Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By admin on January 14, 2020

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My older brother, Jake, was called to the Torah almost 19 years ago to the day. As he chanted in Hebrew to our congregation, he wore a yarmulke on his head and a tallit around his shoulders, while a photographer snap-snap-snapped photos, which we can no longer find.

I still remember the bagels: everything, sesame, pumpernickel, onion, poppy seed but not blueberry, which we didn't believe in piled as high as the clouds. Cream cheese, scallioncream cheese, more cream cheese, more scallioncream cheese. Lox, herring, whitefish salad. Oh, the whitefish salad!

But this is all besides the point.

As Helen Leneman writes in Bar/Bat Mitzvah Basics, "bar mitzvah is not what you have" (i.e., bagels), "it is what you become" (i.e., an adult). Bar mitzvah means son of the commandment. According to the Talmud, the book of Jewish law, when a boy turns 13, he becomes responsible for the religious doctrine. (Bat mitzvah daughter of the commandment wasn't a thing in America until 1922.)

Though Jake was wearing a suit he'd outgrow in a year, had neon braces, and no facial hair, he took this adult thing seriously. Sometime in the months before the ceremony he announced that he was going to adopt a kosher diet, for a year, to get closer to God.

"But what about bacon?" I asked.

The night after he became a bar mitzvah, my family threw a rager at our favorite sushi restaurant. The adults drank sake. The teenage boys talked about what do teenage boys talk about? And I strategically sat next to a platter of shrimp shumai, which I shoveled in my mouth by the handful.

I almost offered one to Jake when I remembered, things were different now. More for me, I thought.

"Kashrut (kosher) refers to the Jewish dietary laws outlined in the Torah and Talmud," Leah Koenig writes in The Jewish Cookbook. "Throughout history, these traditions have shaped the way Jewish people cook and eat."

Kosher dietary laws are as numerous as they are complex, but here are the big ones: Don't combine meat and dairy in a dish (like a cheeseburger) or at a meal (like a burger with a glass of milk). Don't eat shellfish. Don't eat blood (think black pudding). Don't eat any mammal that chews its cud (ask Google, I don't want to get into it) but doesn't have cloven hooves (say, a camel). Don't eat any mammal that doesn't chew its cud but does have cloven hooves (for example, a pig).

In especially observant kitchens, cooks keep separate dishes, utensils, appliances, and tools for meat, dairy, and pareve (foods that aren't meat or dairy, such as eggs, fish, grains, fruits, and vegetables).

My mom had zero interest in an especially observant kitchen. While some families say a prayer before dinner, she liked to remind us that we were welcome to "eat it, or don't!" In other words, I cooked dinner, you didn't, if you don't like it, make yourself a bowl of cereal.

So she and my brother found a middle ground: My mom would not distinguish dishes, utensils, and appliances, nor would she go out of her way to buy meat from a kosher butcher (two things he wasn't adamant about anyway). But she would adjust family meals to separate meat and dairy, omit shellfish, pork, and any other off-limits animals.

Until my Nana Ethel got married, my whole family was kosher. This was 94 years ago. As my grandma tells it: Ethel and John were newlyweds, Ethel made brisket, John wanted buttered bread, one thing led to another, and the next thing you know, they were frying Taylor ham for breakfast, like heathens.

There's a lot to unpack here.

But what gets me most is the Taylor ham, aka pork roll. According to anyone from New Jersey, including myself, pork roll is the greatest breakfast meat of all time. It's savory, fatty, and salty, with a Spam-like texture and circular shape. You fry it in a pan, like bacon, until its edges are crispy; then, if you're my grandma, you pile it on an even crispier English muffin.

After learning about how my family's kosher traditions disintegrated, I couldn't help but think about a book I read a few years ago called Matzo Ball Gumbo. In it, Marcie Cohen Ferris documents how Jewish food traditions and Southern ones contradict each other at every turn:

"Southern Jews were tempted by regional foods that are among the most delectable dishes in the world but also the most forbidden by Jewish standards." Think pulled pork, shrimp po'boys, lard biscuits, and so on.

And so Ethel was tempted by Taylor ham, and temptation won. Her mother, Bertha, was so distraught about this that when Ethel cooked Taylor ham, Bertha left the house, and only came back in when it was gone.

As he does, Jake achieved his goal, and stayed kosher the whole year after he became a bar mitzvah. And the year after that. And the year after that. And to this day.

For the five years that my family lived together until Jake left for college, our cooking changed. We tried turkey bacon, which was upsetting, which led to no bacon at all, which was also upsetting. We stopped preparing roast chicken with butter, tried margarine, didn't like it, switched to olive oil, realized we liked this best of all. We switched from pepperoni to anchovies on our pizza everyone actually ended up happier with that one.

What used to be the hardest meals, the holidays, turned into the easiest ones. Sure, you're preparing food for a bunch of people (I don't know if you've ever fried multiple rounds of latkes in one go or assembled a seder plate from scratch, but it's no joke). On the other hand, we didn't have to worry about who could eat what. On those days, we were all on the same page Jewish, in one way or another.

When I asked my brother why he stayed kosher all these years, he told me, "At the time, I was trying to get more in touch with my faith, and find ways to integrate religion and heritage into my daily life. Now, that connection to Jewish culture is much stronger than seeing it as a matter of strict religious ethics. There are lots of rules in Jewish texts that I don't follow, and plenty have a more obvious moral basis than not eating pork or oysters."

Ironically, it's a similar reason why I don't feel the need to become kosher. I'm proud to be Jewish, mostly because when I make the same brisket or latkes or potlagel or, yes, Taylor ham that my grandma and great-grandma made, I feel close to them.

And I like knowing that, even though it pissed off her relatives, Ethel ditched what didn't work for her, and kept what did. That's the sort of Judaism I can carry on.

This story was originally published on Food52.com: My family hadnt been Kosher for 76 years. Then my brother came along.

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Reconnecting with my family's kosher past - The Week Magazine

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Posted By admin on January 14, 2020

Watch: Yaakov Schiffman joined his family in an audience with the Rebbe when his father was terminally ill. The Rebbe proceeded to teach him a page of Talmud, and a lesson that changed his life. Full Story, Video

Mr. Yaakov Schiffman lives with his family in the Flatbush section of Brooklyn, New York. He was interviewed by JEMs Heres My Story in March 2013.

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The full story:

Before the war, my father learned in a yeshiva in Hungary. Although he was not from a chasidic background, he made sure that I got some exposure to chasidism.

When I was a kid he took me to see the Lubavitcher Rebbe, and also to Satmar and Bobov. He wanted me to experience the whole spectrum of Judaism the modern side, the chassidic side, the non-chassidic side to see what its all about. That way, wherever I found myself, Id be able to fit in.

In 1973, my Bar Mitzvah year, my parents sent me to a summer camp in Israel. When I came back, I learned that my father was about to undergo surgery. It turned out he had colon cancer, and from that point on his health went downhill.

Two years later, just before Purim, my fathers condition took a turn for the worse. We went to the hospital, the doctors examined him, then they called me in and said, Youd better go home; your father is staying here tonight. That night they opened him up, but they saw that there wasnt much they could do just to try to make the end as painless as possible.

Of course, we didnt want to give up, so we went to several rabbis for blessings. We even tried the alternative medicines of the time. My father was losing a lot of weight he was five-foot-six, but pretty soon he weighed barely ninety pounds. Nothing was working.

Then one cousin told us, You should go to see the Lubavitcher Rebbe. It was winter; the first week of the month of Kislev. Five of us went my father and mother, my grandmother, my sister and me. My father was so ill he was haggard; his face had lost its luster.

We entered the Rebbes office. I stood in the back of the room, and my father spoke quietly with the Rebbe for a few minutes. When the Rebbe finished speaking with my father we began to leave, but suddenly the Rebbe said to me, You stay.

I was already anxious with everything that was going on; I was only sixteen years old at the time, and I got very, very nervous.

The Rebbe said to me, Kum Come over, gesturing that I should approach. He went over to his shelf and pulled out two Talmuds Tractate Brochos, and he said to me in Yiddish:

By the laws of medicine, your father is extremely sick now, hes near the end. G-d will help, but your father will be depressed, and youre going to be depressed. Youll need something to give you strength. I want to teach you something which will help keep you going.

He opened up to page 10a and began to teach me the story from Kings II [20:1-6] which the Talmud is discussing. King Hizkiyahu is ill, and the Prophet Isaiah visits him. The prophet tells the king that his days are numbered and he should prepare to die, but Hizkiyahu refuses to accept this, and he says, No, I have faith in G-d. Although the prophet says it is too late, Hizkiyahu begins to pray because, even if the tip of the sword is pointed at your throat, you should never give up hope.

I was standing across the desk from the Rebbe, and he was sitting. But in middle of the story, the Rebbe motioned for me to come around the desk, and I looked into the volume together with him. He translated the dialog slowly into Yiddish, word by word, pointing to the place, like a father teaches his son.

