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From left: President Donald Trump with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Jared Kushner speaking at the opening of the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem, and Palestinians riot at the Gaza border with Israel.

By Ben Harris, JTA September 2017 Rabbi Ari Berman becomes the fifth president of Yeshiva University. A graduate of the university and its rabbinical seminary, Berman succeeds Richard Joel, who led the institution through a turbulent economic period. A French Jewish leader and his family are assaulted in their home near Paris amid a spate of violent break-ins targeting Jews. october 2017 The United States announces its intention to withdraw from the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization over anti-Israel bias, reflecting concerns about a need for reform, the State Department says. S.I. Newhouse Jr., who ran dozens of magazines and newspapers, dies at 89 in

New York. The media mogul, whose initials stand for Samuel Irving, ran Condé Nast since 1975, publishing Vogue, GQ, Vanity Fair and The New Yorker. Monty Hall, host of the game show “Let’s Make a Deal,” dies at 96 in Los Angeles. Born Monte Halperin in Winnipeg, Canada, Hall hosted thousands of episodes over more than two decades. november 2017 The Houston Astros win their first World Series, with Jewish infielder Alex Bregman hitting two home runs and a walk-off hit in Game 5. Outfielder Joc Pederson of the Los Angeles Dodgers breaks the record for most homers in a Series by a Jewish player set by Hall of Famer Hank Greenberg in 1934. Bregman is named the All-Star Game MVP for his tie-breaking homer.

North American Jewish federations demand Israel reverse its “divisive” steps on egalitarian prayer at the Western Wall, warning that ignoring non-Orthodox Jews could undermine the Zionist vision. Israeli actress Gal Gadot is named GQ magazine’s 2017 Woman of the Year. Gadot soared to international celebrity as the star of the blockbuster film “Wonder Woman.” Stephen Bannon, former chief strategist for Donald Trump, calls himself a “Christian Zionist” in an appearance at the Zionist Organization of America’s annual dinner. Eight years after the Jewish investment adviser pleaded guilty to one of the largest fraud schemes in U.S. history, the U.S. Department of Justice begins distributing $772.5 million in recovered funds to some victims of Bernie Madoff.

Actress Natalie Portman is named winner of the 2018 Genesis Prize. The award honors individual Jews of outstanding professional achievement and commitment to Jewish values. It comes with a $1 million prize. A Canadian government report shows a decline in the country’s Jewish population, from 329,500 in 2011to 143,665 in 2016. Critics say the falloff is due to a change in the survey’s wording. Far-right marchers in Warsaw shout “Jews out” and other racist slogans at an Independence Day march by 60,000 people, one of the largest nationalist gatherings in Europe. December 2017 President Trump commutes the sentence of Sholom Rubashkin, the former CEO of kosher meatpacker Agriprocessors, See Jewish year on page 18

Trump wants 5779 to be a new year of peace JaSon DoV GreenblaTT Shalom. Salaam. Peace. In Judaism, the word “peace” is found in the common greeting Shalom Aleichem. In the Muslim world, As-Salaam-Alaikum, or

“peace be with you,” is similarly used. The Jewish High Holy Days are upon us and in the machzor, the word shalom appears throughout the liturgy, which emphasizes the importance of peace. As the Jewish community prepares to celebrate Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, the Muslim community just completed Eid alAdha (the Festival of the Sacrifice), one of the holiest holidays on the Muslim calendar. These holidays, and the common greetings

shared throughout the world each day, inspire us to keep striving to improve each other’s lives and to never yield in our hope for a time of peace. ver the past 19 months, in pursuit of seemingly distant and elusive peace between Israelis and Palestinians, I have been fortunate to have had many powerful experiences with people in the region. Israelis and Palestinians, young and old, secular and religious, Muslim, Christian and Jewish, are uncertain about the prospects for peace, and

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their skepticism is certainly warranted. Despite well-known challenges, the people of the region and their dedication to the pursuit of peace have inspired me. People frequently approach to ask me to thank President Donald J. Trump for returning the hope of peace to the region and for bringing its pursuit back into everyday conversation. The people understand that this is an extraordinary challenge, full of evolving complexities, but they support this See To a peaceful on page 2 noble goal.

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Continued from page 1 In my meetings with leaders in the region, they too point to a potential path for peace. The Middle East has changed dramatically since this conflict began decades ago. What seemed impossible only a few years ago is possible now. Tomorrow even more is possible. In 1983, when I first traveled to the region, the prevailing stance of the Arab world (with the exception of Egypt) was, as it had been for decades, aggression and war with Israel. Some 35 years later, there is a different reality. Confronted with an aggressive Iran outside their borders, and populations eager for economic opportunity within, most leaders understand now that Israel is not the problem — indeed, the Jewish state could be part of their solution. We are, of course, clear-eyed about the many uncertainties ahead. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is not the core conflict of the region. Solving it will not solve the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, terrorists in the Sinai Desert in Egypt, a tragic civil war in Syria, war in Yemen, Hezbollah (a terrorist organization sponsored by Iran) in Lebanon, instability in Libya, and an Iranian regime that oppresses its own people and foments terrorism around the world. But that does not make resolving it any less important. As President Trump has said, ultimately it is up to Israelis and Palestinians to make the hard decisions to achieve a comprehensive peace agreement. t the time of this writing, the Palestinian leadership refuses to engage with us. Such refusal began when President Trump made his historic decision to recognize the reality that Jerusalem has been and will remain the capital of Israel. The leadership’s unwillingness to engage is disappointing and only hurts the Palestinian people they claim to serve. It is unfortunate that the Palestinian leadership condemns a peace plan they have never seen, and refuses to engage on a possible path forward for all Palestinians. This approach will only cause the Palestinian people to fall further and further behind their neighbors. Despite these challenges, my experiences over the past 19 months illustrate that among ordinary people and many regional leaders, the desire for peace is real and powerful. We owe it to Israelis and Palestinians to continue our efforts in the pursuit of peace. They deserve better

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than what they have now. This Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, I will pray for an enduring solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. I will pray for calm and tranquility for Gaza — for both Israelis and Palestinians who suffer from Hamas’s activities. I will pray for the Goldin and Shaul families, that Hamas will return Hadar and Oron to them. I will pray for the Mengistu and al-Sayed families, that Hamas will return Avera and Hisham to them. I hope you will join me in these prayers. May G-d bless us with a year of contentment, good health, sustenance, happiness and tranquility. May G-d spread the tabernacle of shalom, salaam, peace over the United States of America, its allies and friends. Jason Dov Greenblatt serves as Assistant to the President and Special Representative for International Negotiations.

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Bibi cheers Duterte, who calls Hitler ‘insane leader’ JERUSALEM (JTA) — “We remember our friends,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte on Monday, at the start of a meeting between the two leaders during the first visit by a president of the Philippines to the State of Israel. “We remember the exceptional role of the Philippines that received Jewish refugees during the Holocaust,” Netanyahu said. “We remember that the Philippines was the only Asian country that voted for the establishment of the State of Israel in the UN resolution in 1947.” Later on Monday, Duterte — who in 2016 compared himself to Adolf Hitler — in comments at the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial called Hitler an “insane leader.” “I could not imagine a country obeying an insane leader, and I could not ever fathom the spectacle of the human being going into a killing spree, murdering old men, women and children. I hope this will not happen again,” he said. “There is always a lesson to learn: that despots and leaders who show insanity, they should be disposed of at the first instance.” Duterte is facing two complaints of murder and crimes against humanity in the International Criminal Court. His war on drugs reportedly has

led to the execution of thousands of alleged drug dealers and addicts. Netanyahu and Duterte signed three bilateral agreements: to improve financial conditions for the tens of thousands of Filipino workers in Israel, as well as memorandums of understanding on scientific cooperation and on encouraging bilateral investments. Duterte praised Israelis for treating Filipino caretakers well. “They have been very happy working here. And I have heard that they have been treated as human beings, unlike in other places, which I am not going to mention now,” he said. Earlier in the day, Duterte addressed a meeting with some 1,400 Filipino workers who gathered in Jerusalem to see the president. He told the workers that Israel and the Philippines share a commitment to peace and against “corrupt ideologies” — a reference to his war against drug dealers in his country. “Critics compare me to Hitler’s cousin,” Duterte said in 2016. “Hitler massacred 3 million Jews … there’s 3 million drug addicts. There are. I’d be happy to slaughter them.” “If Germany had Hitler, the Philippines would have …,” he said and pointed to himself.

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Never before has an Israeli citizen been employed at NASA — until now. Noa Yechezkel-Lubin, a graduate student in artificial intelligence at Bar-Ilan University’s Computer Science Department and a software developer at Amazon, has her sights on space after completing a three-month training program this summer at NASA. Yechezkel-Lubin, invited this past May by the Israel Ministry of Science, Technology and Space, began her program in June and in August completed an initial stint at Ames Research Center in California. She worked with leading researchers on future space projects and analyzing information from NASA’s telescopes. “I have been living my dream these past three months thanks to the Ministry of Science, Technology and Space,” said YechezkelLubin. “I got to conduct research at NASA Ames in the mission of identifying exoplanets. My research includes the study of the image processing of eye vessels to monitor sight-loss of astronauts.” Yechezkel-Lubin participated in a study to find planets outside the solar system that are similar in size to Earth, using information from telescopes such as TESS, which was launched into space in April. She also worked to develop algorithms based on the advanced methods of automating the classification of information. “This is the first time that the combination of artificial intelligence and space came together in my mind, which will advance my ability to analyze a lot of information and the ability to draw conclusions from it,” said Yechezkel-Lubin.

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In July, she visited the Johnson Space Center in Houston, TX as an Israeli representative. She spoke about how her mentor at NASA, an Iranian-born scientist, came away with a new perspective. “Since I am Israeli, I have to be escorted to the NASA campus. While we were sitting in the car having a conversation, my mentor told me: ‘Noa, I am so happy I hired you, you changed my opinion about Israel and its people.’ It was a proud moment. I was no longer just a scientist from Israel, but a goodwill ambassador too.” As a child, Yechezkel-Lubin and her family spent years living in Belgium and the U.S. She resided in Tenafly, New Jersey from 2003 to 2005. In each country, she continued to excel in physics and mathematics. “These studies provided me with an anchor when I came to a new place,” she said. “The language and culture changed completely, but science and numbers remained the same.” After serving in the IDF, Yechezkel-Lubin worked on the satellite control team at Israel Aerospace Industries, studied electrical engineering at the Technion and worked at Elbit. Her goal is to establish a start-up that will combine artificial intelligence and space. In addition to her scientific career, Yechez-

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kel-Lubin looks to promote women in science. She has won scholarships for excellence and social involvement from Google, Intel and Apple. “In one of the places I worked, we were two female engineers in a team of more than 40 engineers. This doesn’t make sense,” she said. “Women are an integral part of technological teams, and these numbers show that we have much more work to do toward gender equality.” Yechezkel-Lubin hopes to encourage women to enter scientific fields by integrating them into the “Marching to the Moon” initiative, an international project whose goal is to reach the total number of steps required to reach the moon. “The average distance between the earth and the moon is 384,403 kilometers, a distance that would require the average person to take 478 million steps,” she said. “Assuming that the average person walks at a rate of 4.8 kilometers per hour, it would take nine years to reach the moon. With our work at NASA in conjunction with Israel’s Ministry of Science, we can be part of light years of scientific innovation and exploration. This could bring us so much closer to the rest of the universe.” Source: Bar-Ilan University

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What’s on and off President Trump’s peace table By Sean Savage, JNS President Donald Trump has not shied away from attempting to solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which he has called the “deal of the century.” Trump has broken with previous administrations by recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and relocating the U.S. embassy there. While relations with Israel may be at an all-time high, the same cannot be said of the Palestinians, who have officially boycotted the Trump administration since last year’s announcement over Jerusalem and what they perceive as favoritism towards Israel at present. In recent weeks, tensions between the Palestinians and Trump have increased, with the Trump administration cutting more than $200 million in assistance to the Palestinians. This also comes as the administration withheld $65 million to UNRWA, the U.N. Relief and Works Agency dedicated solely to the needs of Palestinian refugees, with additional reports indicating that the United States may cut all funding to UNRWA in the coming weeks. The growing strain has also been exacerbated by speculation over the announcement of plan by the administration to bring forth a peace deal between the Israelis and Palestinians. Jonathan Schanzer, senior vice president of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and expert on Palestinian politics, told JNS that the intent of the Trump administration’s cuts targeting the Palestinian Authority and UNRWA seem to be geared towards weakening the Palestinian’s negotiating position ahead of talks. “The logic here seems to be an intent to weaken the Palestinian negotiating position before rolling out the peace process, with the intent of offering a lifeline to lure them into a new paradigm,” he said. “The cuts to the P.A. and UNRWA certainly have the potential to be destabilizing. It really depends on how long this period lasts. It should not be prolonged if the intent is to prevent instability.” Yet Ghaith al-Omari, an expert on Palestinian and Arab matters for the Washington Institution for Near East Policy, said the cuts by the Trump administration will likely play right into the hands of the Palestinian leadership. “These cuts will undoubtedly have a negative impact on the Palestinian population in the West Bank and Gaza, but the public anger will be directed against the U.S. and Israel not the P.A.,” he said. “The angry mood created by these measures plays into the P.A.’s hands as it reinforces [Mahmoud] Abbas’s rhetoric casting the Trump administration as an antagonist.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Donald Trump with senior White House adviser Jared Kushner at the start of a meeting in Jerusalem on May 22, 2017. Kobi Gideon/GPO

