Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By admin on June 14, 2022

(June 14, 2022 / JNS) Its not quite New Kids on the Block getting back together, but its still meaningful.

When Blue Fringe released My Awakening in 2003, frontman Dov Rosenblatt had no idea that it would sell more than 15,000 copies and that his Jewish rock group that formed two years earlier would take the Jewish music world by storm, performing at Irving Plaza, Makor Center and B.B King Blues Club in Times Square, as well as venues around the world.

The singer, guitarist and founder of Blue Fringe saw that there was room in the market for a Jewish group that sounded like songs that could be on the radio but with ethnic themes. The idea was to add some humor and reflect young Modern Orthodox young Jews and their hopes for their futures. He was joined by bassist Hayyim Danzig, lead guitarist Avi Hoffman and drummer Danny Zwillenberg. The four met at New Yorks Yeshiva University in 2001.

I had no idea Blue Fringe would become so big or last the way it has, but we did recognize a special chemistry at the beginning, Rosenblatt told JNS in a phone interview from Nashville, Tenn. After our very first concert, we realized the audience appeal was strong.

The group will reunite to perform at the Sababa Music Festival taking place June 16-19 in Narrowsburg, N.Y., about three hours northwest of New York City on the Pennsylvania border.

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Blue Fringe: Hayyim Danzig, Dov Rosenblatt, Danny Zwillenberg and Avi Hoffman. Credit: Courtesy.

When we first got together, I had zero expectations, said Danzig, who lives in New Rochelle, N.Y. It was a fun opportunity, and it feels very exciting to be getting together again.

Rosenblatt currently performs with Distant Cousins, which he formed when moved from New Jersey to Los Angeles, and partnered with Ami Kozak and Moshavs Duvid Swirsky. All three have great vocals, which allowed for rare three-part harmonies.

The Distant Cousins song On Your Own was featured in the 2014 Jason Bateman film This Is Where I Leave You. Other of their tunes are featured in several notable commercials.

In one of the last shows before restrictions of the pandemic, the band performed a rousing sold-out show at Rockwood Music Hall on Manhattans Lower East Side.

Blue Fringe had two more successful albums in 70 Faces and The Whole World Lit Up. While the lyrics were geared mainly to the Modern Orthodox crowd, the sound was radio-friendly with good humor.

Flippin Out was a hit about female seminary students embracing each other and spoke of a breakup with the singer saying he felt super shtark or for only wearing white shirts and dark pants. Talking about people in Israel becoming religious quickly, the parents ask when hes coming home, and he asks them for a loan. Shidduch Song is smooth and jazzy, with staccato lyrics, Im the only one in the whole entire Orthodox community my age not engaged . The song featured a cool call and response, and a catchy chorus: I got set up on Monday; we went on the shidduch on Tuesday; we had the lchaim by Wednesday; only simchas Thursday and Friday, and Shabbos; the wedding is on Sunday. (Note the satire on the speed with how some get engaged.)

But the group also had Beatle-esque songs like Vayivarech and a powerful Eshet Chayil with both original English lyrics and Hebrew lyrics that a man sings to his wife on Friday night. The groups cover of Eicha, which has a special tune with text from the book of Lamentations, was exceptional.

I think what they did was cool, says Yehuda Solomon, the founder of the Moshav band, now called Moshav. Moshav will join Soulfarm and Distant Cousins on June 27 for a concert at Brooklyn Bowl.

Yehuda Solomon (left) and Duvid Swirksy (right) of Moshav will headline a show at Brooklyn Bowl with Soulfarm and Distant Cousins on June 27, 2022. Credit: Courtesy.

Still time for new groups to pop up

Those three groups formed a triumvirate of Jewish rock power. Solomon gave memorable shows where he had a great stage presencea voice that was somewhat reminiscent of Pearl Jams Eddie Vedder. The groups hits included Eliyahu Hanavi and Aba Shimon.

I grew up on Pearl Jam, and it was important to me to have fun on stage and make sure the audience didnt just hear good music but had a good time as well. The group is working on a new album, and Solomon is a sought-after chazzan as well. His brother, Noah, fronts Soulfarm with sensational guitarist C. Lanzbom. The group was known for hits like Oz Vehadar and Listen to You.

The three groups provided tremendous entertainment and engendered Jewish pride that showed Jewish music could be cool and it seemed at the time the three groups were ushering in a wave of Jewish rock groups. It never happened.

Its kind of sad, says Solomon. Im not really sure why there werent more Jewish rock groups. Its a good question. I can speak for myself and say I put in a lot of time and grind, and was lucky to play with people who had the same vision and understood that you have to be electric on stage. I definitely thought there would be others to come, but maybe it speaks to the difficulty some had. But there is still time for new groups to pop up.

Moshav boasts powerful vocals not only from Solomon but from Swirsky, and I will never forget seeing them several times at the Highline Ballroom in New York City with the crowd singing along to the lyrics. Solomon said his favorite video to make was World on Fire, which was a collaboration between Moshav and Matisyahu, and garnered 2.4 million views on YouTube. It was one of the most cinematic Jewish music videos produced.

Blue Fringe caught lightning in a bottle and is the only Jewish music group Ive heard young women scream for. There may be screaming again at this weekends festival. Those who head to Brooklyn Bowl on June 27 are certainly in for a treat.

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Posted By admin on June 14, 2022

Chef Christopher Kostow is known for being the youngest chef to ever achieve three Michelin stars, which he did for The Restaurant at Meadowood in St. Helena. His other accolades in the culinary world are too numerous to mention. Is it possible he will next become known for pioneering a matzah ball soup with fish sauce, lemongrass and Thai chilies?

Lemongrass and fish sauce in matzah ball soup? Miso vegetable spread on a bagel? Kimchi and gochujang dressing on a Reuben instead of sauerkraut and Russian dressing? What?

I can hear the traditionalists in my head like a Greek chorus.

I had come to Napa to try Loveski, the new, self-proclaimed Jew-ish deli. Before I sat down, I was ready to order whitefish salad on a bagel. But when the chef told me that he serves his on the softest, freshly baked white bread with a smattering of fresh herbs, I went with it. And when I took a bite, I got a bit of heat from rings of fresh Thai green chilies and a surprising herbaceousness, with a generous serving of dill and some Thai basil. This was like no whitefish salad Id ever had. But it was so delicious, I didnt care one bit.

The same can be said about the other items I tried. The kimchi and gochujang dressing (a Korean fermented condiment thats sweet, spicy and savory all at once) made for such a delicious Reuben, it tasted both completely new and close enough to the original that Im still thinking about it a week later.

Kostow told me that ultimately, he just wants everything to be delicious, and in that, I believe hes succeeded.

Im not a real fine-dining guy. I know that sounds weird, he said. My car is dirty. I like walking around and giving people a pickle.

Loveski opened at the end of March in Napas Oxbow Public Market, an indoor marketplace not unlike the Ferry Building, with specialty food shops and eateries.

Its not every day that a chef who has earned three Michelin stars opens a fast-casual Jewish deli, so it received a lot of buzz. Kostow is the chef at two other restaurants in St. Helena, Charter Oak and The Restaurant at Meadowood, which is being rebuilt after burning down in the Glass Fire of September 2020.

Loveski comes from his familys pre-Ellis Island last name, Koslovski. The restaurant is bringing back this lost part of the name [and] traditions associated with the Jewish diaspora, according to its website.

The Reuben tasted both completely new and close enough to the original that Im still thinking about it a week later.

Kostow, 45, grew up in Highland Park, a Chicago suburb so Jewish that it wasnt until he was 12 or 13 that he realized the whole world wasnt Jewish, he said. Though his household wasnt very observant, he did have a bar mitzvah. He began cooking at age 14 at a music festival, and before he was 30 he had earned the first of his Michelin stars.

When approached in 2020 by the owner of Oxbow about a corner spot that was becoming available, the deli idea came to mind. But it wasnt the first time Kowtow had this idea. Back in 2009, when he was named a best new chef by Food & Wine, he told the magazine that his dream project was opening a California version of Katzs Deli.

He has now realized that long ago dream. It wasnt such a stretch because Jewish food has a lot of commonalities with the food weve done at our other restaurants, he said.

Theres a lot of food preservation and fermentation, and I began thinking about how we can apply things from the farm to this concept, Kostow said. Much of the produce he uses is grown on his nearby farm.

As for describing his venture as Jew-ish, Kostow was clear that he was avoiding the air of nostalgia that many delis rely on.

It was important to me that were not doing this faux reference point to New York or the shtetl that I think a lot of delis do. That felt disingenuous to us, he said. We wanted to make it relevant to us. We wanted this to be a bigger tent, to include people who have no concept of what Langers Delicatessen-Restaurant or Russ & Daughters is. We wanted to make it as inclusive as possible.

His wife, Martina, is of Thai descent and is a partner in the business, which hints at why the Jewish food includes hallmarks of Asian cuisine. If youre shaking your head at the idea of Southeast Asian ingredients in his Dens Way matzah ball soup Den is Kostows mother-in-law dont knock it until youve tried it; I was already of the belief that a dash of fish sauce makes so many things better, and Loveskis soup affirmed that.

Kostow said his sandwiches are purposely not gigantic (complaints from his father notwithstanding), which allows customers to eat them more frequently than they might a typical oversize deli sandwich. And in line with current food trends, there are plenty of gluten-free options in the form of salads, and vegan options, too.

All of the bread for Loveski, including the rye for Reubens, is baked at Charter Oak. Kostow has entered the Bay Areas burgeoning bagel scene, making bagel dough at Charter Oak and baking them on the spot at Loveski.

His bagels are more Montreal style, boiled in water with a bit of honey, and are toasted whole before being served.

Bagels are hard to do properly, he said, but hes getting close to being 100 percent happy with the results. We wanted something that felt artisanal and California, with a good crust and crackle.

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Posted By admin on June 14, 2022

Raise your hand if the 2010s somehow feel like they occurred just yesterday and simultaneously eons ago Were all raising our hands, right?

Like the previous decade, the teens were a time of rapid cultural change. In tech, the 2010s brought us the rise of smartphones and streaming services remember the time before we had those?! Speaking of streaming services, throughout the decade, we had the ability to binge-watch our favorite shows like Schitts Creek and Crazy Ex-Girlfriend. In music, the cultural love of hip-hop and rap carried over from the 2000s, with Black Jewish Canadian rapper Drake being named the top music artist of the decade by Billboard. Even so, bands and artists that toed the line between indie rock and pop also gained popularity, like Jewish sister group Haim.

Generally speaking, the cultural trends we liked then are still popular now. Think about it: Every thing or person we mentioned above is still culturally significant in the 20s! The same could be said of the most popular names of the decade the 200 top names from Social Security Administrations 2010s list offer numerous options that remain on trend and, additionally, are very Jewish!

Read on to see some of our favorites. And if you dont find what youre looking for, be sure to check out our Baby Name Finder for more inspiration!

Boys:

Noah Taking the #1 spot on the list for boys names, Noah (or Noach) is a Hebrew name that means comfort. Its also the name of the biblical figure who built a giant ark when God sent 40 days of rain to destroy the world and start over again.

Elijah If you love Passover, this name might be an obvious choice for you. Meaning The Lord Is My God in Hebrew, the name Elijah or Eliyahu honors the prophet we leave our doors open for on Pesach.

Asher Meaning affirmation in Hebrew, the name Asher could be a nod to the validating nature of the #MeToo Movement, which gained notoriety in 2017. Its a great name for any little intersectional feminist-in-training!