The point the Talmud is making through this story is that we should not mix into G-ds business. We have to do what we have to do, and G-d does what He does, and thats it.

I remember him pointing to the words with his finger, then looking at me, and pointing again. He had me repeat it until it was clear that I understood. Though my father was quite knowledgeable in Talmud, the Rebbe wanted to make sure that I understood the Talmuds idea well, and that I could explain it to my father, as well that even at deaths door you should never give up hope, you should never become depressed, and you should accept G-ds will. It took quite some time about twenty-five minutes.

What stands out in my mind more than anything else is the earnest, loving way the Rebbe looked at me. I never saw that type of love. Here I was, a stranger to him, a young boy coming with his father who needed a blessing. He gave his blessing, but then he gave much more. He saw that this boy needed fatherly love, and he gave it.

When I came out of the Rebbes office, I was sweating. As we drove home, I told my father what had happened, and he broke down and cried. As soon as we got home, we learned the piece at least three or four times.

I remember my father asked me a few times, Do you understand why the Rebbe told you to learn this with me? Do you understand?

Two and a half months after our visit with the Rebbe, my father passed away. It was Monday night, the 18th of Shevat, and the last thing he said to me was that I had given him tremendous nachas.

After he passed away, I was on the verge of becoming despondent. I didnt have relatives to look after me my mother was an only child, and my fathers whole family had been wiped out in the war and I was only sixteen years old.

I dont know how to thank the Rebbe for this fact, but he sat me down and told me the facts of life. Everyone else had been telling me, No, itll be good; itll be good. The Rebbe looked at me and told me how to be prepared for it.

I had times when things got tough. I left yeshiva for a while and wandered away. But then I remembered what the Rebbe taught me. Through those years, I probably learned that piece of Talmud thirty times, and it got me back on track.

The fact that I am a religious Jew and that I raised a beautiful family is because of that day when the Rebbe spent so much time with me and explained to me: When you have a problem and are feeling that youve hit rock bottom, remember never to give up, because G-d is there. Open your heart to Him, and He will help you.

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The Rebbes Advice to a Boy Whose Father Was Terminally Ill - COLlive - Chabad News

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Posted By admin on January 13, 2020

Students protest at an anti-Israel demonstration at the University of California, Irvine. (Mark Boster/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images/JTA)

In an interview in the New Yorker, the eminent medievalist, David Nirenberg, an authority on anti-Judaism, uses that term in an effort to make some sense of the upsurge in violent crimes against Jews across diverse societies and the disproportionate place of Jews in public discourse in countries with few Jews, like Poland and Hungary.

Nirenberg uses the term, anti-Judaism interchangeably with anti-Semitism, the most commonly used term (in varying spellings), for what I call Jew-hatred or anti-Jewish actions. There are distinctions in all this that make a critical difference to how we understand the problem we are facing, and therefore, to how to address it.

Anti-Judaism is about religiously based hatred of Jews. A vast library chronicles the Churchs teaching of contempt for Judaism, its incitement of fear, loathing, and hatred of Jews; its ascription of demonic power to Jews, literally, in league with Satan, and their inherent and insatiable drive to do harm to all non-Jews and to Christians and Christianity, in particular (after all a people who murdered God is capable of anything).

Scholars have shown how these tropes were secularized and thus, like a mutating virus, were able to travel from pre-modern, religiously-based societies to increasingly secularized, modern ones, giving Jew-hatred a new lease on life.

The point I make in my essay, A Plea Against Anti-Semitism (https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/a-plea-against-anti-semitism/), against the use of the terms, anti-Semites, or anti-Semitism, or the somewhat less problematically spelled, antisemitism, is that the people who originated these terms did so precisely in order to distinguish between a medieval, primitive, religious outmoded kind and theirs, supposedly based on scientific race and therefore, fit for modernity. Shall we say that such racists were in fact, theologians, no different than their Church predecessors? Was their material theological, the classic texts of the Christian argument against Judaism? Or was it a rather different argument, with very different consequences? In theological Jew-hatred, Jews can convert and, in theory at least, cease their loathsomeness thereby be reborn. In fact, many Jewish men who converted became high-ranking authorities in the Church itself, and all Jews who converted benefitted immediately, with exemption from anti-Jewish discrimination. Conversion meant something. This tolerance was not confined to Church elites. Even murdering mobs in the Crusades, for instance, or in pogroms across the map of Spain in 1391, gave Jews the choice of baptism or death. To racist Jew-haters, conversion does not exist.

