Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By admin on June 4, 2022

FROM NORTH AMERICA SYNDICATE, 300 W 57th STREET, 15th FLOOR, NEW YORK, NY 10019

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TO YOUR GOOD HEALTH #12345_20220621

FOR RELEASE WEEK OF JUNE 20, 2022 (COL. 2)

BYLINE: By Keith Roach, M.D.

TITLE: Mom worries about husband's family history of breast cancer

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DEAR DR. ROACH: I am concerned that my 33-year-old daughter will have breast cancer. I have no history in my family of breast cancer, but my husband's grandmother, mother and sister all have had breast cancer with double mastectomies. I have heard that the DNA follows the mother's side and not the father's. Is this true or an old wives' tale? Should she have a BRCA test? -- D.C.

ANSWER: Most cases of breast cancer are sporadic, meaning there is no particular identifiable family risk to develop breast cancer. However, there are identified genetic risks, especially including the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genetic variants, which are worth testing for in certain situations.

The guidelines for testing a person for BRCA1/2 are complicated, and I don't have enough space to even summarize them here. However, the family history you've given is probably not enough to recommend gene testing (unless there are other factors, such as an Ashkenazi Jewish background). The types of breast cancer (such as 'triple negative" breast cancer) and the ages at which the family members were diagnosed are also important.

The genes for BRCA1/2 are autosomal, not X-linked, meaning that it doesn't (much) matter whether they come from the maternal or paternal side. Slight differences due to something called epigenetic changes can mean people who inherit BRCA2 from their father tend to have their breast and ovarian cancers diagnosed at a younger age than if it came from their mother.

Ideally, the person who had the cancer (breast, ovarian, pancreas, and prostate cancers all are affected by BRCA genes) should get tested, not only for BRCA1/2, but other newly identified genetic susceptibility genes.

The best advice on whether testing for your daughter is appropriate would come from a genetic counselor.

DEAR DR. ROACH: Are studies that suggest eating prunes daily might delay or prevent osteoporosis for postmenopausal women valid? Thanks. -- M.S.

ANSWER: There are several studies that suggested eating prunes may have benefits on the bones. In some studies, women ate 4 ounces of prunes daily (the control group got dried apples), and blood tests suggested less bone turnover. Bone density studies suggested some benefit or at least slowing of decline among women eating prunes compared with the control group. The duration of the studies was in months -- quite short, as two years is often needed to see benefits in the bone, which changes slowly.

These sorts of studies would never be acceptable for new medications to treat osteoporosis, which would require significant improvements in bone strength, or better yet, reduction in the risk of fractures. However, prunes have minimal potential for side effects, having been consumed for millennia. Prunes are well known to effectively treat constipation (which can be problematic in people who struggle with loose stools). Both men and women can get osteoporosis, though only women have been included in studies on prunes.

Compared against the currently available osteoporosis treatments, which have the potential, however small, for serious complications, prunes are very safe. They may not keep a person from requiring additional treatment, but they may help.

* * *

Dr. Roach regrets that he is unable to answer individual letters, but will incorporate them in the column whenever possible. Readers may email questions to ToYourGoodHealth@med.cornell.edu or send mail to 628 Virginia Dr., Orlando, FL 32803.

(c) 2022 North America Syndicate Inc.

All Rights Reserved

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Posted By admin on June 4, 2022

Under Jerusalem: The Buried History of the Worlds Most Contested CityAndrew Lawler, Random House, 2021, 464 pp., A$54.50

In 1867, the Scottish adventurer John MacGregor descended a rope ladder into a subterranean tunnel by the walls of Jerusalems Old City. His guide was the famous British archaeologist Charles Warren, engaged just then in one of the first serious excavations of Jerusalem. Once underground, the men scrambled happily through the filthy shafts like cats or monkeys, peering into the citys ancient layers, the walls slick with moisture and the floor soggy with sewage. Once we have got down, Macgregor wrote of the experience, we can scan by the magnesium light a subterranean city, the real city of Jerusalem.

That idea that the real city of Jerusalem lurks somewhere beneath the actual city with its grocery stores, traffic, and inconveniently present residents has been a powerful one since the mid-1800s, when the seductive aura of that real city began to draw a string of fascinating and often misguided characters with a Bible in one hand and a shovel in the other, looking for something beneath the surface.

These are the stars of Andrew Lawlers book Under Jerusalem: The Buried History of the Worlds Most Contested City, a survey of some of the colourful and fraught episodes that have played out here underground over the past century and a half.

The idea of digging up Jerusalem caught on in Britain and elsewhere, as science began to supplant religion in the nineteenth century and as some of the old preoccupations of Europe were dressed up in new rationalist clothes.

Lawler gives us an excellent recounting of the 1865 creation of the Palestine Exploration Fund in London, where the founders included the naturalist Richard Owen, believed to have coined the word dinosaur, and the Archbishop of York, who called for a new crusade to rescue from darkness and oblivion much of the history of that country in which we all take so dear an interest. Charles Darwin chipped in eight guineas. The explorers were inflamed by the possibility of grand findings from Jewish antiquity palaces, figures, gold, the treasures of Solomons Temple! to rival the ones from Egypt, Assyria, and Greece that were then filling up the storerooms of the British Museum.

Much of this betrayed a misunderstanding of Jewish history, as a few lonely souls knew even at the time. The archaeologist Austen Henry Layard, for example, pointed out that the Jewish aversion to graven images meant the expeditions were unlikely to find statues. Even at their height, the Jewish kingdoms of the Bible were small, and monumental treasures would be hard to come by. Although some interesting fragments might be discovered, no series of sculptures such as those at Nineveh or Babylon could be hoped for, Layard cautioned.

No one listened, but hed identified the key problem with much of the Holy Land archaeology enterprise. Using the Bibles words to locate the monuments and treasures of the Jews misses the point: the words are the treasures of the Jews.

Nonetheless, off the explorers set from London, storming the alleys of the Old City and Silwan, tunnelling beneath the paving stones and sniffing around the mosques of the Temple Mount, to the displeasure of Muslim authorities and religious Jews, setting the stage for an enterprise that has continued in different forms to the present.

One digger, the dissolute aristocrat Montagu Brownlow Parker, arrived in 1909 armed with the work of an obscure Finn, who believed his mathematical calculations based on Bible passages had decoded the location of the Ark of the Covenant. The excavation ended with the crew fleeing Muslim outrage to a ship sailing hurriedly from Jaffa. A New York Times headline announced that the Temple treasures were on board. A long modern tradition credulous journalism reporting archaeological science that is actually laundered spirituality mixed with wishful thinking had begun.

There is much to say about the days of Byzantine Jerusalem, or early Muslim Jerusalem, or the colourful and short-lived Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem, all of which have been excavated in recent decades. But these layers under Jerusalem are mostly overlooked in Lawlers book in favour of more familiar fare: a recounting of the decades of Jewish-Muslim rivalry around the Temple Mount. This choice isnt surprising, but its too bad, because it narrows the focus, and places what could be a story about history and discovery into a predictable political context.

By the end of World War I, he writes, Yiddish-speaking Europeans dominated Jerusalem, and in many ways they had more in common with European Christian colonisers than with the Jews who had lived in Jerusalem for generations. Whether you think the early Zionist pioneers fleeing pogroms had anything to do with European colonisers, they spoke Hebrew and tended to avoid Jerusalem. The Yiddish-speaking Europeans of the city at the time were still mostly impoverished ultra-Orthodox Jews who had nothing to do with European colonisers or with modern Zionism and its desire for a Jewish state.

Lawler also describes Israels Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi as leader of the faiths Ashkenazim and his Sephardi counterpart as leader of the Sephardim, when both are actually government functionaries with no real following. And there are more serious missteps in the descriptions of Jewish history and practice, like the idea that theres no material evidence for Judaism as a distinct religion until about the first century BCE. It is true that rabbinic Judaism crystallised in late antiquity as one of several rival versions of Jewish faith and practice, but all sprung from the Israelite culture whose ample texts and traces, including the Temple Mount, stretch over the preceding millennium. To leap to the idea that this makes Christianity a younger cousin [of Judaism], but only by a century or so, as Lawler writes, elides a great deal to make a questionable point.

These problems are linked to a more central one, affecting many Western observers, with their narrative of a city sacred to three faiths namely, a failure to understand the unique centrality of Jerusalem in Judaism or to admit that the city is of interest to other religions only because it was sacred to Jews first. Its impossible to understand the city without grasping that Jerusalem has existed at the centre of Jewish consciousness since Rome was a village on the Tiber and that it has that role in no other religion. Christianity cares about Jerusalem because Jesus and his followers were Jews who orbited the Jewish ritual centre on the Temple Mount. Islam built the Dome of the Rock on the Temple Mount because that was the site of the Jewish temple. Both imperial religions have more important cities elsewhere, but came here with architects and stonemasons to create a physical expression of a claim central to both that they had supplanted the numerically insignificant but historically imposing natives of Judea. Thats the fact that exists under Jerusalem.

Under Jerusalem plays this down in favour of the idea that the Jews have only one story of three, and one theyve probably overstated. For example, Lawler tells us that for several centuries before the 1800s, Christians, Muslims, and Jews all forgot Jerusalem, and while the Talmud admonished the Jewish people not to forget Jerusalem, few actually paid a visit, much less settled there prior to the nineteenth century. This misses the fact that Jews from Yemen to the Yukon invoked Jerusalem and prayed to return in each of the three prayer services they conducted every day, which they recited facing Jerusalem, and also swore fealty to Jerusalem at the end of every Passover Seder and wedding. Given the difficulties, a remarkable number of Jews did manage to come throughout the centuries, and as soon as a Jewish national movement was created, it was called Zionism that is, Jerusalemism.

Lawlers book ends with the idea that Christianity and Judaism are actually cousins, and Islam just barely younger, meaning that everyone has the same kind of claim, and, anyway, the borders between the religions are mostly illusory. This idea that all thought systems and cultures are interchangeable and everyones ideas equal is a religious idea in itself, the product of a specific moment in Western thought and one that could use some more rigorous introspection from its adherents.

Andrew Lawler does his best to understand the motivations and prejudices of all the people poking around Jerusalem except his own. Its a missed opportunity in a work that contains much of value.

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Biblio File: The Treasure of the Jews - Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council

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Posted By admin on June 4, 2022

BAT SHLOMO, Israel Shavuot is one of the three major Jewish festivals. On Shavuot, we celebrate receiving the Torah in a number of ways. People study all night and go to synagogue to hear the reading of the Ten Commandments. We read the Book of Ruth. It is also customary to gorge oneself on dairy foods like cheese and cheesecake. Many of us add wine to this list.

Perhaps you have read this column previously and noticed that I have mentioned a Sauvignon Blanc from the Bat Shlomo Winery, from of all places, Bat Shlomo, in the north of Israel. In preparation for Shavuot, I decided to visit Bat Shlomo and this small winery to taste its wines, with cheese, and report back. What follows is my report.

Bat Shlomo is a small village near Zichron Yaacov, whose founding fathers established it for their children in 1889. Bat Shlomo, however, did not prosper. It is small and quaint. It has seen a bit of a resurgence, and in fact, has become desirable because of its proximity to the up-and-coming communities surrounding it. What is left are the remnants of small farms, crumbling buildings and some shops. A small community, many who have lived there and grown up there, still enjoy the peace and quiet. And there are two synagogues one Ashkenazi and one Sephardi. Neither one can make a minyan, a prayer quorum, without the other. This is not a joke. This is Bat Shlomo.

The winery is beautiful, with two rental villas that are stunning. They share a magnificent infinity pool and a kitchen, where a private chef is available to prepare custom meals. The setting for our tasting was outside the winerys guest house, under an umbrella, on a charming gravel driveway. The scene might have looked the same 100-plus years ago, except for the chic BMW electric vehicle parked not too far away. And there, we were served exquisite cheese, and, of course, exceptional wine all kosher.

I have visited many wineries all over the world, including Israel, the United States, Canada, South Africa and at least six European countries. I have enjoyed the guest houses and the hospitality they offer. Bat Shlomo offers something different. It is one-of-a-kind.

This wine, unlike so many Israeli and international-style Chardonnays, especially kosher ones, does not hit you over the head with a plank of oak. The juice was fermented in oak barrels for nine months, the barrels are not new, and instead of mouthfuls of bulky and clumsy, overly-sweet caramel, vanilla and palate numbing apple-cobbler on steroids, everything comes together easily, gently and in modest and appropriate proportions.

This Chardonnay was lean and nimble, it felt authentic and of the place. I had a chance to speak to the wine maker, Ari Erle, and we agreed that his Chardonnay resembled a great white from the Beaune, in Burgundy, France. A slightly golden color, an aroma that hints of nuts and apples all in balance that you can faintly taste. If an international-style Chardonnay is a Mack Truck, carrying Ice cubes down a metaphysical highway to your barbecue, Bat Shlomos Chardonnay is a Porsche speeding on a racetrack looking for its spiritual brothers, the Montrachet boys, Puligny, Batard,and Chassagne to get the band back together.

Too popular for tastings as none was to be had.

But as I have noted in previous articles, I think this grape and the wine by the same name is one of Israels finest, if one of its most under-appreciated. The Bat Shlomo offering is competitive with the best from the new world, like New Zealands Cloudy Bay for one, but not so loud and brash, and the Old World, like a Sauvignon Blanc from Sancerre, France, say Comte LaFonde. In sum, this is a wine worth finding.

My sommelier, Tom, explained that one of the goals at Bat Shlomo was to introduce wines to the Israeli wine scene that made sense, in this place. Drinking big international style, high alcohol, fruit-bombs, in 90-degree temperatures makes no sense she explained. And it is hard to disagree, irrespective of what moves the market, or wine reviewers for that matter, tasting in environmentally controlled wine rooms.

The 2020 Rose was a simple, gentle Provenal style rose, that was graceful and easy to drink on a warm day. It had a gorgeous hue of light salmon and was perfect under the umbrella at the winery.

This wine was made from 100% Grenache, a red grape from the Rhone region of France. It is also grown throughout Spain where it is called Garnache. It is often made into delightful rose wines for warm temperatures, just like this offering.

All of the red wines, and there were too many to write about, had a distinctive personality. This alone made Bat Shlomos wines different from larger winerys offerings, which are more available in the United States.

Carignan is a grape that was introduced well over 100 years ago to this area when the Baron Rothschilds experts came and started planting vineyards. Carignan is usually a grape that is blended with others into a final cuve. In this more robust rose, Carignan is used as a solo act, rather than as an additional performer.

This wine is spicy and blended to be served with food. It has a deep color and flavor. It truly defies description, other than to say, tangy and refreshing due to its high acidity. Its color is orange-pink. At 11.1% alcohol, it is a light wine. I do not know what to think of it, but it was well worth trying.

All of the red wines, and there were too many to write about, had a distinctive personality. This alone made Bat Shlomos wines different from larger winerys offerings, which are more available in the United States.

One might be forgiven for assuming that this blend of Cabernet Sauvignon and Syrah would be the stereotypical high potency fruit-bomb checking in at around 14% alcohol. Instead, it is a rather stylish and easy to drink red wine well suited to warm weather, and very pleasant.

All of the red wines, and there were too many to write about, had a distinctive personality. This alone made Bat Shlomos wines different from larger winerys offerings, which are more available in the United States.

This 100% Cabernet Sauvignon wine was wonderful to drink now, with well integrated tannins, yet a structure to age and mature for years to come. It feels like a new world red, in the best of ways.

Strong, yet sophisticated, bold but not over-powering, this wine, having been aged in French oak for two years, the Vintners Blend displays the blackcurrant and cedar properties of classic Cabernet Sauvignon, is balanced and highly nuanced. If you can find this wine you must try it.

To sum things up, I love this winery, it is beautiful and it crafts beautiful wines. The wine tasting was lovely from beginning to end. This was so, not only thanks to the fabulous wines (and cheese), but also because of the incredible ambiance as well. Too many wineries set visitors up for tastings in the now too common, glass, wood, steel wine-a-dized, vin-a-fied generic tasting room. Some even have a view of a vineyard.

In contrast, it would be impossible to replicate the Bat Shlomo winery tasting experience. I recommend a visit to this winery to anyone in the area. I hope to stay in one of the villas the next time I come, and when I do, perhaps I will write about it. I am sure that stay will be exceptional.

As for the wines, the white wines moved me. Both the Sauvignon Blanc and the Chardonnay are outstanding. It was hard to keep tasting after the Chardonnay. All of the wines were terrific with cheese. Both of the rose wines were excellent in different ways. The Regavim blend would make sense as an everyday red, and the Vintners Blend is a special occasion in a bottle.

For more information, visit batshlomo.com.

Andrew Zashin is a Kosher wine aficionado and he writes about law for the Cleveland Jewish News. He is aco-managing partner with Zashin & Rich, with offices in Cleveland and Columbus.

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Bat Shlomo Winery one-of-a-kind - Cleveland Jewish News

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Posted By admin on June 4, 2022

(New York Jewish Week) This weekend is Shavuot, the major Jewish holiday that occurs seven weeks after the second Passover seder and marks the giving of the Torah at Mount Sinai.

Though Shavuot is light on specific rituals besides the custom of eating cheesecake, blintzes, bourekas and other dairy delicacies the holiday has become a celebration of Jewish study, in general, and Torah learning, in particular. Jewish mystics in the 16th century originated the custom of studying all night long; more recently, this has evolved into an all-night marathon study session known as Tikkun Leil Shavuot.

This year, synagogues and other Jewish institutions across New York are looking forward to learning in-person and online in sessions planned for the night of Saturday, June 4, through the morning of Sunday, June 5.

As much as our Tikkun lives in each session with our 100 magical educators and performers, it also lives in the hallway, in the elevators, the lobby, the stairwells in the JCC building. People run into long lost friends. We cannot wait for the energy, the sizzle and crackle, of a live audience to return again this year, said Sarah-Kay Lacks, senior director of Shabbat and holidays at the Marlene Meyerson JCC Manhattan, which is returning to in-person programming this year, after two years of Zoom Tikkunim that drew in nearly 20,000 viewers.

Zoom has no elevator, she added. Our online Tikkunim were spectacular, but one cannot recreate the spontaneity and liminality offered in person.

Below are a few of New Yorks biggest events, most of which will last throughout the night and end with sunrise Shacharit services on Sunday. Additionally, synagogues and congregations across the city Park East Synagogue, Park Avenue Synagogue, Congregation Kehilath Jeshurun, Lincoln Square Synagogue, Ohab Tzedek, to name a few are hosting in-house study programs and talks. At Congregation Emanu-El, Shavuot services will include a confirmation ceremony with high-school age students.

If youre looking to attend an all-night study session, read on for the New York Jewish Weeks top picks.

Several Brooklyn congregations have teamed up to offer Shavuot Across Brooklyn, which will feature Reform, Conservative and Orthodox Maariv services starting at 9:00 p.m. Saturday. The night will then feature six hourlong learning blocks, starting at 10:00 p.m. Each block will have several options, with at least one virtual option. Sessions will cover everything from classic Torah study and conversion to exploring how critical race theory intersects with American Judaism to a session on angels and demons in Jewish thought.

Best session title: May God Bless and Keep the Czar Far Away From Us with Alan Belsky

One of the citys biggest all-nighters, the Tikkun Leil Shavuot celebration at the Marlene Meyerson JCC Manhattan returns in person this year for the first time in three years. Starting at 10:00 p.m., the night begins with a rooftop Havdalah service and launches into educational programs, films, music, dance and yoga.

Highlights this year will include a klezmer tribute to Fiddler on the Roof with Steven Skybell + MusicTalks; former Manhattan Borough Presidents Ruth Messinger and Gale Brewer discussing the future of New York City; a silent disco; a wine tasting; Rachel Kunstadt discussing Jewish Values in the Musicals of Stephen Sondheim and more.

The Tikkun is dedicated in memory of Paul Feig, the brother of Jeff Feig, the chair of the board of directors at the JCC. Paul died in a car crash 24 years ago. Paul was a proud Jew who loved Jewish traditions. The Tikkun would have really stirred his passions and the only issue he might have had would have been choosing which of the many great classes to attend at any one time, Jeff Feig wrote in a tribute.

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Best session title: Babe Ruth: A Shavuot Drag Show with Abbi Gezunt

The Upper West Side congregations Tikkun will begin at 9:30 p.m. with prayer,study and conversation featuring Rabbis Rachel Bovitz, Ayelet Cohen, Anne Ebersman and Marc Margolius, who will discuss the Community Covenant, BJsstatement of values and commitments to one another.From midnight to dawn, the rabbis and rabbinic fellows from Bnai Jeshurun will host learning sessions on the rooftop terrace, ending in a sunrise Shacharit service. Get the livestream here.

For the third year in a row, the Rabbinical Assembly, the international association of Conservative rabbis, will be hosting a completely virtual Tikkun Leil Shavuot that will be sponsored by congregations across the country, including Brooklyns Kane Street Synagogue, Forest Hills Jewish Center and Congregation Habonim in New York. With seven learning blocks, the program will begin at 9:30 p.m. ET and end at 1:15 a.m. ET. Highlights include Reparations: Jewish Wisdom on Repairing Collective Harm, with Rabbi Amy Eilberg and a Jewish session for young adults called Choosing Torah: The Balance of Self and Community.

Best session title: We Are All Ruth: Commitment, Connection, and Community, with Rabbi Jacob Blumenthal, Rabbi Lauren Henderson and Dr. Keren McGinity

Looking for more Shavuot events? Click here.

