Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By admin on July 10, 2022

By Roberta Silman

A.B. Yehoshua was anything but a provincial Israeli writer. He was a literary giant whose imaginative gift was so striking and diverse that you never knew what he would do next.

Mr. Mani by A.B. Yehoshua. Translated from the Hebrew by Hillel Halkin. Harvest paperback, 369 pages, $12.95.

A few weeks ago A.B. Yehoshua, the eminent Israeli writer, died at the age of 85, and his many obituaries were respectful: Here was a wonderful writer who had an uncanny understanding of familial relationships, who left us with many novels and essays and plays, who was beloved by his compatriots and colleagues as Buli, his nickname, and who will be remembered for his evocative portrayals of both Jews in the Diaspora and Jews of Ashkenazi and Sephardi descent (he was a third generation Sephardi) who stayed in Israel where their love for their country was paramount.

For my money most of them missed the point.

To regard Yehoshua as a provincial Israeli writer or a Jewish writer is as silly as it would be to regard Faulkner, whom Yehoshua loved, as a Southern American writer or James Joyce as an Irish writer who started out writing little Irish stories as Dubliners was once described to me when I was very young. Yehoshua was a literary giant whose imaginative gift was so striking and diverse that you never knew what he would do next. And when he published Mr. Mani in 1989 he was so far ahead of his time that ordinary reviewers did not know what to make of it and called it too hard to follow. Only Ted Solotaroff in The Nation recognized it for what it was: Yehoshuas most ambitious, visionary, and powerful novel . . .a marvel . . . The Nobel prize has been given for less. Indeed, since then I have been waiting for Yehoshua to be awarded that coveted prize. In vain. Thus, he joins the list of those who never got it, probably because politics that villain whom we in America have come to know too well played a part: Tolstoy, Chekhov, Turgenev, Joyce, Proust, Colette, Woolf, Forster, Dreiser, Nabokov.

The best obituary that I have read so far was from the Australian Jewish News which said . . . one was likely to meet a raw exploration of a flawed but likable protagonist, a patient, humour-laden style, and a dark storyline that deftly held the reader to the page. The sentences were long and complex, nested with meaning, and the heart of the stories could often be found in dialogue. And then it quoted the President of the organization Zionism Victoria, Yossi Goldfarb: A.B Yehoshuas passing is an enormous loss for the State of Israel, the Jewish world and indeed for the global literary community. He was a literary giant, often spoken about as a possible Nobel laureate, an activist and someone Id consider as part of Israels moral conscience . . . I was privileged to spend two weeks with him in the 90s when he toured Australia, and I can also say that Buli was just one of the loveliest, funniest, and smartest people I have ever met. A total mensch.

I have reviewed The Tunnel, The Retrospective, and The Extra for The Arts Fuse, and I love Yehoshuas domestic novels which reveal his sly humor and great intelligence and astonishing ability to get into a womans mind. For those of you who dont know his work, I would definitely recommend starting with one of those: The Lover, The Liberated Bride, Five Seasons, A Late Divorce. And then go on to Mr. Mani, which can be read in different ways: as five monologues dealing with a member of the mysterious Mani family, as a history of the Manis, and also as a history of the Jews as they confronted world events, often war. But before we delve into that complicated book, well-deserved recognition for Yehoshuas translator in this instance and for many of his books, the redoubtable Hillel Halkin whose Hebrew I am told by Hebrew speakers matches the genius of the man he has translated.

Although I have called the five sections of Mr. Mani monologues they are actually halves of five conversations the first on the telephone, and the rest in person between a daughter and a mother in Israel in 1982, between a cruel German soldier and his grandmother on a hike in Crete in 1944, between an Anglo-Jewish soldier to his superior officer in Jerusalem in 1918 explaining the court case involving a recently caught spy named Mani, between a son and his father in Jelleny-Sad near Cracow describing a journey taken by him and his sister Linka to the Third Zionist Congress in 1899, and finally a talk involving two other people, a dying Rabbi, his wife, and their old friend Avraham Mani in Athens in 1848. We learn about ten Manis, beginning with Eliyahu Mani, who was born in 1740, and ending with Roni Mani, who was born in 1983. What Yehoshua has done is work backwards, starting with the modern Manis and ending in 1848 when Avraham Mani, terrified that there would be no more Manis in the world, decides to impregnate his widowed daughter-in-law, thus ensuring that the family line will continue.

They are all seen within the context of history: the first three associated with wars 1982 (Lebanon War), 1944 World War II and the Holocaust), 1918 (end of World War I and the period soon after the Balfour Declaration which promises British support for the creation of a Jewish national home in Palestine). The last two reflecting impulse towards the creation of a state of Israel which took almost a hundred years to accomplish:1899 (Third Zionist Congress) and 1848 (eruption of nationalist movements in Europe). Thus, we are given a history of a Jewish Sephardi family whose quirky, sometimes outrageous behavior upends the lives of the people around them. For the record, Yehoshua labeled his novel a work of intergenerational psychoanalysis. Which seems right, since there is a great deal about birth (one Mani is a doctor who has founded a gynecological clinic in Jerusalem) and love and death and suicide. One male character is obsessed with the idea of doing himself in, another, desperate because of unrequited love, walks in front of a train.

If it sounds complicated, it is. Moreover, Yehoshuas choice of working backwards makes it even more so. I understand that choice, though it creates a book in which hope, beautifully evoked in the first conversation at the end of the 20th century, becomes increasingly diminished with each ensuing conversation in the past. The endurance of the Mani family which is a stand-in for the universal Jewish family is seen to depend on chance. The clan was often a hairs breadth from extinction. Still, all is not confusion or dialogue. Drawing on post-modern strategies, Yehoshua gives us signposts to follow. Context is supplied before each conversation and, at the end, there is a Supplements section which completes the biography of each participant.

What makes the novel so unique is that each conversationalist has his own voice. It is interesting that, while combing through reviews, I found an enormous range of reactions. Each reviewer told readers what his favorite conversation was. The choices proved the adage, each to his own taste. For example, what one person found flat and cumbersome the English soldier reporting the facts of the court case to his superior was a conversation I loved. Here is the pitch-perfect voice of Ivor Stephen Horowitz revealing so much of himself while concluding his case for mercy for the Mani picked up as a spy in 1918:

. . .Was this, sir, the way British history in the Holy Land was to begin, with the hanging of a Jew in Jerusalem? And yet I had to ask myself if I would be understood,; and whether if I talked candidly enough to make myself understood, I would be suspected of divided loyalties. You see, sir, Ive never sought to hide my Jewishness as have certain other officers in this division, not could I hope to do so given my name, my appearance, my eyeglasses, my low and protuberant rear end, and my presumptuous literary garrulousness that even an aristocratic Cambridge mumble been unable to dispel. . . And so I was quite resigned to failure, perhaps even to severe reprimand; but I remembered what my mother always told me: Never give up.son, she said, never be afraid as long as you know your intentions are pure; which is how I put my case before you, sir; not merely as a soldier obeying orders, but as a subject of Great Britain, of the empire that rests assured of its approaching victory, of the wars end, and of the glorious era that awaits us and the entire Commonwealth . . .

