Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By admin on August 31, 2021

The American actor Ed Asner, who died on Aug. 29 at age 91, showed that Jewish identity can mean defending a range of minority groups, not just fellow Jews.

Asner had little opportunity to express this viewpoint as the editor Lou Grant on The Mary Tyler Moore Show, a character he described to Jewish journalist Lionel Rolfe as theoretically Catholic although Asner always thought he had the map of Israel written all over his face.

More explicit issues related to Yiddishkeit were explored in the grittier spinoff Lou Grant, particularly the episode Nazis in which a so-called National Socialist Aryan American political party in Los Angeles is led by a Jewish-born miscreant whose father explains that he said Kaddish for his son years ago.

Epitomizing Asners approach to acting as a humanistic investigation, his character informs a reporter that the real story is not about exposing the neo-Nazis origins, but to address the question of what turned this bar mitzvah boy into a Nazi with a swastika on his arm - how did it happen?

Asner understood this, as his choice of acting career stemmed from his own bar mitzvah experience.

He was born in Kansas City, Missouri, raised in an Orthodox working class family in Kansas City, Kan., by a Lithuanian father and a mother with the darkness and the gypsy-like quality of the Jews of Odessa, as he told an interviewer from the Yiddish Book Center (YBC) in April 2018.

Frayed nerves ruined his Haftorah reading during his bar mitzvah. The post-ceremony stigma was intensebut I think it probably turned me into an actorHaving failed my first performance, I was determined to make better. I guess Im still trying.

As a boy in Kansas City, Asner learned watchful reticence about Judaism. Classmates used such expressions as He jewed me down, but this bigotry paled beside the violence meted out against African-Americans and Mexicans. Two of his sisters were social workers, adding to his public-spirited awareness.

Placing the condition of the Jews in a wider context became an early habit. He reveled in what he called the grandiosity of Judaism the bigger-than-life heroes, the drama of Judaism, as he explained to the YBC. Yet he retained from the language of the Ashkenazim naughty epithets which he delighted in exclaiming even in old age, such as kurveh (whore) and nafkeh (streetwalker).

Feeling guilt about not volunteering to defend the Jewish state during the 1948 ArabIsraeli War, he later became a sometimes perplexed observer of the Middle East, informing the YBC that interestingly enough, there came a time where Hebrew was so emphasized in Israel that Yiddish was falling by the wayside. And the homosexuals, who were rejected in Israel at that time, anyway, were turning to Yiddish more and more because Hebrew wasnt accepting them or they werent finding acceptance with Hebrew. So, mame-loshn (mother tongue) became the homosexual shprakh (language).

More than just an idle observer to presumed homophobia, in 1977 Asner vocally opposed the repeal of an anti-discrimination statute in Miamis Dade County. He filmed a public service announcement contradicting the claim by Anita Bryants Save Our Children organization that LGBT Americans were a societal threat. Asner explained:

Im not a homosexual, but Im concerned about the rights of all people. Rights are important to me as a Jewish person. I believe its wrong to deny anyone the right to work or the right to live where they want because of their religion their race, or their sexual preferences. Where does bigotry stop? As a Jew, I cant forget that once in this world it didnt stop. Thats why its imperative that June 7 you vote against repeal of homosexual rights in Dade County.

His willingness to defend others was especially noteworthy for 1977, when he was just a jobbing actor, although well-known from The Mary Tyler Moore Show and his role as a conscience-stricken slave ship captain in the TV miniseries Roots.

Only last month, he applauded the Olympian athlete Simone Biles for admitting to emotional vulnerabilities, and slated a UK journalist who had criticized her as a person (I use that term lightly) that sits on his brains and criticizes people for a living.

Such outspoken and sometimes defiant activism attracted brutal responses, as in 1985, when news reports noted that a Nazi swastika and the slogan Kill Jews had been spraypainted outside his Studio City apartment by vandals who claimed to represent the National Socialistic Liberation Front as an assault on that Jewish communist pig Ed Asner.

On this and other occasions, Asner required inner fortitude to carry on being, as he described himself to The Jewish Advocate in September 1997, a Jew who goes around talking.

Part of his strength was doubtless drawn from conveying the grandiosity of Judaism onstage. In 2007, he portrayed the title role of the king of the United Monarchy of Israel and Judah in the play King David and His Concubine at a Jewish Community Center in West Hills, California, and later was promoted to playing the Almighty himself in a political comedy, God Help Us! which he was still touring at the time of his death.

Other Jewish-inflected roles over the years further imbued Asner with an aura of gruff but stalwart Yiddishkeit. These included the character of the high school principal Joe Danzig in the television drama The Bronx Zoo and as Jacob Ascher in Sidney Lumets 1983 screen adaptation of E. L. Doctorows novel The Book of Daniel, inspired by the story of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg.

Any actor so consistently vocal would inevitably err on occasion, and Asners embrace of conspiracy theories involving the Sept. 11 attacks and the AIDS pandemic were an unfortunate part of his trajectory.

Unlike his personal path of confronting and understanding prejudice, spouting opinions based on inadequate understanding of structural engineering (for 9/11) and epidemiology (for AIDS) did not amount to his finest hours in public life.

At such moments, it was as if he were identifying with Milton Saltzman, a fictional character in The Soap Myth, another play he toured extensively in recent years on a Holocaust-related theme.

Saltzman adamantly insists that even though historical authorities such as The Yad Vashem Memorial have stated that Nazis did not produce soap from bodies of prisoners on an industrial scale, this atrocity did in fact occur.

Still in the domain of remembrance, Asner narrated The Tattooed Torah a short animated film adaptation of a childrens book about a child-size prayer scroll from Brno, Moravia, which was confiscated by Nazis and numbered (or tattooed as were concentration camp prisoners).

Into old age, Asner continued to examine his own Jewish identity with an inquisitive spirit natural in someone who underwent years of Freudian psychoanalysis, even on occasion seeking advice about his acting from his analyst. Asner admitted to the YBC that when reading newspaper wedding announcements, he still irresistibly scanned the listings to look for Jewish names: Why am I doing that? What is this impulse, this compulsion?

Ongoing inquisitiveness about Yiddishkeit served as the basis for Ed Asners lifetime of acting and humanistic activism.

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Ed Asners very righteous (and very Jewish) journey - Forward

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Posted By admin on August 31, 2021

My first Jewish cookbook was Joan Nathans Jewish Holiday Kitchen, and it became my kitchen bible while I was living in Israel from 1983 to 1991. It covered not just the food of Jewish holidays but also history and cuisine from countries around the world. It informed me of a vast Jewish culinary heritage and gave recipes for every Jewish occasion. I came to understand that there was a lot more to Jewish food than the matzo ball soup and gefilte fish of my youth, and I wanted to learn all about it.

With the coming Jewish High Holy Days, starting with Rosh Hashanah at sundown on Sept. 6 and ending Sept. 29 with the conclusion of Simchat Torah, I am immersed in the small trove of recipes that I have curated especially for this time of year. Many of them come from now-tattered cookbooks that fill my bookshelves.

From Edda Servi Machlins The Classic Cuisine of the Italian Jews, I learned about Italian Jewish foods such as carciofi alla Giudia (deep-fried artichokes that look like a crispy chrysanthemum) and polpette di pollo e matzo (chicken-matzo meatballs). I learned about Sephardic cookery from Copeland Marks tome Sephardic Cooking, and found recipes for dishes I had eaten in Israel like Yemenite jachnoon (baked bread-like rolls with whole eggs), borekas (savory pastries filled with cheese, spinach or potatoes) and koobeh (stuffed dumplings). I also learned about Middle Eastern cuisine from Claudia Rodens A Book of Middle Eastern Food.

