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Vayikra • March 15, 2019 • 8 Adar 2, 5779 • Expanded Torah section pages 16–18 • Luach page 16 • Vol 18, No 10

It’s a Dem shame! Trump: Dems hate Jews President Trump, told a group of Republican donors on Sunday that “Democrats hate Jewish people” and he does not understand how any Jewish person could vote for one. “The Democrats have become an anti-Israel party. They’ve become an anti-Jewish party,” he told reporters on Friday. Later, promoting a group called “Jexodus” that’s urging Jews to leave the Democratic Party, he tweeted a quote from group spokesperson Elizabeth Pipko, a former Trump campaign staffer. “There is anti-Semitism in the Democratic Party,” he quoted her as saying. “They don’t care about Israel or the Jewish people.”

Democrats noted in response that the vast majority of Jews have voted for Democrats in recent elections, and all but two Jewish members of Congress are Democrats. White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders defended the president’s views. Referring to the Rep. Omar controvery, she said that “Democrats have had a number of opportunities to condemn specific comments and have refused to do that. They’re unwilling to call this what it is and call it out by name, and take actual action against members who have done things like this.”

Democrats in the House of Representatives refused to censure Minneota Rep. Ilhan Omar for her repeated use of classic anti-Semitic tropes and other expressions of anti-Jewish thought. Instead of focusing on Omar’s unrepentant anti-Semitism, Democratic leaders pushed through a bill that criticized all forms of bigotry, including Islamophobia, and failed to mention Omar. The bill passed overwhelmingly, with some Republicans, including LI Rep. Lee Zeldin, voting no. More inside: •The Dems’ ‘anti-hate’ resolution (Dunetz), p. 20. •Democrats failed on Omar. Do most Jews care? (Tobin), p. 21. •Omar’s lies about Israel and the Jews (Marcus), p. 21.

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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman visited the Golan Heights on Monday with Sen Lindsey Graham.

Give back the Golan? Just fuggedaboutit Think Israel will knuckle under to the demand by Syria’s victorious madman Bashar al-Assad that it withdraw from the Golan Heights? If so, there’s an East River bridge that can be had for a song. “There is no construct I can imagine now or any time in the future for the state of Israel to give the

Golan up,” Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) told reporters during a tour of the Golan Heights border with Lebanon on Monday alongside U.S. ambassador to Israel David Friedman and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. “I come here as an American. I See Golan on page 13

Worried about anti-Semites in Congress? Brafman’s solution: Teach our children

DIscussing “Criminal Justice and Civil Liberties in Israel and America,” from left, Elyakim Rubinstein, former vice president of the Israel Supreme Court; Harry Ballan, dean and professor of Law at Touro Law Center; and Benjamin Brafman of Lawrence, criminal defense attorney. The Jewish Star / Ed Weintrob

By Ed Weintrob That the scourge of anti-Semitism remains uncured does not surprise Elyakim Rubinstein, former vice president of Israel’s Supreme Court, who said that many years ago “there was a notion that after the Holocaust, this was done.” Regrettably, that’s not how things played out. “We live in dangerous times,” opined prominent criminal defense attorney Benjamun Brafman of Lawrence. Brafman and Rubinstein engaged in an expansive discussion of “Criminal Justice and Civil Liberties in Israel and America,” hosted

by the Touro College Jacob D. Fuchsberg Law Center on Sunday morning at Congregation Beth Shalom in Lawrence. The recent repeated expressions of antiSemitism by Minnesota freshman Rep. Ilhan Omar — and the refusal of Democratic Party leaders in the House of Representatives to censure her — worries Brafman. “When I was a kid growing up as a Jew in Brooklyn, the idea that a Jew would vote for a Republican was unheard of and impossible to even contemplate,” he said. “Today, I think the majority of Jews who are really caring See Teach on page 13

Mizrahi Jewish spies fought to build Israel Now, their descendants face racism there By Hen Mazzig TEL AVIV — In 1951, my great-grandfather was executed in the city of Baghdad, Iraq. He was accused by the government of being an Israeli spy. My grandmother always told us things were never the same following the Farhud, a twoday pogrom filled with vandalism and violence against the Jewish population of Baghdad that took place during Shavuot in 1941. Every Iraqi Jew was viewed as an Israeli agent. While America had closed its gates to the Jews of the Middle East, my family heard word of a safe haven for the Jewish people: Israel. Soon after, Israeli spies and security forces came to rescue them on planes, around the same time that my father’s parents arrived to Israel from Tunisia, forced out of their country. Tunisia was not as violent toward Jews as Iraq, but the oppression and the institutionalized discrimination was unbearable. So both sides of my family took a chance on the new state that emerged promising refuge for all Jews. The majority of Israeli Jews, like my family, came from Arab and Muslim countries, an inconvenient fact for some critics of the State of Israel today. Far from a white colonialist entity, the truth is that Jews in Israel have suffered oppressive and racist governments just as much as other “brown” peoples throughout the world. However, along with expulsion from their home countries — where my family felt they belonged but were never Arab enough for the Arabs — Mizrahi Jews have also often felt like

First Person

A Jewish soldier and two Arab tradesmen enjoy a game of cards in the town of Madjdal at the entrance to the Negev, 1937. Getty Images

second-class citizens in Israel. Many Mizrahi Jews weren’t seen as Israeli enough for the Ashkenazi founders. Indeed, most tellings of the story of Israel’s founding focus on Ashkenazi figures like David Ben-Gurion and Chaim Weizmann, all with roots in Eastern and Western Europe. This is also the dominant narrative in modern-day Israel — that’s why Matti Friedman’s new book is long overdue. Spies of No Country, the third book by the Israeli journalist, shares the gripping and previously untold stories of four Mizrahi Jews who

took part in a spy unit called the Arab Section. The unit, comprised entirely of Jews from Arab lands, was part of both the underground Palmach before the modern State of Israel was founded and the post-independence Israel Defense Forces. Instead of paying Arab collaborators for expensive and unreliable information, the Arab Section trained Jews who had grown up in the Arab world to pass as non-Jews. As money was short and resources limited, these spies were often forced to get creative. These were not normal spies, in the sense that a spy collects information and passes it on to a foreign country. These spies were citizens of Arab countries, spying for a country that was not even a country yet. In other words, these spies were sacrificing everything for an idea of a country that European Jews were running. What was the driving force behind their commitment to an unborn country, a country whose self-proclaimed parents were not accepting of their new Mizrahi children? Friedman’s approach to this often-untold history of Israel is a refreshing one — and has been taboo for many writers. Early reviews of the book have addressed the thrilling stories of espionage and double identity. But there is more to these raw, painful and inspiring stories: Friedman’s book exposes the complex reality of these loyal Israelis who were challenged, exoticized and vilified again and again by Ashkenazi Jews. Mizrahi Jews face erasure from both Arabs and Ashkenazi Jews — and still do to this day. Arab and Islamic countries in the Middle East erase the history of their Jewish communities. Egypt was home to 75,000 Jews before

A Yemeni Jew listens to a radio in Jerusalem, 1935. Universal History Archive/UIG via Getty Images

1972; only a few dozen remain. Iraq’s once 150,000-strong Jewish population has met the same fate, and none of the quarter-million Jews who once lived in Syria and Libya remain. In Israel, Mizrahi Jews are an underrepresented minority. They comprise less than 9 percent of Israel’s academic faculty. There has never been a Mizrahi Israeli theater director, head of public broadcasting, state attorney — or prime minister. We still face discrimination, whether our society wants to admit it or not. Today, many Mizrahi Israelis speak, dress and act indistinguishably from their Ashkenazi Israeli brethren. Marriages between Mizrachim and Ashkenazim have erased some of the most glaring social distinctions. But the Mizrahi Jews who helped build Israel had not yet had the choice to assimilate. Not only were these Jews native speakers of Arabic, the language of Israel’s enemies, but See Mizrahi on page 13

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Students assembled in Albany on Tuesday to hear speeches before setting out on a day of lobbying on OU behalf of Jewish day schools and yeshivas.

OU Executive Vice President Allen Fagin (left) and State Senator Todd Kaminsky of Long Beach address students during Tuesday’s Teach NYS event. Semeraro Photography

Hundreds of students from Jewish day schools and yeshivas came to the State Capitol Tuesday as part of the Orthodox Union’s Teach NYS delegation to advocate for increased and sustainable funding for nonpublic school STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) education. The students hailed from more than 50 schools in New York City, Long Island, Westchester, Rockland County, Buffalo, Rochester and Albany. Throughout the daylong program, more than 700 students and lay leaders heard from and met with over 90 legislators, sharing their desire to increase funding for STEM programming and instruction within their schools. Last year, a similar Teach NYS mission helped influence the historic tripling of state-funded STEM programs in nonpublic schools from $5 million in 2017 to $15 million in 2018, allowing the State to reimburse nonpublic schools directly for the cost of qualified STEM instructors. Legislators who addressed the crowd shared their commitment to increasing nonpublic school funding for STEM education and the importance it will have on the future economy of the state. Following the speeches, the students and lay leaders broke into groups and went to the Statehouse where they met with more than 90 state legislators, including Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart Cousins (D-Yonkers), Deputy Majority Leader Sen. Michael Gianaris (D-Queens), Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie (D-Bronx), Chairman for the Committee on Education Michael Benedetto (D-Bronx), Assemblywoman Helene Weinstein (D-Brooklyn), Sen. Shelley Mayer (D-Westchester), Sen. Todd Kaminsky (D-Long Beach), Assemblywoman Nily Rozic (D-Queens), Assemblyman Daniel Rosenthal (D-Queens), and Assemblyman Simcha Eichenstein (D-Brooklyn). “Today is about how you change the way

state government thinks about education and our schools,” said OU Executive Vice President Allen Fagin told students. “Today is about hundreds of students, parents and administrators coming to Albany to talk to our elected officials, to explain that the education of our children matters; that education is a civil right; that your right to choose how and where to be educated, without financial penalty or hardships, is a civil right that every parent and student in this state should enjoy.” “Teach NYS works year-round with schools, community activists and other organizations to advocate for equitable government funding of our yeshivas and day schools,” said OU President Moishe Bane. “Missions like this, involving parents and the students themselves, allow the members of our community to play a central role in reminding our legislators of the breadth and commitment of our community. By seeing and hearing from our students, they can better appreciate the returns that their investment in our children’s education will bring the state long-term.” Teach NYS, a division of the Orthodox Union’s Teach Coalition, was founded in 2013 to advocate for equitable government funding for New York nonpublic schools. It has secured $1.5 billion in funding for day schools, which is used to increase security, enhance education and defray higher tuition costs. Teach NYS created a first-in-the-nation program to begin reimbursing nonpublic schools for the costs of qualified STEM instructors. In 2018, it championed a historic pilot program to begin providing kosher and halal meals to students enrolled in both public and nonpublic schools in New York City. Now in its third year, the Teach NYS Albany mission has become the largest annual lobbying event in Albany on behalf of nonpublic Source: Teach NYS schools and yeshivas.

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MEMRI JTTM Al-Malahem, the media arm of Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, released a video on Monday featuring the group’s senior commander, Khaled Batarfi, condemning Arab and Gulf governments and accusing them of hastening to normalize relations with Israel. In the video, published on AQAP’s official Telegram channel, Batarfi called on Muslims to confront their governments militarily and intellectually. Accusing Arab and Gulf State government of pleasing the Jews and Christians, Batarfi said that they have “diligently tried to promote the so-called ‘deal of the century.’” He noted that the issue of the Tiran and Sanafir Islands between Saudi Arabia and Egypt, and the kingdom’s multibillion-dollar Neom City project, had been planned “to boost the deal and finalize the sale of Palestine to the Jews and the displacement of the Muslims to the Sinai.” Batarfi condemned Israeli Prime Minster Benjamin Netanyahu’s visit to Oman and U.S. President Donald Trump’s praise of Saudi Arabia in the wake of the murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi, as well as Trump’s acknowledgment of the important role it plays in the region. Batarfi stated that “the Christians and Jews leaders have become lawyers defending Al-Saud because they the ones [sic] who benefits the most from them.” Next, Batarfi accused Saudi Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman of “secularizing” Saudi Arabia and promoting “debauchery” by creating the General Entertainment Authority. He condemned the imprisonment of religious clerics and reformers, and the hosting of Western

priests and rabbis. Addressing Muslims, Batarfi accused Saudi Crown Prince and Mohammed bin Zayed, the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi, of secularizing their societies in order to “facilitate the normalization, promote co-existence with the West and Israel … and to please their Crusader master Trump to keep them in their thrones.” Batarfi then mentioned that Saudi Arabia and UAE’s position against political Islamist groups and their support of regimes and groups opposing the Arab Spring are meant to “thwart all the attempts at Islam-inspired projects.” He then condemned the UAE and Bahrain’s re-opening of their embassies in Syria, and Sudanese President Omar Al-Bashir’s visit to Damascus, saying that these actions prove that Arab governments are not concerned about those the Syrian regime killed, and that all what they care about is “pleasing the Jews and the Christians to secure their thrones.” Batarfi urged Muslims not to remain silent regarding “this major crime” committed by their governments, and called on them to “prepare to confront them militarily, intellectually and in all domains.” “Remember,” he said, “that we have scholars, men and women languishing in the prisons of those tyrants whose crimes were refusing to remain silent against the falsehood of these rulers, and they are awaiting of our support for them and we will be asked if we have let them down.” Batarfi concluded by urging Muslims to unite to confront and remove these governments, and seek guidance from the truthful scholars to “change this bitter situation.”

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By Jackson Richman, JNS The student government at Swarthmore College passed a resolution in a closed meeting last week introduced by the school’s Students for Justice in Palestine chapter, calling on the college to separate interests in Israel, including Boeing. The measure passed a few weeks after it failed to cross the finish line, causing members from SJP and the school’s Jewish Voice for Peace chapter to protest at a Feb. 24 meeting, when the two groups and “concerned students and allies formed a chain of solidarity, linking arms and standing” when Swarthmore Students for Israel (SSI) presented its stance on the BDS measure, reported the student-run publication Voices. “Not in any way a measure taken against the existence of the State of Israel,” said the school’s JVP club in an e-mail. “This vote only condemns the human-rights violations occurring in Palestine due to the Israeli occupation.” Student government president Gilbert Orbea emailed Swarthmore president Valerie Smith and the board of managers, stating that the vote was “not a repudiation of the Jewish faith or of our fellow Jewish and Israeli students.” The board of managers did not respond to a request for comment. SSI president Matthew Stein, a junior, told the Algemeiner that two Twitter pages likely motivated the resolution’s passage. One account, Radical Alert, shared right-wing messages and labeled student government representatives as anti-Semitic. Another, Stop Hate At Swarthmore, tagged SJP and student government members, rebuking them for their “hateful” conduct. SSI condemned the pages and denied any

connection to them. SSI, StandWithUs and the AMCHA Initiative slammed the resolution. Stein told JNS that his club “is dismayed that our student government decided to cave to pressure from SJP, whose members nationally and on campus repeatedly traffic in anti-Semitism.” “The statement given by the student government also ridiculously listed JVP as a vital resource for their belief that the resolution is not a ‘repudiation … of Jewish students’ given that JVP represents a tiny radical minority of the Jewish community and openly rejects Israel as a Jewish state,” he continued. “We are disheartened … all of this will only serve to drive more Jewish students who support Israel away from this campus.” “BDS is anti-Semitic, plain and simple. It calls for the end of Israel as a Jewish state,” AMCHA Initiative director Tammi Rossman-Benjamin said. “Time and again, we see that these votes only serve to shut down the debate that is so critical to a real resolution, and … inject divisiveness and hatred onto campus,” she continued. “Our research shows that BDS activities are at the heart of the rise in anti-Semitism on campuses nationwide, and are often accompanied by harassment, discrimination, destruction of property and even assaults directed against Jewish students. “In fact, anti-Semitism is three times more likely to occur on campuses where BDS is present,” she added. “Instead of passing intolerant, hate-promoting resolutions, the student government should work towards bringing students together in a respectful and civil manner to discuss issues like this in a constructive fashion.”

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the Democratic presidential hopeful. Mizel organized Hickenlooper’s 2013 trip to Israel and the lawmaker has traveled on a plane owned by Mizel’s company, MDC Holdings, on at least one occasion. In 2007, the real estate developer honored Hickenlooper with a community enrichment award given through the Mizel Institute. Mizel has been described as “a go-to person for Republicans looking to understand Israel and demonstrate their support for it.” He serves on the board of the Republican Jewish Coalition and plans trips for Republican political hopefuls, including arranging meetings with Israeli leaders, according to Politico. In 2016, Mizel helped organize a fundraiser for then-presidential candidate Donald Trump, for which attendees paid up to $25,000. Mizel declined a request for comment by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency on the pair’s relationship and how they navigate their obvious political differences. He seems to have a favorite Yiddish word. Hickenlooper used Yiddish to make a point about unity in Colorado when he was inaugurated as governor in 2011. “There’s a Yiddish word, ‘landsman,’ which roughly translated means ‘a fellow villager’ — a stranger, perhaps, but still someone you welcome because you know they share a common connection in the village of your ancestors,” he said in the speech. “I think we can learn from this Yiddish expression and the warmth it evokes. This value doesn’t spring from government. But it can teach all of us to govern together. I feel that every Coloradan is a member of our administration.” It turns out that he learned the word at a Jewish event he attended the previous year, when Mizel introduced the then-mayor of Denver as “an honorary landsman,” the Intermountain Jewish News reported. The word seems to have stuck with Hickenlooper. On a visit to a local Chabad house in 2017, he used landsman again to talk about unity in Colorado, according to Col Live. He attended local Jewish events. Hickenlooper built ties with Colorado Jews by attending Jewish events, including one for men by the local federation’s men’s event, a Chanukah menorah lighting and a Holocaust remembrance hosted by the Anti-Defamation League. In October, he participated in a vigil at Temple Emanuel, a Reform synagogue in Denver, to honor the 11 victims of the shooting at Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life synagogue. “We are a nation built on freedoms, and our most sacred freedom is the freedom of worship,” Hickenlooper said at the vigil. “It’s come to the point where that which is valued the most is most at risk.”

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By Josefin Dolsten, JTA John Hickenlooper is the latest Democrat who thinks he can win back the White House in 2020. The former Colorado governor and self-described “extreme moderate” announced his candidacy on Monday and is holding his first campaign rally this week. “Ultimately I’m running for president because I believe that not only can I beat Donald Trump, but that I am the person that can bring people together on the other side and actually get stuff done,” he said on “Good Morning America.” During his political tenure as governor of Colorado and mayor of Denver, Hickenlooper, a Quaker, built strong ties with the Jewish community and Israel. He also managed to learn some Yiddish along the way. JTA rounded up some of the highlights from his Jewish record. Visiting Israel for the first time had a deep impact. In 2013, Hickenlooper made the trip with Larry Mizel, a prominent Jewish Colorado businessman. In Israel, he had a nearly hourlong meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and a three-hour dinner with former prime minister Ehud Olmert. He also did the typical tourist things: He “bobbed around like a cork in the Dead Sea,” visited Masada, rode a camel and touched the Western Wall. Israel wowed Hickenlooper, who has consistently expressed support for the country and has spoken at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee’s annual conference. He called his visit “the most remarkable seven-day trip of my life, without question.” In an interview about the trip with the Colorado Statesman, Hickenlooper couldn’t stop raving about Israel. “We met tons of entrepreneurs of all different stripes. It’s got to be the most entrepreneurial driven … It’s like a gigantic version of Boulder, right? Just entrepreneurs everywhere,” he said. Hickenlooper was particularly amazed by the trees planted by the Jewish National Fund (he even got to plant one of his own), a topic he returned to several times in the interview, and Israel’s agricultural system. “Anyway, to see the incredible innovations in agriculture and the efficient use of water, I mean … I always for some reason thought it was so desertlike that they were importing most of their food,” he said. “My gosh, what an amazing agricultural system it is.” He also was deeply moved by a visit to Yad Vashem, calling the national Holocaust memorial “the most transformative museum experience I’ve ever had in my life.” In 2016, Hickenlooper signed a bipartisan bill requiring the state’s retirement program to divest from companies that boycott Israel. He thinks Colorado and Israel are natural partners — in cannabis biz. In 2015, two years after that initial Israel visit, Hickenlooper led a trip there to encourage business ties between the country and his state, notably in the recreational and medical marijuana industry. “You guys have some of the top resources in the world on some of these effects, and we have resource money now, so we are looking for partners,” he told The Jerusalem Post at the time. Hickenlooper, who initially opposed decriminalizing recreational marijuana, told the Post he had come around. The trip wasn’t just about cannabis. His delegation also worked to improve ties between Colorado and Israel in other fields such as agriculture and cyber security. He is close with a Jewish Republican businessman. Mizel, a businessman and Republican donor, has been described as a “close friend” of

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dren’s Rights Institute, which tracks, spotlights and legally combats violations of children’s basic human rights around the world. Her award-winning documentary film The Making of a Martyr uncovers the illegal, state-sponsored indoctrination and recruitment of Palestinian children for suicide-homicide attacks. Gila Milstein: Advocating through philanthropy Along with her husband Adam, Gila Milstein is co-founder of the Milstein Family Foundation, which supports a wide range of pro-Israel organizations with the goals of instilling pride and courage within the young Jewish generation, strengthening the U.S.-Israel alliance, and combating bigotry and hatred. “In Israel, Israelis are required to perform ‘Miluim’ after they complete their required full-time military service — they continue to serve the country as reservists. Here in the United States, my husband and I consider our philanthropy to be our Miluim. I am thankful to have the opportunity to give and to strengthen the community that makes up who I am today,” says Moroccan-born Milstein, who moved to Israel at age 6. Milstein is also president of Stand By Me, which supports Israeli-American cancer patients and their families in Los Angeles. “Philanthropy is an important way for me to make an impact and add value,” she says. “This is what women’s empowerment is all about: creating opportunities to stand up and make change where it is needed most.”

By Jacob Kamaras, JNS What does women’s empowerment have to do with Jewish and pro-Israel advocacy? “As a Jewish woman working in the legal world, women’s empowerment means fighting as hard as we can to protect Jewish rights so that the next generation of female Jewish leaders will live in a better, more egalitarian world,” says Brooke Goldstein, executive director of The Lawfare Project. “It means stopping anti-Semitism wherever it happens so that the Jewish women leaders of tomorrow will not be afraid to call out anti-Semitism when they see it.” For International Women’s Day, March 8, JNS spotlights five women who are unabashed advocates for Israel and the Jewish people. Brooke Goldstein: Advocating in the courtroom The Lawfare Project — led by Goldstein, a New York City-based human-rights attorney, author, and filmmaker — deploys a global network of legal professionals in defense of the civil and human rights of the Jewish people and pro-Israel community. “In that pursuit to defend Jewish rights, we’ve done a lot of work defending the rights of women, as well,” says Goldstein. “Part of defending Jewish rights means guaranteeing an equal seat at the table for Jewish women, like me, so that we can speak up and fight back when we experience discriminatory laws or practices that unfairly victimize Jews because of our heritage.” Canadian-born Goldstein is also the founder and director of the Chil-

From left: Masha Merkulova, Miriam Shepher, Liran Avisar Ben-Horin, Gila Milstein and Brooke Goldstein.

Masha Merkulova: Advocating by training next generation Merkulova is founder and executive director of Club Z, a Zionist youth movement whose mission is to create a network of knowledgeable, articulate and impassioned activists at the high school level who go on to advocate for Israel on college campuses and beyond. “Standing up for Israel and the Jewish people means understanding who we are and where we come from, and appreciating our rich, collective heritage,” says Russian-born Merkulova. “It is our duty to then help others, including the next generation, see the light of our community and the State of Israel.” Before starting Club Z, Merkulova spent more than 10 years as a communal activist in the San Francisco Bay Area, spearheading of educational and social events that addressed modern-day campus antiSemitism. “Women’s empowerment means harnessing our unique female qualities to empower every person,” says Merkulova. “We should set an example by striving to be the best version of ourselves, every day.”

Liran Avisar Ben Horin: Advocating immersive experiences in Israel As CEO of Masa Israel Journey, Ben Horin manages the leader in providing immersive five- to 12-month experiences in Israel for young adults ages 18 to 30. Previously, she served as chief of staff of the director general of Israel’s prime minister’s reforms. The Masa Leadership Academy plans to cultivate 1,000 Jewish leaders around the world by 2021 and address the community’s gender disparity in leadership, including by fostering leadership among haredi women. Also last year, Masa released a survey of nearly 1,000 alumni of its Israel experience programs which found that 53 percent of men and only 42 percent of women consider themselves a “Jewish leader.” “This is a problem that the Jewish world can no longer afford to ignore. We can cultivate a new culture, which reinforces that Jewish women have a unique ability — and responsibility — to lead, providing women with the tools and opportunities to secure seats in the C-Suites and board rooms of our communal institutions,” Ben Horin has written. “The Jewish future depends on it.”

Miriam Shepher: Advocating by strengthening IsraeliAmerican and Jewish identity Shepher is the Los Angeles Council chairwoman emeritus and a National Board member of the Israeli-American Council (IAC), which works to build an engaged and united Israeli-American community that strengthens the Israeli and Jewish identity of the next generation, the American Jewish community, and the bond between the Israeli and American people. “I come from Tunisia, where the Jewish community lived as secondclass citizens,” says Shepher. “Today, through my role with the IAC, I enjoy so many privileges that my family in Tunisia could not. I am proud to be an active leader of the Jewish and IsraeliAmerican communities. I am blessed to engage in work that strengthens Jewish identity, bridges Israeli-Americans and Jewish Americans, and ensures the continuity of the Jewish people.” Additionally, Shepher is the cofounder and president of Life Alert Emergency Response Inc., the leader in personal emergency-response systems whose advertising popularized the phrase “I’ve fallen, and I can’t get up.”

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

JNS lauds 5 women advocates for Jews, Israel

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Wine & Dine

With Purim near, time to use up our chametz! Kosher Kitchen

JOni SChOCKett

Jewish Star columnist

an you believe we are back in Daylight Savings Time and Pesach is only a month away? Yup. Time flies and we are now in that time of year I like to call “purge the wheat.” We have to clean out the house and use up the chametz to make room for the Pesach foods. When the kids were younger, we had a fun tradition: We would take all the open packages of pasta shapes — from alphabets to stars, wagon wheels, elbows, bow ties and more — and cook them together. We would then add all kinds of cheese and more to some of the pasta and dinner was served. The kids would count their wagon wheels or try to find words with pasta letters. Playing with the food was fine in this case, as they also ate plenty of broccoli, green beans and more while finding their favorite pasta shapes in their dinner. We would save the rest of the pasta for another diner and, instead of adding cheese, I would often mixed it with ground turkey, seitan, or hamburger and tomato sauce. Another way to use up the chametz is to mix all kinds of leftover cereals together and add lots of dried fruits, nuts, some oats, and toss with pure maple syrup. Toast in the oven for about 15 to 20 minutes and you have a light and delicious granola perfect for snacks and lunchboxes. This can be a fun and cost-saving time of year as you get creative in the kitchen and see what you can make with what you have. Enjoy! Vegan, Organic, Gluten-Free Scrumptious Beans and Rice ‘Kugel’ 4 fairly large onions, cut in half and thinly sliced 2 large leeks, white part only 4 cloves garlic, minced 2 to 4 Tbsp. canola or extra virgin olive oil 3 10-oz packages mushrooms 2 to 4 cups organic mushroom, onion, or vegetable stock or water 1-1/2 cups long grain white rice. (You can also use brown rice, just pre-cook it longer.) 1/2 cup organic wild rice 1 cup (or more) cooked or canned beans, lima, navy, black, or kidney 1/2 bag frozen green peas 1/4 cup fresh chives, snipped salt and pepper to taste Wash the leeks and slice them in half lengthwise. Cut each half in thin, half-moon slices, and break them apart if they stick together. Cut the onions in half and thinly slice them

into half-moon slices. Break them apart. Clean and slice the mushrooms. Finely mince the garlic. Drain the beans, if using canned beans. Heat a large frying pan and add the oil. Add the onions and sauté until golden. Add the garlic and cook, stirring constantly for 1 minute. Add the mushrooms and cook until the mushrooms give off their juices and reabsorb them. Remove from heat. Add the peas and mix to heat. Scrape the mixture into a large bowl. Set aside. Generously grease a glass or ceramic 3-quart baking dish. Set aside. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Meanwhile, parboil the rice and wild rice in different pots until each is about halfway cooked. Drain. Mix into the onion-mushroom mixture. Add the beans and the minced chives and season with salt and pepper, to taste. Pour into the casserole dish and spread evenly. Add the water or stock to the pan in which the mushrooms were cooked and heat just to boiling to deglaze and get up any bits of remaining onion, garlic and mushroom. Pour the liquid carefully over the rice and cover the pan with aluminum foil. Bake at 350 for about 45 minutes, checking several times to make sure that there is enough liquid. Add more boiling liquid, if needed. Uncover to brown for the last 5 to 10 minutes of cooking. Serves 8 to 12. Whole Wheat and Oat Bread (Pareve) 2 packages active dry yeast 3 cups warm water (103 to 107 degrees)

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1/3 cup unsulphured molasses 1/4 cup canola oil 3 Tbsp. pure maple syrup 1-1/2 Tbsp. salt 2/3 cup rolled oats 7-1/2 to 8 cups whole-wheat flour or white and wheat mixed for lighter bread OPTIONAL: Add some toasted wheat germ, sesame seeds, sunflower seeds, anything you find in your cabinet that you think will work. A couple of Tbsp. or more of one or several will add nutrition and texture to your bread. Place the yeast in a warmed bowl (swirl some hot water in the bowl and discard) and add the warm water. Mix until the yeast is dissolved. Add the molasses and maple syrup and stir. Let proof for 15 minutes until bubbly. Stir oil, salt, oats, and 4 cups of flour into the yeast mixture. Beat until smooth. Add 3 more cups of flour and mix to make a stiff dough. Turn the dough onto a floured surface and knead for about 10 to 15 minutes, until dough is smooth and elastic. If the dough is too sticky, sprinkle some flour over the sough and knead it into the dough until the dough is no longer sticky, but smooth and elastic. Place in a greased bowl and turn to cover all sides. Cover and let rise in a warm place for 1 hour and 15 minutes. Punch down, and turn onto floured surface. Knead a few times and divide dough in half. Cover and let rise 15 minutes. Shape into 2 loaves, about 8 by 3 inches, and put into 2 greased loaf pans. Let rise about 1 hour. If you like, you can press some oatmeal into the top of the loaves.

Bake at 350 degrees for 1 hour and 10 minutes. Let cool on wire racks. Makes 2 loaves. Crunchy Granola Cookies (Dairy) 1/2 cup butter, softened 1/2 cup light brown sugar 1/2 cup crunch peanut butter 1 extra large egg 1/2 cup flour 1/2 tsp. baking powder 1/2 tsp. cinnamon 2 cups of your favorite granola (I like vanilla almond and cranberry) 1/2 cup raisins 1/2 cup dried cranberries 1/2 cup chopped almonds, walnuts or macadamia nuts OPTIONAL: 1/2 cup mini or regular chocolate chips or white chips 1/2 cup toffee candy, finely crushed Grease a cookie sheet and set aside. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Cream the butter and sugars until light and fluffy. Add the peanut butter and beat until creamy. Add the egg and beat well. Remove the bowl from the electric mixer stand and sift the flour and other dry ingredients over the sugar mixture. Fold in with a fork until well blended. Add the granola, raisins and nuts and mix well. Add the chips if desired and mix well. Drop by rounded teaspoons on the cookie sheet about 2 inches apart. Bake for 15 minutes until lightly golden. Let cool for several minutes and then transfer to a wire rack to finish cooling. Makes about 18 to 24 cookies.

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Wine & Dine

A smart television needs smart humans Who’s in the Kitchen

JudY JoSzeF

Jewish Star columnist

few years ago, on Black Friday, my husband Jerry perused his beloved Amazon to find bargains that nobody else wanted. He searched category by category until he hit upon the perfect TV for our den. It had great reviews, and everything a TV aficionado, particularly a sports madman, can’t live without. “A smart TV!” he gushed. “I really need this, it would operate like a driverless car.” He figured he would do nothing but tell the TV what he wanted to watch, and presto change-o, it would immediately provide him with the heartache of watching his beloved Giants’, Knicks’ and Rangers’ catastrophic performances. (He could always kvell over his Yankees, so all would not be lost.) A modern age 21st-century genie, matched with Jerry’s Stone Age technological incompetence. Jerry’s wish would be its command. The TV arrived, and Jerry was determined to take it for a spin. We had our cable box hooked up to the other side of the den wall so we wouldn’t have wires hanging all over the place. Once it was all installed, Jerry was ready. Much to his chagrin, he now had to get used to two remote controls instead of one. He didn’t realize that a smart TV is a traditional television set with integrated Internet and Web2.0 features, allowing you to stream music and videos, browse the Internet and view photos. I watched him try to turn it on. It took him a while to figure out which remote had to be used first. Once the TV was on, he realized that he had to point to what he wanted. He hit every icon except the one he needed. He was almost defeated. Jerry realized that the smart TV was plenty smart, but unfortunately it needed to be matched

with a technologically smart human. He gave up, and would watch it when his son or daughter were over, or my kids were home. I am quite happy to watch my 19-inch not-so-smart TV in the kitchen, so I wasn’t very involved in the TV in the den. Two years later, I thought it was ridiculous that we had this TV that was never really used. I picked up the remote, and it did not turn the TV on. I saw no batteries so I figured something was wrong. I called the technician. It was ridiculous,

we barely used it at all and it was already not working. Something must be wrong with cable box in the garage. The technician said he would be able to come over in a few days, but in the meantime he would try to walk me through it. So once again I picked up the remote and pointed it at the TV. Nothing happened. He asked me to confirm that it was the right remote. “Of course it is,” I said. “It’s the one right here on the couch that my husband always used.”

Or so I thought. Turns out the remote was an old one that had nothing to do with this TV. I now had to find the remote that came with it, then charge it for 24 hours. Three days later I found it between the couch cushions and plugged it in. I cannot tell you the feeling of accomplishment when the TV went on. But now, I had to learn how to use it! My first try, there was no Internet connection. I tried everything I could think of but no luck. I called my cable company. The agent on the phone said not to worry, I just had to put in my password. “No problem,” I said. Except I didn’t remember ever setting up a password. I realized it must have been one of the kids who did it for us. But nobody seemed to know what the password was, so now I had to change it. An hour and a half later everything was cleared up, but at that point I literally wanted to rip the TV off the wall and throw it through the window. I took a deep breath, turned on the TV, managed to get to Amazon and find The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, and then mastered Netflix. Jerry may be the only one in the house who can do the heavy lifting, recite quotes from any of the classics or great philosophers, but the only time Jerry is able to watch TV is when I’m there to work my magic. I love how he watches me with great respect. “Ju,” he says, “you’re almost as smart as the smart TV!” And speaking of smart … here is a healthy, easy frozen yogurt Popsicle recipe that is not difficult to make. Fruit Froyo Smart Popsicles Fusioncraftiness.com Ingredients: 2 cups yogurt (either fat free or regular, vanilla or plain) 2 cups fruit (either frozen or fresh) Directions: Blend the two ingredients either in a food processor, blender or by hand. For chunky Popsicles, chop the fruit and mix by hand. Freeze for at least three hours. Run under hot water for up to 30 seconds to release the Popsicles.

Leek and feta hamantaschen: Savory, cheesy twist By Leanne Shor, The Nosher The inspiration for these flaky, cheesy leek and feta hamantaschen comes from my best friend Danielle’s mother, Hannah. On almost any given visit to Hannah’s kitchen, there was a quiche just going into the oven or just coming out. She would mix three or four European cheeses, many of which I had never heard of as a college kid, together with caramelized onions and vegetables, farm fresh eggs and the flakiest pastry. The result was a bit different each time, but there was always a perfect balance of saltiness from the cheese, sweetness from the onions and richness from the crust that was so much more than just dough. For these savory hamantaschen, I make a quick all-butter piecrust using salted butter and freshly ground black pepper. There is no fancy equipment required, though you could also use a pastry cutter or food processor if you are accustomed to making piecrust. The two most important things to remember when making piecrust is that all of the ingredients need to be very cold, and to work the dough minimally to ensure the crust is flaky. Then I make the filling by caramelizing leeks in olive oil and adding crumbled feta and cottage cheese. I use a mix of these two cheeses because the cottage cheese really mellows out the sharpness of the feta and creates a very creamy filling. These leek and feta hamantaschen would

be the perfect appetizer or side for any Purim party. I’ve even made them larger using a 4 1/2-inch circle cutter. With a salad or cup of soup, they are easily a very festive light lunch. Ingredients: For the piecrust dough: 2 cups all-purpose flour 1 tsp. kosher salt 1/2 tsp. ground black pepper 1/2 lb. (2 sticks) very cold salted butter, cubed

4 to 5 Tbsp ice water For the filling: 2 large leeks, washed well, and sliced thinly 3 Tbsp. olive oil 1/2 cup crumbled feta cheese 2/3 cup whole milk cottage cheese 1/2 tsp. ground black pepper 1 egg, beaten for egg wash Directions: 1. To make the dough: In a medium-sized bowl, combine the flour, pepper and salt and

whisk to combine. 2. Add the cold cubed butter. Using clean fingers, smash the cubes of butter into the flour, coating each one with flour. You could also use a pastry cutter instead of fingers. Add the ice water and stir gently to combine, until the dough just starts to come together, but you should still see pea-sized pieces of butter. Dump half the dough onto a large piece of plastic wrap, and use the plastic to push the dough together into a ball. 3. Wrap tightly and refrigerate for 30 minutes. Repeat with the second ball of dough. 4. To make the filling: Pour the olive into a small frying pan over medium heat. Add the sliced leaks and a pinch of kosher salt. Cook until golden brown and caramelized, about 10 to 12 minutes. Set aside to cool for about 10 minutes. 5. Combine the feta, cottage cheese and black pepper in a small bowl; mix well. Add the cooled leeks and stir to combine. 6. To assemble: Preheat oven to 400 F. 7. Remove one disk of dough from the fridge and roll out on a well-floured board to 1/8 of an inch thick. Cut out circles using a 3-inch cutter. Brush each circle with egg wash. Spoon 1-1/2 tsp. of the leek and feta mixture into the center of each circle. 8. Fold into a triangle, pinching the corners VERY well. Brush the tops and edges lightly with egg wash. 9. Place the hamantaschen back into the fridge for 10 minutes, then straight into the hot oven for 25 to 30 minutes, until golden brown.

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Bar-Ilan, IsraAID assist tortured Yazidi women Yazidi women who have survived some of the worst situations imaginable will be helped by a unique healing program established by Bar-Ilan University and IsraAID. The program intends to aid thousands of women impacted by the severe trauma of ISIS captivity. “We are distressed by the continuing news coming out of Kurdistan about the plight of Yazidi women who have suffered under ISIS,” says Prof. Ari Zivotovsky of Bar-Ilan. “We think it our obligation to use our knowledge and the expertise of Bar Ilan and Israeli clinicians to help them, particularly in light of the continued world apathy to their situation.” Bar-Ilan has partnered with IsraAID, which has been working with displaced Yazidi communities in the Kurdish region of Iraq and around the world for more than four years. At an intensive two-week workshop at Bar-Ilan in June, Kurdish mental health work-

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ers will be trained by Bar-Ilan researchers in treating PTSD and complex PTSD. Fifteen to 20 Kurdish female mental health workers, together with five more experienced clinicians from Kurdistan, and representatives of the Israel Foreign Ministry, will participate. The program also provides for long-term supervision, additional training and evaluation. In 2014, IsraAID launched its program in the Kurdish Region of Iraq, where ISIS systematically attacked and displaced Yazidis, Christians and other ethnic minorities. At the start of 2017, there were 4.2 million Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) and 1.9 million returnees. By December 2017, the number of reported IDPs decreased to 2.6 million and returnees increased to 3.2 million. In 2017, IsraAID’s professional team provided direct psychosocial support to a group of young Yazidi girl survivors. The program en-

abled the female participants to process their emotions and start to take control back of their lives. Daily sessions focused on understanding the effects of trauma and gaining new coping and listening skills, to help themselves and support their peers. Despite the crucial work they are doing, these workers cannot offer the suitable complex PTSD intervention, which is why Bar Ilan researchers/therapists are key to the success of the program. This research project was initiated by Dr. Yaakov Hoffman and Professor Ari Zivotofsky, both of Bar Ilan University, working with a team of traumatology experts. The initial goal of the Bar-Ilan professors was to evaluate and identify the disorders these female Yazidi genocide survivors are suffering from. The researchers conducted a preliminary survey to assess the psychological condition of these former sex slaves. Due to the complex nature of the issue, cultural sensitivities and language barriers

it evolved into a large collaboration involving several other BIU researchers as well as researchers from other institutions and countries. The program at Bar-Ilan in June is expected to include five main components. Professor Marylene Cloitre, a world-renowned expert in treatment of complex PTSD for trauma such as captivity and sexual slavery, will train the trainees in STAIR Therapy for trauma. Dr. Jan Khilizan, a Yazidi psychologist in Germany, will teach somatization and anxiety interventions, as well as lecture on applying western psychology to other cultures. Israeli experts will provide testing for sleep interventions for treating the victims for insomnia. Bar-Ilan researchers will measure the mental health improvements on a biological level by looking at the changes in epigenetic markers for such trauma. The epigenetic study will be done in collaboration with Prof. Gal Yadid of BIU, who has developed ways of reversing psychiatric disorders by manipulating epigenetic factors. An additional goal is to raise awareness of the plight of the Yazidis and stop world apathy. Bar-Ilan will invite Nadia Murad, a former Yazidi ISIS captive and a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, to participate at the conclusion of the workshop. “As Zionist Jewish scientists, we believe it is our duty to research the suffering of genocide victims both from a humanistic point of view and scientifically,” says Prof. Zivotovsky. “What better place to uphold these ideals than at Bar-Ilan University.” Source: Bar-Ilan

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Mizrahi...

