Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By admin on October 19, 2022

Person's choice to deny psychologically uncomfortable truth

In the psychology of human behavior, denialism is a person's choice to deny reality as a way to avoid a psychologically uncomfortable truth. Denialism is an essentially irrational action that withholds the validation of a historical experience or event when a person refuses to accept an empirically verifiable reality.

In the sciences, denialism is the rejection of basic facts and concepts that are undisputed, well-supported parts of the scientific consensus on a subject, in favor of ideas that are radical, controversial, or fabricated. The terms Holocaust denial and AIDS denialism describe the denial of the facts and the reality of the subject matters,[4] and the term climate change denial describes denial of the scientific consensus that the climate change of planet Earth is a real and occurring event primarily caused in geologically recent times by human activity.[5] The forms of denialism present the common feature of the person rejecting overwhelming evidence and trying to generate political controversy in attempts to deny the existence of consensus.[6][7]

The motivations and causes of denialism include religion, self-interest (economic, political, or financial), and defence mechanisms meant to protect the psyche of the denialist against mentally disturbing facts and ideas; such disturbance is called cognitive dissonance in psychology terms.

Anthropologist Didier Fassin distinguishes between denial, defined as "the empirical observation that reality and truth are being denied", and denialism, which he defines as "an ideological position whereby one systematically reacts by refusing reality and truth".[10] Persons and social groups who reject propositions on which there exists a mainstream and scientific consensus engage in denialism when they use rhetorical tactics to give the appearance of argument and legitimate debate, when there is none.[6][7] It is a process that operates by employing one or more of the following five tactics to maintain the appearance of legitimate controversy:[6][12]

Common tactics to different types of denialism include misrepresenting evidence, false equivalence, half-truths, and outright fabrication.[13][14][15] South African judge Edwin Cameron notes that a common tactic used by denialists is to "make great play of the inescapable indeterminacy of figures and statistics".[15] Historian Taner Akam states that denialism is commonly believed to be negation of facts, but in fact "it is in that nebulous territory between facts and truth where such denialism germinates. Denialism marshals its own facts and it has its own truth."[16]

Focusing on the rhetorical tactics through which denialism is achieved in language, in Alex Gillespie (2020)[17] of the London School of Economics has reviewed the linguistic and practical defensive tactics for denying disruptive information. These tactics are conceptualized in terms of three layers of defence:

In 2009 author Michael Specter defined group denialism as "when an entire segment of society, often struggling with the trauma of change, turns away from reality in favor of a more comfortable lie".[18]

If one party to a debate accuses the other of denialism they are framing the debate. This is because an accusation of denialism is both prescriptive and polemic: prescriptive because it carries implications that there is truth to the denied claim; polemic since the accuser implies that continued denial in the light of presented evidence raises questions about the other's motives.[10] Edward Skidelsky, a lecturer in philosophy at Exeter University writes that "An accusation of 'denial' is serious, suggesting either deliberate dishonesty or self-deception. The thing being denied is, by implication, so obviously true that the denier must be driven by perversity, malice or wilful blindness." He suggests that, by the introduction of the word denier into further areas of historical and scientific debate, "One of the great achievements of The Enlightenmentthe liberation of historical and scientific enquiry from dogmais quietly being reversed".[19]

Some people have suggested that because denial of the Holocaust is well known, advocates who use the term denialist in other areas of debate may intentionally or unintentionally imply that their opponents are little better than Holocaust deniers. However, Robert Gallo et al. defended this latter comparison, stating that AIDS denialism is similar to Holocaust denial since it is a form of pseudoscience that "contradicts an immense body of research".

AIDS denialism is the denial that the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is the cause of acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS).[23] AIDS denialism has been described as being "among the most vocal anti-science denial movements".[24] Some denialists reject the existence of HIV, while others accept that the virus exists but say that it is a harmless passenger virus and not the cause of AIDS. Insofar as denialists acknowledge AIDS as a real disease, they attribute it to some combination of recreational drug use, malnutrition, poor sanitation, and side effects of antiretroviral medication, rather than infection with HIV. However, the evidence that HIV causes AIDS is scientifically conclusive[25][26] and the scientific community rejects and ignores AIDS-denialist claims as based on faulty reasoning, cherry picking, and misrepresentation of mainly outdated scientific data.[a] With the rejection of these arguments by the scientific community, AIDS-denialist material is now spread mainly through the Internet.[27]

Thabo Mbeki, former president of South Africa, embraced AIDS denialism, proclaiming that AIDS was primarily caused by poverty. About 365,000 people died from AIDS during his presidency; it is estimated that around 343,000 premature deaths could have been prevented if proper treatment had been available.[28][29]

Some international corporations, such as ExxonMobil, have contributed to "fake citizens' groups and bogus scientific bodies" that claim that the science of global warming is inconclusive, according to a criticism by George Monbiot. ExxonMobil did not deny making the financial contributions, but its spokesman stated that the company's financial support for scientific reports did not mean it influenced the outcome of those studies.[30] Newsweek[31] and Mother Jones[32] have published articles stating corporations are funding the "denial industry".

In the context of consumer protection, denialism has been defined as "the use of rhetorical techniques and predictable tactics to erect barriers to debate and consideration of any type of reform, regardless of the facts."[33] The Bush Administration's replacement of previous science advisers with industry experts or scientists tied to the industry, and its refusal to submit the Kyoto Protocol for ratification due to uncertainties they asserted were present in the climate change issue, have been cited by the press as examples of politically motivated denialism.[31][34][35]

The term "COVID-19 denialism" or merely "COVID denialism" refers to the thinking of those who deny the reality of the COVID-19 pandemic.[36][37] or, at the very least, deny that deaths are happening in the manner or proportions scientifically recognized by the World Health Organization. The claims that the COVID-19 pandemic has been faked, exaggerated, or mischaracterized are pseudoscience.[38] Some famous people who have engaged in COVID-19 denialism include Elon Musk,[39] former U.S. President Donald Trump,[40][41] and Brazilian President Bolsonaro.[42]

Religious beliefs may prompt an individual to deny the validity of the scientific theory of evolution. Evolution is considered an undisputed fact within the scientific community and in academia, where the level of support for evolution is essentially universal, yet this view is often met with opposition by biblical literalists. The alternative view is often presented as a literal interpretation of the Book of Genesis's creation myth. Many fundamentalist Christians teach creationism as if it were fact under the banners of creation science and intelligent design. Beliefs that typically coincide with creationism include the belief in the global flood myth, geocentrism, and the belief that the Earth is only 6,00010,000 years old.[48] These beliefs are viewed as pseudoscience in the scientific community and are widely regarded as erroneous.[49]

The superseded belief that the Earth is flat, and denial of all of the overwhelming evidence that supports an approximately spherical Earth that rotates around its axis and orbits the Sun, persists into the 21st century. Modern proponents of flat-Earth cosmology (or flat-Earthers) refuse to accept any kind of contrary evidence, dismissing all spaceflights and images from space as hoaxes and accusing all organizations and even private citizens of conspiring to "hide the truth". They also claim that no actual satellites are orbiting the Earth, that the International Space Station is fake, and that these are lies from all governments involved in this grand cover-up. Some even believe other planets and stars are hoaxes.

Adherents of the modern flat-Earth model propose that a dome-shaped firmament encloses a disk-shaped Earth. They may also claim, after Samuel Rowbotham, that the Sun is only 3,000 miles (4,800km) above the Earth and that the Moon and the Sun orbit above the Earth rather than around it. Modern flat-Earthers believe that Antarctica is not a continent but a massive ice flow, with a wall 150 feet (46m) or higher, which circles the perimeter of the Earth and keeps everything (including all the oceans' water) from falling off the edge.

