Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By admin on October 18, 2021

JNS.org In our bifurcated political culture, most Americans not only have forgotten how to listen to those who disagree with them but have also stopped being willing to credit opponents with good motives. Thats part of the reason why just about anything that someone thinks is awful is quickly labeled by somebody as being morally equivalent to the Nazis.

But weve now gone beyond the reflexive use of inappropriate Holocaust analogies by both the right and the left. Were also at the point where protest movements are similarly demonized by anyone that happens to disagree with them. Violent protesters, especially those who seek to trespass on government property and commit acts of violence against law-enforcement officers are always in the wrong, whether were discussing the Jan. 6 Capitol riot or Black Lives Matter riots. Yet those who sympathize on some level with some of those committing those crimes now regard the rioters on their side of the spectrum as principled mostly peaceful demonstrators and those on the other side as domestic terrorists.

When government institutions, especially those responsible for law enforcement, play the same game, this trend stops being just a lamentable example of polarization and crosses the line into an abuse of power.

Thats the only way to describe the decision of US Attorney General Merrick Garland to treat protests at school boards around the country concerning the implementation of critical race theory as a federal problem that warrants the deployment of the FBI in order to put it down.

October 18, 2021 12:31 pm

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Garlands directive was a direct response to a letter he received from the National School Boards Association. It complained that a movement consisting of parents angry about the way local boards were implementing curriculums and lesson plans influenced by critical race theory, as well as controversial coronavirus pandemic policies, were guilty of threats of violence and acts of intimidation. While not citing a single act of actual violence, the left-leaning NSBA demanded that the Biden administration deploy the forces of the US Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), US Department of Homeland Security, US Secret Service, and its National Threat Assessment Center to deal with those lining up to make critical comments at school board meetings. Whats more, it specifically demanded the involvement of the FBIs National Security Branch and Counter-Terrorism division and that the authority of the Patriot Act in regards to domestic terrorism be invoked to put down the protests.

That this group thinks those criticizing their decisions, whether in a respectful or uncivil manner, are not just the moral equivalent of terrorists but deserving of prosecution under the same law that was passed in order to give the authorities free rein to battle Al-Qaeda terrorists is mind-boggling. Still, its not quite as mind-boggling as the fact that a respected liberal Jewish jurist like Garland, who was widely lauded as a moderate when former President Barack Obama nominated him for a seat on the Supreme Court (for which he never received confirmation) would actually agree with them.

That Garland thinks obnoxious critics at school-board meetings are terrorists is bad enough. But its worth pointing out that his decision came in the same week that left-wing critics of moderate Democrats like Sens. Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin were harassing them in ways that are far worse than getting screamed at by parents at public meetings. Sinema was chased into and then filmed while using the bathroom at Arizona State University, where she teaches, by those who criticized her refusal to go along with President Joe Bidens $3.5 trillion spending bill. But rather than issuing a stern condemnation, Biden dismissed it, saying its something that happens to everybody who doesnt have Secret Service protection like he does.

Nor did Garland think such harassment worthy of a federal investigation. During the Trump administration, many Democrats justified the public harassment of those associated with the former president or the Republican Party in restaurants and other public places. The mainstream media that considers a red MAGA cap on someones head or even the flying of American flags as something that requires a trigger warning has been fine with demonizing conservatives. But when parents get rowdy at school-board meetings or even cross the line into inappropriate protests at private homes (something that happens to conservative Supreme Court justices or media figures without a response from the FBI), then its terrorism.

The real problem here isnt liberal hypocrisy; its the idea that the federal government is serious about deploying its resources in order to put down protests against critical race theory. That is something that should not only warrant outrage from civil libertarians about this attempt to stifle legitimate dissent, but deep concern from a Jewish community that is directly threatened by the way these radical theories give a permission slip to antisemitism.

These toxic ideas that seek to divide people on the basis of race and alleged privilege in the name of anti-racism is an attempt to change the way Americans think about their country and its history. Rather than merely an acknowledgment of a troubled past and the long and largely successful struggle to achieve civil rights it treats the United States as an irredeemably racist nation. It seeks to enshrine race consciousness at the heart of every discussion and to make us view people solely through their skin color or origin rather than as individuals. It is a poison that undermines national identity and patriotism.

Though it is rightly resented by many Americans, it poses a particular problem for Jews, because it is a political catechism rooted in intersectional ideology about Third World nations and people of color locked in a never-ending struggle against white oppression. It puts those who dont fit into an approved category of intersectional victims in the unfortunate position of either denying their own privilege or being enlisted in a struggle that has little to do with a celebration of diversity, let alone the manifold blessings of American liberty.

Since intersectionality treats the Palestinian war on the existence of Israel the one Jewish state on the planet as part of the same struggle as the battle for civil rights in the United States, it puts Jews in the category of possessors of white privilege even though most Israeli Jews are themselves people of color because they trace their origins to the Middle East and North Africa. In this way, it has served to justify and rationalize antisemitic rhetoric and activism aimed at depriving Jews of rights that no one would think to deny to anyone else.

Yet rather than being among the leaders of the fight against these terrible ideas, much of the organized Jewish community has gone silent or actually supports critical race theory so as to retain their good standing as liberals and sympathizers with the Black Lives Matter movement. The Anti-Defamation League the one group tasked specifically with the job of defending Jews against antisemitism is not only not fighting critical race theory but has joined with those falsely labeling anti-CRT activists as extremists.

