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Parsha Re’eh • Shabbos Mevarchim • Aug. 18, 2017 • 26 Av, 5777 • Five Towns candles 7:30 pm, Havdalah 8:38 • Torah columns pages 20–21 • Vol 16, No 30

Awesome power of bad words

By Joyce Newmark, for JTA For nearly 50 years, my father had a best friend named Al. They grew up in the same neighborhood in Brooklyn, and after returning from the service in World War II, they each married and moved to the same Long Island town and opened related businesses.

They were closer than brothers. In fact, when my brother and I were growing up, our parents’ wills named Al and his wife, rather than GETTING READY any relatives, as the people who would become our guardians should that become necessary. Even after my parents moved to Nevada, the two couples remained close, speaking on the phone every week or so and visiting back and forth every couple of years.

Almost 40 years ago, Al’s daughter was getting married and my parents were planning to travel to New York for the wedding.

One day, the two couples were on the phone talking about the wedding. My mother had recently undergone foot surgery and was walking around in ugly post-surgery shoes.

“I may have to wear blue jeans and sneakers, but we’ll be there,” she told Al’s wife.

The response: “But the wedding is formal!”

My mother was hurt. She thought the only proper response to her statement was, “We don’t care what you’re wearing, we just want you to be there.”

Al’s wife was hurt, too. She felt that my mother had to know how stressed she was trying to plan the perfect wedding and See Bad words on page 6

The Newspaper of our Orthodox communities

Major Orthodox groups denounce racist violence

Ed Weintrob / The Jewish Star

High Holy Days

Homeward bound

The Goldfeders of Kew Gardens Hills went home to Israel on Monday.

Chanoch and Chani and their children, Reut (left) and Elana, were among 233 olim on Nefesh B’Nefesh’s second summer charter. Among those onboard: 70 young people joining the IDF, and Talia Friedman, 23-year-old daughter of the U.S. ambassador to Israel. Story, page 5.

By The Jewish Star The Orthodox Union and Agudath Israel were among a full spectrum of Jewish organizations and leaders — stretching from left to right — who spoke out firmly in opposition to the racist alt-right protest on Shabbos in Charlottesville, Virginia.

Israeli leaders also piled on.

“Displays of hate, bigotry and racism by those who proudly associate themselves with white supremacy and Nazism are antithetical to the fundamental American values that have made this nation a home to people of diverse racial, ethnic and religious backgrounds,” said OU President Mark (Moishe) Bane.

Rabbi David Zwiebel, executive vice-president of Agudath Israel of America, said “the Charlottesville carnage is a painful reminder that racial hatred is, unfortunately, alive and well in our great country. All of us must do what we can as individuals to fight and marginalize haters.”

Among the chants by demonstrators, who targeted Jews, blacks, immigrants, gay people and others, was “Jews will not replace us.”

Radio host and conspiracy theorist Alex Jones blamed Jews for the trouble in Charlottesville.

“I mean, quite frankly, I’ve been to these events,” Jones said on his Aug. 13 program. “A lot of the KKK

guys with their hats off look like they’re from the cast of ‘Seinfeld.’

Literally they’re just Jewish actors.”

President-elect Trump appeared on “The Alex Jones Show” in Demember, where he told Jones that “your reputation is amazing” and promised he would “not let you down.”

Naftali Bennet, Israel’s minister of diaspora affairs who is head of the right-wing Jewish Home party, condemned the rally and called on U.S. leaders to denounce the antiSemitism connected to it.

“The unhindered waving of Nazi flags and symbols in the U.S. is not only offensive towards the Jewish community and other minorities, it also disrespects the millions of American soldiers who sacrificed their lives in order to protect the U.S. and the entire world from the Nazis.”

Jewish Agency for Israel Chairman Natan Sharansky said “there is no place for such hate speech or violence in any democratic society.”

“We must remain vigilant about educating the public regarding hatred and xenophobia,” the Yad Vashem World Holocaust Memorial Center said in a statement. “In our post-Holocaust global society, there is no room for racism or anti-Semitism.”

“Everyone should oppose this hatred,” tweeted Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Million $ will buy a new home in West Hemp which stood there for nearly 80 years, was demolished three years ago.

Sharona Beck, a West Hempstead real-estate broker who is marketing the properties, said the new homes are within easy walking distance of five of West Hempstead’s shuls and there is a mikvah across the street.

Beck said local residents appear pleased

by the news, reported last week in the Malverne-West Hempstead Herald.

The property was acquired in 2014 by Philips International, a development company, and Paramount Construction, for $1.4 million.

“West Hempstead is this great, down to earth, warm community. There are people

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By Zachary Schechter, Rossana Weitekamp Construction of million-dollar luxury colonial-style homes has begun in West Hempstead.

Eight homes, with prices starting at $925,000, will rise on an acre-and-a-half property at 764 Hempstead Ave., land that has been vacant since the Gaeta house,

who have millions and people who don’t have a penny and nobody cares and everyone gets along,” Beck said.

The real-estate market in West Hempstead has been steadily growing for the past 35 years, she said.

“It used to be a secret, but now that secret See West Hempstead on page 15

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August 18, 2017 • 26 Av, 5777 THE JEWISH STAR

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‫ישיבת לב‬

HALB

By Cnaan Liphshiz, JTA Nostalgia for Jews is a well-documented phenomenon in Eastern Europe, with cultural and even substantial commercial aspects.

In Ukraine, so-called Jewish-themed restaurants compete for tourists, while figurines of Jews are sold at markets as good luck charms. In Poland, graffiti reading “I miss you, Jew” have become a common sight.

Beyond the kitsch, Jewish cultural festivals draw large non-Jewish audiences in Krakow, Warsaw and Budapest.

Some credit this trend to a feeling of loss over the near annihilation of once-vibrant Jewish communities. Others trace it a desire to reconnect with the pre-Soviet past.

But even against this backdrop, the fake Jewish wedding that was held Saturday in the village of Radzanów, 80 miles northeast of Warsaw, stands out as a remarkable affair.

Make-believe Jewish weddings — a regular educational event in Spain and Portugal, where nostalgia for nearly-extinct Jewish communities is also prevalent — are rare in Poland (the Krakow Jewish Community Centre organized one in 2013). Even rarer are enactments as well-produced as the one in Radzanow.

Organized by the Radzanovia Association, a cultural group promoting Polish heritage, the event featured a few dozen non-Jewish volunteers, men and women, dressed in traditional haredi costumes. Some men wore fake beards and side curls — including ones that didn’t match their natural hair color.

Portraying the groom was Piotr Czaplicki, a journalist for the Radia dla Ciebie station.

Czaplicki, who is not Jewish, got under a chuppah together with his make-believe bride, Julia Brzezinska, a local resident. They were

00

“wed” by a fake rabbi in a show before villagers, whom the event’s organizers sought to teach about Jewish traditions.

To Jonny Daniels, the London-born founder of From the Depths, which promotes Holocaust commemoration in Poland, events like the one in Radzanów are “some kind of therapy taking place all over the country.”

But the event’s producer, Agnieszka Rychcik-Nowakowska, sees it as a way of commemorating the hundreds of Jews who had accounted for approximately half of her village’s population before the Holocaust.

“We want to remember all those homes of all pre-war Jews, who lived a peaceful life punctuated by the rhythm of holidays, family celebrations and more mundane events,” she told the news site Nasza Mlawa.

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Jews first settled in Radzanów in 1710, and at their peak numbered about 500. By September 1939, when the Germans took over, the population had dipped below 300.

Nearly all who remained would be sent to the Mlawa ghetto, never to return.

“We remember those who lived here before us and entered the memory of our grandmothers and grandparents. It was so recently,” said Rychcik-Nowakowska.

Elsewhere in Europe, Jewish-themed festivals are more common, bringing together hundreds of participants. There too, Jewishthemed events, promoted by nostalgia and a desire to generate tourism revenue, are held in the absence of a living, breathing Jewish community.

In Spain and Portugal, where hundreds

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Villagers attend a fake Jewish wedding in the Polish village of Radzanow on Aug 5.

of thousands of Jews were oppressed 500 years ago during the Inquisition, the passage of time has made goodwill gestures toward Jews less complicated than in the east. In 2013, Spain and Portugal even passed laws granting citizenship to descendants of Sephardic Jews — a move whose generosity contrasts sharply with the refusal by Poland and other East European countries to offer even partial restitution for property that was stolen from Jewish communities.

At the fake wedding in Radzanów, organizers turned to Teresa Wronska, an actress from the Jewish Theater in Warsaw, to assure the wedding’s authenticity. She choreographed the entire affair — from the signing of the ketubah to the traditional Jewish music played by a band of locals and musicians from the capital.

Even the POLIN Jewish museum of Warsaw was consulted in staging the event, according to Nasza Mlawa.

The wedding is not the only attempt by Radzanów locals to reconnect with their village’s lost Jewish heritage. Last year, a high school student from the region, Cuba Balinski, initiated a project aimed at rededicating and reopening the village’s abandoned synagogue — a small but beautiful Moorish-style building that miraculously survived the Nazi occupation.

Balinski, who has secured the cooperation of the Foundation for the Preservation of Jewish Heritage in Poland for his project but is still looking for investors, is adamant about restoring the synagogue to a house of worship rather than having it turn into museum.

“If there is no Torah in the synagogue, than it is still just a building,” he told the news site Gosc Plocki. “But if we bring the holy book back, it will come back to life.”

THE JEWISH STAR August 18, 2017 • 26 Av, 5777

Poles hold a Jewish wedding without any Jews

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Authentic NY bagels have arrived in Kansas City

By Victor Wishna, JTA KANSAS CITY — Bronx-born, Queens-bred attorney Victor Bergman has lived in the Kansas City area for more than four decades — and in all that time, he hadn’t found a true New York-style bagel. “Boiled first, glossy crust, soft interior — I really missed it a lot,” he said.

But here, in a suburban strip mall that shares its parking lot with a Walmart, Bergman’s 40 years in the desert may be over: “They’ve done it,” he said, awaiting a fresh-baked dozen.

“These are the bagels I grew up with.”

Authentic New York bagels in Kansas — sounds crazy, no? Actually, it’s meshuggah — Yiddish for “crazy” — as in Meshuggah Bagels, Kansas City’s bagel-and-schmear joint that has been on a holey roll since owners Pete and Janna Linde first set up shop last year.

Meshuggah is the only standalone kosher eatery in Kansas City — a boon for the modest population of observant Jews. It has also become very popular among the city’s growing foodie crowd: The bagel bakery will boast three area locations by the fall.

Surveying the line of customers that stretched to the door on a recent Wednesday morning, Pete told JTA that they never expected to start a bagel boom. As a New Jersey native, he just wanted a taste of home. Meanwhile, Janna, a lifelong Kansas Citian, had always thought a bagel was just bread with a hole in it — until that day in Central Park a few years ago, when the couple shared an everything bagel with whitefish salad they had purchased on the Upper West Side.

A sample of the offerings at Meshuggah Bagels in Kansas City.

Victor Wishna

“I bit into it, and I realized I had never had a bagel — not a real one,” Janna recalled. “I looked at Pete, and I said, ‘Wow, that is just crazy good.’ So even then, we had our name.”

For years, the couple joked about opening a bagel bakery, said Pete, whose mechanical engineering career brought him to the area 20 years ago. “It was seemingly ridiculous that Kansas City didn’t have a real bagel anywhere,” he said.

Then there was that time in 2015, as the Royals faced the Mets in the World Series, when Kansas City Symphony music director (and native New Yorker) Michael Stern anted up his town’s best barbecue for the prospect of the “finest bagels” in a wager with the New York Philharmonic.

The Royals would deliver on that bet. And at the same time, the Lindes made a gamble of their own.

Pete was three years short of retirement from his job at Ford, and Janna, recovering from a knee injury, was on leave from her job as a district sales manager for Del Monte foods.

One evening, she looked up from the couch and said, “We should just do the bagel thing now.”

The goal was a modest wholesale business, something Janna could orchestrate through her grocery contacts, while Pete baked in the mornings and evenings. He pulled together a few publicly available recipes and, using their biggest spaghetti pot, boiled and then baked six bagels at a time. “The first few batches were disastrous,” he said.

Janna spent long hours networking with equipment suppliers and researching how to build a bagel bakery from scratch. Pete kept tinkering in the kitchen. After 73 different recipes, “One night, I took it out of the oven, and it was just great,” he said. “We realized we had it.”

By then, the couple had invested thousands of dollars in industrial equipment, but their timing was off. It was November, “about the worst time you can approach a grocery store,” Pete said. “They’re locked and loaded for the holiday season, and nobody wanted to talk to us.”

Then the Lindes learned about Bagel Bash, an annual affair for young adults that the Jewish Federation of Greater Kansas City hosts on Christmas Eve. Bagels were not the party’s focus — but they were about to be.

The couple invited the event’s organizers for a tour and taste. “I was like, ‘This is amazing’,” said Alyssa Dinberg, then a Federation program manager. “I remember telling them,

‘if you get your shop kosher, I guarantee this is going to blow up.’”

Among Kansas City’s approximately 20,000 Jews, a relatively small core keeps strictly kosher, but it’s a growing presence, according to Rabbi Mendel Segal, who was, until recently, the director of the Vaad HaKashruth of Kansas City. “To have a real, kosher bagel in town is something that people have been talking about for a long time,” he said.

With only days to go until Bagel Bash, Segal canceled a trip to help get the bakery kashered in time. The Lindes donated 30 dozen for the party, their first exposure to the public.

Word spread, fans flooded the Meshuggah Facebook page, others kept calling to see where they could buy the bagels.

“Once again, Janna looked at me and said, ‘We need to go retail’,” Pete said.

They found an 800-square-foot space in midtown Kansas City, Missouri. Alongside their bagels — plain, poppy, sesame, salt, onion, everything, but never blueberry — the menu features a selection of homemade schmears and a range of smoked fish flown in fresh from Brooklyn, as well as coffee from a local roaster.

