Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By admin on April 7, 2022

Konstanty Gebert

By Konstanty Gebert

As a Jew growing up in Poland, I participated in the Polish democratic opposition of the 1970s, then the pro-democracy Solidarity movement and finally the anti-Communist underground of the 1980s.

I was very painfully aware that some of my fellow militants were antisemitic, and that at times this antisemitism, not a love of freedom, could be the main motivation of their actions.

Yet I had no doubt that if we won and secured freedom for all, antisemites included, it would have been well worth it. Thirty years of an independent and free Poland have given me no reasons to question that commitment, even though antisemitism remains a visible presence, occasionally threatening and always obscene.

When Russia first invaded our eastern neighbor one month ago, some around the world were puzzled about how Jews could so easily support Ukraine, given what Jews suffered there during the Shoah. Neither have Poles forgotten about the fierce Ukrainian-led massacres of World War II, which claimed the lives of 120,000 Poles, and even if they remember the Russian occupation up to World War I and after World War II.

But here in Poland, and in neighboring countries in Central Europe, there was no question about supporting Ukraine. Figures and institutions like the chief rabbi, the Union of Jewish Religious Communities, the Polin Museum and local Jewish community centers, as well as other Jewish institutions and organizations, immediately expressed solidarity with Ukraine.

To understand this, you need to consider the value of freedom.

Freedom is something many outside observers take for granted, having, like their parents, enjoyed it all their lives. Even I, though I have spent more than the first half of my life deprived of its blessings, no longer think twice about writing and publishing what I think, under my own name, and without fear of repression.

Similarly, the Ukrainians, despite the dysfunctional, heavy-handed and corrupt state that emerged after independence, eventually won their freedom at the price of blood, during the Maidan Revolution of 201314. This is the freedom Russia would now take away from them.

The yearning for freedom is why I publicly endorsed the Ukrainian Orange Revolution of 2004. Some other Jewish observers, no less knowledgeable about East Central Europe, criticized me by stressing that Ukraine is not Poland. In other words, they reasoned, the Polish experiment in democracy could not be expected to succeed in its eastern neighbor and, given the heavy legacy of Ukrainian antisemitism, did not deserve to be supported there.

Their fear was legitimate, but has proven unsubstantiated: There is less antisemitism in Ukraine today than in Poland, even if the organized presence of extreme nationalists there gives grounds for serious concern.

Set aside the fact that Jews and Poles taking a common position on anything since World War II or 1989, to be more generous is in itself a stunning development. Those who do not understand our support for Ukraine overlook another fundamental thing: This is not about the past. It is about the future.

As Marta Kubica, executive director of the Poland office of the European Leadership Network, an NGO dedicated to strengthening European-Israeli relations, has said: Political quarrels have been set aside, and were finally looking in the same direction: the future. Its regrettable that it took a war for this to happen, but hopefully we can remember this feeling and use it to strengthen our future relationship.

To be sure, Ukrainians have not yet fully owned up to the unspeakable suffering they inflicted on Jews and Poles alike, if not equally, during World War II. But Poles, too, have yet to fully acknowledge their own role in the violence against Ukrainians and Jews before, during and after the Second World War. Ukrainians, Poles and Jews who lived under the former Soviet Union will, like the Russians, have to make a reckoning of their roles as both victims and servants of the bloody Soviet system.

This is not to say that history is just a cruel mess, full of unacknowledged and unpunished crimes everybody is guilty of. We can make sense of history, and different crimes are not equal to each other. But in order for this reckoning to take place at all, we need freedom.

And freedom is what the war is all about. You might have seen the brief scenes, bravely recorded on smartphones in occupied territory, of a Ukrainian woman in Sumy explaining to the Russians manning a military checkpoint that, under the Ukrainian constitution and the countrys privacy laws, she is not obligated to show them her ID. Or unarmed civilians in Melitopol blocking the way of a Russian army convoy, chanting Go home! Go home! and not stopping or scattering even as a nervous infantryman starts firing into the air. Or elderly ladies singing the Ukrainian national anthem in front of the Russian-occupied city hall in Berdyansk.

Only after denying Russians their freedom could Putin send his army into Ukraine to deny Ukrainians the same. Poles and Jews support Ukrainians under the old Polish revolutionary slogan, For our freedom and yours. The Russian army could adopt a counter-slogan: For your oppression and ours. Russia had become a corrupt and lawless dictatorship just as Ukraine was ceasing to be one. Their smaller Western neighbor was becoming, to Russians, an alternative to their dictatorial present. The only way to protect that present was to destroy the alternative. Hence the missiles against Kyiv.

The Polish Jewish community has prepared reception centers for Ukrainian refugees near the border, and in Lublin, d and near Warsaw. Thousands of people have already been assisted. How many of them are Jewish? a journalist from a haredi publication asked in a phone interview with Polands Chief Rabbi, Michael Schudrich. I dont have the faintest idea, answered Schudrich, but I know they were all Gods children. The journalist hung up, and a minute later called again not to apologize, but to angrily comment that he doesnt need to be preached at. Oh, but he does, Schudrich told me.

Freedom is never given once and for all. Shameful democratic backsliding, not just in Poland but in Hungary and Slovenia, demonstrates this all too clearly. And there is no guarantee that Ukraine, if it manages to repel the Russian onslaught, will become a democratic showcase, happily engaging in debate about the sins of its past. It is legitimate to be skeptical.

But there can be no doubt that if Putin wins, freedom will not have a chance. Just look at Russia today (or at Russia Today, before it abruptly shut down). Or imagine Poland after such a victory, say, 10 years from now. Between Putins brutal terror, and our homegrown autocrats, freedom would not stand much of a chance.

