Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By admin on June 17, 2020

Deborah Feldman grew up in a strictly conservative religious community. Every aspect of her life was governed by complex laws, from how she dressed to what she was allowed to eat. She was born in Brooklyn, New York, but her community spoke Yiddish as its first language. Feldmans future had already been mapped out for her: she was to enter into an arranged marriage and have children. She was not supposed to question, or doubt, or yearn for something more.

But she always felt different. Through sheer force of character and determination, she left the community at the age of 23 and carved out a successful, independent, life for herself. Now 33, she is a writer living in an apartment in Berlin with her teenage son. She is working on a novel in German, enjoys going to the theatre and has friends from different backgrounds who have become like family.

Feldmans story might sound familiar if you have spent lockdown bingeing on Netflix: its hit four-part drama Unorthodox, the streaming services first Yiddish-language series, is based on her best-selling 2012 memoir Unorthodox: The Scandalous Rejection of My Hasidic Roots. The show follows a young Hasidic woman called Esty who flees her husband and the pressures of her Hasidic Jewish community in Brooklyn to start a new life among musicians in Berlin.

I speak to Feldman on Zoom from her Berlin apartment. She believes that part of the reason the Netflix series attracted such a wide audience is because of the universal nature of the story: Esty might belong to a little-known and highly private, insular community, but she is simply a young woman who is searching for freedom and a new way of living.

Her story also seems particularly relevant now, as Feldman explains: We are facing an uncertain future. The prospect of freedom has suddenly become different for all of us. There is something about Estys journey that is close to home.

The Netflix series is inspired by Feldmans memoir, but it is heavily fictionalised only the parts set in Williamsburg are based on Feldmans life, and she worked closely with Netflix creators Anna Winger and Alexa Karolinski throughout the process to maintain some privacy. Feldman grew up in the Satmar community in Williamsburg, where there are tens of thousands of ultra-Orthodox Jews. The Satmar movements founding members were Holocaust survivors who had managed to escape to America. The community carries a lot of trauma and it is very important to them that they faithfully preserve the traditions of their Eastern European ancestors, many of whom were killed.

As well as her own story, Feldman wanted the Netflix series to reflect the experiences of others who had left the Hasidic community. When I left in 2009, there was a very small group of people who had done the same. Today there are thousands of people all over the world. We spoke to many of them to find some kind of common thread. Feldman believes that technology has accelerated the trend of people considering a different way of life. If you can Google Is there a God? on a smartphone, it becomes more difficult [to stop people from leaving].

I ask Feldman whether she believes in God, but she does not find it a particularly important question any more. I dont think so, she says. I dont really think about God very much. I call myself almost an agnostic, because its not very important to me to define whether or not He exists. Im just going to keep living my life the way it feels authentic.

She still, however, feels culturally Jewish, even though she is no longer part of a traditional community. Judaism is a very rich cultural resource, completely apart from religious identity or spirituality. I have a deep relationship with Yiddish literature and religious art in Europe.

The Netflix series is incredibly moving and eye-opening. I found the memoir inspiring, but much darker. While Esty escapes her marriage after a year and goes to Berlin, Feldmans exodus was far more drawn out and complicated. It makes it all the more impressive that she managed to leave everything and everyone she had known behind her and start an entirely new life in the modern world. Feldman left the Satmar community to flee an extremely unhappy marriage. She already had a three-year-old son and she had wanted to leave for years, but managed to escape only once she knew she could support herself through a book deal for her memoir, and had the resources to fight a custody battle for her child.

While their stories diverge, the Netflix writers imbued Esty with Feldmans same spirit and confidence. Feldman and Esty are both highly intelligent and curious. They long to express themselves through art. Esty is a musician, while Feldman is a reader and a writer. Their overwhelming talent drives their desire to leave their communities. It is also their way out. I know what it is like to yearn for any form of artistic expression, says Feldman. All art forms offer us the same feeling of escape and authenticity. It is also why art is considered threatening in all religious societies, because it encourages individuality.

Feldman was not allowed to read secular books when she was growing up, but she would sneak into a public library and hide novels such as Little Women and A Tree Grows in Brooklyn under her bed. It meant that she was much better at reading in English than her peers, which would eventually help her to leave. After Feldman got married, she pretended to her husband that she was enrolling in basic bookkeeping lessons. Instead, she began taking literature classes at Sarah Lawrence College. She started an anonymous blog about life as a Hasidic woman and one of her friends introduced her to a literary agent who encouraged her to write a memoir.

Feldmans early years are still a strong part of her identity. She did not grow up with TV shows, but she does know about Yiddish literature. I am always going to be someone who has a foot in both worlds, she says. I dont know anything about music from the 90s, but it doesnt matter to me. I know I will never catch up with popular culture, but I have my own culture.

I gained a vast cultural resource that my work will always draw on. I took a value system with me that I still have, which doesnt have very much to do with the Western world. One of the reasons why I felt so comfortable in Berlin is because Berlin is the only city in the West that does not really reflect capitalist values.

Before Feldman moved to Berlin, she lived in Manhattan. I didnt make friends easily in New York, but I made friends on my first day in Berlin in a caf and within a week we were this inseparable group, she recalls. In Berlin, everyone is sort of rootless. There are no pre-established structures that you have to break your way into.

I think that if you grow up in the spiritual world and then you live in Manhattan, which is a capitalist paradise, it is very jarring because everyone around you is chasing success, status, fame and money and you already know that none of those things will fulfil you or give you that sense of peace that you were raised to believe in. In Berlin, I feel like the people around me are much more interested in ideas about solidarity and purpose.

In her memoir, Feldman talks about experiencing a kind of hunger, or desire for something else, while she was in the religious community. As a young girl, she was consumed by an insatiable desire for knowledge, creativity something more outside her everyday existence. I wonder whether she still feels this. There is always that last little speck which is almost like a shadow of whats left over. It is not the hunger in itself, but its the imprint that it leaves on your soul. It is something in me which connects to powerful works of writing and art.

Even if Feldman will never fully leave her past behind, her ambition and ingenuity have taken her further than most people would get in a lifetime. She had the strength to see she did not belong and that she and her son deserved happiness and freedom. She is most proud of the opportunities and the future she has given him.