Tackling UNRWA ‘head on’ Nevertheless, the Trump administration has begun targeting UNRWA. Detractors have argued that UNRWA, which counts every Arab who fled during the 1948 War of Independence and their descendants as refugees — an exclusive to Palestinians — has helped to perpetuate the conflict by keeping millions of Palestinians permanent refugees. “We will be a donor if it [UNRWA] reforms what it does … if they actually change the number of refugees to an accurate account, we will look back at partnering them,” U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley said. Additional reports have also indicated that the Trump administration may officially refute the Palestinian “right of return.” Asaf Romirowsky, executive director of the Scholars for Peace in the Middle East and a co-author of the 2013 book Religion, Politics, and the Origins of Palestine Refugee Relief, explains that the cuts by the Trump administration to UNRWA will help raise awareness over the issues concerning UNRWA. “I suspect the cuts will be part of the preconditions for talks which the P.A. will reject. That said, [they] will ultimately raise national awareness re: UNRWA’s functionality,” he said. “It also sheds light on the subversive dynamic between UNRWA

and the Palestinian leadership; the existence of UNRWA allows the Palestinian Authority to continue shirking core responsibilities towards its citizens,” he added. While the United States has not ignored the issue of UNRWA in the past — with a number of congressional resolutions since the 1970s seeking to limit or cut off funding, as well as promoting transparency and accountability — Romirowsky said this is the first time the issue has been tackled head on. “Understanding the way that UNRWA helps perpetuate the Palestinian refugee problem reveals an entrenched and dysfunctional bureaucracy, accustomed to 70 years of international welfare, including over $370 million from the U.S. in 2016,” he said. Involving the Arab world in peace talks At the same time, reports have emerged indicating that the Trump administration has been reaching out to Arab states to play a role in facilitating peace. Reports have even gone as far as to suggest that Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states may normalize relations with Israel before striking a deal with the Palestinians. “The Trump administration initially tried to build on the shared Israel and Arab concerns regarding Iran in order to adopt the ‘outside-in’ approach, whereby they sought to convince Arab states to open relations with Israel before a Palestinian-Israeli peace deal is concluded,” said al-Omari. “These efforts were bound to fail since Arab states have traditionally and consistently been unwilling to pay the political and diplomatic price of publicly opposing or even going ahead of the Palestinians on such an emotive issue.” In June, both Kushner and Greenblatt visited Arab states — Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan and Qatar — reportedly to drum up support ahead of Trump’s rollout of his peace plan. Kushner and Greenblatt also discussed Gaza humanitarian relief with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman, according to the White House. Additional reports have also circulated that Israel will attempt to form a long-term truce with Hamas through indirect negotiations via Egypt and other Arab states, such as Qatar. Nevertheless, Schanzer believes that the Arab Gulf states remain key to the success or failure any peace deal for the Trump administration. “If the Gulf states can exert their influence and push the Palestinians toward the Trump position — whatever that may be — then there is a fighting chance for success. It certainly won’t be the United States or even members of the [Middle East] Quartet fulfilling this role,” he said. See Trump’s peace table on page 29

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s the final minutes of Rosh Hashanah ticked away, 13-year-old Leo Goldberger was hiding, along with his parents and three brothers, in the thick brush along the shore of Dragor, a small fishing village south of Copenhagen. The year was 1943, and the Goldbergers, like thousands of other Danish Jews, were desperately trying to escape an imminent Nazi roundup. “Finally, after what seemed like an excruciatingly long wait, we saw our signal offshore,” Goldberger later recalled. “We strode straight into the ocean and waded through three or four feet of icy water until we were hauled aboard a fishing boat” and “covered with smelly canvases.” Shivering, frightened, but grateful, the Goldberger family soon found themselves in the safety and freedom of neighboring Sweden. For years, FDR and other Allied leaders had insisted that nothing could be done to rescue Jews from the Nazis except to win the war. But 75 years ago this week, the Danish people exploded that myth and changed history. hen the Nazis occupied Denmark in 1940, the Danes put up little resistance. As a result, German authorities agreed to let the Danish government continue functioning with greater autonomy than other occupied countries. They also postponed taking steps against Denmark’s 8,000 Jewish citizens. In the late summer of 1943, amid rising tensions between the occupation regime and the Danish government, the Nazis declared martial law and decided the time had come to deport Danish Jews to the death camps. But Georg Duckwitz, a German diplomat in Denmark,

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leaked the information to Danish friends. (He was later honored by Yad Vashem as one of the Righteous Among the Nations.) As word of the Germans’ plans spread, the Danish public responded with a spontaneous nationwide grassroots effort to help the Jews. The Danes’ remarkable response gave rise to the legend that King Christian X himself rode through the streets of Copenhagen on horseback, wearing a yellow Star of David, and that the citizens of the city likewise donned the star in solidarity with the Jews. The story may have had its origins in a political cartoon that appeared in a Swedish newspaper in 1942. It showed King Christian pointing to a Star of David and declaring that if the Nazis imposed it upon the Jews of Demark, “then we must all wear the star.” Leon Uris’s novel Exodus, and the movie based on that book, helped spread the legend. But subsequent investigations by historians have concluded that the story is a myth. On Rosh Hashanah and the days that followed, numerous Danish Christian families hid Jews in their homes or farms and then smuggled them to the seashore late at night. From there, fishermen took them across the Kattegat Straits to neighboring Sweden. The three-week rescue operation had the strong support of Danish church leaders, who used their pulpits to urge aid to the Jews, as well as Danish universities, which shut down so that students could assist the smugglers. More than 7,000 Danish Jews reached Sweden and were sheltered there until the end of the war. Esther Finkler, a young newlywed, was hidden, together with her husband and their mothers, in a greenhouse. One evening, a member of the Danish Underground arrived and drove the four, “through streets saturated with Nazi stormtroopers,” to a point near the shore. There they hid in an underground shelter, then in the attic of a bakery, until finally they were

brought to a beach, where they boarded a small fishing vessel together with other Jewish refugees. “The captain covered us with fishing nets. When everyone had been properly concealed, the fishermen started the boat, and as the motor started to run, so did my pent-up tears.” Then, suddenly, trouble: “The captain began to sing and whistle nonchalantly, which puzzled us. Soon we heard him shouting in German toward a passing Nazi patrol boat: ‘Wollen sie einen beer haben?’ (Would you like a beer?) — a clever gimmick designed to avoid the Germans’ suspicions. After three tense hours at sea … the Swedes cried with us as they This cartoon by Arie Navon appeared in the Hebrew-language escorted us ashore. The night- newspaper Davar on Oct. 13, 1943. Navon contrasted the rescue of Denmark’s Jews with the farcical refugee conference that the Almare was over.” Roosevelt administration had lies staged earlier that year in Bermuda. The title of the cartoon is a long insisted that rescue of Hebrew word that means both “lifeguards” and “rescuers.” The lifeJews from the Nazis was not guards, one smoking a Churchill-style pipe, and the other wearing Roosevelt-style glasses, are standing next to an unused life preservpossible. The refugee advocates er labeled “Bermuda.” The scrawny man diving into the swastikaknown as the Bergson Group be- infested ocean to rescue a drowning person is labeled “Sweden.” gan citing the escape of Denmark’s Reprinted Cartoonists Against the Holocaust, by Rafael Medoff and Craig Yoe Jews as evidence that if the Allies Roosevelt’s own former economic advisers. were sufficiently interested, ways In blunt language that summed up the tragecould be found to save many European Jews. The Bergsonites sponsored a series of full- dy — and the hope — Henderson declared: “The page newspaper advertisements about the Dan- Allied governments have been guilty of moral ish-Swedish effort, headlined “It Can Be Done!” cowardice. The issue of saving the Jewish people On Oct. 31, thousands of New Yorkers jammed of Europe has been avoided, submerged, played Carnegie Hall for the Bergson Group’s “Salute to down, hushed up, resisted with all the forms of political force that are available. Sweden and Sweden and Denmark” rally. Speakers included members of Congress, Denmark have proved the tragedy of Allied indeDanish and Swedish diplomats, and one of the cision. The Danes and Swedes have shown us the biggest names in Hollywood — Orson Welles, di- way. If this be a war for civilization, then most rector of Citizen Kane and War of the Worlds. In surely this is the time to be civilized!” Dr. Rafael Medoff is founding director of The another coup for the Bergson Group, one of the speakers was Leon Henderson, one of President David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies.

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Tiny Chabad village crafts a Jewish pilgrimage By Cnaan Liphshiz, JTA LYUBAVICHI, Russia — At 92, Valentina Prilashkevitch and her twin sister Claudia need to cautiously negotiate the dirt road to their wooden home in this tiny village near the Belarus border. In winter, frost could easily mean a broken hip. The risk of falling returns in summer, when the swampy earth turns to soft powder. Asphalt is one of many amenities missing from this horseflyinfested village of 200. Its dilapidated houses lack electricity, running water, central heating, indoor toilets and steady cooking gas. Some here are so poor that they still use horse-drawn vehicles and rely on backyard farming for sustenance. But things are beginning to turn around for Prilashkevitch, because her village is the namesake of Chabad-Lubavitch — one of the largest and most influential Hasidic movements in Judaism. In recent years, the village has started to attract hundreds of visitors a month, prompting local authorities to undertake what in local terms is a massive investment in infrastructure with the aim of cultivating an unlikely source of income: Western tourism. The Prilashkevitch sisters, for their part, are about to have their street paved for the first time since the village was established. The reason? It leads to an ancient Jewish cemetery. “It is all thanks to the Jews,” said Valentina Prilashkevitch’s

grandson, Sergey Levashov. “I think it’s very good that this place is beginning to become known internationally for its tradition of coexistence with the Jews. More good things can come to us for it.” More good things are already happening to Lyubavichi, according to Yuri Ivashkin, the mayor of the district. “A deal to lay down cooking gas pipes was signed this summer, there’s a new hotel that’s about to be built here. Come back in five years. You won’t recognize this place,” he told JTA. Ivashkin, who lives in nearby Rudnya, came to Lyubavichi on Sunday to attend the dedication of a fence around another Jewish cemetery. It contains the remains of two 19th-century rabbis, Menachem Mendel Schneersohn and Shmuel Schneersohn, the third and the fourth great sages of the Chabad movement, which was based here for a century before World War I. Chabad has only had seven supreme spiritual leaders. The fence was erected by the European Jewish Cemeteries Initiative, or ESJF, which has completed similar projects in 102 cemeteries across Europe with funding from the German government. “Initiatives like these are vital because of neglect, economic and agricultural development, and vandalism,” said Rabbi Isaac Schapira, the founder and chairman of the ESJF board. Separately, Chabad has undertaken another project at the cem-

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September 7, 2018 • 27 Elul 5778 THE JEWISH STAR

etery — to pull up headstones swallowed by the marshy ground. While the cemetery attracts pilgrims, the real engine behind the growth in Jewish tourism is Chabad’s 2008 opening of an information center. About 12 people are based permanently at the center, which is called Hatzer Raboteinu Nesieinu Belubavitch. That fenced compound, where in 2016 about 500 Chabad rabbis from across the former Soviet Union convened for a conference, is located in a part of Lyubavichi where the town’s Chabad sages once lived with their families and disciples. Lyubavichi was founded approximately 500 years ago, according to some accounts, by a Rabbi Meir who named it in reference to his people’s love (lyubov in Russian) of G-d. For Jews in czarist Russia, it was prime real estate because it was one of the points closest to Moscow within the Pale of Settlement. Hundreds of them settled in Lyubavichi, which became a major shtetl. In the early 19th century, Lyubavichi became home to Dovber Schneuri, Chabad’s second supreme spiritual leader. He turned Lyubavichi into a hub of Jewish learning. Jews from across Eastern Europe came to seek guidance, many of them settling to join the core of the movement, according to the late historian Moshe Tzinovitch, who published an essay about the town’s history in 1943. But followers fled in World War I as the German army advanced. Hundreds of Jews remained, until the Nazis killed them in 1941. The center of the movement shifted from Russia to Poland and, following World War II, to the United States. Few Jews visited this place under communism. But visitors began trickling in during the early 1990s. By 2000, it saw dozens each month. Since then, visitors to Lyubavichi number about 10,000 annually, according to Gavriel Gordon, a Chabad rabbi tasked with preserving the movement’s heritage sites. Gordon said plans are underway to restore part of the original shtetl, taken apart and used for construction during communism. For now, though, the most authentic characteristic of shtetl life seems to be the horse-drawn carriages used by some of the villagers. They regularly come out to greet large groups of Jews, offering short rides and selfies for tips. In recent years, the village changed the names of some of its street names to highlight its Jewish heritage. The main road is now called Derech Lubavitch. Another is now Chabad Street. The Prilashkevitch twins live on Schneersohn Road, carrying the last name of five generations of Chabad leaders. Some of the village’s houses boast a fresh coat of paint, including bright yellow, pink and green. But even newly painted houses here are so old and poorly maintained that they lean outward at strange angles, seemingly ready to collapse. The residents collect water in buckets from faucets on main roads. Many of Lyubavichi’s visitors today are devoted Chabadniks. One is Jehoshua Raskin, age 70. The Russia-born rabbi moved to Israel in 1967, only to return to Russia after communism to “make Judaism great again” there, as he put it. He has one son serving as an emissary of Chabad in Uganda, another in Cyprus and a third in Budapest. Today, he travels across Russia and beyond giving lectures about Judaism. “I am brought in to give strength to communities from Brazil to Australia,” he said on the six-hour car ride from Moscow to the fence-dedication ceremony, which he said he decided to join at the spur of the moment. “Lyubavichi is where I draw that energy. I come whenever I can.” But even with devotees like Raskin, the number of visitors here is a fraction of the traffic to the site of Europe’s largest Hasidic pilgrimage: Uman, Ukraine, 500 miles south of Lyubavichi. About 30,000 visitors, mostly Israeli, arrive in Uman each year on Rosh Hashanah to visit the grave of Rabbi Nachman, an 18thcentury luminary who founded the Breslov Hasidic movement. But whereas Uman is an established destination, Lyubavichi has yet to realize its potential, said Ivashkin. “I know Uman. There is no reason why Lyubavichi shouldn’t match and surmount it,” he said. Ivashkin’s favorable attitude to Jewish tourism — a common approach by officials in Russia under President Vladimir Putin — is in and of itself a major difference to the one prevalent in Uman, where many of the city’s 70,000 residents crowds, noise and even crime that the pilgrimage brings. Uman has seen protests featuring anti-Semitic rhetoric in recent years, as well as agitation by the xenophobic far-right. This hostility is exacerbated by some rowdy Jewish visitors, but it is unfolding amid a dramatic increase in nationalism and antiSemitic incidents in Ukraine following a 2014 revolution in which the far right played a prominent role. Lyubavichi has seen almost no anti-Jewish agitation. Earlier this month, anti-Semitic graffiti appeared on the external wall of the Chabad compound here. But Ivashkin said the suspect was from the city of Murmansk, hundreds of miles away. Russian authorities are quick to punish perpetrators of antiSemitic hate crimes. Chabad leaders enjoy a high degree of access to Putin, and under him have become the undisputed leading force in Jewish communal life in Russia. “There are certainly challenges attached to making a place like Lyubavichi a major site for pilgrimage,” said Gordon “But it can make a huge contribution to the spirituality of the Jewish people, and to the material situation of this very poor village.”

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By Eric Hawkins, Herald Community News In the only planned debate in advance of the Democratic primary for governor, incumbent Andrew Cuomo faced Cynthia Nixon at Hofstra University in a raucous and notably aggressive encounter. The election is next Thursday, Sept. 13. It was rescheduled from Tuesday, Sept. 11, because of Rosh Hashanah. Cuomo kept his cool, although Nixon, a successful actor and education activist, lobbed a series of attacks at the two-term governor, calling into question his ethical judgment and devotion to progressive ideals. Cuomo has proven that experience isn’t enough “when you don’t know how to govern,” Nixon said, kicking off 60 dizzying minutes of back-and-forth. Cuomo in turn chided Nixon, urging her to return to “real life,” and claiming to be the only one on stage who can stand up to President Donald Trump. “We are the alternative state to Donald Trump,” Cuomo said. “We’re not gonna let him bring his extreme Republican politics to New York.” In touting his opposition to the Republican president’s immigration policies, Cuomo also twice referred to Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials as a “bunch of thugs.” He added that Trump had “politicized” the agency. Nixon maintained that Cuomo is a “corporate Democrat” who has failed to push for single-payer health care and cozied up to the Independent Democratic Conference — eight Democratic state senators who caucus with Republicans — and thus doomed much progressive legislation. “You’ve stood up to Donald Trump about as well as he does to [Russian President Vladimir] Putin,” Nixon said, adding, “We need to oppose Trump not just with rhetoric, but with policy.” And in what was undoubtedly the evening’s most surreal moment, Nixon found herself repeatedly defending the fact that she was, indeed, “a person,” as Cuomo repeatedly attacked her for, apparently, owning and filing taxes as an “S Corp.” “When you file taxes as a corporation, you are a corporation,” Cuomo said, prompting Nixon’s campaign to quickly issue a news release with the subject line, “Fact check: Cynthia is a human being.” Both candidates held their own, with Nixon often interrupting Cuomo, and the incumbent governor asking her to stop. “Can you stop lying?” Nixon responded, twice. Both, however, appeared to lose their stride on particular questions — which may indicate potential weak points in their political armor. For Nixon, when asked twice by moderators what in her experience has specifically prepared her to govern a state of 20 million people with a $170 billion budget, she stumbled and paused, before reiterating her advocacy for public education, and her work in 2010 for Fight Back New York PAC, which sought to kick legislators who didn’t support same-sex marriage out of office. Cuomo slowed his delivery and pensively returned to his water glass several times when confronted over the conviction of his former aide Joe Percoco on bribery conspiracy charges, referring twice to the situation as “painful,” and insisting that “everybody agrees” he had nothing to do with his aide’s crimes. “Never underestimate the ability of smart people to do stupid things,” Cuomo said, quoting his father, the late three-term governor, Mario Cuomo. Nixon, however, said that with Percoco’s crimes going on “right under [Cuomo’s] nose,” it was obviously either a case of “incompetence or corruption.” The invited audience of 150 at Hofstra’s

September 7, 2018 • 27 Elul 5778 THE JEWISH STAR

The JEWISH STAR Wine & Dine Good food resolutions for the new year Kosher Kitchen

Joni SCHoCkeTT

Jewish Star columnist

s we approach Yom Kippur with ten days of introspection and reflection, we think of the year past and the year ahead and try to figure out how to do it all better. Let’s include a few minutes to think about our food, those that help us grow and stay healthy and those we eat just because they taste good. Most of us plan our meals carefully and thoughtfully. We provide our families with the best vegetables and meats and more, and we prepare them carefully and with attention to dietary restrictions imposed by allergies and medical conditions. Food sensitivities can present many challenges, and it seems that more and more people face them each year. I have one child who is lactose intolerant and another who is allergic to all stone fruits such as cherries and peaches. One dear friend has celiac, and another cannot digest certain grains. My husband does not like red meat, and I am allergic to bell peppers. The fact that anyone ate a meal in my house sometimes seemed a miracle. But each year we made it, and you can, too. I am sure that many of you face food issues every day. We are lucky, to live in a time in which we can adjust our cooking to meet those needs. My personal goal is to eat less of the things I know do not contribute to my health, and more of the fresh vegetables that are so good for us all. As we think about the New Year, let’s also think a bit about the foods we eat and their impact on the planet, our health and the health of our families and friends. We can always find a way to do just a little bit better than last year. Shana tova and gmar chatimah tova. Cauliflower and Hazelnut Pangrattato (Dairy or Pareve or GF) This recipe comes from Feasting, by Amanda Ruben. I make a similar dish (no anchovy, lots of mushrooms, breadcrumbs and cheese topping) but this has a bit more heat and the topping sounds delicious. You can serve this for the holiday meat meal by leaving out the cheese. 1 Tbsp. salt 1 large head cauliflower 5 ounces extra virgin olive oil (a generous half cup) plus more for drizzling 1 to 4 garlic cloves, sliced or minced 4 anchovy filets (optional) 1/2 long red chili (more or less, to taste), stem and seeds removed, thinly sliced 1 pound spelt (for GF) whole wheat or regular other bow tie pasta 1/4 to 1/2 cup grated Parmesan or Romano cheese Bring a large soup pot of water to a boil and add the salt. Cut the cauliflower into small florets and add to the boiling water. Blanch for 3 minutes and then use a slotted spoon to transfer into a bowl. Reserve the boiled water. Transfer 1/3 of the cauliflower florets to the bowl of a food processor. Add 2 to 3 tablespoons of the blanching water. Process until smooth. Heat the oil in a large, heavy saucepan (I use another, smaller soup pot) over medium heat and add the garlic and the anchovies. Fry until the anchovies have almost completely melted and the garlic is lightly golden. Remove anchovies, but leave the garlic. Add the chili and heat for another 10 seconds, stirring constantly. Add the remaining cauliflower florets and stir. Cook for 5 to 7 minutes, until the cauliflower is soft. Add the processed cauliflower sauce and mix well. Carefully add 10 to 13 ounces of the blanching water to the mixture and mix well to emulsify. The sauce will thicken. Let simmer over low heat. While the cauliflower sauce is cooking, bring a pot of water to a boil and cook the pasta as directed until al dente. Remove and reserve one half cup of the pasta water and then drain the pasta and return it to the pan it was cooked in. Add the cauliflower sauce to that pan and mix gently, but well. Add the pasta cooking water, if too thick, and mix. To make the Pangrattato, heat a skillet and add the hazelnuts. Cook until fragrant, moving the skillet constantly 2 to 4 minutes. Place the nuts and breadcrumbs in the bowl of a food processor or a blender and process until you have coarse crumbs. I add the cheese to this, but you can leave it out and add the cheese later.

To serve, plate the pasta and top with the nut crumbs and, if dairy, grated cheese. Serves 8 to 10. Tomato Basil Salad (Pareve, Dairy) A great and simple recipe from Oy Vey Vegan by Estee Raviv. I love that this uses all those tomatoes that ripen all at once. You can add fresh mozzarella if making a dairy meal, but this is a great light salad for the holiday table if the weather is still too warm for chicken soup. 10 to 14 tomatoes (Roma are best, but I like a mixture) 15 to 20 basil leaves, rolled and cut into thin strips, chiffonade 1/2 to 3/4 cup pine nuts, toasted, if you like Juice of 1 lemon, about 1/3 cup 4 to 6 Tbsp. extra virgin olive oil, not too strong for the delicate flavors of fresh tomatoes Salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste OPTIONAL: Good, thick balsamic vinegar for drizzling Cut tomatoes into even sized pieces. Place into a pretty serving bowl and include the liquid from cutting. Add the basil and toss to mix flavors. In a small bowl, whisk the lemon juice and olive oil. Pour over the salad and toss to coat. Season with salt and pepper, to taste, top with pine nuts and a small drizzle of the balsamic vinegar. Serves 10 to 15. Whole Roasted Cauliflower with Green Tahini (Pareve) Adapted from Tahini and Turmeric, by Vicki Cohen and Ruth Fox, this delicious recipe is a favorite. I don’t eat cilantro, so I use chives and scallions. I have made a version of this and it is a showstopper, I surrounded it with roasted broccoli, carrots, squash and zucchini. I need to take pictures more often!

2 to 4 small heads of cauliflower (depending on number of guests) 2 to 3 Tbsp. extra virgin olive oil, per head of cauliflower Salt and pepper, to taste Green Tahini Sauce: 1 to 2 cups fresh parsley, leaves only 1 to 2 cups cilantro, chopped chives, and/or scallions 2 Tbsp. extra virgin olive oil 1/4 cup fresh dill, thin leaves only 1/3 to 2/3 cup tahini 1/3 to 2/3 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice 1 to 3 tsp. agave syrup or Golden Syrup Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste Water to thin, as needed Garnish: 1/4 to 1/2 cup toasted pine nuts Preheat the oven to 275 degrees. Line two rimmed baking sheets with foil and set aside. Trim the leaves and stalk of the cauliflower so each head sits flat on the baking sheet. Wash and pat dry with a paper towel. Drizzle with olive oil, sprinkle with salt and pepper and place two heads on each prepared pan. Cover tightly with foil and place in the oven for 55 to 70 minutes, until soft, but not mushy. Place the parsley, cilantro or other greens, dill, olive oil, tahini, lemon juice, and sweetener in the bowl of a food process. Process until smooth. Add water, if the sauce is too thick. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Refrigerate until ready to use. Heat a skillet and add the olive oil. Add the pine nuts and shake the pan constantly 2 to 3 minutes, until the pine nuts are toasted and fragrant. Let cool. Place the cauliflower on a platter and drizzle the sauce over each head. Garnish with the pine nuts. To serve, cut each head into pieces and serve with the sauce and nuts. Each head serves 4 to 6 people.

THE JEWISH STAR September 7, 2018 â&#x20AC;¢ 27 Elul 5778

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Wine & Dine

Had enough sweet stuff? Try savory for Sukkot By Megan Wolf, JTA So much at the Jewish New Year is sweet — first fruits, honey, honey cake. By the time Sukkot rolls around, we’re often looking for something savory to offset it all. Regardless of the time of year, we have some favorites in our house. One is smoked salmon with cream cheese and vegetables on an everything bagel. This menu is a riff on that very dish, but with a lighter and healthier take on the very foods that make the flavors so delicious. For a time saver, the fish can be crusted ahead of time and set, covered, in the fridge. This salmon is also delicious served cold the next day. Everything bagel spices are now sold commercially, but they are also very easy to make at home. Everything Bagel Crusted Salmon Ingredients: 1 tsp. poppy seeds 1 tsp. sesame seeds 1 1/2 tsp. kosher salt 1 1/2 tsp. dried garlic 1 1/2 tsp. dried onion 1/2 tsp. red pepper flakes, optional 4 5- to 6-ounce salmon filets 2 Tbsp. olive oil Directions:

Mix the spice ingredients together in a small bowl and crust each piece of salmon with the spice mix. Heat half the olive oil in a skillet over medium heat, then cook 2 pieces of salmon skin side down for about 3 minutes, flip and cook on the seeded side another 5 minutes or so until cooked through to your liking. Repeat with the other 2 two pieces of fish. Set aside. Creamy Tahini Salad Ingredients: 1/4 cup tahini 2 lemons, juiced 2 Tbsp. hot water Salt to taste 2 English cucumbers, washed and quartered 2 cups cherry tomatoes, washed and quartered Directions: In a small bowl, whisk tahini, lemon juice

and hot water, season to taste with salt. In a large bowl, combine vegetables and toss to mix the tahini mixture. Plate the tahini salad first followed by a piece of salmon. Top each plate with leftover everything bagel mix. 10 Garlic Broccoli Rabe Ingredients: 10 cloves garlic, peeled 3 Tbsp. olive oil 2 Tbsp. hot water 2 large bunch broccoli, washed with ends removed

Kosher salt to taste Directions: In a blender, combine garlic with olive oil and hot water until well mixed and the garlic chopped. Place broccoli in a large sauté pan over medium heat, then pour garlic oil mixture on top. Cook until the broccoli is just cooked through and tender, but still bright green, about 4 to 5 minutes. (You may loosely cover the pan to help the steaming process.) The liquid will have evaporated.