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4 spots to do all-night Shavuot learning in the city that never sleeps - JTA News - Jewish Telegraphic Agency

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Posted By admin on June 4, 2022

Rachel Strugatsky, at Kyiv's Brodsky Synagogue, holds up her identification card for Ukraine's Territorial Defense Forces, for which she volunteered days after Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022. Photo by Rachel Strugatsky

By Helen ChervitzJune 02, 2022

Helen Chervitz is an American fashion writer in Kyiv, but since the Russian invasion has been writing about living in a country at war.

Rachel Strugatsky made aliyah as a teenager but was pulled back to her native Ukraine twice. Now 46, and with Russian shells falling uncomfortably close to her home in Kyiv, she could leave for Israel again this time with her three children.

But she wont. Hers, she said, is the only family in her congregation the Brodsky Synagogue that remains in the city.

I ask myself, Why am I here? she said. And my answer is: So that Kyiv Jews who escaped have a reason and the place to return to.

Raised in Soviet Ukraine with little exposure to Judaism, Strugatsky grew religious in Israel, where she worked as a surgical nurse at Jerusalems Hadassah Ein Kerem hospital. Back in Ukraine, she married an observant man and switched careers, finding more satisfaction as a teacher in a Jewish day school.

Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February, Strugatsky has spent her days and many nights in Kyivs central synagogue, where she is a nurse again, heading up its efforts to treat casualties of war. She tends to the wounds of both civilians and soldiers, makes sure the elderly get their blood pressure medication and feeds anyone who shows up hungry Jews and non-Jews alike.

She has stepped up to serve, she said, because her skills are needed, and because her experience as an outsider in her native country and an immigrant in Israel compel her to help anyone unmoored by circumstances beyond their control. The path she beat between Israel and Ukraine led her to where she needs to be right now, she said.

The Russian army has flattened much of Eastern Ukraine, where Strugatsky was raised. But from the relative safety of the capital, she still takes account of tremendous loss and what she said will never be lost.

We were liberated from everything that we loved, that we cherished, from the possibility of seeing relatives, from not being able to even visit the graves of loved ones, she said of the Russian onslaught. But what matters the most is what they didnt liberate us from our faith.

Strugatsky grew up in Soviet-era Ukraine, when antisemitism was rampant and Judaism hard to practice. Somehow, she said, the family found matzo for Passover. Her grandparents spoke Yiddish to each other when they didnt want her to know what they were talking about.

They made aliyah in 1991, settling in Nahariya when she was a teenager. But her parents never grew strong roots in Israel as she did, and after a few years packed the family up and moved them back to Ukraine. Strugatsky finished high school in the Eastern Ukrainian city of Chernihiv, and graduated from its medical college with a nursing degree. Missing Israel, at 21 she made aliyah again, this time by herself, and began her nursing career in Jerusalem.

She befriended her neighbors, religious Jews who introduced her to rituals and holidays. Observing Yom Kippur for the first time, she was moved to immerse herself in Judaism.

But only three years later, her mother fell ill, and Strugatsky returned to Ukraine. I was happy in Israel and saw my future there. But I was brought up to think about others first, family foremost, she said. So, I didnt hesitate to leave my promising prospects in Israel when my mother needed care

She took a job as a nurse at a newly opened Chabad school in Chernihiv, where staff saw that her proficiency in Hebrew was as useful as her medical skills, so she also began to teach. She married Nathan Strugatsky, who was from Kyiv, where the couple moved after her mother died.

Like many Ukrainians on Feb. 24, Strugatsky was shocked when Russian tanks crossed into Ukraine. Despite all the threats and warnings I never thought it would come to real war, she said. In the 21st century? With casualties and atrocities committed by Russian soldiers?

Everything changed for her family. Her husband, Nathan Strugatsky, watched his real estate business founder, because under martial law, no property may be bought or sold. And her work at a Jewish school there are two in Kyiv, one for boys and another for girls also ended.

She had loved teaching about Jewish traditions, and assisting other teachers who needed to translate Torah from the Hebrew. But many of her students moved away weeks ago, and enrolled in schools in safer parts of Ukraine or elsewhere in Europe. And though public schools in Kyiv reopened in April, only a few have held any classes and few children show up.

With no income, Strugatsky worried how she would feed her children: a daughter, 20, and two sons, 16 and 6. Even if they had money, grocery store shelves are often bare, and the lines to shop are hundreds of people long.

Life in Kyiv now, Strugatsky said, is a set of mechanical actions to support the physical side of existence.

The war was not a week old when Strugatsky signed up for Territorial Defense Forces, which organizes volunteers in Ukrainian cities. Strugatskys nursing skills were needed at the front, and she wanted to help her homeland. But as she began packing, her children balked, fearful that she would be hurt or killed. So she asked to be reassigned to Kyivs central hospital.

Waiting to be called to serve, she visited the Brodsky Synagogue, where her family attends services. In these first days of the conflict, she hadnt expected it to be open. But it was, and its rabbi, Reuven Azman, had already begun caring for refugees as they made their way to the capital from battered cities and towns to the east. Already 300 people had arrived from Chernihiv, where she is from. Many were physically wounded, and shaken by the violence they had seen.

It was then she knew, she said, what she was meant to do in this war. The hospital had other nurses, but the synagogue had none, and was filling up with people who needed her help. They arrived by the busload. Strugatsky had never been to the battlefield, but the battlefield, it seemed, had come to her.

She did triage, figuring out who needed to be placed in an ambulance immediately and sent to the hospital. They included several people with blood pressure so high she feared they might have a heart attack. She treated injuries from shrapnel and blunt force, and administered pills and injections as supplies allowed.

Strugatsky is now at the synagogue every day, nursing refugees whom Azman, drawing on a network of donors, continues to invite into the sanctuary. She has come to oversee not only healthcare at the synagogue, but its programs to feed hungry Ukrainians. Her husband helps by organizing supplies and delivering food.

On Shabbat, Strugatsky cooks in the synagogues kitchen for her own family and people she never met. Around Purim she convinced a bakery, which closed after the war began, to open temporarily so she could bake mounds of hamantaschen. She stayed up all night making the holiday cookies, and added them to care packages for the elderly, who sent her bouquets of flowers in thanks.

Ukraines bright future

Strugatsky, who emigrated to Israel both as a child and as an adult, now sees herself remaining in Ukraine. She doesnt want to be a refugee, and leaving her native country,despite her Israeli citizenship, would make her one, she said.

War has made her miss small and big things. She mentions a trip to the hair salon, and the opportunity to plan for the future.

But the most painful loss, she said, was the removal of the Torah scrolls from the Brodsky Synagogue. For three weeks after the war began, they were gone. Azman had taken them to what he thought would be a safer location. They are back now, but during that time, she said she feared the eradication of Jewish life in Ukraine.

She stays, she said, to be one of those people who will ensure it will endure, and refers to a phrase Ukrainians began saying at the inception of the war to reassure one another. It translates to everything will be Ukraine.

I wholeheartedly believe in Ukraines bright future, she said.

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She could leave Ukraine, but stays to preserve its Jewish future - Forward

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Posted By admin on June 4, 2022

Despite what the braying anti-Roe Right wants you to think, America is not pro-life.

This country is pro-death.

Fetuses and firearms: thats what makes America America that and the ability of an 18 year-old to buy military grade weapons.

At least 21 shot dead in Uvalde, Texas; 10 shot dead in Buffalo, N.Y.; a total so far of 69 killed and 260 injured in mass shootings since May 1.

Republicans offer the usual thoughts and prayers thoughts that theres no way in hell theyll countenance any restrictions on gun ownership and prayers that the NRA doesnt lose its status as a tax-exempt charitable organization.

Theyd hate to lose those rabid gun voters and those sweet campaign contributions.

Besides, protecting the Second Amendment matters more than protecting people who obstinately stray into the path of bullets. Nineteen dead kids apparently are an acceptable sacrifice on the altar of gun worship.

In the theology of heat-packing, God gives Americans the right to buy any gun they like, carry it without a permit or any training (as is the law in Texas), keep it loaded lying around in the house, and brandish it anywhere at any time for any reason.

I cant seem to find this in scripture, but perhaps the barrel-polishers have received a revelation unavailable to the rest of us.

The Uvalde children, the Sandy Hook children, the Black folks who died at the Tops grocery store, the high school kids who died at Columbine, Oxford Township, and Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, the worshippers at the Tree of Life synagogue and Emmanuel AME church thats sad, but theres nothing we can do, right?

Or, as the May 25 Onion headlined all 21 of its stories: No Way to Prevent This, Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens.

President Joe Biden, who knows the anguish of having to bury your own kid, said: To lose a child is like having a piece of your soul ripped away. Theres a hollowness in your chest, and you feel like youre being sucked into it and never going to be able to get out.

Biden then asked an essential question: What in Gods name do you need an assault weapon for except to kill someone? Deer arent running through the forest with Kevlar vests on, for Gods sake.

It took a solid 30 seconds for the most morally challenged of our elected leaders to post clueless rubbish like this, from Sen. Rick Scott: The violence must end. We are praying for all of the victims.

Rick Scott holds an A+ rating from the NRA.

Rep. Paul Gosar of Arizona tweeted, then under an avalanche of derision deleted, the nonsensical charge that the shooter was a transsexual leftist illegal alien.

Texas Sen. Ted Cruz piously offered to lift up the Uvalde families in prayer while suggesting that school shootings could be solved by arming teachers.

On the other side of the aisle, many members of Congress didnt bother to be diplomatic. Arizona Rep. Ruben Gallego tweeted back: Just to be clear, fk you @tedcruz.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez quoted the Book of James at Cancun Ted: Faith without works is dead, adding, Arent you slated to headline a speaking gig for the NRA in three days in Houston, no less?

Indeed, he is, along with Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (who decided to appear on video, not in person, as if that somehow makes collusion with the Death Cult OK), South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, and a twice-impeached former president.

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This years NRA convention boasts 14 acres of the latest guns and gear and an all-you-can-eat buffet of corruption.

You might remember that the NRA also went ahead with its 1999 jamboree in Denver a mere two days after the massacre a few miles away at Columbine.

The NRA actually hesitated for a moment, knowing that the optics in Colorado werent great, celebrating guns while the funerals of teenagers were all over the news, but Floridas own Marion Hammer, former NRA president and soul-dead ghoul, insisted that, if they cancelled the convention, people would say, the NRA was brought to its knees, and the media will have a field day with it.

Florida Republicans revel in callousness and spite, as amply evidenced by the reliably offensive Rep. Randy Fine, who skipped over the thoughts and prayers part, tweeting: I have news for the embarrassment that claims to be our president try to take our guns and youll learn why the Second Amendment was written in the first place.

Memo to Rep. Fine: You just threatened the president of the United States, a felony. I look forward to hearing about your forthcoming date with the Secret Service.

Gov. Ron DeSantis, as yet unable to calculate how he might use the slaughter of children to his political advantage, has not even bothered to express condolences.

White America is scared of this nations changing demographics and growing tolerance of difference. So, their Republican enablers ban books and police womens bodies, but never regulate guns.

Guns make these paranoid, weak, little people feel powerful. When a British reporter questioned Ted Cruz about why the U.S. is the only country where mass shootings happen, asking if this is an example of that vaunted American Exceptionalism, Cruz huffed that the Democrats and the media always want to bring in politics, then flounced off.

Congress cant do much about our national psychosis, given the Republicans veto power. Our only chance is to vote them out insofar as were still allowed to vote and challenge these cowards.

Former congressman and current Texas gubernatorial candidate Beto ORourke did just that, confronting Gov. Abbott at a press conference laden with right-wing politicos and silly looking law men in oversized hats: The time to stop the next shooting is right now, and you are doing nothing, he said. Youre offering us nothing.

Ted Cruz yelled at ORourke to sit down. The Republican mayor of Uvalde called him a sick son of a bitch.

As the white guys pitched a hissy fit, demanding ORourke be removed, he pointed at Abbott. This is on you, he said.

On Abbott, on Ted Cruz, on Rick Scott, on Ron DeSantis, on Mitch McConnell, on Donald Trump, on every single official who refuses to do anything about Americas killing fields.

Florida Phoenix is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Florida Phoenix maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Diane Rado for questions: [emailprotected] Follow Florida Phoenix on Facebook and Twitter.

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As the nation's body count continues to mount, the NRA and its acolytes party on - Arizona Mirror

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Posted By admin on June 4, 2022

What does it mean to join the people of Israel? This question takes on pressing urgency now as the State of Israel takes in tens of thousands of refugees from Ukraine, some with Jewish mothers, some with only Jewish fathers, some who converted or want to convert, others non-Jews seeking safety until the fighting ends. The complexity of Israels national immigration law, including the relevant-as-ever Law of Return, overlaps uneasily with traditional Halacha, resulting in confusion and bureaucratic hurdles for hundreds of thousands of people. Our current countdown toward the Shavuot reading of the Book of Ruth coinciding with the Daf Yomi study of the locus classicus of conversion laws in the Talmud offers a perfect opportunity to untangle the historical strands of the laws of conversion and gain a better perspective of both the current predicament and possible solutions.

How did one join the nation of Israel during biblical times? As a sovereign kingdom in a land defined by borders, conversion in early Israel meant immigrating and naturalizing as a citizen. The first requirement would be to live in the land of Israel, just as modern countries require residence for citizenship. A foreigner who has come only for a visit or a temporary stay received the title of nokhri (foreigner) and was treated like any member of a foreign nation (Deuteronomy 14:21, 15:3, and 17:15). However, immigrants who have come to live permanently in Israel gained the status of toshav or ger, literally a dweller or resident. These individuals had a right to receive gifts to the poor (Leviticus 19:10, 23:22, 25:35-36), could not be forced to work on Shabbat (Exodus 20:10, 23:12), and were provided special protection against usury, abuse, and injustice (Exodus 22:20, 23:9, Leviticus 19:33-34, Deuteronomy 24:17) on account of their vulnerability as poor newcomers lacking alliances and family networks. They were invited to celebrate national holidays (Leviticus 16:29, Deuteronomy 16:14) and, if they agreed to circumcise, could even partake of the Passover sacrifice (Exodus 12:48), a defining ritual that indicated affiliation with the Israelite people.

The requirement of circumcision for men in order to marry into Israelite families can be derived from the offer by Jacobs sons to the Shechemites. But other than that, the Bible legislates no formal procedure. GerimJews by choice, or proselyteswould simply become indistinguishable after they lost their accents and married into local communities. The finest model for this process was Ruth, who was still considered a Moabite while living outside of Israel, even though married to a Judahide there. Her move to Judea, however, made her marriageable even to a respected landowner like Boaz, which eventually made her the foremother of King David. Ruths inspiring declaration to her mother-in-law encapsulates the transformative significance of her journey: Wherever you go, I will go; wherever you lodge, I will lodge; your people shall be my people, and your God my God. Where you die, I will die, and there I will be buried (Ruth 1:16-17).

