Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By admin on April 20, 2020

The Hasidic community in Brooklyns neighborhood of Kensington have seen a sharp rise in at-home fatalities amid the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

The Orthodox Brooklyn communities have shown some of the highest rates of infection throughout the five boroughs, according to the New York City Department of Health. In the area of Kensington, data shows there were 27 fatal cardiac arrest calls to the FDNY between March 1 and April 13, as opposed to just two during that same period in 2019.

In addition to the high death toll of coronavirus patients in hospitals, more residents are dying at home, leaving large numbers of the deceased unaccounted for. Details were shared by Gothamist after Governor Cuomo told New Yorkers to speculate that the number of deaths by Coronavirus is much more than originally recorded.

Matt Brauner, a volunteer Shomrim security patrol, told the news agency that requests have doubled in the past few weeks. Neighborhood residents call seeking help for isolated friends and relatives. And if the Shomrim believes that medical assistance is urgently needed, a Hatzolah a Jewish emergency medical service is contact.

Its troubling to think about it, Brauner said. It was difficult because we had to wait a day and a half until we were able to track down a family member to open the door.

Im a little bit concerned about whats going to be in a week or two, he said.

The rate of transmission has appeared to slow down as orthodox communities slowly are beginning to abide by rules of social distancing.

But, there is still concern following the end of Passover, a holiday traditionally celebrated in large family gatherings, which ended this past Thursday.

This coverage of coronavirus is a special to BK Reader. We are asking for your help in keeping our coverage and database current with any helpful references and news tips. Please send all tips to [emailprotected]. With your help, Brooklyn will emerge stronger and more unified as a borough. Thank you.

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Inside the Homes of Brooklyns Hasidic Community, the Death Toll Rises - Brooklyn Reader

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Posted By admin on April 20, 2020

Dr. Medoff is director of The David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies, in Washington DC, and author of more than 20 books about the Holocaust, Zionism, and American Jewish history.

Seventy-five years after President Franklin D. Roosevelts controversial embrace of the king of Saudi Arabia, FDRs grandson has become part of a Saudi-financed public relations campaign to celebrate his late grandfathers pro-Saudi policies.

Hall Delano Roosevelt has been working with the LS2 Group, an Iowa-based public relations firm, to draw attention to the recent 75th anniversary of FDRs meeting with King Abdul Aziz Ibn Saud, according to documents released by the Arab-American news site Al-Monitor. In the LST Groups Foreign Agents Registration filings last year, it stated that it is paid $126,500 monthly by the Saudi Embassy in Washington to provide public relations and media management services.

The FDR-Ibn Saud meeting took place on February 14, 1945, on the deck of the USS Quincy.The king came aboard with his whole court, slaves (black), taster, astrologer, & 8 live sheep, President Roosevelt wrote to his cousin, Margaret Suckley. Whole party was a scream! The president does not seem to have expressed concern about the slaves.

The U.S. ambassador to Riyadh, William Eddy, was the official note-taker. He wrote down the two leaders remarks in the form of a Memorandum of Conversation, which both the president and the king signed. One of the topics they discussed was whether or not the Arab world could accept the creation of a Jewish homeland in Palestine. Roosevelt asked Ibn Saud for his view of the problem of Jewish refugees driven from their homes in Europe.

Ibn Saud responded that he opposed continued Jewish immigration and the purchase of land [in Palestine] by the Jews. The king insisted that the Arabs and the Jews could never cooperate, neither in Palestine, nor in any other country. President Roosevelt replied that he wished to assure his Majesty that he would do nothing to assist the Jews against the Arabs and would make no move hostile to the Arab people.

The king asserted that the Jews should be given living space in the Axis countries which oppressed them, rather than Palestine. In response, The President remarked that Poland might be considered a case in point. The Germans appear to have killed three million Polish Jews, by which count there should be space in Poland for the resettlement of many homeless Jews.

On March 10, several weeks after the meeting, Ibn Saud wrote to Roosevelt, asking him to oppose the continued development of a Jewish homeland in Palestine. In his April 4 reply, FDR recalled the memorable conversation which we had not so long ago and reaffirmed that no decision [will] be taken with respect to the basic situation in that country without full consultation with both Arabs and Jews. He also reiterated that he would take no action, in my capacity as Chief of the Executive Branch of this Government, which might prove hostile to the Arab people.

Speaking to a joint session of Congress on March 1, 1945, FDR departed from his prepared text to offer an ad-libbed comment about Palestine: I learned more about the whole problem, the Moslem problem, the Jewish problem, by talking with Ibn Saud for five minutes than I could have learned in the exchange of two or three dozen letters.

Roosevelts remark ignited a firestorm of criticism in the American Jewish community. One wonders why Arab [leaders] were consulted about the fate of the Jewish National Home, the American Zionist leader Dr. Abba Hillel Silver complained. Were the Jewish people consulted about the fate of Iraq, or Syria, or Saudi Arabia?

Did [the president] learn nothing from years of association with Zionist leaders?, the editors of The Reconstructionist asked. Does the fact that all these Arab states waited until they got a personal invitation to declare war upon Germany teach him nothing? Does the all-out war effort by the Jewish yishuv [of Palestine] convey nothing to our President? Was his personal pledge last fall to the Zionist convention based upon little or know knowledge?

There was criticism on Capitol Hill, tooincluding from members of FDRs own party.The choice of the desert king as expert on the Jewish question is nothing short of amazing, Sen. Edwin Johnson (Democrat of Colorado) declared. I imagine that even Fala [the presidents dog] would be more of an expert.

Nothing about that controversy was mentioned at the U.S. Navys recent commemoration of the 1945 meeting between FDR and Ibn Saud. Speakers lavished praise on the US-Saudi alliance, sailors hoisted the two countries flags, and a reenactment of the famous photo of the original meeting was stagedthis time featuring the presidents grandson, a descendant of the Saudi king, and the head of the U.S. Naval Forces Central Command. No black slaves were visible in the reenacted scene.

As presidentof the U.S.-Saudi Arabian Business Council and co-founder of the Friends of Saudi Arabia,Hall Delano Rooseveltis devoted to expanding relations between the United States and Saudi Arabia.Not surprisingly, FDRs grandson has been emphasizing what he sees as the positives of the 1945 meeting. It was historic and demonstrated that the Saudis wanted to be a productive part of the world, he said in recent interviews.

But the unsavory side of that 1945 meetingfrom the kings black slaves tothe disturbing comments by President Roosevelt and Ibn Saud regarding the Jewsshould not be papered over. The public has a right to know the full story.

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The Saudis, the Jews, and FDR's Dog: The Opening of the US-Saudi Relationship - History News Network

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Posted By admin on April 20, 2020

There is big news from Israel today. Benny Gantz, the man who for three elections tried to retire Netanyahu, has surrendered. Benjamin Netanyahu will be prime minister for the next 18 months, which will include a corruption trial; Gantz will then become prime minister, and the power-sharing deal is said to OK annexation of large portions of the occupied West Bank beginning in July.

Jerusalem Post:

US President Donald Trumps peace plan, including its clauses enabling Israel to apply sovereignty in Judea and Samaria [occupied West Bank], will be able to be implemented in July, when maps are set to be finalized.

Michael Koplow of Israel Policy Forum:

Gantz becomes defense minister and later PM; BW [Gantzs party Blue White] gets 16 ministers but Likud wins on every policy disagreement, from starting annexation on July 1 to effectively controlling the judicial appointments committee

The deal has prompted agonized cries from liberal Zionists but promises to resist from leading Palestinian politicians of Israels Joint List. Aida Touma-Sliman writes:

The next Israeli gov will be a dangerous right wing one. Gantz entered the field hoping to replace Netanyahu and ended up strengthening the latters racist and anti-democratic politics. We will lead the opposition to this annexation gov during the Covid crisis and after it.

Palestinian politicians were the big winners of the last election; and are empowered by the news. Joint List head Ayman Odeh writes on twitter [Hebrew, automated translation]:

Gantzs surrender is a slap in the face to the civilian who repeatedly goes to the ballot box to oust Netanyahu. Gantz was not brave enough to win and chose to legalize annexation, racism and corruption.

Joint List lawmaker, and doctor, Ahmad Tibi:

Blue and White [Gantzs party] waved a white flag. It surrendered to all political dictates (annexation in July), and in the civil sphere it surrendered to the National Law, the Kaminitz Law [limiting Palestinian building permits] We will see in the fight against the government of 52 ministers and deputy ministers a challenge and mission. I feel the loss of millions of citizens who want change.

Annexation is understood to mean about 30 percent of the West Bank, including the Jordan Valley and Jewish settlements that include more than 620,000 colonists.

Israel lobbyist Martin Indyk says Trump will lie down for annexation to satisfy the American Christian right:

Coronavirus or not this much is clear: Trump will greenlight the annexation to secure his Evangelical base going into the election.

Indyk leaves out Trumps Florida game: the Jewish voters who can be crucial in that swing state.

The conventional wisdom is that this deal will be a test for liberal Zionist organizations in the U.S. to oppose annexation now, and recruit Democratic politicians here against it. Note that last week such an initiative resulted in 11 congresspeople writing a letter opposing annexation. Not exactly a groundswell. But J Street lately endorsed Joe Biden and he welcomed the endorsement; he is sure to take a stance against annexation.

The liberal Zionist orgs will have to work with Palestinians politicians if they aim to block annexation.

Israel supporter Tamara Cofman Wittes says hopefully that facts on the ground wont mean a thing to a Biden administration

Trumps green light does not end the issue. Presidential recognition of territorial claims are a matter of executive discretion that can be immediately reversed by a new administration.

h/t Yossi Gurvitz

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Israel's new government is all set for July annexation and Palestinian leaders vow to oppose it - Mondoweiss

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Posted By admin on April 20, 2020

The Israel lobby group J Street hosted Israeli legislator Yair Golan on Zoom the other day, describing him as one of the great hopes for the left progressive Zionist camp in Israel, and Golans comments are a reflection of how far-right Israels Jewish politics are.

Golan said that a solid right-wing majority of Israeli Jewish politicians 65 out of the 120 members of Knesset support annexing large portions of the West Bank so as to make sure there will never be a Palestinian state. And the only way to stop them, and save Israel from itself, he said, is on Capitol Hill.

Annexing 30 percent of Judea and Samaria is against the interests of Israel. Many former security figures say that Its according to some sort of messianic approach to life which was so dangerous and so devastating along the Jewish history. So we need to fight it. Israel wont do this annexation without the approval of United States. So yes, you need to work hard in Capitol Hill in order to block this development, which is so dangerous to Israel, against the interest of Israel.

Lately 11 Democratic members of Congress who are big supporters of Israel signed a letter (backed by J Street) expressing opposition to the annexation plans in Israel as having catastrophic consequences. The Trump administration has signaled support for annexation but stalled that process by appointing a maps committee.

Its not that theres much substantive opposition to annexation from the Israeli Jewish center-left. Golan is a member of the Labor-Meretz-Gesher alliance in the Knesset (7 seats in the 120-member parliament), and he says the only difference between right and left is 35,000 settlers deep in the West Bank.

The messianic right wants to annex the Jordan Valley and 30 percent of the West Bank, the clusters of settlements. In fact, that 30 percent is 60 percent of the developable land in the West Bank. So in fact, by doing that you eliminate the idea of a two state solution. There is no place for it. The right, including the extreme right, wish to see it as a milestone on the way to full annexation. We call it partial annexation, but the meaning is, lets annex everything.

But the progressive idea would allow about 585,000 of more than 620,000 settlers to remain in Judea and Samaria, as Golan put it, using biblical Zionist terms. He described the reality of the West Bank that no Israeli government will change:

The only difference is the most problematic, 35,000 settlers living on the central ridge of the West Bank, in communities like Shiloh and Ofra.

The right is firmly in control of Israeli Jewish politics, Golan says. Netanyahu is on the horseback. The right can count on 65 members of Knesset, a strong majority, for the last 10 years. The left has 55 mandates, including the 15 members of the Palestinian Joint List. To change that math you need to move 300,000 people from one side to the other. That will take years, Golan said.

Israeli Jews understand that annexation as a threat to Zionism, because it would undermine the Zionist dream of a Jewish majority in the land, but they are too mistrustful of their neighbors to agree to give up land, Golan said. Most Israelis do understand that annexing all the citizens of Judea and Samaria, 2.5 million people, plus 2 million of Gaza. That could be the end of the Jewish state. That could change the nature of Israel entirely. Most Israelis dont like this idea.

Such language would be anathema in liberal U.S. politics. But J Streets Yael Patir repeatedly praised Golan for vision and honesty.

Golan said that for many on the Jewish left in Israel, a kind of new hope on the horizon is the Joint List. The Arabs will save us from our very problematic political situation. He doesnt agree. Much of the Joint List is anti-Zionist, he said, and Israeli Jewish pols cant work with them. But other members of the Joint List will play ball with Zionist parties. The key to changing Israeli politics in the future is uniting some members of the Joint List and more progressive elements from Jewish society, to create a new political entity with a new approach to the Arab population an approach of equality, and at the same time working hard to keep the Jewish nature of the state. to keep the Zionist dream alive.

Golan sought to distinguish Arabs in Israel from Palestinians on the West Bank.

Again, its startling that a liberal American organization could be embracing such views as progressive. Though this is surely a reflection of how Zionist the U.S. establishment is. J Street represents a large bloc inside the Democratic Party, including such progressives as Jan Schakowsky, Peter Welch, and Barbara Lee;and Bernie Sanders has praised J Street. You have to go the far left of American mainstream politics, a smattering of new Congresswomen and congressional candidates, to find those who support one democratic state in Israel and Palestine. Because as Golans remarks show, there is just one state between the river and the sea.

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Only Americans can save Israel from itself by blocking West Bank annexation in DC, lawmaker says - Mondoweiss

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Posted By admin on April 20, 2020

On April 20, some may celebrate the 131st birthday of a man who helped define the 20th century. An artist, philosopher and successful author and motivational speaker before his election to national office, he valued expertise. Once in office, the leader chose a cabinet of PhDs, lawyers and military officers. A vegetarian in his later years, his government broke new ground in animal rights and wildlife conservation.

For all his (dubious) achievements, in 2018 the long dead Adolf Hitler gained an honor that eluded him in life: publishing in a peer-reviewed scholarly journal. Such publications earned me tenure at two universities. Given the intellectual climate in parts of academia, nowadays Hitler also might earn tenure. Segments of the Fuehrers Mein Kampf (My Struggle) rebranded as Our Struggle is My Struggle, with postmodern jargon and citations arguing for solidarity among women, rather than Germans as in the original earned publication in a feminist journal.

Hitler was a posthumous beneficiary of the Grievance Studies affair. In the 10 months before the Wall Street Journal outed mischievous writers James A. Lindsay, Helen Pluckrose and Peter Boghossian, the trio had seven fake papers survive peer review in social justice-oriented scholarly journals, sufficient research productivity to earn tenure at most any university. The work of Lindsay, et al. makes a strong case that todays social justice warriors (SJWs) in academic fields such as gender studies share unfortunate commonalities with the late Fhrer.

Like Hitler, SJWs focus on grievances; hence, the appellation grievance studies. Hitler obsessed over supposed sins against the German people committed by parliamentary democracy, a free press and, most of all, Jews. SJWs obsess over toxic masculinity, white privilege and, well, Jews or at least Zionists. Just as Mein Kampf constantly castigated enemies, the grievance studies manuscripts targeted those omnipresent evil-doers: white heterosexual males.

To be clear, we should never censor SJWs indeed I have learned from and even produced some social justice-oriented writings. Yet, no responsible scholarly movement stands above criticism from opponents. Too much of todays social justice discourse adopts a Manichean worldview, prejudging people as members of social groups rather than as individuals to be judged on their individual merits. Indeed, SJWs see merit as an inherently oppressive concept, and likewise oppose free speech as offensive. This renders scientific inquiry impossible, and generally accords more with totalitarianism than pluralism.

German solidarity against oppressors served as a key theme for Hitler, who found mere half-measures in pursuit of group (i.e., social) justice unacceptable. Similarly, in much SJW discourse, entrenched, white heteronormative males can be defeated only through solidarity and relentless social justice campaigns. One grievance studies manuscript under revise and resubmit at a feminist journal advocated reparations-based teaching in which white males would sit in chains on classroom floors, ignored or derided, to atone for their centuries of privilege. A peer reviewer praised the paper for making a strong contribution to the growing literature on addressing epistemic injustice in the classroom. Can reeducation camps or worse be far behind?

Such worldviews permit little humor. Another grievance studies paper, accepted for publication When the Joke Is on You: A Feminist Perspective on How Positionality Influences Satire portrayed even satirical critiques of social justice as illegitimate since they defend privilege. It takes little imagination to see how such arguments justify banning and burning offensive books, just as Nazis did.

Grievance studies works routinely paint research by white males as inherently suspect, such as a widely cited (real) article calling for a new feminist glaciology to counter male ways of understanding ice. It is now common for some to be admonished to Check your privilege when critiquing the research of others. Does this really differ from Hitlers supporters denouncing Albert Einsteins ideas as Jewish science, rather than debating their merits? In short, just as patriotism is the last refuge of scoundrels, some use identity politics to hide shoddy scholarship.

As Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt show in The Coddling of the American Mind, SJWs have had significant effects on academia, in speaker dis-invitations, Twitter mob denunciations, censorship, and by limiting the employment prospects of politically incorrect professors. Before any higher education bailout, Congress must hold hearings exposing these behaviors. State legislatures should follow suit.

Yet this is not just a failing of higher education and the left. Many on the left, including Barack ObamaBarack Hussein ObamaThe scapegoater-in-chief is at it again and again What Biden's VP choices bring and don't bring to the table How the GOP hopes to overcome steep odds in House battle MORE and Joe BidenJoe BidenKlobuchar to be next guest on Biden's podcast Former Inslee staffers pitch climate plan to Biden, Congress Trump says he'd be willing to give coronavirus aid to Iran MORE, have spoken out against ideological uniformity. Outside the ivory tower, some on the right oppose free speech and intellectual diversity.

On this anniversary of Hitlers birthday, both inside and outside academia, across ideologies, people need to ask whether their actions might resemble those of the Fhrer, whether we celebrate intellectual solidarity or diversity. We can all do better, and professors should lead the way.

Robert Maranto is the 21st Century Chair in Leadership in the Department of Education Reform at the University of Arkansas. He co-edited The Politically Correct University.

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What the 'Grievance Studies affair' says about academia's social justice warriors | TheHill - The Hill

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Posted By admin on April 20, 2020

This year marks the 31st anniversary of the global Shoah initiative "Unto Every Person There is a Name". This public recitation of names of Holocaust victims will be held around the world on Yom Hashoah, the Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes Remembrance Day observed this year on Tuesday, April 21, 2020.

This extremely moving program usually takes place in Atlanta on a Friday close to Yom Hashoah in the rotunda of the Georgia State Capitol Building downtown at 206 Washington Street SW. We had scheduled the program for April 24 this year; however, in the shadow of the COVID-19 pandemic, we shall have to observe this ceremony a little differently, without large gatherings.

During these challenging times this year, the Achim/Gate City Lodge of B'nai B'rith International in partnership with Rabbi Peter Berg of The Temple invite you to join us and mark Holocaust Remembrance Day from your homes. Help us to restore the memory of those murdered during the Holocaust by bringing "Unto Every Person There is a Name" to Atlanta through a Zoom virtual webinar on Tuesday, April 21 from noon to 3:00 PM. We invite attendees to log into the virtual reading of the names by clicking on the Zoom URL -https://zoom.us/j/97535589715. Individuals who wish to participate as readers of the names should contact Harry Lutz, program chair at harry.lutz.45@gmail.com or 678-485- 8179. We will provide lists of names or you may read names of family you have lost.

The "Unto Every Person There is a Name" ceremony provides the opportunity to remember the victims of the Holocaust, six million Jews, among them one and a half million children as the names of victims are read aloud, they are remembered. Rabbi Peter Berg of The Temple commented, "For many on these lists, it is the only time their name will be said aloud as their entire family was murdered or there is no one left to remember them. It is important that the Atlanta community join this global effort to memorialize the six million individuals we lost in the Holocaust."

Coordinated by Yad Vashem through the efforts of four major Jewish organizations - B'nai B'rith International, Nativ, World Jewish Congress, and World Zionist Organization, "Unto Every Person There is a Name" sets time aside on Yom Hashoah for reading aloud names of the individual lives mercilessly taken by the Nazis. The readings are done on the same day in hundreds of Jewish communities around the world. In the U.S., this nationally observed program is organized by B'nai B'rith International, and in Atlanta, it is coordinated by the B'nai B'rith Achim/Gate City Lodge.

Harry Lutz, the local coordinator of this program for many years for the Atlanta B'nai B'rith lodge, says that "the "Unto Every Person There is a Name" program is always an incredibly moving experience for me, both hearing names being read and reading aloud the names of victims myself. I am constantly picturing in my mind that there are more than SIX MILLION of these names."

The theme for Holocaust Remembrance Day 2020 announced by the international committee is: "Rescue by Jews during the Holocaust: Solidarity in a Disintegrating World". Click to read rescue stories.

As Reuven Rivlin, the President of Israel said, "Even as we read out the names separately, we can continue to remember- together. ...I call upon you to join me and my fellow citizens of the State of Israel, and with members of world-wide Jewish communities, in carrying out the ceremony known as "Unto Every Person There is a Name" on Yom HaShoah this year in your homes."

To date, more than 4,800,000 names of Holocaust victims have been recorded in Yad Vashem's online Central Database of Shoah Victims' Names, with over 2,750,000 names registered on Pages of Testimony.

You can assist in the ongoing names collection campaign by downloading and distributing Pages of Testimony, or by submitting them online through the Yad Vashem website at http://www.yadvashem.org.

Avner Shalev, Chairman of the Yad Vashem Directorate, commented, "Sadly, the generation of Shoah survivors is dwindling rapidly. As the bearers of their legacy, we must do everything possible to perpetuate the memory of the Holocaust's victims. By reciting their names, ages, and places of death, we keep their memory alive and remind ourselves that each man, woman, and child was, and is an entire world."

In addition to our local "Unto Every Person There is a Name" Zoom virtual observance, the Achim-Gate City Lodge of B'nai B'rith International joins Yad Vashem in inviting the public to participate in an international online initiative to recite, record and share the names of Holocaust victims. Participants should video themselves reciting names (up to 15 seconds) and then share the video in their social media with the hashtags: #RememberingFromHome #ShoahNames. Please also tag @bnaibrithATL on Facebook posts.

Lists of names of Holocaust victims will be accessible on Yad Vashem's website or participants may choose to remember a family member or friend. Yad Vashem will then use some of these videos to create an online Holocaust Remembrance Day Global Name Reading Ceremony. To access names for recitation: https://www.yadvashem.org/downloads.html#name-reading-ceremonies.

The official opening ceremony at Yad Vashem marking the commencement of Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Day 2020 will be filmed in advance without an audience and broadcast on Monday, 20 April at 20:00 (8 PM) Israel time. The ceremony will be broadcast on Israel's television and radio channels accessible via the internet, and in six languages on Yad Vashem's website and youtube channels.

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Unto Every Person There is a Name Remembrance Ceremony - Patch.com

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Posted By admin on April 19, 2020

Photo Credit: Flash90

{Originally posted to the JNS website}

On Thursday night, as sundown falls on the holiday of Passover, Sephardic Jews everywhere will celebrate the centuries-old tradition of Mimouna. This is the night when Jews open their doors to their neighbors, offering tables lavish with sweets to usher in a year of sweetness and good fortune.

If theres a Jewish ritual that calls for maximum social connection, Mimouna is it. As I wrote in a column years ago, Mimouna represented the love and intimacy of a neighborhood. Theres nothing like popping in to see 10, 20, 30 different neighbors on the same night, most of whom you see all the time.

This year, after centuries of continuity, Mimouna parties around the world will come to a stop, conquered by a tiny virus.

I know, there is still livestreaming, there is still Zoom, there is still FaceTime and all those magical digital instruments that help us approximate reality.

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But not for Mimouna.

Not for a ritual where the very essence is the physical gathering of people.

Not for a ritual that tingles with the excitement of real-time human connection.

Not for a ritual where the smell of moufletas, those mouth-watering Moroccan crepes gently caressed with butter and honey, are central to the experience. (Does Zoom have a new aroma feature?)

Mimouna is also about romance. As I wrote: According to folklore, Mimouna was known as the ideal night to meet your sweetheart. It was a night when doors and hearts were open, and young men and women, dressed in their finest, would move and mingle like butterflies from one party and sweet table to another.

As my friend Rabbi Daniel Bouskila discussed on my podcast this morning, none of that human connection can be captured on a digital platform. This is hardly a criticism of technology, which has kept humanity connected during these pandemic times, when much of the world is under social distancing lockdown.

I bring up the Mimouna exception because sometimes its healthy to accept our limitations. Were used to being able to do pretty much everything we want. Not having a Mimouna party? Unthinkable.

This year, COVID-19 has quarantined Mimouna parties. Sure, the sweet tables will be made, the blessings will be given (Rabbi Bouskila will be livestreaming Mimouna on the SEC Facebook page), the Zoom parties will do their best, but everyone knows it wont be the same.

As with so many other areas of our lives, the pandemic times are forcing us to accept a new reality.

As we feast on our moufletas this year and show them off on Zoom, and as we wish one another blessings of sweetness and good fortune, we can hope that those blessings will come to fruition before Mimouna 2021.

That hope is Jewish resiliency.

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Mimouna: The Very Opposite of Social Distancing - The Jewish Press - JewishPress.com

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Posted By admin on April 19, 2020

On the first day of Passover, a group of police officers found a small synagogue in the Hasidic hub of Monsey, in Rockland County, N.Y., where about 50 men had gathered to pray. They broke up the service, issuing eight summonses.

When Ed Day, Rocklands county executive since 2014, posted about the incident on Facebook, he got nearly 100 comments. Most were messages of thanks for enforcing social-distancing rules. Several contained derogatory references to Orthodox Jews that some saw as anti-Semitic.

Im appalled after all that went on this week this community felt they had the right once again to put many human lives at risk, read one. Their defiance & lack of compassion for human life is outrageous.

Days page liked the comment, fueling concerns among Orthodox Jews and people who monitor online anti-Semitism that he is not taking the rhetoric in such comments seriously.

The page, where Day often responds directly to both laudatory and critical comments, and the county executive himself, have become a major flashpoint for the swirling controversy around coronavirus and Orthodox communities like those in Rockland County, a place where tension between Hasidic residents and the secular world have played out for years.

Days is one of several Rockland Facebook pages that have seen hateful comments that some Jewish leaders worry could lead to anti-Semitic incidents or violence once social distancing orders are lifted.

Last week, after Day called for imposing a temporary containment zone on Monsey and some surrounding areas that are heavily Hasidic, some commenters called for physical barricading of those neighborhoods and suggested sewing C patches on those infected with the virus shocking parallels to the ghettoes and yellow-stars mandated for Jews during the Holocaust.

We are being flagged constantly about these comments, said Alexander Rosemberg, the Anti-Defamation Leagues deputy regional director for New York and New Jersey. People are focusing on the few bad actors that are noncompliant with Covid social distancing rules, and using it to scapegoat the entire community of visibly Orthodox Jews.

In a Facebook live video Day posted on Tuesday, responding to a question about anti-Semitic comments, he said that if people see bigoted posts on social media they should call them out, or contact the countys Human Rights Commission. Referring to recent comments on his page that used Holocaust imagery, which he said he responded to directly, he said: The language was getting to a point where it was starting to harken back to a time in our history, in the 30s in Europe, that nobody really has to be reminded of, obviously. I made a comment at the top of the page that said, this is not something you need to be doing. And it stopped.

In an interview, Day said that the containment zone idea was based upon logic, science, reality and not anti-Semitism.

If I was truly anti-Semitic, I think probably one of the most anti-Semitic acts I could commit would be to let Jewish people get sick and die, he said.

Im an ex-cop. I dont like people being victimized, he added. When I can do something, I will. I do understand the angst. I have had a number of friends over the years of the Jewish faith, I get it.

Days page is hardly the only place on the Internet where ugly accusations blaming Jews for the spread of coronavirus have appeared. Michael D. Cohen, the Eastern Director of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, which tracks and researches anti-Semitism, said anti-Semitic posts have increased across social-media in recent weeks, though he did not offer a metric.

In Rockland, Facegroup groups like Rockland Mommies, Make Rockland Great Again and Clarkstown Community (uncensored) have seen new vitriol with comments including: Do we have enough barriers to blockade them in? Nuke them and They should be wiped off the planet once and for all.

Weve seen a very significant spike across the board in anti-Semitic posts and pages in all regions, Cohen said. Unfortunately, what were seeing in the more local Facebook pages, including in Rockland County, are following those trends.

Offline in Rockland, Hasidic residents have reported being yelled at while walking outside their homes and having their pictures taken from cars driving through their neighborhoods pictures that often get posted online as evidence that visibly identifiable Jews are ignoring social-distancing orders.

Farther west, a local police officer commented on Facebook that a bomb should be dropped on Kiryas Joel, the Hasidic hub of Orange County, N.Y. And in Lakewood, N.J., where 70% of residents are Orthodox Jewish, a deputy county fire marshal was put under investigation late last month after he posted on Facebook that Lakewood needs to be a hole in (the) ground and suggested its residents were disobeying social distancing rules at higher rates than the general population something that state police officials have said is not true.

Jews in Rockland County, where there have been huge fights between the Orthodox and secular communities over school-board politics, housing development and measles vaccinations in recent years, said that they have long ago gotten used to anti-Semitic and anti-Orthodox comments on social media.

You open up one of the community groups and its there, its nonstop, said Evan Karzhevsky, a Reform Jew who lives in Rockland County and is active on local Facebook groups. For people to be upset, to be scared, its understandable. Its when the language turns over into anti-Semitic tropes, thats the issue.

The tone of the recent Facebook rhetoric has some Jewish leaders in the county worried that it could boil over into real-world violence.

Now theyre just talking on social media, said Steve Gold, the co-president of the Jewish Federation & Foundation of Rockland County. But once the virus is over, youre going to see a huge uptick I hope Im wrong in anti-Semitic incidents targeting the Orthodox.

Gold said he spoke to Day, the county executive, last week about the comments on his own Facebook page and others, and told him he should use the platform to ask people to stop the hate, or to stop the blame.

Rosemberg said that his organization has been asking Day for years to take a more active role in addressing the more extreme comments made on social media about Orthodox Jews. Those comments, Rosemberg said, often come from people who feel threatened by the growing Hasidic community, which they worry will destroy their suburban, low-density neighborhoods.

What he may be doing is basically not holding back that voter base, Rosemberg said.

Day says he is not worried about a potential rise in hate incidents.

The people of Rockland County are not a bunch of crazy people who are gonna go out and kill Jews now, he said. Thats not what they are.

Day said in an interview that he has an administrator who monitors his offiical Facebook page, and that there are automatic filters for certain words, like Nazi and Hitler. He also said that he was not aware of the blockade comment that was posted on his page, and would have deleted it if he had been. But he also said that deleting comments creates a First Amendment issue, since he is a public official, and he is wary of elevating bad actors on social media by calling attention to them.

There are larger issues when you do respond, he said. Its not as simple as saying, youre a bad boy, you did something wrong. Its that I am paying attention, as county executive, to what you, moron, are saying. And then theres a response back thats not a good look.

The data in Rockland County do not currently show a higher rate of coronavirus infection in Orthodox areas than other places. More than a week ago, however, Monsey and the increasingly Hasidic town next to it, Spring Valley, led the county in the rate of known cases, which may have sparked some of the online outrage, and which Day said spurred him to propose a temporary containment zone for those areas.

Towns in the northern part of the county with few, if any, Hasidic residents have since caught up. Now, the towns of Garnerville and West Haverstraw, relatively far from the Hasidic centers, lead the county with over 3% of their population known to be infected, according to data published on the county government Website.

Yet, the county health department has recorded the highest rate of complaints of people violating social-distancing orders in the town of Ramapo, which includes Monsey.

Thats not to say that the complaints are all valid, said John Lyon, Days communications director. But when youre seeing 100 complaints in one place, and only 15 to 20 in another place, it speaks a little bit to the issue of whats going on and what people are seeing out there.

Daniel Hyman, a captain with the Ramapo Police Department, said that the majority of complaints received are anonymous, and that they often turn out to be unfounded. Hyman said that commercial areas frequented by Hasidic Jews are in fact enforcing social distancing, and that the synagogue where the summonses were issued on Passover now has a monitor at the door making sure it stays below the 10-person limit.

Were noticing a higher level of compliance now than we did at the beginning, from all areas of the town, Hyman said.

But religious Jews have reported being criticized for doing things that were until recently or still are actually allowed under the guidelines, such as taking walks around Rockland Lake, playing golf or taking their children to the park. (The lake and all golf courses were closed this week.)

Were doing what everybody else is doing, said Yisroel Kahan of Monsey. Its just that when I go out in the park they say, there goes the Hasidic Jew disobeying the social-distancing order.

Kahan, who works as a liaison between the Hasidic community and medical centers and law enforcement, said that part of the issue is posts like Days lauding police for issuing summonses. He said he would have preferred if the post had been framed as: Over three days of holidays, hundreds of synagogues, tens of thousands of residents, we only found one synagogue with people praying.

Day said that while he doesnt think that Hasidic Jews are spreading the virus more than others, he does think that Hasidic Jews are violating-social distancing orders more.

When the larger community of this county abides by the rules, and then you have other folks who are perceived not to be, that creates resentment, that creates anger, he said.

Recalling his time as a police officer, when he knew that how he behaved would reflect on others wearing blue uniforms, he suggested that Hasidic Jews should understand that, because they dress similarly, their actions will be perceived as representing all Hasidic Jews.

People should think about that, when they conduct themselves in their own lives, and realize that there are times, their actions will speak for an entire community, he said.

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

Its there, its nonstop: In Facebook groups in Hasidic areas, Jews blamed for virus spread

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'It's there, it's nonstop': In Facebook groups in Hasidic areas, Jews blamed for virus spread - Forward

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Posted By admin on April 19, 2020

There is one indelible scene in Unorthodox that will stick in your memory long after youve finished watching the four-part miniseries.

Esty, a 19-year-old Hasidic Jew, has escaped from the constrictions of married life and her ultra-conservative community in Williamsburg and fled to Berlin. There she befriends some music students. This being modern, hip Berlin, the students are worldly, diverse and nonchalantly progressive.

They invite her on a trip to a lake in Wannsee. Once there, they strip off unselfconsciously and jump into the water.

Esty, though, stands tentatively on the shore before taking off a jumper and stepping out of flesh-coloured stockings. She walks, still almost fully clothed, into the lake and then she takes off her wig, revealing her shaved head. The wig is a sheitel, worn by Orthodox Jewish women after marriage. She chucks the wig into the water and floats on her back. Its a scene reminiscent of a Christian baptism, but instead of joining a flock she is leaving one. A liberation of sorts has taken place.

This Netflix miniseries is adapted from Deborah Feldmans 2012 memoir Unorthodox: The Scandalous Rejection of My Hasidic Roots. Feldman was raised in the Satmar sect of Williamsburg and escaped an arranged marriage at the age of 19 while pregnant with her first child, eventually resettling in Germany.

For Esty, as presumably for Feldman, Berlin represents a chance at a new life and freedom. Esty is resourceful enough to flee there with papers from her grandparents, to find shelter, make friends, and ultimately secure an audition at a prestigious music school. All of this is remarkable when juxtaposed against her backstory, told through flashbacks.

But as in the case of any good drama, the stakes are raised when her husband, Yanky (Amit Rahav), and his thuggish cousin arrive with the plan to bring her back to New York and the community. Complicating matters is the discovery by Yanky that Esty might be pregnant with his child.

The story of rebellion and freedom then takes on the pace and aspect of a thriller as the men close in on the runaway. But its focus thanks to a mesmerising lead performance by 24-year-old Israeli actress Shira Haas is Estys own coming of age story. Who is she outside her community? How will she survive? Haas is outstanding. Physically tiny, like a child, the viewer is immediately protective of her. But as the episodes unfold she is shown to have a spine of steel.

For those of us fascinated by closed religious communities, the insights into the Satmar community is fascinating. The scenes of Unorthodox that take place in Williamsburg are mostly performed in Yiddish. Estys life in Berlin is an interesting contrast to the rigid parameters of her life in Williamsburg. The series presents Berlin and Williamsburg as a sort of binary: freedom versus restriction, hedonism versus conservatism, transience versus permanence. In Berlin, Esty frequents coffee shops and nightclubs, revels in the spaciousness and freedom of the citys large parks and public spaces, but there are reminders everywhere, too, of the citys Nazi past.

What Unorthodox doesnt really explore is the positive side to clan, community, tradition and belonging that occur in closed religious communities. Although massively restrictive, surely many Hasidic Jews must get strength and a sense of belonging from their faith and their community? Instead the story like Esty seems to privilege individualism, freedom and free will over the submersion of individuality into a larger, and possibly more cohesive, communal and spiritual life.

But this is also partly what makes the series so compelling. Explaining to her new friends in Berlin why she fled, Esty says: God expected too much of me. Now I need to find my own path.

The tension and the joy in this excellent series is watching her do it.

Unorthodox is now streaming on Netflix in Australia

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Unorthodox: a thrilling story of rebellion and freedom from New York to Berlin - The Guardian

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Posted By admin on April 19, 2020

Unorthodox might be one the best miniseries that Netflix has ever produced. Fine. Weve said it.

Over the last few weeks, the streaming service has kept us entertained with comedy narratives thanks to Sex Education, bizarre twists courtesy of Tiger King and provided us with fashion tips from Next in Fashion.

But we cant remember a time when weve felt so moved and torn by a show like Unorthodox, which is based on a young woman born and raised in Brooklyns Satmar Hasidic Jewish community who runs away to Germany to escape her marriage.

The series is one of Netflix's few series scripted primarily in Yiddish and explores subjects relating to identity, sex, religion, duty and freedom.

The four-episode-long show follows the life of Esther Esty Shapiro a 19-year-old Satmar Jew living in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. During the series, she marries a fellow Satmar Jew named Yanky in an arranged marriage. However, a year into their relationship and the pair have yet to have sex, putting pressure on the couple (more so on Esty) to consummate their marriage and start a family.

After one short and painful night when they finally do have sex, Esty finds out she is pregnant on the same day Yanky asks her for a divorce. The teenager subsequently flees to Berlin, Germany where her mother escaped to years before.

Arriving in Berlin, Esty embarks on a mission to gain a scholarship to a music conservatory. However, after learning of her pregnancy, Yanky and his cousin Moishe follow her to Germany to bring her back to the States to continue her marriage.

Yes and no, is the simplest answer.

The plot is based on Deborah Feldmans 2012 memoir, Unorthodox: The Scandalous Rejection of My Hasidic Roots.

Similar to Feldman, who grew up in a Hasidic Jewish community in Williamsburg, New York, Esty is raised in a strictly traditional, orthodox community of Judaism.

According to ABC News, Feldman was brought up by her grandparents, who like Estys are Holocaust survivors. The authors father was mentally ill; meanwhile, her mother abandoned her, left the community, and later came out as gay.

In the series, Estys father has a dependency on alcohol and her mother left her at a young age to flee to Germany, where she now lives openly as a lesbian. Feldman also entered a loveless marriage, herself aged 17, and suffered vaginismus (like Esty), meaning sex was incredibly painful.

The greatest social misfortune in this community is infertility, Feldman told Electric Literature. It is grounds for divorce. 'Women who cannot produce children are relegated to the lowest possible position in society, they are seen as completely useless, purposeless, valueless.

However, while Feldman assisted on the show, the filmmakers say that only the characters life in Williamsburg is inspired by Feldmans life. Whereas her life in Berlin is a work of fiction.

We had a lot of discussions about when can you sacrifice accuracy and when not, Feldman told the New York Times. We agreed you can sacrifice accuracy as long as it doesnt impact the narrative.

Like Esty, Feldman got pregnant but left her husband and community in 2009, moving with her son to Manhattan and then on to Germany in 2014.

The Satmar Jews are a community originally from the town of Satmar in Hungary. Nowadays, most are descendants of Holocaust survivors as the community was created by survivors in New York after World War II.

This trauma was a driving force behind the ideological structures of this community, says Feldman on Making Unorthodox.

Their native language is Yiddish.

Remember the name Shira Haas because we have no doubt that shell become an even bigger star after her lead role as Esty in this show.

Haas, 25, is an Israeli actress who plays the 19-year-old and has previously starred in films such as The Zookeeper's Wife and Broken Mirrors.

In an interview with WWD about the role, she said: Sometimes you have as an actor an inner feeling of something thats really right and you want to do it, almost like you need to do it, if there is such thing.

For filming, Haas was required to shave her head a job which took place on the first day of shooting. She was then required to use different wigs during the show and described the process of shaving her hair as liberating.

I have the chance to have it all different lengths, so its a good opportunity actually if you think about it like that, she told the publication.

During the series, the Hebrew-speaking actress was required to speak in Yiddish and English.

I went to sleep with Yiddish and I woke up with Yiddish, she told IndieWire of the challenge of learning the language.

It was so important to me to know my lines well and to know what I was saying, so that when I came to set I wouldnt have to think about it, so I would be able to actually be in the scene. It was a major part of preparing for the role.

To get into character, Haas researched interviews and lectures about the Satmar community and their rituals.

Rahav plays Estys husband, Yanky Shapiro. He has previously starred in productions of Wild Horses and The Damned.

However, in Making Unorthodox, Feldman revealed they had never seen Rahav act in any other project before casting him.

We just saw him in the addition. We were all blown away, she said.

Since starring in the series, the actor (and his character) have won over many Twitter users

The British actress plays Estys mum, Leah Mandelbaum, and has previously acted in shows such as Life On Mars and Misfits.

The actor, writer and translator was brought onto the project by the producers as he was raised in a Hasidic family in Borough Park, Brooklyn and helped assist with creating a believable script, coach the actors in Yiddish and assisted perfecting cultural details.

I got the feeling they were taking authenticity seriously, he told NNY 360.

In the show, he plays the rabbi who officiates Estys wedding but he also translated the scripts into the specific dialect of Hungarian Yiddish spoken in the Satmar community. He was also present on almost every day of filming.

He is the person who saw all different sides of me. We spent so much time together, Haas said of working with Rosen.

It was really important for me to understand what each word means, she added, revealing he would record her lines for her at different speeds, noting, not just to understand the whole sentence, but to understand every word so I could play with it and change it. ... I wanted to have freedom in my acting.

Director Maria Schrader noted in Making Unorthodox: I would have been lost without his advice.

The actor plays Yankys cousin Moishe and almost missed out on playing the role.

A crazy thing happened, our German casting director said we have a German actor who speaks Yiddish. It was the end of the day. Alexa and I were sitting in the office.

So this guy comes in, and were like: This is what the show is about. And he was like This is my story.

Wilbusch is a Berlin-based actor who grew up with 13 siblings in a Yiddish-speaking family in Mea Shearim, a fundamentalist ultra-Orthodox enclave in Jerusalem. He later moved away from the community.

While the series sees the characters in New York and Berlin, nearly all the filming (apart from location shots) took place in Germany on made-to-measure soundstages in the European capital.

For example, the wedding ceremony was shot over two days at a Palestinian wedding hall in Berlin and the small family apartments were filmed on sets in the city.

Challenges of filming in Berlin included finding enough extras with big enough beards who were willing to have their hair and make-up done for the wedding scenes.

Costume designer Justine Seymour sourced clothes from Berlin and Williamsburg. The mens furry hats, known as schtrimels cost up to 1,000 euros each, involving the fur of around six minks, so a Hamburg theatre company volunteered to make them out of fake fur instead.

The team took two research trips to New York to meet people living in the community, understand the atmosphere of the time and take pictures of everything to help them recreate the world they were making.

With a Rotten Tomatoes score of 92, its safe to say there would be an appetite for a second season of the series.

However, from the looks of it theres no sign of a follow-up to the first season.

Were not doing a sequel to this because we feel that we really told this story, says producer Anna Winger.

It was always designed as a mini-series. I suspect that I will work with these actors again, and with many of my collaborators from this project. We have a lot of new things in development. So its not the end of the road for this constellation, but I dont think well tell this story again. Weve told it.

That said, Feldmans follow-up memoir to Unorthodox, Exodus, explores her life after leaving the Hasidic community and traveling the US with her son.

Netflix hasnt announced any plans to adapt Exodus into a show but, never say never.

In the meantime, watch Netflixs One of Us and Shtisel which explore lives in ultra-orthodox families.

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Unorthodox: The True Story Behind The Hit Netflix Show, Plot And Cast - elle.com

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