Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By admin on May 30, 2024

The smell of glatt kosher hamburgers, hot dogs and corn on the cob wafted through the gardens of Gracie Mansion on the evening of May 29th, as well over 700 people gathered for the annual mayoral Jewish Heritage Reception.

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Addressing a crowd that included yarmulkaed members of the NYPD and the FDNY, as well as individuals representing the full spectrum of the Jewish community, Mayor Eric Adams spoke passionately about the climate of hate and intolerance that has swept the world since October 7th. The mayor lamented the fact that students are being radicalized on college campuses to hate Jews, as well as the country that they call home, with just 18 percent of those ages 18 to 34 saying that they love America.

Weve normalized going after groups because of who they are and what they respect, said Adams. Hate has no place in our city and we will say it over and over again. It doesnt matter if youre Jewish. It doesnt matter if youre Muslim. It doesnt matter if youre Christian. We know it is time for us to embrace the humanity that makes us who and what we are. Thats what this day is about.

The mayor spoke broadly about embracing people of all faiths and cultures, his remarks zeroing at one point about the ongoing protests targeting Israel.

I dont say destroy from the river to the sea, said Adams. I saw build from the river to the sea. Embrace from the river to the sea. Were all in this together and we cannot turn our backs on each other.

The evening included opening remarks by Israel Consul General in New York Ofir Akunis who spoke about the importance of Americans and Israelis uniting against hate. The receptions honorees included Scooter Braun, who was instrumental in bringing the Nova Music Festival exhibit from Israel to the United States, influencer Montana Tucker, who has been publicly combating anti-Semitism, and Chaverims Aaron Cohen and Chaim Fleischer.

A special award was presented to City Halls departing Jewish liaison, Joel Eisdorfer, who will be stepping down from his position in June. In his remarks, Adams described Eisdorfer as a real mentsh.

He has shown what it means to be a great New Yorker, to be a great American, to be a great member of the Jewish community [and] a great member of the greatest race alive the human race, said Adams. Thats what Joel is.

But perhaps the most emotional moments of the reception came when Dr Shoshan Haran, who was held captive in Gaza for 50 days, shared her story.

A resident of Kibutz Beeri, Haran described how she and her family hid in their safe room, with steel-piercing bullets flying above her head. She, her husband, her son in law, her daughter, her grandchildren, her sister and her 12 year old niece were all taken captive by Hamas after terrorists used a bulldozer to crack open the window of their safe room.

Haran held up a picture of her son in law Tal Shoham, who is still being held hostage in Gaza, describing how she has been traveling the world in the hopes of securing his freedom, thanking the many members of the Jewish community who have helped her in her efforts.

I always understood that we are am echad, we are one people, said Haran. We need each other. We in Israel need you. I believe that you need us. Together we will survive. They murdered my husband. They murdered my sister. They murdered 101 members of my kibbutz. But our spirit is not broken. We are fighting. We are resilient. We need to bring them home now.

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Serving Up Solidarity at Gracie Mansions Annual Jewish Heritage Reception - VINNews

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Posted By admin on May 30, 2024

Sufferance

By Charles Palliser

Guernica World Editions 12.95

Reviewed by Keren David

A few years ago a friend of mine offered to house two Ukrainian refugees in her house, a mother and daughter. Her intentions were entirely good. But alas, the mother was demanding and bossy, the daughter spoilt, and the whole experience became a nightmare for my friend. Of course she sympathised with their plight but her home did not feel like her own any more.

I thought of her when I read Charles Pallisters new book Sufferance. For my friend it was painful to discover that a good deed can go sour. But what if her annoying guests had been hiding in fear of their lives? And what if their presence had threatened her own family?

The 13-year-old girl at the centre of Sufferance never named was not even in my daughters class, the narrator tells the reader. He isnt named either, nor are his family or the country they live in. The girls own community are never explicitly called Jews. And the Enemy is not labelled as Nazis. It is left to the reader to work these things out. That process adds extra layers of discomfort to this brilliantly clever novel, which haunts me days after finishing it.

