Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By admin on September 6, 2020

Writing last weekend on the scandal surrounding the Proms absence of patriotic songs, the former minister of fun David Mellors opined, the person I feel most sorry for is Edward Elgar, the composer of Land of Hope and Glory. Not black Britons offended by Rule, Britannia!s references to slaves; not black Britons annoyed by people taking offence on their behalf; and not the blameless female Finnish conductor suffering death threats for, in Mellorss words, uttering a load of woke nonsense about Black Lives Matter. No. Whos the most oppressed minority in the world today? Dead, white, male Victorian composers! And Laurence Fox!!

I felt sorry for Elgar too. In 1998, I worked with Keith Harris, the ventriloquist famous for Orville the Duck. But Harris told me he now hated that bloody bird, regarding it as an albatross even though it was a duck. By 1918, according to unsubstantiated diary extracts published in the Daily Mail in 2018, Elgar hated Land of Hope and Glory too, writing, I went to the Coliseum and they played Land of Hope and Glory not once, but twice; the whole audience joined in. I could not. I regret very profoundly how this song has become an anthem to war I am awfully tired of it. Elgar would have been delighted to see his piece abandoned, just as Harris would have liked to see his puppet duck dismembered by a puppet fox, perhaps Basil Brush, violent when drunk. I hope Elgar and Harris, haunted by their Frankingsteins, can comfort each other in heaven somehow.

I read of Mellorss misguided sympathies in last weekends Mail on Sunday, in the Coach and Horses in Pinvin, Worcestershire. I had walked the Malvern hills alone on my final Covid summer expedition, Elgar undulating on my iPod, saturating the landscape he loved. I tried to understand the Great Proms Patriotism Scam, a turbo-charged Brexit era version of the Great Winterval Hoax of 1997-1999, when the rightwing press falsely claimed Birmingham city council would chemically castrate any white people who wished anyone a Merry Christmas. The Winterval Hoax later featured in the Leveson inquiry into newspaper ethics, an Elastoplast on a severed artery. The Tory press poisons our discourse as deliberately as Russia poisons politicians. Both escape justice.

Marxist meddling aside, the words of Land of Hope and Glory and Rule, Britannia! werent going to be heard at the Proms this year because there could be no audience there to bray them. But a few sacrificial singers will now spit Covid particles into each others eyes to placate the stick-poked mob. If they die, so be it. Greater love hath no man. Its too late anyway. The right swiftly weaponised the non-troversy as part of their fabricated and eminently winnable culture war. The PC BBC is a useful straw-person of indeterminate gender.

Sir Robin Gibb became Theresa Mays director of communications shortly after his death saw him leave the Bee Gees. On Saturday, Gibb quickly announced his proposed BG News channel, a fact-based alternative to the woke, wet BBC. Gibb, a wing-shod dancing man, is rumoured to be recruiting Julia Hartley-Brewer, the Twitter-thread silkworm, and Andrew Neils hair, as a distinct entity from Andrew Neil himself. The Great Proms Patriotism Scam conveniently accelerates Gibbss plans.

The new BBC boss, Tim Davie, is best known for deputy chairing Hammersmith and Fulham Conservatives and failing to scrap BBC 6 Music 10 years ago. Early in the week, he announced that on Thursday he would be announcing the BBC was to deliver outstanding and unique value to all audiences. Then, the Daily Telegraph, a part-work of Conservative press releases given away free with Buxton water at selected branches of WH Smith, attempted to kickstart a culture skirmish, saying senior sources at the BBC claimed Davie would be clamping down on leftwing comedies: Mock the Weak, Sarcastic Voice Time, Rising Inflection Hour, Middle Class Revolt and Have I Got News for You? The last mentioned had naively paved Boris Johnsons path to power at the turn of the century, and in December 2019, it made a joke linking the Labour party with Holocaust denial, doing the Brexit-Covid governments work for it. Damn those lefty comedians!

If the Great Leftwing Comedy Scam causes Davie to further appease the Conservative masters his news teams already kowtow to, hell be like Neville Chamberlain, getting out of a plane and announcing I have in my hand the P45 of Mock the Weaks Marxist firebrand Hugh Dennis. But Netflix already pays the worlds top anti-woke standups millions of dollars more than BBC rules would allow. We will have to train new talent to identify as inanimate objects and call their wives fucking bitches. In the end, when Davies speech emerged on Thursday, the idea that he would axe leftwing comedy, predicted by the Telegraph and Tory commentators generally, was notably absent. Ive no idea where that came from, he said, surprisedly. But the Conservative propaganda machine created a three-day window to muddy water and fan flame.

Driving home through moonlit fir trees, suddenly too drunk to steer, I pulled over in the hamlet of Powick. It was at the asylum there, in 1879, that Elgar taught inmates blackface minstrel music. Seventy-three years later they were dosed with LSD, and in 1968 , TV footage of their suffering changed health policy. The building lay on a lichway, a route that bore the dead to burial. Traumatic imprints render Powicks veil. Time flows uphill.

I climbed out into the dark to urinate. Penda, one of the last pagan Saxon kings, coalesced in my steam and embraced me, pungently. The sound of spattering droplets became the voice of Elgar. AC Benson, the manic-depressive horror writer, penned the words to Land of Hope and Glory, Elgar confessed in liquid sonics. I wanted it to go, We hate Nottingham Forest. We hate Arsenal, too. We hate Manchester United, but Tottenham we love you, but Sir Henry Wood overruled me. We are not pure, King Penda whispered in my ear, we are mud and flame. We always were, and always will be.

