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This Yom Kippur, Enter a Radically Different Place
Aug 30, 2021  |  by Rabbi Hillel Goldbergprint article
This Yom Kippur, Enter a Radically Different Place
I can conquer my inadequacies if I aim higher.

Hasn’t everyone had a flat tire, missed a flight or boarded a plane intending to land in one city but ended up in another? We have all found ourselves in a different place.

Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski tells the story of an early chasidic rebbe who was once falsely accused of theft and jailed. It was a miserable experience.

There was violence and extortion. One prisoner, however, was different. He had been kidnapped as a child, knew he was Jewish and knew his Jewish name.

That’s it. He had no other connection to Judaism or the Jewish people.

The rebbe befriended him and taught him the Shema. Little by little he learned some Hebrew and some Jewish practices. After two months, both of the rebbe and his fellow prisoner managed to escape.


In jail, the rebbe had wondered: Why did God put him in such a different place? After the escape, his friend returned to his religion and his people. The rebbe had his answer.

The call of teshuvah, repentance, is to do voluntarily what life does to us involuntarily. Almost everyone ends up in a different place – living in a different city, pursuing a different field or marrying a different person – than anticipated. We suffer from an unexpected illness, rejoice in an unexpected simcha or never marry at all. We end up with a family larger or smaller or different than we thought.

Life changes us. It puts us in a radically different place. To do teshuvah, to repent, is to put ourselves in a radically different place.

Why?

The Talmud states that God created the world with the Hebrew letter heh because it allows for teshuvah. A heh is shaped like a doorpost, with a jamb and two sides, but without a floor. The heh is an abbreviation for God and the space within the heh symbolizes the Divine presence. Open at the bottom, the heh allows the human being the freedom to sin, to exit from the embrace of God. The Talmud extends the metaphor. The heh not only allows for sin. One of its two sides is actually incomplete; it is slightly open just beneath the jamb. This second opening signifies the possibility of return, of reentrance into the sacred space – of teshuvah.

One comes back in from a different place, not through the floor, not from the same place one exited. The Talmud asks: Why can’t the sinner just come back in via the same space he left?

Repentance isn't linear.

“It won’t help,” says the Talmud. It doesn’t work that way. It is necessary to come back in from a different place.

Why?

Teshuvah is not linear. To come back in, it is necessary not so much to “grow” as it is to change.
Teshuvah is not a matter of sinning and then thinking it possible to repent the sin, to correct the sin, to return to where one was before.

If teshuvah were linear, it would be a matter of remorse, doing a bit better, growing a bit, then reentering God’s sacred space, symbolized by the space inside the heh. But teshuvah is not linear. That is why, year after year, so many people go through the entire High Holiday season, think they have done teshuvah and then, as the next Rosh Hashanah rolls around, feel that they really haven’t improved much, if at all. They’re right back where they started, stuck in the same bad habits, beset by the same failings and inadequacies.

Why?

They did not realize that to come back in, it is necessary not so much to “grow” as it is to change.

Not to focus on the same old failings and try to remediate them, but to follow a larger dream.

To harness a larger motivation.

A grander aspiration.

A life-changing dream.

Within a larger whole, one can more readily cure those old failings.

Within a larger spiritual discipline, one can more likely fix those bad habits.

Motivation counts. When it is larger, so are the results.

Maybe I once thought it farfetched that I could really, permanently, study more Torah, or spend more time with my family, or make a difference in the community. Actually, I can, but only if I do not retrace and reorient a few steps; I can, but only if I become a different person.

When I enlarge my vision – when, say, I set out not to study more Torah but to complete the entire Talmud; when I set out not to close my email an hour a day but the minute I come home from work until the next day; when I set out not to give a bit more to the community but to take on the presidency of an important organization – if I can truly envision a different me and extend my reach, I can achieve my goals.

I conquer my inadequacies if I aim higher.

If I come in from a different place.

That is teshuvah.

The second opening in the letter heh means: We need to figure out how to do something voluntarily as big as what life does to us involuntarily; how to travel far from our comfort zone.

How to enter from a different place.

It takes that dimension of change to get us out of the rut, the pattern of sin and teshuvah on last Yom Kippur, only to find ourselves right back where we started this Yom Kippur.

It takes that dimension.

The Alter of Slobodka said: “If I knew that I could be only what I am, I could not endure it; but if I did not strive to be like the Vilna Gaon, then I would not even be what I am.”

That is why there is a second opening.

It is not a second chance.

It is an invitation to an entirely new world.

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Yom Kippur and the Importance of Keeping Your Word
Sep 12, 2021  |  by Emuna Bravermanprint article
Yom Kippur and the Importance of Keeping Your Word
Living in a society where talk is cheap, we need to ensure that our words mean something.

The other day one of my granddaughters spent over three hours staring out the window, interrupted only by periodic walks to her mother to complain. She had made plans with a friend and the friend said she would be there any minute.

So my granddaughter waited and waited and waited. She couldn’t really call another friend and it was very hard to get involved in any project because her friend was coming over “any minute.” Time seems fluid in this friend’s family and any minute was actually 3.5 hours!

Today I witnessed a variation on this theme. We went to drop something off at a different child’s home and arrived to find her granddaughter pacing the front yard, waiting for a friend to come over. After a significant passage of time, the friend's mother finally called to check up on her.

"She's not here yet."

“Oh,” the friend’s mother said. “My husband is home and I guess he didn’t get the message clearly. I thought she was already at your house.” Misunderstandings and miscommunications can happen but my granddaughter was left waiting and waiting…

I recalled both of these stories as I contemplated the upcoming holiday of Yom Kippur. The first thing we do on this solemn day is recite Kol Nidrei and nullify our vows. We recognize we may have unintentionally misspoken; we may have made commitments we were able to keep, promises that we were forced to break, vows we should never have uttered. And we reflect on the importance of our words, what they mean to us and to others.

While the commitment to a playdate with a 10-year-old or 8-year-old certainly doesn’t fall into the category of a vow that requires nullification of Yom Kippur, it's a reflection of how carelessness in language can be hurtful to others, even without intending to, even if the words themselves are not cruel.

Particularly with children who have a limited concept of time and even more limited patience for waiting, we need to very clear, very precise and we need to think in advance. When will we realistically be ready? If we are delayed, perhaps we should let them know? Will our husband understand that these instructions are to be carried out right away?

Our word has to mean something – in order for people to trust us and because there are people at the other end who are impacted by our vague promises and commitments.

It is painful to watch the disappointment in children when the adults around them (particularly their parents, but really anyone) don’t keep their word. They feel hurt and betrayed.

Yom Kippur reminds us of the power of words and how they signal commitment, how they help define our character.
And we should understand this. Because we feel the same when our friends or acquaintances are cavalier about our time or value. If someone doesn’t want to “do lunch”, then just don’t offer. If you don’t want to get together the next time you come to New York (getting a little personal here!), then don’t say you’ll be in touch. And if you’re delayed (avoidably or not), call and explain. Give me a chance to make other plans in the interim or to use the now available time well.

Sometimes we are just plain inconsiderate (no excuses). Sometimes circumstances arise that are beyond our control (all circumstances are actually beyond our control!). Sometimes we are just trying to fit too much in. But whatever the cause, we should at least notify the other party that we are late and we should make every effort to be on time in the future. Because it was a commitment. Because we gave our word.

We live in a society where talk is cheap, where words are thrown about with no meaning or intent behind them. Yom Kippur reminds us of the power of words and how they signal commitment, how they help define our character.

We may not have taken actual oaths that require nullification but I’m sure many of us have made commitments we haven’t honored, used our words cavalierly, caused unintentional pain. And for that we should do teshuvah, feel regret and change.

Yom Kippur is a reminder that a commitment should mean something and we should therefore think hard before we make one, even if it’s to take everyone to Disneyland, maybe particularly if it’s to take everyone to Disneyland!

A little thought before we speak can avoid a lot of pain and regrets – and make repentance on Yom Kippur a whole lot easier!

https://www.aish.com/ci/s/The-True-Legacy-of-911.html?
The True Legacy of 9/11
Sep 5, 2021  |  by Rabbi Efrem Goldbergprint article
The enduring image of 9/11 must not be people falling from buildings but of a nation lifting each other up.

There are seminal moments in an individual’s life that they can never forget. Where were you when you heard the terrible news of the loss of a loved one? Where were you when you heard the incredible news about getting the job of your dreams?

And then, there are seminal moments in the life of a nation that become indelibly impressed in the minds and hearts of every member of that nation or people. Some will never forget where they were when Kennedy got shot, or man landed on the moon, or the challenger blew up.

Anyone alive at the time remembers exactly where they were and how they felt on September 11th, 2001. I will never forget watching the events of that fateful morning unfold and being gripped by the thought that this very well could be the end of the world. First, we all heard that a plane had crashed into the world trade center. Nobody knew that it was a jumbo jet, intentionally guided like a missile by terrorists seeking to annihilate and destroy. Initial reports thought it could be a small private commuter plane that accidentally went off course. That wishful thinking was quickly negated when news of the second plane hitting the second tower came in.

As we learned about a third plane hitting the Pentagon and fourth brought down by passengers in Pennsylvania, the entire nation was drawn to their TV’s and the horrific images they portrayed. Millions of Americans were watching by the time the unimaginable unfolded before our very eyes. We watched the towers collapse and with them, the lives and dreams of countless individuals and their families.

Mark Rosenberg, of blessed memory, a guy I was friendly with growing up, was killed that day at 26 years old, leaving behind his young wife, Jennifer. In all, 2,977 people were murdered that morning 20 years ago, but the real casualty number, how many were injured, how many traumatized and scarred for life, how many spouses, children, parents and extended family members who have yet to put the pieces back together, that number will never be known.

It wasn't the end of the world, but it was the end of the world as we knew it. Over the last 20 years, our lives have significantly changed between security in airports, the difficulty of getting passports and visas, and perhaps most of all, the sense of suspicion, doubt and fear instilled in the American psyche until this very day.

As much as September 11, 2001 is etched into my memory, September 12, 13, 14 are equally impressed upon my mind.
As much as September 11, 2001 is etched into my memory, September 12, 13, 14 are equally impressed upon my mind. Who can forget the pride we felt in being Americans? It seemed everyone was flying the American flag outside their home or on their car. “God Bless America,” and “Proud to be an American,” played at every gathering including the baseball playoffs held in Yankee Stadium just a short time later. NYPD and NYFD hats could be seen all over the country.

In the days and weeks following 9/11, civility and graciousness were at an all-time high, particularly in New York which some would consider no simple feat. Neighbors went out of their way for one another, Government agencies and their employees were deeply appreciated by those who needed their services, members of our military, policeman, fireman and first responders were revered. The sense of unity among the more than 250 million Americans was extraordinary.

Today's Global Enemy
Fast forward 20 years to today. Once again, the American people face a crisis but this time it isn’t ours alone, it is shared by humanity across the globe. For the last nearly two years, the threat has not been from a visible enemy, but from a virus. Facing this universal danger should have brought us all closer together, it could have driven us to cooperate better, to feel more united, and to empathize with one another. Instead, for too many the virus itself became the weapon to judge, criticize, condemn and even to hate. Sadly, this pandemic has driven people, even families apart.

Today, instead of feeling a sense of unity and togetherness, there is polarization, divisiveness, and discord.
Today, instead of the pride in being an American that followed September 11th, there are feelings of pessimism, cynicism and some who explicitly express shame in America for varying reasons. Rather than feel a sense of unity and togetherness, there is polarization, divisiveness, and discord. We too often forget that whether Republicans and Democrats, liberal or conservative, to the right or to the left, from a blue state or red state, we are still all Americans. The utter lack of civility and basic respect in representing views on a myriad of issues and the manner in which we challenge those whose opinion oppose has grown toxic and destructive.

As we pause to remember 9/11, to honor those who lost their lives and to express gratitude to those who risked their lives for the freedoms and blessings we enjoy, I believe it is as important to remember 9/12 and 9/13, to reawaken those positive feelings of unity and togetherness, to recommit to practice civility and to feel and express profound appreciation for this country and for those who serve it.1

The enduring image of 9/11 must not be people falling from buildings but of a nation lifting each other up. Our differences were important 20 years ago, but we found the will to put them aside understanding that to maintain the strength of our nation demanded we focus on what unites us, rather than what divides us. Unity, appreciation, faith and service are the true legacy of 9/11.

Our differences remain important today. But if we are going to defeat this pernicious enemy, one that has taken many more American lives than the horrific events of 9/11, we need to stay focused on what unites us and on what we have in common.

We, the members of the Jewish people, should feel especially proud and grateful to be Americans. The kindness, freedom and opportunity this great land has given to our ancestors and to us, creates an eternal obligation of deep appreciation and profound gratitude to us and for generations to come. Our ancestors were expelled from England, France, Austria, Germany, Lithuania, Spain, Portugal, Bohemia, Moravia and 71 other countries throughout Jewish history and we are blessed and fortunate to live in this great democracy.
  Luke 9:62
(62) But Jesus said to him, "No one, having put his hand to the plow, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God."


https://www.aish.com/ci/s/Yom-Kippur-and-the-Lessons-of-911.html?
Yom Kippur and the Lessons of 9/11
Sep 8, 2021  |  by Rabbi Benjamin Blechprint article
Yom Kippur and the Lessons of 9/11
“If we learn nothing else from this tragedy, we learn that life is short and there is no time for hate.”

Those who were alive then will never forget it. It was a transfoming moment – for America, for the world, and for everyone of us personally.

And the 20th anniversary of this historic event occurs on Shabbat Shuvah, the Sabbath between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur during the ten days of repentance. It is the day we are particularly meant to prepare for Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, in order to define the spiritual meaning of our lives as well as our historic roles in the perfection of God’s universe.

Until 2001 Americans felt personally distant from war. War was something that happened overseas -across the Atlantic as well as the Pacific oceans. We were protected by distance.

9/11 made us realize that we are not an island protected from the evil of terrorism or the horrors of conflict.
9/11 made us realize that we are not an island protected from the evil of terrorism or the horrors of conflict.

Just as the past two years made us recognize that a pandemic does not respect national borders, what happened to the World Trade Center proved to us that terrorism makes all of us possible victims. To close our eyes to international terror is to invite its presence on our own shores in the not distant future, as our enemies are quick to notice our unwillingness to fight those who seek to destroy us.

The words of the Yom Kippur liturgy - who will live and who will die - apply even to Americans who erroneously believed the soothing lullaby that “it can never happen here.”

“Never Again”
In the immediate aftermath of 9/11, the Holocaust mantra of “never again” was frequently utilized to express the everlasting dedication to our commitment to eradicate terrorism. They “9/11 Memorial and Museum” billed itself as “the country’s principal institution concerned with exploring 9/11, documenting its impact, examining its continuing significance.” It didn’t take long for aspirations to be downsized or scuttled. A planned traveling exhibition to keep alive 9/11 memories nationwide was replaced by what the New York Times described as “downloadable posters” made available to libraries upon request. The museum receives almost no public funding. The annual memorial ceremony has been downsized and limited to families of the dead, ignoring the firefighters, police and medics whose lives were on the line that day.

Originally named Freedom Tower, the building replacing the destroyed World Trade Center had its name changed back to One World Trade Center - because the word freedom might make it a bull’s-eye for terrorists. And the oath and firm commitment to “never again” be silent in the face of terrorism seems like nothing more than ghastly humor when viewed from the perspective of the international indifference in the face of worldwide failure to act against unchecked and encouraged national acts of terrorism.

“Never again” as a post 9/11 slogan can only have meaning if we really mean it, and the reality of these past 20 years makes clear that we have not yet taken these words seriously - neither with regard to the worldwide outbreak of antisemitism nor of the ongoing terrorist threats of anti-Americanism.

“The lessons that matter”
We do not know who wrote the following message after 9/11. It remains one of the most beautiful and succinct summaries of the life lesson we are to take from an event that has the power to alter our lives - a message that this year finds a profound echo on the day of Shabbat Shuvah which coincidentally serves as 9/11’s anniversary.

“On this day… 246 people went to sleep in preparation for their morning flights. 2,606 people went to sleep in preparation for work in the morning. 343 firefighters went to sleep in preparation for their morning shift. 60 police officers went to sleep in preparation for morning patrol. 8 paramedics went to sleep in preparation for the morning shift. None of them saw past 10:00 am Sept 11, 2001. In one single moment life may never be the same. As you live and enjoy the breaths you take today and tonight before you go to sleep in preparation for your life tomorrow, kiss the ones you love, snuggle a little tighter, and never take one second of your life for granted.”

Sandy Dahl, the wife of flight 93 pilot Jason Dahl, turned it into her personal prayer: “If we learn nothing else from this tragedy, we learn that life is short and there is no time for hate.”

So too a 9/11 survivor begs us to remember “that life is fleeting, impermanent, and uncertain. Therefore, we must make use of every moment and nurture it with affection, tenderness, beauty, creativity, and laughter.”

These are some of the reasons we need to remember. Let us pray that by way of memory we may turn a day of tragedy into a prophetic message which will grant us the wisdom to hasten the coming of a universal day of peace, love and understanding.

https://www.aish.com/jw/s/Ive-Inherited-My-Fathers-Nightmares.html?s=ac
I've Inherited My Father's Nightmares
Sep 4, 2021  |  by Yitta Halberstamprint article
I've Inherited My Father's Nightmares
In my wildest imaginings, I never believed that I would march against antisemitism in the United States.

I was five years old when I first heard the bloodcurdling shrieks that split the night and tore through my soul. They came from my parent's bedroom, which I was strictly told never to enter without knocking first.

But I rose from my bed and huddled in a corner nearby, where the screams penetrated me, entering my body like dybbuks.

"Your father had a nightmare," my mother would tell me the next day and the day after that and the day after that one, too. The choking, inhuman wails came nightly, testifying to the anguish that my seemingly jolly, easy-going father hid by day, and they recurred for years.

During the day, my father never mentioned the time he heard 70 of his relatives mowed down by Nazi's bullets (they were hiding in the cellar of a remote farmhouse; he alone had opted for the attic), his solo flight across Europe as a 15-year-old (his father had been sent to Siberia) and his excruciating tenure in the camps.

My father belonged to the group of Holocaust survivors who never shared their narrative with their children, perpetually silent. But at night, his screams told me everything he never wanted me to know, more chillingly than words could ever impart. His screams transformed me, molding me into an activist who participated in rallies against racism and Vietnam.

In my wildest imaginings, I never believed that one day I would march against antisemitism in the United States. But just a few months ago, on Shabbat, two boys wearing kippahs were beaten by three thugs, just blocks from my home, and they required hospitalization. And in July, a Boston Rabbi was stabbed multiple times in front of his synagogue. Just two examples of similar incidences reported all across the nation, in a veritable barrage of antisemitic eruptions.

In my wildest dystopian imaginings, I cannot conceive of concentration camps and mass slaughter in the United States, God forbid. But being verbally harassed, physically assaulted, having our institutions destroyed, and fear permeating our lives on a daily basis represents a huge shift in our American experience.

My father's nightmares emanated from the past. The fears that infuse mine revolve around the present reality and the future.
At night, my husband rouses me from sleep, shaking me softly, whispering, "It's a dream, wake up." Lately I too have begun to scream in my sleep. But not from a dream, as my husband calls it. It's an ongoing nightmare, my father's transmogrified into my own. His tortures, however, emanated from the past. The fears that infuse me today revolve around the present reality and the future.

This Rosh Hashanah, Jews in the United States will be facing scenarios straight out of the European playbook. Armed guards stationed in front of synagogues, "designated shooters" mingling with congregants, newly trained in firearms in a valiant attempt to protect their own. Of course, Covid invites fear and trembling, too, but it is a universal anxiety. The terror invoked by Pittsburgh, Poway, Jersey City, and Monsey is our nightmare alone, intensifying the growing isolation we feel. Never in the history of the United States did we Jews need to summon up the courage to freely worship at our temples and shuls.

Rosh Hashanah is supposed to inspire trepidation, as we appeal to God for merciful judgment. This year, that trepidation will be accentuated by the Jew-hatred that has reached peak levels and doesn't seem to be going away anytime soon

https://www.aish.com/h/hh/rh/theme/Rosh-Hashanah-Its-Not-about-Whos-Been-Naughty-or-Nice.html?
Rosh Hashanah: It's Not about Who's Been Naughty or Nice
Sep 1, 2021
by Rabbi Nechemia Coopersmithprint article
Rosh Hashanah: It's Not about Who's Been Naughty or Nice
Like a CEO of a major conglomerate, God is setting the budgets and determining each person's role, based on the level of responsibility we are ready to take.

Growing up, I viewed Rosh Hashanah as a Jewish version of Santa Claus coming to town, with God replacing the big man in red.

He's making a list,
He's checking it twice,
He's gonna find out who's naughty or nice
(Santa Claus) God is coming to town

He sees you when you're sleeping
And he knows when you're awake
He knows if you've been bad or good
So be good for goodness sake!

With that jingle as my reference point, including the rollicking Springsteen version, it was difficult to take this Jewish holiday seriously.

That all changed once I actually learned about the deeper meaning of the Jewish new year.

God is hitting the reset button and recreating the world and your place within it, anew.
Turns out God isn't looking over the past year to find out who's been naughty or nice; He's actually hitting the reset button and recreating the world and your place within it, anew. Like a CEO of a major conglomerate, God is setting the budgets and determining each person's role, based on the level of responsibility we are genuinely ready to take.

Jewish holidays are not merely commemorative. Each holiday opens a unique spiritual portal in time that enables us to relive the experience our ancestors went through. For instance, Passover doesn't just remind us of our exodus from Egypt; it's the time of the year we ourselves can access freedom and redemption like never before.


What happened on Rosh Hashanah that makes this the "Day of Judgment"?

The Talmud gives a fascinating reply: On Rosh Hashanah, the first of Tishrei, God conceived the world. Nothing actually existed yet! Actual creation didn't occur until six months later during Nissan, the month of Passover. Rosh Hashanah has the unique potential to concretize your vision for the new year, to conceive of goals and blueprints. It's the ultimate blank slate when everything is possible.1

So the judgment of Rosh Hashanah can't be based on our past performance because there simply is no past! We are re-experiencing the conception of the world, the very beginning point when God is handing out potential for all that is to come this new year.

This explains why there is no mention of repentance in the Rosh Hashanah prayers, because the emphasis is on declaring with the utmost clarity and passion your vision of the coming year. We look forward, not back. The reset button has been hit; you are no longer weighed down by your previous baggage of regrets and failures. It's a new beginning and everything is up for grabs, as long as it is what you truly desire.

And with this newfound clarity you can look back at the previous year and examine the mistakes and obstacles you need to address in order to realign yourself with your dreams and aspirations, and make them a reality. That's what Yom Kippur is all about, and why it follows Rosh Hashanah.

Bottom line, now is the time to get clarity, recalibrate, and come into Rosh Hashanah fired up to passionately work on attaining your dream goals for the upcoming year. All the potential growth you can reach this year is being invested on this day. That is the judgment God is rendering this day.

So take some time in the coming days and think about the following questions:

In my quietest moments, what do I yearn for?
What are my unique set of skills and traits, and how can I use them more effectively to better my community and the world?
What does God want from me?
What change in my life that would make a significant difference in actualizing my potential and feeling a greater sense of meaning and purpose in life?
How can I improve my most important relationships?
Shana tova! May we all be blessed with a year of good health, joy, wisdom and clarity.

(See Tosafot, Rosh Hashana, 27a, and Rabbi Chaim Friedlander's Sifsei Chaim, Moadim, Vol. 1)

https://www.aish.com/h/hh/rh/shofar/Revolutionary_Shofar.html?
Judaism Is Radical
May 26, 2002  |  by Rabbi Tzvi Gluckinprint article
Judaism Is Radical
Being a Jew means being part of the counter-culture.

"What's that?" I asked pointing at something very green and organic looking.

"Fried fenugreek."

"Interesting... and that?"

"Pomegranate."

"Uh huh... is that a fish head?"


"Yep."

"Why?"

"Leadership. Take initiative. Remember to be a head and not the tail. Some people use a goat's head."

"I think it's staring at me."

This was my first Rosh Hashana with observant Jews. The smorgasbord from the unknown had thrown me for a loop.

My host was a young rabbi type in a black suit. He had a face full of beard.

"Rosh Hashana is the day of radical Jewish consciousness," he said matter-of-factly.

"Judaism is radical?" I asked.

He grabbed his beard and glowered at me in mock rage. "Do I look like a conformist goon to you!?" he shouted. "Our people have been outside the mainstream since the beginning of time. Being a Jew means to be a part of the counter-culture. Didn't you eat your fenugreek?"

"I don't get it. What's this have to do with Rosh Hashana?"

"On Rosh Hashana the Jewish idealist declares his dream of global unity. He prays for the day when the whole world will work together under a unified banner. It's revolutionary."

"How? Every hippie wants global unity."

"The shofar, man, the shofar. Weren't you listening?"

I was very confused. I asked if I could leave the table.

"Sure," my host said. "We don't believe in religious coercion."

I was agitated. I walked around for a while thinking. "What is he talking about?" I thought to myself.

I went back to my room and looked through a copy of the Rosh Hashana prayer book. I read some of the commentaries. My host had been right. The prayers did talk about global awareness. Unity was a big theme. I noticed that not only was the goal to unify humanity, but if everything worked according to plan, then on a spiritual level all of creation would be operating in unison, from rocks and plant life, all the way up to the highest metaphysical realms.

It was a beautiful image. But what was the point? How was this different from any other utopian vision?

I reluctantly wandered into synagogue the next morning. I sat in a corner reading about more themes of the day as the people around me prayed. It was hot in the room and there wasn't air conditioning.

A few hours into the service, everyone stood up in silence. The only audible sound was the hum of the fans. I felt guilty, so I stood up, too. A man in the center of the room took out a shofar. He blew a number of blasts on command.

I closed my eyes. I felt myself back in the desert. The hot sand kissed my bare feet. I saw camels and Bedouins. I began to appreciate what my host had been talking about. Judaism was earthy.

The jagged blast of the horn reverberated in my spine. I woke up. I hadn't been asleep, but I had been. I had been deaf to the real message of Rosh Hashana. The shofar was a wake-up call. It wasn't about paying lip service to ideological platitudes about a better world. It was about waking up and doing something about it. The shofar was screaming, "Be real. If you want this world to be amazing then get off your butt and do something!"

I wanted to change the world but first I had to change myself. This is what the shofar had taught me. This was the message of Rosh Hashana.

After services I ran over to my host.

"I understand you!" I yelled. "I want to put on a robe and wander off into the sunset. I want to dramatically affect humanity. I can make a difference. Where do we begin?"

"After lunch, brother. You can't conquer the world on an empty stomach. Tonight we're eating starfruit."

I was ready for anything.

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Keep the Main Thing the Main Thing
Aug 29, 2021  |  by Rabbi Efrem Goldbergprint article
Keep the Main Thing the Main Thing
The key is not to prioritize your schedule, but to schedule your priorities.

What are the most important relationships, people and activities in your life? Would you say you allocate time to them? Do you think you make them a priority?

Now take out your calendar and review your typical day, week or month. Does your schedule in fact reflect your priorities? Your calendar never lies. Where you spend your discretionary time is where your values are. What you make time for shows what matters to you.

In his 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen Covey writes, “The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing.” We talk about our family being the main thing in our lives, or our Judaism, or some other value. But do we keep the main thing, the main thing or does what was supposedly the main thing become just another thing?

If you want the answer, look at your calendar and see how much time you allocate to the “main thing,” or if the “main thing” even appears on your calendar at all. Covey suggests, “The key is not to prioritize your schedule, but to schedule your priorities.”

There are many things that legitimately take us away from the “main things” of our lives. We can’t spend time with our children or expanding our minds or nourishing our souls because we are working, or shopping or cooking. But what about when we aren’t, how do we use that time? Is it filled with meaning, or meaningless activities? Do we fill out our schedule with a purpose or is time taken up with purposelessness? Are we in control of our schedules, or are our schedules controlling us?


The Torah describes how the farmer would bring his first fruit to Jerusalem. When presenting it, he would recite a declaration which included a short history of our people. In that context he would tell of when we were slaves in Egypt: “We cried to Hashem, the God of our fathers, and Hashem heard our anyeinu (affliction), amaleinu (travail) and lachatzeinu (oppression)" (Deut. 26:7). What are those three things?

If you don’t prioritize your life, someone else will.
Anyeinu is personal, internal anguish. The Egyptians purposely separated husbands and wives to create loneliness and pain.

Amaleinu is hard work. The Egyptians had a strategy to literally break our backs with endless toil.

What is lachatzeinu? Lachatz, still today in modern Hebrew, means pressure. The Egyptians applied enormous pressure in an effort to break us. What was that pressure? Our sages say they filled our time, occupied and preoccupied us, denied us the ability to even catch our breath. The greatest pressure is a packed schedule with no margin, no down time, no room to think, to experience, or to focus on the main thing.

We may not have Egyptian oppressors, but we too are captives to busyness, to our crazy schedules, to noble and ignoble tasks and activities that pulling us in so many directions and denying us the chance to even breath, to live, or to dream. As Greg McKeown, the author of Essentialism says, “If you don’t prioritize your life, someone else will.”

As we count down to Rosh Hashanah, review your schedule regularly and make a conscious effort to have it reflect your values. Make time to keep the main thing, the main thing, be it your spiritual, mental or physical health, quality time with family, Torah learning or doing acts of kindness for others. Schedule your priorities and push back on the pressure trying to hold you back.

Photo Credit: Frank McKenna, Unsplash

https://www.aish.com/jw/s/From-Ordinary-Housewife-to-Global-Human-Rights-Activist-Helping-Soviet-Jews.html?
Aug 21, 2021  |  by Dr. Yvette Alt Millerprint article
From “Ordinary Housewife
Pam Cohen's unlikely fight to support and free Soviet Jews.

Pamela Braun Cohen is probably one of the most important Jewish women you’ve never heard of.

For decades, Pam fought a quiet battle for Soviet Jews, mobilizing politicians and journalists across the world from a tiny office in a suburb north of Chicago. Dismissed time and again as a nobody, “just a housewife,” Pam helped thousands of Soviet Jews in their struggles to live Jewish lives and for the right to emigrate to Israel and the United States.

Refusing to take no for an answer, Pam methodically built up a network of activists that spanned the globe and brought hope to thousands. Her new book Hidden Heroes: One Woman’s Story of Resistance and Rescue in the Soviet Union (Gefen Publishing House: 2021) tells her remarkable story. In an Aish.com exclusive interview, Pam described her remarkable journey from “ordinary housewife" to global human rights activist.

My parents instilled in me the value that you are responsible for your people.
Growing up in a quiet Chicago suburb, Pam’s family wasn’t particularly observant but her parents always stressed the importance of Jewish community. "They instilled in me the value that you are responsible for your people. You have a duty to help others who are in danger."

After marrying her husband Lenny, living in the upscale suburb of Deerfield raising their three young children, political activism was the last thing on Pam's mind. That all changed one evening in June, 1970 when Pam and Lenny watched the evening news and heard the remarkable story about a group of Soviet Jews who’d been arrested for trying to hijack a plane to bring them to the West. “We couldn’t wrap our heads around it,” Pam says. “Jewish hijackers?”

Soviet Repression

Jews faced persistent, widespread discrimination across the Soviet Union. Jews were denied entry to prestigious universities. They were identified by their religion on their Soviet ID cards and faced persecution. If any Jew wished to learn more about his or her heritage and practice their religion, the reprisals were swift. Teaching Hebrew was forbidden. Owning Jewish books was cause for arrest. The few synagogues that were allowed to exist were hotbeds of KGB espionage. The entire apparatus of the vast Soviet state was mobilized to crush any stirrings of Jewish identity and pride.

The entire apparatus of the vast Soviet state was mobilized to crush any stirrings of Jewish identity and pride.
Yet they couldn’t succeed entirely. Thousands of Soviet Jews resisted in ways large and small, determined to live Jewish lives.

In her book, Pam describes the electrifying effect that the 1967 Six-Day War between Israel and its Arab neighbors had on Jews in the Soviet Union. “The Soviet propagandists, on state-controlled television, repeatedly broadcast the onslaught of the Arab armies, thus signaling the imminent defeat of the fledgling Jewish state. On their television screens, Soviet Jews watched their brethren, proud uniformed Israeli soldiers, ready to die for a Jewish state – a national homeland where Jews weren't pariahs, where they could live with pride. Like a lightning bolt piercing the propaganda smokescreen, the cognitive recognition of a Jewish home gave Soviet Jews a new sense of peoplehood, dignity, and national purpose.”

With Prime Minister Menachem Begin, UCSJ meeting, Jerusalem, 1981

Soviet Jews began reading anything they could find to learn more about Israel and their Jewish religion. Leon Uris's 1958 novel Exodus was smuggled into the Soviet Union, where it was translated into Russian and laboriously copied by hand and distributed far and wide.

In 1970, a group of 16 young Jews hatched a daring plan. They bought tickets for all the seats on a 12-seat plane. They planned to hijack the plane, pick up the remaining members of their group, then fly the plane to Sweden and ultimately on to Israel. As they feared, the KGB was on to their plan and intercepted them as they arrived at the airport on the morning of June 15, 1970. The group was put on trial and handed harsh sentences. Two of the young Jews were sentenced to death (these sentences were later changed to harsh prison terms); the rest were sentenced to years of imprisonment in harsh gulags in Siberia.

Reading their names and hearing about the determination of this group of brave young Jews was a turning point for Pam. “In a flash of recognition, I knew that Yosef Mendelevich, Hillel Butman, Sylva Zalmanson, her husband Edward Kuznetsov, and the rest of this group were Jewish moral giants who had pitted themselves against the Kremlin. But I wanted to know more. Who were they? How had they come to make a decision that would result in years of imprisonment and hard labor in Siberia?”

Chicago Action for Soviet Jewry
In the ensuing weeks, Pam searched for news about the Jewish hijackers, and about Soviet Jews in general – and found very little information. Few people she knew in her heavily Jewish suburb knew about the terrible conditions of Soviet Jews, and few seemed to care. Many of the American Jews Pam knew seemed apathetic and indifferent to the grave danger some Jews faced around the world.

With Natan Sharansky at the UCSJ Annual Meeting, Washington, DC, 1986

But not all American Jews were indifferent. A local woman phoned Pam and identified herself as a volunteer with a small organization called Chicago Action for Soviet Jewry, which lobbied politicians to raise awareness of the plight of Soviet Jews. She’d heard that Pam had an interest in Soviet Jews: would she consider helping sell commemorative cards to raise money for the organization?

It was the invitation Pam had been waiting for. She joined the tiny group and spent her evenings learning about the intricacies of Soviet and American politics and lobbying American officials. Pam helped organize local Jews in Chicago to write letters to American politicians and to refuseniks (Jews who’d applied to emigrate to Israel and been refused permission) in the Soviet Union.

The Chicago group was part of a larger umbrella organization, the Union of Councils for Soviet Jews, which coordinated the activities of a patchwork of activists across the United States, as well as in France, Britain and other countries. “I was shocked to discover that the task of saving millions of Soviet Jews was limited to a group of about thirty activists, grassroots volunteers who operated their local independent council in the United States, London or Paris. But these unsalaried activists projected an image of strength that vastly magnified the reality of their numbers.”

Pam would eventually serve as a leader of Chicago Action for Soviet Jewry and then of the Union of Councils for Soviet Jews. Throughout her years of activism, Pam remained intensely humble and focused on her many allies in the fight to help Soviet Jews. She never wanted to be seen as sweeping in from outside, telling Soviet Jews what to do or taking the credit for battles they were fighting from the inside. Indeed, much of Hidden Heroes is dedicated to documenting the names and lives of little-known refuseniks who spent years resisting the crushing might of the Soviet Union in any way they could.

Thousands of Unsung “Hidden Heroes”
Pam began documenting the case histories of every refusenik she could. In most cases, refuseniks were fired from their jobs. Unable to support themselves, they faced arrest for the crime of “parasitism”. Countless more Jews found themselves unable to even file applications to emigrate – these Jews were sometimes called waitniks. Each refusenik had a file in Pam’s office, with their individual circumstances and needs written down and shared with activists who would write letters to them, lobby politicians on their behalf, or even smuggle desperately needed goods to refuseniks inside the Soviet Union.

White House meeting with President Reagan, 1987. Pamela is fourth from the left, next to Secretary Shultz. Vladimir Slepak is seated first on the right.

One of the heroes Pam highlights in her book is a brilliant scientist from Moscow named Dr. Popov. “Systematically, he began monitoring cities outside of Moscow, especially Kiev. He collected data about emigration obstacles and refuseniks – their cases, issues, KGB house searches, demonstrations, arrests. Our weekly calls provided documentation and anecdotal evidence that needed to reach the West, including names of Kiev refuseniks who had put themselves on the front lines by signing appeals for help to America.”

Other Soviet Jewish activists made their way into Pam’s records. There were the secret Hebrew teachers who risked arrest and exile by teaching their fellow Jews. Some Jews published and distributed secret Jewish newsletters and books. Many Soviet Jews insisted on embracing their Jewish traditions and lifestyles. Each one was an act of defiance.

Prisoners of conscience, known as Zeks in Russian, were Jews who went to prison for their beliefs and insistence on living an authentically Jewish life. Other Jews were wrongfully declared insane and sent to punitive psychiatric hospitals where they were subject to horrific tortures, all in the name of “treatment” for their “insanity” of wishing to live a Jewish life.

Like a Miracle
Pam and her fellow activists worked feverishly to supply Soviet Jews with the necessities they desperately required. Sometimes huge coincidences helped Pam and her allies to send aid, giving her the distinct impression that their path was being eased somehow in uncanny ways. One of the Chicago Action for Soviet Jewry’s most potent tools was local tourists who agreed to visit the Soviet Union on vacation and to meet with refuseniks while they were there. Pam and her colleagues spent many long hours briefing American tourists about the political situation in the USSR, the individual stories of the people they’d be meeting, and preparing them for the possibility of KGB arrest or interference.

Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry's demonstration in Helsinki, 1988; left to right: Jacob Ner-David (in cage), Pamela, Rabbi Avi Weiss, Glenn Richter
When Pam once got a desperate phone call explaining that a refusenik needed emergency heart surgery and required an artificial heart valve, Pam soon heard about an American doctor who was planning to visit the Soviet Union who could bring this life-saving item with him. When a prominent refusenik was arrested and in desperate need for a lawyer, Pam received word that a famous American attorney was on his way to Russia and he agreed to help.

When word got to Pam that the famed refusenik Ida Nudel was being kept in horrific conditions in a Siberian gulag and was freezing, Pam records that “In the next tourist’s suitcase was my sheepskin coat. The coat traveled from Chicago to Moscow to Siberia. I never knew how she knew it came from me, but after she was released, I received a letter from her, thanking me, and I framed it.”

Bear fat? Who even heard of that? But within an hour we figured it out. A tourist from Alaska was about to visit the refusenik's city.
“The bear fat – that was the most remarkable coincidence," Pam recounts with a chuckle. When a well-known Jewish refusenik sent word to Pam that needed bear fat for a folk remedy that a Chinese doctor required to treat him, Pam assumed this outlandish request would be impossible to honor. But Pam didn’t dismiss his request; logistics simply made it impossible to obtain bear fat. “Who even heard of that in Chicago?” she recalls. “But within an hour we figured it out.”

A tourist was about to depart from Alaska where bear fat was available, for a visit to the refusenik's very city. He agreed to deliver the ingredient.

Discovering Judaism
Throughout her book, Pam describes a jarring disconnect. She spent much of her days immersed in the struggles of Jews who were willing to risk their lives and freedom to have the chance to celebrate Jewish holidays or learn Hebrew or move to the Jewish state, yet Pam found herself living in assimilated Jewish suburbia.

Pam recounts a letter she read from a refusenik in Riga named Alexander Mariasin. In it, he told a heart-wrenching story about a group of Jews who insisted on celebrating the holiday of Simchat Torah even while they were trapped in a cattle car on their way to a Nazi death camp. “'It’s a wonderful story,' Mariasin wrote in his letter, 'about a wonderful people. And so we celebrated Simchat Torah and were merry, too', defying the Soviet authorities.

Meeting President Bush

“Simchat Torah?” Pam wondered when she read those words. “How many of us in Deerfield took Simchat Torah seriously, or even knew what it was? The letter triggered in me a longing for something I never had, an inheritance that had disappeared somewhere on the boat between Lithuania or Poland and new lives here. The growth of the refuseniks was inspiring my own.”

In one memorable passage in Hidden Heroes, Pam recalls the advice of famed refusenik Yosef Mendelevich, one of the hijackers in 1970 whose actions had first inspired Pam. He managed to communicate with her from his cell in Siberia, and confided in Pam that he was learning Hebrew in prison. Each day he wrote a word on a slip of paper and hid it in his belt. He suggested that Pam do the same. How could Pam ignore her own Jewish learning, she wondered, when she was faced with examples of men and women who worked so hard just for the privilege of learning a single Hebrew word?

When dissident Hebrew teacher Ari (Leonid) Volvosky wrote to Pam to ask if she’d send him an English-language copy of the classic Jewish work Book of Our Heritage by Eliyahu Kitov, she complied, and bought a copy for herself as well. After that, Pam recalls, “every book that refuseniks asked for in English, I got a copy for myself.”

UCSJ rally, Capitol Building, Washington, DC, 1987

Ari Volvovsky was sent to internal exile in Gorky. When Pam’s son Scott celebrated his bar mitzvah, Volvovksy sent him a stirring letter that Pam includes in her book. “Today the...right to choose is before you,” Volvovsky wrote. “One way is the way of Torah and commandments… The other is the way of growing apart from...Judaism. It is all in your hand and God will give you the strength and courage to choose the right way… On this important day, we should not forget our brothers and sisters who sacrificed their lives for the existence of our nation and for the establishment of our State, Israel… We should not forget our people in the Diaspora who cannot live in freedom, and it is our holy responsibility to help them with all our power.”

This message hit home. Eventually Pam and Lenny set up a center for Jewish studies in their suburb as their commitment to Jewish learning and practice deepened.

Pam revealed to Aish.com that she and Lenny have taken the next step in their Jewish journey: they just made Aliyah, becoming citizens of Israel. They now reside half the year in Chicago and half in Jerusalem.

Standing Up for What’s Right
One of the most frustrating themes in HIdden Heroes is the huge disconnect between Pam and her fellow activists and the relative indifference of many Jewish leaders inside mainstream Jewish institutions.

One of Pam's role models was Peter Bergson, a Zionist leader in the 1940s who advocated for building a Jewish army to help rescue Jews in Nazi lands. Opposed by the Jewish establishment, Bergson nevertheless educated American Jews about the horrors taking place in Jewish communities behind Nazi lines.

Pam observed the same reluctance on the part of mainstream Jewish organizations to act on behalf of Soviet Jews. “When I became the national president of the Union of Councils for Soviet Jews, I felt like I wanted to put Bergson’s mold on the organization. We weren’t building an organization, we were building a strike force,” she notes.

“We felt like there was a fire burning and we had to put it out. There was always way more to do than we could possibly do, and we just had to do all we could.”

Pam hopes that her book inspires a new generation of Jews to embrace their own Jewish heritage. “You cannot know where you’re going unless you know where you’re from,” she notes. “You’re here for a reason and each of us has an obligation to work hard to make the world a much better place."

https://www.aish.com/ho/p/The-Bishop-who-Saved-1500-Jews.html?
The Bishop who Saved 1500 Jews
Aug 23, 2021  |  by Rivka Ronda Robinsonprint article
The Bishop who Saved 1500 Jews
Pavel Peter Gojdic suffered mistreatment and humiliation for his outspoken defense of Jews during the Holocaust.

This is the story of a righteous gentile and his unsaintly nemesis. Pavel Peter Gojdic, a humble Catholic monk, was born in 1888 in Slovakia, where he served as resident bishop during World War II and a friend of the Jews who saved many lives.

Nazi Germany occupied the region in 1938 and quickly went about issuing anti-Jewish orders. Local authorities cooperated, limiting Jews’ freedom of movement and excluding Jewish children from non-Jewish schools.

Pavel Peter Gojdic
At personal risk as apostolic administrator, Gojdic openly spoke up in favor of Jews from the beginning of their persecution in Slovakia. “On January 25, 1939, two days after the establishment of a special committee by the Slovak autonomist government charged with defining the program for the solution of the Jewish question, the bishop wrote a special letter addressed to all parishes in his Presov diocese,” wrote Yad Vashem, Israel's Holocaust museum.

“ In this letter he warned about disastrous results which might be caused by these discriminative policies. He reminded people of the basic principles of their belief – that every human being has equal rights when he faces God. He also warned of the consequences of Nazi ideology and racism.”
Gojdic's activities did not sit well with the fascist Slovak state. Fellow priests turned on him. In the summer of 1939 they wrote a memorandum expressing their dissatisfaction with Gojdic’s actions. He resigned a few months later.

In 1940 the Vatican accepted his resignation from the position of apostolic administrator, but at the same time appointed him as bishop of the Presov, Slovakia, diocese. This only increased the tension between him and the government.

Nemesis Condemns Slovak Jewry to Destruction
Meanwhile, Slovakia’s new president, Jozef Tiso – also a priest – began expropriating Jewish property and deporting Jews to German-occupied Poland. He resisted most pressure from the Vatican and Jewish groups to end deportations.

Historian James Mace Ward, a visiting Fellow at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, cited a conversation in which Tiso regretted exempting 18,000 Jews from expropriation and deportation, due to his belief that they were sabotaging the economy.

Tiso Hanged
Ward’s research portrays Tiso as a man who helped condemn Slovak Jewry to destruction. Ultimately, Tiso met a violent fate himself. After World War II ended, a reunified Czechoslovakia convicted and hanged him for treason, suppression of freedom and crimes against humanity.

Despite posthumous efforts to brand Tiso a saint, Ward concluded that he was no saint.

On the other hand, Bishop Gojdic helped refugees, prisoners and inmates of concentration camps, and became known as “the man with a heart of gold.” He is credited with directly or indirectly saving as many as 1,500 Jews.

Righteous Gentile Saved Countless Lives
In 2007 Yad Vashem recognized Bishop Gojdic as one of its Righteous Among the Nations. Its webpage about him reports: “On October 26, 1942, the Slovak Security Services informed the 14th Department of the Ministry of Interior about a high number of fictitious conversions taking place. The report pointed out several cases when only one member of a Jewish family converted to Christianity in order to defend his whole family. Out of 249 Jewish families only 533 Jews converted to Greek Catholic or Russian Orthodox faith in order to rescue another 1500 members of their families, who did not convert. Apart from that, most of those who had converted continued to actively pursue Judaism either in an open or a hidden manner.”

Refusing to renounce his religion, he was given a life sentence for treason by the Communist state,Czechoslovakia.
Though he survived the Nazis, Bishop Gojdic endured a life sentence in prison when the Communist regime made the Greek Catholic Church illegal. The many letters written by Jews who were grateful for his work had no effect on this sentence. He died from cancer in the prison hospital of Leopoldov Prison in 1960, on his 72nd birthday.

https://www.aish.com/jw/s/Reflections-of-an-Afghan-Jew.html?%3F&utm_campaign=wbbwkl202108226fcall
Reflections of an Afghan Jew
Aug 22, 2021  |  by Dr. Yvette Alt Millerprint article
Reflections of an Afghan Jew
Born in the Afghan city of Herat, Ahoova Gol Zeffren is a descendant of an Afghan rabbinic dynasty.

“We came from Herat in Afghanistan," explains Ahoova Gol Zeffren, a Hebrew and Judaic studies teacher who currently lives in Los Angeles. In a recent Aish.com interview, Ahoova discussed her family’s illustrious Jewish Afghan heritage.

Herat was a major Jewish center for close to 300 years. Ahoova traces her family roots to the nearby Iranian city of Mashhad. Home to a sizeable Jewish community in the 1700s and 1800s, local officials in Mashhad began persecuting Jews violently and forced Jews to convert to Islam. Many of Mashhad's Jews fled to Herat where they built a thriving Jewish community.

Ahoova's family in their sukkah in Herat, Afghanistan. She is the baby held by her mother.

There were four large Jewish populations in Afghanistan, Ahoova explains: Herat, Kandahar, Balkh, and Kabul, the capital. The Jewish community was “very orthodox,” she says. “There were lots of synagogues and yeshivas."

“For ten generations my father’s family were chief rabbis,” Ahoova says. One of her most famous forbearers was Rabbi Chacham Mula Matitya Gargi (1845-1917), who wrote a famous commentary on the Talmud called Oneg L’Shabbat. He served as Chief Rabbi of Herat. He was so revered that his leadership extended as far afield as the Jewish communities of Uzbekistan and Tashkent.


“He was also the king’s advisor,” Ahoova notes. The kings of Afghanistan, known as Shahs, “really admired and respected the Jews. They took the rabbis’ advice, especially the chief rabbi.”

Roiled by conflict, local Afghan rulers eventually yielded control of Afghanistan’s foreign relations to the British in 1879, yet still retained control over internal Afghan affairs. (The last Shah of Afghanistan was deposed in a coup in 1973.)

Ahoova's great grandfather, Yechezkel Gargi. He came to Jerusalem in 1950 and was the chief rabbi of the Afghan Jews in Israel at that time.
Afghan rabbis were in close contact with Jewish leaders in the Land of Israel and elsewhere around the world, Ahoova explains. Her rabbinic forbearers corresponded with rabbis in Jerusalem, New York and Europe. Yet Israel held the greatest appeal for Afghan Jews, who eagerly awaited the emergence of the Messiah and the ingathering of Jews in Jerusalem.

This desire to greet the Messiah came to a head in 1887, when rumors spread throughout some Jewish communities that the coming of the Messiah was imminent. “A lot of Jews from Afghanistan and Bukhara, Samarkand, Tashkent, Iran and Yemen came to Jerusalem that year,” Ahoova explains. “They walked all the way with donkeys… They really believed that the Messiah would come.” These Jews may have also been motivated to leave Afghanistan by a growing sense of antisemitism there and by a series of harsh laws limiting Jewish life in Afghanistan that were passed in 1870.

The Afghan Jews who’d hoped Messiah was on his way built a “special palace” in Jerusalem to house him. Although their hopes for the Messiah’s imminent arrival were dashed, Ahoova’s relatives and the other Afghan Jews remained in the Land of Israel. “Today, the house still exists and is used as a school.”

More Afghan Jews continued to travel to the Land of Israel in the late 1800s and early 1900s and helped build the nascent Jewish state there. “Most of them lived in the Old City of Jerusalem, including my great, great grandfather.” In the late 1800s some Jews began to build new neighborhoods outside of the Old City walls of Jerusalem. Ahoova’s family was among these early pioneers and helped create the Beit Yisrael neighborhood that continues to thrive in Jerusalem today. At the time, the neighborhood was home to many Jews from Afghanistan and Bukharian Jews from Central Asia.

After the State of Israel was established in 1948, many more Afghan Jews left the country. “Most of the communities of Afghan Jews moved to Israel or to London, or to Milan.” Many of her mother’s relatives resettled in Italy. Ahoova’s family remained, planning to spend a few years dissolving the family businesses and selling off the family’s land. They had extensive business dealings, trading in silk, pistachios and leather. Staunchly Orthodox Jews, one of Ahoova’s family’s businesses was supplying the vellum used to write Torah scrolls. “They sold this vellum leather to Poland, Krakow, all over Europe,” she recalls.

The Jews in the city couldn’t believe that an official from the new state of Israel was going to be in their midst. “They couldn’t believe that after two thousand years they had their own state.”
Most of the Jews in Afghanistan were “very Zionist.” She remembers hearing about a momentous visit that Israel’s Second President, Yitzhak Ben-Zvi, paid to Afghanistan. “He was a historian and he was always interested in Jews that came from the East,” including Afghanistan, Ahoova notes. “Ben-Zvi visited Herat.” Her mother recalled that the Jews in the city couldn’t believe that an official from the new state of Israel was going to be in their midst. “They couldn’t believe that after two thousand years they had their own state.”

Herat’s Jews flocked to hear Ben-Zvi and were in for a shock. Instead of being an Orthodox Jew like the Jews of Herat, Ben-Zvi was a largely secular man. Herat’s Jews were taken aback. “Then he spoke to them in Hebrew and someone translated. He said, ‘We're here from the Government of Israel; we’re here to take you all to the Jewish state.' He was very influential. In 1950, 1951, a lot of Jews packed all their pecklach (baggage) and came to Israel.” Most settled initially in Jerusalem, then later spread throughout the country.

Ahoova’s grandparents moved to Israel in the early 1930s, but her immediate family remained until 1960, when Ahoova was three years old. That year, her father died and was buried in the Jewish cemetery in Herat. Ahoova’s mother and the children moved to Israel, settling in the town of Givat Shmuel near Tel Aviv.

“We kept the beautiful traditions of Afghanistan. Our special food, our zemirot (songs) for Shabbat and holidays, we kept it all those hundreds of years. We continued the life we had in Herat.” At school, Ahoova and her siblings learned Hebrew, but at home she continued to speak the Hebrew-infused Afghan language that her family had spoken for generations in Afghanistan.

Ahoova’s family eventually moved to the United States. In 2005, her late brother, Goel Gol, went back to visit Afghanistan, this time as an American citizen. He spent three days in Herat and was able to visit the graves of their father and grandparents for the first time since leaving the country.

In the United States, Ahoova married her husband, Murray Zeffren, who was originally from St. Louis. Together they raised three beautiful children. Ahoova and Murray plan to make aliyah in the next few years and settle in Jerusalem, to “close the circle” and return to the Jewish state.

Ahoova and her family

Reading the news in recent days has been heartbreaking for Ahoova. “I feel terrible; I’m worried for the women there. We’re in the 21st century, for Heaven’s sake. You shouldn’t have this primitive way of life that the Taliban is promoting." Ahoova notes that she spends all day immersed in Jewish studies, and the contrast between Judaism’s life-affirming world view and the Taliban’s embrace of repression and hate is profound.

While we spoke on the phone, Ahoova was cooking traditional Afghan Jewish dishes for Shabbat, like pilaf, a dish made with basmati rice, meat and vegetables, and a thick soup called cholov, which is flavored with dill, parsley, cilantro, leeks, onions, vegetables and chickpeas. Ahoova is keeping alive many of the beautiful Jewish Afghan customs.

https://www.aish.com/jw/s/The-Jewish-History-of-Afghanistan.html?
The Jewish History of Afghanistan
by Aaron Feigenbaumprint article
The Jewish History of Afghanistan
A long lost chapter of Jews in the Diaspora.

Afghanistan is the last place you’d expect to find any trace of a Jewish past, especially given the Islamization of most of the country over the past two decades by the ruthless Taliban. Yet, up until the assassination of King Nadir Shah in 1933, the country had been remarkably tolerant towards Jews for over a thousand years. Major Afghan cities such as Herat and Kabul were once safe-havens for Jews fleeing persecution in other lands. The Jews of Afghanistan once numbered in the thousands and enjoyed peace and prosperity.

A letter in Judeo-Persian dealing with financial and family matters (National Library of Israel)A letter in Judeo-Persian dealing with financial and family matters (National Library of Israel)
Today there is only one Jew left who still calls Afghanistan home.

The recorded story of the Afghan Jews starts in the 900‘s C.E., two centuries after the country was converted to Islam. This is not because Jews did not live there before that time, but rather that all records which might have proven the existence of a pre-Islamic Jewish community in Afghanistan have been lost. However, there are some Afghan tribes such as the Durrani, Yussafzai, and, most notably, the Pashtun who claim to be one of the Ten Lost Tribes. In the case of the Pashtun, now Afghanistan’s majority ethnic group, one of their tribal legends states that a group called the “Bani Israel” settled near the modern town of Herat and later converted to Islam after their leader met with Mohammed.

Jewish Virtual Library states that some Pashtuns have Jewish sounding names such as Asheri and Naftali, and they practice Jewish customs such as marrying under a chuppah and circumcising their sons eight days after birth. Adding further fuel to the fire, the sensationalist media even published a report a few years ago claiming that the members of the Taliban may be descended from Jews. An Israeli government-funded DNA test found no link at all between Jews and Pashtuns.


Some reports mention Persian Jews fleeing the invading Muslims in the 7th and 8th centuries, but actual records attesting to a Jewish presence in Afghanistan date back to the 10th century C.E. These records, found recently in northern Afghan caves, are written in Judeo-Persian and are collectively referred to as the “Afghan Genizah” (a reference to the hugely important Cairo Genizah collection of Jewish documents found over a century ago). The documents show evidence of Jewish commercial activity on the Afghan part of the Silk Road, a vast ancient trade route that stretched from China to the Mediterranean Sea. They also include personal letters, financial records, and rabbinic and Biblical commentary.

At its height in the 1000‘s and 1100‘s, the Jewish population of Afghanistan is estimated to have reached between 40,000 and 80,000 members. Many of them traded in leather and karakul (sheep pelt) and often traveled long distances between Afghanistan, Iran, India, and Central Asia. Oftentimes these trips were dangerous, taking the Jewish merchants along narrow mountain passes in the eastern part of the country where Hebrew and Aramaic prayers can be seen carved in rocks.

Mashiach Gul and Daniel Gul president of Afghan Jewish community in Palestine, 1917
(Israel National Photo Collection)
The Jewish population was decimated by the Mongol invasion of 1222. There was a brief revival in the 1500‘s when Jews once again became prominent in trade between Afghanistan, India, and the Persian Gulf region. However, the trade routes began to decline and most Afghan Jews became impoverished.

In 1839, Muslim authorities were forcibly converting Jews in Persia which resulted in thousands of Persian Jews fleeing to Afghanistan. This brought the Jewish population back up to its former glory of 40,000. The northwestern city of Herat, now the country’s third-largest city became the heart of this new Jewish community. Today there are only four shuls standing in the city, two of which were converted to mosques, one of which is now a school, and the last of which, the Yu Aw shul, became an Islamic cultural center. The former Yu Aw shul still has Hebrew inscriptions on its walls and the remnants of a mikvah are still present. A nearby Jewish cemetery is owned by Arif Mosaee, an Afghan Jew whose family is buried there.

Starting in the late 1800‘s, the situation for Afghan Jews became progressively worse. The Muslim authorities enacted harsh anti-Jewish measures in 1870 triggering a mass emigration to neighboring countries. Pogroms were carried out in the major Jewish centers of Maimana and Herat, and Jews were forced to pay high taxes and serve in the armed forces.

In 1927 the Jewish population had dwindled down to 5,000. The Jews had a brief revival under the rule of King Nadir Shah (1929-33) who reversed many of the decades-old anti-Jewish decrees and gave Jews equal rights as citizens. Disaster struck when the king was assassinated and Nazi propaganda filtered into the country causing more pogroms and the ghettoization of Jews in Herat and Kabul. Harsh economic laws drove many Jews out of the country in the 1930‘s and those who remained were restricted to the cities of Herat, Kabul, and Balkh.

The vast majority of the Jewish population left Afghanistan in the 1960‘s. Most went to Israel while some went to New York and Europe. Today over 1,000 Afghan Jews and their children live in Queens, New York. Sara Aharon’s “From Kabul to Queens” tells the history of Afghan Jewry and struggles of acclimating to U.S. culture.

Jewish life in Afghanistan was similar to that of Persia yet retained some unique customs. Like many other Jewish communities in different parts of the world, the Afghan Jewish community borrowed some customs from its neighbors. Some of these customs included taking off one’s shoes before entering a shul. Community leaders required women to wear a blue burqa (full body cover) in public while Muslim women would wear a white burqa. The design of Afghan shuls was influenced by the architecture of local mosques.



Today there is only one Jew left in Afghanistan. His name is Zablon Simintov and he lives in Kabul. His story has made the rounds in the international media and it is at once tragic and inspiring. Simintov, born in Turkmenistan, lives in the capital city of Kabul on the top floor of Afghanistan’s last functioning shul on Flower Street. He rents out the bottom floor to several businesses including his own, the Balkh Bastan cafe. He used to deal in carpets and antiquities until government officials confiscated his merchandise.

Simintov’s family have all emigrated to Israel and he lives alone in the shul. The shul’s Torah scroll was stolen years ago by the Taliban and the shul is in disrepair. Simintov gets along quite well with his neighbors, all of whom who treat him respectfully.

When asked why he doesn’t want to move to Israel, Simintov responded “Go to Israel? What business do I have there? I won’t let Jewish history die in Afghanistan.”

(Sources: Jewish Virtual Library, Afghanistan Today, The Guardian, Reuters, Jewish Journal, CBS News, Haaretz, “Jewish Communities in Exotic Places” by Ken Blady)

https://www.aish.com/ci/s/The-Collapse-of-Afghanistan-What-Does-It-Mean-to-be-Truly-Free.html?s=ac&
Aug 17, 2021
by Rabbi Nechemia Coopersmithprint article
The Collapse of Afghanistan: What Does It Mean to be Truly Free?
No matter how much money, power and resources are poured in, freedom and peace cannot be imposed by outside forces. It must come from within.

After 20 years of US military engagement and over a trillion dollars in training and equipping the Afghan army, the Taliban forces conquered the country in less than a week after America pulled out. It's a shocking, appalling mess and there is plenty of blame to go around, but that's above my pay grade. It's not my place to discuss politics and foreign policy.

I want to focus on an important insight about liberty and freedom, and how it connects to Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year.

One of the glaring lessons in the collapse of Afghanistan is that no matter how much money, power and resources were poured in, freedom and peace cannot be imposed by outside forces. You can't force someone to will something. It must come from within.

Some 640 passengers crammed into a US Air Force C-17 that flew from Kabul Airport to Qatar on August 15

Without the internal will to fight for independence and freedom, it’s no wonder the army folded and the president fled in the face of Taliban's advance into Kabul. For 20 years, the enterprise in nation-building was being propped up by external forces. Once this ended, reality kicked in and it all came crashing down.


The same is true for our individual, personal freedom.

Who is the essential you?

Strip away all the external forces and elements that impact us, for good and bad, and what is left?

You are not your upbringing, your circle of friends, your title or position. You are not your wealth (or lack thereof), your looks, your hair, your intelligence, your fantasies, the color of your skin.

All of that forms the endless, complex strands that comprise the playing field of your life, but it's not you. You are the chooser who determines how to respond to the moral challenge which is being presented to you at this instant. That choice is yours, and yours alone. You are personally responsible for your decision, whether it was wise or immoral, or not a decision at all. Because that's you. You are that internal will.

Instead of blaming your parents, your spouse, the government, God or any other external force, switch gears and look inward. Focus on the only thing over which you do have control: your choice.
Everything else that exists outside of you is not you. You are not responsible for so much of the formative circumstances of your life. You are responsible for how you choose to respond to it. So instead of blaming your parents, your spouse, the government, God or any other external force, switch gears and look inward. Focus on the only thing over which you do have control: your choice.

You are not the baggage that was bequeathed to you by your upbringing, nor are you the brilliant IQ you happened to be born with. Those are some of the cards that the Almighty dealt you. Now it's up to you to determine how you are going to play your hand. You are the sum total of your choices.

Abraham, the first forefather of the Jewish people, wasn't blamed for worshipping idols as a child. He didn't choose to be born at a time the entire world was seeped in idolatry. Nor was there any attempt to cover up his less-than-stellar upbringing. Submerged in darkness, he used his unique circumstances to find truth and chose greatness.

Rosh Hashanah Reality Check
Rosh Hashanah celebrates the birthday of humanity; it's a celebration of free will. The Talmud teaches that in the moment of judgment, we stand before God utterly alone and come face to face with the reality of who we really are. All externals are stripped away. There are no friends to hide behind, no society to get lost in, no excuses to rely on, nor others to blame. It’s only the real you, all your heroic and selfish decisions, the dreams that were in reach but you left unfulfilled and the accomplishments you chose to attain.

The external forces we use to prop ourselves up or hide behind are pulled out and we are left with our true inner self that we are fully responsible for. That is who God is examining on Rosh Hashanah.

That reality check can be terrifying. It allows us to see what we are really made of.

But it's also liberating and deeply meaningful. Recognizing that I am the only person responsible for attaining my personal greatness is like a blast of the shofar that pierces our soul, beckoning us to wake up and choose life.

https://www.aish.com/ho/p/48949791.html?s=rab
Ghetto Baby: Child Survivor of the Holocaust
Aug 14, 2021  |  by Dr. Yvette Alt Millerprint article
Ghetto Baby: Child Survivor of the Holocaust
Born in the Radom ghetto and hidden in an orphanage, Dr. Charles Silver survived the Holocaust as a baby.

“I was born in December, 1942, in the Radom ghetto,” Dr. Charles Silver explained in a recent Aish.com interview. Charles' love for the United States and his strong Jewish identity were shaped in his early life, when he managed to survive against unimaginable odds during the Holocaust.

In the 1930s, the city of Radom, south of Warsaw, was heavily Jewish. Out of a population of about 90,000, 30,000 Jews called Radom home. The Jewish community was incredibly active. Over 20 Jewish schools operated in the town. There were 12 Jewish periodicals in Radom, a Jewish theatre and a Jewish artistic and literary society. Radom Jews ran the gamut religiously, belonging to Jewish organizations ranging from Orthodox to socialist and Zionist.

Prison Walls Close In
The late 1930s brought disquiet. Polish archivist Sebastian Platkowsi notes that “Polish right-wing organizations staged frequent antisemitic actions, including boycotts of Jewish businesses and physical assaults.”

On 1 September, 1939, Germany invaded Poland and one week later, German troops reached Radom. At first, the Germans deported individual Jews from Radom to forced labor camps. By 1941, the Germans began to implement their “final solution to the Jewish problem” in Radom and across Europe. Local Nazi officials built two ghettos in Radom: a larger one in the center of the town, and a smaller one in a nearby suburb. Thousands of Jews were herded into the ghettos, forbidden to leave on pain of death.

Open-air market on Wałowa Street in the Radom ghetto, between April 1941 and August 1942. (Courtesy Łukasz Biedka)


Conditions were horrible. The ghettos were so overcrowded that residents had to live a dozen or more people in a room. Radom’s Jews resisted in ways large and small. They developed a network of Jewish organizations, established secret Jewish schools, an underground Jewish theatre, and literary societies in the ghettos. The population swelled as Nazi authorities brought even more Jews into Radom’s ghettos as they deported Jews from the countryside and surrounding towns. The Nazis set up a Jewish leadership council inside the ghettos, which was responsible for providing 1,500 Jewish adults every day to work as slave laborers by the Nazis.

Nearly all of Radom’s Jews were murdered.
In early 1942, the Nazis deported some of Radom’s Jews to be murdered at Auschwitz. Then on August 5, 1942, the orders came through: the small Radom ghetto was to be liquidated. With the help of Ukrainian troops, Nazis shot Jews, sent some to forced labor camps, and deported the vast majority to the Treblinka death camp. On August 16, they set their sights on the large Radom ghetto, determined to kill most Jews in the camp and deport the rest to death camps.

Hundreds escaped into the woods nearby. Some Jews from Radom later fought in the major uprising at the Warsaw Ghetto in 1944. Nearly all of Radom’s Jews were murdered. About 3,000 were kept alive as slave laborers, forced to do backbreaking, torturous work for the Nazis.

Refusing to Give up Hope
In this hell, Charles' parents managed to cling to hope. “My Mom and Dad were both ardent Zionists and were active in Radom’s Hashomer Ha’Tzair Zionist club. When Germany occupied their town they refused to despair. They were young and in love and they knew there were a lot of storm clouds gathering,” Charles explains. “They said, ‘Let’s face this together.’”

Jews forced into a small ghetto at Glinice in Radom. (USHMM)

In 1940, Charles' parents Henry and Edzia married. The following year they, along with over 30,000 other Jews, were forced into Radom’s ghettos.

A Baby in the Ghetto
“My mother was pregnant with me at the time of the liquidation in 1942," Charles explains. Having a baby in the ghetto was a death sentence. “If Germans found babies, they were shot or bayoneted or killed in even more gruesome ways. Children weren’t collateral damage – they were the target. Heinrich Himmler said that we have to extinguish the roots of the Jewish people. That meant wiping out Jewish children."

My mother seriously thought about having an abortion, but her mother said to go through with the pregnancy.
When Edzia realized she was pregnant, she didn’t know what to do. She turned to her mother Frymeta for advice. "My mother seriously thought about having an abortion,” Charles notes. “That was an option. But Frymeta said to go through with the pregnancy.” Edzia was very petite and malnourished, so nobody guessed she was expecting.

After the liquidations of the Radom ghettos in 1942, Charles' parents were among the 3,000 Jews who were kept alive to perform slave labor, while about 30,000 of their friends and relatives were sent to Nazi death camps. Charles credits his mother’s survival to the kindness of Polish gentiles who smuggled her food through her pregnancy. “Mom had a lot of Polish friends,” Charles explains. "Jewish babies in Poland rarely survived.”

Charles was born in December, 1942, in the depths of the freezing Polish winter. His parents named him Chazkel. “My mother said she breastfed me in the morning, then went on a 12-hour work detail, then fed me again in the evening.” Charles wasn’t the only baby: in the course of researching the Radom ghetto and labor camp, he’s discovered that perhaps as many as five Jewish babies were hidden in the camp at that time.

Frymeta
The Nazi guards had regular inspections of the ghetto. One day, during and inspection, a baby cried out. “The German said, ‘Whose baby is that?’” Charles recalls his mother telling him. Unbowed, Charles' mother answered the Nazi guard saying it was hers. “I don’t know why she said that,” Charles says. Admitting she was hiding a baby in the barracks was sure to lead to death. Except this time, miraculously, it didn’t.

“The SS officer inspecting the ghetto for some reason had a moment of compassion and sensitivity,” Charles notes, “and he didn’t make her come up with the baby. That was the second time I was saved” – the first being when his mother decided to keep her pregnancy.

Hiding their Baby
After that close call, Charles' parents realized they had to find a hiding place for him outside of the ghetto. “This very fine Polish woman worked for my father’s family business - a young woman named Marianna,” he notes. Charles' parents asked her to help them hide their baby.

“Hiding Jewish children in Poland was more difficult than in Western Europe,” he explains. “In Poland, the only way to hide a Jewish baby was to pay people a lot of money or by putting the baby in a convent.” It’s estimated that thousands of Jewish children were hidden during the Holocaust, often in convents, where they were raised without any knowledge of their Jewish identity.

Charles in 1945
The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum notes that “For many of those lucky enough to be sheltered by religious institutions or adopted by Gentile families, survival often came at the cost of their true identity. At the end of the war, many children were never told of their previous lives and prior identities, hindering attempts to reunite them with adult members of their birth families. Many adult survivors after fruitless searching were never able to relocate their children.” Charles notes that “the great number of those parents never came back and a majority of those hidden children were lost to Judaism.”

Marianna first planned to hide Charles with a childless Ukrainian friend of hers. At the last minute, the friend backed out. “In Poland, hiding Jewish children was a death sentence,” Charles explains.

The orphanage accepted him and Charles was eventually adopted by a Polish couple.
Marianna managed to place him in a Catholic orphanage instead. “It’s a good thing that I wasn’t yet circumcised," Charles notes. “If I was, my chances of survival would have been far less.” With his Aryan-looking features, it was easy for the orphanage to pass him off as a non-Jewish child. “I suspect that the nun who ran the orphanage must have known I was Jewish. You don’t drop off a baby in the mid-1940s at an orphanage unless it was a Jewish child.”

The orphanage accepted him and Charles was eventually adopted by a Polish couple.

Surviving the Holocaust
Against all odds, Charles' parents managed to survive the Holocaust. His father Henry was sent to Majdanek concentration camp to work as a slave laborer. He then was sent to Plaszow concentration camp where he was recruited to work in Oscar Schindler’s factory. He never told anybody his story until the movie Schindler’s List came out in 1993, and he finally told his family that he’d been one of the 1,098 Jews saved by Oscar Schindler.

Charles as a toddler

Charles' mother Edzia was sent first to Auschwitz and then to Ravensbruk concentration camp, where she worked as a slave laborer. “When Auschwitz closed its gas chambers at the end of the war, the Nazis transferred women to Ravensbruck so they could still use them for the war effort,” Charles explains. His mother became extremely ill in the camp, and was eventually evacuated in the closing weeks of the war by the Swedish Red Cross.

Their families were not so lucky. Henry was one of eleven children: seven perished in the Holocaust, as did his parents Leibel and Nechuma. Edzia’s parents Shmuel and Freymeta were also killed.

Reunited and Searching for Their Child
After the war, the first thing that Charles' father Henry did was return to Radom to look for his son. He found Maryanne, who told him that the baby had been adopted. When Henry spoke to the couple, they said they’d be willing to part with their adopted child for the huge sum of 5,000 zlotys. It was an impossible amount of money for a penniless Holocaust survivor.

Charles and parents reunited, probably in Germany, 1947

Henry also looked for Edzia, wondering if it was possible that she too had survived. The Red Cross and refugee camps helped,” Charles notes. After nearly a year of searching, they were able to reunite. Together again, Charles’ father traded on the black market in order to raise the money they needed to redeem their son. Eventually, he raised the requisite amount of money and the couple relinquished Charles. “They bought me back,” he notes.

Trying to Build a New Life
Stateless refugees, Charles' parents didn’t know what to do next. “They decided that they weren’t going to stay in Poland -- there was lots of anti-Semitism there,” Charles notes. (In 1946, a pogrom took place in the Polish town of Kielce, nearby to Radom, when Holocaust survivors returned to their former homes: 42 Jews were murdered by local townspeople and over 40 Jews were injured.)

“My parents wanted to go to Palestine, the United States was second choice.” They were unable to get visas to either destination.

While they waited for permission to immigrate to the United States or Israel, the family lived in a Displaced Persons (DP) camp in Stuttgart, then in an apartment building in Munich that was home to many other Holocaust survivors. “Nobody wanted to stay in Germany either,” he recalls, “but it was safer to stay in Germany because it was in the American Zone of Occupation. So that’s where a lot of Holocaust survivor families stayed after they got out of DP camps until they could get a visa to go to Israel or the States.” His younger sister was born in Munich during his family’s sojourn there.

The family waited a year and a half until finally they received a visa. Edzia had an aunt who’d immigrated to Baltimore 25 years previously. She managed to scrape together the money to sponsor 12 or 13 relatives. Charles was nearly seven years old when he and his parents flew to Baltimore to start their new lives there.

Living in the US
In America, the family changed their names. Their last name became Silver and Edzia was known as Edith. Charles recalls that he spoke Yiddish and German, but no English. In Baltimore, even though they were largely non-religious, his parents enrolled him in an Orthodox Jewish school.

Dr. Charles Silver

He attended college and medical school at UCLA and became a surgeon, working as a medical officer in Vietnam. Henry worked in a grocery store, was a part owner in a kosher deli, and had a real estate business. “He only had an elementary school education,” Charles explains, "but he was a go-getter.” His parents lived until their 90s; his father passed away in 2008 and his mother in 2013.

Charles married and raised three children, first in New Orleans, and then Dallas. “Judaism has always been a big part of my life,” he explains. “We made sure our kids received the best Jewish education they could. All my grandchildren have a strong Jewish identity and go to day school… My wife has made our kitchen kosher now.”

I owe my survival to God’s will and the assistance of a lot of people
Telling his Story
In recent years, Charles has been speaking to groups about his family experiences in the Holocaust. “I used to say it could never happen in America… I love America and I tend to be a glass half full person,” he explains. Yet the recent rise in antisemitism has him worried. His father always used to say an explosion of Jew-hatred could happen anywhere. Charles used to insist that it could never happen in the United States; now he’s less sure. “I think we’re getting a lot closer to the brink than I ever thought we would.”

He also wants to warn people about using Nazi terms carelessly. “I hate when people use Nazi terminology flippantly. It belittles the history of the Holocaust.”

His own survival gives him faith in God and in human goodness. “I owe my survival to God’s will and the assistance of a lot of people,” he explains.

Charles has clear advice for future generations. “People should support Israel. Maintain your Jewish faith. Maintain your love for our historic homeland. Don’t be downtrodden. Whenever antisemitism rises, don’t hide; be proactive.”

https://www.aish.com/ci/s/Can-a-Game-of-Peek-a-Boo-Change-the-World.html?s=ac&
Can a Game of Peek-a-Boo Change the World?
Aug 14, 2021  |  by Slovie Jungreis-Wolffprint article
Can a Game of Peek-a-Boo Change the World?
Taking to heart the message of Molly Wright, the youngest person to deliver a Ted Talk.

“What if I tell you that a game of peek-a-boo can change the world?”

This question was posed by seven-year-old Molly Wright, the youngest person to ever deliver a TED talk. Her message was simply beautiful: Molly asked that we put down our devices and connect with our children.

She stood on stage with her one-year-old friend, Ari. He laughed and cooed to the audience. He was then accompanied by his dad, Amarjot, to help deliver her point. A screen showed father and son playing a game of peek-a-boo together. Little Ari giggled with delight. But when dad took out his iPad and ignored his one year old, the child struggled for his father’s attention.

It was painful to watch. Ari’s entire demeanor changed. Laughter was replaced with tears. He tried to reach out to his father, to touch his face, to have him just look at him.

If a whole childhood was like those last 30 seconds, imagine how hard it would be for a child to feel calm, safe, to learn to trust anyone, Molly explained.

Every moment together is an opportunity to connect, if we stop looking at out phone.
Her words reminded me of a conversation I recently had. The woman told me that when visiting her daughter who had a baby, she noticed something that made her stomach drop. While feeding the baby instead of looking at her infant, her daughter was glued to her iPhone. “My little granddaughter kept cooing, trying to catch her mommy’s attention, but there was only silence. She was connected to her screen. After a while, the baby was silent too. She just gave up. What will be?” she asked me.


Molly's message has gone viral. “Every moment together is an opportunity to connect, talk and play. Imagine the difference we could make if everyone, everywhere did this. To us. To children. It’s so much more than just a game. It’s our future.”

This TED talk also gave five key tips to ensure healthy development:

Connecting
Talking
Playing
Providing a healthy home
Community
These keys may seem simple but in fact they are life changing. It’s about communicating with our children, talking to them and allowing imaginations to soar while playing. It’s about creating a home filled with love and providing a sense of community that envelops us with the knowledge that we are not alone in this world.

Children who grow up gaining these skills are able to better make friends, take tests, get jobs, and eventually start families of their own. Molly cited research that shows that when parents are distracted by their digital devices it reduces their ability to forge connections with their children. As children grow they will struggle more.

Molly's message is simple, but life changing. Put down your phone and look at the people in your life, especially those you love. One game of Peek-a-Boo can indeed change the world.

Watch Molly's Ted Talk below:

CAGED: 20 Days Captive In Nigeria
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ER1feb37D-U
Caged: 20 Days Captive In Nigeria


Aug 9, 2021  |  by Rudy Rochman
The true story of three-man documentary team, in Nigeria to film the Igbo Jews, who were abducted by the Nigerian government and held in cages for weeks.
https://www.aish.com/ci/s/Caged-20-Days-Captive-In-Nigeria.html?

The Last Two Nazis on Trial
Aug 8, 2021  |  by Dr. Yvette Alt Millerprint article
https://www.aish.com/ci/s/The-Last-Two-Nazis-on-Trial.html?
Two upcoming trials in Germany are likely the last trials of Nazi camp workers.
Two upcoming criminal trials in Germany will likely be the last chance to convict Nazi war criminals. In September, a 96-year-old woman is scheduled to be tried in the German town of Itzehoe. She’s accused of working as a secretary to the SS commander in the Stutthof concentration camp and facilitating the deaths of over 1,000 prisoners.

The following month, a 100-year-old man from Brandenberg will stand trial in the German town of Oranienburg, charged with 3,518 counts of accessory to murder after working as an SS guard in Sachsenhausen concentration camp.

Neither defendant has been publicly named, in accordance with German privacy laws.

The trials are the last time that the world will be able to hear first person testimony about what took place in brutal Nazi death camps.
These trials mark the end of an era, the last time that the world will be able to hear first person testimony about what took place in brutal Nazi death camps. Germany has not ruled out holding additional Nazi-era trials, but given the advanced ages of the witnesses and defendants involved, these will be difficult to prosecute.   

Between 1933 and 1945, the Nazis designated over 44,000 prisons in various forms, including ghettos, concentration camps and death camps. These trials will also allow a new generation to learn about Stutthof and Sachsenhausen, two relatively unknown concentration camps that illustrate the vast web of camps built by the Nazis and illustrate the scope of their barbaric cruelty.

Stutthof

Even before World War II broke out, the Nazis monitored areas in Poland, with an aim to build a political prison for Polish dissidents. An entire Nazi unit, the Wachsturmbann Eimann, was created to scout out sites for future concentration camps. The first Poles were sent to Stutthof, in the woods outside the Polish city of Gdansk (Danzig in German) on September 2, 1939, the day after Germany’s invasion of Poland. By September 15, 6,000 Polish political prisoners were held in the camp: most of them were murdered by SS guards.

Stutthof was nominally a Polish civilian camp initially; in 1941 it became a German labor camp and in 1942 was designated a concentration camp. Originally home to mostly Polish political prisoners, tens of thousands of Jews were moved to Stutthof as the war progressed. Continually expanded, the camp was surrounded by electric fences and eventually encompassed over one hundred sub-camps where Jews and other prisoners worked as slave laborers. They toiled in Nazi-owned enterprises and also in nearby privately-owned factories, farms and brickyards. The brutal conditions of Stutthof and its many satellite prisons were clearly visible to the neighboring community.

One of the most gruesome factories using Stutthof slave laborers was a Danzig factory owned by SS officer Prof. Rudolf Spanner. He experimented with methods of producing soap from human fat, and had hundreds of Jewish prisoners in Stutthof executed so he could produce his “soap,” which he called RJS - short for “Reines Judische Fett” (Pure Jewish Fat). When Soviet soldiers liberated Stutthof, they found rooms full of dead Jews who’d been murdered for this horrific purpose. (After the war, Rudolf Spanner was never arrested and continued his scientific career.)

The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum characterizes the conditions in Stutthof as “brutal”. Those who were too sick to work were murdered by camp doctors in the infirmary. The Nazis also built a small gas chamber at Stutthof in which they killed injured or ill workers with Zyklon B gas. Typhus epidemics swept the camp, killing thousands. It’s thought that well over 60,000 prisoners died in Stutthof and its satellite work camps.

In 2019, an elderly Israeli man named Abraham Koryski traveled to Germany to give evidence at the trial of a former Stutthof guard. “We were beaten constantly, the whole time, even while working,” he recounted. “Worst of all were the whips.” He described seeing SS guards put on sadistic “shows” of torture. In one case, a son was forced to beat his own father to death. “You didn’t know if the officers were acting on orders,” Koryski described of these instances of horrific cruelty, “or if they did it on their breaks” for amusement.

By January 1945, there were 50,000 prisoners - mostly Jewish - in Stutthof. With Allied forces closing in, Nazi guards (aided by Ukrainian guards who also manned the camp) forced approximately 5,000 prisoners on a death march to the Baltic Sea. Forced into the water at gunpoint, all 5,000 were shot and their bodies left in the water.

Stutthof Prisoner barracks after liberation

The remainder of Stutthof’s wretched slave laborers were forced to march towards Germany in the east in the brutal mid-winter Polish weather. Thousands died. The Nazi guards found themselves surrounded by Soviet troops and returned the remaining prisoners to the prison camp. Later on, thousands more surviving prisoners were again marched to the Baltic Sea and shot. By the time Soviet soldiers liberated Stutthof on May 9, 1945, only about 100 survivors remained in the camp.

Sachsenhausen
Built in 1936, Sachsenhausen was the first concentration camp run entirely by the SS and was meant as a model concentration camp; it’s design features were copied throughout Nazi-occupied Europe. Within months, Sachsenhausen housed 1,600 prisoners, mainly German political prisoners, but also Jews, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Roma, homosexuals, and common criminals.

Among the prisoners interred in Sachsenhausen was the famous German pastor Martin Niemoller, who was an outspoken critic of Hitler. Neimoller is well known for haunting warnings: “First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out - because I was not a socialist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out - because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out - because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me - and there was no one left to speak for me.”

As the Russians closed in at the end of the war, prisoners were sent on death marches

During the widespread Kristallnacht pogroms throughout Germany and Austria in November 1938, 30,000 Jews were arrested, and about 6,000 were imprisoned in Sachsenhausen. The number of Jews at Sachsenhausen fluctuated during the war. For a time, many Jewish prisoners were transferred to concentration camps in Poland in an attempt to make Germany Judenrein, free from Jews.

In 1944, the SS began to transfer thousands of Hungarian and Polish Jews to Sachsenhausen to work as slave laborers. By 1945, over 11,000 Jews were inmates at Sachsenhausen’s. They were housed separately and treated worse than the other inmates.

As many as 200,000 prisoners passed through Sachsenhausen between 1936 and 1945. Prisoners worked in local factories, including a brickworks factory in the nearby town of Oranienburg, which Sachsenhausen inmates were forced to build and which at the time was the largest in the world. “Each day the SS marched up to 2,000 internees over the canal bridge to the Klinkerwerk brickworks before the eyes of the local populace,” the Sachsenhausen memorial site notes. This work detail was particularly feared, as SS guards used the brickworks as a site to carry out murders of inmates with impunity.

Another feared work detail was shoe testing at Sachsenhausen. Guards forced inmates to march around a track for days at a time, laden with heavy bags, in order to test various materials meant for shoe soles. In time, over one hundred smaller satellite camps were set up around Sachsenhausen. Prisoners were forced to work in factories including such well known German corporations as AEG and Siemens.

Soviet prisoners of war in Sachsenhausen. US Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Gedenkstatte und Museum Sachsenhause,

Nazi guards in Sachsenhausen murdered over 13,000 Soviet soldiers - many of whom were Jews - using novel and grotesque methods. Prisoners were immobilized then shot in the neck. The SS experimented with different forms of gas chambers, including portable gas chambers. Tens of thousands of prisoners were murdered through hangings, beatings, and from starvation, overwork and disease.

As the Soviet Army closed in in February, 1945, thousands of Sachsenhausen inmates were shot in the camp. Many were transferred to other camps, and over 30,000 were forced on a death march to hide the crimes of Sachsenhausen from Soviet soldiers. By the time Allies liberated Sachsenhausen on April 22, 1945, only 3,000 inmates remained in the camp. 300 of these died shortly after liberation.

Remembering the Past
A recent poll found that 41% of Americans - and over two thirds of millennials - could not identify what Auschwitz, perhaps the best known Nazi concentration camp, was. In this climate of Holocaust ignorance and denial, the upcoming trials in Germany are a crucial coda to the Holocaust’s tortured history. The upcoming testimony will provide the opportunity to educate ourselves about Sachsenhausen and Stutthof and the thousands of other Nazi camps.

This is one of the world’s last chances to learn about the Holocaust directly from the perpetrators. Let’s not waste it.

COMMENT ON THIS ARTICLE

https://www.aish.com/jw/s/574990401.html?
How Eddie Jacobson Convinced President Truman to Recognize the State of Israel
Aug 1, 2021  |  by Rabbi Shraga Simmonsprint article
How Eddie Jacobson Convinced President Truman to Recognize the State of Israel
Gary Ginsberg’s new book “First Friends” chronicles personal relationships that influenced the White House.

Aficionados of the U.S. presidency can find books on everything from “first spouses” to “first pets” and “first chefs.” For Gary Ginsberg, a former lawyer in the Clinton White House and confidant of John F. Kennedy Jr, a bigger fascination was the idea of “first friends” – the powerful, unelected folks who speak the unvarnished truth to the U.S. President, both on the golf course and in the Oval Office.

Ginsberg is familiar with the corridors of power, both as a communications executive (NewsCorp, Time-Warner, SoftBank) and consultant to Michael Bloomberg, the Prime Minister of Israel, and others. Ginsberg took advantage of the Covid slowdown to author a captivating look at presidential friendships, First Friends, landing on the New Yo
Ginsberg spoke with Aish.com from his home in Manhattan.
Author Gary Ginsberg
Aish.com: Full disclosure: We’re childhood friends from Buffalo, New York, home to two US presidents (Grover Cleveland and Millard Fillmore) and the site of William McKinley’s assassination. What first sparked your interest in the U.S. Presidency?

Ginsberg: I remember vividly as a third grader at elementary school, watching the sixth-grade stage the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. It’s somewhat curious why the teachers considered this the best introduction to the American presidency for an 8-year-old. Yet I came back from that play mesmerized by the character of Lincoln. From that point forward I started reading everything I could about presidents, which developed a lifelong fascination.

Aish.com: Many kids dream about becoming the first Jewish president. Were you counted in that group?
Ginsberg: Yes, and as a teenager I foolishly articulated that interest when being interviewed about a scholarship I’d won. The newspaper headline was, "Ginsburg wants to be first Jewish president." I thought it was kind of cool, but everyone else thought I was out of my mind. I never quite lived that down, nor did I ever live up to becoming the first Jewish president. But I was lucky enough to work for a president, and now I’m writing about presidents.
Aish.com: First Friends is packed with fascinating and curious relationships – whether Richard Nixon spending endless hours of silence with his friend Bebe Rebozo, or Abraham Lincoln sharing a bed for four years with Joshua Speed. How did you select which stories to tell, and what did you find to be the central ingredients of a good friend?
Ginsberg: I approached the book as a fan of the presidency. I just indulged my interests, and found new things that continued to intrigue me. JFK's daughter Caroline Kennedy gave me the idea to profile David Ormsby-Gore. I considered writing about Eisenhower, who had corporate titans as friends, but those relationships were mostly transactional. I was looking for deeper, richer friendships that reached that Aristotelian level, with mutuality of interests and values. When another soul has your best interest at heart, that makes us more complete and whole. Presidents who have close friends are typically better for it, and so is the country. Our own lives are better for it, too. I certainly wouldn't be where I am today without the support and companionship of my close friends.
1995: Ginsberg (center) and John F. Kennedy Jr. interview Alabama’s George Wallace.
BIRTH OF ISRAEL
More than any other “first friendship,” a remarkable example of influence is Eddie Jacobson in 1948 marching into the Oval Office unannounced and essentially convincing Harry Truman to recognize the new State of Israel. First Friends details the mind-boggling intersection of events spanning decades, pressing them both to rise to the moment:

In 1903, 19-year-old Harry Truman became a bank clerk in Kansas City. He struck up a friendship with a teenage customer, Eddie Jacobson, who worked at a local dry goods store and would regularly visit the bank with a bag of cash to deposit. The two became trusted friends, sharing a pragmatic, up-from-the-bootstraps attitude. Yet within a few years, Truman moved away to tend his family’s farm and it appeared unlikely their lives would intersect again. Greater forces, however, conspired:

In 1917, Truman volunteered to fight in World War I and was made first lieutenant in the Second Field Artillery. Jacobson also enlisted and was assigned to Truman's unit. Jacobson was a serial entrepreneur and sold Lieutenant Truman on the idea of a fundraiser to buy the troops better food and supplies. The initiative succeeded, earning Truman a promotion to captain. First Friends reports:

"I have a Jew in charge of the canteen by the name of Jacobson," Truman wrote, "and he is a crackerjack"…

Bolstered by the profitability of the canteen operation, Truman and Jacobson… hatched a plan to go into business together. With Jacobson’s extensive experience in the garment industry, the men decided to open a haberdashery in downtown Kansas City, their mutual trust so great that the partnership was made strictly with a handshake.

The upscale store, Truman & Jacobson Haberdashery, specialized in ties, shirts, hats, and belts. But in 1921, a collapse in grain prices hammered the Midwest economy, a harbinger of the Great Depression. The haberdashery closed its doors, never to reopen. Truman was forced to find a new line of work, setting him on a path to the U.S. Senate and ultimately the White House.
Eddie Jacobson (left) and Harry Truman at their clothing store, Kansas City, 1920.
Truman and Jacobson stayed in touch over the years, meeting for lunch and at World War I reunions. An avid outdoorsman, Jacobson often invited Truman on hunting and fishing expeditions on the Missouri River. While his buddies roamed the woods with their guns, Truman would stay back in the cabin reading a stack of books.

A devout Baptist who’d read the Bible cover-to-cover as a teenager, Truman was well aware of the narrative of the Jewish homeland:

The plight of Jews fleeing from Nazi Germany had attracted Truman's interest during his time in the Senate. In a 1943 speech in Chicago, Truman proclaimed, "Today – not tomorrow – we must do all that is humanly possible to provide a haven and a place of safety for all those who can be grasped from the hands of the Nazi butchers. Free lands must be opened to them."

Fast forward to the spring of 1948. British troops would imminently withdraw from the Holy Land, and Ben-Gurion was expected to proclaim Israeli independence. The White House began receiving cards and telegrams by the hundreds of thousands in support of a Jewish state. Yet President Truman was torn: supporting Jewish statehood in principle, yet facing fierce opposition:

Truman's own State Department, led by General George Marshall, a World War II hero and a man almost universally revered, adamantly opposed the idea of partitioning Palestine into Arab and Jewish states, believing it would push the Arab world into the Soviet sphere. Marshall also argued that such a move would imperil American access to Arab oil, and almost certainly require the presence of US troops to contain the violence.
OVAL OFFICE DRAMA
Aish.com: Amidst this pressure-cooker, Jacobson’s decisive meeting with Truman is the culmination of historic serendipity. What was going on in Jacobson's mind? What was motivating him at the core?
Ginsberg: Jacobson was the son of Lithuanian Jews who'd come to America in the late 19th century. His father was a shoemaker and Eddie was a high school drop-out. He wasn’t particularly religious, but he clearly felt passionate about the Zionist cause. On his own initiative, he’d brought a couple of groups to see Truman in 1946 and '47, to lobby on behalf of an independent Jewish state. He clearly felt it in his kishkes.

Aish.com: For months, Truman had been refusing to meet with Zionist Organization president Dr. Chaim Weizmann, a septuagenarian in failing health. What were the dynamics behind that?
Ginsberg: Truman understood the importance of a Jewish state, yet was irked by the aggressive approach of Jewish leaders. Rabbi Abba Hillel Silver pounded his fist on Truman's desk and shouted at the President. Another Jewish leader displayed wads of cash in an attempt to bribe government officials. Truman was put off the incessant hectoring. When the subject of the Zionists came up in a Cabinet meeting, Truman expressed frustration: “Jesus Christ couldn’t please them when he was on the earth, so how could anyone expect that I would have any luck?”
So kind of like the Esther story, with extraordinary access to the power broker, Jacobson takes it upon himself to go deliver for the Jews.
Aish.com: So why did Jacobson think he could change the situation?
Ginsberg: Having been friends for 45 years, and having fought a war together, and being partners in a store, and all the hunting trips and meals together, Eddie Jacobson was one of the few people, if the only person, who could get Harry Truman out of his own head, and see the larger issue at play. Eddie knew of arguments to break this logjam, and felt that he only he could do it. So kind of like the Esther story, with extraordinary access to the power broker, Jacobson takes it upon himself to go deliver for the Jews.
Eddie Jacobson (right) and Harry Truman enjoying a walk in Missouri.
Aish.com: Tell us about that moment in March 1948. The provisional government of Israel is desperate for American political support, and Jacobson flies halfway across the country to meet with Truman.
Ginsberg: At the encouragement of Frank Goldman, national president of B’nai Brith, Jacobson flew to Washington without even securing an appointment beforehand. On the morning of March 13, he traipsed up the White House driveway and into the West Wing office of Matt Connelly, Truman’s appointments secretary and gatekeeper, who knew Jacobson and granted him immediate entry.
[In the Oval office,] Jacobson paused while looking his friend straight in the eyes. To Truman, the pause seemed interminable: “I finally said, ‘Eddie what in the world is the matter with you. Have you at last come to get something from me – because you never have asked me for anything since I’ve been in the White House and since we’ve been friends.’”
Finally, Jacobson broached the topic Truman least wanted to confront: “You must see Dr. Weizmann; you must support an independent Jewish state.”
In an instant, Truman’s face hardened and his demeanor changed. Jacobson had never seen or heard Harry Truman acting this way. He appeared brusque, almost unreachable. He didn’t want any dialogue on the matter, whether pertaining to a Weizmann meeting or anything remotely connected. Jacobson persisted, reminding Truman of the esteem in which he held Weizmann, employing every argument he could think of, from the plight of refugees to the biblical roots of a Jewish homeland.

Truman remained unmovable, hectoring Jacobson about how “disrespectful and mean” certain Jews had been to him.
Aish.com: So how did Jacobson break through? What ultimately changed the President’s mind?
Ginsberg: Jacobson is standing in the Oval Office, looking around the room, trying to figure out the best way to appeal to Harry’s heart. He spots a bronze equestrian statue of Andrew Jackson. Truman reveres Jackson. So Jacobson invokes that love to deliver the line that changed history: “Harry, please see Chaim Weizmann. He’s my hero. My Andrew Jackson.” Knowing what was behind that little statue was born of years of friendship. Nobody else could have pulled that off.
When Jacobson had finished his appeal, Truman began drumming his fingers on his desk. After what seemed like an eternity of silence, Truman swiveled his chair around. “You win, you bald-headed SOB," Truman declared. "I will see him.”
Aish.com: Five days later, Weizmann was at the White House for a secretive, off-the-record meeting in which Truman reiterated his support. Take us to that moment of final decision.
Ginsberg: Two days before the British Mandate was set to expire, Truman convened an Oval Office meeting to hear final arguments on whether to recognize the new Jewish state. Secretary of State Marshall insinuated that Truman’s motivation was to secure the Jewish vote and the financial backing of prominent Jewish businessmen. Marshall even threatened to vote against Truman in the upcoming presidential election. Truman was under massive pressure to listen to his State Department and go the other way.

Truman became the first leader to recognize Israel, 11 minutes after Ben-Gurion declared independence.
Aish.com: In the end, Truman became the first leader to recognize Israel, 11 minutes after Ben-Gurion declared independence. What is the historic significance of that recognition?
Ginsberg: What it conferred on Israel was legitimacy, and it gave other countries license to support the new state. It silenced all the doubts that had been coming out of diplomatic and military channels that the U.S. government did not support the state. At the end of the day, Truman was driven less by hardened political arguments and more by a sense of compassion and justice.
On May 14, 1948, as jubilant Israelis danced in the streets of Jerusalem, Jacobson celebrated in Kansas City. Three days later, he was greeted at the White House as Israel’s temporary, unofficial ambassador. The following year, Jacobson spent a month in Israel as a personal emissary of Truman’s, where he was feted by Ben-Gurion and Weizmann…
Isaac Halevi Herzog, the chief rabbi of Israel, visited the White House and told Truman, “God put you in your mother’s womb so you would be the instrument to bring the rebirth of Israel after 2,000 years.” The words brought tears to Truman’s eyes.
Truman greets Chaim Weizmann at the White House.
Aish.com: It’s amazing that in all their years together, Jacobson had never asked Truman for anything.

Ginsberg: That makes Jacobson’s argument that much more powerful. He's not a lobbyist. His job is not dependent on it. His friendship is not dependent on it. He's going there because he knows it's the right thing – not for Eddie, but the right thing for Harry. Jacobson knows what motivates Truman. He knows what's in his heart. He knows the compassion that he has for the Jewish people, and he just has to get over this sense of aggrievement because of the insults that he felt subject to by Zionist leaders.

Truman later wrote: “When the day came when Eddie Jacobson was persuaded to forego his natural reluctance to petition me, and he came to talk to me about the plight of the Jews... I paid careful attention.”

Aish.com: Truman seems an anomaly. He had a close Jewish friend and supported Jewish sovereignty. On the other hand, he had a penchant for antisemitic remarks and lived with his wife, Bess, in Missouri with her mother (Madge Wallace), whose strict family policy was to never host a Jew.

Ginsberg: Let's just put it on the table: Truman’s in-laws were basically antisemitic. Eddie Jacobson never went inside the Wallace home where Truman lived, because his wife Bess and his mother-in-law would not let a Jew beyond the porch. So while Truman was supportive of Israel, there was a limit to passion for the Jews.

[In 1955, Jacobson died of a heart attack at age 64.] Harry Truman visited the Jacobson family as they sat shiva in their Kansas City home. He was so overcome with emotion he could barely speak... “Eddie was one of the best friends I had in this world,” Truman said later. “He was absolutely trustworthy. I don’t know how I am going to get along without him.”

[At a subsequent memorial service for Jacobson, Truman said:] “I don’t think I’ve ever known a man I thought more of, outside my own family, than I did of Eddie Jacobson. He was an honorable man. He’s one of the finest men that ever walked on this earth, and that’s covering a lot of territory.”

ISRAEL CONNECTION
Aish.com: Michael Oren’s book, Ally, speaks about your involvement as a speech-writing consultant to Prime Minister Netanyahu, contributing to some historic speeches, including his UN address in 2012 which pushed the issue of nuclear Iran to the front of the global agenda. What was that process like?

Ginsberg: I flew into Israel a week before the UN address. We're sitting in the backyard on Balfour Street, just the two of us, and the Prime Minister is laying out his thinking on the issue, talking about the various stages of enrichment and the idea of not allowing Iran to cross the “red line.” As he's talking, I'm starting to visualize it, so I stopped and said, "Wait a minute."

Starting in 2010, every year we’d use a gimmick to dramatize his UN speech. One year it was 45 seconds of silence; another year was a diagram of concentration camps. Netanyahu is a pretty good artist, dating back to his days studying architecture at MIT. So I said, "How about if you draw out what you just described, showing a bomb with levels of enrichment and a fuse."

Bibi was immediately intrigued, and we spent the next hour designing the bomb and wordsmithing around it. In the end, the staff produced a bomb that was a bit cartoonish, but it became among his most defining moments.

Netanyahu at the United Nations 2012: “red line” on Iran.

Aish.com: What are your thoughts about the future of the U.S.-Israel relationship?

Ginsberg: No question, it's a worrisome moment. I think the biggest threat is from the progressive left. Israel has become a political football in a way it wasn't before. Fortunately, some voices are playing an increasingly prominent role in recognizing that a bipartisan alliance is crucial to the robust U.S.-Israel relationship.

As a Democrat, I recognize how important it is that the party not veer too far to the left, where we lose that bipartisanship. I'm gratified there are some strong voices emerging, like Richie Torres and others, who recognize how important this alliance is to the U.S. So I'm worried, but also hopeful that it's a durable alliance that will overcome some of the strains of the last few years. It's a precarious time and a lot of work needs to be done.

https://www.aish.com/jw/s/Miracle-or-Luck-Israels-Inexplicable-Mortality-Rate-in-the-Persian-Gulf-War.html?s=ac&
Miracle or Luck? Israel's Inexplicable Mortality Rate in the Persian Gulf War
Jul 24, 2021  |  by Harold Gansprint article
Miracle or Luck? Israel's Inexplicable Mortality Rate in the Persian Gulf War
Why is the total number of casualties from 14 Scuds that exploded in Tel Aviv and Haifa less than the casualties from a single Scud exploding anywhere else? A mathematician crunches the numbers.

On January 17, 1991, a coalition of armed forces from 34 countries led by the United States started operation Desert Storm to liberate recently-conquered Kuwait from Iraq. Iraq began its retaliation the next day. Over a period of several weeks, 39 modified Scud B missiles were fired at Israel, with 14 exploding in highly-populated residential areas of Tel Aviv and Haifa. (The remainder of the Scuds were either duds, or landed in the wilderness, in the Mediterranean, or were intercepted by U.S. Patriot anti-missile missiles.)

Two Israelis were directly killed by these Scuds, and 11 were seriously injured.

In 1993, a scientific paper written by Fetter, Lewis, and Gronlund, entitled “Why Were Scud Casualties So Low?” was published in the prestigious British scientific journal Nature.1 An expanded and more detailed version of the paper appeared a few months later.2 The low casualty rate had attracted professional scientific interest. The paper uses a standard mathematical formula to predict the number of casualties expected in a missile attack. The formula is an extrapolation from past missile attacks and takes into account three parameters that modify the extrapolation: a) the size of the warhead, b) the population density, and c) whether there was warning of the attack.

The extrapolation used by the Fetter et al paper was based on casualty statistics from thousands of V1 and hundreds of V2 rocket attacks on London during World War II. The V1 “buzz bombs” gave warning of their approach, while the V2 rockets did not. On average in London, each V2 rocket caused about twice as many casualties as did a V1 rocket.

As a test of the accuracy of the extrapolation, the formula was first applied to the 125 modified Scud B missiles that exploded in Tehran, Iran between February 29, 1988 and April 4, 1988 during the “war of the cities” between Iran and Iraq. The Scuds gave no warning of their approach, so the extrapolation was based only on the casualty rates from the V2 rockets in London. Reports indicate that, on average, between 9.2 and 16 people in Tehran were killed per Scud.

14 scuds exploding in residential areas of Tel Aviv and Haifa should have resulted in a total of 21 deaths and 61 seriously injured, significantly more than the two deaths and 11 serious injuries that occurred.
Taking into account the difference in warhead size between the V2 and the Scud, as well as the difference between the population density of London and Tehran, the formula predicts an average of 14.4 deaths per Scud in Tehran. This prediction is accurate, since 14.4 is between 9.2 and 16. Similarly, the predicted number of seriously injured per Scud in Tehran, 35.1, is close to the observed value of approximately 32 per Scud. The Fetter et al paper notes that the accuracy of the prediction is obtained in spite of the differences in construction between structures in London and Tehran. London homes are built with brick; buildings in Tehran are built with reinforced concrete, as are buildings in Tel Aviv and Haifa.

The Israel Anomaly

Having established that the extrapolation formula works well, and that the difference in construction between brick and reinforced concrete structures does not adversely affect the accuracy of the extrapolation, the Fetter et al paper applies the formula to the case of the Scud attacks on Tel Aviv and Haifa. The missiles used against Iran and Israel were the same. Noting that the Israelis had warning of incoming Scuds from shared American satellite tracking data, and accounting for differences in population density, the formula predicts that the 14 scuds that exploded in residential areas of Tel Aviv and Haifa should have resulted in a total of 21 deaths and 61 seriously injured.3

In this Jan. 18, 1991 file photo, a person walks through the debris in Tel Aviv after eight Iraqi scud missiles were fired at Israel.

This is significantly more than the two deaths and 11 serious injuries that occurred. The paper notes that the total number of casualties caused by all 14 Scud impacts in Israel is less than the average number of casualties caused by a single missile explosion in London or Tehran.”4 How does one explain such an incredible discrepancy?

The Fetter et al papers offer several possible explanations.5 First, there is the inaccuracy of the Scuds and the fact that some of them were duds. However, this has no relevance at all to the extrapolation, which is based solely on the number of actual explosions (14) in residential areas and not on the number of missiles launched (39).

Were the Israelis just lucky?
The second possibility offered to explain the small number of casualties in Israel is that Israeli structures are made of reinforced concrete while the buildings in London are made of brick. This difference is, however, irrelevant since the extrapolation worked well for Tehran, where the buildings are constructed with reinforced concrete, just as in Tel Aviv and Haifa.6 Furthermore, the number of residential buildings and apartments destroyed in Tel Aviv and Haifa was exactly as expected based on the London experience. The final answer given is sheer luck. The Israelis were just very lucky!7

Is It Luck?
During the Persian Gulf War, a handful of Scuds exploded in Riyadh and Dhahran Saudi Arabia. Twenty-nine people were killed.8

On January 18, 1991, a Scud exploded in the densely populated Ezra district of Tel Aviv. No one was seriously injured or killed.9 Was this luck?

On April 4, 1985, a Scud exploded in Bakhtaran and another in Hamadan, Iran. The former killed 25 people; the latter killed 11.10

On January 19, 1991, another Scud exploded in the densely populated Ezra district of Tel Aviv, just 300 meters from the Scud impact of the previous day. This time a bomb shelter was demolished. Unlike other shelters, this one was empty, and once again, no one was seriously injured or killed.11 Lucky again?

On October 27, 1982, a Scud exploded in Dezful, Iran. Twenty-one people were killed and 100 wounded.12

On February 9, 1991, a Scud exploded in the middle of a road in Ramat Gan, Tel Aviv. Walls of buildings on both sides of the road collapsed, but there were no serious injuries or deaths.13 Again, lucky?

On May 11, 1994, a Scud exploded in Sana’a, Yemen killing 25 people. Another one exploded there on May 24th killing 13 people.14

On February 12, 1991, a Scud exploded between two private homes in Tel Aviv. Several people were buried under the rubble of the collapsed homes. Seven or eight people suffered minor injuries, but there were no serious injuries and no deaths.15 Luck?

The Fetter et al paper in Nature indicates that there is anecdotal evidence that “luck” was an important factor in keeping the casualties so low in Israel. The paper goes on to say that casualties were “remarkably low” even when missiles hit occupied buildings which sustained heavy damage. Two examples are given where missiles destroyed multi-story buildings. In each case only one person was killed.16

In Tel Aviv, a total of 28 buildings, containing 118 apartments, were destroyed, and 2,493 apartments were heavily damaged. In Haifa, 1,700 apartments were seriously damaged. Lewis et al remark that the number of apartments in Tel Aviv that were destroyed or seriously damaged agrees with the formula’s prediction.17 Yet, only two people were killed and 11 seriously injured in Israel! Apparently, the occupied buildings are not protected; only the people in them.

Who could control this? Why is it that all the casualties from Scuds in other countries conform to the extrapolation from London, but not the ones from Israel? Why is it that the total number of casualties from all 14 Scuds that exploded in Tel Aviv and Haifa is less than the casualties from a single Scud exploding anywhere else? Can it truly be accounted for by luck?

The Mathematics of Luck
There is a way of evaluating if an unlikely event can reasonably be attributed to luck. We need to calculate the probability of the event occurring by chance and see if it is very small. If the probability is “too small,” then it becomes unreasonable to attribute the event to luck. “Too small” is usually defined in the technical scientific and medical literature as no larger than 0.05 (that is, 1/20); occasionally as no larger than 0.01 (1/100). In the field of high energy physics, “too small” was defined as 0.000000287 (1/3,484,320) for the Nobel Prize-winning discovery of the Higgs boson (an elementary particle discovered in July, 2012). This is one of the most stringent definitions of “too small” in any of the sciences.

The probability of the dearth of serious injuries happening by chance is approximately one in 234 trillion!
The Fetter et al papers do not calculate the probability of expecting 21 deaths and observing only 2, or of expecting 61 serious injuries and observing 11 by chance, but we can: The probability of observing two deaths (or less) by chance, (i.e., luck) is 0.000000184 (1/5,434,783). This is considerably smaller than the stringent definition used in confirming the discovery of the Higgs boson! The probability of the dearth of serious injuries happening by chance is 0.00000000000000426. That is, approximately one in 234 trillion! This is over 67 million times as significant as the stringent definition of “too small” in the example of the Higgs boson given above. We can thus reject the possibility of the small number of deaths and serious injuries happening by chance (that is, luck) with absolute certainty.

The Fetter et al paper makes note of the fact that between four and eight Patriot anti-missile missiles used by Israel missed their targets and exploded in residential areas of Tel Aviv and Haifa. The paper does not take this into account when calculating expected casualty rates.18 The Patriot missile carries a much smaller warhead than the modified Scud B – only 90 kg. Nevertheless, the warhead is three times the size of the warhead of a Katyusha rocket and is thus a significant destructive force: Katyusha rockets have been used since World War II by many countries to affect damaging bombardment of enemy forces and structures. They terrorized German troops during World War II.

Taking the explosions of four Patriots into account, the expected number of deaths in Israel rises from 21 to 24.2. The expected number of serious injuries rises from 61 to 70.4. The respective probabilities are now 0.00000000982 or 1/101,832,994 and 0.00000000000000000166, or about 1 in six hundred thousand trillion. The latter is less likely than someone flipping an unbiased coin 59 times and getting all heads! In real life, this does not happen.

The probability of these casualties being so low just by chance or luck is so small as to be well beyond the requirement for acceptance by any scientific journal.

The Persian Gulf War ended on February 28, 1991. That day was Purim. Did the war end on that date to let us know that it was not coincidence just as the Persian Jews were saved from a similar fate approximately 2,400 years ago? Perhaps. And for those intellectuals who require hard evidence before drawing any conclusions, we have provided evidence that meets the highest scientific standards.

This article is excerpted and adapted from The Cosmic Puzzle by Harold Gans, Feldheim, 2020.

Fetter, S., Lewis, G. N. and Gronlund, L., Why Were the Scud Casualties So Low? Nature, January 28, 1993, Vol. 361.
Lewis, G. N., Fetter, S. and Gronlund, L., Casualties and Damage from Scud Attacks in the 1991 Gulf War, DACS Working Paper, Defense and Arms Control Studies, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1993.
Lewis, G. N. et al (1993), p. 32.
Ibid p. 13.
Ibid p. 3.
Ibid p. 28
Ibid pp. 30-32.
Much of the Scud casualty data from Saudi Arabia was not released by the government. There appear to have been five explosions in populated areas. Scuds were also launched against King Khalid Military City, but the number of explosions and casualties has not been made public. See Lewis, G. N. et al, (1993), p. 36, footnote 98.
Ibid, p. 31.
New York Times online, Iraqi Missiles Strike 2 Iran Cities ̶ Teheran Puts Death Toll at 36 (April 5, 1985).
Lewis, G. N. et al, (1993), p. 43.
Perrimond, G., The Threat of Theater Ballistic Missiles 1944 – 2001, Supplément á TTU Europe, 2002, p. 6.
Lewis, G. N. et al (1993), p. 31.
New York Times online, Scud Missile Hits Capital of Yemen killing 25 (May 12, 1994).
Lewis, G. N. et al (1993), p. 32.
Fetter, S. et al (1993), p. 6.
Lewis, G. N. et al (1993), p. 34.
Lewis, G. N. et al, (1993), p. 32.

https://www.aish.com/ci/s/Why-Iranian-Judo-Athlete-Dedicated-His-Silver-Medal-to-Israel.html?
Why Iranian Judo Athlete Dedicated His Silver Medal to Israel
Jul 28, 2021  |  by Dr. Yvette Alt Millerprint article
Why Iranian Judo Athlete Dedicated His Silver Medal to Israel
Saeid Mollaei sent a heartfelt message to Israelis: Todah.

The last time Saeid Mollaei competed in an international judo match in Tokyo, it was 2019. Mollaei was number one in the world for his 81kg weight class, having assumed the title of world champion the year before. “I felt I could do it again this year,” he told reporters at the 2019 World Judo Championships. Yet the team leaders in Mollaei’s native Iran had other ideas.

Iran bans its citizens from competing against Israelis in any setting. Ever since the Islamic Revolution in 1979, Iran has refused to recognize Israel and allows no ties with the Jewish state. Iran funds and arms terrorist groups Hezbollah and Hamas, which are dedicated to the destruction of Israel. Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, publicly praises Iranian athletes who refuse to compete against Israelis, and calls for Israel to be “wiped off” the map.

In 2020, Iranian legislators drafted a bill that would enshrine in law Iran’s prohibition against competing against Israeli athletes. The bill hasn’t passed yet, but Iranian officials continue to make it clear that Iranian athletes risk punishment for them and their families if they dare compete against Israelis in international competitions. The consequences can be severe.
After Iranian women’s soccer player Shiva Amini was photographed wearing Western clothes while out of the country, she was harassed and threatened by Iranian officials. “SMS messages, such as ‘We will cut your head off and send a picture of it to your family,’” filled her phone. (Amini fled to safety in Switzerland.)

Last year, Iran executed a 27-year-old wrestler named Navid Afkari, who’d taken part in an anti-government demonstration. Amnesty International called his death a “travesty of justice.” In the decades since 1979, no Iranian athlete has competed against an Israeli on the international stage.

The 2019 World Judo Championships in Tokyo would be no different. Saeid Mollaei recalls “the orders (not to compete against Israelis) came from Iran and went to the coach of the team. I had to comply with the orders. Not only I, but the whole world knows what sort of consequences there would have been had I refused. So I complied with the law to avoid any problems for myself or my family.”

As he advanced throughout the competition, it became obvious that Mollaei would face off against an Israeli wrestler, Sagi Muki. The orders came through to Mollaei: throw the match to avoid qualifying for the final fight.

A recording of the 2019 championship clearly shows the pressure Mollaei was under. “Based on my stance, that of the regime and that of the Minister, he has no right to compete,” the president of Iran’s Judo Federation can be heard saying. “The circumstances stipulate that one should never question this stance. Make him (Mollaei) understand that he has no right to compete under no circumstances. He is responsible for his actions.”

Mollaei had no choice but to comply, and he threw his next fight, deliberately losing to Matthias Casse of Belgium. “Everyone saw how I performed,” he later explained, “to make sure that it was 100 percent certain that I would lose – and there is film footage to back this up. I put on a show; I just wanted the fight to end.”

He lost the fight and exited the competition, but Mollaei was so upset he didn’t want to return back home to Iran. He already had a visa to Germany, after having competed in Germany previously, so instead of flying home Mollaei flew from Tokyo to Germany. He eventually applied for asylum and is now a citizen. He works as a judo coach in the western German city of Monchengladbach. Mollaei also became a citizen of Mongolia, and gained a spot on Mongolia’s Olympic Judo team to compete in the 2021 Tokyo Olympics.

Earlier in 2021, Mollaei travelled to Tel Aviv to participate in the Judo Grand Slam competition, representing Mongolia. The experience was liberating. For the first time, Mollaei was able to compete as a sportsman with no ulterior motives, free to do his best without political constraints telling him whom he can fight. “I’m competing only for Mongolia,” Mollaei told Israeli television during his visit. “I no longer compete for Iran. That part is over for me… I've always been a sportsman. I’ve never engaged in politics.”

Mollaei also became friends with Israeli judoka Sagi Muki, the athlete he’d been told not to face off against in 2019. “He supports me and I thank him for this,” Mollaei told German journalists soon after fleeing to Germany in 2019. “I hope that we can one day extend our friendship (by competing in judo). It doesn’t matter who wins, what matters is friendship.”

Sagi Muki and Saeid Mollaei competing in Tel Aviv, Feb 2021

As the Tokyo 2021 Olympics got underway, another Judo competitor, Fethi Nourine from Algeria, withdrew from the Olympics rather than face Israeli athlete Tohar Butbul, ranked sixth in the world.

Sagi Muki was eliminated in the quarter finals of the Tokyo Olympics, but Saeid Mollaei went on to victory, ultimately winning the Silver Medal in the 81kg Judo category. At this emotional moment, Mollaei dedicated his victory to the Jewish state. “Thank you to Israel for all the good energy,” he declared: “This medal is dedicated to you as well and I hope Israel is happy with this victory.” Adding the word for thanks in Hebrew, Mollaei concluded with a heartfelt message to Israelis around the world: Todah.

https://www.aish.com/jw/s/Will-Jew-Hatred-Define-a-New-America.html?
Will Jew-Hatred Define a New America?
Jul 24, 2021
by Deborah Gastfreund Schussprint article
Will Jew-Hatred Define a New America?
Shaken by the brazenness of the recent antisemitic attacks, American Jews are questioning their security in the US.
Eric Orgen is losing faith. His Judaism is on proud display as he wears his yarmulke during prayer, while on the go, and even when volunteering as an EMT in his Teaneck, N.J., community. But he is losing faith in the ability of America, which he calls “the greatest country,” to continue protecting his cherished freedom to visibly identify as a Jew without fear of aggression.

It was Orgen’s traditional head covering that made him and his family the target of a startling antisemitic assault on the Jewish holiday of Shavuot in May. Orgen was walking with his wife, teenage daughter and a friend while vacationing in Bal Harbour, Fla., when four men in an SUV yelled at them, “F—you Jews, Die Jews, Free Palestine.” They threw garbage and a water bottle at them and threatened to rape his wife and daughter.

“I’m scared for the Jewish people,” he told me as we spoke about the proliferation of violence against Jews and the factors he believes have contributed to it.

Around the United States and the world, attacks on Jews have skyrocketed alongside vandalism of our synagogues, businesses and religious schools—purportedly triggered by the most recent conflict between Israel and Hamas. But even before the U.S.- and E.U.-designated terrorist group launched more than 4,000 rockets at Israeli civilians, anti-Jewish animus already had established its firm grip on college campuses, in political discourse, and on social media.

In Los Angeles on the same day Orgen was confronted—which had been designated a “Global Day of Action in solidarity with the Palestinian uprising & general strike”—a caravan of cars displaying Palestinian flags drove through a heavily Jewish neighborhood, with occupants shouting anti-Israel and anti-Jewish slogans, including “Death to Jews,” according to eyewitness reports and video footage.

Violence against Jews is a tragic repetition of Jewish history, chillingly familiar to me as the daughter of Holocaust survivors.
They demanded to know who among outdoor diners at a sushi restaurant were Jewish and viciously attacked patrons self-identifying as Jews, members of the Iranian-American Jewish community, who no doubt understood there would be dire consequences for their courage.


It is a tragic repetition of Jewish history, chillingly familiar to me as the daughter of Holocaust survivors. Both prior to and during the Holocaust, my parents often were subjected to the same kind of abusive interrogation, with Jew-hating inquisitors brutalizing them as they affirmed their faith. There always were pretexts for targeting Jews. Now Israel is that excuse to justify violence, which includes Jewish teenagers reportedly being beaten with baseball bats by a mob that demanded they chant “Free Palestine.”

Jewish Americans—several insisting on anonymity for fear of backlash at their jobs or in their neighborhoods—are shaken by the sheer savagery and brazenness of the recent attacks, with many questioning whether their security in the U.S. is compatible with a tectonic societal shift in which identity politics plays a larger role, law enforcement is being skewered, independent thought has given way to herd mentality, and civility has substantially eroded.

“I think we’re in a very dangerous time,” said Dillon Hosier, chief executive officer of the Israeli-American Civic Action Network, which advocates for the Israeli immigrant community in the U.S. “We are seeing the movement to boycott Israel—which incites antisemitism, in some cases violent antisemitism—metastasize beyond the college campus into other sectors, whether it’s in elementary through high school, in labor unions, in halls of government, and even in the private sector.”

My parents were of the mentality, "Always keep an updated passport. You can’t get comfortable anywhere, you’re a Jew.”
Facing what they consider an unsettled future here, several families are contemplating or planning a move to Israel. Judith Goldberg and her family had been seriously considering that step, but their decision was reinforced by the most recent surge of anti-Jewish venom—a reminder of her parents’ experiences with antisemitism growing up in Ireland and Morocco, respectively, and their ominous counsel to her. “My parents were of the mentality, ‘Always keep an updated passport. You can’t get comfortable anywhere, you’re a Jew,’” Goldberg, who lives in Teaneck, N.J., told me.

Others are pulling their children from America’s public schools, fearing for their physical and emotional safety. Andy Heller of San Francisco describes this decision as “the last straw” after the United Educators of San Francisco in May became the first American K-12 union of public-school teachers to officially support the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions movement (BDS) against Israel. “It’s going to endanger the Jewish children who are in public school, and that is just a horrifying thought for me,” Heller, who considers himself “a very, very liberal guy,” says.

A Conflagration

Underscoring the gravity of today’s frighteningly inhospitable environment, Karen Stiller of the San Francisco-based Jewish Community Relations Council employs the term “conflagration” to describe the confluence of trends conspiring to make Jews—particularly younger ones—more vulnerable today. She notes there now is open use of litmus tests for belonging to certain communities — “you either think like us on all issues, or you’re out” — so Jewish students are being booted out of clubs because of their unwillingness to support BDS and anti-Zionism. Jewish adults face similar threats in “social-justice spaces” that otherwise proudly champion inclusion.

And antisemitism on the left has emerged as a grave and growing concern. “We feel like a truck has run over us now” is the way one person described how he and his circle of liberal Jewish friends are smarting these days from the antisemitism unleashed by the left.

Antisemitism on the left often comes with the baggage that Jews are seen entirely as part of the white privileged majority and therefore often not included in conversations about diversity, equity, inclusion.
“While our country is quick to, and right to, call out antisemitism coming from the far right—from white nationalism—we’ve seen a great reluctance from those on the political left to acknowledge, much less call out, antisemitism within its own ranks,” notes Stiller, the JCRC’s Middle East project director.

“Antisemitism on the left often comes with the baggage that Jews are seen entirely as part of the white privileged majority and therefore often not included in conversations about DEI (diversity, equity, inclusion),” she adds. “There is little knowledge or understanding about the diversity of the Jewish community or about Jewish identity in general and how we continue to experience antisemitism/oppression.”

Reflecting on the anti-Jewish attack he and his family endured in Florida, Orgen tells me he worries the heightened emphasis in the U.S. on categorization by identity is fueling antisemitism by accentuating our immutable differences rather than uniting us with a shared understanding of our uniqueness.

“Now, it’s all about how you identify—what’s your pronoun, what’s your race, what’s your ethnicity. I’m an American, I’m a human being, isn’t that enough?” Orgen asks. “I’ve been an EMT for 26 years, and I’ve never seen anybody bleed another color except red.”

Kids Targeted

There is particular concern among parents and Jewish communal professionals about the consequences for Jewish children who are being targeted at a time in their development when they are desperate to belong. To conceal their Jewishness, several have asked that their parents remove mezuzahs from their homes’ doorposts.

Stiller of the JCRC told me she has had conversations with young teens in the Bay Area struggling with antisemitism from their peers—much of it on social media. And that includes her 14-year-old daughter. By merely identifying as Jewish on TikTok, they have been barraged with “Free Palestine” messaging and antisemitic Holocaust jokes.

And some teachers are presenting their personal anti-Israel views in the classrooms and in emails to students, Stiller reports. To parents and others, these are among the most disturbing incidents involving youth because of the inherent imbalance of power in such relationships.

A 13-year-old friend of Heller’s son, also in the San Francisco schools, revealed he already feels unsafe being identified as Jewish in school after a seventh-grade teacher presented a lesson on the Middle East conflict that was entirely anti-Israel and left him feeling intimidated. Heller fears the teachers’ union BDS resolution will give carte blanche to educators aiming to indoctrinate youngsters who lack the capacity to differentiate fact from their teacher’s opinions.

That lessons are being manipulated to fit a particular doctrine strikes many as an abuse of authority by educators tasked with protecting children’s wellbeing and teaching them to think critically.
In Los Angeles, there are similar challenges. The United Teachers Los Angeles leadership is scheduled to vote in September on a BDS resolution similar to San Francisco’s. And students at several middle schools in the Los Angeles Unified School District recently were quizzed on where in Israel “some Palestinians are facing evictions from their homes by Israelis,” raising alarm in the Jewish community that it was a malicious effort to groom young children with an anti-Israel narrative.

That lessons are being manipulated to fit a particular doctrine strikes many as an abuse of authority by educators tasked with protecting children’s wellbeing and teaching them to think critically. And with children emerging from the pandemic scarred emotionally and academically, they view the attention to BDS resolutions as a stunning misdirection of resources.

“It is shocking to me that coming off more than a year of my kids being out of school, the focus of the teachers’ union is endorsing BDS when their biggest focus needs to be on helping what will be a generation of children who are so far behind in education that they might never catch up,” said Adam Bergman, a San Francisco father of two children.

He told me that with his kids learning remotely, he was able to observe what was being taught to his third- and sixth-grade children this past year. The curriculum centered on diversity and inclusion, but Jews were not among the groups discussed in those lessons. The hypocrisy of the educators’ union pouring energy into an exclusionary resolution while diversity and inclusion are prevailing classroom themes is not lost on him, he says.

“The worst thing that could happen in our schools is to push a BDS movement that could lead to discrimination against one group of people when the focus of the schools for the past year has been on diversity and inclusion,” Bergman told me.

My parents knew all too well what the normalization of antisemitism can bring. As they approached New York Harbor in 1949 after having barely survived unspeakable horrors at the hands of the Nazis, they were overcome with emotion at the sight of the Statue of Liberty. This country provided hope and a safe haven to rebuild their shattered lives, making them feel profoundly grateful and blessed to be here. Only seven decades later, Jews feel unsafe in our streets and schools.

As the core values threaded through our country are rewoven, Jewish Americans find themselves grappling with an inescapable question: Has that refuge run its course?

A version of this piece first appeared in The Times of Israel.

https://www.aish.com/sp/pg/Soul-Element-of-Fire-How-to-Gain-Self-Esteem-and-Confidence-to-Live-without-Fear.html?
Fear stops us from taking the risks necessary to move out of the place that we are currently stuck in. Fear stops us from making the move that might advance our career and our relationships. It makes us feel inadequate and prevents us from fully expressing ourselves. We watch life go by instead of taking our place behind the wheel and living our life the way we truly know it should be.

In order to fully actualize our potential, we need to develop the self-esteem and the self-confidence to overcome our fears and pursue our goals and dreams with passion and ambition. Our self-esteem and our confidence are rooted in the spiritual element of fire, the element of our will and motivation. Leadership, courage, and bravery are all connected to the element of fire, just as fire is always looking to rise to the top and has the ability to destroy obstacles in its way. It is therefore fearless by nature.

But the element of fire is also the root of pride and arrogance. As one becomes successful in life and overcomes obstacles, it is natural to start experiencing the swelling of the ego, which can lead one to believe that they are better than everyone else. Sometimes the fire can become a consuming fire, looking to destroy others who are perceived as threats. We must learn how to use the element of fire to fearlessly rise to the top but to remain modest and humble in the process.

Jim Collins, in his book Good to Great, describes a great leader as being “a study in duality: modest and willful, humble and fearless.” He refers to these traits as a “duality” because while modesty and humility emphasize the smallness of the self, will and fearlessness awaken the greatness that lies within. Great leaders have the ability to excel in both of these areas.
What is their secret?

The key to becoming a fearless and humble leader, one who understands their own greatness but doesn’t use it to try to tower over others, is to develop a healthy, authentic self-esteem. An essential need of every human being is to feel like they matter. This is what drives us to try to accomplish more in this world and to earn the feeling of satisfaction that comes along with those accomplishments.

Healthy self-esteem leads to being fearless and humble, and is also the basis to being a great leader.
Most people that we encounter who come across as full of themselves are typically displaying a protective fence behind some deeper sense of insecurity. The outer demonstration of self-worth is to create optics to divert people’s attention away from what might be going on inside. When a person feels healthy self-esteem, they are able to drop that guard.

One can develop a healthy self-esteem by internalizing the following three mindsets:

Self-worth: I am worth something because I am a spark of God. I am worthy and have every right to live an amazing life.

Self-acceptance: I completely accept myself for who I am. I understand that my strengths and weaknesses are not of my own doing but are a gift from God for me to work with, work on, and develop.

Self-confidence: I have the ability to succeed in life and become great because I am created in the image of God. I can overcome any obstacles that come my way and have nothing to be afraid of.

Those who develop this healthy self-esteem will find that in addition to becoming “fearless and humble”, they will also become great leaders. Their confidence will naturally lead them to step up and take responsibility when others shy away, and their humility and approachability will lead others to be drawn to them. Like a fire that spreads its flame to whatever it is surrounded by, the fearless and humble leader causes all those in his or orbit to become ignited and to rise up.

Fearless humble leaders embody a trait called hod, loosely translated as splendor. They are recognizable by their openness to learn from others rather than put up the facade that they know everything. They show their vulnerability rather than their infallibility. They listen more and talk less. They praise more and criticize less. And they carry themselves with a sense of calm rather than always blowing their temper.

We are all presented with opportunities in our life to be leaders by taking responsibility. It is part of our life mission. If we capitalize, then we will feel the tremendous satisfaction of actualizing our potential and making our impact. If not, then we will live a life of trying to compensate with false pride and an ego that is so fragile that it can bring us crashing down with even the slightest insult. The fearless and humble leader, on the other hand, is powerful and unbreakable because his strength comes from an authentic place – inside himself.

Based on the new book Four Elements of an Empowered Life A Guidebook to Discovering Your Inner World And Unique Purpose. Click here to order.

COMMENT ON THIS ARTICLE
Article 5 of 5 in the series The Four Elements of our Inner World

Montreal's Days of Shame: When 75 Doctors Went on Strike until a Jewish Doctor Resigned
Jul 18, 2021  |  by Dr. Yvette Alt Millerprint article
Montreal's Days of Shame: When 75 Doctors Went on Strike until a Jewish Doctor Resigned
In 1934, doctors in five hospitals walked off the job rather than work with a Jew.
https://www.aish.com/jw/s/Montreals-Days-of-Shame-When-75-Doctors-Went-on-Strike-until-a-Jewish-Doctor-Resigned.html?+Vet%2C+Pastor%2C+Jew&utm_campaign=wbbwkl202107226cfcact
In the 1930s, the calls to boycott Jewish businesses and stop hiring Jews rang out. The location of these odious messages wasn't Nazi Europe; it was in Montreal, Canada. Anti-Jewish feeling was running so high that when a Montreal hospital hired a Jewish intern, it triggered mass walk-outs by doctors at hospitals across the city. This little-remembered boycott shook Jewish communities across Quebec and deserves to be known about today.

In the 1920s and 1930s reactionary nationalist feelings were running high in the French-speaking Canadian province of Quebec. “Many Quebecois viewed Quebec as the surviving remnant of the French Roman Catholic ancien regime that had been ended by the French Revolution,” explains Dr. Edward C. Halperin, who researched the 1934 doctors’ strike. Before 1963, there was no option for receiving a secular public education in the province (all schools were either Catholic or Protestant), and the region’s highly religious Roman Catholic schools inculcated a fear and dislike of non-French Catholics.

“Children in Quebec’s Roman Catholic schools received an education emphasizing royalist and religious values. