Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By admin on April 22, 2020

Standing Room Only

Even as he cut the ribbon on the doors of the Romano Chabad Centre, Rabbi Mendel Bernstein knew it was too small. We needed a bigger place, but we couldnt afford it, he recalls. Instead, the community made do with a sensible 10,000-square-foot building situated on three acres of Richmond Hill in Toronto, Ontario. For the better part of a decade, the rabbi and volunteers transformed the synagogue into a social hall for events, classes, and approximately seventy-five communal celebrations annually. It worked, until it didnt. Our community is growing, with new families moving here because of our shul, says Bernstein. On Yom Kippur we had people lining the hallways because there was no room in the sanctuary.

That was last year. The week after Rosh Hashanah, the Centre celebrated the grand opening of a 15,000-square-foot addition. Just a few days later, 1,000 people gathered comfortably for Kol Nidrei. Aside from a separate sanctuary and event hall, the new construction features more classrooms, two new mikvahs, and an extra kitchen.

Three other Chabad centers are also in the midst of capital projects across the greater Toronto area, with a fifth still in blueprints. A total of 100,000 additional square feet are being laid to serve 200,000 Jewish Torontonians. The success of the citys twenty-seven centers is made possible by the unity of the eighty Chabad representatives and the unique niche that each serves here.

Toronto is a dynamic community, says Rabbi Zalman Grossbaum, who has been the citys senior representative for the better part of five decades. People identify with Chabad representatives dedication and risk-taking. We say were going to get this thing done, basically on a prayer, and they appreciate our commitment and support it.

When Grossbaum moved here in 1973, there were 90,000 Jews living in the greater Toronto area. Growth within the original community, coupled with immigration from Russia, South Africa, and Montreal has more than doubled the citys Jewish population. But even as the community's population grows, its geographic size has remained constant. To this day, Toronto's Jewish communities still snake their way along fifteen kilometers of Bathurst Street.

In the late 1970s, Grossbaum purchased a three-acre plot of land to build the citys first Chabad synagogue. The area was so desolate that the rabbis purchase bought him not only the deed to the land but also naming rights for the newly-paved street in front of it. I was pleased to be informed that the street was named Chabad Gate, theLubavitcher Rebbe wrote to Grossbaum in a letter soon after.

Still, however desolate the region may have been, the rabbi knew that it wouldn't stay that way for long. When we first arrived, recalls Grossbaum, we saw that the city was big enough for shluchim to serve different areas. Our representatives today may be close in proximity, but they are designated for specific demographics.

When You Have to Have a Plan

Rabbi Levi and Rivky Gansburg moved to six different houses in seven years. Their synagogue bounced around just as many times. One day, in 2012, a congregant asked the young rabbi what his Plan B was. Gansburg realized the time was ripe. We had so many people coming and no real home, he says. Our dream was to build a viable, sustainable building to enhance our presence here in Bridle Path, an upscale residential neighborhood in Toronto. We put together a great group of people to help, and, in 2014, we secured a piece of land with the help of a very generous donor. Six years and $14 million later, the Bayview Centre for Jewish Life is almost complete. The 32,000-square-foot building looks like a small luxury hotel and melds perfectly with the neighboring mansions. Its been a remarkable run.

Though he welcomes people of all ages, Gansburg has formed a significant cadre of young professionals. Several years ago, a member approached him with a request: his son had returned from university where he had been spending Friday nights with the schools Chabad representative and 200 peers. Now, back at home, the son was doing nothing Jewishly-oriented.

The rabbi and the son met and planned dinner for some friends. One hundred and fifty young professionals showed up. Since then, this crew has had regular Shabbat dinners, Scotch and Study nights, and womens classes. Most of these events are organized by the young adults themselves.

Now, as Gansburg expands the space available in his Chabad centre, he also looks forward to increasing the centres offerings to young professionals. The baby boomer generation attended synagogue so as not to offend their parents, Gansburg says. This generation is answerable to no one. But there is a resurgence today: Young people are coming to shul on their own. Its critical that we engage them at this stage, as they settle down, start a family and build a life.

Kids Shul

Ten minutes away, Gansburgs brother, Rabbi Menachem, and his wife Chana spent years figuring out how to attract the even younger set. Their Kids Shul strategy for bringing children (and their parents) to synagogue has been so successful that its now being implemented in ten Chabad centers around the world. Saturday mornings are filled with dance, music, and hockey, Rabbi Gansburg says of the synagogues outside competition. Even more daunting, he explains, is peoples discomfort with shul. If they come, they sit in the back row afraid to make a mistake. The couple realized that if adults had gone to synagogue as kids, in life, wherever they end up, they wouldnt be afraid to attend shul.

Once a month for thirty minutes, before the main minyan begins and before the kids extra-curricular activities start, approximately seventy-five kids come to Kids Shul. The children lead the prayers, learning the popular tunes and nuances universal to the synagogue experience. Following the short service, they gather for Kiddush and an extravagant breakfast bar.

Many of those children attend Aleph Champ Hebrew School. With 400 students, it is the biggest Hebrew School in the country. Originally, the school operated out of five local public schools because the Gansburgs had no space to accommodate classes. Today, that necessity has become an asset. The kids dont have to go anywhere after school, the rabbi explains. Roughly one third of the students at these public schools march down the hall at the end of the day to receive their Jewish education.

Hebrew School may not be housed in the Family Shul, but the Gansburgs and their co-leaders, Rabbi Shaya and Esti Spalters many other programs have the center bursting at its seams. Most people build new buildings to double and triple in size, says Gansburg. Our new building will just handle the capacity we already have.

Their 25,000-square-foot edifice, set to open next spring, will feature four floorstwo below and two above groundas well as a rooftop playground and event space. It will also allow for more preschool classrooms. Currently, the preschool, Gan Shalom, has 100 students and a competitive waitlist.

Though Gansburg doesnt plan to move the Hebrew School to his new digs, he will invite students to the Family Shul for monthly special events. Those field trips will occur in a forty-foot-wide multimedia room featuring floor-to-ceiling screens. The theater experience will bring the lessons to life by projecting an immersive environment. Before Passover, for example, the screen will showcase a giant matzah bakery with an actual oven centered in the middle.

The building will also feature a dedicated teen lounge in the basement. A lot of kids go through our Hebrew School, with approximately fifty graduating each year, says Gansburg. The next step for us is to have a full-time dedicated staff for teens with a lounge and game room for their activities.

Multi-Youth Building

In the northern part of the city, Rabbi Shmuli Nachlas is building an entire campus solely for teens. Were just getting out of the ground, the rabbi exclaims as the cement is poured for the basement, ahead of a planned spring 2021 opening. The site was purchased six years ago for the Jewish Youth Networks new $12 million campus. While Nachlass programming currently engages 500 youth per week, the teens are spread out over four rented locations across the city. The potential here, and our hope is, to be able to host 2,500 kids a week in our new space, he says.

Local philanthropists ask themselves, What are the tools and mechanisms to keep the younger generation inspired and Jewish? says Nachlas. They see the lack of Jewish continuity in the broader community and that Chabad is capable of and committed to keeping youth engaged. And they know that in order to achieve this, they need to back it.

Nachlas says the space will feature classrooms, a cafe and lounge, and a gym. But what he is most excited about is the use of the mundane spaces. Together with an environmental graphics agency based in Los Angeles, Nachlas and his teen advisors are transforming the walls and hallways into a call to action. The team is bringing the Lubavitcher Rebbes Ten Mitzvah Campaigns to life through interactive, colorful displays along the byways of this 27,000-square-foot center. Just by hanging out in the building, without being taught or lectured to, teens will come to learn about and appreciate these lessons, says Nachlas.

