Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By admin on November 30, 2021

The late atheist writer Christopher Hitchens used to refer to the theological arguments of his critics as white noise. As a non-believer, claims about the true nature of God, the legitimacy of prophetic revelation, or the problem of evil were simply meaningless to him an irritating buzz in his ears.

Hitchens white noise is often what I hear when leftist or progressive critics of Israel make their arguments against the Jewish state. It is not only that their accusations of ethnic cleansing, colonialism, and genocide are often blood libels. It is also a question of standing. That is, by what right do these people presume to judge Israel and the Jewish people and declare them guilty of the most heinous crimes?

In his treatise on the art of rhetoric, the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle described three primary methods of persuasion: Pathos is the appeal to emotion. Logos is the appeal to reason. Ethos is the appeal to the moral character of the speaker. We are all familiar with these methods as employed by the Israel-haters: logos is usually absent, while pathos is ubiquitous, in the shrieking rage and hate directed against the Jewish state and the Jewish people. But this pathos is, in the end, just a cheap attempt at emotional blackmail and abuse. What makes their arguments white noise is ethos.

Judgement inherently contains within it an assertion of moral rectitude. One can only judge if one has the right to judge. And this is a right that must be earned. The Israel-haters, especially on the progressive left, believe this quite strongly: they are quite certain that they are a caste of saints, the finest and most moral people who have ever existed. As such, they consider their ethos infinitely superior to that of anyone else.

November 29, 2021 11:10 am

In the face of such a claim, we are entitled to a certain skepticism. It is, after all, ludicrous on its face. For me, however, it is discredited by one mans life story: my best friend Shanis grandfather, Israel Mazor.

When the USSR conquered half of Poland after the Hitler-Stalin pact, Mazor was arrested due to his Zionist activism which was seen as a threat to the workers state and shuttled between gulags in Siberia. There he almost died of exposure, malnutrition, torture, and the conditions of slave labor. Several times, he was thrown into solitary confinement in a concrete cell in sub-zero weather. Once he ran in place for nine hours to avoid losing his legs to frostbite.

After the war, he was released and began to demand the right to make aliyah. The Soviet regime refused him for over a decade, until he finally packed up his family and they made their way without proper travel papers to Austria. From there, the Jewish Agency brought them to Israel. Eventually, he was recognized by the government for his heroism and received a medal from Israels president.

To me, this story of horror and triumph is Israels ethos, encapsulated within a single life. When Israelis and Jews speak, they speak as people who have been chewed up and spit out by history; as people who have crawled out of history by their fingernails. When they invoke morality, it is as people with the most intimate knowledge of the horrors of life. And they know what these horrors have to teach us about how tenuous and compromised morality can be, and what it means to live in the absence of morality. They can speak to its inherent complications, compromises, and desperations. They know, in other words, of what they speak. They possess an ethos their enemies cannot, because they have earned it.

The saints, on the other hand, believe that one can simply assert ones morality and be done with it that by claiming to be moral, they become moral. The horrors of life are not just irrelevant but inconceivable to them, because they have never known these horrors. Nor can they conceive of the inevitable consequences of these horrors, because as a sheltered and privileged class, they have always lived without consequences. They will never have to pay the cost of what they demand of Israel and the Jewish people. This is how they can not only advocate hurling the Jews back into statelessness and exile, but actually claim it is the moral thing to do. It is how they can justify and even praise the wanton violence they and their allies incite. It is how they can remain blissfully ignorant of what all this says about their morality and their ethos.

What it says is quite clear: the saints have no ethos. They are a morally bankrupt privileged caste who, in their fantasies of rectitude, presume to judge a people who have known horrors of which they cannot begin to conceive. These are people who weep when Whole Foods runs out of kale, and then condemn those who have survived the gulag. And in a supreme act of hubris, the saints not only judge these refugees from history, but consider themselves their moral superiors. The admonitions of such people can, in the end, never be anything more than white noise.

Benjamin Kerstein is a columnist and the Israel Correspondent for the Algemeiner. Hiswebsite can be viewed hereand hisbooks purchased at Amazon.com.

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White Noise and the Haters of Israel | Jewish & Israel News Algemeiner.com - Algemeiner

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Posted By admin on November 30, 2021

In the Tanach, youll find numerous references to axes, either as weapons or as tools. That could be one reason why many Jews are throwing axes.

In Judges 9:48, we read: Abimelech took the axes in his hand and cut down a branch of the trees, lifted it and placed it on his shoulder, and said to the people that were with him, What you have seen me do, hurry and do as I did.

In I Chronicles 20:3, we read a reference to axes as weapons:He took out the people in it and cut them with saws, with iron threshing boards, and with axes and this is what David would do to all the cities of the Children of Ammon.