Over the years, more of Rodens and Nathans Jewish food books found their way to my bookshelves, as did Joyce Goldsteins Cucina Ebraica, where I found recipes for spinaci con pinoli e passerine (spinach with pine nuts and raisins), fritelle di zucca (squash fritters from the Veneto) and peperoni ripieni (peppers stuffed with eggplant), and her Sephardic Flavors, from which I still make gayna al orno (roast chicken with apples and pomegranate).

More recently, Leah Koenigs The Jewish Cookbook has a beautiful jeweled rice dish, studded with dried fruits, pistachios and pomegranate seeds, and a roast chicken with honey and thyme that is as simple as it is delicious and works for holiday and everyday meals alike.

I swore off bringing home new Jewish cookbooks and cookbooks in general because my bookshelves were overflowing and I didnt feel like passing off new books as furniture or an art installation.

But I was unable to resist reading about them, and Ive been intrigued by Hlne Jawhara Piers Sephardi: Cooking the History, Recipes of the Jews of Spain and the Diaspora, from the 13th Century to Today, published in June. The recipes are gleaned from the history of the people of Spain, from court testimony given during the Spanish Inquisition and from Arabic and Catalan cookbooks dating back to the Middle Ages. Pier holds a PhD in medieval and culinary history from the French University of Tours. Sephardi is the culmination of five years of academic research into medieval Spanish, Muslim, Christian and Jewish culinary history.

Hlne Jawhara Pier is the author of Sephardi: Cooking the History, Recipes of the Jews of Spain and the Diaspora, From the 13th Century to Today.

(Hlne Jawhara Pier)

The recipes in Sephardi reflect the lush and multifaceted culinary traditions of the Iberian Peninsula, influenced by Celtic, Iberian, Roman-Mediterranean, Germanic and North African flavors and techniques. Many of the recipes are the first recorded versions of dishes that are still made today peot (challah), adefina (Sabbath stew), puchero (chicken soup) and even matzo albeit with some modernized techniques.

While Pier has adapted the recipes for modern cooks of all levels, she was intent on remaining as true as possible to how they looked and tasted in the times in which the dishes were originally created. She chose not to include ingredients such as tomatoes and chiles (introduced from Latin America in the 16th century and only regularly consumed on the Iberian peninsula a century later), which are used abundantly in modern versions of these dishes that have been passed down in families for generations.

Pier shows us how, during the Inquisition, the testimony of servants and merchants often was used as proof that a converso (a Jew who converted to Catholicism) was still participating in Jewish practices. Among the culinary behaviors often reported to authorities were the use of particular ingredients and cooking techniques as well as the frequency and timing with which specific dishes were eaten. For example, keeping the cooking staff from cooking on Fridays and Saturdays giving them the days off instead leaving a pot of stew every Friday afternoon to cook until Saturday morning, and eating red eggs on Fridays during Lent were interpreted by non-Jewish onlookers as indicators of ongoing Jewish practice.

As one would expect, the book offers chapters for basic meal components like bread and snacks, soups, meat and fish and desserts and pastries. There is also a chapter dedicated solely to eggplant, one for explicitly Jewish recipes cited in her research, and one devoted to recipes from Regimen of Health, a treatise on hygiene written by Moshe Ben Maimon (1135-1204) also known as Maimonides and by the acronym RaMBaM, considered by many the greatest Jewish philosopher and scholar of the Middle Ages. (His stipulations and recipes for a healthy diet could have been written by health food gurus of today.)

In the final chapter, Pier, a trained culinarian in her own right, has developed original recipes based on the historical sources and other recipes in the book. While they are her modern creations, here too the recipes are true to their time in terms of ingredients and methodology.

So, despite the moratorium, I have yet another Jewish cookbook on my shelf. There is plenty of fodder for my ever-growing repertoire of fare for the High Holy Days. Im already addicted to Maimonides quince, pear, apple and pomegranate elixir. And, if for no reason other than the titillating name, I will have to add meatballs cursed by the Jews to my recipe box as well. They are a little salty for my taste but otherwise flavorful and simple to make. There is no indication of how they came by the name, but that just makes for better conversation.

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A new Jewish cookbook that everyone should own - Los Angeles Times

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Posted By admin on August 31, 2021

If you keep walking past the Jewish cheder, the Jewish-owned hotel and the Jewish-owned ice cream shop, youll reach the Old Synagogue, with a bimah and images of the Twin Tablets and stands to hold prayer books.

Youre not in New York, or Jerusalem. This is Harbin, China, a city south of Siberia that is known for its annual ice festival. The small Russian Jewish community that once occupied the area is long gone; its inhabitants were plundered and then expelled, or killed. Writer Dara Horn was in Harbin to see its attempt at reconstructing Jewish buildings that had been destroyed by any of the Chinese, Russian or Japanese governments that had once controlled the area. The synagogue was now a concert hall.

Horn sat down in one of the pews in this synagogue that felt no different from every single urban early-20th-century synagogue Ive ever entered and reached for a prayer book that wasnt there. That nights show was a string quartet.

I felt that creeping Jewish heritage unease, the unarticulated sense that despite all the supposed goodwill, something was clearly off, Horn writes.

She describes this scene in People Love Dead Jews: Reports From a Haunted Present, her new essay collection that comes out on September 7. Its her first nonfiction book, following five works of fiction that very much feature living Jews with interesting lives and story lines. The cheeky title is meant to be provocative, but it gets at Horns concern with how non-Jews around the world usually learn about Jews not by interacting with them or learning about Jewish life, but by learning about dead Jews, through topics like the Holocaust or the Spanish Inquisition or Harbins story.

I had mistaken the enormous public interest in past Jewish suffering for a sign of respect for living Jews, Horn writes. I was very wrong.

Horns essays, several of which were previously published in other publications, address the dissonance between peoples fascination with dead Jews and rising levels of antisemitism in the U.S. (The FBI released figures yesterday showing that 58% of reported religiously motivated hate crimes in 2020 targeted Jews.) Think about your social studies textbook when youre in sixth grade or something. Theres something about the Israelites in the ancient history section. And then theres a chapter about the Holocaust. Thats the only thing they say about Jews, Horn told Jewish Insider in a recent interview.

One essay grapples with the near-universal reverence of Anne Frank while an employee at the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam was told not to wear a yarmulke to work. Another makes sense of Jewish heritage sites worldwide and the perhaps slightly antisemitic reasons non-Jews maintain them. All try to get at uncomfortable truths about modern antisemitism.

After the Holocaust, Horn argued, the recent memory of the murder of six million Jews kept antisemitism in check. The last few generations of non-Jews were sort of chagrined by the Holocaust, and that made antisemitism socially unacceptable, said Horn, who is 44. For the people who are in my generation and my parents generation, the times we grew up in were not normal. Now normal is returning.

In conversation with JI, Horn talked about what Jewish liturgy has to say about dead Jews, how universalizing Jewish stories can erase the Jewish experience and why Tevyes story still matters.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

Gabby Deutch: You write in the book that you used to ask people at your talks if they could name three concentration camps, and then you would ask if they could also name three Yiddish authors. Many people could do the first but not the second. It seems like the book is mainly about people who arent Jewish, but I imagine that many American Jews would also find themselves in that position of knowing the detailed history of the Holocaust while knowing very few details, in comparison, about Jewish culture and literature. How do you think the obsession, as you will, with dead Jews manifests within the Jewish community in America?

Dara Horn: In the Jewish community, for the most part this is not true in Haredi circles were not using a Jewish language. [Steven] Spielbergs making Schindlers List for everybody who wants to see a movie. The loss of the Jewish language does mean that those conversations are all happening in public. If you think about something like the [U.S.] Holocaust [Memorial] Museum in Washington, that was built for a non-Jewish public, but obviously, a lot of Jewish people go there. I think that it means something different to a Jewish and a non-Jewish audience. Every culture has some way of memorializing the past. With the Jewish culture, its this very ritualized process where the destruction of these communities is folded into this longer history of a spiral of loss and recovery, and it becomes a story about resilience. Thats the story that we build out of these disasters. That practice continues. Do I think that theres too much attention paid in the Jewish community to educate people about Holocaust? I think the reason that was done was because of our relationships with non-Jewish communities. I think that part of the reason that you have this huge museum in Washington with all this documentation and everything is because of this fear of Holocaust denial. I did tell someone at [my kids] Hebrew school, I think we should replace this detailed course on the history of the Holocaust with a detailed course about the history of the State of Israel. Thats what they need to know as 21st-century Jews.

GD: In the book, you often use the word we, thereby including yourself. For example, in the chapter on Anne Frank, you write about the way that we feel when we read her diary. Who do you view as the audience of this book? And how did you make that choice to write we and not they?

DH: Im a Jewish writer, but Im also an English-language writer. I am participating in this broader non-Jewish culture. When I read Anne Franks diary but also if I go to the museum as an English speaker, I am participating in that culture. I think this is a broader cultural problem in English-speaking countries. If I write a piece for a Jewish publication, Im writing in English, but anybody can read it; not only Jews are going to read that. For example, the Anne Frank piece was a piece that I wrote for Smithsonian Magazine initially. It was difficult, because what happened was they asked me to write a piece about Anne Frank. I remember feeling a sense of dread because I was like, I really dont want to write about Anne Frank. Then I remembered this story, which I recounted in the book, about this news piece I had read about this young Orthodox guy who worked [at the Anne Frank House] who they wouldnt let wear his yarmulke to work. I tend to lean toward those uncomfortable moments. So that piece for Smithsonian, a general-interest magazine, seemed to get a lot of attention. I spoke on NPR in Texas. It was a call-in show. It was very clearly non-Jewish listeners who were calling in and talking about it. Part of it is an education problem in the way people learn about Jews. Think about your social studies textbook when youre in sixth grade or something. Theres something about the Israelites in the ancient history section. And then theres a chapter about the Holocaust. Thats the only thing they say about Jews. This is the only thing that most people know.

GD: You argue in the book that Jewish heritage sites, like cemeteries or old synagogues in places that now have none or very few Jews, often have the goal of not just remembering and preserving that culture but also getting Jewish investment and Jewish tourists. These sites are often preserved with little or no mention of the usually violent reasons why Jews no longer live in that area. When you think about the upkeep of these places places like Harbin is it a bad thing to put money and effort into preserving these sites?

DH: Benjamin de Tudela traveled around the known world in the 1100s visiting Jewish communities. Now, you travel the world and you visit peoples graves. These people were murdered or forced to flee in most cases. So what do you do with these sites? Is there a good way to do this as opposed to an exploitative way to do this? I think that there are better and worse ways to do this. In the Chinese example, there was no interest in talking about, Who are Jews? What does this even mean? Its also happening in a country where religion is illegal, and youre in a country with all kinds of repressive laws, so even if you wanted to do this the right way, there are limitations. Dan Ben-Canaan, the one Jew of Harbin, is doing his best to tell this story, but at the same time, you go to that museum and theres not a word about, What is Judaism? Who are Jews? What does it even mean, culturally, to be Jewish? To me the most glaring thing is theres nothing about why this community isnt here anymore. Thats the problem. If this society is not owning what happened in this place, you cant be honest about your history.

Its similar to what were doing in this country now with the way we think about Confederate monuments. There are ways to think about history in a way that owns the evils of the past. Restoring a historical site and then not mentioning, Oh, by the way, we forced all these people to leave would not be a great way to do this. I am not going to write a set of laws about the good and bad ways to do this. But it was so glaring in that example. They said the quiet part out loud, when the mayor of Harbin said that this is a great opportunity to get investments from all the rich Jews of the world.

GD: In the book, you contrast the way that Jews think about time a spiral of a spiral, a tangled old telephone cord in which the future was the present, which was essentially the past with the notion of the American dream, that things are always progressing and improving. Have you thought about what the political takeaways from this book might be on broader issues related to how we remember American history?

DH: I think that people go there in their minds no matter what. When I did that NPR interview, all the call-ins were about exactly that: They asked, How do we think about Confederate history, for example, or Native American history? This is my sixth book, my first nonfiction book. One thing I discovered is, you write one book. And then everybody is reading a different book than the book you wrote. If someone reads this book and is like, Wow, this is telling me about the way I want to think about Native American history, I think thats fantastic.

That said, I do think that there is this need to universalize Jewish history, which becomes a way of erasing it. One of the examples I have in the book is this piece I wrote about [the Auschwitz exhibit at New Yorks Museum of Jewish Heritage]. I was writing that piece for a mainstream publication, for The Atlantic. I talked about how the rabbi of my synagogue was at a meeting with other clergy in the town with the police, and how all these local churches it was about security were like, Maybe we should put a lock on the door. And the rabbi of my synagogue is sitting there in stunned silence. My editor at The Atlantic was like, Shouldnt you talk here about how there are a lot of non-Jewish houses of worship that require security? I actually put into the piece: Yes, this rabbi and I both know that there are other houses of worship from other religions that also require security. And yes, this rabbi and I are both aware that other groups have been persecuted. And the degrading need to recite these middle school obvious facts is part of the problem because what youre saying is dead Jews only matter if theyre about something more.

Its very similar to the argument that Jews are like the canary in the coal mine. When Jews are attacked, its a sign of the collapse of the society. Theres that quote from that German minister: First they came for the Jews, and I didnt speak up because I wasnt a Jew. Jews are the canary in the coal mine, this harbinger, that when Jews were attacked, its the beginning of the decline of your society. What youre basically saying is, we should care when Jews are murdered or maimed because that serves as a warning that later, actual people might be attacked. Its like youre being asked to erase your own dignity in order to plead to be counted as part of a society. In your attempt to get respect from society, you are diminishing yourself.

GD: You write about this attempt to get respect from society in an essay about Ellis Island, and the difference in the way Jews remember it versus what really happened. Despite loads of evidence showing that, actually, immigration officers did not change Jews names at Ellis Island that Jews changed their own names later, in a bid to better fit into American society many American Jews hold onto that Ellis Island fiction. People are shocked to learn it isnt true.

DH: When I would give talks about that, people would mob me. They would be yelling at me. People really, really get mad when you tell them that. The moment when it gets uncomfortable is to me the signal that theres an important story here. Why are educated American Jews and these are people who pride themselves on their skepticism and critical thinking why are they taking this la la land fairytale story thats demonstrably untrue, and then trying to figure out some way to make it true, saying, Well, maybe my great-great-grandfather was the exception? Why are people so attached to the story? It is doing something important emotionally for people.

GD: You write that after the Tree of Life massacre in Pittsburgh, when you told your children what happened, they didnt need an explanation of why this would happen to Jews, because they understood that such violence has happened to the Jews in the past, that its in our liturgy and the Torah. What does it mean for Jewish kids to grow up with this deeper understanding? Do you think its any different now from when you were growing up?

DH: Theres all kinds of explanations for why there is this sudden rise in antisemitism in the United States in the past however many years. There are all these self-serving explanations you could give for this depending on what side of the political spectrum youre on. But I say in the book, to me the most convincing answer is the most boring, which makes it also the most disturbing which is, basically, the last few generations of non-Jews were sort of chagrined by the Holocaust, and that made antisemitism socially unacceptable. But now that visceral response is fading, because the people who really lived with those events [of] that generation are dying. Im 44. For the people who are in my generation and my parents generation, the times we grew up in were not normal. Now normal is returning. And we know that because the liturgy is set up for this. Do I find it absolutely terrifying that this is my childrens normal? Yes. They find that hard to believe. Their experience is more typical of Jewish history. People say, Oh, theres this rise in antisemitic violence in the past few years. Haredi Jews will tell you it never went away. Its really just about how visible you are.

GD: For people, both Jewish and not and maybe the answer would be different for both groups but for those who are looking to learn more about Jews and Judaism that isnt just reading about the Holocaust and dead Jews, are there books that you teach, or books you read, that you offer as a primer for getting more into what Judaism actually looks like?

DH: Theres a chapter where I talk about Jewish literature, and how there is not this idea that a book has to be tied up in a bow at the end. I talked in the book about the Tevye the Dairyman stories. American audiences are familiar with them because of Fiddler on the Roof, but Fiddler on the Roof doesnt include a lot of stuff. One of the daughters commits suicide, Motel drops dead, Golda dies. Its a very, very depressing book. Whats astonishing about it is it doesnt have the narrative arc that we expect. I think its based on Christianity, the idea that theres an arc toward redemption, and at the end the good guys are saved, or theres an epiphany, a moment of grace. These are all Christian terms. Thats not what happens in literature in Jewish languages.

Instead, you have something different, which is this idea of resilience. In the Tevye stories, for each one of his daughters, its a calamity. But Tevye never changes. Hes certainly never saved. He never has an epiphany, he never realizes anything. His power as a character is that he keeps enduring. What makes him so powerful is that he remains through these calamities exactly who he always has been. At the very last line of that book, a line that would never appear on Broadway, the very last line of the Tevye stories the whole structure of the book is monologues of Tevye talking to Sholem Aleichem, the books author is Tevye saying to Sholem Aleichem, Go tell all of our Jews everywhere that our old God still lives. This is a masterclass on resilience.

If you just want a reading list, I would recommend different books to different people based on their interests. Mordecai Kaplan calls Judaism a civilization. It isnt just a religion. It is a civilization, which has arts and many different aspects to it. It would depend on who I was talking to, what I would recommend in terms of a way in. This is just this amazing, thriving civilization and erasing it in this way, where what we often see Jews are just like everybody else well, Jews spent thousands of years not being like everybody else. That was sort of the point of Judaism, to not be like everyone else. We believed in one God when nobody else did.

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Dara Horn on a world that only teaches about 'dead Jews' - Jewish Insider

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Posted By admin on August 31, 2021

Since their expulsion from Eretz Yisrael, Jewish people around the world have called out in their thoughts and prayers for a return to their Homeland in Israel. In 1948, with the founding of the State of Israel after one of the worst crimes against humanity in history, this dream was fulfilled. Millions of survivors of the Holocaust, and Zionists from around the world, made their way to live a life that their ancestors could have only imagined.

Along with the millions of Jews of European origin, the Ashkenazim, came the Sephardim, Jews of African, Latin American, or Spanish origin. Among these were hundreds of thousands of Jews from Morocco, a thriving Jewish community that had existed for thousands of years.(1) In Morocco, there had been two major immigrations of Jews, the first of which being in the first century C.E. This group of Jews mainly settled in the mountains with the Amazigh/Berber population, where many of their new neighbors converted from their native religion to Judaism.

The Moroccans began their migration to Israel in 1948 when the Israeli state was established, and 30,000 of the 260,000 Jews living in Morocco packed their bags to go to their designated homeland. This is not only because of their Jewish identity, but also largely has to do with the oppression that was beginning to close in. Anti-Semitic sentiment had begun to creep into Moroccos borders because the Moroccan Arabs were loyal to Palestinian Arabs. This anti-Semitic sentiment only grew as the years passed, and in 1959 swastikas were dubbed in major cities like Casablanca and Rabat. Four years earlier a Zionist underground organization was created to illegally smuggle Moroccan Jews out of the country, because in 1956 their efforts to emigrate were banned by the government. As the years passed more and more Jews moved from Morocco to Israel, and by the 90s, the Jewish population in Morocco was down to 6,000.(2)

This proved to be one of the biggest migrations of Jews to Israel. They fled there because of their Jewish identity, yet once there, that is not the only identity they held on to. The Eastern European Jews, or Ashkenazim, had established their dominant position in society by subordinating the North African and Eastern Jews, or Mizrahim. This was a divide between eastern and western Jews; a classic orientalist perspective. Since Moroccan Jews fell under the category of Mizrahim, they did not get as many social and economic benefits as the Ashkenazim. This must have felt strange to the Moroccan Jewish identity, which also connects to the Sephardic Jewish identity. At one point in history the Jews living in Morocco relied on their western heritage to gain a higher position in the Moroccan social ladder, and deliberately separated themselves from the existing Amazigh/Berber Jews. Now it was happening to them, and they werent sure how to handle it.

As a result, they didnt exactly isolate themselves as they were isolated in Morocco by the government and society, but rather they enhanced a sort of sense of community in order to strengthen themselves from within. It brought back to them the memories of success in Morocco and how prominent the roles they played in business and trade and society, and thus it allowed them to draw from their Sephardic roots and separate themselves from the orientalist label Eastern European Jews were sticking to their foreheads. So it is not just the Moroccan culture and identity that Moroccan Jews in Israel were clinging to, but also the Sephardic identity that made them so prosperous in Morocco upon their initial migration there from Spain in 1492 after the Reconquista.

In order to fully understand the community of the Moroccan Jews in Israel, two essential factors must be taken into account:

The First factor: one needs to recognize how Jews were living in Morocco before they migrated to Israel. They had a deep history of culture in Morocco that they heavily influenced, and despite generally favorable treatment from the government, they had always been the other in the social setting, whether it be through physical isolation in the mellahs,(3) political isolation through dhimmi status,(4) or social isolation through Arab discrimination. Despite these factors they blossomed as a culture and community, and when they left they took remnants of their culture with them.

The second factor: in need of recognition is the mental status of Jews already in Israel. This brings up the fear of Orientalism gripping Israeli subconscious, and the fear of anything that is not western. This found the Moroccan Jews at the lower end of the social ladder, and thus affected the way they interacted with society and the different cultural ties they drew from their low status. Actually, the reason for their attachment to Moroccan culture and identity is due not only to the fact that they are once again being isolated and thus their community became more dependent on their similar cultural roots, but also because they want to look back to their prosperous roles in Morocco as businessmen and traders and artisans and such in order to push their way up the social ladder.

The Jews had established a sizable population, and respect in the region, when the second Jewish immigrant population arrived to Morocco after their expulsion from Spain during the Inquisition in the late fifteenth century.(5) These Jews contributed to the groundwork that their predecessors had laid, and became prominent in business and government. Yet when tensions increased in the middle of the twentieth century, many Jews decided to leave Morocco, their home of so many centuries and generations.

Now, Moroccan Jews find themselves in a new kind of diaspora, far from their adopted Homeland with its unique culture and practices, even though some of them may be in Israel, their religious Homeland. Many major challenges faced outright Moroccan Israeli immigrants, highlighting social, economic, religious, and political issues. In Israel, Moroccans faced discrimination and spiritual conflicts.

The overlying issue in the case of Moroccan Israelis is a case of identity: where in Morocco, Moroccan Jews were defined by their Judaism, they are now distinguished in Israel by their ethnicity. This shift in self-definition, from religious distinctions to ethnic differentiation, has made Moroccan Israelis a minority within this new homeland, as the new narrative of Jews, since the foundation of Israel, is one dominated by Ashkenazi history, while Sephardic heritage is left by the wayside, not to say debased.

This narrative has shifted over the years, and old Moroccan practices are now on the rise in Israel, yet the damage done by Israeli racism, and the streamlining of Jewish history to the detriment of Moroccan Jews, seems to be enduring, although only time will tell if Moroccan heritage will be reborn fully.

Henriette Dahan-Kalev talks about her experience of a Jewish child from Morocco in a Camp in Israel and the discrimination she endured from the Asheknazi she had to deal with at an early age:(6)

You are so prettyyou dont look Moroccan. I grew up hearing this sentence from the time my parents brought me from Morocco in 1949 to the immigrant camp Shaar Aliyah and to the Maabara [transit camp] Pardes Chana. I heard it from the white uniformed nurse, who came to our tent in the immigrant camp to tell my mother how she should raise me, my sister, and my baby brother, who was born in that tent. This nurse spoke of raising children as if it was something Zionists invented. The tall silver-haired Yekke [German Jew] kindergarten teacher also used this sentence. This teacher then took my nameHenriettefrom me and gave me in its place the awful name Ahuva. She did this because Henriette is difficult to pronounceboth for me and the other children.

Upon immigration to the Israel, Moroccans faced discrimination, as they found themselves outside of the ideal narrative of European Zionism. Zionists found themselves torn, since their ideology, being essentially nationalist, in principle required complete equality among the descendants of various Jewish edot, or ethnic groups.(7) In order to make a legitimate claim to a state, Zionists had to maintain that Jewish nationalism applied to all Jews, who shared a common history and destiny.

This ideology, however, was written from the perspective of European Jews, whose diasporic history actually diverged greatly from their brethren in the East. Yet a state shares a common historical heritage, and thus such differences ought not be acknowledged, so as to not weaken the argument for the naturalness of a Jewish State. The claim must be based upon unity of the national group.(8) On the other hand, European Zionists were also influenced by colonialism, which stressed the differences among groups of people living in the same, non-European, area and posited an inflexible hierarchical order. (9) Therefore, the stage was set for interethnic conflict, with the Ashkenazi elite maintaining their dominance over the Sephardic immigrants, while outwardly denying any differentiation amongst Jews.

Unfortunately, the first wave of Moroccan immigration did nothing to alleviate this ideological conflict, since these immigrants were from the lowest classes of Morocco. Not only did these classes have the least to lose, and the most to gain, from a new country, but also the wealthy elite, from Morocco, were reluctant to leave behind their wealth due to risky political conditions.

At the time of Israels founding, Morocco was still under the rule of the French, who barred emigration and raised obstacles for Jews who tried to leave for any destination whatsoever, and therefore bourgeois families were more reluctant to leave than the poor Moroccan Jews, who undertook the illegal emigration, having no property or business to lose and more to gain from a new homeland. (10)

Therefore, Moroccans, and their Sephardim counterparts, were not only ethnically and culturally distinct from Ashkenazim, but also were economically inferior and had an overall lower level of education. As undesirable as Moroccans were to the Ashkenazi nationals, their immigration was not to be stopped, since it helped bolster the Jewish demographic lead over Arabs in the region, and such an action would contradict Zionisms united, nationalist ideology on the international stage. As such, the stage was set for discrimination, as these lower-class Jews disrupted the Ashkenazi Zionists dream and cultural eiquette, but there was no way to stop their immigration.

Faced with this concern, the early, Ashkenazi-only government had to attempt to change Sephardim, and bring them closer to Israeli culture, which was Ashkenazi culture established by the original Zionist settlers. According to a 1949 Haaretz article, written by Aryeh Gelblum, immigrants from North Africa pose a serious and threatening question, as they were a people whose primitiveness sets a record, their level of education borders on ignorance. (11)

Aryeh Gelblum stated in the same article that:(12)

In the corners of the living quarters of the Africans you will find the filth, card games played for money, residents getting drunk, and prostitution. The Africans bring this way of life with them when they migrate, and it is no wonder that crime in the country is on the upswing. Young women and even young men are again not safe going out on the streets alone after dark.

In order to ignore the nationalist problem that such an ethnicity perceived as inferior and culture posed to their nationalist ideology, Moroccans were pushed into the underbelly of society by Israeli bureaucratic systems, outside of the legislature, so as to not be officially discriminatory. Moroccans were directed by Israeli government officials to new villages and development towns then being established in outlying regions of Israeli territory, where their housing was poor, [and] they earned relatively low incomes from unskilled and semi-skilled work, which, again, reinforced the negative stereotypes already in place. (13)

Moroccan Jews, who had come to this Homeland in search of a better life, found overcrowded Sephardi ghettos, discrimination against non-Ashenazim at the employment lines, and a lack of secondary school education in many of their communities.(14) As such, Moroccans, who had been an oppressed minority in Morocco for their religion, now found themselves as an oppressed minority in Israel for their ethnicity.

The bureaucratic discrimination that the Ashkenazi elite set upon Moroccan immigrants was reinforced in daily culture and the educational system. In textbooks in early Israeli schools, Sephardim were described as dirty, poor, contagious with infectious diseases, spiritually impotent, lacking in moral capacity, ignorant, violent, and lazy .(15) Only Ashkenazi history was taught in schools, as the nationalist narrative of Zionism only left room for one Israeli culture, without the incorporation of the diverse traditions that Sephardim carried with them.

Moroccan students were left with an educational and cultural system that squashed everything and left no room for any self- development outside of that of a distorting Ashkenazi, Zionist, Israeli, and European hegemony.(16) In addition to the streamlined, biased narrative implicit in early Israeli educational systems, several academics took on the Moroccan problem.

Academic studies, such as those notably conducted by the Ashkenazi Karl Fuerstein in his book The Children of the MelahThe Cultural Retardation among Moroccan Children and Its Meaning in Education,(17) served to prove the inferiority of Moroccan Jews, which purportedly proved retardation of one to two years, and very often even more, in comparison with youth of similar age in Europe. (18)

Faced with oppression imbedded in the Israeli bureaucracy and educational system, many Moroccans dealt with internal identity conflicts, as they struggled to fit into an Israeli society that pushed them to the margins. Both the educational system and the academic studies of the inferiority of Sephardim highlight the Ashkenazi self-conscious need to establish superiority, as their history is the one worthy of history books, and their ethnicity is the one worthy of higher intelligence.

As Moroccans faced prejudice in their Israeli Homeland, many fired back in social and political protests, changing the path of Moroccan-Israeli history. In the early 1970s, a group of Moroccan Israeli youth came together to form the Black Panthers of Israel, a group inspired by the American Civil Rights Movement. (19) The Black Panthers claimed that Ashkenazi elite had committed a crime in their efforts to destroy the culture of an entire people, and thereby rendering [them] without culture and without faithsuspended in a cultureless vacuum. (20)

On this particular point, Ella Shohat (21) wrote:(22)

Prenant peu peu conscience du caractre politique de leur infriorit , les militants des Black Panthers torpillrent le mythe du melting pot en dmontrant que ltat juif abritait non pas un seul mais deux peuples.

[Gradually becoming aware of the political nature of their inferiority, Black Panther activists torpedoed the myth of the melting pot by demonstrating that the Jewish state was home to not one but two peoples.]

While the Panthers began in the slums of Jerusalem, they gained popularity amongst large groups of Sephardim, as they ripped open an ethnic conflict that had been obvious, but left unsaid throughout the States history. (23) Although they disbanded quickly, their outspoken protests spurred increased consciousness of the issues faced by Moroccan immigrants and other Sephardim.

Their social movements pressured the Israeli government to increase welfare funding and engendered a renewed sense of communal pride among Sephardim, whose activists still look to the Panthers for inspiration.(24) While there is still a clear socioeconomic division between Ashkenazim and Sephardim in Israel, Moroccans continue to make progress, touting a growing number of Israeli-Moroccan mayors and Knesset members . (25)

In 1977, Moroccan, and other Sephardi support helped to overthrow the Ashkenazi political elite, and push the Likud party into power. Although Moroccan status is certainly on the rise, their culture seems to be irreversibly damaged, and they continue to make up a significant portion of the lower class. The social and political repression also leaked into the Israeli spiritual sphere, as Moroccan Judaism was repressed, but, like Moroccan sociopolitical status, is seeing regrowth.

From a country where religious life was intertwined with all public spheres to a state that claimed Western culture and valued secularism, while repressing Eastern culture, many Moroccan Jews felt that they had to choose between their Judaism and their Moroccan heritage. In their new homeland, religious Moroccan Jews had to confront the split between secularism and religion even as they are torn from their cultures, and, most significantly find a place in an Israeli society which positioned itself as fundamentally opposed to any hint of the Arab world. (26)

Faced with such a choice between their regional history and their religious identity, many Sephardim chose to to embrace Ashkenazic Orthodoxy in an effort to keep their families from becoming too assimilated into secular cultures, and to keep their traditional practices alive, practices which many early Israelis did not follow.(27)

Henriette Dahan-Kalev,(28) a Moroccan Jew who immigrated to Israel as a child, exemplifies this point. Upon her familys arrival in Israel, her mother became a maid. (29) After her first day of work on an elite Israeli home, Dahan-Kalevs mother was appalled by the complete disregard for Kashrut amongst the bourgeois. When she arrived home, she proclaimed to her family, Theyre not Jewish! since they do not uphold on of the most sacred of Jewish laws. (30)

Moroccans traditionalism and culture were both foreign, and deemed inferior, to that of the secular Ashkenazi Zionists. Faced with a struggle to preserve their Moroccan Judaism as they had once known it, many Moroccans fell into step with the Ashkenazi Orthodox community, especially in response to aggressive outreach from Ashkenazi Orthodox communities toward the Sephardi immigrants. Regardless of these challenges, Sephardim were often unable to continue their own practices in Sephardic synagogues anyway, since they failed to find a critical mass of people able to support such an establishment.(31) European Israelis chose to marginalize Moroccans along the lines of ethnicity, so Moroccans countered by holding on to their religiosity, in absence of their rich, ancient culture.

Social discrimination forced Moroccan Jewish religious practice to the fringe, but, like their political and economic status, Moroccans have attempted to recover and bolster their unique religion. Although many rituals were lost upon their conversion to the European Orthodox community, some Moroccan Jews have continued to hold onto their traditions. In recent years, have spawned innovations to bring practices from their Homeland of old to their current Homeland. After their emigration, Moroccans were ripped away from their multitude of sacred spaces.

Their change in physical space led to a painful separation from the saints whose tombs had been left behind, as sainthood, and worship at tombs of such important personages, was a pivotal aspect of the distinct Moroccan Jewish practice.(32) Following the Jews departure from Morocco, hagiolatry underwent a process of diminution and decentralization without these central spaces of worship. To pray with the aid of a saint, a Moroccan Jew ought to pay homage to the burial site. While such practices did not completely disappear, their practice was reduced into small-size, domestic affairs, moderately celebrated at home or in the neighborhood synagogue.(33)

The faithful attempted to adapt and adjust their hagiolatry practices, but, in the absence of the actual space, such rituals were less observed.(34) Although they had faced a sharp decline, the incorporation of saints into Moroccan practice has been on the rise. Moroccan Jews have incorporated more saints into the fold, including some who lived and died in Israel, paving the way for new shrines and holy sites. Furthermore, some significant saintly tombs have been annexed into Israel, either via physical movement of the tomb, or via a recreation of the site.(35)

As such, hagiolatry practices have been preserved despite the new physical distance from the crucial point of worship.(36) This rebirth of Moroccan Jewish practice has received opposing remarks, as some have hailed it as a praiseworthy manifestation of authentic Jewish Maghrebi cultural traditions, heretofore shunned and suppressed by the hegemonic Ashkenazi mainstream, while others have declared the revival as a symptom of backwardness and de-modernization which would eventfully lead to the disasporization of Israel.(37) Although Moroccans gain a sense of identity in strength in political, economic, and religious spheres, there is still much forward movement to be made, to make up for the damage of the early States prejudice.

The plight of Moroccan Jews at the outset of their time in Israel is reflective of the frequent contradictions and issues within a political philosophy and the policies to which a state commits on paper and in its speech. The very existence of Moroccan Jews undermined a large part of Zionist ideology. This theory was based on the common history and suffering of Jews throughout the world. Yet the definition of a Jew could not be religious, since many European Jews were fully assimilated into their host cultures, and, thusly, were fairly secular.

The founding principles of Zionism were based in history and politics, and were not always religious in creed. Therefore, the commonality by which Jews could lay claim to a state was their shared ethnicity. Under this guise, secular Jews, who were endangered along with the religious, could fit into the Israeli narrative. Yet if Jews are to be an ethnicity, then Moroccans, and their fellow Sephardi, pose a significant problem, as they are very obviously racially and ethnically distinct. Zionism had to ignore this distinction. To erase the tension bore by such contradictions between the stated Zionist ideology and the actual demographics of worldwide Jewry, Israelis had to absorb the Sephardi into their cultural and religious circle.

The path by which Ashkenazi elite chose to address this problem was with bureaucratic and social prejudice, influenced by the European Colonialism, a prominent ideology in the regions from which they fled. Yet Middle Eastern and North African Jews posed an even grander problem to the founders of Israel, as they hoped to posit themselves with an identity unique and distinct from their Arab neighbors. The fact that there are Jews of Arab descent is impossible, since the concept of an Arab Jew is a paradox. Therefore, Moroccans and other Jews from Arab nations posed a threat to Israeli common identity, as defined against their regional aggressors. Moroccans had to be forced to abandon their foreign, and especially their Arab, distinguishers, religion, and ties, and assimilate into European Jewish culture, in order prove the legitimacy of the Zionist call to the shared identity of Jews throughout the world.

In conclusion, Moroccan Jews are so attached to their culture while living in Israel not only because they are somewhat singled out by the dominant Ashkenazim living there, but also because they are relying on their Sephardic identity to hike their way back up the social ladder. This shows that they arent withdrawing into their culture, but are rather proudly practicing their culture because they know how successful they were, and they are proud of it. Thus, Moroccan Jewish culture in Israel will continue to flourish in light of the internal separation that has and is still occurring within Israeli society.

You can follow Professor Mohamed Chtatou on twitter: @Ayurinu

Endnotes:

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Moroccan Jews In Israel: Discrimination In The New Homeland Analysis Eurasia Review - Eurasia Review

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Posted By admin on August 31, 2021

It was September 1821 when a small group of Cincinnatians dedicated the first Jewish cemetery west of the Allegheny Mountains in what is now the city's West End. A few years later, they founded the city's first Jewish synagogue.

Two centuries later, Cincinnati is gearing up for a momentous, 15-month celebration of the city's significant Jewish heritage called The Jewish Cincinnati Bicentennial. That history includes a number of prominent figures and the founding of Reform Judaism right here in the Queen City. The series of festivities and events is aimed at underscoring the contribution Jewish immigrants and immigrants and minorities as a whole have made and continue to make in Greater Cincinnati.

Joining Cincinnati Edition to talk about the city's storied relationship with Judaism and the plethora of events planned to mark its 200th anniversary are Jewish Cemeteries of Greater Cincinnati Executive Director David Harris and Jewish Cincinnati Bicentennial Co-Chair Tamara Harkavy.

Listen toCincinnati Editionlive at noon M-F. Audio for this segment will be uploaded after 4 p.m. ET.

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Cincinnati Will Celebrate 200 Years Of Judaism Here Next Month - WVXU

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Posted By admin on August 31, 2021

Up until he was in middle school and even older, Jacob Churchbourne had never played lacrosse as a sport or knew his family had Jewish heritage.

Now the two will take him halfway across the globe in a few weeks.

Churchbourne never played lacrosse for his high school, and he had one limited year of club lacrosse at N.C. State University, but now he is going to play the sport internationally in a program to grow the sport as a part of the Israel Lacrosse Association this fall.

I was just looking for an opportunity to keep playing and I found out about the Israel Lacrosse Association and how I could connect with my Jewish heritage and grow the game in Israel, he said. I jumped at the chance.

First introduced to the sport in middle school through a family friend, Churchbourne was looking for something to play when hockey was out of season. What he found was his new passion.

Churchbourne was an original member of the Sandhills Lacrosse Association that led the way to his alma mater, Union Pines, starting a NCHSAA-sanctioned girls lacrosse team and a boys team set to play this coming spring.

The COVID-19 pandemic cut his only season on the N.C. State club team short. After graduating from Union Pines in 2019 with several Sandhills Community College credits, Churchbourne graduated in a year and a half from N.C. State with a degree in sports management and was looking for more in terms of lacrosse.

It piqued my interest and this past year as I was graduating, I was looking for an opportunity. Then I came across a link on their website where they were running a gap year program, Churchbourne said. I get to experience the country and learn some life skills.

Churchbourne said that it wasnt until recent years that he learned of his Jewish heritage. He took a trip to Israel this past summer his first trip ever outside of the country as a part of a program that allows college students to go for 10 days and experience the country and the culture.

Jacob Churchbourne takes part in an Israel Lacrosse Association event during his time with the program this summer. The Vass native will be going to Israel for a six-month program in October to help grow the game in Israel.

Thats when he got his first taste of the Israel Lacrosse Association.

Just being able to head back to Israel and grow the game of lacrosse is something Im really passionate about, Churchbourne said. Especially with kids in underprivileged communities to give them the opportunity to play, and be introduced to something that builds you up and allows you to connect with other people.

To be able to tell my kids one day what I did over there means a lot to me.

Now accepted into a six-month program where he will help grow the sport of lacrosse in Israel, Churchbourne is raising funds to pay for his travel and stay. He will leave for Israel in September and begin Oct. 1 with the six-month engagement.

Through this experience, he hopes that his degree path and time spent there could lead to more with him and the association.

Jacob is the son of Chris and Leigh Churchbourne. His sister, Caroline, plays for the Union Pines girls lacrosse team.

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Posted By admin on August 31, 2021

Bernardo Pulido spent over $29,000 on genealogical documentation, Jewish heritage certificates, attorney fees and trips to Spain to prove his Sephardic heritage.

But last month, like so many others attempting to gain Spanish citizenship througha 2015 lawpromising to right the wrongs of the Spanish Inquisition that expelled Jews, Pulido received a rejection letter from the Spanish government.

Pulido, a 61-year-old engineer from Caracas, Venezuela, drew a parallel between the decision and the Inquisition, which forced many of his ancestors to flee in 1492, fearing for their lives. For Venezuelans, a Spanish passport represents a way out of a country in the midst of a deep economic and humanitarian crisis. He plans on appealing the rejection.

It hurts me a lot because we have complied with all the requirements and followed the law. Many lawyers have told me that how the law is being applied to us now is illegal, he said.

Newly published citizenship data from Spains Justice Ministry reveals that just in the last quarter alone, 2,276 applications were turned down compared to a total of three before this year.

Of the 150,000 total applications that have been submitted since 2015, 33,485 people have been granted citizenship to date. Only about 6,000 have been accepted in the past quarter. Applicants from Venezuela, Colombia and Mexico have been severely affected.

The sudden shift, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency has learned, is driven by a fear of fraud and is the product of what some experts say are retroactively implemented bureaucratic standards for applications. The Spanish government denies any changes in the application process.

To be eligible for a Spanish passport, applicants have to put forward evidence of medieval Sephardic ancestry through heritage certificates and family trees. They also have to demonstrate special links to Spain and Spanish language skills through tests.

Aninternal noticeissued by Spains General Directorate of Legal Safety and Public Trust indicates a change in the interpretation of the law took effect last October. Previously, government notaries were the first intermediary for applicants, sending applications along to government officials or directing applicants to gather more materials. Since October, government officials have stepped in, rejecting applications previously approved by the notaries and not providing applicants a chance to submit further documentation before issuing a rejection letter.

Additionally, Spains Ministry of Justice had previously approved many applications with Sephardic heritage certificates from organizations such as theUnion Sefaradi Mundialand theJewish Federation of New Mexico. Today, the ministry is only accepting certificates issued by the Federation of Jewish Communities of Spain, whichceasedissuing them on July 31 so that they could get through a backlog of applications. (The federation is for the time still issuing certificates to Sephardim who have been living in Spain for at least two years and wish to apply for Spanish citizenship on the basis of residence but that is something they have done since the 1990s.)

The government was previously approving lots of cases with the very same certificates and documentation that are being denied now, said David Arevalillo de la Torre, a lawyer from Madrid who is currently handling hundreds of rejection cases.

The Spanish Law of Return, as it is sometimes nicknamed, has also closed its new application window entirely for the near future. It will need parliamentary approval to be reopened.

In a statement to JTA, the ministry denied any change in the way the law is being interpreted but said that they are cracking down on suspected fraud perpetrated by some applicants. According to a recentarticlein El Pais daily, a police report sent to the ministry at the end of 2018 alerted it to the existence of a criminal organization behind alleged fraud.

The grounds for denial may be varied and different in each case, the Federation of Jewish Communities of Spain wrote in an email to JTA. There is no common typology through which the files are denied. What we can assure is that, after six years of collaboration with the Ministry of Justice, the work carried out has been rigorous and professional at all times.

Sometimes a federation certificate is not enough, as in the case of Carlos Rizzo of Venezuela, whose mother and aunt, both senior citizens, both saw their federation-backed applications denied last month. Rizzo is one of a significant number of applicants now appealing rejections for themselves and for family members.

I have no choice but to appeal until the very end. This is an injustice in every sense of the word, Rizzo said.

Applicants have one month to appeal after receiving a rejection letter. After that, the Spanish government has up to 90 days to give an official reply. But several attorneys involved in the process said that appeals often go completely unanswered.

If their appeal is answered and rejected, applicants can sue the government as a last-ditch effort to gain citizenship. The appeal process leads to additional lawyer fees, since individuals cannot legally file the appeals by themselves.

It is only after an administrative appeal that the applicant can go to litigation before the Supreme Court, Arevalillo de la Torre explained.

There is another option for those fleeing desperate situations: Portugal passeda similar billin 2015, granting citizenship to Sephardic descendants. Data from last year shows that23,000 people have obtained a Portuguese passportthrough the law.

But the Portuguese law is more restrictive because it requires applicants to prove ties with a specifically Portuguese Sephardic community. The smaller Jewish communities of Lisbon and Porto are the only organizations that can approve applications, which must show ties to one of them.

Officials in Washington and Spain have expressed outrage over the wave of Spanish rejections. U.S. House Rep. Teresa Leger Fernandez, a Democrat from New Mexico,raised the issuewith the White House and the State Department.

In Spain, two members of parliament, Valentina Martinez and Pablo Hispan of the conservative Peoples Party, have also asked the government for further explanation, the El Mundo dailyreported. If the current trend continues, experts predict that tens of thousands of applications will be rejected in the coming quarter.

Pulido plans to sue the government if his appeal is neglected or overturned.

In my family we are very disappointed by these decisions. Our intention is to return to Spain, and contribute with our skills and knowledge to their society, he said. I do not understand how there is so much lack of appreciation on the part of the Spanish government.

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Why is Spain suddenly turning down Jewish citizenship requests? J. - The Jewish News of Northern California

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Posted By admin on August 31, 2021

BEACHWOOD, OH The annual Maltz Museum's Stop the Hate program launched this month.

The program distributes approximately $100,000 to Northeast Ohio students in grades 6-12 and their schools. The theme for this year's contest is courage, as inspired by Cambodian-born human rights activist, author and Cleveland resident Loung Ung, who once said, "Courage is when you dare to be yourself, in whatever ways you want to be - to not be afraid, to just do it."

This year, the program has expanded to include free online museum tours of the Maltz Museum of Jewish Heritage and school classroom workshops. Students taking part in workshops will:

A virtual information session on the program will be held Sept. 13 at 7 p.m. via Zoom. Representatives from the Maltz Museum, Lake Erie Ink and Roots of American Music will explain how to participate in Stop the Hate, as a school or student.

Session attendees will also hear from the 2021 Education of the Year, Kari Beery of Mayfield Schools, and from contest finalists, and will learn about tours, workshops and the contests. There will be a question-and-answer session.

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Stop The Hate Program Launches, Will Give Away $100K - Patch.com

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Posted By admin on August 29, 2021

The lawyer for the man accused of repeatedly stabbing a rabbi in broad daylight last month outside a Jewish day school in Brighton said he is very sick.

He is a very ill individual, Janice Bassil said Thursday at Khaled Awads Suffolk Superior Court arraignment on nine indictments, including violating Rabbi Shlomo Noginskis constitutional rights.

Awad, 24, previously was arrested in Florida on a minor charge and found to be incompetent to stand trial, Bassil said.

Suffolk Superior Court Judge Diane Freniere scheduled a Sept. 28 hearing to determine whether he is too dangerous to be released on bail or certain conditions.

Bassil entered not guilty pleas on Awads behalf to armed assault with intent to murder, aggravated assault and battery by means of a dangerous weapon (a knife), assault by means of a dangerous weapon (a gun), assault and battery for the purpose of intimidation resulting in bodily injury, violating an individuals constitutional rights, two counts of assault by means of a dangerous weapon and two counts of carrying a dangerous weapon on school grounds.

Assistant District Attorney Ursula Knight gave a harrowing account of the July 1 attack, which began when Awad approached the rabbi outside the Jewish day school as a childrens camp was underway. The victims style of dress made him identifiable as a Hasidic Jew, and a large menorah on the schools grounds made clear that the institution was affiliated with Judaism, Knight said.

Awad allegedly drew a weapon that appeared to be a gun and made what the rabbi interpreted to be a demand for the keys to the school van, she said. When the rabbi attempted to hand over the keys, Awad instead motioned for him to get into the van, Knight said.

Awad then put away the weapon and pulled out a knife, she said. The rabbi fled to a nearby park, she said, and the defendant chased after him, even into traffic, stabbing him nine times, most significantly to the left side of the chest, near the heart, as well as to the rabbis left arm, used to defend himself against the fury of the repeated slashing.

Witnesses called 911, and officers found Awad minutes later in a nearby alleyway, where he brandished a gun at them, Knight said. The officers convinced him to drop his weapon, and he was taken into custody after a struggle.

In addition to the clear depiction of the physical attack, she said, evidence developed in the aftermath clearly indicated the defendants motive was hate.

People who knew him told investigators he hated Jews, Knight said.

This act of violence nearly killed the victim, Suffolk District Attorney Rachael Rollins said Wednesday. But it also traumatized the entire Jewish community and deeply impacted the people of Brighton.

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Man accused of stabbing rabbi in Brighton is very sick, his attorney said - Boston Herald

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Posted By admin on August 29, 2021

Rabbi Sheldon Lewis wasnt planning on writing a seventh book during the pandemic. But a virtual reunion he attended put him in a reflective state of mind.

Lewis, rabbi emeritus of Congregation Kol Emeth in Palo Alto, has just published Letters Home: A Jewish Chaplains Vietnam Memoir. Based on letters he wrote to his wife, Lorri, and reel-to-reel tapes he kept for 50 years, the book is a reconstruction of his service during a war he adamantly opposed, even if some memories have faded over the years.

Being retired and the confluence of the 50th anniversary of this incident, and being mostly shut in during this period, definitely gave me purpose, said Lewis, who will soon turn 80. I felt a surge of energy and it seemed the time was ripe for it.

He didnt feel that way when he came home from the war.

There were reasons for leaving it behind, he said. Part of the reason was we came back to a very indifferent if not hostile homecoming, and I didnt think people wanted to hear about it.

The incident Lewis is referring to, one that had a deep impact, was a November 1970 bedside visit with Lloyd Kantor, a Jewish soldier who had lost both legs, both arms and one eye and suffered other wounds in an explosion that killed several others.

The visit was at the request of Kantor, someone Lewis had met several times in his chaplaincy work. Lewis traveled to see him at an evacuation hospital at the U.S. coastal base in Chu Lai, Vietnam.

The bedside meeting with Kantor has stayed with Lewis as a reminder of how many dreams were truncated or completely cut off, he said. Its true of every war, but particularly in a war that was avoidable and was morally so indefensible to have had that kind of terrible price. Its very hard to witness that.

The two men stayed in touch over the years, and Kantors wife, Loretta, had been planning an in-person reunion for several of the men from her husbands unit when Covid hit. So the reunion took place virtually instead.

Before Lewis arrived in Vietnam in June 1970, he was taking part in anti-war demonstrations in New York City, where he was studying with Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel at the Jewish Theological Seminary. Reconciliation has been a lifelong interest and topic of his books, both for adults and for children.

Despite Lewis personal misgivings about the war, and the fact that he could have been exempted from the draft because of his status as a clergy student, he felt compelled to enlist in June 1969. He ended up serving for two years, one of them in Vietnam.

I knew most of the Jews who were there were drafted. It was not something they chose, he said. I knew intuitively that they wouldnt believe in this mission and this war, and that weighed on me. Although I could be exempt as a clergy student, they couldnt, and they deserved to have a Jewish presence there.

Serving also meant a personal sacrifice, as Lewis had to be apart from his wife early in their marriage.

The memoir goes through the months of the Jewish calendar, with descriptions of how the enlisted men observed the holidays, so far from home and anything familiar. Especially moving is Lewis account of their Sukkot celebration. A master carpenter who helped Lewis build a sukkah was a German who served during World War II and had been shot down by the Americans. He re-enlisted in the German military 30-odd years later to help the American war effort in Vietnam because he remembered how humanely he had been treated as a prisoner of war.

In addition to offering the comfort of Jewish traditions, Lewis said that most often, he felt his role was to provide a sympathetic ear for the roughly 500 Jewish men (and a few women) whom he met as he traveled through Vietnam, and who were just trying to survive.

Listening to them one-on-one was the most important part of my work, he said.

Despite the personal sacrifices he made, Lewis said, I never felt more needed in my life. I have felt needed in the community, but never more than I felt needed there.

Originally posted here:

Rabbi recounts heartrending year in Vietnam in new memoir J. - The Jewish News of Northern California

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