The terminological difference applied to these different phenomena reflect substantive differences that are manifested in todays varying expressions of Jew-hatred.

It is true that racist and even anti-Christian Jew-haters could not have succeeded as they did, and clearly, still do, had there not been a prior, pervasive base of anti-Judaism, which is the shared Christian legacy of all European countries and is critical to understanding why Jew-hatred exists across so many geographic and cultural boundaries. Indeed, this is Jacob Katzs conclusion in his classic work, From Prejudice to Destruction. For all the differences between Europe and the US, this argument applies in the latter case, as well.

But one has only to read any of the Church documents about Jews either of the Catholic Church up to Vatican II, or Luthers anti-Jewish invectivesto encounter theologically-based opposition to Judaism, and to understand that calling militantly secular, atheistic, even anti-Christian Jew-hatred anti-Judaism, distorts both phenomena and their different goals and methods.

As for anti-Semitism, while linguists constructed a category of semitic languages, and scholars, a group of Semitic peoples in antiquity (who never called themselves such), Jews are not Semites; that is an absurd, racist proposition. The term anti-Semitism, however it is spelled, asserts that there is such a thing as Semitism, to which one can legitimately be opposed. The term, Jew-hatred implies no more about the emotions of its bearers than does the term, hate crimea recognized type of offense under US Federal lawabout its bearers. The focus in both cases is on the manifestation, in speech or other act. As in sexual harassment, it is on the experience of the victims, not on the mental state of the perpetrators.

The opposition of some Jew-haters was relatively moderate, expressed in support for legal discrimination against Jews and limits on Jewish immigration, but eschewing violence. For others, that did and does not begin to suffice. The official Church never argued for the murder of Jews, individually or in toto; the goal was conversion which, so unlike racist Jew-hatred was, in theory at least, the solution. Dead Jews brought the Church no gain, while every conversion testified to the truth of Christianity in the Churchs never-ending competition with Judaism for ultimate theological vindication. Jew-haters loosed from the theological limits of the Church had very different methods and no limits, as we know. Did a link between these phenomena play out in certain segments of European societies; was there a species leap, so to speak, between religious and racist Jew-hatred? Yes. Can that occur in other contexts? Yes. That does not obscure the real differences between these phenomena, their methods or their goals.

These distinctions are relevant now, too. To anti-Zionists, there are good Jews. Those are the apolitical kind quiescent on the Jewish national question; people who consider themselves members of a religion or a culture only; content to be a minority with equal civil (individual) rights but not nationalists and certainly, not supporting Jewish sovereignty in a state for themselves or any Jew. In this, they are distinct from non-Zionists, who simply prefer to live where they do and not in Israel, but who are not ideologically opposed to Jewish sovereignty in Israel.

The good old days in anti-Zionist thinking is the supposed Golden Age in Spain, in which Jews, like all dhimmi monotheistic non-Muslims, Christians, too lived as demeaned but protected subjects, suffering discrimination meant to demonstrate the superiority of Islam but free to practice their religions within certain limits (never as equal, much less competing, religious options), and to prosper economically. The category dhimmi was both religious and political; it was the political expression of Islamic religious dogma.

Political Zionism meant, and means, a Jewish declaration of independence from dhimmitude, which is intolerable in a certain strand of Islamic theological argument, and practice. The choice that adherents of this ideology put for Jews today is between dhimmitude, and politicideannihilation of a fundamentally illegitimate Jewish state. This is the ideology of the current regime in Iran and of other Muslim extremists. Conversion is an option in this ideology. Jewish national self-determination is not.

There is also a pragmatic reality, counter to this ideology, seen in the peace treaties, honored despite tensions, between Egypt and Jordan, polities with a deep imbrication of religion and state and not what anyone would call secular regimes. We see this dynamic in behind the scenes deals between various theocratic Gulf states and Israel, too.

However significant these political accommodations are, politicized theological positions mark this arena and neither anti-Judaism nor any spelled version of antisemitism encompasses this phenomenon. Anti-Zionism does, a position radical Islamists share with militantly secular and even anti-religious radical leftists. And with some religious Jews.

While there is no such thing as race, racism certainly exists. So, while we would do well to pay attention to the racist underpinnings of contemporary anti-Jewish violence, politicized anti-Judaism, married to anti-colonial discourse and expressed in blanket opposition not to specific policies of Israeli governments but to the existence of a sovereign Jewish polity, exists. This discourse excludes discussion of a nationality conflict, with its particulars but also with similarities to other nationality disputes, with regard to Israel and the Palestinians. Rather, it posits an illegitimate regime, to be extirpated.

