Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By admin on July 16, 2022

Joe Biden became the first U.S. president to attend the Maccabiah Games, known also as the Jewish Olympics, on Thursday.

The audience at the opening ceremony of the 21st Maccabiah games showered Biden with affection as thousands cheered Joe repeatedly and shouted things like we love you Mr. President at Teddy Stadium in Jerusalem. Biden, flanked by Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid and Israeli President Isaac Herzog, waved a baseball cap emblazoned with the letters USA for several minutes as the crowd cheered.

Biden, who is wrapping up the Israel leg of his four-day visit to the Middle East, showed up at a bullet-proof glass box installed for him there just before the announcers welcomed in the American delegation of athletes. Organizers claim that the event is the third-largest sports gathering in the world, with 10,000 athletes from 60 countries.

But in a timing mishap, he appeared to leave before the U.S. delegation appeared. Biden and the Israeli leaders then returned to the bullet-proof glass box to wave to the American delegation, who responded to him by bouncing up and down and blowing kisses in his direction.

Bidens attendance was planned with short notice when it emerged his visit would coincide with the event, which takes place in Israel every four years.

What a treat, said Sharon Birenbaum, an aunt of one of the American soccer athletes, about getting to see Biden.

Although she is a Biden voter and supporter, she had never seen him in person.

Its bizarre that its happening here and in this setting, but its making me so proud and happy that he came to this extra-curricular activity because it captures how much he really cares about Israel and the Jewish people, she said.

Biden also spoke directly with the U.S. delegation of athletes during his stop at the ceremony.

What youve done is youve demonstrated to the world that you can do anything, and Im so damn proud, Biden told them, according to the Times of Israel. You think Im kidding you, but Im not.

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Biden is first US president to attend Maccabiah 'Jewish Olympics' J. - The Jewish News of Northern California

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Posted By admin on July 16, 2022

Jaap Hamburger

I hate the word Holocaust, Jaap Hamburger replies when asked what it was like to be raised in a family of survivors. To me the word represents the Americanization of European history.

In the United States actors with made-up faces had to pass for persecuted Jews on television, Hamburger recalls. But in the Netherlands, real images of World War II dominated screens as he grew up in the 1960s.

The wartime experiences have always been in the background of the Jewish family where I was raised, Hamburger told The Electronic Intifada.

Hamburger was born in 1950, a few years after the war. He had an older brother and sister, born in 1940 and 1943.

His mother Rosa Sophie Engers and father David Abraham Hamburger, tried to protect the children by sending them into hiding. But a traitor revealed their address to the German occupiers and both children were deported.

Hamburgers brother Albert David survived the Nazi camps, but his baby sister died in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in October 1944, having not lived even a full year.

Her name, Henriette Hamburger, is recorded by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

The war and its aftermath shaped Hamburgers views on anti-Semitism and how it is now weaponized as an accusation against the Palestinian peoples struggle for liberation a struggle he strongly supports.

Today Hamburger chairs the organization A Different Jewish Voice known by its Dutch initials EAJG and serves on the board of The Rights Forum, founded by former Dutch Prime Minister Dries van Agt. Both groups advocate for Palestinian rights.

My Jewish background was not religious, not traditional and not Zionist but nevertheless it was very Jewish because the corpse of World War II was in the closet, Hamburger says.

You were not allowed to open that door. And when it went ajar, everyone would stare in horror at what was behind. I was brought up in the atmosphere of an emotional taboo around the war.

But even if it wasnt talked about openly, the war left deep marks.

My mother hated everything German, Hamburger recalls. My father did too.

Hamburgers mother was traumatized by the war her whole life.

She developed a foolish love for Israel without realizing how that country came about, according to Hamburger. She could speak about our oranges when she meant Jaffas. It irritated me a lot.

My father dealt with his pain in a different manner, Hamburger says. He joined Terre des Hommes, an organization that defends child rights, and the Humanist Alliance.

He assisted people who came to him for advice about their problems. He also gave lectures on, for example, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Hamburger says. Tolerance was a very important value to him.

Hamburgers mother and her parents survived because they went into hiding with help of non-Jewish Dutch people.

But his fathers parents and brother were murdered in Auschwitz.

As for Hamburgers father, he was able to survive even without going into hiding because he worked for the electronics giant Philips.

The companys president during the war, Frits Philips, is credited with saving the lives of hundreds of Jewish workers by placing them in a special office whose work, he convinced the Nazis, was indispensable.

All Jewish employees were placed in the special offices workplace where they enjoyed a certain protection, Hamburger explains. But after a few years the Nazis wanted to close the office. As a Dutch conscript officer, my father heeded a call from the German occupiers to go into captivity.

He calculated correctly as it turned out that his chances of survival were better as a prisoner of war.

All who survived had beaten the odds: Three quarters of the Dutch Jewish population was murdered during the war by the Nazis and their collaborators, the highest proportion in Western Europe.

And yet Hamburger is still uncomfortable with the term Holocaust.

What the hell do we as Europeans have to do with such an American word originating from ancient Greek etymology? he asks.

The term Holocaust survivor often suggests that it concerns people who experienced concentration camps or other Nazi institutions during the war, Hamburger says. My parents survived the war and destruction because my mother went into hiding and my father was a prisoner of war.

Talking about the persecution of Jews is not an adequate alternative to the term Holocaust for Hamburger because it doesnt cover the mass murder of Jewish people.

I prefer Judeocide, although it is also not ideal, but I prefer it to that wretched word Holocaust, he says.

With such a background, Jaap Hamburger needs no one to explain to him the importance of countering anti-Jewish bigotry.

Yet he finds it problematic that the Netherlands has appointed a national coordinator to combat anti-Semitism the same approach taken in other Western countries and by the European Union.

I am convinced that other groups in our society are more often confronted with forms of discrimination, opposition and suspicion than the Jewish population, he asserts. Why do we need a separate coordinator for Jews and another for everyone else?

Jews always object to being set apart from others and rightly so as if they were a special human species, Hamburger says. But no objection is raised when there might be any benefit.

He argues that there is no anti-Semitism in the Netherlands on any scale that justifies appointing a national coordinator. True, some individuals occasionally express anti-Semitic thoughts, and might even find validation from others on social media.

But there is no question of a political party or dominant body of thought in politics or society, or a leader with an enormous number of followers with an openly anti-Semitic program, let alone anti-Semitism on the part of the state, Hamburger says. Its not at all there in the Netherlands.

For years, alleged anti-Semitism has been monitored by CIDI, a prominent Dutch Israel lobby group.

But according to Hamburger, CIDI has every interest in making anti-Semitism appear a bigger problem than it is because it is a weapon to stifle discussions about Israel.

The politicization and abuse of the term anti-Semitism has in Hamburgers view robbed it of any utility.

The smoke of Auschwitz blows over the word anti-Semitism, he says, citing Hajo Meyer who survived that death camp and passed away in 2014.

