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Vaeschanan • Shabbat Nachamu • July 27, 2018 • 16 Av, 5778 • Torah columns pages 18 –19 • Luach page 18 • Vol 17, No 29

Why Putin

The Newspaper of our Orthodox communities

Israel

It’s his drive to make Russia great again Analysis by Charles Dunst, JTA While American politicians and pundits fumed at President Donald Trump’s performance in Helsinki, Israel emerged a winner.

As reported in The Jewish Star last week, Trump said that he and Putin had reached a “really good conclusion” for Israel in regard to the situation in Syria. The Russian leader said he paid “special attention” to the Jewish state during negotiations.

Trump’s unflinching support for Israel — perhaps a result of evangelical enthusiasm, ideological nudging from his Jewish son-in-law, or the need to repudiate all things Obama — is well documented. But Putin’s is unexpected, especially since he backs Syria’s Bashar Assad, a war criminal whose regional interests often defy Israel’s.

Even more counterintuitive is the motivation behind his Jewish outreach: raging nationalism. Putin believes it is his personal duty to Make Russia Great Again.

Vladimir Putin with Russia’s chief rabbi, Berel Lazar, at the Kremlin on Dec. 28, 2016. At left, “Russia’s President Vladimir Putin, czar in all but name, Steven Skybell is Tevye in a new Yiddish staging of “Fiddler on the Roof” whose Anatevka See Befriending Jews on page 4 reflects a part of Russian culture. See Fiddler on page 4. Kremlin photo by Alexei Druzhinin/AFP/Getty

We’re going home!

By Ed Weintrob Not only didn’t the recent troubles along Israel’s borders stop any of the 232 North Americans who planned

to make aliyah on Tuesday’s Nefesh B’Nefesh charter flight, but conflict in Israel has never stopped the migration home, NBN Co-Founder

Campers meet some Mets

and Executive Director Rabbi Yehoshua Fass told The Jewish Star as the El Al flight was boarding at JFK. “Every time there is an issue, we always see a spike,” Rabbi Fass said.

“Even in times of war, we never had one cancellation because of security issues.” He pointed out that 88 of Tuesday’s olim would be locating in Israel’s north and south. “That this is happening now, with the unrest, it’s incredible,” he said.

Jewish National Fund CEO Russell Robinson, whose organization is helping to propel settlement in the Negev, told The Jewish Star that even amidst “the red alerts, we have people building new houses” in the south.

Tuesday’s flight drew olim from 20 U.S. states and one Canadian province, ranging in age from 6 months to 80 years — including 34 families, 18 singles, three sets of twins, five future IDF soldiers, 15 medical professions, and 127 children under 17.

During a celebration at JFK be-

Troubles in Israel don’t stop 232 olim from making move

From Kew Gardens Hills, Hanna and Shamshy Schlager and their children — Azarya, 3, and Adella, 5 — ready to board Tuesday’s aliyah flight. Ed Weintrob/The Jewish Star

fore takeoff, Danny Dayan, counsul general of Israel in New York, recounted his experience “as an oleh chadash, many years ago” and told those heading to Israel now, “you

are going to experience the most exciting days of your life.”

Even though Jessica and Azi Cutter love their lives in Long Beach — See Aliyah on page 3

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3 THE JEWISH STAR July 27, 2018 • 16 Av, 5778

From Cedarhurst, Rebecca and David Kornbluth and 16 month old Amalia. David’s brother already made aliyah and his mother and sister hope to follow next year. Ed Weintrob/The Jewish Star

From Long Beach, Jessica and Azi Cutter — and their children Revital, 2; Elan, 4; Avra, 7; and Cobi, 9 — are surrounded by family and business associates at JFK on Tuesday.

Ed Weintrob/The Jewish Star

Aliyah...

Hani Lieberman, flanked by her parents Joe and Hadassah, was boarding Tuesday’s NBN aliyah flight.

Ed Weintrob/The Jewish Star

Continued from page 1 “once you have Long Beach sand you never get rid of it,” Jessica said, with Azi adding that he’s a surfer who delighted in living on the beach — the Cutters are making the move now so “our children can be Israelis. We’re doing this to be a player in history.”

“The accepting nature of the Long Beach community is very rare to find,” said Jessica, whose family’s been active in the Bach Jewish Center. But “we believe that Israel is the place for the Jewish people to be,” Azi said.

Azi said he started his tech recruitment business, AC Lion, 20 years ago with the idea that he would eventually move to Israel. Now he plans to expand his business in Jerusalem and stay in touch with the New York office using What’sApp, Zoom and other tech,

along with periodic visits.

Hanna and Shamshy Schlager of Kew Guardens Hills, where they’ve been affiliated with the Nachlas Yitzchak shul, are moving with their 3 and 5 year old children to Modiin. Shamshy’s a clinicial psychologist who hopes to open a practice in Jerusalem; Hanna works for UJA Federation NY and plans to continue with the organization from the Jewish Agency building in Jerusalem.

Why now? Why not? “We can. We’re young enough. It’s the right time,” she said.

From Cedarhurst, where they daven at the “Spiegel shtiebel,” Rebecca and David Kornbluth were making aliyah with their 16 month old daughter. David’s an engineer who’ll begin life in Israel studying at the YU Gruss Kollel.

David’s brother already made aliyah and his sister and mother plan to do the same next year, “the last installment of the family.”

Meir Fein from Brooklyn’s Georgetown with pre-flight cake. Ed Weintrob/Jewish Star

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July 27, 2018 • 16 Av, 5778 THE JEWISH STAR

4

A blast from Russia’s past: Yiddish ‘Fiddler’ in NY

By Josefin Dolsten, JTA The National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene’s new production of “Fiddler on the Roof” enacts a familiar story in an unfamiliar language. The actors sing about joy and hardship, and argue about the importance of tradition, in the language their characters would have spoken in the Old Country.

But before rehearsals started in June, the majority of them had no experience with the language. Of the 26 cast members, only three spoke Yiddish fluently. Another nine had some experience with the mama loshen, but everyone had just a month to memorize the entire script.

The result is extraordinary, giving audience members a new experience and new understanding of one of Broadway’s best-loved musicals. (For those who don’t speak Yiddish, there are supertitles in English and Russian.)

This production of “Fiddler on the Roof” — or “Fidler Afn Dakh” — marks the first time the musical is being performed in Yiddish in the United States, and only the second time in its history (a Yiddish version ran for about four weeks in Israel in 1965), according to the New York-based theater company.

“Fiddler on the Roof,” which premiered in 1964, is based on “Tevye and His Daughters,” a series of stories by the Yiddish writer Sholem Aleichem. Created by Jerry Bock, Sheldon Harnick and Joseph Stein, the musical tells the story of a poor dairy farmer living in the Russian town of Anatevka at the start of the 20th century as he grapples with tradition and the ways his daughters choose to defy it.

As part of the auditions for Folksbiene’s production, actors had to prove that they would be able to learn Yiddish quickly. Those called in for auditions were given 24 hours to memorize

Playing the daughters in a new Yiddish production of “Fiddler on the Roof,” from left: Raquel Nobile, Rosie Jo Neddy, Rachel Zatcoff, Stephanie Lynne Mason and Samantha Hahn.

Victor Nechay/ProperPix

a recording of a song in the language. From the 2,500 applications, 26 actors were chosen.

The team used a translation by Shraga Friedman, who translated and co-directed the Israeli production. Performing the show in Yiddish hearkens back to Sholem Aleichem’s original stories, said Folksbiene CEO Christopher Massimine. But it does much more.

Perhaps the biggest difference, according

to Massimine, is that the word “tradition” has been replaced by “Torah.” Though a Yiddish word for tradition is used in the iconic song “Tradition,” Torah is used elsewhere. That raises the stakes for characters like Tevye, for whom Torah is not mere custom but represents the ultimate authority: G-d’s law.

“A tradition can start one way and end up another way,” Massimine told JTA. “You can

argue with the tradition because it’s not something that is set in stone — but law is.”

Folksbiene, the world’s oldest continuously operating Yiddish theater, was able to acquire Friedman’s director’s notes, which helped shed light on his translation and how the changes sometimes shift the play’s meaning.

One such instance is at the end of the play, when the Russian government orders Jews to leave Anatevka. While Tevye, his wife and two of his daughters head to America, another daughter, Tsaytl, and her husband say they are leaving not for Poland, as in the original production, but specifically the city of Warsaw.

To a modern audience, the mention of the city, which was home to the largest Jewish ghetto in Europe during World War II, is likely to bring memories of the Holocaust.

“That being said in Yiddish, it brings it all full circle,” Massimine said.

Friedman made other choices to preserve the rhyme scheme: “If I Were a Rich Man” becomes “Ven Ikh Bin a Rothschild” (If I were a Rothschild), which is also the name of another story by Sholem Aleichem.

With a $750,000 budget, the show is Folksbiene’s largest and most expensive production.

Massimine says the show has already earned back its production costs in ticket sales.

In addition to showing Tevye and his family speaking in what would have been their historic language, the production makes a point about Yiddish and its state today.

“It’s also a portrait of the initial decline of Yiddish and why that happened,” Massimine said, “and why it’s important that we treasure this language and this culture.”

“Fiddler” runs through Sept. 2 at the Museum of Jewish Heritage in downtown Manhattan.

Befriending Jews to help make Russia great again…

Continued from page 1 has a genius for mining the ore of Russian nationalism,” writes Ralph Peters of the Hoover Institution. Putin often frames expansionist foreign policies around such nationalism, particularly “as a protection of ‘ours’ — and ‘ours’ are Russian, no matter where they live,” explains Masha Lipman in The New Yorker.

Putin has made efforts to reach out to Russian Jewish communities, both in Russia and in Israel. Russia’s chief rabbi, Berel Lazar, is a close confidante.

According to biographers Fiona Hill and Clifford Gaddy, Putin has “encouraged Russian oligarchs — irrespective of their ethnic or religious origin — to fund the restoration of synagogues and mosques, not just churches.”

“For Putin, Russia’s multiethnic, indigenous culture … must be preserved and actively maintained for the state to survive,” Hill, senior director for European and Russian Affairs on Trump’s National Security Council, and Gaddy, a former Brookings Institution fellow, write in their book Mr. Putin: Operative in the Kremlin.

“In Putin’s view, the Bolsheviks made a serious mistake in destroying these cultural artifacts,” which the authors say could have been “useful history for binding all the different groups together and creating a common heritage.”

Putin’s nationalism, unlike its Soviet predecessor, incorporates ethnic minority groups, including Jews, weaving “ours” into the narrative governing Russian’s history and future in an effort to unite the Russian people and restore the former empire.

In a September 2010 meeting with then-Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak, Putin “in addition to stress-

In Moscow, Russian President Vladimir Putin greets Israeli President Shimon Peres in 2012 (left) and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in January 2018.

Office of the President of Russia and Alexey Nikolsky/AFP/Getty Images

ing the importance of reaching out to Russian emigres,” write Hill and Gaddy, “talked wistfully of bringing back ‘our Jews’ who had emigrated to Israel.” They say he “rejected the idea that former Jewish citizens of the Russian Empire and Soviet Union might not want to come back” given previous discrimination.

A 2017 report indicated that the number of Russians emigrating from Israel back to their ethnic homeland is rising. Rabbi Boruch Gorin, a senior figure in Russia’s Chabad-affiliated Federation of Jewish Communities, indicates that Putin’s conception of Russia, unlike its Soviet iteration, includes Jews.

“I believe that he has a sort of Russian nationalism that they call patriotism, that includes all of the ‘native’ Russians in Mother Russian ethnicity — and Russian Jews are in as well,” Gorin told JTA in an email. “He is interested in the strong (sort of best)

Russian Jewish community, as a matter of Russian pride.”

When a member of Russian parliament suggested changing the state’s constitution to remove the inclusive “we the multinational people of Russia” in favor of the exclusive “we the [ethnic] Russian people,” Putin dismissed the idea.

“We must not do that if you and I want to have a strong single nation,” Putin said, according to Hill and Gaddy. “The fact that the [ethnic] Russian people are — without a doubt — the backbone [of Russia] … cannot be questioned.” To divide everyone up, he said, “is a very dangerous path. You and I, all of us, must not do this.”

When met with legitimate accusations of historical and contemporary anti-Semitism, Putin has shifted blame elsewhere, particularly onto Ukraine.

And yet, “Whatever his many other sins, even Vladimir Putin’s harshest

critics concede that he’s not an antiSemite,” writes Joshua Keating in Slate.

Asked if anti-Semitism has become less prevalent in recent years, Gorin told JTA, “Sure.” Partly because of Jewish migration from the Soviet Union, (“[there is] nobody to hate,” the rabbi said), but also “partly because of Putin’s positive steps toward the Jewish community.”

Experts report that anti-Semitism in Russia is in decline, and the Russian judiciary has cracked down on it.

“The complete absence of anti-Semitism on the part of Boris Yeltsin has been well-documented, and that seems to be true for Putin as well,” David Rivera, former director of the Harvard Russian Institute of International Affairs, told JTA. “Indeed, Yeltsin probably would not have chosen Putin to be his successor as president had he detected any anti-Semitism on Putin’s part.”

Marvin Kalb, author of Impe-

rial Gamble: Putin, Ukraine, and the New Cold War, suggested that Putin’s courting of Russia’s Jews is the result of cold calculation.

“He reaches out to the Jews of Russia for reasons relating to oldfashioned Slavic anti-Semitism and the new requirements of Russian policy in the Middle East,” Kalb told JTA in an email. “Russian nationalists have long believed that Jews are troublemakers, capable of arousing the public with anti-establishment (anti-Putin) sentiments. Better, if possible, to soothe their unhappiness with mild, agreeable words.

“Russia’s position in the Middle East is now paramount, Putin having achieved what no Tsar could before him,” he continued. “In this new power role, he tries to serve as middleman between Israel and the Arabs — and Iran. It requires balancing interests, and so far he has done very well. Putin is a cold, calculating Russian nationalist, with little love or feeling for anyone who does not share this background and beliefs.

“Historically, Jews have not been part of this world.”

Putin’s calculations have resulted in overtures to Israel. On a visit to Moscow in 2000, Israeli politician and former Soviet dissident Natan Sharansky received a call from the Kremlin inviting him to a private lunch with the president.

Putin “said it wasn’t simple in the KGB being sympathetic to Jews,” Sharansky told the Post. “But he told me how he grew up in [a] communal apartment and there was a Jewish family there which for him were almost like relatives. He liked them very much.”

Sharansky, according to the See Putin on page 5

Continued from page 4 Washington Post, said “Putin spent much of the lunch expressing ... his sympathy for Israel, his distaste for anti-Semitism and the importance he attaches to Jews in Russia and the Jewish Diaspora.” The Post noted that perhaps like Israel at large, Sharansky “was impressed by Putin’s overture to Diaspora Jews — regardless of the motivation behind it.”

In 2005, Putin visited Israel, meeting not only then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon but also his high school German teacher who had emigrated there, and reportedly buying her an apartment. In 2012, he invited then-President Shimon Peres to Moscow for the dedication of the Jewish Museum and Center of Tolerance, telling him, “We will never forget the sacrifices made by the Jewish people in the fight against Nazism, and we will never forget the Holocaust.”

A few months earlier, Putin had traveled to Israel for the dedication of the Victory Monument to the Red Army in Netanya. Then, he promised that he “would not let a million Russians live under threat,” referring to Israel’s immigrant population. In Moscow, Putin reminded Peres of the dedication, invoking the “enormous sacrifices for our shared victory over Nazism.”