Joseph Meaning increase in Hebrew, Joseph is a name which honors the biblical favorite son of Jacob. This would be a great name if youre going to dress up your little guy in all that Baby GAP has to offer, coat of many colors-style.

Gabriel This name of Hebrew origin means Strength of God. Gabriel is also the name of Gabe Saporta, the Jewish frontman for band Cobra Starship, which reached the height of its popularity around 2011.

Samuel Clocking in at 22 on this list, Samuel is a Hebrew name meaning God Has Heard. In addition to its classic appeal, naming your child Samuel could honor Black Jewish singer Sammy Davis Jr., whose estate started work on a biopic in 2017.

Caleb Meaning dog in Hebrew we have a feeling this guys favorite show will be Paw Patrol.

Ezra This name of Hebrew origin means help. If youre hoping your son will be sensitive, poetic and perhaps a little weird, wed suggest naming him after Ezra Koenig, the Jewish frontman for popular 2010s band Vampire Weekend.

Girls:

Ava Coming in at #5 on the list, Ava is a name of Hebrew origin which means life. Its also the name of the character played by Jewish actress Hannah Einbinder in Hacks. Though that show didnt come out in 2021, it was born in 2016, when the creators came up with the idea. TV takes a long time!

Delilah This name of Hebrew origin means delicate or weak, despite the fact that the biblical Delilah was pretty independent and strong! With a name like this, perhaps you can teach your daughter that she is stronger than others might think.

Eliana This name of Hebrew origin means My God Has Answered. There also seems to be one child named Eliana in every Hebrew school class, so perhaps your baby could her!

Leah As we all know by know, the name Leah is a traditional Hebrew name which honors one of the Jewish matriarchs. It also means delicate or weary.

Mia This name is a derivation of the Hebrew name Miriam, which means dear, darling or mine. With a name like Mia, your little girl will always know how much you love her!

Genesis Meaning beginning or conception, this name is the English word which refers toBereshit, the first book of the Torah. Though all Jews are people of the book, maybe, with a name like this, your Genesis will turn out to be a bookworm.

Naomi This Hebrew name means pleasant and honors the biblical mother-in-law of Ruth. It could also honor very talented actress Naomi Watts, who dated Jewish actor Liev Schreiber from 2015-2016.

Ella Meaning goddess or terebinth tree, Ella is a name of Hebrew origin! Its also the name of Jewish Second Gentleman Doug Emhoffs daughter. Doug Emhoff first came to public attention when now-Vice President Kamala Harris announced her campaign for President in 2019.

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Posted By admin on June 14, 2022

The S.F.-based Jewish Community Federation and Endowment Fund board didnt have to look far to find a leader to take the helm of the organization. The board this week voted unanimously to name current interim CEO Joy Sisisky as the Federations new CEO, effective July 1.

Joy personifies the very best of the next generation of Jewish leaders, Federation board chair Arthur Slepian told J. She is a strong, strategic thinker, she works with great professionalism and competence, [and she] is an outstanding communicator and relationship builder who brings out the very best in the people around her.

Im so excited and really honored, said Sisisky, 46, who previously served as chief philanthropy officer for the Endowment Fund before becoming interim CEO in January after the departure of Danny Grossman. Theres a lot of work ahead of us, but Im up to the challenge.

The challenges are many, among them the pandemics ongoing impact, roiling social issues and increasingly visible antisemitism. Yet Sisisky remains bullish about the Bay Area Jewish community, its institutions and its robust philanthropic culture.

We continue to steward well in excess of $2 billion, Sisisky said, referring to the combined Jewish philanthropic capital of the Federation and Endowment Fund. It provides grants and other support to Jewish agencies, camps, schools and institutions locally covering the North Bay, East Bay, Peninsula and San Francisco and in Israel. The Endowment Fund facilitates over $150 million in grants [annually] that are donor recommended, she said. This year to date, weve already made 10,000 grants to 3,000 organizations.

A native of Virginia, Sisisky grew up steeped in Jewish life. She earned a B.A. from Brandeis University in Near East and Judaic studies and politics, and two masters degrees, including one in Jewish communal service from Hebrew Union CollegeJewish Institute of Religion in Los Angeles.

After a stint at AIPAC, Sisisky became a fellow with the Joint Distribution Committees Ralph I. Goldman Fellowship in International Jewish Communal Service, living and working in Ukraine and Ethiopia. She also worked for the Jewish Federations of North America running the Lion of Judah endowment. Before moving west to join the S.F.-based Federation, she served for eight years as executive director of the Jewish Womens Foundation of New York, which funds efforts to empower women and girls in New York, Israel and around the world.

Sisisky is the second woman to head the S.F. Federation after Jennifer Gorovitz, who served as CEO from 2009 to 2014. Only five women have been named CEO of comparably large federations in North America, a fact not lost on Sisisky, for whom womens issues are paramount.

It has always been a priority for me, she said. I am totally committed to diversity, equity and belonging. We have a commitment to advancing marginalized communities through [Federation] programming and giving opportunities, so its not a surprise that our Federation cares so deeply about the advancement of women. It doesnt just happen because you wish it to.

Board chair Slepian has known Sisisky since she joined the organization in 2016, and has been impressed by her abilities.

[Our] endowment and philanthropic work has been reinvented and remade under her leadership, he said. In the middle of all this we had the Ukraine crisis emerge. She stepped forward and led our community with compassion, insight and knowledge in ways others couldnt. It speaks to the breadth of the experience shes had in her career.

Since the Russian invasion on Feb. 24, the Federations Ukraine Emergency Fund has raised more than $3.3 million from nearly 1,500 donors. In addition, this past March, Sisisky and Slepian joined a contingent of other North American federation leaders on a mission to the Poland-Ukraine border.

