Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By admin on October 18, 2021

Torres also received at least $28,000 in individual donations from prominent Zionists, including some with anti-Muslim and anti-Arab views: Nina Rosenwald, the founder of the Gatestone Institute, a think tank that has called for a ban on all Muslim immigration, gave $1,000 to Torres; Marty Peretz, the former New Republic editor who once wrote that Muslim life is cheap and Arab society is backward, gave approximately $2,600. Haim Saban, the Hollywood mogul who called for more scrutiny of Muslims after the 2015 ISIS attacks in Paris, donated $2,800, as did Gottesman, the DMFI board member, who once wrote: Gaza is full of monsters. Time to burn the whole place.

Torres would go on to win the Democratic primary with 32% of the vote, easily defeating his 11 opponents. The evening that voting closed in New York, June 23rd, demonstrators marched through the streets of Tel Aviv to protest Netanyahus intention to annex Israeli settlements in the West Bank. Torres did not acknowledge the furor over annexation two days later, when he made his first post-election public appearance at an Israeli Embassy event to celebrate gay pride, alongside Israels pugnacious then-ambassador to the US, Ron Dermer, and an Israeli army lieutenant colonel. In pre-recorded remarks, Torres celebrated gay life in Israel and said that he feels at home in Israel, as though it were my own country, because it has values that are recognizably democratic and recognizably pro-LGBTQ.

ITS HARD TO SAY EXACTLY WHY Torres has chosen to be Israels foremost defender among his generation of legislators; Torres declined an interview request from Jewish Currents to discuss his views in-depth, and his office did not reply to a detailed list of questions. But there are plenty of reasons for a politician of color to stick to the party line. Black politicians often face especially intense pushback for expressing sympathy for Palestinians or criticism of Israel; if they dont reverse themselves on Palestine, donor-powered campaigns sometimes seek to undermine their electoral prospects. This pattern reaches back decades, to the late 1970s, when Andrew Young, the first Black ambassador to the United Nations, was forced to resign after meeting with a representative of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). Half a century later, Black lawmakers like Rep. Ilhan Omar still contend with charges of antisemitism whenever they raise the issue of Israels human rights abuses. Running for election in 2020, Sen. Raphael Warnock was called the most anti-Israel candidate anywhere in the country after his opponent turned up a sermon in which he had expressed empathy for Palestinians. (Warnock responded by embracing a more establishment line, condemning BDS and emphasizing the critical nature of our current partnership to Israel.) As Peter Beinart, editor-at-large of Jewish Currents, wrote at the time: Black politicians who draw on their own experiences to support nationalist and anti-imperialist movements in the developing world have been accused of anti-Americanism. And in a political culture where Israel is seen as embodying the same values as the United States, Black support for the Palestinian cause has often been deemed anti-American too.

On the other hand, there are benefits to following Washingtons orthodoxy on Israel, including the possibility of an alliance with the leaders of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC), who wield immense influence within the party and whose members, like Reps. Jim Clyburn and Hakeem Jeffries, occupy top positions in the House Democratic Caucus. The CBCs influence within the Democratic Party was a product of the civil rights movements gains, and they challenged not only Republicans but also the Democratic establishment for paying insufficient attention to the struggles of the Black working class. But as the energy of the civil rights movement waned, caucus figures began to govern like typical politicians, wrote Princeton University historian Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor in a June 2020 article for The New York Times. Staying in office became a priority, and as black legislators, they often had fewer resources. That meant more fund-raising from entities that may have been at odds with their constituencies. It also meant a more conservative political disposition, including on Israel, which many caucus members have continued to support even as its military occupation has grown more entrenched.

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Ritchie Torres Is the Future of "Pro-Israel" Politics - Jewish Currents

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Posted By admin on October 18, 2021

He lied: Iraqis still blame Powell for role in Iraq war

For many Iraqis, the name Colin Powell conjures up one image: the man who, as US secretary of state, went before the UN Security Council in 2003 to make the case for war against their country.

Word of his death Monday at age 84 dredges up feelings of anger in Iraq toward the former general and diplomat, one of several Bush administration officials whom they hold responsible for a disastrous US-led invasion that led to decades of death, chaos, and violence in Iraq.

His UN testimony was a key part of events that they say had a heavy cost for Iraqis and others in the Middle East.

He lied, lied, and lied, says Maryam, a 51-year-old Iraqi writer and mother of two in northern Iraq who speaks on condition that her last name not be used because one of her children is studying in the United States.

He lied, and we are the ones who got stuck with never-ending wars, she adds.

As chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Powell oversaw the Persian Gulf war to oust the Iraqi army in 1991, after Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait.

But Iraqis remember Powell more for his UN presentation justifying the invasion of their country more than a decade later by casting Saddam as a major global threat who possessed weapons of mass destruction, even displaying a vial of what he said could have been a biological weapon. Powell had called Iraqs claims that it had no such weapons a web of lies. No WMD were ever found, however, and the speech was later derided as a low point in his career.

I am saddened by the death of Colin Powell without being tried for his crimes in Iraq. But I am sure that the court of God will be waiting for him, tweets Muntadher al-Zaidi, an Iraqi journalist who vented his outrage at the US by throwing his shoes at then-president George W. Bush during a 2008 news conference in Baghdad.

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Israels COVID death toll surpasses 8,000 - The Times of Israel

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Posted By admin on October 18, 2021

(JTA) After Spain announced it would offer of citizenship to families of Jews it expelled more than 500 years ago, Mark Tafoya, a personal chef living in New York City, filled out an application.

Originally from Albuquerque, New Mexico, Tafoya calls himself a proud Sephardic Jew rediscovering my roots. So from Inwood, in northern Manhattan, he tracked down all the required documents, created a genealogy chart and hired an attorney. He detailed his familys heritage from their departure to Spain and arrival in New Mexico some 500 years ago. He even bought a small stock in Santander Bank to prove a monetary link what the application requirement defines as a special connection to Spain. The Jewish Federation of New Mexico certified his application.

Tafoya had seemingly done everything right. But for the last 25 months, he has been waiting for an answer from Spain that hasnt come. He hasnt gotten any indication that hell ever get an answer.

The waiting is the hardest part, he said. If I knew I was rejected, I could start the appeals process. Appeals can take four to five months.

Until this year, only one applicant for the Spanish citizenship program had been rejected. But in 2021, over 3,000 applications have already been denied, according to the American Sephardi Federation, and more than 20,000 have found themselves in an extended period of waiting not just for citizenship, but for an explanation of what appear to be endless delays.

Tafoya was one of about 30 people who gathered in front of the Consulate General of Spain in New York on Monday to protest the denials and delays. Calling their protest Yo Soy Parte (I am a part), members of both Latino and Jewish communities to call out what they see as the injustice and hypocrisy of these rejections.

The protest was the result of a collaboration between American Sephardi Federation, a Jewish group, and The Philos Project, a New York-based nonprofit that helps Christian leaders, mostly evangelicals, understand and engage with important Near East issues, according to its website.

The event emerged after Jason Guberman, executive director at the American Sephardi Federation, spoke to Hispanic leaders around New York about the issue at the invitation of Jesse Rojo, the head of Philos Latino who often collaborates with Gubermans group.

Teresa Leger Fernandez, a Democratic congresswoman from New Mexico, flew in for the event and spoke to the crowd in an expression of solidarity.

I stand with you as somebody who has a deep connection to Spain, its history, and the Sephardim, Fernandez said. Like many in Northern New Mexico, my ancestors include the Spanish, the indigenous, the Apache, the Pueblo, and yes, the displaced Sephardim.

A congressional letter that she initiated addressed to Spanish President Pedro Snchez Prez-Castejn and would introduce on Oct. 12 was read aloud at the protest.

We urge you to rescind these changes and ensure that every eligible Sephardic Jewish descendant can receive citizenship to their ancestral home under the law as the Cortes Generales intended, said the letter, signed by nine members of Congress, including New York Democrats Alan Lowenthal and Ritchie Torres.

Spains Law of Return passed unanimously in the Cortes Generales, the Spanish legislature, in 2015. It allowed for any descendent of Sephardic heritage to apply for citizenship. Similar versions of the law existed throughout the 20th century, but the 2015 version said applicants need not be practicing Jews, and that they could apply for dual citizenship.

That opened the door for over 132,000 people who applied for citizenship under the program, claiming ancestry through family trees that included Sephardic Jews with roots in Spain and non-Jewish descendants of crypto-Jews whose ancestors were expelled or fled Iberia during the Inquisition. More than half of those people began their application in the last month before the Oct. 1, 2019 deadline.

But the 59,000 people who had submitted their materials well before before the October 2019 closing date should have gotten an answer by now. Of them, approximately 34,000 have been granted citizenship, and another 22,000 still await a response.

For the Sephardic descendants, it seemed as though Spain was genuine in its attempts to make reparations. It was an amazing gesture, said Guberman, who has worked with many applicants to get their documents in order.

Which is why it feels like such a betrayal when applications are suddenly and inexplicably rejected, protestors said.

Its an insult on top of an insult, said Tafoya, referring to Spain inviting its Sephardic descendants back in after acknowledging the horrific acts of the Inquisition, only to reject them once again.

The broken promise of the noble gesture of reparation wounds more than if Spain had never made the offer of return in the first place, the congressional letter concludes.

It is unclear why there has been a sudden slew of rejections. The congressional letter cites complaints by applicants who were approved by Spanish judges, only to be rejected by the Ministry of Justice a move that is illegal, according to the New York Times. Many applicants have been asked to provide more in-depth genealogy charts, and some face bureaucrats insistence that the special connection donation to the Spanish economy must have been made before the law was announced in 2015. Others have seen certificates of Sephardic origin from Jewish institutions outside of Spain rejected.

The window to apply closed on Oct. 1, 2019, which makes it even more frustrating that the rules for approval changed after that deadline and applications were already in, protestors told The Jewish Week.

The Jewish Federation of New Mexico, located where a number of people claim Spanish Jewish ancestry, is one of only a few institutions in the United States that grants certificates of Spanish-Jewish origin to non-Jews. Many of those applicants have been denied.

The New Mexico federation helped certify 20,000 people from more than 50 countries across the globe, it said. A majority of the applicants came from Venezuela Colombia, and Mexico.

The wave of rejections is especially heartbreaking for Venezuelans who applied, Tafoya said. The law seemed to offer a safe, legal opportunity for them to leave their beleaguered country and become European Union citizens. Many had emptied their savings to afford the application process, which costs at least $7,000 to complete.

Jason Guberman, executive director at the American Sephardi Federation; Rep. Teresa Leger Fernandez, D-New Mexico; and Jesse Rojo, director of Philos Latino (with his son) at a rally in New York City pressuring Spain to approve citizenship applications for those with Jewish roots in the country, Oct. 11, 2021. (Julia Gergely)

Some of the protestors speculated that the halt in approvals is due to sentiments of antisemitism in the new Spanish government, which is led by a left-wing party that came to power in November 2019. Others wondered if the ruling party, which was not responsible for the Law of Return, is wary of introducing new voters into the country who might support the previous, more conservative party that had accepted them.

The Consulate General of Spain in New York does not provide information on the status of pending applications, it told JTA by email.

I believed the Spanish government when they said that they were sorry for the sins of the past, said Jason Gomez. a third-generation New Yorker who learned about Spains citizenship program while it was under discussion. He subsequently interviewed his older Puerto Rican relatives about the strange customs of his childhood eating only beef, not pork; placing rocks on graves and only marrying into certain families, all reminiscent of Jewish traditions.

Gomez discovered that his family is descended from a community known as Xuetas, Mallorcan Jews who were forcibly converted to Christianity, but continued to practice their faith in secret.

In 2015 the Spanish government said that they recognized the generations of suffering in this terrible history and wanted to make amends, he said in his speech. But only six years later they have turned away from us.

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New Yorkers with Sephardic roots say Spain is breaking its promise of citizenship - JTA News - Jewish Telegraphic Agency

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Posted By admin on October 18, 2021

BOCA RATON, Fla. The School District of Palm Beach County is gearing up for a special presentation to honor Hispanic heritage and the Holocaust.

The online educational workshop will feature special guests who will discuss how Latin America served as a safe haven for Jewish exiles before, during, and after World War II.

Kimberly Coombs, K-12 Holocaust Studies Administrator, said this is a chance to shed light on a dark chapter in history that often goes untold.

"In Palm Beach County Schools we celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month every year and that's important for our Hispanic community but it's important for everybody else as well. It's important that we are teaching and learning about everybody's history and how they intersect."

RELATED: Boca Raton organization helps Holocaust survivors

The district is teaming up with the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington D.C. to bring this unique experience to educators and anyone in the community looking to learn more about the link between Hispanic heritage and the Holocaust.

During the 1930s and 1940s not only did Jews seek shelter in Latin America but also thousands of Nazi war criminals to avoid prosecution.

The webinar will include a local Holocaust Survivor Sam Ron, 97, from Boca Raton and United States Rep. Ted Deutch.

It will also feature the son of a Holocaust survivor, David Blast, whose father sought refuge and fled to Columbia to escape from the Nazi regime.

The workshop will be held Friday, Oct. 14, from 9:00 a.m. to noon on Zoom. Click here to register.

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School District of Palm Beach County to hold presentation to honor Hispanic heritage, Holocaust - WPTV.com

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Posted By admin on October 18, 2021

(JTA) In April, the language-learning app Duolingo added 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 of courses 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 as Lushootseed and Sami, and helped inspire the moves to preserve Irish and Cornish.

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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From Judeo-Greek to Karaim, Oxford courses on 12 rare Jewish languages aim to keep heritages alive - JTA News - Jewish Telegraphic Agency

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Posted By admin on October 18, 2021

By Rabbi Dr. Israel Drazin

BOCA RATON, Florida Using many sources, including hundreds of anecdotes, former US Deputy Under Secretary of Defense (1985-1987) and Under Secretary of Defense (2001-2004) Rabbi Dr. Dov S. Zakheim, author of Nehemiah: Statesman and Sage (Maggid Books, 2016), gives us a very informative and riveting, easy to read biography of one of the most important figures of ancient Jewry, Rabbi Judah the Prince (135-217), also called Rebbe, Teacher. He was the man who had Judaisms Oral Law put into writing, called the Mishna, which became the basis of the Talmud.