Recipe for gluten-free chocolate chip coffee cake

I say “for the most part” because I’ve found the greatest success when using these flours in sturdier baked goods — cookies, quick breads, and denser cakes. Like coffee cake! Unlike an angel food or layer cake, coffee cake made with a gluten-free blend is virtually undetectable. A generous addition of sour cream provides incredible moistness and you can never go wrong adding in chocolate chips. Instant

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espresso puts the “coffee” in this cake, and the chocolate streusel topping and cinnamon-sugar is simply a traditional must. Be sure to make this at least a day in advance to allow the flavors and texture to settle and develop. (You can even make it a month in advance and freeze it!) Ingredients: 12 Tbsp. (1=1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, divided, at room temperature 1-1/2 cups granulated sugar, divided 1/4 cup brown sugar 2-3/4 cups cup-for-cup gluten-free flour blend Kosher salt 1 Tbsp. unsweetened cocoa powder 1/2 tsp. cinnamon 1/4 cup chocolate chips, divided 2 eggs 1 tsp. vanilla 1 cup (8 ounces) sour cream 1-1/2 teaspoons baking powder 1 tsp. baking soda 1 Tbsp. instant espresso Directions:

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1. Pre-heat oven to 350 F; line a 9-by-9-inch pan with parchment paper (or grease and flour). 2. Melt 4 Tbsp. butter in a saucepan; remove from heat and add 1/4 cup granulated sugar, the brown sugar, 3/4 cup gluten-free flour blend, the cocoa powder and a pinch of salt. Stir with a fork, breaking up any large clumps, and spread out onto a baking sheet. Set aside. 3. Combine 1/4 cup granulated sugar and the cinnamon in a small bowl; set aside. 4. Beat the remaining 8 Tbsp. butter with the remaining 1 cup sugar until light and fluffy. Add the eggs, vanilla, sour cream and beat again. Add the remaining 2 cups gluten-free flour blend, baking powder, baking soda, instant espresso, and a pinch of salt and beat again. 5. Spread half the batter into your prepared pan — use a small angled spatula to spread evenly. Top with the cinnamon-sugar and sprinkle with half the chocolate chips. Top with the remaining batter; use a small angled spatula to spread evenly. Top with the streusel and sprinkle with the remaining chocolate chips. 6. Bake cake for 45 minutes or until a cake tester tests clean. Cool completely in the pan on

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By Sheri Silver, The Nosher via JTA To be a gluten-free baker (and eater) years ago was to be a disappointed baker (and eater). Delicious, high-quality gluten-free products were virtually impossible to find, and trying to make gluten-free goods from scratch was equally frustrating since there was little information out there to instruct the home baker. But today is a different story. Blogs, websites, and cookbooks solely devoted to gluten-free baking abound, with no end of tips, recipes, and suggestions for alternative flours, flour blends, and GF (it even has an abbreviation now!) versions of every cookie, bread, and cake imaginable. No one in my family has celiac disease, or even gluten sensitivity. But I have found, over the years, that we all tend to feel better if we reduce the amount of white and wheat flours in our diet. And while I could make my own flour blends for baking, I am a huge fan of what I call the “cupfor-cup” packaged blends that are widely available. These commercially produced blends are meant to be used as an exact substitute for flour in any recipe, and for the most part, you’d never know the difference.

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THE JEWISH STAR September 7, 2018 â&#x20AC;¢ 27 Elul 5778

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Jewish news highlights from the year 5778… Continued from page 1 who had been convicted of bank fraud and money laundering. Trump cites appeals from across the political spectrum. Trump signs a proclamation recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and directing the State Department to plan for a U.S. Embassy there. He signs a waiver delaying the move for six months. Philanthropist Barry Sherman and his wife are found murdered in their Toronto home. Sherman, chairman of the drug maker Apotex, had an estimated net worth of over $4 billion Canadian. The Shermans were on the boards of several Jewish groups. A Brooklyn woman and three of her children are killed in a house fire sparked by a menorah. Aliza Azan, 39, and children Moshe, 11; Yitzchak, 7; and Henrietta, 3, are buried in Israel. Her husband Yosi, three other children and a cousin are injured. A Syrian asylum seeker breaks into a kosher restaurant in Amsterdam while waving a Palestinian flag as police officers look on. His sentence of 52 days in jail and absence of hate crime charges in his indictment anger Dutch Jews. January 2018 A Pew poll finds that the split between Democrats and Republicans over Israel is the greatest since 1978. Seventy-nine percent of Republicans and 27 percent of Democrats sympathize with Israel over Palestinians. Vice President Mike Pence arrives in Israel for a two-day visit. He speaks at the Knesset, visits Yad Vashem and prays privately at the Western Wall. A photograph of former President Obama with Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan surfaces, prompting the AntiDefamation League to ask Obama to again denounce Farrakhan, who has drawn regular

criticism for anti-Semitic rhetoric. The photo was taken in 2005 during a Congressional Black Caucus meeting in Washington when Obama was a senator. Poland’s parliament passes a controversial law that criminalizes blaming the Polish nation for Nazi crimes. The law triggers a diplomatic row with Israel, prompting its amendment. Anti-Semitic incidents reach a record high in Britain and Ukraine. February 2018 Malcolm Hoenlein announces he will step aside as executive vice chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations after more than three decades. Hoenlein says he will remain with the conference in a capacity to be determined. The Anti-Defamation League reports a spike in anti-Semitic incidents in the United States in 2017. The 1,986 acts recorded in the U.S. that year represents a 57 percent increase from 2016, the largest one-year rise ever. The ADL says the jump is due in part to an increase in people reporting incidents. Iceland and Denmark draft legislation proposing a ban on nonmedical circumcision of boys under 18. Amid protests and lobbying by international Jewish organizations, politicians from the ruling parties in each country express opposition. March 2018 Two senior Jewish members of the Trump administration — Gary Cohen and David Shulkin — leave. Cohen resigns as chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors. He reportedly had been considering leaving after Trump’s equivocal response to a white supremacist rally in Virginia. Shulkin is fired as Veterans Affairs secretary after becoming embroiled in scandals.

The president of the World Jewish Congress issues a rare rebuke of Israeli government policies. In an op-ed in The New York Times, Ronald Lauder excoriates Israeli actions that threaten the two-state solution and enshrine Orthodox control of various aspects of Israeli life, including marriage and the Western Wall. The Canadian House of Commons unanimously passes legislation establishing the month of May as Canadian Jewish Heritage Month. The bill had previously passed the Senate. The heads of 139 Jewish day schools sign an open letter urging President Trump and federal and state legislators to take action on gun violence following a deadly shooting at a Florida high school. The letter calls for “common sense legislation that addresses all factors contributing to a safe and secure educational community.” Tens of thousands of Gaza demonstrators approach the Israeli border in the socalled March of Return, launching months of protests that turn violent and result in the deaths of 156 Palestinians. In one protest in May, 62 protesters are killed; Hamas claims 50 as members. Israel’s actions prompt the U.N. to condemn it for “excessive use of force.” Mireille Knoll, a Holocaust survivor from Paris, is brutally murdered in her apartment, selected as a target because she was Jewish. More than 10,000 people march in protest. April 2018 B’nai Brith Canada reports a record number of anti-Semitic incidents in 2017. Its annual audit shows 1,752 incidents of harassment, vandalism and violence, the vast majority in Ontario and Quebec. Dov Hikind, a New York state assembly-

man who represented Jewish neighborhoods in Brooklyn for more than three decades, announces his retirement. A former follower of Rabbi Meir Kahane, Hikind did not give a reason for his retirement. Natalie Portman says she won’t attend the Genesis Prize ceremony in Jerusalem because she does not want to appear to endorse Benjamin Netanyahu. The Genesis Prize Foundation cancels the award ceremony and the Jewish actress’s chance to distribute the prize money to charity, but declines to rescind the honor. Josef Schuster, president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, publicly advises Jews to avoid wearing kippahs in some urban settings following the assault of an ArabIsraeli man trying to prove to his friend that wearing a yarmulke is safe in Germany. May 2018 In a speech, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas says that Jews caused the Holocaust with their “social behavior,” prompting swift condemnation from liberal and conservative groups in Israel and the Diaspora. President Trump declares he will not waive sanctions on Iran, effectively pulling out of the 2015 nuclear deal reached by Obama. Israel had pressed Trump to withdraw, while Germany, France and the United Kingdom all urge him to remain. Philip Roth, the legendary chronicler of the American Jewish experience, dies at 85 in New York. A celebrated novelist, Roth won virtually every major literary accolade, including two National Book Awards, two National Book Critics Circle awards, three PEN/ Faulkner Awards, a Pulitzer Prize and the Man Booker International Prize. Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens resigns after Continued on next page

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tionality law that cements Israel as the “nation-state of the Jewish people” and recognizes Hebrew as the sole official language. The measure prompts anger from groups that view it as discriminatory. Israeli police detain a Conservative rabbi in Haifa for performing a non-Orthodox wedding outside the purview of the Chief Rabbinate. Rabbi Dov Haiyun tells JTA that he is disappointed “that this is what’s happening in my country.” Britain’s Labour Party adopts a definition of anti-Semitism laxer than the one used by the country’s executive branch. It prompts the worst crisis yet over anti-Semitism within the party under leader Jeremy Corbyn, triggering a spate of resignations and a senior member of his party calling him an “anti-Semite and a racist.” JTA’s Europe correspondent Cnaan Liphshiz and editorial fellow Charles Dunst also contributed to this report.

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THE JEWISH STAR September 7, 2018 • 27 Elul 5778

Continued from previous page months of scandal stemming from an extramarital affair and other misdeeds. A former Navy SEAL and the state’s first Jewish governor, Greitens had been considered a rising Republican star. Israel wins the Eurovision song contest with “Toy” by Netta Barzilai. “You have brought the State of Israel a lot of pride. Next year in Jerusalem!” Netanyahu writes on Twitter. It is Israel’s fourth Eurovision victory. The United States dedicates its new embassy in Jerusalem in a ceremony attended by Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner. The move, mandated by a 1995 law but delayed on national security grounds by successive presidents, is condemned by other world leaders. Aaron Panken, the president of the Reform movement’s rabbinical seminary, dies while piloting a small aircraft in upstate New York. Panken, a licensed commercial pilot, was 53 and had led the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion since 2014. New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman resigns hours after the publication of a report detailing allegations of physical abuse by four women. In a statement, Schneiderman denies he had ever assaulted anyone. The foundation created by Holocaust survivor and philanthropist George Soros announces it is closing operations in Hungary, citing government “repression.” Hungary’s prime minister, Viktor Orban, warned that Soros’s advocacy was responsible for Middle Eastern immigrants gaining admission to Europe. Ken Livingstone, a former mayor of London, resigns from Britian’s Labour Party amid a review of his claims that Adolf Hitler supported Zionism. Livingstone’s membership exposed the party to allegations that it tolerates anti-Semitism under the leadership of leader Jeremy Corbyn. June 2018 Twenty-six Jewish groups sign a letter calling the U.S. policy of separating children from their migrant parents “unconscionable.” Signatories included three major Jewish religious movements — Conservative, Reform and Reconstructionist — as well as the American Jewish Committee, the AntiDefamation League, HIAS, Jewish Women’s International, the Jewish Council for Public Affairs and Uri L’Tzedek, an Orthodox social justice organization. “The Band’s Visit,” based on an Israeli film about an Egyptian band stranded in a Negev town, dominates the 72nd annual Tony Awards, winning 10 awards, including best musical, best actor in a musical, best direction of a musical and best original score. An Israeli court convicts a 19-year-old American Israeli of making hundreds of bomb threats against Jewish community centers and schools across the United States. Michael Kadar is convicted for extortion, conspiracy to commit a crime, money laundering and assaulting a police officer. In the first three months of 2017, the threats forced widespread evacuations and sparked fear of resurgent anti-Semitism. The United States withdraws from the U.N. Human Rights Council, citing bias against Israel. Ambassador Nikki Haley says the council is “not worthy of its name” and that the decision had come after “good faith” efforts to reform the body had failed. Czech President Miloš Zeman announces that he will move his country’s embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem — the first public pledge by a European head of state. July 2018 Continued incendiary kites and balloons launched from Gaza ignite countless fires in Israel, with one of the largest burning in southern Israel’s Kibbutz Or Haner. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu travels to Moscow to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin. The leaders discuss Syria, Iran, Israel’s security needs — and the 2018 World Cup. The Knesset passes a controversial na-

Agudah reissues notice on proper kapparos

September 7, 2018 • 27 Elul 5778 THE JEWISH STAR

Agudath Israel of America has reissued the following Kol Korei (rabbinic statement) regarding kapporos that it first published 11 years ago. To All Our Jewish Brethren, Hashem’s Blessings Upon You! As the y’mei ho’rachamim ve’hadin rapidly approach, and as Jews will soon be fulfilling the minhag of Kapporos during the Aseres Yimei Teshuva, we wish to emphasize the need for all public Kapporos centers to be under the exacting Hashgacha of a competent Rav Hamachshir to ensure that all aspects of this “minhag vasikin” (Rama, Shulchan Aruch Orach Chayim 605) are done properly in accordance with halacha. Halachic authorities have long pointed out the need for special care to be taken during the Kapporos process that the chickens be slaughtered and processed properly, especially on Erev Yom Kippur, when many shochtim spend long hours shechting large volumes of chickens (as discussed in Mishneh Berurah, ibid, se’if koton beis). A proper Hashgocha will oversee all aspects of kashrus throughout the entire process, including the proper handling of the chickens prior to shechita so as to avoid fractures or other defects that would render the chickens treif; the validity of the shechita itself, including the necessary periodic checking of the knife used for shechita; the post-shechita internal bedika; and the proper kashering of the chickens (soaking, salting and rinsing). In addition to these kashrus matters, the Hashgocha will also ensure that all other rel-

evant halachos are carefully adhered to throughout the Kapporos process, including such matters as health and safety concerns (both those that concern the wellbeing of those who handle the chickens, as well as those that concern the safety of the food); scrupulous compliance with the Torah’s laws of tza’ar ba’alei chayim throughout the entire process of storing, transporting and handling the chickens, which should be done by responsible adults, not children; ensuring that a live chicken that has already been used for Kapporos by one individual should not be reused for Kapporos by another individual; and sensitivity to tzniyus concerns, to avoid improper mingling to the extent possible. We have enlisted the assistance of a group of distinguished local Rabbonim to work together with the proprietors and sponsors of Kapporos centers and with Mashgichim to implement proper standards, and to oversee the centers to ensure that nothing improper transpires in the Kapporos process. We therefore call upon the entire tzibbur to patronize only those Kapporos centers that are under the exacting Hashgacha of expert Rabbonim. In the z’chus of carrying out this minhag vasikin properly, in full compliance with halacha, may we all be zocheh to kapporas avonos, and to be inscribed in the Book of the Righteous for a good and blessed year. To this we have placed our signatures, for the benefit of the community, these final days of Chodesh Elul 5767.

