Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By admin on March 3, 2021

TheTorah columnis supported by a generous donation from Eve Gordon-Ramek in memory of Kenneth Gordon.TetzavehExodus 27:2030:10

Daughter: Did you know that our Shabbat table is like magic?

Father: Thats nice. Help me set it then. And how is it like magic?

Daughter: Because it replaces the Temple of Jerusalem and makes up for its destruction.

Father: Get the challah cover, please. And where did you learn this?

Daughter: Its my Torah and haftarah portions for my bat mitzvah, Tetzaveh. Like, typically, the haftarah is thematically linked to the Torah reading. But in my case, it is certainly that, but so much more. In my Torah portion we build the Mishkan

Father: The what?

Daughter: You know, the Tabernacle in the desert. And my haftarah, from the Book of Ezekiel, marks the end of the First Temple. We do rebuild the Temple in Persian period, have it through the Greek period, but lose it again in the Roman period, through today. No bother, we have our Shabbat Table. We even survived the loss of the Ark of the Covenant.

Father: How do you know all of this? And where are the Shabbat candles?

Daughter: On the Jew Oughta Know podcast. And from my teachers I learned that Ezekiel knows this because he was born in the Land of Israel, then, in the year 434 BCE, Jerusalem was conquered by Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylonia. Nebuchadnezzar exiled the Jewish king Jehoiachinalong with 10,000 captives, including the kings family, the nobility of the land and the leaders of the army. Among the refugees was Ezekiel. In 586 BCE, the Temple was destroyed.

Father: Put the challah in the oven, its almost dinner time. Tell me, what does your friend Ezekiel say?

Daughter: He shares his vision: make known to them the plan of the Temple and its layout, its exits and entrances its entire plan, and all the laws and instructions pertaining to its entire plan. Write it down before their eyes, that they may faithfully follow its entire plan and all its laws. (Ezekiel 43:11)

Father: What good is that? Were the exiles in Babylonia in any position to build the Temple?

Daughter: Right. There is a Midrash (Tanchuma, Tzav 14) that gives a dramatic voice to Ezekiel: Master of the World! The Jews are exiled in the land of their enemies, and You are telling me to inform them of the Temples dimensions? Are they able to build it now? Wait until they are redeemed from exile, and then I will tell them! God responds: Just because My children are in exile, My home should not be built? Tell them to study the form of the Temple, and it will be as if they are actually building it! Thats a cool move. Before digital virtual reality, there was textual virtual reality. As we read about it, imagine it, and abracadabra, its there.

Father: Table is set, food is ready, wine is here, almost time to light candles. Before we bring in the whole household, explain to me how this set table for Shabbat replaces the Tabernacle and the Temple?

Daughter: Talmud. Also, from Babylonia! The rabbis want us to have a long mealtime so that a person who does not have meal might have time to show up. While talking about tables, they do a mashup of Ezekiel 41:22 and 43:13:

The altar, three cubits high and the length thereof, two cubits, was of wood, and so the corners thereof; the length thereof, and the walls thereof, were also of wood and it is written: And he said unto me: This is the table that is before the Lord. The verse begins with the altar and concludes with the table. As long as the Temple stood, the altar atoned for Israel. Now, a persons table atones. (Berakhot 55a)

Father: Shabbat Shalom

Daughter: In our home.

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Your Shabbat table is magic. No, really. The rabbis said so. - The Jewish News of Northern California

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Posted By admin on March 3, 2021

The Temple Mount in Jerusalem, March 20, 2020. Photo: Reuters / Ammar Awad.

Jewish history is long, tortuous, and difficult to grasp in its entirety. Moreover, there is the history of the Jews, and then there is the history of Judaism; and while these two histories overlap considerably, they are not the same, a point made by Adam Kirsch in his 2018 The New Yorker article on Why Jewish History Is So Hard to Write.

The unsuccessful Jewish revolt against the Roman Empire from 66 to 73 CE, ending with the fall of Masada, is a prime example. Thanks, in part, to the writings of Josephus, the historical details have been widely publicized. As the common narrative puts it, the failure of the revolt led to the dispersion of the Jews, the loss of their homeland, and nearly 2,000 years of wandering, highlighted by a variety of restrictions, expulsions, and pogroms. Ironically, the same war also led to the destruction of the Temple, the ascendancy of Rabbinic Judaism, and the writing of the Talmud and Midrash.

Yet the struggle between the Jews and the Romans in the Holy Land did not end in 73 CE, and Jews continued to live in significant numbers in Palestine (the name given to the land by the Romans after the first revolt) for a considerable time afterward. Jews formed a majority of the population of Palestine until at least the fifth century CE, and an autonomous Roman-recognized Jewish patriarchate in Palestine existed until 429 CE.

The first revolt was the first of four efforts by the Jews of Palestine to throw off the Roman yoke. The second revolt, known as the Bar Kochba Revolt, began in 132 CE and ended with the fall of the fortress of Betar in 136 CE. The Israeli archaeologist Yigael Yadin notes in Bar-Kokhba (1971) that other than occasional references to coins minted in this period, references to this revolt in the Talmud and Midrash are scant and vague. Non-Jewish sources provide more information, especially the Roman historian Cassius Dio, who noted that the Romans paid a heavy price in casualties for their victory. It was the discovery of letters between Bar Kochba and his military subordinates in the early 1960s that established the historical provenance of this event.