Maimonides (1138-1204) tells us in his commentary on Mishna that Judah collected all the oral laws, explications, and interpretations that had been passed down the generations from Moses onward and synthesized them all into the Mishna. Maimonides praised him: He was unique in his generation and in his time, a man who embodied all that was beloved and [possessed] all the right character traits so that he merited that his contemporaries would refer to him as our Holy Rabbi. He was the essence of wisdom and greatness.

Judah was based in Judea, the land of his patrimony, which once was ruled by the House of David, from which he claimed descent. As leader of the Jewish community, he was a ruler in his own right; and was recognized as a prince [Nasi in Hebrew] both by his own people and by the Romans. In fact, the Talmud records over 50 conversations that Judah had with the Emperor of Rome, and midrashic literature over 50 more. While ultra-Orthodox Jews accept the stories about Judah at face value, and many academic scholars doubt their authenticity, Zakheim considers these stories as having a germ of truth. He identifies the Antoninus mentioned in the ancient sources as Emperor Septimius Severus and his son Caracalla about whom the Christian leader Jerome wrote that they esteemed the Jews very highly. The two co-ruled Rome from 198 to 211, and Caracalla ruled alone for an additional six years, dying the same year as the Nasi. Zakheims book is titled The Prince and the Emperors, and he tells us much about the lives of the three of them.

Judah was not the highest ranking Jewish leader during his lifetime. The Resh Galuta, the exilarch, who led the Babylonian Jewish community with the kings blessing, as a patrilineal descendant of King David, could claim more blue blood than Rebbe whose Davidic ancestry was matrilineal. If the exilarch came to Judea, protocol would have demanded that Rebbe defer to him. But Rebbe, not the exilarch, was one of the greatest leaders Jewry has ever known. The exilarch produced no work comparable to the Mishna.

Judah was brilliant. He was educated in the Greek fashion. He was a first-rate jurist, a talented administrator, an accomplished statesman. He reversed the hostility between Jews and the Romans and brought peace to Judea. He was very rich. He was accompanied by armed retainers when he went out, like the Roman emperors. He was, as Zakheim shows, a man who thought outside the box. Like upper class Romans, he spoke Greek as well as Hebrew. He was open-minded. He conceded that at times the non-Jews were more knowledgeable about science than his own colleagues.

Zakheim tells us many interesting things about Judahs ancestors, such as Hillel and Judahs dad Simon who as Nasi dressed like the non-Jewish Romans, unlike many ultra-Orthodox Jews today who wear clothes like their eighteenth century forbearers. He describes Judahs colleagues, students, and children. He informs us regarding Judahs educational philosophy, Train the youth according to his way rather than forcing the student to engage in matters that are of little interest to them. He respected his students, and said, I have learned much Torah from my teachers, and even more from my colleagues, but from my students, more than all the rest. He saw enormous value in secular education. Contrary to some of his fellow rabbis, he took a lenient approach to conversion, like his ancestor Hillel, and unlike the Chief Rabbinate in Israel today. The Talmud, Gittin 59a, states that Between Moses and Rebbe we do not find an individual who was supreme both in Torah and in worldly affairs.

Zakheim also tells us many things concerning Judahs Mishna and his impact on Jewish law, and gives us samplings of his legal rulings not all of which were accepted by fellow rabbis such as his view that the recital of the Shema Hear Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is One is so significant, and Hebrew so important, and vocalizing ideas is impactful, that one should recite the Shema in Hebrew out loud. He downplayed the military aspects of Hanukkah and focused on the miracle of the oil. Focusing on peace, he also attempted unsuccessfully to abolish Tisha BAv which commemorated the destruction of the two temples.

There are many complementary legends about the events during Judahs death in 217, even miracles, but it is true that incense was burned after he died as it is for royalty. With his passing, the high point of positive Jewish-Roman relations came to an end, with a brief six year turn for the better only from 355 to 361 during the reign of the emperor Julian the Apostate. And although he died, his legacy, the Mishna, lives on. He is remembered, unlike the emperors with whom he spoke, whose names few know.

*Rabbi Dr. Israel Drazin is a retired brigadier general in the U.S. Army chaplain corps and has authored more than 50 books.

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The Life and Times of Rabbi Judah the Prince - San Diego Jewish World

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Posted By admin on October 18, 2021

An amateur diver found a 900-year-old sword believed to have belonged to a Crusader off the coast of Israel, the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) announced Monday.

Shlomi Katzin, a diver from Atlit, Israel, was scuba diving off the Carmel Coast on Saturday when he spotted several artifacts on the seafloor that were uncovered by currents and ocean waves. The artifacts included pottery fragments, anchors made of stone and metal, and the sword with a meter-long blade.

Katzin brought the artifacts up to the surface worried that they would be covered up by sand again and contacted the IAA's Northern District Robbery Prevention Unit inspector Nir Distelfeld.

"The iron sword has been preserved in perfect condition and is a beautiful and rare find," Distelfeld said in a statement Monday. "It evidently belonged to a Crusader knight. It is exciting to encounter such a personal object, taking you 900 years back in time to a different era, with knights, armor, and swords."

