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May 24, 2019 19 Iyar, 5779

Vol 18, No 19

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Third-graders at the Shulamith School for Girls will carry this banner at the LawrenceCedarhurst Memorial Day Parade on Sunday. Day schools and other Jewish institutions will participate, along Central Avenue and into Cedarhurst Park, from 10 to 11 am.

Woodsburgh grandmother’s plea: Vaccinate the children Mindy Engelberg of Woodsburgh submitted this story in the hope that the suffering of her grandson and his family may spare others in our community. The last day of Yom Tov should have been a wonderful ending to a beautiful Pesach in Israel. Instead, it turned into a nightmare no parent should have to experience. Yehudah Yosef, at the time 111/2 months, had been feverish and coughing for a few days. On Shabbos morning, he woke up with a scorching fever; pimples encased his tongue, and he had difficulty breathing. We rushed him to the hospital, where doctors suspected meningitis, fearing the worst. At the time, Yehuda was lethargic and completely unresponsive. The spinal tap came back clear, and a urine and blood test confirmed a diagnosis of measles. He was scheduled to have been vaccinated

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the week after Pesach, and must have been exposed to a contagious individual weeks prior. Yehudah Yosef was treated at Shaare Zedek Hospital in Jerusalem. The man who saved his life is Prof. Dr. Yechiel Schlessinger, head of pediatrics and an infectious disease doctor by training, and we owe him tremendous gratitude. “This innocent baby suffered unbelievable pain through no fault of his own. Take pictures, show the world what measles can do to a innocent child.” Accompanying this article are pictures of Yehudah Yosef before the measles struck, and how he looked during his stay at the hospital. Yehuda Yosef’s case was very complicated, with infections in his lungs and ears. He was on oxygen, steroids, antibiotics, and See Measles on pag 6 As commencement season begins, high schools are naming their top grads. From left: HAFTR Valedictorian Amanda Vaysman and Salutatorian Abigail Goldberg, and SKA Valedictorian Lauren Israeli, Salutatorian Adina Lev, and Kesser Shem Tov honoree Devorah Schreier. See p. 21.

Herman Wouk brought Judaism into mainstream By Rachel Gordan, JTA Herman Wouk, the bestselling Orthodox author whose literary career spanned nearly seven decades and who helped usher Judaism into the American mainstream, died Friday at the age of 103. Wouk was the author of two dozen novels and works of nonfiction, including the Pulitzer Prizewinning The Caine Mutiny in 1951, which was a fixture on bestseller lists for two years, and the best-selling Marjorie Morningstar in 1955. Both books were later adapted for the screen. His novels The Winds of War and War and Remembrance both became successful television miniseries. By the mid-1950s, Wouk’s popular and financial success as an American Jewish novelist was unmatched. Even more unusual for a writer of Wouk’s celebrity was his Orthodox observance and treatment of Jewish religious practice in his writing. Wouk embodied the new postwar possibilities for American Jews and his writing was both cause and effect of the normalization of Judaism within the larger American Judeo-Christian tradition. When he appeared on the cover of Time in 1955, the magazine described Wouk’s blend of worldly success and Jewish religious observance as paradoxical. “He is a devout Orthodox Jew who had achieved worldly success in worldly-wise Manhattan while adhering to dietary prohibitions and traditional rituals which many of his fellow Jews find embarrassing,” the article said. At the time, Wouk’s fame seemed like an incredible feat for an Orthodox Jew. Unlike other Jewish novelists, who had focused on Jewish immigrant culture and tended to portray religious Judaism as foreign and exotic, Wouk made Jewish religious observance appear mainstream in his books. Scenes of a Passover Seder and a bar mitzvah service became scenes of middle-class American life in Marjorie Morningstar.

Herman Wouk in 1975

None of this escaped criticism. With the exception of The Caine Mutiny, reviews of Wouk’s works were typically mixed. Both Jewish and mainstream reviewers expressed dissatisfaction with the quality of his writing, his conservative outlook on politics and sex, and his treatment of Judaism. Some rabbis even criticized Wouk for mocking Jewish observance — though in the coming decade, Philip Roth’s fiction would radically change their perspective on what counted as literary denigration of Judaism. Meanwhile, fellow Jewish novelists like Roth, Saul Bellow and Norman Mailer viewed Wouk as conforming to middle-class American values that prioritized marriage, family, religion and service to country. Not only did he stay married to the same woman for more than six decades, but Wouk expressed pride in his military service, for which he received a U.S. Navy Lone Sailor Award. Wouk in turn saw the others as bowing to fashionable literary trends of rebellion and shocking readers. From his debut novel, Aurora Dawn, in 1947, to his last book, Sailor and Fiddler: Reflections of a 100-Year-Old Author — published in 2015 when he had reached a century — Wouk wove

themes central to the American Jewish experience throughout his work. Even The Caine Mutiny, a less Jewish novel than later works, included Lt. Barney Greenwald, who gives a moving speech in defense of a lieutenant who helped keep Greenwald’s Jewish mother from being “melted down into a bar of soap” by the Nazis. Set in the 1930s and ’40s, Wouk’s fourth book, Marjorie Morningstar, heralded a new era for American Jews. The novel followed the journey of a New York Jewish protagonist no different from any other bright and beautiful young woman of the era, an image further cemented by Natalie Wood’s portrayal of Marjorie in the 1958 film version. Not since the 1927 film “The Jazz Singer,” starring Al Jolson, had a movie shown Jewish religious scenes. But unlike “The Jazz Singer,” Marjorie and her religion were not exoticized — Jewishness was portrayed as middle class and American. With Marjorie, Wouk had succeeded in making a story about Jews into an American story. Marjorie also marked a turning point in his writing career. With confidence that he had readers who would follow him to less popular subjects, Wouk’s fourth book, his first work of nonfiction, took on the subject of Orthodox Judaism. Published in 1959, This Is My G-d was a primer about the Jewish religion intended for both Jewish and non-Jewish readers. As other American celebrities would do, Wouk used his fame to draw attention to his little-understood religion. Serialized in the Los Angeles Times, This Is My G-d introduced readers to such Jewish particulars as the laws of kashrut and family purity and the holidays of Sukkot and Shavuot. The book showed, through anecdotes from Wouk’s glamorous Manhattan life, that it was possible to be both a modern American and Orthodox. At a time when Jews still encountered quotas at universities and discrimination in hiring and housing, Wouk’s example provided inspiration. This Is My G-d became a popular bar

mitzvah and confirmation gift for young Jews of all movements. Born in the Bronx borough of New York City on May 27, 1915, Wouk was the second of three children of Esther and Abraham Wouk, both immigrants from Belarus. Abraham Wouk began work as a laundry laborer and found financial success in the laundry business. Herman spent his early years in the Bronx receiving basic Hebrew training from his grandfather. His childhood included the teasing and bullying that was common for bookish boys in rough neighborhoods. From an early age, Wouk found a haven in reading, family and Judaism. After graduating from the public Townsend Harris High School, Wouk entered Columbia University, where he served as editor of its humor magazine. He also took courses at Yeshiva University. Upon graduating, Wouk briefly abandoned his religious lifestyle when he became a radio dramatist, writing for the comedian Fred Allen. Although the work was lucrative, Wouk felt a void in a life without Jewish learning and religion, and he eventually returned to his previous level of observance. In the coming years he would reside in the Virgin Islands, New York’s Fire Island, Washington, D.C., Manhattan and Palm Springs, California — and in all those locales he was involved in setting up Jewish study and prayer groups. Following Pearl Harbor, Wouk joined the Navy and served in the Pacific, where he was an officer aboard two destroyers, participated in eight invasions and won several battle stars. Wouk also started to write Aurora Dawn while aboard ship. After Wouk sent part of a draft to one of his former Columbia professors, the professor connected Wouk with an editor, and a contract followed. Wouk is survived by two sons, Nathaniel and Joseph, and three grandchildren. His oldest son, Abraham, died in a 1951 swimming pool accident. His wife of 66 years died in 2011.

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By Jeffrey Bessen, Nassau Herald Judith and Zoltan Lefkovits survived the Holocaust and came to the United States in the late 1950s — “separately,” the couple said in unison. Their families’ harrowing experiences created a generational bond to support Israel and the military that protects the Jewish state. The Lefkovitses, along with their daughter, Malky, and her husband, Jay Spector, were honored at the eighth annual Friends of Israel Defense Forces South Shore community dinner at the Sands in Atlantic Beach on May 15. Officials said it was the organization’s most successful event to date, drawing a crowd of 550 and raising more than $400,000, the highest total ever. “Lone soldiers” of the IDF — those who do not have immediate family in Israel — were also saluted for their service, including Cedarhurst resident Sergeant Yehuda. (Last names are never

Lefkovits, Jeremy Spector, Emme Jacobs, Jeffrey Jacobs, Ayelet Jacobs, Jordana Jacobs, Zoltan Lefkovits, Judith Lefkovits, Melissa Spector, Sgt Mariya, FIDF Long Island Chairman Ronny Ben-Josef,

given, to protect the soldiers.) FIDF officials said that the Five Towns and other South Shore communities send the largest contingent of young men and women to serve as lone soldiers. Lone soldiers are typically immigrants, orphans or Israeli-born and estranged from their families. “We can’t take the soldiers for granted,” Jay Spector said, explaining why he and Malky are avid FIDF supporters. “They protect us.” The Spectors helped organize the first South Shore community dinner nine years ago, hosting a meeting in their Lawrence home. Like many survivors’, the tales the Lefkovitses, residents of Woodmere, can recall are harrowing, and have been source material for movies. Both are originally from Hungary, and have families of Polish descent. Judith’s father, Michael, owned a factory, and as he followed events in Poland in 1939, he oversaw the construction of

Master of Ceremonies Benjamin Brafman, Sgt Sa’ar; Sgt Idan, Judith and Zoltan Lefkovits, Malky Spector and Jay Spector. Organizers said that the event raised $400,000. Aron Michael Photography

bunkers under the factory. He subsequently hid more than 50 people for eight months, even after the Nazis commandeered the factory and transformed it into an ammunitions plant. Judith recalled the day near the end of World War II when she walked to the house where her grandparents were hiding. “I was not 4 yet,” she said. “There was a ladder going down to the bunker. It was Friday afternoon, and I had not seen my father for eight months. As I climbed down, I glimpsed at the table set for Shabbat with a clean white tablecloth. I felt like I had climbed a ladder into heaven.” Her father’s side of the family survived the Holocaust, but, except for her grandfather on her mother’s side, the rest of Judith’s family was among the 1.1 million people killed at the Auschwitz concentration camp. Zoltan, born into a family of 12, survived six

concentration camps and displayed the kind of bravery usually seen in soldiers. With his mother ailing in an Austrian camp, Zoltan, then 10, would sneak out and beg for food. According to one story, he knocked on a door, a woman answered and, despite the fact that her husband was in the German army, gave him food. Eight of his nine siblings survived, and Zoltan’s family returned to Hungary, as did Judith’s. Both became ardent Zionists. Zoltan wanted to go to Israel, but he was the youngest son, and his father, who loved him dearly, did not allow it. “We are very, very pro-Israel — Israel means a lot to us,” Zoltan said. “Every year since 1966 we’ve been to Israel, our children have been to Israel.” He visited Vienna in 1956, where the U.S. embassy offered to resettle him in the U.S. DeSee FIDF on page 6

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Rock star imam, in 5T, affirms love of Israel By Ed Weintrob An Iranian-born Australian Shia imam told a Five Towns audience last Wednesday evening that he’s onboard with Israel — and that the Koran agrees that the land of Israel belongs to the Jewish people. Muslim leaders who maintain otherwise, Imam Mohammad Tawhidi said, do so only to further their nefarious political goals. A social media phenom, Tawhidi was invited to the parlor meeting, in the Woodmere home of Robert and Laurie Koppel, by former Assemblyman Dov Hikind. Hikind called Tawhidi “a great friend of the Jewish people, a great friend of Israel.” “The imam has taken it upon himself to speak straight, to tell the truth,” Hikind said. Regarding disputes between Jews and Muslims over Jerusalem, Tawhidi sided with the Jews. “I have ties in Mecca, I have ties in Medina and Najaf. What ties me to Jerusalem? How come we go to all the other places but we don’t we go to Jerusalem every year?” He insisted that Muslims had no claim to Jerusalem. “A verse in the Koran that refers to a journey by Muhammad from Mecca to ‘Al-Aqsa Mosque’ cannot mean the mosque by

Imam Mohammad Tawhidi takes a selfie at the request of a fan, a Christian supporter of Israel who traveled to Woodmere to meet Tawhidi at last Wednesday evening’s parlor meeting. At right, Tawhidi speaks, flanked by former Assemblyman Dov Hikind, who organized the event. The Jewish Star / Ed Weintrob

that name now in Jerusalem because today’s Al-Aqsa was built after Muhammad’s death, during the second Caliphate of Umar,” he said. “The Koran couldn’t have referred to this place — it didn’t exist.” Al-Aqsa Mosque means “the farthest mosque.” Tawhidi said that when he challenged his teachers regarding the Al-Aqsa Mosque, he was told not to pursue the matter. As for references in the Koran to violence against Jews

and others — he said those were in the context of tribal warfare and not relevant today. Muslim scholars have differing views on this point, and on Jerusalem. Tawhidi praised President Trump and criticized former President Obama and freshman Democratic Reps. Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar, both Muslims. “What is Ilhan Omar doing with the head scarf that my mother wears, that all the women in my family wear?” he asked. “What is she doing

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with that, that [former KKK leader] David Duke is praising her and telling everybody that she’s the one we need in government?” “There are mosques in America where Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib cannot go because they’re completely rejected,” he said. Tawhidi discounted reports that American Muslims were being indiscriminately targeted for abuse and he rejected the term “Islamaphobia.” “I don’t believe there’s anything called Islamaphobia,” he said. “Phobia is an irrational fear. Fearing ISIS is not irrational.” Hikind bemoaned the rising tide of anti-Semitism in America and proclaimed the need to act against it. “I can deal with the Farrakhans of the world, with the anti-Semites,” Hikind said.

“The problem is when good people don’t stand up and do the right thing because it’s not politically correct.” On the other hand, Hikind said, now we’ve met “a beautiful friend like the imam, someone who is outspoken on many issues. He loves the Jewish people … he says that Palestine is the land of the Jews.” Host Robert Koppel said afterwards that he was pleased by the turnout. “There’s almost no one who was invited to this who didn’t come,” Koppel said.

“To Jews who have so few friends in the world this is so refreshing.” The event was attended mostly by Jewish residents of the Five Towns, but also by a few Muslims and by a Christian supporter of Israel who said she is a follower of Tawhidi on Twitter and who posed with him for a selfie. Tawhidi, author of “The Tragedy of Islam: Admissions of a Muslim Cleric,” was also Hikind’s guest the following night at the Avenue N Jewish Center in Brooklyn.

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May 24, 2019 19 Iyar, 5779 THE JEWISH STAR

Continued from page 1 IV fluids. We feared possible long-term consequences of the complications, such as hearing loss. B’chasdei Hashem, and thanks to the incredible staff at Shaare Zedek, he was released after 10 days of hospitalization. He is still on antibiotics for lingering infections. Endless tears were shed and tefilos said for this beautiful little boy whose life hung in the balance. We are certain that Hakadosh Baruch Hu restored his health in the merit of the many who davened and stormed the heavens for his complete refuah. Measles is an illness that was eradicated for decades. It is incredibly contagious, and can be fatal — especially for young children. Please, please, get your children and grandchildren vaccinated! Check your own immunity with a blood titer test. Do not let your innocent children and grandchildren suffer the fate that Yehudah Yosef and his family had to endure. With thanks to all our friends and families, and most of all to the Ribono Shel Olam.

Continued from page 4 spite being told not to, Zoltan returned to Hungary, collected his family, 40 other people and the town’s rabbi, and they all came to America. Three years later — the same year Judith’s family came from Vienna — he moved to New York. They met at a wedding and married in 1960. “I feel very fortunate,” Malky said. “My parents were very open, and spoke about their experience to me and my brother very often. There should never be a generation like that again, G-d forbid. Holocaust survivors should be called builders, because they came here and built a life.” Established in 1981, the Friends of the Israel Defense Forces has more than 150,000 supporters and 23 chapters across the U.S. and Panama. It offers lone soldiers cultural, educational, recreational and social programs, and an array of services. Lawrence resident and renowned criminal attorney Ben Brafman has emceed events since the organization’s inception. “I’ve been a master of ceremonies probably at more than 100 dinners and charitable events in the last five years, and all of them are important, but this might be the most important one,” he said. “It’s incumbent on all of us to support the soldiers of the IDF, as they protect Jews not only in Israel but around the world. We have to step up and show our support.”

By Cnaan Liphshiz, JTA After decades of relative obscurity, the tale of the Japanese diplomat Chiune Sugihara has become one of the best-known Holocaust rescue stories, rivaling those of Oskar Schindler and Irena Sendler. The late Sugihara, who issued thousands of life-saving visas to Jewish refugees in Lithuania in defiance of his pro-Nazi government, became popularly known only about 20 years ago, in part due to the 2000 opening of a museum about him in Japan. A year earlier, a Sugihara museum celebrating his actions had opened in Kaunas, Lithuania. Amid the growing recognition, one of the Sugihara’s four children, Nobuki, began traveling the world telling audiences about his father’s legacy. But Nobuki Sugihara’s aim is not to glorify his father; if anything, his goal seems to be to cut his father’s public image down to size. “I started speaking just to set the record straight on those embellishments,” Nobuki Sugihara, 70, said in Minsk, Belarus, where he spoke about his father at the Limmud FSU conference. Nobuki was scheduled to speak this week at New York’s Museum of Jewish Heritage. One of the stories he refutes is the one about his father writing visas on the train he left on for Germany after being expelled from his post in Lithuania. Sugihara supposedly “threw the signed visas” through a train window, as the Kaunas museum states on its website. Both Sugihara museums say it hap-

Nobuki Sugihara with Limmud FSU founder Chaim Chesler and villagers from Mir, Belarus, on May 2. Boris Brumin

pened. The Japanese one even plays a film that re-creates it. “That never happened,” Nobuki Sugihara said. Another myth has Chiune Sugihara giving his consular seals to refugees so they could continue making visas on their own after he was forced to leave. Also never happened, Nobuki said. The formation of myths around any heroic character is natural, he acknowledged. “But my father would not have liked it,” Nobuki Sugihara said. “He was always in favor of telling things like they were, no melodrama.” Some Christian writers and websites have attributed religious motives to Sugihara. Yet religion never entered the picture, according to Nobuki. “The truth is, he just took pity on these people and decided to do something,” Nobuki Sugihara said.

“This wasn’t about ideology.” Chaim Chesler, founder of Limmud FSU, thinks that the younger Sugihara is actually doing a service to his father’s legacy. “Sugihara’s legacy as a role model is more relatable and powerful when it accurately tells the reason he helped these people: human kindness. Not a political or ideological move,” Chesler said. The life of Nobuki Sugihara, Chiune’s youngest son and the only one still alive, has been shaped significantly by what his father had done. In 1985, Chiune Sugihara was declared a Righteous Among the Nations by the State of Israel. In 1968, the Israeli Foreign Ministry arranged for a scholarship for Nobuki at Hebrew University. The people from the Israeli Embassy “were the only people I knew from out-

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side Japan, from the West, at the time,” Nobuki recalled. He went to Israel and eventually took a job at the Ramat Gan diamond exchange, where he learned the secrets of the trade at a time when it was dominated by Jews in Israel, Belgium and London. Nobuki Sugihara is now a diamond trader in Antwerp, Belgium — a city with a sizable Jewish population — and lives there with his wife. He has four children of his own, speaks fluent Hebrew (from his time in Israel) and has passive knowledge of Yiddish. Even without the embellishments that Nobuki Sugihara insists on debunking, his father’s story is legendary. Chiune Sugihara, who died in 1986, ignored orders from Tokyo while posted to Kaunas in 1940 and helped Jews flee the Nazis and travel through Russia to China, Japan and beyond. He issued over 2,000 visas, which led at least twice as many people to safety. As many as 100,000 people today are the descendants of the recipients of Sugihara visas. His official title was with the consular department in Kaunas, but really he was a Japanese intelligence operative collecting information on the Russians, his son said in Minsk, confirming an open secret about the father. When the Russians invaded Lithuania in 1940, foreign diplomats, including Sugihara, were ordered to move out. Before leaving, Sugihara and his Dutch counterpart, Jan Zwartendijk, issued the visas, including some to the entire student body of the Mir Yeshiva. Shortly thereafter, the Nazis invaded Lithuania and turned that

country into a graveyard for its Jews. Mir was the only yeshiva to escape Eastern Europe. Chiune Sugihara had no idea for decades that he had saved so many lives, according to his son. “He assumed a few people, maybe a few dozen, had actually used the visas to escape,” Nobuki said. “He truly did not realize the magnitude of his actions until much, much later in life.” In 1947, a superior called Chiune Sugihara in for a talk and said: “You know what you did. Now you need to leave the ministry,” according to Nobuki. Disgraced for violating orders, he became an office manager for a trading company and moved to Moscow in 1960. (Sugihara spoke fluent Russian, in addition to several other languages.) “He always felt responsible for everyone in his life,” Nobuki said of his father. The younger Sugihara said it gives him great pleasure to tell Jewish audiences about his father’s character, which few of the people he rescued got to know. “I feel at home speaking to Jewish audiences,” Nobuki said. “I feel the warmth from the people I speak to, who react to my directness.” Most of all, though, he finds conversations with survivors and their descendants satisfying. During a recent encounter in Israel, a woman recalled how Nobuki’s father, sensing her distress in line for a visa, told her to go back home. The diplomat said that “in the morning, she will have her visa and everything will be all right.”

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May 24, 2019 19 Iyar, 5779 THE JEWISH STAR

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JOni SChOCKett

Jewish Star columnist

he upside of all the rain we’ve had this past month is that the rhubarb in my yard is phenomenal this year. The leaves are two feet across and the stalks are two feet high and as thick as I have ever seen them. They are sweeter than ever before — just delicious! That rhubarb began with my dad in 1970. I was in college and he was expanding his garden. We went on a hunt to find new fruits and vegetables to add. We came home with strawberries, a blueberry bush, some asparagus, potatoes, beets, and 12 rhubarb plants. There was really no place for the rhubarb, so we planted them along a long fence that ran right next to the street we lived beside — Route 9 — now a major thoroughfare, but more like a main street when I was a kid. The sun shone constantly, but the fence provided some shade for the leaves. Surprisingly, the plants flourished. Soon my dad had to split them and plant more, and eventually there was a 50-foot row of large, strong rhubarb plants. It was more rhubarb than we could use in a year, so in early spring, we found that we had a lot of friends stopping by because they knew they would go home with enough rhubarb for a pie or two. During that time, I learned to make strawberry rhubarb jam, and my dad and I experimented with pies and tarts, barbecue sauces and more. Pickled rhubarb was an epic fail, but the barbecue sauce was amazing. Rhubarb muffins and rhubarb pancakes were favorites. When my parents sold their house in 1989, my dad transplanted several of those plants into my backyard where, 30 years later, they are still flourishing. This year has been, by far, one of the best ever. His advice — “water, water and water some more” — apparently is true. Rhubarb is technically a vegetable, though most often it is used as a fruit. It is also packed with health-giving nutrients. Rhubarb is loaded with vitamin K, which is good for bones and blood. It also helps aid digestion and is a powerful anti-inflammatory agent. In addition, rhubarb is very high in antioxidants, which may help to stave off disorders like Alzheimer’s and perhaps stroke, as was shown in one study. Another study showed that antioxidant activity was particularly high in rhubarb because it contains a high amount of quercetin, which is now a popu-

In Joni’s backyard, the plants are almost 3 feet tall!

lar supplement. Rhubarb is also good for people with IBS issues. All in all, if you can limit the amount of sugar you add, rhubarb is an amazing food that we should all be eating. Have a rhubarb-filled meal and enjoy in good health! Cold Rhubarb Soup (Dairy, Pareve) 1 to 1-1/2 lbs. rhubarb 2/3 to 1-1/3 cup sugar, to taste 3 to 4 cups water 1/3 cup grenadine syrup, more or less to taste Optional: 1 stalk lemon grass Zest of one lemon Zest of one lime 1/2 to 1 tsp. finely grated ginger 1 piece vanilla bean, 1 inch 1 to 2 cups pomegranate juice, a bit more or less, to taste 1 pint strawberries, thinly sliced 8 mint sprigs Optional: sour crème, crème fraiche, or yogurt for garnishing a dairy version Cut the rhubarb into small pieces. Place in a large pot and add the sugar, water and grenadine syrup. Bring to a boil, reduce heat, and let simmer for about 20 minutes until the rhubarb is very soft. Remove from heat. While the soup is cooking, zest the lemon and lime and place the zests in a small bowl. Cut the lemon grass into inch-long pieces. Place the lemon grass, vanilla bean, lemon and lime zest, and grated ginger in a piece of cheesecloth and tie closed. Add the sachet to the soup and let the soup sit for about 2 hours as it cools and the flavors infuse from the sachet. Taste and adjust the flavors. You may want to add a splash of lemon or lime juice if you like a tart flavor Remove the bag of zests from the soup and whisk vigorously to break up the rhubarb. Hull and slice the berries and garnish with the berries and mint sprigs and, if dairy, sour cream, etc. Serves 4 to 6. Salmon with Blood Orange, Rhubarb and Pomegranate Sauce (Pareve) 3 lbs. salmon fillet Sauce: 3 blood oranges or navel oranges (blood oranges will give a less sweet sauce) 2 to 3 Tbsp. extra virgin olive oil 2 cups, finely chopped sweet or red onion 1 to 2 Tbsp. honey 1 pound rhubarb, peeled and sliced 3/4 to 1 cup pomegranate juice 3/4 to 1 cup freshly squeezed orange juice Juice of 1/2 to 1 lemon Peel a long strip of orange zest, or several small ones, to equal about 5 or 6 inches long and about an inch wide. Place in a small saucepan with just enough water to cover and bring to a boil for 30 to 60 seconds. Drain, rinse and set the zest on a paper towel to dry. Peel 2 of the blood or navel oranges and remove all the white pith. Over a bowl, cut each orange in half across the segments, and then break up the sections. Place the pieces in the bowl with any juice that has squeezed from the oranges as you worked with them. Finely mince the dried zest and place in a smaller bowl. Reserve one orange for garnish. Heat a large heavy skillet over low heat and add the olive oil. Add the onions and cook until translucent. Add the honey and continue to cook the onions until they are light golden brown and very soft, about 6 to 7 minutes over low heat. Stir often to prevent sticking. Add half of the orange sections and half the juice to the onions and cook until the liquid evaporates and the onions are a deep golden color, about 5 to 7 minutes. While the onions are cooking, place the chopped rhubarb in a small saucepan with the pomegranate juice and the remaining half of the orange sections and the juice. Bring to a boil, mashing the orange sections with a fork

to release more juice and simmer until slightly reduced and the rhubarb is very soft, 10 to 20 minutes. Add the rhubarb mixture to the onions and stir. Cook for about 2 to 3 minutes and taste to adjust seasonings, adding more honey, lemon or orange juice as needed to attain the right balance of sweet/tart. Cook the salmon as desired. You can roast it with simple salt, pepper and bit of olive oil, poach it in some orange and grapefruit juice or broil it with some olive oil or butter. Slice the remaining orange in thin slices. Set aside. Place the cooked salmon on a large platter, and drizzle some of the sauce over the fish. Pass the remaining sauce in a gravy boat. Garnish with orange slices. Serves 6 to 8. Red Berry Rhubarb Crisp (Dairy, Pareve) 1 to 2 lbs. rhubarb 1 qt. strawberries, about 2 full cups, halved 2 pints raspberries 4 Tbsp. flour 2/3 to 1 cup sugar 2 to 3 Tbsp. freshly squeezed lemon juice Topping: 1 cup unbleached or GF flour 1 cup ground almonds 1 cup dark brown sugar, packed 1/4 cup white sugar 1-1/2 to 2 sticks butter or pareve, trans-fatfree margarine, chilled, cut into small pieces 1 cup old-fashioned oatmeal (NOT instant) 2/3 cup toasted chopped walnuts, almonds, hazelnuts or pecans Optional: blueberries and blackberries

Line a rimmed baking sheet with foil and set aside. Spread the nuts on a baking sheet. Toast at 350 degrees for about 5 to 7 minutes, just until fragrant. Don’t let them burn. Allow to cool. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Place the flour, sugars, and ground almonds in the bowl of a food processor. Pulse once or twice to blend. Add the pieces of butter or margarine and pulse until small pea-sized pieces form. Add the oatmeal and pulse just to blend. Pinch a bit of the mixture; it should hold together in little clumps. If it does not, add a bit more margarine or butter and pulse to blend. If it is too sticky, add more almonds or oatmeal. Remove from the processor and add the toasted nuts. Mix with a spoon to blend. Pour the crumble mixture onto the lined baking sheet and pinch small pieces together (I use both hands and I pinch quickly all over the mixture). Continue pinching until most of the mixture is in little clumps. Cut the rhubarb into half inch pieces. Toss with the berries, sugar and flour. Sprinkle with the lemon juice and pour into a 3-qt. glass baking casserole dish. Transfer the crumble topping evenly onto the fruit and place in the oven. Bake until deep, golden brown, about 30 to 50 minutes, depending on your oven. A convection oven will bake much faster. Watch carefully so as not to burn. If it gets too dark, cover with foil until the filling is bubbly. Remove from the oven and let cool for about 10 to 20 minutes before serving with vanilla ice cream, yogurt, non-dairy ice cream, or whipped cream. Serves 10+.

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May 24, 2019 19 Iyar, 5779 THE JEWISH STAR

Israel’s tourism triumph lies underneath it Left: At the City of David, excavation — and discovery — continues. Right: A tourist walks through a portion of Hezekiah’s Tunnel. Jewish Star / Celia Weintrob

Edwin black

Jewish Star contributor

hen the BDS movement mounted a campaign against Israel, it targeted more than Israel’s economy, including tourism, which has nonetheless flourished beyond any expectation. BDS not only attacked Israel’s tourism industry, but also the country’s single greatest and most meaningful attraction: its multi-faith religious roots. All three major Abrahamic religions are anchored in Israel. Christians constitute the majority of tourists visiting Israel, many on religious quests. Generally speaking, Christian pilgrims are completely detached from Palestinian and Israeli political dynamics. They can be seen on any day. On April 27, Holy Saturday before Orthodox Easter Sunday, some 10,000 Christian pilgrims from across the world tried to squeeze into the hopelessly overcrowded Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem’s Old City for the 1,200-year old “Holy Fire” rite. During Ramadan, Muslims crowd into Jerusalem. In 2019, on the first Friday of Ramadan, 180,000 peacefully attended prayers — a 50 percent increase over 2018. In 2018, on the last day of Ramadan, 200,000 Muslims gathered at the Al Aqsa mosque for prayers. The faithful generally

Food story caution

Last week’s travel article, “Restaurant scene is a triumph of Israel tourism,” named some establishments that are not certified as kosher. Those restaurants have been removed from the online version. We regret the oversight.

include hundreds from Arab and Islamic countries lacking diplomatic relations with Israel. For example, until a recent bilateral spat, Indonesians were regularly issued visas to tour Jerusalem. During this year’s Pesach, 750,000 Jews visited the Kotel. Despite the intense spiritual connections to Israel, BDS has tried to boycott the Dead Sea Scrolls; Ireland has tried to criminalize the purchase of relics and religious mementos from the Via Dolorosa; and there has even emerged an almost-comical but persistent misinformation campaign, corollary to BDS, that asserts the Second Temple never even existed as a Jewish edifice. Amid the veneration of Israel as a Holy Land — and against this international BDS campaign — two Jerusalem tunnels have emerged among Israel’s greatest attractions, luring tourists from many countries. In the process, testifying from beneath the surface, these tunnels manifest Israel’s inhalable connection to the land and its history. Most prominent are the Kotel tunnels. Only an approximately 200-foot section of the Kotel is above ground. The rest, nearly 1,600 feet, lies underground and can only be experienced via the tunnel complex. The monolithic testament to Judaism’s ancient connection to biblical Jerusalem is revealed in the enormity of the massive stones and their telltale chisel marks. One such stone weighs more than 500

tons, one of the heaviest ever handled. So many tourists are visiting that the official tunnel website now posts in Chinese, English, Spanish, French, Russian and Portuguese, as well as Hebrew. The most popular foreign languages are Spanish, French and Russian. Approximately 400,000 toured the tunnels in 2018, up from about 320,000 in 2017, according to tunnel administration. The 2019 tally is expected to hit another record. These visitors come against a backdrop of agitation against official or diplomatic visits to the wall, especially after the 2016 U.N. Security Council Resolution 2334 that declared the Western Wall occupied territory. President Donald Trump’s administration broke that taboo. The second major underground attraction is Hezekiah’s Tunnel, a belowground water conduit approximately 600 yards in length — that is, 1,200 cubits. This length corresponds to the tunnel’s stone inscription, discovered in 1880 and now residing in a Turkish museum. The amazing engineering feat was presumably the work of King Hezekiah ahead of a siege by Assyrian King Sennacherib at the end of the eighth century BCE, described and alluded to in several biblical passages. Among those texts is 2 Chronicles 32:2-4, which states, “When Hezekiah saw that Sennacherib had come and that he intended to wage war against Jerusalem, he consulted with

his officials and military staff about blocking off the water from the springs outside the city, and they helped him. They gathered a large group of people who blocked all the springs and the stream that flowed through the land. ‘Why should the kings of Assyria come and find plenty of water?’ they said.” Tunnel-diggers are said to have started at opposite ends, advanced towards each other and, astonishingly, met in the middle to form a perfect conduit and gradient. For some years, biblical archaeologists have argued about the exact dating of the tunnel and whether it was accomplished under the reign of Hezekiah or another king. But for travelers, the main attraction is the ankle-deep wet walk through the tunnel — and its riveting nexus to ancient Israel. Despite its dramatic connection to ancient Israel, a vigorous taboo has been promoted by international critics who claim the subterranean water conduit is located beneath the Arab neighborhood of Wadi Hilweh. Nonetheless, in 2018, more than 833,000 visited the City of David, many sloshing through the underground passage. That number is up from 557,100 in 2017, and the tally for 2019 may approach a million. City of David officials say most visitors are Americans, but that the number of Chinese tourists is rising dramatically. It is the measure of Israel’s tourism turbulence that even the most dramatic archeological manifestation of the Jewish connection to its ancient homeland has become a contentious flashpoint. But as in all other aspects of its international travel appeal, Israel’s biblical tunnels are now permanently dug into the Jewish state’s tourism triumph. Edwin Black is author of IBM and the Holocaust.

Young women move to serve their new country By Larry Luxner for Nefesh B’Nefesh JERUSALEM — After immigrating from New Jersey, Miriam Serkez, 20, became a medic with the Israeli emergency medical service Magen David Adom. It’s part of her national service in Israel, an alternative to military service for religious women. She wasn’t forced to do this. As a recent immigrant who came to Israel on her own, Serkez could have avoided serving. “It’s hard for some of my friends to understand what I’m doing,” she said. “National service is not a concept in America. There you finish high school and go into college. There’s no giving back.” As a volunteer medic, Serkez works eighthour shifts, sometimes starting as early as 6 am. “We get sent to anything and everything, usually car accidents,” Serkez said. “A few months ago there was a terrorist attack on Har Habayit. This morning I did CPR on someone.” One morning prior to her shift, Serkez treated a severely injured accident victim right in front of her own apartment building, running outside in her pajamas and stabilizing the bleeding woman until an ambulance arrived. To become a medic, Serkez enrolled in a 230hour course taught by Magen David Adom. The fact that it was all in Hebrew was a big challenge. “I almost dropped out. Every night I had to stay up translating everything,” Serkez recalled. For young women who make aliyah on their own, the experience can be fraught with loneliness, financial pressure and bureaucratic difficulties. “These girls need someone to be there for them, both on a personal level to help them with their day-to-day lives, and also on a bigger level to advocate for them,” said Na’ama DeganiRabin, who coordinates a program meant to ease the transition into their new lives. Called Ori, the program serves some 150

Left: Miriam Serkez, 20, is a medic with Magen David Adom in Jerusalem. Right: Jodi Fishbein, 19, works in the Director General’s Office of Israel’s Foreign Ministry.

women aged 18-21. Approximately half are from North America, and the remainder are from France, Australia, Italy, South Africa and a few other places. Most are religious. Launched in September and still in its pilot phase, the program is run by Nefesh B’Nefesh, which assists North American Jews with aliyah and absorption in Israel in partnership with Israel’s Ministry for Aliyah and Integration, the Jewish Agency for Israel, Keren Kayemet L’Yisrael and the Jewish National Fund-USA. Ori is modeled on Nefesh B’Nefesh’s services for lone soldiers. As lone bnot sherut — the Hebrew term for young women who do national service — the young women get some extra assistance,

such as a slightly larger housing stipend, some financial aid and 15 extra days off, which many of the women use to visit their parents overseas for the High Holidays. In addition, Ori sets up the women with adoptive families in Israel, organizes social events, helps them navigate Israel’s government bureaucracy and runs workshops on subjects like how to manage a budget. “In Hebrew, ‘Ori’ means ‘my light’ and these girls bring a lot of light to Israel,” Degani-Rabin said. “Also, earlier this year, Ori Ansbacher” —a 19-year-old religious Israeli woman doing her year of National Service — “was murdered near Jerusalem. She talked about spreading the light of goodness in the world, so we named the program in tribute to her.”

Jodi Fishbein, 19, made aliyah in December 2017 from Livingston, New Jersey. For now, she shares an apartment with another American, a Belgian and five native Israelis. Thanks to her superb English speaking and writing skills, Fishbein landed a National Service position at the Foreign Ministry, where she has a ghostwriting job in the director general’s office dealing with countries with whom Israel doesn’t have formal diplomatic ties. She describes the job as a lifelong dream. “I grew up in a very Zionist house, where everyone was pushing a very Zionist agenda. But it was conceptual, not practical,” said Fishbein, one of four siblings. “I’m interested in advocating on behalf of Israel. As a religious Jewish woman, I wouldn’t have the opportunity to do that in America, at least not at the government level.” Michal Engel, 20, a native of New York’s suburban Long Island, went to Israel nearly two years ago to attend a religious seminary in Jerusalem’s Old City. When her gap year ended, she decided to stay for good and officially made aliyah. For her national service, she landed an assistant teaching job at an elementary school in this city’s Talpiot neighborhood. Engel said some religious Jewish women like her are reluctant to do military service. “In the army, you don’t get put where you really want to be put,” she said. “These girls want to express themselves in a different way and use their skills in order to serve their country.” Unlike many of the lone bnot sherut, Engel has no family in Israel — not even distant cousins. But she has no complaints about the situation. “My job is beyond amazing,” she said. “Every day I come, I’m happier. Working in a school with these kids gives me the love and support that I lack without my family here.”

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asked and spoke with people in the community about them, but would not specify how many. Costello, who peppers his speech with Hebrew and Yiddish words, said the family is sincere in their observance of an Orthodox lifestyle. “We actually keep the Torah and the mitzvahs,” he said. “We actually have an Orthodox life in our house and every day of our life, and they are saying that it’s simply to deceive and to bring Jewish people to believe in Jesus.” He denies the claim. On Thursday, JTA spoke with three rabbis who had interacted with the couple. None would allow their names to be printed in the article. “People feel betrayed,” said one rabbi, who leads a community in Chicago. “If you want to believe in something and sell it, that’s your business. But to come into a community and portray to be something you’re not, prey on people, unsuspecting, is unacceptable.” On Tuesday, the rabbi said, a Brooklyn man who was visiting the city attended services at a local synagogue and recognized Costello as the same person who had attended his synagogue at home for six months before congregants found out that he believed in Jesus and had ties to a missionary group. The rabbi was informed of this and approached Costello the next day. COLlive, a Crown Heights-based news site, quoted Rabbi Levi Notik of FREE, a Chabad community for Russian Jews, in a report about the pair. Notik said Costello did not deny his belief in Jesus when confronted. “On the contrary, he insists that he is correct in his way and has no regrets,” the rabbi said. JTA obtained a document from 2016 in which it said that David Costello was employed by Global Gates, an organization whose mission is “to see gospel transformation of the world’s most unevangelized people groups (sic) who have come to global gateway cities, and through them

reach their communities around the world.” The organization names various Jewish and Hasidic groups in a listing of the “most significant unreached people group communities in Metro NY.” Global Gates told JTA in an email on Thursday that the couple no longer worked for the organization. “They were previously employed by Global Gates for less than a year. Their relationship with Global Gates ended in July 2017,” wrote David Garrison, the organization’s executive director. Garrison would not answer additional questions about the nature of the couple’s work. Costello, 37, was raised in a Christian family in New Jersey but says his maternal greatgrandmother was Jewish. He says his wife, 27, is from North Carolina and may have some Jewish ancestry on her father’s side but has not been able to verify it. Though traditional Judaism believes in the concept of a Messiah, no Jewish denominations consider Jesus to be the Messiah. Messianic groups, such as Jews for Jesus, are not accepted as Jewish by the broader Jewish community, even though some adherents may have been born Jewish and their ritual life includes Jewish practices. Costello denied reports that his wife had worked as a babysitter in Chicago and tried to talk to children about her faith. Facebook posts circulating this week shared an article from the newsletter of Johnson County for Israel, an evangelical group based in Texas, that profiles a couple named “David and Rivkah” and describes their activities doing missionary work among Hasidim. “David and Rivkah have taken a very costly yet bold stand for the Lord in Brooklyn as they live kosher among Hasidim while serving Jesus as their Savior,” the newsletter dated November 2016 reads. Costello told JTA that he and his wife were the couple described, but that the newsletter in-

accurately implied they had adopted an Orthodox Jewish lifestyle simply to convert people. Another Orthodox rabbi and community leader in Chicago said that during Purim, some families had found gift baskets at their homes containing missionary materials but it wasn’t clear at the time who had put them there. The rabbi said he now believes it was the work of the couple. Costello denied he and his wife were behind this and said the couple had done something similar years ago, but not in Chicago. The second rabbi, who had several interactions with the couple, had not suspected that they were missionaries, but said he had felt something wasn’t quite right. For example, he said that Costello had vast knowledge about the Bible but spoke poor Hebrew. And though Weber dressed quite modestly, she did not always wear darker colors, as traditionally favored by Hasidic women, and did not correctly pronounce certain Hebrew and Yiddish words. “I just thought that there was something off,” the rabbi said. The second rabbi and community leader put JTA in touch with a rabbi in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Williamsburg who confirmed that the couple had been attending a synagogue there for six months before their beliefs and ties to Global Gates were revealed. The Brooklyn rabbi said the couple was told not to return to the synagogue after they stood by their beliefs. Also in Chicago, the pair were told they were not welcome and Costello said he lost his job at the kosher store. The first local rabbi, who said people felt betrayed by the couple, said the community had warmly welcomed Costello and Weber. “They came to Chicago, they moved into their neighborhood, dressing and behaving outwardly like Hasidic Jews,” he said. “They were welcomed into the community and befriending everyone.”

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By Josefin Dolsten, JTA A few months ago, a couple got involved in the Chicago Jewish community. Rivkah Weber and David Costello started attending an Orthodox synagogue in the West Ridge neighborhood. They looked and acted like Orthodox Jews: Weber covered her hair and wore long skirts, while Costello sported sidelocks and a kippah. The latter took a job at a kosher supermarket. But last Wednesday, warnings started spreading on Jewish Facebook groups in Chicago and beyond saying the couple, the parents of two children, were actually Christian missionaries. “[T]o answer the rumors, it is true that a couple moved into our community in the purpose of proselytizing. … They are confirmed missionaries,” read one post, which contained photos of the couple dressed in traditional Orthodox garb. Reached Friday by the JTA, the couple said they do believe in Jesus and that one reason they had become involved in the Jewish community was to spread their beliefs. “We want Jewish people to recognize Yeshua as Moshiach and as a Jewish Messiah,” Costello said in the phone interview. He claims that he never hid his beliefs if

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of Nazis and neo-Nazis,” he said. “Those are ugly and despicable people, but they’re easy to spot. The more difficult form of anti-Semitism that has emerged, not more lethal but more difficult, is anti-Zionism.” It is anti-Zionism, he said, that “accounts to some extent for rocket fire that Israelis experience.” To fight this new anti-Semitism, the ambassador said he recently “led a delegation of ambassadors from various European countries on the March of the Living from Auschwitz to Birkenau, trying to send the signal as powerfully as we could that the disease of anti-Semitism — and it is a disease — has to be eradicated.” On anti-Semitism in America, Friedman said “there are people who hate Israel that are given platforms all over the United States. They apply double standards to Israel that they wouldn’t think of applying to other countries in the Middle East or anywhere else in the world.” Guatemalan First Lady Marroquín told the audience in Spanish that she had prayed at the Western Wall and “thanked G-d for the great privilege he has given us to live in these times.” Speaking about a nearby archeological excavation at the City of David that has uncovered a pathway leading from a large pool to the Temple Mount, Friedman told the Christian leaders, “If you asked what is the probability that Jesus walked that pathway, archeologists would tell you: 100 percent.” Friedman said he will attend an opening ceremony for this path in June together with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Citing the biblical episode of the 12 spies, in which only two of 12 spies sent to Canaan encouraged the Jews to enter the land, Bramnick said that “President Donald Trump and President Jimmy Morales are like Joshua and Caleb,” the righteous spies who urged them on.

