Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By admin on May 14, 2022

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The United States Supreme Court Building in Washington, D.C.

Stacey Newman and Dana SandweissMay 12, 2022

On May 2, our lives were upended, especially in Missouri, with the leak of a draft U.S. Supreme Court majority opinion that wouldoverturn Roe v Wade, the landmark 1973 decision that guarantees a constitutional right to abortion.

Despite consistent polling showing that 69% of Missourians oppose the government forcing people to be pregnant and give birth, Missouri Gov. Mike Parson signed HB126, an abortion ban, into law in 2019. The Missouri Stands for the Unborn Act includes language that reads, In recognition that Almighty God is the author of life, and a section that declares the life of an individual human being begins at conception.

HB126 was blocked from implementation in 2019 by U.S. District Judge Howard Sachs in Kansas City; his action was upheld by the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals last year. But the law remains on the books and Missouri would easily become one of 13 states with such a trigger law that would make abortion a felony if Roe fell. There would be no legal exception for rape or incest in our state, nor consideration of what would be best for the health and well-being of the pregnant individual.

Rabbi Daniel Bogard of Central Reform Congregation and Tana Senn, a state representative in Washington and a member of the National Association of Jewish Legislators, recently wrote in a national op-ed: Limiting access to abortion is an imposition of governmental Christianity on us all, and it infringes on the religious liberty of every American Jew.

The Torah and the Talmud provide that for Jews, it is no exaggeration that access to abortion services isnt just tolerated, it is a religious requirement and had been for thousands of years, they wrote.

In addition, the Missouris Religious Freedom Restoration Act states that a governmental authority may not restrict a persons free exercise of religion unless demonstrating that the restriction is essential to further a compelling governmental interest.

A ban on abortion in Missouri violates our freedom as Jews to control our bodies in a way that is consistent with our religious beliefs. As Jews, we understand religious persecution very well.

Justice Samuel Alitos draft opinion is also deeply troubling because it reveals his disturbing view of pregnant people as mere birthing vessels, citing that the domestic supply of infants is too low.

Justice Amy Coney Barrett pointed out in oral arguments in Dobbs v. Jackson Womens Health Organization that current safe haven laws, which allow babies to be legally abandoned, allow individuals to safely give up their children with no repercussions. These views totally ignore that the maternal mortality rates in the United States rank last among industrialized countries.

CDC data from 2014-2018 shows that the national case-fatality rate for legal induced abortion in the United States was 0.41 deaths per 100,000 compared with 17.4 per 100,000 per live birth. In the view of both justices, the lives and bodily autonomy of pregnant people should be sacrificed in favor of infant market demands that are eerily reminiscent of human trafficking.

As longtime proponents ofcivil and equal rights, we are greatly alarmed about additional constitutional rights that will be in jeopardy if this majority draft opinion stands and is issued in a ruling in June.

Alitos opinion states that Roe was egregiously wrong from the start. The Constitution makes no reference to abortion and no such right is implicitly protected by any constitutional provision.

The Constitution, a 4,400-word document creating a foundation of fundamental laws that was crafted by 55 white men in 1787, also does not mention women or the word she or even suggest that the authors regarded women as part of We the People. Most women then did not legally exist as people, could not vote and were not part of the ratifying conventions in the 13 states.

Alitos draft opinion disregards the right to privacy as derived from the 14th Amendments concept of personal liberty. If this draft became law, Alito could set in motion constitutional challenges to additional unenumerated rights derived from the 14th Amendment, including same-sex marriage, interracial marriage and even contraception.

Abortions have been part of pregnancies since time began, and restrictions in the early 1800s were designed to protect against fraudulent poisoning and untrained practitioners. Abortion was commonplace into the 21st century, practiced and visible, mostly among upper-class Protestant women who could afford physician care.It wasnt until the mid-1970s that abortion became a Christian evangelical tool to further the right wing conservative political movement.

We know that banning abortions will not stop abortions, only safe abortions. People will die.

We believe that none of us should stand silently by while our highest court attacks our sacred religious liberties, attempting to render us mute from the control over our own bodies and basic human dignity.

Stacey Newman, a retired Missouri state legislator, is the executive director of ProgressWomen, a statewide social justice group focused on justice and equality issues. Dana Sandweissis a board member of ACLU of Missouri and co-founder of Access MO, a statewide political action committee inspired by Jewish values that embraces and advocates for reproductive freedom and health care.

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The Fall of 'Roe' would also be an attack on religious liberty - St. Louis Jewish Light

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Posted By admin on May 14, 2022

In Judaism, the number 7 represents the natural world beginning with the first week of creation, established with seven days, and culminating in the day of rest, Shabbat. Similarly, the years of a Jewish calendar are organized in units of seven years we can work the land for six years, and the seventh year is the sabbatical year, not unlike the weekly sabbath, during which the land is designated to rest, as this weeks parsha, Parshat Behar, describes (Bamidbar 25:4).

Moreover, the Torah describes how after seven cycles of seven year units that is, 49 years the cycle of seven is interrupted for the 50th year, the jubilee year yovel (Bamidbar 25:9-10). It is ushered in literally with fanfare:

You shall proclaim [with] shofar blasts, in the seventh month, on the 10th of the month; on the Day of Atonement, you shall sound the shofar throughout your land. And you shall sanctify the 50th year, and proclaim liberty throughout the land for all who live on it. It will be a jubilee year for you, and you shall return, each man to his property, and you shall return, each man to his family.

