Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By admin on November 14, 2021

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Dani Colman is the author ofThe Unfinished Corner, a middle-grade graphic novel illustrated by Rachel Petrovicz, colored by Whitney Cogar, lettered by Jim Campbell, and published by Vault Comics. Dani sat down with But Why Tho? to discuss the graphic novel, how it managed to squeeze 4000 years of Jewish storytelling tradition into one book, and just what makes Jewish storytelling so powerful. The following interview is edited for brevity and clarity. The full interview can be heard on the But Why Tho? Podcast.

BUT WHY THO? Can you share a bit about your background and how you came to know so much about the Jewish mythology that went into this book? What inspired you to make a graphic novel about it?

DANI COLMAN: I grew up in Northwest London; theres a large Jewish community there. My tradition is Masorti, which is sort of somewhere between Conservative and Reform, and so it wasnt hugely traditional (which I liked) but we had services in Hebrewthere was a big emphasis on education and on study. So I did the thing that Jewish kids do: I went to Jewish studies classes on Sundays, I went to synagogue not quite every week but a bit more often than just the High Holy Days. And I was and still am a giant nerd, so the thing that I found appealing growing up in this tradition was how much there is to study. I remember studying for my Bat Mitzvah, and you learn to read from the Torah and I ate this up. I loved it. I loved the academia of it.

And I also grew up in a tradition of storytelling. I have very creative parents and siblings. We, collectively as a family, had an interest in mythology and folktales. I remember one of my very first comic books was a comic book adaptation of Greek mythology. I remember that book fondly. Ive just always had this interest in storytelling. Fast forward to, as an adult, I had a chance to pitch a story to Vault Comics. I can only imagine how many young readers became interested in Greek mythology because of Percy Jackson and the Olympians. That was the inspiration for pitching to Vaultputting something out into the world that not only would be fun and entertaining and meaningful to Jewish kids, but would also be a compelling enough adventure story on its own so that non-Jewish kids would want to read it and want to know more.

BUT WHY THO?:From the first few pages, this book felt different from typical Jewish storytelling for a lot of reasons. The biggest one being the characters are diverse. They represent the swath of Jewish experience, theres a secular kid, theres a traditionally observant kid, theres a Black kid, theres a kid who I interpreted as Sephardic. Not to mention that their personalities are diverse. Theres the nerdy kid, theres the athletic kid, theres the popular kid. Why was it important for you to include all of these types of diversity in The Unfinished Corner?

DANI COLMAN: Because Jewish experience is diverse, and its not perceived as such. The popular perception of Judaism has two facets to it, and thats it. Theres Israeli, and theres Ashkenazi. I grew up Ashkenazi, and I want to see that represented, but its not the only aspect to Jewish culture. Around the time that I was starting to research the book, there were a number of news stories about Sephardi jews in the U.S. connecting with their ancestry. And it was eye-opening to metheres this entire side to the culture thats just not represented. And its so rich and has this incredible history. Similarly, thered been a number of high-profile Jews of color coming out and saying heres my heritage and Im proud of it. Tiffany Haddish had a Bat Mitzvah. Daveed Diggs wrote a rap about wanting a puppy for Chanukah. I dont think any Jewish kid should ever feel not Jewish enough because theyre not Ashkenazi or look like The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. Jews are diverse, and so diverse Jews should feel seen in the media they consume.

BUT WHY THO?: Beyond being diverse, the characters each get to challenge pre-conceived expectations based on who they are and what they look like. And they get to have their own relationships with one another. Why was it important to showcase the fullness of each character?

DANI COLMAN: Because people are complicated. Because teens and pre-teens are especially complicated. Youre figuring out who you are, youre figuring out where you fit in. When I was that age, I sort of moved on the periphery of a number of social circles. And something that had a big influence on how I viewed the world growing up was realizing that people can be very different depending on the circumstances that theyre in. The same classmates who wouldnt give me the time of day when they were in a group with each other could be surprisingly kind in other circumstances. I wanted to create relationships between these characters who under ordinary circumstances may not have been friends as a way of saying life is a little bit richer if you give people room Onto be more than they are on first appearance.

BUT WHY THO?:The Unfinished Corneris filled to the brim with ancient, medieval, and modern Jewish myths and stories. One of the biggest influences seems to be the Book of Enoch. How did you land on this not-usual story as one of the major influences?

DANI COLMAN: It was a lot of going down research rabbit holes. Priority number one for me was to tell a compelling story with plenty of fun and problems to solve. As I was doing truly epic amounts of research, I was cherry-picking the ideas that I thought flowed well with one another. And I wanted to make sure the book was accessible to non-Jewish readers. And that meant trying to find certain things that can sort of stand alongside our more traditional understandings of angels, demons, monsters, etc.

There were two things I knew had to be included. Number one was the Golem of Old Prague. Its just so compelling story and one of relatively few specifically Jewish stories that non-Jews are likely to be familiar with. The other one Rabbi bar [bar] Hana, basically the Simbad of Jewish mythology. One of the books that I used in research had a whole section of Bar Hana stories and it was the first collection of Jewish stories that Id seen that revolved around traveling to one far-flung place after another and encountering the different fantastical situations there.

BUT WHY THO?:My Judaism is based on the idea that Judaism, as both a religion and peoplehood, has been constantly growing and evolving since its inception. Our stories, even from Genesis, are adapted from Sumerian stories, Assyrian stories, and Babylonian stories. I appreciate that perspective that these are Jewish stories, no matter how we slice or dice them.

DANI COLMAN: Something that I found while researching that rang so true was what makes a story Jewish. You can have two stories from the same community, say the wider Bulgarian community and one from the Jewish Bulgarian community. And they can have similar elements. But what makes the Jewish story Jewish is that problems are solved not by punching them, or swinging swords at them, or raising an army against them, but by outthinking them. Its all problem solving, lateral thinking, and a fair amount of wordplay. That was a guiding light for meI could change things if I needed to, combine stories or pull in elements that felt foreign, as long as the solution to the problem was clever or involved teamwork and problem-solving, it would still feel Jewish.

BUT WHY THO?:One of the best questions that this book asks is, what is the point of all this? Why should we still bother with this Judaism thing? Its been going on for so long and led to endless suffering for thousands of years? Why should we bother?

DANI COLMAN: There are as many answers to that as there are Jews in the world. So the best answer I can come up with isbecause there are as many answers as there are Jews in the world. We all have some reason for sticking with it, and there is a sense of cultural cohesiveness that we have that is so strong. Whether you are in a large and vibrant Jewish community or the only Jew in the village, theres still a sense that were all in this together. There is not only this shared history of trauma that is important to recognize because it means we have all survived it. Theres also this shared tradition of coming together. Its such a communal religion. Its one of the things that I still love about it. Theres certain things you cant even do if theres not enough Jewsthe concept of the Minyan is so beautiful to me, that its never a truly personal relationship with the traditions, its something thats shared with your community, your family, and with other Jews.

