Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By admin on November 21, 2021

TWINSBURG Those of the Jewish faith will soon have a house of worship in Twinsburg.

The Chabad Jewish Center of Twinsburg will open in a former office space on Vail Drive sometime early next year, said Rabbi Mendy Greenberg. The center will lease the space, about 1,500 square feet, to host weekly synagogue services, a Hebrew school, its Mom & Me program and holiday programs. This will be the first Jewish center in Twinsburg.

Weve seen a lot of growth in the community, and many young families moving, Greenberg said. Having no real space to call our own was really hampering activities.

Any open house events will be announced "when we are closer to the actual opening," Greenberg said.

Twinsburg Chabad was started in 2017 by Greenberg and his wife Mussie in the couples own home, as well as in various rented spaces. But as attendance grew, the Greenbergs realized they needed a larger and more permanent home.

"I grew up in Solon, where my parents run a similar organization, so Twinsburg was a natural pick," Greenberg said. "We had lots of friends in the area, and there weren't any Jewish services being provided, so we decided to answer that need."

Greenberg says the new space might be too small to host the major holiday celebrations, but it will answer the current need for a location for daily and weekly events.

"Some of our events are attended by over 100, while others are on a smaller scale," Greenberg said. He added that Twinsburg Chabad would continue to rent out space as needed for larger events.

In addition to the new space, the community recently commissioned the writing of a new Torah scroll for the synagogue. A Torah is Judaisms most sacred object, the Bible handwritten by a scribe that is read every Shabbat during services, Greenberg said.

This will be the first Torah scroll owned by the community," Greenberg said. "Until now, we have been borrowing from other synagogues.

Twinsburg Chabad is now embarking on a campaign to fund the new construction project, with an immediate goal of $50,000.

Dedications are available for various parts of the center, Greenberg said. Families could dedicate a Torah portion and have their names embroidered on the cover of new Torah.

This marks an important stage in our growth, Greenberg said, and we are all very excited.

Greenberg described Chabad as a "non-denominational" community for Jewish followers.

"It is attended by Jews of all denominations, while providing a traditional form of Jewish observance," he said.

For details, visit https://www.jewishtwinsburg.com or call 440-465-2063.

Reporter April Helms can be contacted at ahelms@thebeaconjournal.com

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Twinsburg's first synagogue to open early next year - Akron Beacon Journal

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Posted By admin on November 21, 2021

In the days before Rosh Hashanah this year, the president of Congregation Shaar Zahav found a homeless encampment had sprung up at the synagogue. About a half-dozen people were sleeping in tents on either side of the building across the street from San Franciscos Mission Dolores. The entrances and exits had become inaccessible.

Before the pandemic, it was not unusual to see people sleeping in tents a few steps away from Shaar Zahav, the citys historically gay and lesbian synagogue. Throughout 2020, as more tents appeared around the synagogue, staff brought meals to the unsheltered people. Theyd sweep the sidewalk around the tents and hand out trash bags, then collect the filled bags.

However, in 2021, this cooperative relationship between the synagogue and the unsheltered individuals dissolved, according to Marc Lipschutz, the synagogues president.

Our campers in 2021 were not responsive, did not pack their trash, did not move their trash. They urinated on our building regularly, Lipschutz said.

Maintenance staff that came three times a week to collect trash were increasingly dealing with a monumental task, Lipschutz said. He instructed them not to touch the hypodermic needles theyd find on the ground.

Not all of our homeless neighbors were substance abusers. But some of them most certainly were, Lipschutz said, and were frequently under the influence, and sometimes belligerent.

In August, as the synagogue prepared to host in-person worship and resume its religious school, Lipschutz began contacting public officials: a member of the Board of Supervisors, the mayors office, the police department and San Franciscos Department of Emergency Management.

I felt I needed to balance the dignity of individual people who are without housing and the safety of my congregation, he said.

I also want to emphasize that I did not want our neighbors to be removed without being offered housing and related services. I requested assurance that their possessions would not be confiscated, because I believe, in the past, that this has happened. And [I requested] that they would not be relocated violently, that theyd be relocated with compassion.

Over a two-week period, outreach teams from the Department of Emergency Management, in conjunction with officers from the SFPDs Mission Station, visited the encampment to determine which residential programs or shelters people might want to go to, according to Sam Dodge, who had just come on as the new director of San Franciscos multiagency Healthy Streets Operation Center.

We love our location and all that that brings with it. This is part of the challenge.

Focused relocation efforts took place over the Labor Day weekend, Sept. 4-6, when the people living in the small encampment transitioned, with their belongings, to city-sanctioned safe sleeping villages and navigation centers, which are enhanced shelters with greater privacy and on-site services, Dodge said.

It did resolve well. We did take our time, Dodge said. He said no one was arrested or dispossessed of their belongings. The goals Lipschutz outlined were met.

Lipschutz takes responsibility for initiating the clearing of the tents, and admits he got pushback from several congregants who felt that unsheltered individuals, because of insufficient affordable housing, should be permitted to camp on the sidewalk. He acted anyway, out of concern for public safety.

For someone who says, Marc, you were wrong, Ill have to say, I am sorry. This pains me greatly. And in some ways, perhaps I was wrong. But I felt that I needed to balance the needs of communities, including my community of Shaar Zahav.

More than two months since their removal, the individuals and their tents have not returned, Lipschutz said.

Shaar Zahavs Rabbi Mychal Copeland said homeless people nestling near places of worship present a challenge, and that she meets with nearby church clergy in an attempt to figure out how we can best make positive change happen in our city for our unhoused neighbors.