In the hands of a less courageous writer, this could have been a trite crowd-pleaser of a Holocaust novel, in which the Jews are sympathetic, passive victims, the narrators family righteous heroes, and antisemitism is just for the Nazis. But Pallister has no interest in that kind of narrative. Instead he looks unflinchingly at the human condition and comes to the bleakest of conclusions. Good intentions here are undercut by self interest and prejudice, and every emotion involved in bringing a stranger into ones home a stranger whose presence comes to threaten the safety of the host family is mercilessly interrogated.

The girl has been left alone with a servant as her country is occupied and divided, her parents and younger brother cut off in the capital, her older brother in the army. She is charming but the lens through which we see her takes in resentment and jealousy as well as pity she is a show off from a rich family. Whats more her own kind dont seem to like her either. For her part she is keen to distance herself from the members of her community who have not learnt the language of the country they live in. Nonetheless the narrators family offers her shelter. I have to make it clear that we did not take an interest in her because we expected to be rewarded or anything like that, says the narrator, while almost in the next breath noting that her parents were staying in a hotel whose name I recognised as one of the grandest. Before their first meeting is over he has discovered that her father owns a department store, and soon is speculating that he might be offered a job there. But there is a human connection too: I felt for her as though she were my own child, and the idea came to me that was to have such far-reaching consequences.

The idea to offer the child shelter causes trouble in the family right from the start, with petty squabbles over rooms and possessions, especially a doll which the child loves. But quite soon the narrator, a civil servant, sees that things are going to get worse. I had begun to realise that certain colleagues in the citys administration who belonged to the same minority as the girl had ceased to appear at work Nobody ever mentioned them or asked where they had gone. As horrors unfold, they are mostly off stage, able to be ignored by not asking questions. Until it is too late, and the girl becomes a problem which must be solved in a terrible way.

There is scant comfort on offer. This is an antidote to those books and films that use the Shoah to tell uplifting moral fables. Charles Pallister deserves a wide audience for it.

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Book review: Sufferance 'A book which haunts me' - The Jewish Chronicle

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Posted By admin on May 21, 2024

I am a retired social worker. I spent most of my career working with Holocaust survivors at a Jewish social service agency. When I arrived for my first day of work, I found a small plastic doll in my mailbox. The doll had a little cloth kerchief on her head. Her eyes were blackened and red nail polish marred her face and limbs. The doll belonged to a client I was about to meet. She wanted me to have it so that I would have some knowledge of her pain.

This doll was just a symbol, of course, of the profound violations this client had suffered in the concentration camps. Had there been a state of Israel in 1940, her life might have had a vastly different trajectory. I probably would never have met this client. I would never have encountered that chilling doll. Never.

To the anti-Israel campus protesters, I would like to say: Be mindful of the words never again when you shout, From the river to the sea. Be mindful of never again when you advocate for an end to Zionism, or when you effectively align with terrorists who exist to obliterate Israel, or when you ignore the complexities of this war, or when you fail to acknowledge a people who need to have a homeland to feel safe in the world.

Risa Segal

Woburn

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The Holocaust survivor's doll - The Boston Globe

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Posted By admin on May 21, 2024

A memorial to commemorate those who rescued Jews in France during the Holocaust was defaced with red hands in an act of vandalism described as unspeakable by the Paris mayor.

The Wall of the Righteous was vandalized overnight between Monday and Tuesday, along with around 10 other locations in the Marais, Paris's historically Jewish neighbourhood.

The wall bears the names of over 3,900 people who risked their lives to help save Jews in France during the countrys Nazi occupation in World War Two.

May 14 is the anniversary of the first major round-up of Jews by French police in 1941.

A picture shows red hand graffitis painted on a wall of the Sainte-Croix de la Bretonnerie street, in the area where earlier the Holocaust memorial was vandalized with the same red hand prints in Paris, on May 14, 2024. (Photo by ANTONIN UTZ/AFP via Getty Images)

The UKs Holocaust Educational Trust said they were shocked and saddened to see the antisemitic vandalism of the Shoah memorial in Paris with blood red hands on the Wall of the Righteous.

This is a disgraceful act of hate, ignorance and disrespect. It is an abuse of the memory of the 6 million Jewish victims and also the righteous, who risked everything to save Jewish lives.

Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo reported the graffiti to prosecutors as a possible antisemitism.

Hidalgo said, No cause can justify such degradations that dirty the memory of the victims of the Shoah and of the Righteous who saved Jews at risk to their lives.

(Photo by ANTONIN UTZ/AFP via Getty Images)

Ariel Weil, the mayor of Paris central districts, posted photos of the damage on social media and said, On the very day of the anniversary of this event which prefigures the Vel'd'Hiv roundup where many children were arrested before being exterminated, the walls of the Marais in front of nurseries and schools were defiled.

Other spots daubed with the red hands overnight included schools and nurseries around the Marais.

Workers arrived at the scene to remove the graffiti by late Tuesday morning.

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Paris Holocaust memorial defaced with red hands in 'disgraceful act of hate' - The Jewish Chronicle

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Posted By admin on May 21, 2024

A University of Delaware undergraduate student has been charged with a hate crime after witnesses reported her for vandalizing a Holocaust memorial on the universitys campus last Wednesday.

The Delaware Department of Justice has charged Jenna Kandeel, 23, with a hate crime, criminal mischief, and disorderly conduct all misdemeanors for damaging several flags, which were put up by the University of Delaware Hillel for Holocaust Remembrance Week.

University leaders said Kandeel was also yelling hateful antisemitic slurs during the episode.

In a statement, Delaware Attorney General Kathy Jennings emphasized the countrys history of protecting free speech and political dissent.

But we need to be lucid enough to recognize the daylight miles of it, in this case between protest and hate, she said, calling the episode a wake-up call in an increasingly antisemitic climate.

University police quickly arrested Kandeel and she admitted being responsible for the vandalism, according to the Justice Department.

University leadership said Kandeels actions violated the schools student code of conduct and non-discrimination policy. She has been banned from campus.

Donna Schwartz, executive director of the Hillel at the University of Delaware, called the intentional destruction of the display honoring the millions killed in the Holocaust unacceptable.

We appreciate the university administrations swift response to address this incident and the clear message that hatred will not be tolerated at the University of Delaware, said Schwartz.

READ MORE: A University of Delaware professors office was vandalized with a swastika, bringing the campus into the throes of far-right hate

The damage to the Holocaust display comes almost a year after someone defaced a poster promoting a drag show with a swastika, shaking Jewish and queer communities on campus. That vandalism occurred during a time when antisemitic acts were on the rise as pandemic restrictions eased.

The Israel-Hamas war has led to a surge in antisemitic and anti-Muslim acts across the country, according to organizations such as the Anti-Defamation League and Council on American-Islamic Relations. These acts have ranged from vandalism, to the use of ethnic slurs, and assaults.

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University of Delaware student charged with hate crime in Holocaust memorial vandalism - The Philadelphia Inquirer

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Posted By admin on May 21, 2024

After months of tumult on the campus of Harvard University following the Hamas' Oct. 7 attack on Israel and the university's reaction, a holocaust survivor visited a Jewish organization at the prestigious school on Thursday. Karmela Waldman visited Harvard Chabad for a fireside chat comparing the history of the Holocaust to present-day antisemitism and recent incidents. Waldman was joined by her son, author and podcaster Joel Waldman, who recently published a book about his family's experience. The mother and son are on a book tour. Karmela Waldman survived the Holocaust in what was then Yugoslavia. Her mother and grandmother also survived, but her father and grandfather were killed at Auschwitz. "My mother took me through a hole in the fence," Karmela Waldman said. "They came to take us to the trains to take us to Auschwitz." Her mother asked a non-Jewish doctor for help, and he brought her to a Catholic nun at a boy's school. "He walked over there and asked them if they would take a Jewish child, a 5-year-old girl," she said. "She had to pretend to be a little Catholic boy, basically," Joel Waldman said. She remains upbeat despite all that she has endured. "I cannot help it, I'm an optimist," she said."My mom's not only a Holocaust survivor. She also lost her child during the writing of this book and was in the process of losing my father," Joel Waldman said. Earlier this week, pro-Palestinian protesters voluntarily cleared their encampment in Harvard Yard on Tuesday after university officials agreed to discuss their questions about the endowment, bringing a peaceful end to the kinds of demonstrations that were broken up by police on other campuses.University officials had suspended the group, Harvard for Palestine, before the encampment was established. Former Harvard President Claudine Gay resigned in January in part because of intense criticism over Harvard's response to the Oct. 7 attack. At a Congressional hearing on Dec. 5, she and the leaders of other universities struggled to answer a question about whether calls for genocide against Jews would violate Harvards code of conduct.Gay later apologized for the poor wording in her testimony, as did University of Pennsylvania President Liz Magill, who also resigned.Gay was the first person of color and the first Black woman to serve as president of Americas oldest institution of higher learning but her tenure was the shortest presidency in the history of Harvard.Numerous pro-Palestinian and pro-Israel protests have unfolded on the campus, sometimes simultaneously, since October."The best way to resolve it is through dialogue, through understanding, through patience and I'm sorry to say this as a cliche or not cliche through love," said Karmela Waldman."This story is about non-Jews saving a little Jewish girl. We need to get the world back on track," her son said.