According to the director at the IAA's Marine Archaeology Unit Kobi Sharvit, the site that Katzin discovered belonged to a natural anchorage for ships to seek shelter. Sharvit said that identification of the site showed that it was used as early as 4,000 years ago, during the Late Bronze Age.

"The recent discovery of the sword suggests that the natural cove was also used in the Crusader period, some 900 years ago," Sharvit said.

The Crusades were a series of religious wars between the 11th and 13th centuries between Christians and Muslims to gain control of the Holy Land.

The site located off of the Carmel Coast has been monitored by the IAA since June when it was first discovered. According to Sharvit, the site could be home to many unearthed treasures since ships used to seek refuge from storms in the area. Sharvit said storms can move the sand revealing new artifacts, and burying others.

This week, Katzin received a certificate of appreciation for "good citizenship" according to the IAA. The IAA's General Director Eli Escosido also praised Katzin for his discovery.

"Every ancient artifact that is found helps us piece together the historical puzzle of the Land of Israel," Escosido said. "Once the sword has been cleaned and researched in the Israel Antiquities Authority's laboratories, we will ensure it is displayed to the public."

Earlier this month, Newsweek reported on a rare toilet found in a Jerusalem palace that dated back over 2,700 years. According to the IAA, the limestone toilet sat above a septic tank that was carved into bedrock.

The ancient artifact was designed for "comfortable sitting" and featured a hole in the middle of the limestone.

According to the Director of Excavation with the IAA, Yaakov Billig, only the very wealthiest people had access to private toilets during that time.

"Only the rich could afford toilets," Billig said. "In fact, a thousand years later, the Mishnah and the Talmud discuss the various criteria that define a rich person, and Rabbi Yossi's option to be rich is by having a toilet near his table."

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Diver Unearths 900-Year-Old Medieval Sword Believed to Have Belonged to Crusader - Newsweek

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Posted By admin on October 18, 2021

Once upon a time a teacher could walk into a classroom, begin to speak, write on the board and hold the students in the palm of his hand.

Those days are past.

Instead, there is a downward spiral of students attention spans, paralleled by the upward spiral of teachers desperately seeking tools to keep young people engaged.

In 2010, Rabbi Dan Roth walked into a classroom of American students in Israel who had dropped out of their families Orthodox lifestyles. The students ignored him; some even left the classroom. He walked out knowing he had crashed and burned.

Rather than look for another profession, he returned to the classroom, with the same material, in the form of a multimedia slideshow, and the students reacted with enthusiasm.

His goal was not just to reach his students, but also to reach the world, and the seeds of Torah Live were sown.

Torah Lives graphics, animation and film level are highly professional and their team of men and women includes over thirty scriptwriters, animators, video editors, and sound and special effects artists.

Fast forward to the autumn of 2021. Torah Lives graphics, animation and film level are highly professional and their team of men and women includes over thirty scriptwriters, animators, video editors, and sound and special effects artists.

While the world was in lockdown, Torah Live kicked in big time. Since the beginning of COVID, over 1.5 million videos have been viewed, and the website has been accessed by 168,000 active users.It has hundreds of thousands of viewers from around North America and the world, including Moscow, Paris, London, Australia and South Africa.

Hadassah Levy, a Torah Live blogger, writes, An unexpected, and particularly meaningful new user base of Torah Live, has begun among the Bnei Menashe community in India, a group of Jews who claim descent from one of the Lost Tribes of Israel (a claim confirmed in 2005 by the Sephardi Chief Rabbi Shlomo Amar).

Photo courtesy of Torah Live

A new gaming website was recently added to their rich reservoir. The gaming program is advised by Rabbi Yaakov Deyo. A graduate of Harvard Business School, he was the educational director for Aish L.A. for four years (1998-2002), director of Partners in Torah in New Jersey for seven years, and was involved in many other Jewish educational projects. Were basically looking to create something between Fortnite and Kahn Academy, a platform that will not only engage players, but draw them into a world of Torah by learning via film, performing mitzvot and submitting pics of their work, creating positive impacts in the world around them.

Students are given the tools to create their own written content and animated shorts, and can also upload their own photos and short videos. Parents or teachers can create their own program to incentivize their children. The kids choose their picture from an avatar and can send their photos to Torah Live, who will cartoonify them.Each player has his own dashboard that goes up to 36 levels, alluding to the thirty-six full-fledged righteous individuals in each generation (Talmud, Succa 45b, translation by Sefaria). Points in the gaming element are based on creativity, quality and effort. As they participate, they also earn badges.

Rabbi Roth says, The child earns virtual coins, called dinars. They can decide how to spend them, like sending food to a poor family for Shabbat or sending flowers to an elderly person in a retirement home. We hope through partnerships to help fulfill the childs wish Our hope is that when the child grows up, hell give real money to charity, not virtual money.

Among the more than 30 rabbis who offer video approbations on the site are Rabbi Asher Weiss, Rabbi Hershel Schachter and Rabbi Meir Goldwicht, and Rabbi Yisroel Reisman. The late Rabbi Dr. Abraham Twerski says, in a clip, Man was intended to be not just an intellectual animal, but a spiritual animal, and in Torah language, this means the acquisition and the development of midot. He calls the work of Torah Live unprecedented educationally and something that can help both young people and adults achieve tzelem Elokimbe in the image of God.

Torah Live materials are used by all ages, by all denominations of Judaism and even by some non-Jews who are learning for conversion or who are simply seeking knowledge.

Torah Live materials are used by all ages, by all denominations of Judaism and even by some non-Jews who are learning for conversion or who are simply seeking knowledge.

Jacob Scheer, who teaches in a Conservative school in N.Y., used Torah Live videos to teach about the issue of ribis (interest). Zita Weinstein, a home-schooling parent, said that her children, know its coming from the right source I often hear my kids laugh as theyre watching and they just want more and more. Rabbi Binyamin Plotzker of Monsey, director of teaching and learning at Yeshiva Ketana Ohr Reuben, said that, The Tefillah and Emunah series is saturated with hashkafa, Emunah and is dealt with so clearly and humorously. They have also been used by Aish, NCSY and Chabad. Some of their films have even appeared on El Al.

Photo courtesy of Torah Live

In addition to their programs on Jewish ritual and mitzvot are those that relate to ones behavior, such as judging one favorably, the quality of patience, the value of a smile, the importance of humility in leadership, and a magnificent 18-part unit on The Power of Speech. Everything is filmed among the magnificent vistas of Israel, including the ocean (to explore the snails from which the blue dye for tzitziot comes).

The Process

Elchanan Schnurr, the scriptwriter and showrunner, is originally from Los Angeles. He considers the direction that Rabbi Roth wants to take a project and researches the content. The process is a dialogue with Rabbi Roth, and Ben Katz (who writes, shoots and edits) and Ronen Zhurat (theirmain animator) are very influential on the creative side.

Ben Katz, originally from New York, told this writer, It is challenging to create productions that have many locations, or many different characters or a combination of graphics, live action and animation. The Lost Light, which had all of the above, was actually approached as two separate productions that were filmed almost a year apart. It also had many logistical nightmares, and many recurring characters that needed to be tracked down and scheduled a year later.

On the other hand, the stunning Weapon of War segment from The Power of Words was scripted, prepared and filmed in a day.

Validation from the Rambam and a Harvard Professor

The Rambam, in Sefer Hamada (the Book of Knowledge), Hilchot Talmud Torah 4:5, explains that the sages said that one who is shy cannot learn [because they are embarrassed], referring to a subject [the students] dont understand due to its depth, or mipnei daatan ktzara. This last phrase is usually translated because his comprehension is weak but one Torah scholar told me it can also be interpreted as referring to a students short concentration span. Today, a student using Torah Live will feel more confident, as he navigates at his own pace.

More than 800 years later, Professor Howard Gardners ground breaking 1983 book, Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences, noted that in addition to language and logic/math, a person can have an intelligence that is spatial, or musical, or bodily-kinesthetic, or interpersonal or intrapersonal. He later added naturalistic intelligence, and new candidates are Existential IntelligenceThe Intelligence of Big Questions and Pedological IntelligenceThe Intelligence of Teaching.

Whether Rabbi Roth and his crew realize it or not, they are implementing Professor Gardners theory of multiple intelligences through their multifaceted Torah Live programs, enabling children, parents and their teachers to find their own pathway to Torah.

Toby Klein Greenwald is an award-winning journalist, director of Raise Your Spirits Theatre, an educator and the editor-in-chief of WholeFamily.com. She was thrilled to discover many of her actresses in the Torah Live films.

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Torah Live Breathes New Life into Education - Jewish Journal

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Posted By admin on October 18, 2021

What is the value of a wifes contribution to her husbands career? This issue stood at the center of Wendt v. Wendt, a divorce that ignited a national debate on the role of corporate wives, women who devoted themselves to their husbands careers.

Lorna and Gary Wendt met in high school and both attended the University of Wisconsin. They were engaged in college, and married once Lorna graduated. In 1995, after thirty years of marriage, Gary asked for a divorce. In court, the arguments focused on how to value Lorna Wendts contribution to her husbands career. The Wall Street Journal summarized the arguments as Mrs. Wendt, 54 years old, testified that she contributed to a 50-50 partnership: giving her husband advice on job applicants, hostessing lavish parties and making small talk with foreign dignitaries Mr. Wendt, 55, who has had a stellar 21-year career at GE, insisted the familys fortune came from his hard work, not his wifes housekeeping. In the end, the judge accepted many of Lorna Wendts arguments; the invisible work that she did was a personal investment in her husbands career that deserved to be recognized.

Invisible work is very much a part of rabbinic households. Shuly Rubin Schwartz, the Chancellor of the Jewish Theological Seminary, wrote The Rabbis Wife, a history of American rebbetzins. In it, she follows the role of the rebbetzin through the past century and a half. One model, common in the 1920s, is what Rubin Schwartz calls the power behind the throne. Rebekah Kohut, the wife of Rabbi Alexander Kohut and a brilliant and accomplished woman in her own right, advised rabbis wives to hide their own ability behind the personality of their husband and to recognize that the rabbis wife, though unheard and unsung, will have played a tremendous part in this immortality if she will be alive to the mission of her husband. Another model, which gained popularity in the 40s and 50s, is the two for the price of one rebbetzin. Very often rabbinic wives specifically married rabbis because they wanted a leadership role in Jewish communal work. Many of these rebbetzins were also scholars and teachers, such as Tamar de Sola Pool. The daughter of a remarkable Talmid Chacham, Rabbi Chaim Hirschensohn, she wrote and published extensively. It was a different time, and these rebbetzins no longer felt the need to always turn the spotlight back on their husbands. Their invisible work is a bit more visible, and these rabbis and rebbetzins comprise what has been called a two-person single career. But in the 1960s, discontent with the rebbetzins role began to arise. Many women began to resent having their own identities submerged under their husbands choice of career. Rubin Schwartz cites examples of rabbis wives insisting that they not be called rebbetzins, and not be given any role in the synagogue. At the end of her book, she notes that the rebbetzin no longer exists in the Conservative and Reform movements; although in Orthodox Judaism, particularly in Chabad, the wives of rabbis often play a significant role in the community.

Invisible work is very much a part of rabbinic households.

The question of how to assess the rebbetzins role is already discussed in the Talmud under the topic of eishet chaver kchaver: the wife of a scholar has the same status as a scholar. The Talmud relates that Rav Nachman stood to honor the wife of Rav Huna. The Sdei Chemed, an encyclopedic work written by Haim Hezekiah Medini, cites a debate related to this passage: must one stand for the scholars wife if the scholar has died and she is a widow? Can she waive the honor due to her? As usual, opinions vary, and there are rabbis who take either side of these questions. In reading their arguments, a clear delineation appears; it depends on how one perceives the scholars wife, and the invisible, intangible work that she does. One possibility is that we stand for the wife as the scholars representative, and that is an indirect way of showing honor for the scholar.

If this analysis is true, then one need not stand for the widow of a scholar, for the scholar is no longer living. But there is another point of view: the wife of a scholar has the same status as a scholar because she is his life partner, and her husbands achievements belong to her as well. I find this second view to be compelling; in the Talmud, Rabbi Akiva tells his students how important his own wife was to his Torah learning, and exclaims that my Torah knowledge and yours belong to her. A scholars wife is his coach and creative influence, his companion and caregiver. This may be invisible work, but there are many Halakhic opinions that recognize that the scholars wife is a full partner in his achievements.

The concept of invisible work is critical to how one reads the Parsha. It is easy to overlook Sarah as she stands in support of Avraham. She certainly is a good helpmate, who deserves credit for her unwavering support. But Sarah is much more than that. Not only does she do invisible work in support of her husband, but also she is an invisible hero who bears the brunt of Avrahams sacrifices. The Mishna notes that Avrahams faith is tried by God ten times; but a closer look at the Parsha recognizes that Sarah faced far greater challenges.

But there is another point of view: the wife of a scholar has the same status as a scholar because she is his life partner, and her husbands achievements belong to her as well.

When they arrive in Egypt, Avraham asks Sarah to say she is Avrahams sister, so Avraham might live. But what if Pharaoh takes Sarah anyway? Clearly, there was no exit strategy for Sarah, only Avraham; and undoubtedly, Sarah knew this. Without Gods intervention, Sarah would have remained a captive in Pharaohs harem while Avraham pursued his mission. (This test is repeated again later in Sarahs life, when she is taken to the house of Avimelech; and without a clear exit strategy, Sarah is willing to sacrifice herself for Avraham once again.)

When Sarah sees how Avraham continually prays to God for a child, she makes another sacrifice. She offers Hagar as a concubine to Avraham, so he can have children; and this sacrifice is emotionally excruciating, one from which she never fully recovers. Sarah not only assists Avraham, but also she sacrifices herself completely for Avrahams mission.

God sees Sarahs sacrifices, and rescues her time and again. And at the end of the Parsha, something far more dramatic occurs. God changes Avrahams name, from Avram to Avraham, to reflect his mission as the father of a multitude of nations; but he changes Sarahs name as well, from Saray to Sarah, making it clear that she too is a full partner in this mission. The Midrash Rabbah remarks that Sarah was the true leader of the family, and offers the following insight: Rabbi Yehoshua Ben Korcha said: The letter Yud that the Holy One of Blessing took from Sarai was given half to Sarah, and half to Avraham; Sarahs yud, with a numerical of ten, was divided into two letter heys with a numerical value of five. One is given to Avraham, and the other to Sarah. This letter hey is a metaphor for their relationship; it is Sarahs contribution that makes Avram into Avraham, and shapes their unique mission.

Because the narrative in the Torah focuses mostly on Avraham, it is easy to overlook that the sacrifices Sarah makes are more exceptional. Invisible work is often undervalued; and so are invisible heroes like Sarah.

Rabbi Chaim Steinmetz is the Senior Rabbi of Congregation Kehilath Jeshurun in New York.

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Sarah, the Invisible Hero - Jewish Journal

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Posted By admin on October 18, 2021

Justifying the existence of a powerful, compassionate God in the face of evil and suffering has vexed and perplexed Jewish thinkers from time immemorial.

Why does the way of the wicked prosper? questions the prophet Jeremiah. An entire book of the Bible Job is devoted to the subject of good and evil and the suffering of the righteous.

In Thinking about Good and Evil - Jewish Views from Antiquity to Modernity, Rabbi Wayne Allen, co-chair of the Rabbinics Department of the Anne and Max Tanenbaum Community Hebrew Academy of Toronto, spends almost 400 pages summarizing the Jewish views on theodicy the defense of Gods goodness and omnipotence in view of the existence of evil.

The word theodicy, he explains, was coined by 17th-century philosopher Wilhelm Gottfried Leibnitz, who combined the Greek words for God (theo) and righteous (dike). In the books introduction, Allen posits the theological problem posed by the existence of evil:

1. God is all-powerful (omnipotent).

2. God is all-knowing (omniscient).

3. God is perfectly good (omnibenevolent).

4. Evil exists.

If God is omnipotent, then He can prevent the existence of evil. If God is omniscient, God would know about the evil in the world and how to prevent it. And, if God is omnibenevolent, then He would want to prevent evil from existing. Therefore, if evil exists, God is either unaware of it and is not omniscient; or He is aware of it but cannot prevent it, and is not omnipotent, or He is aware of it and does not want to prevent it and must not be omnibenevolent. In its attempt to harmonize all four statements, theodicy is the defense of God in the face of the existence of evil, explains Allen.

The book begins with an analysis of the subject in the Bible and Apocrypha. Rabbi Allen discusses the story of Creation and the meaning of good and evil, Abrahams dialogue with God on behalf of the inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah, and continues with a summary of the topic in other books of the Bible. He then surveys the rabbinic approaches to good and evil as expressed by the Talmud and Midrash. This section features no fewer than 13 different approaches to theodicy. For example, one well-known point of view expressed in the Talmud suggests that all injustices will be remedied in the afterlife, when the righteous who suffered will receive their reward, and the wicked who prospered will be punished. Yet another suggests that the suffering that the righteous endure is a test of character. By enduring undeserved suffering, the righteous man is better for it.

The author next takes a deep dive into medieval philosophy, discussing the approaches of well-known thinkers such as Maimonides, Albo, Gersonides, and others, before proceeding to Kabbalah, the hassidic masters, and modern thinkers. A special chapter is dedicated to the subject of the Holocaust and how it relates to good and evil. Each chapter concludes with a summary of the approaches covered in the specific section. At the books conclusion, the author concludes with two summaries one, entitled Thirty-Five Jewish Answers to Why there is Evil in the World, and a second, Twenty-Two Reasons Why You Are Suffering.

Once, writes Allen, when someone expressed his astonishment at this capacity to share in anothers troubles, the rabbis is reputed to have responded, What do you mean share? It is my own sorrow.

In the books final chapter, The Special Problem of the Shoah, the author discusses Judaisms response to the tragedy of the Holocaust, dividing them into the responses of what he calls theological traditionalists, those who uphold the traditional view of God as powerful; the radical revisionists, who suggest that the fact that the Holocaust occurred must prove that God is dead; and the deflectors, who shift the focus from God to discussions about humanity and the Jewish people specifically.

The result is a comprehensive book, but one that collapses of its own weight when read straight through from start to finish. While many unusual words are sprinkled throughout the text words such as merism, prolegomenon, sequacious, diachronic, ambit, and synecdoche to name a few, I believe that the author could have communicated his thoughts more cogently by using simpler and more direct language.

Allen offers a critique of each theory that he presents and ultimately dismisses most of them, pointing out their inconsistencies and weak points. While one appreciates the authors honesty and open-mindedness, it is akin to reading a cookbook whose editor presents a series of recipes but then criticizes and dismisses each one as incorrect or flawed. If every theory about theodicy is wrong or unsupportable, why bother reading the book?

Ultimately, it seems, if one accepts the existence of God, assuming that He is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent, the only response can be that expressed by Rabbi Yannai in Ethics of the Fathers (4:15): We cannot account for the tranquility or the afflictions of the righteous.

Some questions are simply unanswerable.

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Why do good things happen to bad people? New book tracks answers - The Jerusalem Post

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