In referencing a “shared victory,” Putin is willing into existence a historical relationship likely to be welcomed by the Israelis: a timeless and necessary one between Jews and the Russian people, providing survival for both.

Putin and Netanyahu have met in Russia and in Israel, pursuing future “shared victories” and strengthening a fledgling symbiotic relationship. In May, Netanyahu traveled to Moscow, taking part in the once-Soviet, now-Russian Victory Day parade commemorating the defeat of Nazism.

Gorin, for one, believes Putin’s gestures to Jews and Israel are welcome and, like everything else he does, in service of his vision for Russia.

“Is he good for the Jews? For the organized community, without any doubts he is,” the rabbi said. “For the Jews as the private citizens, [he is] good for those who admire him and bad for the Jews in opposition. Same as for the rest of [the] population.”

Building continues in Negev’s south

By Megan E. Turner, JNS Amid the billowing smoke across the nearby Gaza border, deep in Israel’s Negev, the new community of Shlomit laid a cornerstone for their future community center. The new structure will serve not only Shlomit, but the entire Eshkol region in southern Israel.

Seven hundred meters from Israel’s border with Egypt, Shlomit and the other budding communities of Halutza are defying the odds.

“Building a community center on the border here [with Gaza] says it all,” says Gadi Yarkoni, the mayor of Eshkol. “That’s how you show the enemy that you’ve won.”

Indeed, this show of life and vibrancy is Jewish National Fund-USA’s (JNF) goal in the face of trying times.

In the presence of distinguished guests, including Yarkoni MK Nurit Koren, World Zionist Organization Settlement Division Regional Director Itzik Bar, JNF CEO Russell F. Robinson, JNF Chief Israel Officer Eric Michaelson, and JNF national board of directors member Ron Werner, members of Shlomit planted trees in their first planned permanent neighborhood. Children “sang” Hallelujah in sign language, and guest speakers recounted the inspiring story of a community that a decade ago was sand dunes and dust.

“Eleven years ago, we stood on a hill in this area looking out at nothing but sand, and a man with a bit of meshuganeh said that he will build three communities here.

This is the outcome,” said Robinson, gesturing to the new houses abutting parks, playgrounds, greenhouses and the plot of land where the new community center will be.

JNF’s partner Halutza is a group of three communities headed by that “meshuganeh,” Rabbi Eli Adler. It’s made up primarily of for-

Children of Halutza in front of the site of the new Halutza Community Center.

mer Gush Katif residents who were evacuated from their homes during the 2005 disengagement from Gaza. They rebuilt their lives in this uninhabited desert. After 10 years of hard work, Shlomit is driving change in the region, showing that growth and development are possible in even the remote Negev.

Tzvi Yehuda Halevi, 31, a soft-spoken father of four, commutes three hours to work in central Israel every day. But participation in the community is second nature to him and his family. “We wanted to take part in a mission to give back to the Israeli people and to continue to settle our land.”

The community center groundbreaking is important — not just as a sign of endur-

JNF-USA.

ance, but as a critical source of services for the entire region. It will include classrooms and communal spaces, and provide learning opportunities, extracurricular activities and community events for all the region’s residents.

The event made a poignant statement, according to those involved, one that echoes throughout the region as terrorists continue to try to smoke Israelis out — literally.

“The growth and development we are witnessing in Halutza has a special emotional appeal for American Jews who support these efforts,” says Robinson. “It is also a loud and clear symbol that says, ‘We are here to stay, and we will continue to blossom.’”

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By The Jewish to remember Cedarhurst pausedmiracles of 9/11, at the the n on Sunday. the heroism, and commemoratio village’s annual Rabbi Shay Schachter of WoodIn his invocation, of the Young Israel the Master and (top right photo) pray that G-d, all the strength mere said, “we world, grant us Creator of the to stand firm together against of and the fortitude of extremism, of bigotry, all forms of terror, and of all evil that can be hatred, of racism, forms in our world.” who found in different obligation to thosenever solemn a have “We 11th to injured on Sept. died or were said Mayor Benjamin but we also forget what happened,” “We saw evil, Weinstock (bottom).

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ceremony, YU’s new president, after the investiture for a selfie. sterdam Avenue who happily posed sought-after celebrity

Ben Cohen

held its first congress in Basel, nor in the late 1920s, when thousands of German Jews fleeing the rise of Nazism chose to go to Palestine.

The year 1917 is the critical date because that is when, as an anti-Zionist might say, the Zionist hand slipped effortlessly into the British imperial glove. It is a neat, simple historical proposition upon which the entire Palestinian version of events rests: an empire came to our land and gave it to foreigners, we were dispossessed, and for five generations now, we have continued to resist. Moreover, it is given official sanction in the Palestine National Covenant of 1968, in which article 6 defines Jews who “were living permanently in Palestine until the beginning of the Zionist invasion” as “Palestinians”—an invasion that is dated as 1917 in the covenants’ notes.

As the Balfour Declaration’s centenary approached, this theme is much in evidence.

There is now a dedicated Balfour Apology See Cohen on page 22

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Arthur James Balfour

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

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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

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

Corbyn boycotts B’four event

Britain Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn— who in 2009 called Hezbollah and Hamas his “friends” — said he would not attend a dinner commemorating the centennial of the Balfour Declaration. Prime Minister Theresa May she would attend “with pride” and Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu would be her guest.

“We are proud of the role we played in the creation of the State of Israel and we will certainly mark the centenary with pride,” May said. “I am also pleased that good trade relations and other relations that we have with Israel we are building on and enhancing.”

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

IsraAID brings relief to U.S. disasters

By Ron Kampeas, JTA Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico, and WASHINGTON — For 17 years, the then the wildfires in northern California.

Israeli NGO IsraAID has been performPolizer recalls that he was wrapping ing search and rescue, purifying water, up a visit to IsraAID’s new American providing emergency medical assistance headquarters in Palo Alto on Oct. 8 and and walking victims of trauma back to was on his way to a flight to Mexico to psychological health in dozens of disas- oversee operations after a devastating ter-hit countries.

No 25 earthquake there when he got word of • Vol 16, But no season has been busier than the wildfires. “I literally had Luach page 19 9:15 • to do a Uthis past summer and fall, its co-CEO Yo- turn,” he said Havdalah this week in an interview 8:07 pm, tam Polizer said in an interview — and ting Candleligh at the Israeli embassy in Washington.

Polizer spoke with the exhilaration of an executive whose team has come through a daunting challenge. “We’re the people who stay past the ‘aid festival’,” he said, grinning, describing the See IsraAID on page 5

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5777 • Five Tamuz, “The last few months have been un2017 • 20 believable,” he said, listing a succession • July 14, Parsha Pinchas of disasters that occupied local staff and Niveen Rizkalla working with IsraAID in Santa Rosa, Calif., in volunteers since August: Hurricane Harthe wake of deadly wildfires there. vey in Texas, Hurricane Irma in Florida,

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Mr. Jacobs, JN who Yechiel Rybsztajn containson of s, a package plus named RYBSZTA he is the afterward Brussels, man, saying nephew. Not long was received in Mr. Jacobs’ and a pair of tefillinto the United States. Rybsztajn ing a tallis g his travel for five years,” which in Belgium were so nice, papers authorizin Brussels “we stayed Poland. So However, gentile people of went through in Shaydels, the “The what we recalled.

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THE JEWISH STAR July 27, 2018 • 16 Av, 5778

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Health MInd & Body

Hadassah helps save lives of Syrian children Hadassah Medical Organization (HMO) and the Baruch Padeh Poriya Hospital in Tiberias recently launched a unique collaboration through the IDF’s “Good Neighbor” program to save the lives of Syrian children and adolescents who suffer from complex and life-threatening heart abnormalities.

Fourteen Syrian children were treated at Hadassah’s Ein Kerem hospital in Jerusalem by a team of experts, as part of the “Good Neighbors” program, according to Ellen Hershkin, national president of Hadassah.

A joint team from Ein Kerem in Jerusalem and Poriya in Tiberias initially examined 20 Syrian children and teenagers with severe heart defects and determined that most of them could benefit from complex heart surgery.

Hadassah’s pediatric cardiologist, Dr. Julius Golander, who heads surgical evaluation at Ein Kerem, joined doctors from Poriya Hospital through IDF’s Good Neighbor program in Tiberias. Mothers from Syria brought their children with heart diseases to Tiberias, where doctors examined them and ascertained what treatment they were receiving in Syria.

“The special cooperation between the HMO and Baruch Padeh Poriya Hospital was critical to saving the lives of these children,” Dr. Golander said. “HMO utilized its state-of-the-art Pediatric Cardiac Surgery Department and Pediatric Intensive Care Unit at Hadassah Hospital Ein Kerem for this very special humanitarian project. The children, some of whom have never been properly treated or examined before, came to Jerusalem recently for the complex surgery and catheterizations at HMO and are

A Syrian mother with her ailing child, who is being cared for at Hadassah’s Ein Kerem hospital in Jersualem, in a scene from a video on this unusual undertaking, which can be viewed at bit.ly/2JTyrTV.

continuing their aftercare at the Pedah-Poriya Medical Center in Tiberias.”

“We made an initial diagnosis and built a treatment plan for anyone who needed cardiac intervention, whether catheterization or surgery at Hadassah Hospital Ein Kerem,” Dr. Golander adds. “The children were suffering from a wide variety of significant heart abnormalities, including ventricular defects and transposition of the great arteries. Their chances of surviving without medical intervention were

slim to none.

“In the dead of night, 14 Syrian women brought their children to us for medical assistance. Two-year-old Layal had a congenital heart defect, a hole in her heart which would have likely been diagnosed in a prenatal ultrasound in a Western country.

“Perhaps it would have been found in Syria, too, under normal circumstances. According to statistics from the Syrian Ministry of Health, Syria was on an upswing of medical care be-

fore the current crisis and the decimation of the health care system. What was clear was no way Layal’s heart could be repaired in Syria.

“This ‘hole in the heart’ was an atrial septal defect (ASD), an abnormal opening in the wall between the upper chambers of the heart.

If left untreated, this condition would produce excess flow to the lungs causing irreversible lung damage, dilate her heart and probably shorten her life.

“Layal’s mother, Reem, a farmwife, knew that Layal wasn’t growing like her three siblings. There was something different also about her energy level.”

Although Reem knew that every child was different, she made an appointment with the doctor at her local health care center. The doctor held the stethoscope to Layal’s chest for a long time, and she knew there was a problem.

When the doctor finally said, “It’s her heart,” Reem was distraught.

She then learned from women in her village that there was hope across the border.

“Needless to say,” Dr. Golander said, “their identities were concealed to protect their security.”

Since June 2016, the Israel Defense Forces has quietly been offering health care to Syrians across the border. Help was initially for those wounded in the war, but was later expanded to include advanced life-saving medical care available in Israel.

Dr. Golander recalls, “When I told Reem, ‘We can help your daughter,’ Reem didn’t need the Arabic translator to tell her what I meant.”

Source: Hadassah

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Decrepit downtown Far Rockaway is set for a facemixed-income development with more than 130 lift by 2021, as 681 units of housing — ranging from units allocated to households earning up to 60 low-income through “affordable” — rise on two pivotal percent of area median income. The remaining sites in “Far Rockaway Village.” Groundbreaking is exunits will be offered at a range of affordability pected next year. levels.

“This courageous venture will reimagine downtown The project will also create roughly 24,000 Far Rockaway as the crown jewel it once was,” said square feet of ground-floor retail space, 8,000 state Senator James Sanders Jr. “Revitalization coming square feet of community space for early childhood education and other community services, to this end of the Rockaways is long overdue, and finally it will receive the attention it has long deserved.” and nearly 90 parking spots for building residents The two sites, which abut the Mott Avenue termiand the public. nal of the A Train, include a municipal parking lot on Adjacent to a planned DOT pedestrian plaza Beach 21st Street and the long abandoned shopping and across the street from a new Beach 21th center that separates the subway station from the LIRR Street plaza, the development, with new retail and housing in a central site in the neighborhood, terminal on Nameoke Avenue three blocks away. The is meant to encourage new investment throughplan will not connect the rail services or otherwise improve transit connectivity. out the rezoning area.

The housing plans were unveiled last week by New Officials said they expect the undertaking to York City’s Economic Development Corporation; the create more than 70 permanent jobs and more than 470 construction jobs. The Community BuildDepartment of Housing Preservation and Development; the Housing Development Corporation, and City ers has committed to a diverse workforce and will take part in the City’s HireNYC initiative, which Councilman Donovan Richards, ten months after a rezoning plan was approved. encourages companies to hire city residents.

The HPD and HDC recently closed on construction “Today marks real progress as we advance a financing to have 457 units of what they describe as comprehensive community plan for downtown affordable housing built in the first phase of the Far Far Rockaway through financing for the first Rockaway Village project, which will transform the phase of Rockaway Village, which will transform a long-underused site into a vibrant mixed-use deshopping center into what officials called “a vibrant velopment anchored by affordable housing, and mix of affordable housing, modern retail, and public the designation of a nonprofit partner to breathe space, serving as a village center for the neighborhood.” new life into Beach 21st Street,” HPD CommisThis new building is planned for Beach 21st Street in downtown Far Rockaway.

City officials also announced the selection of The sioner Maria Torres-Springer said. from the Downtown Far Rockaway Working Group and served Community Builders, a nonprofit developer of afford“The more work we put into our neighborable and mixed-income housing, to build 224 units of mixed as the framework for rezoning the neighborhood. hoods, the better the outcome will be for future generations,” “As with every project in the Rockaways, we will work with Rockaway Beach Assemblywoman Stacey Pheffer Amato said. income affordable housing, commercial space and community the developer to ensure that we address the highest commu- “As Far Rockaway continues to grow and develop, we must facilities on the city-owned lot at Beach 21st Street.

Officials said the city is committed to reestablishing the nity needs, such as daycare services, good jobs and quality ensure that additional investments are secured so that our area as a dynamic mixed-use neighborhood and the commer- retail,” Richards said. “I look forward to working with The families can grow and thrive.” cial hub of the peninsula as part of the Roadmap for Action, a Community Builders to ensure this site delivers the progress Jeffrey Bessen of the Rockaway Journal contributed to this 25-point interagency plan for neighborhood-wide investment. we need in Far Rockaway.” report.

The roadmap was developed in response to recommendations The Beach 21st Street site will include a new mixed-use,

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THE JEWISH STAR July 27, 2018 • 16 Av, 5778

Downtown Far Rock set to get 681 apartments

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July 27, 2018 • 16 Av, 5778 THE JEWISH STAR

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The JEWISH STAR

Wine & Dine

Enjoying garlic (flavor, aroma!) in all its glory Kosher Kitchen

JonI SCHoCkEtt

Jewish Star columnist

I

f you don’t love the smell, the taste, and even the texture of garlic, then I’m afraid this column is not for you. But if you can’t get enough of this delectable herb, once thought to vanquish everything from the common cold to vampires, then you’re in for a treat.

Welcome to Garlic Central, the column for garlic connoisseurs who live for the annual Gilroy Garlic Festival and can’t wait to taste everything from garlic jam to garlic ribs to garlic ice cream. I can’t say that garlic ice cream appeals to me, but I would love to taste everything else!

The Gilroy Garlic Festival took place this past weekend in Gilroy, California, with upwards of 100,000 people celebrating the “stinking rose,” as garlic is called. Celebrity chefs judge garlic cooking contests and hundreds of vendors sell all things garlic and not garlic related. A “Chopped”-type cooking contest with a $5,000 prize caps the event.

What I have noticed the past few years is that more and more vendors are offering vegetarian options. Ten years ago, all you could find was meat-based barbecue vendors. Now there are lots of veggie options, and lots of kosher-marked bottled and jarred foods. Arts-andcrafts dot the acres of festival estate, and not everything is garlic-related. Quilts, toys, handmade ceramics, candy, T-shirts, locally sourced honey and hundreds of other items are sold day and evening.

Garlic has delicious and healthful qualities that make it a great choice of flavorings for so many foods.

Simple Roasted Garlic (Pareve) This simple recipe can be used in everything. I make several heads of garlic at once so I can have it on hand. It will stay in the refrigerator about one to two weeks.

8 to 10 garlic heads 6 to 8 Tbsp. extra-virgin olive oil Kosher salt

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Using a short sharp paring knife, cut the pointed tips off each garlic clove. If the cloves are too tightly packed, cut the off the top half inch of the whole head. Arrange them, cut side up and closely together, in a foil-lined baking dish. Brush or drizzle half the oil over the open ends of the heads and cover with a piece of foil.

Bake for about 30 minutes. Drizzle or brush the rest of the oil over the heads and cook for another 15 to 30 minutes, until the garlic is soft and golden brown.

USES: As a bread spread over bruschetta, in mashed potatoes, in salad dressings, as a garnish with steaks or chicken, in tomato sauce, on homemade pizza.

Garlic Paste for Seasoning Everything (Pareve) I make this many times throughout the year and use it for everything. I add it to salad dressings, use it to baste roasting chicken, brush on grilled bread and even as a condiment for burgers. about 24 cloves of garlic (I buy bulk, prepeeled) 3 to 4 Tbsp. extra-virgin olive oil 2 Tbsp. tamari or soy sauce 1 Tbsp. Dijon mustard 1 Tbsp. honey or brown sugar, to taste NOTE: You can also use a red jam for the sweetener. I have used raspberry and strawberry, and they were delicious.

Place all ingredients in a blender or food

processor and process until smooth. Scrape into a glass container (plastic will pick up the odor of garlic forever) and cover tightly. I use a small Mason jar for this. Will store in refrigerator for about 2 weeks. Makes about 1/2 cup.

Garlic Chile Confit for Everything (Pareve) 40 to 50 cloves of garlic 1 small dried red chili 1-1/2 cups extra-virgin olive oil OPTIONAL: 1 tsp. of any herb such as rosemary, thyme, oregano, etc.

Place the ingredients in a heavy, small saucepan. Set the heat to low and simmer for one hour.

When done, remove from heat and let cool.

When cool, pour into a Mason-like jar and refrigerate.

Use for mashed potatoes, rice, pasta, veggies, chicken, fish, anything.

Spread the soft cloves on toast. Stays for about 3 weeks. Makes about 2 cups.

Garlic Infused Vinegar (Pareve) These are beautiful, tasty condiments that make lovely hostess gifts and also make beautiful kitchen and counter decorations.

Pretty long-necked bottles with any kind of top One head of garlic per 16-ounce bottle Red wine, white wine, sherry or plain vinegar Balsamic vinegar

Other herbs such as rosemary sprigs, if you like Separate the garlic cloves and peel them gently and completely. Trim off the brown ends. Make a small cut in one end of each garlic clove. Place the garlic cloves in the bottle and fill the bottle with vinegar.

Cover tightly and place in a cool dark place. Shake gently once or twice a week. Vinegar is flavored in about 5 to 10 days. Label and wrap in pretty paper as a gift.

Homemade Caesar Dressing (Pareve) 1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil 1 head roasted garlic or 12 to 14 cloves roasted garlic (see recipe above) Juice of one lemon 2 tsp. Dijon mustard 3 Tbsp. Worcestershire Sauce OPTIONAL: 1 to 2 anchovies OPTIONAL: 2 to 3 Tbsp. grated Parmesan cheese, if making dairy Place the olive oil, roasted garlic, lemon juice and mustard and anchovies, if using, in a food processor or blender and process until smooth. Whisk in the Worcestershire Sauce to taste and then season, to taste, with salt and pepper. Makes about 1 cup.

Roasted Green Beans with Garlic and Brown Sugar (Pareve) I have printed this before, but it is still one of my most shared recipes. Kids love these.

1 pound green beans trimmed, washed and patted dry 3 cloves garlic, minced 2 Tbsp. brown sugar 1 Tbsp. canola oil Place the beans in a plastic bag. Add the oil and shake well. Add the garlic and the brown sugar, close the bag and shake to coat. Pour the beans onto a foil-lined cookie sheet and spread them out in an even, single layer. Make sure to squeeze out all the garlic pieces. Roast at 400 degrees until the beans begin to brown and shrivel a bit. Serves 4 to 8.

Nosher recipe: Grilled eggplant with chermoula

By Ali Alt, The Nosher via JTA From bulbous and egg-shaped to small and thin, the eggplant (or if you’re British like me, the aubergine) is a staple fruit within Sephardic Jewish cooking. Originating in India or perhaps even China, eggplant seeds are thought to have traveled along the Silk Road into the hands of Jews and Arabs as early as the 18th century. From there, eggplant has been used so often in Jewish cooking that some refer to it as the “Jewish apple.”

Eggplant is now enjoying a wonderful resurgence, particularly in Israel, where it is enjoyed in countless salads or served whole and roasted, topped with meat, tabbouleh and often gobs of nutty tahini. No meal in Israel seems complete without a portion of smoky, roasted eggplant.

It’s so incredibly versatile: Eggplant can be stewed, stuffed, pickled, roasted or grilled. Historically known for its bitterness, modern varieties don’t necessarily require salting, although I always do just in case any bitterness remains, and especially when grilling, as this will reduce the amount of oil that is soaked up.

In this recipe I serve eggplant with a North African spice paste called chermoula, which is herby, rich and pungent.

This fantastic sauce is begging to be made when the weather is warm and the plates move outside.

Chermoula — a marvelous mixture of coriander, parsley, chili, paprika, garlic, cumin and olive oil — is a Moroccan, Tunisian and Algerian mainstay. While it is traditionally served

with fish, I love it with grilled meats, fish, veggies or even couscous.

Ingredients: For the eggplant: 3 medium eggplants 2 Tbsp. fine sea salt, plus more for sprinkling 1/4 cup olive oil For the chermoula: 1 cup packed coriander leaves 1/2 cup packed parsley leaves 1/2 cup mint leaves 3 garlic cloves, peeled and roughly chopped

1/4 cup preserved lemon juice or 1/3 cup of regular lemon juice 2 tsp. ground cumin 2 tsp. ground coriander 1 tsp. sweet paprika 2 tsp. harissa paste 1/2 tsp. cayenne 1/2 cup olive oil Sea salt, to taste Good pinch of crushed saffron strands Directions: 1. Preheat the oven to 200 F. 2. Next, cut the eggplant lengthways into 1/2 inch thick slices. Cover with salt, layer in a strainer and leave to drain for 40 minutes.

3. While the eggplant is draining, make the chermoula.

Put all the ingredients, with only 4 tablespoons of the olive oil, into a food processor with a good pinch of salt. Blend to a thick paste and stir in enough of the remaining oil to make a sauce.

4. Pat the eggplants dry and in batches, brush with oil and in a griddle pan, grill over a medium heat for 5 to 6 minutes each side, until golden. Keep warm in the oven while you cook the remaining slices.

5. When all slices have been grilled, lay on a platter and dollop with chermoula, a sprinkling of coriander and pinch of sea salt. Serves 8 to 10.

THE JEWISH STAR July 27, 2018 • 16 Av, 5778

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July 27, 2018 • 16 Av, 5778 THE JEWISH STAR

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Wine & Dine

The knishes of Grossingers, and a bygone era Who’s in the Kitchen

JudY Joszef

Jewish Star columnist

A

s I sit here writing this column, four days before Shabbat Nachamu, I am nostalgic. It’s been 34 years since I was at Grossinger’s, but the memories are more vivid than ever.

Each summer, starting in 1979, I and my friends would travel up to the resort in Liberty, NY for Memorial Day, July 4th, Shabbat Nachamu and Labor Day weekend. But Shabbat Nachamu stands out. There were something about the Three Weeks coming to an end, being able to go out to the movies again, concerts and partying.

Although Grossinger’s Resort Hotel has been closed since 1986, we hoped that one day it would be refurbished. Alas, it was not in the cards. The current owner of the property is seeking government help in cleaning up the site, to demolish the last remaining buildings and construct a 300-room hotel and housing complex.

In the Facebook group Grossingers 19191986, I came across a post by Rich Lemonie called “Goodbye Grossinger’s.” Look it up — his pictures are amazing. Rich has custom-merged some of the pictures so that half the scene is Grossinger’s in its prime and the other as it looks now. He has stars superimposed on the hotel at its peak, and the same people standing in the same areas now decaying and abandoned. It really hit home.

Part of me would love to keep the memories alive. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to have a Grossinger’s Museum? You all have mementos from

a toboggan race of mostly college kids.

Jerry’s mom in her Shabbos garb and the two boys in their wool coats and Cossack hats found their way into the line. Lo and behold, they won the race.

So although the hotel has been closed since 1986, we still dared to dream that one day it would opened again. As each year passed and the hotel decayed a little more, we knew the chances were slim to none. But now that there are plans for the final demolition, that glimmer of hope is gone.

So, goodbye to the pink elephant lounge, the coffee shop, the grand dining room, the late-night shows. The ski lodge, the toboggan run, the skating rink, the golf course and tennis courts, the indoor and outdoor swimming pools and sauna. Goodbye Jennie G, the hostess with mostest. All we have left are the Past and present at Grossinger’s, depicted by Rich Lemonie. wonderful memories … and the recipes.

Jennie Grossinger’s Knishes Grossinger’s — an ashtray, one or two or 10 of (via Meal-Master at RecipeSource.com) those photo viewers, towels, place cards, postDough cards, and of course, the daily Grossinger’s Tat2-1/2 cups sifted flour tler. We didn’t need the Internet — there was 1 tsp. baking powder one place to be on holiday weekends, and that 1/2 tsp. salt was Grossinger’s.

2 eggs When I asked my husband to Jerry tell me 2/3 cup salad oil his favorite memories of those weekends, he said 2 Tbsp. water he had never been there on those weekends! He Sift the flour, baking powder and salt into came with his parents during winter break, and a bowl. Make a well in the center and drop the would visit as a counselor in summer camp. His eggs, oil and water into it. Work into the flour favorite memory was one winter with his moth- mixture with the hand and knead until smooth. er, father and younger brother, when he was 10 There are two ways to fill the knishes. In eiand his brother about eight. His dad was the ther case, divide the dough in two and roll as sports star of the family, having been a soccer thin as possible. Brush with oil. Now you can star in Romania. But now he was the photogra- spread the filling on one side of the dough and pher, as Jerry, his mom and his brother entered roll it up, like a jelly roll. Cut into 1-1/2 inch

slices. Yields 24 knishes.

Potato filling 1 cup chopped onions 6 Tbsp. chicken fat or butter 2 cups mashed potatoes 1 egg 1 tsp. salt 1/4 tsp. pepper Brown the onions in the fat or butter. Beat in the potatoes, egg, salt and pepper until fluffy.

Cheese filling 1-1/2 cups diced scallions or onions 4 Tbsp. butter 2 cups pot cheese 1 egg 1-1/2 tsp. salt 1/8 tsp. pepper 2 Tbsp. Sour cream Scallions are better than onions for this recipe, so try to use them. Brown the scallions in the butter and beat in the cheese, egg, salt, pepper and sour cream until smooth.

Meat filling 1/2 cup minced onions 2 Tbsp. chicken fat 1-1/2 cups ground cooked meat 1/2 cup cooked rice 1 egg 1 tsp. salt 1/4 tsp. pepper Lightly brown the onions in the fat. Add the meat, rice, egg, salt and pepper, mixing until smooth.

Chicken filling 1-1/2 cups ground cooked chicken 3/4 cup mashed potatoes 1 egg 1 tsp. salt 1/4 tsp. pepper Mix all the ingredients until smooth.

Nosher recipe for Harissa Salmon Nicoise salad

By Chaya Rappoport, The Nosher via JTA Harissa is a spicy, rich-flavored North African chili paste and it is one of my favorite condiments to use in the kitchen. It is traditionally made with roasted red pepper, chilies, garlic, and a mixture of spices, depending on the family and exact origin. You can easily find several varieties in the supermarket, usually in the ethnic foods aisle, but I prefer making my own, in part so I can control the level of spice.

A traditional nicoise salad features baby potatoes, haricot verts, European-style tuna, olives and hardboiled egg. In this amped-up version, many of the traditional elements remain, but the tuna is swapped for a harissa-smothered salmon and preserved lemon is added for some North African authenticity, which makes it brighter and punchier.

Nicoise purists might balk at this recipe, but I promise: This spiced salmon salad is delicious, filling and perfect to enjoy all summer.

• You can simplify this recipe by buying harissa already made.

•Don’t stress about making your own dressing — you can also dress it simply with olive oil and lemon juice or white wine vinegar.

•You can prepare the salmon, potatoes, haricot verts and hard boiled eggs ahead of time, and when ready to serve, simply assemble. It makes it a great dish for entertaining or Shabbat lunch.

Ingredients: For the salad: 4 ounces small red and purple potatoes Kosher salt 4 ounces haricots verts (string beans), trimmed 4 ounces heirloom cherry tomatoes, halved crosswise 1 or 2 hardboiled eggs, halved crosswise 4 cups lettuce and/or mixed greens, washed, dried and chopped 1/4 cup black or Nicoise olives, pitted Flaky salt and fresh black pepper, for serving For the salmon: 6 ounces fresh salmon, skin removed 2 Tbsp. olive oil

Prepared harissa (around 1/2 cup to 1 cup depending on size of salmon and your preference) For the harissa: 1 large red pepper 2 Tbsp. olive oil 1 small red onion, diced 4 cloves garlic, minced 4 dried red chilies 1 Tbsp. tomato paste 1/4 cup fresh parsley 1/2 tsp. salt 1/4 tsp. ground cumin 1/4 tsp. ras el hanout 1-1/2 tsp. smoked paprika For the dressing: 4 oil-packed anchovy fillets, finely minced 1 Tbsp. whole grain Dijon mustard 1 small shallot, finely minced 1 small clove garlic, finely minced 1 Tbsp. white wine vinegar 2 tsp. finely chopped preserved lemon peel 1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

Directions: 1. To make the harissa: Broil the red pepper on high for about 25 minutes, turning occasionally, until blackened on the outside.

Transfer to a bowl, cover with plastic wrap and let cool. This is called sweating, and it allows you to easily peel the skin off the pepper. Peel the pepper and discard its skin and seeds.

2. Rehydrate the chilies by placing them in a bowl of hot water for 10 minutes.

3. Heat the olive oil in a frying pan over medium heat, and fry the onion, garlic and rehydrated chilies for 10 to 12 minutes, until dark and smoky. Use a blender or a food processor to combine all the harissa ingredients until smooth, adding a little more oil if needed.

4. Preheat the oven to 425 F. Place salmon on a baking paper lined baking dish and rub with olive oil. Spread harissa thickly on top, reserving the rest for something else. Bake for 10 minutes.

5. Meanwhile, prepare the rest of the ingredients. Place potatoes in a medium saucepan and add cold water to cover by 1 inch.

6. Bring to boil, season with kosher salt, cook until fork-tender, 15 to 20 minutes. Use slotted spoon to transfer potatoes to a plate.

7. Return water to a boil and cook haricots verts in same saucepan until crisp-tender, about 2 minutes.

8. Using a slotted spoon, transfer to a bowl of ice water. Chill until cold, about 3 minutes. Transfer to paper towels and pat dry.

9. To make the dressing: Mash the anchovies and mustard in a small bowl to form a coarse paste. Add the minced shallot, garlic and preserved lemon to the bowl; whisk in the white wine vinegar. Slowly whisk in the olive oil. Season vinaigrette with salt and pepper as needed.

10. Using a fork, flake the harissa salmon into large pieces; halve reserved potatoes crosswise.

11. Arrange lettuce on a platter; season with salt and pepper.

Drizzle with half of dressing. Top with separate piles of potatoes, haricots verts, tomatoes, the hardboiled eggs, olives and salmon.

12. Drizzle salad with remaining dressing. Sprinkle with flaky salt and pepper.

Chaya Rappoport is a blogger, baker and photographer at retrolillies.wordpress.com.

THE JEWISH STAR July 27, 2018 • 16 Av, 5778

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LA may prosecute anti-Israel disruptors at UCLA

By Edwin Black, Special to The Jewish Star It began as yet another frustrating example of a university refusing to take action. After aggressive disruption at a Students Supporting Israel panel discussion at the University of CaliforniaLos Angeles on May 17, a top Los Angeles city attorney is now reviewing evidence and police complaints for possible prosecution under state laws that criminalize the disruption of public meetings.

Students Supporting Israel had gathered in a UCLA function room for a panel discussion titled “Indigenous Peoples Unite.” Disruptors stormed into the room mid-session. One person tore down the students’ flag, pulled away a desk placard, and cursed in the face of a panelist. With bullhorns, whistles, loud dancing, and slogan shouting, the event was shut down. The belligerent disruption and intimidation of the attendees was caught on video.

Although the UCLA administration publicly promised a referral to prosecutors, no such action was taken, because campus police were awaiting formal complaints by the intimidated students. Only after police reports were filed would police investigate and determine if a referral to prosecutors was called for. Then, prosecutors would weigh the evidence and decide if prosecution is warranted.

All students contacted by this reporter stated that they did not know they were entitled to make a police report.

After media revelations about UCLA’s inaction, two Jewish groups sprang into action — the Louis D. Brandeis Center, headed by constitutional attorney Alyza Lewin, and the StandWithUs Saidoff Legal Center, headed by attorney Yael Lerman. The Washington-based Brandeis Center flew its attorney, Aviva Vogelstein, to LA. Together, Lerman and Vogelstein personally escorted numerous students as well as one member of the community to the UCLA police department

Anti-Israel disruptors surrounded a small number of students attending a Students Support Israel panel discussion titled “Indigenous Peoples Unite,” on the UCLA campus on May 17.

Image from video of event

where they filed formal complaints.

One such police complaint, obtained by this reporter, was filed by Laura Leve Cohen, a major donor to the UCLA’s Center for Jewish Studies, where she serves as an advisory board member, and a community member who attended the event.

Her complaint begins: “Have you ever been confronted by an angry mob and not able to leave? I hadn’t. Until Thursday evening, May 17th, 2018. … Midway through the presentation, an angry, out-of-control mob stormed into the classroom, shouting and chanting. Simply put, we were trapped by a crowd of student protestors, surrounded on all sides, and unable to leave the room.”

After processing the reports, the UCLA police department opened Case 18-1206, assigning it to Detective Selby Arsena, whose track record investigating campus violence includes a 2011

stabbing case that resulted in a 12-year prison sentence.

In mid-July, Arsena delivered his file to Los Angeles City prosecutors, who assigned it to the office’s assistant supervising attorney, Spencer Hart. One notable Hart prosecution involved jail time for a student found guilty false imprisonment at UCLA. Both Arsena and Hart declined to comment for this article.

Just a few days after case 18-206 landed on Hart’s desk, he was emailed a seven-page letter, submitted jointly by the Brandeis Center and the StandWithUs legal center, a copy of which was obtained by this reporter. The joint letter was a polished and detailed review of the evidence, legal precedent, and case law.

“There is strong California precedent to prosecute and convict disruptors who violate criminal law in their attempt to silence speakers on

campus,” the letter asserted. It continued, “In a similar fact pattern in 2011, a jury convicted ten student members of the Muslim Student Union of a misdemeanor for disrupting former Israeli Ambassador to the United States, Michael Oren, in a coordinated effort at a public event at the University of California-Irvine (“UC Irvine”) … [later] upheld by a panel of three Orange County Superior Court judges. We believe that the facts in the case before you, Criminal Report #181206, merit similar prosecution and would result in similar convictions.”

The Brandeis-SWU letter specified the alleged potential criminal violations Brandeis and SWU had previously itemized in a letter to UCLA administrators: “§ 403 — disturbance of an assembly or meeting, § 415 — disturbing the peace; § 182 — criminal conspiracy to do the aforementioned’” and added two more based on additional research: “§ 242 — battery; § 664 — unsuccessful attempt to commit battery; and § 594 — vandalism.” The letter is jointly signed

by Lewin, Vogelstein, and Lerman, who have become the most active in the effort to see the matter prosecuted.

Lewin commented, “This disruption was egregious and unlawful and must be properly prosecuted.”

While Lewin, Vogelstein, and Lerman have led the effort to have police reports filed and argued for prosecution, numerous Jewish and proIsrael organizations have voiced support. Just days after the disruption, the Zionist Organization of America’s legal department sent a letter to UCLA insisting that a violation of state criminal law was clear.

If prosecutions and convictions result from the May 17 UCLA event shutdown disruption, it is expected to help define the criminal limits of such disruptions at campuses across the nation.

Edwin Black is the author of New York Times bestseller Financing the Flames.

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Among the critics, however, is Emily Shire, a writer who identifies as both a feminist and a Zionist. She tweeted about the Blades article, saying Teen Vogue is “shilling what seems ‘woke’ without nuance; here, it’s peddling conspiracy theories about Israel, but many topics get this treatment. It validates my worries about what’s currently the loudest version of feminism.”

In February, Karen Bekker of the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America wrote an article titled “Intersectionality is making Teen Vogue’s editors stupid” saying that the magazine is “pushing a one-sided Palestinians narrative to its teen readers.”

“It’s clear from reading their coverage that Teen Vogue’s editors and writers know very little about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict or the many complex issues involved,” Bekker wrote.

“In discussing the topic in December of 2016, the magazine relied on far-left, anti-Israel academic Stephen Zunes, who has elsewhere — absurdly — called the First Intifada ‘non-violent’ and who falsely told Teen Vogue’s readers that there are ‘Jewish-only highways.’”

That article apparently referred to a road near the West Bank settlement of Efrat, which has been closed to Palestinian cars and pedestrians since a May 2001 terrorist killing of two Jewish women.

“Despite employing writers with no expertise in the area, the magazine has determinedly pursued an anti-Israel agenda,” Bekker said.

Other Teen Vogue articles on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict — including “A Letter to Gigi Hadid from Palestinian Youth”; “I Am a Jewish Teen and I Support the Palestinian Cause”; and “At Cannes, Attendees Are Raising Awareness About Palestinian Protester Deaths” — also reflect a left-wing commitment to intersectionality, which links support for marginalized groups like women, African-Americans and the LGBTQ community to the Palestinian cause.

KC Johnson, a history professor at Brooklyn College, former Fulbright instructor at Tel Aviv University and regular Washington Post contributor, said intersectionality ignores Israel’s relatively tolerant record on those issues.

“There’s a lot of evidence that defining liberalism through an intersectional lens has had the effect of casting Israel as an ‘oppressor’ and thus a nation worthy of condemnation,” Johnson told JTA earlier this month, “even as its actual policies on issues associated with intersectionality are infinitely better than those of its neighbors.”

THE JEWISH STAR July 27, 2018 • 16 Av, 5778

By Charles Dunst, JTA Once a must-read for young fashonistas, Teen Vogue in 2016 expanded its coverage, shifting the magazine more aggressively into “covering politics, feminism, identity and activism” through a liberal lens.

Now, between articles on makeup, celebrities and clothing trends, Teen Vogue would like to give Israel a progressive makeover.

The July 16 “Do Better” column by Lincoln Anthony Blades, who writes on race, culture and society, compares the policing of minority communities in the United States and Israel — and not in a flattering way.

“The recent history of police violence enacted on unarmed black and brown citizens

by American law enforcement mirrors the recent history of Israel treating Palestinians as violent insurgents,” Blades wrote.

Conflating the security and policing situations of the two countries — sometimes blaming Israel for aggressive policing by American law enforcement officer who attended counterterrorism seminars in Israel — has become a common trope on the left. So have comparisons of social justice protesters here and Palestinian protesters in Israel. It’s the comparison made by upstart New York congressional candidate Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who in an interview with Glenn Greenwald of The Intercept likened Palestinians killed by Israeli forces as they tried to breach the Gaza border fence to Black Lives Matter protesters or the West Virginia teacher strikes.

The Anti-Defamation League and other Jewish groups have long rejected the comparison, saying Palestinian protesters often use violence, and the Gaza protests in particular were orchestrated by Hamas, the terrorist group that controls the strip and has pledged Israel’s destruction.

In his piece, Blades notes that American police have taken part in counterterrorism training in Israel. But neither Blades nor others who have invoked the training have provided evidence that such training influences how U.S. police deal with minorities. The ADL, which hosts many of the counterterrorism programs, points out that it is one of the nation’s leaders in offering training about implicit bias and diversity in law enforcement. ar-left groups are fans of Teen Vogue’s approach on Israel. Jewish Voice for Peace and Code Pink, which both support a boycott of Israel, tweeted favorably about the Blades article.

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July 27, 2018 • 16 Av, 5778 THE JEWISH STAR

14

Israel salutes America: 70 who counted in 70

Hubert Humphrey with Israel’s first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion. Courtesy of the Central Zionist Archives, Jerusalem; Joseph and Hadassah Lieberman at the Young Israel of Woodmere in April, with YIW Rabbi Hershel Billet at right. The JewishStar / Ed Weintrob; Robert F. Kennedy with Israeli Prime Minister Levi Eshkol in January 1964. David Eldan / GPO

Ruth Wisse (61 of 70)

Born in Czernowitz (then Romania, now Ukraine) and raised in Canada, Ruth Wisse was, until her recent retirement, the Martin Peretz Professor of Yiddish Literature and Professor of Comparative Literature at Harvard.

She is considered the foremost living expert on Yiddish literature.

The daughter of an industrialist from Vilnius, Wisse was tutored only in German until she was 4, when her family fled to Montreal.

Sent to a Jewish school there, she soon picked up both English and French, simultaneously absorbing at home her mother’s passion for the Yiddish language and its culture.

Her career in Yiddish has led Wisse to translate, explicate and teach with matchless brilliance literature now largely unread in the original. In addition to numerous essays and book-length studies of Yiddish writing, she has edited or coedited standard anthologies of Yiddish literature while also publishing prodigiously. A revered mentor, she has trained many outstanding scholars, translators, critics, activists and writers.

Wisse, 81, notes: “Yiddish forces you to think about Jewish politics.”

For decades as a professor at McGill and then Harvard, Wisse was herself a brave combatant in Jewish politics, fighting the regrettably frequent anti-Israel bias on university campuses. With matchless wit and passion, she has stood against the prevailing intellectual currents and defended the Jewish state, serving as a mentor to students and faculty who engage in honest study of Israel.

In addition to her activism, Wisse has pioneered the serious study of anti-Semitism as a political phenomenon. In academic writing and in publications like Mosaic, Commentary and The Wall Street Journal, she has criticized the tendency to assume that Israel or Jews must be at least partly to blame for attacks against them. In reality, she argues, anti-Semitism is a political strategy designed by others to deflect from their own weaknesses. To respond to such assaults by apologizing is to feed an aggression that has fixed the Jews in its sights.

Joseph Isadore “Joe” Lieberman

(62 of 70) In 2000, when Democratic presidential candidate Al Gore selected Connecticut Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman as his running mate, Lieberman became the first Jew on a presidential ticket in American history. In that campaign — and through a distinguished career in law and politics — Lieberman, an observant Jew, never hid his commitment to Judaism or his support of Israel. In fact, his ascent to the upper echelons of American life has shown there need not be a contradiction between faith and public service.

Yet Lieberman, 76, has always insisted that support for Israel should be a core American principle whatever one’s religious views.

Throughout his nearly quarter-century in the Senate, Lieberman worked to bolster the U.S.Israel alliance. He felt that the bond between America and Israel was natural, the product of deeply shared interests and, more importantly, deeply shared values.

Lieberman’s actions on behalf of Israel and peace date back decades. In 1991, after Sen.

Frank Lautenberg was refused entry to Saudi Arabia and Kuwait because his passport had been stamped in Israel, Lieberman made a point of seeking entry to Saudi Arabia, forcing the country to pause the practice or face diplomatic embarrassment.

And during waves of terror against Israel, he was a forceful voice within the Senate against incitement and terrorism.

In recent years, Lieberman has sounded the alarm about the dangers of a nuclear Iran, for America, Israel and the entire free world. Perhaps his greatest contribution to the U.S.-Israel alliance has been his success in pushing through critical legislation aimed at thwarting Iran, of which he was capable because he was trusted by both sides.

Respect for his integrity was a rare point of consensus among those who agreed on little else.

Between 2009 and 2012, the senator led a legislative push to enact crippling sanctions against Iran. Previous attempts to ratchet up sanctions had faltered due to partisan divisions, but in each case, it was Lieberman who resolved the dispute. As a result of his efforts, the bills passed by veto-proof supermajorities.

Joe Lieberman’s distinguished work in support of Israel and the U.S.-Israel alliance have earned him a place as a great sar (minister) in the annals of the Jewish people.

Hubert H. Humphrey (1911–1978)

(63 of 70) Hubert Humphrey’s nickname was “The Happy Warrior.” The vice president, presidential candidate and longtime Minnesota senator was given the moniker by other politicians who were taken by his consistent positivity and earnest determination to make the world a better place.

Humphrey’s accomplishments have been unequaled. He was the originator of the Peace Corps, an early promoter of the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty and of Medicare, and a central figure in the history of civil rights. Of equal import to him was America’s commitment to Israel.

Humphrey’s support for Jewish causes was longstanding, dating back to his tenure as Minneapolis’s liberal but anti-Communist mayor. The city had been labeled the most anti-Semitic in the country, and Humphrey responded by proposing legislation outlawing discrimination. When that was defeated in the city council, he led a campaign in which, as a commentator noted: “Blacks and Jews walked side by side with Yankee housewives and Scandinavian farmers’ sons to check out discriminatory practices in specific areas — offices, factories, schools and churches.”

In the Senate, and then as Lyndon Johnson’s vice president, he was a passionate friend of the Jewish state. After the Yom Kippur War, he fought for aid to Israel so it could replenish its depleted arms. He spoke out strongly against the United Nations’ assertion that Zionism is racism, observing “the charge of racism against Israel is so manifestly absurd one’s first reaction is not even to dignify the charge with substantive response.”

In October 1977, he derailed plans to force Israel to negotiate with the PLO, pointing out that Arab leaders were barely offering non-belligerence while Israel was being asked to yield territory necessary for self-defense.

Humphrey was a reliable supporter of Is-

rael, and he visited often, maintaining close relationships with its most important leaders, including Golda Meir and Menachem Begin.

Humphrey’s view of the “tiny democratic nation” was that America “must declare without embarrassment and without apology that Israel has earned a special relationship.”

American Jewish Organizations

(64 of 70) Visiting the United States in the 1830s, French philosopher Alexis de Tocqueville marveled at how Americans organized themselves into associations that expressed their convictions.

Like their co-nationals, American Jews have displayed an exceptional ability to create communal organizations. But although American Jews differ in religious and social questions, they are more often than not brought together by support for the Jewish state.

It was for this reason that Golda Meir, on a fundraising mission to the United States in 1948 as acting head of the Jewish Agency, addressed the General Assembly of Jewish Federations and Welfare Funds in Chicago. She implored more than 250 organizations to support funding to defend 700,000 Jews under attack by their Arab neighbors in British Mandate Palestine.

Concluding her speech, she said, “I leave the platform without any doubt in my mind or my heart that the decision that will be taken by American Jewry will be the same as that which was taken by the Jewish community in Palestine, so that within a few months from now we will all be able to participate not only in the joy of resolving to establish a Jewish state, but in the joy of laying the cornerstone of the Jewish state.” She raised $50 million that helped lay the cornerstone of what would become the State of Israel.

Numerous and diverse organizations have empowered American Jews to effectuate support for the State of Israel, helping to sustain a culture of tzedakah, tikkun olam, and ahavat Yisrael.

Some, like the Zionist Organization of America and the Anti-Defamation League, have focused on politics. Others, such as Hadassah, have worked to strengthen Israeli society through bolstering health care and communal life. Still other organizations, such as the American Jewish Committee and B’nai Brith, have fostered a holistic approach to Jewish action around the globe, committed to human rights, democracy and Israel. The American-Jewish Joint Distribution Committee has worked tirelessly with Jews living in persecution or poverty around the world to support them and connect them to the Jewish state.

Furthermore, an extraordinary network of Jewish federations throughout North America works to link Jews wherever they may live and helps them engage with Israel. Through educational and philanthropic programming, they have brought the Jewish state closer to American Jews.

Since before the establishment of Israel, Jewish organizations in the United States have channeled American Jewish support into a colossal force that has had a profound impact on the Jewish state, and strengthened the remarkable alliance between Israel and America.

Robert F. Kennedy (1925–1968)

(65 of 70) Robert Kennedy was a champion of the Jewish state from the start of his professional life in 1948 until its tragic end. He served as the U.S. Attorney General in the cabinet of his brother, John F. Kennedy, and as a senator from New York. Kennedy was an American liberal icon, fighting racial discrimination in the South and leading opposition to the Vietnam war.

Kennedy’s first foray into international affairs came shortly after he graduated Harvard in 1948, when he reported from war-torn British Mandate Palestine for The Boston Post. His father, Joseph, known for his anti-Semitic attitudes, opposed his son’s reports on the Jewish struggle for independence and survival. In The Boston Post, Kennedy wrote: “The Jewish people in Palestine who believe in and have been working toward this national state have become an immensely proud and determined people. It is already a truly great modern example of the birth of a nation with the primary ingredients of dignity and self-respect.”

After Kennedy rode in a Jewish convoy bringing supplies to Jerusalem, he wrote: “If the brief but victorious military engagement on the Tel Aviv-Jerusalem road had not taken place, the Jewish cause would have suffered such a setback as to be virtually lost. If the Haganah had waited for May 15th and the withdrawal of British troops, there would be few alive in Jerusalem today.”

The experience stayed with Kennedy. By 1968, as a senator and presidential candidate, he pressed Lyndon Johnson to sell Israel 50 F-4 Phantom jets after the French froze the sale of Mirage planes following the Six-Day War. The Departments of State and Defense were opposed to the sale, worried that the arms transfer would break a policy of U.S. neutrality.

On May 26, 1968, Kennedy told Congregation Temple Neveh Shalom in Oregon that “the United States must defend Israel against aggression from whatever source. Our obligations to Israel, unlike our obligations towards other countries, are clear and imperative.”

“The United States should, without delay, sell Israel the 50 Phantom jets she has so long been promised,” he declared. He repeated the message when he arrived in California.

A day later, Kennedy’s strong plea for the defense of Israel and his photo appeared in the Pasadena Independent. The article enraged a Palestinian named Sirhan Sirhan. He wrote in his diary, “Robert F. Kennedy must be assassinated before June 5, 1968” — the first anniversary of the Six-Day War. Shortly after midnight on June 5, 1968, Sirhan shot and killed Bobby Kennedy in the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles. The Pasadena Independent article was in his pocket.

“He was killed because of his support [for Israel],” stated his daughter Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, the eldest of 11 children born to Kennedy and his wife, Ethel.

America lost a blazing star, Israel lost a strong friend, and the United States shed its first blood from Palestinian terrorism. Within months after Kennedy’s murder, the U.S. government approved the sale of 50 Phantom and 100 Skyhawk aircraft to Israel.

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THE JEWISH STAR July 27, 2018 • 16 Av, 5778

After a large stone fell from the Western Wall on Monday, an Israeli archaeologist declared the holy site’s entire plaza a “danger zone.”

Other stones “could immediately fall” and hurt people, Zachi Dvira told The Times of Israel. He is completing a Ph.D. on the archaeology of the Temple Mount.

The boulder that fell Monday morning at one of the sight’s areas designated for egalitarian mixed prayer weighed about 220 pounds, according to Israel Radio.

It missed all onlookers but landed close to a female wor- A large chunk of stone dislodged from the Kotel at the mixed-gender shipper. prayer section on July 23.

Yonatan Sindel/Flash90 “I didn’t hear or feel anything until it landed right at “It’s a matter of life or death,” Dvira said. my feet,” Daniella Goldberg, 79, told Hadashot In 2004, large pieces of Western Wall stone TV news. She said that she “tried not to let the fell during Yom Kippur, injuring one worshipper. incident distract me from my prayers.”

The Western Wall’s official rabbi weighed in Israel “doesn’t do proper preservation [of on Monday’s event, noting it happened the day the site] because of politics,” Dvira said, arguing after Tisha B’Av, during which Jews mourn the that the controversy surrounding the egalitarian historical destruction of the First and Second prayer area has prevented proper upkeep.

Temples.

While the egalitarian section has been closed “This is an unusual and most rare incident since the incident, he believes visitors should that has not occurred for decades,” said Rabbi stand a few feet back from the wall in all of its Shmuel Rabinovitch. “The fact that this powersections, for safety reasons. He noted that sev- ful incident happened a day after the 9th of Av eral rocks from the Temple Mount’s other three fast, in which we mourned the destruction of supporting walls have fallen in recent years. The our temples, raises questions which the human rock that fell Monday was broken in two from soul is too small to contain, and requires soulmoisture created by the plants in the wall. searching.” —JTA

15

Film about frum female ambulance corps opens

By Curt Schleier, JTA Like many heavily Orthodox neighborhoods in Brooklyn, Borough Park has been served for decades by an all-male Hatzalah volunteer ambulance corps. Hatzalah (spelled Hatzolah in Borough Park) caters to a religious community with particular needs and customs — including one that can increase tension for patients in already stressful emergency situations.

The strict boundaries between men and women are familiar to anyone who has attended an Orthodox synagogue, or who has read stories of airplane flight being delayed because haredi Orthodox men refuse to sit next to women.

In the event of a medical emergency, the male Hatzalah volunteers may touch women — if, for example, a woman needs to be moved to a stretcher or requires assistance while giving birth. But while Jewish law has its exemptions, women concerned about the rules of modesty have plenty of reasons to prefer treatment by a female EMT. “93Queen,” Orthodox filmmaker Paula Eiselt’s big-screen debut, documents one woman’s attempt to create an all-female version of Hatzalah with only strictly observant Orthodox members. In a statement, Eiselt explains that over four years of filming, she essentially operates as a one-woman crew.

The film opens July 25 in theaters in New York and Los Angeles, with a wider release to follow.

The woman behind the female corps is Rachel “Ruchie” Freier, a lawyer and Borough Park native. She assembles a group of volunteers who are tentative at the start.

Unsurprisingly, her plan sets up a clash with the establishment Hatzalah and its supporters. Opponents threaten to boycott the hospital that is training them, and the companies that sell them medical supplies. They also post nasty comments on Twitter, such as “G-d have mercy if you wait for them to get their makeup and the right dress on.”

But Freier’s leadership and inner strength help the members of what they call Ezras Nashim (“helping women”) persevere.

“The worst thing you can tell me is that I can’t do something because I’m a woman, a religious woman,” she says.

Part of Freier’s fortitude manifests itself in a my-way-or-thehighway manner. When she insists that only married women can join the team, some members object, including an experienced EMT who recently became religious. Others resign.

“There’s a whole host of issues that come up in a marriage

rs 35 Yeagrity e Of Int

Rachel Freier, center, is the protagonist of “93Queen.”

that will give you that level of maturity,” she says.

Though the film is gripping, the viewer is never entirely sure how it all works. The women on call respond from wherever they are to the scene of the emergency. However, it does not appear that Ezras Nashim owns its own ambulance. It contracts with a private company to provide patient transport.

Who staffs that ambulance? Men? Do the women EMTs accompany patients in the ambulance?

There are other questions. At one point, Freier says she refuses to let the project fail because that might blemish her image and hurt her plans to run for a judgeship. Was the ambulance fight just a way

Julieta Cervantes

to build a political base, to get her name out there? Does it matter?

In the end, Freier must be doing something right: Last year, Ezras Nashim won the New York Basic Life Support Agency of the Year award, a high honor. And in 2016 Freier was elected as a judge in New York City’s 5th Civil Court District. She is believed to be the first Hasidic women elected to public office in the United States.

Eiselt calls her film a story of “proud Hasidic women challenging the status quo of their own community and refusing to take no for an answer from the all-powerful patriarchy.”

“93Queen” is a film that will speak to all.

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July 27, 2018 • 16 Av, 5778 THE JEWISH STAR

18

‫כוכב של שבת‬

SHAbbAT STAR

Who gets the blame when it’s no one’s fault?

Parsha of the Week

Rabbi avi billet Jewish Star columnist

I

n Shemot 19:12, in anticipation of Matan Torah, Moshe told the people, “‘Set a boundary around [the mountain], and tell them to be careful not to climb the mountain, or [even] to touch its edge. Anyone touching the mountain will die.”

A few verses later, the following exchange takes place. “Moses replied to G-d, ‘The people cannot climb Mount Sinai. You already warned them to set a boundary around the mountain and to declare it sacred.’ G-d said to him, ‘Go down. You can then come [back] up along with Aaron. But the priests and the [other] people must not violate the boundary to go up to the Divine; if they do, He will send destruction among them.’ Moses went down to the people and conveyed this to them.”

While we know Moshe was on the mountain for 40 days, it is interesting to note that the Torah is unclear on where he was during the Revelation itself. And the people — where are they? The closest they can be is the bottom of the mountain, as they are unable to ascend.

And yet, in Vaetchanan, Moshe says, “I stood between you and G-d at that time, to tell you Gd’s words, since you were afraid of the fire and did not go up the mountain,” implying that it was only fire that prevented them from going up the mountain.

But weren’t they not allowed? And where was Moshe? If Moshe was between G-d and the people, there is a clear possibility that he was not on the mountain at all!

Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch explains Moshe’s words to mean, “You did not dare to approach the mountain to hear Aseret Hadibrot” — implying that they could have approached, but didn’t.

Now, another reading is possible. For example, Chizkuni and Rabbeinu Bachaye read Moshe as saying matterof-factly “You didn’t go up the mountain. I did. So your experience was different.” Perhaps they mean Moshe to say, “You were afraid because you didn’t understand G-d, while I, who was on the mountain, had a very different perception.”

Rabbi Eliyahu Mizrachi, the supercommentary on Rashi, combines these approaches, saying Moshe’s comment was an aside. However, he still seems to blame the people for not ascending the mountain, contradicting Ohr HaChaim who explicitly states that they were forbidden to do so.

The Netziv, however, paints an entirely different picture: “They did not sacrifice themselves to go up the mountain, which is why they did not have a supernatural experience. Moshe, on the other hand, even though he stood at the bottom of the mountain, was there not because he was afraid, but because he had been instructed

by G-d to be at the bottom of the mountain. Israel, on the other hand, even if they wanted to go up were warned against it, and even without a warning were afraid to go. As a result, they did not comprehend the Dibrot in the ways Moshe did. When the Torah writes that they didn’t go up because they were afraid of the fire — this is the Torah’s way, giving one reason even though there is sometimes another reason as well.” veryone has a moment in time that gives them the opportunity to be a hero.

How do we face that moment?

The people were told not to ascend the mountain. What if they had said “No — we’re going anyway”? Would they have been struck down like Nadav and Avihu, or would they have understood G-d the way Moshe did? Would they have died, or would they have an incredible story to tell? With such different opinions, it seems that the jury is still out.

But one thing is clear. Without taking a risk, the chance of achieving greatness is very slim.

Perhaps Moshe is just stating facts: I was on the mountain; you weren’t. But he might be saying, “You could have been on the mountain, and you chose not to be.”

But is that their fault? How could they have known it was an option?

This is why it’s unfair to point fingers. Things happen all the time — a miscommunication. A misunderstanding. Unlike politics, when careers

When G-d says there’s a limit, we can test it.

E

When truth meets real life From Heart of Jerusalem

Rabbi biNNY FReeDMaN

Jewish Star columnist

W

hen Bergen-Belsen was liberated on April 15, 1945, the sight that greeted the British soldiers was hellish, even by concentration camp standards. In a desperate attempt to bury the dead before the Allies arrived, 2,000 inmates had been made to dig massive burial pits, and yet there were still over 10,000 rotting corpses in heaps all over the camp. In addition to a lack of food, water and basic sanitation, the camp was overrun with typhus, typhoid and tuberculosis.

Over 38,000 prisoners were liberated, but tragically, only ten thousand survived. Many died after liberation due to food bestowed upon them by unsuspecting Allied soldiers that was too rich for their starved bodies to handle.

Howard Klein should have died as well. Ordered by camp guards to drag corpses into the pits, he became so exhausted that he fell in with them.

A short while later, a young woman named Nancy spotted him among the bodies and realized he was still alive. She managed to haul him out of the pit, though no one thought he would live. At her insistence, he was moved to a bunk in one of the barracks. For a week he was too ill to move or speak, but Nancy nursed him back to health.

One day, while she was out trying to get food, he disappeared, having been moved to a hospital by the British. Nancy tried to find him, but eventually gave up looking. Howard spent the next six months recovering in the hospital.

Howard immigrated to Toronto, Canada, where he discovered by chance that Nancy lived, too. He turned up at her door unannounced with a bouquet of flowers, but, as she would later recount, “He just stood there having no idea what to

say.” Howard explained: “How does one say thank you to someone for saving your life?”

Three years later they were married.

How did one inmate survive those overwhelming days after liberation when so many others perished? here is an interesting dialogue between the Jewish people and Moshe in this week’s portion of Vaetchanan, often lost amid the more famous subjects we read this Shabbat.

This Shabbat, after Tisha B’Av, is Shabbat Nachamu, of consolation, We are comforted after the terrible loss of both our Temples. Indeed, the haftarah we read from Isaiah begins, “Be comforted, be comforted, my people.”

As such, one might suggest that all of the topics we read of this week should offer some form of consolation after weeks of mourning. And so it is in this week’s portion we read perhaps the most famous paragraph in the Torah: the first chapter of Shema. And it is no accident that the Ten Commandments are repeated this week, as Moshe recounts them to the generation that will soon enter Israel.

There is an often missed detail in the Ten Commandments, both here in Vaetchanan and in the first recounting in Shemot: the tense changes.

In the first two commandments it seems Hashem is speaking directly to the Jewish people (“I am the Lord your G-d; I took you out of Egypt … have no other gods aside from Me”). But afterwards, the verses continue in what seems to be Moshe’s voice (“Don’t take G-d’s name in vain … the seventh day is Shabbat for Hashem your G-d…”).

Why do the Ten Commandments begin with G-d speaking directly to the Jewish people only to see Moshe take over for the last eight?

Jewish tradition (Makkot 24a) teaches that in fact G-d spoke the first two commandments direct-

T

ly, but the people could not handle it, so Moshe transmitted the remaining 611 mitzvot. This is based on the verses in Vaetchanan, in which Moshe recounts to the next generation that their parents at Sinai could not handle direct contact with G-d and begged Moshe to mediate instead.

But didn’t G-d know that the Jewish people would not be able to handle His voice? Why set them up for failure? Indeed, Rashi suggests that Moshe is castigating the people for not wanting to receive the entire Torah directly from G-d; after all, how could Torah received by way of man ever be as meaningful and valuable as that received directly from G-d? Should the Jewish people not embrace the opportunity to come closer to G-d?

And yet, Moshe recounts that G-d agreed with the Jewish people, saying: “What they are saying is good!” So what is this debate between Moshe and G-d? e so often seek exceptional moments that come so rarely and seem to overpower us.

But in the journey of life, we need to value the normal.

The Torah suggests on multiple occasions that fantastic highs do not last. Sinai was an incredible experience, full of sound and fury, thunder and lighting and blasts of the shofar. The only problem was … it did not last. Much like the Jewish people on the morning after Eliyahu brought fire down on Mount Carmel, six weeks after hearing G-d’s voice at Sinai, the Jews frolicked with a golden calf. Shock treatment does not work.

Moshe is described amongst other things, as the paragon of truth: “Moshe emet ve’Torato emet.” Truth is powerful, and splits mountains, but sometimes “the whole truth, and nothing but the truth” is not the most productive way to go.

Sometimes truth needs to sit down.

Imagine your daughter is getting married. On

Why set them up for failure?

W

are ruined but life goes on, in the real world, people need to be able to keep moving after misfortunates.

So what do we do? Point fingers? Blame?

Or do we say, “This is the reality. Things went wrong. Let’s do our best to fix it and come up with a game plan for the future”?

I find that most interpersonal problems boil down to an inability to sit down and hash things out. Sometimes people need to compromise, to give a little and hopefully get something in return.

The story of Mount Sinai teaches us is that unless you take that step, you’ll never know. The rule at the mountain was meant to strike fear — but maybe it was to teach awe and reverence.

Awe comes in many forms, and one of those is, when G-d says there’s a limit, we can test it, if we are truly doing so in a heartfelt way.

This is dangerous ground. How do we know what is within the realm of right and wrong?

Nadav and Avihu were wrong, but at the end of their lives, they were viewed as having gotten close to G-d. The people at Sinai were careful, but they didn’t achieve the closeness that Moshe did.

How will we know if we’ve achieved the ultimate? We can blame no one but ourselves if we don’t. And we’ll never get there if we aren’t willing to take bigger risks in our connection with G-d, setting goals for ourselves and taking baby steps to reach them.

It’s not a blame game. It’s moving forward, one step at a time, until we too can feel comfortable meeting G-d on the mountain. the day of the wedding you arrive at the hall early for photographs, and your daughter suddenly turns to you with a worried look and asks: “Do you like my wedding dress?”

Now, don’t get me wrong: if you don’t think your daughter, on her wedding day, in her wedding dress, is the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen, then you need therapy. But your answer isn’t about truth, is it?

Sometimes, a softened approach accomplishes far more than overwhelming shock treatment we are often tempted to pursue.

Those Bergen-Belsen inmates could not handle the candy bars shared by their well-meaning liberators. They needed a long, slow nursing of love in order to eventually regain their health.

As the second generation prepared to enter Israel, to conquer the land, Moshe reminded them that some conquests need to happen gradually — something we would all do well to remember.

Shabbat shalom from Jerusalem.

luach Fri July 27 • 16 Av Vaeschanan Candlelighting: 7:57 pm Havdalah: 9:05 pm

Fri Aug 3 • 23 Av

Eikev Candlelighting: 7:50 pm Havdalah: 8:58pm

Fri Aug 10 • 30 Av Rosh Chodesh Elul Re’eh Candlelighting: 7:41 pm Havdalah: 8:49 pm

Five Towns times from White Shul

Kosher bookworm

AlAn JAy geRbeR

Jewish Star columnist

W

ith summer nearing its end, we are more mindful of the upcoming High Holidays and their themes and observances.

However, we first arrive, next week, at what Rabbi Abraham Twerski calls the greatest of our holidays: Tu B’Av, a festive signpost heralding our concern for the value of marriage.

One literary work that should be given its due this time of year is a book written over 300 years ago, which is of increasing moral importance and relevance to this very day.

In two essays written by Rabbi Twerski, Mesillat Yesharim, a work written by the Ramchal, Rav Moshe Chaim Luzzatto, is given great prominence. In the first essay, “Declaration of Independence vs.

Mesillat Yesharim,” dealing with the rights of humanity, Rabbi Twerski cites Luzzatto’s work

with the following observation: “Ramchal begins his epochal work with a chapter entitled, ‘The Obligation of a Person in His World.’ This sets the theme for the entire book. If a person has inalienable rights, then he is free, within accepted limits, to decide how he wishes to exercise these rights.”

Further on, Rabbi Twerski states that the “Ramchal would fully agree with ‘life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.’

“Life, because the Torah says, ‘You shall observe My decrees and My laws which man shall carry out and by which he shall live.’

“Liberty, because the Torah says, ‘Proclaim liberty throughout the land for all its inhabitants.’

“Pursuit of happiness, because the Torah says, ‘You shall be completely joyous.’

“These are inalienable mitzvot, not rights” notes Rabbi Twerski, in an attempt to give the Declaration the status of sacred writ.

This take on our Declaration of Independence brings into sharp focus the relevance of the writings of the Ramchal to the very foundational

The Ramchal would agree with life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

concepts of the American republic. n his second essay, entitled, “Tu B’Av — The Greatest of Our Holidays,” Rabbi Twerski once again cites the Ramchal’s work: “Living a Torah life requires more than observance of halachot. It requires that a person be driven by the will to do what G-d wants, and this is the all-important area of middot.”

Thus, Rabbi Twerski adds an essential element of morality to the concept of mitzvot as they concern interpersonal relationships. He goes into further detail as to how this impacts human relationships, from casual friendships to marriage.

This view of Luzzatto’s intellectual legacy was shared by many, including Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan z”l, a noted scholar of Luzzatto’s works in his own right, who stated: “Luzzatto was one of the most brilliant thinkers of the past several centuries. Both his depth of thought and systematic mind are evident in all his works.

“Over two hundred years ago, the Vilna Gaon declared that Luzzatto had the most pro-

I

found understanding of Judaism that any mortal human could attain. He furthermore stated that if Luzzatto were alive in his generation, he would go by foot from Vilna to Italy to sit at his feet and learn from him.”

To get a good idea as to what the Ramchal is all about, especially during the month of Elul when the study of Mesillat Yesharim is appropriate, I suggest Rabbi Twerski’s truly lucid, practical, user-friendly commentary based on Mesillat Yesharim, entitled, Lights Along The Way (Artscroll), now in its eighth printing.

For another point of view, there is Mesillat Yesharim (Jewish Publication Society, 2010), with a detailed and scholarly introduction and commentary

by Dr. Ira F. Stone.

Still, as a work in progress, we have to date five volumes in print of “Ascending The Path” by Rabbi Yaakov Hillel, a scholarly work sponsored by Lawrence residents Debra and Richard Parkoff. Read, enjoy — and most importantly, learn.

A version of this column originally appeared in 2011.

Nachamu, Nachamu: Thoughts on consolation Angel for Shabbat

RAbbi mARc d. Angel JewishIdeas.org

Someone has suffered the loss of a loved one.

We visit the mourner’s home during shiva to offer words of consolation. Upon leaving, a Sephardic custom is to say “Min hashamayim tenuchamu,” may you be consoled from Heaven. The general Ashkenazic custom is to say a passage that begins with the words “Hamakom yenachem etchem,” may the “Place” console you.

The Sephardic reference to Heaven is selfexplanatory. But what does “HaMakom” mean?

Bereishit Rabbah (68:9) indicates that HaMakom is a name of G-d — “He is the place of the world, and His world is not His place.” This phrase seems to mean that G-d encompasses the entire universe, but is not limited to it. In Yechezkel’s vision, the angels bless G-d’s glory mimekomo, from His place (in Heaven).

Doesn’t it seem strange that we offer consolation by referring to a very distant, transcendent

G-d? Why don’t we invoke a more “personal” name?

Our practices reflect a deep sensitivity to the reality of mourning. During the shiva, mourners are fresh in their grief. They often feel alienated from G-d: why has He taken the life of my loved one? Halacha recognizes this alienation by exempting mourners from prayers and blessings during the period before burial. Even during the shiva period, a sense of alienation from G-d lingers.

We offer words of consolation in which we refer to G-d as being distant, out of reach.

G-d in Heaven will console you, G-d “in His place” will soothe your grief. We know that right now G-d seems remote from you. We refer to G-d in the way that mourners are now experiencing G-d.

But if G-d is so far away, how will He be a source of consolation?

The answer is: mourning is experienced in stages. During the first stages, G-d indeed is experienced as being in Heaven. But as time passes, the G-d in Heaven will once again come close

to you, will bind your wounds. This consolation is experienced incrementally, not all at once. We are reminding the mourners: right now, G-d is in Heaven, in his “Place,” but He is ready to come close, to bring you consolation.

As you go through the mourning process, you will again feel G-d’s immediate presence in your lives. n his classic book, “I and Thou,” Martin Buber writes of how “primitive” people use language that reflects human relationships.

Where we tend to speak in abstractions, the “simpler” humans speak in relational terms. For example, we say “far away.” The Zulus express the same idea with the phrase, “when one cries ‘mother, I am lost.’”

The Jewish tradition speaks on both of these levels. In offering consolation during shiva, we refer to G-d in abstract terms that describe Him as far away. But we close the shiva by quoting the prophet Isaiah (66:13): “As one who is comforted by his mother, so [G-d] will comfort you, and

During shiva, mourners often feel alienated from G-d.

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through Jerusalem you will be comforted.” The G-d of the Heavens is now like a loving mother consoling her crying children.

This coming Shabbat is known as Shabbat Nachamu, the Shabbat of consolation. The haftarah opens with Isaiah’s words: “Be comforted, be comforted, My people, says your G-d.” This haftarah begins a seven-week period of consolation following three weeks of national mourning between the fast of 17 Tammuz and the fast of 9 Av. Over the period of national mourning, we remember the catastrophes that befell our people during the destructions of the First and Second Temples. How many thousands of our people were murdered or sold into slavery!

How bitter have been the exiles and wanderings over the centuries! When we face tragedy head-on, we feel that G-d is in Heaven, in His “place” … but not here. He is far away.

As we experience the weeks of consolation, we are reminded that mourning is a process. It begins with G-d being in Heaven, but goes on to enable us to restore our relationship with G-d as being close to us. Isaiah announces to us Gd’s own promise: be comforted, My people. I am here with you. Redemption will come.

A Shabbat Nachamu that offers double comfort Torah

RAbbi dAvid eTengoff

Jewish Star columnist

S

habbat Nachamu’s haftarah is in many ways the most longed-awaited haftarah of the entire year.

Until now, the Three Weeks and Tisha B’Av have forced us to focus upon the seemingly endless trials and tribulations of our nation’s history. For any thoughtful, Jewishly-sensitive individual, it is a dark period indeed.

Suddenly, Tisha B’Av ends, and we are greeted by Isaiah’s clarion call of comfort: “Nachamu, nachamu ami, yomar Elokeichem” — “Be consoled, be consoled, My people, says your G-d.” The world as we understand it returns to normal, and we no longer focus exclusively on the dire straits of Jewish history. Finally, our

national mourning ceases.

But what kind of nechama has actually been achieved? The Beit Hamikdash remains in ruins, worldwide anti-Semitism grows ever stronger, assimilation and intermarriage continue unabated, and our beloved country, Medinat Yisrael, is continually reviled by the nations of the world in their “hallowed halls of justice.”

It is likely this kind of question that led such luminaries as Rashi and Radak to explain Isaiah’s words as referring to the Messianic time to come. In other words, our people continue to face some of the same existential threats as they did when Rashi and Radak penned their interpretations.

As King Solomon declared long ago, “There is nothing new under the sun” (Kohelet 1:9).

Given this information, I could readily understand Isaiah writing, “Nachamu ami,” using

the word “nachamu” one time, since authentic nechama has yet to come. But why, then, does he proclaim, “Nachamu, nachamu,” seemingly indicating that we have something to be comforted about now and in our time?

Fortunately, an answer is offered by the Midrash.

“Why does the text state ‘nachamu’ two times? Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi said: ‘This is because all of [the Jewish people’s] punishments were doubled. As Jeremiah said: “Shever al shever nikra — destruction upon destruction has occurred” (Yirmiyahu 4:20); “Bacho tivkeh balayla — she weeps, yea, she weeps in the night” (Eichah 1:2). Since all her punishments were doubled, so too will all her consolation be doubled. As the text states: “Nachamu, nachamu ami” ’.” (Midrash Zuta, Eichah 1:14, translation my own).

Still the Beit Hamikdash remains in ruins.

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believe the Midrash is teaching us that the doubling of “nachamu” is a powerful lesson of unlimited hope, the prologue to the ultimate fulfillment of the verse, “For Your salvation, I hope, O L-rd,” uttered by Jacob toward the dawn of Jewish existence (Bereishit 49:18).

Moreover, Isaiah is promising us, “Never fear!” Even though the Messianic period has not yet arrived, when the Mashiach does come, we will not only be comforted measure for measure for each of the bitter and heartrending periods of Jewish history — we will be comforted in double. At last we will witness the fulfillment of Zechariah’s stirring words, “And the L-rd shall become King over all the earth; on that day shall the L-rd be one, and His name one” (14:9).

With the Almighty’s bountiful mercy and our fervent desire, may we merit to witness the coming of the Mashiach, the rebuilding of the Beit HaMikdash, and the complete fulfillment of “Nachamu, nachamu ami,” soon and in our time.

THE JEWISH STAR July 27, 2018 • 16 Av, 5778

Celebrating Tu B’Av and the coming of Elul

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July 27, 2018 • 16 Av, 5778 THE JEWISH STAR

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Israel declares itself a Jewish state. So what?

Politics to go

Jeff Dunetz

Jewish Star columnist Zionism: A political movement, to establish a political and geographic nation-state for the Jewish people in their ancestral homeland. ast week, the Israeli Knesset passed the 15th Basic Law. This “Nation-State Law” recognized Israel as the fulfillment of the Zionist dream declaring that Israel is the nation-state of the Jewish people and “the actualization of the right of national self-determination in the state of Israel is unique to the Jewish people.” In Israel, which has no constitution, Basic Laws have the same power as the constitution in America.

The Nation State law, in development for seven years, says Hebrew is Israel’s official language, but Arabic has special status. Saturdays and Jewish holidays are the official days of rest, but people of other faiths will be allowed to observe their own. The law reaffirmed that freedoms are guaranteed to all Israelis, no matter their faith. It affirms that an undivided Jerusalem is the capital of Israel, and asserts that Jewish settlement, without specifying where, is a national value, and promises to encourage and advance settlement efforts. Finally, it indicates that Israel will work to ensure the safety of Jews

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all across the Diaspora, as well as their historical and cultural heritage.

This law does not supersede the Israeli declaration of independence, which says that Israel “will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex; it will guarantee freedom of religion, conscience, language, education, and culture.” Those rights were reaffirmed in 1992 with the Human Dignity and Liberty Basic Law, which says, “Fundamental human rights in Israel are founded upon recognition of the value of the human being, the sanctity of human life, and the principle that all persons are free; these rights shall be upheld in the spirit of the principles set forth in the Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel.” espite the guarantee of rights already established in the Declaration of Independence and Basic Law, progressive politics-first Jewish groups claimed the law would somehow make Israel less democratic, especially the provision making Hebrew the official language of Israel. Their objections ignore the law’s explicit statement that “this clause does not change the status given to the Arabic lan-

guage before the Basic Law was created.”

As reported in Gulf News, “Palestinian MK Ahmad Tibi tweeted: ‘The end of democracy and the official beginning of fascism and apartheid. A black day’.”

The self-determination part of the law is not different from those of other countries in the western world.

The UN created Israel as a Jewish State. UN Resolution 181, the partition plan, called for independent Jewish and Arab states; thus this nationstate law is the actualization of that resolution. For the first seventy years of its existence, it was assumed that Israel was the nation-state of the Jews. This law puts it in writing.

An essential part of the bill is the section on the Diaspora, which professes that Israel is tied to the Jewish community outside the Jewish State and should protect its people and heritage there. To be frank, this is not only an obligation of Israel but Jews everywhere. his law doesn’t change anything. However, it puts into writing the basic framework of Israel and is a necessary element for any future peace.

As Prime Minister Netanyahu outlined in a speech before the U.S. Congress in 2011, the year

Freedoms are guaranteed to all Israelis, no matter their faith.

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in which the Knesset started working on the law: “All six Israeli Prime Ministers since the signing of Oslo accords agreed to establish a Palestinian state. Myself included. So why has peace not been achieved? Because so far, the Palestinians have been unwilling to accept a Palestinian state if it meant accepting a Jewish state alongside it … You see, our conflict has never been about the establishment of a Palestinian state. It has always been about the existence of the Jewish state. This is what this conflict is about … They were simply unwilling to end the conflict. …

“They continue to educate their children to hate. They continue to name public squares after terrorists. And worst of all, they continue to perpetuate the fantasy that Israel will one day be flooded by the descendants of Palestinian refugees. My friends, this must come to an end. President Abbas must do what I have done. I stood before my people, and I told you it wasn’t easy for me, and I said, ‘I will accept a Palestinian state.’

It is time for President Abbas to stand before his people and say, ‘I will accept a Jewish state’.”

Even when it has said that Israel has a right to exist, Palestinian leadership has always refused to recognize it as the nation-state of the Jews. Previous American governments have refused to push the issue. Now that Israel has put it in writing and included it in its Basic Law, it is clear to both friends and adversaries that any peace must include a recognition of Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people.

France’s rep at stake in murder of Sarah Halimi Viewpoint

Ben COHen

Jewish News Service

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or the second time in 20 years, France basked in the accomplishment of winning the World Cup with a team whose diversity was as much a symbol of national unity as the creative brand of soccer they played. By any reckoning, a team made up of names like Mbappé, Pavard, Hernandez and Pogba is a nearperfect representation of the inclusivity to which France’s leaders aspire.

But politics are rarely as definitive and inspiring as sports.

Since he took office last year, French President Emmanuel Macron has pledged to combat the anti-Semitism that all too often underlies bestial acts of violence against Jews.

His predecessors Nicolas Sarkozy and Franҫois Hollande, as well as former Prime Minister Manuel Valls, have all made similar prom-

ises, arguing with genuine conviction that hatred of Jews is a direct threat to France’s democratic traditions. All of them have uttered some variation of “France without Jews is not France.”

And yet not only does the violence continue, but French Jews cannot be sure of justice even when the perpetrators are caught.

On July 11, the family of Sarah Halimi, a 65-year-old Jewish woman viciously murdered in her Paris apartment in April 2017, was told by the city magistrate that a panel of psychiatrists had compiled a second report on 27-year-old Kobili Traoré, Halimi’s killer, and concluded that Traoré’s lack of discernement — essentially, mental awareness of his own situation — rendered him unfit to stand trial. or two decades, France’s 450,000 Jews, the largest Jewish community in Europe, have lived with anti-Semitism that is alarming in and of itself and when compared to the rest of the continent.

Since the 2006 kidnapping and murder of Ilan Halimi by a gang who had seized him out of the belief that Jews are wealthy and willing to pay ransom demands — France has seen four presi-

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dents come and go. And yet 2017-18 was one of the worst on record, with 92 incidents of violent anti-Semitism reported — a 20 percent increase.

Alongside the murders of Halimi and Holocaust survivor Mireille Knoll, we have seen the phenomenon of “home invasions,” largely Muslim gangs targeting Jewish homes for robbery. In one case, the non-Jewish girlfriend of a Jewish man was raped as a gang roamed through his home, screaming about their “brothers in Palestine” as they searched for the cash they knew the Jews were hiding. In another case, a young Jewish man was overpowered and his parents beaten by a gang convinced that the Jews were hiding diamonds and bundles of cash somewhere in their abode.

All this has crystallized into what Prime Minister Edouard Philippe called in February a “new type” of anti-Semitism in France: “violent and brutal.”

And no more so than in the case of Dr. Halimi.

On the night of April 4, 2017, Traoré broke into Halimi’s home via the apartment of her neighbors. It was not the first time he had encountered the deeply religious widow, who lived alone. On

previous occasions, he had called Dr. Halimi and her daughter “dirty Jewesses” in the corridors.

For nearly an hour, he subjected Halimi to a frenzied beating. The blows, punctuated by Islamic religious slogans, were loud enough to alert neighbors, who called the police. Convinced that they were dealing with a terrorist attack, officers dithered for nearly half an hour, by which time Traoré had thrown Halimi to her death from a third-floor window.

In the ensuing weeks, the Halimi family had to deal not only with trauma, but with the indifference of a national media worried that the case would strengthen far-right presidential candidate Marine Le Pen at the expense of Macron.

Since Macron assumed office, the media has woken up, and it treated the murder of Mireille Knoll one year later as an example of anti-Semitic savagery. owards the end of last year, it seemed certain that Traoré would face trial, in part due to psychiatric expert Dr. Daniel Zagury, who testified that the killer harbored conscious anti-Semitism. Traoré even confessed to police See France on page 23

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stePhen M. Flatow

Jewish News Syndicate

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resident Donald Trump’s senior Mideast advisers are proposing to give Hamas billions of dollars if it will recognize Israel and suspend terrorist attacks. Bad idea. Getting rid of Hamas — not bribing it — is the only hope for peace in Gaza.

In a Washington Post op-ed on July 20, presidential advisers Jared Kushner and Jason Greenblatt, together with U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman, noted that despite the international community’s gifts of “billions of dollars” to Gaza in the past 70 years, unemployment is at 49 percent, and 53 percent of Gazans live below the poverty line.

The Trump team’s solution? Give Gaza many billions more in exchange for some paper promises by Hamas. Talk about throwing good money after bad!

If Hamas “acknowledges that the existence of Israel is a permanent reality,” “abides by previous diplomatic agreements” and “renounces violence,” the U.S. officials wrote, then “all manner of new opportunities becomes possible” because “engaged, interested parties with resources” will start pumping in foreign aid. Gaza will “enjoy economic success and integrate into a thriving regional economy — if they let us help.”

In other words, the Trump administration is willing to provide U.S. taxpayers’ money in exchange for Hamas’s promises.

And that’s all they would be — promises.

Exactly like the worthless promises that Yasser Arafat made in exchange for billions of dollars in American and international aid.

Arafat went along with the carefully choreo-

graphed steps arranged by the Clinton administration to qualify for U.S. aid. He mouthed the words that the State Department wrote for him, which supposedly “proved” that he recognized Israel and renounced violence. He took the aid, continued the violence and then assured the Palestinian public that he didn’t really recognize Israel.

That charade went on, year after year. Arafat kept sponsoring terrorism against Israel. The State Department kept certifying that he was fulfilling his obligations in the Oslo accords. Congress and American Jewish leaders kept looking the other way. And the money kept flowing.

Now the Trump team wants to repeat those tragic mistakes. h yes, there’s one additional promise that the Trump administration wants Hamas to make — that it will stop launching violent attacks “on infrastructure projects sponsored by donor nations and organizations.” Isn’t that a

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Ocasio-Cortez and libeling of Israel Jonathan s. tobin

Jewish News Syndicate

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t only 28 years old and with nothing but an upset primary win in a New York City congressional district on her résumé, being anointed the “future of the Democratic Party” was quite a burden to place on Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Since beating Rep. Joe Crowley — a veteran incumbent, as well as the boss of New York’s Queens County’s Democratic Party — on June 26, Ocasio-Cortez has become something of a political rock star, according to Democratic National Chairman Tom Perez, who gave her that title.

Perez might be right. But if so, there are two things about Ocasio-Cortez that are of greater interest than the fact that she embodies the Democrats’ hopes of generating a massive turnout of young voters this fall for midterm elections. One is that she ran as a “Democratic Socialist,” rather than a garden-variety Democrat. The other is that she’s already on record libeling the State of Israel, and has struggled to give a coherent explanation for those views.

Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders proved dur-

ing his surprisingly effective 2016 presidential campaign that “socialist” was no longer a dirty word for American liberals. For those who have grown up in the three decades since the fall of the Berlin Wall, the reality of that term is as remote as the collapse of the Roman Empire. For many young voters, socialism is a catchall phrase embodying their resentment of a rapidly changing global economy, and a claim of wanting to make the world a better and more equitable place.

In a Democratic Party drifting to the left, with figures like Sanders and now OcasioCortez appealing to its liberal base, the stigma that had rightly attached itself to socialism has faded. ocialism has always been in fashion in pockets of academia, but it was widely accepted in the early 20th century as societies struggled to adjust to a modern industrial economy. Given the oppression they faced in Europe, Jews were vulnerable to the notion of a new world in which equality reigned and discrimination was eliminated.

Some forms of socialism — such as Labor Zionism and even Bundists, who hoped to find freedom for Jews in a socialist Europe — were relatively benign. But the strain that gained power in much of the world soon illustrated not only its basic economic fallacy (something that

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was also true in Israel, until it discarded the socialism of its founders), but also what happens when power is concentrated in the hands of a small group that thinks it knows how everyone else should live.

The great lessons of the 20th century were that when regimes ruled by this ideology are created to suppress individual rights and the free market, the result is inherently dictatorial, and economic ruin soon follows. It’s not just that, for all of its problems, capitalism is

the only sure path to prosperity and freedom.

During the course of the last century, the cumulative death toll of Communist regimes, which always described themselves as socialist, reached 100 million — slaughtered in famines, purges and gulags. When individual freedom is sacrificed on the altar of utopian ideology, blood always flows.

That socialism is now making a comeback shows how fleeting historical memory is. But the problem with utopian thinking is that it involves more than discredited economic theories. Today’s socialists are also influenced by intersectional theory that identifies all causes associated with minorities or Third World peoples as part of a general struggle against capitalism. Both Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez accused Israel of atrocities, embracing lies spread by Hamas apologists during the weekly “return marches” that started this spring, when Israel’s border with Gaza was assaulted by Palestinian rioters armed with rocks, Molotov cocktails, and explosives. n a PBS “Firing Line” interview after her victory, Ocasio-Cortez was asked to account for her claim that Israel had conducted a “massacre.” Her response was incoherent. Though at one point she said she supported Israel’s See Libel on page 23

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J’lem soccer cheers, and ‘Dialogue in the Dark’ View from Central Park

tehilla r. goldberg

Intermountain Jewish News

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he World Cup fell during my one-week trip to Israel. Everywhere I went, crowds huddled around screens, people dropped their obligations, transported to the field as they followed the games.

On my final night in Jerusalem, as I emerged from the lobby of the Herbert Samuel Hotel, I heard echoes of cheers. Curious, I followed the roar of the crowd, and stopped in my tracks: the piazza known as Kikar haAmerikaim was jampacked. Standing room only.

It was almost midnight. Beach chairs stood on ancient cobblestones under white umbrellas.

Amber lamps bathed a huge flat-screen TV. The crowds stood shoulder to shoulder. It seemed like everyone was there, old and young, secular and religious, chasidim, visitors, foreigners, locals, united in the escapist joy of the World Cup.

On this night, the crowd was passionate.

Apparently there were many British folk in attendance, because when England lost to Croatia, the disappointment was palpable. Regardless, when the game was over, the crowd was reluctant to disperse. Cigarettes were lit, and Jaffa Road was overtaken by pedestrians spilling out of the square to reenter their lives.

Meanwhile, southern Israel was burning.

There was constant awareness — buses heading south in support; fundraising campaigns to purchase ice cream for the communities there — but in Jerusalem, there was a compartmentalized sense of normalcy. I tried to embrace a sense of normalcy, but not for a moment was the fear not felt.

But compartmentalizing is part of Israeli reality. There is always something happening.

Somehow, people go on.

Obviously, it is not simple. The seeds of PTSD are sown. And just as I was about to leave Israel, reports of rocket alerts started coming in.

But my appreciation for the World Cup was amplified — for a month, Israel had soccer to focus on.

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highlight of my trip was a museum program I had wanted to take part in for almost 15 years. It was life-changing. For a moment in time, it gave me the experience of being in another’s shoes — difficult shoes.

“Dialogue in the Dark” is a program from Germany, showcased in the Israeli Children’s Museum in Holon, which simulates the experience of blindness.

The hour-long tour is conducted in pitch darkness. I knew this, but when the guide asked for our glasses at the beginning of the tour, I panicked. Rationally, in the dark, glasses wouldn’t help, but even before I entered the exhibit, I felt vulnerable.

We experienced a few scenes in the everyday life of a blind person, a glimpse of the challenges.

You cross a street, walk a bridge, roam a market, ride a boat, order food in a cafeteria, and more — and for one hour you are in a world without color, without pictures, without anything visual, luxuries we take for granted.

When we entered the dark, I clutched the cane I had been given, tightening my grip without even realizing. Teamwork was instanta-

neous. We had been briefly introduced to one another before the tour, and before we knew it we were steadying ourselves with the bodies of the strangers, asking their names and thanking them.

None of us knew where we were going. We relied on our guide’s calm voice, nudging us along as he called us each by name.

After a few minutes, I relaxed — dare I say adapted? I placed the cane in front of me as a guide, something I had witnessed hundreds of times, but in the moment felt like a revelation.

Each setting was signaled by smells and sounds. On a bridge, there was the shaky bridge and the sound of water. On a boat, we heard seagulls and sniffed the salt in the breeze. At the market, pungent root vegetables permeated the air, and I marveled at my recognition of fruits and vegetables by touch: smooth eggplant, leafy greens, solid potatoes, even a quirky kohlrabi in the mix. he final stop was at the cafeteria. Again and again, I felt the coins in my palm, comparing the smooth to the bumpy. ConSee Soccer on page 23

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21 THE JEWISH STAR July 27, 2018 • 16 Av, 5778

Trump team wrong about Hamas

joke? The Trump team is pleading with Hamas to stop destroying the stuff that various countries are sending to Gaza, so those countries can send them more stuff.

In their op-ed, Messrs. Kushner, Greenblatt and Friedman acknowledge that Gaza is ruled by a “corrupt and hateful leadership.” They admit that previous donations for humanitarian purposes “have been diverted for weapons and other malign uses.” They accuse Hamas of “holding the Palestinians of Gaza captive.”

Well, the best way to deal with corrupt, hateful hostage-holders is not to give them billions of dollars and leave them in power in exchange for promises they will soon break. The way to deal with them is to get rid of them.

The Allies didn’t leave the Nazis in power in Germany at the end of World War II. They completely destroyed the Hitler regime and forcibly de-Nazified the German educational system and public culture. That’s the real way to peace in Gaza.

Attorney Stephen M. Flatow is a vice president of Religious Zionists of America and the father of Alisa Flatow, who was murdered in an Iraniansponsored Palestinian terrorist attack in 1995.

The JEWISH STAR

CAlendar of Events

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

Concert By The Sea: YI of Long Beach presents the annual free Concert By the Sea featuring Nice Jewish Boys. 7 pm. Boardwalk and Long Beach Blvd, Long Beach.

Thursday July 26

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.

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.

Lunch and Learn: Join Rabbi Eliyahu Wolf and Rabbi Shay Schachter for a weekly lunch and learn at Traditions. $13 per person. 12:30-1:30 pm. 516-398-3094.

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.

Monday July 30 Bein Adam L’Chavero: Rabbi Issac Rice will be giving a shiur for women at YI of Woodmere on “Bein Adam L’Chavero.” 9:30 am. 859 Peninsula Blvd, Woodmere. 516-295-0950.

Friday July 27

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.

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.

The Formation of the Talmud Bavli: Both women and men are invited to Join Rabbi Dr. Ari Bergman for a shiur on “The Formation of the Talmud Bavli: Historical, Literary and Theological Dimensions.” 9 pm. 859 Peninsula Blvd, Woodmere. 516-295-0950.

Sunday July 29

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

Tuesday July 31 Life Lessons: Rabbi Shay Shachter will be gibing a shiur for women on “Life Lessons From Pirkei Avos” at YI of Woodmere. 9:30 am. 859 Peninsula Blvd, Woodmere. 516-295-0950.

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.

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. 516-621-7880.

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] Rabbi Dr. Aaron Glatt at YI of Woodmere. 9:15 pm. 859 Peninsula Blvd, Woodmere. 516-295-0950.

Wednesday August 1

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.

Sefer Yonah: Men and women are invited to Mrs. Gitta Neufeld’s in depth study of Sefer Yonah at YI of Woodmere. 8:00-9:00 pm. 859 Peninsula Blvd, Woodmere. 516-295-0950.

Shiur and Tehillim Group: [Weekly] Join the women of YI of Woodmere at

the home of Devorah Schochet. 9:15 pm. 559 Saddle Ridge Rd.

Sunday August 5

Kosher Ducks: It’s the fourth annual Jewish Heritage Night with the Long Island Ducks, the only night of the season where kosher hot dogs, hamburgers, frieds and knishes will on sale. Jewish music will be palyed throughout the evening and free “l’chaim stadium cups” will be distributed. Admission $14. Bethpage Ballpark, 3 Court House Drive, Cetnral Islip. 5:05 pm (gates open 4:05). JewishIslip.com/Ducks

Sunday August 12

Rosh Chodesh Shiur For Women: Join Mrs. Michal Horowitz for a Rosh Chodesh Elul shiur for women. 9:30 am. 859 Peninsula Blvd, Woodmere. 516-295-0950.

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.

Sunday September 2

Race for Charity: Community Chest South Shore invites you to a 5K Run/Family Walk at the Sunny Atlantic Beach Club. Registration at 7:44 am, race begins at 8:30 am. Register online at communitychestss.org. 516-374-5800.

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Continued from page 20 that he felt angered by the sight of Shabbat candlesticks and a Torah scroll in Halimi’s home.

Yet we are now supposed to believe that Traoré, a petty drug dealer with a long criminal record, is so deluded that he cannot understand his crime. We are supposed to believe, as one of Halimi’s lawyers pointed out, that smoking cannabis, a drug Traoré had used for 10 years and not known for causing psychotic episodes, was a more decisive factor in his rage than his loathing of the woman at whom he’d previously aimed anti-Semitic barbs.

We are supposed to believe all this and more about a killer who had the presence of mind to tell the police, when they finally arrested him, that Halimi had committed suicide.

Under French law, a murderer who is deemed sufficiently insane can avoid a trial. If a third psychiatric evaluation of Traoré echoes the conclusions of the second, he will be excused from trial, protected indefinitely by a dubious assessment of his mental health.

If this sadistic killer is sent to a psychiatric hospital instead of answering for his crimes, France’s leaders should expect to undergo the trial of international public scrutiny. France’s ability to secure elemental justice for its most vulnerable citizens is being tested — and nothing less than the reputation of a nation is at stake.

Continued from page 21 fidently, I handed over a five-shekel coin for my four-shekel bottle of water. “Here’s six shekel back,” the cashier said.

“But I gave you a five!”

“No,” he said. “That was a ten.”

How much trust you must need if you are blind? Anyone could pull a fast one on you, and you’d never know. It was another layer I had never given a thought.

Now came time for the “dialogue.” That grounding voice we had followed throughout the tour, the voice that brought a sense of security, the “eyes,” so to speak, for us “blind” folk on the tour, belonged to someone blind. From birth.

A truly blind man was leading us helpless sighted people. Our roles had been reversed.

Our guide, with unbelievable humility, spoke

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Right here on Long Island, Richner Communications, the region’s largest family-owned community publisher, offers excellent employment opportunities ranging from sales to clerical to data-entry to news reporting and editing to truck driving, both full-time and part-time.

And at The Jewish Star, a Richner division, the work is mostly within the frum community.

Interested? Visit TheJewishStar.com/ jobs.html. After all, not every road to advancement runs through Manhattan.

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The JEWISH

Parsha Chukas

• June 30, 2017

just the

STAR

Teach our childre n well • 6 Tamuz, 5777

• Five Towns Candleligh

ting 8:11 pm, Havdalah

9:20 • Luach page

19 • Vol 16, No

TheJewishStar.

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The Newspape

r of our Orthodox

com

communities

5 Towns conferenc e with joy to sustai told: Deliver Torah n the next genera tion

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-

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

STAR

Kessler

Continued from page 21 right to exist and a two-state solution, she also said she opposed the “occupation of Palestine.”

When challenged by interviewer Margaret Hoover to explain what she meant, Ocasio-Cortez was flustered, saying she wasn’t an “expert on geopolitics.”

Since then, Ocasio-Cortez has flip-flopped on the issue as she reacts to criticism from fellow leftists, who fear she is backing off her opposition to the Jewish state. Unfortunately, the people whose efforts she and Sanders supported by unfairly criticizing Israel do know what they mean by “occupation.” For those who took part in the marches, “return” means turning back the clock to 1948 and erasing the State of Israel, all of which they deem “occupied” territory. Yet that doesn’t stop contemporary “socialists” from seeking to undermine Israel’s right to defend itself.

Ocasio-Cortez won’t be the only member of Congress who thinks ignorance is no reason to avoid spouting off about serious issues, even when it means libeling Israel. Yet the real problem here is the consequence of the utopian impulse at the heart of her ideas.

The romance of socialism is irresistible to those who believe that outrage and good intentions are a substitute for sound economics or an understanding of conflicts in which murderous hate is disguised as a struggle against imperialism. But it’s a temptation that anyone with an understanding of history should avoid.

If Ocasio-Cortez and those who follow in her footsteps are the future of the Democratic Party, it bodes ill for the United States, Israel, and most certainly, for the Democrats.

• 24 Elul 5777

• Five Towns candles

6:46 pm, Havdalah

Rabbi Moshe Weinberger, of Kodesh in Woodmere Congregati , delivered keynote on Aish speech.

7:53 • Torah columns

pages 28–29

• Vol 16, No 34

TheJewishStar.

er of our Orthodox

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com

communities

odmere as HALB There’s joy in Wo celebrates new home

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

Photo by Doni

The JEWISH • Sept. 15, 2017

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-

Star

By The Jewish joined the Hebrew The Five TownsBeach on Sunday in Long at its new Academy of chanukat habayit Avenue in celebrating a on Church elementary school

Super Specia lS This

tice?”; Rabbi Moshe Teitelbaum d’asra, Young , mora Israel of Lawrence-C darhurst, “Raising esuccessful children”; Rebbetzin Lisa Septimus, yoetzet hala-

cha of the Five Towns and of the Great Neck Synagogue , “Where do come from — addressing grown babies ters with children.” up mat-

et’ is The JEWISH YU prez: ‘Torat emSTAR value

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BALFOUR Vayera • Friday, November 3, 2017 • 14 Cheshvan 5778 • Luach page

21 • Torah columns pages 20–21 • Vol 16, No 41

TheJewishStar.com

Kessler

Cedarhurst remembers

Star the loss,

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

The Newspaper of our Orthodox communities

‘InvestFest’ fair

“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.”

Torah of Redempti formal cereFollowing the community parmonies, the YU st” street fair at an “InvestFe Am- tied Amsterdam Avenue. t” street fair on 11 was a along at the “InvestFes See YU on page

F

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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

• 1 Sivan,

No 25

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in secmom Leah urst. ere (with of Woodm Girls in Cedarh on Feinberg photos School for Elishevah the Shulamith said. More now t at n-year-old there,” she The Jewish Star / Ed Weintrob trip” and out. Thirtee had been a studen came from year-long home. sh’s magic “on a 30 as olim, to come ond photo) love for Eretz Yisroel Jonay Nefesh B’Nefe s left Israel of my rs who flew the promised land.to fulfill “Part Her parent h her family’s journe r was 16. a she said.

Long Islande aliyah to enough do this for s, it’s time, throug ne will follow,” ng NBN’s El Al’s charte flight page the smiling in” and making he’s waited long to Israel some of g the first wanted to “all everyo said friend , she’s fully, boardin of boardi the move (left) Here are on July 3, going said s Hills 1 and was excitement olim, for others ed land, page 16 through family , Sh- “Hope carpet ride ua of Kew Gardenteaching on July While the olim on emerged the promis of the and her school from See. 201 carpet to Her love of Israel for many than Yehosh holy land, — he retired palpable time. visits to the the dream wanted her long repeated

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By Ed Weint Newm•an time.” page r Danit TayriTheJ ewishStar.c For Chani • Vol n, the answe31 joinnow it’s finally she said. 16,ofNoWoodm 20 ere, and childre om to go, but husband s. “We’re Jewish!” rg The Newsp magic ah Feinbe July 3rd aper of our was obviou B’Nefesh’s r-old Elishev Orthodox communities Thirteen-yeaolim on board Nefesh ing 201 other

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By Jeffre On the occasio anniversary ula t jump al on the Rybsztajn. his story continues.

When Peninsbecame the hospit enced a 35 percen and Jack to get tal million on July 12, desperate copal Hospimedical center experi birthday tajn was located. ing a $10.15complete Weintrob , Jack Rybszfew relatives were which services. ated obtain Rockaway

By Celia to help ended a war emergency ls last week celebr of Health g primary After the to Brussels, where cargo trains, during legal using its e creatin officia Department given on art St. John’s New York State that will also includ111-year-old hospifrom Stuttg daring voyages d, then ultimately sister-in-law the The Turntions two from way arreste street. future grant Through Brussels 275 Rocka ered and couple and their services renova across the center at headed to left for emergency in a building right ls, the he was discov 14 ula.

They had in Brusse e ambulatory s on page journey. to their dismay had care space residence es an off-sit r sites on the penins eted the who See St. John’ tal also operatnce and simila finally compl sister Cyla, d. restauJack’s they arrive ate at a kosher that a pike in Lawre to meet tajns one day before wall stating the Rybsz e Palestine Brussels, a placard on the looking for anyon While in this was they saw address, wrote to tajn rant, where, with a Brooklyn been Rybsz who had survived. nMr. Jacobs TAJN who of Yechiel Rybsztajn, ge contai plus named RYBSZ ards, a packa ls, is the son he afterw Brusse man, saying’ nephew. Not long was received in .

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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

photos by Ed

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Island Jonathan S. Dealer on Long Largest Sukkah toBin

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To Abbas and Hamas, it was ‘original sin’

ceremony, YU’s new president, after the investiture for a selfie. sterdam Avenue who happily posed sought-after celebrity

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Woodmer and director ofhumble beginnings that Yeshivat Hakotel founder Eytan Feiner of the Community a small “From in The Education Conferences, White Shul, “When years ago “Torah tips on had over 50Yitzchak 8 met on page HALB how to build celebrat and maintain ionRivkah: Torah’s a strong marriage”; HALB tion of martial love”; Michal first menSeeRabbi Horowitz, “Ahavas Yisrael: In theory of YI Lawrence- or in pracYaakov Trump director From left: Rabbi Shenker, executive Cedarhurst; MarvinWeitz; Dr. Herbert Pasternak; of YILC; Dr. Mott Lance Hirt; and Rabbi Aaron / Theresa Press Star HALB Board Chair Jewish The Fleksher of HALB.

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The Jewish Star is the newspaper of Long Island’s Orthodox communities — and the fastest-growing Jewish newspaper on LI.

ognize your bashert”; Rabbi Kenneth of Congregatio Hain n Beth Shalom, “When it’s A-OK to say yes.”

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Presenters at Sunday’s conferenc from left: Elisheva e, director of religious Kaminetsky, SKA kodesh, “Empoweri guidance, limudei ng choices”; Rabbi

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to us of his experiences. He views it as nothing more than a challenge to overcome, just like everyone has in life, he said. There was no trace of bitterness or victimhood. This young man is educated, both religiously and secularly. He is employed, he has lived with sighted roommates, he is a pianist.

He is an inspiration.

Dialogue in the Dark truly was eye-opening, I thought to myself as I walked out of the museum late at night, climbed a long staircase, and stood waiting at the bus stop. I had no clue where I was going. It would take at least two buses to find my way back.

Suddenly, approaching closer and closer was the scratchy sound of a cane. I turned and saw the guide from Dialogue in the Dark.

“Do you need help finding a bus?” he asked, and he explained which route would be best to take.

I got home safe and sound. In the dark.

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