Sadly, many Jews who see every issue as a partisan litmus test agree with them as opposed to standing up for the right to protest and against a set of ideas that threatens their security. The decline of civility in public discourse is a problem on both the left and the right. But those liberals who have been speaking nonstop about alleged threats to democracy since Donald Trump entered politics need to realize that the DOJ treating protests as terrorism is the real authoritarian threat. Jews ought to be cheering on those parents who are fighting back against critical race theory at their local school boards, not those smearing them as terrorists.

Jonathan S. Tobin is editor in chief of JNSJewish News Syndicate. Follow him on Twitter @jonathans_tobin.

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The Jewish Stake in Resisting the War on School-Board Critics - Algemeiner

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Posted By admin on October 18, 2021

Colin Powell, the former U.S. Secretary of State and first Black person to hold the job, lived on the same South Bronx block as Norman and Amy Brash, friends so close they were considered relatives, and Powell called them Mammele and Papelle.

Dont ask me why the Jewish diminutives, Powell, who died Monday at 84, wrote in My American Journey, his 1995 autobiography, since they were also Jamaican.

But, growing up in the 1940s and 1950s in what he called the heavily Jewish neighborhood of Hunts Point, Powell, whose parents immigrated from Jamaica, had many Jewish friends. In fact, his life was filled with Yiddishkeit.

Melvin Kleins family had Powell over every week to watch Milton Berle and Molly Goldberg on one of the first televisions in the neighborhood. Powells sisters closest chums were the Teitelbaum sisters. He earned a quarter every Shabbat to turn off the lights at an Orthodox synagogue. And Jay Sickser, the Jewish owner of Sicksers Everything For The Baby store gave Powell a job when he was 14. (Powells father also worked at Jewish businesses, including Ginsburgs in the garment district, where he rose to become foreman of the shipping department.)

The future general worked at Sicksers for 75 cents an hour as, in his own words, a part-time schlepper, and stayed until he was a sophomore in college. He learned a considerable amount of Yiddish there, which he enjoyed, in the decades to come, sprinkling into his conversations with Jews and even the prime minister of Israel. Men kent reden Yiddish he told an astounded Yitzhak Shamir, then Israeli prime minister, ahead of the first Gulf War in 1991. We can speak Yiddish.

Yiddish, Powell said in remarks at a 2017 dinner hosted by the World Jewish Congress, has served me so well over the last 60 years.

Photo by Paul Morigi/Getty Images ...

WASHINGTON, DC: In this image released on May 28, 2021, Gen. Colin Powell (Ret.) on stage during the Capital Concerts National Memorial Day Concert in Washington, DC. The National Memorial Day Concert will be broadcast on May 30, 2021

Powell even claims a Jewish relative, on his fathers side, in a heritage that also includes Africans, English, Scots and Irish.

Jews, Powell recalled of his old neighborhood, were part of the streetscape where no one was a minority. On every block there was a Jewish-owned candy store where he would buy egg creams and seltzers, two-cents, plain. He remembered Jewish and Puerto Rican-owned bakeries, Chinese-owned laundromats and Italian-owned shoe repair shops.

He said he never felt the sting of bigotry in the Bronx, said Lloyd Ultan, the Bronxs official historian and a history professor at Fairleigh Dickinson University.

Powell wrote that it wasnt as if he never heard a racial epithet in the South Bronx of his youth, a mix of Jews, Blacks, Italians, Latinos and others: I was eventually to taste the poison of bigotry, he said, but it was far from the Bronx.

In the late 1950s, as drugs and crime made Hunts Point more dangerous, and Jewish families left their apartments for homes in the suburbs, the Powell family would buy a three-bedroom bungalow in Queens from a Jewish family named Wiener.

But what Powell learned about Jews and Yiddish would stay with him.

Let me put to rest this rumor as to whether or not I speak Yiddish, Powell said in a speech at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee conference in Washington in 1991. I really do not speak Yiddish, maybe a bissel (a little), who knows?

It was more than a bissel. In My American Journey, Powell called Collie by Sickser relates that he had picked up enough Yiddish so that when couples were speaking to each other on the stores second floor about how much they might be willing to spend on a stroller or crib, he understood. But he didnt always let on.

This shwarz klabe what did he understand? Powell wrote, using the Yiddish phrase for Black boy, a term now considered pejorative.Id excuse myself and report to Mr. S., who would come up, armed with my intelligence, and close the deal.

In 1992, Powell recalled, at a Hanukkah dinner at Yeshiva University, that Sicksers would give him a playful gezunten keppel, a healthy head, and mimed a slap.

To keep me straight, Powell explained.

Powell wasnt planning to make a career at Sicksers, but Jay Sickser was worried that the young man who had worked for him for so many years might be too attached to the store. He called Powell over one day, and told him that with children and a son-in-law, the business would be theirs one day, and so Powell should get a good education to secure his future.

Powell was touched.

He evidently thought that I had worked out well enough to deserve to be brought into the firm, which I had never considered, Powell wrote. I took it as a compliment.

Powell was 11 when Israel was founded.

In Hunts Point, there was joy throughout the neighborhood, the day David Ben-Gurion declared Israels independence in 1948, Powell recalled in a speech to the World Jewish Congress in 2017.