March 2, 2021 2:52 pm

After the destruction of the Temple, the center of Jewish life in Palestine shifted from Jerusalem and its surroundings, to the Galilee. This is clear from the large number of impressive synagogue ruins in evidence today at sites such as Beit Alpha, Bar-am, and Capernaum, but above all, the extensive ruins and mosaics that have been uncovered in recent decades at Tzippori (the Roman Sepphoris).

I learned only recently that there were two additional revolts by Jews in Palestine against Roman rule. In both, the rebels tried to take advantage of Roman preoccupation with disturbances elsewhere in the Empire.

The Gallus Revolt, directed against the rule of Constantine Gallus, brother-in-law of the Roman emperor Constantine II, took place from 351 to 352 CE. The revolt may have been a reaction to Christian proselytism, although according to Hebrew University historian Shmuel Safrai, Gallus corrupt rule was the cause. The focal points of the revolt were at Tzippori and Tiberius, but a 1996 discovery of a trove of related coins indicates that it extended as far south as Lod (Lydda). Ursicinus, a senior Roman commander, put down the revolt; thousands of rebels died, and towns such as Tzippori and Tiberius were destroyed. (Both towns were rebuilt shortly thereafter.)

The last Jewish effort to gain autonomy in Palestine before modern times, the revolt against Heraclius, emperor of Byzantine (the Eastern Roman Empire), broke out in 614 CE, in the midst of a broader conflict between the Byzantine Empire and the Sasanian (Persian) Empire. Estimates indicate that 20-26,000 Jewish men fought in this campaign, with heavy losses on both sides. Initial Jewish successes, including a Jewish takeover of Jerusalem, came to naught in 617 CE, when the Sasanians reneged on their support for the Jews.

Each of these four revolts failed, and some have questioned the wisdom of taking on the powerful Roman Empire at what seems to have been impossible odds. Each loss resulted in a further reduction in the number of Jews living in the Holy Land.

But while it is true that from the seventh century CE until modern times Jews formed a minority of the population of Palestine, their numbers were still appreciable throughout this period, even though they fluctuated because of immigration, epidemics, and earthquakes. To say that the Jews left the Land of Israel for 2,000 years after the fall of Masada is incorrect. It encourages the view that the modern State of Israel is nothing more than a colonial enterprise, without any historical connection to the land or evidence of a continuous Jewish presence.

Former US ambassador to Israel, David Friedman, along with many others, have warned that Jewish literacy is critical for the future of the Jewish people. While there may be no consensus as to the definition of Jewish literacy, surely a basic knowledge of Jewish history should be a part of it.

Jacob (Jake) Sivak, elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada in 2002, is a retired professor in the School of Optometry, University of Waterloo.

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Jewish History Proves Jews Are Indigenous to Israel - Algemeiner

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Posted By admin on March 3, 2021

On Wednesday, Feb. 17, 2021, the Azrieli Graduate School of Jewish Education and Administration, along with the Bernard Revel Graduate School of Jewish Studies and the Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary (RIETS) and supported by the Shevet Glaubach Center for Career Strategy and Professional Development, hosted the Jewish Education Night of Networking.

The event began with a welcome from Dr. Rona Novick, dean of Azrieli Graduate School, in which she addressed both the stresses for Jewish educators brought on by the pandemic as well as the strategies and innovations being developed to support them and their schools. Underscoring the role of spirituality, finding fun, being flexible and actions to make a difference, Dr. Novick reminded educators that in order to care for their students, they need resources. Just as the stewardess reminds you, in case of a sudden loss of cabin pressure, she noted, affix your oxygen mask before helping others: you need to find ways to take care of yourselves.

Attendees then had the opportunity to visit online presentations by the faculty of Azrieli, Revel and RIETS as well as by representatives of Jewish schools and educational organizations. These included included brief lectures on relevant topics and introductions to the work and culture of various Jewish day schools.

The discussions touched upon such topics as teaching the Holocaust, incorporating the teachings of Pirkei Avot [Ethics of the Fathers] to support social-emotional learning, the importance of Jewish philosophy, managing loss, how to give a model lesson and making Gemara [Talmud] relevant for students.

Presenters included Dr. Karen Shawn (associate professor of Jewish education at Azrieli), Dr. Shay Pilnik (director, Emil A. and Jenny Fish Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies), Dr. Daniel Rynhold (dean, Revel Graduate School) Dr. Scott Goldberg (associate professor of education and psychology at Azrieli), and Rabbi David Block and Rabbi Ari Segal of Shalhevet High School in Los Angeles, California.

Over 35 schools and other chinuch-related [education] organizations shared the innovations taking place at their schools to engage educators for potential positions. They came from all around the country, including the Midwest (Farber Hebrew Day School of Southfield, Michigan), the Southeast (Margolin Hebrew Academy-Feinstone Yeshiva of the South in Memphis, Tennessee), the West coast (Yeshiva University High Schools of Los Angeles and Southern California Yeshiva High School) and the New York metropolitan area (SAR High School in Riverdale and Yeshivat Noam in Paramus, New Jersey).

Those who attended appreciated meeting with representatives from multiple schools and learning about the opportunities available in Jewish education. One Azrieli student who had never considered a job outside the New York metropolitan area said she so enjoyed her visit with representatives from the Addlestone Hebrew Academy of Charleston, South Carolina, that she envisioned taking a job there.