The dramatic and somewhat puzzling element of this ceremony is this proclamation of liberty. The plain sense of the verse suggests a literal releasing of bonds for slaves. That is, every 50 years, all slaves are to be freed. But is that the implication of the Hebrew term used here, dror? It is not the term used in the dramatic and well-know descriptions of the Israelite slaves being freed from Pharoah that is described as herut.

One easy way to explain the use of these two terms is that both words indicate freedom or liberty. Namely, they are synonyms and one may suggest that they can be used interchangeably. But the tradition of delving deeper to cull more from the biblical text is well established. In light of that, the use of dror becomes a curiosity why is it used here? What implications does it carry that herut does not? What might it lack that herut implies? Moreover, once the terminology is to be examined, the substance of this mitzvah begs for attention as well: why is there a jubilee year in the 50th year? That is, why is there any extra practice of freedom in this year as compared to the pause that the sabbatical year yields every seven years?

The Hebrew Bible itself suggests answers to these questions.

When the word dror appear in Tanakh, it usually does so in the context of the yovel, and the freeing of slaves that takes place then (see Jeremiah 34:8-17). The two other times it appears, it is associated with birds, or more specifically, the name of a kind of bird:

Even the sparrow has found a home, and the swallow a nest for herself in which to set her young, near Your altar, O Lord of hosts, my King and my God (Psalms 84:4).

And:

As a sparrow must flit and a swallow fly, so a gratuitous curse must backfire (Proverbs 26:2).

The Talmud explains that the sparrow is called dror because it does not accept anothers authority (Shabbat 106b) perhaps too free for its own good! That same passage in Shabbat explains tzipor dror to indicate the sparrow, as it dwells in a house as it does in a field just as it is free to come and go and fly about in the field, so too it will remain uncaptured within a house. But Tractate Rosh Hashanah (9b) refocuses attention on human beings and their liberty. According to Rabbi Yehudah, the term dror refers to a person who lives in one particular place, but will travel freely to do business as the peddlers of yore might have done.

Dror is therefore the freedom to live where one wants, to conduct oneself as one chooses, and on ones own authority. Rabbi Avraham ibn Ezra, a medieval exegete, explains that this bird sings when it is free, but if captured, it will refuse to eat, to the extent that it will starve itself to death, the implications being far more precise, and more dramatic too, then the freedom of any freed slave.

But it is also that freedom of slaves the liberty mandated by the jubilee year that is illuminated by the sparrow. For it is only with the yovel that the now-freed slaves can live where they want, conduct business on their own, rejoin their communities, even express themselves as they so choose (as ibn Ezras sparrow sings!).

Why the jubilee year? Because the 50th year is outside of the cycle of seven years at a time. The same way that the seven days of the week embody the creation of the natural world, the pattern of the seven years of the sabbatical cycle is the natural way of things. And that is often taken for granted. By stepping out of the cycle, the jubilee year and its practices pushes those who keep these laws to pay attention. It jolts them into an awareness of their own liberty, and just how valuable that freedom is.

Yardaena Osband, MD is an Assistant Clinical Professor of Pediatrics at New York Medical College in Valhalla, New York. She hails from Boston, and studied for two years in Midreshet Lindenbaum, received her BA in Jewish Studies and Music at Stern College for Women, and attended medical school at the Sackler School for Medicine. She has taught in many schools and synagogues, lecturing in Tanach, Halacha, and Talmud with a specific interest in the biographies of the Taanim and Amoraim. Yardaena also serves on the board of ORA - Organization for the Resolution of Agunot, The Riverdale Minyan and is a founder of the Orthodox Leadership Project. She currently resides in New York with her husband and children.

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This bird you cannot change | Yardaena Osband | The Blogs - The Times of Israel

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Posted By admin on May 14, 2022

VIENNA Antisemitic incidents reached a record high in Austria last year, according to a report published Friday.

The statistics, compiled by the Jewish Community of Vienna, recorded 965 incidents in 2021 the highest number since the organization began documenting them 20 years ago. That figure is an increase of 65% over the previous year, when there were 585 recorded incidents.

The challenge of the rise of antisemitic incidents is a global phenomenon and we are working closely with all strands of society to combat the rise in antisemitic incidents, said Oskar Deutsch, president of the Jewish Community of Vienna.

Among the incidents reported in 2021 in the Alpine nation of 8.9 million, the majority around 60% were accounts of abusive behavior, including in-person and online comments and messages. The next largest category, which made up 27% of total incidents, were mass mailings and literature containing antisemitic messages and stereotypes.

About 1% of the total incidents involved assaults or attempted assaults, 2.5% involved threats, and 10% involved damage and desecration.

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By far the largest proportion of incidents 461, or 48% of the total incidents could be attributed to people supporting right-wing, far-right and neo-Nazi movements. Approximately 15% came from left-wing individuals, and 11% came from Muslims. A quarter of the incidents could not be attributed to a particular demographic.

Protesters hold a sign with a crossed-out swastika during a rally a year after the forming of a government by the conservative Oevp FPOe parties on December 15, 2018, in Vienna. (Alex Halada/AFP)

Most of the incidents included in the report involved long-recognized forms of antisemitism, such as Holocaust revisionism, Israel-related comments and antisemitic conspiracy theories.

However, coronavirus-related related antisemitism such as comparing the treatment of people who refused to be vaccinated or to wear a mask to that of Jews under the Nazis accounted for 28% of all recorded incidents in 2021.

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Posted By admin on May 14, 2022

A recent comment from a high-ranking Kremlin official concerning Hitlers ancestry has sparked controversy. Whilst Germanys wartime leader did not have a Jewish grandfather as claimed, the dictators family tree was full of inbreeding.

May 13, 2022 - Asbjrn Svarstad- Articles and Commentary

The grave of Hitler's parents prior to its removal. Photo: Asbjrn Svarstad

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrovs claim that the German despot had Jewish blood running through his veins is based on questionable sources to put it mildly. The diplomats comment was mainly about proving Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy could be a true Nazi despite hailing from a Jewish family.

Maid in a Jewish household?

Rumours about Adolf Hitlers alleged Jewish background began to spread in the foreign press shortly after he took power in Germany in 1933. These concerned the antisemites impoverished grandmother, Maria Anna (1795-1847). In 1836, she was said to be working as a maid for a Jewish family in Graz. The father of the house supposedly forced himself on her, with the result allegedly being Adolf Hitlers dad Alois Schicklgruber (1837-1903).

This story was repeated during the interrogations of Hans Frank, a lawyer known during the war as the much-feared king of Poland. In a desperate attempt to avoid a death sentence, he expressed great regret and had much to share in the lead up to the Nuremberg trials.

Among others, he told one story about how he had been sent to Austria in order to wipe the archives clean of anything that could connect Hitlers family to this alleged Jewish ancestor. Frank remembered that this figures surname was Frankenberger. The problem is that there was not a single Jew in either Austria or Germany with such a name. There has been a decades-long fruitless search in the extensive archives of the city of Graz for traces of a Jew who could fit this description. There are also no signs that a poor girl named Maria Anna Schicklgruber had a child out of wedlock. Furthermore, there are no indications that she had been in Graz during the time in question.

Serious historians were more inclined to believe that she became pregnant by the rich farmer Johann Nepomuk Httler. He then convinced his older brother Johann Georg Hiedler to abandon his life as a travelling miller and marry the mother of the child.

Hiedler/Httler/Hitler

In the end, Nepomuk took on the bastard Alois during his childhood and raised him. It would be several decades before an adult Alois decided to go to a local rectory in order to sort out the issue of his ancestry. He had brought with him two witnesses that could swear he was the son of Johann Georg Hiedler. Alois was then recorded in church books as the legitimate son of his mothers spouse. He changed his old family name from Schicklgruber to Hitler. Various spellings of the same surname were normal in Austria at the time.

Alois Hitler, Adolfs father. Photo: Asbjrn Svarstad

The reason why Alois Schicklgruber had waited for so long to legitimise himself was that his mother and her husband would first have to be deceased. His real father, Nepomuk, had also insisted that his wife had to pass away before any action was taken. He wanted to keep the situation a secret from her. Another explanation for this secrecy could be that Adolf Hitlers mother Klara was Nepomuks granddaughter. As Aloiss father, Nepomuk also became Adolfs grandfather. It is therefore contended that Alois Schicklgruber/Hitler married his own niece. This was the thickest inbreeding, as the historian Werner Maser called it in his time. The same historian spent many years digging through Hitlers family history and his findings are still considered as solid sources by contemporary colleagues.

The hunt

Right after Nazi Germany annexed Austria in March 1938 to the joy of much of the population, the Gestapo and other specialists were sent out to trace any archives that could be connected to Hitlers family history.

Church records were manipulated, with many relevant pages ripped out. There were rumours during the war that the Gestapo had actually found documentation confirming Hitlers Jewish ancestry. However, it was alleged that the head of the SS, Heinrich Himmler, had kept it for himself so that he could later blackmail his Fhrer. This claim also has little proof to support it. The historian Maser was convinced that it was the extensive inbreeding over many generations that motivated Hitlers increasingly desperate attempts to conceal his ancestry.

A few months after his rise to power, Hitler gave an order to establish the largest military base and training area in the Reich. This large area would measure 200 square kilometres and was situated in Waldviertel. Around 6000 farmers were subsequently pushed out of their farms. Maser believes that the main motive behind this was to wipe the villages in the area, where the Schicklgruber/Hitler family had been present for many generations, from the face of the earth. One of the first cemeteries that was bombed into rubble during the military exercises was located in the village of Strones, outside of Dllersheim. This was where Hitlers father was born and where many family members lived. The lavish grave of Maria Anna Schicklgruber was destroyed, together with the graves of nearly all of Hitlers ancestors.

The grave

Hitlers father was a tyrant. He had two unhappy marriages behind him by the time he married the younger Klara Plzl (1860-1907). Together, they had six children. However, it was only Adolf and his younger sister Paula who made it through to adulthood. The family lived in a small house next to the cemetery in Leonding outside of Linz from 1897. Both parents were buried there until just a few years ago.

Klara Hitler died from cancer and was treated in her last weeks by the family doctor, a Jew who was later thanked by Hitler in the form of permission to leave the country. During my coverage of the Fritzl story in 2008, I travelled to Leonding for a day to take a look at the grave that had become a sort of pilgrimage site during the Nazi era. When I turned the corner by the church, I noticed an older couple holding hands and bowing their heads before a tombstone under a large tree.

An elderly couple holding hands in front of the grave of Adolf Hitlers parents at the cemetery in Leonding, Austria. Photo: Asbjrn Svarstad

The pair quickly disappeared when they noticed my camera. However, they had already confirmed the rumour that this was still a place considered important by Nazi sympathisers. Surrounding the grave were hundreds of burnt out candle holders, removing any doubt about the number of visitors.

Ten years ago, a neighbour called me early in the morning to relay what had happened the previous night in the cemetery in Leonding. Someone had arrived covered by the calm and darkness of the night. The following morning, both the tree and tombstone had been removed without so much as a trace. Unless the Russians are able to bring forth any hitherto unknown documents from their own wartime archives, we can safely write off Foreign Minister Lavrovs theories as a blatant lie.

Adolf Hitler is supposed to have shared with his comrades his gratitude that his father had abandoned the family name Schicklgruber before his birth. Could you imagine a crowd roaring Heil Schicklgruber, he asked rhetorically.

Translated by Daniel Gleichgewicht

Asbjrn Svarstad is a Norwegian journalist based in Berlin

This article was originally published by Nettavisen in Norwegian.

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antisemitism, history, narratives, Nazi Germany, Russian foreign policy

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Posted By admin on May 14, 2022

A Jewish candidate for the Kentucky state legislature is alleging his opponent invoked antisemitic tropes in a campaign mailer that accused him of attempting to buy the district for his own interests.

The mailer, distributed by longtime state Rep. Tom Burch, targets Democratic primary challenger Daniel Grossberg, a Jewish political activist who also ran for the state House in the 2020 election. The campaign material, first shared by a Louisville Courier-Journal reporter on Wednesday, is headlined VOTER ALERT and DONT LET THEM BUY OUR DISTRICT. It goes on to allege Daniel Grossberg is trying to buy our House seat for his own interests with $100,000 of his own money.

The mailer does not specify to whom them refers, nor what personal interests Grossberg is pursuing. In a brief call with Jewish Insider on Thursday, Burch the longest-serving lawmaker in Kentucky history said he did not see anything derogatory in the mailer, and requested that specific questions be sent to him by email. He did not respond to those questions.

I was completely shocked by it, Grossberg told JI. We were expecting an attack, but I wasnt expecting him to go so low as to lean into one of the most famous of the antisemitic tropes, the whole concept of replacement theory, the theory that the Jews are taking over, that were buying away the power and influence of the White Anglo Saxon Protestants.

Grossberg said his phone has been blowing up with messages from people in the district outraged by what they saw.

Grossberg told JI he is running for the seat because we dont have representation, accusing Burch of frequently failing to attend votes in Frankfort, the state capital, meet with constituents or conduct constituent services.

I dont know what personal gain I could have for being in a super-duper minority in Frankfort, Grossberg said. As it stands right now, there are 25 Democrats to 75 Republicans. That will probably only get worse. So the claims of personal interest are a little bizarre from someone who is collecting a fat paycheck on the public tax rolls without even showing up for work.

Burch did not respond to the accusations of absenteeism.

AJC U.S. Director for Combating Antisemitism Holly Huffnagle said in a tweet, This type of language, blaming Jews for grabbing power through money, is dangerous. Rep. Burch should know better than to wade into these troublesome waters.

The Kentucky Jewish Council, chaired by Rabbi Shlomo Litvin, tweeted on Thursday that the mailer was absolutely shocking, adding [a]ccusations of Them buying our elections is a transparent antisemitic trope, and the segregation of the Jewish candidate is reminiscent of the cries of Jews Will Not Replace Us, a slogan employed during a neo-Nazi march in Charlottesville in 2017.

Kentuckys local political arena has been plagued by a string of antisemitic incidents in recent months. Louisville mayoral candidate Craig Greenberg, who is Jewish, was shot at by an activist who appeared to have ties to a Black nationalist group with ideological links to the antisemitic Black Hebrew Israelite movement. Greenberg was subsequently the subject of memes depicting him with horns, showing him surrounded by money and picturing him alongside a Jewish bank president.

Rep. John Yarmuth (D-KY), who is Jewish, addressed the images in a recent local event, saying, I dont think theres any question those memes depict antisemitism.

In February, two Kentucky state legislators used the phrase Jew them down during a state House debate. A week later, another state representative claimed that an abortion medication was the same drug as Zyklon B, the gas used by the Nazis to kill millions of Jews during the Holocaust, and that the drug had been developed by a Jewish person. The representative also made claims about the sex lives of Jewish women. All three legislators subsequently apologized.

On the federal level, Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) has also faced accusations of antisemitism for comparing vaccination madates to the Holocaust and referring to AIPAC as foreign interference in U.S. politics.

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Kentucky campaign mailer accuses Jewish candidate of trying to 'buy' election for 'his own interests' - Jewish Insider

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Posted By admin on May 14, 2022

Zachary Noah Piser and company in 'Dear Evan Hansen.' Photo by Matthew Murphy

Nora BermanMay 13, 2022

Wait, youre Jewish? Oh!