His grandfather, sir, came from Salonika, which was in Turkey at the time and is presently in Greece.

Why, of course, sir. We can definitely say Greece. But can we be sure theyll take him if we banish him?

Then you think, do you, Colonel, that the islands would be best?

Of course, sir. Every westward-bound ship from Jaffa calls on them. . .Crete, perhaps . . .he can have his pick . . .

Which is how the Nazi soldier who parachutes from his plane like Icarus can, a generation later in the midst of World War II, cancel the guide named Mani in Heraklion and send him to his death in a concentration camp.

Another favorite conversation describes a madcap trip taken by Efrahim and his sister Linka Shapiro from Poland to the Third Zionist Congress in Basel in 1899; a story so madcap that it reminded me of Noises Off by Michael Frayn. The siblings are far from home, sometimes taken for man and wife, but utterly wild in their new-found freedom, especially Linka. Here is the brother describing what happened on the first leg of the trip when they are in Warsaw:

All at once she had become the grand lady. You should have seen her holding her hand out for those Poles to kissthat childish little hand stained with ink which her admirer from Warsaw put his lips to with unconcealed desireshe was laughing, she was all in a whirla once neatly closed little pocket knife that had suddenly sprung open with all its blades . . .

After fending off many more suitors as Linka travels with her brother and Mr. Mani in Europe, the three of them go to Jerusalem, where the Shapiro siblings discover that their Mr. Mani is actually a doctor who has founded a well-known clinic in Jerusalem (which appears in the first conversation in the novel almost a hundred years later). And that Dr. Mani has a mother and a wife and children. Linka works in the clinic, seeing birth and sometimes death up close and getting to know the Swedish nurse whose fierce loyalty to Dr. Mani is famous in the ancient city. She also gets to know the doctor even better, deciding to live with the family while her brother finds separate lodgings near the Jaffa Gate and explores Jerusalem on his own. It is in this section that we feel Yehoshuas love for his native city. Here is Efrayem describing it on their final day there during the long service on Yom Kippur:

It is a light, Father, in which two different lights contend, a tawny, free-flowing one from the desert and a bluish one born from the sea that slowly ascends the mountains, fathering the light of the rocks and the olive trees on its way. They meet in Jerusalemimbibe each other theresubsume each other thereand conjoin at evening into a clear, winy glow that settles through the treetops branch by branch and turns to a coppery red, whichreaching the tip of the windowinspires the worshipers to leap to their feet and bellow the closing prayer in a great wave of supplication that washes over the frozen world. . . .

That Yom Kippur ends with Linka and Efrayem deciding to start the journey home. To their surprise Mani decides to see them to the boat, and just before Mani insists on accompanying them to Beirut, Efrayem realizes that he and Mani were engaged in a wordless struggle for [Linka].

Here is Efrayem describing the end of their strange journey in a carriage in Beirut when he realizes that Manis desperate love for his capricious sister will end in tragedy:

Why, here is our lost steed, [Mani] said with a smile, putting Linka and me in the back seat, which was spread with a colorful Persian rug, and seating himself up front by the coachman, his broad back facing us like a threat, although one that was aimed at himself. For the first time since leaving Katowice and taking the night train to Prague, I felt Linka clinging to me for protection. She had turned back into a girlthe jackknife, Father, had sprung all its blades and was now neatly folded again. Are you listening?

Efrayims exasperation mounts as he tells his apparently inattentive father, in unsparing excruciating detail, the terror they experienced while watching Mani take his life before their very eyes. And acknowledges their part in this terrible act, whose description finally brings the father to tears.

So this is a book that requires close attention as it travels through time and geography. It might also be a great opportunity to take turns reading it aloud to appreciate every nuance. (I can see a family of five doing it the rewards would be ample.). The tension and urgency that builds throughout Mr. Mani is quite amazing. It may feel like going to five exhausting one-act plays in succession. Still, by the end, which is actually the beginning, you will have a sense of Jewish history you could not have gotten in any other way. For this gifted writers vision of what it means to be a Jew and, by extension, a human being, will not only enrich your sense of what it means to survive the trials and tribulations of history. It will also become a source of strength as you and your descendants make your way through this sometimes treacherous path which we call, for want of any other name, the future.

Which is exactly what great fiction is meant to do.

Roberta Silman is the author of four novels, a short story collection and two childrens books. Her latest novel, Secrets and Shadows (Arts Fuse review), is in its second printing and is available on Amazon and at Campden Hill Books. It was chosen as one of the best Indie Books of 2018 by Kirkus and it is now available as an audio book from Alison Larkin Presents. A recipient of Fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts, she has reviewed for the New York Times and Boston Globe, and writes regularly for the Arts Fuse. More about her can be found at robertasilman.com and she can also be reached at rsilman@verizon.net.

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Book Appreciation: AB Yehoshua's "Mr Mani" -- A Great Work of Fiction - artsfuse.org

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Posted By admin on July 10, 2022

City folk used to walk past the plain wooden door on Plymouths Lambhay Hill day after day with no clue of the fascinating secret that lay hidden behind it. It took an intrepid enthusiast to rediscover the long forgotten Jewish Cemetery that for more than a century had remained unloved and overgrown with weeds in the shadow of the citys Citadel.

When Jerry Sibley, caretaker of Plymouth Synagogue, received an anonymous complaint back in 2016 about overgrown trees in the graveyard affecting phone lines, he was confused. After checking the current Jewish cemetery next to Ford Park, which dates back to the 1860s, and finding no problem with overhanging branches, he started investigating the possibility of another, older, graveyard somewhere in the city.

Not Jewish himself, British Army veteran Jerry had taken the job of looking after the historic Jewish synagogue on Catherine Street nine years earlier. He learned about the intriguing history of the building - the oldest Ashkenazi synagogue still in regular use in the English-speaking world - which dates back to 1762, but had never heard of another burial ground associated with it.

READ MORE - Scenes of Plymouth that have changed dramatically over the past decade

After dogged research he eventually discovered a historical reference to a Jewish cemetery off Lambhay Hill, but after searching up and down the road he still couldnt find any clues. That was when he decided to trawl Google maps satellite imagery to help track down the site, spotting a patch of green behind a high stone wall and the hint of a couple of gravestones. Rushing down to take a look, he discovered a mysterious black door, but it was firmly locked.

Back at the synagogue he asked if anyone could help and was offered a box of random old keys to try. Working through the likely candidates one by one, Jerry struck gold when the lock finally turned and he was able to scrape open the door to reveal a wild jungle hiding the final resting place of Plymouths early Jewish community.

Talking about his first visit inside, Jerry told the Plymouth Herald: I was really awestruck. The whole thing was like a wildlife park, completely overgrown, not just at ground levels but the height of it as well.

Volunteers helped cut back the undergrowth and uncover the headstones, with worn inscriptions mostly written in Hebrew, revealing some dating back as far as 1744. Armed with those clues, Jerry went on a mission to find out more about the historic hallowed ground and the stories of the past generations buried there.

Jewish migrants began arriving in Plymouth from Amsterdam in the early 1700s, aiming to journey on to America, but some decided to stay when they realised the potential for their skills, particularly tailoring and goldsmithing, in the naval community. The only Jewish burial ground in England at the time was in London, so it was deemed acceptable to bury those who died in Plymouth on the land of another member of the Hebrew community.

The Lambhay site, originally just a small private garden, was gifted to the synagogue in about 1745 by a woman called Sarah Sherrenbeck, and she and her husband, Joseph are both buried there. As the years went on, more land was leased to either side until the plot could expand no more and some graves were having to be used twice, leading to the purchase of the new site.

Today the walled Lambhay Hill plot is recognised as Britains oldest Jewish cemetery outside London and is protected by Grade II listed status. Along with the synagogue itself, it is also one of the most popular tourist attractions in the city, especially for visitors from the worldwide Jewish community. Jerrys guided tours share the fascinating detailed information he has unearthed about the social history of Jews in Plymouth in centuries gone by, further embellished by an entertaining audio trail describing the lives of some of those buried there.

It includes the charming story of the final, and rather unusual, burial at the cemetery. Jerrys black and white cat, Barney, had become part of the furniture at the synagogue, following the caretaker around and greeting the congregation as they arrived or left the building. When the popular feline died at Passover, Jerry asked for special permission to bury him near the entrance to the old cemetery, which is where his grave is now marked with his name in white on a black headstone and the words Guardian of the Threshold. The whole congregation turned out for his burial.

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The secret Plymouth graveyard unearthed behind this door with the aid of Google and a box of old keys - Plymouth Live

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Posted By admin on July 10, 2022

The Midrash states that the commandment of Parah Adumah is the ultimate religious mystery, and its reasons are unknowable. The commandment outlines a purification ritual for those who come in contact with a dead body. A red heifer, or Parah Adumah, is sacrificed on the Mount of Olives, and then burnt on a pyre. The ashes are mixed with water and sprinkled on those who were impure.

The Parah Adumah ritual is confusing for several reasons. It is a sacrifice that is performed outside of the Temple, something that elsewhere the Torah explicitly forbids. And while the ashes of the Parah Adumah purify those who were impure, paradoxically, those who handle the ashes are themselves rendered impure. The Midrash says that even the wisest of all men, King Solomon, said about this commandment, I thought I was wise enough, yet it was distant from my understanding. Even Solomon couldnt comprehend the purpose of the Parah Adumah. The term used by the Talmud for commandments without any reasons, a chok, is taken directly from our Torah reading.

Whether or not the commandments have reasons has been debated by Jewish thinkers for over 2,000 years. Christine Hayes, in her book Whats Divine About Divine Law, explains that these debates arose when Jews first confronted Hellenistic culture. In the Greek world, the idea of natural law, a universal, rational understanding of what is right and what is wrong, was accepted; what would be considered divine morality could be understood by ones intellect. This perspective challenged Jews to think about how to understand the Torah, most of whose commandments were offered as divine fiats without any stated reasons. Some, like Philo, sought to integrate the Greek understanding of divine law into the Torah, and find logical reasons for all the commandments; this project of searching for taamei hamitzvot, the reasons for the commandments, has continued to this day. The rabbis of the Talmud and Midrash held multiple points of view on this question. Some rabbis take the same approach as Philo, but many passages in Talmud and Midrash reject the idea that commandments have reasons. Even ostensibly ethical commandments are seen as purely a reflection of Gods will; one passage in the Talmud says it is improper to consider the commandment to send the mother bird away before taking her eggs, as a reflection of divine mercy, because all of Gods commandments are exclusively divine decrees. Another passage in the Talmud that was particularly influential in medieval philosophy creates a division between two types of commandments: There are mishpatim, ethical laws that one would arrive at rationally on ones own, much like natural law. And there are chukim, divine decrees without any explanation; the Talmud says that regarding chukim, God declares, I decreed these statutes, and you have no right to question them.

In medieval philosophy, Saadia Gaon accepts this distinction between chukim and mishpatim, which he calls revealed and rational laws. The Rambam strongly disagrees and insists that every commandment is rational. God would only act in accordance with wisdom; he explains that our Sages generally do not think that such precepts have no cause whatever and serve no purpose, for this would lead us to assume that Gods actions are purposeless. The Rambam devotes nearly a quarter of his Guide for the Perplexed to taamei hamitzvot, and he enumerates reasons for every commandment, even ones that seem strange and obscure.

But in the modern era, the Rambams understanding of taamei hamitzvot was rejected by many Jewish thinkers. By offering philosophical, historical, and even medical reasons for the commandments, the Rambam opened a religious Pandoras box: If the reason was no longer relevant, perhaps the commandment could be ignored? For this reason, Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch harshly criticizes the Rambams taamei hamitzvot, because they paved the way for the Reform movement. He writes:

If, for instance, the sole purpose of the prohibition of labor on the Sabbath was to enable men to rest and recover from the toils of the week, if the Sabbath means only the cessation of corporeal activity in order that the mind may be active; and who could doubt it, since both Moses (i.e, Moses Maimonides and Moses Mendelssohn) interpret it thus, and the Christian Sunday agrees with their conception, who must not consider it mere pettiness and pedantic absurdity to fill an entire folio with the investigation of the question, what particular actions are forbidden, and what permitted on the Sabbath day? How singular, to declare the writing of two letters, perhaps an intellectual occupation, a deadly sin, while judging leniently many acts involving great physical exertion, and freeing from penalty all purposeless destruction!

Hirsch bemoans the fact that the Rambams philosophical interpretations of the mitzvot undermine the practice of halakhah; in actuality, the Shabbat is much more than a mere day of rest. By explaining the commandments, the Rambam ended up undermining them.

Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik takes this critique a step further. He too uses the Rambams reason for Shabbat as an example. He writes that if the purpose of Shabbat is merely hedonic, to rest, then the Sabbath idea is dispossessed of its breadth and warmth. And if the Sabbath is to be seen only against the background of mundane social justice and similar ideals, the intrinsic quality of the Sabbath is transformed into something alien. It serves merely as a means to the realization of a higher end. Soloveitchik explains that reasons for the commandments offered by the Rambam often explain a religious norm by an ethical precept, turning religion into the maidservant of ethics. Rabbi Soloveitchiks fundamental criticism is that the Rambams taamei hamitzvot subordinate the Torah to other disciplines, putting Torah second.

