Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By admin on May 5, 2020

Photo credit: Anika Molnar/Netflix

From ELLE

In the Netflix miniseries Unorthodox, audiences witness a transformation. The four-episode series follows the character Esther "Esty" Shapiro (played by Shira Haas), a young woman growing up in the Hasidic Satmar community in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. An ultra-Orthodox sect of Judaism, the Satmar group was founded after World War II by Holocaust survivors who believed the Holocaust was punishment for assimilation. As a result, Satmar rules are strict, and those in the community are kept from all secular education and culture. On Unorthodox, Esty decides to leave the only life she's ever known after a year in an arranged marriage. She travels to the root of her family's suffering: Berlin, Germany.

Esty's story is based on a real one, recounted in Deborah Feldman's 2012 memoir Unorthodox: The Scandalous Rejection of My Hasidic Roots. However, the Netflix series only follows Feldmans book to a point. Everything that takes place in Williamsburg is inspired by her life, whereas Estys journey to Germany is entirely fictionalized.

In Making Unorthodox, the short documentary episode that shows how the series was created, Anna Winger, co-creator and executive producer, said, "It was very important to us to make changes in the present-day story from Deborah Feldmans real life, because she is a young woman, shes a public figure, shes a public intellectual, and we wanted Esthers Berlin life to be very different from real Deborahs Berlin life."

Like Feldman, Esty's mother leaves when she is a child, and Esty is raised by her grandmother, a Holocaust survivor. Feldman's mother left the community, came out as gay, and now lives in Brooklyn, while Estys mother in Unorthodox leaves the community to move to Berlin, where she also came out as a lesbian.

Feldman entered into an arranged marriage at 17 and had a son when she was 19. Estys storyline follows a parallel path, with the character entering an arranged marriage and getting pregnant at 19.

Story continues

Both Feldman and Esty were under enormous pressure to consummate the marriage; family members and the community at large all knew the intimate details of Estys life and her struggle with sex because of a condition called vaginismusthought to be a primarily psychological condition that makes sex very painful. Feldman told ABC News, "It was the most humiliating year of my life. [The in-laws and family elders] were talking about it day after day." She also told People in a 2012 interview, "After that, being so pressured to get pregnant and finally getting pregnant, it was just emotionally overwhelming, knowing that I was going to bring a child into the same life that I had livedthat was the hardest experience of my life but it was also the experience that pushed me out, so Im grateful for it."

When Esty first meets her husband-to-be, she tells him shes different from other girls, and he responds that its good to be different. Feldman told a similar story to the New York Post in 2012.

When I met him, I warned him. I said, I have my opinions, you might not be able to handle that. But he was famous for getting along with everyone. So he said, No, I can handle you. He wasnt ready to handle me at all! After we got married, and I had my books in the house, he didnt mention them. He tolerated them. But he would tell his mother everything.

She also spoke to the Post about the time she bought a section of the Talmud even though her community follows a rule that states women are not allowed to read the Hebrew text of the Talmud. In the series, Esty quotes the Talmud to her husband, who then tells her women are not allowed to read it.

According to the Washington Post, Feldman's rejection of her community was more gradual than Esty's. She and her husband first moved to an Orthodox community in Rockland County, New York, and she started taking classes at Sarah Lawrence College. But after she got in a bad car accident, Feldman decided to leave for good. "I was convinced I was going to die," she told the New York Post. "And there was no way I was going to waste another minute of life." She told People, "The very next day, I sold my jewelry, I rented a car and I just left and it was that simple and I couldnt believe it after.

Feldman decided to get a divorce and told the Post in 2012 that she and her husband have joint custody of their son. She told ABC News in 2012 that her husband has changed a lot in regards to his religious viewshe's even started wearing jeans.

She traveled to Europe to research her family and her grandmothers life from before the war. Now, Feldman lives in Germany with her son. "As a metaphor, we wanted [Esty] to go directly to the source of that trauma and find herself," Winger told NPR. "Living in Germany has made me think about Jewishness, certainly about the Holocaust, about the legacy of violence, of trauma, in a way that I never thought about in America, ever."

