Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By admin on July 5, 2021

It was the end of the 1980s and the Guardians Middle East correspondent, Ian Black, was talking shop with his competitor at the Sunday Times, the late Marie Colvin. We were discussing when there might be a Palestinian state, Black recalls of their conversation in Jerusalem. We thought maybe it would happen in two or three years.

Israel and the Palestinian territories were deep into the first intifada, an uprising against the occupation that lasted from 1987 until the early 90s. It was a period in which violence spiked, but also a time of nascent hope that the lengthy military grip over Palestinian life might finally end.

Some believe it almost did when the Oslo accords, a series of steps intended to fulfil the right of Palestinians to determine their own fate, were signed in 1993.

Black left Jerusalem shortly before that hugely newsworthy event with what he jokingly laments was impeccable timing. Still, even when he was reporting in the years before that, the direction of travel, he says, was fairly clearly towards some attempt at a resolution.

Today, that hope has all but vanished. In the three years I have spent as the Guardians Jerusalem correspondent, I cannot remember a single conversation with another reporter in which a Palestinian state was considered a likely near-future scenario.

Three decades have separated Blacks assignment from mine. In that time, the Oslo accords have been derailed by the assassination of an Israeli prime minister by a far-right zealot, a much-bloodier second intifada has left the peace process in ruins and the occupation has become entrenched.

Now there is widespread talk in Israel about making its military hold over Palestinians a permanent one. Several anti-occupation Israeli and Palestinian voices claim it already is. They argue that the 90s-era ideal of two states side by side is becoming an impossibility, and a single, undivided and unequal Israeli state has emerged.

You have spent the past three and half years reporting on a one-state reality, whereas I spent my years with the underlying assumption that a two-state solution was possible, said Black, 67. And thats gone.

As my colleagues at the Guardian talk to their predecessors for the papers 200th anniversary, there will undoubtedly be similarly large differences in their beats. But in many ways, on a smaller scale, Blacks daily life mirrored my own.

He would buy morning newspapers in the shop while I can read them online. He would travel, to the West Bank or Gaza, along the same roads I use. He even attended briefings with some of the same people.

This is particularly noticeable on the Palestinian side, whose ageing leadership has largely refused to hand the spotlight to a younger generation. In 1991, Black profiled Hanan Ashrawi, calling her the most famous spokesperson her people had ever had. Ashrawi only retired in December, saying the Palestinian political system needed renewal and reinvigoration to include youth and women.

What has changed is the scale and effectiveness of the occupation we have reported on. Looking over his old clippings, Black said he saw an article he wrote from the mid-80s. I was astonished to find there were only 30,000 settlers.

Roughly 600,000 Israeli Jewish settlers now live in the West Bank and east Jerusalem with no intention of leaving, connected through a network of government-maintained highways. Palestinians remain largely confined to urban enclaves.

Was this outcome predictable during Blacks time, when there was so much hope of a resolution? One criticism made of the Guardian is that it has focused too much on voices in Israeli society calling for an end to the occupation, having the effect of perhaps misleadingly magnifying their domestic influence. Readers have been left wondering how Israeli politics has since lurched so far to the right.

I think in the big picture, the Guardian indulged including the correspondents and including me in wishful thinking. I really do, said Black. But he explains: Israeli society was more divided then, 30 or so years ago, than it is now. The turning point, he says, was the second intifada, which decimated any trust between Israelis and Palestinians.

Black has left Jerusalem but remains deeply engaged. Since leaving the paper, he became a visiting senior fellow at the Middle East centre at the London School of Economics. His book, Enemies and Neighbours: Arabs and Jews in Palestine and Israel, 1917-2017, has become a go-to account. I keep a copy in my office.

See the article here:

Reporting on Israel: Thirty years on, we are still covering the same old enmities - The Guardian

Category: Israel | Comments Off on Reporting on Israel: Thirty years on, we are still covering the same old enmities – The Guardian
Tags:

Posted By admin on July 5, 2021

The funeral is noisy and the deceased is a dog. After all, were only talking about the removal of a disgrace from Israeli society repealing the law that separates families so that both father and mother can hug their sons and daughters. But the coalition is roiling now, and all to guarantee the continuation of this disgrace, known as a temporary order but which has long since become an eternal order.

Under the rule of the right and its satellites on the left, the exception has become the rule. As an Egyptian news reader said once, We apologize for the program we broadcast, well return to the malfunction shortly. This is a country that lives in eternal malfunction.

LISTEN: For LGBTQ minorities, Israels gay paradise can be hell

One can understand where Interior Minister Ayelet Shaked is coming from. She once posted an article by Uri Elitzur on her Facebook page that compared Palestinian children to snakes that must be eliminated before they grow. Thats Shaked, and thats her doctrine. But one cannot understand many other ministers and MKs in the coalition, like those in the Labor Party or Yesh Atid, or even Yisrael Beiteinu, who are battling to pass this law and begging other MKs to support it.

Seriously, Foreign Minister Yair Lapid, do you hate Arabs more than Itamar Ben-Gvir hates them? And honorable Transportation Minister Merav Michaeli, do you hate them more than Bezalel Smotrich, who doesnt want his wife next to an Arab mother in the maternity ward? Instead of these two racists and fountainheads of hatred fighting for the passage of this law, which suits them perfectly, you are trying to persuade them to support it? Thats not absurd, its moral suicide.

Do Lapid and the other sane people in the government have to be more Catholic than the pope in this case? Back in the 1990s, when Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, who needed the support of Hadash and the Arab Democratic Party, realized that there was no majority for the proposal to expropriate Arab land in East Jerusalem, he withdrew the proposal, apologized to no one, and blamed Benjamin Netanyahu.

Oh, sorry, I forgot. For a move like Rabins, one needs two leaders: one like Rabin, who did not blink when faced with Netanyahu, and one like Tawfiq Zayyad, a Hadash MK, who on matters of principle did not seek compromises; he drew the line, and everyone had to toe it, not the other way around. But Shaked is drawing the line and asking the United Arab List MKs to trample on their national and humane obligations to their people, thus the path is paved to absurdity.

During the second Rabin government, Zayyad didnt seek compromises on important issues; the only word he uttered was a loud No. The Arabs say, If you get someone used to riding on your back, every time he sees you, he feels tired. Now all the pressure is being directed at the UAL. As if the UAL leaders dont have enough from the almost weekly shower by their disappointed friend, MK Yariv Levin, who never stops praising UALs support for the Zionist movement from the shameful capitulation to the Evyatar settlers to the vote in favor of drafting Haredi girls now Shaked is coming to them with threats that if they dont vote for the Citizenship and Entry Law amendment, she will work with Likud to advance a stronger immigration law.

Meanwhile, within this gloom, it was pleasant to hear Meretz, and in particular MK Mossi Raz, firmly opposing the law.

Weve been told that those who entered this government had to be prepared to suffer its onions, not just enjoy the honey. But until now our eyes are stinging from copious tears and the offensive smell is blocking our noses starting with the permits to build in the settlements and ending with the repulsive march of hatred in Jerusalem. When do we get the honey? And with leaders like Shaked and Gideon Saar, is there even any honey in the pot to be found?

Go here to read the rest:

Are Israel's new ministers trying to show they hate Arabs more than the far right? - Haaretz

Category: Israel | Comments Off on Are Israel’s new ministers trying to show they hate Arabs more than the far right? – Haaretz
Tags:

Posted By admin on July 5, 2021

JERUSALEM, July 5 (Reuters) - Israel's sovereign wealth fund will not start operating until at least 2022 since taxes on profits from natural gas and other resources remain far below the minimum needed to begin investing, the Israel Tax Authority said on Monday.

The minimum needed is 1 billion shekels ($307 million).

But the authority said it only had collected 741 million shekels through June, including advance payments, although only 441 million shekels of that is absolute, with the rest not final pending companies' 2021 annual reports.

"Total absolute revenue from taxes are expected to exceed 1 billion shekels during 2022," the authority said.

Israel discovered huge deposits of natural gas in the east Mediterranean a decade ago and major production began in 2013.