When opening day arrived in March 2016, there was a line halfway around the block. The Kansas City Star sent a reporter to cover it. By the end of the first week, they had exceeded anticipated demand by 300 percent.

“After the second weekend was just as crazy as the first, we realized we had drastically underestimated how much Kansas City really wanted this,” said Pete.

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Ambassador Freedman’s daughter also on flight

By Adam Abrams, JNS.org Dozens of future IDF soldiers from North America immigrated to Israel this week, arriving on an El Al Airlines flight chartered by the Nefesh B’Nefesh agency, hoping to do their part in supporting the Jewish state by joining the Israeli military.

The aliyah flight touched down at Israel’s Ben Gurion Airport shortly after sunrise Tuesday. The new immigrants were greeted with a special ceremony attended by Israeli government officials as well as representatives from The Jewish Agency for Israel, JNF-USA, Keren Kayemeth LeIsrael and the Tzofim Garin Tzabar lone soldiers program, among others.

Among the 233 new immigrants aboard this week’s flight, 70 — more than half of them women — will join the IDF after receiving their Israeli citizenship. The future IDF members will be known as “lone soldiers,” the term used for those serving in the Israeli army without family members living in Israel.

Also among the new immigrants is Talia Friedman, the 23-year-old daughter of U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman. She is a nurse and one of many medical professionals making aliyah.

One-thousand lone soldiers from the U.S. and 3,000 from around the world currently serve in the IDF. “These brave young men and women who chose to leave the comfort of their homes, and join the thousands of soldiers already serving in the army, are a tremendous source of pride for us and for the people of Israel,” said Nefesh

Future IDF soldiers at JFK airport on Monday, before departing for Israel on a Nefesh B’Nefesh aliyah Shahar Azran fight.

B’Nefesh co-founder and Executive Director Rabbi Yehoshua Fass.

Sophie Stillman of Hopkins, Minn., was one of the 36 female future soldiers aboard the aliyah flight. She said the process that led her to seek to join the IDF began two years ago, when she visited Israel it “started to feel like home.” Friends in the IDF told her the Jewish state is “a home to me and all other Jews.”

“I realized that if they felt it was my home, and I felt it was my home, then shouldn’t it be my duty to protect it too?” she recalled, adding, “Why was it only their responsibility?”

The final catalyst for joining the IDF, Stillman said, occurred after she returned to Israel in January 2016 to study for a semester abroad in Jerusalem. Soon after Stillman began her studies, Israeli Border Police officer Hadar Co-

hen, 19, was killed in a Palestinian terror attack at the Damascus Gate in Jerusalem’s Old City.

“When I learned of the news that afternoon, the first emotion I felt was guilt. Israel is my home, but I’m sitting safe in Israel getting to travel the country, going to the beach, living a great life, while people my age, like Hadar Cohen, are protecting me and everyone else. … I decided to take this guilt and turn it into something productive.”

Another future lone soldier aboard this week’s flight, 18-year-old Sarah Griffith of New Rochelle, said defending Israel is important since it is “the only country in the world” where “Jews will always be welcome.”

“Zionism,” said Griffith, “means supporting Israel and the right for a Jewish state in Israel to exist.”

Far Rock man arrested over YIW intrusion

By Jeff Bessen, Herald Community News A Far Rockaway man who allegedly identified himself as a police officer and attempted to enter the Young Israel of Woodmere during Shabbos services, was arrested in Cedarhurst, according to police.

At 11:05 am on Saturday, a YIW security guard saw a man park in a restricted area and try to get into the synagogue.

The security guard approached the man and saw that he was wearing a blue baseball cap with the letters NYPD on the front and the word Police on the side, and had handcuffs and a mace case on his belt, and identified himself as a “cop,” police said.

The man showed the guard what appeared to be a NYPD detective shield. When the guard asked for police identification, the man went back to his vehicle and left.

On Aug. 13, police arrested a 29-year-old suspect in Cedarhurst. He is being charged with criminal impersonation second-degree.

YIW distributed a statement to its members after the incident which said: “We want to inform you of a situation that took place this past Shabbos. A person came to our shul building impersonating a police officer. Our YIW CSS security team, who are trained to be on the alert at all times, questioned this individual and the Police Dept. was contacted. …

“As always, safety and security are our priorities. We want to assure you that we take all precautions possible in safeguarding our shul and members.”

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THE JEWISH STAR August 18, 2017 • 26 Av, 5777

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this man had something nasty to say about it — often, and to whomever would listen.

One year, as the High Holidays approached, the man realized that his nasty gossip was a terrible sin, so he went to the rabbi’s office to ask for forgiveness. The rabbi said, “Of course I’ll forgive you, but first you must do something for me. Go home, take your fattest pillow up to the roof, open it up, and shake it out.”

The man thought this was odd, but he did as he was asked. It was a windy day and the feathers from the pillow were blown in every direction. He returned to the rabbi and asked again for forgiveness.

The rabbi replied, “There’s one more thing.

First you have to pick up all the feathers.”

Like feathers turned loose, words have a life of their own. You can’t take them back and pretend they were never said because words have power.

“Taking back” only happens in children’s games.

You can’t forget, but you can forgive.

The Torah tells us that the first luhot, the tablets of the Ten Commandments that Moses shattered after the sin of the Golden Calf, were made by G-d.

The second luhot, given after Moses persuaded G-d not to destroy the Israelites, were made by Moses.

G-d said to Moses, “Carve out two stone tablets like the first ones.” The new ones would not be the same because the people’s sin could not be undone or forgotten, but G-d could forgive them.

Rabbinic tradition holds that the second tablets were given on Yom Kippur as a sign that G-d forgives and that people must forgive. Forgive doesn’t mean forget, but it is possible to gather the broken pieces and build a new relationship.

The rabbis teach that both the second set of tablets and the broken pieces of the first were placed together in the Holy Ark. Why? To teach us that just as the second tablets could be broken as easily as the first, relationships are fragile, so we must guard our tongues. Moreover, even if a break occurs, the relationship can be repaired. It won’t be exactly the same, but a break should not be permitted to last forever.

And most important, the time to do something about broken relationships is now and not next year or someday. Nothing is more precious than love and friendship. Because words have power, not only to hurt but to heal.

Continued from page 1 shouldn’t have teased her.

Neither would apologize.

The phone calls became less frequent and my parents began saying that traveling to New York would be expensive and uncomfortable — and in early September it would be hot and humid. They decided not to attend the wedding.

Nine months later Al was dead of lung cancer and my father finally flew to New York to be a pallbearer at the funeral.

Like many men of his generation, my father wasn’t one to talk about his feelings, but from the day Al died he insisted that when you were invited to a simcha you must go, no matter the circumstances.

Still, it was too late to repair what had been broken.

All this hurt resulted because no one involved could take back a few unthinking words spoken in haste.

The power of words has a very real, almost physical presence on Yom Kippur. Look at the list of “al chets,” or confessions, that we recite again and again on this day. We confess our sins of using foul language, speaking falsehoods, idle chatter, slander, disrespecting our parents and teachers, and spreading gossip. On and on; perhaps half the sins we confess are sins of speech.

Why? Because, despite our communal confessions on Yom Kippur, most of us are not thieves or doers of violence. We are not evil people, but sins of words are easy to commit. We do it every day.

That’s why at the end of every Amidah we recite the prayer, “My G-d, keep my tongue from evil and my lips from speaking deceitfully,” rather than praying “G-d, help me not to steal, help me not to murder.”

The truth is, you can never take back words, you can’t go back to the time before the words were spoken.

There’s a story about a man in a small village in Eastern Europe who didn’t like the rabbi. No one knew why he didn’t like the rabbi; perhaps even he didn’t know. But there was no doubt that he didn’t like the rabbi. So, no matter what the rabbi did,

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How Curious George’s creators escaped Nazis

Margret and H. A. Rey in Hamburg, Germany, May, 1973.

Ullstein bild via Getty Images

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H.A. Rey died in 1977, and Margaret Rey died in 1996.

Yamazaki, who grew up partially in the U.S. and partially in Japan, said she was inspired by the Reys’ story of immigrant success.

“With a deepening refugee crisis and inflamed anti-immigrant rhetoric across the globe, the Reys’ story has become unexpectedly more relevant in the two years I have been making the documentary,” she wrote last year.

“The Reys’ refugee story has a happy ending, and represents the American dream at its best.”

THE JEWISH STAR August 18, 2017 • 26 Av, 5777

By Gabe Friedman, JTA Curious George — that curious little monkey — is beloved by millions of readers around the world. His adventures with the Man With the Yellow Hat impart important life lessons amidst silliness and mayhem.

But many people probably don’t know that the children’s book character was actually born during very dark times. His two Jewish creators, Margret and H.A. Rey, fled the Nazis in 1940 — on homemade bicycles, no less — carrying their unpublished manuscripts with them.

The story of the couple’s daring escape is told in a new documentary, “Monkey Business: The Story of Curious George’s Creators,” which premiered online and on on-demand platforms on Aug. 15. At the same time, in a coincidence of timing, the 2005 children’s book, “The Journey That Saved Curious George,” will be mailed to 8- to 11-year-olds across the country this month through the PJ Library, a non-profit organization that champions Jewish-themed children’s books.

No matter what the format, the story of Curious George’s creators is a fascinating one.

Hans Augusto Rey (née Reyersbach) and Margret Waldstein first met in Hamburg in the 1920s. Margret, who had studied art at the influential Bauhaus school and whose father was a member of the German parliament, left Germany for Brazil in 1935 to escape the rising tide of anti-Semitism. Hans had been working in Rio de Janeiro as a bathtub salesman. The pair, who had met over a decade before in Germany, married that year and moved to Paris.

Hans worked as a cartoon illustrator for a newspaper, and Margret wrote copy. A French publisher was impressed with some of Hans’ animal drawings and suggested they work on a children’s book. Their first work was “Raphael and the Nine Monkeys,” and one of those monkeys would later become George.

By June 1940, the situation in Paris looked grim as Hitler’s troops began to close in. Millions of people flocked to trains heading to the south of the country, and the Reys could not get a ticket.

They didn’t own a car, so they decided to flee by bike, as Louise Borden explains in “The Journey That Saved Curious George.” The only problem: They couldn’t find a bike anywhere, either.

Somehow, Hans did something that sounds like a plot point in a children’s fantasy book: He made two bikes that night using spare parts.

That incredible act likely saved their lives, as well as the future of the monkey that would become Curious George.

Before their escape, Margret rounded up all of their unpublished children’s book manuscripts, including one titled “Fifi: The Adventures of a Monkey.” The couple biked out of the city 48 hours before the Germans occupied Paris, and slept in barns and restaurants on their journey out of France.

As if in return for being saved, the curious little monkey character helped saved the Reys. As “Monkey Business” director Ema Ryan Yamazaki documents, whenever they were stopped at checkpoints during their escape, the couple brandished the manuscripts and illustrations to prove that they were not dangerous.

They eventually made their way to Lisbon, then back to Brazil, then to New York. Fifi became George, and in 1941, Houghton Mifflin published the first “Curious George” book.

Since then over 75 million “Curious George” books have been sold and the series has been translated into 19 languages. (He’s also the star of an animated PBS program for kids that premiered in 2006.)

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August 18, 2017 • 26 Av, 5777 THE JEWISH STAR

8

Guide to the far-right groups that protested in Charlottesville

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Ku Klux Klan One of the country’s oldest and most infamous hate groups, the Klan has primarily targeted black people, along with Jews, Catholics and other minorities. The KKK throughout its history has been responsible for lynchings, bombings, beatings and other racist acts of murder and abuse.

Group members have historically worn white hoods, to hide their identities and to mimic ghosts. Its leaders, including white supremacist activist David Duke, take on bizarre titles such as grand wizard and exalted cyclops.

The KKK was founded by Confederate veterans following the Civil War to harass black people, and at its height in the 1920s it had some 4 million members, according to the SPLC. An ADL report this year said the Klan has shrunk to about 3,000 total members spread across 40 groups in 33 states, mostly in the South and East.

“This represents a turning point for the people of this country. We are determined to take our country back,” Duke said in a video at the rally Saturday. “We’re going to fulfill the promises of Donald Trump. That’s what we believed in.

That’s why we voted for Donald Trump, because he said he’s going to take our country back, and that’s what we got to do.”

Identity Evropa A new group that affiliates with the alt-right, Identity Evropa seeks to promote “white American culture,” and also has posted fliers on college campuses. The group, which works with white supremacist pseudo-intellectual Richard Spencer, claims there are inherent differences among races and that white people are more intelligent than others. Identity Evropa sees itself as “identitarian,” a far-right European ideology seeking to reassert white identity.

The group supports a policy of “remigration” of immigrants out of the United States. Some of its posters bear the slogan “You will not replace us,” a chant that Charlottesville protesters paired with “Jews will not replace us.” Identity Evropa does not allow Jews as members.

League of the South If the rally’s proximate goal was to preserve the statue of Lee in Charlottesville, the most obvious participants were the League of the South, a neo-Confederate group. The organization supports southern secession from the United States and “believes that Southern culture is distinct from, and in opposition to, the corrupt mainstream American culture.”

The group envisions a Christian theocratic government that enforces strict gender norms.

It opposes immigration as well as Islam. League of the South defines the “Southern people” as being of “European descent,” calls itself “prowhite” and states that it “has neither been the will of God Almighty nor within the power of human legislation to make any two men mechanically equal.” Duke gave the keynote address at one of the organization’s gatherings this year.

According to the SPLC, the group founded a paramilitary unit in 2014.

National Socialist Movement This one is pretty self-explanatory — America’s version of the Nazi Party. It is a white supremacist organization that would either deport “non-whites” — including Jews — or strip them of citizenship and subject them to a discriminatory regime (the group’s manifesto proposes both).

The group is also anti-feminist and homophobic.

The National Socialist Movement idolizes Adolf Hitler, whom it says “loved and cared deeply for the average person.” Until about a decade ago, the group would protest in full Nazi regalia, which it has swapped out for black uniforms. Its crest features a swastika superimposed on an altered version of the Stars and Stripes.

THE JEWISH STAR August 18, 2017 • 26 Av, 5777

By Ben Sales, JTA They believe the “white race” is in danger.

They believe the United States was built by and for white people and must now embrace fascism. They believe minorities are taking over the country. And they believe an international Jewish conspiracy is behind the threat.

These are the people who were rallying in Charlottesville.

The “Unite the Right” rally Saturday saw hundreds of people on America’s racist fringe converge in defense of a statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee and brawl with counterprotesters. The rally ended after a white supremacist, James Fields, rammed his car into a crowd of counterprotesters, killing one woman and injuring at least 19. Two police officers also died when their helicopter crashed while monitoring the rally.

The rally was the largest white supremacist gathering in a decade, according to the AntiDefamation League, but it wasn’t the work of one extremist group or coalition. Spearheaded by a local far-right activist named Jason Kessler, the rally saw several racist, anti-Semitic and fascist groups, new and old, come together.

According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks hate groups, the rally included “a broad spectrum of far-right extremist groups — from immigration foes to anti-Semitic bigots, neo-Confederates, Proud Boys, Patriot and militia types, outlaw bikers, swastika-wearing neo-Nazis, white nationalists and Ku Klux Klan members.”

Many of the attendees, says the ADL’s Oren Segal, were young men who became radicalized on the internet and were not affiliated with any particular group. While some protesters belonged to the “alt-right,” a loose movement of racists, anti-Semites and nativists, others were part of older white supremacist groups like the Ku Klux Klan.

At the rally, protesters were seen carrying Nazi and Confederate flags, as well as signs with racist and anti-Semitic slogans. They chanted “Sieg heil,” gave Nazi salutes and shouted the N-word at passers-by.

“They really believe they have to save the white race, and to do that, they have to achieve some sort of white ethno-state,” Segal said.

“They tend to be young, more frenetic in terms of their use of social media, while older more traditional groups like the Klan are in decline.

Regardless of differences, it’s all the same hate.”

Here’s a guide to a few of the most prominent hate groups who showed up in Charlottesville.

Vanguard America James Fields joined this relatively new fascist white supremacist group at the rally. On the homepage of its website, Vanguard America declares that “Our people are subjugated while an endless tide of incompatible foreigners floods this nation.”

The group trumpets the concept of “blood and soil,” an idea championed by the Nazis claiming that the inherent features of a people are the land it lives on and its “blood,” or race.

In addition to opposing multiculturalism and feminism, Vanguard America’s manifesto calls for a country “free from the influence of international corporations, led by a rootless group of international Jews, which place profit beyond the interests of our people, or any people.”

According to the ADL, the group has posted dozens of fliers on campuses in at least 10 states.

Its posters bear slogans like “Beware the International Jew” and “Fascism: The next step for America.” This year, the group defaced a New Jersey Holocaust memorial with a banner reading “(((Heebs will not divide us))).” Its signs at Saturday’s rally bore the fasces, a traditional fascist symbol depicting a bundle of sticks with a protruding axe blade.

9

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August 18, 2017 • 26 Av, 5777 THE JEWISH STAR

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11 THE JEWISH STAR August 18, 2017 • 26 Av, 5777

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August 18, 2017 • 26 Av, 5777 THE JEWISH STAR

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The JEWISH STAR

Wine & Dine

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

Back to school: If I knew then what I know now Joni Schockett kosher kitchen The Jewish Star is pleased to welcome Joni Schockett to our roster of contributors. Joni has been writing about food and more for 20 years, including as a columnist for The Jewish Advocate of Boston.

When not testing and creating recipes, she teaches English and writing at Wentworth Institute of Technology in Boston. She has three grown children and one grandson who has stolen her heart.

I

t’s that time again — time to think about school lunches. Why is summer the shortest season?

I am a veteran of the lunch bag wars. I made three lunches, five days a week, for 12 years — or until my cherubs took over the task for themselves. My husband also took his lunch and so did I. That’s a lot of lunches.

So I am here to admit that knowing now what I know about childhood nutrition, I probably failed, to a moderate degree, to provide the best and most nutritious lunches for my kids. I gave in to the juice box craze, the snack packs of some things unhealthy, occasional bags of corn chips, and too many homemade desserts. I even allowed chocolate skim milk and that yogurt you squeeze from a plastic tube.

I did use organic whole grain breads and organic peanut butters, and jams only sweetened with fruit juice, and I included fruit and vegetables every day. Those often came back in their original, whole condition, which my kids then refused to take the next day.

I also included hummus. How come my kids loved hummus and veggies at home and hated it in school? It was the exact same hummus!

I focused on protein and vegetables and whole grains. So what was wrong? probably gave them too much and too many choices and foods that contained far too much “hidden” sugar. Their yogurt often contained at least 22 grams of sugar.

Juice boxes contained tons of fructose, fruit sugar. And jams — even those sweetened with fruit juice — contained far more sugar than I would ever want them to have.

With all that sugar, I am sure teachers noticed a burst of energy after lunch and then a drop around mid-afternoon. I often wonder if tense moods after school were more a result of hidden sugar in their lunches than they were of true exhaustion.

I

Back then, we thought fat was the enemy; now we know that sugar, hidden sugar and much of it in the form of high fructose corn syrup, is far more detrimental to our health than are certain, heart-healthy fats.

Happily, children’s nutrition — and their lunches — look very different now. We know so much more about nutrition for children than we did decades ago, and new moms are far more aware of nutrition than we were.

First Lady Michelle Obama did her best to change school lunches and there is some evidence that her initiative has had a positive effect.

All this may sound daunting, especially when it is so easy to pick up those pre-packed lunch box foods and toss them into lunchboxes at 6:30 in the morning.

However, if you are taking lunches or making lunches, if you plan ahead, just a little, avoid processed foods, train your palate to enjoy foods that are clean and natural and skip those 10 am donuts, you will feel a lot better and your kids will be healthier.

Involve your kids in this process with some nutrition education, some summer recipe tasting, and some honest discussion about why Oreos and potato chips will not help them stay focused or help them stay healthy. Then tell yourself that you really don’t need that 10 am office donut!

Sweet and Sour Lentils (Pareve)

This is a delicious side dish for kids (and it’s great atop a salad or rice for adults). Add some walnuts or almonds to your greens for added nutrients.

1/4 cup tamari sauce 2 bay leaves 1 small onion grated 1 tbsp onion powder 1/2 cup Canola oil 1/2 (scant) cup red wine or garlic wine vinegar 3/4 cup honey 1/2 tsp powdered ginger

1 tsp grated fresh ginger 1/2 tsp allspice 4 cups water 3 cups lentils, rinsed Rinse the lentils and set aside. Place the rest of the ingredients in a 4 quart pot. Mix well. Add the lentils. Bring to a boil and then cover. Reduce heat to simmer and simmer for 1-1/2 hours. Stir once or twice. Turn off the heat and let stand for about 20 minutes.

Remove bay leaves before serving. Delicious, hot, warm or cold. Serves 8-10.

Tabbouleh with Nuts and Fruits (Pareve)

No Bake GF Treats (Pareve)

2 cups old-fashioned oats 1/4 cup ground flaxseed 1 tsp cinnamon 1/2 cup nut butter of your choice, or nutfree sunbutter 1/4 cup honey 1 tbsp pure maple syrup 1 tsp pure vanilla extract 1 cup lightly packed grated apple, Fuji or other firm, sweet apple Optional: Add some unsweetened, flaked coconut and snipped apricots (to equal 1 cup) and leave out the apple and cinnamon.

Add some grated carrots to the apple to make 1 cup.

Add chopped walnuts and raisins to make 1/2 cup.

Place the oats, flaxseed and cinnamon in a bowl and whisk to blend. Place the nut butter, honey, maple syrup and vanilla and mix well.

Add the apple and mix to blend. Pour the liquid over the dry ingredients and mix with a fork or your hands. Roll into balls and place on a plate.

Refrigerate to chill. Makes 18-24 treats.

Cream Cheese or Peanut Butter Banana Wheels (Dairy) This is delicious warm or cold. Send it for lunch to use atop a salad or beside some sliced chicken or turkey or cold salmon.

1 cup bulgur wheat 1/2 cup dried cranberries 1/2 cup dried chopped apricots 1/4 cup chopped toasted walnuts 1/4 cup toasted slivered almonds 1 cup boiling water 1/4 cup slivered red onion 1 tbsp walnut oil 1/4 cup fresh orange or lemon juice (orange was the kids’ preference) or a mix of the two salt and pepper to taste Optional: add some diced apples, feta cheese or shredded cheddar, raisins, or other favorite fruits.

Snip the apricots into small pieces and set aside. Place the cranberries and apricots in a medium sized, deep bowl. Add the bulgur wheat and the boiling water. Stir and let stand for about 30 minutes or until all the water is absorbed. You may need to add a bit more water, if the water is absorbed too fast.

The wheat should be chewy, not hard.

Add the juice(s) and let stand for another 15 minutes. Add the toasted nuts and toss gently. Serve warm or chilled. Serves 6-8, more for lunches.

(Use cream cheese for a nut-free class.)

1 whole wheat or corn tortilla 1 long banana 1/4 cup whipped cream cheese, more as needed OR 1/4 cup peanut or other nut or non-nut butter 1/2 tsp cinnamon Spread the tortilla with the cream cheese or the nut butter. Place the banana in the middle and sprinkle the banana with the cinnamon. Roll up the tortilla with the banana in the middle and, using a sharp knife, cut wheels about 1 inch wide. Place them cut side down on a piece of plastic wrap and wrap gently. Makes about 4-7 pieces.

Sweet dessert hummus: when you want to eat healthy

By Aly Miller and Shannon Sarna The Nosher via JTA Have you ever tried dessert hummus? That’s right — a sweet hummus.

No, it’s not exactly traditional, but it is as simple as making classic hummus. Instead of savory ingredients like garlic, tahini and cumin, you add dates, maple syrup and even cocoa powder.

It’s perfect for those times you are craving something sweet but also want to eat healthy. No refined sugar, no guilt – just delicious!

Ingredients: 1 15.5-ounce can chickpeas, drained and rinsed 1/2 cup peanut butter or other nut butter

3 to 4 tablespoons maple syrup 1/4 cup plus 1 tablespoon cocoa powder 4 pitted dates 1/2 to 1 teaspoon salt 1/4 tsp cinnamon 1 to 3 tablespoons water Directions: Place all ingredients in a food processor except water. Pulse until smooth.

Add 1 tablespoon of water at a time until desired consistency.

Serve with fruit slices and pretzels if desired.

Shannon Sarna is the editor of The Nosher. Aly Miller is the editorial assistant of The Nosher.

per; refrigerate. Peel the remaining cucumbers and cut into chunks.

Working in two batches, puree the peeled cucumber, the remaining bell pepper, bread, almond milk, 6 tablespoons almonds, oil, vinegar, garlic and salt in a blender until smooth.

Transfer to a large bowl and refrigerate until chilled, at least 2 hours and up to 1 day.

To serve, garnish with the remaining 2 tablespoons almonds and the reserved vegetables. Drizzle with a little oil, if desired.

Judy Joszef who’s in the kitchen

M

y husband Jerry and I have been invited to twelve weddings this summer. As of today we have attended seven.

Seven outfits, pairs of shoes and evening bags. Hair, makeup and — oh, yes — that pair of spanx to camouflage the damage the extra calories caused at the previous weddings.

As for Jerry, we’re talking black suit, white shirt, tie, and black dress shoes, unless those dreaded words were printed on the bottom of the invitation: “Black Tie.” When I first met Jerry he explained that he doesn’t like to wear tuxedos.

OK, seriously, can we just discuss this for a minute? What is the big issue with men being uncomfortable in a tux. Especially today when men are able to wear a formal black tie instead of a bow tie with a tuxedo. The only thing left that’s really different than a black suit is the black stripe down the leg and that shiny satin lapel.

Is that really so much of a hardship for you men?

We’re not asking you to stuff yourself into under garments that leave you short of breath for the duration of the wedding, you’re not dancing in high heels, and you don’t have to put any thought into what you’re wearing. So when he asks if he has to wear a tux, the answer is yes. And at this point I think he realizes when he misplaces his bow ties it’s not going to get him out of wearing a tux. I get him another one. Truth be told, the bow tie and jacket don’t last that long. Baby steps, I tell myself; at least he’s wearing a tux.

And while we are talking about tuxedos, I’ll have you know that my granddog, Murphy, was asked to be in wedding photos for his uncle Jon’s wedding to Elle and he was such a trooper. He didn’t complain at all — he even smiled for the photos! Jerry Joszef, you can take some lessons from him. o seven weddings down and four to go.

The weddings we have attended so far took place in converted factories, warehouses, synagogues, on a pier, and in a country club.

Imagine what our grandparents would say if they heard where weddings are taking place these days. Spaces that were once seen as too cold, dark and unfinished for weddings and other simchas are now seen as creative, urban and trendsetting.

S

Watermelon Gazpacho with Feta Crema

Exposed brick walls, ceiling, structure and systems as well as open floor plans, tall ceilings and a history of industrial era factories are what draw in brides and grooms. What looks like a bare warehouse or factory can be creatively staged and unique.

Each wedding we attended so far his summer was beautiful and what made it more special was that we got to celebrate with special friends and mechatanim.

Oh, and if anyone found a black on black tuxedo tie at Temple Israel of Great Neck, it’s Jerry’s.

Being that we are eating so much at these weddings, sheva brachot and aufrufs each weekend, I try prepare light meals during the week. Searching for some new recipes, I found these three great cold soups that were different and delicious.