Anti-Semitism is used both for Auschwitz and for a damaged tombstone in a cemetery, Hamburger observes. That is not a useful analytical conceptual framework. I am therefore in favor of abolishing the term.

Rather, Hamburger sees the fight against anti-Jewish bigotry as part of the fight against all forms of discrimination and racism. It stems from the same source: hypernationalism and chauvinism.

Last year, A Different Jewish Voice along with others including this writer filed a formal complaint against the national coordinator to combat anti-semitism, Eddo Verdoner.

The Dutch government appointed Verdoner to the newly created position in April 2021.

When Verdoner was appointed, it was obvious to Hamburger that he would, just like his German counterpart Felix Klein, and EU anti-Semitism coordinator Katharina von Schnurbein, use the position not to fight hatred against Jews, but to shield the state of Israel.

Notably, Verdoner was a long-time board member of CIDI, the Israel lobby group.

Hamburger also points out that Dutch pro-Israel group CJO (Central Jewish Consultation) pushed for the creation of the position with the support of right-wing, pro-Israel lawmakers Dilan Yeilgz-Zegerius, who has been the Dutch justice minister since January, and Jol Voordewind, a Christian Zionist.

And indeed, the national coordinators office quickly began using official social media accounts for pro-Israel advocacy.

This prompted the complaint to the justice ministry which appointed an external committee to examine it.

The committee concluded that Verdoner had gone beyond what would be expected given his role and official position, and government standards of diligence and de-escalation.

It advised the justice minister to tighten his mandate to avoid the kind of expressions raised in the complaint.

The committee also found that the complaint had been mishandled.

Complainants shouldnt repeatedly have to call or send their complaint several times because letters are lost, it admonished.

It called on the justice minister to investigate how the complaint was apparently lost and then took so long to address. The complainants are still waiting for the ministrys answer.

But Hamburger thinks the complaint may have led Verdoner to tone down his language, although of course his thinking has not changed a bit.

Whenever he sees the opportunity, he will certainly smuggle Israel into the discussion about combating anti-Semitism in the Netherlands, Hamburger believes.

This year, Students for Palestine organized a series of activities during Israeli Apartheid Week (IAW) at Dutch universities.

Hamburger participated in a panel discussion at the national IAW closing event.

He observed that some students may feel concerned about false accusations of anti-Semitism.

If I compare myself with them, I am in a good position. I am a Jew by birth and upbringing, he said. And accusations of anti-Semitism or the variant of being a self-hating Jew slide off me. As if being critical of Israel would suddenly make you a self-hater.

Now in his early 70s, Hamburger has no need to worry about a career. But for young people it is different. They face organized smear campaigns like Canary Mission in the United States.

Hamburger fully understands that they have reason to be apprehensive. His advice is to always act together and to secure support from third parties who have some form of authority.

He also urges them to be a little brave and not to be intimidated.

Students can take heart from the breakthrough of the realization that Israel is an apartheid state.

There are convincing arguments from very different quarters, he says.

Hamburger notes that Zionism started as a form of emancipation for Jews in central and eastern Europe, especially Ukraine and Russia. But the moment that movement came to Palestine to colonize it and perhaps from its inception Zionism became a movement of oppression.

It all strengthens my belief that there is something terribly rotten in the state of Israel, Hamburger says.

Students may feel inspired by Hamburgers words to continue their solidarity efforts with Palestinians struggling for liberation.

Adri Nieuwhof is a human rights advocate based in the Netherlands and a former anti-apartheid activist at the Holland Committee on Southern Africa.

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Don't single out Jews in the fight against bigotry - The Electronic Intifada

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Posted By admin on July 16, 2022

One enters The Holocaust: What Hate Can Do, the updated core exhibit at New York Citys Museum of Jewish Heritage, through a dark corridor. Yiddish and Hebrew songs are piped in as well-lit photographs and bright video screens show moments of domestic life from across the Jewish diaspora from decades ago. Families from Germany, Poland, Latvia, the Netherlands, Greece, Iraq, Libya and elsewhere are engaged in activities lively and mundane. Then, on the wall, in print too big to ignore, the punchline: Many of these Jews were murdered by April 1943.

That was my idea, Professor Judy Tydor Baumel-Schwartz, one of the primary historian-curators of the exhibit, tells me via a Zoom interview. They wanted a map or something, and I said no, we need something that hits you!

For Baumel-Schwartz, who has been teaching the Holocaust for 40 years, its also personal. That regal-looking woman standing on a rug in front of a house? Thats my great-grandmother. And when my great-grandfather was deported from Romania to Transnistria they wouldnt let him get his coat, so he grabbed that rug which eventually went to my grandmothers baby sister, and now its in room eight of this exhibit.

How else to grapple with something as massive as the Holocaust than with specifics? Indeed, the show, which takes up 12,000 ft over two floors in a modern building near Manhattans Battery Park, runs with an unusual narrative. This first tunnel dumps you directly into the nadir of Spring 1943.

Were reminded of the revolt and destruction of the Warsaw ghetto, the largest in Europe; we see a stone from the newly expanded crematoria of Auschwitz, the death factory responsible for killing 1 million Jews and 100,000 other victims; there are personal effects (a bland-looking towel like youd get today at a motel) that once belonged to Jews sent from Vilnius to die by gunfire at the Ponary Massacre; and, finally, images from the Bermuda Conference, where US and UK delegates met to discuss what to do about the Jews facing genocide in Europe. (The answer, essentially, was to table for further discussion.)

This one-two punch, before youve actually entered the main hall, serves a purpose. Just how the heck did this madness begin, you wonder? The next room (a pretty room, full of light, Baumel-Schwartz says) is one where there are no foolish questions: who, exactly, are these Jews?

Considering reports detailing the paltry understanding of the Holocaust among some millennial and Gen Z adults, theres no harm in taking this all from step one. This circular chamber digs into the basic beliefs of the religion, its origins in the Middle East, the differences between Ashkenazi and Sephardic groups, basic definitions of Hassidic, Conservative, Reform, Reconstructionist and other strains of Judaism, and how their customs and political beliefs may differ. One finds more commonalities than deviations. Purims Purim.

So once you know who these people are, Baumel-Schwartz guides me, the next obvious question is why did everyone hate them? [The Holocaust] was not a train going off the tracks from 1933 to 1945. It was a train making noises for hundreds of years.

This leads to a vast gallery packed with relics of Jew-hatred through the ages.

A timeline begins with the First Holy Crusades, details the 1194 Blood Libel in Norwich, explains British expulsion in 1290, and digs into the Alhambra Decree in 1492. Under glass is a note from King Ferdinand of Spain to a local governor offering instruction on what do with property seized from the Jews they hadf just kicked out of the country. (It wasnt making charitable contributions, I can assure you.)