There was no waiting around, she said of taking that trip. Our Federations historic partnership with global Jewish communities and the Joint Distribution Committee allowed us to welcome Jewish and non-Jewish [Ukrainian] refugees with compassion and open arms. My own family was from Ukraine, from the same city I lived in, Dnipro. I worked in the Jewish community in Donetsk and Donbas region, so its devastating to watch [the war there] unfold.

Back at home, she is gratified the Federation managed to flourish through more than two years of the pandemic. Even with rising inflation sending shock waves throughout the economy, Sisisky said giving from both the Federation itself and the donor-advised funds it manages have increased.

Expanding philanthropic innovations, such as giving circles (which allow people even of modest means to become philanthropists), remain a cornerstone of the Federations approach.

When the community is inspired they can do great things together, she said. Were not a bank. We want to put those assets to good use in the community. Like anybody in this business, [donors] pay attention to markets, and when theyre down, they still give, because they know the community may be in distress.

Sisisky and her husband, Jonathan Salky, live in San Francisco and have two young children.

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Posted By admin on June 14, 2022

(JTA) A.B. Yehoshua the novelist took a sharp knife to his fellow citizens pretensions and delusions, writing books that laid Israel bare like an open bleeding wound.

But A.B. Yehoshua the soothsayer sought to heal wounds, reconciling Israelis with Palestinians, with the Jewish Diaspora and above all with themselves.

Avraham Buli Yehoshua, the writer who chronicled his beloved countrys rage and sorrows in more than a dozen acclaimed novels, died Tuesday at 85.

We have to revitalize the solidarity that we lost, tunnels have to be created, dug between different sectors of Israeli society, with the religious, with Arabs, Yehoshua told the New York Jewish Week in 2020. He was speaking about the need to defeat the coronavirus, but he might as well have been posting his credo.

In cultures beset by conflict, like Israel and Ireland, the notion that an artist should stand apart from politics is seen as laughable. Yehoshua was unexceptional in his dual roles, joining an array of other novelists and poets who engaged in punditry on the dilemmas of the day.

But he seemed to stand apart from his peers in presenting radically different personas, depending on whether he was the omniscient, withholding shaper of a work of fiction or the generous and avuncular presence holding forth on a TV politics hour.

Yehoshua the fiction writer was unforgiving. His seminal 1977 novel, The Lover, makes compelling the interplay between three characters stunted by grief and anger: a husband whose personality is a walled-off fortress, a wife who assumes the role of a battering ram and a lover who runs and hides when the opportunity first presents itself.

The threesomes war of attrition is set against the chaos of the 1973 Yom Kippur War and how it blew apart certainties about Israel, its place in the world and ones neighbors, friends and lovers. The novel was prompted in part by the lists of missing that circulated after a war in which men were taken out of synagogues willy-nilly and hastily sent to the front line. Had they died, were they imprisoned or and this consideration was the most terrifying did they choose to disappear?

And in the last war, we lost a lover, the narrator, Adam, begins. We always say: a small intimate country, where if you try hard enough youll find connections between the most distanced of people and here, its as if an abyss tore open and a man disappeared and attempts to track him down are fruitless.

In A Late Divorce, published in 1982, Yehoshua delivers a gut punch to Israels vaunted child-centric culture in the rushed narrative of a child who is bullied at school and who struggles to keep up in gym class. Its message was brutal: Israel coddles boys in order to sacrifice them when they reach draft age.

The gym teacher gave me such a hopeless look that its a wonder I didnt cry I usually do when he starts up but today he was too tired to yell maybe because it was almost spring vacation, the boy, Gaddi, says in a stream-of-consciousness monologue (Yehoshuas preferred stylistic conceit) in Hillel Halkins 1984 translation. All he said was theyll get you in the army then he blew his whistle and said now choose teams for dodge ball. I was chosen last and counted out first.

Yehoshua credited his wife, Rivka Kirsninski, a psychoanalyst whose death in 2016 crushed him, for his insights. I have to understand that the world is not simple, he said of being married to a woman whose landscape was the human psyche in a 2013 interview with The New York Jewish Week. You see the surface and have to dig again and again.

That tendency in his political life led Yehsohua again and again to advocate reconciliation. In 1984, at least a decade ahead of his time, he counseled a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The only solution to the Palestinian problem is the establishment of a demilitarized Palestinian state in the West Bank, Yehoshua said at the time in an interview with the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. The solution of a Palestinian state is an historical must.

Born Dec. 9, 1936, Yehoshua was a scion of a Sephardic family that had lived in Jerusalem for generations, and he brought to his writing and his spelling the cultures deceptively laconic style. He presented as a curious and provocative older relative, throwing out challenges and then leaning forward and listening intently. It was disarming, even when it infuriated his interlocutors, as in his notorious appearance at the American Jewish Committees 2006 centennial.

Only those living in Israel and taking part in the daily decisions of the Jewish state have a significant Jewish identity, Yehoshua said then, to angry murmurs from the quintessential Diaspora organization.

Rabbi Eric Yoffie, then the leader of the Reform movement, called Yehoshuas claim absurd and dangerous.

Yehoshua countered in a Haaretz oped: What I sought to explain to my American hosts, in overly blunt and harsh language perhaps, is that, for me, Jewish values are not located in a fancy spice box that is only opened to release its pleasing fragrance on Shabbat and holidays, but in the daily reality of dozens of problems through which Jewish values are shaped and defined, for better or worse.

Yet the fancy spice box entranced him: In novel after novel, his protagonists emerged from the Jewish Diaspora or disappeared into it, like Gabriel, the titular Lover, the remoteness of Diaspora life embodied for Yehoshua an almost erotic longing.

Yehoshua won dozens of awards, including the Israel Prize in 1995, the Bialik Prize and the National Jewish Book Award, and his work was translated into 28 languages. Yehoshua was one of a handful of Israelis, including Amos Oz and Yehuda Amichai, who perpetually were shortlisted for the Nobel Prize in literature. His final novel, The Tunnel, published in 2020, was about an engineer who is pressed into one last national project even as he loses his memory to dementia.

Names may disappear for the protagonist, Zvi Luria, but he grips close to the essential meaning of his life.

Do you really believe in this country? a character asks Luria.

Do I have a choice? he replies.

Yehoshua is survived by a daughter, two sons and seven grandchildren.

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Posted By admin on June 14, 2022

(June 13, 2022 / CAMERA) The Washington Post has a message for readers: Jews marching in a peaceful parade in their ancestral homeland is provocative.

This was the takeaway from a May 27, 2022 dispatch, titled Israel faces test of anti-terror tactics with planned flag march. Jerusalem bureau chief Steve Hendrix and reporter Shira Rubin began the article by asserting: Israeli officials are bracing for potential violence at a planned march by Jewish nationalists through a Palestinian neighborhood here Sunday, a repeat of a rally last year that ended with rockets fired at Jerusalem and an ensuing 11-day war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

The language is revealing. Nationalism, the Post has repeatedly warned, is a bad thing. Unless, of course, its Palestinian nationalism. And the attempt to tie the Jerusalem Flag March to the 2021 Israel-Hamas War is revealing as well.

The marchers were celebrating Jerusalem Day, a national holiday that commemorates the reunification of Jerusalem following Israels victory in the 1967 Six-Day War. The holiday was officially created by the Knesset in 1968. This was more than a decade before theocratic fascists seized power in Iran. The 2021 war was launched by these fascists, who are patrons of Hamas. Tehran initiated the conflict to apply pressure on the U.S. in ongoing negotiations over Irans nuclear program. Indeed, Iranian officials have said as much.

On May 6, 2021, the Middle East Media Research Institute translated a speech by Asghar Emami, the head of Irans Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Quds Force, which has trained and equipped operatives from Hamas, Hezbollah, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and other terror groups. Summarizing Emamis remarks, MEMRI reported that General Emami explained that Iran can easily tighten its grip around the throat of the Zionist regime in order to exert pressure and extract concessions from America. Emami, MEMRI said, continued to say that while Israel has airplanes that can reach Iran, Iran does not require airplanes to target Israel, it can place Israel under siege via the artillery and mortar shells of the resistance axis.

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The Posts false juxtaposition wasnt the only bit of misleading language. In keeping with a long-worn habit, the newspaper described Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad as merely militant groups. Yet both are U.S.-designated terrorist groups that call for Israels destruction and the genocide of its citizens. Militant is an insufficient descriptionalthough many in the media routinely use the phrase, as CAMERA noted in a May 2019 JNS op-ed.

Similarly, recent Israeli efforts to deter and prevent an increase in terrorist attacks were described as a supercharged crackdown. These counter-terror raids, the Post tells readers, have been violent. Well, yes. Raids against Islamist terrorists tend to be violent. Just ask Osama bin Laden.

For good measure, the newspaper also treats the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) as a credible source. OCHA, the Post says, claims that Israels counter-terrorist operations resulted in the deaths of 14 Palestinians. Yet the majority of them were terroristsa fact that the newspaper and OCHA omit. Indeed, OCHA itself has a long history of anti-Israel bias and shoddy claims.

The newspaper fails to note that Islamist terrorists tend to use human shieldsa documented fact that even Hamas itself has admitted. The Post also took the time to cite Nour Odeh, who criticized Israels security measures, but identified Odeh as merely a Palestinian activist in Ramallah. In fact, she is a former spokeswoman for the Palestinian Authority, an entity that has vowed to continue paying tax-deductible salaries to terrorists.

Although the Post dispatch contains important and useful informationon civilian defense patrols that are meant to deter terrorism, for exampleit fails, from beginning to end, to identify the core of the problem: The Palestinian refusal to accept Jewish social and political equality. If Jews peacefully marching in their ancestral city is capable of inciting anti-Jewish violence, this is hardly the fault of the Jewish state. Rather, it is an expression of the worst brand of Palestinian nationalism. The Post missed an important opportunity to note as much.

Sean Durns is a senior research analyst for the Washington, D.C., office of CAMERA.

This article was originally published by CAMERA.

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Want an offer you cant refuse?

Well, the new streaming series The Offer on Paramount+ tells the story of Jewish producer Al Ruddy, Paramount head Robert Evans, and executive Charlie Bludhorn, and how they overcame a flurry of obstacles to make The Godfather.

While the success of the legendary film must go to Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, and director Francis Ford Coppola (here played magnificently by Jewish actor and comedian Dan Fogler) the three Jewish men dealt with historic obstacles.

Gulf and Western, which owned Paramount, was squeezing Bludhorn to sell the film studio because many movies were losing money. Evans promised that The Godfather would be a blockbuster and presented a dramatic video to corporate types that kept the film alive, but on life support.

Many in the mafia, namely crime boss Joe Colombo, supported an Italian-American Civil Rights League, arguing that the Jews had the Anti-Defamation League, so they should have a body looking out for Italian interests.

Al Ruddy was told that the mafia wouldnt let him make the movie. But he smartly negotiated a deal to take out any words from the script deemed offensive to Italians, and persevered despite the threats. With a deep voice and a penchant for getting out of trouble, Miles Teller is excellent as Ruddy.

Ruddy had to make the film work financially, since they were given only about $6 million and needed to shoot in New York and Sicily. He fought to get Al Pacino, who Evans initially thought was too small to be considered a tough guy. Studio execs didnt want Brando, as he had recently done some flops and had blonde hair, but Coppola had an idea to go to his house and film him. Brando put tissues in his mouth to make him look like a bulldog, and used shoe-polish to make him look darker. Bludhorn was stunned at the transformation. James Caan, who is Jewish, wound up getting the part of Sonny Corleone.

Matthew Goode is fantastic as Evans, a man always drinking and with big attitude problem. As fictional studio executive Barry Lapidus, Colin Hanks is forgettable as a bad guy who is simply boring on screen. Juno Temple, of Ted Lasso fame, is fabulous as an assistant to Ruddy, who has no qualms about meeting Colombo to save the day.

The Offer is based on the perspective of Ruddy, so others may argue that they deserve more credit but thats how Hollywood goes. Teller, Goode, and Fogler all have great chemistry, and their scenes are full of tension and Hollywood bluster. Anthony Ippolito does an impressive job with Pacinos voice, and Joseph Russo is menacing as Joe Gallo. In a case of life imitating art, Gallo was shot and killed at the restaurant Umbertos, not far from where the film was still being shot.

In a funny scene, Bludhorn warns Ruddy that Evans has gone meshuggana or crazy due to drinking, drugs, and depression.

Anyone interested in the film should immediately watch the show on the making of the masterpiece, to see what really went on behind the scenes.

The author is a writer based in New York.

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Posted By admin on June 14, 2022

Those enchanted by the uplifting spiritual sound of Molly Mays voice will need to head south to hear Rodef Shalom Congregations longtime cantorial soloist and choir director. After nearly a decade serving the Shadyside congregation, May is moving to Durham, North Carolina, next week.

Given her childrens ages and family health concerns, its a good time to relocate, May said.

Along with wishing her well, Mays colleagues praised the Jewish professional for her work at Rodef Shalom, HaZamir Pittsburgh, the Edgewood Symphony Orchestra and her commitment to arrangement and instrumentalism throughout the city.

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Mays musical contributions are well known throughout the area, but before ever ascending the pulpit, leading a multitude of singers or playing double bass, the Point Breeze native pursued undergraduate and graduate degrees in music pedagogy from the University of Michigan and Rutgers University, and taught orchestra and band for six years in New Jersey before coming back to Pittsburgh.

Despite returning to her regional roots with a wealth of musical knowledge, Mays career climb wasnt predictable, she said. When one son was diagnosed with kidney cancer, and another son was just an infant, she and her husband, Chuck, realized they needed additional family support.

Once cancer treatment concluded, Mays mother Linda Doernberg touted the benefits of the Rodef Shalom Family Center Preschool.

She said the school was a wonderful play-based center where kids learn in developmentally appropriate ways, sing great songs and make great friends, May said.

Months after enrolling her son David, May was asked if she wanted to teach music at Rodef Shaloms religious school. She agreed but just before Thanksgiving 2011 she began a new relationship with the congregation.

It was just before the start of the holiday weekend, and there were no one skilled singers available during services, said Don Megahan, Rodef Shaloms music director and organist. Rabbi Henry said there is a parent in the preschool who is Jewish and she sings, and I said, Go get her, he recalled.

May accepted Rodef Shaloms offer and throughout the next 18 months returned to the Shadyside bima when requested.

There was a stable of other soloists, May said, but as people phased out of the rotation, I phased in.

Molly May and family. Photo courtesy of Molly May

During that period, May was still seeking work in her first career, teaching orchestra, but despite some long-term substitute positions nothing really panned out, she said. I realized that what I was supposed to do was serve the Jewish community with my musicianship.

Mays self-awareness forever impacted the congregation, Megahan said. Molly just unassumingly stepped into our lives, and I had no idea that our relationship would become what it is.

Week after week, Megahan and May partnered on maximizing the musical experience of synagogue-goers.

Many people are content with simply playing or singing what is on the page, but to me, the magic in music happens when you give life to what it is in front of you, he said. Its about communication, intention, meaning, and that doesnt happen naturally with every musician.

Megahan called his work with May a liturgical dance.

When you dance with someone, you become as one, not two different people, he said. You move with and for each other, and its a dance Molly and I fell comfortably into.

May became deeply involved with the congregation in other ways, too.

In January 2015, she started Rodef Shira, an all-volunteer choir. She said the group was a source of pride. She noted how the choir improves knowledge of Jewish texts, and that several choir members eventually became Rodef Shalom lay leaders.

Molly has raised the quality and appreciation for music and liturgy, Barb Feige, Rodef Shaloms interim executive director, said. She is so incredibly talented both vocally and I dont know how many instruments she plays anything with strings. Shes like the whole package.

Henry agreed, saying May has many extraordinary qualities. In addition to being a gifted musician as well as a reliable, steadfast and delightful partner on our worship team, she is also deeply committed to the Jewish community, to vibrant Jewish life and to Yiddishkeit.

Molly May with Carl Iezzi, retired Pittsburgh Public Schools music teacher from Rogers CAPA. Photo courtesy of Molly May

May began sharing her love of Jewish music and education with a new group six years ago as director of the Pittsburgh chapter of HaZamir. While working at Rodef Shalom enabled her to grow a local base, HaZamir offered national and international benefits. Along with creating new contacts in the world of Jewish music, directing HaZamir allowed May to partner with diverse Jewish youth, she said. HaZamir is not a denominational organization. Its pluralistic, its inclusive and helps teens solidify their Jewish identity and build strong connections to Israel.

May said she enjoyed bringing together kids from a variety of Jewish backgrounds and watching how children who dont do a lot of Jewish things at home are connected with kids who are shomer Shabbos all the while singing the same music, celebrating Shabbat and performing as one on a big New York City stage.

Trading Pittsburgh for Durham isnt necessarily easy, May said, but there will be some constants. Her husband will keep his job, and she will continue her hybrid studies at the cantorial program at the Academy for Jewish Religion in Yonkers, New York.

