Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By admin on August 23, 2021

RANDOLPH TWP. On the recent Jewish holiday of Shavuot, Sunday, May 16, Rabbi Avraham Bekhor, the beloved rabbi of Chabad of Randolph, was hit by a car on Sussex Road in the middle of the night.

The driver fled, leaving the rabbi lying on the side of the dark highway, grievously injured. After he was rescued by a young woman who called the emergency services, Rabbi Bekhor was admitted to the hospital to undergo several procedures to reconstruct his shattered body and begin his road to recovery.

After Rabbi Avraham Bekhor was left with devastating injuries after a hit and run accident on the first night of the holiday of Shavuot, his Chabad of Randolph community came together and launched a Mitzvah-drive to honor their rabbi and to inspire him in his recovery, Chabad of Randolph spokesman Tzali Reicher said in a release issued Thursday, Aug. 12.

Rabbi Bekhor was hit at the end of May, and has been slowly recovering since, Reicher said.

He was walking alone after escorting a group of visiting rabbinical students, and was left alone on the dark highway after he was hit. The driver has still not been apprehended, he said.

His community took the initiative to honor his commitment to inspiring the Randolph community, and all Rabbi Bekhor has touched in his 20 years in town to participate in grassroots Do a Mitzvah campaign, in which just 100 people and families joined in. The rabbi was deeply moved by this gift, and has said it has helped as he slowly recovers from his injuries, which spanned his entire body.

In the more than 20 years that he has been serving the Randolph community, typically Rabbi Bakhor does the inspiring and uplifting of others, according to Reicher.

But in the last month, its clear that he has inspired others to in the community to lead, and they have been truly moving him by launching a mitzvah (good deed) campaign and encouraging communal growth and unity as a tribute to their beloved, injured rabbi, Reicher said.

Knowing that Rabbi Bekhors birthday was going to be a mere 10 days after his accident, community member Netanya Cohen launched a Do a Mitzvah for Rabbi campaign together with her family, to encourage fellow Randolph residents to take on a positive resolution and good deed in his honor.

They launched a website, encouraged people in their circles to take on a good deed and organized a pop-up stand outside the local ACME to invite people to participate in their campaign.

She couldnt have imagined how enthusiastic and excited the response would be.

From the moment the project was conceived, we were overwhelmed by all those who have wanted to celebrate and give back to Rabbi Bekhor after his years of service to the community, said Cohen. From laying tefillin, lighting Shabbat candles and doing an additional act of kindness, so many community members came together to do something positive in our beloved rabbis honor.

Participants sent in videos of them performing their chosen mitzvah, and organizers created a touching montage that was shared with the rabbi on his birthday. Bekhor says that the campaign has invigorated him as he continues his recovery from his injuries, and motivated him to come back even stronger than before.

In the weeks since the accident, in the spirit of greater growth, plans have been made to renovate Chabad of Randophs center.

This accidentwhich could have turned out so much worse than it did, thank Godhas given me the chance to take stock of all I have done in my time on this earth, and all that we want to leave as our legacy, he said.

We are going to use this difficult and dark chapter as the impetus for greater positivity and increased growth, harnessing the dedication, support and commitment of our beautiful community to push us to even greater heights.

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Area Rabbi struck by car; congregation bands, forms 'good deeds' drive - New Jersey Hills

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Posted By admin on August 23, 2021

My father was a reform rabbi in Mount Vernon, New York, a city that, in the 1950s, had a railroad line splitting it in half. On one side lived mostly white people including the Jews; on the other side were peoples of various minorities including African-American.

In 2004, I was hired to make a movie about the riots in Crown Heights that happened in 1991. I traveled to Brooklyn to begin my research and as I walked Eastern Parkway, the major thorough are in Crown Heights, I found a similar situation: on one side of the street were the Lubavitch Hasidic Jews centered around 770, the home of the last Lubavitch Rebbe. On the other side of the street lived African-American many of them Caribbean. Crossing back-and-forth felt like crossing over a border between two different countries. Id been here before doing research about the Hasidic community itself for a film I also wrote and directed based on Chaim Potoks famous novel The Chosen. But this time I was meeting a variety of people on both sides of the street, people who had been there during those three hot summer days of violence.

I talked with youth and elders and leaders of both communities including rabbis and pastors. And the differing ways that people responded to the same questions revealed their suspicions and judgments of each other. One African-American pastor said he believed the Jews got better treatment by the city then did his community. Many Hasids said they believed that their Black neighbors were more inclined to violence. Though both of these conclusions can be challenged, one truth is that both communities struggle with poverty issues. And some locals held the perspective that neither was getting preferential treatment, and they were open to learn about and live with each other.

I found these interviews so powerful in revealing cultural conflicts and solutions that I made a separate documentary as well as the narrative feature. Both were shown on Showtime.