The history is there, and in recent years, our connection with the axe has continued for varying reasons.In Jersey City, NJ in 2019, following the kosher market massacre that left four people, a local rabbi and martial arts expert began hosting axe-throwing counter-terrorism classes, and Hasidic Jews signed up quickly.

Numerous groups of Jewish young professionals, and singles groups, are now finding that getting gussied up or staying casual, sipping adult beverages, and throwing sharp axes at predetermined targets can be a fun link to our past.

This week, The Network STL, the Chabad on-campus organization that serves Jewish undergraduate students across the St. Louis area is hosting its own event honoring Hanukkah, and our Macabee ancestors.

If youre interested in attending, RSVP to Yael at [emailprotected].

While it may seem odd to throw an axe, in recent years it has become very popular. Similar to darts, axe throwing is played with and against other members of a group. Individuals throw 1.5-pound hatchets at wooden targets marked with a bullseye and score points based on where on the target they stick the axe.

The Network STL event is taking place atTop Notch Axe Throwing St. Louis but they also have locations in Town and Country and St. Charles. And there are several other options available around the St. Louis region. Amp Up Action Park offers Axe throwing plus go-kart racing and other family activities. The Axe House is located in Valley Park.

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Posted By admin on November 30, 2021

Alas, Zionism cant provide a solution for catastrophes. Thats what Chaim Weizmann said in 1919, explaining why the gates of pre-state Israel couldnt be opened to thousands of survivors of Ukrainian pogroms who were begging for asylum here.

The man who three decades later would become Israels first president added that he didnt think these refugees had the enormous constructive powers needed to build a national home for the Jewish people.

Prof. Gur Alroey, a historian at the University of Haifa, calls this callousness. Weizmann preferred productive immigrants over needy refugees and thought the Land of Israel needed strong, healthy immigrants, not refugees weak in body and spirit, Alroey says.

Jews who didnt fit his model and knocked on the doors of pre-state offices in Eastern Europe to request immigration permits were answered in the negative and rejected.

Alroey recently completed a Hebrew-language book on the subject, Land of Refuge: Immigration to the Land of Israel, 1919-1927, published by the Ben-Gurion Research Institute. The documents he discovered in the Central Zionist Archives show the dark side of this immigration that later became known as the third and fourth aliyahs.

The heroes of the book arent pioneers, members of labor brigades, founders of kibbutzim or young urban bourgeois the healthy, idealistic immigrants sanctified in Zionist propaganda. Rather, they're a larger group of immigrants who have been forgotten or deliberately omitted from the history books survivors of pogroms and riots, orphans, widows, rape victims, famine survivors, bankrupts and others who were wounded in body or spirit.

According to Alroey, most of the immigrants chose British Mandatory Palestine for lack of choice, or because they viewed it as a land of refuge as in the title of the book. Ignoring them is a sin against historical truth, doesnt faithfully reflect reality and severs immigration to the Land of Israel from its broader historical context.

Alroeys book discusses the reports that piled up a century ago on the desk of Yehoshua Gordon, deputy director of the immigration department in the pre-state Zionist administration. The reports kept Gordon up at night.

The number of people who have nervous diseases or are mentally ill is growing, Gordon wrote to his superiors, adding that the frequency with which such cases are brought to our attention rouses great concern. But it wasnt concern for the patients that troubled him. Were especially afraid of ... some kind of mass or at least group psychosis, he added.

Alroey obtained the medical files of several Jewish immigrants who arrived a century ago. One of them was P.G. (his full name wasnt provided to protect his privacy), who was diagnosed as suffering from a nervous disease.

No way will I leave

Dr. Dorian Feigenbaum, who entered the history books as the first psychiatrist in the Holy Land, wrote that he wonders greatly how this man was brought to the Land of Israel by the World Zionist Organization even though back in Constantinople they knew about his illness, for which, unfortunately, there is no remedy. Feigenbaum recommended that P.G. be hospitalized and, after a time, be sent back abroad.

But the efforts to return him to Europe failed. We did everything possible to sway the patient to leave the country, Levi Shvueli, head of the immigration department in Haifa, wrote to his counterparts in Jerusalem. The department offered to pay for his return but he refused and threatened to commit suicide.

No way will I leave the Land of Israel of my own will, P.G. said. If you decide to do something against my will, Ill throw myself into the sea. In the end, to avoid what Shvueli termed regrettable consequences, P.G. was allowed to stay.

Feigenbaum warned that P.G. would only be a burden to you. His treatment will require labor and many expenses. He therefore recommended that the authorities improve the medical examinations in the countries of exit and on the coasts that is, improve the selection process and not allow people like P.G. to even set sail.

Feigenbaum wasnt the only one who advocated a strict selection process. Shvueli also complained that the Zionist officials overseas who were organizing immigration arent paying attention to the quality of the people theyre sending to the Land of Israel or their state of health. He demanded that these emissaries be punctilious about the human material they send.

