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BALFOUR Vayera • Friday, November 3, 2017 • 14 Cheshvan 5778 • Luach page 21 • Torah columns pages 20–21 • Vol 16, No 41

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At declaration’s centennial, a source of joy and derision

To British, Palestine just another colony

To Abbas and Hamas, it was ‘original sin’ Jonathan S. toBin

Ben Cohen Viewpoint

Arthur James Balfour

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

Corbyn boycotts B’four event Britain Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn— who in 2009 called Hezbollah and Hamas his “friends” — said he would not attend a dinner commemorating the centennial of the Balfour Declaration. Prime Minister Theresa May she would attend “with pride” and Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu would be her guest. “We are proud of the role we played in the creation of the State of Israel and we will certainly mark the centenary with pride,” May said. “I am also pleased that good trade relations and other relations that we have with Israel we are building on and enhancing.”

IsraAID brings relief to U.S. disasters

SEE PAGE 27

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Niveen Rizkalla working with IsraAID in Santa Rosa, Calif., in the wake of deadly wildfires there.

By Ron Kampeas, JTA WASHINGTON — For 17 years, the Israeli NGO IsraAID has been performing search and rescue, purifying water, providing emergency medical assistance and walking victims of trauma back to psychological health in dozens of disaster-hit countries. But no season has been busier than this past summer and fall, its co-CEO Yotam Polizer said in an interview — and nowhere more than in the United States. “The last few months have been unbelievable,” he said, listing a succession of disasters that occupied local staff and volunteers since August: Hurricane Harvey in Texas, Hurricane Irma in Florida,

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or the Palestinians, the year zero is not 1948, when the state of Israel came into being, but 1917, when Great Britain issued, on Nov. 2, the Balfour Declaration—expressing support for the establishment of a “Jewish national home” in Palestine. So central is the Balfour Declaration to Palestinian political identity that the “Zionist invasion” is officially deemed to have begun in 1917—not in 1882, when the first trickle of Jewish pioneers from Russia began arriving, nor in 1897, when the Zionist movement held its first congress in Basel, nor in the late 1920s, when thousands of German Jews fleeing the rise of Nazism chose to go to Palestine. The year 1917 is the critical date because that is when, as an anti-Zionist might say, the Zionist hand slipped effortlessly into the British imperial glove. It is a neat, simple historical proposition upon which the entire Palestinian version of events rests: an empire came to our land and gave it to foreigners, we were dispossessed, and for five generations now, we have continued to resist. Moreover, it is given official sanction in the Palestine National Covenant of 1968, in which article 6 defines Jews who “were living permanently in Palestine until the beginning of the Zionist invasion” as “Palestinians”—an invasion that is dated as 1917 in the covenants’ notes. As the Balfour Declaration’s centenary approached, this theme is much in evidence. There is now a dedicated Balfour Apology See Cohen on page 22

Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico, and then the wildfires in northern California. Polizer recalls that he was wrapping up a visit to IsraAID’s new American headquarters in Palo Alto on Oct. 8 and was on his way to a flight to Mexico to oversee operations after a devastating earthquake there when he got word of the wildfires. “I literally had to do a Uturn,” he said this week in an interview at the Israeli embassy in Washington. Polizer spoke with the exhilaration of an executive whose team has come through a daunting challenge. “We’re the people who stay past the ‘aid festival’,” he said, grinning, describing the See IsraAID on page 5

Judo warriors’ ‘gentle way’ to athletic glory By Andrew Tobin, JTA TEL AVIV — Israel’s national judo team put on a tutorial in sportsmanship last week in Abu Dhabi. Despite being snubbed by opponents and officials alike, the athletes won five medals and treated the tournament and their opponents with respect. Moshe Ponte, president of the Israel Judo Association, said the team was guided by the Japanese meaning of the word “judo” itself: the “gentle way,” or using the strength of one’s opponents against them. “The medals are a finger in Abu Dhabi’s eye,” Israel’s Culture and Sport Minister Miri Regev said, picking a decidedly un-judo-like metaphor after the first day of the three-day Abu Dhabi Grand Slam. Israel won, she said, even though their opponents tried to hide the Israelis “in the dark.” Regev was referring to Abu Dhabi’s ban of Israeli symbols at the tournament. The Israeli flag did not appear during medal ceremonies, and the national anthem was not played for Israel’s gold medalist. Israel and the United Arab Emirates do not have relations. The news of Israelis racking up medals at the tournament — and videos either of their opponents scurrying away during the handshakes or of one Israeli winner plaintively singing the words of Israeli national anthem despite the ban — set off torrents of Israeli pride and indignation. And in Israel, it set off a debate: Should its athletes stay away from tournaments in regions where they are sure to be snubbed, or take part and try to shame (or even charm) their hosts into recognizing them? Throughout the UAW tournment, the Israeli athletes quietly found ways to highlight their national identity. Tal Flicker, who

won gold Thursday in the men’s under-66 kilogram category, sang the Israeli anthem, “Hatikva,” while the International Judo Federation’s anthem played in the hall. The federation’s flag, not Israel’s, hung above him. After winning the bronze medal in the over 100-kilogram category, Israel’s Or Sasson, who also won bronze at the Rio Olympics, pointed to the bare patch on his uniform where the competitors from other countries had their national flag. “As you can see, I don’t have the flag,” he said. “But my heart is always, always with the State of Israel. I hope I made you proud, and I will always continue to represent you with pride.” At the end of at least two matches, athletes from Arab countries, one from Morocco and the other from the United Arab Emirates, refused the outstretched hands of the Israelis who defeated them. One of the Israelis, Tohar Butul, went on to win bronze in the men’s lightweight category. In Israel, some questioned Ponte’s decision to go to the tournament. Itzik Shaso, a columnist for Israel’s Yediot Aharonot newspaper, on Sunday outlined the divide in public opinion between the “patriots,” who support boycotting the tournament, and the “pragmatists,” who are displeased with the conditions but welcome the chance to make a statement on the mat. “According to [the patriots], the elevator music that played instead of the anthem for gold medal-winner Tal Flicker was indeed embarrassing, and the [federation] flag on the athletes’ backs indeed looked like some scribblings, but if they are letting us slam some goyim on the mat without the United Nations condemning it, wouldn’t it be a shame to

too much. “It is doubtful that all those who eagerly read about the exploits of our athletes could identify Tal Flicker on the street,” he wrote. “It’s just another opportunity to rise up. To be angry. Most importantly, to be a victim.” While righteous outrage may be good politics, the judo team’s performance in Abu Dhabi seemed to produce results. On Saturday, the United Arab Emirates top judo official publicly apologized to Ponte for the refusal by his athlete to shake his Israeli competitor’s hand. Ponte said the same official privately promised to do what he could to make sure the team could display its flag and hear its national anthem next year. Ponte said the team, overall, was treated very well by its hosts. By comparison, last time Israel competed in the Abu Dhabi Grand Slam, in 2015, Ponte said, no one even shook his hand. He attributed the change at least in part to what happened on the mat. The team won three more medals this year than last time, and the gold forced the anthem issue. “I think winning makes a difference,” he said. “At this point, it’s worse for them to discriminate against us than not.” Ponte said he hoped Abu Dhabi would change its rules as promised. But he said regardless, Israel would be at the competition gathering points to qualify for the 2020 Olympic Games. In Tokyo, he said, Israeli would be able to see their flag and hear their anthem. “If one of my athletes would fail to qualify for the Olympics because we refused to come to Abu Dhabi, then you’d really see people angry,” he said, laughing. “Israelis will see the flag and hear the anthem in Tokyo, and that’s the most important thing.”

Tal Flicker, shown at the Judo World Championship in Budapest in August, won gold at the Abu Dhabi Grand Slam. Rok Rakun/Pacific Press/LightRocket via Getty Images

waste the opportunity?” Shaso wrote. “Ponte decided to go [to the tournament], and I told him to win against all those who boycott us,” Regev said. Similarly, Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely said that her ministry had not been involved in negotiations over the tournament given Israel’s lack of diplomatic relations with Abu Dhabi. But she nonetheless touted the team’s participation as a sign of Israeli power. Writing for Israel’s Walla! Sport website, reporter Yaniv Tuchman accused his fellow Israelis of enjoying being the victims a little

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November 3, 2017 • 14 Cheshvan 5778 THE JEWISH STAR

Children entering the Halom Jewish Community Center in Kiev.

Cnaan Liphshiz

Kiev’s American-style JCC gives poor Jews millionaire’s treatment By Cnaan Liphshiz, JTA KIEV — This city of 2.5 million residents may be the capital of one of the poorest countries in the Former Soviet Union, but it offers a dazzling selection of luxury services to those who can afford them. On potholed streets where some elderly people are forced to rummage for food in dumpsters, wellheeled Ukrainians can enjoy dining at all-night sushi restaurants, shop at designer bag stores and ride around in 16-seat Hummer limousines. Their children also get the VIP treatment at world-class childcare facilities like the Leleka kindergarten — a riverside mansion where the annual tuition easily surpasses the average annual salary of only $3,250. To regular Ukrainians, such Western-standard childcare is utterly unaffordable. Unless, of course, they want to enroll their kids at the kindergarten of Kiev’s new Jewish Community Center, Halom — a 17,000-square-foot building that opened last year with funding from the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, or JDC. The name means “dream” in Hebrew. Located in an accessible office district downtown, the Halom center, which has an annual budget of more than $500,000, features what is probably this city’s only subsidized “luxury” kindergarten, allowing working-class parents amenities that used to be the exclusive domain of this city’s wealthiest. “I could never afford any other place like this,” said Anna Snitsruk, a working mother of two children. “This place is like a kindergarten for oligarchs,” she said, using a common name for Ukrainians who got rich after the fall of the USSR. The preschool is part of Kiev’s first and only American-style JCC, which is also a rare spot for interactions by Jews of four generations. The amenities at Halom, where parents pay the equivalent of $900 to $1,900 annually depending on how many children they enroll and for how many hours, may appear rudimentary to Western eyes. But they are “incomparably better” than the local standard, Snitsruk said. At Halom, which, in addition to the preschool also has entertainment and educational facilities for different age groups, a few dozen children aged 2 to 7 are divided into four age groups. Each class has a maximum of seven children and a designated teacher. The children are fed kosher, high-quality food, but parents may also bring their own food from home to be reheated. The curriculum features Hebrew studies, holiday programs, dancing, pottery classes, treasure hunts, matchstick model building classes, gymnastics and even rock climbing. The preschool is part of a hive of activity at Halom. Parents picking up their kids often stop to chat to elderly Jews gathering for candle lighting, and teenagers come to hang out after school at the center’s recreational room with its movie library and PlayStation 4 game console.

The building also has free wifi, conference rooms, computer stations and art displays, including an exhibition of hyper-realistic models of famous synagogues made from matchsticks by the well-known artist Iosif Ostashinsky. Even at a subsidized rate of $90 a month, tuition at Halom is making a dent in the household budget of Volodia Pasternak, a retired athlete and father of three whose youngest, four-year-old Maria, attends Halom. “But I wouldn’t call it a sacrifice,” he said. “I’m so glad that I get to send her to a place that she actually likes. It’s because of the attention each child gets here. It’s not something I thought I could afford.” Halom accepts children regardless of whether they are Jewish, said Anna Bodnar, its 30-yearold director. Most recipients of Halom services do, however, self-identify as Jewish, she added. Kiev’s Jewish popualtion is estimated at 60,000. “I came here for the pedagogic approach and facilities,” Snitsruk said — a sentiment that recalls those Jews, including immigrants from Ukraine, who enrolled at Jewish-run “settlement houses” in America in the early 20th century. JDC supports efforts that bring non-affiliated Jews into Jewish life, but also encourages mutual respect among Jews and non-Jews. The center, which greets 1,000 to 2,000 users monthly, instantly became a hit with the golden age population. “I used to just stay at home all day, I didn’t go anywhere,” said Valentina Basova, a septuagenarian who lives alone since her son immigrated to Israel with his family four years ago. “It’s great to also be around young people, Jewish children.” A regular at Halom, Basova comes nearly every day to participate in intergenerational programs in which elderly people are paired with children or teenagers to exchange skills. Elderly participants are taught to use computers and smartphones, and help youngsters with homework or teach them languages. The exchange program, and its promise of sign language lessons, drew Adrianna Golubka, a nonJewish Ukrainian college student who became a volunteer. Her sign language teacher, a septuagenarian and Halom regular Irina Yosepavna, became an inspiration to Golubka in all areas of life. “When I’m depressed or tired, I think of Irina, of how positive and energetic she is after leading a long and not so easy life, and I snap right out of it,” she told JTA. For the elderly users, Halom is also a promising dating scene and has led to several successful shidduchs. Last month, it celebrated the union of the first couple who married after meeting there: Maya Serebryanaya and Valeriy Utvenko, 68 and 72 respectively. “Their relationship came as a surprise to me, actually,” said Bodnar, the JCC’s director. “I thought they were just friends.”

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By Adam Abrams, JNS In a development that could further advance Israel within the medical cannabis sector, the Israeli-British cannabis biotech start-up CIITECH announced Oct. 24 that it will fund a research project in collaboration with the Hebrew University of Jerusalem exploring methods for treating asthma with medical cannabis. Asthma affects 300 million people worldwide, claiming 250,000 lives annually. Israel has become a hub for the study and distribution of medical cannabis in recent years.

In May, Israel implemented a new law that essentially decriminalizes recreational marijuana, and in August, a joint committee of the Health and Finance ministries approved international exportation of the plant. According to some reports, Israel could earn up to $4 billion annually in revenue from medical cannabis exports. The CIITECH-funded research project will be conducted at Hebrew University’s Multidisciplinary Center on Cannabinoid Research, and led by researchers Profs. Raphael Mechoulam and Francesca Levi-Schaffer. Mechoulam, a pioneer in the medical cannabis field, discovered THC—the primary psychoactive compound in the plant—in the 1970s, while Levi-Schaffer is an expert in asthma research. “Since asthma and other respiratory conditions present themselves as inflammation of the airway, it’s long been believed that cannabis might be a good therapeutic candidate,” said CIITECH founder Clifton Flack. He emphasized that CBD — a cannabidiol hemp oil — is “non-psychoactive and 100 percent legal in the U.K.,” where his company has operations. Ultimately, researchers hope that cannabisbased asthma medicines can serve as an alternative to traditional respiratory treatment methods, which predominantly involve the use of inhaled steroids in metered doses. “Most of the symptoms of allergic disease patients are controlled by either symptomatic drugs or corticosteroids. However, some patients are steroid-resistant and allergic diseases such as severe asthma have been labeled as unmet clinical needs by the WHO (World Health Organization),” stated Levi-Schaffer. “We believe our research will provide a novel and effective solution to treating this condition.” Although the asthma research project’s results are pending, CIITECH already distributes CBD-based products through a U.K.-based eCommerce store. The products can purportedly be used for the treatment of pulmonary diseases. “Our current CBD oil products can and are being used by asthma sufferers for relief,” said Flack. “We are, however, developing a specific formulation and cold vaporizer that may better suit customers with respiratory problems.” In addition to conducting its research in Israel and having operations in the U.K., the company is actively planning international expansion. CIITECH is seeking international partners for global license agreements for its Provacan and Herbalica brands, and is simultaneously exploring “the best investment pathway” to fund its growth, Flack explained. “Israel is by far the most advanced [nation] when it comes to cannabis research and trials due to its supportive regulatory environment and collaborative healthcare ecosystem, underpinned by decades of experience,” Flack said. “Even in the U.S., where it is legal in some states, obtaining the necessary regulatory approvals for cannabis research and trials is exceptionally difficult as cannabis is illegal on a federal level.”

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Continued from page 1 month after a disaster when media attention and donations are at their highest; both tend to disappear after that period. He anticipated his teams would stay in Houston for another three months and in Puerto Rico for another year. An IsraAID team remains in Haiti eight years after a devastating earthquake hit that country. The assistance IsraAID administered in the United States over the last two months is emblematic of the added Israeli value it brings to disaster relief across the globe: •In Houston and in nearby Beaumont, Texas, its team supervised and participated in cleaning debris and strategic house demolition, a skill derived from the clean-up Israeli authorities administer after wartime attacks on Israeli communities; •In Puerto Rico, the teams administered emergency medical care honed in post-attack scenarios, as well as training in water filtration cultivated in a country where fresh water is scarce; •In Santa Rosa, California, a social worker with the team led post-trauma care — a hardwon specialty in Israel — for families who lost their homes in the fires. There are other, less tangible skills, associated with the Israeli experience that Polizer described. For example, Israel’s diverse immigrant base offers language skills: Polizer was able to immediately deploy Spanish speakers to Puerto Rico. He boasts an Israeli propensity to cut through bureaucracy when needed — “the Israeli manner,” he calls it. Almost as soon as Houston was hit, the Israeli embassy in Washington was organizing truckloads of relief for the area. IsraAID volunteers often act as coordinators, a skill cultivated in a country where teenagers are thrust into leadership positions in the army. “The biggest challenge is how you coordinate and communicate, how you identify what are the gaps in the response,” Polizer said. One of IsraAID’s U.S. partners is Team Rubicon, an organization of military vets that deploys to disasters. In Houston, the Rubicon-IsraAID proportion was typical of the relationship, he said: The Americans deployed about 2,000 volunteers, while there were seven Israelis. IsraAID relies on a bank of 1,400 volunteers and 270 staff it rotates in and out of afflicted areas. Polizer — to his own surprise — ended up tapping another non-Israeli team of volunteers in Houston: members of the Yazidi religious minority in Iraq who had sought refuge from deadly persecution at home. The first call Polizer made after hearing Harvey hit was to Haider Elias, a Yazidi leader who had worked with IsraAID in advocating for greater assistance for Yazidis fleeing from areas controlled by the Islamic State. IsraAID had administered post-trauma counseling to Yazidi refugees. Polizer called only because he wanted to know his Houston-based friend was okay. As it happens, the Yazidis in Houston mostly live on higher land — but Elias had heard that the Jew-

5TJT Graphics 516.569.0502

IsraAID...

ish community was hard hit, and saw an opportunity to return the favor. He called around and found another half-dozen Yazidis ready to deploy. “I went with a truck, I put our logo on it, ‘Yazda’,” he said, referring to the Yazidi advocacy group he heads. The team wore the IsraAID tshirts. “I met with Yotam in Greece,” where the Israeli organization was assisting Yazidis. “He was doing a great job.” Elias has since visited Israel to lobby the Knesset to recognize the massacres of Yazidis as a genocide, and has toured Yad Vashem, its Holocaust memorial. IsraAID’s first crisis point is often a disaster area’s Jewish community, if it is afflicted. It then moves onto other communities. Elias and his team remained in Houston, assisting in debrisclearing and demolition, while the IsraAID team continued to Beaumont, Texas where it remains. Connecting with Diaspora Jewish communities has become a central part of the IsraAID ethos, Polizer said, noting a program it now runs that deploys young American Jewish volunteers to assist in disaster areas. This year, there were 120 applicants for 14 fellowships. “We’ve seen a lot of people change their perspective, even here in the United States. For younger Jewish people asking questions about their identity, we see this work really resonates,” he said. “We get large numbers of volunteers from the Jewish community” when IsraAID comes into a disaster zone, he said. The fellowships are funded by the San Francisco Koret Foundation, which also is funding IsraAID’s new Palo Alto office, and seed money that allows IsraAID to deploy teams quickly while raising money elsewhere for the longer term. (IsraAID’s $9 million annual budget comes from foundations and private donors. Unusual for an Israeli group, 30 percent comes from the United Nations.) In Santa Rosa, 30 Jewish families were evacuated and one community member died as a result of the fires. Polizer called one of the professionals IsraAID keeps on tab, Niveen Rizkalla, a social worker who is in a post-doctoral program at the University of California-Berkeley. “In the first week when people are overwhelmed, you just want to listen and be there for them,” said Rizkalla, a Palestinian citizen of Israel originally from Ramle. “People who saw me on the first day saw me on the second day the third day — the consistency of me being there helped them feel safe.” In subsequent weeks, the strategy was to preoccupy the families, who may need to talk less and act more as a means of processing the trauma, she said. Additionally, the evacuation center — set up in a local synagouse — served as a care center for children while parents traversed the bureaucratic slog of seeking insurance information. Rizkalla said it was a skill that came naturally to someone steeped in the tensions of the region. In Haifa, she had directed the city’s crisis center, working with survivors of sexual violence, and before that she was a facilitator at Neve Shalom, the Jewish-Arab village in Israel that promotes dialogue. “I was facilitating groups of Palestinian and Jewish Israelis, and sometimes Germans were added into this conflict,” she said, chuckling. “I developed tolerance and understanding of what is involved in a conflict situation.”

THE JEWISH STAR November 3, 2017 • 14 Cheshvan 5778

Why did Tony

Yotam Polizer, co-CEO of IsraAID, in Santa Rosa, Calif.

paid for by Laura Gillen 2017

Zubin Mehta’s memorable Philharmonic moments By Gabe Friedman, JTA When Zubin Mehta kicks off a tour of North American cities at New York’s Carnegie Hall on Wednesday night, it won’t be his last performances with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra — but it will be close. The legendary conductor — he’s from India, and is neither Jewish nor Israeli — announced last December that he will step down from his post as music director in October 2019, exactly 50 years after he first became officially affiliated with the ensemble. This is one of Mehta’s last big tours with the orchestra, and it is likely his last through North America (the IPO will not travel to the U.S. in 2018). As such, the maestro will be feted at gala dinners in several tour stops, including New York, Toronto, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Miami. He will be celebrated for being one of Israel’s foremost cultural ambassadors through the country’s tumultuous past half-decade. “This will be my jubilee year,” Mehta, 81, told the Jerusalem Post. “It is time for something new. … For the first time in my life I am going to be a ‘free bird’.” At first glance, the conductor and Israel may seem like an odd pairing. Mehta was born in Mumbai — then Bombay — and his father, Mehli, founded and conducted the Bombay Symphony Orchestra. But Mehta, who was considered a conducting prodigy in his 20s, quickly fell in love “not only with the [Israeli] orchestra but with the country itself.” “It reminded me a lot of my home, Bombay,” Mehta told the Los Angeles Times in 2007. “Israelis, like Indians, are opinionated, and they have the habit of all speaking at the same time, which made me feel at home. People think this is a Jewish characteristic. It’s not. It’s Asiatic.” At previous points in his career, Mehta was the music director of the New York Philharmonic, Los Angeles Philharmonic and Montreal Philharmonic, and he conducted various European ensembles at the same time. Still, over the decades, Mehta estimates he has performed over 3,000 times with the IPO. He first conducted the group in 1961, at the age of 25, and was named its music director for life in 1981. As he gets closer to putting down his baton, here are five of

Zubin Mehta conducting the Israel Philharmonic Orchesta at the Moscow Conservatory, Jan. 21, 2002. Alexander Nemenov/AFP/Getty Images

Mehta’s most daring and innovative moments with the IPO. The Six-Day War (1967) At the outset of the war, a conductor who was slated to perform with the IPO had dropped out, and Mehta saw the situation as a musical emergency. Mehta rushed to board an ammunition-filled plane from the U.S. to Israel — it turned out to be the last plane allowed to land in the country before Ben Gurion Airport closed during the fighting. He was able to conduct the performance and stayed in the basement of a Jerusalem concert hall for the six days, along with pianist Barenboim and celebrated cellist Jacqueline du Pré. “I’m not sure how good the concert was musically — we weren’t exactly prepared!” Mehta said in 2011. “But Daniel played the Beethoven Emperor Piano Concerto and Jackie played the Elgar Cello Concerto.” Less than a week after the war ended, Mehta pretended he was Jewish in order to act as a witness at Barenboim and du Pré’s wedding at the Western Wall. The Lebanon War (1982) Israel was at war in Southern Lebanon, but with the help of Israeli police, Mehta brought the orchestra’s musicians

a few kilometers across the border into a Lebanese tobacco field. They erected a stage under a tent and played for a group of local Lebanese citizens. After the concert, Mehta said the concertgoers rushed the stage to hug the musicians. “How I would love to see that sight again today, of Arabs and Jews hugging each other,” he said in 2007. “I’m a positive thinker. I know this day will come.” The Gulf War (1991) After Iraq launched Scud missiles into Israel, Mehta raced to his second home yet again. “I have literally grown up with this country over the past 30 years. I had many obligations in New York that should have prevented me from coming, but I couldn’t imagine not being here,” he said at the time, while he was director of the New York Philharmonic. At Buchenwald (1999) Mehta helped arrange the first concert in Germany that featured the Israeli Philharmonic playing with a German orchestra — in this instance, the Munich-based Bavarian State Orchestra. But it was not held at any ordinary German location: The concert took place just beneath the hill that formerly housed the Buchenwald Nazi concentration camp. Mehta accompanied musicians from both orchestras on a tour of the camp before the performance. “My feeling now is that if Jews and Germans can be together near Buchenwald after 50 years, one day there will be reconciliation with Arabs, too,” he said. For Gilad Shalit (2010) Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit was captured by Hamas during a raid of Israeli tunnels near Gaza in June 2006. Just over four years later, Mehta took the IPO to the Israel-Gaza border to protest his imprisonment. The goal was to pressure Hamas into letting the Red Cross visit Shalit to make sure he was OK — and, of course, to pressure both Israel and the leaders of Gaza to negotiate a deal for Shalit’s release. “I hope he knows we are doing this concert and one day very soon he will know every note we play goes out to him,” said Mehta, who was 74 at the time. Shalit was freed in a prisoner exchange the following year.

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November 3, 2017 • 14 Cheshvan 5778 THE JEWISH STAR

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Why Brazilians flock to a quiet Israeli suburb By Marcus M. Gilban, JTA RA’ANANA, Israel — This small, quiet town with an easy commute to Tel Aviv, which almost completely shuts down for Shabbat, may not have Rio’s breathtaking landscapes and beaches. It also lacks the culture and nightlife that makes Sao Paulo famous. And yet 220 Brazilian families reside in sleepy Ra’anana, a town of approximately 80,000 people, and it is now the the first choice among the 1,800 Brazilians who have started the aliyah process with the Jewish Agency for Israel, an organization that assists the Israeli government with immigration and absorption. From synagogues to schoolyards, the influx of Brazilians is palpable throughout Ra’anana. “You can hear Portuguese on every corner here,” said Oshra Sharvit, director of the local ulpan, the state-subsidized school where new immigrants can learn Hebrew. Sharvit estimates that about one-fourth of her school’s students are from Brazil. “The large group of Brazilian residents, both ‘vatikim’ [veterans] and ‘chadashim’ [newbies], plays a pivotal role to facilitate the integration of newcomers,” said Sandro Maghidman, a Brazilian immigrant who has lived in Ra’anana since 2012. “Living in Ra’anana is a privilege.” Last year, a record 700 Brazilians immigrated to Israel. That

made the South American country the sixth-largest source of new immigrants to the Jewish state, after Russia, Ukraine, France, the United States and the United Kingdom. Violence is the most common reason that Brazilian Jews cite for making aliyah. Brazil has one of the highest homicide rates in the world — almost 60,000 murders a year, or 26 per every 100,000 residents, according to Igarape Institute think tank. By contrast, Ra’anana is considered one of Israel’s safest cities. “Here I walk on the street without looking back and with my earphones in,” said Denise Faldini, who moved to Ra’anana in 2016 with her husband and children, ages 5 and 9. “My kids have learned that, yes, car windows can be opened.” These new immigrants are drawn to certain institutions — for example, the TALI school, whose Hebrew acronym stands for “Enhanced Jewish Studies.” Unlike most Israeli schools, TALI emphasizes Jewish and traditional values in the spirit of pluralism, similar to what most Brazilian Jewish schools teach. Israeli schools tend to divide the strictly religious and the purposefully secular. Another example of the growing community is Or Israel, a small but cozy 60-family Orthodox synagogue established in January 2017, led by Brazilian Rabbi Ivo Zilberman, who gives his sermons in Portuguese. “It goes beyond being a meeting place for Brazilians to

pray,” said Martin Teitelbaum, who serves as gabbai. “There is also the social and community side, where each member feels part of a large family.” Then there’s that real estate adage: location, location, location. Ra’anana is centrally located — it’s less than 9 miles from Tel Aviv and is sandwiched between Herzliya and Kfar Saba. The three cities have the largest concentration of high-tech industries in the country — a backbone of Israel’s economy. Ra’anana is also known as a hub for “Anglo” Jews, or those from English-speaking countries. The town was founded in the 1920s by a group of New Yorkers, and some 20 percent of its residents speak English as their first language. For Brazilian Jews who once dreamed of immigrating to the U.S. but found it difficult to do so legally, living in Ra’anana — with its upscale lifestyle, abundance of singlefamily homes and preponderance of English speakers — is the next-best thing. But perhaps Nehama Efrati, manager of the absorption department at the Ra’anana municipality, summarized Brazilians’ interest in the city best: “The Brazilian aliyah matches Ra’anana with perfection,” she said. “Here they have both of the best: keep their culture and integrate. We respect both sides of this identity. We don’t want to be only blue and white, we want all colors.”

THE MENSCH ON THE BENCH

RE-ELECT

KNOBEL Judge Gary

District Court Judge

KNOBEL Judge Gary

District Court Judge

Anne Frank’s German stickers.

A Life Dedicated to Justice PROFESSIONAL • Found “Well Qualified” for District Court and Supreme Court by the Nassau County Bar Association • Acting County Court Judge since 2011 presiding over Guardianship and psychiatric retention hearings • Law Clerk to Supreme Court Justices for over 20 years • Professor of Law, Hofstra University School of Law, teaching New York Civil Procedure for 15 years • Lecturer on behalf of the Judicial Institute, instructing judges on civil procedure and consumer debt litigation • President NYS District Court Judges Association • Honored in 2011 by Fraternal Order of Court Officers • Graduate of New York University School of Law • Delivers food weekly to Seniors in Hempstead for the last 25 years on behalf of Island Harvest • Member of Young Israel of Oceanside and Great Neck Synagogue • Former Trustee of B’nai Sholom in Rockville Centre • Director/Officer of Jewish Lawyers Association • Member of Nassau County Bar Association and Women’s Bar Association & NYS Bar Association • Devoted husband to Ilene, and father to Laurence and seventh-grader Lily www.friendsofjudgeknobel.com

RE-ELECT JUDGE Vote TUESDAY NOVEMBER 7 TH

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German fans use Anne Frank photo to mock rivals

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Stickers showing a doctored photo of Anne Frank wearing a German soccer team’s jersey appeared in Dusseldorf, Germany, a week after a similar incident in Rome. Fans of the Borussia Dortmund club are believed to have created the stickers showing the teenage Holocaust diarist in a Schalke team jersey. Borussia Dortmund reportedly has a number of neo-Nazis as part of its hardcore fan base. Photos of the stickers were first posted on the German blog Ruhr Barone.de. German police are investigating the incident, according to reports. Anti-Semitism is a crime in Germany, as is Holocaust denial. Last week a passage from “The Diary of Anne Frank” was read out prior to all soccer games — youth games, amateur and professional — throughout Italy after fans of the Lazio club posted stickers around Rome’s Olympic Stadium showing Anne Frank wearing the shirt of the Roma team. The teams share the stadium. Roma is often associated with being left wing and Jewish. Also in response, Lazio President Claudio Lotito visited Rome’s main synagogue, where he laid a wreath of flowers in memory of Holocaust victims and condemned the actions of the fans. He also said the team would take 200 fans per year to visit Auschwitz. However, after the synagogue visit, the Italian daily Il Messaggero released a recording of Lotito calling it a “charade.” Lotito denied it was his voice on the recording. Soccer fans at two matches last week also ignored the “Diary of Anne Frank” readings. At a game between Roma and the Calabria-based Crotone, fans shouted team chants during the readings at the same stadium where the stickers were displayed. At a game between Lazio and Juventus, fans of the latter team turned their backs and sang the country’s national anthem during the reading. —JTA

Amit dinner honors a Woodmere couple

Elect

THE JEWISH STAR November 3, 2017 • 14 Cheshvan 5778

Dean Bennett

Nassau County Clerk I am a Nassau County family man and homeowner. My career has been dedicated to public service. As your Nassau County Clerk, I will: ▪ Put the brakes on County Clerk fees. ▪ Cut red tape, reduce response time, and provide a more pleasant service experience.

Guests of Honor Audrey and Max Wagner of Woodmere.

are staff or volunteers are incredibly passionate and dedicated to helping AMIT’s children,” said Sharon Merkin. “They are a smart and driven group of people and their enthusiasm is contagious. Our missions to Israel to visit AMIT schools and meet with our students and staff highlight the fact that we are a family and I am honored to be included.” AMIT’s, dinner will feature a dynamic program, including a performance by a featured actor from the Tony Award-winning musical “Dear Evan Hansen” with the Ramaz Chamber Choir, as well as a surprise appearance from actors in another hit Broadway musical. To register for the dinner, contact Robin Rothbort at RobinR@amitchildren.org, or go to www.amitchildren.org/event/amit-2017annual-dinner. Source: AMIT

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Honorees at AMIT’s upcoming annual dinner will include Guests of Honor Audrey and Max Wagner of Woodmere. The Sunday, Nov. 19 gala, at Pier Sixty in Manhattan, will also toast Boneh Olam Award winner Martin Elias, of Glenhead, Long Island; Young Visionary Award recipient Jordana Alpert, of Manhattan; and Presidential Leadership Award designees Sharon and Sol Merkin, of Englewood, NJ. The year’s “heroes” dinner will also feature four current and former AMIT students who are examples of how AMIT transforms ordinary youths into extraordinary ones. Among them are Nili Block, a world champion kickboxer; Hila Yemini, who aspires to be a worldrenowned violinist; Yair Ben Yishai, who gave an elderly Holocaust survivor a moving final farewell; and Roni (Ron) Vanunu, who served in the Israeli Army’s Golani Brigade, following the path of her late brother, who was killed in the 2104 Gaza war. “AMIT stands for all the things that are important to me: educating the children, seeing that they have a future, the state of Israel,” said Audrey Wagner, a longtime supporter of AMIT and a President’s Circle member. “When we visited the schools, and had some volunteer opportunities through AMIT is when I really learned about the organization and fell in love with its mission,” said honoree Jordana Alpert, who attended Midreshet AMIT and now serves as a copresident of the AFLI (AMIT Future Leaders Initiative) Board. “The people I’ve met at amit, whether they

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November 3, 2017 • 14 Cheshvan 5778 THE JEWISH STAR

The JEWISH STAR

School News

Send news and hi-res photos to Schools@TheJewishStar.com • Deadline Mondays at Noon

HAFTR’s lower school joins ‘Shabbos Project’

The Kanarfogel (left) and Katanov families participate in the Shabbos Project at HAFTR.

HAFTR Lower School joined schools and communities around the world in celebrating the Shabbat Project. Throughout the week, teachers incorporated lessons in a variety of areas that helped build up to the excitement and enjoyment of Shabbat Parshat Lech Lecha. In kindergarten, students created a multimedia “Shabbat To Go” bag of items that Avraham could have taken with him when he was commanded to leave Charan. In older grades, students used their math skills to solve Shabbatthemed word problems and calculate challah recipes for differing numbers of loaves. Boys in fourth and fifth grades practiced reciting Kiddush, while the girls learned about hafrashat challah. They received beautiful laminated cards with the tefillot to have at their fingertips when performing the mitzvah in the future. As a school community, over 600 people gathered on Thursday night for HAFTR’s annual Challah Bake. After making dough from scratch, students came together to sing some

of their favorite songs — Shalom Aleichem, It’s Time to Say Good Shabbos, and Yom Zeh Mechubad. While the dough was rising, families were invited to participate in hands-on workshops. With the theme of Oneg Shabbat, families created their own Shabbat games. Each family received a box to store their games for safe keeping and to use on future Shabbatot. Students also decorated a cookie to take home for an Oneg snack. They sang zemirot with Janet Goldman and played a matching Shabbat activity with the Bnot Sherut. The festivities continued with a festive Shabbat lunch sponsored by the PTA and on Friday the school ushered in a Shabbat with special Oneg. Students and their teachers said kiddush, ate a delicious mezonot, and sang zemirot. Oneg ended with a dramatic reenactment of Yosef Mocher Shabbat. The oneg set the mood for a very special Shabbat. Source: HAFTR

At Midreshet Shalhevet: Scholars Each year Midreshet Shalhevet selects academic scholars from its applicants to participate in the Shalhevet Scholar’s program. This program brings together a diverse group of highly talented students from across all incoming freshmen, each with a record of outstanding academic success and chesed. Shalhevet Scholars receive a scholarship, a choice of an iPad or a Chromebook, and are afforded the opportunity to participate in a weekly STEM enrichment program run by science teacher, Gerald Bass. The qualifications to be selected to participate in the Shalhevet Scholar’s program are rigorous. These truly are bright flames at Midreshet Shalhevet. Mazal Tov to the incoming class of Shalhevet Scholars: Elisheva Conway of Queens (Bnos Malka), Ayala Terebelo of Brooklyn (Shulamith of Brooklyn), Leah Cohen of Far

Rockaway (TAG), Ayala Feder of Far Rockaway (BBY), and Emily Weintraub of Brooklyn (Shulamith of Brooklyn). Join Midreshet Shalhevet at an Open House, this Sunday, Nov. 5, at noon, to find out all that MSH stands for. To enter the raffle for a smart watch, pre-register at: midreshetshalhevet.org Source: Midreshet Shalhevet

Torah at HANC High’s Cafe Mussar A Kosher Café in Uniondale? This unique café is serves more than the regular fare of bagels, beverages and pastries. Coming to Café’ Mussar can be a life improving experience. Building upon the long lasting hallmark of HANC High School — character growth and middot development — members of the senior class are invited once a week to spend breakfast in this popular venue with their menahel, Rabbi Shlomo Adelman, conversing on wide-ranging topics of mussar while enjoying donuts, coffee, bagels and shmear. Mussar provides a distinctively Jewish answer to the sorts of questions any thinking person (especially teenagers) asks about life: What steps can I take to bring my life closer to its spiritual potential? Why do I keep making the same mistakes over and over? Over the course of the year, a variety of character traits will be discussed. They include: humility, honesty, anger management, kindness, gratitude and many others — all of which are the stepping stones on the journey toward spiritual greatness. Source: HANC

SKA holds its 26th open house event What makes SKA … SKA? Nurturing, inspiring and empowering. A record turnout of prospective parents and students from many elementary schools were welcomed to the Stella K. Abraham High School for Girls on Sunday, Oct. 22, at the Open House of the school which is celebrating its 25th year. The overflow crowd extended through the hallways during the introductory remarks by Head of School Helen Spirn; General Studies Principal Bluma Drebin; Rabbi Yosef Zakutinsky, director of student programs, and Associate Principal Elana Flaumenhaft. SKA faculty presenters shared their enthusiasm for their subject areas in guided parent and student tours and workshops. Over 100 student volunteers, including student ambassadors, shared their insights of SKA’s limudei kodesh and general studies program of SKA, together with the exceptional extra-curricular experiences. Pointing out the recently built Graphic Design Studio, the newly remodeled Art Studio, renderings for the new Stem Lab, the state of the art SmartBoards, the new iMac center, plans for a new Science Center and our “whirly desks,” the SKAers were eager to share their school with the prospective students. They highlighted the sought-after Art Academy and electives such as coding, forensics and sign language, while also emphasizing our popular sports program, student driven religious growth opportunities, Israel Action programs, and the successful chesed initiatives which are such an integral part of the school. Participants were serenaded with chamber music performed by SKA’s band under the direction of Terri Wagner. Source: SKA

As part of his ongoing aid and support for private school education across New York State, Senate Majority Leader, John Flanagan visited the Yeshiva of South Shore in Hewlett last Sunday. Accompanied by the Republican candidate for Nassau County Executive, Jack Martins, Senator Flanagan toured classes and the facilities, marveling at the accomplishments of the yeshiva’s founder Rabbi Binyamin Kamenetzky, zt”l. Escorted by Rabbi Mordechai Kamenetzky, rosh yeshiva; Rabbi Dovid Kramer, executive director; and a contingent from the yeshiva’s board of directors, the visitors joined the students in Rabbi Schulman’s fourth grade class. The boys and their rebbe greeted the politicians warmly and shared the lesson they were learning on their Smartboard about Moshe caring for his sheep. This translated to the ultimate charge of caring

for Hashem’s sheep — the Jewish nation. Rabbi Kamenetzky explained the role of a senator and majority leader to the boys. Senator Flanagan addressed the class about the importance of good citizenship and caring for others. Senator Flanagan and Senator Martins then headed across the street to the Hollander Early Childhood Center where they were met by about three dozen community leaders, rabbis and activists. The diverse group represented most of the community’s shuls, yeshivas and charitable organizations in addition to the Orthodox Union and Agudath Israel of America. Rabbi Kamenetzky introduced Rabbi Shmuel Lefkowitz, vice president of community affairs for Agudath Israel of America, who spoke about the strong advocacy both Senators Flanagan and Martins have demonstrated on behalf of the Jew-

ish community. Senator Martins stressed the need to help private school parents maintain their right to choose, by finding ways to ease the overbearing costs of tuition. “My father, Rav Binyamin, zt”l, had the foresight to develop relationships with political leaders back in the early years of the Five Towns Jewish community,” said Rabbi Kamenetzky. “Those relationships were vital for the growth of this community and every single one of its institutions. We invited Senators Flanagan and Martins to show our support and appreciation for the important grants they have helped secure for our yeshivas, our synagogues, and most importantly, our children.” Everyone in attendance agreed that the most important message of the day was the need to vote on Election Day, Tuesday, Nov. 7. Source: YOSS

Your Child’s Journey BEGINS HERE

Open House for Prospective Families

Sunday, November 5th 10:00 am-1:00 pm 16 Cherry Lane

Great Neck, NY 11024

Join us to learn about our premier academic program and how the North Shore Hebew Academy Modern Orthodox Yeshiva experience can transform your child and your family.

For more information, contact Abigail Zausmer Weiss at 516.487.8687 Ext. 167

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TO REGISTER visit www.nsha.org/openhouse Supervised programming for children ages 2+

THE JEWISH STAR November 3, 2017 • 14 Cheshvan 5778

Senate Majority Leader Flanagan visits YOSS

Hebrew charter takes not-so-Jewish trip to Israel By Ben Sales, JTA On her first trip to Israel next month, eighthgrader Melodee Pouponneau is excited to visit Tel Aviv and eat Israeli foods. She’s also looking forward to practicing Hebrew, her third language. It’ll be a stark change from her home life in Brooklyn, where she speaks Haitian Creole and typically eats foods from the Caribbean nation where her parents were born. Pouponneau, 12, isn’t Jewish, but she’s confident she’ll be able to carry on a conversation with Israelis when she visits the Jewish state. As a student at Hebrew Language Academy, a Hebrew-language charter school in Brooklyn, she’s been studying Hebrew and Israeli culture since kindergarten. “I feel excited because it’s not uncomfortable

for me because I speak Hebrew,” she said. “If I go to Israel not speaking Hebrew at all, that would be weird.” Pouponneau is one of 33 eighth-graders from two Hebrew-language charter schools who are traveling to Israel on a class trip. The trip aims to give the students a firsthand look at the language and culture they’ve learned about in class. But because the schools are publicly funded, the program has to straddle a thin line: Throughout the 10-day trip, the aim is to immerse students in Israeli culture — but without being overtly Jewish or taking a political stance. Unlike Jewish day schools, which are private, Hebrew charter schools receive taxpayer dollars and are free and open to students of all backgrounds. Because of that, they can’t give their students religious education — though they can

teach a particular language, culture and history. The two schools taking the trip — Hebrew Language Academy and Hatikvah International Academy in East Brunswick, New Jersey — are both part of Hebrew Public, a national network of four Hebrew charter schools it directly manages and six affiliates. During a reporter’s visit to the Brooklyn school last week, first-graders were learning Israeli dance while third-graders took a Hebrew proficiency exam. Meanwhile, the eighth-graders — preparing for the trip — did a unit on sabich (pronounced sah-BEEKH), an Israeli egg and eggplant sandwich. Mira Yusupov, a Hebrew teacher, explained that the curriculum eschews traditional grammar lessons in favor of learning everyday vernacular conversation.

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“There’s no Alef-Bet,” she said. “If they’re going to a coffee place, we teach the skills rather than the language — how to order stuff.” Yusupov, who will be accompanying the students on the trip, hopes the experience will bring Israeli culture to life. The 10-day excursion follows an itinerary with many of the same stops as Birthright, the free, 10-day trips to Israel for young Jewish adults. The middle-school trip will start in Tel Aviv, with visits to a tech hub and outdoor markets. They’ll take a camel ride in a touristy Bedouin village, float in the Dead Sea, hike up to the ancient fortress of Masada, spend a few days in Jerusalem and then some time at a kibbutz up north. But because the trip isn’t Jewish, it departs from the Birthright checklist. The kids won’t visit Yad Vashem, Israel’s Holocaust museum — on a previous trip to Washington, they visited the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum — but will visit a mosque, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the Via Dolorosa and a Druze village. They will also stop by Hand-in-Hand, a Jewish-Arab school in Jerusalem, and Kids4Peace, a youth group for Israeli and Palestinian kids. They’ll visit the Western Wall on Friday night, but won’t pray there, and that night’s dinner won’t include communal blessings over wine and challah. Hebrew Language Academy was founded in 2009 with private funding from Michael Steinhardt — who also funds Birthright — and other Jewish philanthropists who founded the Hebrew Public network. Now, the school runs entirely on public funds, and chooses its students by lottery from its local school district. Hebrew Language Academy estimates that about 50 percent of its students are Jewish, along with a large population of students of Caribbean descent. Because of that, it faces the challenge of not being “too Jewish” on a daily basis.. “We built a dual-language school with an appreciation of Hebrew language and Israel,” said Peter Katcher, the head of school. “The genesis of the [Israel] trip was as a culmination of this many years of study. The most important part of this is to have the respect and understanding of the culture.” As such, while specifically religious issues will be avoided on the trip, students will dip their toes into the Israeli-Arab conflict. The kids will visit the embattled Gaza border town of Sderot and the Lebanese border, where students will hear a talk from a local security expert. “The conflict is obviously an important part of Israel and learning about Israel,” Lieberman said. “It’s not the main part of the trip. I also want to see what the students know and what their questions are because we built into this trip lots of different encounters with lots of different people.” And while Katcher said the group will stay out of the West Bank, they will visit eastern Jerusalem, which Israel has annexed but the international community views as occupied territory. The itinerary includes a stop at the City of David, a Jewish-run archaeological park open to tourists in the hotly contested eastern Jerusalem Arab neighborhood of Silwan. Lieberman said the visit will focus on archaeology, and that the school didn’t consider the park’s location while planning the trip. A trip to Israel is not inherently political or religious — just as a trip to France and the Notre-Dame Cathedral isn’t inherently Catholic, said Shaul Kelner, a Jewish studies professor at Vanderbilt University, who focuses on diaspora Jewish travel to Israel. “Language and culture are intimately connected,” he said. “The language instruction overall is never just about learning to speak in a different code. It’s about learning the culture connected to that code.” As it happens, for at least some of the kids going on the trip, the complexities of politics and religion are at best an afterthought. Justin Matushansky, 14, went to Israel last year to celebrate his bar mitzvah with his family. He’s mostly excited to eat when he returns in November. “They have really good burgers,” he said. “They had free samples of falafel. I want to try pita for falafel.”

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THE JEWISH STAR November 3, 2017 • 14 Cheshvan 5778

Sale Dates: November 5th - 10th 2017

November 3, 2017 • 14 Cheshvan 5778 THE JEWISH STAR

The JEWISH STAR

Wine & Dine

Many variations to old-fashioned cholent recipes Joni Schockett

kosher kitchen

y dad told me that every Friday my grandmother cooked two meals in tandem — Shabbat chicken, or brisket, or “gadempte fleische,” on one side of her tiny counter and, in her big, black, speckled roasting pan, another dish made of all kinds of things. The “things” she put in her big black speckled pot would go in the oven and begin cooking on Friday then continuing all night until lunchtime the next day. The result would be a delectable mélange of meats, beans, potatoes, root vegetables, and lots of garlic. There was always the lingering flavor of gribenes and sometimes her homemade stuffed “hoelzel” or kishke. Sadly, my grandmother never wrote down a recipe, so I have no idea how she made this dish that I can still taste today. According to Gil Marks, z”l, cholent is a completely Jewish food, born out of the necessity to serve a hearty, hot meal in the cold winter months and not cook or light a fire on Shabbat. Famed cookbook author, Joan Nathan, said in “Jewish Cooking in America,” that “for centuries, on Friday mornings [Jews] would assemble [their stews]. The dish was covered with a cloth or mixture of flour and water to form a crust. It started cooking on Friday before sunset and [was] left to warm all night over coals in a hot [communal] oven.” The wife would pick up the cooked food after shul and, once home, would crack open the hard, baked cover and serve the steaming bean and meat stew to her family and guests. The ingredients of this hearty dish were different in every country because Jews have always cooked with local ingredients, making universally Jewish dishes distinctly regional in flavor. In addition, the herbs and spices and even the meats used, were always location dependent. Cholents were made with lamb or beef, duck, or chicken. All used beans and some added potatoes. In Germany and parts of Eastern Europe, cholent was called schalet, close to the French cassoulet, which more closely translates to kugel than to stew. The German-Jewish-Yiddish schalet eventually diverged into two roads — one towards sweetness and noodles and the other towards savory, heartier dishes. German schalets were often made of potatoes and onions, while other kugels used apples and pears and sometimes bread or noodles. All were descendants of the cholent of centuries past. But whatever the individual characteristics

of the dish, the focus and purpose have always been the same; to create a nutritious, hearty and delicious meal that will feed all the unexpected guests, and will survive — and even taste better because of — the long, slow cooking required. Overnight French Cassoulet Inspired Cholent (Meat) 3-1/2 to 4-1/2 lbs. boneless short ribs, cut into 2-3 inch pieces Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste. 4 tbsp. extra virgin olive oil, more if needed 4 to 5 marrow bones 2 large onions, coarsely chopped 3 celery stalks, sliced 1 to 2 large leeks, white and light green parts only, washed and thinly sliced 4 to 6 carrots, peeled and sliced 3 to 6 garlic cloves, finely minced 2 tbsp. tomato paste 1 cup white wine 3 cups white beans, such as cannellini, soaked in water overnight Optional: 3/4 lb. smoked duck or turkey breast or kosher sausage 3-1/2 to 5 cups chicken broth or stock 1/2 tsp. any of the following: tarragon, rosemary, herbes d’Provence; dried chives 1 tsp. kosher salt, to taste 1/2 tsp. freshly cracked black pepper, to taste Preheat the oven to 225 degrees. Pat the beef ribs with a paper towel and sprinkle generously with salt and cracked black pepper. Set aside. Heat a large Dutch oven and add the olive oil. Add the beef and brown on all sides. Remove to a plate and add the marrow bones. Cook until the bones are slightly browned in places. Place on the paper towels to drain. Add more oil if needed.

Add the onions and cook until golden, 7-10 minute. Add the leek and cook until softened. Add the celery and carrots, mix well and cook until softened. Add the minced garlic and cook until fragrant. Create a hole in the veggies and add the tomato paste. Let it cook until the edges begin to brown, 1 minute. Mix well and add the wine. Mix until blended. Add the beans and mix. Add the marrow bones moving them so they are at the bottom of the pot. Add the beef pieces and the smoked duck, turkey or sausage, nestling it in among the beans. Add the stock around the sides of the pan and season with more salt and pepper and the herbs. Bring to a boil over medium heat and stir often. If the beans absorb the liquid too quickly, add more stock or water as needed. Skim any foam that forms. Cook for 20-30 minutes, remove from heat and let cool 10 minutes. Add more liquid to cover solids by 1-2 inches. Cover the pot tightly with aluminum foil. Then put the pot’s cover on top and place in the oven. Bake overnight. Check in the morning and add more liquid if needed. Continue to cook until serving time and then return, covered, to the oven for the remainder of Shabbat. Serves 8+. NOTE: You can add chicken wings to this instead of the sausage, if you like a milder flavor. Vegetarian Shabbat Cholent with Lima Beans and Barley (Pareve) This cholent is so forgiving that you can add any grain and any vegetable to it. I have made it with farro, wheat berries, rice and all kinds of small beans. 2 to 3 large onions, about 3-4 cups chopped 2 to 3 leeks, trimmed, thinly sliced, rinsed well

3 to 4 shallots, thinly slic-

3 to 10 cloves garlic, finely minced, to taste 1/3 cup canola oil 1 cup barley 1 cup split green peas 1 cup dried baby lima beans 1 cup red lentils 3 cups chopped carrots 2 cups chopped celery 2 to 3 pounds Red Bliss potatoes, cut in half 1 tsp. freshly cracked black pepper 1 to 2 tsp. kosher salt 1/2 to 1 tsp. paprika 1/4 cup freshly snipped chives 6-10 cups water or veg-

etable stock Optional: minced Tarragon, rosemary, thyme, to taste Optional: tamari sauce, to taste Optional: 1/2 to one cup dry white or dry red wine; 2-3 cans (15 ounces each) chopped tomatos Optional: Sliced mushrooms, diced butternut squash, diced yams Optional: Eggs still in the shell nestled in the veggies to cook overnight. GARNISH: 1/4 cup fresh parsley, finely minced In a large skillet, heat the oil and sauté the onions, leeks and shallots until they are translucent and completely softened. Scrape them into a heavy Dutch oven and add the rest of the ingredients. Season and stir well. Bring the cholent to a boil on top of the stove over medium heat, stirring frequently. Reduce the heat and simmer for 2 hours, adding more water or stock as needed and removing any foam that forms on top. Taste for seasonings and adjust as needed. Preheat the oven to 250 degrees. Just before sundown, add enough stock or water so that the cholent is 1-2 inches under water. Cover tightly with foil and then with the pot’s cover and place in the center of the oven. Check for liquid level in the morning, adding more if needed. When ready, remove from the oven, stir, adjust seasonings, garnish with parsley and serve. Serves 8+. Just a note: Red kidney beans contain a protein called phytohaemagglutinin that is toxic. Cooking at high heat kills the toxin, but the low heat from a slow cooker or low oven will not, and just 2-3 beans can make you very ill. To avoid this, boil your red kidney beans for at least 10-20 minutes before cooking them in a low oven.

Adding MidEast flair to a very special cheesecake By Tracey Fine and Georgia Tarn, Nosher via JTA This cheesecake recipe was inspired by new and old flavors and our love of baklava and cheesecake. After all, who doesn’t love these desserts? We felt that the smoothness and creaminess of cheesecake needed a modern crunch and kataifi — shredded phyllo dough that is used to make baklava and other Middle Eastern pastries — was just the ingredient to try. While we were at it, we experimented and added nuts. And then to finish off this special cheesecake and give it a little more Middle Eastern flair, we added a rosewater syrup. The resulting cake is similar to kanafeh, a Middle Eastern cheese pastry. It was so amazing, we surprised even ourselves. This cheesecake has layers of flavor and texture that equal heaven on a plate: crunchy from the combination of almonds and pistachios, chewy from the kataifi pastry, smooth and

creamy from the cheese and brought together with the slight perfumed taste of the rosewater syrup. The best thing about the recipe is that it is simple to make, but looks quite impressive. This recipe is excerpted with permission from “The Modern Jewish Table.” Ingredients: 1-1/2 cups superfine sugar 7 fluid ounces water 2 tablespoons lemon juice 1/4 teaspoon rosewater 7 ounces butter, melted 12 ounces kataifi pastry (shredded phyllo dough, which can be found in Greek or Middle Eastern markets, or online via Amazon) 9 ounces mascarpone cheese 9 ounces cream cheese 2 large egg yolks 1/4 cup superfine sugar 1 cup blanched almonds

Directions: 1. Preheat oven to 350 F. 2. In a heavy-bottomed saucepan, place sugar, water and lemon juice. Bring to a boil and then simmer on low heat for approximately 10 minutes or until the liquid has become a syrup. Remove from heat and leave to cool. 3. When the syrup has cooled, add the rosewater and set aside to be used later.

4. Use a little of the butter to grease an 11inch springform pan. 5. In a large bowl, break apart the kataifi pastry until all the shreds are loose. Mix in the rest of the melted butter, using your hands, so the pastry is well coated. 6. Beat together the mascarpone cheese, cream cheese, egg yolks and sugar until smooth. 7. Sprinkle blanched almonds over the bottom of the pan. Take half of the kataifi dough and place over the almonds, pressing it down. 8. Spread the cheese mixture over the kataifi, using a palette knife so you have an even layer. Take the other half of the kataifi dough and press over the top. 9. Bake for approximately 30 minutes until golden. 10. Remove from the oven and sprinkle ground pistachios on the top. Pour the rosewater syrup evenly over the cake. Leave to cool and remove from pan.

By Ben Sales, JTA Are Jewish millennials the most religious generation? And do one-fifth of them think Jesus was a deity in human form? Yes and yes, says a new survey of 599 Jews born from 1984 to 1999. The survey creates a contradictory portrait of Jewish millennials: These young adults describe themselves as religious, and practice Jewish ritual, but are unaffiliated. They value tradition and family, but don’t plan on marrying only Jews. They are proud to be Jewish, but don’t feel that contradicts with practicing other religions. It’s the kind of survey that could be useful to Jewish planners but for the organization that commissioned and funded it: Jews for Jesus. The survey was conducted by the Barna Group, a reputable polling firm specializing in religion, especially conservative Christianity, and was sent to the media with endorsements by Jewish studies professors. But its goal was to conduct market research for “Messianic Jews.” And Jews for Jesus likes what it sees. “It was very hopeful from our perspective,” Susan Perlman, the San Francisco-based group’s director of communications, told JTA. The survey is mostly composed of standard questions: how often do you pray, how do you feel about Israel, do you date non-Jews and the like. Much of it is a millennial-focused version of the Pew Research Center’s 2013 study of American Jews. But it also includes a few unusual entries that Pew didn’t cover, like a detailed section on belief in G-d and the afterlife, and — no surprise here — an extensive examination of attitudes toward Jesus. For those accustomed to thinking of millennials as religiously uninvolved and skeptical of traditional practices, the survey has some surprising news: Eighty percent of Jewish millennials self-identify as “religious Jews,” as opposed to just a slim majority of all Jews. And nearly half say being Jewish is “very important” to them, higher than any other generation. That commitment to Judaism comes through

The Barna group conducted a study involving 599 Jews born from 1984 to 1999.

in specific practices as well. Almost a quarter of Jewish millennials attend religious services once a week, according to the survey, and one in three prays every day. A majority says “G-d loves people.” Ari Kelman, a Jewish studies professor at Stanford University who was interviewed as part of the report, said the study suggests a cohort distinct from all others. “These don’t look like Jews I recognize,” he said of millennials. “I was not willing to just write them off entirely. Maybe these are Jews we’ve never seen before. We know religion is changing, we know parameters of identity are changing, so why would we expect different generations to look exactly the same?” The data on Jesus might be especially surprising to Jews who, if they agree on nothing else, believe that Jews for Jesus and its “messianic” philosophy are beyond the pale. The survey found that 21 percent of Jewish millennials believe Jesus was a divinity “in human form who lived among people in the

Yonatan Sindel/Flash90

1st century.” And 28 percent “see him as a rabbi or spiritual leader, but not G-d.” The openness to non-Jewish practice extends beyond that: 42 percent of respondents say they celebrate Christmas. A majority says one can hold other faiths and still be Jewish. And the survey found that one-third of Jewish millennials believe “G-d desires a personal relationship with us.” Some of the findings depart from the Pew study of four years ago. Pew found far lower rates of synagogue attendance among Jews aged 18 to 29, and a much lower percentage of respondents said religion was important to them. But Pew actually backs up some of the statistics on Christianity. It found that a third of all respondents had a Christmas tree at home, and 34 percent said belief in Jesus as the Messiah was compatible with being Jewish. (“This does not mean that most Jews think those things are good,” Alan Cooperman, deputy director of Pew Research Center’s Religion

and Public Life Project, said at the time. “They are saying that those things do not disqualify a person from being Jewish. [But] most Jews think that belief in Jesus is disqualifying by roughly a 2-to-1 margin.”) Jewish sociologist Steven M. Cohen said Pew also did not delve as deeply into matters of faith because theology tends to be more central to Christians than to mainstream Jews. “Christians have a stronger interest in the faith aspect of religion, and being Jewish isn’t only a religion, but it’s also an ethnicity,” said Cohen, a professor at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion who consulted on the Pew study. “It’s also the case that faith in G-d for Jews is less predictive of matters of belonging.” Some results of this week’s survey conformed to expectations of millennials as less affiliated with traditional institutions and more open to multiculturalism and pluralism. A majority of millennial Jews do not affiliate with a major denomination. Only about one in 10 see affinity to Israel as central to Judaism, though about a quarter have been on Birthright. Nearly 40 percent self-define as liberal and 24 percent as conservative. And only 4 percent would refrain from a serious relationship with a non-Jew, though 70 percent are committed to raising their children as Jewish. These statistics may be alarming to a Jewish establishment that has worried for decades about rising intermarriage rates. But for Jews for Jesus, which promotes its own brand of interreligious mixing, this is not a problem. “I don’t see it as a positive or a negative,” Perlman said of intermarriage. “It’s a fact of life, but I think that spiritual harmony is important, so if you’re a Jewish-gentile couple, you need to find spiritual harmony or you have a rocky road ahead.” The survey has a margin of error of 2.5 percent. Kelman acknowledges that he had misgivings about a survey on Jews funded by a group that essentially wants to convert them to Christianity. “The fact you’re doing market research on American Jews, their potential adherence to Jews for Jesus makes you uncomfortable,” he said.

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THE JEWISH STAR November 3, 2017 • 14 Cheshvan 5778

Good and bad in study of Jewish millennials

Jews carry too much weight in USA, says right-wing British pol

November 3, 2017 • 14 Cheshvan 5778 THE JEWISH STAR

in the Jerusalem hills near Beit Shemesh

The former leader of a nationalist political party in Britain with close ties to President Donald Trump said that American Jews have a disproportionate influence over politics. Nigel Farage, the ex-head of the Independence Party and now a talk show host, made the remarks Monday while discussing whether Russian influence had aided Trump’s election in the wake of the first charges being brought against Trump administration officials. A caller named Ahmed told Farage that he thought the pro-Israel lobby in the United States was as dangerous as alleged Russian interference, leading Farage to respond: “Well, the Israeli lobby, you know, that’s a reasonable point, Ahmed, because there are about 6 million Jewish people living in America, so as a percentage it’s quite small, but in terms of influence it’s quite big.” He added: “Well, in terms of money and influence, yep, they are a very powerful lobby,”

Girl is told: ‘Jews come last’

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and “there are other very powerful foreign lobbies in the United States of America, and the Jewish lobby, with its links with the Israeli government, is one of those strong voices.” Several listeners contacted the watchdog group Campaign Against Antisemitism following Farage’s remarks. In a statement on its website, the group called on Farage to “immediately withdraw his deplorable comments” and to apologize for them, or he should be removed from the radio. The group said it would ask Britain’s communications regulatory office, known as Ofcom, to open an investigation. Farage, who was a key supporter of Brexit, the British exit from the European Union, resigned as head of the Independence Party in July 2016. The same month he visited the Republican National Convention in Cleveland, where he met with Trump aides. He is reported to have close ties to former White House strategist Stephen Bannon. —JTA

By Josefin Dolsten, JTA On a recent Friday, Eitan Press stood in Jerusalem’s Mahane Yehuda Market offering to apply balm to the beards of passers-by. Press was hoping they would get hooked on his product, an ointment that comes in a variety of Jewish-themed scents, including the popular Sukkot (myrtle, lemon, lemongrass and mint) and Havdalah (clove and cinnamon). The founder of the Aleph Male beard balm company, Press estimates that he has “anointed hundreds of beards” since its founding in July. “I’ve seen how it truly makes men’s beards look majestic and smell great,” Press, who sports an impressive red beard, told JTA. “It takes a frizzy, scraggly beard and make it look like a smooth, handsome, kingly beard.” Aleph Male beard balms are made in Jerusalem using a base of coconut oil, beeswax, shea butter and Vitamin E oil. Press tries to source as many of the ingredients as possible from Israel. Two-ounce tins of the ointment, which comes in five varieties (including one unscented), cost $20 and can be shipped in Israel or to the United States. His core audience is “young Jewish Hasidic hipsters,” Press said, but he wants to make the product appealing to “anybody who has a beard.” “What I’m hoping to see in terms of this, in terms of the future, is a really strong Jewish lifestyle brand that’s helping Jewish men and men in general engage in self-care, rethink their masculinity to more overtly positive values in terms of how they relate to women and how they relate to other men,” the Jerusalem resident said. Even the name — Aleph Male is a play on the “alpha male” trope using the Hebrew

Eitan Press, second from right, says he has “anointed” the beards of hundreds of men, including these Aleph Male Jewish pilgrims in Uman, Ukraine, on Sept. 20.

letter aleph — is about an alternative way of expressing masculinity. “There’s sort of a narrative around not all beard balms, but a lot of the beard balms, of crude masculinity, or the term that is popular today is ‘toxic’ masculinity,” said Press, 40. “To me, the Aleph Male is really about changing the conversation using beard balm.” Many beard balms are marketed with oldtime images of men as Vikings, lumberjacks, prospectors and outlaws. Press, who grew up in Demarest, New Jersey, and became observant after moving to Israel in 2008, says he never related to the “alpha male” cultural ideal. “Often the alpha male is associated with dominating women, dominating men. The al-

pha male is on top of the pyramid and everyone is below, and really to me the Aleph Male is a man who lifts other people up,” he said. The scandal revolving around Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein “is an example of toxic masculinity, and as a man what can I do to respond to that?” Press remembers thinking. “Part of it is educating men about a higher vision of what masculinity is about.” Press shared a photo from the Aleph Male Facebook page with the caption “The Aleph Male respects and honors the feminine.” He came up with the idea of making a beard balm after a trip last year to Uman, Ukraine, where tens of thousands of Jews make a Rosh Hashanah pilgrimage to visit the grave of Rabbi Nachman, the founder of the

Breslov Hasidic movement. “I was in Uman and saw in the synagogue next to [the grave of] Rabbi Nachman of Breslov, there was a guy praying there, and he had this huge red beard, and I was like ‘that guy is inside of me but I’m afraid to be that guy.’ And then I just decided I was going to grow my beard,” recalled Press, whose full-time job is running a digital marketing agency. Concerned about making sure he still maintained a professional image at work, Press experimented with making a beard balm at home. The result was a hit among friends and a year later he started selling it. Since then he has sold some 200 cans, split evenly between customers in Israel and the United States. He also recently started selling the balm in a Tel Aviv barbershop. People aren’t just using Aleph Male for beards. Haredi Orthodox men are using the balm to style their sidelocks, and a woman recently told him she was using it on her split ends. Press also sells T-shirts with the Aleph Male logo, and is hoping to expand to beard oil, brushes and grooming products. Besides making beards soft and pleasantsmelling, and providing a new vision for masculinity, Press hopes his beard balm can help show a different side to Judaism. “Judaism is actually a very sensual religion,” he said. “And when I say sensual, I mean being connected to our senses — in terms of tastes, and food, and smell and sounds, the sounds of shofar, the smell of the etrog, the smell of the Havdalah spices.” “We’re a very physical religion, and so part of what the Aleph Male scents are about is also educating and highlighting these aspects of Jewish culture.”

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THE JEWISH STAR November 3, 2017 • 14 Cheshvan 5778

Jewish-scented beard balm for hipsters, Hasids

November 3, 2017 • 14 Cheshvan 5778 THE JEWISH STAR

SHAbbAT STAR

‫כוכב של שבת‬

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

Laughing in joy and in pain: What’s different? Rabbi binny FReedman the heart of jerusalem

o to a Yemenite Jewish wedding or Bar Mitzvah and you will hear the women shouting the yelilot traditionally “sung” at all celebrations. I still recall when being called to the Torah for the first time at the Kotel, at my Bar Mitzvah, some of the Yemenite women standing on a bench looking over the divider let loose with blood-curdling sounds — cries of joy — nearly knocking my mother off the bench! Nearly ten years later, at the military funeral of one of my men killed in a Jordanian border ambush, I heard the same blood-curdling sounds, only this time they were cries of anguish. These communities have the custom to let loose these powerful, almost guttural sounds, at occasions of both great joy as well as great sorrow, perhaps because often the line between joy and sorrow, pleasure and pain, is so thin as to be almost indistinguishable. And this is true as well for laughter. At the festive meal following a brit milah, an older gentleman began to speak. I anticipated that this grandfather or great uncle, whom I had seen holding the baby and hugging the new father earlier on, would share some thoughts of Torah, or perhaps some reminiscences of the family. Imagine my surprise, therefore, when this elderly fellow began what turned out to be a standup comedy routine! Even more surprising was that none of his jokes were even remotely funny, and yet nearly everyone else was laughing themselves silly! I wondered whether I was missing some inside jokes, when he finally calmed everyone down and began to speak. “Some of you may wonder why, here at a brit, all that interests me is making you laugh. So let me share a story to put this in perspective.

“Before the war, we lived in Frankfurt, Germany. Our family had lived there for generations, and included many great rabbis and community leaders, and our family name was greatly respected and admired. I never recall anything but the utmost respect that was accorded to both my family and me — certainly no one ever laughed at us, or ridiculed us, until the Nazis came to power. “One day I was stopped by a few German officers out for some fun. They forced me to get down on all fours and howl like a dog, and then to hop and jump while another Jew, caught like me, was forced to accompany my ‘dance’ with a song. While this was going on, a crowd gathered, and the laughter of these Germans filled the street. “They sent a boy to the barber to fetch a pair of scissors, and they began to cut off my beard, all the while laughing and pointing and enjoying themselves. In those days, only Jews who had less of a relationship with Jewish tradition that had shaved their beards; we however, were a traditional family, and would never have considered such a thing, so the thought of being publicly humiliated by walking around without a beard was something that filled with me with more pain than the actual experience of having my beard cut off. “And, to make matters worse, they did not cut off my entire beard, but only half of it, and told me that if I cut off the other half of my beard, they would do unspeakable things to my family. “For nearly a week, I lived in terror as we desperately searched for a way to escape, and eventually we succeeded in getting away from Germany, and eventually out of Europe. But the laughter and the catcalls that I experienced that week will stay with me forever.

“So today, with the Germans gone, and my family here surrounding me, and a new baby having just arrived, I want everyone here to smile with me, because this baby gives me again the opportunity to have the last laugh; after all these years, I finally have the chance I did not have then: to laugh back. hat is laughter all about? This week’s parsha, Vayera, seems to introduce us to the challenges of misplaced laughter. Hashem, by way of three angels, tells Avraham that in a year’s time, his wife Sarah will give birth to a baby boy. “And he said, I will surely return to you this time next year, by which time your wife, Sarah, will give birth to a (baby) boy; and Sarah was listening behind the entrance to the tent. “And Avraham and Sarah were old, and well on in years, and Sarah had ceased having her ‘women’s ways’ (periods). And Sarah laughed to herself, saying: Now I am worn out … and my husband is old! “And G-d said to Avraham: Why did Sarah laugh and say: ‘Can I really give birth (to a child), when I am so old?’ Is anything too difficult for G-d? At the designated time, I will return, and Sarah will have a son. “And Sarah was afraid (in awe?), and denied it, saying, ‘I did not laugh.’ And he said, ‘you did laugh’.” (Bereishit 18:10-15) What did Sarah do here that was so inappropriate as to require the intervention of no less than G-d Himself? Was it so terrible that Sarah was in doubt, or at least surprised by this sudden revelation? Wouldn’t any woman who found out she was about to give birth at the age of 90, long after her body’s biological clock had stopped functioning, be incredulous at the prospect?

vayera seems to introduce us to the challenges of misplaced laughter.

Why was it so terrible that she laughed? Even more challenging is the fact that Sarah was not told of this impending birth directly as was Abraham, but had to overhear the news that was being told to her husband. Add to this Sarah’s reaction to G-d’s accusation: she actually denies laughing! How could anyone, much less a woman of Sarah’s stature, deny that which Hashem says is true? Obviously G-d would know what is in your heart, as well as your mind. What was going through Sarah’s mind when she laughed? It would seem, especially from verse 14, that Sarah was having a hard time accepting that she, a ninety-year-old woman, could give birth. But how could Sarah, viewed in Jewish tradition as a prophetess, doubt that G-d could do anything? Even stranger is the explanation as to why Sarah denies her laughter: “Ki’ Yare’ah” (for she was … afraid). While most people translate “yare’ah” as “she was afraid,” the truth is that yir’ah is closer to a sense of awe of G-d than a fear of Him. Thus, Yirat Sha’mayim is less fear of heaven that an awe of heaven. Which brings us back to our story: How could the awe of seeing Hashem in everything be the source of Sarah’s seeming disbelief? And why was this disbelief, which would seem to be perfectly in order, warrant Hashem’s intervention? Lastly, and strangest of all, is the fact that Sarah is not the only one guilty of laughter here: Abraham too, when first informed of the imminent birth of a son, laughs in disbelief. After Abraham is circumcised, Sarai is re-named Sarah, and G-d tells him: “And I will bless her (Sarah) and give you a son from her as well … and she will be a mother of nations, and kings of nations will come from her. And Abraham fell on his face and laughed, and said in his heart: ‘will a child be born to a 100 year old (man)? And will Sarah, who is 90 years old, give birth’? And Abraham said to G-d: would See Laughing on page 24

Mysteries in the marriage of Avraham and Sarah Rabbi avi billet Parsha of the week

am currently teaching a weekly parsha class using the commentary of Rabbi Yaakov Tzvi Mecklenberg, Ha’ktav V’hakabbalah. As it doesn’t appear in a class Chumash, it is less known outside of Chumash scholarship — but the perspective he brings is fascinating and worth the effort of finding the text — available for free at Hebrewbooks.org — and studying at length. Yiddish speakers will enjoy an additional perk, as he explains some concepts in finer detail with Yiddish expressions. In Lech Lecha, he noted that the encounter in Egypt, when Sarah was taken by Pharaoh, ended with Pharaoh sending them out of Egypt, with the Torah describing their departure as accompanied by great wealth. Rabbi Mecklenberg explains, noting that the word “vayhi lo” (and he had) rather than “vayiten lo” (that Pharaoh gave him) the wealth as an indication that Avraham and Sarah left Egypt with the wealth they had brought down to Egypt. Rabbi Mecklenberg makes the bold claim that Pharaoh did not actually give Avraham any parting gifts — Avraham wouldn’t have ac-

cepted them anyway. Pharaoh just let Avraham keep whatever he had brought down to Egypt. In his lengthy analysis on their descent, Rabbi Mecklenburg makes another bold claim — that Avraham and Sarah’s marriage was designed following Noachide rules. In those pre-Torah days, as Maimonides points out in his Laws of Marriage, all that was needed for a union to be recognized as a marriage was for a man and woman to agree to live together and to consummate their union. Divorce was accomplished through their mutual agreement that the relationship was over. And the idea of remarrying the same person was not problematic, contrary to the verse in the Torah which forbids a re-union if the woman was with a different man in the interim. (Devarim 24:4) It is interesting that Ha’ktav V’hakbbalah doesn’t make similar claims regarding Avimelekh in Chapter 20. Of course it is much harder to make a claim that Avimelekh did not give them anything, as the verse (20:14) says, “Avimelekh took sheep, cattle, and male and female slaves, and he gave [them] to Avraham. He [also] returned [Avraham’s] wife Sarah to him.” In 20:11-13, Avraham explains why claiming Sarah as his sister is actually the truth, confirming the idea of Noachide marriage (and divorce) for us. Rabbi Mecklenburg does not address the gift-giving at all. Perhaps it is already clear at this point that Avraham is wealthy. Perhaps

Avimelekh’s character (flaws as it is) is a little more savory than Pharaoh and King of Sodom, allowing Avraham to be comfortable receiving these gifts. But one gift stands out, in 20:16, when Avimelekh says, “I am giving your ‘brother’ a thousand pieces of silver. Let it be compensation for you.” (Living Torah translation) he words “ksut einayim,” which Rabbi Kaplan translated as “compensation” are, as Rabbi Kaplan notes in his commentary, “A difficult idiom, literally translated as ‘an eye covering.’ Thus, ‘something to prevent you from seeing any more evil’ (cf. Ibn Ezra; Rashi). Others interpret it as a vindication, something that will cover other people’s eyes and prevent them from seeing wrong (Rashbam). Another interpretation is that ‘[the money] will cover people’s eyes and prevent them from looking at you wantonly’ (Ramban). Other commentators take it literally, as a veil to show that Sarah was a properly married woman (HaKethav VeHaKabbalah). Still other sources translate eynayim as ‘colors’ rather than ‘eyes,’ and render the phrase, ‘let [the money] be used to buy you a colorful cloak’ (Radak). Finally, some make the subject of the phrase Abraham: ‘[Abraham] shall be for you as an eye-covering,’ however the latter expression is translated (Ibn Ezra).” While Rabbi Kaplan was clearly aware of the K’tav V’Hakabbalah, in his miniscule reference here he doesn’t do justice to the length of

the exposition on this verse. Making references to Middle Eastern cultures which routinely had women covering their faces, to preserve their beauty for their husbands (culturally a different outlook than that of the West), Rabbi Mecklenburg wonders how Avraham and Sarah went about preserving or rejecting the face-covering custom. More so, he talks about how Avraham is the “eye covering,” protecting her and others from sinning due to her beauty. Regarding the money, Rabbi Mecklenburg argues that it wasn’t really given, that Avimelekh had intended to give it to Avraham as a gift for the fine bride Avimelekh had taken from her brother. But that never came about, so the dowry was never given. Like everyone, Avraham and Sarah evolved. They grew into their relationship, how they dealt with outsiders, and developed a trust of one another that, to a certain degree, is beyond our comprehension. How would any of us deal with a potentate who takes women at his will, and kills husbands to unchain the women (let the irony of justifying murder to avoid adultery not go unnoticed)? Hopefully these are not challenges we come face to face with. But may all marriages be blessed to be built on understanding and trust, so challenges and hurdles can be overcome together, and not a cause for making a marriage fall apart.

alan Jay geRbeR Kosher BooKworm

he name and history of the Aish Kodesh in our community is well known. This legacy from the tragedy of the Warsaw Ghetto of one of its towering leaders, Rebbi Kalonymus Kalmish Shapira, the Aish Kodesh, has been taught to us by the example of Rabbi Moshe Weinberger of Woodmere whose shul is dedicated, by name, to the Aish Kodesh. Recently a new book was published, authored by the distinguished scholar and educator, Dr. Henry Abramson, dean of the Brooklyn campus of Touro College, themed to the legacy of the Aish Kodesh, titled, “Torah From The Years Of Wrath 1939 – 1943: The Historical Context of The Aish Kodesh.” This work receive the following approbation from Rabbi Weinberger: “I am indebted to Professor Henry Abramson for his extraordinary study of Aish Kodesh, and his bringing to life the heart-wrenching, poetic world of the great tzaddik and martyr, Rebbi Kalonymus Kalmish Shapira of Piaseczna. May this work be a merit for him and his family and may we all be privileged to be uplifted by the teachings of one of our most inspired masters.” The following guest review was written by Rabbi Pesach Sommer, a member of the Judaic

Studies faculty at the Ramaz Middle School in Manhattan. A musmach of Rav Zalman Nechemia Goldberg, Rabbi Sommer is also much involved with project Makom, and is a writer, blogger, and an accomplished speaker. The following is his take on Dr. Abramson’s work: “Without lifting up a gun or molotov cocktail, Rav Shapira committed some of the greatest acts of heroism of World War II. “While experiencing much personal trauma and suffering, the rebbe managed to offer words of encouragement and hope to unknown scores of Jews, religious and irreligious, chassidim and misnagedim alike, who, like him, were trapped in the Warsaw Ghetto. Those who have read the rebbe’s words of Torah delivered on many Shabbas and holidays between the years 1939 and 1943, the written record of which miraculously survived after being buried in the ground before the ghetto was destroyed, have been inspired by his uplifting words delivered under the most trying of circumstances. Still, until recently, readers had an incomplete picture of his words. “After being discovered in the rubble of the Warsaw Ghetto, the rebbe’s derashos were published by some of his surviving students in a work titled ‘Aish Kodesh.’ While they did their best to give over the rebbe’s words as accurately as possible, there were various typos and other errors that made it into the sefer. Recently, Dr. Daniel Reiser of the Herzog Academic College and the Tzefat Academic College published an incredible two volume critical edition of the rebbe’s derashos which is destined to be the one used by anyone interested in learning the rebbe’s wartime Torah.”

Further on in this narrative we are informed of the following: “While his divre Torah provide comfort and hope to those who are suffering, the reader is largely left unaware of the particular events which led the rebbe to say what he did each week.” Dr. Henry Abramson To fill this void, Dr. Abramson wrote his book to further teach us of the rebbe’s purpose and motives that brought about his holy teachings. Rabbi Sommer continues: “After an opening chapter which provides biographical information about the rebbe from before the war, there are three chapters each of which concentrates on a year from the war, what the rebbe spoke about at that time, and which events led to the choice of topic. Through Abramson’s thorough scholarship and compelling writing, the reader’s eyes are opened as the divrei Torah are connected to the rumors which might have been going through the ghetto that week, a new policy which led to additional suffering, or the narrowing of the parameters of the Warsaw Ghetto.” Further on we learn of the following: “The book concludes with a fifth chapter where he addresses something which has long been a point of contention among scholars. As one reads the rebbe’s words from during the war, one notices a shift in his outlook. While at the beginning of the war

the rebbe seemed to see the suffering that he and his fellow Jews were experiencing as fitting within traditional explanations for earlier tragic eras, where teshuva is required, it is clear that at a certain point he recognized that the level of suffering was way beyond that which could be explained by seeing it as an extension of earlier tragedies. The rebbe no longer suggested that those who were listening to him could change things by returning to G-d. Instead, he tried to figure out how a believer should view this sui generis experience. “While unfortunately certain academic scholars have used this change to suggest that the rebbe [G-d forbid] lost his faith, Abramson shows the absurdity of such a claim. He makes a conclusive case that while the rebbe struggled to make sense of the atrocities that the Jewish people were suffering, he remained what he had always been, a person with deep and enduring faith.” Dr. Sommer concludes his essay: “Dr. Abramson has written a book which is destined to lead to an increase of study of the rebbe’s Torah and thought in both the academic and Jewish world. His is a work which while maintaining high academic standards and containing ideas which will advance the field, is at once accessible to the non-scholar, and written in an engaging and compelling manner. “Especially for the reader who is looking for a work which contains both Torah and Avodas HaShem, along with serious scholarship, I can not recommend this incredible book strongly enough.” I cannot agree more with Rabbi Sommer’s gracious and heartfelt conclusion.

Understanding Lot’s exceedingly meritorious behavior Rabbi david etengoff

he first mention of Lot is found in the midst of the genealogical summations that appear at the end of Parashat Noach, “And Terah lived 70 years, and he begot Abram, Nahor, and Haran. And these are the generations of Terah: Terah begot Abram, Nahor, and Haran, and Haran begot Lot.” (Bereishit 11:26-27) Lot’s lineage is quite clear; he was the grandson of Terah and the nephew of Avraham Avinu. Moreover, Parashat Lech Lecha informs us that he lived a successful pastoral life with Abraham — until the latter deemed it best for them to separate from one another: “And also Lot, who went with Abram, had flocks and cattle and tents. And the land did not bear them to dwell together, for their possessions were many, and they could not dwell together. And there was a quarrel between the herdsmen of Abram’s cattle and between the herdsmen of Lot’s cattle. … And Abram said to Lot, “Please let there be no quarrel between me and between you and between my herdsmen and between your herdsmen, for we are kinsmen. Is not all the land before you? Please part from me; if [you go] left, I will go right, and if [you go] right, I will go left.” (Bereishit 13:5-9) Lot followed Abraham’s adjuration and, seemingly because of his vast cattle holdings, “chose for himself the entire plain of the Jordan.” The outcome of his choice altered the course of Jewish history until today: “Abram dwelt in the land of Canaan, and Lot dwelt in the cities of the plain, and he pitched his tents until Sodom.” (Bereishit 13:11-12) Rashi, basing himself upon Talmud Bavli, Horiot 10b, presents Rabbi Yochanan’s interpretation as to the underlying reason Lot chose to live in Sodom: “And the Midrash Aggadah interprets it in a negative manner: It was because they [the people of Sodom] were lustful and licentious that Lot [desired and] chose their region for himself.” (13:10) As such, Lot’s departure from Abraham was far more than a change of geographic venue based upon economic need. Instead, his choice represented the tacit repudiation of a major part of the pre-Torah ethics and

values that Abraham proclaimed and consistently modelled to the world. iven the above, it is fascinating that our parasha initially portrays Lot in a very positive light, and as a champion of one of Abraham’s most celebrated behaviors, namely, hachnassat orchim (attending to the needs of one’s guests): “And the two angels came to Sodom in the evening, and Lot was sitting in the gate of Sodom, and Lot saw and arose toward them, and he prostrated himself on his face to the ground. And he said, ‘Behold now my lords, please turn to your servant’s house and stay overnight and wash your feet, and you shall arise early and go on your way.’ And they said, ‘No, but we will stay overnight in the street.’ And he urged them strongly, and they turned in to him, and came into his house, and he made them a feast, and he baked unleavened cakes, and they ate. (Bereishit 19:1-3) Lot had no idea that the “people” before him were really angels. Since he had grown up in Abraham’s home and was wellversed in the mitzvah of hachnassat orchim and its mandatory nature, he felt a strong urge to help these travelers in need. As Rashi states, “From the house of Abraham he learned to look for wayfarers.” (19:1) In this instance, however, there was a powerful confounding factor at play that surely did not escape Lot’s attention - it was a capital crime in Sodom to extend hospitality to wayfarers! Therefore, why did Lot place his very life in danger for this mitzvah, especially in light of his rejection of other key aspects of Abraham’s value system? he great Chasidic master, Rabbi Shmuel Bornsztain zatzal, known as the “Shem Mishmuel” after the title of his most famous work, focused therein upon this conundrum: One must delve deeply to understand the narrative of Lot placing himself in physical danger (sakkanat nefashot) in order to fulfill the commandment of hachnassat orchim — for this is even above and beyond the practice of normal people, even those that are fitting and proper in all areas of their lives (kesharim). Rashi’s sugges-

tion that “from the house of Abraham he learned to look for wayfarers,” is a necessary but insufficient rationale to explain why Lot placed himself in life-threatening danger, since the people of Sodom had declared this [hachnassat orchim] to be a capital crime. (Shem Mishmuel, Bereishit, Parashat Vaera) Rav Bornsztain helps us understand the “story behind the story” regarding Lot’s exceedingly meritorious behavior. Prior to exploring his analysis, let us remember that Lot was the father of Moab from whom Ruth, the Moabite greatgrandmother of King David, descended. Armed with this key information, we are ready to encounter the Shem Mishmuel’s deeply mystical perception of the inner essence of Lot’s neshama (soul), and his behavior with the angels: In addition to our original problem, it is difficult to comprehend, after everything is said and done — and after Lot left Abraham — why all that he had learned from Abraham did not save him [from his wicked and licentious impulses]. According to our understanding (ach l’darcheinu), however, one can say that Lot remained good in his innermost being (b’penimiuto), for after all, the soul of King David continued to remain within him. This, however, was not enough to enable him to improve his actual behavior [in other instances]. … After the angels arrived, however, his very essence was aroused, namely, the soul of King David, may his memory be a blessing, and affected even his outward behavior (chitzonioto) until he was willing to put his life in danger for the angels [whom he perceived as human wayfarers]. It is for this reason that he was fitting to be saved [from the annihilation of Sodom and Gomorrah]. Rav Bornsztain’s statement that “Lot remained good in his innermost being (b’penimiuto), for after all, the soul of King David continued to remain within him” is deeply inspiring. It teaches us that no matter how people may appear on the surface, there may be nearly unlimited positive potential within them. This perspective is reminiscent of the words of a gifted young girl that continue to infuse the world with hope and meaning until

lot felt a strong urge to help these travelers in need.

our own time: It’s really a wonder that I haven’t dropped all my ideals, because they seem so absurd and impossible to carry out. Yet, in spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart. I simply can’t build up my hopes on a foundation consisting of confusion, misery, and death. … I can feel the sufferings of millions and yet, if I look up into the heavens, I think that it will all come right, that this cruelty too will end, and that peace and tranquility will return again. (Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl, diary entry, Saturday, July 15, 1944) With G-d’s help, may we be zocheh (merit) to witness the time when “iniquity will close its mouth and all wickedness will evaporate like smoke, when You [Hashem] will remove evil’s domination from the earth.” May this time come soon and in our days. V’chane yihi ratzon.

Luach

Fri Nov 3 • 14 Cheshvan Parsha Vayera Candlelighting: 5:31 pm

Havdalah: 6:39 pm

Fri Nov 10 • 21 Cheshvan Parsha Chayei Sara Candlelighting: 4:23 pm

Havdalah: 5:31 pm

Fri Nov 17 • 28 Cheshvan

Shabbos Mevarcdhim • Parsha Toldos Candlelighting: 4:17 pm

Havdalah: 5:26 pm

Fri Nov 24 • 6 Kislev Parsha Vayetzei Candlelighting: 4:13 pm

Havdalah: 5:21 pm

Fri Dec 1 • 13 Kislev Parsha Vayishlach Candlelighting: 4:10 pm

Havdalah: 5:19 pm

Five Towns times from the White Shul

THE JEWISH STAR November 3, 2017 • 14 Cheshvan 5778

The historical context of the Aish Kodesh

November 3, 2017 • 14 Cheshvan 5778 THE JEWISH STAR

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Cohen / To Brits, P’stine was just another colony… Continued from page 1 Campaign in the U.K., seeking both British government contrition and British taxpayerfunded reparations for the supposed handing of Palestine, in the words of one British Mandate-era Arab organization, into “the claws of the Jews.” In an interview with Ian Black of The Guardian, the prominent Palestinian academic Hanan Ashrawi positioned all of this as classic orientalist scheming, chiding Balfour for his “so patronizing, so racist” indifference to the Arab population of Palestine. Here, again, we see the broader discursive pattern: “white” settlers, visible to and cherished by their colonial masters; “black” natives, demeaned and ignored by the very same. shrawi is not entirely wrong, insofar as Balfour did not pay much heed to Arab objections. Walter Laqueur, in his indispensable “History of Zionism,” quotes Balfour as saying that whatever one’s view of Zionism, its ultimate goal “was of far profounder import than the desires of 700,000 Arabs.”

Neither did Balfour apparently think much of the ability of Palestine’s Arabs to overcome the maximalism of their leaders, writing in 1919 that—as Laqueur puts it—“he did not think Zionism would hurt the Arabs, but that of course they would never say they wanted it.” Nor were they ever prepared to make peace with it. That is one reason why the elation that greeted the Balfour Declaration among Jews gradually faded over the next decade, as the Zionist halutzim (pioneers) realized that, when it came securing Jewish communities from Arab violence and winning British consent for further Jewish immigration, it was little more than a piece of paper. Balfour did not prevent serial outbreaks of violence and terror against Palestine’s Jews during the 1920s and 1930s. And when Britain decided to restrict, on the eve of the Holocaust,

Jewish immigration to Palestine to just 75,000 individuals over five years—out of almost 10 million Jews in Europe—the 1939 White Paper outlining the new restrictions reasoned “that the framers of the Mandate in which the Balfour Declaration was embodied could not have intended that Palestine should be converted into a Jewish State against the will of the Arab population of the country.” You can even say that Britain ended up disowning the Balfour Declaration, going so far as to abstain during the Nov. 29, 1947 United Nations vote—on the 30th anniversary of the declaration—that legitimized the creation of a sovereign Jewish state. That none of this evidence moves those who advocate for British reparations to the Palestinians is largely explained by their overall take on the situation: the oppressed, with

The elation that greeted Balfour among Jews gradually faded.

whom history ultimately sides, remain the indigenous Palestinians, and the oppressors, whose day of reckoning always beckons, are the British imperialists and their willing Jewish settler dupes. Perhaps the best way to understand the Balfour Declaration is to take it literally. What the British helped the Jews to create in Palestine during the mandate period fits with what one imagines a “national home” might look like; and it’s certainly not an independent state with sovereign control over its borders and its immigration policy. Indeed, while its borders were open, that national home may have felt like a state, as it saved Jewish lives and crystallized into a cohesive Jewish national society. But when these were abruptly closed, sending thousands of Jews back to their deaths in Europe, the national home was just one more British colony. Irrespective of the ongoing Palestinian circus, that’s something for Jews to mull over as we reflect on our place in the world 100 years after Balfour.

Tobin / Abbas, Hamas see Balfour as ‘original sin’… Continued from page 1 protest tells us more about what is preventing peace between Israel and the Palestinians than any of the usual explanations about settlements, borders, the status of Jerusalem or criticisms of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. As Elliot Jager, author of a new and timely book on the topic, “The Balfour Declaration: 67 Words, 100 Years of Conflict,” from Gefen Publishing House, has written, Abbas’s decision to focus on Balfour wasn’t a joke. en decades after British Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour publicly expressed his government’s “sympathy with Jewish Zionist aspirations” and its support for “the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people,” the Palestinian Arabs are still unreconciled to the fact that this goal was realized with the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948. To Abbas and his Fatah party as well as their Hamas rivals, Balfour is the original sin of the Middle East that explains all the suffering of their people in the last century. More than that, it is, as Jager—a former Jerusalem Post editor and author—writes, the key to understanding why negotiations between Israel and the PA have remained stalemated in the more than two decades since the Oslo Accords.

“The 1993 Oslo Accords notwithstanding, the PLO covenant—with its denunciation of the Balfour Declaration—has never been legally amended, and for good reason. The problem Palestinian Arabs have with Israel is its existence—not ‘settlements,’ ‘occupied’ territory or the security barrier,” writes Jager. “Abbas has consistently made the point that the Palestinians won’t recognize or accept Israel as a Jewish state. That would acknowledge the legitimacy of a Jewish national home and doing so would basically end the conflict.” That means the conflict remains, as Jager notes, an “all or nothing (zero sum) clash.” Jager’s addition to the list of volumes on the declaration’s origin provides an easy-to-understand guide for general readers. The British decision was based, in part, on genuine sympathy for the aspirations of a homeless people whose ties to the land

was part of the bible that the English loved as well as Zionist diplomacy. But it was also the product of a mistaken belief—fueled by anti-Semitic myths—that the Jews had the power to aid the Allied war effort at a moment when the outcome of World War I was in doubt. In truth, the Jews had no such power. It was Balfour that allowed them back onto the stage of world history and, following the Allied victory that brought Palestine under British control, gave them the opportunity to begin building a state in their ancient homeland and rectify the injustices of the past two millennia. Yet it is not so much the events of 1917 as what followed that we need to understand. Subsequent British governments not only whittled down the size of the Jewish home, but also betrayed their promise by limiting the rights of the Jews in order to appease the Arab and Muslim world. That led to a series of propos-

The problem Palestinians have with Israel is its existence — not ‘settlements,’ ‘occupied’ territory or the security barrier.

als for further dividing the land, but the Arabs refused every such offer, including the United Nations partition plan of 1947 that called for the creation of both a Jewish and an Arab state. Sharing even part of the country was unthinkable. To the Arabs, the return of the Jews was an injustice because it would mean that even a tiny sliver of the region they considered Muslim might be under the sovereignty of a dhimmi—a despised minority. That same spirit is why the Palestinians are still unreconciled to the consequences of Balfour’s promise. As Jager writes, “continued Arab rejection of the Balfour Declaration 100 years on makes any compromise leading to a genuine conflict resolution impossible.” Just as the Palestinians remain in denial about the impossibility of their dream of eventually eradicating Israel, it is just as important that they come to terms with the Jews’ 1917 diplomatic triumph and understand why the Jews also have a right to be there. Until that happens, they will remain doomed to live in a limbo in which they can neither reverse the verdict of history nor find a way to live in peace alongside those who benefited from Balfour’s historic promise. Jonathan S. Tobin is opinion editor of JNS.

tehilla r. goldberg view from central park

hew! I’m glad to know the beloved library has not been sworn off. Books and a love of reading have been with me since I was little. Growing up in a tiny matchbox of a Jerusalem apartment, my parents even had shelving built even into the bathroom, spines of books lining those shelves. Not that I ever read anything from those shelves — it was all grown-up intellectual stuff — but that visual alone is pretty indoctrinating. Maybe it’s that, or maybe it’s that I affectionately took to fictional characters like Jo March of Little Women or Belle from Beauty and the Beast, who were bookworms, always with their nose in a book; they personified girls of curiosity and content. Then there was an endearing childhood book that I loved, “All of a Kind Family,” the very first chapter involving the Friday ritual of going to the library before Shabbat, to procure Shabbat reading material. Going to the library continued as a motif throughout the book, something that was similar to my life. In my family, come Friday, my sisters and I would walk out of the library with mounds of books. Immediately, we would glance at the card glued to the inner book jacket to see the stamped date of return, so we’d know how long we got to keep the books. Aside from the usual classics or other good books we got our hands on, we used to read through cookbooks and try out recipes. Plus my younger sisters went through an Archie comic book phase, so at times those were plentiful, too.

Other books were childhood favorites in which transformative scenes were anchored in the library. But speaking of the convergence of reading, library and Shabbat, listen to this. Growing up in Jerusalem, where Shabbat observance was part and parcel of the character of the Holy City, back in the day the municipality had a little library truck come though the neighborhood on erev Shabbat. Eagerly, we awaited its arrival. When it rolled into the neighborhood, like agile mountain goats we were poised to climb the high steps of the truck that would usher us into this quiet booklined space on wheels, to swap out new scintillating adventures for Shabbat reading. We didn’t even have to go to the library, the library came to us. still remember being handed my very first library card by the librarian. I felt so grown up. And stood a little taller with it. It was the first identity document I ever had that was all my own. A passport was kept by my parents for trips. A library card was all my own, with the freedom to choose which books I would enjoy reading. Of course, in reality, I’m not sure how ready I was for it, or perhaps that is part of the idea — to teach kids responsibility, but in the first years I was a library card holder, let’s just say I was often late in returning books. That’s when the reminder calls and messages came. My mother saving me more than a few times! My father was a lecturer at the Hebrew University. I accompanied him many times to the campus, and to its library of course, but it was so

vast and so academic and scholarly in its vibe that when I think of falling in love with a library, that wasn’t it. Although I was instantly mesmerized. In high school, I loved going to the library. With no internet, it really was the place to read and discover. At first it was so confusing and I always needed to ask for help in organizing myself around the sequence of a particular library’s design. But once I got it, I relished it. I also snagged some really good books for a quarter a piece at various library sales, when inventory was taken. The smell alone was welcoming to me. That musty bookish library smell told of long, uninterrupted peaceful hours ahead. Granted, library time was pressure, because it meant a serious assignment was on hand. But it was the library, so I could freely work at my pace, in the way that I wanted. And it’s the perfect place for spacing out a bit too, if that is on the day’s menu too. As a teen, I remember once getting locked out of the house. Where to go? I fished in my purse and came up with an accumulated amount of pennies, nickels and dimes that added up to my sister and I getting a pita pizza plus fries and a drink, to split. Then, with the freedom of time, we went to the library — of course. hen I arrived in New York as a fresh university student, one day I accidentally discovered the New York Public Library nearby. I was astonished. Even before the iconic lions Patience and Fortitude, let alone actually entering it and witnessing the grand Rose Reading Room, the steps alone, the architecture alone, drew me in.

like agile mountain goats, we climbed the into the quiet booklined space.

Just a short walk from my university, from then on, whenever I went there, I felt a sense of formality and rigor about my study, as I joined the home of scholars, writers and fellow students. But in recent years, as I’ve noticed library hours shrinking, I have felt a pang for the glory of library days. You know, you want to know and feel that your library will always be there. So I was heartened when this week there was a Twitter outpour from millennials for library love. The other day, Andre Walker, a New York Observer columnist, in a series of tweets, negated the importance and use of libraries and even librarians. He started with: “Nobody goes to libraries anymore. Close the public ones and put the books in school,” read one. Then came, “I know this makes librarians angry but shutting libraries and putting the books into schools would be an absolute good.” The final tweet: “Librarians are like French teachers. These jobs exist in order to pay the wages of sad people who can’t get proper work.” Ouch! After Walker was inundated with thousands of tweets from people sharing their love for and use of the library, his humble pie tweets poured in. Walker conceded, “To be fair, the library users of the world burst my bubble today! I can only concede that libraries are popular.” And, “your sheer numbers have proved the point that libraries aren’t as unpopular as I believed this morning! Please stop replying.” But when the response tweets to his remarks continued, Walker ended the conversation with his final tweet: “I surrender!” Now someone needs to send Andre Walker a library card so he understands what he’s missed out on. Copyright Intermountain Jewish News

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THE JEWISH STAR November 3, 2017 • 14 Cheshvan 5778

Sweet memories of library visits on erev Shabbat

Laughing in joy or pain…

November 3, 2017 • 14 Cheshvan 5778 THE JEWISH STAR

Continued from page 20 that Yishmael should live before you! And G-d said:’ But Sarah your wife will bear you a son, and you will call him ‘Yitzchak’.” (Bereishit 17:16-19) hy was Avraham’s laughter fine, while Sarah’s seems to have been problematic? Rashi, though not addressing this problem directly, notes that Onkelos, in his Aramaic translation form the period of the Mishnah, translates these two instances of laughter differently: In the case of Avraham’s laughter (17:17), Onkelos translates Va’Yitzchak (and he laughed) as Va’Chadey, from the root Chedvah, which Rashi explains means simchah, or joy. However, when Sarah laughs (18:12), he translates Va’Titzchak as Ve’Chaychat, which Rashi explains means laughter. Note also that Abraham laughs, and then says to himself: ‘will a hundred year old man and his ninety year old wife give birth?’ Sarah, however, laughs to herself. So it seems that Abraham’s laughter is more public, and Sarah’s is more private. And Rashi suggests that Abraham is experiencing pure joy, having naturally assumed G-d’s word is inevitable, whilst Sarah seems to be experiencing some initial reaction of doubt, perhaps almost afraid to believe that what her ears have heard can actually be true. But can it be that Sarah, whose level of prophecy is described as greater than that of Avraham, doubted G-d’s ability to produce such a miracle, and, when confronted by no less than G-d, actually denies it? Equally strange, once she is told: “No, you laughed”, Sarah is at once silent and accepting? What is this dialogue all about, and what is really going on here? Rav Avigdor Nevehnsahl, in his Sichot Le’Rosh HaShanah, suggests that Sarah denies laughing, because she had no idea that APRIL 12—JUNE 2016 only when Hashshe actually did laugh.27,Thus, * em$tells her that she did actually laugh does she silently accept this and begin her struggle ON ANY OF THE FOLLOWING PURCHASES: to understand what it means. Sometimes, there are character flaws that ® Luminette Privacyinside Sheer of us as to be are1 so deeply hidden (PLUS $100 REBATE EACH ADDITIONAL UNIT) barely discernible. Sarah’s disbelief is so miniscule as to be hidden deep inside to such a ® 2 Pirouette Window Shadings degree that even she did not realize she had (PLUS $50 REBATE EACH ADDITIONAL UNIT) laughed. Experiencing a disbelief of such mild proportions, Sarah, when questioned, even ® 2 Silhouette Window Shadings by G-d, naturally responds that she did not (PLUS $50 REBATE EACH ADDITIONAL UNIT) laugh, because in her heart she really did not laugh. But G-d knows differently. However mild this doubt, hidden deep inside Sarah was the bare beginnings of a character flaw which, if allowed to flourish, might easily become first doubt, then cynicism, and ultimately denial of all the principles on which this new nation of Abraham and Sarah was meant to be founded.

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he birth of Yitzchak is the beginning of the birth of the Jewish people — who will be carried through the most challenging experiences in human history by tremendous faith, faith in the future, faith that the day will come when we will all laugh together. Perhaps this is why this child will be named Yitzchak, meaning “he will laugh.” Perhaps this is the difference between Abraham and Sarah: the shock of gratitude, which leads to joy, as opposed to the shock of disbelief which leads to doubt. In the end, laughter is about the unexpected. That, in fact, is how comedians earn their living, by leading us down a story line with a completely unexpected punch line. And this is the meaning of the psalm we sing on Shabbat and festivals introducing the Birkat HaMazon: “Az Yimaleh’ S’chok Pinu (Then will our mouths be filled with laughter).” We will laugh at the coming of redemption, precisely because it will be so unexpected. If you would have told a Jew, huddling in the cold roll call of an Auschwitz morning in 1943, that five years later he would be dancing in the streets of Tel Aviv, in the new State of Israel, he would have said you were mad; who could have expected the miracle that was the birth of the State of Israel? In the end, the mark of our relationship with G-d is how we ultimately laugh. If I truly can accept that Hashem is the source of reality, then anything can happen, and nothing is really a surprise. aught in the world of Sodom, and having just experienced the evil of Egypt, deep inside Sarah is growing the kernel of the question, of whether we can ever really make the world a better place. Deep inside lies hidden the laughter of the impossibility of the dream that is Avraham. And so G-d tells Sarah to let it go, because if I have a relationship with my creator, then all things are possible, and one day, somewhere way off in the future, the world of Sodom will ultimately be destroyed, and we will laugh again. We are living in such a time; when terrorism seems to flourish and children idolize suicide bombers. We wonder whether the dream of a world of peace will ever come. And yet, imagine telling our great grandparents in the ghettoes of Warsaw or Kovno, that they would one day have to endure bombings in a modern Jewish State with a Jewish Army, where the spoken language is Hebrew, and the star of David is no longer yellow but blue on the white flag of Israel, which flies over the first national Jewish Government in Israel in 2,000 years. It’s all about how we laugh. May Hashem bless us all, soon, to have only wonderful things to laugh about, all of us, together. Shabbat shalom from Jerusalem.

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THE JEWISH STAR November 3, 2017 • 14 Cheshvan 5778

By Yaakov Lappin, JNS When the words Israel, the Palestinian Authority and Jordan appear in the same sentence, the story usually involves security or diplomatic developments in the volatile Middle East. But away from the daily headlines, these three Middle Eastern neighbors, as well as Spain, recently did something together that has nothing to do with regional controversies. In late October, rescue forces from Israel, the PA, Jordan and Spain convened in southern Israel for a joint national emergency exercise. Should a major disaster like an earthquake strike, Israel, the PA and Jordan have all reached quiet understandings that they will assist one another in saving lives, and that they will pool their responders together in the name of this goal. These understandings are part of a regional dialogue that is ongoing, and which is based on practical, non-political matters—cooperation that would appear normal in other parts of the world, but which stands out in this region and its conflicts. Capt. Eden Ilouz—a company commander in the Ra’am Battalion, one of four battalions in the IDF Home Front Command’s Search and Rescue Brigade—said that the exercise, called Middle East Forest Fire, was initiated by the European Union and lasted for two days. It took place in Zikim, north of the Gaza Strip. “We received rescue services from Jordan and Spain, and firefighters from the Palestinian Authority,” he told JNS. The Search and Rescue Brigade is made up of infantry soldiers who could be conducting a security operation in one moment, and be called to a natural disaster site in the next. During the recent exercise, the crews worked together, simulating the extraction of trapped people in collapsed buildings. “The time it takes to arrive at the rescue site is of critical importance,” Ilouz said. “The faster the forces arrive, the better.” Scenarios included a massive earthquake and a blast caused by a gas tank. Ilouz noted that a large earthquake “strikes our area once every 100 years. Responding to earthquakes is part of our annual training program. We have to be ready for any international-level disaster.” It was the first time an exercise of this kind was held in Israel, Ilouz added. Ilouz’s battalion is equipped with sonar sensors, mini cameras and sniffer dogs in order to track down trapped people. The unit also has technology enabling it to trace the location of individuals through their cellular signals. “We gather details to find out who was in what room of the collapsed building,” Ilouz said. “We take design sketches of the structure from the municipality, and build up a picture of the situation.” The drill, he said, was successful, though “of course there are lessons to learn.” Describing the unusual experience of training with Jordanian and Palestinian counterparts, Ilouz said, “Politics was not on our mind. We were focused on saving lives.” Male and female soldiers serve together in the Home Front Command’s battalions. They spend seven months training as infantry soldiers, before receiving specialized rescue skills. During routine times, they conduct “security missions in Judea and Samaria, defending all citizens,” Ilouz said. “We are ready to go anywhere for rescues in the country, or in the world,” the captain added. Ilouz was part of the Israeli rescue delegation that provided assistance to Nepal after the country’s 2015 earthquake. The battalions also train in responding to unconventional weapons attacks, though Ilouz said he could not provide further details on this aspect of their training. Lt.-Col. Tal Rozin, commander of the Home Front Command School, said, “This was an intensive drill, and the goal of all who were there was to save lives.”

The JEWISH STAR

CAlendar of Events

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

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. Halacha Shiur: [Weekly] Join Rabbi Yoni Levin at Aish Kodesh for a halacha shiur. 9:30 pm. 894 Woodmere Pl, Woodmere.

Friday November 3

Erev Shabbos Kollel: [Weekly] Eruv Shabbos Kollel starting with 6 am Chassidus shiur with Rav Moshe Weinberger and concluding with 9 am Chevrusah Learning session with Rabbi Yoni Levin. 894 Woodmere Pl, Woodmere.

Sunday November 5

Timely Torah: [Weekly] Join Rabbi Ya’akov Trump, assistant rabbi of the Young Israel of Lawrence-Cedarhurst, for a shiur on relevant Halachic and philosophical topics related to Parsha Moadim and contemporary issues. Coffee and pastries. 8 am. 8 Spruce St, Cedarhurst. Learning Program: [Weekly] At Aish Kodesh led by Rav Moshe Weinberger following 8:15 Shacharis including 9 am breakfast and shiurim on subjects such as halacha, gemara and divrei chizuk. 894 Woodmere Pl, Woodmere. HANC Open House: HANC invites prospective

Yeshiva Tiferes Moshe Open House: Yeshiva Tiferes Moshe invites prospective students and their parents to its open house. 10 am. 8306 Abingdon Rd, Queens. 718-846-7300 x119. Shalhevet Open House: Midreshet Shalhevet High School invites prospective students and their parents to its open house. 12 pm. Register at midreshetshalhevet.org. MAY Open House: Mesivta Ateres Yaakov invites prospective students and their parents to its open house. 1:30 pm. 131 Washington Ave, Lawrence. 516-374-6465. Mikvah Groundbreaking Event: The Inwood community invites everyone to partake in the groundbreaking event of a bran new mikvah. 2:30 pm. 76 Roosevelt Ave, Inwood. 718-954-6160

Monday November 6

Women’s Shiur: [Weekly] Dr. Anette Labovitz’s women shiur will continue at Aish Kodesh. 10 am. 894 Woodmere Pl, Woodmere. Yeshiva Har Torah Open House: Har Torah invites parents only to its open house. 7:15 pm. 250-10 Grand Central Pkwy, Little Neck. 718-5432533. 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.

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Kosher Wine Expo: The YI of Huntington has organized a kosher wine tasting expo. 6:25-9:35 pm. $75 in advance, $99 at the door. 101 James Doolittle Blvd, Uniondale. Kosherwineexpo.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. 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.

Wednesday November 8 Timely Tanach: [Weekly] Join Rabbi Ya’akov Trump of the Young Israel of Lawrence Cedarhurst for a shiur on Sefer Shoftim. 8 pm. 8 Spruce St, Cedarhust. Chumash and Halacha Shiur: [Weekly] Shiur with Rabbi Yosef Richtman at Aish Kodesh. 8 pm. 894 Woodmere Pl, Woodmere. 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.

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Kristallnacht Commemorative Event: Join the Red Shul in a night of commemoration for Kristallnacht with guest speaker Dr. Henry Abramson, dean of Touro College in Brooklyn. 395 Oakland Ave, Cedarhurst.

Saturday November 11

Rambam Open House: Rambam Mesivta invites prospective students and their parents to its open house. 8pm. 15 Frost Ln, Lawrence. PreRegister at www.rambam.org.

Sunday November 12

HAFTR Open House: HAFTR invites prospective students and their parents to its open house. 10 am. 635 Central Ave, Cedarhurst. Mesivta Sha’arei Pruzdor Open House: Mesivta Sha’arei Pruzdor invites prospective students and their parents to its open house. 1 pm. 121 Irving Place, Woodmere. NCSY Annual Gala: NCSY invites you to their annual gala featuring a shiur, the Ben Zakkai 23rd annual honors society induction ceremony, a cocktail hour and honorees from the NCSY community. 4 pm. Sponsorships with included tickets beginning at $100. Cradle of Aviation Museum, Charles Lindbergh Blvd, Garden City.

Monday November 13

Yeshiva Far Rockaway Open House: YFR invites prospective students and their parents to its open house. 7:30 pm. 802 Hicksville Rd, Far Rockaway. 718-327-7600. Rambam Mini-Open House: 8 pm. 15 Frost Ln, Lawrence. Pre-Register at www.rambam.org.

Fri-Sat Nov 17-18

Ideology of the IDF: YI of Hewlett kicks off its Fall Scholar-in-Residence Lecture Series with IDF speaker Rabbi Shalom Hammer. Rabbi Hammer will be speaking during dinner on Friday evening and after musaf on Shabbos morning. 1 Piermont Ave, Hewlett. To make a reservation for Friday dinner call 295-2282.

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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 FIDF Event: Join the community of the Five Towns and Greater South Shore at the Sephardic Temple for the sixth annual Friends of the IDF event to benefit the soldiers of the IDF. 7 pm. 775 Branch Blvd, Cedarhurst. 646-274-9661.

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Iyun Tefilah: [Weekly] Rabbi Moshe Teitelbaum at the Young Israel of Lawrence Cedarhust. 9:45 am. 8 Spruce St, Cedarhurst.

Gemara Shiur: [Weekly] Join Rabbi Moshe Sokoloff at the YI of Woodmere for a gemara shiu.r 9:15 am. 859 Peninsula Blvd, Woodmere. 516295-0950.

Tuesday November 7

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Commercial & Residential Licensed & Insured

924275

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.

students and their parents to its open house. 9 am. 215 Oak Street, Uniondale. msteiner@hanc.org.

936519

Thursday November 2

941064

November 3, 2017 • 14 Cheshvan 5778 THE JEWISH STAR

855-I-KNOW-A-GUY www.iknowaguyinc.com 461 Central Ave Cedarhurst NY 11516 Lic #H04398900 • NYC Track #GC611686

THE JEWISH STAR November 3, 2017 â&#x20AC;¢ 14 Cheshvan 5778

927110

934040

November 3, 2017 â&#x20AC;¢ 14 Cheshvan 5778 THE JEWISH STAR