Continued from page 2 their culture, attire and identity were similar to those attempting to destroy the newly established Jewish state. Nobody wanted “Arab” culture. One of the book’s heroes, Gamliel Cohen, described how hard it was to find a kibbutz that would accept him as a member. When he finally finds one, in 1940, he is frustrated that the “keepers of Israeli culture” refuse to play Arabic music. I imagine that Gamliel craved the same music I grew up with and still enjoy today. I still remember how much I loved it when my grandmother played Egyptian singer Umm Kulthum’s music to me — and I still remember the pain I felt when my Ashkenazi teacher in elementary school heard about my favorite Arab artist and laughed, along with my whole class. The Mizrahi culture is a rich one, dating back thousands of years. Yet instead of celebrating it, we are told that we ought to be ashamed, even as many of these “keepers of Israeli culture” celebrate Western and European culture since the very beginning. As a proud Mizrahi Jew, it was moving to read the stories of these heroes, and I believe this book should be added to the reading list of every Israeli high school. Maybe the next generation of Mizrahi Israeli children won’t have to experience the pain I’ve felt. Whether you are interested in the history of the land of Israel or just enjoy a good spy story, Friedman provides unparalleled insight into the complex and deep history of Israeli spycraft. The global Jewish community is diverse and multicultural, but the Jewish homeland has always been in the East. It is in the East that the Jewish people began, and where today in Israel our peoplehood is maintained and continues to thrive. The rich history of Eastern Jews, including the critical role they played in establishing the State of Israel, should not be minimized or erased by the superficial biases of Western scholars. Thankfully, Friedman’s groundbreaking book provides a vital example of how to avoid just that.

Terror tunnel tour

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman toured terror tunnels on Sunday in southern Israel. “The tunnels have been used by groups like Hamas to smuggle weapons and terrorize Israeli citizens,” tweeted Graham. “Cost of tunnel = cost of 2 new schools = cost of 30 new homes. #Hamas consistently makes the wrong choices for the people of #Gaza. Heartbreaking,” tweeted Friedman. Matty Stern/U.S. Embassy Jerusalem

Teach…

Continued from page 1 about the state of Israel are supporting Republican candidates.” “This was a uniquely Jewish anti-Semitic issue that they didn’t have the guts to keep as a Jewish anti-Semitic issue,” he continued. “You’re talking about the men and women who make up the backbone of the normal Democratic congressional support for the state of Israel. So ach un vey if this is who we are going to rely on to have Israel’s back. It’s not enough to have a president who is on Israel’s side.” The fix may be close to home. “We need to go back, as they say, to Bereishis, and look at our yeshivot — which either on the rightwing don’t recognize [Medinat] Yisroel or on the very left recognize it but are afraid to be too pro-Israel,” he said. “By the time these kids get to college they’re completely mixed up about what their obligation is” and are unable or unwilling to effectively argue Israel’s case. Brafman addressed those with children in college. “If you decide they’re smart, they’ll get it — eventually they won’t,” he said. “They are reading too much bad stuff that is just dishonest. … It starts in the yeshivot. By the time you get to college it’s too late.” He recounted addressing about 700 Jewish students at Harvard about the case for Israel. “I had an intellectually dishonest audience — 65 or 70 percent had no idea what they were talking about,” he said. “They were brainwashed by the time they got to the law school. And these are among our brightest, most sophisticated Jewish students, the future leaders of the Jewish community, G-d help us, and many of them will be in the Congress or the Senate if Harvard statistics are borne out.” We need to start close to home, because further afield there’s not much warmth. “Most of the public doesn’t really care and sees Israel as the root of many of the problems that they are dealing with — long lines at the airport, terrorist threats, blame it on Israel,” he said. “If Israel cured cancer tomorrow there are people who would find something wrong with the cure because it came from Israel.” “So I’m worried, and you should be worried,” Brafman concluded. “The only thing that gives me optimism is the existence of the state of Israel. I think you will see more Americans making aliyah not just because of idealism but because of their realization that times

By Gary S. Laveman I offer this response to Emily Burack’s essay on the life and legacy of Rabbi Meir Kahane z”l in last week’s Jewish Star (“Rabbi Meir Kane and Israel’s far right”). Ms. Burack uses the term “racism” over and over again without any understanding of the word, nor its insidious implications. According to her perspective, if one’s opinion differs from another’s opinion, that, ipso facto, is racism. Rather, if one’s opinion differs from anther’s, that is a difference of opinion. In the mid-1960’s, black nationalists, including the Black Panthers, accused American Jews of spearheading slavery three hundred years earlier. To atone for this alleged sin, American Jews, along with other whites, were to pay reparations to African Americans. Black Panthers vowed to break into synagogues on Shabbos and extract these reparations. Who can ever forget Rabbi Kahane and members of the Jewish Defense League surrounding synagogues in New York City, armed with baseball bats, to protect those religious institutions? Was this racism? Similarly, from 1948 onward, Arabs in the Middle East vowed to destroy the state of Israel and drown Jews in the Mediterranean. Arabs refused the creation of a Palestinian country in 1948, and subsequently, despite the efforts of President Carter and President Clinton, among others, refused to recognize a Jewish state. Two full-scale wars, several intifadas, countless barrages of rockets launched into Israel, wreaked havoc among Jewish residents of Israel. Unlike most Israeli politicians, Rabbi Kaare difficult for Jews in the United States.” Sunday’s event was moderated by Harry Ballan, dean and professor of Law at the Touro Law Center in Central Islip. Ballan and Rubinstein discussed some of the differences in how the supreme courts of the U.S. and Israel operate. In many areas, Israel’s high court is one of original jurisdiction — and as a result it must deal with as many as 11,000 cases a year versus around 60 for the U.S. court, Rubinstein said. In Israel, someone can bring a case before the court on a basis of justice, even if they are not the injured party, while in the U.S. one would need to establish standing, Ballan said. As for jury trials: The U.S. has them, Israel does not. This is a relic, for better or worse, of the British Mandate, explained Rubinstein, who said “we don’t have a jury because the British decided the Jews and Arabs do not have the mental ability to sit on a jury, and they established the professional judge system.” “The best jurors are ordinary people who understand the difference between right and wrong,” Brafman said.

hane fully understood Arab actions for what they were: a relentless effort to destroy the state of Israel. Instead of pacifying Arabs (i.e. turning the Gaza Strip over to Hamas), Rabbi Kahane argued that these steps were fruitless, and, instead, Isarael’s secure future rested on removing militant Arabs, not coddling them. Is this racism? Or is the racism that of the Arabs, who wished to kill every Jew on sight? Kach was excluded from the Knesset because other Israeli politicians feared the growing strength of Rabbi Kahane’s party, and feared the loss of their own seats. It is telling that when Kach was outlawed, the Communist Party and Arab parties were allowed to remain. Is this racism? To conclude, I quote from Rabbi Kahane’s book, Listen World, Listen Jew (1978): “Enough weeping and wailing and the following of leaders and rabbis who are pygmies of little faith and less understanding. … O G-d, keep not Thou silent, Hold not Thy peace and be not still, O G-d. … Sing O Jew, O Zionist, and gird your loins and flex your muscles. … And turn to the world to proclaim: Listen! I am a Jew! I am a Zionist!” Gary S. Laveman is a resident of the Upper West Side and a member of the Lincoln Square Synagogue.

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Continued from page 2 come here to try to figure out what’s best for America. What’s best for America is a safe, secure and prosperous Israel.” Graham said that he would ask President Trump about recognizing the area, which provides a strategic and security barrier for Israel against attacks from Hezbollah and others in the north. “The most important observation that I’d make is that the Golan has always been part of Israel, from the earliest days of our history, and has certainly been part of the State of Israel since 1967, and more recently 1981,” said Netanyahu. “The Golan is part of Israel.” Israel passed a law annexing the area in 1981, but that annexation has not been recognized by the international community. “I will go back the US Senate, working with Senator [Ted] Cruz; I will start an effort to recognize the Golan as part of the State of Israel, now and forever,” said Graham. “Because to give this territory up would be a strategic nightmare for the State of Israel. And who would you give it to?” Companion resolutions calling on the United States to follow through with this recognition were introduced last month by Cruz, and Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) and Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-Wisc.). Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ) sent a letter to Trump in January, also calling for recognition of the Golan, in addition to implementing a “comprehensive strategy” to combat Iran amid the administration’s planned withdrawal of American troops from Syria.

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By Karen Chernick, JTA When French architectural historian Joseph-Philibert Girault de Prangey left Paris in 1842, his luggage weighed over 100 pounds and his three-year itinerary was ambitious. He was mesmerized by photography — invented just a few years before by a fellow Frenchman — and headed to the eastern Mediterranean to document ancient buildings with his extraordinarily large-format camera. There, he produced over 1,000 daguerreotypes that now include the earliest surviving photographs of Jerusalem, Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Anatolia and Turkey. Twelve of his Jerusalem photographs are currently being shown as part of Monumental Journey: The Daguerreotypes of Girault de Prangey, an exhibition that opened Jan. 30 at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art and constitutes the photographer’s first monographic show in the United States. Later this month, another one of Girault de Prangey’s pioneering images of Jerusalem will be shown at the Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia as part of a group exhibition, From Today, Painting is Dead: Early Photography in Britain and France. works without ever having seen it. “No other photographer of the As soon as Louis Jacques Mandé period embarked on such a long Daguerre released his eponymous excursion and successfully made new mode of image production a quantity of [photographic] in 1839, European photographers plates anywhere near Girault’s flooded the region to capture it production,” writes Stephen Pinand bring their records home. son, curator of photography at “Nearly 300 pilgrim photogthe Metropolitan Museum, in the raphers began photographing Monumental Journey catalog. the Holy Land during the 19th “His photographic campaign recentury, as of the year that phomains a feat without analogy.” tography was invented,” says Girault de Prangey began Guy Raz, curator of photography his journey in Rome and criss- Girault de Prangey is seen at the Eretz Israel Museum Tel crossed the Mediterranean coast- in a daguerrotype self-por- Aviv (not to be confused with the line before arriving in Jerusalem trait in 1841.Wikimedia Commons popular NPR host). on May 21, 1844 (two months Frédéric Goupil-Fesquet used later than his original plan to be there for Eas- the new technology to create the first phototer celebrations). When he finally reached the graphs of Jerusalem in early November 1839, Old City, he captured a comprehensive tourist just three months after the announcement of checklist: panoramic views of the walled ram- the daguerreotype. He was quickly followed by parts, the Damascus and Lion gates, the Pool of Pierre-Gustave Joly de Lotbinière, who photoBethesda, the Dome of the Rock, the churches graphed Jerusalem in February 1840. of the Holy Sepulchre and Nativity, the MorocThese early photographs were used as source can Quarter, Robinson’s Arch and tombs in the material for European book illustrators, but most Valley of Josaphat outside Jerusalem. survive now only in their translated medium as “After spending 55 days in the holy city and its etched engravings. Only Girault de Prangey’s daenvirons,” he writes toward the end of his stay in guerreotypes, which he stored meticulously in Jerusalem, “I am sure you can share my natural custom-made wooden boxes, have survived. delight in fulfilling a dream cherished since childRegional photography spread among locals hood.” He went on to say “how happy I am to who witnessed the stream of European practirealize that in a few months I will be able to share tioners and their uncanny new method of image them with you as they are, as I bear with me their making. Photography was increasingly adopted precious and unquestionably faithful trace that by Jerusalem’s residents, some of whom learned cannot be diminished by time or distance.” the craft from visitors. A few even bought their Girault de Prangey wasn’t the first photogra- photographic equipment from these foreign phopher to bring a camera and light-sensitized plates tographers, who were eager to lighten their load to Jerusalem — photography came to Ottoman- before beginning the long journey back to Euruled Palestine the year it was invented, in 1839. rope. (Girault de Prangey’s camera, for example, For centuries, European artists had painted the has yet to be tracked down.) ancient hilltop city in countless religious artAs of the mid-19th century, Jerusalem’s resi-

Picture left: “Portal, Church of the Holy Sepulchre, Jerusalem,” an 1844 daguerrotype by Girault de Prangey, Bibliotheque nationale de France/Metropolitan Museum of Art; Pictured top: “Untitled (Archaeological scene, Jerusalem),” a daguerreotype from 1844 by Joseph-Philibert Girault de Prangey Collection of Michael Mattis and Judy Hochberg/Barnes Foundation; Below: he Girault de Prangey exhibit contains other images from his travels through the Middle East, like this daguerrotype: “Great Mosque of Damascus,” from 1843. Bibliotheque nationale de France/Metropolitan Museum of Art

dents were photographing their own city. James Graham, a Scottish photographer living and working on the Mount of Olives between 1853 and 1857, trained some of the city’s inhabitants. Around the same time, Yessai Garabedian, the patriarch of the Cathedral of Saint James in the Old City’s Armenian Quarter, began teaching photography courses within his church’s compound. One of his students, Garabed Krikorian, opened the first commercial photography studio in the city, on Jaffa Road, around 1885. Krikorian’s apprentice, Khalil Raad, is considered the first Arab photographer in the region. “From that point on you can see a generational chain,” Raz says. “Like an oral history [being passed down].” Jerusalem’s American Colony — a utopian Christian society begun in 1881 by a small contingent of Chicagoans — bought a small camera to document the visit of German Kaiser Wilhelm II in 1898. This inadvertently began the colony’s photographic department, which produced and sold thousands of photographs of Jerusalem. Its studios also trained local photographers. The city appeared different in the eyes of photographers who lived among its serpentine alleyways and hidden treasures.

“Traveling photographers were led by local guides to fixed angles and shots,” Raz explains. “Local photographers were not in a rush and found different angles — and it can be noted that they presented freer compositions that emphasize aesthetic values rather than documentary value.” The early studios of Krikorian and Raad also produced mostly portraits, documenting themselves and their neighbors instead of ancient relics in the land of the Bible. Girault de Prangey’s Jerusalem, on the other hand, is a ghost town. Save for a few blurry figures near the entrance to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the city looks like an archaeological museum, not a place where people went about the daily routines of life. With time, those anonymous individuals have come into focus. People, vibrant color and live action have enhanced contemporary photographs of Jerusalem. The earliest surviving photographs of the city are a far cry from those now taken daily, nearly two centuries later, by anyone with a smartphone. Monumental Journey: The Daguerreotypes of Girault de Prangey runs through May 12 at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.

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Parsha of the Week

Rabbi avi billet Jewish Star columnist

In every generation P

arshat Zachor has a bit of a cult following. People who are not necessarily strict to hear Torah readings in general will run to shul to hear Parshat Zachor. Many synagogues have multiple readings to make sure everyone has a chance to hear it. Why? Certainly there’s an element of an opportunity that comes up once a year. But before Zachor was set to be the Shabbos before Purim (for example, before Purim existed), it could have likely been fulfilled any time of year. The Slonimer Rebbe asked a few questions about Zachor. The mitzvah is dependent on Israel having gotten past fighting against their enemies – why? Why not destroy them at the first opportunity? Why destroy their descendants if we can’t identify them? Perhaps they don’t identify with the ways of their ancestors. Why Amalek specifically? There are so many nations that were far worse! What strength does Amalek possess that their presence on earth prevents G-d from being “complete”? Is that even possible? Why an all-out war — men, women, children, animals? Is this necessary? Why is this war generational? Can’t they be destroyed for good? Why does the battle never end? n Beshalach we learn that Yehoshua weakened Amalek. He had the chance — why didn’t he get it over with? The Slonimer Rebbe explains why the war with Amalek is forever, why we need to remember, and perhaps we can take from there why we all go crazy to be sure to hear the reading. We should also seek to understand how it is supposed to impact our lives. Firstly, he notes that the battle with Amalek is not a physical battle. Amalek is the “dark side,” the sitra achra, and is representative of the spiritual battle every Jew faces every day of the year (until the Messiah comes). Amalek is representative of the idea that people have free choice. There is the path of goodness, and there is the path of evil. Amalek is an ideology, or even just an idea, that stands on an eternal battleground against goodness. After the splitting of the sea, Israel were ready to bring the world to where it needed to be. But Amalek came and threw them for a loop. Then they were at Sinai, and they could have done it again — but worshiped the Golden Calf, further delaying this opportunity. In fact, the Slonimer Rebbe blames the event of the Golden Calf on Amalek, citing the damage they did to the trajectory of the people. Yehoshua weakening Amalek represents weakening the negative shell that Amalek represents, but not eradicating it. Every sin a Jew commits strengthens the negative force that is represented by Amalek. Amalek was successful in whatever manner in the battle against Yehoshua, because they fought against Israel at Refidim, the place described by the rabbis as the place where rafu yedeihem, the people removed their hands from their commitment to the Torah. BilaAM and BaLAK also represented Amalek, embedded in the last two letters See Generation on page 18

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Sacrificing the animal within From Heart of Jerusalem

Rabbi biNNY FReeDMaN

Jewish Star columnist

uman beings will go against every natural instinct for reasons that often cannot be explained. We will give away our food, despite being hungry, when others are in need. We will give another our coat in the winter because someone else is suffering. And sometimes, we will sacrifice everything for something greater than ourselves. Half an hour’s walk from the gates of the Old City of Jerusalem is a hill that today sits in the heart of Ramat Eshkol. Situated overlooking the main road from the Damascus Gate, the average visitor will miss this little hill unless he knows what to look for. But to any Israeli paratrooper, and any Israeli who knows the story of the Six-Day War, this strategic bump is no ordinary hill. Known as Ammunition Hill, its legend has made it a towering mountain. In June 1967, after years of regular mortar and sniper fire from Jordanian-held Jerusalem into the western Israeli-held segment, the Israelis finally decided it was time to come home, and plans to retake the Old City were implemented. For 19 years, barbed wire and mine fields had cut a wedge through the City of Gold, and Jews all over the world had dreamed of the day they would be free to wander the ancient alleyways of the Old City or climb the Mount of Olives. But in order to free the Old City, the IDF first had to take command of the strategic vantage points around it. The prophets described Jerusalem as a city surrounded by hills, and the Old City, which sits on a smaller hill below, was strategically unapproachable, unless the army could first wrest control of the surrounding mountains from the Jordanians. n the middle of the night, tanks and paratrooper infantry units advanced towards the fortifications of Ammunition Hill. But before long, the tanks became ensnared in the minefields and obstacles at the base of the hill, and the paratroopers had to proceed alone. They made it into the Jordanian trenches and bunkers that dotted the top of the hill, then came under murderous fire from the police tower at the top of the hill. As the Israelis crouched down, unable to return accurately, the Jordanians began to lob grenades into the trenches, decimating the Israeli troops. Realizing the implications, one of the men jumped out of the trench and began to return fire, running alongside the men in the trenches below to cover their advance. It didn’t take the Jordanians long to cut him down, again exposing the troops, but another paratrooper immediately jumped up to take his place. And every time the Jordanians shot down the man above the trenches, another Israeli soldier would jump up — all this without ever being ordered to do so.

In the aftermath of the battle, the men tried to recall if any commander had asked for volunteers for this suicide mission, but none could recall any such order. By nightfall, Ammunition Hill was in Israeli hands. After 2,000 years of dreaming, the Jewish people came home at last to the Old City and the Western Wall. One wonders how men of flesh and blood rose above their physical reality to reach such a level of determination and sacrifice. And one wonders as well why G-d needed such painful and challenging sacrifices. acrifice: a loaded word, to say the least. This week’s portion, Vayikra, introduces a book of the Torah almost completely dedicated to the concept of sacrifices in the Mishkan and later the Temple. Nearly a quarter of the Torah is dedicated to the how, when, where and what of animal offerings. If the Torah is meant to be relevant to every Jew, in every generation, what are we meant to do with sacrifices in the twenty-first century? The Ramban suggests that the Hebrew word for sacrifice, korban, comes from the root karov, to be close, because the aim of the sacrifices is to bring us close to G-d. How does slaughtering and burning animals do that? Maimonides, in his Guide to the Perplexed (3:32), suggests a challenging way to understand the basis for sacrifices in the Torah: that their purpose was to keep us from falling back into a culture of idolatry. Although the Jewish people had left Egypt, they had not necessarily left it behind, and animal offerings to pagan gods were still a part of their psyche. As such, suggests Maimonides, it was better for the people to offer sacrifices to G-d rather than have them fall back into idolatrous practices. This is nothing short of incredible. An entire book of the Torah is dedicated to this topic, an enormous wealth of detail and complexity — all so the Jews leaving Egypt would have a healthier outlet for their desire to slaughter and burn animals? What relevance would this then have for us today? Sacrifices have been around since the dawn of man. Cain and Abel offered sacrifices to G-d long before we struggled with idolatry. The first thing Noach did upon alighting from the ark at the end of the flood was to build an altar. Why? What were they trying to say? If sacrifice is a form of thanks, why must a man take an animal, slaughter it, and burn it for G-d? What does this act have to do with saying thank you? t is interesting to note that idol worship is one of only three transgressions (along with murder and adultery) that one should be willing to die for rather than transgress. Now, it is easy to understand why I should give up my own life rather than take someone else’s. After all, as the Talmud points out, who

am I to say that “my blood his redder than his”? Even adultery is an action one can understand as beyond the pale. But why is idolatry included? Have I really transgressed if I am under duress? I may bow to the idol, but if in my heart it is just a carved piece of wood, what have I really done? Idolatry is the worship of nature: its power, beauty, and even cruelty. Essentially, the idolater worships all things physical. Sexual immorality and the worship of the body were an integral part of pagan practice. There are two aspects that make up who we are. There is the part of us that is physical, even animal. We have the same need as animals to eat and sleep and attend to our physical needs. From this perspective, we are limited beings with temporal existences in this world. But there is an aspect of us that extends far beyond the physical; that part of us that strives to reach out to a reality that is endless. This is the spiritual part of us, what we often call the soul. It is that aspect of our makeup that experiences the Endless One. It is the part of us that has the capacity to love, to give, to care, and to experience purpose: the human experiences that have no limits. The ancient pagans became so immersed in the physical world that there was no room for G-d in the world. Such a world no longer has a reason to exist, hence the flood. We often become so immersed in the physical world around us that we come to view it as the essence of reality, forgetting that it is merely an extension of the true reality, which is G-d. his, then, is the purpose of the korbanot. When we become too immersed in that physical reality, when our desires rule us instead of the other way around, we are dangerously close to the world of pagan idolatry, where the animal world of desire is the only reality. And that is when we offer up the animal, representing both the animal within us as well as the physical world around us, to remind us what this world is really about. This is the essence of the sacrifices: what do we desire? Do we allow ourselves to be animals, letting our physical desires rule us? Or do we strive to a higher level? The sacrifices are an opportunity to bring things into perspective, to put the animal within us back in place. And this is the gift of the sacrifices: to reconnect with what life is meant to be, and to let go of the illusions that we are so immersed in all the time. If this is what sacrifices are all about, then they have never been more relevant. Fifty years ago, on a barren, windswept hill overlooking the Old City of Jerusalem, a small band of Israeli paratroopers remembered what really matters in this world, and themselves became the sacrifice, reminding us to see a reality so much bigger than our needs and desires. In so doing, they changed history.

What are we meant to do with sacrifices in the twentyfirst century?

Rabbi dR. Tzvi heRsh weinReb Orthodox Union

hree different individuals inspired me to write this week’s column. One was a newspaper editor who “dared” to censor a sentence in one of my submissions. The other was a very wise sage whose pre-Purim lecture I was privileged to hear many years ago. And the third was an anonymous Jew who was fond of the use of gematria, the technique by which special significance is given to the numerical value of the Hebrew letters which comprise a biblical word or phrase. Let me begin by telling you about the editor. I have been writing columns on the weekly Torah portion for many years. My columns have been reviewed by quite a few editors, coming from a variety of backgrounds. Only once did an editor insist upon censoring a phrase, and a critical one at that, from one of my columns. s a pulpit rabbi in the community in which I then served, I was invited to be part of a rotation of rabbis, each of whom would submit a column once a month to the local Jew-

ish newspaper. My turn in the rotation coincided with this week’s special additional Torah reading, Parshat Zachor. In it, we read the verses from Deuteronomy 25:17-19, in which we remember the treachery of our ancient enemy, Amalek. We are commanded to eradicate every trace of this vicious foe from the face of the earth. I no longer recall all that I had written in this connection way back then. But I concluded my remarks by quoting from the Midrash (Bamidbar Rabba 21:4) which enunciates the principal of self-defense: “Haba lehorgecha, hashkem lehorgo, When someone attempts to kill you, kill him first.” That is to say, there are situations in which one’s life is threatened and which justify killing another person in selfdefense. Kill or be killed. The Jewish people have found themselves in such dire circumstances many times in our history. Aggressive responses to mortal threats are not merely permissible, they are correct and proper. The editor of the newspaper found my words objectionable, and, without requesting my permission, simply omitted them.

I protested then, and continue to maintain, that when we face an enemy we must respond firmly and assertively. In those hopefully rare circumstances in which our very lives are threatened, we must be prepared to “kill or be killed.” In less extreme situations, we must resort to less extreme responses, but we must not forget that we are dealing with an enemy and must respond in kind. I refer specifically to the recent rise of anti-Semitism all over the world. We are misguided if we limit our responses to attempts at dialogue, efforts at persuasion, and programs designed to educate our opponents. We are dealing with enemies who must be stopped by whatever means are at our disposal. To borrow a phrase from an article I recently read, “no more Mr. Nice Jew.” his age-old archenemy, Amalek, operates on many fronts. Often, as in the biblical story, he is murderous. But sometimes he adopts more subtle methods of doing us in. Thus, another Midrash (Shemot Rabba 27:6) quotes a phrase from the Book of Proverbs (Chapter 19,

We must stop our enemies by whatever means are at our disposal.

‘And Hashem called to Moshe’ Torah

Rabbi david eTengoff

Jewish Star columnist

he Five Books of the Torah contain two instances of the phrase, “vayikra Hashem el Moshe,” “and Hashem called to Moshe.” The first appears in Shemot 24:16, in the context of Kabbalat HaTorah, and the second is found in the opening words of our parasha, as a prologue to the many and varied laws of the korbanot, offerings. Rashi, in his commentary on our verse, bases himself upon a statement found in the Midrash Sifra and notes that each time Hashem communicated with Moshe, it was preceded by the Almighty directly calling upon him (“kadmah kriah”). In addition, he suggests that the word “vayikra” is an expression of abiding affection (chibah), since this is the language the Ministering Angels use to call to one another

(“v’karah zeh el zeh,” Yeshayahu 23:4). In a particularly trenchant analysis, Rabbi Shimshon Raphael Hirsch opines that the words “vayikra Hashem el Moshe” carry singular theological significance. In his view, they teach us that the Word of Hashem came to Moshe directly from the Creator, rather than through some kind of internally-generated voice: “A call came, and then G-d spoke to Moses. This is probably meant to establish the speeches of G-d to Moses as the Word of G-d coming to Moses and to prevent that misused misrepresentation which tries to change the Divine revelation to Moses into some kind of revelation in Moses, and either put it on par with all those imaginary visions of a so-called ecstasy, or simply as an inspiration coming from within a human being.”

Rabbi siR jonaThan sacks

he American Declaration of Independence speaks of the inalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Recently, following the pioneering work of Martin Seligman, founder of Positive Psychology, there have been hundreds of books published on happiness. Yet there is something more fundamental to the sense of a life well-lived, namely meaning. The two seem similar. It’s easy to suppose that people who find meaning are happy, and people who are happy have found meaning. But the two are not the same, nor do they always overlap. Happiness is largely a matter of satisfying needs and wants. Meaning, by contrast, is about a sense of purpose in life, especially by making positive contributions to the lives of others. Happiness is largely about how you feel in the present. Meaning is about how you judge your life as

Rav Hirsch continues his exposition of our verse and notes that the words “vayikra Hashem el Moshe” separate Judaism from all other religions that have ever existed: “[It is certainly not the case that Moses’ Divine revelations were merely self-created ecstatic moments.] This [notion,] of course, relegates Judaism, ‘the Jewish Religion,’ to the nature of all other religious phases which have occurred in human history, to a ‘contemporary phase in the history of the development of the human mind.’ But this is not so, [for as the Torah states:] ‘Then the L-rd would speak to Moses face to face, as a man would speak to his companion…’” (Shemot 33:11). At this juncture, Rav Hirsch recapitulates his first theme, and underscores the exceptional import of Hashem speaking to Moses “face to

face, as a man would speak to his companion”: “[This means that just like] speech from one man to another emanates purely and completely from the mind of the speaker, and in no wise whatsoever comes from the mind of the hearer, and nothing from the mind of the hearer brings it about, so was G-d’s Word to Moses purely and solely the speech of G-d. Not from within Moses, from without, it came to him, called him out of whatever train of thought he might be in at the moment, to listen to what G-d wished to say to him. This vayikra, this call preceding G-d’s speech, does away with that idea of the words of G-d which He transmitted arising from within Moses himself.” Rav Hirsch highlights a crucial principle of Jewish theology, namely, that Hashem spoke directly to Moshe. As the Torah states: “And there was no other prophet who arose in Israel like Moses, whom the L-rd knew face to face” (Devarim 34:10). Moshe’s encounters with Hashem, and the authentic prophetic experiences they entailed, form the foundation of our entire Torah. The Voice from Sinai continues to shape the nature of our people and Judaism, and echoes until our own historical moment. We are truly blessed that “Hashem called to Moshe.”

spent in Auschwitz, Frankl survived and helped others to survive by inspiring them to discover a purpose in life even in the midst of hell on earth. It was there that he formulated the ideas he later turned into a new type of psychotherapy based on what he called “man’s search for meaning.” His book by that title, written in nine days in 1946, has sold more than ten million copies and ranks as one of the most influential works of the twentieth century. Frankl knew that in the camps, those who lost the will to live died. He tells of how he helped two individuals to find a reason to survive. One, a woman, had a child waiting for her in another country. Another had written the first volumes of a series of travel books, and there were others yet to write. Both therefore had a reason to live. Frankl used to say that the way to find meaning was not to ask what we want from life. Instead we should ask what life wants from us. We are each, he said, unique: in our skills and talents, and in the circumstances of our life. For each of us, there is a task only we can do. This does not mean that we are better than others. But if we believe we are here for a reason, then there is a tikkun, a mending, only we can do, an

act of kindness or courage, generosity or hospitality, even a word of encouragement or a smile, only we can perform, because we are here, in this place, at this time. “Life is a task,” he used to say, and added, “The religious man differs from the apparently irreligious man only by experiencing his existence not simply as a task, but as a mission.” He or she is aware of being called by a Source. “For thousands of years that source has been called G-d.” hat is the significance of the word that gives our parsha, and the third book of the Torah, its name: Vayikra, “And He called.” The precise meaning of this verse is difficult to understand. Literally translated it reads: “And He called to Moshe, and G-d spoke to him from the Tent of Meeting, saying …” The first phrase seems redundant. If G-d spoke to Moshe, why say in addition, “And He called”? Rashi explains as follows: “And He called to Moshe: Every [time G-d communicated with Moshe, whether signaled by the expression] ‘And He spoke,’ ‘and He said,’ or ‘and He commanded,’ it was always preceded by [G-d] calling [to Moshe by name]. See Pursuit on page 18

The words that separate Judaism from all other religions.

The pursuit of meaning a whole: past, present and future. Happiness is associated with taking, meaning with giving. Individuals who suffer stress, worry or anxiety are not happy, but they may be living lives rich with meaning. Past misfortunes reduce present happiness, but people often connect such moments with the discovery of meaning. Furthermore, happiness is not unique to humans. Animals also experience contentment when their wants and needs are satisfied. But meaning is a distinctively human phenomenon. It has to do not with nature but with culture. It is not about what happens to us, but about how we interpret what happens to us. In a fascinating article in The Atlantic, “There’s more to life than being happy,” Emily Smith argued that the pursuit of happiness can result in a shallow, self-absorbed, even selfish life. What makes the pursuit of meaning different is that it is about the search for something larger than the self. o one did more to put the question of meaning into modern discourse than the late Viktor Frankl. In the three years he

verse 25) to define Amalek. In Hebrew, this verse reads, Leitz takeh ufesi yaarim. One translation renders this: “Strike a scoffer, and the simpleton may become shrewd.” Traditional Jewish readers understand leitz to mean not merely a scoffer, but a joker, or, perhaps, a clown. This brings me to the second source of inspiration for this column. I was but a teenager when I joined an old friend at one of the pre-Purim talks of the late Rabbi Isaac Hutner. He proposed a different translation for the term leitz. He suggested that a leitz was a cynic, and he went on to define “cynic” as a person who, when confronted with another person’s accomplishments, feels compelled to belittle them, and therefore exclaims, “big deal!” or, “so what!” This, for Rabbi Hutner, was and remains Amalek’s strategy. When faced with the Israelites’ triumphant enthusiasm during the early weeks of the Exodus, Amalek cooled their enthusiasm by sneaking up and attacking them. To this very day, we have individuals, including some in our own ranks, who diminish the spiritual enthusiasm of others by deriding them, teasing them, or otherwise denigrating their achievements. Rabbi Hutner concluded his remarks by urging his audience to avoid such cynicism and to remain ever appreciative of the accomplishments See Enemies on page 18 of others.

For each of us, there is a task only we can do.

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

Confronting many enemies on many fronts

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

Purim celebration eternal: Inspiration and depth Kosher Bookworm

AlAn JAy GerBer

Jewish Star columnist

n an essay titled “Double Adar,” Rabbi Berel Wein writes that “there is an underlying value that the month of Adar possesses that no other month in the Jewish calendar can lay claim to. This idea of the joy of survival, of the ultimate downfall of the wicked, of the better tomorrow in physical, spiritual and national terms, belongs exclusively to Adar. There is no substitute for it in the rest of the year’s calendar.” It is from this observation that we proceed to the teachings of Rabbi Avi Feiner of Lawrence, reflected in a chapter excerpted from his book Purim Eternal: Inspiration and Depth (Mosaica Press, 2019). Selective Memory “And these days should be remembered (‘nizkarim’) and celebrated in every generation.” This verse is the source for many of the laws regarding the mitzvah of reading the Megillah, and may be the actual source for the obligation to read the Megillah on Purim. The Gemara even labels the mitzvah of reading the Megillah as one of ‘zechirah,’ meaning ‘remembrance.’ “But why is Megillas Esther called ‘remembrance?’ If it is because the main purpose of the reading is to commemorate the miracle, then why not refer to all of the mitzvos of Purim as a remembrance or commemoration? Are not the mitzvos of seudas Purim, mishloach manos, and matanos l’evyonim also commemorations of the great miracles that occurred at the time of Purim? “To gain a greater understanding of the word ‘zecher’ (or ‘zechirah’), let us look back to find the first time that this word appears in the Torah. There is a famous principle brought from Rav

Generation... Continued from page 16 of both their names. Amalek had the ability to hide their power of destruction in their animals, which is why they needed to be destroyed as well. The same was true during the time of Mordechai, when the Jews were slated to return to the Holy Land to build the Temple. Haman’s evil designs threw those plans for a loop. nd the same is true in every generation, when G-d wants us to arrive at that Messianic Era, and we are so close to getting there. It is the evil of Amalek that overpowers, that gets in the way, that raises its ugly head and stops us from achieving our goal. It’s an ideology in individuals and in hate groups that prey on the weak, as Amalek did, that froth at the mouth at the idea of destroying others, that wish for the world to be in chaos and for the Jews to be in turmoil. That is Amalek. As we all know, Amalek is alive and well in our world. “When G-d gives you rest from your enemies” is the time when you have to wipe out the memory of Amalek. The enemies may be physical, but they are also your spiritual enemies, including those who want the Jewish soul destroyed, the Jewish soul converted. It is hard to eradicate such an enemy. It remains a thorn in our side. The Slonimer Rebbe also notes that the instruction to remember Amalek is written in the singular. It is every person’s battle. It’s a spiritual battle against evil. Every time we give in to temptation, every time we lose a personal battle and sin, we give a victory to Amalek. Amalek took aim at Israel right as we left Egypt. All it wants to do is make problems. It is very capable of knocking us down again. Moshe is the ultimate symbol of defeating Amalek. And he is also a symbol for accepting

Tzadok HaKohen m’Lublin that the essential meaning of a word can be best understood by analyzing the first time that word appears in the Torah. “The first place that a form of this word ‘zecher’ (to remember) appears in the Torah is in Parashas Noach. The verse states, ‘Vayizkor Elokim es Noach … vayashochu hamayim’ — And Hashem remembered Noach … and the waters subsided.’ Hashem’s remembrance of Noach took place while he was inside the teivah in the midst of the Great Flood, and it was this remembrance that ultimately prompted Hashem to cause the waters to subside. “Rashi on this verse explains that obviously Hashem never forgets anything and therefore has no need to ‘remember.’ Rather, G-d’s remembrance signifies that the attribute of Hashem’s strict judgment (Elokim) was now substituted with the attribute of Hashem’s mercy, which became manifest as a result of the tefillos of Noach. “We see from Rashi’s explanation that ‘zechirah’ refers to the vehicle of tefillah that causes Hashem to display mercy — even when mercy may not be deserved. abbi Yisroel Reisman pointed out that this may be why this very verse from Parashas Noach is the first verse that is quoted in the Zichronos section in the Mussaf of Rosh Hashanah. On Rosh Hashanah, our lives are on the line. We are begging for compassion from Hashem, even if such compassion may not be warranted based on our actions from the past year. But, we pour out our hearts and plead for Hashem’s mercy to inscribe us in His Book of Life. “According to this definition of ‘zechirah,’ we can better understand why the Megillah is referred to by this very word. The miracles found in the Megillah took place during a time of middas hadin. Hashem’s strict justice was evident in the decree that was issued against the Jewish nation. But, as a result of the prayers of Mordechai, Esther, and all of the Jewish people, Hashem’s

the Torah — Moshe, the ultimate master and teacher. Purim is also about accepting the Torah and defeating Amalek. How can we, in a very practical sense, “remember what Amalek did”? It embodied evil, preying on the weak, taking the focus away from G-d with distractions we didn’t need, including a physical confrontation on the battlefield, or an ideology that says G-d is irrelevant. This battle faces us every day. So we must take the responsibility to remember who we are, and how we are to defeat Amalek day in and day out. Amalek attacked each person, in the singular — “Remember what Amalek did lecha, to you,” the Torah says, to remind each of us to make the commitment to do what we can to eradicate the distraction of Amalek from our own experiences. We all need that reminder, and that’s why we make it a priority to hear this Shabbat.

Pursuit... Continued from page 17 ‘Calling’ is an expression of endearment. It is the expression employed by the ministering angels, as it says, ‘And one called to the other’ (Yeshaya 6:3).” Vayikra, Rashi is telling us, means to be called to a task in love. This is the source of a key idea in Western thought, namely the concept of a vocation or a calling — the choice of a career or way of life not just because it offers benefits, but because you feel summoned to it. You feel this is what you were placed on earth to do. There are many such calls in Tanach. There was the call Avraham received, telling to leave his land and family. There was the call to Moshe at the burning bush. There was the one experienced by Yeshaya when he saw in a mystical

mercy was aroused and the decree was reversed. The Purim story is a story of Hashem listening to our tefillos and pouring out His incredible compassion and kindness toward His children. That is precisely why the Megillah is called a ‘remembrance,’ because it reflects how tefillah can prompt Hashem to ‘remember’ His covenant with His nation and to save them, even when they do not necessarily deserve to be saved. “It is then very fitting that the words at the end of this verse in Noach are ‘vayashochu hamayim’ — ‘And the waters subsided.’ The shoresh of this word, which is ‘shoch,’ is not a very common word in Tanach. However, a form of this same word appears also in Megillas Esvision G-d enthroned and surrounded by angels. One of the most touching is the story of the young Shmuel, dedicated by his mother Chana to serve in the sanctuary at Shiloh as an assistant to Eli. In bed at night he heard a voice calling his name. He assumed it was Eli. He ran to see what he wanted, but Eli told him he had not called. This happened a second and third time, and by then Eli realized it was G-d calling the child. He told Shmuel that the next time the voice called, he should reply, “Speak, L-rd, for Your servant is listening.” It did not occur to the child that it might be G-d summoning him to a mission, but it was. Thus began his career as a prophet, judge and anointer of Israel’s first two kings, Shaul and David (1 Shmuel 3). hen we see a wrong to be righted, a sickness to be healed, a need to be met, and we feel it speaking to us, that is when we come as close as we can in a post-prophetic age to hearing Vayikra, G-d’s call. Why does the word appear here, at the beginning of the third and central book of the Torah? Because the book of Vayikra is about sacrifices. We are willing to make sacrifices when we feel they are part of the task we are called on to do. From the perspective of eternity we may sometimes be overwhelmed by our own insignificance. We are no more than a wave in the ocean, a grain of sand on the seashore, a speck of dust on the surface of infinity. Yet we are here because G-d wanted us to be, because there is a task He wants us to perform. The search for meaning is the quest for this task. Each of us is unique. Even identical twins are different. There are things only we can do, we who are what we are, in this time, this place. For each of us G-d has a task: work to perform, a kindness to show, a gift to give, love to share, loneliness to ease, pain to heal, or broken lives to help mend. Discerning that task, hearing Vayikra, G-d’s call, is one of the great spiritual challenges for each of us. How do we know what it is? Some years ago, in To Heal a Fractured World, I offered this as

ther. After Haman is hanged on the gallows, the verse says, ‘Vachamas hamelech shochocho’ — ‘and the anger of the king subsided.’ The Gemara, therefore, uses this parallel word to compare these two passages. The Gemara comments that just as the anger of the king cooled down, so too the waters of the Flood cooled down, thus implying that the Flood waters were originally boiling hot and therefore had to cool down before Noach was safely able to exit the teivah. “This comparison that the Talmud is making between these two passages is not only that they both contain the same (unusual) term. The Gemara may be further illustrating to us that the meaning of remembrance in both instances is the cooling down of the heat and fury of Hashem’s strict justice. Just as Hashem ‘remembered’ Noach in the time of the Flood and caused the boiling and destructive waters to cool down, so too in the time of Purim, Hashem ‘remembered’ Mordechai, Esther, and the Jewish people, and His attribute of strict justice was thus similarly cooled down. The Gemara in Megillah even suggests that when the verse says that the king’s anger subsided, it may not only be referring to Achashveirosh’s anger, but may also be a reference to the cooling down of the anger of the King of the World. “Therefore, it is very appropriate that Megillas Esther be called a ‘remembrance.’ Not only does reading the Megillah enable us to recall and to publicize the tremendously miraculous events that occurred, but it also teaches us how we can cause Hashem to ‘forget’ about His attribute of strict judgment and to instead ‘remember’ His love and compassion for the Jewish nation. Even if we are undeserving, we must pour out our hearts in prayer and supplication, and through the vehicle of tefillah we can cause Hashem to suppress His anger and instead pour His great mercy and rachamim upon us.” Rabbi Feiner tells why he wrote this book. Click the Kosher Bookworm tab on the Jewish Star’s website — TheJewishStar.com a guide, and it still seems to me to make sense: Where what we want to do meets what needs to be done, that is where G-d wants us to be.

Enemies... Continued from page 17 esides physical hostility, and in addition to scoffing and scorn, there is yet another technique that Amalek utilizes to attack people of the Jewish faith. He takes aim at our basic belief system and attempts to instill philosophical doubts in our minds. For the linkage of Amalek to agnosticism, I return to the third source of inspiration for this column. He was an elderly gentleman who frequented the same tiny synagogue as did I in the early years of my marriage. He was adept at a homiletic technique known as gematria, sometimes referred to as “numerology.” Every letter in the Hebrew alphabet has a numerical value, and profound meanings can be found by comparing the numerical values of different words and phrases in the Bible. The letters that spell out “Amalek” total 240. The letters of the Hebrew word for “doubt,” safek, also total precisely 240. “This,” proposed my elderly gentleman friend, “is Amalek’s secret weapon. Get people to doubt the principles of our faith. Amalek does not only dress in the guise of a Gestapo officer. He sometimes sits in a lounge chair, or across a table over a cup of coffee, and says things that get young Jews to doubt the Almighty and His benevolence.” Amalek is a tricky adversary and operates on many fronts. He can be murderous. He can be abusive. He can be cynical or insulting, persuasive or even seductive. No wonder we are commanded to devote this particular Shabbat to contemplating this ancient enemy, against whom we must always be on guard, and whose final elimination must be our ultimate goal.

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

‫בס”ד‬

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

20 View from Central Park

tehilla r. goldberg

The price Esther paid W

ith Purim two weeks away, its spirit is already in the air. Costume planning, mishloach manot, hamantaschen baking and Purim banquet menus, all underway. Of course, at the center of it all is the Megillah. The story of Purim itself. We’ve all known it since we were little children, a wonderful tale with the perfect symmetry of bad to good. There’s a sense of justice: the bad guy is punished, and the good guy is not only rewarded but replaces him. The dark threat of genocide ends in joy and honor and relief. In the great tradition of the ultimate Book, most literature does not conclude with a tidy, happy ending. More often than not, it is messy, unsettling and more complex. There is no pat resolution to tie everything together perfectly. How often have you reached the final page of a book fantasizing about a sequel to dispel the dark or amorphous ending? But the Megillah is a fairytale of sorts, in the sense that it provides a rare happy ending written to perfection. The true story of Purim is the model of a story that does render a redemptive end. Hence all the Purim hoopla we celebrate until this very day. But this happy ending was no foregone conclusion. It is Esther, the heroine, who is the transformational figure, the woman who brings about the change. How so? Whatever her inner process of transformation, there are three Hebrew words that encapsulate her astonishing resolve and bravery: “Veka’asher avadeti, avadeti.” “And if I perish, I perish.” henever the Megillah reader intones these words with the accompanying cadence of doom, heard most notably during the recitation of Eicha, something inside me breaks for Esther. This young woman understands the stakes. She understands the cost of saving her people: the sacrifice of her own life. Avedati can connote perish, it clearly implies death, but it can also connote loss. Esther comes to understand that she can be the Purim story’s pivot, the change agent in this unfolding tragedy — the catalyst in averting the potential catastrophe. Her actions can result in joy, relief, and honor on the collective level. But the result can also be her own pain and loneliness, not to mention loss, whether in her physical annihilation, or loss of self. Avadeti. If I perish, I perish. If I am lost, I shall be lost. Esther comes to an understanding that a redemptive ending for the Jewish people will exact a personal price — and she embraces it. With her acceptance of her fate, a bargain of sorts that she strikes with her life, Esther chooses her people over herself. As the merriment for the Jews commences, the life sentence of Esther — the price she must pay, a life with Achashverosh — begins. Avadeti. In a sense, Esther does pay the price that she understood would be the currency for Purim’s happy ending. She recedes to the background, literally locked up in a palace, as joy proliferates. Yet, at the same time, the opposite of loss becomes her legacy. She is the ultimate “found” woman. She lives on, generation after generation, as the heroine whom we all love and remember. Esther — from potentially lost to unforgettable. Copyright Intermountain Jewish News

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The Dems’ ‘anti-hate’ resolution Politics to go

Jeff duNetz

Jewish Star columnist

am usually able to separate my emotions from the goings on in DC, but this was different. The Democrats had one job — one! All they had to do is condemn anti-Semitism, and they couldn’t pull it off. Now I am terrified of the future. With a 407–23 vote, the Democratic Party-led House of Representatives announced that me, my wife, my two kids and the other 6,850,860 Jews living in the United States don’t matter. After Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar made her second anti-Semitic statement in the past month. The spineless Democratic Party leadership couldn’t muster the courage to address it. Instead, they passed a generic resolution that basically said that being mean to others is bad. Really? I learned that lesson when I was a child watching programs such as Romper Room, Howdy Doody, and Captain Kangaroo. As for Omar, she not only voted for the measure, but celebrated it as a step toward fighting Islamophobia. Omar, and other anti-Semites in the Democratic Party, celebrated — an indication that they took the vote as a sign that Jewhatred is okay. lhan Omar is an adult. She is not an idiot. She knew exactly what she was saying. Per the Twin Cities Pioneer Press, before she was elected to Congress, she met with leaders of the Jewish community in Minneapolis who gave her “lessons” about anti-Semitism: “Last year, before she was elected to the House of Representatives, before she emerged from a crowded Democratic field in Minnesota’s liberal 5th Congressional District, leaders of Minneapolis’s Jewish community fashioned what could be described as an anti-Semitic intervention of Omar, a rising star of the left whose remarks had made many fellow Democrats in the Jewish community uncomfortable.” The meeting was not held to criticize her policy stances but to explain to her that the words she uses to illustrate her positions can be hurtful. According to State Sen. Ron Latz, who hosted the meeting, “Over the course of about two hours, we shared with her our concerns for things, including language that has references and meanings beyond just the meanings of words. Tropes, dog whistles — call them what you will. We explained to her how hurtful, and factually inaccurate, they were.” Omar got a two-hour lesson about anti-Semitic “dog whistles.” I can guarantee one of the whistles was the dual loyalty canard. She knew exactly what she was saying a week ago when she accused Israel’s supporters of dual loyalty.

Rep. Ilhan Omar with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi during a rally with fellow Democrats at the Capitol on March 8. Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

The Democratic Party has already rejected different types of hatred, even when they aren’t even there. Because I used the term Islamist terrorism, I was called Islamophobic. Disagreeing with the policies of President Barack Obama motivated Democrats to brand me and others as racist. And yet they refuse to recognize anti-Semitism. hose who believe that the message of the Democrats’ resolution is “all hatred is terrible” are naïve. My first article warning that the Democratic Party was becoming antiSemitic was posted on January 29, 2007. Eleven years later, the party’s anti-Semitism has metastasized and infected much of the party. The message the Democrats sent with their feckless resolution was that the party officially embraces the Jew-hatred that has affected them. They do not care about Jewish Americans. Why don’t the Democrats and their protectors in the mainstream media believe people matter? Jews have served in every American war. We’ve served the country in government, in charitable organizations. Jews pay taxes, we teach our children to love this country. I have never been in an American synagogue that did not display Old Glory. Outside of the African American community, the Jewish community fought harder for civil rights than any other American ethnic group. I love this country that took in my grandparents when they were fleeing the Cossacks in Odessa. Only in America did my family members have the opportunity to get a decent job, feed their families and practice their faith.

But now a member of the Democratic Party has questioned my loyalty to this country, and they refuse to censure her. Instead they pass a resolution that buries her hatred in a sea of unrelated bigotry. Are they saying that the country that welcomed my family 125 years ago no longer welcomes us? After last week’s vote, it feels that way. Liberal commentators are protecting the Democrats. On Fox and Friends, the day after the vote, Juan Williams claimed that most Jews don’t really mind Rep. Omar’s anti-Semitic statements; it’s the Republicans who are trying to divide the Democratic Party. He added that the only people who care about Omar’s remarks are the Evangelical Christian supporters of Israel. efore Omar’s latest, I tried to reach out to Juan Williams because he has refused to acknowledge the Democratic Party’s growing’ anti-Semitism. Even sending him long letters sending him examples of his party’s hatred with links to the sources. But Williams, who has more than once declared a racist comment “hurtful,” has never responded. Does he not believe that Jews can feel hurt by anti-Semitic statements? Many Jews, including me, are more than hurt by the rash of anti-Semitism. We are terrorstricken. According to the FBI, almost 60% of religion-based hate crimes in 2017 were against Jews. Per the ADL, anti-Semitism in the US is growing substantially; anti-Jewish incidents increased by 57% in the US in 2017. Anti-Semitism is rising sharply across Europe, See Dems on page 22

JONatHaN S. tOBiN

ack in November, I wrote that the election of Demoratic radicals like Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of Queens, Ilhan Omar of Minnesota and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan wouldn’t have much impact on the US-Israel relationship. I reasoned that the trio would be backbenchers without power or influence, while the Democratic leadership of the House remained solidly pro-Israel and friends of the Jewish community. But as the events of the last week have shown, I was wrong about that, especially in thinking that Democrats would speak out specifically against anti-Semitism if a member of their caucus acted as Omar has done. Yet now that it has happened, I wouldn’t be surprised if their faithful Jewish Democratic

supporters simply shrug it off. he Democratic Party as a whole is shifting to the left. But with the bulk of Democrats, especially officeholders, still reliably pro-Israel, there could be no comparison between it and Britain’s Labour Party, which under the leadership of Jeremy Corbyn has been captured by anti-Semitic radicals. But while the Democrats are not yet the moral equivalent of Labour, there can no longer be any doubt that OcasioCortez, Omar and Tlaib are far from powerless. Indeed, they have not only intimidated the Democratic leadership, but also demonstrated their ability to rally much of the party, including leading presidential candidates, around the cause of defending Omar from facing any consequences for her anti-Semitic hate. This feat calls into question not only the future of a bipartisan consensus on behalf of Israel, but also

the future of the Democratic Party as a political home for centrist Americans. Above and beyond the political implications of Omar’s evading consequences for her spreading of hate, this should shock American Jews out of any remaining complacency they might have had about the willingness of the Democrats to stand with them against antiJewish bias. What may be even more depressing is that most of American Jewry won’t take any of this seriously or draw any conclusions about it. That’s because history has taught us that liberal Jews will do nothing to hold the Democrats accountable for their shocking failure. mar had twice before issued anti-Semitic statements, one of which she had been forced to apologize for by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the Democratic leadership. But her apology and disingenuous claim that

What the Democrats did was worse than inaction.

she was unaware of the meaning of the anti-Semitic tropes about Jews controlling the world or attempting to buy off members of Congress were meaningless. Last week, she doubled down on her hate by spouting off about supporters of Israel being guilty of dual loyalty, another classic anti-Semitic trope. Yet when some demanded action, what the Democrats did was worse than inaction. Much of the House Democratic caucus revolted at the idea of a resolution condemning anti-Semitism, even if it didn’t name Omar. They embraced Omar’s claim that she was the victim in this drama. Omar had singled out “Jewish colleagues” as targeting her and Tlaib — another serial purveyor of anti-Semitism — for discrimination because they were Muslims. Three of the leading Democratic candidates for president — Bernie Sanders, Kamala Harris and Elizabeth Warren — supported these claims when, while condemning anti-Semitism out of one side of their mouths, they also defended Omar and opposed any specific condemnation of her hate. See Omar on page 22

Omar’s lies about Israel and the Jews JErOmE marCuS

n a few weeks, Jews will sit down to a Passover Seder and eat matzah that was not baked with the blood of Christian children. The claim that matzah is baked with the blood of Christian innocents is, of course, a famous anti-Semitic libel; it’s a libel that’s antiSemitic because, first and foremost, it’s false (and ugly). If it were true, it wouldn’t be antiSemitic to say such a thing. Telling ugly lies about the Jewish people is anti-Semitic. This simple truth enables us to understand why Ilhan Omar and David Duke are now on exactly the same page, so much so that Duke has tweeted his applause for Omar, and Omar has not declined the compliment. Duke lies about the Jewish people, claiming that they control the world for their own ugly purposes. Rep. Ilhan Omar does exactly the same; that’s why Duke praised her. Omar lies about the Jewish state, and about the Jewish people there and in America. oes Israel ban or punish religions other than Judaism? Muslims control the mosques on the Temple Mount; the mu-

ezzin’s call is broadcast freely on loudspeakers all over Israel five times a day, starting at 5 am. Christians go safely to church in Israel as they cannot do anywhere else in the Middle East. Omar’s claim that the Jewish state discriminates against religions other Judaism is a lie, and it’s antiSemitic because it’s a lie about the Jewish people and their state. Is Israel — the nation-state of the Jewish people — an apartheid state? Nobody who’s ever gone to the grocery store in Israel could ever truthfully say such a thing. They will have seen Jews and Arabs shopping and working together. Nobody who’s ever looked at the government of Israel could ever say such a thing, because the government is populated by Jews, Druze, Arabs both Christian and Muslim, Bahá’i, and any other religious group you can think of. Claiming that the Jewish state puts Arabs in Bantustans is a lie: Some 44 percent of the population of Haifa is Arab. Equating Israel with South Africa before Mandela is an anti-Semitic lie because it’s an ugly untruth about the Jewish people and about the Jewish state. Zionism is the national liberation movement of the Jewish people. Lying about the actions

of the Jewish state to delegitimize the Zionist enterprise, while affirming the right of every other people in the world to a place of their own (and not caring all that much how those other places treat their minorities), is anti-Semitic because it’s a lie. The overwhelming majority of US senators and representatives support a close relationship with Israel because they believe that such a relationship is in America’s interest. Lying about the Jews spreading money around to buy this support is anti-Semitic, and it’s antiSemitic because it’s a lie. (It’s a lie, in part, because the overwhelming majority of support for America’s pro-Zionist position comes not from Jews but from Christians.) mar has claimed that she is merely “questioning” America’s relationship with Israel. But she has done no such thing. She’s advanced no argument about why it isn’t in America’s strategic interest to maintain its current relationship with Israel. She’s adduced no reasons why the United States would be better off supporting the terror-exporting, Americahating government of Iran. What she has done (and all she has done) is lie about Israel and the Jews. Telling such lies is

There is no left or right on Jewhatred.

no less anti-Semitic than “explaining” hostility towards the Jewish state by claiming that on April 19, the Jews who live there, like the ones who live here, will be eating blood-drenched matzah. Omar’s actions, though, have afforded the world some badly needed clarity because they enable us to see who’s lined up with whom. David Duke’s website trumpets his agreement with Omar, and Omar hasn’t rejected his support. This unity of purpose among Jew-haters shows clearly why it’s delusional to claim, as Paul Krugman recently did, that only the haters on the right are dangerous. There is no left or right on Jew-hatred; whether it comes from a Somali woman in a headscarf or a white man wearing a pointed hat, it’s all the same. If you’re lying about Israel, the Jewish state, or you’re lying about the Jews, as a people, then you’re an anti-Semite. Does a congressional resolution condemning “hate” make all of this go away? Of course not, because the only “hate” that’s been on display is Jew-hatred. Therefore, it was Jew-hatred that needed to be condemned. The Democrats’ inability to do this speaks volumes about them, about their party’s allegiances and about their capacity (or willingness) to understand the world — and themselves. Jerome A. Marcus is a lawyer and a fellow at the Kohelet Policy Forum in Jerusalem.

Leave the graves of Poland’s Jedwabne alone Viewpoint

BEN COHEN

ho controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.” These words, from George Orwell’s famous novel 1984 were often called upon during the Cold War as a pithy explanation of the principles on which Communist propaganda operations were based. Sadly, they are becoming equally pertinent in today’s postCommunist, democratic Poland. In an extensive interview last week with the private broadcaster Polsat, Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki was questioned about reducing the tax burden on the under26-year-olds and on pensioners; about the relative health of Poland’s deficit, about his

government’s views on the future of the European Union; about the ruling Law and Justice (PiS) Party’s plans for the upcoming European elections; and about a July 1941 massacre of more than 300 Jews in the Polish town of Jedwabne that was executed not by the German occupiers, but by their Polish neighbors. The sudden appearance of this terrible atrocity in what was otherwise a routine discussion of government policy was jarring. Make no mistake though—in some ways, the subject of Jedwabne is more important to Poland’s leaders than all those others. ost countries have been impacted in recent years by the rise in identity politics, and Poland is no exception. In the United States, we tend to think of identity politics as the domain of progressives and as the source

of voguish theories about “intersectionality.” But in Poland, as elsewhere in Eastern Europe, identity politics has been seized by nationalists and conservatives as a means of recovering the national dignity buried by successive Nazi and Soviet occupations. While Morawiecki has demonstrated a pragmatic side in the past in dealing with the febrile question of Polish attitudes to Jews under the Nazi occupation, his comments during the Polsat interview suggest a dangerous willingness on his part to escalate the Polish state’s ongoing conflict with Jewish organizations around the world about the Holocaust in that land. For 20 years, the dispute over what happened at Jedwabne has roiled a growing numbers of Poles who angrily deny that their compatriots collaborated with the Nazi Ger-

Morawiecki wants to turn back the clock.

man authorities in any way. The pogrom in Jedwabne is a particularly harrowing example of why that belief is both false and malicious. A small town in the northeast of Poland, Jedwabne was seized by the Nazis from the retreating Soviet Red Army in June 1941. As documented by the Polish-American historian Jan Gross (whose book about Jedwabne, Neighbors, turned him into public enemy No. 1 for Polish ultranationalists), on July 10, with the approval of the Germans, Polish collaborators gathered the town’s Jews in the central square. There, they were subjected to the most savage humiliation by the mob, forced to wear their religious garments, and dance and sing while being brutally beaten, kicked, whipped, spat upon and verbally abused. Once this barbaric festival of anti-Semitic violence was over, the approximately 300 surviving Jews — men, women and children — were herded into a nearby barn. Its doors were locked See Jedwabne on page 22

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

Democrats failed on Omar. Do most Jews care?

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

The JEWISH STAR

CAlendar of Events

Send your events to Calendar@TheJewishStar.com • Deadline noon Friday • Compiled by Rachel Langer 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. Shabbat Dinner: Rabbi Abraham Cooper of the Simon Wiesenthal Center joins Young Israel of Woodmere for davening, dinner, and speech. Candlelighting available in shul. Space is limited! Davening 5:35; dinner 7 pm. 859 Peninsula Blvd, Woodmere. 516-457-2629. $40 per person.

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.

Dems... Continued from page 20 experts have said, as France reported a 74% increase in the number offenses against Jews last year. Germany has said the number of violent anti-Semitic attacks has surged by more than 60%. In Great Britain, the number-two party, Labour, is being recognized as anti-Semitic. Almost a century ago, a small party in Germany began to make anti-Semitic statements: Jewish money controls the government; Jews are not loyal to Germany. Most Germans said it was just talk. Eventually, the National Socialist German Workers’ Party was elected to power, and six million Jews were murdered. Extremists are taking over the Democratic Party, and like the Nazis and Communist Russia, they are making the Jews their scapegoats. And like the Germans of the 1920s and 1930s, today’s traditional Democrats, like Nancy Pelosi, claim that anti-Semites don’t really mean it. And commentators like Juan Williams claim Jews aren’t bothered. I am frightened for my family and my people. Jew-hatred is growing all across the world, and here in America, one party refuses to recognize and censure it. Can another Holocaust happen? This is how it started in Germany, and the Germans said it could never happen there.

Omar...

Continued from page 21 House Democrats backed down in the face of support for Omar from much of the party. Pelosi, who knew how insincere Omar’s previous apology had been, exonerated her of any intentional anti-Semitism. Democrats ignored the fact that as supporters of the BDS movement, there was

Pinewood Derby: Cub Scout Pack 1818 hosts fun for the whole family at the Marion & Aaron Gural JCC. Free carnival booths; food available for purchase. 1 pm to 4 pm; races at 1:30. 207 Grove Ave, Cedarhurst. 718-207-7030. 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.

Monday March 18

with Megillah at 5:30 pm. 2250 Clubhouse Rd, Merrick. 516-833-3057. $15 for child; $22 for adult. Arabian Nights: Purim at Chabad of Hewlett. Hear the Megillah and enjoy authentic Persian cuisine. Fire show, glass and tile art, music, henna, and more. Door prizes for guests in costume! 6 to 8 pm. 44 Everit Ave, Hewlett. RSVP at JewishHewlett.com.

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.

Parent-Child Bake: Parent-Child Hamentaschen Bake at Young Israel of Woodmere. Our recipe is nut, dairy, and egg-free. All proceeds donated to Matanot L’evyonim, 6 pm to 7:30 pm. 859 Peninsula Blvd, Woodmere. YIWoodmere. org/sisterhood.

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 20

Wednesday March 27

Thursday March 21

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.

Purim Carnival: After Megillah reading, join White Shul Youth for inflatable rides, photo booth, face painting, balloons, projects, giveaways, and refreshments. Members only. 728 Empire Ave, Far Rockaway.

Italian Celebration: Purim at Chabad of Merrick-Bellmore-Wantagh. DIY pizza bar, wine tasting, acrobat show, mishloach manot at the door. Bring a box of raw pasta for a gragger, and donate to the Bernard Pechter kosher food pantry. Begins

no doubt that Omar and Tlaib’s statements were intentional and purposeful. The claim that their goal was to start a conversation about U.S. foreign policy or to speak up for Palestinian human rights is a blatant lie. As BDS supporters, their goal is Israel’s destruction and to delegitimize its Jewish supporters, not to merely initiate a debate about the peace process. The claim that supporters of Israel are guilty of Islamophobia is another brazen falsehood. Equally disingenuous is the claim that the right is as guilty of anti-Semitism as the left. The claims that US President Donald Trump and Republican members of Congress are also guilty anti-Semitism are bogus. There is simply no comparison to what the Democrats are enabling and even supporting from Omar and anything that GOP officeholders have done or said with respect to anti-Semitism. he resolution that did pass was a joke. It not only avoided mentioning Omar, but was turned into a laundry list of every conceivable sort of hatred (with the sole exception of bias against Catholics and evangelical Christians). It was the moral equivalent of “All Lives Matter” — a stand that most Democrats condemned. Ocasio-Cortez and her leftist pals are setting the agenda for Democrats. This will have a genuine impact on the 2020 presidential race, which has already appeared to show Democrats shifting to the left, and make it easier for attacks on Israel and Jews to become part of the campaign. This ought to horrify the majority of American Jews, who remain loyal supporters of the Democrats. But don’t expect many of them to take action or hold their party accountable. In this hyper-partisan era, most liberal Jews are more interested in defeating Trump than in confronting anti-Semitism. Facing the truth about the state of the Democratic Party would force them to choose between their partisan interests and defense of the Jewish community. And that is not a choice that most American Jews are prepared to make. Jonathan S. Tobin is editor-in-chief of JNS.

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.

Tuesday April 2

Tikkun Hamiddos: Michal Horowitz’s series “Tikkun Hamiddos: Measure of a Man,” continues with a class on anger and calmness. 11:30 am to 12:30 pm. 207 Grove Ave, Cedarhurst. 516-5696733 ext. 222. $15 per class, $65 for full series.

Sunday April 7

MAY Madness: Mesivta Ateres Yaakov’s alumni basketball tournament. Sponsor or register at MAYalumni.com. 131 Washington Ave, Lawrence. 516-374-6465 ext. 4016. Player registration $50; admission $18; alumni admission $10. North Shore Dinner: Celebrating 64 years of excellence in yeshiva education, and the 18th anniversary of North Shore Hebrew Academy High School. Guests of Honor Dina & Jonathan Ohebshalom; L’dor V’dor Award Shoshana & Martin Sokol; Distinguished Faculty Award Sandy Sudberg. 5 pm. 21 Old Westbury Rd, Old Westbury. NSHA.org/giving/dinner.

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.

Jedwabne… I Continued from page 21 as gasoline was poured on the ground. All of the Jews inside the barn were incinerated by fire, their remains buried in two mass graves. he post-war controversy in Poland over Jedwabne stems from the issue of responsibility for this vile crime. In essence, Morawiecki and other Polish nationalists insist that every Jew who was murdered in Poland during World War II died at the hands of the Germans, while Poles suffered nearly as much as the Jews, yet did everything in their power to save them. Put simply, Jedwabne — where the one Polish farming family that did bravely save the lives of seven Jews, the Wyrzykowskis, were beaten and harassed by their neighbors for their pains — gets in the way of this interpretation of history. Less than a month after he pulled out of a summit in Israel because of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s statement that “Poles cooperated with Nazis,” Morawiecki is now proposing to reopen the Jedwabne debate that many believed had been closed in 2001. Back then, Polish President Alexander Kwasniewski formally apologized for the crime, while a government investigation the following year concluded that not less than 340 Jews in Jedwabne had been murdered by about 40 Poles. Morawiecki wants to turn back the clock. Asked by Polsat whether he was in favor of carrying out exhumations of the mass graves at Jedwabne in order to shed more light on the issue of responsibility, Morawiecki responded that “the most important thing is that the historical truth should be emphasized.” That “truth,” according to the prime minister, is that “the fate of Poles during World War II is extremely sad for us, on the one hand, but it also testifies to how great, great a nation we are, and who is solely responsible [i.e., Germany] for the Holocaust, occupation and terror of World War II.”

n addition to announcing the conclusion of the proposed new investigation before it actually gets underway — an eerily Soviet strategy — Marowiecki is also apparently willing to violate the sanctity of the Jewish mass graves in Jedwabne as part of the process. Initial exhumations that took place there were stopped in 2001, after Jewish organizations pointed out that Jewish religious law forbids the disturbing of graves. As Poland’s Chief Rabbi Michael Schudrich pointed out to the Associated Press last week, that law has not changed. Exhumations now “would desecrate the memory of those who were buried there,” he said. “It makes moral sense that we should follow the religious traditions of those who were buried there,” asserted Schudrich. “Jewish law hasn’t changed in 2,000 years, and what we said in 2001 remains the same now.” The looming conflict over new exhumations — a task that Poland’s official Institute of National Remembrance (IPN) has confirmed it will undertake if granted permission by the Justice Ministry — neatly illustrates the parameters of the present Polish-Jewish divide. For Schudrich, as for nearly all Jews, these are the graves of Jews slaughtered because they were Jews. For Morawiecki, these are the graves of Polish citizens who happened to be Jews; their terrible fate was falsely blamed on Poles instead of the true authors, the Germans. This battle over historical truth is set to continue, and probably won’t ever be resolved. Perhaps Poland’s leaders should ask themselves why — given the appalling suffering their nation endured during World War II, a cataclysm in which goodness and evil were tested every day — their national self-esteem seemingly depends on making the Holocaust of 6 million Jews a Polish event. More importantly, they should be told that to again disturb the graves of Jedwabne over the objections of the Jewish community crosses a red line. However frosty relations may have been over the last two years, they are set to get much worse should Morawiecki deliver on his intention.

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time of service.

We Also Sell Cabinets At Wholesale & Retail Prices

Stone or Brick BBQ’s

Licensed & Insured #1503560000

Discount may not be

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Retainer Walls Low Voltage Landscape Lighting

Residential & Commercial

• All Phases of Interior and Exterior Demolition combined for Contractor Projects • Concretewith Patios,any other offer. Sidewalks, Driveways, Stoops Coupon must be submitted at

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Pavers Stoops Patios Driveways

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free $ Get OFF estimates DEMOLITION OF: Cleanout, Any Demolition, • Pools, all types • Bathhouses • Sheds same day Dumpster Rental • Dormers • Garages or • Kitchens/Baths service • Complete House Demolition • Buildings

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Wireman/Cableman

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Wireman/Cableman Wireman/Cableman

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ArtFriedCreative.com

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

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