Zachary Noah Piser leaned forward, his eyebrows raised and hand to his chest in a mock depiction of the surprised reaction he gets when he tells people he is a member of the tribe. A gifted actor, Piser is the first Asian-American to take the lead role of Evan in Dear Evan Hansen on Broadway, beginning on May 17. Hes also done with being shy about any part of himself, in a climate of rising antisemitism and anti-Asian hate.

Yeah, there are Jews of Color. Welcome to the 21st century.

It is an apt time for Piser, a Chinese-American Jew, to take on his new role. According to a recent report from the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism, anti-Asian assaults were up 339% in 2021, while Jews in New York face the highest level of antisemitic attacks in decades, according to the ADL. Piser is acutely aware of the power his particular representation on the Broadway stage carries, especially in a musical about learning to love oneself no matter what.

The show, which premiered in 2016, is about a socially anxious high school senior who is essentially invisible to his classmates, crippled by nerves and self-loathing. Seeing a non-white performer star in a show that deals so acutely with the theme of visibility was quietly explosive. Pisers own racial ambiguity only served to highlight his character Evans feeling of otherness throughout the show.

I was sure that Piser drew inspiration for the role from personal experience. I was happy to discover that I couldnt have been more wrong.

In person, Piser is relaxed, confident and wildly expressive, gesturing with his hands and making faces as he talks. As his Instagram model-dog, Scout, dozed behind him, he had me laughing throughout our entire conversation. My bar mitzvah theme was swimming. Likewhat was I thinking?!

The son of Jing and Joel Piser, Zachary Zach to his friends grew up in the Bay Area of California in a deeply multicultural Conservative Jewish home, where his weeks were spent in Hebrew day school and his weekends at Chinese school. Pisers mother, Jing, was raised in mainland China and Taiwan before moving to the U.S. and converted to Judaism before Zachs birth. My Chinese immigrant mother is now the mashgiach of my temple, Piser laughed.

The family attended Temple Beth Abraham in Oakland weekly, and Piser remains extremely close to his rabbi (Rabbi Blooms actually coming next week to see the show) and congregation, attending services whenever he visits home.

From Pisers description, it seems that his Chinese and Jewish identities were never in conflict. My parents encouraged me to embrace both sides, and not to see myself as half this, half that but as a whole being. His parents kept a kosher home until Pisers departure for college his father Joel begrudgingly admits he does like crab meat and he speaks Mandarin with his Chinese grandparents Nai Nai and Ye Ye.

I wondered aloud if blending his identities would have been so effortless had his mother decided not to convert. He smiled; no one had ever asked him that question before.

I think growing up in the Bay Area, we were part of such an open, welcoming community, and my mom was already a part of that community before she converted. Maybe she would have had less autonomy in the Jewish community, but its a good question. I really dont know.

Pisers childhood was not all rainbows and hamantaschen like Evan, Im a nervous sweater Piser joked and its why he feels such a deep connection to the character of Evan, whose difficulty in communicating with his classmates leads him to be teased and even more painfully, be ignored.

When Piser graduated from Northwestern in 2015 and moved to New York City to begin his acting career, his mixed identity quickly became more complex in an industry where ones appearance is crucial.

While a lot has changed over Pisers relatively short-but-impressive five-year career, the dominant wisdom, when he started, was that the only way you could be successful was by mirroring the very few other successful Asian Americans, he told me. With slightly darker skin and big mahogany eyes, Piser is the definition of ethnically ambiguous. Upon meeting him, strangers and casting directors alike ask him, What are you?

Because I had such a mixed face, people didnt know where to put me, Piser said. Often, he was pegged as Filipino or Latino. Despite early attempts to steer Piser towards the typical roles for Asian-Americans, such as Miss Saigon and The King and I, he notes that his career has been spent performing roles written by and for white people. Ive never played a role specifically written for Asian people.

And even so, Piser resists passing as anything other than himself. I dont let myself glide by on passing, he says, something that affects not only internally how I see myself, but what spaces I put myself in and how I take up space. He noted that historically, Asian people have had a tendency to stay quiet when assimilating into white spaces, some of which is a stereotype, some of which is cultural.

The precipitous rise in antisemitic and anti-Asian attacks during the pandemic have guided Piser to a place of owning his identity differently than he did pre-pandemic.

I so adamantly feel these parts of my identity, and especially now where the world is, and how my people are being treated, he said. Asian people are the least represented in all parts of the theater, and if I can be that representation, if I can give that to communities that are struggling and facing adversity recently, that to me is of the utmost importance.

I had raved about Dear Evan Hansen to my friends when I first saw the show in 2017, but I was blown away by Pisers performance. On stage, he seemed to draw the characters internal life into his performance and singing, his voice shifting along with Evans journey, as opposed to a more Broadway belter style of virtuosity Id previously seen deployed by others in the role.

Dear Evan Hansen has moments of levity, but deals with intense subjects such as teen suicide, mental health struggles and social media echo chambers. I wondered aloud if this complex musical was more difficult to perform after the pandemic. Piser smiled. There is just so much more emotion to draw from. We, as a company, are achieving a different level of catharsis, as weve all been through a collective trauma the last two years.

Do you have a trigger song? I asked.

The hardest part for me to get through now is Evans final monologue, that mirrors his first lines in the show-

He sat up, shoulders back, ready to perform to my Zoom camera:

Today is going to be a good day, and heres why: because today, no matter what else, today at least youre you. And maybe this time hell keep going, hell keep going until he sees the sun.

Nora Berman is the Forwards Deputy Opinion Editor. To contact the author, email berman@forward.com

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

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Jewish, Asian and taking over Broadway: meet the next great musical star-in-the-making - Forward

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Posted By admin on May 14, 2022

Pittsburgh Police arrested David Aul, 38, on May 8 after he choked a victim in a Murray Avenue store.

Aul reportedly was observed over the last several weeks walking along Murray Avenue and near Hillel Academy in the Squirrel Hill neighborhood exhibiting disturbing behavior, according to Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh Community Security Director Shawn Brokos. His actions became increasingly erratic and included making antisemitic comments before the attack, she said.

Auls arrest is the fourth in less than a year by suspects targeting the Jewish community in Squirrel Hill. In September 2021, Tyrone Correll was arrested for simple assault, harassment and ethnic intimidation. Andrew Clinton was arrested April 4 for a string of burglaries, many of which targeted the Jewish community. Christian Williams was arrested on April 17 for making antisemitic comments and threats.

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Brokos said there are no known connections between those arrested but that the spate of antisemitic activity was making some Jewish community members feel less safe in Squirrel Hill.

There is something going on, Brokos said. We are being targeted. Whats this all about? Im not sure, but its certainly antisemitic and there is a mental health component.

Aul is in custody waiting to be arraigned. Both Correll and Williams recently had their cases moved from City Court to Criminal Court. No trial date has been set for either.

Brokos urged community members to remain alert and vigilant and to continue ongoing security training to remain as prepared as possible in light of the current upsurge in antisemitic threats. PJCDavid Rullo

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Posted By admin on May 14, 2022

The U.S. recorded more than 100,000 deaths from drug overdoses in 2021 more than any previous year, in a sobering milestone for an epidemic that has claimed more than 1 million lives in two decades.

According tonew data published by the CDC, overdose deaths rose 30 percent between 2019 and 2020 and 15 percent between 2020 and 2021. In part, those numbers reflect the effects of theCOVID-19 pandemic, which for many has reduced access to treatment, strained mental health and amplified social isolation.

The drug supply has also grown more lethal, with fentanyl which is 100 times more potent than morphine increasingly used to lace counterfeit pills. Deaths involving synthetic opioids, primarily fentanyl, accounted for 71,000 overdose deaths in 2021, compared to 58,000 in 2020.

Rabbi Eliyahu Schusterman, a Chabad rabbi in Atlanta who founded asupport groupfor those in recovery and their loved ones, emphasized in an interview that no single bill, policy or organization is the silver bullet for the multifaceted opioid crisis.

Theres no magic thing that everyones going to start doing to solve the problem, Schusterman said. But, he added, we can foster a culture of healing by helping people live more deeply and more fully and being there for each other.

As experts warn that the overdose epidemic shows no signs of slowing down 2022 will probably be as horrible as 2021 was, quite possibly worse, Keith Humphreys, an addiction and drug policy researcher at Stanford University,told The Washington Post Schusterman spoke with us about his top principles for Jews seeking to address addiction in their communities.

The first step, Schusterman said, must be normalizing discussing addiction and mental health issues in synagogues, around Shabbat tables and with loved ones. Addiction is not a moral failing its a disease brought on, and exacerbated by, trauma, he said.

Working to break the stigma around addiction, he said, will encourage people to open up about how it has affected them or their loved ones, which will in turn help those suffering feel less isolated.

While addiction should be discussed openly, Schusterman said, those suffering from it also need privacy which, for Jews, can mean making sure they have access to support groups in familiar settings.

Some 70 people participate weekly in Alcoholics Anonymous meetings throughJeffs Place, the program Schusterman founded after Jeff Kraus, an 18-year-old member of his congregation, died in November 2018. It, and Jewish programs like it, give Jews struggling with addiction an alternative to the church basements most often associated with programs like AA.

We should move away from the fear that 12-step recovery programs, which emphasize believing in a Higher Power, are some kind of Christian teaching, Schusterman said. Its universal teachings that are very much aligned with Torah teachings.

As a Jewish people, we have a very special, deep relationship with Hashem, he said, and we have to bring that into the conversation.

As overdose deaths rise among young people, Schusterman said, we have to empower parents and educators to help build resilience in children.

Young people must be equipped with both the understanding that life has challenges and pains and the ability to validate their own emotions and experiences. For physical and emotional pain, he said, many of us learn to turn to quick fixes to avoid dealing with the underlying issues. But suppressing the pain, Schusterman warned, only works for so long for so many people.

Jeffs Place was founded in the spirit of collaboration, which speaks to the importance of uniting parents, educators, clergy members, clinicians and community leaders around spiritual practices to facilitate recovery.

With this in mind, it can be valuable to learn from or join Jewish organizations promoting mental wellness.

Schusterman pointed toThe Wellness Institute part of the Chabad-Lubavitch movements educational arm as a group that does tremendous work for youth worldwide. Jewish Family Service organizations, which provide counseling and other forms of assistance, are another potential place to start, he said.

While rural areas have been hit particularly hard by the overdose crisis during the pandemic, its important to acknowledge that addiction is everywhere and that it exists in our communities, Schusterman said. Each of us, he said, should be ready to say something if something seems amiss, and check in with friends and neighbors.

This practice can be difficult for Jews, he said, because like any minority group, we have a culture of self-protection. In his eyes, that culture can lead to a belief that we are immune to addiction and mental illness.

But we must move away from the notion that we are perfect and our communities our perfect, he said, and live much more compassionately and authentically.

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How should Jewish communities respond to the overdose epidemic? J. - The Jewish News of Northern California

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Posted By admin on May 14, 2022

The charming little hotel I stayed at last week in Krakow offers its guests a great day-trip deal. You can tour the magnificent Wieliczka Salt Mine, the birthplace of Pope John Paul II and Auschwitz, all with the same ticket, with a tour-guide and driver who take you from site to site in one easy all-inclusive day. I was sorely tempted to take the tour and report back, but sadly I had more pressing work to do.

If youve ever visited Ukraine in the past, you probably flew to Kyivs Borispyl or to one of the smaller airports in other cities. Its a large country and the highways are, shall we say, not exactly autobahn-standard. But since the start of the war, Ukraines airspace has been closed and reporting there means either handling the rather erratic timetable of Ukraines valiant rail network or spending long hours on the road.

Ive done the 12-hour trip (that's in theory, add time spent at roadblocks and other wartime detours like Russian invaders) from Krakow to Kyiv three times so far during this war, and if you know anything about Jewish history, the signs just hit you, viscerally. Every name of a village or town features prominently in Jewish history, and personal history as well, if your ancestors came from this part of the world, which, lets face it, is true of every other Jew.

In my case, in the space of three hours driving in east Poland and west Ukraine, I drove past the exits to the birthplaces of both my grandfathers, and most of my great-grandparents. For me, the signpost bingo goes like this Brzesko-Mielec-Yavoriv-Buchach a series of names that evoke embedded memories and imaginings, both painful and wistful.

Some of these places Id like to go one day and see, especially Buchach, with S.Y. Agnon, who went to cheder there with my great-grandfather and who brought the town to life in so many of his works, as my guide. Im less sure about other places on the list. Why visit a village where you constantly ask yourself what the grandparents of those still living there did to your zaide?

Theres something very discombobulating about covering a war and the suffering of another nation while constantly surrounded by visual reminders of another war which took place before I was born, but remains nevertheless deeply personal. One handy subconscious way of detaching memory is using the current Ukrainian names of the towns and villages, and trying not to think of them in their Polish or Russian versions more familiar from the historic record and family accounts.

It doesnt always work. On Friday, walking back from the ornate and nearly deserted Tsori Gilad synagogue in Lviv, there was something about the dim lamp-posts, the soft evening light and my tiredness that doused the streets in sepia, and I couldnt escape those black-and-white photographs, seared in my brain ever since I first saw them in a history book so many years ago.

I was back in Lvov, the scene of the pogroms 81 years ago, where the German occupiers didnt have to do anything they simply watched, amused, as the local Ukrainian nationalists forced their Jewish neighbors into the streets, beating them with sticks and whips, particularly the women, who were stripped of their clothes, running bloodied from their tormentors.

You can call it Lviv. You can renovate the synagogues. You cant change history.

You try to blot it out but you really cant. Not when right on the road about an hour east from Lviv theres a well-tended cemetery with rows of neat white crosses, the graves of the Ukrainian soldiers of the SS Galicia Division, whose official colors were identical to todays Ukrainian flag. And when besides those flags, throughout Ukraine, fly the red-black flags of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, which carried out those pogroms in Lvov and countless other places.

"I say to those who have a problem with monuments to Ukrainian national heroes that if it bothers you so much, then dont live in Ukraine," a leader of a major Ukrainian Jewish community told me this week. "Were not for a moment forgetting what those Ukrainian nationalists did to us, but the fact is that Ukraine needs national heroes, and those that it has, did terrible things to Jews. We cant change that.

"But it doesnt make todays Ukraine antisemitic. On the contrary, in todays Ukraine Jews are popular, respected and successful citizens and its no coincidence that the president, many of the people around him and some of the most successful businessmen in Ukraine today are Jewish. One thing that I can promise you is that the national heroes who will emerge from this war will not be antisemites and many of them will be Jews."

The statues of nationalists like Stepan Bandera and Symon Petliura will not be coming down. Nor will street names be changed. Thats not how history is commemorated in this part of the world. Here, the only statues of evil white men that are pulled down are those of Communists.

It may stick in our craw, but we have a duty to respect the Jews who live in these countries and if they choose to build a Jewish future here, and dont want that future dominated by the past, thats their prerogative.

"The definition of Jewishness here is not whether you are Jewish according to halakha or whether your Soviet identity card said your ethnicity was Jewish," a Ukrainian-Jewish friend said to me this week. "Youre Jewish if you were bullied at school for being Jewish." But there was no rancor or bitterness in his voice.

Its not that antisemitism has disappeared in Ukraine, but its no longer a feature of life. Its as if Jews and non-Jews here have managed to each take what they need from their difficult histories and just move on with the business of trying to build a country in Russias threatening shadow.

Ive been traveling to Ukraine for the past 14 years and Ive discovered that this is one of the countries where Im definitely better off using my Israeli identity, which always elicits smiles, respect and a willingness to open up (though in the last couple of months, my British identity is also a great help in Ukraine thanks to Boris Johnsons rather opportunistic war support).

Countless Ukrainian Jews have told me that a major part in the generational attitude change among their fellow Ukrainians is "because they respect Israel as a strong successful country and thats made them look at Jews differently here as well."

It's not that the Jews of Ukraine want to ignore their history. They have Holocaust memorials and museums as well and in some Jewish communities, despite the war, this week, on May 8, Ukraines national Day of Remembrance and Reconciliation, they went to those parks and fields where the killing-pits were, and held their own quiet commemorative events.

In a country which has seen so much death and suffering both in the past and right now, the Jews of Ukraine have made a conscious choice not to compete in the victimhood stakes, but to focus on the present and on the future. We can all learn something from them.

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Ukraine's Jews have decided not to be victims any more - Haaretz

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Posted By admin on May 14, 2022

Tributes are paid to murdered Palestinian journalist Shireen Abu Akleh at a protest and vigil at BBC Broadcasting House on May 12, 2022 in London Photo by Guy Smallman/Getty Images

Senior Contributing EditorRob EshmanMay 12, 2022

The American reaction to the killing of a veteran Al-Jazeera journalist in Jenin is following a sad, familiar pattern.

Shireen Abu Akleh, 51, was shot and killed May 11. That is all anyone can agree on.

Israels critics have already decided Israeli soldiers shot the much-loved Palestinian-American journalist while carrying out a May 11 raid in the West Bank city. Israels defenders have decided that Palestinian gunmen killed Abu Akleh while firing on Israelis.

Im part of a third constituency: Id like to know the truth. And Americas Jewish leaders and mainstream organizations need to make finding out the facts behind Abu Aklehs death a priority as well.

An independent, international inquiry into Abu Aklehs killing, launched immediately with the full cooperation of Israeli and Palestinian authorities, is the best way to help Palestinians, journalists and Israel.

As of now, there is little indication that partisans on any side can handle the truth.

Within a day of the tragic death,Michigan Representative Rashida Tlaib made it clear her mind was made up:

When will the world and those who stand by Apartheid Israel that continues to murder, torture and commit war crimes finally say: Enough?

At the same time, the American Jewish Committee stood by the Israeli version of events:

When the IDF entered Jenins refugee camp and the nearby town of Burqin to arrest suspects, Palestinian gunmen ambushed them, opening fire and using explosives. Abu Aklehs death resulted from this confrontation. Until an investigation takes place, that is all we will know.

This is an all-too-common pattern among Americas Israel defenders: whatever happens, issue statements that evince sorrow but adhere to the official Israeli position. And its mirrored in a standard pattern among Israels detractors: whatever happens, blame the Israelis.

Two decades after the September 2000 killing of 12 year-old Muhammad al-Durrah during a clash between Israeli soldiers and Palestinians, each side remains stuck to its narrative over whos at fault.

An Israeli investigation determined that a 2014 Israeli missile strike that killed four Palestinian boys on a beach in Gaza was a tragic accident. Palestinians said it was yet more proof that the IDF deliberately targets civilians.

No matter the tragedy, we see the same responses.

So far, the Palestinian Authority has refused an Israeli offer for a joint investigation. Palestinian officials have also refused to release the results of a pathology exam which has called the results of its initial investigation inconclusive, and rejected requests from Israel to turn over the bullet that killed Abu Akleh. (The bullets origin and shape could help officials determine which side fired it, and from where.)

But the Israeli track record of investigating itself doesnt inspire a great deal of confidence, either. Shortly after the shooting, Israeli officials released a video purporting to show the gunfire that killed Abu Akleh coming from the Palestinian side.

The human rights organization BTselemfact-checked the claims in the actual location and contended that the gunfire in the video, cannot be the gunfire that killed Journalist Shireen Abu Akleh.

BTselem noted that Israeli investigations into civilian killings rarely find the IDF at fault, and never hold military leaders and politicians accountable for policies that, the group says, inevitably lead to civilian deaths.

But getting to the truth about Abu Aklehs death is especially urgent.

The reporter, a native of East Jerusalem who also held United States citizenship, was a frequent presence on Al-Jazeera television.

She was the voice of Palestine to the rest of the Arab world and its diaspora, Mezna Qato, a historian at the University of Cambridge, told Vox.

At least 55 journalists and media workers were killed in conflicts or targeted murders around the world in 2021. Israel itself carried out a bombing attack on Al-Jazeera offices in Gaza City in 2014 the occupants had prior warning and no one was killed.

An investigation that exonerates Israel in Abu Aklehs death could only help the countrys international standing, differentiating it from Putins Russia or Mexico, where journalists work with targets on their backs.

Thats why Israels American supporters should not settle for statements from the prime ministers office or an Israeli-only investigation into the May 11 killing. Its why Israels strongest supporters in the White House and Congress should help initiate a fair, international investigation. A country that prides itself on its press freedom and democracy has more to lose by hiding the facts than by holding the guilty accountable.

Rob Eshman is Senior Contributing Editor of the Forward. To contact the author, email eshman@forward.com.

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

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What happened to Shireen Abu Akleh? American Jews must demand the truth - Forward

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