Similarly, Gordon wrote his superiors that our criterion must be bringing constructive elements here. Among undesirable elements, he listed people with heart disease, epilepsy and syphilis. A heart patient, for instance, is incapable of almost any work except for choice jobs that are almost impossible to obtain here, and so shouldnt be brought in under any circumstances.

According to Alroey, Gordon succinctly summed up the Zionist movements preferred immigration policy: Reject or deport sick migrants, people unfit for work who might become a burden, and make sure to choose strong, healthy migrants who can cope with the conditions here.

Wretched people

Alroeys book is full of quotes from leaders of the Zionist movement that are hard to take today. In 1920, Menachem Ussishkin told the Zionist leadership in Poland that would-be immigrants had to be scrutinized to ensure that they are physically healthy in the full sense of the word.

Weak people who are ill with nervous diseases, tuberculosis and others are coming to us, and I dont have to explain to you the disaster such wretched people will bring down on the Yishuv, he added, referring to the pre-state Jewish community. Both male and female pioneers should be examined seven times before you give them an exit permit.

The immigrants should also be mentally healthy that is, they should know the purpose for which they are traveling here. The fearful and the faint-hearted should stay home. His conclusion: Even 1 percent thats bad will spoil a great many good people.

Weizmann, who spearheaded this policy, didnt suffice with mere instructions to his fellow Jews. He sought to persuade the British authorities to significantly limit the Jewish immigration quota, even though this was a fateful moment for the Jews of Eastern Europe, Alroey writes. The price was paid by the tens of thousands of Ukrainian Jews who were murdered during this period.

Alroey says hes surprised that this issue, one of the most controversial disputes in the history of the Zionist movement, has become a mere footnote in Israeli history books. Faced with the choice of the survival of thousands of Jews and building a state, the heads of the Zionist movement a century ago preferred the latter, he says.

But despite their efforts to control the type of immigrant allowed in, Jews from the margins of society managed to get through, Alroey adds. As Menachem Sheinkin, head of the World Zionist Organizations immigration department, put it in 1920, these included people who were dishonest, thuggish, coarse and lazy.

Sheinkin added: People like this steal things from their comrades along the way, and also later in the immigrant houses here. Some of them drink to the point of drunkenness, seek all kinds of pretexts for not working, and even ask, using brazen threats, for blankets from the community fund.

Two people who apparently belonged to this group were Malka and Hannah, sisters who arrived in 1926 from the free city of Danzig, today Gdansk in Poland. Now theyre prostitutes and give themselves to Arabs for money, the head of Haifas immigration office wrote his superiors. I think pioneers like these should be deported.

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The Zionist selection revealed: the movement blocked weak and sick Jewish migrants - Haaretz

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Posted By admin on November 30, 2021

A new monument in Poland, a stone's throw away from the Treblinka death camp, has raised controversy among historians. It commemorates Jan Maletka, a young Polish man who is claimed to have been shot by German soldiers when he offered water to Jews who were brought to the camp by train. The monument was erected on Thursday, and unveiled in an official military ceremony in the Polish town of Treblinka.

Prof. Jan Grabowski, a Polish historian and Holocaust researcher who resides and teaches in Canada, had harsh criticism for the monument. In conversation with Haaretz as well as on Facebook and in an article in the Polish media he said that the monument is part of a trend by Polish authorities to distort history. According to Grabowski, the monument was put up to serve a fictitious narrative, which presents the Poles as having come to the aid of Jews in the Holocaust, in order to obscure the involvement of many more Poles who helped the Nazis.

They erected a monument to celebrate Poles killed for rescuing the Jews in of all places the Treblinka railway station," Grabowski said. He added that scores of testimonies Jewish and Polish alike paint a different picture, in which Poles exploited the suffering of the Jews, selling them water but not giving it to them. "Diamonds, gold, money changed hands," he said. "Some of these Poles have been shot by the Ukrainians guarding the trains."

One such testimony was presented by Prof. Havi Dreifuss, an expert on the Holocaust of the Jews of Poland from Tel Aviv University and the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial. The suffering of the Jews sent to the extermination camps was enormous, first and foremost because of the murderous conditions in which the Germans transported them, she said. The crowding, lack of sanitary conditions, thirst and suffocation were too great to bear, and many died in the train cars.

Dreifuss quotes testimony that described what happened on August 20, 1942, the day when Jews of the Warsaw district were transported to Treblinka. Julia Biederman-Orzechowska, who watched the deportation, testified that the heat at that time was intolerable and that Poles gave water for large [sums of] money.

According to Grabowski, the authorities in Poland in this case the official in charge of culture in the Polish government, Magdalena Gawin, and the Pilecki Institute acted scandalously in installing the monument near the camp. Im in shock from the gall of those people who simply decided to write a new history of the Holocaust by themselves," he added. In an article published in the daily Gazeta Wyborcza, he wrote: How easy it is for Poland to falsify stories and commemorate a handful of fair Poles who sacrificed their lives to help Jews, in a sea of Poles who persecuted, murdered and helped murder at least 200,000 Jews who escaped the camps and the ghettos.