Even with their differences, Feldman says she looks up to Esty. In an interview with the New York Times, she said her favorite scene was a fictional one. "The scene when Esty explodes in the bedroom with her husband, because its the most powerful," she said.

She finally says everything that has been going on in her head. She finally lets loose: Its like a volcano. To me, the series climaxes in this moment. I also felt jealous because I never had a moment like thatI had many small moments where I tried to express myself, and I tried to speak up for myself, but I love how she just lets it all out. It really touched me, and it made me wish I had been the same way. It made me admire her. I hope that other people will see that scene and want to be like her, too.

If you'd like to read more about Feldman, she wrote a second memoir titled Exodus, which details her journey after leaving the Satmar community.

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Netflix's 'Unorthodox' Tells the True Story of One Woman's Escape from a Strict Hasidic Community - Yahoo Lifestyle

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Posted By admin on May 4, 2020

Malka Zeefe. Photo courtesy of Malka Zeefe.

Since they began quarantining, people have complained that they can no longer tell one day from another. But Malka Zeefe has committed herself to studying a page of Talmud a day, so no two days are the same.

The 41-year-old Alexandria resident picked up the first tractate of the Talmud in January, when the new Daf Yomi, or daily page study, cycle began. Then came the coronavirus and the stay-at-home orders. Spending her days with her husband and two sons has made it more difficult to drink from the words of the ancient rabbis.

Before the pandemic, I was doing a single page every day. Now Im doing a bouquet of pages every few days, is how she puts it.

Zeefe is also an attorney with the Dentons law firm and is co-founder and executive director of the patient advocacy organization Postpartum Pelvic Health Advocates.

She says she studies Talmud primarily by herself and supplements her readings with commentaries from MyJewishLearning and Sefaria.

There are [discussions] that are specifically about washing your hands, she says, a topic that might not have seemed as crucial just a couple of months ago.

Zeefes father, Arnold Resnicoff, a Conservative rabbi, and her mother, Barbara Shore, passed their love for Judaism on to their daughter. Resnicoff was a Navy chaplain and Zeefe was born in Japan. She attended Jewish day schools every time the family relocated to a place with a large enough Jewish community.

But when Zeefe was between the ages of 4 and 6, the family lived in a small Italian fishing village. Her days were split between a Catholic school and an American school.

She became a bat mitzvah on a military base in Pensacola, Fla.

In college, I started veering and started exploring and figuring out other things, she says.

She continued to keep kosher, although her other Jewish practices changed.

And when it was time for her older son to start religious school, she decided it was time to join a Jewish community. Although Conservative synagogues felt more familiar to her, Reform Beth El Hebrew Congregation seemed like a better fit.

This has brought a refreshing, optimistic and affirmative aspect to my practice of Judaism, she says of the Alexandria synagogue. I also love and admire the social justice component of Reform Judaism.

When it comes to Talmud study, hand washing is not the only talmudic debate that rings of current events. A discussion of types of oil and wicks used for lighting candles also offers insight into coping with the limitations of the pandemic, she says.

Some rabbis would only use very expensive very special olive oil and not everyone can afford that, she says. Now, its not easy to get all the groceries you want, make the recipes you want, but its still necessary to create holiness with what you can find.

She wrote a haiku in response to the passage:

Even in tough timesWe all need holy momentsLight with what you have.

Zeefe says she has always enjoyed haikus because of the way they incorporate math and language. She wrote daily haikus to count down the 40 days before her 40th birthday.

And when she began Daf Yomi, she began writing a haiku a day to distill what she learns. That led to @DafYomiHaiku, an Instagram account that she says helps keep her accountable. She has 224 followers.

When you start the Shabbat tractate, it begins with the idea of domains and drawing the lines between domains private domain, public domain and domains in between, she says.

The haiku from that lesson goes like this:

Social distancingGetting to know our domainsAnd where to draw lines.

Sophie Panzer is a writer for the Philadelphia Jewish Exponent, an affiliated publication of Washington Jewish Week.

April 29, 2:10 p.m.

The story was changed to correct the name of Malka Zeefs patient advocacy organization, Postpartum Pelvic Health Advocates.