I feel very fulfilled, she says. I am very happy in my current life, its funny, people ask me if I have any dreams and I always say, Well I think I achieved my share of dreams and 10 times more, and this led to this very strange sensation of being 33 years old and feeling like its good enough like youve already accomplished enough.

Unorthodox: The Scandalous Rejection of My Hasidic Roots by Deborah Feldman is published by Simon & Schuster (10.99)

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Unorthodox author Deborah Feldman: I know I will never catch up with popular culture, but I have my own culture - iNews

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Posted By admin on June 17, 2020

Menachem Mendel Schneerson the Lubavitcher Rebbe at the Lag BaOmer parade in Brooklyn, New York, May 17, 1987. Photo: Mordecai Baron via Wikicommons.

Social Vision: The Lubavitcher Rebbes Transformative Paradigm for the World by Philip Wexler (with Eli Rubin and Michael Wexler).

There is no shortage of books that extol the influence and charisma of the late Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the Lubavitcher Rebbe. In recent years, several excellent biographies by a varied range of authors have given us a pretty accurate picture of his history and achievements and how Chabad, the movement he headed, has brought Judaism to millions of unattached Jews and is a worldwide resource for all denominations.

There are hundreds of volumes of the Rebbes own extensive writings and talks in literally tens of languages. There are thousands of hours of recordings of him, as well as of those who experienced his charisma on record. So there is little that anyone can tell us about what he thought and what his impact was on his movement and so many lives that is new.

The book Social Vision, The Lubavitcher Rebbes Transformative Paradigm for the Worldis written by Philip Wexler, an emeritus professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and previously a professor at the University of Rochester. Wexler says of himself that he was led to leave my career in traditional sociology behind and to extend the horizons of my research to include the Jewish mystical tradition.

He was assisted by Michael Wexler, a graduate of Princeton University and adjunct professor of writing at the University of Missouri, and Eli Rubin of Chabad.org.

In this work, Professor Wexler sets out to show that the Rebbes world view could be expressed as a legitimate sociological solution to the problems of modern societies that reject the spiritual and communal for the secular and the individual.

He draws on the works of some early pioneers and giants of the field of the sociology of religion such as Max Weber (no, he was not Jewish) and the French Emile Durkheim (yes, he was), who were the preeminent thinkers of the 19th century and focused on the social and religious components that helped in the development of modern societies. Whereas Marxism stressed the material, both Weber and Durkheim emphasized the influence of religion on the development of societies. Both men worked within an academic, rational framework to produce theories and constructs that held an important place in the academic world. Is there any validity to suggesting that the Rebbe had an academic social theory to compare to theirs?

The Rebbe wrote within the context of Chabad Hasidism, drawing on ideas from Hasidic literature. What sets the Rebbes ideas apart from others are the specific choices and interpretations that he placed on certain traditional ideas.

The foundations of Hasidism emerged during the 18th century. It brought religious devotion to the Jewish masses in a simplified, non-judgmental, and supportive way, regardless of the degree of ones learning or commitment. God should be served out of love and joy rather than fear and anxiety (certainly not a Hasidic innovation given the number of times joy is mentioned in the Bible). It was an antidote to Lithuanian sobriety and conventional attitudes. It asserted that wealth belonged to the people rather than to individuals and should be shared with the community. It required devotion, separation, and a distinct social character even within Judaism. As well as piety, Messianism was a crucial aspiration that bred hope and optimism. Later came the idea of the Super individual, who represented the ultimate goals of Hasidism and could inspire his followers either to reach God through him as an intermediary or because of him. Closeness to the Rebbe meant imitating him in dress, mannerisms, and speech, and drawing inspiration from his very presence.

What was truly remarkable was the Rebbes practical as well as ideological program for Chabad in the United States, and the drive to bring passionate Judaism to the mass of assimilated or alienated Jews regardless of how far they may have strayed. This, in effect, brought about the whole Jewish evangelical Baal Teshuva movement we recognize everywhere today. But in the 1950s, it was unheard of. Hasidic groups, hitherto and still today in the main, tended to be inward looking, defensive, and the opposite of evangelical. And to achieve his goals, the Rebbe, instead of spurning modernity, turned to the new vehicles of public relations and advertising. He was the first Madison Avenue Rebbe, and it was this, as well as his personal magnetism, that set him apart as much as any ideology.

He also wanted to expand beyond the boundaries of the Jewish community, and encouraged his followers to get involved in political life, to lobby and reach out to local government, state legislatures, and Washington, and to take up issues of state and religion. In Israel, he campaigned against adulterating the law on Jewish identity and giving up any land for peace.

All of this is impressive, and his achievements do not need rehearing here but it was a matter of his genius and leadership rather than theoretical innovation. His was a social, universal agenda rather than a social philosophy. Although his followers like to refer to the brief time he spent at universities in Europe, and despite his own passionate interest in the sciences, he remained in all his public statements an unreconstructed fundamentalist.

You could say the Rebbe was very influential socially. But to make a case for a rationalist, academic social theory in the tradition of Weber and Durkheim as this book implies, simply does not withstand scrutiny. Even so, in describing the Rebbes work in the social realm, this book is a valuable addition to Chabadology and a testament to the Rebbes greatness.

Rabbi Jeremy Rosen received his rabbinic ordination from Mir Yeshiva in Jerusalem. He also studied philosophy as an undergraduate at Cambridge University and went on to earn his PhD in philosophy. He has worked in the rabbinate, Jewish education, and academia for more than 40 years in Europe and the US. He currently lives in the US, where he writes, teaches, lectures, and serves as rabbi of a small community in New York.

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Exploring the Rebbe in the Social Realm | Jewish & Israel News Algemeiner.com - Algemeiner

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Posted By admin on June 17, 2020

If you will it, it is no dream Theodore Herzl

Deaf in the IDF? Is that even possible?

I would like to tell you the story of a very brave and courageous young lady. Her name is Jenna. Jenna was born deaf and her deafness was largely undetected for about 15 months (they did not do newborn testing in NYC at the time). At 15 months, Jenna received hearing aids and she began to receive services through New York States early intervention program. Through early intervention, she attended a special auditory-verbal program designed to teach her to hear and speak.

At the age of 3, Jenna became a candidate for cochlear implant surgery; a skull based surgical procedure that wraps electrodes around the cochlea and that is attached to a magnet at the base of the skull. That magnet attaches to an external magnet which is connected to a speech processor that has a microphone built in (to some it looks like a large hearing aid). Sound enters the microphone and travels into the speech processor. The speech processor converts those sounds into a series of electrical impulses that are sent to the brain and which the brain interprets as sounds. Jenna had the surgery at NYU when she was three and one-half years old. About 5 weeks later, Jennas implant was activated, and she began to hear real sounds for the first time.

Jenna continued in an auditory-verbal program and was mainstreamed in time for kindergarten. She attended the Hebrew Academy of the Five Towns and Rockaway (HAFTR) through elementary and middle schools and received special services for the deaf through the Lawrence school district (and later the Great Neck School District). Although she is deaf, Jenna does not sign. She has been in auditory-verbal programs all of her life to prepare her to function as a hearing and speaking deaf person the idea is that with hearing aids or cochlear implants, the hearing-impaired child can learn to listen and understand spoken language in order to communicate through speech. When everyone else had Hebrew Language class, Jenna was busy working with an itinerant teacher for the deaf and a speech therapist so that she could remain in mainstream programs and speak and hear like everyone else. Additionally, for years she worked long and hard with a private speech pathologist to help her perfect her listening and English-speaking abilities. Although her English-speaking skills progressively improved, her Hebrew language skills were not really cultivated.

In high school at the North Shore Hebrew Academy High School (NSHAHS), Jenna worked extremely hard, but again Jenna was excused from most Hebrew classes. By her junior year in high school, Jenna had no desire to participate in a gap year program in Israel or to live in Israel. She applied for and was accepted to college at the New York State University at Albany (SUNY Albany) and she was going to go right after high school.

In her senior year, things changed dramatically. Jenna visited Germany, Poland, and Israel as part of NSHAHSs Jewish Heritage Holocaust Educational Program. The experience in Poland was overwhelming. The granddaughter of Holocaust survivors, seeing how and where the Jewish people were massacred had an everlasting impact upon Jenna.

When the group traveled to Israel after Poland, Jenna quickly understood how important it is to have a Jewish Homeland; a place for all Jews to go. Jenna decided that she wanted to delay college and spend a year studying in Israel. Jennas gap year in Israel deepened her love for Israel and awakened in her a desire to live in Israel. That year, Jenna also spent a lot of time with her older sister Dana, who made Aliyah (immigrated to Israel) after completing college and served in the Israel Defense Forces (the IDF) as a Search and Rescue Instructor for the IDFs Homefront Command.[1] Suddenly, Jenna found herself thinking about living in Israel. She felt that if she was going to live in Israel someday, she had a responsibility to serve in the IDF just like everyone else. But, would they let a deaf young woman serve, even if she can hear with Cochlear Implants? Would her Hebrew skills ever be good enough? Then, one day, Jenna saw an Israeli soldier wearing cochlear implants. Wait, she thought maybe I can serve? Jenna investigated and found out that she might be able to serve as a medical volunteer in the IDF even though she is deaf (but hears with cochlear implants).

After her gap year in Israel, Jenna returned to the USA, but she left her heart in Israel. She commenced her freshman year at SUNY Albany, but soon discovered a strong anti-Semitic and anti-Israel sentiment at the school. Even though she made the Deans list, she felt that she was missing something in her life. Jenna realized that she wanted to return to Israel to live. Jenna was concerned. How could she take advantage of all that Israel has to offer without giving something back? Jenna was clearly entitled to a full exemption from army service because of her deafness, but she did not want the exemption; she wanted to be like everyone else. She was determined to serve in the IDF as a medical volunteer. She was determined to serve and protect the land and people of Israel.

As the school year progressed, Jenna contacted Garin Tzabar[2] and asked to join their next Garin (seedling group); she too would be willing to leave home and become a Lone Soldier.[3] Over a six month period, while still attending SUNY Albany, Jenna attended a series of forums, in New Jersey and elsewhere, and met other people from around the country who want to make Aliyah and join the IDF. The Garin Tzabar program had the prospective candidates engage in various challenges designed to educate them and prepare them for life as new immigrants in Israel and for military service in the IDF. Jenna completed the program in May 2019, she withdrew from SUNY Albany in June and she made plans to make Aliyah and join the IDF through Garin Tzabar. Everyone, the Garin Tzabar program and Jennas family and friends, were all worried about whether the IDF would even accept Jenna and allow a deaf young woman to serve.

Growing up deaf in a hearing world has always been a difficult obstacle to overcome for Jenna, yet she has persevered. On July 1, 2019, at the age of 20, Jenna boarded a flight to Ben Gurion Airport as an Olah Chadasha (New Israeli Immigrant), to pursue her dream of living in Israel and of protecting the land of Israel and the people of Israel by volunteering in the IDF. Jenna is an amazing young lady just for leaving her family and community and for moving to Israel, her homeland, alone and with a desire to serve as a Lone Soldier in the IDF.

On July 2, 2019, Jenna had her first series of draft evaluations (called in Hebrew Tzav Rishon). Jenna had to have her Tzav Rishon early because to ask to serve as a medical volunteer and getting clearance to serve is an exceptionally long and tedious process. After her Tzav Rishon, Jenna spent a month in an intensive Ulpan Program at the Merkaz Klitah (absorption center) in Ranana. In August 2019, the rest of Jennas Garin group arrived in Israel and they all moved to a Kibbutz where they worked on the Kibbutz, attended Ulpan and prepared to be drafted into the IDF.

In September 2019, Jenna appeared before the IDF medical committee and she was approved to serve.

In December 2019, Jenna was interviewed for a position in a Special Command and was invited to draft to that command. In January 2020, Jenna drafted, reported for duty, and was sworn in to serve in the IDF. Jenna then attended the Armys Hebrew language course (Ulpan) at Mikveh Alon (taken by most foreign-born Lone Soldiers).

In March 2020, Jenna graduated from the Hebrew Course at Mikveh Alon and she was supposed to report to start her job in the Army, but Covid-19 interfered. A few weeks ago, however, Jenna was able to report to base and start her job in the IDF, where she now serves with pride.

It has been a lengthy process, but Jennas experience tells you that you should not let anything hold you back from trying to follow your dreams. It also tells you that if you will it, it is no dream. You can be deaf and serve in the IDF.