The Pilecki Institute, a Polish government body tasked with research and preservation of the history of Polish experiences in World War II and its aftermath, rejected the criticism. It claimed that the memorial was intended to commemorate a single person, rather than a group, and that the stone was not set up near theTreblinka death camp, but 4.5 kilometers (2.8 miles) from it. The institute also said that the monument commemorates the Jewish victims of the camp as well.

Gawin, for her part, said that Grabowski was spreading "fake news." She said, We never claimed that everyone helped [the Jews], this is a personal memorial.

The monument is indeed dedicated to one person, but the Pilecki Institute website states that Maletka did not act alone and that the railway workers in the area, as a group, acted to help Jews. According to the Pilecki Institute, two of Maletka's friends were also involved in the story, but their names are not recorded in the monument, because they were not killed by the Nazis.

Maletkas commemoration is part of an extensive initiative, led by the Pilecki Institute, to commemorate Poles who were killed because they helped Jews. In addition to his new memorial stone, Maletka's name and image were also displayed last week in the streets of Warsaw.

Although there is a consensus that any aid to the Jews during the Holocaust should be honored, historians like Grabowski doubt the authenticity of some of these stories. It is difficult to rely on the historical accuracy behind them, they add, because the entities promoting them have a political agenda, which is to defend the good name of the Polish nation and not necessarily historical truth.

It is unclear which historical sources proved that Maletka offered Jews water out of compassion. Haaretzs query to the Pilecki Institute on the subject has thus far received no response. Grabowski and other historians who are experts on the Holocaust in Poland are not familiar with this particular instance, although that does not necessarily mean it did not happen. Given that most of the Jews who would have witnessed the incident were certainly murdered immediately afterward, it is hard to find a basis for this story in independent sources.

The Pilecki Institute is relying on, among other things, the testimony of one of Maletkas partners, Remigiusz Pawlowicz, who survived the war and told his daughter Barbara about the incident. Barbara, who was born in 1948, was filmed for a video distributed by the institute saying: My father and Maletka offered water to Jews who were coming on the train to Treblinka. She added that her father told her that at first the Germans were not bothered by this, but at some point they had had enough, and began shooting at them.

A distorted narrative of Jewish-Polish relations

Dr. Marcin Panecki of the Pilecki Institute said that Maletka and two of his friends, all in their 20s, were sent by the Germans to work on the railroad track near Treblinka. They worked at the Treblinka station when suddenly they saw the transport of Jews, apparently from the Warsaw Ghetto, which came on August 20, 1942. According to Panecki, at around 10 A.M. they were walking cautiously toward the transport carrying containers of water. German soldiers saw them and fired at them. Maletka was killed on the spot, and the two others managed to flee. Later they returned to the scene, and retrieved the body of their friend for burial. However, the grave did not survive the war and the location of Maletkas grave is unknown.

Dreifuss presents a complex reality. Could it be that there were Poles who tried to help Jews out of compassion? Was this the case with Maletka? I really dont know, she said, but added: These publications by the Pilecki Institute, which is clearly associated with the Polish government, which is trying to promote a distorted narrative of the relations between Jews and Poles in the Holocaust, are partial and not clear enough.

Grabowski has similar criticism: "I call it, 'Writing a new history of the Holocaust.' Quoting family members who heard something about a Pole that he gave water to Jews. It's impossible to prove and impossible to disprove," he said.

In recent years, as part of the policy dictated by the current nationalist government of Poland, there are more and more initiatives to commemorate Poles who rescued Jews. Along with them, controversy is growing over the question of who has the authority to determine which Poles rescued Jews, and whether the authorities are using a handful of rescuers in an attempt to whitewash reality and obscure the involvement of other Poles in Nazi crimes.

This has included, among other projects, a museum and a monument built in the town of Markowa to Poles from the area who helped Jews in the Holocaust. It primarily commemorates the Ulma family a Polish family who hid Jews in their home and were murdered for it by the Nazis. A state-sponsored memorial day has also been instituted to honor Poles who saved Jews in the Holocaust.

At another site, a church in the city of Torun, a monument with hundreds of names of Poles whom it is claimed saved Jews has been put up, although the list is not known to Yad Vashem. Stories have also come to light of Polish diplomats from Switzerland, who allegedly issued hundreds of false passports that saved the lives of Jews in the Holocaust. One of these individuals, Konstanty Rokicki, was subsequently recognized as a Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem, although Polands efforts to gain such recognition for his colleagues have thus far been unsuccessful.

Yad Vashem has recognized approximately 7,000 Poles as Righteous Among the Nations, but concedes that the real number of Poles who saved Jews at the risk of their own lives may be greater. Jan Maletka, who is commemorated at the new monument, was not recognized by Yad Vashem; but, if his story can be corroborated, he certainly may deserve this title.