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The divided land of 'woke' and Tory - The Guardian

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Posted By admin on September 6, 2020

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Im in 4th grade and we are doing a project in geography class. We have a week to hand in a folder of research and pictures on any chosen country. I go to the local travel agent with my mom and pick up a copy of the Exotic India brochure. I cut out pictures of tigers and women in saris and stick them in the blank pages of my folder. Proud of my work, I hand in my folder, excited to see what comments my teacher will give me, already anticipating showing it off to my classmates.

The following week, my teacher hands back the project and I see her comments:

Good work Lishai, but there are many spelling mistakes and you did not explain why you chose this country or what interests you about India.

If this were a university project, I would have received a C, maybe a C+, which is pretty much equivalent to how I felt as an Indian: at best, only passing.

Growing up in Yorkshire, England in an Ashkenazi community, our family was different than most. In the small suburb that we lived in, on the lip of a northern city, always surrounded by reminders of English sensibilities, we stood out with our brown-skinned mother, her lateness, her thick accent, how she always talked too loudly. She was Israeli in her mannerisms, her gestures and her propensity for arguing. But her face belonged to India, to the long line of women whose features are chiseled from centuries of living in the Konkan coast.

My mother had an uneasy relationship with living in awhite Jewish community. She never fit in. She tried to adapt, but she straddled an intersection of being both Israeli and Indian that was simply incompatible with her new adopted home.

Perhaps this is why I grew up so divorced from my Indian roots. To ensure her children never doubted their right to a seat at the (very British, very Ashkenazi) table, she tried to downplay her differences, inadvertently making them all the more visible. She was born in Mumbai in the 1950s and moved to Israel at a young age before memories of her early life in India could really take root. She grew up in Israel, met my English father while he was on vacation there, and married and had my brother and me before my father decided to relocate us all back to his home city.

This was not the first time assimilation was required for my mother to gain access to group membership. Soon after the Israeli state was created in 1948, there was a mass exodus of Indian Jews, known asBene Israel, who arrived in the promised land only to be faced with racism and rejection by their fellow Jews of European origins. Like other non-Ashkenazi Jews, they were allotted inferior housing and faced income disparity and employment discrimination. In 1962, the Rabbinic Council announced that Bene Israel community members would have their maternal ancestry investigated if they wanted to marry Jews from other communities. This constituted a sort of crisis within the community, and although this ruling was eventually overturned, it left deep scars.

This context of discrimination served as a backdrop for how the children of Bene Israel immigrants would find their place in Israel: assimilate completely or be ostracized. The less visibly Indian, the more accepted in Israeli society. My mother never learned to speak Marathi or Hindi, never returned to her homeland, never learned the Bene Israel customs and traditions. She spoke Hebrew, served in the IDF, and belonged more to Israel than to the country she was born to.

In my childhood home in England, there were a few reminders that we were connected to India. A sandalwood coffee table, a teak vase, a statue made of elephant tusk, some saris collecting dust in the closet. Beyond these relics, my mother had nothing to offer me in terms of my Indian heritage because it had all but been scrubbed out of her before she could claim it.

But when my grandmother would visit once a year, she would fill my head with stories of India that captivated me and filled me with wonder. They inspired in me something that demanded attention, something that needed to be excavated and understood and helped me locate myself as both Jewish and Desi. My grandmothers stories served as a portal by which I could begin to know this heritage I was so completely removed from.

There was the haunted house in Trivandrum where my grandmother spent her early years. The circus her father owned in South India where she has vague memories of crying hysterically on a Ferris wheel. There was the British soldier who fell in love with her and stood outside of her parents house in the rain every day during monsoon season until he disappeared soon after the British packed up and left. There was the violence of 1947, the sound of molotov cocktails being thrown between the Hindu and the Muslim neighborhoods in south Mumbai the only buffer between them, the then-Jewish quarters of Byculla. There was the older sister who died of tuberculosis and whom everyone believed my grandmother was the reincarnation of (many Bene Israel adopted a belief in reincarnation from centuries of living with their Hindu neighbors). There was the bear my great uncle kept in a cage and who escaped one day, causing havoc and terrorizing the streets of Byculla. There was my great uncle who enlisted in the British army, only to covertly work for the Jewish Resistance Movement and eventually disappear before the conclusion of World War II. My great-grandmother lit a candle for him every day of her life in the hopes that he would come home.

Through my grandmother, I came to associate India as a place full of ghosts, lost children, deep faith, and unfinished stories.

When I arrived in India for the first time, I was on the cusp of motherhood, not yet knowing that I was pregnant. I traveled with a crushing exhaustion as my body grew a new life inside me. Surely, I should feel more Indian, more connected to this land, I thought. But as it turns out, I felt only like an outsider in a country so vast and so unknown to me.

It took me five years to return, this time with my child and his dad. We lived in South India for six months by the Arabian Sea and made some important connections, new friendships and incredible memories. But still I felt like an outsider.

It was only in Mumbai, when I was standing in front of the synagogue my grandparents had been married in, that I felt what I had always dreamed of feeling a sense of belonging. The suns halo danced behind the buildings clock tower and I looked up in awe at the pale blue arches, towering over me the way they had the day of my grandparents wedding. I could suddenly see that this little piece of architecture has a history, and that history is my history, too.

Perhaps it is enough to know through stories that we are part of a narrative that is bigger than us. I may never truly know this country and she may never know me. What I hope is that I will inspire my son with stories the way my grandmother inspired me, so that he will one day understand that the history of the Bene Israel is written not just in his DNA but in the stories we tell that keeps the flame alight.

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My mom downplayed her Indian Jewish heritage. I'm learning to reclaim it. - The Jewish News of Northern California

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Posted By admin on September 6, 2020

When disaster struck in Lebanon on August 4th, killing dozens, injuring thousands and causing widespread devastation, Israel's Defense Minister Benny Gantz and Foreign Minister Gabi Ashkenazi offered to send equipment and treat the victims.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu asked UN Special Coordinator Nickolay Mladenov how Israel could help and President Reuven Rivlin also offered a helping hand. Tel Aviv Mayor Ron Huldai expressed his citys solidarity by projecting a flag of Lebanon onto the city hall building.

Far from the public eye, Israeli non-governmental organizations, such as Israel Flying Aid are raising funds to provide food and medicine for the victims.

International andArab media gave positive coverage to Huldais gesture and U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeowelcomed the move.

This was not a first. Tel Avivs municipality has displayed the flags of Egypt, France, Russia, the U.S., Sri Lanka, Spain and the UK following disastrous terror attacks, and those of Italy, China and the U.S. in solidarity with their Covid-19 crisis. The Druze flag lit up the building in solidarity with the community's fight against Israels Jewish Nationa State Law, and the LGBT flag graced it to support demands for equal rights.

Much to our horror, some right-wing Israeli politicians such as former Likud Member of Knesset Moshe Feiglincheered Lebanons calamity, while others expressed anger at Huldais gesture. MK Smotrich claimed there was no need to pity the Lebanese, and his colleague MK Shaked labeled the display of an "enemy state" flag "a travesty." Jerusalem Minister Rafi Peretz described it as "moral confusion."

They were not the only ones whose reactions seem to reflect "moral confusion."

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Solidarity is a sentiment of relations between people. It stems from perceptions of similarity of the fact that we are all human beings, and of mutual dependence, and from the understanding that the existence of human society depends on shared beliefs in what is good and valuable.

Solidarity is what allows us to work together for shared goals. People over the world mobilize to help victims of natural and man-made disasters because they resemble them, because the plight of others evokes their natural empathy and realization that they, too, could one day need help, and also because of the commonly held belief that this is the right thing to do to offer a helping hand to those in need, to save lives, to fix the world.

Solidarity may be expressed in concrete terms search and rescue missions, aid deliveries, hospital construction, participation in demonstrations and battling oppressive forces. Sometimes, it takes other forms media declarations, art installations, street protests, public displays of symbols (such as a raised fist or kneeling), and the illumination of public buildings with the flag of a victimized state or community.

Since its founding, Israeli history has abundant examples of solidarity. Israel hasdispatched dozens of humanitarian assistance teams to help the victims of flooding, wars, earthquakes and fires in Albania, Ethiopia, Brazil, Nepal, Haiti, India, the Philippines, Jordan, Mexico, and many more places.

Israeli expressions of solidarity are not limited to friendly states; they have also been directed at those with which relations are tense, and even hostile. Israel has helped Syrian refugees, expressed solidarity with Iran and Iraq following earthquakes, and offered Turkey help after a massive earthquake even in times of deep crisis in bilateral relations.

In addition to official state bodies, dozens of organizations and individuals have expressed their solidarity with victims of disasters over the years from peace activist Abie Nathan and the kibbutz movement, through youth movements, student organizations and local government councils, as well as human rights groups and simply people who care. They, too, have helped Syrian refugees in Jordan, set up schools for refugees in Lesbos (Greece), performed surgery on children from Iraq, and much more.

Expressions of solidarityare directed at three main audiences. They show victims that they are not alone, that people are thinking of them and worrying about them, identifying with their pain and willing to help. Solidarity in the form of concrete help is obviously important for easing the crisis, but it is also significant in spiritual and morale terms.

When we express solidarity with victims, we ourselves are also a target audience. We do so as an expression of brotherhood, reaffirming a position of privilege that attests to a great extent to our own ability and strength. Even more so, expressions of solidarity strengthen a sense of self-worth and place one on the right side of history, on the side of the "good."

The international community is the third target audience. Post-World War II norms are reflected in the establishment of international organizations, legislation, treaties, conventions, cooperation and aid to the needy. Among these norms, the expression of solidarity with the pain or trouble of others is perceived as worthy of praise. Expressions of solidarity with others contribute to a state or groups image and reputation, and fuel a states soft power.

Therefore, Israeli expressions of solidarity with the disaster of others should not pose any dilemma or "moral confusion" it is both a foregone moral duty and a wise diplomatic move.

At Israel-Turkey policy dialogues carried out by the Mitvim Institute, where I am director, the Turkish representatives often recall the significant aid Israel provided their country following the devastating 1999 earthquake.

More than 20 years on, that authentic expression of solidarity still resonates and plays a significant role in relations between the states and in boosting Israels reputation and image abroad. The same is true for the photos of Israeli field hospitals in Haiti or Nepal and from every corner of the world where an Israeli team sought to help. The benefit far outweighs any other considerations.

Clearly, not every expression of solidarity is well received by the victims. Expressions of solidarity on the part of those perceived as abusers or contributors to abuse by others are not deemed credible. That explains, to some extent, the chilly reception in Lebanon to Israeli solidarity.

However, that should not deter sincere expressions of solidarity, which serve the other target audiences and provide an opportunity to start affecting change within Lebanese society, too.

This would be especially true if other concrete, continuous steps were taken such as treating the injured, delivering equipment and training medical teams which stand a better chance of implementation by civil society than by the government. In expressing simple solidarity, we can be seen with a human face, and sow good seeds for the future.

Dr. Roee Kibrik is the Director of Research of Mitvim - The Israeli Institute for Regional Foreign Policies. Twitter: @SergioKkibrik

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The real reasons Israel showed solidarity with Lebanon after the Beirut blast - Haaretz

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Posted By admin on September 6, 2020

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(From L) Israeli security advisor Meir Ben-Shabbat, US presidents senior advisor Jared Kushner and UAEs National Security Adviser Sheikh Tahnoun bin Zayed Al Nahyan hold a meeting in Abu Dhabi, on August 31, 2020. (Via Reuters)

Dubai- A senior Emirati official says his country will open an embassy in the occupied territories within three to five months in the wake of a deal between the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Israel to establish full diplomatic relations.

Israel Hayom newspaper quoted the unnamed UAE Foreign Ministry official as saying that the Israelis could get a visa to travel to the Persian Gulf Arab state after the opening of the diplomatic mission.

I think the Israelis will be able to obtain travel visa to the UAE from an embassy that will open in Israel after three to five months from now, he said, adding that Abu Dhabi is also considering opening a consulate in Haifa or Nazareth that works alongside the embassy.

We aspire to a peace agreement with Israel, but peace is in reality with all Israelis, and it is very important for us to be available to the Arab population of Israel, whom we consider an important partner for warm peace, he further claimed.

Earlier this week, the Israeli foreign ministry said both the regime and Emirati officials had discussed opening embassies during talks in the UAE that also involved American authorities.

In a joint statement issued by the White House on August 13, Israel and the UAE announced that they had agreed to the full normalization of relations.

The UAE announced a few days later that it was scrapping its economic boycott against the Tel Aviv regime, allowing trade and financial accords between the two sides.

On August 31, the first direct flight from Tel Aviv to Abu Dhabi took a joint US-Israeli delegation to the UAE capital for talks with the Emirati officials to finalize the normalization deal.

All Palestinian factions have unanimously condemned the UAE-Israel agreement, describing it as a stab in the back of the oppressed nation and a betrayal of the Palestinian cause against the occupation.

Serbia, Kosovo to open embassies in Jerusalem al-Quds

In another development on Friday, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Tel Aviv and Pristina have agreed to establish diplomatic ties and Kosovo, along with Serbia, will open embassies in occupied Jerusalem al-Quds.

The remarks came shortly after US President Donald Trump made a similar announcement in Washington, where he met with leaders of Serbia and Kosovo as they agreed to normalize economic ties between them.

Kosovo will be the first country with a Muslim majority to open an embassy in Jerusalem, Netanyahu said.

Kosovo President Hashim Thai welcomed Netanyahus announcement about what he called the genuine intention to recognize Kosovo and establish diplomatic relations.

I welcome the announcement of Israeli PM@netanyahuabout the genuine intention to recognize#Kosovoand establish diplomatic relations. Kosovo will keep its promise to place its diplomatic mission in#Jerusalem

Hashim Thai (@HashimThaciRKS)September 4, 2020

Separately, Trumptook to Twitter to claim more Islamic and Arab nations will soon forge ties with Israel.

Another great day for peace with Middle East Muslim-majority Kosovo and Israel have agreed to normalize ties and establish diplomatic relations. Well-done! More Islamic and Arab nations will follow soon!

Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump)September 4, 2020

Meanwhile, the Israeli premier announced that Serbia will move its diplomatic mission from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem al-Quds by July 2021, becoming the first European country to follow in the footsteps of the United States in relocating the embassy.

I thank my friend the president of Serbia for the decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israels capital and to transfer his embassy there, Netanyahu said.

sraeli foreign minister Gabi Ashkenazi called on other countries to follow in Serbias footsteps and move their embassies to Jerusalem al-Quds.

Trump recognized Jerusalem al-Quds as Israels capital in December 2017 and five months laterrelocated the American embassyfrom Tel Aviv to the occupied city.

Israel lays claim to the whole Jerusalem al-Quds, but the international community views the citys eastern sector as an occupied territory and Palestinians consider it as the capital of their future state.

To date only the US and Guatemala have embassies in Jerusalem al-Quds.

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UAE To Open Embassy In Israel Within 3-5 Months: Official - Kashmir Observer

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Posted By admin on September 4, 2020

B., a Bratslav Hasid from Jerusalem, went on an atypical shopping trip with his friend. They entered one of the large fashion chains and left outfitted with jeans, T-shirts and baseball caps, completely secular outfits. Other customers probably raised an eyebrow (or two), but for the two yeshiva students the end justifies the clothes. And the destination is the grave of Rabbi Nachman in Uman.

With Gods help Ill be in Uman this year at all costs, B. told Haaretz. Im planning to go with a friend to a country that shares a border with Ukraine, in the hope that from there well find a way to infiltrate the country. With the help of the secular look they hope to avoid unwanted questions in Ukraine and at Ben-Gurion International Airport. Ill wear the cap backwards so they wont see my payes [sidelocks], he explained.

LISTEN: Trump is hot to trot on back of Israel's PR peace with UAE

This camouflage campaign heralds the new Uman festival. Not the pilgrimage of 50,000 participants every Rosh Hashanah, but the coronavirus pandemic and its restrictions. For the first time, Bratslav Hasidim will become personae non grata in Ukraine, for fear that their journey will increase the incidence of illness. Apparently even if in the end some of the believers are allowed to travel, the event will look different a limited festival of holiness, perhaps only a gathering.

But the challenges facing the Hasidim on their spiritual path are not discouraging them. In Bratslav, the greater the obstacles, the greater the Hasidims desire to overcome them. Thats the essence of the relationship between the Hasid and his rabbi, said a Bratslav journalist who says he will go to Uman at all costs. The rabbis today say that the real passion has been extinguished and that this event could reignite the spark. Ukraine is open with about 230 border crossings by air, land and sea.

The Hasidim have various plans some are trying to improvise on their own. Some are doing much more. In some of the groups there are requests for forged passports on the darknet. I heard that on Telegram you can get an official European passport for $1,000, wrote one participant. Others suggested an Arab passport, or one from Belarus. And some are going further and trying to organize private flights.

The daring and the attempt to reach Uman no matter what, including the danger of arrest in a foreign country, came up repeatedly. For example, one Hasid tells of a Bratslav doctor who requested a medical in-service course in a Ukrainian university to get to Uman: It worked. He received a permit and was told that he may have problems because of the situation and they would ensure special passage for him.

The Hasid said that its not Rosh Hashanah without Uman. Rabbi Nachman said that the entire world depends on Rosh Hashanah at his grave. My entire essence, my entire life, my world to come, everything depends on him. When you understand that you can try to understand Rosh Hashanah in Uman.

From an early age, Bratslav children are taught about the importance of the trip, because Rabbi Nachman repairs the souls of those who visit him on the holiday. B. says, Our rabbi said that the entire world depends on it, so we do it not only for ourselves but for everyone. Our rabbi said that the more people there are, the more power he will have to act.

Thats why B. and his friends are willing to incur the financial damage. I have a friend with a huge store, he closed it, paid almost $2,000 for the last ticket and flew to Ukraine. Another whos a branch manager of a food chain just got up and left. And one whos in charge of a line at Tnuva was told that if he goes, hes fired, and he went. An outsider cant understand the passion to get there.

But B. admits that he does have red lines. If my wife had told me no, I wouldnt go, but shes the one who told me to go. When they canceled our flights to Ukraine I started to unpack and she said, Dont unpack, youre going next week. I wouldnt destroy my home for that, although some would.

The Hasidic war room

Zvi, 37, cant recall a Rosh Hashanah when he wasnt in Uman. This will be his 31st consecutive year. A special war room was set up to find ways to infiltrate Ukraine. Ukraine isnt like Israel, there are hundreds of border points. I did my homework. Eventually, well reveal the things were doing.

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People are willing to pay a lot to be in Uman on Rosh Hashanah. People have prepared unbelievable sums and the bills pass from hand to hand. Were using every breach, every trick, every connection. Zvi said there are businessmen in Uman who were harmed by the government decision, who suggested possible ways of entering. There are lots of wheeler-dealers, some are non-Jews, who have connections with border commanders.

David Greenwald, 50, has been going for 33 years. But like many others, he doesnt intend to break the law to get there. He also has a problem with people who are willing to die for Uman. Thats nonsense, theres no such concept. Some will disagree with me.

For support, Greenwald cites the decision of various Bratslav rabbis who told their followers not to arrive by illegal routes. Do you think that Rabbi Nachman wanted people to die in Uman?

Like traveling to Greece

Greenwald definitely wants to go this year too, legally. The entire life of Bratslav is the concept of Uman and Rosh Hashanah. Thats our perfection, thats our tikkun. Just as everyone wants to be with his rebbe on the holidays. Hes our lawyer on the Day of Judgment.

And what about the coronavirus? He says that there are solutions. Were ready for anything, to divide the synagogue, the dining rooms, to sleep less in apartments. Just as people travel to Greece, in Uman there are also guidelines. Our rabbis promised that, and for us to wear masks. He says that the pandemic is not a sufficient reason not to come. But its a good reason to adapt ourselves to the situation. There are solutions for everything, everyone will wear masks. Its possible.

But they are far from representing all the Hasidim. Some think that the reports and data are inflated. Do you believe this coronavirus? Theres coronavirus but its not what theyre making of it. Do you believe that all 900 they said died from COVID-19 really died from it? I know of someone who was detached from the ventilators and they said he died from the virus.

And theres another issue: The day after. One Hasidic source admitted that he doesnt see how the Hasidim who return will fulfill the quarantine requirement. Theyre saying things like, Lets see whos addicted to our rebbe on the level that hes willing to pay a 2,000-shekel ($600) fine for violating quarantine. Quarantine isnt really on the agenda.

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All roads lead to Uman: Bratslav Hasidim will risk their lives to visit rebbe's grave - Haaretz

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Posted By admin on September 4, 2020

By Jhon Snchez

In 2010, one block away from the L train in Brooklyn, I always found my favorite falafel place. The owner was a Palestinian man, nicknamed Yuyo. What I remember the most from Yuyo was his hands. They were so huge that one of them would cover a whole pita bread. One day as I was eating my sandwich, Yuyo stood to the side and talked to a Hasidic man. Nodding, the Hasidic typed something on his cellphone as Yuyo talked. When the Hasidic left, Yuyo asked me, Do you know who this man is?

I wiped the white sauce from the corner of my mouth without knowing what to say. Yuyo lifted his eyebrows, forming three long lines across his forehead and said, Hes my business partner in this. He smiled with pride.

I dont know how to achieve peace; however, creating mechanisms of mutual help between groups in conflict are the best ways to lay down the ground for dialogue. This was the experience of Northern Ireland. In 1986, Britain and the Republic of Ireland established the International Fund for Ireland (IFI), whose objectives were to promote economic and social advancement and to encourage dialogue between Nationalists and Unionists throughout Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland.The results were astonishing in a couple of years: a significant increase in the tourism industry, the lowest unemployment rate in fourteen years, and, more importantly, the private sector advocating for peace and adopting non-discrimination principles.

Today, we try to replicate the model through the Partnership Peace Act to promote economic join ventures and dialogue between Palestinians and Israelis. A bipartisan effort introduced the bill S1727 to the Senate. This has been the result of the work of theAlliance for Middle East Peace (ALLMEP), a coalition of more than a hundred organizations thathave diverse opinions regarding the Israeli-Palestine conflict. Kevin Rachlin, the US director of ALLMEP, urges us to contact our senators to vote in favor of the bill.

The 250 million would also benefit organizations likeProject Rozana andSeeds of Peace, among others. Project Rozana provides access to Palestinians into the Israeli healthcare system. And Seeds of Peace has a leadership summer camp for Palestinians and Israeli teenagers to create a dialogue between them.

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Yuyo and the Hasidic - Peacebuilding Fund for Palestinians and Israelis - PRESSENZA International News Agency

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Posted By admin on September 4, 2020

SOUTH NYACKPoliceareseeking the public's help to capture two masked bigots who interrupted a government meeting to spewracist, anti-Semitic comments and terrorist threats.

The police released videos of theintrusions on the village website, warning, "The videos and photographs contain vulgar and offensive content."

"The suspects stated multiple times 'I am going to bomb your village tonight and ISIS is coming to your village'," South Nyack-Grand View Daniel Wilson said in a news release.

After displaying a Nazi swastika flag during an initial appearance, one hacker showed a rainbow flag, stating, "This is what I do to LGBTs," as a person is beheaded in the background, Wilson said.

ZOOM BOMB: South Nyack Zoom meeting disrupted by anti-Semitic and racist comments

DISSOLUTION PETITION: South Nyack residents submit a petition seeking to dissolve the village

NYACK COLLEGE: Yeshiva's attorney says campus plans call for schools, not high-density housing

When the flag was not seen, one person sat in a room painted green. That person woregoggles, an Orange-colored wool hat,a scarf or bandanna across the mouth, and gloves.The second person didn't turn on a camera but could be heard making vulgar comments.

One of the two suspects that police say crashed the South Nyack Board of Trustees' ZOOM meeting on Monday, August 31st, 2020. The suspects made racist and anti-Semitic remarks and stated they were going to bomb the village.(Photo: Courtesy of South Nyack/Grand View Police Department)

The man and woman based on the sound of their voices interrupted the Board of Trustees' Zoom meeting seven times on Monday morning, police said.

They targeted Mayor Bonnie Christian with vulgar comments, as well as cursing out Jews and using racist language about Blacks.

The verbal assault cameasthe Board of Trustees hired a consultant for $15,000 to study the pros-and-cons of dissolving the village.

Partially spurring the dissolution movement is a Ramapo Hasidic Jewish congregation plans to buy Nyack College's 107-acre campus and run schools with dormitories for 500 high school and college-level students.

The schools would replace the Christian Missionary School and become tax-exempted like the college

Dissolution proponents argue eradicating the government for Orangetown would reduce taxes. Underlying support comes from those residents whofear what the Hasidic Jewish congregation will bring to the community.

Christian said she reported the disruption, known as a"Zoom-bomb," to the village police chief. One resident suggested calling the FBI.

"That was disgusting," Christian said. "Our police are investigating. We dont tolerate that behavior."

One of the two suspects that police say crashed the South Nyack Board of Trustees' ZOOM meeting on Monday, August 31st, 2020. The suspects made racist and anti-Semitic remarks and stated they were going to bomb the village.(Photo: Courtesy of South Nyack/Grand View Police Department)

The police investigation involves other law enforcement agencies, including the Rockland Computer Crimes Task Force.

Anyone with information can call the South Nyack-Grand View Police Department at 845-358-0206 or email: police@southnyack.ny.gov.

Steve Lieberman coversgovernment, breaking news, courts, police, and investigations.Reach him at slieberm@lohud.com. Twitter: @lohudlegal.Read more articlesandbio.Our local coverage is only possible with support from our readers.Sign up today for a digital subscription.

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South Nyack police looking for racist, anti-Semitic intruders of government Zoom meeting - The Journal News

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Posted By admin on September 4, 2020

(RNS) In the biblical account, the walls of Jericho came tumbling down after Joshua commanded seven priests to blow their rams horns or shofars.

This year, it will take a lot more than seven priests for the plaintive wail of the shofar to penetrate the walls of Jews sheltering in place for the Jewish High Holy Days.

The coronavirus has left nearly all synagogues across the country shuttered. On Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year, which begins at sundown Sept. 18, and Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, which starts the evening of Sept. 27, most Jews will be streaming services from home.

But Jewish law requires Jews to hear the shofar in person, and now many Jews are scrambling to figure out ways to provide that hornlike blast to as many people as possible, since rabbis say an online recording should be the last resort.

While some Jewish homes have a shofar mainly as a decorative ritual object few American Jews actually use it. In most Jewish congregations, a handful of people trained in blowing a shofar are called upon year after year to do the honors in front of packed sanctuaries.

A man plays the shofar at the University of Illinois at UrbanaChampaign on Aug. 22, 2010, in Champaign, Illinois. Photo by Clay Gregory/Creative Commons

But ahead of the High Holidays this year, many people are dusting off their shofars and getting on Zoom with trained shofar blowers to learn how to use it for small groups gathered outdoors.

Chabad, the Hasidic Jewish dynasty based in Brooklyn, last week began offering a three-session how-to class called The Sound and the Spirit. As of earlier this week, 4,000 people had registered for it.

Rabbi Chanoch Kaplan, who serves at Chabad House in Franklin Lakes, New Jersey, teaches the prerecorded class and expects many more to register in the coming days. (The course is free but has a $40 suggested donation.)

Kaplan has been blowing shofars and teaching children in Hebrew school how to make them for more than 20 years.

Rabbi Chanoch Kaplan. Video screengrab

With a little instruction, he said, anyone can do it. But obviously, practice makes perfect.

Kaplan said he learned from his father, who used to stand at the Jewish-American Festival in Baltimores Inner Harbor year after year to teach passersby how to blow the shofar.

I looked up to him and I was mesmerized by the sound as it would penetrate the air and people stood and listened, Kaplan said.

The shofar is harvested from the carcass of a ram or almost any other kosher animal; antelopes have particularly beautiful spiraling horns. Theyre widely available online for as little as $30, though they can fetch much more.

A shofar has to be completely empty of bone and cartilage to be used. This can be done manually with boiling water or oil or a blowtorch. Afterward, it can be cleaned and sanitized, sometimes sanded and polished. Any puncture, even if it is repaired, renders the shofar ritually unfit.

Hearing the shofar on Rosh Hashana is a mitzvah a required, virtuous deed. It is intended to awaken the soul and prompt people to reflect on the past year and vow to return to God. The clarion call is so important to hear in person that many synagogues switch off any microphones or audio amplifiers before the shofar is blown.

This year, because the first full day of Rosh Hashana falls on a Saturday, the shofar will not be blown until Sunday, the second day of the holiday.

There are three sound combinations blown on Rosh Hashana and they can be learned.

The most important thing I tell people is, its not about the amount of air youre blowing, Kaplan said. Its about your position. If you get the position right, its no problem whatsoever.

Congregation Eitz Or's annual tashlich gathering at Greenlake in Seattle includes a shofar service. Photo by Joe King/Creative Commons

In Raleigh, North Carolina, Beth Meyer Synagogue has assembled a shofar corps a group of people who will go around to outdoor courtyards around nursing homes or assisted living complexes so elderly Jewish residents can hear the sound without leaving their rooms.

We have to be sensitive to the neighbors, said Rabbi Eric Solomon. But were excited about it.

Many synagogues will also be holding limited outdoor shofar blowing events either in synagogue parking lots or in local parks. Public health experts say its safe to blow the shofar outdoors if people maintain proper distance.

As an extra precaution, the Orthodox Union has issued guidelines recommending a surgical mask be wrapped over the wider end of the shofar. The fear is that some droplets from the blower could turn into aerosols, thus posing a COVID-19 infection risk.

Adam Levine, a professor of math at Duke University who is active at Beth El Synagogue in Durham, North Carolina, said he owns two shofars, which he received as bar mitzvah gifts years ago.

I cant really get much of a sound out of either one of them, Levine said. Im hoping to get a little Zoom lesson in between now and then. I certainly am not going to put anyones shofar hearing in my hands. But if I can maybe try to learn to do it for myself itll be nice to take this opportunity.

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Shofar lessons are becoming a pre-holiday necessity in the age of coronavirus - Religion News Service

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Posted By admin on September 4, 2020

Jerusalem research gives a new impetus for Ashkenazi Jewish women worldwide to get screened for breast cancer risk, say doctors behind a new study.

They found that women diagnosed with breast cancer, which disproportionately affects Ashkenazi Jews, are much more likely to survive and less likely to need chemotherapy if they are already aware that they carry a genetic mutation that puts them at risk.

In the sample they monitored, there was a death rate of one in 20 amongwomen diagnosed with breast cancer who already knew they were carriers. For those who were unaware they were carriers, the figure was about one in five.

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The retrospective study, conducted at Shaare Zedek Medical Center in Jerusalem and publicized this week, found that just 29% of women who knew they were carriers needed chemotherapy, while 79% of those who were unaware needed the treatment.

A scientist in a genetic testing lab (iStock)

This is absolute evidence that you could well be saving your life by having genetic tests, Ephrat Levy-Lahad, director of the hospitals Medical Genetics Institute, told The Times of Israel.

She added: This has international relevance, showing that screening of healthy women and identifying carriers while still unaffected by breast cancer has very important implications on their health. It doesnt affect your chances of getting cancer, but impacts how harsh your treatment will be and ultimately chances of survival.

Ephrat Levy-Lahad, director of the Medical Genetics Institute at at Shaare Zedek Medical Center in Jerusalem (courtesy of Ephrat Levy-Lahad)

The study, based on 105 women, with the same age profile among those who were and werent screened, was peer-reviewed and published recently in JAMA Oncology, a journal of the American Medical Association.

Levy-Lahad noted that as of January Israel offers free screening for all Ashkenazi women, given their propensity to breast cancer. Israel is at the forefront of using genetics for cancer prevention, she commented.

Levy-Lahad said that she initiated the study, together with breast surgeon Tal Hadar, because there is confusion among women over a key question. We were asked whether knowing youre a carrier ahead of time will really save you if, upon finding youre a carrier, you dont have surgery to remove your breasts, said Levy-Lahad.

Doctors often recommend this step if patients are carriers of a BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutation that makes them susceptible to breast cancer, but most decline. In Israel, around 15% of women who are carriers opt for a mastectomy.

Levy-Lahad found that the majority of carriers who dont have an operation are protected by the heightened awareness and caution following the screening. If you know about it when youre still healthy, you end up having surveillance that women dont normally have, and you stand much better chances, she said.

A nurse holding a mammogram in front of x-ray illuminator (iStock)

The women in our study who were carriers mostly went to high risk clinics and had breast MRIs and mammograms every year. This led to their cancer being detected earlier, with 86% of those who knew they were carriers finding their cancer at stages 0 or I [meaning that the cancer is small and hasnt spread], but just 38% of women who didnt know they were carriers finding it at these stages.

She said: The study underscores that Ashkenazi women wherever they are in the world should be screened, as well as others who are at risk.

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Study gives life-saving impetus for Ashkenazi women to screen for breast cancer - The Times of Israel

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Im in 4th grade and we are doing a project in geography class. We have a week to hand in a folder of research and pictures on any chosen country. I go to the local travel agent with my mom and pick up a copy of the Exotic India brochure. I cut out pictures of tigers and women in saris and stick them in the blank pages of my folder. Proud of my work, I hand in my folder, excited to see what comments my teacher will give me, already anticipating showing it off to my classmates.

The following week, my teacher hands back the project and I see her comments:

Good work Lishai, but there are many spelling mistakes and you did not explain why you chose this country or what interests you about India.

If this were a university project, I would have received a C, maybe a C+, which is pretty much equivalent to how I felt as an Indian: at best, only passing.

My mother had an uneasy relationship with living in a white Jewish community. She never fit in. She tried to adapt, but she straddled an intersection of being both Israeli and Indian that was simply incompatible with her new adopted home.

Perhaps this is why I grew up so divorced from my Indian roots. To ensure her children never doubted their right to a seat at the (very British, very Ashkenazi) table, she tried to downplay her differences, inadvertently making them all the more visible. She was born in Mumbai in the 1950s and moved to Israel at a young age before memories of her early life in India could really take root. She grew up in Israel, met my English father while he was on vacation there, and married and had my brother and me before my father decided to relocate us all back to his home city.

This was not the first time assimilation was required for my mother to gain access to group membership. Soon after the Israeli state was created in 1948, there was a mass exodus of Indian Jews, known as Bene Israel, who arrived in the promised land only to be faced with racism and rejection by their fellow Jews of European origins. Like other non-Ashkenazi Jews, they were allotted inferior housing and faced income disparity and employment discrimination. In 1962, the Rabbinic Council announced that Bene Israel community members would have their maternal ancestry investigated if they wanted to marry Jews from other communities. This constituted a sort of crisis within the community, and although this ruling was eventually overturned, it left deep scars.

This context of discrimination served as a backdrop for how the children of Bene Israel immigrants would find their place in Israel: assimilate completely or be ostracized. The less visibly Indian, the more accepted in Israeli society. My mother never learned to speak Marathi or Hindi, never returned to her homeland, never learned the Bene Israel customs and traditions. She spoke Hebrew, served in the IDF, and belonged more to Israel than to the country she was born to.

In my childhood home in England, there were a few reminders that we were connected to India. A sandalwood coffee table, a teak vase, a statue made of elephant tusk, some saris collecting dust in the closet. Beyond these relics, my mother had nothing to offer me in terms of my Indian heritage because it had all but been scrubbed out of her before she could claim it.

But when my grandmother would visit once a year, she would fill my head with stories of India that captivated me and filled me with wonder. They inspired in me something that demanded attention, something that needed to be excavated and understood and helped me locate myself as both Jewish and Desi. My grandmothers stories served as a portal by which I could begin to know this heritage I was so completely removed from.

There was the haunted house in Trivandrum where my grandmother spent her early years. The circus her father owned in South India where she has vague memories of crying hysterically on a Ferris wheel. There was the British soldier who fell in love with her and stood outside of her parents house in the rain every day during monsoon season until he disappeared soon after the British packed up and left. There was the violence of 1947, the sound of molotov cocktails being thrown between the Hindu and the Muslim neighborhoods in south Mumbai the only buffer between them, the then Jewish quarters of Bayculla. There was the older sister who died of tuberculosis and whom everyone believed my grandmother was the reincarnation of (many Bene Israel adopted a belief in reincarnation from centuries of living with their Hindu neighbors). There was the bear my great uncle kept in a cage and who escaped one day, causing havoc and terrorizing the streets of Bayculla. There was my great uncle who enlisted in the British army, only to covertly work for the Jewish Resistance Movement and eventually disappear before the conclusion of World War II. My great-grandmother lit a candle for him every day of her life in the hopes that he would come home.

Through my grandmother, I came to associate India as a place full of ghosts, lost children, deep faith, and unfinished stories.

It took me five years to return, this time with my child and his dad. We lived in South India for six months by the Arabian Sea and made some important connections, new friendships and incredible memories. But still I felt like an outsider.

It was only in Mumbai, when I was standing in front of the synagogue my grandparents had been married in, that I felt what I had always dreamed of feeling a sense of belonging. The suns halo danced behind the buildings clock tower and I looked up in awe at the pale blue arches, towering over me the way they had the day of my grandparents wedding. I could suddenly see that this little piece of architecture has a history, and that history is my history, too.

Perhaps it is enough to know through stories that we are part of a narrative that is bigger than us. I may never truly know this country and she may never know me. What I hope is that I will inspire my son with stories the way my grandmother inspired me, so that he will one day understand that the history of the Bene Israel is written not just in his DNA but in the stories we tell that keeps the flame alight. The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of JTA or its parent company, 70 Faces Media.

This article originally appeared on Alma.

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Learning to reclaim my Jewish-Indian heritage as an adult - The Jerusalem Post

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