Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By admin on March 20, 2022

A new book on the Venetian Ghetto, formed by the municipal government of Venice in the early 1500s to confine Italian Jews, explores the ongoing cultural impact of this first-ever such space. Initially intended to segregate and control Jewish people, centuries later during the Second World War, over 1,000 Nazi ghettos were established across Europe to facilitate deportation and murder. Recently, Benjamin Ivry spoke with Katharine Trostel, one of the books coauthors, who teaches English at Ursuline College, Ohio, about inspiration and grief from the Venetian Ghetto legacy.

Benjamin Ivry: Did admiration inspire Venices leaders to lock Jews down rather than expel them, as other European powers did? In 1516, a local notable announced that Jewish skills and income were better exploited to benefit Venice, than sent outside to assist a foreign power.

Katharine Trostel: The Venetian Ghetto was arguably both a refuge and a place of cultural exchange. Initially it was a mode of containment transformed by the people who lived within it. We tend to think of the word ghetto now as having a negative connotation and that might have always been the case. But it offered a level of protection to be all together in one spot. It offered self-determination, a way of creating community. Arguably, throughout history, the two models of Jewish experience have been Diaspora and ghettoization.

The Jewish population of the Venetian Ghetto has rarely exceeded a few hundred people. Why so much interpretive focus on this tiny group?

It was a place of cultural production. Hebrew printing flourished in Venice. Famous scholars and poets were there, like Sarra Copia Sullam, who held a literary salon in the Ghetto, but also crossed literary boundaries. Her literary salon was shut down halfway during her career because she was accused of challenging the immortality of the soul. The hope is that the symbolic resonance of the way the word Ghetto resonates can be used as a touchstone for cultural memory.

Courtesy of University of Massachuset...

The Venice Ghetto: A new study published by the University of Massachusetts explains the significance of a place of both cultural production and trauma.

Venice was called La Serenissima (the Most Serene) as a trading empire, but life was never serene in the unsanitary, overcrowded Venetian Ghetto.

Its often described as a place where the skyscraper was invented, as the inhabitants were really crowded into a place where space was limited. They were forbidden from decorating, to not draw attention to their buildings from the outside, so people often comment that the Ghetto is very plain. They werent allowed windows facing outside because the gaze of Jews supposedly might contaminate other Venetians, so all the walls that face canals have no windows.

The art historian Dana Katz has argued that since Jewish women were considered especially licentious in 1500s Venice, the Ghetto evolved as an institution of exclusion that regulated Jewish sexuality, but such an exclusion of sexuality itself became a sexual act in that it aroused in the Christian imagination an explicit world of Jewish carnality. Does any of this allure remain in the Ghetto today?

Not that I noticed, no. If you didnt know where you were going, I dont think youd even notice you were in the Ghetto. Its a very clean, nondescript area of the city. The buildings are not particularly adorned on the outside. There are street signs if you are very observant, but when we were given a tour of the place, there are a lot of absences. Theres a mark on a door where a mezuzah used to hang. So its like a reconstruction in the imagination to see what life was like.

Would the Venetian Ghetto be so internationally celebrated without Shakespeares Shylock in The Merchant of Venice? The author Clive Sinclair noted that during one summer in Venice, he saw several performances showing Shakespeares vengeful Jewish moneylender. Is there a risk of overkill in constantly featuring Shylock?

People always say that Shylock was the most famous Ghetto dweller, even though the play doesnt mention the Ghetto itself. The idea of staging the play in the Ghetto was to reclaim the cultural space for a stereotyped character from where he emerged, perhaps to undo the stereotype. Shylock was an antisemitic blueprint reproduced in later literature, but in the play we never see where Shylock came from, so by returning him to his community, we can understand him better.

The literary historian Murray Baumgarten, asserts that Primo Levis The Periodic Table focuses on the Ghetto as a defining image of a [Jewish] people and their place in modern European historyto entertain the possibility that after the defeat of the Nazis, there is a way out of the trauma of the Shoah. Yet isnt the Ghetto part of dark or grief tourism, in which travelers visit places historically associated with tragedy? A recent climate change study has warned that Venice will be underwater in 80 years, so can it represent a lasting upbeat lesson for the future?

The point is to interpret the site of the Ghetto as a thinking machine, to get through some of the major challenges that face us in the 20th century. The Ghetto helps us consider the way Venice is flooding from climate change. The word ghetto is now inescapably associated with the Holocaust and there are memorials in the Ghetto to people who were taken away by Nazis. So the Ghetto is a place where youre invited to meditate about all these complexities. Part of the possibility is to not always think about the past, but also see whether new poetry and music can be created there.

Some advocates suggest that Jews from other countries must continue Venetian traditions, since the local Jewish population is minuscule. Until COVID-19, over 20 million tourists arrived annually. In 2017 in Venice, locals demonstrated against overtourism. Does Venice need more tourists, Jewish or not?

One dream is to create an international Jewish site in the Ghetto that redefines cultural tourism. Is tourism just wandering around for a day or a more sustainable relationship? Can tourism be a way to deep engagement rather than superficial encounters?

Shaul Bassi, who teaches at Venices Ca Foscari University and serves as president of Beit Venezia, a local Jewish cultural center, has invited international writers to reimagine the Ghetto. These include the U.S. poet Rita Dove, Chilean Jewish author Marjorie Agosn, and Indian novelists Anita Desai and Amitav Ghosh. About Agosns work, you mention the dwindling community, multiple traumas, lost dreams of Jewish Venice. Yet Agosn noted that after staying there, she no longer wanted to talk about the victimization of Jews, or the concept of Jews living in closed space I wanted to imagine that in the Ghetto, you could have a flourishing Jewish life, that the Ghetto was a space for love and life and creativity. The 500th celebration was so important to me, but somehow [it] was not as important as thinking about the continuity of Jewish life.

