The Jewish Star

Friedman sworn in as ambassador

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Parsha Vayikra • March 31, 2017 • 4 Nisan, 5777 • Candlelighting 7:01 • Luach page 27 • Vol 16, No 13 The Newspaper of our Orthodox communities

David Friedman stood when he was mentioned

by Vice President Mike Pence at the AIPAC Policy Conference on Sunday.

The Jewish Star / Ed Weintrob

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By The Jewish Star Dozens of students, faculty and alumni of Zionist-oriented day schools in Long Island’s Five Towns were among an estimated 18,000 participants — including 4,000 campus representatives — at the annual AIPAC Policy Conference in Washington this week.

Delegates to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee’s major annual event had their Israel-advocacy batteries recharged and returned home with fresh insights and arguments to bolster the Jewish state’s cause. They participated in workshops and informational sessions, attended plenary sessions that featured leading elected officials, and in some cases spent Tuesday on Capitol Hill lobbying members of Congress on behalf of Israel.

“Now I realize the long-team effects BDS can have,” said Rachel Fishbein of Midreshet Shalhevet. “A college student on the panel told us that BDS will not go away, and we must respectfully answer back, with knowledge.”

Ayelet Klahr of HALB’s Stella K. Abraham High School for Girls, attending her third Policy Conference, was moved by the words of a survivor of the Rwandan genocide who related to Israel’s story. “AIPAC creates a way for every one to connect,” she said.

“I’m excited to go lobbying tomorrow,” said Malka Guttman of the Shulamith School for Girls. “Unlike a letter you might write to the president and never get an answer, here we get to speak face-to-face, in person, with a clear focus.”

“This year everyone feels very together [compared to] last year when it felt very divided, due to the political campaign season,” said Josh Weinstein of HANC. “The sheer number of people here is amazing and inspiring,” said SKA student Talia Wein.

Turn to pages 24 and 25 for more on AIPAC and David Friedman’s elevation. For more student voices, pick up next week’s Jewish Star.

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From Stella K Abraham High School (from left): Judaic studies teacher Tamar Bindiger with students Talia Wein, Ayelet Klahr, Leora Fenster, Mimi Leifer, Emma Greenbaum and Sarah Kurtz. Jewish Star / Celia Weintrob

From the Shulamith School for Girls, from left: Sttanding — Miriam Bornstein, Ella Lax, Mindy Schreck, Hana Adler, Hadassah Allman, Avigayil Sassoon and Shana Deil. Seated — Rina Zerykier, Naomi Munk, Rebecca Lopkin, Temima Miller and Malka Guttman.

Jewish Star / Celia Weintrob

From HANC: Josh Weinstein, Tehilla Baruch, Jullian Fisch and chaperone Laura Eisner. Jewish Star / Celia Weintrob

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By The Jewish Star Five Towns resident David Friedman is now America’s ambassdor to Israel.

He was confirmed by the Senate on Thursday and took the oath of office in an unofficial private ceremony in his Village of Woodsburgh home on Friday. A photo of that ceremony, showing Friedman with his left hand on a book held by his youngest daughter, Katie, and his right hand raised, made its way onto Twitter.

An official public ceremony, with Vice President Mike Pence administering the oath of office to the new ambassador, was scheduled for Wednesday.

The Senate’s vote, 52–46, was largely along party lines. Only two Democrats supported Friedman — Robert Menendez of New Jersey and Joe Manchin III of West Virginia. No Republicans opposed him.

Prime Minister Netanyahu tweeted in response to the vote, “New US ambassador to Israel David Friedman will be warmly welcomed as President Trump’s representative and as a close friend of Israel.”

Friedman, 57, a longtime friend and bankruptcy attorney to Trump, was one of two Trump advisers on Jewish affairs during the presidential campaign.

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David Friedman was sworn in as the U.S. ambassador to Israel in a private ceremony at his Woodsburgh home on Friday. Friedman is seen resting his left his hand on a book held by his youngest daughter, Katie, while raising his right hand. Twitter

Young LIers sharpen their Israel advocacy skills at AIPAC confab

From Midreshet Shalhevet HS School for Girls: Aviva Chait, Rachel Fishbein and Zahava Fertig.

New kids’ Pesach books: seder guides and stories

March 31, 2017 • 4 Nisan, 5777 THE JEWISH STAR

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By Penny Schwartz, JTA From the wizardry of Harry Potter to a heartwarming, intergenerational story about an aging grandfather and his devoted granddaughter, this year’s new crop of Pesach books for kids offers a variety of reads.

The (Unofficial) Hogwarts Haggadah

By Moshe Rosenberg; designed by Aviva Shur.

All ages. $27.95

Fans of Harry Potter will be in Hogwarts heaven as this Haggadah, by Rabbi Moshe Rosenberg of Congregation Etz Chaim of Kew Gardens Hills, finds parallels between the wizardry of the best-selling “Harry Potter” books and the seder guide.

“From the concepts of slavery and freedom, to the focus on education, to the number four, Harry Potter and Passover share almost everything,” Rabbi Rosenberg writes in his introduction.

He assures readers that every word of traditional Haggadah text, in Hebrew and in English translation, is included. Interspersed throughout is commentary, via the lens of J.K. Rowling’s characters, that takes on questions of freedom, evil and the Four Children.

There’s even a Harry Potter-themed version of the popular seder song “Chad Gadya.”

This is the second Jewish Harry Potterthemed book by Rabbi Rosenberg. (The first was “Morality for Muggles: Ethics in the Bible and the World of Harry Potter.”)

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Linda Leopold-Strauss, illustrated by Jeremy Tugeau, Kar-Ben. Ages 4-9. $17.99, hardcover, $7.99 paperback

On the way to her grandparents’ house for the seder, a young girl named Jessica is busy practicing The Four Questions, in Hebrew, over and over. Jessica loves spending Passover with her grandparents, where everything is the same year after year — running up the stairs at their apartment, finding piles See Books on page 17

By Alina Dain Sharon, JNS.org On the right, a man sits and prays holding a liturgical book. On the left, a rabbi is seen explaining the story of the Jewish exodus from Egypt to a child. These images were printed on the pages of a Passover Haggadah in the city of Prague in 1556.

This nearly 500-year-old Haggadah, one of only two remaining copies, is part of the Valmadonna Trust Library collection that was recently sold to the National Library of Israel, with the help of philanthropy from the Haim and Hana Salomon Fund.

“The Haggadah is the most widely published book in Jewish history,” said Sharon Mintz, senior consultant for Judaica at the Sotheby’s auction house, which arranged the sale to the Israeli library.

Mintz told JNS.org that more than 3,000 editions of the Haggadah have been printed during the last several centuries—more than the Bible.

In particular, the Valmadonna collection’s 1556 Haggadah is a rare, luxury edition with Yiddish interpolations that “constitute the earliest examples of such texts,” said Marc Michael Epstein, the Professor of Religion and Visual Culture and the Mattie M. Paschall (1899) & Norman Davis Chair at Vassar College in New York.

Haggadah in printing history Just a few decades after Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press around 1440, printing spread to the Jewish world, beginning in Rome and then moving throughout Italy and the Iberian Peninsula. Scholars tend to refer to the era of early printing, before 1501, as the Incunabula period.

Jews were “tremendously excited” to be able to print multiple books, Mintz explained.

“They viewed it as a gift of God,” she said.

The earliest printed Haggadah was printed

‘Dayanu’ from the 1500s Haggadah recently sold to the National Library of Israel.

in Spain in 1482. Another early Haggadah dates back to roughly 1486, and was published by the Soncino family, named for the Italian town where the family ran its printing operation. These early Haggadahs were not illustrated. The earliest known illustrated Haggadah was printed in Constantinople (modern Istanbul) around 1515, but only a few pages of this Haggadah remain.

Jewish printing spread to other parts of Europe in the 1500s, which also led to a growth in competition among printers.

“The cradle of Hebrew printing is, of course, Venice. But the printing of Jewish books north of the Alps began in Prague in 1512 in the circle of Gershom ben Solomon Kohen and his brother Gronem,” said Epstein, who is the author of “Skies of Parchment, Seas of Ink: Jewish Illuminated Manuscripts” and “The Medieval Haggadah: Art, Narrative, and Religious Imagination.”

Sotheby’s

“Due to the humanistic patronage of the Holy Roman Emperor and a general climate of relative tolerance and free trade, Prague in the 16th century was a place of vibrant Jewish communal and cultural life, and thus—along with Venice—a crucial center of the newly developed art and craft of Hebrew printing,” he said. “Jewish printing spread from Prague throughout Western as well as Eastern Europe, the next great centers being in the Polish communities such as Lublin.”

By 1526, the family of Gershom ben Solomon Kohen, which also went by the name Katz and built an important and influential Jewish printing house, produced a printed, illustrated Haggadah that has become known as the Prague Haggadah, and is the earliest complete illustrated Haggadah in existence.

The 1526 Haggadah is notable for the 60 woodcut illustrations accompanying its text, a

number that Epstein called “extraordinary.”

“That number means that illustrations as a means of commentary were deemed to be central to the enterprise of printing and disseminating the haggadah,” he said.

In 1556, the Katz family printed the Haggadah whose copy is in the Valmadonna collection. This Haggadah utilizes some of the same illustrations from the 1526 Haggadah, as well as several original illustrations. For example, one illustration features a depiction of Moses. “[Moses] appears in the 1526 edition, but in the 1556 edition he has horns. Michelangelo’s ‘Moses’ in Rome was completed in 1516.

The famous horns on that statue seem to be Michelangelo’s response to the challenge of attempting to represent in sculptural form the light that streamed from Moses’s face from the time he descended from Mount Sinai [in Exodus 34:30]. The word ‘streamed’ and the word ‘horn’ both have the Hebrew root K-R-N, and thus the sculptural challenge converged with a display of grammatical punning,” Epstein explained.

“Michelangelo’s ‘Moses’ had conquered the aesthetic world of that time. Everyone who was anyone knew of it. So … the inclusion of horns in the 1556 image of Moses seems to indicate that fashionable Jews wanted to be in on the ‘new’ way of depicting him, however ‘un-Jewish’ this seemed. The message here is that ‘Jews are modern and fashionable, and aware of currents in the art world,’” the scholar added.

Unique fonts and parchment Dr. Yoel Finkelman, the Haim and Hanna Salomon Judaica Collection curator at the National Library of Israel, also told JNS.org that the 1556 haggadah is “an amazing example of a number of phenomena.”

First, the haggadah provides examples of See Israel library on page 17

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Vayikra: On hearing Hashem’s call to action Rabbi binny FReedman The hearT of jerusalem

V

isiting Poland is an overwhelming experience. It is a country in which a Jewish community flourished for a thousand years which now serves as a mass memorial to European Jewry. It is impossible to comprehend the enormity of millions of lives taken and thousands of Jewish communities destroyed, so instead one attempts to focus on individual stories.

A visit to the Jewish cemetery of Warsaw is a case in point, with hundreds of thousands of Jewish graves dating back hundreds of years, including those of some of the greatest rabbis of Jewish history. On our recent visit to Warsaw, we stopped in front of a large gravestone with the name Adam Czerniaków (pronounced Cherniack; November 30, 1880 —23 July 1942).

He was buried in 1942, when most of Warsaw’s Jews were being transported to Treblinka. Of the 450,000 Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto, few merited a Jewish burial, and certainly not with such an impressive headstone.

Czerniaków was head of the Judenrat, the ghetto’s Jewish council that interfaced with the Germans and sought to provide some semblance of order and direction for the ghetto’s desperate Jews. It was the Judenrat that attempted to allocate living space as tens of thousands of Jews poured in every week during 1939 and 1940. How do you find space for 450,000 Jews in a small section of blocks meant for 20,000 people? And it was the

Judenrat that attempted to allocate the meager food rations and work assignments that meant life, however temporarily, for those who managed to receive them. To be the head of the Judenrat was a thankless miserable job that Czerniaków attempted to fill as best he could, until the day he was found dead at his desk, a suicide note beneath his hand.

As the German authorities began preparing for mass deportations of Jews from the Warsaw Ghetto to Treblinka in July 1942, the Judenrat was ordered to provide lists of Jews and maps of their residences. On July 22, 1942, the Judenrat received instructions from the SS that all Warsaw Jews were to be “resettled” to the East. (Exceptions were made for Jews working in Nazi German factories, Jewish hospital staff, members of the Council, and the Jewish Ghetto police.) Over the course of the day, Czerniaków was able to obtain exemptions for a handful of individuals, including sanitation workers, husbands of women working in factories, and some vocational students. Despite all his pleading, however, he was unable to obtain an exemption for the children of Janusz Korczak’s orphanage and other ghetto orphanages. The orders further stated that the deportations would begin immediately at the rate of 6,000 people per day, to be supplied by the Jewish Council and rounded up by the Ghetto Police. Failure to comply would result in immediate execution of 100 hostages, including employees of the Council itself and Czerniaków’s own wife.

By this time it had become clear to him that these hapless Jews were not going to a better place where work would mean freedom. The empty trains returning, a few escapes, and stories from bribed SS guards made it clear that the Nazis were sending the Jews of Poland to mass extermination.

Realizing that deportation meant death, Czerniaków went to plead for the orphans.

When he failed, he returned to his office and took a cyanide capsule he had been keeping for such an occasion. His suicide note read: “I can no longer bear all this. My act will prove to everyone what the right thing to do is…”

The last entry in the journal, found open on his desk, read: “I hope the world will learn from this.”

Czerniaków wanted the Jews, and even the world, to see they could resist. He was calling out from the grave not to collaborate.

This week we begin reading Vayikra, the third book of the Torah.

“And he called to Moshe, and Hashem spoke to him.” (Vayikra 1:1) he word Vayikra, to call, is the first word in this week’s parsha and is the name of both the parsha and the entire book.

What is significant in the word vayikra (and He called) that it signifies the essence of this third book?

The word vayikra is written in the Torah with a small letter aleph at the end. The Baal Haturim explains that this is because Moshe, in his modesty, wanted to use the same word that is used when Hashem interacted with

We come close to G-d by understanding what He wants of us.

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Balaam (the wicked non-Jewish prophet who appears in Bamidbar, the fourth book of Torah).

Vayakar is vayikra without the letter aleph, but Hashem specifically asked Moshe to use the word vayikra. Moshe was uncomfortable being placed at center stage, perhaps wanting to appear that he was not special, that he just “happened” to be in the right place at the right time. To signify Moshe’s humility, the aleph is written smaller to indicate that it wasn’t his first choice for usage.

But this is not the first time Hashem uses the word vayikra to call Moshe; it was used a number of times in the previous book, Shemot. So why is it that here the word vayikra bothers Moshe?

The first time Hashem calls Moshe at the burning bush (Shemot 3:4), the Torah uses the word vayikra, because Moshe is not just being called; he is receiving his calling. The shepherd is about to become the leader of the Jewish people for all time.

The book of Vayikra introduces the concept of a korban, a sacrificial offering. Until now, the word used by Torah to denote a sacrifice is zevach, which seems to emanate from the root zav (to flow), perhaps implying that all things flow from Hashem’s goodness.

The Ramban suggests that the root of the word korban (sacrifice) is karov (to be close), with Torah introducing the idea that Hashem desires a closer relationship with us as human beings.

The idea that people could come close to G-d was foreign to the ancient pagans. In Egypt and Babylon, Canaan and Persia, people were in awe or fear of their deities. Judaism teaches that G-d loves us, and we can come close to See Action on page 27

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Is Trump owed apology after JCC arrest? threats. “Trump helped to create the atmoAnalysis by Andrew Silow-Carroll, JTA Literally within seconds of the news of the sphere of bigotry and violence that has resulted arrest in Israel of an Israeli-American teenager in these dangerous threats against Jewish instifor the bulk of the JCC bomb threats, Twitter lit tutions and individuals.”

At this moment, we don’t know the moup with Jewish anxiety. “[I] fear the inevitable backlash from haters tive of the Israeli suspect. But assuming this who we whipped [into] a frenzy for our own kid was dealing with personal demons and the nefarious political aims” is how someone re- JCC bomb threats can’t be pinned on typical anti-Semitic ideology, does this mean that the sponded to the JTA story about the arrest.

A colleague’s friend wrote, “And now people spike in hate crimes tallied in New York and will have another excuse to not take anti-Semi- elsewhere didn’t happen? Were these Jewish tism seriously.”

The shock and anxiety inspired by news of the arrest were understandable. After all, anti-Semitic organizations and websites keep tallies of “false flag” anti-Semitic attacks carried out by Jews, in order to discredit the very idea that anti-Semitism exists. (Such incidents are few and far between, and pale next to the actual tally of attacks on people and property, but never mind.)

But the JCC bomb threat hoax wasn’t just an isolated swastika daubing — it was an ongoing story affecting Jewish institutions in nearly every American Jewish community. It shaped a communal narrative that something ugly and insidious was happening out there.

And it fueled a political crisis among most American Jewish organizations and the White Bomb-threat suspect leaves court in Rishon Lezion on March 23.

House, with the former accusing the latter of taking too long to denounce groups wrong to assume that anti-Semites were anti-Semitism and to comfort Jews traumatized responsible for anti-Semitism?

Groups who pinned the bomb threats on an by the bomb threats and at least two major cematmosphere that Trump “helped to create” ceretery desecrations.

Coming almost as quickly as the expressions tainly went too far, but does their lack of caution of anxiety was the political exploitation of the mean that Trump’s divisive campaign rhetoric should be forgiven? Ann Coulter — asking “Has arrest.

“The Ultimate Self-Hating Jew, a 19-yr old ANY anti-Trump story been true?” — joined the Israeli-American, was behind the JCC bomb chorus of those suggesting the arrest exonerated threats,” tweeted Marc Zell, co-chairman of Re- Trump, though exonerated of what is not clear.

Jewish groups wanted a strong statement publicans Overseas Israel. “The US Jewish leadfrom the White House condemning the bomb ership owes @POTUS an apology.”

Before we get too far into the rituals of threats and the cemetery vandalism not because finger-pointing, a few things are worth con- he was the perpetrator or a Republican, but besidering: First, JCCs and other Jewish institu- cause he is the president. Issuing statements of tions across the country, and the children and condemnation and support is what presidents adults who use them, were traumatized by the do, automatically and usually inconspicuously. string of some 150 bomb threats. It cost JCCs Only Trump has seemed to take this task as an members and money, and diverted funds from affront, somehow believing that to condemn programs to heighten security. That the main hate crimes is to take responsibility for them.

Others are saying that the arrest of a Jew hoaxer allegedly was a Jewish guy living in Isin the bomb threats vindicates Trump’s comrael doesn’t erase three months of anguish.

Second, it is a huge relief to Jewish institu- ments last month suggesting that the threats tions — and the community that relies upon were a “false flag” attack. According to Pennsylthem — that someone has been caught. Per- vania Attorney General Josh Shapiro, Trump told haps they can return to business as usual. Let’s a meeting of states’ attorney generals that “Sometimes it’s the reverse,” and attacks are made “to give them their moment of relief.

Third, Jews didn’t do this to “themselves.” make people — or to make others — look bad.”

Some took this to mean that Trump was sugThis was a criminal act by an individual. Blaming all members of a community for the act of gesting a Jew was behind the attack, although an individual is a page out of the anti-Semitism more likely he was referring to a political enemy.

Whatever he meant, he couldn’t have sounded playbook.

Many Jewish groups did go too far, too fast more tone-deaf.

The ADL and other Jewish groups have a in assuming the identity of the culprit (or culprits), pinning the threats on a political climate tough PR challenge ahead of them: keeping the focus on acts of anti-Semitism by traditional eninspired by President Donald Trump.

“We’ve never seen, ever, the volume of bomb emies — white supremacists, neo-Nazis, the virthreats that we’ve seen,” Oren Siegel, the direc- ulently anti-Israel far left — while acknowledgtor of the ADL’s Center on Extremism, said at ing that one of the most extensive and public a news conference following the arrest of the anti-Semitic acts of recent memory was carried first suspect, Juan Thompson (a copycat moti- out by a Jew. They’ll need to recast the narravated by some weird romantic grudge that ap- tive of resurgent anti-Semitism by omitting the pears to have had little to do with Jews). “White wave of JCC bomb threats, but not at the exsupremacists in this country feel more embold- pense of the victimized JCCs. As the American Jewish Committee put it in ened than they ever have before because of the a statement, “This is a lesson in not leaping to public discourse and divisive rhetoric.”

Bend the Arc, the liberal Jewish social jus- assumption[s] about complex links between potice group, was more explicit in blaming Trump. larizing politics and anti-Semitic acts. But it does “In recent days, we have seen manifestations not dispel [the] age-old reality of anti-Semitism.”

And they’ll have to find a way to stay vigiof the hatred stirred up by President-elect Donald Trump throughout his campaign,” it wrote lant in a polarized and poisonous political era in a statement after the first wave of JCC bomb without being seen as the boys who cried wolf.

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By Eliana Rudee, JNS.org Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman recently declared the Palestinian National Fund a terrorist organization for its “continuing and ongoing activity in providing massive support for elements responsible for committing severe acts of terrorism against Israel.”

The designation was groundbreaking, but it might be just the first step in thwarting the fund’s influence.

A statement released by Israel’s Defense Ministry affirmed, “As of today, all necessary actions will be taken in Israel and overseas in order to seize and confiscate property and assets designated for, or belonging to, the fund.”

According to Israeli counter-terrorism expert Boaz Ganor, founder of the International Institute for Counter-Terrorism (ICT), defining an entity as a terrorist organization allows a government to prosecute the group’s members, confiscate its funds and take over its facilities and properties.

Dr. Eitan Azani, ICT’s deputy director and a researcher of the financing of global and regional terrorism, said during a February press conference, “If it’s not designated, at the end of the day, we will not be able to counter the operations of [a terrorist] group.” But designating an organization as a terrorist group, he argued, is only the first step in effectively combating global terror. Appropriate steps include international cooperation as well as a better understanding of terrorists’ rationale and motives within governments and counter-terrorism practitioners, Azani said.

His colleague, Ganor, prefers to call the Palestinian National Fund a “sponsoring terror organization” rather than a general “terror organization,” as he believes the former better reflects its crimes. He said he does not know

Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas (center) attends a meeting of Palestinian businessmen in Ramallah on April 29, 2014.

Issam Rimawi/Flash90

whether or not Israel warned Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas before designating the fund as a terror group, but hopes the Jewish state did issue that warning.

The Palestinian National Fund, often in partnership with the PA, financially incentivizes terrorism by paying imprisoned Palestinian terrorists and their families salaries—the longer the sentence, the greater the payments to the prisoners and their families. The fund also supports the relatives of terrorists who were killed while perpetrating acts of terror against Israel.

Overall, the fund successfully transfers mil-

lions of dollars every month to imprisoned Palestinian terrorists and their family members.

This money is provided by U.S. and European taxpayers via their governments’ foreign aid to the PA. “A terrorist that knows he and his family will get monetary support if he will be killed or jailed takes this under consideration in his decision to commit attacks,” noted Ganor. “On top of other considerations, he now feels he is doing an altruistic act towards his family, knowing that they will benefit from his activity.”

The Palestinian National Fund is headed by Ramzi Elias Yousef Khouri, a senior Palestine

Liberation Organization (PLO) official who is close to senior PA leaders.

Indeed, according to a May 2016 report by the PLO Commission of Prisoners’ Affairs, Khouri instructed the Palestinian Ministry of Finance to pay $9 million in release grants, which, under Palestinian law, allow terrorists, who were imprisoned for more than five years in Israel, to receive a salary from the PA upon their release. Terrorists who served less than five years receive a lump sum when freed.

Lieberman’s declaration was in accordance with his authority under United Nations Security Council Resolutions 2322 and 1373, which condemned terrorists’ use of technology to fund their actions; invoked nations’ duty to prohibit their citizens from “making any funds, financial assets or economic resources or financial or other related services available, directly or indirectly, for the benefit of persons who commit or attempt to commit or facilitate or participate in the commission of terrorist acts;” and called upon member states to share information about terrorist fighters, individuals and organizations.

Since the 9/11 attacks and the subsequent enactment of U.N. Resolution 1373, the U.S., along with Israel and the international community, has been at the forefront of the campaign to counter the financing of terrorist organizations.

Since then, said ICT’s Azani, “we’ve found that time after time, if you close one channel, [terrorist groups] open another. If you close this channel, they open a third channel.”

Eliana Rudee is a fellow with the news and public policy group Haym Salomon Center. Her bylines have been featured in USA Today, New York Daily News, Forbes, and The Hill.

Syrian Kurds are needed to defeat Islamic State

By Ariel Ben Solomon, JNS.org What steps can the West take to defeat Islamic State? The U.S. and Israel should work to push the Syrian Kurds away from the IranShi’a axis and Russia, and toward an alliance with the Americans and the Israelis, leading experts on Syria and the Kurds told JNS.org.

“The U.S. and Israel could win Rojava as a loyal Western satellite if they are willing to guarantee its sovereignty and sign a defense agreement,” said Joshua Landis, a Syria expert and director of the Center for Middle East Studies at the University of Oklahoma, referring to the area consisting of several self-governing regions in northern Syria.

Rojava is also commonly known as Western Kurdistan or Syrian Kurdistan.

“But they must be willing to escalate their defense of the Kurds against possible Turkish, Iranian, Syrian and Russian attacks,” he said.

Yet currently, the U.S. and Israel do not value the self-governing regions of Syria as a national interest, Landis argued.

“This was the same problem that the Syrian-Sunni rebels faced. The West doesn’t prioritize Syria over other regional concerns,” he explained, noting that Western nations instead prioritized keeping Turkey as an ally and pivoting to East Asia.

Landis’s comments come as Chagai Tzuriel, the director general of Israel’s Intelligence Ministry, told Reuters in a report published March 21 that Russia and other world powers should work to curb Iran’s growing military presence in Syria.

Meanwhile, the U.S. military is likely to send up to 1,000 additional ground troops to Syria as part of a future offensive in the Islamic State-occupied city of Raqqa, The Washington Post reported earlier this month.

Raqqa serves as the jihadist terror group’s Syrian headquarters. America’s new plan

Fighters from the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) militia.

would call for cooperating with Kurdish and Arab forces in northern Syria.

Turkey wants to send its own troops into Raqqa, but is unlikely to do so given its unwillingness to cooperate with the People’s Protection Units (YPG)—a Kurdish militia that the Turks view as supportive of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), a terrorist organization that has a decades-old conflict with Turkey. Reuters reported that the YPG plans on expanding to more than 100,000 troops, from its current level of about 60,000.

At the same time, the U.S. needs to compete for the Kurds’ loyalty with Russia. As Reuters also reported this week, Russia is moving to train Kurdish fighters in northwestern

Kurdish Struggle via Wikimedia Commons

Syria in what YPG spokesman Redur Xelil called “the first [agreement] of its kind.”

Dr. Sherkoh Abbas, president of the Kurdistan National Assembly of Syria (KNAS) umbrella organization, told JNS.org he shared his ideas about the region with Trump administration officials. Abbas’s plan centers on the possible implementation of safe zones in Syria and ways to defeat Islamic State by using the Kurds as key allies.

Abbas is pleased that so far, the Trump administration appears to support the concept of the safe zones, which would be aimed at stopping the flow of Syrian refugees to the West.

The Kurds, he said, are better partners than Syrian rebel groups whose fighters have

defected to Islamist organizations.

“This is not good for the Kurds, other minorities, Israel, the U.S., Europe or other regional countries,” Abbas said. Trump administration officials have “told us that they like the Syrian Kurds,” but that “there were some problematic issues such as the Marxist ideology and links to [Syrian President Bashar] Assad, Iran and the PKK,” he said.

Abbas explained that previous U.S. administrations tried to get the Kurds to join the Islamist-dominated Sunni rebels in Syria.

He asserted that KNAS is completely separate from the YPG and the Democratic Unity Party (PYD), the main political organization in Syrian Kurdistan. The PYD dominates the SyrianKurdish region “due to support from Assad’s regime, Iran, Russia and the U.S,” Abbas said.

KNAS remains outside the PYD-YPG coalition because “we see a hope that we can delink them from Assad, Iran and the PKK, and become closer to the U.S. and Israel,” he added.

Abbas described the PYD as being dominated by the Syrian government and its allies, but said that with American support, the Kurds could switch loyalties “provided that the U.S. pressures the PYD to delink from Assad.”

Abbas said his organization has been trying to recruit a delegation of Syrian Kurds to visit the West or even Israel for meetings in order to forge an alliance. Regarding Israeli support for Syrian Kurds, he said that Israel “is reluctant because of Iran-PYD connections and its efforts to remain on good terms with the Arabs and Turks.”

Yet Abbas argued that the U.S. and Israel should prioritize supporting the Kurds because they could help break up the IranHezbollah land corridor that stretches from Iran to Lebanon and reaches Israel’s borders.

“The Kurds,” he said, “are the natural allies for America and Israel.”

THE JEWISH STAR March 31, 2017 • 4 Nisan, 5777

Israel designates Palestinian fund a terror group

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org that the ministers have not yet replied.

Luden said that CIDI is “satisfied” with a letter it has received from Mayor Aboutaleb, but declined to reveal what he wrote.

Dutch journalist Carel Brendel, who has written about the PRC’s activities, told JNS. org that the evidence of the PRC’s connections to Hamas is “overwhelming.” He noted that two of the organizers of the upcoming conference, Adel Abdallah and Amin Abou Rashed, have received awards from Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh.

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By Rafael Medoff, JNS.org The mayor of the second-largest city in the Netherlands is refusing to block a conference by a pro-Hamas group, despite warnings by Dutch Jewish leaders and political figures that the event could encourage antiSemitism and embolden terrorists.

The Palestinian Return Centre (PRC), which is regarded by the Israeli and German governments as a support group of the Hamas terrorist organization, plans to hold its annual “Palestinians in Europe” conference April 15 in Rotterdam.

Netherlands Chief Rabbi Binyomin Jacobs told JNS.org he is “very concerned” that the conference “will incite anti-Semitism or pro-terrorist sentiment” in the country, particularly among the country’s rapidly growing community of ethnic Turks. He said the PRC’s activities are “just like the ‘Denk’ party, whose three seats in the new parliament look small, but is the beginning, God forbid, of a direction which we don’t want to go.” Denk, which represents Dutch citizens of Turkish origin, is harshly anti-Israel.

A mob of militant Dutch Turks yelled “Cancer—Jews” as they rioted outside the Turkish consulate in Amsterdam March 11.

They were protesting the Dutch government’s refusal to let a Turkish cabinet minister campaign among Dutch Turks concerning an upcoming referendum in Turkey.

Jacobs said he and other Jewish leaders have urged Rotterdam’s mayor, Ahmed Aboutaleb, to cancel the PRC conference. He said the mayor responded that “since there is no proof that Hamas is involved, he can’t do anything.” The rabbi said the mayor promised that “a few of his people” will be present at the April 15 PRC event to “make sure nothing anti-Semitic will happen or will be said.”

Maarten Molenbeek, Aboutaleb’s spokesperson, told JNS.org that he would not comment on the controversy due to “a busy schedule,” and also because “we want to be prudent on this case.”

In a recent op-ed for the Huffington Post, Simon Wiesenthal Center Associate Dean Rabbi Abraham Cooper and former Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs chairman Dr. Manfred Gerstenfeld described the question of whether or not the conference is “a litmus test” for Aboutaleb. They noted that while Aboutableb “is a member of the extreme anti-Israel Labour Party” in the Netherlands, he is “a moderate Orthodox Muslim” and “has not publicly expressed anti-Israel sentiments in the past.”

The Center for Information and Documentation on Israel (CIDI), a Dutch pro-Israel group, recently wrote to Interior Minister Ronald Plasterk and Justice Minister Stef Blok, urging them to block the PRC conference on the grounds that “the organizers of this conference are affiliated with the terrorist group Hamas.” CIDI Director Hana Luden told JNS.

ut Check oW our NE e! websit

THE JEWISH STAR March 31, 2017 • 4 Nisan, 5777

Pro-Hamas Dutch meet an anti-Semitic concern

11

Getting set for our joyous pre-Pesach panic Judy Joszef who’s in the kitchen

B

y the time most of you will be reading this it will be about a week before Pesach. Normally I would be in that pre-Pesach panic mode, but this year I courageously agreed to cater and party-plan an event just eight days before the start of the holiday.

And so now I'm in party panic mode; next week I will enter my Pesach panic mode. I will admit that my pantry is totally turned over and filled with all my Pesach dry goods although it’s a certainty that more will be added: Jerry cannot turn down a sale and he thinks it's OK to buy another six boxes of cereal, when we already have eight in the house.

Jerry's dad's yurtzeit is the last day of Pesach (he believes his father would have gotten a chuckle out of his yurtzeit falling on the eighth day of the seven-day holiday). His father, a Holocaust survivor, was a fun-loving man.

Leslie Kellner, who spent a summer in Turkin's Bungalow Colony along with Jerry and his family, referred to it, as "The Magical Summer of 1965.” When asked why he called it that, he answered, "because of Jerry's dad, who made each day creatively fun and exciting in contrast to all the other more subdued parents,” most of whom were also Holocaust survivors. Jerry's dad, a Tom Sawyer-like adult, made sure that every day was a blast for all the kids in the bungalow colony.

When Jerry is hatching plans for a fun day with his grandchildren, he’ll often reflect back on, and fondly remember, what his father had

done when Jerry was a young boy. Jerry is his father’s son and all his grandkids and grandogs love playing with him and all his toys and antics; it's a scene to behold. At work, when his colleagues’ children accompany their parents for day, many of them love to organize play dates with Jerry.

Just in case my pre-Pesach panic mode turns into pre-hysteria mode, and by next week I have to ask my editor for the week off, I want to wish you all a happy sweet Pesach holiday.

To those of you who will be home and slaving away, I feel your pain, and to those of you who will be in some exotic place around the world being catered to, well you know what I think…

Since, in the five years that I’ve been writing this column, I've exhausted all of my interesting Pesach recipes, I’m going to rerun one of my favorites…

JANUARY 14—APRIL 10, 2017

Decadent Heavenly Hash Pesach Brownies

Ingredients: 8 eggs 4 cups white sugar 2 cups melted butter 12 Tablespoons matzo meal 2 cups cocoa powder 2 cups chopped walnuts (optional) Topping: 2 cups heavy cream JANUARY 2017 24 ounces semi sweet chocolate or choco-14—APRIL On10,medium speed blend eggs, sugar, and late chips butter. Mix in matzo meal, cocoa powder and 4 cups mini marshmallows walnuts (if desired).

2 cups coarsely chopped walnuts or nuts of Pour batter into the baking pans, and bake your choice for 30 minutes. Once cool, prepare the topping.

Directions: Melt chocolate and heavy cream over a very low Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease two flame stirring constantly so that it doesn’t burn.

8x8 inch baking pans.

Remove from flame and let cool till it’s almost

room temperature, but still soft enough to pour.

Place marshmallows and nuts on top of the brownie cake and pour chocolate topping over it.

Let cool and slice into squares. These can be made a few days before and kept in an airtight Distinc container in the refrigerator. Remove from M-F: By fridge an hour before serving.

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THE JEWISH STAR March 31, 2017 • 4 Nisan, 5777

By Elizabeth Kratz, JNS.org Do you recall what you were eating in kosher restaurants 10 years ago? Had you tried sousvide dishes? Homemade sausage?

Fresh, cured gravlax made with only salt, sugar, peppercorns and dill? Shaved black truffles on fresh pasta, tossed with roasted porcini mushrooms? Fried chicken so crisp and tender that you’d almost swear it was soaked in buttermilk?

Not likely. It was probably a burger, steak or slice of pizza, and don’t forget that side order of sushi.

Yet during the last decade, one man’s unsung efforts have had perhaps the greatest influence on shaping and growing the skills of Some of Chef Avram Wiseman’s former students. kosher-observant culinary students, mentoring them with his quirky sense of humor, Institute of New York, he trained close to 500 imbuing them with kitchen “street smarts,” and students in classic French culinary techniques, ultimately placing them in top kosher restaurants espousing the methods of Auguste Escoffier, the father of modern French cuisine. In 2008, he for externships and employment.

If you have eaten at a high-end kosher res- started teaching at the Center for Kosher Culitaurant during the last decade, chances are that nary Arts on Coney Island Avenue in Midwood someone working there was a student, or a stu- and worked there until the school closed in 2015.

Chef David Kolotkin—who runs Kaptivating dent’s student, of Chef Avram Wiseman.

In May, Wiseman will open the Kosher Cu- Kosher, a catering company for upscale and celinary Center in Brooklyn, “the only kosher lebrity events, and is the former executive chef culinary school outside of Israel to offer profes- at Manhattan’s renowned Prime Grill kosher steakhouse—calls Wiseman his “go-to guy for sional training in the culinary and pastry arts.”

After two decades as a kosher caterer, res- industry advice.”

“Avram Wiseman is like a walking iPhone taurateur, banquet chef and menu consultant, See Kosher world’s hero on page 19 Wiseman turned to teaching in 2000. At the Art

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THE JEWISH STAR March 31, 2017 • 4 Nisan, 5777

Sale Dates: April 2nd - 8th 2017

March 31, 2017 • 4 Nisan, 5777 THE JEWISH STAR

16

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March 31, 2017 • 4 Nisan 5777 • Every week in print and online at TheJewishStar.com • Send news and photos to: Schools@TheJewishStar.com • Weekly deadline: Monday 5 pm

SKA competes in Olympiad

HAFTR Bowl-a-Thon nets 15K for S’Zedek

By Moshe Weiner, Grade 12 Over 100 students from HAFTR High School participated in the third annual Bowl-A-Thon, raising over $15,159 for Shaare Zedek Medical Center in Jerusalem.

Shaare Zedek is working to complete a new Neurological Center that will encompass a stroke unit, neuroradiology, and neurosurgery units. This important neurological area will save the lives of stroke victims, treat all brain/head traumas and disorders as well as post traumatic stress disorder patients.

The Bowl-A-Thon is a wonderful event, as each student raised at least $100; this money will go to benefit the new neurological center.

Shaare Zedek is a very worthwhile

cause that treats more than 850,000 patients each year, including more than 65,000 children, and delivers more than 22,000 babies each year.

Many HAFTR students related that they felt that they were doing something special by helping to provide aid to these patients.

The “Rolling Thunder” team, captained by David and Jonathan Ledere, raised the most money.

Placing second was captain Shelly Koppel’s “Team Nadelbach.”

The Bowl-A-Thon was held at Woodmere Lanes and was organized by Rabbi Nadelbach. Hopefully next year’s event will be as successful as this year’s, allowing students to have fun while contributing to a great cause.

The Science Olympiad Team of the Stella K. Abraham High School for Girls made an incredible effort at the Olympiad held at Lander College for Men on March 19, making sixth place out of 12 schools.

The Olympiad provides opportunities for high school students in yeshivot and day schools to compete in events that tests knowledge

and skills associated with science, engineering and technology.

In addition to the trophy won by the SKA Team as a whole, Chaya Sara Bodek and Ayelet Aharon won 1st Place in Chem Lab; Chani Berger, Shoshana Lunzer and Zisi Grossman won 2nd Place in Towers; Kayla Evans; Meira Steiner and Pnina Levin won 3rd Place in

Electric Vehicle; Ayelet Klahr and Eliana Spiess won 4th Place in Ecology; and Shani Axelrod and Esther Miller won 4th Place in Microbe Mission.

Congratulations to the SKA Team and their captains, Chaya Sara Bodek and Ayelet Klahr, and their coaches, Chana Glatt and Dorit Tannenbaum.

Shulamith 7th in Philadelphia At 7 am on March 16, 61 Shulamith seventh graders set out for a day of learning and fun in Philadelphia, beginning with the Live Liquid Air Show at the Franklin Institute. The girls viewed interactive exhibits about the human heart, brain, principles of gravity, and more. They also enjoyed socializing during lunch in the cafeteria.

In addition to the Franklin Institute, the girls visited the Liberty Bell and Independence Hall, site of the signing of the Declaration of In-

dependence. The tour guide, Sheila Schwebel, of Tourrific Travel, arranged a visit to Mikveh Israel, the oldest continually used synagogue in

the United States.

The girls were privileged to be addressed by the rav of the shul, Rabbi Gabbai, who shared both historic details and divrei

Torah with us.

The tour ended with a delicious dinner of pizza and French fries, and a chance to visit the gift shops in the Bourse.

YU’s Sy Syms offers new masters degree in taxation Matt Yaniv Yeshiva University’s Sy Syms School of Business announced will offer a new master’s degree in taxation.

“In a competitive job market, the technical skills and expertise in taxation, along

with enhanced communication proficiency, become increasingly valuable,” said Dr. Selma Botman, provost and vice president for academic affairs at YU. “The introduction of the graduate tax degree reflects the resourceful thinking that

SHARE THE NEWS! FolloW THE jEWiSH STAR oN

the Sy Syms Business School personifies, as well as its consistency in responding to the demands in the marketplace and the interests of our students,” said Professor Leonard Fuld, the program’s director and a widely respected expert in tax law with nearly 40

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Books…

Had Gadia, are not present in this haggadah because they became part of the Passover tradition in later times.

The Valmadonna collection as a whole was a “showstopper” when it was displayed at Sotheby’s before the sale to Israel, attracting more than 3,000 visitors a day, said Mintz.

“People were lining up for hours outside the door,” and “you could see all the spectrums of the Jewish people,” she said.

Collection’s roots The collection was founded by Jack Lunzer, who Mintz described as a “passionate lover of Hebrew books and Jewish culture” who collected books for more than six decades and assembled the “largest private collection of Hebrew books in the world…one of the most significant collections.” Lunzer also assembled the largest collection of books printed on parchment, such as the 1556 haggadah. Notably, the collector possessed a copy of the Babylonian Talmud produced by the Christian printer Daniel Bomberg, which was sold in 2015—before the sale

By Allison Ofanansky, photographs by Aliyahu Alpern, Apples & Honey Press. Ages 5-8. $15.95

of his entire collection to Israel’s library—for the reported price of $9.3 million.

Finkelman said that aside from its acquisition of the Valmadonna collection, Israel’s national library is home to the world’s largest collection of haggadahs, including the haggadah from 1482, which was printed just 10 years before Jews were expelled from Spain. Additionally, the library houses a haggadah made by the communist movement in Ukraine during the 1930s—an alternative haggadah that was used to undermine Jewish religious practice, for example, by equating hametz with capitalism.

Israel’s national library is currently waiting for the arrival of the Valmadonna collection, which it plans to catalogue and unveil to the public in a special event. The collection will also be displayed in the library’s new building, which is set to open in 2020.

The purchase of the Valmadonna collection, Finkelman said, is indicative of the library’s attempt to amass the world’s “most complete collection of Jewish printing.”

Kids get an up-close look at how matzah is made in this fascinating new book overflowing with stunning color photographs that bring to life small-batch, handmade matzah-making to factories that bake 35,000 pieces of matzah every day. Kids see the spiked rolling tool used to make the tiny holes in the matzah and get a peek inside the very hot ovens required for baking. Captions and explanatory text are informative but simple, making the photographs the stars of a wonderful book that will appeal both to kids and grownups. There are several Do It Yourself recipes and craft projects, including baking matzah, making a matzah cover and growing the greens for karpas.

Sammy Spider’s Passover Shapes Sylvia A. Rouss; illustrated by Katherine Janus Kahn, Kar-Ben. Ages 1-4. $5.99 board book

The popular Sammy Spider returns, in his 24th year. “Passover Shapes” is the second Sammy Spider board book geared for toddlers. It’s a brightly illustrated tale in which Sammy Spider celebrates the holiday with his human friend, Josh Shapiro.

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THE JEWISH STAR March 31, 2017 • 4 Nisan, 5777

Continued from page 2 of blankets and pillows for the sleepover with her cousins, and enjoying the good smells emanating from the kitchen.

But this year will be different because her grandfather just got home from the hospital and is too weak to come to the seder table. In this heartwarming intergenerational story, Jessica comes up with a plan for how Grandpa can still lead the seder, continuing the family tradition.

Jeremy Tugeau’s large, expressive illustrations capture Jessica’s emotions of joy, disappointment and love she shares her with grandfather.

How It’s Made: Matzah

Israel library buys 1556 Haggadah…

Continued from page 3 two unique fonts. One is a Hebrew font unique and identifiable to Prague from that period.

The other is known as the most common font for printing in Yiddish at the time.

The other unique attribute of the 1556 haggadah is the fact that it is printed on parchment as opposed to paper. In that era, parchmentprinted books were considered a luxury because parchment was more durable than paper, and was more expensive and harder to print on than paper.

Sotheby’s consultant Mintz also pointed out that this haggadah doesn’t open with the standard haggadah text, but instead with the text that is recited the night before Passover when Jews are traditionally required to search for hametz (leavened products) by candlelight at night, followed by the burning of that hametz.

“This printed haggadah begins with what one does on the eve of Passover,” Mintz said, adding that several songs that Jews associate with Passover today, such as Ehad Mi Yodea or

17

Annual science fair for YCQ 6th graders

4 HANCsters tell family tales nie Annie Volume 12 took place in 12 countries on five continents over a span of 136 years, and include personal accounts of historic events as well as recollections of everyday activities.

HANC congratulates Tzipporah Wodinsky, Abigail Wunder, Katie Alper, and Keira Kahn, on the acceptance of their articles for publication.

The HANC girls will be honored at Grannie Annie’s Family Stories Festival at the Missouri History Museum in St. Louis on June 4th.

63 in Shulamith science fair Excitement filled the hallways of Shulamith Middle Division as the long-awaited Science Fair arrived.

For weeks, students had prepared by learning the Scientific Method, deliberating project ideas, designing and conducting experiments, and analyzing data.

All the projects were creatively displayed on tri-fold boards. During the day, the projects were evaluated

by a panel of esteemed judges, mostly from the local Lawrence School District. Superintendent Gary Schall, Deputy Superintendent Dr. Ann Pedersen, principal Rina Beach, math and science chair William Moss, Willis Perry, Dr. Jennifer Lagnado, Jackie Beckmann, Christine Moore, Joseph Weickhorst, and assistant principals Fallon Bienstock and Christian Paulino all took time out of their busy schedules to judge the entries.

Additional judges were Shulamith High School teachers and administrators Shira Botnick, Sara Pollack, and Shelley Adelson. Sid Krinsky, a professional engineer, and Shulamith parent Chavie Jaffa rounded out the panel of judges.

In the evening, students showcased 63 projects in all for parents, grandparents and guests. Projects included protein denaturation, the effects of the screen on learning outcomes, and the ever-popular, “What Location in School Has the Most Bacteria?”

This impressive event was certainly a highlight of the year, and we look forward to continued achievement in science from all our students.

Shulamith thanks science teachers Mindy Miller and Tirza Norowitz for their dedication to student learning and for sharing their passion for science.

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the color or texture affect the static electricity it can carry?

The awards were presented at a ceremony following the fair. YCQ would like to congratulate the following winners: First Place-Rivka Sullivan and Aaron Sisser, “I feel your pain;” Yosef and Yaakov Yakubov, “What materials can block a Wi-Fi signal?” Second Place: Ahuva Shachar, “The 5 second rule;” Tamar Sombolian. “What Items contain the most bacteria;” Avi Beylus and Matan Avitzedek, “How we perceive our voices;” and Third Place, David Azulay and Ohad Dayan, “How does different types of gum affect your taste buds?” Josh Bellesen and Ilan Goldstein, and “Kinesiology and lie detection.”

The students’ research and hard work payed off. Yasher koach to all of the grade 6 science fair participants and their teachers.

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Hannah Zakry, Grade 6 Gade 6 students participated in the annual YCQ Science Fair. Sudent researchers gave clues to the elementary students for a scavenger hunt. The younger classes had to use the clues to find certain projects. After they found as many as they could of the projects, they had a raffle for the winners. The 3–5 graders enjoyed seeing all of the projects and are excited about their own science fair in a few years.

The students came up with a question, made a hypothesis and then researched and experimented. When they were done they displayed all of their research on a board, including a model of their experiments.

A few of the many projects included: How does color affect taste?, Will anything get water and oil to mix?, How to recreate a tornado, How baking soda and vinegar unclog a sink, Coke Bottle explosion, and How does

905176

Fifth grade students in Rabbi Elie Bashevkin’s Language Arts class of the Samuel and Elizabeth Bass Golding Elementary School in West Hempstead created beautiful compositions for the Grannie Annie Family Story Celebration, relating something they discovered from their family based on their interviews with older relatives.

After reading 522 stories submitted by students in nine states, as well as international students, Grannie Annie announced 38 winners. The 38 stories in Gran-

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March 31, 2017 • 4 Nisan, 5777 THE JEWISH STAR

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Send it to Schools@TheJewish Star.com

Continued from page 16 times in the world of taxation and an advanced tax degree from Sy Syms will significantly enhance each of our students’ knowledge base and prove to be a most valuable credential.”

Taught by CPAs, tax attorneys, and former IRS agents with real world experience, the new program will hone the skills needed to apply tax principles and planning techniques in the operations of various types and styles of business enterprises. Especially crucial in the modern business environment, the program will imbue students with the skills they need to adapt to a continuously evolving regulatory landscape while managing their professional responsibilities concerning public interest, objectivity, integrity, independence and due care.

From Rambam Mesivta For many years the Jewish community in Lithuania flourished. Bcause of the great scholars who lived there, its capital, Vilna, was referred to as the Jerusalem of Europe.

The illustrious Gaon of Vilna is known worldwide for his incisive genius and dedication to Torah study. Other great codifiers such as the Chayei Adam lived and taught in Lithuania. Invariably, those who live also pass away.

The deceased of Vilna were buried in a large cemetery designated in the 16th century. Jews continued to live in Lithuania enjoying both good times and bad until the Holocaust. When the Nazis invaded Lithuania, approximately 200,000 Jews faced Hitler’s decree of annihilation.

Approximately 95 percent of Lithuania’s Jewish population was murdered during the Holocaust. In one gruesome account, a nonJewish eyewitness testified that Lithuanian patriots captured Jews and locked them in the Kovno garage, clubbing them to death and keeping hoses running to wash away the blood during. As Jewish bodies piled high, a proud Lithuanian jumped on top of the bodies and played the Lithuanian national anthem on the accordion. Lithuanians also willingly participated in the mobile killing squads that went town to town rounding up Jews, forcing them to dig mass graves and shooting their victims.

Ponary is the name of an infamous forest on the outskirts of Vilna. During the Holocaust, Aleksandras Lileikas, and Lithuanian volunteers, oversaw the murder of nearly 60,000 Jews in that forest. Lileikas illegally obtained entry into the United States and when his Nazi past was discovered, students from Rambam Mesivta lobbied Congress, rallied outside his home, and pressured him to leave. When he finally fled in 1986, he received a hero’s welcome in Lithuania.

Lithuania seems to have a hard time disavowing its anti-Semitic past. The country is currently in the midst of a controversy surrounding plans to construct a Convention Center in the middle of Vilna’s oldest Jewish cemetery in the Snipiskes District.

After the Young Israel of Woodmere distributed a petition to protest Lithuania’s plans, Rambam Mesivta invited Rabbi Shnayer Leiman, a world-renowned expert on Jewish history, to speak to its students. Rabbi Leiman outlined Lithuania’s sordid anti-Semitic past and provided a detailed explanation of the planned construction.

Shortly thereafter, Rabbi Friedman brought Akiva Shuck and Doniel Fodiman, two students from his shiur, to meet with Lithuanian counsel general in New York to voice their objection to the project.

Rambam students plan to continue efforts to block the pending desecration of Vilna’s Jewish cemetery and to contact members of Congress in support of an upcoming demonstration outside the Lithuanian consulate.

Shushan P at HANC 609 HANC 609 was the place to be on Shushan Purim, with the Samuel and Elizabeth Bass Golding HANC Elementary School in West Hempstead bursting with energy. Students and staff arrived in costumes, ready for a day of non-stop celebration.

The children heard the Megillah,

exchanged mishloach manot, acted out the story of Purim and learned Purim-themed material. HANC thanks Rabbi Michael Merrill, the special activities coordinator, and students of the sixth grade, for planning a spectacular celebration for the whole school to enjoy.

school students which focused on the importance of being happy with what one has in life, or simcha. Students began their week by participating in a workshop that

stressed the importance of thinking positively, being happy and making others happy. The workshop concluded with the students making emoji smiley stress balls.

Good Silverstein week In the weeks leading up to Purim, teachers and administrators of Great Neck’s Silverstein Hebrew Academy arranged for students to participate in activities that touched on the history of the holiday and its religious customs.

Students engaged in gradelevel appropriate research, mitzvah projects, and interactive simcha activities to learn about the four important mitzvot of Purim.

Faculty brought together multiple generations to celebrate the festival. Morah Miri and Morah Tali’s pre-k class embarked on a

shopping trip to use their zedakah money to pick out special Purim treats for residents of the Atria Senior Home. During their visit, students sang and danced to celebrate the holiday.

Elementary school students navigagted through an obstacle course which revealed information about each mitzvah through.

Students learned about the history of Purim through a special assembly which featured a bilingual theatre show in English and Hebrew.

Silverstein staff also created a week of activities for middle

Fun at YCQ Students at the Yeshiva of Central Queens attended a grand Purim Carnival run by the eighth grade and sponsored by the PTO, complete with rides, games, prizes, popcorn and cotton candy. Students and faculty in costumes (left photo) and filled the halls and gym with laughter as parent volunteers distributed shaloch manot packages made entirely of Israeli products.

Meanwhile, grade 1 and 2 science classes have been learning about flowers and plants and how they grow (right photo).

Kosher world’s hero…

Continued from page 13 7—fully charged, on steroids, with every app already downloaded, full of knowledge and fun,” Kolotkin said.

Wiseman has mentored hundreds of students who will, even today, stand as he enters the room and run to do his bidding, while shouting the Gordon Ramsay catchphrase, “Yes, chef!” “[Wiseman] is not only a great teacher in terms of teaching what he knows, but I did something totally different and he supported

THE JEWISH STAR March 31, 2017 • 4 Nisan, 5777

Rambam School Purim photos keep coming! eyes glory of Vilna

19

me in that as well,” said Bracha Serle, a personal chef and author of the She’s The Chef blog.

“He’s always available for questions.”

Esther Anzaroot, who owns and operates a gluten-free bakery business that sells Middle Eastern delicacies, said Wiseman “has impacted me by giving me confidence in my abilities, teaching me new techniques and always, always demanding the best out of me.”

“This is part of my legacy,” Wiseman said. “To be able to take a student, who hasn’t yet found a

career or parnassah, and watch him and help him as he develops marketable, valuable skills, and then to see him rent his own apartment, and watch him get married and have children, and support all of them by cooking. This is why I do this.”

Wiseman will lead the new Kosher Culinary Center with one of his former students, Perline Dayan. Chefs David Ritter and Naomi Ross will join him as instructors, and Rabbi Zushe Yosef Blech of Monsey, will serve as the top kosher supervisor.

In a partnership with Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, the Israeli university will be the optional five-month destination for Kosher Culinary Center students after they complete the

216-hour culinary program in Brooklyn.

“Once students arrive … they will have a fiveday Birthright-style tour of Israel, with an emphasis on Bedouin and Mediterranean flavors, and then go to the university in Eilat, where they will live in dormitories with a three-meal-a-day cafeteria. At the end of their time in Israel, the students will have certificates from Ben-Gurion and also the Marriott, Hyatt or wherever their externship location has been,” Wiseman explained.

If the new center’s students turn out anything like Wiseman’s past pupils, the next decade should be another exciting era for kosher restaurant-goers.

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Don’t tell your daughter to eat less cream cheese

By Stephanie Goldfarb, Kveller via JTA A few weeks ago, I led a workshop about Judaism, food and bodies for a mostly female, mostly 20s and 30s audience. Being a chef, social worker and Jewish youth professional, this was my idea of group processing Disneyland: lighthearted yet touching discussion around the tension many of us feel to become both balabustas and rail thin, to both “eat more” and “eat less” out of respect for our mothers (and their wishes to marry us off well), and to live up to the ideal beauty standards of the “perfect Jewish woman” (when nobody is able to define who she is or what she looks like).

Almost everyone in the room had something to say, and our discussion confirmed my suspicion that I am not the first Jewish woman to call myself “bad” for having another cookie, and certainly not the first who learned how to suck in my stomach at summer camp.

After the workshop, a few folks hung around. One of the participants — let’s call

her Linda — approached me, introduced herself and, after chatting, asked me for some insight on a problem she was having: “How do I get my teenage daughter to stop eating so much cream cheese?”

I am a lot of things, but patient is not one of them.

“Don’t,” I blurted. “Do not tell your daughter to eat less cream cheese!”

Linda didn’t respond. She just sort of stood there and stared at me with a confused look on her face.

I asked Linda if her daughter had any weight or diet-specific health concerns (no).

I asked Linda if her daughter seemed depressed or anxious (no). I asked Linda if she felt concerned about the way her daughter felt in her own body (no).

Then … why, Linda … why?

I learned that Linda was concerned that her daughter might be getting a bit chubby.

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about themselves, without judgment, without shame, without undermining their personhood.

Of course, if your daughter does have a medical issue associated with her weight, it’s important to get the right care for her.

But parents, please, please don’t make things worse than they already are. Those silent eye rolls you throw her way when she reaches for another latke don’t help either. If you feel genuinely concerned about your daughter’s health, offer her love and support and be curious about how she feels.

And communicate, above all else, that you want her to be happy, not skinny.

Everyone has body issues. But Jewish women often experience it differently. I can speak from my own experience as a former Jewish teenager with disordered eating, as a clinician who completed her master’s thesis on “Jewish Women and Our Bodies,” and as a veteran Jewish youth educator, when I tell you: Your daughter should eat however much cream cheese she wants to, and she will figure out for herself, when she is ready, how she feels best in her own body.

And if you find yourself — parent or aunt or grandma — with feelings of disapproval or judgment when you watch he slather a bagel in the morning, I urge you to process your feelings on your own with a spouse or a trusted friend. Do not take them out on your daughter.

Because chances are, your feelings aren’t actually about her. They are about you. And you deserve the same compassion, curiosity and attention your daughter does.

Stephanie Goldfarb works as director of youth philanthropy and leadership at the Jewish United Fund in Chicago, where she specializes in Jewish youth experiential education.

THE JEWISH STAR March 31, 2017 • 4 Nisan, 5777

Continued from previous page ish teenagers for the past seven years. I’ve seen young women in shambles over their non-perfect grades. I’ve listened as young women confide in me everything from disordered eating, to drug use, to gender identity, to pressures around sex. I’ve watched young women’s eyes dart nervously to the pizza box, year after year, meeting after meeting, never once taking a slice for themselves.

I’ve taken late night phone calls from young women when they are feeling scared, confused and powerless.

I can’t think of a single young woman who needs her parents to tell her to stop eating so much cream cheese. They get enough of that from their friends, from the men in their lives, from the women in their lives, from social media and from the naturally chaotic process of growing into themselves.

Young women, whatever their background, do not need one more authority figure to point out to them when they no longer look like a sexless child and should eat less/ work out more. They already see it. They carry it around with them every day. And every night. You aren’t telling them anything they haven’t already heard and taken very seriously. Sometimes more seriously than you’d like to imagine — sometimes dangerously.

Here is what young women do need: Parents who understand that dieting doesn’t always make us thin, and that thin isn’t what makes them valuable, and that their bodies aren’t anyone else’s concern. They need parents who have conversations with them about how to enjoy and celebrate food, not why they would enjoy fitting into a smaller dress size. Even more, they need parents who are curious about how their daughters feel

21

Magen David Adom’s guide to a safe Pesach Every year, Magen David Adom in Israel tends to wounds that occur as a result of pre-Passover cleaning and other holiday preparations. The first case of the year took place this week.

MDA teams in Jerusalem were called to treat a nine year old girl and two of her little brothers who drank a poisonous cleaning liquid found in a plastic beverage bottle. MDA EMTs and paramedics provided the children with preliminary medical treatment and evacuated them to Shaare Zedek Medical Center in stable condition.

In order to maintain your safety and avoid common hazards of the holiday, MDA shares its safety guidelines (modified for America): Avoiding poisoning •Keep cleaning materials out of children's reach, write and clearly mark the bottles and packaging

•Return materials to a sealed cabinet once you've finished cleaning •Keep materials and liquids in their original packaging •Do not transfer materials and liquid to beverage bottles (especially water bottles) •While cleaning, keep food away from cleaning agents •While cleaning your house, make sure to wear sealed shoes to avoid slipping and feet burns •Babies tend to insert objects into their mouths. Rinse the house well after cleaning to avoid leftover poisonous materials •Pregnant and breastfeeding women should refrain from exposure to cleaning supplies •Read the instructions on the cleaning product packaging to ensure it is user and environ-

ment friendly •Do not mix different cleaning liquids •Once you've finished cleaning, keep windows open to air out the house •It is recommended to purchase cleaning products in children-resistant packaging •Do not leave buckets of water unattended as toddlers can drown, even in shallow water, within seconds Poisoning: Preliminary treatment •In case of poisoning, call Hatzalah or 911 •Do not provide “antidotes” such as milk or lemon.

•Inducing vomiting is dangerous to the patient, ensure airways are clear and that the patient is sitting in a comfortable position.

•In case materials penetrated the eyes, rinse them well with flowing water and don't rub. If

redness, itching and tearing continues, Hatzalah or 911 and request an ambulance.

•In case of burns as a result of exposure to cleaning agents, call Hatzalah or 911, request an ambulance and operate in accordance to the instructions on the product packaging.

•Allergies: if the allergy is light and topical, rinse the area with water only and operate in accordance to the instructions on the product packaging. In case of breathing difficulty and swelling, dial Hatzalah or 911 and request an ambulance while seating the patient down.

Avoiding burns •While baking, cooking and destructing leaven – keep children away, watch them and direct them to stay away from sources of heat.

•Keep hot object away from children's reach.

•During destruction of leaven keep children away and make sure to control the fire.

Burns: Preliminary treatment •Firstly, dial Hatzalah or 911 and request and ambulance. If the patient has caught on fire roll them in sand or dirt, pour water on them, and cover them using a wet blanket (without covering the head to avoid asphyxiation).

•In case of topical burns — rinse the wounded organ in warm, flowing water and calm the patient down.

Cleaning injuries •Wet floor, improvised and unstable ladders, and more, raise the chances for a back or limbs injuries. Make sure to use safe ladders and wipe the floor often.

•Do not climb bars or windows in order to avoid falling, it is recommend to extract the window from its rail, clean it, and put it back in its place as to avoid climbing.

•In any case of any injury refrain from moving the patient, dial Hatzalah or 911 and adhere to the instructions of the EMTs and paramedics at the dispatching center until the arrival of the ambulance. ‬MDA cautions that “in no way shape or form do these guidelines grant authority to treat or diagnose medical cases beyond your professional first aid knowledge. These guidelines do not aim to replace a first aid course.”

MDA is Israel’s national ambulance, bloodservices, and disaster-relief organization, serving as emergency medical first responders for the state’s more than eight million people.

BGU: Scanners can be hijacked

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March 31, 2017 • 4 Nisan, 5777 THE JEWISH STAR

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A typical office scanner can be infiltrated and a company’s network compromised using different light sources, according to a new paper by researchers from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev and the Weizmann Institute of Science.

“In this research, we demonstrated how to use a laser or smart bulb to establish a covert channel between an outside attacker and malware installed on a networked computer,” says Ben Nassi, a graduate student in the BGU Department of Software and Information Systems Engineering as well as a researcher at the BGU Cyber Security Research Center (CSRC). "A scanner with the lid left open is sensitive to changes in the surrounding light and might be used as a back door into a company’s network."

The researchers conducted several demonstrations to transmit a message into computers connected to a flatbed scanner. Using direct laser light sources up to a half-mile away, as well as on a drone outside their office building, the researchers successfully sent a message to trigger malware through the scanner.

In another demonstration, the researchers used a Galaxy 4 Smartphone to hijack a smart lightbulb (using radio signals) in the same room as the scanner.

To mitigate this vulnerability, the researchers recommend organizations connect a scanner to the network through a proxy server which would prevent establishing a covert channel.

By Adam Abrams, JNS.org TEL AVIV—Beyond the scent of potent cannabis drifting about the venue, there was an extra buzz in the air this year at Israel’s third annual CannaTech medical marijuana innovation conference.

The current excitement for cannabis industry leaders stems from recent changes to the Jewish state’s official policy on the plant. In February, an Israeli government committee took the first steps toward allowing the export of medical marijuana from Israel, and in March, the Knesset passed a new law essentially decriminalizing recreational marijuana use nationwide.

But amid the attention-grabbing legislation on recreational marijuana, CannaTech, at a swanky venue overlooking the Mediterranean Sea in Tel Aviv, continued its traditional focus on showcasing the ingenuity of Israel’s medical marijuana practitioners. The gathering welcomed medical cannabis professionals and enthusiasts from around the world to network and enjoy a series of TED-style lectures from industry leaders.

The attendees came from diverse professional backgrounds, yet they were bound by a common enthusiasm for applying their expertise to medical cannabis innovation.

This year’s conference was “double the size” of the previous year’s summit, said Saul Kaye, head of the CannaTech conference and CEO of the iCAN: Israel-Cannabis organization, which runs the conferences and has the stated mission “to identify, invest, accelerate and showcase cannabis innovation for the global cannabis economy.”

In recent years, Israel has become a hub for the study and distribution of medical cannabis. Hebrew University professor Raphael Mechoulam initially discovered THC, the primary psychoactive compound in the cannabis plant, in the 1970s. Since then, Israeli hospitals have demonstrated a willingness to perform

Inside the annual CannaTech medical marijuana innovation conference in Tel Aviv on March 20, Moshe Miriam Alster/Flash90 Ihea (center), founder and CEO of Israel-based Cannabliss.

clinical trials on the effectiveness of cannabis in relieving the symptoms of tens of thousands of patients suffering from chronic or terminal conditions.

As other markets lag behind in clinical studies, Israel has become an innovator. In contrast to cannabis industry conferences in other countries, which generally focus on “more lighting solutions, more trimming solutions and more growing solutions,” CannaTech 2017 showcased “technology drivers and regulators in the medical cannabis industry,” Kaye told JNS.org.

Asked about plans for the future, Kaye said iCAN would be releasing “the first cannabis advanced pharmaceutical formulation for sleep,” dubbed “ican.sleep,” in a joint venture with the U.S.-based company CannRx Technology.

“We’ve partnered to take CannaTech global because this voice needs to be heard elsewhere,”

Kaye added. “We’re going to London and we’re going to Sydney, and each of those locations are unique based upon the content that each ecosystem requires. Because what we’ve done successfully is essentially build an ecosystem.”

Members of that ecosystem range from medical cannabis patients to agricultural specialists to delivery device developers, many of whom were represented at the conference.

One presenter was Kanabo, a Tel-Aviv based company that specializes in cannabis vaporization technology, in particular the development of vaping formulations for specific illnesses.

“What we’re trying to do is take the most successful recreational cannabis delivery system today, vape pens, and combine it with the purest and most demanded connoisseur cannabis extracts, and make it all medical. It’s a challenge,” Kanabo’s CEO and founder, Avihu Tamir, said.

Tamir said he sees vaporization as the future of medical cannabis consumption, calling it the “fastest-growing method for cannabis consumption in the recreational market.” Yet the industry, he said, still needs “a medical device, something we can give patients. If I’m giving them something which contains 100 percent cannabinoids and in some cases 90 percent THC, you have to be very precise.”

When asked if Kanabo would market its products outside of the Jewish state, its CEO responded, “The Israeli market is our best market, but our future market is outside of Israel.”

Other companies attending the conference already had a dual presence in Israel and abroad, such as Ilan Bio, an agro-biotechnology company with operations in Israel and California. Liam Gal-On, CEO of Ilan Bio, explained that his venture specializes in “cloning the DNA and genetics” of the cannabis plant.

“We do exactly the same in both Israel and California. We are working with clinical trials to identify which strains to clone, to target and treat specific diseases and determine dosage,” Gal-On told JNS.org.

Moshe Ihea, founder and CEO of Israel-based Cannabliss, had some of his company’s cannabisinfused products on display at the conference.

“We have oils, we have cookies, we have capsules, we have creams, we have suppositories,” he said at his CannaTech booth.

Asked why patients would opt for cannabis suppositories, Ihea said, “It’s not allowed in Israel yet, but it’s going to be allowed and it works really well for treating pain, Crohn’s disease and colitis. We’re currently conducting clinical trials.”

As Israel explores the new frontier of legalized recreational marijuana, it’s clear from the CannaTech conference that at home and abroad, the Jewish state is likely to maintain its status as a blooming medical cannabis powerhouse.

Dr. Leslie Handelsman DDS

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Haley at AIPAC: ‘There’s a new sheriff in town’

By Ron Kampeas, JTA WASHINGTON — The Trump administration will not allow a repeat of last year’s United Nations Security Council resolution condemning Israel for its settlements, Nikki Haley, the U.S. ambassador to the U.N., told AIPAC on Monday.

“Never again do what we saw with resolution 2334 and make anyone question our support” for Israel, Haley said. She earned the warmest reception of any speaker with extended standing ovations.

The Obama administration allowed through the anti-settlements resolutions in December as one of its last acts, triggering bitter recriminations from Israel’s government and from friends of the Jewish state in America.

Haley described her determination to help steer the course of the United Nations and its agencies from anti-Israel bias, noting her intervention keeping Salam Fayyad, the former Palestinian prime minister, from becoming the body’s envoy to Libya, and in getting U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to withdraw a U.N. affiliate’s report likening Israel to an apartheid state.

Haley was one of a number of speakers at AIPAC who drew a sharp contrast at the conference between President Donald Trump’s administration and his predecessor, Barack Obama.

“Anyone who says you can’t get anything done at the United Nations, you need to know there’s a new sheriff in town,” she said.

“I wear high heels. It’s not for a fashion statement, it’s because if I see something wrong I will kick it every single time.”

AIPAC has striven to promote bipartisan-

Ambassador Nikki Haley at AIPAC on Monday, in the Verizon Center in Washington.

Jewish Star / Ed Weintrob

ship as a theme this conference, seeking to heal wounds with Democrats opened over divisions with Obama over settlements and the Iran nuclear deal. But Republican speakers have not been able to resist digs at Obama.

“Paul Ryan, speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, said that Obama had “damaged trust” with Israel.

“President Donald Trump’s commitment to Israel is sacrosanct,” he said.

Ryan described the Iran nuclear deal, which swapped sanctions relief for Iran’s rollback of its nuclear program, as an “unmitigated disaster.”

But like Vice President Mike Pence, who spoke Sunday, he stopped short of proposing dismantling the deal, as Republicans consistently had during last year’s campaign. Instead, Ryan endorsed AIPAC-backed bipartisan legislation that would increase non-nuclear-related sanctions on Iran for testing nuclear missiles and backing terrorism and other disruptive activity.

The top two foreign operations officials in the House — Reps. Kay Granger, R-Texas, a moderate Republican who is the chairwoman of the foreign operations subcommittee of the Appropriations Committee, and Rep. Nita Lowey, the ranking Democrat on the subcommittee and on the committee — struck a bipartisan note, appearing together Monday to back AIPAC’s bid to stop Trump’s proposed cuts to foreign assistance.“Foreign assistance supports a crucial role in national security,” Granger said, “and makes up just a small portion of the national budget, less than 1 percent.”

Added Lowey: “The United States gets a major payoff.”

AIPAC’s 2017 task: Managing reality Analysis by Jacob Kamaras, JNS.org WASHINGTON—In recent years, the AIPAC lobby’s policy conferences have centered on hot-button issues such as the emerging and later finalized Iran nuclear deal, tension between the Obama administration and Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s controversial speech to Congress, and the surprising rise of candidate and now President Donald Trump.

For the 2017 iteration of arguably the world’s largest annual pro-Israel gathering, the issues remained sensitive, but reality set in. The Iran deal and a Trump presidency have become facts of life, albeit highly contested ones. The Obama era has come and gone.

At the AIPAC conferences of the past several

Democrat Charles Schumer, Senate minority leader, at AIPAC on Tuesday.

AIPAC

years, questions on outcomes hovered over the summits: Who will be the next president? Will world powers and Iran reach a deal? This year, there were questions on implementation: How should Trump handle the chaotic and complex Middle East? How can America work to curb Iran’s regional aggression? The discourse on AIPAC’s flagship issue—the U.S.-Israel relationship and its associated priorities—has shifted from changing or creating reality, to managing reality.

‘Meeting of the minds’ Although AIPAC sought to foster an environment of bipartisanship and respect of others’ views through its conference tagline—“Many Voices, One Mission”—Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Ron Dermer did not hold back a carefully worded, but clearly intended partisan statement.

“For the first time in many years, perhaps even many decades, there is no daylight between our two governments,” Dermer said Sunday at the conference’s opening session, presumably referring his opinion that the Trump presidency has purged the “daylight” that existed between the U.S. and Israel under President Barack Obama.

Dermer described February’s White House meeting between Netanyahu and Trump as a “meeting of the minds,” while praising the Trump administration for “finally bringing some moral clarity” to the United Nations. But Dermer made his assertions on the current and past administrations without mentioning Trump nor Obama by name.

‘Call our enemies by their name’ Trump’s presence at last year’s AIPAC conference prompted protests before he uttered a word, and his eventual speech drew condemnation from the lobby after he said “yay” at the prospect of Obama’s presidency being in its final year. In 2017, the Trump administration’s top representative at the conference, Vice President Mike Pence, did not elicit similar controversy.

Under Trump, “if the world knows nothing

else, the world will know this: America stands with Israel,” Pence told the conference’s 18,000 attendees Sunday, explaining that the administration stands with Israel because “her cause is our cause, her values are our values and her fight is our fight.”

Pence said Trump is “giving serious consideration” to moving the U.S. Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, is committed to finding an “equitable and just solution” to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and “will call our enemies by their name”—referring to radical Islamic terrorists.

The vice president also vowed the administration would “hunt down and destroy ISIS (Islamic State) at its source” and “stand strong in the face of the leading state sponsor of terrorism,” Iran.

“This administration has put Iran on notice. … Under President Donald Trump, the United States of America will not allow Iran to develop a nuclear weapon,” he added.

Advice for Trump While Pence laid out the administration’s view, what do some outside experts believe is the best course of action?

During a conference breakout session Sunday featuring former U.S. officials from Republican and Democratic administrations, Michael Singh—managing director at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy and the George W. Bush administration’s senior director for Middle East affairs at the National Security Council— said he has three pieces of advice for Trump: counter Iran, because Islamic State has emerged in an environment of instability that Iran has helped create; rebuild America’s relationships with allies like Israel, Egypt and Jordan; and pay attention to political and economic reform in the region.

“We can’t only counter one and not the other if we’re to bring some stability to the region,” Singh said of the Iranian and Islamic State threats.

At the same session, Obama’s ambassador to Israel, Dan Shapiro, said it is expected the

House Speaker Paul Ryan during his appearance at AIPAC on Monday.

Jewish Star / Celia Weintrob

Trump administration will be “friends and partners to Israel and the Gulf states, but there are a lot questions yet to be filled out,” such as the president’s policies toward Syria, Iraq and Iran.

Although Trump’s proposed foreign aid budget cuts will reportedly not affect Israel, “that means they’re cutting from Jordan and Egypt” if any significant savings are to be had, and cutting U.S. aid to those peaceful Arab neighbors will not be in Israel’s interest, Shapiro said.

Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who also served as special envoy of the Quartet on the Middle East and still works in the region through his Tony Blair Faith Foundation, at a plenary session said a better future for the Middle East means setting priorities not just based on the regional players’ specific interests, but also on broader human values.

Yet the bottom line, said Blair, is if “you had a benign regime in Iran, all of the problems in the Middle East would be easier to resolve.”

25

Commentary by Sarah N. Stern David Friedman was confirmed Thursday and is now the American ambassador to Israel. But that was only after a contentious debate and only because there is a Republican majority in the Senate.

The same was true of Friedman’s prior approval by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. The committee’s minority leader, Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.), voted against him, as did every Democrat on the committee. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), wrote March 6 that Friedman “lacks the necessary temperament to serve in such a crucial position,” and that his “divisive rhetoric and dangerous positions are contrary to long-held policy and would undermine our national security by inflaming tensions in the region.”

What made Friedman’s nomination so contentious? Among the reasons outlined

by Sen. Feinstein is that he has supported recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and moving the American embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. He has directly supported settlement activity (he was president of the American Friends of Bet El Yeshiva), and he has questioned the wisdom of the Oslo Accords.

••• In the summer of 2005, I was in Israel, in the days of the unilateral withdrawal from Gaza. I watched and listened as the nation was engaged in a gut-wrenching and internally divisive debate. I saw how Israeli soldiers had been trained not to feel, as they forcibly removed Israeli settlers from their homes. One of those soldiers confided in me, “This is not what I signed up for.”

I listened to the radio when one mother said, “Mr. Prime Minister, will you pack up my son’s room? I have not been able to go into it since he was killed in Lebanon.

Will you uproot the tree in my yard that was planted in my sons’ memory?”

Jewish philanthropists funded the greenhouses so that there would be a economic infrastructure for the young, nascent Palestinian enterprise, and many rabbis argued that we should keep the synagogues, to turn them into mosques, because,“After all, we all pray to the same G-d.”

As soon as the last vestige of a Jewish presence was removed from Gaza, and the blue-and-white Israeli flag was lowered, the greenhouses and synagogues were all destroyed in a frenzied atmosphere of hate-infested anarchy.

Yet the government of Israel and most of the Western policy world were convinced at the time that “this will finally prove to the world how far Israel is willing to go for peace, even in the absence of a negotiating partner.”

Since then, Gaza has been used as a launching pad for thousands of Hamas rockets into Israel, necessitating several wars and much loss of life on both the Palestinian and Israeli sides. In southern Israel, when an alarm siren is sounded, Israelis have 15 seconds to find shelter.

By now, the rockets have a trajectory that can reach anywhere in the state of Israel.

••• Israel’s morality during the two Gaza wars has been questioned in the court of international public opinion, largely because of Hamas’s sinister use of children and women as human shields, which inflates their civilian death count.

In shaping America foreign policy, most Americans would like to believe that certain ethical qualities are in the mix, such as intellectual honesty and moral integrity.

These qualities, whether part of an individual’s nature or those of national policy, often necessitate some difficult introspection.

Sometimes it even involves the painful admission that one has been wrong—even if one has been wrong for an extremely long time. It is human nature that the longer the time, the deeper the resistance to change.

Our foreign policy “experts” have clung to certain misguided theories for generations now, such as “land for peace.”

What we have seen through decades of empirical, and often heartbreaking experience is that this formula simply hasn’t worked. If the objective is “peace,” one must honestly ask oneself if any of the politically gut-wrenching and internally divisive land withdrawals from the Sinai, Gaza, southern Lebanon and parts of Judea and Samaria have actually brought us any closer to that objective of peace.

Rather than challenge the premises of this formulation, those in the State Department’s echo chamber simply dug their feet in further and rationalize its failure.

Each time, there is another excuse. “Israel hasn’t given enough land,” or “Gaza was without a negotiating partner.”

All of the State Department apparatchiks who stubbornly clung to this mantra were completely in favor of each of these withdrawals. Then, when those land withdrawals did not bring us closer to the designated objective, the diplomats came up with convenient, after-the-fact rationalizations.

Any scientist with an ounce of intellectual integrity would say we have reached the null hypothesis, and that it is time to re-examine the premises of the equation in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. David Friedman, a fresh voice, is a step in the right direction.

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On Friedman: Good news for Israel

Among members of the HAFTR community who attended AIPAC’s event in Washington this week were (from left) stdents Nathan Goldschag of Woodmere, Elijah Gurvitch of Lawrence, and Eli Greenberg of Woodmere.

The Jewish Star / Ed Weintrob

THE JEWISH STAR March 31, 2017 • 4 Nisan, 5777

Rambam Mesivta, with a long tradition of pro-Israel advocacy, was active at this week’s AIPAC policy conference in Washington. From left: Rabbi Zev Meir Friedman, rosh mesivta; Ovadia Aryeh, ’97; Eli Ahkavan, ’98; Rambam Seniors Noah Schwartz and Sruli Sandler; Jonathan Deutsch, ’15; and Yehuda Friedman, ’01.

The Jewish Star / Celia Weintrob

March 31, 2017 • 4 Nisan, 5777 THE JEWISH STAR

26

A learner’s Haggadah, in Hebrew alan Jay GeRbeR kosher Bookworm

T

he Haggadah under review this week, “Haggadah Shel Pesach: Machat Shel Yad,” composed by Rabbi Yitzchok Frankel of the Agudath Israel of the Five Towns, is the first publication in the Machat Shel Yad series. This work, in Hebrew, is user-friendly and meant to be learned, not just casually read, starting from Rosh Chodesh Nissan and especially on Shabbos Hagadol.

Rabbi Frankel was a student and a musmach of HaRav Moshe Feinstein, zt”l, and is well known and a teacher in our community and beyond, especially for his lectures on Talmud, the Daf Yomi, Jewish law and hashkafah. Many of these disciplines will be found within the context of his detailed commentary on the Haggadah under review this week. As a result, given the complicated nature of the rabbi’s methodology, this result will give you but a small hint as to the details contained in this work.

In the section titled, “Shibolei Haleket,” Rabbi Frankel teaches us that this commentary explains that the passage opening the Haggadah narrative, “Avadim Hayinu answers our fourth question asked in the Mah Nishtana,

the question regarding Haseibah [reclining].

He, the commentary’s author, states that the initial three of the Mah Nishtana questions are answered further during Maggid [the story narrative] with Rabban Gamliel’s quote regarding Pesach, Matza, and Marror.”

Rabbi Frankel goes into much detail as to both the construct and logic of the holy text and of its application to the ritual for the evening’s seder liturgy. Even the very physicality of the seder participant is given narrative space so as to give the participant the rational for the physical choreography of the seder night’s ‘program’.

As you read on you will begin to appreciate the rabbi’s method of teaching and learning. It is an analysis that literally feeds you the commentary, line-by-line, concept-by-concept, teaching you concepts that you may not have given much attention to prior to your reading this particular work.

As a result, you will, by night’s end, find your seder experience that more enriching and spiritually rewarding.

In addition to this basic work, Rabbi Frankel’s prior commentary of the same title, in English, on the book of Exodus, Shemos, contains a worthwhile short segment on the Haggadah that is worth your attention. I urge the author to consider expanding this chapter into a full Haggadah text. Rabbi Frankel accurately combines the teachings of the methods of p’shat,

drush, philosophy and hashkafah, thus bringing together a truly genuine comprehensive presentment of the Pesach story.

FOR YOUR FURTHER STUDY Rabbi Moshe Krieger of Jerusalem’s Yeshiva Birchas Torah work, “Gedolei Yisroel on the Parashah,” presents a valuable resource of Pesach themes that when applied will serve you well in understanding the major basic theological and moral lessons of the Exodus experience.

Such rabbinical giants as Rav Yisrael Salanter, the Chazon Ish, Rabbeinu Yona, Rav Aharon Kotler, the Brisker Rav, the Chasam Sofer, the Rambam, Dayan Fischer, and many others richly inhabit the sacred pages of this valued work.

They all, in Rabbi Krieger’s words, will go a long way toward helping you “to internalize the lessons of the Exodus.”

Most meaningful to me was the teachings of Rabbi Krieger in Parashas Bo, entitled “Our Personal Exodus.” It cites the learning of Rav Reuven Fine, rosh yeshiva of Torah Vodaas, who goes into some detail on the value of mitzvos to our daily lives.

Consider the following: “So many mitzvos have an element of recalling Yetzi’as Mitzrayim, such as mezuzah, tefillin, tzitzis, Kri’as Shema, and Pesach, of course.

More than simply acting as reminders, these mitzvos possess an intrinsic spiritual power to infuse the one who properly fulfills them with

emunah in the Exodus.”

This teaching is a hint of what you will find in this work by this most modest of teachers, Rabbi Moshe Krieger of Birchas Torah on Rechov Ohr Hachayim in the Old City in Jerusalem.

Last, but not least, is the work, “Inside Time: A Chassidic Perspective on the Jewish Calendar,” volume three, that is filled with 100 pages of some of the most elegant and eloquent teachings themed to the Pesach holiday. Compiled by Yanki Tauber of Woodmere, you will find his style and method riveting.

Vayikra begins and sacrificial order returns Rabbi avi billet Parsha of the week

A

s we begin Vayikra, the third book in the Torah, we are once again introduced to the sacrificial order. Beyond the reminders of proper behavior that accompany the depiction of sacrifices, what else can we learn from how the sacrifices described, particularly in a world in which we do not have the Temple?

The final passages of chapter 5 speak of offerings for dishonesty. In addition to returing stolen items and paying an additional fifth, the person who was irresponsible with the property of others would have to bring a sacrifice.

"He must bring his guilt offering to G-d. An

unblemished ram, worth the prescribed amount, as a guilt offering through the kohen. The priest shall make atonement for him before G-d, and he will then be forgiven for any commitment of crime for which he is guilty." (5:25-26) Rabbi Mendele of Rimanov recounted a custom that when the reader would conclude the Torah reading with the words l'ashmah va (he is guilty), in order for the reading to not end on such a sour note the congregation would rise and chant a phrase whose words begin with the letters that spell l'ashmah va — "L'el Asher SHavat Mikol Hama'asim Bayom Hashvii." This phrase means, "to G-d who rested on the seventh day from all that He did."

In the book Otzar HaChaim, the author suggests that the significance of this phrase being utilized here might be that the observance of Shabbos is a way in which people return the idea of creation to the Master of Creation. He

created for six days. We honor that through working six days. He rested on the seventh day. We honor that gift to the world by giving it back to its Master through our rest on the Sabbath. This is significant at the end of the passage describing returning lost items. ome conversations are difficult and they might leave someone with a sour feeling unless a positive note is spun into the message; we should be positive whenever we can.

The second lesson is a dual one of honesty and Sabbath observance. I have heard it noted in anger that people who are not observant of the Sabbath are not fit to serve as witnesses on religious documents. But a different response, of understanding, might be helpful, rather than questioning the honesty, or the capabilities, of a person who is not Sabbath-observant.

Consider this perspective: There is an inherent contradiction in attesting to a document that only

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has value because of the religion, while living a life that, in a sense, takes away from the G-d who rested on the seventh day and made it holy.

Do these Jews deny G-d? Do they not believe in Him? I think, on the contrary, that they believe in G-d and honor Him in the manner they can. And I hope they're always striving to rise and always aim to get closer to Him. Until that time, however, halakha does not allow that person to serve as a witness for religious events, such as for a wedding or the signing of the ketubah.

What's the positive spin? Non-Sabbath-observant Jews can pray, lead davening, say Kaddish, recite blessings, and we all respond. Nonobservant Jews count for a minyan.

We must love all of our fellow Jews even as we hope and encourage them (and all of us) to grow in our Jewish connections and religious responsibilities.

Vayikra: Bringing us closer to Hashem Rabbi david etenGoff

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t the beginning of each book of the Torah, the Ramban (Nachmanides), in his Commentary on the Torah, suggests a name that represents the essence of the work. In our case, he calls Sefer Vayikra, “Torat Kohanim v’HaLevi’im” (“The Laws of the Priests and Levites”). He then proceeds to give us a brief synopsis of some of its essential themes: “Herein all matters of the Ritual Offerings (Korbanot) and the proper way in which to guard the purity (taharah) of the Mishkan (Portable Desert Sanctuary) are to be found. This is the case, since we have already had one sefer [Shemot] that focused upon exile and the redemption therefrom. This work concluded with the topics of the Tent of Meeting (Ohel Moed = Mishkan) and the Glory of Hashem with which it was filled. [Thus, it is proper and fitting] that Hashem now commands us concerning the Ko-

rbanot and various modalities whereby we can guarantee the taharah of the Mishkan. [This material was presented in order] to ensure that the Ritual Offerings would provide expiation for them [i.e. the Generation of the Desert], rather than have the sins be a cause to drive away the Divine Presence from their midst.

Sadly, it has been nearly 2,000 years since the destruction of the Second Beit HaMikdash and the cessation of the Korbanot. Consequently, for many of us, the Ritual Offerings appear to be “foreign” and almost beyond understanding. As such, let us turn to the thought of Rabbi Shimshon Raphael Hirsch who, in my view, provides us with one of the most profound analyses for understanding the true meaning of the Korbanot: “A korban is never used for a present or gift; it is used exclusively with reference to a person’s relation to G-d, and can only be understood from the meaning that lies in the root “krv.” Krv means to approach, to come near, and to enter into a close relationship with someone. This, then, is the underlying idea of the object and purpose of hakravah (drawing close), namely, the attainment of a higher sphere of life. (Commentary On the Torah, Vayikra 1:2)

The concept of korban as the vehicle through which one obtains “the attainment of a higher sphere of life” is the essence of Rav Hirsch’s explanation of our term. The makriv (the one who brings the korban) has an overwhelming desire to draw near to the Creator, to communicate with Him. From this perspective, the Korbanot emerge as a symbolic fulfillment of the celebrated second verse of the Shema: “And you shall love the L-rd, your G-d, with all your heart and with all your soul, and with all your means.”

In sum, the goal of a korban is to enable “kirvat Elokim” (nearness to G-d) which, in the Torah’s purview, is “the attainment of a higher sphere of life.” Indeed, Dovid HaMelech taught us a powerful lesson when he declared: “kirvat Elokim li tov” (“Closeness to G-d is what is truly good for me”) (Tehillim 73:28). hat is kirvat Elokim? I believe we can answer this question by examining the expression “kerov Hashem” (“Hashem is close”) that appears twice in Tehillim: “The L-rd is close to the broken-hearted, and He saves those of crushed spirit. (34:19) The L-rd is close to all who call upon Him, to all who will call upon Him in truth (b’emet). (145:18)

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These pasukim cite three categories of people who achieve closeness to the Almighty: the broken-hearted, those of crushed spirit, and those who call upon Him in truth. I believe these groups share at least one characteristic in common; namely, they approach Hashem with the humble recognition that they are totally dependent on Him. Any sense of arrogance is absent, including an attitude of “b’kochi v’otzem yadi” (“My strength and the might of my hand has accumulated this wealth for me”) (Devarim 8:17).

Instead, it has been replaced by this, from Modim in our siddur: “We shall thank You and relate Your praise — for our lives, which are committed to Your power and for our souls that are entrusted to You; for Your miracles that are with us every day; and for Your wonders and favors in every season — evening, morning and afternoon.”

With Hashem’s help and guidance, and our fervent desire, may we recognize our complete dependence upon Him. Then, as if we were actually able to bring Korbanot, we will be able draw close to Him by joining those “who call upon Him … who will call upon Him in truth.”

V’chane yihi ratzon.

White House: Trump right on JCCs

Continued from page 4 Him. Indeed, Rashi (Vayikra 1:1) suggests that vayikra is a language of endearment.

How can we come close to G-d? By understanding what He wants of us and what is our “calling.”

As Rabban Gamliel (the son of Rebbe Yehuda haNassi) teaches: “Make His will like your will” (Avot 2:4). n our recent trip to Poland our tour guide, Rav Yitzchak Rubenstein, shared with us a detail that I had never considered and continues to haunt me. When Jews arrived at the Treblinka station they were immediately robbed (all their remaining belongings were taken), stripped, gassed and burned: this was the end of the line.

When the Rav Meir Alter, the son of the Gerrer rebbe (Rav Avraham Mordechai Alter) arrived in Treblinka and understood where they were headed, he walked over to a German officer and asked him for his canteen. The officer was so surprised, he actually handed him his canteen whereupon he promptly washed negelvasser (ritually washed his hands) and said: “Let us fulfill the mitzvah of Kiddush Hashem (sanctifying G-d’s name) in purity.” Clearly, he felt it was not just about whether and when you died, it was about how you chose to die.

I have struggled with this story for many reasons, but on one level, perhaps Rav Meir Alter wanted to share with us that every moment is a gift, and even a calling, ours but to choose how we should respond.

We are living in incredible times. Hashem is calling us to be partners in making this world a better place so that one day our children and grandchildren can grow up to live in a better world. May we all be blessed to hear our calling and merit to make a difference in whatever we believe Hashem asks of us.

Shabbat shalom from Jerusalem.

WASHINGTON—The White House said on Monday, following the arrest last week of an Israeli-American teen on suspicion of making over 100 bomb threats against U.S. Jewish sites, that President Donald Trump had been right not to jump to conclusions about anti-Semitic threats “We saw these threats coming into Jewish community centers, and there was an immediate jump to criticize folks on the right, and to denounce people on the right and ask them to condemn them, and it turns out that in fact it wasn’t someone on the right,” White House press secretary Sean Spicer said at a media briefing.

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“The president from the get-go had said ‘I bet you it’s not someone [on the right]’ and he was right.”

Spicer added that “people on the left” who had blamed the right for the threats had not been held accountable.

“In that particular case, we saw that the president was right and that this rush to judgment by a lot of folks on the left was wrong, and none of them have been held to account on that,” Spicer said.

Many liberal Jewish groups had blamed white supremacists who they said had been emboldened by Trump’s campaign, for the bomb threats that plagued Jewish institu-

tions since the beginning of this year.

In February, the president reportedly said that the threats against Jewish communal institutions may be a false flag “to make others look bad.”

Also in February, when asked about the bomb threats, Trump shouted down a Jewish reporter who asked him about what he planned to do to address the intensification of incidents.

“Some of that anger is caused by people on the other side,” he then told another reporter at the news conference. “It will be by people on the other side to anger people like you.” —JTA

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3 Dems debate in bids for Mangano’s job

By Erik Hawkins, Herald Community Newspapers With Republican County Executive Ed Mangano under federal indictment on corruption charges while the county faces a litany of long-brewing financial issues and residents grow increasingly “cynical,” three Democratic candidates for Mangano’s position each promised to clean up and restore people’s trust in their government.

At a joint meeting of the Rockville Centre and Lakeview Democratic clubs earlier this month, Legislator Laura Curran, of Baldwin, County Comptroller George Maragos, a recent Democratic convert, and Assemblyman Chuck Lavine, of Glen Cove, all agreed with Lakeview Club chair Scottie Coads that for change to be effected and trust to be restored, the next county executive must be a Democrat.

“There’s a really deep cynicism … and it’s no wonder,” said Curran, who has been endorsed by

the county Democratic committee. “And underneath the cynicism is a feeling that we’re powerless to do anything about it.”

Curran began the evening a bit unsteadily, going silent for a moment as she apparently struggled to remember part of her platform. Some audience members could be heard murmuring in confusion, but Curran soon regained her concentration, joking that she was “a little nervous,” and quickly going after an early assertion by Maragos that he takes “a lot of credit” for the county’s finances being “in pretty good shape.”

“George, I was stunned to hear you say that,” she began, also taking issue with Maragos’s claim that the county currently has a budgetary surplus.

“A surplus of what? Of scandals? Of investigations?” she said.

Lavine also piled on, saying wryly that, “Nassau

County always seems to have a surplus.

“Some experts in finance say that’s a little deceptive,” he added. “Because Generally Accepted Accounting Principles say that borrowed money is not revenue … it’s not to be counted as a surplus.”

Maragos maintained that he was the only candidate with a degree in finance, and that external auditors of the county’s finances had concluded that there was indeed a surplus and that the budgetary fund balance had grown from $10 million, when he took office, to $160 million.

Moving on to the county’s tax assessment system, which he said penalized disproportionately the 60 percent of homeowners who do not file tax grievances by making them subsidize those who do, Maragos told Curran that the legislature needs to be honest and “confront the real issues.”

Additionally, Maragos said that the county “has

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done nothing to provide more affordable housing, and that’s an area that we need to focus on because it’s going to become a crisis.”

Lavine was the most strident in criticizing Republicans at the national and county level, calling President Donald Trump’s administration “ignorant and cruel,” and Nassau County government “indifferent and corrupt.”

“This has to change,” he said, adding that the county’s current contracting system, which has been under scrutiny for alleged corruption and favoritism, was its own form of discrimination, “when party favorites can get something that everyone else can’t get.

“It’s utterly disgusting,” he added, promising that if elected, he would order a forensic audit of each county contract because the way Nassau operates impacts its reputation, which affects its ability to bond. “We can change our reputation, and I damn well intend to do that,” he said.

Curran repeated her call for an independent inspector general to review all contracts, and for the county to “dust off and reform” its ethics code and board.

All three became animated when discussing the importance of diversity and protecting minorities, particularly with immigration enforcement stepping up under Trump’s administration and bias incidents steadily on the rise.

Diversity is a strength, and Nassau County police would not be “deputized” as Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents under their administration, the candidates agreed.

“If you live in Nassau County, the police are there to protect you, not to cart you away,” said Curran, who also touted the unique diversity of Baldwin as an example to the rest of the county.

Lavine shared the story of his immigrant grandmother, who survived a 1905 Russian pogrom by coming to the United States in a hay wagon, while Maragos said that, as an immigrant himself, he well understood that “when you see injustice and you remain silent, you’re complicit.”

An audience member, toward the end of the evening asked that Maragos explain why he changed parties, after being comptroller in a Republican administration for six years, and Curran also brought up the comptroller’s past opposition to same-sex marriage.

Maragos apologized for comments, made during an unsuccessful U.S. Senate bid, likening samesex marriage to marrying one’s pet, and said that he had become disillusioned by the Republican Party, which he found to be self-serving, fiscally irresponsible and indifferent to the plight of minorities.

“I was continuously at odds with them,” he said. “I feel deep down that the purpose of government is to take care of the people who cannot take care of themselves.”

All three agreed that to effectively fight the opioid epidemic, youth programs need to become a budget priority, for prevention, and that new addiction treatment options need to be considered.

“I will make sure there is recurring revenue for these [programs],” said Curran. “This isn’t just liberal ‘do-gooderism.’ It’s important for our economy and it’s something I want to have a holistic look at.”

Lavine added that he found the yearly spectacle of youth service agencies coming before the legislature to “grovel” for money to remain operational was “demeaning” and “cynical.”

“I have seen who on the legislature is sensitive to this issue and it’s the Democrats,” he said. “It’s not the Republicans.”

Coadsurged unity in the party in the face of the next four years of a Trump administration in Washington. “It’s no joke, folks … it must be a Democrat to run Nassau County,” she said.

Lavine agreed, warning that the candidates should avoid pointing fingers or using invective against one another.

“We know the signals that are coming from Washington, and we know the attitudes that are going to flow from the Trump administration,” he said. “If we’re factionalized and we’re not standing up together, we are going to lose … We let, as Democrats, our guard down at a national level, and I don’t want to see us do that here in Nassau County.”

The state and county primary elections will be held on Sept. 12. The general election is Nov. 7.

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Shwartz, a filmmaker who has worked at Israel’s Yad Vashem Holocaust remembrance center.

In 2012, Michael Kagan and Shwartz scouted the former Novogrudok labor camp site, now an agricultural college, ultimately winning permission to bring in escapees’ descendants to dig for the tunnel. Three of the escapees, including Jack Kagan, were among the 55 family members who made the trip from Israel, the U.K. and the U.S. that year.

The elder Kagan and the other escapees’ memories of roundups, selections and mass shootings provide the film’s viewers with context for the prisoners’ growing desperation and willingness to risk everything for a slim chance at survival. In one of the film’s most powerful scenes, Kagan simply takes off his shoe, revealing a foot without toes.

A handful of prisoners, either fearful of Nazi retribution or too weak to crawl through the tunnel, turned down the opportunity to escape. The next day, those remaining quickly erected a wall where they hid for three days. The Germans soon abandoned the camp, and the remaining prisoners were able to join the partisans in the forest.

The film, which took three years to complete, documents the escapees’ weeklong dig for the tunnel—an often tedious and frustrating job. But on the seventh and final day, the diggers switched directions, and the tunnel’s exit came into view.

“My mother was overjoyed when my kids called her to say, ‘We found the tunnel,’” reports Betty Cohen of Jerusalem, who is writing a book

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Michael Kagan and Dror Shwartz brought descendants of Novogrudok labor camp escapees to dig for the tunnel—pictured here—that their ancestors used to flee.

Michael Kagan

on the fates of all 230 escapees, including her 96-year-old mother Fania Brodsky. “Of all the tales of the Shoah, this is one that shows how resilient and resourceful the Jews were.”

Besides the escapees and their descendants, the film features the survivors’ non-Jewish neighbors, one of whom tearfully recalls the massacre of Jews. Another local speaks proudly about the Jewish lives his family saved—the Nazis killed his great-grandfather for that heroism.

David Silberklang, the senior historian for Yad Vashem’s Research Institute, lauds the film for spotlighting the story behind the story. “It’s important to know that they decided to take along the injured, like Jack Kagan after his amputation,” he says. “They said, ‘It’s going to be all of us or none of us.’ That’s a very Jewish response to the Holocaust.”

In addition to the film, which is now being broadcast by i24news across the U.S., London’s Imperial War Museum houses a model of the labor camp and a tunnel for children to crawl through. The Kagan family’s story is also among those featured in Berlin’s official Holocaust memorial.

Last December, on the 75th anniversary of the massacre of 5,200 of his Novogrudok friends and family, Jack Kagan died at 87. His son says he is glad his father lived long enough to be featured in the film, a tribute “to both his tenacity and the tenacity of Jewish life.”

The lesson is not lost on the next generation.

“Seeing where it happened made it all the more real, and gave us all some closure,” says 26-year-old Itai Kagan, Jack’s grandson. “We grandchildren have more distance. To us, my grandfather’s story is more blessing than burden.”

THE JEWISH STAR March 31, 2017 • 4 Nisan, 5777

By Deborah Fineblum, JNS.org Ever since Michael Kagan, 60, was a boy growing up in the U.K., each detail of his father’s escape from a Nazi labor camp has ricocheted through his mind and heart. Now, in his new documentary “Tunnel of Hope,” the son is sharing his father’s story with the world.

It’s a story that Jack Kagan had fought to keep alive, recording not only the escape, but the murders of the vast majority of the Jews of Novogrudok, a city in Belarus, who were dead long before that fateful night.

“He was driven, determined to get it out there,” says Michael Kagan. Among his father’s projects was creating a museum at the escape site and marble monuments marking the slain Jews’ graves.

The risky escape plan was born of increasing desperation by the 240 Jews clinging to life in the Novogrudok labor camp. It was a ragtag group, the last survivors of some 11,000 Jews from the town and adjacent villages—their ranks decimated by two major slaughters in 1941 and 1942, along with starvation and illness.

Jack Kagan was 13 when the tunnel escape plan was hatched in the summer of 1943. Having lost all 10 toes to frostbite, he was recovering from their amputation when he overheard the adults, led by Berel Yoselevich, formulate the plan. It would take three months of painstaking labor, with the prisoners covering for each other in the camp’s shoemaking and woodworking factories, to excavate the 2-by-2-foot tunnel destined to carry them to freedom in late September.

Among those who made it out that night, twothirds survived the war, with most of them—including Jack Kagan—escaping to the forest and joining the famed Bielski partisans. Some nine months later, in June 1944, Kagan was among those liberated by the Soviets.

His son, Michael, who lives in Jerusalem, shared the idea for a film with family friend Murray Kushner—the uncle of President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner. He received Kushner’s pledge of support and recruited Dror

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By Alex Traiman, JNS.org Israel’s 20th Knesset entered a six-week parliamentary recess Sunday with serious questions emerging as to whether the current 67-member governing coalition can stay the course and avoid early elections.

During the past two weeks, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has reportedly sent signals that he could disband the current Likud party-led government and call for early elections over the government’s plans to replace the

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ship with the prime minister—have reported that Netanyahu has stated his willingness to call early elections if the issue is not resolved before the new broadcast corporation’s scheduled launch.

Yet according to political analyst Jeremy Saltan, a former Knesset aide and a current member of the Jewish Home party’s Central Committee, elections are not likely on the horizon.

“There definitely is a little bit of disharmony within the coalition, but I would not call it an allout coalition crisis. If you take a look at the exact wording that the prime minister and the finance minister have used, neither of them has directly said that we’re heading toward elections,” Saltan told JNS.org.

The current coalition is comprised primarily of nationalist and religious parties, and in many ways represents one of Israel’s most stable and like-minded coalitions in recent years. Yet according to recent polls—which often prove far from accurate—many coalition members, including the ruling Likud party, could stand to lose several seats if early elections were called, potentially paving the way for a new prime minister and a left-leaning government.

“The prime minister has 30 seats—a quarter of parliament,” Saltan said. “It took Netanyahu six elections at the head of the Likud party to get to that. Why would he throw that away when the polls suggest that, even if he were to maintain his current coalition following an election, he might not get to 30 seats again?”

Saltan suggests that two key factors—the passage of a two-year government budget and recent electoral reforms—contribute to the current coalition’s stability.

“The main way to topple government is not to pass a state budget,” Saltan said. “The coalition just passed a biannual budget, which makes sure that the country and the parliament are relatively stable until the next time a new state budget needs to be passed, which is 2019.”

Israel Broadcasting Authority with a new statelegislated entity, the Israeli Public Broadcasting Corporation.

Yet despite the threats, members of both Netanyahu’s 30-member Likud party and the coalition’s other parties seem hesitant to throw the country into elections over what many consider an issue that is not of grave national import.

“Transportation Minister Yisrael Katz and others in the Likud party, as well as Defense Minister [and leader of the Yisrael Beiteinu party] Avigdor Lieberman, have said there is no good reason to go to elections at this point,” said Mitchell Barak, director of KEEVOON Global Research, an Israeli survey research and strategic communications firm.

According to Hebrew media reports, leaders of the coalition’s religious parties—Health Minister Yaakov Litzman and Knesset Finance Committee Chair Moshe Gafni (both of the United Torah Judaism party), and Interior Minister Aryeh Deri (Shas), said Sunday in a joint statement that they “will not agree to advance [toward early elections], and we will have no hand in it.”

“Netanyahu already has his mandate,” Barak told JNS.org. “And there is no reason to go to elections over this issue. This is the last thing the country needs.”

The new state broadcaster at the center of the current coalition spat was passed into law in 2015, but Netanyahu has been pushing to scrap the new entity just weeks before its impending launch, in favor of resuscitating the IBA—reportedly over fears that its replacement would be a new critic of the prime minister.

Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon, a key coalition partner and leader of the 10-Knesset member Kulanu party, has insisted on launching the new broadcaster, maintaining that it will save the government more than $25 million.

Multiple members of the Israeli press—which is known to have a generally contentious relation-

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Analysis by Andrew Silow-Carroll, JTA A few weeks ago the Palestinian-American activist Linda Sarsour started a fundraising campaign to help restore the graves at a St. Louisarea Jewish cemetery damaged by vandalism.

The Jewish community there and across the country generally welcomed the Brooklynite’s effort — wildly successful, as it turned out — as a lovely moment in interfaith solidarity.

“It’s sad that it’s happening in the midst of tragedy, but it’s a beautiful gesture,” Brigitte Rosenberg, spiritual leader of the United Hebrew Congregation in St. Louis, told the Forward.

Gratitude like Rosenberg’s largely drowned out the voices of those who charged that Sarsour’s efforts were a “cynical attempt” to distract critics from her support for the Boycott, Sanctions and Divestment movement that many Jewish groups see as nothing less than an effort to delegitimize and dismantle Israel.

A basic principal of coalition building — of civil society, in fact — is putting aside disagreements on specific issues to work together on the things you can agree on. In this case, Jews and Muslims have a mutual self-interest in standing up to bigotry, even if they disagree on some major issues.

If Sarsour accepts this principle, it’s not clear from her role as an architect of the International Women’s Strike USA, the grassroots feminist movement that organized events around the world on International Women’s Day. In addition to calling for gender equality, an end to racial and sexual violence, and protection of reproductive rights, the group’s platform includes a plank “For an Antiracist and Anti-imperialist Feminism” that demands “the decolonization of Palestine.”

“We want to dismantle all walls, from prison walls to border walls, from Mexico to Palestine,” the platform continues.

(It is important to note that “Palestine” is mentioned twice in the brief platform; no other country or people is specifically singled out as a cause to be embraced or a target for activism — not India or any one of 49 nations that don’t criminalize marital rape; not Pakistan, where just one-quarter of women are in the labor force; not Mali, where adult women’s literacy is only 29 percent.)

Last week, Sarsour responded to a critic who asked why activists need to check their Zionism at the door when signing on to a feminist platform.

“I identify as a Zionist because I support Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state,” Emily Shire wrote in the New York Times. “I am happy to debate Middle East politics or listen to critiques of Israeli policies. But why should criticism of Israel be key to feminism in 2017?”

Asked by The Nation to respond to Shire, Sarsour was unequivocal: If by Zionist you mean someone who doesn’t accept the platform’s singular focus on Israel, then no, you can be a Zionist or a feminist, but you can’t be both.

“It just doesn’t make any sense for someone to say, ‘Is there room for people who support the state of Israel and do not criticize it in the movement?’ There can’t be in feminism,” Sarsour said. “You either stand up for the rights of all women, including Palestinians, or none.

There’s just no way around it.”

Sarsour can’t seem to imagine a movement in which activists might disagree on certain issues but can work together on others. In the name of intersectionality, she is willing to lose useful allies who cannot sign on to every plank of her platform.

In her remarks, Sarsour also alleged that Palestinian-American women hesitate to get involved in social justice causes because they fear becoming “an immediate target of the right wing and right-wing Zionists.” Indeed, she has

often been accused of having ties to Hamas, on fairly wispy evidence.

But Sarsour also focuses on “right-wing Zionists” at the exclusion of all others. She doesn’t leave room for Israelis who might share her social justice agenda, not only when it comes to feminism but to Palestinian women as well.

First she raises Palestine as literally the only global cause worth mentioning. Then she offers a false choice between supporting Israel and feminism.

Such thinking seems infectious. Writing about the Shire-Sarsour debate in New York magazine, Eric Levitz explained, “To a Palestinian woman in the West Bank, no issue may appear more central to her liberation than the end of the Israeli occupation. To a Zionist woman in Tel Aviv — whose family tree lost branches to Hitler and then to Hamas — no issue may seem less relevant to her interests. The feminist movement has no choice but to represent one woman, and not the other.”

Really? No choice? Because I can point to Israeli women who have lost family members in the Holocaust and to terrorism, and who care deeply about women’s – and all people’s – rights in both countries.

Like members of the Parents Circle, a group of Palestinian and Israeli families who have lost relatives to terror and violence but still work together on coexistence. Or the Coalition of Women for Peace, an Israeli feminist organization founded in 2000 following the outbreak of the second intifada. The women who belong are “committed to ending the occupation and creating a more just society, while enhancing women’s inclusion and participation in the public discourse,” according to its mission statement.

Or Women Wage Peace, who two years ago led a protest march from northern Israel to Jerusalem to demand that Israel restart the peace

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process with the Palestinians. WWP describes itself as above the political and religious divide, seeking to do something that Sarsour insists “doesn’t make any sense”: creating allies among people who disagree.

Members of all three groups might happily sign on to the Women’s Strike platform — or they might bristle at how the platform aims to alienate Israelis and their supporters by making Palestine its only specific nationalist cause.

The Women’s Strike platform is not just asking followers to “criticize” Israel, but to do so in terms insisted upon by Sarsour and the BDS movement: Israel as a colonialist and racist enterprise. There’s no mention of peace, only of a “de-colonization” of a Palestine whose borders are never specified — because, one suspects, the BDS movement cannot bring itself to recognize Israel’s right to exist. There is no room in the coalition for the Israeli — left, right or center — who wants women on both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian divide to enjoy full rights, but who believes with good reason that the platform’s framing of the conflict is a recipe for eternal violence.

According to the Women’s Strike platform, “We celebrate the diversity of the many social groups that have come together for the International Women’s Strike. We come from many political traditions but are united around the following common principles.”

Like the Black Lives Matter platform issued last year, however, the Women’s Strike version seems engineered to specifically exclude one social group: supporters of Israel who do not buy into a one-sided condemnation of Israel, who believe it doesn’t deserve to be singled out among all the conflicts in which men and women have been oppressed, marginalized or exploited — and who don’t accept that the only solution worthy of discussion is the one that leaves no room for a Jewish state.

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The false choice between Zionism and feminism

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Senator Schumer’s Supreme Court filibuster Jeff Dunetz politics to go

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fter making sure that President Trump spent the first two months of his presidency without a full cabinet, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer searched for new ways to delay Judge Neil Gorsuch’s inevitable senate approval as an associate Justice of the Supreme Court.

First, he urged Republicans to delay a vote on Gorsuch because of the ongoing investigation into potential ties between Trump officials and Russia. Then, after saying that Gorsuch was too conservative and might not be independent of President Trump, Schumer announced on the Senate floor on Thursday that he would lead a filibuster to delay a Gorsuch vote. As expected, Schumer warned the GOP not to use the “nuclear option” (which would end the filibuster).

Schumer’s action was all about party politics,

not Gorsuch’s qualifications. The justice has been widely praised as an excellent choice for the high court, receiving the American Bar Association’s highest rating. During his testimony, Gorsuch handled himself admirably despite being unfairly prodded by Judicial Committee Democrats.

Gorsuch’s performance in the hearing was praised by commentators at the liberal cable news networks: •CNN’s John King: “Democrats have not even bruised, blemished anything to this judge.”

•CNN’s Nia-Malika Henderson: “Very warm, affable, down-home kind of person.”

•MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell: “This has been a slam dunk.”

•MSNBC’s Chris Jansing: “impressively disciplined performance.”

•MSNBC’s Ari Melbar: “I didn’t see a single glove laid on him. He performed himself admirably.”

Of course, Schumer didn’t really care about Gorsuch’s qualification or his glowing ABA endorsement. He didn’t even care about the fact that 97 percent of the 2,700 cases he decided on as part of the three-judge appellate court panel were unanimous, and he was in the ma-

jority 99 percent of the time, indicating that his opinions aren’t out of the norm.

Schumer complained that it was “the height of irony” that Republicans blocked President Obama from filling the Supreme Court seat but are “now rushing” to confirm Gorsuch, ignoring the fact that it was a Democrat (Senator Joe Biden, in 1992) who first advocated not filling a Supreme Court seat in a president’s final year.

Senator Schumer took this even further. In July 2007, he promised to try to filibuster any candidate that President Bush nominated, not because it was an election year but because such a judge would presumably be a conservative.

“We should not confirm any Bush nominee to the Supreme Court except in extraordinary circumstances. They must prove by actions not words that they are in the mainstream rather than we have to prove that they are not.”

Despite all this, the Republicans easily supported President Obama’s two court picks ‎made before the campaign season, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan. ne way or another, despite Schumer’s efforts, Gorsuch will be on the Supreme Court before Tax Day. If there is a filibus-

O

ter, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell will invoke the “nuclear option” and reduce the number of need votes from 60 to a simple majority. If the filibuster is removed for this Supreme Court pick, it will be gone for all Supreme Court picks.

“Supreme Court justices are always confirmed with a bi-partisan vote above the 60plus filibuster threshold,” Schumer said.

But that’s not exactly true. Nominees by Democratic presidents usually zip through with little or no opposition, while Democrats have not always been as deferential toward Republican nominees. Robert Bork, a brilliant jurist, was slandered by Ted Kennedy and rejected; Clarence Thomas was slandered and passed but with only 52 votes, and Samuel Alito, also slandered, was approved with only 52 votes.

It will be interesting to see how this all ends up. Will Schumer continue to put party before country and block a simple up or down vote by the Senate, calling for a filibuster and destroying the filibuster as a option for all future Supreme Court candidates? If Schumer allows the nuclear option to be implemented, the next Republican court nominee will not be as “moderate” as Gorsuch.

In naming Islamist terror, don’t forget Hamas Ben Cohen Viewpoint

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s reports of the savage terrorist attack in central London March 22 emerged, it was clear pretty quickly that British authorities were dealing with an incident straight from the Islamist terror manual.

The weapons of choice in London were ordinary consumer goods that are easily refashioned for the purposes of murder. The car in which the kids are driven to school is also a makeshift tank that can be used for ramming pedestrians. The knife that chops a salad can also be a machete of sorts, used to hack down police officers and others who get in the way.

This is what we saw in London last week, resembling what we saw in the French city of Nice in July 2016—where the weapon was a massive cargo truck, and the death toll was 86—and in Israel on many occasions, such as this past January, when a truck killed four and wounded 15 IDF soldiers in Jerusalem’s East Talpiot neighborhood.

Obviously, one cannot restrict the circulation of these dual purpose goods. But when these goods are used for terror purposes, they offer alarming proof that you don’t need guns or bombs to paralyze an entire city or even country.

One car and one knife caused hundreds of British

parliamentarians to take shelter in Westminster Abbey—one of the most potent symbols of British sovereignty, where all of the kingdom’s monarchs have been crowned for a millennium—until the police could finally declare the neighborhood safe. Those are the images that people remember.

Rolling media coverage often draws out the similarities between how terror attacks in different places are executed. More important, though, is the cause and rationale of such attacks. Away from all the immediacy and urgency that each attack brings, it becomes critical to remember the provenance, politically and ideologically, of these atrocities. Islamist terror was a factor long before the barbarians of al-Qaeda and more recently Islamic State burst upon the scene, and fanatical Islamist organizations like Al-Muhajiroun, Al Ghurabaa and Hizb ut-Tahrir have been established in the U.K. and Europe for decades. n the Middle East, birthplace of Islamism, two of the most prominent Islamist organizations— Hezbollah in Lebanon, and Hamas in the West Bank and Gaza—have been in the terror business since the 1980s. Hezbollah has struck in Lebanon, Argentina and Bulgaria as well as deep inside Israel; Hamas has launched three wars upon Israel since the IDF withdrew from Gaza in 2005, as well as numerous bombing attacks, shooting attacks and stabbing sprees. But somehow, these two bloodstained organizations are never regarded in quite the same way as the die-hard Sunni Islamists who have brought humanitarian disaster

I

to the Middle East and a climate of fear to the heartlands of Europe.

Repeatedly, we are told that Hezbollah, a direct proxy of the Iranian regime that is responsible for monstrous war crimes in Syria, is more accurately understood as a Lebanese political party with a “military wing,” and that political engagement is required for Hezbollah to abandon its terrorist activities—a view implying that terror is an optional tactic for Hezbollah, rather than central to its ethos.

As for the Palestinians of Hamas—spawned by the same Muslim Brotherhood whose path also leads to Islamic State—they are currently preparing a bid to convince the world of their newfound political moderation. An initiative like this one is poorly timed, as the Obama administration, which might well have been seduced, is out of office.

Even so, it’s a consequence of important developments within Hamas that are worth taking note of.

Back in February, as ordinary Gazans seethed with frustration at their corrupt rulers, Hamas held its secretive internal election for a new political chief. The man selected was Yahya Sinwar, an Islamist true believer and Hamas military leader who spent more than 20 years in Israeli prisons before being released in a 2011 prisoner exchange. Sinwar’s victory is another sign that it is the military dimension of Hamas that calls the shots—not the “political wing.” The military’s primacy similarly prevails in Iran, and for Hezbollah.

With that in mind, what are we to make of the news that Hamas is developing a new political

program that just might, eventually, somewhere down the line, lead to an agreement of some sort with Israel? Hamas’s reason for projecting this self-image is political; it wants to be removed from the terrorism lists of Western governments, an outcome that would conveniently allow Sinwar and his cronies to distinguish themselves from the “pure” terrorists of Islamic State.

But the vague details of this revised Hamas political program are hardly encouraging. It doesn’t override the organization’s 1988 founding charter, whose battle cry is “confronting the usurpation of Palestine by the Jews through jihad.”

Akram Atallah, a Gaza-based political analyst, summarized the inner Hamas discussion in an interview with the Associated Press. “The document carries a kind of superficial change, but in fact it upholds most of Hamas’ principles,” he said. “The world recognized the PLO after it went into direct negotiations with Israel. … Does Hamas agree to do the same? If yes, that’s the way for the world to accept Hamas.”

The latter part of that statement is wishful thinking. The West has not reached a stage where it is willing to legitimize Hamas in exchange for a feeble commitment to “direct negotiations.” Terror attacks like that carried out in London make such a prospect even more remote. We should expect this latest makeover attempt by Hamas to dissolve without a trace. As for the security threat it poses, that remains very much intact.

Ben Cohen is senior editor of TheTower.org

33 THE JEWISH STAR March 31, 2017 • 4 Nisan, 5777

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Restoration underway at vandalized cemetery

By JTA Dozens of volunteers and laborers launched the restoration of toppled and damaged headstones at a Philadelphia Jewish cemetery on Tuesday.

Experts in grave restoration are overseeing the work at the Mount Carmel Cemetery. Two Philadelphia labor unions offered to provide free repairs and added security.

The work will include setting and gluing the stones, fixing the cemetery fence and increasing the lighting for security purposes.

The damage to about 175 gravestones was discovered in late February, days after a Jewish cemetery in St. Louis was vandalized. No suspects have been identified.

Meanwhile, most of the 154 toppled gravestones at the Chesed Shel Emeth Cemetery in St. Louis have been righted and resealed to their bases. Some 16 of the stones have to be replaced, which could take three months, according to the report.

Livingstone’s defense

Ahead of a British Labour Party disciplinary hearing, former London Mayor Ken Livingstone has defended himself against accusations of anti-Semitism.

He also denied saying that Hitler was a Zionist, but said that he just claimed that Nazi policy “had the effect of supporting” Zionism.

Livingstone on Tuesday posted a 17-page summary of the defense he will present later in the week before the party’s National Constitutional Committee.

He was suspended from the party following an April 2016 interview with BBC radio in which he said, “Let’s remember when Hitler won his election in 1932 his policy then was that Jews should be moved to Israel. He was

supporting Zionism.”

Livingstone made the remarks in defense of Labour lawmaker Naz Shah, who was suspended a day earlier over a Facebook post in 2014 suggesting Israelis should be moved en masse to the United States.

Asked during the interview whether he regarded her statement as anti-Semitic, Livingstone said, “No, it’s completely over the top, but it’s not anti-Semitic.”

Five Jewish members of the Labour Party will speak in Livingstone’s defense at the hearing.

Livingstone served as mayor from 1981 to 1986 and again from 2000 to 2008.

$5M for Mexico City JCC

The mayor of Mexico City laid the foundation stone of a Jewish community center slated to cost nearly $5.3 million.

Miguel Angel Mancera hailed the Jewish community’s decision to invest in the city as seen by its decision to build the Kehila Ashkenazi in the Cuauhtemoc borough. The official considers the initiative a sign of trust in the country’s growth, La Razon newspaper reported Tuesday.

“The Jewish community is showing a substantial, permanent impulse, honoring ancestral values of their people, but living with this dialectic of Mexico, showing affection to the city and to all who live here,” he said.

Mancera pointed out that the city’s constitution mentions the fight against anti-Semitism.

In turn, the president of the Central Committee of the Jewish Community of Mexico, the country’s Jewish umbrella organization, cited the governmental support provided to carry out local projects.

“It is very important for us that you know

Let’s Talk!

briefs that we value a lot the fact that every time we approach any city official to bring up a community theme, they always welcome us very well,” Moises Romano said.

Paraguay shechita rules

The government of Paraguay will move to require more humane ways of kosher slaughter by the end of year following the intervention of Israeli and international animal rights activists.

Slaughterhouses will have to stop using the shackle-and-hoist method of slaughter and instead use the method of rotating pens, which is seen as more humane, the Jerusalem Post reported.

Forty percent of the beef consumed in Israel comes from Paraguay, which does not export beef to the United States. The shackle-andhoist method is common in slaughter houses in Argentina and Uruguay but is not permitted in Israel.

The Veterinary Services Department of Israel’s Agricultural Ministry was involved in pressuring Paraguay to require new methods of slaughter, according to the Post.

Argentine prez visit

Mauricio Macri of Argentina and Argentineborn Queen Maxima of the Netherlands visited the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam on Monday.

During the visit, Argentina signed two cooperation agreements to spread Anne Frank’s lessons to Argentine young people and to promote dialogue and tolerance.

Heads of state visiting the Netherlands rarely make official visits to the Anne Frank House.

“The message of Anne Frank is one of hope in the midst of darkness. Anne Frank’s father was able to transform his enormous pain into a vision, committing the world to the struggle for human rights. ‘Think of all the beauty around you and be happy,’ Anne Frank wrote. With affection and respect,” Macri wrote in the museum guestbook.

AJC returns to Warsaw

Ed Weintrob

Celia Weintrob

EWeintrob@TheJewishStar.com 516-622-7461 x291

CWeintrob@TheJewishStar.com 516-622-7461 x241

Editor & Publisher

The American Jewish Committee has returned to Warsaw after eight years.

AJC on Monday opened a new office in the city dedicated to serving Poland and six other Central European countries: the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania and Slovakia.

Polish President Andrzej Duda, in a statement marking the event, said he sees the depth of symbolism in the fact that the ceremony coincided with the launch of NATO forces’ presence in Poland.

“In the period when Poland, having regained her sovereignty after the collapse of the communist regime, strived to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the American Jewish Committee proved to be our valuable ally,” he wrote in a letter read to gala participants.

Jonathan Ornstein, director of JCC Krakow, said that the opening of AJC’s office in Poland will give a boost to its growing Jewish community and help Poland strengthen ties with the Jewish world. He said the choice of Warsaw is yet another sign that world Jewry recognizes Poland as a growth area and a bright spot in Europe.

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The rabbinic head of a religious Zionist pre-military yeshiva in the West Bank acknowledged that he was wrong to denigrate female soldiers by saying the Israeli army drives them “crazy” and upsets their Jewishness.

Rabbi Yigal Levinstein, who runs the Bnei David academy in Eli, in a letter to his students and to graduates of the yeshiva said the tone of the remarks he made earlier this month to

several hundred students visiting from another pre-military academy was “inappropriate,” though he also said that some of his comments were taken out of context.

Rabbi Levinstein also defended his point, saying “women have been taken hostage by the feminist movement” and that he made his comments to better prepare students for service in the Israeli military.

“I am trying to save the girls from feminist captivity and to fight for their honor as Jewish women and against liberals staining their honor,” he said in the five-page letter sent Monday.

Natan Meir engagement

Natan Meir, whose wife Dafna was killed in a terror attack in their home, announced on Monday that he is engaged to be married.

Meir reported on social media that he is engaged to Zohar Morgenstern of Jerusalem.

The announcement comes over a year after the terror attack in the West Bank settlement of Otniel.

Dafna Meir, 38, a mother of four and foster mother of two young children, was stabbed to death in January at the entrance of her home by a teenage Palestinian attacker. She was fighting off her attacker in what is believed to have been an attempt to save three of her children who were in the house.

The couple’s oldest daughter, Renana, 18, who witnessed the attack, became engaged earlier this month.

In a Facebook post on Tuesday, Meir thanked his children for their support and sharing in his happiness. Without them, he wrote, “I could not open my heart to love again.”

Chabad row in Frankfurt

The umbrella group representing the Jewish community of Frankfurt is distancing itself from the city’s Chabad-Lubavitch chapter following a series of alleged instances of “disrespect” shown against local non-Chabad rabbis.

In an open letter published March 20, the Jewish Community of Frankfurt am Main group wrote that the city’s synagogues will no longer provide rooms for Chabad events. The letter cites “increasingly aggressive behavior” and “insults” from Chabad rabbis aimed at two local rabbis, Avichai Apel and Julian Chaim-Soussan.

Apel was hired as a replacement for Rabbi Menachem Halevi Klein, who retired in 2015 after heading the Orthodox Westend Synagogue for 21 years. The Chabad Frankfurt am Main chapter has been holding its services and housing its yeshiva in the Westend Synagogue.

Chabad leadership has yet to respond to the letter.

Iran imposes sanctions

Iran has imposed sanctions on 15 American companies over their alleged support for Israel.

The announcement by the Iranian Foreign Ministry accuses the United States of “propping up the Zionist regime, terrorists and suppressing civilians in the region,” the state agency IRNA reported.

It comes two days after the United States issued new sanctions on several foreign firms and individuals accused of supporting Iran’s weapons program.

“The Islamic Republic of Iran condemns the recent measure taken by the United States administration to impose one-sided extraterritorial sanctions against Iranian and non-Iranian individuals and institutions,” the Foreign Ministry said in its statement.

“Imposition of new sanctions by the U.S. is based on fabricated and illegitimate pretexts and amount to an action against the international regulations as well as the word and spirit of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action,” the statement said.

The companies include Raytheon, Re/Max Real Estate, Oshkosh, United Technologies Produces, ITT, BENI Tal and M7 Aerospace.

35 THE JEWISH STAR March 31, 2017 • 4 Nisan, 5777

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March 31, 2017 • 4 Nisan, 5777 THE JEWISH STAR

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