May still has about three years left before graduating, she said, and isnt certain whether she will want to return to a synagogue or rely on upcoming clinical pastoral classwork and possibly work in a hospital after receiving ordination. What she knows for sure is that upon relocating shell be spending countless hours at baseball fields a practice shes grown quite familiar with. For years, May has been a staple at Stan Lederman Field in Frick Park and its neighboring concession stand.

Ive probably purchased about 200 Diet Dr. Peppers. Its my second-favorite soda, she said. My favorite is Diet Mountain Dew, but they dont sell them there.

For now, caffeinated beverage selections at Little League fields are far from thought. May is eager to see her three sons ages 14, 12 and 10 succeed in new surroundings both on the field and off. Change isnt necessarily easy, but between music, baseball and Durhams vast cultural amenities, theres a lot to be excited about, she said.

I am proud to have given so much to this community this community where I grew up and I will miss it very much but I am looking forward to new opportunities, she said. PJC

Adam Reinherz can be reached at areinherz@pittsburghjewishchronicle.org.

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A 1986 Mad magazine cover designed by Mort Drucker. Courtesy of DC Entertainment

By Jim SullivanJune 13, 2022

I grew up in central Maine in the 60s and 70s, and while we werent exactly the Mayberry of the North the fictional town of The Andy Griffith Show if you were looking to find a nearly 100% all-white Catholic and Protestant enclave above the Mason-Dixon Line, we were it.

Not that we were a hick town. We lived in Orono where the University of Maine was and is and our nearest big city was Bangor. I liked to consider us quasi-cosmopolitan, the last outpost of civilization in the state before you went deep into the woods and met people saying ay-uh.

But integration? Well, a Black girl joined our high school my junior year, the daughter of a doctor who for whatever reason decided to move there. That meant just as Mayberry had exactly one Black actor with a speaking role Rockne Tarkingtonas Flip Conroy we had one Black student.

We had, to the best of my knowledge, one Jewish student. Her name was Melaine Gershman, the daughter of Mel and Elaine, hence the portmanteau Melaine. Every year around Christmas the poor girl had to explain Hanukkah to the once-interested, long-bored class.

The only other Jews I interacted with were my dentist, Dr. Howard Kominsky, who did good work on my teeth and gave me his old weathered leather golf bag when he was done with it, and Mickey Goldsmith, who founded Goldsmiths Sporting Goods, where I bought my baseball gloves and bats.

Nevertheless, there was a profound Jewish influence on my outlook on life, specifically my sense of humor. I just didnt know it at the time.

I fell in love with language and wordplay at a young age. I grasped the concept of irony and satire early on. I didnt like authority and a fifth-grade teacher once scolded me for giving her some back talk. She said there was a difference between being famous and notorious and I was destined for the latter. She had a big vocabulary and that was pretty advanced thinking. I was OK with it.

I chalk a lot of my attitude up to Mad magazine. I began reading Mad around 1967 when I was 11, and in short order I became a subscriber. I didnt get a lot of mail Baseball Digest was my other mag and when Mad came every month (or so), I tore open the white envelope, flopped down on my bed and read it cover to cover, always ending with Al Jaffees Fold-In. I was a voracious reader, eager to discover what smart yuks the self-proclaimed usual gang of idiots at Mad had in store for me.

I didnt know that most of the writers, cartoonists and editors were Jewish, nor would I have likely cared one way or the other. All I knew about Judaism was from my Catholic upbringing, which was that we should respect the Jews, but, sadly, they couldnt enter the kingdom of heaven because, you know, Jesus.

Even as a kid and one-time altar boy, this struck me as both uncharitable and absurd, and Im sure was one of the building blocks on my way toward being an agnostic recovering Catholic. (If you want to go deeper, you could add transubstantiation, virgin birth and resurrection, all of which came clanging into my consciousness upon reaching, as I like to call it, the age of reason.)

At any rate, funny was funny, no matter where it came from. (I was also a future fan of a Richard Pryor album whose title Im pretty certain I cant repeat here in 2022.) When I learned about the Jewish factor in my comedic education, it tickled me. And made sense. It had become one of my primary prisms through which to filter the world.

But I didnt just learn about the modern world from the new Mads. I learned about what life in the Mad world at least had been like before I was sentient. Much the same, but with unfamiliar reference points politicians Id barely heard of, movies and TV shows before my time, parodic lyrics of songs I didnt know.

My family lived on the first floor of what had once been a large dance hall in the 1930s, later converted into three apartments. The people that owned the building and lived upstairs were my parents best friends, and they had two sons, a generation-and-a-half up from me. They were avid Mad readers who never threw the mags away. As they had left home, I was fortunate enough to have been bequeathed a trunkful of their old Mads from the 50s and early 60s. (I still have them. Theyre a tad musty.)

That being the case, Yiddish knockoff words had long entered my world, words like furshlugginer,which I later learned was derived from the Yiddish wordshlogan (to hit) and a few more that I was shocked to see were, uh, dirty. And to these gentile ears,shmuck, shnook and shlemiel sounded pretty funny.

Another Catholic-raised, Mad-inspired kid was Boston comic Mike McDonald. Were talking about the 60s, and there were limited humor magazines, certainly limited for 12-year-old boys, he told me. Mad was trying to appeal to that group and it did. You didnt have a lot of money to spend at 11 or 12 so if youre gonna lay money out for something, this was it.

And then came the stand-ups. Even as a kid watching comedians, McDonald said, I realized being Jewish meant you had a sense of humor, and half of the best comics were Jewish Shelley Berman, Mort Sahl, Joan Rivers, Jackie Mason. They didnt talk about being Jewish much in their acts, but it was apparent to me that part of being Jewish was to be able to laugh at yourself and be funny. You cant say that about all other cultures.

Leah Garrett, director of the Jewish Studies Center at Hunter College and a Forward contributor, read Mad, too: For an entire generation, Mad magazine was one of the most central factors in shaping how we understood the adult world and what it meant, she said. The magazine would end up employing and inspiring basically every important American comic, particularly all the Jewish comics Sid Caesar, Mel Brooks, Jerry Seinfeld, Howard Stern, the writers of The Simpsons, the writers of Saturday Night Live, The Onion, The Daily Show just to name a few. I would say it was the most important comedy vehicle in American history.

I learned a lot about advertising from these guys (Mad had no advertising), about guileful manipulation, about how corporate interests werent exactly aligned with ours. As was often the same with government and governmental bureaucracy. I learned about irreverence, and that there were no sacred cows. About humor as both an offensive jab or a perfectly acceptable defensive position. That laughing at the ludicrous (or even heinous) things all around us was not a bad response. Often, that laughter led to a deeper understanding of issues.

All of these views were overseen by Mads gap-toothed, ever-jovial (but what did he know?) mascot, Alfred E. Neumann, with his What, me worry? point of view. And Mads motto: Humor in the jugular vein.

David Bieber was a Jewish kid from Cleveland who was hooked from the get-go. A former promotions director at Boston rock radio station WBCN and alternative paper The Boston Phoenix, Bieber is a pop culture collector and the curator of the David Bieber Archives in Norwood, Massachusetts.

Mad hit me at that exact right moment, Bieber said. He was 11 when he began the Mad journey. Earlier I wouldnt have appreciated it because I was too much a child. Everyone had their five-to-eight-year cycle of Mad with the regular features upgraded to reflect changing times.

Mad was all about challenging you to find out about things you didnt know about, he said. It lured you in with clever and funny parodies of Broadway things we didnt even see and yet the storyline and song lyrics played in your head. They force-fed you knowledge in the process of making fun of adult aspects of life. It was beautiful how textured it was. If you didnt know the joke, you did investigation.

For me, there was a comfort zone knowing who these people are, Bieber added. Like they were these smart-aleck adolescents making fun of adults. There was this comedic summit they reached and held on to.

At the top of that summit was publisher William Gaines. Circling that summit were writers and illustrators like Jaffee, Jack Davis, Harvey Kurtzman, Dave Berg, Norman Mingo, Drew Friedman, Don Martin, Mort Drucker and Sergio Aragons.

If, in my world of baseball fandom, the Red Sox of 1967 were my Boys of Summer, in my comedic world, these guys were that, too.

Jim Sullivan wrote about music and pop culture for The Boston Globe from 1979 to 2005. Currently, he writes for WBURs ARTery, among other sites.

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My heart aches as my head panics. My child came home again from school with a play-by-play of sideline reporting from recess. Depending on the day, a peer got picked on for looking different, acting different or sounding different. Again.

This feels like a conversation between a child and a 1939 war-torn Polish mommy. Not a veteran-Jewish-educator-by-profession mommy of 2022 in the Northshore. I should not have to have this conversation.

Recess. That post-lunch unstructured time when the watchful eye of a teacher is at half-mast taking a break from the realities of classroom vigor. Recess. Its when the students write their own lesson plans. Recess. Its when there is no bouncer checking ID cards by the playground swings, which is unfortunate because it turns out racism, homophobia and ableism know no age minimum. Hate is not an ageist.

In the synagogue school classrooms, I teach my students to be upstanders. Not bystanders. Dont sit by and watch quietly as a peer gets picked on. Pick yourself up and speak up. In my Religious School classroom over the years to drive home the point to my students I have brought in the Anti-Defamation League and Milwaukees Jewish Community Relations Council. Ive paid a hefty price tag to get trained on anti-hate curriculum. Read blogs, books and articles. Listened to podcasts. Ive armed myself and my students with the tools to stand up to hate. Easier said than done when its my own child involved.

My own child knows the right thing to do. He tells me himself when we regularly debrief his latest hate-filled anecdote in vivid, heart-cringing detail. He feels bad for the latest target. I should go over and say something. I should go to the recess monitor and ask for help. I should tell the principal. I just cant do anything about it.

But the frustrating portion of the conversation is always the same response from me. Im scared for you. I dont know what to tell you to do. Youre Jewish and youll be their next victim. Lots of material to use against you. Grandma always says, your health and reputation are the two most important things. Words we live by. Both would be threatened if you snitch or intervene.

When it comes to parenting, I am never a bystander. I am an upstander who stands up for my children. But how do I make order out of this personal act of speaking out of both sides of my mouth? Im modeling for my children to speak up but then again, maybe dont say anything. As I sit with my own struggles, I do what I can to not sit idly by on my parenting obligations.

Ask. Listen. Empower. My three-word action plan.

ASK at the dinner table. As my father says, Little pitchers have big ears. He says this as a warning to watch what I say but I see this as a charge to choose my words purposefully. As we settle down to dinner and plates start getting passed, my husband kicks off the conversation with, how was your day? The children share anecdotes of all flavors. With an audience of five, its an opportunity to process, wonder, delve and be curious. Our supper safe space.

LISTEN in the car. Schlepping in the car to basketball practice and Hebrew School we transform all that dead airtime into lively conversation. During our car chats, everyone is held captive and cant walk away from the conversation. I cant make that uncomfortable eye contact with my children when my eyes are fixed on the road. We have established the car as a place for brave sentences to begin with, listen to what happened today, Mommy. Our caring car culture.

EMPOWER at every opportunity. You got this. These three little reassuring words are my regular parenting mantra that I always hope pack a big punch. The dialogue we have as a family may not provide all the answers of what to do in the moment. But I hope my own short and sweet parenting advice builds the confidence to act on whatever action plan my children decide to play out. Our empathic environment.

Its not an easy world we are raising our children in today. We all do the best we can. We are in this together to ask, listen and empower. You got this too.

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