There are covers from the hoax text The Protocols of the Elders of Zion in multiple languages, and as modernity creeps in, there are artifacts concerning Henry Ford, Father Charles Coughlin (kind of like an old podcaster, a rather astute parent told a teen as I eavesdropped) and a staggering birthday gift given to Herman Gring from Reynhard Heydrich: a 1551 proclamation requiring Jews to wear a yellow badge to distinguish themselves from gentle society.

In the same display case are a pipe and beer stein of the era, with cartoonish renderings of shifty, dirty Jews. This is antisemitism, Professor Baumel-Schwartz says. Its not a meeting where you hear about how awful the Jews are. Its a little object someone drinks their beer from at the end of the night from the time hes 16. This is what a Jew is, he thinks, this disgusting thing!

Next comes the Nazi rise to power and the Nuremberg laws, and the response from occupied countries when their Jews found themselves facing restrictions and, eventually, deportation. (No nation, with the exception of Denmark, can hold their heads up too high here.)

The Holocaust is so enormous of a story that, again, the specifics linger. I was drawn to two small footnotes, because they touched on my experience. One was how a small-but-significant number of Jews emigrated to Shanghai, as no visa was needed there (my father has a letter from the camps where his grandfather floated this as an idea, before he was killed at Auschwitz), and another was learning about a German-language cinema in New York City, where I live, that showed Nazi propaganda as late as 1941. (Its a Dunkin Donuts now.)

Professor Baumel-Schwartz points out a simple bowl that a family of Libyan Jews (part of a community originally from Gibraltar that was deported to Italy) used in a circumcision ceremony at the Bergen-Belson camp. The Holocaust was not just Yiddish-speaking European Jews. There were Ladino-speakers, Arabic-speakers, it depended on the luck of where you were living at the time.

When one rides the escalator to the second floor, thats where the mechanics of mass murder from the genteel drawing rooms at the Wannasee Conference to the selection outside the gas chambers are revealed.

I found myself newly frustrated at how the United States and United Kingdom were fully aware of what was going on (see the Karski Report, see the Riegner Telegram) and basically shrugged. American and British newspaper headlines get some prime, large font wall space; people knew what was happening.

After the war, the US allows more immigrants in, the United Nations is formed, and hundreds of thousands of Holocaust survivors find refuge in the ancestral homeland of the Jewish people, and create the State of Israel.

No matter where you stand on this last issue, I think everyone can agree that it hasnt gone smoothly. Professor Baumel-Schwartz assures me that the particulars of pulling off a major museum show like this meant reducing initial designs in anticipation of a planned expansion. A third floor, she says, will continue that conversation, and also discuss more contemporary antisemitism, which is, unfortunately, very relevant.

Suggesting that someone should go to a Holocaust museum of their own free will is strange. One usually goes out of guilt, and this exhibit cant really be considered fun. But it is thorough and clear and does the stated goal of explaining, as best as anything possibly could, just how this atrocity happened. Importantly, and without handholding, a thoughtful person begins considering current events, current prejudices, and questions if one is doing enough to stand for righteousness. In that regard, a visit is essential.

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What Hate Can Do: inside a devastating new exhibition on the Holocaust - The Guardian

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Posted By admin on July 16, 2022

Lily Safra never gave an interview on this or any other subject and moved on to other things. After her husbands death, she spent a good deal of her time in London where she set about conquering glamorous society with the same steely determination with which she had once wooed Edmond Safra.

As a result of his death, she had become the fifth richest woman in Britain, and she used her considerable wealth to support various charities, including those favoured by the likes of the Prince of Wales and Lord Rothschild, all of whom rewarded her lavish philanthropic gifts with access to their social life. She maintained her dignity, elegance and air of mystery to the end.

She was born Lily Watkins on December 30 1934 in Rio de Janeiro, where her father, Wolf White Watkins, had emigrated from Surrey before she was born and started his own railway construction business. Her mother was a Jewish emigre from Poland. The family was comfortably off, though not rich.

But what Lily Watkins lacked in wealth, she made up for in willowy beauty, charm, intelligence she could speak at least five languages and sheer energy and willpower. She rewarded her husbands with her warmth, wit and generosity and her rapidly expanding network of high-glamour friends.

At the age of 19 she married Mario Cohen, an Argentine hosiery magnate, and bore him three children, two boys and a girl. But the marriage was not happy and, after divorcing Cohen and obtaining an ample settlement, in 1965 she wed Alfredo Freddy Greenberg he later changed the name to Monteverde the raffish socialite head of a Brazilian electrical distribution business.

Four years later, he killed himself in his mansion in Rio, leaving his widow a personal fortune of 200 million. His death was investigated at unusual length by the Brazilian police, but no evidence was found of foul play.

In the wake of her second husbands death, Lily Monteverde, as she then was, placed her fortune in the safekeeping of the 37-year-old Edmond Safra, head of Banco Safra in Brazil, a somewhat jowly workaholic who was already establishing a reputation for his strategy and cunning. He quickly became besotted with the beautiful widow. It was said that he felt that with all her money, she could not be after him for his.

Their courtship was no easy matter. By all accounts Edmonds brothers disapproved of Lily whom they saw as unsuitable for their deeply conservative and religiously observant Sephardic Jewish family. But when Edmond, under family pressure, ended the relationship, Lily responded in dramatic fashion.

In 1972, in Acapulco, she married Samuel Bendahan, a 35-year-old Moroccan-born British businessman. Gossip suggested that her main purpose was to make Safra jealous. If so, she succeeded, for within two months, the newly-weds had split up.

Later, Bendahan brought a suit against her and Safra, claiming that she had reneged on an agreement to pay him $250,000, but the suit was thrown out of court. Lily in turn charged Bendahan with extortion, but that case was dismissed as well.

In 1976, after her second divorce, she and Edmond Safra were married in a union described by a Brazilian friend as the irresistible combination of a lady with a past and a man with a future. A 600-page pre-nuptial agreement was reportedly drawn up one colleague jokingly called it a merger but the marriage turned out to be a successful one.

Yet not everything in Lilys life was gilded. In 1989, her son Claudio and her three-year-old grandson were killed in a car accident, a tragedy which affected her deeply and from which, according to friends, she never really recovered.

Afterwards, she threw herself into socialising and philanthropy, dedicating herself to funding charitable causes around the world. The rift between Lily and Safras brothers was never healed. They refused to attend the reception which she held after her husbands funeral and relations were not improved by her decision to bury her husband in Switzerland rather than at a cherished family-owned plot in Israel.

Her coming out in Britain occured in 2001 when Prince Charles held a dinner in the Picture Gallery at Buckingham Palace for the biggest American donors to charitable causes. Lily Safra sat at the Princes left hand. They became close friends, and when Lily Safra faced giving evidence at the trial of Ted Maher she reportedly hired the Princes public relations adviser, Mark Bolland, to handle any publicity.

Among many other gifts, she lavished money on the Princes Trust and donated 8million to Somerset House for the fountains in its courtyard which she arranged to be renamed after her husband Edmond Safra.