BUT WHY THO?: The book doesnt end how it sets you up to expect. What morals do you hope readers draw from the true ending?

COLMAN:Primarily, that you should look for the humanity in the people around you. That its never as black and white as this person or this thing is such a way, and that thing is and always will be bad. That its not that simple.

The Unfinished Cornerwas certainly not the Jewish middle-grade story I was expecting. Still, it certainly found its own unique way to struggle with some of Judaisms most intimate questions while remaining distinct and portraying Jewish experiences beyond Ashkenormativity in its reflection of Jewish storytelling tradition.

BuyThe Unfinished Cornernow with our Bookshop.org affiliate link.

Pop culture is cool, but have you ever tried analyzing it through a historical and cultural lens so that you can not only understand the content more deeply? When Jason is not editing the podcast or musing the effects media have on our lives, Im off working to develop sustainable food systems.

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Posted By admin on November 14, 2021

Everyone, or almost everyone, loves Thanksgiving. They look forward to it, spend a lot of time preparing for it, and do their best to enjoy it when it comes.

For me, though, Thanksgiving is a day of mixed emotions.

I know how I should feel. Thanksgiving, after all, has Jewish roots, as this column has detailed in the past. It was a day originally set aside to thank God for providing people with a land in which religious observance went hand in hand with religious tolerance and religious freedom.

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The Puritans were well versed in what they called the Hebrew Bible. Here they were in their promised land, these Puritans of Plymouth, free of the shackles imposed on their beliefs by the Church of England, able to worship God the way they wantedand now God had blessed them with a bountiful harvest.

It was the year 1621, and they did what the Hebrew Bible ordained for another people in their promised landthey held a solemn festival of thanksgiving. They celebrated their version of Sukkot, not in November, but at about the same time in early fall when Jews elsewhere were celebrating Sukkot.

Just as Sukkot thanked God for freeing us from the bondage of Egypt, so the first Thanksgiving thanked God for freeing the Puritans from the bondage of England.

Just as Sukkot thanked God for the Land of Israels completed harvest, so the first Thanksgiving thanked God for Plymouths completed harvest.

That is how Thanksgiving began, and almost from the beginning of Jewish life here, celebrating the secular Sukkot came quite naturally to us, for good reason. This Golden Land gave us the chance to start over, away from the established hatreds and bigotries of the Old World.

Consider one example: In 1753, the British Parliament passed the Jewish Naturalization Bill, which was meant to end anti-Semitic discrimination in England by allowing Jews (even those emigrating from foreign lands) to become citizens, Jews by then being an increasingly important economic force there. Within a few months, Parliament was forced to rescind the new law, so virulent were the anti-government riots that broke out because of the Jew Bill. The archbishop of Canterbury, who supported the law, even expressed his fear that in a little time, [the Jews] will be massacred.

America was different. It meant freedom for usfreedom to work at whatever job or profession we chose, freedom to worship wherever and however we chose, freedom to exercise the rights of citizenship as fully as anyone else.

It was not always easy. As new colonies opened for business, their founders brought with them the trappings of intolerance that existed in their homelands. In the Catholic-founded colony of Maryland, for example, not to believe in Jesus was a crime punishable by death. In the Massachusetts Bay Colony, a Jewish man was tried in 1688 for the crime of riding a horse through town on a Sunday, the Christian Sabbath.

The need to build a new land got in the way of much of that, though, and Jews were able to overcome much of the intolerance they encountered.

In many ways, the new world was heaven-sent for Jews, and a special day of thanksgiving for that alone was only natural. So I should be happy that Thanksgiving comes around each year.

And yet, I am ambivalent.

One reason is my view that while America has been good for Jews, it has not necessarily been good for Judaism. We so succeeded in becoming a part of the great melting pot that not only did we reduce Judaism to a mere religion, we subjected it to the strong sense of individualism that America breeds so well.

I will return to this below.

Another reason for my ambivalence is that what Thanksgiving is supposed to be about is overshadowed by what Thanksgiving has become: the opening bell in a season of bellsChristmas bells. Christmas songs blare in elevators, in hallways, in supermarkets, in shopping malls. Christmas decorations already are everywhere. Radio and television already are filled with Christmas this and Christmas that.

The message is obvious. Christmas is the norm here. Government does not shut down on Passover, or Ramadan. It does shut down for Christmas, ostensibly because most of its employees are Christians. They have a right to their observances, of course, just as we have a right to ours. Only, until recently, that right was denied us, and I know of at least one case in 2021 where it was still denied despite the law.

It is not easy to swallow all these Christmas trappings if you are a Jew, or a Muslim, or a Buddhistor anything but Christian. Erecting giant Chanukah menorahs in public spaces does not ameliorate that, besides it being antithetical to what Chanukah is about.

Christmas makes clear that this is a Christian country, no matter what the Constitution says. As free as we are, come the lead-up to Thanksgiving with its intentional lead-in to Christmas, and we realize that we remain outsiders.

Thanksgiving, though, is not supposed to be the opening act for Christmas. It is not for Christians, but for everyone. So what happened?

Commercialism happened. Some years ago, a reporter on WINS said, so matter-of-factly, that the true sounds of Christmas were the clinking noises made by busy cash registers. Christmas has become a profit-making venture and Thanksgiving and Black Friday are its starting points.

I am bothered by Thanksgiving for yet another reason, as wellbecause it has become a symbol of the watering down of values in America. (This was the subject of my podcast last week.) Thanksgiving exists today only to pave the way for the devaluation of Christmas, a day that should be filled with religious significance for a majority of Americans, but whose most enduring symbols are bulging stockings and a flying sled with expensive goodies meant to be stuffed into those stockings or placed under a once-living brightly lit tree.

There is nothing religious about another Barbie doll.

The devaluation of Christmas, in turn, has brought about the devaluation of all religion in America, and that has helped bring about a devaluation of traditional values we so desperately need.

It is this devaluation that enabled too many of us to devalue Judaism, bringing it down from a mission-based ethnic identity of which religion was a byproduct to only a religion; and then to devalue that religion into a chaotic system in which the individual decides what will be observed and what will be ignored.

That brings me to whether America has been as good to Judaism as it has been to Jews. Of course, America has been really good for the Jews. Where else in the world until Americas founding, and when else in world history until then (except, perhaps, in Muslim Spain), did we as a people thrive the way we did here, lately even reaching to the highest heights?