Marjorie Agosns poems describe the Venice Ghetto as a portal, a way of entering through the imagination. She talks a lot about caring for ghosts, and literature has a unique capacity of conjuring up the past as a vibrant, active way of reinfusing the site with energy and life.

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In Venice, why the oldest Jewish ghetto in the world still matters - Forward

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Posted By admin on March 20, 2022

Every time I look at the pictures of Mariupol or Kharkiv, I see a corner of Whitechapel in east London. I reacted the same way to images of Aleppo and, before that, Falluja and, before that, Grozny, because buildings crushed to rubble have a sad habit of looking the same. It brings back a memory or rather something fainter: an inherited memory, one that was passed to me.

Its origin is 27 March 1945; the 77th anniversary is a little over a week away. Early that morning, at 7.21am, a V2 rocket landed on Hughes Mansions, a block of flats on Vallance Road in the East End. It killed 134 people, more or less instantly. Among them were two sisters, Rivvi and Feige (pronounced fay-ghee). Feige Hocherman was 33 and she left behind two children, a son not yet 11 and a daughter aged eight and a quarter. The little girl was my mother, Sara.

The war was in its final weeks and the bomb that fell that morning would be the very last V2 to land on London. It wasnt a targeted missile, though if it had been it could hardly have delighted its masters more. For of the 134 people killed by that Nazi rocket, 120 were Jews.

It meant that, as a very young child, I somehow thought Vallance Road belonged alongside Belsen or Auschwitz in the small lexicon of words to be spoken only in whispers, each of them bywords for terror and grief. I was well into my 30s before I ever went close to that place. And yet, though I did not witness it and though I only ever saw the physical destruction that bomb wreaked through grainy archive photographs, I can honestly say that event shaped my life. Because it shaped my mothers life. It made her who she was.

There were the direct legacies, of course. For many decades, my mother was implacable in her anger towards the Germans, because it was a German rocket that had killed her mother. There would be no German products in our house; no German car. She was no less unbending on the necessity of Israel. For the Nazis, the identity of the victims of Hughes Mansions was no more than a lucky accident; but the fact remained that my mother had lost her mother to a Nazi operation that killed Jews en masse: she had felt the breath of the Shoah on her neck. Like many others, she would never lose the conviction that Jews would always need a place they could call their own and a means to defend themselves.

The experience of such intense hurt so young had another, perhaps less predictable consequence: it opened up deep reservoirs of empathy for the suffering of others. I feel your pain, has become a joke phrase. But my mother really did feel your pain, even if you were someone she had only just met and whose life she had only glimpsed.

Why do I say all this now, nearly 80 years later? Because, as I look at the terrible destruction of Mariupol and the burning ruins of Kharkiv, I remember that the damage done by a rocket or artillery shell cannot be measured in the stark numbers of a death toll or, still less, the impact on infrastructure though I saw this week that the cost of rebuilding Ukraine after Vladimir Putin has rained fire on that country is estimated at $100bn (76bn) and it is rising every day. Instead the cost is measured in the aftershocks felt by those who survive the blast: the injured and the maimed, those whose homes are smashed, those children who once had a mother or father but who, in the briefest of moments, had them taken away by a bolt from the sky. That kind of bomb damage cannot be repaired with concrete. It lives on in the children of the dead, and in their children. I know, because it lives on in me.

And yet the conclusion I draw from this is not the pacifists resolve that no bullet must ever be fired, no missile must ever be launched. For this, too, I learned from my mother: that while war is evil, the greater evil is murderous aggression that goes unchecked. No one would dare say stop the war to Volodymyr Zelenskiy and the people he leads, because that would be to demand that Ukrainians allow their children to keep being killed, their bodies tossed into mass graves at speed because its too dangerous to linger in the open, even when one of those bodies belongs to a six-year-old girl, buried in the pyjamas she wore when she was hit, patterned with cartoon unicorns. When a killer has his hands around your neck, choking the life out of you, what you need is the strength in your arms to get him off. This is what the Ukrainians are demanding the west give them.

It is the right not to make war, but to repel aggression. It is the right to defend oneself against missiles that flatten an apartment building or destroy a theatre, whose basement shields up to 1,500 people, most of them old or very young. It is the right to protect a city where the last inhabitants melt snow to drink, and burn furniture to ward off the icy cold or cook what scraps of food they can find. Given that the west wont do it, for fear of tangling with a nuclear state, Ukrainians want the equipment above all the aircraft to do it for themselves.

Its such an elemental need, and yet many struggle to comprehend it. There are plenty in western Europe and the US who took, or perhaps still take, a dim view of Nato, regarding it as a cold war throwback or an arm of western imperialism and militarism. But Ukrainians saw it differently: for them Nato was the body that might protect them from the neighbourhood bully who had already proved, just eight years ago, his determination to hurt them and take what was theirs. Most Ukrainians saw the European Union the same way.

Those in Britain who so casually disdained our membership of the EU or Nato betray an unwitting but unappealing strain of privilege, akin to the trust fund millionaire who insists they never think about money. Its easy to dismiss something precious when you have lots of it. That goes for individuals with wealth, but also for those countries or peoples who have only ever known the security of having a state of their own, whose borders are stable and where the notion of an enemy attack is all but unimaginable (or forgotten).