After months of tumult on the campus of Harvard University following the Hamas' Oct. 7 attack on Israel and the university's reaction, a holocaust survivor visited a Jewish organization at the prestigious school on Thursday.

Karmela Waldman visited Harvard Chabad for a fireside chat comparing the history of the Holocaust to present-day antisemitism and recent incidents. Waldman was joined by her son, author and podcaster Joel Waldman, who recently published a book about his family's experience.

The mother and son are on a book tour.

Karmela Waldman survived the Holocaust in what was then Yugoslavia. Her mother and grandmother also survived, but her father and grandfather were killed at Auschwitz.

"My mother took me through a hole in the fence," Karmela Waldman said. "They came to take us to the trains to take us to Auschwitz."

Her mother asked a non-Jewish doctor for help, and he brought her to a Catholic nun at a boy's school.

"He walked over there and asked them if they would take a Jewish child, a 5-year-old girl," she said.

"She had to pretend to be a little Catholic boy, basically," Joel Waldman said.

She remains upbeat despite all that she has endured.

"I cannot help it, I'm an optimist," she said.

"My mom's not only a Holocaust survivor. She also lost her child during the writing of this book and was in the process of losing my father," Joel Waldman said.

Earlier this week, pro-Palestinian protesters voluntarily cleared their encampment in Harvard Yard on Tuesday after university officials agreed to discuss their questions about the endowment, bringing a peaceful end to the kinds of demonstrations that were broken up by police on other campuses.

University officials had suspended the group, Harvard for Palestine, before the encampment was established.

Former Harvard President Claudine Gay resigned in January in part because of intense criticism over Harvard's response to the Oct. 7 attack. At a Congressional hearing on Dec. 5, she and the leaders of other universities struggled to answer a question about whether calls for genocide against Jews would violate Harvards code of conduct.

Gay later apologized for the poor wording in her testimony, as did University of Pennsylvania President Liz Magill, who also resigned.

Gay was the first person of color and the first Black woman to serve as president of Americas oldest institution of higher learning but her tenure was the shortest presidency in the history of Harvard.

Numerous pro-Palestinian and pro-Israel protests have unfolded on the campus, sometimes simultaneously, since October.

"The best way to resolve it is through dialogue, through understanding, through patience and I'm sorry to say this as a cliche or not cliche through love," said Karmela Waldman.

"This story is about non-Jews saving a little Jewish girl. We need to get the world back on track," her son said.

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Holocaust survivor visits Harvard to discuss modern antisemitism - WCVB Boston

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Posted By admin on May 21, 2024

Assemblywoman AmyPaulin, HHREC Executive Director Millie Jasper, and New Rochelle residents and Holocaust survivorsMr. and Mrs. Jerry and Ellen Kaidanow

Assemblywoman AmyPaulinpartnered with Assembly Members Chris Burdick, Dana Levenberg, Steve Otis, Gary Pretlow, Nader Sayegh, and MaryJane Shimsky to successfully secure$100,000from New York State for theHolocaust & Human Rights Education Center (HHREC).

Given the alarming incidents of anti-Semitism that are happening in New York and around the country, its imperative that we support human rights education, saidAssemblywoman AmyPaulin. One of the lessons of the Holocaust is that we must act decisively when we see the Jewish people being scapegoated or attacked. Jews were attacked onOctober 7, and have been continually under attack via harassment and intimidation. We must combat this rise in anti-Semitism by supporting a constructive path to peace through education by organizations such as the HHREC. Im thrilled that we have been able to help fund the HHRECs programs so that they can continue their great work of education and awareness to ensure that atrocities such as those of the Holocaust never happen again.

HHREC is a nonprofit based in White Plains that serves schools, synagogues, colleges, churches and civic centers in Westchester and the Hudson Valley. The HHRECs mission is to enhance the teaching and learning of the lessons of the Holocaust and the right of all people to be treated with dignity and respect. HHREC works with teachers and students to help schools fulfill the New York State mandate that the Holocaust and other human rights violations be included in their curriculum. Since 1994, the HHREC has brought the lessons of the Holocaust, genocide and human rights violations to more than 3,000 teachers, and through them to thousands of students.

HHREC provides educational opportunities for students and educators, as well as community events such as the annual Westchester County Yom HaShoah (Day of Remembrance) Commemoration at the Garden of Remembrance, and Kristallnacht (Night of Broken Glass) commemoration with Iona University. HHREC also has a Holocaust survivor speakers bureau which reaches over 50,000 students each year.

Millie Jasper, Executive Director, Holocaust & Human Rights Education Centersaid, Were grateful to the Assembly delegation for their strong commitment to arrest the rising tide of antisemitism and other forms of hate by offering funds to the Holocaust & Human Rights Education Center so that we can continue to develop and present appropriate programming to the student and adult community.

Assemblymember Chris Burdicksaid, I am thrilled that we were able to provide the Holocaust and Human Rights Education Center (HHREC) with funds that will help them to further their mission of ending bigotry and prejudice. The lessons of the Holocaust have never been more important as we face persistent ignorance, antisemitism, and hatred. Ive worked with HHREC and know the incredible work the organization does, not only in imparting lessons of the Holocaust but also in providing positive and uplifting teachings that stress the importance of treating all people with dignity and respect. HHREC is truly making a difference here in Westchester, particularly its focus on our youth, who will help to shape our future.

Assemblywoman Levenbergsaid, As the daughter of a Holocaust survivor, I am acutely aware of the necessity of education about this chapter in history. While my mother is still with us, every day we lose more people from the generation that lived through the Holocaust. Now more than ever, with living memory of the Holocaust receding and antisemitism and Holocaust denialism surging, we need institutions like the Holocaust and Human Rights Education Center to help ensure that we remember and do not repeat the mistakes of the past.

Assemblyman Steve Otissaid, The Holocaust and Human Rights Education Center provides outstanding programs vital to the understanding of history, humanity, and human rights. I was very pleased we could support this work in the state budget.

Assemblyman J. Gary Pretlowsaid, It is my hope that the funding granted to the Holocaust and Human Rights Education Center will assist with the ongoing preservation of history as well as to provide new and valuable resources necessary to equip our society with the knowledge to combat hatred and prejudice and provide teachings to encourage empathy, tolerance and acceptance.

As a lifelong educator, it is imperative that we support initiatives to teach our youth about human rights abuses, saidState Assemblyman Nader Sayegh. It is now more important than ever to address the growing polarization and tension that exists in our communities, nation, and world because of misinformation, misunderstanding, and unfortunately hate. We will continue to work diligently for respect of diversity and making knowledge available to all.

Assemblywoman MaryJane Shimskysaid I am grateful that we were able to secure this funding for HHREC and its educational mission. The Holocaust survivors from their Speakers Bureau spent years recounting and recording their painful stories so that future generations will learn from the past and stand strong in defense of humankind. Nearly 80 years after the Nazi camps were liberated, the invaluable work of HHREC remains all too urgent and necessary in our worldtoday.