Tears flowed, celebrations everywhere, it wasnt just the Jews who were celebrating, the rest of us were celebrating for the Jews. We all shared in their joy, the joy of having a homeland, Powell said.

As a diplomat, Powell was considered a staunch ally of the Jewish state. He didnt always see eye to eye with Israeli leaders, and critiqued, for example, Prime Minister Ariel Sharons actions during the Second Intifada.

But he conveyed a deep concern for Israels security, and was instrumental in convincing Sharon by 2003 to endorse a road map to peace that included Palestinian statehood. Colin Powell may not be Jewish, but he has a Jewish soul, said Ronald S. Lauder, president of the World Jewish Congress, presenting the Theodor Herzl Award to Powell in 2017 and calling him a lifelong friend of the Jewish people.

But Powells reputation for standing by the Jewish community went beyond his diplomacy with Israel. He recalls, in My American Journey, how he was slated to deliver the 1994 commencement address at historically Black Howard University, just days after speakers on campus connected to the Nation of Islam had publicly denounced Jews to applause.

Powell decided to address the issue head on, and told the graduates: African-Americans have come too far and we have too far yet to go to take a detour into the swamp of hatred.

My Howard speech received unusually wide media coverage, he later wrote, not because I was more eloquent than other commencement speakers that spring, but because my denouncing race hatred from any quarter was an apparently welcome message.

Colin Powells early life was steeped in Jewish culture and Yiddish. It stayed with him.

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Colin Powells early life was steeped in Jewish culture and Yiddish. It stayed with him. - Forward

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Posted By admin on October 18, 2021

Earlier this month Gov. Gavin Newsom signed Assembly Bill 101 into law, making California the first state in the nation to add ethnic studies to its list of required high school courses. Though the bill had the unanimous support of the California Legislative Jewish Caucus, it roiled some Jewish community groups who feared it would open the door to one-sided criticism of Israel in the classroom.

The Jewish caucus shared those concerns, and it appears Newsom did, too.

The governor who vetoed a similar bill last year in a signing statement pointed to a series of guardrails inserted at different stages of the amendment process that would, in his words, ensure that [ethnic studies] courses will be free from bias or bigotry and appropriate for all students.

The changes were important in consolidating Jewish community support for the bill (or at least ameliorating some critics). Both the S.F.-based Jewish Community Relations Council and members of the California Legislative Jewish Caucus cited them as key to their endorsement. The Jewish Public Affairs Committee of California, whose board includes representatives of many of the largest Jewish nonprofit organizations in the state, including Jewish Federations in San Francisco and Los Angeles, celebrated the guardrails in a lengthy statement.

But what are they? And how do they work?

The guardrails amend the ethnic studies bill, which itself amends the massive body of law governing the operation of Californias public schools and state universities known as the California Education Code. Local school boards are responsible for complying with the code. If they dont, they could be vulnerable to lawsuits.

The first three guardrails were proposed last year by members of the caucus, including state Sen. Ben Allen of Santa Monica, then chair, and Assemblymember Jesse Gabriel of the West San Fernando Valley, then-vice chair (Gabriel is now the chair). They were not created out of whole cloth; they were adapted from existing provisions of the Ed. Code.

They state that any course in ethnic studies, in order to fulfill the new requirement, must:

1) Be appropriate for use with students of all races, religions, nationalities, genders, sexual orientations, and diverse ethnic and cultural backgrounds;

2) Not reflect or promote, directly or indirectly, any bias, bigotry, or discrimination against any person or group of persons within a protected group; and

3) Not teach or promote religious doctrine.

According to Gabriel, the second clause is the most consequential for concerns raised by Jewish groups.

The reason Jewish organizations were outraged over ethnic studies in the first place was because of a first draft of a state-ordered Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum that included criticism of Israel, did not deal meaningfully with antisemitism, and did not mention Jews. It presented the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement in a favorable light, calling it a protest movement aiming to free Palestinians living under apartheid conditions, likening it to the movement for climate justice and #MeToo. It also referred to the creation of Israel as the Nakba.

Though the curriculum has been revised, schools dont have to use it, and there are still some activists including those who wrote the first draft of the ESMC applying their own vision for ethnic studies directly to school districts.

The directly or indirectly clause was put there to defend not only against overtly biased material in ethnic studies classes, but material that may be considered biased, such as teaching BDS uncritically, Gabriel said.

There is a strong argument that BDS, at a minimum, indirectly promotes bias against Israelis, he said, or indirectly promotes bias against Jews.

We didnt want there to be any question, he said.

The fourth guardrail directly names the controversial first draft of the Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum. It was introduced this year in the Senate Appropriations Committee with the support of chair Anthony Portantino.

The guardrail says it is the intent of the Legislature that school districts not use the portions of the draft model curriculum that were not adopted by the Instructional Quality Commission due to concerns related to bias, bigotry, and discrimination.

The clause does not specify which portions were cut due to bias concerns. In March, the Department of Education released data showing that of the approximately 80,000 public comments it received about the Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum since 2019, more than 38,000 were summarized as comments about Jewish Americans and/or antisemitism. The second most frequent were comments about Armenian Americans, received over 9,000 times.

The fifth guardrail requires transparency from school districts adopting ethnic studies curricula of their own. It says if a school district wants to do so, it needs to hold at least two public meetings first, and give members of the public the opportunity to weigh in.

The guardrail states that any locally developed ethnic studies course shall first be presented at a public meeting of the governing board of the school district, and shall not be approved until the public has had the opportunity to express its views on the proposed course.

This particular amendment will not affect school districts that already teach ethnic studies, including San Francisco, Oakland, San Mateo, and many others. But the other four guardrails will apply to all ethnic studies courses, including those developed before the mandate bill.

Some opponents of AB 101 have criticized the guardrails as weak or insufficient for the task of blocking biased content across Californias more than 1,300 public high schools.

Tammi Rossman-Benjamin, a strident opponent of the ethnic studies measure who directs the Santa Cruz-based Amcha Initiative, called the guardrails purely optics that carry zero weight when it comes to preventing school districts from teaching anti-Israel content.

Others, like Elina Kaplan of the Alliance for Constructive Ethnic Studies, which also opposes AB 101, called them tools. The guardrails, she said, are only as good as the guards.

For Gabriel, the guardrails are not meant to advance lawsuits, they are meant to avoid them.

We wanted to be crystal clear, and leave no ambiguity that this is where the Legislature stands. This is what the law says, he said. My hope is that the guardrails are so unambiguous that any school board, or any teacher, looks at this and says, we do not want to get close to that problematic curriculum.

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Everything you need to know about the ethnic studies law's 'guardrails' J. - The Jewish News of Northern California

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Posted By admin on October 18, 2021

A few years ago a colleague called to interview me for a book he was writing about journalists who worked for Jewish publications. I told him that it would be the first book in history whose readership would overlap 100% with the people being interviewed.

Thats a little bit how I feel about books that look deeply into the ins and outs of Jewish communal affairs: the admittedly small genre ofsynagogue tell-alls, studies ofJewish philanthropy, scholarly work onhow Americans do Judaism. Of course, I eat these books up its my job and passion. But I suspect I am a distinct minority within a minority.

I also suspected Mark Oppenheimers new book, Squirrel Hill: The Tree of Life Synagogue Shooting and the Soul of a Neighborhood, might be similarly narrow in its scope and audience. In some ways it is, but that is also its strength: In describing the Oct. 27, 2018 massacre of 11 Jewish worshipers in Pittsburgh and how individuals and institutions responded, he covers board meetings, interviews clergy, takes notes on sermons and reads demographic studies by Jewish federations. The result is a biopsy or really, a stress test of American Jewry in the early 21st century, the good and the bad.

And as a result it tells a bigger story about and for all Americans in an age of mass shootings, political polarization and spiritual malaise.

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First the good: The Squirrel Hill in Oppenheimers book is a model of Jewish community building home to the rare American Jewish population that stuck close to its urban roots instead of fleeing to the far suburbs. The neighborhood boasts walkable streets, a wide array of Jewish institutions, a diverse public high school and local hangouts that serve as the third places so elusive in suburbia. Oppenheimer credits a federation leader, Howard Rieger, who in 1993 spearheaded a capital project that kept the communitys infrastructure from preschool to assisted living in place and intact.

The universal outpouring of support after the shooting also showed American Jewish life at its best. Offers to help flooded in from Jews around the country and the world. Non-Jews rushed to assure Jews that they were not alone. Barriers fell between Jewish denominations, and people put politics and religion aside to focus on the qualities and threats that unite them.

The downside is a photo negative of all thats right about Squirrel Hill and American Jewry. The diversity and demographics of Squirrel Hill are a reminder of the more typically segregated way of American Jewish life religiously, racially and economically. Orthodox and non-Orthodox Jews spin in separate orbits. Many white Jews rarely interact with people of color who arent cleaning their homes or taking care of their kids.

As for the support that flowed in: Oppenheimer also describes the ways the offers of help could feel both patronizing and self-serving, as outside Jewish groups and trauma tourists rushed in without considering the needs or feelings of the locals. One New York-based burial society sent experts to help the provincials tend to the bodies of victims; they were not-so-politely told that the locals had it under control. Theres a sad and hilarious profile of an Israeli medical clown who, like so many clowns, ends up sowing more confusion than comfort.

Oppenheimer also complicates the rosy portraits of Pittsburghs Stronger Than Hate response to the shootings. While the Jewish community remains mostly grateful for the shows of solidarity, there were missteps and miscommunications along the way. Even one of the most iconic images of the shooting theKaddish prayer written in Hebrew characters on the front page of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette has a complicated back story that ended with the departure of the newspapers editor.

Internal divisions are on display as well: Jewish progressives who protested President Trumps visit to Squirrel Hill after the shooting argued with alrightniks who either supported Trump or felt his office should be respected. The political divide among Jews is a recurring theme: Victims families reacted angrily after a local rabbi dared bring up gun control during an event on the one-year anniversary of the shootings. The rabbi later apologized for appearing to break an agreement that his speech would not be political.

Perhaps most of all, Squirrel Hill describes American Jewry at a crossroads, with Tree of Life as a potent symbol of its communal demise and future possibilities. The synagogues that shared space in the building drew and still draw relatively few worshippers on a typical Shabbat, and those who come tend to be older. While the Tree of Life shooting galvanized a discussion about whether Jews could ever feel safe in America, Americas embrace of Jews has left non-Orthodox synagogues empty or emptying. Tree of Life will apparently be rebuilt as a complex that will be part synagogue, part Holocaust museum, part 10/27 memorial. Whether anyone will come is another story. In his High Holiday sermon a year after the attack, Jeffrey Myers, Tree of Lifes rabbi, offered a brutally candid assessment of the state of the synagogue, a plea for help, a challenge for twice-a-year Jews to show up for programs and services, lest the synagogue cease to exist in 30 years.

Thats not just a Pittsburgh, or Jewish, thing. As Myers puts it, low attendance at regular worship services was not a Jewish problem but an American problem.

Oppenheimer does bring more hopeful stories, starting with the bustling Orthodox synagogues and including people and congregations offering spiritual, political and cultural alternatives for a generation of disenchanted seekers. How sticky these alternatives will be to borrow a term from Silicon Valley remains to be seen.

Squirrel Hill is both inspiring and deflating. Its a reminder of the persistence of one of the worlds oldest hatreds and of the resilience of its targets. Its a celebration of an American Jewish community, and a lament for fading Jewish connections.

And it is also a useful corrective for me, someone who is paid to cover these issues. After the one-year anniversary event, a local Jewish leader tells Oppenheimer that she felt that the narrative of strength and unity had obscured how much people were still hurting. Her words and Oppenheimers book are a reminder that there is always more to the story.

Andrew Silow-Carroll (@SilowCarroll) is the editor in chief of The Jewish Week. Subscribe to his Sunday newsletter here.

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What the Tree of Life Shooting Revealed about American Jewry - Jewish Week

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Posted By admin on October 18, 2021

Fan Fiction

A Mem-Noir: Inspired by True Events

By Brent Spiner

St. Martins Press, 256page, $27.99

What is it with Star Trek and the Jews? Leonard Nimoy imbued Mr. Spock with Jewishness from his Orthodox upbringing and William Shatner went to Jewish summer camp. Some people, wrongly, think that Gene Roddenberry, creator of Star Trek, was also Jewish, but his two initial co-writers, Bob Justman and Herb Solow, were.

Bizarrely, Jewish actors have embodied three different stereotypes on the franchise. First, Russians Commander Worfs adoptive parents the Rozhenkos were played by Georgia Brown (ne Lilian Klot) and the legendary Theodore Bikel while Walter Koenig and the late, lamented Anton Yelchin, played two generations of Pavel Mr. Chekhov.

Second more worryingly because of the similarity to enduring antisemitic stereotypes Jewish actors Armin Shimerman, Aron Eisenberg and Max Grodnchik played the greedy ber-capitalist Ferengi characters Quark, Nog and Rom, respectively, on Star Trek: Deep Space 9. Shimerman himself played three separate Ferengi on three separate series, as well as DS9, he played Quark on Star Trek: Voyager and, before that, played Letek and then DaiMon Bractor in separate episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation.

Finally, as I just learned from reading Fan Fiction the new sort-of autobiographical novel by Brent Spiner both hyperlogical pillars of Star Trek Mr. Spock and Data were played by members of the tribe.

The hero of Spiners novel is an actor called Brent Spiner who is in the midst of filming the third series of Star Trek: The Next Generation in 1989 when a dangerous stalking fan sends him a bloody pig penis in the mail.

The protagonist, like the author, was close friends with Donald Trey Yearnsley Wilson III who tragically died in the middle of that year. Both real and fictional Spiners are from Houston and Jewish enough that their heritage is mentioned on multiple occasions in the novel. The treyfness of the disgusting fanmail isnt addressed directly, but it adds piquancy to the story.

Shortly after the arrival of the first of a number of threatening letters and odd, Star Trek-adjacent events, Spiner is getting into his makeup next to Michael Dorn who stars as Worf.

The great artist Michael Westmore, Spiner writes. proceeds to pack a pound of phosphorescent powder onto my punim I doubt its much of a thrill for him to turn a Texas Jew into an android from Omicron Theta, but I get goose bumps every day just being part of his history.

Later on, inspired by a TV movie and high on Percodan (matzo ball soup did end up curing the kidney stone, though prescription medication helped out with the pain), Spiner faces up to his stalker and the memories of his bullying stepfather. He imagines ghosts of Christmas arriving, including Patrick Stewart, his friend from The Next Generation, as the Ghost of Christmas Present.

Stewart teaches Spiner about empathy and they get into a discussion:

When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things.

Thats from First Corinthians, isnt it? You know Im Jewish, dont you?

Then let me put it another way. Grow some beytsim, as they say in Yiddish.

So, though the extent of the gap between the fictional and the historical Spiner is unclear, Spiner joins Kinky Friedman and David Wilensky in my top three living Jewish Texans, when he recounts how he lost his virginity by engaging the services of a prostitute called Little Tinker Toy.

[She] looked me right in the eyes and said Kid, if youve got 10 dollars, Ive got the keys to the kingdom of heaven, Spiner writes.

Although he notes that if memory serves [she] bore an uncanny resemblance to Ed McMahon he pays for an evening (in and out the door in 15 minutes) of love. Since I had the rest of my bar mitzvah money in my pocket, I went another couple of rounds in the Tinker Toy School of Love. She was amazing.

As well as an introduction to carnal pleasures the kingdom of heaven Tinker Toy gave Spiner a hint as to his future profession. Star Trek may not have handed him the whole kingdom, but it certainly gave him the keys to the heavens.

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New, bizarre (and sometimes gross) Data about the Jewishness of Star Trek - Forward

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Posted By admin on October 18, 2021

A new illustrated book published in Pittsburgh aims to combat bigotry and hate, while telling the story of what the United States did and didnt do for European Jews during the Holocaust.

Barbara Burstin, a local historian who teaches at both the University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon University, wrote the 16-page script for the book, America and the Holocaust, hoping it might appeal to young people, she said.

Burstin also launched a website, AmericaandtheHolocaust.com, to promote the book, which is written for middle- and high-school students.

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She said the Holocaust and Americas response is a subject I care about and know about, and she wrote the book as a way to reach a broader audience.

The story is told through the characters of two modern-day students bouncing through the events of the 1930s and 1940s, interacting with key players as the story of the Holocaust unfolds.

It seemed the logical thing thats something I wanted right away, Burstin said. And I wanted one to be a Black student to make this more than a Jewish issue the message is, Combat bigotry. Clearly, antisemitism is expressed. But its not exclusive.

Burstin paired up with illustrator Frederick Carlson, a Carnegie Mellon alum and former illustration professor who was the first illustrator from outside New York City to be elected president of the National Graphic Artists Guild.

Carlson said America and the Holocaust which runs 32 pages, some of them densely designed and lavishly illustrated is less of a comic book or a graphic novel than it is an illustrated book.

I said, Look this is a time-travel novel by the end of the book, these are kids of today, Carlson explained. Every page has ethical questions posited. You could spend weeks and weeks and weeks reading through this.

Thats true: The book encompasses a great level of nuance and detail, offering social and political commentaries from the period, as well as details some middle- or high-school history books on the subject might omit.

Barbaras very discerning about getting into the issues, Carlson said.

Carlson, who cites Jack Kirby and Golden Age Marvel illustrators as influences, used photos he took of two Gateway High School track athletes real life teens Emma Sandor and Omarion Davidson as inspiration. He then built the book around their interactions with the content. At one point, Davidson even asks FDR a press-conference-style question.

The illustration portion of the project took four months.

One thing the book seeks to show is how Hitler used the prejudices of Americans against the U.S. by flaunting the fact that Congressional leaders and members of FDRs cabinet wouldnt stop the Nazis persecution of the Jews, Carlson said.

That was one of the things I was glad we were able to unveil, Carlson said. I think Barbara did a great job walking people through the 30s and 40s.

Now, its Classrooms Without Borders turn at the bat.

The Pittsburgh-based nonprofit has worked with Stockton University historian Mary Johnson on a curriculum guide area teachers can use to further delve into the book as teaching material. The goal? For students to look for trends in events occurring locally and globally as in the book but also for those students to become instruments for change, according to Ellen Resnek, Classrooms Without Borders educational programs and outreach manager.

This is something we do on a regular basis, Resnek told the Chronicle. One of the things that sets CWB apart is we ensure there are historians working on these curriculum guides so we can guarantee the historical accuracy as well.

To that end, Johnson and the team have created a guide chock-full of primary references things like newspaper clippings from the era, transcriptions of speeches and letters, such as one from Albert Einstein to First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt to aid teachers as they work through the material in class, Resnek said.

If educators want to expand this into a learning unit, they can, she said.

The guide will be available for a free download, with registration, on CWBs website. The group also plans to distribute hard copies of the book and its accompanying curriculum guide.

The Holocaust Center of Pittsburgh also will be distributing copies of the book to teachers in 13 local districts, according to Lauren Bairnsfather, the Holocaust Centers executive director.

[Burstin] had so much to teach and, really, a concern that if she doesnt teach it, who will learn? And she thought, Why stop locally? Bairnsfather told the Chronicle.

Bairnsfather said historical depictions of the U.S. involvement in World War II typically focus on battlefield heroism.

Thats part of the story but theres a lot more, she said. In what ways did American not help the Jews then and now?

Burstin is the author of five books, including Steel City Jews 1840-1915, Steel City Jews in Prosperity, Depression and War 1915-1950, and After the Holocaust: The Migration of Polish Jews and Christians to Pittsburgh after World War II.

This tome, she admits, is a bit different.

Im trying to get this book into the hands of educators, Burstin said, where it can benefit people with something thats an entry point into the Holocaust from an American perspective. PJC

Justin Vellucci is a freelance writer living in Pittsburgh.

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New illustrated book highlights America's response to the Holocaust - thejewishchronicle.net

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Posted By admin on October 18, 2021

In April, the language-learning app Duolingoadded its 40th language to its program arsenal: Yiddish. A couple of decades ago, it would have been unthinkable for a mainstream non-Jewish language program to offer an expansive, comprehensive course in Yiddish. But Duolingos Yiddish addition only serves to reflect the increased global interest in learning a language that once had as many as 12 million speakers.

Ladino, a Romance language of Sephardic Jews still spoken by hundreds of thousands worldwide, has also garnered much interest in recent years. Ladino classes, both online and in-person, are widely available to prospective learners.