My mother took none of those things for granted, and because she didnt neither do I. In eight decades time, there will be Ukrainians in middle age who feel the same way, because of events happening right now. The reverberations will keep sounding, through the generations. That is why even short wars last so long. I am the son of that terrified little girl and I always will be.

Jonathan Freedland is a Guardian columnist. To listen to Jonathans podcast Politics Weekly America, search Politics Weekly America on Apple, Spotify, Acast or wherever you get your podcasts

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When a bomb falls, its impact is felt for generations. I know that from my own familys trauma - The Guardian

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Posted By admin on March 20, 2022

Roman Abramovich watches Chelsea and Arsenal play the UEFA Europa League final at Olimpiya Stadionu in Baku, Azerbaijan, May 29, 2019. (Chris Brunskill/Fantasista/Getty Images)

(JTA) In response to scrutiny over the naturalization of Russian-Jewish billionaire Roman Abramovich, Portugals government is tightening its law that allows the descendants of Sephardic Jews to become citizens.

Applicants must now demonstrate an effective connection with Portugal, Foreign Minister Augusto Santos Silva said Wednesday, according to the Publico newspaper. That involves proof of several visits to the country or a property inheritance.

Abramovich, who made billions in Russias energy industry under President Vladimir Putin, acquired Portuguese citizenship through the law last year. But even before Putins invasion of Ukraine, which has been widely condemned in the West and has triggered wide-reaching sanctions on Abramovich and other Russian oligarchs for their perceived ties to Putin, critics took issue with Abramovichs claim to Sephardic ancestry.

Abramovich was born in Russia, where most Jews are Ashkenazi. But Eastern Europe has for centuries also been home to many thousands of Jews with Sephardic ancestry.

Abramovichs application was approved by the Jewish Community of Porto, one of two Jewish communities certified by the government to vet applications under the 2015 law. Last week, Portuguese police detained the Porto communitys rabbi, Daniel Litvak, on suspicion of fraud linked to naturalization applications. He was released pending further investigation and may not leave the country.

The Porto community in a statement this week denied any wrongdoing, defended its rabbi and said it is halting its cooperation with the government on certifying applications. Abramovichs application was treated no differently to all others, the community also said.

The change in the Portuguese law will not be retroactive, meaning Abramovichs citizenship will not be revoked.

Portugal may impose sanctions on Abramovichs property on Portuguese soil, Santos Silva said, but he cannot be prevented from entering the country.

David Mendoza, a London-based genealogist and president of the Sephardic Genealogical Society, on Monday published a statement criticizing the Porto community organization. He wrote that his organization is not aware of any proof of Abramovichs Sephardic ancestry and called on the Porto community to provide details on the vetting process for his application.

The changes to Portugals law make it more similar to the equivalent law in Spain. Both countries enacted the laws to atone for the persecution of Jews during the Inquisition period.

The post Following Roman Abramovich scrutiny, Portugal tighten rules for Sephardic Jews applying for citizenship appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

Following Roman Abramovich scrutiny, Portugal tightens rules for Sephardic Jews applying for citizenship

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Posted By admin on March 20, 2022

Up to a million Israelis are expected to attend the funeral Sunday for the revered leader of Lithuanian Jewry, Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky, ztl.

The rabbi passed away on Friday at age 94, in the hour before the start of the Sabbath.

The funeral for Rabbi Kanievsky, who will be laid to rest at the Ponevezh community cemetery in Bnei Brak, is expected to begin at 11 am.

It is expected that attendance at the funeral will be similar to, or possibly even exceed, that which took place at the 2013 funeral of Israels former Sephardic Chief Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, who also served as the spiritual leader for the Sephardic Shas party. At least 850,000 Israelis attended that funeral.

The procession will take place through the streets of Bnei Brak, with main roads and routes in the area expected to be shut down.

Police have asked the Israeli public to avoid driving to the Gush Dan region, unless they are heading to the funeral. This is a national event, one of the biggest the State of Israel will experience, said Israels Police Commissioner Kobi Shabtai in a statement. The aim of Israel Police is to ensure the funeral runs smoothly and that every Israeli wishing to pay respects to the rabbi can do so safely.

Some 3,000 police officers are set to secure the funeral.

Road closures are expected to affect nearby Ben Gurion International Airport and the Sheba Medical Center at Tel Hashomer. As of 6 am, Highway 4 is to be partially closed. Traffic will likely be disrupted also on Highway 2, 5 and 6 through Sunday night. The entrance and exit to the city of Bnei Brak is to be blocked, and buses ferrying Israelis to the funeral, in and out of the city, will run from the closed section of Highway 4.

Magen David Adom said its teams are preparing to provide medical cover for the multitudes expected to attend the funeral with hundreds of paramedics, EMTs and first aiders present, as well as dozens of MICUs, Ambulances, and Medicycles carrying advanced equipment, spread out across the route. Blood Services are also working alongside local hospitals to ensure the blood supplies in the case of any extra need, as well as MDA being prepared for any mass casualty event.

Funeral attendees are reminded to avoid crowding, wear masks and follow the rules for coronavirus.

Magen David Adom mourns the Torah giant, R Chaim Kanievsky ztl, said MDA Director General Eli Bin. The medical cover provided for this funeral is a national event, expected to be one of the largest seen in Israels history. MDAs alert levels will be raised from the early hours of Sunday morning. I call on those participating in the funeral to adhere to the instructions of the emergency services, to avoid crowding and take great care.

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Funeral for Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky, zt'l: Roads to be Closed, Hundreds of Thousands Expected to Attend - The Jewish Press - JewishPress.com

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Posted By admin on March 20, 2022

Speculation regarding the whereabouts of targeted Russian-Jewish billionaire Roman Abramovich ratcheted up Sunday after a plane belonging to him was spotted landing in Tel Aviv.

