Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By admin on August 20, 2021

HonorsShana Penn

Taube Philanthropies executive director Shana Penn will receive the European Solidarity Centre Medal of Gratitude on Aug. 31 in recognition of her groundbreaking research on the role of women in the Solidarity movement that led to the end of communism in Poland. Her work influenced other scholars, activists, cultural actors and politicians to look at the legacy of Solidarnosc from that perspective, said the European Solidarity Centre. Her 2005 book is Solidaritys Secret: The Women Who Defeated Communism in Poland.

Anita Friedman, executive director of S.F.-based Jewish Family and Childrens Services, will be given the American Friends of Tel Aviv Universitys Visionary Leadership Award during an Oct. 7 virtual gala. At Friedmans suggestion, the funds raised at the event will go toward student scholarships and to the Center for Combating Pandemics.

San Jose State University student Ron Levy has won the first place Movement Builder Award for Creativity and Impact from the pro-Israel organization StandWithUs. The award is presented each year to a StandWithUs Emerson Fellow who approached and successfully implemented Israel programming with a specific and dynamic strategy. Levy was recognized from among 150 fellows. Rons strategy focused on providing his peers with different opportunities and avenues to learn about and connect with Israel, from the Silicon Valley Jewish Film Festival to a workshop about how to answer the toughest questions about Israel, StandWithUs wrote in an email to J. He was also involved in campaigns to bring the International Holocaust Remembrance Associations definition of antisemitism to De Anza Community College and Foothill College.

A collection of writings by Rabbi Larry Raphael, who died in 2019 at age 72, has been published in time for the High Holidays. For a Good Year: Selected High Holy Day Sermons was compiled by his wife, Terrie Raphael, and includes sermons from his tenure as a dean at Hebrew Union College through his years as senior rabbi of Reform Congregation Sherith Israel in San Francisco. For all those of us who fondly remember studying with [him], it will feel like a conversation with a dear friend, the congregation wrote in a press release. The book is available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

Oaklands Ron Arons was elected secretary of the International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies at the 41st Annual International Conference on Jewish Genealogy, which was held virtually this month. Arons is a former tech marketing executive, a data-visualization maven and author of three books on genealogy (two of which focus on researching criminals). He also has been published in the peer-reviewed journal the American Genealogist and has been awarded a research grant from the New York State Archives. Arons has traced his own family roots in Poland, Ukraine, Romania, Belarus, Lithuania and England.

Teresa Drenick has been named deputy director of the Anti-Defamation Leagues Central Pacific Region. She previously served for three decades as an assistant district attorney in Alameda County, working as a trial attorney, public information officer and head of the domestic violence unit. She brings a wealth of experience and personal commitment to our work, wrote ADL regional director Seth Brysk. The work and mission of the ADL inspires me, Drenick said in a press release. As the daughter of two Holocaust refugees, I am keenly aware of issues and challenges surrounding antisemitism and the victimization of marginalized people.

Rabbi Laurie Hahn-Tapper is the new associate dean for religious and spiritual life at Stanford University, her undergrad alma mater. She previously served as director of the Brandeis Collegiate Institute and adult programs at the Brandeis-Bardin Institute in Simi Valley. She also was a school rabbi at Yavneh Day School in Los Gatos and has worked at a number of other Jewish day schools and summer camps around the country. Rabbi Patricia Karlin-Neumann, senior associate dean for religious life at Stanford, wrote in a statement, As a seasoned educator and an alumna, she will help students to discover meaning and purpose, supporting them as they realize their dreams.

Beth Jones is stepping down as director of membership at Congregation Beth Sholom in San Francisco after 16 years. She has worked tirelessly to support our community and she will be dearly missed, executive director Vered Cohen wrote in an email to the community. Jones was honored at Beth Sholoms Friday night Shabbat service on Aug. 13.

Rabbi Daniel Lehmann is the new head of school at Gideon Hausner Jewish Day School in Palo Alto. He previously served briefly as president of the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley and for years as president of Hebrew College in Newton, Massachusetts. Though he is new to the K-8 school, he has old family connections. My parents were actively involved with Hausner during its early years over 30 years ago, he said in a press release. Lehmanns father was the schools first treasurer and his mother was a teacher there and acting principal at one point. His brother served on the board and his nephews and niece were students there. It is a source of great pride to continue that legacy of leadership established by my family, Lehmann said. In addition to his work at Hebrew College and the GTU, he was the founding headmaster of Gann Academy in Boston, founding director of the Berkshire Institute of Music and Arts, co-founder of the Hevruta Gap-year Program of the Shalom Hartman Institute, co-founder of the high school Moot Beit Din competition and co-founder of the North American Association of Jewish High Schools. I am convinced that Hausner has great potential to be a national and international leader in pluralistic education, intentionally engaging the beautiful diversity of our community and educating our students to pursue justice and seek the common good using the knowledge, skills, and creativity cultivated during their years at Hausner, Lehmann said.

