Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By admin on September 6, 2021

The parents of Mindy Weisel were married in Bergen-Belsen, the notorious concentration camp that was converted into a shelter for displaced persons at the end of World War II. Weisel herself was among the first babies to be born there in January 1947. And it was her discovery of drawings of a sunrise, penciled by her father while still in the camp, that inspired her to become an artist.

After: The Obligation of Beauty by Mindy Weisel (White Fox Publishing) is a testament to the artists lifelong struggle to make sense of the Shoah and, especially, the ordeal that her parents survived in Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen. She placed the number that was tattooed on her fathers armA3146on every drawing and canvas for a full year, a gesture that we can understand as an act of solidarity and an acknowledgment of her own origins.

The most important thing to understand about After, however, is that it is not a book about the Holocaust.

When I started writing this book, over ten years ago, perhaps I would have emphasized my parents stories more than my own, Weisel reveals to her readers. Yet, I feel that the horrors of the Holocaust are not mine to tell. As much as I believe this tragic history must never be forgotten, I also know that I am not the one to write about them. I am not the one to speak of mans inhumanity to man.

Rather, it is her self-appointed mission to find a way to live in the world as it exists after the Holocaust. As such, After is a rare example of how to transform the very hardest facts of history into something elevating and redemptive.

I can speak of seeking a purpose in living: an attempt at a fulfilling and meaningful life in the face of such enormous tragedy, she goes on to explain. I have been living a life in search of beauty.

I can speak of seeking a purpose in living: an attempt at a fulfilling and meaningful life in the face of such enormous tragedy. I have been living a life in search of beauty.

What she has found during her search is displayed in the book, both in her sensitive and compelling prose and poetry and in her own artwork, some of which is figurative and some of which is abstract. Now and then, she will share a drawing that consists of an explosive image in a primary color and penciled text that includes her own musings, as if we have been granted the privilege of inspecting the artists private diary. Indeed, the book includes photographic reproductions of pages from the artists journal, a fat volume with bright red covers where her energetic handwriting captures the same inner spirit that manifests so forcefully in her artwork.

Then, too, After is a scrapbook that also serves as a work of historical documentation. We see the drawing of the rising sun at Bergen-Belsen that so inspired the authors own work. We see the identity card that was issued to her father when he was transformed from a concentration-camp inmate into a Displaced Person. And we see them together, many years later, at the Simon Wiesenthal Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles, where her father gave talks about his wartime experiences and, by doing so, proved that Nazi Germany had failed in its relentless campaign to erase the Jews from history.

After is a scrapbook that also serves as a work of historical documentation.

Her mother figures no less importantly in the authors life and work. We see a snapshot of her mother in a dress of her favorite color, cobalt blue, and we notice that the same color appears in much of the authors artwork. And some of images that she shares with us, such as a posthumous letter to her mother that she wrote in the margins of a book of poetry by Margaret Atwood, are multimedia works of art in themselves.

There is no room left in me for how much I miss you, she writes to her mother. The space that used to be full with worry about you, for you, empathizing with all that you had suffered, is now full of longing and grief.

No less of an authority than her own father sanctioned her choice of art as a way of understanding the tragedy that had befallen not only her family but the whole of the Jewish people.

Mindeleh, if you live a life, things happen, he would tell her as she grew up. Enjoy what you can.

But he was not the only one to encourage her. Weisel is a cousin of Elie Wiesel, a survivor who insisted, throughout his life after liberation, on demanding that attention be paid to what happened during the Shoah. She wrote to him about her use of her fathers tattooed number in her artwork: I did not want, somehow, to desecrate, commercialize or disrespect the history of the Holocaust. And Wiesel answered: It was time, he wrote to her. Do your work.

She need not have worried. Her work is worthy of respect, admiration and emulation. She has much to teach her readers about the history of the Holocaust, the delicate inner workings of a flesh-and-blood family that was among its victims, and the making of art and literature. Indeed, After is a book can be approached as a work of inspiration and instruction that will be valuable to any aspiring or working artist.

My belief in beauty is an obligation, a duty, a responsibility, a great joy in living it, in creating it, in sharing it, she writes. This has been my purpose.

Mindy Weisel has fulfilled her purpose in her remarkable and accomplished booksometimes sublime, sometimes tormenting, always elevating.

Jonathan Kirsch, author and publishing attorney, is the book editor of the Jewish Journal.

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The Shoah and the Struggle for Beauty - Jewish Journal

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Posted By admin on September 6, 2021

Many Jews who survived World War II in the woods joined the partisans, a vast network of Soviet fighters who remained behind the front lines after Germany broke its accord with Russia and launched Operation Barbarossa. They regrouped into guerrilla forces that grew to more than 350,000 strong. The Soviet military kept records of their operations in the woods, which eventually included members of the Jewish resistance. It was a tense and often violent alliance. Other forest Jews didnt become partisans themselves but relied on these battalions for protection and supplies. Those like Morris Rabinowitz, however, who avoided the partisans in the hope of keeping outside the fighting fray, remained largely hidden in historical terms.

The Jews of the family camps also did not offer much opportunity for the Soviets to secure a reputation as fighters for freedom and justice. When Maidanek, the first of the Nazi concentration camps liberated by the Soviets, was taken over in July 1944, Lieutenant General Nikolai Bulganin insisted that journalists be brought in. War correspondents from The Associated Press; Reuters; and newspapers from the United States, Britain and Switzerland were given access to the site to report on the atrocities discovered there. By contrast, when the Soviet Army came through the woods and liberated the Jews hiding there in the summer of 1944, the soldiers didnt stop their pursuit of the retreating Germans to note what they found; families were simply free to leave the forest. They did, in disconnected drifts, traveling back to the ruins of their hometowns on foot.

And while many survivors of the Holocaust feel a reluctance to relive the past, for those who fled to the forest, facing what they went through comes with additionally complicated feelings. It was a grueling struggle to survive: Of the roughly 800 Jews who escaped from the ghetto in Zdziciol, only 200 are believed to have come out of the forest alive. Still, many who made it carry an awareness of how their Holocaust experiences compare with those of others. It was horrific, Toby Langerman, the Rabinowitzes younger daughter, says of her familys experience in the forest. But not as horrific as the concentration camps.

What Mr. Arad said about the families in the forest in the 1970s remains true: There will never be accurate numbers because in no place do such lists exist. Their experience will never be realized through records solely through the study of their testimonies.

Peter Duffy, the author of the 2003 book The Bielski Brothers, lamented the lack of a unified collection of these testimonies in a conversation with me recently. Theres this sense that weve done enough on this history. People say, Oh, another Holocaust book or another memorial, he told me. But he believes that when it comes to what transpired in these forests, weve barely scratched the surface of the story that is there, and probably most of it is lost. The history is so elusive, in fact, that scholars at the Polish Center for Holocaust Research have called these less-understood stories of Jews who escaped their ghettos and attempted to hide the margins of the Holocaust.

That these stories exist at the margins, however, does not make them less important.

The narrative of the Holocaust has been growing and deepening since the war. Much of the world heard the Jewish experience voiced for the first time in 1961, with the trial of Adolf Eichmann, during which more than 100 survivors were called to the stand to testify about what theyd gone through. These testimonies, in turn, inspired other survivors to share their stories, spurring a wave of memoirs, novels and movies about the Holocaust. The emergence of stories about Jewish resistance ghetto uprisings and partisan fighters did much to combat the prevalent belief that many Jews went passively to their end.

For me, the stories of the forgotten Jews of the forest inform how we define resistance: The Rabinowitzes and others like them did not need to wield weapons to be a part of it. But what their story teaches me is less important than the larger point: Its the stories of individuals however seemingly exceptional their experiences that have, over time, shaped the broader narrative of Holocaust history, and we must continue to uncover as many as we can.

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Opinion | The Holocaust Stories We Still Aren't Hearing - The New York Times

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Posted By admin on September 6, 2021

By Anton Schneerson

Babyn Yar. Two words are as short as a gunshot. They are known not only by those whose relatives were shot at that terrible place, near Kiev, in Ukraine. Everyone knows them because Babyn Yar became a symbol of the extermination of thousands of people. Extermination based on nationality. Only because they were Jews, women, children, the elderly all were left at the bottom of a deep ravine.

For two days, September 29 and 30, 1941, 33,771 people were exterminated. More than thirty thousand of them were Jews.

A zoom press conference was dedicated on Tuesday to the 80th anniversary of the Babyn Yar massacre ahead of an event Lessons from Babyn Yar: History, Memory and Legacy which is jointly organised by the House of European History in Brussels and the Kiev-based Babyn Yar Holocaust Memorial Center (BYHMC).

The conference, organized in cooperation with the European Jewish Asociation, discussed lessons 80 years later, as well as unveiling new and unique tools to keep the lessons, history and memory alive, including actually putting faces and names to those murdered for the first time.

Among the speakers, French Father Patrick Desbois, founder of Yahad-In Unum and head of the scholarly council of BYHMC, stressed that Babi Yar was a criminal site where the genocide of the Jewish people took place in the center of a large city in a large country (Kiev, today Ukraine).

The locals willingly aided the young fascists. The gunmen were given sandwiches and tea with little vodka in it as the mass executions lasted many hours, he noted.

Father Patrick asked a practical question: where did the tons of items and valuables taken from the Jews before their execution go? It would seem that everything should be documented, but it is easier to find detailed evidence and statistics of the shootings than information about the confiscated property of those killed. It was as if the Germans were embarrassed to write about such facts.

He added, For me, this is another terrible evidence of the Babi Yar tragedy: human life is reduced to zero. It is only the result of statistics, nothing more. Even more terrible is that the USSR, on whose territory the tragedy took place, tried to hide the truth about Babyn Yar for a long time. Nevertheless, our generation has a goal: to find the hidden facts and restore the history of this bloody genocide.

I visited Raka in Syria where there was a mass grave. Journalists came, journalists went. Perhaps in 80 years there can be a debate about what is a fitting memorial. What is important is keeping the memory and lessons alive, stressed Father Desbois.

One of the panelists, Marek Siwiec, Director of European Affairs at BYHMC, provided information about many ongoing projects, each of which can contribute to the restoration of the truth about Babyn Yar.

Colossal work has been done: out of more than 33,000 dead, 28,428 names have been identified, and essential family and personal facts have been restored. All these invaluable findings became the basis of a vast program titled Project Names.

It brought us closer to the real life of those who were shot at Babi Yar. They say that the death of one person is a tragedy, but the death of tens of thousands is a statistic, said Siwiec, who is a former member of the European Parliament.

Project Names allows us to turn dry statistics into pain for everyone who was left in that terrible place, who did not live, who did not love, who did not leave their continuation on earth, he added.

Another project mentioned by Siwiec, Red Dot (Red Dot Remembrance), is unique: more than 3,000 people provided information about the WWII war crimes. This app has so far registered 2,850 sites across of Europe of the Holocaust by bullets which enables users to see and learn what took place wherever they are.

These are mass extermination sites, eyewitness accounts, evidence supported by documents, which were kept with German punctuality and pedantry throughout the war, explained Siwiec.

On the Babyn Yar massacre anniversary date of 29th September, 15,000 schools in Ukraine will participate in a lessons of the Holocaust Day.

The key word underpinning all of our activities is education. It is only through education that the tragic disasters of the past can never be repeated, said Siwiec.

Marek Rutka, a member of the Sejm, the Polish parliament, and chairman of the parliamentary group for the commemoration of the crimes at Babyn Yar and for a Europe free from genocide and hatred, explained that members of his political party regularly visit the sites of the Shoah executions. They see heartfelt tragedies lead to politically literate conclusions about the need to talk about the Shoah on a European scale. There is no genocide without the tolerance of neighboring countries. These words can be taken as a motto for the whole debate.

Anton Schneerson, who contributed this article for European Jewish Press, is a Ukrainian Jew living in Germany. The Jewish community of his hometown, Dnipro, managed to build one of the worlds most prominent Holocaust museum that deeply covers the Babyn Yar tragedy.

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80 years after Babyn Yar massacre: tools to keep the memory alive, learn the lessons - European Jewish Press

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Posted By admin on September 6, 2021

Remember Baltasar Garzn (pictured below), the Spanish examining magistrate who in 1998 unsuccessfully sought the extradition from the UK of Augusto Pinochet, the Chilean dictator? More recently, Garzn launched two investigations that clearly disturbed the authorities in Spain.

The first looked into enforced disappearances during the Franco regime, which ruled Spain from the end of the civil war in 1939 to Francos death in 1975. The second was a major corruption inquiry, codenamed Grtel and launched in 2009. To obtain evidence, Garzn authorised the police to monitor communications between suspects and lawyers who were suspected of involvement in the criminal conspiracy.

In 2010, Garzn was suspended and charged with exceeding his authority in the Franco case, which had been the subject of an amnesty. He was suspended again in 2011 for violating lawyer-client privilege in the Grtel case. Tried the following year, Garzn was acquitted of the Franco allegations but convicted of wilful abuse of power in Grtel and barred from office for 11 years.

In 2016, Garzn filed a complaint against Spain with the UN Human Rights Committee a group of 18 experts who monitor states adherence to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. The Human Rights Committee is not to be confused with the UN Human Rights Council, an inter-governmental body whose 47 elected member states currently include such paragons of human rights as China, Cuba, Russia and Venezuela.

Late last month, the experts concluded that Spain had breached the international covenant. Garzns two prosecutions had been arbitrary and inconsistent with judicial independence. His judicial decisions were plausible. In the Grtel case, his interpretation of laws that allowed monitoring in exceptional circumstances was shared by other judges. It did not constitute serious misconduct or incompetence that could justify his criminal conviction.

More to the point, said the experts, prosecuting the judge was not the way to correct legal errors. Thats what appeal courts are for.

Garzns right to a fair trial had been violated and he was denied the right to have his conviction reviewed, the experts concluded. As one added, judges should be able to interpret and apply the law without fear of being punished or judged for the content of their decisions.

Garzn said afterwards that being prosecuted was immensely damaging. It is the worst thing that can happen to a person who has devoted and continues to devote his entire life to justice. The committee had decided that Spain must set aside his conviction and compensate him for breaching his rights. The only way to do that is to reinstate me to the judiciary, he said. Spain has 180 days to respond.

Garzn is represented by Helen Duffy, who was briefly a UK government lawyer before establishing an international human rights practice in The Hague. She said the committees decision sends a message on the need for essential safeguards of judicial independence at a time when they are under attack globally.

And that brings us to Poland. The countrys attempt to play down its part in the Holocaust can be seen from its commemoration this summer of a massacre in 1941, when 300 Jews in German-occupied Poland were locked in a wooden barn and burned alive. A news release from Polands Institute of National Remembrance carefully obscures the fact, confirmed by the institute itself in 2002, that the Jews of Jedwabne were murdered by their Polish neighbours.

Earlier this year, a Polish court ordered two historians to apologise to the niece of a village mayor for accusing him of collaborating with the Nazis. Barbara Engelking and Jan Grabowski had been sued by Filomena Leszczynska under a law that allows surviving relatives to claim that their personality rights have been violated. Her late uncle Edward Malinowski was said by the authors to have betrayed a group of 22 Jews to German soldiers, who then murdered them.

The case turned on the evidence of a witness, Estera Drogicka. She had supported Malinowski in 1949 when he faced the death penalty from a post-war communist court but affirmed his involvement in the murder of Jews when giving testimony in 1996 to the Shoah Foundation.

Dr Michael Denga, an academic at Humboldt university in Berlin, said the Warsaw court should have respected the historians claim that their source was reliable and creditable especially as the judges refused to consult experts, which even the claimant had requested. The combination of politically appointed judges with activist groups suing or supporting lawsuits against scholars is a worrying development, said Denga in an opinion column for the forthcoming edition of the European Human Rights Law Review.

When justice slows to a crawl in the courts of England and Wales because of underinvestment and mismanagement, it is worth reminding ourselves how much worse things can be in some of the EU countries we have left behind.

joshua@rozenberg.net

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Judicial independence under threat in the EU | Opinion | Law Gazette - Law Gazette

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Posted By admin on September 6, 2021

A 700-year-old illustrated and annotated Hebrew prayer book that provides a window into the lives and rituals of Jewish communities in medieval Europe is expected to fetch up to $6m when it is sold at auction next month.

The Luzzatto High Holiday Mahzor, created in southern Germany in late 13th or early 14th century, is one of fewer than 20 such prayer books believed to be in existence. According to Sothebys, it is the most important medieval illustrated prayer book to be offered for sale in a century.

Handwritten notes in the manuscripts margins show that the mahzor travelled from the German region of Franconia to Alsace, Lake Constance, northern Italy and France. At each stage, its users annotated the text to reflect local customs, rituals and events.

At Lake Constance, for example, the community added prayers composed after people were killed in anti-Jewish violence during the Black Death.

The mahzors creator was a man named Abraham, identifiable because he decorated each mention of the patriarch Abraham in the prayer book with a feathered crown or a winglike flourish.

The fact that it was created by a Jewish scribe-artist at a time when many medieval Hebrew manuscripts were illustrated by Christian artists is especially noteworthy, said Sharon Liberman Mintz, a senior consultant of books and manuscripts at Sothebys. The exceedingly rare manuscript contained elegant calligraphy and beautiful decoration, she added.

The book contains the entire cycle of prayers for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, said Mintz, referring to the holiest days in the Jewish calendar, the new year and day of atonement. It also includes special liturgical poems, known as puyyitim, recited on fast days and festivals.

What you have is a manuscript thats both a liturgical book and a ritual object of communal character. [Prayer books] were most likely kept in private individuals homes throughout the year and then brought to the synagogue for the specific holidays, and they were designed for use for the community as a whole.

The handwritten notes in the margins were a witness to Jewish communal life, a repository of communal identity. And its just fascinating that we can follow along, said Mintz.

The prayer book is named after its eventual owner, Samuel David Luzzatto, a 19th-century Italian-Jewish scholar and collector. After his death, the prayer book was bought by the Alliance Isralite Universelle, which is now selling it to fund its educational mission.