Both Rabbis Hirsch and Soloveitchik emphasize the need for the Torah to be treated as an independent, transcendent discipline. This call is particularly significant, considering that it comes from two thinkers who were associated with movements of Torah Umadda and Torah im Derech Eretz, who saw engagement with general knowledge as a religious obligation; yet they remain steadfast in refusing to reduce Torah to a vehicle for external disciplines.

And this is precisely the importance of chok: to remind us not to use divine revelation in the service of other ends. We must approach the commandments with humility, and not assume they are there to serve our own personal needs.

We must approach the commandments with humility, and not assume they are there to serve our own personal needs.

Sadly, in contemporary times, many treat the Torah as a textbook of non-Torah subjects; readers scour religious texts to find lessons of psychology, leadership, finance, and even medicine. My objection is not to specific insights. For example, one must consider the psychological aspects within the narratives of Bereishit; not to do so would overlook important insights. But when the psychological perspective becomes the primary mode of engaging a text, the spiritual power of the Torah is lost. A grand gesture of faith can be reduced to an unusual father-son dynamic, and the Torah then becomes a collection of interesting case studies. The Torah should not become a spade with which to dig, a way to obtain useful information that the reader finds gratifying.

The Torah is most often conscripted in the service of politics. Every hot button issue inspires articles about how the Torah supports one viewpoint or another. Written in the style of a lawyers brief, these articles of political-Torah lack nuance and scholarly insight. Undoubtedly, the advocates of politicizing Torah have laudable goals: They want to ensure that the Torah is relevant, and that we bring Torah values into the public square. But in reality, the opposite occurs; the Torah ends up being the footnote to political passions, and all that matters is whether the Torah supports ones favorite causes.

Bringing religion into politics will ultimately diminish faith. Perhaps Abraham Lincoln said it best. When told by an aide that God was on the side of the Union, Lincoln supposedly responded: Sir, my concern is not whether God is on our side; my greatest concern is to be on Gods side. One must never confuse subjective interests with divine imperatives, but this inversion of values is what happens when religion becomes subordinate to politics. The lesson of the chukim is to avoid pulling God over to our side, and instead approach the Torah with humility and openness.

Rabbi Chaim Steinmetz is the Senior Rabbi of Congregation Kehilath Jeshurun in New York.

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Posted By admin on July 10, 2022

The Gospel for this Sunday is here.

1. Jesus teaches us that a stranger is our neighbour

Who is my neighbour, Jesus was asked by a scholar of the law immediately after the Teacher told him about the commandment of loving God and his neighbour as himself.

Jesus words came as a shock. He explicitly told the scholar that a complete stranger, a Samaritan, is his neighbour. We need to know that in the mentality of the Jews, Samaritans were so foreign to them that the Talmud reads: a piece of bread given by a Samaritan is more unclean than swines flesh, a symbol of impure food (Sheviittractate 8,10).

2.Key words

A man fell victim to robbers as he went down from Jerusalem to Jericho. They stripped and beat him and went off leaving him half-dead. A priest happened to be going down that road, but when he saw him, he passed by on the opposite side. Likewise a Levite came to the place, and when he saw him, he passed by on the opposite side.

The road from Jerusalem, which is located around 800 m above sea level, to Jericho, around 250 m below sea level, is very dangerous. The route of nearly 30 kilometres between the two towns runs through rocky terrain, full of caves, some occupied by robbers. Still, this was the shortest way to reach Jericho.

A priest descended downhill (Greekkatabaino) after his service in the temple, on the way home.

A Levite went out of his way to pass him on the opposite side of the road(Greekantiparerchomai). Both presumably wanted to avoid ritual impurity through contact with the dead, as they might have mistaken the lying man. Unfortunately, ritualism was placed above mercy.

But a Samaritan traveler who came upon him was moved with compassion at the sight.He approached the victim, poured oil and wine over his wounds and bandaged them.Then he lifted him up on his own animal, took him to an inn, and cared for him.The next day he took out two silver coins and gave them to the innkeeper with the instruction, Take care of him. If you spend more than what I have given you, I shall repay you on my way back.

A Samaritan is one we can least expect of being helpful. He is a representative of the nation commented on by St. John the Evangelist: the Jews and the Samaritans avoided one another.

Why did he offer a helping hand? The Gospel author says he was moved with compassion (Greeksplanchnizomai),which means not so much an emotional reaction as profound commiseration at the sight of someones misery.

The Samaritans attitude of mercy is very practical. He offered two silver coins, which was equal to three weeks of accommodation, as suggested daily accommodation was about one-twelfth of a silver coin. Mercy was shown to trump the animosity between nations. A Samaritan, a person so foreign and distant, was shown to be a neighbour.

3. Today

Go and do likewise! says Jesus at the end of His parable. If we take Jesus words to heart, our practical mercy may help others, or even save lives. Who will I help today?

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Mass prep 3 points/30 seconds: What was the Samaritans mercy? Understanding the Greek - Aleteia

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Jonathan S. Tobin

By Jonathan S. Tobin

The Supreme Courts decision to overturn the Roe v. Wade abortion ruling has set off a political firestorm. Pro-choice forces are enraged at what they believe is the taking away of a right and what some even claim is the enslavement of women. The pro-life movement is thankful after a half-century of activism on behalf of what sometimes seemed to be a lost cause, but no less determined to defend restrictions or bans on abortions whenever they can prevail in state capitals.

Amid the deluge of hyperbole, furious predictions of political fallout and public protests, what is generally lost amid the noise is that polls have always shown that most Americans have demonstrated a fair amount of moral ambivalence about the issue.

Clear majorities have always been found to oppose complete bans on abortion as well as the overturning of Roe, which many have assumed would lead to that outcome. But it is equally true that there has always been broad support for limits on legal abortion. As with many other issues of public debate, how you ask the question largely determines the way the polls turn out.

The fact that many Americans remain in the middle on the abortion debate has been obscured if not altogether lost. It is in that context that the way that some in the Jewish community have sought to frame the issue as one in which Jews are obligated to support abortion under virtually all circumstances is both misleading as well as an unfortunate contribution to an already divisive debate.

There is no disputing that traditional Judaism approaches the issue of abortion very differently from the Catholic Church, or the various evangelical and conservative Christian denominations, that are unalterably opposed to it almost without exception. In Jewish religious law, the life of the mother must always take priority over that of the unborn child.

That provides a religious justification for procedures that deal with medical anomalies and life-threatening conditions. Some also interpret the notion that the well-being of the mother must be protected so as to justify a more liberal attitude towards terminating pregnancies.

It is also true that sources in the Talmud do not consider a fetus a full person deserving of legal protections but as a part of its mother until birth. In the first 40 days of gestation, it has an even lesser status.

