The Jewish Star

THE JEWISH March 20, 2015 • 29 Adar 5775

STAR

Vayikra • Published weekly since 2002 • 516-622-7461

Vol 14, No. 12 • TheJewishStar.com

THE NEWSPAPER OF LONG ISLAND’S ORTHODOX COMMUNITIES

Bibi’s right wins Israel

Key target’s Israel, not Netanyahu Commentary by Ben Cohen There is no world leader more hated by bien-pensant liberals in America and Europe than Prime Minister Netanyahu.

Whereas once the bile was directed at former U.S. president George W. Bush—for invading Iraq and Afghanistan, for identifying radical Islam in both its Shi’a and Sunni variations as an existential threat, and for backing Israel — it’s now largely focused on Netanyahu, an alleged “racistâ€? and “war criminalâ€? who just happens to have won a resounding vote of conďŹ dence from the Israeli electorate on Tuesday.

Two New York Times editorials speak to my point rather elegantly. The ďŹ rst, published on March 13, asked whether Turkey could still be considered a reliable North Atlantic Treaty Organization ally — concluding, based on the Ankara government’s stance towards international crises from the Islamic State insurgency to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, that it can’t. But while the substance of the editorial was basically correct, notable was the lack of any ad hominem attack on Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. “Increasingly authoritarianâ€? was the best the New York Times could manage when it came to describing this boorish Continued on page 16

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By Jacob Kamaras After trailing in the polls leading up to Tuesday’s Israeli election, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party deďŹ ed those projections with a sweeping victory over the Zionist Union party, according to ofďŹ cial results released Wednesday. Netanyahu is in strong position to extend his current six-year run as prime minister.

Likud won 30 Knesset seats, a comfortable margin over the 24 seats for Isaac Herzog’s Zionist Union party. Totals for the rest of Israel’s parties were as follows: 14 seats for the Joint Arab List, 11 for Yesh Atid, 10 for Kulanu, eight for Jewish Home, seven for Shas, six for United Torah Judaism, six for Yisrael Beiteinu, and four for Meretz.

Israelis cast votes for entire parties, not for speciďŹ c candidates. The president (currently Reuven Rivlin) usually gives the leader of the party that won the most Knesset seats the opportunity to form a governing coalition with other parties. To create a government, that leader’s coalition must consist of at least 61 of the 120 Knesset seats.

The Jewish Home, Shas, United Torah Judaism, and Yisrael Beiteinu parties are seen as likely coalition partners for Likud, while Kulanu leader Moshe Kahlon has been perceived as a “kingmaker� in the coalition-building process because it is uncertain if his centrist party will support the right-wing Likud or the left-wing Zionist Union. With Kulanu in the fold, a Likudled coalition would have 67 Knesset seats. “Against all odds: a great victory for the Likud. A major victory for the people of Israel!�

Netanyahu tweeted after Tuesday’s television exit polls were released. The ďŹ nal results were even more favorable for Netanyahu than the exit polls, Continued on page 12

Your humorous email can land you in jail

By Ed Weintrob One of America’s preeminent criminal defense attorneys told students at Touro Law Center last week that the seeds of personal destruction lurk in ill-considered emails.

Benajamin Brafman also talked about what it means to be a member of the criminal defense bar, cautioning that not all lawyers were cut out for its rigorous demands.

On emails, the Five Towns resident told students on the Central Islip campus that “I’ve seen lives destroyed by one stupid, errant, snide, interesting, humorous wisecrack that ends up as the centerpiece� of criminal and

Ben Brafman, in Touro talk, cautions future attorneys civil litigation, in securing employment, and “when you’re maybe at a conďŹ rmation hearing for being a judge or a cabinet member.â€? “Think before you hit ‘send,’ think before you hit reply, think twice before you hit reply all — it’s forever,â€? he cautioned. “The person who gets it can do whatever they want with it, they can forward it to the world.â€?

Continued on page 11

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This Shabbat & Motzei Shabbat

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The Five Towns Welcomes

Latvians honor ďŹ ghters who aligned with Nazis

Applications are now being accepted for a

CAHAL 9th Grade Girls High School Class for September 2015 For Information, please contact: Naomi Nadata, 516-295-3666 www.cahal.org

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RIGA (AP) — About a thousand people marched on Monday to pay tribute to Latvians who fought in German Waffen SS units against the Soviet Union during World War II, despite jeering from protesters who say the parade gloriďŹ es fascism.

Aging war veterans led the procession to Riga’s Freedom Monument, where they laid owers and sang traditional songs.

The annual march has become a public relations headache for Latvian leaders.

Participants say they are simply honoring the so-called legionnaires for trying to de-

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Armchair conversation with Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks moderated by Ben Brafman Program begins promptly at 9:15 p.m.

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fend Latvia against the Red Army. But protesters, many of them from Latviaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s ethnic Russian minority, call the march an insult to the millions who fought and died in the struggle against Nazi Germany.

After the ceremony, a small group of protesters dressed in mock disinfectant gear cleaned the ground near the monument in a symbolic gesture and held up photos of Nazi atrocities. â&#x20AC;&#x153;The gloriďŹ cation of the Legion is synonymous to the gloriďŹ cation of Nazism,â&#x20AC;? said Alexander Filey, a 26-year-old protester.

Latvia was invaded by both Soviet and German forces during WWII and remained occupied by the Soviet Union until 1991.

Many Latvians were forcibly conscripted into Waffen SS divisions known as the Latvian Legion, while others volunteered.

Some Latvians consider them heroes who fought for independence from communism. â&#x20AC;&#x153;We live in a free country and if legionnaires want to put ďŹ&#x201A;owers at the Freedom Monument, they are free to do so,â&#x20AC;? said Liana Langa, a Latvian poet who participated in the march.

Nazi hunter Efraim Zuroff of the Simon Wiesenthal Center called the march an attempt to hide the crimes of Nazi collaborators in Latvia.

Nearly 80,000 Jews, or 90 percent of Latviaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s prewar Jewish population, were killed in 1941-42. Supporters of the legionnaires say that was before the Latvian Legion was created. But Zuroff said some of the legionnaires â&#x20AC;&#x153;had actively participated in the mass murder of Jews before joining the Waffen SS.â&#x20AC;?

Greeks recall 50,000 Jews who perished

The Ethics of Responsibility: Building Our Jewish Future

760823

March 20, 2015 â&#x20AC;˘ 29 ADAR 5775 THE JEWISH STAR

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THESSALONIKI (AP) â&#x20AC;&#x201D; Residents of Greeceâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s second-largest city on Sunday placed ďŹ&#x201A;owers on train tracks and inside old cattle wagons in solemn remembrance of nearly 50,000 local Jews who were transported to Nazi death camps during World War II. About 2,000 people joined together at Thessalonikiâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Freedom Square for the 72nd anniversary of the roundup and deportation of the Jews. Some held banners that said: â&#x20AC;&#x153;Racism Kills, Letâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Learn from History,â&#x20AC;? and â&#x20AC;&#x153;Never Again.â&#x20AC;?

The crowd then marched to the northern cityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s old railway station, where the ďŹ rst of 19 trains departed for the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp complex on March 15, 1943.

A locomotive believed to have been used to transport Jews, and four carriages that normally would carry cattle and in which people spent nine days locked up on their way to the extermination camps, were at the station. The crowd laid ďŹ&#x201A;owers on the wagons and the tracks. â&#x20AC;&#x153;It was a horrible, mournful, rainy day.

Even the skies were weeping,â&#x20AC;? recalled Heinz Cunho, 87, one of fewer than 100 surviving Greek Jews who made it back from the camps.

Jews, mostly Sephardic refugees from Spain and its Inquisition, formed the majority of Thessalonikiâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s inhabitants from the 16th to early 20th centuries.

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military operation and training) between all states and Israel.â&#x20AC;?

If the BDS movement was born in 2001 at the Durban Conference and NGO Forum, it came of age in 2005 with the Palestinian Civil Society Call for BDS, which virtually all subsequent BDS campaigns â&#x20AC;&#x201D; including anti-Israel divestment resolutions on U.S. campuses â&#x20AC;&#x201D; have acknowledged as their source and guiding light. Although it was signed by more than 100 Palestinian NGOs, the main Continued on page 4

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By Tammi Rossman-Benjamin, JNS.org Last month, in a breathtaking display of anti-Semitism reminiscent of Nazi Germany, members of the student government at South Africaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Durban University of Technology (DUT) called for the expulsion of all Jewish students from their campus.

The very next day, halfway around the world, the student government at University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) engaged in a similar display of anti-Jewish bigotry, nearly denying a highly qualiďŹ ed young woman a position on the student judiciary board after four student representatives brazenly argued that her Jewishness and afďŹ liation with Jewish organizations should make her ineligible for the position.

Besides a shared proclivity for anti-Jewish bigotry, the DUT and UCLA student governments have something else in common: both bodies had previously voted to embrace BDS â&#x20AC;&#x201D; the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel. This is not a coincidence, but rather further evidence of the well-documented relationship between BDS and acts of anti-Semitism, particularly on college campuses. At schools where groups such as Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) promote BDS, Jewish students have routinely reported being harassed, physically and verbally assaulted, threatened, viliďŹ ed, and discriminated against. Jewish studentsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; property and the property of Jewish student organizations have been defaced, damaged, or destroyed, while Jewish student events have been disrupted and shut down.

The link between BDS and anti-Semitism should come as no surprise to anyone who knows the history of the BDS movement, which ironically emerged at the 2001 U.N.sponsored World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia, and Related Intoleranceâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;held in Durban, South Africa.

Dubbed by former Canadian Minister of Justice and Attorney General Irwin Cotler as â&#x20AC;&#x153;the tipping point for the coalescence of a new, virulent, globalizing anti-Jewishness,â&#x20AC;? the Durban conference and its concomitant NGO Forum featured posters displaying Nazi icons, anti-Jewish cartoons, hecklers chanting â&#x20AC;&#x153;Jew, Jew, Jew,â&#x20AC;? and wide distribution of the virulently anti-Semitic â&#x20AC;&#x153;Protocols of the Elders of Zionâ&#x20AC;? forgery. Tom Lantos, the late member of the U.S. Congress and Holocaust survivor, was part of the American delegation to the Durban conference and said the following: â&#x20AC;&#x153;For me, having experienced the horrors of the Holocaust ďŹ rsthand, this was the most sickening and unabashed display of hate for Jews I have seen since the Nazi period.â&#x20AC;?

BDS was spawned in the Durban conferenceâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s fetid swamp of Jew-hatred and brought into the world through the NGO Forumâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Declaration of Principles, a document that not only laid the groundwork for the BDS movement, but also set the stage for todayâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s broader landscape of global anti-Israel activism. Written in highly politicized language, the Declaration of Principles declared Israel to be â&#x20AC;&#x153;a racist, apartheid stateâ&#x20AC;? and accused Israel of â&#x20AC;&#x153;crimes against humanity, including ethnic cleansing [and] acts of genocide.â&#x20AC;?

According to the declaration, Israel should be punished for its â&#x20AC;&#x153;crimesâ&#x20AC;? by â&#x20AC;&#x153;the launch[ing] of an international anti-Israel movement as implemented against South African Apartheid,â&#x20AC;? as well as â&#x20AC;&#x153;a policy of complete and total isolation of Israel as an apartheid state, which means the imposition of mandatory and comprehensive sanctions and embargoes, and the full cessation of all links (diplomatic, economic, social, aid,

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THE JEWISH STAR March 20, 2015 â&#x20AC;˘ 29 ADAR 5775

From Durban to LA: BDSâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; anti-Jewish stench

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BDS anti-Jewish stenchâ&#x20AC;Ś Continued from page 3 group behind it is the Council of National and Islamic Forces in Palestine, a coalition of Palestinian political factions founded by Yasser Arafat at the start of the Second Intifada.

Not surprisingly, many of the councilâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s organizational members are linked to terrorism against Jews in Israel and worldwide. The councilâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s chief sponsors and major partners, the Palestinian Authority and the Palestine Liberation Organization, were recently indicted in a U.S. federal court for sponsoring terrorism, and at least three other organizations in the council are on the U.S. State Departmentâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations: Hamas, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), and the PFLP General Command.

Whether they have terrorist afďŹ liations or not, all of the signatories to the 2005 Palestinian Civil Society Call for BDSâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;along with all of the groups that have established BDS campaigns in response to that call, including campus organizations like SJPâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;are committed to the elimination of Israel as a Jewish state and see BDS as an excellent means to that end. This is reďŹ&#x201A;ected in the demands of the Civil Society Call, particularly that Israel end â&#x20AC;&#x153;its occupation and colonization of all Arab landsâ&#x20AC;? and permit all Palestinian refugees and their descendants â&#x20AC;&#x153;to return to their homes and properties.â&#x20AC;? The fulďŹ llment of those demands would require Israel to commit territorial and demographic suicide. It is important to point out that denying Israelâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s right to continue as a nation-state in which the Jewish people expresses its right to self-determination is a core element of the U.S. State Departmentâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s deďŹ nition of anti-Semitism.

Those who monitor global anti-Semitism agree that the number and intensity of attacks against Jews worldwide are at levels not seen since the Holocaust. Given the BDS movementâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s

anti-Semitic nature, its clear ties to terrorist organizations committed to the destruction of Israel and the murder of Jews, and the antiSemitic effects of the BDS movement on Jewish students, it is reasonable to ask: Why are BDS campaigns allowed on college campuses at all?

Students on a few campuses have asked the same question and wisely determined that BDS does not belong on their campus.

Last month at University of California, Davis, the student government court overturned an anti-Israel divestment resolution that had been approved the month before, on the grounds that the resolutionâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s lack of focus on student welfare rendered it unconstitutional.

At Virginiaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Liberty University, the student government recently passed an amendment to its constitution that prohibits all legislation promoting BDS. But surprisingly, university administrators have been unwilling to address or even acknowledge the anti-Semitic nature and effects of the virulently anti-Israel BDS campaigns being carried out on their campuses by university-registered and university-funded student groups such as SJP. While university presidents have consistently refused to accede to student government demands that the university administration adopt BDS legislation, not one university leader has identiďŹ ed the BDS campaign as anti-Semitic or held accountable those who purvey BDS on their campus. This is an outrage.

Now is the time for university stakeholdersâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;parents, alumni, donors, and taxpayersâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;to demand that university leaders take a ďŹ rm public stand against the anti-Semitic BDS movement and commit themselves to ensuring that Jewish students are protected from the scourge of Jew-hatred that is rapidly infecting our campuses.

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Hi-tech winner at HAFTR Benjamin Gross of HAFTR is one of ďŹ ve highly innovative Jewish educators who will receive the 4th annual Jewish Education Project Young Pioneers Award presented by the Jewish Education Project.

Winning recognition along with Gross and Maya Blank, Kulanu teacher and special education consultant at Stephen Wise Free Synagogue; Noah Hichenberg, director of Saul and Carole Zabar Nursey School at JCC Manhattan; Lindsay Ganci, director of youth education at The Community Synagogue; and Rinat Levy-Cohen, Hebrew language teacher at the Abraham Joshua Heschel

School. Their awards will be presented on May 13 at CURRENT at Chelsea Piers.

The event will also honor Diane and Howard Wohl, visionary philanthropists whose idealism and activism helps build the Jewish community. â&#x20AC;&#x153;We are committed to innovation in Jewish education that leads to more children and teens ďŹ nding meaning, relevance and inspiration through Jewish experiences,â&#x20AC;? said Robert Sherman, CEO of the Jewish Education Project.

In addition to a $360 stipend, the teachers will receive tickets to the 6th annual Jewish Futures Conference, titled â&#x20AC;&#x153;Radical Empathy.â&#x20AC;?

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IS-targeted Christians and Yazidis seek UN aid

By Alina Dain Sharon, JNS.org Organizations representing religious minorities in the Middle East have submitted a memorandum to the United Nations, asking that U.N. missions from various countries call on the U.N. Security Council to issue a resolution against the Islamic State terror groupâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s persecution of minorities and to take tangible steps to save those vulnerable groups.

The memorandum, titled â&#x20AC;&#x153;Memo to the Secretary General of the United Nations Mr. Ban Ki-moon Regarding the Ethnic Cleansing of Ethno-Religious Minorities in Iraq & Syria And Establishing Protected Zones,â&#x20AC;? was presented on Friday by the Assyrian American National Federation, the American Mesopotamian Organization (AMO), the Council of Syriac Organizations, the Chaldean Syriac Assyrian Popular Council, Coptic Solidarity International, the Yazidi Human Rights Organization International, the Melkite Committee, the Middle East Christian committee MECHRIC, and the American Maronite Union. â&#x20AC;&#x153;There is a growing chorus of peoples from around the world calling for the protection and arming of the Assyrians and Yazidis,â&#x20AC;? said David William Lazar, chairman of AMO and the executive director of Restore Nineveh Now, a group promoting protection and relief for Assyrian Christians. â&#x20AC;&#x153;We are hearing from thousands across the globe who either want to ďŹ ght on behalf of religious minorities in Iraq and Syria, or are pledging their ďŹ nancial support for Assyrian ďŹ ghters in the region. Because we believe in the rule of law and the dignity of humankind towards one another, we cannot but hope that the U.N. listens to the worldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s peoples and acts on our call for action,â&#x20AC;? Lazar, told JNS.org.

The memorandum notes how the Yazidi and Christian (Assyrian, Chaldean, and Syriac) communities have faced â&#x20AC;&#x153;systematic acts of ethnic cleansing, massacres, assassinations, abduction, rape, and kidnapping perpetrated by the â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Islamic Stateâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; (known as Daesh) against these communities since June 2014.â&#x20AC;?

Since Islamic State has conquered wide swaths of northern Iraq in the summer of 2014, it has displaced more than 1.8 million Iraqis, may of them Christians. Last June, Christians ďŹ&#x201A;ed the city of Mosul to nearby Christian villages after the Iraqi army ďŹ&#x201A;ed and Islamic State took over the city. In July, the remaining Christians in Mosul were given the ultimatum to leave,

$VV\ULDQ &KULVWLDQ FKLOGUHQ GLVSODFHG E\ ,VODPLF 6WDWH WHUURU SLFWXUHG LQ D WHQW LQ $QNDZD ,UDT Jeff Gardner, Picture Christians Project, picturechristians.org

pay jizya (an Islamic tax on minorities), convert to Islam, or face death, leading to a ďŹ nal exodus of Mosulâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Christians on July 19.

Most Iraqi Christians, and some Syrian Christians, belong to the ethnic group known as the Assyrians, a people considering themselves to be direct descendants of the numerous ancient Mesopotamian civilizations such as the Sumerians, Akkadians, Babylonians, and Assyrians, who were mentioned frequently in the Hebrew bible.

According to the Assyrian International News Agency, Islamic State also abducted 150 Assyrian Christians this past February, though other reports cited higher numbers of hostages.

Islamic State has also attacked 35 Assyrian villages along the Khabur River in northeastern Syria, near the city of Hasaka.

At the same time, the Yazidis, a Kurdish ethnoreligious group that is linked to Zoroastrianism and other ancient Mesopotamian faiths, are continuing ďŹ ghting Islamic State near

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Mount Sinjar in northern Iraq.

In August 2014, Islamic State forced an estimated 300,000 Yazidis to ďŹ&#x201A;ee the area. Many of those who were unable to ďŹ&#x201A;ee were caught and enslaved, especially Yazidi women, many of whom were sold into sexual slavery. Currently, about 10,000 Yazidis are still hiding from Islamic State on the top of Mount Sinjarâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;even forming their own militia, called the Sinjar Resistance Units, Middle East Monitor reported. â&#x20AC;&#x153;The Yazidi people of Iraq have suffered beyond words at the hands of ISIS (Islamic State),â&#x20AC;? said Mirza Ismail, chairman of Yazidi Human Rights Organization International. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Barely seeing us as human, the criminal enterprise that is Daesh has murdered and enslaved the Yazidi peopleâ&#x20AC;? on a massive scale, and â&#x20AC;&#x153;we have also been betrayed time and again by those sworn to protect us, namely the Kurdish Regional Government and its armed forces the Peshmerga,â&#x20AC;? Ismail said.

According to the memorandum submitted to the U.N., persecution by Islamic State jihadists â&#x20AC;&#x153;is part of a global threat and pattern in the region against minorities in general,â&#x20AC;? and therefore, speciďŹ c actions must be taken to address the crisis, including global action to liberate Yazidi women and children held captive by the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria as well as the Assyrian hostages in Syria who were taken by Islamic State in February.

The memorandum also calls for international protection and logistical assistance for religious minority groups persecuted by Islamic State, and the international establishment of interim safe zones and new homes for rescued refugees. The memorandum asks for the arming of Yazidi, Syriac, Assyrian and other forces, and the sending of humanitarian aid to refugees. The organizations behind the memorandum also seek an international legal process that would hold Islamic State terrorists accountable for their crimes. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Given the EUâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s (European Union) recent non-binding vote for the creation of a safe haven for Iraqâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s religious minorities â&#x20AC;Ś we hope and expect that the international community will mobilize its considerable resources to either intervene in Iraq and Syria and/or provide the needed arms and munitions for the Assyrians Christian and Yazidi people to defend themselves and expel the so-called Islamic State from their native lands in Iraq and Syria,â&#x20AC;? Lazar said.

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6

Puder PR The head of IDF Military Intelligence, Maj. Gen. Hertzi Halevi, told the national gala of Friends of the Israel Defense Forces that Israel must be â&#x20AC;&#x153;preparedâ&#x20AC;? on its northern border with Syria. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Syria has long ceased to be the state we all knew four years ago,â&#x20AC;? Halevi told 1,200 attendees â&#x20AC;&#x201D; including a delegation from FIDF Long Island Region â&#x20AC;&#x201D; in Manhattanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Waldorf Astoria. â&#x20AC;&#x153;We call it â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;50 Shades of Black,â&#x20AC;&#x2122; though I must admit I havenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t read the â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;greyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; version. One needs to take only a glimpse at their inner executions to understand why we must be prepared in the northern border.â&#x20AC;?

The head of IDF intelligence also said that the so-called Arab Spring has turned into a wider religious war redrawing the Middle East. â&#x20AC;&#x153;The maps of our area have been changing in front of our eyes. Borders drawn more than a century ago are being recklessly erased. The upheaval in the Middle East has turned into a religious struggle among armed factions,â&#x20AC;? said Halevi in the galaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s keynote address.

Among the delegation members were FIDF Long Island Director Liron Kreitman; FIDF National Board Member and FIDF Long Island Chairman Ronny Ben Josef; FIDF National Board Member Shahram Yagoubzadeh and his wife, Yvette; and FIDF supporters David and Roya Emrani, Leonard and Susan Feinstein, Lee and Fariba Harounian, and Elias and Lila Kalimian.

FIDF National Board Member Rabbi Peter Weintraub, who served as dinner chairman, said that â&#x20AC;&#x153;over the dozen years that Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve been involved in FIDF, Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve been privileged to see how this organization makes a power-

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ful difference in the lives of the brave men and women who defend and protect Israel â&#x20AC;&#x201D; and the Jewish people. This Gala provided a wonderful, stirring opportunity for us to say thanks, and to stand proudly with them.â&#x20AC;?

Special guests included 30 IDF soldiers of various ranks and military units, including 2nd Lt. Enbal, an educational ofďŹ cer in the Artillery Corps, whose brother, 1st Sgt. Avi, zâ&#x20AC;?l, was shot and killed in Bet Hanoun, near Gaza, during Operation Protective Edge last summer. Lt. Enbal shared memories of her brother, who posthumously received a citation for his bravery. Most of the soldiers who attended the Gala received citations for heroism, including in Operation Protective Edge and Operation Pillar of Defense.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, speak-

ing via satellite, thanked the audience for their invaluable support for Israelâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s soldiers.

Funds raised at the gala will provide much-needed and well-deserved services such as academic scholarships to former combat soldiers, ďŹ nancial support for underprivileged soldiers and Lone Soldiers from around the world, crucial aid for wounded veterans, weeks of rest and recreation for entire IDF units, as well as educational, cultural, and recreational facilities. In 2014, for the ďŹ rst time in its history, FIDF raised over $100 million for the wellbeing of Israeli soldiers.

Distinguished guests included the author and nationally syndicated radio host, Dr. Monica Crowley, who served as the eveningâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Master of Ceremonies; IDFâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s 19th Chief of the General Staff, Lt. Gen. (Res.) Gabi Ashke-

nazi; Israel Defense and Armed Forces AttachĂŠ to the U.S. and Canada Maj. Gen. Yaacob Ayish; and Consul General of Israel in New York Ido Aharoni.

Other prominent guests included FIDF National Chairman Nily Falic; FIDF National Director and CEO Maj. Gen. (Res.) Meir KliďŹ Amir; Rabbi Weintraub and his wife, Ellen; FIDF Chairmen Emeritus Arthur Stark, Larry Hochberg, and Marvin Josephson; FIDF National Director and CEO Emeritus Maj. Gen. (Res.) Yitzhak (Jerry) Gershon; and FIDF National Board Member and YL-NY President Emeritus Tony Felzen.

The Long Island Chapterâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Five Towns and Greater South Shore 4th Annual Community Event will take place on May 27 at the Sephardic Temple in Cedarhurst.

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LIers at gala for FIDF hear a warning on Syria

7

Return of biblical tekhelet dye revives a mitzvah

By Deborah Fineblum Schabb, JNS.org One wouldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t expect to ďŹ nd hundreds of snails in a landlocked town like Kfar Adumim, situated in the desert east of Jerusalem. Yet there they are, albeit mostly reduced to powder, having been shipped in from the Adriatic Sea for a purpose as old as the Torah itself.

Millions of Jews throughout history have recited the line in the daily prayers in which G-d instructs Moses to tell the Israelites to â&#x20AC;&#x153;place upon the tzitzit of each corner a thread of tekhelet.â&#x20AC;? Translated as â&#x20AC;&#x153;turquoise wool,â&#x20AC;? the blue strings of tekhelet (or techeilis) were to be inserted among the white tzitzit strings to remind the garmentâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s wearer of two of G-dâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s greatestâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;and bluestâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;creations: ocean and sky. Yet many Jews probably have no idea that, thanks to a unique fusion of scientiďŹ c and religious passion, this commandment is once again available to the masses after a hiatus of nearly 1,400 years. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Techeiles is a quintessential example of science and Torah working hand in hand,â&#x20AC;?

Baruch Sterman, a physicist and author (with his wife Judy) of â&#x20AC;&#x153;The Rarest Blue: $W WKH WHNKHOHW IDFWRU\ LQ .IDU $GXPLP The Remarkable Story of an Ancient Color ,VUDHO D WRXU JXLGH IURP WKH 3WLO 7HNKHOHW Lost to History and Rediscovered,â&#x20AC;? tells JNS. QRQ SURÂżW VKRZV KRZ D SLHFH RI ZRRO org during a tour of the Kfar Adumim tekheGLSSHG LQWR WKH VROXWLRQ IRU WKH +H[DSOH[ let factory. â&#x20AC;&#x153;After 25 years of studying it, Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m 0XUH[ WUXQFXOXV EDVHG G\H WXUQV LQWR still learning about both aspects.â&#x20AC;?

OHHN OLNH JUHHQ LQ VXQOLJKW DQG HYHQWX The Talmud deďŹ nes the tekhelet dye as DOO\ LQWR EOXH ZLWK D SXUSOH KXH derived from the â&#x20AC;&#x153;bloodâ&#x20AC;? of a rare amphibiSputnikcccp via Wikimedia Commons ous snail known as the chilazon. The mitzvah to wear a thread of that dye on oneâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s tallit is $ WDOOLW ZKRVH WKUHDGV LQFRUSRUDWH WKH EOXH WHNKHOHW lazon has been foundâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;and tekhelet mentioned multiple times in the Torah. But G\H

Mnavon via Wikimedia Commons. strings are being dyed in a fashion the tekhelet supply ground to a complete much like the process performed by halt following the Muslim conquest of the our ancestors. land of Israel in 638 CE, when Jews were cut off from their loMore than 20 years ago, a rabbinical student named Eliyahu cal source of the chilazon. Though many theories surfaced over Tavger was conducting a search for the authentic dying process. the years, even the most educated Jews had no concrete proof In 1988, he succeeded in dying wool with the extract of the muof which modern-day creature the Talmudâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s chilazon actually rex trunculus snailâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s gland. At the same time, a young Americanwas. Due to that mystery, the mitzvah of tekhelet was largely lost, born immigrant to Israel named Joel Gubermanâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;looking for becoming a source of puzzlement for centuries. some way to honor the memory of his brother, who was killed in Now, thanks in large part to a few enterprising individuals a car accidentâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;became fascinated with the ancient mitzvah. He and some enthusiastic rabbis, what appears to be original chi- recruited two friends who had scuba-dived in the past, and they

met up with Tavger for an undersea hunt for murex specimens at the waterfront near Acre. They found a whopping 293.

Before long, Tavger came up with a formula for releasing the dye into the woolen threads. After that initial dunk, the friends formed Ptil Tekhelet, a non-proďŹ t based in the Kfar Adumim tekhelet factory. Two decades later, more than 200,000 Jews from the liberal to the observant wear the blue thread on their tallit and tzitzit. What began the ďŹ rst year with 300 tekhelet-infused garments is now at a production rate of 150,000 per year, a ďŹ gure that grows 10 to 20 percent annually. The customers are primarily from the U.S. and Israel and typically buy the garments at Judaica stores or directly from the Israeli factory.

All thanks to this one little snail.

On a tour of the factory, visitors will meet several of the snails at the aquarium in the facilityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s lobby, naturally camouďŹ&#x201A;aged to resemble stones. Visitors dunk their own ball of combed wool into a beaker ďŹ lled with powdered gland extract and chemicals, to bring out the brilliant blue. Once dyed, the threadâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s color never fades. â&#x20AC;&#x153;If you hold water in your hand or look at the air around you, both look clear,â&#x20AC;? Guberman says. â&#x20AC;&#x153;You have to step back enough to see that the sea and the sky are blue. The techeilis reminds us that we need to take the long view of life to really appreciate it.â&#x20AC;?

Indeed, according to author and psychiatrist Rabbi Abraham Twerski, â&#x20AC;&#x153;White symbolizes purity and blue, the color of the heavens, represents holiness. The white combined with the blue techeilis conveys the message that a mortal can indeed achieve a state of holiness, and the techeilis string points the direction to a truly spiritual life.â&#x20AC;?

Rabbi Berel Weinâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;a Jerusalem-based author, lawyer, historian, and tehkelet fanâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;adds, â&#x20AC;&#x153;Techeilis has become a living issue.

It has left the exclusivity of the study hall and entered into the everyday life of tens of thousands of Jews the world over.â&#x20AC;?

Baruch Sterman, who was on the 1988 diving mission to ďŹ nd the murex specimens and went on to co-found the Ptil Tekhelet non-proďŹ t, says itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s no coincidence that this mitzvah was rediscovered by the Jewish people only after they had regained their homeland in 1948. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Just like we never stopped believing that we would someday be allowed to return home, we also never gave up on discovering the source of this beautiful mitzvah,â&#x20AC;? he says.

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8

Ever try to ďŹ nd an apartment in the city within your budget? It can be done easily if you can live in a room smaller than a jail cell. Micro NY, the cityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s ďŹ rst micro apartment complex, at 335 East 27th St., has 55 units ranging from 260 to 360 square feet.

I believe they were going to rent for around $2,000 to $3,000 a month.

Beds come out of the wall at night, most appliances are mini sized but upscale, and there is not much room for storage. But, hey, you have access to public areas and an option to store some of your belongings in different storage areas in the building. Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m sure itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s not that bad unless youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re late for a date or work and realize your brown shoes are missing and you have run to the other side of the building three ďŹ&#x201A;oors down to retrieve them.

But look at the bright side: Windows are extra large and apartments are bright â&#x20AC;&#x201D; so you can easily see everything you donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t have.

My daughter and her roommate actually found a decent apartment. She said it was a large one bedroom with a nice sized living room that had a wall to create a second bedroom. Both bedrooms had 12-foot ceilings and sliding glass doors which lead to a make-believe terrace on which I could ďŹ t half my body. The kitchen was a square instead of those galley-like ones I normally see and the best part was a staircase from the livingroom that led a 16â&#x20AC;&#x2122;x10â&#x20AC;&#x2122; loft with a second bathroom, large closets and additional storage space. Just one caveat: If youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re taller than 4â&#x20AC;&#x2122;9â&#x20AC;? you have to bend down, but once youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re sitting itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a really cool space to entertain friends.

Unfortunately the rent was a bit high and it was not to be. Or was it? A month later, still on the market, my daughter went to see it again and now the wall was down and they

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y baby is moving to the city.

In my day we lived home until we got married. My friends all attended colleges in Brooklyn or Manhattan, most in Brooklyn. Those who attended the Manhattan schools took the train. Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m not sure why that is such a crazy idea. Before I transferred to Brooklyn College I attended Baruch because it was not far from where I worked (full time). I worked from 9 to 5 then walked a few blocks and took the crosstown bus to attend classes between 6 and 10 pm, then took the subway home to Brooklyn, got home around 11 pm, did my school work and was out of the house at 7:45 the next morning.

Can you imagine that today? Which part?

Any part! Going to work full time and taking 12 to 15 credits, or taking the train to the city every day back and forth, or actually living at home after youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re 20?

Not sure these kids today notice, but most dads and moms on Long Island actually work in the city and donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t live there. They take the LIRR. Crazy, right? But itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s so much easier living in the city, isnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t it? We have heard all of the reasonsâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; â&#x20AC;˘All my friends live in the city â&#x20AC;˘I work (or go to school) in the city now.

You expect me to take he train everyday? â&#x20AC;˘______ (ďŹ ll in name of brother or sister) had an apartment at my age. â&#x20AC;˘Look how much money you saved, by me not going to an Ivy League school!

settled on a lower price. Though the wall had to be put back up.

She was excited and was ďŹ guring what furniture they could ďŹ t in the livingroom, which she said would be 5â&#x20AC;&#x2122;x13â&#x20AC;&#x2122; once the wall was up. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s not possible,â&#x20AC;? I said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;My closet has the same dimensions; you must be making a mistake.â&#x20AC;? She explained they could squeeze a love seat into the corner, just clearing 5 feet, then attach a TV to the opposite wall and have room for a small coffee table. I was trying not to laugh and held myself back from telling her to mount the furniture to the wall as well.

So fast forward two weeks and and I got to see the apartment. I was impressed. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s really quite nice and the building is charming. It has a beautiful large roof top area that will great in the summer, itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s near all her friends, and it has nicest doormen. He let me park right in front and gave me a sign to put in my car that he uses so he can part near the building. My new best friend, even nicer than my doorman Al when I used to live in Forest Hills 32 years

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ago. Al was a great guy, until he killed the doorman across the street and went to jail, but thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a whole other article, maybe along with a recipe for striped cookie bars.

In the end I was really happy for my daughter and her friend. They found themselves an apartment that had everything they wanted in their price range. So Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m ofďŹ cially an empty nester (and, no Jerry, we are still not getting a dog).

Talking about mini apartments in Manhattan â&#x20AC;Ś try these mini chocolate chip Passover mufďŹ ns. I overheard two woman on the LIRR discussing them and I asked them for the recipe. If youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re reading this article, thanks!

0LQL &KRFRODWH &KLS 0XIĂ&#x20AC;QV Makes about 3 Dozen Ingredients: 6 egg whites 1/2 cup sugar 8 tbsp almond butter at room temperature 1 cup almond ďŹ&#x201A;our (can be found in Gourmet Glatt) 4 tbsp room temperature water 1/2 cup mini chocolate chips Cooking spray Instructions: Preheat oven to 350F. Line mini mufďŹ n tins with paper liners, and spray with cooking spray Beat egg whites in a medium bowl with an electric mixer until foamy. Add sugar and beat at high speed until it starts to form stiff peaks. Set aside.

In a large bowl, beat almond butter until soft and creamy. Gradually add almond ďŹ&#x201A;our and water and mix until well combined.

Carefully fold egg whites into almond butter mixture using a rubber spatula. Fold in chocolate chips.

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THE JEWISH STAR March 20, 2015 â&#x20AC;˘ 29 ADAR 5775

Mini Manhattan apartment, mini mufďŹ ns for Pesach

9

March 20, 2015 • 29 ADAR 5775 THE JEWISH STAR

10

Continued from page 1 One bad email or text message â&#x20AC;&#x153;is all you need,â&#x20AC;? he said.

Brafman â&#x20AC;&#x201D; whose star-studded cases have included the defense of Dominique StaussKahn and Sean â&#x20AC;&#x153;P. Diddyâ&#x20AC;? Combs â&#x20AC;&#x201D; said that in most of his current criminal cases, the prosecutionâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s evidence includes â&#x20AC;&#x153;an email, a text or something which at the time it was sent did not appear to be devastatingâ&#x20AC;? but which looms large in the cold environment of litigation.

He compared the impact of email evidence with that of tape recordings. â&#x20AC;&#x153;In a tape there is tone,â&#x20AC;? he said. When frustrated parents say theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll kill one of their children, â&#x20AC;&#x153;they donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t mean theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re going to kill their child.â&#x20AC;?

A tape often reďŹ&#x201A;ects what â&#x20AC;&#x153;a person intends by how they say it,â&#x20AC;? he said. But in a printed email, â&#x20AC;&#x153;thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s no sarcasm, no humor, no intonation,â&#x20AC;? putting people â&#x20AC;&#x153;one step closer to an incriminating posture.â&#x20AC;? â&#x20AC;&#x153;Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve seen people go to jailâ&#x20AC;? because of it, he said.

Beyond the threat posed by poorly worded emails, Brafman warned that new technolgy poses an even wider threat. â&#x20AC;&#x153;You do something stupidâ&#x20AC;? â&#x20AC;&#x201D; DWI or a minor drug infraction, for instance â&#x20AC;&#x201D; and even if â&#x20AC;&#x153;a guy like me comes and gets it dismissed, it will follow you until you dieâ&#x20AC;? because the story lives online forever.

Brafman described his life as a criminal defense attorney, telling his audience of law students that itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a tough haul, requiring long hours and merciless preparation. If students are not up to it, they should choose to practice a less taxing form of law, he said.

Referring to an attorneyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s role opposing a prosecutor, â&#x20AC;&#x153;itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s not a level playing ďŹ eld,â&#x20AC;? he

said. Prosecutors â&#x20AC;&#x153;have awesome resources and a badge.â&#x20AC;?

He said that when he was on the set of â&#x20AC;&#x153;Law and Orderâ&#x20AC;? during the taping of an episode based on the Dominique Stauss-Kahn case, he told one of the actors that TV law was nothing like real life. â&#x20AC;&#x153;You get to change the facts,â&#x20AC;? he recalled telling the actor. â&#x20AC;&#x153;I deal with the hand Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m dealt. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s much easier your way â&#x20AC;&#x201D; you donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t like the ending, you change it.â&#x20AC;?

While Brafmanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s fame has made him a widely recognized ďŹ gure, he said that â&#x20AC;&#x153;90 percent of the work I do youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll never read about.â&#x20AC;? His best work is keeping people from getting ensnared in a prosecutorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s mesh and thus avoiding indictment, he said.

He gave the students some fatherly advice: â&#x20AC;˘ Study hard for the bar exam, becuase as difďŹ cult as it is to prepare for the bar the ďŹ rst time, consider the agony of having to prepare a second time if you fail on the ďŹ rst try. â&#x20AC;˘ Act ethically. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Once you blow it, youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve blown it.â&#x20AC;? â&#x20AC;˘ Visit the federal courthouse directly across the street from the Touro Law Center, sit in on trials, speak with judges and lawyers. â&#x20AC;˘ Volunteer to intern for judges. â&#x20AC;˘ When the time comes, give back â&#x20AC;&#x201D; help newer colleagues and be generous with advice. This is the right thing to do, he said, and itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s also good exposure which will help you become known among protential clients and people in a position to refer clients.

In line with giving back, at the conclusion of his remarks, Brafman was presented with a tzedakah box by Touro Law Center Dean Patricia Salkin and Samuel J. Levine, director of Touroâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Jewish Law Institute.

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On Shabbat morning, Rabbi Sacks will deliver a drasha following the 9 am minyan at the Young Island of Lawrence Cedarhurst.

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THE JEWISH STAR March 20, 2015 â&#x20AC;˘ 29 ADAR 5775

Brafman warns students of email dangersâ&#x20AC;Ś

11

Right-facing Bibi comes out on topâ&#x20AC;Ś Continued from page 1 which had projected either 27 of 28 Knesset seats for Likud and 27 for Zionist Union.

The latest pre-election surveys had predicted that Zionist Union would outperform Likud, likely based on votersâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; prioritization of socioeconomic issues. Likudâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s apparent victory, however, might afďŹ rm that Israeli voters still place a high priority on security.

In January, the Israel Democracy Instituteâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s monthly Peace Index poll projected that 40 percent of Israelis would make their voting decisions based on a partyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s socioeconomic issues, compared with 32 percent deciding on a partyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s foreign policy and security stance. But on election day, it may have been security that won out. â&#x20AC;&#x153;My experience and my understanding in Israel is that ultimately, security is the issue on the minds of Israelis: left, right, center,â&#x20AC;? Stan Steinreich, president and CEO of Steinreich Communications, a New Jersey-based public relations ďŹ rm that also has an ofďŹ ce in Israel, told JNS.org. â&#x20AC;&#x153;The economy and the economic outlook are important, but secondary.â&#x20AC;?

Following Netanyahuâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s much-debated March 3 speech to the U.S. Congress about Iran, an Israel Hayom-New Wave Research Institute poll revealed that 41 percents of Israelis would place their trust in Netanyahu to deal with the Iranian nuclear threat, far more than the 6 percent of respondents who chose Herzog. (Fifteen percent said they trust U.S. President Barack Obama the most with the Iranian nuclear issue.)

In the same poll, 46 percent of respondents said Netanyahuâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Congress speechâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; which, given its proximity to the election, drew accusations from the Israeli left of being politically motivatedâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;was the right

move, while 39 percent thought it was a mistake. Netanyahu had argued that his speech was motivated by Israelâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s survival, which he believes would be jeopardized by a bad nuclear deal between Iran and the P5+1 powers, a group of nations that includes the U.S. A governing coalition led by Zionist Union would have been expected to make more concessions in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process than Netanyahuâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Likud, perhaps going as far as considering the division of Jerusalem. On Monday, a day before the election, Netanyahu vowed that a Palestinian state would 3ULPH 0LQLVWHU 1HWDQ\DKX YRWHV RQ 7XHVGD\ 0DUF ,VUDHO 6HOOHP 322/ )ODVK not be established under trying to harness the right.â&#x20AC;? his watch, reversing the support for a two-state â&#x20AC;&#x153;Polling in Israel, like polling here in the solution that he expressed in a 2009 speech at [United] States, is a tool, and I think what Bar-Ilan University. you saw in this particular election was actuâ&#x20AC;&#x153;I think that anyone who moves to estab- ally a shift in strategy in order to try to close lish a Palestinian state and evacuate territory the gap a bit,â&#x20AC;? Steinreich said, referencing gives territory away to radical Islamist at- the fact that Likud trailed Zionist Union in tacks against Israel,â&#x20AC;? the prime minister told pre-election polls. the NRG news website.

Labor MK Erel Margalit, the 12th-ranked Steinreich, who stressed that his public re- candidate on Zionist Unionâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s list, told JNS.org lations ďŹ rm did not take a side in the Israeli at the recent American Israel Public Affairs election and does not get involved in any po- Committee policy conference that the Israelilitical campaigns, told JNS.org that â&#x20AC;&#x153;we saw, Palestinian peace process â&#x20AC;&#x153;deserves much more most deďŹ nitely, a shift in tactics by Netan- attentionâ&#x20AC;? than it is getting at the moment. yahu in the ďŹ nal 48 hours or so in terms of â&#x20AC;&#x153;The time to lead some of these discussions is perhaps when the world is not totally focused on it, when you can be proactive about this,â&#x20AC;? Margalit told JNS.org, adding that both sides in the conďŹ&#x201A;ict should understand not only what they have to gain from a peace deal, but what they have to lose in the absence of an agreement.

Yet even if Zionist Union would have pushed for a major shift on the Israeli-Palestinian front, Marchâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s IDI Peace Index poll revealed that almost two-thirds of Israeli Jews 0 >> ?

97=<,%=<4?#=;/=<,? ;=?</>:?'03 ? 3 & #4<)>= (64 percent) believe the peace process will ! ! +?";6<78;9.?"<$=>96>?*8554>?(61;;4 not advance no matter which party forms the next government.

Regarding U.S.-Israel relations, the same -=>0(61;;4?0? .22? * poll said that 49 percent of Israeli Jews believe that the Obama administration will be -=>0 ?0?32.22? * friendlier to a Herzog/Livni government than one headed by Netanyahu, while 33 percent 895>=/<=7>9?0? .22?;=?33.22? * said the White House would show the same 3:70&71?!=<5>?!8=4:?0?3 .22?-* level of friendliness to either government. Netanyahuâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Congress speech, which the Obama 3:7?!=<5>? ;):?0?3.'2?-* administration opposed on the grounds that House Speaker John Boehner did not consult 950 71?!=<5>? ;):?0?'.22?-* the president before inviting the prime minister, was the latest episode in a history of tension between Obama and Netanyahu.

3:70 71?/=<5>? ;):?58 8:8;9:?$844?#4<)?<?#<=>97?6;<61>5?/<,> â&#x20AC;&#x153;As the small country (Israel) dealing with ><61?(%95<)?$871?;#78;9<4?7=<89>=?4>5?:>::8;9:?5%=89/?71>?$>> + the larger country (the U.S.), I think we have more of the responsibility to maintain the trust-=>0:61;;4?71=;%/1? 895>=/<=7>9?<95?/8=4:?58 8:8;9:?$844?1< > ed nature of the relationship between the executive ofďŹ ces,â&#x20AC;? Zionist Unionâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Margalit said.

7=<89>=?4>5?: 844:?:>::8;9:?<95?<9?89 ;=,<4?:6=8,,</>+ But in a pre-election interview with Israel Hayom, Netanyahu dismissed the premise -<=>97?6;<61>:?9>>5>5? ;=?3:70 71?/=<5>? ;):?7><,:+? that a Herzog/Livni government would mean smoother U.S.-Israel relations. â&#x20AC;&#x153;The relationship with the U.S. is strong enough,â&#x20AC;? said Netanyahu. â&#x20AC;&#x153;It will experience ups and downs, currently on its way up.

The support for Israel among the American "( ?8:?<?9;90#=; 87?&23 6 ' ?6;,,%987)? public is at an all-time high. The support for :;66>=?64% ?:>= 89/?71>? 8 >? ;$9:?:896>?3 2+ me personally has also gone up over the last year. We are not going to lose the American public just because we are standing up for ourselves. On the contrary: A prime minister <6> ;; +6;, 14:6+:;66>=?????? (;66>= "( who stands up for himself is often respected for it. True, there will always be those who

! !

! ( ? "( + !

760372

March 20, 2015 â&#x20AC;˘ 29 ADAR 5775 THE JEWISH STAR

12

! !

think differently, but at the end of the day we need to stand up for ourselves.â&#x20AC;?

When they merged their parties, Herzog and Livni initially agreed to rotate the role of prime minister if they form the government. But on Monday, Livni said she would forgo the rotation and leave the premiership for Herzog alone. Before Livniâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s announcement, Netanyahu had told Israel Hayom that both Livni and Herzog are â&#x20AC;&#x153;unworthyâ&#x20AC;? of being prime minister. â&#x20AC;&#x153;They will not last one day under the pressure,â&#x20AC;? Netanyahu said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;They will not be able to curb Iranâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s nuclearization for one day.

They have already admitted that the moment they are elected they will go to Ramallah.

And I know exactly what will happen there: They will offer the Palestinians a state that would see Jerusalem divided and be adjacent to Tel Aviv, similar to previous offers. They will offer Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas immediate territorial concessions and a second â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Hamastanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; will arise.

Then we will have a double Iranian threat: a nuclear threat and the threat of an Iranian proxy right here at the heart of Israel.â&#x20AC;?

Herzog wrote in a blog post for the Times of Israel, â&#x20AC;&#x153;Bibi (Netanyahuâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s nickname) failed to ďŹ nd solutions to the housing crisis and to the cost of living. â&#x20AC;Ś I will set up a national housing cabinet and I will sit at its head in order to ensure affordable housing. We will put an end to the national shame of poverty among the elderly, and we will heal and strengthen our health and education systems.â&#x20AC;?

Netanyahu, however, told Israel Hayom that his government had â&#x20AC;&#x153;addressed the economic issue in a way that no government before us ever has.â&#x20AC;? â&#x20AC;&#x153;We accomplished a lot in the economic social realm,â&#x20AC;? he said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;True, there is plenty of work left to do, but I would like to remind everyone of Israelâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s economic growth, which already exists, which led to low unemployment that has been maintained here for decades. The number of employed Israelis is constantly on the rise. We increased participation in the work force, among the ultra-Orthodox as well. In addition, we built unprecedented transportation infrastructure in a way that hasnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t been seen since the establishment of the state. We broke up the natural gas monopoly and drove down energy prices, which in turn reduced food prices.â&#x20AC;?

The current Likud-led government also â&#x20AC;&#x153;identiďŹ ed the problem in the housing market and we are planning to increase the housing supply by building 100,000 new units in lots that will be cleared for that purpose in high-demand areas in central Israel,â&#x20AC;? Netanyahu said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;We will reinstate the mortgage subsidies that [Finance Minister Yair] Lapid did away with,â&#x20AC;? he said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Having already lowered the customs tax, we will cancel the value-added tax on basic staples under supervision. This will translate into savings for the consumers.

All these things will ease the burden and reverse the trend in the rising cost of living.â&#x20AC;?

Steinreich called the election a â&#x20AC;&#x153;Jeb BushHillary Clinton face-off in Israel,â&#x20AC;? in reference to the presumed favorites in the upcoming 2016 American presidential race. â&#x20AC;&#x153;You had a dynasty that Netanyahu has built for himself because of the legacy of his time in ofďŹ ce, and you have Herzog, who comes from a political dynasty,â&#x20AC;? he told JNS. org. Herzogâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s grandfather was Israelâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s chief rabbi, and his father was the Jewish stateâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s sixth president. â&#x20AC;&#x153;I think you had two very, very strong candidates, and I think the numbers played out that way in terms of how close [the election] actually was,â&#x20AC;? said Steinreich. â&#x20AC;&#x153;The greatest message here, in my opinion, is that this is democracy in action,â&#x20AC;? he added. â&#x20AC;&#x153;It really shows the world that there is an open and positive dialogue and political debate in Israel, and I think members of the Israeli public are not as set in their ways as some people may portray them in the media.

I think it shows the pluralism in Israel on the part of the electorate.â&#x20AC;? â&#x20AC;&#x201D;JNS.org

13 THE JEWISH STAR March 20, 2015 • 29 ADAR 5775

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By Celia Weien put a few coins or bills ed casualties think th cles and caus s,â&#x20AC;? and that the attack candles, they As wom the Shabbos a special blessing for heal e. â&#x20AC;&#x153;enemy rank out by a group calling before lighting ds who need difďŹ culties across the glob was carried martyrs of Quwer of i f ily and frien

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Anti-Zionism: Respectably academic

THE A lot is at stake, but we should not be overly concerned JEWISH BEN COHEN STAR VIEWPOINT

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Vol 14, No. 12

Friday March 20 â&#x20AC;˘ 29 Adar 5775

9D\LNUD 6KDEEDW LV 5RVK &KRGHVK 1LVDQ )ULGD\ 0DUFK &DQGOHOLJKWLQJ SP 6KDEEDW HQGV SP

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potentially ugly row is brewing in the United Kingdom over an academic conference, due to be held at the University of Southampton in April, which carries the title, â&#x20AC;&#x153;International Law and the State of Israel: Legitimacy, Responsibility and Exceptionalism.â&#x20AC;?

Given that a sentence construction like that one will leave most people with their eyes glazed over, letâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s just cut to the chase here. The real title of this conference is, â&#x20AC;&#x153;Does the State of Israel Have a Legal Right to Exist? No, Of Course it Doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t.â&#x20AC;?

Hence the growing volley of criticism heading in the direction of Southampton, one of Britainâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s better universities. â&#x20AC;&#x153;They have never held a conference questioning the right of existence of any other country,â&#x20AC;? said Lord Leigh, a prominent member of the Conservative Party.

Lord Leigh is absolutely correct on this point, but that wonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t bother the organizers one jot.

The clue as to why is in the word â&#x20AC;&#x153;exceptionalismâ&#x20AC;? in the conference title. Israel, uniquely in a world that is still dominated by the nation-state system, is a state built upon violence and ethnic cleansing, and the task of academics, therefore, is to unravel the legal implication that inevitably follows: that as a sovereign entity, the Jewish state should be dismantled.

Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m undecided as to how serious a problem this conference is, although itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s important to note that British Jews are incensed by it.

Given that, let me offer one reason as to why we shouldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t be overly worried. Many of the speakers have been around for what seems like an eternityâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;so long, in fact, that if Israel, heaven forbid, were to disappear, the immediate result for these folks would be unemployment.

Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m talking here about names like Ilan Pappe, Haim Bresheeth, and Uri Davis, Israelis who have made a career out of denouncing their former country as a racist state beyond reform. Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m talking, too, about Arab propagandists like Victor Kattan, Nur Masalha, and conference co-organizer George Bisharat of the University of California, all of whom have been pushing the â&#x20AC;&#x153;one-stateâ&#x20AC;? optionâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;code for the elimination of Israeli sovereignty, and a goal that could only be achieved by exter-

minating and expelling the vast majority of Israelâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Jewish populationâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;for decades.

Gathering these people, along with their fellow genocidaires like Virginia Tilley, another American academic, under one roof is certainly a distasteful proposition. Yet it remains to be seen whether these voices will echo outside of the chamber that Southampton University has so kindly provided them.

Indeed, leaďŹ ng through the conference program, you get the distinct sense that the proceedings could easily descend into farce.

Keynoting is the veteran Princeton University professor Richard Falk, until last year the U.N. special rapporteur on Palestinian human rights, who has established himself over the years as a 9/11 conspiracy theorist, an apologist for the brutal former GaddaďŹ regime in Libya, and a specialist in outrageous statements such as his conclusion that the Boston Marathon bombing in 2013 was a form of â&#x20AC;&#x153;resistanceâ&#x20AC;? to Americaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s â&#x20AC;&#x153;global domination.â&#x20AC;? For those and other reasons, Falk is regardedâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;at least outside of his ever-diminishing circle of admirersâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;as a lunatic whose loathing of his Jewish origins has been a public spectacle throughout his career.

Then there are the unknown names. One that caught my eye was that of Ofra YeshuaLyth, another Israeli and a former journalist with the Maâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ariv daily newspaper. The subject of a ďŹ&#x201A;attering proďŹ le on the anti-Semitic website Mondoweiss, Yeshua-Lyth introduced herself by saying, â&#x20AC;&#x153;I remember myself as a journalist explaining that a secular democratic state is actually a call for the annihilation of Israel. Today I say the same thing. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s true, but now I support it.â&#x20AC;?

It is amazing that a conference supposedly predicated on the imperatives of international law should feature a speaker who speaks of the â&#x20AC;&#x153;annihilationâ&#x20AC;? of the Jewish state like sheâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s ordering a cup of coffee. But thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s actually what Yeshua-Lyth was doing when she uttered that obscenity; according to the Mondoweiss contributor who interviewed her, their conversation took place in a cafe in Tel Avivâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s trendy Florentin neighborhood.

While sipping her latte, Yeshua-Lyth described herself as a dissident and an â&#x20AC;&#x153;opponent of the regime.â&#x20AC;? Kol Hakavod, as the Israelis might sayâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;an easy sentiment to express when you havenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t got the Mukhabarat, or secret police, breathing down your neck. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s also a sickeningly immoral one: barely four hours away from the bars and coffee shops of Florentin is the worldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s worst humanitarian crisis since World War IIâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;to be precise, in Syria, where the number of refugees and

displaced (more than half the country) makes you wonder in despair why the Palestinian Arab refugee population created by the exterminationist war launched against Israel by the Arab states in 1948 is still the favored obsession of academics ostensibly specializing in the Middle East as a whole.

So on one level, this conference is more of the same, including visceral hatred not just of the Jewish state, but of the expression of Jewish identity in nearly any form you can think of. (There is a grudging acceptance of Jews whose sole mission is to campaign for the socalled Palestinian â&#x20AC;&#x153;right of return.â&#x20AC;?) Just view the output of the main conference organizer, Southampton professor Oren Ben-Dor (yep, another â&#x20AC;&#x153;ex-Israeliâ&#x20AC;?) for conďŹ rmation.

For Ben-Dor is known, when he is known at all, as a particularly sycophantic defender of Gilad Atzmon, the â&#x20AC;&#x153;ex-Israeliâ&#x20AC;? jazz musician and writer who ďŹ&#x201A;irts with Holocaust denial and believes that American Jews are living proof that the â&#x20AC;&#x153;Protocols of the Elders of Zionâ&#x20AC;? was not the vile fabrication that most respectable historians have judged it to be.

But Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m reluctant to summarily dismiss the conference as irrelevant. Ben-Dorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s initiative aims to turn anti-Zionism from a variation of traditional anti-Semitic ideology into an academic methodology. In other words, the point of departure for this conference, as well as the writings of its participants, is that Israelâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s illegitimacy must be recognized as a â&#x20AC;&#x153;factâ&#x20AC;? that is not open to debate.

Given how Middle East studies have degenerated in America in recent decades, as documented by academics like Martin Kramer, we shouldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t be surprised if the Southampton conference repeats itself on this side of the Atlantic. And the danger lies not in the impact these ideas will have on the policy of the current and successive administrations, but in the establishment of a norm among students of the Middle East that Israel, by deďŹ nition, shouldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t be in the region in the ďŹ rst place.

Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve often said that the United Nationsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; notorious 1975 resolution equating Zionism with racism was never really rescinded, despite a one-line resolution that hurriedly dispensed with that formulation in 1991.

The Southampton conference, along with annual events like â&#x20AC;&#x153;Israeli Apartheid Week,â&#x20AC;? is evidence that the warped, Soviet-inspired ideology behind â&#x20AC;&#x153;Zionism is racismâ&#x20AC;? still remains a factor in apparently informed debate about the region. For Southampton University, therefore, the immediate issue is its academic reputation. But for the Jewish community, inside and outside of Israel, the stakes are inďŹ nitely higher. â&#x20AC;&#x201D;JNS.org

15 THE JEWISH STAR March 20, 2015 â&#x20AC;˘ 29 ADAR 5775

ESTABLISHED 2002

March 20, 2015 • 29 ADAR 5775 THE JEWISH STAR

16

Even for unintentional error, atonement is needed RABBI BINNY FREEDMAN THE HEART OF JERUSALEM

T

hirty years have passed since Dani Moshitz, David (Didi) Cohen and Baruch Stern fell in Lebanon in 1985, and we came together with their families to let them know we had not forgotten. Dani and Didi will remain 20 years old forever, while we have moved on, with children and some of us even with grandchildren.

Many of the men came to pay tribute and share their memories — some were like old photographs that I had seen many times, but some were new. One caught me by surprise.

It was Erev Pesach and Baruch Stern was supposed to be getting out and making it home for Seder. He was actually finishing his army service and would have been done, but he volunteered to stay in Lebanon for the Seder so someone else could make it home — after all, come Sunday, Baruch would have as many weekends at home as he liked.

But alas, it was not to be.

That morning while on patrol, a Hezbollah terrorist set off a massive roadside bomb whose blast threw Baruch into the air. When the medics got to him seconds later he did not appear to be seriously injured. However, when Company Commander Yaakov Rachimi arrived, he objected to the chief medic’s decision to evacuate him in an armored personnel carrier, insisting instead on calling in a helicopter evacuation. After some argument, a chopper was summonded and it flew Baruch to Rambam hospital, but byy the time he arrived his situation had deteriorated and he fell into a coma from which he never recovered. On the eve of Israeli Independence Day, the fifth of Iyar, he succumbed to his wounds.

Doctors would later say the few minutes that delayed the helicopter evacuation might have made all the difference. A simple mistake, a few moments, a boy’s life; Thirty years later, it’s hard to hold anyone accountable for mistakes made under such intense pressures.

And yet, someone made a terrible mistake.

Do we hold ourselves accountable for the mistakes we make in life, or do we learn to let go of honest mistakes, recognizing we are far from perfect, and always will be?

T

his week’s portion, Vayikra, begins the fascinating journey into the world of the biblical sacrifices.

And even though we have not had a Temple for nearly two millennium, the messages and moral imperatives they represent are no less relevant today than they were thirty two hundred years ago when the Jews began their journey as a nation.

One of the central sacrifices was called the chatat, or sin offering. This was not brought when a person intentionally sinned, nor when events were beyond his control (a state known as ones, such as when unpredictable forces of nature cause one to transgress). A chatat is offered when we inadvertently transgress, particularly where serious mistakes are involved.

But why are we held responsible for mistakes; why are we obligated to bring a sin offering for what was an honest, inadvertent mistake?

There are many responses given to this question: Rav Samson Raphael Hirsch suggests that ignorance does not excuse our mistakes.

The Lubavitcher Rebbe would not accidentally eat on Yom Kippur. As such, if a person makes such a mistake he has some atonement to do.

Indeed, when we make such mistakes we can never fully undo the consequences of what we have done, and Judaism suggests that such inadvertent transgressions, even if not intentional, are nonetheless not completely excused.

We live in challenging times when once again the specter of Anti-Semitism is raising its ugly head.

Seventy-five years ago, the world stood by while six million of our people, including one and a half million children were murdered in cold blood. And the world was never really held accountable. Who would have believed in our lifetimes we would see Jews once again terrorized in the streets of France, and afraid to walk publicly as Jews on College campuses in America?

Two-hundred-thousand people have been murdered in Syria, while the world again … does nothing.

The sin offering reminds us all that we are accountable not only for what we do, but even for what we do not do, simply because we pretend to be too busy, or because we simply did not know better. We have a responsibility to never be too busy and to make sure we do know better.

The sin of doing one mitzvah and skipping others RABBI AVI BILLET PARSHA OF THE WEEK

T

here’s a strange phrase that repeats itself several times in this week’s parsha, Vayikra.

“If a person sins … and does one of the commandments of G-d that one is [instructed] not to do,” then a consequence follows.

The consequence might be elaborated upon over several verses, or, as in the case of 4:27, the consequence is preceded by the word v’ashem, which means “and he is guilty.”

Wouldn’t the verse make more sense if it said, “If a person sins and violates a commandment…” or just leave it at “If a person sins…” and then list the consequence? It almost sounds as though the Torah is saying that if a person sins through doing a mitzvah, then there is a consequence! How could

a person sin through doing a mitzvah!?

Reb Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev was known to look at the good of every Jew. One tale finds Reb Levi Yitzchak encountering a Jew who was smoking on Shabbos. The sinner refuted each benefit the rabbi ascribed to him. “You probably didn’t know it was Shabbos.” The man knew. “You probably didn’t know smoking is prohibited on Shabbos.”

The man knew. “You must be smoking for health reasons.” No – that’s not the case.

Reb Levi Yitzchak turned heavenward and said, “Even when your children commit sins, they tell the truth!”

And yet, Reb Levi Yitzchak did not hold back in criticizing the Jew who is satisfied with a minimal connection with G-d. In his Kedushas Levi, Reb Levi Yitzchak looked at our verse in question and creatively explained the way the Torah depicts the sin of the individual. The more a person sincerely serves G-d, the more the person appreciates the tremendous disparity that exists between the great and Almighty G-d and the tiny human being.

Key target is Israel…

Continued from page 1 thug, who rejoices in conspiracy theories, baits his country’s declining Jewish population even as he assures them that they are safe, and imprisons journalists with the devil-may-care attitude only a dictator can enjoy.

Contrast that with the morning-after New York Times editorial on an Israeli election that saw Netanyahu defy polling predictions by winning a clear mandate to govern. “Racist,” “desperate,” “craven,” and “aggressive” are some of the adjectives used to describe Israel’s prime minister. We are told that Netanyahu “expected to win an easy victory and then ended up fighting for his political life,” when the exact reverse was true. The paper then bemoaned Netanyahu’s “demagogy,” claiming that he “further incites the rage that has torn his country apart.” To slam an Israeli leader for incitement when so many of Israel’s neighbors turn to the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion” anti-Semitic forgery when they want insights into Israeli behavior is laughable.

Why does Netanyahu attract so much loathing when some of the world’s worst tyrants and murderers live within an hour’s flying time from Tel Aviv? The generous answer is that Netanyahu

is “one of us” who has gone woefully astray; a leader who uses democracy in order to undermine it. After all, the Syrian and Iranian regimes never claimed that they shared American values, whereas we are assured all the time that Israel does. Yet, in the post-Bush era, Netanyahu has bucked the isolationist trend that has washed through America and Europe by talking about “existential threats,” building in eastern Jerusalem, and bombing Gaza. The critics say that Israel’s allies should keep their troops and resources out of the Middle East, lamenting that Netanyahu wants to drag them into the mud even further.

As I said, that’s the generous answer, and it’s not necessarily the most convincing one.

Liberals in America and around the world may think that the Middle East’s problems with Israel all come down to Netanyahu, but that’s not how it’s seen in the region itself.

“For us there is no difference between the Zionist regime’s political partie — they are all aggressors in nature,” said a representative of Iran’s foreign ministry when asked for a reaction to an election in a country that the Islamist regime wants to see wiped off the map. Hamas, Iran’s Palestinian ally, faithfully echoed that line, insist-

But, as in our verse, when a person does one mitzvah and thinks this is an adequate form of serving G-d, even the one mitzvah is inconsequential. To put it more succinctly — there are mitzvot which people categorize as mitzvot “that I don’t do.” I have the mitzvot that I do, the ones I am comfortable with, the ones that work for me. But there are mitzvot that fall out of my comfort zone, so I never do them. Or, perhaps, I may do it once in a while.

Reb Levi Yitzchak said that the sin is not the doing of the mitzvah – though he questions whether the occasional trek into mitzvah-doing is worth anything, as opposed to a total commitment to mitzvoth — the sin is in having the attitude that “I have mitzvot that I don’t do” while still feeling that this incompleteness is a proper form of serving G-d.

Reb Levi Yitzchak lived in a different time, and while I don’t think his entire message is apropos today (it is certainly not applicable to Jews who know very little about Judaism) there is much introspection demanded of Jews who do know better, who claim to believe in G-d and who live observant lifestyles, but who

opt out of certain mitzvot because “I don’t do those,” or who focus on one mitzvah that does work (while ignoring many others) who still think, “I am serving G-d properly as a Jew.” We live in a cynical society where the loudest people are anti-religion. Ironically, the religious population of the United States of America is one of the highest percentages in the world. For people who identify as religious Jews, it behooves us to never be satisfied with our personal status quo, and to continue to challenge ourselves to take more obligations upon ourselves, and to humbly add to our service of G-d as we become increasingly aware of the disparity between ourselves and our Creator.

The sin Reb Levi Yitzchak reads into this verse is a sin of arrogance, a sin of minimal obligation and responsibility, and a sin of checking out of mitzvot based on external criteria.

Let us embrace our responsibilities and obligations, let us be humble, and let us increasingly get closer to G-d so that the verses in question need not apply to our own Jewish experiences.

ing that all of Israel’s political parties are united in their desire to deny the Palestinians their rights.

So, too, did the Palestinian Authority (PA) — the same PA that would be, according to the Obama administration and the Europeans, a genuine partner for peace if only Netanyahu could get over his “stubbornness.” For the PA, it is all Israelis who are to blame, because they elected a leader who campaigned on the basis of “racism, settlements, and apartheid,” asserted chief PA negotiator Saeb Erakat. The same point was made by senior Palestine Liberation Organization official Yasser Abed Rabbo, who told the AFP news agency that Israel “chose the path of racism, occupation and settlement building, and did not choose the path of negotiations and partnership between us.”

Whatever else they may be, these are honest words — far more honest than the claim of Israel’s left-wing daily newspapers, Haaretz, that Israelis “went to bed hoping for change, and woke up with King Bibi again,” as if the voters had nothing to do with Netanyahu’s triumph!

Had Zionist Union succeeded in forming a center-left government in Israel, I am certain that what I call the “Venezuela effect” would have come into play pretty quickly. This is a reference to Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, who persists in calling the U.S. an imperialist aggressor despite President Barack Obama’s

climb-downs on such pressing matters — you and I might call them “existential threats” — as Syria, Iran, and Russia. Had Isaac Herzog become prime minister, he would have soon found himself being talked about in similar terms, even if he had been willing to be more flexible than Netanyahu on the issue of a Palestinian state. This is because the Palestinian negotiating strategy has always been to make demands it already knows Israel won’t grant, in order to then demonize Israel as a rogue state that was never committed to peace in the first place. Bush or Obama, Netanyahu or Herzog — there will always be those who say that these ostensible rivals are much more similar than we appreciate.

While this strategy has signally failed to pay any tangible dividends for the Palestinians themselves, it has won Palestinian leaders the lion’s share of international sympathy. Their goal now is to try and weaken Israel’s leaders, most of all Netanyahu, with a unilateralist campaign that is grounded on the imperative of putting Israel on trial for war crimes and crimes against humanity at the International Criminal Court.

If we get to that point — and it’s a big if — we’ll be told by the New York Times that it’s Netanyahu in the dock. Wrong. It is the State of Israel that will be on trial. And that is just a taste of what lies are in store for the coming months.

Ben Cohen writes a weekly column for JNS.org.

ALAN JAY GERBER KOSHER BOOKWORM The Five Towns Jewish community is pleased to welcome Rabbi Jonathan Sacks this coming Shabbat Hachodesh. He will deliver a drasha following the 9 am minyan at the Young Israel of Lawrence Cedarhurst. At a Melave Malka that evening at 9:15 pm, Rabbi Sacks will be joined by the distinguished community leader, Benjamin Brafman, at Congregation Beth Shalom for a conversation on vital issues of our day. (Admission to the Melave Malka is $54.) n “Schools of Freedom,” an excellent essay from his anthology and commentary on the Book of Exodus, “Covenant and Conversation” (OU Press/Maggid Books, 2010), Rabbi Jonathan Sacks deals with the role that children play in their own education on the events of the Exodus and the Pesach story. He begins with this signature Biblical quote: “And you shall explain to your child on that day. It is because of what the Lord did for me when I went free from Egypt’.”

(Exodus 13:8) Rabbi Sacks states what for many may not be the obvious: “About to gain their freedom, the Israelites were told that they had to become a nation of educators. That is what made Moses not just a great leader, but a unique one. What the Torah is teaching is that freedom is won, not on the battlefield, nor in the political arena, nor in the courts, national or international, but in the human imagination and will. To defend a country you need an army. But to defend a free society you need schools. You

I

need families and an educational system in which ideals are passed on from one generation to the next, and never lost, or despaired of, or obscured.

“Freedom needs three institutions: Parenthood, education, and memory. You must tell your children about slavery and the long journey to liberation.

“They must annually taste the bread of affliction and the bitter herbs of slave labor.

They must know what oppression feels like if they are to fight against it in every age. So Jews became the people whose passion was education, whose citadels were schools and whose heroes were teachers.”

While we may observe these words with a shrug of “so, what else is new?” we should learn from them the historical truth inherent in the role that education plays in the annals of Jewish history. For many civilizations, down through the ages literacy was of the exclusive domain of the upper classes and of the clergy of the dominant faith of that era.

But for the Jewish people that legacy is seen in reverse.

Pesach, we learn from Rabbi Sacks, is an educator’s holiday, a real school holiday — not a holiday from educators and not a holiday from school, but rather an educational experience where the home becomes the school, the seder table the classroom, and the parents the teachers.

Rabbi Sacks concludes: “What, thanks to Torah, Jews never forgot, is that freedom is a never-ending effort of education in which parents, teachers, homes, and schools are all partners in the dialogue between the generations. Learning, talmud Torah, is the very foundation of Judaism, the guardian of our heritage and hope. That is why, when tradition conferred on Moses the

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greatest honor, it did not call him ‘our hero,’ ‘our prophet’ or ‘our king.’ It called him, simply, Moshe Rabbenu, Moses our teacher. For it is in the area of education that the battle for the good society is lost or won.”

Rabbi Jonathan Sacks’ legacy to the Jewish people was not only his role of that of a rabbi, a chief rabbi at that. Rather, in reading his works you are entering a classroom, a university lecture hall from wherein you are treated to insightful observations concerning our history, faith and legacy that is imparted with accuracy and integrity.

All of Rabbi Sacks’ teaching reflect this method.

Just to give you a hint of things to come, Koren Publishers will soon issue a new Machzor L’Yom Ha’atzmaut. Within this volume will be found an essay by Rabbi Sacks, “Israel, Gateway of Hope,” in which he delivers a history lesson unlike any from your

high school or college experience. The observation contained therein will focus on the ‘’inner gut’’ of what really constitutes Jewish History. Consider the following observation: “That is why it is so ironic that Israel should be called an imperialist power. Israel is the only nation to have ruled the land in the past 4000 years that has not been an empire and never sought to become one. Israel has been ruled by many empires: Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Persia, Greece, Rome, the Byzantines, the Umayyad, the Abbasids, the Fatimids, the Crusaders, the Mamluks, and the Ottomans. The only non-imperial power to control the land was and is Israel.”

This observation by Rabbi Sacks sets the tone of this work and places each worshiper using this new liturgical work into a proper historical and emotional mindset that further legitimatizes the establishment of the State of Israel and further increases our pride.

If it’s March, they must be honoring terrorists STEPHEN M. FLATOW

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n various cultures, a particular month, day or time is associated with a certain annual activity. For example, here in the United States, November is election time. In Israel, May brings the so-lemnity of remembering fallen soldiers, followed immediately by celebrations of national inde-pendence.

And if it’s March and you happen to live in Palestinian Authority (PA)-controlled territory, you know it’s time for the public praising and honoring of one of the most gruesome Pal-estinian massacres of Israelis and Americans.

That’s because March 9, 1978, was the day that a squad of 13 Palestinian terrorists, led by Dalal Mughrabi, landed in several small boats on Israel’s shore. They were members of Fatah, the largest faction of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). At the time, Yasser Arafat was chairman of the PLO and Fatah, and Mahmoud Abbas was his second in command. Today, Ab-bas is head of the PLO, Fatah, and the PA. At the beachfront spot where the terrorists landed, Gail Rubin, a popular American Jewish nature photographer and niece of American Senator Abraham Ribicoff, was taking photos of rare birds. One of the terrorists, Hussain Fayadh, later told the Lebanese Television station Al-Manar what happened: “Sister Dalal al-Mughrabi had a conversation with the American journalist. Before killing her, Dalal asked, ‘How did you enter Pales-

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tine?’ [Rubin] answered: ‘They gave me a visa.’ Dalal said, ‘Did you get your visa from me, or from Israel? I have the right to this land. Why didn’t you come to me?’ Then Dalal opened fire on her.”

Mughrabi, Fayadh, and their comrades walked to the nearby Coastal Road and hijacked an Israeli bus. They murdered 36 passengers, 12 of them children. Mughrabi was killed by Israeli troops. Fayadh survived, was sentenced to life in jail, but then released in a prisoner exchange.

So how was that event remembered in PA territory this week? According to Palestinian Media Watch, the official Facebook page of Fatah—Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah—displayed a color poster glorifying Mughrabi as a heroine, and calling the massacre “a huge self-

sacrificing operation in Herzliya, Tel Aviv— 80 Israelis killed and over 100 wounded.”

(They know the real number of victims, but they prefer to indulge their fantasy of the number they had been hoping for.)

Fatah also announced a public event celebrating the mass murder, to be held, of all places, across from Martyr Dalal Mughrabi Square in Ramallah.

That’s right, in Ramallah, the capital city of the PA—the same PA that receives $500 million in U.S. taxpayer dollars every year—there is a public square named after the terrorist who person-ally murdered the niece of a U.S. senator. There are also sports tournaments and summer camps named after Mughrabi. And the PA’s official television network frequently broadcasts programs depicting her as a hero and martyr, especially around the time of her birthday.

And just to poke his finger even deeper in America’s eye, Abbas in 2013 hired Mughrabi’s accomplice, Hussain Fayadh, as an adviser. So American aid, approved by the U.S. Senate, helps pay the salary of a terrorist who murdered a senator’s niece.

America has taken no steps to counter this outrageous PA behavior. Why is there no boycott by elected American officials of Ramallah? Why isn’t the equivalent of Hussein Fayadh’s salary being deducted from U.S. aid to the PA. And why aren’t we in the American Jewish community speaking out, loudly and clearly, any time the PA honors the murderer of an American? We, and the international community, must not get used to the PA doing such things. It’s not acceptable, and we can’t let it become the new normal.

Jews, too, have annual traditions. My

family is no different. This month marks the 20th anniversary of the murder of my daughter Alisa and seven others in the 1995 Palestinian terror attack at Kfar Darom. But unlike the Palestinians celebrating their “martyrs,” we won’t be celebrating how Alisa and the others were murdered by Islamic Jihad—not by a long shot.

Instead, we will join mothers and fathers in Israel by quietly lighting a memorial candle in our kitchen. We will visit a lonely grave in the cemetery and go to synagogue to say the Kaddish—mistakenly thought of as a prayer for the dead—and exalt God’s name.

We will all remember the laughter of the good times of families together, the tears of joy and sadness as we bandaged their scraped knees and watched our children grow into upright human beings.

In my home, we will continue to work in Alisa’s name to help provide a Jewish education for as many students as we can, to advocate for the rights of terror victims to obtain justice against those responsible for so much evil in this world, and to see her memory kept alive in our growing family. And we’ll think of the residents of Neve Eliyahu as they spend a quiet evening in the Alisa Flatow Rose Garden, which was dedicated to Alisa not because of her death, but because of her life.

That’s our 20-year-old “normal.”

[The attack at Kfar Darom took place on April 9 and Alisa died on April 10, 1995, according to the Gregorian calendar. On the Jewish calendar, Alisa’s death took place on the 10th of Nissan, which this year coincides with March 30.]

Stephen M. Flatow, an attorney in New Jersey, is the father of Alisa Flatow, who was murdered in a Palestinian terrorist attack in 1995.

THE JEWISH STAR March 20, 2015 • 29 ADAR 5775

Learning to understanding our Exodus legacy

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March 20, 2015 â&#x20AC;˘ 29 ADAR 5775 THE JEWISH STAR

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Jewish Star Schools 6KDOKHYHW¡V -803 SUL]H Midreshet Shalhevet The Shalhevet NCSY JUMP team was JUMPING for joy as they tied for ďŹ rst place with fellow Five Towns school, SKA, in the NCSY JUMP Boardroom competition.

NCSY JUMP is a national leadership program in which high school students complete to become more conďŹ dent and self sufďŹ cient.

The challenges were Poverty Awareness, Dangers of Texting and Driving, Israel Advocacy, and a Fundraiser.

The Shalhevet team â&#x20AC;&#x201D; consisting of Miriam Blonder, Tamar Beer, Leah Feder, Hadassah Fertig, Tova Gordon, Ava Korman, Aviva Marmer, Ayelet Nussbaum, Meira Nussbaum, Shana Schapira, Adi Weinberg, Tamar Yastrab and mentor Malky Blisko â&#x20AC;&#x201D; created and executed unique and positive programs.

They pulled off a wonderful Zumba night, raising $9,000 to beneďŹ t FD NOW, and collected over 400 pairs of shoes that were donated to Batya, an organization that empowers teenage girls.

The team gathered pledges from friends, family, teachers, and celebrities to not text and drive, and created a video usinh racing arcade games to prove the perils of texting and driving. The girls also interviewed Lone Soldiers and brought in Or Carmeli, sister of Sgt. Sean Carmeli, who was killed over the summer in Operation Tzuk Aitan, to speak at Shalhevet.

The team was ecstatic when they heard they made it to Boardroom, and were thrilled to meet the other ďŹ nalists, who also left positive impacts in their respective communities.

6.$ 6RQLFV DUH FKDPSV SKA Mazal tov to Stella K. Abraham HS for Girlsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; Basketball Sonics who won the Championship Title on Monday night in a riveting, spirited game against Bruriah HS. It was a night to remember and SKA student spectators came out to support the team in huge numbers with unparalleled ruach,

achdut and team spirit, chanting â&#x20AC;&#x153;we believe that we will win,â&#x20AC;? which was practiced at a pep rally earlier in the day.

Special thanks to Team Coach Mrs. Naomi Aghbashoff for her leadership and direction throughout the season.

The SKA family is proud of all of our participants. Kol hakavod!

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HANC The Hebrew Academy of Nassau County Boyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Chorus took top honors and the trophy in this yearâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Vâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Ata Banim Shiru a cappella competition. Under the guidance of Gaby Novick, the event beneďŹ ts the Koby Mandel Foundation.

Featured teams in the March 11 competition, held at the Rambam Mesivta, included HANC, MTA, Rambam and TABC, with Frisch having to bow out at the last moment.

HANCâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s group stood out with its original compositions and well-structured vocal arrangements. The ďŹ rst song, â&#x20AC;&#x153;Layehudim,â&#x20AC;? composed by Avraham Friedler, was a slow ballad with words from Megilat Esther. The judges remarked that there was beautiful group sound, smart arrangements and a blending of tones that was smooth. Eran Vaknin enhanced the song with a soulful solo.

During the second set, HANC performed â&#x20AC;&#x153;Kol Yisrael,â&#x20AC;? another original composition by Friedler. Soloist Dylan Homapour brought the song to a resounding crescendo with his melodious voice, while Max Baer ďŹ lled in with a beat box. Judgesâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; reactions included that the chorus was grooving with energy.

The bass line on all songs was handled perfectly by Adam Livi and Matthew Maslin. Rounding out the melodies were David Aziz, Daniel Dilamani and Jacob Mermelstein.

Chorus leader, Rabbi Aharon Friedler, felt that all the schools had remarkable performances , but in the end the judges saw that HANCâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s testament to hard work and dedication made its overall awesome performance a notch above the rest.

The performances can be viewed on you tube at http://bit.ly/1LrKjMg and http://bit.ly/1GUi16p

19 THE JEWISH STAR March 20, 2015 • 29 ADAR 5775

For Shulamith, a science fair Shulamith The Shulamith Middle Division had its annual science fair last Wednesday.

The students, under the guidance of science teachers Mrs. Miller and Dr. Tucker, displayed their completed experiments to a panel of distinguished guests who volunteered to judge at the fair. The enthusiasm was palpable as the students and judges interacted and learned science together.

The displays were informative and beautiful.

The science fair gives Shulamith students an opportunity to delve deeply into a science topic that interests them.

After the students decide to do a specific experiment, they are encouraged to learn as much as they can about that topic before proceeding, a process that helps them better understand the science concepts in their experiment After this procedure, the students analyze their results.

All of these steps help Shulamith students to understand the concepts behind the scientific process and scientific research.

There were a variety of science topics researched by the students for this year’s fair. Experiments were based on different aspects of sound, microbiology, the psychology behind learning, how effective sunscreens are, how to keep food from spoiling, and more. The information presented was relevant and useful to both the students and the judges.

The students also had the opportunity to listen to their fellow classmates present their experiments to each other in class. All in all, the science fair was a great success and members of the Shulamith community learned so much, from their own work and from each other.

IDF soldiers visit HAFTR HAFTR Israel is very much a part of HAFTR’s curriculum, where learning, teaching, speaking, thinking and breathing Eretz Yisrael takes place throughout the year.

This week, in lashon, fourth and fifth grade students learned — in Hebrew —about the different divisions within Israel’s army.

They gained insight into the daily life of a soldier and compared it to a Jewish American growing up in the Five Towns.

Morot Tali and Einav mesmerized students with their personal experiences in the army. Some students shared artifacts of family members who served in the army — Emanuel Avidan brought the Tanach his fa-

ther was given upon entering the army; Daniel Berkovich wore his father’s beret.

At the end of the week, three soldiers, affiliated with FIDF (Friends of the Israeli Defense Forces) visited with students. Sohar, Sapir and Efrat, our chayalim and chayelet, gained the respect of the students as they described their dedication and sacrifice to our

homeland.

Holding the berets of the chayalim was a highlight. Students took turns asking questions in Hebrew.

The guests were impressed with the derech eretz and warm welcome that they received.

Fifth grade student Corey Listman commented that “it was special that the soldiers

came all the way from Eretz Yisrael, our Holy Land, where they protect our brothers and sisters. It put a face to a soldier. It made it real.”

Ruthee Rosner, another fifth grader, wrote in her journal: “May Hashem protect our new friends, Sohar, Sapir and Efrat, all the Chayalim and all of Am Yisroel.

Annie at Shalhevet Midreshet Shalhevet The packed crowd bellowed “Bravo,” “Encore,” and “Two Thumbs Up” after each act of the Shalhevet performance of Annie. Directed by Ms. Ariana Wolfson, the students performed an outstanding rendition of the movie and Broadway play.

Starring Sarit Perl as Annie, Rivka Raizel Goldschein as Daddy Warbucks, Aviva Chait as Ms. Hannigan, Rikki Vatch as Grace Farrell, and Zahava Fertig as Drake, the cast kept the crowd enthralled with their wonderful performance. The orphans, featuring Michal Beer, Hadassah Fertig, Gabrielle Koegel, Shoshi Koppel, Becky Marks and Nechama Schneider were captivating and entertaining. Devora Chait and Dina Farkas, who played Lily St. Regis and Rooster, were hilarious and charming with their lifelike portrayal of the villainous duo. Principal Mrs. Esther Eisenman, took the stage as Ickes, along with Dina Seidenberg as FDR, Dasi Schneider as Perkins, and Chelli Katz as Morgenthau. The ensemble of dancers, choreographed by Mrs. Maggie Dror were marvelous and riveting. The costumes were stunning and the props enhanced the show. Special thanks to Maor Noy and Esti Freud, the unbelievable backstage crew who ran the show perfectly.

March 20, 2015 • 29 ADAR 5775 THE JEWISH STAR

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