Should Jews care? If this were a Monopoly game, and if there were a Get out of history free card, I wouldnt blame those who would grab it in order to show it to the next jackbooted thug who came to break down their door. But good luck to anyone who thinks the men with guns will play by the rules of the game. Or believe its a game at all.

Konstanty Gebert is a veteran Polish journalist, Jewish community figure and former underground activist in Warsaw.

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For a Polish Jew Like Me, the War on Ukraine Is About Our Shared Futures - Jewish Exponent

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Posted By admin on April 7, 2022

NAIROBI, Kenya (JTA) In 1990, Florence Wangiju showed up at the door of the Israeli embassy in Nairobi. Arms folded across her chest, Wangiju, who was called Wanjuki, resolutely told the staff she wanted to go to a synagogue, to see how Jews worshipped.

She just knocked on that door. She didnt know anyone, recalled her daughter Winnie Wangu. My mother was a woman who wouldnt take no for an answer.

A single mother, for years she brought home storybooks and newspapers to her four young children who devoured information. Through her work as a secretary with different international organizations, she met different people who encouraged her to buy books for her children. Some of the books were about Judaism, and some of the people who brought the books were Jewish, said Wangu, now 53. Her childrens curiosity in the religion grew, and Wangiju decided she needed to see in person what her family dreamed about.

Embassy officials directed Wangiju to the Nairobi Synagogue, East Africas first and only current Jewish place of worship. Once she stepped into it, her soul never left, her daughter said.

Our souls were at peace, we were finally home, Wangu said, her eyes tearing at the memory. But we didnt know it would divide the community.

Winnie Wangu, a member of the Nairobi Synagogue, converted to Judaism in 2016. (Cara Tabachnick)

As the only synagogue in Kenya, the congregation was plagued by the numbers problem affecting many Jewish communities in sub-Saharan African countries (excluding Ethiopia, Uganda and South Africa). In Kenya there are about 300 Jews, and about half of them have ties with the synagogue. Members of the small community consisting of about 80 families often didnt have enough men to form a minyan a quorum of 10 required for prayer under Jewish law in their synagogue, which opened its doors in 1912 to serve the smattering of European Jews who passed through Kenya for business and professional matters. They didnt have a permanent rabbi either, until last year.

But the community, which contained several white Europeans and other non-native Kenyans, struggled with the decision to open their doors to Wangijus conversion request.

The congregation didnt have the knowledge to perform the rituals and were concerned about the religious and ethical implications. The synagogues original constitution stated that any conversions must be Orthodox to be accepted. In missionary-heavy Kenya, which boasts numerous churches in every neighborhood, Jews are also cautious about proselytizing.

It was just not possible for us to do it here, said David Silverstein, an American heart surgeon and doctor to former Kenyan President Daniel arap Moi who has lived in Kenya since 1974 and often acted as the head of the Jewish community.

So Wangiju, her family and the small group of others who followed her footsteps and also hoped to convert, decided to head to neighboring Uganda, home to the Abayudaya Jewish community led by Rabbi Gershom Sizomu.

The Abayudaya community, which saw its own size increase in recent decades with the help of conversions overseen by American Conservative rabbis, has run into the kinds of obstacles the Nairobi community was afraid of: in late 2017, an Abayudaya member was detained at Ben-Gurion airport and sent home, despite obtaining permission to study at a Conservative yeshiva. Israel has faced repeated criticism for its handling of immigrants from Africa and its treatment of non-Orthodox converts.

To ensure their conversions would be accepted back home, the Kenyan Jews worked with a small community of Abayudaya Jews who had their conversions and training overseen by orthodox Rabbi Shlomo Riskin, a founding rabbi of New Yorks Lincoln Square Synagogue, who now is the chief rabbi of Efrat, Israel. Wangiju and her family had their Orthodox conversions overseen by Riskin.

Over 20 years after stepping into the Israeli embassy, Wangiju converted in 2012. Wangu, her twin brother Rickson, 53, and sister, Malka, 55, converted on June 3, 2016, and returned to Kenya, where they met a divided community.

Florence Wangiju poses for a photo on the street during a trip to Israel. (Courtesy of Winnie Wangu)

But eventually community members concluded that accepting the converts was one of the only ways to keep the synagogue vibrant and open.

Realistically the community was going to be dead soon. We couldnt even have a minyan, said Silverstein. If we wanted to have a continuing Jewish community in Kenya we had to accept the fact that every Jew is not going to have a white Ashkenazi background.

Many members of the congregation didnt agree at first, and many began to leave the community, dismayed by the acceptance of Wangiju and her children. At first, congregants didnt want to accept the conversion because it was done in Uganda not Israel. Silverstein said arguments over whether the new converts should be called to the bimah, or synagogue platform, to lead prayer became hostile.

There was a small group of holdouts that didnt want the Kenyans to be accepted to pray, said Silverstein. They would talk behind his back, he said, and not confront him in person because of his standing in the community.

Race was an unspoken factor Silverstein had two half-Kenyan sons who had converted to Judaism in the United States and were easily accepted into the community.

I questioned why they would accept my children easily but not the new Kenyan converts, said Silverstein.

The congregation refused to call Winnies brother, Rickson, to be part of a minyan.

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We would come to pray, but they would pass over my brother to join the minyan although he was sitting right there, said Wangu.

Some members wanted an Israeli authority to certify the conversions. The synagogues governing council stated that they had their own rules and regulations and did not need permission from Israel to accept the conversions. Eventually Silverstein decided to write to Israel to a liberal rabbi group who decreed that the conversions should be accepted.