The success of the Night of Networking can be measured in the 150 people attending nearly 70 different presentations throughout the evening. In the coming weeks, the Shevet Glaubach Center will be sending the rsums of attendees to presenters so that people can build upon the connections made during the Night of Networking that will ultimately strengthen the field of Jewish education.

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The Jewish Education Night of Networking Yeshiva University News - Yu News

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Posted By admin on March 3, 2021

It has been almost a year since the start of the pandemic, when life as we knew it came to a screeching halt. Now, vaccines are starting to be distributed, and we can see the light at the end of the tunnel. Yet some Americans still refuse to get their COVID-19 vaccination for a number of reasons. For those who are uncertain about whether to get the vaccine, Judaism provides a useful guide.

The Torah is far too old a text for ideas such as a vaccine, but it still contains recommendations to deal with health problems and plagues. For example, Leviticus Chapter 13 talks about what a priest should do if someone has leprosy. It starts by saying that the infected person has to report to a priest if they get symptoms. If the priest ruled that the person was infected (based on the guidance that God gave Moses and Aaron), they would have to isolate themselves for seven days and then get reexamined by a priest to see whether they could be allowed back into the community.

Of course, parallels to the ongoing pandemic and quarantine procedures are apparent, but what do Jewish values say about vaccines?

To start, we have to understand one of the best known Jewish values: Love your neighbor as yourself. Simply put, in order to love your neighbor as yourself, you first need to love yourself. This type of thinking is the backbone to how Jewish scholars, and thus Judaism, approach ideas such as getting a vaccine.

In the Talmud, there is a story that is like a Jewish version of the trolley problem, a popular ethics scenario. In this biblical version, you and a stranger are walking on a desolate path that is far from any civilization. With you is a bottle of water that has enough water to allow only one person to make it to the nearest civilization. What should you do?

Throughout our lives, we have been taught that the moral thing to do would be to give the other person the water: to sacrifice yourself for the betterment of another person. Yet if both people act morally, no one will drink and both will die. This is not a favorable outcome, but in times that are less severe, acting selflessly for the betterment of other people is encouraged.

One instance is in the story of Mah Tovu where Balaam, who is sent to curse the Israelites, blesses them after being overcome with awe.

For a long time, there was only one acceptable opinion for how to handle the who should drink the water problem. This opinion came from the sage Ben Patura, who taught that both travelers should drink and die so that neither one of them is responsible for the other persons death.

This is contrasted with Rabbi Akivas commentary that you should put yourself in front of others when there are no other options. As previously mentioned, in order to love your neighbor as yourself, you first have to love yourself. So, the Jewish thing to do in the water scenario would be to drink the water yourself.

Of course there is a lot of controversy over an ethical scenario like this, but what do our values tell us about whether or not we should get a COVID-19 vaccine? Another teaching will help us navigate this decision.

In Shabbat 31a of the Talmud, a gentile will convert to Judaism if a rabbi can teach him the whole Torah while the gentile stands on one foot. When the gentile comes to Hillel, Hillel teaches the man, What is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor. That is the whole Torah; the rest is commentary. Go and study it!

When getting a vaccine, consider asking yourself whether this is good for your neighbor. If there is a line for a vaccine, going around that line, or cutting in, could hurt your neighbor if he or she was supposed to get vaccinated before you. However, when it is your turn to get vaccinated, you should do so because that helps the community.

Moreover, if an opportunity arises in which you can get vaccinated out of turn, and if you dont do so the vaccine would go to waste, then you should take it. By stepping up to make sure the vaccine doesnt go to waste, you help your community by not being wasteful and also by working toward the goal that everyone gets vaccinated.

Judaism promotes community. We need to have 10 people for a minyan, and we celebrate the holidays by gathering with our families. In order to ensure the longevity of these traditions, we need to make sure that we are safe while doing them. If you know that you are in the group that is able to get a vaccine according to your state or county guidelines, then, according to Jewish values, you should be signing up to get vaccinated because you need to be able to take care of yourself.

Furthermore, even once you get vaccinated, you still need to continue to take care of the rest of our community by limiting the spread of the virus. Based on Hillels teaching, we should still be careful when coming in contact with others. Even though you may be shielded from the effects of the virus because of your vaccination, your neighbors may not be. This is an example of helping others after you helped yourself.

No religion says to think solely about yourself. There is always a balance between the community and oneself. During this pandemic, the balance that was communal interconnectedness has been tested time and again. However, if everyone were to get the vaccine when it was made available to them, the community would be a better, healthier place, which, in the end, is all that really matters.

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Searching Jewish wisdom for guidance on vaccination | Ohr Chadash | stljewishlight.com - St. Louis Jewish Light

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Posted By admin on March 3, 2021

Rabbi Megan Doherty has served as director of Hillel and Jewish Campus Life for four years. Before coming to Oberlin College, Rabbi Megan worked at Mishkan Haam Reconstructionist community in New York and Slifka Center for Jewish Life at Yale University. In February, she wrote an op-ed for Cleveland.com titled Ohios abortion laws interfere with the practice of my religion. The Review spoke with her to learn more about why she decided to write the article and how her faith informs her political beliefs.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

You attended the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College in Philadelphia. How did this education influence the way you view Judaism?