But while those two Jewish languages are enjoying a cultural renaissance, many others ones spoken in Crimea, Baghdad, Baku and beyond, which have both miraculously survived and succumbed to tumultuous periods in world history have remained largely inaccessible to interested learners.

This month, thats changing.

The Oxford School of Rare Jewish Languages in the UK has launched its inaugural semester ofcourses in 12 Jewish languages, belonging to the Aramaic, Arabic and Turkic language families. They range in number of speakers, from millions to none.

The courses, which began this week, run for an hour a week online and are free for all students.

There are currently many brilliant research projects and online platforms concerning Jewish languages, said Professor Judith Olszowy-Schlanger, president of the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies and the creator of the new program. What is missing is the possibility for the growing number of interested students to learn these languages, even less in an academic setting.

This is why she sees the OSRJLs format online and free as significant: it ensures that classes are accessible to an international pool of students.

Yiddish is one of the 12 Jewish languages offered by the OSRJL and with roughly 1.5 million speakers worldwide, it is the only language offered by the program that is not endangered or extinct. In fact, Yiddish is growing in its number of speakers.

People outside of the Yiddish-speaking world have this distorted notion that Yiddish is disappearing, explained Kalman Weiser, a Silber Family Professor of Modern Jewish Studies at York University, in Toronto. Its not. Its only growing. Judeo-Greek, on the other hand, is a language that is going to disappear.

Weisers mother speaks Judeo-Greek, but unfortunately, this tongue, which originated in the Macedonian Empire, is expected to die out with this generation without serious intervention. Most of the languages offered by the OSRJL face a similar fate. Several including Judeo-French, Classical Judeo-Arabic and Classical Judeo-Persian are already considered extinct.

The latter is a language that Daniel Amir, a doctoral researcher of Iranian Jewish history at the University of Oxford, aims to study at the OSRJL. He also plans to take courses in Judeo-Neo-Aramaic, a language with an estimated 60 speakers left.

Knowing a language is one thing, but getting to learn and improve together with other people is exciting and motivating. All of these languages are ones with which I have a strong personal connection, he said.

Amirs family speaks a dialect of Judeo-Neo-Aramaic that is in serious decline, and he wishes to do his part to halt the downward trend. Most of my experience with the dialect is through talking with and listening to my family, so getting a chance to formally study it is a great privilege, he said.

Studying any Jewish language, whether it is of heritage or not, opens up a window into the diverse history of world Jewry, Weiser noted. He mentioned a theory proposed by sociolinguist Max Weinreich in The History of the Yiddish Language, which suggests that there is an unbroken chain of Jewish languages stemming from ancient Hebrew to today, where Yiddish is the latest link.

Once you take this approach, any Jewish language becomes a vital part of Jewishness, Weiser said. You start off at one place but then you begin to see the bigger picture.

Though the chances that Karaim (a Turkic language with roughly 80 speakers) or Judeo-Italian (a Romance language with 250 speakers) are ones heritage language are low today, studying them can be a potent exercise in understanding the broader Jewish experience. Olszowy-Schlanger told JTA that the OSRJL intends to bolster the connection students feel to their cultures, both through the language courses and by offering a variety of other online content, including blog publications on exceptional books and a 16-lecture series on Yiddish music.

The ripple effects of a program like this are not secluded to the Jewish realm Weiser mentioned that many past Jewish language initiatives were in tandem, influenced by, or would go on to influence other Indigenous language programs.

The faculties that raised Hebrew from the proverbial dead have also influenced the revitalization of Indigenous languages such asLushootseedandSami, and helped inspire the moves to preserveIrishandCornish.

These communities merit and deserve our research, curiosity, and admiration both in their pasts and presents, Amir said. And language is a perfect point of departure.

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Oxford courses on 12 rare Jewish languages aim to keep heritages alive - Haaretz

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Posted By admin on October 18, 2021

Photo Courtesy of Dana Miller/Mervis Archives

A photo of the old Congregation Anshe Knesset Israel Synagogue that stood at 949 N. Walnut St. from 1929-1991 is shown above. Jewish archives from central Illinois similar to the photo above will be stored at new archives at the Illinois History and Lincoln Collections at the University.

The University is establishing new archives at the Illinois History and Lincoln Collections about the Jewish community in central Illinois.

These archives are going to contain a lot of different information, some of which include photographs of synagogues, news clippings about Jewish residence, obituaries, documents from Jewish owned businesses and lists of congregation members.

Once the materials are arranged and described, they will be available to scholars, members of the community and students, said Krista Gray, employee at the Illinois History and Lincoln Collections.

The archives were first presented to the University by Sybil Mervis, a Jewish resident, from Danville, Illinois. Mervis has been keeping all of the documents from the archives in her possession since the Synagogue located in Danville closed in 2012.

The archives span from the early 1900s until the closing of the Synagogue in 2012.

Mervis reached out to Erez Cohen, head of Hillel at the University. Cohen decided that all of this information would be beneficial to the community and should be stored as archives at University

Cohen had the idea to go to the library and ask them if they would make archives of Jewish community history in central Illinois, because there are several congregations that have closed or are closing, Mervis said.

Long before the closure of these congregations and Synagogues, the Jewish migrants and settlers from different parts of the midwest chose the Danville area in 1860, and were the founders of what is now downtown Danville.

These settlers were mostly merchants who started clothing stores, with some settlers going on to be staples in the community. There will be information about these prominent Jewish figures located in the archives.

Sarah Goldman, director of the Jewish Culture and Society program, talked about how and why the archives are important for the students.

When describing the archives, Goldman said that the only way to fully understand this part of central Illinois history is to read the archives. Looking at the archives gives the community a first hand account of the Jewish communities experiences and insights.

Mervis called the archives highly significant because the history of these immigrant Jews were such a big part of the business district in these small towns.

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Jewish archives from central Illinois to be stored at University - Daily Illini

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Posted By admin on October 18, 2021

The government on Sunday was set to approve a reform that would fast track the immigration of thousands of Jewish doctors to Israel and their integration into the country's health system amid an ongoing domestic row between officials and medial interns. The motion, tabled by Aliyah and Integration Minister Pnina Tamano-Shata, is set to assist the Jewish state's hospitals with their severe manpower shortage - which it had suffered from even before the pandemic.

The vote is set to take place just days after more than 2,500 medical interns resigned en-masse in protest of the 26-hour shifts they are forced to work. Representatives of the 2,590 young doctors arrived at the Health Ministry's offices in Tel Aviv and submitted their resignations letters which are set to come into effect within two weeks' time if the issue is not resolved.

Israel has a rate of 3.1 doctors per 1,000 patients, below the OECD average of 3.3 per 1,000 people, according to a 2018 report by the Health Ministry.

Israel also has just five nurses per 1,000 people, the fourth-worst rate among 34 countries in the OECD, a grouping of developed countries. Israel has 6.8 medical graduates per 1,000 people compared to an OECD average of 12.1; just 2.3 hospital beds per 1,000 people, compared to a rate of 3.6 in the developed world; and a hospital occupancy rate of 93.8 percent, second-highest among OECD countries and far above the average of 75.5 percent, according to the report

According to the Jewish Agency data, some 3,000 medical professionals are in the process of making Aliyah - most of them from the former Soviet Union, U.S., Canada, France and Argentina, but Israeli authorities are not willing to accept all of them so rapidly.

According to Tamano-Shata's reform, a special cross-ministerial committee will be established to be tasked with formulating a job program for potential immigrants in the medical and nursing professions, as well as promote effective and rapid employment solutions.

The motion will also see the establishment of an online platform in English, Russian, French and Spanish, through which immigrants will be able to submit their application documents for licensing in medical professions, including nursing, even before immigrating to Israel.

In addition, the Aliyah and Integration Ministry will look into starting specialized Hebrew courses in the immigrants' countries of origin to help with the language barrier and expedite any additional courses or forms needed for them to regain their license in Israel.

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Israel to fast-track immigration for Jewish doctors amid interns row - Ynetnews

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Posted By admin on October 18, 2021

After being shuttered for over eighteen months, San Francisco's Museum of the African Diaspora (MoAD) one of the country's largest contemporary art museums that celebrate Black cultures is set to reopen Thursday, October 21, debuting a "refreshed" gallery space and a new lineup of exhibits.

Signs that San Francisco is, at long last, coming out of the pandemic are all around the city. (Well... maybe just turn a blind eye to office space vacancy rates and downtown's still anemic foot traffic.) Among those indications include seeing our cultural centers and zoological institutions open to doting crowds. And that's exactly what MoAD will see on Thursday when the beloved local museum welcomes guests inside for the first time in over eighteen months.

The past year and a half has been extremely difficult for many, especially the Black community, says Monetta White, the Executive Director of MoAD, in a press release. We are pleased to welcome our valued supporters and visitors back into our space this fall. MoAD is the center for contemporary Black art and culture, bringing people together through a shared experience of art, and I could not be more excited to reopen with this line-up of incredible artists representing the African Diaspora."

During the pandemic, MoAD was able to keep alive through various donation streams, including an online auction event that raised needed funds to safeguard the museums post-pandemic future. Staff was tireless at maintaining an online archive throughout this time, despite the ambiguities about the museums continued existence.

"I am also extremely proud of our staff and trustees who have worked hard and weathered the storm with us," White continues. "Now, more than ever, MoAD is essential to sustaining and growing the thriving community of Black artists.

Two of MoAD's exhibits that were originally set to open in 2020 David Huffma's Terra Incognita and Mary Lovelace ONeal's Whales Fucking will, instead, open in the latter half of 2022. Amoako Boafo's Soul of Black Folks (among some other exhibits) will run into next year as well, allowing museum-goers to gawk over his over twenty works that center around "Black subjectivity, Black joy, and the Black gaze."

Oh: And MoAD's film exhibit, Beyond the Sky, remains a must-watch to understand the cultural complexities and creative connections that exist between countries that make up the African Diaspora.

For more information on MoAD, including how to purchase tickets in advance of Thursday's reopening, visit moadsf.org; a full list of the museums current and upcoming exhibits can be found here; museum-goers need to show proof of vaccination or a negative COVID-19 test issued within the last 72 hours.

Related: SF's Museum of Ice Cream Is Dunzo

The Castro's Renowned GLBT Historical Society Museum Now Open to the Public

Photo: Courtesy Twitter via @MoADsf

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SF's Museum of the African Diaspora Will Reopen Next Week With Updated Gallery Space, New Exhibits - SFist

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