guests can observe the banding process each morning. Nocturnal visitors have a good shot at spotting porcupines, owls and bats — a rare sight in the middle of the city.

In celebration of its 25th anniversary, visitors can expect to find festivities amid the other activities, such as planting bird-friendly trees.

Admission is free, thanks to support from the Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel and private donors (workshops and group tours come with a small fee).

“I just like coming to see the birds,” says 6-year-old Ory Nachal with a shy grin. Every few weeks, his mom, Nehora, packs a picnic

dinner and drives in with her three youngsters from Gush Etzion. “It’s so peaceful here,” she adds. “In the middle of Jerusalem, you just enter this completely tranquil place.”

“Ambatya! [‘Bath!’]” she calls out, pointing to the blackbird flicking water off its feathers in a lively shower, a sight that delights her kids.

“This is like a gas station and cafe for all the birds that stop by,” says Oppenheimer. “Being here, you see so clearly that nature has its own cycles, an order to the world that’s greater than ours. If this tiny little bird can fly 5,000 kilometers and land here, there’s an entire extraordinary world that we often ignore.”

The Jerusalem Bird Observatory visitor center is open 9 am to 3 pm, Sunday through Thursday. Call 02-653-7374 or visit www.birds.org.il/ jbo.

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By Deborah Fineblum, JNS A tour guide in Israel must have certain talents, among them a crackerjack sense of direction and superhuman energy and patience.

Add to that a knack for walking backwards while talking intelligently about history, nature and culture. And of course, there is the knowledge of where toilets are located.

But few realize that to hang out a shingle in Israel, a tour guide must complete a two-year master’s-level degree program in Israel’s history, geography and so much more, and pass a grueling four-hour exam.

By the time you’re handed your diploma and are licensed to start guiding groups, there isn’t much you don’t know about Israel … or so you think.

Because even with this impressive education, it takes years for a tour guide to hit A boy photographs a small upon his or her bird at the Jerusalem Bird trademark HidObservatory. Yossi Zamir/Flash90 den Treasure, a magical place virtually unknown to tourists or even natives.

Fortunately, several Israeli tour guides have generously agreed to share their secrets of the trade with JNS readers.

Tour guides like Frances Oppenheimer, a New Zealand native who’s led thousands of visitors through Israel in the last three decades. Like so many of life’s greatest joys, Oppenheimer’s Hidden Treasure was discovered nearly by accident.

During the second intifada in 2000, Israel’s tourism had ground to a near standstill. “There wasn’t much work, but I couldn’t just sit still, so I started hiking around Jerusalem,” she says. “And I was astounded to come upon this little oasis tucked behind the Knesset.”

Soon, she was regular at the Jerusalem Bird Observatory (JBO), 1.5 acres of green between the Knesset and the Supreme Court. “I came back again and again during that difficult time just to visit the birds and feel the peace of the place.”

The tourists eventually returned to Israel, and Oppenheimer began to introduce her groups to the beauty and peace she’d found at the observatory. “All kinds of people from all over are charmed by it,” she says.

The sight of a white-throated kingfisher swooping down to snag a fish from the pond provides a welcome respite after the Sunday and Thursday public tours of the Knesset. “It’s such a contrast to take them from the official bustle of Israel’s legislature to immerse them in something that’s straight out of nature right in the Knesset’s backyard,” she says. “I tell them, ‘I’m going to take you somewhere you would never expect to see here,’ and everyone loves it, even people who’ve never noticed a bird in their life.”

The 700 million birds, representing 200 species, that pass over Israel don’t know or care about the latest Knesset vote. And few Homo sapiens realize that little Israel is on one of the biggest bird-migration routes in the world — a fact that attracts birdwatchers from around the globe, hoping for a glimpse of the rare olive tree warbler, wryneck or collared flycatcher.

The feathered visitors who stop by become part of a banding program that serves to keep track of migration patterns, research conducted in partnership with Tel Aviv University.

On the warm Jerusalem winter afternoon when Oppenheimer showed us around, a young man was gently weighing and measuring a blackcap warbler. The staff could see by the dates on her leg band — a souvenir of her first visit — that it was her eighth annual stopover. Watching intently were families in Chassidic garb, young men in ponytails and jeans, schoolchildren with backpacks on bikes — all mesmerized by the sight of the tiny bird comfortable in the young man’s hands.