She gave 600,000 to World Trade Center victims, completed the Edmond J Safra Synagogue in Manhattan in 2002, donated to Afghan Relief, towards rebuilding after Hurricane Katrina, and 18million to fund a retreat for families of critically ill Americans. Her Jewels for Hope auction at Christies in 2012 raised millions for a range of causes including Parkinsons Disease and HIV research.

Softly spoken and always immaculately coiffeured, Lily Safras determination to retain her youthful looks left her face with wide open eyes and a slightly strange look that, as an acquaintance remarked, makes it difficult to tell exactly what age she really is.

Lily Safra, born December 30 1934, died July 9 2022

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Lily Safra, fabulously rich philanthropist whose life was peppered with drama and mystery obituary - The Telegraph

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Posted By admin on July 16, 2022

One of the greatest strengths of Ms. Marvel season 1 is how it balances all the bubbly vibrancy of a teen movie with the action-packed MCU that Kamala Khan (Iman Vellani) dreams of joining. After the six-episode season, shes officially in: a hero with possibly a weightier origin story than the show initially let on after reinventing her powers. But true to the adolescent movies the show takes some of its stylistic cues from, she isnt immune to everyday things like curfews and crushes.

Kamalas connections to the world are bigger than just the boys around her. She has a much-needed everyday life, with family and friends who deeply care for her well-being (and will gently rib her at a moments notice). This article should not be taken as any sort of insistence that Kamala needs a boy in her life season 1 of Ms. Marvel was mostly resistant to the idea that boys were Kamalas priority in any way. Though she was pulled into the orbit of Kamran, and later the Red Dagger, her focus is rightfully on her superheroics.

So this is more an intellectual exercise: While Kamala and Ms. Marvel are more interested in her family history and the powers shes adapting to, were just thinking about how fun her boy options are.

Look, Im going to be upfront about this: I think Bruno is the best boy because Ive read the comics, and Im attached to that version of the character.

Writer G. Willow Wilson makes Brunos socioeconomic niche much more present in the comics. He works at the Circle Q for subsistence, not pocket change; he lives with his grandmother because his mothers drug addiction became so severe that she lost the capacity to care for him. Artist Adrian Alphona gave the same nuance to his character design, giving Bruno dark hair and notably darker skin than other white characters, the kind of Mediterranean features that could cause him to be read as anything from Italian (accurate) to Sephardic to Latino to Middle Eastern, depending on what subway stop he walked out of.

Wilson used the best friends to maybe? dynamic between Bruno and Kamala to explore the tension between loving who you love and wanting to preserve your familys traditions in the face of cultural assimilation. Wilsons Bruno is very aware of all of that nuance, and the way hed be disappointing her family who he also loves by trying to date her.

But even setting the comics aside: TV Bruno is a good kid! This is not one of those cases where hes helping Kamala become a superhero because he expects smooches in return. We know that because of how he immediately jumps to help Kamran, a guy he loathes, when Kamran shows up in his home in trouble.

TV Bruno is earlier in his path than comics Bruno, but now that hes getting some time away from Jersey City and the Circle Q, hes going to level up and come back to be an even better boy for Kamala than he started. Im Team Bruno and proud. Susana Polo

I spent most of the early episodes rooting wholeheartedly for Bruno, the archetypal best friend and gear geek. Kamrans suaveness and instant aura of coolness felt off to me teens arent really known for being smooth operators, and Im personally distrustful of anyone who seems like they have their act together during high school.

But there were a few particular moments that made me like Kamran. The first happened when the two have a cute date at a diner. Kamala tells a story and starts to reflexively explain what ammi means. He pulls her hands into his and reminds her that he already knows. She doesnt need to explain. The mood shifts into one of ease Kamala gets to acknowledge how much time she has to spend explaining her ethnicity, traditions, and existence. Heres someone who gets it.

The next moments are just some good, old-fashioned heroism: Kamran shows up at Kamalas brothers wedding, in direct defiance of his mothers wishes, in order to protect Kamala. Later, he accepts Kamalas help and escapes.

Im not saying Kamran is perfect. Yes, he did that unnecessarily showy swimming pool entrance. And yes, I absolutely hate that he kept calling Bruno Brian. (We like Bruno, protect Bruno.) But that turned out to be an honest mistake. And Kamran seems to do the right thing when it actually matters so far, at least. Nicole Clark

I simply think that all romances should start with a knife throw.

I kid, I kid. (Mostly).

I do always punt for the charismatic rogue, however, and Kareem fits that to a T. His actor, Aramis Knight, does a fantastic job of making Kareem charming without being cheesy. Its a dashing escapade that Kamala deserves! Plus, the Red Daggers offer Kamala some much-needed context and information about the source of her powers, so in addition to being a whirlwind romance (if that is the path she picks), Kareem is also a necessary plot tool. With the legacy of the Red Daggers upon his shoulders, he is almost a foil to Kamala, but not quite as directly as Kamran. Instead of a complete reflection, theyre more like evocative parallels.

But flowing hair, knife-throwing skills, and mysterious red mask aside, Kareem is also a friendly guy who invites Kamala out with his friends and shows her around. Too often the charismatic rogue ends up being too much of a flirt or jerk but not Kareem! We love to see it. Petrana Radulovic

This isnt exactly a case for Kamala to end up with all these boys or to spend a ton of time in a love triangle (quadrilateral?) with any of them. But I did want to acknowledge how much I appreciate this show creating flawed, realistic guy friends for Kamala, all of whom tend toward tenacity and gregariousness, even in harsh circumstances.

Thats pretty cool! Especially compared to so many shows where every single guy friend is basically a jerk and simultaneously a potential love interest. If Ms. Marvel does head in a romantic direction and you know I love a kissing show these all seem like reasonable options. But dont hold me to that; I havent read the comics, so I dont know if any of them end up becoming jerkface villains. It would be a classic Marvel move. NC

So I know conventional wisdom says that every TV show has to have a will-they-wont-they plot, to keep people coming back in hopes of seeing how the romantic tension plays out. But in this case, Im absolutely on Team They Wont. The least interesting thing about Kamala Khan on this show is which boy she likes. Shes navigating all the pitfalls of being an American kid born to first-generation immigrants. Shes uncovering deep family secrets. Shes figuring out how to be a good Muslim and a good daughter while staying true to herself. Shes figuring out supernatural powers and superheroism, and a heritage thats apparently part supernatural, part something else entirely. And shes also working through the perfectly mundane but monumental challenge of being a really imaginative, creative kid surrounded by parents, teachers, and administrators who just want her to settle down and get an education. Shes got a lot going on, and its all way more important and engaging than her deciding who to kiss first.

But even if that wasnt true, I personally think her little harem-anime squad is pretty drippy. Bruno is way too much of a classic Nice Guy, the kind of boy who hangs around a female friend doing favors for her because hes carrying secret feelings for her, which he isnt brave enough to express until she shows an interest in someone else and he starts getting sulky and jealous. Kamran is a straight-up gaslighter who did eventually do the right thing, but still hasnt really answered for the way he entered her life with lies and manipulation. (Also, cmon, hes way too old for her. Vellani is currently 19; Rish Shah is 26, and looks it. He looks more like a model who belongs on her dream-inspiring wall posters than the guy she should be hanging around with.) And Kareem lives halfway around the world, so he may be a great Canadian boyfriend to keep the other boys at bay, but smooching is pretty impractical.

An awful lot of the charm of Ms. Marvel is in how young Vellani seems in the role, how independent and distinctive she is, and in how much she owns her own life and personality. I get it, shippers, you like kissing. But maybe give her a little space to breathe in her own life before she starts tying it into someone elses? Tasha Robinson

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Which boy is the best boy for Kamala Khan? - Polygon

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Posted By admin on July 16, 2022

A Jewish advocacy group is calling on Icelands government to take action againsta pro-Palestine websiteseeking to dismantle various Boston-area Jewish institutions thats being hosted by an Icelandic internet company.

The website is hosted by Reykjavk-based 1984 Hosting Co.

The Anti-Defamation League, in a letter Wednesday to Icelands Minister for Foreign Affairs, said it has already voiced its concerns about the Mapping Project to Icelands ambassador to the U.S. and its national police but hasnt received a substantive response.

The website features an interactive map of Massachusetts listing nearly 500 institutions many of them Jewish and accusing those institutions of complicity in a range of harms, including ethnic cleansing, colonialism and Zionism.

We deeply regret the apparent lackadaisical attitude of Icelandic officials toward this threat to the Jewish community and ask that your government take expeditious measures to prevent this website from being hosted in your country, Jonathan Greenblatt, the ADLs CEO wrote in the letter.

Reports of assault, harassment and vandalism against Jewish people remain at an historic high in Massachusetts.

Icelandic authorities will cooperate with U.S. officials if a request for mutual legal assistance is received, but the government doesnt have jurisdiction to investigate crimes by subjects located in other countries, Sveinn Gumarsson, a spokesperson for the Icelands Ministry for Foreign Affairs, said in a statement Thursday.

The FBIs Boston office and the U.S. Attorney for Massachusetts office, which have both said theyre looking into the site, declined to comment Thursday.

The 1984 Hosting Co., which also declined to comment, has previously said it doesnt host those who advocate violence, terror, suppression or hatred but declined to address the Jewish communitys concerns.

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ADL Asks Iceland to Act on Pro-Palestine Mapping Website - NBC10 Boston

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Posted By admin on July 16, 2022

Pennsylvania Sen. Doug Mastrianos campaign for governor in Pennsylvania paid $5,000 for consulting services to Gab, a social media platform that provides a home for conspiracy theories and antisemitic content.

Gab is the website used by Robert Bowers, who is charged with killing 11 Jewish worshippers at the Tree of Life synagogue in Squirrel Hill in 2018. Bowers routinely posted antisemitic content on Gab before the shooting, according to archives of the posts.

The payment was disclosed in a routine financial disclosure filed by the Mastriano campaign for the month of April. Mastrianos campaign didnt respond to an email requesting comment.

But Gab founder, CEO and majority owner Andrew Torba said in an email that Mastrianos $5,000 campaign payment on April 28 was for an advertising campaign. Torba has said he started the site as an antidote to mainstream social media sites that he believes are too liberal.

During an interview with Mastriano posted on Gab on May 2, Torba warned Mastriano that he would likely be criticized for agreeing to be interviewed on Gab. "You may even get called a smear for doing this interview with me. So brace yourself for that, Torba told Mastriano.

Mastriano expressed no reservations during the 16-minute interview about the content on Gab and thanked Torba for providing a space for conservative voices like his own. Mastriano has routinely declined interviews with mainstream media outlets and has barred some media from some campaign events.

Mastriano has posted 66 times on Gab since he joined it in February. A recent post on July 9 a criticism of Democratic economic policies received 157 comments. At least two dozen of those responses the most common response by far were antisemitic insults about state Attorney General Josh Shapiro, the Democratic candidate in the race for governor. Shapiro is Jewish.

The response to the post is typical of Gab content, according to a number of media reports and academic studies about the site. Although the sites founder says its purpose is to provide a haven for free speech, in practice that has meant the site often has been dominated by conspiracy theories and hate speech.

Torba himself has openly promoted white nationalist content and conspiracies on Gab, according to a New York Times report. After the recent mass shooting in Buffalo where a gunman targeted Black shoppers at a supermarket, Torba encouraged Gab members to marry and have babies only with other white people. Gab has actively courted Qanon supporters.

Gab advertises that its site includes tools to block users and filter out specific comments and subject matters. The Mastriano campaign didnt respond to questions about whether it had tried to block or remove the antisemitic comments.

Will Simons, a spokesperson for Shapiro, said in an emailed statement that the affiliation with Gab is typical of Mastrianos extremism. Mastriano has voiced support for unproven claims about election fraud and attended the insurrection at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, though he says he stayed behind police lines and did not enter the Capitol during the riot.

Doug Mastriano has proven again that he is unfit to be governor by bankrolling and accepting the endorsement of the hateful organization that empowered the Tree of Life shooter to spread antisemitic, white nationalist rhetoric before murdering 11 Jewish people in Pittsburgh, Simons wrote.

The Shapiro campaign didnt respond to questions about whether it is taking precautions because of the antisemitic content posted about him on Gab.

But Pittsburgh attorney Steve Irwin, who recently lost a close primary for the Democratic nomination in the 12th Congressional District, said hes worried that Mastrianos relationship with Gab could have unintended consequences. Irwin, who has served in leadership roles for the Anti-Defamation League and is Jewish, said he believes Mastriano thinks he needs extremist voters to win.

And frankly, he embraces it and he leans into it. He realizes that's what he's got to do, and he's doing it. And this is, it's just unconscionable, Irwin said.

On May 2, a few days after Mastrianos payment to Gab, Torba interviewed Mastriano on the video posted on Gab. And then on May 12, Torba endorsed Mastriano to the websites more than three million followers. Torba, a native of Scranton, runs his company out of nearby Clarks Summit, in Lackawanna County. He said his endorsement of Mastriano in the Republican primary had nothing to do with Mastrianos campaign payment to his company.

Torba said other politicians have advertised on Gab without gaining his endorsement. Torba forwarded an article by Media Matters with the headline Multiple Republican Politicians have been running ads on Gab, a haven for white nationalists. The article posted screenshots of advertisements on Gab from four Republican party officials and candidates, including U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and Rep. Paul Gosar of Arizona. (Media Matters has also reported on Mastriano's contribution to Gab.)

Kathy Barnette, the unsuccessful candidate for the Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate in Pennsylvania, was the only other candidate besides Mastriano who Torba endorsed. Torba said he endorsed candidates due to their open support of the Christian religion and not because of their advertisements on his site.

Tree of Life shooter on Gab

Antisemitic violence is at an all-time high in Western Pennsylvania, according to the Anti-Defamation League. There were more than twice as many antisemitic incidents in 2021, compared to 2017.

Irwin said he worries that Mastrianos support of a website that hosts posts from extremist groups could embolden some of its users.

The Tree of Life shooter found encouragement for his posts on Gab. Shortly before entering the synagogue, the accused shooter posted on Gab: I cant sit by and watch my people get slaughtered. Screw your optics, Im going in.

After the Tree of Life shooting, Gab says it cooperated with authorities, took down the shooters posts and condemned the violent attack. But the site continued to carry antisemitic content while it ran into an array of financial difficulties, as its web hosting company, GoDaddy, and payment processors such as PayPal refused to do business with the company.

Gabs assets decreased from $1.2 million in 2018 to around $600,000 in 2019, according to a company filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in 2020. The Apple and Google stores also removed the company's apps, according to the filing. The site has since started an encrypted messaging service that at least one law enforcement agency worried could become a haven for white nationalist plots.

Shapiro investigated Gab in his role as Pennsylvania Attorney General after the Tree of Life shooting but ultimately dropped the probe a year later.

Updated: July 14, 2022 at 2:02 PM EDT

This story has been updated with detail regarding the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

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GOP candidate for Pa. governor Mastriano paid $5000 to the website used by the Tree of Life shooter - 90.5 WESA

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Posted By admin on July 16, 2022

Date on which former Oath Keepers spokesperson Jason Van Tatenhove testified before the House Select Committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol by supporters of former President Donald Trump, in which Oath Keeper members played a lead role: 7/12/2022

Year in which Stewart Rhodes a Yale Law School graduate, U.S. Army veteran, and former staffer for U.S. Rep. Ron Paul of Texas founded the far-right anti-government militia group, with a focus on recruiting military veterans and law enforcement officers: 2009

Years, respectively, in which Oath Keepers patrolled a Missouri city amid protests over the police killing of an unarmed Black teen, offered protection for the Kentucky county clerk who defied a federal court order to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, guarded the site of a deadly far-right rally in Virginia, and monitored voting sites allegedly to discourage fraud: 2014, 2015, 2017, 2020

Date on which Rhodes sent an open letter to then-lame duck President Trump urging him to block the peaceful transfer of power to Joe Biden by invoking the Insurrection Act and calling up the military to, as he wrote, "suppress the expected riots, terrorism, and armed insurrection by the radical left": 12/14/2020

Number of Oath Keeper members, including Rhodes, who have been charged with seditious conspiracy in connection with their roles in the Jan. 6 Capitol attack: 11

Date on which the U.S. Department of Justice filed paperwork in the case against nine of those Oath Keepers charged, alleging that one of them, local Republican activist and retired Navy officer Thomas Caldwell of Virginia, "possessed a 'death list' with the names of Georgia election officials and, later, attempted to have someone build him firearms before January 20, showing Caldwell's intent to oppose government actors by force to stop the transfer of presidential power": 7/8/2022

Year in which the IRS granted charitable tax-exempt status to the Virginia Oath Keepers, a group once led by Caldwell: 2018

Year in which the IRS granted charitable tax-exempt status to Oath Keepers United, another chapter based in Virginia: 2018

Year in which the IRS granted charitable tax-exempt status to the Oath Keepers Educational Foundation, a group headquartered in Louisiana whose filing claimed its primary purpose is to "give veterans an opportunity for continued involvement in community service": 2019

Minimum number of other Oath Keeper groups that the IRS hasexempted from taxes, according to a recent report by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) titled "Extremist and Hate Groups May Be Abusing Non-Profit Status": 4

Of 73 U.S. militia groups identified by researchers with the Global Disinformation Index and Institute for Strategic Dialogue, including the Oath Keepers, portion that had been granted tax-exempt status, giving them access to numerous fundraising tools: 1/3

Amount tax-exempt groups have to pay in state and federal income taxes, unemployment taxes, property taxes, sales taxes, and employment taxes: $0

Month in which ADL contacted the IRS about its research into hate groups with tax-exempt status and asked the agency to investigate:6/2022

(Click on figure to go to source.)

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INSTITUTE INDEX: How U.S. taxpayers subsidize the Oath Keepers - Facing South

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PICTURE THIS: Its the end of the annual state legislative session in New York, a time when backroom deals are made to get legislation passed. Special interests, lobbyists, and activists of all stripes are descending on Albany to cajole lawmakers into acting on their priority issues. One legislator representing a Hasidic community in Brooklyn introduces a last-minute bill that, if enacted, would give Haredi yeshivas near complete autonomy on determining their curriculum, torpedoing the states ongoing efforts to enforce minimum education standards in yeshivas that fail to instruct their students in basic subjects like math, English, social studies, and science.

This actually happened in late May, and a close observer of New York politics might reasonably assume that the sponsor of the bill in question was State Sen. Simcha Felder, a conservative Democrat and a leading defender of the right of yeshivas to skirt public accountability. But this assumption would be wrong. The sponsor was none other than progressive State Sen. Julia Salazar, a member of the Democratic Socialists of America who became one of the first socialists elected to office in New York in several generations when she took office in 2019.

When my colleagues at Young Advocates For Fair Education (Yaffed)which lobbies for equal education for Haredi children in New Yorkand I learned of this, we were devastated. For years, we have pushed for greater oversight of a basic secular education curriculum to better equip graduates of those yeshivas with the tools they need to succeed and to live self-sufficiently. And we were making progress: In March, the state promulgated regulations designed to help districts better oversee non-public schools and enforce substantial equivalency.

Salazars bill, if passed, could potentially undo all of that and allow yeshivas to form their own accreditation agencies that would in turn rubber-stamp yeshivas that continue to flout the rules. The bill had originally been introduced in the State Assembly by Mike Benedetto, a centrist Democrat, following aggressive lobbying from the MirRam lobbying group, notorious for their shady dealings and their outsize influence in Benedettos district in the Bronx. But while Benedetto has long been susceptible to pressure from yeshiva leaders and their lobbyists, Salazar had been a strong supporter of educational equity in the past, in keeping with her oft-repeated progressive values and determination to stand up for righteous causesfor instance, abolishing ICE, or decriminalizing sex workregardless of their popularity. Indeed, she was one of the first elected officials to meet with Yaffed and pledge her support for our cause following the 2018 primary race in which she defeated incumbent Martin Dilan, who was favored by Hasidic leaders.

What happened? While I can only speculate, a new district map, released five days prior to the bills introduction, points to a possible answer: Salazar now has thousands more Hasidic constituents in her district, most of whom despise her progressive ideals and would not be inclined to vote for her. It seems reasonable to conclude that her decision to sponsor this legislation out of the blue and without so much as a call or email to education reform activists was motivated by this new reality. Absent any other explanation, Salazar appears to be throwing Hasidic kids under the bus to ensure her political survival.

Unfortunately, this is more of a pattern than an anomaly. Progressive elected officials have repeatedly rejected opportunities to ensure that Haredi yeshivas comply with state law and provide a basic education to their students. In a similar recent incident, Sen. Zellnor Myrie, a progressive representing Crown Heights and other parts of central Brooklyn, initially said he would co-sponsor legislation that would require non-public schools to certify substantial equivalence in instruction before qualifying for any taxpayer fundsbut ultimately chose not to act. Myrie told Yaffed, which had pushed for the legislation, that Chabad community leaders persuaded him against co-sponsoring it after arranging a visit to Oholei Torah, a yeshiva in his district infamous for providing virtually no secular education. His positive impression of the school raised more questions than it answered: Myrie acknowledged that he didnt see traditional secular subjects being taught, but nonetheless adopted the narrative that the students were well-behaved and that according to yeshiva leaders, their graduates are successful. But whatever impression he got was misleading: Schools that deny kids the education they need can look innocuous on the surface; kids being denied an education can be perfectly obedient; and a rigorous religious education is no substitute for the basic skills students need to participate in society beyond Haredi communities. Follow-up communications to his office, which included evidence that secular education is absent from the yeshiva in question, went unanswered.

Disappointingly, some progressive officials have gone out of their way to pander to the most extreme factions of the Haredi community. Last year, Democratic Socialist Assembly member Emily Gallaghers chief of staff, Andrew Epstein, traveled from Brooklyn to suburban Tarrytown to attend an annual celebration by the Orthodox Jewish Public Affairs Council (OJPAC), an organization that has openly pushed Covid denialism, vaccine skepticism, and anti-education propaganda. OJPACs founder, Yossi Gestetner, publicly berated Donald Trump for calling off the January 6th insurrection and telling his supporters to go home. This year, progressive City Councilman Lincoln Restler made that same trek and posed proudly with OJPAC attendees and affiliates.

Progressive Sen. Alessandra Biaggi, who is now running for Congress to represent part of the Hudson Valley, declined to co-sponsor our legislation for fear of upsetting her constituents, even though in the past she has agreed with the basic premise. Rep. Mondaire Jones, a progressive Democrat who currently represents New Yorks 17th Congressional District, told us he didnt want to get involved in anything that could be controversial with the districts Haredi leaders. One of Joness leading primary rivals in the newly redrawn 10th District, former Mayor Bill de Blasio, is notorious for his pusillanimity on this and other issues related to the Haredi community.

A friend recently asked what I expect of individuals who represent districts with large Haredi populations: Of course theyre aligned with you in principle, but they need to get reelected, after all. What is the problem with pandering for votes, getting elected, and then using that power to pursue their many other worthy priorities? But if progressive politicians allow special interests to dictate their position on this issue, against the public good, that should concern activists across the board; who knows what other core values they might be willing to discard in the name of expediency?

Theres a common misconception that a basic education for students in Haredi yeshivas is a niche issuea minor injustice at most, one that can be safely sacrificed for the greater good. This attitude is shortsighted and fundamentally unprogressive, dismissing the welfare of tens of thousands of children65,000 and counting, by our estimateswho are being denied an education. Developments in the Haredi community are not self-contained, as we learned during the pandemic when large weddings were held in Borough Park and Williamsburg in defiance of public health regulationsa problem undoubtedly exacerbated by low levels of educational attainment and a lack of exposure to fundamentals of science.

During the recent January 6th Committee hearings in Washington, Republican Rep. Adam Kinzingerwho has effectively ended his political career by pursuing the truth about the Trump administrations role in the attempted insurrectionsaid that the moment reelection becomes more important than the basic values on which a politician ran for office is also the moment holding office no longer becomes worthwhile. This conclusion is one well worth considering for progressive politicians willing to cut deals with yeshiva leaders looking to maintain an unjust status quo.

We deserve representatives who are consistent in their values, and who do not choose their narrow electoral interests over the constitutional right of all children to a sound basic education. Standing up for the rights of these children, who cannot vote and are not of an age where they understand the profound damage being done to them, is a crucial test of sincerity for political figures who purport to give voice to the voiceless and to fight for the most vulnerable in their districts. Unfortunately, many politicians widely admired in our community are failing this test. It is not too late for them to do the right thing for children currently being deprived of the tools they will need to determine their own futures.

As I prepare to step away from leading Yaffed, after enduring ten years of heartache and betrayal from politicians who refused to do the right thing, it remains my hope that my successor and my peers can someday count on progressive politicians to act according to their professed values and stand up for the rights of New Yorks most vulnerable children to a sound basic education.

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Progressives Have Abandoned Haredi Children - Jewish Currents

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Posted By admin on July 16, 2022

The dance workshop was in full swing, but catastrophe was afoot: Nobody understood how to make a four-pointed star.

Im referring to a folk dance pattern that, as one of the less competent dancers in the room, I am ill-equipped to properly describe. Suffice it to say that there are eight people standing in a square, and four of them are supposed to put their arms into the center and pivot clockwise (or was it counter-clockwise?), swinging each of the remaining four dancers in turn.

Things were not going well. I was aiming for an elderly man in crisp khakis, but kept ending up on the arm of a college student in a Black Sabbath T-shirt. I kept crashing into people, and I couldnt tell who was going the wrong way. (Probably me.)

In the rare moments when I had leisure to look around, I could see the other eight-person squares were faring similarly. One couple had detached themselves entirely and were waltzing around the room on their own. Steve Weintraub, the dancer andklezmer flash mob creatorleading the workshop, darted puckishly around the room, correcting steps and shouting things like, Now promenade! Promenading basically, is just prancing in a circle like a Fiddler on the Roof daughter prowling for a husband. It was a directive everyone could greet with relief.

The 50 or so masked people gathered in the barn-like hall some young, some old, some dancing for the whole workshop, others retreating to rest on the sidelines had signed up to learn some not-so-basic Jewish folk dances. The arrangements Weintraub created share many features with their European cousins; theyd feel familiar to anyone who has attended a square dance or watched a Jane Austen adaptation. But the klezmer accordion music provided by Lauren Brody made these dances distinctly Jewish, a taste of how our ancestors might have stepped and twirled at weddings and holidays in the old country.

When the music finally ended, participants moseyed outside to cool off, drink water, and grab lunch from a conveniently located hummus truck. They didnt have much time to kill, because they hadnt schlepped here just for one dance class. They were spending the whole weekend at Yidstock, an annual celebration of Yiddish music at theYiddish Book Centersbucolic campus in Amherst, Massachusetts.

With its low rooflines designed to mimic the feel of a European shtetl, troves of Yiddish books long out of print and archives of oral histories, the book center is oriented around the preservation of literature and culture once considered at risk of dying out. Yet Yidstock is far from championing tradition for traditions sake. In its endearing informality and slightly sweaty earnestness, the workshop embodied one of the weekends core aims: illuminating the clash between old and new customs, Jewish and non-Jewish traditions, that shaped Yiddish culture long before there were festivals commemorating it.

People might leave a concert today and say, Thats not traditional klezmer like I grew up with, said Seth Rogovoy, the festivals artistic director. (Rogovoy is also a contributing editor to the Forward.) But that klezmer you grew up with? Thats not traditional either.

The Yiddish Book Center dates back to 1980, when Aaron Lansky, then a graduate student living in nearby Northampton, realized that American Jews, uninterested in their parents and grandparents Yiddish books, were disposing of them en masse. Lansky started a network ofzamlers, or volunteer collectors, to find and recover books at risk of destruction and soon became known as someone who would do anything to save Yiddish books.

Four decades later, the project is no longer the province of scrappy volunteers. Supported by 30,0000 volunteers, the Yiddish Book Center is one of the worlds largest repositories of Yiddish books. I opened the centers unassuming doors to reveal a librarians fantasy, with colorful Yiddish banners suspended over seemingly endless rows of books. But the center is still taking in new volumes. While I was chatting with David Mazower, the book centers editorial director, a bearded employee came over to announce that two boxes from azamlerin the Berkshires had just arrived.

Yidstock itself started in 2011, when Susan Bronson, the Yiddish Book Centers executive director, was a new hire brainstorming ways to attract visitors.

I really wanted to think about what we could do where wed be bringing in people from all over the country, and where we could also be fostering creativity in Yiddish music, she said in a phone interview. And I just thought that a music festival would be a wonderful thing.

Bronson recruited Rogovoy, a musician and critic then based in the Berkshires to put together a set list. In its first iteration, Yidstock consisted of a few concerts over the course of a day. Now, in its 10th, the festival boasts 400 and a long weekends-worth of activities, including film screenings, dance workshops and artist talks. Some performers, like theKlezmatics, are big names who draw festival-goers year after year. Others are comparatively new arrivals:Tsvey Brider, a songwriting duo inspired by 20th-century Jewish writers and poets, formed in 2017 and has already performed at Yidstock twice.

I trekked up from New York on the festivals first afternoon, just in time to catch Hankus Netskys lecture onnigunim. Wordless devotional melodies that usually originate in Hasidic communities,nigunimoften make their way into synagogues of all denominations as evidenced by the vigorous humming along that erupted in the audience every time Netsky played a snippet. Erudite on the musical merits ofnigunim, Netsky was still willing to have a little fun at their expense. Explaining one four-part nigun, which is supposed to bring the singer towards ecstatic communion with God, he quipped, In the fourth stage, you become a disembodied spirit. Hows that for music theory?

The lecture was supposed to prepare attendees for the festivals first concert, performed by Hasidic cantorYaakov Lemmer,whose performance turned out to be less sacred than schmaltzy, featuring klezmer marches, a tribute to shalashudis (the third meal of Shabbat) and something called an alcohol medley. Swiping through sheet music on an iPad and swigging water from a Hydro Flask, Lemmer nevertheless radiated the old-fashioned geniality of a Borscht Belt dinner show host. During the livelier numbers, Weintraub led a faction of young acolytes in improvised dances down the aisles. In the rows of audience members who didnt care to strut their stuff, closed-toed sandals tapped the entire time.

For performers, Yidstock can be a uniquely hospitable venue for unexpected musical combinations. Anthony Russell, the singing half of the duo Tsvey Brider, recalled that for his festival debut, he sang several Yiddish poems set to pop melodies. The audience ate it up.

The world of Yiddish text, especially poetry, goes so many places, Russell said. It seems unfair to confine it to a certain set of sounds.

Netsky, the lecturer, believes that music like this, and the broader project of Yidstock, occupies an outsider position relative to the mainstream Jewish community, which he argues has never fully embraced klezmer since its revival in the 1970s. The mainstream Jewish community almost doesnt notice it, because its not its not about Israel, its not about intermarriage and its not about synagogues, he said.

Yidstock doesnt exactly feel like a renegade endeavor: The Yiddish Book Centers tens of thousands of members, shtetl-chic interiors and well-equipped performance spaces speak to a certain degree of mainstream success, at least when it comes to fundraising. But attendees who made the pilgrimage to Massachusetts were certainly searching for experiences that everyday Jewish life doesnt provide.

Samantha Cohen, 29, traveled to Yidstock from New York City with her parents and grandparents, provisions in tow at lunch timethe family set up a full picnic spread, complete with Coleman coolers and a gingham blanket, in the book centers parking lot. While the Klezmatics were a big draw, Cohen said, she was most excited for the chance to practice, Yiddish, which she studied in college.

While New York is rife with Jewish music, she said, there arent as many events where you get to speak [Yiddish] or listen to speakers.

Jake Krakovsky, a theater artist from Atlanta, started studying Yiddish at the beginning of the pandemic, when the Yiddish Book Center moved its in-person classes online. Even as a beginner, he said, he realized the language was going to be very important to me, probably for the rest of my life.

Now, Krakovsky, 31, is a counselor at the book centers summer Yiddish intensive, which has finally resumed in-person classes. He oversees a sizeable cohort of college and graduate students who find their way to the center and to Yidstock for reasons personal, academic and political.

I see folks with a really strong interest in klezmer, Krakovsky said. I see folks with an interest in various aspects of Jewish history. I see folks who really want to be close to Judaism but are either turned off or alienated by the centrality of Zionism in Jewish institutions.

One of Krakovskys charges is Grayson Hawthorn, 20, a Smith College student studying Yiddish to assist her Russian studies research. Hawthorn said her parents were bemused when she announced her intention to spend the summer at Yiddish camp but then again, so was she.

If you told me two years ago, Youre going to be at a klezmer music festival and theres going to be a lot of people who are really hyped about this, I would have been like, What are you talking about? Hawthorn said.

As the folk dance workshop drew to a close, Weintraub paused to explain the origins of the figures hed taught us. Some came from Hasidic dances, while other influences were far more modern he cited the 1938 movie The Dybbuk as one inspiration.

Then he arranged all the dancers in one giant square and had each side take turns dancing to the center of the room and back. I waltzed and stomped, clasping hands and making slightly awkward eye contact with people whose names I would never learn. After an hour of stumbling through complicated steps, these came naturally maybe because they were objectively very easy, maybe because wed all seen The Dybbuk, maybe because, however much theyd evolved over the years, they were part of our history.

Were allowed to take chunks of things, Weintraub said of his own approach to Jewish dance. It might actually be the most traditional thing to do.

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At this Yiddish music festival, tradition is everything and nothing J. - The Jewish News of Northern California

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