Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By admin on September 23, 2022

The new PBS documentary The U.S. and the Holocaust explores the difficult question of how the United States grappled with the rise of Nazism in Germany and the genocide of six million Jews.

History lessons may recall that the U.S. helped liberate Nazi concentration camps after defeating Germany in World War II, but the entire story is far more complicated.

To begin, the Nuremberg laws which formalized antisemitic law in Germany were heavily influenced by the Jim Crow laws in the south.

Grappling with Americans response to the Holocaust helps us better understand American history So much of our response to Nazism is a debate about who we are as Americans, said Daniel Greene, president of the Newberry Library in Chicago.

Despite the U.S. accepting about 220,000 refugees from Europe, historians view the U.S. response to the Holocaust as a failure. The initial political response at the start of the Nazi takeover was not to accept Jewish immigrants.

It was only until the world saw the horrors of what occurred at concentration camps that the U.S. decided to act, said Peter Hayes, professor emeritus of History and Holocaust Studies at Northwestern University.

The story is a mirror held up to us about our attitudes towards ourselves, what country we want to be, and what kind of role we play in the world, said Hayes.

For more information about the series and to watch full episodes, click here.

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US Response to the Holocaust Explored in New PBS Documentary - WTTW News

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Posted By admin on September 23, 2022

The way to fix well-funded, failing schools is more fundingunless the schools are privately run. Welfare dependency isnt lamentableunless the dependents belong to religious sects. Standardized tests are bigoted and tell us nothing about minority achievementunless the minority is pious and speaks Yiddish.

For many readers, such left-wing hypocrisy explains the New York Timess recent report that New Yorks Hasidic schools (which educate thousands of children and take millions in public money) produce alumni with dreadful command of English, social studies, mathematics, and science. These readers argue that the article was a double-spread fusillade in the Timess hundred-year war against Jewish particularism (for a detailed history of that campaign, see my grandfather Jerold Auerbachs monograph Print to Fit), and that no other community would have been so singled out.

Which is all fair enough. I have my doubts about the Timess motives in printing this article and I certainly think the Gray Lady has a Jewish problem. But what matters right nowif the Times story is correct, which Ill assume it basically isis that numerous Jewish children are not getting educated in the language, history, and civics of the country of which they are citizens.

The stats are astonishing. Only nine schools [in New York] had less than 1 percent of students testing at grade level in 2019, the Times reports. All were Hasidic boys schools. Hasidic girls schools did better, with an 80 percent fail rate. Thats worsefar worsethan public schools with high numbers of poor children, to say nothing of non-Hasidic Jewish schools and of private schools in general. Teachers in boys schools testify that most of their students cant speak and read and write English fluently. At many boys schools, secular studies pretty much stop after bar mitzvah agethirteen.

These failures dont seem explicable as isolated cases of negligence. Rather, whole schools knowingly produce alumni unequipped for American life. Indeed, in 2018, Rabbi Aaron Teitelbaum, a Satmar Hasidic leader (Satmar is one of the largest and most reclusive sects), proudly declared in Yiddish that Satmar schools taught virtually no secular subjects and that Satmar would refuse to comply with state education laws and commissions.

Not that local and state governments have been terribly exacting. Bill de Blasio slow-rolled an investigation into Hasidic schools prompted by a complaint in 2015 that the institutions were systematically failing their students. Many of the schools simply wouldnt give investigators access. After four years a report was released surveying twenty-eight Hasidic schools in Brooklyn. According to the letter from Richard Carranza, then schools chancellor, to the state education commissioner, only two of those schools provided educations that are substantially equivalent to those received in public schools. Andrew Cuomo was also a longtime ally of the Hasidim; according to the Times, he did not deny promising the Satmar Hasidim in 2018 that hed refrain from interfering in their operations.

This is not good for the Jews. For an immigrant to struggle with English is one thing, and I am proud to know plenty who have done so. But many Hasidic communities raise American children in Yiddish while not fluently teaching them the language of their country. This is to deny children full participation in American public life and access to many great American institutionsof education, culture, finance, law, media. To not teach proper civics and American history is to promote ingratitude for this countrys many blessings, and to neglect a duty all Americans share to pass on those blessings from generation to generation. Which is bad enough, but the Hasidim have the chutzpah to fund this unpatriotic way of teaching with hundreds of millions of dollars in public money.

Raising kids in the Jewish tradition in a world actively hostile to its teachings is a holy and heroic thing to do, and I intend to try to do it myself. America has thrived because religious communities transmit their values and their practices. Our society, adrift and lonely and faithless, will be reoriented by those who live their lives as adventures for Gods sake. But not if those same people treat their polity as a contemptible communal ATM, instead of as a community of shared loves (to borrow a phrase from R. R. Reno).

To be a light unto the nations, as the Jews are called to be, requires respect for ones gentile and secular Jewish neighbors. It also requires civic-mindedness, not Old World paranoia that treats governments like the Russian czarsto be exploited when possible and appeased when necessary. If ever there has been a non-Jewish country that deserved Jewish gratitude and respect, it is America. No nation has been so brilliantly conceived in liberty rightly understood and so ceaselessly dedicated to the proposition that all men are made in Gods image.

Hasidim and Jews in general have done well in this country. Hasidic communities in particular are admirably dedicated to the Jewish traditionall while bearing much of the recent rise in anti-Semitism, which left-wing papers like the Times reported on too little too late. Hasidic maintenance of the Yiddish language is a gorgeous thing. Its internal charitable work is Tocquevillianism at its best. But if the cost of this single-mindedness is unethical behavior toward locality, state, and country, then the community has some serious thinking to do.

New York City and New York State will not be able to do it for them. Its a task for Hasidim themselves. And for their non-Hasidic Orthodox brethren, in particular the Modern Orthodox community that has managed, however imperfectly, to transmit Torah life while engaging fruitfully in American life. But as a general rule, the Modern Orthodox community is loathe to criticize the ultra-Orthodox, Hasidim included. One cost of this forbearance is that the serious errors in more hardline parts of Orthodoxy are published by people hostile to Orthodox values, like those at the Times. Something similar happens in the Israeli ultra-Orthodox world, which has been repeatedly embarrassed by investigations published in the left-wing paper Haaretz.

Conservative intellectuals do the Hasidim no favors by defending their bad behavior and nurturing their grievances. This isnt about the culture war or the double-standards of the American left or how the New York Times has it in for the Jews (which it does). Its about a communitys failure to raise literate Americansthe kind every conservative intellectual wants to rear in their own families, and the kind the conservative educational reform industry has been trying for years to get public schools to produce.

The victims of Hasidic neglect are Hasidic children themselvesand a country that desperately needs the influence of robust and patriotic religious communities.

Cole S. Aronson is an MA candidate in philosophy at Hebrew University and a Krauthammer fellow with the Tikvah Fund.

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The Civic Duties of Hasidic Schools | Cole S. Aronson - First Things

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Posted By admin on September 23, 2022

(New York Jewish Week) Yaffed, the nonprofit that has likely done more than any other group to advocate for government scrutiny of secular education at Hasidic yeshivas, has named a new chief executive.

Beatrice Weber, a formerly Hasidic mother of 10, will succeed Naftuli Moster as the executive director of the organization, Young Advocates for Fair Education, the group announced Tuesday. A speaker, activist and writer raised in the haredi Orthodox community in Toronto, Weber is also the only parent of a Hasidic yeshiva student so far in New York to file suit, with Yaffeds help, against a school for failing to provide her child with an adequate secular education.

The board undertook a rigorous search for a capable leader to usher Yaffed into its second decade, Yaffed said in its statement announcing her appointment, effective Oct 3. After reviewing many candidates, it turned out the leader they were looking for was already in their midst, working as a parent ambassador, writing, speaking and advocating for the rights of Hasidic children.

Yaffed was founded by Moster in 2012 to raise awareness about what it has insisted is a failing by yeshivas to teach children boys, especially the basics of math, English and other subjects as required by state law. The groups cause got a boost last week when the New York Times published an investigation saying that few, if any, boys at Hasidic-run schools in the state passed standardized tests in reading and math, and the state Board of Regents passed new rules fordetermining that private schools offer instruction that is similar to that offered in public schools.

Now that the regulations have passed, I believe that there will be a shift and other Jewish and educational organizations will stand together with Yaffed to support this change with a more collaborative approach, Weber said in a statement to the New York Jewish Week.

Yaffeds initial goal was to let everybody know about these issues, she added. Ten years ago, nobody was talking about it. And now there is recognition that providing education to all children is a law, those goals have been accomplished. So I think now is the time and space, things may shift.

Weber filed suit in 2019 against her sons school, Yeshiva Mesivta Arugath Habosem in Williamsburg, as well as New York City and New York State. Since then she has become a parent-ambassador for Yaffed, speaking out and writing about secular education from the perspective of a parent from the Hasidic community. Moster, meanwhile, is leaving to pursue other endeavors, an announcement he made earlier in the summer.

Webers case is still ongoing. In June, a New York State Supreme Court judge ordered the citys investigation into the school must come to a conclusion in the next four months, the first order of its kind.

This is the beginning and I am hopeful that it will have an impact for many other children to come, Weber told the New York Jewish Week at the time.

Weber has lived in Jerusalem and Monsey, New York, and was the wife of a Hasidic rabbi before she left her marriage in 2014.

She holds an MBA from Wayne State College and has leadership experience at other organizations, including Ronald McDonald House in New York, Yaffed said. Weber is also ordained as an interspiritual minister through OneSpirit.

I am humbled, honored and inspired to step into my new position, Weber said in a press release. The coming of the New Jewish year makes this transition especially auspicious. The past week has shown the importance of advocating for justice. And Ive learned from Naftuli that Tikkun Olam the Jewish value of working on behalf of social change begins at home.

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There are so many who agonize over the educational disadvantage that their children have and who want the best for their children the ability to imagine, the ability to make important personal decisions, to learn how to think, to engage with the world, Weber told the New York Jewish Week.

Its important to emphasize how hard it is for parents [in Hasidic communities] to speak up, Weber said in a June interview. But it is important to speak up and it does make a difference.

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A formerly Hasidic mom who sued her sons yeshiva will head nonprofit advocating for secular education - JTA News - Jewish Telegraphic Agency

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Posted By admin on September 23, 2022

Disinformation about IRS

As a former economist for the Office of the Assistant Secretary for International Affairs of the U.S. Department of the Treasury, I am disturbed by the magnitude of disinformation circulating over the internet and certain cable channels depicting the new agents being hired by the U.S. Treasurys Internal Revenue Service as being a bunch of black-booted thugs coming to kick down doors.

This conspiracy, like so many others, has no basis in fact. I have full confidence that the new IRS agents and support personnel the Treasury plans to hire will be fair and impartial. With new auditors, the IRS will have the resources to go after wealthy tax evaders, tax shelters and off-shore accounts that are forcing the rest of us to pay more taxes than we would ordinarily need to pay.

In addition, elimination of certain IRS tax programs would be helpful; this brings to mind the Carried Interest Provision that allows Hedge Fund Managers to tax themselves at the 15% long-term capital gains rate when in fact their gains are almost entirely short-term, and should have a taxable rate of over 30%.

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With additional resources, the government will be able to collect billions of dollars in lost revenue which will allow people like you and me to pay lower taxes. Hopefully, the new agents will help move us toward a more equitable distribution of the tax burden.

Asleep in Oklahoma

Two things I have recently read in the Tulsa World have shocked me. The first was Easy to miss democracy slipping away by Solomon D. Stevens.

He writes about what is happening and how our democracy is becoming lost while we dont bother to vote, read and see the detrimental underpinnings that are occurring. He addresses behind-the-scenes things that are taking place as we quietly go about our daily life. It was very frightening.

The second shocker was todays front-page headline, Oklahoma candidates mostly not contested, with GOP domination not many others bother.

I have said for a long time that Oklahoma is a one-party state, and that is why the politicians in office have free rein to do what they want. I am an independent voter now and plan to vote straight Democrat.

I pray Joy Hofmeister wins against Kevin Stitt now that she is a Democrat. We need to have balance if we are to be a two-party system. Otherwise, we will be an authoritarian government in Oklahoma. It seems to be that way at present.

How can a government run if there is no discourse? A one-sided government makes no progress. We are asleep in our state. We must change this and get balance. We are in trouble if we dont. Of course, I feel we already are.

Hold a standard

Editorial writer Bob Doucettes The fate of public schools on the ballot this November (Sept. 11) appeared on the same day that the New York Times published (on its front page) Failing Schools, Public funds, subtitled Hasidic Students in New York State Are Deprived of Basic Skills.

New Yorks Hasidic Jews were able to take over their local public schools, and thereby Hasidimize whatever was taught in their public schools including to the public school students who arent Hasidic.

In Oklahoma, the GOP is scheming to do what the Hasidic Jews in New York were able to do only in Oklahoma, with a GOP White Christian Nationalist curriculum, rather than a Hasidic one.

New York is now considering requiring all Hasidic public school students pass the same standardized test that is given to all public school students (which Hasidic students now fail), which gives hope to all youngsters in Oklahoma who deserve to become educated in one way or another.

Oklahoma should require all of its school-aged children be educated to the point that they can pass a standardized test which includes evolutionary science, global overheating, how a democracy is supposed to function, and what fascism did to Italy and Germany some 80 years ago.

Homeschooled, parochial schooled and private schooled kids would also be required to pass such a test. Give this suggestion to your candidates for the Legislature then vote accordingly.

Choose women

The recent letter Vote for women was right on. I agree with the writer, but let us not forget the corporation commissioner as well as the 2nd Congressional District race where two strong, qualified women are candidates.

Yes, most definitely, Oklahoma has an opportunity to place in our state Legislature and send to Washington, someone who will represent the state. The men holding federal and state offices now are an embarrassment to the state.

Yes, vote for our women. Whatever women do, they must do twice as well as men to be thought half as good. Luckily, this is not difficult.

Familiar pain

On Sept. 11, 2022, I, like most Americans, cant help but recall the tragedy that befell our nation that day as terrorists took down the World Trade Center towers in New York City, hit the Pentagon, and crashed a plane in a Pennsylvania field.

Being an Oklahoman, it takes me back even further down the tunnels of my mind to Oklahoma City and April 19, 1995, when 168 men, women, and children had their lives snuffed out by a U.S. Army veteran whose hatred for our government led him to blow up the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building.

One of the firefighters photographed carrying the lifeless body of a child from the rubble of the Murrah Building was a former student of mine in Del City in the late 1970s.

I remember crying scalding tears of grief and anger in both instances. I cried for the dead, the injured, and the heroic efforts of those firefighters who exhibited love in the greatest manner, to lay down ones life for another person. I cried again on Jan. 6, 2021, as hatred and anti-government sentiment led to another attack on our way of life with more needless death.

Among all the dead are Christians, Jews, Catholics, Muslims, Buddhists and agnostics, all with different ethnic backgrounds and political views. We didnt differentiate. We mourned them all as Americans. We didnt glorify the perpetrators in 1995 or 2001. Why should we now?

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Letters to the editor | | tulsaworld.com - Tulsa World

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Posted By admin on September 23, 2022

Below youll find a teaser trailer for an upcoming horror thriller titled The Offering, which tells a dark story pulled from Jewish folklore. Theres not much revealed in the trailer, but I like what I saw from it! This looks like it could tell a genuinely creepy tale.

Heres the synopsis:

In the wake of a young Jewish girls disappearance, the son of a Hasidic funeral director returns home with his pregnant wife in hopes of reconciling with his father. Little do they know that directly beneath them in the family morgue, an ancient evil with sinister plans for the unborn child lurks inside a mysterious corpse.

The movie was directed by Oliver Park, and it stars Nick Blood, Emily Wiseman, Allan Corduner, and Paul Kaye. The movie will premiere at Fantastic Fest this year and will be released at some point in 2023.

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No Soul Is Safe in Teaser Trailer for the Jewish Folklore Horror Film THE OFFERING GeekTyrant - GeekTyrant

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Posted By admin on September 23, 2022

On Sunday morning, Sept. 18, the Adult Education Committee of Congregation Beth Israel welcomed Rabbi Stephen Leon, rabbi emeritus of Congregation Bnai Zion in El Paso, Texas. The Texas rabbi mesmerized local and area listeners on the Roots of the Sephardic Jews in Texas.

Historians often say that it is the victors who write the history, but they tell only half the story.

Within the first three weeks of his rabbinate in El Paso, in 1986, Rabbi Leon met with local Hispanics and others from the Mexican side of El Paso. Each person brought questions and interesting stories they learned from grandparents on their deathbeds. They wanted a rabbi to explain these stories to them. As the local residents were devoted Catholics, learning that having a Jewish member in their family history was unsettling to them.

Thus began Rabbi Leons search to learn about Conversos (or Anusim). With his guidance and assistance, he sought to help those who desired to seek a spiritual home and hopefully return to their Jewish roots.

During the presentation, organized by Ed Hersh, a member of the Adult Education Committee, Rabbi Leon explained that the purpose of the Spanish Inquisition was not to murder and eliminate the Jews, but rather to convert them to Catholicism. Tragically, thousands were killed for refusing to convert; many more left Spain and Portugal for safer environments. For those who stayed and converted, many religiously went underground to practice their Judaism while publicly masquerading as Catholics.

These new Catholics often were called Marranos, a derogatory term for swine.

Later in time, especially as the new Catholics escaped Spain for the New World where they could practice Judaism, they often were referred to as crypto Jews and today as Anusim, those who have been spiritually violated.

Many of the stories shared with Rabbi Leon are found in his book, The Third Commandment and the Return of the Anusim. Today, those of Spanish descent who are interested in exploring their historical Jewish heritage or who already have returned to Judaism have the support and security of the Anusim Center in El Paso. There, they learn and practice Judaism, not only in Spanish but also Ladino.

This year, the Anusim Center will conduct Rosh Hashanah services for the first time. The Center will be receiving a gift a Torah from a synagogue that is closing its own doors.

The feedback from the Sunday morning program was electric, as families in our community can trace themselves back to Sephardic Jewry. There is renewed interest in continuing these conversations and learning more about the Sephardic Jews of Texas.

