Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By admin on September 4, 2022

Italian-Jewish businessman Daniele da Norsa removed the outdoor painting of Madonna and Child, triggering a terrible series of consequences.

When the successful Italian-Jewish businessman Daniele da Norsa purchased a handsome new home in Mantua, Italy, he knew it would need at least one delicate upgrade: the painting of Madonna and Child would have to be removed before they could move into the house on the corner of the Piazzetta di San Simone.

He respectfully asked the Bishop of the northern Italian city for permission to paint over the fresco, and only when he received written approval did he efface the Christian painting from the facade of his new home. The year was 1493, only months after the catastrophic expulsion of the Jews from Spain and the renewed assertion of Church hegemony with the Catholic Reformation, and the da Norsa family would come to learn that the renovations to their new home would ultimately cost far more than their original purchase price.

#Despite official permission from the Bishop, the notion that a Jew would remove a public outdoor painting of Mary offended the local population.

The notion that a Jew would remove a public outdoor painting of Mary offended the local population, regardless of the official permission granted by the Bishop. In the place where the Madonna once looked out onto the square, graffiti denouncing the da Norsa family soon appeared. Antisemitic agitation escalated dramatically in May of 1495, when participants in a Christian religious procession claimed to have seen blasphemous counter-graffiti on the same wall, and a minor riot ensued with locals hurling rocks at the da Norsa home.

Daniele once again wrote for official protection, this time to Francesco Gonzaga, the Marquis of Mantua, and by June da Norsa was in receipt of an official note confirming that he was authorized to remove the original image, and that stoning his house constituted a forbidden violation of public order.

Unfortunately, that latter note was signed by Isabelle dEste, the consort of the Marquis, as Gonzaga himself was out of Mantua involved in a military conflict. When the Marquis heard of the incident two weeks later, he reversed her decision, and instead ordered da Norsa to pay 110 gold ducats to commission a new portrait of the Madonna to replace the original fresco. Furthermore, the replacement painting would include a depiction of the Marquis himself as a holy warrior, smiling beatifically at Mary while wearing his full battle armor.

Francesco Gonzaga, detail of Andrea Mantegna, Madonna della Vittoria, c. 1499. Source: Wikimedia commons.

The resultant image by Andrea Mantegna, despite the obvious propagandistic elements, is considered a masterpiece. After Napoleon invaded Mantua in the late eighteenth century, the image was seized and taken to the Louvre Museum in Paris, where it hangs today.

But Gonazaga was not yet done with the da Norsa family. Stinging from his own military reversals and sensitive to negative public opinion, he recognized the benefit of deflecting popular anger onto the wealthy Jewish family. He therefore declared that Daniele would have to forfeit his home, which would be completely destroyed and a church built in its place. Today the plot of land once owned by the da Norsas is occupied by the Church of Santa Maria della Vittoria, built in 1496.

Santa Maria della Vittoria church, Mantua. Source: Wikimedia Commons.

Professor Dana Katz, an art historian at Reed College, notes that the final element in the entire saga of the persecution of the da Norsa family is completed with yet another less well-known image, also painted by a member of the Mantegna school. Sometimes titled The Madonna of the Jews, it was also hung in the Santa Maria della Vittoria church, creating a thematic pair: one image shamelessly lionizing the Marquis, and the other humiliating the Jewish family that was forced to pay for the privilege. Rare for Christian art of the period, several members of the Da Norsa family are depicted at the bottom of the painting.

At the bottom of the painting, Isaac da Norsa, his mother, his father Daniele and Isaacs wife. La Madonna degli Ebrei. Source: Amici di Palazzo Te e Dei Musei Mantovani.

The expressions are realistic, and they are likely accurate: contemporaries would have recognized the da Norsas and understood their humiliating portrayal. Daniele and his son Isaac look directly at the viewer, while Danieles wife and Isaacs wife demurely turn their gaze downwards. They seem resigned to their fate, inwardly seething at the punishment they have received but unable to respond otherwise.

Detail of La Madonna degli Ebrei. Isaac da Norsa, his mother and his father Daniele.

Both men prominently wear the ruota, or wheel, the Jewish badge imposed on many European Jews after the Fourth Lateran Council of 1215 (ironically, this is not a realistic detail: as with many wealthy Jewish families, the da Norsas had arranged for personal exemptions from the humiliating badge). Their hats are yellow and red, two colors frequently required for Jewish male headgear. The women, interestingly, are not shown wearing the ruota.

The denigration of the da Norsas is obvious to the casual viewer, but to ensure that the message is not lost, a tablet titles the image with the Latin phrase, Debilatta Haebraeorum Temeritate The Temerity of the Jews is Debilitated, or in more colloquial terms, the Jewish chutzpah is ended.

What chutzpah? Evidently, the chutzpah to expect that the da Norsas might expect fair treatment from their local government in the charged atmosphere of late 15th century Europe.

Sources for further reading:

On the Da Norsa image, see also Don Harrn, The Jewish nose in early modern art and music, Renaissance Studies 28:1 (2013) https://www.academia.edu/5624336/Jewish_Nose

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Denigration: A Tragic Story of Jews in Art from the Late Renaissance - aish.com - Aish.com

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Posted By admin on September 4, 2022

(JTA) As a Modern Orthodox rabbi who works at a Jewish day school in Montreal, Sorin Rosen knows his way around a prayer book. But that wasnt always the case.

I remember when I was a kid, and I started going to synagogue, I probably kept my siddur upside down for three months until someone said, Hey, look, this is how it works, Rosen recalled about an experience he had as a teenager in his native Romania.

Now, Rosen has created a historic tool to help Jews like that younger version of himself: the first-ever Romanian-language chumash, or text of the Torah. Tora si Haftarot, which is both translated and transliterated into Romanian, is being unveiled at a ceremony Sunday at Bucharests Choral Temple meant to celebrate both the book itself and Rosens seven-year effort to bring it into the world.

I anticipated it would be a long project. I didnt expect it to take that long, but I was prepared to make a long-term commitment, Rosen told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. Its something that was always close to my heart. I felt that if I can help people avoid that stage [of not knowing how to participate in Jewish practices] and facilitate their engagement, the endeavor was worthwhile.

Rosen was chief rabbi of Romania by age 29. (Courtesy of Rabbi Sorin Rosen)

Rosens translation is his gift to a Jewish community he once led but ultimately decided he had to leave. Born in Bucharest to a Jewish father and Eastern Orthodox mother, Rosen got involved in Jewish life as a teenager, ultimately becoming the countrys head rabbi after graduating from Yeshivat Chovevei Torah, a Modern Orthodox seminary in New York City, in 2007. (He underwent a formal conversion to Judaism in Israel in 2000.) He was Romanias first Modern Orthodox head rabbi and, at 29, the youngest chief rabbi in Europe.

But after serving out a three-year contract, Rosen and his wife set their sights on living somewhere with a more robust Jewish community. They headed to Montreal, where both work in education technology and the family has integrated into the citys thriving Orthodox community.

As my kids were approaching school age, I wanted to be able to give them choices and opportunities for Jewish education, Rosen said. Unfortunately, Romania is struggling in this department.

Romania was once a center of Jewish life, with a Jewish population of about 800,000 before the Holocaust. Its antisemitic regime murdered almost all of the Jews in some parts of the country early on, but ultimately a majority of the countrys Jews survived before leaving for Israel or elsewhere in the second half of the 20th century, when Romania was unusual among Communist countries for allowing Jews to emigrate freely. Today, fewer than 10,000 Jews are estimated to live in Romania.

I suspect the number is much closer to about 5,000, Rosen said, noting that Romanian Jews tend to be secular in orientation and many have married non-Jews. He added, The community members are, for the most part, very dedicated to Judaism; participating in Jewish holidays and community events and trying to keep the flame alight.

Now, they will have Tora si Haftarot as a tool to help them, joining several other Romanian-language translations of Jewish texts that Rosen has produced over the last decade.

The chumash stands out in a number of ways: Although there are several Romanian translations of the Hebrew Bible, all are from a Christian lens. This is the first Jewish Romanian translation, and it features not only Hebrew text but also phonetic transliteration of the entire text in the Latin alphabet. There are also roughly 4,000 short explanations and annotations based on such classical Jewish commentators as Rashi and Ibn Ezra and texts including the Midrash and the Talmud.

For the community in Romania this is a phenomenal thing, said Rosen. For as much as they may want to be involved Jewishly, many dont know how to read Hebrew. Or if they do, their Hebrew skills are quite poor.

While the entire project spanned seven years from ideation to completion, Rosen performed most of the work during the pandemic. He translated, transliterated and formatted the content singlehandedly, then enlisted his wife, Livia, and Montreal friends Mihnea Guttman and Bobby Shaul as editors. Once the book was press-ready, Rosen raised $13,000 in a few days via a GoFundMe campaign, enabling him to print 700 copies, a few hundred of which he has distributed as a donation to Jewish communities throughout Romania. Proceeds from sales of the rest are earmarked for reprints and similar projects.

Honestly, though of course I believed in the project, I did not expect such a show of support, said Rosen, who ultimately netted more than $17,000 in donations from more than 100 individual donors. The knowledge that I was part of that and that my project enabled people to contribute to such a worthy and meaningful cause is truly amazing.

About 250 people are expected to attend the official launch of Tora si Haftarot on Sunday, which Rosen will attend remotely from Montreal. He will speak briefly alongside Romanian Jewish community leaders, who say they see the chumash as a crucial tool for engaging their constituents.

Rabbi Rosen has provided us with an invaluable gift of Torah, for which our community is very appreciative, said Eduard Kupferberg, secretary general of the Federation of Jewish Communities in Romania. With the publishing of the first-ever Romanian Chumash, we take another step in ensuring the Jewish future of our community and in keeping the Jewish flame alive in the consciousness and soul of our members.

While Rosens chumash has been the biggest and most complicated project hes undertaken to date, it is far from the first work hes produced for the Romanian Jewish community. In 2001 he published a translated and transliterated Birkon Shabbat, a booklet containing Sabbath- and festival-related blessings and songs. That was followed by a Purim megillah (Book of Esther) and Passover haggadah in 2003 (a second edition was published in 2021) and the Lemaan Achai prayer book in 2011.

Rabbi Rosens siddur opened the gates of prayer to those who cannot fluently read Hebrew and became the standard prayer book for the Romanian Jewish Community, as well as for countless other Romanian-speaking Jews, said Rabbi Rafael Shaffer, Romanias head rabbi. In the same vein, the chumash translated by Rabbi Rosen deserves to become the standard translation of the Torah for all Romanian-speaking Jews, wherever they may be.

Having amassed enough funds to print only 700 copies of Tora si Haftarot, Rosen is eager to raise more money to print a second edition, which he says will include edits from the first.

Theres no such thing as a perfect translation, he said. Its just impossible. The moment you start translating, you automatically start interpreting. And were human; we make mistakes. Theres a typo here, a mistranslation there. On my website I will invite people to point out any edits they deem necessary which will be considered for the second edition.

Launched in 2001, Rosens Romanian-language website contains hundreds of his commentaries on the weekly Torah portion, the Amidah prayer that is central to Jewish liturgy and other texts, as well as close to 500 answers to Jewish questions posed by visitors. The sites associated mailing list has over 1,000 subscribers of all denominations.

Rosen isnt stopping yet. My plan is, God willing, to translate the entire Tanakh, he said, referring to the expanded Hebrew Bible that also includes historical writings, books of prophecy and much more. Hes already working on a High Holiday prayer book, or machzor, in collaboration with Shaffer, a book of psalms and more.

For now, though, he is taking a moment to appreciate the texts that are already changing the way Romanian Jews engage with their tradition.

I feel joy and gratitude to Hashem [God] and to my friends and supporters for being able to complete this work, and I feel humbled by the amazing support and encouragement I received, Rosen said. Im elated that it came to light, so that it can be useful and hopefully bring some meaning and Jewish spark into the lives of so many. I strongly feel that if even one person is going to be inspired by this, its worthwhile.

Correction: This story originally misstated the year of Sorin Rosens rabbinic ordination and other biographical details. It has been corrected.

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This Romanian rabbi spent 7 years translating the Torah into Romanian even though he moved away - JTA News - Jewish Telegraphic Agency

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Posted By admin on September 4, 2022

A few weeks ago, the creators of The Patientdefended their decisionto cast the non-Jewish Steve Carell as a Jewish therapist. Having just binged all 10 episodes of the FX thriller, I can see why.

Im not going to weigh in on who should play Jewish, except to say that Carell gives a powerful and credible performance. I will come out to declare this one of the most Jewish shows to grace this era of prestige TV.

Its more Jewish than The Shrink Next Door, which saw Carells Anchorman costars Paul Rudd and Will Ferrell honored with an aliyah.

Is it Jew-ier than The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel? I dont remember Midge saying the entire kaddish. Or imagining herself in the barracks of Auschwitz. Or, in a tense moment of recognizable coreligionist prejudice, dismissing Orthodox Judaism as a cult. Lets call it a possible tie.

Joel Fields and Joe Weisbergs show, which debuts Aug. 30 on Hulu, doesnt have a particularly Jewish premise. In it, Carell, as Dr. Alan Strauss, finds himself in a situation not unlike the one depicted in the film Misery. Only in this case, the Kathy Bates part is a young man named Sam (Domhnall Gleeson), a serial killer hoping to curb his homicidal urges by holding Alan hostage in his basement to continue therapy.

Carells character neednt have been Jewish, and initially he wasnt. Fields and Weisberg said the decision was made later to add specificity and depth to their drama. The show is excellent and tense and largely achieves that depth, but finds it in a familiar place: the arena of fathers and sons. It works, but is less interesting territory than the conflict between Jew and non-Jew that it often seems to be teasing.

While Sam and Alans sessions make up the bulk of the shows early episodes, theyre soon replaced by Alans grappling with his strained relationship with his son, Ezra (Andrew Leeds), who became Orthodox (I think Chabad, though its never specified) during college. Through Alans flashbacks, we see the effect Ezras choice had on his mother, Beth (Laura Niemi), a cantor for a Reform shul. Beth lashes out, bristling at the rules Ezras denomination has about women and insisting on singing at his Orthodox wedding, causing a scandal.

In an unforgivable show of favoritism that keeps replaying in Alans mind, Beth serves ice cream to their daughters non-Orthodox children after dinner as Ezra and his sons look on. Ezra and Alan lock eyes, their pain palpable. Incredibly, the show doesnt explain what is happening. Gentiles unhip to the amount of timekashrut requires between meat and dairy courses might well be confused or think that ice cream is somehow off limits for the Orthodox. The show doesnt care, trusting that a savvy viewer will fill in the blanks. And its right to.

For all its Jewish bona fides a soundtrack that includes Leonard Cohen, Debbie Friedman and Dodi Li, casual deployments of terms like Ben Torah and Kibud Av VEm,a dream sequence with Viktor Frankl and theKabbalistic notion that were all broken vessels the show seems to be driving at a subtler Jewish theme to which it isnt quite ready to commit.

At the close of the first episode, Sam tells Alan he met with three different Jewish therapists, and chose him to be his captive. The line is a kind of tell. Sam, who is non-Jewish and working-class, has internalized stereotypes about Jews. If he needed an accountant, Ive no doubt hed be hunting for synagogue treasurers.

Sam doesnt seem to be an antisemitehe even attempts the kaddish later onbut his identification and selection of Alan as a Jew jolts their dynamic with a crueler subtext. Alan engages with epigenetic fears. He imagines himself in the gas chamber, the sunken eyes ofprisoners from the little campat Buchenwald staring at him. Its not clear if Alan is a descendant of victims or survivors, though its maybe a logical place for his mind to go as he is chained to a bed and at the mercy of a young killer.

But the borderline sensationalism of these Shoah sequences, shot in black-and-white, feels easy compared to the flashes we get of Alans own experience. Left alone for long stretches, the doctor free-associates. He recalls a patient saying she never went to a Jewish funeral. Walking through a college campus, where he teaches, hes stopped in his tracks by a flyer: March against the radical Zionist agenda, the graphic for which is an Israeli flag with a swastika in the place of the Star of David.

If the marquee traumas of Alans life include estrangement from his son, Beths death from cancer and his forced therapy sessions with Sam, there is also the sideshow stressor of being a Jew among gentiles eager to other him. It may seem like a small thing, but, as we learn from Alans own reflections, those microaggressions have major power.

When Alan imagines a session with his dead therapist, Charlie (David Alan Grier), in a book-lined room (yeshiva shel maala, perhaps) it is the small interactions that lead to breakthroughs. Alan comes to realize that even a well-meaning compliment, for example telling his daughter-in-law she made the best kosher steak, was received as a slight. Unconsciously, Alan had been signaling that Ezras path was less legitimate, too fringe being just as rigid about how one should live his life.

With Alan and Ezras relationship, Weisberg and Fields, the latter of whom is the son of a rabbi, provide a father-son dynamic easily grasped by any audience, even if the specifics of the rift might seem obscure. (All viewers really need to know is that Ezra is, in Alans words, an extreme Jew and that Alan and his wife are not that kind.) Bubbling under the surface is a more urgent story that was maybe too niche, if, at least to Jews, far more universal, a kind of Jewish Get Out.