Jumping forward several centuries and two Temple destructions later, the Talmudic sages find themselves scattered throughout the Roman and Persian empires struggling to maintain a sense of nationhood without a homeland. Even without a capital city or a centralized leadership, the rabbis envision a nation bound by laws rather than land, upheld by academies and courts rather than cavalry. A revised set of criteria for joining this nation could no longer require residency, as the Talmud explicitly derives: I know only that a convert is accepted in the Land of Israel; from where do I derive that also outside of the Land of Israel? The verse states with you, which indicates that in any place that he is with you, you should accept him.

Instead, the sages brilliantly draw from their history to formulate a set of rituals and legal processes to becoming Jewish. Talmud Bavli Yevamot 46a offers a three-way controversy about the minimum ritual requirment:

Rabbi Eliezer looks for a ritual precedent in the Torah and finds not only that circumcision is the symbol of the covenant commanded to Abraham but also that the forefathers in Egypt underwent a mass circumcision at the time of the Passover sacrifice (see Joshua 5:5) to mark their bodies as Israelite, just as they did with their doorposts. Rabbi Joshua argues that since the foremothers did not have circumcision to define them, they must have had a different conversion ritual. The continuation of the Talmud finds a lead in the instructions of Moses that the people sanctify themselves and wash their garments three days before the Lawgiving (Exodus 19:10). If they washed their garments, then they surely also immersed their bodies. The sages agree with both precedents of the forefathers and foremothers such that every new convert in future generations will need to experience for themselves all elements of the mass ceremony when the Children of Israel first became a nation. The Talmud continues to provide a script for the interview before the court:

The Talmud continues to elaborate on these details, changing the two Torah scholars into three judges such that they are not simply witnessing the ritual but issuing a legal decision to accept the new convert. The opening question establishes that joining a people also means joining in their persecution, feeling the weight of their history and their minority status among great empires. The goal of the educational section that follows is not to drill in a full curriculum of Jewish law that would take years to accomplish. Rather, just as at the Sinai Lawgiving the people accept 10 foundational laws and hear the rest later, so, too, the convert learns a representative sampling (with special emphasis on charity) and an expectation to continue studying afterward. Instead of geographical boundaries, it is now primarily the bounds of the commandments, with all of their legal consequences and rewards, that comes to define Jewish identity. The Gemara poetically reenacts this shift through a rereading of the conversation between Naomi and her daughter-in-law:

Each phrase in Ruths nationalistic pledge of allegiance is now read as a cipher for particular commandments and for the consequences of violating them. Adjudicated by a loose network of rabbinic courts around the world, the Talmudic system of defining who is a Jew succeeded for 2,000 years of exile.

The rise of the State of Israel, however, now rekindles fundamental questions about what it means to join the nation. The Jewish people finds itself at a crossroads that the ancient rabbis could only have hoped for but could barely have imagined. Israel as a democracy legislates civil immigration laws based on economic, political, and humanitarian considerations, as does every other sovereign nation. Add to that the Law of Return guaranteeing that anyone with even partial Jewish lineage persecuted under the Nuremberg Laws can find safety in the Jewish homeland. These national laws overlap the Talmudic definitions that continue to define Jewish conversion in the Diaspora as well as the status of returnees to Israel who must answer to Halacha for full marriage and burial rights as Jews.

Can Halacha find precedent for taking into account residence in the sovereign State of Israel as a key element for conversion as it was in biblical times? Many halachic decisors, both Ashkenazic and Sephardic, agree that specifically for conversion in Israel, we should follow the lenient views based on Maimonides, Rabbi Meir Hai Uziel, and others to accept converts even without complete halachic observance at the outset. In Israel, these immigrant converts will become integrated with Israeli society, will fight in the Israel Defense Forces, will contribute to the rebuilding of the country, and will be far from foreign influence or threat of future intermarriage.

Ironically, those coming to convert in Israel today are held up to the strictest standards while those in the Diaspora can choose from the widest range of conversion programs from the most to the least demanding. Common sense, however, would recommend for stricter standards outside of Israel, where keeping up Jewish identity, practice, and intramarriage is more challenging. On the other hand, ensuring that all Israeli citizens who identify as Jewish can halachically marry other Jews is of utmost importance for the integrity of the Jewish State. Precedent for reintroducing elements of the biblical model by fast-tracking converts in the Land of Israel is already found in Tractate Gerim 4:5:

As the Jewish people counts up toward the reacceptance of the Sinai Lawgiving on Shavuot and the reading of the Book of Ruth, we can take this opportunity to revisit and strengthen our own Israelite identities, whether based on lineage, law, or longing. Whether that means learning Hebrew, observing Shabbat and celebrating holidays, creating a Jewish music playlist, considering aliyah, joining Daf Yomi, or getting involved in a synagogue or a Jewish humanitarian organization, there are plenty of paths toward greater Jewish commitment and a deepened feeling that your people shall be my people.

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The Rules of Conversion - Tablet Magazine

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(New York Jewish Week) A video of an Orthodox Jewish man making a passionate speech about his love for the Talmud and cold seltzer spread like wildfire over Twitter, showing off what makes yeshiva culture such a unique part of Judaism.

Rabbi Aryeh Moshe Leiser, who lives in Monsey, New York, appears to be having the time of his life in the viral video. Posted on Twitter May 31, the video was seen by thousands of people.

Leiser starts off saying that he wants an Arvei Psachim with a Rabbeinu Dovid, rishus cold seltzer and I just want to check out of life. (This means, roughly, that he wants to read a specific commentary about a specific chapter of Talmud, with a wickedly cold cup of seltzer at hand.) He then goes into more specifics, talking about how the seltzer has to be in plastic cups not styrofoam and eventually he begins singing.

The video was posted by a Twitter user named Ayil Basvach, who deleted it on June 1. The reason why I took it down is because [Leiser] seemed to be very uncomfortable with it going viral, Basvach wrote on Twitter. I never meant to cause anyone agmas nefesh [anxiety], I just loved the video, his exuberance, love for Torah and life (also to show yeshivalites [sic] genuine personality that I grew up with and love).

Still, despite its short shelf life, the video clearly touched a nerve among many religious Jews. People started making merch from the video and someone even commissioned the TikTok meme group Island Boys to give a Rishus cold seltzer shoutout.

According to Rabbi David Bashevkin, a writer and Yeshiva University professor, its because the video allows people to see yeshiva culture in a sincere, religiously charming way.

Thats largely due to Leisers use of the Orthodox patois known as Yeshivish, he said. For example, rishus is not a brand it directly translates to wicked or evil.

Its a dialect of Hebrew, Yiddish and English all together, Bashevkin said. Saying rishus cold seltzer is an extraordinarily charming way of saying you want a really cold beverage, but in a Yeshivish language that highlights your insider knowledge of that world.

When he says checking out of life, its like, not being disturbed and allowing yourself to engage in total learning, Bashevkin said. Its the [Yeshivish] equivalent of someone elses dream to just be on the beach reading a book.

Leiser declined to comment about his newfound fame. But his brother-in-law, Rabbi Avraham Walkin, was happy to explain the backstory of the viral video. He told the New York Jewish Week that, after giving a lecture at a Monsey yeshiva, some students stopped him in the street and asked if Leiser could send a message to other students.

