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Vayikra • Friday, March 16, 2018 • 29 Adar 5778 • Luach page 24 • Torah columns pages 24–25 • Vol 17, No 12

The Newspaper of our Orthodox communities

Pompeo at State: What does Potential olim crowd his selection mean for us? NBN event Eying the new Secretary’s positions on Israel, Jews, Iran Analysis by Ron Kampeas, JTA WASHINGTON — Like the rest of the world, Rex Tillerson got the news of his firing on Twitter. “Thank you to Rex Tillerson for his service!” was the only reference to the now-outgoing secretary of state in a tweet President Donald Trump posted at 8:44 am that also announced Tillerson’s nominated replacement, CIA Director Mike Pompeo, and Pompeo’s replacement at the intelligence agency, Gina Haspel. In an extraordinary statement, Steve Goldstein, the undersecretary for public affairs, tweeted: “The secretary did not speak to the president and is unaware of the reason” he was fired. (Later Tuesday, Goldstein also was dismissed.) Trump, leaving the White House later Tuesday morning, told report-

Mike Pompeo at a confirmation hearing before the Senate Intelligence Committee on Jan. 12, 2017. Joe Raedle/Getty Images

ers on the White House lawn: “I actually got along well with Rex, but really it was a different mindset, a different thinking.” Of Pompeo, Trump said, “We’re always on the same wavelength.” He added: “I’m really at a point where we’re getting very close to having the Cabinet and other things that I want.” What does the departure of Tillerson and the elevation of Pompeo tell us about where Trump’s “wavelength” is when it comes to what matters to Israel and American Jews? Trump looks serious about leaving the Iran deal. Tillerson and Trump have tussled about a number of things — whether Russia is a reliable partner (Tillerson thought not, for Trump the jury is still out); whether to neSee Pompeo on page 23

Nearly 1,500 prospective immigrants to Israel attended a mega-event on Sunday to learn about what it takes to make aliyah. The Nefesh B’Nefesh Mega Aliyah Fair, at John Jay College in Manhattan, drew singles, families and retirees looking to prepare themselves for such a big move. Sessions at the event provided information and workshops on subjects such as financial planning and budgeting, choosing a community, building a strategic job search plan, navigating the Israeli health care system, and buying or renting a home in Israel. There also was programming for children, visits by Israeli vendors and service providers, and an Israeli-style market. Some attendees were in the beginning stages of planning their moves, while others were gathering information to help them decide whether to make the move. Nefesh B’Nefesh, Israel’s Ministry of Aliyah and Integration, the Jewish Agency for Israel, Keren Kayemeth LeIsrael and JNF-USA co-hosted the event. —JTA

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his religious heritage has affected his playing, he sounds stumped. “I’m a violinist. I’m Jewish, so that makes me a Jewish musiSee Perlman on page 10

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By Curt Schleier, JTA Itzhak Perlman, arguably the most famous violinist in the world, has heard plenty of questions in his 50-year career. But when asked if

Students from the Shulamith School for Girls and the Hebrew Academy of the Five Towns and Rockaway were among those from several Long Island schools who attended last week’s AIPAC Policy Conference in Washington and then lobbied their Congressional representatives on Capitol Hill. Pictured top — HAFTR’s team flanks the U.S. ambassador to Israel, Five Towner David Friedman. From left: Katie Friedman, Tamar Rosenwald, Annabelle Muller, Abigail Appel, Rabbi Yonoson Hirtz, Daniel Friedman Elijah Gurvitch, and Elijah Greenberg. Pictured left — The Shulamith team unfurled Israel’s flag outside the Capitol building. (Last week’s front page featured AIPAC participants from HANC and SKA; look for more photos in coming weeks.)

‘Never Again,’ from Shoah slogan to universal call Analysis by Emily Burack, JTA After a gunman took the lives of 17 students and staff at their high school in Parkland, Florida, students there launched a national campaign to promote gun control. They called for a major protest in Washington on March 24, and are encouraging similar protests and student walkouts across the country. And they took a name for their campaign, #NeverAgain, that has long been linked to Holocaust commemoration. Parkland junior Cameron Kasky is credited with coining the hashtag. A Twitter account for the movement, NeverAgainMSD, is described as “For survivors of the Stoneman Douglas Shooting, by survivors of the Stoneman Douglas Shooting.” Some supporters of the students’ efforts are put off by their use of Never Again. Lily Herman, writing in Refinery29, said “it’s very uncomfortable to watch a term you’ve used to talk about your family and people’s own heritage and history be taken away overnight.” Malka Goldberg, a digital communications specialist in Maryland, tweeted, “When I saw they’re using #NeverAgain for the campaign it bothered me, b/c many Jews strongly [associate] that phrase w/ the Holocaust specifically. For a second it felt like cultural appropriation, but I doubt the kids knew this or did it intentionally.” Hasia Diner, a professor of American Jewish history at New York University, is unfazed by the students’ use of the phrase. While some may object to the phrase Never Again being reappropriated for gun control, it “does not mean that reaction is appropriate or reasonable,” she told JTA. While some have traced the phrase to the Hebrew poet Isaac Lambdan’s 1926 poem “Masada” (“Never shall Masada fall again!”), its current use is more directly tied to the aftermath of the Shoah. The phrase was used in secular kibbutzim in the late 1940s; it was used in a Swedish documentary on the Holocaust in 1961. But the phrase gained currency in English thanks in large part to Meir Kahane, the militant rabbi who popularized it in America when he created the Jewish Defense League in 1968 and used it as a title of a 1972 book-length manifesto. As the head of the American Jewish Committee, Sholom Comay said after Kahane’s assassination in November 1990, “Despite our considerable differences, Meir Kahane must always be remembered for the slogan Never Again, which for so many became the battle cry of postHolocaust Jewry.”

Students protesting against gun violence on Capitol Hill on Feb. 21. Alex Wong/Getty Images

For Kahane, Never Again was a call to arms and a rebuke of passivity and inactivity. The shame surrounding the alleged passivity of Jews in the face of their destruction became a cornerstone of the JDL. As Rabbi Kahane said, “the motto Never Again does not mean that ‘it’ [a holocaust] will never happen again. That would be nonsense. It means that if it happens again, it won’t happen in the same way. Last time, the Jews behaved like sheep.” Kahane used Never Again to justify acts of terror in the name of fighting anti-Semitism. In the anthem of the Jewish Defense League, members recited, “To our slaughtered brethren and lonely widows: Never again will our people’s blood be shed by water, Never again will such things be heard in Judea.” Later, however, Kahane’s violent call for action was adapted by American Jewish establishment groups and Holocaust commemoration institutions as a call for peace, tolerance and heeding the warning signs of genocide. These days, when the phrase is used to invoke the Holocaust, it can be either particular or universal. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu tends toward the particular when he uses it to speak about the need for a strong Jewish state in the wake of the Holocaust.

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“I promise, as head of the Jewish state, that never again will we allow the hand of evil to sever the life of our people and our state,” he said in a speech at the site of the former AuschwitzBirkenau death camp marking International Holocaust Memorial Day in 2010. But Netanyahu has also used the phrase in its universal sense of preventing all genocides. After visiting a memorial to the victims of the Rwanda genocide in 2010, Netanyahu and his wife, Sara, wrote in the guestbook, “We are deeply moved by the memorial to the victims of one history’s greatest crimes — and reminded of the haunting similarities to the genocide of our own people. Never again.” Then-President Barack Obama also used the phrase in its universal sense in marking International Holocaust Remembrance Day in 2011. “We are reminded to remain ever-vigilant against the possibility of genocide, and to ensure that Never Again is not just a phrase but a principled cause,” he said in a statement. “And we resolve to stand up against prejudice, stereotyping, and violence — including the scourge of anti-Semitism — around the globe.” That’s similar to how the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum uses the phrase. In choosing the name Never Again as the theme of its 2013 Days of Remembrance, its used the term as a call to study the genocide of the Jews in order to respond to the “warning signs” of genocides happening anywhere. And Elie Wiesel, the Holocaust survivor and Nobel laureate who came to be associated with the phrase, also used it in the universal sense, writing in 2012 that Never Again “becomes more than a slogan: It’s a prayer, a promise, a vow ... never again the glorification of base, ugly, dark violence.” Never Again is a phrase that keeps on evolving. It was used in protests against the Muslim ban and in support of refugees, in remembrance of Japanese internment during World War II and recalling the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. And now the phrase is taking on yet another life: in the fight for gun control in America. Shaul Magid, a professor of Jewish studies at Indiana University who is presently a visiting scholar at the Center for Jewish History in New York, told JTA, “For [Kahane], Never Again was not ‘this will not happen again because we will have a country’ but ‘we Jews will never be complacent like we were during the war.’ That is, for Kahane, Never Again was a call to militancy as the only act of prevention. In Parkland it is a call for gun control. In a way, a call for anti-militancy.”

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March 16, 2018 • 29 Adar 5778 THE JEWISH STAR

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Russian Jews shrug at Putin’s ‘anti-Semitic’ words It’s not as simple as it sounds to American ears; in Russian, the terms are nuanced By Cnaan Liphshiz, JTA When Boruch Gorin, a well-known rabbi in Moscow, traveled for the first time from Russia to the United States, a U.S. Customs officer asked him whether he was Russian. “I said, ‘No, I’m not Russian — I’m Jewish’,” Rabbi Gorin recalled on Monday, 27 years after the exchange at JFK Airport. The semantics behind the exchange, Rabbi Gorin said, are the reason that local Jewish groups remained largely indifferent to a remark about Jews aired Sunday by Russian President Vladimir Putin that to foreign ears sounded anti-Semitic. In the interview with NBC News, Putin said that Russians who allegedly interfered with the 2016 U.S. presidential election perhaps are “not even Russians,” adding, “Maybe they’re Ukrainians, Tatars, Jews, just with Russian citizenship. Even that needs to be checked. Maybe they have dual citizenship. Or maybe a green card. Maybe it was the Americans who paid them for this work. How do you know? I don’t know.” The American Jewish Committee on Twitter said his remark was “eerily reminiscent of the ‘Protocols of the Elders of Zion’,” calling on Putin to “clarify his comments at the earliest opportunity.” Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt said that Putin “bizarrely has resorted to the blame game by pointing the finger at Jews and other minorities in his country.” With his words, Putin is ”giving new life to classic anti-Semitic stereotypes,” said Greenblatt, who also referenced “the Protocols,” an anti-Semitic forgery created in Russia in 1903. Putin was slammed as well for allegedly suggesting that Russian Jews are not really Russians. Why single out ethnic minorities,

Russian President Vladimir Putin with Russian Chief Rabbi Berel Lazar (left) and Alexander Boroda, head of the Federation of Jewish Communities, at the Kremlin on Dec. 28, 2016. Alexei Druzhinin/AFP/Getty Images

some asked on Twitter, unless to suggest that minorities, just like Ukrainians, aren’t Russian? The Russian Jewish Congress and the EuroAsJewish Congress did not immediately reply to JTA’s request for comment on Putin’s remark. But neither group has criticized the Russian leader for what he said. According to Rabbi Gorin, “What Putin said seems to have been lost in translation — twice.” The first time, Rabbi Gorin suggested, was when the NBC interpreter used the term “Russki” in posing NBC’s question to Putin about Russians who special counsel Robert Mueller has accused of manipulating the election. That’s significant because in Russian, Russki does not mean a citizen of Russia (the word for that is “Rossianin”) but a person of Russian ethnicity. And since Jewishness is widely recognized in Russia as an ethnicity as opposed to just a religion, Russian Jews are not really considered as ethnic Russians, though they are certainly accepted as Russian citizens. Russian

Jews by and large do not self-identify as ethnic Russians, traditionally followers of Eastern Orthodox Christianity. Indeed, doing so for many Russian Jews would be akin to American Jews declaring themselves White Anglo-Saxon Protestants. But the adjective “Russian” in English does not have this distinction — that’s why Rabbi Gorin had to be asked three of four times about his connection to Russia before he understood the subject was not about his ethnicity (a perfectly common and politically correct question in Russia) but his citizenship. “Putin was asked about the Russian ethnicity, so he replied about that,” Rabbi Gorin said. “I understand it can appear shocking. I think what he meant to say also is that the people who interfered in the elections were maybe part of the diaspora of former Russian citizens. That’s why he named a few of the largest groups, including Jews.” Ultimately, Putin was trying to distance Rus-

sia from the intervention in U.S. elections — not blame Jews for it, Rabbi Gorin suggested. Across Eastern Europe, this linguistic distinction has plagued how officials’ statements are perceived abroad — not least in Poland. Amid rising diplomatic tensions with Israel over rhetoric on the Holocaust, the Polish attorney general, Zbigniew Ziobro, said in January that “after Nazi Germany attacked, millions of people were murdered in occupied Poland, including 3 million Poles.” That seemed to be in reference to the 3 million non-Jewish Poles killed during World War II, suggesting he didn’t consider the 3 million Polish Jews who were exterminated as Poles. But in reality, the word “Jews” in Polish is used to reference primarily ethnicity, not nationality. Putin’s answer in the NBC interview was translated into English without the nuance crucial to understanding it, said Rabbi Gorin, who is a senior aide to Russian Chief Rabbi Berel Lazar, head of the Chabad movement in Russia. Rabbi Lazar and his Federation of Jewish Communities of Russia are often accused of supporting Putin unconditionally in exchange for his regime’s seal of approval for Chabad, which has helped the group become the dominant Jewish force in Russia. In reality, Rabbi Lazar’s group speaks out in harsh terms against expressions of anti-Semitism, including by Putin’s party and officials. Rabbi Gorin recently called the ousting of a Chabad rabbi from Russia on vague securityrelated allegations a “dark day in the history of the Jews in Russia.” And he likened a Russian court’s blacklisting of a rabbi’s book to Holocaust distortion in Lithuania. Rabbi Gorin also criticized as “patently false” Putin’s assertion that Jews dominated the first communist See Russian Jews on page 21

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March 16, 2018 • 29 Adar 5778 THE JEWISH STAR

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By Marcy Oster and Ron Kampeas, JTA Human suffering in the Gaza Strip has grown over the past year, top U.S. Middle East negotiator Jason Greenblatt told a conference on Tuesday at the White House called to mobilize aid for Gaza. Representatives of nearly two dozen countries and international organizations gathered for the six-hour meeting, which did not include representatives of the Palestinian Authority. Greenblatt said that in Gaza, poverty and food insecurity are growing, electricity is scarce and contaminated water is a danger. Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and a top adviser, presented concrete ideas to assist the Gaza Palestinians. “We asked you here because we believe we can do much better — we must do much better,” Greenblatt said. The Palestinian Authority boycotted the conference over the Trump administration’s recognition in December of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. Gaza is controlled by Hamas, which is designated by the State Department as a terrorist organization. “We regret that the Palestinian Authority is not here with us today,” Greenblatt said. “This is not about politics. This is about the health, safety and happiness of the people of Gaza, and of all Palestinians, Israelis and Egyptians.” UNRWA, the U.N. relief agency charged with delivering aid to Palestinian refugees and their descendants, and the preeminent relief provider in Gaza, was not invited to the meeting since it was aimed at donors and countries in the region, a Trump administration official said. Jordan, Sweden and Egypt will host a separate meeting on Thursday in Rome specifically relating to UNRWA, according to the official, who said the U.S. plans to participate in that meeting as well. Elizabeth Campbell, director of UNRWA’s Washington office, told JTA that the participants were missing an important perspective without her agency at the table. Campbell said one measure the Trump administration could take immediately was to restore

UNRWA funding. Trump froze some funding earlier this year because the Palestinians backed away from talks on restarting the peace process. The Trump administration froze $65 million in transfers, but allowed $60 million to go through. The United States transferred $360 million to UNRWA last year. Representatives of Israel, Egypt, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates were among the meeting participants. Qatar, which is being shunned by key U.S. ally Saudi Arabia, attended. The full list of participants: Bahrain, Canada, Cyprus, Egypt, the European Union, France, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, the Netherlands, Norway, Oman, the Middle East Quartet, Qatar, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom and the United Nations. The Quartet is the grouping of the United States, Russia, the European Union and the United Nations that helps shepherd negotiations between

the Israelis and Palestinians. After the conference, the White House deemed it a success. “Everybody agreed to work together,” a senior administration official said in a conference call with reporters. Greenblatt at the outset of the conference asked all participants to “leave all politics at the door” in order to “concentrate on realistic and practical solutions to the problems we are here to address.” White House officials said Kushner presented three sorts of projects: short term, medium term and “aspirational” should a comprehensive peace agreement be achieved. Funding the projects would be discussed at the Rome meeting later this week. The plan going forward would be to break up the conference into smaller groups of countries with expertise in the areas that needed to be addressed. The senior administration official said it would be difficult to implement the deal without the Pales-

tinian Authority’s cooperation, but not impossible. “Many of them can be implemented without the P.A., but that wouldn’t be ideal,” the official said. “Our goal is to get the P.A. in control of Gaza.” Greenblatt in his opening remarks said it was key to consider the security needs of Gaza’s neighbors, especially considering that it was controlled by Hamas, a terrorist group. “We all know that none of this will be easy,” Greenblatt said. “And everything we do must be done in a way that ensures we do not put the security of Israelis and Egyptians at risk – and that we do not inadvertently empower Hamas, which bears responsibility for Gaza’s suffering. But the situation today in Gaza is unacceptable, and spiraling downwards. “An essential part of achieving a comprehensive peace agreement between Israelis and Palestinians, including those in the West Bank and Gaza, will be resolving the situation in Gaza,” he said.

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THE JEWISH STAR March 16, 2018 • 29 Adar 5778

No P’stinians at Gaza aid event in White House

Far-right Austria hosts Euro anti-Semitism confab By Cnaan Liphshiz, JTA VIENNA — Until December, Milli Segal’s main challenge as a producer of Jewish-themed events in Austria was balancing her duties at work with her hands-on approach to being a Jewish grandmother of four. As an organizer of prestigious Holocaust commemoration projects, Segal, 63, is on a first-name basis with some of the country’s most senior politicians, and draws on 20 years of experience to prevent or solve most any complication. Last year alone, she headed the communications efforts around the unveiling of memorial monuments at the Aspangbanhof train station and the Herminengasse subway station. That’s while she was negotiating the relocation of a museum that Segal had established recently in this capital city for child survivors of the Holocaust. But Segal has new dilemmas since the far-right Freedom Party entered the Austrian government in December. She and a community that has boycotted a party established by former Nazis in the 1950s must now work with ministries and officials who are either under the party’s control or working closely with it in government. “It’s not as simple as before, you need to use a lot of diplomacy” now that the Freedom Party is in the government, Segal said. Her latest challenge ended last week with the conclusion of a five-day conference on anti-Semitism where Segal handled media for the European Jewish Congress and three other co-organizers. The prestigious event at the University of Vienna featured government ministers and some of the world’s best-known scholars on anti-Semitism. It came off despite her organization’s initial discomfort at holding a summit against anti-Semitism under the auspices of the only government in Europe with a far-right party in its ruling coalition. The Austrian government is led by the centerright Austrian People’s Party of Chancellor Sebastian Kurz. The Freedom Party, which clinched 25 percent of the popular vote in October’s parliamentary election, is its only coalition partner.

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Chancellor Sebastian Kurz, right, of the Austrian People’s Party and Vice Chancellor Heinz-Christian Strache of the Freedom Party, after their first Cabinet meeting on Dec. 19, 2017. Joe Klamar/AFP/Getty Images

With the Freedom Party entering the government, the event’s co-organizers wondered whether Austria was an appropriate host for what was to be one of the largest academic events of its kind in Europe in recent years. “We tore the hairs off our heads,” said Dina Porat, chief historian at Yad Vashem Holocaust museum in Jerusalem. “Of course we had our doubts.” Porat decided to remain as a co-organizer to make a stance against the Freedom Party. Besides, she said, changing the venue on short notice would have meant the event’s cancellation. Last month, officials representing the Jewish community of Austria boycotted the parliament’s annual Shoah commemoration over the participation of government officials from the Freedom Party. Segal said there are other complications impeding commemoration efforts in Austria, a country that only accepted its culpability in the Holocaust decades after its partner in crime, Germany. The Austrian Jewish community and its repre-

sentatives try to avoid events where Freedom Party officials will be present. But when that proves impossible, Segal said, “we certainly will not shake hands with a Freedom Party official.” No Freedom Party officials were at the conference on anti-Semitism. But their shadow was strongly felt. Israel’s president, Reuven Rivlin, a blunt and outspoken critic of the party, declined an invitation to attend the conference, which had the French philosopher Bernard-Henri Levy as its keynote speaker. The Israeli Foreign Ministry’s representatives were embassy staff — an unusually low-level delegation for an event that featured addresses by a government minister and the head of the opposition in Austria, as well as prominent members of academia. During a speech by one of those officials, Education Minister Heinz Fassmann, Jewish students unfurled a banner reading “Mr. Kurz! Your government is not kosher!” before being escorted out. Nearly 20 years ago, at least one large Jewish

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group did decide to cancel an event in Austria over the Freedom Party. The Conference of European Rabbis was supposed to meet in Vienna in 2000, when the Freedom Party entered the coalition governing coalition for the first time. The Freedom Party was founded in 1949 by a former SS soldier, Anton Reinthaller, and changed its name to the Freedom Party in 1956. Before it styled itself as a party focused on blocking the spread of Islam into Austria, anti-Semitic rhetoric was the party’s calling card and political currency. In recent years, the party under Heinz-Christian Strache has kicked out several members who engaged in anti-Semitic rhetoric, which he said has no place in his movement. Strache, who has visited Israel, and other party officials have spoken favorably about the Jewish state. He said in December that he would have liked to see the Austrian Embassy move to Jerusalem — against the European Union’s stance. But Austrian Jews, and consequently the State of Israel, are not convinced of the makeover. On Tuesday, Oskar Deutsch, president of the Jewish community in Vienna, called the Freedom Party an entity “that still tolerates anti-Semitism to an alarming extent.” He cited a slew of incidents, including a 2016 article in a Freedom Party-affiliated newspaper alleging that survivors of the Nazis’ Mauthausen concentration camp were “mass murderers.” In November, Freedom Party lawmakers declined to stand in parliament during a moment of silence for Holocaust victims. Earlier this month, a former regional minister from the party resigned following the revelation that his university fraternity published anti-Semitic songs in its publications. The songs prompted Strache to announce an internal review of his party. Segal said this “ability of the Freedom Party to speak with two tongues is perhaps the most worrisome development.” Once dismissed as the political home of the impressionable, its penetration of universities has made it a party of ideologues with “an advanced academic degree,” Segal said.

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March 16, 2018 • 29 Adar 5778 THE JEWISH STAR

By Josefin Dolsten, JTA Six-time NBA All-Star Amar’e Stoudemire has launched a line of kosher-for-Passover Israeli wines. The 6-foot-10 former player, who returned earlier this month from a trip to the Jewish state, spoke glowingly about the wines and his connection to Israel at a news conference here Tuesday. “It’s a blessing for me and my family to be able to produce such great wines from a land like the land of Israel, so we’re constantly counting our blessings for that,” Stoudemire told reporters at the Jewish National Fund House on the Upper East Side. Stoudemire, 35, said he had been in talks with the Israel Wine Producers Association for three years about making an Israeli wine and realized the opportunity when he relocated to the country in 2016 to play for the Israeli team Hapoel Jerusalem. He retired Amar’e Stoudemire showfrom basketball last ing one of his kosher wines. year after helping lead Hapoel Jerusalem to the Israeli Basketball League Cup. “Once I moved to Israel, it was the perfect connection to meet with the vineyards and go to the tastings and figure out the different blends for each bottle,” said Stoudemire, a part-owner of Hapoel Jerusalem. Stoudemire played for the New York Knicks and Phoenix Suns among other teams in a 16year NBA career. Although raised Christian, he began exploring a spiritual connection to Judaism on a trip to Israel in 2010. “I feel spiritually Jewish, culturally Jewish,” he said at the time. Stoudemire’s line includes two red wine blends and one Cabernet Sauvignon, all produced in limited quantity by the Tulip Winery on its vineyards in Kfar Tikva, in Israel’s north. The winery produced only 100 bottles of the high-end wine, Stoudemire Private Collection, with each bottle retailing at $244.99. It produced slightly larger quantities, 1,680 each, of the Stoudemire Reserve and Stoudemire Grand Reserve wines, which are retailing for $59.99 and $99.99, respectively. The kosher beverage giant Royal Wine Corp. is distributing the wines, which are currently only available for purchase in stores in New York and New Jersey. Stoudemire, who continues to speak about his connection to Israel, said he’s open to producing additional wines, but that he would not produce them outside the Jewish state. “I prefer to keep the wines strictly from the grapes in Israel,” he said. “It’s my way of giving back to the land. I try to do what I can to stay rooted.”

Making sure the wine was kosher was important to the basketball star. Stoudemire identifies with the Hebrew Israelites, AfricanAmericans who believe they are connected to the biblical Israelites and adhere to some Jewish customs. “A kosher wine is always important for us because you can drink those during the High Holy Days,” he said. This isn’t Stoudemire’s first venture outside of basketball. He has also started his own clothing line and record label, and written children’s books.

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THE JEWISH STAR March 16, 2018 • 29 Adar 5778

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By Marcy Oster, JTA DC Comics’ newest writer says that the choices he has made for his new Superman series are “deeply connected to [the character’s] origins.” And those origins are very Jewish. Brian Michael Bendis, who recently jumped ship from Marvel to DC Comics, will start drawing new comic books with the iconic superhero in May. He happens to be a product of a strictly Orthodox Jewish day school in Cleveland. “I’m a little Jewish boy from Cleveland and my connection to Superman is very, very deep, genetically,” Bendis told Forbes earlier this month. Bendis’ personal background could have implications for the Superman character. From his given name Kal-El to his exodus from his home planet, Superman exudes the Jewish sensibilities of his creators, immigrants Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster (also Clevelanders). “El” is a Hebrew term used to designate G-d. And just as Moses was nestled in a little basket for his trip down the Nile, Superman’s parents placed him in a rocket ship so he could escape his dying planet of Krypton. Instead of Pharoah’s daughter lifting a crying baby out of a basket, Superman’s adoptive parents opened the rocket to discover a crying baby. The character’s transformation from mild-mannered, glasses-wearing Clark Kent to avenging strongman has also been seen as a sort of Jewish immigrant’s wish fulfillment. The list of Jewish connections goes on. Bendis told Forbes that it took some cosmic convincing to leave his longtime perch at Marvel for DC. While he was considering what to do, he

said, he returned to Cleveland for his brother’s wedding. He went to visit a friend who runs the Cleveland Public Library, and when he walked through the doors he ran into a Superman exhibition. “It was like the universe was speaking to me, telling me ‘Oh you’ve got to do this!’ And it flooded back to me in the biggest way possible, and here we are,” he told Forbes interviewer Mark Hughes. Bendis is perhaps best known from his days at Marvel as the man who killed off Spiderman — or at least his alterego, Peter Parker — in order to replace him with a new halfblack, half-Hispanic character who gets bitten by a genetically altered spider. He said he was trying to make the comics look more like the real world. Bendis was raised by a single mother in Cleveland and discovered comic books as an adolescent. “I studied them like the Torah,” he told JTA in a 2013 interview. He said the rabbis at his school did not enjoy his drawings, in particular the sketches of men in tights. He frequently got sent home for his artwork. Bendis told Forbes that his new Superman “is a reflection of where he came from and the world we live in now.” “We live in a world where we’ve heard, ‘Truth, justice, and the American way’ our whole lives, right? But this is the first time those things are really not to be taken for granted,” he elaborated. “Now I think it’s time Superman stand up and give us that hope we always want from him. It’s a great thing to be writing a character who exudes hope at a time when people really, really need it.”

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March 16, 2018 • 29 Adar 5778 THE JEWISH STAR

9 THE JEWISH STAR March 16, 2018 • 29 Adar 5778

Please join as we pay tribute to the legacy of Rav Binyamin Kamenetzky, zt”l.

Yeshiva of South Shore Rav Binyamin Kamenetzky

MEMORIAL DINNER

Sunday, April 15, 2018 • The Sands 5pm Reception • 6:30pm Program Rabbi Avrohom Fruchthandler NATIONAL DINNER CHAIR

Jeffrey Feil • Mark Silber HONORARY CHAIRS

This special evening will mark the re-dedication and re-naming of the Yeshiva that he founded and led for over six decades, as:

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Perlman... Continued from page 1 cian,” he tells JTA on the phone from Singer Island, Florida, where he is to perform at a benefit. “I’m a musician who just happens to be Jewish. When I play klezmer... ” He doesn’t get to finish the thought because he is interrupted by Toby, his wife of more than 50 years. “I think that’s not true,” she says in the background. “I think you’re the embodiment of a Yiddle with a fiddle.” Perlman, 72, is the subject of a new documentary, “Itzhak,” which has opened on Friday in New York, with an expanded release in the coming weeks. His Jewishness is not front and center — the film spans his entire life, from his birth in Israel and early struggle with polio, to his appearance on “The Ed Sullivan Show,” to the enormous concerts he has played around the world — but it inevitably appears. In one scene, he shares a Shabbat meal with his children and grandchildren. (He never travels or performs on Friday evenings.) In another, shot in Israel, he takes director Alison Chernick on a tour of the many streets named for famous figures in Israeli and Jewish history. Then there’s a visitor, a friend from Boston, who worries that the pickles she brought as a gift don’t have the Kosher K on their label. The film is most interesting when it shows Perlman in private moments, often in conversation with Toby. The pair met at a music camp, and after hearing him play just once, Toby went to Itzhak’s bunk and proposed to the Israeli virtuoso, then 17. “I was hopelessly in love with him,” she says in the film. Perlman had one other girlfriend after that, but eventually came back to her, and they have been married since 1967. At one point in the film, Toby points out that a note he played was out of tune.

“About his playing, nobody else is going to be honest with him,” she tells JTA. “Everyone is going to tell him ‘you’re so great.’ I’m going to say ‘you’re so great,’ too. Do I think he’s the greatest? Yes. But if he’s sharp, or I believe I see a bad habit that [has] creeped into his playing, I’ll tell him … I’m truthful.” Perlman hasn’t encountered much criticism of his playing over the decades. The Tel Aviv native first fell in love with his instrument at the age of 3, when he heard the legendary Jewish violinist Jascha Heifetz playing on the radio. “It’s very interesting what makes kids who study instruments choose the instrument. It’s what speaks to you. The sound just appealed to me. I wanted to do that,” he said in the phone interview. But Perlman has faced hardships: He contracted polio at 4. It was the late 1940s, Israel was in its infancy as a nation and had limited medical facilities. Many died from the disease, even in the most advanced nations. Part of his treatment involved inhaling the smoke of burning parchment on which religious sayings had been written. Perlman survived, with paralyzed legs, and went on to reveal musical brilliance. Still, many experts saw his disability and discouraged thoughts of a music career. His huge break came at 13, when he caught the eye of Sullivan — who sent talent scouts to Israel to look for acts for his immensely popular variety show and eventually visited the Jewish state himself. In the documentary, Perlman admits he suspects Sullivan brought him to New York as much for the inspirational impact of his disability as for his skill. Nevertheless, he was a hit after performing on the program in 1958. From there, the rest is history — he has performed at the White House, in concert with Billy Joel, before a New York Mets playoff game and with countless orchestras around the world. After winning the 2016 Genesis Prize — known as the “Jewish Nobel” — he directed

Violin made for Einstein sells for over $500,000

Albert Einstein playing a violin in 1931.

the $1 million in prize money toward the projects that foster the inclusion of people with disabilities in Jewish life, Israeli society and classical music. The film illustrates how collaborative and generous Perlman is. While visiting a friend who tunes up his violin before a tour and teaching gifted students in one of his many workshops, he comes across less like a classical music Beatle than a peer. He is not a fan of giving interviews, though, and when Toby voices her opinion, Perlman sees a way out. “You’ve asked enough questions,” he says at one point, and asks Toby to pick up the phone.

The quirky Jewish physicist would have been proud. A violin once owned by Albert Einstein sold for $516,500 at the New York-based Bonhams auction house on Friday. The instrument, which reportedly was gifted to the scientist in 1933 by Oscar Steger, a member of the Harrisburg Symphony Orchestra, went for over three times its estimated price. Steger made the violin himself and inscribed it with the words “Made for the Worlds[sic] Greatest Scientist Profesior[sic] Albert Einstein By Oscar H. Steger, Feb 1933 / Harrisburg, PA.” Later, while working at Princeton University, Einstein gave the instrument to the son of Sylas Hibbs, who worked as a janitor at the school. It had remained in Hibbs’ family ever since. —JTA

Fortunately, she is an astute observer of the seasoned maestro. “He doesn’t know a lot of things about himself because so much of it comes so naturally,” she says. “It’s like breathing. We don’t think about breathing, and that’s the way he plays.” There is one thing Perlman is acutely aware of: He has a gift that can’t be taught. “You can teach almost everything with one exception: the magic that makes performances special. You can have two people — both great -- play the same piece, and one will move you and one won’t,” he said. Page one photo shows Itzhak Perlamn in a scene from the documentary “Itzhak.”

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March 16, 2018 • 29 Adar 5778 THE JEWISH STAR

By Ron Kampeas, JTA WASHINGTON — President George W. Bush’s first act as president, on Jan. 29, 2001, was to open an office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives. Church-state separations that had hindered such partnerships, he said in a statement, were “inherently unfair.” Jewish groups, civil libertarians and Democrats immediately raised concerns, and the Bush administration soon dispatched the office’s then-director, John DiIulio, to a Jewish conference to make the office’s case and note that money would not directly assist churches and synagogues. Critics remained skeptical. Fast forward 17 years: Congress passed a law last month that would allow federal disaster relief to go straight to churches and synagogues. President Donald Trump signed the bipartisan bill, ensuring that houses of worship and secular nonprofit organizations are treated equally when applying for disaster through the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Hardly anyone blinked. At least two Jewish groups unnerved by Bush’s actions welcomed the law, and the legislation included Democratic sponsors. What happened? Interviews with a range of Jewish officials suggested a number of factors: Barack Obama, a Democrat embraced the idea of partnering government with faith-based groups. “Certainly from the Bush years and through the Obama years, it became a more consensus principle that it’s appropriate in certain concepts for government to partner with religious groups and even in providing religious groups funding,” said Nathan Diament, executive director of the Orthodox Union’s Advocacy Center in Washington. The OU was among the minority of Jewish organizations that welcomed Bush’s 2001 initiative. Once Obama had secured the nomination,

United Orthodox Synagogues of Houston lost many of its prayer books during Hurricane Harvey and replenished them through donations.

in July 2008, he pivoted to embracing Bush’s initiative, although Democrats had assumed that any Democratic president would scrap the Faith-Based office. “Now, make no mistake, as someone who used to teach constitutional law, I believe deeply in the separation of church and state, but I don’t believe this partnership will endanger that idea -- so long as we follow a few basic principles,” Obama said in a speech in Zanesville, Ohio. He outlined two principles the Bush office already observed: Do not use the money to proselytize, and spend it on strictly secular programs, like child care or addiction recovery. It was a political win-win. “There was no political cost to be paid” by Obama in backing faith-based partnerships, said Marc Stern, general counsel for the American Jewish Committee. AJC opposed Bush’s office in 2001, but more recently lobbied to advance the

disaster relief bill. Stern said Democrats were going to vote for Obama anyway, and Obama as the nominee had to tack to the center. Additionally Obama, with his past as a community worker in a troubled Chicago neighborhood, had experienced the benefits of partnering with churches to alleviate strife. “He disappointed the strict church-state separationists,” Diament recalled. Obama once in office sweetened the deal for liberals, inviting them to join a 25-person advisory council (including three Jews) that tinkered for two years on recommendations that would protect the Faith-Based office from violating constitutional separations. Under Trump, the office has been moribund, but he has aggressively embraced many of its principles. Just a month before the disaster aid bill had passed, he used his executive powers to remove the restrictions.

It’s a short leap from security to disaster aid. Diament has led the charge for decades to direct more funding toward religious institutions. Activists like Diament have worked doggedly to codify the changes into permanent law in Congress -- and they have picked their battles well. In the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the Orthodox Union, Agudath Israel of America and the Jewish Federations of North America joined in advocating for nonprofit security grants, which reinforce protections for religious organizations. The program was launched under Bush in 2005. More than 90 percent of the grants have gone to Jewish buildings. “Assistance for security is different than assistance for some other things,” Diament said, explaining why the grants encountered little resistance. “It’s become a more pragmatic conversation than an ideological one.” A key backer of the security grant program was Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., now retired, who had a sizable Orthodox Jewish constituency in Baltimore and the Washington suburbs. It looks bad to let houses of worship remain in shambles. “The era when a synagogue is next door to a Kmart, where both of them are damaged by a tornado, and Kmart can have its roof replaced by FEMA emergency funds and a synagogue cannot is anachronistic,” said William Daroff, currently the Washington director of the JFNA. (JFNA’s predecessor, United Jewish Communities, in 2001 also opposed the Bush faith-based initiative.) Democrats need religious voters. Queens Rep. Grace Meng, the lead Democratic co-sponsor of the FEMA legislation, was brought up as a devout Christian and has a substantial Orthodox constituency in her Queens See Houses of worship on page 21

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THE JEWISH STAR March 16, 2018 • 29 Adar 5778

Little heat over gov’t aid to houses of worship

March 16, 2018 • 29 Adar 5778 THE JEWISH STAR

The JEWISH STAR

School News

Send news and hi-res photos to Schools@TheJewishStar.com • Deadline Mondays at Noon

Pursuing medical marvels at SKA

Six students from the Stella K. Abraham High School for Girls presented their work on solving the opioid addiction crisis, in the Northwell Health Medical Marvels Research Competition, part of the Feinstein Institute for Medical Research and the Center for Workforce Readiness, on March 8. Under the direction of SKA mentor Dr. David Friedman, Bracha Bayla Erlbaum, Emily Haller, Nicole Haller, Elisheva Glatt, Atara Shtern and Meira Steiner submitted their completed proposal and presented their posterboard display to the judges, researchers and fellow peers. Although they did not win the competition, the SKA students enjoyed the chance to participate and the workshops they attended on the opioid epidemic and the antidotes that are available.

All in by Shulamith for Harvard ‘caring’ project Shulamith High School for Girls in Cedarhurst is one of the first to join a new national campaign to prepare young people as constructive community members. Led by Harvard’s Making Caring Common project, the Caring Schools #CommonGood campaign aims to motivate schools to take action to help mend our country’s fractures and strengthen democracy. “We are proud to be recognized for our research-driven, head-to-heart mission,” Shulamith High School Principal Rina Zerykier said. Students pictured from left: Hadassah Weiss, Bailey Weiss, Rachel Sandler, Fraydy Meltzer, Chevi Charlap, Malka Guttman, Mindy Schreck, Sara Berger, Shayna Jaffa, Sara Newman, Tamar Davies, and Nina Bracha Yurovsky.

HAFTR hosts tri-state Model Congress event

HANC Plainview celebrates Purim

HAFTR High School again hosted the annual Yeshiva League Model Congress, on, March 6. Students from 14 tri-state area schools convened at the Young Israel of Woodmere, including Central, DRS, Ezra Academy, Flatbush, Frisch, HAFTR, JEC, Ma’ayanot, MTA, SAR, Shalhevet, SKA, Solomon Schechter and TABC. The competition included over 180 students, and each school provided one or two judges who ranked students based on their overall performance. Keynote speaker, Judge Ronald Goldman, explained the importance of the Constitution and compared it to the game of basketball. Goldman reminded the students that both politics and basketball are treated as games, but one only has entertainment value while the other has deep effects on every person’s life. Prior to the tournament, students prepared bills relevant to their assigned committee. Students competed in 18 committees. There were three overall first place winners: Avigail Winokur and Dodie Weinberg from Central and Shmuel Berman from Frisch, and three overall second place winners, Leeba Sullivan and Meira Saffra from Central and Yonatan Schiller from DRS, as well numerous first and second place winners in each committee. Pictured below: All first and second place winners. Above from left: Chloe Gottlieb (co-president YLMC); Miriam Kopyto (co-president YLMC); Shmuel Berman, first place (Frisch); Avigail Winokur, first place (Central); Dodie Weinberg, first place (Central); Leeba Sullivan, second place (Central), Meira Saffra, second place (Central); Yonatan Schiller, second place (DRS); Benjy Gottesman (co-president YLMC); and Alex Libkind (YLMC faculty adviser).

On Purim morning, HANC Plainview held a family-friendly megilla reading and breakfast seuda. Over 200 people celebrated the chag with their HANC family. Children and even some adults came in costume. Everyone was treated to a beautiful megilla reading by parent Adam Farber, followed by a hearty bagel and scrambled egg breakfast.

Happy Adar at SKA

Midreshet Shalhevet Model Congress

Five Midreshet Shalhevet delegates — seniors Hadassah Fertig and Nechama Schneider; juniors Shifra Chait, Chaya Roffe, and Tamar Waronker, along with faculty adviser Ira Schildkraut — participated in the Yeshiva League Model Congress competition at the Young Israel of Woodmere. The event gives students a chance to engage in a roleplaying simulation of the United States Congress. Split among 18 committees, students became senators and one by one presented their bills. After all thoughts were brought to the table, the senators voted on whether or not to pass each bill. By the end of the day, three of the five proposed Midreshet Shalhevet bills had passed and senior Hadassah Fertig was named best overall delegate in her committee, and was awarded a gavel.

Assorted cartoon characters, hippies and other unusual persons appeared in the classrooms of the Stella K. Abraham High School for Girls to welcome the month of simcha, Adar. Girls from every grade vied for the opportunity to be chosen for “best costume,” but everyone enjoyed dressing up in more than everyday clothing. The month was greeted by SKAers with delicious food, joyous dancing and amazing ruach.

13 THE JEWISH STAR March 16, 2018 • 29 Adar 5778

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Lipa, 8th Day, Davidi headline Cahal concert CAHAL held its eighth annual fundraising concert last Sunday in the newly renovated Lawrence High School. The sold-out event featured outstanding Jewish performers — 8th Day, Lipa Schmeltzer, and young sensation Uri Davidi. The always popular Shloime Dachs produced the concert, and the Shloime Dachs Orchestra accompanied the performers. Seven-hundred-fifty people attended the concert, which is CAHAL’s largest annual fundraiser. At a meet the performers event for sponsors and their children before the concert, performers chatted and took pictures with the attendees. Seasons sponsored the sushi and desserts and Bracha Silverstein, a local party planner, decorated the room. CAHAL Executive Director Shimmie Ehrenreich thanked everyone for attending, especially the 70 sponsors, the most ever for a CAHAL event. He also thanked the directors of the program, Naomi Nadata and Alice Feltheimer, for their years of dedication to the children, and Shira Cohen and Pesach and Fraidy Osina for coordinating the concert. He expressed appreciation to the 12 local yeshivas that participate in CAHAL.

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Rabbi Dov Langer, a rebbe in CAHAL for 14 years, spoke about the program and presented heartfelt stories of children who succeeded in CAHAL. CAHAL has helped hundreds of Jewish children receive a yeshiva education and has mainstreamed a large percentage of them into the yeshivas where their siblings and friends attend. The crowd came alive when Lipa Schmeltzer began performing. His amazing range and vibrant personality electrified the audience. 8th Day followed with their magnificent voices and a very enthusiastic performance. They both drew tremendous ovations throughout the show. Spontaneous dancing broke out multiple times. Shloime Dachs, Lipa and Uri Davidi joined 8th Day on stage for the big finale. The final song was a beautiful finish to a magical evening of entertainment. Dozens of children and adults, including members of the CAHAL board of directors, danced during the finale. The event raised much-needed money for CAHAL’s scholarship fund. Source: CAHAL

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Lipa, Eighth Day, Uri Davidi and Shloime Dachs joined the finale at Cahal’s benefit concert on Sunday.

Welcome to the NEW Brandeis School! See what’s new:

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Expanding Programs for Early Education • Tiny Tots (18+ month) and 2 Year Old Program (Montessori Style) • Mommy and Me Program

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Upgrades to the Building, Gym and Property in Progress

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March 16, 2018 â&#x20AC;¢ 29 Adar 5778 THE JEWISH STAR

By Eliana Rudee, JNS According to Stuart Hershkowitz, vice president of the Jerusalem College of Technology, haredim are the fastest-growing population sector in Israel, at 11 percent. Experts estimate that in the next 20 to 30 years, that number will grow to about 29 percent. Sixty-percent of haredim are living under the poverty line, and if they “don’t learn a trade or profession, they will continue to be on welfare,” Hershkowitz told JNS. “The country cannot keep sustaining this level of assistance.” Meanwhile, said Hershkowitz, Israel suffers from a shortage of high-tech workers. “We call Israel the startup nation, but the haredim are not part of that,” he said. Out of all those in high-tech earning more than 17,000 NIS per month ($60,000 per year), only 0.3 percent are haredim. “We have an untapped market of haredi men and women who want to get into computer science and high tech in Israel, and they are important for the startup nation.” The Jerusalem College of Technology is spearheading the integration of observant young men and women into the workforce, training them for jobs in engineering and computer science. “The bulk of haredim study business and law, but that’s not what the country needs,” explained Hershkowitz. “In Israel and Jerusalem, there’s a real shortage of engineers and computer graduates. So instead of outsourcing engineers to countries like Ukraine, we are trying to provide a big bulk of it here.” The school was established 50 years ago with the intention of providing an environment where students could study technology and continue their religious learning. After the men’s campus opened, a separate women’s campus was launched. Now, the college is 55 percent women—a large percentage when one considers that at most colleges, women studying tech make up between 28 percent and 29 percent of the field. “This is an unprecedented number,” Hershkowitz said, “especially because over 50 percent of the women are haredi. The fact that these women have

Woman works in a robotics lab and man tests computer equipment, at Jerusalem College of Technology.

a career choice that’s very different than traditional professions is quite unusual and changing the way things work in our society.” Even so, haredim face many challenges in the academic arena. First, most of this population comes with little to background in English, math or science. “They were not brought up to finish high school, go to college and get a job. Their career track is to go to yeshiva, get married and go to kollel [an institute for full-time, advanced study of the Talmud and rabbinic literature],” Hershkowitz said. They must therefore complete a yearlong mechina (preparatory course) before they begin their degree. The mechina alone has a 50 percent dropout rate, but once passed, virtually all students graduate. Second, the price tag for studying at the Jerusalem College of Technology—or any other academic institution—is financially difficult and even prohibitive for most haredim. “Most come married, with kids, and it’s difficult financially,” said Hershkowitz. “If the money issue were taken care of, I believe there would be a whole lot more haredim in the program.”

Last, a stigma exists within the haredi community regarding men and women who want to study academically. Women who choose to study in academia risk their sisters’ chances of being accepted into haredi schools and even finding a potential husband. “There is virtually no haredi leader who has come out in support of academia. They don’t say that the Jerusalem College of Technology is OK. And we feel that,” Hershkowitz told JNS. Aaron, a 26-year-old haredi man living in Beit Shemesh, takes courses at the college (he asked that his last name not be used for fear of being shunned by his community). Even with an English-speaking mother, he speaks very little English. After marriage at age 20, he learned Torah in kollel and started working in a factory for 12 to 14 hours per day. But work didn’t fulfill his desire to do something he loves and contribute in a meaningful way to Israeli society. He decided, despite the naysaying of friends and family, to begin mechina studies. He received the permission of his wife and two rabbis, and even though he only knew the alphabet and some basic math, he finished mechina with good grades and is now studying computer science. “My parents and my wife’s parents are against

it, and they said they won’t give us any more money because of it,” Aaron told JNS. “But I am proud to learn and not quit. I don’t want to go door to door to make money.” In addition, he has made new friends, “good people who are beginning to understand haredim.” Even though it is expensive and Aaron has to make financial sacrifices in order to attend the college, he hopes that when he finishes, he will start working in the computer industry and earn more than before. Aasked if he has had to sacrifice his way of life as a haredi man to study such secular subjects, Aaron answered with a resounding “no.” “Can you be haredi and also learn? Absolutely,” he told JNS. Hershkowitz agreed, saying, “we don’t want them to be any less [religious]. We do not in any way shape or form attack haredi leadership; that would be a big mistake. If that happens, this whole evolution will stop—no question about it.” Just as haredi society has a long way to go before accepted the idea in full force, so, too, does the wider Israeli population have to become more accepting of haredi workers in their midst. Even though haredim have a strong work ethic and stay at a given company longer than others, some employers are hesitant to hire them due to stereotypes of their being uneducated and unable to fit in. But their growing numbers are edging inclusion into the general world of technology. “For many, this is the first time they had interaction with the secular community and [vice versa],” said Hershkowitz. “The fact that there is interaction between secular and religious people is important. It breaks stigmas on both sides.” Hershkowitz acknowledged that the tech-based college is not “the only solution to the problem of Israeli employment, but we represent a career path that until now haredim weren’t aware of. The haredi public is watching carefully to see how the students perform. If this cohort is successful at staying haredi and getting good jobs, it will open the door for more to come.”

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THE JEWISH STAR March 16, 2018 • 29 Adar 5778

Haredim drawn to tech jobs in startup nation

March 16, 2018 • 29 Adar 5778 THE JEWISH STAR

Sale Dates: March 18th - 23rd 2018

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THE JEWISH STAR March 16, 2018 • 29 Adar 5778

Sale Dates: March 18th - 23rd 2018

March 16, 2018 • 29 Adar 5778 THE JEWISH STAR

The JEWISH STAR

Wine & Dine

For the happiest of Pesachs, get an early start with your Big Cook (and a tasty new cookbook) JONI SCHOCKETT KOSHER KITCHEN

ith Pesach just three weeks away, I’ve begun the annual clean out the freezer and use up the chametz routine. It is not that easy to use up half-used boxes of pasta or cereal or oatmeal in time, but starting early is a big help. It is also a big help to start cooking for Passover now. I have a small snack table set with Passover utensils and my oven gets cleaned several times this time of year. But preparing some foods ahead of time, especially if you are having a big crowd, makes a huge difference as the holiday approaches. I have already made several quarts of chicken and beef stock and they are in the freezer. In the next few weeks, I will make more stock and a whole, 10 to 12 pound brisket that will be sliced and ready to reheat. Making a brisket ahead of time saves time and oven space. I wish I hade three ovens during holidays, but, as I have only one, I need to plan carefully. When you make your brisket, try to make one that does not have carrots, squashes, celery, mushrooms or other such vegetables included in the recipe as these do not freeze well. On the other hand, dried fruits, onions, shallots, and garlic freeze well. Freezing some food ahead makes preparation for the holiday much easier. And trust me, you will be more relaxed and no one will be the wiser.

dium-high heat until shimmery. Brown brisket on both sides, 3 to 5 minutes per side. Transfer to a large platter. If necessary, add more oil, reduce heat to medium, and cook shallots, turning occasionally, until they begin to brown, about 10-15 minutes. Add garlic and cook, stirring, until fragrant, 2 to 3 minutes. Add wine and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to simmer and reduce wine by half. Add the stock, cherries or cranberries, brown sugar, balsamic vinegar, and scant teaspoon kosher salt. Bring to a simmer and return brisket, fat side up, to pan. Cover pan tightly with heavy-duty foil or a double layer of regular foil, and place in oven for 2 hours. Reduce heat to 250 and cook for 3 to 5 hours until brisket easily shreds with a fork. Remove from the oven, uncover carefully and let cool for 20-30 minutes. Taste and adjust the sauce as desired. Remove the brisket from the pan and slice across the grain into thin slices. Divide among freezer containers and fill with the liquid, shallots and cherries from the pan. Chill in the refrigerator overnight. In the morning, discard congealed fat and place the container in the freezer. Makes enough for 12+.

A wonderful new cookbook for this year’s Pesach

Overnight (Freezes Like a Dream) Brisket with Cherries and Wine (Meat)

Kosher or fine salt Freshly ground black pepper 1 (6 to 10 pound) first, second or whole beef brisket 1/3 cup Passover vegetable oil (I use Safflower) 24 to 36 shallots (about 1-1/2 to 2 pounds) peeled, cut into halves lengthwise 10 to 15 garlic cloves, finely chopped 2 to 3 cups Pinot Noir or other fairly light, dry red wine 2 to 3 cups chicken stock or reduced-sodium chicken or beef broth 2-1/2 cups (10 to 14 ounces) dried tart/ sweet cherries (mixed) or dried cranberries 2/3 cup packed dark brown sugar, more to taste 2/3 cup balsamic vinegar, more to taste NOTE: Ingredient amounts depend on the size of the brisket. Adjust as needed. If the liquid gets too low while cooking, add some stock and wine. Heat oven to 350°F with rack in middle. Sprinkle brisket with salt and pepper. Set roasting pan or large Dutch oven on burner and add 4 to 5 Tbsp. oil. Heat over me-

I love giving new cookbooks for Passover. The holiday heralds spring, which is a great time to recharge and find new cooking inspiration. A few years ago, I received and reviewed a new cookbook called, A Taste of Pesach, compiled by Yeshiva Me’on Hatorah. I loved it and used it throughout Passover and beyond. Then, this week, I received A Taste of Pesach 2 — a new edition with more than 110 brand new recipes to celebrate Passover with more deliciouness. After reading it, I think I may be sorry that the holiday lasts for only one week. This new book is gorgeous. The photography will make your mouth water, and I swear you can almost smell the Horseradish Rub Rib Roast and Melted Chocolate Cookies. It also includes artistic, yet truly simple ideas for gorgeous restaurant-worthy platings of the scrumptious recipes you create. Page after elegant page of plating and menu ideas will elevate your Passover Seders and all meals to new heights. Putting a cookbook together is a long and arduous task. The group doing the work for

this book have perfected the art of “putting it together.” The book is wellorganized and the recipes are easy to follow and clearly written. The best part is that the directions are short, the ingredients list is short, and the cooking time is reasonable. Many recipes can be made at the last minute and end up delicious and beautifully presented. Some examples of delicious Pesach eating will make you hungry to get started. Start the meal with Baby Bella Burgers or Duck Crepes with Apricot Horseradish Rub Rib Roast, from A Taste of Pesarch 2. Suace, followed by Onion Soup or Overnight Veggie Soup. Try Pesto Zoodles or a Grilled Veggie Salad. Forget Gefilte Fish. How about Pesto Salmon or Spicy Kani Cakes? Vodka Chcken looks delicious and Praline Chicken is divine. Osso Bucco and Horesradish Rubbed Brisket are definitely company worthy. Pair them with Gnocchi with Wild Mushroom Sauce or Drunken Mushrooms. Desserts and Cakes and Cookies are all too delicious. Coffee Vanilla Bites may be my new favorite, but Melted Chocolate Cookies are going to Squash Mushroom Kugel, from A Taste of Pesach 2. be hard to pass up. I love this book. I love the pan, lower the oven temperature to 350°F, the simplicity of complicated-tasting recipes and roast 2 hours. Serves 8. and I also love that you can learn to plate like NOTE FROM JONI: You can easily double a pro and serve delicious foods that look artis- the amounts in the rub recipe for a larger tic and professional. roast. Cook according to your oven direction I often recommend bringing a new cook- or until a thermometer in the middle is at the book as a hostess present. However, I suggest temperature you prefer. Rare is 125 degrees, sending this one early so your host or hostess medium rare is 135, medium is 145. Allow the can get started on some of these inspiring reci- meat to rest for 10-20 minutes before slicing. pes. And don’t forget to get one for yourself! During this time, the meat will continue to Happy Passover! cook and will rise about 5-7 degrees. The following recipes and photos are reprinted with permission from Artscroll/Shaar Squash Mushroom Kugel Press. A Taste of Pesach II. Yeshiva Meon (Pareve) HaTorah, Artscroll/Shaar Press2018. The squash in this kugel is sliced in rounds, enhancing the taste and texture so that it has Horseradish Rub Rib Roast substance and is not “mushy.” However, if (Meat) your minhag is to eat gebrokts, you may want A rib roast is the “Rolls Royce” of roasts, to add two tablespoons of matzo meal to the and this recipe takes it even beyond that! ingredient list. The ease of preparing this roast will have 3 Tbsp. oil you putting it on the menu again. The amaz6 squash or zucchini, peeled and sliced ing taste will have your family asking for it 8 mushrooms, peeled and sliced often! 3 eggs 1 (4-pound) rib roast 3 Tbsp. potato starch Horseradish Rub 3 Tbsp. mayonnaise 20 cloves garlic, minced 2 Tbsp. onion soup mix 1/4 cup oil 1 to 2 tsp. salt 2 Tbsp. mayonnaise 1 tsp. baking powder 1/2 cup white horseradish,mdrained Preheat oven to 350°F. 2 Tbsp. sugar Coat a 9 x 13” pan or two 9-inch round 1-1/2 Tbsp. kosher salt pans with nonstick cooking spray. Set aside. 1/2 tsp. pepper Heat oil in a medium pot. Add squash and Preheat the oven to 450°F. mushrooms; sauté until soft. Drain. Place the rib roast in a large roasting pan. Add remaining ingredients and stir to comIn a small bowl, combine the rub ingredients bine. and rub onto all surfaces of the roast. Pour into the prepared pan. Bake, uncovRoast, uncovered, for 20 minutes; cover ered, for 45 minutes. Serves 12.

Judy JoszeF

who’s in the kitchen

alized that as soon as I did that, someone would pick it up and come running after me or, worse yet, hand it over to the conductor. Then it struck me: I would run out of the train throw the key fob over the railing and it would fall down at the row of parked cars. And, my friends, that is exactly what I did. Thankfully, I didn’t know anybody coming onto or getting off the train, because I definitely looked like someone off their meds. As I sat back in my seat, I called Jerry to let him know exactly in front of which car the key landed. I whispered in less than two sentences as I explained it to Jerry. Obviously the whisper it wasn’t quiet enough for the guy sitting two rows ahead of me, who turned around and shouted, “Hang up, you’re in the quiet car.” I didn’t respond to him but I recaptured that sense of victory again, as I walked off the train

at Penn Station and accidentally knocked over his bag on the floor, spilling his large coffee. As he was about to open his mouth, I put my finger to my lips and whispered, “Shh, quiet,” as I exited the train. You can be sure that I will never forget to hand over the car key fob again, when I’m the one to open the door. Talking about forgetting, there actually is a recipe called forgotten cookies; it’s also perfect for Pesach Classic Forgotten Cookies By The Spruce Ingredients: 2/3 cup fine white sugar Pinch of salt 1 teaspoon vanilla extract 1 cup finely chopped pecans 1 cup semisweet chocolate chips Preheat oven to 350 F Cover a cookie sheet with foil and butter ( I use spray coating) Beat the egg whites until foamy. Gradually add the sugar and continue beating the egg white until they hold stiff peaks. Add salt and vanilla. Blend well. Stir in pecans and chocolate chips. Drop dough by teaspoonfuls onto the prepared cookie sheet. Put the cookies in the oven, and then turn the oven off. Leave the cookies in the oven overnight (keep the door closed so the heat doesn’t escape too quickly) or about 10 hours. If you like these Classic Forgotten Cookies, try out a chocolate variation: Beat 3 tablespoons of unsweetened cocoa into the egg whites along with the sugar.

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just celebrated a birthday last week, and while it wasn’t a big one, it’s getting close. More than ever now, I find myself a bit forgetful. Family members and friends always tell me not to worry, and that it’s because I’m doing so many things at the same time which, in reality, I do tend to do. But I get nervous that it’s more than that. Take for example what happened last week. I needed to make the 8:01 train to the city, no matter what! Jerry was dropping me off, and then heading to an appointment in New Jersey. Jerry and I did everything humanly possible to get out on time (or in reality, I did everything). Of course we left late and panic set in. Worst of all, Jerry, the slowest of slowpokes, was driving — hence, we had no shot. I screamed at him, that he used to be a great athlete, a real thoroughbred back in the day. I attempted to rally him to speed up. It was working. Jerry lurched the car speed way up to speed limit, and victory began to look possible (like in the movie Hoosiers). We made it to the light at Woodmere Blvd. and all we needed to do was stop at the red light and make a legal right turn, as it was all clear. There was a car in front of us, which had his blinker on, to make a right turn. We were saved! But the car in front of us didn’t do a blasted thing. I said, “Jerry, honk him, he’s allowed to make a right turn and just needs a reminder that the coast is clear. He said, “I don’t honk other cars, except in emergencies as I believe it’s rude and inappropriate.” He said that he certainly would have made the right, but beeping crossed the line. I couldn’t contain myself, “Jerry, this

is an emergency, I need to make the train.” We were caught on the horns of a dilemma. He didn’t honk, and I didn’t stop screaming. We finally made it West Broadway, and made the light. Unfortunately, there were eight cars and buses in front of us and the LIRR gates came down (intensify dramatic music in the background). Jerry told me to get out and run. I quickly grabbed the bags I was holding and sped out the door. As quick as I could, I sprinted down the block, almost slipping on the ice and stopping myself from sliding under a school bus. waiting until the train stopped and then I ran through the closed gates and onto the train. Freezing and out of breath I slinked into a seat and let the feeling of victory wash over me — but not for long. My cell phone rang and it was Jerry. Probably making sure I got on. I proudly let him know that I just made the train and all was good. He deadpanned five words in return. “You have the car key.” That feeling of victory turned to panic. I would have to get off at the Hewlett station and give Jerry the fob, and I’d be stuck having to drive in with Jerry, which would never get me to my granddaughter’s apartment in time for my babysitting gig. My first gig and I messed up already. He thought that I should just put the key fob out of the doors and leave it right on the floor outside the train, and he would come get it. I re-

THE JEWISH STAR March 16, 2018 • 29 Adar 5778

Plight of a Dashing Jerry and my misplaced fob

New genetic test eyes Ashkenazi cancer risk By Josefin Dolsten, JTA A new study will provide free testing for three mutations that substantially increase the risk for developing breast, ovarian and prostate cancer among people with Eastern European Jewish ancestry. The BRCA Founder Outreach Study (BFOR), which was launched last week, will test 4,000 men and women in four U.S. cities — New York, Los Angeles, Philadelphia and Boston — for mutations in the BRCA gene that are more common among those with Ashkenazi Jewish ancestry. Those who test positive for one of the mutations

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March 16, 2018 • 29 Adar 5778 THE JEWISH STAR

will receive genetic counseling to figure out next steps. The BRCA gene is found in all humans, but mutations can cause it to function improperly and increase the risk of developing certain cancers: breast and ovarian in women, reast and prostate in men. Those with Ashkenazi Jewish roots are 10 times more likely to have a BRCA mutation than the general population, with one in 40 carrying a mutation in the gene. “We think it’s a model for the future of genetic testing in health care,” said Dr. Kenneth Offit, a member of the study’s executive committee and chief of the clinical genetics service at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. What’s new about the BFOR testing is that patients sign up online and can choose to receive their results from their primary care provider. The testing will be free for participants, and the study is open to anyone over 25 years old who has health insurance and at least one grandparent with Ashkenazi heritage. In 1996, Offit discovered the most common BRCA gene mutation for Ashkenazi Jews, but he said the vast majority of people have not been tested for the mutation or the two others that are prevalent in the group. “In the [Ashkenazi] Jewish community, where these mutations are quite common, we think that probably 90 percent of people who could be tested have not been tested,” he said. Offit said some people are scared of finding out the results and view testing as too much of a hassle. In addition, insurance companies only cover testing for those with a family history of breast, ovarian and prostate cancer, but up to 40 percent of those with the mutation do not have a family history of those types of cancer, according to Offit. An Israeli study published in 2014 recommended that all Ashkenazi women age 30 and over should be screened for BRCA mutations. Women with a BRCA mutation have a risk as high as 80 percent of developing breast cancer and as high as 40 percent of developing ovarian cancer. Men with a mutation have an increased risk of developing breast and prostate cancer. The BFOR study, which received funding from the Sharon Levine Corzine Foundation, the Breast Cancer Research Foundation and other donors, allows people to register on their smartphone or computer, receiving testing at a local laboratory. They can choose whether to receive the results from a primary care provider or a cancer specialist. Primary care providers will receive training about how to provide follow-up counseling if a patient tests positive. For those who test positive for a BRCA mutation, there are steps that can be taken to lower cancer risk, Offit said. Since ovarian cancer is almost always discovered at an advanced stage, it is recommended that women with a BRCA mutation have their ovaries surgically removed after they finish childbearing. In terms of reducing the risk of developing breast cancer, some women choose to undergo a mastectomy, while others elect to get frequent breast screenings. Men should be screened regularly for prostate cancer, including by taking a test to measure the level of PSA, a protein that could indicate prostate cancer. Offit said doctors should use a lower cutoff for the level of PSA for men who have a BRCA mutation in order to perform a biopsy to check for cancer. Offit hopes to learn more about how people opt to receive the test results — whether through their primary care providers or a specialist — and how many primary care providers will feel comfortable giving the information to their patients. “Yes, we will be testing many individuals of Ashkenazi background and we will save lives for sure because we know that,” he said, “but the research question is to improve the way we offer this information to the whole population.” Offit said similar testing could be offered for the general population for a wide variety of diseases.

Russian Jews...

THE JEWISH STAR March 16, 2018 • 29 Adar 5778

Continued from page 4 government — a statement with serious consequences in a country with bitter memories of Soviet oppression. Rabbi Gorin’s benign view of Putin’s remark is shared by the chief rabbi of Moscow, Pinchas Goldschmidt. He does not belong to Chabad and in the past has clashed with representatives of the Hasidic group in Russia. Goldschmidt, too, said the outcry abroad over Putin’s remark came down to linguistics. “The question posed to Putin was most probably whether Russians [meaning Russian nationals] meddled in the elections and it was translated as ‘Russkis’ [ethnic Russians] meddled in the elections,” Goldschmidt said. “To which he answered, ‘It could have been ethnic Jews, Ukrainians, Tatars with Russian nationality.’ I think this is exactly what happened.” Whereas other minorities, including homosexuals and some Muslims, have seen their rights significantly curtailed under Putin, Jewish spiritual life is experiencing a renaissance. The Russian judiciary cracked down on anti-Semitic intimidation that had gone unchallenged under his predecessors. Local authorities have given back dozens of synagogues and buildings that have been confiscated from Jewish communities. And Putin himself urged support for Moscow’s $50 million Jewish Museum and Tolerance Center, which opened in 2012. And next month, Chabad will open Russia’s

first Jewish university in Moscow. Many observers have linked Putin’s favorable policy to the deep impact that Jews have had on Putin from his early childhood in St. Petersburg. In the building where he grew up, he was cared for as a boy by an elderly Jewish couple who lived next door from the future KGB agent and Russian president’s hard-working parents. After his mentor and judo coach, Anatoly Rakhlin, died in 2013, a visibly griefstricken Putin attended the funeral and ditched his security detail to pensively walk a lonely mile around the corner. Putin even bought his late German teacher, Mina Yuditskaya, an apartment in Tel Aviv. But Rabbi Gorin isn’t buying it, he said. “A lot has been said of the special love that Putin supposedly has toward Jews. I never believed it,” the rabbi said. “Putin is a politician, and the Jewish ethnic minority is just that.” Russia’s long history of anti-Semitism is evidently behind the indignation by some Jewish Americans over Putin’s remark. But some insist the current reality is more complicated. “Russia’s history of anti-Semitism goes back centuries,” the Washington-based National Coalition Supporting Eurasian Jewry said in its measured statement about Putin’s words. “It is unfortunate that President Putin, who has gone out of his way to support the Russian Jewish community, resorted in this interview to promoting old and offensive stereotypes.”

Houses of worship... It ain’t over til it’s over. Advocates for church-state separation acknowledge the gains of those wanting increased church-state partnerships — but they say it may be deceptive, and fleeting, a side effect of a politically liberal community that is preoccupied battling so much else associated with the Trump administration. David Barkey, the Anti-Defamation League’s religious freedom counsel, said popular opposition to eroding church-state separations persists. He pointed to a 2012 ballot initiative in Florida — a “purple” state representative of national trends — that would have removed state restrictions on funding for religious institutions. It failed 55–45 percent. “We have a large constituency that has never been comfortable with” government funding for houses of worship, he said. Stern of the AJC also said that the issue was likely not dead and buried: He noted that the FEMA bill, despite having Democratic lead sponsors, had trouble attracting Democratic co-sponsors in both chambers. Meng is the sole Democrat sponsoring the House bill, and Sen. Claire McCaskill of Missouri was the sole Democrat on the Senate version. Jack Moline, a Conservative rabbi who leads the Interfaith Alliance, a coalition of faith groups that backs vigorous church-state separations, said the issues that have galvanized separationists in the past would continue to engage them. For example, houses of worship may come to regret the new policy. “Even though a house of worship may think that accepting money after a flood is an appropriate grant, the government now has a reason to look into the funding of a house of worship because of federal funds,” he said. Another issue is how the money is used for hiring purposes, Barkey said: Would houses of worship reject contractors or fire staffers who did not adhere to certain religious beliefs or practices? “Even houses of worship acting with the best of intentions may use the money for unconstitutional purposes,” Barkey said. Diament said he was not letting his guard down. “In advocacy, you need to be very patient,” he said, contemplating the 17-year trajectory from the Bush office to the FEMA bill. “It can take decades.”

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Continued from page 11 district. Those elements made the legislation a no-brainer, she said. “As a representative of a diverse and multicultural neighborhood, people needed to know their government is there for them regardless of their faith,” she said. (Meng’s district was hard hit by Superstorm Sandy in 2012, right before she assumed office). “We in the Democratic Party need to do a better job of reaching out to people in the faith community.” Meng noted that her bill included constitutional protections: Money could not go to “church pews and Bibles” but to secular services provided by a house of worship. It’s not 1952. Daroff said that much of the Jewish opposition to church-state partnerships derived from anxieties about majority privilege that have long since subsided. “There was an era when Jews could not live in certain neighborhoods, Jewish doctors could not practice in certain hospitals,” he said. “We’ve evolved as a country and we don’t need to be as fearful of government or of intrusion.” Abba Cohen, who heads the Washington office of Agudath Israel of America, which has advocated for nonprofit security grants and the FEMA grants, said hostility toward religion is abating. “Society and the courts are rejecting absolutist policies of the past that too often evinced a hostility toward religion and religious institutions,” he said in an email. “There is an understanding that there is a need for a more balanced, more reasoned approach — one that looks to fairness and rejects discrimination against religious community organizations simply because they are religious.” Judge not, lest ye be judged. The conservative majority on the Supreme Court has persisted since 1971, and it has left its imprint on church-state separations. Most recently, last year, the court ruled 7-2 that a church may receive government funds for secular purposes — in that case, repaving a playground. Court rulings, Diament noted, tend to shape the overall debate by signaling to partisans what is winnable and what is not. He said he did not expect a fight on the FEMA law. “To take an extreme position on that would be at odds with Supreme Court’s understanding of the constitution,” he said.

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March 16, 2018 â&#x20AC;˘ 29 Adar 5778 THE JEWISH STAR

Continued from page 1 gotiate with North Korea about its nuclear weapons capability (Tillerson recommended it; Trump at first knocked Tillerson down, but now seems ready to follow that path). Notably, however, the reason Trump singled out in his impromptu White House lawn news conference was the 2015 Iran nuclear deal. “We got along, actually, quite well but we disagreed on things,” Trump said of Tillerson. “When you look at the Iran deal, I think it’s terrible, I guess he thought it was OK. I wanted to either break it or do something, and he felt a little bit differently.” Tillerson was one of the Cabinet-level officials staying Trump’s hand on the Iran deal, advising him to stick with what he saw as a bad agreement and amend it. Iran is hewing to the narrow parameters of the agreement, and the thinking by Tillerson and others, including Defense Secretary James Mattis, was that the United States would lose the leverage to persuade allies to pressure Iran by other means should Trump seek to kill the deal. Pompeo, a Republican congressman from Kansas before assuming his CIA role, opposed the deal, which trades sanctions relief for a rollback of Iran’s nuclear program. One rationale for the pact advanced by the Obama administration, which brokered the agreement, was that the only alternative was a military strike, which Obama officials believed would not necessarily kill Iran’s nuclear program and lead to open-ended war. Pompeo as a congressman once said that a military strike was doable. “In an unclassified setting, it is under 2,000 sorties to destroy the Iranian nuclear capacity,” he said in 2014. “This is not an insurmountable task for the coalition forces.” Mark Dubowitz, the director of the Foundation of Defense of Democracies, a group that favors amending the deal, said on Twitter: “For those Europeans (and Americans) who think Trump is not

Pompeo as a congressman had high praise for Netanyahu and made his support for Israel a central point on his campaign website. Trump likes his son-in-law. A lot. Don’t get in his way. Ivanka Trump’s husband, Jared Kushner, is taking the lead in shaping Middle East policy for his father-in-law. Tillerson, for the most part, left Kushner alone. One area in which Tillerson intervened, however, was in Kushner’s enthusiastic backing for Saudi Arabia in its attempts to isolate Qatar. The Saudi regime, and Kushner’s new BFF, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman, targeted Qatar for its defiance of Saudi leadership in the Gulf. But Tillerson, noting Qatar’s role as a U.S. ally and host to a major U.S. military base, said he wanted a “calm and thoughtful dialogue” to resolve the clash between Qatar and its neighbors. Pompeo sounds like the boss on radical Islam. Long before the “Make America Great Again” red hat became an identifier of the politically incorrect, Pompeo spoke bluntly about the threat of radical Islam in Trumpian ways. As a congressman, he repeatedly chided Muslim leaders for not condemning Islamist terrorist attacks in ways that often rankles Jews, who are sensitive to collective blame. In many cases, however, Muslim leaders had in fact condemned the attacks. In 2015, Pompeo appeared at a “Defeat Jihad Summit” with figures known for their broadsides not just targeting Islamists but all Muslims. In 2016, he called on a mosque in his district to cancel a speech by an American Muslim speaker who decades earlier had appeared in a video singing support for Hamas, the Palestinian terrorist group. Pompeo chided the mosque for scheduling the appearance on Good Friday. The mosque soon started receiving threats and canceled the event, although it was not clear if Pompeo’s news-making release had a role in spurring the threats. When Pompeo first ran for Congress in 2010 as part of the Tea Party wave, his campaign recommended on Twitter an article that referred to Pompeo’s opponent as a “turban topper” who “could be a muslim, a hindu, a buddhist etc who knows.” The

campaign removed the tweet and Pompeo apologized to his opponent. “With the appointment of former CIA Director Mike Pompeo as secretary of state, President Trump is playing right into the hands of the radical anti-Muslim movement in the U.S. and abroad,” the Southern Poverty Law Center said in a statement. One possible difference: Pompeo is skeptical of Russia. Much of the speculation Tuesday was that Trump fired Tillerson because the secretary of state forcefully said that the assassination attempt in Britain of a former Russian spy was “clearly” the work of Russia, while Trump has equivocated on the matter. According to this narrative, Trump wants folks who would alienate Russia off his team. Trump has said that Russia could be an ally in combating Islamist terrorism, and has chafed at the notion that Russia intervened on his behalf in the 2016 election. The U.S.-Russia relationship is the one aspect of Trump’s foreign policy that troubles Israelis, who are concerned that Trump will defer too much to Russia in shaping the outcome of the Syria civil war. Russia’s de facto ally in that war is Iran, Israel’s deadliest enemy. Pompeo is a Russia hawk. He repeatedly has endorsed the intelligence community’s conclusion that the Russians tried to intervene in the election on Trump’s behalf (although he also said, incorrectly, that the report concluded that the Russian intervention did not have an effect; the report stopped short of any conclusion to that effect). “The Russians attempted to interfere in the United States election in 2016,” he said as recently as Sunday on “Fox News Sunday.” The Axios news site on Tuesday recalled that during his confirmation hearings as CIA chief, Pompeo was skeptical, to say the least, of Russia’s utility as an anti-terrorism ally. Russia, he said, had “reasserted itself aggressively, invading and occupying Ukraine, threatening Europe, and doing nothing to aid in the destruction and defeat of ISIS.”

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23 THE JEWISH STAR March 16, 2018 • 29 Adar 5778

Pompeo...

serious about walking away on May 12th if there’s no agreement to fix the Iran nuke deal, I give you Exhibit A: his soon-to-be Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.” Trump must consider by May 12 whether to continue to waive sanctions on Iran, a key element of the deal. Sen. Ben Cardin, D-Md., an opponent of the deal in 2015 who now believes it is the best vehicle to contain Iran, expressed alarm at Tillerson’s departure. “Secretary Tillerson’s firing is symptomatic of President Trump’s inability to take independent advice from his advisors,” Cardin said in a statement. “While Secretary Tillerson and I may have disagreed on many policy issues, it was apparent — particularly when it came to North Korea and Iran — that he gave the president an unvarnished look at the realities and the importance of diplomacy in critical situations.” Trump likes Israel. A lot. Don’t get in his way. After some equivocation during his candidacy over whether he would be “evenhanded” when it comes to Israel and the Palestinians, Trump as president has made it clear he favors Israel. “It’s fair to say I don’t have any disagreements” with Trump on Israel issues, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said last week during a visit to the nation’s capital. A keystone of Trump’s policy on Israel policy has been his recognition late last year of Jerusalem as its capital. The decision risked his efforts to revive Israeli-Palestinian talks, but it seems to be very personal. The Washington Post reported Monday that a framed copy of Trump’s remarks recognizing Jerusalem hangs in the office of Ivanka Trump, his Jewish daughter and a top adviser to her father. Tillerson as secretary of state tried to slow down the Jerusalem process, to little avail. Once Trump recognized the city as Israel’s capital, Tillerson endeavored to make clear that the embassy would not move anytime soon. Vice President Mike Pence, who backs the move, said it would move in 2019. Then the Trump administration said it would happen in May.

March 16, 2018 • 29 Adar 5778 THE JEWISH STAR

‫כוכב של שבת‬

SHAbbAT STAR

Resisting Bullies: Parashat Ki Tissa thoughts Rabbi maRc d. angeL

hen the Israelites pressed Aaron to make them an idol of gold, the Torah informs us: “And all the people broke off the golden rings which were in their ears and brought them unto Aaron” (Shemoth 32:3). It seems that “all the people” participated in idolatrous behavior. Yet, when it came to contributing to the building of the Mishkan, the sanctuary of God, the Torah states that donations were to be given only by those with generous hearts, “of every person whose heart was willing” (Shemoth 25:2). The donations came not from “all the people” but from a smaller group of willing donors. Professor Yeshaya Leibowitz, in his book “Yoke of Torah,” offers his interpretation as to why these events differed. Simply stated, it is much easier to get drawn into doing evil than into doing something righteous. Once the Israelites went into a frenzy to make an idol, “all the people” were swept up in the excitement; all of them contributed quickly and generously. But when it came to building the Mishkan, many were reluctant to part with their valuables. There are mental obstacles to contributing to a worthy cause. Donors need to battle with inter-

nal resistance. They need to let their generosity overcome their possessiveness. Professor Leibowitz’ observation is bolstered by the Midrash. At the time of the golden calf, the Israelites had two main leaders in the absence of Moses: Aaron and Hur. The Midrash posits that Hur resisted the idolatrous masses, and they murdered him! Seeing this, Aaron decided it was safer to go along with the crowd rather than to stand up against them. Hur, who stood for courageous righteousness, died a martyr’s death. Aaron, who went along with the sinning crowd, survived and even went on to serve as High Priest. Yet, I wonder if “all the people” who contributed their gold earrings really were ideologically convinced to engage in idolatry. I suspect that a rather small group made the decision and usurped the leadership. When no one (other than Hur) stood up against them, they became increasingly arrogant. They murdered Hur to set an example: resistance doesn’t pay. They cowed the masses of Israelites, who handed in their gold earrings because they were too afraid to resist; or because they were too apathetic to fight the in-group. Their participation wasn’t enthusiastic and ideologically motivated; it was more like a passive going along with the tide.

It is easier to go along with evil than to stand up defiantly against evil. It is easier to join with bullies or to look the other way, rather than to confront them. recent study has reported that severe bullying is quite common for many students. Forty-one percent of middle school and high school students in the United States report that they were bullied at least once during their current school term. About eleven percent of boys report that they are bullied once a week or more. Of the boys who report being bullied, nearly eighteen percent are hit, slapped or pushed once a week or more. (Michael E. McCullough, “Beyond Revenge,”Jossey-Bass, San Francisco, 2008, p. 35) The easier it is for bullies to cow their victims, the easier it is for them to continue their bullying. If the victims are too weak or too afraid to resist, the bullies are emboldened to increase their arrogance and their violence. But it’s not just the inability of victims to resist: it’s the inability or unwillingness of all the witnesses to come to the aid of the victims. The masses, by their passivity, allow the bullies to flourish and to create an environment of fear. Some attempt to befriend the bullies, so as to protect themselves from being bullied them-

The masses allow the bullies to flourish.

selves. Others feel too weak to confront the bullies, so they look the other way. Those who stand up to the bullies run the risk of being beaten up and humiliated in the eyes of others. It is easier to go along with the tide than to stand up in righteous opposition. It is easier to donate gold earrings for a golden calf than to incur the wrath of the bullies who are leading the idolatrous movement. From the days of the golden calf to our own times, bullies have attempted to assert their leadership by means of violence and the instilling of fear. They have depended on the weakness of the victims to resist. Even more, they have depended on the “silent majority” that lacks the courage to stand tall. Bullying takes many forms in our society. Sometimes it is overtly violent. Sometimes it is the surreptitious usurpation of power by undermining all opposition. Sometimes it shows itself in tyrants and dictators; and sometimes it shows itself in power hungry individuals in all walks of life. The common denominator is that bullies prevail by crushing or intimidating opposition. There are many people today, in all walks of life, who call on us to donate our “gold earrings” to create all sorts of “golden calves.” Are we donating or are we rallying our courage and our morality so that we can resist? Rabbi Angel is interim spiritual leader of the Lido Beach Synagogue and rabbi emeritus of the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue.

Giving consideration to korbanot and devotion Rabbi david etengoff

he laws regarding the korbanot are one of the major themes of sefer Vayikra. The Rambam discusses their underlying reasoning in two well-known passages found in his philosophic magnum opus, The Guide of the Perplexed: “His wisdom, may He be exalted, and His gracious ruse, which is manifest in regard to all His creatures, did not require that He give us a Law prescribing the rejection, abandonment, and abolition of all these kinds of worship [practiced by the surrounding nations]. … Therefore He, may He be exalted, suffered the above-mentioned kinds of worship to remain, but transferred them from created or imaginary and unreal things to His own name.” The second section in this work that discusses korbanot appears in III:46. In this passage, Maimonides maintains that the entire sacrificial service is, in reality, a negative response to delegitimize the practices of the surrounding idolworshipping nations who forbade the offering of sheep (Egyptians), goats (Sabians), and oxen (all nations of the time): “Thus it was in order to efface the traces of these incorrect opinions [forbidding the offering of sheep, goats, and oxen] that we have been ordered by the Law to offer in sacrifices only these three species of quadrupeds: “When a man from [among] you brings a sacrifice to the L-rd; from animals, from cattle or from the flock you shall bring your sacrifice.” (Vayikra 1:2) … Thus wrong opinions, which are diseases of the human soul, are cured by their contrary found at the other extreme.” In sum, the Rambam maintained that the korbanot were included in the Torah as a concession to normative behaviors known to our fore-

bears, and to negate the erroneous opinions of the Egyptians, Sabians and other nations of the Middle East. In essence, this is a causally- and historically-based analysis of this class of mitzvot. Little wonder, then, that nearly every classic meforash (Torah analyst) roundly rejects this approach. he Ramban (Nachmanides) is one of the most celebrated Torah thinkers to repudiate Maimonides’ position. In his Commentary on the Torah (Vayikra 1:9), he states that the Rambam’s words concerning this matter are nothing other than patent nonsense (divrei havai). Even more significantly, on the substantive level, Nachmanides turns the Rambam’s historically-based position on its head: “Behold when Noah and his three sons went out of the Ark, there were no Chaldeans and Egyptians in existence. Nevertheless, he offered korbanot that were pleasing to Hashem, concerning which it is stated: And the L-rd smelled the pleasant aroma, and the L-rd said to Himself, ‘I will no longer curse the earth because of man’ Able, [who preceded Noah,] also brought a sacrifice from the first born and best of his flock. [Once again, Hashem’s response was completely positive]: ‘And the L-rd turned to Abel and to his offering.’ And, it must be noted, there was not even the remotest thought of idol worship in the world at that time!” The Ramban concludes this part of his argument with the powerful words: “And G-d forbid that one would even think that the sole purpose and ultimate value of the korbanot is to negate the notion of idol worship in the minds of the foolish!”

ike the Ramban, the Rav, my rebbe and mentor, Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, strongly rejected the Rambam’s approach to the rationalization of the mitzvot as presented in The Guide of the Perplexed. As we have seen in the case of korbanot, the Rambam focused upon the “how” question, ( “How did sacrifices come to be?”) when analyzing this class of commandments. The Rav vigorously repudiated this entire methodology: “Judging Maimonides’ undertaking retrospectively, one must admit that the master whose thought shaped Jewish ideology for centuries to come did not succeed in making his interpretation of the commandments prevalent in our world perspective. While we recognize his opinions on more complicated problems such as prophecy, teleology and creation, we completely ignore most of his rational notions regarding the commandments. The reluctance on the part of the Jewish homo religiosus [religious person] to accept Maimonidean rationalistic ideas is not ascribable to any agnostic tendencies, but to the incontrovertible fact that such explanations neither edify nor inspire the religious consciousness. They are essentially, if not entirely, valueless for the religious interests we have most at heart. … If rationalization is guided by the “how” question and by the principle of objectification then it is detrimental to religious thought.” In Rabbi Soloveitchik’s view, both in regard to the korbanot and other aspects of Jewish practice, the Rambam’s suggestion of historical bases for the mitzvot detracts from the holiness and uniqueness of the Torah’s revelation at Mount Sinai. In the Rav’s estimation, only interpreta-

The Rav rejected the Rambam’s approach to the rationalization of the mitzvoth.

tions of the Torah and mitzvot that “edify and inspire the religious consciousnes” will enable us to grow closer to our Creator. This idea corresponds to Rav Soloveitchik’s emphasis on the ultimate importance of devekut Hashem (cleaving to Hashem) that is so prominently presented in his favorite work, “U’vikashtem Misham” (And From There He Will Search for You). Clearly, for the Rav, only spiritually-inspired individuals will seek to extend their hands to their Creator with the expectation this gesture will be returned in kind. May the Beit Hamikdash be rebuilt soon and in our days, and may we once again offer the korbanot with our entire beings, in love and spiritual devotion to the Almighty. V’chane yihi ratzon.

Luach

Fri March 16 • 29 Adar Rosh Chodesh Nisan Parshas HaChodesk • Vayikra Candlelighting: 6:44 pm

Havdalah: 7:54 pm

Fri March 23 • 7 Nisan Shabbos HaGadol Parshas Tzav Candlelighting: 6:52 pm

Havdalah: 8:02 pm

Fri March 30 • 14 Nisan Friday is Taanis Bechoros First Seder Friday night Friday candlelighting: 6:59 pm

Saturday candlelighting: 8:00 pm Sunday Havdalah: 8:10 pm

Five Towns times from the White Shul

AlAN JAy GErbEr

Kosher BooKworm

efore we consider the Rav’s Haggadah, “The Seder Night: An Exalted Evening,” here are a few heartfelt remarks concerning what Pesach and its rituals meant to the Rav: “In my experience — that is, in my experiential, not intellectual, memory — two nights stand out as endowed with unique qualities, exalted in holiness and shining with singular beauty. These nights are the night of the Seder and the night of Kol Nidrei. As a child I was fascinated by these two nights because they conjured a feeling of majesty. As a child I used to feel stimulated, aroused, and deeply inspired. I used to experience a strange peaceful stillness. As a child I used to surrender, using language of the mystics, to a stream of inflowing joy and ecstacy. In a word, as a young child I felt the presence of kedushah on these night.” (From “The Rav: The World of Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik,” by from Aaron Rakeffet-Rothkoff) Excerpts from the introduction, by Rabbi Menachem Genack of the Orthodox Union, to

‘The Seder Night: An Exalted Evening’

he exalted evening of the Seder is characterized by the themes of the acceptance of G-d’s sovereignty, the transmission of our tradition — the Masorah — and the dynamic and creative force of the Torah she-be-al peh, the Oral Law. The Rav expressed all these themes in his life’s work. For decades, he taught the senior shi’ur at Yeshiva University’s Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary, continued teaching his former students and thousands of others at lectures delivered under the auspices of the Rabbinical Council of America and public shi’urim given at the Moriah Synagogue in New York City, and served as the chief rabbinic figure in Boston where, with his beloved wife Tonya, he founded and continued to direct the Maimonides School. A rabbinic figure without peer and a seminal Jewish thinker of the twentieth century, the Rav was able to convey to all those who engaged in Torah study with him the immediacy and power of Torah and the experience of Torah as a living force.

For the Rav, the study of Torah was the ultimate path to accepting G-d’s kingship. By infusing the Torah with new insights and fresh approaches, the Rav ensured that Torah would be a continuing source of life that enabled generations of students to experience the eternal connection that every Jew has with Torah, thereby effecting the transmission of the Masorah. Moses is called the “Safra Rabbah de-Yisrael” (the great scribe of Israel), explained the Rav, because he not only wrote the Torah on parchment, but he also effectively inscribed the words of Torah on the hearts and minds of the Jewish people. The Haggadah says that even though we are all scholars, we are obligated to recount the story of the Exodus and we all must view ourselves as though we personally experienced the momentous events of the Exodus. Rambam echoes this language when he discusses the miżvah of Hakhel, the commandment that the entire Jewish people assemble in Jerusalem once every seven years to hear the King of Israel read to them from the Torah. He writes, “Even converts who are unfamiliar with the language [of Hakhel] are obligated to listen, with fear and awe, joy and trembling, as the day it was given at Sinai. Even great scholars who know the entire Torah are required to listen with intense concentration, for the Torah established [the miżvah of Hakhel] to strengthen the true creed. One should view oneself as now being commanded and hearing it directly from the Almighty, for the King is a messenger to proclaim the words of G-d” (Hilkhot Ĥagigah 3:6). … The Rav personified Torah she-be-al peh, its vitality and dynamism, its intellectual excitement and spiritual depth. He also embodied Masorah. As the King was at Hakhel, the Rav was the noble messenger of the Almighty whose entire being was a testament to the transmission, preservation and perpetuation of Torah. He would say that when giving the shi’ur, he felt that Hillel and Shammai, Abaye and Rava, Rashi and Tosafot, the Taz and Shakh were present in the room as he explicated the Gemara. Similarly, when sitting at his father’s Seder, he felt that the Rambam and the Rashba, the Vilna Gaon and Rabbi Akiva Eiger, were invited guests, alive and vital, and active participants in the animated discourse around the Seder table. The Rav inspired his students to join him in this fellowship of learning.

he Masorah, however, can be preserved and transmitted to the next generation only if it is expressed intimately. It was to that endeavor that the Rav brought his extraordinary talents, his genius, integrity, eloquence, and his intense sense of mission and purpose. It was in large part because of his inspired leadership and brilliant pedagogy that we have a religious Jewish community in the United States that is integrated in contemporary society, yet committed to our ancient, glorious tradition, a community that not only observes the precepts of the Torah, but can also still hear the echo of Sinai which reverberates through the generations. … The obligation of retelling the story of the Exodus on the night of the Seder is more than a recountRabbi Joseph ing of historical events, B. Soloveitchik he explained. Retelling the story of the Exodus must intrinsically encompass the miżvah of Torah study. … The Rav’s teachings emphasized the centrality of Torah study to the Seder night. But the question remains: Why is Torah study so integral to this night? An understanding of this flows from the Rav’s comments on the miżvah of reciting the Shema, the quintessence of which is kabbalat ‘ol malkhut shamayim, accepting the yoke of Heaven. Rambam explains that a person is required to begin the Shema with the initial paragraph because that paragraph consists of three essential components — “the unity of G-d, the love of G-d, and the study of Torah which is the great principle upon which all else depends” (Hilkhot Keri’at Shema 1:2). … The Rav’s grandfather Rav Hayim points out that although it is a miżvah to mention the Exodus, Rambam does not enumerate it as one of the 613 miżvot. He explained that Rambam omits it because he considers it not an independent miżvah but as subsumed under the Shema. Remembering the Exodus is an essential part of keri’at Shema because accepting the yoke of Heaven requires our belief in a G-d who is intimately involved in history and human events. That is why the miżvah to believe in G-d states “I am G-d your L-rd, who took you out of the Land of Egypt” (Deut. 5:6) for we affirm our belief in a G-d who cares about the creation and humanity; this is the principle of

remembering the Exodus. … he Seder night is not simply the retelling of an event that occurred in antiquity, but the personal re-experiencing of the event. This concept, observed the Rav, is implicit in the very word “Haggadah,” which can be seen from the phrase “haggadat edut,” a declaration of testimony. One of the basic principles of the law of evidence is that hearsay, testimony known only to the witness through someone else, is not admissible evidence. In this vein, the Haggadah emphasizes that “a person is obligated to see himself as if he personally left Egypt.” Accordingly, the miżvah of retelling the story of the Exodus cannot be a mere recounting of the chronicle of a historical event. It must be first-hand testimony, an acknowledgement of an event that is in the actual realm of experience of the testifying individual. The Jew who brought his first fruits to the Temple keenly appreciated the contentment and tranquility he enjoyed. Yet this celebrating pilgrim must momentarily transform himself into a victim of the Egyptian slavery … [as he] relives the events of the Exodus. The bikurim declaration as the foundation of the Haggadah is most appropriate, since both the pilgrim bringing bikurim and the Jew on the Seder night are obligated to re-live and actually experience the Exodus. The sense of immediacy and relevance is a fundamental aspect of Torah study, and that is what the Rav challenged us to recreate at the Seder. The Torah she-be-al peh enables each generation to uncover novel interpretations and applications. It is not static; rather, it constantly radiates new vistas that bring joy to those who study it. “The orders of G-d are upright, gladdening the heart” (Psalms 19:9). The Rav brought this to all who were privileged to study with him. Alas, it is impossible to fully capture this experience with the printed word — even when the text was penned by the Safra Rabbah de-Yisrael of the last century himself. But our hope is that this work will help readers gain a deeper appreciation of the Rav and his life’s work.

Humility leads to yiras Hashem, wealth, kavod, chaim rAbbi Avi billET

Parsha of the weeK

abbenu Bachya ben Asher begins his commentary on the book of Vayikra with an introduction, in which he includes a verse from Mishlei 22:4: “In the wake of humility comes fear of the Lord, riches, honor, and life.” He explains how King Solomon, in writing this, was teaching us that through anavah (humility) a number of wonderful qualities emerge. These are the reward and purpose that come to an individual Fear, wealth, honor and life. A humble person, he explains, is a shy and patient person who honors other people and speaks kindly of others. Such persons take insults that come their way, and they are silent. And through this, each person develops personal characteristic to learn to fear G-d, which is a combination of intellectual and emotional wisdom; and the person also achieves wealth. And no, it’s not a recipe for riches and fame. But Rabbenu Bachaye says the wealth is being happy with one’s portion, the very definition of

relative wealth. Skipping a few paragraphs, Rabbenu Bachaye gives us this gem — explaining the small alef that gets so much attention in the opening word of Vayikra — as noted, in many Midrashim, to be a reflection of the humility with which Moshe undertook his task of being the teacher for the Jewish people. We know the Torah begins this book saying “vayikra el moshe” (and He called to Moshe). Shouldn’t the formulation follow how the Torah begins every introduction to G-d’s speech? Just as its says, “vaydaber Hashem el…” or “vayomer Hashem el…,” shouldn’t it say “vayikra Hashem el...?” The answer is “No.” The Book of Vayikra, of course, is its own book. But it is strongly connected to what immediately preceded it, namely the end of the book of Shmos. he word vayikra contains a small letter alef at its end, to teach us something profound. It’s not Go- who is speaking to Moshe. It is the “Glory of G-d” that we saw at the end of

the book of Shmos, filling the Mishkan, talking to Moshe. That Glory of G-d (K’vod Hashem) refers to something we saw a long time ago. A different small letter which is involved in creation — the letter heh in the word b’hibaram (Bereshit 2:4) — “These are the annals of the heaven and earth ‘when they were created.” Rabbenu Bachaye argues that the ‬ Glory of G-d that is calling Moshe at the beginning of our parsha in “vayikra el Moshe” is the heh of b’hibaram. He goes on to say this is why the alef is smaller in the opening word of Vayikra, to help us connect the dots through two messages we can take from Rabbenu Bachaye. The first is to realize and recognize that fulfillment and meaning in life stems from being humble. Honor and kavod come to those who earn it, not those who seek it. Being humble or practicing humility does not mean a person must hide or live under a rock. It does mean that a person goes about doing what one does because it’s right, and doesn’t seek the honors, or tell anyone of what they’ve done, to

Honor comes to those who earn it, not those who seek it.

get external honor. This is not to suggest that a name can’t go on a building! It is to suggest that going around and telling everyone how special you are is not a humble practice. The second lesson is about G-d’s role in the world, as Creator in the B’hibaram sense, and as the One who communicates His will to Moshe Rabbenu: vayikra with a small alef, connected to the small Heh reminds us that even the sacrificial order is part of G-d’s plan for His world. We don’t always understand His plan, but He is there. Sometimes we need a small alef to remind us of a small heh that is at the heart of the Creation story. That small heh comes immediately after Shabbos, which immediately follows the creation of mankind. The overall concept of humility, as taught by Shlomo Hamelech in Mishlei and brought to our attention by Rabbenu Bachaye, reminds us that humility leads to yiras Hashem (fear of Heaven), wealth (in the sense of being content with one’s lot), kavod and chaim. Shabbos, tapping into what should unite us and give us the ultimate respect for one another, and simply adjusting how we present ourselves toward others, should be informed by good practices so we all get more out of the human experience.

THE JEWISH STAR March 16, 2018 • 29 Adar 5778

Anticipating an ‘exalted evening,’ with the Rav

March 16, 2018 • 29 Adar 5778 THE JEWISH STAR

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Ellison, Farrakhan, Black Caucus: only part of it Jeff Dunetz politics to go

ccording to the Deputy Chairman of the Democratic Party, Rep. Keith Ellison, his colleagues don’t care about his ties to Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan. He is probably correct because anti-Semitism is embedded into the Democratic Party. On Wednesday, Ellison received unanimous Democratic consent to take over work on the Expanded and Improved Medicare For All Act, succeeding former Rep. John Conyers (D., Mich.), who retired last year amid multiple sexual misconduct accusations. As he campaigned for the Medicare bill,

“None of my colleagues ever asked me about that, only reporters,” Ellison told the Washington Post. “I am telling you, no one cares. I’ve been all over Minnesota, all over Alabama, all over Missouri, all over Pennsylvania and Connecticut, and nobody ever asked me about this. People ask me about wages, about pay, about health care, about guns, about immigration. They ask me all kinds of challenging questions. But for some reason, some folks in the Fourth Estate think that this Farrakhan thing needs to be inquired about instead.” Ellison has been a keynote speaker at many BDS events including those of the American Friends Service Committee, which runs a BDS boot camp; Progressives for Palestine; and the ironically-named Jewish Voice for Peace. But anyone who focuses on the Congressional Black Caucus’ support of Farrakhan and Ellison’s historical support of anti-Semites is only looking

Louis Farrakhan at a basketball game in Chicago in July 2017. Streeter Lecka/BIG3/Getty Images

at part of the picture. Anti-Semitism has become institutionalized in the Democratic Party. •In 2012, Denicrats removed planks from its platform that were designed to protect Israel

from terrorism and to protect its status as a Jewish state. •Democrats such as New York’s Senator Kirstin Gillibrand protected anti-Semite and Farrakhan supporters Linda Sarsour and Tamika Mallory, both organizers of the Women’s March. •Governor Andrew Cuomo invited Sarsour to speak to state college students. •Al Sharpton, who led two anti-Semitic pogroms in New York, is an adviser to Democrats and celebrated by such Jewish politicians liaske Schumer, who bragged about attending Sharpton’s 60th birthday gala. •And of course, leading the Democratic charge until January 2017 was Barack Obama, who reawakened the medieval anti-Semitic blood libel with false accusations against the Jewish state. Obama refused to acknowledge the Palestinians’ use of human shields and he conSee Ellison on page 28

’Céline’ redux? France’s publishing problem Ben Cohen Viewpoint

ention the name “Celine” to most people in the United States—or Europe, for that matter—and they will think you’re talking about the long-serving Canadian pop diva. But among French intellectuals, there is only one “Celine”: Louis-Ferdinand Céline, one of a handful of writers who redefined the mission and style of French literature in the 20th century. This Céline, whose heyday was in the 1930s, detested the Jews. No surprise there, of course, given the unhealthy number of writers and artists outside Germany who sympathized with the Nazi program for the Jewish people. There were quite a few, after all, in our own language. Take, for instance, the American writer Ezra Pound— regarded by some critics as the leading light of modern English-language poetry—who regaled listeners to his radio show, broadcasted from fascist Italy, with stories “about Jew-ruined England. About the wreckage of France, wrecked under y_d control. Lousy with k___s.” With cases like these, there’s an inevitable debate about whether one can or should separate the artist’s vulgar hatreds from his or her works of art—rather like the furious arguments lots of Jews used to have about the appropriateness of listening to the operas of Wagner. And every so often, these debates enter the news cycle as ghosts of a past that has again become part of

Louis-Ferdinand Céline in 1932.

Wikimedia Commons

the present. That is exactly what has happened with Céline, at a time when anti-Semitism has re-established itself as a serious and enduring problem in France. In brief, here is the backstory: Last December, the legendary French publishing company Gallimard announced that it would be reissuing three monstrously anti-Semitic pamphlets written by Céline between 1937 and 1941. When Céline died in 1961—having been condemned as a “national disgrace” for his collaboration with the Vichy regime, with whom he fled to Germany during the Allied offensive of 1944—he left explicit instructions that these pamphlets never be published again. In fact, they have been, in French-speaking Québec, where the intellectual property rights of these works have expired. But publishing them in France under the imprint of one of the country’s most prestigious publishers is a proposition of an entirely different magnitude.

That was why French President Emmanuel Macron explicitly addressed what has become a bitter domestic controversy in his remarks this week at the annual dinner in Paris of the Conseil Représentatif des Institutions Juives de France, or Crif, France’s Jewish representative organization. In a clever swipe at Poland’s recent draconian Holocaust legislation, Macron pointed out that there are no “memorial police” in France; therefore, these matters are decided by conscience, not law. Macron personally left no doubt that he thought Gallimard should refrain from publishing the pamphlets. What is the content of these pamphlets that make them so fearful? In 2010, the New York Review of Books carried a feature that revisited the original editions of these works—Bagatelles pour un massacre, L’école des cadavres and Les beaux draps—and quoted from them liberally. he venom, frankly, is chilling. “The sordid schemes, the betrayals, a nose that points to, lowers toward, and falls over their mouths,” Céline wrote in Bagatelles pour un massacre. “Their hideous slots . . . their filthy k_e grins, boorish, slimy, even in beauty pageants . . . They erupt from the depths of the ages, to terrify us, to draw us into miscegenation, into bloody Talmudic mires and, finally, into the Apocalypse!” Small wonder that the author of the New York Review piece, Wyatt Mason, deemed these texts to be typical of a writer “who, from 1937 to 1944, spent all his flagrant literary energy and aptitude calling— shouting—for the death of every Jew in France.” By the end of the war, 75,000 members of a pre-war Jewish population of 340,000 had indeed gone forcibly to their deaths. Céline was

a direct participant in this genocide, every bit as culpable as the semi-literate French peasant alerting the SS to a Jewish family in hiding to make a few bucks. Reading his words, one hears the sounds of violence: shattering glass, boots on human flesh, the discordant strains of the Nazi anthem, the “Horst Wessel” song. And that is exactly how these words were intended. One can only hope that Gallimard will heed the advice of France’s president, and abandon its Céline project out if its own volition. There isn’t really a free-speech issue at stake since all these pamphlets are available on the Internet. Thus, the dilemma for Gallimard is whether a publisher of its stature should be distributing antiSemitic ravings in the name of literary endeavor. No one could possibly believe that Céline’s words can be read dispassionately in France today, where anti-Semitic attacks of the most brutal kind occur with disturbing frequency. I have written on several occasions in this column about the torture and murder of a Jewish pensioner, Sarah Halimi, in April 2017. To study the account of her ordeal at the hands of a young Islamist intruder is to step into a Céline-like world of hatred, where every word uttered is echoed in physical violence. Until France rids itself of these paroxyms of Jew-hatred—there was also the torture and murder of Ilan Halimi in 2006; the 2012 massacre of a teacher and three small children at a Toulouse Jewish school; the 2015 hostage situation and slaughter at the Hyper Cacher market in Paris; and much more—it cannot pretend that republishing Céline’s pamphlets is somehow incidental and unrelated to what French Jews are facing now.

Jonathan S. tobin

t turns out that in some cases, the Trump administration can behave just like its predecessors. President Trump has been rightly accused of smashing precedents as commander-in-chief, and many of his subordinates have behaved, spoken and tweeted in ways unlike anything we’ve seen before. Some of this unorthodox behavior is troubling. But other decisions, including his willingness to buck the foreign-policy establishment on issues like the status of Jerusalem and trying to hold the Palestinian Authority responsible for its support of terrorism, have been a long overdue breath of fresh air. On one significant legal issue, however, Trump has gone establishment. The issue is the decision of the U.S. Solicitor General to side with the Palestine Liberation Organization in a dispute with those seeking to hold it accountable for its crimes as required by U.S. law. American victims of Palestinian terror attacks, as well as the family members of those who were killed in such attacks, originally filed the case of Sokolow v. Palestine Liberation Organization in 2004. They sued under the AntiTerrorism Act passed by Congress in 1992, which allows U.S. nationals to sue international terror groups for damages in U.S. federal district courts.

The Sokolow case stems from six shootings and bombings carried out by Palestinians in Jerusalem from 2002 to 2004 during the second intifada orhestrated by the Palestinian Authority—the political arm of the PLO. A jury in a federal district court heard voluminous evidence of the gruesome crimes, as well as the clear proof that these acts were committed at the behest of their leaders. The jury ruled for the survivors and their families in a 2015 decision that awarded them $656 million in damages. But a year later, an appeals court overturned that decision when it ruled that U.S. courts didn’t have jurisdiction in the case and claimed the Palestinians hadn’t specifically targeted Americans. That caused the terrorists to cheer, and it brought relief to the Obama administration, which had opposed any effort to punish the PLO. It felt that anything that undermined the P.A. was, by definition, a blow to the cause of peace. Like earlier administrations, Obama and his team regarded the Anti-Terrorism Act as an attempt by Congress to interfere with the executive branch’s ability to conduct foreign policy. That stand, in addition to the appellate ruling, contradicts the plain intent of the law, which was crafted specifically to deal with instances of international terror. Given Trump’s tough talk on terror—reportedly, he yelled at and pounded the table when he demanded that P.A. leader Mahmoud Abbas stop paying salaries and pensions to terrorists and their families—you would think he would reject the Obama position. But that’s not what happened.

he Solicitor General is asking, along with the PLO’s lawyers, that the U.S. Supreme Court not hear the terror victims’ appeal. The government’s arguments are highly technical in that they are asking the court to consider the PLO a “person,” and arguing that the two PLO offices in the United States don’t constitute enough of a reason to allow the victims to sue. If the high court heeds the Solicitor General’s plea, then not only will the PLO be off the hook for the damages, but it will effectively render the terrorism act null and void. That has raised a storm of protest from some pro-Israel activists, including the Zionist Organization of America, which has vociferously protested the stand of the Justice Department. Why is Trump betraying his principles in this fashion? It’s hard to give a definitive answer for any decision made by the Trump administration. It’s entirely possible that Trump—an absentee president who is allergic to deep dives into procedure, details and the nuts-and-bolts of government decision-making—had no idea that his administration was going to side with the PLO. That may also be true of U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who when pressed about the issue during the course of an interview with Breitbart. com’s Joel Pollack seemed not to be familiar with the case. The ominous silence of the State Department, which has always been opposed to efforts to hold

Getting out of the Iranian check michael oren

hile Israel is mired in domestic scandals and coalition crises, the greatest threat the country has known since the eve of the Yom Kippur War — perhaps since the War for Independence — is steadily taking shape. This menace, posed of course by Iran, essentially consists of a wide range of growing threats closing in on us. The Iranians, who invented the game of chess, are exceedingly adept at playing several boards simultaneously, with the winner’s prize no less than control of the entire Middle East and beyond. The bottom chessboard is regional. Iranians cunningly took a step back and allowed the superpowers to destroy their main enemies in the region. The Americans weakened the Taliban and eliminated Saddam Hussein, and, along with Russia, they annihilated the Islamic State group. The Iranians also helped Shiite militias exhaust and chase American

forces from Iraq. The resulting vacuum in Iraq and Syria was filled by the Iranians and their proxies. Today, Iran is penetrating deeper across the Middle East and is guiding the Shiite majorities in eastern Saudi Arabia and Bahrain. It has also established a foothold among the Houthis rebels in Yemen. Just several days ago, Bahraini forces thwarted a coup attempt orchestrated by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps. At the same time, the Iranians have forged unprecedentedly strong alliances with Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Together with their complete control over Lebanon, the Iranians have laid siege to virtually the entire Middle East. The upper chess board is the international sphere, where the Iranians have secured a nuclear deal. This achievement grants them all the advantages of military nuclear capabilities without the costs. While Iran doesn’t have to fear a military strike on its nuclear facilities, sanctions relief and lucrative business deals have provided the immense funds it uses to realize its regional aspirations. In around 10 years, when the nuclear deal expires, no country will step in to stop Iran if it continues developing nuclear weapons, for fear of squandering its vast investments in the Islamic republic.

In the meantime, the Iranians have displayed an incredible capacity to maneuver between Western powers. Thus, for example, during Tehran’s rapprochement with Washington under the Obama administration it also struck a tangible military alliance with Russia, which helped it restore its status as a player in the Middle East. This dexterity is particularly discernible on the main chessboard – Syria. nfluence in Syria, which links Tehran to Beirut; and Damascus to Iraq and the Persian Gulf, is a preeminent Iranian interest. In Syria of all places, however, Iran’s status is questionable due to the lack of a Shiite population there. Therefore it is working to cleanse Syria of its Sunni majority and bolster the Alawites — who are essentially an offshoot of Shiite Islam — and their regime. To replace banished or killed Sunnis, Iran is importing Shiites from across the Middle East from as far as Pakistan and Afghanistan. To this end, the Iranians enlisted Moscow’s help and in return agreed to Russia’s continued presence in the war-torn country. Through their extensive economic ties with Iran, meanwhile, the Europeans are funding the ethnic cleansing of Syria and inducing the tsunami of refugees reaching their

Charoset: Passover’s ‘everydish’ tehilla r. goldberg

view from central park

t’s funny how the moment Purim ends, the switch to Pesach is immediate. It’s not too early to start discussing specific components of the seder, such as charoset. Ben and Jerry’s has even developed a charoset flavored ice cream for Passover. I have never tasted it and have no clue whether it’s any good, nor is it likely kosher for Passover, but the gesture is noted with humor and appreciation. I feel that somehow charoset flies under the radar. Matzah gets all the attention. And then there are the four glasses of wine, the ritual that punctuates the seder evening and serves as one of the organizational markers of the night. What I love about the charoset dish, the sweet fruity concoction symbolizing the mortar caked on the bricks by Jewish slaves in Egypt, is that more than any other dish, this one seems to re-

flect the culture of the hosts of the seder. Is charoset constituted of raw shredded apples, nuts, red wine and, perhaps for some, a touch of ginger (ingber as my Hungarian grandmother called it) or sugar? Then the charoset is of the classic Ashkenaz tradition. Is it made of dried fruits? Simmered on the stove? Formed into bonbons? Adorned in rose petals? Involves cardamom? Then you know that it hails from the Sephardic tradition. Within what we generally refer to as the Sephardic tradition, there are so many regional recipes, ranging from Turkish (I bet they use apricots), Moroccan, Iraqi, Persian, Syrian, Kurdish, Italian, Greek, Yemenite, Egyptian and maybe more. Each region and each culture, depending on the produce that was available to the community, developed a sweet paste or concoction unique to its culture that made the cut of resembling mortar. nlike with the recent sufganiya and hamantashen craze, of upstaging the classic flavors with new gimmicky ones, when it comes to charoset, you can legitimately have a “Charoset Tasting Bar” with endless flavors and combinations.

In my family, my father uses an heirloom charoset recipe he learned to prepare from his grandmother Minnie Harris. As it is for each family, for us it is the “holy grail” of charoset dishes. As a little boy, year after year, he stood as her assistant, internalizing how to prepare it just so — there was no actual recipe, of course! To this day he has continued that tradition with some of my siblings. Pesach roles are laden with so much sentiment, and in our family one such role is making the charoset. Likewise, the matter of maror making, another role my father commandeered to ensure that the final product is sealed as tightly as possible, guaranteeing that the strength of the root is not diminished (also guaranteeing that we are all on fire at the seder). Let’s just say it’s not the quietest part of the evening when the maror is consumed, and let’s just say that if anyone had a smidge of an oncoming cold, after the maror no trace can be found! So, yes. In a sense, charoset is one of the iconic dishes of the seder. Granted, seder night is all about the matza and the collective of the seder plate, but it’s pretty interesting how personal the charoset dish can be. Based on the custom of that dish alone,

the Palestinians accountable, on the case may also indicate that its influence—and those within the executive branch that always oppose allowing Americans to sue foreign governments—may be at work. Then again, Trump’s lingering desire to do broker the “ultimate deal” of a Middle East peace agreement—a task he has delegated to son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner—may also be behind a decision that will help keep the P.A. happy and not threaten its finances. But whether you want to blame this on Trump’s massive ego, his son-in-law’s vain hopes for negotiations (which every sensible person knows are already doomed because of the P.A.’s intransigent refusal to end and admit defeat in their century-old war on Zionism) or the loyalty of the permanent bureaucracy in the Justice and the State departments to the failed policies of the past, the fact remains that this is a terrible mistake. The Solicitor General’s stand is contradicted by the efforts of many members of both parties in the House and the Senate to stand up for the Anti-Terrorism Act. The critics are pointing out that if the PLO prevails, then it will reinforce exactly the same violent policies that make peace impossible. That isn’t acceptable and shouldn’t be allowed. Trump and Sessions need to wake up to the implications of this decision and reverse it. If they don’t—or if the high court allows the reversal of the jury’s decision to stand—it will ring the death knell for any accountability of terror in the courts. Jonathan S. Tobin is editor in chief of JNS.

shores. All Iran has to do now is establish a military foothold in Syria to overcome the last obstacle on its path to regional hegemony — Israel. Iran wants to force Israel into a state of perpetual check; in other words, paralysis before death. Surrounded by tens of thousands of missiles held by Hamas and Hezbollah, and in range of the Iranian army’s long-range missiles, Israel will struggle to impede Iran from entrenching itself in Syria. When this undertaking culminates, the Iranians will be able to take the Israeli “king” and declare checkmate. This can be prevented. The Israeli government has thus far set clear red lines prohibiting the Iranians from building missile bases and ports in Syria and from transferring sophisticated weaponry to Hezbollah. These red lines must be stringently enforced, but international support must also be enlisted. Israel has to develop a diplomatic and legal “iron dome” capable of defending us if IDF soldiers are forced to enter Hezbollah’s strongholds in southern Lebanon. No less importantly, Israel must remove the Palestinian stumbling block on the path to a strategic alliance with the Sunni world, and the creation of a united Middle Eastern front to counter Iran. The Iranians might be experts at chess, but rest assured, Israel has champions of its own. Michael Oren is a former Israeli ambassador to the U.S. He currently serves as deputy public diplomacy minister. From Israel Hayom via JNS.

the identity and culture of the chef is revealed. To be sure, this is a nice conversation piece, but more deeply, with one dish, charoset links the seder to the host’s family ancestors and history. Anyway, another thing I love about charoset is how it becomes the Pesach “everydish” of the holiday. Its endless permutations amuse me. Starving for breakfast? Oh, there’s charoset! The perfect dollop to your yogurt. (We make a lot of the stuff in my parents home). Nowadays, with all the paleo breakfast talk and energy-bite culture, here is charoset, doing that all along. Staring at the fridge for a late afternoon pick-me up? Charoset! Ran out of jam? Spread charoset on matzah in its place. Want to fill out the dessert cookie platter a bit? You’ve got yourself some charoset bonbons or parfaits. Running low on compote? Use some charoset as a base, adding in more fresh fruit. A snack for a day trip? Charoset sealed away in little disposable transferable lidded cups. Seder favors for your guests? How about individual jars of homemade charoset “jam” or “chutneys”? It may not be matzah caramel brittle, but it’s pretty darn good and most especially, very personal. Charoset may resemble mortar, but kind of like the manna, you can make charoset be whatever you want it to be. Copyright Intermountain Jewish News

THE JEWISH STAR March 16, 2018 • 29 Adar 5778

Et tu Donald? Why do you betray terror victims?

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Continued from page 26 demned Israel for civilian casualties even though his own Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Martin Dempsey said that Israel went to “extraordinary lengths” to limit civilian casualties during the last war in Gaza. “They did some extraordinary things to try to limit civilian casualties [including] calling out, making it known that they were going to destroy a particular structure,” he said. “Even developed some techniques, they call it roof knocking, to have something knock on the roof, they would display leaflets to warn citizens and population to move away from where these tunnels.” Immediately afterward, State Department spokesman Jen Psaki did what she could to shoot down General Dempsey. “It remains the broad view of the entire administration that they could have done more,” Psaki said. “And they should have taken more feasible precautions to prevent civilian casualties.” he truth is that Obama, Kerry and the Democratic Party team of Israel haters that included Hillary Clinton simply want to demonize the Jewish State — as a way to demonize Jews. For years, the U.S. Presbyterian Church owned a piece of land in the West Bank where it ran a tuberculosis hospital and then a hostel on the site. Obama didn’t care when it was owned by Presbyterians. But when the land was legally purchased in 2009 by Dr. Irving and Cherna Moskowitz, the Obama administration objected to the fact that Jews were going to live in those buildings. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, run at the time by Long Island Democratic Rep. Steve Israel, published a petition supporting Occupy Wall which had already been proven to be anti-Semitic with signs and speeches blaming “Wall Street Jews” and “Jewish bil-

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lionaires for the world’s economic problems. From its first day, the 2016 Democratic Nominating convention was an anti-Israel and anti-Semitic hate fest. Beginning on the first day when Rep. Hank Johnson (D-GA) a Hillary Clinton super-delegate, took time away from his party’s nominating event to speak at an anti-Israel meeting sponsored by the U.S. Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation, an organization trying to unite the anti-Semitic BDS organizations against Israel. According to the Washington Free Beacon Johnson, who once warned that too many Marines on Guam may tip the Island over, said among other things that Jews who lived in the disputed territories were termites. In January 2018 a Senate committee was evaluating the nomination of Ken Marcus for the position assistant secretary for civil rights at the Department of Education. Mr. Marcus was subjected to an aggressive slander campaign by leading anti-Israel groups seeking to kill his nomination because he has worked to combat the anti-Semitic boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement on college campuses and is the founder of the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, a pro-Israel group. When meeting with Marcus supporters a senior policy adviser to Democratic Senator Patty Murray said her office in the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) does “not care about anti-Semitism,” according to two people who attended the meeting. Keith Ellison’s history and actions of mainstream Democrats in recent years demonstrate that no one should really be surprised that over 20 Congressional Democrats so far have been outed as having relationships with Louis Farrakhan and his anti-Jewish hatred. The examples above prove the Democratic Party has become the anti-Semitic party (there are additional examples but this article is already long enough). The only remaining question is, will my fellow American Jews who overwhelmingly (and blindly) support the Democratic Party finally wake up and smell the cholent.

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March 16, 2018 • 29 Adar 5778 THE JEWISH STAR

Andrew SilowCArroll

don’t know if Wayne LaPierre is anti-Semitic. In many ways, I don’t care if Wayne LaPierre is anti-Semitic. But the executive vice president of the NRA gave a speech a couple of weeks ago that was heard as anti-Semitic by two kinds of people: left-leaning Jews and hard-right anti-Semites. Let’s agree that’s troubling. Speaking at CPAC, the annual arch-conservative gathering, LaPierre accused proponents of gun control of promoting “socialism” in the guise of public health and safety. Behind this “social engineering,” he said, are the billions of dollars donated by “people like George Soros, Michael Bloomberg, Tom Steyer and more.” The fact that he singled out three Jews — and later, the late leftwing Jewish community organizer Saul Alinsky — was alarming to many on Twitter and to two columnists for the Israeli newspaper Haaretz. Bradley Burston wrote that LaPierre’s defense of gun rights “included expressions of dog-whistle anti-Semitism reminiscent of the ‘Protocols of the Elders of Zion,’ with descriptions of a powerful plot to destroy America’s freedom by ‘European-style Socialists’ who he said had taken over the Democratic Party.” Rabbi Avraham Bronstein of Long Island’s Hampton Synagogue wrote that LaPierre “delivered a Christian nationalist call to arms that should be chilling to us all” and that the “association of Jews with shadowy foreign threats is not new in this political moment.” The anti-Semitic fringe heard the same things in LaPierre’s speech. “The NRA Representing White People Against the Jews” blared a headline in the Daily Stormer, the neo-Nazi website. LaPierre “knows it’s Jews coming for our guns,” wrote Andrew Anglin, the site’s founder. Another neo-Nazi website, Infostormer, declared, “There is no denying the Jewish role in pushing for gun control and it is good to see that the NRA is now indirectly exposing this fact.” Neo-Nazis hear what they want to hear — the obscene flip side of Jews who are too quick to cry anti-Semitism. Neither are completely reliable judges of what is and isn’t anti-Semitism. here were Jews who found the accusations of dog-whistling farfetched. Jonathan Tobin, editor of JNS, noted that Soros is “arguably the nation’s leading funder of liberal causes” and that Bloomberg has put his money behind an organization, Everytown for Gun Safety, that decries the National Rifle Association’s influence.

rs 35 Yeagrity e Of Int

Wayne LaPierre, executive vice president of the National Rifle Association, addressing the Conservative Political Action Conference in Oxon Hill, Md., Feb. 22, 2018. Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call

“If you were amassing a list of prominent opponents of the NRA, such as the one LaPierre spouted about,” Tobin wrote, “it would be impossible to do so without naming many Jews primarily or even solely known for their politics.” That seems fair and accurate, and it would exonerate LaPierre if his speech were a reasoned, careful consideration of the challenges to the NRA’s agenda. But because LaPierre’s address was an emotional defense of the Second Amendment, as opposed to one that was legal or intellectual, it’s fair to explore the emotional impact of the words he chose. Soros and Bloomberg? Naming either or both is a surefire way of riling up a conservative crowd — but is that solely because of the causes they back or because they represent an insidious archetype? Perhaps most CPAC members can identify Alinsky, who died in 1972 — or does the name itself signify something alien and ethnic? Beyond the name checks, LaPierre also delivered an anti-socialist manifesto combined with a religious sermon about providential destiny. The constitutional right to bear arms “is not bestowed by man, but granted by G-d to all Americans as our American birthright,” said LaPierre, channeling a largely Christian theology that merges Americanism and religion. Some Jews might agree, although the more typical Jewish approach is to acknowledge that while rights derive from the obligation

of all humans to G-d, government is instituted among mortals to interpret and secure those rights. Regardless, the notion that something so peculiar to the American experience as gun rights is G-d-given is something you’d rarely hear outside of an NRA rally. I assume LaPierre believes all Americans have the right to bear arms, but this argument appeals almost exclusively to a religious minority (and a minority of a minority at that: A Pew study says evangelicals are as likely to back stricter gun laws as most other Americans). Which is to say, words matter, and LaPierre chose words meant to appeal to a particular audience — one that quakes at the notion of a socialist takeover of America and shivers at the idea of godless billionaires who would take away our rights. I wouldn’t call that antiSemitism, but it is certainly a gambit that comes straight out of an anti-Semitic playbook. At the very least it echoes the paranoid-style populism that has almost always defined Jews as Other. aPierre’s speech reminded me of the office debate we had as the 2016 presidential campaign drew to a close. That’s when Donald Trump gave a speech in Florida warning that Hillary Clinton “meets in secret with international banks to plot the destruction of U.S. sovereignty in order to enrich these global financial powers ...” When that speech was turned into a campaign ad, “these global financial powers” were identified as Soros, Lloyd Blankfein of Goldman Sachs and Federal Reserve chair Janet Yellen — all Jews. My colleagues and I debated whether it was OK for a Jewish news service like ours to say that the speech echoed a number of ominous anti-Semitic tropes. In the end Ron Kampeas, JTA’s Washington bureau chief, wrote just that — always carefully noting that neither Trump nor the ad had specifically spoken about Jews. After speaking with various Jewish observers, Ron wrote that the Trump campaign “entered what many saw as a territory, real and ideological, where hostility to Jews perpetuates and thrives even in their absence.” In thinking about anti-Semitism, I am always drawn back to what former Harvard President Lawrence Summers said about the connection between harsh anti-Israelism and old-fashioned Jew hatred. “[P]rofoundly anti-Israel views are increasingly finding support in progressive intellectual communities,” he said. “Serious and thoughtful people are advocating and taking actions that are anti-Semitic in their effect if not their intent.” I would hesitate before calling anyone — a campus BDS activist or the leader of the NRA — an anti-Semite. I can’t judge their intent. But I can note the effect of their words and actions. And if they do edge too close to classic anti-Semitic tropes — that territory where hostility to Jews thrives — I think it is fair and necessary to point it out. Andrew Silow-Carroll is editor in chief of JTA.

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THE JEWISH STAR March 16, 2018 • 29 Adar 5778

Gun talk freaked out Jews, heartened anti-Semites

The JEWISH STAR

CAlendar of Events

Send your events to Calendar@TheJewishStar.com • Deadline noon Friday • Compiled by Zachary Schechter Thursday March 15

Young Israel Gala Dinner: The National Coucil of Young Israel will celebrate the 70th anniversary of the State of Israel at a gala dinner at Terrace on the Park. $500 per couple. 6 pm. 52-11 111th St, Flushing. RSVP at www. youngisraeldinner2018.com. Parsha Shiur: [Weekly] Join Michal Horowitz at the YI of Woodmere for a special shiur on the parsha. 9:30 am. 859 Peninsula Blvd, Woodmere. 516-295-0950. Iyun Tefilah: [Weekly] Rabbi Moshe Teitelbaum at the Young Israel of Lawrence Cedarhurst. 9:45 am. 8 Spruce St, Cedarhurst. Rabbi Sitorsky Shiur: Join ECG Resources and Dave Glaser for a shiur given by Rabbi Sitorsky, followed by mincha. 12:30 pm. 148 Doughty Blvd, Suite 312, Inwood. 212-812-9800. Learn Maseches Brachos: [Weekly] Join Rabbi Eliyahu Wolf at the YI of Woodmere for a shiur on Maseches Brachos. 5:15 pm. 859 Peninsula Blvd, Woodmere. 516-295-0950. Halacha Shiur: [Weekly] Join Rabbi Yoni Levin at Aish Kodesh for a halacha shiur. 9:30 pm. 894 Woodmere Pl, Woodmere.

Friday March 16

Erev Shabbos Kollel: [Weekly] Eruv Shabbos Kollel starting with 6 am Chassidus shiur with Rav Moshe Weinberger and concluding with 9 am Chevrusah Learning session with Rabbi Yoni Levin. 894 Woodmere Pl, Woodmere.

Sunday March 18

Timely Torah: [Weekly] Join Rabbi Ya’akov Trump, assistant rabbi of the Young Israel of Lawrence-Cedarhurst, for a shiur on relevant

Halachic and philosophical topics related to Parsha Moadim and contemporary issues. Coffee and pastries. 8 am. 8 Spruce St, Cedarhurst. Learning Program: [Weekly] At Aish Kodesh led by Rav Moshe Weinberger following 8:15 Shacharis including 9 am breakfast and shiurim on subjects such as halacha, gemara and divrei chizuk. 894 Woodmere Pl, Woodmere. Gemara Shiur: [Weekly] Join Rabbi Moshe Sokoloff at the YI of Woodmere for a gemara shiu.r 9:15 am. 859 Peninsula Blvd, Woodmere. 516-295-0950. Torah 4 Teens: [Weekly] Yeshiva program for high-school age boys & young adults with Rabbi Matis Friedman. 9:15 am-12:30 pm. 410 Hungry Harbor Rd, Valley Stream. Torah4teens5T@gmail.com. MAY Madness: Mesivta Ateres Yaakov will be holding an alumni basketball tournament in their new athletic center with an all-day BBQ by Izzy’s Brooklyn Smokehouse. Player registration: $50. General Admission: $18. MAY alumni admission: Free. 131 Washington Ave, Lawrence. 516-374-6465 x4026. Ramat Givat Zeev Sales Event: Come to YI of Lawrence for a special Ramat Givat Zeev sales event. 11 am- 8 pm. 718-475-5668. From Bais Yaakov to the Bench: Join Judge Ruchie Frier in conversation with Avital Chizhik-Goldshmidt, editor of The Forward, at the YI of Jamaica Estates. 7:30 pm. 83-10 188th St, Jamaica. Register at YIJE.org.

Monday March 19

Women’s Shiur: [Weekly] Dr. Anette Labovitz’s women shiur will continue at Aish Kodesh. 10 am. 894 Woodmere Pl, Woodmere.

Seeing Things Clearly: [Weekly] Join Rabbi Shalom Yona Weis at Aish Kodesh for a shiur for women and high school girls titled “Seeing Things Clearly- Learning to View Our World and Our Lives Through Positive Lenses. 8:45 pm. 894 Woodmere Pl, Woodmere.

Tuesday March 20 Breakfast Connect: [Weekly] Breakfast Connect is a business and networking group that meets for breakfast at Riesterer’s Bakery and to discuss business and networking opportunities. 7:30-8:30 am. 282 Hempstead Ave, West Hempstead. 516-662-7712. Women’s Shiur: [Weekly] Rebbetzin Weinberger of Aish Kodesh will give a shiur on the “Midah of Seder in our Avodas Hashem.” 11 am. 894 Woodmere Pl, Woodmere. Jewish History: [Weekly] Join Rabbi Evan Hoffman at the YI of Woodmere for a talk on Jewish History. 8:15 pm. 859 Peninsula Blvd, Woodmere. 516-295-0950. Halacha Shiur: [Weekly] Join Rabbi Moshe Sokoloff at the YI of Woodmere for a halacha shiur. 8:40 pm. 859 Peninsula Blvd, Woodmere. 516-295-0950. Gemara Shiur: [Weekly] Join Rabbi Dr. Aaron Glatt at the YI of Woodmere for a gemara shiu. 9:15 pm. 859 Peninsula Blvd, Woodmere. 516-295-0950.

Wednesday March 21 Timely Tanach: [Weekly] Join Rabbi Ya’akov Trump of the Young Israel of Lawrence Cedarhurst for a shiur on Sefer Shoftim. 8 pm. 8 Spruce St, Cedarhurst. Chumash and Halacha Shiur: [Weekly] Shiur with Rabbi Yosef Richtman at Aish

Kodesh. 8 pm. 894 Woodmere Pl, Woodmere. Shiur and Tehillim Group: [Weekly] Join the women of YI of Woodmere at the home of Devorah Schochet. 9:15 pm. 559 Saddle Ridge Rd.

Saturday March 24

Denim and Diamonds: Kulanu fundraiser at the Mansion at Lawrence. 9 pm. 140 Central Ave, Lawrence. 516-569-3083 ext. 106.

Tuesday April 10

Exploring Sefer Tehillim: Join Michal Horowitz for a seres of lectures on Sefer Tehillim at the Gural JCC. $15. 11:30 am. 207 Grove Ave, Cedarhurst. 516-569-6733 ext. 222.

Wedensday April 11

Yom Hashoah: Greater Five Towns Yom Hashoah annual commemoration will be held at Beth Shalom featuring keynote speaker Israel Starck. 7:30 pm. 390 Broadway, Lawrence.

Sunday April 15

Yeshiva of South Shore RBK Memorial Dinner: Yeshiva of South Shore will be holding a memorial dinner for Rav Binyamin Kamenetzky at The Sands. 1395 Beech St, Atlan tic Beech. 516-374-7363.

Monday April 16

Parenting Then and Now: Rabbi Berel Wein and Dr. David Pelcovitz at Beth Shalom for a community wide parenting event titled “Parenting Then and Now: What’s Changed?” 8 pm. 390 Broadway, Lawrence. 516-371-3250 x107.

Please send you event… to Calendar@TheJewishStar.com

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note remarks that opened the fourth While Torah is nual an- passed down way for the mesorahforever true, the ideal tive Five Towns Community Collaboraaccording Conference on to be conveyed the time, emphasizing to the middah of children — and Sunday. “What is the Torah how an everlastingto our that the primary of Torah and the kids need now?” ingredent needed in Yiddishkeit is embeddedlove he asked. “What today’s chinuch simcha. their beings — worked in 1972 is in necessarily changes won’t work today.” Twenty-six speakers, “You’re still talking over time. Rabbi Weinberger, about what rebbetzins, educators, including rabbis, for you in 1972 and insisting thatworked d’asrah of Congregationfounding morah ers and community leadwhat should work lecturers that’s Woodmere Aish Kodesh in and mashpia at sue that challengeeach addressed a key isMoshe Weinberger, for your kid,” Rabbi the YU, reminded families and parents Shila”a, said in key- that Torah and educators in attendance frum communities. The event, schools in will not be received the Young Israel hosted at of Woodmere, if it’s not was orgaSee 5 Towns Rabbi Moshe hosts on page Weinberger, of 15 Kodesh in Woodmere, Congregation Aish delivered keynote

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betzin Shani Taragin, 7:53 • Torah columns Tanach coordinator and mashgicha 6:46 pm, Havdalah nika, and Morah”; ruchanit at Midreshet Towns candles Rabbi • Five rah V’avodah, Ephraim 5777 Congregation Polakoff, don’t”; “Miriam: Meyaledet, To• 24 Elul Bais 15, 2017 Rabbi Jesse Horn Tefilah, “Teens Meiech • Sept. technology: What and kotel, of Yeshivat HaNitzavim-Vayeil you know and ognize your bashert”; what you and “Helping children balance ideology Rabbi Kenneth pleasure”; Esther of Congregation Hain Wein, “How to Beth Shalom, rec- A-OK to “When it’s say yes.”

Reuven Taragin, Yeshivat Hakotel founder and director of Eytan Community Education Feiner of The Conferences, White Shul, “When Yitzchak met “Torah tips on Rivkah: Torah’s Star tion and maintain to build Jewish first menThe how a strong By marriage”; of martial the Hebrew joined love”; Michal Towns “Ahavas in Horowitz, The FiveRabbi Sunday Yisrael: In theory or Long Beach on at its in pracnew Academy of

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Star the loss, By The Jewish to remember Cedarhurst pausedmiracles of 9/11, at the the n on Sunday. the heroism, and commemoratio village’s annual Rabbi Shay Schachter of WoodIn his invocation, of the Young Israel the Master and (top right photo) pray that G-d, all the strength mere said, “we world, grant us Creator of the to stand firm together against of and the fortitude of extremism, of bigotry, all forms of terror, and of all evil that can be hatred, of racism, forms in our world.” who found in different obligation to thosenever solemn a have “We 11th to injured on Sept. died or were said Mayor Benjamin but we also forget what happened,” “We saw evil, Weinstock (bottom). America.” of best survivor saw the (middle), a 9/11 78,” reAri Schonburn Fate of “Miracle and waitand author of that day. He was called his experiences on the 78th floor when elevators ing to change hit. Chief the first plane hurst Fire Department Lawrence-Cedar the playing of saluting during victims. David Campell, 9/11 names of local Taps, read the

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Ben Cohen

held its first congress in Basel, nor in the late 1920s, when thousands of German Jews fleeing the rise of Nazism chose to go to Palestine. The year 1917 is the critical date because that is when, as an anti-Zionist might say, the Zionist hand slipped effortlessly into the British imperial glove. It is a neat, simple historical proposition upon which the entire Palestinian version of events rests: an empire came to our land and gave it to foreigners, we were dispossessed, and for five generations now, we have continued to resist. Moreover, it is given official sanction in the Palestine National Covenant of 1968, in which article 6 defines Jews who “were living permanently in Palestine until the beginning of the Zionist invasion” as “Palestinians”—an invasion that is dated as 1917 in the covenants’ notes. As the Balfour Declaration’s centenary approached, this theme is much in evidence. There is now a dedicated Balfour Apology See Cohen on page 22

Arthur James Balfour

t was a minor news story when it broke in the summer of 2016. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas announced he was suing Great Britain over the Balfour Declaration, issued on Nov. 2, 1917. But as we observe the centennial of the document this week, it’s important to understand that although his lawsuit was a stunt, Abbas was serious. More than that, the symbolism of his See Tobin on page 22

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Jonathan S. toBin

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or the Palestinians, the year zero is not 1948, when the state of Israel came into being, but 1917, when Great Britain issued, on Nov. 2, the Balfour Declaration—expressing support for the establishment of a “Jewish national home” in Palestine. So central is the Balfour Declaration to Palestinian political identity that the “Zionist

invasion” is officially deemed to have begun in 1917—not in 1882, when the first trickle of Jewish pioneers from Russia began arriving, nor in 1897, when the Zionist movement

Dealer on Long

Sukkah To Abbas Largest and Hamas, it was ‘original sin’

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At declaration’s centennial, a source of joy and derision

To British, Palestine just another colony

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to an — we believe investiture speech Delivering his Wilf Campus in at YU’sThe Newspaper of our Orthodox communities Berman, with many assembly of 2,000 ty, Rabbi Dr. Ari values that personify YeWashington Heights, in by livestream, that of the “five more listening spoke of the Rabbi Berman the five central “Five Torot, or institution.” teachings, of our believe in Tor“We do not just Chayyim — Torat at Emet but also and values must that our truths he said. live in the world,” teachings, YU’s other central Adam,” “Torat he said, are “Torat Tziyyon, the Chesed,” and “Torat Torah of Redemption.” formal cereFollowing the community parmonies, the YU street fair at an “InvestFest” Am- tied street fair on Amsterdam Avenue. 11 was a along at the “InvestFest” See YU on page Star

Jewish of Yeshiva UniversiVayera • Friday, November 3, 2017 • 14 Cheshvan 5778 • Luach page By The president 21 • The fifth Torah columns pages 20–21 VolSunday 16, No 41 said •on

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of YI LawrenceYaakov Trump director From left: Rabbi Shenker, executive Cedarhurst; MarvinWeitz; Dr. Herbert Pasternak; of YILC; Dr. Mott Lance Hirt; and Rabbi Aaron / Theresa Press HALB Board Chair The Jewish Star Fleksher of HALB.

Corbyn boycotts B’four event

Britain Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn— who in 2009 called Hezbollah and Hamas his “friends” — said he would not attend a dinner commemorating the centennial of the Balfour Declaration. Prime Minister Theresa May she would attend “with pride” and Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu would be her guest. “We are proud of the role we played in the creation of the State of Israel and we will certainly mark the centenary with pride,” May said. “I am also pleased that good trade relations and other relations that we have with Israel we are building on and enhancing.”

R H STA The JEWIS el ra Is h it w l in efesh’s 56th charter LIers goonal Nefesh B’N

IsraAID brings relief to U.S. disasters

By Ron Kampeas, JTA Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico, and WASHINGTON — For 17 years, the then the wildfires in northern California. Israeli NGO IsraAID has been performPolizer recalls that he was wrapping ing search and rescue, purifying water, up a visit to IsraAID’s new American providing emergency medical assistance headquarters in Palo Alto on Oct. 8 and and walking victims of trauma back to was on his way to a flight to Mexico to psychological health in dozens of disas- oversee operations after a devastating ter-hit countries. No 25 earthquake there when he got word of • Vol 16, But no season has been busier than the wildfires. “I literally had Luach page 19 9:15 • to do a Uthis past summer and fall, its co-CEO Yo- turn,” he said Havdalah this week in an interview 8:07 pm, tam Polizer said in an interview — and ting Candleligh at the Israeli embassy in Washington. Towns nowhere more than in the United States. Polizer spoke with the exhilaration 5777 • Five Tamuz, “The last few months have been un- of an executive whose team has come 20 • 2017 believable,” he said, listing a succession through a daunting challenge. • July 14, “We’re Parsha Pinchas of disasters that occupied local staff and the people who stay past the ‘aid festiNiveen Rizkalla working with IsraAID in Santa Rosa, Calif., in volunteers since August: Hurricane Har- val’,” he said, grinning, describing the the wake of deadly wildfires there. vey in Texas, Hurricane Irma in Florida, See IsraAID on page 5

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Leah in sec-t. (with mom of Woodmere for Girls in Cedarhurson Feinberg photos School said. More ar-old Elishevah at the Shulamith now there,” she The Jewish Star / Ed Weintrob trip” and a student out. Thirteen-ye came from year-long had been home. magic “on a 30 as olim, to come ond photo) love for Eretz Yisroel Nefesh B’Nefesh’s left Israel of my land. Jonawho flew promised Her parents her family’s journey fulfill “Part was she said. Long Islanders aliyah to the for a enough to flight page 16. through Al’s charter the smiling in” and making he’s waited long will follow,” to do this it’s time, NBN’s El to Israel the first some of “all said she’s wanted family, friends, “Hopefully, everyone t of boarding boarding the move Here are on July 3, going Hills (left) and was land, said excitemen olim, for others Shpage 16 through on July 1 carpet ride of Kew Gardens While the olim on emerged the promised of the and her school, from teaching See. 201 carpet to Her love of Israel for many than Yehoshua holy land, — he retired palpable time. visits to the the dream

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March 16, 2018 • 29 Adar 5778 THE JEWISH STAR

LI’s Jewish newspaper is Far Rockaway’s too R FA

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Far Rock h onors its l JCCRP hos ts legislati eaders ve breakfa st at W kudei, Shab

Fresh every

THE JEWISH STAR March 16, 2018 • 29 Adar 5778

The JEWISH AY AW K C

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im • March

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Vol 16, No 12

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By The Jewi sh St The Jewish ar the council’s Comm Council of the Rockaw unity Seasons — wh board, said that ay insula hono ose award wa red four ind Pen- cepted by its als and a CEO, Mayer s acivi du — bu during its siness on Sunday ing“creates opportunities Gold for givannual Le an d sup port and is gis Breakfast at the the White Sh lative definition of a good neigh ver y ul. The JCCR role model for all busin bor, a receiving en P was also on the esses. d of praise. The JCCR P presented ” “When it Hu its CRP, we can comes to the JC- Of manitarian Award to Police them enou never really thank 10 fice Lynn Blanchette gh of the 1 tan Feiner of ,” said Rabbi Ey- Aw Precinct; its Public Se the rvi ard ce White Shul, to Dr. Came remarks op in a Lifeti ening me Achieve sha Grant; JCCRP pre the event. ment Award to munity Servi sented its Com- Ph Queens County Clerk Au eff ce dre er; Award to Se y sons Superm a- Leaders and its City Legislative arket. hip Award Louis Gibbe to Council Member Er r, a memb ic Ulrich. er of See photos on page 16 .

Wednesday

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At Sunday evening’s drug abuse Amudim In the last ness progra and overdose aware - commun year, within the Ortho m at the Yo dox yeshi ity of West He va mpstead, Re ung Israel lost to dr far too many have been dict?” environment, become becca Glass ug overdose man spoke an ads.” Glassman co Glassma terms abou in intensely persona ntinued drug abuse l one quest n said that “the numb t her son, only exist in . “Doesn’t Ar yeh Natan who died fro ion that pe er world, the ou , op m far from ou r religious bu tside months ago. a heroin overdose ten ‘how do we stop this?’ le asked was Well, we now bble? We all the drug “Many in dealers off can’t pull cohol abus know that drug and althe street, e is nity don’t be the Orthodox commu- so we must educate settings as we rampant in yeshivah ou ll. them,” she lieve it can happen to body, about the dang r kids, every“Add sai ers of drug use, ease. iction is in fact a dead an example d. “Sadly, my family is to prevent it.” My Ari suffe ly of the fact “How did red from the disthat it can. disan Orthodo my son, the product of ease of addiction.” x family, ed Sunday’s me ucated in a eting was the second See Amudim on page 24 Amudim

This week’ s Jewish mailed to residents of Star was and Reads Bayswater Lan regular distrib e, in addition to our ution at more locations on Long Island than 200 your favorit (including e kosher We hope tha supermarkets). t you will pic k us

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By Jeffrey Bess Felice Acke en rman, co-di Early Child rector of the in the Five Towns, wi ho th the larges ber in Wo Academy of od Center at the Hebre t w Altabe, odmere, according to numLo Richard dren by the ng Beach, greeted ch the lower sch ir first name iloo l principal. “This tered their s new schoo as they en- tumult is unbelievable after l on Mond ,” said Alt following up abe, a 1974 all the ay, gradu ate. know where with a question, “Do yo HA u Monday, “We celebrated Purim LB you’r Commentar y by had the sn HALB boug e going?” ow day on last Blame it on Jonathan S. Tobin day, pack Six public sch ht the former Numb President Do er Thursda ed up on Wednesd TuesNe oo l ws. Perhaps on Ch urc ay and Woodmere it’s the fault nald Trump and Fox from the La h Avenue in and he y, the students had off era l media an of the mains wrence Scho re we are.” District in Friday, tream lib20 ol York Times, d its leading outlets “Here” is a moved in on 14 for $8.5 million, an lik CN 6.67-a d cludes March 20. lem is Faceb N and MSNBC. Or ma e The New the 80,170-s cre site that inybe the pro ook. But no About 77 pe byo quare-foot matter which u pick, the ing, which dergarten-to-e rcent of HALB’s 780 kin build- in March the Lawrence district more deeply re’s little doubt that Am scapegoat ighth-grade closed students liv 2009 becau ericans are e memory as divided than they’ve se of decli been in liv ning ing See Move on stopped be traditional left-right ing exchan debates ha page 24 ge ve screaming matches in s of ideas and become which neith er side even

bbi Zvi Gluck,

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up every we ek (always Wednesday! fresh on ) in time for Shabbos. Please cal l us with gestions or criticisms. Weany sughear from you ’d love to . Ed Weintrob, 516 Celia Weintrob, -622-7461, x291 516-622-7461 x241

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bothers to pre ten Instead, we d they’re listening to us. Worse tha demonize those who each other. disagree wi th in virtual iden that, most of us have ch declared tho ological safe zones in osen to live which we’ve se peril of being who disagree may not enter on “defriended.” But what months since I’ve learned spending mu debating wi the presidential election ch of the th people who a liberal colleague is on the road tha have largely stopped list t the same ening to See Today’s America on each page 3

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