Rebecca Randall has been appointed managing director of philanthropy at the S.F.-based Jewish Federation. Our philanthropy advisory practice that was launched in 2017 is now out of the startup phase and were in a new place where we want to bring the best customer service, stewardship, and outreach, said Joy Sisisky, Federations chief philanthropy officer, in a press release. Rebeccas experience in strategic growth, marketing, development, and outreach come together so nicely for this particular position. Randall previously served in executive roles at Common Sense media for 17 years and was vice president of the United Way of the Bay Area before that.

The S.F.-based Jewish Community Relations Council has elected new board officers: president Jennifer Wolfe of Mill Valley, vice president Russell Cohen of San Francisco, vice president Jan Reicher of San Francisco, treasurer Sandi Bragar of San Francisco and secretary Karen Kronick of Palo Alto. I could not be more proud to be taking on this leadership role at such a critical time for our community, Wolfe said in a press release. Through JCRCs continued work building bridges of understanding across the diverse communities of the Bay Area, we will be addressing antisemitism and racial justice in new and impactful ways in the months ahead.

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OUR CROWD: Honors, happenings, comings & goings Aug. 2021 J. - The Jewish News of Northern California

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Posted By admin on August 20, 2021

I was a writer before I became a rabbi and High Holiday sermons usually come easily to me. Some years I have so many ideas and teachings and hopes to share that I accidentally write more sermons than I need to give.

Not this year. This year I havent felt able to begin writing at all.

The enormity of whats broken in the world feels paralyzing. In recent weeks weve seenunprecedented heat and wildfires in the Pacific Northwest, aflaming oil spill turning part of the Gulf of Mexico into an inferno, andextreme flooding across Europe. Who by fire, who by water, the words ofthe Unetaneh Tokef prayer, land differently this year. Dayenu, that could be enough to still my pen but theres more.

Last year, leading High Holiday services via Zoom from home, I spoke about our obligation to take care of each other by staying apart. I turned tothe rabbi of the Warsaw Ghettofor his teachings about hope during adversity. I imagined Rosh Hashanah 5782: Surely we would be vaccinated and safely back together!

The past 18 months of pandemic were hard even for those of us who have it easy (a job, a place to live, no illness). For many the isolation of sheltering in place was crushing, or numbing. For many without stable income or a roof overhead, the pandemic has been unimaginably worse. So, too, for frontline workers and those whose jobs are essential and often unseen.

When vaccines became available, my heart soared on wings of hope. But I hadnt reckoned with the power of social media influencers lying about the putative risks of the vaccine, or claiming the virus is a hoax or not that bad. The simple truth that vaccines save lives became perversely inverted and weaponized. Now vast numbers of my fellow Americans are refusing vaccination, claiming personal freedom at the expense of the collective good.

I keep thinking of theparable of the guy in the boat drilling a hole under his own seat. He doesnt seem to notice that his personal freedom is going to drown everyone else. As a parable, its tart and a little bit funny. In real life, its horrifying. Dayenu: that too could be enough to spark despair. But theres more.

The governor of Texas recently made it illegal for municipalities to require masks. To many, masks have become a symbol of government control. To me, a mask is literally the least we can do to protect the immunocompromised (and all children under the age of 12.) Refusing to wear a mask during this pandemic is like leaving your lights on during the London Blitz.

Combine the anti-maskers, and the anti-vaxxers, and the new Delta variant (more contagious than chicken pox, and vaccinated people can spread it), and cases are rising again. Were facing another long winter of isolation and mounting death counts and it didnt have to be this way.

Between what were doing to our planet (which disproportionately harms those who are most vulnerable), and the impact of anti-maskers and anti-vaxxers on public health (ditto), and the persistence of the Big Lie that the presidential election was stolen, and the lack of accountability around the Jan. 6 insurrection, its hard not to despair. How can I write sermons from this place? Im pretty sure no one comes to High Holiday services to hear their rabbi admit that shes given up hope.

I poured out my heart about this to my hevruta partner, who reminded me that in Torah even God sometimes despaired of humanity. When God despaired of us, it was our ancestors job to push back and remind God of reasons to hope for humanitys future. This is part of why we live (and learn!) in community: to help each other find hope when our hearts despair.

Indeed, the Torah readings most of us will encounter on Rosh Hashanah cue up that inner journey. On the first day we read aboutthe casting-out of Hagar and Ishmael. On the second day, the stakes may feel even higher with the binding of Isaac. Yet these same Torah stories also remind us of the hope to be found in tough times. An angel opens Hagars eyes to a flowing spring, and she and her son are saved. An angel opens Abrahams eyes to the ram caught in the thicket, and Isaacs life is spared.

Our task is to see the traumas of this moment clearly and also to cultivate the ability to look beyond our own despair. The Days of Awe open the door to new beginnings, even when (or especially when) we cant see our own way back to hope for change. We just have to be like those biblical angels for each other: helping each other see the hope we cant find alone.

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Rabbis should offer hope on the High Holidays. What if I can't? J. - The Jewish News of Northern California

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Posted By admin on August 20, 2021

In a 1963 speech in Chicago attended by Martin Luther King Jr., theologian Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel famously described racism as an eye disease, a cancer of the soul making us see the generality of race, but not the uniqueness of the human face.

The two men met at that assemblage, and from then on, King embraced the Warsaw-born rabbi and writer as an ally in the civil rights movement, calling him one of the truly great men and a great prophet. In March 1965, they marched together from Selma to Montgomery in support of the constitutional right to vote in the face of racial injustice and segregation.