The wealth fund, aimed at staving off an overheated currency from the sudden explosion in national wealth -- known as the Dutch disease -- was supposed to begin in 2018, but political turmoil and a slower stream of revenue have caused delays.

Former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had said tens of billions of dollars raised from taxing natural gas sales would be invested abroad via the sovereign wealth fund, with proceeds brought home for education, welfare and other services.

($1 = 3.2607 shekels)

Reporting by Steven ScheerEditing by Ari Rabinovitch

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Continued here:

Israel's wealth fund delayed again as tax revenue still short - Reuters

Category: Israel | Comments Off on Israel’s wealth fund delayed again as tax revenue still short – Reuters
Tags:

Posted By admin on July 5, 2021

It would be too easy to do a takedown of Chief Sephardic Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef, who this week declared that math and science are nonsense. He did this even though by his own admission he never learned any himself, although I suspect he relies on a doctor who did study these things when he gets ill, and was able to get his message out through the internet that was invented and operated by people who wasted their time on such nonsense.

More troubling is that the Haredi community he represents relies on the wealth generated by the people who use that useless science and math education to make a living and pay taxes to a government that supports the ultra-Orthodox.

Left to its own devices, with its exclusively Torah education, the Israeli Haredi world would be too impoverished to support its own society of learners the men who devote their lives to religious learning rather than entering the labor market.

Yosef's broadside against secular education is no doubt aimed at throwing down the gauntlet to the new government and its declared intention of finally imposing a core curriculum of math and science in Haredi schools.

The ultra-Orthodox leadership is running scared this is only the second time in Israels modern history that they arent in the government. In the opposition, theyre no longer able to block reforms and squeeze more money out of the state. Panicked and confused, they have heaped insult and abuse on the Bennett government.

Israel certainly has a Haredi-education problem. Its bad enough when 10 percent or 12 percent of the population doesnt have the education and skills to contribute to a modern economy; it will be impossible, if the number grows to 20 percent, as demographers forecast will be the case by the year 2039. The government understands that very well, but until now Haredi political power effectively blocked any serious effort to impose a core curriculum on its semi-independent schools.

But the problem doesnt end with Haredi ignorance: The other 88 percent or 90 percent of Israelis are being taught a core curriculum, but they are being taught it so poorly that Israeli students are at the bottom of the global class when it comes to math, reading and science. And, what the young fail to learn at school, they dont pick up later in life either. Surveys of adult job skills show the most skilled Israelis are on par or better than their peers in the developed world, but on average, the Israeli worker is at the bottom 20 percent of the Organization for International Cooperation and Developments league tables.

The new government not only wants to defy Rabbi Yosef and make sure their young get at least a basic math and science education, it wants to boost Israels low level of labor productivity and increase the number of people employed by the high-tech industry. All of this makes perfectly good sense.

Without an increase in productivity, which is how much value a worker generates from his or her labors, Israels standard of living cant rise over the long term. You can make workers more productive by giving them state-of-the-art equipment that increases their output or by building a transportation system that gets them to their jobs quickly and efficiently so they arent wasting time sitting in traffic jams and arriving at work tired and frazzled.

But the most effective way to do it, especially in Israels high-tech, service-oriented economy, is to ensure they have top-notch work skills. The Haredim have the worst skill set of all because they have at most a rudimentary secular education, followed by Israeli-Arabs, whose schools are underfunded and inferior.

But the fact is the rest of Israel essentially, the majority who work in the non-tech sector cant really compete globally either because of the poor schooling it gets. If the new government doesnt address the problems of the schools in a serious way, even if the Haredim begin to study core subjects, the productivity problem will remain.

High-tech will be another tough but no less critical nut to crack. Like cars were once to Detroit, high-tech is Israels industry. Its the one sector of the economy where we are truly globally competitive.

But it employs less than 10 percent of the workforce. That figure hasnt grown very much over the years, not for lack of demand but for lack of job candidates with the right skills.

In the post-COVID world of more remote services, global high-tech is destined to grow (we saw the first signs of that during the pandemic when tech companies raised record amounts of capital), but the Israeli industry wont be able to keep pace if it doesnt increase the number of engineers and scientists. High-tech is as much about warm bodies as it is about silicon and software.