Abramovich, an Israel passport-holder who owns the English premier Leagues Chelsea soccer club, was sanctioned by the UK last week following Russias invasion of Ukraine, essentially blocking him from his home in London.

Portuguese citizenship he acquired last year by claiming Sephardic heritage has also come under scrutiny, with the rabbi that vouched for him being detained Thursday.

Flight data flagged by a Twitter account that tracks the movement of Abramovichs six aircraft showed that a Gulfstream G650 belonging to Abramovich landed in Tel Aviv at around 9 p.m. local time Sunday.

The plane had taken off from Moscow. It was not known if Abramovich or any members of his family were aboard.

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Last week, the Ynet news site reported that the Jewish-Russian oligarch was seen dining in a high-end restaurant in Tel Aviv on Wednesday. The news site later removed the article without explanation.

File In this Dec. 2, 2010 file photo, then Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, right, congratulates members of the Russian delegation, from left: conductor Valery Gergiyev, businessman Roman Abramovich and Nizhny Novgorod governor Valery Shantsev; after it was announced that Russia would host the 2018 soccer World Cup, in Zurich, Switzerland. (AP Photo/Alexei Nikolsky, Pool)

Abramovich has become a top target of officials in the US and Europe who have vowed to seize yachts, jets and other assets belonging to Russian oligarchs as a means of pressuring Russian President Vladimir Putin over his invasion of Ukraine. The movement of several oligarchs, Abramovich included, have been hotly tracked by hobbyists using public data to report on the movement of their private aircraft and yachts.

According to @RUOligarchJets, a Twitter account run by US teen Jack Sweeney, Abramovichs G650, which is registered in Luxembourg, had moved between Moscow and Turkey several times earlier this month.

The plane flew to Moscow from Baku, Azerbaijan on March 1, and later left for Istanbul. A day later the plane flew to Ankara, where it stayed until returning to Istanbul on March 4. On Saturday, the plane left Istanbul for Moscow and on Sunday made the trip to Ben-Gurion Airport.

A 787 Dreamliner, also registered to Abramovich, was seen moving between Moscow and Dubai in early March. In addition a helicopter belonging to the billionaire was tracked zipping around islands in Bermuda in late February.

Israel has said it will prevent Russian oligarchs sanctioned by the US from keeping their planes and yachts in Israel but is unable to stop Abramovich from entering the country.

The superyacht Solaris, owned by Russian-Jewish billionaire Roman Abramovich, sails towards the luxury yacht marina Porto Montenegro, near the Montenegrin city of Tivat, on the Adriatic coast, March 12, 2022. (Savo Prelevic/AFP)

Abramovich took on Israeli citizenship in 2018 after the UK refused to renew his visa there in 2018, amid a diplomatic spat between London and Moscow. He continued to own Chelsea, but tried to sell the team late last month once it became clear he would likely be targeted by sanctions.

On Thursday, London hit him with an assets freeze and travel ban as part of new UK government sanctions targeting seven Russian oligarchs. The sanctions freeze his ability to sell Chelsea.

The UK government has estimated Abramovichs net worth at 9.4 billion (11.1 billion euros, $12.2 billion).

President Isaac Herzog speaks with Chelsea FC club owner Roman Abramovich, at the teams stadium, November 21, 2021. (Kobi Gideon/GPO)

Abramovich is a major donor to causes in Israel, including the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial and museum in Jerusalem.

This has placed Israel in the difficult position of having to adhere to US and EU sanctions while trying to maintain good relations with several prominent donors to Jewish and Israeli causes.

Yad Vashem announced last week that it was suspending a newly announced strategic partnership with Abramovich, weeks after it said he had pledged an eight-digit donation to strengthen its endeavors in the areas of Holocaust research and remembrance. Its announcement Thursday did not specify what would become of this money.

The US Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, Victoria Nuland, said Friday that Israel should get onboard with Western sanctions, and bar Russian oligarchs. You dont want to become the last haven for dirty money thats fueling Putins wars, Nuland said.

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Posted By admin on March 20, 2022

The future of performing arts is in the sensory experience: sight and sound, sure, but also taste and smell and touch, according to Ryan Honey, the executive director of the The Arts Campus at Willits.

The stage has the visual and the auditory covered. But the kitchen brings with it the rest of the senses the tactile and gustatory and olfactory immersion that, in Honeys mind, completes the experience of artistic immersion.

Its why the team at TACAW has envisioned a dining operation to complement the facilitys programming, an idea that manifests now in Tabl (pronounced table), helmed by the dynamic catering duo Julia and Allen Domingos of Aspen Epicure. The in-house cafe soft-launched this winter and had its grand opening March 8.

The offerings are about as varied as the lineup at TACAW, which hosts comics and bands and film festivals and artist talks (and, and, and, and) at its home in Basalt, which opened last year. Ask what kind of restaurant Tabl is and you wont get a clear answer; thats part of the point.

We dont want to pigeonhole ourselves by saying were going to be this kind of restaurant or that we want it to be a little bit of everything, Allen Domingos said.

Take the March 11 dinner menu, for instance: Diners could choose from options as varied as enchiladas (Mexican origins), salmon rillettes (French provenance) or meatloaf (the American roots of the dish are two centuries deep). The salmon and another dish, Interesting Meats and Cheeses, both come with a side of herbed lavosh, a flatbread with ties to Armenia and to its neighbors, Azerbaijan, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Turkey; the local apple cobbler comes with vanilla gelato, which traces back to italy.

Menus might also be catered to TACAWs lineup, according to Honey and Domingos; they see the culinary arts as part and parcel of the vision at TACAW, which Honey said is focused on flexibility and creativity alike.

A Dinner and a Movie event a couple of weeks ago paired Middle Eastern cuisine with a screening of the documentary Breaking Bread, about a food festival in Israel where Jewish and Arab chefs collaborate in the kitchen. A Mardi Gras celebration on Fat Tuesday featured king cake and other Louisiana bites. And in the future, Domingos said he sees potential for an educational series that uses food as a medium for learning about other cultures, or for menus that match the cuisine to performers home countries.

Ingredients dont have to travel far for such a worldly menu, though. Local, seasonal sourcing also determines whats for lunch or dinner, which Domingos sees as a connection to the overall ethos at TACAW.

We spend an immense amount of time in procuring a lot our products from local farms, and also a lot of Colorado products, and I think that a lot of those kind of people have the same mindset the team here at TACAW has you know, real local-centric, Domingos said.

I guess, you know, that sums it up, meaning its a local-centric place, its a gathering place for everybody to not only enjoy all the culture and the arts here, but also the food, he added.

It makes TACAW a fitting landing spot for Epicures Domingos couple, who previously operated the SO Cafe at the Aspen Art Museum and who have long put the art into culinary arts.

(Allen credits Julia with the artistic and creative inclinations; hes more of the business guy, he said. Julia wasnt available at the time of the joint interview last week.)

What goes on to the plate is an artistic creation in a thoroughly aesthetic sense, meaning it needs to not only look beautiful, taste beautiful, but it needs to fit the time and the place that its in, Allen said. And so we can take that sort of inspiration into the events, into the space thats going on here to call and just be a part of the whole artistic creation thats going on here.

Community, too, adds flavor to the experience, Honey said.

You want to really create an experience for them that is a shared community and a shared cultural experience, and adding food to that just makes it so much richer, Honey said.

Kaya Williams is a reporter for The Aspen Times and The Snowmass Sun who figures its only a matter of time until musicals embrace smell-o-vision. Email her at kwilliams@aspentimes.com.

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Posted By admin on March 20, 2022

Title: The Instant Pot Kosher Cookbook: 100 Recipes to Nourish Body and SoulBy Paula ShoyerUnion Square & Co., 224 pages

In a world where newfangled kitchen gadgets multiply by the minute and culinary fads come and go, the Instant Pot craze seems to be here to stay. With the promise of convenient and reliable cooking accomplished quickly, this trend is especially appealing to todays busy cook. And who is busier than a Jewish mother? Enter Paula Shoyers cookbook, The Instant Pot Kosher Cookbook, 100 Recipes to Nourish Body and Soul, the very first Instant Pot cookbook to feature exclusively kosher food.

Shoyer, a renowned pastry chef and author of numerous popular cookbooks, is certainly no stranger to the kitchen. In authoring this book, she elevates pressure cooking from the tired stews and stringy, boiled chicken of the 50s to a more contemporary cuisine. By doing so, she manages to maintain the convenience of pressure cooking while modernizing it as well.

But for all its convenience, the Instant Pot is a multi-buttoned, many-featured instrument that can befuddle even the most savvy home cook. In this easy-to-read, well laid out cookbook, Shoyer demystifies the process of Instant Pot cooking. With carefully listed steps she boils the process down (pun intended!) to its most simple, leaving us with an essence of good cooking made easy.

The book contains sections on soups, mains, side dishes and, surprisingly, even salads, dips and desserts. Its pages are tastefully presented, with attractive pictures and very detailed instructions. Each recipe tells you exactly which button to use, how to release the steam, how many minutes to wait, and how far in advance the recipe can be prepared. She even includes a section on caring for your Instant Pot, and some information on the specifics of using an Instant Pot in accordance with halacha.

In deference to todays trend of multi-cultural cooking, the book represents a number of regional and ethnic cuisines, from Gefilte Fish to Dolmas, Peruvian Chicken to Harira Soup. She also includes everyday dinners and recipes for Shabbos and Yom Tov. With meat, dairy and pareve options clearly labeled, everyone can find something to love here.

This book can be used on its own or used as a springboard to other Instant Pot kitchen adventures. But for all of you staring at the big, shiny Instant Pot that you purchased on Black Friday, scratching your head and wondering what have I got myself into? this cookbook has the answers.

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Posted By admin on March 20, 2022

Its a tough time to be Russian in America. Even if youre not actually Russian.

I was raised in Brooklyns Russian community, but nearly no one was really from Russia. Most are Jews from the former Soviet Union. I was born in Russia, but thats rare. My parents had met in Turkmenistan.

Most people I knew were from Ukraine, as was my father, or Belarus, like my grandmother. Others were from Latvia, Moldova, Georgia, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and so on. Yet because we spoke the Russian language amongst ourselves, we used Russian as a shorthand for self-description.

It wasnt an exact fit, but it beat the alternative of complicated explanations of a country that no longer exists, changed borders, cities whose names were amended long ago and the way Jews were always kept separate in Soviet society. Today Ukraines president is Jewish and very much Ukrainian, though he too grew up speaking Russian.

There are non-Jews from the former Soviet states in Russian areas like south Brooklyn too. We werent all the same, but we were similar enough to form a tight-knit community.

Today its more complicated. Russian President Vladimir Putins invasion has discombobulated the delicate system.

American-based Facebook groups are changing Russian in their titles to a more fitting Russian-speaking. It makes sense to drop the shorthand, but its also a safety measure.

Facebook has made a temporary change to its hate speech policy allowing users in some countries to call for violence against Russians and Russian soldiers in the context of the Ukraine invasion, according to Reuters. If Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, imagines hate speech will remain in context, it should spend more time on social media.

Its not like being Russian in America has ever been easy. The 1980s werent great, what with the threat of nuclear war and Ivan Drago killing Apollo Creed in Rocky IV. A brief period starting in the 1990s was OK. Then the left imagined Russia had somehow installed Donald Trump as president and wouldnt let go of this misbegotten belief no matter how evidence-free it was. It formed a resistance to him whereby it succumbed to every ridiculous conspiracy theory, the more Russian the better. And now Putins despicable invasion of Ukraine.

But even in the worst times, when kids called me Commie or when members of the resistance told me on Twitter to go back to where I came from, we didnt have Carnegie Hall disinviting Russian conductors, as it recently did to Valery Gergiev, or the Metropolitan Opera canceling singer Anna Netrebko, who denounced the war but not strongly enough to please management.

Its not just happening in America. In Germany, the Munich Philharmonic fired Gergiev as chief conductor for not denouncing Putin. Even in Soviet times, Americans were able to separate the people of Russia from their government. We understood they are not free like us, that they cant speak up like free people can.

Nor is it only living Russians on the chopping block.

The Cardiff Philharmonic Orchestra canceled performances of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovskys music, and Italys University of Milano-Bicocca considered pulling the plug on a course focused on Fyodor Dostoevskys work.

Russians in America are sitting up and taking notice. On one hand, we came here to be American and leave the old world behind. On the other, our insular ways, our language, our food, make us a target now.

Russian is bad. People post pictures on Facebook of Russian cucumbers for sale on Brighton Beach, which are not actually from Russia but are the kind area Russians use for pickling, and suggest a name change is in order. In the same neighborhood, a rumor spread that the Taste of Russia market was changing its name to Taste of Ukraine. That turned out to be false, but Russians debated the name change online with many finding it absurd. Russian restaurants are seeing declining reservation numbers.

And worse. Tatiana Varzar opened her eponymous Brighton Beach restaurant Tatiana in the 1990s and expanded to Hallandale Beach, Fla., 17 years ago. Varzar serves a variety of Eastern European food: khachapuri from Georgia, salo from Ukraine, lamb chops pa karski from Armenia, pelmeni from Russia and so on.

Varzar told me the Hallandale restaurant has been getting anonymous calls that include threats. She forwarded a voicemail to me in which the caller refers to Russians as assassins and says, menacingly, that she should change the cuisine of the restaurant.

Varzar is from Odessa. Thats in Ukraine. She left in 1978. We left an oppressive state and it followed us here, she says.

Its the culture of Do something, even if the something is stupid and wrong, that causes the cancellation of Russian artists and ultimately the threatening phone calls to restaurants. We dont always need to act, to virtue signal how deeply we care and to display our commitment to canceling the bad people.

The not-actually-Russian community is traumatized by whats happening in Ukraine, with many people, including me, still having family in both Russia and Ukraine. And yet the community is more united than ever. Putins actions might be black and white, but for the rest of the world there is still a lot of gray.

Twitter: @Karol

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Think twice before you punish a 'Russian' over Putins horrible war - New York Post

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Posted By admin on March 20, 2022

Theres a fair amount of things to celebrate this weekend. First, all of our clocks being set back the way they should be. Then, of course, St. Patricks Day, if thats your thing. And then theres just the general celebration of the week being over and getting a few days to enjoy Long Beach. And for that, weve got you covered.

Check out a brand new dessert festival, featuring pandan, which is a tropical plant featured in cuisine across Southeast Asia. Theres also a craft beer festival featuring the eccentric brews from homebrewers across the Southland. Plus, weve found a classical comedy show, a fermenting workshop and more.

Get to scrollin!

The musicians of Infinite Stage and improv artists from Held2gether will converge Friday, March 18 at the Expo Arts Center for an evening of classical music and comedy.

As with any good improv show, audience participation will be part of the act, meaning you play a fair part in just how the two-hour show will go. Its all part of the fun.

Classical Crack-Ups begins at 7:30 p.m. Attendees must show proof of vaccination and wear masks while indoors.

Click here for more information and to purchase tickets.

Expo Arts Center is at 4321 Atlantic Ave.

On Saturday, March 19 at Rancho Los Cerritos, 45 homebrewers hailing from homebrew clubs across the southland are battling out to take home the title of best brew.

There will be both a juried winner and a popular vote, meaning your drinking matters, and to be sure, there will be plenty to guzzle. In addition to the 45 homebrews each bringing five gallons of their finest, patrons can also enjoy unlimited tastings from local breweries including Beachwood Brewing, Liberation Brewing Co, Ambitious Ales, Ten Mile Brewing and Syncopated Brewing.

General admission tickets cost $35 and include unlimited pours from both the professional breweries and homebrewers. Attendees who purchase a VIP ticket for $55 can enter the festival an hour early. The event is family-friendly and permits children ages 15 and younger free entry. Click here for more information and to purchase tickets.

The Craft Beer LB Homebrew Invitational is from 1-5 p.m. Saturday, March 18 and will be at Rancho Los Cerritos at 4600 Virginia Rd.

Damian Ross and Ilkay Basugar are the founders of Fermentality, a local business that specializes in and sells fermented vegetables at farmers markets in Los Angeles and Orange County. On Saturday, March 19, theyre hosting a workshop from 4-6 p.m. at Compound where theyll teach how to create your own fermented foods at home.

Ross and Basugar will focus on kimchi and sauerkraut for this demo, providing an overview of lacto-fermentation and an in-depth history of the sour vegetables impact on western culture. Theyll also hand out some recipes and equipment lists so you know exactly what you need to get your own start at home.

After the lecture, history lesson, demo and Q&A, attendees can sample some of Fermentalitys foods.

Tickets are available on a sliding scale and start at $5. Click here for more information and to purchase tickets.

Compound is at 1395 Coronado Ave.

From the organizers behind the Long Beach Ube Festival, comes a new dessert and baked goods festival this time featuring the popular Southeast Asian plant, pandan. If youve never had it, just know its flavor profile is described as grassy with hints of rose, vanilla, almond and coconut depending on how its used.

Pandan Party at the new Kubo event space in Bixby Knolls on Saturday, March 19 will feature nine businesses selling a variety of pandan desserts including pandan cheesecake bars (seen above), pandan cinnamon rolls, cookies, pastries and juices. Attendees can also shop from a variety of local businesses selling plants, clothing, jewelry, art and more.

Entry cost $5 and will only be accepted at the door. Guests who would like to move to the front of the line are encouraged to RSVP, click here.

For more information pertaining to vendors, visit the Long Beach Ube Festival Instagram page, here. The festival is from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.

Kubo is at 345 E. Carson St.

Local community activist Justin Rudd is hosting his 17th Annual Bulldog Beauty Contest at the Granada Boat Launch next to Rosies Dog Beach where hundreds of the stout, barrel-chested K-9s are expected to strut their stuff on a 60-foot red carpet and compete for a variety of honors such as best small dog, prettiest dog, best senior dog and, of course, best in show.

Costumes are not encouraged for this competition, which is judged based on the pups charm, first impression, (squished)face, figure and personality. Those who would like to enter still can for $10, click here, but for attendees, you can just walk up to enjoy the spectacle. Although, if youd like to reserve a seat along the catwalk you can pay $5 cash at the event.

The Bulldog Beauty Contest starts at 9 a.m. Sunday, March, 20. Click here for scheduling info.

Rosies Dog Beach is at 5000 E. Ocean Blvd.

At this point, theres a good chance youve heard of Pedal Movements Sunday Roller Disco, a free event that invites the community, from newbies to pros, to get outside and skate together.

This Sunday, March 20 is no exception, except spinning the tunes this time will be DJ POPTART bringing a bit of funk, groove and all that good stuff to the pavement.

If you dont have skates you can reserve a $10 rental from Pedal Movement, click here for more info. The free skate is from 3-6 p.m.

Sunset Skate Session will be at the Junipero Beach basketball courts at 1 Junipero Ave.

The holiday of Purim celebrated by Jewish communities is one of their most joyous celebrations of the year and commemorates the saving of Persias Jewish subjects from execution at the hands of Haman, an official of the Achaemenid Empire, as recounted in the Book of Esther.

Though Purim officially begins at sundown on March 16, the Alpert Jewish Community Center is celebrating the holiday with the community from 1-3 p.m. Sunday, March 20 with Hocus! Pocus! Hamentaschen! a family-friendly carnival-like affair with crafts, games, face-painting and heaps of hamantaschen, which is a triangle-shaped pastry stuffed with chocolate, poppyseed and other fillings.

Tickets to the outdoor festival are $10 unless youre an AJCC or Temple Israel Long Beach remember and need only pay $5. Children under 2 years old get in free. Click here to purchase tickets ahead of time, though tickets can also be purchased at the door, capacity permitting.

The Alpert Jewish Community Center is at 3801 E. Willow St.

SPONSORED BY AQUARIUM OF THE PACIFIC

The Aquarium of the Pacific will host its seventeenth annual International Childrens Festival, an event celebrating the amazing talents of children from a diverse set of cultures on Saturday and Sunday, March 19 and 20 from 9:00am to 5:00pm each day.

This festival features dance and music performances by kids representing a variety of international cultures. Each year the Aquarium presents its annual Young Hero Award to a child in recognition of their outstanding service to people and the planet.

The festival is free with general admission to the Aquarium, for details visitaquariumofpacific.org.

The Aquarium of the Pacific is at 100 Aquarium Way.

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Things to do in Long Beach this weekend including... a pandan dessert festival and craft (home)brews the Hi-lo - Long Beach Post

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Posted By admin on March 18, 2022

Ive been feeling more tired than usual these past two weeks. It took me a few days to identify the reason. Maybe it was the rapid unmasking of my fellow Americans? Or was it the fact that I took two cross-country flights in five days? No, it turns out the real reason for my fatigue was that I hadnt scheduled a war in my calendar. Yet war has been occupying my mind, my heart, and my screens. Watching Vladimir Putins war on Ukraine has drained, enraged, and inspired me all at once.

I dont generally operate on a daily basis with Ukraine or Russia on my mind. That changed within two days of the invasion after a friend from Eastern Europe, currently living close to me in Southern California, asked his American wife whether his family could move in with them, if it came to that. Without warning, I found myself near tears. This couple had previously been plotting the reverse migration: spending more time in Europe, that civilized place where universal healthcare is the norm and school and childcare costs dont bankrupt families. But suddenly America looked safer and more stable, even with our wealth inequality and no-longer-notable school shootings. Being in Putins line of fire was a clearer and more present danger.

Then, after the unanticipated and deep sadness, came an even less familiar feeling: violent rage. I had a sudden urge to go to Ukraine and fight Russians. I have no military training, but I watched Red Dawn during my 1980s childhood, and too much Punisher in my 2010s adulthood, and the child in me who was bullied doesnt take kindly to obvious bullying. Where were all these feelings coming from?

Perhaps its my own distant connection to Russian territorial aggression. Back in 2011, I took two trips to the Republic of Georgia, and I kind of fell in love: the food, the people, the miraculous Borjomi mineral water which literally erases hangovers. I was part of a youthful delegation of artists and entrepreneurs advising that young government on what makes for an innovative and dynamic democracy. Theres an echo-y video of me giving a speech on democracy in the presidential palace in Tbilisi. My most standout memory, however, is popping bottles of champagne in the V.I.P. section of a nightclub in the Black Sea town of Batumi, dancing to Biggie, with then-president Misha Saakashvili, who brought us there in his motorcade (another story for another time). My second most standout memory is meeting with a government minister in charge of resettlement for refugees from the regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, which had been taken by the Russian military. I didnt comprehend the full story of the dispute over the territories, but I almost didnt have to. My shock came from the revelation that, post-World War II and even post-Iraq, countries still used military force to invade and colonize other nations just because they wanted to, and no one cared to stop them.

I think thats the heart of my anguish. I am the descendant of Africans who were displaced by the horrors of colonialism and, as I scrolled through images of refugees and mortar blasts, I was stunned by what was playing out in the palm of my hand. I opened Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, and in between the wellness influencers and monkeys playing with baby chickens, I saw people cowering in subway stations as the invaders bombed a maternity ward. I saw Holocaust survivors, accused by the Russians of harboring Nazis, tell Putin to get out and leave them alone. And I saw the Western world snap to attention and get in formation behind Ukraine faster than anything Id seen in a long time. I cheered this solidarity, and I approached tears again at the capacity of humans to rally for one another.

But the tears were also in honor of those suffering in other conflicts in the world for whom we have not rallied. I thought particularly of the people of Tigray in Ethiopia who have struggled to get the worlds attention for the slaughter of their people. The Ethiopian and Eritrean governments have effectively overseen a system of mass starvation, denial of humanitarian aid, and rape against the Tigrayan people for a year. The U.N called for a troop withdrawal a year ago, but this story isnt captivating audiences on CNN 24/7. A good friend of mine is from the region, and the U.S. president wasnt making speeches about his people. The Western powers had not instituted grave sanctions nor had companies pledged to help in whatever way possible. I hurt for him and for them. I wanted that capacity for empathy and solidarity to extend beyond Ukraine.

Then I saw images of dark-skinned people inside Ukraine trying to flee and being turned away at security crossings. Students from Africa, India, and the Middle East documented their experiences of being rejected and even threatened first by officials at the train station in Kyiv, then by officials on the border with Poland. In a crisis we still find time to discriminate and dehumanize. This is, of course, not the entire story, but it is part of the story. As we suffer, we can inflict suffering. As we help some, we can insult othersas CBS News senior foreign correspondent Charlie DAgata did when he said on air that Ukraine isnt a place, with all due respect, like Iraq or Afghanistan, that has seen conflict raging for decades. This is a relatively civilized, relatively EuropeanI have to choose those words carefully, toocity, one where you wouldnt expect that, or hope that its going to happen.

I would have preferred if he just acknowledged his feelings of connection in the first person. I know this isnt fair, but I cant help but see myself in the Ukrainians. They look like me, and that makes me more invested in what happens to them. Instead, some of the coverage has come out sideways from people unwilling to be fully honest about their biases so they instead imply that some people in the world simply deserve war and forget that, of course, Europeans can slaughter each other too. Thats where two World Wars were sparked and where the Holocaust happened. Game of Thrones is basically a documentary, and the United Kingdom is where it played out, not to mention the conflicts beyond Europe that have been fomented by Europe.

I can acknowledge all this and still acknowledge the righteousness and downright badassery of Ukrainians as they heroically defend themselves in an effort to maintain their country against the indiscriminate onslaught of Putins delusions, to hold on to democracy in the face of demagoguery. Ukrainians are inspiring not only for how they deploy troops, but also how they have demonstrated creativity, humor, and heart in their fight for survival. Ive marveled at apresident who is literally ride-or-die for his people, in the trenches, bolstering morale and defying everything weve come to expect from politicians. It helps that he recognizes this battle is more than a military war; its an information war. And who better to fight it than a professional storyteller? Volodymr Zelensky was an actor, comedian, and head of a production company. Seeing his regular video check-ins with his advisors saying essentially, We right here gives me goosebumps.

I cheered at my own governments early pre-emptive information strike in the form of declassifying intelligence that revealed Putins activities and pre-bunking the lies we would expect to come from Russian media attempting to justify these crimes. Given how flat-footed we were back in 2016, as Putin used social media to weaponize our existing divisions to help elect an utterly unqualified person to the presidency, I think an effective blow to Putin is also an effective blow to Trump.

But in this so-far two-week war, what has moved me the most is the hotline the Ukrainian government established for Russians whose relatives have gone missing as they were sent to invade Ukraine. Its compassion and information warfare at their finest. Even as a country of 44 million is being bombarded with an army that allegedly has nearly one million active members, the Ukrainians are showing more concern for the families of Russian service members than the Russian government itself. CNN got exclusive access to the center where operators field calls from mothers, wives, fathers and more. We can hear parents apologize for the invasion and explain that their sons were tricked into this war. We can also hear operators remind the Russian callers that they can help end this war. As I listened to these calls, I found myself crying again.

War is the worst. But it can bring out the best. Im clinging to a hope-slash-belief that this war will bring out the best in us, in Ukraine, and far beyond.

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Ukraine, Racism, and the Wars We Ignore - Puck

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