Cucumber-Almond Gazpacho

Source: Breana Lai, EatingWell 2 English cucumbers, divided 2 cups chopped yellow bell pepper, divided 2 cups 1-inch pieces crustless country-style whole-wheat bread 1-1/2 cups unsweetened almond milk 1/2 cup toasted slivered almonds, divided 5 teaspoons extra-virgin olive oil, plus more for garnish 2 teaspoons white-wine vinegar 1 clove garlic 1/2 teaspoon salt Dice enough unpeeled cucumber to equal 1/2 cup and combine with 1/2 cup bell pep-

Source: Bon Appetit A super-juicy watermelon is key — it should feel heavy for its size and sound hollow when tapped.

1 pound seedless watermelon, rind removed, coarsely chopped (about 3 cups) 1 large beefsteak tomato, coarsely chopped 1 English hothouse cucumber, peeled, coarsely chopped 1 jalapeño, seeds removed, sliced 2 tablespoons olive oil 2 red wine vinegar Kosher salt, freshly ground pepper Crema and assembly 1/4 cup almonds 2 ounces feta, preferably crumbled (about ½ cup) 1/4 cup sour cream 3 tablespoons whole milk 3/4 pound seedless watermelon, rind removed, cut into 1/2 inch pieces (about 2 cups) 1/2 English hothouse cucumber, peeled, cut into 1/2 inch pieces Olive oil (for serving) Flaky sea salt Freshly ground black pepper Preparation Gazpacho Purée watermelon, tomato, cucumber, jalapeño, oil, and vinegar in a blender until smooth. Transfer gazpacho to a large bowl; season with kosher salt and pepper. Cover and chill at least 1 hour before serving.

Do ahead: Gazpacho can be made 1 day ahead. Keep chilled.

Crema and assembly Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Toast almonds on a rimmed baking sheet, tossing occasionally, until golden brown, about 8 to 10 minutes. (Alternatively, you can do this step in a dry small skillet over medium heat.) Let almonds cool, then coarsely chop.

Mash feta into sour cream in a small bowl until mostly smooth, then whisk in milk.

Divide watermelon and cucumber among

Curried squash soup.

Cucumber-almond gazpacho.

bowls and pour gazpacho over. Top with crema and almonds, drizzle with oil, and season with sea salt and pepper. Crema can be made 1 day ahead. Cover and chill.

Curried Squash Soup

Source: Allie Lewis Clapp, Bon Appetit Ingredients 4 servings 2 large summer squash, chopped 1 small onion, chopped 1 tsp curry powder Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper 4 cups low-sodium chicken broth 3 tablespoons vegetable oil Sour cream, freshly cracked black pepper, cilantro sprigs (for serving) Preparation Heat oil over medium-high heat. Add squash, onion, and curry powder; season with salt and pepper. Cook until tender, 8 to 10 minutes. Add broth. Bring to a boil, reduce heat, and simmer until very tender, 25 to 30 minutes. Purée until smooth. Serve soup warm or chilled, topped with sour cream, cracked pepper, and cilantro sprigs.

Unexpected summer treat: corn and zucchini latkes

By Shannon Sarna, The Nosher Who says latkes are just for Canukkah? Well, it’s not me. And summer is a great time try using seasonal produce to make some crispy, delicious latkes.

I recently fried up some fresh corn and zucchini latkes, served with herb sour cream (or yogurt) and thinly sliced radishes. The texture of the fresh corn with zucchini and potato was so delicious. If you’re looking for other ideas for non-potato latkes try broccoli stem latkes or even these healthful spaghetti squash and quinoa fritters from Julia’s Album, which after all, is just another name for latke.

These corn and zucchini latkes are great for a light dinner, or paired perfectly with some poached eggs for brunch. Ready to cook?

Ingredients: 1 russet potato 1 medium-large zucchini 2 ears of corn, kernals removed (corn will be raw) 2 large eggs 3-4 Tbsp whole wheat flour (can also use unbleached AP flour or matzah meal) 1/2 tsp salt, divided 1/4 tsp pepper 1 cup Greek yogurt or sour cream 1-2 Tbsp chopped fresh herbs, such as cilantro, dill, mint, basil and/ or parsley 1 tsp fresh lemon zest 1/8 tsp salt Directions: Cut ends of zucchini and coarsely grate. Place in a large bowl with 1/4 tsp salt. Allow to sit for 20 minutes.

After 20 minutes, place shredded zucchini in a kitchen towel and wring out excess water.

Place shredded potato, zucchini, corn kernels, eggs, flour and 1/4 tsp salt in a large bowl.

Mix until combined.

Heat 2-3 Tbsp vegetable oil in a large saute pan over medium high heat.

Form mixture into patties, size should be approximately 1/3 cup.

Cook latkes until golden and crispy on first side, around 3-4 minutes. Flip and cook for another 2-3 minutes.

Place onto a wire baking rack and add a pinch of salt immediately.

To make the herb sour cream

(or yogurt): combine sour cream, chopped herbs, lemon zest and 1/8 tsp salt. Combine and serve with hot

latkes.

Garnish with thinly sliced radishes if desired.

THE JEWISH STAR August 18, 2017 • 26 Av, 5777

For this 12 wedding summer, light fare at home

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Health MInd & Body

Section sponsored by Alina Bergan DDS 650 Central Ave (Suite F) in Cedarhurst • 516-203-4556 • AlinaBerganDDS.com

How Jews nearly wiped out Tay-Sachs disease

By Ira Stoll, for JScreen via JTA Parents of children born with Tay-Sachs disease talk about “three deaths.”

There is the moment when parents first learn that their child has been diagnosed with the fatal disease. Then there is the moment when the child’s condition has deteriorated so badly — blind, paralyzed, non-responsive — that he or she has to be hospitalized. Then there’s the moment, usually by age 5, when the child finally dies.

There used to be an entire hospital unit — 16 or 17 beds at Kingsbook Jewish Medical Center in Brooklyn — devoted to taking care of these children. It was often full, with a waiting list that admitted new patients only when someone else’s child had died.

But by the late 1990s that unit was totally empty, and it eventually shut down. Its closure was a visible symbol of one of the most dramatic Jewish success stories of the past 50 years: the neareradication of a deadly genetic disease.

Since the 1970s, the incidence of Tay-Sachs has fallen by more than 90 percent among Jews, thanks to a combination of scientific advances and volunteer community activism that brought screening for the disease into synagogues, Jewish community centers and, eventually, routine medical care.

Until 1969, when doctors discovered the enzyme that made testing possible to determine whether parents were carriers of Tay-Sachs, 50 to 60 affected Jewish children were born each year in the United States and Canada. After mass screenings began in 1971, the numbers declined to two to five Jewish births a year, said Karen Zeiger, whose first child died of Tay-Sachs.

“It had decreased significantly,” said Zeiger, who until her retirement in 2000 was the State of California’s Tay-Sachs prevention coordinator. Between 1976 and 1989, there wasn’t a single Jewish Tay-Sachs birth in the entire state, she said.

The first mass screening was held on a rainy Sunday afternoon

in May 1971 at Congregation Beth El in Bethesda, Maryland. The site was chosen in part for its proximity to Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. One of the two doctors who discovered the missing hexosaminidase A enzyme, John O’Brien, was visiting a lab there, and another Johns Hopkins doctor, Michael Kaback, had recently treated two Jewish couples with Tay-Sachs children, including Zeiger’s. Zeiger’s husband, Bob, was also a doctor at Johns Hopkins.

The screenings used blood tests to check for the missing enzyme that identified a parent as a Tay-Sachs carrier.

“With the help of 40 trained lay volunteers and 15 physicians, more than 1,500 people volunteered for testing and were pro-

L O R E O M H C M S U S BACK-TO SPECIAL!

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Widespread testing is credited with helping reduce the incidence of Tay-Sachs among Jews by more than 90 percent since screenings National Tay-Sachs and Allied Diseases Association began in the early 1970s.

cessed through the ‘system’ in about 5 hours,” Dr. Kaback later recalled in an article in the journal Genetics in Medicine. “For me, it was like having written a symphony and hearing it for the first time—and it went beautifully, without glitches.”

A machine to process the tests cost $15,000. “We had bazaars, cake sales, sold stockings, and that’s how we raised money for the machine,” Zeiger said.

Before screening, couples in which both parents were TaySachs carriers “almost always stopped having children after they had one child with Tay-Sachs, for fear of having another,” Ruth Schwartz Cowan wrote it in her book “Heredity and Hope: The Case for Genetic Screening.”

But with screening, Tay-Sachs could be detected before birth, and “carrier couples felt encouraged to have children,” she wrote.

Dr. Kaback’s work helped enable thousands of parents who were Tay-Sachs carriers to have other, healthy children.

“What he did for Tay-Sachs and how he helped so many families was amazing,” Zeiger said. “People named their kids after him.”

The screenings were transformative, and the campaign to get Jews tested for Tay-Sachs took off. This was the days before Facebook or email, so activists and organizers spread the word about screenings through newspaper and magazine articles, posters at synagogues, and items in Jewish organizational newsletters. Volunteers and medical professionals spoke on college campuses and sent promotional prescription pads to rabbis, obstetricians, and gynecologists. Doctors and activists enlisted rabbis and community leaders to encourage couples to be tested before getting married.

Another early mass screening event was held at a school in Waltham, Massachusetts, guided by Edwin Kolodny, a professor at New York University medical school. The first mass screening in the Philadelphia area was on Nov. 12, 1972, at the Germantown Jewish Center, and drew 800 people, according to a Yale senior See Tay-Sachs on page 15

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the properties’ electrical lines will be buried instead of hung from poles. “That is very unusual for West Hempstead,” she said.

Beck said that Philips International and Paramount Construction initially wanted to build a 55-and-older community on the property, but were denied by the Town of Hempstead. Instead they were eventually permitted to subdivide the lot.

“It’s very hard to find a colonial in West Hempstead,” said Beck, who has worked in real-estate in West Hempstead for 29 years.

“The most popular style is a cape, and people are constantly calling me for colonials. This block will be sought after because it’s on a cul de sac.”

According to Zillow.com, the median price of a West Hempstead home is $467,800, 11 percent more than a year ago, and it is predicted to rise another 4.8 percent in the next year.

The website describes the real-estate market in West Hempstead as “hot,” and Beck agrees.

“I’m so busy, I don’t get out much,” she said.

Tay-Sachs…

Continued from page 14 thesis by David Gerber, “Genetics for the Community: The Organized Response To Tay-Sachs Disease, 1955-1995.”

Nearly half a century later, the Tay-Sachs screening effort remains a model for mobilizing a community against genetic disease. Parent activists, scientists and doctors are trying to emulate that model with other diseases and other populations.

“You can’t be complacent, because now there are 200 diseases you can test for,” said Kevin Romer, president of the Matthew Forbes Romer Foundation and a past president of the National Tay-Sachs and Allied Diseases Association. The foundation is named for Romer’s son Matthew, who died of Tay-Sachs in 1996.

Romer and others involved with this issue stress the importance of screening interfaith couples, too. Non-Jews may also benefit from preconception screening for Tay-Sachs and other diseases. Some research indicates, for example, that Louisiana Cajuns, French Canadians and individuals with Irish lineage may also have an elevated incidence of Tay-Sachs.

Scientific progress means that Jews can now be screened for over 200 diseases with an at-home, mail-in test offered by JScreen. The four-year-old nonprofit affiliated with Emory University’s Department of Human Genetics has screened thousands of people, and the subsidized fee for the test

— about $150 — includes genetic counseling.

While some genetic tests are standard doctor’s office procedure for pregnant women or couples trying to get pregnant with a doctor’s help, JScreen aims for pre-conception screening.

The test includes diseases common in those with Ashkenazi, Sephardi, and Mizrahi backgrounds as well as general population diseases.

“Carrier screening gives people an opportunity to plan ahead for the health of their future families. We are taking lessons learned from earlier screening initiatives and bringing the benefits of screening to a new generation,” said Karen Arnovitz Grinzaid, executive director of JScreen.

It was a path pioneered by the Tay-Sachs screening that began in 1971.

In Cowan’s book, she mentions a chart prepared by Dr. Kaback reporting on 30 years of screening: 1.3 million people screened, 48,000 carriers detected, 1,350 carrier couples detected, 3,146 pregnancies monitored.

“Kaback and his colleagues could well have stopped there,” she wrote. “But they did not.

There is one more figure, the one that matters most and that goes the furthest in explaining why Ashkenazi Jews accept carrier screening — after monitoring with pre-natal diagnosis, 2,466 ‘unaffected offspring’ were born” to parents who were both Tay-Sachs carriers.

This article was sponsored by and produced in partnership with JScreen.

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Two of the homes are in the negotiation stage and a third one will be soon, she said.

Each of the eight homes, whose sizes range from 2,500 to 3,600 square feet — on lots ranging from 5,600 to 9,900 square feet — will have exteriors constructed partially in stone and some of them will have front porches. All will have attached garages, kitchens, five bedrooms and full basements with nine-foot ceilings.

Many of the homes, due to the large properties they are attached to, have room for growth and expansion.

The five houses that are being built on a newly constructed cul de sac called Paramount Court should be ready for occupancy early next year, with construction on the other three beginning along Hempstead Ave soon after, Beck said.

Along with the new homes will come new infrastructure.

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School News

Send news and hi-res photos to Schools@TheJewishStar.com • Deadline Monday 10 am

Touro social work students help people understand

Rachel Levinson

Five years out of college with a bachelor’s degree in psychology from Drexel University, Rachel Levinson (pictured), was forging a career path in the world of marketing. She moved to Israel, where she rose to a management-level job at a digital marketing agency.

While she enjoyed her work in Israel, she wondered whether her true calling was psychology. So she decided to return to school with the goal of becoming a therapist. “I realized if I didn’t try, I would never know.”

Earning a Master of Social Work at Touro would her route. Little did she know that two years after starting back to school she would be on stage at Lincoln Center at graduation, having been chosen by her classmates to give their commencement speech.

Levinson, who received the Dean’s

Academic Honors with Distinction, spoke about her choice, and what she learned in her two years at Touro.

“I was drawn to social work because I wanted to learn how to help others by helping them understand themselves,” she told 1,000 graduates and their families and friends from six schools of the Division of Graduate Studies.

But Levinson learned more. She learned about social work policy and became impassioned about family leave. She was especially impressed with a four-part sequence required for her degree, “Foundations of Social Work Practice.”

At Metro Club PROS (Brooklyn Community Services), where she worked as an intern last year, she counseled severely mentally ill adults one-on-one, led group workshops

and created recovery plans.

“They taught me about strength, resilience, empathy and patience. Despite their challenges they had such a love of life and a sense of humor.

They worked hard and showed up ready to learn and participate and they really inspired me,” she said.

Levinson feels she has made the right choice in returning to her love of psychology and choosing social work as the path. She is looking forward to landing a job at an outpatient mental health clinic or agency that will allow her to do therapy under supervision and take her licensing exam to obtain her LCSW and practice as a licensed clinical social worker. She would like to open a general practice serving all types of people with a niche for couples and families.

She attributes some of her success

to her Jewish values. She grew up in a Modern Orthodox home and has maintained the traditions she grew up with, including throughout college, where she sang with a Jewish a cappella group and was part of the Hillel on campus.

“The truth is when you’re brought up with a Jewish family with Jewish values it definitely influences your desire to help people and that probably has played a role in instilling the desire to help others.”

Now that she’s had some experience providing counseling, she feels comfortable in that role.

“Now I hope I’m good at it!”

Chances are that her classmates, teachers and mentors, who supported her standing at the podium to send the Class of 2017 on their way, are right. Source: Touro College

YU, in Israel, connects college students with Torah

Summer tech at HALB For the fourth summer in a row, faculty and staff of the Hebrew Academy of Long Beach had an opportunity to enhance their educational technological skills with a variety of workshops from HALB’s Summer Educational Technology Institute.

In addition to the SMART Board Notebook Software training given by the Center for Initiatives in Jewish Education, the Institute offered such diverse courses as Google Forms and Docs, Sefaria, IPad apps, and 3D Printing among many others. The Institute was attended by HALB educators

of all subjects in every division — the Lev Chana Pre-School, HALB Elementary and Middle Schools, Stella K. Abraham High School for Girls, and Davis Renov Stahler High School for Boys — who expanded their knowledge of 21st century tools and cutting edge technology.

HALB thanks its Educational Technology team, Rabbi Aron Fleksher, Ruthi Seidenfeld, Yosef Skolnick, and Rivky Watman, together with Darren Washington and Andre Pabon, who facilitated these sessions. Source: HALB

For decades, a post-high school year of Torah study in Israel has played a crucial role in shaping young observant Jews’ future spiritual identities and connection to Judaism. But not all have the opportunity to enroll in a seminary or yeshiva before they begin their college studies.

Now in its tenth year, Yeshiva University’s July in Jerusalem Program provides an opportunity for Jewish students from any college to immerse themselves in a month of learning, traveling and giving back to the land of Israel.

“It’s a condensed yeshiva or seminary experience, capturing that bubble of spiritual growth where you don’t have to worry about grades or tests and can just focus on your connection to your Judaism,” said Shoshana Schechter, the program’s director.

“Many of our students haven’t been raised in the yeshiva system and have never had the chance to do this before. We give them the opportunity to take ownership of their relationship to Torah and provide them with the spiritual and historical context to appreciate what they’re taking in about the Land of Israel that’s all around them.”

For each morning of the four-week program, students came together to study such topics as the relationship between the Jewish nation and the Land of Israel in the Bible; the psychology behind mitzvot; Jewish philosophy; Talmud; and prayer. They spent the afternoons volunteering at organizations such as a treatment center for elderly dementia patients, soup kitchens and Hatzalah. In the evenings, they explore the Land, kayaking down the Jordan River, walking through the ruins of ancient synagogues and dancing at the Kotel on Friday night.

Many students also shared in chavruta learning.

“It wasn’t just a trip to Israel to hike a lot and see the country, but it was also a chance to connect to so much more,” said Raquel Erdos of Brooklyn, who is studying biology at Stern College for Women.

“The highlight of my experience were all the times when I got to speak outside of class with the rabbis and teachers and administrators to learn and hear advice about their own lives,” said Laura Lachman of Baranquilla, Colombia, who graduated this spring with a degree in accounting from Sy Syms School of Business.

“The faculty were incredible—they not only taught us Torah with sincere passion, but taught us how to live a sincere Jewish life by example,” said Ariella Kohansieh of Great Neck. “I learned so much about Israel and my own Judaism.”

July in Jerusalem is made possible with the generous support of Mary and Gerald a”h Swartz.

Source: Yeshiva University

Yeshiva Har Torah’s graduating class of 2013 wasn’t big by the school’s standards, but it punched above its weight in high school. From a class of 46, three students were selected valedictorian or salutatorian at three different high schools in 2017.

Ariel Blumstein was valedictorian at Rambam Mesivta in Lawrence, Rachel Canter was valedictorian at the Hebrew Academy of Nassau County in Uniondale, and Sophia Baradarian was salutatorian at Yeshiva University High School for Girls (Central) in Holliswood.

Yeshiva Har Torah does not have an affiliated high school so graduates typically go to a range of yeshiva high schools around the metropolitan area.

In addition, the school is located in Little Neck hich is centrally located but does not have a large native Orthodox population of its own.

YHT grads have left high school with honors.

From left: Rachel Canter, Ariel Blumstein, and Sophia Baradarian.

As a result, the school draws students from communities throughout Nassau County and Queens, resulting in unusual diversity for a yeshiva day school.

Ariel hails from West Hempstead, Rachel from Great Neck, and Sophia from Roslyn.

Sophia said she felt that there were “no words to express the tremendous hakarat hatov that I feel towards Yeshiva Har Torah.”

Rabbi Menchel, the principal, expressed pride that so many graduates “continue to distinguish themselves in their respective yeshiva high schools and beyond.” Source: YHT

Kulanu reaches Anchor What does Kulanu do when you mix sun, sand and the enthusiasm to share ideas with others? They visit Camp Anchor for Town of Hempstead residents.

6.25x9.875 full Raskin, page_Layout 1 7/22/14 12:10 PM Page Dr. Beth executive director of 1Kulanu Academy; Rachael Berg, special events coordinator for Kulanu; and Bob Block, corporate fundraising and community outreach coordinator, traveled to Lido Beach in search of new possibilities and experiences for Kulanu students.

As guests of Barbara Simms, assistant to the deputy commissioner recreation 6.25x9.875 full page_Layout of 1 7/22/14 12:10 at PMTown Page 1of

Hempstead Parks and Recreation, and Camp Anchor coordinator Mary Ann Hanson, the highlights of Anchor’s summer program were described. They exchanged ideas as Camp Anchor and Kulanu Academy share similar goals — they both work to enable each individual to reach their full potential.

New friendships were formed and opportunities for future collaborative efforts have hit the Kulanu drawing board.

A win for the Town of Hempstead, a win for Kulanu, and a win for all residents and their families. Source: Kulanu

FALL SOCCER

The Yeshiva University Board of Trustees recently awarded tenure to 17 faculty members across the University’s undergraduate and graduate schools.

Two professors, Dr. Jeffrey Gonzalez, professor of psychology at Ferkauf, and Dr. Daniel Rynhold, professor of Jewish philosophy at the Bernard Revel Graduate School of Jewish Studies, were promoted to the rank of full professor.

At Yeshiva College, Dr. David Lavinsky, associate professor of English; Dr. Ran Shao, associate professor of economics; Dr. Josefa Steinhauer, associate professor of biology; and Dr. Avraham Leff, professor of computer science, have received tenure. In addition, the Ferkauf Graduate School of Psychology’s Dr. Catherine Eubanks, associate professor of psychology; Sy Syms School of Business’s Dr. Shu Han, associate professor of information systems; and the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law’s Dr. Deborah Pearlstein, professor of law, have all been awarded tenure.

At YU-affiliated Albert Einstein College of Medicine, tenure was conferred on Dr. Luciano D’Adamio, professor of microbiology and immunology; Dr. Yousin Suh, professor of genetics; Dr. Bin Zhou, professor of genetics; Dr. Jose Pena, professor of neuroscience; Dr. Ganjam Kalpana, professor of genetics; Dr. Antonio DiCristofano, professor of developmental and molecular biology; Dr. Hannes Buelow, professor of genetics; Dr. Ulrich Steidl, professor of cellular biology; Dr. Kartik Chandran, professor of microbiology and immunology; and Dr. Michael Ross, professor of medicine and chief of the renal division.

In his work, Shao explores one of the most basic questions of economics: how does one efficiently allocate resources in complex environments?

Steinhauer’s research focuses on the roles phospholipids play in animal development

Full profs: Jeffrey Gonzalez (left), Daniel Rynhold.

and physiology, using the fruit fly as a model.

Before joining the Yeshiva College computer science department, Leff spent more than 25 years conducting research for IBM. His work focused on the areas of application performance and improving application development productivity.

At Sy Syms, Han’s work focuses on the value of information technology (IT) to business, especially how IT facilitates and enables innovations, including technological innovations and the introduction of new products and services.

Pearlstein’s areas of expertise are constitutional and international law, focused on issues of national security and the separation of powers.

At Ferkauf, Gonzalez focuses on using clinical health psychology to better understand the management of chronic illness and to develop and test interventions that can improve health outcomes in chronic illnesses, especially diabetes.

Rynhold explores conceptual questions that arise in the field of Jewish philosophy, incorporating approaches from across the historical spectrum. Source: Yeshiva University

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THE JEWISH STAR August 18, 2017 • 26 Av, 5777

Tenure and profs at YU

Honors for YHT grads

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August 18, 2017 • 26 Av, 5777 THE JEWISH STAR

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Slandering his name: Charges against McMaster JeFF Dunetz politics to go

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wo weeks ago, Caroline Glick wrote that President Trump’s national security adviser, Lieutenant General H.R. McMaster, was “deeply hostile to Israel and to Trump.” This charge is entirely false.

Her post was widely shared and quoted.

Others have added to the story and have piled on, including the Atlantic, Breitbart, and even the Zionist Organization of America. All of the reports rely on anonymous hearsay and personal assumption without considering McMaster’s actual words about Israel; his critics also do take into account the people who know best — senior Israeli officials who have worked with the general throughout his career.

In the following paragraphs, you will see why the attacks are at their core illogical, and that they use false assumptions. You will also

see quotes from senior Israeli officials who know the General and believe the charges to be ridiculous.

First, let’s dispose of the question of whether McMaster is hostile to President Trump. Does anyone really believe that a president who almost fired his attorney general (who is arguably his most loyal supporter in the administration), for an act he perceived as a mistake, would retain a cabinet officer who was actually hostile to him? Or one who disagreed with his campaign promise to be supportive of Israel? To which I’ll add this question: Does anybody really believe that a decorated soldier who has served in the Army for 33 years (and still serves), a soldier who earned the level of a three-star general, got there by trying to sabotage his commanders? Would that same decorated soldier sabotage his commander now? If he truly disagreed with Trump’s policies he would resign, not countermand Trump’s orders. was and still am a fan of Caroline Glick, but even the best make mistakes.

Mostly, she relies on personnel changes

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to buttress her tale. Supposedly McMaster purged the national security staff of Israel supporters and/or people who wanted to get tougher with Iran.

For example, Glick wrote: “In May, Adam Lovinger, a pro-Trump national security strategist on loan from the Pentagon’s office of net assessment, was summarily informed that his security clearance was revoked. He was fired and escorted from the White House like a spy and put on file duty at the Pentagon.”

Lt. Gen. H.R. Firstly, Lovinger McMaster wasn’t escorted from the White House as a spy; everyone who gets fired gets escorted out, that’s what happened to Anthony Scaramucci after he was booted from his short stint as communications director. But more than that, McMaster didn’t fire Lovinger, Defense Secretary General Mat-

tis did (does she believe all Generals look alike?).

Then there’s the firing of Rich Higgins, chief military strategist on the National Security Council (NSC) who issued a memo so laden with tin-foil-hat type explanations for the opposition to the president that one may have ascribed it to a crazy conspiracy site instead of a member of the National Security Council. The memo claims that POTUS is being attacked by a vast conspiracy led by a Marxist cabal engaged in “political warfare as understood by the Maoist insurgency model.” And those Marxist conspirators are conspiring with “deep state actors, globalists, bankers, Islamists, and establishment Republicans.”

Sounding like he’s straight out of Occupy Wall Street, Higgins wrote about “Global Corporatists and Bankers” and the “exploitation of populations, unfettered by national protections and notions of personal morality and piety.”

The McMaster criticism mentions others who were removed from the NSC staff, some See False charges on page 19

State’s Mideast director has anti-Israel record stephen M. Flatow

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he newly appointed Middle East director at the State Department has a long record of criticizing and pressuring Israel. Isn’t anybody at the White House paying attention to who’s being hired over at Foggy Bottom?

David Satterfield, who is slated to become assistant secretary of state for Near East affairs next month, played a significant role in U.S. policy and diplomacy concerning Israel and the Palestinians in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

A look at some of his comments from that period reveals he repeatedly suggested a moral equivalency between Palestinian terrorism and Israeli counterterrorism.

Consider Satterfield’s remarks at the Center for Policy Analysis on Palestine (CPAP) Nov. 2, 2001. The date is important. It was the height of the second intifada. There was Palestinian terrorism on a daily basis. In the weeks prior, suicide bombers had struck at the Sbarro piz-

zeria in Jerusalem (15 dead, 130 wounded) and the Nahariya train station (three dead, 94 wounded). In the midst of this bloodshed, Satterfield criticized Palestinian terrorism—and then proceeded to criticize Israel.

Making the aggressor and the victim appear to be equivalent, he declared (according to the Associated Press): “The intifada, whatever its origin, has become an ongoing process of calculated terror and escalation, reciprocated by acDavid Satterfield tions which all too often

by Israel proved inflammatory and provocative.

Steps must be taken to bring this to a halt.”

And a brief word about Satterfield’s troubling choice of venue. CPAP is an extreme antiIsrael group that should never be honored with the presence of a U.S. government official.

In 2003—just to cite a random example to illustrate the center’s mindset—the CPAP winter conference was titled “Israel’s Policy of Apartheid and Ethnic Cleansing.” Why would Satterfield to choose to keep that kind of company?

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here was more moral equivalency from Satterfield the following year, at the Weinberg Founders Conference of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy in October 2002. Satterfield criticized Yasser Arafat, then blasted Israel for encircling Arafat’s terror headquarters, the “Muqata” compound in Ramallah. The Israeli action “was wholly unhelpful and froze the positive currents of reform and direct pressure placed upon [Arafat] by Palestinian elites,” Satterfield declared.

Once again, Satterfield was incapable of criticizing Palestinian terror leaders without simultaneously haranguing Israel’s self-defense actions.

On March 11, 2004, Satterfield gave the keynote address at the Israel Policy Forum’s conference in Washington. Again, note the venue. The Israel Policy Forum was established by the Israeli Labor party. The prime minister of Israel in March 2004 was Ariel Sharon, then leader of the Likud party. Satterfield was choosing to address the American wing of the Israeli opposition. Interesting.

Satterfield once again resorted to moral equivalency. “Hope is in very short supply right now,” he asserted, evidently referring to the still-raging intifada. Just two weeks earlier,

eight Israelis had been massacred—and more than 60 wounded, including many schoolchildren—in the Liberty Bell Park bus bombing in downtown Jerusalem.

According to Satterfield, Hope was “evaporating in the understandable rage of Israelis suffering through horrible acts of terror”—but hope also “is being swallowed up in the deep frustrations, daily humiliations and wounded dignity of Palestinians living under occupation.”

Someone who perceives Israel’s legitimate self-defense actions as “inflammatory,” “provocative” and “unhelpful,” and who thinks that Israel and Palestinian terrorists are equally to blame for the erosion of hope, has a dangerously shallow understanding of Middle East reality. David Satterfield’s record demonstrates that he does not fully appreciate the difference between Palestinian aggressors and Israeli victims. He does not accept Israel’s right to take all necessary defensive actions against the stabbers, snipers and suicide bombers who threaten its citizens daily. Satterfield’s appointment should be rescinded immediately.

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

tehilla r. goldberg view from central park

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lor Azaria has gone to jail. He is the Israeli soldier who faced a terror attack, then shot dead a Palestinian who was already neutralized.

Whether you think that he is a good soldier who accidentally made the wrong call in a pressured terror situation, or that he engaged in a horrible act of revenge, or that he is a national hero who deserves a medal, it’s a sad day.

Since the story broke a few months back, I have read many documents and testimonies related to this case. It is no longer clear to me that even made a mistake or the wrong call.

Not because of the incredible dignity with which he has conducted himself, and not because he stood his ground in his insistance that he did what was right — in the face of enormous pressure to express contrition in order to lower his sentence or receive a pardon.

It’s just that the more you read about this case, and the more you hear actual testimony from those present, the murkier the story gets.

Certainly, the classic legal definition of proving a case beyond a reasonable doubt seems far-fetched in Azaria’s case. Add to that the reality that Azaria is going to jail over the killing of a rampaging murderer, a man who minutes before the fatal shot was fired was acting with the intent to kill, and Azaria’s imprisonment

Elor Azaria in court in 2016.

Miriam Alster/Flash90

hurts even more.

Even if one believes Azaria was wrong, let’s remember that we are not talking about the killing of an innocent man. iolence or killing when not in self-defense is not justified, but the circumstances certainly color the picture.

Somehow there is this warped perception that the status of a Palestinian who was engaged in attempted murder reverts to that of a normative civilian once he is neutralized.

In London recently, the moment terrorist perpetrators were found they were killed on

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False charges...

Continued from page 18 of whom still work for the White House in other capacities. All those who were booted from the NSC had one thing in common: they were all appointed by Trump’s first national security adviser, General Flynn. In other words, McMaster made personnel changes to load the NSC with people he trusted and who trusted him — something done by most new

M’s not ‘million’ I am no nit-picker— please!, but I’ll politely ask you to believe in a recent Jewish Star issue I saw: no — not a “tissue of inconsequential lies,” but an assumption [surprise!] that ‘m’ can stand for a million.

But, contrary to what thou hast hinted, we thousands [?] who protest what you printed.

Our hands on our hips, [please read our lips], thou sendeth thereby some false data.

And I’ll swear it at my cotillion.

[Let’s hear it for roman numerals: I, V, X, L, C, D, M, roughly.

Perhaps in Roman times, a thousand was enoughly.]

An ardent Jewish Star fan, humbleex-proofreader, and erstwhile quasi[queasy]-poet, —Carol Rogovin The errant M appeared in a headline in our July 14 edition. —Editor

presidential appointees. No one complained that Anthony Scaramucci was anti-Israel when he started purging the communications staff of people loyal to Reince Priebus. ven before he became the national security adviser, McMaster showed himself to be friendly to Jewish issues. A great example was recently published by the Algemeiner: “On Aug. 26, 2012, McMaster spoke at the dedication of a new Holocaust exhibit at the National Infantry Museum at Fort Benning in Georgia. The transcript of his remarks includes his mention of the importance of remembering the Holocaust.”

In the speech, McMaster relates the deep emotional experience he had during his third trip to Yad Vashem. His words weren’t those of a man saying what he was directed to say.

The general talked emotionally about how Yad Vashem made his knees weak, the horrors of what American soldiers found when they liberated the camps, and why it is important to use force to stop such a Holocaust if it was ever tried again.

There are other examples of McMaster making pro-Israel speeches: for example, the one he gave on the 50th anniversary of the Six Day War in which he praised the IDF for changing the way wars are fought.

The best evidence of McMaster’s pro-Israel stance might be the endorsement given him by senior Israeli officials who worked with him and knew him. Unlike those who say he is anti-Israel, these Israeli officials have given their support publicly and allow their names to be used.

When McMaster was appointed by President Trump, NRG (an Israeli news website) quoted Dr. Eitan Shamir, whose service to Israel included being in charge of the “National Security Doctrine Department at the Ministry of Strategic Affairs, Prime Minister Office and before that as a Senior Fellow at the Dado Center for Interdisciplinary

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the spot. Not a peep of protest was heard. A terrorist came to kill, and the legal assumption is: Stop him before (more) innocent human lives are taken.

The subtext of Azaria’s trial is that the biblical dictum, “when one rises to kill you, preempt him in the killing,” has been rewritten by some in Israel to be, “when one rises to kill you, preempt him and kill yourself/or have yourself killed.”

That may sound cynical, and a part of me is surprised to hear those thoughts in my own head. Still, I wonder, why is allowing your own to be killed not unethical?

The Azaria case ought to have been dealt with internally, by the military, as a combat issue. Instead, politics took over, due to a video filmed by leftists. Between the military brass, the legal system, the media that crucified him, this is not how one should treat a loyal, devoted, young soldier who protects Jewish lives in the Jewish state.

We are not talking about someone on a revengeful killing rampage here, the likes of the outlier Baruch Goldstein. No, quite the opposite. Azaria was in fact responding to just such a man, whose terrorism, unfortunately, is not the act of a lone outlier. he “what if” scenario that was assumed in Israeli media was that Azaria made a mistake, that the terrorist was wrongly killed rather than sentenced to jail for his crime. Here is the “what if” scenario that was not assumed: The terrorist survived and detonated himself, with more innocent human lives lost at the scene of this crime — due to

Azaria’s hesitancy.

How does anyone know which “what if” scenario was the most apparent to Azaria at the time? How can the media be so sure that its “what if” scenario was the correct one?

The truth is, no one knows what would have, could have, or should have, happened.

What we do know is that a terrorist was killed and no subsequent innocent lives were lost.

When one reads the initial reports, before the sanitized versions were layered over them, it seems clear that there was a reasonable basis for Azaria to believe danger was still present.

Anecdotally, I read the heartrending testimony of a soldier who was in a similar situation to Elor Azaria’s. He made the opposite call. He didn’t shoot the terrorist before him dead.

To this day, he lives with the paralyzing pain. If only he had not hesitated (he was unsure whether the neutralized terrorist lying before him was simply fat or had a bomb under his coat) due to fear of legal consequences in the event the terrorist turned out not to be harboring a bomb. Then, his friends and fellow soldiers would still be alive today.

He carries the guilt of their blood in his heart.

Many seem so sure of Elor Azaria’s guilt.

Many seem so sure of Elor Azaria’s fatal error.

Many seem so sure that justice for Elor Azaria has been served.

I’m not so sure.

I still think about all those other, very possible “what ifs.”

Copyright Intermountain Jewish News

Military Studies (CIMS) at the IDF General Headquarters.” Shamir has known McMaster for about a decade, ever since the general read his book, “Transforming Command,” and contacted him.

Shamir describes McMaster as “a very warm person, and the first time he saw me, he hugged me and said that my book fell out of the sky, and since then we have maintained regular contact, including meetings in Israel and the United States.” Shamir gave that evaluation before the present charges contending McMaster is not a friend of the Jewish state.

“He has had many Israeli friends besides me and I remember an event that mentioned Israel as an ally fighting with the United States like Canada,” Shamir told NRG. “I have no doubt that he loves Israel very much.” nswering an email from this reporter inquiring if anything changed since that February NRG piece, Shamir verified that nothing has changed and he added that McMaster “always made supportive statements on the IDF and Israel. Moreover he made several visits with his unit to Israel sharing important military lessons.”

On Sunday, the Jerusalem Post published an article about McMaster written by Maj. Gen. (res.) Yaakov Amidror and Col. (res.)

Dr. Eran Lerman. Each has impeccable credentials. Amidror is the former national security adviser of Israel and former head of the Research Department of Israeli military intelligence; Lerman is a former deputy national security adviser for foreign policy and international affairs who also served in the IDF Directorate of Military Intelligence.

In the article, the two senior officials wrote of the anti-Israel charges that “such an attack is not mere opinion; it is an offense against the truth, against basic decency and against the best interests of Israel as we see them. In the opinion of many in the professional Israeli defense establishment who have come to know Gen. McMaster over the years, directly and indirectly, the general is a friend.”

They continued:

“Israeli officers and scholars who have worked with McMaster say that he was always highly appreciative of Israel and of its contributions to the security of the US. They attest to his broad support for and admiration of the IDF. It is absurd to assert that all these years, hidden underneath McMaster’s friendliness was a grudge against Israel that the general is now free to act on. We reject this churlish insinuation. And whatever the reasons may have been for his decision to relieve certain senior National Security Council officials of their duties, anti-Semitic or antiIsraeli sentiments were certainly not part of the calculus.

“Israelis and friends of Israel in the US do not need to agree with every position McMaster has taken, nor should the general be immune to specific policy criticism, such as the Trump administration’s failure to put forward coherent policies on Syria or Iran.

But McMaster is not an enemy. It is wrong to assault his personal reputation, especially when the attack is based on hearsay and driven by parties with an axe to grind.”

Most administrations are plagued by officials who try to oust their colleagues by leaking false charges about them. These charges that McMaster is anti-Israel seem to be part of a larger attack on him by people in the administration who disagree with him on some issues. The goal is to force him out of office.

Labeling McMaster as anti-Israel not only hurts the general with American Jews but much more important is that it damages the general’s support with one of President Trump’s most important voting blocs, the evangelical Christians.

In Jewish law, there is the concept of “hotzaat shem ra” which means the spreading of a bad name. While all manners of loshen hara (evil tongue) are considered a grave sin, “hotzaat shem ra” is particularly egregious.

Perhaps the worst thing about the McMaster anti-Israel story is that the Jewish state is being used as a pawn in American domestic politics to commit “hotzaat shem ra,” to slander a man’s good name. That’s considered a grave sin.

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THE JEWISH STAR August 18, 2017 • 26 Av, 5777

He who hesitates can carry blood guilt

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August 18, 2017 • 26 Av, 5777 THE JEWISH STAR

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‫כוכב של שבת‬

SHAbbAT STAR

Re’eh • Shabbos Mevarchim Candles 7:30, Havdalah 8:38

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

Finding happiness through our sense of purpose Rabbi binnY FReedMan the heart of jerusalem

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one of us remembers exactly what it was we were supposed to have done, and what it was that had so enraged them, but our sergeants were on the warpath and it was clearly going to be a long afternoon.

It started as just another inspection, more than 30 years ago on a Friday afternoon, after a week of intense maneuvers with very little sleep, followed by the weekly servicing of our tanks all night long. We were exhausted.

Our tanks had passed inspection, finally, and, full of oil and grease, and having gone without any sleep since early Thursday morning, and without a shower since Saturday night, all that stood between us and Shabbat was one last inspection of our barracks.

Blankets drawn tight across beds, boots polished to a black shine, gear stowed regulation style beneath the foot of the bed, guns cleaned and oiled, and floors mopped shiny clean, we could practically taste the showers and Shabbat food that awaited.

And then something went dreadfully wrong and amidst screaming sergeants, flying blankets, and beds tipped over, we were given seven minutes to redo the entire inspection — outside on the base perimeter in front of the tanks!

It is hard to imagine a company of tank crewmen carrying bunkbeds full of gear all the way out to the area in front of the tanks and trying to remake the beds and stow the gear while making sure the guns stayed clean. And then they started screaming at us all over again; we had forgotten our boot lockers.

As the sun dipped lower on the horizon, again we were ordered: “Thirty seconds around the tanks: MOVE!” We were expected to run around the line of tanks and get back in line within 30 seconds, a hopeless task. And then we were made to run with our beds, and then with our boot lockers — all as the sun dipped lower and lower.

And then someone started to laugh.

We were behind the tanks so the commanders couldn’t see us, and pretty soon the entire company was in hysterics. We did our best to put a straight, agonized face back on once we came back into the view of our commanders, but they could see that most of us were smiling, which of course only infuriated them more.

With time on our side (they had to end all this before Shabbat) we all come to the same realization: that our enjoyment was also our victory, that we would not break. Of course, in retrospect, that may well have been the point of the entire exercise (to mold us as a unit), but at the time, the pure joy of recognizing we had nothing more to lose, and we might as well laugh about it as cry, was a powerful experience that stays with me still.

But as much as I still smile, recalling that experience, it nonetheless leaves one with a compelling question: how do some people succeed in smiling in the face of adversity? av Nachman of Breslev is quoted as having said: “Mitzvah gedolah le’hiyot besimcha tamid” (“It is a great mitzvah to always be happy”).

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Sounds nice; but seems to be beyond most of our reach, no?

How do we keep smiling when the most horrific things sometimes come our way?

This week’s portion, Re’eh (literally: “See!”) is all about learning to see the world through different eyes. This may explain why the particular mitzvah of being joyous on the festivals, occurs in this portion — specifically on the festival of Sukkot, the third of the regalim: “Ve’hayita’ ach sameach” (“And you shall be completely joyous”). (Devarim 16:15) How does a person develop the skill set necessary to being a happy person? And can one maintain joy in the face of the inevitable adversities life throws our way?

Take, for example, the story of Aaron who, as part of an enslaved people in Egypt, caught in the depths of the most evil and cruel empire the world had ever known, might have been expected to be quite miserable.

Yet, he is the only individual in the entire Torah who is described as being happy!

No less than G-d Himself tells Moshe that Aaron will, upon seeing Moshe (just arrived back in Egypt after 40 years), “rejoice in his heart”! (Shemot 4:14).

What is the secret to being happy? How does Aaron do it?

On the other hand, look at the story of Haman, who seems to represent the opposite extreme. Haman, chief advisor to king Achashveirosh of the Persian empire, is essentially the second most powerful person in the entire world. He is happily married (albeit to a wicked woman), with no less than ten sons who seem to idolize him and want only to follow in his footsteps, and every subject of the Persian empire who crosses his path must bow down to him.

See Finding happiness on page 21

For Haman, it was all about Haman. but for Moshe, it was all about G-d and the Jewish people.

Stoning … and the mitzvah of total annihilation Rabbi avi billet Parsha of the week

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am sure I am not alone in my disgust when seeing an article or video about an event on the other side of the world in which (most often a woman) is put to death through stoning, or some other form of torture, for merely being accused of an act of infidelity or pre-marital union. After all — stoning? And for an act that, while traditionally immoral, is certainly not viewed as a capital offense in most societies.

We might view those who espouse and act upon these views as intolerant, backwards, fourth century-types who have no place in a modern and open society. And then we read verses in this week’s parsha, Re’eh, and our finger-pointing must end, because our look in the mirror tells us everything we don’t want to know about what our people were commanded when entering the land. “[This is what you must do] if, with regard to one of your cities that G-d your Lord is giving you as a place to live, you hear a report, stating that irresponsible men among you have been successful in leading the city’s inhabitants astray by saying, ‘Let us worship another god and have a novel spiritual experience.’ You must investigate and probe, making careful inquiry.

“If it is established to be true, and such a revolting thing has occurred in your midst, then you must kill all the inhabitants of the city by the sword. De-

stroy it and everything in it as taboo, and [kill] all its animals by the sword. Gather all [the city’s] goods to its central square, and burn the city along with all its goods, [almost] like a sacrifice to G-d your Lord. [The city] shall then remain an eternal ruin, never again to be rebuilt. Let nothing that has been declared taboo there remain in your hands.

“G-d will then have mercy on you, and reverse any display of anger that might have existed. In His mercy, He will make you flourish, just as He promised your fathers. You will have obeyed G-d your Lord, keeping all the commandments that I prescribe to you today, and doing what is morally right in the eyes of G-d your Lord.” (Devarim 13:13-19) ow could this be? How could we not cringe at finding these instructions in our Holy Torah? Killing all inhabitants? Burning everything to the ground? Seeing no value whatsoever in preserving any landmarks, any history, any remnant of a group which lived an existence in this place for many years? And what about the innocent people — just because perhaps some people are deserving of death, does this condemn every single man, woman and child?

Rabbenu Bachaye notes that the phrase “you must investigate and probe, making careful inquiry” precludes just about every possibility of this ever coming to reality. When an inquiry is so exact

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in its questioning, the chances of a slipup or inconsistency among witnesses is so likely that the death sentence on the city is basically impossible to achieve. However, he does not delegitimize the Torah’s perspective. He declares the “evil people” described here to be in the same category of Korach, who rebelled against G-d and His holy word, who tried to destroy the nation’s autonomy from within.

While it’s not an easy idea to stomach, the principle behind total annihilation is actually meant to distinguish between turning this act into one which is the will of G-d versus one of cruelty. Compare this to the evil people in history who tortured their victims, let the “useful” live for a time being to enslave them, and who delighted in their self-proclaimed important work — all of which is the embodiment of cruelty.

(And in stealing their belongings, the perpetrators demonstrated that their act was about money and wealth.) he idea of total destruction — swift, quick, without keeping anything — is a moral indication that this was not about property or about converting people or about anything other than the preservation of our lives under G-d’s dictation.

The near impossibility of carrying this out cannot be overemphasized But we must understand the comparison to Korach — all of whose followers met a swift and immediate fate, leaving the

Your severity will not alter the kindness that is fundamental to your character.

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people to see that some ideas are just not compatible with the community of G-d.

Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch recalls the Tosefta that this case is theoretical, never happened and never will happen, as he explains the degree of the betrayal of all that is sacred to the greater national community.

“All the places of residence in the Land belong to the nation; the nation dwells … in every place of residence … the character and the task of the whole nation must come to expression in each one of these places of residence. Only by remaining true to the character and task of the whole nation does every small place have the right to exist in the midst of the great whole.”

The promise Hirsch draws out from this theoretical episode is this: “The severity of your treatment of the people of this wayward city will not alter the kindness that is fundamental to your character. After you have carried out national justice, G-d will restore to you the kindness that is innate in you, allowing you to act mercifully, so that you will be worthy of His mercy.”

I am grateful that this story never happened and never will. However, it does give us insight into the difference between a divine justice (the removal of “evil” intent on destroying our community, which can only happen under the guidance of a real prophet) and the definition of cruelty, which includes evil intent, theft, desire to torture and/or enslave, and the removal of the humanity from victims.

Troubling, yes. Theoretical, completely. Informative of what is truly evil — couldn’t be more clear.

AlAn JAy Gerber Kosher BooKworm

S

everal years ago I introduced to this column the precious scholarship of a Canadian rabbi, Reuven Bulka. His many books and essays span the gamut of Jewish learning that surely deserves your continued attention.

This week I bring to your attention a joint literary effort by Rabbi Bulka and his learned young granddaughter, Rikki (Bulka) Ash, titled, “Honeycombs: The Amida Through the Lens of Rav Yonasan Eybshitz and Rav Yosef Hayyim of Bagdad” (Ktav, 2017). Rikki grew up in Woodmere and attended the Stella K. Abraham High School for Girls.

Despite it brevity — just 56 pages — this thesis presents a profound summary of the centerpiece of Jewish weekday liturgy.

Given my prior work concerning Rabbi Bulka, this essay is themed to introduce you to his “co-author,” Rikki Ash, who shared these thoughts: “I have been writing for as far back as I can remember. As a first level reader, I formulated children’s stories —and even art — onto paper.

I asked my grandfather, a well-known author, to publish it for me and he graciously photocopied and stapled together about 10 copies to appease my deepest wish.

“Almost 15 years later, it is all the more thrilling to have co-authored my first book with

my grandfather, who has been an inspiration to me in so many ways and has always encouraged me to pursue my dream to write.

“After giving a summer chaburah on NCSY Michlelet on the topic of Shemona Esrei, my grandfather asked me if I would like to join him in his latest writing expedition on the very same topic. Even though we worked together from across two countries, Canada and the U.S., we managed to synthesize our ideas culminating in a finished product that we are both very proud of.”

In the introduction to this work Rabbi Bulka tells us the following concerning Rikki’s scholarship in this book: “In this volumn, Rikki offers explanations of the words in Shemona Esrei that require clarification or that facilitate greater understanding.

They are short and to the point. We have placed the Hebrew transliteration of the words Rikki comments upon in smaller italic font in the body of the translation, and then we offer her explanations immediately below the translated text.

“The main purpose of this volume is to present the Amidah to the reader based upon the formulation of Rav Yonasan Eybishitz in his classic work, ‘Ya’eros Devash’ [honeycombs].…

Honeycombs is also, equally appropriately, the

degrees from Queens College, in psychology and history, and just completed her Masters degree at Azrieli Graduate School for Jewish Education and Administration.She is now a limudei kodesh teacher at her former high school, SKA, and teaches a class on teffilah in addition to other Judaic subjects.

FOR YOUR FURTHER STUDY: “Reason To Believe: Rational Explanations of Orthodox Jewish Faith,”

by Rabbi Chaim Jachter of Rabbi Reuven Bulka Rikki (Bulka) Ash Teaneck, was recently pubtitle of the entire book.” lished by Menorah Books.

In her introduction to the book, Rikki Ash “Readers of all backgrounds and outlooks explains: throughout the Jewish community will be “It is a privilege to have my name written ad- amazed and reassured as the author openly jacent to my grandfather’s on the front cover of raises the very questions that they themselves this volume. … There is a wealth of information have been asking and as he provides an array of on the Amidah, and I have sifted through much profound, convincing responses to those quesof this knowledge to provide distinctions and tions,” observed Rabbi Shmuel Goldin. short explanations of the problematic words of This volume was made possible through the the Shemoneh Esrei. efforts of Rabbi Reuven Ziegler and publisher, “It is my greatest hope that readers will gain Ashirah Yosefah. both from the understanding of the individual Another new work, “A Bridge Called Prayer,” words of the Amidah, as well as from the over- by Rabbi Yehonason Alpren (Mosaica Press, all idea behind the Amidah, as illuminated by 2017), also deserves your attention and pa‘Honeycombs’.” tronage. It is a very worthy companion to your Rikki followed SKA with a year at Michlalah siddur, with messages and teachings that will Jerusalem College. She holds two Bachelor surely help to enhance your prayers.

Why observe the mitzvoth? Because He said so! rAbbi dAvid etenGoff

I

n broad term terms, our parasha, Re’eh, divides meat for consumption into two distinct categories — b’sar korban (sacrificial meat) and b’sar ta’aveh (chulin, or non-sacrificial meat).

The first group constitutes the subject matter of Devarim 12:11-19 and 26-27, while the latter is found in 12:20-25. In the midst of its presentation of b’sar ta’aveh, the Torah teaches us that it is forbidden to consume blood: “Be strong not to eat the blood, for the blood is the soul; and you shall not eat the soul with the flesh. You shall not eat it, you shall spill it on the ground, like water. You shall not eat it, in order that it be good for you, and for your children after you, when you do what is proper in the eyes of the L-rd. (Devarim 12:23-25) These verses present us with a significant exegetical problem. Why do we need such “encouragement” to refrain from eating blood? After all, most people might agree that the very thought of eating blood is disgusting in the extreme. Rabbi

Shimon bar Rabi tackled this problem in Mishnah Makkot III:15: Rabbi Shimon bar Rabi said: “Behold the Torah states: ‘However, be strong not to eat the blood, for the blood is the soul.’

When it comes to [the eating of] blood wherein one’s very being is revolted [by such a thought], [nonetheless,] one who refrains from [eating it] will receive a reward, [so, too, in the case of] stealing and illicit relations, wherein one’s innermost being is desirous thereof — and he lusts after them — one who separates himself from them will all the more so [receive reward].

[Moreover, not only] will he merit [reward, but so, too, will] his future generations, and all generations that will come from him until the end of time.” abbi Shimon bar Rabi is teaching that we must be sensitive to the Torah’s unusual phraseology, and that beyond a shadow of a doubt, eating blood is a revolting and abnormal act. Yet, it is no less true that if we refrain

A

that forms the background of each and every mitzvah: Hashem as the metzaveh (commander), the mitzvah (commandment), and man as the metzuveh (commanded). Each time we fulfill a Torah precept, we demonstrate our loyalty to our Creator and His holy Torah. Moreover, we declare to all mankind that the relationship forged with our forebears continues to flourish until our own moment. When we fulfill the mitzvot, we are joyfully proclaiming: “Hashem Hu HaElokim.” (“Hashem is our G-d and Master”) (Devarim IV:35) Given these ideas, I believe we have found an answer to the question, “How should we approach the mitzvot?” We need to address them with a sense of awe and humility, coupled with an ever-present recognition that we are fulfilling G-d’s will. This means that while the cognitive gesture surely enhances our appreciation and understanding of the mitzvot, it is not the rationale for their fulfillment. Humility, even in the case of the mitzvot, must ever be our watchword.

This crucial concept was given powerful voice

by Michah the prophet: “O man, what is good, and what the L-rd demands of you; but to do justice, to love loving-kindness, and to walk humbly with your G-d.” (VI:8) With His loving help may this be so. V’chane yihi ratzon.

him after all these years? And of course, if I need Moshe in my life to achieve my purpose in this world, then it is only natural that seeing Moshe again after forty years will fill me (or in this case Aaron) with joy.

Sukkot, the festival on which we are commanded to rejoice, is actually the goal, as it is the festival of the harvest. All the other festivals ultimately lead to Sukkot, economically as well as theologically, hence it is on Sukkot that we truly rejoice, when the purpose of all that hard work becomes clear.

Happiness is achieved when we succeed in tapping into what we each feel our purpose is meant to be, which of course is what joy is all about.

And there is a character flaw which seems to lie at the root of unhappiness: and that is pride.

Haman when asked by the king (Achashveirosh) how to pay homage to a person the king wants to honor, immediately assumes the king is speaking of none other than Haman himself. (Esther 6:6: “Whom would the king wish to honor more than me?!”)

As opposed to Moshe who, upon being told by G-d that he must go to speak with Pharaoh, says ‘Mi anochi ki eileich el Pharaoh?” “Who am I to go before Pharaoh?” (Exodus 3:11) For Haman, it is all about Haman, but for Moshe, it’s all about G-d and the Jewish people.

Moshe sees himself as a tool in something much greater, whilst Haman considers himself the goal of all that he does. And a person like that always feels he is missing something.

Too much pride will make you miserable. Because what is pride all about? Pride suggests that it’s all about me, but true joy is about recognizing that I am just a vehicle to a greater and higher purpose.

May we all succeed in finding joy in our lives by learning to see all we have, and finding the clarity to decide, as individuals and as a nation, what we are meant to do with it all.

Shabbat Shalom from Jerusalem.

This column originally appeared in 2012.

there is a tripartite process that forms the background of every mitzvah.

R

Finding happiness…

Continued from page 20 And yet: “Ve’kol zeh einenu shaveh li” (“All this is worthless to me”) (Esther 5:13) — simply because there is one Jew (Mordechai) who will not bow down to him!

Herein, perhaps, lays the key to happiness: Haman cannot focus on all that he has because he is stuck on what he does not have. Being happy is not really about how much we actually have, it is rather about appreciating how much we have. And it is only through appreciation that we really have things at all. nd it gets deeper, because if happiness is all about purpose (hence people who feel they have no purpose are depressed, whether they be financially well off or not, and people who are imbued with a sense of purpose have much joy in their lives), there is no true purpose unless

from eating blood because it is Hashem’s will, rather than because we are naturally repulsed, we will receive a tremendous reward that will protect our children and our children’s children throughout all generations to come.

If we reexamine Rabbi Shimon bar Rabi’s statement a bit more closely, it appears that he is actually revealing a fundamental element of Torah observance and, by extension, an essential aspect of our relationship with Hashem. He is instructing us that our explanations of the mitzvot must never be viewed as the reasons why we perform them. Instead, we must be focused on one basic and overriding truth: We observe the mitzvot solely because G-d commanded us to do so.

Whether or not we understand a mitzvah, or believe we have discovered its rationale, its absolute demand upon us, its unquestionable claim upon our being, is derived from the Voice that eternally issues forth from Mount Sinai.

On the most basic level, therefore, we must always recognize that there is a tripartite process

we are created. If we are a random accident in a G-d-less world, then of course there is no real purpose to our being here in the first place, which of course is very depressing.

But if we are created, and obviously G-d has a reason for creating all of us, so we all have purpose, then by definition I must have what I need, always! Whatever I have, and whatever skills I was born with are, by definition, all I need to accomplish whatever my purpose is in this world.

And being happy is simply based on my ability to see that, all the time.

Even in the midst of the servitude of Egypt, as soon as Aaron sees Moshe, he knows Moshe is coming into his life again because somehow he needs Moshe to help him achieve his purpose.

Otherwise, why would G-d have sent Moshe to

THE JEWISH STAR August 18, 2017 • 26 Av, 5777

Honeycombs: New commentary on the Amidah

21

The JEWISH STAR

CAlendar of Events

Send your events to Calendar@TheJewishStar.com • Deadline noon Friday • Compiled by Zachary Schechter Erev Shabbos Kollel: Congregation of Aish Kodesh Eruv Shabbos Kollel begins with 6 am Chassidus Shiur with Rav Moshe Weinberger and concluding with 9 am Chevrusah learning with Rabbi Yoni Levin. 894 Woodmere Pl, Woodmere.

Sunday Aug 20

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.

Movie Night: Hampton’s Synagogue, in partnership with the Hamptons International Film Festival, presents the film Torn as part of the Westhampton Jewish Film Festival. Free. 2 Brook

Road, Westhampton Beach. RSVP 631-288-0534 ext. 10.

Monday Aug 21

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

10 am. 894 Woodmere Pl, Woodmere.

Blood Drive: The YI of Queens Valley will host a blood drive for the New York Blood Center. 3-9 pm. 141-55 77 Ave, Kew Gardens Hills.

Summer Luau: The Ladies of the BACH invite both men and women to the End of Summer Luau at the Bach Court. 7:30 pm. Pre-Register: $72 per person; At door: $80 per person. 210 Edwards Blvd, Long Beach. RSVP at www.bachyouth.com/ ladiesevents.html.

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

Essence of the Soul: Join Rabbi Ari Bergman for a four-part discussion titled The Essence of the Soul & the Five Parts of the Neshama.

Young Israel of Woodmere. 9:15 pm. 516-2950950. 859 Peninsula Blvd, Woodmere.

Tuesday Aug 21

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

Wednesday Aug 23

Ohr Torah Youth Dept at Citi Field: Join the Ohr Torah Youth Department and Rabbi Cohen for evening at Citi Field. 7 pm. Members: $36, non-members: $45. 516-205-4990.

Night of Awakening 12: The twelfth annual Avinu Malkeinu “Night of Awakening” event will take place at the YI of Kew Garden Hills. 7011 150th St, Flushing. Tickets starting at $18. 8 pm.

718-285-9132.

Timely Tanach: [Weekly] Join Rabbi Ya’akov Trump of the Young Israel of Lawrence Cedarhurst for a shiur on Sefer Shoftim. 8 pm. 8 Spruce St, Cedarhust.

Chumash and Halacha Shiur: [Weekly] Shiur with Rabbi Yosef Richtman at Aish Kodesh.

8 pm. 894 Woodmere Pl, Woodmere.

Thursday Aug 24

Blood Drive: The Forest Hills Jewish Center will how host a blood drive for the New York Blood Center. 4:45-9:15 pm. 106-06 Queens Blvd, Forest Hills.

Sunday Aug 27

The Mob, the Jews and Israel: Rabbi Perl reports that Chabad of Mineola will host Myron Sugerman, who will describe contributions that the Mob made to the betterment of Jewish life.

This talk will explain how the Mob disrupted rallies of the American Nazi Party in the 1930s, and outline the Mob’s role in supplying money and weapons to the underground armies during Israel’s fight for independence. 11 am to 12:30 pm.

261 Willis Ave, Mineola. Free.

Movie Night: Hampton’s Synagogue, in partnership with the Hamptons International Film Festival, presents the film A Beautiful Valley as part of the Westhampton Jewish Film Festival.

Free. 2 Brook Rd., Westhampton Beach. RSVP 631-288-0534 ext. 10.

Monday Sept 4

Labor Day BBQ: Avigdor’s Helping Hand will hold its twelfth annual Labor Day Barbecue at the Moradi Residence. 7 pm/ 72 Muriel Ave, Lawrence. 718-568-9720.

Tues–Thurs Sept 5–7

Rock the Block: Basketball tournament returns to North Woodmere Park. End of summer fun for the whole family while raising tzedakah for local causes. 8-10 pm. 750 Hungry Harbor Rd, Valley Stream. For more information or to make or join a team email Jtrickone@gmail.com.

Sunday Sept 10

Medical Forum: Great Neck Synagogue Men’s Club will be hosting a medical forum with Dr. Jeffrey Liebmann of Columbia University. 10 am. 8 pm. 26 Old Mill Road, Great Neck. 516-487-6100.

Thursday Sept 14

Challah Bake: Chabad of Valley Stream invites women and girls Bat Mitzvah age and up to an erev haparshat challah bake. Before Aug 31, $18, regular price $25. 8 to 10 pm. 550 Rockaway Avenue Valley Stream. 516-825-5566.

Monday Sept 18

Bake Sale: HAFTR PTA hosts a pre-Rosh Hashana bake sale at the home of the Lent Family. 11 am. 81 Washington Ave South, Lawrence.

Sunday October 22

Challenge Early Intervention course in respiratory phonatory issues in children with developmental issues. YI of Hillcrest. 8:30 am to 4 pm.

169-07 Jewel Ave, Hillcrest. 718-851-3300 x315.

Local Yeshiva is seeking half and full day substitute teachers for grades 1-8. Please email cover letter, resume and time availability to: hweiselberg@halb.org

GOTTA GETTA BAGEL

927057

CAFE

921606

Friday Aug 18

Joel Baruch 1039 Broadway Woodmere

516-569-6628

Monday Aug 28

Summer BBQ: Yeshiva Ketana of Long Island will be hosting a men’s barbecue at the home of Yechezkel and Anat Hartman to benefit the Rebbe life insurance fund. 7 pm. 74 Lawrence Avenue.

Wednesday Aug 30

Book Club: Join the Beth Shalom Sisterhood for a discussion Camron Wright’s “The Rent Collector.” 8 pm. 516-569-6733. 390 Broadway, Lawrence.

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By Cnaan Liphshiz, JTA KHATYN, Belarus — Even by Soviet standards, the massive memorial complex near Minsk to the victims of Nazi atrocities stands out for its immense scale and ambition.

Spread across half a million square feet — roughly the size of 10 football fields — the haunting Khatyn Memorial is essentially a graveyard not for people, but for entire villages wiped out by the Nazis in Belarus. Byelorussia, as it was then known, was one of the few places in Europe where German brutality toward non-Jews matched their antiSemitic savagery.

The memorial features soil from each of the 186 villages razed by the Nazis in Belarus — 3 million civilians here were killed by Nazis, including 800,000 Jews — and a symbolic tombstone for each village. Bell towers toll here every hour for each of the houses that the German and Ukrainian troops burned in the former village of Khatyn in the massacre of March 22, 1943. And there’s a bleak, black marble monument called the Wall of Sorrow.

The monument “was revolutionary,” said Chaim Chesler, founder of the Limmud FSU Jewish learning group. “There is nothing quite like it anywhere in the former Soviet Union, not in terms of scale, design and concept.” Limmud FSU regularly brings visitors to the monument.

But the Khatyn monument is unusual not only for its size and the scale of the tragedy it commemorates.

The complex’s chief architect was Leonid Levin, an uncommon honor for a Jew at a time of virulent state anti-Semitism in the Soviet Union. It also features a rare Soviet depiction of individual, unglorified grief and suffering by ordinary people: a statue called

“The Unbowed Man” statue at the Khatyn Memorial in Belarus commemorates Yuzif Kaminsky, a survivor of Nazi atrocities, and his slain son Adam.

John Oldale/Wikimedia Commons

“The Unbowed Man.” Designed by sculptor Sergei Selikhanov, the work depicts Yuzif Kaminsky, the only villager who survived the Nazi massacre in Khatyn, cradling the corpse of his dead son, Adam. The Kaminsky family wasn’t Jewish, but the father’s grief stands for all the suffering inflicted on the region — and in stark contrast to typical Soviet-era statues of defiant soldiers or a glorious Mother Russia.

“The inclusion of such work was revolutionary when my father decided on it,” said

orating Yanka Kupala and Yakub Kolas, two of Belarus’ greatest poets.

To Lewis, Levin’s case is indicative of how individual Jews who did not engage in Zionism or other activities frowned upon by Moscow could be promoted within the Soviet system, despite its anti-Semitism.

After the fall of communism, Leonid Levin became the head of the Jewish community of Belarus and devoted much of his professional efforts to projects commemorating the Jewish genocide.

The Pietà-like Kaminsky statue, Lewis said, may have been a concession by Moscow to the population of Belarus, in recognition of the scale of atrocities committed against their nation. A third of its population perished.

To Galina Levina, the architect’s daughter, this loss forever binds Jews and Belarusians.

“It is even appropriate that the man who designed the main monument for the tragedy of the Belarusian people be Jewish,” she said.

Today, hundreds of thousands of schoolchildren each year visit the Khatyn monument, where the country’s leader, Alexander Lukashenko, delivers speeches on memorial days.

“It is a great honor that my father created the site that is responsible for the main effort of genocide education in the country he loved so much,” she said.

When Levin died, he was working on a memorial for the victims of Maly Trostenets, an extermination camp where the Nazis killed the Jews of Minsk, which he was never able to finish. His daughter continued the project and completed in 2015.

She said the monument was not only her father’s last project, but also “the most important” one to him.

Levin’s daughter, Galina Levina. “Architecturally and conceptually, he was decades ahead of his time.” Leonid Levin died in 2014.

The Soviet rulers selected Levin along with two other partners to head the project in 1967. State anti-Semitism reached new heights that year with Israel’s victory in the Six-Day War against Moscow’s Arab allies.

“I think it was a recognition of Leonid Levin’s excellence, and a realization that he was the best man for the job,” she said.

In 1970, Levin won the prestigious Lenin Award, the highest civil distinction of excellence conferred by the Soviet Union, for his work on Khatyn. He became one of only a handful of Jews who received it.

Chesler of the Limmud FSU group said he found this honor “the most astonishing element of the whole story” of the Khatyn monument.

“Clearly, it shows Levin had a great deal of trust from Belarus’ communist rulers, and he used that trust to make something truly great,” Chesler said.

Simon Lewis, a historian and research fellow at the Freie Universität Berlin who has written about the Khatyn monument, told JTA that Levin was probably selected for the job because he was trusted by the government to deliver a monumental, patriotic message.

It didn’t hurt that Levin had nationalist credentials to offset his Jewish ethnicity, Lewis noted.

“He was a very prominent architect before he made Khatyn,” Lewis said of Levin, “and his work shows a commitment to Belarusian nationality in a certain understanding of the term.”

Levin headed projects in Minsk commem-

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THE JEWISH STAR August 18, 2017 • 26 Av, 5777

Belarus Shoah monument: haunting, subversive

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