Solving these problems wont be easy. Fixing the schools isnt just about spending more money, which in any case the educational system has gotten over the last few years to no avail, but addressing the way students are taught and the way schools are organized. No education minister has really dared to try and do that.

Its a pity that Rabbi Yosef never learned any math or science. Its even more of a pity that he didnt study any English or macroeconomics, either. From the former, he would have learned the term gravy train (n, informal, a much-exploited source of easy money); from the latter, he would have come to at least a rudimentary understanding of how society generates wealth and realized the gravy train cant last forever. His children and grandchildren will learn the hard way.

Read more from the original source:

In Israel, its not just rabbis who dont know math and science - Haaretz

Category: Israel | Comments Off on In Israel, its not just rabbis who dont know math and science – Haaretz
Tags:

Posted By admin on July 5, 2021

Israeli GPS-guided nanoparticle drugs can tackle inflammation without touching healthy immune cells, scientists say, calling the innovation game-changing and predicting it could replace antibody therapeutics.

Instead of todays treatments for inflammation, which are felt across the body, were sending ours with a GPS of its own that takes it to precisely the right cells in the body, said Prof. Dan Peer, vice president for research and development at Tel Aviv University, and a member of the institutions Shmunis School of Biomedicine and Cancer Research .

Peer has tested the injected drug on mice, found it as effective as familiar antibody treatments, and outlined the achievement in the peer-reviewed journal Nature Nanotechnology.

The technology uses ribonucleic acid or RNA, a major growth area in scientific research today, as pharmaceutical companies invest more in developing RNA therapeutics and vaccines, following the success of RNA-based coronavirus shots.

Our injection is so precise that its akin to a GPS that takes you not just to the right street, but to the right room in the right apartment in the right apartment building, Peer said.

Get The Times of Israel's Daily Editionby email and never miss our top stories

Peer, whose past innovations include RNA technology licensed by BioNTech, Pfizers partner in developing its coronavirus vaccine, said that he hopes to begin human trials within two years.

This is research that could well pave the way for treatment of inflammation to shift from antibodies to carefully targeted and highly effective RNA therapies, he said.

Inflammation in human lungs (sompong_tom via iStock by Getty Images)

Peer said the development has implications for all inflammatory diseases, various viral diseases such as the coronavirus, and, when the method is further developed, blood cancers.

The injection sends RNA-based drugs, in special nanoparticles, to receptors on cells where there is inflammation, and the drugs then silence or even edit the gene that is causing inflammation.

We are the first research team in the world to succeed in creating a drug delivery system that knows how to bind to receptors only on inflammatory immune cells, and to skip over the other identical cells, said Peer. In other words, we deliver the drug exclusively to cells that are currently relevant to the disease.

Peer said that such pinpointed anti-inflammatory treatments could replace todays therapeutic antibodies, which circulate around the whole body after being administered. To treat an average inflammation only 15% of T-cells need antibodies, but todays treatments take antibodies to all T-cells.

Prof. Dan Peer (courtesy of Tel Aviv University)

The problem is that the antibodies work by reducing the functionality of the bodys T-cells because some of them are causing inflammation, even though its actually only a small proportion of the T-cells that cause the inflammation.

Other T-cells are needed for the immune system, but left inactive by antibody treatments, which is undesirable. Now, instead of suppressing the whole immune system, we have a way to target only the cells that are actually causing inflammation, Peer said.

Youre serious. We appreciate that!

Were really pleased that youve read X Times of Israel articles in the past month.

Thats why we come to work every day - to provide discerning readers like you with must-read coverage of Israel and the Jewish world.

So now we have a request. Unlike other news outlets, we havent put up a paywall. But as the journalism we do is costly, we invite readers for whom The Times of Israel has become important to help support our work by joining The Times of Israel Community.

For as little as $6 a month you can help support our quality journalism while enjoying The Times of Israel AD-FREE, as well as accessing exclusive content available only to Times of Israel Community members.

Link:

New Israeli GPS nano-drug busts inflammation, touted as antibody replacement - The Times of Israel

Category: Israel | Comments Off on New Israeli GPS nano-drug busts inflammation, touted as antibody replacement – The Times of Israel
Tags:

Posted By admin on July 5, 2021

Footage showed a man berating a bus driver and then the person filming the video on a bus on Saturday evening, saying to the driver: "He's f**king Jewish. You're Jewish too," and then banging on the window of the bus from the street.

Another video, filmed earlier the same evening, showed a man at a subway station singing: "F**king hate the Jews," before telling other travelers: "We've got a Jew behind us."

The Metropolitan Police said "an investigation is ongoing after a man was subjected to a torrent of anti-Semitic abuse on a bus in central London." The British Transport Police said it was investigating "anti-Semitic behaviour on a London Underground escalator." No arrests have been made in either incident.

"He somewhat successfully (talked) him out of it, managing to relatively de-escalate the situation, (but) not without him continuing to ferociously spew all kinds of ugly racist remarks and death threats," the man's brother told CNN.

On Twitter, he wrote: "Will anything be done about this rampant antisemitism" and said the incidents were "so depressing."

Reports of anti-Semitic incidents have become more common in recent years in the UK, according to watchdogs and charities that monitor cases.

The Community Security Trust said it recorded 1,668 incidents in 2020, the third-highest year on record, after a record count the previous year.

Marie van der Zyl, the President of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, condemned the incidents on Monday.

"It is absolutely intolerable that a Jewish passenger travelling on public transport should be subjected to disgusting racist threats and abuse in the UK in 2021 not once but twice on the same day," she said in a statement. "Those responsible should be must be tracked down and prosecuted."

Link:

Jewish man abused twice in one evening on London public transportation - CNN

Category: Jewish | Comments Off on Jewish man abused twice in one evening on London public transportation – CNN
Tags:

Posted By admin on July 5, 2021

July 5 marks the 71st anniversary of Israel's enacting of the Law of Return, legislation that allows anyone who is Jewish to immigrate and obtain Israeli citizenship.

Based on Zionist principles, the law was intended to ensure that the State of Israel would be a Jewish state and a home for the Jewish people.

The law was later amended twice. The first time was on August 23, 1954, under then-prime minister Moshe Sharett, when a provision was added to deny citizenship to certain people, such as those with a criminal record.

The second change was more significant and on March 10, 1970 under then-prime minister Golda Meir, the law expanded the Right of Return to those who were not deemed Jewish according to Orthodox halacha definition, but also to those who were married to a Jew, converts to Judaism, or the grandchild of someone who was Jewish. Those not eligible for citizenship, however, were those who converted to another religion despite still being Jewish according to Halacha and, following a 1989 High Court of Justice ruling, Messianic Jews, as long as they don't have Jewish ancestry.

cnxps.cmd.push(function () { cnxps({ playerId: '36af7c51-0caf-4741-9824-2c941fc6c17b' }).render('4c4d856e0e6f4e3d808bbc1715e132f6'); });

Israel is not the only country with a Right of Return. In fact, the principle is very old, and a variant can even be found in the Magna Carta signed by King John of England in 1215.

Today, several countries possess active laws granting a Right of Return, including Armenia, Finland, who grant citizenship to those with ancestry, and Liberia, which grants citizenship to anyone of African descent.

But three countries that give right of return especially for Jews are , Portugal, Spain and Germany. The former two grant citizenship to Sephardi Jews if they can prove that they are descended from Jews expelled from the Iberian peninsula in 1492.

Go here to read the rest:

On this day: Law of Return passed to ensure citizenship for all Jews - The Jerusalem Post

Category: Jewish | Comments Off on On this day: Law of Return passed to ensure citizenship for all Jews – The Jerusalem Post
Tags:

Posted By admin on July 5, 2021

Even before its $8.35 million renovation, the Manchester Jewish Museum was a remarkably eye-catching institution.

LISTEN: For LGBTQ minorities, Israels gay paradise can be hell

Housed in a former synagogue on a busy road in an industrial part of northern Englands largest city, it stood out from the car washes, supermarkets and hardware stores of Cheetham Hill Road thanks to its red-brick facade. The look marries Victorian architecture and the Moorish style favored by the members of the Portuguese-Spanish Sephardic Jewish community that built it in 1874.

As it expanded and gentrified, the Jewish community of Manchester a diverse group with many blue-collar laborers from across the United Kingdom and Eastern Europe who converged because of the citys steel production and other industries moved to leafy suburbs north of the bustling center.

But the synagogue building, the oldest surviving in Manchester, remained a communal symbol long after its congregation disintegrated in the 1980s. It became a museum, the only one in the country housed inside a synagogue.

Now, thanks to a substantial grant from the U.K. National Lottery and other contributors, the museum has been modernized and reopened, with a large extension boasting a massive exterior with Moorish-style decorations on rust-colored metal. The renovations celebrate the passage of time and the Jewish communities industrial credentials while complementing the buildings trademark color.

Its a big moment for us, Max Dunbar, the museums chief executive, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency ahead of the reopening on July 2, which follows two years of renovations.

Its also a big upgrade, adding a kosher-style vegetarian cafe the menu recounts the history of the Jewish dishes it advertises. Theres additionally a learning kitchen where visitors can experience how Jewish foods are made in participatory workshops.

The museums content has been tightened, adapted and presented in a more people-oriented manner that propels the museum, which even Dunbar described as having been very tired and dated, into the 21st century.

Despite having many fans and volunteers, the museum prior to the renovation featured displays that felt archival, including a prayer shawl with a laminated piece of paper alongside giving some basic information about the artifact, or impersonal notes offering dates and statistics.

Those laminated texts have migrated to high-quality information boards, and the content has been reworked.

Among the more gripping artifacts on display is a dress that belonged to Helen Taichner, a Holocaust survivor who arrived in Manchester in 1946 after hiding in a coal cellar in her native Polish city of Katowice. The dress featuring a bulky and inelegant flower pattern for a teenager hangs alongside Taichners passport and leather documents satchel, underlining her foreignness and the contrast between her young age and the horrors she had experienced.

Her diary is also on display.

My happiness knows no bounds, she wrote on the day that she received her visa to enter the United Kingdom.

That part of the display explores why various Jewish people came to Manchester, just showing the global reach and the global roots of Manchesters Jewish communities, Dunbar said. But then in a personal way, through peoples own life stories, rather than a dry academic manner.

Not everything is entering the 21st century. The renovated museum remains low-tech by design, offering few touchscreens or other electronic displays.

You go to a lot of museums these days, and there are computer screens everywhere and buttons and flashing lights, Dunbar said. But at the Manchester Jewish Museum, theres a lot of wood in there, a lot of soft furnishing. We want it to make people feel relaxed and comfortable in the space, so they can really embrace and listen to the stories and learn about the stories.

One impressive vintage item on display was discovered during the renovations: a time capsule made of thick glass containing newspapers, synagogue documents and a handful of coins from the 1870s. Community members had stuffed the capsule in a wall and it was exposed last year, much to the delight of city archaeologists and the museums management.

The final section of the museum consists of quotes by 16 Mancunians written by hand on chalkboards. Each quote one reads Im not going to meet God without knowing him before I get there has a serial number that visitors can look up in a listening station. The idea is for visitors to search a quote and put on headphones to know more about the story behind it, explained Alexandra Grime, a museum curator.

At the heart of the permanent display is the historic interior of what once was theSpanish and Portuguese Synagogue of Manchester.Small in dimensions with only about 100 seats, the synagogue makes up for its humble size in atmosphere. Boasting burgundy carpeting and elaborate golden decorations around the elevated womens section, its wooden pillars and mahogany pews are washed by emerald-tinted light filtering in through the windows painted glass depictions of biblical scenes.

Unlike many Jewish museums in Europe, the Manchester Jewish Museum is no relic of an extinct community.

About 30,000 Jews call the Manchester area home, making the city the second-largest Jewish community in the U.K. after London. (The capitals rising housing prices are part of the reason for Manchesters growth.) The growing population is located mainly in the suburb of Prestwich, with waiting lists for desired Jewish schools and even kindergartens. It also has kosher sushi takeaway, among other kosher restaurants.

This suburban revival is referenced in parts of the museums display. But the museum also preserves the memory of times when its building used to be the center of Jewish life in the area. A giant map of the old Jewish neighborhood with the museum at its center is featured on the atrium floor. The area still has Torah Street the only one in the United Kingdom.

The museums atmosphere and design philosophy reflect how many Mancunians, including Jews, cherish the citys informal, chummy and accessible feel compared to the big metropolis of London.

We dont want it to feel, you know, like a sort of inhospitable, slightly functional institution, Dunbar said of the renovated museum. Thats not who we are. Were sort of a home, a home away from home in a way, and with food at the heart of that, and with these nice, relaxed informal spaces, we can deliver that vision and hope people feel at home when they come here.

Read more from the original source:

Manchesters revamped Jewish museum celebrates the community that left it behind - Haaretz

Category: Jewish | Comments Off on Manchesters revamped Jewish museum celebrates the community that left it behind – Haaretz
Tags:

Posted By admin on July 5, 2021

University of Miami demographer Ira Sheskin, whose expertise has been called upon by media covering the Surfside tragedy, has been documenting the changes in South Florida Jewish communities for four decades.

A few times a year, professor Ira Sheskin gets a call from a journalist reporting on Jewish people in the United States.

But in the past week, Sheskin has been overwhelmed by a number of phone calls and e-mails. Reporters from The Washington Post, The Times of Israel, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, The Jerusalem Post, and other outlets have relied on his insight and expertise to describe the close-knit Jewish community of Surfside, Florida, which is reeling after the collapse of a condo building that was home to many Jews.

He is an obvious choice. As one of the nations preeminent scholars of U.S. Jewish life and migration, Sheskin is uniquely qualified to describe the South Florida Jewish community. As director of the University of Miamis Jewish Demography Project, he has been collecting data on Jews in the area for nearly four decades. And despite the tragic circumstances, he feels it is important to share his research on Miamis Jewish community, which is the third largest in the country after New York and Los Angeles.

I collected data and analyzed it and now that data is of significant interest and it is being put to a variety of uses, said Sheskin, who is a past chair of the Department of Geography and Sustainable Development in the College of Arts and Sciences. That is gratifying because part of my job at the University is community service, and I like producing research that leads to the betterment of society.

Sheskins most recent survey research indicates that the zip code containing Surfside, along with Bal Harbor and Bay Harbor Islands, is one-third Jewish. This is about four times the percentage of Jews in all of South Florida (Miami-Dade, Broward, and Palm Beach counties). About 120,000 Jews live in Miami-Dade, 144,000 live in Broward, and 218,000 in Palm Beach County.

Among Surfsides Jewish households, about 34 percent are Orthodox, or very observant Jews, while 24 percent practice Conservative Judaism and 18 percent are Reform Judaists. And by checking a database of phone numbers for Champlain Towers South, Sheskin predicts that at least 30 percent of the 136 units in the condo were occupied by Jews.

Everyone is just devastated about whats happened there, he said.

While the Jewish population today in the Miami Beach area is not as concentrated as it was in the 1980swhen Jews made up 70 percent of its residentsSheskin said that Surfside has a few unique qualities he has learned from research. First of all, 30 percent of its Jewish population is Hispanic, most often from Venezuela, Argentina, and Colombia. Second, the phenomenon of people telling family and friends about Surfside in their home countries has attracted a steady stream of Hispanic Jews to the area. And most of Surfside is walking distance from one of the most successful orthodox synagogues in the country, The Shul of Bal Harbor. The community is also home to kosher markets and restaurants.

Surfside has built up a reputation in the Conservative and Orthodox Jewish community, he said, adding that Surfside is also attractive to Orthodox Jews because it has an eruv, or barrier, that allows them to carry things between their homes and their synagogue on the Sabbathwhen they are not supposed to perform any form of labor.