Courtesy of Jeremy Kagan

Cast Photo: Mario Van Peebles, Jeremy Blackman, Dequain Henderson, Howie Mandel in Crown Heights.

The Showtime executive at the time was Jerry Offsay, and wisely, he chose an African-American woman Toni Ann Johnson to write the script. And here I was, the American Jew who would produce and direct it. The story we decided to tell was based on the work of two men in both communities who were dealing with young people. Dr. (David) Laz, a dynamic rabbi, composer, and musician was a Lubavitch youth leader; we cast Howie Mandel in the role. African-American youth leader Richard Green was portrayed by Mario Van Peebles.

After these three days of horror, Laz and Richard met each other to figure out ways to connect kids from both sides of the street so that they could personally find out about each other, and potentially work and play together. The play together was the most successful, and this varied from sports like basketball to the creation of a musical multi-ethnic group that became popular within the communities representing both sides, singing and hip-hop dancing for peace and tolerance. There are a number of albums like Increase the Peace that are a collection of the songs of Dr. Laz and the Cure.

Before we went into production, I spent time with the two boys, Yudi and TJ, who were members of that band that we based our story on. It was 13 years since the riot, and, of course, they had changed and now were living in different cities. But intermittently they had stayed in touch and every now and then would regroup with Laz to perform. I also kept hearing that despite these efforts, many of the superstitions and fears of both groups were still prevalent. As one rabbi put it, we are here to fix the past not be fixated on the past.

CROWN HEIGHTS - end music.mp4 from Jeremy Kagan on Vimeo.

I knew that the theme of this movie was to show how divergent communities can get together, how they did so even after a violent confrontation. But then the question remained, could this movie suggest ways to continue these connections? We live in a world where instead of recognizing each other as brothers, we look at each other as others. How do we get past the prejudices and see that our very differences often make for fascinating and productive friendships? In the end, or maybe even in the beginning, we all want the same things. As Lubavitch Rebbe Schneerson said, we need to look for what unites us, as there is so much more we have in common. One way to unite people is music. We can listen and be moved by each others sounds, and we can play together.

As I was making the movie, I struggled with how to end it. Even though the coming together of the young people was initially successful, as time moved on, so did they. The band that the boys were part of began to dissolve after its first year, and the boys separated back into their own neighborhoods. I wanted to emphasize that there are continuing possibilities of the connections. But how to do this in the movie? Talking to my girlfriend, a good storyteller, we came up with the idea of a road, something that sometimes separates people, and that became a subway station, and in the film, the boys unexpectedly find each other on opposite sides of the tracks. At first there is little acknowledgment, but then one of them does one of their dance moves, just so slightly and across the tracks, the other one picks it up and the two of them, to the amazement of the subway riders, start to dance together across the divide. It was a powerful and visually effective end.

Before we started to shoot, I had an idea about a musical ending something that would blend the sound of the African American world with the sounds of Jewish culture. My music supervisor friend Joel Sill introduced me to a new composer Aaron Zigman, and I spoke to him about this idea, and Aaron wrote a piece of music, recorded it and brought it to me. I started to listen, and by the end I was weeping. He had created a gospel sounding song performed by an African-American chorus and blended it with the chanting of Sim Shalom and the Shema by the famous Los Angeles cantor Chayim Frenkel.

You have made it very difficult for me, I told Aaron. You have created the essence of this movie bringing these sounds together and this song is so good that I am going to be challenged to make a movie that will deserve it. In fact, that song won the Emmy award the following year. Here is a link to that last scene and the music and the possibility. As the song says, Grant us universal peace and a world of understanding.

Professor Jeremy Kagan is an internationally recognized award winning director/writer/producer of feature films and television and a well-known teacher. He has made many movies about Jewish subjects.

Crown Heights is available from Amazon Prime.

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How one powerful song helped to heal 'Crown Heights' - Forward

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Posted By admin on August 23, 2021

Rabbi B. Elka Abrahamson and Rabbi Misha Zinkow| Special to The Columbus Dispatch

If the sky is clear this evening, look up and you will see the full moon.

In two weeks, as the moon wanes, it will signal that the new Jewish year is about to begin.

On the evening of Sept.6, as we all mark what is widely known as the official end of summer on Labor Day, the Jewish community will gather to celebrate the High Holidays, which begin with Rosh Hashanah. The new year of 5782 will begintwo weeks from now.

During this month known as Elul (pronounced Eh-lool) that precedes the new year, we reflect on the ways in which we have failed to live up to the best that is in us, when and how we have missed the mark. The month of Elul is dedicated to spiritual preparation for the sacred work of personal repair.

The sight of a full moon can inspire awe, and we encourage you to take a good long look at the moons soft and gorgeous light. The cycles of the moon, the suns rising and setting, and the stars nightly appearance in the sky all create a sense of predictability during what we can all agree are volatile times.

The world feels unstable, perilously stretched between the opposite poles of despair and hope, leaving many of us breathless and even exhausted simply trying to stay grounded.

Our physical and mental well-beingsare at risk, and a healthy future for our planet is seriously threatened. Perhaps a good long look at the full moon will remind us not to take the earth itself for granted.

We are not the first to live in a fragile world, and all faith traditions impart insight for anxious souls. We look to ours for guidance.

Jews have endured other dark chapters, and our sages provided us with wisdom for pushing forward. In the late 18th century, a revered Hasidic master, Rabbi Nachman of Breslov, taught that the world is a narrow bridge, and we must not we cannot despair.

Troubling times and fear have cunning ways of blinding us to the presence of God, but only if we so let them. We are, Nachman said, our own worst adversaries when we allow the clutter of our lives and the mounting challenges of our world to obscure the holy that is right before us.

Even when moving along that narrow bridge, we can prevail over our fears when focusing instead on our faith. In each of us lies the spiritual capacity to be grateful for the souls within us and, whats more, to recognize the divine that dwells in other people.

Cultivate faith in yourself, Nachman might have said to us today, and in others. Cut through the encrusted layers that conceal our authentic selves and stifle our relationships. Reach for the light of a more holy, more stable world in partnership with others.

The next new moon marks the arrival of the Hebrew month of Tishri,two weeks from tomorrow. (Rosh Hashanah begins the evening of Sept 6.)

For 10 days the Jewish community will enter an intense period of prayer and personal renewal known as the Ten Days of Repentance. It will begin with the new year the Birthday of the World and conclude with Yom Kippur on the 10th day of the month of Tishri. This is the Day of Atonement (Sept.16), a full day of fasting and communal worship.

These days are dedicated to the seeking and granting of forgiveness for sins committed against others and against God. Such a weighty agenda is tackled with spiritual preparation that began twoweeks ago and continues.

Elul, this very month, is to the new year what a foundation is to a home. In it, we dedicate ourselves to laying the footing for a spiritually stable doorway as we enter a new year. It is a 29-day project that relies on self-examination, an exploration of ones conduct in the past year and turning intentionally outward to repairing relationships with our fellow human beings and with God.

As summer yields slowly to fall, we admire natures exquisite and natural changes. Such effortless change is not so easy for humans. Can we forgive after being hurt? Can we find strength after loss? Can we rebuild after destruction? Can we seek peace where there is strife? Can we listen with empathy and not judgment?

This evenings full moon can light a path forward as we continue to enjoy these shortening summer days. In its light we can each venture forward with good intentions: to discover our own reserve of goodness, kindness, and acceptance.

We have challenges ahead personal and collective ones. Yet let us be blessed to meet them with the faith, audacityand hope that we find in the wisdom of our traditions.

Rabbi B. Elka Abrahamson is president of The Wexner Foundation. She is married to Rabbi Misha Zinkow,retired senior rabbi at Temple Israel whoisnowJourney Builder for Makor Educational Journeys.

Keeping the Faith is a column featuring the perspectives of a variety of faith leaders from the Columbus area.

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Keeping the Faith: Approach of Jewish New Year offers opportunities for reflection, hope - The Columbus Dispatch

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Posted By admin on August 23, 2021

As the COVID-19 pandemic took hold across the globe, emptyingplaces of worship, streaming services came to the rescue for many.

Online streaming served as a lifeline for some people of faith, aspublic health ordersforced places of worship to limit attendance or close entirely.

In light of that, some set up new video camera systems to live stream their services to congregants, or turned to meeting services like Zoom to worship together or evenconnect with othersaround the world.

And while the province has now lifted all of its pandemic restrictions, meaning there are no legallyenforced limits on the number of people allowed to gather, the technology appears to behere to stay.

Some Saskatchewan places of worshipsay that while there was a learning curve, the experience has taught them things they can carry into the future.

While all stressed their preference will always be for in-person gatherings, here'showthey plan to use thetech to help them practice their faithpost-pandemic.

First Baptist Church in Regina not only started streaming its service, but also found a way to include those watching from home.

During services, a Zoom meeting with congregants at home is projected in the church, allowing in-person attendees to see their fellow worshippers.

It looked similar to when sports games broadcastthe gallery view of fans watching, jokedRev. Joel Russell-MacLean.

Before COVID-19, "we hadn't yet made that leap to using streaming services," he said. "But the pandemic forced our hand and it's been pretty rewarding."

Members at home also lead parts of the service such as prayers or scripture readings via Zoom.

The platform also allowed members to connect with a fellow congregant who was terminally ill, and share the last few months of his life with him.

"That was a beautiful and special moment for many of us," saidRussell-MacLean.

"We hadn't been able to pray and worship with them [him and his wife] as a group for years, and COVID forced us into a place where we were using a technology that actually allowed that."

The church plans to continue to stream its services to allow members to pray together and strengthen community relationships.

The pandemic opened the world to virtual connection for a Regina Jewish congregation.

When the pandemic began, Rabbi Avrohom SimmondsofChabad Jewish Centre of Regina had no idea what Zoom was.

Now,his community is using the video communication platform that took off during the pandemicto host guest speakers from around the world.

Before, he said, getting a guest speaker from abroad would involve flying them into Regina.

"We've done that a few times, but of course it's very costly to do that.Now [Zoom] allowed us to tap into a much larger resource," he said.

Chabad Jewish Centrealso started offering virtual Torah classes. While in-person classes have recently resumed, they'll also continue tobe streamed online for members who can't attend.

Simmonds said community members are excited about having virtual access when they can't come in person.

The experience has beena reminder to think outside the box about howto engage with members who may be feeling isolated, he said.

"It makes me feelgreat knowing there is thisadditional resource I never even thought of before."

The Sikh Society of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon set up a two-camera video system inside their gurdwara, the Sikh place of worship.

The service is live streamed to other community members via YouTube and Facebook. A community member controls the cameras remotely from elsewhere in the building to avoid disrupting the service a key consideration in setting up the system.

Setting up the system wasn'teasy changes had to be made to the gurdwara's wiring system anda better internet provider was needed.

"We went through a plethora of changes," said Jaswant Singh, a Sikh Society of Saskatchewan member.

But it was worth it, saidAmritpalDhaliwal, the general secretary of the Sikh Society of Saskatchewan.

The gurdwara is currently too small to accommodate the entire community, butstreaming the services allows more people to take part.

"It makes me feel very good that people can watch from their homes,"Dhaliwalsaid.

With COVID-19 case numbers related tothe highly contagious delta coronavirus variant rising in the province, all of the religious organizations CBC talked to saidthey are ready to make changes if needed.

They mentioned options such as reinstating mask requirements, reintroducing restrictions or even shutting down again as possible adaptations tochanging situations.

But the newfound technology shows the pandemic has also been a springboard for improvement, saysRabbi Simmonds.

"Every time there's a challenge, it's either a nuisance in the way that we wish never happened or we can look at it and see this is an opportunity," he said.

"This challenge is not just a setback, but there's opportunities for growth going forward."

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Pandemic or no pandemic, many places of worship say technology is here to stay - CBC.ca

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Posted By admin on August 23, 2021

Browse > Home / Featured Articles / How can a Jewish State allow sculptures to be put on display when the Second Commandment bans making the form of anything?

August 23, 2021 by Rabbi Raymond Apple

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Ask the rabbi.

SCULPTURES IN ISRAEL

Q. How can a Jewish State allow sculptures to be put on display when the Second Commandment bans making the form of anything?

A. This was the view taken by the Chief Rabbinate Council of Israel in 1960 in relation to the Rose art gardens in Jerusalem.

Deeming the sculptures to contravene the Biblical prohibition against graven images, the Chief Rabbinate called them contrary to the spirit of Judaism and a profanation of the name and character of the Holy City.

The rabbis even forbade displaying sculptures within the walls of a museum, though they admitted that any protest flew in the face of facts accepted by both the State and the public.

Those who disagreed with the rabbis stance argued that the sculptures were works of art expressing the creative spirit of the sculptors, not idols or images for worship, and nobody would misconstrue what they saw when they visited the exhibition.

Though sculpture is a more difficult halachic issue than portraiture, it is on record that when Rav Kook lived in London during the First World War he used to enjoy visiting the National Portrait Gallery and was lost in awe and amazement when he studied Rembrandts paintings, including portraits.

A number of orthodox synagogues have rabbinic portraits on display and as far as I am aware no-one has demanded that they be taken down.

THE LEVIRITE MARRIAGE

Q. Can you explain the law of yibbum and chalitzah?

A. The Torah provides (Deut. 25) that a childless widow is to marry her husbands brother. The law is called levirate marriage.

The name derives from the Latin levir, a brother-in-law. In Hebrew, brother-in-law is yavam, and his marriage to her is yibbum.

If he does not wish to marry her, there is a ceremony of renunciation called chalitzah (literally, removal, since it entails her removing a shoe from his foot).

The basis of the Biblical rule is the ethical duty to protect the woman and preserve the memory of the deceased husband through the birth of a child to the woman and her husbands brother.

Some commentators (Nachmanides, Abravanel and others) regard this as a form of gilgul, reincarnation, and suggest that the soul of the departed returns by means of the new child.

Chalitzah has also been given a spiritual interpretation.

According to Malbim, the essence of the human being is his soul, but the soul cannot exist on earth without a body.

The body is symbolised by the shoe, since standing on the earth requires feet and they in turn need to be housed in shoes. When the childless widow removes her brother-in-laws shoe it is as if she is saying that he has declined to allow his brothers soul a new home on earth.

TOO HARD TO CONCENTRATE

Q. I get distracted during the High Holyday services. What can I do about it?

A. The prayers require kavvanah intention or concentration.

Rabbi Chayyim HaLevi Soloveitchik of Brisk says out in his commentary on Maimonides Laws of Prayer, chapter 4, that there are two types of kavvanah.

One is the knowledge that we are standing before God and that nothing else exists or matters. The second is an understanding of the words so that not only do we speak the words but the words speak to us.

It would help you to cultivate both kinds of kavvanah. Turn off and turn away from everything and everybody else, even the service itself, and retreat into a spiritual cocoon where your heart and mind focus on God.

Then turn to the prayer book and focus your mind and thoughts on a prayer that appeals to you. Even if it means lagging behind the rest of the congregation and omitting a Psalm or piyyut (liturgical poem) or two (or more), have a dialogue with the words.

Whatever you do, do not let your shule neighbour break the spell and distract you with conversation.

Rabbi Raymond Apple served for 32 years as the chief minister of the Great Synagogue, Sydney, Australias oldest and most prestigious congregation. He is now retired and lives in Jerusalem where he answers interesting questions.

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Posted By admin on August 23, 2021

Pennsylvania climate activists have set their sights on the states utility regulator.

The interfaith group POWER wants Gov. Tom Wolf to appoint new members of the Public Utility Commission who are dedicated to climate justice and ending environmental racism. They say theyve met with Gov. Wolf and put out a call for candidates as part of an effort to reform the PUC and increase the use of renewable energy.

This is an issue that can seem technical and obscure and distant, but it actually affects our daily lives, said Rabbi Julie Greenberg, climate justice director for POWER. Where does our energy come from, and what is it doing to the air and the water and the earth which you need to live?

PUC members serve five-year terms and earn about $155,000 in salary. The commissioners are served by more than 500 employees, including attorneys, engineers, economists, and safety inspectors. The agency regulates more than 7,000 entities, including water, sewer, electric, and gas utilities, as well as telecommunications. It is also responsible for natural gas pipeline safety, railroad crossings, and taxi and limousine service.

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Climate activists set their sights on the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission - WHYY

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Posted By admin on August 23, 2021

Jesus of Nazareth is historys most famous carpenter, but he is also, according to one poll historys most famous Jew. He was born to Jewish parents, was circumcised, went to (the) Temple, attended synagogue, and read the Torah. See, hes a first century middle eastern Jew. Nearly 2,000 years of Christianity, however, have presented Jesus as something else: as a religious innovator who was not just in conflict with Jewish authorities, but was actively trying to overturn and replace Judaism. A new book seeks to challenge this misunderstanding and argues that Jesus wasnt just ethnically Jewish, he was an active supporter of Jewish religious laws.

In his recently published book Jesus And the Forces of Death, Dr. Matthew Thiessen, an associate professor of religious studies at McMaster University, looks at Jesus afresh. Its so easy for most Christians to think of Jesus as the first Christian. Which for many Christians today means not Jewish, Thiessen told The Daily Beast, but when Jesus is understood as Christian, the gospel narratives read as though Jesus rejects Judaism and condemns Jews. Jesus becomes anti-Jewish. The legacy of an anti-Jewish Jesus has been felt throughout history and continues even today, but that could change. When we realize that Jesus was Jewish, Thiessen told me and the gospel writers wanted to stress Jesus Jewishness, then we read stories of Jesus interactions with the Pharisees or Sadducees as inner-Jewish conversations, not some sort of Christian rejection or condemnation of Judaism and the Jewish law.

Thiessen isnt the first to make this point. He builds here on the important work of scholars like Gza Vermes, Paula Fredriksen, Amy-Jill Levine, and Joel Marcusall of whom picture Jesus as thoroughly embedded in ancient Judaism. Whats distinctive about Thiessens argument is the way that he reconsiders debates and interactions between Jesus and other Jewish religious leaders in the Gospels. In particular, Thiessen is focused on ritual purity regulations or what he calls the forces of death. In Jewish law ritual purity regulations govern certain bodily processes (childbirth, menstruation, abnormal genital discharge, skin abnormalities, and death) that both make you impure and are also contagious. To modern Christians, he writes, these seem alien and arcane, but if you want to understand Jesus you have to saddle up because we cannot understand Jesus unless we understand how first-century Jews constructed their world.

This is of particular importance becausewhatever else Jesus says about his religious rivals or Jewish lawshe encounters and interacts with people who were ritually impure in the Gospels. One of the first miracles in the Gospel of Mark, for example, involves a person who has a skin condition (its called lepra in Greek but its not leprosy). The condition makes the man ritually impure. Jesus touches him and the lepra is gone. Some scholars argue that the very fact that Jesus touched the man and risked becoming impure himself is a sign that he doesnt care about impurity. Thiessen disagrees. The whole story, he said, is about ritual cleaning: the man begs Jesus to purify him and Jesus tells him Be pure. He then even tells the man to follow the laws required in Leviticus 1314 to remove the residual ritual impurity.

We see exactly the same dynamic at work in other stories, for example in Mark 5 when Jesus raises the tween daughter of a man called Jairus. Once again Jesus touches a ritually impure bodyin this case a corpseand, of course, the girl comes back to life. Thiessen argues that by raising the girl back to life Jesus is removing the source of her ritual impurity. In fact, in all cases when Jesus encounters someone who is ritually impure that person walks away purified. Christians usually read these stories as being about the forgiveness of sins, but Thiessen argues that Jesus ministry is actually a purification mission: removing moral impurities or sins, ritual impurities, and impure spiritsan apocalyptic battle between the forces of holiness and the forces of impurity, in which holiness destroys impurity and death. The problem is squarely located in the enemy camp rather than the conscience of the individual: impurity and holiness are fighting for supremacy.

Given that impurity is linked to death, Thiessen told me, Jesus constant battle with the forces of death anticipates his own resurrection at the end of the Gospels. These early skirmishes with death forces foretell his later encounter with death itself in the cross. Its like an action movie or video game in which the hero picks off the henchmen early on, only to face the villain for a final showdown at the end. And just like any modern action movie, there must be a moment when it seems like the hero isnt going to make it.

Thiessens reading is compelling and does a lot to position Jesus as an authentically Jewish interpreter of ritual purity regulations. That Jesus comes into conflict and disagreements with scribes, Pharisees, and Sadducees does not make him not Jewish. Disagreement was incredibly common among ancient Jewish ritual experts and almost seems to be the hallmark of rabbinic literature. It is later Christians, rather than first century Jews, who seek to exclude others based on interpretive disagreements.

His interpretation does raise some questions for modern Christians about the role of Jewish purity laws in their lives. If Jesus is reinforcing the idea that impurity existed and needs to be avoided, you might wonder, then do Christians need to take those practices more seriously? This would have troubling consequences for women, whose bodies are habitually associated with impurity (though, spoiler, Christianity does the same thing and associates womens bodies with sin). Thiessen told me that he doesnt pretend to be a theologian or ethicist but that its clear in the Gospel of Luke that these laws arent supposed to apply to non-Jews anyway. Since almost all Christians today are non-Jews, its become a moot point, but its not because Jesus rejected these laws himself!

Reading a book about contagious religious dirt during a pandemic is eye-opening. Perhaps the real takeaway here is that Jesus, like any ancient Jew, took purity laws regulating contagion seriously and treated them with respect. Perhaps Christians should too.

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Believe It or Not, Jesus Was a Good Jew - The Daily Beast

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Posted By admin on August 23, 2021

For those who wish to raise children in the Jewish faith, a Jewish education can be a great tool for learning about their heritage. Of course, it can be challenging to introduce it to young children is such a way that will keep them interested and engaged.

Rabbi Simcha Dessler, educational director of the Hebrew Academy of Cleveland in Cleveland Heights; Rabbi Josh Foster of Bnai Jeshurun Congregation in Pepper Pike; and Karyn Hartstone, early childhood program director at Fuchs Mizrachi School in Beachwood, have their own ways of introducing children to Jewish studies.

Hebrew Academy of Cleveland serves children from early childhood through high school, from as young as 2 to 17 years old.

Children in the academys early childhood division are introduced to the beauty of our heritage through story, song and art, Dessler said. Even at the youngest of ages, the weekly parsha and Jewish holidays are a focal point in gifting children with an appreciation of their Jewish heritage. Reading books to the children, reciting nursery rhymes, modeling the use of language and experimenting with finger play all enhance and broaden language and vocabulary skills.

Hartstone said their youngest children engage in experiences that encourage making connections.

Their learning is done in hands-on centers that are developmentally appropriate, Hartstone said. So, we are looking to offer children opportunities to grow in physical, social, emotional and academic development. They learn Jewish things by doing Jewish things. We dont just talk about what were going to do on Shabbat at home. We actually do Shabbat in school. We sing songs, we pretend to light candles, we make Kiddush with them and we eat a special Shabbat snack.

Foster said Bnai Jeshuruns program is also about creating experiences, especially around the holidays. They have special programs for Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Sukkot and other holidays.

At Sukkot, for example, children are given an opportunity at dinner to shake the lulav and etrog, as well as learn the associated blessings.

Typically, well have a dinner in the Sukkah for families with young children, Foster said. Well also have some sort of activity, whether its making decorations to put in our Sukkah or building your own edible Sukkah. Something that will engage the students to learn a little more about the holidays.

Hartstone said Fuchs Mizrachi plans their curriculum according to the interests of their children, as well as according to the Jewish holiday and Torah story cycle.

Its an emergent curriculum that adjusts to the childrens understanding and interest, Hartstone said. If they are busy exploring the properties of water, and were teaching about the story of Noah and the ark, then we plan art activities and science experiences with that in mind. So we bring it to their level so they can make meaning with other experiences in their life. It makes sense to them because they know water, and now they can understand a little bit what a flood is because theyre actually playing with water.

Dessler said knowledge about the faith and culture fosters an appreciation of the Jewish heritage and the ability to transmit it from generation to generation.

Since the founding of Judaism, Jewish education has been uniquely positioned to train children, from youngest to oldest, Dessler said. And its values and curriculum can be imbibed by all Jews at all ages. Judaism, accessible to all, has something rewarding and life altering for everyone. Since the establishment of the Hebrew Academy of Cleveland in 1943, day school education has gained significant traction in the broadest spectrum of Judaism and generations of children have been and continue to be the beneficiaries of the gift of Jewish education.

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Introducing children to Jewish education early pays off - Cleveland Jewish News

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Posted By admin on August 23, 2021

Sandy Shefrin Rabin had thought about writing a novel since the age of 12. But it wasnt until many decades later that the busy Mill Valley neurologist found the time and impetus to compose her first book.

Prairie Sonata, published late last year, follows 11-year-old Mira Adler from a life of innocence to an awareness of evil and its debilitating impacts on victims.

Though Prairie Sonata is classified as a young adult novel it won the 2021 Independent Press Award in that genre Rabin regards it as a book for all ages. Most of my readers so far have been adults, said the 68-year-old author.

The novel received a starred Kirkus review, given to noteworthy books, and is a recommended resource for the Marin County Office of Educations high school ethnic diversity curriculum. Classrooms Without Borders, a Jewish educational nonprofit, plans to feature it in a virtual book talk.

In the novel, Mira attends the Peretz School in Canada and takes a Yiddish class whose teacher opens her eyes to the cruelty that existed in a world far beyond her close-knit, postWorld War II Jewish community. The teacher, an immigrant from Prague known as Chaver B., keeps his past hidden until he and Mira develop a close friendship through the private violin lessons he gives her. Over time, he reveals his nightmarish secrets.

Our only hope was selfishness, he tells her at one point. Do what one has to do to make it to the end of the day, and then do it all over again the next day. Freeze your feelings. Forget about self-respect. That was the only hope. And without hope, there was no reason to wake up in the morning.

Playing the violin in the Auschwitz orchestra saved his life.

Rabins novel takes place in Manitoba, a province in the Canadian prairies north of Minnesota and North Dakota. Thats where Rabin grew up and indeed attended the Peretz School, a Yiddish-language day school in her community.

Miras town of Ambrosia is fictional, as are other elements of the story. It is based on my childhood, but its not biographical, Rabin said.

She grew up in Winnipeg in a wonderful, warm Jewish community. Rabin also speaks highly of the Peretz School, where everyone spoke Yiddish and learned some Hebrew. Named after the Polish Jewish writer Isaac Leib Peretz (1852-1915), the secular school exemplified that there are so many ways to be Jewish. I thought people should know about it, Rabin said.

A very strong Jewish community developed in Manitoba, where Eastern European Jews were among the first to settle there in the early 1900s, Rabin said. Many were Yiddish-speaking. A lot of them were not religious. That led to the creation of the Peretz school.

Rabins grandparents, who immigrated to Canada from Russia in the early 1900s, spoke Yiddish.

Rabin, who lost three great-aunts in the Holocaust, began writing her novel in early 2017.

My life just got easier, said the mother of three. My kids became independent. I had a lot more time on my hands. Since her medical practice kept her busy five days a week, she wrote mostly on weekends.

Rabin incorporated the kind of warm, vibrant Jewish community she knew as a child into her book. And with her parents no longer living, I kind of wanted to try to immortalize them in some way.

On the other hand, she was particularly saddened at the time by the rise of the Islamic State Group and the state of the world at the time. It was very upsetting, she said. I thought when I was a young girl that the world would be a better place when I got older

Thus, Miras passage from innocence, as Rabin puts it, began to take shape and the Holocaust proved a horrific example of evil.

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Her debut novel is about a Jewish girl in Manitoba (just like she was) J. - The Jewish News of Northern California

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Posted By admin on August 23, 2021

Many museum exhibits impress solely on the aesthetic strengths of the pieces on display. Others are curated to offer a powerful narrative about the works creators. Rarely does one walk away from a gallery with a spinning head, thinking of the life led by the paintings, drawings and objects themselves.

Yet that is whats so remarkable about Afterlives: Recovering the Lost Stories of Looted Art, a new show at the Jewish Museum in New York City. While the work itself is certainly extraordinary (the names Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, Paul Klee, Marc Chagall and many others speak for themselves) the stories of how this material made its way from private collections in Europe to the safety of Fifth Avenue in Manhattan are fascinating.

If this has you thinking of movies you may have seen, it isnt by coincidence. John Frankenheimers 1964 action thriller The Train, in which Burt Lancaster leads resisters to valiantly rescue carloads of plundered art, is brought to mind with the story of three pieces in the show Bather and Rocks by Paul Czanne, Camille Pissarros Minette and a small surrealist Picasso work, Group of Characters all of which were stolen from Jewish collectors and sent east by train. The works were recovered by Free French and eventually returned.

The Train was based on a book by Rose Valland, who kept secret records of Nazi plundering from her post in the Jeu de Paume museum, which became a repository of works stolen from Jewish owners, or created by Jewish artists, many of which were destroyed for being degenerate art. A large-scale photograph of the Jeu de Paume is on display, as are many works that survived the sorting there. (Some of what wasnt burned was earmarked for Hermann Goerings personal collection, or for Adolf Hitlers planned Fhrermuseum in Linz.)

Valland was later loosely portrayed on film by Cate Blanchett in George Clooneys Monuments Men. You may recall a final action sequence in that movie set in an Austrian salt mine. A real-life version of that location is where Pierre Bonnards Still Life with Guelder Roses and Henri Fantin-Latours Self-Portrait, both included in this exhibit, were recovered.

Other stories are no less cinematic. Norbert Troller was a Jewish-Czech architect sent to the Terezin (Theresienstadt) concentration camp. While there he made sketches of everyday life, a forbidden act. He hid his work, but eventually was found out, and sent to Auschwitz as punishment. He survived the extermination camp, however, and after its liberation came to New York City. Later he returned to Terezin, went to his old hiding spot, and recovered his lost illustrations.

Unbelievable stories like this are found time and again in Afterlives. When the work of Jewish painter Fdor Lwenstein was deemed degenerate he attempted to ship 20 of his pieces to a gallery in the United States as he fled Paris. The work was seized at the border and slated for destruction, but somehow survived the war, stashed, possibly by a brave resister, in the basement of the Louvre. When one looks at his cubist painting Composition, it calls to mind not just things, but people who survived the attempted genocide by going into hiding.

Even more remarkable is the story of the religious and household items from the Jewish community in Danzig (Gdansk). Before the Nazi invasion of Poland, members of the community sent numerous enormous crates filled with Judaica for safekeeping to the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York, weighing, according to the New York Times, more than two tons. Of course, a great many of the original owners were killed in the Holocaust, and were unable to retrieve the various silver Torah shields, Hanukah menorahs, mezuzahs and books.

The heirless and orphaned pieces were then distributed to synagogues and libraries by a group called the Jewish Cultural Reconstruction, co-founded by Hannah Arendt.

In Afterlives one sees photos of these gigantic crates (another Hollywood image: the ending of Raiders of the Lost Ark) plus an appeal from Arendt to any organization receiving printed materials. She requested that a sticker be added, so that future readers will know of the works provenance. For a tribe often called the People of the Book there certainly is an added resonance. Most striking is that the sticker features a six-pointed Star of David in blue, the complementary color to the yellow star Jews were forced to wear under the Nazis. Whereas one meant someone was quite likely marked for death, the other is a label of survival.

The last room in the exhibit features a number of contemporary works. Included are Israeli artist Hadar Gads large-scale oil paintings of the lost Great Synagogue of Danzig, the beige hues of which, albeit coincidentally, recall the sketches Norbert Troller brought back from Terezin. Also striking is the work of Dor Guez, whose heritage is a mix of Tunisian-Jewish and Palestinian-Christian, and includes extreme closeups of written text with ink blots resembling Rorschach tests. From Brooklyn-based Lisa Oppenheim come a series of prints with variations of an image from a vintage photo she discovered that included a painting by Jean-Baptiste Monnoyer. The painting in the photo is believed to have been destroyed by the Nazis after it was confiscated from a Jewish home.

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Afterlives: the incredible stories behind recovered Nazi-looted art - The Guardian

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