That is interpreted by liberal Jewish denominations (not to mention non-religious organizations and secular Jews who would otherwise scoff at the idea of looking to the rabbis of the talmudic period for guidance on any issue, let alone for insights on biology) as proof that Judaism regards the disposition of a fetus as purely a matter of personal autonomy and thus inherently pro-choice in the context of the contemporary abortion debate.

Yet at the same time, fetuscide is not explicitly permitted by the same Jewish sources. On the contrary, the idea that individuals have an unfettered right to do as they like with their bodies is alien to Judaism, since the body is considered a vessel that is the property of God. Some Jewish sources regard abortion as impermissible outside of some limited circumstances because of the prohibition of shedding the blood of man within man. Since Judaism forbids tattoos, self-harm and suicide, the notion that it supports the our bodies, ourselves approach is, at best, debatable.

That is why Orthodox organizations have opposed laws legalizing abortion virtually up until birth with no restrictions, as is the case with laws passed in New York and other deep blue states, while still also opposing any law that bans all late-term abortions without providing an exception for saving the mothers life.

The idea that Jews are obligated by their faith to support laws that permit it without any restrictions the position many liberal Jewish groups are now taking in conformity with that of the Democratic Party is simply untrue.

Still, most Jews, even those who do not regard abortion as simply a matter of choice, do not favor banning it in the earliest stages of pregnancy, let alone in cases of rape, incest or genuine medical emergencies.

The 1992 Supreme Court decision in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, which essentially upheld Roe and was also overturned by Dobbs, itself instituted a fetal viability test that allowed states to implement restrictions based on the viability of the fetus, thereby implying that aborting a viable fetus was a form of infanticide.

With that in mind and talmudic precepts and modern declarations of personal autonomy notwithstanding the arguments about abortion must necessarily be influenced by scientific advances.

In 1973, when Roe was decided, there were no sonograms showing fetal life and movement. Modern medical care now means that fetal viability outside of the womb is possible as early as 21 to 23 weeks into the pregnancy with the real possibility that this figure will continue to shrink.

That doesnt change the fact that in the last half-century, many Americans have come to believe that terminating a pregnancy is an absolute right under virtually any circumstances. They regard arguments about the constitutionality of the original Roe decision as irrelevant and dismiss any and all talk of fetuses being unborn children regardless of what science (a term that is liberally invoked as determinative when it comes to vaccine mandates or climate change when it is more to their liking) has taught us about the subject.

Yet wherever one comes down on the issue, it is unacceptable for anyone to be treating this as some kind of religious culture war in which Jews are required to be fully engaged as combatants because of their faith. JE

Jonathan S. Tobin is editor-in-chief of JNS.

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Don't Use Judaism as a Weapon in the Abortion Debate - Jewish Exponent

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Posted By admin on July 10, 2022

My struggle to find and embrace who I really am.

Being the eldest is a blessing. Were constantly reminded by our parents, history, and even researchers that its a privilege to be a firstborn.

But what happens when the superiority complex instilled at birth runs aground against the unforgiving shores of reality?

Thats what Im learning now, the hard way. Since I was young, I looked at the world and thought what it owed me. Whether it would come from being a blue checkmarked journalist, or prestigious business school grad, or the best athlete in my family, I agonized over how to differentiate myself from my brothers; how to measure myself relentlessly against them in hopes that my success would bring happiness and respect.

Even worse, it was less about the process, the journey, and more about the end results. So be it if I hated business school: as long as I got a diploma and got a great paying banking job, it would all sort itself out. My parents and grandparents could beam over another deans list even if the work drove me to see a therapist.

Just one more accomplishment, and Ill finally be happy.

Me and my brothers

Old habits die hard. Coming back from a months-long whirlwind trip that brought me from the frostbitten landscapes of Scandinavia to Portuguese coastal towns and the Rocky Mountains, I felt on top of the world. Returning to normal life, back in grey springtime Toronto, Id somehow forgotten that I was still a struggling freelancer losing pace with my cohort. While they were busy buying condos and getting engaged, I was caught in the quicksand of twenty-somethingdom, spending most my hours working and sleeping in my same childhood room.

The circadian rhythm of life quickly killed off any lingering afterglow of wanderlust. I was back to square one while my younger brothers had begun to carve out little slices of lives for themselves.

How could this be happening? Im the oldest son; I should be the one moving out, making good money, and be the pride of my grandparents.

One finished grad school and moved out; the other works in finance and sports a far healthier balance sheet than myself. The sudden reversal of our fortunes left me reeling.

I began to second-guess myself and the career choices I made. The 9-5 banking gig didnt look so bad anymore.

I had a series of panic attacks. Racing thoughts filled my mind with images of squandered time and overindulgence. How could this be happening? Im the oldest son; I should be the one moving out, making good money, and be the pride of my grandparents. I feared I had taken the wrong path and even began to begrudge their success. The oldest child syndrome when the eldest defends their prized status from younger siblings and compete for parental attention and care was kicking in.

Theres another person whose story echoes mine: Cain. He is the older brother, the golden child, as Rabbi Ari Kahn writes, and the tension between Cain and Abel sets the stage for the rest of the Book of Genesis, where the younger brother consistently achieves superiority over the older brother who inevitably fails.

The three of us

Throughout every turn, Cain feels slighted by God. His offering goes unacknowledged while Abels is respected. Everything Cain does, his entire existence, is anchored by comparing himself with Abel always finding himself on the short end of the stick, Rabbi Kahn writes.

Cain isnt all that different than those of us today who base their entire self-worth through constant social comparison. Rather than look inward to find joy and happiness, we look outside usually to those nearest us to find our meaning and humanity, viewing life as a zero-sum game for dignity where anothers success is your loss.

No wonder Cain becomes bitter, angry and depressed when he sees he hasnt been as successful as his brother, Abel. As Theodore Roosevelt famously said, Comparison is the thief of joy.

Social scientists have demonstrated this. Someone who fixates on being creative will likely be less creative; so, too, will someone striving for meaning and happiness likely find themselves groping into the abyss. Social comparison, fear of failure, and perfectionism are like Dantes prideful sea of ice, freezing you in place with thoughts of what others will think of youor, worse, what you will think of yourselfif you do not succeed at something. These are the fruits of success addiction, Arthur Brooks writes in his latest book, From Strength to Strength.

Constantly checking your status, prestige, and wealth, corrodes ones humanity and becomes a soul-decaying pursuit that ultimately thwarts the love and respect one genuinely deserves.

The Talmud puts it this way: One who runs away from honor will find honor chasing after him. One who chases after honor will find honor running away from him.

Constantly checking your status, prestige, and wealth, corrodes ones humanity and becomes a soul-decaying pursuit that ultimately thwarts the love and respect one genuinely deserves.

Summarizing Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchiks thoughts, Rabbi Kahn writes The challenge of life is to find our uniqueness and develop it, not to define ourselves in comparison with others, but to search within ourselves and find our uniqueness, our image of God.

By finding, and embracing, who we are whether thats the poor freelancer, the kindergarten teacher, or the investment banker we gain an appreciation for others. Self-understanding paves the way for us to steer clear of envy, jealousy, and greed and, ultimately, for us to be capable of being our brothers keeper, regardless the firstborn status.

What else could someone wish for? Its as if Moses (cough: a lowly second son!) parted the waters for us firstborns to go out into the world and thrive.

Academic papers abound touting the excellence of the oldest child. A famous 2017 Swedish study found firstborns to be more emotionally stable, persistent, socially outgoing, willing to assume responsibility, and able to take initiative than later-borns. Unsurprisingly, the trio of academics found that such predispositions influenced the success of children later in life. Eldests in their sample were found to be disproportionately in C-suite jobs compared to their lowly laterborns.

This likely stems from the reality of parenting and limited time. Eldests get the most undivided parental attention which cascades over into greater socialization and life skills. Parental time and care rapidly dwindles when there are more troublemakers in the house. Research from the Journal of Human Resources demonstrates that firstborns perform higher than their siblings on cognitive tests in infancy and are thus better positioned for academic and career success. Or, as CNBC titled the revelation: Oldest children are the smartest, research shows (likely written by a true firstborn!).

The social expectation that eldests have the world before their feet is instilled at birth and, is so strong, some researchers have hypothesized that the trappings of elderhood are so valuable that firstborns seek to defend their status to keep their position. In truth, the academic findings remain contested. For every one lauding eldests, theres another saying birth order carries little weight.

Regardless of the tit-for-tat battle among scholars, what is important is the social norm that there are dizzying expectations on eldest children. Both parental and cultural pressures shape the unique sense that firstborns feel and contributes towards a conscientious desire to overachieve.

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Why Being Firstborn is a Blessing and a Curse - aish.com Spiritual Odysseys, Featured, Spirituality - Aish.com

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Posted By admin on July 10, 2022

A memorial site near the scene of the shooting in Highland Park, Illinois. Photo by Jim Vondruska/Getty Images

Elad NehoraiJuly 07, 2022

The first moments after finding out about a shooting in my hometown felt like living in slow motion. My hands shook as I saw Highland Park trending on Twitter. When I found out why, I desperately tried to call my wife, whose parents still live there.

Then I tried calling her parents, waiting shakily for them to pick up, knowing that the shooter was still out there. Upon hearing that they were on their way to the parade when the shooting occurred thanks to my mother in laws tennis class, I held my wife as she cried. We broke the story to our daughter, and I held her for an hour as we talked it out while her mother took a break to go cry and speak to her parents more.

When the police identified the alleged shooter, I felt a familiar feeling deep in my bones. Like the thousands of Jews who live and have lived in Highland Park, I immediately had the thought: What if this is about us? It was a feeling that I couldnt shake.

I moved to Highland Park when I was 10, from a town in Connecticut where my family was the only Jewish one. When I arrived, I was amazed. Suddenly, I was surrounded by people like me. I no longer felt like the only kid that celebrated Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashanah. Everyone took those days off.

Once, one of the Christian kids in my class asked jokingly if anyone would be free to hang out during Passover, and no one responded. That was our life there. A special one, in retrospect, as I once again live in a city with few Jews and feel desperately alone.

I was sure that pundits, writers, the media and our political leaders would note that many of the parade attendees came from the neighboring Latino community, that the population of Highland Park itself is half Jewish, and that Jews historically moved here specifically because they were being turned away from nearby suburbs due to antisemitism.

But thats not what I saw.

Instead, I saw mainstream media outlets describe Highland Park as an affluent, mostly white suburb, and the shooting described as one of those it could happen anywhere situations (the vice president said this very line while addressing residents of Highland Park). I listened as the police described the attack as completely random (which would make it a profound outlier among mass shootings).

Meanwhile, the Jews pleading for them to talk about our community and how it was affected were completely ignored.

The next day, I found out that the suspect might have earlier targeted the synagogue where I went to Hebrew school the place where my wife and I got married, where my wifes parents still go, and where we attend services every time we visit. The suspect had visited the synagogue on Passover, and thankfully, the rabbi made him leave (possibly saving the synagogue itself from becoming a target).

I was sure that the narrative would now change once this horrifying detail came to light.

I should have known better.

The story of the synagogue incident was first written about by Anash, a publication run by and for Chabad Hasidic Jews (the rabbi who turned away the alleged shooter is Chabad Hasidic), and only garnered mainstream attention when Jews on Twitter with a large following, like myself, tweeted about it.

But despite repeated pleas, the framing of this story has remained the same: An affluent, white town experienced a tragedy just like any other American town can experience. It could happen anywhere.

Wanting to cut through the noise and ignorance I was witnessing, I pitched a story on how properly understanding the communitys population and the suspects possible motives could help us better understand this attack. I felt that a mainstream, non-Jewish publication was the best place to address it, so that others could better understand how unheard the Jewish community felt, and how this story could be told better in the future.

By this point, the extremist research community had also unearthed posts by the suspect which were deeply concerning. This needed to be told, as did the story of the failure to provide essential context.

The editor didnt see the angle: He felt that the world sees Jews as white, and had trouble understanding why it was problematic for the town to be described in that way. Without more than the suspect having visited a synagogue, he said, there wasnt enough to call out the media.

A deep feeling of shock welled up in my body as I processed what he was saying. I thanked him for his time, and we hung up.

And I cried.

The experience of worrying for my familys safety was truly traumatizing. But up until that moment, I had been in research and writing mode, distancing myself from the story in order to make sure that the Jewish story was told.

But hearing an actual editor dismiss the possible connection, I finally felt the weight of the last two days, and of just how broken the narrative around Jews and antisemitism is in this country today.

The coverage, perhaps predictably, didnt get better. An NPR article quoted experts in online extremism and claimed that the suspect had no ideological or political bent.

This was, in essence, a very bad interpretation of the fact that this suspect appears to not be part of an organized hate movement, like the Proud Boys or Patriot Front, but rather part of a more nihilistic group of what can best be described as a mass shooter community, a loose conglomeration of disparate online forums united by hate and a desire for pure chaos, as opposed to groups like QAnon that aim to achieve a specific vision.

I happened to have been in touch with the same experts this NPR article quoted, and I reached out to one of them, Sarah Hightower, an independent researcher who specializes in the far right and online extremist movements, to hear what she thought about the piece.

She was worried about how it had been framed.

You have this entire community, and theyre scared, she told me. And now it looks like theyre essentially being told, Oh no, yall are overreacting because its just edgy white boy shit.

She had explained to the writer, and in all of her interviews, that you cant separate ideology and bigotry from these online subcultures, she told me, and she shared evidence of the suspects racist and antisemitic posts in hate forums.

The suspect was part of a gore forum, a place for people to post things like beheadings. He was part of the Nazi Catboy movement, which is hard to explain. He was part of the far-right anime fandom movement. Hightower confirmed that he had posted on an online forum conveying Holocaust denial, overt antisemitism, the desire for a new Holocaust as well as a desire to wipe out Black people and Asian people. His last and only remaining post on Facebook before it was shut down said simply, You are all sinners.

Not only was the suspect visible at multiple Trump rallies, but a Highland Park resident who knew of his activity and called him a known agitator said he was known for violently attacking counter-protestors and referring to Black Lives Matter supporters as monkeys. According to a Facebook post by this resident, she had previously informed the police, who she says did nothing.

While all hateful communities are complex in their own ways, there is a common bigotry that unites and drives them, and too often spills out into real-world attacks.

Each group is propelled by bigotry against the vulnerable, an ideology of destruction, and ideologies built on white and Christian supremacy. The explicit goal is to cause terror and confusion. Like all terrorists, they want vulnerable populations to suffer not just the physical toll of a mass shooting, but the emotional toll that then follows their attacks.

The decentralized nature of online forums allows them to do just that, causing confusion in the media, terror and anger in the vulnerable populations theyre targeting and a general feeling of exhaustion and pain in the country at large.

While we may never fully understand the full motive behind this specific attack, and it would be wrong to label it simply as antisemitic, a simple fact remains: The suspect was active in many online breeding grounds for bigoted extremism, he was a known threat to a synagogue in Highland Park, and he had previously expressed hopes to annihilate minority groups.

All the complications and all the nuance in the world wont do us any good if these facts arent acknowledged and learned from.

I cried, I think, not only because of the stress of my trauma. It was because I knew this was coming. I had shared, and then deleted, a tweet only weeks ago saying that I could feel how badly our leaders and media were handling not just the story of antisemitism, but the story of extremism and online extremism in America.

When a mass shooting happens in Buffalo or El Paso, we talk about the affected communities. But we dont often discuss the interconnection between the disparate-seeming ideologies that place all vulnerable populations in their sights, or that antisemitic conspiracy theories are often tied to the motives of shooters that target other minorities, and vice versa.

We dont talk often enough about how the current moral panic on the right is partially fueled by conspiracy theories that use classic antisemitic tropes, pushed in mainstream publications like Fox News. These alarms are not being sounded, and it is only after attacks occur that we even care to speak about them (and apparently, in this case, not even then).

Our politicians, our media and our pundits all describe these acts singularly, as if they pop out of nowhere, and often choose one topic, like guns, to focus on, without an awareness that we are talking about a large, decentralized extremist movement that is fueled by a united bigotry. You cannot separate the attack on one minority community from the attacks on others.

What happened with the story of my hometown is just part of a larger symptom of ignorance and a refusal to listen to the vulnerable populations that are pleading to be heard, and acknowledging the hatred that unites these acts of terror. On Twitter and in other places, we are building networks to address this, but without mainstream awareness, we are working against a rising tide.

That must be changed. And it must be changed quickly, before this radicalization reaches a point most of us cant even begin to imagine.

To contact the author, email editorial@forward.com.

Elad Nehorai is the co-founder ofHevria and one of the leaders of Torah Trumps Hate. His writing can be found in the Daily Beast, Huffington Post, the Guardian, and other outlets. A formerly Orthodox Jew, he is an outspoken activist on extremism both within and outside of the Jewish community.

The views and opinions expressed in this article are the authors own and do not necessarily reflect those of the Forward. Discover more perspective in Opinion.

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This couldnt happen anywhere: How coverage of the shooting failed Highland Park - Forward

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Posted By admin on July 10, 2022

The threat that caused officials with Temple Beth-El to cancel Saturday's Shabbat services and that inspired the Jewish Federation of San Antonio to urge that "all Jewish gatherings be suspended" was lifted in the late afternoon.

In a statement, the Jewish Federation of San Antonio explained that it "received an official update from the FBI that there is no 'known imminent threat' in effect any longer for the San Antonio area Jewish community."

It continued: "Although we recommend staying vigilant and aware of your surroundings at all times, we are pleased to share that the urgency of concern has been lowered."

The statement also thanked "our local and national law enforcement partners, along with our colleagues at the ADL and SCN, for their diligence, expertise, and professionalism."

Nammie Ichilov, president and CEO of the Federation, also reported that the FBI had apprehended a suspect. TPR had not confirmed that report by late Saturday.

Around midday Saturday, Ichilov had explained in a statement "that we have received information from the FBI identifying a credible threat to a not yet confirmed Jewish community facility in the San Antonio area."

The statement also explained that "all formal Jewish gatherings be suspended until further notice."

The nature of the initial threat was unclear.

In a statement to TPR about the threat that sparked concerns, the FBI's National Press Office explained the "FBI is investigating a potential threat targeting an unidentified synagogue in Texas. We are working to determine the credibility of the threat and sharing information with our law enforcement partners and our partners in the Jewish community."

Temple Beth-El is the oldest synagogue in South Texas.

Saturday's investigation came only days after District 9 Councilman John Courage condemned the distribution of antisemitic material, which first appeared in North Side neighborhoods in late June.

He said it was especially concerning because the District 9 office recently attended a symposium on antisemitism at the Barshop Jewish Community Center.

Courage said these agitators were hiding behind the First Amendment to bring fear to the local Jewish community and transgender individuals.

In response to a recent rise in antisemitic incidents, the FBI San Antonio Division launched a multi-faceted advertising campaign to build public awareness of hate crimes.

The goal is to help the public better understand what constitutes a federal hate crime and to encourage reporting of those crimes to law enforcement.

People who have evidence or more information about hate crimes are urged to report it to local law enforcement, or the FBI by calling 1-800-CALL-FBI or online at tips.fbi.gov.

The Anti-Defamation League recently reported that the number of antisemitic incidents in South Texas have doubled in the last year.

The Leagues 2021 Audit of Antisemitic Incidents reported more than 2,700 incidents involving assault, harassment and vandalism in the United States last year.

A total of 1,776 incidents were categorized as harassment. This increased 43% from 2020, which had a total of 1,242 incidents.

In Texas, the organization reported 112 incidents, including 39 cases in the Houston, San Antonio, Corpus Christi, Beaumont and El Paso regions. Texas ranked sixth in antisemitic incidents behind New York, New Jersey, California, Florida and Michigan.

One of the most vivid incidents of 2022 took place in January at a synagogue in Colleyville, when a 44-year-old British man took four people hostage and commenced a standoff with police. An FBI team stormed the building and killed the hostage taker. FBI Director Christopher Wray called it an act of antisemitism.

KERA's Bill Zeeble and TPR's Steve Short, Jackie Velez and Dan Katz contributed to this report.

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'Credible threat' focused on Jewish community in San Antonio is lifted, suspect in custody - Texas Public Radio

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Posted By admin on July 10, 2022

People throughout New England are being confronted more and more by white supremacist incidents. There was a march on Boston on July 3 by a group called Patriot Front. Also, a Massachusetts-based group called the National Socialist Club of New England continues to drop racist flyers in Connecticut this summer.

The Anti-Defamation League says that since February, racist flyers have appeared in 19 Connecticut towns 10 since June 1.

They might not be criminal but nonetheless they are things that communities need to be aware of because they represent white supremacist beliefs being spread throughout our state, said Stacey Sobel, the director of ADL Connecticut.

The recent flyers come as ADL Connecticut reported a record high in antisemitic incidents in Connecticut in 2021. Reports of incidents jumped by more than 40% in 2021 compared to the previous year. Over the past five years, ADL Connecticut said its received more than 180 reports of incidents of antisemitic harassment, vandalism and assault. Reports of hate incidents have been on the rise across New England and the U.S.

Berlin, Waterbury, and Torrington are among local municipalities that have been blanketed by the racist flyers in recent weeks.They feature the National Socialist Club of New England logo. The flyers say the club is a pro-white fraternity and they call on men of European descent in the area to reach out to the club.

Lt. Brett Johnson of the Torrington Police Department said his agency recently received a few complaints about the flyers, but that ultimately, the club and its messaging are protected by free speech.

As there were no threats made in flyers, there is nothing criminal about the dissemination of the flyers other than in the way they were disseminated (littering), Johnson said in an email. In any case, we have reported the incident to other Connecticut and federal law enforcement agencies to monitor the situation.

Sobel, the ADL Connecticut director, said the incident being reported by Torrington law enforcement is important because the data can inform policymakers.

As for state police, a spokesperson says the Hate Crimes Investigative Unit of the Connecticut State Police is not investigating the incident.

The local agencies are investigating the incident and we are assisting them as needed, Trooper First Class Pedro Muniz wrote in an email.

Sobel recognizes that the flyer drop isnt exactly a hate crime, but she does classify it as a hate incident, one she says state residents need to stand up to.

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Racist flyers in Connecticut are part of a rise in incidents of hate across New England - Connecticut Public

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Posted By admin on July 10, 2022

Resilient Ethiopian Jews and their immigration journey to Israel; the mystery of whether Pancho Villas famed raid on Columbus, New Mexico, in 1916 targeted a Jewish shopkeeper; dynamics between two small Jewish communities in Cochin, India; the Cuba to Catskills Mambo dance craze of the 1950s, and a Mambo party the 2022 Stowe Jewish Film Festival takes viewers around the world in stories of Jewish communities.

This seventh festival, a project of the Jewish Community of Greater Stowe (JCOGS), features four recently released documentaries. Three films are screened in Stowe Yerusalem and The Missing Tale at the Spruce Peak Performing Arts Center, The Mamboniks at JCOGS with a tent for the finale dance party with mambo and dance instruction. The fourth, UnRaveling, is at the Big Picture Theater in Waitsfield.

Interviews with filmmakers and others follow most of the films. Online viewing is available. The festival runs July 13-31.

The festivals theme is The Jewish Experience: a multiplicity of cultures, languages, countries, traditions and colors. Patterns of immigration have taken Jews all over the world, melding and merging, creating hybrid cultures and complex identities.

Jews live around the world, and not everybody understands what Judaism is. The festival is an opportunity to build greater understanding of Jewish culture and traditions as well as the religion, said Bobbi Rood, of Waitsfield, a member of the Festival organizing committee.

The films introduce audiences to Jewish communities on three continents and across more than a century. In telling the diverse stories, they also shed light on these communities histories Jewish immigration to the American Southwest through the port of Galveston, Texas; Jews from Spain to India more than 500 years ago; and the more than 2,000-year-old Beta Israel in Ethiopia.

These films show us how Jews live, who are Jewish people, said Rood.

In Yerusalem: The Incredible Story of Ethiopian Jewry, 2021 documentary by Israeli filmmaker Levi Zini, audiences meet descendants of an ancient and isolated Jewish tribe in Ethiopia, known as Beta Israel, house of Israel. Widely considered exiles in Ethiopia, they persevered in their traditions and religion, holding a deep yearning to emigrate to Israel.

In 1985, a clandestine airlift known as Operation Moses, transported thousands of Ethiopian Jews to Israel. With the geographical journey achieved, in their new home they found that they needed to prove their Jewishness and find their place in society.

Did Pancho Villa really try to kill my grandfather? And if so, why? is the question that led filmmaker Stacey Ravel Abarbanel to embark on her exploration in her 2021 film UnRaveling. Ravel family lore and longstanding local rumor recounts that Mexican General Pancho Villa targeted her grandfather and his brothers when he raided their hometown on the Mexican border in the 1916 Battle of Columbus, New Mexico.

The rumor claimed that Villa was angry with Sam Ravel a Jewish immigrant and local merchant over an arms deal gone wrong. Ravel and Brothers, a Columbus all-purpose store, sold everything from bananas to bullets, grapefruits to guns.

Villa led the attack on Columbus on March 9, 1916, capturing arms, horses and equipment looting houses and businesses, but were pushed back by the 13th Cavalry Regiment.

The filmmaker considers her family history, but also a much broader picture of Jewish immigration and the border region.

Filmmaker Klra Trencsnyis just-released 2022 film The Missing Tale considers two small Jewish communities in Cochin, India, Paradesi Jews and Malabar Jews. The communities arrived in India several centuries apart and have remained distinct.

The film includes an interview with Sarah Cohen, proprietress of Sarahs Hand, a shop with yarmulkes, prayer shawls and other Jewish necessities. Cohen, who died at age 96 in 2019, was descended from Jewish refugees who arrived in India from Spain five centuries ago. She was one of seven surviving Jews in the Paradesi community.

Among the Malabar Jews is Elias Babu Josephai, owner of a pet shop, who is trying to renovate his communitys synagogue.

The Mamboniks, a 2019 documentary by producer Lex Gillespie, looks at the mambo and how this hot dance from Havana became a craze in New York City and the Catskills in the 1950s and 1960s, bringing Jewish and Latin cultures together on the dance floor.

Gillespie brings together archival film and interviews with dancers many still on the dance floor today. Marvin Marvano Jaye returned to Cuba with the filmmaker his previous visit to the island was in 1959. Mambo Judy Friend was introduced to the mambo in the Catskills in her youth. The film exuberantly shows the power of dance to bring people together.

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'The Jewish Experience': Films find multiplicity of cultures - Rutland Herald

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