Reconstructionism has this really serious commitment to the notion of Judaism as an evolving religious civilization. One of the famous aphorisms of Reconstructionism is that the past has a vote, but not a veto, which means that you take the past really seriously. You have to give the past its voice and its vote, and more broadly, you have to ask: How are all of these traditions and practices and ideas relevant, now, in our lives?

In your op-ed, you explained that the Mishpatim section from the Torah establishes out that a pregnant persons life takes precedence over the life of a fetus. Could you talk more about the section itself?

The Torah is read on this annual cycle in Jewish communities, and, with a few calendrical exceptions, the whole Jewish community around the world will be reading the same chunk of the Torah on a given week, and Mishpatim is one of these sections.

Up until Mishpatim weve had this sweeping story of slavery, Egypt, plagues, the Red Sea and figuring out life, and then this revelation on Mount Sinai. And now we have Mishpatim, which literally means laws the way I like to think about the Mishpatim Torah portion is as the first draft of how we will live in a community of free people.

And here is the actual text within Mishpatim, and Im paraphrasing here: When men fight and one of them winds up pushing or shoving a woman who is pregnant and she is physically fine but there is a miscarriage, then the one who pushed her will surely be punished or fined according to the payment her husband demands. But then, we have this line saying that if she is physically hurt, then the penalty will be a life for a life, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth which in Jewish law, the rabbis understood to be financial compensation. No one was ever actually plucking out peoples eyes. Crucially, the distinction is that the fetus is separated out it is different. And in context, this distinction is coming in a series of descriptions detailing what happens if you murder someone, if you commit manslaughter, issues around the death penalty, and issues around what do when you kill a slave. Ultimately, it becomes really clear in context that in the case of a miscarriage, the death of a fetus is not equivalent to taking the life of a living person.

In what ways does the passage you described above specifically resonate with you?

Ive got a very personal answer, and Ive got an academic one. The academic one is that for Jews living today, our Judaism is Rabbinic Judaism, the Judaism of the Talmud, as well as the later evolutions from the Talmud. These evolutions range from the medieval codes of Jewish law into the modern world of people figuring out how to live according to these codes.

When I read the Torah and especially the legal parts of it Im not always reading it to be like, This is what I should do. For me, when I read the text, I am really curious about the womans experience.

And I am really interested in the idea [of how people in the] ancient Near East were thinking about and experiencing pregnancy and child loss. What was that experience? Was it uncommon? Was it common? Were enough women getting shoved by random men having fist fights that this needed to be encoded in a law? Or is it here to demonstrate how we think about this potential life? Then, the really personal piece is that Ive always been pro-choice. It was never anything I really ever had to think about too much it just made sense. Its the bodily autonomy that we have.

When I had close friends who were pregnant, and even more so when my partner was pregnant, it became extra clear to me that this is vital: that people should be able to exercise that autonomy [and] authority over their own bodies and not have to donate their womb for nine months if they dont want to. But even more than that, pregnancy is so dangerous, even today, and the experience of being pregnant is so painful and uncomfortable and often not always good for the health of the pregnant person. I love babies and I love my daughter, but the idea that the state should be imposing upon someone to take that risk on their own lives, on their own physical being, is just wrong.

For me, this text in the Torah, and the way that Jewish law evolved to say that the mental, spiritual, physical, and emotional state of pregnant person takes precedence over the life of a fetus Im proud of that in Judaism, that way of really respecting and honoring the risk and the work of pregnancy. I found that to be really powerful.

The argument you lay out in the article in favor of abortion rights is a First Amendment one. You argue that outlawing abortion would violate your religious freedom as a Jewish person. But how do you decide which religious belief systems should influence politics?

I would say that part of why I wanted to frame my argument in the context of a First Amendment argument is because hot-button issues like abortion, like same-sex marriage the default framing in society and in law is a pretty Christian one. I think if were going to say that we are a country that offers the practice of free religion, with a Constitution saying Congress should make no law respecting the establishment of religion, then that has to be taken seriously.

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Rabbi Megan Doherty on the Heartbeat Bill The Oberlin Review - The Oberlin Review

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Posted By admin on March 3, 2021

Thirty-two-year-old Jonah Sanderson describes himself like a bottle of his favorite single malt scotch. When you first put your nose to it, the smell is caramel, shoe leather and tar and you think, This is strange, who would drink this? But then you sip it and you get to love it. And thats who I am.

Those who have met the activist and Los Angeleno know Sanderson is strong-willed and determined. His father told him growing up that he could do anything he wanted in life, he would just have to work harder than the average person.

What people might not know about Sanderson is that he was born with intrauterine growth retardation syndrome. At nine years old he was diagnosed with a non-verbal learning disability, which means that the right side of my brain works differently and processes information differently than my left side of my brain. After going to the Los Angeles Regional Center as a child, Sanderson was misdiagnosed with mild mental retardation. For the next 13 years, he failed his classes, dropped out of school and wasnt able to fully come to terms with the repercussions of his misdiagnoses until he was 17.

Since disabilities are on a spectrum, Sanderson didnt fit neatly in any specific category. Not having the resources because institutions, educators and community leaders werent properly equipped, he wasnt sure where to turn.

Then at 22, he had an awakening. He decided to invest himself and his time learning about Judaism.

You dont have to have a high school education to be part of the Jewish people, Sanderson said. I looked every day for a year for a Jewish community that was welcoming and inclusive. I found my mentor and almost a second father to me, Rabbi Yitz Jacobs. He gave me self-confidence. He said to me, You can do anything you want to do. I see you no differently than I see anyone else.

You dont have to have a high school education to be part of the Jewish people.

Jacobs, who is a rabbi at Aish Los Angeles, took Sanderson under his wing and taught him about Torah, Talmud and Jewish rituals. With his help, Sanderson moved to Israel for two years, studied with Aish, made friends and lived on his own for the first time.

Jonah is so smart, he is so articulate. There are so many ways he can learn. We just had to work on who he was and how he learns, Jacobs told the Journal. Hes overcome so many challenges and used them as opportunities. Im so proud of him.

When he returned home, he came back and told his parents he not only wanted to finish school and graduate, but attend college and rabbinical school, no matter what it took.

In 2016 he graduated high school and in 2020 Sanderson graduated college with a BA in criminal justice. In May, he will be the first person with a non-verbal learning disability to receive a masters degree from the Academy for Jewish Religion California (AJRCA).

When Sanderson enrolled at AJRCA, he had come to terms with his disability, but wasnt very public about it. Though his mild disability wasnt visible, he went to speak with AJRCA President Rabbi Mel Gottlieb to create a plan for success, since the school never had a reason to modify programs for students with disabilities.

AJRCA did a mitzvah. They took somebody like me and they allowed me to become a Jewish leader and they let me grow my soul, he said. Because they took me, I managed to get three more people with differing disabilities through the door one with the same diagnoses as me and this person is becoming a chaplain.

Gottlieb said the school was open to adapting its curriculum to make it more inclusive. The whole experience was not only educational and impactful for Sanderson but also for the other rabbinical students, teachers and staff.

If we were to accept students with disabilities, we had to provide them with support and learn how to educate them in ways that would be user-friendly, without compromising the classroom situation and the expectations to pass the class, Gottlieb said. We used it as a challenge for our school to accept differences and to learn greater patienceThe term learning disability is broad. We have to educate ourselves that one way of learning doesnt fit for all If everyone works together in an understanding manner then progress is made.

Sanderson was now working with educators to create a plan specifically for him, instead of fitting into a category. Sanderson said while he holds a great deal of respect for the Jewish community, he struggled growing up to find mentors and spaces like AJRCA that were willing to help him succeed and not shut him out. He was kicked out of Jewish day schools, misdiagnosed by local institutions and felt alienated from his community, even when the intentions were meant to be helpful not harmful.

They might have good intentions, but more often than not these kids are charity cases, Sanderson said. You get volunteer hours and volunteer with kids who are atypical but then youre not friends with them outside of school. You dont see them in the community, it looks better for the other person. What rabbis need to do and what I hope to do when I get ordained, is to create communities where we are saying, We are going to be inclusive and no person is unlike any other person. That is what matters.

During his time at AJRCA, Sanderson has advocated for social justice causes that are important to him, including fighting for the LGBTQ community, the Black community, minorities and implementing suicide prevention and mental health services in the Jewish community. He has also chosen to add disability activist to his line of work.

When I came out about my story, several people let me know something similar happened to their child, Sanderson said.

On Feb. 21, Sanderson and Rabbi Cantor Cheri Weiss, founder of San Diego Outreach Synagogue, hosted a Zoom event that coincided with JDAIM: Jewish Disability Awareness, Acceptance and Inclusion Month. After hearing Sandersons story, she wanted him to speak with members of the Southern California Jewish community.

Jonah wanted to focus on the positive aspects of his story, which is in line with the positive way he approaches life in general, Weiss said. He focuses on what he can do rather than what he cannot. In turn, this inspires others who may be facing their own personal challenges. Belief in yourself is the first step to overcoming these challenges. Having people who believe in you is the other part of the equation. Jonah found both.

Weiss and Sanderson teamed up for the event because they both believe that the Jewish community is responsible for and benefits from welcoming and including people of all backgrounds. Weiss added, celebrating our diversity makes our Jewish community stronger and more vibrant.

One of the first people outside of his family Sanderson was able to open up to about his disability was Alisha Pedowitz, California director of Moving Traditions. After meeting at an event about consent following the #MeToo movement for the Jewish Federation, he approached Pedowitz with dozens of questions. Pedowitz, who identifies as a progressive, and Sanderson, who identifies as a George W. Bush Republican, didnt see eye to eye at first. Despite their differences, their friendship blossomed because of their ability to listen and learn from one another. This was especially the case during the 2020 presidential election.

Something I deeply love and appreciate about Jonah [is] when you have these conversations with him, he really listens and really thinks about it even if its counter to his own opinions and perspective, she said.

After discussing the election at length, Pedowitz helped Sanderson choose to vote for now-President Joe Biden. Pedowitz noted how life-changing it has been to witness Sanderson genuinely want to understand other perspectives and opinions, even though he has strong beliefs of his own. [He] genuinely changes the way he sees things following conversations, and takes ownership of that.

Alisha was one of the first people in the Jewish community when I came out [with his disability], to see me as an equal, as a partner, Sanderson added. She taught me how to see the God in other people that were different from how I was and to be less black and white. The day I voted for Joe Biden was the best election day since I first voted at 18 and I have her to thank for it.

