The Jewish Star

The JEWISH Pinchas • July 6, 2018 • 23 Tammuz, 5778 • Torah columns pages 18 –19 • Luach page 18 • Vol 17, No 26

On peace plan’s eve: saying no to 2 states Analysis by Josh Hasten, JNS The Trump administration’s negotiating team of Jason Greenblatt and Jared Kushner left the Middle East last week after gauging interest in a new U.S.-backed peace plan to the longstanding Israeli-Palestinian conflict with top government officials in Israel, Jordan, Egypt, Qatar

and Saudi Arabia. Notably absent from the schedule were officials from the Palestinian Authority, who continue to boycott the administration following President Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.

The pending peace plan (details have not yet been made public) is believed to be based on many of the principles established during the 1993 Oslo Accords, which were intended to lead towards the creation of a two-state solution to the conflict.

Yet it is emerging from the same Trump administration that has publicly challenged the merits of decades of U.S. policy calling specifically for a two-state solution.

During a joint press conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in February 2017, Trump had said, “I am looking at two-state, and one-state, and I like the one that both parties like. I can live with either one.”

“I thought for a while the two-state looked like it may be the easier of the two,” he continued. “But honestly, if Bibi, and if the Palestinians, if Israel and the Palestinians are happy, I’m happy with the one they like the best.”

Meanwhile, 25 years after the signing of the Oslo Accords, “the old Clinton/Obama paSee Peace plan on page 23

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At HAFTR, m’dor l’dor

HAFTR third graders welcomed parents, grandparents and great-grandparents for a M’Dor L’Dor: Generation to Generation evening. Pictured front to back: Samantha Haller, Renee Sasson and Rubye Auerbach. More in Schools section, pages 12–13.

Jeff Bessen

Knesset bans ‘pay to slay’ payouts C’hurst pre-K parade

The 3 to 4 year olds of the Yellow Room at Gan Chamesh joined a rainbow of other Chabad of the Five Towns pre-schoolers, celebrating their graduation with a parade on Maple Avenue in Cedarhurst.

Tefillin practice makes perfect for YOSS boys Seventh graders at Yeshiva of South Shore celebrated their collective Bar Mitzvos and the mitzvah of tefillin that they’ve begun to observe, at a program that included a gala breakfast, divrei Torah relating to tefillin, and a visit by two sofrim of the Tefillin Awareness Project. Each talmid had a chance to have his tefillin examined and, if necessary, adjusted. They received tips to ensure that they are properly fulfilling the halachos of tefillin each day. The program is “a foundation for our talmidim in the proper observance of this all-important mitzvah,” said Rabbi Zev Davidowiz, menahel hamechina. “Doing the mitzvah the right way makes all the difference!”

Israeli lawmakers overwhelmingly approved legislation late on Monday that withholds tax transfers to the Palestinian Authority to offset salaries paid by Ramallah to terrorists or their families.

The bill, which passed 87-15, attacks practices dubbed “pay to slay,” which provide salaries to Palestinian and Israeli Arabs who attack Jews, with varying amounts given according to crime and sentence.

“The P.A. turned itself into a factory that employs murderers [of] Jews mostly but also Muslims, Christians, Druze, Circassians and others, including tourists,” said MK Avi Dichter of the Likud Party.

Each year, Israel transfers more than $2.4 billion in tax payments. The P.A. has dedicated a significant portion of its $5.2 billion to directly incentivize the murder of Jews through stipends to ter-

rorists and their families.

In its 2018 budget, the P.A. allocated $360 million for the Prisoners and Martyrs fund, which disperses payment to imprisoned terrorists, released terrorists and the families of dead terrorists.

Another co-sponsor, Yesh Atid Knesset member Elazar Stern, said the U.S. passage of the Taylor Force Act earlier this year inspired Israel to act. —JNS

Identity reinforced: Jewish-American GIs in WWII “We were on an obstacle course,” Friedman recalled. “I put in a burst of speed, and one of the non-Jewish men yelled, ‘You lousy Jew bastard’ because I beat him.”

Chavkin was sent to the Great Lakes Naval Station in Chicago, where he completed basic training as a Seaman Second Class. “Of over 200 students, there were only three Jews,” he said. He found friends among all classes. At officer school at Notre Dame, he played handball against the priests.

Having grown up near Floyd Bennett Field, Friedman had always wanted to fly. But after passing the rigorous physical and mental tests of Air Corps training, he was not chosen to pilot.

“The Air Corps was a club mostly of nonJews,” he said. “I was in the washout room, where I saw all of these Jewish guys. I said, ‘I still want to fly.’ So they let me be a bombardier.”

He was transferred to bombardier school in New Mexico, where he graduated and became a flight officer. He was later promoted to first lieutenant. Traveling across the U.S. to be deployed overseas, he recalled the country’s mobilization for war from the windows of his train: “Factories were working all day and night — welding, building ships. The U.S. went into full gear.”

May 8, 1945 marked Allied victory in Europe, but the war against Japan raged on. “The Japanese had occupied the whole Pacific Rim,” Friedman said. As Allied forces gained supremacy in the Pacific, they began massive air attacks on Japan’s urban and industrial centers. A bombardier in the 9th Bomb Group, 20th Air Force, Friedman was positioned in the airplane’s nose.

“I found out I was the most important guy on the ship, dropping bombs, going into the target.”

He was equipped with six guns that fired at the push of a button. From his base in the Mariana Islands, Friedman flew 25 missions over Japan. Planes traveled 18 hours nonstop, carrying all their fuel as well as tons of bombs.

Sampson Lester Friedman.

Three missions involved dropping incendiary bombs on Tokyo. To him, “it was as devastating as the atomic bomb,” he said. “Every time I went to the target, I said the Shema Yisrael.” But it was the only way to avert the loss of thousands of lives — U.S., allied, and Japanese — had an invasion of mainland Japan become necessary.

“We were out there to end the war,” said Friedman. “We destroyed people. I have to live with that. When we dropped the incendiaries by parachute, the tail gunner saw the damage …

The extreme heat generated a rising smoke upwards. I’ll never forget that smell.”

On one mission, Friedman shot down an oncoming kamikaze suicide bomber. He was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross, having saved the lives of the crew on the ship below.

Herb Chavkin, on the other hand, was drafted into the Navy. He was there for three years, including an eighteen-month stint as an engineering officer on an assault ship in the Philippines, and fought in the Battle for Leyte Gulf.

The battle, which lasted from October 23 to 25, 1944, crippled the Japanese combined fleet, enabling the U.S. invasion of the Philippines and reinforcing Allied control of the Pacific.

“I was a very lucky guy,” Chavkin said. “I was too young to know the danger.”

After the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan surrendered on September 2, 1945, aboard the deck of the U.S. battleship Missouri.

With the destruction of European Jewry, America’s Jewish community became the world’s largest. Jewish GIs, who had gone to war to fight the Nazis, found themselves profoundly changed. Their struggles to prove their courage as soldiers and patriots had strengthened them.

“I flew with Irish, Scotch, English and other Americans of different backgrounds and proved myself to be just as good as they,” said Friedman.

“Every time we took off, I said the Shema. I told myself, if I get through this I’m going to shul every Shabbat — and I did. The war reinforced my identity as a Jewish person.” It also left him with a long list of people to say Kaddish for.

After returning, Jewish veterans sought to return to civilian life and normalcy. Chavkin was discharged as a lieutenant junior grade, earned a graduate degree in pharmacy from Columbia, and raised two sons with his wife, Shirley.

“The war turned out to be an education for me personally,” he said. “I learned about diesel engineering, how to transmit orders to people, how to get along with people. I became a better human being because of it.”

In 1946, Friedman married Lila, “the love of my life,” and moved to Bellerose, where they raised three sons. He now speaks at the Bellerose Jewish Center every Memorial and Veterans Day, honoring servicemen killed in combat. “They laid their lives and never came home.

“This is the reason you are able to live in a free country today. There are no other countries with freedoms like ours.”

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By Lisa Schiffman for The Jewish Star It’s been over 73 years since Sampson Lester Friedman served in the U.S. Army Air Corps, but the memories haunt him to this day.

He was part of a 12-man crew flying in a Boeing B-29 VH Superfortress bomber whose mission was to drop incendiary bombs over Tokyo,.

“It was horrible, stinking, burning,” he recalled.

“The plane bounced around like a kite.”

Friedman, 94, now lives in Bellerose. He is one of 550,000 Jewish-American men and women who entered the United States Armed Forces during World War II. They served in all branches of the military and played an integral role in Allied victory over Germany and Japan. Their experiences have been portrayed in book and film.

Like all Americans, these men and women fought to defend freedom. Thousands were wounded; 11,000 were killed in action. For Jewish GIs from immigrant families, whose relatives’ lives were imperiled by the Nazi regime, it was personal. Jewish soldiers found themselves fighting on two fronts: against fascism in Europe, and within their own ranks, to dispel stereotypes of Jews as weaklings unfit for combat.

After Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, and Germany’s declaration of war against the United States two days later, Friedman, then a 19-year-old student at New York University, enlisted in the U.S. Army Air Corps. “Everyone wanted to serve,” he said.

“Europe was in flames.”

Herb Chavkin, 97, grew up in the Bronx. “I was a Jew,” he said. “As a result [I] did not feel it was wrong when I was drafted. I was anxious to overcome Germany. It was unbelievable that a country so advanced as Germany, a leading light of Europe, could have allowed and encouraged Adolf Hitler.”

For Friedman and Chavkin, who grew up in cities with large Jewish populations, adjustment to military life began with basic training.

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This Jew survived WW II — in Axis-era Japan

By Ben Sales, JTA Growing up in Imperial Japan during World War II, Isaac Shapiro’s best friend was a member of the Hitler Youth.

The friend wore the brown shirt to school every day, not because he wanted to, but because as a German he was expected to project support for the Fuehrer. His peers gently teased him for it.

“Everybody at school made fun of him,” Shapiro said. “We didn’t support the German Reich.”

Countless Jews have harrowing stories of growing up under Nazi rule, but Shapiro’s is different — he was one of the few Jews living in Japan at the time. He lived there when the United States dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima in 1945.

Shapiro, 87, is the author of “Edokko: Growing Up a Stateless Foreigner in Wartime Japan,” first released in 2010 and republished last year. The title refers to a person born and raised in Tokyo.

While Shapiro’s story contains elements of World War II-era totalitarianism — the police state, the pervasive propaganda — it is unique because it’s not a tragedy. Shapiro wanted the U.S. to win. He survived American bombings. He had some idea of what was happening to Europe’s Jews. But he also has fond recollections of his Japanese neighbors and childhood friends.

“We didn’t feel we were living among the enemy,” Shapiro told JTA. “Our neighbors were pleasant, decent people. We got the same food rations the Japanese got. They were very fair.”

Shapiro’s family came to Japan in a whirlwind. His parents, both Russian Jewish musicians, met and married in Berlin. They sensed danger early, immigrating to then-Palestine in 1926 to escape Nazi rule. When they found

Isaac Shapiro in 1950 and today.

The Shapiro family in Yokohama in 1941.

life difficult there, they moved to Harbin, a city in northeastern China with a large Russian Jewish population. In 1931, Shapiro’s father took a job at a music conservatory in Tokyo.

Shapiro was born in Japan, but lived in Japanese-occupied Harbin from 1931 to 1936 because his parents had separated. There, his family got a taste of the Japanese police state: in 1933, the Japanese military helped a gang kidnap his mother and a family friend, Simon Kaspe. His mother was released, but Kaspe was killed. The incident prompted his parents to reunite the family in Japan.

“The Japanese military were unusually autocratic and difficult,” Shapiro said, though in general he “didn’t feel any oppression or any change because of the Japanese taking over.”

His life was shaken up again by the escalation of World War II. After the Pearl Harbor attack, the United States and United Kingdom

declared war on Japan. Shapiro’s British school was closed.

His family needed to obtain permission whenever they wanted to leave Yokohama.

They received all their news from a heavily censored English newspaper.

“It made us much more conscious of the role of the military,” Shapiro said of the start of the war. “Military police were much more visible everywhere. They would call on us every now and then. We felt we were under surveillance.”

Despite the tight government control, Shapiro spent the early years of the war in the bubble of an international school. At home, he and his family would talk about their hopes for an American victory.

The family managed to maintain some Jewish practices while living within a Nazi ally. They would eat Shabbat dinners at home on Friday night, and his father wore a kippah at those meals. They avoided pork. On Passover, they imported matzah from Harbin.

“We knew what has happening to the Jews in Germany and we wanted Germany to lose the war,” Shapiro said. “We were very quiet about it and didn’t want the Japanese to think we were against them. Privately, we were

hopeful that Japan would lose the war.”

The war came home in 1944, when the Japanese military evacuated the coast and sent his family to Tokyo, where they endured heavy American bombing. They ran frequently to air raid shelters and pumped water to put out fires. A friend of Shapiro’s was killed in a bombing.

“Tokyo was burning,” Shapiro said. “The bombs fell all around us.”

By 1945, it was clear that Japan was losing, although censored newspapers downplayed defeats as temporary setbacks. When the atomic bomb hit Hiroshima, it was covered as a small item in the paper so as not to scare readers.

When the war ended, Shapiro met an American army officer seeking English speakers. He signed on, at age 14, to be a translator, and ended up translating for the U.S. Navy in Japan.

“I have to go home and get some clothes and tell my parents,” Shapiro recalled telling the officer. But his parents didn’t mind. “They were in such a state of shock,” he said.

A Marine officer and his wife took in Shapiro and, in 1946, with his parents’ encouragement, moved with him to Hawaii. Shapiro attended high school there, then went on to college and law school at Columbia, and a long career at the firms of Milbank Tweed and Skadden Arps.

In 1952, he served in the Korean War, sweeping for mines and interrogating Koreans in Japanese. In the late 1970s, he and his wife got to live in Japan during peacetime, helping establish Milbank Tweed’s Tokyo office.

“There were lots of Americans by that time,” Shapiro said of Tokyo. “It was completely different. When we went down to Hiroshima, it was unrecognizable.”

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THE JEWISH STAR July 6, 2018 • 23 Tammuz, 5778

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Things in Israel’s north can quickly go south Analysis by Yoav Limor, JNS he headlines trickling down from Israel’s north are far more dramatic than the situation on the ground: The Syrian army has yet to launch a full-scale offensive on rebel forces along the border; the influx of refugees has yet to turn into an uncontrollable flood, and the reinforcement of IDF troops on the Israel-Syria border is still relatively minor.

But make no mistake — the situation on the northern border is highly volatile and could quickly go south. Recent bombardments indicate that Syrian President Bashar Assad plans to retake control of the Daraa area on the Jordanian border, then turn his attention to the rebel pockets on the Syrian Golan Heights, a stone’s throw away from his border with Israel.

It is likely, however, that he will not launch a

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major offensive before the end of the World Cup, or at least not before Russia is eliminated from the tournament. In any event, the Helsinki summit between President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin, which will focus on Syria, has been set for July 16.

In the meantime, Assad is trying to pressure the rebels, and perhaps drive them to flee or surrender. The rebels, for their part, are trying to improve their positions.

Changes in their deployment can be clearly seen along the border with Israel, likely driven by the assumption that Syria will be wary of acting too close to the frontier so as not to risk a confrontation with Israel. It is doubtful that this possibility will deter Syria, if nothing else because of the clear message Israel has sent it — we will enforce the 1974 cease-fire agreement. In other words, Is-

rael has made it clear that the fighting is an internal Syrian issue and Israel will not fight for any rebel or refugee.

To avoid appearing completely passive, Israel deployed armored and artillery forces along its border with Syria on Sunday, with aim of deterring the Syrian army from violating the 1974 agreement by ordering the mass deployment of troops on the Golan Heights. But this move also sought to warn Iran against entertaining the idea of exploiting the Syrian army’s reoccupation of the territory to plant its militias near the Israeli border. ecent conversations between Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman and his Russian counterpart Sergei Shoigu, and the meeting held by IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Gadi Eizenkot with U.S. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of

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SOUTH NASSAU AND BLUECROSS HAVE REACHED AN AGREEMENT

Staff Gen. Joseph Dunford in Washington sought to coordinate this issue and clarify Israel’s position — yes to the return of the Syrian army to the Golan Heights; no to any Iranian presence in the area, even if it means military confrontation.

Israeli defense officials believe that the Syrian army’s takeover of the area will be fast, albeit not necessarily easy. Therefore, it is unlikely that the IDF would be able to remain on the fence — figuratively and literally — should intense fighting erupt on the Golan Heights, certainly if rebel groups take desperate measures to provoke the IDF into action and against the backdrop of the masses of refugees who may seek sanctuary in Israel.

The Israeli leadership has already made it clear that it will supply Syrian refugees with humanitarian aid but will not grant them entry into its territory. But as the fighting intensifies and with it the flood of horrific images from Syria, the call to do something more will surely grow louder.

It is in Israel’s interest to get through the next few weeks without military entanglement in the north. Once the dust settles, Israel will once again be dealing with one person in charge.

Assad may emerge from the fighting weaker but he still enjoys Russia and Iran’s backing. The latter is sure to look for every way possible to undermine the stability that has prevailed along the border for four decades. Israel is bracing for this possibility, knowing that the volatility in the area will peak in the near future.

Study finds bias at PBS

Good News! South Nassau Communities Hospital and Empire BlueCross BlueShield last week reached an agreement to keep South Nassau “in-network.” Some BlueCross members received a letter in May indicating South Nassau might be out of network as of July 1. As a result of the new agreement, BlueCross members will enjoy continued “in-network” access to all South Nassau hospital services and those provided by its participating physicians.

We are very grateful for the support and patience we received throughout the last month from our patients and BlueCross members. We also would like to thank our elected officials who came to the aid of South Nassau, especially New York State Senator Todd Kaminsky; Town of Hempstead Councilman Anthony D’Esposito; New York State Assemblyman Brian Curran; New York State Assemblywoman Melissa Miller; New York State Assemblywoman Michaelle Solages; Nassau County Legislator Denise Ford; Nassau County Legislator Howard Kopel; Nassau County Comptroller Jack Schnirman; Town of Hempstead Supervisor Laura Gillen; Nassau County Executive Laura Curran; Rep. Kathleen Rice; Freeport Mayor Bob Kennedy; Island Park Mayor Mike McGinty; Rockville Centre Mayor Fran Murray and former New York State Assemblyman Harvey Weisenberg.

Thanks also are due to South Nassau staff and our voluntary board members for standing by the hospital. Finally, we want to thank BlueCross leadership for negotiating in good faith and ultimately acting in the best interests of our patients and BlueCross members.

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An investigation by the media watchdog group CAMERA has revealed bias in school curriculum produced by PBS on the IsraeliPalestinian conflict.

PBS now offers American schoolteachers lesson plans to accompany some of its documentaries. And unlike its hallmark science and entertainment programs, these lesson plans are neither apolitical nor objective, CAMERA said.

“The lesson plans that purport to teach about the Arab-Israeli conflict [based on documentaries previously aired on PBS] fail to explore fundamental, underlying causes of the conflict and reduce the issues to a ‘good guy-bad guy’ scenario,” CAMERA media analyst Ricki Hollander said.

“The films used in these lesson plans present an oversimplified image in which Palestinians are cast as the victims and Israel as the villain in the role of aggressor or bigot. This image is conveyed either by the protagonists themselves or through the context in which the conflict is presented.”

One of the examples noted in the investigation was the program “5 Broken Cameras,” which film critics label “a polemical work.”

PBS chose this film to instruct students about differing points of view, but as CAMERA notes, the lesson exposes students only to the Palestinian filmmaker’s point of view.

PBS lessons about Israel’s security barrier focus on Palestinians who are inconvenienced or otherwise impacted by the barrier.

“Without focusing equally on the brutal Palestinian terrorism that prompted the barrier’s construction or mentioning the barrier’s success in preventing the deaths of innocent Israeli civilians,” Hollander says, “the students cannot help but come away with a distorted picture of excessive and malicious restrictions placed on innocent Palestinians by ruthless Israeli occupiers.”

A lesson that teaches about the Palestinian claim to the “right of return” is based on a film

by Mahdi Fleifel that erases the war launched

by Arab leaders and presents a false version of events in which Palestinians are said to have been expelled from their homes in order “to make way for Jewish immigrants.”—JNS

Agudah’s Rabbi Shafran on the immigrant kids:

7 THE JEWISH STAR July 6, 2018 • 23 Tammuz, 5778

Us, them, and the ‘Deep State’

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Rabbi Avi Shafran, public information direc- wrenching not only to a broad swath of the tor of Agudath Israel of America, writes a weekly larger American public but to a wide swath, column for Hamodia, which declined to publish too, of Klal Yisrael — rachmanim, after all, bnei this submission. He posted it at rachmanim. So it was not inapRabbiAviShafran.com and it is propriate for us to register our reprinted here with permission. pain. And, with scores of reliThe two-thirds of the Amergious groups registering their ican populace that objected to own protests of the policy, the policy of removing children some of them quite harshly, from their illegal immigrant it was felt that, should the parents at the southern border Agudah say nothing, it would emitted a collective sigh of rebe assumed to approve of the lief last week. President Trump, policy. in a stunning turnabout, signed Striking, though, was the an executive order intended to lack of information that understop the practice. lay some other (often vociferAlthough there are logistious) complaints. Several peocal and legal issues still to be ple, “informed” presumably resolved, and subsequent presiby news sources that richly dential tweets to try to recondeserve the adjective “fake,” Rabbi Avi Shafran cile with the executive order, insisted that “the law” requires the president demonstrated family breakups, and that the the courage to publicly jettison his repeated policy of considering unlawful entrants to be claim that he was powerless to act, that only a criminals had been in place under previous larger action by Democrats in Congress could administrations. When I explained that there end the separation policy. He deserves credit for that move.

Before his reversal, though, the administration’s policy was to treat people who entered the country illegally as felons rather than civil violation offenders (first-time illegal entry is a misdemeanor). Children, even very young ones, were taken from their parents against their will, and the policy was broadly decried.

Among the decriers Here’s how The Jewish Star’s June 22 edition covered statements by Agudah, was Agudath Israel the OU and the RCA on the immigrant children. of America, which expressed its “deep concern and disappointment” was and is no such law, and that the policy of over the resultant “profound suffering and pain automatically considering illegal entrants to to both parents and children.” our country deserving of incarceration and the The Agudah statement acknowledged that seizing of their children was mere weeks old, the “problem of illegal immigration is a seri- they seemed taken aback. ous one, and we support reasonable efforts by Others apprised us that a “deep state” plot, the administration and legislature to effectively or Democratic Party conspiracy, was clearly at stem the flow of would-be immigrants who play; others were upset that we dared “attack” have not been accepted through the legal im- a sitting president, although we took care in our migration system.” But it contended that “seek- statement to not even mention the president or ing to enforce our statutes does not relieve us attorney general, and lamented only the upshot of [our] moral obligation” to prevent “the ex- of an unfortunate policy. When, in past years, treme anguish, fear and trauma born of sepa- the Agudah issued statements critical of the rating undocumented immigrant family mem- Obama administration for joining the U.N. Hubers, which is particularly harmful to children.” man Rights Council or fostering the Iran Deal, he reaction to Agudath Israel’s statement no complaints, to the best of my memory, were was broad and diverse. There were many registered. expressions of gratitude for its issuance, Some correspondents, seemingly having from both members of our community and oth- read only part of the statement, interpreted the ers. But there were a number of negative reac- Agudah’s expression of humanitarian concern tions too. I serve as the Agudah’s liaison with as advocacy for “open borders.” As if there are the media and public, and so those reactions only two options: wrenching kids from their landed in my inbox, some with quite a thud. parents’ arms, or having the country overrun They confirmed something that (as regular by a horde of Aztec invaders. readers of this space well know) has pained me The acutely politicized, black-and-white, for years: the prevalence of gross, fervent and “us-and-them” and often woefully misinformed unthinking partisanship. mentality in parts of our world is lamentable.

A legitimate question asked by several Intelligent, informed opinions on current events people was why the Agudah felt the need to cannot be gleaned from talk radio hosts or blacomment on the situation at all. The organiza- tantly partisan news organizations. Astuteness tion does not, of course, regularly comment on requires middos tovos, the consideration of difevents that lack direct impact on the Jewish ferent points of view and the application of that community. most important of skills: critical thinking.

The knowledge, though, that wailing chilAnd their lack poorly serves the mission of dren were being taken from their parents was Klal Yisrael.

July 6, 2018 • 23 Tammuz, 5778 THE JEWISH STAR

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The JEWISH STAR

Wine & Dine

With love for America, a patriotic cherry pie Who’s in the Kitchen

JuDY Joszef

Jewish Star columnist

T

he Fourth of July is the result of the undaunted efforts and unyielding commitment of our American forefathers.

They worked through animosity, trepidation and at a great risk to their lives to succeed in establishing this great country.

The first official Fourth of July party was held at the White House in 1801, although Independence Day was not declared a national holiday until 1941. And I bet you didn’t know that the stars on the original American flag were in a circle, so all the colonies would appear equal.

In 1776, there were 2.5 million people living in the new nation. In 2017, there were over 325 million. Many of those were immigrants, like my husband’s dad, Miklosh Joszef a”h.

After surviving the Holocaust, he arrived in America penniless and alone, having lost his entire family in the concentration camps. He worked as a factory worker before seizing the opportunity to start his own business and live the American dream.

He was always proud and grateful to be an American citizen. He loved everything about America, took his citizenship very seriously, and never missed an opportunity to exercise his right to vote. He also loved the fun and leisure that our wonderful country provides.

One of Mr. Joszef’s greatest pleasures was taking my husband Jerry, his brother Seme, and a bunch of their friends to Yankee Stadium, where they would view the game in $1.50 unreserved seats in the right field upper deck. Rumor had it that those tiny figures down below were actually playing a Major League baseball game.

On their first trip to the stadium, Mickey Mantle hit a home run into their section to win the game. Jerry’s love for Mantle has never abated since.

When the national anthem was sung, Jerry’s dad placed his hat over his heart and proudly sang along with patriotic zeal, and with perfect allegiance to the phonetic sounds that

made up the words he did not know. He had a vocabulary all his own.

One of my favorite stories is that of Jerry’s first drive to the Catskills. With his dad’s directions, he headed north and became hopelessly lost. He spotted a police officer and asked where the Top and Center Bridge was. “There is no such bridge,” was the reply.

Jerry said that was impossible, as his dad was great with directions and never got lost (a skill he had not inherited).

The officer asked where he was headed.

“The country,” Jerry replied.

“What country?” the police officer asked.

“You know, the country. Everyone goes up to the country in the summer.”

The officer was still not sure what Jerry meant, so Jerry clarified: “The mountains, you know what I mean now?” After a while, the officer realized his dad must have meant the Tappan Zee. Jerry’s mom and dad loved to take road trips through the U.S. to see as much of it as possible. They would travel to New Hampshire, Maine, and Vermont, where they would visit “The Gilligan Mountains” (Killington). They would go to the opera, ballet and the theater. But Jerry and his brother much preferred going to the “mountains” and spending time in Turkin’s

bungalow colony, a well-known vacation destination. There, every Sunday, his dad would ferry several carloads of kids to the movies. He was the only one who had a car, and he didn’t want to leave any kids out, so he would make a few trips.

Until Jerry was in his teens, he didn’t realize that there were actual start times to the movies. They would just get there, start watching the movie, and stay for the next performance to watch what they missed. Then in the middle, they would all stand up, exclaim how great the movie was, and then leave the theater. I promise,these are all true stories. Just ask Sol Genuth, Neil Stein, Ira Grosser, Bob Gittleman, and Rabbi Yotav Eliach, who knew Jerry’s parents back then.

This 4th of July, why not try this easy to make stars and stripes pie? It’s a creative end to a patriotic day.

Patriotic Cherry Berry Pie 1 can cherry pie filling 12 ounces frozen mixed berries, drained 2 pie crusts (one for trim on top) Flour, for dusting 1 egg, lightly beaten 1 Tbsp. sugar Preheat oven to 375 degrees. In a large bowl, combine cherry pie filling and mixed berries. Set aside.

Unfold bottom crust onto floured pie dish. Pour berry filling into the piecrust. Roll out second piecrust on a floured surface and cut 3 half-inch-wide strips that will reach from the middle of the pie to the side, and 3 strips that will reach from side to side. With remaining dough, cut out 5 stars, each the size of a quarter. Place them in the upper left corner of the pie top and then attach the strips, following the picture as a guide.

Brush dough with beaten egg and sprinkle lightly with sugar. Reduce oven to 350 F. Bake until berry filling starts bubbling in the middle of the pie. If dough starts to brown too quickly, cover lightly with aluminum. Let cool completely before serving.

And whether you’re staying home, going to friends or family, traveling via the Top and Center Bridge, or enjoying the beauty of the Gilligan Mountains, take a moment to thank Hashem, our founding fathers, and the many heroes who sacrificed their lives on the altar of freedom.

This column originally appeared in 2012.

Favorite Israeli condiment: pickled mango sauce

By Sonya Sanford, The Nosher via JTA f you’ve been to a falafel or shwarma stand in Israel, then you have probably heard of amba. It’s a spiced pickled mango condiment whose popularity in Israel comes by way of the Iraqi Jewish community. This flavorful condiment is commonly found in Iraq and across the Middle East, as well as in India. In fact, amba originated in India, and the word means “mango” in Marathi.

You can find countless recipes and variations for amba, but the main and required ingredient is mango. Most recipes also include mustard seed, turmeric, chili and fenugreek. Fenugreek, an herb that is often used in Indian, Persian, Turkish and Middle Eastern cooking, has a unique maple syrup-like aroma and can add herbacious sweetness to a dish.

Traditionally, amba is made by slicing and salting green mangoes and placing them in a jar in the sun to ferment for five days. Afterward, the mango is removed from the jar and left to dry in sunlight for three to four hours. Once dried, it is simmered with spices and then jarred for use. You’ll definitely get a deeper flavor if you allow for longer fermentation of the mango, but you might want to make amba when you don’t have access to five sunny days in a row — or you just don’t want to wait that long.

Inspired by the techniques of many home cooks, I decided to make a quicker-pickled amba. You still salt the mango, and you let it sit in that salt overnight, but that’s the extent of the wait time. The cured mango then gets cooked with a variety of spices and aromatics, and finally vinegar is added.

Amba is ideally made with green, unripe mangoes, which can be tricky to find. For this recipe any mango will work, but it is best to use ones that are firm and not fully ripe. This recipe makes a mildly spicy amba; you can adjust the level of heat depending on how much chili and cayenne you add. Skip the cayenne entirely if you don’t like things spicy; add an extra

I

chili and a bigger pinch of cayenne if you can take the heat.

As versatile as it is delicious, amba is unlike any other hot sauce. In our home, we like to have it on hand during the summertime because it goes great with just about any grilled protein: chicken, steak, tofu or fish. It’s also nice to have for a grain bowl topping. Amba added to some yogurt with a little lemon juice also makes a perfect dip for vegetables or pita chips. Amba adds a tangy, fruity pop of heat to any dish.

Ingredients: 3 pounds, or 4 large firm unripened mangoes 3 Tbsp. kosher salt 3 Tbsp. oil 6 cloves garlic, finely minced 1 medium Fresno chili, seeded and diced fine, or to taste 2 tsp. mustard seeds 1 Tbsp. ground turmeric 2 tsp. ground fenugreek 2 tsp. ground coriander 2 tsp. ground cumin Pinch of cayenne, or to taste 3 Tbsp. brown sugar, or to taste (or substitute your preferred sweetener) 1 cup water 1/2 cup white vinegar Directions: 1. Peel your mangoes, then slice the fruit around the pit.

Dice the mango into small cubes; they do not have to be even or perfect. Add the diced mango to a large nonreactive bowl.

Add the salt to the mango and toss until everything is wellcoated. Cover the bowl and refrigerate for 1 day.

2. After the mango has cured in the fridge, add oil to a large pot or deep sauté pan over medium-low heat. Add the mustard seeds to the oil. When they begin to make popping sounds, add the finely minced garlic and diced chili. Sauté until softened

and fragrant, but before anything begins to brown, about 2 to 3 minutes. Add the remaining spices: turmeric, fenugreek, coriander, cumin and cayenne. Stir and sauté for an additional minute.

3. Add the mango, brown sugar and water to the pot. Stir, increase the heat and bring the liquid up to a simmer. Simmer for 5 to 6 minutes, or until the mango has softened and the liquid has slightly reduced. Turn off the heat and add the vinegar to the mango mixture. Taste and adjust to your liking by adding more vinegar, sugar, salt or spices if needed.

4. Using an immersion blender or blender, puree the mango to the desired consistency. I like mine a little chunky with about half of the mango pieces still intact. If you would like your amba smoother, purée it for longer and add water to thin it out. Note that amba will thicken slightly as it cools.

5. Once cooled, transfer the amba to jars and refrigerate.

Amba keeps well in the fridge for about 2 to 3 weeks. Makes 3 pints.

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July 6, 2018 • 23 Tammuz, 5778 THE JEWISH STAR

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The JEWISH STAR

Nutty Cole Slaw with Tropical and Citrus Fruits.

Brussels Sprouts Honey Mustard Slaw.

Wine & Dine

Tri-colored Cole Slaw.

Coleslaw recipes for your summer delight 1 small head green cabbage 3 pounds carrots, peeled 2 cups mayonnaise, regular, low or non-fat JoNi SCHoCKeTT 1 cup vinegar (more if you like) Jewish Star columnist 1 tsp. salt 1 Tbsp. sugar (more to taste) 1/2 to 1 tsp. paprika ehold the coleslaw! The truth is that most people do OPTIONAL: 2 to 3 Tbsp. caraway seeds not. The mostly-ignored garnish, found in restaurants Remove the outermost leaves of the cabbages and discard. and often tossed out with the trash, is often ignored or Cut the cabbages into quarters and remove the cores. Cut the set aside. Who thinks about coleslaw? It’s just there. cabbages into pieces to fit your processor feed tube.

Still, coleslaw is some people’s favorite at summer barbeShred the cabbage and carrots using the medium shredding cues. Most restaurants sell it, and many kosher delis put out disc. Place in a large bowl and toss to mix. Whisk the mayona bowl of it beside the pickles for hungry diners to snack on naise, vinegar, salt, sugar and paprika together, and pour over before their food arrives. the shredded cabbage and carrots. Add the caraway seeds, if Coleslaw comes in all forms, from plain green cabbage to using, and toss. Mix well, cover and refrigerate. Serves a crowd. more complex flavored mixtures. The recipe goes all the way Nutty Cole Slaw with Tropical back to ancient times, when folks ate cabbage sliced, pickled and Citrus Fruits (Pareve) or fermented. The ancient version was more like sauerkraut, 3 cups shredded green cabbage but with added veggies and raw eggs mixed in.

3 cups shredded purple cabbage The world of shredded cabbage changed with the creation 3 cups shredded carrots of mayonnaise, sometime in the 18th century. Dutch Ameri1 red onion, diced cans in New Amsterdam created a dish of mayonnaise and 1 cup slivered almonds cabbage called “koolsla,” which means “cabbage salad.” Some 1 to 2 cups walnuts, chopped coarsely Americans translated that into “cold slaw,” which is some2 small cans mandarin orange segments, drained times seen on restaurant menus even today.

1 can pineapple chunks, drained, each piece cut in half Mayonnaise truly changed the history of coleslaw. In went DRESSING: the mayo; out went the raw eggs. The mayonnaise added oils, 1 tsp celery seeds vinegars and other spices to the mix. Different ethnicities cre1/2 tsp. salt ated their own versions. Jewish delis added sugar or honey 1 tsp. dry mustard and carrots. Russians liked apples and raisins, and the Swed1/2 tsp. paprika ish liked vinegar and oil. German immigrants used vinegar, 1/3 to 1/2 cup sugar, to taste oil, onions, and apples. Other cultures added meats, and some 2 tsp. to 1 Tbsp. grated onion added sour cream and sugar. Some recipes added buttermilk 3/8 cup apple cider vinegar or sour cream and many added lots more veggies, herbs and 1/8 cup raspberry vinegar spices. Over the centuries, the dish has changed little.

2 Tbsp. fresh orange juice You can make up your own coleslaw recipe using any kinds 2 tsp. fresh lemon juice of veggies you have on hand. Some supermarkets and health 1/2 to 3/4 cup canola oil food stores offer ready-to-use packages of broccoli or kale Shred the cabbage and carrots using the medium shredding slaw, Brussels sprouts, or more. You can use mayo or just vin- disc of the food processor. Place in a large bowl and mix well. egars and herbs with some oil.

Dice the onion and add to the cabbage mix.

Cabbage is very healthful and high in fiber. If you dress it Mix the dry ingredients of the dressing together in a Tuppersparingly, you can make a delicious dish with very few calo- ware-like container. Mix well. Add the vinegars and juices and ries and still enjoy the side dish we never think about. Cole- cover and shake until the sugar is dissolved. Add the oil, cover slaw deserves more consideration. and shake to emulsify.

Tri-colored Cole Slaw (Pareve) Add the nuts to the cabbages and toss. Add as much dressFor fewer people, use about half of each ingredient. ing as desired and toss well. Save any dressing for a kid-favorite 1 small head purple cabbage salad dressing. Chill. Add the fruit just before serving and mix well. Serves a crowd.

Brussels Sprouts Honey Mustard Slaw (Pareve) 1 lb Brussels sprouts, thinly sliced (you can buy pre-sliced) 2 cups shredded purple cabbage 1/2 to 1 cup slivered almonds or chopped walnuts or hazelnuts, toasted or sunflower seeds 1/2 to 1 cup tart dried cherries or dried cranberries, OPTIONAL: 1/2 cup finely shredded Parmesan cheese or crumbled goat cheese DRESSING: Apple Jicama Slaw with Two Dressings.

Green Goddess Dressing and Dip.

Kosher Kitchen

B

1/4 to 1/3 cup extra-virgin olive oil 2 to 3 Tbsp. apple cider vinegar 1 to 2 Tbsp. honey, agave or pure maple syrup 1 to 2 Tbsp. Dijon mustard, to taste (start with one and adjust) 1 to 2 garlic cloves, pressed through a garlic press 1/4 tsp. kosher or sea salt Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Place the nuts on a foil lined baking sheet and toast for 2 to 4 minutes until barely fragrant and lightly golden. They will continue to toast a bit after removing from the oven. Let cool.

If shredding the sprouts yourself, trim the edges and rinse well.

Place on paper towels to dry. Slice them in a food processor, using a 1 or 2 mm slicing disc. Change to a medium shredding disc and shred the purple cabbage. Place the sprouts and cabbage in a large bowl and toss to mix.

Add the dried berries and dressing to the bowl and toss to mix. If using, sprinkle with the shredded cheese just before serving. Serves a crowd.

Apple Jicama Slaw with Two Dressings (Dairy or Pareve) 1/2 small head green cabbage 1/2 small head purple cabbage 2 large carrots, peeled and shredded 2 tart green apples, Granny Smith, cored and thinly sliced 2 sweet red apples, Fuji-type, cored and thinly sliced 1/2 cup flat leaf parsley, leaves only 1/2 cup thinly sliced scallions OPTIONAL: 1/2 to 1 cup slivered almonds Use a medium shredding disc of a food processor and shred the cabbages and carrots. Place in a large bowl and toss to mix.

Peel and cut the jicama into thin slices, then into matchsticks.

Add the parsley and scallions. Toss to mix.

Core all the apples and thinly slice. Cut slices into matchsticks. Add to the bowl and toss. Add the slivered almonds, if using.

Make the preferred dressing and add to the bowl. Toss to coat. Serves a small crowd.

Asian Style Sweet and Spicy Dressing (Pareve) 6 Tbsp. rice wine vinegar 6 Tbsp. canola oil 3 Tbsp. tamari sauce 3 Tbsp. dark brown sugar 2 Tbsp. grated fresh ginger 1-1/2 to 2 tbsp. grated fresh garlic 1/2 cup very thinly sliced scallions 1/3 cup creamy peanut butter (preferable all natural unsweetened) Place all ingredients in a small container with a tight lid.

Shake well to emulsify.

Makes about 1 cup.

Green Goddess Dressing and Dip (dairy) Adjust for taste by varying the herbs.

1/2 small yellow onion 1 to 2 small cloves garlic 3/4 cup mayonnaise 3/4 cup sour cream 1/2 cup fresh parsley, chopped, stems removed, to taste, minced, to taste 1/4 cup fresh tarragon, thyme or basil leaves 1/4 cup minced chives 2-3 Tbsp. freshly squeezed lemon juice Salt and freshly cracked black pepper Place all of the ingredients in the bowl of a food processor and pulse until the mixture reaches the desired consistency.

Taste and adjust any herbs or seasonings you like.

Makes about 2 cups dip or salad dressing.

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July 6, 2018 • 23 Tammuz, 5778 THE JEWISH STAR

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JEWISH STAR

AVNET preps for safe summer

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

Far Rock rep at S’hevet “Safety first” was the theme at Avnet’s staff orientation, with 300 staffers attending educational workshops guided by director Daniel Stroock on campus security, water safety, camper participation, and separation anxiety. A representative from Amudim led a critical discussion on professionalism and safety for camp counselors.

“At Avnet, we are committed to providing campers with exciting activities in a safe, secure and sensitive environment,” said Stroock.

“We’ve assembled a responsible team that understands that our number-one priority is the happiness and well-being of our campers. We’re looking forward to a wonderful summer.”

LI carnival at Yachad’s Ivdu Far Rockaway Assemblywoman Stacey Pheffer Amato, accompanied by her chief of staff Amanda Kernozek and Teach NYS’s Annie Watman and Sydney Altfield, visited Midreshet Shalhevet to experience its STEM curriculum. Sarah Yastrab, parent of junior Nava and alumna Tamar (’16), arranged the visit. “To know that we have such amazing support in Albany is very heartwarming as a parent,” she told the visitors.

“Our STEM curriculum is a testament to our commitment to our students,” said menahelet Esther Eisenman. “It is an expensive commitment that we understand is of para-

mount importance, which is why we have undertaken our current program, and continue to expand it each and every year. These are young ladies who love to learn!”

After lunch, the esteemed guests were treated to a display of students’ STEM projects. The girls pointed out the skills that they have gained from STEM classes this year: creativity, practical math, problem solving, language skills, and multitasking.

Freshmen Leah Cohen and Ayala Feder displayed the websites they have been building all year to build and explained the coding See Shalhevet on page 13

In the spirit of v’ahavta l’reiacha kamocha, students at Ivdu Long Island hosted an exciting carnival for the nursery class of Yeshivas Noam Hatorah, located in the same building.

Ivdu, a division of Yachad, is a special education school located in Congregation Ohr Torah in North Woodmere. The school provides an individualized academic and social curriculum in a small, supportive yeshiva class setting with a

high staff-to-student ratio. Students also benefit from the services of skilled speech, occupational, and physical therapists.

In preparation for the carnival, the students thought of ideas for their booths and designed and created the materials that were needed.

They also illustrated posters for each game. As the day drew closer, the students practiced encouraging younger children to play. They roleplayed teaching nursery students the rules of the game and giving positive feedback, like “Great job!” or “Try again!”

On carnival day, the Ivdu students excitedly set up their booths, and the nursery students lined up to play each game and earn tickets for winning. At the end of the activity, the students helped nursery children count their tickets and choose prizes. Finally, they switched roles and enjoyed playing the games that their classmates had created.

The carnival helped students gain and apply many practical social and academic skills. First, teachers modeled planning and organization skills. The students utilized “perspective taking” by thinking of game ideas that nursery students would enjoy playing. They also practiced following and giving directions in a natural environment. Basic math concepts helped them distribute and count the tickets.

Judging by the smiles on all faces, it was difficult to decide who had a better time — the carnival “staff” or the nursery students who attended.

Jewish studies Ph.D. at Touro Shulamith girls in talent expo Shulamith’s annual Fourth Grade Night of the Arts is a finale event showcasing all the girls have learned in art, music and dance.

This year’s festivities opened with a music and dance performance. Morah Tali Spector taught each class a different dance to Hebrew music, and Morah Rena Greenberg worked with the girls on four songs with a theme of hakarat hatov to Hashem.

Guests were surprised to find the gym

and lunchroom transformed into art galleries. Each girl displayed four pieces of artwork she had created over the year under the guidance of Naomi Weintraub, inspired by artists Frank Stella and Roy Lichtenstein.

The girls recreated famous pieces of art while infusing their own creativity and imagination.

The evening was an elegant venue for the girls to show their creative talents.

Touro College’s Graduate School of Jewish Kadish also announced the appointment of Studies (GSJS) will launch a Ph.D. program in Dr. Shnayer Leiman, a leading scholar in JewJewish Studies in September 2018, Touro’s first ish studies, to the faculty of GSJS. Dr. Leiman is Professor Emeritus of Jewish History doctoral course of study in the arts and Literature in the Department of and sciences. GSJS Dean Michael A. Judaic Studies at Brooklyn College Shmidman has spent a decade deof the City University of New York, veloping the program. and teaches at the Bernard Revel Dean Shmidman, an ordained Graduate School of Yeshiva Univerrabbi and scholar of Jewish Studies, sity. Prior to that, he served as Proholds a Ph.D. from Harvard in Near fessor of Jewish History and LiteraEastern Languages and Civilizations ture at Yale. Dr. Leiman earned his and an MA from Hebrew University rabbinic ordination from the Mirrer in Jewish Philosophy. He described Yeshiva in New York. the program as “the beginning of a “It is a privilege to have this esnew phase in Touro’s contribution teemed scholar and teacher join our to knowledge about the intellectual, faculty and work side by side with social and political history of the Dr. Shnayer Leiman our students as they embark on their Jewish people.”

“Touro’s mission is to transmit and enrich doctoral studies and research,” said Kadish.

“It is Touro’s commitment to academic exthe Jewish heritage and its tradition of intellectual inquiry,” said Dr. Alan Kadish, President of cellence in Jewish Studies that attracted me Touro College. “This program is an important and I am honored to become a member of its See Judaic Touro on page 13 step towards fulfilling that vision.”

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Shalhevet… Judaic educators share their strategies Over 100 educators representing Modern Orthodox high schools across the United States participated in YHShare, a two-day conference of yeshiva high school Judaic Studies teachers organized by the Torah Educators Network (TEN).

The first day, at Frisch in Paramus, focused on Bible and Jewish philosophy. The second day, at Torah Academy of Bergen County (TABC) in Teaneck, concentrated on Talmud and Jewish history.

“Teachers in yeshiva high school classrooms across the country are facing the exact same challenges, and there’s a teacher somewhere who has a creative solution,” explained TEN Founder Rabbi Perry Tirschwell. “There must be a venue for those teachers to learn from each other, hence the name ‘YHShare.’

“As opposed to public and most parochial schools, Jewish day schools are independent.

There is no central organization that coordinates curriculum or pedagogy, and only a handful of forprofit vendors who are addressing high schools.”

The program was dedicated in memory of Rabbi Dovid Kaminetsky, the middle school principal at Rosenbaum Yeshiva of North Jersey, who N. Aaron Troodler

Continued from page 12 behind them.

Sophomores Leah Rubin and Tal Gaon demonstrated a robotic hand built from scratch, which opens and closes. They explained how they wired each component, attached it to a motor, and coded it to move.

They then joined classmate Avigayil Roffe to present a giant menorah their class built for Chanukah — over four feet tall, built out of PVC pipe, painted, and wired and coded to actually work. Tal Gaon also presented an app designed to recommend books, and explained how she built the algorithm behind it.

Junior Hadassah Krigsman exhibited a two-person robotic game she built, where LED lights travel down a track, and each player must press a button to stop the lights before they reach the end. Juniors Becky Haviv, Shifra Chait, and Sima Bochner demonstrated the mousetrap vehicle they constructed for the Science Olympiad this year, which travels forwards and backwards using only the energy generated from mousetraps.

Assemblywoman Pheffer Amato was impressed with her young constituents. “It is my job to fight for schools to get the money they need, so that you can have this wonderful education,” she said. “It is so special that you showed me what you have been learning, so I can take that message up to my colleagues in Albany and tell them we are creating the next generation.”

Aliza Feder, who heads the Midreshet Shalhevet STEM curriculum, said, “I was so proud of the students as they gave an eloquent and animated presentation of the projects that they have been working on.” Rosh hayeshiva Rabbi Zev Meir Friedman commended the girls for their determination.

Judaic Touro…

Continued from page 12 faculty,” said Leiman. “I look forward to working together with the graduate faculty, and to mentoring doctoral students while learning from them in the process.”

passed away the previous week. Participating schools included Ateres, Bruriah, Central, DRS, HANC, Ma’ayanot, Magen David, MTA, Naaleh, Kushner, Ramaz, SAR, Frisch, SKA, TABC and Flatbush, as well as Fuchs Mizrachi (Ohio), RASG and Katz (Florida), Ida Crown (Illinois), Shalhevet and YULA Girls (California), Ulpana (Toronto) and Kohelet (Pennsylvania).

In addition, there were participants from the Avi Chai Foundation, Prizmah, RIETS, and the AzTouro’s program will offer a specialization in modern Jewish studies — sixteenth century to the present day. Specialization in medieval Jewish studies will soon be offered as well.

Since the school’s founding in 1981, more than 1,500 students have graduated from various branches of the Graduate School of Jewish Studies.

rieli Graduate School of Jewish Education & Administration.

Sssions included “Using Jewish History to Discuss Core Identity Issues,” “Reaching Struggling Gemara Learners,” and “Should We Raise Philosophical Questions We Can’t Fully Answer?”

In an interactive session entitled “Designing Solutions to Common Challenges,” small groups of educators brainstormed and shared resources on teaching Nach, alternative assessment, and time and structures for learning.

In a discussion on “The Teacher’s Great Balancing Act: Rigor, Relationships & Religious Growth,” educators responded to questions about building a culture of religious growth in the classroom. The panel was moderated by Rabbi Dovid Bashevkin and included Rabbi Eli Cine of Frisch, Rivka Kahan of Ma’ayanot, Rabbi Yisroel Kaminetsky of HALB, Racheli Luftglass of YULA Girls High School, and Rabbi Asher Yablok of TABC. “It was such a valuable experience to be able to connect with other like-minded educators nationwide, especially with the other Jewish history teachers, to hear about their schools and classrooms, and to share ideas,” said Alissa Zeffren of Ida Crown Jewish Academy.

“I really enjoyed the program — both the sessions, and the opportunity to interact with so many wonderful colleagues,” said Miriam Krupka, Dean of Faculty and Tanakh Department Chair of the Ramaz Upper School.

“I had a great time and I really thought that the sessions I went to gave me what to think about and ideas to help improve my craft,” said Rabbi Aaron Horn, Dean of Students and Gemara and Halacha Chair of Kohelet Yeshiva High School.

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THE JEWISH STAR July 6, 2018 • 23 Tammuz, 5778

M’dor l’dor at HAFTR

HAFTR third graders posed for what their grandparents might have called a “Kodak moment,” during a M’Dor L’Dor: Generation to Generation evening. They displayed family artifacts — objects, photographs and documents — through which they learned about the rich history of classmates’ families who came from around the world. They sang songs that depicted the wishes of generations past for the continuation of Torah study and mitzvot.

July 6, 2018 • 23 Tammuz, 5778 THE JEWISH STAR

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Israel salutes America: 70 who counted in 70

Left photo: Walter Lowdermilk with Golda Meir. David Rubinger/GPO. Right photo: President Truman accepts a menorah from Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion in May 1951. At center is Israeli Ambassador Abba Eban. Fritz Cohen/GPO

On the occasion of the Jewish state’s 70th anniversary, the Israeli embassy in Washington, in partnership with the Jewish News Syndicate, celebrates 70 of the greatest American contributors to the U.S.-Israel relationship Many of the people and organizations chosen for this acknowledgement will be readily recognized by readers of The Jewish Star, others less so, but their powerful stories build a collective history that reflects the broad base of American love and support for the Jewish state.

This week, The Jewish Star publishes the sixth part of a series that will cover all of the “70 who counted.”

U.S. Veterans 42 of 70

Crucial aid during the 1948 War of Independence came from American veterans of World War II, both Jewish and non-Jewish, who volunteered to fight to defend the Jewish homeland. Serving on all fronts, these volunteers were known as MACHAL. During this time, the United States made it difficult for its veterans to fight for Israel. All passports were stamped with a warning that if one left the country to serve in the military of a foreign state, they could lose citizenship.

Indeed, many U.S. volunteers had their citizenship temporarily suspended when they returned. This highlights the effort and sacrifices of heroes who put their lives on the line for their Jewish brothers and sisters struggling for independence thousands of miles away.

Overall, American veterans made up a very small percentage of the Israeli forces, with one important exception: due to a severe lack of homegrown talent, the fledgling Israeli Air Force was essentially founded, run and staffed throughout the war by foreign volunteers, with a major U.S. contingent. There were so many Americans involved that for a time, English was the Air Force’s de facto language.

Similarly, the Israeli Navy was founded and commanded by American veterans. Paul Shulman, a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy with combat experience in the Pacific, served as its commander from 1948 through 1949.

Without these brave and heroic volunteers, Israel would have had no functioning air force or navy. Their dedicated service may well have determined the outcome of the war.

the world, a consistently large group comes from the United States, a testament to the vigorous support for Israel in American Jewish communities.

Lone soldiers serve throughout Israel’s armed forces, including special combat units and intelligence. In recognition of their status, they enjoy financial assistance and subsidized housing. Immigrating is difficult in any circumstance, and lone soldiers often arrive with limited Hebrew.

Through sheer will, they often overcome adversity to become exemplary soldiers who inspire their Israeli-born colleagues with their idealism.

Lone soldiers fought in all of Israel’s conflicts.

Tragically, a number of them have fallen in battle. Most recently, Sean Carmeli and Max Steinberg were killed in the Gaza operation in 2014.

While the loss of any young soldier is unbearable, there is an additional level of suffering for the family of a lone soldier so far away. To express their support, Israelis of all stripes took to social media to ensure that as many people as possible attended their funerals. On July 21, 2014, some 20,000 mourners accompanied Texan-born Sgt. Carmeli of the Golani Brigade to his final resting place.

In this way, ordinary Israelis acknowledge the sacrifices of lone soldiers. “It’s our national pride to come and support a family and a lone soldier — a person who made a decision, against all conventions and with Zionist motives, to join the best combat unit although he could have chosen a more comfortable life,” one funeral attendee expressed. “I am here to salute him.”

In 2009, the Lone Soldier Center was founded in memory of Michael Levin, a lone soldier from Pennsylvania killed in the Second Lebanon War. It currently serves more than 6,300 lone soldiers.

Harry S. Truman (1884–1972)

44 of 70 President Harry S. Truman will forever be remembered for his fateful decision to recognize the State of Israel on May 14, 1948. That decision came at a critical time, as the newly established country fought off genocidal attacks in its War of Independence.

Although America’s support for Israel is often taken for granted today, Truman’s decision was met with tremendous opposition from some of his closest advisors, as well as prominent sectors of the U.S. government. Secretary of State George Marshall told Truman that if he recognized Israel, Marshall would not vote for him in November.

Despite his profound admiration for Marshall, Truman did not waver. As he later recalled: “George Marshall … was afraid the Arabs wouldn’t like [our recognizing Israel]. This was one of the few errors of judgment made by that great and wonderful man, but I felt that Israel deserved to be recognized and didn’t give a damn whether the Arabs liked it or not.”

Raised Protestant in Missouri, Truman had Jewish friends, and even a Jewish business partner. Later, as a senator, Truman spoke on behalf of a homeland for the Jews in Palestine. This belief was founded in his affection for the Jewish people and in his knowledge of the Bible, which inspired a rational sympathy for the refounding of a Jewish homeland.

In May 1948, as the British Mandate neared its end, Truman’s cabinet was divided. Nearly all his foreign policy “wise men” were against recognizing the new nation, including Defense Secretary James Forrestal, George Kennan and Dean Rusk. They believed that it would obstruct American access to Arab oil.

But Truman decided to recognize the Jewish state, making his announcement just 11 minutes following Israel’s declaration. Reflecting on his support in its fledgling moments, Truman famously compared himself to Cyrus the Great, the Persian ruler who allowed the Jews to return to Israel and rebuild the Temple.

It was not electoral considerations, as is sometimes alleged, that motivated Truman — it was his religiously inspired and politically informed sense that the Jewish state would be a great boon to America and the world.

To the State of Israel and its international friends, Truman will indeed forever be remembered as a second Cyrus.

Sanford ‘Zalman’ Bernstein (1926–1999) and Roger Hertog 45 of 70

Lone Soldiers

43 of 70 With the establishment of Israel, two great transformations occurred in the lives of Jewish people: Jews from around the world could now immigrate to a Jewish state, and the Jewish people now had the power to defend themselves.

Lone soldiers — individuals serving in the Israel Defense Forces whose families live abroad — embody both of these remarkable transformations.

Often driven by their commitment to Zionism and the Jewish people, thousands of young men and women come to Israel to serve in its military, enduring the hardship of not having a loving family nearby. While lone soldiers come from all over

Bernard Lewis.

Agence Opale-Alamy

In 1978, Sanford Bernstein was a brilliant investor leading a high-flying, largely secular New York life.

That year his father died, and Bernstein began deeper inquiries into the faith of his parents, with the help of a warm and learned rabbi, Rabbi Shlomo Riskin.

Bernstein did nothing halfway. In the years that

followed, he began using his Hebrew name, Zalman, and committed himself to observance. He would later make aliyah to Jerusalem, where he died in 1999.

Bernstein’s spiritual quest led him beyond personal renewal. He devoted the final chapter of his life to invigorating Jewish intellectual life and practice. To that end, he created philanthropic organizations — the Avi Chai Foundation and the Tikvah Fund — devoted to advancing Jewish and Israeli causes, organizations and ideas.

Founded in 1984, the Avi Chai Foundation has been devoted to strengthening the Jewish people and attachment to the State of Israel, and to cultivating mutual understanding among Jews of different affiliations. It has invested more than $300 million in support of innovative projects.

Its work in the former Soviet Union has been particularly vital in giving the gift of Jewish and Zionist learning and practice to communities that had been deprived of these during Soviet times.

After Bernstein’s passing, his wife, Mem, continued his philanthropic legacy.

The Tikvah Fund was founded in 1992. Since Bernstein’s death, its efforts have been guided by his friend, business partner and intellectual comrade Roger Hertog. Hertog has been guided by the important insight that ideas matter for the future of the Jewish people and state.

The Tikvah Fund has been a veritable incubator of profound Jewish thought. Tikvah-funded journals, including Azure, Mosaic, the Jewish Review of Books and Ha’Shiloach, have brilliantly expounded pressing questions facing Israel and the Jewish people. Educational programs in America and Israel have allowed thousands of students to deepen their intellectual engagement with Judaism and Zionism.

In 2017, Shalem, Israel’s first liberal arts college, which has received generous support from Tikvah, held its first graduation ceremony. Hertog received an honorary doctorate for his devotion to the cause of humanistic education in Israel — a fitting culmination of the work that he and Bernstein set out to accomplish.

Bernard Lewis (1916-2018)

46 of 70 Bernard Lewis, who passed away over Shavuot at age 102, is known as an outstanding historians of the Middle East. Yet unlike many Mideast scholars, Lewis never combined his scholarly sympathy for the Arab and Muslim people of the region with antipathy towards Zionism and the Jewish people. Indeed, he was a lifelong Zionist and a friend to Israel.

While much contemporary Middle East scholarship has been ideological, Lewis is best known for his accurate and honest studies of the area’s people. Fluent in at least eight languages (including Arabic, Turkish, Persian and Hebrew), his studies remain a treasure.

Lewis has also proved a prescient scholar.

In his 1976 essay “The Return of Islam,” Lewis predicted that a “clash of civilizations” was comContinued on next page

George Shultz (47 of 70)

When Natan Sharansky gained his freedom, U.S. Secretary of State George Shultz was the first person to phone him. Shultz had campaigned directly with Soviet leaders for Sharansky’s release and, with the support of President Reagan, had made freedom for Soviet Jews a key issue in his talks with Russian leaders.

Yet typical of the humble Shultz, he speaks of his debt to those he helped free, remarking

rs 35 Yeagrity e Of Int

that he has “a great sense of gratiuse and land reclamation. In tude to the Soviet Jews because his book, Lowdermilk claims they showed us what courage is that the Jewish people “demonstrated the finest reclamaall about.” Years later, he told tion of old lands that I have Sharansky: “You played a crucial seen in three continents … by role in bringing down the Iron the application of science, inCurtain and giving freedom to dustry and devotion … [they the [Russian] people. I can assure have acted against] great odds you that your name will remain and with sacrificial devotion with us forever as a liberator of to the ideal of redeeming the millions of Soviet Jews.”

Promised Land.”

This is true, of course, of The book sparked interShultz himself. A Marine artillery est in and admiration for the officer in World War II, he is one pioneering settlers, and, along of only two men to have served with Lowdermilk’s meetings in four different U.S. cabinet posiwith American leaders, contions. vinced Western intelligentsia But he made his mark as a that a great and populous devoted advocate for freedom. country could be built by Jews Shultz consistently supported Israel, recognizing its importance Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir greets George Shultz, one of two men to have amid the deserts of Palestine.

Herman Chanania/GPO Integral to this, he explained, as an American ally. That commit- served in four different U.S. cabinet positions. was use of the Jordan River to ment was shown during his sixThroughout his distinguished career in public provide drinking water and electricity, and the and-a-half years as Ronald Reagan’s Secretary of State. In 1982, during the Lebanese Civil War, service, Shultz has never wavered in his determi- Litani River to irrigate the Negev.

Lowdermilk outlined a visionary proposal his shuttle diplomacy helped bring Israel’s forces nation to support freedom and in his friendship to build a hydroelectric canal extending from safely away from Beirut, and in 1988, he labored towards Israel. the Mediterranean to the Dead Sea. In all, he to bring an end to the first intifada.

Shultz also helped Israeli leaders deal with Walter Lowdermilk (1888–1974) set forth what has been called “the Lowdermilk Plan”: an outline for the creation of the nation’s hyperinflation during the 1980s, noting that Is- 48 of 70) How would the State of Israel survive, much water system. rael wouldn’t be safe unless it got its budget in He also criticized the White Paper of 1939, order. He put together an American-Israeli Joint less thrive, in a land where water was so scarce?

The genius who solved this riddle was Walter warning that limiting Jewish immigration to PalEconomic Development Group aimed at stabilizing the Israeli economy, and helped shepherd Lowdermilk. Raised in arid Arizona, Lowdermilk estine would lead to massacres of Jews by Arabs.

Lowdermilk returned to Israel in 1951. Now through emergency economic assistance to Is- majored in chemistry at one college, then engirael. Shultz also was instrumental in putting neering at another, followed by a Rhodes Schol- called “the father of the Israel water plan,” he together America’s first free-trade agreement — arship at Oxford to study German forests. Then stayed through 1957, guiding the setup of Israel’s he worked to prevent the cycle of floods and fam- Soil Conservation Service and helping to estabwith Israel of all countries — in 1986. lish the Technion University’s School of AgriculThough rarely mentioned today, Shultz’s ef- ines faced by Chinese peasants.

These experiences prepared Lowdermilk for ture and Engineering, which was later named forts were vital in stabilizing the Israeli economy and helped lay the groundwork for its astonish- his life’s occupation: blending soil conservation after him. and water management. Those skills were furHis writing provided impetus for the coning success in the decades that followed.

Most recently, Shultz, 97, has spoken out ther honed during his tenure with the U.S. Forest struction of the National Water Carrier. In appreabout the inherent difficulty of assuring Iranian and Wildlife Service’s Soil Conservation Service. ciation of his many contributions to the Jewish An extended stay in British Mandate Pales- state, Israel Minister of Development Mordecai compliance with any nuclear agreement, and of the risks posed by Iran as a determined enemy of tine inspired his 1944 bestseller Palestine, Land Bentov put it best: “We don’t need powdered of Promise. It presented a detailed plan for water milk. We need Lowdermilk.” freedom and the West.

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Continued from previous page ing, anticipating the rise of radical Islamic theocracies. Similarly, his bestselling What Went Wrong?, written just before 9/11 but published afterward, explained these governments’ hostility toward the West and Israel.

Among more than 30 books and countless articles is Lewis’s definitive work, The Jews of Islam. It neither romanticized Jewish life under the Islamic governments pre-Israel, nor was it a mere polemic. Instead, it aimed to show what really happened: how Jews frequently lived under caliphs and sultans as useful and tolerated, though disfavored, subjects.

Raised in a middle-class Jewish home in England and educated at the University of London, Lewis was a naturalized American and taught for decades at Princeton. For more than 40 years, he spent the winter months in Tel Aviv, where he taught classes in Middle Eastern history and worked with budding Israeli scholars.

Throughout his career, Lewis mentored many of the greatest scholars of the Middle East and Israel, including Fouad Ajami, Martin Kramer, Harold Rhode and former Israeli Ambassador to the United States Michael Oren. In addition to his work on Arab history and culture, he offered fascinating reflections on Israel, particularly on how Jewish history helped the country maintain democracy despite the Jews having lacked sovereignty for 2,000 years.

As an honest scholar, Lewis could not ignore Arab anti-Semitism and the growth of Israelhatred. Even when Middle East Studies became politicized, Bernard Lewis stood out as a beacon of integrity and a supporter of Israel.

National Review columnist defends Inquisition

By Ben Sales, JTA Here’s something no one expected: A reputable conservative magazine has published a column defending … the Spanish Inquisition.

To be clear, this is not Monty Python. This is a column in the National Review. Here’s the headline: “The Spanish Inquisition Was a Moderate Court by the Standard of Its Time.”

Moderate?

We’ll run down some basic facts about this infamous, brutal, centuries-long persecution of the Jews below. But first, let’s read some of the takes from the column by Ed Condon, who was identified as a writer, editor and practicing canon lawyer. “[W]hile any reasonable person would find a lot not to like about the Spanish Inquisition,” writes Condon, “[i]n fact, examined simply as a functioning court, the Spanish Inquisition was in many ways ahead of its time and a pioneer of many judicial practices we now take for granted.

“Let’s start with the basic legal concept of an ‘inquisition.’ It just means a court of inquiry in which the judges take the lead in directing proceedings in the pursuit of truth, rather than a prosecution-driven adversarial system. Such courts continue to function in many secular jurisdictions today, and there is, frankly, nothing very sinister about it, though it appears alien to those of us raised on American courtroom dramas.”

Condon goes on to claim that the Inquisition was “actually a reluctant creation of the Church.” To Condon, Tomas de Torquemada, Spain’s infamous Grand Inquisitor, was “a much more nuanced historical figure than the cartoonish portrayal of him suggests.” He calls the Inquisition’s use of torture — wait for it — “downright progressive.”

He also writes that “the jails of the Inquisition were universally known to be hygienic and well maintained.”

Astonishingly, Condon says that the Inquisition was created to protect Spanish Jews, who were forced to convert to Christianity under threat of expulsion or death.

“The pope hoped, perhaps naively, that by getting directly involved, the Church could bring the situation under control and end the frenzied religious denunciations,” Condon writes.

He acknowledges that that idea didn’t quite go as planned, but blames the Spanish monarchy for “hijacking” the Inquisition. But then, he says, Torquemada brought it under control

Illustration of a Spanish Jew before a Grand Inquisitor.

Paul Hardy/Photo12/UIG via Getty Images

and set up a relatively fair justice system. He writes that the Inquisition courts were fairer than Spanish civil courts.

That last point may very well be true, but who cares? During the Inquisition, which wasn’t abolished until the early 19th century, hundreds of thousands were forced into exile, and thousands were converted under duress. Tens of thousands more were murdered.

It was a reign of terror that persecuted people based on their religion and, significantly, their race. Even pious Catholics with Jewish roots were targeted. It struck fear into an entire population that was already forced into secrecy.

“Once the identity of the accused individuals was established, they would be seized, thrust into inquisitional dungeons, interrogated (occasionally under torture), and sentenced to a variety of punishments, ranging from terms of penitential service to imprisonment or to ‘relaxation,’ that is, death,” Howard Sachar wrote in his book “Farewell España: The World of the Sephardim Remembered.”

“Thus, even in its earliest phase, between 1479 and 1481, in a ferocious reign of terror, nearly four hundred individuals were burned at the stake for heresy in the city of Seville alone,” Sachar continued. “Throughout Castilian Andalusia, some 2,000 persons were burned alive, 17,000 others were ‘reconciled,’ that is, spared the death penalty but subjected to such punishments as imprisonment, confiscation of property, and debarment from all employment, public and private. Their wives and children faced destitution.”

The Inquisitors were particularly vicious in their treatment of conversos, or converts who were suspected of practicing Judaism in secret. In all, some 30,000 conversos were burned at the stake. On Mallorca, 82 conversos were condemned in 1691.

Thirty-four were publicly garroted and their bodies were burned in bonfires. Another three, including a rabbi, were burned alive.

In 2011, Mallorca’s regional president offered the country’s first formal apology for the Inquisition’s killing of Jews.

Benzion Netanyahu, the late father of the Israeli prime minister and scholar of the Inquisition, did assert that King Ferdinand backed the Inquisition in part to prevent a wider, popular bloodbath. But Netanyahu also insisted that in its purveyors’ deadly pursuit of racial purity, the Inquisition was a precursor to the Holocaust.

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16

In Memory Of Rebbetzin Batsheva Kanievsky

World War and the Holocaust were half a decade or more in the future. American public opinion on Nazism was by no means settled.

Two years after Cadbury’s speech, the United States would send a full delegation to Hitler’s Berlin Olympics, despite impassioned calls from antifascists for a boycott.

It’s easy to believe, once a historical debate has been resolved, that you know which side you would have been on. But when you go back in history and see what people were saying in the moment, when they didn’t know how the story would end, long-resolved disputes spring suddenly back to life. Today’s debates over tactics and rhetoric, over resistance and civility, recapitulate those of the summer of 1934 with a precision that borders on the uncanny.

And of course the fact that Cadbury was wrong then does not mean that his ideological heirs are wrong now. That’s not how history, or analogy, works. But if the arguments at the 1934 convention do not prove today’s advocates of “civility” wrong, their historical perspective should at least give us pause.

We are all, particularly those of us who, like Cadbury, are not directly targeted by oppression, inclined toward overconfidence in our opinions, and toward a belief that what has saved us in the past will save us in the future.

We now know that Cadbury was wrong because Nazism was worse than he was able to imagine, and because it would become far worse than he could imagine it becoming. We would do well to take that knowledge to heart.

On June 14, 1934, JTA reported on a speech by Professor Henry Cadbury suggesting that Jewish critics were “only increasing the severity” of Hitler’s policies. American Friends Service Committee archives

JTA archives. Montage by Charles Dunst

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5 Towns conferenc e with joy to sustai told: Deliver Torah n the next genera tion note remarks that nual Five Towns opened the fourth antive Conference Community Collaboraon Sunday.

“What is the Torah the kids need now?” he asked. “What necessarily work worked in 1972 won’t today.”

Rabbi Weinberg d’asrah of Congregaer, founding morah tion Aish Kodesh Woodmere and in mashpia at YU, the parents and reminded that Torah will educators in attendance not be received if it’s not

passed down according to the middah the time, emphasiz of ingredent needed ing that the primary in today’s chinuch simcha. is Twenty-six speakers, rebbetzins, educators including rabbis, , community ers and lecturers leadsue that challengeeach addressed a key isfamilies and schools in frum communi ties. The event, the Young Israel hosted at of Woodmere, was orgaSee 5 Towns hosts on page 15

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By Celia Weintrob Photos by Doni Kessler

While Torah is way for the mesorahforever true, the ideal to be conveyed children — and how an everlastin to our of Torah and g love Yiddishkeit is embedde their beings — d in changes “You’re still talking over time. about what for you in 1972 and insisting thatworked what should work that’s Moshe Weinberg for your kid,” Rabbi er, Shila”a, said in key-

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Nitzavim-Vayeilech Presenting their topics, from left: Baruch Fogel of Rabbi Touro College, “Motivating our children to motivate themselves ”; Reb-

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betzin Shani Taragin, Tanach coordinator and mashgicha ruchanit at Midreshet rah V’avodah, “Miriam: Meyaledet, ToMei-

nika, and Morah”; Rabbi Ephraim Congregation Polakoff, Bais Tefilah, “Teens and technology: What you know and what you

don’t”; Rabbi Jesse Horn of Yeshivat kotel, “Helping Hachildren balance and pleasure”; Esther Wein, “Howideology to rec-

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Cedarhurst remembers

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By The Jewish to remember Cedarhurst pausedmiracles of 9/11, at the the on Sunday. the heroism, and commemoration Schachter village’s annual n, Rabbi Shay In his invocatio the Young Israel of Woodof the Master and (top right photo) pray that G-d, all the strength mere said, “we world, grant us Creator of the to stand firm together against of and the fortitude of extremism, of bigotry, all forms of terror, and of all evil that can be hatred, of racism, forms in our world.” who found in different obligation to those “We have a solemn on Sept. 11th to never injured Benjamin died or were ,” said Mayor forget what happened“We saw evil, but we also Weinstock (bottom).

America.” saw the best of n (middle), a 9/11 survivor re78,” of Ari Schonbur Fate “Miracle and was waitand author of es that day. He called his experienc on the 78th floor when elevators ing to change hit. nt Chief the first plane st Fire Departme Lawrence-Cedarhur during the playing of saluting David Campell, 9/11 victims. names of local Taps, read the

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“Torat Emet ,” the first is shiva University Truth.” in to an Star — we believe investiture speech

By The Jewish in of Yeshiva UniversiDelivering his at YU’s Wilf Campus The fifth president on Sunday Berman, said assembly of 2,000 on Heights, with many ty, Rabbi Dr. Ari values that personify Ye, Washingt in by livestream that of the “five more listening spoke of the Rabbi Berman five central the or “Five Torot, institution.” teachings, of our believe in Tor“We do not just Chayyim — Torat at Emet but also and values must that our truths he said. live in the world,” teachings, YU’s other central Adam,” “Torat he said, are “Torat Tziyyon, the Chesed,” and “Toraton.”

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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.”

STAR el in with’hs 56Isthrchaarter ll a o g s r Ie es L B’Nef on Nefesh

IsraAID brings relief to U.S. disasters

• Vol 16,

By Ron Kampeas, JTA Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico, page and 19 WASHINGTON — For 17 years, the then the wildfires inlah 9:15 • Luach pm, Havda northern California.

Israeli NGO IsraAID has been perform- ng 8:07 Polizer recalls that he was wrapping elighti Candl ing search and rescue,Towns purifying water, up a visit to IsraAID’s new American 5777 • Fivemedical assistance headquarters providing Tamuz, emergency in Palo Alto on Oct. 8 and 2017 • 20 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. earthquake there when he got word of But no season has been busier than the wildfires. “I literally had to do a Uthis past summer and fall, its co-CEO Yo- turn,” he said this week in an interview tam Polizer said in an interview — and at the Israeli embassy in Washington. nowhere more than in the United States.

Polizer spoke with the exhilaration “The last few months have been un- of an executive whose team has come believable,” he said, listing a succession through a daunting challenge.

“We’re of disasters that occupied local staff and the people who stay past the ‘aid festiNiveen Rizkalla working with IsraAID in Santa Rosa, Calif., in volunteers since August: Hurricane Har- val’,” he said, grinning, describing the the wake of deadly wildfires there. vey in Texas, Hurricane Irma in Florida, See IsraAID on page 5

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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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Opinion by Angus Johnston for JTA At the annual convention of the Central Conference of American Rabbis (Reform) in June 1934, the assembled religious leaders were confronted with this question: How should we approach those who oppose us and are working against our interests? Should we resist with all the tools at our disposal, even to the point of sacrificing civility? Or should we instead cultivate goodwill and foster friendship across ideological lines?

The adversary the spiritual leaders were encouraged to attempt to cajole and enlighten was Adolf Hitler. The speaker who made the suggestion was Henry Cadbury, a professor at Bryn Mawr College.

“By hating Hitler and trying to fight back,” Cadbury declared in his opening remarks, “Jews are only increasing the severity of his policies against them.”

If Jews instead would educate Nazis about Judaism’s “ideals” and “appeal to the German sense of justice and the German national conscience,” Cadbury continued, the Nazis might well be brought around. Urging Jews to adopt a “live and let live” posture, he said that even nonviolent resistance campaigns such as boycotts were “not the way to right the wrongs being inflicted on the Jewish people.”

His views were summed up in a New York Times headline that today reads like grim parody: “Urges Good Will By Jews For Nazis.”

Cadbury’s speech provoked outrage among the gathered Reform clergy, who declared in an official statement that they, along with “all the enlightened forces of mankind,” were committed to resisting Nazism “to the utmost.” Their resistance, they said, was “not prompted by any ill will or hatred of the German people, but by an inescapable moral compulsion.” While “moral persuasion” had its place, they said, it must be “supplemented by every manner of non-violent resistance calculated to bring an end to the [Nazi] regime.”

Samuel Shulman, leader of Manhattan’s Temple Emanu-El and one of the signers of the statement, summed up the prevailing sentiment at the convention: “If we do not resist evil, we go along with it.”

Few among us would call for dialogue with Nazis today, of course. (Though “few” isn’t “none,” and certainly there are still those who urge patient engagement in the spirit of the approach recommended by Cadbury.)

The lesson of this exchange, rather, should be that history, while it is being lived, is contingent and murky, and the moral clarity we possess when assessing the past can be denied at times to even the wisest of us when grappling with the present.

Henry Cadbury was not a bad or a stupid man. A Quaker, he was a co-founder of the American Friends Service Committee, and he would give the acceptance speech when the AFSC was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1947 for its work with war refugees, Japanese-American internees and others. So why was he so unable to see?

Cadbury’s position was in part theological, arising from his pacifism, but that was not the entirety of the story. Hitler had been in power for barely a year when Cadbury spoke, and while the Nazi persecution of Jews and others was well underway by then, the Second

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THE JEWISH STAR July 6, 2018 • 23 Tammuz, 5778

In 1934, U.S. prof urged Jews: Be civil to Nazis

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‫כוכב של שבת‬

SHAbbAT STAR

Pinchas answers the question: What’s in a name?

From Heart of Jerusalem

Rabbi biNNY FReeDMaN

Jewish Star columnist

I

still remember the moment, 30 years later. Rav Aharon Lichtenstein zt”l, our rosh yeshiva at Har Etzion, was giving his advanced Talmud lecture to about 60 students. As he looked up from his books and scanned the room, you could feel the tension in the air.

Most students, myself included, were terrified of this moment. The word genius does not do Rav Lichtenstein justice; beyond his great rabbinic leadership and Talmudic mind, he was uncompromising in his pursuit of truth.

When he called on a student to read, it usually resulted in a series of questions that tested the student’s knowledge and whether he could extrapolate what we had been obligated to prepare; often the questions seemed to undermine some of the ideas we had studied in advance.

There was no shortage of students who would sit in the back rows and duck when Rav Lichtenstein looked up, but I was in the second row, and apparently this was my day. Two words filled the air: “Binny, tomar!” — Binny, read!

Sweat ran down my back, and the memory of a boy who had been mercilessly grilled a week before flashed through my mind. But when it was over, more than the intensity and exhilaration of having survived all of Rav Lichtenstein’s questions, was something even more powerful that took me a while to identify. It was the first time that I realized for certain that Rav Lichtenstein knew who I was.

Thirty years later, I am still humbled by that

knowledge. Why was it so meaningful to hear Rav Lichtenstein say my name? n this week’s parsha of Pinchas we are told of the untimely death of Tzelafchad (Bamidbar 27:6-10), who “died of his own sins and had no sons.”

In what some see as a feminist moment, Tzelafchad’s daughters come before Moshe demanding their inheritance: “Give us a possession of land among our father’s brothers.”

Moshe seems perplexed. He brings the question before G-d Himself, who responds that the women have spoken correctly.

One wonders, though, why Moshe needs to bring this question before G-d. He received at Sinai all the laws, including those of inheritance, and it’s hard to imagine this would not include an event as obviously possible as a man dying with only daughters. (The question of why inheritance laws differ for sons and daughters has less to do with gender equality and more to do with tribal lineage following the male line, but that is a topic for another time.)

Considering how many levels of lower judiciaries were established by Yitro (see Shemot 18), one wonders why Moshe himself was even involved.

A careful look at the case, however, reveals that the real issue here is not simply a land grab. Tzelafchad’s daughters’ real concern was for their father’s name: “Why should the name of our father be erased from among his family because he had no son?”

This is not the only time the law is concerned

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with ensuring that a man’s name not be forgotten. The Torah discusses what happens when a man dies with no children; his brother, or closest relative, must marry his widow in a levirate marriage designed to ensure that the name of the dead brother is not lost or forgotten. What is so important about a person’s name? hen we refer to G-d, we have a strange tradition to not actually pronounce His name, but to use euphemisms (such as “Hashem”) or substitution of letters (such as “Elokim”).

There is even one 72-letter name that we no longer know how to pronounce.

The first time discussion in the Torah centers on names is the story of the Tower of Babel. Those who survived the flood find their way to a valley, where they decide to build a tower that will reach the heavens. G-d finds fault with this project, scattering the people to the corners of the earth. But a careful look at the verses tells us that their real aim was “to make for ourselves a name” (Bereishit 11:4). Why was that problematic?

There is an ancient book, ascribed to Rabbi Akiva, known as the Sefer ha-Otiot: the book of letters. The word “name” is comprised of two letters: shin and mem. The Sefer ha-Otiot explains that the letter shin comprised of three legs rising in different directions, representing chaos, while the letter mem is almost a perfect circle, representing wholeness and perfection. Indeed, the Hebrew word for “peace,” shalom, starts with a shin representing chaos and ends with a mem rep-

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Why should the name of our father be erased because he had no son?

Transitioning to the next generation Parsha of the Week

Rabbi avi biLLet Jewish Star columnist

G

oogle the phrase “Europe’s Childless Leaders,” and you’ll find quite a few articles, written about a year ago, discussing the fact that a significant number of European heads of state do not have children. It raises the question of where each country’s future is headed when its elected leader has no skin in the game.

The question becomes particularly relevant when we look at two narratives in our parsha: one of children looking to reclaim their future (Tzelafchad’s daughters), and one of children who are apparently not worthy to do so (Moshe’s sons).

Unlike Aharon, who found a successor in his son Elazar, Moshe is not given this opportunity.

Instead, Yehoshua will succeed him.

And it is in that transition — from telling us of Tzelafchad’s daughters, to the appointment of Yehoshua — that Moshe is told, “Go up to Mt. Avarim to see the land that I will give the Children of Israel.”

The word avarim can be translated as a “transition.” Kli Yakar suggests that its placement follows the phrase we have just heard regarding inheritance for daughters: when there is no son, haavartem et nachalato l’bito (you shall transition his portion to his daughter). There, Rashi notes a play on words: anyone who does not leave over a “son to inherit him” causes G-d to send His evrah, wrath, against the person.

The phrase cannot be calling out a person who does not have a son, because who can control that? Tzelafchad had five children, all girls. Some

people have sons who do not live to adulthood.

Some people have no children at all.

Rashi’s comment emphasizes the word l’yorsho, to inherit him. The person has a son, but he is not worthy to take over his father. This is what causes G-d to send his evrah against the person.

As such, the transition of Tzelafchad’s inheritance to his daughters is immediately followed by instructions about Har HaAvarim — the mountain of transition. li Yakar says that this is a condemnation of Moshe.

Tzelafchad raised his daughters to follow in his ways, but you, Moshe, where are your sons? Clearly not following in your footsteps! “G-d had wrath against Moshe,” Kli Yakar writes, “for not guiding his sons to be worthy to inherit his position and his role as a prophet.”

In a certain sense, I think the Kli Yakar is arguing that Moshe was a failure as a parent.

This is not to minimize Moshe’s accomplishments. He was the greatest leader the Jewish people ever knew, and the greatest prophet in the world! One can argue that the greatness of a leader is defined by his accomplishments and his humility, and on those fronts, Moshe wins, hands down.

But one of the greatest success stories in life is being able to point to children and grandchildren and say “I raised them right.” Tzelafchad could say this. Moshe could not.

G-d judges the righteous strictly. Just because He sent evrah against Moshe for his shortcomings as a parent, does this mean that He does the same to others? I don’t think so. But it certainly ought to give those of us who are parents pause, to consider if we are fulfilling our calling to “educate each

K

child according to his/her unique way” (Proverbs 22:6).

This is not about children following their parents’ professional footsteps. Every person needs to forge his or her own path. But whereas Aharon’s sons are mentioned throughout the Torah’s narrative, sometimes even after they have died, Moshe’s sons hardly appear at all. It is a question of legacy.

For all intents and purposes, Moshe’s sons are out of the picture. Yehoshua had no sons. In more recent times, George Washington had no children. The Lubavitcher Rebbe had no children.

Some people never marry. Some marry later in life.

Some are unable to have children. Some people only have daughters. These are facts of life.

For those who have children, “success” can perhaps be measured in meaningful life aspirations as Jews, with shared values being embraced by future generations.

For those who do not have children, “success” can perhaps be measured in impact on community.

A colleague of mine runs a Sunday morning learning program in his shul for Jewish kids who go to public school, sponsored by a philanthropist who felt this was his legacy: giving Jewish children a chance to learn Torah.

Every person has either a family legacy or a personal legacy. Some leave a tremendous impact when they are gone. Some leave a void.

By the time it was too late to have any further impact on the world, Tzelafchad had prepared. His daughters were incredible. But it was too late for Moshe. His sons were in a very different place.

For the remaining transitions of his life, Moshe

Moshe was a failure as a parent.

resenting harmony, because that is what peace is all about.

And that is essentially what a name does. When you walk into a room and don’t know anyone’s names, there is a degree of chaos and unease. But as soon as you learn people’s names, there is a sense of calm. A name brings chaos into harmony.

That was the mistake of the people who built the Tower of Babel: they wanted to be the source of all peace and harmony. But there is only one source of order in the world, and that is G-d, whom we call “The Name,” which reminds us not to delude ourselves into imagining that we have fully understood Him. Everything is hidden in the name, which is why we cannot pronounce G-d’s name. We can never fully understand G-d.

At the center of the word neshama, “soul,” is the word “name.” Chassidut teaches that hidden in our name is the essence of who we are.

The Talmud suggests that a couple naming a child is invested with Divine inspiration, allowing them to choose correctly. In ensuring that a person’s name is not forgotten, we ensure that their purpose and their essence is not lost.

But how was Moshe to know whether this was the motivation of the daughters of Tzelafchad, as opposed to a desire to acquire land?

For this reason, he asks for Hashem’s help: because only G-d can determine a person’s true thoughts. When G-d agrees with the women, it is clear that their intentions are pure.

As we go through life, we encounter various distractions that seem so significant: houses, cars, and material possessions. We would do well to remember that what really lasts, what really defines us, are not the things we think we have, but the purpose we live up to and leave behind.

Shabbat shalom from Jerusalem. prepared. He saw to it that he would be succeeded

by Yehoshua. He got as close to G-d as humanly possible. He spent the last month of his life speaking the book of Devarim to all of Israel. That legacy is firmly in place, and it will never budge.

What transitions do we anticipate? What is in our hands to correct and put in order? What steps need to be taken so our lives can be lived with few regrets?

The Three Weeks leading up to Tisha B’Av are a good time to have this often-difficult conversation. This is when we examine our past indiscretions and remind ourselves that they continue to prevent the Jewish people from achieving our ultimate Service of G-d.

Luach

Fri July 6 • 23 Tammuz Pinchas Candlelighting: 8:10 pm Havdalah: 9:19 pm

Fri July 13 • 1 Av Rosh Chodesh Av Matos-Masei Candlelighting: 8:07 pm Havdalah: 9:16 pm

Fri July 20 • 8 Av Devarim Candlelighting: 8:03 pm Havdalah: 9:10 pm

Sun July 22 • 10 Av Fast of Tisha B’Av

Five Towns times from White Shul

Kosher Bookworm

AlAn JAy GerBer

Jewish Star columnist

T

his week’s column presents the foreword to the new edition of Rabbi Hanoch Teller’s classic, “Heroic Children: Untold Stories of the Unconquerable.” During the Three Weeks, the saddest time in the Jewish calendar, you will read an eloquent take on one of the saddest and most tragic chapters in the Holocaust experience: the fate of Jewish children.

“In this captivating book, Rabbi Hanoch Teller shares the story of children, who, in the midst of the Holocaust, showed courage in the face of torture, and hope in the midst of its indescribable sorrow,” writes Sir Martin Gilbert, of blessed memory, one of our generation’s greatest historians. “If you find these stories too gut-wrenching to read, remember you are only reading the book, these children actually experienced it!

“Read this book to be informed and inspired, and to determine that with G-d’s help this shall never happen again.”

Rabbi Teller’s foreword begins below.

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omewhere, deep within my subconscious, perhaps even in my DNA, the Holocaust is irrevocably implanted. It has in a significant way formed and informed my perspective on life and death, on Jewish history and the Jewish soul, on human history and the human soul.

No doubt it was this perspective that gave birth, in 2015, to the First Edition of Heroic Children.

Since then, the book has been (thank G-d) wildly successful, reaching readers in all corners of the globe. There was critical acclaim and there have been notable awards.

Yet there was also a flaw. Although Heroic Children was meticulously researched and faithfully reported, I did not adequately footnote my sources. Righting (and rewriting) this wrong, in this Second Edition, was a significant challenge that involved more than a year of painstaking research and investigation, and retelling and reliving the stories.

Although I hadn’t aspired to put forth a “scholarly” work (a product that seemed, to me, somewhat incompatible with my writing style), I am deeply gratified by the fruits of this labor, and I hope that readers will be as well. For this I must thank those who generously assisted me in this round. …

Heroic Children was my modest effort to honor the memory and courage of the 1.5 million children who perished during the Holocaust, by telling the stories of a few. Until this mission was executed to the fullest, I felt incomplete. Careful attribution and sourcing is more important now than ever. As the Holocaust becomes an increasingly distant memory, deniers are at the ready, using technology to promulgate lies and disseminate distortions in service of the oldest hatred.

I would also feel incomplete if I did not point out that this tribute to the young victims of what was designed to be the “Final Solution” is a memorial like no other. These martyrs were not the victims of political expediency or “collateral damage,” caught in the crossfire of war. Their very existence was a crime unpardonable: the crime of being a Jew. A crime for which even innocent children were punished by degradation,

Pinchas and the ‘Covenant of Peace’ Torah

rABBi dAvid eTenGoff

Jewish Star columnist

W

e are a fortunate people. If one were to ask “Who is the greatest spiritual hero in Jewish history?” many names would come to mind. Some would suggest one of the Avot or Imahot. Others might answer King David, or one of the prophets. Most people, however, would probably choose Moshe Rabbeinu.

Moshe’s amazing and multifold accomplishments are legendary, his leadership extraordinary, his intellect nearly unparalleled. The level of nevuah (prophecy) he achieved was above that of any other prophet. His ability to commune with Hashem is unequaled in the history of our people. The Torah teaches: “There never arose another prophet amongst the Jewish people like Moshe, to whom Hashem revealed Himself face to face.” (Devarim 34:10, per Onkelos).

Rabbi Baruch ha-Levi Epstein zt”l, known as the Torah Temimah, explains that there was one area,

however, in which Moshe was not able to achieve the highest heights. Instead, as clearly stated in our parsha, it was Pinchas ha-Kohen who accomplished a goal that eluded even Moshe Rabbeinu: “ ‘Behold, I [Hashem] give to him my Covenant of Peace’ (Bamidbar 25:12). … At first glance, it is difficult to understand why Pinchas merited this reward even more than Moshe Rabbeinu, since we find numerous times wherein [through Moshe’s efforts] Hashem ‘forgot’ His anger against the Jewish people, such as in the instances of the Golden Calf and the Spies.”

After raising this fundamental issue, Rav Epstein continues his analysis of why Pinchas, not Moshe, was deserving of the Covenant of Peace: “But the matter should, however, be explained as follows: We see from this that there was a fundamental difference between Moshe’s and Pinchas’s ability to remove Hashem’s anger [from upon the Jewish people]. Moshe was able to remove Hashem’s anger solely for a limited time, yet there remained, so to speak, in Hashem’s heart a grievance against the Jewish people, just as we find in the instances of the Golden Calf … and the Spies. Peace such as this cannot be called true and absolute peace. The removal of Hashem’s anger in regards to Pinchas,

however, was a complete and total removal of anger [that continues to last]. Therefore, Pinchas merited the just reward [of this Covenant of Peace]. “ n sum, Pinchas was able to effectuate a total and permanent peace between Hashem and His people, devoid of any future recriminations and punishments. This is something that escaped even Moshe Rabbeinu.

The question that still remains, however, is “Why is there a difference between them?”

I believe the Torah provides us with an answer this question in the phrase, “When he [Pinchas] displayed the anger that I [Hashem] should have displayed,” (Bamidbar 25:11, translation per Rashi). Pinchas acted as Hashem’s messenger in expressing His legitimate anger. He channeled Hashem’s fury in response to the immorality and idol worship in which many of the men were engaged. In this sense, Pinchas was a zealot who was totally devoted to Hashem. His complete being merged with Hashem’s righteous anger in his desire to execute the Almighty’s will.

In stark contrast to Pinchas, Moshe Rabbeinu never became angry — either on a personal level, or in the service of Hashem. Although the Torah states in Parashat Korach regarding the temerity of

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Smile! No, I mean really smile!

Angel for Shabbat

rABBi mArc d. AnGel JewishIdeas.org

A

while ago, I needed some dental work.

As I sat in the waiting room, I noticed a rack of brochures, including one ominously entitled “Root Canal.” On the cover was a picture of an attractive, smiling woman with straight white teeth. Hmmm — I have never met anyone who broke out into a wide smile upon learning that she needed a root canal.

Another brochure featured “Gum Disease.”

That cover included four happily smiling people, all with perfect teeth. Hmm again! I have never come across anyone who smiled upon learning that they had gum disease and would need lots of unpleasant and expensive dental care. And so it was with all the other brochures, each describing a dental procedure, and each featuring a smiling face on the cover.

I suppose the creators of these brochures wanted to put a positive spin on dental work, and did not want to show patients groaning in agony. But to show pictures of smiling people is surely misleading, if not just plain false.

We realize that the people in the pictures are paid models. They aren’t really having gum disease or root canals. They are not portraying reality, but are creating a positive image for PR purposes.

But instead of convincing us to be happy, these smiling models strike us as con artists.

Anyone who smiles brightly while contemplating root canal work is not someone who can be trusted to have good judgment.

This brings us to this week’s Torah portion.

Moshe knows he will not be leading the Israelites into the Promised Land. He pleads with the Almighty to appoint his successor, a leader “who will go out before them and come before them, who will lead them out and bring them in, so that the congregation of the Lord will not be like sheep without a shepherd” (Bamidbar 27:17). Rashi explains that Moshe is asking for

a leader who will take responsibility, who will be in the front lines of battle and not sit back at home while others do the fighting. Seforno adds that the leader should not only be involved in war, but should also be personally and actively engaged in the day-to-day management of the people. Other commentators note that Moshe is calling for a shepherd, a person who tends the flock with great care and who is held responsible for any losses.

Moshe is seeking a leader who will be genuine, reliable and trustworthy. He asks for a leader who takes personal responsibility for each member of the community. He wants a real leader, not a false image of a leader. He wants a leader with an honest countenance, not one with a fake smile. He wants someone who actually believes in his mission, not someone who pretends to be a leader and goes through the motions for PR purposes. any contemporary social critics have lamented the shortage of honest, sincere, authentic leaders. Politicians are widely perceived as self-serving egotists. Leaders in religious life, aca-

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Datan and Aviram, “And Moshe became very upset” (Bamidbar 16:15, per Rashi), he never became angry — even in the positive sense of Pinchas’ anger.

This, perhaps, is as it should be. Anger, in nearly all instances, is considered by Chazal (our Sages) to be tantamount to avodah zarah, since in the heat of anger a person cannot focus upon Hashem, Torah, or mitzvot. Instead, such an individual is entirely consumed by emotion, and becomes irrational. Clearly, then, one of the worst characteristics an authentic leader of klal Yisrael can have is that of anger. Little wonder, then, that Moshe neither had the personality trait of anger, nor did he become angry — even when it was warranted in the service of Hashem.

Paradoxically, Pinchas received the Brit Shalom after having brought about total peace between Hashem and klal Yisrael precisely because of the righteous anger he expressed on behalf of the Almighty. In this way, he served as a protective force and bridged the gaping chasm between the Jewish people and the Creator, and guarded His holy Torah and mitzvot. As spiritually heroic as Pinchas’ actions were, however, it must be stressed that they were permissible solely at that time and may never be repeated.

With Hashem’s help, may we strive to emulate Pinchas’ love and devotion to the Holy One blessed be He, and may we ever dedicate ourselves to His Torah and mitzvot. demia, and the business world have all fallen in esteem in the eyes of the public; they are viewed as petty, power hungry or manipulative. Instead of being shepherds who genuinely care about their flocks, the worst among them tend to care more about their own honors and emoluments.

Happily, though, we are blessed with examples of authentically sincere, hard-working and selfless individuals who put the community’s interests above their own, who are genuine shepherds rather than con artists.

G-d informed Moshe that He would appoint Yehoshua as his successor. Yehoshua is described as a man “in whom the spirit resides.” He had demonstrated the qualities of courage, the ability to stand up against the crowd, loyalty to Moshe and to the entire public. He was endowed with “the spirit” — i.e. integrity, authenticity, selflessness. Yehoshua could be trusted; he was genuine.

We often come across people who are as untrustworthy and unconvincing as the smiling faces on the cover of the root canal brochure. Less often do we meet people of the caliber of Yehoshua.

But it is the Yehoshuas of the world who we admire, respect and trust. It is they — and only they — who are worthy to be our friends and our leaders.

19 THE JEWISH STAR July 6, 2018 • 23 Tammuz, 5778

Memorial to children of the Shoah

starvation, torture and, ultimately, extermination.

Throughout the modern world there are memorials for civilizations past. The Aztecs, the Incas, the glories of ancient Greece — final tributes to peoples that are no more. How hideous to even contemplate that this book (or any other) memorializing the child martyrs might ever receive the designation of a final tribute! Rather, we pay homage to the victims by illuminating how they lived — even in the darkest of times — so that their truncated lives will be an inspiration to our ongoing lives. So that their lives, extinguished too soon, will be a beacon of light and a fortress of strength for our futures. So that their lives were not taken in vain, and our lives can be bequeathed meaning and purpose.

The lives of the Heroic Children are never more real to me than when I visit the extermination camp Majdanek in Lublin, Poland. A veritable mountain-range of the victims’ shoes are preserved there. No photo or video can convey what it is like to be in the presence of thousands and thousands of pairs of shoes, in all sizes—the sight, the smell, the emotion of it. I find that my own foot involuntarily rises up to find a shoe, a shoe that fits. … The symbolism is overwhelming: I cannot put myself in their shoes, but I can try and walk the path they may have sought to tread.

I am humbled and buoyed by the willingness of so many to join me on this lifelong journey.

July 6, 2018 • 23 Tammuz, 5778 THE JEWISH STAR

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Post-Kennedy madness at the Supreme Court Politics to go

Jeff Dunetz

Jewish Star columnist

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lthough predicted by court pundits for years, last week’s resignation of Justice Anthony Kennedy was a shocker.

Soon after the announcement, Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) should show consistency and respect his own precedent by delaying Senate confirmation proceedings for Kennedy’s successor until a new Congress is seated.

“Millions of people are just months away from determining the Senators who should vote to confirm or reject the president’s nominee and their voices deserve to be heard,” Schumer said, adding that to vote sooner “would be the absolute height of hypocrisy.”

But McConnell didn’t stop the vote on Merrick Garland because he objected to the Senate voting on a justice nomination during an election year, rather because he objected to a “lame duck” president nominating a justice during a presidential election year.

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hether one agrees with Mcbe censored at the whim of governConnell or feels that the ment, and the doors of the federal Democrats had a Supreme courts would be shut on the fingers Court seat unjustly stolen from of millions of citizens for whom the them, the majority leader is now foljudiciary is often the only protector lowing precedent. of the individual rights that are the Since Herbert Hoover’s failed reheart of our democracy,” Sen. Kenelection campaign and the nominanedy said. tion of Benjamin Cardozo, the SenBork’s nomination was rejected ate hadn’t been asked to approve a by the Democrat-controlled Senate, Supreme Court nomination during a 58–42. Reagan’s second pick had to presidential election campaign. The withdraw when it was learned that thinking is that it would be impos- Justice Anthony Kennedy. he smoked pot. Anthony Kennedy sible to keep the presidential race Eric Thayer/Getty Images was nominated a few weeks later, out of the debate. The only excepand the Senate got around to contion was the appointment of Justice Kennedy him- firming him in February 1988.

Since the Kennedy nomination, three jusself, who was nominated by Ronald Reagan in his second-to-last year as president but approved by tices have been nominated and confirmed during midterm election years — Souter (1990), Breyer Congress the next year.

It was an unusual case. Reagan had nominated (1994), and Kagan (2010). Schumer wasn’t in the Robert Bork for the seat, but within 45 minutes of Senate for the first two, but he did have the opporthe announcement, Senator Ted Kennedy got on tunity to object to voting on Kagan during a midterm election year, but he didn’t. Now that Donald the Senate floor to slander the nominee.

“Robert Bork’s America is a land in which Trump is president, Schumer objects to a midterm women would be forced into back-alley abortions, appointment. Who is the real hypocrite here? n the end, the early objection to President blacks would sit at segregated lunch counters, Trump’s nominee has less to do with timing rogue police could break down citizens’ doors and more with Roe v. Wade. Some commentain midnight raids, schoolchildren could not be taught about evolution, writers and artists would tors have suggested that as soon as the new justice

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shows up, there will be a vote to outlaw abortion.

Those commentators should switch to decaf because it’s not going to happen.

During his confirmation hearings in 2005, future Chief Justice Roberts — nominated by antiabortion Bush #43 — said Roe was “settled as a precedent of the court.”

Look for Trump to appoint a judge like Gorsuch, who has a strong constitutionalist background but no track record on issues that could be attacked by the Senate. While the GOP has a 50-49 lead (assuming McCain doesn’t return soon), senators such as Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski will not vote to approve an overtly anti-abortion judge.

In the end, it’s the Senate’s decision. As Charles C.W. Cooke wrote in the National Review after the Kennedy resignation: “The Senate gets to decide what to do with judicial nominations; everything else is just shouting. In 2016, the Senate was controlled by Republicans. A Democratic president sent that Senate a nomination it didn’t like, and that Senate decided not to act on it.”

Even though Cooke believes that Merrick Garland deserved a hearing, it doesn’t matter. “The Senate gets to decide who sits on the Supreme Court,” he wrote. “In this area, it has an absolute right to say ‘no,’ and it can do so according to whatever rules and procedures it sets for itself.”

Polish-Jewish relations are back from the brink Viewpoint

Ben COHen

Jewish News Service

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oland has removed the most objectionable part of its legislation governing the commemoration of the Nazi era. No longer will historians, journalists, or members of the public face three years’ imprisonment for asserting “that the Polish Nation or the Republic of Poland is responsible or co-responsible for Nazi crimes committed by the Third Reich.”

The decision, secured by a 388-25 majority of the Polish parliament, brings relief to a festering Polish-Jewish dispute that no one wanted.

Since the overthrow of communism in 1989, Poland has emerged as a vital component of the transatlantic democratic alliance. That shift was accompanied by a blossoming of Polish-Jewish relations and a flood of new historical research, not least on the circumstances behind the Nazi extermination of 3 million Polish Jews during the period of German occupation.

As the Poles know from their recent past, a key reason authoritarian regimes retain an iron

grip upon the flow of information is that they can never be certain where it will lead. So while there was a great deal in the 1,000-year history of Polish Jewry to celebrate, much of the new Shoah scholarship raised the agonizing question of Polish collusion with Nazi persecution of Jews.

The years leading up to the law’s passage were marked by bitter disputes about Poland’s wartime history, often inflected with anti-Semitism.

Certain scholars, such as distinguished Princeton University historian Jan Gross, were singled out for opprobrium in Poland’s influential conservative circles, where their research was depicted as a smear on an entire nation’s reputation.

In February of this year, President Andrzej Duda signed into law amended legislation that incorporated a maximum sentence of three years’ imprisonment for those deemed violators.

What would compose a violation was never quite clear — certainly the use of the lazy, offensive term “Polish concentration camp” to describe Nazi extermination centers at Auschwitz and Majdanek, but quite possibly any substantive historical inquiry into the Holocaust in Poland that touched upon the issue of collusion.

Duda’s signature was not quite the final act of the drama, as the law was referred to Poland’s judiciary for examination of its impact on

constitutional guarantees of free speech. As the summer arrived, the talk in Warsaw was that the Constitutional Tribunal would rule that the law was unconstitutional.

But that’s not how it played out. It was the Polish Prime Minister, Mateusz Morawiecki, who ended the uncertainty by turning to legislators.

On June 27, Morawiecki’s ruling party charged down the amendment in Polish parliament, leaving the country’s stunned ultranationalists railing against a fatal compromise with Jewish and American “diktats.”

For the rest of the world — foremost the Israeli government and various global Jewish organizations — the success of Morawiecki’s gamble is a measure of his statesmanship. He applied, rapidly and effectively, a political solution to a political problem; namely, the internationalization of the dispute around the law brought about by the draconian amendment. Now that the threat of imprisonment has been buried, the primary focus of international concern has gone.

But the debate about World War II will continue to reverberate into Poland’s contemporary politics. The Polish state remains deeply invested in preservation of the country’s memory, which means that many key forthcoming decisions — like, for example, whom to appoint as the next

head of the International Auschwitz Council — will be political ones. Morawiecki has pledged his willingness to pursue defamation suits against publishers or writers judged to have accused Poland of crimes that are more properly blamed on the Nazis. This view of history as the battleground of Polish national honor inevitably means that dissenting viewpoints will continue to face aggressive responses, only now without the nagging fear of prison.

Many Americans will feel reassured that Poland’s leaders have heeded the views of the outside world. The dispute was never going to disrupt trade or security relations with Poland, but the potential for diplomatic jousting over the law was always there — not just because our respect for the victims of the Holocaust requires that we never simplify or censor their stories, but because we expect Poland, as a fellow democracy, to observe liberal norms of free speech.

In turn, the Poles have a right to expect that American commitments to their security are more than platitudes. If one element of Morawiecki’s goal in defanging the law was to remind us of this fundamental alliance, especially as Donald Trump prepares for his summit with Poland’s bête noire, Russian leader Vladimir Putin, then we should pay heed.

Dror eyDar Israel Hayom

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srael withdrew from Gaza 13 years ago. But on almost every news site, you’ll find the Gaza Strip reported as a territory “occupied”

by Israel.

Here’s the reality: Israel withdrew from Gaza in the summer of 2005, under the misguided assumption that the Palestinian Authority would have jurisdiction there.

But that was not to be the case. Six months later, Hamas won the Palestinian election and the following summer staged a violent coup. The fact that Hamas was preparing for war prompted Israel to monitor border crossings between Israel and Gaza, knowing very well that Hamas was less interested in the welfare of the residents of Gaza than in obtaining weapons and building defenses.

The facts are available to anyone who looks, though that never seems to matter. Israelis are consistently described as occupiers. Incidentally, Egypt also monitors its border crossings with Gaza, but no one ever pulls the “occupier” label on them. That’s reserved for the Jews.

The “occupation” is not a claim; it is founded on the notion that Jewish sovereignty over any part of the Land of Israel is abhorrent. In the aftermath of the Oslo Accords, Israel relinquished control over the vast majority of the Arab population in Judea and Samaria. They have a Palestinian government with a flag, a national anthem and a budget. They are supposed to vote in Palestinian parliamentary elections. Most of the territory isn’t populated, and Israel has a historical right to it as a nation.

The Israeli military deploys around the Palestinian areas to protect them, and Israelis, from Hamas radicalization. What happened in Gaza could happen tenfold in Judea and Samaria if Israel pulls out. If that happens, Israelis really will have to fight for their lives from the home front, and Palestinians could sustain a worse blow than

anything they have seen before. derpinnings of the conventional Western So yes, there is an Israeli presence thinking — are secondary to the idea that the “nationalism [of every nation], from around Judea and Samaria. the point of view of the Islamic Resistance But unlike Gaza, the military Movement, is part of the religious creed.” presence of the Israel Defense Forces Do you believe that? In psycho-historical in Judea and Samaria has proved itterms, this is tantamount to subordinatself. The Judea and Samaria region ing the logos (rationalism) to the mythos. is one of the calmest, safest places This view of the world will never interfor Arabs in the entire Middle East. sect with that of the West unless the Arab But that doesn’t matter. The view of world undergoes a profound cultural and Israel in the world is even worse now scientific revolution, like the West did in than it was before the Oslo Accords. the last thousand years.

Israelis are seen only as occupiers.

Bleeding-heart activists contend But we are talking about the “occupathat Israelis need to “separate from tion.” Look at all the Arab countries that them or give them full civil rights.” Palestinian protesters clash with Israeli forces near the Gaza-Israel bor- have fallen apart before our eyes in a But they did! “Give them an indepen- der on May 14, 2018.

Abed Rahim Khatib/Flash90 vortex of fire and blood. What is actually collapsing is the false nationalism that dent state,” they demand. Palestinians was artificially imposed on the peoples had every opportunity to establish a citizens are Palestinians under the rule of the state in Gaza, but they demonstrated that civil Hashemite dynasty, originally from the Kingdom of the region 100 years ago by the European cogovernment is not their priority. They only care of Hejaz in Saudi Arabia. Does this situation not lonialists who divvied up the Middle East after World War I. In one instance, these powers deabout self-rule as a weapon of war against Israel. meet all the known criteria for an occupation?

So in the absence of an independent state, he West, including Israel, holds the Middle cided that the Sunnis, Shi’ites, Druze, Christians, “give them full Israeli citizenship,” they arEast to Western political standards, even Alawites and Assyrians of a particular area were gue. Will that solve the “occupation” problem? though the region is far more ancient than in fact a single nation, called Syria. The region is There are Arab representatives in the Knesset. the West and its fundamental governing, politi- now reverting back to its ancient tribal structure.

Are they under an occupation? Do they accept cal, cultural and religious perceptions are en- The veneer of Western rationalism is crumbling, the self-definition of the state that they inhab- tirely different than the West’s. The West speaks and the Middle Eastern mythology is erupting.

The debate about the “occupation,” thereit? Do they accept its symbols? Do they recog- in the language of logic — a rational language nize its sovereignty over the land? that flattens the deep layers of life here, ignoring fore, is being conducted within a Western conYou can’t fool us. Anyone who read the Arab the region’s ancient mythology and misguidedly struct that assumes a right to national self-deHigher Monitoring Committee’s so-called posi- believing that the religious factor here can be termination for every distinct ethnic unit. The West is talking about Israel controlling another tion paper — “The Future Vision of the Arab Pal- countered as it was in Europe. estinians in Israel,” published in 2006 — will see If you’re so inclined, look up the Hamas charter people, while in reality, the “occupation” is just that to them, the Jews are foreign colonialists online, and you will see how blind some tend to the tip of the iceberg. The deeper problem is not who came to a land that doesn’t belong to them. be to about its deep-seated ideological foundation the “occupation,” in the Western sense of conAs long as Israel defines itself as the national against Israel’s very existence — not as Israelis, trolling another people, but the ancient, mythostate of the Jewish people — and not the state but as Jews. Article 8 of the charter, the organi- logical sense of controlling the land.

So while the West talks about “territories” of any other nationality — Arab political leader- zation’s political and military platform, presents ship will continue to feel that their Israeli citi- Hamas’s slogan of resistance, which was originally that can be shared, the Arab world talks about zenship was forced on them as a result of their the Muslim Brotherhood’s: “Allah is [the organiza- land. In the Middle East, the existence of a man nakba, or “catastrophe,” in the 1948 War of In- tion’s] goal. The Prophet is its leader. The Quran is is derived from his connection to the land and dependence. So what if they have Israeli citizen- its constitution. Jihad is its path, and death for the his possession of it. That is the reason for the endless bloodshed to obtain it. It is history rapship? Would it make a difference to a prisoner sake of Allah is its most coveted desire.” if he was allowed cast a vote in the elections for This is the root of all the charter’s assertions. ping on our heads in mysterious ways, forcing warden? Would it change the prisoner’s status?

For example, Article 12 describes how negotia- us to reconnect with that ancient component in And what about Jordan? Most of Jordan’s tions between states or peoples — one of the un- our identity that the good land symbolizes in us.

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What the Germans understand about BDS Jonathan S. tobin

Jewish News Syndicate

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ho ever thought Germans would have a better grasp of the need to stand up against anti-Semitism than the Scots?

It’s been more than seven decades since the end of World War II, but the lessons of the Holocaust do seem better understood in Germany. With support for the BDS movement, which targets Israel and incites anti-Semitism, spreading across Europe, it turns out that German institutions and politicians are treating its supporters, including a prominent Scottish rap group, with the disdain they deserve.

Still, this stand is seen more as a case of German atonement for the crimes of the Nazi regime than as the defense of an important principle. BDS supporters are also gaining sympathy by portraying those calling them out for hate as attempting to suppress free speech.

That’s the impression one gets from a New York Times article about a German battle over BDS that has embroiled some major arts festivals. But while it’s easy to be sidetracked by discussions about Germany’s history or to be distracted by the claims of BDS proponents, no one should be deceived into thinking this about anything but hate.

At the center of this controversy is the Scottish rap group Young Fathers, which has earned critical praise and awards for its performances. But despite its popularity, the group was dropped from the Ruhrtriennale, a widely

respected arts extravaganza that also receives funding from the German government, as do many arts groups in that country.

As the Times reports, the members of Young Fathers are vocal supporters of BDS. They even withdrew from a Berlin festival when they heard that some Israelis artists performing there had been helped by their country’s embassy. Others followed their lead. The Ruhrtriennale rescinded its invitation, saying it “distances itself in all forms from the B.D.S. movement and wishes to have absolutely no connection with the campaign.”

That, in turn, triggered an angry reaction from singers and groups who threatened to pull out of the festival. Faced with the anger of headliners like Laurie Anderson, the Ruhrtriennale backed down and invited Young Fathers back, but the group refused. The band’s manager said they planned to stay away from all German government-subsidized events because of the nation’s affection for Israel. The Germans were, he said, asking the rappers to “distance ourselves from our human-rights principles.” he irony here is that while many Jews are still suspicious of Germany, contemporary Israel-haters view it as hostile to their efforts. Specifically, the BDS movement sees the willingness of the German government to speak up against it as merely an overreaction to the Holocaust. But the claim that BDS is merely reasonable criticism of Israel’s misdeeds, as opposed to anti-Semitism, is a lie.

BDS has nothing to do with “human rights.”

To the contrary, it is not about “criticism” of Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians, the presence of Jewish settlements in the West Bank or a twostate solution to the Middle East conflict. Its goal, as made clear by groups like Students for Justice

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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at a press conference with German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Berlin on June 4.

Haim Zach/GPO

in Palestine that promote the cause in the United States, is the eradication of Israel.

That’s why the Germans are right when they say it is anti-Semitic. While Germany’s government has been critical of some Israeli actions, it knows the difference between policy disagreements and attempts to destroy the one Jewish state in the world. If you wish to deny only one people on earth the right to a homeland and self-defense, then you are practicing discrimination. And if that bias is against Jews, then it’s defined as anti-Semitism.

Yet while discriminatory BDS campaigns against Israel are tolerated in much of Europe, as well as on some college campuses in the United States, the German government seems to be capable of discerning its purpose. Others are not.

BDS supporters claim that Germans still feel guilty about the Holocaust, and as Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas put it, they are trying to make Arabs pay for their past misdeeds.

But if Germans feel guilty about what their country did, it’s because their nation is one of the few places where Holocaust education is taken seri-

ously. That’s why they understand that efforts to single out Jews for opprobrium are reminiscent of the German boycotts of Jewish businesses and professionals that gained steam in the 1930s.

We don’t have to draw the obvious parallels between those events and today to know that BDS is anti-Semitic. Everywhere where the movement pops up, acts of anti-Semitism soon follow.

It’s to Germany’s credit that the mayor of Munich, Dieter Reiter, denounced rock star Roger Waters of Pink Floyd after a recent show in his city. Reiter noted that Waters — an outspoken supporter of BDS — had engaged in anti-Semitic invective when he had not only used his performance to attack Israel, but also ranted about the power of the “Jewish lobby,” and made appalling and fallacious comparisons between the Jewish state and Nazi Germany. BDS supporters have every right to say what they like, but like racists or those who promote other kinds of prejudice, they have no right to complain when they are called out for being supporters of hate.

While many in the artistic community parrot the lie that BDS is about human rights, German leaders, even some from the far left, understand that the movement spreads lies and hatred.

While it does little harm to Israel’s dynamic economy, it does stigmatize Jews and others who have the courage to speak up for Israel.

Unlike Germany, much of the rest of the world has forgotten history and is reviving old traditions of Jew-hatred by condoning BDS. It may seem odd that Germans are in the forefront of combating this trend, but it is a welcome development that decent people everywhere should applaud.

Jonathan S. Tobin is editor in chief of JNS.

THE JEWISH STAR July 6, 2018 • 23 Tammuz, 5778

No, it’s not the ‘occupation’ — it’s the Jews

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July 6, 2018 • 23 Tammuz, 5778 THE JEWISH STAR

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The JEWISH STAR

CAlendar of Events

Send your events to Calendar@TheJewishStar.com • Deadline noon Friday • Compiled by Zachary Schechter Thursday July 5

Parsha Shiur: [Weekly] Join Michal Horowitz at the YI of Woodmere for a special shiur on the parsha. 9:30 am. 859 Peninsula Blvd, Woodmere.

516-295-0950.

Iyun Tefilah: [Weekly] Rabbi Moshe Teitelbaum at the Young Israel of Lawrence Cedarhurst. 9:45 am. 8 Spruce St, Cedarhurst.

Esther Wein: [Weekly] Torah and spiritual insights from Esther Wein at YI of Lawrence. 10 am.

8 Spruce St, Cedarhurst.

Advanced Yiddish Lessons: [Weekly] YI of Woodmere will be offering advanced Yiddish reading lessons. 10:30-11:30 am. 516-295-4212.

859 Peninsula Blvd, Woodmere.

Learn Maseches Brachos: [Weekly] Join Rabbi Eliyahu Wolf at the YI of Woodmere for a shiur on Maseches Brachos. 5:15 pm. 859 Peninsula Blvd, Woodmere. 516-295-0950.

Halacha Shiur: [Weekly] Join Rabbi Yoni Levin at Aish Kodesh for a halacha shiur. 9:30 pm.

894 Woodmere Pl, Woodmere.

Friday July 6

Erev Shabbos Kollel: Weekly] Eruv Shabbos Kollel starting with 6 am Chassidus shiur with Rav Moshe Weinberger and concluding with 9 am Chevrusah Learning session with Rabbi Yoni Levin. 894 Woodmere Pl, Woodmere. 390 Broadway, Lawrence. 516-569-3600.

Saturday July 7

Partners in Torah: As part of YI of Woodmere’s Summer Learning Program representatives from Partners in Torah will be speaking in various minyanim and Shabbos afternoon at 7 pm. 859 Peninsula Blvd, Woodmere. 516-2950950.

Sunday July 8

Timely Torah: [Weekly] Join Rabbi Ya’akov Trump, assistant rabbi of the Young Israel of Lawrence-Cedarhurst, for a shiur on relevant Halachic and philosophical topics related to Parsha Moadim and contemporary issues. Coffee and pastries. 8 am. 8 Spruce St, Cedarhurst.

Learning Program: [Weekly] At Aish Kodesh led by Rav Moshe Weinberger following 8:15 Shacharis including 9 am breakfast and shiurim on subjects such as halacha, gemara and divrei chizuk. 894 Woodmere Pl, Woodmere.

Gemara Shiur: [Weekly] Join Rabbi Moshe Sokoloff at the YI of Woodmere for a gemara shiu.r 9:15 am. 859 Peninsula Blvd, Woodmere.

516-295-0950.

Torah 4 Teens: [Weekly] Yeshiva program for high-school age boys & young adults with Rabbi Matis Friedman. 9:15 am-12:30 pm.

410 Hungry Harbor Rd, Valley Stream. Torah4teens5T@gmail.com.

Monday July 9

Women’s Shiur: [Weekly] Dr. Anette Labovitz’s women shiur will continue at Aish Kodesh.

10 am. 894 Woodmere Pl, Woodmere.

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

8:45 pm. 894 Woodmere Pl, Woodmere.

Tuesday July 10

Women’s Shiur: [Weekly] Rebbetzin Weinberger of Aish Kodesh will give a shiur on the “Midah of Seder in our Avodas Hashem.” 11 am. 894 Woodmere Pl, Woodmere.

BBQ & Volleyball: Our Place presents the Ultimate Foodie Experience & Backyard Volleyball Tournament. 6:30 pm. 17 Beechwood Dr., Lawrence. Register online at Volleyball.

OurPlaceNY.org.

Under the Stars: Join the Levi Yitzchak Library for a Chinese auction featuring a cappella performances by Meir Kay, Ilan Brownstein, and more. 7 pm. Pockriss home, 290 Ocean Ave., Lawrence. Contact auction@lylibrary.org or 347-446-0770.

Yiddish Classes: [Weekly] YI of Woodmere will be offering basic Yiddish lessons for seven weeks. Must know how to read Hebrew. Covers basic Yiddish and conversation.

8-9 pm. 859 Peninsula Blvd, Woodmere. 516621-7880.

Jewish History: [Weekly] Join Rabbi Evan Hoffman at the YI of Woodmere for a talk on Jewish History. 8:15 pm. 859 Peninsula Blvd, Woodmere. 516-295-0950.

Halacha Shiur: [Weekly] Join Rabbi Moshe Sokoloff at the YI of Woodmere for a halacha shiur. 8:40 pm. 859 Peninsula Blvd, Woodmere. 516-295-0950.

Gemara Shiur: [Weekly] Join Rabbi Dr. Aaron Glatt at the YI of Woodmere for a gemara shiur. 9:15 pm. 859 Peninsula Blvd, Woodmere. 516-295-0950.

Wednesday July 11

Skills Today, Success Forever: The Learning Center at Bnos Bais Yaakov invites you to a benefit BBQ. 8 pm. Event is at the home of Mr. and Mrs. Yossi Hammer, 740 Central Ave., Woodmere. Contact Bnos Bais Yaakov 718-337-6000 ext. 450. 17 Beechwood Dr, Lawrence. 6.:30.

Volleyball and Food Guys Night Out: Our Place presents the 5th annual Ultimate Food Experience & Backyard Volletball Tournament. 17 Beechwood Dr, Lawrence. 6.:30.

Wine and Wisdom: Congregation Beth Shalom invites all women to a night of wine and wisdom with guest speakers Lisa Septimus and Rachel Hercman. $36 couvert. 8 pm. 390 Broadway, Lawrence. 5townsyoetzet. com/events. 516-512-4494.

Timely Tanach: [Weekly] Join Rabbi Ya’akov Trump of the Young Israel of Lawrence Cedarhurst for a shiur on Sefer Shoftim.

8 pm. 8 Spruce St, Cedarhurst.

SILHOUETTE CLEARVIEW™SHADINGS Chumash and Halacha Shiur: [WeekSILHOUETTE CLEARVIEW™SHADINGS ly] Shiur with Rabbi Yosef Richtman at Aish Kodesh. 8 pm. 894 Woodmere Pl, Woodmere.

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Morning Shiur: [Weekly] Rebbetzin Tehila Jaeger at the YI of Lawrence. 10:30 am. 8 Spruce St, Cedarhurst.

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Sunday July 15

The Big Chazaq Event: Chazaq invites you to sixth annual Big Chazaq Event featuring four guest speakers, refreshments and free valet parking. Tickets starting at $18. 6:30 pm. 6902 Garfield Ave, Woodside. 718-285-9132. See page 23.

Monday July 16

Drug Awareness: Community-wide event to address drug abuse in the community. 8 pm.

Congregation Beth Sholom, 390 Broadway, Lawrence. Contact Cathy Byrne 516-569-6733.

See page 5.

Holocaust History: Final lecture in a series exploring Kiddush Hashem in the Kovno ghetto through the writings of Rabbi Ephraim Oshry zt”l. 8:45-9:30 pm. Regency Congregation, 260 Central Ave, Lawrence. Contact Saul Rosenberg 718-781-3921.

Tuesday July 17

Drug Awareness: Sharsheret invites you to its Long Island Barbecue Dinner, featuring guest speaker Faygie Morgenstern and siyum in memory of Myrna Greissman a”h. $100 per person, $200 per couple. 7 pm. Lawrence Yacht and Country Club, 101 Causeway Rd., Lawrence.

RSVP online at sharsheret.org/libbq.

Wednesday July 18

AMIT LI Day of Learning for women by women. Keynote speaker: Yael Axelrod, on “Bein Hametzarim: Tears of Destruction, Tears of Hope.” The Sephardic Temple, 775 Branch Blvd., Cedarhurst. $60 per person. 9:30 AM. Register online at AMITChildren.org/YomIyun or call Genene Kaye 212-477-5465. See page 3.

Monday July 23

Western Rodeo: Bonei Olam invites you to a BBQ event — details to follow. 7:30 pm. Corner of Central Ave. and Fulton St., Lawrence.

Monday August 13

Spin to Win: Shalom Task Force and Spin to Win present a ping pong tournament and barbeque in support of Shalom Task Force’s men’s educational programs. 7:30 pm. 130 Woodmere Blvd, Woodmere. $125.

Tuesday August 14

Hit4Hasc: Camp HASC presents a baseball tournament in memory of Chaim Silber at North Woodmere Park. 750 Hungry Harbor Rd, Valley Stream. 817-709-1184.

Send us your listing…

Email information about your upcoming Jewish-related event as early as possible to Calendar@TheJewishStar.com. Be sure to include a contact phone or email we can publish, as well as the price of admission (or specify free) and any restrictions on attendance.

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981498

Continued from page 1 rameters are dead,” explained David M. Weinberg, founding vice president of the Jerusalem Institute for Strategic Studies.

A study released in June by the American Jewish Committee indicates that 48 percent of Israelis now oppose creation of a demilitarized Palestinian state, with only 44 percent in favor.

Similarly, a joint poll released in January by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research and the Tami Steinmetz Center for Peace Research, shows that only 47 percent of Jews and 46 percent of Palestinians support a two-state solution.

Weinberg offers Trump “credit for taking a fresh look at what is safe, wise, fair and realistic in today’s Israeli-Palestinian reality.” He similarly thinks any new proposal “will do away with the hackneyed prescriptions of the past and shift the debate towards pragmatic solutions in which all regional parties shoulder responsibility for a settlement.”

Partial extended sovereignty As such, proposals for new paradigms, including calls for Israel to extend sovereignty over territories currently occupied

by Israelis and Palestinians, are gaining traction.

Minister of Education Naftali Bennett, whose Jewish Home Party sits on the right of Israel’s political spectrum, has called for Israel to annex Area C of the West Bank—areas of full Israeli military and municipal control—while continuing to allow Palestinian self-rule in the smaller Areas A and B, where Palestinians already maintain municipal authority.

Left-wing politicians are also calling for Israeli annexations. In May, Knesset member Eitan Cabel of the Zionist Union Party shocked party members by calling on Israel to annex large Jewish “settlement blocs” such as Ma’ale Adumim and Gush Etzion, which combined house more than 100,000 Jewish residents.

Einat Wilf, a former Member of Knesset with the leftleaning Labor and Independence parties, suggests that Israel should annex 4 percent of Judea and Samaria, which Wilf says contains around 80 percent of the Jewish population of those areas.

Under the “80-80” plan she developed along with Shany Mor, a former director for foreign policy on the Israeli National Security Council, Wilf says Israel “will have 80 percent of the territory between the Mediterranean and the Jordan [River] with a solid 80 percent majority of Jewish residents, for generations to come.”

Wilf, author of the new book, “Telling Our Story: Recent Essays on Zionism, the Middle East, and the Path to Peace,” acknowledges that “this isn’t the peace we envisioned in the 90s” when the Oslo Accords were signed. Her hope is that the 80-80 plan “will earn us the diplomatic support of the important nations of the world, and we won’t be dependent any longer on the Palestinians.”

Calls for full Israeli sovereignty Yet for some in Israel, pushes for partial annexations are simply variations on the current two-state paradigm. At the forefront of this movement are activists Nadia Matar and Yehudit Katsover, who co-founded the “Sovereignty Movement.”

Matar says that “the Palestinian Authority never kept their side of the Oslo agreements.”

She suggests that several prominent Palestinians have expressed to her that they don’t want to live in a state controlled by the P.A. and would actually prefer living under Israeli control due to Palestinian corruption, in addition to the greater stability and economic opportunities that Israel provides. She believes that many Palestinians quietly share similar sentiments.

In her book, The Israeli Solution: A One-State Plan for Peace in the Middle East, author and columnist Caroline Glick tells JNS that Israel should apply Israeli law to all of Judea and Samaria and offer citizenship to its entire Arab population.

Citing new research indicating that Jewish birthrates are on the rise alongside rapidly falling Palestinian birthrates, Glick suggests that Israel need not worry about the “demographic bogeyman” that Arabs will one day outnumber Jews in the world’s only Jewish state.

Opponents of the sovereignty movement have argued for years that demographics lay at the heart of the need to divide the land between Israelis and Palestinians.

Deputy Speaker of the Knesset Hilik Bar (Zionist Union Party), who opposes annexations, tells JNS that “there is no dispute about who these territories belong to [the Jewish People] from a biblical, historical or political perspective.” Yet at the same time, Bar still subscribes to the longstanding demographic threat. “The Jewish people didn’t establish a state to have an Arab majority. We don’t need to be a minority in our own state.”

Bar suggests that “in the future, we can have a Catholic marriage [with the Palestinians], with one state and voting rights for everyone, or we can have a respectful divorce, with a strong Israeli state and a small demilitarized Palestinian state.”

Still, the concept of a single state with full voting rights for all of its inhabitants does not sit well with some of Bar’s fellow parliamentarians.

people, as well as add a series of instructions to its constitutional framework dealing with the country’s fundamental characteristics as a Jewish state.”

Katsover of the “Sovereignty Movement” believes that sovereignty will, in fact, be applied over Judea and Samaria at some point in the near future. “The fact that many government ministers and members of Knesset are starting to draft proposals towards sovereignty prove that our idea has become part of the consensus. Ultimately, it’s either sovereignty or two states, and it’s clear what we have to choose,” she says.

As for Glick, despite the renewed possibilities of a twostate plan being promoted by Kushner and Greenblatt, she believes that Israel should move quickly to change the longstanding two-state paradigm. With the election of Trump, she says, “we now have the diplomatic environment that allows us to secure our long-term interests in Judea and Samaria like never before.”

23 THE JEWISH STAR July 6, 2018 • 23 Tammuz, 5778

Peace plan...

Parliamentary initiatives In December, 1,500 members of the ruling Likud Party’s Central Committee unanimously passed a nonbinding party resolution to effectively annex all Israeli communities in Judea and Samaria.

Shortly after the resolution, Knesset Members Yoav Kisch (Likud) and Bezalel Smotrich (Jewish Home), who lead the Knesset’s Land of Israel caucus, introduced a bill calling for the application of Israeli sovereignty over all communities in Judea and Samaria. However, the bill did not receive Netanyahu’s support.

This past May, JNS reported that the Knesset passed the first of three required readings of a proposed “Nationality Law,” which seeks to canonize “Israel as the nation State of the Jewish People.”

The bill calls “to enshrine in the basic legislation the identity of the State of Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish

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July 6, 2018 • 23 Tammuz, 5778 THE JEWISH STAR

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