She said she supported Lipschutz in his actions toward moving the encampment from the synagogue.

We love our location and all that that brings with it, Copeland said. This is part of the challenge.

There are an estimated 5,000 unsheltered individuals in San Francisco on any given day, according to Dodge. And the total number of people without permanent housing citywide hovers at more than 8,000, according to the last Point in Time Count from 2019, although the number no doubt has climbed higher during the pandemic. The count scheduled for 2021 was postponed due to the pandemic. The next formal count of the citys homeless population will be in January, the San Francisco Public Press reported. That data provides key funding for the citys homeless services.

These services are particularly urgent in the South of Market area, where Rabbi Yosef Langer of Chabad of S.F. (located on Natoma and Sixth streets, near a liquor store and a single-room occupancy hotel) comes across someone sleeping at Chabads front entrance nearly every day. He brings coffee and boxed meals to the people sleeping against the synagogues outside walls, and greets them as he passes by. He notices human feces and dog waste on his way in.

This is their home, Langer said. A lot of them grew up on Sixth Street.

When someone is sleeping at the entrance and blocking access to the center, hell ask them to move and, when necessary, call 311, the citys nonemergency helpline. He says it usually takes three days for someone to come out, and if an individual is removed, within a night or so, theyre back.

He maintains a relationship with nearby Hospitality House, which offers programs and a shelter and tries to connect homeless individuals to the rehabilitative resources the organization offers.

If you dont reach out for the other guy, Langer said, the issues around homelessness are going to come tumbling down on you.

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How an SF synagogue dealt with a nearby homeless encampment J. - The Jewish News of Northern California

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Posted By admin on November 21, 2021

A name is no small thing in Judaism. Deciding on the name of San Franciscos newest synagogue the convergence of two independent congregations, one Reform and the other Conservative became a yearlong discussion.

Am Tikvah was the name chosen for the 275-member Outer Sunset congregation that combines the members of Beth Israel Judea and Bnai Emunah, officials announced on Nov. 12. Am Tikvah is Hebrew for People of Hope.

The full name includes the tagline Continuing the Story of Beth Israel Judea and Bnai Emunah.

The names of the founding congregations are going to be there forever, Rabbi Sam Barth, the new congregations transitional rabbi, said of thetagline. He said the new consolidated board voted unanimously to approve the name.

This is a very meaningful step in the merger of our two great congregations, Joshua Goodman and Sharon Bleviss, the co-presidents of Am Tikvah, shared in an email to congregants. Our thanks to all on the Name Action Team for their vision and leadership.

The Name Action Team is one of 11 member-led committees assigned to manage the steps in completing the merger.

Both synagogues are historic and enduring fixtures in San Franciscos Jewish community. Bnai Emunah was founded largely by Holocaust refugees in 1949, and BIJ is the product of a 1969 merger between Congregation Beth Israel a Conservative congregation that had been founded as an Orthodox shul in 1860 and the Reform Temple Judea, which was established in 1953.

Last November, 90 percent of the members at Reform Congregation Beth Israel Judea and Conservative Congregation Bnai Emunah voted for the merger, a decision that had been a long time coming. The two synagogues, situated 3 miles apart, have been partners in the Southside Jewish Collaborative since 2012, and jointly run a religious school.

The decision to merge the memberships 165 at BIJ and 110 at Bnai Emunah was made to increase financial stability, encourage more vibrant events and secure a future for Jewish life in southwestern San Francisco, the pre-merger location of both synagogues.

Am Tikvah will be affiliated jointly with both the Conservative and Reform movements.

The Am Tikvah board has hired as its executive director Ellen Krause-Grosman, who comes with an extensive background in nonprofit management and Jewish leadership from Boston where she lives. She was scheduled to present the Dvar Torah at Shabbat morning services on Nov. 20, held at the Brotherhood Way synagogue, belonging to BIJ.

The board also contracted with an architecture firm to consult on the initial steps to choose a location for Am Tikvah, focusing on input from community members and clarifying issues with both of our buildings, Goodman and Bleviss said in their joint email.

Choosing a home and a building, its a big commitment, Barth said, adding that seeking input from the congregation is the first step.

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Newly merged SF synagogues announce new name: Am Tikvah J. - The Jewish News of Northern California

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Posted By admin on November 18, 2021

It's no surprise that a global event of the magnitude of the pandemic has had a tremendous impact on our society, but it is concerning to see some of the ways in which that impact has extended beyond our physical health. For example, last year, we experienced an outbreak of blatant racist acts against individuals of Asian descentmisplaced anger stemming from questions of the coronavirus' origins. Later, debates regarding health precautions and restrictions further deepened the country's divide, as a public health conversation quickly escalated into a cultural clash.

Recently, we've witnessed a new, troubling development in a similar vein: the use of specious analogies equating our current public health crisis with the events of the Holocaust.

This practice is not new but it is increasingly prevalent and alarming. In the political arena specifically, people on both sides of the aisle have made comparisons to the Holocaust in growing numbers in debates and across social media. Typically, the goal is less to discuss the Holocaust and more to grab attention, using charged language to make a point about the matter at hand.

Too many are struggling with the simple truth that inaccurate analogies to the Holocaust simply distort and minimize the Holocaust. And whether this behavior is intentional or not, such comparisons are antisemitic.

The most recent examples involve conversations surrounding mask and vaccine mandates. In one recent incident, an anti-masker in Alaska protested by standing outside the Anchorage Assembly meeting doling out yellow Stars of David, a reference to the yellow stars required for Jews under Nazi rule. Another recent anti-vax event in Milwaukee included protesters equating the employee vaccine mandates of local health institutions to the plight of Jews during WWII.

And a few weeks ago, this concept hit even closer to home: Our organization, the Philadelphia Holocaust Remembrance Foundation, received a call from someone asking us, an organization that memorializes victims of totalitarianism, to host an event protesting vaccine and mask mandates.

The person making this request was not seeking to offend us; they reached out in earnest, genuinely looking to create connections between the descendants of the Holocaust survivor community and antivaxxers, based on the flawed idea of shared persecution. Of course, we were taken aback and declined.

Unless they are truly ignorant of Holocaust history, even the most ardent anti-vaxxers and anti-maskers should understand the drastic differences between the Holocaust, which involved the murder of millions, and the public effort to mandate anti-COVID measures.

When people become passionate about any cause, they often feel compelled to convey their suffering, and that is the source of many of these Holocaust comparisons. But these analogies ignore the reality of what the Holocaust was: a decade-plus terror that featured progressively more brutal human rights violations and resulted in unprecedented mass murder.

The notion that the Nazis' ethnic cleansing of Jews and other minority groups is in any way similar to COVID health regulations is ludicrous. Cherry-picking portions of a genocide to compare to one's own plight only diminishes the horrors that actually occurred. Whether intentionally manipulative or born out of ignorance, these comparisons are incorrect, offensive, and qualify as Holocaust distortion.

So what can we do to fix this?

On the most basic level, the key is responding in real time. In today's fractured climate, the path of least resistance is to overlook offensive rhetoric, so as not to further escalate tensions. But problems are rarely solved by avoiding them, and the more appropriate response is to call nonsense out for what it is.

Beyond that, it's also important to remember that whenever ignorance is a driving force, education is the most powerful response.

And there's a lot of ignorance to go around. According to Time Magazine, 49 percent of U.S. Millennials and Gen Zers have seen Holocaust denial or distortion posts on social media or elsewhere online. With that in mind, resources to better public education surrounding the Holocaust must be made available to promote swift implementation in the classroom and beyond. Whether through training sessions with local teachers or community events, educational institutions and civic leaders must work together to bolster Holocaust education.

Holocaust study can be powerful, combining history and critical thinking skillsby studying Nazi propaganda, for exampleand teaching students about the dangers of staying silent in the face of injustice. When done right, it should contribute significantly to the molding of informed, thoughtful American citizens who understand the importance of democracy, the power of ideas and the danger of tyranny.

Along with these benefits, better knowledge of what the Holocaust actually was will certainly limit the number of foolish comparisons that are made to it.

Eszter Kutas is the Executive Director of the Philadelphia Holocaust Remembrance Foundation.

The views in this article are the writer's own.

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The Way to Stop Bad Holocaust Analogies Is Through Education | Opinion - Newsweek

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Posted By admin on November 18, 2021

There is something so right about Kinder Surprise Eggs. The outer foil is a riot of orange and white, festooned with multicoloured, bouncy letters. Unwrap it and you find the smooth, warm colour of its chocolate shell; slightly sticky yet delicately firm. The underside of the shell recalls white albumen and within it the yolk a bright yellow capsule tempts you with its secrets. Break it open and there is a further puzzle: what will the toy look like once assembled?

Kinder Surprise Eggs are instantly familiar, loved by many (not just children) and draw on the deepest levels of human symbolism. No wonder that every month, the number of Kinder Surprise Eggs sold worldwide would be enough to cover the surface of Tiananmen Square in Beijing.

And as with other classic brands Heinz Tomato Ketchup for example most of its competitors are fated to be seen as second-rate. Products such as Kinder Surprise Eggs are often taken for granted. They are just there, nestling on the shelves of a supermarket or (as in my local corner shop) on the counter next to the cash register.

I dont remember a time when I didnt know that Kinder Surprise Eggs existed. When my children were younger, the Eggs were a handy go-to treat to keep them busy or distracted. I knew what they were and what to expect of them; they were reliable. I didnt pay much attention to them. Yet at some point I found something within a Kinder Surprise Egg that forced me to sit up and pay attention; to stop taking them for granted and look at them with fresh eyes.

One day, as I was assembling the toy for my son, I glanced at the small sheet of paper included within the capsule. I had seen it before, maybe I had even read it, but on this occasion I actually saw it. It drew me in, sparking an obsession that has lasted for years, long after my children entered adolescence and were no longer interested in the product.

The flimsy document found in Kinder Surprise Eggs only 12cm by 5cm, covered on both sides with tiny text has become, for me, a kind of treasure map. It has led me on an adventure that is still unfolding.

In Europe, as well as in large swathes of Asia and the Middle East, crammed into 120cm2 is a riot of blood red and jet black scripts, gnomic texts, strange diacritics and mysterious symbols. Scan your eye over the text more closely and you are likely to find a few words that look familiar:

WARNING, read and keep: Toy not suitable for children under three years. Small parts might be swallowed or inhaled.

Its a reasonable thing to warn of. The toys are indeed minuscule. Im not sure how many other readers actually keep the sheet, but I havent just kept it, I have collected multiple versions of this text that has become for me a source of beguiling, and sometimes baffling, mysteries.

For me, the languages I find in translated messages on everyday products offer a tantalising glimpse of the linguistic pleasures available outside the English-speaking world. Before I encountered the Kinder Egg message, the most diversity I ever found was on the list of local distributors found on boxes of Kleenex tissues. But they had nothing on Kinder Eggs. I had never seen Georgian, Azerbaijani or Latvian on product packaging until I discovered Kinder Eggs.

Packed into one tiny slip of paper are 37 different languages, in eight different scripts.

Something odd happens the more you delve into the world of Kinder Egg linguistics: you start to realise what isnt there. How many other versions exist? Where are they used? Who decides on their content? Why is it that the sheet of paper used in Europe includes all EU official languages except for two (Irish and Maltese)? Who decided not to include them? And given that millions speak minority European languages like Catalan, there is a strong case for including them too.

In fact, there are 5,0006,000 languages spoken in the world today, together with innumerable dialects. The Kinder Egg message can only be translated into a fraction of them. When looked in this way, the message sheet starts to look oddly impoverished. Why should a multilingual Dane need a specific message in Danish while a monolingual speaker of one of the indigenous languages of Greenland (an autonomous Danish territory) not be provided with a translation into his or her own language?

Language is never simple and so communication is never simple. Despite that, using language to try and communicate is also just what humans do. We are driven to connect with each other.

Kinder Eggs and I have a history. I first came out to the public as a warning message-lover at a talk I gave at the 2017 Boring Conference in London. In preparation for the talk, I commissioned translations of the warning message into more languages. I started with Irish and Maltese, in order to complete the set of EU languages. After that I found it hard to stop: I collected Luxembourgish, Cornish, Welsh and then Biblical Hebrew. At the end of the talk I led the audience in a joke pledge to never buy another Kinder Egg until they included a translation of the warning message into Cornish.

In 2018 I recorded a podcast for the BBC Boring Talks series and added yet more languages to the collection. I also included an appeal for listeners to send me warning message sheets from around the world, and listeners in South Africa, Brunei and Nepal duly obliged.

Every so often, following the release of the podcast, Id receive an email offering me a translation into a new language. I received one such email in March 2020, in the first phase of the pandemic. The sender inquired whether I would be interested in a recording of the warning message into Shanghainese (it could only be a recording as the language is never written down).

In the end, the offer didnt pan out, but it still flicked some kind of switch in my brain. In a time of disconnection, commissioning translations would bring me connection, yet the translations themselves would be unreadable to me. Could there be a better metaphor for the human yearning to reach out to others and the limits of doing so?

Another thought seized me: for some years I had been writing and researching about the worst aspects of humanity. I had published two books that went to very dark places, exploring racism, anti-Semitism, Holocaust denial and other forms of denialism. I had argued that we needed to come to terms with the fact that human diversity isnt always something to celebrate, since human beings hold to a wide range of incompatible moralities and desires. I still believe this, but I had a strong yearning to demonstrate the other side of the coin, that human diversity can be a wonderful thing.

To write about linguistic diversity during challenging times reminded me that language is the most amazing thing that human beings have created. So spring and summer last year saw me firing off email after email: to language promotion officers in the Channel Islands, to professors of Sumerian, to Romani rights activists, to creators of invented languages, and to almost everyone I could think of in my address book who spoke a language that wasnt to be found on the original warning message slip.

[Side one]Armenian (1)AzerbaijaniBulgarianCzechDanishGermanGreekEnglishSpanishEstonianFinnishFrenchCroatianHungarianArmenian (2)ItalianGeorgianKyrgyz[Side two]LithuanianLatvianMacedonianDutchNorwegianPolishPortugueseRomanianRussianSlovakSloveneAlbanianSerbianSwedishTurkishUkrainianPersianArabicChinese (Traditional characters)Chinese (Simplified characters)

Some never replied, a few frostily refused, but the majority agreed and many more went further: sending me the translations by return, recommending experts in other languages, offering me reams of explanations as to word choice. I posted the results of my searches on my blog and on social media. As my collection grew, so people would write to me explaining how much they enjoyed the project and encouraging me to keep going.

However much translating the Kinder Egg warning message into multiple tongues might seem a pointless project to some, other people just get it. Reading languages you do not understand is an underrated pleasure. Im not the only person to find the experience of seeing a familiar message rendered unfamiliar an enchanting one. And my joy in incomprehension is all the greater when the translation appears in a script Ive never previously encountered, features unusual diacritics, or just looks plain weird.

I also have a serious agenda: my experience of reaching out to linguists and speakers of a vast array of languages across the world has taught me that a world that speaks in many languages is one in which human individuality and invention can flourish. There is unity here too; unity in incomprehension. When I encounter a language I dont understand I am reminded of the amazing tendency of human beings to forge new paths, to do things in different ways.

But around half the worlds languages are classified as seriously endangered and some estimates suggest that by the end of the century, 90 per cent of our languages will have lost their last living native speaker. Globalisation, the mass media, migration to big cities and the centralised modern nation state have all contributed to this erosion.

Linguistic diversity is linked to biodiversity, as the same forces threaten both. Just as we need to treasure and protect the ecological diversity of the natural world, so should we guard the diversity of the human world. Translations of the warning message into endangered or lesser-known languages remind us that these languages live, they exist and should not be erased.

Revealing the ambiguities in the warning message, the messy process through which it has been translated and the challenges in communicating it, also makes a powerful statement: we refuse to silence the glorious babble of humanity, we refuse to treat any language, any nation, any state, as deserving of a louder voice, a bigger platform.

The Babel Message: A Love Letter to Language by Keith Kahn-Harris (Icon Books, 12.99) is out now

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Im so obsessed with Kinder Eggs, I translated the packaging into hundreds of languages including Klingon - iNews

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Posted By admin on November 18, 2021

STOCKHOLM (JTA) Actors in this weekends production of Waiting for Godot at the Royal Dramatic Theater in Stockholm performed neither in the classic plays original English nor in Swedish translation.

Rather, they were speaking Yiddish, a language spoken by few Swedes but increasingly cherished by many.

The Yiddish version of Samuel Becketts classic absurdist play, translated by Shane Baker, premiered in 2013 through the New Yiddish Rep, a theater company in New York City, under the direction of Moshe Yassur, a Holocaust survivor whose career in Yiddish theater dates to his prewar childhood in Romania. It has toured as far afield as Paris and Enniskillen in Northern Ireland.

The performances marked its debut in Sweden, and the first time ever that a play in Yiddish was staged at Swedens national theater company the only home that its local backers considered.

I didnt want it anywhere else but in Dramaten, said Lizzie Oved Scheja, the executive director of J!Jewish Culture in Sweden, one of the institutions responsible for bringing the performance to Stockholm, about the choice of the venue.

We believe that Jewish culture should be a part of Swedish culture, and that it should be presented on all the main stages in Sweden, she said.

The three performances were filled almost to capacity and drew prominent audience members including the Swedish minister of culture, leading Scheja to characterize the staging as a triumph of a culture that was supposed to be wiped out in the Holocaust.

In Sweden today, no more than 3,000 people out of a Jewish population of roughly 25,000 can speak Yiddish, according to the countrys Society for Yiddish (Jiddischsllskapet). Even that figure may well be an overestimate, given the countrys small number of haredi Orthodox Jews, the population that most often speaks Yiddish in their regular lives, and high rates of assimilation.

But the language has a long history in the country, dating back to the 18th century, when Jews were first allowed to settle in the country. The population of Yiddish-speakers further rose at the beginning of the 20th century, with a new wave of Jewish emigration, mostly from Russia, and after World War II, when thousands of Holocaust survivors arrived in Sweden, which had sheltered its own Jewish population from the Nazis.

In 2000, Yiddish became one of Swedens official minority languages (alongside with Finnish, Sami, Menkieli and Romani). The status of cultural heritage brought governmental funding for initiatives aimed at preserving the language within Sweden over the past 20 years.

At the same time, some younger Swedes have begun reconnecting with their heritage, in keeping with a trend that has unfolded across Europe.

There is a generation of people who are now in their 30s, 40s, 50s, and find out that they are Jewish, Oved Scheja said. Their interest in Yiddish means it is taught at universities in Lund and Uppsala, and at the Paideia, a 20-year-old Jewish studies institute in Stockholm.

A view of the Royal Dramatic Theater building in Stockholm, where Swedens national theater company has staged plays since 1908. (W. Buss/Getty Images)

Swedens Radio has a program devoted to Yiddish called Jiddisch far alle, or Yiddish for All, and two years ago a Swedish publisher, Nikolaj Olniansky, released the Yiddish translation of Harry Potter. The publication was partly financed by the Swedish government, as were many other initiatives aimed at preserving the minority languages.

An active Society for Yiddish (Jiddischsllskapet) which has its own amateur theater and stages classic plays in the language is the main Swedish organization dedicated to preserving the cultural heritage of Yiddish. The society helped produce Becketts play, with the support of J!Jewish Culture in Sweden, which has more experience in identifying Jewish artists, writers, and performers who are most likely to engage the broader Swedish public.

In recent years the two organizations collaborated on several other projects connected to Yiddish, such as a Yiddish film series. Last month it launched a Yiddish-language podcast, Yiddish Talks. The first episode is a conversation with Baker, the translator and actor of Waiting for Godot who is not Jewish.

The plays connection to Jewish culture predates its translation into Yiddish. Becketts biographer wrote about how a Jewish friend who was captured by the Nazis and died shortly after liberation was an inspiration for the playwright, who in an early draft named one character Levy, a traditionally Jewish name. And Becketts nephew, who saw the play some years ago, reportedly said that it could have been written in Yiddish because the language fit so well with its themes.

Waiting is Jewish, Yassur told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency after one of the Stockholm performances. Godot is very much part of the Jewish tradition of waiting. Jews have been waiting for the Messiah for 2,000 years. He is not coming, but they are still waiting.

Born in the 1930s in Iai, Romania, the same working-class city where Avraham Goldfaden had decades earlier established what became known as the first professional Yiddish theater troupe in the world, Yassur spoke Yiddish and performed in Yiddish theater as a child. After surviving a major pogrom in his city in 1941 and then the Holocaust, he moved to Israel in 1950, and later to New York.

It was only years later that he came back to working in his first language at New Yiddish Rep, a decision that he said was natural for him. But he said he doesnt see himself as a protector of Yiddish or have a mission of bringing Yiddish theater to life.

Yiddish will survive and protect itself. As long as the Jewish people survive, the Yiddish language will survive too, Yassur said.

While the play was written when millions of displaced people, including Yassur, were wandering across devastated Europe, it resonates with todays migration problems. Sweden has in recent years accepted an influx of refugees, then dealt with challenges related to their absorption and a rise in far-right political activity aimed at rejecting immigrants.

The notion of displacement, cultural and linguistic, is a pan-European issue and Sweden has been affected by it too, says dramaturg Beata Hein Bennett. There is a line in Waiting for Godot where Estragon asks: Where do we come in? Vladimir answers: On our hands and knees.

The contested status of immigrants in Swedish society, where Jews were not so long ago a major refugee population, made a Yiddish performance of the play at the Royal Dramatic Theater even more resonant.

It is extremely important that a play in Yiddish was performed at the national stage, Oved Sheja said. That shows the theaters willingness to open up, to have diversity. And what is the essence of diversity if not this language, this play itself, the fact that it is performed by an ensemble from New York?

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Swedens national theater stages its first ever Yiddish production - Jewish Telegraphic Agency

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Posted By admin on November 18, 2021

Ten days after the Revolution happened in Petrograd (this was the 'revolutionary' name of Saint Petersburg), officials and clerks of the Ministry of Finance of the Russian Empire gathered for a meeting to protest against the Bolsheviks seizure of state power.

We decided to start a general strike and issue a resolution, Sergey Belgard, a secretary of the Ministry, wrote. The resolution was as follows: We, employees of the Ministry of Finance, declare: 1) We do not consider it possible to obey orders coming from those who have seized power. 2) We refuse to enter into official relations with them. 3) From now on, until the establishment of the authorities enjoying national recognition, we interrupt our official activities, placing responsibility for the consequences on those who seized power.

Sergey Belgard, the Ministry of Finance's secretary

When Vyacheslav Menzhinsky, a Bolshevik leader who was ordered by Lenin to control the State Bank, appeared at the Ministry of Finance, the Director of the Credit Office and the Mint, Conrad Sahmen refused to shake Menzhinskys hand. In return, Menzhinsky said: I no longer consider you the director of the Credit Office. The war was on.

The revolting cadets inside the ravaged premises of the Central Committee in the former Kshesinskaya Palace. June 6, 1917.

The Ministry of Finance was, of course, not the only institution protesting against the Bolshevik power. Two days after their resolution, on October 29, cadets of several military schools in Petrograd mutinied against the Bolsheviks, which was swiftly suppressed, with hundreds killed and executed.

Both the cadets mutiny and the statesmen strike were inspired by the Committee for the Salvation of the Homeland and Revolution, a counter revolutionary organization created by members of the Petrograd City Duma on the night of October 26th, while the Bolsheviks were capturing the Winter Palace. The Committee declared the Bolsheviks and their power illegal and dispersed leaflets urging citizens not to recognize the new government.

Anatoliy Lunacharsky, the Soviet government's first People's Commissar for Education

After the cadets mutiny failed, the Committee fully dedicated itself to supporting the strike of civil servants. Over 40,000 employees and officials took part in a strike that began in October 1917, including 10,000 bank employees, 6,000 postal workers, 4,700 telegraph workers, and 3,000 clerks of commercial enterprises. Printing workers threatened to stop printing Bolshevik documents, workers of the food industry in Moscow decided to stop shipping food to Petrograd.

The technical staff is sabotaging us. We won't fix anything ourselves. Hunger will begin, said Anatoly Lunacharskiy, a famous Bolshevik and Deputy Head of the Petrograd Soviet. Lunacharskiy had strong connections among the old-time intelligentsia and understood that the strike of the Tsarist officials could be fatal. It is possible, of course, to act by terror but why? At the moment, we must first of all take possession of the entire [civil] apparatus

The State Bank of the Russian Empire as seen from Sadovaya street, Saint Petersburg.

Meanwhile, without access to the Treasury and the State Bank, the Bolsheviks were simply broke. Employees of the State Bank published a communique for the citizens:

Dear citizens! The state bank is closed. Why? Because the violence inflicted by the Bolsheviks on the State Bank did not give the opportunity to continue working. The first steps of the People's commissars were expressed in the demand of 10 million rubles, and on October 28th, they demanded 25 million without specifying what this money would be used for We, the officials of the State Bank, cannot take part in the plundering of the national heritage. We stopped working.

Citizens, the money of the State Bank is the people's money, extracted by your labor, sweat and blood. Citizens, protect the national treasure from looting, and us from violence, and we will get up to work right now. Employees of the State Bank.

Leon Trotsky delivering a speech to the soldiers of the Red Army, 1918.

But the State Bank was not even the biggest problem. Officials of the Foreign Ministry sabotaged Leon Trotsky himself, probably the second most powerful Bolshevik after Vladimir Lenin at the time. Trotsky, who was the first Peoples Commissar of Foreign Affairs in the new government, remembers his first day at the Ministry.

I was told there was no one here. Some Prince Tatishchev said that there were no employees, they did not show up for work. I demanded to collect those who appeared, and it turned out that a colossal number actually appeared I explained that the matter [of the new power] was irrevocable, and whoever wants to serve in good faith will remain in service. But it was all to no avail.

About 600 officials resigned immediately, many went home, but some of them locked themselves in their offices, and Deputy Foreign Minister Anatoliy Neratov tried to flee with the originals of the secret treaties of the Imperial government. In the Ministry of Labor, new Peoples Commissar Alexander Shlyapnikov couldnt even make the clerks fire up the furnaces. Meanwhile at the Ministry of Finance, international financial documents were burned it made ascertaining Russia's financial relations with other states impossible.

The office of the Minister of Finance of the Russian Empire.

The Bolsheviks deployed urgent measures against the strike. On November 1, 1917, the Petrograd Revolutionary Committee stopped paying those Tsarist officials who joined the strike, and on November 26th, declared the counter-revolutionaries and sabotagers enemies of the state.

Vyacheslav Menzhinsky issued an order that he personally declared to the officials of the Ministry of Finances: All employees who do not recognize the authorities of the Soviet of the Peoples Commissars are considered dismissed from service without retaining the right to a pension. Employees and officials who want to continue their work and fully submit to the revolutionary power of the SPC, should start on Monday. Dismissed officials using state-owned apartments must clear them within three days.

Vyacheslav Menzhinsky

On November 17th, Menzhinsky forcibly entered the offices of the State Bank, safes and offices were broken into and the money seized. It was the start of the Red Terror on December 7th, the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission (CheKa) under Felix Dzerzhinsky was organized to fight the sabotage, and Lenin gave the organ emergency powers effectively, the right to execute people.