While he still has time before AJRCA graduation day, he is already thinking of the next steps and the kind of Jewish professional he wants to be. He sees himself becoming an egalitarian conservodox rabbi in the pulpit and doing a lot of outreach. That means continuing advocating for suicide prevention in the Jewish community, advocating for other minorities, confronting injustices and creating spaces where every Jewish person feels seen and respected. He will also do so while not letting his disability define him.

What happens when you talk about your own learning disability is that many people come out and understand your struggles and they identify with them too, he said. Within the last year, I have been vocal about it. Theres a saying from the Talmud which is, If Im not for myself who will be for me? And being only for myself, what am I? And if not now, when? That saying is my life and I really never wanted to be a leader in this sense but then I thought, I can just be a leader in every sense.

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Jonah Sanderson Successfully Navigates His Disability, Aims to Make Jewish Community More Inclusive - Jewish Journal

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Posted By admin on March 3, 2021

Kimberly Tilsen-Brave Heart

While some kids are all about pizza or chicken fingers, chef Kimberly Tilsen-Brave Hearts nine-year-old daughters favorite food is soup.

Odds are, thats thanks to Tilsen-Brave Hearts array of creative and comforting soup recipes, including her signature butternut squash, pumpkin and coconut bisque. Its been lauded as magic by customers of her Etiquette Catering company in Rapid City, South Dakota.

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The soup, as with many of the dishes she makes, has a deep connection to her Native American heritage and the Pine Ridge Reservation in southern South Dakota where she was born.

Im considered Oglala Lakotamost people who arent familiar with Native people would call a Sioux, but thats not something that we call ourselves, says Tilsen-Brave Heart. Anytime I eat the three sisterssquash, beans or cornit reminds me of where I come from and my people.

Her recipe was inspired by a soup that her mother used to make and employs two types of squash, coconut milk, butter and spices. Its become a staple that her own family eats several times a month.

Both she and her husband Brandon, who is Northern Cheyenne, love cooking, but neither had ever intended to make a career out of it. After Brandon suffered a life-threatening work accident that culminated in a grand mal seizure, however, he left his job and they had to regroup.

I said to him, you know, its an opportunity to talk about our culture in a way that is attainable for the average person, says Tilsen-Brave Heart. Food is a way to connect with a culture of people without it being intimidating. He really liked that idea.

They started Etiquette Catering on January 1, 2018, and Tilsen-Brave Hearts menus have been largely inspired by both her Lakota and Jewish heritage. She learned how to make traditional Lakota dishes during summers spent with her mother Joann Tall at the Pine Ridge Reservation. After moving with her father to Minnesota at age five, she also learned many cooking techniques and traditional dishes from her paternal grandmother Rachel Tilsen.

Story continues

My grandmother is Jewish and taught me how to make matzo ball soup at a very young age, says Tilsen-Brave Heart. Im probably one of the only Lakota Jews that youve ever met in your life.

Dishes on Tilsen-Brave Hearts lunch and catering menus include bison meatballs with blackberry wojapi (a traditional Native American sauce), lentil soup and, of course, her rich and restorative magic squash soup.

When the coronavirus pandemic hit last March, she was also able to use her connections to the community and her wholesale partners to raise more than $60,000 throughout 2020, all of which was used to purchase meat, fresh fruit and vegetables each month for Reservation Elders. So far, Etiquette has donated more than 70,000 pounds of fresh produce and Tilsen-Brave Heart plans to continue this throughout 2021. Pine Ridge is considered a food desertthe nearest grocery store is 81 miles away, she says. This [allowed] people to have really healthy foods that helps their immune systems and also helps them to stay home and stay safe.

Tilsen-Brave Heart hopes to expand this project by launching a non-profit that will provide fresh, hot foods to the Reservation with a continued focus on local ingredients.

Squash was a huge portion of our diet traditionally. Adding elements of cultural connectedness and identity to those historical ingredients I think really empowers people, she says. I really believe that there is healing power in it.

Here is Tilsen-Brave Hearts recipe and tips for making her restorative and creamy pumpkin and butternut squash soup.

THE SQUASH

To give this soup its rich hue and flavor, Tilsen-Brave Heart calls on a classic duo: butternut squash and pumpkin.

Butternut squash is an amazing ingredient and I think that [the pumpkin] gives it this very like earthy, magical flavor, she says. For some reason, I dont think that most people recognize that you can roast pumpkin all-year-round and make it into something beautiful.

She says that, if you have the space, all sorts of squash varieties are incredibly easy to grow and produce an abundant harvest each year. If you grow it fresh, it has so much more flavor. It has so much more body, she says. If you cant grow it yourself, buy from farmers markets. If you cant do that, buy organic because the flavor really is a huge difference.

Butternut squash and many varieties of pumpkin are native to North America, and one of the chefs favorite varieties to include in her soup is Hubbard squasha pale blue heirloom variety that is humongous and looks like a dinosaur, she says. However, pumpkins and other specialty squashes are often difficult to find in stores at certain times of the year, so shell instead use a can of organic pumpkin puree.

To prepare the squash for the soup, Tilsen-Brave Heart first peels, cubes and tosses it with olive oil, garlic powder, kosher salt and cracked black pepper, then roasts it in the oven until tender. For a bit more depth, shell also often add cinnamon to her spice blend when making the soup at homepumpkin and cinnamon, after all, are a tried and true match.

THE MAGIC

Tilsen-Brave Heart then sauts a diced yellow onion with spices in plenty of butter. The roasted squash is added next and she lets that melt down a little bit. Its followed by the canned pumpkin. Youll see it really starting to develop and getting thick, she says. Then I put in the brothI always make my own bone broth, which I try to do at least once a month.

However, its incredibly easy to make this soup vegetarian by subbing in vegetable stock. The same goes for the coconut cream, which is the final ingredient and can be easily replaced with cashew cream. The cashew cream just [gives it] this really warm, nutty flavor, she says.

THE EXTRAS

The beauty of this recipe is not only its simplicity, but also its versatility. If you wanted to, you could also add whole canned tomatoes, Tilsen-Brave Heart says. It would add a really beautiful color and flavor. To do so, drain the juice from the tomatoes directly into the soup mixture and then roast the whole tomatoes on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper and seasoned with olive oil, salt, garlic and maybe even a little bit of oregano for 10 minutes. Then, she adds them into the simmering soup mixture for about 10 minutes before using an immersion blender to create a uniform creamy consistency.

She likes to finish the soup by drizzling a little bit of olive oil on top and adding a few roasted pumpkin seeds. I really like roasted pumpkin seeds because Im a texture person, she says. When you have the bite with the creaminess of the soup, and then a little bit of the saltiness and the crunch of the roasted pumpkin seed, its just a really nice treat.

Magic Pumpkin Squash Soup

1 large Butternut squash, peeled and cubed

1 tbsp Garlic powder

Kosher salt

Black pepper

Olive oil

1 stick Butter

1 medium Yellow onion

1 15 oz can Organic pumpkin puree

2 cups Coconut milk

4 cups Chicken or vegetable stock

Roasted pumpkin seeds

Preheat your oven to 425 degrees Fahrenheit.

In a large bowl, toss the butternut squash with olive oil and season it with garlic powder, kosher salt and cracked black pepper. Place it on a rimmed baking sheet and roast it for 20 minutes.

In a large pot over medium heat, melt the butter and then add the onion, sprinkling it with salt and cook until translucent.

Add the pumpkin puree, coconut milk, stock and roasted butternut squash to the pot and simmer for at least 30 minutes, stirring occasionally so it doesnt char.

Remove the pot from the heat and blend the soup until smooth with an immersion blender.

Top with a drizzle of olive oil and roasted pumpkin seeds.

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Warm Up With This Creamy Pumpkin & Butternut Squash Soup - Yahoo News

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Posted By admin on March 3, 2021

Steven Spielbergs USC Shoah Foundation has linked up with secondary schools in the UK to help children tackle hatred and build empathy through storytelling.

The California-based foundation, which has been world-leading in its use of technology in Holocaust education, is taking part in the Stronger than Hate challenge, together with digital curriculum provider Discovery Education.

Students aged 13-18 are asked to submit a project showing why united communities are stronger. This can take the form of a video, poem, song, blog, or piece of art. First prize is 5,000, with iPads also on offer.

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The Foundation collects audio and visual testimonies from survivors and witnesses of genocides, and pupils taking part in the challenge can listen to these stories then produce a piece of work which reflects the power of testimony to tackle hate.

The 5,000 will go to the winning school to help teachers implement positive change, while 1,000 and 500 grants will be similarly presented to the second and third place schools. iPads are also on offer for up to four pupils on the winning team.

The foundations Lesly Culp said: We are helping inspire new ideas and spark student imagination to foster a more just and equitable society.

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Steven Spielberg's Shoah foundation links up with UK schools to fight hatred - Jewish News

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Posted By admin on March 3, 2021

The Hungarian-Jewish filmmaker Janos Szasz is best known in the United States for his 2013 film The Notebook (Le Grand Cahier), released here in the summer of 2014. Its based on the international bestseller of the same name, written in French by the Hungarian-born novelist gota Kristf. The Notebook is an almost fairy-tale parable of Holocaust resistance and resilience, focusing on two twins who live out the war with their witch-like grandmother in rural Hungary, learning not to feel in order to survive.

Now, Janos Szasz is going through his own parable of resistance.

Some years ago, Szasz made a film for USC Shoah Foundation, using our archive of survivor testimony. In 2014, he spent some time in Los Angeles, and we got to know each other. He came to my house; we shared meals. His parents survived the Holocaust, and were both interested in history and legacy, in the truth of that horrible time and how it affects future generations. We kept in touch, and he has written to me over the years in some despair.

Since Victor Orbn came to power in 2010, Hungary has been a prominent example of democratic backsliding in Europe. Szasz has felt targeted, both as an academic and as a Jew. For more than 20 years, hed been a teacher at the prestigious, 155-year-old Academy of Drama and Film in Budapest. In 2020, however, Orbns government took over the Academy, stripping its faculty of their autonomy. Szasz, like many of his colleagues, quit.Hungary is no place to raise Jewish children, he has said to me. Everyone is hostile. It is difficult to be a high-profile Jew here. Ive told him Id look out for opportunities, but, even in Los Angeles, academics like me dont regularly trip over job postings for film directors.

A recent letter from Szasz was much more urgent. In the early morning hours of February 5, 2021, his home was raided by government forces. Eight or so officers arrived with guns on their belts. They spent hours searching his house. Szasz and his wife, a breast cancer survivor, were recovering from COVID-19, but that didnt matter to the authorities. Officers searched the bedrooms of their two sons, eight and 15 years old, and interrogated the older boy. Szasz was not permitted to call his lawyer. He and his wife were not permitted to take their medications. The authorities seized much of their technology computers, cell phones, hard drives. Without that tech, the boys lost their ability to continue with remote schooling.

What were the authorities searching for? Its not clear.

Szaszs latest project is a documentary about a Hungarian surgeon in Bangladesh who attempted to separate a pair of conjoined twins. Miraculously, both survived. The surgeon has not signed a release, so the project is on hold. Szasz hasnt even begun editing the footage and he wont, unless and until he gets a release.

This is, at heart, a rights dispute, not a crime. And without any work underway, its not even a rights dispute yet. But the surgeon complained to important people. And so Szaszs home was raided.

In Eastern Europe, people are being targeted because of who they are, what they study, the stories they tell.

Was this crackdown anti-Semitic? Its hard to say. Szasz has a prominent identity as a Jew. When he took on a project about a medieval Hungarian hero, Jnos Hunyadi, several years ago, he was attacked by the government press: What right did a liberal Jew have to tell a classically Hungarian story?

Szasz also recognizes he is carrying historical trauma. He lives just a short walk away from the Danube, on whose banks half his family was shot. Other relatives died in the camps. He has difficulty giving Hungarian society the benefit of the doubt.

But across Europe today, many societies dont seem to deserve the benefit of the doubt. Orbns government is increasingly nationalistic. Earlier this month in Poland, another Eastern European democracy thats backsliding, a court ordered two historians to apologize to the niece of a mayor who, according to Holocaust testimony they cited in a two-volume academic history, was complicit in some Nazi crimes.

How can courts adjudicate academic debates? How can police ransack a home because of an unsigned release form?

In Eastern Europe today, people are being targeted because of who they are, what they study, the stories they tell. They are losing their academic freedom, their creative freedom, their freedom to think critically.

We know how that story can end. We must not let it.

Stephen D. Smith is Finci-Viterbi Executive Director Chair of the USC Shoah Foundation. He is also the UNESCO Chair on Genocide Education.

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Hungary's Crackdown on Artists and Academics - Jewish Journal

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Posted By admin on March 3, 2021

01/03/2021 - BERLINALE 2021: Christophe Cognet immerses himself in a meticulous investigation, analysing the very rare clandestine photographs taken by deportees themselves in the death camps

In a sunny countryside landscape, the earth is dotted with white. These are bone fragments which return to the surface when it rains: they are always in the ground we walk on. Traces of the abominations that were nazi concentration camps, these places dedicated to the negation of humanity, have already been the subjects of many cinematic representations from different angles, with very different styles and approaches, from Samuel Fullers The Big Red One to Claude Lanzmanns colossal Shoah, from Alain Resnais Night and Fog to Lszl Nemes immersive Son of Saul[+see also: filmreviewtrailerQ&A: Lszl Nemesinterview: Lszl Rajkfilmprofile] a duty of memory that is all the more essential considering mans unfortunate tendency to look away from his most obscure inclinations. In a smaller register, but one that is just as essential, French documentarian Christophe Cognet takes part in that same work of memory with From Where They Stood[+see also: trailerfilmprofile], discovered in the Forum section of the 71st Berlinale, a meticulous and original investigation based on the very rare clandestine photographs taken by the deportees themselves (from the spring 1943 to the fall of 1944) at the risk of their lives, from within the camps.

In conversations with historians specialised in the history of the Shoah, the director uncovers the story of each of these pictures, plunging at the heart of those images with a magnifying glass and placing them back as accurately as possible in the current reality of the remains of the Dachau, Mittelbau-Dora, Buchenwald, Auschwitz-Birkenau and Ravensbrck camps. Who took those pictures, and in what circumstances? Where did the camera come from? Whos in the frame and what does it reveal? How was the film hidden and salvaged? So many questions which are explored methodically and patiently, by offering hypotheses (we do not know the exact circumstances of these brief moments stolen from the executioners) and interpretations based on historical knowledge and on the physical reality of those locations, which allow for a wider and very realistic understanding of the space and of the existence that each picture was a part of.

Pictures taken from a window of the Dachau infirmary or showing the Buchenwald crematorium, portraits of the human guinea pigs subjected to medical experiments in Ravensbrck, and even a very blurry picture of women undressing in front of the crematorium V in Auschwitz-Birkenau, and another showing a Sonderkommando working by a pyre amongst the corpses: these visual samples are simultaneously symbols of individual resistance, and almost archeological footprints to be analysed in order to extract their essence. Particularly instructive, the film also underlines the alterations made to certain photographs, often to make them clearer and more intelligible, but also sometimes in order not to create misconceptions (prisoners sunbathing next to a crematorium were thus erased, since this state of total indifference to the death of others would of course have been totally incomprehensible to anyone who hasnt survived the camps). The director in fact never ventures near any potential polemics because that is not his goal. In analysing with meticulous precision the microcosm of each picture, Christophe Cognet pays homage from a correct and respectful distance to these men and women who risked their lives to take back control of their own image and to send this chilling and vital message of History: this happened.

Produced by French company Latelier documentaire and co-produced by German company OVALmedia, From Where They Stood (which was shot by cinematographer Cline Bozon) is sold internationally by mk2 Films.

(Translated from French)

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Review: From Where They Stood - Cineuropa

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