It will be auctioned by Sothebys in New York next month and is expected to fetch $4m-$6m.

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Medieval Hebrew prayer book expected to fetch up to $6m at auction - The Guardian

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Posted By admin on September 6, 2021

By Sam GelmanCommunications Manager

The renowned journalMegadim, which offers original analyses of the Hebrew Bible from top Israeli scholars, published its first Hebrew-English edition in August 2021 in partnership with Yeshiva University Press. The journal was previously only published in Hebrew.

Founded in 1986 by Herzog College, the academic journal has published over 60 issues featuring contributions from Rabbi Dr. Aharon Lichtenstein, Rabbi Dr. Mordechai Sabato, Rabbi Dr. Yoel bin Nun, Dr. Yael Ziegler, Dr. Avigail Rock and Rabbi Yaakov Medan.

Herzog Colleges partnerships with Yeshiva University offer a unique opportunity for cross-pollination of ideas between Israel and Jewish communities around the world, said Shalom Berger, director of the English Language Program at Herzog College. It is our hope that this bi-lingual issue of Megadim is the first step in exposing the richness of new approaches to Tanakh study to a wider audience of scholars and laymen.

Articles in the journals first Hebrew-English edition include How (Not) to Teach the Akeidah by Dr. Moshe Sokolow, Fanya Gottesfeld-Heller Professor of Jewish Education and associate dean of the Azrieli Graduate School of Jewish Education and Administration; R. Abraham Ibn Ezras Sojourn in Ashkenaz: Melting Pot or Multi-Cultural Experience? by Dr. Chaya Stein-Weiss; and Accounting for Tradition: Calculations in the Commentary of R. Eleazar of Worms to Esther by Dr. Chaya Sima Koenigsberg, former Straus Center Resident Scholar.

The English contributions were edited by a YU faculty editorial committee, which included Rabbi Hayyim Angel (Bible instructor at the Isaac Breuer College of Hebraic Studies); Dr. Deena Rabinovich (chair of the Judaic Studies Department at Stern College for Women); Dr. Mordechai Z. Cohen (associate dean of the Bernard Revel Graduate School of Jewish Studies and director of the Chinese-Jewish Conversation); Dr. Naomi Cohen Grunhaus (associate professor of Bible); and Dr. Stu Halpern (senior adviser to the Provost and Straus Center deputy director).

We are thrilled to see the release of this issue ofMegadim, said Dr. Halpern. It is a natural next step in the partnership between Yeshiva University and Herzog College, home to the renownedYemei Iyun be-Tanakh[days of Bible study] which, in recent years, have featured YU faculty lecturing to audiences of hundreds. We are confident that this volume will receive a wide readership in Israel, America and beyond.

The issue can be read in its entirety here.

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Herzog College and YU Press Publish First Hebrew-English Edition of Megadim Yeshiva University News - Yu News

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Posted By admin on September 6, 2021

For the first time in their young lives, Im taking my two children my 5-year-old daughter and my son, who just turned 4 to Rosh Hashana services this year. Even though Im certain its going to be impossible for them to sit still that long in the synagogue. Even though both my kids are convinced theyre Muslim. Even though Im Jewish but not particularly religious.

Im taking them so they can feel a connection to the Jewish people whether they end up embracing Judaism or not. Im taking them in the hopes that the words and melodies and meaning of the day will penetrate their hearts and that, maybe, when theyre older, something will be stirred when they encounter Hebrew or the Jewish holidays.

But Im also going because I realize that, no matter how much I think I know about the holiday, theres always something new to learn, despite the fact that I was born and raised Jewish and that I lived, for the better part of a decade in Israel where I took citizenship, learned Hebrew and studied at a secular yeshiva, a secular religious school. Whenever I think I have my head completely wrapped around this holiday, some new meaning, some additional nuance emerges, floating up into my consciousness, leaving me in awe once again.

Heres the holiday as I understand it now:

Translated as head of the year (rosh=head; ha=the; shana=year), the holiday marks the beginning of the Jewish new year. This Rosh Hashana ushers in Hebrew year 5782. (Click this link to learn how to say Rosh Hashana the American way and the Israeli way.)

But the holiday is much more than simply turning over the Hebrew calendar.

Rosh Hashana comes immediately after the month of Elul, which is a period of introspection to prepare us for the High Holy Days. During Elul, we say that the King is in the field, meaning that God is dwelling among us, reaching out to us, drawing us nearer and that, similarly, we should be turning our hearts and minds to the divine.

During this month, religious Jews blow the shofar, the rams horn, a sound that reminds us of the upcoming holidays, awakening our souls to do the spiritual accounting and emotional work to prepare for Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur. Special prayers are also recited throughout the month of Elul.

At sundown on Monday, Sept. 6, Elul will end and the new month of Tishrei will begin and, with it, Rosh Hashana.

Not only does Rosh Hashana mark the new year, it is also the beginning of the High Holy Days Yamim Noraim, days of awe that culminate with Yom Kippur, which will begin at sundown on Sept. 15. It is believed that God created Adam and Eve on Rosh Hashana and that they sinned and were judged and were pardoned on the same day. In a sense, were all being recreated, rebirthed, (and judged) during the High Holy Days. Unsurprisingly, renewal is a big theme of the period.

Jews believe that, during Rosh Hashana, God opens three books and decides our fate for the coming year. The righteous are inscribed into the Book of Life, the wicked into the Book of Death. And those who are neither totally righteous nor totally wicked which is to say, most of us are left in limbo as God weighs our deeds and makes his judgment.

Theres a Jewish liturgical poem that sums this process up beautifully and far better than I can. Written in Europe in the 11th or 12th century, Unetaneh Tokef, Let us cede power, is a part of Rosh Hashana services in any synagogue. The extremely moving poem begins, On Rosh Hashana it is written and on Yom Kippur it is sealed.

(Read the full poem here. Unetaneh Tokef is also part of Yom Kippur services; listen to Leonard Cohens song Who by Fire? a version of the poem here).

Thats why, in addition to wishing one another shana tova, a good year, or shanah tovah umetukah a good and sweet year during the period between Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur, even the most secular Jews will tell each other gmar chatima tova. It translates literally to good final signature or a good final sealing. In other words, May you be sealed into the Book of Life.

Some Jews will also do extra mitzvot, or good deeds, during this period in hopes of tipping the scales in their favor.

This is a tricky one. There is a connection to the spring holiday of Passover, which is also considered a new year (we actually have four new years though the numerical year changes only on Rosh Hashana). Some say we owe the timing of this fall holiday to our sojourn in ancient Egypt, our exodus from which is marked by Passover.

In short, because the Hebrew calendar is a lunar calendar that predates the Gregorian calendar, which is solar. Periodically, however, there are adjustments made to account for the discrepancy between the solar and lunar calendars to keep the Jewish holiday schedule in sync with the seasons. (While the Muslim calendar is also lunar, it doesnt include the same sort of adjustments thats why Ramadan is observed in January one year then in June several years later.)

The Jewish concept of days is also different than that of the Gregorian calendar: Jewish days begin and end at sunset. This is why Shabbat and our holidays including Rosh Hashana all begin and end in the evening.

(This book is a good basic read on the rhythm of the Jewish calendar).

Because it takes God a long time to decide all our fates.

Just kidding. A little Jewish humor for you.

A classic Israeli answer would be: Its complicated.

Although the Hebrew Bible decrees one day to observe the holiday, Rosh Hashana being two days long is a holdover from ancient times, when someone in Jerusalem needed to actually physically see the moon, declare the beginning of the new month and then needing time get the word out to everyone. Without WhatsApp.

In addition to taking spiritual stock or moral inventory during Elul, penitential prayers and poems selichot or slichot are said in the lead-up to Rosh Hashana. In modern Hebrew, slicha means Sorry or Excuse me; so you can think of selichot as saying slicha to God. Not only do the prayers and poems focus on repentance, but they also elucidate Gods 13 attributes of mercy a powerful reminder of the gentleness and grace, chesed, with which we should approach others. (Read more here about the 13 attributes of mercy and the broader significance of the number 13 in Judaism).

Judaism teaches that God can only forgive our transgressions against him but not the wrongdoings we have visited upon our fellow man. So, some Jews approach friends and family members in this preparatory time to ask forgiveness for hurting them in the year coming to a close.

We also get ready for the holiday by making a lot of food!

Observant Jews are barred under religious law from preparing food for the second day on the first day of Rosh Hashana. So enough food has to be made ahead of the holiday.

Historically, Ashkenazi Jews who come from Eastern Europe and who dominate American Jewry dipped apples in honey and had a festive meal that included a few symbolic foods, but did not conduct formal seders with specific foods and prayers to accompany those dishes.

But, in recent years, thanks to the influence in Israel of Sephardic and Mizrahi Jews from other parts of the world, Rosh Hashana seders are becoming more popular on both sides of the ocean. In fact, nowadays, one can find Rosh Hashana seder plates reminiscent of those used for Passover something that was unheard of a decade ago. (My hope is that these seders will eventually become and remain the standard among all Jewry.)

If you go to one of these Rosh Hashana seders, you will find on the table many simanim, signs for an auspicious year: apples and honey, the head of a fish or another animal (I know vegetarians and vegans who have used a head of lettuce or cabbage, instead), dates, beets or Swiss chard, leeks, squash or pumpkin, pomegranate and black-eyed peas (rubia or lubia). Prayers accompany each of the symbolic foods.

A round challah the braided bread that we break on Shabbat is essential; honey cake is extremely common.

In addition to the festive meal or seder, women light candles as they do for Shabbat in the evening of both days and recite the appropriate blessings.

And just like on Shabbat, we are not supposed to do any work for the two days of the holiday.

Some Jews go to synagogue for Rosh Hashana. For many secular Jews, Rosh Hashana morning and Yom Kippur morning are the only times they go to synagogue.

Jews are supposed to hear the shofar on both days of the holiday and so, at Rosh Hashana services, the shofar will be blown by someone called a baal tekiah, a master blaster. The shofar is made out of a rams horn and has deep religious significance for Jews, symbolizing a number of different ideas, including spiritual awakening.

In fact, hearing the shofar is such a crucial part of the holiday that Chabad a branch of Orthodox Judaism known for its outreach efforts to other Jews makes house calls to sound it for those Jews who cant make it to some sort of Rosh Hashana gathering.

Chief among the prayers recited at Rosh Hashana services, is Avinu Malkeinu, which translates as Our Father, Our King. Rosh Hashana is also considered to be Gods coronation, the time that God is crowned as King and we acknowledge his providence over us and our lives.

In the afternoon of the first day of the holiday, many Jews head to the nearest body of water preferably one with fish to do tashlich, a symbolic ritual of casting off of sins. (Check out this beautiful discussion of the tradition of tashlich tailored especially for women).

Some people use breadcrumbs, which will be eaten by the fish. some pick up something from nature like pebbles or leaves to toss into the water. And others, especially parents with young children, get creative about it, using things like paper boats to send sins away. (One year, when I lived in Tel Aviv, I walked to the Mediterranean which was just a few blocks away from my apartment and dropped a Hebrew list of my sins into the sea).

Though not all Jews wear white for Rosh Hashana, some do. The meaning is multifaceted and, in some ways, contradictory: white at once symbolizes both purity as well as tachrichim, the white death shroud that Jews use for burial. While we want to signal God of our purity and that we are clean of misdeeds, the white also reminds us of our mortality and the life and death import of the High Holy Days.

If you want to get cosmic and mystical about it all, you could conceptualize Rosh Hashana as the very beginning of the process of a symbolic death hence the white clothes and rebirth, a process that is completed when Yom Kippur, the day of atonement, draws to a close 10 days later.

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What is Rosh Hashana? What is the Jewish New Year? - Deseret News

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Posted By admin on September 6, 2021

As part of her capstone project at her Tel Aviv-area college, graphic artist Michal Shomer revamped the Hebrew alphabet adding a dozen new letters to make the 3,000-year-old language more inclusive of both women and non-binary people.