THE JEWISH STAR March 8, 2019 • 1 Adar 2, 5779

Birds of a feather roost alongside the Knesset

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March 8, 2019 • 1 Adar 2, 5779 THE JEWISH STAR

20 View from Central Park

tehilla r. goldberg

Our wall-towall values

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was always able to believe that those rare acts of violence by Israeli Jews were condemned wall to wall across Israeli society; that those vigilantes, and the marginalized few who supported them, were just that: the marginalized few. That this highlighted a stark contrast between Israel and its neighbors, which incentivize terrorism.

While, thankfully, that is still true, this truth has been potentially punctures. If it’s not addressed properly, it could lead to the unraveling of Israeli society as we know it.

In preparation for Israeli elections, the Israeli political party Otzma Yehudit, which considers its ideological leader to be the late Rabbi Meir Kahane, has merged with a mainstream religious Zionist party, Bayit Hayehudi, the most recent incarnation of the National Religious Party of my childhood.

One of the leaders of Otzma Yehudit has a framed photo of Baruch Goldstein hanging in his apartment, with a biblical verse hailing him as a zealot for G-d. To mainstream a party that normalizes the likes of Baruch Goldstein is horrifying.

In 1994, Dr. Baruch Goldstein murdered 29 Arabs in Hebron in cold blood.

I know what a devoted physician Goldstein was to all in Hebron, Jew and Arab alike. But that is irrelevant to the fact that he murdered innocent Arabs who were at prayer.

I understand that the merger of Otzma Yehudit and Bayit Hayehudi was simply a realpolitik decision and not an alignment of ideologies. I understand how hypocritical the outcry is, considering how leftist parties embrace extremist Arab Knesset members who support Palestinian terrorism against Israelis. nd yet, there are certain lines that should never be crossed — the moral and ethical lines we must have that define who we are as a people and what Israel is as a Jewish state. Israel is a place that seeks to be a light, a deeper, kinder, humanitarian society, a place that lives and breathes the great tradition of Judaism.

One can cherry-pick verses from the Bible to create manifestos like those of Otzma Yehudit. But while the power of the pshat, the literal text of the Bible, is fascinating, the great achievement of the Jewish oral tradition is the often softer, humane interpretations of biblical verses. The most famous case is the understanding of “eye for an eye” as monetary compensation, instead of a violent gouging.

Zealotry. Revenge. Violence.

This is not the layered tradition of Judaism, the great rabbinic tradition intervened between the biblical era and our own.

When I hear Kahanists or leaders of Otzma Yehudit quote random biblical verses as though they constitute the backbone of a Jewish vision for the land of Israel, my hair stands on its head. In the spirit of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, on the most fundamental level Israel is a home, a sanctuary, a safe space for the Jewish people.

But Israel is more than shelter.

It is a place for the Jewish people to actualize a society reflective of the Jewish values and traditions we can be proud of — the ethical and moral values that make us who we are. The least of those values ought to be a wall-to-wall consensus against Jewish vigilante acts of violence.

And on their highest level, those values can mean Israel shining as a light unto the nations. The sky is the limit — and as we saw last week with the launch of Beresheet, even beyond the sky.

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This CPAC: Different from all others Politics to go

Jeff duNetz

Jewish Star columnist

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ast Tuesday, after packing my car with two suitcases, radio broadcasting equipment, minyan bag including a “Make America Great Again” kippah, and one 29-year-old daughter, I made my annual trek to our nation’s capital for the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). Or as I jokingly call it, band camp for conservatives.

CPAC 2019, however, was much different from the eight previous CPACs I’ve attended (I missed last year because of a family illness). It seems as if the conservative movement in general, and CPAC specifically, has become heimish.

My first stop in DC was not CPAC but conservative Paul Teller. Paul, former chief of staff for Republican Texas Senator Ted Cruz, is now Special Assistant to the President for Legislative Affairs. It wasn’t our shared belief in conservatism that drew Paul and I together as friends, but our shared support of Jewish issues and Israel.

Paul’s office, in the East Wing of the White House, reflected that support. It didn’t contain any political props because, Teller told me, they aren’t allowed in government offices. His office displayed his pride in the Jewish State and featured a glass cabinet protecting tchotchkes from the opening of the US Embassy in Jerusalem (he was there to support the members of Congress who went) and a kippah showing a picture of his former boss Ted Cruz.

It was an extraordinary feeling to be only a few hundred feet from the most powerful office in the world. I say the most powerful office rather than the most powerful person, because the president wasn’t there. He had already left for Vietnam and his meeting with the chubby despot with the lousy hair. Paul assured me that there was no truth to the rumor circulating throughout my family, that the real reason Trump went to Vietnam to avoid being in the White House while I was there.

There were many vital issues Teller could have discussed with me, given his position in legislative affairs, but our sole focus was Israel and his pride in working for a president whose America First policy includes the need to support a Jewish State of Israel. y meeting with Paul Teller and our discussion about Israel set the tone for the next four days, because CPAC 2019 had more visibly Jewish attendees and more speakers talking about Israel than any other CPAC I have ever attended.

While I spent most of the conference in my usual place — in the media filing center at the back of the ballroom where the main speak-

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The Jewish Star’s Jeff Dunetz is making America great again at CPAC.

ers made their addresses — for two hours on Thursday and again on Friday, I broadcast my radio show, The Lid (SHR Media Network) from CPAC’s “Radio Row.” Radio Row is a chain of broadcast booths outside the walls of the ballroom. From that vantage point, I could see the conference attendees as they checked out who was broadcasting from CPAC. There were more visibly Jewish attendees, men wearing kippot, than ever before.

The importance of Jewish conservatives was not only reflected in my fellow Yids wearing lids, it went way beyond that. Most of the general audience speakers, including Senators Mike Lee, Lindsey Graham and Ted Cruz, the head of Turning Point USA Charlie Kirk, Internet stars Diamond and Silk, the “great one” radio star Mark Levin, and many others, spoke of the importance of the US-Israel relationship as part of their address.

There were also specific programs directed toward Jewish topics. These included “Protecting the Freedom of Jerusalem,” an address given

by Ambassador Dore Gold, the former DirectorGeneral of the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, as well two panel discussions. One was called “Why Anti-Zionism is a Form of Anti-Semitism and a Threat to National Security,” and featured Rabbi Yechezkel Moskowitz of the National Council of Young Israel. The other was called “Examining the Contributions of the Only Democracy in the Middle East,” and its panelists included Elie Pieprz of the Yesha Council and

Ambassador Yoram Ettinger, who represented Israel in many different capacities and cities in America.

CPAC on Friday brought the announcement of a new Jewish organization called Jexodus. org, formed by Jewish millennials who are “tired of living in bondage to leftist politics.” They “reject the hypocrisy, anti-Americanism, and antiSemitism of the rising far-left.” They also reject the leadership of too many old-school Jewish organizations who put their allegiance to liberal politics before their loyalty to the Jewish people. hile I was welcomed ten years ago during my first trip to CPAC, there was a feeling of isolation. The presence of fellow Jews and Jewish topics seemed rare. The void reflected the sparseness of Jews in the conservative movement.

However, the combination of a president and a conservative movement placing greater emphasis on supporting Jewish issues because they naturally fit with the America First agenda, has led to more Jews taking a look at conservative principals. Their open-minded research has made them realize that conservatism closely aligned with traditional Jewish values. Thus, they are abandoning the anti-Semitism of liberal groups and becoming conservative.

The American Conservative Union, which runs CPAC, saw this change happening. It was reflected in their program, which, in the end, drew more Jews like my daughter and me to CPAC and the capital last week.

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viewpoint

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his July, Argentina’s Jewish community will mark 25 years since the bombing of the AMIA Jewish Center in Buenos Aires, in which 85 people were murdered and hundreds seriously wounded. It promises to be a depressing commemoration, frankly, because there is no reason to expect anything else.

On July 18, 1994, a Renault utility truck packed with explosives smashed into the AMIA building in the busy downtown area of the Argentine capital, leaving absolute carnage in its wake. The bombing, two years after a nearly identical attack on the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires killed 29 people, was similarly planned and carried out by the Iranian regime and its Lebanese Shi’ite proxy, Hezbollah. A generation later, none of the suspects, the subjects of Interpol “Red Notices” since 2007, have been captured. ndeed, the AMIA investigation has been exposed as a bigger source of intrigue and duplicity than the bombing itself.

The first AMIA investigation, set up under former Argentine President Carlos Menem, collapsed after it was exposed as a den of corruption, whose strategic goal was to deflect attention from the responsibility of the Iranians for the bombing.

The second reconstituted investigation, set up under former President Nestor Kirchner in 2004, was more promising, principally because it was the domain of fearless federal prosecutor Alberto Nisman. It was Nisman’s diligent work that resulted in Interpol releasing warrants for the senior Iranian and Hezbollah operatives.

But Nisman paid for his efforts with his life in 2015, when he was discovered murdered in his apartment hours before he was due to unveil a complaint against then-President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner (spouse of the now-deceased Nestor) that detailed her

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In January 2016, a protest in Buenos Aires marking the one-year anniversary of the death of Alberto Nisman. Jaluj via Wikimedia Commons

government’s collusion in exonerating the Iranian mullahs.

Nisman, some said, was the 86th victim of the AMIA bombing.

Cristina Kirchner, herself ousted from office by current President Mauricio Macri in November 2015, is widely suspected of both involvement in Nisman’s death and of recruiting the police and judiciary into spreading the lie that he committed suicide. Now elected to Argentina’s Senate, she can claim immunity from prosecution. f the six Interpol “Red Notice” suspects, the five Iranian officials remain at large, while the one Lebanese — Hezbollah’s second-in-command, Imad Mughniyeh — was killed by a car bomb in Damascus in 2008. Meanwhile, the senior Iranians implicated in the bombing have never been subjected to even a tap on the shoulder. One of them, former Iranian President Ali Hashemi Rafsanjani, who allegedly hosted the meeting where the attack was decided upon, died two years ago. Another, former foreign minister Ali Akbar Velayati, enjoys extensive influence as a senior

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adviser to the regime’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Justice has so far escaped the AMIA executioners; for those who abetted them, the record is also poor. Last week, in the first significant AMIA-related event of this 25th anniversary year, the victims and their families received another kick in the teeth when a court in Buenos Aires acquitted Menem of engaging in a cover-up during the first, thoroughly discredited AMIA investigation.

Prosecutors had pushed for a prison sentence of at least four years. Accused of endorsing bribes to officials that pushed the investigation away from Iranians and onto domestic suspects, Menem was also named by a former senior Iranian intelligence operative as having been a “paid asset” of Iran during his term in office.

But none of this was seriously examined in court, where Menem, as the Buenos Aires Times reported, “gave little away in his testimony, saying state secrets meant he was prevented from presenting bombshell evidence. His lawyer explained to the court in 2016 that Menem declined to reveal any information ‘that could affect the current government, the interests of the nation, and peaceful coexistence with other nations.’ ” ome of the conspirators, including former federal judge Juan José Galeano, and former prosecutors Eamon Mullen and José Barbaccia, did receive prison sentences this week for their roles in corrupting the first AMIA investigation. But the exoneration of Menem brought a furious response from Memoria Activa, an Argentine advocacy group seeking justice for the victims.

The judges “decided to acquit Menem when it became clear, according to the evidence, that he was one of the main [individuals] responsible for the impunity in the AMIA case,” the group said in a statement. “His government knew that the attack was going to happen; not only did they not prevent it, they ordered the manipulation of the investigation so that the truth would not come out.”

When Jewish leaders and foreign dignitaries fly into Buenos Aires this July, it is to be hoped that they will call the AMIA debacle for what it is: a travesty of justice, an insult to victims of terrorism See AMIA on page 22

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John Locke, Torah and Western political tradition We Need to Talk

evelyN GordoN

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srael is currently preoccupied with its election campaign and America with its newly divided government, leaving both countries little attention to spare for issues beyond day-today politics. But moments of change are excellent times to pause and consider the fundamentals of the Western political tradition. And as a recent contribution to the growing scholarly genre of political Hebraism reminds us, one of those fundamentals is the surprisingly large role the Torah has played in Western political thought.

In John Locke’s Political Philosophy and the

Hebrew Bible, Yechiel Leiter (full disclosure: a friend and neighbor) convincingly argues that the Bible heavily influenced Locke’s thought.

Since Locke’s work, especially his Second Treatise on Government, is widely considered to have significantly influenced America’s founding fathers, this is further evidence that when people talk about America’s “Judeo-Christian” roots, the “Judeo” half is no mere courtesy. Judaism in fact contributed significantly to America’s political traditions. evertheless, this raises an obvious question. Locke and his fellow 17th-century political Hebraists (including John Selden, Hugo Grotius and Thomas Hobbes) were Christians, not Jews. So why, in developing their political thought, did they rely far more on the Hebrew Bible than the Christian New Testament?

In Locke’s First Treatise on Government, for

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instance, he “quotes the Hebrew Bible more than 80 times,” yet there’s a “near total absence of quotes from the New Testament,” Leiter writes. And even in the Second Treatise, which has fewer biblical quotes, “nothing is quoted with any comparable frequency as the Hebrew Bible.”

Nor are these biblical references mere padding, Leiter argues. Locke uses them to develop several key concepts.

For instance, Locke posits a “natural law” superior to any human law. He argues that men are entitled to overthrow governments that violate this natural law. The Second Treatise illustrates this concept with the Cain and Abel story, in which Cain, having just murdered his brother, complains to G-d that “everyone that findeth me shall slay me.” Yet G-d only explicitly prohibits murder five chapters later. This, Locke explains, is how natural law works: No

explicit prohibition was needed because Cain’s own reason sufficed to understand that murder is unacceptable.

Locke uses this story in developing his doctrine of individual executive power, which holds that in the absence of a legitimate governing authority, anyone has the right to punish crimes like murder (“everyone that findeth me shall slay me”). By extension, people are entitled to punish tyrannical governments (which are inherently illegitimate) by toppling them. ndeed, as Leiter notes, Locke’s belief in the legitimacy of rebelling against tyrants is a recurrent theme in the Hebrew Bible, yet contrasts markedly with the New Testament’s doctrine of obedience to authority. The latter is epitomized by Paul’s dictum, “The powers that be are ordained of G-d. Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of See Locke on page 22

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A UN humanitarian agency’s propaganda war NGo Monitor

Gerald M STeiNBerG

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or decades, American taxpayers have poured hundreds of millions of dollars into United Nations aid agencies that went to promote Palestinian propaganda wars against Israel. The most notorious is UNRWA, the specialized Palestinian refugee framework created in 1949, which was finally cut off last year.

But the problem continues in other, and in some ways even more virulent, forms. For example, the Occupied Palestinian Territory branch of the U.N.’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA-oPt) is also neck-deep in political warfare and demonization.

Under the guise of providing aid, this agency sends out a constant flow of false accusations, including reports to the Security Council and news items promoted on its specialized ReliefWeb me-

dia platform.

The officials also coordinate the agendas of dozens of NGOs (non-governmental organizations) that are active in these political attacks.

The anti-Israel Norwegian Refugee Council and the Palestinian NGO Network (PNGO) are among their main partners in promoting radical goals. ut the façade that has protected OCHA-oPt and its partners is being slowly stripped away. Jamie McGoldrick, the U.N.’s Humanitarian Coordinator, complained about “UN Watch and NGO Monitor, [the organization founded and led by the author] who are out there to delegitimize humanitarian action in Palestine, including allegations of misconduct and misuse of funds.”

In January, his organization’s bulletin warned against Israeli “delegitimization, access restrictions, and administrative constraints,” and warned about a nefarious “network of Israeli civil society groups … with the apparent support of the Israeli government.” No details are provided — only shadowy allegations and hints of dark conspiracies. (For the record, NGO Monitor nei-

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ther requests nor receives any support from any government, unlike OCH-oPt’s circle of friends.)

Getting further into the mud, this diatribe refers to “targeted defamation and smear campaigns [that] allege violations of counter-terrorism legislation … Most of these allegations are baseless or misrepresent and distort critical factual or legal elements. Humanitarian organizations operating in the oPt adhere strictly to the principles of neutrality, impartiality, independence and humanity…”

Behind the bluster, the evidence clearly exposes OCHA-oPt’s facade. A number of core groups are affiliated with terror organizations, such as the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, as first documented in NGO Monitor’s research and reiterated by the Israeli Ministry of Strategic Affairs. The terror links of groups such as the Palestine Center for Human Rights (PCHR), Defence for Children InternationalPalestine (DCI-P), Addameer, Al Haq and others — members of OCHA’s “displacement working group” — are nether baseless nor distortions.

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he claim to “adhere strictly to the principles of neutrality” is a farce. Partners such as Norwegian People’s Aid, and Medical Aid for Palestinians, devote significant resources to demonizing Israel. Many of OCHA-oPt’s NGO clients are among the leaders of anti-Semitic and anti-Israel BDS and lawfare campaigns before the International Criminal Court. Their Israeli NGO partners, such as B’Tselem and Adalah, are political opposition groups with no role in humanitarian aid. Use of terms such as “neutral” and “impartial” in this context strips them of all meaning.

The text also condemns “restrictions imposed on humanitarian staff and operations,” by which they apparently mean the arrests of NGO and U.N. officials for diverting funds and materials to terrorist organizations in Gaza. There have been a number of cases in which aid officials, including U.N. employees, were tried and convicted of diverting large funds to Hamas. In 2016, World Vision’s Gaza manager Mohammed Halabi was charged with stealing $50 million for use in terSee War on page 22

THE JEWISH STAR March 8, 2019 • 1 Adar 2, 5779

AMIA bombing +25 years, justice again denied

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Events...

March 8, 2019 • 1 Adar 2, 5779 THE JEWISH STAR

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Continued from page 16 view, and we do all we can to ensure our success. But as we put our shoes on, it behooves us to remember that what ends up happening is in much bigger hands than our own.

Everything that will come into our lives, today and every day, are events that find us. We cannot change those events, but we can change how we react to them, and what we choose to do. erhaps that is what the spies are telling Yehoshua: “We had a very different idea of how this mission would go, but these are the events that found us.” Hashem wanted the Jewish people to see just how terrified the Canaanites were of them, and He planned the mission as it transpired.

And maybe that explains the end of Shemot. Even when we encamp, we are always on a journey, and everything that happens finds us for a reason.

So how do Jews in a cattle car headed for Treblinka find the strength to sing?

Perhaps in the same way the Jewish people survived 2,000 years of bitter exile: we somehow understood that every event or encampment is just part of a much larger journey. It was never about controlling the events, it was always about deciding what we are meant to do with them, and Who is really planning them.

All of which will lead us to the third book, which we begin next week: Vayikra, “and He called” — the recognition that hidden in all of the events of our lives is always a calling.

Shabbat Shalom from Jerusalem.

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Locke...

Continued from page 21 G-d” (Romans 13:1-2).

Leiter argues that Locke’s view of human equality similarly derives not from the New Testament — where equality, to quote the Book of Galatians, stems from being “One in Jesus Christ,” seemingly excluding anyone who doesn’t accept Christianity — but from the creation story in Genesis, where all people are created by “one omnipotent and infinitely wise Maker,” in Locke’s words.

The Jephthah story bolsters Locke’s argument that unless G-d directly appoints a leader, this power devolves to the people: Jephthah, unlike most biblical judges, was appointed by the people rather than G-d. The transfer of kingship from Saul to David, rather than to Saul’s son Jonathan, is cited as evidence that a ruler’s son has no inherent right to succeed him.

Locke uses Jephthah again to claim that it’s legitimate to appeal to higher authority against an unjust government; Jephthah’s appeal to heaven before going to war to evict a foreign occupier thus serves him as a precedent for the English Revolution. And so forth.

So why does Locke rely so heavily on the Hebrew Bible rather than the Christian one?

Leiter shows that Locke himself answered this question in an earlier work, Two Tracts on Government. The New Testament, Locke wrote, “is for the most part silent as to governmental and civil power,” since Jesus “seems to refuse deliberately to involve himself in civil affairs” and left “the civil government of the commonwealth … unchanged.” he Hebrew Bible, in contrast, is anything but silent regarding “governmental and civil power.” A significant portion of the Pentateuch consists of laws that are supposed to govern the soon-to-be-established Jewish commonwealth. And a significant portion of the subsequent books describes how Jewish selfgovernment played out in practice.

These biblical stories explore various types of government, from anarchy through limited monarchy to tyranny, and show the pitfalls or benefits of each. Nor are they simplistic morality tales; they show politics in all its complexity.

One of the Bible’s greatest moral and political leaders, the prophet Samuel, sees his model of leadership rejected towards the end of his

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life, when the people demand a king. One of its wickedest kings — Ahab, who famously had a subject murdered in order to steal his vineyard — presides over a flourishing, prosperous kingdom. King Solomon’s dominion reaches unparalleled heights of both hard and soft power, but collapses into civil war under his son. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

Thus for anyone interested in how politics works, the Hebrew Bible is a treasure trove. Nor is belief in G-d necessary to derive insights from it, just as faith isn’t necessary to derive insights from Locke or Shakespeare. As with any great work of literature or philosophy — and the Bible, quite aside from its religious significance, is both — all that’s needed is close and careful reading of the text.

Leiter’s book thus reinforces what should already have been obvious: The Bible is too important to the Western political tradition to be as widely ignored by serious students of politics, as it currently is in both America and Israel. The West’s greatest political philosophers believed that the Hebrew Bible had something worthwhile to say about politics. Both countries’ dysfunctional political systems might benefit from following those philosophers’ lead.

Evelyn Gordon is a journalist and commentator living in Israel.

War...

Continued from page 21 ror attacks. Neither the terror links nor the arrests were mentioned in the propaganda because for OCHA-oPt, all Palestinians are victims, and terrorism does not exist.

This and similar diatribes from the Palestinian propaganda industry reflect a real threat. A series of detailed research reports, particularly from NGO Monitor, have resulted in much-needed reforms imposed by the donor countries. As noted by OCHA-oPt, 23 percent of NGO allies had been “forced to alter, suspend or terminate existing programmes, in part or in full; 22 per cent said they had faced threats of, or actual, legal or administrative actions against them; and 55 per cent reported that they had to answer additional donor queries about their programming.

Overall, 43 per cent … indicated that the campaign had undermined their funding for certain types of activities.” s countries such as Switzerland, Denmark, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Norway, the European Union and others re-evaluate their NGO funding policies in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict zone, the impacts will increase. After their basic due diligence failures in following OCHA’s “coordination” and wasting millions in taxpayer funds on groups that promoted the opposite of the moral values that were claimed, these governments had no choice but to change policies. As a result, the anti-Israel propaganda machine coordinated by OCHA-oPt has considerably fewer resources to wage these wars.

The crisis faced by this and other U.N. agencies claiming to be assisting the Palestinians is the result of their own fundamental failures, and no amount of empty rhetoric, bemoaning the “shrinking of the operational space available for humanitarian work” will hide this reality.

Eventually, even OCHA-oPt, like UNRWA, will be forced to stop these wasteful and destructive propaganda wars which have cost Israelis, Palestinians and American taxpayers so much.

Gerald M. Steinberg is a professor of political science at Bar-Ilan University and president of NGO Monitor.

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AMIA...

Continued from page 21

everywhere, and an exemplary case of a terrorsponsoring state bribing a foreign government to bend to its will after murdering nearly 100 of its citizens. There is much to mourn — most of all those who died in the bombing, along with Alberto Nisman, who was assassinated for telling the truth. There is nothing at all to be proud of.

CAlendar of Events

Send your events to Calendar@TheJewishStar.com • Deadline noon Friday • Compiled by Rachel Langer Thursday March 7

Making Sense of Sensory: A course for parents and professionals addressing sensory integration issues that affect children with anxiety, learning and social-emotional difficulties. Includes techniques and practical ideas. CE credits available. 8:30 am to 4 pm. 8 Spruce St, Cedarhurst. HandsOnApproaches.org. $315.

Neshama Carlebach in Concert: Neshama Carlebach will perform selections from her upcoming CD. Sponsored by Hadassah. 130 East 59th St, Manhattan. Hadassah.org. $20.

Jews in World War II: Film screening of “GI Jews: Jewish Americans in World War II,” with World War II veteran Bernie Rader. 7 pm. 140 Central Ave, Lawrence. 516-239-1140. Free.

Saturday March 9

Scholar in Residence: Beth Sholom hosts Rabbi Ari Lamm. Drasha on the mission of Diaspora Jewry, politics in Megillat Esther (4:30 pm), and “The Wizard vs. The Prophet” (5:30 pm). 390 Broadway, Lawrence.

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.

Sunday March 10

Annual Breakfast: To benefit local families through Tomchei Shabbos of Far Rockaway and the Five Towns, hosted by Rachel & Ephraim Rudman. Guest speaker is Rabbi Kenneth Hain. 9:30 am. 576 Atlantic Ave, Lawrence.

Touro Talk: Criminal Justice and Civil Liberties: Israel and America. A Five Towns roundtable

with Justice Elyakim Rubinstein, Congresswoman Kathleen Rice, and Benjamin Brafman, Esq. 10 am. 390 Broadway, Lawrence. 631-761-7066.

Nefesh B’Nefesh: Mega event, informative sessions and vendor fair. Meet aliyah-minded people, learn about aliyah resources, explore opportunities in Israel. See ad on page 3.

Aish Kodesh Dinner: Congregation Aish Kodesh hosts its 2019 dinner at the Sands, honoring Rav & Rebbetzin Moshe Weinberger and Mr. & Mrs. Chaim Balter. 5 pm. 1395 Beech St, Atlantic Beach.

CAHAL Concert: Featuring Mordechai Shapiro, Pumpidisa, Shloime Dachs & the Shloime Dachs Orchestra at Lawrence High School. 8 pm.

2 Reilly Rd, Cedarhurst.

TAG Shpiel: A comedy for women, to benefit Zichron Ruchoma. 8 pm. 444 Beach 6th St, Far Rockaway. TheShpiel.eventbrite.com.

Tuesday March 12 Tikkun Hamiddos: Michal Horowitz’s series “Tikkun Hamiddos: The Measure of a Man,” continues with a class on empathy. 11:30 am to 12:30 pm. 207 Grove Ave, Cedarhurst. 516-569-6733 ext. 222. $15 per class, $65 for full series.

TAG Dinner: Our Parents, Our Partners: Celebrating an incredible chinuch partnership.

Honoring Mr. & Mrs. Ephram Ostreicher, Rabbi & Mrs. Mordechai Stern, and Mrs. Anita Davis. 1395 Beech St, Atlantic Beach. 718-471-8444.

Friday March 15

Chabad Retreat: Chabad of Long Island invites you to a Weekend of Wisdom at Sag Harbor Inn, featuring scholars in residence Rabbi Manis Friedman and Mrs. Chaya Teldon. ChabadLI.org/ retreatinfo.

Singles Shabbaton: Hosted by Sharon Ganz & friends at Young Israel of Avenue J. For singles mid-20s, 30s, and 40s. Includes home hospitality, three catered meals, oneg, mixers, group discussions, exciting speakers, and more. 1721 Ave J, Brooklyn. 646-529-8748. $159.

Saturday March 16

Denim & Diamonds: Join Kulanu for a casual, fun event to support programs and services benefiting children and adults with special needs.

Lavish all-night buffet, top-shelf tasting, grand prize raffle, surprise entertainment. Wear your favorite 70s denim and best bling! 9 pm. 140 Central Ave, Lawrence. 516-569-3083 ext. 106.

Sunday March 17

Purim Carnival: Join Park East Day School for the 2019 Purim Extravaganza. Bounce house, horse rides, carnival games, circus performance, picklemaking, face painting, car racing, video games, art project! Costumes with weaponry not permitted. 11 am to 2 pm. 164 East 68th St, Manhattan. ParkEastDaySchool.org. $25 in advance; $30 at the door.

NCSY Gala: A unique evening showcasing decades of impact. Honoring Genie & Stephen Savitsky, Dr. Aviva & Gershon Distenfeld, and Dr. Naama & Rabbi Elie Weinstock, and the legacy of Rabbi Ralph Pelcovitz zt”l. Marina Del Ray. BBY Dinner: Bnos Bais Yaakov holds its 25th annual dinner, honoring Mr. & Mrs. Richie & Ariella Sinnreich, Mr. & Mrs. Misha & Estee Rapaport, and Mr. & Mrs. Avi & Esti Feldman. BBYdinner.org.

Sunday March 24

YIJE Mitzvah Morning: Join your kids and grandkids to create and present gift boxes for

residents of the Boulevard Alp Assisted Living.

Transportation provided. 9:30 am. 83-10 188th St, Jamaica.

Bialystoker Fundraiser: Celebratory event honors Laurie Tobias Cohen and the Lower East Side Jewish Conservancy, with a special tour of the Bialystoker Synagogue by Rabbi Zvi Romm.

1 pm. 266 East Broadway, Manhattan. 212-3744100. Tickets start at $54.

Wednesday March 27

Chabad Hewlett: Join friends and neighbors as we celebrate our past achievements and look forward to growing in the future. Honoring Ron & Nataly Austin; Alex & Miriam Bronfman; Dr. Adam & Shirley Boris; and Assemblywoman Melissa Miller. 6:30 pm. 1300 Club Dr, Hewlett. Dinner@JewishHewlett.com. $225 per person.

JNF: Dessert reception and inspiring guest address by IDF soldier Izzy Ezagui, sharing his story of returning to battle after losing an arm. 7 pm boutique, 8 pm program. 620 Central Ave, Cedarhurst. JNF.org/LIdessert. $100; $180 per couple.

Sunday March 31

NCYI Annual Gala: National Council of Young Israel hosts its annual gala at the Marriott Marquis. Guest speakers: Honorable Kevin McCarthy and Governor Mike Huckabee. Buffet dinner. 5 pm. 1535 Broadway, Manhattan. Dinner@ YoungIsrael.org. $500.

Monday April 8

Holocaust Education: The Tolerance Center of Nassau County present a professional development workshop for educators entitled Teaching Schindler’s List: Using Film to Explore the Holocaust. 9:30 am to 3:30 pm. 100 Crescent Beach Rd, Glen Cove. 516-571-8040. $25.

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