Bias against Israel is seen at the Hebrew U Newly released recordings from Hebrew University’s international graduate program in human rights reveal that international students are subjected to extreme anti-Israel content. In recordings of a course by senior HU professor Daphna Golan, co-founder of the far-left NGO B’Tselem, an array of anti-Israel guest speakers can be heard talking with the students. Among the guest speakers was a representative from the NGO Zochrot, which promotes the return of Palestinian refugees and their decedents to Israel, who told the class that “most of Israeli society is going more and more in the fascist direction.” Another speaker, who talked to the class during a tour of eastern Jerusalem with the far-Left NGO Emek Shaveh, said Israel arrests and is “torturing” Palestinian children on a “daily basis.” In another class, Golan brought the students to the abandoned Arab village of Lifta, near Jerusalem. The tour guide advocated for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement. Golan is also not shy when it comes to penalizing students who disagree with her viewpoint. In a reflection paper in response to the tour of Lifta, a student disagreed with the guide’s support for BDS. Golan gave him a failing grade and called his paper “disgraceful” and “unintelligent.” “I am not sure why you are studying in my course — but both your handouts are disgraceful,” read the email sent to the student by Golan. “You are a student whose presence in class is very disturbing to the whole group and your remarks are very unpleasant. I am sorry I had to read your unpleasant and not intelligent papers,” wrote Golan. Panteleimon Papadopoulos, a foreign student

from Greece who was enrolled in the course, said that Golan “created a hostile image of this country which does not correspond to reality.” “Is it the role of Hebrew University to create a hostile and inaccurate image of Israel for students to come to the conclusion that this is a state that is heavily discriminatory, and to be preached to by her guest speakers that this is a fascist state?” Papadopoulos said. Another student, who wished to remain anonymous, said Golan would provide misinformation and silence students who challenged her views. “You could tell that the professor was very biased and aggressive to people whose positions weren’t the same as hers. She was too aggressive and too overpowering with fake facts,” the student said. Matan Peleg, CEO of the Zionist organization Im Tirtzu that obtained the recordings, said that the Hebrew University is undergoing a “moral and ethical crisis.” “It is disgraceful that Hebrew University, which is supposed to be a beacon of academic light, has become a political incubator of antiZionist professors who devote their lives to attacking the State of Israel,” said Peleg. “The university must immediately work to implement the academic code of ethics and to root out this severe phenomenon of academic politicization,” added Peleg. The HU’s international graduate program recently made headlines following its support of Lara Alqasem, a former member of the pro-BDS group Students for Justice in Palestine. Alqasem was among the students in the class. —JNS

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THE JEWISH STAR May 24, 2019 19 Iyar, 5779

By Alex Traiman, JNS More than 200 evangelical leaders, organized by the Latin Coalition for Israel, gathered at the Aish Hatorah World Center in Jerusalem to celebrate the one-year anniversaries of the American and Guatemalan embassies’ moves to Jerusalem. The meeting was attended by U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman; First Lady of Guatemala Patricia Marroquín, the wife of President Jimmy Morales; and Guatemalan Ambassador to Israel Mario Bucaro Flores. Latin Coalition for Israel President Mario Bramnick likened President Trump to Cyrus, the Persian king who permitted the Jewish people to return to Israel to build the Second Temple. Friedman likened Trump to the prophet Daniel, and exhorted the group to do its utmost to support Israel and to spread that support to others. “Not everyone thinks like us,” he added. “Not everybody appreciates the miracles we are living. I think people take much for granted.” Bramnick pointed out that along with all the positive developments, Israel’s enemies are intensifying their efforts. “We see these two forces moving simultaneously,” he said. “We are seeing an unprecedented rise of anti-Semitism in the United States. We’ve never seen synagogue shootings. We’ve never seen anti-Semitic cartoons in the New York Times. We’ve never seen an anti-Semitic congressman on the Foreign Affairs Committee. We’ve never seen the Democratic Party stand silent.” He suggested that “communities as large as the evangelical community in the United States get up and make these complaints as much as possible. There is strength in numbers. Don’t be afraid to use that strength.” Friedman then spoke of the new forms of anti-Semitism taking hold around the world. “We used to think of anti-Semitism in terms

May 24, 2019 19 Iyar, 5779 THE JEWISH STAR

Parsha of the Week

Rabbi avi billet Jewish Star columnist

Shemittah: a G-d-given guarantee

arashat Behar tells us that “G-d said to Moshe at Mt. Sinai, ‘Speak to the Israelites and say to them that when you come to the land that I am giving you, the land will rest a Sabbath for G-d.’” Rashi famously asks, “What is the connection between Sinai and the Sabbatical year [that they are mentioned together]?” The Kli Yakar notes the parallel between the 49 days leading up to Matan Torah and the 49 years that lead up to the Yovel, or Jubilee, year. As Mount Sinai was built up in stature and became off-limits to work on the day of Revelation, a day on which freedom from Egypt and shelter under the wings of G-d was finalized, G-d told Moshe how the same holiness would exist for the land. The air of Israel is like Sinai: it brings wisdom to its inhabitants. In its own way, it needs to have built in its foundation a parallel to Sinai: 49+1, the shofar, proclamation of the oneness of G-d and freedom under His wing. Jumping on this foundation, Kli Yakar quotes others in asking the question: why is one of the punishments for not keeping the shemittah (Sabbatical year) exile from the land? The argument is often made that shemittah is good for the land. Let it be that not observing it results in a consequence of nothing growing. Exile just means the land lies fallow altogether! li Yakar explains that shemittah is a means for establishing the roots of trust in G-d. G-d was concerned that people would come to the land, and all the work they put into it would result in their feeling that “my strength and fortitude is what made all of this happen,” thus forgetting G-d. In simple terms, Kli Yakar notes that the seven-year cycle in Israel is different from farmers elsewhere giving their land a rest for a new growing season. The promise G-d gives is that if the land rests in the seventh year, the food which grows in the sixth year will last for the sixth, seventh, and eighth years. Whether it will continue to grow or will simply have an unprecedented shelf life is a debate. But no matter how one looks at it, those three years of sustenance are simply miraculous. “Through all of these wonders you see in the land, you will come to know that the land is Mine. And through this your eyes will be raised towards G-d, as we see from the manna, which fell daily, so the people would see that their sustenance came from G-d.” I don’t think it advisable for people to live this way always — to expect their daily bread to come straight from G-d. People must make effort, work, and do their part to make sure their daily bread can be placed on the table. However, there is something enamoring in the idea that six years of toil is rewarded with a G-d-given guarantee of food for the year I do not work, and for the year following, when work resumes but we cannot rely on the previous year’s work. Only G-d’s guarantee that everything will be all right sustains me. Those who lived through such promises surely felt G-d’s presence much more closely. Were we to only merit to feel G-d’s presence in that way, how holy a nation we would truly be.

Establishing the roots of trust in G-d.

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Jewish Star columnists: Rabbi Avi Billet of Anshei Chesed Congregation, Boynton Beach, Florida, mohel and Five Towns native; Rabbi David Etengoff of Magen David Yeshivah, Brooklyn; Rabbi Binny Freedman, rosh yeshiva of Orayta, Jerusalem. Contributing writers: Rabbi Sir Jonathan Sacks, emeritus chief rabbi of United Hebrew

Congregations of British Commonwealth; Rabbi Dr. Tzvi Hersh Weinreb, executive VP emeritus of the OU. to contact our columnists, write: Columnist@TheJewishStar.com

The land is who we are From Heart of Jerusalem

Rabbi biNNY FReeDMaN

Jewish Star columnist

hey had only been in the army for eight months, and had only recently completed basic training, but on the books they were paratroopers. The youngest of the units sent into one of the toughest neighborhoods of Beirut, they were supposed to be backup, reinforcing the experienced combat veterans ahead of them. Two relatively unknown refugee camps in Lebanon had become infested with units of the PLO, and the mission tonight was to root out terrorist enclaves and prevent further infiltrations into Israel against Israeli civilians in the North. They weren’t supposed to be involved in heavy fighting; there were more experienced troops ahead who were more prepared. But in Beirut, no one ever plays by the rules. Unbeknownst to the young paratroopers, a PLO unit had circled around behind them, catching them off guard. Chaim, eight months in the army, was in the command turret when all hell broke loose. The vehicle in front of him was hit by an RPG (rocket-propelled grenade) and exploded. The lieutenant in charge of the unit was killed instantly. Then the vehicle in the rear was hit. The column was trapped in the heart of enemy territory. Men spilled out of the personnel carriers, taking cover where they could. Confusion reigned. Screams and gunfire filled the air. All the commanders had been killed or wounded. Most frightening of all, the inexperienced men were not well-versed enough to give brigade headquarters their exact position. For four long hours, the paratroopers held off overwhelming odds until support units could finally reach them. Despite this, Chaim spent two more years in the army, much of it in Lebanon, because that was what needed to be done. One of the men wounded that night lost part of his foot and eventually was honorably discharged. He was an ex-ski patrol instructor from the States who had volunteered for the Israeli army, leaving behind a cushy life in America. I ran into him one Sunday morning near Tel Aviv. He was headed back up to Lebanon after a weekend pass. I asked him why on earth he had volunteered, and whether he regretted it. His answer, in a moment of sober reflection, belongs in a movie: “Some things are worth dying for, man.” re they? Is anything on earth really worth dying for? A piece of land so small most people can’t find it on a map? If the greatest gift we are given in this world is life itself, how can we be so attached to a plot of earth? Is this really what Judaism wants of us? Even Shabbat, described in the Talmud as

being equal to all the commandments, is nonetheless waived aside to save a life. Hidden between the lines of this week’s portion, Behar, is an idea that may shed some light on this issue. Behar deals mostly with the mitzvoth of shemittah, the Sabbatical year which falls every seven years in Israel, and Yovel, the Jubilee year, which occurs after seven cycles of shemittah, in the fiftieth year. Every seven years, the Jewish people in Israel cease working the land and rediscover what all that work was really about. Just as Shabbat gives us the chance to take stock of what we are accomplishing all week, shemittah does the same on a national level. Every seventh year, the ploughs stand still and the fields grow wild, as the Jewish people fill the study halls to reconnect with why they were given the land in the first place. An agricultural life can be intoxicating. After all the effort to produce the harvest, it is easy to forget that the harvest is not the goal. In this seventh year, even indentured servants are reminded that however little they may own, they have value as human beings and ultimately serve no man. They are set free. And after seven cycles of shemittah, the Yovel year arrives, during which the land lies fallow, servants go free, and all plots revert to their original owners. here is a fascinating law in this week’s portion: “If your brother becomes impoverished, and sells part of his ancestral heritage, his redeemer who is closest to him shall come and redeem his brother’s sale” (Vayikra 25:25). In other words, if a person is so poor that he has no way to live other than to sell the land he received as an ancestral inheritance, his relatives have a special mitzvah to buy it back, so that this ancestral plot be returned to its rightful owners. Rashi points out that this verse teaches that a person is only allowed to sell his ancestral plot in the event of dire poverty, and then, only as much as is needed to live off of. Additionally, as soon as he has accrued enough money to buy back the land, he is obligated to do so. Most fascinating of all, once he or a relative is able to redeem the property, the buyer is forbidden to prevent the sale! Clearly, the Torah takes issue with those who wish to sell the land they have inherited. Why? What meaning is there to inheriting land if not to sell and trade? Why is it so important to hang on to a piece of earth? Is what you have more important than who you are? On a mystical level, every nation has its place, the source of its character and its strength. A nation cannot be a nation if it does not have a land.

No nation would be what it is anywhere else. The Greeks would not have achieved what they did as the same people living in Kansas. We are very much influenced by the environment; we tap into the energy of the places we inhabit. The Talmud suggests that a person who is struggling with improper desires should bring them into the study hall. Just being in a room filled with the study of Torah and the effort to come closer to the Creator and achieve higher ethical levels makes, on some level, a more ethical person. And we are impacted not just by what people are doing in our environment, but also even by their history. Science is just starting to warm to this concept, but many cultures have embraced the idea that everything that happens in a building is “recorded” in its walls. If you move into a home whose previous tenants were unhappy, you will pick up unhappy energy. And if you spend time in a place where people have done many spiritual things (like a beit midrash) you will have an easier time tapping into your own spiritual path. his is the secret of the land of Israel. Judaism suggests that every nation was created for a purpose. The mission of the Jewish people, in the words of Yeshayahu, is to be “a light unto the nations,” an ethical role model for the world. It is no accident that the world holds us to a higher standard, devoting three to seven times as much front-page coverage as any other nation. It is the reason we are here. So if Hashem wants us to become such an ethical people, He must give us a land whose historical ethical imprint is unique. And this is the essence of the land of Israel. It was here that our ancestors, giants of ethical behavior, walked the land. When we are in Israel, we tap into the kindness of Avraham and the power of Yaakov. We reconnect with the superhuman sensitivity of Rachel, who gave up the love of her life rather than embarrass her sister. If we are meant to be a people who rise to a unique level of ethical behavior, we have to be in a uniquely ethical place. And just as every nation has its place, so too every individual within that nation has a special place in that land. Indeed, the Talmud suggests that every Jew has four cubits of land somewhere in Israel (Bava Batra 44b, Tosafot), which means that we, each of us, are meant to tap into a specific historical story. And this is why the Torah says a person’s ancestral land cannot and should not be sold except under dire circumstances. It is a part of who we are. In this world, there are some things that are just not for sale. May Hashem grant us soon the wisdom to come home and rediscover who we are really meant to be. Shabbat shalom from Jerusalem.

Every nation has its place, the source of its character and its strength.

Torah

Rabbi david eTengoff

Jewish Star columnist

ur parasha, Behar, begins with the famous words: “And the L-rd spoke to Moses on Mount Sinai, saying” (Vayikra 25:1). They are immediately followed by a verse focusing on the mitzvah of shemittah, the Sabbatical year, that has captured the attention of midrashim and commentators through the ages: “Speak to the children of Israel and you shall say to them: When you come to the land that I am giving you, the land shall rest a Sabbath to the L-rd.” In his commentary, Rashi cites the Midrash Torat Kohanim on this verse and asks the following famous question: “What [special relevance] does the subject of shemittah have to

Mount Sinai? Were not all the commandments stated from Sinai?” His answer, drawn from the same source, teaches us an overarching concept inherent in the transmission of the Torah from Hashem to Moshe: “[This teaches us that] just as with shemittah, wherein its general principles and finer details were stated at Sinai, likewise, all of [the mitzvot] were stated — their general principles [together with] their finer details — at Sinai.” In his work of Torah exegesis, Me’ain Beit Hashoavah, Rabbi Shimon Schwab zt”l (19081995) takes issue with the Torat Kohanim’s answer and asserts that “it would have been quite possible to have referenced any other mitzvah in its connection to Mount Sinai in order to teach this selfsame idea” (Parashat Behar, s.v. behar Sinai, number one). In other words, the Midrash does not teach us why shemittah was singled out regarding the Revelation rather than another mitzvah.

Rav Schwab proceeds to address this problem and, in so doing, provides us with a trenchant response to his objection that illuminates the inherent import of shemittah and the divine nature of the entire Torah: “It seems that shemittah is different in kind and degree [from other mitzvot], since the very essence of the commandment teaches us that it must have been commanded on Mount Sinai — and that it is [incontrovertibly] Torah min hashamayim (Torah from Heaven).” ext, Rav Schwab provides us with the conceptual underpinning as to why Shemittah definitionally represents Torah min hashamayim: “Perhaps one might think that the com-

One might think that the commandments were invented by the Sages.

Evolution, or revolution? Rabbi siR jonaThan sacks

here are, it is sometimes said, no controlled experiments in history. Every society, every age, and every set of circumstances is unique. Yet this is not quite true. The history of the past four centuries does offer us something close to a controlled experiment, and the conclusion to be drawn is surprising. The modern world was shaped by four revolutions: the English (1642–1651), the American (1776), the French (1789), and the Russian (1917). Their outcomes were radically different. In England and America, revolution brought war, but led to a gradual growth of civil liberties, human rights, representative government, and eventually, democracy. On the other hand, the French revolution gave rise to the “Reign of Terror” in which more than forty thousand enemies of the revolution were executed by guillotine. The Russian revolution led to one of the most repressive totalitarianism regimes in history. As many as twenty million people are estimated to have died under Stalin between 1924 and 1953. In revolu-

tionary France and the Soviet Union, the dream of utopia ended in hell. What was the difference between them? One detail in particular stands out. The English and American revolutions were inspired by the Hebrew Bible as read and interpreted by the Puritans. With the Reformation, the invention of printing, the rise of literacy, and the availability of the Hebrew Bible in vernacular translations, for the first time, people could read the Bible for themselves. What they discovered when they read the prophets and stories of civil disobedience like that of the Hebrew midwives, was that it is sometimes necessary to resist tyrants in the name of G-d. The French and Russian revolutions, by contrast, were hostile to religion and were inspired by philosophy: Jean-Jacques Rousseau in the case of France, and Karl Marx in the case of Russia. There are obvious differences between Torah and philosophy. The most well-known is that one is based on revelation, the other on reason. Yet I suspect it was not this that made the difference. Rather, it lay in their respective understandings of time.

arshat Behar sets out a revolutionary template for a society of justice, freedom, and human dignity. At its core is the idea of the Jubilee, whose words (“Proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof”) are engraved on the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia. One of its provisions is the release of slaves: “If your brother becomes impoverished and is sold to you, do not work him like a slave. He shall be with you like an employee or a resident. He shall serve you only until the Jubilee year and then he and his children shall be free to leave you and return to their family and to the hereditary land of their ancestors. For they are My servants whom I brought out of the land of Egypt … I am the L-rd, your G-d” (Lev. 25:39–42). The terms of the passage are clear. Slavery is wrong. The very idea of the sovereignty of G-d means that He alone has claim to the service of mankind. Those who are G-d’s servants may not be slaves to anyone else. It is hard to recapture the radicalism of this idea, which overturned the very foundation of religion in ancient times. The early civilizations

G-d wanted humankind to abolish slavery, but in their own time.

Anniversary, birthday, jubilee! Rabbi dR. Tzvi heRsh weinReb Orthodox Union

y father, may he rest in peace, worked for many years in the garment industry. He worked hard and there were times when he was without a job. I remember how happy we were as children when he found secure employment in a company that manufactured ladies’ apparel, the Jubilee Blouse Company. I was very young at the time and had no notion of what “jubilee” meant. All it meant to me then was that Daddy had a regular paycheck, was happy with the company and working conditions, and respected his boss, a Mr. David Zeiger, as a “real gentleman.” Jubilee was a good thing. All that was a long time ago and I have since come across the word “jubilee” countless times. But I remained a bit confused about the real meaning of the word until I read a penetrating address given not long before the Holocaust by one of its most distinguished victims. Let me be-

gin by telling you about my confusion and then I’ll introduce you to the teachings of a great man. he word “jubilee” appears repeatedly in Parashat Behar: “You shall count off … a total of fortynine years. Then … you shall have the horn sounded throughout your land. And you shall hallow the fiftieth year. You shall proclaim liberty throughout the land for all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you: each of you shall return to his holding and each of you shall return to his family. That fiftieth year shall be a jubilee for you; for it is a jubilee. It shall be holy to you.” Even the casual reader of this biblical text “gets it”: There is a fifty-year cycle in Judaism; that fiftieth year is called “Jubilee”; it is a year in which various observances apply; it is a holy year; and it is a year which celebrates freedom and liberty. What does the word “jubilee” itself mean? Not an easy question to answer and even the earliest commentators disputed its definition. For Rashi, the word means a shofar, a ram’s horn. It is a year of great sanctity and major significance, but it is named for one ritual act: namely, sounding of the shofar on the Yom Kip-

pur of its inception. Ibn Ezra, with his characteristic brevity, and Nachmanides, at greater length and in exquisite detail, disagree with Rashi. They concede that in some contexts the Hebrew word for “jubilee,” yovel, indeed refers to the shofar. However, they insist that in our text the word means “release,” as Ibn Ezra believes; or as Nachmanides asserts, it means “to lead,” perhaps “to guide,” or “to cause to return.” During that year, all are released from bondage and all lands in Israel are returned to their original owners. For these latter commentators, the year is named “Jubilee” because of the theme of freedom and not because of the sound of the shofar which heralds its beginning. But why then is the term “jubilee” regularly applied to birthdays of individuals and to anniversaries of social institutions? We have all received many more than a few invitations to the “jubilee” celebrations from friends, alma maters, local hospitals, and even the municipalities in which we live. was privileged to learn a deeper definition of the term when I recently read a collection of the public addresses of a most unusual man: rabbi of the early twentieth century; chief rabbi

— Mesopotamia, Egypt — were based on hierarchies of power that were seen to inhere in the very nature of the cosmos. Just as there were ranks among the heavenly bodies, so there were on earth. The great religious rituals were designed to endorse these hierarchies. In this respect, Marx was right. Religion was the opium of the people. It canonized the status quo. At the heart of Israel was an idea unthinkable to the ancient mind: that G-d intervenes in history to liberate slaves — that the supreme Power is on the side of the powerless. It is no accident that Israel was born under slavery. It has carried throughout history the memory of those years — the bread of affliction, the bitter herbs of servitude — because the people of Israel serve as an eternal reminder of the moral necessity of liberty and the vigilance needed to protect it. The free G-d desires the free worship of free human beings. Yet the Torah does not abolish slavery. That is the paradox of Parshat Behar. To be sure, it was humanized. Every seventh day, slaves were granted rest. In the seventh year, Israelite slaves were set free. During their service they were to be treated like employees. They were not to be subjected to backbreaking labor. Yet slavery itself was not banned. Why not? If it was wrong, it should have been annulled. Why did the Torah allow a fundamentally flawed institution to continue? t is Maimonides, in the Guide for the Perplexed, who explains the need for time in social transformation. All processes in naSee Evolution on page 16

of Bessarabia; member of the Romanian Parliament; and a victim of the first German bombardment of his home city in July, 1941. His name was Rabbi Yehudah Leib Tsirelson. Several of these addresses carried titles such as “Upon the Jubilee of the Local Hospital,” or “The Jubilee of the Free Loan Society.” One is entitled “Upon the Jubilee of the Yeshiva of Kishinev.” Rabbi Tsirelson begins this latter speech by insisting that such gatherings may have been appropriate for the hospital or free loan society celebrations, but are not entirely appropriate for the yeshiva. He argued thus: Why do we celebrate anniversaries? Some years in the past, a group of people undertook an endeavor which entailed great risks and for which ultimate success was dubious. For example, we started a hospital but were never quite sure that it would be viable. Could we find the proper personnel? Would it be accredited by anti-Semitic authorities? Would patients feel comfortable enrolling there? Or, we started a free loan society, but we were never certain that we could raise the requisite funds to meet the needs of all the poor in our community. If, after ten or twenty years, these institutions still function, and function well, that’s cause for celebration. Hence, a jubilee celebration. See Jubilee on page 16

15 THE JEWISH STAR May 24, 2019 19 Iyar, 5779

Torah — and shemittah — from Sinai

mandments of the Torah were invented by the Sages of the Jewish people and were based upon their own intellectual efforts — just as those who deny the G-d-given nature of the Torah mistakenly believe. Yet were that to be true, there would never have been a commandment such as shemittah in the Torah! “This is the case, since man’s intellect naturally withdraws from the very idea of this mitzvah … for [from a purely logical perspective,] the Sages never would have decreed that all fields and vineyards should simultaneously lay fallow during the same year — as this would naturally cause a famine in the Land, and bring about a financial crisis!” At this juncture, Rav Schwab further explains why shemittah, and shemittah alone, was singled out by the Torah: “Based upon the above, [we have a betSee Torah on page 16

May 24, 2019 19 Iyar, 5779 THE JEWISH STAR

The chesed legacy of Ruth and Boaz Kosher Bookworm

AlAn JAy GerBer

Jewish Star columnist

n his essay “Megillat Ruth and the Story of Yehuda and Tamar: A Study in Biblical Contrast,” Rabbi Alex Israel of the Pardes Institute quotes the following the following from Ruth Rabba 2:14: “Rabbi Zeira said: This Megillah contains not impurity nor purity, not the forbidden nor the permitted. Nonetheless, it has been written to publicize the extent of the reward that is bestowed upon people who engage in acts of kindness and welfare — gemilus chasadim.” The Book of Ruth is all of four chapters, consisting of a total of 85 verses. It was hard to believe that this year alone, two scholars, each separately and independently from each other, wrote two high-quality extensive commentaries, one containing 487 pages, and the other 400 pages. his column’s primary focus will be on the first, entitled Ruth: From Alienation to Monarchy (Maggid Books, 2015) by Dr. Yael Ziegler, a lecturer in Bible at the Herzog Academic College and at Matan Jerusalem. This book explains the narrative of the midrashic details that teach us the deeper meaning of the plot, subplot and events, especially the interactive roles played by Ruth and Boaz. The author demonstrate show these distinct individuals, each in their own way, perform small acts of kindness that ultimately serve to change the course of history thus restoring hope to the Jewish people of that most troubled era.

“This book is a book of chesed, but not just ordinary chesed,” Dr. Ziegler wrote to this author. “This book records acts of extraordinary chesed, the kind that even undermines one’s own interests in order to do chesed with the other. This is of course the case with Ruth, whose every act involves selflessness to the point of self-abnegation. While this chesed may not be expected from the ordinary citizen, it is an absolute sine qua non for our leaders, and especially our kings. Having so much power concentrated in the hands of one dynastic family is a recipe for tyranny and debauchery, unless this king is able to take his own interests out of the picture. Ruth is the worthy Mother of Kingship because of the specific type of chesed that she practices, advocates and models for her monarchical descendants.” In the introduction to the book, Dr. Ziegler sets up the scene to follow in an excellent essay: “The Book of Ruth documents the manner in which people lead their humdrum lives, without dramatic events, obvious conflicts, or extraordinary miracles. And yet, while it records ordinary interactions, it also features the extraordinary behavior of two great individuals who succeed in reversing the negative direction that society has taken during the period of the judges. This is a deeply optimistic story, despite its setting in one of the most troubled periods of biblical history. Ruth and Boaz teach us how two individuals can act in accordance with their own conscience and in contrast to the social alienation and apathy that prevails. In doing so, they offer the possibility of bringing this lawless and hopeless situation to an end, and pave the way toward a well-functioning society in which the nation can build a strong and unified house.” Given the seriously troubled times that we all live in today, the Book of Ruth, as demon-

strated in this commentary, will surely serve as a worthy tool that will point the way to a more focused, competent, honest, and truly efficient form of governance that ensures our personal as well as national safety. his discussion must also seriously consider why the reading of Ruth occurs on the Festival of Shavuot. Rabbi Alex Israel, in his conclusion to the teaching cited above, explains the following: “It certainly strikes me that Ruth and Matan Torah represent an ideal balance. The epic event of Matan Torah represents a national commitment to G-d and Torah, a bein adam laMakom event par excellence. The Book of Ruth is a perfect counterbalance. This is a story of a few private individuals, who also demonstrate absolute commitment. Commitment here is to people, to human dignity, to the values of bein adam lachavero.” The other work dealing with Ruth is Rising Moon: Unraveling the Book of Ruth (Renana Publishers, 2015) by Rabbi Moshe Miller, with approbations by Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, Rabbi Berel Wein, Dr. David Shatz and Professor Elisheva Carlebach. This work by Rabbi Miller, a distinguished musmach of Ner Yisrael, is formatted in the traditional verse/commentary page style. In describing his method, Rabbi Miller concludes his preface: “G-d judges, evaluates, and analyzes by never losing sight of the forest for the trees. Every detail is lovingly and individually assessed within its context, with the environment remaining in

nature of man, impossible for him suddenly to discontinue everything to which he has been accustomed.” So G-d did not ask the Israelites to suddenly abandon everything they were used to in Egypt. “G-d refrained from prescribing what the people by their natural disposition would be incapable of obeying.” In miracles, G-d changes physical nature, never human nature. Were He to do so, the project of the Torah — the free worship of free human beings — would be void. There is no greatness in programming a million computers to obey instructions. G-d’s greatness lay in taking the risk of creating a being capable of choice. G-d wanted humankind to abolish slavery, but in their own time. In Britain and America, it took until the nineteenth century, and in America, it took a civil war. The challenge is: how can one create a social structure in which people will eventually see slavery as wrong and choose to abandon it? The Torah’s answer lay in a single stroke: to change slavery from an ontological condition to a temporary circumstance, from what I am to a situation in which I find myself. No Israelite was allowed to be treated or to see him or herself as a slave. They might be reduced to slavery for a period of time, but this was not an identity. Compare Aristotle: “[There are people who are] slaves by nature, and it is better for them to be subject to this kind of control. For a man who is able to belong to another person is by nature a slave.” For Aristotle, slavery is a fact of birth. Some are born to rule, others to be ruled. This is precisely the worldview the Torah opposes. Biblical legislation ensurea that neither the slave nor their owner sees slavery as a permanent condition. A slave should be treated “like an employee or a resident” — with the same respect as a free human being. In this way the Torah ensured that, although slavery could not be abolished overnight, it would eventually be.

For Plato and his heirs, philosophy is about the truth that is timeless. For Hegel and Marx, it is about historical inevitability. Judaism is about ideals that are realized through time, by the free decisions of free persons. hat is why we are commanded to hand on the story of the Exodus to our children every year, so that they too taste the bread of affliction and the bitter herbs of slavery. It is why we are instructed to ensure that every seventh day, all those who work for us can rest and breathe the air of freedom. It is why, even when there were Israelite slaves, they had to be released in the seventh, or Jubilee, year. This is the way of evolution, not revolution, gradually educating every member of a society that it is wrong to enslave others, so that eventually the entire institution will be abolished, not by divine fiat but by human consent. The end result is a freedom that is secure, as opposed to the freedom of philosophers that is all too often another form of tyranny. Rousseau once wrote that if citizens did not agree with the “general will,” they would have to be “forced to be free.” That is not liberty but slavery. The Torah is based, as its narratives make clear, on history, a realistic view of human character, and a respect for freedom and choice. Philosophy is often detached from history and a concrete sense of humanity. Philosophy sees truth as system. The Torah tells truth as story, and a story is a sequence of events extended through time. Revolutions based on philosophical systems fail because change in human affairs takes time, and philosophy has rarely given an adequate account of the human dimension of time. Revolutions based on Tanach succeed, because they go with the grain of human nature, recognizing that it takes time for people to change. The Torah did not abolish slavery, but it set in motion a process that would lead people to come of their own accord to the conclusion that it was wrong. That it did so, albeit slowly, is one of the wonders of history.

Ruth is the worthy Mother of Kingship.

Torah... Continued from page 15 ter insight as to why] the Torah specifically emphasizes Shemittah and its connection to Mount Sinai, rather than any other of the 613 mitzvot — namely, this particular mitzvah has the seal of Mount Sinai imprinted upon it. As such, everyone must admit that it represents the words of Hashem from Heaven itself, since [it is counterintuitive to man’s basic needs, and therefore] it is virtually impossible that it was invented as a result of man’s intellect. [Now we can understand why our Sages said,] ‘Just like shemittah was stated at Mount Sinai with all its general principles and finer details, so, too, were all the other mitzvot.’” In Rav Schwab’s estimation, shemittah emerges as the proof case of the divine nature of the Torah. In addition, its pivotal status informs our understanding of all of the mitzvot, for each of them were revealed by Hashem to Moshe, in all their glorious “general principles and finer details,” at Mount Sinai. As a result, each time we perform a mitzvah, we recognize that it is divrei Elokim emet — the authentic words of the Almighty, and that we, like our ancestors before us, are responding to and communicating with the Voice that ever emanates from Mount Sinai.

Evolution... Continued from page 15 ture, he argues, are gradual. The fetus develops slowly in the womb. Stage by stage, a child becomes mature. And what applies to individuals applies to nations and civilizations: “It is impossible to go suddenly from one extreme to the other. It is therefore, according to the

full view, even at the very moment that the individual is assessed alone. Although our vision is not divine, G-d’s approach is a model for our own judgment and evaluation. Text must never be uncoupled from its context.” These are wise observations for all of us, as we read and learn from these profound commentaries this coming Shavuot. peaking of Shavuot itself, I conclude with the following teaching of a great interpreter of the American Sephardic community, Rabbi Eli Mansour: “The Custom to Read Megilat Ruth on Shavuot.” “It is customary to read Megilat Ruth on Shavuot, and several different reasons have been given for this custom. The Mordechi in Masechet Megilla as cited by the Rama in Darchei Moshe explains that the story of Ruth took place during the harvest season, around the time of Shavuot, and it is therefore appropriate to read this story on this holiday. Others explain that at the time of Matan Torah, the Jewish people underwent a process of ‘conversion,’ for, like converts, they had been obligated only in the Seven Noachide Laws, and then committed themselves to the Torah’s 613 commands. [Interestingly, the Hebrew word gerut has the numerical value of 620, corresponding to the 613 Biblical commands plus the seven mitzvot instituted by the Sages.] Therefore, on the day we celebrate Matan Torah, we read the story of Ruth, which tells of Ruth’s conversion and acceptance of the mitzvot.” Rabbi Mansour concludes this teaching by noting that “we read Megilat Ruth as a reminder that accepting the Torah included not only our obligations toward G-d, but also our obligations to other people. The story of Ruth is all about chesed. … We read this story to remind ourselves that kindness and sensitivity to other people is part and parcel of our acceptance of the Torah.” A version of this article appeared in 2015.

Jubilee... Continued from page 15 But when one inaugurates a Torah institution, a yeshiva, there can be no doubt that it will succeed. We have G-d’s own promise that the Torah is eternal. If a Torah institution lasts ten years or twenty or fifty, it is no wonder and no occasion for amazement or astonishment. Why, then, a celebration? he answer is that, whereas in the case of the hospital or free loan society, we celebrate the fact that those institutions persisted and endured, in the case of this, the seventy-fifth anniversary of our yeshiva, we are not celebrating the fact that the Torah persisted and endured. It will always endure. Rather, we are celebrating a Jubilee in the true meaning of the term. We are celebrating the freedom and liberty that Torah brings to the Jewish people, and to mankind. “Only he is truly free who occupies himself with Torah.” We are adhering to Nachmanides’s understanding of “jubilee” as a term which means leading, guiding, and causing us to return. Success of our local hospital and our great institutions of charity deserve anniversaries. Only our yeshiva, and other similar projects, deserve the term Jubilee. Rabbi Tsirelson’s teaching is one well worth taking to heart. The term “jubilee,” like so many other grandiloquent terms, is often cheapened by being applied to important, but basically mundane, occasions. It is best reserved for occasions that celebrate those achievements that guide us ethically, lead us spiritually, and return us to the divine goals of freedom and liberty. As I read Parashat Behar, the warm memories that I associate with the Jubilee Blouse Company will surely still be there. But after a moment’s reflection, I will also recall the powerful message of a great rabbi who, despite his eighty-one years, died before his time.

View from Central Park

Intermountain Jewish News

Was Tlaib incoherent, or malevolent?

hen I updated a pro-Israel academic about Rep. Rashida Tlaib’s recent remarks, she just burst out laughing. She wasn’t even upset. Tlaib’s statement about Palestinians providing a “safe haven” for Jewish refugees of the Holocaust is, for anyone who knows the basics of history, simply preposterous. You can bet that the Jewish community knows this history. Not just professors and historians, all of us. It’s part of our story, part of our education. It’s a story of rebirth from exile that many of our very own grandparents lived through. We are still living with a generation of Holocaust survivors among us, though their numbers are sadly dwindling. It is not a matter for history books, but a living testimony. Tlaib’s ahistoric statement, trying to paint the Palestinian Arabs of British Mandate Palestine as noble, was at best incoherent, vague and clumsy. At worst, it was malevolent. Even if one is to cut a rookie cong resswoman some slack, is it too much to expect of a member of the United States Congress to know the history of an event she consistently expresses strong opinions about? In Tlaib’s defense, some are trotting out the anti-Muslim card, which in this case is silly. Just because a Muslim congresswoman said something does not make it wrong, but neither does it make it right. Critics are responding to the erroneous content and substance of Tlaib’s remarks. e all were raised on the stories of those rare righteous souls who risked everything to provide a safe haven for Jews during the Holocaust. We know who they are. We were taught to have gratitude to the nations that helped Jews elude the Nazis, as well as to those individuals upon whom we have bestowed the title “righteous among the nations.” While I can appreciate Tlaib’s motivation to speak about her ancestors’ plight, the invention of a nonexistent narrative is a slap in the face given the suffering and slaughter inflicted upon Jews in Mandatory Palestine by local Arabs. Shanghai. The Philippines. Albania. Zakynthos, Greece. Denmark. Ethiopia. These are examples of nations providing a safe haven for Jews during the Holocaust. To try to put Palestinians of the 1930s and 40s in a positive light vis-à-vis the local Jewish community, and then the Holocaust refugees, is to rewrite history. Sadly, the facts tell the opposite story. The leader of the Arabs in Palestine, Haj Amin al-Husseini, collaborated enthusiastically with Adolf Hitler, ensuring more bloodshed of Jews both in Europe and in Palestine. Far from providing a safe haven in Palestine, local Arabs violently attacked Jews there. Every Israel Memorial Day in Israel, there is special attention given to a group See Tlaib on page 19

The fates of our peoples are historically intertwined.

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Did John Kerry violate Logan Act? Politics to go

Jeff duNetz

Jewish Star columnist

resident Trump has accused former Secretary of State John Kerry of breaking the law by meeting with Iranian officials last year. Trump told reporters, “You know John Kerry speaks to them a lot, and John Kerry tells them not to call. That’s a violation of the Logan Act, and frankly, he should be prosecuted on that. But my people don’t want to do anything; only the Democrats do that kind of stuff. If it were the opposite way, they’d prosecute him under the Logan Act.” The Logan Act, enacted in 1799, criminalizes negotiation by unauthorized persons with foreign governments having a dispute with the United States. The intent behind the Act is to prevent unofficial negotiations from undermining the government’s position. During interviews to promote his new book last past September, Kerry said that he met with Iranian Foreign Minister Javid Zarif three or four times since leaving his Foggy Bottom office, and that their talks touched on the international nuclear agreement which Kerry negotiated and President Trump withdrew from. In other words, his talks were contradictory to the stated policy of the United States. Then a few weeks ago, the Boston Globe reported that Kerry also met secretly with the Iranian foreign minister and European leaders, advising them on how to save the flawed JCPOA. s an American citizen, John Kerry is free to state his opinion about American policy at any time, to any person, no matter how negative his judgment may be. However, when he meets with an ambassador to an enemy state to advise them on circumventing American foreign policy, it becomes a violation of the law. During a press conference on Sept. 14, 2018, Secretary of State Pompeo was asked whether he thought Kerry’s Iran meetings were a violation of the Logan Act. He refused to get into it, but certainly felt the meetings were not kosher. “I’ll leave the legal determinations to others. But what Secretary Kerry has done is unseemly and unprecedented. This is a former secretary of state engaged with the world’s largest state sponsor of terror, and according to him — right? You don’t have to take my word for it. He — these are his answers. He was talking to them. He was telling them to

wait out this administration. “You can’t find precedent for this in U.S. history, and the secretary ought not — Secretary Kerry ought not to engage in that kind of behavior. It’s inconsistent with what foreign policy of the United States is, as directed by this President, and it is beyond inappropriate for him to be engaged in this. I remember, I saw him. I saw him in Munich at the Security Conference. He was there with — if I have my facts right because I think I saw them all with my own eyes — Secretary Moniz and Wendy Sherman, the troika [Kerry, Moniz, and Sherman were the negotiating team on the Iran deal]. “I wasn’t in the meeting, but I am reasonably confident that he was not there in support of U.S. policy concerning the Islamic Republic of Iran, who this week fired Katyusha rockets toward the United States embassy in Baghdad and took action against our consulate in Basra.” Last Friday, Pompeo was less diplomatic. Appearing on Fox Radio’s Guy Benson program, he said, “It is a historical and completely unhelpful when previous secretaries of state are continuing to engage in the tasks that they engaged in when they were the secretary of state. I’ll leave it at that in the sense of it’s time to get off the stage for the previous administration.” The Boston Globe reported, citing unidentified sources, that Kerry also consulted with key European members of the P5+1 team. The Globe reported that Kerry also met German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, he’s been on the phone with top European Union official Federica Mogherini, and he has also met with French President Emmanuel Macron in both Paris and New York, conversing on ways to save a deal that President Trump was about to leave. merica’s Iran policies do not provide the only examples of John Kerry going rogue and working against American foreign policy. In 1985, Senator John Kerry traveled to Nicaragua for a friendly get-together with the Sandinista president, Daniel Ortega. The position of the Reagan administration was to support Ortega’s opposition, the Contras. Upon his return to the United States, Kerry met with Reagan to convey a message from Ortega. Reagan “wasn’t thrilled,” Kerry later told the New York Times. In 2006, Kerry went to Syria to meet with Assad, over the objections of President Bush, who was trying to isolate the Syrian despot.

And in an incident reported in the Jan. 31, 2018 edition of The Jewish Star, Kerry also went against America’s interests in the IsraeliPalestinian dispute, meeting in London with a close associate of Abbas, Hussein Agha, for what was described as a “long and open conversation that contained many headlines.” Agha played the role of messenger, sending details of the discussion to senior PA officials in Ramallah. A senior Palestinian official confirmed to Ma’ariv there had indeed been such a meeting. Kerry asked Agha to convey a message to Abbas: “Ask him to hold on and be strong. Tell him that he stays strong in his spirit and play for time, that he will not break and will not yield to President Trump’s demands.” According to Kerry, Trump would not remain in office for a long time. “It is a good chance that within a year, he will not be in the White House.” That particular prediction didn’t age well. Kerry offered to help the Palestinians advance his version of the peace process and recommended that Abbas present his version of a peace plan as well. “Maybe it is time for the Palestinians to define their peace principles and present a positive plan,” he reportedly said. He promised to use all his contacts and all his abilities to marshal support for the Palestinian plan. his past weekend the U.S. announced the economic part of Trump’s peace plan would be announced on June 25-26, dur ing a U.S.-led economic conference in Bahrain. The Palestinians have announced they will not attend. Disappointing my parents of blessed memory, after my undergraduate degree, law school was the furthest thing from my mind. Therefore, it’s only as a layman that I say that based on the above, it seems that the former Secretary of State did violate Logan Act. However, even if Kerry is charged (which is doubtful), it is unlikely he would be convicted in the court of law. In the 220 years since the Logan Act was signed into law by President John Adams, only two people have ever been indicted on charges of violating it — Francis Flournoy in 1803, and Jonas P. Levy in 1852. Neither one was convicted. So it’s doubtful that Kerry will be charged for his Iranian negotiations, his advice to Palestinian President Abbas, or any other possible violations.

Only two people have ever been indicted on charges of violating it.

17 THE JEWISH STAR May 24, 2019 19 Iyar, 5779

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What’s behind Corbyn’s ‘Trump Brexit’ warning? Viewpoint

BEN COHEN

hey are not quite conjoined twins, but it’s often the case that where you find antiSemitism, you will also find an associated anti-Americanism. Scholars who have studied these two forms of prejudice have remarked on the common patterns of thought and belief. The distinguished sociologist and Professor Paul Hollander (who sadly passed away last month) explained that “anti-Americanism” as a political phenomenon should not be confused with “being critical of specific aspects or attributes of American society, culture or American foreign policy.” Instead, said Hollander, anti-Americanism should be seen as “a particular mindset, an attitude of distaste, aversion, or intense hostility, the roots of which may be found in matters unrelated to the actual qualities or attributes of American society or the foreign policies of the United States.” Much of the same observation can be made about Jewish people in relation to anti-Semitism. Anti-Americanism raises similar allegations

against American society and culture that antiSemitism does with Judaism. America is held up as a crass, materialistic society, where money rules politics, and where the most anarchic aspects of capitalism — a system that was disdained as “Jewish” by many Europeans well into the last century — run riot. Look at the standard-bearers of anti-Americanism over the last century and in this one (Venezuela’s dictator Nicolas Máduro, for example), and you will see that they project a similar hostility to Jews, often couched in denunciations of “Zionism” or “Israeli crimes.” Some of these people see power in the world as a Zionist knife in Uncle Sam’s fist; others think it works the other way around. Many supporters of the opposition Labour Party in Britain subscribe to this broad worldview. So it should not come as a shock, then, that party leader Jeremy Corbyn — a man who can credibly claim to be Europe’s best-known anti-Semite — is leveraging his visceral antiAmericanism into his country’s internal conflict over Brexit, its departure over the European Union.

arlier this month, Corbyn delivered a speech in which he renamed the option of a “no-deal Brexit” (whereby the United Kingdom would cease being a member of the European Union without a deal setting out the divorce terms) a “Trump Brexit.” This phrase is indeed catchy, and plays well with those sections of British society on left and right who think that the U.S. president, in common with all his predecessors, is itching for a pretext to launch a new World War. Why a “Trump Brexit” specifically? Corbyn, a supporter of Brexit who finds himself at the helm of a party that favors remaining in the E.U., needs to carve out a position that differentiates him from the Conservatives and those further to the right, who are currently seething over a “Brexit betrayal.” This current of opinion wants to fulfill Brexit above all else, even if that means leaving the E.U. without a deal. That outcome, said Corbyn, “would be a Donald Trump Brexit leaving us at the mercy of a reckless and bellicose U.S. administration.” Corbyn, whose political career stretches back to the Cold War, has said the same thing about

He has said the same thing about every U.S. administration.

every U.S. administration, whether Democratic or Republican. He has worn his anti-Americanism proudly, whether the incumbent in the White House was President Carter or President Reagan, or President Clinton, President Obama or either President Bush. In his view, cemented by the pro-Soviet, Third Worldly sensibilities of the Western anti-war movement, America is by its very nature “reckless and bellicose.” The difference now, of course, is that Corbyn is closer to power than ever before. The sword of Damocles that first dangled when he was elected Labour’s leader in 2015 could fall as early as this year should Corbyn turn the Conservative-run fiasco over Brexit into a decisive advantage in the event of a general election. In what will be the greatest test of his political abilities so far, Corbyn will pitch the British public a nightmare vision. He will warn of Britain becoming a sweatshop for predatory U.S. corporations, with minimal rights to protect workers. A Britain that becomes a dumping ground for cut-price, unhealthy, processed American food products. A Britain that becomes an extension of America’s military empire, with a compliant government applauding U.S. imperialism from Venezuela to Iran. That, and more, is what a “Trump Brexit” would See Corbyn on page 19 herald.

Tlaib seeks to alter Arab narrative of hate mElaNiE pHillipS

hat has caused the deeply alarming upsurge in anti-Semitism across the West? As many have observed, there are three principal sources: the political left, Islamic culture, and neo-fascist or white supremacist cults. One further factor, though, is crucial. AntiSemitism can be kept to a low level by social disapproval that deems anti-Semites to be totally beyond the pale. If that stigma is lifted and society tolerates or excuses anti-Semitism, it roars out of control. That’s precisely what is now happening. In America, astoundingly, it is being facilitated and mainstreamed by Democratic Party grandees. Michigan Rep. Rashida Tlaib, whose parents were born in Ramallah, said thinking of the Holocaust gave her a “calming feeling.” This, she said, was because her Palestinian ancestors “lost their land and some lost their lives, their livelihood, their human dignity, their existence in

many ways” in order to “create a safe haven for Jews, post-the Holocaust, post-the tragedy and the horrific persecution of Jews across the world at that time. And I love the fact that it was my ancestors that provided that, right, in many ways. But they did it in a way that took their human dignity away and it was forced on them.” This was a travesty. Tlaib presented Palestinian Arabs as victims of the Holocaust’s victims. The reality was that they were hopeful ancillaries to the Nazi genocide. Far from giving their lives to provide safe haven for the Jews, as Tlaib claimed, the Arabs of Palestine did everything they could to stop them from coming in and slaughtered as many as possible — all to prevent the Jews from obtaining the homeland that could have saved thousands from the Nazi genocide. Worse, they intended to perpetrate a Final Solution for the Jews in Palestine and beyond. The Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al Husseini, formed a pact with Hitler that if he won the

war, the Mufti would ensure that every Jew in the Middle East was exterminated. As the Nazis stepped up their persecution, Arab stormtroopers marched in Palestine shouting “Heil Hitler” and branding Jews “the human sexual disease” and “a menace to all mankind.” alestinian Arabs have never stopped waging that war of extermination. They write the Jews out of their own history in the land to which the Arabs lay false and ahistoric claim. They vandalize priceless archeological sites to destroy physical evidence that Israel was the Jews’ national kingdom centuries before Arabs invaded. They teach their children to kill Israelis, steal their land and hate Jews. They have never stopped bombing, shooting, knifing and decapitating Jews in Israel. Mahmoud Abbas, who worships al Husseini, recently admitted the Palestinian Authority’s central role in promoting attacks on Israelis when he justified paying the families of terrorists. His spokesman, Nabil Abu Rudeina, said: “It

Their signature Palestinian cause is the new antiSemitism.

is impossible to send a soldier to war and then not take care of his family. We are talking about someone who acts on our behalf and receives orders from us.” The ancestors of today’s Palestinians were Hitler’s army in the Middle East; and their descendants can be regarded as the last undefeated front in the Nazi war against the Jews. As U.S. President Donald Trump rightly said about Tlaib’s “horrible and highly insensitive statement” on the Holocaust: “She obviously has tremendous hatred of Israel and the Jewish people.” But instead of treating her as a pariah, Democrats have circled the wagons. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi said that “desperate attempts to smear” Tlaib and misrepresent her comments were “outrageous.” Tlaib was neither smeared nor misrepresented. Pelosi’s sanitizing of anti-Semitism is now part of a pattern. Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar once accused Israel of “hypnotizing the world” and prayed that “Allah awaken the people and help them see [Israel’s] evil doings.” Pelosi appointed her to the House Foreign Affairs Committee. And after Omar claimed that Jews use their money to See Arab on page 19

Is there room for honest scholarship on Israel? JONatHaN S. tOBiN

he old joke about academia is that the arguments in the faculty lounges are so nasty because the stakes involved are so small. That’s often true about most things that go on in the narrow world of intellectual specialists, who guard their university department fiefdoms with jealous ferocity. They conduct their scholarly wars with publications that are written in academic jargon that is virtually indecipherable to the general reader. Their feuds are epic in their bitterness, but happily of little concern to the rest of society, which can easily ignore the doings of this tribe of underpaid and generally disgruntled people who have earned the right to have the letters Ph.D. after their names. But there are some academic arguments to

which the rest of us would do well to pay attention. One such is the brawl that has started among members of the Association for Israel Studies, in which a number of members are outraged that some AIS scholars have published a journal devoted to the use of language in delegitimizing Zionism and the State of Israel. The special issue of the Summer 2019 edition of Israel Studies was titled “Word Crimes: Reclaiming the Language of the Israel-Palestinian Conflict.” But rather than earn the plaudits of their colleagues, the editors and authors involved have been subjected to scathing attacks for their supposed lack of scholarship, their bias and for being lightweights unworthy of publication in a peer-reviewed journal. One such critic, Arie Dubnov of George Washington University, protested by writing that the “Word Crimes” issue was “Orwellian Newspeak” that seeks to shut down debate and silence critics of Israel whose only point was to provide “talking points for “anti-BDS and pro-hasbara efforts” that serve no academic purpose.

Far from seeking to close debate on the issue, “Word Crimes” was a long-overdue attempt to begin a discussion about the way the academy has become hostile to anyone other than those who believe Israel’s creation was a crime. It is those professors who have turned the study of the Middle East and Israel into a playground for leftists, who have used academic credentials to give an intellectual veneer to anti-Zionist propaganda, and called it scholarship. If anyone is playing Orwellian word games, it is the critics of Israel Studies. While their protests are supposedly about whether the peer-review process was appropriate, those complaints lack merit. Their anger about the journal, which threatens to tear the AIS apart, is not about procedure. It’s rooted in a belief that any scholarship that contradicts assumptions about the illegitimacy of Zionism and seeks to put the movement to destroy it in proper context is, by definition, unscholarly. Their problem with “Word Crimes” is that it reveals that there is something rotten about an academic environment in which disin-

genuous lies about Israel are considered truth, and anti-Semitic libels are treated as normal discourse. he context for this dispute is the way that the field evolved at institutions of higher learning in the last few decades. There has been an exponential growth of tenured positions and well-funded Middle East Studies departments. But this trend has fostered a new orthodoxy of opinion about the subject. Far from a bastion of impartial study, these departments became a preserve of those devoted to whitewashing radical Islam, bashing Israeli policies, critiquing and undermining support for Zionism, and supporting the Palestinian Arab war to destroy the Jewish state. In Middle East Studies, only one point of view about Israel is welcome. Scholars sympathetic to Israel and critical of radical Islam are often treated as pariahs and driven from the field. Some of this stemmed from the way such departments were partly funded by overseas MusSee Israel on page 19

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

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

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

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or the Palestinians, the year zero is not 1948, when the state of Israel came into being, but 1917, when Great Britain issued, on Nov. 2, the Balfour Declaration—expressing support for the establishment of a “Jewish national home” in Palestine. So central is the Balfour Declaration to Palestinian political identity that the “Zionist invasion” is officially deemed to have begun in 1917—not in 1882, when the first trickle of Jewish pioneers from Russia began arriving, nor in 1897, when the Zionist movement held its first congress in Basel, nor in the late 1920s, when thousands of German Jews fleeing the rise of Nazism chose to go to Palestine. The year 1917 is the critical date because that is when, as an anti-Zionist might say, the Zionist hand slipped effortlessly into the British imperial glove. It is a neat, simple historical proposition upon which the entire Palestinian version of events rests: an empire came to our land and gave it to foreigners, we were dispossessed, and for five generations now, we have continued to resist. Moreover, it is given official sanction in the Palestine National Covenant of 1968, in which article 6 defines Jews who “were living permanently in Palestine until the beginning of the Zionist invasion” as “Palestinians”—an invasion that is dated as 1917 in the covenants’ notes. As the Balfour Declaration’s centenary approached, this theme is much in evidence. There is now a dedicated Balfour Apology See Cohen on page 22

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Corbyn boycotts B’four event

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

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By Ron Kampeas, JTA Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico, and WASHINGTON — For 17 years, the then the wildfires in northern California. Israeli NGO IsraAID has been performPolizer recalls that he was wrapping ing search and rescue, purifying water, up a visit to IsraAID’s new American providing emergency medical assistance headquarters in Palo Alto on Oct. 8 and and walking victims of trauma back to was on his way to a flight to Mexico to psychological health in dozens of disas- oversee operations after a devastating ter-hit countries. No 25 earthquake there when he got word of • Vol 16, But no season has been busier than the wildfires. “I literally had Luach page 19 9:15 • to do a Uthis past summer and fall, its co-CEO Yo- turn,” he said Havdalah this week in an interview 8:07 pm, tam Polizer said in an interview — and ting Candleligh at the Israeli embassy in Washington. Polizer spoke with the exhilaration of an executive whose team has come through a daunting challenge. “We’re the people who stay past the ‘aid festival’,” he said, grinning, describing the See IsraAID on page 5

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

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wedding TheJew on the 70th Bonnie ishStar.c EpisStar reported survivors 93rd om ty News s and St. John’s The Jewish and Shoah The Newspape , the Far residents years ago Herald Communi Last March, Woodmere of Jack Rybsztajn’ Bessen, closed five Rockaway Peninsula y of r of our Orthodox in patients Hospital the By Jeffrey communit On the occasion anniversar hospital on percent jump Rybsztajn. his story continues. ies When Peninsula and Jack to get became the experienced a 35 million on July 12, center was desperatelocated. copal Hospital a $10.15 birthday medical Weintrob obtaining to help complete Jack Rybsztajnrelatives were which Rockaway y services. By Celia a few war ended, emergenc week celebrated nt of Health creating primary After the to Brussels, where cargo trains, during legal using its officials last Departme given on ld hospiSt. John’s New York State that will also include from Stuttgart daring voyages then ultimately sister-in-law s the The 111-year-o Turntwo grant from services renovationacross the street. and arrested, and their future to Brussels Through y at 275 Rockaway headed y center the couple emergenc in a building right for he was discovered . ambulator in Brussels, journey. They had dismay had left on page 14 care space an off-site sites on the peninsula residence the to their See St. John’s Cyla, who tal also operates and similar finally completed kosher restauJack’s sister they arrived. pike in Lawrence to meet s ate at a stating that a one day before wall the Rybsztajn Palestine Brussels, a placard on the looking for anyone While in this was they saw address, wrote to rant, where with a Brooklyn been Rybsztajn , who had survived. Mr. Jacobs, JN who Yechiel Rybsztajn containson of s, a package plus named RYBSZTA he is the afterward Brussels, man, saying nephew. Not long was received in Mr. Jacobs’ and a pair of tefillinto the United States. Rybsztajn ing a tallis g his travel for five years,” which in Belgium were so nice, papers authorizin Brussels “we stayed Poland. So However, gentile people of went through in Shaydels, the “The what we recalled. He mentioned s into their a relief after was such coming to America.” the Rybsztajn on page 7 who welcomed See Shoah we stalled Isaac. a well-to-do couple

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Continued from page 18 suborn American politicians in the interests of Israel, Pelosi played down the remark. n Britain, the struggle against Labour antiSemitism is getting nowhere, despite repeated outrage and even resignations by a number of decent Labour MPs. A major part of the problem is that this derangement is by no means confined to the supporters of Labour’s far-left leader Jeremy Corbyn. This was shown by last weekend’s anti-Israel hate-fest in London. Chanting demonstrators brandished posters declaring that Jews control the media, Jews are the new Nazis, Jews have no right to a state, Jews bring anti-Semitism upon themselves and so on. Yet faced with this chilling display, the media could barely bring itself to shrug. Progressives refuse to acknowledge that their signature Palestinian cause — so revealingly exposed by the distortions of Rashida Tlaib — is the new anti-Semitism. And that’s because they refuse to acknowledge that Palestinianism itself is fundamentally anti-Jew. This denial of a most inconvenient truth — that the Arabs’ hatred of Israel derives from their

• June 30, 2017

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Continued from page 18 lim donors, such as the ruling families of Saudi Arabia and Qatar. But this was also a function of an academic culture dominated by the left, whereby the ideas of the late Palestinian academic Edward Said about banishing “Orientalism” from the field and others who promoted the concept of intersectionalism predominated. Sadly, as Israel studies became its own discipline, as opposed to that of Middle East Studies, the same biases have also become apparent in many departments. That is why the pushback against “Word

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cal and obsessive anti-Semitism is deemed Islamophobic — not least by prominent British Jews. Astoundingly, they equate Islamophobia — the term designed to silence criticism of the Islamic world — with anti-Semitism. So they remain silent about threat from the Muslim community, of whom the left will permit no criticism, while inflating the threat from the right, whom the left blames for all the ills of the world. Denial of Palestinian and Muslim anti-Semitism is legitimizing, mainstreaming and fueling anti-Semitism in the West. When confronted with their own bigotry, people like Tlaib claim that the real problem of anti-Semitism comes from “the right.” And which groups, in both America and Britain, hand them this particular “get out of jail free” card so they can continue to escalate the climate of Jew-hatred? Why, the left, of course — and the Jews. Melanie Phillips is a British journalist, broadcaster and author.

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hatred of the Jews — was illustrated by a BBC documentary last week about the border riots in Gaza. In it, a Gazan boy says “the revolutionary songs excite you, they encourage you … to rip a Jew’s head off.” But instead of accurately translating the Arabic word yahud, Jew, the BBC mistranslated it as “Israeli.” The BBC insists that this was “both accurate and true to the speakers’ intentions.” This is simply untrue. In Arabic, yahud means “Jew.” When Arabic media refer to Israel, they use the word “Israel” in Arabic letters. A chant frequently heard among Islamic religious extremists is Khaybar, Khaybar, ya Yahud, Jaish Mohammed, sa yahud, which means “Jews, remember Khaybar; the army of Mohammed is returning.” nyone who reads Islamic religious texts can see hatred of the Jews embedded in Islamic religion and culture. Yet in America and Britain, this is all but unsayable. Anyone who points out that Islamic society is fueled by hysteri-

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Continued from page 18 n the current febrile climate of British politics, a political message like this one will certainly resound, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that Corbyn is best placed to deliver it. Over the last six weeks, he has been engaged in a bizarre set of negotiations with the now lame-duck Prime Minister Theresa May aimed at securing a cross-party agreement on Brexit. Publicly at least, Corbyn appeared less enthused by the talks than did May, despite her caution late last year that giving Labour even a sniff of government would be a “national calamity,” replete with “rising anti-Semitism” and “equivocation when the security of our country is threatened.” And it was Corbyn, not May, who announced last Friday that the talks had broken down. Yet none of this appears to have benefited Corbyn in the opinion polls. Projections for this week’s European Parliament elections — elections that weren’t supposed to happen — situate the populist Brexit Party as the clear frontrunner. The only consolation for Labour is that its own dismal performance is predicted to be slightly less humiliating than that facing the Conservatives. In terms of public perception, Corbyn has been more damaged than assisted by the general view that the political class has shown gross incompetence over Brexit. Beyond the European elections, however, Corbyn will have an opportunity to present himself as a unifier — a politician who understands that there are more important challenges than Brexit, like empowering labor unions, saving the environment and fortifying Britain’s publichealth services. Ranged against a Conservative Party potentially led by a “no deal” Brexiteer, a host of smaller parties that favor staying in the E.U. and a grassroots pro-Brexit party on the populist right, Corbyn and his chances of winning an election are not guaranteed, but neither are they negligible. For a politician like him, crisis is the mother of opportunity, even if he has failed to exploit that reality so far. So far…

Crimes” has been so vicious. In a series of articles, the journal explores how words like “apartheid” and “genocide” are routinely misused to falsely describe Israel’s conflict with the Palestinians. The topics it addresses: the question of who are the indigenous people of Israel/Palestine; colonialism; occupation; terrorism; Palestinian refugees; Holocaust inversion; human rights; BDS; non-governmental organizations; “pinkwashing”; the “Israel Lobby”; and Zionism. These subjects are integral to understanding how the redefinition of words has become the foundation for the intellectual assault on Israel. It is a deep dive into the way biased scholarship has distorted our understanding of the issues and produced a climate in which slander of the Jews and their rights isn’t merely treated as acceptable, but normative in higher education. So it’s little wonder that the members of the academic mafia that has foisted these distortions on students would be infuriated at being called out for their scholarly malpractice by the group of distinguished thinkers assembled by the editors of “Word Crimes.” The irony is that while the critics of “Word Crimes” accuse it of bias, it is a breath of fresh air when compared to the unhinged polemics against Israel that passes for scholarship in most of academia. We can only hope that the Association of Israel Studies refuses to bow to the intimidation tactics employed by those who wish to silence the authors of “Word Crimes” and remains a place where those who are committed to an honest look at the war against the Jewish state can find a home. This is one academic feud in which all decent people — scholars and laypeople alike — have a stake. Jonathan S. Tobin is editor-in-chief of JNS.

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The fates of our peoples — the Jews, and the Palestinian Arabs — are historically intertwined. But to link them in ways that are untrue is regrettable. The stark reality is that Palestinian Arab leadership was on the wrong side of history in choosing to reject Israel, and was on the wrong side of history during the Holocaust. The Palestinian leadership was on the wrong side of history during the Cold War, when it aligned with the USSR, and the current version of the PA and Hamas places it on the wrong side of history again. The casualties of this poor leadership — of the pervasive glorification of violence and hatred — is no doubt the Palestinian people. None of that, however, justifies rewriting history. Because as laughable as basic ignorance might be, it isn’t funny at all. It is painful for the American Jewish community to hear such remarks from a member of the United States Congress. Copyright Intermountain Jewish News

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Continued from page 17 who suffered a double tragedy, known as the netzer acharon, the Final Branch. This refers to family trees that have been forever cut off. People visit their marked graves because there is no family to do so. These people sacrificed everything to secure an Israel for others. The netzer acharon were Holocaust refugees who were sole survivors of families left behind as ashes; survivors who made it to then-Palestine, only to either be slaughtered by local Arabs or by the Arab armies who attacked the fledgling state. Another unique group honored on Israel’s Holocaust Memorial Day is Haparim Brigade. These are Jews who, in the 1930s and 1940s, were already living in the relative safety of British Mandatory Palestine, yet elected to join the

ing has changed since the 1940s. When a Jewish state was in the offing, Arab Palestinian leaders cultivated fantasy and directed their Arab Palestinian people to abandon ship. This triggered a mass exodus from then-Palestine. Not over their dead bodies would they share land with the Jews. The Palestinian Arabs left in droves, their leaders choosing denial and rejection of the new, formal, UN- declared Jewish reality. Instead they falsely promised the Palestinian Arabs they would be back in the land, in their homes, in no time, once the massacred Jews were gone — to borrow a Holocaust term, once the land was Judenrein. In Palestinian culture, this is what is known as nakba, the catastrophe — the mass exodus of Arab Palestinians, and their inability to return to the homes that their own leaders instructed them to leave. Today it is known as the Palestinian refugee problem (due to UNWRA’s unique definition of a Palestinian refugee, but that’s a story for another time).

19 THE JEWISH STAR May 24, 2019 19 Iyar, 5779

Tlaib...

fight against the Nazis. Donning British uniforms, they joined the military. Many fell and suffered at the hands of the Nazis as POWs along with their British comrades. Meanwhile, Palestinian Arabs and Arabs from other Muslim lands were encouraged by Haj Amin al-Husseini to ally with Hitler. bove all, though, the inaccuracy in Tlaib’s remarks is that Zionism predates World War II and the Holocaust. Zionism’s genesis has no connection to World War II. Much of the infrastructure for a modern Jewish state that Theodor Herzl inspired was in place by the termination of World War II. The only thing missing were the millions of Jews who were no longer living, no longer able to return to their long-desired land. While I can appreciate Tlaib’s desire to voice an idea on behalf of her ancestors, this should not be confused or conflated with the unequaled plight of Holocaust refugees. With Tlaib’s remarks, it’s almost as if noth-

20 May 24, 2019 19 Iyar, 5779 THE JEWISH STAR

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See photos on page 1. Valedictorian Amanda Vaysman is President of the Deah Chapter of the National Honor Society, co-president of YUNMUN, a delegate to the Yeshiva League Model Congress, and an active participant in NCSY JUMP and Yachad. For the past four years, she has engaged in original research in HAFTR’s Science and Engineering Institute. Amanda has volunteered at South

Brooklyn and Seagirt Medical Plaza. Next year, she will attend New York Institute of Technology in the BS/ Doctor of Osteopathy Program. Salutatorian Abigail Goldberg is distinguished by her academic achievement and her engagement in school leadership, chesed and activism. She is involved in Torah Bowl, Math Team, i-Shine, Tomchei Shabbos, Model UN, the Science and Engineering Institute, Debate

Team, Yachad, Write on for Israel and NORPAC. Next year, Abigail will study at Michlelet Mevaseret Yerushalayim; the following year she will attend the Honors Program at Stern College. Distinguished Scholars awards will be presented to Brandon Arfa, Margot Bokor, and Jillian Mestel. The Outstanding Scholars awardees are Jonathan Goldschlag, Olivia Gluck, and Yali Miller.

SKA names its val and sal See photos on page 1. Stella K. Abraham High School congratulates the honorees of its Class of 2019. Valedictorian Lauren Israeli will be studying at Michlalah next

year in Jerusalem and continue her studies at the Honors Program of Stern College. Salutatorian Adina Lev will be studying at MMY and will ontinue her studies at the Honors Program

of Adelphia University. Kesser Shem Tov awardee Devorah Schreier will also be studying in Michlalah next year, and will continue her studies at the Honors Program of Stern College.

Kulanu Sunday fun in Cedarhurst Park Emunah salutes 3 women Families turned out on May 19 to have fun at the Kulanu Fair while benefitting children with learning disabilities in our community. The petting zoo was a big hit (above, 2-1/2-year-old Abby Assor has fun feeding pellets to a sheep). The slide was one of the most popular rides (Shulamith students Rena Gelbstein, Meira Moskowitz and Ahuva Moskowitz rode down together). And there was a long line for the pony rides (bottom), but Dovi Zelman, 3, didn’t mind waiting for his turn. The Jewish Star / Christina Daly

Emunah of America held its annual Women of Wonder (WOW) event at The Space at Flatiron on May 15. The organization honored (from left) Kim Heyman, Yael Schulman, Orly Gottesman, and (not shown) Shimi Adar. Each honoree is a leader in her industry — Heyman as a brand ambassador and philanthropist, Gottesman and Schulman as entrepreneurs, and Adar as an entertainer — and involved in their communities. The event was chaired by Chani Chesner, Odit Oliner, Sharona Schulder, and Lauren Weinrib. Lia Jay Photography

It’s time to bake the challah

Children joined their parents or other family members to create their own challahs at Chabad of Hewlett’s Challah Bake for Kids on May 2. Ramiel Jeacoma did not lack for intensity as he mixed his flour, and 4-year-old Sofia Gavrylyuk demonstrated her pouring skills. The children braided the bread and mixed the ingredients, then took their creations home to be baked. They also joined Dr. Shnitzel for his Wacky Science show. The Jewish Star / Deliah Roberts

THE JEWISH STAR May 24, 2019 19 Iyar, 5779

HAFTR toasts scholars

22 May 24, 2019 19 Iyar, 5779 THE JEWISH STAR

The JEWISH STAR CAlendar of Events Send your events to Calendar@TheJewishStar.com Deadline noon Friday • Compiled by Rachel Langer Memorial Day Parade: Cedarhurst-Lawrence Community Memorial Day Parade, down Central Ave to Cedarhurst Park. Special Guest: Gad Elbaz. 10 am. Begins Rockaway & Central Ave, Cedarhurst. 516-295-5770. CAHAL Fundraiser: Join the West Hempstead community at the HANC ECC for a spring gathering in support of CAHAL’s expansion. In appreciation of Chani Nadboy and the HANC family. 10 am. 240 Hempstead Ave. 516-295-3666. Cross River Open: Jewish community tennis US Open’s Billie Jean King National Tennis Center. One day, four tournaments — men’s singles, men’s doubles, women’s singles, women’s doubles — followed by Grand Slam Kosher Foodie Experience. Benefiting Our Place. 516-512-4494. Yom Iyun: Ohr Somayach International presents “Fake Truth & Virtual Living: A Torah View of Today’s Society & Moral Dilemmas” at YI Woodmere. Featuring Rabbi Dr. Yitzchak Breitowitz, Rabbi Dr. Akiva Tatz, Mr. Harry Rothenberg, and Rabbi Dr. Dovid Gottlieb. 7:30 pm. 859 Peninsula Blvd, Woodmere. 718-677-6200. $10.

Monday May 27

Scholarship Breakfast: At the home of Nosson and Miri Ginsbury, to benefit Mesivta Netzach Hatorah. 9:30 am. 7 Muriel Ave, Lawrence. NetzachHatorah.com.

Tuesday May 28

Darchei Kollel Dinner: 14th anniversary dinner for Kollel Tirtza Devorah, affiliated with Yeshiva Darchei Torah. 6:30 pm. 129 Elmwood Ave, Brooklyn.

Wednesday May 29

Book Club: Gural JCC is excited to host Long Island author Reyna Gentin at a special book club meeting to discuss her debut novel, Unreasonable Doubts. 11 am. 207 Grove Ave, Cedarhurst. RSVP 516-569-6733 ext. 222.

Thursday May 30

Ever since there’s been an IDF protecting Israel, there’s been an MDA ensuring their health.

FD Dinner: Familial Dysautonomia NOW Foundation hosts its 17th annual dinner honoring Jolyn & Lane Sparber. Support research that will drive better treatments and cures for patients with this Ashkenazi Jewish genetic disease. 6 pm. 775 Branch Blvd, Cedarhurst. Pre-Shavuot Shiur: DRS’s Lev Shlomo Adult Education invites men and women to a series of community-wide shiurim. Rabbi Yisroel Kaminetsky will discuss chinuch principles of his father, Rabbi Dovid Kaminetsky, at his first yahrzeit. 7:45 pm. 700 Ibsen St, Woodmere.

Magen David Adom has been saving lives since 1930, some 18 years before Israel became a state. We take immense pride in being Israel’s national emergency medical service and in supplying the blood and medical care for the soldiers who have ensured Israel’s existence. Join us in celebrating Israel’s independence on Yom HaAtzma’ut.

Monday June 3

Beth Sholom Dinner: 67th Annual Testimonial dinner to support Beth Sholom of Lawrence. Guests of Honor Phyllis & Philip Kerstein; Lifetime Service Award Pilar & Richie Olmedo. 6 pm. 390 Broadway, Lawrence. 516-569-3600 ext. 21.

Tuesday June 4

Saving lives. It’s in our blood.

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Save a life in Israel. Support Magen David Adom at afmda.org/yomha or call 866.632.2763.

Rosh Chodesh: Rabbi Sitorsky will speak for men at ECG Resources in honor of Rosh Chodesh Sivan. 1 pm. 148 Doughty Blvd Suite 312, Inwood. White Shul Dinner: 97th annual dinner, honoring Rabbi & Rebbetzin Motti & Avigayil Neuberger, celebrating Rabbi Neuberger’s installation as associate rabbi. 1395 Beech St, Atlantic Beach. 718-327-0500; info@whiteshul.com. Gesher Dinner: Celebrating 7 years of educational leadership at Gesher Early Childhood Center and inaugurating the Gesher Grandparents Dividend Fund. Ari & Chanie Friedman are guests of honor; Kesser Shem Tov Award to Ilan & Haviva Kranz. 7:45 pm. 410 Hungry Harbor Rd, Valley Stream. 516-730-7377; dinner@gesher-ECC.org.

Thursday June 6

Bake Sale: HALB PTA Shavuot bake sale at the home of Shira and Ari Hoschander. Also including items from Redefined Coffee and Ruthistoffee. 9 am to 12:30 pm; 7 pm to 9 pm. 45 Willow Rd, Woodmere. Pre-Shavuot Shiur: DRS’s Lev Shlomo Adult Education invites men and women to a series of community-wide shiurim. Rabbi Doniel Kalish speaks on “Unlocking Greatness to See Your Potential in Torah.” 10 am. 700 Ibsen St, Woodmere.

Friday June 7

Yarchei Kallah: Celebrate Shavuos with RIETS president, roshei yeshivah, rebbeim, faculty at the Stamford Hilton. World-class presenters with shiurim and lectures on a variety of levels. Families welcome. 1 First Stamford Pl, Stamford. 347-443-2353.

Wednesday June 12

Yachad Gala: Celebrating 35 years. Honring Lauri & Lewis Barbanel as Guests of Honor, Martha & Howard Hershkovich with Keter Shem Tov Award, and Tani Sussman with Community Service Award. 6:30 pm. 775 Branch Blvd, Cedarhurst. 212-613-8373.

Tuesday June 18

Emunah Supperette: The Esther Phillips chapter of Emunah will hold its annual supperette at the Chosen Island restaurant. 5 pm. 364 Central Ave, Lawrence. 718-868-3853. $54.

Sunday June 23

Israel Concert: Long Island’s Celebrate Israel Concert at Eisenhower Park. Featuring a performance by The Shuk! 7 pm. Henry Chapin Lakeside Theater, Parking Fields 6 & 6A, Westbury. 516-433-0433.

Thursday June 27

Nazi Art: Raymond Dowd speaks on “From Murder to Museums: Controversies over Nazi-Looted Art,” including restitution, advocacy for the return of stolen art, and coverage of ongoing cases. Great Neck Main Library community room. 2 pm. 159 Bayview Ave, Great Neck. 516-466-8055.

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Sunday May 26

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23 THE JEWISH STAR May 24, 2019 19 Iyar, 5779

Albany wants to expand NYC’s broken rent system statewide.

Albany’s rent proposals aren’t just a problem for New York City. They’re a problem for our communities. X They’ll make it impossible for many owners to afford to maintain their buildings, causing them to fall into disrepair.

X They’ll put thousands of local contractors out of work while discouraging new investment in affordable housing.

X Expansion statewide could drive up YOUR property taxes or cut services.

Call your State Legislators: Senate 518-455-2800 & Assembly 518-455-4100

Paid for by Taxpayers for an Affordable New York

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We need Responsible Rent Reforms.

May 24, 2019 19 Iyar, 5779 THE JEWISH STAR

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