She made what she calls multi-gender Hebrew free to anyone in the past year, and 10,000 have downloaded it from her website so far. Its now popping up all over Israel at secular schools, on wedding invitations and even in offices in the Knesset.

Courtesy of Michal Shomer

A school in the Tel Aviv area has adopted Michal Shomers multi-gendered Hebrew letters in a sign that welcomes children to school.

As a feminist, and as a citizen, I am committed to using my skills and my education for social change, said Shomer, 30. Thats why I designed these letters.

But as many have applauded Shomer for revising Hebrew to reflect more modern views of gender, conservative critics accuse her of taking part in an anti-religious, radical plot to undermine traditional Jewish values. And some have organized successful campaigns to convince groups that had embraced Shomers alphabet to stop using it.

I never thought so many people would object so strongly to my project, said Shomer, who received a bachelors degree in visual communication design in 2019 at the Holon Technology Institute, a college in a suburb of Tel Aviv. The letters are meant to make a contribution to inclusivity and equality in Israeli society. How can anyone be opposed to that?

Like Spanish and French, Hebrew is a gendered language: nouns are either masculine or feminine. Verbs, adverbs, numbers and adjectives are written and pronounced to agree with the gender of the noun.

What many find sexist in Hebrew is that when speakers or writers refer to a group of people, the male form predominates. Even when there are hundreds of women and only one man in a room, they are all addressed in the male plural.

Women are supposed to get used to the idea that whenever we walk into a classroom, a public building even when we read signs on public transportation we are supposed to see ourselves as included, Shomer said.

But the reality, she continued, is that Hebrew excludes women, and non-binary people too: The language says that if you are not male, you are not there, or are not supposed to be there.

The predominance of maleness in Hebrew is not just tradition. According to the Academy for the Hebrew Language, established by law in 1953 to oversee the development of the language, the male form should be regarded as both male and neutral and is therefore appropriate for use for females.

Shomer and others point to the work of linguists who have concluded that language that makes male the default reinforces the idea that the male is standard and powerful. The graphic artist decided that she could help Hebrew evolve to give women and non-binary people equal standing.

Hebrew has 22 letters and five vowels. To that Shomers aleph bet adds 11 consonants and one vowel. The new letters may look quizzical to some, but at the same time familiar to Hebrew speakers in that they visually combine existing letters. One of her new letters, for example, looks like a mash-up of a yud and vav.

All People Are Equal using new Hebrew letters that allow the words in the gendered language to be read as male or female. Traditional Hebrew calls for the male form only.

But the new letters dont have their own pronunciations. Its up to the reader to choose which part of the letter the masculine or feminine to apply for any given word. Visually, Shomer said, they include everybody.

Anyone who reads these letters can visually identify both the masculine or feminine forms but knows that, at the same time, they refer to all genders simultaneously, explained Shomer.

She hopes they will make people think about inclusivity and that gender equality is a problem yet to be solved. I think that our language is developing and, over the years, we will come to solutions for the spoken word, too, she added.

Shomer is not the first to try to adapt the language to be more inclusive. Other attempts include the use of a slant (somewhat akin to s/he) and a strategically-placed dot. But many find these markings awkward and Shomers aleph bet easier to use. Just weeks after she published them online, they began showing up in advertising and welcome signs in public buildings.

Some school systems invited students to use Shomers letters in classrooms, the Knesset Committee for Gender Equality put them on office signs and the Israeli Air Force where women are clearly in the minority began to use them on its bases.

Courtesy of Michal Shomer

A school in the Tel Aviv area posted a welcome sign next to its front doors using Michal Shomers multi-gendered Hebrew letters.

But as many began to embrace Shomers work, it was also stridently denounced, evidence to some of Israels growing anti-feminist movement.

Critics called Shomers letters a degradation and abuse of the Hebrew language, and warned that they are part of an American-backed, left-wing conspiracy to undermine traditional Jewish values. There were complaints about public funds being used to impose fringe political ideologies on Israelis. And one conservative critic called it an affront to the victims of the Holocaust.

We must constantly be vigilant, said Naama Sela, an attorney who heads The Forum for the Protection of the Family, a conservative umbrella group. Radical feminists and their allies, who want to destroy our world as we know it, are encroaching on us. They are extremely well-funded, especially by groups from abroad and Jewish groups from America, who want to impose their life views on us here in Israel and destroy the Jewish family.

Furthermore, she added, After the catastrophe of the Holocaust, it is our duty to hold on to our national characteristics, to increase our numbers, to inculcate our children with pride in their tradition, our state, and our religion.

Dalit Suter, an editor and translator who heads the Shapira Forum, a right-wing group of intellectuals, denounced Shomers alphabet as an example of how Marxist and radical feminist ideologies are infiltrating Israeli society.

We see what is happening in America, and it will happen here, too, she warned. [Former U.S. President Donald] Trump was able to keep the anarchists and the radical feminists at bay, but now that [President Joe] Biden is in, we see that they have invaded the classrooms. Young children, including Jewish children, are forced to declare their so-called gender identity in school, and to decide if they are male or female, as if that were ever a decision or a question.

Foes of Shomers alphabet didnt just condemn it.

Sela sent a letter to the head of an HMO that had adopted it, writing that, This isnt merely about a cute little dot or a set of nice letters, its about protecting our society from a radical feminist agenda that wants to erase the difference between men and women.

Initially, the HMO responded that it was proud to lead the way in the use of multi-gendered language.We love the Hebrew language deeply and love to see it change and develop.

But then Sela organized a letter-writing campaign, and after the HMO received some 1,500 letters, it reversed course, explaining that it had consulted with the Academy for the Hebrew Language, and would respect its authority.

Courtesy of Michal Shomer

To the left of its entrance, a school in the Tel Aviv area posted a welcome sign using Michal Shomers multi-gendered Hebrew.

In the same vein, lawyers from BTzalmo, which describes itself as a human rights organization guided by Jewish values, wrote to the chief of staff and commander of the Air Force: The Israel Defense Forces must realize that its strength does not come from fighting ideological fights for marginal groups in society.