After that, for the most part in the end, they eventually backed down, Silverstein said. Regular attendees began to accept the converts. The conversions continued, and Wangijus extended family, including three of her children, and two grandchildren converted to Judaism, along with three other Kenyan families, making up a significant portion of the congregation.

In total there are now about 20 converted Kenyans more than a third of the congregants that attend the synagogue regularly.

As the years passed, tensions eventually began to thaw, and eventually the congregation called Rickson to the bimah. In 2018, the synagogue hosted its first bar mitzvah for a mixed Kenyan and European family, and everyone was invited.

For the first time in almost 20 years, children were at the shul, and Black and white families prayed together, Wangu said.

By then the group had become large enough to bring in a rabbi, Netanel Kaszovitz, 28, and his young family from Israel, last March, through synagogue membership fees, donations, money earned from kosher certification services and fundraiser events. Kaszovitz, an Orthodox Jew from Gush Etzion, and his wife, Avital, studied in the Straus-Amiel program, which trains rabbis to strengthen Jewish identity and participation in the diaspora (and no affiliation with the Chabad-Lubavitch movement, which sends emissaries around the world with a similar mission).

A view inside the Nairobi synagogue. (Cara Tabachnick)

Our emissaries are specially trained to empower the building of personal and educational relationships to inspire passion and lasting love for Israel and Judaism, while also combating assimilation and alienation, said Rabbi Kenneth Brander, president of the umbrella organization Ohr Torah Stone, which runs the training program, in a written statement to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

The Kaszovitzes were open to the challenges of working in Africa, as they had previously hosted Shabbats in Thailand and the Philippines, and they appreciated the uniqueness of being Jewish in Kenya. In a country where 85% of the population were practicing Christians and 11% are Muslims most had never met a person of the Jewish faith.

Who ends up in Africa? Kaszovitz said, What brings people here? And how do we keep the Jewish faith alive?

Within the eight months since his arrival, the new rabbi instituted two religious study classes for congregants and Torah study for children, the first-ever courses in the synagogues history. He said wanted to bring the community closer together but ensure congregants were adhering to Jewish laws.

Wangu said the community now has a deeper understanding of how to practice their Judaism.

He treats us as Jews, hes healed the community and brought us together, Wangu said, referencing the former racial and conversion divides. Many people come with promises, but this is the first rabbi thats kept them. And because of that, we have the courage to be better Jews.

Attendance at the synagogue has grown. On Shabbat they easily form a minyan, and congregants are able to read portions of the Torah and prayers they had not previously known.

Wangiju never got to see the changes that she was the catalyst for all those years ago when she knocked on the door of the Israeli embassy, as she died in 2017 at 68. But she would have been proud, her children said, that no matter how many years it took to gain acceptance, they eventually did.

Wangiju was buried in the Jewish cemetery in Nairobi and Jews from across Africa and the world attended the funeral, said Wangu. Congregation members helped them sit shiva.

We werent born Jews, Wangu said. But we know we will die as Jews.

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Posted By admin on April 7, 2022

(JTA) Ezra Furmans latest song title, Book Of Our Names, might sound familiar thats because the indie rockers newest song is inspired by the Hebrew title for the Bibles Book of Exodus.

Furman said the track, released Monday, is a protest song intended for use by any movement for collective survival and freedom. In a statement, she said she sings it as a Jew and as a trans woman.

This song is about what it feels like to live together under an empire that doesnt value your lives, said Furman, who revealed last year that she had become a mother and a rabbinical student.

In the verses, Furman sings, I want there to be a book of our names. I want it to tell of our exile here / In a cruel machinery, our bodies between the gears / And our world back home just the ghost of a prayer / And I want us to read it aloud.

Furman, 35, has released five full well received solo rock albums while observing Shabbat and has written previous songs with Jewish themes and references. In 2016 before coming out as trans she released a song titled The Refugee, about her Jewish grandfather who fled the Nazis.

After releasing her latest album in 2019, Furman contributed music to the Netflix hit series Sex Education.

Read her full interview with JTA from last year here.

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Ezra Furmans new song is inspired by her experience as a Jew and as a trans woman - JTA News - Jewish Telegraphic Agency

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Posted By admin on April 7, 2022

I always wanted for my family what I observe in so many other Jewish families: that feeling of deep connection that comes from being part of a Jewish community.

To build bonds, I said yes when asked to teach a Yom Kippur study session at a local synagogue. I said yes when asked to provide feedback to rabbis on diversity initiatives. I said yes to a shuls search committee and to the invitation to plot and plan how to transform into a multiracial, anti-racist congregation.

Ten years later after all the diversity committees, reviewing of draft congregant surveys and sermons, I look out at my community and there is little, dare I say nothing, to show for these efforts.

The same affluent, cisgender, white men chant from the bimah. There are no former campers of color working at the shuls summer camps. There are no Black, Asian or Latino Jewish teenagers behind the desk to welcome folks to the front office. And its not just the synagogues Ive interacted with there is essentially no racial diversity in leadership anywhere in our progressive shuls in our progressive towns in our progressive states.

And I dont see it changing any time soon, since rabbinical hiring processes tend to prioritize the rarefied, traditional training that few clergy of color have, to date, fully acquired.

I recently had a very difficult conversation with a senior congregational rabbi Ive worked with for years. Beyond her good intentions, we talked about their failure to implement any tools or strategies that institutionalize efforts toward ensuring a multiracial, anti-racist synagogue community. I told them that goodwill and intentions are not strategies.

I pointed to the absence of institutional policies and how their absence thwarted their stated objectives of ever having the shul and its leadership reflect the racial diversity of the Jewish community. I explained that the lack of progress literally none that could be measured was in fact regressive and harmful to the community.