Flat-Earthers also assert that no one is allowed to fly over or explore Antarctica, despite contrary evidence. According to them, all photos and videos of ships sinking under the horizon and of the bottoms of city skylines and clouds below the horizon, revealing the curvature of the Earth, have been manipulated, computer-generated, or somehow faked. Therefore, regardless of any scientific or empirical evidence provided, flat-Earthers conclude that it is fabricated or altered in some way.

When linked to other observed phenomena such as gravity, sunsets, tides, eclipses, distances and other measurements that challenge the flat earth model, claimants replace commonly-accepted explanations with piecemeal models that distort or over-simplify how perspective, mass, buoyancy, light or other physical systems work.[50] These piecemeal replacements rarely conform with each other, finally leaving many flat-Earth claimants to agree that such phenomena remain "mysteries" and more investigation is to be done. In this conclusion, adherents remain open to all explanations except the commonly accepted globular Earth model, shifting the debate from ignorance to denialism.[51]

There is a scientific consensus[52][53][54][55] that currently available food derived from GM crops poses no greater risk to human health than conventional food,[56][57][58][59][60] but that each GM food needs to be tested on a case-by-case basis before introduction.[61][62][63] Nonetheless, members of the public are much less likely than scientists to perceive GM foods as safe.[64][65][66][67] The legal and regulatory status of GM foods varies by country, with some nations banning or restricting them, and others permitting them with widely differing degrees of regulation.[68][69][70][71]

However, opponents have objected to GM foods on grounds including safety. Psychological analyses indicate that over 70% of GM food opponents in the US are "absolute" in their opposition, experience disgust at the thought of eating GM foods, and are "evidence insensitive".[72]

Statin denialism is a rejection of the medical worth of statins. Cardiologist Steven Nissen at Cleveland Clinic has commented "We are losing the battle for the hearts and minds of our patients to Web sites..."[73] promoting unproven medical therapies. Harriet Hall sees a spectrum of "statin denialism" ranging from pseudoscientific claims to the understatement of benefits and overstatement of side effects, all of which is contrary to the scientific evidence.[74]

Mental illness denial or mental disorder denial is where a person denies the existence of mental disorders.[75] Both serious analysts,[76][77] as well as pseudoscientific movements[75] question the existence of certain disorders. A minority of professional researchers see disorders such as depression from a sociocultural perspective and argue that the solution to it is fixing a dysfunction in society, not in the person's brain.[77] Certain analysts argue this denialism is usually fueled by narcissistic injury.[78] Anti-psychiatry movements such as Scientology promote mental illness denial by having alternative practices to psychiatry.[75]

Election denial is false dismissal of the outcome of a fair election. In the United States during 2022, there is an ongoing stolen election conspiracy theory about the 2020 presidential election.

Historical negationism,[79][80] also called denialism, is falsification[81][82] or distortion of the historical record. It should not be conflated with historical revisionism, a broader term that extends to newly evidenced, fairly reasoned academic reinterpretations of history.[83] In attempting to revise the past, illegitimate historical revisionism may use techniques inadmissible in proper historical discourse, such as presenting known forged documents as genuine, inventing ingenious but implausible reasons for distrusting genuine documents, attributing conclusions to books and sources that report the opposite, manipulating statistical series to support the given point of view, and deliberately mistranslating texts.[84]

Armenian genocide denial is the claim that the Ottoman Empire and its ruling party, the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP), did not commit genocide against its Armenian citizens during World WarIa crime documented in a large body of evidence and affirmed by the vast majority of scholars.[90][91] The perpetrators denied the genocide as they carried it out, claiming Armenians were resettled for military reasons, not exterminated. In the genocide's aftermath, incriminating documents were systematically destroyed, and denial has been the policy of every government of the Republic of Turkey, as of 2022[update].

Borrowing the arguments used by the CUP to justify its actions, denial rests on the assumption that the "relocation" of Armenians was a legitimate state action in response to a real or perceived Armenian uprising that threatened the existence of the empire during wartime. Deniers assert the CUP intended to resettle Armenians rather than kill them. They claim the death toll is exaggerated or attribute the deaths to other factors, such as a purported civil war, disease, bad weather, rogue local officials, or bands of Kurds and outlaws. Historian Ronald Grigor Suny summarizes the main argument as "There was no genocide, and the Armenians were to blame for it."[92] Denial is usually accompanied by "rhetoric of Armenian treachery, aggression, criminality, and territorial ambition."

Holocaust denial refers to denial of the murder of 5 to 6 million Jews by the Nazis in Europe during World War 2. It is an essentially irrational action that withholds validation of a historical experience or event."[96] In this context, the term is a subset of the more accurate genocide denial, which is a form of politically motivated denialism.[97]

Nakba denial refers to attempts to downgrade, deny and misdescribe the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians during the Nakba.[98][99] [100] in which four-fifths of all Palestinians were driven off their lands and into exile.

Sonja Biserko, president of the Helsinki Committee for Human Rights in Serbia, and Edina Beirevi, the Faculty of Criminalistics, Criminology and Security Studies of the University of Sarajevo have pointed to a culture of denial of the Srebrenica massacre in Serbian society, taking many forms and present in particular in political discourse, the media, the law and the educational system.[101]

The literature about Biodiversity and the GE food/feed consumption has sometimes resulted in animated debate regarding the suitability of the experimental designs, the choice of the statistical methods or the public accessibility of data. Such debate, even if positive and part of the natural process of review by the scientific community, has frequently been distorted by the media and often used politically and inappropriately in anti-GE crops campaigns.

But see also:

Domingo, Jos L.; Bordonaba, Jordi Gin (2011). "A literature review on the safety assessment of genetically modified plants" (PDF). Environment International. 37 (4): 734742. doi:10.1016/j.envint.2011.01.003. PMID21296423. In spite of this, the number of studies specifically focused on safety assessment of GM plants is still limited. However, it is important to remark that for the first time, a certain equilibrium in the number of research groups suggesting, on the basis of their studies, that a number of varieties of GM products (mainly maize and soybeans) are as safe and nutritious as the respective conventional non-GM plant, and those raising still serious concerns, was observed. Moreover, it is worth mentioning that most of the studies demonstrating that GM foods are as nutritional and safe as those obtained by conventional breeding, have been performed by biotechnology companies or associates, which are also responsible of commercializing these GM plants. Anyhow, this represents a notable advance in comparison with the lack of studies published in recent years in scientific journals by those companies.

Krimsky, Sheldon (2015). "An Illusory Consensus behind GMO Health Assessment". Science, Technology, & Human Values. 40 (6): 883914. doi:10.1177/0162243915598381. S2CID40855100. I began this article with the testimonials from respected scientists that there is literally no scientific controversy over the health effects of GMOs. My investigation into the scientific literature tells another story.

And contrast:

Panchin, Alexander Y.; Tuzhikov, Alexander I. (January 14, 2016). "Published GMO studies find no evidence of harm when corrected for multiple comparisons". Critical Reviews in Biotechnology. 37 (2): 213217. doi:10.3109/07388551.2015.1130684. ISSN0738-8551. PMID26767435. S2CID11786594. Here, we show that a number of articles some of which have strongly and negatively influenced the public opinion on GM crops and even provoked political actions, such as GMO embargo, share common flaws in the statistical evaluation of the data. Having accounted for these flaws, we conclude that the data presented in these articles does not provide any substantial evidence of GMO harm.

The presented articles suggesting possible harm of GMOs received high public attention. However, despite their claims, they actually weaken the evidence for the harm and lack of substantial equivalency of studied GMOs. We emphasize that with over 1783 published articles on GMOs over the last 10 years it is expected that some of them should have reported undesired differences between GMOs and conventional crops even if no such differences exist in reality.

and

Despite various concerns, today, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the World Health Organization, and many independent international science organizations agree that GMOs are just as safe as other foods. Compared with conventional breeding techniques, genetic engineering is far more precise and, in most cases, less likely to create an unexpected outcome.

Pinholster, Ginger (October 25, 2012). "AAAS Board of Directors: Legally Mandating GM Food Labels Could "Mislead and Falsely Alarm Consumers"" (PDF). American Association for the Advancement of Science. Retrieved August 30, 2019.

GM foods currently available on the international market have passed safety assessments and are not likely to present risks for human health. In addition, no effects on human health have been shown as a result of the consumption of such foods by the general population in the countries where they have been approved. Continuous application of safety assessments based on the Codex Alimentarius principles and, where appropriate, adequate post market monitoring, should form the basis for ensuring the safety of GM foods.

"Genetically modified foods and health: a second interim statement" (PDF). British Medical Association. March 2004. Retrieved August 30, 2019. In our view, the potential for GM foods to cause harmful health effects is very small and many of the concerns expressed apply with equal vigour to conventionally derived foods. However, safety concerns cannot, as yet, be dismissed completely on the basis of information currently available.

When seeking to optimise the balance between benefits and risks, it is prudent to err on the side of caution and, above all, learn from accumulating knowledge and experience. Any new technology such as genetic modification must be examined for possible benefits and risks to human health and the environment. As with all novel foods, safety assessments in relation to GM foods must be made on a case-by-case basis.

Members of the GM jury project were briefed on various aspects of genetic modification by a diverse group of acknowledged experts in the relevant subjects. The GM jury reached the conclusion that the sale of GM foods currently available should be halted and the moratorium on commercial growth of GM crops should be continued. These conclusions were based on the precautionary principle and lack of evidence of any benefit. The Jury expressed concern over the impact of GM crops on farming, the environment, food safety and other potential health effects.

The Royal Society review (2002) concluded that the risks to human health associated with the use of specific viral DNA sequences in GM plants are negligible, and while calling for caution in the introduction of potential allergens into food crops, stressed the absence of evidence that commercially available GM foods cause clinical allergic manifestations. The BMA shares the view that there is no robust evidence to prove that GM foods are unsafe but we endorse the call for further research and surveillance to provide convincing evidence of safety and benefit.

The rest is here:

Denialism - Wikipedia

Category: Holocaust Denial | Comments Off on Denialism – Wikipedia
Tags:

Posted By admin on October 19, 2022

We will dispel your darkness with our light, your hatred with our love, and your malice with our compassion.

The artist Kanye West, aka Ye, is known to be a creative genius, one of the wealthiest musicians in the world, and fashion influencer. He has also been spewing antisemitic tropes across social media and interviews. In case youve somehow missed his vile words here are a few to catch up on:

Im a little sleepy tonight, but when I wake up, Im going death con 3 on Jewish people

In an interview with Tucker Carlson he made a series of abhorrent comments (some of which were not aired) where he spoke of conspiratorial claims about the Jewish people and Jewish identity. West also wished that his children had learned about Hanukkah instead of complicated Kwanzaa because Hanukkah would at least come with some financial engineering.

He spoke of purported Jewish control in another clip. Jewish people have owned the black voice. Whether its through us wearing a Ralph Lauren shirt, or its all of us being signed to a record label, or having a Jewish manager, or being signed to a Jewish basketball team, or doing a movie on a Jewish platform like Disney.

And then theres this vitriol: You know they came into money through the lawyers, when after Wall Street when all the, like Catholics, they wouldnt divorce people so the Jewish lawyers came and they were willing to divorce people. Thats when they came into their money.

Asked to respond to his detestable messages, Kanye West said, I feel happy to have crossed the line of that idea so we can speak openly about things like getting canceled by a bank.

Dont explain away bigotry through excuses. Words matter. They give birth to animosity and incite violence.

Some have tried to excuse Kanyes outbursts by saying he didnt take his medication, is paranoid, and dealing with mental health issues. Lets not explain away bigotry through excuses. We are all responsible for our words. Words matter. They give birth to animosity and incite violence.

Whether you listen to his music or not, whether you wear his creations or not, we must take a stand. We are all responsible to wake up to the poison that is spreading across the world. There is a war of words exploding before our eyes. Antisemitism cannot be ignored.

Before Instagram restricted his account, Ye had 18.1 million followers. He had 31.4 million on Twitter before his account went into Read Only mode. Thats millions of impressionable minds who digest these repugnant lies, millions of hearts who are influenced by this vicious Jew-hatred, who post graffiti messages defending him, Kanye is right.

His art cannot be separated from his toxic messages. I listen to the deafening silence that surrounds me and realize that I dare not grow weary. None of us can.

I write these words as our holiday of Sukkot has concluded. I exit my sukkah, my temporary abode that has given me and my family shelter and peace throughout these days of celebration. Though the sukkah will be dismantled, I will carry the sukkahs timeless message with me.

God surrounded our nation with His clouds of mercy as we journeyed through the desert wilderness. We traveled through the sweltering heat of day and the freezing darkness of night, but through it all, we were protected. We were guarded, watched over, and loved. We hold onto that love till today. The Yes of the world will come and go. They will revile us. They will push us down. They will try to erase us. But no antisemite will succeed in wiping our nation off the face of this earth.

And when I hear Kanye Wests line: I want Jewish children to look at their Jewish daddies and say, why is Ye mad at us? I respond to his ranting and raving with my faith and Jewish pride intact.

This morning, Simchat Torah, I stood in synagogue. I watched my son hoist his little boy onto his shoulders as he and my husband danced together with the holy Torah. I was overcome with tenderness and wonder.

No, Kanye, Jewish children will not look at their daddies and wonder about you. Instead they will look at their daddies and zaydies, and ask how it is possible that they have miraculously survived, emerged from the flames and gas chambers, and endured. How is it that the world left us for dead and yet, we are here, dancing with our Torah?

I was born upon the ashes of the Holocaust. And with my every breath I will continue to teach my children and my childrens children that we live so that those whose lives were taken will not have died in vain. We will stubbornly hold onto our traditions, embrace our people, and continue to walk in the path of those who walked before us. We will dispel your darkness with our light, your hatred with our love, and your malice with our compassion.

Dont remain silent. The world needs your voice, your heart and soul.

More here:

Kanye West Blames the Jews - aish.com - Aish.com

Category: Jewish | Comments Off on Kanye West Blames the Jews – aish.com – Aish.com
Tags:

Posted By admin on October 19, 2022

An epic journey

Ive been on many road trips, but this Western Australia (WA) one was a completely different beast because everything in Australia is just so far apart! Rabbi Zelig Baumgarten recalled.

According to the Rebbes call, you have to reach out to everyone to all Jews no matter how far they are.

So, what will stay with me most from this huge trip is knowing that even in the most far-flung places, you will find Jewish people and they have a thirst and a yearning to reconnect. They might just not have had an opportunity.

The vastness of this continent, and the warmth of its people, were front of mind for Zelig, and his fellow young American visiting rabbi, Yisroel Krasnjanksi, when they set off from Melbourne in July in a giant campervan Mitzvah Tank and Mobile Library, on an almost 9000-kilometre round trip to WA, via South Australia, spanning 36 days.

As one Jewish person they met quipped, Theyd driven across the Nullarbor, looking for Jews, which would have been rarer than emu teeth out there.

Yet upon arriving in Perth and then doing a massive loop taking in Mandurah, Bunbury, Busselton, Margaret River, Denmark, Albany, Esperance and Kalgoorlie the two rabbis met not only dozens of Jews already on Chabad of RARAs WA contact list, but impressively, 25 new contacts.

Rabbis Yisroel Krasnjanski (left) and Zelig Baumgarten (right) with Nachson Goltz next to the RARA Mitzvah-mobile.

For Yisroel, finding that many Jewish people, in the most unlikely of places, and the way we met up with them, was, I believe, clearly divine.

While each encounter was a special experience, if he had to pinpoint a particular highlight, Yisroel said it would be hard to go past meeting and putting tefillin on Rusty Geller and Ido Kasher, who both hail from in and around the coastal town of Mandurah, about an hours drive south of Perth.

The former had never before put on tefillin despite wanting to, and the latter hadnt since he was 13, some 70 years ago.

Being a retired cinematographer from Los Angeles, who migrated to Western Australia in 2003, Rusty is a real character, Yisroel said.

And we only met him because after wed been at the Mandurah Forum shopping mall for a while, we were trying to find our way back to the car park but became lost, so we returned, and only then we were spotted by Rusty, who said Shalom Aleichem to us!

According to Rustys own recollection of that moment, his jadar [his term for Jewish radar] went off when he saw a young man with a black beard, dressed in a suit, a yarmulke, and with tsitsit dangling down.

The man introduced himself and Zelig, and we started talking like wed known each other all our lives, Rusty recalled.

Im an assimilated Jew I feel my identity, but feel the spirit when Im surrounded by the wonders of nature that is my temple.

The RARA roaming rabbis putting tefillin on Ben Kerr at Margaret River in Western Australia.

Unfortunately I know no Jews in WA other than my two daughters thats why this encounter was extraordinary and such a mitzvah.

Minutes after meeting, the rabbis put a kippah and tefillin on Rusty and we were saying brachot right in the middle of the shopping centre.

When Rusty told them that he had at home his grandfathers tefillin likely bought around 1910 in Poland when he fled the pogroms the rabbis decided to visit him the next afternoon, to show him how to put it on, and to daven.

I thank RARA for sending them out into the Australian wilderness and allowing me to connect to my Jewish roots, Rusty said.

Yisroel said that at the mall, he and Zelig also spoke with a man named Sam, who had approached them to speak a few Hebrew words hed learned over time from a friend at the mall.

It turns out that friend was 83-year-old Israeli native Ido Kasher, who Sam then phoned.

The next day, Ido who moved to Mandurah 19 years ago but did not know of any other local Jews met them at the mall and put on tefillin.

A few days later, and with everyone pitching in, in the last minute, we held a beautiful Shabbat dinner for 15 people in Fremantle at the home of Chaya Bar-Noy, Yisroel said.

There were Jews from Fremantle, a woman from Brazil, a handful of Israelis, and we also invited Ido.

Ido had not experienced a Shabbat dinner in a very long time, and Ill never forget the moment when he walked into the dining room that was full of Jewish people, and his eyes nearly fell out it meant that much to him.

Zeligs favourite moment happened outside a bakery in Margaret Rivers main street, where the rabbis had parked their highly noticeable vehicle.

We found that in regional Australia, we could be in the centre of a town for an hour or more and not meet anyone who was Jewish, he said.

So, we were taken aback in Margaret River when someone suddenly came to ask if our RARA Mitzvah-mobile was the same one that was in the Outback Rabbis documentary [that was directed by Danny Ben-Moshe and screened on SBS in its 2018 series Untold Australians].

We confirmed it was, and after he introduced himself as Ben Kerr, he told us that about two years ago, he found out that both of his mums parents were Jewish, and he was keen to learn more about Judaism.

That enthusiastic exchange led to Ben putting on tefillin for the first time in his life in the centre of Margaret River, and he couldnt stop smiling.

Other highlights of their WA trip include visiting an elderly Jewish woman in Esperance named Sally, who showed them a photo of RARA rabbis when they dropped by her home in 2007.

Upon hearing that Sally enjoyed singing in a choir and listening to Klezmer music, Yisroel took it upon himself to play a Chassidic song on her piano, which she cherished.

And in the red dirt outback mining town of Kalgoorlie, the rabbis connected with a Jewish nurse, Sharon Palmer, who was on RARAs contact list, but hadnt seen another Jewish person for some time.

I thank RARA for sending them out into the Australian wilderness and allowing me to connect to my Jewish roots.

She was very appreciative of their visit, and told them about the towns cemetery, which has a large Jewish section, with graves added until 1994, and from as far back as 1899 during the gold rush.

The rabbis went to the cemeterys Jewish section during their stay, where they recited the traditional Tehillim prayers.

Summing up their trip, Zelig who lives in New York agreed with Yisroel that the many coincidences, and elements of luck, that connected them with Jewish people in the tiniest of towns dotting WAs coastline, we see as not coincidences, but through divine providence.

Each connection was special and meaningful, so I feel that all the miles we travelled, and the time and effort spent, has been totally worth it just to have those moments, he said.

And for many people we met, they know now that if they have any Jewish-related questions, or need anything to celebrate the Jewish festivals, they can contact Chabad of RARA, access resources on its website, and keep in touch through receiving e-newsletters to keep that sense of community going.

Yisroel, whose parents have run Chabad of Hawaii for the past 35 years, is now starting a posting in Panama, and said he thoroughly enjoyed his time in regional Australia and would love to visit again sometime.

From left: Rabbi Zelig Baumgarten, Ido Kasher and Rabbi Yisroel Krasnjanski at the Mandurah Forum shopping mall, south of Perth.

Chabad is in my blood, and reaching out to Jews, wherever they are, is what Ive been born and raised to do, Yisroel said.

What the Rebbe teaches us is that every Jewish persons soul their neshama is alive, and always ready to be spiritually awoken. And Ive seen that up close on this trip as much as I have anywhere in the USA.

Rabbi Menachem Aron who with his wife Shevi are the current directors of Chabad of RARA said that like anyone else, Jewish people are attracted to live in the country for the beauty, the lifestyle and the affordability that regional Australia offers.

But because of the distance and isolation from the rest of the Jewish community, it can be hard for them to maintain connection to Judaism, and Jewish life and culture, he said.

Sharon Palmer (left) with the young rabbis during their visit to Kalgoorlie.

So when our visiting rabbis come through their town or region, even if only for a few days, it offers them that opportunity to reconnect.

Its one thing to connect with people via Zoom, but it really doesnt compare to seeing someone in person thats a very different connection.

Whether it is as simple as experiencing a Shabbat dinner, listening to the shofar being blown, having a mezuzah affixed to their door, or having a discussion with a rabbi it really brings that home, and thats precisely what RARA road trips enable.

Rabbi Aron said another thing roaming rabbis try to do on road trips is connect people with other Jews who live in their region, if they would like to do so.

This can form an important sense of community for them, he said.

Weve had successes with that on many occasions, and just one example is assisting Jewish people in towns across the Blue Mountains keep in touch with each other, and they now have regular, well-attended, get-togethers during the major festivals.

Read more:

9000 kilometres of spirit The Australian Jewish News - Australian Jewish News

Category: Jewish | Comments Off on 9000 kilometres of spirit The Australian Jewish News – Australian Jewish News
Tags:

Posted By admin on October 19, 2022

Ahead of every major Jewish holiday, the leading Jewish security agencies drive home the same message: Have a plan. Make sure you understand your building. Secure entrances and exits. Be in touch with law enforcement.

Now, nearly four years after the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting, community security officials believe that the message is beginning to stick at synagogues across the country. But they also told eJewishPhilanthropy that lingering pandemic-inspired measures have, in some ways, made it harder to keep worshippers safe.

Outdoor services are maybe here to stay, with or without COVID, and thats something thats definitely new in terms of security, Evan Bernstein, CEO of the Community Security Service (CSS), which trains volunteers to act as a security presence at synagogues, told eJP. From a logistical standpoint, youre dealing with something thats not a hardened building. A parking lot or a tent was maybe not thought of originally from a security standpoint.

The Secure Community Network, which coordinates security nationally for Jewish institutions, published a two-page rundown ahead of the High Holidays on the Top Ten Security Considerations for Outdoor Services. In addition to the measures SCN recommends for any large event, the document instructs synagogues to develop a traffic control plan and secure the perimeter of the outdoor event.

Its going to mean more people, its going to mean controlling access and how were letting people in, making sure that if we have to maybe shut down roads, sidewalks, that we have to be more cognizant of that, Bradley Orsini, SCNs senior national security advisor, told eJP. Whoever were letting into our inner perimeter, they should [belong] there.

Orsini said long-running staffing shortages at police departments across the country have also made it harder for synagogues to coordinate their security policy with local precincts that may already be stretched thin. SCN, which has been led by former law enforcement officials since its creation in 2004, has long recommended coordination with local police as a centerpiece of synagogue security.

A lot of synagogues had trouble hiring off-duty or on duty police officers because of the [rise in] demand, and because weve seen an uptick in shortages in local police departments across the country, Orsini said. I think we [had to] increase our preparedness even earlier this year based on all those factors.

Alongside those challenges, security officials and experts say, security has remained top-of-mind for a growing number of American Jews following the string of attacks on synagogues and other Jewish institutions that began in Pittsburgh in 2018 and included a hostage situation at Temple Beth Israel in Colleyville, Texas, in January. There have also been rashes of street attacks on Orthodox Jews in New York City.

Following the Colleyville attack, Jewish organizations lobbied for an increase in federal funds to secure places of worship, and $250 million was allocated to that end in 2022, up from $180 million last year. Security organizations have also partnered with each other. SCN, CSS and the Anti-Defamation League all have bilateral partnerships to share information and coordinate with each other. CSS has seen a growth of more than 10% in the number of synagogues and volunteers it works with since 2021. The number of synagogues now stands at approximately 200.

Reality took over, Carly Maisel, a board member of CSS and the Community Security Initiative in New York, told eJP. The American Jewish experience has changed, and the American Jewish community is trying to catch up to that change. We have now made a mindset shift.

Maisel hopes that ordinary congregants will take increasing responsibility for their congregations security, rather than solely relying on an armed presence at the door.

Everybody in the community has to feel security is partly their problem, because if you dont call out the suspicious person, if you dont notice your unlocked door, if you dont notice that your cameras arent working, it doesnt matter if theres an armed guard on the front door, she said. That should be the last line of defense, not the first line.

Providing ordinary congregants with security knowledge and giving them a sense of responsibility is the raison detre of Bernsteins group, CSS. But at a more fundamental level noting that some synagogues have continued to hold virtual services Bernstein hopes those who can safely return to services in-person without risks to their health continue to do so, even if gathering in large numbers could pose a greater security risk than High Holidays on Zoom.

There are definite, definitive threats but Judaism is about being in synagogue with other congregants, he said. Its been that way for over 1,000 years. [Security] cant be at the expense of traditional shul Judaism. People who are losing that are losing a big portion of what Judaism is.

Read more:

Here are the lessons Jewish security officials learned during the first High Holiday season since the Colleyville attack - eJewish Philanthropy

Category: Jewish | Comments Off on Here are the lessons Jewish security officials learned during the first High Holiday season since the Colleyville attack – eJewish Philanthropy
Tags:

Posted By admin on October 19, 2022

To the editor: In the mid-1950s, my brother and I graduated from Stanford University, which just apologized for its antisemitic practice at the time of severely limiting Jewish enrollment.

Perhaps our Jewish background was hidden because Harris was not an obvious Jewish name, adopted by our grandfather in the 1880s when he was dumped in Scotland on his way to New York by an unscrupulous ships captain claiming a need to return to Germany.

Stanford was known for its engineering programs, always referred to by their initials: EE (electrical engineering), ME (mechanical engineering) and CE (chemical engineering). My brother majored in economics, referred to in the day as JE (Jewish engineering).

I always thought that was just a humorous comment. It is only now that I realize it was more likely a manifestation of the prejudice against Jews maintained by some in the student body and the universitys administration.

Godfrey Harris, Encino

..

To the editor: That Stanford intentionally limited Jewish student admissions in the 1950s is old news. This was, unfortunately, common practice among all the elite private universities in the Los Angeles area, including USC and Caltech.

It was not a secret either. My father, a Jewish engineering student, applied to both USC and Caltech and was told the Jewish quota was filled for that year and to reapply the following year. He declined and attended a private engineering college that did not have a Jewish quota.

Ann C. Hayman, Westwood

..

To the editor: I read with great interest about Stanfords recent apology for its previous anti-Jewish bias in admissions. In addition to this injustice, Stanford should also reflect on its conduct toward Japanese Americans during World War II.

In June 1942, the Stanford Alumni Review profiled the accomplishments of alumnus Karl Bendetsen, at the time an Army colonel. Known as the architect of the incarceration, Bendetsen callously orchestrated the transfer of Japanese Americans to the camps, bitterly declaring that anyone with one drop of Japanese blood should be imprisoned. The university praised Bendetsen for conducting one of the worlds most remarkable shifts of population.

In contrast, the magazine dedicated only a brief column listing the names of Stanfords Japanese American students leaving for camp the victims of Bendetsens work. Instead of defending their Japanese Americans students, Stanford chose to praise their jailer.

Jonathan van Harmelen, Davis, Calif.

The writer is a doctoral student in history at UC Santa Cruz specializing in Japanese internment in World War II.

Read the rest here:

What Stanford's anti-Jewish bias looked like in the 1950s - Los Angeles Times

Category: Jewish | Comments Off on What Stanford’s anti-Jewish bias looked like in the 1950s – Los Angeles Times
Tags:

Posted By admin on October 19, 2022

Phil Ensler is the Democratic nominee to represent District 74, which includes East Montgomery, in the Alabama Statehouse. Courtesy of Phil Ensler

By Mark I. PinskyOctober 18, 2022

MONTGOMERY, Ala. Democrats best chance to flip a seat in the ruby red Alabama legislature this November would also give the Statehouse its only Jewish lawmaker.

Phil Ensler doesnt make a big deal of his Jewishness in his campaign material, though the Democratic nominee mentions in his biography that hes the executive director of the Jewish Federation of Central Alabama. With a nod to local sensibilities, he describes himself in a campaign flyer as a servant leader, a Christian-inflected term commonly used by evangelical candidates.

But in a fundraising letter to his Jewish supporters, Ensler, who attended the Hebrew school at Manhattans Central Synagogue and graduated from Yeshiva Universitys law school, bills his campaign in Jewish terms.

I am excited about the opportunity to become the only Jewish member of the Alabama state legislature, he wrote.

Ensler, 32, has a chance to unseat Republican incumbent Charlotte Meadows because of a 2021 redistricting that brought more Democrats voters into the East Montgomery district, which is now 55% Black.

He is trying to build a coalition of Black voters, moderately liberal whites and independents, and the few Jews in the area. Ensler has lived in Alabama, home to about 10,000 Jews, since he moved to Montgomery a decade ago, spurred by his interest in the civil rights movement to join Teach for America in the Deep South.

Here hes worked to build networks through his teaching, mentoring, law practice and leadership of the federation that he is relying on to bring out the vote.

Aylon Gipson, a Montgomery native who now attends Morehouse College, said he knows firsthand how Ensler has devoted himself to the community, and that most people hes met canvassing either know the former teacher or have heard of him.

Hes tried his best to understand the city, Gipson said.

Called South

As a high school student on Manhattans Upper East Side, Ensler became interested in civil rights history and government service, which he says gave him his lifes direction. As a student at George Washington University, he toured Alabamas civil rights museums and monuments.

I was humbled and inspired by standing in the very places where Martin Luther King Jr., John Lewis, Rosa Parks, and countless other heroes and foot soldiers had the courage to stand up for a more just and equal Alabama, he writes on his web site.

After graduating in 2012, Ensler returned to Montgomery, and taught social studies at the predominantly Black Robert E. Lee High School.

That same year, he founded Marching On, a weeklong program in which he would take as many as 70 students to Washington, D.C. They met with government officials and other policymakers, and visited local universities and cultural institutions. The program ultimately included students from all five of the citys public high schools.

But after two years with Teach for America, Ensler concluded that he could make more of an impact as a lawyer. At Cardozo Law School, Ensler interned with the Southern Poverty Law Center in Montgomery, working on juvenile rights and education issues. He also worked with the Innocence Project, and in the office of New York Gov. David Paterson, the states first Black chief executive.

After passing the Alabama bar, he went to work for Steve Reed, Montgomerys first Black mayor, and in 2017 joined the Alabama Appleseed Center for Law andJustice, which focused on evictions and predatory payday loans.

In 2019, Ensler was the subject of a flattering profile in the Montgomery Advertiser, the citys largest daily newspaper, which named him its monthly Community Hero.

At an intersection of politics, education and legal defense, the newspaper wrote, Ensler is an advocate for those in need.

Campaign finance

A seat in the Alabama legislature has not flipped in a dozen years. To make that happen, Ensler has raised a healthy $300,000, which allows him to send weekly mailers to voters and buy television ads. That compares to Meadows $100,000 war chest.

He said the race has not been marred by antisemitism. Hes also careful to approach issues in a way that is unlikely to rile voters in either party. Though he strongly supports abortion rights, its not mentioned in his campaign materials. He talks about public safety common sense policies that reduce gun violence but not about regulating assault weapons.

Meadows advocates a ban on abortions with no exceptions, and a permitless carry gun law. She also wants to use $440 million in federal Covid money for prison construction, which Ensler opposes.

Much of Enslers political and financial support has come from his family and friends cousins, aunts, uncles, college friends, he says. Additional support has come from the Central Alabama Jewish community and Jewish donors outside his district and outside of Alabama but none from Jewish billionaire George Soros, who has been the target of antisemitic tropes.

Ensler is a member of Agudath Israel/Agudath Israel Etz Ahayem, Montgomerys main Conservative/Sephardi synagogue, but he also makes appearances at Beth Or, the regions Reform synagogue.

The Jewish community is verysupportive of me, he said, in part by not asking him to step down from his day job leading the federation during the campaign. They want me to win.

Mark I. Pinsky has covered Southern politics since 1972 and isthe author of A Jew Among the Evangelicals: A Guide for the Perplexed.

Link:

There are no Jews in the Alabama legislature. That could soon change. - Forward

Category: Jewish | Comments Off on There are no Jews in the Alabama legislature. That could soon change. – Forward
Tags:

Posted By admin on October 19, 2022

Jews have always embraced the idea of a customized education. A small vanguard is now taking it to the next level.

What is the purpose of a Jewish education? Presumably, it's to raise the next generation of knowledgeable and committed Jews. It's ironic, then, that the cost of Jewish education is the most effective form of birth control for many Jewish families.

According to a late 2021 survey from Nishma, the cost of Jewish education is a major financial stress for American Jewish families. There is a clear correlation between a higher income and more children; only 37% of those making $100k a year and under have three or more children, but the percentage rises to 75% for those making $300k and above.

Nishma's survey was also a window into the educational choices of observant Jewish families, with 96% of Modern Orthodox families sending their children to Orthodox day schools (87%) or pluralistic Jewish schools (an additional 9%) and 97% of Haredi families sending to yeshivas. Fewer than half see their household as financially strong, and fewer than half are comfortable that they will have enough money to retire."

You might think, then, given this financial stress, that there is some kind of movement in the Jewish world towards educational innovation and out-of-the-box thinking. That is sadly not the case.

Among non-Jews, we're seeing a surge in homeschooling, with at least 10% of American children living in a homeschooling household. The rates dramatically increased throughout COVID amid school closures, unstable schedules caused by quarantine rules, and mask mandates. Still, surprisingly, the rates haven't seen a significant decline after a return to normalcy in the 2022-23 school year. That surge in interest in homeschooling has not yet been replicated among Jewish families, at least, not yet.

My family is in the middle of our fourth year of homeschooling, never having done anything different with our five children, ages nine and under. This year we have three school-aged children: a daughter in third grade, a son in second grade, and another son in kindergarten. Our kindergartener and three-year-old are also enrolled in a very part-time preschool setting (twelve hours per week) with another local Jewish homeschooling family in order to afford me the chance to work more closely with my older children with fewer interruptions and allow the younger pair to have more age-appropriate activities and experiences.

It's a lot easier doing a math lesson or visiting an art museum without a five and three-year-old vying for our attention or threatening to crash into a painting. And it's a lot more pleasant for everyone involved for someone else to do a craft with my three-year-old if I'm being honest.

Recently a friend currently working as a principal of a Jewish boys' school read a piece I wrote for SAPIR Journal advocating for more Jews to consider homeschooling and reflected on my family's own Jewish homeschool, "I happen to think that the education in many private Jewish schools is rather sub-par in myriad ways. But I suspect that most of those schools will remain open. As long as the graduates head to good universities, they'll keep their doors open. Because 'Jewish education' much of the time is not really about that. School tuition is the cost of admission to the meritocracy. What you are doing is an actual education; that's the beauty of it."

He went on to explain, "What you're doing in regards to your homeschooling is a much more Jewish form of education; it really is an embodiment of the Hebrew word "chinuch." The phrase that's bandied about in Jewish education all the time is 'Educate the child according to his way' from the Book of Proverbs. At that time, there was no such thing as a Jewish school; they came later in the Talmudic period."

In his decade of experience as an educator, my friend felt that the separation between home and school was becoming more pronounced and problematic in the Jewish educational world, explaining further, "Chinuch is an all-encompassing family endeavor. When we talk about a child's chinuch, we talk about what the child learned in the home and in school. One of the real weaknesses of the Jewish school system is those two things are often divorced from each other I was an educator for seven years, and Jewish schools have [instead] become focused on climbing the ladder of meritocracy."

It's a fascinating accusation, given how the New York Times has catapulted Orthodox Jewish education into the news, accusing New York-area schools of educational neglect. Writing for the Washington Examiner magazine (disclosure: my husband Seth is the executive editor), Jason Bedrick and Jay P. Greene explain many of the flaws in the Times piece. The two Heritage Foundation education experts explain that the yeshivas are not "flush" with public funding. The yeshivas barely receive a drop in the bucket compared to the public schools. The New York Times also cherry-picked testing data and made inappropriate comparisons to condemn the yeshivas as academic failures.

Despite choosing to homeschool myself, the Times attempted hit-job on Jewish education fell far from my personal critiques of the system. As I see it, the system's flawed nature is shared by and made worse in public schools. My qualm is that the entire mass education system is flawed; we are putting our children through a factory system, with long days and without clear objectives and goals at the end.

Reflecting on the same phrase "Educate the child according to his ways" for PJ Media in 2015, Avner Zarmi explained his perspective on how it is reflected in our current system of educating young people.

But this is instruction for the teacher (or parent) more than for the pupil, and so we are taught "by way of his circumstances and nature you should educate him." There is no 'cookie-cutter' approach to education that can possibly work, and there is no substitute for knowing one's students and, even more so, one's own children. The wise teacher is aware of the differences in their personalities and the circumstances of their lives and tailors the instruction to them in order to achieve the best result, to cause the lessons to sink in and take root in the child's soul.

This requires special emphasis in this age of mass' education,' of impersonal standards and tests generated at the federal or even the state level, which are supposed to suit all children from all backgrounds, regardless of their inclinations and the circumstances of their lives. Certainly, a range of material to be imparted must be set, and expected standards of performance, expressed as a range, are necessary; but how you get there must be as individual as possible. Education as a totalitarian straitjacket is worse than useless.

How you get there must be as individual as possible. Education as a totalitarian straitjacket is worse than useless.

Writing in one of her six volumes on education, Charlotte Mason, the visionary behind the philosophy of our and countless other homeschoolers, explained what she believed should be the true goal of education, "The question is not, -- how much does the youth know? When he has finished his education -- but how much does he care? And about how many orders of things does he care? In fact, how large is the room in which he finds his feet set? And, therefore, how full is the life he has before him?"

What does Charlotte Mason mean by the room in which he finds his feet set? In short, have children been exposed to a wide variety of the best that life has to offer: Poetry, art, literature, craftsmanship, and music? How many schools, both yeshivas and public schools, are making sure that children have this feast of the human experience served to them on a daily or even weekly basis?

In our homeschool, this is the focus, alongside secular studies like math and Jewish subjects like The Five Books of Moses. The math is taught one-on-one, with a user-friendly curriculum where understanding, not memorization, is stressed. Because I am working with only one child at a time, we can fast forward or slow down as much as necessary to ensure a solid grasp of the material. Despite homeschooling, we avail ourselves of a myriad of group learning opportunities, both online and off. My children are enrolled in Zoom Judaic classes (called Gesher) for Bible and Hebrew, to name a few, while their offline group classes include Irish dance, taekwondo, sewing, art, pottery, horseback riding, violin, and swimming.

Given that extensive list of all of our activities, I'm going to decline to answer the most popular question we get as Jewish homeschoolers: "What about socialization?"

Instead, I'll answer the next most common question: "How does it work legally?" The answer to that question depends entirely on where you live. There are some states where the regulations are minimal (like New Jersey, surprisingly) and some where they can be much more substantial (like New York or Pennsylvania). Other states, like my own state of Maryland, fall somewhere in between.

Here in Maryland, we have two options for legally homeschooling: We can submit ourselves to twice-a-year reviews with the county to prove we are providing regular and adequate instruction, or we can submit ourselves for review to a homeschooling umbrella. We have several options for religious Jewish umbrellas, and as such, we choose the latter route. Anyone can look up exactly what is required from their state by looking up the regulations with the homeschooling advocacy organization, the Homeschool Legal Defense Association (HSLDA).

The biggest blessings of our homeschool are the gift of time and the reduction in stress that it brings.

The biggest blessings of our homeschool are the gift of time and the reduction in stress that it brings.

We have time with our children, and they have time with each other. In answering that ever-present socialization question, I always remind people that we have far more control over negative peer influences. The strongest social connections my children form aren't with random other children who happen to be enrolled at the same school, but instead, with us and each other.

We set our own daily and annual schedules; we can start our school day at 10 am or play catch-up on a Sunday, and we can take a week anytime we want in order to take advantage of off-season travel opportunities. My children have time to learn at their own time, at their own pace, according to their interests. In practice, that means my oldest has hours upon hours to read and listen to audiobooks while she colors. My older son has hours to play on the piano and build with Legos.

Many parents whose day-to-day experience with their kids consists of the rush to get out the door and the dinner time, homework time, and bedtime crush, are incredulous when I say that spending all day with my kids is less stressful than sending them out to school all day. The difference is this: we set our own schedule, and we're far less rushed as a result.

We don't start our days at dawn and end them at dusk, desperately trying to stay on time. We'll start school at 9:30, take a break at 11:00, and finish in the late afternoon if there's still more to do. Or simply save what we haven't finished for another day. No taskmaster tells us we ever have to finish that math lesson if my kid got the gist without doing the game or worksheet associated with that lesson. The nature of homeschooling is freeing, and the experiences we're able to take part in are learning activities, just the same as a math lesson.

My children have their feet set in a large room, as Charlotte Mason advocated they should. They are caring and committed Jews, and we can afford the gift of a big family and the opportunity to set their feet in that large room, with things like violin lessons and educational trips to Colonial Williamsburg that we wouldn't have the time or money for were they enrolled in a traditional Jewish school. We count ourselves lucky to have the opportunity and look forward to the day that our Jewish homeschooling world grows larger if perhaps more folks find themselves interested in taking the path less traveled.

Continue reading here:

Homeschooling and the Purpose of Jewish Education - aish.com - Aish.com

Category: Jewish | Comments Off on Homeschooling and the Purpose of Jewish Education – aish.com – Aish.com
Tags:

Posted By admin on October 19, 2022

Heather Ostrau has lived in the Gary Shupin Independent Living Community, described as an urban kibbutz for adults with developmental challenges, since fall 2019. Prior to that, she was active in the Shupin Social Club, which offers activities and services to nonresidents.

Its a very nice community, and I like how supportive the staff are, Ostrau said.

Ostrau is autistic, which she said makes living alone difficult. At Shupin, she maintains her own apartment, cooks her own meals and holds a job, while also having access to support and services when needed.

Weve always wanted her to be as independent as possible, Heathers mother, Sandy, said. This program provides the assistance to get her to be as independent as she can be.

Now the Shupin Community is growing nearly doubling its capacity to accommodate 24 residents when it opens two new residences in the coming year. The program, run by S.F.-based Jewish Family and Childrens Services, is the only one of its kind in San Francisco.

Its a very nice community, and I like how supportive the staff are.

[We create] a supportive, nurturing community for people who have various kinds of developmental challenges and people who dont to be together, and to help those individuals who need the help to achieve their highest level of independent functioning, said JFCS executive director Anita Friedman.

About 150 individuals in all are served by the program, both the live-in residents and members of the Shupin Social Club.

With the addition of the two new buildings, Shupin will have a total of four residential units in the Laurel Heights neighborhood. The existing homes, Shupin House and Garys Place, accommodate 13 residents. Shupin House is open to men and women with experience living independently, while Garys Place welcomes men ages 18 to 34 living outside the family home for the first time and therefore requiring more day-to-day support. The level of support residents receive depends on their individual needs, Friedman said. They cook together, play games, go on outings and attend Shabbat services.

We wanted to not create a building that felt institutional, Friedman said. We wanted it to feel like a home.

The new residences, Adys Place and Gersons Place, will provide single-gender housing. Adys Place will be home to seven women, while Gersons Place will house four men.

The Shupin Community was established in 2009 with the donation of Shupin House by the Barbara and Gerson Bakar Foundation. It is in memory of Gerson Bakars nephew Gary Shupin, who lived with developmental disabilities. Shupin is an extension of JFCS disability services program, which works to provide social and educational aid to the Bay Area community. Services for adults with disabilities are often lacking, Friedman said, and JFCS and the Jewish community have stepped up to help fill the gap.

Adys Place and Gersons Place are being added to the Shupin Community with more help from the Bakar Foundation.

Ostrau is excited about the changes coming to her home. I think that it will be nice, because it will expand our friendship circle and will add more opportunities. she said. Well be able to serve more people.

The rest is here:

Jewish housing for disabled adults adds two residences in S.F. J. - The Jewish News of Northern California

Category: Jewish | Comments Off on Jewish housing for disabled adults adds two residences in S.F. J. – The Jewish News of Northern California
Tags:

Posted By admin on October 19, 2022

Simchat Torah in Netanya Courtesy of Getty Images

By Mira FoxOctober 17, 2022

Tu BAv is supposed to be Jewish Valentines Day. But really, the day to meet your future spouse or your ex, or your current partners ex, or anyone youve ever had a crush on is Simchat Torah.

The final day of the autumn Jewish holidays, Simchat Torah marks the end of the yearly cycle of Torah readings called the parsha. Congregations read the last portion of Deuteronomy, then go back to the beginning of Genesis.

This is not obviously a romantic occasion.

But part of the celebration of the parsha cycle includes singing and marching the Torah around the synagogue in an often raucous, ecstatic dance that can spill onto the streets. (Theres also usually a lot of booze.) Its contagious and joyful, and the perfect place to meet your beshert.

The holiday is, even in its most traditional roots, about love of Torah, but also of community and of the Jewish people. It seems only natural to also find love for a specific Jewish person on the same day. Communal religious experiences were, after all, developed as a way to create feelings of connection to God, to community, so why not to your future spouse?

Temple Beth Shalom fondly known as the Tremont Street shul in Cambridge, Massachusetts, was my graduate school synagogue, and I still trek back for its famed Simchat Torah celebrations, which sometimes draw over 1000 people. Its the ultimate place to see and be seen in the Boston Jewish community.

Every minyan comes together as do several other congregations in Cambridge and Somerville, who all bring their Torahs over to join in with the festivities. Since the 1970s,Harvard and MITs Jewish undergraduate and graduate students have also made the trek to celebrate on Tremont Street and boost the pheromone quotient.

The police shut the block down and the people circle each Torah, belting out celebratory songs. (Its not too hard to manage to end up holding hands with your crush as you dance the hora.) Unlike many Jewish rituals, Simchat Torah is uninhibited and light on structure, with fewer words to know or prayers to mumble through. Its easy to fit in and be welcomed as a Jew of all experience and observance levels; the songs are repetitive and largely formed of nonsense syllables, so all you have to do is follow the crowd.

Then you take a break, sit on the steps, and, at least in times before COVID, pass around flasks and jars and even entire bottles of wine or whiskey someone somehow produced from within their coat.

An incomplete list of people Ive run into amidst the Simchat Torah drunken revelry includes: my roommates friends from college, a group of Harvard undergraduates from my Hebrew class, a podcast host I like, a friend of a friend Id met once, months before, and my old Israeli roommates boyfriend, who I hadnt seen since I lived in Jerusalem. (The friend of a friend became a short-lived fling.)

Of course, your mileage may vary with your congregation. Some Orthodox communities dont include women in the dancing or allow them to hoist Torah scrolls, which puts a kibosh on the flirting. And other aging congregations dont always have the knees for exuberantly jumping around.

But given that many Simchat Torah celebrations spill out onto the streets West End Avenue in New York is known to gather a crowd you can probably follow the noise to something raucous and joyful and maybe a little flirtatious. And if youre lucky, maybe youll find more than dancing.

See the rest here:

Simchat Torah is the best Jewish speed-dating event - Forward

Category: Jewish | Comments Off on Simchat Torah is the best Jewish speed-dating event – Forward
Tags:

Posted By admin on October 19, 2022

National Council of Jewish Women, Michigan (NCJW|MI) will host its annual fundraising event Women of Vision on Wednesday, Oct. 26, at Adat Shalom Synagogue in Farmington Hills. The event features Juju Chang, the Emmy award-winning co-anchor of ABC News Nightline and a regular contributor to ABC Television Networks Good Morning America and 20/20.

Changs highly visible reporting on Asian hate is the culmination of decades of covering everything from natural disasters to terrorism, mass shootings, immigration, violence against the LGBTQUIA+ community and inequities of the COVID-19 pandemic.

This years Women of Vision benefit luncheon returns to an in-person event for the first time since the pandemic started and includes boutiques on site and a raffle.

One of the most prominent Asian-Americans in broadcast news, Chang leveraged her position to become a much-admired champion of social change. She made U.S. broadcast history co-anchoring the 2021 ABC News Live special Stop the Hate: The Rise in Violence Against Asian-Americans with fellow Korean American co-anchor Eva Pilgrim and a cast of Asian-American and Pacific Islander journalists, thought leaders, lawmakers and celebrities. Changs husband, Neal Shapiro, is Jewish, and she describes herself as a Jew by choice, bringing up her three sons as Jewish. Chang is also a powerful voice against antisemitism and all forms of discrimination, scapegoating and persecution.

With the rise of hate crimes against the Asian-American and Pacific Islander communities, Ms. Chang will be discussing the historical parallels between Asian hate and antisemitism, having raised her children in a blended cultural environment, referring to them as 50% Korean and 100% Jewish, said Sallyjo Levine, NCJW|MI President.We are thrilled that Ms. Chang will be sharing her personal story that has so many underlying themes of civil rights and social justice.

The event will also honor three local women. Carolyn Krieger, founder of CKC Agency, a public relations company in Farmington Hills, will be awarded The Woman of Vision Award because of the trusted relationships she has developed with media, her clients and the corporate world in a 35+ year career. To be recognized by the National Council of Jewish Women, Michigan, an organization I deeply respect and have supported for many years, personally and professionally, is a profound honor and truly humbling, Krieger said.

The Josephine S. Weiner Award for Community Service will be awarded to Carrie Kushner and Marilynn Sabin for their unstinting volunteer work, especially their dedication to providing Kosher Meals on Wheels for homebound seniors.

The fundraising event will support NCJW|MIs many community-service projects and social justice advocacy work. Recent projects of the 131-year old organization include the Back 2 School Store, which in August provided free clothing and school supplies to 900 Detroit children in need, literacy outreach, fleece blankets for hospitalized children, a program providing backpacks and school supplies to 900 homeless students in Oakland County schools and 450 children in need identified through Jewish Family Service and Kosher Meals on Wheels. The organization is also at the forefront of voter advocacy and womens reproductive rights, holding programs and educational initiatives to promote these issues.

Tickets for the Women of Vision event are available at several donation levels, starting at $54. Registration is from 9:30 a.m. to 11:45 a.m.; boutiques are open from 9:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.; meet-and-greet with Juju Chang is from 10:45 a.m. to 11:30 a.m.; 11:45 a.m. onwards will be awards, the guest speaker, lunch and the raffle.

For more information on the program and to buy tickets, go to https://ncjwmi.org.

Continue reading here:

Women of Vision | Detroit Jewish News - The Jewish News

Category: Jewish | Comments Off on Women of Vision | Detroit Jewish News – The Jewish News
Tags: