Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By admin on October 18, 2021

Like Vivien in Ridley Road, Barrie Milner was a hairdresser. In the evenings and weekends, however, he was more popularly known as the head-butter.

He honed his skills at school in Hoxton, East London, where, as the only Jewish kid, he was called a dirty Yid repeatedly unless he stopped the bullies first using either his fists or his head or, often, both.

When Cambridge-educated neo-Nazi Colin Jordan announced the new fascist political party, the National Socialist Movement, in 1962, Barrie was only too glad to join the 62 Group.

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I once headbutted Jordan, admits Milner, now 79. Grabbed him by the lapels and boom! Im not proud of it, but I did what needed to be done. We knew how low fascism could go, so we had to go low too. Wed seen what the Nazishad done.

The 62 Group were central to a period of history few of us know about; when neo-Nazis spat out their Jew-hatred in Trafalgar Square, in the East End and in Birmingham, and attacked synagogues, while the authorities appeared to simply watch on. Now, Ridley Road is shininga light on them.

The BBC series series, starring Eddie Marsan, Tracy-Ann Oberman and Rory Kinnear as Colin Jordan, follows the story of Vivien Epstein, played by newcomer Aggie OCasey,a Jewish hairdresser from Manchester who infiltrates Jordans world in a bid to find her lover, an undercover member of the 62 Group, who has gone missing.

62 Group member Barrie Milner, right

While the story is fictional, there were plenty of men and women who disguised themselves as Nazis to infiltrate the world of the people who hated them most in order to stop Jordan and his army of fascists who marched under the banner Free Britain from Jewish Control.

It wasnt the first time vigilantes from the Jewish community had felt they needed to take action. In 1946, Jewish ex-servicemen, returning to England from fighting the Nazis and liberating the death camps, only to find that fascists were now on their doorstep with synagogue arsons and Jewish areas vandalised with paint saying Perish Judah realised they had to fight force with force and set up the 43 Group (there were originally 43 of them).

The group fought for 10 years, driving the fascist menace underground.

But not for long.

Ridley Road

Jules Konopinski, who was a teenage member of the 43, was one of the founding members of the 62. A handbag designer, he was driving from his Surrey home to his work in the West End on Friday, 30 June 1962, when he saw a rally was being set up in Trafalgar Square. There was a giant stage with a banner reading: Free Britain from Jewish Control.

For Konopinski whose immediate family in Germany had narrowly escaped the Holocaust but who had lost almost all his other relations in the gas chambers arriving in Englandin 1938, this was a sign the group needed tobe reunited.

That evening, a meeting of 20 was convened in Croydon to decide what to do. Westminster Council refused to countenance cancelling the rally the National Socialist Movement was a new political party and so had no black marks against its name. And even if they were going to scream out their poison about Jewish people, that was free speech. So those 20 called their friends, who called their friends. They had a new name, based on the year of their founding; the 62 Group. By the time the rally started, at 3pm on 2 July, there were 5,000 people there, and only 800 of them were fascists.

We wanted to stop them being underground so we made sure the press was there, recalls Konopinski, now a sprightly 91-year-old. We were surprised by the emergence of Colin Jordans group and were stunned to find out they even had a big headquarters in Notting Hill. We needed to find out who they were. And so there was a battle. It went on all over the streets, even spilling into the backstreets of Covent Garden.

The fascist threat was back and it wasnt just Jordan. His former friend and now rival John Tyndall helped set up the Greater Britain Movement before going on to be chairman of the National Front and in 1982 starting up the British National Party. Meanwhile, Oswald Mosley, having taken a back seat in fascistpolitics, was back in Britain and trying to wina parliamentary seat.

Oswald Mosley

The 62 Group had their hands full. Konopinski, who attracted childhood friend Harold Pinter among others to the group (Pinter narrated films the group made), was one of the heads of the 62 Group and there were dozens of local chapters, based loosely on how the 43 Group had worked.

Intel was key; if they knew there was a meeting happening, not only would they get to the venue first and turn the stage over and lock the door, but theyd also go to train stations to tell travelling would-be fascists to go home with force, if required.

Wed go to places like Charing Cross if we knew people were coming and wed hide behind the pillars until they got off the train, recalls Konopinski. We would then make sure they knew that it wouldnt pay to come to the fascist meeting in London. And yes, wed beat themup if we had to. Milner recalls the days whenhe would go to work as a hairdresser with a face full of cuts and bruises. But we did it because we had to.

The Jewish authorities were never keen on their tactics; labelling them hoodlums. But while the 62 Group faded from attention, their work continues.

The Community Security Trust was founded by members of the 62 Group, including Gerald Ronson, who was famous for being particularly good with his fists. Searchlight, the magazine set up by member Gerry Gable, continues to expose fascists, but this time working with the police.

While the fascist menace isnt as dangerous as it once was, antisemitism has not gone away. But former members of the 62 Group continue to protect us.

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Posted By admin on October 18, 2021

Jewish conceptions of God

In Judaism, God has been conceived in a variety of ways.[1] Traditionally, Judaism holds that Yahweh, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and the national god of the Israelites, delivered the Israelites from slavery in Egypt, and gave them the Law of Moses at biblical Mount Sinai as described in the Torah.[2]

According to the rationalist stream of Judaism articulated by Maimonides, which later came to dominate much of official traditional Jewish thought, God is understood as the absolute one, indivisible, and incomparable being who is the creator deity and cause of all existence. God is omnipresent and incorporeal. Maimonides affirmed Aristotle's conception of God as the unmoved mover,[3] while denying several of the latter's views such as denial of God as creator and affirmation of the eternity of the world. Traditional interpretations of Judaism generally emphasize that God is personal yet also transcendent, while some modern interpretations of Judaism emphasize that God is a force or ideal.[4]

The names of God used most often in the Hebrew Bible are the Tetragrammaton (YHWH Hebrew: ) and Elohim. Other names of God in traditional Judaism include El Shaddai and Shekhinah.

The name of God used most often in the Hebrew Bible is the Tetragrammaton (YHWH Hebrew: ). Jews traditionally do not pronounce it, and instead refer to God as HaShem, literally "the Name". In prayer the Tetragrammaton is substituted with the pronunciation Adonai, meaning "My Lord". According to Guillaume Postel (16th century), Michelangelo Lanci[it] (19th century), and Mark Sameth (21st century), the four letters of the Tetragrammaton, YHWH, are a cryptogram, which the priests of ancient Israel would have read in reverse as huhi, heshe, signifying a dual-gendered deity.[5][6][7][8]

In Judaism, Godhead refers to the aspect or substratum of God that lies behind God's actions or properties (i.e., it is the essence of God).

In the philosophy of Maimonides and other Jewish-rationalistic philosophers, there is little which can be known about the Godhead, other than its existence, and even this can only be asserted equivocally.

How then can a relation be represented between God and what is other than God when there is no notion comprising in any respect both of the two, inasmuch as existence is, in our opinion, affirmed of God, may God be exalted, and of what is other than God merely by way of absolute equivocation. There is, in truth, no relation in any respect between God and any of God's creatures.

Maimonides, Moreh Nevuchim (Pines 1963)

In Kabbalistic thought, the term "Godhead" usually refers to the concept of Ein Sof ( ), which is the aspect of God that lies beyond the emanations (sephirot). The "knowability" of the Godhead in Kabbalistic thought is no better than what is conceived by rationalist thinkers. As Jacobs (1973) puts it, "Of God as God is in GodselfEin Sofnothing can be said at all, and no thought can reach there".

Ein Sof is a place to which forgetting and oblivion pertain. Why? Because concerning all the sefirot, one can search out their reality from the depth of supernal wisdom. From there it is possible to understand one thing from another. However, concerning Ein Sof, there is no aspect anywhere to search or probe; nothing can be known of it, for it is hidden and concealed in the mystery of absolute nothingness.

David ben Judah Hehasid, Matt (1990)

In modern articulations of traditional Judaism, God has been speculated to be the eternal, omnipotent and omniscient creator of the universe, and the source of morality.[citation needed]

Maimonides describes God in this fashion: "The foundation of all foundations and the pillar of wisdom is to know that there is a Primary Being who brought into being all existence. All the beings of the heavens, the earth, and what is between them came into existence only from the truth of His being."[9]

Jews often describe God as omniscient,[10] although some prominent medieval Jewish philosophers held that God does not have complete foreknowledge of human acts. Gersonides, for example, argued that God knows the choices open to each individual, but that God does not know the choices that an individual will make.[11] Abraham ibn Daud believed that God was not omniscient or omnipotent with respect to human action.[12]

Jews often describe God as omnipotent, and see that idea as rooted in the Hebrew Bible.[10] Some modern Jewish theologians have argued that God is not omnipotent, however, and have found many biblical and classical sources to support this view.[13] The traditional view is that God has the power to intervene in the world.

"That the Lord, He is God in heaven above and upon the earth beneath" (Deut. 4.39)Maimonides infers from this verse that the Holy One is omnipresent and therefore incorporeal, for a corporeal being is incapable of being in two places simultaneously.

"To whom will ye liken me, that I should be equal?" (Isa. 40,25) Maimonides infers from this verse that, "had He been corporeal, He would be like other bodies".

Although God is referred to in the Tanakh with masculine imagery and grammatical forms, traditional Jewish philosophy does not attribute gender to God.[15] Although Jewish aggadic literature and Jewish mysticism do on occasion refer to God using gendered language, for poetic or other reasons, this language was never understood by Jews to imply that God is gender-specific.

Some modern Jewish thinkers take care to articulate God outside of the gender binary,[16] a concept seen as not applicable to God.

Kabbalistic tradition holds that emanations from the divine consist of ten aspects, called sefirot.

The Torah often ascribes human features to God, however, many other passages describes God as formless and otherworldly. Judaism is aniconic, meaning it overly lacks material, physical representations of both the natural and supernatural worlds. Furthermore, the worship of idols is strictly forbidden. The traditional view, elaborated by figures such as Maimonides, reckons that God is wholly incomprehensible and therefore impossible to envision, resulting in a historical tradition of "divine incorporeality". As such, attempting to describe God's "appearance" in practical terms is considered disrespectful to the deity and thus is deeply taboo, and arguably heretical.

Most of classical Judaism views God as a personal god, meaning that humans can have a relationship with God and vice versa. Rabbi Samuel S. Cohon wrote that "God as conceived by Judaism is not only the First Cause, the Creative Power, and the World Reason, but also the living and loving Father of Men. He is not only cosmic but also personal....Jewish monotheism thinks of God in terms of definite character or personality, while pantheism is content with a view of God as impersonal." This is shown in the Jewish liturgy, such as in the Adon Olam hymn, which includes a "confident affirmation" that "He is my God, my living God...Who hears and answers."[17] Edward Kessler writes that Hebrew Bible "portrays an encounter with a God who cares passionately and who addresses humanity in the quiet moments of its existence."[18] British chief rabbi Jonathan Sacks suggests that God "is not distant in time or detached, but passionately engaged and present".[18]

The "predicate 'personal' as applied to God" does not necessarily mean that God is corporeal or anthropomorphic, views that Jewish sages sometimes rejected; rather, "personality" refers not to physicality, but to "inner essence, psychical, rational, and moral".[17] However, other traditional Jewish texts, for example, the Shi'ur Qomah of the Heichalot literature, describe the measurements of limbs and body parts of God.

Jews believe that "God can be experienced" but also that "God cannot be understood," because "God is utterly unlike humankind" (as shown in God's response to Moses when Moses asked for God's name: "I Am that I Am"). Anthropomorphic statements about God "are understood as linguistic metaphors, otherwise it would be impossible to talk about God at all".[18]

According to some speculations in traditional Judaism, people's actions do not have the ability to affect God positively or negatively.[citation needed] The Book of Job in the Hebrew Bible states: "Gaze at the heavens and see, and view the skies, which are higher than you. If you sinned, how do you harm God, and if your transgressions are many, what do you do to God? If you are righteous, what do you give God? Or what does God take from your hand? Your wickedness [affects] a person like yourself, and your righteousness a child of humanity." However, a corpus of traditional Kabbalistic texts describe theurgic practices that manipulate the supernal realms, and Practical Kabbalah (Hebrew: ) texts instruct adepts in the use of white magic.

A notion that God is in need of human beings has been propounded by Abraham Joshua Heschel. Because God is in search of people, God is accessible and available through time and place to whoever seeks Him, leading to a spiritual intensity for the individual as well. This accessibility leads to a God who is present, involved, near, intimate, and concerned for and vulnerable to what happens in this world.[19]

Although the dominant strain in Judaism is that God is personal, modern Jewish thinkers claim that there is an "alternate stream of tradition exemplified by ... Maimonides", who, along with several other Jewish philosophers, rejected the idea of a personal God.[18]

Modern Jewish thinkers who have rejected the idea of a personal God have sometimes affirmed that God is nature, the ethical ideal, or a force or process in the world.

Baruch Spinoza offers a pantheist view of God. In his thought, God is everything and everything is God. Thus, there can be conceived no substance but God.[20] In this model, one can speak of God and nature interchangeably. Although Spinoza was excommunicated from the Jewish community of Amsterdam, Spinoza's concept of God was revived by later Jews, especially Israeli secular Zionists.[21]

Hermann Cohen rejected Spinoza's idea that God can be found in nature, but agreed that God was not a personal being. Rather, he saw God as an ideal, an archetype of morality.[22] Not only can God not be identified with nature, but God is also incomparable to anything in the world.[22] This is because God is One, unique and unlike anything else.[22] One loves and worships God through living ethically and obeying His moral law: love of God is love of morality.[22]

Similarly, for Emmanuel Levinas, God is ethics, so one is brought closer to God when justice is rendered to the Other. This means that one experiences the presence of God through one's relation to other people. To know God is to know what must be done, so it does not make sense to speak of God as what God is, but rather what God commands.[23]

For Mordecai Kaplan, the founder of Reconstructionist Judaism, God is not a person, but rather a force within the universe that is experienced; in fact, anytime something worthwhile is experienced, that is God.[24] God is the sum of all natural processes that allow people to be self-fulfilling, the power that makes for salvation.[25] Thus, Kaplan's God is abstract, not carnate, and intangible. It is important to note that, in this model, God exists within this universe; for Kaplan, there is nothing supernatural or otherworldly. One loves this God by seeking out truth and goodness. Kaplan does not view God as a person but acknowledges that using personal God-language can help people feel connected to their heritage and can act as an affirmation that life has value.[26]

Likewise, Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, the founder of the Jewish Renewal movement, views God as a process. To aid in this transition in language, he uses the term godding, which encapsulates God as a process, as the process that the universe is doing, has been doing, and will continue to do.[27] This term means that God is emerging, growing, adapting, and evolving with creation. Despite this, conventional God-language is still useful in nurturing spiritual experiences and can be a tool to relate to the infinite, although it should not be confused with the real thing.[28]

According to the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life's 2008 U.S. Religious Landscape Survey, Americans who identify as Jewish by religion are twice as likely to favor ideas of God as "an impersonal force" over the idea that "God is a person with whom people can have a relationship".[29]

Maimonides, Moses (1180). Mishneh Torah, Sefer Ma'adah: Yesodei haTorah. The Book of Knowledge: Foundations of the Torah Law.

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Posted By admin on October 18, 2021

COVID-19 had prevented me from going to my temple to worship for 19 months. For me, like many, the High Holy Days meant a return to my synagogue.

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The first Zoom service in 2020 was a sad day for me. It had been my custom for several years to attend the Shabbat service in person weekly. During that first service, where the sanctuary was closed due to COVID, I just wanted to be in the sanctuary, even if I was the only one there. Later, I found out it was a good thing I didnt try to gothe doors were locked.

My temple did everything they could to make Shabbat the best possible experience on Zoom. Participating remotely was better than having no service, but it wasnt the same without the people. There was something special about having to stop doing what I was doing and physically travel to the templesimilar to what happens when someone asks you to turn off the TV or put down what you are reading and pay attention to them. In this case, the person trying to speak to me was The Lord, who deserved undivided attention.

In rabbinic Judaism, practiced since the destruction of the second Temple, the place and space of our prayers is not the focal point. It is the time and the intention. Some were better at being intentional about creating sacred space in their home for practicing Shabbat, in terms of making or buying challah, lighting their candles and drinking from their kiddush cup.

My experience reflected my laziness in not making the Shabbat service more than just another Zoom meeting. One positive was experiencing Shabbat on Zoom in gallery view; it provided the opportunity to see fellow worshipers as families and not just as congregants. It reminded me that we were going through the pandemic not alone, as a collection of individuals, but as we have so many times in history, as a people.