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Assemblywoman Amy Paulin & Westchester Legislators Secure $100K for the Holocaust & Human Rights Education ... - Yonkers Times

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Posted By admin on May 21, 2024

SAN FRANCISCO -- Communities across the U.S. are remembering the atrocities of one of the worst acts of genocide in modern history for Holocaust Remembrance Day. But for the Jewish Family and Children's Services Holocaust Center in San Francisco, teaching the history of those events is what they do everyday.

"Each one of these gray boxes holds a story. One family's life, one story of perpetration of dehumanization, but also stories of survival and stories of hope and resilience," said Morgan Blum Schneider Director of the Jewish Family and Children's Services Holocaust Center.

The JFCS Holocaust Center is dedicated to learning, educating, researching and remembering the horrors of the Holocaust.

Inside each gray box are impeccably preserved artifacts keeping the history of the millions of Jews killed in the Holocaust alive today.

"This is a Star of David that the Jews in the Netherlands had to wear sewn onto their clothing," Blum Schneider showed ABC7 News. "Every child over the age of five had to have a star affixed to their jacket."

Blum Schneider and her colleagues use these items to help teachers teach and students learn about the Holocaust - reaching more than 100,000 people in schools each year.

Sharing these personal stories of persecution and survival is so important as the world marks nearly 80 years since the end of World War II.

"Our Holocaust survivor generation is sunsetting. We are on the horizon of a time when first hand witnesses of the Holocaust will no longer be alive," said Blum Schneider.

The average age of Holocaust survivors is now upwards of 85-years-old.

But many of those survivors are not slowing down - sharing their stories of resilience in classrooms across California at a time when acts of antisemitism are on a drastic rise, according to the Anti-Defamation League.

"Holocaust education is anti-Semitism education," said Blum Schneider. "A truly dynamic curriculum includes survivor testimony. It includes primary source documents, it includes activities that really help the students investigate and build their critical thinking skills."

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Holocaust Remembrance Day: JFCS Holocaust Center gives ABC7 News a tour of the archives - KABC-TV

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Posted By admin on May 21, 2024

In just over a fortnight, history will be made when the UKs first Orthodox female communal rabbi is ordained.

After four years of study, Miriam Lorie, 36, will be celebrating her graduation from New Yorks pioneering Yeshivat Maharat.

Lorie was appointed rabbi-in-training by Kehillat Nashira, a partnership minyan in Borehamwood, Hertfordshire and has been leading the community during her training. She will remain withthe community afterher graduation.

For several years, Maharat graduates have been assuming leadership roles in American communities, but it isthe first time aUK community has appointed someone from one of its programmes.

Lorie told the JC she was excited for the graduation ceremony, which will take place on June 5.

Americans know how to do a ceremony. There will be 400 people there, and it will be a bit like a wedding.

She said that growing up, becoming a rabbi was not something she thought was possible despite a career counsellor at her non-Jewish school telling her she should be a priest.

It is quite funny really. It was based off the fact that I said I liked working with people.I also love teaching and being with people atboth happy times and sad times, so I was building up to [becoming a rabbi] before I even knew it was a thing I could do.

Miriam Lorie (second from left) learning at Yeshivat Maharat in New York

While the Chief Rabbi and United Synagogue do not recognise women rabbis or accept partnership minyanim, Lorie hopes that will change in her lifetime.

They are not there yet, but I think we will see it in the future, she said. Individual rabbis say good things and are encouraging in private.

Since Kehillat Nashira, one of half a dozen partnership minyanim in the UK, started in 2013, tensions in the United Synagogue over the participation of women in services have eased. (In a partnership minyan, women are able to lead prayers, and, in some cases, read from the Torah.)

Kehillat Nashira meets in a hall for Shabbat services every month, alternating between Friday night and Saturday morning, as well as running educational and other events.

We have around 100 or so active members. It is a lovely and open community, and it is also intergenerational, which is great.

Miriam Lorie leading Kehillat Nashira, the partnership minyan in Borehamwood

Lorie, who has managed her training alongside having a family, said the reason more women are not leading communities in the Orthodox world is that the barriers are bigger.

You dont just get a job. You have to set up from scratch and fundraise and not everyone has the support to do that.

A Cambridge University theology graduate, Lorie grew up in the local Borehamwood and Elstree United Synagogue.

She saidthatOrthodox Judaism hadalways felt like my natural home, which waswhy she had wanted to practise within the setting.

People might say: Why not leave? But I love it, and I enjoy the commitment to Jewish law. I'd rather work from within it.

Lorie is also a keen interfaith advocate and was part of the Cambridge Interfaith Programme and the Woolf Institute, also in Cambridge, which specialises in relations between Jews, Christians and Muslims.

The hardest part of her study was the Jewish law, she said. Most of the learning is a rigorous discipline, which doesnt always reflect the reality of being a communal rabbi.

She paid tribute to past alumna Rabbi Dina Brawer, the first woman from the UK to graduate from Yeshivat Maharat four years ago.

Lorie said: She was a big inspiration to me. What is nice is that we all support each other, and there is a network of women rabbis from around the world.

Another graduate of Maharat is Rabba Dr. Lindsey Taylor-Guthartz, who is a teaching fellow at the London School of Jewish Studies.

Lorie added: It has been an incredibly difficult time to be Jewish since October 7. For me, this feels like a step forward and a chance to celebrate being Jewish, show we are developing and that Jewish identity is thriving.

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First UK female Orthodox communal rabbi to be ordained - The Jewish Chronicle

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Posted By admin on May 21, 2024

Saturday Night Live got the rabbi!

This past weekend marked the 49th season finale of SNL hosted by Jake Gyllenhaal and the return of the Weekend Update joke swap. As the title suggests, in this segment Weekend Update co-anchors Colin Jost and Michael Che write each others jokes. The only catch is that neither is able to vet their jokes before reading them live on-air. Its a tradition that hails back to 2018, and usually falls into the familiar rhythm of Jost telling jokes which imply hes a racist millionaire and Che telling jokes which imply hes a misogynistic womanizer.

After last years gag wherein faux civil rights activist Dr. Hattie Davis sat next to Jost as he read his jokes, Che upped the ante. This year, SNL got real-life Rabbi and Cantor Jill Hausman to join in the segment. Rabbi Jill currently leads the Actors Temple in New York City and is also a classical singer, having studied at HB Studios in Manhattan.

Rabbi Jill sat at the Weekend Update desk in her kippah and tallit as Colin Jost read intentionally offensive jokes about Jews. In one, Jost suggested hes supporting Jews in this moment by specifically supporting Harvey Weinstein. Free Weinstein! Keep fighting Harvey, am I right, bubeleh? Jost laughed in shock before his face fell into his hands.

Later, he unwillingly asked Rabbi Jill, Wait if youre here, whos controlling the weather? and made a gag about Jewish space lasers while holding a puppet meant to look like an Orthodox Jewish man. The entire segment drew uproarious laughter from the studio audience, but not all of it was directed at the Weekend Update co-hosts. Rabbi Jill drew her own laughter on a couple occasions when the camera panned to see her reaction.

It could have been much worse, Rabbi Jill laughed to me on the phone this afternoon. I have an acting background, so I didnt have a problem with [the segment], but I was just hoping the jokes werent too offensive, and they were really OK.

Earlier in the day on Saturday, Rabbi Hausman streamed a Shabbat service, lead a memorial service in Massachusetts and then drove the four hours back to New York in time to make the dress rehearsal and show. Beforehand, SNL producers had told her to dress how she would dress to lead a service so she did just that, bringing her regular kippah and tallit to 30 Rock. Then, a couple hours before air, SNL producers prepped Rabbi Jill for the segment by sharing some of the jokes with her (including the puppet) and telling her that she was there to make one of the hosts uncomfortable. Despite this in-and-of-itself uncomfortable task, Rabbi Jill feels comfortable on the stage and still had fun. Everyone was so nice, she said. Everyone was really, really wonderful.

When SNL producers emailed the Actors Temple earlier in the week, Rabbi Hausman was game to do the segment, but aware of the possibility that she might be offended. However, she tells me she ultimately decided to do the segment because of Jewish representation. I also feel that people in the Jewish community need to show up. Were part of the cultural landscape, we have to be there, she said. We have to be visible.

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'It Could Have Been Much Worse,' Says the Rabbi from the SNL Season 49 Finale - Alma

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