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Happy & Healthy New Year! Best Wishes For A Apples, honey and help Happy & Healthy New Year! L’Shanah Tova is sent to thousands of L’Shanah Tova

THE JEWISH STAR September 7, 2018 • 27 Elul 5778

elderly Russian Jews CONGRESSMAN

Best Wishes For A GREGORY W. MEEKS Happy & Healthy New Y Best Wishes For A GREGORY W. MEEKS Healthy NewTova Year! U.S. House of RepresentativesHappy &L’Shanah

Continuing a tradition started before the fall of the Soviet Union 30 years ago, the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) and its network of volunteers will provide extra aid and traditional Rosh Hashanah treats, including apples and honey, to thousands of poor, elderly Jews across nations of the former Soviet Union. The aid, which is provided by JDC through its partners the Claims Conference, the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews (IFCJ), the Jewish Federations, and other generous donors, will be distributed in hundreds of locations throughout the region where JDC will also hold scores of holiday events to mark the Jewish New Year. “As we reflect on the past year and look ahead to the future, we should remember how fortunate we are and do what we can for the world’s poorest Jews—the elderly of the former Soviet Union,” said JDC CEO David M. Schizer. “As Jewish volunteers deliver apples and jars of honey, they are providing comfort to seniors who have lived unimaginably hard lives and building their communities for generations to come. We urge the wider Jewish community to join us in the coming year in caring for these elderly Jews and in the strengthening of the communities where they live.” Elderly Jews in the region will be among hundreds of local Jews who will participate in JDC-organized Rosh Hashanah events. In addition to holiday lectures and concerts, cook-

CONGRESSMAN

ing workshops and cultural performances, special holiday retreats for families and children will bring holiday traditions—like the U.S. House of Representatives sounding of the shofar and learning blessing 5th District – New York over apples and honey—to new generations of Jews. Washington D.C. Office Jamaica District Office Rockaway District Office 153-01 Jamaica Avenue 2234 Rayburn House Office Building 67-12 Rockaway Beach Blvd. The events will take place in JDC’s network Jamaica, NY 11432 Washington, D.C. 20215 Arverne, NY 11692 of Jewish community centers, Hesed socialPH: (718) 725-6000 PH: (202) 225-3461 PH: (347) 230-4032 FX: (718) 725-9868 welfare centers and other local institutions. At the same time, volunteers will visit homebound elderly, offering holiday wishes and gifts. In Kharkov, Ukraine, the “Every Home a Holiday” volunteer initiative will include dozens of seniors receiving guests to share in holiday traditions and greetings, while more than 300 people, including the local elderly, will attend Rosh Hashanah concerts, including music and dance performances, at Sha’are Tikvah Hesed social-welfare center. In Gomel, Belarus, a multigenerational audience will learn about Jewish food traditions, including how to make holiday fare, while in U.S. House of Representatives Krasnodar, Russia, Jewish youth will attend 5th District – New York a Rosh Hashanah bash at the Taki Da Jewish restaurant, where they will also learn about High Holiday traditions, play holiday quizzes, Washington D.C. D.C. OfficeOfficeJamaica District OfficeDistrict Rockaway Washington Jamaica OfficeDistrict Office Rockaway D and perform dances.by Friends for Gregory Meeks Paid songs for andand authorized 153-01 Jamaica Avenue 2234 Rayburn House Office Building 67-12 Rockaway Beach Blvd. 153-01 Jamaica Avenue 2234Washington, Rayburn D.C. House Office Building Jamaica, NY 11432 A 67-year-old man living in his hometown 20215 Arverne, NY 11692 67-12 Rockaw of Beltsy, Moldova, said “even in all my loneliPH: (718) 725-6000 Jamaica, NY 11432 Washington, D.C. 20215 Arverne, N PH: (202) 225-3461 PH: (347) 230-4032 FX: (718) 725-9868 ness, I feel now I have a community and somePH: (718) 725-6000 PH: (202) 225-3461 PH: (347) one who cares enough to watch over me.” FX: (718) 725-9868 Of the volunteers who deliver greetings for Paid for and authorized by Friends for Gregory Meeks 5779, he said: “They are my hope.” —JNS

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Artists craft cards from chained women’s dreams

Cards on display at Yad La’isha’s “Illustrating Freedom” exhibition.

proving, I decided to fight for my freedom and sought out Yad La’isha. It was only after my first meeting that I understood that I was an agunah, a chained woman being denied a divorce by my husband. “I want to tell all women that if your divorce proceedings are carrying on and on with no end in sight, that means that there’s a problem. If this is happening to you, do not hesitate, don’t think that you should stick it out for the sake of the children, just get up and get

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help and support. My advocate at Yad La’isha didn’t let things grow more protracted; she set deadlines and boundaries and suddenly things started moving. And today I am in a completely different place than I was in at the beginning.” Merav, who also participated in the panel, was married for 16 years to a violent man before attaining freedom through Yad La’isha. “The Merav who existed at the beginning of this journey no longer exists. All of the obstacles that I overcame and the sleepless nights

have empowered me. I would tell the old Merav ‘dare to do it.’ It’s not a cliché to say that there is a light at the end of the tunnel.” Several of the artists are well known; some illustrate children’s books, while others are still students. But all ten accepted the request on a volunteer basis, out of an understanding of the importance of the issue. Galit Movshovitz, an artist and graphic designer who illustrated Shira’s story, says, “I joined this project because it is the absolute least I can do in order to help raise public awareness to the painful, terribly sad plight of agunot. The work of Ohr Torah Stone and its Yad La’isha organization is ‘avodat kodesh’ – holy work. We, the public at large, have a responsibility to shout until everyone understands that the issue at hand is about cruel violence. We must all stand with the agunot. Each person with the tiniest bit of power has a responsibility to move heaven and earth for these women, who are captives at the hands of these cruel men.” “The phenomenon of get-refusal is a disgrace to the Jewish world,” said Pnina Omer, director of Yad La’isha. “The idea that men willfully enchain their wives and hold them captive is inconceivable. Tonight we chose to focus on the moments of joy of the women who have received their get and their freedom, as opposed to our usual occupation with the exhausting journey they are undergoing. We asked ten of the women we freed this year to express a dream or a wish they have for the New Year. “Of all the wishes, the one that touched me the most was that of A. With all she could wish for to get her life back on track, all A. desired was the freedom of her friend, who has now been trapped in marriage for 17 years. I, too dream of realizing many moments of joy in the coming year, as each trapped woman receives a new lease on life. There is no greater feeling of fulfillment.”

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Ten stories of agunot morphed into ten illustrations gracing Rosh Hashana greeting cards, part of an initiative by Yad La’isha: The Monica Dennis Goldberg Legal Aid Center, part of the Ohr Torah Stone network. S., an agunah who recently received her get and with it her freedom, wished for herself an ordinary life, devoid of complexity. Artist Elana Stein turned her wish into a Rosh Hashanah card with a painted picture of chopped up vegetables and a salad in the making: the regular, everyday dinner of a regular, everyday person. The hopes and wishes of nine other agunot who, like S., were freed this year, served as the inspiration for nine other Israeli artists who volunteered their time and talents to illustrate New Year cards. The project, called “Illustrating Freedom,” was created by the Ohr Torah Stone network’s Yad La’isha: The Monica Dennis Goldberg Legal Aid Center and Hotline for Women, the largest, most comprehensive and most experienced agunah support organization in the world. On August 15th, Yad La’isha held an exhibition of the artwork at Jerusalem’s First Station, including a toast to all the “chained women” the center freed this year, and a descriptive presentation of the artists’ works and the stories behind each one. Over the course of the evening, which concluded with a panel featuring former agunot, packages of the Rosh Hashana cards were on sale. All proceeds went toward the release of other women represented by Yad La’isha. Gilat, one of the women who participated in the panel, told her story: “I was refused a get for five years, but for the first four I didn’t even know that I was an agunah. During those years I was busy with the everyday business of survival. I didn’t think about my situation and simply made by way from hearing to hearing. When I saw that the situation wasn’t im-

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September 7, 2018 • 27 Elul 5778 THE JEWISH STAR

Farrakhan, at Franklin funeral, raises ire

THE JEWISH STAR September 7, 2018 • 27 Elul 5778

cal anti-Semitic canards, and bold-faced lies and deceptions.” “Like millions of other Americans who grew up listening to Aretha Franklin’s amazing voice, I was saddened by her passing,” Abraham Cooper of the Simon Wiesenthal Center said in a statement. “Putting Louis Farrakhan in a seat of honor in the first row on stage, near President Clinton and amidst a generation of African-American political and religious leaders, was equally saddening. “Fifty years ago, Aretha Franklin received an award from Martin Luther King Jr. and toured the country to raise money for the struggling civil rights movement,” Cooper added. “For decades, Farrakhan has stood against everything MLK lived and died for. He hates America and hates Jews. Aretha Franklin wasn’t a hater. The sight of his smiling face on stage soured the heartfelt music and words during the marathon tribute to a great icon.” Democratic New York State Assemblyman Dov Hikind blasted Farrakhan’s appearance. “Louis Farrakhan, front and center, treated like royalty?” Hikind tweeted. “What is this obsession with America’s Black Hitler? In spite of his crude, vicious comments about Jews, whites, gays, he is placed up front with President Clinton? Shocking!” Attorney Norman L. Eisen, former U.S. Ambassador to the Czech Republic and chair of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, defended Clinton. “I was shocked by his presence, but I don’t think it would’ve been right under these circumstances for Clinton or anyone to make a scene,” he told JNS. “If that was the choice of family and friends, however imperfect, it was appropriate to ignore it at the event.”

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By Jackson Richman, JNS Aretha Franklin, “The Queen of Soul,” passed away on Aug. 16 from pancreatic cancer at 76. While the country mourned a great musical talent and prominent voice in the civil rights movement, her star-studded funeral last week sparked controversy over the prominent appearance of Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan. Former President Bill Clinton was criticized for sharing the stage with Farrakhan, who has a long history of anti-Semitic behavior and rhetoric. “When I saw that anti-Semitic, white-hating bigot Farrakhan was invited to Franklin’s funeral, my great respect for her collapsed,” Zionist Organization of America president Mort Klein told JNS. “And when President Clinton shared a front row seat with and shook Farrakhan’s hand, my fears about American society escalated.” After Franklin died, Farrakhan said in a statement, “In 1972, when I was minister in New York City, Temple No. 7, the police attacked our mosque. Within a few hours, Aretha Franklin came to the mosque, to my office, and said that she saw the news and came as quickly as she could to stand with us and offer us her support.” Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt told the Algemeiner, “We join the country in mourning the Queen of Soul, but this was an honor that an unapologetic hatemonger like Farrakhan didn’t deserve.” Endowment for Middle East Truth founder and president Sarah Stern agreed, saying, “How would these same people react if David Duke were to be photographed seated in the same row as President Donald Trump? Louis Farrakhan is the apotheosis of pure, unabashed anti-Semitism. His speeches use combinations of classi-

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“The democratic regime in Iraq owes the Jews at least a billion dollars, and archive is not worth more than 2 million dollars,” he said. “This, at the very least, should result in the U.S. court giving the artifacts back to the Jews of Iraq.” He said, “The Jewish archive amounts to no more than one or two percent of the material seized by the Americans, even if you include the Baath Party archive, so why do they insist on having the Jewish archive returned, of all things? ” The letter is just the latest attempt to highlight this matter. A resolution recently introduced in the U.S. Senate strongly recommends “that the United States renegotiate the return of the Iraqi Jewish Archive to Iraq.” The resolution was introduced by Sens. Pat Toomey, R-Penn., Charles Schumer, D-NY, and Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., with Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., as a co-sponsor. The American Jewish Congress has also pressured the U.S. government. The archive was discovered by U.S. troops during the 2003 Iraq war in the basement of the Iraqi intelligence headquarters. It comprises some 27,000 artifacts, some of which go back hundreds of years. The artifacts have since been digitized and restored. The State Department says it is required to return the artifacts under bilateral agreements with Iraq, but it has recently said that it was looking into avenues of potentially keeping the trove in the United States. Israel Hayom has learned that the Israeli government is currently not involved in the various efforts to keep the archive in the U.S. Sources tell Israel Hayom that progress has been made although no decision has been announced.

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By Ariel Kahana, Israel Hayom The White House is facing pressure not to return an Iraqi Jewish archive, seized following the capture of Baghdad in 2003, to Iraq. Three members of Congress — Reps. Tom MacArthur (R-NJ), Daniel M. Donovan Jr. (RNY) and Yvette D. Clarke (D-NY) — recently addressed a letter to President Donald Trump demanding that he prevent the documents from being returned to Iraq later this year. “In 2003, in the flooded basement of Saddam Hussein’s secret police headquarters, U.S. forces in Iraq found a trove of Jewish artifacts,” the letter reads. “The U.S. rescued these precious documents and brought them to the United States. … We strongly object to these documents being returned.” The three lawmakers said that although “they respect the right of any nation to have its rightful cultural and historical artifacts returned to it. … In this case, the return of these treasures to the custody of the Iraqi government would be extremely inappropriate.” The authors propose that since Iraq “no longer has any Jewish community due to its own history of persecution” it would be better to keep the archive in the United States, because it is “possible to return at least some of these artifacts to their original and rightful owners, many of whom fled to Israel and the United States, or their descendants.” The group noted that the reason the archive was in the hands of the Iraqi dictator in the first place was Iraq’s “long history of oppressing its Jewish community.” Moshe Shabbat, a scholar who studies the history of the Jews in Iraq, is one of people behind the efforts to keep the archive in Washington.

WE PAY

THE JEWISH STAR September 7, 2018 • 27 Elul 5778

Lawmakers ask Trump to keep Iraqi archive

‫כוכב של שבת‬

SHAbbAT STAR

September 7, 2018 • 27 Elul 5778 THE JEWISH STAR

The seeds of our actions From Heart of Jerusalem

Rabbi biNNY FReeDMaN

Jewish Star columnist

ebron is not my normal comfort zone. As I drove deeper, I passed Israeli soldiers standing guard. They thought I was mad, but I was on a mission. Our youngest son Yair and his squad were spending Shabbat guarding the roads and back alleys of Hebron, and I had to find them before they headed out for patrol. One of the boys’ parents had sent us some photos of an insane week of combat training in the desert. One image of Yair carrying a fellow soldier across his shoulders as they simulated a retreat under fire played through my head: the exhaustion incongruous with the smile in his eyes. The grins on all of the soldiers’ faces when I showed up was indescribable. After a precious half hour, Yair was back on duty, and I was left to navigate the narrow alleys home again. What motivated these boys to choose a course of service as an elite unit within the already elite paratroopers? Where does that level of commitment and service come from?

It can’t be the result of growing up in Israel; some of them grew up in the States. I don’t think it’s the result of a religious upbringing (whatever that means): most of Yair’s commando unit wear no kippot. So what is it? his week’s portion, Nitzavim, is viewed by many as consolation for the difficult verses of last week’s portion, Ki Tavoh. After the curses that will occur if the Jewish people stray from their mission, suggests Rashi, Moshe assuages the pain by telling them, “You are standing today, all of you, before the Lord your G-d” (Devarim 29:9). No matter what you may go through and how you may disappoint G-d, He will always love you, and you will remain standing before Him. But the verses that follow are difficult: “Perhaps there is amongst you a man or woman … whose heart turns away today from being with Hashem, to serve the gods of other nations … lest there be amongst you a shoresh poreh rosh vele’anah, a root flourishing with gall and wormwood … G-d will not forgive him” (29:15-19). This is comforting? Hasn’t G-d already made

Rabbi avi billet Jewish Star columnist

he haftarah of the first day of Rosh Hashanah follows the plight of Chana, her desire to have a child and her celebration of the child’s arrival. There is so much we learn from the story. Chana could no longer put faith in her husband — men, it seems, don’t understand what childless women go through. When Rachel told Yaakov, “If you don’t give me children, I will die,” his response was “Have I taken the place of G-d who has prevented you from having children?” Wrong answer. Elkanah says to Chana, “Am I not better for you than 10 sons?” His intentions were honorable — Radak says he meant “My love for you is greater than the love ten children would have for you,” or “I am better to you than I am to my 10 children from Penina.” Still, wrong answer. Telling a barren woman to get over it is a

dismissal. It is using an emotional machine gun to shoot down her hopes and dreams. woman’s nature is to love and care, and most importantly, to take part in creation. Chava, the first woman, said when Kayin emerged from her body: “I acquired a man with G-d.” Rashi explains, “I have become a partner with G-d in creation.” Only a person who has nourished and felt another human being inside of them can understand what it means to be a partner in creation. Elkanah could not relate to Chana’s pain. As a parent himself, he could no longer understand it. And as a man, who will never feel partnership with G-d in creation, he could not relate to her desire, and arguably had no right to tell her to push her feelings aside by looking at all the good in her life. Chana realized that no human could help her. And so she turned to G-d. Here is how the Navi depicts Chana — and it becomes even more poignant when we consider

Rabbi DaviD eteNgoFF

Jewish Star columnist

arashat Nitzavim is the concluding parasha of the Jewish calendar year, a time for introspection. On this last Shabbat before Rosh Hashanah, many of us reflect upon our past errors in order to work toward a more Torah-infused future. Apropos for this time of the year, the first two pesukim of our parasha declare that we are standing, nitzavim, before the Almighty. Why? “That you may enter the covenant of the L-rd, your G-d, and His oath, which the L-rd, your G-d, is making with you this day, in order to establish you this day as His people, and that He will be your G-d, as He spoke to you, and as He swore to your forefa-

that Shmuel wrote this about his mother. She beseeches G-d, crying. She vows, “If You remember me … and give Your maidservant [a child], I will give him to G-d for all the days of his life; a razor will never touch his head.” She prays for a long time, while Eli, the kohen gadol, watches her mouth. “Chana was speaking in her heart, only her lips were moving, and her voice was not heard, and Eli thought her drunk. He said to her: ‘Until when will you be drunk? Throw off your wine from upon yourself.’ Chana said, “No, my lord, I am a woman of sorrowful spirit … and I poured out my soul before the Lord.” What does it mean to desire to be a partner in creation? What does it mean, when a person has nowhere else to turn, that a person turns to G-d, pouring out one’s soul? “Chana was speaking in her heart, only her lips were moving, and her voice was not heard…” Chana’s prayers were heartfelt and real. She knew what she was saying as she bared her soul. She understood her words. And she also knew that sometimes, in order to get what we really want, you have to be willing to give up your

most precious possession. She wanted a child, and she was ready to give that child to serve in the Mishkan and to commit him to a lifetime of nezirut. ip service won’t cut it. It’s Chana’s prayer, the kind that may include what seems like a loss of dignity, that we are talking about. When I don’t care how others view me, when I don’t think about human perception. When I show G-d how real I am, that in this moment I recognize just two beings in the conversation — G-d and little me. Like Chava before her, Chana wanted to be a partner in creation with G-d. It is our job to be like Chava as well — to recreate, to renew our own lives. It is about making our lives better, through our actions between ourselves and G-d, our interactions with our fellow humans, and the ways in which we view ourselves and the world around us. We will live tackle issues creatively, because we must. We will take the bull by the horns and say, “I will resolve this. I will bring a new light or perspective. I have the power.” Chana did this. And she merited not only to have Shmuel, but to have many children. All she needed to do was overcome the initial hurdle, to become a full-fledged partner in creation. Just as G-d remembered Chana, we hope He will remember us, as we demonstrate our efforts to be like her — to make commitments, pouring out our souls, and to live by them.

L-rd shall be to you for an everlasting light, and your G-d for your glory’” (Yeshayahu 60:19). The Midrash continues with a crucial question: “When [will we merit the light of redemption?] When all of you will be a single united entity.” In other words, redemption will remain elusive until we finally live together in unity and harmony. The one time in Jewish history when we were truly united was the Revelation at Mount Sinai: “They journeyed from Refidim and arrived in the Sinai desert, and they encamped [vayachanu — plural] in the desert, and Israel encamped [vayichan — singular] there opposite the mountain” (Shemot 19:2). The Mechilta reveals a fascinating insight regarding this verse: “In every [other] instance wherein the Torah states: ‘they journeyed and encamped,’ they travelled amidst dissension and encamped in manifest disagreement. But here [where the singular expression ‘vayichan’ describes this particular encampment], all of the Jewish people joined as one entity with one heart, as it were. Therefore, the Torah states: ‘… and Israel encamped [vayichan — singular] there opposite the mountain.”

ur ancestors stood poised as one to receive Hashem’s holy Torah at the base of Mount Sinai. It seems their impending meeting with the Master of the Universe encouraged them to rise above their usual conflict and embrace achdut. In his commentary, Rabbi Yehuda Aryeh Leib Alter, the Sefat Emet, notes that achdut was necessary for the Revelation to unfold. Without it, we would have lacked the proper level of holiness to encounter the Creator. “As a result of unity amongst the Jewish people, we come to merit holiness. This is the meaning of [Devarim 23:15] ‘For the L-rd, your G-d, goes along in the midst of your camp…’ [When will this be the case?] If your camp is a singular entity, complete, and united, [then Hashem will go along ‘in the midst of your camp’]” (Parashat Kedoshim 1:1). Like our ancestors, we are standing before G-d. In a few days we will recite the words “Vayaasu kulam agudah achat laasot ratzoncha b’leivav shalem” (“And you will form a single unified entity, to perform the Almighty’s will with a complete heart and mind”). May this Rosh Hashanah be the time when we become an agudah achat and rise to a level of holiness wherein our Creator will once again be “in the midst of our camp.”

What does it mean to be a partner in creation?

The holiness of unity torah

But the Torah is telling us otherwise. Good actions begin with good thoughts. Maimonides speaks not only of teshuvah for our actions, but for our character flaws as well. Sometimes, a character flaw may be so small and so unnoticeable that the person does not even know it is there. But if we are willing to struggle with introspection, we can catch these flaws before they become actions we regret later. And this is the comfort Moshe offers the Jewish people. Inside each of us are the sparks for good and evil, love and hatred, kindness and judgment, love and lust. The raging fire of emotions that can consume us can also be the beacons of light that illuminate a better world. The decision is up to us. housands of incredible boys wearing the uniforms of IDF elite units long ago had a spark, a will to give and make a difference. And somehow their families, schools and communities cultivated those sparks. And we, the Jewish people, are riding on their shoulders. This year, as we approach the Days of Awe, let us hope that we succeed in finding the passion and will to do good, along with ways to cultivate such desires until they become an unstoppable force for good. And let us isolate the negative character traits — the desire to complain, to see things through negative lenses, and to judge others harshly, and snuff them out before they become a struggle. Best wishes for a sweet, happy, healthy and above all peaceful New Year.

Inside each of us are the sparks for good and evil.

Speaking from the heart Parsha of the Week

this point? Rav Avigdor Nebenzahl, in his Sichot L’Rosh Hashanah, suggests that the comfort is that despite it all, we will eventually come back to G-d and home to Israel, as the verses continue: “V’shavta ad Hashem Elokecha” — the day will come when we will return. But this remains difficult; how are the consequences of straying from the truth, not to mention the suggestion that someone present is preparing to do so, a comfort to the Jewish people? One verse in particular suggests a point worth considering: “Lest there be amongst you a root flourishing with gall and wormwood” (29:17). This cannot mean that there was still an idolater among them. Everyone who had followed the pagan Baal was long gone (Devarim 4:3). This verse must not be speaking of someone who has done anything wrong, but to what a person might be thinking. Further, it is not even referring to an active process, but simply to the root of such thoughts — the stirrings of curiosity or desire. The verse speaks of a person “whose heart is turning,” and describes this phenomenon as a root; because we are speaking of the beginning of what will lead a person down the path to disaster. Most people presume that what matters is what you do, that ethics is measured in behavior.

thers to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob” (Devarim 29:11-12). The new generation of the Jewish nation, who had not directly received the Torah at Mount Sinai, was assembled in order to “enter the brit of the L-rd” (i.e. accept the totality of the Torah) and become the next link in the chain of the chosen people. As we have seen, the initial words of our parasha read “atem nitzavim hayom,” which may be translated as “you, all the Jewish people, are standing here today.” This phrase conceals far more than it reveals. We are fortunate to have the Midrash Tanchuma shed light upon it: “Just as a day can on occasion be dark and dreary and at other times bright and filled with light, so, too, are the Jewish people. Even though the Holy One blessed be He brings the darkness [of exile] upon you [today,] in the future, He will [one day] bring upon you bright and permanent light [i.e. the light of redemption]. As the text states: ‘…but the

Angel for Shabbat

RAbbi mARc d. Angel JewishIdeas.org

a list of the 10 richest rabbis in Israel. The rabbis’ net worths ranged from $9 million to $335 million. All (or nearly all) had reputations as wonder workers, Sephardic kabbalists, Hassidic Rebbes of huge dynasties. These rabbis have amassed huge fortunes because the public is willing to pay for their blessings, amulets, and holy water. It seems that a considerable segment of the public does not believe in its own ability to pray, but wants the intercession of holy men who supposedly have an inside track with G-d. Many people aren’t interested in a “spirit of inquiry” — they want “truth,” as promised to them by wonder-working rabbis. If these rabbis can indeed control G-d, why don’t they disarm Israel’s enemies, uproot anti-Semitism, punish the wicked, and provide for the sick, poor and hungry? A tendency has arisen in segments of the Jewish world to attribute magical powers, even infallibility, to certain “sages.” This tendency leads to a perversion of Judaism, veering in the direction of superstition. It fosters authoritarianism. It undermines freedom of thought, religious inquiry, independence of spirit. The fact that cultic rabbinic figures can amass millions of dollars is an indication of how deeply this tendency has taken root. It is essential that we reclaim Judaism as an intellectually vibrant, creative and dynamic religious way of life. This entails personal commitment, a sense of responsibility, and a commitment to the “spirit of inquiry” that characterizes a healthy Judaism. We need to have the self-respect and religious dignity to think, and to keep thinking.

Judaism calls on us to be seekers of truth.

luach Fri Sept 7 • 27 Elul Nitzavim Candlelighting: 6:59 pm Havdalah: 8:07 pm

Sun Sept 9 • 29 Elul

Erev Rosh Hashana Candlelighting: 6:56 pm Havdalah on Tuesday 8:02 pm

Wed Sept 12 • 3 Tishrei Fast of Gedaliah

Fri Sept 14 • 5 Tishrei Vayeilech • Shabbat Shuvah Candlelighting: 6:48 pm Havdalah: 7:55 pm

Tues Sept 18 • 9 Tishrei Erev Yom Kippur • Kol Nidre Candlelighting: 6:41 pm Havdalah: 7:38 pm

Fri Sept 21 • 12 Tishrei Haazinu Candlelighting: 6:36 pm Havdalah: 7:43 pm

Sun Sept 23 • 14 Tishrei First night of Sukkot Candlelighting: 6:32 pm Havdalah on Tuesday: 7:38 pm

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Five Towns times from White Shul

L’Shana Tova May your New Year be wonderful and blessed!

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he Torah calls on us to think, evaluate, and act righteously. It challenges us to serve the Almighty with intelligence and personal responsibility, not blind obedience. In this week’s Torah portion, we read: “For this command that I command you today is not a wonder to you, and it is not distant. For the thing is very near to you, in your mouth, and in your heart, to do it.” The Torah is not an esoteric document that can be deciphered only by elite sages — it is the heritage of the entire people. Each of us has access to the truths of the Torah through our own intellectual and emotional efforts. In his book The Philosophy of Hebrew Scripture (Cambridge University Press, 2012), Dr. Yoram Hazony makes an impassioned case that the Hebrew Bible is essentially a reasonable and philosophically sound literary corpus. While many have mistakenly characterized it as a simplistic work that demands nothing but blind obedience to the word of G-d, Dr. Hazony demonstrates that the Bible is actually a sophisticated intellectual enterprise. If one is able to study the Bible on its own terms, understanding its own literary and philosophical methods, one will find it to be not only a magnificent collection of literature and laws, but also a profound exploration of ideas and ethics. The Hebrew Bible includes a wide range of texts, with varying — and sometimes contra-

dictory — viewpoints. Rather than presenting us with dogmatic “truths” in the form of a catechism, it offers historical narratives, laws, prophetic orations, wisdom literature. Dr. Hazony notes that “the purpose of the biblical editors, in gathering together such diverse and often sharply conflicting texts, was not to construct a unitary work with an unequivocal message. It was rather to assemble a work capable of capturing and reflecting a given tradition of inquiry so readers could strive to understand the various perspectives embraced by this tradition, and in so doing build up an understanding of their own … The reader who takes up the Hebrew Bible is thus invited and challenged to take up a place within this tradition of inquiry, and to continue its elaboration out of his or her own resources” (p. 65). Judaism calls on us to engage in this “tradition of inquiry,” to be seekers of truth. Certainly, the Torah offers laws that we are commanded to obey. But it offers vastly more: it offers a spiritual context for life, a respect for our personal religious and philosophic strivings, a realistic and humble awareness of our strengths and limitations as human beings. Judaism is at its best when we are intellectually and emotionally engaged with its teachings. It is far below its best when we sink into the abyss of blind obedience. Several years ago, Forbes Magazine published

THE JEWISH STAR September 7, 2018 • 27 Elul 5778

Timely thoughts about thinking

September 7, 2018 • 27 Elul 5778 THE JEWISH STAR

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Vanessa Redgrave: Still hating after all these years Viewpoint

BEN COHEN

Jewish News Service

he spectacle of thespians making political interventions is rarely a dignified one. But that hasn’t stopped Hollywood’s elite from radical posturing — from the old days, Marlon Brando is one example, Jane Fonda another, while in our own time we can give a mention to Sean Penn for his embrace of the late Venezuelan dictator (and the author of that country’s present misery) Hugo Chávez. A particularly notorious example is British actor Vanessa Redgrave. Unarguably one of the most brilliant screen performers of the postwar era, Redgrave identified as a “revolutionary Marxist” in the 1970s. In keeping with the trajectory of the New Left, whose ideas about Jews were pretty similar to the Old Left, she was a vocal advocate of the Palestinian cause. In 1978, Redgrave won a best supporting actress Oscar for her role in “Julia,” a searing drama about resistance to the Nazis during the Second World War. Given that she had just narrated a pro-PLO documentary, many outraged Jews pointed to the irony of Redgrave being honored for her portrait of a Jewish woman on

screen. The Jewish Defense League (JDL) picked up the cudgels for an anti-Redgrave campaign that included the burning of a Redgrave effigy. During her acceptance speech, Redgrave saluted the audience for having “refused to be intimidated by the threat of a small bunch of Zionist hoodlums, whose behavior is an insult to the stature of Jews all over the world, and to their great and heroic record of struggle against fascism and oppression.” The majority of mainstream Jews, who kept groups like the JDL at arm’s length, scoffed at Redgrave’s hypocrisy, and her appropriation of Jewish victimhood to score political points against “Zionists.” In subsequent years, Redgrave claimed that her statement cost her several starring roles — an intimation that “Zionist hoodlums” were also running movie studios. She never expressed regret. ast week, Redgrave, now 81, reflected on her 1978 speech. “I didn’t realize pledging to fight anti-Semitism and fascism was controversial. I’m learning that it is,” she told The Hollywood Reporter. “I had to do my bit. … Everybody had to do their bit, to try and change things for the better. To advocate for what’s right and not be dismayed if immediately you don’t see results.” These are the sorts of soothing motivational words one expects from advocates of breast-cancer awareness or children’s literacy — not from an apologist for terrorism and anti-Semitic vio-

lence. While it is perhaps unfair to expect The Hollywood Reporter to delve into the political context of Redgrave’s speech, publishing this last quote unchallenged perpetuates the same lie. In the 1970s, Palestinian terrorism acquired a new and alarming dimension. Non-Palestinians, non-Arabs, non-Jews, drawn from university campuses from Berlin to Tokyo, were enlisted into “the armed struggle of the Palestinian people.” That meant deadly terrorism directed against civilians by individuals with no personal stake in the conflict, driven by a fanatical devotion to revolutionary nationalist ideology. In May 1972, three members of the Japanese Red Army gunned down passengers in the arrivals hall of Ben-Gurion Airport, claiming the lives of 26 people, mostly Christian pilgrims from Puerto Rico. In July 1976, two terrorists belonging to the German Revolutionary Cells (RZ) group joined a PFLP unit in hijacking an Air France plane after it had departed from Tel Aviv, eventually landing the passengers at Entebbe airport in Uganda, and into the hands of that country’s bloody despot, Idi Amin Dada. The Entebbe hostages were liberated, but elsewhere, casualties piled up. Many of the victims in the 1970s, Jewish and non-Jewish, died in operations directed by that era’s most feared terrorist — not a Palestinian, but the Venezuelan-born Ilich Ramirez Sanchez, better known as “Carlos.”

hile dozens of leftists from around the world were willing to give their lives for the Palestinians, thousands more, including Vanessa Redgrave, urged Israel’s violent destruction in the name of Palestine. Then, as now, the far-left in the West demonized Zionism as racism, lionized Palestinian terrorists as revolutionary martyrs and adopted an anti-Semitic interpretation of international politics as a battle against “Zionism and imperialism.” Thus did a handful of young Europeans again find themselves murdering unarmed Jews, this time in kosher restaurants, synagogues and even private homes. Vanessa Redgrave’s present-day conscience is not troubled by any of this. Nor, apparently, is she troubled by the fact that the British group she dutifully served in 1978 — an outfit called the Workers’ Revolutionary Party (WRP) — was subsequently exposed as an anti-Semitic political cult. No, according to Vanessa Redgrave, she and her comrades were just “doing their bit” to make the world a better place. That same haughty, disingenuous attitude infests the far-left in Europe today, as demonstrated by political leaders like Jeremy Corbyn in Britain and Jean-Luc Melénchon in France. For them, as for Redgrave, there are “good Jews” (who oppose Zionism) and “bad Jews” (who are Zionists, which includes the great mass of us who support a secure and thriving State of Israel). Do not expect them to show remorse either.

Eid al-Adha and the theft of the Jewish narrative alEx traimaN

Jewish News Service

ews living adjacent to Arab neighborhoods in Israel were awoken before sunrise for three days last month by mosques blaring — not the routine predawn call to prayer, but the lengthy extended prayers of the Islamic festival Eid al-Adha. It is one of two primary festivals celebrated by Muslims the world over. While the other, Eid al-Fitr, concludes the month of Ramadan, Eid al-Adha traces its roots to the father of monotheism, Ibrahim. According to Islamic tradition, Allah instructed Ibrahim in a dream to sacrifice his beloved son Ismail. (The Quranic text doesn’t identify the son Ibrahim was to sacrifice; despite debate among Islamic scholars, the predominant view is that it was Ismail.) Ibrahim rejected the efforts of the Shaytan (Satan) to discourage him. At the last moment, Allah prevented Ibrahim from performing the sacrifice, and provided a ram for him to slaughter in Ismail’s stead.

Sound familiar? Jews around the world will read a slightly different version in a little more than a week, during the Torah reading on Rosh Hashanah, marked by the blowing of the shofar meant to commemorate Abraham’s near sacrifice of his beloved son, Isaac. According to Islamic tradition, the location of the near-sacrifice of Ismail was Mount Arafat, on the outskirts of Mecca. Coincidently, it was another Arafat who, at the Camp David summit in 2000, infamously denied that any Jewish Temple had ever stood in Jerusalem. Yasser Arafat’s claim can be disputed not only by Jewish literature, but also by Islamic literature. According to “A Brief Guide to Al-Haram Al-Sharif,” a tourists’ guide to the Temple Mount published in 1925 by the Supreme Moslem Council that administered the holy site, “The site is one of the oldest in the world. Its sanctity dates from the earliest (perhaps from pre-historic) times. Its identity with the site of Solomon’s Temple is beyond dispute. This, too, is the spot, according to the universal belief, on which David built there an

altar unto the Lord, and offered burnt offerings and peace offerings.” rafat’s denial of a Jewish Temple was not an isolated incident. Attempts to rewrite Israel’s claims to Jerusalem can be found in statements by current Palestinian Authority officials and in P.A. media. Nevertheless, it was not Arafat’s denial that collapsed the Camp David Accords—it was his refusal to accept proposed peace terms or provide a counter-offer. The Camp David accords took place just six years after Arafat was allowed back into Israel to lead the Palestinian people after having been exiled to Lebanon and Tunisia, and then awarded a Nobel Peace Prize in 1994 (along with Israeli leaders Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres) for his signing of the controversial Oslo Accords—a move that dramatically elevated his international status and began the pouring of funds into the P.A. In just two weeks, Israelis and Palestinians will mark 25 years since the signing of those fateful accords. And while Israelis and Pales-

Hopes have turned into wishful thinking.

tinians living in the disputed territories of the West Bank have resided in relative quiet over the past several years compared with other areas of the Middle East, many have soured on the prospects for a genuine peace agreement. Since Oslo, Palestinians have done little to prepare their people for a lasting peace, with consistent incitement to violence, glorification of martyrs and a “pay-to-slay” scheme that rewards terrorists and so-called “martyrs” sitting in Israeli jails for their attempts to murder Jews. Despite this, Israelis have long hoped that peace could be reached with their immediate neighbors, similar to the agreements signed with Jordan and Egypt. Those hopes have turned into wishful thinking. In May of each year, Israel celebrates its founding as an independent Jewish state. Seventy years later, it has transformed from a fledging, resource-poor, existentially threatened anomaly to a regional economic, technological and military superpower. This year’s anniversary celebrations were highlighted by America’s recognition of Jerusalem as the capital, and the move of the U.S. embassy there. See Eid al-Adha on page 29

To repair with gold

29 THE JEWISH STAR September 7, 2018 • 27 Elul 5778

View from Central Park

tehilla r. goldberg

Intermountain Jewish News

or a while now, I’ve been intrigued by Japanese culture. My mother holds an appreciation for the Japanese aesthetic, which, even if subconsciously, must have swayed me. The simplicity of the black and white lines, the beauty and complexity of its writing, the rounded paper lanterns held together by thin bamboo, the plant itself — all these encompass my mother’s sense of simplicity and symmetry in design. From time to time I learned of another Japanese concept, and then another. There is much wisdom, and I have barely scratched the surface. But the little I have picked up has been enriching. At the bedrock of the culture is a certain kindness, a certain respect, known as teinei, that cultivates a culture of putting others first, that makes speaking gossip or speaking ill of another unacceptable. Hospitality is central as well. In fact, a special chair is reserved for a guest, where the wall is painted in beautiful scenery. Sensei, teacher, is a famous word. It is a term of deference, the “one who comes before,” “a person born before another,” used for an elder, or for anyone who has taught someone something new. Shakkei is “borrowed scenery,” highlighting the value of beautiful, ordered, calm scenes in nature, a constant awareness of nature that you recreate for yourself, replicating serenity wherever you go. Certainly Japanese culture has its challenges like any other. But many of their honorable touchstones have much in common with our Jewish community’s values.

hile living in Israel, I was exposed to the Makuya community. Although their origin story is a fascinating one (look it up!) and they have existed since the creation of Israel in 1948, until then I hadn’t known of them. Since that introduction over 10 years ago, I learned more of the Makuya, which is the Japanese form of the word “Mishkan.” I learned of their incredible friendship with the modern state of Israel and abiding love of Judaism and Jews. But this week that I had the opportunity to witness their connection with Jewish teachings in action — online, actually. Rabbi Benny Lau held a gathering with thousands of Makuya friends of Israel. In great dignity and emotion, with purity of heart, thousands of Japanese Makuya sang “Hishbati,” culminating a yearlong study of Song of Songs. It is a melody full of pathos, composed by Belzer chasid Avraham Pinchas Breier. The lyrics are a verse from Song of Songs, 5:8: “I adjure you, O maidens of Jerusalem! If you meet my beloved, tell him this: That I am faint with love.” Finding this display of love for the Jewish people during Elul was especially inspiring to me, since the Japanese teaching closest to my heart is one that permeates this season. It is known as kintsugi, or kintsukuroi — “to repair with gold.” Kintsukuroi is the art of repairing broken pottery with lacquered, powdered gold in the cracks. It is the most perfect, tangible expression of teshuva, of change and repentance. In picking up the shattered shards, the hope is to recreate. But you rebuild the pottery by threading it with golden veins, making it even more beautiful, perhaps even stronger, than the original. The broken items are renewed and repaired — with gold. A Japanese teaching illuminates a facet of our prayer: “Hinei kachomer beyad hayotzer, we are like raw material in the hand of the craftsman.” These are Golden Days of Awe. Copyright Intermountain Jewish News

At the bedrock of the culture is a certain respect.

Eid al-Adha... Continued from page 28 Announcing his intention to move the embassy, President Donald Trump stated in December of last year, “Today, we finally acknowledge the obvious: that Jerusalem is Israel’s capital. This is nothing more, or less, than a recognition of reality.” Palestinians also mark the day of Israel’s independence — they call it Nakba, “catastrophe.” Chairman of the Hamas Political Bureau Ismail Haniyeh said this year that “the Palestinian people on May 14 will stand together as one to send U.S. president Donald Trump a message that Jerusalem is an Islamic and Arab city, and his decision of moving his country’s embassy will not defame its original character,” adding that the “Palestinian people will

turn May 14 and 15 into a catastrophe for the Israeli Occupation and its Zionist project.” The real “catastrophe” for the Palestinian people has been their leaders’ refusal to accept the reality that Israel is a Jewish state, coupled with their failure to use the billions of dollars they have received to replicate the progress made by Israel over the same period. Twisting narratives has long been part and parcel of Islamic culture. Further, culture dictates that once a narrative is promoted, it can no longer be effectively challenged, nor can it stand peacefully alongside a competing narrative. As long as Palestinians continue to follow in the long Islamic tradition of twisting Jewish narratives, thoughts for signing a lasting peace accord will remain nothing but folklore.

Continued from page 6 the ‘deal of the century’ Moving forward, it is unclear exactly what type of plan the administration aims to introduce. Experts are split on whether or not Trump will continue support for a two-state solution or introduce a new paradigm to the equation. “From what we can see, this will be vastly different. Every other process has brought the Palestinians and Israelis to the table as equals,” said Schanzer. “The Trump team will do no such thing. “What we are seeing is a dynamic that is reflective of the actual dynamic on the ground—

one in which the Israelis have significant power and assets, and the Palestinians do not. This will be the starting point in these negotiations. We will soon find out whether this is a successful strategy.” However, al-Omari believes that while a new approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict would be “welcome” if it takes core issues like Jerusalem and refugees “off the table,” then that could doom any prospects it might have. “Such an approach is bound to be robustly opposed not only by the Palestinians,” he said, “but also by various Arab states, including U.S. allies such as Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia.”

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Trump’s peace table…

September 7, 2018 • 27 Elul 5778 THE JEWISH STAR

Neil Simon play helps explain how we got to Trump Andrew SilowCArroll

never thought of Neil Simon as a political writer. The typical Simon character would rather rant about the weather and traffic than the economy or welfare system. “I don’t write social and political plays because I’ve always thought the family was the microcosm of what goes on in the world,” Simon said in his 1992 Paris Review interview. But then I watched “The Prisoner of Second Avenue” as a tribute to the legendary playwright, who died Sunday at 91. It was my first time seeing the 1975 adaptation of a play that ran for a respectable 789 performances on Broadway from 1971 to 1973. Jack Lemmon plays Mel, a depressed, 48-year-old ad executive recently fired from his job. Anne Bancroft is his doting stay-at-home wife, Edna, who goes back to work so they can make ends meet. It’s a typical Simon set-up: middle class, middle-aged, Jewish-ish people under stress, spewing one-liners.

ut “Second Avenue” takes a dark turn: stuck at home with no prospects, Lemmon’s character begins to break down, taunting his wife, skulking about his apartment in pajamas, stealing newspapers and milk from his neighbors. Seething that Edna has become the breadwinner, Mel goes on a rant that, eerily echoes the paranoid style of talk radio, the anger of displaced white men and the disenchantment of the middle class. Mel: Now, you tell me, why do you think I’m out of work? Edna: I don’t know why. Because you can’t find a decent job. Mel: That’s why? That’s why? You haven’t the slightest inkling of what’s really going on, do you? You are so naive, it’s ridiculous ... You have no suspicion of the truth. And from there he is off, describing “The Plot” — a “social, economic and political plot to undermine the working classes of this country.” It’s practically invisible, he says, and “maybe only a handful of people in this whole country know about it.” It explains the 6.7 percent unemployment rate, low wages and inflation. “They’re after you, our kids, my family, every one of our friends,” he says. “They’re after the cops, hippies, the government, women’s lib, the blacks, the fags, the whole military complex and even more.” Mel has no proof, because they won’t allow it. He can only blame “the deterioration of the spirit of man. Man undermining himself,

causing a self-willed, self-imposed, self-evident self-destruction.” imon plays paranoia for laughs, but the joke is on us. Mel’s “Plot” is QAnon, the right-wing conspiracy theory whose followers show up at Trump rallies. It’s the grumbling about the “deep state.” It’s Trump’s closing presidential campaign ad, which asserted that “Hillary Clinton meets in secret with international banks to plot the destruction of U.S. sovereignty in order to enrich these global financial powers, her special interest friends and her donors.” Simon wrote the play during a recession, and the movie came out after Watergate. In 1974 the country experienced one of its worst economic crises. Nixon had recently resigned under threat of impeachment, and the country still felt a deep sense of disillusionment. New York was on the brink of bankruptcy. Nixon was gone, but the city still felt like the crime-plagued hellholes he described in his cynical appeals to the country’s “silent majority” — a phrase Trump revived on the campaign trail. In a paper released in May, Diana C. Mutz of the University of Pennsylvania studied polling data to conclude that the key motivation underlying support for Trump was not economic anxiety but the feeling among “high-status” groups — men, Christians, and whites — that their perceived status was under threat. When confronted with evidence of racial progress and increasing diversity, for example, “whites feel threatened and experience lower levels of self-worth relative to a control group.” Mel and Edna aren’t broke — she has her job, they talk of savings, and Mel’s brother is happy to pitch in. Mel’s complaints are about status: “You’ve never walked into your building and had an idiot doorman with beer breath giggling at you because he’s working,” he complains. The clerk at the unemployment office is a black woman, and Mel’s sense of humiliation is obvious and profound. he Prisoner of Second Avenue” didn’t predict the Jewish middle- and upper-class vote in 2016. Mel and Edna’s district, Yorkville, went 79-18 for Clinton. New York City would get over its 1970s breakdown, although it, like Mel, would need some professional help and a few lucky breaks to get there. Let’s assume that Mel got a new job. Essentially liberal, the two would go on to vote mostly Democratic (but siding with a law-andorder guy like Rudy Giuliani, and perhaps voting for Ronald Reagan when Jimmy Carter let them down on Israel). But what Simon got right was a strain of anger, born of economic anxiety and the fear among whites that they are losing their privileged status, that would animate a large segment of Trump’s “base.” He also portrayed the insidious attraction of conspiracy theories to explain forces beyond our control. As a feverish Mel explains to Edna, in a line that reads like a tweet from your least favorite altright troll: “If you’re too lazy, ignorant and uninformed to find out what is going on then you deserve exactly what you’re gonna get.”

Roseanne Barr says she’ll study in Israel By Israel Hayom Roseanne Barr is moving to Israel, the American-Jewish actress announced Sunday on Rabbi Shmuley Boteach’s podcast. “I have an opportunity to go to Israel for a few months and study with my favorite teachers over there, and that’s where I’m going to go and probably move somewhere there and study with my favorite teachers,” Barr told Rabbi Boteach. “I have saved a few pennies and I’m so lucky I can go … and study with any rabbi that I can ask to teach me, and it’s my great joy and privilege to be a Jewish woman,” she said. Barr’s sitcom “The Connors” was axed by ABC in May due to her tweet calling former Obama adviser Valerie Jarrett the product of a union between the Muslim Brotherhood and “Planet of the Apes.” Speaking to Rabbi Boteach in June, Barr said she was remorseful about the tweet. “When you hurt people even unwillingly there’s no excuse,” Barr said at the time. In her interview on Sunday, Barr also revealed she had cut a new music record and is already working on a new sitcom: “I’m very excited. It’s very funny.” She did not elaborate on the project. Barr has apologized to Jarrett since the original tweet and previously stated she was on Ambien when she wrote it. She also claimed she was unaware that Jarrett is black. Barr has insisted that her show was canceled because she was a Trump voter. Barr told Rabbi Boteach that while she was actually sorry for what she tweeted, she regretted apologizing publicly. “My friends told me at the beginning, ‘Oh my G-d, you made a fatal mistake, and that is you apologized to the Left and once you apologize they never forgive, they just try to beat you down until you don’t exist,’” she said, adding: “It’s just sad.” In April, she told Israel Hayom: “When I visited two years ago, it was around Purim. I really want to experience the wonderful atmosphere in the streets again, with the costumes and the parties, and to come with my mom, who’s 84 years old, so she can also see it.” Barr previously visited Israel in 2016.

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Anti-Defamation League’s Boston office, said the controversy raises an important question about the college’s process for course approval. “No one is saying that this is a forbidden topic or restricting a professor’s ability to teach about the subject matter,” Trestan told JTA. But, he said, the course description “states as fact that Israel is committing illegal acts,” and draws conclusions “before the first class.” “It’s important to ensure that when [Tufts] does advertise a class, it … sends a message that all views and perspectives are welcome,” Trestan said. “This course seems to do the opposite.”

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By Penny Schwartz, JTA Students at Tufts University say a new course is one-sided and demonizes Israel, and violates the university’s own policies. The course, taught by Thomas Abowd, was first reported by Jewish News Syndicate. The sparked a flurry of criticism and concern from the Anti-Defamation League and proIsrael campus organizations. Titled “Colonizing Palestine,” the course is offered through the Colonialism Studies program. A description says it will “explore the history and culture of modern Palestine and the centrality of colonialism in the making of this contested and symbolically potent territory” and that students “will address crucial questions relating to this embattled nation, the Israeli state which illegally occupies Palestine, and the broader global forces that impinge on Palestinians and Israelis.” In a statement, the Tufts Hillel said that while it supports academic freedom, the course description is “unnecessarily provocative.” Tufts Friends of Israel, a student group, wrote in a statement to the university’s president, Anthony Monaco, that the course as described prejudges the debate. “A course must aid a student’s pursuit of knowledge and provide ... the tools to arrive at their own conclusions,” they wrote. Ben Shapiro, co-president of the group, says they are still waiting for a response. Tufts Friends of Israel also said that the course breaches a 2017 statement by the Office of the President that reads: “While members of our community vigorously debate international politics, Tufts University does not adopt institutional positions with respect to specific geopolitical issues.” The university sees the course as one of many opportunities to “become familiar with a variety of perspectives on important and complex issues facing our global society,” according to Patrick Collins, the executive director of public relations. “University-facilitated discussion of these issues does not imply endorsement of a particular view,” he said. Fewer than five students had signed up, Shapiro said. Collins was unable to confirm. Tufts has more than 5,500 undergraduates. In an email, Collins provided descriptions of several university courses that address the IsraeliPalestinian conflict, including one at its graduate program at the Fletcher School. He also cited an array of courses in Judaic studies and political science that address Israeli politics and culture. Abowd is the author of Colonial Jerusalem. He supports the academic boycott of Israel and signed a boycott statement by Anthropologists for the Boycott of Israeli Academic Institutions. In an email, Abowd declined to discuss his course, “due mostly to the sheer volume of requests I’ve been receiving,” he wrote. News about the course drew rebuke from Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO of the Anti-Defamation League and an alumnus. “We support academic freedom but @TuftsUniversity must ensure that classes examining the complex Israeli-Palestinian conflict are not one sided platform for propaganda that demonize Israel and empower anti-Israeli activists,” he tweeted. The current Judaic Studies catalog offers a course on Israeli film “from the late 19th century to the present.” The Fletcher School is offering a course this fall titled “Negotiation and Mediation in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: Past Lessons And Future Opportunities” that promises to “explore the Israeli and Palestinian narratives.” Tufts Friends of Israel is not trying to shut down Abowd’s course and will not mount a protest, Shapiro said, since classes won’t begin until after Labor Day and he has yet to see a syllabus. The school has taken a stance against academic and economic boycotts against Israel dating back to 2013, when it issued a statement strongly opposing the American Studies Association’s resolution for an academic boycott, and most recently in 2017. Robert Trestan, the executive director of the

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September 7, 2018 â&#x20AC;¢ 27 Elul 5778 THE JEWISH STAR