By the People, For the People

Back in Richmond Hill, Len Abelman is giving back to the Chabad community that welcomed him as a new immigrant. He joined Rabbi Mendel Bernsteins congregation after emigrating from Umhlanga Rocks, South Africa, where he attended Chabad in his youth.

As a principal at the prestigious WZMH Architectural firm, Abelman meshes modern architecture with the richness of Judaisms history and tradition. I selected materials such as local limestone that reflect the timeless quality and permanence of the Jewish religion, he explains. Yet it was ordered to be cut smooth from the quarry and against the vein to give it a more modern look. He also wove copper into the structure, in a nod to one of the holy Temples components. The concept for the main east faade viewed from the street is an abstracted view of a person wearing tefillin and wrapped in a tallit, he continues. The box of the tefillin is actually the Torahs ark protruding through the front glazing of the building and the tallit is a stone frame shielding the windows. I am looking forward to the first morning prayer service in the summerfor the copper to glow in the sun when it rises further to the east.

With so many projects happening in the city, each Chabad emissary gratefully relies on his own constituents to help build and fund. Many credit the beauty of their buildings to in-house engineers, architects, and designers.

Rabbi Menachem Gansburg says his capital project is unique because it has no lead donors (yet). With a younger congregation and fewer disposable assets, Gansburg knew that funding would be a challenge. So he decided to meet it head-on. I met with 120 young families who each committed to x amount per year for y years. We raised millions this way, he says. Now I take families on tours of the construction, and you hear the kids exclaim, this is what Daddy gave money to!

There is an amazing sense of ownership and pride, Gansburg continues. This is our shul. This is what we built.

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Growing Gains in Toronto - Lubavitch.com

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Posted By admin on April 22, 2020

Orthodox yeshivas for boys in Williamsburg are running underground schools in closed synagogues and apartment buildings despite social distancing requirements imposed by the city and state to try to slow the spread of coronavirus, a parent whose child attended one of the secret schools told the Forward.

UPDATE: NYC breaks up one secret yeshiva operating in violation of coronavirus rules

The source, who wished to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation from the community, said one of his sons went to school in a closed synagogue building that was unlocked by a teachers family member.

He provided evidence of the underground yeshiva in the form of correspondence with the school and another person sent the Forward a screenshot of WhatsApp messages among Satmar parents.

It definitely puts everyone in danger, the kids going, said the first source, who grew up in the Satmar community in Williamsburg. I definitely believe that this is putting others at risk.

Some of his children were also advised to attend school in a classmates apartment building.

The underground schools are operating amidst outcry over videos and photos that show Haredi men and women violating social distancing guidelines in Brooklyn and Lakewood. Leaders say they are working with authorities to follow the rules, and most of their community is indeed doing so. But in Williamsburg, some mikvahs and now, yeshivas, remain open.

Not keeping six feet apart from others in public can be accompanied by a $1,000 fine in New York.

The New York City Department of Health did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Williamsburg is a Haredi community home to the largest community of Satmar Hasidic Jews in New York City. The community is characterized by very strict religiosity and yeshivas intensely focused on religious education.

Some classes, the source said, were broken into smaller groups to keep the numbers of students in a room at about 12, but some are running with full classes of 24 to 26 kids.

The sources son attended school just days after the yeshivas were ordered closed in mid-March, he said.

The source said the sentiment among other parents is that it has already been predetermined who is going to get coronavirus, a principle encompassed in the Yiddish term bashert meant to be so there is no point in abiding by the guidelines.

He also said the community does not understand what the consequences are for getting caught.

Molly Boigon is an investigative reporter at the Forward. Contact her at boigon@forward.com or follow her on Twitter @MollyBoigon

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Williamsburg Satmar yeshivas operating secret schools in apartments and synagogues - Forward

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Posted By admin on April 22, 2020

And I will plant them upon their soil, Nevermore to be uprooted From the soil I have given them said Hashem your God. Amos 9:15 (The Israel Bible)

IDF security troops destroying buildings in Yitzhar (Photo by Flash90)

The Israeli Civil Administration carried out the destruction of several Jewish homes in Samaria on Wednesday despite their policy that during the pandemic this was inhumanebut only for Arabs.

Hundreds of IDF Border Police and security personnel entered three small outposts towns near the Samarian town of near Yitzhar in northern Shomron (Samaria) and demolished six buildings including three homes and a synagogue. Four of the buildings were located in the Kipa Sruga and Tekuma outposts located in Area C, and two were in Kumi Ori in Area B, according to a spokesman for the Civil Administration.

One home located in belonged to a shepherd, Neria Zarog, a 21-year old father of three whose home in Kumi Uri was destroyed last January by the Civil Authority. The destruction was carried out despite a petition by Zarog to the High Court stating that if the Civil Administration could not issue a building permit in the area, then they did not have the authority to destroy structures built without a permit.

Zarogs wife is reported to be nine-months pregnant and, as a result of todays police action, is currently homeless. In photos of the police action, it is clear that social distancing measures were not being observed and several of the security personnel were not wearing masks, thereby endangering the residents. A video was posted showing police grabbing an infant away from its mother.

Area C was one of the administrative divisions set out in the Oslo Accords signed in 1993. The Oslo Accords established Area A that would be entirely under the administration of the Palestinian Authority and would remain ethnically cleansed of all Jews. Jews were legally prevented from entering Area A. The PA is responsible for medical and educational services to Palestinians in Area C, however infrastructure construction is done by Israel. Area B is under Palestinian civil jurisdiction and Israeli security control. Jews are prohibited from living in Area B as well.

The PA announced in August that they entirely rejected the Accords, reneging on all their agreements, declaring they will build in areas designated for Jewish construction.

Attorney Itamar Ben Gvir, a lawyer who defends Jews in cases against the government, issued a statement saying that his legal assistant Hananel Dorfman had petitioned the High Court to compel the forces to halt the razing. Dorfman based his petition on a policy established by the Civil Administration last month in which they responded a petition by the Association for Civil Rights in Israel decrying the destruction of Arab structure as inhumane. In response, the Civil Administration

As a general rule, enforcement actions at the present time will focus on new illegal construction, in particular construction that was carried out to take advantage of the emergency situation, Civil Administration public inquiry officer Bar Yehudah wrote last month, establishing a new guideline.As a rule, no final demolition orders issued for populated buildings will be implemented at this time, and efforts will be made to reduce friction with the population.

Five Jews were arrested on charges of assaulting officers and violating a closed military zone order, which allows only the seven families who are official residents of the outpost to be there.

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Civil Administration Carries Out Inhumane Destruction of Jewish Homes and Synagogue in Biblical Samaria - Breaking Israel News

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Posted By admin on April 22, 2020

During the coronavirus outbreak, we have witnessed a stubborn resistance among some of the most insular and ultra-Orthodox pockets of the Jewish community regarding compliance with critical pleas for social distancing and shelter-in-place orders, both in the United States and Israel. These developments have been a source of concern and frustration among a wide swath of the Jewish community, including other Orthodox Jews. Although the reaction to these non-conforming behaviors has focused on the spread of the coronavirus, it would not be surprising if more than a few Jews also are wondering whether the version of Judaism practiced in these enclaves is essentially unrecognizable. The leaders of the Orthodox communities that have flouted governmental mandates are likely very different from the typical Orthodox outreach workers who do kiruv outreach and are familiar to many religiously liberal Jews. And although television audiences in Israel, America and elsewhere may have received some fairly authentic education about these extremely insular communities through the wildly popular Israeli television show Shtisel, and more recently Unorthodox, it cannot be denied that most American Jews just cannot relate to, let alone sympathize with, the stringencies and unfamiliar practices showcased in these programs, especially under the current circumstances. This reality unfortunately further diminishes the already fractured notion of Jewish unity.But as Prof. Adam Ferziger writes in the Times of Israel, there is a wide spectrum among haredi (ultra-Orthodox) Jews in terms of their insularity, and in recent years, some pockets have been more open to certain types of digital content. This tendency has become more pronounced in recent days to combat the impact of COVID-19.WE WOULD all do well to remember that strong disagreement regarding Jewish practice has always been part of the fabric of Jewish law and life. Diverse positions and customs date back to the first two major schools of thought represented by the sages Hillel and Shammai. In todays world, it cannot be denied that the Reform, Conservative and Orthodox denominations have distinct identities and positions regarding matters of religious practice. It is also the case that individuals affiliated with these same denominations may disagree about religious practices as well as hot-button political and social issues. But in the end, there still is a shared past, present and hopefully future.Despite the divergent legal rulings and customs prevalent among modern Jews, until the Enlightenment, there was a recognizable consistency in Jewish observance. Even so, geography often contributed to diversity because both the legal rulings of the rabbis as well as the customs of the people were heavily influenced by the various outside host cultures in which the Jews lived. For example, during the Middle Ages, Jewish law mirrored Christian practice in that it banned polygamy for Ashkenazi Jews living in Christian countries, in contrast to the Jewish tradition governing Jews living in Muslim countries where polygamy was part of the larger culture.But post-Enlightenment, opportunities for Jews to participate in the surrounding cultures increased. Once they were no longer culturally and economically isolated, divergent factions of Jews emerged with distinct views on the importance and relevance of Jewish law, known as Halacha.EVEN SO, history has witnessed countless examples of Jewish unity despite a lack of agreement on many significant issues. In his book American Judaism, Prof. Jonathan Sarna noted that in the 19th century, American Jews developed a series of powerful unifying symbols marking their diverse worship spaces, such as the Torah scroll and a visual of the Ten Commandments. More recently, the Soviet Jewry movement that began in the 1960s provided a powerful unifying force for Jews from different backgrounds. We may not pray in the same synagogues, but we still join together to fight against the oppression of Soviet Jews, applaud the achievements of Jewish actors and athletes, and unfortunately in response to the current realities, march against antisemitism.In addition to Judaisms historical capacity to sustain divergent opinions, sociological data also suggests a more nuanced basis for Jewish unity. The comprehensive 2013 Pew Report on the American Jewish community revealed that a strong majority of Jews in the United States see being Jewish as more a matter of ancestry, culture and values than of religious observance. In other words, most American Jews do not see religion as the main component of Judaism. But although there seems to be little consensus on what the essence of Judaism is or on what it should be this lack of agreement may actually foster unity because it allows many types of Jews to feel an attachment to their heritage. The Pew Report confirms that a large majority of American Jews are proud to be Jewish, see being Jewish as important, and have a strong sense of belonging to the Jewish people.This potential for Jewish unity is on of our greatest advantages. Unbridgeable differences are dangerous for any religious group. This danger is particularly problematic for a cultural religious minority that is increasingly becoming the target of attack both here and across the globe. Especially now, a sense of unity among the Jewish people matters more than ever. This is a message that all Jews regardless of how, or even if, they practice need to keep in mind. When all streams of Judaism accept the inevitability of differences and appreciate the good faith function of each space on the Jewish religious spectrum, the Jewish people are at their strongest.Roberta Rosenthal Kwall is a law professor at DePaul University College of Law. She is the author of Remix Judaism: Preserving Tradition in a Diverse World (Roman & Littlefield, 2020), and The Myth of the Cultural Jew: Culture and Law in Jewish Tradition (Oxford U. Press, 2015).

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Disagreement can be the basis of Jewish unity even during a pandemic - The Jerusalem Post

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Posted By admin on April 22, 2020

Well before the rest of the world was talking about blood plasma and its use in fighting coronavirus, Dr. Shmuel Shoham knew all about it and where he could probably get a lot of it.

By early March, Shoham, an expert on infectious diseases in transplant patients at Johns Hopkins University, had already realized that convalescent plasma antibodies spun out of the blood of people who had Covid-19 could be a key therapy in fighting the disease.

So he called a friend who is an Orthodox Jew Chaim Lebovits, a shoe wholesaler from Monsey, N.Y. to ask him if he could encourage others in his community to donate their plasma. Orthodox Jews, Shoham reasoned, hit early and hard by the virus, probably had an abundance of people with just the right antibodies people who got sick and recovered, or people who had the virus and never even knew it.

I had no idea that he would drop everything and completely immerse himself in this, Shoham said. Lebovits is giving his community members a chance to do something, now that they have this power in their body to make a difference.

What began as a one-man volunteer effort to connect post-Covid Jews with New York-area hospitals has now become a broad coalition, including major hospitals, Orthodox groups and a range of Orthodox Jews from visibly religious Hasidic communities to the so-called Modern Orthodox who participate more fully in secular life. Its made Orthodox Jews a major force in donating plasma, which doctors hope to have a major benefit in the fight against the coronavirus.

The effort has also given Orthodox Jews of whom there are about 700,000 in the New York area a chance to recast the narrative of coronavirus around their community. Though every major institution of Orthodox life has shut down, there have been holdouts in the Hasidic community, such as schools and ritual baths that remain open, or funerals that have drawn hundreds of mourners. These outliers, as Orthodox Jews call them, have led to negative media attention and claims on social media that Orthodox Jews are spreading the virus and ignoring social distancing rules more than other groups.

Yonoson Rosenblum, in the Orthodox monthly Mishpacha, wrote in an article published Tuesday that the plasma donation effort stood to create a world in which all the negative news coverage of chareidi or ultra-religious Jews was suddenly replaced by images of chareidi Covid-19 survivors lining up in multitudes to give potentially life-saving convalescent blood plasma to those still battling the virus.

Lebovits does not have medical training, but for years has acted as an informal advisor to friends and fellow Hasidic Jews who want help connecting to and speaking with medical professionals about their treatment. Thats how Lebovits met Shoham, as well as Dr. Jeffrey Bander, a Mount Sinai cardiologist who helped Lebovits begin directing Orthodox donors to the hospitals plasma donation program.

Lebovits began working on getting Jews to donate plasma at the beginning of March. But when his wholesale operation had to close, since it is a nonessential business, he threw himself into creating a network of rabbis, religious organizations, virus researchers, health professionals and hospital administrators to educate the Orthodox about the benefits of plasma donation, test them, take their blood to spin out the antibody-rich plasma and pass it onto hospitals.

So far, Lebovits said, more than 3,000 people mostly men have donated plasma at blood banks around the region, and 6,000 more were being tested on Wednesday to see if they have the right antibodies. Lebovits said that he hopes to organize more than 45,000 people from the Orthodox community around New York City to donate plasma. Dr. David Reich, president and chief operating officer of the Mount Sinai hospital system, said that more than half of the donors to their plasma collection efforts have been Orthodox.

The plasma isnt just used for frum religious people or Jewish people, its for people in general, Lebovits said. We as observant Jews have an obligation to preserve life, and save life, and help as many people as we can.

The effort has the literal and figurative blessings of the Orthodox establishment. Two respected decisors of Jewish law Rabbi Yisroel Reisman and Rabbi Reuven Feinstein have said that Jews are encouraged to donate plasma and can even drive on Shabbat and holidays in order to do so. The Orthodox Union and Agudath Israel of America, the two largest Orthodox umbrella organizations, are sending messages to the community about the science of plasma and its use in treating Covid-19.

Wealthy Orthodox philanthropists are also involved, according to Serle, in some cases buying machines for blood centers so they can take more donations. He declined to name any of the philanthropists.

Lebovits and his fellow volunteers have been working with health centers in Orthodox hubs to do the testing, to see if people have a sufficient number of antibodies to donate plasma, and then arranging appointments with and transportation to the blood banks that can receive the plasma.

Lebovits said he has sent tests from Orthodox hubs to Mount Sinai and Montefiore network hospitals in New York, as well as to small urgent cares that can send the tests to large labs and to Minnesotas Mayo Clinic.

Once people are approved to donate, there is the task of finding space at blood donation centers, many of which are at capacity. Mordy Serle, a lawyer from the Flatbush neighborhood of Brooklyn who is helping with the effort, said that New York Blood Center, a nonprofit that supplies blood to hundreds of New York hospitals, tells them at 5 p.m. how many slots they have open for the next day, and Serle finds donors to fill the slots.

The first community to get involved was Young Israel of New Rochelle, the synagogue that was one of the countrys early hotspots after Lawrence Garbuz, a lawyer, contracted and spread the disease to dozens of fellow congregants. Lebovits said that 40 Young Israel congregants donated plasma about three weeks ago.

The latest efforts have seen more than 120 Hasidic Jews from Monsey and New Square, perhaps the most insular Hasidic village in Rockland County, N.Y., take an entire day to travel to Delaware to get hooked up at the nearest blood bank that had the capacity to take them. Nuchem Lebovits, Chaim Lebovits 18-year-old son, was among the donors earlier this week; his father posted a picture of him on Twitter.

Every single open spot within a days travel, were putting a Jew in, said Serle

On Sunday, the Mayo Clinic received 1,000 blood samples to test for antibodies from donors in Lakewood, N.J., a major Orthodox hub, to be tested for antibodies, according to Dr. Mike Joyner, who leads the convalescent plasma program at Mayo. The testing was conducted by Lev Rochel Bikur Cholim, a medical assistance provider in Lakewood. Refuah Health Center, a community health provider network based near Monsey, has processed more than 2,000 tests, Lebovits said.

Joyner said he expects to process thousands more tests from Orthodox Jews, and that the communitys contribution to making New York a center of plasma donation could help people across the country recover from the disease faster. He said he wants New York City to become the Saudi Arabia of supplying plasma.

Now that cases of the virus are starting to spread rapidly outside New York, Lebovits is trying to rally Orthodox communities around the country. He has already contacted people in Minnesota, Baltimore, Detroit, Montreal and other places to spread the world about the importance of plasma donation.

Lebovits, Serle and others have worked not only through Shabbat and the recent Passover holiday, but also through the kinds of life events that, in a normal world, would merit at least a moments pause. Serle said that two weeks ago he got on a conference call with Dr. Joyner, of the Mayo Clinic, 15 minutes after the birth of his daughter at the urging of his wife.

Last week, on the last day of Passover, Lebovits brother Yitzchak died of cancer at 47. Since then, Lebovits has been working through the shivah mourning period.

He personally asked, when I was with him the last time, that regardless of what happens to him, I should make sure to not stop this effort, Lebovits said. The project has now been named for Lebovits brother.

When this is all over, Lebovits said, hell stop and grieve. But not yet.

I dont think I have the right to be selfish, when other peoples lives are at stake, he said.

To learn more about donating convalescent plasma, click here.

Ari Feldman is a staff writer at the Forward. Contact him at feldman@forward.com or follow him on Twitter @aefeldman

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Orthodox Jews are donating plasma by the thousands to fight Covid-19 - Forward

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Posted By admin on April 22, 2020

The recent Netflix show Unorthodox has brought my former community, Satmar, into the limelight. The show is about a young woman feeling trapped in that ultra-Orthodox, Hasidic community and making her way out. It is not about the community, but about one womans journey, and the series shows you the community through her eyes, the eyes of someone who is finding it intolerable and needs out.

But this article is not about Unorthodox. In this article, I want to give an insight into the community of my upbringing from the perspective of someone who lived it and breathed for most of his life, rather than from the perspective of someone who left. Given that this is a community that rarely interacts with the media and with outsiders, it is natural that most of our information about it comes from people who have left and from their perspective. How might we try and understand the community from the inside? What does it feel like to be Satmar?

To do this we will have to let go for a moment of our Western values of individualism and liberalism. We cannot understand a community that functions by a different set of norms, using the lens of our values. Let us understand Satmar through the lens of its own values.

In Satmar, there is no I. It is not about you and what you want. It is not about being who you are, self-actualisation, or following your dreams. You are not an independent individual, but part of a greater, living organism. That organism is your family and your community. You as an individual do your part in bringing honour to your family and ensuring the continuity of the community and its ways.

If you are a Satmar woman, you have been raised all your life to be the loyal and supportive wife of your husband and the mother of the next generation of Hasidic kids. It is not about whether you find this fulfilling or if you have other aspirations in life. This is the part that you play in the communitys future: you learn to find it fulfilling. Or you dont.

If you are a Satmar man, you know your place too. You will be in the synagogue three times a day, youll dedicate some time for study daily, youll give to charity, support the rebbes institutions and, someway or another, youll put bread on the table.

Daily life revolves around fulfilling religious commandments and obligations, but that does not mean that your average Satmar person thinks about religion or God consciously throughout his or her day. These just form the framework and vocabulary of life, but underneath it, life in Satmar follows the same patterns as life across our species.

There are meals to be cooked, children to be entertained, friends to be visited. You need to make ends meet, look after your elderly mother, avoid that shul member with whom you dont get along. Theres worry for a loved one who is ill, grievance over a death, love for a child who hit a milestone in his or her life. The whole spectrum of human emotion is here on display from love to hate; joy to pain; anxiety and compassion.

I am the last one to make excuses when the community breaks the law, or for the way in which it treats those who do not toe the line. I myself have suffered, and continue to suffer, tremendous pain from the way the community has shunned me and treated me for questioning and carving out my own path. But underneath, all of it is a very imperfect, but very human community. A community that is very different in its values, but just as human as the rest of us.

This humanity is what I found missing in Unorthodox. We got shown a caricature of a community that is eternally bitter, austere and one-dimensional. That is not the daily reality of Hasidic Jews. I think that what we saw is a community through the eyes of someone about to leave it. But Satmar looks very different for those on the inside. That story is yet to be told.

Izzy Posen grew up in the Ultra Orthodox community in Stamford Hill and attended several Charedi yeshivas. He has now departed from that community and is a Jewish educator in the wider Jewish community alongside his university studies.

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'Unorthodox' overlooked the humanity of my old Satmar community - Jewish News

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Posted By admin on April 22, 2020

The funeral of Josef Neumann at Viznitz Cemetery in Spring Valley March 30, 2020. Neumann, 72, died from his injuries suffered in Monsey Hanukkah machete attack. Rockland/Westchester Journal News

An earlier version of thisarticle incorrectly reported that a federal judge approved a request to exhume the body of Josef Neumann, who died after being injured in a machete attack. Ithas beencorrected to note that the judge agreed to allow suspect Grafton Thomas'attorney to seek federal money to hire a forensic pathologist for a potential autopsy. The attorney, Michael Sussman, has a motion pending in Rockland County court seeking an autopsy to establish Neumann's official cause of death.

Grafton Thomas has been found mentally incompetent to stand trial on federal attempted murder and hate crime charges involving the machete attack on Hasidic Jews attending a December Hanukkah party at a rabbi's house in Monsey.

Josef Neumann, 72, died from head and body wounds in the Dec. 28 attack at the Forshay Road house. Five others were injured inthe attack that led tofederal and Rockland County criminal charges against the 37-year-old Orange County resident.

Grafton Thomas, with his attorney Michael Sussman, appears at an arraignment in Rockland County Court in New City Jan. 16, 2020. He was charged with a machete attack on Hanukkah party goers in Monsey.(Photo: Peter Carr/The Journal News)

JUDICIAL ORDER: Judge orders Grafton Thomas held for mental evaluation

JOSEPH NEUMANN: Ramapo grandfather, 72, dies as Rockland DA eyes murder charge in machete attack

MENTAL HEALTH: Monsey stabbing suspect's lawyer shines light on his client's history of mental illness

ROCKLAND: More defendants in violent crimes are claiming mental health defenses

U.S. District Court Judge Cathy Seibel ordered that Thomas be held in a hospital for treatment notto exceed four months. He is not cleared of the charges against him, andSeibel wrotein a decision dated Sunday that he will be heldto determine whether there is a substantial probability that in the foreseeable future he will be able to understand the chargesand assist in his own defense.

The order states the federal Bureau of Prisons must provide Seibel, the U.S. Attorney's Office and defense attorney Michael Sussman with an interim report on Thomas after 30 days on his medical and psychological condition,the diagnosis of the facility's examinerand a prognosis.

The U.S. Attorney's Office in White Plains didn't challenge the results of the psychiatric evaluation ofThomas andagreed to Seibel's order with defense attorney Michael Sussman.

Seibel accepted Dr. Kim Schlessinger's determination that at the time of the examination Thomas "is presently sufferingfrom mental diseaseor defect rendering him mentally incompetent to the extentthat he is unable to assist properly in his own defense."

The examination took place at the Metropolitan Corrections Center in Manhattan.The Bureau of Prisons will choose themedical facility where Thomas will be held.

Thomas has pleaded not guilty to a 10-count federal indictmentaccusing him of injuring five people while trying to kill them because of their religion and obstructing the free exercise of religion in an attempt to kill them.

Thomas'family and attorney has said he suffers from mental illness and is not anti-Semitic. He's been examined by several psychologists with an additional examination planned. Thomas, who's being held on $5 million bail in the Westchester County jail in Valhalla, allegedly stopped taking Latuda, an antipsychotic medication,in October 2019, Sussman has said.

Rockland District Attorney Thomas Walsh and his aides were reviewing Seibel's order.

Thomas has pleadednot guilty to the 14 count indictmentin Rockland.The charges include six attempted murder charges and other felony counts. Judge Kevin Russo has yet to decideon his competency to stand trial as the District Attorney's Office planned to bringa second-degree murder charge before a grand jury.

Sussmanhas a motionpending in Rockland County Court to exhume Neumann's body.

Sussman askedSeibel to approved a $6,000 budget for a forensic pathologist to review and report on medical records connected to Neumann. If Neumann's body undergoes an autopsy, Sussman said he expects the forensic pathologist, Mark Taft, who is the former Rockland chief medical examiner, to sit in during the examination.

For Orthodox Jewish religious reasons, Neumann's family didn't want an autopsy conducted, a decision adhered to by the Rockland District Attorney's Office.

Thomas, who livedin Greenwood Lake, was arrested in Manhattan within hours of the attack by two NYPD officers who had been alerted to be on the lookout for a Nissan Sentra. Partygoer Josef Gluck had noted the license plate of the attacker's car and alerted Ramapo police, who put out a bulletin.

When Thomas was stopped, New York City police said he was covered in blood and the machete was found in his car. A knife also was found.

Prosecutors say bleach found in his car was evidenceThomaswas trying to clean the blood off after the attack. However, Thomas routinely used bleach to wash himself and his clothing, Sussman said.

MONSEY ATTACK: Grafton Thomas accused of having anti-Semitic journal

STABBING:Community shaken by bloodshed for 2nd time in a month

Based on a court warrant approved after the December attack,the FBI searched Thomas' home and his cellular telephone, finding references to Jews, Hitler, the Nazi culture, as well as packaging for an 18-inch machete, according to the complaint signed by FBI Special Agent Julie Brown.

Josef Neumann died months after being stabbed during a Hanukkah celebration in Monsey on Dec. 28, 2019.(Photo: Photo courtesy of the Neumann family)

The hand-written journal also referenced the Black Hebrew Israelites the extremist grouplinked to one of the shooters in the fatal attack on a kosher grocery store earlier this month inJersey City, New Jersey.

His cellphone's internet browser included November and December searches for topics such as "Why did Hitler hate the Jews," "German Jewish Temples near me," "Zionist Temples in Elizabeth, NJ," "Zionist Temples of Staten Island," and "Prominent companies founded by Jews in America,"according to the complaint.

Why he chose the rabbi's home remains under investigation.

Thomas remains a suspect in the predawn attack andstabbing of a rabbi walking to synagogue on Howard Drive in Monsey on Nov. 20. Ramapo Police Chief Brad Weidel has said so far there was no evidence to chargeThomasin the November stabbing, but the police and FBI were investigating.

Twitter: @lohudlegal

Steve Lieberman coversgovernment, breaking news, courts, police and investigations.Reach him at slieberm@lohud.com. Twitter: @lohudlegal.Read more articlesandbio.Our local coverage is only possible with support from our readers.Sign up today for a digital subscription.

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Monsey machete attack: Grafton Thomas found unfit for trial on attempted murder, hate charges - Lohud

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Posted By admin on April 22, 2020

By: Ray Weiler

In this new age of sheltering at home, more New Yorkers than ever are staying in their homes. Tragically, many are dying in them during this age of Corona.

Hasidic communities in Brooklyn specifically, Borough Park and Williamsburg are reporting a major increase in the number of Jews who are passing away at home. One estimate says the number is now higher than normal by a factor of 10.

This represent a disturbing citywide trend, according to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. In addition to the high death toll of confirmed coronavirus patients in this citys hospitals, more New Yorkers are dying at home during the health crisis. Mayor Bill de Blasio had said it is reasonable to assume that most at-home deaths are attributable to COVID-19. Across the city, ProPublica found, at-home deaths have increased almost sixfold.

Based on the number of calls to the Fire Department for fatal cardiac arrests,Gothamist.compointed out that for Borough Park, Kensington and Ocean Parkway, there was a total of 27 fatal cardiac arrest calls to the Fire Department from March 1 to April 13. Previously, the average had been just two. In Greenpoint and Williamsburg combined there had been 16 calls this year, but only one in 2019.

That makes those neighborhoods, both home to large populations of Hasidic Orthodox Jews, two of the areas with the biggest increases in at-home deaths compared to last year, the news site pointed out. Other neighborhoods with high at-home death rates are Bedford-Stuyvesant in Brooklyn, Jamaica and Astoria in Queens, and Washington Heights in Manhattan.

According to statistics released by the New York City Department of Health, Borough Park, Williamsburg, Crown Heights and Midwood have some of the highest death at home rates in the city. As of April 17, Borough Park has had more than 1,900 positive tests for the coronavirus, the fourth-highest number of any of the citys Zip codes, JTA reported.

Nor is the surge in at-home deaths restricted to the Jewish community. The news sitepropublica.orgrecently reported that experts are saying that it is possible that some of the jump in at-home death stems from people infected by the virus who either didnt seek treatment or did but were instructed to shelter in place, and that the undercount is exacerbated by lack of comprehensive testing. Its also possible that the increase in at-home deaths reflects people dying from other ailments like heart attacks because they couldnt get to a hospital or refused to go, fearful theyd contract COVID-19.

Motty Brauner, a member of Borough Parks Shomrim, a volunteer security patrol, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency in an interview that the need for wellness checks for the elderly at home has skyrocketed. To date, he added, the number of deaths caused by the coronavirus seems to be slowing down as locals get more strict about social distancing and other health measures.

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Orthodox Jewish Communities in Bklyn See Frightening Rise in COVID-19 Deaths - The Jewish Voice

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Posted By admin on April 22, 2020

1. TheTalmud Is the Link Between Scripture and Jewish Practice

The Hebrew Scripture (also known as Torah) is thebedrock of Jewish practice and beliefs. But the verses are often terse,containing layers of hidden meaning. Since the Giving of theTorah, Jewish people studied Scripture along with a corpus of Divinetraditions (the Oral Torah), which elucidated and expanded the Divine wisdom ofTorah. These oral traditions, and much more, were eventually recorded in theTalmud. Heres how it happened...

Read: What Is the Talmud?

Following the destruction of the second HolyTemple and the subsequent breakdown of Jewish life and scholarship, Rabbi Judahthe Prince edited the first layer of the Talmud, a compendium of Jewish lawsknown as the Mishnah, in 189. The Mishnah comprises short teachings on virtuallyevery area of Jewish law. Even with the basic laws now recorded, much stillremained oral, and teachings that did not make it into the Mishnah (braitot) as well as subsequentscholarship were carefully studied by the rabbis of each generation. Thiscontinued for several hundred years until the decision was made that thesetraditions, too, needed to be written down.

Read: History of the Mishnah

Manuscript of the Mishnah dating to the 10th or 11th century from the collection of David Kaufmann.

In the Talmudic era, there were two maincenters of Jewish learning: The Galilee (northern Israel) and Babylon. Therewas significant back-and-forth; messengers and letters were regularly sentbetween them, yet the traditions varied, as did the style of learning, promptingone Babylonian sage, Rav Zeira, to fast for 100 days, praying that he forgetthe Babylonian way of learning and merit to learn the teachings of the mastersof the Land of Israel with clarity.

As Jewish life in the Holy Land disintegrated,the teachings of the Galilean scholars were written (but never properlyredacted) in what is commonly known as the Jerusalem Talmud (TalmudYerushalmi). Several generations later, early in the fifth century, theteachings of the Babylonian academies were finally codified in the BabylonianTalmud (Talmud Bavli).

Both can be loosely described as commentarieson the Mishnah, but are really much more than just that. They begin eachsection by quoting the Mishnah, which is then parsed and elucidated by thesages of the Talmud.

Read: The Two Talmuds

The Babylonian Talmud was completed later andunder more tranquil circumstances, making for a more seasoned product.Moreover, most rabbis in the years after the completion of the Talmud werestudents of the Babylonian school. For these reasons (and others), theBabylonian Talmud has become the dominant tradition among Jews today. In fact,due to its scarcity, there are significant chunks of the Jerusalem Talmud thathave been lost, and that which we do have is based off just a few survivingmanuscripts. Thus, whenever someone says Talmud, without specifying which one,you can be almost certain they are referring to the Babylonian Talmud.

A copy of the Jerusalem Talmud found in the Cairo Geniza

The word talmudmeans learning, closely related to the word talmid,Hebrew for student. The Talmudic commentaries on the Mishnah have anothername as well, gemara, Aramaic forcompletion, thus named because they provide the full context andinterpretation for the Mishnah. Since the middle ages, Gemara has become thepreferred term for Talmud among learned Jews. In part, this was in order toavoid undue attention from Christian authorities who abhorred Talmud, whichthey saw as a threat to their traditions.

Shas is an acronym for shisha sedarim,six orders. In common parlance, when one studies Talmud we say he islearning Gemara, but when speaking of the work as a whole, it is oftenreferred to as Shas, since itencompasses teachings on all six orders of the Mishnah.

Read: Why Was the Talmud Called Gemara?

A complete set of the Babylonian Talmud. (Photo by Wikimedia)

The Mishnah was written in Hebrew. The rabbisof the Talmud, however, primarily spoke and wrote in Aramaic, with the dialectsin the Holy Land and Babylon differing significantly. The text of theBabylonian Talmud transfers back and forth between Babylonian Aramaicdiscussion provided by the Babylonian rabbis, and Hebrew quotes from sages ofprevious generations and contemporaneous sages from the Holy Land (who arealmost never quoted in their native Galilean Aramaic). Similarly, the JerusalemTalmud contains a mix of Hebrew and Galilean Aramaic.

Read: Why Is the Talmud in Aramaic?

The Mishnah comprises six sedarim, orders, each covering another area of Jewish law:agriculture, holidays, marriage and divorce, civil jurisprudence, the Templesacrifices, ritual purity. Each order is further divided into masechtot, tractates. A tractate ismade up of several perakim, chapters,each of which contains a number of mishnayot,paragraphs.

Since many of these subjects (such as mostagricultural laws or those pertaining to the Holy Temple) did not apply to Jewsliving outside of Israel after the destruction of the Temple, the BabylonianTalmud is missing commentary for many of those tractates.

Read: The Six Orders of the Mishnah

A sage from the era of the Mishnah is known asa tana. Conversely, one from theTalmudic era is known as an amora.Following the Jewish tradition that the generations closer to the revelation atSinai had a more perfect tradition and were gifted with greater wisdom, thegeneral rule is that an amora may notdisagree with the teachings of a tana.

How do you know if someone is a tana or an amora? Heres a simple trick:

Although, the term rabbi is fairly ubiquitousnowadays, in ancient Israel, only a Torah scholar who was deemed worthy wasconferred this special title in a ceremony known as semichah. Since the Babylonian sages did not live in Israel, theywere not able to receive semichah andwere thus simply known as rav so-and-so.So if someone in the Talmuds name is preceded by rabbi you can assume he is either a tana or an amora from theLand of Israel. Conversely, if his title is rav,you know he is a Babylonian amora.

Read: A Brief History of Rabbinical Ordination

Much of the Talmud is written as aconversation. A statement will be made, questions will be asked, answers willbe suggested and rebutted, and more answers will be proffered, often going onfor pages. Looking carefully at the names to whom the questions and answers areattributed (and many are simply anonymous), one can see hundreds of years ofbrilliant scholarship and intense analysis packed together. Like anyconversation, things sometimes veer off topic, and can easily turn to thingsmore germane to another tractate for many pages.

Read: Is It Really the Torah, or Just the Rabbis?

Studying Talmud. (Photo: Lubavitch Mesivta of Chicago)

The Talmudic discussion was by real people whowere working their hardest to apply Gds word to their real life. Thus, thebulk of the Talmudic texts contain analysis of Biblical verses and Torah law,but its interspersed with everything from medical advice to stories, from folksayings to fabric dying tips.

Read: 38 Folk Sayings From the Talmud

In the Talmud, nothing is trivial orirrelevant, which means the conversation can sometimes center around unlikelyscenarios that can never actually happen. Why bother discussing something thatyou will never encounter, and may not have happened to anyone in history?Because its the Divine wisdom, and when your mind is trying to wrap itselfaround Gds mind, youre unified with Him in the most intense way.

Read: Gd in the Talmud

The Talmud is almost entirely the product ofthousands of discussions that took place in Torah academies. In Hebrew, thesecan be known as a yeshivah ([placeof] sitting) or beit midrash (houseof study). The Aramaic counterparts of these terms are metivta and bei midrasha. Untilthis very day, yeshivah studentsaround the world spend many hours a day poring over the Talmud and itscommentaries.

Read: What Is a Yeshivah?

Talmud is traditionally studied aloud in asingsong, with each part of the conversation intoned differently. Questions,replies, and proofs, for example, all have their own unique tunes.

This holds true when someone is learning witha study partner (chavruta) as well aswhen one studies alone. It is also traditional to sway (shokel) when studying, resembling a restless flame, passionate andfull of warmth.

The beitmidrash is therefore typically vibrant, noisy and pulsating with livelydiscussion in a medley of languages.

Read: Why Do Jews Rock While Learning and Praying

Carl Schleicher, Eine Streitfrage aus dem Talmud

Almost immediately after the Talmud wascompleted, students began compiling commentaries. The most widely studied isthat of Rashi, 11th-century leader of Ashkenazi Jewry, who also composed acommentary on the entire Hebrew Scripture. Second in prominence are thosecomposed by rabbis who lived until the start of the 16th century (known asRishonim, first ones), notably the authors of Tosafot (Additions), many ofwhom were actually Rashis descendants. Throughout the centuries, thousands ofcommentaries and supercommentaries have been written, each one enriching thecorpus of Torah scholarship.

Read: A Biography of Rashi

Almost as soon as the printing press was invented,printers (notably the Soncino family) began printing individual tractates ofTalmud. The first complete printing was done in Venice by Daniel Bomberg, a Christian, in the early 16th century. Thetext of the Talmud was printed surrounded by the classic commentaries of Rashiand Tosafot. This layout (and pagination) was found to be so convenient andwell arranged that it has remained standard until this very day.

Watch: Introduction to theBomberg Talmud

The Talmud is a collection of writings that covers the full gamut of Jewish law and tradition. Jewish people devote much time to studying the Talmud. Seen here is an open volume of the Talmud.

The standard edition of Babylonian Talmudfills 2,711 double-sided pages of text, as well as many thousands more devotedto various commentaries.

Each page is referred to as a daf (Hebrew for board) or blatt (Yiddish for leaf), and eachside is called an amud (column).The pages are typically referenced by Hebrew letters rather than Arabicnumerals. Thus, the second half of the 10th page of the tractate devoted to theShabbat laws, for example is referred to as Shabbat,daf yud amud bet, since yud and bet are the 10th and second letters ofthe Hebrew alphabet respectively.

Celebrating the completion of all 2,711 pagesis known as a siyum hashas. Masteringthe entire Talmud is a lifetimes achievement, as one can study the same textagain and again, each time finding more meaning and depth.

Read: What Is a Siyum Hashas?

Both Hebrew and Jewish Aramaic are written instandard Hebrew letters. It is interesting to note, however, that the standardedition of the Talmud contains two kinds of lettering. The primary text of theTalmud is in block lettering (also known asktav ashurit), and many of the commentaries are written in a more roundedfont known as Rashi script.

Read: What Is Rashi Script and Where Did It ComeFrom?

The first page of Talmud as it appears in standard editions, the text surrounded by the commentaries of Rashi,Tosafot, and others.

In the middle ages, Christians believed that the Talmud was the main obstacle to Jews adoptingChristianity, and that it contained insults to their religion. In 1244, KingLouis IX (later St. Louis) of France had 24 wagon loads of Talmudic volumespublicly burned outside the famed Notre Dame cathedral. At the time, books werepainstakingly handwritten and could not be easily replaced, making it adisaster of massive proportions for French Jewry.

Read: The Talmud Is Burnt

Talmud is not something to read once. Ratherit is studied again and again. In the words of the Talmudic sage, RabbiYehoshua ben Korcha: Learning without reviewing is like planting but notreaping.

After learning and relearning the same textagain and again, with intense concentration, it is natural for people to becomeso familiar that it is committed to memory. Thus, the accomplished scholarstypically know large chunks of the Talmud more or less by heart. In fact, thehighest praise one can apply to a Talmudist is that he can pass the pin test,in which a pin is inserted into a tome of Talmud and he would be able to saywhich word it would meet on any given page of text.

In recent centuries the Talmud has beentranslated into multiple languages, meaning that Jews from the US, France,Russia and Latin America (among others) can all study in their native tongue.

Read: The Historic Translation of Talmud IntoRussian

In the 1990s, cassette tapes with classes onevery page of the Talmud were produced. With the advent of easy and affordableinternet streaming, many teachers began releasing Talmud classes online. Infact, master Talmud teacher Rabbi Avraham Zajac has classes on almost theentire Talmud right on Chabad.org.

Watch: Advanced Talmud Classes

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21 Talmud Facts Every Jew Should Know - Talmud

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Posted By admin on April 22, 2020

With the help of the US Army, Jewish Holocaust survivors printed copies of the Talmud.

As World War II drew to a close in 1945, survivors of the Nazi death camps tried to rebuild their shattered lives in Displaced Person (DP) camps, many of which were housed in the very concentration camps in which Nazis had recently tortured and murdered Jews and others.

On September 29, over three months after the end of the war in Europe, US President Harry S. Truman wrote a scathing letter to Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, who was in charge of American troops in occupied Germany, describing the horrific conditions that Jews were still living in. Pres. Truman quoted from a report on the conditions in the DP camps that hed commissioned: As matters now stand, we appear to be treating the Jews as the Nazis treated them except that we do not exterminate them. They are in concentration camps in large numbers under our military guard instead of S.S. troops. One is led to wonder whether the German people, seeing this, are not supposing that we are following or at least condoning Nazi policy.

Truman argued that we have a particular responsibility toward these victims of persecution and tyranny who are in our zone. We must make clear to the German people that we thoroughly abhor the Nazi policies of hatred and persecution. We have no better opportunity to demonstrate this than by the manner in which we ourselves actually treat the survivors remaining in Germany.

With American support, Jewish life slowly began to return to the camps. The American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee moved into many DP camps and helped distribute food and medical supplies. They also helped set up Jewish schools in the camps, aided at times by the American army and also by some remarkable rabbis whod survived the Holocaust and were determined now to rebuild Jewish life.

One huge problem prevented the resumption of Jewish education and religious services: while the Nazis murdered as many Jews as possible and tried to wipe out Jewish existence, they also destroyed countless Jewish books, Torah scrolls and other ritual objects. Allied officials were able to find some Jewish prayer books in Nazi warehouses, but the ragged Jewish survivors in DP camps still lacked many basic Jewish books and supplies.

One leader who stepped in to help was Rabbi Avrohom Kalmanowitz. Born in Russia, Rabbi Kalmanowitz was head of the renowned Mir Yeshiva, one of the greatest yeshivas in the world. In 1939, with war looming, Rabbi Kalmanowitz decided to relocate his famous school from Lithuania to Kobe, in Japan.He set out to bring 575 members of the school, but soon found himself leading nearly 3,000 Jews who were desperate to escape Nazi Europe. He led this group, which included many sick and elderly Jews, across Russia and Siberia and onto Japan. For much of the journey, stronger members of the group would carry those who couldnt walk on their backs.

After Japan attacked the United States, Rabbi Kalmanowitz moved his yeshiva once more, to Shanghai. There he improvised printing presses using stones and managed to publish 38,000 Jewish books. While Hitler was burning books and bodies, Rabbi Kalmanowitz later recalled, the men of Mirrer (the Mir Yeshiva) who had traveled 16,000 miles from Lithuania to Shanghai were using stones for printing presses to keep the light of learning alive. After the end of the war, Rabbi Kalmanowitz returned to Europe, and once more championed the printing of Jewish books and preservation of Jewish life.

Mirrer Yeshiva in Shanghai

Rabbi Kalmanowitz was a leading figure in the Agudat Harabbanim and the Vaad Hatzalah. He cultivated contacts with American military officials and oversaw the printing of Jewish prayer books, Passover Haggadahs, copies of the Megillah of Esther for Purim, and even some volumes of the Talmud. Rabbi Kalmanowitz is a patient and appreciative old patriarch, Gen. John Hilldring, the US Assistant Secretary of State for Occupied Areas, wrote to a colleague. I can think of no assistance I gave anyone in Washington...that gave me more satisfaction than the very little help I gave the old rabbi. Rabbi Kalmanowitz requested resources to print even more Jewish books but was told that with the acute shortage of paper in Germany, more ambitious plans to print Jewish books was impossible.

Seeing Rabbi Kalmanowitzs success in printing some Jewish books and even some volumes of the Talmud, another Jewish leader in Europe at the time began to dream of an even more ambitious project. The chief rabbi of the US Zone in Europe was Rabbi Samuel Abba Snieg. He was a commanding figure. Before he was captured by the Nazis he was a chaplain in the Lithuanian army. He was sent to the Jewish Ghetto in Slabodka, a town near Kovno in Lithuania which was renowned as a center of Jewish intellectual life. From there, Rabbi Snieg was sent to the notorious Dachau concentration camp. He survived, and after being liberated dedicated his life to rebuilding Jewish life. He was assisted by Rabbi Samuel Jakob Rose, a young man whod studied at the famous Slabodka Yeshiva before the Holocaust. They resolved to approach the US military for help in printing copies of the Talmud the first volumes of the Talmud to be printed in Europe since the Holocaust.

Rabbi Samuel Jakob Rose, a survivor of Dachau, examines the galleys of the first postwar edition of the Talmud to be printed in Germany. Photo taken ca. 1947. Courtesy of theUnited States Holocaust Memorial Museum via the National Archives and Records Administration, College Park

A set of Talmud called Shas is made up of 63 tractates, comprising 2711 double-sided pages. For millennia, its many volumes have been studied day and night by Jews around the world. Printing a complete set of the Talmud would send a powerful message that Jewish life was possible once again.

Whom to ask for help? General Joseph McNarney was the commander of American forces in Europe. The rabbis wondered if there might be a way to reach him with their request, and decided to approach his advisor for Jewish affairs, an American Reform rabbi from New York named Philip S. Bernstein.

Rabbi Bernstein came from a very different background from the black-hatted Orthodox rabbis laboring in the DP camps. On the surface, perhaps, the men looked very different. But Rabbi Bernsteins mother had come from Lithuania and he had a deep attachment to Jewish life and was open to requests for help in rebuilding Jewish education in the DP camps. Rabbi Snieg and Rabbi Rose explained their proposal to print whole sets of the Talmud on German soil, and Rabbi Bernstein became an enthusiastic supporter of the plan.

Title page of Masechet Nedarim

They arranged a meeting with Gen. McNarney in Frankfurt where they asked if the US army would lend the tools for the perpetuation of religion, for the students who crave these texts Gen McNarney realized that printing sets of the Talmud would be a powerful symbol of the triumph of Jewish life supported by American forces in the lands where it had so nearly been wiped out. On September 11, 1946, he signed an agreement with the American Joint Distribution Committee and Rabbinical Council of the US Zone in Germany to print fifty copies of the Talmud, packaged into 16 volume sets. It would be the first time in history that an army agreed to print copies of this core Jewish text. The project became known as the Survivors Talmud.

The team immediately ran into obstacles. First, it was impossible to find a set of Shas (the entire Talmud) anywhere in the US Zone of former Nazi lands. Every Jew in Poland was ordered, upon pain of death, to carry to the Nazi bonfires and personally consign to the flames his copy of the Talmud, one testimony recorded. In the end, a member of the American Joint Distribution Committee brought two complete sets of the Talmud from New York.

The title page of Masechet Bechorot from the Survivors Talmud. Courtesy of Yeshiva University, Mendel Gottesman Library

Even though the US Army had agreed to print the volumes, some officials objected to the expense. The timeframe and scope of the project kept changing. Then there was the sheer labor involved in printing what eventually became nineteen-volume sets of the Talmud: each copy needed 1,800 zinc plates which had to be painstakingly set and proofread. The project began in 1947 and was finally completed in late 1950. ...we are Gott sie Dank (Thank God) packing the Talmud an American Joint Distribution Committee employee wrote in November, when they began distributing the Talmud. The Joint paid for additional sets of the Talmud to be printed; in the end, about 3,000 volumes were made. These were then shipped all over the world wherever Holocaust survivors from the the DP camps were settling. The Survivors Talmud made its way to New York, Antwerp, Paris, Algeria, Italy, Hungary, Morocco, Tunisia, South Africa, Greece, Yugoslavia, Norway, Sweden, and Israel.

From the outside, these sets of the Survivors Talmud looked like any other set of Shas. Their special origin is only visible on the title page, which shows a picture of the Land of Israel as well as a concentration camp surrounded by a barbed wire fence, with the words From bondage to freedom, from darkness to a great light. Below is this touching dedication:

This edition of the Talmud is dedicated to the United States Army. The Army played a major role in the rescue of the Jewish people from total annihilation, and their defeat of Hitler bore the major burden of sustaining the DPs of the Jewish faith. This special edition of the Talmud, published in the very land where, but a short time ago, everything Jewish and of Jewish inspiration was anathema, will remain a symbol of the indestructibility of the Torah. The Jewish DPs will never forget the generous impulses and the unprecedented humanitarianism of the American Forces, to whom they owe so much.

Some individual owners of this remarkable set of Talmud wrote their own dedications as well. One rabbi of a small town in Israel near Jerusalem recalled how he lost his wife and children when they were murdered in the Holocaust. Living in Israel, he spent his days studying from his Survivors Talmud. On the first page he hand-wrote his own dedication as well, which surely was the hope of many other survivors who studied this remarkable Survivors Talmud as well:

May it be Thy will that I be privileged to dwell quietly in the land; to study the holy Torah amid contentment of mind, peace, and security for the rest of my days; that I may learn, teach, heed, do and fulfill in love all the words of Thy Love. May I yet be remembered for salvation for the sake of my parents who sanctified Thy name when living and when led to their martyrs eath. May their blood be avenged! May I merit to witness soon the final redemption of Israel. Amen.

This was the prayer of so many of the Jews who helped print and then studied the Survivors Talmud. This remarkable undertaking was a way of declaring that no matter how terrible circumstances became, Jews would always find a way to return to the Jewish texts that have always sustained us.

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The Survivors' Talmud: When the US Army Printed the Talmud - Aish

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