As it is, The Patient handles Jewish content well, giving us moments that feel authentic and dont deign to explain themselves and in the final reckoning does not at all vilify Orthodox Judaism as one might fear. But the deeper Jewish questions too often feel like Easter eggs in a montage of Oedipal jousting. Alan dreaming he is at Auschwitz is one thing. Recalling a synagogue shooting or thelikely fearshe had of Ezra becoming visibly Jewish, would be something else entirely.

Being a Jew in America isnt as dramatic or dire as being held hostage and fearing for ones life. But sometimes it is and, more often, it can feel like it.

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'The Patient' is a very Jewish TV show. Should it have been more so? J. - The Jewish News of Northern California

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Posted By admin on September 4, 2022

(JTA) Jewish prayer in a mosque. Hookah smoke in a kosher kitchen. Hebrew school study under portraits of ayatollahs.

When former Associated Press photographer Hassan Sarbakhshian spent almost two years between 2006 and 2008 among the Jewish communities in Iran, those are some of the images he collected for a book project. The photographs offer a rare look inside Jewish homes, synagogues and other spaces, which the Jewish community normally keeps fairly locked down to outsiders.

In Iran, a nation whose post-1979 revolution government regularly calls for the violent destruction of Israel, Jews are famously allowed to practice their religion freely and feel a strong connection to their country. There is a permanent Jewish representative in parliament.

But when Sarbakhshian submitted the book to Irans culture ministry for publication, he ran up against the countrys pervasive anti-Zionist culture.

The ministry argued that he was an agent of Israel promoting anti-Islamic values. They forced him out of working for the AP, and he eventually began to fear for his and wifes safety. He and his wife, Parvaneh Vahidmanesh, a journalist and human rights activist who was involved in the project, moved to Virginia.

Nearly 15 years after taking his last photos for the book, which will finally be published on Tuesday by Penn State University Press, Sarbakhshian still calls the project that led to the ordeal one of the best experiences of his life.

We traveled to more than 15 cities on a bus with [Iranian Jews]. We laughed with them, we ate with them. We lived with them, actually, he said.

The kitchen of a kosher restaurant in Isfahan. (Hassan Sarbakhsian)

As of 2020, there were 9,000 Jews living in Iran. Its a far cry from a pre-revolution peak Jewish population of around 100,000, but the country is still home to the Middle Easts second-largest Jewish population after Israel. Some of Sarbakhshians pictures almost look like they could have been taken in an American suburb: kids playing soccer, people having a picnic in the park, family members running around slapping each other with scallions.

But other photos in the book demonstrate Jews precarious status in a country that makes them continually pledge loyalty to the Muslim theocratic state. One shows a Jewish leader at a mosque attending a celebration of Quds Day, a day of pro-Palestinian rallies that often include Israel flag burnings and anti-Israel rhetoric.

Some of the images also give a modern context for key moments in Iranian Jewish history, including the time Iran provided refuge to Polish Jews fleeing the Holocaust, the time in 1999 when 13 Iranian Jews were falsely accused of spying for Israel and the history of the Dr. Sapir Hospital and Charity Center, a Jewish hospital that treated protesters before the revolution without alerting secret police. The hospital still operates today.

The books text is co-written by Vahidmanesh along with Penn State Jewish studies professor Lior Sternfeld.

I hope that we can do more than one book about this community, Sarbakhshian said.

In an interview, Sarbaskshian who now works for Voice of America spoke candidly about his project, how it came to be published and his hopes to return to Iran one day.

The conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

JTA: How did this book come to be?

HS: After President [Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad was elected in 2005, my press access was restricted. So I decided to just change my field from news to features, and cover all the minorities, not only the Jews but also Assyrians, Armenians and Christians.

But when Ahmedinejad denied the Holocaust, it was the best time for me to focus on this subject. The future was so unclear. I didnt know if it would be possible to publish in Iran or not. But definitely the goal, first, was publishing a book in Iran. Me and my wife, Parvaneh [Vahidmanesh, a journalist and human rights activist], decided to give this book to Irans Ministry of Culture, which you have to do if you want to publish anything in Iran. So we did that, and after a year, we started receiving accusations of being sponsored by Israel and creating propaganda against Islamic values. I was banned from working for the Associated Press. They revoked my press pass.

Haroun Yashayaei, the former head of Irans Jewish community, shown in center, attends a Muslim Friday prayer to show solidarity with the Palestinians. (Hassan Sarbakhsian)

So the book never got published in Iran, and we were forced to leave Iran and came to the U.S. Some cultural organizations here were interested in publishing the book, but it didnt happen until I met Lior [Sternfeld, a Jewish studies professor at Penn State University]. He was the main engine who took this project to Penn State.

Can you speak more about the challenges you faced working on this project?

As a Muslim, it was so difficult to gain the trust of the Jewish community. Its so weird to go deep into the very closed society they have. I completely understand and respect it, and I greatly appreciate their acceptance of what we covered because they trust us.

The other part of the challenge was the official part. The government runs the media and TV. Theres no private media. And everything connected with the Jewish community related easily to Israel. Israel is a complete red line; you cant do anything related to that. Everything related to the Jewish people in Iran is completely political. They deny any relations with Israel, but anything Jewish people do goes straight to that because of the regimes propaganda.

A Jewish carpet shop in the Tehran Grand Bazaar. (Hassan Sarbakhsian)

As a person who worked for foreign media in Iran, I had a good chance to access this community. Everywhere we went, we had to receive a letter from the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance. They sent it to the Jewish association, who could accept or deny access. Luckily, they accepted mine. But as I told you, as a local photographer in Iran, its difficult to break this wall. Its a really closed society, and I completely understand their concerns. But Im really glad we did it.

A lot of the photos you took take place in private settings like synagogues and peoples homes. How did you earn their trust, and what was that experience like?

Going behind the walls of Jewish peoples lives in Iran, its impossible for non-Jewish Iranians. Theres no way to go there. But I had been working as a photographer for the Associated Press, so I had taken photos of this community before, and my photos were seen by Jews in the U.S., Europe, Israel and more. So the community trusted me when feedback came through friends and family members whod seen my pictures. That was part of it.

On Passover in Tehran, no one is spared from dayenu action. (Hassan Sarbakhsian)

The second part was that we formed a friendship with them. Not me, mostly my wife. We went together to their houses. They invited us to their private parties, like weddings or gatherings. Whatever you see in this book, its based on the trust of each side. It was not easy. But we didnt just go once and then say goodbye. It was a 2-year project. We traveled to more than 15 cities on a bus with them. We laughed with them, we ate with them. We lived with them, actually. It was not like just come and take a picture and go. It was one of the best experiences of my life.

What was your favorite picture you took, and why?

I cannot go back to Iran unless theres a regime change. So all of the pictures are my favorite. Each of them.

But the most complex picture I took was in a praying room that belonged to Muslims. But because there are so many restrictions in Iran for Jewish people traveling there arent many kosher restaurants or synagogues they rented a Muslim prayer room. On the walls, there were Muslim signs and a picture of an imam. In the picture I took, Jews are preparing to pray. When I took that picture, I said, This is really a special picture.

On their way to visit the tomb of Esther and Mordechai in Hamedan, Jews stop to pray in a Muslim prayer room. (Hassan Sarbakhsian)

Also, I took a picture of two or three people from the Jewish association attending Friday prayer with the Muslims and listening to a Shia Muslim imam speaking. Its a bit strange. Sometimes, you cant believe what you see. But thats the reality in Iranian society.

What did you learn about Irans Jewish community while working on this project?

I didnt realize how many restrictions were placed on the Jewish community in Iran. When you are a minority and majority society, its not easy to live a normal life. Ive lived in the U.S. and Europe for more than a decade now. Im happy I have this experience, but Im not happy I had to leave Iran, because I wanted to continue this project in other communities too, not only in the Jewish community.

As boys play at school, portraits of ayatollahs loom overhead. (Hassan Sarbakhsian)

If I have a chance to go back to Iran, I definitely know what else I have to do. I will go deep and deep and deep again. When you are living in a society, you dont know what valuable things surround you. When you no longer have access to that, you understand how valuable things were that you didnt even notice. For example, the area I worked in was the center of Tehran, and many Jewish people had businesses there. I so regret not taking all of those pictures. I regret not talking to them. So if I have a chance to go back there, maybe I can do more. If I cannot, maybe the young people know what valuable things they have now and will go and cover those.

And you took photos from the Dr. Sapir Hospital and Charity Center in Tehran, which is funded and run by the Jewish community. Can you talk about the meaning behind that?

That hospital is something unique. It was created decades ago, and they dont ask your religion; you just go there and you can get treatment. I took a very complex photo of a Jewish doctor at that hospital holding a Muslim baby, born just a few hours earlier, in his hand. It means a lot to help people of your country when you dont know what will happen in the future.

A Jewish doctor holds a newborn Muslim baby at the Jewish-owned Dr. Sapir Hospital and Charity Center. (Hassan Sarbakhsian)

Sometimes, Jewish young people I talked to said they wanted to leave the country. I completely understand why: because you cant get high job opportunities in government administration no way. But returning to your question, the hospital is amazing. They trust people, and people trust them also. Jews work together with Muslims, not only in the hospital but in other places, too, like the bazaar in Tehran. But, of course, they never go to each others houses, though maybe they do and I just dont know about it.

What do you hope that readers will gain from this book?

I hope they see this book as an example of Iranian society, not only Jewish people. I see myself in this book. I see every Iranian in this book. These people are facing restrictions, but they still say, We are Iranian. Of course, this book is about the Iranian Jewish community. But for me, its a little bit more. Its reading about Iranian history and how complex the society is. I see, in each of these pictures, each Iranian who is forced to live outside of Iran, even though these people are inside Iran. Ive lived for more than a decade in exile as a minority in a completely different society in Europe and the U.S. I traveled in Israel, too. I saw many similarities between Iran and Israel, and many differences.

As of the taking of this photograph in 2007, Shamsi was one of three Jews who live in the Ezra Jacob Synagogue in Tehran. (Hassan Sarbakhsian)

I hope that we can do more than one book about this community. I didnt see this kind of book about the Iranian Jewish people, unfortunately. I dont know why it didnt happen before maybe because of all the restrictions. People cannot travel easily to cover these communities. Foreign people go only five days, one week, two weeks maximum, and then they leave the country. Thats why we need to record all the documents for history. This is about history. This is about all people who suffer.

What similarities did you see between Iran and Israel?

There are hardliners on both sides, people who dont respect other people, dont listen to you and still believe whatever they believe. But you also see people who are really open-minded in both societies. Theres two different things: one, people, and the other thing, governments. We need to put a sharp line between these things. Those governments have such different visions against each other, but they both have restrictions on their people. Of course, Israel is a democracy, but I see the restrictions.

Jewish girls demonstrate for peace in Tehran. (Hassan Sarbakhsian)

I actually produced a 20-minute documentary from my trip to Israel [in Farsi, with no subtitles]. I spoke with a Jewish girl whod never even lived in Iran, whose parents traveled from Iran to Israel, and shes facing discrimination in Israel. Or the man in his 60s who says, as soon as he wants to speak Hebrew, because of his Eastern accent, they dont accept him. This discrimination is unbelievable for me because that society is based on religion. Unfortunately, in the past 43 years, we see the disconnection between societies. Before, it was not like that. There are many facilities Israeli people built in Iran. At the same time, there are many Iranian Israelis living and working in Israel now. These two nations are so connected, but for the past 43 years, misunderstanding has created a disconnection.

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He captured rare images of Jewish life in Iran. Then he fled, fearing for his safety. - JTA News - Jewish Telegraphic Agency

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Posted By admin on September 4, 2022

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Yael Eckstein, IFCJ President and CEO, oversees all ministry programs and serves as the international spokesperson for the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews.

Prior to her present duties, Yael served as Global Executive Vice President, Senior Vice President, and Director of Program Development and Ministry Outreach. Based in Israel with her husband and their four children, Yael is a published writer and a respected social services professional.

Yael Eckstein has contributed to The Jerusalem Post, The Times of Israel, Newsweek, and other publications, and is the author of three books: Generation to Generation: Passing on a Legacy of Faith to Our Children, Holy Land Reflections: A Collection of Inspirational Insights from Israel, and Spiritual Cooking with Yael. In addition, her insights into life in Israel, the Jewish faith, and Jewish-Christian relations can be heard on The Fellowships radio programs, as well as on her two podcasts: Nourish Your Biblical Roots, and Conversations with Yael.

Yael Eckstein has partnered with other global organizations, appeared on national television, and visited with U.S. and world leaders on issues of shared concern. She has been a featured guest on CBNs The 700 Club with Gordon Robertson, and she served on a Religious Liberty Panel in May 2015 in Washington, D.C., discussing religious persecution in the Middle East. Her influence as one of the young leaders in Israel has been recognized with her inclusion in The Jerusalem Posts 50 Most Influential Jews of 2020 and 2021, and The Algemeiners Jewish 100 of 2019, and she was featured as the cover story of Nashim (Women) magazine in May 2015.

Born in Evanston, Illinois, outside of Chicago, and well-educated at both American and Israeli institutions including biblical studies at Torat Chesed Seminary in Israel, Jewish and sociology studies at Queens College in New York, and additional study at Hebrew University in Jerusalem Yael Eckstein has also been a Hebrew and Jewish Studies teacher in the United States.

What is Shmita, or the sabbatical year?

You can learn about Shmita by reading Leviticus chapter 25, verses one to four: The Lord said to Moses at Mount Sinai, speak to the Israelites and say to them, when you enter the land Im going to give you, the land itself must observe a Sabbath to the Lord. For six years, sow your fields, and for six years, prune your vineyards and gather their crops. But in the seventh year, the land is to have a year of Sabbath rest, a Sabbath to the Lord. Do not sow your fields or prune your vineyards.

These verses are pretty straightforward. Sometimes verses from the Bible could be alluding to something or have a certain connotation. They could be spiritual and otherworldly, but these verses tell us exactly what God wants. From the time that the Israelites entered the Holy Land, they were required to count six years during which they could work the land, but during the seventh year, they were obligated to let the land rest. This meant no planting, no pruning, no working of the land in any way during the sabbatical year. Amazingly, the counting of the seven-year cycle has been preserved until this very day.

The most recent sabbatical year began in September of 2021 on Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year.

How do Jews in Israel observe Shmita?

This has very real consequences for Jews living in Israel today. For example, we cannot work our land or plant new things. We wont be able to work the land just as it says in the Bible. Every year, I like to plant vegetables, but during the sabbatical year, I planted in bags instead of inside the ground so that I could actually tend those vegetables and not need to worry during Shmita year that theyre in the ground. You see theres something intrinsically holy about being planted in the ground of Israel. If you plant something in a pot, on your shelf, its not considered part of the Shmita. If you plant it in a planting bag, its not considered part of Shmita because its not in the ground. Its the ground of Israel that is holy and being planted in the earth of Israel means that it is affected by Shmita.

And its not just the backyard gardeners like me and my husband that are affected. More and more farmers in Israel have taken this courageous and faithful step of letting their farmland lay fallow every sabbatical year. During the sabbatical year, many of these farmers place large banners in front of their farm saying this farm observes the sabbatical year. And I cant tell you how much seeing those signs moves me and inspires me. These modern farmers take a leap of faith of biblical proportions, trusting that God will take care of them, even though they will not work their land or sell their produce for an entire year. Could you imagine just driving through Israel and seeing a sign with a farm thats usually beautifully tended to, and suddenly it looks like its been totally neglected, but theres a sign there that says, we observe Shmita?

How does observing Shmita serve God?

We believe in the promise of God that we will not be penalized for not tending to our field, but rather we will see the blessings from it. Equally inspiring to me is the incredible blessing that I see in the produce of Israel every year. And I dont think these are disconnected from one another. Do you know what Israel looked like a century ago? It was desolate. No nation could get anything to grow here until the Jewish people returned and the land bloomed once more, just as God said it would. And not only does the land yield its fruits, but it does so in abundance.

The other day, my daughter and I harvested a zucchini from our garden that was the size of her entire arm. It was the biggest zucchini I ever saw. And it reminded me of this biblical promise that, when we take care of the land in a biblical way, then God blesses it. In Leviticus 25:21, God promises that when we refrain from working the land in the seventh year, the sabbatical year, he will bless us with abundance. This is what He says: I will send you such a blessing in the sixth year that the land will yield enough for three years. When I see how Israel is blessed to grow enough produce not only to feed her own people in this land that was once a desert, but actually to also export beautiful fruits and vegetables to countries around the world I cant help but wonder if it is all in the merit of the holy farmers who do not work the land in the seventh year. They are living their faith.

What does Shmita mean exactly?

The word Shmita literally means release, because during the seventh year we release our control. We let go and we let the land lay fallow. The term Shmita teaches us that the seventh year isnt just about letting the land rest, but about letting go and trusting God. The main message of the Shmita year is that we need to let go of control and recognize that only God is truly in control.