Jenna is indeed an incredibly special, brave, and courageous young lady. She is a lover of Israel and the Jewish people. She is also my daughter.

Kol Hakavod Jenna

Bursting with PrideThe Father of a Lone Soldier

P.S. Thank you Garin Tzabar; Nefesh B Nefesh; The Lone Soldier Center in Memory of Michael Levin; and The Michael Levin Base for Lone Soldiers and Bnot Sherut for all the help they provide to Lone Soldiers and Their Families.

[1] Jennas oldest sister Dana joined Garin Tzabar in 2014. She made Aliyah in August 2014 and drafted in December 2014. She was awarded the Major Generals Award (Mitztayen Aluf) for Excellence in her service and she was honorably discharged in December 2016.

[2] Garin Tzabar is an NGO that has been assisting young men and women who desire to make Aliyah and join the IDF since 1991.

[3] A Lone Soldier is aterm for soldiersin the IDF with no family in Israel to support them. Such Lone Soldiers include, but are not limited to, new immigrant volunteers from abroad, orphans or individuals from broken homes, and ultra-orthodox persons whose family disown them for serving in the IDF.

Joseph Grob is originally from Brooklyn, NY. He is a former criminal defense attorney, a committed Jew, an ardent Zionist and a Passionate Supporter of Israel. Joe now lives in Lawrence, New York, with his wife, Rhea. Their oldest daughter, Dana Lynn, made Aliyah in 2014 and lives in Jerusalem where she is attending a graduate program in Hebrew University. Their daughter Emma moved to Israel in February 2020 where she recently participated and graduated from the Israel Tech Challenge. Their daughter Jenna made Aliyah in July 2019 and is currently serving in the IDF.

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Deaf In the IDF | Joseph A. Grob | The Blogs - The Times of Israel

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Posted By admin on June 17, 2020

When Peter Manseau heard that a former student of his at Georgetown, Kayleigh McEnany, had been named the new White House press secretary, he felt compelled to write about it.

His article, published earlier this month in the New Republic, is a warning in all but name, a American religious historian's observations about the underpinnings of his former student's worldview an analysis one could read as sacrificial or suicidal.

Manseau taught McEnany in an undergrad memoir-writing class she was interning for President George W. Bush at the time so his insight is perhaps unique among other professors.

"Friends who teach writing, as I once did, often relate the pride they feel seeing young women and men who sat in their classrooms launch careers as authors or journalists," he wrote.

"This spring I had a different experience: A former student became the most prominent storyteller in America, and now the future of the country seems to hang on the meaning of the stories she might tell," he continued.

Manseau places McEnany in the vein of conservative evangelicals whose embrace of Trump seemingly requires them to abandon core tenets of their faith. In McEnany, he writes, "a uniquely American strand of faith formed by ideas of religious persecution has found an opportunity for profound influence": Christian martyrdom.

If a representativeof that strand was now speaking on behalf of the president of the United States, it had already sewn itself into the tapestry of the administration, in the figures of evangelical fundamentalists such as Vice President Mike Pence, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Energy Secretary Rick Perry.

Those officials are more commonly thought of as crusaders, as opposed to martyrs. But to evangelicals, martyrdom is an internalization of the crusader mentality two sides, same violent coin.

Manseau's article, however, focuses on the martyrdom.

One of the most influential people in McEnany's life, Manseausays, is Rachel Joy Scott, the 17-year-old Christian who was the first victim at Columbine High School in 1999. As the story goes, Scott was shot four times; one of the shooters came up to her and asked if she believed in God; she said that she did; he shot her dead.

It is unclear whether this actually happened.

Rooted in fact or not, the myth riveted a generation of evangelical Christians McEnany's age, who carry Scott's martyrdom with them to this day percolating up as recently as the 2016 movie "I Am Not Ashamed."

That generation saw in Scott's death "a template for how to respond to anything they regard as evil which, in practice, can include not only actual violence but perceived attacks upon their beliefs," Manseau writes.

A line from Scott's journal "I am a warrior for Christ" became the"rallying cry" for young people who saw the world as "a story of faith held at gunpoint," Manseau writes.

McEnany has writtemabout Scott frequently. Manseau cites a column quoting Scott, published in The Blaze to mark the 14th anniversary of the Columbine shootings.

As Congress tries relentlessly to squelch religious liberty and remove God from our public buildings, our schools, and our heritage, let's choose instead to honor the written word of Rachel Joy Scott this April 20th: "I am not going to apologize for speaking the Name of Jesus. I am not going to justify my faith to them, and I am not going to hide the light that God has put in me. If I have to sacrifice everything I will."

When President Trump named McEnany his new press secretary on April 7, two weeks before the Columbine massacre turned 21, the martyr generation, Manseau says, "reached the highest levels of political influence."

Of course, another generation was already there.

The evangelical Christians who infamously carried Trump to victory now surround him, insulate him, advise him and steer his policies.

There's Pence, Pompeo andPerry, but also outside advisers such as Jerry Falwell Jr. and Paula White, the firebrand Florida pastor who has known Trump since 2002 and once called for "all satanic pregnancies to miscarry."

"It's based completely around the idea of persecution and loss of power," saidjournalist and author Jared Yates Sexton, who has written two books on the subject, one of them forthcoming this September. Sexton was speaking of "dominionists," meaning those people "determined to create a theocratic state and burn everything down, and now they perceive themselves as truly having that power."

They're interested in reaffirming Christian control over America, embedding its tenets in laws, spreading evangelicalism through America's foreign policy, and hopefully creating a world order wherein a final apocalyptic battle can be fought or else Christ returns to rule the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth," Sexton said.

Trump, who in the scheme of things has never voluntarily attended church except perhaps once, recently most likely seeks out these people not for spiritual guidance, but to take the temperature of his most important voting bloc. (National Election Pool exit polls found that about 26% of 2016 voters identified as white evangelical Christians, a base Pence was picked specifically to deliver.)

However, that means Trump will often choose the path that makes them happy, even if it's not necessarily the path that he, given his druthers, would have chosen himself.

Countless pixels have been roasted with reports and columns about the ethical contortions and compromises of Trump's evangelical base, including the officials who carry out (and influence) his orders. But one could also easily view those compromises as sacrifices: a knowing, willful ideological spin on martyrdom.

In fact, McEnany offers an example. When former South Carolina Gov.Mark Sanford won a congressional seat despite having left his wife for another woman, McEnany excoriated both Sanford and the Christian voters who elevated him to national office.

"Do we expect perfect men and women to hold office? No. They don't exist," she wrote in a 2013 column for The Blaze. "But we owe it to ourselves to elect individuals who will treat the office and by proxy their constituents with the respect it deserves. We used to care about morals. Tuesday night showed morality has fallen by the wayside. For the sake of my party and my country, it's time to change course."

It's reasonable, Manseau says, to believe that McEnany's shift from vocal Trump critic to his official, salaried defender, was merely about a professional opportunity. She still serves on the board of Rachel's Challenge, after all, and "may also have seen in the self-proclaimed 'counter-puncher' someone who could provide protection to a generation shaped by fear."

Passages from McEnany's2018 book, published more than a year into Trump's presidency, suggest Manseau's read is accurate. The martyrs she honors in this book were not killed in mass shootings, but by the familiar boogeymen that haunt the Trump campaign trail: terrorists, illegal immigrants, drug dealers, and a Veterans Administration gone to pot under President Barack Obama.

"Their hurt and their loss are reflective of the emotions that fueled a frustrated electorate," McEnany writes, in an effort to rationalizeTrump's ascension in worldly terms, and an effort to make all judgments about his fundamental character, moral turpitude and everyday behavior seem petty and ignorant.

Even so, thisall hinges on what by now seems an obsession with the ultimate value of death. One of the most fundamental elements of Christianity, of course, is that we are granted access to God and to eternal life thanks to a death and a murder at that.

Death and religion have resonated throughout the coronavirus pandemic. Take, for instance, Trump's original insistence on open the economy by Easter, or Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick "a Christian first, a conservative second, and a Republican third" sayingmore than once on national television that older Americans should be willing to sacrifice their lives so we can open the economy sooner.

Given the martyrdom theme, it seems well worth noting Patrick included himself in that group.

Or note the Florida megachurch pastor who was arrested for holding services for hundreds of people in defiance of the state's stay-home orders. Or Dave Daubenmire, a fundamentalist right-wing radio host who has spread the conspiracy theory on-air that COVID-19 is not actually a virus but a complication from radiation caused by 5G technology. Or televangelist Kenneth Copeland, who told millions of viewersthat he had destroyed the virus because the power of the Lord worked through him.

Or Ralph Drollinger, who wrote that the coronavirus is the "consequential wrath of god," punishing America for its various moral depravations. Drollinger is a spiritual adviser to President Donald Trump.

This deathly denialism, which seems to resonate so well with the evangelical right, has been amplified by right-wing media personalities who also speak directly into the president's ear, such as Sean Hannity, Tucker Carlson and Laura Ingraham.

But senior evangelical administration officials such as Pompeo and Pence, who was chosen to head the White House coronavirus task force, don't take this view. Their martyrdom, it seems, is ideological: They support Trump despite his countless moral failings and spiritual vacuity, because they believe that sacrifice will open a gate to heaven.

Literally.

Pompeo and Pence are both Christian Zionists, a strain of the faith whosesupport of Israel is largely predicated on an interpretation of the Book of Revelation that says the fall of the Jewish state is a prerequisite for the second coming of Jesus (and, incidentally, the death and banishment to hell of all Jews who do not accept him).

This is notafringe belief: About 80% of evangelicalChristians identify with Christian Zionism.

The Rev. John Hagee, a televangelist ally of Pence and Pompeo whose ministry reaches 6million people, theorized in the early 2000s that this might happen via a war with Iran. (The pair werereportedlythe top officials advocating that Trump kill Iranian Gen.Qassem Soleimani lastJanuary.)

In January 2018, Pence tweeted a video of himself and his wife Karen laying a wreath at the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial in Jerusalem. In the tweet Pence, honored what he called the "6 million Jewish martyrs of the Holocaust who 3 years after walking beneath the shadow of death, rose up from the ashes to resurrect themselves to reclaim a Jewish future."

The tweet wasslammed by furious Jewish observers, whochargedthat Pence had framed the Holocaust with, of all things, a Christian narrative.

Mike Pompeo, speaking in Jerusalem in 2019, said it was "possible" that God had sent Trump to save the Jews: "I am confident that the Lord is at work here," he said.

Evangelical leaders have long woven Christian Zionism into conservatism, including Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell.

Falwell once said, "To stand against Israel is to stand against God. We believe that history and scripture prove that God deals with nations in relation to how they deal with Israel."

Indeed, Trump's knee-jerk retorts that, despite all evidence to the contrary, Democrats are the real anti-Semites, seems mostly intended to prove his devotion to this strain of apocalyptic fundamentalism, which appears to haveincreasingly more sway in the White House.

"It's crusadelogic," said Sexton, the author, drawing a line between the personal and universal apocalyptic narratives championed now in two White House generations. "People looking for a purpose are drawn into fascistic, military crusades. Whether they believe or not, they'll make concessions. Every former white supremacist or terrorist I talk to tells the same story: Find insecure, directionless men and tell them they can be part of something larger and more powerful than themselves. They'll go and kill, or go and die just like al-Qaida or ISIS."

Perhaps the arrival of McEnany heralds an eclipse, the rise of an inward-looking Christian narrative, a sort of apocalyptic narcissism, as the first social media generation comes of age and gains positions of public and political influence.

As Manseau concludes, "it may only be a matter of time before the rhetoric of American warriors gives way to American martyrs. As the theological interpretation of Columbine has shown, the line between the two can be very thin."

Kayleigh McEnany did notrespond to Salon's request for comment.

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Kayleigh McEnany, Mike Pence, and the narcissistic apocalypse of the new evangelicals - Salon

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Posted By admin on June 16, 2020

JERUSALEM (JTA) Top haredi Orthodox rabbis in Israel and the Sephardic chief rabbi of Israel are split over the use of thermometers on Shabbat as part of health checks to prevent the spread of COVID-19.

In Israel, the thermometers are used at the entrance to hospitals to make sure that people who enter do not have fevers, one symptom of the coronavirus. The thermometers could also be used by synagogues around the world to measure the temperature of worshippers arriving for Shabbat services.

Last week, five senior haredi rabbissaid in an official letterthat the temperature checks mean that it is forbidden to enter the hospital on Shabbat, unless it is a life-threatening situation, Ynetreported.

There are concerns about the prohibition of work on Shabbat in both the heat measurement and the writing generated on the monitor, read the letter. The letter said hospitals could circumvent the issue by having non-Jews perform the checks.

But Israels Sephardic chief rabbi, Yitzhak Yosef, ruled on Sunday that it is permitted to enter a hospital on Shabbat if a persons temperature is automatically taken, the Jerusalem Postreported.

The Zomet Institute, an Israeli nonprofit that designs electronics and other equipment that can be used by observant Jews on Shabbat, recently developed a digital thermometer that does not require users to engage in activities prohibited on Shabbat. The thermometer detects a temperature every four seconds, so no one needs to operate the electronic device to take a measurement, and the way the readings are displayed are designed not to constitute writing.

The dispute is one of countless examples of howthe coronavirus pandemic has presented vexing new questions for Jewish law authorities many of which have been resolved without consensus, even among Orthodox rabbis.

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Israeli rabbis are divided over temperature checks on Shabbat, a tool to stop the spread of disease - St. Louis Jewish Light

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Posted By admin on June 16, 2020

By Ben Kamin

OCEANSIDE, California Even as our nation is convulsing from the unprecedented and converging crises of COVID-19 and the (mostly peaceful) street protests manifested under the canopy of Black Lives Matter, some in our Jewish community have expressed concerns and indignation: there are scattered elements of anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism expressed by BLM. The May 30 riotous disturbances that occurred in the Fairfax section of Los Angeles, including the defacing of a synagogue with Nazi symbols, have sharpened these Jewish sentiments and denunciations.

These condemnations have merit. We are right in expressing angst in this issue painfully complicated by race, history, and blood. Just as we were right in our generally sympathetic and supportive involvement in the Civil Rights Movement era between 1955-1968. Forgive the expression: this is not a simple question of black-or-white. Like life itself, this encounter lives in the gray. And there are many Jews (of all colors) participating in this loosely woven and spontaneous national community of protesters horrified and driven by the brazen police execution of the formerly anonymous George Floyd on a Minneapolis pavement.

Mr. Floyd, like any of us, was not a perfect individual. But he became an asphyxiated paradigm of the random yet documented targeting of African American men by some armed civil authorities that are supposed to protect us, not kill us. Police officers are not all murderers just as black men are not intrinsically criminals. Either such charge is nothing short of bias and bigotry that leads to hopeless outcomes for all of us. It would be nice if the pervasive Jewish use of the pejorative term for black people (it begins with an s) would be curtailed. Our neighbors in the black community know about it and what it means.

It must be noted that, not long ago, the Chief Sephardic Rabbi of Israel shamelessly labeled black people as monkeys. This outrage was condemned by the ADL and other Jewish organizations, as would be expected. But who could deny how incensed African Americans felt over this (and other such Jewish social disgraces) even as we have applicably been scandalized by the acidic anti-Semitism of the abominable Louis Farrakhan? No group has a monopoly on racial hatred. Incidentally, anti-black degradations can be found in The Talmud. And such textual aberrations go as far back as the Torah, when both Aaron and Miriam decried their brother Mosess relationship with the Cushite woman. God roundly punished both siblings for their racialism.

It may be more justifiable to condemn the Fairfax agitators themselves rather than to excoriate an entire race or lump it all on Black Lives Matter. The reason is simple: Black Lives Matter is hardly an organized or structured entity uniformly committed to one ideal or strategy. It is a grassroots movement as disparate as the streets and neighborhoods of America or the remarkable diversity of the participants themselves.

The pain and terror of African Americans is more palpable than ever. Families are terrified for their sons, brothers, and husbands. One sees and hears it on television and in person. We Jews are historically well-acquainted with such grief and horror. So we cannot absolve acts of hatred and violence committed against us in any category. But the Jewish tradition will not absolve us for turning blind eyes and ears to such long-standing community suffering.

Our ancestral Hebrews endured 400 years of bondage in Egypt. The African peoples also withstood 400 years in American bondage. As we are admonished in Leviticus: Do not stand idle while your neighbor bleeds. Let us not be defined as Jews by whom we dislike. Let us be defined by who we help.

*Ben Kamin is an author and lecturer on the life and work of Dr. Martin Luther King.

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Another Jewish perspective on 'Black Lives Matter' - San Diego Jewish World

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Posted By admin on June 16, 2020

There has been much discussion recently regarding whether proud Zionists, like myself, can join marches where the slogan, both in the call to gather and in the marches themselves, is Black Lives Matter. I would like to challenge the Zionist Jewish community to seize the opportunity to work with the anti-racism and justice communities, and to shout loudly, Black Lives Matter, in order to fulfill the underlying principles of Zionism.

We must remember that Zionism is a Jewish Liberation Movement. It was and still is envisioned to free Jews from the shackles of a type of bondage in the Diaspora. Even those of us that live peacefully and happily in the pleasant Diaspora owe a great deal of our Jewish pride and security to the rise of the State of Israel.

Therefore, it is not surprising that so many of those involved in the Black Civil Rights movement were avowed Zionists who understood deeply the yearning of the Jewish people for our own freedom. This is a freedom we Zionists believe we can never really achieve without our own Jewish homeland. From Martin Luther King Jr. to Rep. John Lewis and the Baptist and COGIC Pastors we at JCRC/AJC work with in the Coalition for Black and Jewish Unity, the Black People understand, perhaps better than any others, that the struggle for liberation and freedom for Exodus from Egypt to Zion is ongoing and critical.

As I have experienced personally at several rallies and marches, when anyone goes to such a program or shouts Black Lives Matter, they are focused only on remembering George Floyd and fighting racism, injustice and inequality in our police forces and society. They are not thinking about Black Lives Matter (BLM), the organization, or the Movement for Black Lives organization, which has since dropped, but not altogether deleted, an anti-Israel platform piece from its website. There are certainly some vicious anti-Semites and anti-Zionists who associate with the BLM movement or organization, but that must not move us Zionists away from our principles of Zionist activism.

If BLM itself came out officially with an anti-Israel statement on their website, I would be the first to condemn it, because Zionism is all about Black Lives Matter.

The Jewish people and Zionists live by the verse from Exodus 3:16-17: I have noticed you and what they are doing to you And I have said, I will take you out of slavery and suffering to the Land of Canaan (to the Holy Land Israel!) This is both the Zionist dream of ending the millennial oppression of the Jewish people in foreign lands, and it is the vision that gave hope to our Black brothers and sisters in their years of suffering in their Egypt in America and a vision of a better country.

In Egypt, God said, Jewish lives matter. Now that the Jewish people have the Jewish state, and we have strength and a modicum of acceptance in America, it is time for us to say: Black Lives Matter.

Our Zionism has taught us how important this narrative is, and we have succeeded. We have found our Zion and it is strong. Now let us Zionists give hope to those who are fighting to remove the Egypt from this country, and let us be allies with them find their Zion.

In those rallies I have attended, specifically in Detroit, the leaders of the Black community have emphasized how destructive violent protests and looting have been to the cause. This also is consistent with the way the Jewish people moved towards establishing Israel. Zionism is about purpose, focus and building, and not about violence and destruction. In fact, the early founders of Israel quashed rogue elements that took the focus away from the cause. Black Lives Matter must mean the same discipline for the sake of fighting racism and injustice.

The great Supreme Court Justice and Zionist Louis Brandeis said, Let no American imagine that Zionism is inconsistent with Patriotism. For the sake of our Jewish and Zionist tradition, let no American say that Zionism is inconsistent with the fight for true patriotism. Black Lives Matter, and Zionism matters, in the battle for racial justice and equality for our African-American brothers and sisters.

Rabbi Asher Lopatin is the JCRC/AJC Executive Director

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Zionism is Liberation: How We March and Shout Black Lives Matter Detroit Jewish News - The Jewish News

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Posted By admin on June 16, 2020

On the day the UN Assembly accepted the Partition Plan for Palestine on November 29, 1947 - the Jewish community in pre-state Palestine came out in droves to celebrate in the streets.

And yet, there were also those who received the decision with contempt and even mourned it: The revisionist right and the unified kibbutz saw it as a disaster that tears up and surrenders parts of the Land of Israel.

Jordan Valley farmers supporting the annexation plan with a tractor convoy through the valley

(Photo: Effi Shrir)

David Ben-Gurion had no love for the plan for the land, yet he had a wide historical view coupled with a realist political mindset. He understood that the "all or nothing" approach could leave us with nothing.

He realized that we were in the midst of an historic situation, a chance to renew the sovereignty of the Jewish people on the land of Israel after two thousand years of exile, and that this may be a "now or never" opportunity.

Ben-Gurion realized that this was an opportunity that may never return and that must not be missed at all costs.

And so he made the call, and most people supported his decision. Would he had followed the advice of the extremists, it is doubtful the State of Israel would have been established.

The right-wing opposition to applying Israeli sovereignty over the Jordan Valley and parts of the West Bank follows the same pattern of thinking of those who opposed the partition plan.

Here they also deny an historic challenge and opportunity, which may never return, to apply Israeli sovereignty to those areas - with American support.

It is no coincidence that some refer to the plan as "the distribution plan" when they come out against it.

A protest in Tel Aviv against the annexation plan

(Photo: AFP)

These black-and-white extremists are unable to contain the complexity of the plan, so they stick to the "all or nothing" approach. Out of their unwillingness to settle for less than everything, they (and all of us) may end up with nothing.

Prominent and belligerent among the plans opponents is the head of the Yesha Council and the head of the Jordan Valley Regional Council, David Elhayani.

The settlements found in the Jordan Valley are meant to ensure that the area remains in Israeli control and to shape Israel's eastern border. Settlements in the Valley grew and multiplied thanks to different movements with different worldviews.

Labor movement settlements rose in the Jordan Valley to realize the worldview expressed in the Allon Plan, which was designed to promote territorial compromise and shape Israels borders using Israeli settlement and sovereignty throughout the greater Jordan Valley.

The settlements of the religious Zionism and the revisionist Heirut-Beitar were established in the valley to realize the worldview of Greater Israel.

These two world views have more in common than not, as they both settled the Jordan Valley. Their interests today are the same - Israeli sovereignty over the Jordan Valley and thus the realization of their settlement purpose.

Elhayani is a member of Heirut-Beitar and a firm believer in a Greater Israel. Today, when sovereignty is to be applied to regions of the Land of Israel, especially the Jordan Valley, it is he who is supposed to lead the struggle to deepen our hold on it.

David Elhayani and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu

(Photo: Kobi Gideon, GPO)

And yet, he is the one who heads the fight against the realization of this goal. Such short sightedness.

At the June 1967 government meeting in which it was decided to apply Israeli sovereignty to the whole of Jerusalem, Yigal Allon also proposed to apply sovereignty over the Jordan Valley and Mount Hebron.

His proposition was declined. Yet he did not think to object to applying sovereignty over Jerusalem, and he even moved his offices to the capitals Jewish Quarter.

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One more acre for the land of Israel - Ynetnews

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Posted By admin on June 16, 2020

They only call me names racist, bigot, xenophobe. They dont say one word about what Ive said as to why its inaccurate or incorrect, said Morton Klein, president of the ZOA.

By Josh Plank, World Israel News

Numerous left-wing American Jewish organizations have united to strongly denounce Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) President Morton Klein for making comments critical of the Black Lives Mattermovement.

As progressive pro-Israel organizations and members of the American Jewish community, we are appalled and outraged by the bigotry and hatred expressed and promoted by Morton Klein, said a joint statement issued by J Street, the New Israel Fund, Partners for Progressive Israel, Reconstructing Judaism, the Reconstructionist Rabbinical Association, and Truah on June 11.

Kleins latest outbursts and long track record of bigotry should make him unwelcome in any mainstream Jewish communal spaces and should lead to his expulsion from organizational umbrella groups such as the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, the statement said.

Sixteen of the 51 member organizations of the Conference of Presidents issued a separate letter on June 12 condemning Kleins comments. The organizations included the Union of Reform Judaism, United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism, National Council of Jewish Women, Americans for Peace Now, HIAS, and Ameinu.

At this delicate and critical juncture in American history, Jews of all colors must stand up for black lives and against senseless hatred and divisive bigotry, the letter said. There is no room for hate in organized Jewish life.

The groups pointed to two of Kleins tweets as the target of their condemnation.

BlackLivesMatter is an antisemitic, Israel hating Soros funded racist extremist Israelophobic hate group, the ZOA president tweeted on June 6.

In another tweet on the same day, he said, I urge the SPLC [Southern Poverty Law Center] to immediately put BlackLivesMatter on their list of hate groups. BLM is a Jew hating, White hating, Israel hating, conservative Black hating, violence promoting, dangerous Soros funded extremist group of haters.

Klein commented on the attempt to remove the ZOA from the Conference of Presidents, an organization the ZOA helped found in 1956, in an interview with the Mark Levin Show on June 12. They want to throw me out for one reason, Klein said. They want to reduce my credibility and demonize me so people wont listen to me. This is their tactic.

He said, They only call me names racist, bigot, xenophobe. They dont say one word about what Ive said as to why its inaccurate or incorrect. Its just name-calling to try to drive me out, even though everything Ive said, I simply wrote what was in the platform of the anti-semitic Black Lives movement.

Klein said he believes people are scared to death of Black Lives Matter. Theyre afraid of antagonizing them, he said. If they say to Mort Klein, youre a bigot, youre a racist, stop condemning Black Lives Matter, they feel theyll be protected.

Alan Dershowitz, professor of law at Harvard University, told the Jewish Broadcasting Service in an interview on June 10, If there is an attempt to throw Mort Klein [out], I will defend him politically, and if necessary, I will defend him legally.

anti-semitismBlack Lives MatterZOA

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Left-wing US Jewish groups seek to silence Zionist organizations criticism of Black Lives Matter - World Israel News

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Posted By admin on June 16, 2020

On both sides of the Atlantic, the prospects for electoral socialism have dimmed. Fossilised old guard political party establishments in Labour and the US Democrats have stood in the way of the transformation that millions of people know we need. Both the Corbyn and Sanders movements were struck down by reactionary forces. We warned then, that if they prevented our inevitable revolution, we would have to take to the streets.

The cold-blooded murder of George Floyd has stirred righteous anger in hundreds of millions of people around the world. And just as in the 1960s, the movement for Black liberation has proven to be at the vanguard of an epochal shift in world history. The future we failed to win at the ballot box, our Black brothers and sisters are leading us on to the streets.

The liberation of working-class people from capitalism and the liberation of our Black and Brown comrades from racial oppression do not merely intersect they are one struggle. We cannot have one without the other. The monuments to slavery that we are toppling are also monuments to capitalism, an inherently exploitative system reliant on hierarchies of oppression and lust for empire-building. The wealth of this nation was built on the backs of slaves and sepoys, so we cannot call for socialism or racial justice here while we keep Britains knee on the necks of the people of Yemen, Syria, Libya, Venezuela, and Iranand others.

To achieve this revolution, we will need to fight on all fronts. We will need our own media system while taking the fight to the oligarch-owned press. We will need a battle-ready street movement with coherent demands at the same time as nurturing parliamentary leaders. But the road to parliamentary socialism is closed for now. The demand for change is being led by street protests, leaving Sir Keir Starmer and his Labour Party allies playing catch up with cringe-worthy photo opportunities. I cannot see them standing up for Black and Muslim communities in particular, and working-class people in general.

Starmer says he supports Zionism without qualification, even though UN resolution 3379, that was passed 45 years ago, declared that Zionism is a form of racism and racial discrimination. Furthermore, supporters of Zionism manufactured antisemitism smears against Jeremy Corbyn, his allies, and thousands of Labour members to crush the Corbyn project.

Known as lawfare, the threat of legal action is often used to silence opposition. In France and Germany, this tactic has been used in an attempt to criminalise pro-Palestinian activism and there are efforts to do the same here.

Meanwhile, in the UK, Israel lobby targeted prominent Black anti-racism campaigners in the Labour Party, such as Marc Wadsworth and Jackie Walker, falsely accusing them of antisemitism, forcing them out of the party and tying them up in costly legal battles.

For the thought-crime of defending Jackie, Marc and fellow anti-racists in the Labour Party, I was also targeted by the Israel lobby. They created media hysteria that led to my suspension from the Party. I was one of the lucky few because of my public profile as a campaigning MP and as Jeremy Corbyns most loyal parliamentary ally, I received an outpouring of solidarity from thousands of activists and Party members. We crowdfunded to appeal my suspension resulting in it being overturned by the High Court, and the judge ordered the Labour Party to pay my legal costs totalling 89,000. But they concocted more allegations to maintain my suspension and prevent me contesting the 2019 election as a Labour candidate.

My intention in taking my case to the High Court was to set a precedent. Racist institutions and the Israel lobby arent the only ones who can win legal battles. The costs won from the Labour Party were used to create a Left Legal Fighting Fund, to take on any institution that pursues socialists, anti-Zionists, Black and Muslim activists and those who fight for justice. Several activists have already been defended, but this is just the beginning. More legal actions are ongoing, defending left-wing, pro-Palestine Labour Party members who have been targeted by a new witch hunt directed by the Jewish Labour Movement (JLM) and Keir Starmers office.

In the last few weeks, weve heard about dozens of new suspensions and expulsions. But the Left Legal Fighting Fund will help to lead the fightback.

Over the coming weeks, we will be working with some of the best human rights lawyers in the country to arrange teach-ins and legal support for protesters attending the Black Lives Matter rallies. In particular in London, where the Metropolitan Police and Territorial Support Group have been unlawfully harassing and detaining protesters, using kettling tactics to acquire intelligence and intimidate activists.

To do this, we need your ongoing support with financial and practical assistance. If you cant donate at the moment but support our work, sign up to our mailing list and spread the word. If you have been suspended or expelled by the Labour Party, or harassed by the police while on a Black Lives Matter protest in recent weeks, we also want to hear from you.

They may have Parliament, but if we stand together, we can turn the tables.

Donations can be made using this link

Featured image via Maggie Amsbury used with permission

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We may have lost parliament. But support and solidarity can unite the left. | Chris Williamson - The Canary

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