Almost immediately, the CheKa discovered that the "Union of employees of state Institutions," an organization of former Tsarist officials, was collecting money to financially support striking employees. To do this, former ministers of the Provisional Government seized 40 million rubles from the State Bank not really much, the countrys budget was estimated at more than 2 billion, and a decent salary was about 400-500 rubles at the time. Money was also collected by subscription among the middle classes. From this money, the striking officials were paid a salary for 1-2 months in advance. On December 18th, a telegram was intercepted from former ministers of the Provisional Government calling on all officials to commit acts of sabotage across Russia.

Felix Dzerzhinsky and the staff of the CheKa, 1919

All of this couldnt end well. On December 17th, Leon Trotsky declared: Within a month, terror will take very strong forms, following the example of the great French revolutionaries. Our enemies will be waiting for the guillotine, not just prison. In 1918, the Red Terror went into full effect. Those officials who refused to sign written obligations for non-cooperation with counter-revolutionary bodies were subjected to repression. On September 3rd, 1918, 512 former officials, ministers, professors etc. were shot by firing squad. By that time, the officials strike was already long over.

READ MORE: How Jewish authors described their life in Russia

Obviously, a great lot of vacant positions appeared in the state apparatus, which were filled in considerable part by educated Jewish officials, who had not previously had the opportunity to serve in state institutions because Tsarist laws restricted their rights. Most of the Jewish population in Russia by that time was largely anti-Tsarist because of this. The Bolsheviks, on the contrary, supported Russian Jews on July 25, 1918, a decree On the fight against anti-Semitism and Jewish pogroms was issued by the Soviet of Peoples Commissars, and Jews were invited to serve the new state and the Red Army.

Semen Dimanstein, the person responsible for Bolshevik connections among the Jewish community in Russia.

Semen Dimanstein, a Soviet official responsible for Jewish communities in the People's Commissariat for Nationalities, wrote: The fact that a significant number of Jewish intellectuals ended up in Russian cities because of the war served the revolution greatly. They thwarted the general sabotage that we met immediately after the Revolution. As Dimanstein also wrote, Lenin himself stressed the fact that the Bolsheviks managed to conquer the state apparatus and significantly modify it only thanks to this reserve of competent and more or less intelligent, sober new officials.

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How the Bolsheviks faced a boycott right after the Revolution - Russia Beyond the Headlines

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Posted By admin on November 16, 2021

Clarinetist Nat Seelen noticed a trend among his colleagues in the Boston Jewish music world: They all had a lot of new music theyd written during the pandemic, but concert bookings and tours had not returned to their pre-COVID levels.

So Seelen is trying to reconnect musicians with audiences with the launch of the monthly Boston Festival of New Jewish Music, for which he serves as artistic director. This series of free concerts takes place at The Boston Synagogue in the West End, once Bostons most vibrant Jewish neighborhood.

It used to be that a festival would be about bringing people from New York or Berlin or Tel Aviv to Boston, says Seelen, while taking a break from practicing and changing his 1-year-olds diapers in his Newton home. But we have Boston musicians who tour to all of those places. And right now, since folks arent touring a lot, the idea is to have them all play here and show what theyve been working on.

One such artist is Yaeko Miranda Elmaleh, the hotshot violinist in the Klezmer Conservatory Band, who will be debuting material Wednesday that focuses on her singing and songwriting.

Other concerts in the series will draw from a range of styles, languages, and performance concepts. A night of new Yiddish song (Jan. 19) will feature newly composed songs in the once-endangered Eastern European language, while Naftules Dream (Feb. 23) will celebrate 25 years of giving klezmer an avant-garde twist. Sarah Aroeste (April 27) is one of the foremost artists making music in Ladino, the Sephardic Jewish tongue. In addition to singing, Aroeste will be cooking food inspired by her familys roots in Macedonia and Greece. Personal identity will also be front and center for multi-instrumental virtuoso Yoni Battat (May 25), whose new album Fragments explores his Iraqi-Jewish background with lyrics in Arabic, Hebrew, and English.

Seelen says he doesnt care if the performers are Jewish. What is important is that this is music that is coming from, and engaging with, Jewish culture and tradition. Great art comes with having something to engage with, and what comes out of it can be anything. And the audiences dont have to be Jewish any more than you have to be from the South Bronx to like hip-hop or Puerto Rico to like reggaeton. This is music that is from somewhere very specific, but its for anyone.

The series had been a dream of Seelens long before COVID hit. Some local Jewish institutions were interested in an annual concert, but The Boston Synagogue chair Susan Schreiner offered not just the space to have monthly concerts, but also the technology and support to webcast the shows. Were trying to make the shows as accessible as possible, says Seelen. So not only are they free, but if someone isnt comfortable attending in person, or isnt in Boston, they can see the webcast. The Jewish Arts Collaborative (JArts), which programs everything from gallery exhibitions to cooking lessons, came onboard as a co-sponsor of the series.

Seelens klezmer group Ezekiels Wheels is preparing for a pair of Hanukkah-season concerts for Global Arts Live at the Crystal Ballroom at the Somerville Theater Dec. 5. The clarinetist will be finishing the first season of the New Jewish Music Festival on June 22 with The Wedding | Di Khassene, a song cycle built around interviews he did with seniors who were isolated during the pandemic. He hopes the series will grow to allow artists to do regional mini-tours of their new works. Hopefully this can be a self-sustaining incubator of culture and new art here in Boston.

All concerts take place at 7 p.m. at The Boston Synagogue, 55 Martha Road. Free in person and online. For details, go to jartsboston.org/event_series/boston-festival-of-new-jewish-music.