Heschel said afterward that it felt like his legs were praying.

Today many American Jews hold up Heschel as an example of a proud tradition of political activism against anti-Black and other forms of racism. In the summer of 2020, local rabbis continued that tradition by kneeling outside San Francisco City Hall, some wearing tallits and kippahs, during a public protest after the police murder of George Floyd.

But as a new national study commissioned by the Bay Areas Jews of Color Initiative and released this month shows, American Jews still have plenty of work to do in our own synagogues, schools and community centers.

For us to live up to Heschels example, we must start with ourselves.

As J.s culture editor Andrew Esensten reported last week, the new study found that a vast majority of the more than 1,000 American Jews of color from across the country who filled out the online survey 80 percent said they had experienced some form of discrimination in Jewish spaces, be it microaggressions or overt challenges to their Jewish identities.

One respondent said she felt like she stuck out in her predominantly white Jewish community. Another said he felt compelled to keep his defenses up in mostly white spaces, preventing him from connecting spiritually as much as he would like. Another said she had to compartmentalize sides of herself in white-dominated Jewish places as a mixed Native American and Jewish woman.

Here in the Bay Area, we are lucky to have one of the most racially diverse Jewish communities in the world. And the news is not all bad. The survey also found high levels of connection to Jewish values among Jews of color, and it showed most respondents saying they still feel a sense of belonging among white Jews.

Even the existence of Bay Areabased organizations such as the Jews of Color Initiative and Bechol Lashon (both JOC-led) shows progress, and theres also a willingness from Jewish philanthropists to back diversity-supporting organizations. The S.F.-based Jewish Community Federation took a positive step this summer by welcoming four Jews of color to its board of directors.

And yet clearly, work remains to be done.

Describing racism as an eye disease, Heschel said it produces strange symptoms; that those of other races, specifically Black Americans, are a stranger to many souls.

Based on the survey results, its clear that the American Jewish community is not inoculated against this disease we feel, at times, like strangers to one another.

As a community, we must actively, not passively, embrace who we are as a people and take personal responsibility for welcoming, and including, Jews of color at every level of the Jewish collective.

As Heschel said, the most practical thing is not to weep, but to act

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EDITORIAL: Work remains to build a more inclusive Jewish community J. - The Jewish News of Northern California

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Posted By admin on August 20, 2021

In November 1944, the Allies managed to gain considerable ground in Europe, including the capture of the key Belgian port of Antwerp. A vital German stronghold remained on the nearby island of Walcheren, however,but when the Allies eventually decided to take it, they had two secret weapons. Their names were Freddy Gray and Maurice Latimer, and they used their fluency in German to convince many enemy troops to surrender.

Born Manfred Gans and Moritz Levy, respectively, they were part of a remarkably successful British commando unit primarily made up of Jewish refugees like themselves, fighting under assumed identities.

Their remarkable story is told in a new book named after the unit X Troop: The Secret Jewish Commandos of World War II, by scholar and author Leah Garrett.

I think its always so important for me to shed light on the fact that during World War II, [there were] all these places where Jews could fight back the way these guys did, Garrett says. Its incredible that these guys did this.

She notes that Gans' proudest achievement was how many people [he] got to surrender without having to kill, including an entire platoon. They were nothing like the Inglourious Basterds of Quentin Tarantino, revenge-filled guys they followed the rules of war. They were totally ethical, not revengeful. [They were about] beating the Germans so they could right their wrongs.

Arguably less well-known outside the United Kingdom, the 87-member X Troop contributed mightily to Allied efforts. Its members took part in an early attempt to strike back in Western Europe with the 1942 Dieppe raid, as well as the D-Day landings two years later. They were active through the end of the war and beyond, including the hunt for Nazi war criminals.

Members of the X Troop survived persecution in their former homelands, but many of their family members fell victim to the Holocaust. The uncertain fates of their loved ones back home motivated the X Troopers, who knew that they themselves could not divulge their Jewish identities; if they died in combat, their graves would be marked with crosses rather than Stars of David.

For Garrett, the book was a chance to put into practice the concepts she teaches as head of the Jewish Studies Center at Hunter College, at the City University of New York, while continuing to follow a source of personal fascination.

Personal connection

X Troop is her second consecutive book about Jews who fought in World War II; her previous volume, Young Lions, chronicled best-selling Jewish novelists in uniform, including Joseph Heller, Norman Mailer and Herman Wouk.

It also has a personal connection: several of her family members, including her grandfather, fought for the Allies.

Garrett was able to speak with two surviving members of the X Troop, though both have since passed away. One was the prominent economist Paul Streeten (born Paul Hornig), while the other kept his identity secret to the grave. He is identified in the book as Victor Davies.

She focuses her narrative on three other X Troopers whom she felt best represented the original group: Gans, an Orthodox Jew who reverted to his birth name after the war; Peter Masters, a Viennese artist born Peter Arany; and Colin Anson, n Claus Ascher, who was raised in an assimilated family.

Some were German citizens stripped of their rights under the Third Reich, or Czech or Austrian citizens similarly persecuted after Nazi takeovers. All fled to England through various routes, but were considered enemy aliens the homelands that had persecuted them were now at war with Britain. They were interned in miserable conditions, with some suffering further aboard the infamous ship Dunera, which took them to internment in Australia.

Beatings were common, and bored guards made Jewish refugees run barefoot over broken bottles they had smashed, all while Nazi POWs howled with laughter, Garrett writes, noting that the officer responsible for the ships internees, Maj. William Patrick Scott, was a rabid antisemite and sadist who enjoyed torturing the Jews in his care. After their situation was brought to light, they were allowed to return to England.

When the war broke out, the only military unit that would welcome the refugees was the Pioneer Corps an engineering unit but there was no fighting involved. However, they became more valuable after then-Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Lord Mountbatten decided to create a commando force made up of units of refugees from occupied European countries.

Unlike existing commando units, which were either sea-based or land-based, these commandos could fight on land, sea or air, drawing upon both physical fitness and quick-thinking skills such as counterintelligence techniques a precedent-setting combination of brains and brawn.

Its members would never fight as a collective group, but rather be embedded into other units, which was another groundbreaking move. There had never been anything like these commandos, Garrett says.

Some of the recruits were excellent athletes, including accomplished runners Streeten and Gans. For others, the learning curve was steeper than the 3,500-feet (1,066 meters) peak of Mount Snowdon, which they had to climb during training.

Garrett cited an interview Gans had given in which he said the most important aspect of training was the confidence it instilled in him. They did not know they were capable of it, but they survived it, thrived in it, she explained. They came out deeply confident, ready to take risks, fight on the front lines.

In interviews Masters had given during his life, he talked about how brutal and hard the training was, Garrett recounts. He never thought he would be capable of doing this stuff. Many of these guys were Jewish intellectuals from Mitteleuropa. But like Gans, Masters said they eventually started to realize abilities they never knew they had.

Heart-tugging reunion atTheresienstadt

German-speaking X Troopers persuaded many of their former countrymen to surrender. A Hungarian-born X Trooper, George Lane (born Lanyi Gyorgy), made use of his observational skills after being captured. He was interrogated by none other than Field Marshal Erwin Rommel; Garrett credits Lane with revealing the location of Rommels headquarters to the Allies, noting the subsequent raid on the German generals car that left him severely injured.

Most dramatically, X Trooper Gans made a trek through enemy territory to Theresienstadt (aka Terezin), on his own initiative. He and a private arrived two days after they set out, and Gans experienced an improbable, heart-tugging reunion with his parents, Moritz and Else Gans, in the concentration camp.

They were rocked by the camps hellish atmosphere of death, starvation and typhoid fever. Yet emaciated Jews shouted Mazel tov! when the Ganses miraculously reunited.

Quickly the news gets out in the camp, Garrett writes. The impossible has happened. A son has returned to seek his parents and has found them. Not all the Jews in the world have been killed. The Nazis have not triumphed everywhere.

It was amazing, totally amazing, Garrett says. As I wrote the book, with each chapter I kind of thought, Are you kidding me? Every chapter basically blew my mind George Lane having the meeting with Rommel; the guys coming ashore on the D-Day landings and Walcheren; Gans going to rescue his parents. I felt like there could be 10 full books within one project.

After VE Day, as other units went home the X Troop was needed in Europe.

They did a huge range of things in the denazification effort, Garrett says, from having guys go capture Nazis and interrogate them, to going through documents.

After the end of the war, initially the British government would not let the commandos who had fought for their country return as citizens. Garrett notes this had more to do with one individual, a possibly antisemitic British administrator who was eventually overruled.

In the end, she says, the X Troopers were grateful for their adopted country, and showed that via the complex narratives of their postwar lives. Many remained in Britain, kept their new names and raised their families as Anglicans.

A monument to the unit in Aberdovey, Wales, does not mention that its members were primarily Jewish, despite efforts to change this by Gans and Masters, as well as by Lanes ex-wife Miriam Rothschild, who herself worked as a code breaker during the war.

Martin Sugarman author of a book about Jewish military contributions to Britain during World War II called Jews Fighting Back, and a former archivist for the Jewish War Veterans of the United Kingdom also tried to have the memorials wording changed multiple times.

While this is very much a story about Jews fighting back against evil, it is also a more universal tale of refugees, as Garrett noted when she wrote an opinion piece for CNN that compares the X Troop with refugees and immigrants in the United States who face deportation.

These guys all knew what evil looked like, Garrett says. They did not want it in their new place. Political refugees know of what evil looks like. We have to listen to them.

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The Jewish refugees who fled the Nazis and then returned to help defeat them - Haaretz

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Posted By admin on August 20, 2021

When the Detroit Jewish community leaders discovered an alarming number through research that 70% of Jewish teens in Metro Detroit arent engaging in Jewish life the Jewish Community Center and youth professionals took notice and began to promote positive change.

Despite having more than 35 local Jewish youth-serving organizations offering a variety of excellent programs, teen engagement is still low.

We began to ask ourselves, what should we be doing, knowing that we have all these wonderful opportunities and were still missing the mark? says Katie Vieder, JCCs director of tween, teen and family engagement for Jfamily.

According to Rabbi Jen Lader of Temple Israel, In this hyperconnected world, teens are busier than ever before. Theyre packed with sports and drama, tutoring and dance, not to mention escalating academic expectations. We are fighting for their time in a way weve never had to fight before.

A slowdown from the COVID-19 pandemic gave the JCC an opportunity to consider this ongoing problem and what steps it could take to refuel Metro Detroit teen engagement in Jewish life.

There is a big challenge of rebuilding from the pandemic as a lot of our teen networks in town overlap and are supported by each others success and networking, says Rabbi Yarden Blumstein, teen director at Friendship Circle.

To set the change in motion, the folks at Jfamily talked to different communities across the country and to its local youth-serving partners, We did a lot of focus groups with teens and parents both engaged and unengaged, Vieder says.

Since September 2020, the JCC has worked with the communitys youth-serving organizations including youth groups, congregations, camps and day schools to identify best practices to boost teen engagement in Jewish life that can be implemented right here in Metro Detroit.

The efforts paid off. We came to the realization that theres a lot we can do, Vieder says. We just need to shift our perspective on what matters.

Though the JCC had a teen engagement plan, it was one that had been in place for many years.

COVID-19 showed the importance of being able to adapt to a changing world, so the JCC knew the time had come to revamp its model.

The goal: to reduce the staggering 70% number of Jewish teens unengaged in Jewish life.

The first step was to significantly increase awareness for existing programs.

The Metro Detroit community has a wide-array of fantastic teen opportunities with something for everyone. However, many families are not aware of all the program available, and organizations struggle to find the unengaged, says Rachel Ellis, senior regional director of BBYO Michigan Region.

Even though 35-plus local Jewish youth-serving organizations in the area offer more than 90 programs, the JCC discovered that most families only knew of one or two opportunities their teens could engage with. Often, they would try one of the programs and if it wasnt a fit, they stopped looking for alternatives. Families also might not have realized that the programs they were hoping for were already available in different places.

To strengthen community awareness, the JCC is creating a comprehensive website and program guide for teens and families that can serve as a directory of all Jewish teen programs and experiences. The website will go hand-in-hand with JLive, an event platform. Teens and families will be able to visit both with one click, Vieder explains.

One key mission of the awareness strategy is to make finding teen engagement opportunities online seamless and user-friendly. By working collectively with the community, we will have the resources to reach more teens and connect them to meaningful and impactful Jewish experiences, Ellis adds.

To build and launch the website, the JCC is partnering with the marketing team at the Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Detroit with plans for it to go live in October of this year.

Our youth programs provide an escape a safe place where teens are nurtured and loved, where they can build lasting and meaningful relationships with friends and mentors, and where they can figure out who they are and whats important to them, Rabbi Lader says. Our goal is to reach as many teens as possible in order to allow them this safe space filled with the support and guidance of their community.

The next step for improving teen engagement is to begin the process of gathering data. The JCC, in partnership with Federation, is working on creating a community database complete with facts and figures that show the importance of engagement in Jewish life and where the local community currently stands.

The database will house information that will allow us to see not just if and where teens are engaging, but how deeply theyre engaging, Vieder explains.

The database will be built with the goal of tracking what happens to a Jewish teen who is involved in Jewish life throughout their high school career and what that means for their future.

JCC will share identified trends with youth-serving organizations to help them strengthen their work.

The JCC will also launch the Teen Impact Fellowship this month to train and empower teens to be communal connectors and provide more touchpoints for connection.

Through their friendships and relationships, teens can find their place in the local Jewish community, Vieder says.

The selected fellows, along with Federations shinshinim (Israeli emissaries), will receive extensive training from Michigan State Hillel during the yearlong fellowship.

Though teens are the focus of JCCs new teen engagement model, a special focus is being given to their parents as well. Weve heard from a lot of parents of tweens and teens that they dont have the support or educational resources they had when their children were younger, Vieder explains.

To build the foundation for parental support, particularly for parents of teens, the JCC will launch PhD in Parenting, a course being run in communities across the country. Using proven parent education methodologies, this program will enhance parent-teen relationships, improve parenting skills, teach techniques on how to reduce stress on teenagers, and enable parents to create a healthy, peaceful and respectful home environment.

Two cohorts of PhD in Parenting will be offered starting in October with additional cohorts in the spring. Registration will open on JLive this month.

Helping with Staff

Throughout the multi-faceted approach, the JCC aims to support congregations and youth-serving organizations so that they can strengthen relationships with tweens, teens and their families, and provide meaningful opportunities. The most critical need is staff, and funding is a challenge.

Our organizations need staff who can focus directly on tweens and teens, and who have the capacity for relationship-building, Vieder explains. Many congregations, she says, have limited support when it comes to teen engagement. A three-year grant from the Hermelin-Davidson Center for Congregation Excellence, though, will provide the funding to increase that support and ideally, teen engagement.

A second grant from the Stephen H. Schulman Millennium Fund for Jewish Youth will provide funding for youth-serving organizations, including BBYO, Friendship Circle and Repair the World, to hire youth directors to work specifically with underserved demographics including male-identifying teens, middle schooler and diverse teens, such as those from interfaith families, Jews of color and LGBTQ+ identifying youth.