Let us cut the ground out from under gas lighters who distract from their real intentions by claiming that calling anti-Zionism, anti-Semitism, is incorrect and impossible because those propagating it are (also, or the only real) Semites. Semitism is not a reality, a legitimate ground for opposition, violent or otherwise, nor a legitimating license for a political position.

It is time to make order between inadvertent obfuscation, seen in unthinking use of the term anti-Semitism, and the deliberate kind, meant to transmit hate and violence via mind games and yes, semantics. Which is what gave birth to this term in the first place.

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A 'Rose' By Any Other Name? Anti-Judaism, Anti-Semitism, Jew-Hatred, Anti-Zionism - The Times of Israel

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Posted By admin on January 13, 2020

A poll conducted by the Direct Polls institute on Sunday revealed the distribution of voting among the religious Zionist public, if elections were held today.

According to the data, 53.59% of the religious Zionist public would vote for the New Right led by Naftali Bennett in an alliance with the National Union led by Bezalel Smotrich, and only 17.49% would vote for the Jewish Home in its alliance with Otzma Yehudit.

9.87% of religious Zionists members would vote for the Likud, 0.67% would vote for Agudat Israel and 0.45% for Shas.

No less than 14.13% of the voters are undecided, an equivalent of an estimated one and a half Knesset seats.

In the case of a joint run in the format of the September elections (Yamina) and this time together with Itamar Ben Gvir, the latter could add to this list a little less than one Knesset seat, i.e. only 7.5% of religious Zionists.

The institute said that "the data show a decisive trend, following the agreement between Rabbi Rafi Peretz and Itamar Ben Gvir - an agreement that pushed Bezalel Smotrich into an alliance with Naftali Bennett and Ayelet Shaked - of a major abandonment of the remaining Jewish Home voters towards the New Right-National Union. This data is likely to have a dramatic effect.

The poll was conducted Sunday afternoon, among 471 respondents who defined themselves as belonging to religious Zionism across all levels.

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Poll: Bennett, Shaked and Smotrich are the hope of the right - Arutz Sheva

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Posted By admin on January 13, 2020

Itamar Ben Gvir, Rafi Peretz, Bezalel Smotrich, Ayelet Shaked, and Naftali Bennett

TPS

A senior Likud official on Monday urged the smaller right-wing parties to follow the lead of the left's Labor-Gesher and Meretz parties and sign an agreement for a joint run.

"This is the time for the right to unite," he said. "[Defense Minister] Naftali Bennett (New Right) must put his ego aside and unite all of the right-wing parties in order to avoid the loss of Knesset seats for a third time. We believe that responsibility should be stronger than personal considerations."

Another right-wing source told Maariv that "the union on the left certainly influences the right, and advances negotiations for a joint list."

Otzma Yehudit Chairman Itamar Ben Gvir said, "While the left-wing parties are joining with each other in order to maximize the votes and bring about a victory, with us on the right the games and arguments continue. We call on all the ideological right-wing parties to gather together to agree on a joint run including all of the right-wing parties. Enough time has been wasted, now is the time to immediately reach an agreement."

Earlier, Transportation Minister Bezalel Smotrich (National Union) called for the formation of a joint right-wing list of all the smaller right-wing parties, ostensibly including Otzma Yehudit, the Jewish Home, National Union, and the New Right.

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Will Labor-Gesher union bring about unity between the Religious Zionist parties? - Arutz Sheva

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Posted By admin on January 13, 2020

Avigdor Liberman

Photo by Hadas Parush/Flash90

MK Avigdor Liberman, chairman of the Yisrael Beytenu party, on Saturday night said his party will support the appointment of Religious Zionist rabbis.

"We need a serious reform in the entire issue of religion and state. We need to make a change there. The deal that we see right now is immunity in exchange for religious coercion," he told Israel's "Meet the Press" program.

"I have no problem with religious people and haredim. I have a problem with their representatives in the State. We need to return the Chief Rabbinate to being a government job. We will support new elections for the position of Chief Rabbi, and we will support Religious Zionist rabbis: Haim Amsalem, Rabbi Stav - and we will demand this in coalition negotiations."

Regarding the issue of Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's request for parliamentary immunity, Liberman said he expects Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein (Likud) to allow the proper Knesset committee to discuss the matter.

If the committee approves the request, it will be brought before the full Knesset for a vote.

"I appreciate the Knesset Speaker, but with him or without him, we will form the Knesset committee. The Knesset Speaker has a government job, not a party job, and therefore I expect Yuli [Edelstein] to act with statesmanship. I'm not working to get rid of him, but the opposite. I want to form a Knesset committee, not get rid of him, and I hope it won't come to that."

The New Right party responded: "We thought that we would have an evening without Evet's remarks, but it turns out that this evening as well, Evet is busy with his chitchat. Unlike Defense Minister [Naftali] Bennett - who is busy with action."

Avigdor Liberman was born Evet Liberman. He changed his name to the Hebrew Avigdor after immigrating to Israel in 1978. In recent months, politicians angry with Liberman have begun referring to him as Evet.

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Liberman: 'We'll support the appointment of a Religious Zionist to role of Chief Rabbi' - Arutz Sheva

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Posted By admin on January 13, 2020

Two mystery men, one who encountered Joseph and another who encountered Herzl, lead them to their brethren and altered the course Jewish evolution. The first finds Joseph while lost in the fields around Shechem (todays Nablus): And the man asked him, saying: What seekest thou? Joseph tells the man that he seeks his brethren, and the man directs him to them. This brief conversation triggered a sequence of events that changed the faith of a nation: Joseph finds his brothers, they incarcerate him in a ditch, he is fetched by traveling merchants, sold to Egypt as a slave, rises up the ranks to deputy king and then invites his family to descend to Egypt to survive the famine. That family-turned-nation stays in Egypt until Moses emancipates them, and in doing so, instilling the Torah and setting the core principles of Judaism.The other mystery man appears in the Jewish ethos about 3,500 years later in somewhat similar circumstances. Theodor Herzl, in the summer of 1895, is lost in his thoughts. Infatuated with the Zionist idea that was bestowed upon him, Herzl departs Paris and heads to the Austrian lakes for summer vacation with his family and fellow Jews. This rural area has been transformed around that time into a prime summer vacation destination for upscale Jews and other intellectuals from Vienna as well as from other European metropolises (akin to todays Hamptons). Herzl notices how Jews expand their lakeside properties, purchase more and more land from the locals and build hotels to welcome more Jews in. The Jews were complacent. The hypnotizing view of the lake made the idea of the Palestine wilderness utterly ridiculous. The occasional antisemitic slur, such as the one heard by the lake in the week Herzl arrived from Paris, generates some good chatting over beer in Schuneiderwirt Gasthaus, but not much more than that. In conversation after conversation, in beer after beer, Herzls despairs increase: A Viennese lawyer tells Herzl that the frustration is not against the Jews but merely against the liberals, and that the government will protect the Jews from antisemitism. Two doctors from Budapest explain to Herzl that the Hungarians actually look favorably at the massive land purchase by Jews. A doctor from Berlin shares with Herzl that he is certain that baptizing himself will save his children, not realizing that all it would do, as Herzl notes, is change the slur that was heard by the lake a few days prior from Jewish pig to baptized pig.Herzl sees how deeply those liberal cosmopolitan Jews are enslaved to their own delusion. The Jews refuse to be saved, and are due to utterly reject his grandiose idea. Herzl recognizes he is alone. Wandering in the field of his despair, he seems to be on the verge of giving up. And it is right there, like Joseph before him, that Herzl encounters a mystery man on the banks of the lake a fisherman who tells Herzl: The most remarkable thing is a man who never gives up.Those simple words of encouragement seem to have provided Herzl with the boost he needed. Within six months, he publishes The Jewish State a book that would change both Herzl and Judaism. Herzl noted that the one man who appeared in his mind on the day of publication while he was staring at those 500 fresh copies of The Jewish State was, indeed, that fisherman from the lake.LIKE JOSEPHS angel, Herzls fisherman triggered a sequence of events that eventually led to the establishment of the Jewish state. Right there at those two intersections of Jewish history, an angel arose who helped navigate the path toward Judaism 1.0 (Mosess Judaism), and to Judaism 3.0 (Herzls Zionism).Joseph epitomizes the fishermans axion that the most remarkable thing is when a man does not give up. Joseph persistently sought his brethren. Yet, they never accepted him not when he was expressing his dreamy vision as a teenager, nor decades later while in Egypt. This is in spite of everything that Joseph did for his brethren: saving them from famine; giving them prime Egyptian real estate; exempting them from the state-wide re-domiciling edict; providing them government jobs (as indicated by Pharaohs offer); and arranging for a grandiose state funeral for Jacob, even including embalming. As Parashat Vayeshev and the Book of Genesis conclude, we learn that in spite of all this, the brothers continued their rejection of Josephs courting. And when Josephs brethren saw that their father was dead, they said: It may be that Joseph will hate us, and will fully requite us all the evil which we did unto him. Offering themselves as slaves to Joseph to save their lives from the threat that did not exist, Joseph could only do one thing: And Joseph wept when they spoke unto him.Josephs weeping would continue long past his death, as his brothers descendants continued to reject his. This would lead to civil war, and eventually result in the disappearance of Josephs tribes. Joseph was an outsider, and tragically stayed on the outside in perpetuity.Like Joseph, Herzl, too, was an outsider. He as well had only filtered exposure to his brethren growing up, and he, too, engaged in dreamy visions for them that they utterly rejected. He, too, was critical of his brethren, and even shared his dreamy indictment of them through his play The New Ghetto. They rejected him, but Herzl, like Joseph, listened to the advice of his angel and did something remarkable; he never gave up and he continued to seek his brethren.Herzl, just like Joseph, was 37 when he began the process to revive the spirit of Israel. Herzl was welcomed with cheers in the First Zionist Congress in Basel, where he declared: We are one nation. And yet, just like with Joseph, this did not translate into broad unconditional acceptance. Sadly, by the time of his death in 1904, less than 1% of the Jews joined Herzls Zionist movement. Many remained staunch anti-Zionists.Yet, unlike Joseph, Herzls acceptance spread to the vast majority of the Jewish nation shortly after his death, so much so that his vision, Zionism, has turned into a primary vehicle by which Jews connect to Judaism and the prism by which the outside world relates to the Jews. In Zionism, Herzl implanted a bedrock ideology in which the Jewish state is rooted. Herzl himself remains a symbol of unity the national Independence Day ceremony of the state he dreamed takes place by his grave in Jerusalem.Yet, there are still Jewish brethren who fail to respond to Herzls cry. The angel near Shechem and the fisherman at Altaussee those good people in the middle of the Jewish road remind us of a core Jewish principle: Never give up in the search for our brethren. The writer researches Herzl and analyzes trends in Zionism, Europe and global affairs. He is a board member of the America-Israel Friendship League and chairman of the AIFL think tank. For more of his analysis visit: Europeandjerusalem.com. For more parasha and Herzl articles visit: Parashaandherzl.com.

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Posted By admin on January 13, 2020

At the end of the five-week war in 2006 between Israel and Hizballah, the UN Security Council passed resolution 1701 with the aim of keeping both parties out of southern Lebanon; the resolution also created a peacekeeping force, known as UNIFIL, to enforce its terms. As required, in November the United Nations published one of its periodic reports on the situation in southern Lebanon; it was unusually frank about the extent to which Hizballah, with the cooperation of the Lebanese military and government, has been violating the resolutions terms. Yet the report depicts only the tip of the iceberg, as Assaf Orion writes:

[T]he campaign of harassment of UN forces in southern Lebanon, two incidents of anti-tank-missile launches, the excavation of attack tunnels into Israeli territory that have been in existence for more than a decade, dozens of rocket incidents, four arms depots that exploded, and almost ten explosive-device attacks against UNIFIL and the IDF demonstrate the diversity and abundance of Hizballahs military presence in southern Lebanon, and its ability to employ it at will. Contrary to the reports claims, . . . it is blatantly clear that the Lebanese army does nothing against Hizballahs massive military deployment in southern Lebanon, and subsequently UNIFIL is unable to help it do so.

In response, Orion argues that Jerusalem should do everything it can to document the violations of Resolution 1701 and bring the evidence to the attention of sympathetic governments:

Israel should encourage its Western partners to review their policy toward Lebanon. . . . The economic-political crisis in Lebanon reinforces the states dependence on external aid, which can be made conditional on significant progress not only in areas that top the international agendareforms, combating corruption, improved governance, and political-economic stabilitybut also [compliance with Resolution 1701]. The economic crisis likewise reinforces the value to Lebanon of a possible agreement regarding Mediterranean gas, which could be the first step toward a gradual economic-security settlement [with Israel].

Read more at Institute for National Security Studies

More about: Hizballah, Israeli Security, Lebanon, Second Lebanon War, United Nations

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Israel Must Call More Attention to Hizballah's Failure to Comply with the 2006 Cease-Fire - Mosaic

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Posted By admin on January 13, 2020

A man convicted five times of exposing himself in public was arraigned Wednesday on another charge of public indecency for allegedly masturbating on the steps of a Northwest Portland synagogue.

Authorities say they received a call that Alan Bruce Robinson, 48, had pulled down his pants at Congregation Beth Israel on Tuesday afternoon while children were attending an afterschool program at a charter school on the property near Northwest 19th Avenue between Flanders and Glisan streets.

Alan Bruce Robinson, 48, was arrested on Tuesday, Jan. 7, 2020 under allegations of public indecency. (Multnomah County Sheriff's Office)

A probable cause affidavit offers no indication that children saw Robinson. But the affidavit does say a man walking his dog spotted Robinson, told him to leave, then told someone at the charter school and that person called police.

Robinson had been convicted of public indecency in 1994, 2001, 2012, 2015 and 2018.

Robinson was sentenced to about two years in prison in 2015, after a woman reported she was walking with her baby through Farragut Park in North Portland when she saw Robinson masturbating. He received an identical sentence in 2018 for doing the same on the lawn in front of De La Salle High School in North Portland.

He is homeless and lists his address as the Portland Rescue Mission on the west side of the Burnside Bridge. He is required to register as a sex offender and last reported his address to authorities as under the St. Johns Bridge.

Robinson told jailers that he lives off Social Security disability and has mental health problems, but didnt specify a diagnosis.

-- Aimee Green

agreen@oregonian.com

o_aimee

Visit subscription.oregonlive.com/newsletters to get Oregonian/OregonLive journalism delivered to your email inbox.

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Posted By admin on January 13, 2020

NEW YORK (JTA) Rabbi Chaim Rottenberg, whose home was the site of astabbing last month on the holiday of Hanukkah,delivered an invocation at Governor Andrew Cuomos State of the State address.

Joseph Gluck, the man who stopped the attackerby throwing a coffee table at his head, was also in attendance and received a standing ovation.

The attacker injured five people at Rottenbergs home in Monsey, New York, on Dec. 28, including the rabbis son. One of those wounded, Joseph Neumann, remains in critical condition.

May it be your will that we all join together in the struggle to see divine dignity in all of humanity, Rottenberg said Wednesday, ahead of the governors annual address in Albany. Father in heaven, bless and heal us. I will never forget the horror of that night. But I will also never forget how we continued to celebrate after the attack, how we continued to rejoice in the miracle of Hanukkah. I will never forget the resilience on display that night and in the following days, the resilience of Jewish people and the resilience of New York.

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Rottenberg also advocated for protection of the Hasidic way of life. In particular, he spoke out on behalf of Hasidic private schools, which may be forced to devote more hours to secular subjects like math, science and English pending aproposalnow under consideration by the state Department of Education. The proposal has met intense resistance from Hasidic leaders.

We pray that divine providence should continue protecting us from evil forces who are out to harm us physically or from those who are out to attack our Hasidic traditional way of life and system of education, he said.

Later, referring to Cuomo, he added, Help him promote and instill the values of tolerance and appreciation among all our neighborhoods and communities who may look different, talk in a different language or raise and educate their children according to their unique ancestral traditions.

Cuomo condemned anti-Semitism near the beginning of the speech and praised Gluck, calling him the definition of New York bravery. Near the end of the speech, he called on New York to end the national rise in anti-Semitism.

There is no place for hate in our state, period, he said. What happened in Monsey is intolerable and we will not allow it to happen in this state.

Cuomo proposed a series of measures to prevent anti-Semitism. Against the backdrop of a photo of the recent march against anti-Semitism, he repeated an earlier call to define hate crime attacks as domestic terrorism, promised to increase the capacity of the New York state police hate crimes task force, and provide additional funding for security to schools and houses of worship.

He also called for adding classes about bigotry and religious freedom to the educational curriculum. He recounted George Washingtons letter to the Touro Synagogue in Newport, Rhode Island, in which he wrote that Jews would be able to practice their religion freely in America, and he called for clergy to preach against hate crimes.

Cuomo also proposed an expansion of the Museum of Jewish Heritage, a Holocaust museum in Lower Manhattan, and called for schools across the state to visit the museum.

Lets make sure our schools are teaching our young children, who are frighteningly involved in so many of these incidents, lets teach them what America truly stands for, he said. I want our schools to add to their curriculum a lesson that teaches our young people our civic values and our history on diversity, and that a fundamental premise of this nation is religious freedom.

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