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Posted By admin on November 30, 2021

The new, fast-spreading Omicron variant of the COVID-19 virus is prompting rabbis, brides and synagogue-goers to wonder whether they need to take extra precautions to keep Jewish gatherings safe.

Most Hanukkah events seem to be going on as planned and anxiety over the variant is low-level but its there.

Our phones are ringing with people asking if there are any new protocols and what happens if some of their guests bail on them, said Bob Wilk of Gala Event and Food Artistry, a kosher caterer in Melville, L.I. The public is nervous but is not going into panic mode, such as forcing a postponement of their parties or requesting a reduction in the number of guarantees.

Rabbi Deborah Bravo of MakomNY, a Jewish community that meets at the Bethpage Worship Center on Long Island, said COVID-19 protocols arent changing in light of Omicron. At the same time, shes re-evaluating her plans to begin hosting Shabbat dinners for families at her home, and to add food to the Shabbat kiddush in January.

Were hesitating, Bravo said, citing the little scientists know of Omicron. Its response to vaccines may be unclear for several weeks.

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Like many rabbis, Bravo is consulting with her communitys medical advisory team, hoping for guidance that can help clergy and lay leaders make smart decisions about synagogue programming. Bravo spoke with a pulmonologist on MakomNYs team. He said he said he didnt think it is going to be a big deal but didnt know for sure. So were waiting to see more data.

I have a feeling we are not going to change the protocol, she added.

Rabbi Joseph Potasnik, executive vice president of the New York Board of Rabbis, has been having similar conversations about Omicron.

Were worried, he said. It is a time of concern. We have been told that outdoors is safer than indoors and so holding outdoor events is the better option.

Some congregations had extra precautions in place before they had even heard of Omicron, a variant first detected in South Africa earlier this month and which has since spread to Asia, the Mideast, Europe and North America. Scientists believe that it is highly transmissible, but say vaccines are likely to protect those infected with it from serious cases of COVID-19.

The annual Hanukkah party at the Dix Hills Jewish Center on Long Island was moved a month-and-a-half ago from inside the synagogue to the outdoor parking lot just to be safer.

Pre-COVID we had 400 to 500 people indoors, said Rabbi Howard Buechler, spiritual leader of the Conservative congregation. We have no guidance yet on Omicron, we just feel such a crowd cannot be indoors in the current pandemic reality.

A similar approach has been adopted at the Hebrew Institute of Riverdale The Bayit, an Orthodox congregation in the Bronx, where congregants keep their masks on indoors and where gathering spaces are large and allow people to spread out.

I really believe our synagogue, and synagogues in general, can offer controlled and managed community spaces for people to come together safely in these times in which we so desperately need community, said Rabbi Steven Exler. We dont want to be hasty and add unnecessary restrictions, adding fear.

Rabbi Adam Starr, spiritual leader of Congregation Ohr HaTorah, an Orthodox congregation in Atlanta which includes members who work at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said he hasnt instituted any changes yet in light of Omicron, but expects that the variant may prevent the congregation from lifting some precautions he had planned to discuss with the synagogues medical advisors.

He added that the biggest impact the new variant has had is on those who were planning trips to Israel. The Israeli government closed its borders Sunday evening to all foreign tourists for the next two weeks due to Omicron.

Anxiety over Omicron hangs over Jewish gatherings but the Hanukkah parties go on

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Posted By admin on November 30, 2021

To get a better understanding of the meaning of the Jewish holiday, we asked Rabbi Marcia Zimmerman to teach us Hanukkah 101.

GOLDEN VALLEY, Minn. Sunday marked the first night of Hanukkah the Festival of Lights in Jewish tradition.

The eight-day observance goes through Monday, Dec. 6. To give a lesson about Hanukkah to those who might not be familiar with the holiday, we asked Rabbi Marcia Zimmerman to teach us Hanukkah 101.

"Happy Hanukkah" is the most traditional greeting here in the West, and it's perfectly fine to say to a Jewish person even if you aren't Jewish.

With the greeting out of the way, we move on to the meaning.

"The elevator Hanukkah speech...," said Zimmerman. "In 163 BCE, approximately, there was a band of Jews called the Maccabees, which means hammer, and they went from Modi, which is outside of Jerusalem to the Temple in Jerusalem, the Second Temple that stood in Jerusalem, to reclaim Judaism."

And when the Maccabees won that night, and drove the Greek-Syrian rulers out of Jerusalem, they rededicated the Second Temple.

"They rededicated it, which is what Hanukkah the word means, 'dedication,'" Zimmerman said.

To do that, they needed to illuminate the lights.

"The Maccabees came into the Second Temple and there was only enough oil for one day to light the lights that were traditional... but low and behold, that one vial of oil, that miracle that lasted eight days, and therefore, Hanukkah is eight days," Zimmerman said.

It is always in the area of very late November to late December that we mark those eight days. The holiday does vary year to year as the lunar calendar where Judaism bases its time doesn't match the Gregorian calendar.

And Hanukkah is old: As you'll recall, the Maccabean revolt was in 163 BCE. It was hundreds of years after that, that some of the symbols you may know were ushered in.

"The menorah did not come into the symbolism of Hanukkah until about 400 years after the Maccabees won that battle," Zimmerman said.

The menorah is where we place our candles.

On the first night, the first candle is lit, adding one each night until we get to eight nine, counting the candle we use to light them each night.

"First century, when the menorah was created by the rabbis, they instructed people to put it into the window so everyone could see that this house was celebrating Hanukkah," Zimmerman said. "At about an hour after sunset at that point people are leaving the market, and more people were on the street."

It was placed in the window to be seen by as many people as possible, which gets to a deep meaning of the holiday: to show the world we are proud to be Jews.

Now onto the fun and games: Why do Jews play Dreidel?

"We play this for a variety of reasons," Zimmerman said. "One is, as the lights are illuminated, we aren't supposed to talk about anything other than Hanukkah and the miracle of Hanukkah...and so the game was this great opportunity to play the game to remember the miracle."

The game also passes the time for families gather around the lights together.

We share this Hanukkah 101 as an offering of knowledge, so we all understand each other's celebrations and traditions in this season of light.

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Posted By admin on November 30, 2021

(New York Jewish Week via JTA) More snack time? Longer recess? What could preschoolers possibly be protesting about, wondered a TikTok video that went viral over the Thanksgiving weekend.

In the video, taken from an apartment window on the Upper West Side, children can be seen marching around a corner holding handmade cardboard signs.

Woke up this morning to preschoolers protesting, the video narrates, in a voice that sounds suspiciously like Nick Krolls Gil Faizon character in his comedy act Oh, Hello. That is to say, it is the voice of an old, cranky Jewish man on the Upper West Side, which is a new TikTok text-to-speech effect that is apparently meant to sound like (bear with us) Marvels Rocket the Raccoon.

I cant figure out their cause, the narrator continues. Theyre chanting Ingrid. Indeed, the children and the adults that accompany them can be heard chanting Ingrid! Ingrid! Ingrid! while dancing at the end of the video.

Whatever their cause is I support it, captioned user @phoebebean, who posted the video, adding the hashtag #youngrevolutionaries.

Whatever their cause is I support it #youngrevolutionaries

original sound Phoebe

As it turns out, the young revolutionaries in the video which has more than 480,000 views and nearly 105,000 likes are actually students at Beit Rabban Day School in Manhattan, participating in their annual Erev Thanksgiving Day Parade on the day before the holiday.

Stephanie Ives, the head of school, told the New York Jewish Week that the parade is an annual tradition that began four years ago. Students chant Thank you and You are appreciated to city workers and other people considered helpers along the route.

The parade accompanies a unit about gratitude in the Jewish tradition, or hakarat hatov, Ives said. Each class fills shoe boxes with handwritten thank-you notes and delivers them to places in the neighborhood chosen in a vote.

This year, the students at the non-denominational Jewish school chose to deliver their Boxes-O-Gratitude to MTA bus drivers, subway workers, LabQ mobile testing sites, the West Side Campaign Against Hunger, pharmacists providing vaccines, pediatricians offices, the Wild Bird Fundand the schools maintenance team and security guards. Middle school students also restocked community refrigerators.

Students from Beit Rabban Day School in Manhattan were caught on a TikTok video that went viral, Nov. 24, 2021. (Laura Kaler)

I think its actually quite inspiring, Ives said. We didnt want to do a Thanksgiving feast theyre so wasteful and we dont really know what the kids get from them. We were brainstorming what can we do that is a real hands-on lesson in gratitude that will stick with these kids.

One of the TikTok commenters agreed, saying they were witnessing a core memory forming.

Its one of my favorite school days of the year everyone is so joyous and the neighborhood lights up with smiles, said Laura Kaler, the director of programs and communications at Beit Rabban.

Phoebe, who made the video and posted it on TikTok, is Jewish. I had no idea what they were chanting about but I figured Id record it anyway. It looked like they were saying thank you to people, she said. I had a feeling it would go viral because it was just too cute.

The comments on the 14-second video were equally curious and supportive. Many suggested what the preschoolers were demanding. No more unpaid nap hours, wrote one user. More fruit snacks!! offered another. They have my full 100% support, read a comment that got 705 likes.

Other commenters dedicated themselves to deciphering the Ingrid chant. Plot twist: Ingrid is their classmate on timeout, a user guessed. Ingrid stayed home that day and they were simply not going to have it, was another one.

And who is Ingrid, and why did the students chant her name? It was the young students thanking their principal, Ingrid Goldfein, in the most adorable way.

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An Upper West Side Jewish day schools Thanksgiving parade went viral on TikTok - Jewish Telegraphic Agency

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Posted By admin on November 30, 2021

National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene (NYTF) is dishing up some exciting new Chanukah programming as part of its 107th season, with an online celebration of Jewish food through song and cooking demonstrations. The special Chanukah edition of ESN: Songs from the Kitchen is a feel-good event that is intended to remind you of the value of family and the deliciousness of food, in the belief that good family doesnt come without good food, and vice versa.

Yiddish diva Adrienne Cooper (1946-2011) helped conceive the original performance of ESN two decades ago. This latest installment is created and performed by Frank London and Lorin Sklamberg of the internationally renowned Grammy Award-winning Yiddish music group The Klezmatics, along with fourth-generation Yiddish singer/songwriter Sarah Mina Gordon (Coopers daughter).

London is a New York-based trumpeter, composer, and co-founder of The Klezmatics in 1986. Throughout his prolific career, he has performed and recorded with a wide array of such popular artists as Pink Floyd, Itzhak Perlman, Celia Cruz, Lester Bowie, and LL Cool J. He has composed numerous scores for dance, theater and film, and is featured on more than 500 recordings.

A co-founding member of The Klezmatics, Sklamberg also teaches Yiddish song from So Paulo to St. Petersburg. Since 2000, he has served as the Sound Archivist of the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, for whom he co-curates the Ruth Rubin Legacy website featuring field recordings of the renowned folklorists collection of some 3,000 Yiddish folk songs.

Gordon grew up immersed in innovative Yiddish culture and has collaborated with London, The Klezmatics, and other artists to pen original Yiddish songs sung around the world. She is one of the founding organizers of Yiddish New York and teaches Yiddish song at KlezKanada, in addition to having fronted the rock band Yiddish Princess.

All three are not only accomplished musical artists and experts in Yiddish language and culture, but they can also cook! ESN is directed by Stephanie Lynne Mason and edited by Adam B. Shapiro, with videography by Merete Muenter.

Running Time: Approximately 45 minutes, without intermission.

ESN: Songs from the Kitchen streams through Monday, December 6, 2021 (the last night of Chanukah), on the NYTF website. Viewing is free, but donations are welcome.

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A Chanukah celebration of Jewish food and song with 'ESN' from NYC's National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene - DC Metro Theater Arts

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Posted By admin on November 30, 2021

(JTA) One of televisions most notorious cartoon antisemites is now an Orthodox rabbi.

Eric Cartman, the egomaniacal, hate speech-spouting grade schooler on Comedy Centrals long-running adult animated series South Park, has had a change of heart in a new hour-long special of the show, which is set 40 years in the future.

In South Park: Post COVID, which debuted on Thanksgiving on the Paramount Plus streaming service, Cartman has converted to Judaism, leads a congregation in Colorado Springs, wears a tallit wherever he goes, and has a Jewish wife named Yentl and three children: Moishe, Menorah and Hakham. His trademark blue hat now serves as a kippah.

Is Cartmans conversion for real, or some elaborate scheme directed at his old nemesis, Kyle Broflovski? Post COVID is only the first part of a new series of South Park movies commissioned as Paramount Plus exclusives, so we wont know for sure whats going on with him until the story arc continues sometime in December.

But his sudden devotion to the Torah is enough of a shocker to send Kyle, the shows long-suffering Jewish protagonist, into fits of rage, as he becomes convinced his ex-friends new life is just a mean-spirited ruse.

The Cartman-Kyle storyline is only the B-plot of the new special the rest involves the old schoolyard gang reuniting to try to uncover long-buried secrets of the pandemic but South Park has long used the dynamic between the two as politically incorrect comic fodder, dating back to the shows debut in 1997. Series co-creators Matt Stone (who is Jewish, and voices Kyle) and Trey Parker (who voices Cartman) have built many episodes around Jewish themes, frequently making note of Cartmans antisemitism usually as a way to mock actual antisemites.

The pint-sized sociopath has previously impersonated Hitler in an attempt to get Passion of the Christ fans to re-enact the Holocaust; faked having Tourette Syndrome in order to spout antisemitic speech in public; and tried to force Kyle to hand over his Jew Gold. Hes even jokingly converted to Judaism before, in a 2012 Passover special.

But this time, Cartman actually seems serious about his faith he even yells out Talmudic lessons while in the bedroom with his wife. Kyle, meanwhile, seems to have lapsed from his own beliefs in the intervening decades, noting at one point, Its been a long time since Ive prayed. The rest of the Broflovski family, who play a large role in the original South Park series and in the 1999 feature-length film, are nowhere to be found in Post COVID, though Kyle still lives in their house and keeps their photos on his wall.

So maybe seeing his longtime frenemy embrace the faith he once ridiculed could open up something in Kyle. But if so, that may take some more healing. When circumstances compel Kyle to host Cartmans family, he instead tries to kick them out. One of Cartmans kids exclaims, This is just like when our people were exiled from the Holy Land!

Jewish fans of South Park are used to Cartmans shenanigans: Odds are, theres something funny going on here. We wont know for sure whats up with him until the next made-for-streaming film, which is due next month.

South Park: Post COVID is now streaming on Paramount Plus.

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Cartman converts to Judaism on South Park, after decades of tormenting Jews - Jewish Telegraphic Agency

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Posted By admin on November 30, 2021

Young people are becoming increasingly disconnected from traditional faith communities, but they don't necessarily rejectreligion altogether, a recent study shows.

Springtide Research Institute surveyed more than 10,200 people and interviewed 65 peopleages 13-25 for its annual State of Religion and Young People study, the theme of which is "Navigating Uncertainty."

Among its findings, the study found that in the midst of major life changes, young people don't feel that conventional religious spaces are sources of comfort.

"They (young people) have been searching, and sometimes, finding ways that spirituality, religious practice, and belief can help them deal with uncertainty and anxiety. So who are they turning to for those solutions? Spoiler alert: They aren't turning to religion, at least not in the traditional sense," Josh Packard, Springtide's executive director, wrote in the study's report.

Reasons cited for not turning to traditional religious spaces include a desire to discover answers about faith themselves, rather than someone else prescribing answers,feeling that religious communities are too "rigid and restrictive," and being unsure about ways to connect to religious communities, among 15 other reasons cited.

Those concerns are what Jewsic City is trying to address in its work engaging young Jewish people in Nashville, said Sarah Ruden, a cofounder of the group."We say we are rooted in tradition, but not at all traditional."

Jewsic City meets once a month to celebrate Shabbat services, starting off with a community dinner and then a service that features less traditional styles, such as usingpercussion and guitar. Also, their songs includepassages in English and in Hebrew.

"Its really a community," Ruden said. "I think young people want to come and they get a free dinner and they get to spend time together and sing together. And we encourage people to bring instruments."

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There are also times when guest speakers will present to the group, spurring additional conversation among group members. One guest speaker was an Ethiopian Israeli woman who spoke with the group about her experience living in both countries, Ruden said.

Ruden and three others started Jewsic City five years ago to create a community among other young Jewish people in the city, who, like herself, are moving from cities where there are largerJewish populations than Nashville.

Today, 20 to 30 people attendJewsic City gatherings, hosted at different spaces each time, like parks or backyards.

Jewsic City and other groups engaging young Jewish people"can help provide the sort of opportunity for this younger demographic to participate in what are still religious activities and taking them outside the existing houses of worship," said Eric Stillman, CEO of the Jewish Federation & Jewish Foundation of Nashville and Middle Tennessee.

"It isproviding these young adults with the opportunity to create their own service or way of expressing their Judaism through these otherwise religious activities."

The Jewish Federation provides grant funding to Jewsic City and it runs another group for young Jewish people in Nashvillecalled NowGen.

Groups like Jewsic City model a key point that Springtide's report makes on "flexibility" of expressions of faith.

"Leaders who make room for curiosity, wholeness, connection, and feasibility in the lives of young people can be the kind of guides young people trust and turn to in times of uncertainty, or whenever they are facing lifes biggest questions," read a section of Springtide's study.

The rigidity offaith communities, specifically in the South, has been a reason for young people leaving those faith communities, region-level data from Springtide's study shows.

Of the reasons cited for not joining religiouscommunities, respondents in the South region scored highest or second highestto respondents inthe Northeast, Midwest, andWest regions. Those answers included:

Due to the South's religiosity, the region trails behind other parts of the country withcertain religious trends, said Andrew Zirschky, who oversees the Nashville extension of Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary, where he he is a professor of youth ministry.

However, Zirschky adds, the South's religiosity might also explain the pushback.

Zirscky also serves on Springtide's research advisory board.

"When you have a very certain, very rigid, very formal religious culture, theres a lot that you have to hide to be a part of that community,"Zirschky said."So, theres a lot more in the South, in its religious culture, to push against."

Add to that the pandemic, which exacerbated young peoples' disconnect from faith communities. Rather than attending church as usual, people stayed home and went "'Oh, why do I go to church on Sundays?'" Zirschky said, based on findings from Springtide's studies and his students' research.

One year into the pandemic, only 10% of respondents told Springtide that a faith leader reached out to them personally.

As Zirschky sees it, ministry leaders need to improve the way they engage young people both in methodology and frequency.

"A mass email does not count as contacting your young people," he said.

Liam Adams covers religion for The Tennessean. Reach him at ladams@tennessean.com or on Twitter @liamsadams.

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Engagement is key in age of increasing disconnect between young people and faith communities, study finds - The Tennessean

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