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Malka Zeefe takes on the Talmud - Washington Jewish Week

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Posted By admin on May 4, 2020

NEW YORK (JTA) Among the most disturbing spectacles over the months since the coronavirus was unleashed on the world have been the attacks on haredi Orthodox Jews in both Israel and the United States.

Some criticisms, like New York City Mayor Bill de Blasios stern tweets on Tuesday night following a funeral held in Brooklyn, are not born of antipathy to the Orthodox community. The mayor issued his rebuke to the Jewish community that the time for warnings has passed in the heat of the moment. And he seemed unaware that the funeral, although it became too crowded, had been coordinated with police.

His choice of words was regrettable, but he told a news conference the next day that he hadnt intended to slur the community. And his relationship with the community during his tenure has been very good.

Other critics, though, are less defensible. Over the weeks since the coronavirus crisis began, these critics have been attacking the entire Orthodox world without justification.

Haredi Orthodox Jews the perennial they are always to blame for their backward ways. They reacted too slowly to close their schools. They ignore safety precautions and gather repeatedly in crowds. Their leaders are ignorant and are followed mindlessly by the masses.

Never mind that those violating social distancing in the haredi world are outliers, no more representative of haredim writ large than those crowded along the Hudson watching the Blue Angels and Thunderbirds on Sunday are of New Yorkers in general. Most of us have been staying home for months, doing our best to keep ourselves and others safe.

The initial haredi reluctance to close schools was a function not of defiance but of valuing what the Talmud calls the breath of the mouths of children in their places of learning on which the world depends. To an Orthodox Jew, childrens Torah study is spiritually vital, and only to be compromised when it is absolutely necessary.

But once the gravity of the situation was clear, the haredi reluctance to close schools quickly gave way to full compliance with medical advice. Once the virus virality was clearly established, haredi leaders not only shut down shuls and schools but pleaded with their flocks to heed every governmental health warning.

Unfortunately, none of that has stopped those given to disparaging traditionally religious Jews from doing so once again.

One particularly distasteful attack on haredi leaders, and on Jewish religious tradition itself, appeared in the Jewish Journal.

On April 20, Rabbi Irving Yitz Greenberg, after duly expressing his great sympathy for haredi victims of the coronavirus, offered his explanation for why some haredi communities seem to have suffered disproportionately from the plague.

No, it wasnt because of the density of many haredi towns and neighborhoods. Nor were the regular interactions born of religious events, celebrations and daily prayer services salient factors. And no, poverty and the challenge of confining large families in small apartments were not the main things to blame.

The true villains, in Rabbi Greenbergs judgment, are haredim and their leaders, a longtime bugaboo of his.

With superb hindsight, he reprises how some Hasidic leaders in 1930s Europe hadnt foreseen the Holocaust, and counseled their followers not to panic and flee the continent.

Jewish religious leaders, Rabbi Greenberg contends, are viewed by haredim as infallible.

This is nonsense. The reason Jewish religious leaders are respected is their sensitivity and Torah scholarship, and that is very different from blind obedience. A great doctor is fallible, too, but her opinion is still invaluable.

Blaming Jewish religious leaders, of course, has always been a popular pastime.What good are rabbis? the Talmud (Sanhedrin 99b) notes, was even in antiquity a common refrain of renegade Jews.

Even before Purim, when there were no regulations limiting human interactions or closing schools or businesses, the national haredi organization Agudath Israel, which Im privileged to work for, alerted the community to the potential danger of COVID-19. It was acting as always on the directives of the major rabbinic leaders comprising the Council of Torah Sages.

On March 13, Agudath Israel communicated health authorities new recommendation issued the previous day about social distancing and large gatherings.

Two days later it shared the strong recommendation from infectious disease specialists to severely limit all social or communal gatherings, including closing shuls and schools. And as soon as government regulations were in place, they were endorsed and publicized at the instruction of haredi leaders.

In Israel, when the governments Health Ministry banned even outdoor prayer quorums, one of the most respected religious leaders in that country, Rabbi Gershon Edelstein, dean of the famous Ponevezh Yeshiva, declared that under the circumstances, public prayer is a danger, impossible a sin.

Haredi couples and families celebrated Pesach in seclusion without other relatives present for many for the first time in decades.

Rabbi Greenberg ignores all that in his quest to vilify haredi leaders.Haredim, he mocks, firmly believe that as long as humans please God [He] will defeat their enemies.

Haredim like all believing Jews know that we are not perfect and cannot rely on our mitzvot and avoidance of sin alone to ensure our safety, that we must make efforts on our own behalf, too. Despite Rabbi Greenbergs insinuation, we do just that. At the same time, though, we recognize the merit of our spiritual actions, which Rabbi Greenberg, astoundingly for any rabbi, seems to discount.

He claims, without any evidence, that some Haredim allowed themselves to be exposed to the coronavirus because God would protect them.

Rabbi Greenberg might do well to consider some actual facts. Like the overwhelming haredi response to calls for plasma donations from survivors of the infection. Facilities in New York, Baltimore and Lakewood, New Jersey, were flooded with thousands of haredi blood donors.

Blaming easily identifiable and, to some, strange haredim for various societal ills is easy. But doing so is not only contrary to everything our society was founded upon but wont help us get through this crisis any faster.

At a time like this, we should be unified in doing all we can to protect ourselves and others, not point fingers, especially at imaginary culprits.

The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of JTA or its parent company, 70 Faces Media.

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Mayor de Blasio is no enemy of Orthodox Jews. But others are weaponizing the coronavirus to vilify our community. - JTA News

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Posted By admin on May 4, 2020

Raving lunatic and Jew-hater Ariyana Love has gone on yet another Facebook video rant against the Jooooooos. Even by antisemitic standards, it is nutty and horrific containing almost every antisemitic trope in the book and blaming us for the coronavirus, among other things.

I have distilled the main part (but there is more here for those who can stomach to hear more of this evil nutcase).

Note how she speaks of True Torah Jews, as if to show she is not really antisemitic (as she explicitly claims in her rant). Yet in her delusions, the true Jews only believe in the Torah, and not the Talmud. Memo to antisemite Ariyana: The Talmud is a compilation of the Oral Torah, and even these anti-Zionist True Torah Jews believe in it.

And if this venemous, antisemitic rant was not enough, she likes a comment from a fan expressing a desire that we be exterminated.

This is incitement to murder, plain and simple.

The comment relates to a timestamp of the video corresponding to the rant against Jews, so there is no question as to who she agrees should be exterminated.

Loves hate speech seems to fall under ethnic agitation under Finnish law. Please join me in reporting her to the police especially if you actually live in Finland (instead of having Facebook remove the video lets have the police investigate and prosecute her first).

You can report an offence to the police in the following ways:

submit an electronic report online (requires identification for example with online banking codes)https://asiointi.poliisi.fi/asioiverkossa/rikos?lang=enprint out the report form and send it to the policehttps://www.poliisi.fi/crimes/printable_forms_for_reporting_an_offencevisit the police station in personreport the offence by phone. You will find the contact details of the nearest police station at:https://www.poliisi.fi/contact_informationIn urgent cases, call the emergency number 112.

And lets bring her also to the attention of the Finnish media.

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Ariyana Love in New, Horrendous Antisemitic Rant; Agrees With Comment Calling for Extermination of Jews - Israellycool

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Posted By admin on May 4, 2020

CHICAGO (JTA) I thought I was going to be spending this spring promoting my new book, which articulates a distinct vision for Judaism that illustrates how people can deepen their connection to Judaism by performing selected rituals consistently and attaching a personal meaning to them. But as the coronavirus sweeps the globe, causing a paradigm shift for everyone, instead I am spending my time mastering the finer points of Zoom technology so I can teach my students online.

It wasnt lost on me that this technology allowed me to make lemonade out of lemons by doing a virtual launch of Remix Judaism: Preserving Tradition in a Diverse World, enabling family and friends from across the world to participate. It also struck me that making lemonade out of lemons is exactly what the Jewish people have been doing for most of our existence, dating back to the birth of the Jewish legal system created by the rabbis in the aftermath of the destruction of the Second Temple.

Creativity and resilience have always characterized the operation of Jewish tradition. But now more than ever, we see Jews at all levels of observance remixing Jewish tradition to maximize joy and minimize hardship. Fortunately for us, Jewish tradition has a great track record of adapting to new situations and realities. Despite the enormous daily tragedies that so many people are experiencing at this time, a remix of Jewish tradition has never had more relevance to daily life.

Recently there have been some surprising exercises of remix Judaism emanating from Orthodox authorities. Though not accepted across the board, one rabbi in Israel ruled that as an emergency measure, Zoom Seders should be allowed if the livestream is started prior to the onset of Passover. Even more controversial was another ruling that for European communities whose laws prohibit burial, Jewish law authorities should lift Judaisms ban on cremation.

For religiously liberal Jews who do not adhere to Jewish law as a matter of religious obligation, the nature of remix during this unprecedented pandemic may actually foster a greater appreciation for Jewish tradition. Now that people are socially distancing and spending more time at home, there are fewer distractions to occupy peoples time and energy. A close friend who considers himself a cultural Jew told me recently that he actually started going through the materials from an adult Jewish learning course that his wife had taken years ago since he was looking for something to occupy himself.

Or consider the situation facing many families this spring, including my dear friend Jan. By her own admission, Jan is part of the roughly 80% of American Jews who are not conventionally observant. But she and her family were very much looking forward to her sons bar mitzvah this spring. But with a heavy heart, once her city, along with the rest of the country, completely shut down, she and her husband officially canceled the celebration.

The disappointment took its toll on my otherwise ever-the-optimist friend.

You know, she confided during our weekly telephone conversation, the only thing that brings me comfort these days is listening to David practice his Torah portion.Although she didnt completely understand why, listening to her son practice gave her a reassuring sense of continuity.

Davids bar mitzvah ended up taking place through Zoom, so the rabbi and cantor could still conduct the service. Jan managed to rent a Torah, allowing David to read from a scroll. The immediate family gathered physically at the home of Jans parents, and the seven people there all observed the proper social distancing. A link of the service was sent to guests along with a slide show, as was a request for family and friends to send a photo of themselves watching the service. This compilation of photographs will serve as Davids remixed Bar Mitzvah album.

Jans son no doubt will always remember his unique bar mitzvah. In fact, David told his mom that his ceremony held a lot of meaning for him, perhaps even more so than had it been as expected.

The remixed approaches to Jewish tradition that have surfaced over the past weeks underscore the importance of flexibility that Jewish tradition always has prized. The Talmud quotes Rabbi Simeon Ben Eleazar as advocating that one should be pliable like a reed, not rigid like a cedar (Taanit 20b). The underlying message here is that a tree that bends will survive the elements but one that is rigid will not.

Anyone who knows even a little about Jewish history cannot help but realize that our existence as a people throughout time and space is miraculous and defies logic. And although there are many different views on why we have survived, surely one key ingredient is that Jewish tradition is conducive to remix.

This piece is a part of our series of Visions for the Post-Pandemic Jewish Future click here to read the other stories in this series. Use #JewishFuture to share your own ideas on social media. If youd like to submit an essay for consideration, email opinions@jta.org with Visions Project Submission in the subject line.

The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of JTA or its parent company, 70 Faces Media.

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Making Jewish traditions work for you doesn't have to be an emergency approach. - JTA News

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Posted By admin on May 4, 2020

The temporally distant and far-flung galaxy of Star Wars is, like the Torah, a text touched by many hands over the years.

While creator George Lucas initial narrative impulse relying on dull arcana like the Journal of the Whills was Midrashic, the many Jews who worked on the script, and eventually assumed the directors chair, made the series into a beloved property. The now-complete Skywalker saga is a classic, if uneven, space opera that hints at a deep history while leaving much of its backstory to supplementary reads (your expanded universe Talmud).

This May the Fourth dubbed Star Wars Day (May the Fourth be with you) were providing a syllabus for whats Jew-y about this epic of warrior monks, turbulent family dynamics and conspicuously anti-Semitic junk peddlers.

Seth Rogovoy provides a primer on the Jews behind the scenes and in front of the camera in the original trilogy and its prequels. Picking up on the Disney reboot, J.J. Abrams The Force Awakens, Jay Michaelson finds a pervasive anxiety of influence a la late literary critic Harold Bloom in its yearning for the mythic past.

Probing another issue of history, Noah Berlatsky explains why the series use of Nazi and fascist aesthetics feels hollow without the engine of targetted hate, while cartoonist Eli Valley considers Darth Vaders expectations as a half-Jewish father. Meanwhile, a hop, skip and a hyperdrive away, Michaelson asserts that Han Solo is the most Goyish Star Wars hero (ironic, given Harrison Fords assertion that he feels most Jewish when hes acting.)

As Sam Kestenbaum reported, the divisive Disney-era films generated controversy among fans, with some in far-right corners believing that a push for diversity in the new trilogy was a Jewish plot. Meanwhile, yours truly held Lucas prequels to account for their uncomfortable alien minstrelsy and unimaginative nods to anti-Semitic tropes.

Theres much to read, discuss and debate about beyond Baby Yodas aggressive cuteness and the Mandolorians status crypto-space Jew. But, while you read, might we suggest listening to this cantina song take on Maoz Tzur or the shofar blasts used in Return of the Jedi?

May the fourth be with you this tenth of Iyar.

PJ Grisar is the Forwards culture fellow. He can be reached at Grisar@Forward.com.

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Your guide to everything Jewish about 'Star Wars' - Forward

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Posted By admin on May 4, 2020

R Yehosef Yosef Halevi Dachuch, a member of the Chabad community in Bnei Brak, was niftar due to the coronavirus on Wednesday.

R Dachuch was born in Yemen and made aliyah to Israel with his family. As a bochur, he learned in a Chabad yeshivah in Lod and later moved to Bnei Brak.

The niftar taught for over 30 years at the Sanzer Talmud Torah in Bnei Brak, where he was especially beloved by the children. His friends and colleagues said that he never once got angry at a child or at anyone else.

Rav Dachuch contracted the coronavirus and he was transferred from his nursing home in Bnei Brak to Kaplan Hospital in Rechovot where he was niftar at the age of 80.

He left behind a wife but unfortunately, he and his wife never had children. The public is asked to learn lilui nishmas R Yehosef ben R Dovid.

Yehi Zichro Baruch.

(YWN Israel Desk Jerusalem)

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BDE: Beloved Teacher From Bnei Brak, R' Yehosef Halevi Dachuch, Z'L, Dies Of The Coronavirus - Yeshiva World News

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Posted By admin on May 4, 2020

Photo Credit: Jewish Press

You shall love your fellow as yourself (Vayikra 19:18).

The Talmud (Yevamos 62b) relates that R Akiva had 12,000 pairs of students, all of whom died between Pesach and Shavuos because they didnt treat each other with respect. As a result, the world was desolate of Torah until R Akiva taught a second group of disciples, including R Meir Baal HaNess, R Shimon Bar Yochai, R Elazar Ben Shamua, R Yehuda Bar IlaI, and R Yosi Ben Chalafta.

R Akiva warned these students that his earlier disciples had died because they failed to honor the Torah views and interpretations of their colleagues. This second set of students disseminated the legacy of Torah in all of Israel.

The Mishnah (Pirkei Avos 2:15) teaches, Let your fellows honor be as dear to you as your own. The Rambam (Hilchos Deios 6) writes that every individual must love his fellow like he loves himself and must honor his fellow like he himself wishes to be honored.

The Shaar HaKavanos writes that before a person prays in the morning, he should accept upon himself the mitzvah of loving his fellow man: I love everybody in this world like I love myself. And now I am preparing my mouth to utter prayers before the king of kings, Hashem.

Why do we say this first considering that everyone includes even evil people? It is pointed out that this statement unifies our prayers with the tzibbur and empowers them to go up to Heaven. In addition, the Jewish nation has many requests of Hashem, including communal ones such as health and the ingathering of the exiles. In the merit of loving and looking after others when praying, our personal prayers will be answered as well.

HaGaon R Shmuel Horowitz asks how its possible for a person to love each individual equally. A person does not instinctively cherish all his limbs equally. For example, a person would prefer to be struck on his arm rather than his head. Thats why if hes about to be hit on his head, he covers it with his arms and hands. Yet, even though his head is more vital to his survival than his arms, he certainly loves all his limbs and wishes to have them all.

The tzaddikim and geonim of Klal Yisrael are the eyes of the community (einei haeidah), the talmidei chachamim and righteous women are the heart and head, and people of lesser stature are the arms, hands, and legs. All these limbs, though, are components of the whole, and ahavas Yisrael for all must be absolute.

The Talmud Yerushalmi (Nedarim) makes an interesting observation regarding the mitzvah of You shall not take revenge and you shall not bear a grudge. It says: If someone accidentally cut his left hand with a knife he was holding in his right hand, would he grab the knife with his left hand and cut his right hand in revenge? Of course not!

The Jewish people are one unified body before Hashem. (Thats why R Akiva taught that loving our fellow man is a fundamental principle of Torah.) Taking revenge on another individual is like taking revenge on oneself.

The Maharam, the rosh yeshiva in Lublin, and R Shimon Zev Auerbach, the son-in-law of the Maharshal, once got into a disagreement about one of the commentaries of Tosafos. The Maharam explained it one way while R Shimon Auerbach explained it a different way.

When the arguments between the students of these two great personalities intensified, the leaders of the community decided to consult with R Shimon Abuhav, the chief rabbi of Amsterdam. Whoever was deemed correct would remain in his position while the other would leave.

R Shimon ruled that additional information was necessary to explain Tosafos. The leaders wanted to dismiss the Maharam, but R Shimon Auerbach opposed the idea. Ultimately, both of them were dismissed and Lublin was left without a rav or a rosh yeshiva.

The communitys leaders then asked the world-renowned Maharsha, the rav of Ostrov, to become their rabbi. The Maharsha notified the community of Lublin that he would give his first drasha as rav of Lublin on Shabbos which he did.

When he concluded, he said, Why did you ask me to become rav of Lublin? I am presently rav in Ostrov, a city that is twice as large as Lublin. How could you ask me to leave the rabbinate of Ostrov and become the rav of Lublin?

The question is also for me, he continued. Why did I leave Ostrov and come here?

If you will allow me, I will give you the answer. I came because in all of Ostrov there are no two individuals who are as great in Torah as the two in Lublin, the Maharam and R Shimon Zev. They are gedolei hador, leaders of the generation! As the rabbi of Lublin, I decree that you reappoint the Maharam to his position as well as R Shimon Zev to his position.

They were both immediately reappointed and peace reigned in the city.

The Maharasha had fulfilled the words in Avos DRebbi Nosson that a person should perceive the honor of his friend exactly as he perceives his own, and he should protect the honor and name of his friend just as he would want his own name and honor protected.

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United We Stand - The Jewish Press - JewishPress.com

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Posted By admin on May 4, 2020

By Asa Winstanley for Middle East Monitor

Israel is about to annex large swathes of the occupied West Bank, making the territory formally part of the Zionist state according to Israeli law. The millions of Palestinians living in the West Bank will continue to be denied the vote and even the most basic of human rights by the despotic Israeli regime.

The West Bank is home to some 2.2 million Palestinians and about 600,000 Israeli colonists. The Gaza Strip and West Bank together represent 22 per cent of historic Palestine, although this is a somewhat arbitrary division of the land, based on the Green Line, the armistice line drawn up in 1949 after the ethnic cleansing of Palestine.

Between 1947 and 1949, Zionist militias and the nascent Israeli army expelled about 800,000 Palestinians from Palestine, around two-thirds of the indigenous population. The goal of Zionism was to create a Jewish state in Palestine, despite the fact that the population of the country was overwhelmingly non-Jewish. Therefore it was inevitable that the Zionist project was always going to be a racist project that required the violent expulsion of the majority Arab population.

In 1967, Israel engaged in another war against the neighbouring Arab countries, invading and occupying the remaining 22 per cent of historic Palestine. Israel has imposed a military dictatorship against the Palestinians there ever since the Naksa (Setback), but it was unable to expel as many Palestinians as it did during the Nakba (Catastrophe) of 1948.

Israels aim was to establish an ethnocracy, a state created to serve the interests of one ethnic group alone. Hence, although it desired to possess the land, at the same time it wanted the land to be free of non-Jews: Maximum land, minimum Arabs.

Such a state comes with a price to pay, of course. As Israeli war criminal and late Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin once wished of the Gaza Strip, If only it would just sink into the sea. Israel wanted the land, but it did not want to give the millions of Palestinians living on it human, political or national rights.

It was crucial for the Zionist project that the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip should not be given a vote in the self-proclaimed only democracy in the Middle East. With demographic trends being what they are, that would have almost certainly led to the end of the Jewish majority in the Land of Israel, which in any event was always an artificial majority, having been violently gerrymandered by 1948s act of ethnic cleansing.

This explains why Israel has so far not formally annexed the West Bank, despite having occupied it for almost 53 years. The 2.2 million Palestinians there outnumber the 600,000 Israeli colonial-settlers. Millions of Palestinians suddenly on the electoral roll would mean the end of Zionist dominance in Israels parliament, the Knesset. The Joint List, the only non-Zionist party (most of whose voters and MKs are Palestinians) could become the largest in the Knesset. That would, in turn, create a constitutional crisis, because a non-Zionist, Arab party has never formed any part of the government of Israel.

Now, though, Israel is making moves towards the annexation of the West Bank. Why, and why now?

Over the past year, Israel has held three inconclusive General Elections, each resulting in political deadlock. This was finally broken this month with the announcement of a national unity government between incumbent Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his main contender in the election, former General Benny Gantz. Having sworn during the election campaigns never to enter a coalition with Netanyahu who is facing corruption charges Gantz has now split his Blue and White party in order to renege on his oath and go into such a coalition.

As I noted in a column just before the last election in March, one thing that all of Israels Zionist political parties agree on is the continuation of their racist military dictatorship in the West Bank targeting Palestinians on an indefinite basis. It is, therefore, no surprise that the supposed opposition Blue and White agreed with Netanyahus Likud on increasing Israels control of the occupied territory.

Boosted by US President Donald Trumps approval with his deal of the century peace plan, both parties now want to annex a large part of what Zionists call Judea and Samaria. Their solution for what they see as the demographic threat of too many babies of the wrong ethnicity being born, is to avoid the annexation of those areas of the West Bank where Palestinians are still the most populous. In practice, though, with Palestinian population centres being isolated islands within a sea of Israeli territory, the effect will be the same as if Israel had annexed the whole West Bank.

A key clause of the coalition deal between Gantz and Netanyahu will allow annexation to go ahead as soon as July, and it now seems certain that Israel is going to use the Covid-19 crisis as cover to launch its unprecedented illegal land grab.

It is nothing new for Israel to impose and increase its control of Palestinian lands. Indeed, annexation itself was used by the rogue state to declare Jerusalem as its undivided capital city, in defiance of international law. Annexation on the scale proposed by Netanyahu and Gantz, though, is a grave new step in the 130 years of Zionisms war against the indigenous population of Palestine. It is a crime of massive proportions, even by Israeli standards.

Image: Alray

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Analysis: Annexation of Occupied Territory is a Crime - International Middle East Media Center

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Posted By admin on May 4, 2020

A century ago, the victors of World War I met in the Italian city of San Remo to discuss how to divide up territories that had previously belonged to the Ottoman empire. It was here that Arthur Balfours famous promise effectively became international law. But things almost didnt turn out that way. With support from British officers, Emir Faisalson of Sharif Hussein of Mecca, promoted by T.E. Lawrencewas attempting to make himself the ruler of a Syrian kingdom that included the Land of Israel. Meanwhile, the French were poised to back away from their previous assurances regarding the Jews. Faisal had signed an agreement with Chaim Weizmann, the chief Zionist diplomat, in January 1919 pledging his support to the creation of a Jewish state, but, as Efraim Karsh writes, he was speaking from both sides of his mouth.

Read more at BESA Center

More about: Balfour Declaration, Chaim Weizmann, History of Zionism, International Law, Mandate Palestine, Treaty of San Remo

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It's Not Up to the Israeli Supreme Court to Decide Who Will Be the Next Prime Minister - Mosaic

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