With more individuals waking up each morning with the dedicated task of engaging our youth, we know it will become more of an expectation for kids to be involved in Jewish life, said Rabbi Daniel Schwartz of Temple Shir Shalom. The question will change from do you go? to where do you go?

Professionals supported through both grants will receive training opportunities and will gather to develop a supportive cohort, collaborate and discuss best practices.

We want to make sure that staff feel like there is camaraderie among youth-serving organizations and that they have peer colleagues they can connect with, Vieder says.

Our community has proven time and time again that they understand how incredibly important our young people are, not only for the future of our Jewish community in Metro Detroit, but also for the future of the Jewish people, Rabbi Lader says.

Were all working together to raise a generation of teens who are proud of their identities, who are firm in their values, and who are committed to their community in a sacred and profound way.

While JCCs new teen engagement model is being rolled out over the next few months, the leadership hopes to continue growing and evolving the strategy in the long-term future.

There has always been a lot of excitement in the planning process that would help us lift up youth engagement in the Detroit Jewish community, Rabbi Schwartz said.

Katie Vieder and the JCC have done a wonderful job of gathering a top-notch group of people who are focused on real change in teen engagement, which has allowed us to dream in ways that we never imagined would come to fruition.

From additional staff to programming for parents, I think Detroit will continue to serve as a model for other communities who are looking to reignite their teen programming.

By focusing on awareness, engagement, and data and information, the JCC aims to solve the challenges todays Jewish teens and parents face with a one-stop shop for finding and creating local connections.

We dont look at this as a one- or two-year initiative, Vieder says. We hope to be able to continuously evaluate progress and success over the course of time. There will always be Jewish teens, but if we dont make them a priority, they may not always engage. Our primary focus is to be the resource for teens and their families and to ensure that we provide every opportunity to connect them to the Jewish community.

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Metro Detroit Teens Have a New Way to Connect to Jewish Life Detroit Jewish News - The Jewish News

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Posted By admin on August 20, 2021

Afghanistan's so-called last remaining Jew, Zabulon Simantov, has decided to remain in Afghanistan despite the Taliban's takeover due to his refusal to give his estranged wife a get, a Jewish divorce document.

In a WION interview, Simantov stated his reason for staying is to maintain his synagogue.

"I will not leave my home. If I had left, there would have been no one to maintain the synagogue," he said.

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His wife and their two daughters have lived in Israel since 1998, but Simantov has stayed in Afghanistan to tend to the lone synagogue, located in Kabul.

Attempts have been made to assist his Israeli wife for years, though he is yet to agree to give her a divorce. Rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt, the chief rabbi of Moscow, wrote on Twitter that he had offered to fly to Afghanistan to administer the divorce but that Simantov refused.

As halacha (Jewish law) requires the husband to voluntarily grant his wife a divorce, many women are rendered "agunot" literally "chained women" as they are "chained" to their marriages if they aren't given a get.

Business Moti Kahana reportedly offered to fund a private airplane to take Simantov to Israel, an offer the Afghan Jew initially accepted. Security guards filmed Simantov reading the "Tefilat Haderech" prayer, read before traveling.

However, Simantov apparently changed his mind and decided to remain in the now Taliban-run country.

In a 2007 interview, Simantov said that he doesn't speak Hebrew, and didn't have plans to move to Israel.

"Go to Israel? What business do I have there?"

Simantov prays daily and keeps kashrut laws, slaughtering the animals he eats himself. He was given permission to do so by the rabbi of Tashkent, Uzbekistan.

Yitzhak Levi, the penultimate Jew in Afghanistan, died in 2005. The two famously did not get along.

I dont talk to him, hes the devil, Simantov told The New York Times in 2002. A dog is better than him."

Simantov believes the Torah will resurface one day.

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Last Jew in Afghanistan refuses to give wife Jewish divorce - The Jerusalem Post

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Posted By admin on August 20, 2021

As we approach Rosh Hashanah and begin a new year, we again begin the cycle of holidays and rituals that are the rhythm of Jewish life.

I think the brilliance of the Hebrew calendar was its ability to transform itself from an agricultural calendar tied to the seasons to one of both sacred space and sacred time.

One of the first things Judaism did was to transform existing agricultural holidays and celebrations dependent on the Land of Israel into celebrations of the life of Israel.

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The Spring Holiday was no longer marking the new life that was awakening in nature, but it was now Passover, marking the exodus from Egypt. The harvest festivals now marked the huts the Children of Israel dwelled in during their stay in the desert and the giving of the Torah.

It was this brilliant change that allowed Jews to connect to the holidays throughout their exiles and geographic wanderings. How else could a Jew freezing in Poland connect to the harvest holiday in ancient Judea? But since the holiday was connected to the historic event in the life of the people, Jews from Babylon, Alexandria, Fez and Chicago were able to truly celebrate and rejoice in a meaningful way.

These two holidays stand alone in their universalism and act as an anchor for the Jewish people, not to get too wrapped up in its own story alone. Rather, they tie it to the larger family of man.

Rosh Hashanah is often called the Jewish New Year, but we Jews see it as the New Year for everyone. It is on this day that the entire world was created. It is on this day that we come together to proclaim God as king of the universe, not just the tribal God of our people.

Yom Kippur is the Day of Atonement for everyone, not just the Jews. It is on this day that the fate of the world is decided.

It is interesting that it is these two holidays days that mark not the history of Israel but the universal idea of God and Gods kingdom that are called the High Holy Days. I think we would all do well to pause and reflect on that.

WHAT SPEAKS to me the most about the Hebrew calendar is its ability to create a theme for each holiday. This thematic approach to the particular holiday is a great pedagogic tool.

The lessons of each holiday apply 24 hours a day, 354 days a year. But as humans we cannot relate to the sum total of all the lessons of all the holidays each and every single day. The lessons of Purim in which we learn that God works in the background, pulling the strings like a hidden puppet master, apply every day. The lesson of Hanukkah and its warning against assimilation apply every day. But we cannot function like that. So instead we pick one holiday to concentrate on that theme and then move on to the next.

The theme of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur is that of teshuva, repentance. Ideally we should be doing teshuva every single day of our lives. But since we are human, we cannot be expected to act that way, so these two days are for that lesson and theme.

Every day is really Mothers Day. Still, in fear of letting that fact turn into the mundane, we instead pick one day a year to celebrate our mothers and motherhood in general. So, too, repentance and reconciliation between us and God and between our fellow human beings should be done every day. The so-called High Holy Days give us the sacred space and time to do that and create a framework to help facilitate that.

The writer holds a doctorate in Jewish philosophy and teaches in post-high-school yeshivot and midrashot in Jerusalem.

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Rosh Hashanah and the brilliance of the Jewish calendar - The Jerusalem Post

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Posted By admin on August 20, 2021

The Athens location of Andys Frozen Custard, a franchise out of Missouri, is open on Broad Street near Hawthorne Avenue. Frozen custard means ice cream, basically, slow churned and high in butterfat. Andys also has concretes (a sort of Blizzard-type thing with frozen custard mixed with things like Oreos or strawberries or syrup), jackhammers (custard with a hot center), sundaes, splits, malts, shakes, freezes, sodas, floats and soft drinks brewed in Milwaukee. All this stuff is available until 11:30 p.m. most nights and midnight Friday and Saturday.

Most locally compiled, spiral-bound cookbooks in the South come from churches and Junior Leagues, but Athens Congregation Children of Israel Sisterhood recently produced its own: Eat & Be Satisfied: Jewish Cooking from the Classic City, which you can buy from Avid Bookshop. More than 90 contributors sent in 175 recipes that range all over the place, from standards like latkes, kugels and challah to recipes from Trumps Catering. Most of them come with a charming introduction from the contributor, and 25% of the profits go to nonprofit agencies that combat food insecurity in northeast Georgia.

Rashes Cuisine took a break (as much as its ever-busy owner is capable of taking one) this summer but is back open in its Vine Street location from 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Wednesday through Friday, plus out and about with its food truck.

Viva Argentine did the same and is also back open Wednesday through Saturday, noon to 9 p.m.

Eagle-eyed reader Mark Mobley reports that a sign on Jefferson Road between Tallassee Road and New Kings Bridge promises a new location of Striplings General Store.

Suncatcher Cafe in Watkinsville is opening up a second location, on the University of North Georgias Oconee campus, doing breakfast and lunch.

The slot in Beechwood Shopping Center that was a Menchies for an age is becoming a Crumbl Cookies, a franchise out of Utah that changes its cookie offerings weekly.

Like what you just read? Support Flagpole by making a donation today. Every dollar you give helps fund our ongoing mission to provide Athens with quality, independent journalism.

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Andy's Frozen Custard Is Open, a Jewish Cookbook and More Food News | Flagpole - Flagpole Magazine

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Posted By admin on August 20, 2021

David Harris, the CEO of the American Jewish Committee, says theres a new nexus of antisemitism: fragile vulnerable young Jews join campus groups such as the hip hop club where they are indoctrinated into anti-Israel attitudes.

These antisemitic beliefs are pervasive on campus, Harris explained on an AJC webinar (Facebook, YouTube) about Jew-hatred last week. They penetrate every nook and cranny of the college campus and push students into the anti-Israel crowd.

We need help, Harris said.

American Jewish organizations have to provide spinal transplants to young Jews who know that being Jewish means being connected to Israel but who find themselves extremely isolated on campus. Many of these young Jews end up being used as props by the most vicious, virulent antisemitic anti-Zionist groups.

Harris declared war on these Jews, who believe that to be a good Jew, they need to throw Israel under the bus.

Im not going to pretend that Im a good Jew who disassociates himself from Israel, throws Israel under the bus, sacrifices Israel on the altar of social political expediency in order to somehow get along.

Harriss comments sound a bit like Reefer Madness, but they express Zionist ideology: support for Israel is a core component of Judaism, so criticism of Israel is antisemitism. As a Jew I believe.. that to be a Jew is to be associated with three things, a faith tradition, a sense of peoplehood, and a connection to a land, Harris explains. Those are the essential building blocks of Jewish identity. Im not going to amputate the connection to a land simply because it creates uncomfortable situations either in a classroom or perhaps on the street.

Of course, many young American Jews have rejected the idea that religion calls on them to support Israel; their belief in equality stands opposed to what leading human rights groups call an apartheid regime of Jewish supremacy. In his webinar, Harris simply ignored the real reasons young Jews are deserting Israel the mounting evidence of human rights violations, and mounting Palestinian body count in order to maintain his ideal of Israel as the liberator of European Jewry.

The 71-year-old CEOs comments reflect the growing defensiveness of a Jewish establishment alarmed by a survey that shows 38 percent of young Jews regard Israel as an apartheid state. He presents himself and older Jews as lonely defenders against an antisemitic leftwing tide that is sweeping up vulnerable Jews.

Harris said that young Jews who have been to Israel and are proud of the country need to be supported by Jewish organizations like his own. Because those young Jews can be picked off by the antisemites.

They need to be seen as being on the front lines. It can be very difficult at the age of 18 or 20 to find yourself in a classroom where a professor is using the classroom not to teach and to open minds, but to propagandize and to close minds, to intimidate those who may have a contrary point of view We know where this intellectual bullying and social intimidation is happening.

It can be very difficult for those students to walk across the quad and see Israel vilified and demonized as some kind of ethnic cleansing apartheid state when nothing of the sort is true. But again, we are dealing with young people who are vulnerable, who are fragile who want to be experiencing great college years. So we need to support them.

The antisemitism begins before college. A student at a prestigious private school in New York told the AJC about the chair of the social studies department at his school who would not even put a map of Israel alongside all the other countries in the world, Harris said.

The AJC has been running a young leaders program to help give a spine to students who face social isolation over their views. The program tries to create an inner sense of identity of pride of confidence We are affirming Jewish identity and in some respects we are trying to strengthen spines or even creating spinal transplants.

After all, why would someone go on campus and be socially isolated or intimidated by a professor by other students, on social media, unless they know what they are standing for? If Im going to be attacked for being a Jew. Or Im going to be attacked for being a friend of Israel, I sure as heck want to know why being Jewish should matter to me, why Israel should matter to me.

The spinal transplants are necessary because of the pervasive antisemitism on campus, in every nook and cranny. And yes the Hip Hop Club!

I want them to know that we have their back. I want to hear their real life stories, like the student at Columbia University for example who told us when I was a freshman I wanted to enroll in some of the clubs at the university, they were all out there on the quad recruiting, and when I discovered that even the hip hop club which was the kind of music he liked even the hip hop club had signed on to some BDS campaign, isolating and demonizing Israel, he realized, this has gone way out of control. This is not just about friends of Palestinians and friends of Israel having these debates, whether in the classroom or on campus fine, thats part of college, you meet people with whom you agree and with whom you disagree and you learn from experience.

This was about something else, this was a kind of penetration of just about every kind of nook and cranny of a campus and pulling it into the anti-Israel crowd. So my hat is off to these students whom I have met.

Jewish students without a spine become props for antisemitism.

I see today in some of the most vicious virulent anti-semitic anti-Zionist groups, some Jews who are kind of used as props. [They say] How can we be antisemitic People who actually publicly endorse the dismantlement the one Jewish majority nation on earth, a nation that occupies a vast landmass equal to the size of New Jersey. This one little sliver of land, this one little place where Jews can exercise sovereignty whereas in our history we know that we have not been able to exercise sovereignty we have lived by the will of the majority and look at the results. Look at what happened to my wife and her family, look what happened to my mother and her family.

But that one little sliver of land is too much for some Jews who are willing to sell, throw millions of other Jews under the bus.

Mondoweiss is a nonprofit news website dedicated to covering the full picture of the struggle for justice in Palestine. Funded almost entirely by our readers, our truth-telling journalism is an essential counterweight to the propaganda that passes for news in mainstream and legacy media.

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'Fragile, vulnerable' young Jews who join 'hip hop club' that supports BDS are crux of new antisemitism David Harris Mondoweiss - Mondoweiss

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Posted By admin on August 20, 2021

Elka Mednick

As summer comes to a close and the High Holidays approach, annual concerns regarding conflicts between the academic calendar and the holidays are brought to the forefront.

This year, the usual first day of school for public school students, the day after Labor Day, coincides with the first day of Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Yearamong the most religiously and culturally significant observances of the Jewish year.

Both Virginia Beach and Norfolk public schools will begin classes on Thursday, September 9, 2021. The school systems hope that this change will ease the transition back to school for Jewish families who will no longer have a conflict between the first day of school and the first day of observance of Rosh Hashanah.

The Jewish Community Relations Council annually shares with local school districts, private schools, civic leaders, and business organizations the calendar of Jewish holidays for the next five years. The calendar includes explanations of the most significant holidays.

The JCRC calendar is available to all at JewishVA.org/JCRCHolidayCalendar.

To learn more about the Jewish Community Relations Council, go to JewishVa.org/JCRC or contact Elka Mednick, assistant director, Jewish Community Relations Council, at emednick@ujft.org.

Elka Mednick is UJFTs Jewish Community Relations Councils assistant director.

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JCRC shares holiday calendar with schools, civic organizations - jewishnewsva.org

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