Lack of policies and practices to ensure a multiracial, anti-racist community, and failure to create and support pathways to diverse role models and diverse leadership reinforces a false narrative of who is a Jew and a Jewish leader in the United States, harming and arresting the development of us all.

My experience isnt unique. I know there are hundreds if not thousands of Jews of color working with passion and fever to transform their communities into ones that embody anti-racist values and reflect the racial diversity of the American Jewish community.

I am so grateful to them. I also share their frustration. We must work through congregational and organizational leaders to activate and eventually institutionalize durable multiracial, anti-racist change. Yet it is our leaders who inadequately respond to racism and white supremacy in the Jewish community.

When youre Black, queer or female or all three every moment of institutional power attainment comes with a parallel consciousness about the significance of responsibilities that come with that power. With the opportunity and authority to deal in power also comes a sense of yirah, Hebrew for awe or fear. It is an extraordinary and sometimes heavy responsibility to hold power power that can both help and harm.

Many of our white leaders come from predominantly white communities. They are products of those environments. They are often born into power pathways designed to serve them, pathways indelibly informed by policies and practices related to race, gender, affluence and Jewish communal history.

And when one is of an environment, it can be hard to see the self from outside of that environment. Until we, collectively, are able to responsibly own and hold power, it will be difficult to be in an honest and intimate relationship with our power.

Last year, Beyond the Count a study commissioned by the group I lead, the Jews of Color Initiative found that 80% of Jews of color have experienced discrimination in the U.S. Jewish community. Of the more than 1,000 Jews of color surveyed, just 13% said Jewish leaders are doing an adequate job responding to racism in our communal organizations.

Decades and decades of quiet reinforcement of racism, a paucity of communal leaders of color, and a lack of bold, catalyzing public commitments has created communal hardship that our leaders can and must remedy and repair.

We must begin by planting our feet firmly on the side of courageous and righteous justice. Among other things, this means we own our communal influence, take risks, and speak truth to power. Leveraging the leanings about the impact of racism and white supremacy on Jews of color, we as leaders have the opportunity and responsibility to commit publicly to halting the legacy of racism and white supremacy in our organizations.

This must be done even when we dont yet know how to halt this legacy, and it must be done publicly to build accountability. It is powerful to own and name harm and to walk away from parts of our past that dont serve us as the Jewish people.

But I want to ask more of leaders, and more of myself.

First, those of us with institutional authority must employ bring to all we do a view of leadership informed by racial equity and justice. Leading a diverse population requires intentional training and skill. And that training must include works, voices, pedagogy and conceptual frameworks from people of color. This training is vital; it imbues us with the capacity to stand in front of our communities and explain with integrity, clarity and care the value-proposition for the Jewish community to see and understand itself as multiracial.

Second, sitting leaders must construct their succession plans for the next three, five, seven and 10 years with racial diversity as a clear goal. Chief executive officers, presidents, executive directors and board members should not only be thinking about how to attract the best visionaries and organizational developers, but those who also reflect the perspectives and experiences of the Jewish community theyll be working with now and well into the future.

I dont have a strategic plan for how we, as the current collective of national Jewish leaders, will make transformative communal change. Instead, I have an invitation.

Leaders: look at the data. Look at our communities, and commit right now to do everything in your power to reduce the percentage of Jews of color telling us they experience racism and discrimination in the organizations we run.

Lets increase that paltry 13% statistic that reflects the number of Jews of color who believe we as leaders are doing an adequate job responding to racism in our communities.

Lets feel the feelings alarm, sadness, disappointment, even a sense of failure.

And then lets keep it moving. Ten more years is too long for any Jew of color to further endure racism in our organizations, to not receive adequate and appropriate care from leaders, and to not see a reflection of ourselves on the bimah or in the C-Suite.

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

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

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Despite 10 years of promises, Jewish leaders have failed to make space for Jews of color - Forward

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Posted By admin on April 7, 2022

'In the event of war with Israel, the mullahs will not hesitate to use them as bargaining chips'

In 1979, shortly after the Islamic Revolution in Iran and the coming to power of the mullahs, notables from the country's Jewish community asked to meet Ayatollah Khomeini, the country's new strongman ruler.

The Jewish leaders brought a tray filled with gold and silver in which they concealed a check for ten million dollars: the Jewish community of Iran had just bought its peace. The next day, Khomeini declared that anyone who attacked a Jew should be held accountable.

After the fall of the Shah and his autocratic power, Irans Jews aspired to continue living as peacefully as possible in a region they had already inhabited for 2,000 years. Unlike the Jewish communities in other Muslim lands, this minority never suffered persecution in Iran, and was therefore never forced to flee. Those who immigrated to Israel after its founding in 1948 did so of their own free will.

However, these hopes did not last long. The arbitrary show trial and execution in May 1979 of businessman Habib Elghanian - one of the wealthiest and most influential figures in Iran's Jewish community - marked for many Iranians Jews the signal that they should leave. While there were 100,000 before the Islamic Revolution, the vast majority of them left the country.

The others chose to stay, and are still there with their children and grandchildren. Now numbering between 9,000 and 15,000 according to estimates, Iran's Jewish community remains the third largest in the Middle East, after those of Israel and Turkey.

How does one explain the fact that there are still so many Jews living in this fundamentalist Muslim country, a state which nourishes a real obsession for the eradication of Israel?

The fact that this community has a large number of elderly people speaking only Persian, and for whom leaving would be difficult, is not negligible. However, the main reason why Jews stay is their relative financial well-being.

"Jews are undeniably materially successful in Iran, and know that their possessions and savings converted into dollars would be worth next to nothing. They cling to what they have," Jewish community president Zion Hasid told i24NEWS, speaking to the studio in Israel from Iran.

Hassid, who lives in Jerusalem, left Iran for Israel some 60 years ago, when he was 20 years old. This businessman, who made his fortune in real estate, finances cultural activities intended to bring Israelis closer to their Iranian origins, and tries to promote immigration from Iran which remains, to his great regret, stubbornly modest.

While Israel welcomed some 600 Iranian Jews in the early 2000s, for more than a decade little or no immigration from that country has been recorded in the Jewish state.

Even the financial incentives of the government in 2007, supported by philanthropists, did nothing to change this: the $10,000 promised to each Iranian immigrant upon arrival were not enough to trigger a major wave of immigration, and only a hundred families answered the call.

However, the period seemed particularly auspicious, with the presence in power of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who constantly sharpened his murderous rhetoric with regard to Israel, calling for the country to be wiped off the map. But the country's Jews, again, chose to turn their backs.

Certain reflexes - guarantors of their security - are an integral part of the way of life for Iranian Jews. Many traders, exporters or businessmen, most of whom live in Tehran with their families, do not hide their origins, but know that they must go about their business without making waves and above all while refraining from discussing politics.

Thus, the jewelers of the capital do not hesitate to put pendants in the shape of the Star of David in their windows but avoid sensitive subjects with their customers.

The anti-Zionism and support for the Palestinians that many of these Jews display is also dictated by this same instinct for self-preservation. In 2015, we could see Dr. Ciamak Moresadegh, a Jewish deputy, engage in a violent anti-Israel diatribe alongside President Rouhani, whom he accompanied to the UN General Assembly.

"They criticize Israel in public because they know that is what is expected of them, but in their hearts and in the synagogues their prayers are turned to Jerusalem," Hassid told i24NEWS.

Beyond these constraints, the Jews of Iran, most of whom are religious, benefit from a community life such as is found in many diaspora countries: they have synagogues where they celebrate weddings and bar mitzvas (there are around fifteen in Tehran alone), schools, ritual baths as well as kosher products and restaurants.

All this under the benevolent eye of the regime, which while proclaiming its aversion to Israel and Zionism, has always taken care to establish a distinction with Judaism. It never fails to highlight its respect for the Jews, a point it advertises widely.

The seat reserved for the Jewish community in parliament - as for every minority - or the recent state-funded renovations to synagogues and the tomb of Mordechai and Esther (of Purim fame), are part of this strategy of the "white paw."

"Unlike in Europe, there are no guards at the entrance to our synagogues and our schools," said the Chief Rabbi of Iran, Yehuda Garami, in 2020.

So many aspects that allow the Jews to affirm that they are treated as equals with the Muslim population of the country, with whom they maintain good relations.

"Iranians have no hostility towards Jews. Most do not even have any towards Israel. They hate the (Iranian) regime and are not in solidarity with its positions," affirms Hassid.

But the Jews who left Iran are not fooled. "This community lives in a gilded prison and doesn't realize how limited their rights are. They live in a circumscribed space that they call freedom because they have no other reference," Hassid told i24NEWS.

"As children, we were beaten daily on the way to school, and our mothers were not allowed to touch fruits and vegetables in the market because Jews were unclean, but we thought that was all normal, because that's how we always lived," he laments.

Additionally, Jews cannot work in the public service, nor in the army, nor in higher education and journeying to Israel is prohibited, Hassid said. Not exactly what youd call ordinary, equal, citizenship therefore.

For the Iranian intellectual and writer Ramin Parham, who lives in France, the denial demonstrated by Iranian Jews results as much from their own survival instinct as it does from the propaganda of the Iranian regime.

Parham points out that the concept that anti-Zionism is distinct from anti-Semitism was not invented by the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign (BDS) or the radical left, but was developed by the fathers of the Islamic revolution with the aim of reassuring the western world.

"The mullahs are above all good communicators, who quickly understood that the credibility of the regime on the international scene relied on its respect for the Jews and other minorities in the country. But it is only a question of saving appearances," Ramin Parham told i24NEWS.

The Jews versus the "Zionist regime" is a rhetoric that has simultaneously allowed Iran to make Israel its number one enemy, while generating an insoluble conflict of loyalty for the country's Jews. "We are Jews, but we are not Zionists," the minority claims.

The Iranian regime has eyes and ears everywhere a fact not lost on its Jewish population - and suspicions of dual allegiance are never far away. Nor do they forget the fate of ten Iranian Jews convicted in 2000 of spying for Israel, some of whom were executed. At most we have heard them say, about the Holocaust cartoon competitions and Ahmadinejad's Holocaust denial, that the president "must not be sufficiently informed."

George has lived for several years in Israel, while his parents are still in Iran. However, the scars of fear are still present on him, and he was reluctant to talk about his family, out of fear for their safety.

He appeared to weigh each of his words, before speaking. The Jews of Iran live well, and their Muslim neighbors respect them, he said.

"If they work and live in their corner without being noticed, there is no problem," he told i24NEWS. However, he regrets that his parents do not have the opportunity to travel to Israel and that he cannot visit them, he admits. He has not seen his parents in three years.

Parham affirms this idea. This distinction between the Jews and Israel will not survive an open conflict between Iran and the Jewish State.

A hypothetical scenario that seems more and more likely, while Iran inches closer to the nuclear threshold, and that the agreement about to be signed in Vienna may do nothing to curb.

"The Jews of Iran are all potential hostages. In the event of a war with Israel, the mullahs will not hesitate to use them as bargaining chips. They are on borrowed time."

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Jews Of Iran: A Community On Borrowed Time - I24NEWS - i24NEWS

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Posted By admin on April 7, 2022

Mostyska is a town that very few people had ever heard of before March.

Its a small, very old city in the far west of Ukraine; it often changed hands, sometimes Ukrainian, sometimes Polish, always picturesque, often unsafe.

Now, its one of the places Ukrainians go through as they flee the Russian invasion thats brutally killing them, and its a place where Israel has set up a field hospital called Shining

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When Shelly Winters of Morris Plains read a story about Shining Star, she knew exactly where it was. (See the storyjewishstandard.timesofisrael.com/healing-strangers-in-the-midst-of-a-war-zone/)

The Winters put up this stone to as a memorial for the murdered Jewsof Mostyska.

In 2011, she and her husband, Stephen Winters, took a 10-day trip to eastern Europe to see where their parents, all of them Holocaust survivors, had come from. They traveled with a Ukrainian guide, who interpreted for them.

Ms. Winters mother, Bertha Singer Reich, who died last year, during the pandemic, was born in Mostyka. We visited the town, we spoke to some townspeople, we visited the place where the cemetery had been, and then we went to the mayors office and got permission to put up the monument, Ms. Winters said. And then they left.

The Ukrainians she and her husband met in Mostyka told the Winters that a Jewish cemetery once had stood on land that now lay fallow. The towns Jews had been rounded up, brought there, shot there, and bundled into a mass grave there, they were told.

To add to the horror, the countryside was beautiful, she said. If there hadnt been the war, we probably would still be living there. It was very green, very peaceful. You could understand how the Jews had lived there, with their extended families, for generations.

In 2011, Shelly Winters, far left, and her husband, Stephen Winters, flank two Ukrainians they met in Mostyska.

Instead, almost all the towns Jews were murdered, and the lucky ones were chased away. One remained I think he was the only Jew who came back to the town, Ms. Winters said and toward the end of her life, before Alzheimers silenced her, Ms. Reich talked to him by phone.

During their visit, Shelly and Stephen Winters decided to commission a monument that would stand at the cemetery, a memorial to the towns Jews.

It was erected a few months after the Winters visit. Ms. Winters feared that it might be vandalized, but she learned that a fence had been put up around it to safeguard it; that was the work of the towns sole surviving Jew, she surmises.

The Israelis who staffed Shining Star had heard about the monument too, she said; the story she read about it told her that the towns mayor took the Israeli medical staff to the monument, and they said kaddish there, she reported.

And then the Israelis went back to their Muslim and Christian colleagues and continued to save lives.

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Remembering the Jews of Mostyska - The Jewish Standard

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Posted By admin on April 7, 2022

Moments after being welcomed to Twitter by Matt Lucas (@RealMattLucas), actor Elliot Levey (@ellevey) was receiving compliments about his pineapple. I loved you and your pineapple very very much! said one enthusiastic Tweet tailed with a pineapple emoji, which would have baffled anyone who has not yet seen the musical Cabaret in which Elliot stars.

The prop for the perfect Love Song

Audiences who have seen the show since it opened at The Playhouse in February, wont have forgotten the exquisite moment when Elliot, as elderly Jewish fruit shop owner Herr Schultz, presents non- Jewish landlady Fraulein Schneider with the tropical fruit. To give some context to this gift, a fresh pineapple in depression-ridden 1937 Germany was a luxury seldom seen, and the duet It Couldnt Please Me More (aka The Pineapple Song) conveys this and leads to the couples engagement. Their wedding, which uses the smashing of glass to signal Kristallnacht, is a sub-plot that was excised from the 1972 film Cabaret. But Elliot saw it so long ago that most of the shows content was a total surprise. I had these vague images in my brain and the music was familiar, but I entered with genuine ignorance you cant fake because Id never seen it on stage, he recalls.

Elliot as Robespierre(left) and Toby Stephens as Danton in Dantons Death

To say the actor, best known for Shakespeare at the National and persuasive TV roles, has since got to grips with Cabaret is an understatement. As we went to press, the man who doesnt do musicalswas about to hear if hed won an Olivier award for best supporting actor in a musical. Ahead of the drum roll, Elliot was endearingly modest about being one of Cabarets 11 nominations. Theyve never really come my way before, so I was thrilled about this one, he said. But then he was back to heaping praise on the shows director Rebecca Frecknall, whom he referred to as the proper best and Omari Douglas who was playing Isherwood Cliff Bradshaw , before enthusing about the new cast that takes over the Kit Kat from April 7.

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Liza Sadovy, Elliot Levey Eddie Redmayne, Jessie Buckley and Omari Douglas at Olivier Awards nominations

Now Amy Lennox is Sally Bowles replacing Jessie Buckley and Fra Fee is taking on the role of The Emcee from Eddie Redmayne, with whom he starred in the film Les Miserables.Elliot and his understudy got Covidat the farewell party, but he remains philosophical despite missing the new casts first preview.

Fra Fee as The Emcee

It was really sad when they left because we built the show together as a group. And its a little family. But it would have been really sad ifwe were all finishing and if Id been leaving Id have been devastated. There is also a sense of spring cleaning with new people joining, which isa real shot in the arm. Theyre so keen and enthusiastic. Not that we werent, but everyone has to up their game and sort of go back to the drawing board because its new again. Fra has a different energy to Eddie, and the most astonishing voice Ive ever heard. As soon as he opens his gob, its amazing.

Elliots engagement dance with Stewart-Clarke as Ernst Ludwig

Elliot is also giving his pineapple to a new Fraulein Schneider (Vivien Parry) after 150 shows courting Liza Sadovy. Its not quite speed dating, but Ive got to find a different way to win her heart. In the new era of equal representation, it isnt lost on Elliot that being cast as the Jewish fruiterer falls within the remit. Born in Leeds in 1973 which was like London in the 1950s the actor grew up proper frum, wearing a yarmulke and laying tefillin every day. I was the full megillah. Although his parents werent Orthodox, Elliots father, a Geordie, was a tad mystical. So they sent me to some ridiculous Lubavitch cheder, but I thought it was fun.

Hitting puberty, however, the once zealous Talmud student had an epiphany and spent the next 20 years rejecting religion. Its only now, in my old age, Ive gone chill. Its fine. Its good. Now Elliot is loving being a member of Finchley Progressive and was delighted when his friends expressed rabbi envy at the sight of Rabbi Rebecca Birk at the barmitzvahs of his three sons.My boys are cool north London Jews who are blonde and blue-eyed, like my missus. They look like the Jew I want to be. The Jew who never gets cast as a Jew.

Elliot with his wife Emma

That his missus Emma Loach is the daughter of film director Ken, renowned for his Israel critiques and Palestinian support is a bit of a curveball for those who like their politics clear cut. But Ken has been with them at shul and Elliot has nothing but admiration for his father-in-law, who has yet to cast him in any of his projects. Ive probably made myself the last actor in Equity ever to be employed in a Ken Loach film, says the openly Israel-supporting performer.

Elliot plans to stay in Cabaret for the next six months, but will also start rehearsals with director Dominic Cooke for a reimagined production of CP Taylors Good with David Tennant and Fenella Woolgar. Its a sort of accompaniment to Cabaret as its set in Germany at the start of Nazism and revolves around a friendship between a Jewish psychoanalyst my role and an academic who is unconsciously drawn into the party. So it slowly descends into one running the camp and the other in a camp.

First staged 20 years ago, Good is described as the definitive play about the Holocaust in English theatre and Elliot believes CP Taylor, a Glaswegian Jew, has written the most brilliantly-conceived Jewish role Ive ever read. He adds: Its full of irony, self-hatred and that dont lump me in with all the other Jews were not all the same attitude.

Elliot with David-Tennant soon to-appear together in-CP-Taylors Good

Originally scheduled for 2020, the pandemic put an end to that, but Elliot is delighted to be moving from one Jewish role to another. Yes, Im a Jew now, he exclaims, but has an unfavourable view of like-for-like casting if the performance isnt authentic.I was wholly convinced by Tamsin Greig as the Jewish mum in Friday Night Dinner but despite other peoples verdicts, for me, Tom Hardy as the horrible gangster in Peaky Blinders is the least convincing Jew. I couldnt watch it. Its just a horrible, non-Jewish semi-racist performance. If the minority being represented doesnt think the performance is authenticyouve f***ed it.

Elliot Levey never fails to be incontrovertible and also now convinces as a pineapple grower. My missus bought me a pineapple bush in a pot as a first night present. Apparently they go dormant in winter andyou dont water them. But its on top of the fridge and suddenly its gone hello and sprung back into life. Much like Elliot dancing in a musical.

For Cabaret tickets at The Playhouse, visit: http://www.kitkat.club/cabaret-london. For Good tickets at The Pinter, visit: http://www.haroldpintertheatre.co.uk/good

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"I'm the Jew!" - Jewish News

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Posted By admin on April 7, 2022

Ralph Leo Oppler

Ralph Leo Oppler, 86, passed away on March 30, 2022. Born in Middletown, New York to Charles and Jetta Oppler, Ralph was introduced to the love of his life by his sister, Joan, and they married on September 22, 1957. They began their journey together at Camp Lejeune in Jacksonville, North Carolina where he was stationed. In 1961, they headed north where they eventually settled in Ridgefield, New Jersey. Ralph became involved in many youth programs, including the town's 7th/8th grade basketball league where he became a long-time coach. Ralph had a passion for basketball and the local kids. As a result, he helped many players develop through high school by arranging and coaching high-level teams that played throughout the Metropolitan area, including Harlem and Paterson.

Ralph and Ruth eventually moved to Fair Lawn where Ralph, after a successful career as a fundraiser for B'nai B'rith International, became an entrepreneur as the sole proprietor of "Business Builders" which published guide books for the real estate industry. Ralph represented companies throughout the country with these publications. He eventually sold the business so he and Ruth could relocate to Boynton Beach, Florida where they seamlessly settled into their new home in the Majestic Isles community.

Ralph loved his new community and made many new friends. He became involved in various support groups where he became a mentor to so many. On Saturday nights, Ralph and Ruth would enjoy dinner with so many friends at The Palm Diner. They enjoyed sitting in the driveway seeing their friends and also going on cruises. As much as he loved those activities, they paled in comparison to how he felt about his family.

He was the #1 fan and cheerleader of his 3 children, 10 grandchildren and 4 great grandchildren. Ralph and Ruth enthusiastically looked forward to their FaceTime calls and visits following all of the accomplishments and milestones in all of their lives, not to mention all of the calls just because... Ralph was such a dedicated fan of his family, he often traveled to watch his grandchildren compete athletically around the country. It was one of his greatest joys.

Ralph was predeceased by his loving wife of 64 years, Ruth, who passed just months before Ralph on January 9, 2022. He is survived by his three children and their spouses; son Charles and Geri Oppler, daughter Robin (Oppler) and Mark Thea and son Stephen and Lynn Oppler. They were the center of his life. That was until one by one his ten grandchildren came along. His grandchildren, who all loved and talked to their "Poppy" on a regular basis are Jacky, Michael (and his wife Lindsay), Jarrett, Grant, Danielle, Broc (and his fianc Angelica), Jessica, Sadie (and her husband Justin), Karli and Jason. As the family grew, his grandchildren blessed him with four great grandchildren, Zachary, Gabrielle, Decker and Rio. Nothing gave Poppy more pleasure than talking with his grandchildren and receiving photos and videos of his great grandchildren. He will surely miss the additional great grandchild who will arrive in the coming months. Ralph is additionally survived by cousins, nieces and nephews, as well as his sister Joan Salomon.

Ralph will forever be remembered for his heartfelt pride in family, his "Good morning" greeting any time of day, and his appreciation for all who played a special role in his life.

There will be a service Thursday at 11:30am at the Cedar Park Cemetery in Paramus, NJ /Abraham and Sarah Mausoleum.

Posted online on April 04, 2022

Published in Record and Herald News

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Ralph Leo Oppler Obituary - The Record/Herald News - NorthJersey.com

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Posted By admin on April 6, 2022

A Jewish congregation in New York City has moved to evict Rhode Island congregants who worship at the nations oldest synagogue as part of a long-running dispute over control of the historic building.

The New York-based Congregation Shearith Israel on Monday filed a motion in state Superior Court to take control of Touro Synagogue by removing its current tenants the Newport-based Congregation Jeshuat Israel.

Congregation Shearith Israel said in court documents that it sent a notice in October demanding that Congregation Jeshuat Israel leave the premises as of Monday.

CJI, and any others still in possession of the premises, must vacate the premises as of midnight on the termination date, Shearith Israel wrote.

Members of Congregation Jeshuat Israel released a statement Friday saying their goal was to have a long-term lease so the congregation could have the security of knowing they and future generations can continue to worship in the synagogue.

They said they are willing to take full responsibility for maintaining the building and maintaining orthodox services, with the hope of expanding the congregation.

Touro Synagogue is our home, and the place where we have worshipped and been the sole caretakers, for almost 140 years, members of the congregation wrote.

Louis Solomon, president of Congregation Shearith Israel said the congregation is seeking to change the board overseeing the day-to-day activities at Touro Synagogue, but doesnt want to bar members of Congregation Jeshuat Israel.

No congregants are being evicted. None will be, ever, Solomon said. Shearith Israel also hopes the current Rabbi of Touro will consider staying, as he is very welcome.

Solomon said Congregation Shearith Israel is exercising rights granted it by the final court decision and that their disagreement is solely with a few members of the Congregation Jeshuat Israel Board.

The move is the latest action in a lengthy legal battle over the synagogue and a set of Colonial-era bells that has valued at $7.4 million.

In 2019, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to intervene in the fight over control of the synagogue and the bells. That decision left in place a ruling that the Rhode Island synagogue will remain the property of the New York congregation.

The Congregation Jeshuat Israel has worshipped at Touro since the late 1800s and had wanted the courts to declare that it owned the more than 250-year-old synagogue and the Torah bells, called rimonim. It had hoped to sell the bells to the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston as a way to shore up its finances.

Manhattans Congregation Shearith Israel, the nations oldest Jewish congregation, became trustee of Touro after Jews left Newport in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. It had fought the plan to sell the bells.

A trial judge initially awarded control of the property and the bells to the Newport congregation, but the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals went the other way, giving them to the congregation from Manhattan.

Touro Synagogue was dedicated in 1763 and is a national historic site.

The synagogue was visited by George Washington in 1790, and he later sent its congregants a letter declaring that the government of the United States gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance. It attracts tens of thousands of visitors annually.

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Congregation facing eviction from nations oldest synagogue

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Posted By admin on April 6, 2022

A judge on Wednesday sentenced a man accused of a series of hate crimes against a Carmichael synagogue and neighborhood to 180 days in jail, the Sacramento County District Attorneys Office said. Nicholas Sherman pleaded guilty to a felony count of desecrating a religious symbol on the property of the Shalom Le Israel synagogue in Carmichael and a misdemeanor count of terrorism for leaving flyers with a Nazi swastika on the grounds of the Deterding Elementary School. Sherman faces two years of probation after serving the jail sentence and cannot possess Aryan Nations propaganda. The hate crimes happened on Oct. 4 and 20, according to authorities. (Previous coverage in video above.)| RELATED | 'I forgive him': Rabbi's message to man charged with hate crimes against synagogueThe rabbi at Shalom Le Israel provided pictures of a menorah with pictures of Hitler taped all over it and the words, Hitler was right.Sherman was also charged for placing bags of uncooked rice with Aryan Nations flyers containing a swastika on the doorsteps of a number of homes.He was captured on video surveillance footage and his prints were on the bags, the Sacramento County DAs office said.

A judge on Wednesday sentenced a man accused of a series of hate crimes against a Carmichael synagogue and neighborhood to 180 days in jail, the Sacramento County District Attorneys Office said.

Nicholas Sherman pleaded guilty to a felony count of desecrating a religious symbol on the property of the Shalom Le Israel synagogue in Carmichael and a misdemeanor count of terrorism for leaving flyers with a Nazi swastika on the grounds of the Deterding Elementary School.

Sherman faces two years of probation after serving the jail sentence and cannot possess Aryan Nations propaganda.

The hate crimes happened on Oct. 4 and 20, according to authorities. (Previous coverage in video above.)

| RELATED | 'I forgive him': Rabbi's message to man charged with hate crimes against synagogue

The rabbi at Shalom Le Israel provided pictures of a menorah with pictures of Hitler taped all over it and the words, Hitler was right.

Sherman was also charged for placing bags of uncooked rice with Aryan Nations flyers containing a swastika on the doorsteps of a number of homes.

He was captured on video surveillance footage and his prints were on the bags, the Sacramento County DAs office said.

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Man sentenced to 180 days in jail for Carmichael hate ...

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