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Parsha Eikev • Aug. 11, 2017 • 19 Av, 5777 • Five Towns candles 7:40 pm, Havdalah 8:48 • Torah columns pages 20–21 • Vol 16, No 29

Kushner’s on the money

The Newspaper of our Orthodox communities

Fleisch is nice, but our kids are Priority 1

Looking for peace? Don’t bank on it

and set up an Arab kingdom there, which came to be known as “Jordan.” You’d think that giving the Palestinian Arabs 78 percent of the country would be enough to convince them to let the Jews have the remaining 22 percent. No such luck!

England tried again 15 years later. The Peel Partition Plan of 1937 proposed to divide up the remaining 22 percent of the country. The Arabs would get three-fourths of it.

The British would keep Jerusalem and Bethlehem. The Jews’ dwarf-state would consist of the Galilee and a thin strip of Jared Kusher is flanked by President Trump and Prime Minis- land running down the coast. ter Netanyahu on May 22 in Jerusalem.

Kobi Gideon/GPO Jewish leaders, desperate for a few grains of sand, were willing to negotiate on that basis. The Arabs, however, refused.

After a meatless Nine Days, the Five Towns devoured Fleishfest on In 1947, the United Aug. 2, at the Oakwood Avenue home of Penina and David Klein. The Nations came up with fleisch was nice, but even better was the raising of funds for Priority 1, which aids children in our community who face educational challenges. its own “solution.” Once then declined. In the late 1800s, Eastern Pictured: Machi Reichenberg, from Jerusalem, rides a mechanical bull. again, the Arabs were European Jews arrived in the area, occuSee Kushner’s on page 6 pied the building and have used it to this day. Since then, heirs of the older Sephardic community have tried to maintain a foothold in the historic synagogue that

By Ben Sales, JTA The story of America’s oldest synagogue, they consider theirs.

Last Wednesday, Souter awarded a as told by retired Supreme Court Justice Davictory to the Sephardim. vid Souter, is the story of American Jewish Writing an appeals court ruling on a history.

Touro Synagogue in Newport, Rhode Is- lawsuit over who owns Touro Synagogue, land, Souter wrote, was built in the 1700s Souter wrote that the building and its sharing it now in memory of all

By Rabbi Binny Freedman

by Sephardic merchants whose community centuries-old ritual objects all belong to Congregation Shearith Israel, the hiso we really appreciate all those who were lost that Thurstoric Sephardic shul on the gifts we have, and how day afternoon in Jerusalem. the Upper West Side of ••• blessed we are even with all Manhattan that is also Friday, Erev Shabbat: the challenges life gives us? known as the Spanish Her eyes, I think, will stay Sixteen years ago this Shaband Portuguese Synabat (20 Av 5761, Aug. 9, 2001), with me forever. Imploring, begogue. an Arab terrorist walked into seeching, full of so much sadThe decision reSbarro’s pizzeria and blew him- ness. I can’t begin to describe all versed an earlier disself up, murdering 15 innocent that was in those eyes. trict court decision that Yesterday, Thursday, Aug. people and wounding many othgave ownership of the ers. Malki Roth (pictured) would 9th, the 20th of Av, on my way building — and the have been 31 now, but she re- to work, I found myself walking multimillion-dollar armains forever 15 years old, her down Yaffo street. Hungry, I detifacts — to the group dreams left in the hearts and cided to stop and grab a quick that worships there: bite, at Sbarro’s Pizza. minds of those who loved her.

In the past five years I freThe next day, I penned a letTouro Synagogue, in historic Newport, R.I., is the oldest extant shul in the Ashkenazi CongreSee Touro on page 6 John Nordell/Christian Science Monitor via Getty Images the United States. ter and sent it to my dad. I’m See Malki on page 20 Commentary by Stephen M. Flatow hen presidential adviser Jared Kushner said in a recent private discussion that “there may be no solution” to the conflict between the Palestinian Arabs and Israel, he was just stating the obvious.

For nearly a century, selfappointed wise men have been claiming to have the solution, but every such proposal has proved to be a mirage.

The British thought they had the solution in 1922, when they sectioned off the eastern part of Mandatory Palestine—78 percent of the original mandate territory—

The Jewish Star / Creator: Ryan Hedlund

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Who owns oldest shul?

Sbarro after 16 years: Remembering Malki D

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Court gives Sephardim keys to Ashkenaz Touro

August 11, 2017 • 19 Av, 5777 THE JEWISH STAR

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The Petra Hotel, part of a 13-year legal struggle over Jewish investors’ purchase of properties owned by the Greek Orthodox Church in the Christian Quarter of the Old City.

Ranbar via Wikimedia Commons

Court hits P’stinian bid to restrict J’salem Jews and prevent and resist the Judaization policy pursued by Israeli occupation authorities.” It helps finance legal challenges to Jewish real estate purchases in Israel’s capital, such as those arranged by Ateret Cohanim.

Palestinian advocacy groups view the fight over the hotels as just one small part of a broader struggle. “All of Jerusalem is occupied Palestinian territory,” the California-based Free Palestine Movement said in a statement provided to JNS.org. Asked if it would be justified for Palestinians to use force to prevent Israeli Jews from residing in parts of the Old City, a movement spokesperson replied, “International law permits armed resistance against occupation and ethnic cleansing.”

Mark Twain slept there The two properties in the latest court ruling, the New Imperial Hotel and the Petra Hotel, are situated just inside the Jaffa Gate entrance to the Old City. The 45-room New Imperial was built in 1884. The 40-room Petra, built in the 1820s, describes itself as the oldest hotel in the city and claims its guests have included famed American authors Mark Twain and Herman Melville. Ateret Cohanim’s Luria declined to say whether the new owners will continue to operate them as hotels, or convert them into residential buildings.

The British authorities in Mandatory Palestine began using the designations “Christian Quarter,” “Muslim Quarter,” “Jewish Quarter” and “Armenian Quarter” in the 1930s for the sake of administrative convenience, not because the terms reflected the actual ethnic composition of the neighborhoods.

There were substantial Jewish communities in the “Christian” and “Muslim” quarters a century ago, but Arab rioters in the 1920s and 1930s drove them out. Today there are “close to 1,000” Jews living in those sections, as well as approximately 4,000 in the Old City’s Jewish Quarter, according to Luria.

Controversy erupted in 1990 when Ateret Cohanim arranged for the purchase by Jewish philanthropists of St. John’s Hospice, an Armenian-owned 72-room building in the Christian Quarter. But the purchase withstood various legal challenges, and the building, known as Neot David, has for many years housed some 80 Jewish residents as well as a yeshiva with 60 students.

“As the indigenous people of this Jewish homeland, we have the moral, historical and natural right to live in peace, side by side with toleranceaccepting Christians and Muslims, in any and every neighborhood of Jerusalem,” said Luria.

“No amount of hatred or terror will deter us.”

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By Rafael Medoff, JNS.org Palestinians are vowing to continue their efforts to prevent Jews from living in large parts of Jerusalem’s Old City, despite a July 31 Israeli court ruling permitting a Jewish purchase of several properties there.

The ruling by Judge Gila Kanfi-Steinitz, deputy head of the Jerusalem District Court, capped a 13-year legal struggle over the purchase by Jewish investors of two Arab-run hotels and an unidentified third property, all owned by the Greek Orthodox Church and located in the area of the Old City known as the Christian Quarter.

The transaction was arranged by Ateret Cohanim, an Israeli organization that facilitates the repopulation of parts of the Old City from which Jews were expelled by Arab attackers in the 1920s and 1930s. Kanfi-Steinitz ordered the church to pay Ateret Cohanim $8,420 for its legal expenses.

Ateret Cohanim Executive Director Daniel Luria told JNS.org that while he could not comment on the specific details of the hotels purchase, the Palestinian Authority “has circulated fatwas (Muslim religious rulings) against selling property to Jews,” and Palestinian Authority (PA)-controlled media “constantly incite against such sales.”

The exact purchase price for the hotels has never been made public.

Luria said his organization’s efforts to acquire property in the Old City are “made difficult” by the fact that the PA security forces “arrest and torture Arabs who serve as middlemen” in such transactions. PA law imposes the death penalty on Arabs who sell land to Jews.

PA representatives declined requests from JNS.org to comment on the Old City dispute.

‘Resist Judaization’ The Greek Orthodox Patriarchate announced Aug. 2 that it will file an appeal to Israel’s High Court against the district court’s ruling. At the same time, the PA’s Higher Committee of Church Affairs declared that the court ruling is evidence of an Israeli conspiracy “to annex Palestinian land.”

The PA committee also claimed the judge’s decision was connected to what it called Israel’s “attack” on Jerusalem’s AlAqsa mosque—an apparent reference to Israel’s brief use of metal detectors to prevent the smuggling of weapons into the Temple Mount compound. The committee vowed to “continue acting to protect the mosques and churches of Jerusalem.”

Such efforts are aided by the Organization of the Islamic Conference, which oversees a multi-million dollar “Al Quds Fund” to “maintain the Arab character of the City of Jerusalem

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THE JEWISH STAR August 11, 2017 • 19 Av, 5777

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‫ישיבת לב‬

HALB

114 people just converted to Judaism in Nicaragua

By Josefin Dolsten, JTA Over the course of a few days, the tiny Jewish community in Nicaragua more than doubled when 114 people converted to Judaism.

Last month, community members answered questions before a beit din of three Orthodox rabbis from Israel and the United States and immersed in a newly built mikvah in Managua, the Central American country’s capital. Male converts underwent circumcisions or symbolic circumcisions if already circumcised.

On July 23, following the conversions conducted at the Managua home of a community leader, 22 couples wed according to Jewish tradition in a Managua social hall rented for the occasion. Kulanu, a New York-based group that supports communities around the world seeking to learn about Judaism, had facilitated the conversions. (This Kulanu is not associated with the Cedarhurst-based educational organization with the same name.)

“There was a great amount of trepidation in their faces and anxiousness because it was so important to them, and when they emerged from the mikvah the glow on their faces was amazing,” said beit din member Rabbi Mark Kunis. “The excitement that it engendered was phenomenal.”

At least half the candidates claimed Jewish ancestry, and most had been studying Judaism for at least five years — with some pursuing Judaism almost their entire lives, Rabbi Kunis told JTA. All the candidates except one family were accepted for conversion. One of the beit din rabbis served as a Spanish translator, since most of the candidates could not communicate in English, he said.

“I feel at home,” Even Centeno, 21, told JTA of having officially become Jewish. “This was for me like a dream.”Centeno is among the converts who trace their ancestry to Sephardic Jews forced to convert to Christianity during the Inquisition.

Centeno, who converted along with his parents and sister, said he was aware of his family’s Jewish ancestry since he was a young child and started learning about Judaism at the age of 11.

The conversions bring a significant influx of Jews to Nicaragua. Jews have been living there since the 18th century, but the community numbered only about 50 in 2012 and was

From left: Moshe Omar Cohen-Henriquez speaking with beit din members Rabbi Mark Kunis, Rabbi Andy Eichenholz and Rabbi Marc Phillipe in Managua, Nicaragua, on July 20. At far right is Even Centeno, a convert who traces his ancestry to Sephardi Jews who were forced to convert to Christianity.

Bonita Sussman

comprised mostly of American retirees, according to the Nicaraguan Israelite Congregation. That year, Kulanu helped facilitate the conversions of 14 people, most of whom claimed ancestry to Jewish men who had married non-Jewish Nicaraguan women. Another 14 converted in 2015, but the recent group is the largest to date.

Though the Nicaraguans converted together, they follow two different leaders, said Kulanu vice president Bonita Sussman.

The majority, including Centeno, are inspired by Hasidism and follow a local leader named Akiva Simja Fernandez, who converted to Judaism in 2012 with the help of Kulanu. Fernandez follows some Jewish customs that he learned from the ChabadLubavitch movement, which does not have a presence in Managua but caters to Israeli tourists in the beach town of San Juan del Sur. Chabad has no official ties to the converts or Kulanu.

Fernandez and many of his followers — some of whom claim Jewish ancestry — wear black velvet kippahs and widebrimmed black hats, and sing and dance to Hasidic music dur-

ing celebrations.

A second group with 38 members of one extended family heeds Moshe Omar Cohen-Henriquez, who traces his ancestry to Jews from Curacao who were forced to convert to Christianity. The group adheres to Sephardi customs and has access to a mikvah, or ritual pool, adjacent to Henriquez’s home. The men wear big crocheted kippahs.

Prior to deciding to become Jewish, Sussman said, the converts identified with Christianity or messianism, a movement that infuses Christian belief with some elements of Jewish ritual practice.

The two Nicaraguan groups “are unique in that one is a Sephardic and descendants of anousim and the other tends towards Hasidic kabbalistic practice,” she said. Anousim is a Hebrew term for Jews who were forced to abandon Judaism against their will.

“This is a new trend in Jewish history,” Sussman said. “In the last 100 years we have seen the Holocaust, the destruction of all Jewish communities in Arab lands and the rebuilding of a Jewish homeland. We are now entering an era of rebuilding the Jewish people.”

She said that although there are “hot spots of interest in Judaism in the Western countries, for the most part serious interest in religion is a thing of the past.” But there’s lots of interest in Africa, South America and India, she said, and “as Jews we must be part of this exciting new development.”

Kulanu is planning to send equipment to the Nicaraguans to perform kosher ritual slaughter.

“The big need is for kosher meat. We’re planning to get them shechitah knives,” Sussman said. “They haven’t eaten meat, some of them for years. They eat vegetarian and fish.”

The dietary restrictions didn’t seem to be a problem for Centeno, who was getting ready to cook for Shabbat, when he would be hosting 70 community members.

“The community will be in my house, we’ll do a Shabbaton,” he said. “Today I’m preparing all the food.”

This isn’t the first mass conversion facilitated by Kulanu.

Last year, the group brought rabbis to Madagascar to convert 121 people, building a Jewish community where none had existed.

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August 11, 2017 • 19 Av, 5777 THE JEWISH STAR

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7/25/2017 4:47:32 PM

PA President Mahmoud Abbas addresses the UN General Assembly in September 2016. UN/Cia Pak

in which violence against the Jews is viewed as self-defense as well as a heroic act of resistance that is deserving of praise. Asking Abbas to take such a step would be tantamount to requesting that he commit suicide.

So why do it?

The answer is that those demanding a halt to aid to the PA are not merely venting their outrage at the Palestinians. They are also pointing the way toward the only possible path to peace.

The PA has spent more than $1.1 billion on salaries for terrorists and pensions for their families in just the last four years. In the next fiscal year, it will spend half of all

Please treat the page accordingly.

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s far as they are concerned, the U.S. Congress is just doing what it always does: pandering to the “Israel Lobby.”

That’s how the foreign policy establishment and the left regard the bipartisan support for the Taylor Force Act, a bill named after a non-Jewish U.S. Army veteran slain in a Palestinian terror attack last year.

The legislation would cut off American aid for the Palestinian Authority (PA) unless the PA stops funding terrorism. The bill passed the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Aug. 3 in a 17 to 4 vote, with all the committee’s Republicans and six of its 10 Democrats supporting its adoption.

The notion that the U.S. would halt aid to the PA merely because it doesn’t want to be morally complicit in a “pay for slay” scheme strikes many on the left as lacking sympathy for the Palestinians as well as self-defeating, since ending the funding might lead to the collapse of the PA. Their assumption is that PA President Mahmoud Abbas means what he says when he and his Fatah party threaten to disband their Ramallah-based government if the foreign money that keeps it afloat is cut off. If true, it would force Israel to reassume full control over all of the disputed territories, which most Israelis think would be a disaster.

It may also be impossible for Abbas. Stopping the payments to terrorists would contradict the basic narrative of Palestinian history

A photo with sheimos was accidentally included in The Jewish Star’s issue dated Aug. 4 (Shabbos Nachamu), on page 20.

We apologize for the error.

GOTTA GETTA BAGEL CAFE

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Jonathan S. tobin

the foreign aid they get on this effort. It has created a set of financial incentives that not only gives Palestinians a reason to commit terror, but emboldens their belief that only by committing a truly serious offense involving the shedding of blood, will they ensure that their families are provided with enough to live comfortably.

Those who rationalize the continuation of the aid point to the security cooperation that the PA offers to Israel as proof the Jewish state has a partner for peace. But while the cooperation has value, it has two main purposes: making sure Abbas’s Hamas rivals don’t gain a foothold in the disputed territories and ensuring the safety of the Fatah leadership against attacks from the Islamists.

Thus, when the PA threatens to halt security cooperation, as it did during the recent controversy over the Temple Mount, the biggest potential loser from such an action would be Fatah, not just Israel.

That’s why the talk of a PA collapse that Abbas and his apologists continue to invoke is a bluff.

Fatah’s survival depends on its ability to use foreign donations to fund its corrupt practices in the disputed territories. The Palestinian faction’s obstruction of economic development or any measures that might end the corruption that enriches its leaders has created a situation in which much of the Palestinian population in the territories depends on having no work or no-show jobs that Fatah gives out in exchange for support. Thus, while it is true that ending funding for terror would be deeply unpopular and might boost Hamas, it would also be the end of Fatah.

Nor should we accept the notion that See Taylor Force on page 17

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THE JEWISH STAR August 11, 2017 • 19 Av, 5777

Taylor Force can call P’stinian bluff

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August 11, 2017 • 19 Av, 5777 THE JEWISH STAR

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Washington group posts anti-Roger Waters video As Long Islanders continued to voice upset last gages in are going to be met with fierce resistance.” week over Roger Waters’ upcoming pre-Rosh HaWaters, the former Pink Floyd frontman, is shana concerts here, the Jewish Community Rescheduled to appear at the Nassau Coliseum on lations Council of Greater Washington — where Sept. 15 and 16, and at the Barclays Center in Waters performed over the weekend — produced Brooklyn on Sept. 11 and 12. a video criticizing the rocker’s support of the antiSouth Shore legislator Howard Kopel asked the Israel BDS movement.

Nassau County attorney last month to determine The video, released on Friday, ahead of Waters whether the Nassau Coliseum lease requires comconcerts at Verizon Center in Washington, DC, pliance with a county law adopted in May 2016 asserts that “Music can change the world. Music that bars the county from doing business with any breaks down walls. Roger Waters should know company that participates in the economic boycott that. Instead he’s using music to divide people.” of Israel.

Activists in several cities also are targeting Wa“We don’t want hate speech coming here,” Koters’ upcoming shows, including in Nashville and pel said. “We don’t want prejudice, we don’t want Philadelphia, the Washington Post reported. intollerance.”

“It’s too bad that Roger Waters doesn’t underA Waters concert tour between 2010 and 2013 stand that peace can only be achieved through reportedly grossed $458.7 million, making it the dialogue and engagement,” the video asserts. “BDS biggest tour ever by a solo artist. will not bring peace. BDS is not the answer. More “Money doesn’t count for everything,” Kopel said.

Screen grab from the about Roger Waters that was produced by Washington’s JCRC. dialogue, more respect, more music is.”

Waters went head to head with Radiohead ear“This is a sort of welcoming party for Waters,” lier this summer after he publicly called on that Ron Halber, executive director of the Jewish Community Re- “We want him to know when he arrives in D.C. that the sort band to cancel its July concert in Tel Aviv. Radiohead perlations Council, told the Washington Post about the video. of hateful language that he’s peddling and the myths he en- formed as scheduled.

Kushner’s on money…

Continued from page 1 offered the majority of the remaining territory. The Jews would be given a piece of the Galilee, part of the coast and a portion of the Negev. Such a Jewish state would have been militarily indefensible, not to mention incapable of absorbing a large number of immigrants. But Jewish leaders, now desperate for anything in the wake of the Holocaust, accepted it. The Arabs, of course, rejected it.

A bloody war followed.

State Department officials Daniel Kurtzer and Dennis Ross came up with a new “solution” in 1989. They convinced outgoing president Ronald Reagan and incoming president George H.W. Bush that the solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was for the U.S. to pretend that Yasser Arafat and the PLO wanted peace, and to negotiate with him. Bush had to withdraw U.S. recognition of Arafat 18 months later, when PLO terrorists were caught on their way to slaughter Israelis on the Tel Aviv beachfront and take hostages at the nearby American embassy.

stephen M. Flatow But Kurtzer and Ross revived their “solution” 12 years later—and managed to embarrass the next President Bush in the same way. They persuaded George W. Bush that Arafat, having signed the Oslo Accords, really wanted peace this time. But in January 2002, Arafat was caught trying to smuggle in 50 tons of weapons on a ship called the Karine A. Now it was the other Bush’s turn to declare that “the Palestinians must develop a new leadership, not tainted by support for terror.” Like father, like son! he Palestinians didn’t heed Bush’s advice. Instead of developing a non-terrorist leadership, they made Arafat’s number-two man, veteran terrorist Abu Mazen, whom we know as Mahmoud Abbas, their

T

Touro Synagogue...

Continued from page 1 gation Jeshuat Israel.

It’s an odd — and oddly enduring — dispute being played out in an American courtroom. Souter’s ruling is a primer on nearly 400 years of American Jewish history, and a dispute that touches on historical tensions between Sephardic Jews with roots in Spain, Portugal, North Africa and the Middle East, and Ashkenazi Jews with roots in Eastern Europe.

Touro, built in 1763, has loomed large in American Jewish history. Along with its claim to being the first Jewish building in the country, it also received George Washington’s 1790 letter guaranteeing that the United States “gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance.”

Shearith Israel, hundreds of miles away, has held title to Touro since the early 1800s, when the shrinking Newport community asked the New York City shul to steward the building and its ritual objects.

It’s a fitting relationship: Shearith Israel has a sense of its history as well. Founded

in 1654, it bills itself as “America’s First Jewish Congregation.” (Its current building is its fifth home.) Old-time members still wear top hats, and it still worships in the distinctive Sephardic style passed down from its founders, complete with a cantor in robes and choir. Some Shearith Israel members are descended from the original families that started the congregation four centuries ago.

Jeshuat Israel, founded in 1881 as Ashkenazi immigrants began flooding America from Eastern Europe, has worshipped at Touro for more than a century. For a time, according to Souter’s ruling, its members occupied the synagogue illegally, praying there even as Shearith Israel sought to keep it closed. Only in 1903, following a court battle, did the two groups sign a contract establishing Shearith Israel as the owner and giving Jeshuat Israel a lease on the building.

According to the terms of the contract, Jeshuat Israel must pray in the Sephardic style — despite its Ashkenazi identity.

Seeking to form an endowment, Jeshuat Israel arranged in 2011 to sell a pair of hand-

new leader. And—was this so hard to predict?—he promptly continued Arafat’s policies of glorifying terrorism, paying salaries to terrorists and encouraging terrorist attacks.

So much for the Kurtzer-Ross “solution.”

Two desperate Israeli leaders, Ehud Barak and Ehud Olmert, came up with “solutions,” too. Prodded and pressured by the State Department, Barak (in 2000) and Olmert (in 2008) offered the Palestinian Authority massive concessions. The Palestinians still wouldn’t accept.

Anybody remember Dennis Ross’s “solution” in 2010? He claimed more Palestinian housing would lead to peace. He pressured Israel to let Hamas import cement. “I argued with Israeli leaders and security officials, telling them they needed to allow more construction materials, including cement, into Gaza so that housing, schools and basic infrastructure could be built,” he later wrote in the Washington Post. “They countered that Hamas would misuse it, and they were right,” Ross admitted—Hamas used the cement to build “a labyrinth of underground tunnels, bunkers, command posts and shelters for its leaders, fighters and rockets.”

But the State Department just won’t give up. Martin Indyk and his assistant David Makovsky came up with a “solution” of their own

which, as usual, would have involved Israel making sweeping territorial concessions and the Palestinians getting an armed, sovereign state that would be jammed against Israel’s throat. Israel needed to release 104 terrorists (who had killed 70 Israelis) just for the “privilege” of negotiating with the PA. But then right in the middle of the 2013–2014 Indyk talks, the PA’s Abbas suddenly announced the creation of a PA-Hamas unity government. The Indyk-Makovsky “solution” was left in tatters.

Anybody notice a pattern here? Isn’t it obvious by now that any “solution” involving the permanent existence of a Jewish state of any size will never be sincerely accepted by the Palestinians?

All the professional peace processors and self-appointed Middle East “experts” still don’t seem to grasp a simple fact that an unassuming real estate developer-turned-presidential son-in-law evidently understands: the conflict between Palestinian Arabs and Israel has no solution. A century of bitter and bloody experience has made that painfully clear.

Stephen M. Flatow, a vice president of the Religious Zionists of America, is an attorney in New Jersey. He is the father of Alisa Flatow, who was murdered in an Iranian-sponsored Palestinian terrorist attack in 1995.

crafted, 18th-century silver bulbs, which are used to adorn Torah scrolls, to the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, where they were on loan. But Shearith Israel objected to the $7 million sale, both because Shearith Israel said it owned the ornaments and it claimed the sale violated Jewish law. Jeshuat Israel then sued Shearith Israel, and Shearith Israel countersued — both of them seeking legal ownership of the bulbs.

Because the bulbs are meant to rest upon a Torah scroll, Shearith Israel asserted, selling them to a secular institution constitutes an unacceptable decline in holiness.

The district court had ruled in Jeshuat Israel’s favor on the grounds that it occupies the building and that Shearith Israel had failed in its trustee obligations. But Souter reversed the ruling, partially based on the 1903 contract, writing that Shearith Israel “is fee owner of the Touro Synagogue building, appurtenances, fixtures, and associated land.”

Now, says Gary Naftalis, Jeshuat Israel’s lawyer, the congregation is “reviewing our legal options going forward.” Jeshuat Israel could ask the appeals court’s full panel of judges to review the ruling, and may petition to have the case heard by the U.S. Supreme Court.

Shearith Israel President Louis Solomon said in a statement that the congregation is

“gratified” by the court’s decision and, as a result, “has been restored to the position it has held for centuries.” The statement added that the congregation hopes to move forward from the court ruling, which “enables two great Jewish congregations to regain the harmony that existed between them before this unfortunate episode began five years ago.”

But even as Shearith Israel has retained ownership of America’s oldest synagogue, it no longer reflects the community that American Jews have become. The families who founded America’s first Jewish congregations — exiles from Spain and Portugal via Amsterdam, London, Brazil and the Caribbean — likely would not identify with the largely Ashkenazi American Jewish community of 350 years later.

Even Shearith Israel has gone with the flow, hiring a rabbi from a renowned Ashkenazi rabbinical dynasty, Meir Soloveichik, in 2013.

Still, part of the New York congregation’s appeal is its anachronism — led by a cantor and choir in an era of lay leadership, formal in an era of casual dress, Sephardic in an Ashkenazi-led community. And now, even if it no longer owns the American Jewish present, it can say that it still holds title to the American Jewish past.

By Gabe Friedman, JTA As a rookie in the National Football League, New York Giants offensive lineman Adam Bisnowaty is splitting most of his time before the season starts in September between grueling practices and long team meetings.

To lighten the mood, veteran players ask the newbies each preseason to sing in front of the team. Bisnowaty figures that when it’s his turn, he’ll go with “Dreidel, Dreidel, Dreidel.”

Bisnowaty, 23, is Jewish — a rarity in professional football — and comfortable talking about it with his teammates.

“One of the first things I tell people is that I’m Jewish,” he told JTA. “People don’t meet a lot of Jewish football players, so I always like to bring that out and just open up, so it’s nice and easy.”

Bisnowaty — who stands 6-6 and weighs about 300 pounds, and sports long, curly brown hair — has become a minor celebrity in Jewish circles after a New York Post article from last month revealed that he has a large Hebrew tattoo on his left arm. The tattoo translates to “I am what I am,” a phrase G-d says to Moses when the latter asks what to call him.

The Jewish food company Manischewitz heard about Bisnowaty and sent him an array of snacks, from boxes of matzah to potato pancake mix.

The matzah provoked curiosity in his teammates.

“I promised them I’d bring in the snacks and let them have a go at them,” Bisnowaty said.

He hopes the matzah will help him do more than ingratiate himself with his teammates. Bisnowaty was a four-year starter at

the University of Pittsburgh, his hometown school, and is projected to snag a spot on the Giants roster this season — but nothing is certain. Some say he could be an immediate starter, others say he might make the team but not be active for most games.

The beefy lineman is among several 300-pounders tasked with blocking defenders from hitting veteran quarterback Eli Manning, a two-time Super Bowl MVP and brother of future Hall of Fame signal-caller Peyton Manning. Heading into April’s NFL draft, scouts said Bisnowaty compensates for a lack of raw athleticism with his size, strength and positive attitude. The Giants traded up to select him in the sixth round.

Like most professional sports leagues, the NFL is not exactly full of Jewish players. Brothers Mitch and Geoff Schwartz — both offensive linemen — were in the league at the same time from 2012 to 2016. Mitch is a Kansas City Chief; Geoff, who played for the Giants in 2014 and 2015, retired in 2017 after seven seasons in the league. Bisnowaty said some of his teammates like to say “We got another Schwartz in here!”

Other notable active Jewish players include star wide receiver Julian Edelman — in recent years he has embraced his Jewish background — and backup safety and special teams ace Nate Ebner, both of the Super Bowl champion New England Patriots.

What makes Bisnowaty even more of an

NFL aberration is his Israeli heritage. His father grew up in the Jewish state and ended up staying in the U.S. in his late 20s after having a kidney transplant there. Bisnowaty’s uncle David is the first Israeli to become an elected parliament member in the southeastern African nation of Malawi.

Although the family celebrated the major Jewish holidays growing up, the divorce of Bisnowaty’s parents along with his time-consuming interest in football eventually pushed Judaism mostly out of his life. He told JTA he wants to rekindle his interest in the religion, and he may have a bar mitzvah at some point.

Football, especially at the college level, is heavily influenced by religious Christianity, including coaches and ministries that cater to athletes. But Bisnowaty said he has never been the target of anti-Semitic slurs or bullying in his football career.

As he sees it, players asking him to wear a yarmulke to team meetings are just breaking the ice and having a good time.

Still, Bisnowaty was aware of how rare a Jewish football player is when he got the Hebrew tattoo. He said it was an opportunity for him to show his Jewish pride.

But flashing a tat in the locker room is one thing. It took a bit of courage to show it off in another setting.

“I wanted to hide it from my mom,” he said with a laugh, “so she didn’t find out about it right away.”

Players asking him to wear a yarmulke to team meetings are just breaking the ice and having a good time.

Adam Bisnowaty at MetLife Stadium in East RuthEvan Pinkus erford, NJ, on May 25.

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Hadassah team solves awful pediatric mystery A genetic mutation causing a abilities. She was seen at several medical centers in Israel, but they rare and devastating pediatric neuwere stumped. rological disease that has puzzled “At the same time, Hadassah medical centers around the world received our cutting-edge deep- sehas been identified at the Hadasquencing technology — which our sah Medical Organization by Dr. physicians were among the first in Orly Elpeleg, chief investigator and the world to use in clinical pracauthor of the study and head of tice.”

Hadassah’s Department of Genetics Hadassah has amassed the largand Metabolic Diseases. est genetic mapping database in The discovery is highlighted in Israel, with about 2400 patients. the Aug. 3 issue of the American Dr. Orly Elpeleg Using the new sequencing techJournal of Human Genetics. nology, Hadassah’s geneticists Still unnamed, the disease is the result of a mutation in a single gene, which sub- searched their data base for defects which verts normal cellular protein synthesis through were similar to the one found in the girl’s a malfunction of the ribosomal RNA. This RNA genetic mapping. Hers matched with a nineis responsible for the translation and production year-old boy who had been treated at Hadasof cell proteins and its malfunction results in an sah, but now lives in Russia.

Hadassah Pediatric Neurologist Dr. Simon excess of ribosomal RNA, so that the child’s cells Edvardson flew to Russia, examined the boy, are flooded with and poisoned by it.

A previously healthy child, between the and took genetic samples, confirming that the ages of three and seven, begins to experience illness was identical to the one suffered by this a small motor problem. Suddenly, the child ex- Israeli girl.

“At this point we realized that we had idenperiences rapid motor and cognitive decline.

By the time the child is a teenager, he or she tified a new disease that didn’t appear in any medical texts or articles,” Elpeleg says. usually needs an aide around-the-clock.

Comparing their data in a program called Elpeleg recounts the path to this discovery: “Five years ago, there was a case of a three- Gene Matcher, the researchers found several year-old girl who was healthy until she sud- more children around the world who shared denly developed a slight limp. She soon lost an identical genetic defect and the same her ability to speak along with her cognitive course of disease. To understand the mecha-

children who are severely challenged. Science may not be able yet to repair the gene, but now that our material has been published, it may be possible to identify the mutation early and, with future research, find ways to prevent the terrible deterioration.” Source: Hadassah

At BGU, 3D builds with water, robotics An international group of researchers has developed a technique that results in more accurate 3-D scanning for reconstructing complex objects than what currently exists. The innovative method combines robotics and water.

“Unlike optical sensors, liquid has no lineof-sight requirements,” explained Prof. Andrei Scharf, of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev “It penetrates cavities and hidden parts of the object, as well as transparent and glossy materials, thus bypassing all visibility and optical limitations of conventional scanning devices.”

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nism of the newly identified disease, the researchers collaborated with Dr. George-Lucian Moldovan at Pennsylvania State University College of Medicine.

Moldovan confirmed the disease mechanism: the production of excess RNA, which probably causes brain cells to be flooded and poisoned.

Hadassah and Hebrew University researchers collaborated with a multinational team led

by Elpeleg to identify and study the children from Canada, France, Israel, Russia, and the United States who suffer from the disorder.

The researchers found an identical, spontaneously occurring error in the same gene in all the patients tested, representing a difference of one letter among the roughly three billion letters that make up human DNA. By finding the identical change in children who suffer from the identical clinical disease, the researchers determined that the altered gene is indeed the cause of the disease.

“Our study links neuronal degeneration in childhood with altered rDNA chromatin status and rRNA metabolism,” explains Elpeleg. “It’s the first time that an excess of ribosomal RNA has been linked to a disease in humans.”

“This is a very sad disease,” Elpeleg continued. “Out of the blue, previously healthy children develop a slight limp, then forget a few words. They go from being children who are acting normally, developing at age level, to

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a residency permit in Israel. Netanyahu has acknowledged receiving the gifts but denies they were illegal or constituted bribes.

In Case 2000, Netanyahu is accused of conspiring with Arnon Mozes, the owner of the Israeli daily Yediot Acharonot, to advance legislation hobbling the free and proNetanyahu tabloid Israel Hayom bankrolled

by American billionaire Sheldon Adelson.

Yediot, which has historically criticized Netanyahu, was to cover him more favorably in return. Although recordings of the conversations exist, Netanyahu denies any wrongdoing.

He’s mixed up in two other corruption scandals — and his wife and son are in trouble, too.

Now you know about Cases 1000 and 2000. Here’s some info on Cases 3000 and 4000, targeting Netanyahu’s associates, plus another scandal involving his wife and another his son.

Here’s a rundown: “Case 3000” involves alleged corruption in the sale of German submarines to Israel.

Police have accused businessman Michael Ganor of bribing government officials to become the negotiating agent for ThyssenKrupp, the German company that built the subs. In addition, Netanyahu’s personal lawyer, David Shimron, was simultaneously acting as Ganor’s representative during the negotiations over the sale.

In “Case 4000,” the director-general of Israel’s Communications Ministry, Shlomo Filber, is accused of illicitly allowing Bezeq, the national telephone company, to buy shares of YES, a satellite cable provider. Filber was appointed by Netanyahu, who also serves as communications minister.

Meanwhile, Sara Netanyahu is likely to be indicted for misusing public funds at the couple’s official residences. The Israeli first lady is accused of using government money to pay for private chefs at family events, a caregiver for her father and weekend electrical work at the couple’s home in the tony coastal town of Caesarea. The allegations have long dogged Sara Netanyahu, who sometimes comes off in the Israeli media as the country’s Marie Antoinette.

Finally, Molad, a left-wing Israeli think See The Bibi explainer on page 17

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By Ben Sales, JTA He has a firm grip on the government, but a mounting political scandal might bring him down. Officials from his own party have begun to distance themselves from him, but he remains defiant.

Oh, and his son is in trouble, too.

Just one more thing Benjamin Netanyahu has in common with President Donald Trump.

Except there’s a difference: While Trump faces one sprawling scandal, the Russia affair, Israel’s prime minister is embroiled in at least two. And police are conducting two additional corruption investigations that indirectly involve him. His wife, Sara, will probably be indicted soon in a separate case. And a left-wing NGO just sued his son, Yair.

Netanyahu appeared to be in increasing peril as of last week, when Ari Harow, his American-born former chief of staff, became a state witness. Despite it all, Netanyahu has remained confident. He has accused the Israeli media of peddling “fake news” about the scandals. On Monday, responding to an article predicting his ouster, Netanyahu tweeted two words: “Won’t happen.”

But will it happen? After winning four Israeli elections, will Netanyahu be done in by his own misdeeds (or is it prosecutorial overreach)? Here’s a primer on the string of scandals and what they mean for the prime minister.

Netanyahu is under investigation for receiving gifts and taking bribes.

The two main corruption scandals involving Netanyahu both concern allegations of illicit dealings with rich and powerful men.

In the first, called “Case 1000,” Netanyahu is accused of receiving expensive gifts from billionaires and then taking action on their behalf. In the second, called “Case 2000,” he is accused of striking an illicit deal with a newspaper publisher.

In Case 1000, Netanyahu is alleged to have received tens of thousands of dollars’ worth of gifts from Arnon Milchan, an Israeli Hollywood producer, and James Packer, an Australian casino mogul. The gifts include champagne, cigars, flights and hotel rooms.

In return, Netanyahu supposedly helped Milchan obtain a U.S. visa and Packer secure

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The JEWISH STAR

Wine & Dine

Find more recipes at TheJewishStar.com/category/food/browse.html • Food@TheJewishStar.com

Dairy-free cream pie with tahini and chocolate

By Aly Miller, The Nosher via JTA Some recipe ideas come together on the first try, without any mess or fuss. Others are true labors of love, like grains that simmer and simmer but never get soft until some unexpected moment at the end. This recipe happens to be one of the latter.

Using tahini instead of peanut butter is one of my classic moves, and I know I’m not the only one. Tahini adds a nutty flavor with a hint of bitterness that goes perfectly with a smooth, dark chocolate. Sometimes, sesame seeds themselves are called for. While in Amsterdam last year, I became obsessed with Lindt’s sesame dark chocolate bar. The texture of crunchy, toasted seeds encased in velvety dark chocolate had me at “hello.”

With these flavor visions in mind, I began recipe testing tahini cream pie with a dark chocolate crust and a hidden layer of chocolate ganache at the bottom. It would be dairy free, perfect to serve after any meal. I’ve always loved the challenge of making rich, decadent desserts without dairy.

Judy Joszef who’s in the kitchen

Judy’s off this week

My discerning roommates and neighbors enlisted themselves every weekend over the past few months as taste testers, happily devouring each and every version. While each trial and error resulted in something magnificent, each had a wrinkle to smooth.

In the end, the recipe with the simplest ingredients and easiest directions clearly won out. You won’t find any tricky gluten-free ingredients or dairy substitutes in here — you might even have these items ready and waiting in your pantry. Since the directions are so easy, I think you’ll find that the hardest part is waiting for it to chill!

Here’s the recipe they’ve been waiting for!

Ingredients: Crust: 1 1/2 cup walnuts 1 heaping cup pitted dates, soaked 10 minutes 2 tablespoons raw sesame seeds 1/3 cup cocoa powder 1 teaspoon salt, more to taste Filling: 2 cans full fat coconut milk chilled overnight in fridge (Certain brands will not whip. Thai Kitchen has worked best for me, and here’s a list of other brands that work!)

1 cup tahini 4 tablespoons maple syrup or powdered sugar 1 teaspoon vanilla Ganache: 6 ounces semi-dark chocolate 4 tablespoons almond milk or dairy-free milk 3 tablespoons sesame seeds Materials: Either an 8-inch springform pan lined with parchment paper or a 9-inch pie plate.

Hand mixer or stand mixer and a food processor.

Directions: First, chill a tall glass or metal mixing bowl in the fridge for at least 20 minutes. Meanwhile, make the crust: In a food processor, blend the walnuts, drained dates, sesame seeds, cocoa powder and salt until the mixture looks blended throughout. Walnuts should be processed into small pieces, and dates should be smooth like a paste. Press the crust mixture into the bottom

of your pie pan of choice. If you want to use a springform pan (so as to display the pie without a plate), be sure to line it as best you can with parchment paper. Use your fingers to press the crust in an even layer on the bottom and sides.

Next, make the chocolate ganache: Place chocolate in a double boiler and let melt for a minute or two. Then add coconut milk, whisking until your ganache has a smooth, even consistency. Spread ganache onto the bottom of the pie and top with sesame seeds.

Place in the refrigerator or freezer to firm up.

Last, make the filling: Remove the cans of coconut milk from the refrigerator and open them. Carefully scoop out the hardened, creamy top layer (about half the can) into your chilled bowl. Try not to scoop any of the coconut water that sits below the cream into the bowl. Pour the coconut water into another container to use in smoothies.

Next, with the mixer turned off, break the chunks of coconut milk into smaller pieces by pressing the blender into the hardened coconut cream. Mix on the lowest setting until it comes together as a stiff, whipped cream texture, gradually mixing faster.

Add the tahini, vanilla and powdered sugar or maple syrup. Blend until smooth, about 30 more seconds.

Remove the pie from the fridge and spread the filling atop the ganache. Refrigerate for 2-3 more hours and serve!

Aly Miller is editorial assistant of The Nosher.

Harissa roney roast chicken recipe

By Shannon Sarna, The Nosher via JTA There’s a reason chicken is a bit of a Friday night staple: Before Jews came to America, red meat simply wasn’t abundantly available and therefore saved for special occasions. But also, chicken is a relatively easy dinner to prepare, especially when you roast a whole chicken.

This honey harissa and lemon chicken is as easy as any other roast chicken recipe, with a slightly sweet, slightly spicy twist.

You may be asking, what the heck is harissa?

Harissa is a North African pepper and chili condiment, or paste, that was brought to Israel by the Jews of Tunisia and Morocco, and quickly became a popular flavoring. It can be found in dried form in the Israeli outdoor markets or as a paste in jars. Even many American supermarkets like Whole Foods,

Stop & Shop, ShopRite and Trader Joe’s are carrying harissa (usually in the ethnic aisle with other Middle Eastern products). You can even try your hand at making your own.

There are so many ways to use harissa, from these lemon potatoes with harissa mayo to a spring greens fritatta.

But I recently got my hands on some NY Shuk harissa, and it is so much better than trying to make your own or many of the other store-bought varieties I have tried. It’s smoky, deep and not too spicy. And I have made chicken with it several times — to the delight of my family and friends.

I like roasting a whole chicken using an upright roaster. I highly recommend investing in one – it makes such a different for a super moist bird on the inside, while still achieving that coveted crispy skin. If you want to add a rinsed and drained can of chickpeas to the

bottom of your pan for the last 15 minutes, they are delicious with this chicken, but the step is completely optional.

Ingredients: 1 whole chicken 2 tablespoons honey 2 tablespoons prepared harissa (such as NY Shuk) Zest and juice of one lemon 1 tablespoon olive oil 1/4 teaspoon salt 1/4 teaspoon black pepper Directions: 1. Mix together honey, harissa, lemon zest and lemon juice, olive oil, salt and pepper.

Place chicken in a sealable plastic bag and pour in marinade. Massage the chicken until completely coated. Throw in lemon halves if desired.

2. Place in fridge and allow to marinate

for 1 hour or up to 24 hours.

3. Preheat oven to 450F. 4. Place chicken on an upright roaster or on a baking sheet.

5. Cook for 55 to 60 minutes or until a meat thermometer (stick into thickest part of chicken without touching bone) reads 165 F. 6. Allow to cool slightly. Cut into pieces and serve.

Shannon Sarna is editor of The Nosher.

How to make Shakshuka for a crowd

By Shannon Sarna, The Nosher via JTA I think we can all agree that shakshuka is probably one of the greatest dishes ever created. It’s easy, simple and you can usually make it from stuff you already have in the house: canned tomatoes, spices and eggs. You can add vegetables like roasted eggplant, fresh (or frozen) spinach or cheese like feta or goat cheese.

It’s also versatile in terms of size: You can make a small portion or a much larger one.

Shakshuka for a crowd is ideal for brunch entertaining. Serve it up with some labne, hummus, chopped Israeli salad and fresh pita or other good bread for dipping.

Ingredients:

2 tablespoons olive oil 1 large onion 4 garlic cloves 1 12-ounce jar roasted red peppers, drained and chopped (can also use freshly roasted peppers, skin removed and chopped) 2 28-ounce cans diced tomatoes 1 tablespoon paprika 2 teaspoons cumin 1/2 teaspoon caraway seeds salt and pepper to taste 6-8 eggs 2-4 ounces feta cheese 2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley pita or fresh bread for serving

Directions: 1. Preheat oven to 375F. Grease a 9-by-11 Pyrex dish.

2. Add oil to a large saute pan (pan should be a little on the deeper side) over medium heat.

Add onion and cook for 4-5 minutes, until soft and translucent. Add garlic and cook 1 minute.

Add roasted bell pepper and spices and continue to cook for 3-4 minutes, until fragrant.

3. Scrape mixture into greased Pyrex dish.

Add the 2 cans of diced tomatoes and mix.

4. Place in oven for 30-35 min., until sauce has thickened slightly and tomatoes are cooked.

5. Carefully remove pan from oven. Using a tablespoon, create 6-8 wells in the tomato

sauce. Crack eggs and gently place in each well.

6. Place pan back into oven for 3-5 minutes, or until whites have just set and egg yolks are still runny (or to your liking).

7. Remove from oven. Sprinkle with feta cheese (optional) and fresh parsley. Serve hot with fresh pita or bread.

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The JEWISH STAR

Business • Investment

Importance of knowing what your biz is worth goodwill, in the valuation to provide a business Provided by Bruce Wernick owner with a truer sense of the total value.

Principal at Wernick Planning and Advisory •Capitalized Earnings Value takes into acThere’s one question many business owners should ask themselves: “What is the true value count future cash flows and earnings growth in determining the total value of a company. of my business?”

•Fair Market Value is the value based on Your business may be your most valuable asset. When you know what your business is worth, what a knowledgeable, willing and unpressured you have a more realistic perspective from which buyer would pay to a knowledgeable, willing and to plan its future direction, as well as the future unpressured seller in the market.

•Liquidation Value is what income needs of you and your famone may expect to receive for the ily. Once you know the value, you business if the assets must be sold can put in place more effective plans quickly to satisfy debts and crediand strategies for future growth, tors. This figure is derived by apbusiness continuation, succession plying a discount to the value of planning, and retirement planning. outstanding accounts receivables, According to the 2015 Massinventory, and depreciable assets.

Mutual Business Owner PerspecBusiness continuation tive Study, just over half of business Knowing the value of your owners say they have had their busibusiness is an important first step nesses valued in the last three years. toward building a sound business A proper business valuation is continuation plan to keep it viable, not a “rule of thumb” or a figure and your loved ones protected, folagreed to with a handshake; it’s Bruce Wernick lowing the unexpected loss of an thoughtfully crafted by a credentialed appraiser after thorough research and is owner. It helps you and your business partners documented in writing. Be sure that any firm or adequately fund a buy-sell agreement equal to individual you hire to value your business has the current value of the business, and it allows the proper credentials, such as: Certified Valua- you to develop a personal protection plan to help tion Analyst (CVA), Accredited Senior Appraiser replace lost value to the family following the (ASA), or Accredited in Business Valuation (ABV). death or disability of the owner.

There are different ways to value a business, Retirement planning There are many sound business reasons for and the purpose of the valuation will dictate the method that is most appropriate. Here are a few knowing what your business is worth, but there are also personal ones. If your business is a key comof the more common methods: •Book Value equals the value of a business’s ponent of your retirement income strategy, then total assets minus its intangible assets (such as having an accurate picture of its value is critical. goodwill) minus liabilities. Credentialed valua- You’ve no doubt worked hard to build your busition firms can include intangible assets, such as ness and one day you’ll look to enjoy the fruits of

ment, think about what value will be used: •what you think it’s worth •what the family needs it to be worth to maintain their standard of living •the forced liquidation value.

The common discrepancy between these numbers can create a “Value Gap” — the gap between what you and your loved ones need the business to be worth and what it is actually worth based on the manner in which you exit the business.

The good news is that proper planning can help reduce potential value gaps created by an owner’s over- or under- estimation of the business’s value. For example, having assets outside the business, such as qualified retirement plans and other investments, can help reduce the value gap between what you think the business is worth and the income replacement value. In addition, products such as life insurance and disability income insurance can help address the value gap created if a business goes into forced liquidation following the death or disability of an owner.

By knowing what your business is worth, you can help protect the business and help ensure that you and your loved ones receive its full value.

Courageous decision is a good decision Business planning is not something that’s done overnight, but having an understanding of the true value of your business is a smart first step toward helping set your business on the road to a more financially secure future.

Bruce Wernick, principal at Wernick Planning and Advisory, provides business succession and estate planning solutions for the individual and business owner. He is also affiliated with MassMutual Metro New York. For more information on this topic or other business strategies, you can contact him via email at bwernick@financialguide.com or 646-473-4199.

your labor in retirement. But what if the value of your business is less than what you think it is?

According to the MassMutual Business Owner Perspective Study, many business owners haven’t given the idea of when they plan on retiring much thought. However, what they did tell us is how they plan on funding that retirement when the time comes. Roughly 40 percent of business owners have no retirement assets outside of the businesses. These business owners will be heavily reliant on their businesses in some capacity to fund their retirements — either using proceeds from the sale of the business or continuing to receive income from the business post-retirement.

When estimating your retirement, you need to consider all benefits the business is funding — health insurance, life and disability insurance, entertainment and meals, etc. — not just your salary. This total amount equals the income replacement value of the business. If your goal is to maintain your current style of living after exiting the business, knowing the true value of the business will help you understand if there is a discrepancy between the income replacement value and the family’s retirement income needs.

Estate planning The Federal Estate Tax exemption has helped make estate taxes less of an issue for many business owners. However, if you underestimate the value of your business, other serious issues can arise. If something unexpected happens to you — or your business partner — would you or your family be prepared to address any potential tax liabilities created by your business?

Eliminating the ‘Value Gap’ At some point, everyone exits their business, either by design or by default. So when you exit your business either at death, disability, or retire-

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vivor because talking about six million victims is impossible. The story of this one individual in serves as the encounter between a palpable sense of defeat and hope.

Chapter IV again presents the atrocities perpetuated throughout the destruction, but this time the perspective is different. Rather than G-d as the inflicter of the pain, it is the enemy.

Finally, Chapter V is a turning to the hope of rehabilitation and repair beyond the destruction. There is hope, after all. We conclude Eicha by turning to G-d.

Eicha is a scroll penned by the prophet, the messenger, the scribe of the destruction, none other than the tragic, weeping Jeremiah, a prophet so pained that he cursed the day he was born. He was the accursed witness to the allencompassing destruction of his people. He was a man so full of contradictions, the ultimate prophet, who advocated on behalf of both his G-d and his nation.

The book of Jeremiah presents the history, yet it is also rich with intimate dialogues, accounts of walking the streets of Jerusalem, warnings, burnt scrolls, of a book drenched with the tears of matriarchs. All of this is compressed it into the profound eulogy: Eicha. ow do we emerge from such desperate, overwhelming and crushing circumstances? The Temple is in ruins. The people exiled. The musical harps of Jerusalem, dead, hung to dry. The foreboding prophecies and warnings of Jeremiah have come to pass, and tears are shed on the rivers of Babylon.

The midrash not only conveys the people’s weeping, and Jeremiah’s weeping, but G-d himself weeps with the exiled Jewish people.

tehilla r. goldberg view from central park

F

rom one Shabbat to the next, we traveled from moments of al eleh ani bochiya (for these I weep) to nachamu nachamu ami (take comfort, take comfort, my people). Between these two points in Jewish time, the pain peaks with Tisha b’Av, the saddest day on the Jewish calendar, when we sit on the floor, when we read Lamentations, when prophets and poets weave the tragedies of Jewish history into a tapestry of texts.

We read Eicha, the Scroll of Lamentations, a word which, with the switch of two vowels, can also be read as ayeka (where are You?), a primal cry from the depths, a question to G-d emanating from the Jewish people’s sense of loneliness and abandonment in their moments of anguish over the destructions they have witnessed, as they were herded into exile like “lost sheep with no resting place” (Jeremiah).

In the five chapters of Eicha we travel on a journey with the many voices of the destruction. hapter I allows us to witness the post-Temple destruction, seeing Jerusalem in total desolation and agony. She is mourning, beyond any consolation.

Chapter II summons actual graphic images of the dead — the brutal, grotesque low points that the great destruction has wrought, with the people seeing G-d as the inflicter of these painful scenes.

In Chapter III we encounter the suffering of one individual — a microcosmic focus — as a window into the story of a people. It’s like learning about the Holocaust by talking to one sur-

And then a new Shabbat comes, and with it the prophet Isaiah, opening the Haftorah with those famous words of comfort: nachamu nachamu ami (take comfort, take comfort, My people)! These words initiate the seven Haftorahs of consolation that will accompany us to Rosh Hashanah. They even found their way into Handel’s “Messiah.”

Nachamu nachamu … the comfort is amplified. The consolation is echoed twice. As the text states, the wounds were meted out to Jerusalem in double measure, so consolation mirrors the suffering. Comfort is doubly needed. According to ibn Ezra, the double wording conveys a sense of urgency, of the desperation of Jerusalem and her people.

And so it is that Shabbat Nachamu has served as the balm for the wounds we remembered on Tisha B’Av, for all we lost and suffered as a people throughout our difficult history. There is a softness, a healing, a comforting, for the Jewish people, after all. Yesh tikva, “there is hope.”

But the midrash reads these words nachamu nachamu ami differently. The midrash gives voice to none other than G-d himself. G-d voices His pain.

He is crying out to be comforted Himself. He has lost His home, His counterpart in this physical world below. He has lost the anchor of His people in His land. G-d himself, the Shechina, feels alone, abandoned and bereft.

“Comfort Me, My people,” says G-d, according to this midrash. It is G-d Who is vulnerable, turning to the people. It is G-d Who is murmuring, beseeching to be comforted.

Unlike the first reading of the text, according to which the words are classically read as a

there really are no words. but g-d is still with us.

C

H

request to G-d to comfort the Jewish people, in the midrash it becomes almost a meek, pained request to the Jewish people by G-d Himself.

Both the Jewish people and G-d are sufferers in this terrible destruction. It is unclear who the comforters are and who the comforted are.

Both G-d and the Jewish people experience both roles.

Like Jeremiah, who embodied a duality, in relationship with both his people and his G-d, similarly within the comfort is a duality. As in the doubling of the words themselves: nachamu, nachamu.

This image conjures an emotional layer of both G-d and the Jewish people, each needing one another, leaning on one another, comforting one another. This, in a sense, is the essence of Shabbat Nachamu. n a chasidic reading of the phrase nachamu nachamu ami, another change in a vowel renders ami, “my people,” into imi, “with me.”

In moments of utter loss, there really are no words. These are moments beyond language, like Rachel the Matriarch’s tears for the exiles leaving Israel. Her tears, in contrast to the verbal pleas by our great leaders, are the catalyst to shift the stance of G-d, Who will ultimately return the Jewish people to its land. So the word imi, with me, enfolds and implies an empathic presence.

Maybe in these painful historic moments there really are no words of comfort to say to the Jewish people, but imi: I am still with you.

And you are still with Me. Take comfort in me, in me being with You, so to speak. And you are still My people. I am here.

Sometimes just being there is the only comfort.

So says G-d, Nachamu nachamu ami/imi. As in Ruth’s words to Naomi, “your people are my people,” G-d says: ami/imi, My people, with Me. Copyright Intermountain Jewish News

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At time of utter loss, who is comforting whom?

15

the site. Members of the Jordanian Islamic Waqf, which administers the site, follow the Jewish visitors to ensure that they do not pray. Israeli police also follow the Jewish visitors to ensure that members of the Waqf do not harm them.

Yitzhak Reiter, a professor of Middle East, Israel and Islamic studies at Ashkelon Academic College and a senior researcher at the Jerusalem Institute for Policy Research, said Arabs within Israel, Jordan and the greater Islamic world have taken note of the increased visits by Jews to the Temple Mount.

Reiter warned that these visits might be used as a pretext for additional terror attacks.

The recent Temple Mount controversy was ignited July 14, when Arab terrorists

By Alex Traiman, JNS.org The Temple Mount remains in the middle of a geopolitical standoff as Jews described as “ideological” are visiting the Muslim-controlled prayer compound in greater numbers.

On Aug. 1, Tisha B’Av, more than 1,300 Jewish visitors ascended the Temple Mount.

That was the largest number of Jewish visitors permitted by Israeli police to enter the site since the reunification of Jerusalem in 1967. Tens of thousands of additional Jewish worshippers prayed at the Western Wall complex adjacent to the Temple Mount.

According to Israeli law, Jews are permitted to visit the Temple Mount, but not to utter words of prayer. Several Israeli worshippers were arrested last week for praying at

killed two Israeli Druze policemen near the holy site.

Israel immediately installed metal detectors at the site, and Arabs rejected the bolstered security measures by refusing to enter the Al-Aqsa mosque complex and rioting in eastern Jerusalem. Amid the riots, an Arab terrorist murdered three members of an Israeli family in their home, during a Shabbat meal on Friday night, July 21, in Halamish.

In a to bid to restore calm, Israel removed the metal detectors.

“Jewish groups are ascending the Mount in more and more numbers. They are being considered ideological visitors, and the [Jordanian] Waqf, the Islamic Movement and others are reacting,” Reiter told JNS.org.

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The Jewish Star Editorial When terror struck in Jerusalem on world paid attention.

Sunday, the Israelis spread quickly,News of the murder of four young along with messages for a country in of sympathy mourning.

The New York Times On Monday, America’sdidn’t get the memo. leading newspaper flexive voice against , long a reproblematic voice the Jewish state (and frequently a downplayed the on issues concerning Orthodox story online and Jews) print edition. The buried the news in its ter Netanyahu’s Times report ridiculed Prime Minisassertion that the terror facing “is part of the same ongoing battle against this Israel scourge of the new com global talk of a U.S. embassyterrorism.” It linked the killings TheJewishStar. to move to Jerusalem dled the jubilant reaction of Palestinian and it softpedties On Tuesday, most s of the “above the to the murders.

Orthodox communi real-estate in the fold” page-one The Newspaper of our Times was turned up story headlined, over to a follow16, No 19 • Vol Buries “Israel page 21 Mourning 4 Soldiers, but 8:52 • Luach Is Marred by Discord.” the 7:51 pm, Havdalah the humanity of the slain Israelis After dispatching with • Candlelighting • 23 Iyar, 5777 article focused on the convicton in one paragraph, the • May 19, 2017 chukotai of IDF Last Thursday, Parsha Behar-Be the U.S. House Sgt. Elor Azaria. overwhelming of Representatives denounced the U.N. Security Council’s recent anti-Israel resolution. The jor rebuke to the House vote was a maoutgoing Obama most Democrats joining Republicanadministration, with expected to take s, and the Senate similar action.

To the Times, this is port for Israel was supnot fit to print. online and ran It posted an AP nothing story Sometimes stories in its print edition. run, or don’t run, reasons. But the for inexplicabl Times has been often for the deliberate tried and convictede and repetitive against our people.

While many in the insertion of bias nity have given Orthodox commuup afforded it by the on the Times, the continued respect larger community it to account. What requires that we community were Star Clockwise from call the pro-Israel Jewish Times the The prints and posts For consequences; we top left: Yael Yekutiel supporters in operatives made has President Trump’s week after administration , Shira Tzur, to recognize just need not go back as far as the real Israeli Shir tizzy this Shoah how serious those s questioning consequences can thrown into a Hajaj, Erez on — statement On Monday, the itself. Stand With Us wnedOrbach.

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Times announced memories beon and, later,their — and then double-do the appointme a blessing. of Ian Fisher as its new Jerusalem to Israel, began the Western Wall him yasher ko’ach. bureau chief. We nt sovereignty over days before a presidential trip declined an Israeli wish We’ll be watching.

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Parsha Chukas • June 30, 2017 • 6 Tamuz, 5777 • Five Towns Candlelighting

8:11 pm, Havdalah 9:20 • Luach page 19 • Vol 16, No 24

The Newspaper of our Orthodox communities

Teach our children well h Maya Goykados gradfrom left: 2nd grader Hempstead, 7th hair donations, Yeshiva Har Torah grader Jasmine Nurieli of West Neira Rosenbaum of 3rd 8th grader of Great Neck, h of Great Neck, Kaynan of Jamaica Estates.

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35

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Parsha

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elighti nika, and Morah”; Rabbi Ephraim Polakoff, Candl Towns don’t”; Rabbi Jesse Horn of Yeshivat Ha• Five Congregation Bais, 5777 Tefilah, “Teens and kotel, “Helping children balance ideology • 20 Tamuz technology: What you know and what you and pleasure”; Esther Wein, “How to recJuly 14, 2017

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

19 • Luach page

914286

STAR with56Isthrchaaretelr in ll a o g s r LIe 1 olim on Nefesh B’Nefesh’s This week

Presenters at Sunday’s conference, from left: Elisheva Kaminetsky, SKA director of religious guidance, limudei kodesh, “Empowering choices”; Rabbi

ambassador, visited

celebrate 50 week, we will and noted, “Next the Jewish peoIsrael, salemite Jerusalem was united, and Western Wall. ambassador to since the The new U.S. again pray at President years old. Since JERUSALEM — credentials to were able to once is not 50 years , presented his capivisit there ple David Friedman Tuesday, one week before a “But Jewish Jerusalemthis city has been our 50th JeruDavid, on ns marking the Reuven Rivlin the days of King the whole world to recognize and celebratio for on page 19

by President Trumpreunification of Jerusalem. , tal. It is time n in J’salem the residence Friedma of ial ry See anniversa in the president JeruDuring a ceremony as a seventh-generation himself Rivlin identified

note remarks that opened the fourth an- passed down according to the middah of nual Five Towns Community Collabora- the time, emphasizing from Yemothers that the primary teachers and students, tive Conference on Sunday. hair donaa group ingredent needed in today’s than a dozen ed in chinuch is Neck participat “What is the Torah the kidsMore need simcha.

Torah in Little Harnow?” will d on Monday. he asked. “What worked shiva of hair, which in 1972 won’t HempsteaTwenty-six inches speakers, including in West rabbis, ed at least eight necessarily work today.” tion wigs for children rebbetzins, educators, to make community They each contribut lead- six Menachem including Rabbi Weinberger, founding to Zichron morah ers and ponytails lecturers were each donated, addressed a key isbe delivered o d’asrah of Congregation Aish Kodesh cut their hair and Twenty-tw sue that who previously challenge families and had schools with cancer. in in 13 parents Woodmere and mashpia at from hair on page YU, reminded Hemp students andfrum communities. event, hosted at See WestThe the parents and educators in attendance the Young Israel of Woodmere, was orgaRabbi Moshe Weinberger, of Congregation Aish that Torah will not be received if it’s not See 5 Towns hosts on page 15 Kodesh in Woodmere, delivered keynote speech.

While Torah is forever true, the ideal way for the mesorah to be conveyed to our children — and how an everlasting love of Torah and Yiddishkeit is embedded in their beings — changes over time.

“You’re still talking about what worked for you in 1972 and insisting that that’s what should work for your kid,” Rabbi Moshe Weinberger, Shila”a, said in key-

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

the Western Wall

s in capital Friedman arrive

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August 11, 2017 • 19 Av, 5777 THE JEWISH STAR

Temple Mount visits could be pretext for trouble

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“There are challenges ahead of us, and any minor incident can bring us back to the same situation.”

In a poll conducted by Israel’s Channel 2, more than three-quarters of Israelis said Israel’s security cabinet “capitulated” in its decision to remove the metal detectors, while 67 percent of respondents took a negative view of Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s handling of the crisis.

In response to the general dissatisfaction, perceived by Israelis as a display of weakness by their government, Netanyahu told the security cabinet July 30, “I am attentive to public feeling. With that, as the prime minister of Israel, as the one who carries on his shoulders the responsibility for the security of Israel, I must make decisions coolly and judiciously.

“I do that out of a view of the big picture, a wide view of the challenges and threats that are facing us. Some of them are not known to the public and as is the nature of things I can’t go into details.”

Education Minister Naftali Bennett challenged the decision to remove the metal detectors, saying, “Israel comes out weakened from this crisis. Instead of sending a message about Israel’s sovereignty on the Temple Mount, it sent a message that Israel’s sovereignty can be questioned.”

While Israel has sovereignty over all of Jerusalem, custodianship of the Temple Mount and other Islamic holy places in the city belong to the Jordanian Waqf, which controlled the Temple Mount during Jordan’s illegal occupation of Jerusalem and the disputed territories from 1948 to 1967. Israel controls the perimeter of the complex.

Dr. Oded Eran, Israel’s former ambassador to Jordan, told JNS.org that Jordan “plays a significant role in the decisions taken by Israel on the Temple Mount, to begin with because of the international peace treaty signed between Israel and Jordan in 1994, in which Israel recognized the special interests that Jordan has in Islamic sites in Jerusalem.”

Israeli media reported that the head of Israel’s General Security Service went to Jordan to negotiate the removal of the metal detectors.

“I think that Jordan played a paramount role in the solution of the crisis around the Temple Mount in the last two weeks,” said the Ashkelon Academic College’s Reiter.

Yet according to Reiter—who has authored several books on the geopolitics of the Temple Mount—while Jordan plays a diplomatic role in conversations on the status of Islamic holy sites in Jerusalem, the Waqf holds the power to instigate violence, but not the power to prevent violence.

“The Palestinian street’s rioting was a main cause of the decision to remove the metal detectors,” Reiter said.

“The Waqf can incite, and it is a signal to the Palestinian public to go and riot,” he said. “But once a violent accident occurred on the Temple Mount, the Waqf is not the party who is able to calm things down. It is not so powerful.

“It’s not an authentic leader of the Palestinians in east Jerusalem and the West Bank.”

Once the metal detectors were removed, the current Arab pretext for violence against Israel was removed as well. Yet Israel’s backtracking on security measures at the sensitive holy site may have lasting consequences.

“Palestinians realize that Israel had to withdraw and they feel that they had a victory by rallying the people to the street, and they may use it in future campaigns with Israel,” Reiter said.

“Arabs around Israel see this as a matter of victory,” he said, “and they are celebrating.”

Israeli teen syndicated his threats

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The Bibi explainer...

Continued from page 9 tank, has sued Yair Netanyahu for libel. Yair, the eldest son of the Netanyahus at 26, wrote a Facebook post last week calling the group a “radical, anti-Zionist organization funded by the Fund for Israel’s Destruction” (a reference to the New Israel Fund, a left-wing NGO and bête noire of the Israeli right). Earlier that day, Molad had posted a listicle criticizing Yair Netanyahu’s political views and use of public funds.

Netanyahu could be nearing indictment — but might still stay in office.

So what does this all mean for the prime minister, who has governed Israel since the beginning of the Obama administration in his second go-round as prime minister. It depends on two factors: Whether he is indicted, and whether that creates enough pressure to force him to resign.

The fact that police are now working with Ari Harow, a confidant of the prime minister’s, means that he may provide information leading to an indictment. The recordings of Netanyahu’s conversations with Mozes, for example, were found on Harow’s phone.

Harow served two terms as Netanyahu’s chief of staff, and founded a consulting company between the two stints. Police have accused him of using his government position to advance his business interests. In return for becoming a state witness, Harow agreed to a plea deal in which he will perform community service and pay a fine rather than serve prison time.

But even with Harow’s testimony, the going will still be slow. According to a handy explainer in Haaretz, police are not expected to issue their recommendation until after the High Holidays late next month. If police recommend an indictment, it could still take several months until the attorney general formally indicts Netanyahu. Even then, he isn’t legally required to resign.

Which is why the prime minister’s fate may come down to pressure from fellow politicians and the public.

A poll by Israel’s Channel 10 found that 66 percent of Israelis believe Netanyahu should resign if indicted. There is intrigue within Netanyahu’s Likud party as well, with some ministers openly backing him while another, speaking anonymously, said he should resign if indicted.

(Un)fortunately, there’s a precedent for

this decision: Nine years ago, facing multiple corruption scandals, centrist Prime Minister Ehud Olmert resigned even before police recommended an indictment. But stepping down didn’t help him, as Olmert was sentenced to prison in 2015 and served 16 months before going free in July.

Nor did resigning help Olmert’s Kadima party. His successor, Tzipi Livni, lost the subsequent election in 2009 — to Benjamin Netanyahu.

Taylor Force...

Continued from page 5 there is any moral equivalence between anger about Western donations rewarding those who slaughter Jews and Palestinian anger about settlements. Even if you accept the dubious argument that settlements are the real obstacle to peace, if you think building a new house in a place Palestinians think should be free of Jews is just as bad as killing people, then all you are doing is making a case that peace between two peoples with such different moral codes is clearly impossible.

That’s why it is imperative that the West force Abbas to choose between giving up power and giving up their gruesome terrorfunding scheme. Far from obstructing the chances for peace, as some on the left claim, compelling the Palestinians to reject a culture of violence that ensures the conflict will continue indefinitely is the only hope for its resolution. No matter where your political sympathies lie, it’s time to realize that opposing the Taylor Force Act undermines any hope for peace.

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THE JEWISH STAR August 11, 2017 • 19 Av, 5777

By JTA The Israeli-American teenager accused of making hundreds of threats against Jewish community centers in the United States sold his bomb threat services, the Atlantic and Daily Beast reported on Tuesday.

Michael Kadar, 19, from Ashkelon, also offered to frame others for the threats for a higher fee, the FBI reportedly alleges in newly unsealed court documents reported by the websites.

The teen reportedly sold his services on AlphaBay, a “dark web” marketplace website selling illegal goods and services that was closed by U.S. authorities in July, pricing his services from $30 for a single threat to $90 for “emailed bomb threat to a school districts\ multiple schools + framing someone for it.”

Kadar also wrote in his online advertisement, under the screen name Darknet Legend: “There is a no guarantee that the police will question or arrest the framed person. I just add the persons name to the email. In addition in my experience of doing bomb threats putting someones name in the emailed threat will reduce the chance of the threat being successful. But it’s up to you if you would like me to frame someone.”

The messages were found on a flash drive confiscated by the Israel Police during a raid on the teen’s bedroom earlier this year. Police reportedly identified an individual in California who is believed to have ordered and paid for Kadar’s threats.

He was charged in district court in Israel in April with thousands of counts on offenses that also include publishing false information, causing panic, computer hacking and money laundering. He was arrested in Israel in March in a joint operation with the FBI. According to the indictment Kadar, who has dual U.S. and Israeli citizenship, made threats to 2,000 institutions around the world, including the Israeli Embassy in Washington and other Israeli diplomatic missions, schools, malls, police stations, hospitals and airlines.

August 11, 2017 • 19 Av, 5777 THE JEWISH STAR

18

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What happened to Senator Kirsten Gillibrand?

Jeff Dunetz politics to go

D

uring the 2013 Chuck Hagel confirmation hearings, New York’s junior senator, Kirsten Gillibrand, showed herself to be an advocate for Israel. But lately she’s made some anti-Israel statements and votes despite the fact that her New York constituency is largely pro-Israel.

As a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee that questioned Hagel, whose support for Israel was in doubt, Gillibrand emphasized the importance of the Jewish state to America.

Four years later, Gillibrand’s posture has moved closer to that of the Democratic Party’s progressive wing and she’s distanced herself from Israel.

She voted against David Friedman appointment be the U.S. ambassador to Israel, expressing concern about his nomination.

In the “Time 100” magazine in April, Gillibrand wrote a piece supporting “four ex-

traordinary women — Tamika Mallory, Bob Bland, Carmen Perez and Linda Sarsour” — for organizing the Jan. 21 Women’s March on Washington.

“The images of Jan. 21, 2017, show a diverse, dynamic America — striving for equality for all,” she wrote. “The moment and movement mattered so profoundly because it was intersectional and deeply personal.

These women are the suffragists of our time.”

Yet one of the women that Gillibrand praised, Linda Sarsour, opposes Israel’s existence as a Jewish state, tweeting in October 2012 that “nothing is creepier than Zionism.”

Sarsour also proclaimed that Zionists cannot be feminists: “It just doesn’t make any sense for someone to say, ‘Is there room for people who support the state of Israel and do not criticize it in the movement?’ There can’t be in feminism. You either stand up for the rights of all women, including Palestinians, or none. There’s just no way around it.” ven when Sarsour’s anti-Israel history was pointed out to Gillibrand by Rabbi Abraham Cooper of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, who asked the senator to reconsider her endorsement of Sarsour, Gillibrand stuck to her guns.

E

And then, at a town hall meeting with constituents in July, she criticized Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, using an argument that was surprising for its ignorance.

Answering a questioner from the Jewish Voice For Peace (a group named by the AntiDefamation League as one of the 10 most anti-Israel organizations in America) Gillibrand trashed Netanyahu based on a meeting she had with the prime minister, as part of a Senate delegation to Israel, in 2016.

“In our meeting with Prime Minister Netanyahu, the question we asked is, what is your vision for peace, and he didn’t have one.

He just said my only hope is that I protect my people from rockets. If you don’t have a vision, if you don’t have a plan, then it is never going to happen. And so, we do need to require more of our world leaders, and I think a call to action to Israel’s government to have a plan for peace is really incumbent on all of us.”

The visit Gillibrand referenced took place during a particularly violent period of terror. According to the Israel Security Agency, October 2015 saw the beginning of a wave of terrorism that led to 620 attacks in one month — 11 people (one foreign national

and 10 Israelis) were killed in terrorist attacks in October, and 80 were injured, 37 of them moderately or more severely. In November 2015, 10 people (one Palestinian and 9 Israelis) were killed in terrorist attacks; qmong the non-fatal casualties, 22 were wounded in stabbings, 24 in vehicle attacks, and 12 in shootings. December 2015, saw 3 civilians slain in stabbing attacks.

What did she expect Netanyahu to say?

Like every prime minister since Rabin, Netanyahu has supported a two-state solution.

In 2010, he even offered to stop building housing units in communities over the green line if the Palestinians would simply recognize Israel as a Jewish state.

“President Abbas must do what I have done,” Netanyahu told a joint session of Congress in 2011. “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’.” Later in the speech, he added, “Our conflict has never been about the establishment of a Palestinian state. It has always been about the existence of the Jewish state.”

See Gillibrand on page 19

Trump foreign policy: the light and the darkness Ben Cohen Viewpoint

A

s much as President Donald Trump enjoys taking a metaphorical sledgehammer to even the merest of slights against him, there is no reason to repeat the commander-in-chief’s behavior in judging his administration.

That there is so much darkness around Trump, his character and his intentions should not obscure the occasional rays of light emanating from his administration. In foreign policy, one can list a few achievements on this score. There was the appointment of Nikki Haley as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. In a few short months,

she has done sterling work in confronting U.N. bias against Israel; exposing the various threats posed by Iran, North Korea and Russia; and shining a light on the forgotten civilian victims of conflicts from Africa to the Middle East.

There was the U.S. airstrike on the Syrian regime in response to its use of chemical weapons—not a strategy, to be sure, nor even that meaningful in a military sense, but at least a signal of a moral opprobrium that was conspicuously absent from the former Obama administration.

Then, this week, there was the placing of sanctions on Venezuela’s criminal dictator Nicolas Maduro, who has lost all legitimacy by usurping the democratically elected National Assembly and replacing it with a crony “constituent assembly.” Again, the sanctions on Maduro could have been tougher, but See Trump foreign policy on page 19

President Donald Trump.

Department of Labor/Shawn T. Moore

Gillibrand...

Continued from page 18 illibrand knows very well about Netanyahu’s vision of peace. So, did she attack Netanyahu to please the antiIsrael progressive wing of her party, was she trying to please her Iranian donors (her campaigns have been supported by the Iranian American Political Action Committee and by the pro-Iran lobby’s Hassan Nemazee), or was she trying to please the questioner from the anti-Israel Jewish Voice For Peace?

Gillibrand recently flipped on the anti-BDS bill. Originally a backer, at first sign of pushback from progressives she changed her mind.

“I would urge Senator Gillibrand to instead add her name back as a co-sponsor for this legislation and reaffirm her commitment to opposing the international campaign to delegitimize our democratic ally in the Middle East, Israel,” said World Jewish Congress President Ronald Lauder.

Normally this would be where I’d point out that Gillibrand has always opposed BDS and other types of boycotts because she has.

But looking at her 2017 track record supporting people like Linda Sarsour, trashing Netanyahu, and opposing the nomination of her own constituent — pro-Israel David Friedman — to be our ambassdor to Israel, we have to wonder what is the real reason she is backing away from the anti-BDS bill.

G

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O

against North Korea, as some congressional Republicans are suggesting, then we can only guess whether he will make the case for conflict to a worried American public, or whether he will announce any attack on Twitter, in order to retain the element of surprise.

This lack of systematic thinking, against the backdrop of the bitter factional divides Trump cultivates among his staff, is even more pronounced when it comes to dealing with Iran.

As the result of a July 7 agreement between the U.S. and Russia creating four “deescalation zones” in Syria, Iran and its proxies are becoming even more entrenched on Syrian territory with the full consent of the Russians, who have several thousand troops

Jumpstart your career!

Continued from page 18 their very existence is a far cry from Obama’s belief that Maduro should be negotiated with—“We don’t want to do more sanctions,” he told a contact of mine in the Venezuelan opposition in 2013—rather than isolated and removed from power.

But none of this really tells us a great deal about how Trump thinks the world should be organized—assuming he thinks about that subject at all.

Does he agree, for example, that the State Department should remove “democracy promotion” from its mission statement, as Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is rumored to want to do? Just going by his various statements on Syria’s Assad regime—running the spectrum from potential ally against Islamic State to the embodiment of the evil humans are capable of—one realizes that Trump could go either way. But one should also realize that as long as Trump remains ambiguous on the serial violations of tyrants, those same tyrants will interpret his lack of clarity as acquiescence, and push the envelope even more. This, in fact, is what men like Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Russia’s President Vladimir Putin are already doing— and with gusto. n two critical fronts, North Korea and Iran—both fine examples of the dictum that war chooses you, and not the other way around—Trump is severely, even dangerously, wanting. North Korea now presents a credible nuclear threat to the continental U.S.—the culminating moment of the regime’s “Songun” ideology that puts North Korea’s military prowess before anything else, including the empty stomachs of thousands of ordinary North Koreans. If Trump is seriously considering using the military option

on the ground there as well. Israel is furious with Trump for reaching an agreement that now presents a danger even more immediate than the Iranian nuclear program.

One Israeli official put it starkly in an interview with Al-Monitor: “This is not just some disagreement. This is a real clash, pitting Israel against Russia and the United States. It reflects Israel’s conspicuous disappointment with the way that the Americans let Putin outmaneuver them, leading to the sellout of Israeli interests in the Golan Heights and Lebanon versus the Shi’ite axis.”

On this point, Trump needs to make clear to the Israelis that they will enjoy the full, unqualified support of the U.S. in the event of any confrontations with Russia as they carry

out their mission to interdict Iranian weapons shipments. Trump should also tell Putin that the U.S. wants the Iranians and their proxies out of Syria, not least because groups like Hezbollah represent a threat as barbaric and potentially more deadly than Islamic State.

It is true that in these long, humid summer days, dominated as they are by the internal antics of the White House, such global dangers seem remote, with nobody wanting to believe that the worst-case scenarios are possible. But this is one reason why we trust our elected leaders to protect the national interest—and why, when they fail to deliver, we tend to find out only once it’s too late to matter.

Ben Cohen weekly column is distributed by JNS.org.

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THE JEWISH STAR August 11, 2017 • 19 Av, 5777

Trump foreign policy: the light and the darkness

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SHAbbAT STAR

‫כוכב של שבת‬

Parsha Eikev

Candles 7:40, Havdalah 8:48

Read The Jewish Star’s archive of Torah columns at TheJewishStar.com/category/torahcolumns/browse.html

Remembering Malki…

Rabbi binny FReedman The hearT of jerusalem Continued from page 1 quented this establishment exactly twice.

Walking into Sbarro’s, there is a larger area for sitting in the front, but the back looked a bit cooler and quieter, so I decided to grab a seat in the back. That decision saved my life.

Waiting on line, when they brought me the baked Ziti I asked for, it was cold. So I asked the girl behind the counter if she’d mind warming it up. “Ein Ba’ayah,” no problem, she said with a smile. I will always wonder if that was her last smile on earth.

A couple of moments later, a fellow from behind the counter came to the back with my baked Ziti. Then he started to speak to someone at one of the tables. That baked Ziti saved his life.

At about 2 pm, I both felt and heard a tremendous explosion, and day turned into night.

And then the screaming began. An awful, heartrending sound; the sound of people coming to terms with a whole new reality, of people not wanting to comprehend that life has changed forever.

Those of us sitting in the back were spared, but to avoid a panic, I started yelling at everyone to quiet down; not to panic, and remain in the back; there is always the danger of a second explosion, detonated on purpose shortly after the first.

But then I smelled smoke, and was suddenly afraid the restaurant might be on fire, and the ceiling looked like it might cave in, so we started climbing our way through the wreckage to the front.

Would there be another explosion? Would the roof collapse? Were we making the wrong decision, climbing through? These are moments that will last a lifetime.

There are no words to describe what the front of Sbarro’s Pizza looked like in the immediate aftermath of that explosion.

A woman was lying near the steps to the back. Her eyes were staring straight at me, following me. So full of pain and longing, sadness and despair. I dropped down beside her, trying to elicit a response. And then I watched the life

just drain out of her. I tried to get a pulse, to no avail. She died there, on the steps in front of me.

She was lying by the table I had decided not to sit at.

There were bodies everywhere, and those images are in my mind, they won’t let go. A child’s body under the wreckage, a baby-carriage, limbs and a torso, a woman holding a motor-cycle helmet and screaming next to a person on the floor who had obviously been someone she was with.

And then the mad rush to help the ambulance and emergency crews get the wounded out. They were afraid of a second bomb, so there was no medical effort inside beyond getting the wounded on to stretchers and out. A religious Jew missing at least two limbs in tears and shock; what do you say? “Ehiyeh be’seder,” it’ll be all right?

Will it?

I happened to sit a bit to the left as you walk towards the back, and so the wall behind me shielded me from the blast. Another fellow whom we went back in to get wasn’t so lucky.

Sitting only five or six feet to my right, opposite the steps up to the back, he caught the full force of the blast and was thrown in the air. When we got him on the stretcher he was bleeding profusely and was missing a leg.

There are no words to describe what that man’s hand, clenched around my arm, felt like. He just kept looking from me to his leg and back again. I started saying Tehillim.

So many mixed emotions fill my head today.

I came home last night and gave each of my children a very long hug. But there are so many families today who are waking up to the reality that life will never be the same. Fifteen funerals with friends and families saying goodbye to those they loved so, whose only crime was a desire for a slice of pizza on a beautiful Jerusalem afternoon.

I recall reading a story of a boy who was saved from a near-drowning by a stranger. As the fellow carried him ashore, the boy looked up and said, “Thanks for saving my life, mister.”

To which the man responded: “Just make sure it was worth saving.”

Tonight we celebrate Shabbat. All over Israel, in eight hours, parents will bless their children at the Shabbat table. I imagine we will all hug them a little tighter this week.

In a few hours we will light Shabbat candles.

This Shabbat, in the wake of all this darkness, the Jewish people will do what we have been do-

The August 2001 Palestinian suicide bombing at the Sbarro pizzeria in Jerusalem.

ing for 4,000 years, what we have always done.

We will pick up the pieces and light our candles, because that is all we have ever wanted, just to bring a little light back into the world.

After 2,000 years of dreaming, we have come home. So many nations and so many empires tried to stop us from getting here but here we are, nonetheless. Home. That word has such a beautiful sound to it, for a people that has wandered the globe for so long.

We are not leaving. We will be here to celebrate this Shabbat and next Shabbat, and forever, until the end of time, here, in the hills of Judea and Gush Etzion, and Jerusalem.

May Hashem, who in His infinite Wisdom saw fit to allow me the privilege of celebrating one more Shabbat with my family in the hills of Jerusalem, see fit to put an end to all of this pain and all of this suffering.

Wherever you are, and whomever you are, be with us here, in Yerushalayim, and offer up a prayer for all those who lost loved ones in yesterday’s terrible tragedy.

Yehi Ratzon, May it be G-d’s will, that soon, we will find the road to the peace we have longed for so long.

••• fter 16 years, what does one take away from such an experience?

The opening of this week’s parsha, Eikev, discusses the rewards we will receive if we will hearken to Hashem’s words. And the commentaries point out that the word eikev, which means “as a result of” (i.e., as a result of hearkening to Hashem’s words) also refers to a person’s heel, suggesting that one should be careful even regarding the mitzvot one might trod on with his heel. But why does taking the “easier” mitzvot

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lightly have such consequences, of reward and punishment?

Perhaps a meaningful life begins with appreciating the little things, all of life’s seemingly insignificant blessings.

How much would Channah Nechenberg’s husband David give to just have a conversation with his wife, who has been in a coma since that awful day; and what wouldn’t Shmuel Greenberg give for the chance sit with his child who was never born when it was murdered as a fetus along with his pregnant wife Shoshana. That baby would have been 16 today.

Take a moment this Shabbat to appreciate the little things — the chance to give a smile to someone you love, or make the world a little better with one simple act of kindness. Take a look at the website Shmuel created in memory of his wife and unborn child — partnersinkindness. org — and do one simple act of kindness to help make the world a better place.

Shabbat shalom from Jerusalem.

SHEIMOS NOTICE A photo with sheimos was accidentally included in The Jewish Star’s issue dated Aug. 4 (Shabbos Nachamu), on page 20.

We apologize for the error.

Please treat the page accordingly.

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August 11, 2017 • 19 Av, 5777 THE JEWISH STAR

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Water in the desert from an ever-caring G-d Rabbi avi billet Parsha of The week

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ere’s a good Torah trivia question: How do we know there was a river flowing down Mt. Sinai? Because it says so in the Torah (Devarim 9:21).

In the context of describing the events surrounding the Golden Calf, Moshe makes a brief reference to the water supply that existed at the mountain, in the context of talking about a number of episodes during which the people angered G-d and caused Him to want to destroy them.

On Tisha B’Av, I led a group conversation about what mourning for the Temple means to us today.

One of the participants noted in passing that a god who is a “punishing god” is very unappealing nowadays. And while there is certainly an element of emotional truth to this, it is also true that many people who otherwise have very little to do with observant

Judaism still find themselves in the synagogue on Yom Kippur — not because Yom Kippur is a day of punishment, but rather because it is a day of atonement, the day in which our sins our forgiven so we need not be punished.

Of course, anyone who has ever studied in a yeshiva knows that the concept of punishment is central to a Torah worldview. Think about the concepts of karet (excision from G-d and from the nation), being chayav malkos (deserving of lashes), chayav chatas (needing to bring a sin offering), or chayav misah (deserving of death) whether in the hands of the court or in the hands of G-d.

While these punishments are not carried out by man in our times, and while we ought to do our best to not play G-d and suggest why bad things happen to decent people, I wonder how much G-d’s wrath flares up today.

And why wouldn’t it? After all, how many times in these parshas does Moshe tell the people things like, “You angered G-d,” and “you’ve rebelled against G-d since the day I first met you?” Have things changed so drastically since that time?

Maybe we’re not turning to other gods in the

numbers we once were, but the influence of the world around us is palatable. With all the good we tout ourselves for doing, we are a far cry from the beautiful society described in the Torah.

We look out for the poor, but we are selective.

We are careful about what goes into our mouths, but not what comes out of our mouths. We claim to be modest in how we live, but look at the ads for multi-thousand dollar sheitels and the construction to mammoth-size mansions going in our neighborhoods — just to bring two examples. (One of the more profound insights I’ve seen on this idea is written in the Kli Yakar Devarim 2:3, when he talks about how Eisav perceives us. It is worth looking up.)

If our G-d is One Who punishes, we have to ask ourselves why. Meaning, can’t He be forgiving, and just be all about love?

Our view is that He is forgiving. But forgiveness comes after a process we call teshuvah (recognition of sin and repenting from it — literally “returning” to G-d). Why is teshuvah necessary?

While I can’t speak for G-d, I’ll give a little human example, to at least try to understand.

A parent loves his or her child unconditionally.

But what happens when that child destroys everything the parent holds near and dear? A reputation that took a lifetime to build: destroyed. The lifestyle the family has built and modeled: destroyed. Decided these parents are no longer my parents, but that others are my parents: a lifelong relationship is now devastated and decimated. What is the parent to do? erhaps the parent doesn’t want to see his or her child die. That would be too painful. Perhaps the parent is willing, however, to bide the time, ready, with open arms, for the day the child is ready to return.

Is it the job of the parent to conform to the new life-choices of the child? Isn’t the parent’s attachment to the past and to tradition and mesorah something more valuable than a new-fangled perhaps (though certainly not always) anger-driven approach to life and G-d?

G-d has reasons for wanting us to follow Him, but the parent parable can at least help us understand why He might get upset. Imagine denying GSee Water on page 22

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Birkat HaMazon and Jerusalem…

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his week’s parasha, the third from the book of Devorim, is Ekev, where we learn of the sole Biblical source for the mitzva to recite Birkat Hamazon, the Grace After Meals.

The third prayer in this service is the heartfelt tefillah for the rebuilding of Jerusalem. According to tradition, this prayer was written by King David, asking for G-d’s compassion toward the people and land, with King Solomon adding a segment on behalf of the Temple.

In his commentary, “Halacha from the Sources: Birkat HaMazon and Zemirot Shabbat,” published by the Halacha Education Center, Rabbi Yosef Zvi Rimon deals extensively with this central paragraph, explaining its content as well as the purpose for its recitation in what is otherwise specifically a prayer of thanks for food: “An analysis of this beracha reveals that it is constructed of two parts. The first is a general request to protect the nation and the city of Jerusalem, whereas the second is a personal request that G-d supply us with everything we need, so that we do not need to rely on other people.”

Rabbi Rimon continues: “The Torah describes sustenance as emanating from the Temple, teaching us that whenever we eat, we should view our actions as connected with G-d’s home in Jerusalem. Even when we eat outside of Jerusalem, we mention Jerusalem in our blessing.”

Rabbi Rimon adds this observation: “At a deeper level, one can explain that the link to the Temple also elevates our eating spiritually. Drawing on the connection between one’s consumption and G-d and the Temple creates a self-awareness that is reflected in our conduct. This is demonstrated by the Torah’s description of ma’aser sheni, which must be eaten in Jerusalem before G-d. The Torah states that the reason for this requirement is to require people to come and eat before G-d in Jerusalem.

“Eating before G-d takes a physical action and makes it into a spiritual one. By mentioning Jerusalem each time we eat, we recognize that our physical existence is not the essence,

context of consumption, in recognition of the unique connection with G-d symbolized by the food of the land.”

Thus, we learn from these teachings of the primacy of both Israel and Jerusalem in our theological teachings, as well as of our national aspirations. Any divide in these aspirations is false teachings that lead directly to a misrepresentation of our religion and of our G-d. This is the lesson that must be reaffirmed each day as we sit down to eat and bless G-d for our bounty. Both the land of Israel and Jerusalem at its center are to be foremost in our thoughts at all times.

Let us all be mindful of this sacred teaching as we daily follow and demonstrate our continuing concern for our brethren in Israel.

This column was originally published in 2014.

Amy Reichlin

Kosher BooKworm

but rather the means by which we can work to better G-d’s world. Each individual who eats focuses on the national goals of Jerusalem and spreading the name of G-d in the world. This sensitizes us to the fact that even our mundane actions are steps in our quest to ‘Rebuild the holy city of Jerusalem hastily in our time’.”

Given the events in Israel today, Rabbi Rimon’s teachings are especially relevant. Consider these words: “G-d’s watchfulness over the land of Israel is unique: G-d is only directly involved in the occurrences of the land of Israel. Therefore, the food one receives in Israel is more directly connected to G-d than the food one receives outside of Israel. This direct connection requires a specific blessing upon the land in the

…and making gratitude count

By Rabbi Francis Nataf The source for saying Birkat HaMazon may not be as obvious as we normally assume. Our likely assumption comes from being accustomed to reading the first three words from Devarim 8:10, “Ve’achalta, vesava’ata ou’verachta” (you shall eat, and be satiated and bless),” in insolation — as we find them in Birkat HaMazon itself. Read that way, it seems pretty clear that the Torah is telling us that when we eat properly, we should bless G-d. Significantly, this conclusion is not just liturgical, but it underlies the halacha as well.

Taken in context, however, it is less clear.

Ramban is aware of this and tells us not to read the second part of the verse in its most obvious way — as the rest of the verse tells us that the blessing that we are supposed to give to G-d after we have eaten, is specifically for the land He has given us. Ramban however tells us to read it as if there was a conjunction between our first three words and the rest of the verse.

Hence, we should bless G-d more generally and bless Him for the land, as well. But not only is that not the simplest reading of the verse, it seems to take the verse out of its context, which is all about the great land that G-d is giving the Jews.

On the one hand, the notion that the halachic understanding of the verse can disagree with its simple reading has always been a controversial point — especially when we can be sure that the rabbis meant their understanding to be a bona fide interpretation of the text and not just what we call an asmachta be’alma (a

memory device). On the other hand, Jews have traditionally been comfortable with the idea that there is more than one valid way to read the text — as the Divine words invariably contain much more content than can be subsumed under just one reading.

In the case of the verse in question, I would not only suggest that the halakhic reading of the verse is a valid — if less obvious — one. I would go further and suggest that this reading is finding a way to make the descriptive (what is) into the prescriptive (what should be), which is really what halacha is about, more generally. I will explain: Shadal has already pointed out that the simple reading is speaking about blessing G-d as a natural response to the bounty that the Jew will encounter in the Land of Israel. Any slightly religious individual will be familiar with this response to overwhelming bounty. When we receive more than we could ever imagine, it is natural to want to thank G-d. While this is a good and healthy response, it can hardly be a major pillar of religious life. For how often is the average person overwhelmed in this fashion?

In fact, Shadal points out that the verses that follow this speak to the more common situation that will happen over time, as the Jews become more used to the bounty of their land.

Though the land will continue to serve them well, they will be likely to forget G-d’s involvement with it altogether. And what of those that (like almost all of us today) are not connected to the land at all? While any bounty gives us cause for thanks, we are more able to see G-d’s

hand in the production of food from the clearly natural world that He created. If one accustomed to the land’s bounty is likely to forget his gratitude, someone off the land is even more likely to do so. That is what is.

But the rabbis understood that the highly appropriate response that the verse speaks about reflects a latent appreciation that is with us more commonly. When reminded that my food or my paycheck comes from G-d, I am also appreciative. The only difference is that I need the reminder.

But the feeling of gratitude when I bless naturally and when prompted by the reminder is ultimately the same. Accordingly, the rabbis understood that once natural gratitude is established by this verse, it reflects an attitude even more than it does an action. That is to say that the verse shows us that man is naturally grateful and knows how to express that gratitude on his own. At that point, it becomes clear to not only read the verse for the expression of gratitude that always does happen, but also for the latent expression that always can happen.

As both are ultimately the same expression of the same attitude.

Hence the rabbis knew that the possibility of going from that which people do to that which they should do is all part of that which the verse communicates to us. And through such a halachic reading, they were able to translate an occasional positive action into the pillar of faith that the constant expression of gratitude to G-d — when done properly and sincerely — can actually become.

Our G-d: Great and Mighty and Awesome rAbbi dAvid etenGoff

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ur parasha, Eikev, contains a phrase that is familiar to many, since it is found in the first blessing (Birkat Avot) of the Shmoneh Esreh: “G-d your L-rd is the ultimate Supreme Being and the highest possible Authority. He is the great (hagadol), mighty (hagibor) and awesome (v’hanorah) G-d (A-le), who does not give special consideration or take bribes. (Devarim) Ezra the Scribe repeats our expression in his prayer before the Jewish people: “And now, our G-d, the great (hagadol), mighty (hagibor), and awesome (v’hanorah) G-d, Who keeps the covenant and the loving- kindness…” (Sefer Nechmiah IX:32) Rashi maintains, in his commentary on Talmud Bavli, Berachot 33b (s.v. va’takninahu b’tefilah) that Ezra’s prayer is the source for our phrase’s inclusion in Birkat Avot. His assertion, however, is not universally accepted since some, like the great Rabbinic luminary, Rabbi Aryeh Leib ben Asher Gunzberg (the Sha’agat Aryeh), maintained that Ezra’s use of our expression was a purely tempo-

rary event, whereas its permanent presence in the Shmoneh Esreh is based on our Torah portion’s pasuk. (Sefer Turei Evan, Talmud Bavli, Megillah 25a, s.v. hashta hachi telata) In either case, the phrase, “HaA-le hagadol hagibor v’hanorah,” has become an integral part of our liturgy.

One might think that if it is acceptable to declare, “HaA-le hagadol hagibor v’hanorah,” it should be allowed, as well, to add other descriptions of the Almighty during the recitation of the Shmoneh Esreh. This approach was actually followed by an anonymous shaliach tzibbur (prayer leader) in early Talmudic times, who to his chagrin, found himself under the critical eye of Rabbi Chanina bar Chama: “A certain [reader] went down in the presence of Rabbi Chanina and said, ‘O’ G-d, the great (hagadol), mighty (hagibor), awesome (v’hanorah), majestic, powerful, awe-filled, strong, fearless, sure and honored.’ He waited until he had finished, and when he completed [his prayer] he said to him, ‘Have you concluded all the praise of your Master? Why do we want all this?’ (Talmud Bavli 33b) abbi Chanina was singularly unimpressed with the shaliach tzibbur’s seven personal additions. Therefore, he asked him, “Have you concluded all the praise of your Master?

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Why do we want all this?” In other words, he asked him the same rhetorical question as David HaMelech expressed in Sefer Tehillim, “Who can narrate the mighty deeds of the L-rd? [Who] can make heard all His praise?” (106:2) Moreover, Rabbi Chanina teaches us that even our phrase, “HaA-le hagadol hagibor v’hanorah,” would have been disallowed as part of the Shmoneh Esreh, “had not Moses our Master mentioned them in the Torah and had not the Men of the Great Assembly come and inserted them into the order of prayers.” Little wonder Rabbi Chanina subsequently proclaimed to the overly creative shaliach tzibbur, “And you say all these and still go on!”

In addition, in the event that the shaliach tzibbur failed to comprehend Rabbi Chanina’s message, he shared the following mashal (parable) with him: “It is as if an earthly king had a million denarii of gold, and someone praised him as possessing silver ones. Would it not be an insult to him?” Stated somewhat differently, when the Torah employed the phrase, “HaA-le hagadol hagibor v’hanorah,” it became a matir (authorization) for the Men of the Great Assembly to utilize it in the Shmoneh Esreh, but not for additional prayer formulations to be added to the liturgy by others.

Basing himself upon our Gemara, the Rambam (Maimonides) codified the following halacha: “A person should not be profuse in his mention of adjectives describing G-d, and say: ‘The great, mighty, awesome, powerful, courageous, and strong G-d,’ for it is impossible for man to express the totality of His praises. Instead, one should mention [only] the praises that were mentioned by Moses, of blessed memory [i.e.

“HaA-le hagadol hagibor v’hanorah].” (Mishneh Torah, Hilchot Tefilah IX:7) The Rambam’s reasoning as to why one is proscribed from adding new praises to the Master of the Universe in the context of the Shmoneh Esreh is clear, “for it is impossible for man to express the totality of His praises.” Quite simply, finite man is incapable of properly depicting the majesty and greatness of the infinite Hashem.

Therefore, we must limit our accolades to the Torah’s own words.

Given the halachic and theological parameters of extoling Hashem in the context of Birkat Avot, we are now in a better position to analyze our phrase’s deeper meaning. There are three descriptions of Hashem in our expression, namely, hagadol (the great), hagibor (the mighty), and hanorah (the awesome). I believe that each See Great on page 22

THE JEWISH STAR August 11, 2017 • 19 Av, 5777

AlAn JAy Gerber

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August 11, 2017 • 19 Av, 5777 THE JEWISH STAR

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The JEWISH STAR

CAlendar of Events

Send your events to Calendar@TheJewishStar.com • Deadline noon Friday • Compiled by Zachary Schechter Thursday, Aug 10

Iyun Tefilah: [Weekly] Rabbi Moshe Teitelbaum at the Young Israel of Lawrence Cedarhust.

9:45 am. 8 Spruce St, Cedarhust.

Esther Wein: [Weekly] Join Esther Wein, renowned lecturer and speaker, at the Young Israel of Lawrence Cedarhurst as she offers words of Torah and spiritual insight. 10 am. 8 Spruce St, Cedarhust.

Women’s Halacha Shiur [Weekly] with Mrs. Michal Horowitz for a parsha class at the Young Israel of Woodmere. 9:30-10:30 am. 516-2950950. 859 Peninsula Blvd, Woodmere.

Kulanu ‘Front Door’: See story on this page.

UJA Summerfest: Gavin DeGraw headlines annual concert, at NYCB Theater, 960 Brush Hollow Road, Westbury. Event begins with cocktails, and features an elaborate buffet, raffles and a silent auction, and concludes with an after party. 6 pm. Tickets from $250. 516-762-5852.

Halachos of Coffee: [Weekly] Join Jonah Steinmetz for at the Young Israel of Woodmere for a shiur for men and women on the topic: All You Need to Know About Your Cup of Joe. 8 pm. 516-295-0950. 859 Peninsula Blvd, Woodmere.

Sfas Emes on the Parsha: [Weekly] Join Rabbi Moshe Teitelbaum at the Young Israel of Lawrence Cedarhurst for a shiur on the parsha with thoughts and insights from the great rebbe and thinker, Rabbi Yehuda Aryeh Leb of Gur. Following Mincha-Ma’ariv. 8 Spruce

Water...

Continued from page 20 d’s existence, imagine rejecting Him when He made you and gave you a world to enjoy, imagine saying His rules are unimportant.

Moshe’s reminders to the people are a way of saying, “Look. G-d will always be there waiting for you to return. He’ll never destroy you completely. But sometimes a cooling off period will be necessary, because things have gotten out of control on your end.” All the promises of good times on account of proper observance of the Torah are actually incredible promises — and were we to merit those on account of our behav-

Great...

Continued from page 21 may be viewed, in turn, as corresponding to the three Avot (Patriarchs), i.e., Abraham’s destiny is inextricably interwoven with the word, “gadol,” Isaac’s to “gibor,” and Jacob’s to “norah.”

The word “gadol,” and its verbal variant, appear in reference to Abram/Abraham in both Parshiot Lech Lecha and Vayera: “And I will make you into a great (gadol) nation, and I will bless you, and I will make your name great (va’aadlah), and [you shall] be a blessing.”

(Bereishit) “And Abraham will become a great (gadol) and powerful nation, and all the nations of the world will be blessed in him. (Bereishit 18:18) n addition to gadol as a description of Abram/ Abraham, there is an amazing midrash that explicitly presents him as he who enabled the entire world to recognize the greatness (gedultao, a variant of gadol) of Hashem: ‘And there are those who say that he [Mordechai] was the equivalent to Abraham in his generation. Just like our father, Abraham, allowed himself to be tossed into [Nimrod’s] fiery furnace, and in so doing enabled the people of the earth to return to and recognize the greatness (gedultao) of the Holy One blessed be He, as it is written: “and the

I

St, Cedarhust.

859 Peninsula Blvd, Woodmere.

516-295-0950. 859 Peninsula Blvd, Woodmere.

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

894 Woodmere Pl, Woodmere.

Gemarah Shiur: [Weekly] Join Rabbi Moshe Sokoloff for a gemarah shiur at the Young Israel of Woodmere. 9:15 am. 516-295-0950. 859 Peninsula Blvd, Woodmere.

The World of Reb Tazadok Hakohen: [Weekly] Shiur by Rabbi Yussie Zakutinsky at Aish Kodesh. 8:30 pm. 894 Woodmere Pl, Woodmere.

Life and Times of Great Torah Personalities: [Weekly] Join Rabbi Shay Schachter for a men and women shiur. 9:30 to 10 am. 516-2950950. 859 Peninsula Blvd, Woodmere.

Gemarah Shiur: [Weekly] Rabbi Dr. Aaron Glatt. Young Israel of Woodmere. 9:15 pm. 516-295-0950. 859 Peninsula Blvd, Woodmere.

Practical Kashrus Seminar: Join Rabbi Issar Mordechai Fuchs of the OU for a talk on “Proper Checking For Insects in Vegetables.”

10:15-11:15 am. 516-295-0950. 859 Peninsula Blvd, Woodmere.

Beef and Beer Social: Join the Chabad of the Five Towns for a social with Chef Mendy Herz at the home of Elie Furst.

Couvert: $25, Chabad Members: $18. 136 Linden St, Woodmere. RSVP 516-295-2478.

Supplies for Success: The UJA will be running a donation drive for school supplies for children who cannot afford them. Collection and packing of supplies will occur in the HAFTR Gym. 33 Washington Ave S, Lawrence.

Wednesday Aug 16

Friday Aug 11

Erev Shabbos Kollel: [Weekly] Join the congregation of Aish Kodesh for an 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.

Sunday Aug 13

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

Breakfast Halacha Shiur: [weekly] Halacha shiur at Congregation Bais Tefilah of Woodmere in conjunction with the Yeshiva Gedolah after the 8:30 Shacharis minyan. 409 Edward Ave, Woodmere.

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

Practical Kashrus Seminar: Join Rabbi Dov Schreier of the RCA for a talk on the ABC’s of Eating Out. 10:15 to 11:15 am. 516-295-0950.

ior, our lives would be truly incredible.

This is not to suggest a reason for why our people have suffered at the hands of horrific enemies over the course of millennia. G-d could have also had other ways of keeping our numbers down (see Devarim 7:7). But it is to suggest that we have a job to see G-d’s hand in our lives, and not to disrespect it, or heaven forfend, reject it.

Think about this: Our people arrived at a mountain in a dry, uninhabitable desert, where they would be for close to a year. They had no perceivable source of water. And there G-d made a river run from the top of the mountain.

Does that not show how much G-d cares?

We must see the gifts He gives us all the time.

If we don’t, we will have missed out on what makes life meaningful — seeing G-d at every turn. souls that they made [Avraham and Sarah converted] in Haran.” (Midrash Esther Rabbah VI:2) Clearly, Abraham, in his role as G-d’s messenger to the nations of the world, is forevermore connected to the expression “HaA-le hagadol.”

Isaac was in many ways the epitome of gevurah (great might), in the sense in which Chazal (our Sages of blessed memory) employed this term in Pirkei Avot (IV:1), “Who is a hero?

One who overpowers his desires.” On measure, it was precisely this middah (ethical characteristic) that enabled Isaac to submit to Hashem’s will at the Akeidah (the Binding of Isaac). Little wonder, then, that both Kabbalistic and Chasidic literature perceive him as personifying this quality that he shared, on the human level, with HaAle hagibor.

Jacob, perhaps, has the clearest nexus to the term with which he is paired, namely, “norah.”

This is the case, since he declared, “Mah norah hamakom hazeh!” (“How awesome is this place!”

Bereishit 28:17) after discovering he had inadvertently slept on the makom haMikdash (the place of the future Beit HaMikdash). Thus, Jacob is associated for all eternity with the deepest recognition of the norah nature of the Almighty.

With Hashem’s help, and our fervent desire, may each of us, as heirs of the Avot, come to acknowledge Him as “HaA-le hagadol hagibor v’hanorah,” and may we sanctify His holy name through heartfelt devotion to His Torah and mitzvot. V’chane yihi ratzon.

Movie Night: Hampton’s Synagogue, in partnership with the Hamptons International Film Festival, presents the film “Lea & Darija” as part of the Westhampton Jewish Film Festival. Free admission. 2 Brook Rd., Westhampton Beach. RSVP 631-288-0534 ext. 10.

Monday Aug 14

Women’s Halacha Shiur [Weekly] with Rabbi Ephraim Polakoff on The Laws of Cooking and Reheating on Shabbos. Young Israel of Woodmere. 9:30 to 10:30 am. 516-295-0950. 859 Peninsula Blvd, Woodmere.

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

10 am. 894 Woodmere Pl, Woodmere.

Study Maseches Brachos: [Weekly] Join Rabbi Eliyahu Wolf at the Young Israel of Woodmere. 3 to 4 pm. 516-295-0950. 859 Peninsula Blvd, 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. 894 Woodmere Pl, Woodmere.

Contemporary Issues in Kashrus: [Weekly] Shiur with Rabbi Ephraim Polakoff at the Bais Tefillah of Woodmere. 9 pm. 516-3745523. 409 Edward Ave, Woodmere.

Tuesday Aug 15

Women’s Halacha Shiur [Weekly] with Rabbi Shay Schachter on Laws of Muktza on Shabbos. Young Israel of Woodmere. 9:30 to 10:30 am.

516-295-0950. 859 Peninsula Blvd, Woodmere.

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.

Café Europa: Join the Congregation of Beth Shalom in partnership with the Marion & Aaron Gural JCC for some exercise a light lunch and a lecture. This week’s topic: “Music: Those Were the Days,” with Janice Buckner. 12:30 to 2:30 pm.

516-569-6733. 390 Broadway, Lawrence.

Concert on the Lawn: Mordechai Shapiro will perform at this year’s Tom and Judy Raskin Annual Concert on the Lawn, at the home of Avi and Ruthy Jungreis. Lavish BBQ

by Oasis Catering. 7 pm. $250 per couple. 515 Ocean Ave., Lawrence. 516-374-7363.

Summer Learning Program: Join guest speaker Dr. Edward Reichman, a recipient of a Kornfeld Foundation Fellowship and the Rubinstein Prize in Medical Ethics, for a medical halachah talk titled “From Artificial Wombs to Self-Driving Cars.” 8 pm. 26 Old Mill Road, Great Neck. 516-487-6100.

Women’s Shiur: [Weekly] Rabbi Etengroff’s Tuesday evening shiur for women continues. Women of all ages are cordially invited to attend. 8:10 pm.

Men’s Halacha Shiur [Weekly] with Rabbi Moshe Sokoloff. 8:10 pm.

Women’s Halacha Shiur [Weekly] with Mrs. Gitta Neufeld on Exploring and Appreciating Megillas Eicha. YI of Woodmere. 9:30 to 10:30 am.

516-295-0950. 859 Peninsula Blvd, Woodmere.

Study Maseches Brachos: [Weekly] Rabbi Eliyahu Wolf at the Young Israel of Woodmere.

3 to 4 pm. 516-295-0950. 859 Peninsula Blvd, Woodmere.

Mets Vs Yankees: Join the Great Neck Synagogue Men’s Club at Citi Field. 7:10 pm. $65 members, $80 non-members. 516-487-6100.

Kulanu opens ‘Front Door’

By Zachary Schechter Kulanu will hold an information session for the new Front Door Program of the state Office for People with Developmental Disabilities this Thursday, Aug. 10.

For nearly two decades, Cedarhurstbased Kulanu has provided dozens of programs that assist children with special needs and their families.

Robert Johnson, the state office’s Local Schools Transition Coordinator, will discuss Front Door, a community integration program. Like Kulanu, the state office is committed to supporting those with developmental disabilities in personalized and community-based ways.

Front Door operates on a philosophy of self-determination and the belief that people with developmental disabilities should be able to fully participate in their communities and enjoy meaningful relationships with the people in their lives.

“Ultimately, opening the Front Door should mean that people with developmental disabilities will have the opportunity to pursue their dreams and live the lives of their choosing,” Johnson said.

Parents or caretakers who come to Thursday’s event will have the opportunity to meet with Front Door staff and participate in a question and answer session with professionals in the caretaking field. The information session will also count as a mandatory Front Door training program that participants in the program must take before receiving benefits. Attendees will receive a certificate of attendance.

The program runs from 6:30 to 8:30 pm at the Kulanu Center for Special Services, 620 Central Ave., Cedarhurst.

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