Two recent presidents (Bill Clinton and Donald Trump) and the current one, President Joe Biden, have first-degree Jewish relatives. So does Vice President Kamala Harris, who is married to a Jew (she is known in her family as Mamele Kamala). Thirty-four Jewish notables now serve in top government positions, including in several cabinet posts and White House chief of staff. In 2000, an observant Jew (Joe Lieberman) won the popular vote to be vice president.

So, yes, America has been good for the Jewsbut not necessarily for Judaism.

A year-old Pew Research Center survey estimates that as of 2020, Jews make up approximately 7.5 million people in the United States, including 5.8 million adults and 1.8 million children.

Overall, just over a quarter of these Jewish adults 27 percent do not identify with Judaism in any way. They consider themselves to be Jewish ethnically, culturally, or because they were born that way, but nothing more.

Among Jewish adults from 19 to 29, 40 percent describe themselves as atheist, agnostic, or nothing in particular. Most young people in this Jews of no religion group, as Pew labels them, also say they do not have much if anything in common with their peers who do identify with religion in some way.

Trends such as these bode ill for the Jewish future in the United States.

As for feeling free in America, three-quarters of the Jews surveyed say there is more anti-Semitism in the United States today than there was just five years ago FBI statistics bear this out and 53 percent say that as Jews, they feel less safe here than they did five years ago.

That is what makes me so ambivalent about Thanksgiving. I do not know whether we should stuff ourselves on the fourth Thursday of November, or whether we should be fasting on that day.

Shammai Engelmayer is a rabbi-emeritus of Congregation Beth Israel of the Palisades and an adult education teacher in Bergen County. He is the author of eight books and the winner of 10 awards for his commentaries.

His website is http://www.shammai.org.

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Posted By admin on November 14, 2021

33rd Sunday in ordinary time, Cycle B: Todays readings: Daniel 12:1-3; Hebrews 10:11-14,18; Mark 13:24-32.

The word apocalyptic is bandied about so often nowadays that it has all but lost its true meaning. Social and political crises from climate, to migration, to the present pandemic are often reported using apocalyptic language and imagery. A sense of doom characterises the reports, a feeling that something catastrophic is inevitable and imminent.

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson recently used the phrase one minute to midnight at the COP26 summit in Glasgow to describe the critical juncture we have reached concerning climate change. Dramatic imagery it is hoped will prove more effective than scientific papers at spurring the world to action.

In todays gospel, Jesus presents his listeners with a vision that is apocalyptic in the truest sense of the word. He foretells a real historical event that would mark the end of an epoch for Judaism (the destruction of Jerusalem and its temple in AD70) hand in hand with a prophecy about his own second coming in glory at the end of time. In doing so, he uses imagery and language that struck a powerful chord in his audience.

Prophets like Zechariah, Isaiah and Daniel often spoke about the political and social upheavals of their own time using terrifying images involving the earth and the celestial bodies being shaken or destroyed. Their aim was not to inspire abject fear and desperation, but rather to remind their listeners that even when all seems lost on the human and material level whether because of military defeat, natural calamity, or exile the all-powerful God of Israel is still in control.

While heeding the warnings about the world we inhabit, it would profit us to extend an even greater level of concern for our eternal destiny

Todays first reading is a classic example of this kind of writing. The prophet Daniel reassures and comforts an exiled populace not with sweet platitudes and unfounded optimism, but by foretelling a new era: a time of acute distress for the nations who had covered Gods people in ignominy, and of joyful vindication for those who stayed faithful to Gods covenant even through their suffering.

Jesus makes a similar promise in the gospel: he himself will come in glory with his angels at the end of time to deliver his people, having passed as High Priest through the crucible of his self-sacrificial offering (see todays second reading). The recipients of this promise are those who have remained faithful, this time with a pledge to gather them from wherever they have been scattered, from the four winds, from the end of the earth to the end of the sky.

Perhaps this is why many of todays apocalyptic warnings sound hollow, even when they are well-meaning and motivated by laudable objectives: because they promise catastrophe and destruction devoid of redemption and hope. The apocalyptic literature of the Judaeo-Christian biblical tradition, on the other hand, does indeed warn of calamities; however, it also promises salvation, whether to the Jewish exiles of Daniels time, or to the early Christians undergoing persecution throughout the Roman empire in the decades after Christs life, death and resurrection.

This same combination of warning and hope remains effective and applicable even for us today. Christs admonitions and prophecies cannot be pinned down or applied uniquely to any one historical era (as many have tried to do over the centuries, and others are tempted to do even nowadays). Every generation of authentic Christians is encouraged to stand firm, to remain faithful to the Lord, in the knowledge that the present tribulations will in Gods time, not ours give way to a new heaven and a new earth.

While heeding the one minute to midnight warnings about the world we inhabit, it would profit us to extend an even greater level of concern for our eternal destiny.

bgatt@maltachurchtribunals.org

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Posted By admin on November 14, 2021

The outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic in the spring of 2020 created serious difficulties for Ugandas Jews as well as for the countrys first native-born Jewish doctor, who the 2,500 community members have come to rely on for assistance.

Dr. Samson Wamani, 41, was working in the emergency room of a Kampala hospital at the start of the global outbreak. He soon found himself at personal risk when he was appointed director of the hospitals makeshift COVID-19 treatment unit.

The hospital didnt have any [personal protection equipment] and all we were given were three disposable masks a week which we had to wash ourselves in order to keep on reusing them, recalls Wamani.

An ensuing lockdown also meant that Wamani was cut off from his family and the rest of the Jewish community, who reside in villages surrounding Mbale, a city of roughly 100,000 located 250 kilometers (155 miles) east of Kampala. Prior to the lockdown, Wamani had regularly commuted from Kampala where hed moved after taking his job at the hospital back to the Mbale area to provide healthcare counseling.

It was very hard to communicate to the community at a time when they sorely needed advice on safety measures, says Wamani.

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On top of everything else my plans for establishing a Jewish health center in Mbale had to be shelved, he adds.

Dr. Samson Wamani (right) serving as mohel, performs a traditional Jewish circumcision. (Courtesy of Wamani)

While the Jews mostly live in rural regions outside Mbale with little healthcare infrastructure, Wamani explains, The isolation of the community is actually connected to our attempt to preserve our Jewishness.

Many health facilities in Uganda were set up by Christian missionaries, Wamani says, and Ugandas Jews chose to distance themselves from the rest of the population to avoid the temptation of leaving the fold. By and large, though, Wamani says, the Jews have lived in harmony with their Christian and Muslim neighbors.

Ugandas Jews, who are known as the Abayudaya (the People of Judah in the Luganda language), date back to the early 1900s when a group of Ugandans including Wamanis grandfather began practicing circumcision and other Jewish rituals and declared themselves Jewish.

During the reign of notorious Ugandan dictator Idi Amin in the 1970s, Judaism was outlawed and members of the community had to practice their religion secretly.

After the fall of Amin in 1979, numerous Jewish denominations from North America and Israel began to reach out to the Abayudaya to help them undergo official rabbinical conversion to Judaism. Today, the community has 12 different synagogues aligned with almost as many streams of Judaism including Orthodox, Conservative, Reconstructionist and Jewish Renewal.

Young members of the Nasenyi synagogue. (Courtesy of the Nasenyi congregation)

Wamani was 15 in 1995 when he underwent a Conservative conversion. I call it a re-conversion, says Wamani with a smile. A Jew is a Jew, and anyway we were already practicing kashrut, keeping Shabbat and following the laws of family purity.

The arrival in Uganda of foreign Jewish organizations also changed Wamanis life in another way. Wamani was a bright high school student, but his widowed mother was struggling to pay his tuition from her meager income derived from brewing and selling homemade beer a business common among indigent Ugandan women with few other options to sustain themselves.

A member of the Nasenyi synagogue wears a kippah and a facemask against coronavirus transmission. (Courtesy of the Nasenyi congregation)

When the New York-based Kulanu Jewish outreach organization offered to fund Wamanis university education, he suddenly had an opportunity to continue his studies and choose a career.

I was influenced by what I saw happen to my brothers wife. She began bleeding profusely while giving birth, and by the time my brother got her on his bike to an infirmary more than 10 kilometers (six miles) away, she died. I realized that if there had been a doctor nearby she might have lived, he recalls, inadvertently invoking the ancient Jewish text Ethics of the Fathers. So as an African saying goes, When there is no man, be the man.

While studying medicine and surgery at Busitema University about an hours drive south of Mbale, Wamani also began to visit different Ugandan synagogues to speak about public health issues. That advocacy experience led him in 2013 to become the executive director of RAIN Uganda, an NGO offering advice on HIV education, cervical cancer screening, family planning methods and other community health issues.

Earlier this year, Wamani decided to forego his prestigious job at the Kampala hospital and return to live among the Jewish community in his hometown of Nasenyi. Working at a nearby government clinic, he is now able to provide the childbirth assistance that was lacking at the time of his sister-in-laws death.

Dr. Samson Wamani counsels a pregnant woman about to give birth in a clinic in the Mbale region of Uganda in 2014. (Bernard Dichek)

I deal with many maternal and neonatal issues and there are some weeks where I do as many as 10 cesarean sections, says Wamani, who estimates that during the past six months he has delivered about 150 babies.

As the ratio of doctors to the population in Uganda is 1:25,000 (compared to about 1:300 in Israel), Wamani would be highly busy under any circumstances, but the global health crisis has only added to his workload.

We lost the lives of many members of the Jewish community during the early days of the pandemic and its unfortunate that very few people have been able to be vaccinated, as most people here are willing to do so, says Wamani.

Although official World Health Organization figures indicate about 125,000 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Uganda, Wamani points out that the actual figure is most likely significantly higher than that.

Most Ugandans have little contact with health facilities, so a large number of COVID cases, like those of other conditions, are not reported, he says.

During his tenure in Kampala, Wamani managed to get immunized against COVID-19, but according to the World Health Organization less than one percent of Ugandas population of 45 million have been fully vaccinated.

Dr. Samson Wamani at home with his daughter and wife. (Bernard Dichek)

Schools remain closed throughout Uganda, but life is slowly getting back to normal, says Wamani, noting that mask-wearing and other safety measures are being widely practiced.

Normalcy has also returned to the Jewish community. On Passover we made our own matzah and we had a seder in Nasenyi attended by about 200 people, says Wamani.

For now, a lack of financial resources continues to delay Wamanis dream of creating a Jewish medical center in Mbale, but he remains optimistic about the future.

There are today three members of the Jewish community studying medicine, he says. Im hoping that by the time they graduate we will be able to make that happen.

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Where there is no doctor, Ugandas 1st Jewish physician returns home to be one - The Times of Israel

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Posted By admin on November 14, 2021

As we have emerged from dining room tables and prayer sanctuaries of the Jewish High Holy Days, November and Thanksgiving have arrived. One could think that after the 20-plus meals we enjoyed between Rosh Hashanah and Sukkot, Thanksgiving may not be as exciting for us. Yet, it is.

During the High Holy Days, we spend hours and hours preparing by asking forgiveness of our fellow people, attending prayer services and enjoying meals with our family and friends in our communities. While one may take a moment in all of that to appreciate how fortunate they are, its not always possible to be that thoughtful.

Thanksgiving is when we can take that minute, look around us and take inventory on how lucky we are, what we can be thankful for, and express gratitude to the same people we asked for forgiveness.

In my case, I am grateful to be a part of a uniquely special community here in Houston at United Orthodox Synagogues. Our synagogue is defined by our community. It is not a function of the building we pray in or our leadership. Our community is defined by all of its people, and we all are a part of the fabric that makes it so special.

You may be asking yourself, what is so special about this community, and what is it that defines it as a core element for expression of thankfulness and gratitude?

When our family moved to Houston in 2013, we knew almost no one in town. We moved here for a variety of reasons, but we chose to live near UOS as we are raising our family to follow and value Modern Orthodox Judaism, and we felt that UOS would be most aligned with that plan.

We will never forget the first time we walked through the doors of UOS and were welcomed by the most friendly group of strangers we had ever encountered. That sense of warmth and friendliness has remained since then.

At the same time, the last few years have been rough for our community. We have had to cope with a series of floods that could have devastated a community; major decisions that could tear apart a community; and a slew of other challenges and events that could have torn apart any other community. And yet, we are still here.

So, while Im thankful to be a part of this amazing community, I am grateful that we all have stuck together and stayed at our shul, based on what I believe are our shared goals and ambitions for what UOS can truly be.

That is what Im grateful for. The ability for our community to stick together and work together, even when we do not agree on every decision that is made.

This unique fabric of people bound together by warmth is what is special about our community our genuine love and care for each other, which also allows us to stay together through thick and thin. After all, isnt that what makes people family?

However, sometimes we need to be reminded of why we are so fortunate to have what we have. And, that is a key purpose of celebrating Thanksgiving, so that we all can take a minute and remember what we are thankful for and realize how fortunate we are.

So, as youre wrapping up your Thanksgiving meals, freezing your leftovers and maybe loosening your belt by one more hole, I would like to invite you to join us at UOS for a Shabbat of Gratitude on the Shabbat after Thanksgiving (Nov. 26-27) after celebrating what you are thankful for.

Sure, there will be food, but mainly our goal is to feed your spiritual appetite with a Shabbat of music, singing, learning and, yes, some eating. If youd like to join any of the events we have planned, please register at uosh.org.

Yosef Levenstein has been a member of UOS since 2013 and serves on its executive committee as vice president of Membership. For membership or services inquiries, email [emailprotected].

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Posted By admin on November 14, 2021

It was a day of faith, family and community last Sunday, as Congregation Ohav Shalom, in Merrick, celebrated the arrival and completion of a new Sefer Torah. The Torah which took more than a year to complete was given to the synagogue by the family of Samuel Adwar, a longtime Merrick resident and congregation member who died last year at 85.

The Torah scroll is one of the most sacred objects in Jewish ritual, Rabbi Ira Ebbin explained. It is written meticulously by a scribe with a quill the parchment is cowhide. It has been this way for thousands of years.

It has to be written by an expert scribe, Ebbin went on. It takes nearly a year to complete. This particular scroll was written in Israel, picked by the [Adwar family].

The Sefer Torah which means Book of the Torah is the Jewish bible, comprising the five books of Moses. It contains more than 600,000 letters that must be handwritten by a Jewish scribe, known as a sofer, according to Ebbin.

Though this particular Torah was started in Israel, Rabbi Heshy Pincus, a renowned sofer from Brooklyn, completed roughly the last 100 letters in front of a joyous, grateful and receptive congregation of Merrick and Bellmore residents.

To further connect the writing process to the congregation, members of Adwars family and other honored members of the congregation were invited to sit with Pincus, and ceremonially appointed him to write letters on their behalf.

It is so they have a piece a part of the Torah, Ebbin said.

Congregation Ohav Shalom, affectionately referred to by Ebbin as the Bellmore-Merrick synagogue, was founded in the 1960s. Ebbin, who has been the rabbi for the past 12 years, said that the vibrant, exciting, modern Orthodox synagogue is passionate about Judaism and passionate about the community.

Given that the process of writing a new Torah is so meticulous, for many people of the Jewish faith, witnessing the finalization of one can be a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Congregation Ohav Shalom had not received a new Torah in more than 25 years, according to Ebbin.

The ceremony that took place on Sunday was more than just a celebration of the Torah it was also a celebration of life.

The Adwar family, of Yemenite origin, sponsored the creation of the Torah, and gathered for the event in Samuels honor. Yemenite Jewish traditions differ slightly from those of other ethnic Jewish groups, evident in their music, dancing and other customs. The Torah in Adwars memory, adorned in vibrant colors with large, silver finishes, reflected some of these differences.

Rabbi Uziel Admoni, a relative of Adwars, said that the Adwar family are giving people who continue to support kids in Israel.

Also in attendance from the family were Adwars brother, Harry; Samuels wife, Trudy; their sons, Michael and Gary; their daughter and son-in-law, Lauren and Keith Breslauer, and many other relatives.

My father-in-law passed away a year and a half ago, Keith Breslauer told the Herald. This is a way of continuing his memory every time they use the Torah on a Saturday, on a holiday, it commemorates his blessing, so thats why we did it.

I asked, Can we do anything? Breslauer recounted of when Adwar died. The rabbi said, We need another Sefer Torah. It is written in a very special way, by a very top [sofer] so when you read it, its very clear. It makes it very easy to read the Torah.

Adwars grandson Aaron Breslauer told the congregation how this Torah related to his late grandfather. When a Sefer Torah is given to us God gave it to us just once, Aaron said. But we should pass this on to generations to come to teach it to our families, to our friends, to the people around us, and the only way to really do this is to be passionate about the Torah.

He did everything with passion, Aaron said of his grandfather. He worked hard, he prayed hard, he loved hard, he lived hard he did everything to the fullest, and everything, always, with the greatest strength, and thats exactly how we should go about our life.

Following the completion of the Torah, the family and congregation paraded through the streets of Merrick behind a large float. The completed Torah was carried by various members of Adwars family, under a large canopy that was walked behind the float. There was traditional Yemenite music, and the family and congregation danced and celebrated their new Torah, and the life of Adwar, who, according to Ebbin, was truly a cherished member of the community.

This event today represents everything that was important to my friend Sammy Adwar, Ebbin said. Family, the Torah, the shul, Yemenite music Sammy loved everything about being Jewish. He loved the Jewish people he had such purity to him.

Every time we read this beautiful Torah, we will think of Sammy of [his] love for Judaism, [his] love for Ohav Shalom, [his] love for all Jewish people, Ebbin told the congregation. Every time we read this beautiful Torah, I will think of Sammys beautiful smile and the pure joy he had. Every time we open this Torah, Sammy will remind us that we are all one people.

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A celebration of life and faith at Congregation Ohav Shalom - liherald

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Posted By admin on November 14, 2021

Anti-vaxxers in Kansas have been condemned for comparing Covid-19 vaccine mandates to the Holocaust, after a group of protesters wore yellow stars to a government hearing.

Republican state lawmakers hit out at comparisons being drawn between the murder of more than six million Jews by the Nazis and the requirement to be vaccinated against Covid-19 following Fridays tense meeting. Nazi authorities forced Jews to wear yellow stars on their clothing as a means of identification in the 1930s and 1940s.

Republican Senate President Ty Masterson described the references as inappropriate and Republican Speaker of the House Ron Ryckman called it disappointing despite both being opposed to vaccine mandates.

The condemnation comes after both Republican state lawmakers and anti-vaccine protesters have made repeated comments attempting to tie the mandates to the Holocaust.

The latest comparison came on Friday when a group of anti-vaxxers attended a Special Committee on Government Overreach hearing wearing yellow stars on their chests.

The hearing heard from members of the public and business groups who are calling on the state to allow residents to be able to access unemployment insurance if they lose their jobs for failing to get vaccinated and for employees to be able to claim religious exemptions without showing any proof.

In the hearing, Daran Duffy, who made a failed bid for mayor of Kansas City in the summer, told lawmakers he didnt think it was offensive to Jewish people that he attended the meeting sporting a yellow star, reported the Kansas City Star.

He claimed the US was on track for a catastrophe like the Holocaust and said the star was to remind people that every single thing that Hitler did he did in accordance with the laws of his country.

Democratic State Senator Pat Pettey told him he was desecrating that memory of the deaths of Jewish people.

Millions of people were killed we are not talking about millions of people being killed here, said Pettey.

At a hearing last month, State Rep Brenda Landwehr made similar comments comparing the vaccine mandate to racism against the modern day Jew which she likened to anyone who disagrees with it.

She then said the language used by a Democratic lawmaker reminded her of a documentary she had watched on the Nazis and agreed with a union president that the mandate was similar to the yellow stars Jewish people were forced to wear.

Do I believe thats what were trying to do? I hope not, she said.

While many Republicans stayed silent on these previous comments, several spoke out to condemn the comparison after Fridays hearing.

Mr Masterson released a statement on Twitter attempting to distance the party from the stance.

Senate Republicans reject, in the strongest possible terms, any analogies to the Holocaust. Such comparisons are inappropriate and bear no resemblance to the issues we are debating today, Masterson wrote.

Mr Ryckman also released a statement, saying: Let me be clear: the issues being debated today are important to KS, but they are in no way comparable to what millions of Jews endured who were ripped from their families, & marked for death by the Nazis.

The states Democratic Governor Laura Kelly went further, calling the comments and actions by the anti-vaxxers antisemitic.

I condemn these profoundly offensive statements that are an insult to those who died in the Holocaust. Antisemitism has no place in Kansas, she said in a statement.

Others also took to social media to slam their actions, with gun control activist David Hogg branding it disgusting.

Reason 1,385,858,848,938 we need to fund education on holocaust history way more, he tweeted.

This is disgusting and needs to be denounced immediately. Anti-semitism is growing in this country and more people need to be denouncing it.

President Joe Bidens federal vaccine mandate requires all workers at companies with 100 or more employees to be fully vaccinated against Covid-19 by 4 January or be subjected to weekly testing.

The nations roughly 17 million healthcare workers do not have the option to opt for testing.

Federal workers also do not have the testing option and have until 22 November to get the shots.

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Kansas anti-vaxxers condemned for comparing vaccine mandates to the Holocaust by wearing yellow stars - The Independent

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Posted By admin on November 14, 2021

At the National Gallery last Monday, in an event to mark the anniversary of Kristallnacht (November 9th-10th, 1938), the great Tomi Reichental recalled again the horrors of being a child in Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, and of losing 35 members of his extended family to the Holocaust.

Joining him on stage was Oliver Sears who, as interviewed by Sarah Carey, also spoke movingly about the inherited legacies of that time, in his case as the son of a survivor, who first learned about it from a book when he was six years-old.

Sears is the founder of Holocaust Awareness Ireland, but his day job is being owner of a well-known Dublin art gallery (recently relocated to Fitzwilliam Street). And while I was chatting to him about both subjects afterwards, he remarked that the two collided more often that one might expect.

A couple of days later, as if to embellish his point, I chanced upon a review of a book about the Camondo family, formerly of Paris, and now commemorated in one of that citys lesser-known museums. The piece in a months-old issue of the Literary Review magazine caught my eye only because I had visited the museum once, some years ago, and it left a deep impression.

The Camondos were Turkish Jews originally, their success as bankers in Constantinople earning them the nickname Rothschilds of the east. In 1867, however, growing unease about life under the Ottomans persuaded them to move to Paris, where they plunged enthusiastically into French culture and customs and thrived for a time, helping finance the belle poque that rose from the ruins of the Franco-Prussian war.

The best known of them then was Isaac de Camondo who, banking aside, was also a bad amateur composer and a much better art connoisseur, buying the impressionists at an early stage and amassing a collection he would eventually bequeath to the Louvre.

His younger cousin Mose de Camondo went one further by actually marrying a work of art. Or at least he married a woman named Irne Cahen dAnvers, who, as an eight-year-old, had been painted by Renoir, in a picture called La Petite Irne.

The marriage was an arranged one, but badly arranged it seems, because it lasted only six years before Irene had an affair with the stable master and married him instead.

Moses main interest as a collector, meanwhile, was 18th-century French furniture and objets dart, with which he gradually filled the familys townhouse. This and the business were both meant to be left in time to his son Nissim, one of two children (along with Batrice) from the short-lived marriage.

But the first World War put paid to that. Nissim joined the French airforce and died a hero when his plane was shot down in 1917. Thereafter his heart-broken father withdrew from business and public life while continuing to build up the collection, which was now to become the Muse Nissim de Camondo, in memory of his beloved son.

It has been suggested that Moses decision to concentrate on collecting work from before the French revolution began as a strategy for integration among the French Catholic upper classes, for whom that period had become fashionable. If so, his daughter Batrice continued the process.

After Mose died in 1935, she converted to Catholicism, having separated from her Jewish husband. And she must have thought that this, as well as being the sister of a French war hero, with some powerful friends, made her immune from the looming catastrophe.

In any case, she ignored her estranged husbands warnings to leave France and she paid for it with her life. In 1942 they were both arrested, along with their two children. All died in Auschwitz.

The new book the one whose review I read is Letters to Camondo, by Edmund de Waal. It takes the form of an imaginary correspondence with the dead Moise, written from his former house, now the museum. That, by the way, is near Parc Monceau, not quite on the Parisian tourist trail although only a short walk from the Arc de Triomphe. If youre ever in Paris, its well worth the detour.

As for La Petite Irne, you have to go to Zurich to see that. Like so much Jewish-owned art, it was looted by the Nazis and spent time in Hermann Goerings personal collection before being recaptured in 1946. The model herself had been lucky, somehow. Already immortalised by Renoir, she also survived the war and lived to be 91.

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Art, families and the Holocaust: An evening learning from Tomi Reichental - The Irish Times

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Posted By admin on November 12, 2021

Prior to March 2020, anyone could walk into the Library of Congress and take a tour of its magnificent Jefferson Building, the institutions ornate main building located across from the U.S. Capitol and next to the Supreme Court. It houses just a fraction of the Librarys collection of millions of volumes, but the books stored in the Jefferson Building are some of the oldest and most precious.

Visitors enter into the soaring foyer and get to look at some of the Librarys temporary and permanent exhibits, including Thomas Jeffersons personal library the gift that officially launched the Library of Congress after British troops burned down the small congressional library in 1812. But many of the treasures at the Library live behind closed doors, under lock and key and the watchful eyes of librarians with advanced degrees and decades of experience.

As the national library of the United States, members of the public are able to request to see these books. No advance notice is necessary. When a man and his teenage son were on a tour some years before the pandemic, the son asked what the oldest book at the Library was. The docent told him about cuneiform tablets that are several thousand years old, and sent him to the African and Middle Eastern reading room, where he could ask to see the tablets.

I brought two boxes down and showed it to them and gave them the abbreviated spiel about cuneiform tablets. The son was very interested in it, recalled Sharon Horowitz, a senior reference librarian at the Library. The father said to me, What a great country, I can just come in here. Im basically a nobody. And Im here for a trip with my son, and I can ask to see this stuff.

The tablets are just a small piece of the Library of Congresss sprawling collection of books from around the world. At a time when millennia-old pieces of cultural history are being destroyed by everything from war to weather, the artifacts in the Library of Congress serve as a reminder of the crucial role the institution plays as a protector of books and civilizations.

Although tours have recently resumed at the Library of Congress, visitors can no longer show up at a reference desk unannounced, asking to see archival treasures. But in an interview last week in a sun-filled, empty reading room, Horowitz and Hebraic specialist Ann Brener showed Jewish Insider some of the Hebraic sections most important books, including some of the oldest printed Hebrew books to be found anywhere in the world. Many books in the collection bear the scars of Jews painful journeys in Europe touched off by the Inquisition and the Holocaust.

A selection of illustrated Hebrew childrens books published soon after the Russian Revolution.

If youre going to be a country of great scholars, you cant really be parochial in your outlook, and the Library of Congress is now the largest library in the world, with all languages and all subjects, Brener said. The section is known for its Hebrew and Yiddish books, although it also has books in related languages such as Ladino and Aramaic. Youre asking why Hebrew, but the point is, why not?

Being the largest library in the world, with an unparalleled collection of books, was not the Librarys original purpose. It was created to serve members of Congress, who remain the only people who can check out its books. There is in fact no subject to which a member of Congress may not have occasion to refer, Jefferson said when he sold his personal library.

From the marketplaces of Iraq to the halls of Washington

The Hebraic section was established in 1912, when financier and philanthropist Jacob H. Schiff, a German Jewish immigrant, donated nearly 10,000 books and pamphlets to the Library.

Unless you were extremely wealthy, there were many things you absolutely could not buy today, Brener explained, noting that the items had been collected by a prominent bookseller named Ephraim Deinard. He went wandering into the marketplaces of Iraq. He went to peoples basements. Thats how you collected manuscripts and books in those old days. Its all different now.

That early-20th-century donation was not just a lucky get for the Library. It came at a time of international expansion for the institution.

This was a period when great international collections entered the Library. The emperor of Japan donated thousands and thousands of books. Just after the revolution in Russia, we got a tremendous amount of Russian books from the czars library, said Brener. Back then, they were just building up the cultural life in America and they wanted scholars to have access to things in other languages that they wouldnt have otherwise.

Now, the Librarys collection of Hebraic books is maintained by book dealers, who are Library employees (one in Israel and one in the United States) who each have a budget to purchase relevant books.

For staff of the Hebraic section, acquisitions have an additional complication: ensuring the books dont have Nazi provenance that they were not stolen by Nazis during World War II. The minute you get anything from Eastern Europe, Poland, Hungary, all the red flags go up, Brener noted.

Brener picked up a book of Yiddish poetry, the most exquisite artist book, by a woman in Poland. (An artist book is the work of a visual artist who uses the form of a book as inspiration but interprets the term creatively.) The Library acquired the book just a few weeks ago, but because it was purchased by a bookseller in Hungary, the Library had several committees to go through to make sure the provenance was OK, she noted.

A global Jewish language

The Librarys collection spans geographies and time periods, with massive 15th-century tomes of Biblical commentary, religious texts from places like Bologna and Safed and illustrated Hebrew childrens books from the early days of the Russian Revolution. What unites the books in the collection is their use of Hebrew. Visitors to the Hebraic section wont find anything written in German or Polish, English or Arabic.

Lets say that a merchant from Cairo had to talk with a merchant from Naples. What language do they speak? Hebrew. That was the common language, said Brener.

One 15th-century book at the Library is a medical textbook, printed in Hebrew and translated from Arabic, which had first been translated from Greek. The heavy volume is bound in leather that folds shut in the front, a style known as envelope binding that was common with Arabic books. This is the only one we have in Hebrew, Brener remarked.

It is one of the earliest Hebrew printed books, one of just 175 or so known to be printed before 1500. Jews had read books and other documents before the advent of the printing press in the 15th century,but they were previously written by hand, an onerous process that made procuring books more difficult and expensive.

The medical book was printed in Naples in 1491, at a brief moment of respite for Jews in Europe. It was an independent kingdom ruled by a king whos the cousin of the evil King Ferdinand, but he was the good cousin, said Brener, referring to the king who presided over the Spanish Inquisition. Hes the one who welcomed the Jews in when they were kicked out of his cousins kingdom. Some went to Constantinople, some went to Naples. They established a golden age there. At one time there were three Hebrew printing presses in the city. Can you imagine?

Brener then pointed to a 16th century book, another large volume and the first book printed in the Ottoman Empire in Hebrew. Printed in Safed, this was a commentary on the Book of Esther, which is read every year on Purim.

We have a theory about why they chose the subject of Esther, of all things for, for a first book, Brener explained. The people who were living in Safed, they had fled Spain. They had been forced to flee or forced to become Catholics, or to pretend that they were Catholics when they were really Jews. And I think they felt a deep connection to this Biblical story because it is really the story of Esther, and she was like them. She was forced to hide her Judaism. She had to pretend to be something else.

The Library also has handwritten books, and Brener delicately picked up a tiny prayer book from the mid-18th century in Mainz, Germany. Each page was about an inch-by-1.5 inches, with text that in some cases could only be read under a magnifying glass. The artist Joseph ben Meir Schmalkalden wrote and illustrated the book, a collection of nighttime prayers. It was purchased as a mans gift to his wife. We think she wanted jewelry, Horowitz joked.

One of the Librarys most unique collections is a set of Hebrew childrens books published by a Russian printer following the Russian Revolution in 1917. By this point, use of Hebrew in Eastern Europe was a political proposition Jews were immigrating to Mandatory Palestine, and the Zionist project required the revival of the Hebrew language.

Shoshana Persitz, daughter of one of the wealthiest Jewish men in Moscow, created Omanut (Hebrew for art) Press at the age of 24. They were a family that were very passionately involved with the renaissance of the Hebrew language, said Brener.

She began printing childrens books in the brief period when the Jews felt like there was real hope for them the czar is gone, theyre going to be equal citizens in this new Russian utopia that everyone was talking about, Brener explained.

For about six months until the Bolsheviks nationalized the printing press in Russia, Omanut Press produced a beautiful collection of childrens books, the very first childrens books published in Hebrew. The books have bright colors and Jewish motifs. One tells the story of a dreidel, the Hanukkah toy; in another, a Tree of Life features prominently.

When the Bolsheviks arrived, Persitz and her colleagues picked up the press, and their manuscript, and they fled to Odessa in the Ukraine. The move bought them two more years, a period that saw Persitz collaborate with people who would become some of the best-known Zionist writers, such as Ahad Haam and Hayim Nahman Bialik.

Theyre Zionist in that they are preparing young children to feel at home in Hebrew, to make it into their mother language, said Brener. She was doing beautiful childrens literature where there had never been childrens literature at all. Its considered a national priority, which is why theyre able to get people like Bialik.

Protector of literature

While the Library of Congress considers the collection of books like this to be in the national interest, the Library also serves another purpose: preserving texts that otherwise would have long been destroyed and forgotten. The cautionary tale is the fateful destruction of the ancient Library of Alexandria, which wiped out the worlds hub of scholarship. But smaller-scale versions of that tragedy continue to take place.

Those childrens books have survived in the United States because when people are running for their lives, they dont usually take childrens books with them, Brener noted.

Nazis famously burned books and libraries. In the 1990s, Bosnian Serbs attacked the National Library of Bosnia-Herzegovina, which was destroyed completely in the resulting fire.

Our colleague who is from Somalia, which was undergoing a terrible revolution their libraries were entirely destroyed in past years. But here in the Library of Congress, those collections have survived, said Brener. Only here. And the same is true for other places. Like, for instance, Ethiopia, which is undergoing a violent civil war. The Library maintains a large collection of Amharic books.

A Quiet Row of Women uses Russian nesting dolls to show the American-Israeli artist Andi Arnovitzs grandmothers and greatgrandmothers. An accompanying artist book features a poem by Dalia Kaveh.

In the Hebraic section, Brener, Horowitz and their colleagues do not stop only with historical volumes. They have thousands of modern Hebrew titles, as well as art books by Israeli artists. Brener pointed to a large book by Israeli artist Avner Moriah a limited edition illuminated Bible, with modern interpretations on famous stories like the Tower of Babel and the Golden Calf. She had displayed the book next to one of the earliest printed versions of the Bible, a difference of about 500 and some years.

It has become rather trendy for members of Congress and other political appointees to request a book like this for their official swearing-in. Its gotten to be a big status symbol to request a non-standard thing to be sworn in on, said Horowitz. Some people request a very old edition of the Constitution. Thats apparently OK. Muslim members of Congress request very old editions of the Quran. So the Library of Congress, on swearing-in day, brings a whole cart of things.

One of the most high-profile moments for the Hebraic Section came earlier this year, when White House science advisor Eric Lander requested a 1492 version of Pirkei Avot, the Ethics of Our Fathers, for his swearing-in with Vice President Kamala Harris.

Our congressional liaison emails me and says, We have a White House request for this book. I know its a rare book. Youre never going to loan it. But I have to ask for it anyway, she recalled. But Dr. Lander had already emailed with Ann and permission was already given.

At his swearing-in ceremony, Harris asked Lander to explain why he had selected the book.

For me and thinking about an oath of office, I thought about values, and what are my values, the administrations values, what are we all here trying to do? Lander said. Theres a very special concept in Jewish tradition called tikkun olam, the repairing of the world. He pointed to the page to which the book was open, noting that theres a specific line that comes in the Jewish tradition that contains that obligation. And its right here at this point on this page.

For most Americans, as long as the pandemic persists, watching YouTube videos of government swearings-in or browsing the Librarys website will have to suffice. But when the reading rooms reopens, Brener and Horowitz will stand by, ready to offer any ordinary visitor a glimpse of the collections Hebraic treasures.

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An inside look at the Library of Congress's Hebrew treasures - Jewish Insider

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Posted By admin on November 12, 2021

Diplomatic Delays:With just 9% of his ambassadorial nominees confirmed by the Senate, President Joe Bidenlags behindformer Presidents Barack Obama and Donald Trump, who had 77% and 70% of their nominees, respectively, confirmed at this point in their presidencies, due to procedural hurdles put in place by Republican senators over unrelated foreign policy issues.

Interparty Party:GOP billionaire Ken Langoneintendsto hold a fundraiser for Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) after saying it took guts and courage to block portions of the Biden administrations agenda.

America Abroad:The Washington Posts Josh RoginreviewsBernard-Henri Levys new book,The Will to See: Dispatches from a World of Misery and Hope, whichargues for American intervention abroad to mitigate humanitarian catastrophes.

Guilty Verdict:Two top leaders of the Lev Tahor sectwere convictedof child sexual exploitation and kidnapping for their roles in the abduction and transport to Mexico of a 14-year-old girl and 12-year-old boy.

Meta Moves:Metaannouncedthat the social media behemoth will end a program that allowed advertisers to target messaging to users based on their digital profile, whichProPublicafound included ad categories for how to burn Jews and Jew hater.

Soaring Deal Valuations:Apollo Global Management Inc. Co-President Scott Kleinman said near-zero interest rates are causing valuation multiples to rise incredibly dramatically,during a discussionwithBloomberg Newss Jan-Henrik Foerster at the SuperReturn conference in Berlin on Wednesday.

Job Search:The Biden administration is reportedly looking for a position for former Virginia Gov.Terry McAuliffe, after his loss last week to Republican Glenn Youngkin in the Old Dominions gubernatorial race,Punchbowl Newsreported this morning.

High Honor:Paul Rudd, born to British-Jewish parents,was namedPeoples Sexiest Man Alive.

Bookish Investment:The New York Public Library raised $5.8 million at a galathis week, the librarys president Tony Marx told guests, making special mention of Steve and Christine Schwarzman, the galas executive co-chairs.

Never Again:In a new report, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museumfoundreasonable basis to conclude that China is committing crimes against humanity in its persecution of Uyghur Muslims.

Money Matters:Israel Englanders New York-based hedge fund, Millennium Management,will return$15 billion to investors while it separately fundraises to create a more stable asset base.

Across the Pond:A new survey from the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germanyfoundthat more than half of Britons do not know how many Jews were killed in the Holocaust, while a majority believe that something like the Holocaust could occur again.

Campus Beat:British Education Secretary Nadhim Zahawistatedthat Oxford University owes its Jewish students an explanation for why it accepted donations from a fund created by the son of notorious anti-Semite Oswald Mosley.

Justice Served:The man who killed 85-year-old Holocaust survivor Mireille Knoll in France in 2018was sentencedto life in prison without parole.

Stepping Down:Isaac Benbenisti, who joined NSO Group two weeks ago as CEO,is stepping downfollowing the announcement that the U.S. Department of Commerce is adding the firm to its list of companies operating against U.S. interests.

Vaccination Nation:Israels pandemic advisory boardgreenlitthe Pfizer vaccine for children ages 5 to 11.

Viral Variant:Israelwill assesspreparedness for an outbreak of a potential COVID-19 variant by conducting the worlds first practice drill, which will take the form of war games.

Be Prepared:Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantzsaidthat Israel is working all the time to prevent a war with Iran, but is simultaneously preparing for a military confrontation.

Ticking Clock:Amos Hochstein, the American mediator in a maritime dispute between Israel and Lebanon,announcedthat March 2022 is the deadline for the two nations to hammer out an agreement resolving their conflict.

Tough Audience:Lebanese Information Minister George Kordahi, who has a history of controversial comments from his time as a television host,is caughtin the middle of a diplomatic row between Beirut and Riyadh.

Remembering:Peter Zimroth, former chief legal counsel for New York City,diedat 78.

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Daily Kickoff: Inside the Library of Congress's Hebrew collection - Jewish Insider

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