And to the heads of the Home Front Command, who had put up a welcoming sign at a COVID-19 vaccination center, they wrote, This language was invented in the gender departments, with the purpose of encouraging multiple and non-binary sexual identitiesthe Hebrew language is part of our national and Zionist identity.

The IDF did not respond to questions from the Forward about Shomers alphabet, but a soldier serving in the Air Force revealed, on condition of anonymity, that signs using it had been taken down at several bases.

Elana Sztokman, author of The War on Women in Israel: A Story of Religious Radicalism, said she is not surprised at the intensity of the backlash.

Using egalitarian, multi-gender and non-binary language is something that we all can and must do, to create social change. It may seem small, but its huge, and that is why it creates such a ferocious response.

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12 new letters: Revamped aleph bet aims to recognize women and non-binary people - Forward

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Posted By admin on September 6, 2021

By Samuel L. Boyd University of Colorado Boulder

THE CONVERSATION - Over the next few weeks, members of the Jewish faith will observe the High Holy Days in the month of Tishrei in the Jewish calendar, usually in September and October. These holidays commemorate concepts such as renewal, forgiveness, freedom and joy.

What are High Holy Days?

Of the two main High Holy Days, also called the High Holidays, the first is Rosh Hashanah, or the New Year celebration. It is one of two new year celebrations in the Jewish faith, the other being Passover in the spring.

The second High Holiday is Yom Kippur, or the Day of Atonement.

In addition to the main Holy Days, there are other celebrations that occur as part of the festival season. One is Sukkot, or the Festival of the Booths, during which meals and rituals take place in a "sukkah," or a makeshift structure constructed with a tree-branch roof.

The second entails two celebrations, which in some traditions are part of the same holiday and in others occur on two separate, consecutive days: Shemini Atzeret and Simchat Torah.

Shemini Atzeret is Hebrew for "eighth (day of) assembly," counting eight days from Sukkot. Simchat Torah is Hebrew for "joy/rejoicing of the Torah" - the Torah being the first five books of the Bible, from Genesis to Deuteronomy, believed to have been revealed to Moses.

Of particular interest for the High Holy Days in 2021 is that Rosh Hashanah also begins a yearlong observance known as the "Shmita."

Commemorated once every seven years, the term comes from a Hebrew phrase that appears in the Bible in a number of passages. Some of these passages command that the farmer "drops" or "releases" his crops. Another verse associates the act with the forgiveness of debts. In another passage in the Bible, the Shmita is connected with the reading of God's revelation in the law.

The exact nature of the action denoted by Shmita is debated, but the idea is that some portion of the food is left behind for the poor and hungry in society.

In this manner, the beginning of the High Holy Days in 2021 is a reminder to care for those who have been struggling.

Why celebrate these?

The origins and reasons for the High Holy Days are in some fashion encoded in the Bible and in the agrarian and religious culture that produced it. The millennia of Jewish tradition between the Bible and the present has informed many of the celebrations as well, in ways that go beyond the biblical texts.

The first holiday, Rosh Hashanah, celebrates renewal. It involves the blowing of the shofar horn, itself connected to the ram sacrificed instead of Abraham's son, as God had commanded Abraham to do. Important activities include attending synagogue to hear the shofar, as well as eating apple slices with honey, the former representing hopes for fruitfulness and the honey symbolizing the desire for a sweet year.

It also often involves a ritual of throwing bread onto running water, called a tashlich, symbolizing the removal of sins from people.

Rosh Hashanah is believed to mark the date of the creation of the world, and it begins the "Days of Awe," a 10-day period culminating in Yom Kippur.

The term "Days of Awe" itself is a more literal translation of the Hebrew phrasing used for the High Holy Days.

Concepts of repentance and forgiveness are particularly highlighted in Yom Kippur. Its origins are found in the Hebrew Bible, where it describes the one day a year in which premeditated, intentional sins, such as willfully violating divine commands and prohibitions, were forgiven.

Intentional sins were envisioned as generating impurity in the heart of the temple in Jerusalem, where God was thought to live. Impurity from intentional sins was believed by Israelites to be a threat to this divine presence since God might choose to leave the temple.

The biblical description of Yom Kippur involved a series of sacrifices and rituals designed to remove sin from the people. For example, one goat was thought to bear the sins of the Israelites and was sent off to the wilderness, where it was consumed by Azazel, a mysterious, perhaps demonic force. Azazel consumed the goat and the sins that it carried. The term "scapegoat" in English derives from this act.

Yom Kippur is both the holiest day of the Jewish calendar and also one of the most somber, as the time for repentance includes fasting and prayer.

Sukkot, Shemini Atzeret and Simchat Torah

The Festival of Sukkot likely began as an agricultural celebration, and the booths were shelters in which farmers stayed during the collection of grain, which was to be processed for the year.

Vestiges of this agricultural commemoration appear in certain passages in the Bible, one of which indicates that the festival is to last seven days to mark the time period in which Israelites dwelt in booths, or makeshift dwellings with branches, when leaving Egypt.

This feast was known as zeman simchatenu, or "the time of our rejoicing," hearkening to the themes of gratitude, freedom from Egypt and the reading of God's revelation as found in the Torah to all Israel.

Such a time of rejoicing contrasts with the somber repentance and fasting that feature in Yom Kippur. So vital was the Festival of Booths that it is also known as simply "the chag," or "the feast," a word related to the more familiar hajj pilgrimage in Islam.

This period of seven days ends with Shemini Atzeret on the eighth day, both a connected celebration capping off Sukkot and a festival in its own right.

The annual reading of the Torah ends with the final text of Deuteronomy. The beginning of the next annual reading cycle, starting with the first book Genesis, is also celebrated. This act of beginning a new year of reading the Bible is commemorated in the festival called Simchat Torah.

The observance of Simchat Torah was a later innovation, described already in the fifth century or so but not formalized or identified by this name until the medieval period.

Why do they matter?

Religious calendars and festivals can force people to encounter certain ideas in the year. For example, they can enable them to face the more difficult dynamics of life like repentance and forgiveness, providing avenues to reflect on the events of the past year and to find courage to live differently in the next year where needed.

In this manner, structuring the celebration of the new year around remembrances of a variety of human experiences, both sorrow and joy, entails a profound recognition of the complexity of relationships and experiences in life.

In particular, the High Holy Days - as illustrated in the renewal of Rosh Hashanah, the somber reflection of Yom Kippur - as well as the joyous celebrations in Sukkot and Simchat Torah, offer a means to remember that time is itself healing and restorative.

As such, the High Holy Days and the holiday season in Tishrei help to mark the year in meaningful ways and to highlight our moral responsibility toward one another.

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What are the Jewish High Holy Days, and why are they celebrated? - Sumter Item

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Posted By admin on September 6, 2021

Kim Hairston/The Baltimore Sun Im thinking a lot about hope and moving forward in really difficult times, in uncertain times, Rabbi Elissa Sachs-Kohen said. Im also thinking about what are the opportunities, and how do we find those opportunities?

Rabbi Elissa Sachs-Kohen knows her words will carry a little extra weight this year during Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year.

This past year couldve been one to forget for many, a time of isolation created by the coronavirus crisis, or a painful one for those who experienced profound loss caused by the pandemic. The beginning of the High Holy Days is a chance to remember and reset.

Im thinking a lot about hope and moving forward in really difficult times, in uncertain times, Sachs-Kohen said. Im also thinking about what are the opportunities, and how do we find those opportunities?

Sachs-Kohen will deliver her first sermon Monday night in front of thousands expected at the 15th annual Rosh Hashanah Under the Stars, a popular, family-friendly service at Oregon Ridge Park in Baltimore County hosted by the Baltimore Hebrew Congregation. Last year, the service was completely virtual. Organizers tout it as a new way to observe an ancient tradition.

Many but not all congregants are elated to be back in person, Sachs-Kohen said. Those who arent yet ready will be able to observe the holidays remotely. Sachs-Kohens synagogue and several others in the Baltimore area have implemented vaccine and mask mandates for services, a sign of the transitional period in the pandemic where vaccinations are widely available yet the highly contagious delta variant continues to spread.

That reality weighs on Rabbi Daniel Cotzin Burg as he prepares to deliver three sermons to his congregants at the Beth Am Synagogue in Northwest Baltimore. In some respects, delivering the right message this year will be more challenging than last, he said.

Last year, Burg said, they knew what was coming: COVID-19 vaccines seemed to be a ways off, meaning more masking, isolating and creatively keeping the faith community together during uncertain times spent mostly apart.

But this year, he said, they thought theyd have left behind virtual and outdoor services, perhaps in favor of a bustling sanctuary.

Protecting yourself and others during holiday gatherings is a matter of lowering the risks associated with specific events, said Dr. David Marcozzi, COVID-19 incident commander for the University of Maryland Medical System. The easiest thing, he said, is to avoid travel, crowded indoor or outdoor spaces, and contact with unmasked and unvaccinated people.

If you can do things outside, do them outside. If youre not vaccinated, get vaccinated. If you have to go inside, like for Rosh Hashana services in a synagogue to be together as a congregation, go but take precautions, Marcozzi said.

That applies, he said, even to those who are vaccinated because the more contagious delta variant has led to breakthrough cases where people test positive after getting their shots.

Marcozzi recommended upgrading to KN95 or N95 masks, including for children, the youngest of whom are not eligible for COVID-19 vaccines. He encouraged social distancing for indoor services.

Think about it in terms of hurdles, he said. The more hurdles you create, the less likely a virus gets to you or your children.

Near the Baltimore County line in Northwest Baltimore, the Baltimore Hebrew Congregation is requiring preregistration for services, is limiting the sanctuary to 50% capacity, requiring proof of vaccination for indoor services, and masking and physical distancing. Vaccination is strongly encouraged for non-indoor services, including Rosh Hashanah Under the Stars.

In Reservoir Hill, Beth Am is hosting indoor, outdoor and virtual services this year. Burg said theyre requiring vaccination for all attendees 12 and older and masking at all times. The synagogue is capping attendance for services at 50%.

Come time to deliver his sermons, Burg said hell focus on a passage that translates to: From the narrowness I cry out to God, and God responds from the expanse.

Im talking about the narrowness and the ways weve felt constricted throughout the last year and a half and Im talking about the expanse: What does it mean to move toward a sense of openness and normality, while also recognizing that while we do that, even if its a little more slowly and more iterative than any of us expected at this point, that we still bring a lot of trauma with us, he said.

That would be true even if the public health guidance merited a complete return to normal, enabling a packed synagogue, said Burg, citing the losses and anxiety many endured.

All of us have had every aspect of our lives affected by this pandemic, so we need to be honest about that with each other and the only way to come through that narrow place into the expansive place, the redemptive place, is to locate that trauma somewhere within ourselves so that were not ignoring it, but were also not letting it dominate our sights, he said.

In Pikesville, the Beth Tfiloh Congregation will celebrate a century of High Holy Day services. The modern Orthodox synagogue is requiring adults to be fully vaccinated, while masks are mandated indoors and unvaccinated children wont be allowed into the sanctuary. There will be specific services for children, the protocols of which have not yet been established, according to the congregations website.

We are doing everything possible to encourage people to attend services, which we did not do last year, said Rabbi Mitchell Wohlberg, describing the last year as tough because of all the risks and unknowns. Attending services live, theres a sense of community ... of being a part of something greater than ourselves. Theres a sense of being a participant rather than a spectator.

Wohlbergs approach to this years Rosh Hashana sermon, which may be his last as he is retiring as Beth Tfilohs rabbi in residence after 43 years, differs from that of some other Baltimore-area rabbis.

Itll focus on a weakening of Jewish observance and identity and how his congregants can recommit to those values, he said. I think that our people they need to go someplace and not hear about the coronavirus, he said.

He recalled a fitting prayer traditionally recited as Jews usher in the new year:

May the old year end with all of its curses. May the new year begin with all of its blessings.

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For Rosh Hashana, Baltimore-area rabbis faced with delivering sermons at transitional moment in COVID pandemic - msnNOW

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