For information about Beth Israels Adult Education programming, contact David Scott, director of Lifelong Learning and Engagement, at [emailprotected] or 713-771-6221. For information about the Anusim Center in El Paso, contact Rabbi Leon at 915-526-3693.

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Beth Israel explores 'Roots of the Sephardic Jews in Texas' - Jewish Herald-Voice

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Posted By admin on September 23, 2022

While a Rosh Hashanah meal in Aleppo may differ from one in Antwerp, most holiday meals will have these traditional Jewish food items: matzo ball soup, gefilte fish, round challah (representing the cycle of the year), and a meat dish usually brisket, roasted chicken or fish. In addition, a balabusta (a Yiddish word for someone who knows their way around a kitchen) with a Sephardic background may also serve Ash-e-Reshteh, a Persian noodle and bean soup, or a tricolor Moroccan salad.

London-based restaurateur and cookbook author Yotam Ottolenghi's Middle Eastern roots are evident in his holiday dishes: roast chicken with saffron, hazelnuts, honey, and sea bass with harissa and rose. (Vegetarians can swap out meat for tofu or jackfruit.) Raised in Israel by Italian-Jewish and German-Jewish parents, Ottolenghi admits his Middle-Eastern cooking style along with his creative flair inspire his Rosh Hashanah menu more than his family's European traditions. His holiday meal, perEpicurious, includes eggplant, sweet potato, and figs, mograbiah (a Lebanese couscous) with oven-dried tomatoes, and apple and olive oil cake with maple cream cheese icing.

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Why Rosh Hashanah Meals Are Different Anywhere You Go - Mashed

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Posted By admin on September 23, 2022

Doesnt the Rosh Hashanah seder look fun, fresh and appetizing? Just ignore the fish head glaring at you from the middle. Courtesy of iStock

By Mira FoxSeptember 22, 2022

Everyone knows about the Passover Seder. But did you know that Jews eat symbolic meals for lots of holidays including Rosh Hashanah?

The custom is most common among Sephardic or Mizrahi communities, but its been embraced by Jews of all backgrounds in recent years. It features a full plate of fruits and vegetables, each of which represents wishes or blessings for the new year.

Some of the symbolism springs from the foods shape or color but a lot of the meaning behind this ancient Talmudic tradition springs from puns made between the fruit or vegetables Hebrew and Aramaic name and another word.

That means it can be pretty hard to remember what means what on the plate. But dont let that stop you from guessing in the quiz below even if you might need to be a Talmud scholar to get 100%. Ill give you a hint: As with many traditions springing from ancient times, theres an emphasis on smiting enemies. But if the quiz inspires you to create a Seder plate of your own, feel free to reinterpret the symbolism; its Jewish tradition, after all.

And if you realize, after taking these quizzes, that you need to brush up on your knowledge before you head to shul or a holiday meal or youre just curious to know more take a look at some of our guides to the holidays below. Or try our other high holiday quizzes, on holiday greetingshere and basic High Holiday trivia here.

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What foods are in a Rosh Hashanah Seder? Take our quiz to find out - Forward

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Posted By admin on September 23, 2022

Two years ago, Savion Raz moved from northern Israel to the most expensive neighborhood in the most expensive city in the world, Tel Aviv. She rents an apartment with her partner in one of the 11 towers that make up Park Tsameret, a kind of luxury oasis that once attracted model Bar Refaeli and diamond magnate Beny Steinmetz. She pays 15,000 shekels (about $4,365) for four rooms. It is one of the cheap ones. Others reach 60,000 shekels, she says. She and her partner earn three times what they pay in rent. We live here because we can afford it. We are not millionaires, but we are not middle class either, she admits, almost blushing while walking her dog. In Tel Aviv, in any case, everything is much more expensive.

Five kilometers south, a sign advertises haircuts for about 7 in a tiny barbershop decorated with stickers from Shas, the ultra-Orthodox Sephardic party. I lowered the price during the coronavirus, and I have not dared to touch it. Here it is difficult for people to make ends meet, and if I raised it again it would be noticed, explains the owner. Sasson Mizrahi, who has spent 30 of his 56 years of life in the area, says that in 2018 he paid 582 for rent. Now he pays 1,455. When asked how he can afford the rent hike with reduced prices, he replies: God help me, everything depends on him.

The neighborhood is called Hatikva Quarter, the Hebrew word for hope. It harbors just the opposite. In its small houses, some of which appear abandoned, live a mix of immigrants, Mizrahi Jews originally from the Middle East and North Africa who settled there decades ago, and young couples fleeing gentrification. It is one of the poorest areas of a city in which about 42,400 inhabitants, 10% of its population, have at least $1 million in investible assets, according to a report released last Tuesday by the consulting firm Henley & Partners, based in London. In the Middle East, only Dubai has more millionaires than Tel Aviv.

The World Cost of Living Index published by The Economist Intelligence Unit, a subsidiary of the British weekly The Economist, declared Tel Aviv the most expensive city in the world for the first time last year, after surpassing Hong Kong, Paris, Zurich, Singapore and Osaka. The scale compares the prices of goods and services in 173 cities, which, in Tel Aviv, registered a 3.5% increase in 2021, the largest rise in five years.

In an ordinary supermarket, a yogurt goes for at least $1 and a kilo of rice for $3. A small sea bream starts at around $20. In restaurants, the cheapest glass of wine is rarely less than $10. The average price of an apartment already exceeds $1.1 million, and transportation costs rose by 21% in 2021.

Tel Avivs spot on the list is misleading, however, because the index is calculated in dollars, and the shekel is very strong. This crushes the pockets of expatriates who earn in foreign currency or tourists who change money upon arrival, but the average Israeli does not notice it on a day-to-day basis.

It is an incorrect calculation, emphasizes the president of the Taub Center for Social Policy Studies in Israel, Avi Weiss, in a telephone conversation. There is no doubt that Israel is an expensive country, for reasons of lack of competition, and it does not help that it is a small country. But Tel Aviv is not the most expensive city in the world, he adds, before noting that the north and south of Israels economic heartland are two different cities.

Analysts tend to agree that Israel, with 9.5 million inhabitants, is so expensive because some sectors function as oligopolies, due to protectionist policies inherited from the countrys socialist origins which make imports difficult and increase prices. The liberalization that began in the 1980s concentrated resources in the hands of a few families. National producers today hardly have reasons to compete via price or quality.

It is also one of the most unequal developed economies, due to the gap between the standard of living that separates, at one end, the inhabitants of the coastal strip north of Tel Aviv where investment in the high-tech sector and funds from the Jewish diaspora are concentrated and, on the other hand, Palestinians with Israeli citizenship (a fifth of the population, treated as second-class citizens) and ultra-Orthodox Jews. The latter are poorly integrated into the labor market and make up almost 13% of the population. According to the 2022 report from the Global Inequality Laboratory at the Paris School of Economics, the richest 10% in Israel earn 19 times more than the bottom 50%. There are levels of inequality similar to those of the United States.

Tel Aviv was the center of the largest social protest in the countrys history. In 2011, a young Israeli girl fed up with rent prices, Dafni Lif, camped out on Rothschild Boulevard and set up a Facebook group. The initiative caught on, with massive demonstrations and a massive encampment for social justice inspired by the Spanish anti-austerity movement known as 15-M, which had taken place shortly before. The then-Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, managed to defuse the demonstration with announcements of reforms and the creation of a committee whose key recommendations were never carried out. Last June, there was an attempt to reissue it in various parts of the country, but it did not come to fruition.

According to a survey released last month, 44% of Israelis will decide how to cast their vote at the upcoming November 1 election (the fifth in the three years) based on a given partys plan to reduce the rising cost of living. Inflation, which reached 4.6% in August, is more controlled than in Europe and the US, although July saw the largest increase in decades (5.2%). Housing costs continue to be the biggest headache: they have risen 17.9% in one year.

Back at Park Tsameret, Noy Sivan Cohen, a 34-year-old mother, runs a flower shop at the entrance to the mall. She makes little more than the $2,000 she and her partner pay to rent a four-bedroom house in the town of Herzliya, about 10 kilometers away. She is aware that she lives better than most of her fellow citizens, but still does not have enough money to move to Tel Aviv, where she would be closer to her work.

It is not easy to live here. I live, but I cant save. If I allow myself any trip, it is to Sinai, she says, referring to the neighboring and much cheaper Egyptian peninsula popular with Israelis. Lately, I have the feeling that in the supermarket I select basic things, such as sugar, milk and vegetables, and I end up paying $145 without understanding how. And thats not even mentioning restaurant prices, she laments, standing in front of an optician that offers glasses for the equivalent of $3,000 and next to a convenience store that sells roast beef with mustard sauce and cream for $100.

In both Park Tsameret and Hatikva, the real estate signs are in English. The former area caters to Jews from other countries who have capital and want to emigrate or own property in Israel. The latter is targeted at migrants from Eritrea, the Philippines, Sudan, Sri Lanka or Colombia, who usually cannot read Hebrew. They are 100% of the clients of a tiny real estate agency on the main avenue, owned by David (he prefers to omit his last name). The smallest house, at 20 square meters, rents for 785, and the largest, at 50 square meters, is priced at about 1,454. He admits that he charges them more than the Israelis because they do not have a guarantor to back them up, but they accept it: they end up paying less by sharing the house among a good number of people.

One of those tenants is 50-year-old Futuwi Habtemichael. He explains without a hint of complaint that he works in construction 12 hours a day, with only one day off each week. Im very happy. Each hour is 11.5. And I am not in Eritrea, where there is only conflict and they would give me a ridiculous amount for this, he says as some roosters cross the street. If Tel Aviv is so expensive, it is because there is money here.

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Tel Aviv: The other face of the most expensive city in the world - EL PAS USA

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Posted By admin on September 23, 2022

BSDVolume 36, No. 5028 Elul 5782September 24, 2022

Sponsored bythe Greengart and Lerman familiesin memory of their fatherZvi ben Ben Zion ah (Harry Greengart)

Nancy & David Broth and Rona & Aaron Lernerin memory of their motherElinor Cohn ah

Manny and Loretta Sadwinon the yahrzeit of her fatherAlter Eliezer Yitzchak ben Litman ah

The Shemittah year is about to end. R Mordechai Eliyahu zl (1929-2010; Sephardic Chief Rabbi of Israel) writes: I have long wondered why the commentators devote more effort to discovering the reasons for the Mitzvah of Shemittah than those of other Mitzvot. He explains:

The Gemara (Sanhedrin 39a) says: Why is there Shemittah? Hashem said to Yisrael, Plant for six years and rest for one, so that you will know that the land is Mine. Rashi explains that when a person finds his sustenance even while he observes the Shemittah, he is forced to learn the lesson that the land is Hashems and that a persons strength neither adds to nor detracts from the outcome of mans work. Says R Eliyahu: Since it appears that one of the very purposes of Shemittah is that we derive lessons from observing it, it certainly makes sense that commentators devote their energies to expanding upon those lessons. (Approbation to Taama dShviata)

R Avraham Yitzchak Kook zl (1865-1935; Ashkenazic Chief Rabbi of Eretz Yisrael) offers this lesson of Shemittah: Man has many innate spiritual qualities that are too subtle to show in the relatively rough-and-tumble workaday world. Fortunately, he notes, Hashem gave man one day a week to unwind, one day when, freed from the rat race, his spirituality can come to the fore. That day is Shabbat.

What Shabbat is to the individual, continues R Kook, the Shemittah is to the nation. For six years, man toils to build his business, to cultivate his land, and to work his staff. In such an environment, there is little room left in a persons thoughts for the rest of his nation, particularly the down-trodden and helpless. Then comes the Shemittahloans are forgiven, slaves are freed, and the gates of the orchards and fields, which before had been so jealously guarded, are thrown wide open for whomever comes. Stripped of competition and subjugation, both the nation and the land can show their true spirituality. (Shabbat Haaretz, Introduction)

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You are standing today, all of you, before Hashem, your Elokim the heads of your tribes, your elders, and your officers all the men of Yisrael; your small children, your women, and your convert who is in the midst of your camp, from the hewer of your wood to the drawer of your water. (29:9-10)

R Nosson Sternhartz zl (1780-1845; foremost student of R Nachman of Breslov zl) writes: Before Moshe Rabbeinu died, he gave the Torah anew to all Jews on all levels. In every generation, every Jew, whoever he is, whatever level he is on, can succeed by placing himself under the Torahs protection. (Likkutei Halachot: Shiluach Haken 4:13)

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For this commandment that I command you today it is not hidden from you and it is not distant. (30:11)

R Chanoch Henach ben Avraham zl (R Chanoch Darshan; Poland and Central Europe; died 1663) writes: The straightforward meaning of this verse is that Teshuvah, which was mentioned in the preceding verses, is not beyond a persons reach.

He continues: We read in Parashat Yitro (Shmot 19:5), And now, if you listen well to Me. . . Rashi zl comments: Every beginning is difficult, but if you take upon yourselves now the observance of My commandments, they will be pleasing to you from now on. This, too, teaches that Teshuvah and good deeds are not beyond a persons reach. If one only takes the initiative, the process will be pleasant.

R Chanoch notes several related teachings of our Sages: We read in Shir Hashirim (5:2), Open up to Me, My sister. The Midrash comments on these words: If you open an opening for Me [Hashem] like the point of a needle, I will open an opening for you wide enough for wagons to pass through. This, writes R Chanoch, also is meant to teach how easy Teshuvah is. In addition, it alludes to the Gemaras statement (Sukkah 52a) that a person cannot defeat the Yetzer Hara without Divine assistance. Therefore, all that is expected from us is to begin the process (open an opening like the point of a needle) and Hashem will do the rest (open an opening wide enough for wagons to pass through).

In light of the above, R Chanoch continues, we can understand another statement on the same page of the Tractate Sukkah. The Gemara states that, in the future, the Yetzer Hara will be slaughtered in front of the righteous and the wicked. To the wicked, the Yetzer Hara will appear as small and flimsy as a hair, and they will be despondent that they did not put in the small amount of effort needed to defeat it. To the righteous, however, the Yetzer Hara will appear as a tall mountain and, says the Gemara, they will cry and wonder, How were we able to conquer such a thing? [Until here from the Gemara]

Why will the righteous cry? R Chanoch explains that the righteous will realize that the Yetzer Hara was too big for them to conquer on their own, and it was Hashem who helped them do so. Accordingly, the righteous will think that they will not be rewarded for their efforts, and they will cry. The reality, however, is that Hashem is so kind that He rewards us as if we conquered the Yetzer Hara on our own. (Reishit Bikkurim)

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See I have placed before you today the life and the good, and the death and the evil. . . I have placed life and death before you, blessing and curse; and you shall choose life, so that you will live, you and your offspring. (30:15, 19)

Our Sages explain that G-d is telling us, This life is the good portion. Choose it!

If G-d has made the choice so clear, asks R Yehuda Ashlag zl (1886-1954), do we really have a choice? He explains:

We are often too harried to make good choices. When our Sages say that G-d directs us toward the correct choice, they meant that, from time-to-time, G-d gives us a break from the rat race and allows us the peace of mind to see clearly what is right. However, it remains up to us to use that opportunity to make good choices. (Hakdamah LTalmud Eser Sefirot)

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During the year now ending, we discussed some of the laws and concepts of Shemittah, including some of the leniencies built into those lawsfor example, the concept of Prozbul discussed last week. Many of the leniencies in the laws of Shemittah are possible only because the observance of Shemittah is only a rabbinic Mitzvah in our times, when the majority of Jews do not live in Eretz Yisrael.

Why, wonders R Shaul Yisraeli zl (1909-1995; Rosh Yeshiva of Yeshivat Mercaz Harav), did the Sages bother? Why did they instruct us to observe Shemittah on a rabbinic level and then devise ways to circumvent that rabbinic laws requirements? For example, why did the Sages prohibit farming during Shemittah in our times and then permit leniencies such as the Otzar Bet Din or the sale of the Land to be used to farm (the Hetter Mechirah, which some authorities recognize)? By the same token, why did Hillel the Elder devise the Prozbol to allow lenders to collect their loans after the Shemittah? True, Hillel was responding to the fact that people were not making loans. But, instead of allowing us to use what appear to be loopholes to circumvent the rabbinic Mitzvah of forgiving loans, why didnt the Sages simply abolish the rabbinic Mitzvah of forgiving loans altogether (since the Mitzvah does not apply today on a Torah level, as we have explained)?

Another question: Even if selling the Land or using a Prozbol is Halachically permitted, R Yisraeli wonders, is it the right thing to do?

R Yisraeli offers two answers: First, Kabbalists teach that a person who does an action which the Torah prohibits sullies his soul. The Torah prohibits a Jew from working his land during the Shemittah year. Working ones land during the Shemittah is, to put it simply, a bad thing. Even if the prohibition does not apply technically because the laws of Shemittah are not applicable today, the fact remains that it is the Shemittah year and the Jewish farmer is doing an actworking his landwhich is prohibited.

In contrast, the Torah did not prohibit working a gentiles land during the Shemittah [according to some authorities]. Thus, if a Jew sells his land for the yearnot as a legal fiction, but sincerelyhe is permitted to work that land during Shemittah. The sale is not merely a leniency; it actually creates a spiritual reality. Similarly, the Otzar Bet Din and the Prozbol allow a person to observe the law in some form rather than saying that it simply does not apply.

Second, an important rule in Halachic decision-making is to preserve the Torah-law to the extent possible. Rather than saying that a set of lawsfor example, Shemittahwill have no application at all if we cannot observe them on a Torah-level, it is preferable to enact a rabbinic law that preserves a memory of the Mitzvah. That way, both during the era when we do not perform the Mitzvah, and later, when it is time to begin performing the Mitzvah again, we will remember that the Mitzvah exists.

Our Sages teach: One must always ask himself, When will my deeds reach those of my forefathers? This includes the obligation to yearn to perform the Mitzvot that our ancestors observed but which we cannot observe. Shemittah in its fullest form is such a Mitzvah [may we soon merit to perform it fully]. (Maamar Shemittah Bmahalach Hadorot)

Read more from the original source:

Farewell to the Shemittah! Torah.org - Torah.org

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