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Whats nu? Monthly concerts in Boston showcase Jewish music created during the pandemic - The Boston Globe

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Posted By admin on November 16, 2021

Jewish leaders say derogatory phrase on Oelwein billboard more confusing than offensive

OELWEIN, Iowa (KWWL)- Oelwein Police are continuing to investigate a message spray-painted onto a billboard promoting the COVID-19 this weekend.

The billboard on Highway 150 near 12th Street Southeast encouraged people to get the COVID-19 vaccine and directed them to a website for answers to vaccine-related questions.

Someone spray-painted the phrase "submit to genocide" followed by "goyim," a derogatory term that refers to non-Jewish people.

"We are disheartened with this display of hate," Oelwein Police Chief Jeremy Logan said. "We recognize that this does not reflect the core values of those in our community, and we will continue to work towards tolerance and understanding by and for everyone equally."

The term "goyim" was initially a biblical Hebrew term for nations, appearing in several places in the Torah.

"The term appears with some frequency in the Hebrew Bible," Jay Holstein, the J.J. Mallon Teaching Chair in Judaic Studies at the University of Iowa, said. "It means unambiguously nation, and it is a use to distinguish a group of people who have a constitution a land and the ability to defend it."

Over the years, the word has come to refer to someone that is not Jewish.

Avrohom Blesofsky, the rabbi at Chabad in Iowa City, said the term is not always offensive, but it depends heavily on the context in which it is used.

"When I was younger, someone would say go call the goy to do such and such, so that was not necessarily a negative thing," he said. "For example, some things are not permitted on Sabbath, so if they needed someone to assist in that, they would call a goy, so that is not derogatory at all."

Holstein said he remembers his grandfather using the term growing up, but it has not taken hold in the U.S.

"It is the kind of it's the kind of term which, given the right circumstances, can be explosive," he said. "If you're trying to make a case against whether and to what degree Jews belong in this country, whether and to what degree Jews are a good thing or good citizens."

Blesofsky said the message spray-painted on the billboard was confusing.

"There are no religious Jews in Oelwein, Iowa," he said. "That term is usually used in a traditional setting. Something is not quite adding up just from the usage of the terminology."

He said it is possible the person who wrote it might not understand its meaning.

"We don't know where the individual is coming from," he said. "Certain language has entered our lexicon. Anyone could write the word goy. It could be a Jew and non-Jew."

The message was written on a billboard promoting the COVID-19 vaccine. According to the Anti-Defamation League, there have been several un-true conspiracy theories that claim Jewish people have profited off the vaccine and used it to expand global influence in the last several months.

"The more volatile the times are, and the more you need a scapegoat, the more Jews are subjected to this danger," Holstein said. "This is only several generations removed from the slaughter of 6 million human beings only because they were Jewish."

While Blesofsky said he had not experienced anti-Semitism in the 20 years he has lived in Iowa City, there have been a handful of incidents throughout the Hawkeye state.

"Usually, people that do these acts of hate do it either out of fear or ignorance, or both," he said. "My only request to that individual would be as that, you have so much pain and anger is that you should plead by god to overcome your anger and overcome your fear. That will resolve the issue for that individual is, you know, this person must be in a lot of pain, that they go to such extremes to express something so negative."

Like a candle on a menorah during the upcoming Jewish holiday of Hannukah, Blesofsky said only light can stamp out darkness. The message of the holiday is to spread light.

"The way that we combat any darkness, whether it be this type of darkness, of living in fear, which leads to hate is by increasing in light," he said. "Hanukkah offers to everyone a message of warmth, light, hope and that does dispel all the darkness."

Chief Logan said there were no new developments in the case on Monday, but officers are actively looking into it.

Logan said his officers have been working with the sign vendor to clean the inappropriate statements off the billboard. They hoped to have that done by the end of the day on Monday.

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Posted By admin on November 16, 2021

The time of year when families gather for reunions, dinners and parties also means the funniest family function around. Peter Fogel arrives in Arlington MA for two weeks in the new "My Mother's Italian, My Father's Jewish & I'm Home for the Holidays!," Dec. 8 - 19, 2021 at the REGENT Theatre, 7 Medford St., Arlington, MA 02474

The comedy chaos continues in this critically acclaimed sequel to author Steve Solomon's original, three-time award-winning hit, "My Mother's Italian, My Father's Jewish & I'm in Therapy."

Directed by Andrew Rogow, this hilarious one-man show follows the author's struggles to get home for the holidays. While trapped in the airport, Fogel goes through the hilarious craziness of dealing with the bureaucracy and the challenges in handling hysterical phone calls from his family.

In a wonderfully funny performance. Fogel tackles the holidays, his adolescence, mixed marriage, ex-wives, dogs, cats, dieting and dozens of other uproarious and endless relatable situations each performed with dialects and wacky sound effects that only add to the hilarity of each story.

And then there's the holiday dinner at Grandma's where, if you're under 55, you're allowed to sit at the children's table; 35 over-fed people, one bathroom and no plunger.

Tickets range from $45 - $65 and Group Tickets start at $39.50. Wednesday performances are at 2 and 7 p.m.; Thursdays at 7 p.m.; Fridays at 8 p.m.; Saturdays at 2 and 8 p.m. and Sundays at 2 pm. Tickets are on sale at http://www.regenttheatre.com or PlayhouseInfo.com, at the Regent Theater Box Office, or by phone at (781) 646-4849. For group sales, call 1-888-264-1788.

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MY MOTHER'S ITALIAN, MY FATHER'S JEWISH, & I'M HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS Comes To Regent Theatre Next Month - Broadway World

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