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Rosh Hashana • Sept. 22, 2017 • 2 Tishrei 5778 • 5 Towns candles (Friday) 6:34 pm, Havdalah 7:41 • Torah columns pages 34–35 • Vol 16, No 35 The Newspaper of our Orthodox communities

‘Sorry’ Apologizing in the year of Trump

A shofar is blown at the Kotel in Jerusalem’s Old City. Rosh Hashana begins Wednesday night.

Yonatan Sindel/Flash90

All sorts of newsmakers in ‘77 By Jacob Kamaras, JNS The High Holidays are a time for prayer, introspection and, for those fortunate enough, inspiration. Amid the headlines on terrorism and political disputes, some prominent newsmakers in the Israel and Middle East scene gave us something to smile about or admire during 5777. Here are a few of the high-profile individuals who made a positive difference—sometimes in unexpected ways.

Gal Gadot

Despite Arab nations’ boycotts of “Wonder Woman” over the Israeli actress’s leading role, Gadot (pictured in her role) wowed at the box office while giving Jews, Israelis, feminists and comic book aficionados much to be proud about. In late June, Gadot was ranked first in The Hollywood Reporter’s Top Actors list, which bases its rankings on See 5777 recap on page 13

A year’s of moments to remember By Josefin Dolsten, JTA This was not a quiet year. From the tumultuous first eight months of Donald Trump’s presidency, to a wave of bomb threats against Jewish community centers,

to a neo-Nazi protest in Charlottesville that turned violent, to the twin weather catastrophes of Hurricanes Harvey and Irma, Jews, like so many others, found it hard to take their eyes off the news.

As the Jewish year 5777 comes to a close, JTA looks back at some of the moments that had the most significance for Jews, sorted below by date. See Moments on page 14

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By Ron Kampeas, JTA There are apologies, there are non-apologies and there are apologies that never were. Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur are approaching: We are in the season of repentance and its most apt expression, apologizing to our fellow women and men. The Trump presidency presents special challenges to apology trackers: Donald just doesn’t do them, but he loves them when he gets them. And sometimes he insists he got them when he didn’t. To be fair to Trump, his ambivalence, if not hostility, toward self-reproach is not unique, and certainly not among presidents. It took Bill Clinton months — until just days before Rosh Hashanah of 1998 — to fully apologize for embarking on, and lying about, his affair with Monica Lewinsky. George W. Bush still blames the Iraq War on bad intel- President Trump has issued few apologies and asked for many in ligence. Barack Obama took the past year. his time before eventually Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images apologizing to Americans who lost their health insurance despite his repeated promises that they wouldn’t. Clinton’s apology, at least, included a direct apology to Lewinsky for having called her a liar, and thus met the conditions for teshuvah, or genuine repentance, laid out by Maimonides 900 years ago in his Mishnah Torah: One must seek forgiveness for sins against one’s fellows not from G-d but directly from the wounded party. Beg forgiveness directly, Maimonides prescribed, resolve to not repeat your transgression and do what you can to make it up to the victim. Anything less is not a real apology. In that regard, 5777 wasn’t a great year for Maimonidean apologies. Take a look:

The failing, if not sorry, New York Times

President Trump very much wants to believe the New See Sorry on page 11

September 22, 2017 • 2 Tishrei 5778 THE JEWISH STAR

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In Israel, $1K crocodile-skin kippahs

By Andrew Tobin, JTA stocked one of each style of kippah and two of the mezuzahs, and had JERUSALEM — For a few days, sold none, Nathan said. He said he exotic animal-skin kippahs were has been awaiting a larger shipsomething of a sensation in Israel. ment of more products, including New luxury-marketed crocodile, ostrich skin tefillin bags. python and cowhide head coverings The kippahs had been displayed were on sale at a Judaica store in the in a room filled with Jewish tourOld City. An ostrich edition was said ist attractions. The store holds free to be coming soon. But as the hype grew, so did the educational lectures and work929998 public backlash, and the governshops about some of its products, like an aquarium filled with blue B”Hment confiscated the kippahs as illegally imported wild animal prodsnails that some believe are the ucts. source of the turquoise dye used in “People were phoning us and sacred Jewish garments in ancient threatening to burn down the store,” times. said store manager Shaun Nathan. “Basically, we try to highlight Located in the Five Towns Located in the Five Towns It all started with some local yeJudaism and Jewish life through • After School Jewish Studies shiva boys who stopped by the store art and Judaic design,” Nathan - After school Jewish studies program Program on Sept. 4. Impressed by the newly Eli Mordechai displays a crocodile-skin kippah at his Fifth Quarter store in Je- said. “One of our shticks is we have • Barlessons Mitzvah Lessons arrived yarmulkes, one of them post- rusalem. special items to try to bring in tourFacebook screenshot - Bar Mitzvah (including Torah(including reading and ed photos on Facebook. By the next ists.” Torah Reading and Speech speech preparation) day, newspaper reporters and TV crews were on stringent Jews but from supporters of animal The designer of the kippahs is David RoytPreparation) rights. Israel is a hotbed of activism on behalf of man, a Ukraine-born Israeli specializing in “luxthe scene. - Prayer skills including the prayers • Prayer Skillsleading incuding Leading the The Fifth Quarter Judaica store’s owner, animals, and as much as 13 percent of its popu- ury Judaica.” Prayers Eli Mordechai, gamely showed off the kippahs, lation is said to be vegetarian or vegan. “People spend thousands of dollars on a lux- Master Hebrew: reading fluency and skills Nathan said the first person to call after the ury watch and shoes, and they wear something • Master Hebrew: Reading Fluency which were offered for sale in fabric-lined oak - Tutoring and mentoring any grade level boxes for as much as $1,400 each. They even news broke, an elderly vegan woman, politely on their head that looks like a disaster,” he said. andforSkills came with built-in hair clips. Mordechai touted suggested that any profit from the kippahs was “My idea was to make a respectable kippah.” • Tutoring and Mentoring for any - Option for Pick-up/ Drop off, or learn in your own home them as must-have headwear for observant Jews not worth the moral cost. But the callers became As to the animal rights outcry, Roytman said Grade Level hostile, he said, with some threatening violence. seeking that Russian oligarch look. it was “ridiculous” for people to get so upset over A few critics even linked the kippahs to the • Option for Pick-up/Drop-off, or “These kippot were born out of the desire to Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Nathan said, declar- kippahs given the other problems the region facLearn in Your Own Home provide people who live in a world of luxury and *Groups or private lessons available* ing things like, “These people are ethnically es, “but this is Israel.” brands a kippah befitting their lifestyle,” he told cleansing children anyway, so who cares about Nathan said he sees things differently. *Groups or Private Lessons Available* Israel’s Yediot Acharonot newspaper. “A person a python?” While the final decision is Mordechai’s, Nawearing a $10,000 Gucci suit won’t be caught than said he believes the store would be wise to Apparently alerted by the media coverage, an Call Rabbi Chaim Friedman at 323-868-8484 dead wearing a $50 off-brand kippah.” inspector from Israel’s Nature and Parks Author- get out of a business that kills animals to make Call Rabbi Chaim Friedman Yediot noted that the exotic kippahs are made ity came to the store Sept. 7 and confiscated the kippahs for oligarchs — especially given the pub“Experienced, Devoted, and Efficient” from unkosher animals. But Mordechai assured kippahs along with some crocodile skin mezu- lic relations headache. at 323-868-8484 the newspaper that unlike tefillin, mezuzahs or zahs from the same producer. He said they had “If I look back at it now, it’s not a cool prod“Experienced, Devoted, and Torah scrolls, Jewish law permits kippahs to may been imported without the testing and approval uct. It really isn’t,” he said. “It brought us a lot of be made from any material. attention, and people will definitely buy it. But Efficient” required of products derived from wild animals. As it turned out, the outrage came not from Despite all the fuss, Fifth Quarter had only we really don’t want any part it.”

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Who are the Jewish ‘Dreamers’? Reporter’s Notebook by Ron Kampeas, JTA Our email inboxes were stuffed last week with statements from Jewish organizations urging continued protection for “Dreamers,” undocumented immigrants who arrived in the United States as children. One statement, though, from Agudath Israel of America, stood out in its concern not just about Dreamers, but Jewish Dreamers. “It affects hundreds of thousands of young people, including many in the Jewish community, who have grown up and been educated in the United States, the only home they have known,” the Orthodox organization said in its statement issued on Thursday. Last week, a JTA report focused on one such Dreamer who has become an activist, Elias Rosenfeld of Boston, but I was curious about the “many in the Jewish community” in the release. Agudah put me in touch with David Grunblatt, the lay chairman of its immigration task force and the co-head of the immigration department at Proskauer, a major law firm. Grunblatt told me that he started hearing from Jewish Dreamers almost as soon as Agudah put out a release offering to assist them, soon after DACA was launched in 2012. He said the number of Jewish Dreamers among the 800,000 known to have applied for protections under DACA was “not huge but not negligible,” and there were a variety of reasons for their illegal status among the cases he has handled. “They tried to apply for a green card or for employment sponsorship, and it went wrong and they’ve been here five or six or seven years and they’re not going anywhere,” Grunblatt said. “Or a family comes here because someone in the family needs medical treatment, they stay six months, another six months, another six months and the situation is resolved one way or the other — but the family is here.” In some cases, he said, parents successfully obtain green cards but fail to obtain them for

Immigrants and DACA supporters rally across the street from the Trump International Hotel & Tower in Las Vegas on Sept. 10. Ethan Miller/Getty Images

their children. Grunblatt said that in one case, he was contacted by an all-girls school. “They discovered one of the girls in the school was undocumented because they were going on a school trip to Canada and the kid didn’t even know [if] she was documented,” he said. That’s fairly common, said Melanie Nezer, a vice president at HIAS, the lead Jewish organization handling immigration advocacy. “If a child is brought over when they’re a baby or a very young child, they just grow up American,” she said. “They speak English — why would they think they’re different from anyone else?” While support for the Dreamers has been fairly bipartisan, and Jewish organizational consensus is for a solution that lets them stay in the country, some Jews have major qualms about the program — especially with the way it was created by executive order under Obama. “If the Obama administration wanted to implement the DACA program, it should have made the case to Congress and try to pass its proposal into law,” Rep. Lee Zeldin of Long Island, one

of two Jewish Republicans in Congress, said in a statement. “The administration absolutely did not have the authority to write its own ‘laws.’ “If the proposal did not have the support to pass, then it should not go into effect. That is how our process is designed and must be respected.” Zeldin said he is “open” to debating the issue with his colleagues, but “[m]y priority will always unapologetically remain with fighting for the people following the laws rather than the ones breaking them.” Nezer said her impression was that the majority of Dreamers fit the profile that gets the most prominent play in the media: those who arrive here as babies or toddlers with their parents from Mexico or Central America. But that the population is more diverse than that template — and includes Jews — should not surprise members of the Jewish community, she said. “Our parents and grandparents took these risks not for themselves but for us,” Nezer said. “And that’s exactly what the Dreamers’ parents did.” Few lives track an easy trajectory, Grunblatt said, and Dreamers are no different.

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Biz and mobsters follow Jewish pilgrims to Uman By Cnaan Liphshiz, UJA UMAN, UKRAINE — By selling coffee to Jewish tourists, 18-year-old Yuri Breskov can earn in a week more than his teachers from high school make annually in this provincial city. His revenues peak at $3,000 on the week of Rosh Hashanah, when 30,000 Israelis and other Jews visit the gravesite of Rabbi Nachman. an 18th-century luminary and founder of the Breslov Hasidic movement. The annual pilgrimage has been taking place for decades. But what began as a trickle of observant Jews has grown in recent years and diversified to include many secular pilgrims. It’s a change that is creating new and lucrative opportunities for dozens of entrepreneurs like Breskov. But locals say it has also increased the presence of organized criminals feeding off their success. “The mafia runs this place,” Breskov told JTA last week in a matter-offact tone. “The only reason that I can sell on Pushkin Street is that I have connections.” Around 500 Jews live year-round in this city 130 miles south of Kiev, up from 200 just three years ago. Most live and work in the area around Pushkin Street, the main artery leading to the gravesite. Since 2012, that area went from being a collection of ramshackle houses with a single, overpriced kosher pancake stand and a Judaica shop to a vibrant neighborhood with a newly built high-rise apartment building. Twenty kosher restaurants have opened, among them branches of Is-

An Israeli visitor to Uman examining a luxury limousine parked on the city’s heavily Jewish Pushkin Street last week. Cnaan Liphshiz

Hasidic pilgrims dance not far from the Ukraine, on Sept. 14, 2015.

raeli franchises, as well as 25 hotels. Signs in Hebrew dominate the streets, touting everything from electricians to lawyers, medical specialists to Jacuzzi bath operators to real estate agents. On Saturdays, an electronic sign reads “Shabbat Shalom.” The transformation reflects the explosion of Jewish pilgrims to Uman. Whereas in the past the visitors were mostly Hasidic men, they now include “everyone you can imagine, from female teenagers to post-army guys,” said Shimon Buskila, a former leader of the Jewish community here.

increasingly in recent years by visitors who can be seen smoking and drinking on the street on Shabbat, barbecuing on the porches of rented apartments and burial site of Rebbe Nachman of Breslov in Uman, hotel rooms, frequenting hookers and getting Brendan Hoffman/Getty Images into brawls. This behavior has led several hotels in Even so, Rosh Hashanah in Uman remains a “deeply spiritual event,” Ukraine to stop renting rooms to Jews. And it also requires the Israel Police to Buskila said. On the first evening of the holiday dispatch 20 officers each year to Uman men, many of them wearing a festive to better maintain the peace. The community’s growth is a all-white version of the knee-length mixed blessing, according to Buskila. kapote robe, greet each other with “We now have a wide selection of hugs on the street, sometimes walking with their arms wrapped around a kosher products, kosher meat, we have friend’s shoulder to join a mass of peo- a Jewish kindergarten for our daughple who pray in relative silence around ter, we have an emergency clinic,” he the gravesite. Children scamper about said. “But there are negative aspects and some parents feel the change everywhere, even on rooftops. But the reverent crowd of followers compromises our efforts to bring up of the Breslov stream has been joined our children in a moral environment.”

The popularization of the Uman pilgrimage is taking its toll on relations with the non-Jewish population, Buskila added. In December, in the most notorious example yet of strain, unidentified vandals desecrated a synagogue with a pig’s head and anti-Semitic graffiti. “I find it difficult to believe that this incident isn’t connected to misbehavior, abuse and violence by a certain fringe within the pilgrim community,” Buskila said. “Unfortunately, their actions can eclipse a record of coexistence which is mostly very positive.” Displays of anti-pilgrim hostility have been occurring for years in Uman, sometimes in demonstrations featuring anti-Semitic rhetoric. But the desecration was an escalation that provoked retaliation: In January, Ukrainian prosecutors charged an Israeli who vandalized a crucifix with a hate crime. See Uman on page 17

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President Trump speaks to Jewish leaders in a conference call at the White House on Sept. 15. White House Press Office

and Jewish grandchildren.” Ivanka Trump, Jared’s wife, is also a top adviser to her father. Trump closed the call by saying he and his wife, Melania, are wishing all “a sweet, healthy and peaceful new year.” The controversy surrounding the call began last month, when the Reform, Reconstructionist and Conservative movements cast their decision to cancel the call — an outcome of Trump’s equivocation after the Charlottesville violence, when he said “many sides” were to blame for the violence, and that there were “very fine people” among both the white supremacists and the counterprotesters. “The president’s words have given succor to those who advocate anti-Semitism, racism,

and xenophobia,” the joint statement said. Last Thursday, Trump again insisted that there was blame on both sides. Those who participated in the call said that even absent a question-and-answer period, it was still better to be on the call than not. Rabbi Jonah Dov Pesner, director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, said in an email to JTA that because he was not on the call, he had no comment on what was said. But, he wrote, “We stand by our decision to not host a High Holy Days call with the President this year. We are disappointed that the President continues to draw a false equivalency between white supremacists and counter-demonstrators in Charlottesville.”

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By Ron Kampeas, JTA WASHINGTON — President Trump delivered Rosh Hashana greetings to Jewish leaders last Friday during an eight-minute conference call from the White House. There were fewer people participating in the call, instituted as an annual event at the start of the Obama administration, than in past years, after leaders of the Reconstructionist, Reform and Conservative movements said they would not help organize the call because of the president’s refusal to formally renounce white supremacists. The White House said this year’s call was in line with the calls and meetings that Jewish leaders have had with the sitting president since the Eisenhower era in that it was initiated by the White House, not the rabbis, and both lay and religious leaders were invited. President Trump took no questions. By contrast, calls and meetings with past presidents have included exchanges — sometimes tough — and generally lasted at least 45 minutes. “These are rabbis whose foremost cause should be the Jewish people and Israel,” said Morton Klein, the president of the Zionist Organization of America. Klein, who was on the call, noted that he participated in similar calls and meetings with Obama, even though he rarely agreed with him. “Why stupidly insult the president, who we need for those issues?” he asked. Rabbi Avi Shafran, director of public affairs for Agudath Israel, had argued in a Forward op-ed on Thursday that the rabbis who had opted out of the call with the president were missing an opportunity to raise the painful issue of the white supremacists and neo-Nazis who marched last month in Charlottesville, which culminated in an attack by an alleged white supremacist that killed one counterprotester and wounded at least 20 others. “There is a difference between respectfully asking a president to clarify that he does not equate proponents of white supremacism with protesters against the same and, however one might feel about him, publicly and starkly insulting our nation’s duly elected national leader,” he said. According to a transcript of the call released by the White House, Trump covered the standard range of issues in these calls and did not depart from the script. Anti-Semitism and bias: “We forcefully condemn those who seek to incite antiSemitism, or to spread any form of slander and hate — and I will ensure we protect Jewish communities, and all communities, that face threats to their safety,” he said. Israel: “The United States will always support Israel not only because of the vital security partnership between our two nations, but because of the shared values between our two peoples,” he said. Trump noted that his ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, was making a priority of keeping international bodies from singling out Israel for criticism. “I can tell you on a personal basis, and I just left Israel recently, I love Israel,” he said. Peace: “This next New Year also offers a new opportunity to seek peace between the Israelis and Palestinians, and I am very hopeful that we will see significant progress before the end of the year,” the president said. “Ambassador David Friedman, Jared [Kushner], Jason [Greenblatt], and the rest of my team are working very hard to achieve a peace agreement. I think it’s something that actually could happen.” Friedman is the ambassador to Israel, Kushner is his son-inlaw and a top adviser, and Greenblatt is his top international negotiator. Kushner opened the call by introducing the president, saying his father-in-law “takes great pride in having a Jewish daughter

THE JEWISH STAR September 22, 2017 • 2 Tishrei 5778

Despite a liberal snub, Trump makes his call

After troubled year, Whitefish Jews look ahead By Ron Kampeas, JTA Around the picnic tables at Whitefish City Beach on the final Shabbat eve of August, the Montana town’s tiny Jewish community shared kosher hot dogs, veggie burgers and memories of terror. In a year when white supremacists have been ascendant, at least in their public profile, perhaps no community has been harder hit than the Jews in the one-time rail stop set against a backdrop of mountains and bordering the town’s shimmering namesake lake. The election of Donald Trump as president and a feverish debate among Jews and others over whether he had actively courted the far-right vote raised the profile of the town’s best-known white supremacist, Rich-

ard Spencer. A dispute between a Jewish real estate agent and Spencer’s mother, whipped up by a neo-Nazi website, sparked months of harassment, targeting in particular three Jewish families. The Whitefish Jewish community’s spiritual leader, Francine Green Roston, whose family was among those targeted, said there was no way the community could put behind it the harassment, which reportedly included jarring phone calls and online onslaughts aimed at the families’ children. “Our lives will never be the same,” Roston said this week in an interview, choosing not to detail the harassment she and her family suffered. “But we have returned to what we were building before this happened. We’re

continuing to be part of initiatives to promote strong community ties to fight hatred wherever it arises.” Positive takeaways, she said, include the awareness of national Jewish support. “Secure Community Network, the Jewish Federations of North America and the AntiDefamation League were on the ground supporting us in the first week,” she said. SCN is a security service backed by the federations and the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations. Such attention was unusual for a Jewish community numbering perhaps 60 in Whitefish and a couple of hundred more in the surrounding Flathead County. Roston was in the habit of saying she practiced “pioneer Juda-

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September 22, 2017 • 2 Tishrei 5778 THE JEWISH STAR

ism” in a state with no local federation and no national affiliations. “We felt the support and connection of the American Jewish community,” she said. Not just from the organizations, she said, “but we received cards and letters and donations from communities across the country. The donations enabled us to have a security fund, and our new normal is to have a security guard at our large community gathering.” The cyber attacks, which escalated into threatening phone calls and abusive snail mail, were launched late last year after Spencer’s mother, Sherry, said in an online posting that Tanya Gersh, a local real estate agent, was pressuring her to leave the town. The emails posted by the elder Spencer suggested instead that she and Gersh had, in friendly conversations, discussed selling her property. Gersh was ready to cut her fee in order to facilitate the sale. Spencer’s posting prompted Andrew Anglin, a neo-Nazi who founded the Daily Stormer website, to write a screed on Dec. 16 calling on his followers in December to harass Gersh and her family, as well as the Rostons and the family of another Jewish spiritual leader in the area, Allen Secher. Within a day SCN’s director, Paul Goldenberg, had commissioned a colleague in Seattle to drive to the community — no small feat in December, when the roads into Whitefish are icy and beset with snow. ADL National Director Jonathan Greenblatt also called to see how he could help. There were also expressions of support from the local non-Jewish community and a commitment by local officials to intensify diversity education. “After the attacks, a group worked with interfaith clergy, which we hadn’t had before,” she said. There were two “Love Not Hate” rallies in the region and diversity training in the school system. Goldenberg said his experience with Whitefish was the most moving for him in over a decade dealing with Jewish security. “Attacks that specifically target children are abhorrent and unthinkable and would have the capability to paralyze any community’s ability to function and thrive,” he said in an interview. Goldenberg said the community’s resilience — the determination to stay put — amazed him. He was a guest of honor at the summer Shabbat event, which the community calls its annual “ShabbaBBQ.” Indeed, Roston said, there has been a coming together. She said the community to a person backed Gersh’s lawsuit against Anglin. The Southern Poverty Law Center is assisting in the suit, which seeks damages from Anglin for invading Gersh’s privacy and causing emotional distress. Still, clearly there are periods when Roston and others retreat into the fears prompted by the cyber onslaught of last winter. Last month’s white supremacist march in Charlottesville, Virginia, which included deadly violence, triggered difficult memories for the rabbi. Richard Spencer was there to speak at a rally that Saturday morning. In a speech at a Love Not Hate gathering after Charlottesville, Roston excoriated President Donald Trump, who has equivocated in condemning white supremacists — but also wondered about those closer to home. “Did you know that residents of the Flathead Valley through their Twitter accounts and postings on the Daily Stormer threatened Whitefish residents and businesses by giving the Daily Stormer the names of our local businesses to attack?” she said in her speech. “Yes, you heard me correctly. We all have neighbors who joined the Nazis in their attacks on our community this past winter.”

THE JEWISH STAR September 22, 2017 â&#x20AC;¢ 2 Tishrei 5778

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10 prominent American Jews who died in 5777 By Gabe Friedman, JTA It’s always difficult to whittle down the list of influential Jews who died in a given year, but this year the task seemed to be especially tough. Here are a few members of the tribe who were prominent in the popular culture who left us since last Rosh Hashanah.

Carrie Fisher, 60

Most know Carrie Fisher because of her iconic role as Princess Leia in the original “Star Wars” films, but her tumultuous career extended beyond that. The actress, who struggled with addictions to cocaine and prescription medications, also wrote four novels and three memoirs along with acting in dozens of other films. Fisher landed the “Star Wars” role as a relative unknown despite being the daughter of Jewish singer Eddie Fisher and movie star Debbie Reynolds. After she died of a heart attack in December, her only child pointed out that Fisher’s real cause of death was her substance abuse issues.

At left: Leonard Cohen performing in Ramat Gan, Israel, on Sept. 24, 2009. At right: Otto Warmbier arriving at court for his trial in Pyongyang, North Korea on March 16, 2015. Credits from left: Marko/Flash90, Xinhua/Lu Rui via Getty Images

Leonard Cohen, 82

The grandson of a rabbi who grew up in an Orthodox home in Montreal became one of the most beloved folk artists of the 20th and 21st centuries. Leonard Cohen launched his musical career late, releasing his first album at 33 after writing multiple books of poetry. But he would go on to release 13 more records and often incorporate Jewish themes into his meticulously crafted songs. His song “Hallelujah” became one of the most covered and revered songs in pop music history. Just weeks before his death in November, Cohen released his final album, which included a track featuring a chorus saying “I’m ready, my Lord.”

Simone Veil, 89

Fewer than 70 people have been awarded France’s Grand Cross of the Legion of Honor

From left: Carrie Fisher as Princess Leia in “Star Wars,” Jerry Lewis in 1971, Simone Veil in 1974, Don Rickles in 2007. Credits from left: CBS via Getty Images, Evening Standard/Getty Images, Keystone/Hulton Archive/Getty Images, Mark Mainz/Getty Images

— Simone Veil, a Holocaust survivor who became a pillar of French politics, was one of them. After making it out of Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen, Veil became a lawyer and served as France’s minister of health and later as president of the European Parliament.

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Don Rickles, 90

Ruth Gruber, 105

Without this groundbreaking scientist, we still might not understand what 27 percent of the universe is made up of: dark matter. Rubin, an astronomer from Philadelphia, discovered that galaxies don’t rotate the way previous scientific models led us to believe, which led to the proof of the invisible, undetectable stuff that makes up nearly a third of our world. R “I’m Jewish, and so religion to me is a kind of moral code and a kind of history,” Rubin once said. “I try to do my science in a moral way, and I believe that ideally, science should be looked upon as something that helps us understand our role in the universe.”

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Otto Warmbier, 22

Don’t let the funnyman’s stage name fool you: Jerry Lewis was born Joseph Levitch to parents who performed on the Borscht Belt hotel circuit. Lewis, who died of cardiac disease in August, rose to prominence as part of a duo with Dean Martin, with whom he made over a dozen wacky comedy films from 1949 to 1956. He would go on to star in dozens of other films, including “The Nutty Professor” (yes, the original one, well before Eddie Murphy’s 1996 remake) and Martin Scorsese’s “The King of Comedy.”

Vera Rubin, 88

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Jerry Lewis, 91

The well-known comic nicknamed “Mr. Warmth,” who loved to hurl insults at his audience members, was also a serious actor trained at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. He appeared in countless TV shows, performed standup into his 80s and acted alongside legends such as Clark Gable and Clint Eastwood on the silver screen. Younger audiences know him as the voice of Mr. Potato Head in the “Toy Story” series.

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September 22, 2017 • 2 Tishrei 5778 THE JEWISH STAR

After being held in North Korea for more than 17 months for allegedly tearing down a propaganda poster during a student tour, Otto Warmbier was released, comatose, in June. He did not survive the injuries, dying a week after being returned to the United States. JTA reported that he was an active member at the University of Virginia Hillel. His Jewish identity was kept under wraps so as not to embarrass North Korea during negotiations for the release of the student who had been sentenced to 15 years of hard labor. Among the impressive accomplishments on Ruth Gruber’s resume: a pioneering reporting stint in the Soviet Arctic, a trip ordered by President Franklin Roosevelt to comfort post-Holocaust Jewish refugees, and reportage of the Nuremberg trials and Operation Moses. The writer, who will go down as one of the 20th century’s most important journalists, Jewish or not, began her career at the New York Herald Tribune in 1947.

Henry Heimlich, 96

Yes, that Heimlich — the person who invented the famous Heimlich maneuver that has saved countless numbers of choking people since its inception in 1974. Besides the famous life-saving method, Dr. Henry J. Heimlic,h a thoracic surgeon, also invented the chest drainage flutter valve, known as the Heimlich valve. He died last December from complications following a heart attack.

Sara Ehrman, 98

This longtime Democratic Party activist, adviser on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and friend of the Clintons described herself as “first a Jew, second a Democrat, and above all a feminist.” Sara Ehrman may be most famous for advising Hillary Clinton not to move to Arkansas to marry Bill. She helped organize Bill Clinton’s first trip as president to Israel, served as AIPAC’s political director and later worked with From left: Sara Ehrman in 2016, Vera Rubin in 2010, Ruth Gruber in 2011. J Street. Credits from left: ajpeacearchive.org, Linda Davidson/Washington Post via Getty Images, Andy Kropa/Getty

Sorry…

Becoming the most powerful man on earth has barely slaked Trump’s thirst for deference. “Fake News is at an all time high,” he said on Twitter in June. “Where is their apology to me for all of the incorrect stories???” Michelle Cottle, writing in the Atlantic in February, compiled a partial list of the people from whom Trump and his surrogates had demanded apologies during and since the campaign. They included Sen. John McCain, the cast of “Hamilton,” CNN’s Jim Acosta, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Megyn Kelly, and Hillary Clinton. “If anything, a grudging, coerced apology seems to delight him even more than a wholly voluntary one,” Cottle wrote. Failing to extract an apology, by contrast, seems to enrage the president. In June, New York magazine reported that Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner failed in his bid to get MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough to apologize to Trump for his show’s critical coverage of the president. The exchange culminated with the president’s attack on Scarborough’s fiancé and co-host, Mika Brzezinski, as “bleeding from the face” from a facelift.

Sorry, not sorry

Trump’s best-known apology, delivered last Oct. 8 between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, was a classic of the sorry, not sorry genre. It came after the “Access Hollywood” tape showed Trump boasting in 2005 about sexual assault. “I’ve said and done things I regret, and the words released today on this more-than-a-decade-old video are one of them,” Trump, then a candidate, said in his videotaped apology. Translation: It was over a decade old, when I was a mere child of 59. Why bother with it now? “Anyone who knows me knows these words don’t reflect who I am. I said it, I was wrong and I apologize,” he said. Better; even Maimonides might approve. But Trump wasn’t done. “Let’s be honest: We are living in the real world. This is nothing more than a distraction from the important issues we are facing today,” he said. Uh-oh. Sounds like he is diminishing the

significance of the thing he just apologized for. But at least Trump didn’t say that others have done things that are far worse. Wait, there’s this: “Hillary Clinton and her kind have run our country into the ground. I’ve said some foolish things, but there’s a big difference between the words and actions of other people,” he said. “Bill Clinton has actually abused women, and Hillary has bullied, attacked, shamed and intimidated his victims.” Trump, moreover, did not apologize to his direct targets: the actress he was lusting over in the audio or the married friend he claimed he had hoped to seduce. Melania Trump, who was already married to Trump at the time the tape was made, said her husband apologized to her. Trump has said he did not. His daughter Ivanka Trump, the evening the tape emerged, reportedly pleaded for him to make a real apology. He refused. She left the room in tears, according to the New York Times. Trump recorded his apology on Oct. 8. He won election on Nov. 8.

Atonement for Day of Atonement

There have been plenty of other apologies in the Trump era. Jewish social justice activists were miffed when they learned that the March for Racial Justice in Washington was scheduled for Sept. 30, which happens to be Yom Kippur. The organizers dithered for a bit, but on Aug. 16 issued a statement saying the scheduling “was a grave and hurtful oversight on our part. It was unintentional and we are sorry for this pain as well as for the time it has taken for us to respond. Our mistake highlights the need for our communities to form stronger relationships.” The date of the march will not be changed, but related events may be held on that Saturday night or the next day. Jill Jacobs, executive director of T’ruah: The Rabbinic Call for Human Rights, welcomed the apology, saying the organizers “have modeled teshuvah in the past few days.”

Swiss miss

A Swiss hotel owner made all the wrong kinds of headlines when she posted signs at her place urging Jews to shower before entering the pool and telling them they could only access a hotel refrigerator at set times. Even Israel’s deputy foreign minister, Tzipi Hotovely, chimed in, saying the incident reflected the prevalence of anti-Semitism in Europe. But the story was somewhat more complicated. Ruth Thomann, who runs the hotel, tearfully told JTA that she meant no offense to Jews and that she merely sought to convey information relevant only to the Jewish guests (who, she said, store their kosher food in the hotel fridge and tend to swim wearing T-shirts and other outerwear, presumably out of modesty). “I may have selected the wrong words; the signs should have been addressed to all the guests instead of Jewish ones,” she said, adding, “If I had something against Jews, I wouldn’t take them as guests!”

On Target

Target apologized to Israelis when it couldn’t make good on orders after a shipping company offered a brief free-shipping promotion. The

U.S. retail giant said it was overwhelmed by the orders from Aug. 18 to 20. “Due to the much higher than anticipated response to the Borderfree Free Shipping promotion, we are unable to deliver order [number] and had to cancel it. We apologize for this inconvenience,” read the letter sent to Israeli customers.

‘It’s over for me’

An Irish journalist, fired for writing what critics called an anti-Semitic newspaper column, apologized to those he offended — although he insisted his intentions were good. “I am very very sorry to them, I really mean it, I’m not rescuing anything as far as I can see, it’s over for me,” Kevin Myers said, referring to the two Jewish female BBC broadcasters who were described in his column as hard-bargainers. “I am issuing an apology for no other reason than contrition of the hurt I have caused them.” Jews, he had written in July, “are not generally noted for their insistence on selling their talent for the lowest possible price.” Said Myers: “I said those words out of respect for their religion.” Um, thank you?

Flag politics

Also in July, a Jewish camp in Washington state apologized after flying a Palestinian flag “as a sign of friendship and acceptance” to visiting Palestinian Muslim and Christian students. Critics of the flag said it was offensive and represented a regime that still incites violence against Jews. Supporters said welcoming Palestinian students on a peace mission was the menschy thing to do. The critics won the debate. “We sincerely apologize that we upset some in our CSS and larger Jewish community by introducing the Palestinian flag into our educational program,” the camp wrote in a letter to parents and supports. “Camp Solomon Schechter reiterates our unwavering support for the State of Israel as the Jewish homeland.” The camp’s executive director and co-board president also issued a statement. “Camp Solomon Schechter regrets raising the Palestinian flag alongside US, Canadian and Israeli flags on Thursday and Friday mornings,” the statement said. “We neglected to foresee in such actions the serious political implications and for that lapse in judgment, we are deeply sorry.”

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A sorry state of affairs

The Midtown Manhattan building that houses what President Trump calls “the failing @nytimes,” and a target logo outside a store in California. Getty Images

In Memory Of Rebbetzin Batsheva Kanievsky

THE JEWISH STAR September 22, 2017 • 2 Tishrei 5778

Continued from page 1 York Times apologized for its coverage of the election last year. But the Times insists it never apologized. The president’s hopes for an apology lie buried in a letter the newspaper posted five days after the election. “After such an erratic and unpredictable election,” the editors wrote to readers, “there are inevitable questions: Did Donald Trump’s sheer unconventionality lead us and other news outlets to underestimate his support among American voters?” Trump read that sentence as a mea culpa. “The failing @nytimes, which has made every wrong prediction about me including my big election win (apologized), is totally inept!” Trump tweeted as recently as Aug. 7. The Times has responded by tweeting, “We stand by our coverage,” and pointing to the language of the original letter, “We believe we reported on both candidates fairly during the presidential campaign. You can rely on The New York Times to bring the same level of fairness, the same level of scrutiny, the same independence to our coverage of the new president and his team.” In a fiery speech in Phoenix last month, Trump still hoped to shake out the nugget of an apology in the Times letter. “How about this?” Trump said. “The New York Times essentially apologized after I won the election because their coverage was so bad, and it was so wrong, and they were losing so many subscribers that they practically apologized. I would say they did.”

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Narendra Modi

Yariv Levin

Newsmakers… Continued from page 1 actors’ popularity on social media sites.

Nikki Haley and Danny Danon

Israel has experienced decades of bias and disproportionate criticism from the United Nations, but the Trump administration—under the leadership of Haley, its ambassador to the U.N.—is vowing to chart a new course for the world body’s culture on the Jewish state. During her speech at March’s AIPAC policy conference, Haley described herself as the “new sheriff in town” at the U.N. and declared “the days of Israel-bashing are over.” Haley, who in April assumed the U.N. Security Council’s rotating monthly presidency, has promised to refocus the council away from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Danon, Israel’s U.N. ambassador, made strides by securing landmark roles as vice

president of the 72nd Session of the U.N. General Assembly and chair of the U.N.’s Legal Committee.

Jason Greenblatt

President Trump’s international negotiations representative has made several visits to Israel this year. While pessimism is typically prevalent when it comes to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Greenblatt’s persistent diplomacy has earned rare praise from both sides. Following a meeting with Greenblatt in March, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas declared that “under President Trump’s leadership a historic peace deal is possible, and that it will enhance security throughout the region.” Tecently, Greenblatt announced an agreement between Israel and the PA on a historic Red Sea-Dead Sea canal that will relieve Palestinian water shortages.

Israel has constant security concerns internally and regionally, yet the country is as attractive as ever for international travelers. April and May set individual monthly records for tourists arriving in Israel, while the first six months of 2017 set their own half-year record with 1.74 million incoming tourists, a 26-percent increase from the same time last year. What’s behind the tourism boom? Levin, Israel’s tourism minister, cites his ministry’s new marketing strategies to “brand Israel” and to encourage airlines to open additional routes.

Amar’e Stoudemire

The former National Basketball Association (NBA) star has been deepening his connection to Israel since 2010, when he made a muchpublicized visit to explore what he called his “Hebrew roots.” Last year, Stoudemire moved to Israel and signed a contract to play for Hapoel Jerusalem, a franchise he had partially owned. Though he never won a title in 14 NBA seasons, Stoudemire got an Israeli league championship with the Jerusalem team in June. He also made his presence felt off the court, earning Israel’s Martin Luther King Jr. Award in February for efforts such as educating at-risk youths and providing safe drinking water in impoverished countries.

Thom Yorke

In July, Radiohead defied BDS pressure by treating Israel to the band’s longest performance in 11 years. Former Pink Floyd frontman Roger Waters and South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu had spearheaded a BDS petition against the concert. But Radiohead frontman Yorke took a principled stand in a Twitter feud with British filmmaker Ken Loach, asserting, “Music, art and academia is about crossing borders not building them, about open minds not closed ones, about shared humanity, dialogue and freedom of expression.”

Nir Barkat

This year, Jerusalem’s mayor saw the holy city mark the 50th anniversary of its reunifica-

U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley addresses the 35th Session of the U.N. Human Rights Council on June 6. U.N. Photo/Jean-Marc Ferré

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Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi tweeted this photo of his beach walk with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu in July. The photo is hand-signed by Netanyahu. Twitter

tion, a milestone feted significantly by Israelis and Jews around the world. Barkat is overseeing the development of infrastructure that will help Jerusalem grow into a major economic hub, including a forthcoming high-speed rail that will take residents from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv in just 28 minutes. At the same time, Barkat embraces his city’s DNA. “People think that conflict in Jerusalem is a bug, something that needs to be resolved,” he told JNS.org in May. “In Jerusalem, conflict is not a bug, it is a feature.”

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Israel has no shortage of enemies around the world. But Modi, by making the first-ever visit to Israel by a sitting Indian prime minister, showed the Jewish state also has powerful friends—in particular, the world’s second-largest country by population. Modi’s trip to the Jewish state in July had it all, from technological collaboration, to meeting with a Jewish child orphaned by the 2008 terror attack on Mumbai’s Chabad House, to a beach stroll and jeep ride with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The Modi-Netanyahu “bromance” was sealed with the Israeli leader’s delivery of a hand-signed photo of the beach walk to his Indian counterpart.

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Women praying at the women’s section of the Kotel in Jerusalem on May 16.

Moments… Continued from page 1

Bob Dylan is awarded the 2016 Nobel Prize in Literature.

In an unexpected move, the Swedish Academy bestowed the iconic Jewish American singer — born Robert Zimmerman — with the highly coveted prize in October. Though Bob Dylan’s fame is indisputable — he wrote some of the most well-known and culturally significant songs of the 1960s — the decision raised eyebrows because the prize has traditionally been given to novelists and poets, not songwriters. Dylan did not seem as enthusiastic as some of his fans: He took two weeks to acknowledge the award and said he was unable to travel to Sweden for the official ceremony, though he traveled there at a later date to accept the award and present the required lecture.

U.N. criticizes Israeli settlement, and the U.S. abstains.

In December, the United Nations Security Council sharply condemned Israeli actions in a resolution calling settlements “a flagrant violation of international law” that damage the prospects of a two-state solution to the IsraeliPalestinian conflict. Traditionally, the United States has vetoed such resolutions — but in its waning days the Obama administration chose not to follow suit. The move prompted outrage from Israel, most pro-Israel groups in the U.S., and then President-elect Trump, who called the resolution “extremely unfair.” Samantha Power, then the American envoy to the U.N., defended the abstention, saying the resolution was in line with longstanding U.S. opposition to Israeli settlements.

Trump takes office, bringing Ivanka and Jared with him.

Thomas Coex/AFP/Getty Images

None of the threats, many of which were called in, turned out to be credible, but they forced evacuations and spread fear among local communities. Several Jewish cemeteries were also vandalized, prompting some to blame the rise of the “alt-right” for the threats. However, neither of the two men arrested for making the threats turned out to be motivated by far-right beliefs. One of the accused, Juan Thompson, was arrested for making bomb threats against eight Jewish institutions in the name of an ex-girlfriend in a revenge plot. The main suspect, however, turned out to be an Israeli-American teenager, Michael Kadar of Ashkelon, who was arrested for making hundreds of threats. Kadar reportedly sold his bomb threat services online and suffers from a brain tumor, according to his lawyer.

Trump shouts down reporters who ask about a rise in anti-Semitism.

In February, the president shouted at two journalists who asked him about an increase in anti-Jewish sentiments and incidents, and said he “hates” being called an anti-Semite, although neither reporter called him one. After asking for a “friendly” reporter, Trump interrupted a question by aN Orthodox journalist for Ami Magazine — he accused him of lying about his intentions — and claimed to be the “least antiSemitic person that you have ever seen in your entire life.” Trump’s response drew criticism from Jewish groups, many of which had already criticized him a month earlier for releasing a statement on International Holocaust Remembrance Day that notably did not mention Jews. His defenders said the president’s critics were politically motivated.

On first overseas trip, Trump visits Israel.

Trump paid a visit to the Jewish state on his first overseas trip as president in May, which also included stops in Italy and Saudi Arabia.

President Trump and Jared Kushner at the Kotel in Jerusalem on May 22.

The two-day trip included a stop at Yad Vashem and meetings with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Reuven Rivlin, as well as Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. Trump, accompanied by his daughter Ivanka and her husband Jared Kushner, also stopped at the Western Wall for a private visit, making him the first sitting U.S. president to visit the holy site and earning him high praise across Israel. A few months after the visit, Trump dispatched a team of top aides, including Kushner, Jason Greenblatt and Dina Powell, to visit Israel and other Middle Eastern countries in an attempt to revive peace talks.

Israel freezes pluralistic Western Wall agreement.

A June decision by Netanyahu’s Cabinet to put a hold on the creation of an egalitarian section of the Western Wall, a deal passed in 2016, drew the ire of American Jewish leaders. Some leaders, also angered by the advancement of a bill to give the Orthodox Chief Rabbinate complete control of conversions performed in Israel, warned of a growing schism between American Jews and Israel. Natan Sharansky, the chairman of the Jewish Agency for Israel, also joined critics of the decision, saying it “will make our work to bring Israel and the Jewish world closer together increasingly more difficult.” In August, the Israeli Supreme Court said the government must either reinstate the agreement or provide an explanation as to why it had put a hold on it.

Chicago Dyke March bans women for carrying flags with Jewish stars.

In June, a Chicago lesbian march ejected three women for carrying Gay Pride flags with Jewish stars, saying the march was “anti-Zionist” and “pro-Palestinian.” The decision drew heated debate, and the Jewish reporter who first wrote about the incident for a Chicago LGBTQ news-

Israel Bardugo

paper said she was removed from her reporting job as a result of the article. The Dyke March controversy — as well as similar debates about the role of Zionists in the feminist movement and whether demonstrators could bring banners with Jewish stars to a Chicago feminist march — illuminated a growing challenge for Zionist Jews who feel unwelcome in liberal spaces.

Neo-Nazis rally in Charlottesville.

Neo-Nazis and white supremacists gathered in a Virginia park in August to protest the removal of a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee. The far-right protesters chanted antiSemitic and racist slogans, including “Jews will not replace us,” and brawled with counterprotesters. One counterprotester, Heather Heyer, was killed when a suspected white supremacist rammed his car into a crowd. Trump waffled on condemning the protest, calling out neo-Nazis and white supremacists in one remark, but blaming both sides for the violence at other times, and saying there were “some very fine people” in both groups. Jewish groups, lawmakers from both sides of the aisle and the president’s top economic adviser, Gary Cohn, criticized Trump for his response, saying he was not doing his part to condemn hate.

Hurricane Harvey floods Houston

Homes were flooded and lives were turned upside down as Hurricane Harvey hit Texas in August, forcing mass evacuations across the state. Over 70 percent of the city’s Jews live in areas that experienced high flooding, and synagogues, schools and other Jewish community buildings sustained significant damage. Recovery from the hurricane is expected to take years, but the disaster also served as a point of coming together for the community, as Jewish groups rallied to distribute donations and local Jewish camps offered housing to those with nowhere to go.

Donald Trump took office in January after his unexpected victory over Hillary Clinton in November, pledging in his inaugural address to put “America first.” The use of the slogan — the name of an isolationist and often antiSemitic movement leading up to World War II — alarmed some Jews, but Trump said the phrase had no connection to the earlier usage. Trump brought with him a cadre of Jewish advisers, including his daughter, Ivanka Trump, and her husband, Jared Kushner. The couple, both of whom are observant Jews, would take on critical roles in the administration as senior advisers to the president, with Kushner in charge of a thick portfolio that included brokering a peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians.

JCCs in U.S. and Canada targeted with more than 100 bomb threats.

From January to March, Jewish community centers, Jewish schools and other institutions were hit with more than 100 bomb threats.

Rescue workers and volunteers helping residents make their way out of a flooded neighborhood in Houston on Aug. 29. Scott Olson/Getty Images

White supremacists and far-rightists participate in a Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Va., on Aug. 12. Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

THE JEWISH STAR September 22, 2017 â&#x20AC;¢ 2 Tishrei 5778

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We have seen the future, and it looks Orthodox By Lawrence Grossman Publications Director, American Jewish Committee The 2013 Pew survey “A Portrait of Jewish Americans” shows that Orthodox Judaism, while currently attracting the allegiance of only about 10 percent of all American Jews, is the fastest growing sector of the community. The high birthrate and retention rate confirmed by the survey have led some observers to predict that within a generation, American Jewry will be predominantly Orthodox, culturally if not demographically. Of course we cannot presume that present trends will continue, but it’s surely worth thinking about what such a Jewish commu-

analysis

nity might look like. A glimpse of that hypothetical future community may be found in the 2017 American Jewish Committee’s Survey of American Jewish Opinion, the latest installment of the organization’s annual report on the attitudes of a representative sample of American Jews, conducted in August. The stark differences it finds between Orthodox and non-Orthodox Jews today go far beyond varying patterns of religious observance, and suggest the profound social, political and ideological changes that may lie ahead. The survey confirms that Orthodox Jews are highly pro-family and pro-natalist. An astounding 42 percent of the Orthodox respondents are aged 18-29, as compared to just 15 percent of Conservative Jews, 19 percent

of Reform and 16 percent of those calling themselves “Just Jewish.” And despite their relative youth, 83 percent of the Orthodox respondents are married, far more than the 54 percent of Conservative, 52 percent of Reform and 44 percent of Just Jewish who are. Jewish identity is strongest among the Orthodox. While virtually all respondents declared that being Jewish was important in their lives, a significant denominational difference emerged as to whether being Jewish ranked as very important: 99 percent of the Orthodox said it did, as compared to 71 percent of Conservatives, 44 percent of Reform and 30 percent Just Jewish. Another large gap emerged in regard to visiting Israel: 84 percent of the Orthodox had done so, 65 percent of Conservatives,

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PAGE 31: in Judaism without faith, WHERE DOES ISRAEL FIT? 49 percent of Reform and 37 percent of Just Jewish. A remarkable 66 percent of the Orthodox sample had been to Israel more than once — a higher rate than that for any of the non-Orthodox groups visiting once. In addition, the AJC survey demonstrates intense political polarization between Orthodox and non-Orthodox Jews. The Orthodox are far more politically conservative, Republican and pro-Trump than other American Jews. Only 3 percent of the Orthodox sample describe themselves as liberal, as compared to 46 percent of Conservative Jews, 64 percent of Reform and 60 percent of those who say they are Just Jewish. Sixty-nine percent of the Orthodox identify as politically conservative, as do only 29 percent of Conservative Jews, 14 percent of Reform, and 16 percent of Just Jewish. (About an additional 20 percent in each of the denominations identify as “moderate, middle-of-the-road.”) Even as Orthodox Republicans outnumber Orthodox Democrats by 43 to 22 percent (the rest are Independents), other Jews are overwhelmingly Democratic — 52 percent of Conservatives, 70 percent of Reform and 58 percent of the Just Jewish. And while 54 percent of the Orthodox voted for Trump in November, 60 percent of Conservatives, 89 percent of Reform Jews and 78 percent of the Just Jewish voted for Hillary Clinton. When the survey was done in August, 71 percent of the Orthodox had a favorable impression of Trump’s performance as president. In contrast, 73 percent of the Conservatives, 88 percent of Reform and 81 percent of the Just Jewish judged it unfavorably. Responses to questions about Trump’s performance on specific policy issues — national security, terrorism, U.S.-Russia relations, NATO and the transatlantic alliance, race relations, immigration and the Iran nuclear issue — showed a similar pattern. Non-Orthodox respondents view the administration’s record unfavorably by roughly 3 to 1, even as the Orthodox give it favorable ratings by about the same margin. On Israel, the survey findings clearly indicate that Orthodox Jews are much more hawkish and supportive of the current Israeli government than other Jews. Although clear majorities in all the non-Orthodox groups favor the establishment of a Palestinian state under current circumstances, 78 percent of the Orthodox oppose the idea. And asked their opinion of the way Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is handling his country’s relations with the U.S., 86 percent of Orthodox respondents approve, 51 percent “strongly.” In contrast, 38 percent of Conservatives, 51 percent of Reform and 53 percent of the Just Jewish disapprove. Questions on the relationship of religion and state in Israel elicited strong American Orthodox backing for the status quo. For example, 57 percent of the Orthodox believe that Israel’s recognition of Orthodoxy as the sole official form of Judaism has no effect on the country’s ties with American Jews, and another 28 percent feel it actually strengthens those ties. In sharp contrast, however, clear majorities of each of the non-Orthodox groups responded that the religious status quo in Israel in fact weakens the ties between the two Jewish communities. If, indeed, American Jewry turns more Orthodox in coming years, and the Orthodox maintain their current values and views, we will see a community more family-centered, more strongly Jewish, more politically conservative, more engaged with Israel and more committed to Israel’s Orthodox and right-leaning camps. But before making plans to prepare for this future scenario, bear in mind that prognosticators have been wrong before.

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Continued from page 6 Many locals, including Luba Dankov, a retired teacher who rents out her apartment on Pushkin Street, are grateful for the pilgrimage. “I don’t know about mafia, but thanks to the pilgrims I can live a halfway decent life because I get no state pension,” she said. “There are good and bad people in each group.” But the interest apparently taken by the mafia in the Uman pilgrimage is nonetheless a friction point. Eduard Leonov, a member of the nationalist Svoboda Party, launched a campaign in 2011 for a “Hasid-free Uman.” He complained that because of the pilgrims, “Uman is suddenly a crime capital.” “Mafia” here refers to Ukrainian mobsters with regional franchises who employ a mix of intimidation, violence and bribes to advance their goals, according to the U.S. State Department. While organized crime is a major force everywhere here — the State Department’s 2016 report on Ukraine spoke of how its “endemic corruption” has turned the former Soviet republic “into a transit country” for international money laundering — it seems to be particularly present in Uman, where locals report that gangsters are able to operate with impunity. Mafia connections are a necessity for many of the dozens of businesses that have sprung up in Uman over the past five years, according to Buskila. Breskov, the coffee seller, says he has to give its enforcers a 20 percent cut from his earnings. Israeli and Ukrainian businessmen alike all have “to get along with the mafia,” said Aboutbul, the restaurant owner. And Buskila added that many business owners pay “protection” fees to the mafia instead of paying taxes, “which are very easy to avoid here — you just have to throw the auditors a bone.” Another business that reportedly enjoys connections to organized crime is Saga, a strip club and restaurant that for the duration of

THE JEWISH STAR September 22, 2017 • 2 Tishrei 5778

Uman...

Rosh Hashanah functions as a brothel under the auspices of organized crime bosses, according to Vika Tsegurna, a local tour guide. Three taxi drivers confirmed this to JTA. The restaurant’s owners declined to be interviewed, as did a spokesman for the mayor’s office. Transportation services offer another glimpse into mafia involvement. Pushkin Street once was serviced by dozens of independent taxi drivers, but they are now banned from the Jewish area. Their place has been taken by employees of large taxi firms who have “come to an arrangement” with organized crime bosses, according to Anatoly, a cabbie who used to work near the Jewish area before he was “forced to leave by thugs,” as he put it. Buskila and Aboutbul insist that organized crime in Uman is essentially “white collar” in its treatment of Israelis, involving the threat of damage to property at worst but zero violence against actual people. To Buskila, the criminals “occupied a vacuum left by authorities” following a period of chaos during the revolution in Ukraine in 2014. The revolution — in part a response to allegations of corruption and subservience to Russia by the previous regime — unleashed a wave of nationalist sentiment. It also resulted in major damage to the local economy and a free fall in the value of the local currency, the hryvnia, against the dollar. This last development made Ukraine especially attractive to Western businessmen and tourists, Buskila said. Still, violent incidents involving the pilgrims do occur, including the brief hijacking last year of a bus with female tourists from Israel by criminals as part of their dispute with the bus company’s operators. And in 2011, thugs abducted a haredi Orthodox man they said had stolen from a local hotel and confiscated his passport. His passport was returned for ransom, according to the news site Behadrei Haredim. For all its challenges, the growth in Jewish presence in Uman is something Buskila and other community members generally welcome. “It feels good to be part of something that started out small and has grown into something pretty big,” he said.

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Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg may not be ready to proclaim himself a baal t’shuvah, but he took — if you’ll excuse the pun — baby steps in that direction this week. The Jewish co-founder of the social network posted a photo to his Facebook stream of himself giving his baby daughter a kiddush cup that he said was a century-old family heirloom. A picture shows Zuckerberg holding his daughter Max while she drank from the cup, which he said belonged to her great-great-grandfather, also named Max. Nearby is a marble kitchen counter topped with two lit Shabbat candles and challah under a white cover. “For shabbat tonight, we gave Max a kiddush cup that has been in our family for almost 100 years,” Zuckerberg wrote in the post. “Her great-great-grandfather Max got it after our family immigrated here and it has been passed down through our family ever since.” By Monday night, the post had generated 430,000 likes. In a Facebook post last December, Zuckerberg said he was once an atheist but now believes that “religion is very important.” The post came after he wished his followers a “Merry Christmas and Happy Hanukkah” on Dec. 25, 2016. Zuckerberg’s wife, Priscilla Chan, practices Buddhism. Friday’s post followed a wave of criticism directed at Facebook for its allowing advertisers to target users based on anti-Semitic information.

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19 THE JEWISH STAR September 22, 2017 • 2 Tishrei 5778

MEET OUR NEW DOCTOR Dr. Zahava Hersh

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September 22, 2017 • 2 Tishrei 5778 THE JEWISH STAR

By Ron Kampeas, JTA Prime Minister Netanyahu met with President Trump at the launch of this year’s U.N. General Assembly and praised his “unequivocal” defense of Israel. “I want to say that under President Trump, America’s position towards Israel at the U.N. has been unequivocal, it’s been strong, it’s got both clarity and conviction,” Netanyahu said Monday at a meeting with Trump in New York. “And I want to thank you on behalf of the people of Israel and Israel’s many friends around the world.” Trump’s predecessor, Barack Obama, also routinely defended Israel at the United Nations, but at the end of his term infuriated the Netanyahu government by allowing passage of a Security Council resolution condemning Israeli settlements. Additionally, Trump’s envoy to the U.N., Nikki Haley, has been far more outspoken and public in her defenses of Israel than her predecessors. Netanyahu also drew an implied and flattering comparison between Trump and Obama on the 2015 Iran nuclear deal. “I look forward to discussing with you how we can address together what you rightly call is the terrible nuclear deal with Iran and how to roll back Iran’s growing aggression in the region, especially in Syria,” Netanyahu said. The deal brokered by the Obama administration traded sanctions relief for a rollback in Iran’s nuclear program. Netanyahu reviles the deal and Trump has said he wants to amend or scrap it; the president has said to expect “dramatic” action by next month. Trump in his remarks, unlike Netanyahu, emphasized his hopes for a brokered Israeli-Palestinian peace. Moreover, the U.S. leader said Pales-

tinians and Israelis equally aspired to a deal — a posture Netanyahu has dismissed repeatedly, saying the Palestinians are not ready for peace. “We’re going to be discussing many things, among them peace between the Palestinians and Israel — it will be a fantastic achievement,” Trump said. “I think Israel would like to see it, and I think the Palestinians would like to see it. And I can tell you that the Trump administration would like to see it.” Prior to the meeting, Trump had tweeted, “Looking forward to meeting with Prime Minister @Netanyahu shortly. Peace in the Middle East would be a truly great legacy for ALL people!” Following the meeting, the White House, in a readout, said Netanyahu and Trump “stressed their goals of countering Iran’s malign influence in the region and resolving the Syria crisis in a manner consistent with American and Israeli security interests. “They also discussed their continuing efforts to achieve an enduring Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement, the optimism in the region about peace, and expanding economic opportunities to improve conditions for peace.” On Sunday, Netanyahu met privately with leaders of four Jewish organizations — the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, the Jewish Federations of North America, the American Jewish Committee and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. According to The Times of Israel, the Jewish leaders pressed Netanyahu on his reneging on a pledge to allow multidenominational prayer at the Western Wall. Also discussed, according to the report, was Iran and the civil war in Syria. An array of Jewish groups also met Sunday with Jordan’s King Abdullah.

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21 THE JEWISH STAR September 22, 2017 • 2 Tishrei 5778

MEET OUR NEW DOCTOR Dr. Letora Washington

DO- New York College of Osteopathic Medicine Attending Physician-Family Medicine

Attending Physician

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By Ed Weintrob We may not be able to flip Israel’s haters, but there are plenty of “intellectually honest” people who can be persuaded of the truth of Israel’s cause, Rabbi Dov Lipman, the first U.S.-born member of Knesset in 30 years, told a Nefesh B’Nefesh gathering in Jamaica Estates last week. “They can realize three things,” he said. “That it’s far more complex than they realized … that it’s not apartheid … and boycotts are counterproductive.” Rabbi Lipman, who made aliyah on the second NBN flight nine years ago and was elected to the Knesset in 2013, told The Jewish Star afterwards that beyond concern for Israel’s critics, those who love Israel need to focus close to home. “We have to begin educating our children about the conflict,” he said. “Meaning Israel can’t be just a rahrah march down Fifth Avenue.” “We are losing kids because when they get to campus they are not pre-

This week on pages 10-11

Super SpecialS

Israeli Minister of Justice Ayetet Shaked and Ambassador John Bolton, on Sunday at the Young Israel of Jamaica Estates. Ed Weintrob / The Jewish Star

Donald Trump at Hofstra University in Hempstead for the first presidential debate.

The Jewish Star / Christina Daly

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we need strong and articulate voices from the Right who potentially will have her ear and counteract elements in her circle which might push for policies that might otherwise go unopposed. “And this above all else: The Talmud is full of disagreements. But there is respect between adversaries. Intelligent people may disagree about an election. We may strongly disagree. But we must not allow ourselves to get angry and become See 2 rabbis on page 30

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Take om a pa P es T ump you done w ong

C hurst ta ks mesh h story and Torah

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Ambassador Friedman

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Rabbis Kenneth Hain (left) and Hershel Billet, urging their congreYouTube video gants to attend the AIPAC conference in 2014.

“A vote for Hillary Clinton should be considered by people who are conservative on Israel policy,” Rabbi Billet said. “If she gets our vote and wins, perhaps we will have an opportunity to hold her accountable to our concerns.” “People like Rabbi Hain who are uncompromisingly in Israel’s corner on both sides of the Green Line and who want a strong and secure Israel are doing a service in advocating for Mrs. Clinton,” Rabbi Billet said. “If she is elected,

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By The Jewish Star Two of the leading Modern Orthodox rabbis in the Five Towns, Hershel Billet and Kenneth Hain, published articles the days leading up to the election in which they expressed support for Hillary Clinton over Donald Trump and urged a moderation in the level of angry discourse. After Rabbi Hain, of Congregation Beth Shalom in Lawrence, wrote in the Jerusalem Post that “our country, and our Jewish community, would be fortunate to have Clinton serve as our next president,” he was criticized, often in intemperate terms, in social media channels. Rabbi Billet, of the Young Israel of Woodmere, rose to Rabbi Hain’s defense in a long Facebook post in which he discussed the complexity of an election campaign being fought in the wake of “eight dark years of President Obama.”

In 5 Towns, Rabbis Hain and Billet speak passionately — as do those who disagree

2 rabbis support Clinton, spark a row

Rabbi Chanina, the Deputy High Priest, said: “Pray for the welfare of the government, for were it not for respect for it, people would swallow one another alive.” Eternal G-d: We thank you for this blessed nation that for 240 years has translated into reality the Biblical command to “proclaim liberty throughout the land for all the inhabitants thereof.” We thank you for our constitutional government that has created and fostered the American ideals of democracy, freedom, justice and equality for all, regardless of race, religion or national origin. Almighty G-d: We know that we are living in very dangerous times, when all of these blessings are threatened from without, by forces of terror and unimaginable brutality, and from within, by those who sow the seeds of bigotry, hatred and violence, putting our lives and our way of life at risk. And so we pray, Dear G-d: Help us to form a government which will protect us with sound strategy and steady strength; which will unite us with words of wisdom and acts of compassion; and which will thereby bring peace and harmony, safety and well-being to our beloved America and to all of humankind. And let us all say, Amen. This is the benediction that Rabbi Haskel Lookstein, spiritual leader of Kehilath Jeshurun, a Modern Orthodox shul on the Upper East Side and rabbi to Ivanka, daughter of President-Elect Trump, wrote for last summer’s Republican National Convention.

TRUMP

PRESIDENT

Parsha Lech Lecha • November 11, 2016 • 10 Cheshvan 5777 • Candlelighting 4:21 pm, Havdalah 5:28 • Luach, page 23 • Vol 15, No 43

Flanked by Mayor Weinstock at Sunday’s fair in Cedarhurst, Editor-Publisher Ed Weintrob shared news about The Jewish Star’s expansion. Starting this week, there are more pages, more news and more circulation throughout Long Island. See p. 31.

STAR

the light wins,” she said. “Day after day the light overcomes the darkness,” and the clearest proof of this victory is the growth of the Jewish population in Judea and Samaria. Shaked shared the spotlight with former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton, ZOA National President Morton Klein, and several other speakers. Klein said that use of the term “occupation” to describe Israel’s role in Judea and Samaria was “Orwellian.” “There is no occupation. This is an Orwellian propaganda lie,” he said, pointing out that most of the West Bank areas where Arabs reside are selfSee Divided Jerusalem on page 30

The JEWISH

By Ed Weintrob Israel’s Minister of Justice Ayelet Shaked told a full house Sunday evening that the American-Israeli bond was “unbreakable and unshakable” and that the “importance of an undivided and unified Jerusalem” to the Jewish people meant that the nation’s capital would never be divided. “No terror attacks, no murder’s knife, will erode the iron will of the people of Israel and prevent our beacon from shining its lights,” she said during an event sponsored by the National Council of Young Israel in the Young Israel of Jamaica Estates. “In the continuing struggle for the right to be a free people in our land,

Star is rising

Rabbi Dov Lipman, American-born member of the Knesset, spoke at a Nefesh Ed Weintrob / The Jewish Star B’Nefesh event at Young Island of Jamica Estates.

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pared for the negativity,” he continued. “Students for Justice in Palestine is so srong and our kids” — including those from Orthodox homes, he emphasized — “don’t have answers. They get confused by it.” Also, he suggested that Torah observant Jews kick their Zionism up a notch. “Let’s talk mitzvah level,” he said. “How is it that we, as religious Jews don’t talk about aliyah.” “We have to reaclaim Zionism in America, and get kids excited about it, so they’ll have passion and more confidence to stand up to whatever pressure comes their way.” Rabbi Lipman responded to an audience member who spoke about the difficulty some olim have had after moving to Israel, by conceding that it’s not easy. “For olim, planning is most important,” he said, urging people to enter the process with eyes wide open. Many groups, including NBN, work to assist olim, he said. NBN ferSee Lipman on page 2

Lipman: Don’t ignore critics … or our kids

Let’s make friends!

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Divide Jerusalem? Fuhgeddaboudit!

By Ed Weintrob South Shore Rep. Kathleen Rice cheered the Obama Administration’s memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Israel, announced last week, that ensures record levels of American aid to the Jewish state over the next ten years. “It’s more money than previous MOUs, that’s a good thing,” Rice told The Jewish Star as she toured the South Shore Community Chest’s fair in Cedarhurst on Sunday. “It reaffirms our commitRep. Rice at the ment to Israel and our fair in Cedarhurst. partnership with them.” The MOU guarantees Israel $38 billion in American military assistance over 10 years, from Fiscal Year 2019 through FY 2028, superseding a $30 billion MOU signed in 2007 that expires in FY 2018, according to the White House. “America’s commitment to Israel’s seSee RICE on page 5

MOU gets Rice’s OK

Parsha Ki Savo • September 23, 2016 • 20 Elul 5776 • Candlelighting 6:31 pm, Havdalah 7:38 • Luach, page 27 • Vol 15, No 37

The JEWISH lo

l is

By Ben Sales, JTA Shimon Peres, the former defense hawk turned Nobel Peace Prize winner and the last of Israel’s founders, has died. Peres, died before dawn on Wednesday at the age of 93, Israeli radio reported. Peres suffered a massive stroke earlier this month and was initially reported to be in stable but critical condition. His condition was reported to have dramatically deteriorated Tuesday afternoon. Israel Radio quoted his family, who were at his side, as saying he was “fighting until the end.” Peres was the phoenix of Israel politics, continually reinventing himself as the country changed. He began his career in the Defense

la is

Bradley C Bower/Bloomberg News via JTA

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ing the ingredients into dough. By Celia Weintrob Then Rebbitzen Wolff walked the Last week’s third annual Great bakers through the blessing when Challah Bake Long Island Style taking the challah. After a bit of was the largest yet, drawing 1,300 kneading, the attendees rose as women and girls to the Sands Attheir dough rose and the room lantic Beach. erupted into festive music and joyThe diverse crowd, representing ous dancing. After much song and the range of Jewish backgrounds dance, the challot were braided and levels of observance, was and taken home to bake. spellbound as Mistress of Ceremo“It was a powerful night of uninies Jackie Bitton told the story of ty, celebration of women and Jua deaf woman who was supremely daism,” said Adina Fishlewitz, orconcerned about not insulting a ganizer of the Long Island Challah fellow Jew, and enchanted by Rebbitzen Slovie Wolff’s story of how Rebbitzen Slovie Wolff, daughter of Reb- Bake for the past three years. “The her family was decimated by the bitzen Esther Jungreis. Jewish Star / Celia Weintrob evening was all about empowering the Jewish woman, knowing holocaust, yet a neighbor managed to return a single silver candlestick to her grandfather where we came from and tapping into our essence.” The Challah Bake was a precursor to the internaafter the war. The evening was dedicated to Wolff’s tional Shabbos Project on Nov 11–12, whose mission mother, Rebbitzen Esther Jungreis z”l. Ruthie Klagsbrun, dubbed “the queen of challah” is to introduce Jews who are unfamiliar with keeping by her friends, led the group in the inital steps of mix- shabbos to the beauty and traditions of the day.

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Woodmere’s Friedman, 57, is one of two Jewish lawyers whom Trump has said he would appoint as his Israel advisers. There has been speculation that Friedman is being considered for service as U.S. ambassdor to Israel. A bankruptcy expert and partner at the Kasowitz law firm in Manhattan, Friedman is the president-elect’s longtime attorney. His family has a history of ties to See Trump Jews on page 3

David Friedman

By Josefin Dolsten, JTA With The Jewish Star Woodmere attorney David Friedman is one of several Jewish members of President-elect Donald Trump’s cadre of advisers. The incoming president’s Jewish circle includes members of his own family — Trump’s daughter Ivanka identifies as an Orthodox Jew and is married to Jared Kushner — and he’s spoken fondly about having Jewish grandchildren (who attend Ramaz, a Modern Orthodox day school on the Upper East Side). Here’s a look at President-elect Trump’s Jewish advisers, their views and possible roles in his administration. (Because of federal anti-nepotism regulations, he may not officially appoint family members to the Cabinet.)

David Friedman with Ivanka Trump in 2010.

among top advisers to the president-Elect

Parsha Vayera • November 18, 2016 • 17 Cheshvan 5777 • Candlelighting 4:16 pm, Havdalah 5:23 • Luach, page 24 • Vol 15, No 44

three times without ever winning an election outright, and shared the 1994 Nobel Peace Prize for a peace that has yet to materialize, Peres emerged late in life as Israel’s beloved elder statesmen and a rare figure capable of uniting a fractious society. Following the signing of the Oslo Accords, Peres emerged as Israel’s global See Shimon Peres on page 11

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Ministry and was the architect of Israel’s nuclear program, but in his later years Peres was more closely identified with the quest for peace with the Palestinians. He was instrumental in negotiating the Oslo Accords, the landmark Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement, and was present on the White House lawn for its signing in 1993. Though he served as prime minister

Peres, last of founders, 93

With the sweetness of Rosh Hashana in mind, beekeeper Curtis Crowell introduced boys at Hewlett’s Yeshiva of South Shore to the social structure of bees, how hives are constructed and how honey is produced. The youngsters were fascinated by his beekeeping apparatus with a live beehive inside. More photos in the SCHOOLS section on page 24.

Buzzing into a sweet year

The JEWISH Trump JEWS Woodmere’s Friedman

Aly Raisman posing after winning a silver medal in the women’s individual all-around competition at the Rio Olympics. Getty Images

PM Netanyahu and President Mulatu Teshome of Ethiopia view liKobi Gideon/GPO ons at the presidential compound in Addis Ababa.

Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked, at a swearing-in ceremony for judges, is one of four female government ministers. Yossi Zamir/Flash90

Friends of Ezra Schwartz grieve the American terror victim at Ben Ben Sales Gurion Airport before the body was returned to Boston.

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Recapping year’s highs and lows By Ben Harris, JTA Here’s a timeline of some of the major Jews news stories of 5776. September 2015 •Fifty-three major American Jewish groups issue a call for unity and recommitment to American and Israeli security following the Sept. 17 deadline for Congress to reject the Iran nuclear deal. Overall, 5 feel-good stories: P. 33 19 of 28 Jewish members of Congress sup• Jewish Star port the deal, which is vigorously opposed covers: P. 16 by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. •After an 119-8 General Assembly vote permitting the Palestinian flag to be raised at U.N. headquarters in New York, the flag flies there for the first time. Israel, the United States, Canada and Australia are among the dissenters. October 2015 •The Jewish Council for Public Affairs calls on Jewish groups to lobby for official American recognition of the Armenian genocide. Though most historians say the killing or deportation of 1.5 million Armenians by Turkish forces during World War I constitutes a genocide, See Recapping on page 32

From left: Sari Braunstein, Marisa Braunstein, Liza Rosenthal, Chayala Liebman, Elaine Gross, Sami Schindelheim and Sharon and Bill Rothchild.

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By Nathan Diament, Executive Director Orthodox Union Advocacy Center This article was solicited by JTA as part of a series on Jewish reaction to Trump’s victory, titled “Worst fears, best hopes.” A majority of Orthodox Jews voted for Donald Trump for president. They did so upon the twin bases of rejecting Hillary Clinton as the candidate of continuity (for a “third Obama term”) as well as policies Trump proposed on key issues. The foremost reason Mr. Trump earned their votes was the belief that he will be best for the security of Israel. Trump vigorously criticized President Obama’s policies toward Israel. Indeed, Trump’s election will have a beneficial impact before he even takes the oath of office on Jan. 20. It likely makes a rumored lame duck peace process move by

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An estimated 4,000 shoppers poured onto the commercial streets of Cedarhurst on motzei Shabbos, creating a festive atmosphere as they celebrated the American tradition of “Black Friday” — on a Saturday night. “The event was a great success,” proclaimed Teri Schure, See Cedarhurst on page 24

‘Midnite’ shoppers crowd Cedarhurst

Zahava Vay, Shira Keilson and Mimi Muchnik check out Midnight Madness specials at Jildor Shoes on Central Avenue in Cedarhurst last Saturday night. More photos pages 24–25.

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lyn’s Crown Heights neighborhood on Sunday. They are among 4,550 Chabad shluchim from around the world who were in New

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Jared Kushner and his wife Ivanka Trump in September 2015. Bobby Bank/WireImage/GettyImages

WASHINGTON (JTA) — Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu said he is looking forward to speaking to Donald Trump about what to do about the “bad” Iran deal once Trump is president. In remarks on Sunday by satellite feed to the annual Saban Forum, Netanyahu reverted to tough pre-deal rhetoric. “I opposed the deal because it doesn’t prevent

Iran from getting nuclear weapons, it paves the way for Iran getting nuclear weapons,” he said. Since the pact was reached, and Obama defeated efforts in Congress to kill it in September 2015, Israel and other opponents have emphasized enforcing the deal as opposed to killing it outright. Netanyahu’s defense minister, Avigdor See Bibi anticipation on page 8

Bibi anticipates Trump talk

Jared Kushner, wife Ivanka Trump and their three children — Arabella, 5, Joseph, 3, and 8-month-old Theodore — are planning to move from New York to Washington. The New York Post reported that while where they would reside was unclear, “the Orthodox Jewish pair may choose to be in Georgetown, within walking distance of the Kesher Israel synagogue, or in the Maryland suburbs of Silver Spring, Rockville or Potomac, where there are plenty of Orthodox synagogues.”

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Wagner College student Sophia Spengler performs a monologue as Lodz ghetto survivor Dora Luba Malz. Dora’

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JERUSALEM — Israel’s health minister this week called on the public to refrain from eating the traditional Chanukah treat sufganiyot. “I call on the public to avoid eating sufganiyot, which are rich in fats,” Yaakov Litzman of the Haredi Orthodox United Torah Judaism party said Sunday during a conference to promote healthy eating, Ynet reported. “You can find alternatives for everything nowadays and there is no need for us to fatten our children with sufaganiyot, which are not in line with the principles of health and proper nutrition.” Sufganiyot — traditional jelly donuts — are deep fried and covered with powdered sugar, although variations include other fillings and toppings. They are ubiquitous in the weeks leading up to the holiday, with bakeries frying them on the street and selling them fresh to passersby. “If I had to say this today, I’d say sufganiyot out,” Litzman said. ‘You can eat them, of course, because it is part of the holiday’s customs, but there are alternatives.” On Monday, he pulled back slighting, stating, “I am not saying it should be prohibited … but one shouldn’t eat a mountain of them. Eat one on Chanukah and that’s it.” YeshivaWorldNews said that when it was pointed out to him that eating jelly donuts is a mitzvah, he responded that there are far more important mitzvos to fulfil and that one should not be machmir regarding the donuts.

Health minister urges Israelis: Skip the donuts

Chanukah without sufaniyot?

Sufganiyot on display in Jerusalem’s Central Bus Ben Sales Station.

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While this will likely constitute a review of the obvious for women in the Orthodox community, Shabbos Project’s goal is to encourage kiruv, with observant Jews using this special weekend to offer less religious relatives, friends and colleagues a taste of Shabbos. “I was moved to tears at the sight of 1,000 women dancing, singing, and baking challah together,” said Teri Gatti Schure, executive director of the Cedarhurst Business Improvement District, who participated in a previous Challah Bake. See Shabbos Project on page 2

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Parsha Vayishlach • December 16, 2016 • 16 Kislev 5777 • Five Town Candlelighting 4:11 pm, Havdalah 5:19 • Luach page 26 • Vol 15, No 48

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Participants will learn the historical significance of this delicious bread as they prepare and braid two challahs. Admission, $36, includes baking supplies, instructions, musical entertainment, an apron, raffle prizes, and a recipe book. Thursday night’s Great Challah Bake is a precursor to the Shabbos Project weekend, on Friday and Saturday, Nov. 11 and 12, a coordinated event taking place concurrently in 500 cities around the world. Guidelines on how to observe the Sabbath will be distributed at the Challah Bake, showing how easy it is to do.

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To volunteer for this year’s event, email TheGreatChallahBakeLIStyle@gmail.com. Debbie Greenblatt is pictured at last year’s Challah Bake. Jewish Star / Penny Frondelli

In a fun evening of Jewish unity, over 1,000 South Shore women will partake next week in the aromatic spiritual tradition of making challah together. Similar events are scheduled throughout the metropolitan area and around the world. The third annual Great Challah Bake — kicking off the annual international Shabbos Project weekend — is set for Thursday, Nov. 10, 6:45 pm, at the Sands Atlantic Beach. Last year’s bake attracted a large and diverse group of local Jewish women: businesswomen, mothers of school children, daughters of Holocaust survivors, women with little or no knowledge of Jewish ritual tradition, ladies who bake their own challah regularly, and everyone in between. Many brought their daughters, sisters, mothers, aunts, nieces and cousins with them. This year’s theme is “keeping it together,” tying together this ancient practice that all Jews enjoy taking part in.

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1,000 women expected at Sands Atlantic Beach on Thursday evening, Nov. 10

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Shabbos Project challah bake is back

We’re not going to suggest that it’s unimportant who you vote for — of course, that does matter very much. But opinions in our community are mostly set, and at The Jewish Star we prefer to facilitate discussions rather than thumb the scale. What we will say without equivocation, however, is this: It is paramount to our community’s interests that we vote on Tuesday. Whoever wins the White House — and also of great importance, whoever wins the many state and local legislative and judicial races on the Election Day card — must be reminded that we in the Orthodox communities on Long Island take our civic responsibilities seriously, that we follow the races and monitor the actions of our elected officials, and that we will respond if the issues we hold dear are ignored or mishandled. Whether the issue is continuing America’s long tradition (sometimes threatened) of support for the security of the Jewish state of Israel, or insuring a fair shake for yeshivas in the allocation of state aid, or facilitating hearings for Shabbos observers who face discrimination in employment, or a myriad other concerns, voting might be the surest way — it’s certainly the easiest way — to let the pols know we’re watching them. Ultimately, Israel’s safety, along with the solvency of our yeshivas and the success of our parnasa, rests with Hashem. But we each have a job to do. On Tuesday, that job is to vote. Ed Weintrob, Editor and Publisher

For America and Israel and all of our futures: VOTE

Parsha Noach • November 4, 2016 • 3 Cheshvan 5777 • Candlelighting 5:28 pm, Havdalah 6:35 • Luach, page 28 • Vol 15, No 42

Chag HaSemikhah 5777

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Michael Oren (at right) during a discussion at the Sharon Jewish Media Summit in Jerusalem.

Lapid, and Education Minister Naftali Bennett (Jewish Home) — answered questions from Israeli and foreign journalists during separate sessions. Bennett and Oren, Israel’s former U.S. ambassador, were asked what the Trump administration would mean for Israel. Oren said “we don’t know entirely, we see possibilities … possibly moving the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem … the will to stand up to the Iranians.” Oren added that President Obama and President-elect Trump share similar policies on “America’s place in the See States on page 8

2 states? Fuggedaboutit, Oren says Member of Knesset Michael Oren (Kulanu), the deputy minister for diplomacy in the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office, said Monday that the forthcoming Trump administration “spells the end of the two-state solution.” Oren’s comments came during a gathering of international press in Jerusalem at the Jewish Media Summit, which was organized by the Israeli Government Press Office, the Ministry of Diaspora, and the Foreign Ministry. (For more on the summit, see page 17.) Oren and several other Israeli leaders — including Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked (Jewish Home), Yesh Atid party leader Yair

CEDARHURST MIDNIGHT MADNESS

By Cnaan Liphshiz, JTA ATHENS — Amid preparations for her wedding 12 years ago, Errika Abouaf was happy to skip the mikvah, where Jewish brides traditionally undergo immersion before marrying in an Orthodox ceremony. Her excuse for opting out was that her tiny Jewish community of Larissa in northern Greece has no mikvah. “But it’s also because I didn’t feel like doing it,” said Abouaf, who now lives in Athens with her son and husband. “I felt an aversion of some kind.” It’s a common sentiment in a country where 87 percent of Jews were murdered during the Holocaust. Members of Greece’s present-day Jewish community of 5,000 perceives its Jewish identity as mostly cultural and independent to religion, community leaders say. But Abouaf changed her outlook last year after visiting a mikvah for the first See Birthright on page 8

‘Birthright for moms’ brings them home

Shirley Matsa, of Greece, at the Kotel during a Jewish Women’s Renaissance Project visit.

The charitable foundation of the parents of Jared Kushner, son-in-law of Presidentelect Donald Trump, has been generous to a wide range of Jewish institutions in Israel and America, the Haaretz newspaper reported this week. Tax forms for 2010–14 show that the Charles and Seryl Kushner Foundation has given a few million dollars a year to charitable causes, with an average donation of between $5,000 and $10,000, Haaretz said. Jared and his three siblings sit on the foundation’s board. In 2014, the foundation pledged $18 million to the Shaare Zedek Medical Center in Jerusalem, in addition to $2 million it had committed earlier. It contributed $250,000 to the Ramaz School on the Upper East Side, which is attended by the children of Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump. The foundation pledged $315,000 over the course of three years to the Friends of the Israel Defense Forces. Among other Israeli institutions supported by the foundation are the United Hatzalah rescue service, $70,000; Maayanei Yeshua Hospital, $25,000; Rabin Medical Center, $23,000; the Shalva Children’s Center in Jerusalem, $20,000; the Israel Cancer Research Fund, $10,000; Meir Panim Lachayal, which supports Israeli soldiers, $4,000; the Israeli Philharmonic Orchestra, $2,500, and the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design in Jerusalem, $1,000. Among organizations and institutions in See Kushners on page 8

Kushners aid Jewish causes in Israel, U.S.

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The Jewish Star will not be published next week, following the yom tovim of Shemini Atzeret and Simchat Torah. Regular Wednesday distribution will resume on Nov. 2.

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pects of private school students receiving equitable services looks promising. Representatives of various groups are eager to work together for the benefit of all students in New York State, he said.

Parsha Vayetzei • December 9, 2016 • 9 Kislev 5777 • Candlelighting 4:09 pm, Havdalah 5:17 • Luach, page 21 • Vol 15, No 47

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private school students with mandated special education and related services. To ensure that the local school districts are adhering to the new requirements of ESSA, the law has provisions requiring proper reporting by the districts and private schools. The state education department has created the ESSA Non-Public School Workgroup to help NYSED develop the processes by which practices will meet the new requirements of this law. NYSED chose 27 public and nonpublic school representatives who will be meeting in Albany on a monthly basis. Rabbi Fridman said after attending the first meeting of the workgroup, that the pros-

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Rabbi Avraham Fridman, general studies principal of Yeshiva of South Shore in Hewlett, was chosen to represent the interests of yeshivas and day schools at the ESSA Non-Public School Workgroup. He travelled to Albany the day after Rosh Hashana together with Sara Seligson of the Jewish Education Project and Avrohom Weinstock of Agudath Israel, where they met with officials of New York State Department of Education to discuss the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) governing K-12 education across the nation. An important aspect of the law requires a higher level of accountability and participation by the local school districts in providing

Chag Sameach!

Rabbi Yona, at his station outside Gourmet Glatt in Cedarhurst, guided Five Towners in their selection of lulvaim and etrogim in the days leading up to Sukkot.

Festival of joy

Joins state panel to argue for fair shake for private schools

and the state of Israel at the U.N. and elsewhere, and reports suggest that more anti-Israel action at the U.N. will follow the U.S. elections. In the UNESCO action, its executive board formally approved a resolution on Tuesday that denies a Jewish connection to the Old City of Jerusalem. The approval came five days after the resolution passed in a preliminary vote of the executive board, at which point there were 24 in favor and 6 against, with 26 countries abstaining. The United States, the United Kingdom and Germany were among those that voted against the resolution. They were joined by Lithuania, the Netherlands and Estonia. Other European countries abstained. On Monday, Mexico changed its vote from “in favor” to abstain, saying in a statement, “Changing the vote reiterates the recognition that the government of Mexico gives to the undeniable link of the Jewish people to cultural heritage located in East Jerusalem. It also reflects the deep appreciation that this government has for the Jewish community and in particular for their significant contributions to the welfare and economic, social and cultural development of Mexico.” It’s the first time since 2010 that Mexico opposed a proposal by the Palestinian-Arab bloc in UNESCO. However, Mexico fired its Jewish ambassador to UNESCO, Andre Roemer, after Roemer walked out of last week’s preliminary vote in a personal protest, leaving his deputy to cast Mexico’s vote. “Sadly, the ambassador to UNESCO was sacrificed, but it meant a change to the perennial tradition of following the vote of the Latin American bloc, which passed an absurd and biased resolution by a majority,” wrote Jewish Mexican news portal Enlace Judio. The UNESCO resolution reportedly refers to the Temple Mount several times as Al Haram Al Sharif, its Islamic name, without mentioning that it is the holiest site in Judaism, according to UN Watch. It also uses the term Buraq Plaza, placing Western Wall Plaza in quotes, appearing to deny a Jewish connection to the site. The Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron is referred to as the al-aram al-Ibrahimi; Rachel’s Tomb, outside Bethlehem, is noted as the Bilal ibn Raba Mosque. Following the vote, Israel suspended cooperation with UNESCO. Education Minister Naftali Bennett accused it of ignoring “thousands of years of Jewish ties to Jerusalem” and aiding “Islamist terror.”

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YOSS principal reps yeshivas

This summer, 30,000 young Jews from 59 countries visited Israel on 10-day Birthright trips. Birthright said this week it would begin offering 7-day trips to allow busy young professionals to participate. Over 16 years, Birthright brought more than 500,000 young Jewish adults to Israel. Pictured: Birthright event in Jerusalem. Yonatan Sindel/Flash90

30,000 go Birthright

The Jewish Star Just as a phantasmagoric United Nations vote that the sun rises in the west and sets in the south would be ignored by thinking people, the latest anti-Israel vote by UNESCO (the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) would be better written about in satirical prose than discussed seriously in mainstream and Jewish media. But UNESCO’s harebrained repudiaton both of established history and G-d’s words to his holy nation is too toxic to ignore. It’s the latest salvo in an escalating war against the Jewish people

Harebrained UNESCO can’t rewrite history

Shabbat Sukkot • October 21, 2016 • 19 Tishrei 5777 • Candlelighting 5:56 pm, Havdalah 6:53 • Luach, page 27 • Vol 15, No 41

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York last weekend for the International Conference of ChabadLubavitch Emissaries. See more on page 6. Eliyahu Parypa / Chabad.org

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Thousands of rabbis pose for a group photo in front of ChabadLubavitch world headquarters at 770 Eastern Parking in Brook-

Picture perfect! 4,550 Chabad shluchim in B’klyn

A firefighter views a wildfire that broke out near Jerusalem on Friday. A report from Israel: Page 2. Yonatan Sindel/Flash90

The Jewish Star With fire trucks donated by the Young Israel of Woodmere and its members seeing action in Israel’s arson war, the YIW plans to donate two more. The shul raised $125,000 between Friday afternoon and Monday — enough, with a JNF USA matching grant, to buy a $250,000 truck. Now it’s passing the envelope to fund a second truck, and Rabbi Hershel Billet told The Jewish Star late Tuesday that he expected that would happen. The YIW has been helping in the fire-fighting arena “since the Carmel fire, and when the rockets started falling,” he said, with one truck previously donated by the shul and two by individual members. “Israel needs as much fire equpiment as they can get. Missles can create more fire than a pyromaniac.” JNF development officer Ariel Kotler, reporting from Israel on JM in the AM on Monday, said that he saw a YIW firetruck deployed last week. “We’re not looking for kavod,” Rabbi Billet said. “The goal is to help Israel.” He said that efforts would be undertaken soon to assist victims of the fires, who are numerous and located in many communities. In an email to YIW members of Monday, Rabbi Billet pointed to the large number of people injured and homes destroyed. “From time to time we have been called to stand with Israel,” he said. “Now is one of those times. We have always stood tall as a community.” “There is a tremendous need for firefighting equipment. Israel does not have enough trucks and many that they have are antiquated,” he said, adding that the trucks being acquired are state-of-the-art. To contribue, visit support.jnf.org/goto/yiwemergency

Woodmere fire trucks join Israel’s arson war

Parsha Toldot • December 2, 2016 • 2 Kislev 5777 • Candlelighting 4:10 pm, Havdalah 5:17 • Luach, page 21 • Vol 15, No 46

to cram into an overwhelmingly long day and cannot adequately focus on middos. They bring in anti-bullying programs, but the bullying still goes on. What gives any child the right to misSee Teachers on page 10

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ay close attention to all the words through which I warn you today, so that you will be able to instruct your children to keep all the words of this Torah carefully” (32:46). In preparation for my Shabbos Shuva drasha, I came across a fascinating article by Aharon Hersh Fried entitled, “Is There a Disconnect be-

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RABBI AVI BILLET

tween Torah Learning and Torah Living? And If So, How Can We Connect Them? A Focus on Middos” (published by Hakirah: The Flatbush Journal of Jewish Law and Thought). With that as background, Moshe’s statement about being able to instruct children is actually profound. We tend to focus on our own connection to Judaism, and leave our children’s connection to their rebbeim and morahs. But Moshe does not say here, “Leave your children’s education in others’ hands.” He says it is YOUR job. Now I’m going to be a bit blunt, but there is no time like right after Yom Kippur to face some hard truths. Schools can only do so much. They have a lot

Torah’s charge is to each of us; we can’t delegate our job

The Jewish Star will be distributed next Thursday (Oct. 20), during Chol Hamoed. Deadline for news is noon Sunday; ad deadline is noon Wednesday. The Jewish Star will not be published during the week of Simchas Torah. Regular Wednesday distribution will resume on Nov. 2.

Chag Sameach!

primaries, Trump said the agreement was a bad one, but was coy about whether he would rescind it, saying he would first consult experts once he was in office. It wasn’t a foreign policy priority like renegotiating trade deals or walling off Mexico. See Iran and Syria on page 10

•Trump says he won’t challenge Assad and his Iranaian allies •Clinton distances herself from Obama on Syrian ‘red line’

Teach your children well

A second-grade student at Yeshiva Darchei Torah in Far Rockaway holds the Arba Minim set brought in by his rebbi, just a few days before the advent of Sukkos, which begins Sunday night.

Sukkos-ready

Analysis by Ron Kampeas, JTA Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump did not shake hands, and then they did. The Republican nominee called his rival the devil and said he would jail her. Clinton said that three minutes of a 2005 video in which Trump bragged about committing what constitutes sexual assault “represents exactly who he is.” He said it was “locker room talk” and — pressed hard by a moderator — said he did not commit the acts that he claimed in the video. Those “highlights” from the debate are strewn throughout social media and were making headlines on Monday. But sown throughout Sunday evening’s presidential debate at Washington University in St. Louis, already dubbed the most intensely negative in modern history, were notes of substance and tone. Jewish and pro-Israel readers may want to heed a number of them. Donald Trump mentioned Iran, often. Trump slammed the Iran nuclear deal three times, emphatically, as had his running mate, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, in his debate last week with the Democratic vice presidential candidate, Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia. The deal has become the Trump campaign’s exhibit A in depicting the Obama administration as a foreign policy failure. On Sunday night, Trump called it “the dumbest deal perhaps I’ve ever seen in the history of deal-making” and again said it converted Iran within three years from a weak nation to a powerful one. It’s a notable transition: throughout the Republican

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Iran and Syria at play in prez race fisticuffs

Parsha Ha’Azinu • October 14, 2016 • 12 Tishrei 5777 • Candlelighting 5:57 pm, Havdalah 7:04 •Sukkot Luach, page 29 • Vol 15, No 40

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nity in America and dramatically address the challenge of Jewish education affordability. Last but not least, religious liberty is the bedrock upon which American Jewry has flourished. It didn’t get much discussion in the campaign, yet it motivated traditionalists in many faiths to vote for Mr. Trump. America is in the midst of a fractious debate over the interplay between expanding gay rights and religious liberty. A compromise approach that delivers fairness for all will take real leadership from the White House and bipartisan leaders in Congress. More broadly, Mr. Trump must find ways — in rhetoric and action — to embrace the value of American society’s religious and ethnic diversity and thus make good on his commitment to be the president for all Americans.

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Mr. Obama, at the UN or via a presidential address, unlikely, if not irrelevant. Moreover, Mr. Trump making good on his firm commitment to finally relocate the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem may send the most useful message to Israel’s enemies in decades. As well, Trump regularly spoke out against the US-Iran nuclear deal and promised to abolish it and those who voted for him are counting on him delivering on that promise too. On the domestic front, Mr. Trump committed himself to improving education opportunities for American children through school choice initiatives. The cost of Jewish education is the preeminent domestic issue in many Jewish households. Trump broadly spoke of redirecting $20 billion in federal education funds to school choice programs. Such a reform could spark new educational opportu-

OU advocacy director cites schools, Israel, religious liberty

MIDNIGHT MADNESS SUPER SALE! SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 26th 8PM - MIDNIGHT

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The young men of DRS spent last shabbos with their rabbeim and their families in the Poconos (above), absorbing divrei Torah while building camaraderie and participating in a variety of fun activities. While the DRS students were engaged in spiritual pursuits at their shabbaton in the Mount Laurel Hotel, five students from the Hebrew Academy of Nassau County High School were honing their political skills last week, participating in the annual AIPAC Schusterman Advocacy Institute High School Summit in Alexandria, Virginia. (SKA girls also participated; see page 12.) For more school news, turn to The Jewish Star’s school section, pages 11–13.

Spiritual and political uplift

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Trump: An Orthodox hope

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SHOP SHOP ‘TIL ‘TIL IGHT MIDNIGHT MIDN

hether Jews concerned about Israel agree with Daniel Gordis, they often read what he has to say, but his comments also become a source of discussion for days after his articles appear. This is no less true of the Conservative spiritual leader’s latest article, about Donald Trump’s election victory. But this is less the voice of Gordis’s usual scholarly insight and moderation, and more a page from Lamentations reminding us of his love for Israel and the “danger” that a Trump victory brings to the world’s two largest Jewish communities. Strange. Living in America, I viewed the Trump victory as opening a new and glorious era for American Jews, even though most of them are too wedded to their Democratic Party identification to comprehend what the Obama administration has meant for the Jewish community. For the last eight years, Barack Obama, the man who allegedly slept at the feet of the anti-Semitic and anti-American Rev. Jeremiah Wright and his messages of black liberation theology, has refused to have Title VI enforced by his administration on behalf of Jewish students. This has meant that while the obscenities of racism and various forms of bigotry are virulently attacked on college campuses with the full weight and power of the federal government, anti-Semitism is not. In fact, as Paul Miller has documented, anti-Semitism on college campuses has become a growth industry. There are numerous reasons for this, and the Obama administration’s refusal to implement Title VI to defend Jewish stuSee Gordis got it wrong on page 6

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Gordis got it wrong; Jews should cheer our new president

Trump AND ISrAEL

Parsha Chaya Sara • November 25, 2016 • 24 Cheshvan 5777 • Candlelighting 4:12 pm, Havdalah 5:19 • Luach, page 21 • Vol 15, No 45

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AMIT Massada chapter, were recognized with the Marvin Leff z”l Leadership Award. Bill Rothchild served as assistant director of development of AMIT from 2008 to 2014. AMIT serves 33,000 students each year in 110 schools in 29 Israeli cities. Its goal is to enable students to realize their fullest potential and to strengthen Israeli society by educating and nurturing children from diverse backgrounds within a framework of academic excellence, religious values, and Zionist ideals.

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in Great Neck; and Sami Schindelheim from AMIT’s Daroma Chapter in Long Beach. Braunstein, a graduate of the Midreshet AMIT, the organization’s seminary in Jerusalem for post-high school women, presented the dvar Torah. She shared her personal story on the profound impact her year at Midreshet AMIT had and how it shaped the person she is today. In addition, Sharon and Bill Rothchild, residents of Cedarhurst and members of the

Largest Sukkah Dealer on Long Island • Etrog & Lulav Sets

More than 300 friends and supporters of AMIT Children gathered at the Sephardic Temple in Cedarhurst to honor leaders of AMIT on Long Island. Event co-chair Esther Press emceed the evening, which recognized Chayala Liebman of AMIT’s Shoshana Chapter in West Hempstead; Liza Rosenthal from the AMIT’s Efrat Chapter in Merrick; Elaine Gross from AMIT’s Batya Chapter in Plainview; Sari Braunstein from AMIT’s Shalhevet Chapter

Israel Hayom via JNS.org IDF tanks struck targets in the northern Gaza Strip on Wednesday, after a Gazan rocket landed on a residential street in the southern city of Sderot. No injuries were reported in the rocket attack, though paramedics treated bystanders for shock and a nearby house and car suffered damage. The rocket attack came after a calm Rosh Hashana holiday. Following the IDF’s retaliatory strike, Hamas ordered its operatives to leave their posts in western Gaza City. The Islamic State-affiliated Ahfad alSahaba-Aknaf Bayt al-Maqdis terrorist group claimed responsibility for the rocket attack, though Israel holds Hamas responsible for all attacks launched from the Gaza Strip, which it controls. Magen David Adom paramedics were among the first to arrive at the scene in Sderot. They reported glass shards from car windows scattered near the impact site. A 15-year-old girl and a 60-year-old man were treated for panic attacks they suffered as a result of the strike.

Gaza rocket hits Sderot

The site where a rocket fired from Gaza hit the southern Israeli city of Sderot on Wednesday. Flash90

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Obama’s first term, helped line Analysis by Ron Kampeas, JTA up the international sanctions Seven times during Tuesthat brought Iran to the table. day night’s vice presidential Pence pointed out that Condebate, Democratic Sen. Tim gress in 2010 passed what may Kaine said the deal his runhave been the toughest sancning mate, Hillary Clinton, tions in U.S. history on Iran. worked on had helped “stop As a member of the Republican Iranian nuclear weapons.” leadership in Congress at the Seven times, Republican Gov. Mike Pence said no, it Sen. Kaine and Gov. Pence durimg time, he helped lead passage of did not. Monday’s debate Namee/Getty Images the sanctions. “The goal was always that Twice, Kaine said Israel’s military “says it stopped.” Both times Pence, the we would only lift the sanctions if Iran perrunning mate to Republican nominee Donald manently renounced their nuclear ambitions,” Pence said during the debate. Trump, disagreed. That was the goal of some congressional Who’s right? As Kaine noted, Israel’s military brass has as- sanctions backers, particularly among Repubsessed that the deal has stopped Iran from ad- licans. The goal of the Obama administration, vancing toward a nuclear bomb — but missing and some of its Democratic backers, was to put in place U.S. sanctions as a means of undergirdfrom his citations is the “for now.” See Would-be veeps on page 30 Clinton, secretary of state in President

Would-be veeps clash over Iran nuclear deal

Shabbos Shuva, Parsha Vayeilech • Oct. 7, 2016 • 5 Tishrei 5777 • Candlelighting 6:08 pm, Havdalah 7:15 • Luach, p. 25 • Vol 15, No 39

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Rav Kamenetzky affixed a mizuzah at the 2015 grand opening of Gourmet Glatt in Woodmere. As the number of observant Jews grew, the number of kosher markets grew as well.

In the last year, within the Orthodox community far too many have been lost to drug overdoses.â&#x20AC;? Glassman said that â&#x20AC;&#x153;the number one question that people asked was â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;how do we stop this?â&#x20AC;&#x2122; We canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t pull all the drug dealers off the street, so we must educate our kids, everybody, about the dangers of drug use, to prevent it.â&#x20AC;? â&#x20AC;&#x153;How did my son, the product of an Orthodox family, educated in a

yeshiva environment, become an addict?â&#x20AC;? Glassman continued. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t drug abuse only exist in the outside world, far from our religious bubble? Well, we now know that drug and alcohol abuse is rampant in yeshivah settings as well. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Addiction is in fact a deadly disease. My Ari suffered from the disease of addiction.â&#x20AC;? Sundayâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s meeting was the second See Amudim on page 24

matter which scapegoat you pick, thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s little doubt that Americans are more deeply divided than theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve been in living memory as traditional left-right debates have stopped being exchanges of ideas and become screaming matches in which neither side even bothers to

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Following the preliminary vote by the Knesset, the bill will be combined with a Justice Ministry version. The ministry has 60 days to draft its own version. â&#x20AC;&#x153;The Nationality Law is critical in a time like this, when elements from within and without are trying to reject the Jewish peopleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s right to a national home in its country and the recognition of the State of Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people,â&#x20AC;? said Likud party lawmaker Avi Dicther, who first proposed the legislation, according to Ynet. â&#x20AC;&#x153;The Palestinian aspiration to eliminate the Jewish peopleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s nation-state is no longer secret. The State of Israel, which demands of its enemies to recognize it as the nation-state of the Jewish people and justifiably asks its supporters in the world to back this demand, needs to be able to declare in its highest legislative level that it proudly maintains this identify.â&#x20AC;? Joint Arab List party head Ayman Odeh in a statement following the vote called the committeeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s approval of the bill a â&#x20AC;&#x153;declaration of warâ&#x20AC;? on Israelâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Arab citizens. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Discrimination has received a legal stamp,â&#x20AC;? he said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;The danger in this law in that is establishes two classes of citizen â&#x20AC;&#x201D; Jewish and Arab.â&#x20AC;?

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JERUSALEM (JTA) â&#x20AC;&#x201D; Israeli government ministers this week approved a bill that would officially define Israel as a Jewish state. The legislation unanimously passed the Ministerial Committee for Legislation on Sunday and was scheduled to get a preliminary hearing by the full Knesset on Wednesday. A similar bill was first proposed in 2011 and again in 2015. This so-called Nationality Law is intended to serve as Basic Law, similar to a constitutional law, and would declare Israel the nation-state of the Jewish people. It addresses national symbols, including the flag and the national anthem, the right of return for Jews, holy sites and the Hebrew calendar. It also calls for the government to work to strengthen ties between Israel and Diaspora Jewry. According to the legislation, â&#x20AC;&#x153;every resident of Israel, without distinction of religion or national origin, is entitled to work to preserve his culture, heritage, language and identity.â&#x20AC;? The bill would demote Arabic from an official language to one with special status, though government services would still have to be available in the language.

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Make it official already: Israel is the nation-state of the Jewish people!

Parsha Emor â&#x20AC;˘ May 12, 2017 â&#x20AC;˘ 16 Iyar, 5777 â&#x20AC;˘ Candlelighting 7:44 pm, Havdalah 8:45 â&#x20AC;˘ Luach page 21 â&#x20AC;˘ Vol 16, No 18

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But what Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve learned spending much of the months since the presidential election on the road debating with a liberal colleague is that the same people who have largely stopped listening to each other inSee Confronting on page 3

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pretend theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re listening to each other. Instead, we demonize those who disagree with us. Worse than that, most of us have chosen to live in virtual ideological safe zones in which weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve declared those who disagree may not enter on peril of being â&#x20AC;&#x153;defriended.â&#x20AC;?

I know a guy, Inc.â&#x20AC;?

â&#x20AC;&#x153;

Commentary by Jonathan S. Tobin Blame it on President Donald Trump and Fox News. Perhaps itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s the fault of the mainstream liberal media and its leading outlets like The New York Times, CNN and MSNBC. Or maybe the problem is Facebook. But no

Confronting our Jewish-American house divided

At Sunday eveningâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Amudim drug abuse and overdose awareness program at the Young Israel of West Hempstead, Rebecca Glassman spoke in intensely personal terms about her son, Aryeh Natan, who died from a heroin overdose ten months ago. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Many in the Orthodox community donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t believe it can happen to them,â&#x20AC;? she said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Sadly, my family is an example of the fact that it can.

The Jewish Community Council of the Rockaway Peninsula honored four individuals and a business on Sunday, presenting its Community Service Award to Seasons Supermarket; its Humanitarian Award to Police Officer Lynn Blanchette of the 101st Precinct; a Lifetime Achievement Award to Queens County Clerk Audrey Pheffer; its Public Service Award to Dr. Camesha Grant; and its City Legislative Leadership Award to Council Member Eric Ulrich. See photos on page 16.

Seasons CEO Mayer Gold received the JCCRPâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Community Service Award on Sunday. The Jewish Star / Donvan Berthoud

Honors in Far Rock

Amudim founder, Rabbi Zvi Gluck, speaking in West Hempstead on Sunday.

Students who until last week attended classes in Long Beach, enter HALBâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s new Woodmere home for the first time on Monday. Jeffrey Bessen

Amudim eyes drug plague

By Jeffrey Bessen Felice Ackerman, co-director of the Early Childhood Center at the Hebrew Academy of Long Beach, greeted children by their first names as they entered their new school on Monday, following up with a question, â&#x20AC;&#x153;Do you know where youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re going?â&#x20AC;? HALB bought the former Number Six public school on Church Avenue in Woodmere from the Lawrence School District in 2014 for $8.5 million, and moved in on March 20. About 77 percent of HALBâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s 780 kindergarten-to-eighth-grade students live in the Five Towns, with the largest number in Woodmere, according to Richard Altabe, the lower school principal. â&#x20AC;&#x153;This is unbelievable after all the tumult,â&#x20AC;? said Altabe, a 1974 HALB graduate. â&#x20AC;&#x153;We celebrated Purim last Monday, had the snow day on Tuesday, packed up on Wednesday and Thursday, the students had off Friday, and here we are.â&#x20AC;? â&#x20AC;&#x153;Hereâ&#x20AC;? is a 6.67-acre site that includes the 80,170-square-foot building, which the Lawrence district closed in 2009 because of declining See Move on page 18

Long Beach school moves in

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Vayakhel-Pekudei, Shabbat Mâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;varchim â&#x20AC;˘ March 24, 2017 â&#x20AC;˘ 26 Adar, 5777 â&#x20AC;˘ Candlelighting 6:53 pm, Havdalah 7:55 â&#x20AC;˘ Luach page 27 â&#x20AC;˘ Vol 16, No 12

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hen I first invited Rav Binyomin Kamenetzky to speak about his participation in the 1943 march by rabbis in Washington, I assumed he had spoken about that episode on many previous occasions. I was startled to learn that, in fact, his address to the June 2007 national conference of the David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies would be the first time he had ever publicly addressed the topic. Rav Kamenetzky, like all of the other marchers whom I have interviewed, assumed that the protest had been a failure. After all, President Franklin D. Roosevelt had refused to meet with the rabbis. Their petition was handed off to a low level staff member. Mainstream Jewish leaders publicly disparaged the march as a â&#x20AC;&#x153;stunt.â&#x20AC;? And the Bergson Group and the Vaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ad ha-Hatzala, which organized the march, were dismissed as radicals and troublemakers. I was honored to be the bearer of good news. I explained to the rav that recent research had found the march accomplished much more than he and his fellow-marchers had realized. The rabbisâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; high-profile protest helped galvanize members of Congress to press the Roosevelt administration for action to rescue Europeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Jews. t was that crucial congressional pressure, combined with protests by the Bergson Group and behind-the-scenes efforts by Treasury Department officials, which compelled President Roosevelt to establish the War Refugee Board â&#x20AC;&#x201D; exactly the step that the rabbis had urged in their petition. During the final 15 months of the war, the Board helped save more than 200,000 refugees. It did so by bribing Nazi officials, financing the sheltering of refugees, and sendSee Rabbi on page 19

By Rafael Medoff Special to The Jewish Star

Remembering a rabbi who marched

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Several hundred New Yorkers visited the Orthodox Unionâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Communities Fair on Sunday, meeting representatives from 56 Orthodox-friendly communities â&#x20AC;&#x201D; including such arguably unlikely venues as Omaha, Nebraska, as well as (pictured) Memphis, Tennessee, and Cincinnati, Ohio. More in centerspread.

Will Omaha be next frumtown?

Harav Binyomin Kamenetzky, a pioneer in the establishment and growth of Orthodox Judaism in the Five Towns, was niftar on erev Shabbos. Thousands attended his levaya on Sunday at the Yeshiva of South Shore. He was 93. The eldest son of Harav Yaakov Kamenetzky, ztâ&#x20AC;?l, Rav Kamenetzky was a founder of YOSS as well as TAG (Torah Academy for Girls), the Young Israel of Woodmere and many other institutions. He touched more lives than can be imagined. While serving as a rebbi in Yeshiva Toras Chaim in East New York, he encountered a child who was travelling there from Cedarhurst. When he realized that the South Shore lacked the institutions of Yiddishkeit, he and his rebbetzin, with the encouragement of his father, moved there in 1956 and began building a Torah-true community. At the levaya for Rebbetzin Tzirel Kamenetzky, aâ&#x20AC;?h, in 2015, Rav Kamenetzky recalled that after the couple moved to the Five Towns, any thought of returning to the more familiar and yiddishe Brooklyn was pushed aside with the knowledge that â&#x20AC;&#x153;the Torah was given in the midbar [and we] have an obligationâ&#x20AC;? to bring Torah to a place where it was lacking. This was a theme echoed frequently at his levaya. More on the life of Rav Kamenetzky, and special tributes, in next weekâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s edition.

He brought the Torah to a L.I. midbar

Harav Binyomin Kamenetzky, Ztâ&#x20AC;?l, a pioneer of Orthodox Five Towns

Parsha Achrei Mot-Kedoshim â&#x20AC;˘ May 5, 2017 â&#x20AC;˘ 9 Iyar, 5777 â&#x20AC;˘ Candlelighting 7:37 pm, Havdalah 8:38 â&#x20AC;˘ Luach page 19 â&#x20AC;˘ Vol 16, No 17

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looks forward to working with the new U.S. administration and that he believes achieving peace between the Jewish state and its regional neighbors, including the Palestinians, is possible â&#x20AC;&#x153;under President Trumpâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s leadership.â&#x20AC;? Greenblatt reaffirmed the Trump administrationâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s commitment to safeguarding the Jewish stateâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s security and to achieving lasting peace between the Palestinians and Israel â&#x20AC;&#x153;through direct negotiations.â&#x20AC;? Greenblatt and Netanyahu discussed Israeli settlement construction and how to approach that issue from a vantage point that is â&#x20AC;&#x153;consistentâ&#x20AC;? with the goal of advancing security and peace. In early February, responding to Israelâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s announcements of intentions to build nearly 6,000 new settlement units, the White House had said, â&#x20AC;&#x153;While we donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t believe the existence of settlements is an impediment to peace, the construction of new settlements or the expansion of existing settlements beyond their current borders may not be helpful in achieving that goal.â&#x20AC;? Moreover, Greenblatt underscored â&#x20AC;&#x153;how important enabling the growth of the Palestinian economy and improving the quality of life for Palestinians are to President Trump.â&#x20AC;? Netanyahu assured Greenblatt of his commitment to increasing Palestinian prosperity â&#x20AC;&#x153;as a means of bolstering the prospects for peace,â&#x20AC;? the Israeli leaderâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s office stated.

Following his meeting with Netanyahu, Greenblatt was scheduled to meet Tuesday with PA leader Abbas in Ramallah. According to Palestinian Authority Foreign Minister Riyad al-Maliki, the meeting between Greenblatt and Abbas would primarily focus on the Palestinian leaderâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s upcoming trip to Washington. Greenblatt, an Orthodox Jew from Tea-neck, worked as a real estate lawyer with Trump over two decades and advised Trump on Israel during the election campaign. Lending insight into his approach toward negotiations, Greenblatt had said in a June 2016 interview that â&#x20AC;&#x153;you need to listen to the other side, you have to try to piece together everything to try to ad-dress Jason Greenblatt meets Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu during a visit to Jeas many issues as you rusalem on Monday. Israeli GPO can, with both sides satisfied that a fair and appropriate deal has been struck. Not everyone is happy all the time.â&#x20AC;? â&#x20AC;&#x153;I am not diminishing the concept of a peace deal or a U.S.Israel relationship; they are complicated and there are lots of layers,â&#x20AC;? he said, â&#x20AC;&#x153;but people like Donald [Trump], who are skilled negotiators, and people on his team who have worked on transactions large and small over the course of their careers, are well-suited to these things.â&#x20AC;?

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By Adam Abrams, JNS.org Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu met with President Trumpâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s special representative for international negotiations, Jason Greenblatt, for more than five hours in Jerusalem Monday night amid the Trump administrationâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s efforts to jumpstart Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, which have been frozen since 2014. One of the first signs of the Trump administrationâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s interest in pursuing a new peace initiative occurred last week, when the president held his first phone conversation with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. During the conversation, Trump invited Abbas to visit the White House and, according to a statement released by the White House, â&#x20AC;&#x153;emphasized his personal belief that peace is possible and that the time has come to make a deal.â&#x20AC;? Mondayâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s meeting between Greenblatt and Netanyahu covered a broad range of issues, from settlement construction to bolstering the Palestinian economy. According to an official statement from the Israeli Prime Ministerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Office, Netanyahu and Greenblatt reiterated their nationsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; mutual desire to develop a comprehensive framework for an enduring Israeli-Palestinian peace â&#x20AC;&#x153;that strengthens the security of Israel and enhances stability in the region.â&#x20AC;? Netanyahu, the meeting readout said, told Greenblatt that he

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Jews throughout the world united last motzei Shabbos and on Sunday to celebrate Purim with countless readings of Megillat Esther, costume parties, feasts, the sending of shaloch manos, and the joyous giving of tzedakah. Rabbi Aaron Raskin of Congregation Bâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;nai Avraham of Brooklyn Heights chants the megilla as congregant Eric Roth and his daughters Leah and Rebecca follow. Karen and baby Itai Sutain (center) joined festivities in the Temple Israel Ballroom Long Beach. More Purim photos inside. The Jewish Star photos by Ed Weintrob and David Jeffrey

Trump sends Greenblatt to restart peace process

Read, listen, party

Parsha Ki Tisa â&#x20AC;˘ March 17, 2017 â&#x20AC;˘ 19 Adar, 5777 â&#x20AC;˘ 5 Towns Candlelighting 6:46 pm, Havdalah 7:47 â&#x20AC;˘ Luach page 21 â&#x20AC;˘ Vol 16, No 11

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Thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s plenty of President Trump in this weekâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Jewish Star, including: â&#x20AC;˘Has Trump flipped on settlements and Iran? (p.2) â&#x20AC;˘Despite Amona, settlers expect to win (p.4) â&#x20AC;˘U.S. mum on new Israeli settlement law (p.10) â&#x20AC;˘Two views on the refugee ban (p.11), and â&#x20AC;˘Jeff Dunetz on Trump as the most pro-settlement POTUS (p.22). Visit TheJewishStar. com for online-only features including â&#x20AC;˘Stephen Bannon and the Jews â&#x20AC;˘What to expect when Bibi meets Donald, and â&#x20AC;˘Unease over the perception of Jewish power in Trumpâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s inner circle. Pictured: Trump and Bannon at the White House. Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images

livelihood who nevertheless cannot meet yeshiva tuition costs. As strapped as they are, said Goldberger, these parents continue to give their children a quality yeshiva education at great personal sacrifice. Government assistance, wherever legal and See Senate chief on page 25

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By The Jewish Star Dozens of students, faculty and alumni of Zionist-oriented day schools in Long Islandâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Five Towns were among an estimated 18,000 participants â&#x20AC;&#x201D; including 4,000 campus representatives â&#x20AC;&#x201D; at the annual AIPAC Policy Conference in Washington this week. Delegates to the American Israel Public Affairs Committeeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s major annual event had their Israel-advocacy batteries recharged and returned home with fresh insights and arguments to bolster the Jewish stateâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s cause. They participated in workshops and informational sessions, attended plenary sessions that featured leading elected officials, and in some cases spent Tuesday on Capitol Hill lobbying members of Congress on behalf of Israel. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Now I realize the long-team effects BDS can have,â&#x20AC;? said Rachel Fishbein of Midreshet Shalhevet. â&#x20AC;&#x153;A college student on the panel told us that BDS will not go away, and we must respectfully answer back, with knowledge.â&#x20AC;? Ayelet Klahr of HALBâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Stella K. Abraham High School for Girls, attending her third Policy Conference, was moved by the words of a survivor of the Rwandan genocide who related to Israelâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s story. â&#x20AC;&#x153;AIPAC creates a way for every one to connect,â&#x20AC;? she said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m excited to go lobbying tomorrow,â&#x20AC;? said Malka Guttman of the Shulamith School for Girls. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Unlike a letter you might write to the president and never get an answer, here we get to speak face-to-face, in person, with a clear focus.â&#x20AC;? â&#x20AC;&#x153;This year everyone feels very together [compared to] last year when it felt very divided, due to the political campaign season,â&#x20AC;? said Josh Weinstein of HANC. â&#x20AC;&#x153;The sheer number of people here is amazing and inspiring,â&#x20AC;? said SKA student Talia Wein. Turn to pages 24 and 25 for more on AIPAC and David Friedmanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s elevation. For more student voices, pick up next weekâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Jewish Star. From Midreshet Shalhevet HS School for Girls: Aviva Chait, Rachel Fishbein and Zahava Fertig.

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From HANC: Josh Weinstein, Tehilla Baruch, Jullian Fisch and chaperone Laura Eisner. Jewish Star / Celia Weintrob

From the Shulamith School for Girls, from left: Sttanding â&#x20AC;&#x201D; Miriam Bornstein, Ella Lax, Mindy Schreck, Hana Adler, Hadassah Allman, Avigayil Sassoon and Shana Deil. Seated â&#x20AC;&#x201D; Rina Zerykier, Naomi Munk, Jewish Star / Celia Weintrob Rebecca Lopkin, Temima Miller and Malka Guttman.

From Stella K Abraham High School (from left): Judaic studies teacher Tamar Bindiger with students Talia Wein, Ayelet Klahr, Leora Fenster, Mimi Leifer, Emma Greenbaum and Sarah Kurtz. Jewish Star / Celia Weintrob

Young LIers sharpen their Israel advocacy skills at AIPAC confab

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David Friedman stood when he was mentioned by Vice President Mike Pence at the AIPAC Policy The Jewish Star / Ed Weintrob Conference on Sunday.

By The Jewish Star Five Towns resident David Friedman is now Americaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s ambassdor to Israel. He was confirmed by the Senate on Thursday and took the oath of office in an unofficial private ceremony in his Village of Woodsburgh home on Friday. A photo of that ceremony, showing Friedman with his left hand on a book held by his youngest daughter, Katie, and his right hand raised, made its way onto Twitter. An official public ceremony, with Vice President Mike Pence administering the oath of office to the new ambassador, was scheduled for Wednesday. The Senateâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s vote, 52â&#x20AC;&#x201C;46, was largely along party lines. Only two Democrats supported Friedman â&#x20AC;&#x201D; Robert Menendez of New Jersey and Joe Manchin III of West Virginia. No Republicans opposed him. Prime Minister Netanyahu tweeted in response to the vote, â&#x20AC;&#x153;New US ambassador to Israel David Friedman will be warmly welcomed as President Trumpâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s representative and as a close friend of Israel.â&#x20AC;? Friedman, 57, a longtime friend and bankruptcy attorney to Trump, was one of two Trump advisers on Jewish affairs during the presidential campaign.

David Friedman was sworn in as the U.S. ambassador to Israel in a private ceremony at his Woodsburgh home on Friday. Friedman is seen resting his left his hand on a book held by his youngest daughter, Katie, while raising his right hand. Twitter

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Parsha Vayikra â&#x20AC;˘ March 31, 2017 â&#x20AC;˘ 4 Nisan, 5777 â&#x20AC;˘ Candlelighting 7:01 â&#x20AC;˘ Luach page 27 â&#x20AC;˘ Vol 16, No 13 The Newspaper of our Orthodox communities

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In a Yeshiva Darchei Torah beis medrash on Sunday (from left): Rabbi Baruch Rothman, Darcheiâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s director of institutional advancement; Rabbi Shmuel Lefkowitz, Agudath Israelâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s vice president for Community Affairs; state Senator John Flanagan; Rabbi Chaim Dovid Zwiebel, Agudathâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s executive vice president; Rabbi Yaakov Bender, Darchei rosh ha yeshiva; and Chaskel Bennett, an Agudath trustee. Moshe Gershbaum

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Towns met with state Senate Majority Leader John Flanagan at a well-attended breakfast hosted by Darchei at its Far Rockaway campus on Sunday. Rabbi Yaakov Bender, rosh ha yeshiva, thanked the senator for being a partner to the Jewish community and showing sensi-

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Rabbi Hershel Schachter

CELEBRATING THE NEXT GENERATION OF RABBINIC LEADERS

Drasha (Shacharit 8:45 a.m.)

ANSHEI CHESSED Rabbi Elchanan Adler

AISH KODESH Rabbi Hershel Schachter Drasha (Shacharit 8:30 a.m.) Seudah Shlishit (Mincha 5:15) The Gift of Change: Our National Undoing Project

Rabbi Josh Joseph

BETH SHOLOM Rabbi Dr. Kenneth Brander Drasha (Shacharit 9 a.m.)

Drasha (Shacharit 9 a.m.)

Seudah Shlishit (Mincha 5:25 p.m.)

Rabbi Noach Goldstein

Seudah Shlishit (Mincha 5:30 p.m.)

RabbiTheJewishStar.com Moshe Watson Pirsumei Nisa and National Unity

BAIS AVROHOM ZEV Rabbi Yechiel Fuchs

Post Hashkama Shiur (Shacharit 7:30 a.m.) Drasha (Shacharit 8:45 a.m.)

BEIS HAKNESSES OF NORTH WOODMERE Rabbi Daniel Stein

Rabbi Daniel Elsant Rabbi Joshua Elsant Rabbi Natan Farber Rabbi Aaron Fleksher Rabbi Yechiel Fuchs Rabbi Noach Goldstein Rabbi Jason Grossman Rabbi Scott Hoberman Rabbi Raphael Karlin Rabbi Nuriel Klinger Rabbi Simcha Lauer Rabbi Bradley Lipman Rabbi Ari Lipsky Rabbi Joshua Maslow Rabbi Mordy Prus Rabbi David Roth Rabbi Moshe Rube Rabbi Ashie Schreier Rabbi Elliot Schrier Rabbi Eli Wagner Rabbi Moshe Watson Rabbi Michael Weingarten Rabbi Eli Wiesenfeld Rabbi Daniel Zuckerman

Rabbi Elchanan Adler

Seudah Shlishit (Mincha 5:20 p.m.) Reflections on Zayin Adar: The Legacy of Moshe Rabbeinu

BAIS TEFILAH Rabbi Moshe Watson

hand the mitzvah and hard work involved in making Shmurah Matzah; in the HAFTR Lower School, students participated in a range of age-appropriate activities that allowed each of them to feel as though he or she personally left Mitzrayim; children at HAFTRâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s early childhood center delight in practicing their mitzvot; and then thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Long Islandâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s traveling matzah bakery, organized by Rabbi Dovid and Chumy Ezagui of Lake Success Chabad, a project that touched more than 3,000 children on the Island and elsewhere in the New York region.

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AnnuAl Dinner MAy 7

Rabbi Elchanan Adler Rosh Yeshiva, and Eva, Morris, and Jack K. Rubin Memorial Chair in

(Shacharit 7:30 a.m.) Drasha (Shacharit 8:45 a.m.)

Rabbi Moshe Watson

BEIS HAKNESSES OF NORTH WOODMERE

Seudah Shlishit (Mincha 5:15) The Gift of Change: Our National Undoing Project

Rabbi Josh Joseph

BETH SHOLOM Rabbi Dr. Kenneth Brander Drasha (Shacharit 9 a.m.)

Pre Mincha Shiur (4:15 p.m.) Af Hen Hayu Bâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Oto HaNes Viva Le Difference

KNESETH ISRAEL (WHITE SHUL) Rabbi Eli Baruch Shulman

Rabbi Etan Schnall

IRVING PLACE MINYAN Rabbi Zev Goldberg

YOUNG ISRAEL OF HEWLETT Rabbi Scott Hoberman

KEHILLAS BAIS YEHUDAH TZVI Rabbi Elchanan Adler

Seudah Shlishit (Mincha 5:20 p.m.)

WOODSBURGH MINYAN Rabbi Scott Hoberman

Rabbi Dr. Kenneth Brander

Drasha (Shacharit 9 a.m.)

Early Light

Seudah Shlishit (Mincha 5:15 p.m.) When Enough is Never Enough

Post Hashkama Shiur (Shacharit 7:30 a.m.)

YOUNG ISRAEL OF LAWRENCECEDARHURST Rabbi Yoni Danziger

Rabbi Eli Baruch Shulman

Rabbi Daniel Stein

Drasha (Shacharit 9 a.m.) The Poles of the Aron and the Timelessness of Jewish History

Rabbi Noach Goldstein

Drasha Young Couples Minyan

Rabbi Joshua Elsant

Drasha (Shacharit 8:30 a.m.)

Drasha (Shacharit 9 a.m.) Seudah Shlishit (Mincha 5:20 p.m.) Reflections on Zayin Adar: The Legacy of Moshe Rabbeinu

Pre Mincha Shiur (4:40 p.m.) The Challenges of Spirituality

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Shiur Following Mincha (5:25 p.m.)

Chumash Shiur (8:15 a.m.)

YOUNG ISRAEL OF WOODMERE Rabbi Aaron Fleksher

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eighth-grader at the Hebrew Academy of the Five Towns and Rockaway Middle School; a video presentation; and singing by the Hebrew Academy of Long Beachâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s fifth-grade choir, directed by Sandy Shmuely. See Shoah on page 3

ALMOST FORGETTEN

The â&#x20AC;&#x153;Burning Pitâ&#x20AC;? used by the Nazis to burn the remains of thousands of Jewish victims who had been shot to dealth early in the war, in order to eliminate evidence. Ezra Wolfinger for WGBH

By Karen McDonough, JNS.org When Mark Rosenblatt touched down at Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv on April 5 and powered on his cell phone, he got the surprise of his mobile technology life. Rosenblatt received a text message from his cell phone carrier, Verizon, reading, â&#x20AC;&#x153;Welcome to Palestine.â&#x20AC;? â&#x20AC;&#x153;I did a double take,â&#x20AC;? said Rosenblatt, a high-tech consultant from Edge-

See page 5

AnnuAl Dinner MAy 7

By Rabbi Binny Freedman Sunday is Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day. ny serious student of history will recognize that there are moments, all too rare, when a door stands open, waiting for a person, a people, or even the entire world to walk through, and change life as we know it, forever. Such a moment came and went in 1967, when paratroopers, on the wings of

eagles, stormed the walls of the Old City of Jerusalem. There was a magic in the air that day. It was as if anything was possible and dreams could come true after 2,000 years of longing and waiting. A friend of mine, who was one of the paratroopers who liberated the Old City on that magical day, told me an incredible story. Most of the paratroopers

had broken in to the Old City through the Lionâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s gate, but an elite company had come in from the south, storming the Zion gate and gaining a foothold in the Jewish quarter. Lechimah Beâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Shetach Banui (urban warfare) is one of the most difficult types of combat. In addition to the normal pressures of fighting an enemy who is entrenched in his positions, one has the addiSee Making on page 19

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mont. He had traveled to Israel to see his daughter, who is studying in a masterâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s degree at Bar-Ilan University. â&#x20AC;&#x153;I was shocked that an American company was falling into some BDS rhetoric,â&#x20AC;? Rosenblatt said. According to the most recent study of the wireless market by the research firm Strategy Analytics, Verizon was Americaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s largest cell carrier at the end of 2016. See Verizon on page 19

Verizon welcomes Making a better world, Jews to â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Palestineâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; 1 day, 1 person at a time

By Tom Tugend, JTA television program airing this week on PBS links an incredible Holocaust escape story â&#x20AC;&#x201D; which climaxed on the last day of Pesach in 1944 â&#x20AC;&#x201D; to advanced scientific techniques. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Holocaust Escape Tunnel,â&#x20AC;? a Nova production to be shown on WLIW Channel 21 at 10 pm on Thursday, sheds new light on the attempt by 80 imprisoned men and women â&#x20AC;&#x201D; mostly Lithuanian Jews â&#x20AC;&#x201D; to make a break for freedom in the face of Nazi bullets. The show documents the application of scientific methods to verify what would otherwise be a nearly unbelievable story. The documentary is set in and around Vilna, the Yiddish and Hebrew designation for Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania. At its peak, before World War II and the Shoah, Vilna was known

as â&#x20AC;&#x153;The Jerusalem of the Northâ&#x20AC;? and described as the focal point of Jewish civilization, with famous yeshivas, rabbis and scholars. As the film notes, the city was home to 77,000 Jews, had 105 synagogues, the largest Jewish library in the world, and six daily Jewish newspapers. The vigorous Jewish life in Vilna started to decline in 1940, when the Soviet Union absorbed Lithuania. It was almost completely destroyed after German armies attacked Russia in 1941, quickly conquering Lithuania. Within a year, Nazis shot â&#x20AC;&#x201D; in the days before Auschwitz-type gas chambers â&#x20AC;&#x201D; most of the Jews and tossed their corpses into huge pits in the nearby Ponar Forest, initially dug by the Soviets to store fuel and ammunition. One pit alone held 20,000 to 25,000 corpses. In late 1943, with Russian armies advancing from the east and partisans attacking German supply lines in surrounding forests, Hitlerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s headquarters in Berlin decided to cover up the See Great Pesach escape on page 6

PBS recounts great Pesach escape from the horrors of a doomed Vilna

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SHAARAY TEFILA Rabbi Daniel Stein Ghetto the Post Hewlett resident, now Marion Lazan, will Warsaw (Shacharit 9:30 a.m.) Uprising. The greater Five Hashkama Shiur (Shacharit Rabbi Etan Schnall Rabbi Simcha Lauer Yom HaShoah commemoCommunity be the speaker at the Five Towns Yoma.m.) Towns 7:30 keynote a.m.) Drasha (Shacharit 8:30 a.m./9 Seudah Shlishit (Mincha 5:20 p.m.) Drasha (Shacharit a.m.) Mishkan:Beth Double Sholom Entendres, ration, which begins at 7 pm on April 23 and HaShoah event 8:45 at Congregation Proposal Pranks, Spoils of War, the Standards Noach Goldstein synagogues, will also feature: a (390Rabbi Broadway, Lawrence) Double this Sunday night. involves IDF, and the23 Chazon Ishâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Glasses Seudah Shlishit (Mincha 5:25 p.m.) Rabbi Eli Baruch Shulman by Jake Levy, the fourth-generation Holocaust Day, 27th Seudah Shlishitthe (Mincha 5:20 p.m.) reflection Pirsumei Nisa andRemembrance National Unity YOUNG ISRAEL OF of a Holocaust survivor and an day of Nisan, marks the anniversary Ayelet HaShachar -of The the Dawnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s descendant NORTH WOODMERE

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Rabbi Daniel Elsant WOODMERE Rabbi Scott Hoberman BAIS MIDRASH OF Rabbi Joshua Elsant Rabbi Aaron Fleksher Rabbi Natan Farber WOODMERE Chumash Shiur (8:15 a.m.) Rabbi Aaron Fleksher Rabbi Yoni Danziger Rabbi Menachem Penner

Rabbi Eli Baruch Shulman Guterman Chair in Talmud, RIETS

her brother, â&#x20AC;&#x201D; were liberated from the Seudah Shlishit (Mincha 5:20Albert p.m.) YOUNG ISRAEL OFShlishit Seudah Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in 1945, Ayelet HaShachar - The Dawnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s RIETS is proud toNORTH honor WOODMERE (Mincha 5:30 p.m.) Early Light more than 130 musmakhim, Rabbi Noach Goldstein many of whom have (ShacharitBAIS 9 a.m.)EPHRAIM WOODSBURGH MINYAN Drasha strong connectionsThe to Poles our of the Aron YITZCHOK and the Rabbi Scott Hoberman community, including: Rabbi Elchanan Adler Timelessness of Jewish History Seudah Shlishit (Mincha 5:20 Rabbi Avi Anderson Pre Mincha (4:40 p.m.) p.m.) Rabbi Jacob BermanRabbi Daniel Stein The Two of the (5:25Readings p.m.) Rabbi Dan Cohen Shiur Following Mincha YOUNG ISRAEL Megillah: RabbiOF Meir Cohen HowOF Do They Interrelate?Â HEWLETT Rabbi Yoni Danzger YOUNG ISRAEL

Seudah Shlishit (Mincha p.m.) Drasha (ShacharitSeudah 8:30 a.m.) Rabbi 5:15 Menachem Penner Shlishit When Enough is Never Enough Max and Marion Grill Dean, RIETS Rabbi Joshua Elsant (Mincha 5:25 p.m.) Rabbi Etan SchnallDrasha Young Couples Minyan Back to the Future SHAARAY TEFILA Magid Shiur,Bessen Irving I. Stone Beis By Jeffrey (Shacharit 9:30 a.m.) Connecting with Har Sinai Medrash Program Rabbi Etan Schnall Rabbi Simcha Seventy-two years ago toLauer the date that Rabbi Daniel Stein Drasha (Shacharit 8:30 a.m./9 a.m.) BAIS5:20 AVROHOM ZEV (Mincha p.m.)father, Yeshiva, RIETS Seudah Shlishit Mishkan:Marion Double Rosh Entendres, Blumenthalâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s family â&#x20AC;&#x201D; Yechiel her Rabbi Proposal Pranks, Spoils of War, the Fuchs Rabbi Eli Baruch Shulman Double Standards Walter; Ruth; and Rosh her Yeshiva,mother, and RabbiIDF, Henry H.the Chazon Drasha (Shacharit 9and a.m.) and Ishâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;sMarion Glasses

Five Towns marks Yom HaShoah Sunday nite

Senior Vice President, Yeshiva Rabbi Etan Schnall Rabbi Eli Baruch Shulman University Rabbi Ashie Schreier

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AISH KNESETH ISRAEL YOUNG ISRAEL OFKODESH Rabbinics, RIETS Rabbi Dr. KennethLAWRENCEBrander Rabbi Hershel Schachter (WHITE SHUL) Vice President of University and Drasha (Shacharit 8:30 a.m.) Rabbi Eli Baruch Shulman CEDARHURST Community Life, Yeshiva University Pre Mincha ShiurRabbi (4:15 p.m.) Rabbi Yoni Danziger Zev Goldberg ANSHEI CHESSED Af Hen Hayu Bâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Oto HaNes Program Coordinator, RIETS Post Hashkama Shiur Rabbi Elchanan Adler Rabbi Josh Joseph, EdD

Rabbi Menachem Penner Rabbi Yechiel Fuchs Pre Mincha Shiur (4:40 p.m.) Drasha following Main Minyan Drasha following Main Minyan Rabbi Noach Goldstein (Shacharit 8:45 a.m.) Rabbi Jason Grossman (Shacharit 8:45 a.m.) BAIS TEFILAH Rabbi Scott Hoberman Rabbi Ashie Schreier Rabbi Ashie Schreier MENâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S ONEG SHABBAT WITH RABBI HERSHEL SCHACHTER MENâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S ONEG SHABBAT WITH RABBI HERSHEL SCHACHTER Rabbi Moshe Watson Rabbi Raphael Karlin Drasha before Musaf at the Leon Hosted by Rabbi Shay & Rina Schachter Drasha before Musaf at the Leon Hosted by Rabbi Shay & Rina Schachter Drasha (Shacharit 9 a.m.) Drasha (Shacharit 9 a.m.) Rabbi Nuriel Klinger 430 Forest Ave, Woodmere â&#x20AC;˘ Friday Night, 8:30 p.m. 430 Forest Ave, Woodmere â&#x20AC;˘ Friday Night, 8:30 p.m. Mayer Minyan (Shacharit 9 a.m.) 9 a.m.) Rabbi Simcha Lauer Mayer Minyan (Shacharit Rabbi Zev Goldberg Rabbi Zev Goldberg Parsha Shmini â&#x20AC;˘ April 21, 2017 â&#x20AC;˘Mincha 25 Nisan, 5777 â&#x20AC;˘ Candlelighting 7:23 pm, Havdalah 8:24 â&#x20AC;˘ Luach page â&#x20AC;˘ Jewish Vol 16, No 15 The 19 Art of Survival The Art of Jewish Survival WOMENâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S SHIUR WITH RABBI MENACHEM PENNER Rabbi Bradley Lipman WOMENâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S SHIUR WITH RABBI MENACHEM PENNER Pre Shiur (4:40 p.m.) Pre Mincha Shiur (4:40 p.m.) Rabbi Ari Lipsky Rabbi Hershel Schachter Rabbi HershelThe Schachter FINDING MEANING IN MUSAF FINDING MEANING IN MUSAF Mystery of Estherâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Identity The Mystery of Estherâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Identity Rabbi Joshua MaslowShiur Following Mincha (5:25 p.m.) Young Israel of Lawrence - Cedarhurst (4:30 p.m.) Young Israel of Lawrence - Cedarhurst (4:30 p.m.) Shiur Following Mincha (5:25 p.m.) Rabbi Mordy Prus Rabbi David Roth Rabbi Moshe Rube In celebration of Rav Hershel Schachterâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s 50 years of teaching at In celebration of Rav Hershel Schachterâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s 50 years of teaching at Rabbi Ashie Schreier Yeshiva University â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary Yeshiva University â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological â&#x20AC;Ť×Ş× ×&#x2022; ×&#x203A;×&#x2018;×&#x2022;×&#x201C; ×&#x153;×Ş×&#x2022;×¨×&#x201D;â&#x20AC;Ź â&#x20AC;Ť×Ş× ×&#x2022; ×&#x203A;×&#x2018;×&#x2022;×&#x201C; ×&#x153;×Ş×&#x2022;×¨×&#x201D;â&#x20AC;Ź Rabbi ElliotSeminary Schrier Rav Schachter will be receiving a special award at the Chag HaSemikha and a Sefer Torah is being commissioned Rav Schachter will be receiving a special award at the Chag HaSemikha a Sefer Torah is being commissioned Rabbi and Eli Wagner SUNDAY, SUNDAY, Moshe WatsonHirt for this special event. in honor of the occasion. Please join us in Lawrence at the home of Lance and Rivkie Hirt for this special event. in honor of the occasion. Please join us in Lawrence at the home ofRabbi Lance and Rivkie MARCH 5 MARCH 5 Rabbi Michael Rav Schachter will present a shiur, followed by filling in letters in the Sefer Torah. Rav Schachter will present a shiur, followed by filling in letters in the Sefer Torah.Weingarten Rabbi Eli Wiesenfeld 9:30 a.m. 9:30 a.m. Dedication opportunities are available at many levels. Sponsors at the $1,000 level and above will have the privilege of filling in letters Dedication opportunities are available at many levels. Sponsors at the $1,000Rabbi level and above will have the privilege of filling in letters Daniel Zuckerman of the Sefer Torah. For more info and to RSVP, please email yulongisland@yu.edu or visit yu.edu/chag of the Sefer Torah. For more info and to RSVP, please email yulongisland@yu.edu or visit yu.edu/chag Pre Mincha Shiur (4:40 p.m.)

BAIS MIDRASH OF WOODMERE Rabbi Yoni Danziger

RIETS is proud to honor IRVING PLACE MINYAN more than 130 musmakhim, Rabbi Zev Goldberg The NewspaperBAIS of our Orthodox communities many of whom have EPHRAIM Drasha (Shacharit 9 a.m.) strong connections to our YITZCHOK Rabbi Dr. Kenneth Brander community, including: Rabbi Elchanan Adler Pre Mincha Shiur (4:40 p.m.) Rabbi Avi Anderson Pre Mincha (4:40 p.m.) Rabbi Jacob Berman The Challenges of Spirituality The Two Readings of the Rabbi Dan Cohen Megillah: KEHILLAS BAIS Rabbi Meir Cohen Rabbi Yoni Danzger How Do They Interrelate?Â YEHUDAH TZVI

Rosh Yeshiva, and Rabbi Henry H. Guterman Chair in Talmud, RIETS

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Seudah Shlishit (Mincha 5:25 p.m.) Back to the Future Connecting with Har Sinai

Rosh Kollel and Rosh Yeshiva, and Nathan and Vivian Fink Distinguished Professorial Chair in Talmud, RIETS

Shabbat Parshat Terumah â&#x20AC;˘ March 3-4, 2017

Five Towns Community Shabbaton

CELEBRATING THE NEXT GENERATION OF RABBINIC LEADERS

FEATURING Shabbat Parshat Terumah â&#x20AC;˘ March 3-4, 2017 Rabbi Hershel Schachter

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a target for extremists. But like everything else in our hyper-partisan era in which any issue can become a political football, in the last several weeks anti-Semitism has become a political cudgel for Democrats seeking to blame President Donald Trump for the surge in inSee Nothing to fear on page 7

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When 13-and-a-half-year-old Hallel Yaffa Ariel Hyâ&#x20AC;?d was murdered in her Kiryat Arba bed last June 30, her mother, Rina Ariel, comforted her other children, both girls younger than Hallel, and then resolved that Hallelâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s memory will live on. She would remain See Mother on page 2

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By Ed Weintrob The keynote speaker at Sunday nightâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Five Towns CommunityWide Holocaust Commemoration said that tolerance, obviously missing from Europe in the years surrounding World War II, is the essential ingredient for future peace. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Had there been respect and tolerance for one another some 70 years ago I would not be here this eveningâ&#x20AC;? to recount a dark history, 85-year-old Marion Blumental Lazan, a child survivor, author and lecturer, told the more than 1,200 people who crowded into Congre-

gation Beth Shalom in Lawrence. After recounting the story of her life during the Shoah and how she built a new life in America (she was 16 when she met her future husband, Nathaniel, now 82, in shul in Peoria on Yom Kippur; they have three married children and nine grandchildren), she spoke of the importance of sharing that period of our history, â&#x20AC;&#x153;particularly with our young people.â&#x20AC;? Acknowledging the fact that each year there are fewer survivors to give personal testimony, See Tolerance on page 3

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By Ed Weintrob On Yom Haâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Shoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day, the talmidim of Rambam Mesivta High School in Lawrence demonstrated that they remember â&#x20AC;&#x201D; and they did so in an way meant to make it harder for others to forget. As he has done repeatedly over the years, Rambamâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s dean, Rabbi Zev Meir Friedman (pictured), accompanied his students to a protest in support of am Yisroel â&#x20AC;&#x201D; this time outside the Jackson Heights home of 92-year-old Jakiw Palij, believed to be the last remaining Nazi death camp guard living in the U.S. The Rambam rally attracted attention, and put Palij â&#x20AC;&#x201D; and the studentsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; demand that he be deported â&#x20AC;&#x201D; on the cover of Tuesdayâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Daily News. See Rally on page 2

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Acobas, Middle School principal (back row, fourth from right), and Rabbi Jeffrey Kobrin, head of school (back row, at far right), facilitate the studentsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; hectic schedules to enable adequate review time with Brody, who has chanted the Megillah for 45 years, including in the Great Synagogue

stones were overturnedare and damaged in St. Louis. Dedication opportunities available at many levels. Sponsorsin at the in$1,000 level and above will haveof the theKGB. privilege of filling in letters Leningrad 1985 â&#x20AC;&#x201D; where the gabboyim were actually members Related stories on pages 3 and 24.

Jewish cemetery in Philadelphia, one week after over 150 head-

province, according to the JCC Association of North America. On Sunday, 18 students North Shore Hebrew Academy Middle School, in Great Neck, will chant Megillat Esther for their schoolmates, faculty in honor ofdianthe occasion. usSecure in Lawrence atand the home ofat the Lance and Rivkie Hirt for this special event. The threatening calls seekPlease â&#x20AC;&#x153;to wear us join down,â&#x20AC;? said families, in a special Purim Day assembly. Over the past 16 years, 275 students at the NSHA have been instructed by Dr. Paul Brody, a derCommunity Network Director Paul Goldenberg. â&#x20AC;&#x153;But we are back matologist by profession (back row, third from left, holding Megillah case. This unique program enables students, both Ashkenazic and Sephardic, in our schools, are back in our a JCCs.â&#x20AC;? Rav Schachter willwepresent shiur, followed by filling in letters in the Sefer Torah. to read the Megillah at various synagogues, hospitals, nursing homes and private homes, for those unable to attend public readings. Rabbi Adam Meanwhile, more than 100 gravesites were disturbed in a

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Community Service Award recipients Joel and Cheryl Baruch. Joel operates Gotta Getta Bagel in Woodmere, Cheryl is an adminisThe Jewish Star / Ed Weintrob trator at Kulanu Academy in Cedarhurst.

Five Towns Community Shabbaton

The Jewish Star will not publish during Pesach. Look for our next issue on Thursday, April 20. We wish everyone a Chag Kasher Vâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Sameach!

With Pesach starting Monday night, April 10, everyoneâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s getting in gear to relive the Exodus. Youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll find a 3-year-old matzah-maker on page 2, an elderly participant in Project Ezra on page 30, and here on page 1, Long Islandâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Jewish schools are turning their youngsters on to the holidayâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s beauty. Clockwise from top left: Talmidim at Yeshiva Darchei Torahâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Harriet Keilson Early Childhood Center in Far Rockaway consider karpas close up; children at HALBâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Lev Chana Early Childhood Center used their five senses to experience first-

Rabbi Moshe Watson By Jeffrey Bessen Gov.Michael Andrew Cuomoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s familiarity with the roads around Rabbi Weingarten Southeast Queens and the Five Towns might have helped him understand State Senator Todd Kaminsky kept bringRabbi Eli why Wiesenfeld ing up repairing the Nassau Expressway every time the Long Rabbi DanielsawZuckerman Beach Democrat the governor. See 878 on page 6

Chag HaSemikhah 5777 Chag HaSemikhah 5777

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Magid Shiur, Irving I. Stone Beis Medrash Program

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Rabbi Zev Goldberg

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Rabbi Dr. Kenneth Brander

Rosh Yeshiva, and Eva, Morris, and Jack K. Rubin Memorial Chair in Rabbinics, RIETS

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â&#x20AC;&#x153;The Nazis killed an astonishing number of people in monstrous ways and targeted certain groupsâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;Gypsies, the mentally challenged, and open homosexuals, among others. But the Final Solution was aimed solely at the Jews. The Holocaust was about the Jews. There is no â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;proudâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; way to offer a remembrance of the HoloSee Trump on Shoah on page 12

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Rav Yaakov Moshe Hillel, shlita, addresses queries from Sephardic talmidim at Darchei Torah in Far Rockaway. A posek, kabbalist and author of sefarim who heads Yeshivat Hevrat Ahavat Shalom in Jerusalem, Rav Hillel discussed achieving greatness in Torah. He has visited Darchei most years since 2004. Pictured with Rav Hillel are Rav Shlomo Avigdor Altusky, center left; Rav Hillelâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s son; and Rav Yaakov Bender. Courtesy Darchei Torah

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September 22, 2017 • 2 Tishrei 5778 THE JEWISH STAR

The JEWISH STAR

Wine & Dine

For easy fast, eat well as Yom Kippur nears Joni Schockett kosher kitchen

n Yom Kippur, when we fast to atone for our sins, we think about things that are far more important than food. Fasting is hard for most people and for many it is extremely difficult. They get headaches or stomach cramps; some feel lightheaded and may even faint if the day is extremely hot. Some people find themselves getting irritable and cranky as their blood sugar drops throughout the day; some find themselves thinking about food all day and even feeling anxious and stressed. Other people find fasting fairly easy. They go through the day in relative comfort even though the fast lasts 25 hours, not suffering from headaches or other bodily discomforts except, perhaps, a few growls from their bellies. So what is the difference between those who suffer and those who make it through more comfortably? There are lots of differences that account for one’s comfort level during fasting. One important difference is how much caffeinated coffee one drinks. Skipping a day of caffeine, if you are used to drinking 2 to 4 cups each day, is guaranteed to result in a headache, jittery feeling, and even stomach problems. I do not believe that our ancient ancestors had to deal with this issue, as coffee was not the popular drink it is now. So how to combat caffeine withdrawal? Start now. A week before, switch to half-caf for 2 days and then, for the last 5 days, to caffeine-free. Your Yom Kippur will be much more comfortable. Another difference is our basic eating habits. Those who eat lots of red meat and spicy foods usually find the day more stressful. Red meat, especially processed meats like cold cuts, are loaded with all kinds of things that make it hard to digest and more difficult for a person if eaten before a fast. One of those ingredients is sodium, especially in processed meats. Sodium makes one thirsty. Being thirsty is bound to make one uncomfortable and cranky through the day. So skip processed meats before Yom Kippur. Overeating before a fast is not the best way to stave off hunger. Too much food can lead to all kinds of stomach issues that will make

fasting very uncomfortable, so it’s not wise to eat more than a normal meal before the fast. The best way to approach a day-long fast is to eat well for several days before the fast and especially the day before. Avoid salty and very spicy foods and eat lots of slow digesting foods like legumes. Avoid caffeine and too much sugar, as well. If you do not feel well, it will be hard to focus on all things spiritual. I hope these pre-fast day recipes help you to have an easier fast.

Overnight Take-to-Work Oatmeal with Apples, Honey and More (Pareve or Dairy)

1/2 cup rolled oats 1/2 to 1 tsp. cinnamon 1 tsp. chia seeds 1 tsp. flax seeds 1/2 cup unsweetened vanilla almond milk or regular milk 1 tbsp. pure maple syrup or honey, more to taste 1/4 cup chopped walnuts 1/2 apple, chopped or grated Mix all ingredients together, place in a mason jar and close tightly. Refrigerate and take with you in the morning or uncover and microwave until hot. Makes one serving. NOTE: Adjust this by amounts and ingredients for your family members, and let children make their own the night before. Makes breakfast a snap.

Pre-Fast Healthful Salad (Pareve)

6 cups Greens of your choice 1 cup shredded carrots 1 cup shredded beets 1 cup chopped cucumbers 1 cup shredded purple cabbage 1 cup hearts of palm, sliced or diced 1 cup fresh cooked corn, cut from husks, 1 cup fresh peas Small grape or cherry tomatoes 1/4 cup each sunflower seeds, chopped walnuts or almonds or unsalted pistachios 1/2 cup dried cranberries or raspberries or

snipped apricots Dressing: Juice of several lemons to equal 1/3 to 1/2 cup 1/3 to 2/3 cup canola oil Drizzle honey, to taste Toss all the salad ingredients together in a large bowl. Whisk the dressing ingredients together and drizzle the dressing over the salad. Toss to coat. Serves 4-6.

Simple Chicken and Wine with Shallots (Meat)

GIgante (Giant) Lima Beans (Pareve)

1 pound giant lima beans soaked 12 hours (overnight from 9 pm until you cook them.) 2 cans (15 ounces each) whole tomatoes, preferably without salt 1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil 1 to 2 large onions 2 to 4 cloves garlic 3 to 4 stalks celery 3 to 4 large carrots 1-1/2 cups water 1/4 cup freshly minced parsley Tiny pinch salt and pepper to taste Place the beans in a large pot or bowl and cover — by 2 to 3 inches — with cold water. Cover the bowl and let soak for 12 hours or overnight. The next day… Grease a 3-4 quart Pyrex like baking dish and set aside. Remove the tomatoes from the cans, retaining juice in the cans, and chop. Place back in the cans. Set aside. Dice the onion, celery and carrots, keeping them separate. Set aside. Preheat the oven to 325 degrees. Drain the beans and rinse. Place them in a large stockpot and cover with water. Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer for about 60-90 minutes, until almost completely cooked. Meanwhile, Heat a large skillet and add the oil. Add the diced onion and sauté until light golden brown. Add the garlic and mix well. Add the diced celery and carrots and cook until heated and softened, about 10 minutes more. Add the tomatoes and the juice and the 1-1/2 cups of water. Mix well. Bring to a simmer and simmer for 20-35 minutes or until reduced and slightly thickened. Add the parsley and just a tiny bit of salt and pepper. Mix well. Remove from the heat. Add the drained beans to the prepared baking dish and cover evenly with the sauce. Stir to blend. Place in the oven for 1-1/2 to 2 hours, or until the beans look thickened, a little crispy on top and are soft. Let cool ten minutes and serve. Serves 6 to 10.

This can be easily doubled. 4 boneless, skinless chicken breast halves 4 tbsp. flour, divided 2 tbsp. trans-fat-free, pareve margarine 1 tsp. garlic powder 1 tsp. onion powder 1/2 tsp. tarragon 1/2 tsp. paprika Pinch salt Freshly ground black pepper 2-4 grinds 1/3 cup canola oil 12 shallots, peeled and cut into quarters lengthwise 1/3 to 1/2 cup white wine 3/4 cup chicken broth, stock or soup, low salt, preferably, divided 2 tbsp. freshly minced parsley Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Place 2 tablespoons of the flour, the garlic and onion powders, tarragon, paprika, salt and pepper in a zipper plastic bag. Shake to mix. Add the chicken breasts and shake to coat evenly. Set aside in the bag. Heat a large skillet and add half the canola oil. Add the shallots and sauté until golden and softened, 10-15 minutes. Place the margarine in a small saucepan and heat until melted. Add the remaining flour and mix until fragrant and slightly golden. Slowly whisk in half the chicken stock until smooth. Add the white wine and whisk until smooth. Heat over low heat until thickened and bubbly. If too thick, add more stock. Remove from heat. Add the remaining canola oil to the saucepan and add the chicken breasts. Discard the bag and remaining flour. Cook until golden, about 3 to 4 minutes per side. Place the chicken and shallots in a baking dish and deglaze the skillet with any remaining stock. Pour over the chicken. Pour the sauce over the chicken, cover and place in the oven for 30 minutes, until golden and bubbly. Sprinkle with parsley before serving. Serves 2 to 4. Great with mashed potatoes or cauliflower or rice.

Tzimmes with saffron, white wine and chicken By Chaya Rappoport, The Nosher via JTA I didn’t grow up with tzimmes, so the idea of stewed, mushy vegetables with dried fruit has never much appealed to me. I say “idea” because I am pretty sure I never actually tasted tzimmes. The dish always seemed too sweet to be appealing, even if sweet foods are traditionally enjoyed for the New Year. But recently, while thinking of new ways to reinvent a few classic Rosh Hashanah dishes, I began thinking about tzimmes. And perhaps with a couple of very liberal (and namely savory) changes, who’s to say it couldn’t become something newer, grander and much more enticing for a palate like mine? My experimentation has produced a colorful, show-stopping and nontraditional chicken dish. Wonderfully savory chicken now complements the sweet tzimmes of yore, which I have updated by swapping fresh, juicy plums and apricots for their dry, pruney counterparts,

adding sweetly swirled candy cane beets (you can also use red or golden beets); switching out regular carrots for vivid, tricolored ones; and tossing in a handful of golden raisins to be plumped up with aromatic pan juices. Alongside the requisite onion, aromatic rosemary and heady cloves of garlic, the striking fruit-and-vegetable mixture roasts in a cinnamon, ras el hanout (a Moroccan spice blend) and spiked date honey sauce. Once the fruits and vegetables have softened a bit, they are topped by the chicken and doused in a saffron-infused white wine mixture, which saturates the entire dish as its components roast together in happy, fragrant harmony. Now we have a delicious dish with tender fruits and vegetables, bronzed chicken and a saffron and white wine flavored gravy that puddles at the bottom of the pan and would be splendid spooned over fluffy couscous. Serve this holidayworthy chicken with even more wine and with shreds of fresh green parsley, then watch as even the most vehement See Tzimmes with saffron on page 25

Wine & Dine

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

Rosh Hashana nigonim, recalling Jerry’s dad Judy Joszef who’s in the kitchen

his year, two days before Rosh Hashona, it will be my dear dad’s 15th yahrzeit. Hard to believe it has been that long already. My dad was a member of the Young Israel-Beth El of Boro Park and served as president and as gabbai. He took his duties very seriously. He had a box full of index cards, all the member’s names (about 1,400) along with their family yahrzeits, so that every member was sure to get an aliyah without having to ask. He loved the Yom Tovim davening, world renowned Chazzan Moshe Kusevitsky and the chazanim who followed and the choirs that accompanied them. I have wonderful memories sitting next to my dad in shul when I was a little girl. I loved watching him take his gabbai duties very seriously, almost as much as I loved that my dad sat right near the candy man. I was talking about this with my husband Jerry, as he too loved davening with his dad. As far back as he can remember, Jerry has vivid memories of davening with his dad on Rosh Hashana. Jerry’s parents davened at rabbi Landau’s shteible on Avenue L and East 9th Street in Brooklyn. The davening in the Veretzkier Rav’s shul was beautiful and his father loved to sing, always joyfully with a heartfelt radiant smile pervading his face. Jerry loved watching and singing along with him. Often during the year, Jerry’s family, led by his dad, would sing portions of the Yom Tov davening at their Shabbat table. When jerry moved to Teaneck, several of his friends launched the Young Israel of Teaneck in Jerry’s neighborhood. His parents often came to spend Shabbat and Yom Tov, as they loved the davening led by Jerry’s close friend David Shapiro. David davened beautifully and was often joined on the bimah with

another close friend, Mitch Merlis a’h, singing the Yom Tov davening together. David, Mitch, David Horowitz (the erstwhile gabbai) and Lior Hod, Jerry’s close friend, would often visit his parents during Yom tov to sing with Jerry’s father. Unfortunately, Jerry’s father became very ill. His parents continued to visit spend Yom tov in Teaneck but his father’s radiant indelible smile began to fade as his illness progressed. He would come to shul for shorter intervals and would only occasionally join in singing the davening he loved so profoundly. Everyone in shul was heartbroken. inally, his dad’s illness appeared to have defeated him when he came to Teaneck for what turned out to be his last Rosh Hashana in shul. He now had difficulty walking and his smile and his capacity to sing the Yom tov davening had been vanquished by his inexorable illness. David Horowitz decided to have Jerry’s dad open the Aron for the part of the davening which had always been his favorite and which his friends had sung with his father over the years. Jerry walked him to the Aron and helped him open it, then moved aside. David led the shul singing the beautiful nigonim, when Jerry’s father unexpectedly turned around and faced the congregation. His beautiful smile suddenly returned. He sang his favorite part of the davening with passion and joy, for all to witness. Paradoxically, he sang as he would never sing again. As he walked back from the Aron to his seat, everyone in shul greeted him with hugs and profound emotion as tears of joy streaming down everyone’s faces. His father’s love for the Yom Tov davening had apparently humbled his illness, for the briefest of indelible moments, reflecting the inexplicable power which a kehila sincerely davening together in heart and soul can achieve. Now, when Jerry davens in our shul during Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur, he often roams from minyan to minyan searching for a sheliach tzibur who sings melodic nigonim which he imagines his father would have loved. He closes his eyes and strives to

stock then substitute coconut milk for the heavy cream. If you want to make it dairy use pareve chicken stock and heavy cream. Should you want to make it pareve, use the coconut milk and pareve chicken stock. For those of you, that use soy or almond milk, they tend to break up when it’s rewarmed, therefore coconut milk is better and has a closer consistency to heavy cream than other substitutes. From Once Upon a Chef, by Jennifer Segal Six servings

Ingredients: 3 tablespoons unsalted butter 4 leeks, white and light green parts only, roughly chopped 3 cloves garlic, peeled and smashed 2 pounds Yukon Gold potatoes, peeled and roughly chopped into 1/2-inch pieces 7 cups pareve chicken or vegetable broth 2 bay leaves 1 sprig fresh thyme, plus more for garnish if desired 1 teaspoon salt 1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper 1 cup heavy cream Chives, finely chopped (optional) Instructions : Melt the butter over medium heat in a large soup pot. Add the leeks and garlic and cook, stirring regularly, until soft and wilted, about 10 minutes. Adjust the heat as necessary so as not to brown. Add the potatoes, stock, bay leaves, thyme, salt and pepper to pot and bring to a boil. Cover and turn the heat down to low. Simmer for 15 minutes, or until the potatoes are very soft. Fish out the thyme sprig and bay leaves, then purée the soup with a hand-held immersion blender until smooth. (Alternatively, use a standard blender to purée the soup in batches; see note below.) Add the heavy cream and bring to a simmer. Taste and adjust seasoning with salt and pepper. If soup is too thin, simmer until thickened. If it’s too thick, add water or stock to thin it out. Garnish with fresh herbs if desired. Note: If using a standard blender to purée the soup: be sure not to fill the jar more than halfway; leave the hole in the lid open and cover loosely with a dishtowel to allow the heat to escape, and pour blended soup into a clean pot.

honey, oil, black pepper, cinnamon, cumin, cayenne and ras el hanout in a large bowl. 5. Add the chicken pieces, carrots, onion,

cardamom pods, garlic, apricots, plums, carrots, beets, golden raisins and rosemary to the large bowl and toss to combine.

recapture the music of his father’s voice still resonating within him. May you all have a Shana Tova, or a “Git G’benched Yur” as my grandparents used to “vinch me “oon” wish upon me.

Potato Leek Soup Parve, Dairy or Meat

Among the many symbolic foods we eat on Rosh Hashana for a sweet new year, are leaks. My friend Smadar Meer shared this wonderful recipe with me. It can be made as a meat, dairy or pareve. I chose to make it dairy. If you choose to use real chicken

Tzimmes with saffron… Continued from page 24 tzimmes haters come slowly, then speedily around. Ingredients For the fruits and vegetables: 2 bunches small colored candy cane beets, tops removed, scrubbed and sliced 1 bunch colorful young carrots, scrubbed and thicker ones sliced in half 4 apricots, halved, some quartered 4 big purple plums, halved and some sliced 1/2 cup golden raisins 10 cloves garlic, peeled 1 large onion, peeled and sliced into thick rings 3 sprigs fresh rosemary chopped parsley, for serving For the chicken, sauce and saffron white wine marinade: 4 chicken bottoms, cleaned 2 teaspoons fine sea salt 2 sprigs fresh rosemary 1/4 teaspoon saffron threads

1/4 cup water 3/4 cups good white wine 3 tablespoons date honey (silan) 1/4 cup olive oil 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper 3 cardamom pods, lightly crushed 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon 1/2 teaspoon ground cumin 2 pinches cayenne pepper 1/4 teaspoon ras el hanout Directions: 1. Preheat the oven to 425 F. Rub the chicken bottoms with the sea salt and the 2 sprigs of fresh rosemary. 2. Toast the saffron threads in a small pan over low-medium heat for about 3-5 minutes until they are slightly toasty and fragrant. Remove the pan from the heat, add the 1/4 cup of water and let it sit and turn yellow as the saffron infuses its flavor into the water. 3. Combine the cooled saffron water, of which you should have 1/4 cup, with the white wine. Mix and set aside until needed. 4. Make the marinade: Whisk the date

THE JEWISH STAR September 22, 2017 • 2 Tishrei 5778

The JEWISH STAR

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In Judaism without faith, where does Israel fit?

31 THE JEWISH STAR September 22, 2017 • 2 Tishrei 5778

PAGE 16: We have seen the future. it is Orthodox

Jonathan S. tobin

or Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s political opponents, his government’s woes aren’t just an opportunity to score political points at his expense. They also provide easyto-understand explanations for the question that nags at the margins of every debate about American Jewish attitudes toward Israel. Every negative development or unpopular decision associated with the prime minister is used to rationalize and sometimes even justify the growing chasm between American Jews and Israelis. But a new study about America Jewish identity gives the lie to this argument. The main reason for changing Jewish attitudes about Israel is rooted in faith, not Israeli politics. The list of reasons why Jews have problems with Israel is long: There’s the usual carping about settlement building and the stalled peace process; the lack of religious pluralism and the abandonment of a plan to expand an area for egalitarian prayer at the Western Wall; Netanyahu’s eagerness to stay on President Donald Trump’s good side which is deeply unpopular with most American Jews; accusations of corruption, and now his son Yair’s distasteful use of anti-Semitic memes on social media to attack his father’s foes. All point to reasons why Americans, especially younger Jews, see Israel and Zionism as a burden on the conscience of Jewish liberals. That ignores the context of a conflict that continues largely because the Palestinians have refused to make peace. But while arguments about Netanyahu’s shortcomings are hindrances to Jewish solidarity, they’re not the real problem. new study from the Public Religion Research Institute provides some sobering data about Jewish affiliation. Four years after the Pew Research Center published its, “Portrait of Jewish Americans,” that detailed the toll assimilation and intermarriage have taken on Jewish identity in this country, the PRRI survey reveals that these trends have only accelerated. Among its insights is a breakdown of denominational loyalties. Overall, only 54 percent of Jews claim to be affiliated with one of the religious movements. Reform is the answer for 28 percent, 14 percent say Conservative, 10 percent are Orthodox and two percent Reconstructionist. More than one third, 37 percent, say they are “just Jewish.” Three per-

cent claim to be “something else,” and six percent refuse to answer or say they don’t know. But if you look only at Jews under 30, the numbers break down this way: Reform, 20 percent; Conservative, 8 percent; Orthodox, 15 percent; Reconstructionist, 3 percent and just Jewish, 44 percent. The key point is the “just Jewish” tag doesn’t so much connote independence of synagogues as it does a sense of Jewish identity devoid of religion or any substance more than a vestigial memory of the past. A whopping 33 percent do not regard themselves as being Jewish by religion. That number expands to 47 percent for those under 30. Pew called this demographic “Jews of no religion.” PRRI calls them “cultural Jews.” But either way, these are people whose connection to being Jewish appears to be mostly a matter of things like food, comedy or a belief that liberal political stands is the essence of their heritage. These numbers reflect not merely the collapse in synagogue attendance among the non-Orthodox but also a declining sense of Jewish peoplehood. This reflects the triumph of freedom in the U.S. in which rising rates of assimilation are a function of the collapse of the barriers between faiths. But the idea that a growing demographic in which Jewish traditions, law and faith is absent can sustain support for Israel is risible. While it can be argued that a secular Jewish identity can be sustained in a country that speaks Hebrew, lives by the Jewish calendar and whose history is bound up in a past rooted in faith as well as ethnic identity, it’s a different story in the United States. Cultural Jews or those without religion here are far less likely to feel the tug of emotion that ties Jewish communities together no matter what political issues divide them. The fact that the Orthodox are more likely to be supportive of Israel and to view it as a litmus test when voting, makes this all the more obvious. The issues that are driving American Jews away from Israel are much bigger than attitudes about the peace process or pluralism. Think what you will of Netanyahu, but the collapse of faith and peoplehood among U.S. Jews has far more to do with declining support for Israel among the non-Orthodox than with his faults. If American Jews are becoming a people without faith, then Israel is bound to be the loser no matter what its government does.

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Gen. H.R. McMaster slandered on Israel. Again Jeff Dunetz politics to go

tories first published last week by the giant right-wing site Pajamas Media in the United States and Arutz Sheva (Israel National News) in Israel claimed that U.S. National Security Adviser Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster sparked an argument with a senior Israeli delegation during an August meeting at the White House that was called to discuss threats to the Jewish State, including Syria and the terrorist group Hezbollah. The stories were soon picked up by other media in both countries. According to the reports, the argument was sparked by McMaster bringing an unwanted National Security Council (NSC) official to the meeting and denying that Hezbollah was a terrorist group. In a statement to this columnist, the spokesman for the Israeli Embassy in Washington called the reports “totally false” and, in a separate discussion,

an NSC official who was at the meeting said the NSC employee in question wasn’t in the meeting. Per each of the original reports, McMaster brought NSC Senior Director on CounterTerrorism Mustafa Javed Ali to the White House meeting with Israel. Supposedly Mr. Ali is against designing Hezbollah as a terrorist group. According to the reports, the Israeli delegation demanded that Ali leave the room. Both Pajamas Media (PJM) and Israel National News claimed that McMaster yelled at the Israeli delegation at the meeting, and PJM claimed that McMaster seemed to “blow off” Israel’s worry that a safe zone in Syria for refugees would become a safe zone for Hezbollah to operate. Israel National News went further saying that McMaster claimed that Hezbollah wasn’t a terrorist group. Both stories are false. I spoke to Itai Bardov, who is the spokesperson for the Israeli Embassy in Washington and asked if he could address the above charges on the record. He responded with this statement: “The allegations in the article relating to

Israel are totally false. “Israel never asked for Mustafa Ali to not attend a meeting on Hezbollah, Syria or any other matter. “Israel is not aware of any Trump administration official that does not consider Hezbollah a terror organization, and General McMaster never yelled at Israeli officials. “Israel appreciates General McMaster’s efforts to strengthen the US-Israel relationship and looks forward to continuing to work closely with the Trump administration to counter the threats posed by Iran and its terror proxy Hezbollah.” NSC official who was at the meeting confirmed to me that the U.S. delegation didn’t plan to bring Ali to the meetings, didn’t bring Ali to the meeting, and at no time did he attempt to come into the meeting — a pretty Shermanesque declaration. The NSC official added that a full manifest of the American participants was sent to the Israelis ahead of time and Mustafa Javed Ali was not on it. Indeed, the Washington Free Beacon got a copy of that pre-meeting manifest and concurred that Ali wasn’t on it.

Talking to, is not blessing, Qatar Ben Cohen Viewpoint

hould American Jewish leaders speak to the rulers of a petrostate that finances Hamas terrorists to blow up their fellow Jews in Israel? U.S. Secretary of Defense James Mattis (left) meets with Qatar’s Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani at the Sea Palace in Doha, April 22. Credit: U.S. Air Force Tech. Sgt. Brigitte N. Brantley/Department of Defense. That, in essence, is the fraught question emerging from the rumors and reports of recent days that prominent representatives of the U.S. Jewish community will meet with senior Qatari officials, supposedly including Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani, on the fringes of the 72nd United Nations General Assembly meeting in New York this week. Having canvassed Jewish opinion on

this question, I’ve concluded that to answer it with an absolute “no” is unwise. For one thing, it’s a very hard position to maintain indefinitely. Remember, both Egypt and Jordan were signatories to the 1969 Khartoum Declaration of Arab states, which announced the three “no’s” – no negotiations with Israel, no recognition of Israel, no peace with Israel. Less than half a century later, those two Arab states have said “yes” to all three of those propositions, largely because they grasped the historical moment of Arab rejectionism had already passed. Those outcomes began with a political dialogue predicated on the answer, “possibly.” An outright refusal to talk also ignores the key considerations of context and purpose. Imagine, say, that Qatar was to edge away from Iran’s embrace, or that it announced a cut in funding to its Hamas friends, or that the Saudis – who have shown real ice in their veins in their current dealings with their Qatari brothers – were to ease their blockade on Doha in exchange for a Qatari commitment to reform their foreign policy. Would it then be wrong for American Jewish leaders to explore what else might be in store? One could

certainly imagine the Israelis themselves being willing to do so, given that they operated a trade office in Qatar for nearly a decade before the second Palestinian intifada damaged their burgeoning relations with the Gulf states. Indeed, this hypothetical demonstrates that dialogue can be a political tactic in itself, a means of either blessing one’s adversary or consigning him to the margins. And it’s precisely here that we get to the heart of the dilemma that Qatar and its emir pose to Jewish leaders – because the current context for a dialogue isn’t what you’d call auspicious. wo weeks ago, when Qatar first dangled the prospect of a meeting with the emir — via an announcement from a Washington lobbyist being paid $50,000 a month to facilitate this dialogue – we had not heard a single hint of a policy change from Doha. As of this writing, that hasn’t changed. So why, then, should American Jews give Qatar the public relations gift of a meeting, which projects the sense that Qatar is a responsible international player, and that the Saudi attempt to portray it as a terrorism hub is an exercise in dishonesty and hypocrisy?

When he was promoted to his present position at the beginning of August, some popular websites reported Mustafa Javed Ali has close ties to the HAMAS created group in the U.S., the Council on American–Islamic Relations (CAIR). However, a search of the internet including the CAIR website turned up no links between Mr. Ali and any terrorist affiliated group. Even the sites claiming the links provide no support to their charges. When explaining that Mr. Ali was not at the meeting the NSC official also called him a “valued colleague.” The official also explained Mr. Ali wasn’t at the meeting because of the seniority of the assembled group. Mustafa Javed Ali wasn’t senior enough to attend a meeting where American staff was kept at a minimum and limited to only the most senior personnel. On Aug. 18, the day after the meeting Jason Greenblatt, senior adviser to President Trump on Israel (who was also at the meeting), posted a picture of everyone at the meeting on his twitter account. Mr. Ali was not in this “team picture.” Interestingly, the PJM article claimed the See McMaster on page 36 Look as well at what Qatar could do now. It could lean on Hamas to release — now — the bodies of IDF officers Hadar Goldin and Oron Shaul, both of whom were killed during the summer 2014 Gaza war and whose remains have stayed in Hamas custody ever since, in flagrant violation of international conventions that demand their return to the next of kin. Qatar could — now — announce a review of how state broadcaster Al Jazeera portrays both Israel and Jews, perhaps with guidance from Jewish institutional experts on antiSemitism, with the goal of purging conspiracy theories and anti-Semitic memes from the global station’s coverage. Qatar could — now — deport to Israel for trial the Hamas terrorist Husam Badran, who was given sanctuary in Doha, where he’s now a spokesman for the terrorist group. Badran was behind some of the most sickening outrages of the Hamas suicide bombing campaign against Israel during the second intifada, including the bombing of the Sbarro pizzeria in Jerusalem in 2001, and the bombing of a Passover seder at a Netanya hotel in 2002. Forty-five Israelis were murdered in those attacks and hundreds more wounded, and Badran’s hands are stained with the blood of other terror operations too. See Qatar on page 36

rafael Medoff

he revelation that then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton decided to omit the words “freedom,” “democracy,” and “empowerment of women” from a speech she gave in Saudi Arabia is troubling. But it’s not the first time a senior U.S. government official has deleted or weakened words of truth in an attempt to appease a dictator. The latest episode began in early 2010, when Secretary Clinton was scheduled to speak at Dar Al Hekma, a women’s college in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Accordingly to newly-released emails, Clinton’s senior adviser, Huma Abedin, instructed the secretary of state’s speechwriters to “talk to my mom” about what Clinton should say in her address. Abedin’s mother, Dr. Saleha Abedin, is lecturer in sociology at the college. Later that same day, Dr. Abedin provided Clinton’s staff with a memo headlined “IMPORTANT POINTS TO REMEMBER.” She advised: “Do not use the political terms such as ‘democracy/elections/freedom’.” She also recommended: “Do not use the term ‘empowerment of women’…Do not even mention driving for women!” Sure enough, the speech Secretary Clinton delivered in Saudi Arabia made no mention of democracy, freedom, or women drivers. Her only reference to elections concerned voting in Iraq. Changing language to avoid offending to-

talitarian regimes seems to be a bipartisan phenomenon. Under President George W. Bush, State Department officials tried to water down a U.S. report on human rights in North Korea in 2008, in order to avoid offending Pyongpang. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Glyn Davies advised his colleagues to omit a reference to North Korea as “repressive” and refrain from acknowledging that public executions there are “on the rise.” With six-party talks on the region’s future about to get underway, it was worthwhile to “sacrifice a few adjectives for the cause,” he argued. In a similar spirit, the Bush State Department’s 2005 report on antisemitism worldwide sacrificed quite a few adjectives, not to mention nouns and verbs, when it came to reporting on regime-sponsored antisemitism in the Arab world. The sections on Saudi Arabia and the Palestinian Authority, two of the worst offenders, were just 182 words and 86 words long, respectively. By contrast, Iceland for some reason merited 387 words. There were similar episodes back in the 1930s. In 1934 and again in 1938, President Franklin D. Roosevelt personally intervened to remove criticism of Adolf Hitler and his regime from speeches that Interior Secretary Harold Ickes was planning to give. The Roosevelt administration’s pre-World War II policy was to pursue friendly relations with Nazi Germany; Ickes’s criticism of “a strutting and vain-glorious Nazism” might have undermined that goal. Even after it was verifed, in 1942, that the Germans were carrying out the systematic mass murder of Europe’s Jews, the Roosevelt administration continued to play word games. That December, the British government—

under pressure from members of parliament, Jewish organizations, and others—reluctantly suggested to Washington that the Allies issue a joint statement confirming and condemning the mass murder. FDR’s State Department at first objected to the proposal, fearing that “the various Governments of the United Nations [the Allies] would expose themselves to increased pressure from all sides to do something more specific in order to aid these people.” ltimately the Roosevelt administration went along with the proposed statement, but only after watering down the language. For example, the proposed phrase “reports from Europe which leave no doubt” (that mass murder was underway) was whittled down to just “numerous reports from Europe.” The key phrase “which leave no doubt” was sacrificed for the political objective of resisting pressure to help the refugees. The State Department sacrificed adjectives about the Jews again in October 1943, when Secretary of State Cordell Hull visited Moscow for tripartite talks with the Soviets and British. The State Department drafted, and the other Allies approved, the statement that was issued at the end of the meetings. It threatened postwar punishment for Nazi war crimes against conquered populations, mentioning “French, Dutch, Belgian or Norwegian hostages …Cretan peasants … the people of Poland”–but not Jews. The State Department feared drawing too much attention to the suffering of the Jews would increase pressure on the Roosevelt administration to admit more Jewish refugees. No wonder Arthur Szyk, the famous artist and Holocaust rescue activist, remarked bitterly that Europe’s Jews were being “treat[ed]

9/11 merges into Rosh Hashanah tehilla r. goldberg view from central park

his probably won’t be true for the next generation, and perhaps it’s only the case for New Yorkers or many of us who called New York home for a good chunk of our lives, but remembering 9/11 has become part of the pre-Rosh Hashanah moment. Like apple and honey cake baking, like Selichot, like shofar blowing, a sacred pause to remember back to that day of 9/11 seems to be part of the Rosh Hashanah fabric. At the time, I was living in Israel. But I had just relocated there the previous year, after attending college, graduate school and having my first jobs in New York City. Formative young adult years. When the tragic news unfolded, I felt somewhat displaced and confused. Terrorism was my Israeli life, not my American one. I was so connected to New York, yet I wasn’t there. I experienced this indelibly American, and even more so, New York moment, via screen, an ocean away. It was a very strange long distance impactful tragedy. I did not experience the literal displacement many New Yorkers went through that day, but a psychic displacement and, strangely enough, at the same time, an affinity. Terrorism. I didn’t want my two worlds, my Israel and my America, to merge, to collide. The safety, or at least the illusion of it, of Israel being the dangerous place, but always having America a the safe place, was a comfort, a security. On 9/11 that was shattered. n a personal level, this doesn’t even make the cut of an irrelevant footnote in comparison to those who were in the traumatic

path of 9/11, not to speak of the actual sufferers, survivors and, achingly, those who lost loved ones on that fateful day. But even without very personal links, it was another humanly constructed veneer or layer that was stripped bare that day, exposing vulnerability to a whole new level, a whole other scale. I recall 9/11 taking place very close to Rosh Hashanah. I was young and the intensity of the season amplified by the tragedy took its toll. That year, Rosh Hashanah arrived with many reeling question marks about the whereabouts of some social acquaintances of mine. Later that year, when I met my sister Shana in New York and we went on what felt like a sacred pilgrimage of sorts, to Ground Zero, I recall still seeing a worn paper sign here and there, pleading for information on the whereabouts of a loved one. Even by Yom Kippur time, a fortnight or so later, I recall still connecting the alphabetical viddui prayer with the haunted alphabetical lists of those killed or being searched for, that were circulating. That year, Rosh Hashanah 2001, merged with 9/11, and to this day, a piece of that is carries over to Rosh Hashanah each year. Remembering Abraham Zelmanowitz’s heroism, a computer programmer for Empire Blue Cross and Blue Shield, on the 27th floor of Tower 1, who instead of rushing down the stairwell to save himself chose to stay behind and remain to the bitter end by the side of his colleague, Ed Beyea, a wheelchair bound quadriplegic. Learning of the heroism of Rick Rescorla, director of security for Morgan Stanley who, upon seeing the North Tower flames, not only ignored the message he received to have Morgan Stanley stay put, and instead made the call to evacuate the entire firm — a group of people numbering 2,700 — which he did successfully, but when re-entering the building against the

advice of bystanders who desperately prodded him to remain with them outside and not reenter the inferno, his reply was, “As soon as I make sure everyone else is out.” He was last seen heading upward in the South Tower, before it collapsed. He saved almost 3,000 lives. This year a Facebook friend posted: “The line all the way out the door at Ohab Zedek (on the Upper West side) on 9/11 to bentch gomel (give thanks for rescue) was one of the most powerful lines I’ve ever seen. Only second to the line to give blood, the very next day.” When you watch The Definitive Live News Montage of the events of 9/11 unfolding, a sequence of evolving raw bits of news from various channels and different human voices, piecemeal, literally piecing the story together, in horror, the human vulnerability factor is simply striking. We are clueless. e really don’t know what the next moment brings, let alone the next year. Life is so tenuous. Rosh Hashanah simulates the experience for us each year. On 9/11, erev Rosh Hashanah in 2001, this vulnerability, this tenuousness, on some level was not a theoretical simulation; it was felt and experienced in actual time. Of course, the holiday of Rosh Hashanah greets us with sweetness, with hope, with an optimism for new beginnings. On some level, though, for my generation and older, the juxtaposition of 9/11 and the introspection of Rosh Hashanah will always go hand in hand. But returning back to its motif of sweetness, may this Rosh Hashanah be the harbinger of much sweetness to come for you and your loved ones and for the entire House of Israel as well as the entire world. Upon the dawn of this year, shana tova umetukah!. Copyright Intermountain Jewish News

as a pornographical subject–you cannot discuss it in polite society.” If sacrificing a few words actually led to some tangible benefit, advocates of appeasement might be able to make a more persuasive case for their approach. But where is the evidence that appeasement dictators has ever worked? Did downplaying the plight of the Jews during the Holocaust lead to their rescue? Did watering down the State Department’s antisemitism report reduce antisemitism in the Arab world? Did “sacrificing a few adjectives” convince North Korea’s leaders to become more reasonable? Did following Saleha Abedin’s advice lead to democratic elections in Saudi Arabia? Instead of learning from the mistakes of the past, U.S. administrations seem to keep repeating them. Rafael Medoff is founding director of The David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies, and author or editor of 17 books about Jewish history and the Holocaust.

For Bernie, if it’s not selfhatred, then it’s stupidity To the editor, Andrew Silow-Carrol’s JTA article about self hating Jews (“Self-hatred: It’s not just for the self-haters!,” The Jewish Star, Sept. 15) claims that Bernie Sanders is not a self hating Jew just because he has a different political point of view. The result of Israel’s “occupation” of the territories from the Six Day War is a result of the Arab countries AND Palestinians trying to destroy Israel. There is a price to pay when you commit aggression. The Palestinians could have had a state of their own in 1947 when the United Nations voted to partition the area into a Jewish and Palestinian state. The Jews said yes and the Palestinians said no. The reason they said no was because by saying yes they would have agreed to the existence of a Jewish state. From 1948 to 1967 the Jordanians were in control of the West Bank and East Jerusalem and Egypt was in control of Gaza. They could have set up a Palestinian state without requiring Israel’s approval, but all they wanted to do is destroy Israel and throw the Jews into the sea. So they went to war and lost. Yasir Arafat, the leader of the Palestinians said that creating a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza is only the first step in the liberation of Palestine. Abbas, the current leader of the Palestinian Authority, said a couple of years ago that Jesus was a Palestinian. They teach their children that Jews have no connection at all to the land of Israel and only the Palestinians do. The Palestinians don’t want the Jews to have their own state. That is a historical fact. Bernie Sanders either ignores all these facts or doesn’t care. If he is not a self hating Jew than he definitely is a Stupid Jew who lives in La La land. Joseph Schnitzer, Woodmere

THE JEWISH STAR September 22, 2017 • 2 Tishrei 5778

Changing our words to appease the dictators

September 22, 2017 • 2 Tishrei 5778 THE JEWISH STAR

SHAbbAT STAR

‫כוכב של שבת‬

Nitzavim-Vayeilech

Candles 6:46, Havdalah 7:53

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

Hineni: We are here for today, and tomorrow Rabbi binny FReedman The hearT of jerusalem

ore than what he was saying, it was his face that caught my attention. Flicking on the television absent-mindedly as I was getting dressed for a wedding, I came across the middle of a program with a story from the Second Lebanon War. A young man was sharing what must have been an extremely difficult experience: the house his unit had taken refuge in was hit by a Hezbollah anti-tank missile, a number of his comrades had been killed and wounded, and he himself wasn’t sure he would make it. But what made me stop and listen was his face. He had lost comrades, yet there was no pain in his eyes, no tragic sadness in his voice. If anything, his eyes were animated; alive; and his voice was full of hope and promise. He spoke of his plans for the future and how lucky he was to have made it through, how he had been given a new lease on life and now was determined to make it a life worth living. I was taken by how “at peace” he seemed. The interviewer asked the veteran, “If you had the chance to do it over again, would you have made the same choices, would you have gone to fight?” He responded in the affirmative. At which point the cameraman panned back to reveal that the speaker was sitting in a wheelchair and had with no legs. His battle injuries had resulted in a double amputation, from the knee down. I was taken by the cameraman’s decision

to focus for so long on this young man’s face. If I had seen the whole picture I probably would have been focused on the legs that weren’t there, instead of the person that was. But on a deeper level, I was struck by how a person who had been through so much could remain so positive. “You would do this again?” the interviewer asked, “even if you knew you would suffer the same injuries?” His face took on a surprised look. “I had the privilege of serving as a Jewish soldier, in a Jewish army, defending the Jewish people in a Jewish state,” he said. “After 2,000 years of dreaming, I had this privilege. Of course I would do it again!” very year, on Rosh Hashanah we read two different stories: of the expulsion of Yishmael, Avraham’s first son with his handmaiden Hagar, and of the binding of Yitzchak. Both are stories of the sons of Abraham, and both involved Avraham’s ability to be willing to sacrifice, or let go of, a son. In the story of Yishmael, Avraham sends his son away, whereas in the story of Yitzchak, they come together. From a Jewish perspective, Yishmael seems to be a failure, departing from Jewish tradition and establishing the Arab nation. Yitzchak, on the other hand, is one of our forefathers, the progenitor of the Jewish people. Why do these two vastly disparate stories comprise the Torah readings in our Rosh Hashanah service, and what common theme is the message of their connection? The story of Yishmael is all about the here and now. Abraham, against his natural instincts of loving-kindness, is forced by G-d to listen to his wife Sarah and send Yishmael and his mother Hagar away. The Torah tells us that this is because Yishmael is me’tzachek (literally, laughing at — or with — Yitzchak). And while the midrashim and commentators

differ as to the exact meaning of this phrase, varying from lewd behavior to taunting, one thing is clear: Yitzchak, which literally means “he will laugh,” is juxtaposed with Yishmael, the me’tzachek, or one who laughs now. Yitzchak’s life is about the future, while Yishmael is all about the here and now. When Yishmael is cast beneath the bushes dying of thirst and calling out for water, G-d hears him “ba’asher hu’ sham,” where he is. The midrash, noting this unique phrase, has the angels in an uproar over G-d’s decision to save Yishmael. After all, they say, the descendants of this lad will one day slaughter G-d’s (Jewish) children, so how can G-d spare him now? G-d’s response? I hear his honest remorse and pain now, and if now he is repentant then he should be saved, whatever might come later on. The story of Yishmael, then, is all about the here and now. And the message is that whatever mistakes we may have made in the past, this moment is the beginning of the rest of our lives, and changing the now changes everything. Certainly a fitting message for Rosh Hashanah. nd what of Yitzchak and the binding of Yitzchak? Yitzchak is all about the future. Indeed, when G-d first “approaches: Avraham, the Torah tells us: “And it was after these things that G-d tested Avraham. And he said to him Avraham, and Avraham said: ‘Here I am’.” (Bereishit 22) The word hineni, Here I am, is a very significant word that means a lot more than a response to “knock knock.” This same word, used sparingly, is Moshe’s response to Gd’s calling at the Burning Bush, as well as Yaakov’s response to Yitzchak’s calling for a blessing. Whenever this word is used in

the Torah, it is indicative of an individual responding to a calling. Hineni means I am here, ready to serve, it is a moment of pure potential, wherein a person rises to the challenge of becoming all they could ever be. And it is in this moment of ‘hineni’ that Avraham says to G-d: ‘I exist because You created me; because You love me; whatever You ask of me, I live to do.’ And in truth, this is the essential kernel of what life is all about. If Hashem (G-d) created me, then I must have a purpose, and if Hashem loves me enough to have decided the world is better off with me still in it for at least another day, then all I want is to know is what Hashem wants of me. How can my being here, today, make the world better? Indeed, it is within the context of hineni that we respond to life’s greatest challenges. When Israeli reserve soldiers stop what they are doing and answer a call to battle, however painful and challenging that may be, they are essentially saying “here I am.” When we stop what we are doing, because the opportunity for a mitzvah, whether it be helping refugees from an earthquake in Japan, or rebuilding homes for the poor in Haiti, we are essentially saying: “hineni.” The Israeli reservist understands that his country needs him. He recognizes that he is needed, and he essentially says ‘here I am’. And this is true whenever we say Hineni. We see refugees from Sudan being beaten to death by Egyptians at the border and we stop what we are doing and say hineni. In the binding of Isaac, Avraham’s “hineni” aspires to a whole new level. Avraham says hineni without even having an inkling of what is coming. Avraham is responding to G-d before G-d has even told him what he wants. It is See Hineni on page 35

There is no time crying … this is Rosh Hashana Rabbi avi billet Parsha of The week

here is a tale of Rosh Hashana in the book of Nechemiah. It was in the initial years of the Return from the exile of 70 years following the destruction of the first Temple. The crowd that returned was very assimilated — many had intermarried, the people were not well-versed in Torah, and yet they returned to their ancestral homeland to reestablish the commonwealth that had been destroyed by the Babylonians, who were now gone. Be that as it may, Nechemiah chapter 8 relates the following: “The people gathered to the square that was before the Water Gate, and they said to Ezra the scholar to bring the Torah … and he brought it before the congregation of men and women… on the first day of the seventh month. He read in it … from the [first] light until midday in the presence of the men and the women and those who understood. … And Ezra opened the scroll before the eyes of the entire people. … And Ezra blessed the L-rd, the great G-d, and all

the people answered, ‘Amen, Amen,’ with the uplifting of their hands, and they bent their heads and prostrated themselves to the Lord on their faces to the ground. … “Then Nehemiah and Ezra … said to all the people, ‘This day is holy to the L-d your G-d; neither mourn nor weep,’ for all the people were weeping when they heard the words of the Law. And he said to them, Go, eat fat foods and drink sweet drinks and send portions to whoever has nothing prepared, for the day is holy to our Lord, and do not be sad, for the joy of the Lord is your strength.’ And the Levites quieted all the people, saying, ‘Hush, for the day is holy, and do not be sad.’ Then all the people went to eat and to drink and to send portions and to rejoice greatly, for they understood the words that they informed them of.” Rashi says the people were crying because they realized they had not been fulfilling the Torah properly. Ignorant of Torah they may have been, but sincere people trying to do what was right they also were. When the Tur compares Rosh Hashana to a Judgment Day of anyone in the world, he says people wear black and they may forget to groom, because they don’t know how things will turn out. But we wear white, and wrap ourselves in white, and we shave and cut fingernails, and eat and drink and we are

happy and joyous and confident for our outcome. The Talmud in Sukkah tells us that from the verse “the days of your joy, and your holidays, and your Rosh Chodeshes” we learn that the only Rosh Chodesh not celebrated as Rosh Chodesh, namely Rosh Hashana, is a special day of simcha! After bringing a number of rabbinic opinions who felt that Rosh Hashana should be a day of fasting, Rabbi Ovadiah Yosef notes that the simple understanding of Nechemiah’s response is that there were people who didn’t understand Rosh Hashana and felt they were supposed to fast! Nechemiah was explaining to them not to fast because Rosh Hashana is a day of joy. Rav Ovadiah writes that not only is it wrong to cry on Rosh Hashana, but on the contrary, a person should go through the prayers with pleasantness and with joy. Kaddish and kedusha are said with the selichos melody because there is an element of rejoicing which should be accompanied by trepidation. But the overwhelming attitude of this day is one of great joy. Yet Rav Ovadiah recounts a seeming contradiction. Rabbi Chaim Vital noted how the Arizal cried all day on Rosh Hashana, and even moreso – obviously – on Yom Kippur. And the Ar”i felt anyone who didn’t cry had

a soul that hadn’t been self-molded properly. On the other side, the Vilna Gaon felt that one is NOT ALLOWED TO CRY at all, and he would have the chazzan say a Kaddish with a melody more reflective of Yom Tov than of Selichos. Rav Ovadiah explains that there is no contradiction. A person should not be making himself cry. But if his intensity and his kavvanah brings him to cry, there is allowance for this. This was certainly the case with the Arizal, who carried the weight of the world on his shoulders because of his deep understanding of the Zohar and the secrets of the universe — he could be drawn to crying. Rav Ovadiah compared this to a known passage about Rabbi Akiva, who would cry on Shabbos when he read Shir HaShirim. When his students asked him how he cries when it is forbidden to be sad on Shabbos, he replied that it was therapeutic for him to cry, citing a fulfillment of oneg Shabbos, enjoying Shabbos. Perhaps the same means of getting to cry is ok here — if the crying comes from a place of Kedusha, and from a deep connection and longing for clinging to G-d – such as the Arizal approach, rather than out of fear. Rabbi Ovadiah puts it this way — “but to bring oneself to cry through a mournful act of crying is not permissible.” And he con-

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t is that time of year, a moment of intense retrospection, of looking inward to pave the way for teshuva, to perform the intense process of repentance from deeds that were of questionable spiritual value. Teshuva, to repent, is one of the most intense and important deeds for the Jewish people to engage in. With this in mind, and in preparation for the upcoming High Holidays, I would like to bring to your attention a new work based upon the classic work on teshuva, “Shaarei Teshuva,” by Rabbeinu Yonah of Gerona. Last year we witnessed the publication by Artscroll of a detailed translation and com-

mentary on this classic. This year, a new volume on this classic, a commentary with contemporary themes and convincing methodology was recently released in Jerusalem timed and themed for this holiday season. “Opening The Gates of Teshuva: A Contemporary Commentary on Rabbeinu Yona’s Shaarei Teshuva” (Adir Press) by Rabbi Asher Baruch Wegbreit of Yeshiva Bircas HaTorah in Jerusalem, was compiled to give the modern Jewish reader a comprehensive thematic understanding of our sages teachings as a useful and practical tool for to the enhancement of one’s commitment to Teshuva. As has been my want, I will now give the author the opportunity to present his take on his method for your edification. Please read Rabbi Wegbreit’s teachings carefully. His case in expressing the need for a modern commentary on Shaarei Teshuva in my opinion is most compelling:

“No one can deny that Shaarei Teshuva is one of the most important texts in Jewish history. Other than the Rambam’s Hilchos Teshuva, Shaarei Teshuva arguably stands alone as a guide and source of inspiration for the profoundly important mitzvah of teshuva.” This brief introduction leads the rabbi to

The diverse world of teshuvah rAbbi dAvid etenGoff

f you ask most Jews, “What is the name of the next holy day after Rosh Hashanah,” they would probably respond with, “Yom Kippur.” They would answer in this fashion, since it is the popular name for this Yom Tov even though the appellation, “Yom Kippur,” is nowhere to be found in Tanach. Instead, on two occasions in Vayikra, we encounter the expressions, “Yom HaKippurim” and “b’Yom HaKippurim:” “But on the tenth of this seventh month [Tishrei], it is a day of atonement (Yom HaKippurim), it shall be a holy occasion for you; you shall afflict yourselves, and you shall offer up a fire offering to the L-rd.” (23:27) “You shall proclaim [with] the shofar blasts, in the seventh month, on the tenth of the month; on the Day of Atonement (b’Yom

Hineni… Continued from page 34 enough for Avraham to know he is called, for him to immediately respond ‘Hineni’. This Hineni is all about the future: whatever you ask of me, whatever today and tomorrow bring: ‘Hineni’. And this, incidentally, sets the theme of the story of the binding of Isaac. Where the story of Yishamael was all about the here and now, the story of Yitzchak is all about what lies ahead. Indeed, where Yishmael is the ‘metzachek’ the one who laughs now, Yitzchak literally means ‘he will laugh’ in the future. Yishamel is about being in the present, in the given moment, and Yitzchak is about seeing and being ready to accept and to live up to the moment that is yet to come. This is one of the most essential ingredients of a loving relationship. Imagine your daughter calls you up from school and you can hear the quiver in her voice; sense the tears that are on the verge

HaKippurim), you shall sound the shofar throughout your land. (25:9) My rebbe and mentor, Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik zatzal (the Rav), was intrigued by the Torah’s use of the plural construct “kippurim” (“atonements”) rather than “kippur” (“atonement”). As such, he asked, “Why does the Torah refer to the day in the plural, as Yom ha-Kippurim?” (This, and the following quotations of the Rav, are from Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, “Darosh Darash Yosef: Discourses of Rav Yosef Dov Halevi Soloveitchik on the Weekly Parashah,” edited by Rabbi Avishai C. David, pages 258-260) The Rav’s initial response sets the tone for his overall analysis: “The answer is that one may do teshuvah [the process and act of repentance] in many ways, and G-d accepts all of them.” This statement is conceptually based upon the following Talmudic passage: Reish Lakish said: Great is repentance, for because of it, premeditated sins are accounted as errors, as it is said: ‘Return, O Israel, to the L-rd your G-d, for you have stumbled in your iniquity.’ (Hoshea 14:2) ‘Iniquity’ is premedi-

of bursting forth, and you instantly know hineni: here I am; whatever she needs. Or when your wife calls down from upstairs; the ability to be in that hineni mode is all about how much trust and love already exists in that moment. If my wife asks something of me, then it must be important, even before I know what it is. And this is the essence of our relationship with Hashem. Being in the moment of Yishmael and the readiness to serve in the future of Yitzchak, are what Rosh Hashana is all about. We have the chance to start over and learn to balance our ability to live in the present and be in the moment, while at the same time open to whatever life’s next moment has to bring. As we begin the New Year, may we all be blessed to appreciate the beauty inherent in every moment, alongside the challenges, and may we be blessed as well with the strength to change the future, so that the world as it is, becomes the world as it could be. Wishing you all a sweet, happy, and healthy New Year. This column originally appeared in 2011.

tated, and yet he [Hoshea] calls it ‘stumbling!’ But that is not so! For Reish Lakish said [at a different time] that repentance is so great that premeditated sins are accounted as though they were merits, as it is said: And when a wicked man repents of his wickedness and performs justice and righteousness, he shall live because of them.” (Yechezkel 33:14) That is no contradiction: One refers to a case [of teshuvah] derived from love [teshuvah meahavah wherein sins are accounted as merits], the other to one due to fear [teshuvah mi-yirah wherein sins are accounted as errors]. (Talmud Bavli, Yoma 86b) The Rav summarizes and expands upon this passage in a manner that significantly informs our understanding of the varieties of teshuvah: “One may do teshuvah in many ways, and G-d accepts all of them. Teshuvah may be sincere, turbulent, or exultant. Whether it is teshuvah me-ahavah – repentance motivated by love – or teshuvah mi-yirah – repentance motivated by fear – G-d in His mercy accepts it. The plural phrase, “Yom ha-Kippurim” reflects the diverse world of teshuvah whether it arises from reflection, joy or sadness. I believe the Rav’s phrase, “the diverse world of teshuvah,” does a great deal to advance our comprehension of teshuvah and, by extension, Yom HaKippurim. Teshuvah is not a “one size fits all” experience. Instead, just like the Jewish people is comprised of many different kinds of individuals, teshuvah is pluralistic in nature. As such, Yom HaKippurim itself, wherein “the mitzvat ha-yom (the mitzvah of the day) is teshuvah,” (p. 258) is equally multifaceted in nature. Therefore, no two people share the exact same experience of this exceptionally holy day, since for some, teshuvah me-ahavah is the order of the moment, and for others, teshuvah mi-yirah. The key is that the Master of the Universe accepts all varieties of teshuvah, as long as they represent a heartfelt desire to re-encounter and reconnect with Him. The prophet Hoshea declared long ago, “Return, O Israel, to the L-rd your G-d, for you have stumbled in your iniquity.” (14:2) With Hashem’s help, and our fervent passion to reunite with Him, may this Yom ha-Kippurim be the time when we undertake the teshuvah process, each in our own unique way, and thereby merit the fulfillment of the verse, “You are children of the L-rd, your G-d.” (Devarim 14:1) V’chane yihi ratzon.

For both weeks of Sukkot, The Jewish Star will be distributed on Tuesday

FOR FURTHER STUDY

Last year we experienced the teachings of Rabbi Immanuel Bernstein from his excellent sefer, “Teshuvah” (Mosaica Press). If you already have it, do reread it. If you do not have a copy, I strongly urge you to buy one. Also, Far Rockaway’s Rabbi Yechiel Yitzchok Perr’s excellent anthology of teachings, “Mind Over Man: The Climb to Greatness” (Israel Bookshop), adopted by Rabbi Yehuda Keilson, will provide you with a series of excellent teachings that will further add to the spiritual quality of the upcoming holidays. And, lastly for this week, please consider Woodmere’s Rabbi Yanki Tauber’s volume two, “Inside Time: Rosh Hashanah to Purim” (Meaningful Life Center) as an excellent source of short teachings for this holiday season and beyond. In the meantime may I take this opportunity to wish you, my dear readers, a heartfelt ketiva v’chatima tovah.

35 THE JEWISH STAR September 22, 2017 • 2 Tishrei 5778

Entering the gates of teshuva

relate to us further both his method and purpose: “I resolved to provide an English commentary that is based on some of the highly regarded commentaries available in Hebrew. These include the recent classic Zeh HaShaar by Rav Benyamin Zilber; Shaarei Teshuva HaMevo’ar by Rav Modechai Zuckerman; and a recent work by the noted baal mussar Rav Eliahu Rote entitled Shaarei Teshuva HaMeforash. These works bring out myriad deep and masterful insights in Rabbeinu Yonah’s work. “In addition, I felt that there was another compelling reason to attempt a contemporary version of this classic work: I was concerned that the relevance of this text to our lives — and our obligation of yiras Hashem, the mitzvah to fear G-d — can be lost in a mere translation into English. This is due to the perceived fragility of our generation. Many great rabbis have cautioned against placing too much emphasis on the topic of ‘fear of punishment.’ Therefore, a modern-day reader who reads Shaarei Teshuva may be afraid to focus on what appears to be a great deal of ‘fire and brimstone’.” Rabbi Wegbreit’s basic motive and theme in writing this sefer can be summed up in the following phrase: “Rendering fear of Hashem accessible to our generation,” that being that when teaching belief, emunah, we must be clear in our teachings in basic, clearly explained language as to what G-d expects from us, at all times. “Recognizing the power contained in this work, I attempted to distill Rabbeinu Yonah’s insights in a way that demonstrates how we can reframe our perspective in favor of the life — enhancing view of the Torah. We can attempt to absorb the true outlook concerning good and evil. “In addition, I provided many practical exercises to enable the reader to experience Shaarei Teshuva as a guidebook, transforming the concept of complete teshuva from something out of reach to something feasible. My goal is to empower every Jew with the ability to do teshuva that ascends to the Throne of Glory.” To say that this work is different from other works on teshuva would be a gross understatement. We live in both dangerous and most difficult of times. Our faith makes many demands upon us. Both our life style and our religious obligations mandate many obligations that could prove to be most daunting to the average adherent of our faith. Giving our fellow Jews both deep purpose and convincing reason to adhere to the words of and commands by G-d require deep teaching methods and sincere purpose of faith. Anything less could lead to a failure in the success of doing true and successful teshuva at this most sacred time of year. Rabbi Wegbreit, in his method of presentment gives us the answer to our quest for spiritual success.

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Continued from page 1 meeting occurred during the week of Aug. 23 instead of Aug. 17, an indication that more of the story was not fact checked. The National Security Council official’s account of the meeting was similar to that of the Israeli Embassy spokesman. The official assured me that meeting was “uniformly collegial and cordial and no voices were raised at any time. There was certainly an intensity about it given the appreciation on both sides for the severity of the threat from Hizbollah — but that is because they concurred so strongly, not because there was any disagreement. General McMaster was in full agreement.” This is the second time in a month that an enemy of General McMaster within the White House (or possibly one who just left) created a story about McMaster and Israel that was false (see The Jewish Star Aug. 17 issue). The first claim was that he is an enemy of Israel which was shown to be false though McMasters own words prior to joining the administration and endorsements given him by senior Israeli security officials who worked with him and knew him. As we begin Rosh Hashanah and enter the yomim noraim period we remember that we are supposed to apologize to the people who we have wronged and begin atoning for our sins. Whether they are Jewish or not, I recommend to these teller of McMaster tales that even if they can’t bring themselves to call General McMaster and apologize, this would be a perfect time stop their politically motivated slanders and atone for their wrongdoings.

L'SHANA Qatar… TOVA!

Continued from page 1 But Qatar has not done any of these things. If Jewish leaders must meet with the emir, they should quietly, restrict the conversation to tangible political issues, and make crystal clear that a private meeting is not a public blessing. Those Jewish organizations that already have connections with Qatar should arrange meetings through their own

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contacts, rather than through a hired PR flak whose sole job is to burnish Qatar’s reputation, regardless of whether the emirate remains — as the late Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres memorably described it in 2015, the “world’s largest funder of terror.” And if the publicity-conscious Qataris issue a statement hailing a new era in relations with American Jews — without making any real concessions first — then our leaders have a duty to disavow them.

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THE JEWISH STAR September 22, 2017 • 2 Tishrei 5778

By Ben Sales, JTA A few weeks ago, Holly Davies was getting ready to homeschool her kids and preparing the family for the High Holidays. When Hurricane Harvey hit, she helped evacuate 150 people from her neighborhood by airboat and shelter nearly 100 people in a local church. Then came the hard part. For the past three weeks, Davies has been leading a force of up to 300 volunteers who have mobilized to repair homes and synagogues in and around the heavily Jewish housing development of Willow Meadows. Davies has spent September coordinating teams who are clearing Sheetrock, stripping floors, preventing mold and distributing aid. Her volunteer operation is headquartered in Beit Rambam, a Sephardic shul that was spared flooding, and has helped rehabilitate the homes of about 100 families. But Davies is also helping lead the effort to make sure those families have a place to pray when Rosh Hashanah begins. “It’s very important for the community to have their central worship place, to not feel fragmented, not only in their homes but in their community,” she said. “A lot of people are staying with friends or other people in the community.” As the entire Houston area recovers from Harvey, synagogues face the added difficulty of drying out their buildings days before the holiest and busiest days of the year. Three large synagogues sustained substantial damage from the flood, forcing them to improvise, relocate or make do with whatever floors, books and ritual objects remained intact. The United Orthodox Synagogues congregation had up to six feet of flooding in some places and also lost most of its prayer books. Congregation Beth Israel had damage in its sanctuary, mechanical room and offices. “There was not any part of the synagogue that was immune to the flooding,” said Brian Strauss, spiritual leader of Beth Yeshurun, a Conservative congregation. “There was water covering the first seven rows of the sanctuary. You couldn’t even see the seats.” No Torah scrolls were damaged at any of the congregations, as they were in high places when the flooding began. United Orthodox isn’t sure if the building can ever be completely repaired, while Strauss is shooting for his building to be back to normal for the High Holidays — in 2018. In the meantime, the synagogues have found makeshift solutions. United Orthodox’s 300 families have been praying, meeting and eating in a large social hall that avoided the worst of the water. The shul has also had hundreds of new prayer books donated from publishing companies and synagogues outside Houston, including 400 machzors for the High Holidays. “Everyone is being incredibly cooperative and patient,” said Rabbi Barry Gelman of United Orthodox Synagogues. “This is an incredibly responsive community. Despite this, we’re really looking forward to a beautiful Rosh Hashanah.” The rabbis have handled their synagogues’ recovery while also dealing with personal crises. Both Rabbi Gelman and Strauss had flooding in their houses. Rabbi Gelman, along with a few dozen Jewish families, has moved to an apartment complex near the synagogue that he now calls a “kibbutz.” Other religious families are hosting displaced neighbors who want to stay within walking distance of their shuls. “There’s a lot of expenses, there’s the physical upheaval, the emotional upheaval,” Rabbi Gelman said. “There’s a lot of uncertainty, stress. The human cost of this is really unimaginable and ongoing.” Houston’s Jewish community has also been buoyed by outside donations. Aside from approximately $9 million raised by the local federation, Israel pledged $1 million in aid, and the Orthodox Union and Chabad also sent money and volunteers. A kosher barbecue food truck from Dallas drove down and has been making up to 1,000 meals a day. Seasons, the Five Towns-based kosher supermarket chain, and Chasdei Lev, a charitable organization in New York, sent trucks of kosher perishable items and dry goods, including clothes. “Food is getting semi-back to normal,” said Tzivia Weiss, executive director of the Houston Kashruth Association.

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CAlendar of Events

Send your events to Calendar@TheJewishStar.com • Deadline noon Friday • Compiled by Zachary Schechter Women’s Teshuva Lecture: Join Michal Horowitz at the YI of Woodmere for a teshuva lecture for women. 9:30 am. 859 Peninsula Blvd, Woodmere. 516-295-0950. Annual Teshuva Lecture: YI of Woodmere hosts Rabbi Yissocher Frand who will be giving a shiur on teshuva following 6 pm Mincha on Tzom Gedalia. 859 Peninsula Blvd, Woodmere. 516295-0950.

Monday Sept 25

Women’s Shiur: [Weekly] Dr. Anette Labovitz’s women shiur will continue at Aish Kodesh. 10 am. 894 Woodmere Pl, Woodmere. Insights into Yom Kippur: Men and women are invited to join Rabbi Shalom Axelrod at the YI of Woodmere for a shiur titled “Insights into Yom Kippur.” 8 pm. 859 Peninsula Blvd, Woodmere. 516-295-0950. Seeing Things Clearly: [Weekly] Join Rabbi Shalom Yona Weis at Aish Kodesh for a shiur for women and high school girls titled “Seeing Things Clearly- Learning to View Our World and Our Lives Through Positive Lenses. 8:45 pm. 894 Woodmere Pl, Woodmere.

Tuesday Sept 26

Insights into Yom Kippur: Men and women are invited to join Rabbi Shalom Axelrod at the YI of Woodmere for a shiur titled “Insights into Yom Kippur.” 9:30 am. 859 Peninsula Blvd, Woodmere. 516-295-0950. Women’s Shiur: [Weekly] Rebbetzin Weinberger of Aish Kodesh will give a shiur on the “Midah of Seder in our Avodas Hashem.” 11 am. 894 Woodmere Pl, Woodmere.

Annual Bikur Cholim Tea: The Queens chapter of Bikur Cholim D’Satmar invites you to the Annual Tea at Congregation Shaare Tova there will be a buffet dinner, a Chinese auction and valet parking. 7:30 pm. 82-33 Lefferts Blvd, Kew Gardens. 718-441-8663. Jewish History: [Weekly] Join Rabbi Evan Hoffman at the YI of Woodmere for a talk on Jewish History. 8:15 pm. 859 Peninsula Blvd, Woodmere. 516-295-0950. The World of Reb Tazadok Hakohen: [Weekly] Shiur by Rabbi Yussie Zakutinsky at Aish Kodesh. 8:30 pm. 894 Woodmere Pl, Woodmere. Halacha Shiur: [Weekly] Join Rabbi Moshe Sokoloff at the YI of Woodmere for a halacha shiur. 8:40 pm. 859 Peninsula Blvd, Woodmere. 516-295-0950. Gemara Shiur: [Weekly] Join Rabbi Dr. Aaron Glatt at the YI of Woodmere for a gemara shiu. 9:15 pm. 859 Peninsula Blvd, Woodmere. 516295-0950. Jewish History: [Weekly] Join Rabbi Evan Hoffman at the YI of Woodmere for a talk on Jewish History. 8:15 pm. 859 Peninsula Blvd, Woodmere. 516-295-0950. The World of Reb Tazadok Hakohen: [Weekly] Shiur by Rabbi Yussie Zakutinsky at Aish Kodesh. 8:30 pm. 894 Woodmere Pl, Woodmere. Halacha Shiur: [Weekly] Join Rabbi Moshe Sokoloff at the YI of Woodmere for a halacha shiur. 8:40 pm. 859 Peninsula Blvd, Woodmere. 516-295-0950. Gemara Shiur: [Weekly] Join Rabbi Dr. Aaron Glatt at the YI of Woodmere for a gemara shiu. 9:15 pm. 859 Peninsula Blvd, Woodmere. 516-295-0950.

Wednesday-Thursday Sept 27-28

Trump of the Young Israel of Lawrence Cedarhurst for a shiur on Sefer Shoftim. 8 pm. 8 Spruce St, Cedarhust.

Wednesday Sept 27

Shiur and Tehillim Group: [Weekly] Join the women of YI of Woodmere at the home of Devorah Schochet. 9:15 pm. 559 Saddle Ridge Rd.

Live Kapparot: Chabad of Great Neck will have live chickens for kappatot on Wednesday and Thursday. Wednesday: 3-6 pm. Thursday: 3-7 pm. $26/person. 400 East Shore Rd, Great Neck. Parsha Shiur: [Weekly] Join Michal Horowitz at the YI of Woodmere for a special shiur on the parsha. 9:30 am. 859 Peninsula Blvd, Woodmere. 516-295-0950. Strengthening Our Bitachon: Women’s Shiur: [The Eliezer Institute presents a panel on “Strengthening Our Bitachon During the Yomim Noraim” for both men and women. Featuring presentations by Rabbi Shaya Cohen, Rabbi Yaakov Feirman and Rabbi Aryeh Zev Ginsberg. 8 pm. 395 Oakland Ave, Cedarhurst. Jewish History: [Weekly] Join Rabbi Evan Hoffman at the YI of Woodmere for a talk on Jewish History. 8:15 pm. 859 Peninsula Blvd, Woodmere. 516-295-0950. The World of Reb Tazadok Hakohen: [Weekly] Shiur by Rabbi Yussie Zakutinsky at Aish Kodesh. 8:30 pm. 894 Woodmere Pl, Woodmere. Halacha Shiur: [Weekly] Join Rabbi Moshe Sokoloff at the YI of Woodmere for a halacha shiur. 8:40 pm. 859 Peninsula Blvd, Woodmere. 516-295-0950. Gemara Shiur: [Weekly] Join Rabbi Dr. Aaron Glatt at the YI of Woodmere for a gemara shiu. 9:15 pm. 859 Peninsula Blvd, Woodmere. 516295-0950. Timely Tanach: [Weekly] Join Rabbi Ya’akov

Chumash and Halacha Shiur: [Weekly] Shiur with Rabbi Yosef Richtman at Aish Kodesh. 8 pm. 894 Woodmere Pl, Woodmere.

Thursday Sept 28

Iyun Tefilah: [Weekly] Rabbi Moshe Teitelbaum at the Young Israel of Lawrence Cedarhust. 9:45 am. 8 Spruce St, Cedarhust. Learn Maseches Brachos: [Weekly] Join Rabbi Eliyahu Wolf at the YI of Woodmere for a shiur on Maseches Brachos. 5:15 pm. 859 Peninsula Blvd, Woodmere. 516-295-0950. Yom Kippur Shiur: Men and women are invited to join Rabbi Dr. Aaron Glatt at the YI of Woodmere for a discussion on the Yom Kippur Davening. 8:15 pm. 859 Peninsula Blvd, Woodmere. 516-295-0950. Yom Hadin Lecture: Men and women are invited to a special lecture in preparation for the Yom Hadin given by Rabbi Eli Mansour at Congregation Ohr Torah, sponsored by Holy Schnitzel. 410 Hungry Harbor Rd, North Woodmere. Ofeer@holyschnitzel.com Jewish History: [Weekly] Join Rabbi Evan Hoffman at the YI of Woodmere for a talk on Jewish History. 8:15 pm. 859 Peninsula Blvd, Woodmere. 516-295-0950. The World of Reb Tazadok Hakohen: [Weekly] Shiur by Rabbi Yussie Zakutinsky at Aish Kodesh. 8:30 pm. 894 Woodmere Pl, Woodmere.

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THE JEWISH STAR September 22, 2017 • 2 Tishrei 5778

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Woodmere fire join Israelâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s ars trucks on war

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â&#x20AC;&#x153;Use your imagination, think outside the box.â&#x20AC;? Lavie referenced Cornell Universityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s founder in showing how Israeli startup culture plays into Cornell Techâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s technology focus. â&#x20AC;&#x153;With this campus, Cornell and Technion are making a clear statement: practical knowledge, to paraphrase Ezra Cornell, is not inferior nor second to basic knowledge,â&#x20AC;? he said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;They are the sides of the same coin. This concept is part of the Technionâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s DNA and more broadly the State of Israel, which is known as startup nation.â&#x20AC;?

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By Josefin Dolsten, JTA A high-tech teaching and research center born of a collaboration between Cornell University and the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology has inaugurated its newly built campus on Roosevelt Island. Over 500 people were present for the inauguration Wednesday morning of Cornell Tech and the Jacobs Technion-Cornell Institute, including Mayor Bill de Blasio, Gov. Andrew Cuomo, former Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Cornell University President Martha Pollack and Technion Institute President Peretz Lavie. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Today we take a bold step in the tech arena with the opening of this campus,â&#x20AC;? Cuomo said prior to the ribbon-cutting ceremony. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s ambitious â&#x20AC;&#x201D; it was almost an audacious dream when we started.â&#x20AC;? De Blasio joked, addressing the Technion president, â&#x20AC;&#x153;In New York, Peretz, we would say this is a mitzvah.â&#x20AC;? Bloomberg, who conceived of the $2 billion project when he was mayor and donated $100 million to it, said Cornell Tech would help re-establish New York as a technological center. â&#x20AC;&#x153;In many ways, this project helps bring New York City back to the future,â&#x20AC;? he said, citing various technological features of the campus, such as the goal to make the main academic center one of the largest net-zero energy buildings in the world. In 2010, Bloomberg invited top universities to submit pitches to build the campus. The winners would receive both funding and land on Roosevelt Island, a two-mile long island on the East River. In 2011, the city declared Cornell and the Technion winners, and the project opened the following year, operating out of a temporary location in Manhattanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Chelsea

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Standing proud with Balfour, 100 years later By Eliana Rudee, JNS.org In anticipation of the 100th anniversary of the Balfour Declaration, British and Israeli senior officials convened in Jerusalem this week to discuss the past, present, and future of British-Israeli relations. The Balfour Declaration was a British government public statement, issued Nov. 2, 1917, that offered support for the establishment of a “national home” in Palestine for the Jewish people. The declaration is credited with galvanizing popular support for Zionism. During the conference, dubbed “From Balfour to Brexit” and held Sept. 13 and 14 to inaugurate the new Jerusalem-based Sir Naim Dangoor Centre for UK-Israel Relations, Lord Roderick Balfour, the 5th Earl of Balfour

— and great-great nephew of former Foreign Secretary Lord Arthur Balfour — reminisced fondly about the “family folklore” of his ancestor’s “very important letter.” Speakers at the conference, among them former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, Israeli Ambassador to Britain Mark Regev, Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, and Natan Sharansky, chairman of the Jewish Agency for Israel, focused on the history and future of British-Israeli relations. They also discussed the possible political and historical implications of Britain’s upcoming exit from the European Union as mandated by last year’s so-called Brexit vote. Jonathan Freedland, columnist for the Guardian and presenter of BBC Radio 4’s contemporary history series “The Long View,”

From left: Lord Roderick Balfour; Moti Schwarz, Mishkenot Sha’ananim’s director general; David Dangoor, and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair. Erez Harodi

spoke of the legacy of the Balfour Declaration from a British-Jewish perspective. He maintained it is “mostly talked about by people who would seek to criticize or doubt Israel’s right to exist, because there are people who wish to cast Israel as an imperialist project.” Freedland suggested Britain’s Jewish community likely would adopt a muted approach to the declaration’s 100th anniversary. British Jews, he said, “would rather talk about the U.N. vote of 1947 because U.N. votes give a legitimacy that stands in today’s perspective compared to a British decision with origins of an imperial whim of Sir Mark Sykes.” He was referring to the Sykes-Picot treaty that divided up much of the former Ottoman Empire’s Middle East holdings into modern states. “The idea of imperialist Britain and France sitting with a pen and a map — this is not the history of national liberation Jews would like to invoke,” Freedland added. In the declaration, the British government promised to use its “best endeavours” to facilitate the creation of a national home for the Jewish people in Palestine, with the stipulation “that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.” Recently, Palestinians attempted to persuade the British government to disavow the Balfour Declaration, claiming Britain had not upheld its promise to safeguard the civil rights of Arabs in the disputed territories. The Balfour Apology Campaign, which has garnered more than 13,000 signatures, seeks an official apology from Britain for its “colonial history” against the Palestinian people. Palestinian Authority Foreign Minister Riyad al-Maliki has called on British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson to issue a “Johnson Declaration,” akin to the Balfour Declaration, recognizing a Palestinian state. The British Foreign Office has said it does not intend to apologize for the Balfour Declaration, calling it “a historic statement” and adding, “we are proud of our role in creating the state of Israel. The task is now to encourage moves towards peace.” Asked what he thought his great-great uncle would say about Israel if he were here today, Balfour responded, “I would guess that most of the members of government of the day would say that it was a very good thing that they backed the idea of a home for the Jews because there are six million Jews [in Israel].”

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