Going to the temple reminded me of the times in the scriptures of going to the altar, the tabernacle and the temple. All sacred places are special to God, as demonstrated by the detail God provides in how even a simple altar is to be created. In contrast, there is nothing sacred about any room in my house. Worshiping at home did remind me of times when Jews had to worship in secret because they lived in communist, Muslim or Christian areas hostile to Jews and Judaism.

Traveling to the temple reminded me of the Ascent or Pilgrim Psalms 120-134 and the travel to celebrate the feasts of Passover, Weeks and Booths. I thought of how dispiriting it must have been to the ancients to see the Northern and Southern Kingdoms fall and to witness the repeated destruction of the Temple. And to appreciate how invigorating it must have been to rebuild the Temple as a way to return to community worship.

Participating in my first community Passover seder at my synagogue was the moment I decided I wanted to be a part of the Jewish community. It was all there: worship, song, the Passover story, a story of justice, sharing a meal with families and friends led by an amazing team of clergy.

The return to the sanctuary for worship was something sacred. There is something special about being with my fellow congregants, to see that they were alright. There they were, participating in congregational singing and praying. To physically see those who were experiencing Shehecheyanu moments, offering mi shebeirach prayers for healing or standing with those experiencing the loss of a loved one during the Mourners Kaddish. To hear the teachings of Torah and sacred music all affirm that I am in the House of God, and that God is indeed in this place. I know it because I can feel it.

While the worship was amazing, there was something special about experiencing the warmth of the community, greeting people with a hug or handshakeor a COVID-19 appropriate socially-distant smileseeing the friends that I have worshiped with for years and hearing them say, Its so nice to see you, Shabbat Shalom or, more recently, Shana tova. Often, I was the last to leave the oneg, as I was trying to hold onto the feeling of community and didnt want to let it go!

For me, the High Holy Days were extra special because I could return to worship God in such a unique and beautiful place with a special group of Gods people.

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Posted By admin on October 18, 2021

By David Zvi Kalman

(JTA) The Orthodox Union wont certify Impossible Pork as kosher, representing a break from the way that decisions about certifying kosher food are normally made. But as someone who studies Judaisms long relationship with technology, I would argue that it is undoubtedly the right move.

Since the OU first started certifying products a century ago, kosher supervision has always remained doggedly focused on objective fact-finding: Food is kosher because of whats in it and how its made (and, occasionally, who makes it) and thats basically it. To get this information, modern kosher supervision agencies have built out fantastically complex global operations that keep track of complicated and constantly shifting supply chains. These systems are often incurious about almost everything not directly related to the food processing itself, including whether factory working conditions are acceptable, whether the ingredients are sustainably sourced, or whether the certified product will kill you (though politics sometimes leaks in anyway).

So it was unusual when the OU the largest certifier of kosher products in the world denied certification to Impossible Pork, a next-gen meat substitute, despite the fact that every ingredient in the product is kosher. The OU explained that it could not certify a product that described itself as pork.

Despite protestations to the contrary from hungry Jews and my own deep culinary curiosity, I believe that the OU made the right call. Though it seems that the decision was narrowly decided, the move to withhold kosher certification may in fact turn out to be one of the most important Jewish legal decisions of the 21st century. This may seem like a hyperbolic way of talking about soy protein slurry, but I really think it isnt. The OUs move is a first, tentative step towards a stance on technological innovation that desperately needs to become more common.

To understand why, we need to understand the effect of new technologies on legal regimes. Law needs to be specific to be effective, and so well-constructed law is often carefully tailored to the nitty-gritty details of specific objects, systems and ways of behaving. When a new technology comes along and replaces the old even if the new tech does exactly the same thing as the old it can make the old law irrelevant unless lawmakers intervene with an update. Interventions are especially important when the old technology has been around for a long time and law has grown intertwined with it. Regulating cryptocurrency, for example, is crucial precisely because so many financial regulations assume that transactions take place exclusively through state-issued currency that is mostly stored in banks.

But if the job of lawmakers is to create continuities between old and new tech, many modern tech firms, with their move fast and break things culture, often seem hellbent on tearing them apart. The makers of new technology like to call things unprecedented because it generates hype, but disconnecting new technologies from old ones is also a good way of shielding themselves from ethical and legal responsibility for how those technologies behave.

This new tech dynamic plays out in Jewish law, too. How should the rule forbidding leather shoes on Yom Kippur because they were considered an indulgence apply in an era of comfortable synthetic shoes? Must one wear tzitzit (ritual fringes) at all when modern shirts dont have the four corners that triggered the Biblical requirement of tzitzit? On a larger scale, the Shabbat elevator, the Kosher Lamp, as well as a host of technologies developed by Israels Tzomet Institute, all employ new technologies to circumvent existing rules while keeping within the letter, if not the spirit, of the law.

Sometimes Jews have allowed these rules to be eroded because the stakes didnt feel high enough, but when a new technology threatens to undermine Jewish tradition, the rabbis have tended to respond appropriately.

The best example of this is the ban on turning electricity on or off on Shabbat. For millennia, the experience of Shabbat was shaped by the Biblical prohibition on lighting fires; with the advent of electricity at the turn of the last century, that ban threatened to become irrelevant. Orthodox rabbis responded by coalescing around the argument that electricity is fire, or was covered by some other well-established prohibition. That electricity is not actually fire didnt matter; the argument carried because it was understood by leadership and laity alike that electricity was coming to replace fire, to do everything fire could do and more. Today, the restrictions on electricity are a cornerstone of the Shabbat experience, so fundamental that it is hard for many observant Jews to imagine Shabbat without it.

Is Impossible Pork the 21st century version of electricity? Theres a good case to be made that it is. The rise of plant-based meat substitutes has been spurred by ethical and environmental concerns around meat production. Their success depends on their being so delicious that they escape from the boutique realm of eco-conscious consumers and take on the same cultural role as meat. That Burger King offers an Impossible Whopper signals that this is already happening, as does the fact that major meat producers have invested heavily in the growth of plant-based alternatives to their own products.

These developments should be celebratedbut rather than diminishing meats special cultural meaning, its substitutes have only served to burnish it.

Meat has a special significance in Judaism, too. God is a big fan of animal sacrifices, and many holidays still involve the ritual or cultural use of meat and inasmuch as meat matters, it matters that the meat isnt pork. Its irrelevant that the Ancient Israelite origins of the ban are obscure; its enough that modern observant Jews (and Muslims) still treat the ban on pig products as a cultural touchstone. We should be glad that technology has created a meaningful difference between veggie beef and veggie pork but if the distinction is there, the ban on the pork must be, too.

The OUs ruling does not yet amount to a full-fledged policy that all fake meat should be treated like real meat; a kosher restaurant can still serve plant-based cheeseburgers without fear that its license will be revoked. But even if it was not intended to be profound, the OUs decision is an example of how all regulators, both religious and governmental, can fight back against the cultural unmooring that the present onslaught of new technology continues to cause. In this unprecedented age, creating continuity between the past and the present serves to ground society in the wisdom and norms of its own past.

David Zvi Kalman is the scholar in residence and director of new media at the Shalom Hartman Institute of North America and the owner of Print-o-Craft Press. He holds a PhD from the University of Pennsylvania.

Main Photo: Impossible Pork Char Siu Buns were presented at a consumer technology conference in Las Vegas in January 2020.(David Becker/Getty Images)

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An epic endeavor commenced the moment Chabad of Argentina received approval from the La Rural exposition center to produce an avant-garde theatrical production, Aventura en el Templo (Adventure in the Temple) at the venue in Buenos Aires. It typically takes four to six months to prepare a theatrical production. Chabad of Argentina had just four weeks to bring their vision to life.

Remarkably, Aventura en el Templo turned out to be a run-away success. As word spread, some 14,700 Jewish Argentines of all stripes rushed to see the one-of-a-kind drive-through performance over ten days.

In late July, Chabad of Argentina typically uses the southern hemispheres mid-winter break to educate the Jewish community about the Beit HaMikdash (the Holy Temple). In 2014 they built a scale model, which was ferried around to schools and educational institutions each subsequent year, to educate children and adults alike about the second Temple. Covid-19 changed that. With the country entering a strict lockdown, any form of in-person programming was out of the question. As the lockdown entered its second year, we turned the problem created by the pandemic into creative inspiration, said Rabbi Tzvi Grunblatt, director of Chabad of Argentina. We knew we had to do something in-person that families could enjoy without exposing themselves to the virus.

Ordinarily, the La Rural exposition center is teeming with activity in July. Since 1866, the venue has hosted an agricultural and livestock show attended by hundreds of thousands annually. But Covid-19 left the venue deserted. Seizing this unique opportunity, Chabad approached La Rural with a wild idea: to host a drive-through theatrical performance in the unused space. Although initially skeptical that Chabad could assemble all the necessary components on such short notice, the venue eventually agreed to the proposition. By then, Chabad had only four weeks to prepare before the beginning of winter break on July 19.

Rabbi Levi Silberstein, alongside his wife Mrs. Etti Silberstein, headed the production team. We had to create stage design, a script, actors, logistics, communication plan, and a million other things from scratch, said Mrs. Silberstein. To pull it off, they had six workshops working around the clock. Aventura en el Templo Producer Maxi Bartfeld worked with thirty-five people simultaneously to design and assemble the five different stages on which the show would take place. Bringing the Beit Hamikdash to life was made easier by the scale replica Chabad had on hand. Rabbi Levi Silberstein brought us in and gave us a crash course on the Beit Hamikdash to help us understand the space and choose how to explain it, recalls Art Director Belen Sanchez.

As the physical stages came together in the twenty thousand square foot facility, and playwright Flor Yadid threaded together an original script, Chabad launched an aggressive marketing campaign for the event. There was advertising in the popular daily newspaper La Nacin and on radio and social media. Most families who flocked to the show were drawn by word of mouth.

As the first vehicles entered the time machine tunnel leading into the show at 2:00 pm on July 19, the broad social spectrum of the viewers was apparent. BMWs pulled up alongside specially hired taxis, the latter packed with eager families who did not have the means to afford a car of their own.

In groups of six, cars emerged from the tunnel while neon vested staff directed them to park in a semi-circle facing the first stage. Tuned into the shows sound system via FM radio, the spectators followed the exploits of a fellow time traveler named Toby as he discovered the rituals and rhythms of the daily services in the Temple.

Whimsically,Toby explains that he turns to Google for spiritual guidance, before learning that the Temple is a better place to find a spiritual connection to the divine presence. With a cheeky grin, Toby bounces from stage to stage, leading the viewers from the Ezrat Noshim (Womens Gallery) through a massive reconstruction of Nicanors Gate, and on to the Courtyard of the Temple itself. All the while, Toby learns about the daily service in a humorous and dramatic retelling of the Avodah. Finally, he arrives at the Heichal, the holy sanctuary itself. Here, aptly staged video screens guide him through the innermost sanctum of Judaism, the Holy of Holies.

A key theme woven throughout the script is the message that we each have our personal Temple inside. When the narration speaks about the Menorah, the golden candelabrum housed in the sanctuary, it pauses to elaborate on the symbolism of the flame. A small flame burns in each of us, but for it to burn, it requires fuel. The narrators voice booms, The fuel of our inner light is the good deeds and the mitzvot that we perform. The thirty-minute show comes to a dramatic close at the Kotel, or Western Wall.

The technical hurdles of coordinating the five stages proved enormous. Each scene lasted precisely six minutes to synchronize the five groups of cars moving through the building. The twenty-five actors who created the performance reenacted their scenes non-stop from 2:00 pm until as late as 10:30 pm each day. For two weeks, the cars kept flowing. Popular demand for the show coaxed the showrunners to reopen for a final run late on a Saturday night.The show left the Argentine Jewish community abuzz. Wrote one enthusiastic mother, It was like Disneyland in Argentina! After experiencing the show, Mrs. Nuria Alma said it made her relive her familys trip to Israel years before. It was all we talked about the entire day. We went home and spent the day going through photo albums from our trip, she raved. The show left a lasting impact on her and her family. It touched our hearts, and I cant imagine the tremendous difference its making for so many families throughout the community.

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Posted By admin on October 18, 2021

Longtime community leader and Jewish educator Rabbi Barton Lee died Monday, Oct. 11. He was 79.

An Arizona State University student in the late 1970s, Lee went on to become Hillel at ASUs first full-time professional staff member as rabbi and executive director for 42 years before he retired in 2014.

As an ASU faculty associate, Lee taught courses in history, religious studies and Jewish studies and was also a longtime educator with the Bureau of Jewish Education of Greater Phoenix.

In 2011, Lee and his longtime friend and colleague, Rabbi Roy A. Walter, published My Prayers: A Jewish childs book of prayers for every day.

Lee is survived by his wife Marcie; two children, Nira, 33, and Noam, 36; and grandson, 7 months.

Nira Lee said her dad had the kindest heart, was a great listener and loved his work at Hillel.

I dont remember a time in my life where he made me feel bad about myself, Nira said. So many people are quick to give advice and aggressively advocate for what they think is best for somebody else, and that was not him, she said. He would listen and guide the conversation in such a way where it helps you choose the direction. And he never was arrogant enough to believe that he knew better.

Her dad was also a bit of a goofball, she said. A lot of people talk about this twinkle in his eyes, and a lot of it was mischief, and silliness, Nira said. He never took himself too seriously.

He used to joke that he loved college so much that he never left.

Debbie Yunker Kail, who succeeded Barton Lee as executive director for Hillel at ASU, said she has always been deeply grateful to Lee for welcoming her to Hillel and the Jewish community in 2013. He spent significant time orienting me and helping me connect with key friends of Hillel, and he celebrated with me as Hillel continued to grow. I enjoyed connecting to and learning from each other over lunches at Byblos and even a ride or two on his golf cart, she said in a statement.

Lee made whoever was in front of him feel like the most important person in the world, and to Rabbi Lee, they were just that, she said.

Hava Tirosh Samuelson, director of Jewish Studies at ASU, said Lee imparted his vast knowledge of Judaism and his passionate love of Hebrew language and literature to scores of students, inspiring them to be informed, socially engaged and caring. We miss his leadership, generosity of spirit and wisdom.

Steve Goldstein, the past chair of the Hillel Board of Directors, said Lee was an institution for not just Hillel at ASU but the entire Hillel International community. There has been an outpouring of love from ASU students wanting to leave messages for him, which he said is an indication of the kind of mark he made. Lee made ASU a welcoming and safe place for Jewish students for decades, he said.

Lee officiated at Goldsteins daughters bat mitzvah in 2004, and Goldsteins son went on the last Birthright trip that Lee supervised. He was always extremely kind to our family and were going to miss him, he said.

Shelley Cohn, who served three terms as president of the Hillel board, called Lee an icon. The thing about Rabbi Lee is that the students were number one. He was dedicated to being present for them for both joyful and challenging occasions, she said.

Cohn first met Lee when she was a graduate student at ASU, and like many others, found him to be warm and welcoming.

Ross Kader considered Lee to be his mentor, close friend and rabbi. Kader was an ASU student when he first met Lee and his wife, Marcie, around 2005. It really helped me just seeing them model their behavior and their approach to Judaism, and just who they were as people was so encouraging. It made me feel more connected to my Jewish roots, he said.

Kader remembers walking into the Hillel building on ASUs campus and immediately feeling welcome. He always made time for his students, he said. You could just walk in and students were sitting around in his office and chatting. He was always so approachable and kind.

Lee officiated Kaders wedding, and the two had since kept in touch.

Nira felt like she grew up at Hillel -- the campus building was her second home. She used to hide in the art supplies closet upstairs, sleep on the leather couches and raid the kitchen after school for Diet Coke.

People sharing stories and reaching out is bringing back a lot of memories and reminders of how loved he was and how many people he touched, she said. Thats been really special.

Hillel at ASU is collecting tributes, thoughts, memories and photos of Lee to be shared with his family at a later date. To participate, visit https://tinyurl.com/rabbileetribute. JN

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Posted By admin on October 18, 2021

When Emma Mayerson was a teen growing up in Berkeley, she wasnt quite sure how she fit in Jewishly.

I wasnt necessarily the Jew that went to camp, or was super involved in synagogue, said Mayerson, 33, who is the founding executive director of Alliance for Girls (AFG), an Oakland-based support system for hundreds of local organizations supporting girls and gender-expansive youth. I expressed my Judaism through tikkun olam, and I wanted to meet other teens that felt the same way.

Enter Judy Bloom, a grant officer working for the Jewish Community Federation and Endowment Fund, who was working to create a teen philanthropy board. Bloom pulled Mayerson into the strategic process of developing what became the Jewish Teen Foundation, offering her a chance to truly shape the process. That confidence in Mayerson accelerated Mayersons belief in herself.

I had a chance as a teenager to be a kind of entrepreneur, and help shape what became a profound and influential program, said Mayerson, recalling the opportunity to travel to Michigan to learn about the Kellogg Foundation, as well as to help hire the programs first director.

This experience led Mayerson, at 16, to join the board of progressive nonprofit Bend the Arc: Jewish Action. There she learned the unsexy but vital skill of reading budgets, had a role in the strategic planning process, and even wrote her college thesis on that process.

It was these early experiences, she said, that gave me the confidence at 24 to found the Alliance for Girls. I thought it was possible to do something new, in part because the institutions of the Jewish community taught me how.

AFG is, among other things, an ecosystem of leadership, which provides professional development, mentorship and networking opportunities for nonprofit, educational and government leaders. Member organizations serve many different communities, and include the domestic abuse shelter Shalom Bayit; Oaklands Oasis for Girls support center; Milpitas Teen Success, Inc., which empowers teen mothers; and the vocational arts program Turning Heads Sewing in San Francisco.

AFG is also an important source for research and advocacy, addressing issues such as sexual harassment, unequal educational opportunities and cyberbullying. This summer they published a new report, Uniting Isolated Voices: Girls and Gender-Expansive Youth During COVID-19, which describes the increased isolation, economic insecurity and caretaking responsibilities befalling girls, especially those from low-income families and communities of color.

While the report accentuates the work that must still be done in support of youth, Mayersons focus is on opportunities for empowerment. And one way to do that is to trust the capacities of youth just as the adults in her life did with her.

What I want for every girl and gender-expansive youth is the right opportunity and the right support. With that, they can do anything, said Mayerson. My task is figuring out, how do I provide that opportunity? And how do I support you?

While the teen philanthropy board and Bend the Arc were foundational partners in Mayersons development as a nonprofit leader, another source of inspiration was even closer to home her family.

Mayersons grandfather, Manuel Mayerson, was a Cincinnati businessman and philanthropist who started the Manuel D. & Rhoda Mayerson Foundation with his wife, Rhoda. As a kid, Mayerson recalled visiting a free dental clinic in downtown Cincinnati. There was a line around the block, and my grandfather saw an opportunity to do something to help homeless people with dentistry. I was so inspired by that.

Mayersons mother is the attorney Arlene Mayerson, a transformational figure in the field of disability rights who helped bring about the Americans with Disability Act in 1990. Currently a lecturer at UC Berkeleys law school, Arlene Mayerson, according to her daughter, saw that people with disabilities were not sufficiently included in the ongoing struggle for civil rights.

From both mother and grandfather, Mayerson began to understand that tikkun olam was not just about feeling good. It was a strategic understanding of what was needed. And to have that, you need to listen to people on the ground. You have to ask: What do you need? How can I be helpful?

Mayersons belief in youth and their leadership potential contains a caveat, however.

In some ways we have adopted a hyper-hero narrative for youth, pushing them to do things that most adults would not have the capacity to do. This became especially clear to Mayerson after the school shootings in Parkland, Florida, when student survivors like Emma Gonzalez were thrust into the media limelight with little to no support.

The day after her friends were killed, Gonzalez got pushed into the national spotlight. What was our responsibility to them, and their emotional well-being, while they were advocating to save the world for all of us? she asked.

Although most of the organizations AFG supports arent Jewishly centered, Mayerson sees a strong Jewish angle to her work. Not just that, she feels that its important to show up as a Jew as I do coalition-building and solidarity work in the area of gender equality.

Its a privilege to carry on a legacy of tikkun olam, she said. Its a guiding force for me every day.

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Posted By admin on October 18, 2021

Two hundred thirty-five people from the Bnei Menashe community, based in India's remote northeastern border states of Manipur and Mizoram, have immigrated to Israel.

The Bnei Menashe, or sons of Manasseh, are supposedly descended from one of the Ten Lost Tribes of Biblical Israel sent into exile by the Assyrian Empire starting in 733 BC.

After the exile, the ancestors of the Bnei Menashe community lived in Central Asia and the Far East for centuries before settling along India's border of Burma and Bangladesh.

Throughout their exile, the Bnei Menashe continued to practice Judaism, including observing the Sabbath, keeping kosher, celebrating the festivals, and following the laws of family purity.

Since then, they have been practicing Judaism and hoping to one day return to Israel, reported the Jewish News Syndicate.

The move is supported by the Minister of Aliyah and Integration Pnina Tamano-Shata and the Jerusalem-based Shavei Israel organization.

"The olim [a Hebrew term for immigrants] who landed this morning join the more than 4,000 Bnei Menashe who already live in Israel and have been integrated into Israel society successfully, and I would like to congratulate each and every one of them for finally returning home," said Michael Freund, chairman of Shavei Israel, according to the Jewish News Syndicate.

"We still must not forget that 6,500 members of the community are still waiting in India and longing for the moment when they, too, will be able to come to Israel and it is our duty to do everything we can to make this happen," said Freund.

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Israel: Indians claiming descent from Ten Lost Tribes arrive in Tel-Aviv - Insider

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Posted By admin on October 18, 2021

Faith leaders of all backgrounds gathered on Sunday to address the root causes of racism and how society can combat the issue.

The 40th World Religions Conference, hosted by Ahmadiyya Muslim Jama'at Canada, was held at the Baitul Kareem Mosque in Cambridge, however the audience tuned in virtually.

The issue was discussed from the point of view of several perspectives including Islam, Christianity, Judaism, Sikhism and Indigenous Spirituality.

"In a very difficult moment in history, in the midst of a global pandemic, coupled with economic and social anxiety and precarity, events like this remind us of our shared humanity and what can be accomplished together by embracing and celebrating differences in a spirit of open dialogue and togetherness," said event moderator Scott Hamilton, Cambridge city councillor.

The program was described as Canada's largest multi-faith event.

Several experts spokeabout where the issue stemmedfrom and offered solutions.

Guelph's Praveen Saxena, who represented the Hindu perspective, said it starts with educating children while they're young.

"Teaching our children the value of dignity, the value of shared responsibilities, the values of understanding people's religions and really emphasizing that the colour, the language, the cultures do not make a difference. We all have the same DNA," said Saxena at the event.

Kathleen Johnson, who represented the Humanist perspective, tuned in from Alberta to share important steps toward healing.

"People of colour need to have honest dialogue about how we participate in upholding the status quo to establish our own advantages and comforts. Power brokers have to educate themselves on how to interact without imposing Eurocentric standards of what this healing journey looks like, especially when it comes to our spiritual journeys," said Johnson.

Other speakers included:

The event comes amid a dark time for many communities in Canada experiencing an increase in racially-motivated attacks.

In June, four members of a Muslim family in London Ont., were struck and killed by a vehicle while on an evening walk. Police said the targeted attack was premeditated and motivated by hate.

A month later, the Cambridge mosque itself was vandalised in what officials initially thought to be a hate-motivated incident. A police investigation later discovered hate was not a factor. However, throughout the year, there were various incidents involving mosques across the country being vandalized, as well as Muslim women being attacked.

A recent survey suggested more than half of Asian Canadians have suffered discrimination over the past year.According to the Chinese Canadian National CouncilToronto chapter, there were more than 1,000 cases of both verbal and physical attacks against Asians across Canada from March 2020 to February 2021.

Last summer, thousands of Black Lives Matter activists rallied across the country and the rest of the world against system racism and police brutality.

A video recording of the conferenceavailable online to watch here.

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Posted By admin on October 18, 2021

When Lazarus Goldschmidt completed his translation of the Talmud into German, the world he had hoped to serve when he started 40 years earlier was in the process of being destroyed.

Now, nearly 90 years later, German-speaking Jews are getting another chance to engage with Goldschmidts work. Sefaria, the website that makes Jewish texts available and interactive online, has added Goldschmidts translation to its library.

The original publication of this document was a milestone event in German Jewish life, said Igor Itkin, a German rabbinical student who led the team that adapted Goldschmidts translation for online use, in a statement released by Sefaria. Making it available online not only preserves that legacy, but also introduces it to future generations.

Itkin told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that he has already heard from Germans who have begun using the translation in their study of Daf Yomi, the daily page of Talmud that Jews around the world learn in unison. The response has been very positive, he said.

Scholars of Judaism in Germany have sought to make Jewish texts available in German for decades, but the Talmud translation project gained steam after Itkin and his colleagues, German and Austrian scholars, took on the project after he realized that Goldschmidts work would enter the public domain at the beginning of this year.

It took them five months for the team to make its way through the 9,434 pages of Goldschmidts translation, reviewing and correcting errors in the scanned version and formatting it so users can navigate among the German, English and Hebrew/Aramaic translations that Sefaria makes available. (Sefarias CEO, Daniel Septimus, is a board member of 70 Faces Media, the Jewish Telegraphic Agencys parent company.)

It was very important to us to do an event in German, because this is a tool for a German-speaking audience, said Rabbi Jeremy Borovitz, director of Jewish learning for Hillel Deutschland, who helped coordinate between Itkins team and Sefaria. Theres a lot of excitement from German rabbis because finally, its opened up a way that they can really bring Talmud learning to their audiences.

The translations accessibility comes amid surging interest in Jewish studies at German universities as well as in less formal settings. Sefarias tools allow users to draw from its library to create source sheets, or Jewish study texts, meaning that individual classes and communities will be able to tailor the new materials for their needs.

The digital German Talmud represents a way of making important Jewish texts available and accessible for a new generation of German-speaking Jews who are eager to learn and explore what it means to be Jewish today, Katharina Hadassah Wendl, an Austrian student at the London School of Jewish Studies who assisted with the project, told JTA.

She added, For me personally, this project has opened my eyes anew to the depths of Torah and the vast sea of Talmudic discussions and wisdom.

Joshua Foer, an author and cofounder of Sefaria, said in a statement that the translations online release represents the triumph of Jewish tradition over the forces of hate that lapped against Goldschmidt as he worked.

Goldschmidt released the translation at a time of rising antisemitism to dispel dangerous myths and make the text accessible to all German speakers around the world, Foer said. He added, That this translation is being made more accessible today with the help of German and Austrian rabbinic students and scholars representing the future of German Judaism is a fitting celebration of Goldschmidts legacy.

Goldschmidt died in 1950, shortly after the Royal Library in Copenhagen acquired his collected works and papers. His other contributions included the first German translation of the Quran and a parody commentary on creation that he published under the moniker Arzelai bar Bargelai.

Sefaria is in the process of adding French and English translations of the Jerusalem Talmud, an alternate form of the foundational Jewish text, that also recently entered the public domain. And with their work on Goldschmidts Talmud complete, Itkin and his team will get to work on translating other texts, such as the Mishnah, with commentary from prewar German rabbis including David Zvi Hoffmann and Eduard Baneth.

One day, they hope that text and others will appear on Sefaria in German as well, ready to engage German students and synagogue-goers in their native language.

Theres a source of pride that the first language other than English on Sefaria is German, said Borovitz. It speaks to some of the resilience of this text and also this community and that its growing, and that people are optimistic about the future.

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German Talmud translation from 1935 goes online - The Jerusalem Post

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