He had no intention of it going viral on social media, Walkin said, adding that while there are people who work their whole life trying to get followers and to be good at social media, Leiser is not that type of person.

Heres a guy who didnt want that, and became viral, Walkin said. Its like God saying, If I need someone to become famous, theyll become famous. The guy who tried to hide from it became more popular.

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Walkin added that Leiser is an innocent family man who is surprised to see what happened with this video. He wanted absolutely no media attention, Walkin said. I was surprised by how many people texted me saying, Youre related to that guy, wow. For some people in the yeshiva world, this was the Super Bowl.

At the end of the video, Leiser shouts blood, sweat, tears! which also happens to be the title of his most recent book, a memoir about being a disciple in a yeshiva. Basvach wrote on Twitter on June 2 the day after he removed the viral video from his account that the book is one of the most inspirational things Ive read in a long time.

When Leiser says in the video that he wants an Arvei Psachim with a Rabbeinu Dovid, he means he wants to read commentary by the 13th-century Talmud scholar Rabbeinu Dovid on Arvei Psachim, a section of the Talmud that focuses on the laws of the seder.

That specific chapter is part of the charm of cultural specificity, Bashevkin said. If somebody says, I want to go to this specific beach and this specific shore and read this specific author, that shows that you really want this. That specificity is where the charm comes from.

He added that while this chapter is about Passover, the longing to study the Torah relates to the upcoming holiday of Shavuot, which commemorates the giving of the Torah at Mount Sinai. The holiday begins this year on the evening of Saturday, June 4.

Bashevkin explained that, within the yeshiva world, there is a culture that evolves parallel to the learning of Torah. When someone is a diehard baseball fan, of course you love the game, you love the smell of the stadiums, you love the jerseys, Bashevkin said. Its a similar universe in the yeshiva world, but in a much more elevated, spiritual sense.

I think there was something very real and very sweet about this video that underlies a sincerity about life in the yeshiva world, Bashevkin said.

Everything in the world as you grow up and mature, even within the Jewish and Orthodox world, pulls you away from that instinctive love, he added. To love anything so deeply is something that requires a cultural universe to reinforce, and theres no world that does that better than the world of yeshiva.

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Why this video about seltzer and Torah study went viral in the Orthodox Jewish community - JTA News - Jewish Telegraphic Agency

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Posted By admin on June 4, 2022

I learned some interesting facts about deserts this week. The first fact is probably the most astounding one of all: did you know that deserts cover about one-fifth of Earths land area?

And heres another astounding fact: considering that the word desert is derived from the fact that deserts are thought of as vast, deserted, empty spaces, it was a shock to discover that deserts across the world are inhabited by around one billion people, amounting to one-eighth of the Earths population.

According to National Geographic, a desert is best defined as an area that consistently receives low annual precipitation namely, no more than 10 inches (25 centimeters) of rain a year, and often much less.

Deserts are usually thought of as very hot, but although it is true that some deserts are extremely hot, with temperatures that can exceed 130F (54C) such as the Sahara Desert in North Africa there are also vast deserts that have very cold climates, the best-known being Antarctica and the Arctic ice cap.

Astonishingly although perhaps not such a surprise, with what we now know about the dramatic effects of climate change deserts today were not always deserts in the past.

For example, in prehistoric times, the Sahara Desert enjoyed a mild, moist climate, and there is even archaeological evidence of human settlement, including art, burial locations, and manufactured implements. But now, in the very same parts of the Sahara that were once full of humans, fauna, and flora, you will find windswept, sun-parched sand dunes areas incapable of supporting life. Although, as it turns out that is not quite true.

Most deserts are not quite as uninhabited and as lifeless as they seem. In fact, they are home to a range of very specialized plants and animals, all of which have adapted to life in extreme conditions. And being so precisely calibrated for life in such a harsh environment, the slightest change can spell disaster for these creatures and organisms.

One curious example is the Mohave tui chub, a fish originally native to the Mojave River that runs through the San Bernardino Mountains in California. This once vigorous waterway running through the arid Mojave Desert region was drastically diminished by the damming of its headwaters and reductions to the rivers underflow, which, in turn, resulted in the decline of the Mohave tui chub species.

The final nail in the coffin came in the 1930s, when non-native arroyo chub fish were illegally introduced into the Mojave River by anglers as baitfish. The arroyo chub was much more suited to the now much warmer and much shallower habitat conditions in the river, and as a result, quickly spread through the river, ultimately replacing the native Mohave tui chubs via competition and hybridization.

And if it werent for the eccentric radio evangelist and self-proclaimed physician, Curtis Howe Springer (1896-1985), the Mohave tui chubs might have disappeared for good. In 1944, with the encouragement of his fiance Helen, Springer purchased an old abandoned military outpost at Soda Springs, California, where he built a fake hot-springs resort at the now renamed town of Zzyzx so named so that Springers mineral springs resort would always be the last word in health.

Springer was convicted in 1974, and eventually imprisoned, for squatting on Federal land and making the false claim that his health foods would cure everything from sore toes to cancer. Following his conviction, the former resort was given by the Federal government to California State University, which converted the area into a research station called the Desert Studies Center, and then introduced the Mohave tui chub into Lake Tuendae, an artificial pond excavated by Springer in the mid 1950s.

The fourth book of the Torah is known as Bamidbar, which means in the desert a reference to first verse of the book: God spoke to Moses in the Sinai Desert.

The commentaries offer a range of explanations for this unusual mention of a geographic location, with the consensus among them being that during the entire first year after the Torah was given, all instructions from God to Moses were given on Mount Sinai, whereas once the Tabernacle temple was constructed, and over the next almost 40 years, Gods communications with Moses occurred in the Tent of Meeting, wherever it was located in the Sinai Desert.

But while this very literal understanding of the desert reference offers a practical explanation for the inclusion of the geographic location in the opening verse, it does not explain why the Torahs foundational instruction had to occur in a desert environment rather than in the Land of Israel.

A clue to the answer can be found in the Talmud (Eruvin 54a), which offers an explanation for a verse later on in Bamidbar (Num. 21:18): and from Midbar (desert) to Matana (gift). The Talmud informs us that this verse contains a profound lesson: if someone humbles themselves like a desert, then their Torah study will endure and be given to them as a gift. But if not, says the Talmud, their Torah will not endure.

In numerous places, traditional sources compare Torah to life-nourishing water without which we would perish from thirst. But nowhere is this analogy more resonant than in a desert, which is where water is so scarce so much so, that the slightest change in the availability of water can alter our prospects or doom us into oblivion.

The Torah, which is the binding constitutional document of the Jewish people, is a spiritual water source. Utilized properly and treated as a precious resource not to be tampered with, the Torah can be a never-ending source of life. But if there is the slightest change, the impact on us can and will be devastating.

Unlike the rather lucky Mohave tui chub, those who find themselves in a precariously water-reduced environment wont have a weird savior like Curtis Howe Springer to rescue them from extinction. And remarkably, the Talmud is clear on this point, in its commentary on a verse in Habakkuk (1:14) that describes how God made mankind like the fish of the sea. Why are human beings compared to fish, asks the Talmud? Simple, it explains just as fish cannot survive without water, people who separate themselves from the words of Torah and from doing mitzvot are similarly fated.

This is precisely the powerful message of Bamidbar, a book which fittingly begins on the Shabbat before Shavuot, the festival anniversary of God giving us the Torah so many thousands of years ago.

The author is a rabbi in Beverly Hills, California.

Link:

For Jews, the Torah Is Sustenance | Jewish & Israel News Algemeiner.com - Algemeiner

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Posted By admin on June 4, 2022

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From a Jewish perspective, the 2021 World Serieswas particularly special.

Four Jewish players appeared (Max Fried and Joc Pederson of the Braves, and Alex Bregman and Garrett Stubbs of the Astros), and all of them played in Game 6 (although not simultaneously). No prior Series featured more than two Jews. Except for 1972, in which Mike Epstein, Ken Holtzman, and Joe Horlen of the Oakland As appeared in at least one game.

In the bottom of the first inning of Game 2 in Houston, Bregman came to the plate against Fried, the first World Series clash between Jewish pitcher and Jewish hitter. Except for Game 4 of the 1974 World Series, when Dodgers catcher Steve Yeager faced Holtzman three times, going 1-for-3 with a double and a strikeout.

So did the 2021 Series represent historic Jewish firsts or mere Jewish seconds? Were these unprecedented Jewish events or replays of Jewish events from prior Series? And how and why do we not know for sure?

Horlen and Yeager are Jews by choice, although that is not the issue. Those who ponder baseballs Jewish history welcome converts. Some continue to include Rod Carew (thank you, Adam Sandler), although he never converted.

But Horlen and Yeager converted in retirement, after their respective playing careers were over. That presents a unique dilemma how the historical record and conversations about Jews in baseball account for players who had not converted and were not identified or recognized as Jewish players when their athletic records, achievements and milestones were being compiled.

Shavuot which commemorates the Revelation at Sinai while celebrating Jews-by-choice in reading the Book of Ruth offers the appropriate moment to consider this question.

The baseball perspective is mixed. Howard Megdals Baseball Talmud,the authoritative ranking of every Jewish player at every position, includes Yeager but not Horlen. Jewish Baseball News and the Jewish Baseball Museum do not include either. The Big Book of Jewish Baseball by father-son team Peter and Joachim Horvitz includes encyclopedia entries on both players. Both appear in Ron Lewis Jews in Baseball, a lithograph depicting more than 30 Jewish contributors to the national pastime (players, managers, executives and officials), and in the short film detailing the portraits history.

The Jewish perspective offers multiple answers. Two Jews, three opinions, and three outs.

The simple answer is that because neither Yeager nor Horlen had converted during his playing career, neither is Jewish for purposes of statistics, achievements and the historical record. The Talmudic principle holds that a convert emerges from the mikveh with the status of a child just born, a new person, without family or history. As a halachically new person, a convert theoretically could marry his sister (but for a rabbinic decree to the contrary). According to Reish Lakish, children born to a man before he converts do not satisfy the mitzvah to be fruitful and multiply. Nothing that came before the man emerged from the mikveh remains part of his new Jewish self; although Reish Lakish did not say so, that should include records and achievements.

But Rabbi Yohanon disagreed with Reish Lakish, insisting that the mans pre-conversion first-born fulfilled the mitzvah; Rambam accepted Yohanons position. This suggests that something of ones pre-conversion life gains some Jewish character along with the convert.

More fundamentally, the simple answer rests on a restricted conception of Jews and of Jews by choice. A convert emerges from the conversion process like a born Jew in every sense. Judaism rejects distinctions between Jews-by-birth and Jews-by-choice; it is forbidden to harass or denigrate the latter, to treat them as different than the Jew-by-birth, or to inquire how or when a person became Jewish.

The simple answer also requires us to ignore how peoples lives define them. A wealth of living, experience and achievement creates a whole person and leads the Jew-by-choice to the beit din; that history contributes to their choosing Judaism, forms a Jewish person, and cannot and should not be forgotten or ignored. The Talmud thus speaks of a convert who converts, rather than a non-Jew who converts, recognizing an internal spark in ones pre-Jewish life that provides a connection to the Jewish people and leads one on the path to Judaism.

We might extend this to the idea that a Jew-by-choice affirms rather than creates their Jewish identity. Their soul has been Jewish (and stood at Sinai with other Jewish souls); through conversion they return home an appropriate place for a baseball player. For our purposes, the body who hit those home runs and won those games possessed an unknown and unrevealed Jewish soul. And that souls baseball achievements count among the achievements of all baseball souls, although no one knew of its Jewish nature at the time of those achievements.

A compromise approach to the baseball question distinguishes in-the-moment milestones by those who did not recognize their Jewishness from backward-looking considerations of the historical record of raw statistics by those who now publicly identify as Jews.

Thus, neither Horlen nor Yeager should count in identifying how many Jewish players appeared in past World Series or whether Bregman-Fried was the first or second all-Jew pitcher-hitter showdown. Even if pre-conversion Yeager and Horlen were Jewish in some sense or possessed of some Jewish spark, no one including themselves recognized their Jewishness in those moments.

Anyone reviewing the As roster for the 1972 World Series in 1972 would have identified two Jewish players, not three. For anyone watching Game 4 of the 1974 Series in 1974, Holtzman pitching to Steve Yeager was not Jewishly distinct from Holtzman pitching to Steve Garvey, Yeagers non-Jewish teammate. Nothing in 1972 pulled Horlen to join his Jewish teammates in wearing black fabric on their uniforms in memory of the 11 Israeli athletes murdered at the Munich Olympics. Neither Horlen nor Yeager was expected to refuse to play on Yom Kippur, a holy day that was not part of their lives.

Looking backward, however, Yeager and Horlen alter the Jewish record book and the historical conversation about top Jewish players.

Megdal ranks Yeager as the fourth-best Jewish catcher. Yeager was among the top defensive catchers of the time, among league leaders in defensive statistics. While never an offensive threat, he hit double-digit home runs in six seasons and hit 102 for his career, 12th among Jewish players. He also is seventh in games played and 10th in RBIs. Yeagers offensive numbers jumped in the postseason. In four World Series, he hit almost .300 with an OPS above 900 and four home runs (second among Jewish players behind Bregman, Pederson and Hank Greenberg) and shared the 1981 Series MVP (the third Jewish player to earn that award). Megdal suggests that Yeager could lay claim to best Jewish catcher on a combination of World Series performance, defense and some advance metrics.

Horlen finished his career one game below .500. Yet he places fourth among Jewish pitchers in career wins (116), E.R.A. (3.11), strikeouts (1,065, tied with Steve Stone), and innings pitched (2,002). His 1967 season was, by advanced metrics, the second-best season by a Jewish pitcher not named Koufax; his 1.88 E.R.A. in 1964 is the best by a Jewish pitcher not named Koufax. His second-place finish in the 1967 American League Cy Young voting is the best Cy Young finish other than Koufaxs three wins and Stones 1980 win.

Big Book tells that Horlen ran into Epstein years later and told him about converting; Epstein responded, Welcome to the tribe. He should have welcomed Horlen back to the tribe. And thanked him (and Yeager) for contributing an additional 116 wins, a near Cy Young Award, a World Series MVP, and an essential piece of catchers equipment to the story of Jews in baseball.

Rabbi Jonathan Fisch of Temple Judea (Coral Gables, Florida), Rabbi Zalmy Margolin and Mendy Halberstam aided in researching this story.

Howard M. Wasserman is a professor of law and associate dean for research & faculty development at FIU College of Law.

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These Jews were among baseball's all-time greats but do they count as Jewish baseball players? - Forward

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