Since the beginning of time, human beings have worked according to the equation that our actions produce our results and that the more we work, the more we will achieve. The problem with that equation is that it shuts out God. While we need to put in our effort, this equation doesnt give the right credit to the fact that God is the true source of our success. And unless we let God into our work, our results wont be optimal. The purpose of Shmita is to remind us that God is the one in control. God promises that when we observe Shmita, he will bless our produce so much in the sixth year that there will be enough for the seventh year, the eighth year and even the ninth year until new produce emerges. The process of holding back from working the land and then receiving Gods blessing in return teaches us that sometimes we need to do less in order to achieve more.

How can we work to include God and trust in God that He will provide?

There are so many ways that we try to take control in life, but what this Bible lesson is teaching us is that, specifically by letting go, we make room for God. By having control, were filling all this space. By bringing in God, were making room for Him to bring his blessings on us, our lives and our decisions. God wants to help us, my friends. God wants to bless us, but we need to let go and let Him in. We need to make space for Him.

We bear the burden of worrying about things like our income, our children, our health, our plans for the future, politics. But all of that weight that bears down on us is completely unnecessary. God carries us and he can carry our burdens too but only when we let Him.

There are many times I feel overwhelmed by the amount of work that I have to get done. Sometimes it all just feels too much for me. And when that happens, instead of needing to accomplish more, needing to do more, needing to check more off my to-do list, I actually press on the brakes. I stop. I go outside in nature. I take a walk and I put my burdens on God. I tell God how much I depend on Him in order to accomplish what I need to do. I tell God that Im feeling overwhelmed. I tell God that if He gave me all these responsibilities, He has to give me the strength and the wisdom to carry them. And you know what? When I return to my to-do list, things always come together. Somehow by letting go, by turning to God, by putting the brakes on the stress, the brakes on the worry, Im able to do whatever needs to be done when before it seemed impossible.

How can we begin to embrace Shmita today?

Start by asking yourself, where in your life do you need to let go right now? What worries are you holding in your heart? Can you let it go and let God take over? As the Shmita year teaches us, letting go of control and placing our faith in God can be a catalyst for abundant blessings in our lives.

In Psalms 46:10, we read, Be still, and know that I am God. Its one thing to say those words, but another thing to live them, to stop trying to control everything, to stop worrying about everything. The observance of Shmita demands that we put our faith into action, truly letting go of something and trusting God to take care of it. We all have areas in our lives where we need to control less and trust God more for our own sake, for our own mental, emotional, and physical health. And I hope that you will practice doing that this week.

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A Conversation with Yael Eckstein, IFCJ President and CEO, on the Jewish Sabbatical Year - Programming Insider

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Posted By admin on September 4, 2022

Asher wearing tefillin when he was 8. Photo by Rina Shamilov

By Rina ShamilovSeptember 02, 2022

On the Thursday of my English final in May, I woke up to a missed call from my boyfriends mother. That was unusual because the two of us were never particularly close. But what alarmed me most was that I hadnt yet received any Good morning, I love you texts from my boyfriend.

I immediately walked into the bathroom, closed the door, and called her back.

Rina, she said breathlessly. Asher died.

What did you say? I asked.

Asher is dead. He died.

None of it made any sense, and I couldnt react. I didnt even cry. When she hung up and told me to notify his closest friends, the first person I called was my mother.

Mama, I think Asher is dead, I told her, and thats when it hit me. He was gone.

I sobbed in the bathroom for a few minutes before my roommates came in. They were as incredulous as I had been.

That was over three months ago in some ways, a lifetime. And in the days and weeks after Ashers death, I learned both how beautiful the Jewish mourning process is, and also how imperfect it can be.

My mourning process began there in my college dorm bathroom. My body stopped working. I refused to leave until my roommates helped me up. And then I stayed in my bed until my parents dragged me home.

Three days after Ashers funeral, which took place in Israel the Sunday after he died, my mother and I flew to Memphis to share the shiva process with his parents. Already, I felt like I had aged tremendously. When I saw Ashers father for the first time since the memorial service, he clutched me tightly and we wept together.

I journaled excessively, as I have through much of my life. I felt that I was trapping Ashers existence in my journal. After I finished those pages, I would only have the memories the two of us shared no more writing about him in the present.

For all that shiva helped, it also made it worse. Over, and over, I shared the same stories about my relationship with Asher. In my journal, I wrote:

Shiva is just repeating the same stories over the span of a week. No movement, just stagnance. Words slur into the background, sticking to the sweat and tears and ripped clothes. All of the memories blend into each other. Were telling them a story on a loop.

Our story had started off so beautifully. We met at his Israel gap year programs Passover Seder in 2021. I was 18 and Asher was 19 when we met we were exactly 8 months apart in age. The beit midrash, or study hall, was brightly lit, and I was slurring my words after drinking the mandated cups of wine on an empty stomach. I saw him crouching on the floor, barefoot, with a colorful shawl draped over his shoulders. He was laughing at something with his friends, and I was immediately in awe of how carefree he seemed.

The dizzying drunkenness encouraged me to introduce myself to him. Are you also drunk? I asked.

Of course, he was. (It was the Passover Seder, after all).

There was something about him that I was instantly attracted to. Hours later and when I fully sobered up I witnessed him intensely debate something metaphysical with one of his friends. He was very articulate and confident.

I was itching to leave because everyone around me was so loud, and I was exhausted. He followed me out, still barefoot, and asked me if he could walk me home. Finally! I thought to myself. He spent the walk ranting to me about how much he hated homophobes, left me at my door and was on his way.

Hey, thanks, I called back. He turned around, and said gladly. I watched him fade away into the Modiin streets.

A few weeks later, I spent the night with some of my friends in Jerusalem. My shoes gave my feet blisters, so I took them off, and trekked through the Old City barefoot. I sent him a text we were in many of the same WhatsApp group chats and let him know that I was copying his style, because, Id learned, he typically wore no shoes. This led to a discussion about physical and then mental pain, which kept going until the two of us decided that we should just hang out, because we had so much to talk about.

He was everything I admired in a person. He was open and charming and approachable. He genuinely cared about people. One night, the two of us walked into a Modiin forest and spoke for hours about our families, our fears, our interests and our passions. Suddenly, he looked up at me and told me he loved me. I still dont know if he meant it platonically at the time, but I surprised myself by saying it back to him.

Having a romantic love for him didnt make sense, because he planned to stay in Israel and start a new life for himself, and I was heading back to New York to attend college. But the feelings were there anyway. In mid-June, I confessed, sending him a voice note. He was visiting his family in Memphis, and I was back at home with my family in Brooklyn, awaiting the start of college.

His plans to move to Israel changed that night. He told me that he loved me and wanted to be with me. Right away, he asked, is marriage something you can see at the end of this? I immediately and enthusiastically said yes.

Asher asked me to marry him formally three months later, while I was visiting him and his family in Memphis over Sukkot. We went on a walk at night, and he got down on one knee and handed me a little silver band that matched one he had been wearing for months. I laughed at him because I couldnt believe it, but I couldnt hide my happiness and excitement. It would be a secret engagement, we decided, because our parents wanted us to wait for a couple years before we tied the knot. But we couldnt wait. On that night, we promised each other that we would build a life together.

In the end, we only dated for 11 months and one week before he died. He went to sleep on Wednesday night, and never woke up. We know he died of natural causes, but his family chose not to seek more answers. Ill always wonder about his final moments. Did he read the last text messages I sent him? Did he think of me at all?

Before his parents brought him to be buried in Israel, I went to a memorial service in Brooklyn, organized by his childhood rabbi. I couldnt help but think about what our wedding day would have looked like. I imagined myself dressed in white, with happy tears streaming down my face. Instead, I was violently shaking, and crying with grief. When I got up to eulogize him, I lost all of my words and simply sobbed from the podium. Many members of his extended family approached me after the services and voiced the same idea: We were supposed to meet you at your wedding.

My childhood best friend had flown in from Los Angeles to be with me, and the morning after that service, the two of us woke up at 4 a.m. to livestream Ashers funeral. It gave me a sort of closure to see how gently they cared for him, but I was almost entirely numb and exhausted. All I could think about was losing him forever. They buried my baby. My friend grabbed scissors and helped me tear a rip in my T-shirt, commencing my mourning period.

Once I was in Memphis, sitting shiva, I had to push past my numbness for the people around me. Everyone wanted to know how Asher and I had met, how long we had been together and how serious our relationship was. His parents began introducing me as his fiancee, because they knew we had planned to marry each other. With every new batch of visitors came the same set of questions.

I was already so exhausted, and I didnt know how much longer I could go on retelling a story that was so meaningful, but now brought me tremendous pain to recount.

Everyone was there to help us: constantly checking in, keeping the house buzzing with chatter and food. But it felt to me like I was doing a service to the community instead of coping with my own pain. Everyone around me kept on joking, laughing and living while my world had fallen apart.

It will always be hard for onlookers to delicately approach a situation of grief. People want to help, and some also turn a blind eye because they find the pain to be too uncomfortable. What Ive learned as a mourner is how inhibiting the discomfort of others can be. Today, as during the shiva process, Ive found that my mourning experience involves too much of me telling people what they want to hear mostly, these days, that I am OK and doing better. In conversations with friends, people bring up his death casually, as though years had passed. And Im just left there, unsure of what to say.

How honestly should I respond to texts asking how Im feeling? How much does the well-wisher actually care? Making those calculations is draining. In these past few months, Ive felt like I needed to make myself digestible to others, sometimes losing sight of the fact that it is my pain and process, not theirs.

I feel Ashers absence every single day, and am still mourning the loss of the person I love the most in the whole world. Sometimes, I hate him for leaving me here to pick up the pieces. One Shabbat, he was reading John Greens Looking for Alaska and called me crying. If you die, Ill kill you, he told me.

I am so thankful that I got to know and love him, even if it was only for a little while.

For those of you who have experienced the loss of a loved one, I recommend seeking help from friends, family and licensed professionals. Therapy has been immeasurably helpful during this time, and I am looking into attending a support group at the start of the fall semester. Some organizations I recommend looking into are Jean Stein Bloch Wife Widow Woman (a part of the National Council of Jewish Women), Samchainu and The Jewish Board. These are just a few options, but hopefully they can point you in the right direction.

Rina Shamilov is a student at Yeshiva University, interning at the Forward this summer. Follow her on Instagram @rins_cs or email her at shamilov@forward.com.

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My boyfriend died in May. It showed me how meaningful Jewish mourning rituals can be and how flawed - Forward

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Posted By admin on September 4, 2022

Devarim: 23:4-5: An Ammonite or Moabite shall not enter the congregation of Hashem, even their tenth generation shall not enter the congregation of Hashem. Because they did not greet you with bread and water on the road when you were leaving EgyptDevarim, 25:17-19: Remember what Amalek did to you, on the way when you were leaving Egypt. That he happened upon you on the wayYou shall wipe out the memory of Amalek from under the heaven you shall not forget.

The Torah Portion outlines a number of Mitzvot related to nations who harmed the Jewish people in their time in the desert. Firstly, the Torah records the incident where the nations of Ammon and Moab refused to provide the Jewish people with much needed bread and water while they were in the desert. This action was greatly exacerbated by the fact that these nations owed their very existence to the Patriarch of the Jewish people, Avraham. Avraham saved the life of his nephew Lot, the progenitor of these two nations, when he was captured by the Four Kings. Yet, they demonstrated that they were very ungrateful people, when they refused to provide the basic needs of the Jewish people. Consequently, the Torah commands that it is forbidden for a male Moabite or Ammonite convert to marry into the Jewish people, and this even applies to descendants of such a convert ad infinitum.

At the end of the Portion, the Torah recalls the terrible actions of Amalek, who attacked the vulnerable Jewish people in the desert, when every other nation feared doing so, due to the great miracles that had occurred during the Exodus from Egypt. Because of this heinous behavior, God commands the Jewish people to wipe out the whole nation, and everything connected to them.

It would seem that Amaleks actions and the consequential command to wipe them out, indicates that Amalek is considered far worse than Ammon and Moab. Yet, on analysis of further laws related to Amalek, a significant difficulty arises: It is evident from the Rambam1 and Raavad2 that the command to destroy Amalek does not apply if an Amalekite refutes the heretical and hateful attitude of his nation. Moreover, a genuine Amalekite convert is accepted into the Jewish people, and he is allowed to marry into the Jewish people3! How can it be that that a Moabite convert and his descendants are treated so harshly that they can never marry a Jew, yet an Amalekite may do so?

A possible answer to this question can be found by delving deeper into the root of the failings of these nations: The flaws of Ammon and Moab are in the realm of character traits. In their refusal to help the Jewish people in a basic way, they demonstrated that they were inherently ungrateful. This is such a negative character trait, that it is ingrained in this nation to the extent that the Torah commands that even if an Ammonite or Moabite converts, he can never marry Jews because that would cause their bad traits to infiltrate into the Jewish people.

In contrast Amaleks shortcomings are not directly connected to bad traits, rather they are in the realm of outlook (hashkafa). Their belief system contradicts everything in the Torah, and their goal is to destroy the Jewish nation and what it represents. As bad as this is, since it is essentially an attitude and not an engrained trait, it is possible to uproot, and change ones outlook. Accordingly, if an Amalekite shows that he has genuinely rejected everything that his nation of birth represents, then he is allowed to marry a Jew, because there is no concern that the negative aspects of Amalek will infiltrate into the Jewish people4.

This idea can be used to answer another difficult question that relates to Amalek. King Shaul was commanded to wipe out Amalek, and did destroy everyone with the exception of Agag5. Yet, a few months later, the Prophet tells us that David was fighting Amalekites6. Where did all these Amalekites come from? One possible approach is that just as an Amalekite can reject the outlook of Amalek and thereby remove from himself the obligation to be destroyed, a non-Amalekite can assume the outlook of Amalek and thereby be considered in the category of an Amalekite, and bring upon himself the obligation to be destroyed7.

The idea that one can join another nation is not limited to Amalek. The same approach can be used to explain how the nation of Midian was fighting the Jewish nation in the time of Gidon, when the Midianites were destroyed in battle with the Jewish nation in the desert.

If this is the case, the question arises as to if this idea applies to Ammon and Moab: If a person who is not a genetic descendant of Moab, for example, assumes the identity of a Moabite, is it forbidden for a Jew to marry him if he converts? This question is the subject of a dispute in the Gemara8, but the conclusion is that such a person does not assume the halachic status of a Moabite because Sencharib scattered all the nations, and so it can be assumed that a person who lives in Moab and calls himself a Moabite is not a descendant of the Moabites of the Torah, and therefore one can marry such a convert. Why here do we not say that he assumes the halachic status of a Moabite? The answer is based on the principle above, that the root problem with Moab is not their outlook but their character traits. Their bad traits are so deeply engrained that they will affect all future descendants. However, this does not apply to a person who is not genetically descended from the original Moabites. Hence, even if he identifies as a Moabite, and even assumes their attitudes, he is not included in the prohibition to marry a Moabite convert.

We have seen that while a nations inherent traits cannot be significantly changed, a nations outlook can be changed. On a personal level this teaches us that it is very important to develop a Torah true outlook through studying appropriate works on Jewish philosophy and mussar (self-growth)9. Doing this can also help him improve his character traits, since a good outlook can teach a person how to improve his character traits.

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The Difference between Moab and Amalek - aish.com - Aish.com

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Posted By admin on September 4, 2022

When Haya Varon relocated to Houston from Mexico City more than four decades ago, she felt like she was moving to a safer place. As the daughter of a Holocaust survivor who had lost most of his family to Nazi genocide, Varon was especially sensitive to threats of violence and antisemitism.

But these days Varon finds herself looking over her shoulder in Houston. She feels shaken not just by the armed hostage standoff last January at a synagogue in Colleyville, Texas, and the deadly 2018 shooting at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, but also by antisemitism at home in Houston.

Throughout the last year, Houstonians have found racist and antisemitic flyers on their driveways, and hate speech online directed at Jews has been growing exponentially.

I think about the threat to Jewish institutions a lot, said Varon, who serves on the boards of Jewish Federation of Greater Houston, the Holocaust Museum Houston and a local Jewish day school.

As the threat level has risen, the federation has been behind a broad effort to beef up security at Jewish community institutions across metropolitan Houston. The idea is both to provide local Jews with some peace of mind amid growing anxiety about hate speech and attacks and to provide hard facts on the ground to counter the heightened risks to Jews.

I feel a sense of sadness that we have to do this, Varon said. But I also feel very proud of being part of a community that takes care of every one of its members.

Rene Wizig-Barrios, president and CEO of Houston Federation, said, Colleyville certainly was a turning point in community consciousness, but quite honestly there has been a rise in antisemitic incidents here for a long time.

The muscular effort to secure the Jewish community in Houston is part and parcel of a transformation taking place nationwide that is backed by the Jewish Federations of North America, which over a decade ago created the Jewish communitys main security organization, the Secure Community Network, and has been at the forefront of lobbying government successfully for significant increases for security funding for the U.S. Jewish community.

This year, the Jewish Federations, which represent over 300 Jewish communities around North America, established a new program called LiveSecure to enable federations across the continent to invest in the training, tools, and resources to protect synagogues, schools, senior centers, and summer camps, among other Jewish institutions. The Jewish Federations umbrella organization is providing $62 million for the program, and federations around the country will raise $68 million in matching funds to bring the total to $130 million.

The Houston Federation is among the first federations nationwide to receive grant funding through the new program. Other communities have concerns about rising antisemitism too.

More than 2,700 antisemitic incidents were recorded in the United States in 2021, a 34% increase over the previous year, according to the Anti-Defamation Leagues annual audit. That marks the highest number since the organization started tracking such incidents in 1979.

One of the primary goals of Jewish Federations is to ensure that we can have flourishing Jewish communities, said Julie Platt, chair of the Jewish Federations board. And if youre afraid to walk into an institution or into an organization because youre fearful of your own security, we dont have a chance.

LiveSecure represents just the latest iteration of the Jewish Federations investment in security. After the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the Jewish Federations in conjunction with the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations launched the Secure Community Network, which conducts intelligence and information sharing, facility assessments, trainings and coordination with law enforcement.

A security camera hangs across the street from the Park East Synagogue in New York City. Jewish institutions are tightening security amid rising threats. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

Jewish Federations advocacy and public policy departments lobbied in Washington, D.C., to establish the Nonprofit Security Grant Program and for more than a decade have been advocating for increased funding for faith-based organizations around the country. Most recently, both the House and Senate Appropriations Committees proposed $360 million for such grants.

After the 2018 Tree of Life shooting, which killed 11 victims in what constituted the deadliest-ever antisemitic attack in U.S. history, federations around the country started to invest more time and money in improving their security, said Debra Grant, associate vice president of LiveSecure for Jewish Federations.

Most of the large and the large intermediate federations have created sophisticated community security initiatives, Grant said. The intermediate and small federations have been focused on security but many didnt necessarily have the resources to really address the issues in a strategic way.

Thats where the collective power of the Jewish Federations which often play a behind-the-scenes role supporting Jewish programs of all kinds, from local Jewish social welfare agencies to Birthright Israel and resettlement programs in Poland for Ukrainian war refugees came in.

Jewish Federations reached out to individual donors and foundations to raise money to provide additional security for Jewish communities across North America. The result: 38 families provided $62 million, which the Jewish Federations will allocate for security needs over the next three years.

In partnership with SCN, communities will use the funds to enhance their security protocols, and in some cases launch entirely new security programs, working together to create a shield of security across Jewish communities throughout North America.

Among the recommendations of the Secure Community Network, Jewish facilities are urged to secure their properties, install alarm systems, have medical supplies on hand, install access control systems, train staff and members on how to respond to active threat scenarios, install nighttime lighting and make sure to coordinate closely with law enforcement and first responders.

As central coordinating bodies, federations take a holistic approach to security across a communitys Jewish institutions.

We are working with federations to assess what their programs look like right now, Grant said. Are they being led by a former law enforcement professional security director? Do they have a strategic plan for how they want to grow their program? Are they offering trainings and assessments for every organization and group in the Jewish community? And are they actively reporting antisemitic incidents to local law enforcement and to the SCN Duty Desk?

When Wizig-Barrios joined the Houston Federation in September 2021, the organizations board had decided to launch a community security initiative but hadnt yet raised sufficient funding to fully implement it.

This spring, the organization launched the basis of its security program with funding from a local donor and plans to expand it with matching funds from LiveSecure. LiveSecure will provide up to $100,000 annually for three years against local Federation-raised funds of $200,000 each year.In June, the Houston group hired a community security director, Alfred Tribble Jr., a 27-year veteran of the FBI, who has started conducting security assessments at schools, institutions and synagogues and scheduled security trainings for Jewish community leaders.

Such assessments are important not only for security reasons, but also to comply with guidelines that nonprofits must follow in order to apply for the federal and state grants, Grant said. In November 2021, about 42 Jewish federations had security directors who conducted security assessments. The goal is to have community security directors who are responsible for all 146 federations and 300 network communities.

That was really the first point of LiveSecure, Grant said. We need to get dollars into the communities to help them to be able to afford to do these assessments, to know their buildings, to understand what kinds of hardening needs to happen.

For example, a building with four entrances might restrict all comings and goings to just one, locking all the others and installing cameras. A security guard could be hired for when the building is in use. All facilities should have first aid kits that include tourniquets and compression bandages so bystanders can stop the bleeding of a wounded person in the event of a shooting, which can buy precious minutes that could save a life.

LiveSecure is not just for cities like Houston that did not previously have a community security director. The Jewish Federation of Cleveland has had a dedicated security program for almost a decade but plans to apply for LiveSecure funding to support a slew of needed enhancements.

The Cleveland Federation recently launched a community monitoring system connected to an emergency communications center. The system features 700 security cameras and 26 automated license plate readers. The funding would help the organization hire personnel to monitor the system and provide security for community members, said the federations vice president of external relations, Oren Baratz, who oversees local security.

The goal, said Baratz, who also serves as a senior adviser to LiveSecure, is to provide security guidance to Jewish communities around North America because most dont have a security professional guiding their activity.

Grant says she hopes LiveSecure will produce a multi-pronged, coordinated approach to security across the Jewish Federations network. That would include regular active shooter and situational awareness trainings, and assessments to ensure institutions have appropriate locks, video cameras, bollards and bulletproof glass.

We are stressing to all of our Federations the importance of constantly doing trainings over and over, Grant said. We know that there is a muscle memory that you only build if you go through and understand all of these different elements of trainings.

LiveSecure is meant to operate for three years, but it could be extended to enable communities to fully implement the necessary security upgrades and programs.

We want to make sure that we are doing this right, and that the dollars are making a real impact, Grant said. I really believe its going to strengthen our Jewish communities for many, many, many years.

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Posted By admin on September 4, 2022

(September 2, 2022 / JNS) If you not only read The New York Times but still consider it the authoritative news source, then you are aware of a growing problem associated with anti-Semitism. By that, Im not referring to the fact that its been open season on attacking Orthodox Jews in Brooklyn and other parts of New York City with the preponderance of hate crimes being directed at them and, as Tablet recently reported, only a single perpetrator spending even a day in prison for their crimes.

That doesnt fit in with the newspapers idea of anti-Semitism, which is limited to the activities of white supremacists on the far-right and fallacious attempts to link such attacks to their preferred political foes, like former President Donald Trump. So, there hasnt been much of anything about this epidemic of hate crimes or the way woke bail reform laws and prosecutors who arent interested in prosecuting criminals (funded by billionaire leftist George Soros) are giving them a pass, in the Times.

On the contrary, as far as the Times is concerned, the problem with the discussion about anti-Semitism is not too little focus on such violence or the growing volume of Jew-hatred on college campuses and elsewhere in which Jews and Israel are falsely branded as oppressors and beneficiaries of white privilege. According to the Times, the problem is that those who seek the destruction of the one Jewish state on the planetsomething that could only possibly be achieved by the genocide of its 7 million Jewish citizens, presumably through the efforts of the Islamist and Palestinian nationalist terrorists who seek this outcomeare being wrongly accused of anti-Semitism.

Thats the conceit of a recent broadside published in the Times by Peter Beinart. A frequent contributor to the paper, Beinart is an ex-liberal Zionist turned opponent of Israel who edits the far-left Jewish Currents and teaches at the City University of New York. According to Beinart, the fact that even liberals think Israel-haters are engaging in anti-Semitism is the real scandal. Beinart is angry that many Jewish liberals are, albeit reluctantly, denouncing those groups who masquerade as advocates for human rights, like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, and those who promote the BDS movement are falsely accusing Israel of apartheid and support efforts to wipe it off the map.

The willingness to discuss the existence of left-wing anti-Semitism has been slow and grudging among liberals. But Beinart is slamming even the likes of the Anti-Defamation League and historian Deborah Lipstadt. The ADL, which has become a partisan hack when it comes to attacking conservatives, and figures like Lipstadt, a professor at Emory University who was rewarded for her approval of the outrageous smearing of the Trump administration as the moral equivalent of the Nazi Party, was appointed by President Joe Biden as the U.S. State Departments envoy to monitor and combat anti-Semitism, have their faults. But even they are still prepared to occasionally address the threat to Jews from the left.

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Indeed, even CNNwas willing to recently acknowledge how those who wish to destroy Israel engage in anti-Semitic actions that target Jews in a recent special report, even if the same show downplayed its significance while granting far more attention to dishonest attempts to connect Trump to anti-Semitism.

Using the bully pulpit granted him by the Times, Beinart was able to use one of the most read publications in the world to argue that anyone who defends Israel against the apartheid lie or points out the way those who wish to eliminate it (as opposed to merely criticizing some of its governments policies) are engaging in discrimination against Jews are the real problem. According to Beinart, the mere existence of one Jewish state is a form of racism and Jewish supremacy that should be opposed. In his eyes, the century-long Palestinian war on Zionism and opposition to a Jewish state, no matter where its borders are drawn, is a righteous cause. More than that, he argues that the willingness of Jews to defend their state, even while often criticizing it, as the ADL and Lipstadt do, discredits efforts to oppose anti-Semitism.

Like his Palestinian terrorist allies, Beinart is especially angry at those Arab and Muslim states that have made peace with Israeleither overtly via the Trump administrations Abraham Accords or quietly, as is the case with Saudi Arabiaand thinks links to these admittedly authoritarian governments also discredits Jews. That his cause is discredited by the fact that those who agree with him among Palestinian groups or their Iranian allies have consistently rejected compromise and peaceand seek Jewish genocideis a minor detail that he ignores.

Beinarts own embarrassing history of wanderings from a neo-liberal supporter of the Bush administrations war in Iraq to a virulent opponent of both it and U.S. foreign policy during his time as editor of The New Republic, then as a liberal Zionist supporter of Israel and advocate of a two-state solution to his current position in which he supports Israels dismantlement, makes it hard to take him seriously. He has always been an intellectually shallow writer whose willingness to spout his opinions is only matched by his often-breathtaking ignorance of many of the subjects he discusses, of which Israel is the most conspicuous example.

Yet Beinart, who was once included by Foreign Policy magazine on its list of 100 top global thinkers, is not only someone that is regularly given access to one of the largest publishing platforms in the world for his hateful views. Hes also a reliable weathervane that can usually tell us which way the wind is blowing among the left-wing elites who have such a stranglehold on control of the major institutions of journalism, academia and popular culture.

So it is significant that Beinart is not only venting his resentment at the way the overwhelming majority of Israelis, as well as most American Jews, havent taken his advice about surrendering to those who would endanger their existence. He is now embracing the intersectional narrative in which the effort to destroy Israel is identified as a cause that lovers of freedom should support.

The not-so-subtle warning implicit in his article is that the overwhelming majority of Jews who are Zionistseven liberals like the ADL and Lipstadtare discrediting the Jewish people and leaving themselves open to what are, in his opinion, justified attacks from the left.

And lest one think this Beinart article is an isolated instance, its telling that the same week in which it was published, the papers news division weighed in with its own version of the same argument in which it depicted a dissident employee of Google as a martyr to Zionist plots.

The same paper that cannot find space to report the growing number of hate crimes against Jews in New York (such attacks make up the vast majority of all reported hate crimes in the city), including the most recent in which three Chassidic Jews were assaulted in separate instances, was willing to devote considerable space on the front page of its B section to the complaints of a Jewish anti-Zionist named Ariel Koren working at the Big Tech giant who objected to the fact that Google had entered into a contract with the State of Israel to provide it with artificial intelligence and computing services.

According to Koren, Google retaliated against her for organizing efforts to protest the companys connection to Israel though the National Labor Relations Board ruled against her complaint. Though she claims Israel is using Google to help oppress Palestinians, the contract appears to only cover giving Israeli government agencies access to its Cloud platforms and isnt involved with classified or military operations. But that doesnt matter to a BDS activist like Koren, who believes that anything the Jewish state does is inherently oppressive and therefore a reprehensible crime.

This implicit defense of BDS boycotts of Israel and Beinarts article sends a powerful message. The Times, which has a long and dishonorable history of downplaying anti-Semitism and biased reporting about Israel, is not only making it clear that its not going to cover attacks on Jews except from people it can identify as political opponents. Its also increasingly invested in a campaign to legitimize left-wing anti-Semitism, and it has willing allies in the Jewish community like Beinart, who often speaks of himself as an observant Jew, who will assist in this effort. The decision of the Times to engage in this sort of a campaign against Israel and the Jews is one more wake-up call for liberal Jews who dont understand that the left is coming for them just as much as it is for conservatives and Israelis.

Jonathan S. Tobin is editor-in-chief of JNS (Jewish News Syndicate). Follow him on Twitter at: @jonathans_tobin.

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Posted By admin on September 4, 2022

Ihadnt heard of quiet quitting until about 10 minutes ago.

Since then, every major news outlet has done a story on this purported trend, defined as a movement among office workers to draw firmer work-life boundaries by doing less work. It means closing your laptop at 5 p.m. when your cubicle-mate is staying late to finish a project. It means turning off notifications on your phone so you cant check your work emails after hours. It can mean doing the bare minimum and still hanging ontoyour job.

On a grander scale, it means cooling your hottest ambitions in favor of a saner work-life balance.

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Of course, to a certain kind of devotee of the attention economy, this sounds like nothing less than slacking off. Quiet quitting isnt just about quitting on a job, its a step toward quitting on life, huffed Arianna Huffington, in a LinkedIn post. Fox News host Tomi Lahren said its just a euphemism for being LAZY. (She added an expletive.)

I dont have a dog in this fight, since I am not a quiet quitter. (I am more a person without any hobbies or little kids, who if he closes his laptop at 5 p.m. doesnt know what to do with himself.) But I understand the impulse. Technology and corporate culture conspire to blur the lines between work and office. The demise of unions has shifted the workplace power balance to employers. For those of us who could work at home, the pandemic obliterated the boundaries between on and off hours.

Quitting is a terrible way to describe what is really doing your job, no more and no less. It only feels like quitting to a culture that demands that you sacrifice private time to your employer or career. This peculiarly American ethic shows up, for instance, in vacations: Americans get on average 10 fewer vacation days a year than Europeans, because, unlike the European Union, the United States does not have any federal mandates demanding paid vacations or holidays.

Just reading a New York Times article about how eight of the 10 largest private U.S. employers are using tracking software to monitor their employees made me feel guilty and anxious even though I was reading the article as part of my job.

If quiet quitting were actually slacking, it would run afoul of Jewish law. Jewish employees are obligated to work at full capacity during their work hours and not to steal time from their employers, writes Rabbi Jill Jacobs in a responsa legal opinion called Work, Workers and the Jewish Owner, written for the Conservative movement in 2008. And yet this warning aside, Jewish law is much more concerned with employers who take advantage of employees rather than the other way around.

Jacobs now the executive director of Truah, the rabbinic human rights group describes nine principles of workplace justice in the Torah, and nearly all are addressed to the employer. These include treating workers with dignity and respect and paying them a living wage and on time.

The ideal worker-employer relationship should be one of trusted partnership, in which each party looks out for the well-being of the other, and in which the two parties consider themselves to be working together for the perfection of the divine world, she writes.

This is not exactly what we now know as the Protestant work ethic. The rabbis of the Talmud did not tie hard work and economic success to divine salvation. No doubt, they understand that people need to and should work for a living. In traditional sources, work is often regarded as necessary, and certainly better than idleness (which can lead to sin), according to a helpful article from My Jewish Learning.

And yet, because the study of Torah is considered the ideal use of your time (assuming you are a man, anyway) the rabbis clearly were wary of occupations and ambitions that demanded too much of a worker. In Pirkei Avot, the collection of ethical sayings from the Mishnah, Rabbi Meir says, Minimize business and engage in Torah. The rabbis, My Jewish Learning explains, were clearly worried that excessive pursuit of material well-being would distract from higher pursuits.

The artist Jenny Odells 2019 manifesto about quitting the attention economy, How to Do Nothing, similarly rejects a frame of reference in which value is determined by productivity, the strength of ones career, and individual entrepreneurship.

Easier said than done, however. Her antidote to stand apart, to embrace solitude, observation, and simple conviviality is perhaps more feasible if you are an artist rather than an office worker, let alone a factory worker, home health aide, or Amazon warehouse runner. (She spends a lot of time birdwatching and retreating to mountain cabins.)

To her credit, Odell quotes Samuel Gompers, the Jewish-British immigrant and labor leader who championed the eight-hour workday as far back as 1886. In an address asking What Does Labor Want?, Gompers answered by quoting Psalms: It wants the earth and the fullness thereof.

What most people want, I suspect, is simply more control over their time and mind-space, and to keep work from leaking into their private lives and maybe vice-versa. They want to do work that matters, and they also want the private time to decompress, reconnect, and take care of stuff.

Its telling that there is no commandment in Torah to work, but there are plenty to rest. Shabbat is a literal day of rest, but it is also a mindset. It strictly defines profane productivity, in order to carve out space and time for the sacred. This Jewish attitude toward work and rest is not about quitting, but it is about occasional quiet.

Jewish Telegraphic Agency

Andrew Silow-Carroll of Teaneck is the editor in chief of the New York Jewish Week and senior editor of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. He is the former editor in chief and CEO of the New Jersey Jewish News.

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Quiet quitting, the sudden trend in work, sounds sort of Jewish? (Hear me out.) - The Jewish Standard

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