Although he was raised Jewish in Long Island, New York, Sheskin didnt initially plan on studying the population. He went to college and graduate school to study geography and started his career at the University in 1977, teaching classes in statistics, research methods, and survey research (which he still does today), while also conducting transportation studies to examine the need for roads and public transportation.

But in 1982, the Greater Miami Jewish Federation wanted a Jewish demographic study completed, and Sheskin won the bid.

While I am not all that religious, I am very devoted to my Jewish identity and to Jewish culture. So, here was an opportunity for me to combine my personal interest in seeing a strong Jewish community in the U.S. as well as my interest in survey research and geography, he said.

Since then, he has completed a similar survey for the Greater Miami Jewish Federation each decade and centered much of his research on the migration patterns, characteristics, and voting preferences of U.S. Jews. Although they make up just 2.4 percent of the national population, as Sheskin said, Jewish people have a much larger impact than their numbers indicate.

Also the co-editor of the American Jewish Year Book, Sheskin was involved in national studies by the Jewish Federations of North America, as well as the 2013 and 2020 Pew Research Centers studies of American Jewry. Therefore, Sheskin can easily rattle off statistics and facts about Jews contributions to society.

Jews are really only 0.2 percent of the worlds population, yet they have won at least 20 percent of Nobel Prizes, he said, noting that Jewish principles stress education, critical thinking, and charity, which may lead to these accomplishments.

His enthusiasm for the field is still palpable. Sheskin is regularly contacted by Jewish groups from across the countryfederations, community centers, day schools, camps, genetic testing organizations, and even cemeteriesto survey their local Jewish populations. These reports help the entities decide where to devote resources, build new facilities, or even to locate bone marrow matches, Sheskin said.

I love doing this type of research because you can find and create new information, he said. And in doing so, I find out things that no one knew existed.

The rest is here:

Professor devotes his career to chronicling US Jews - University of Miami

Category: Jewish | Comments Off on Professor devotes his career to chronicling US Jews – University of Miami
Tags:

Posted By admin on July 5, 2021

July 4 marks the 245th anniversary of the passing of the Declaration of Independence, a watershed moment in US history that marked the 13 Colonies' path toward independence, celebrated annually as US Independence Day.

The Declaration of Independence was not signed by the entire Continental Congress that day in 1776 in Philadelphia, despite popular belief. In fact, the official signed document was only ordered two weeks later on July 19 and was mostly signed another two weeks after that on August 2.

Concentrated mainly in a few large communities such as New York, Philadelphia, Savannah, Charleston and Newport, the presence of Jews in the colonies during the Revolution and their role in the War of Independence have been well documented.

cnxps.cmd.push(function () { cnxps({ playerId: '36af7c51-0caf-4741-9824-2c941fc6c17b' }).render('4c4d856e0e6f4e3d808bbc1715e132f6'); });

One notable story was that of Haym Salomon, a wealthy Jew who, at the end of the Revolution, essentially financed the rest of the war.

Another notable figure was Col. Mordecai Sheftall, a prominent member of the Savannah Jewish community and the highest-ranking Jewish officer in the Continental Army.

In one instance, Sheftall and his son were captured by the British alongside patriot Rev. Moses Allen, the latter having been singled out for preaching freedom to his congregation, while Sheftall was singled out for his Jewish faith, according to the Raab Collection, who found and auctioned off newly discovered diary pages from Allen recounting the incident and adding a Jewish dimension to the conflict.

Religious freedom was a significant force in the colonies, which were far more open and tolerant to different faiths compared to Europe. As such, the rights and freedoms Jews held in 13 Colonies were far greater than they would have been anywhere else, being considered citizens and landowners who could hold office and positions of authority without legal reproach.

May the children of the stock of Abraham who dwell in this land continue to merit and enjoy the good will of the other inhabitants," he wrote, "while every one [sic] shall sit in safety under his own vine and fig tree and there shall be none to make him afraid.

Originally posted here:

July 4th: America's 245th birthday, and what it meant for US Jews - The Jerusalem Post

Category: Jewish | Comments Off on July 4th: America’s 245th birthday, and what it meant for US Jews – The Jerusalem Post
Tags: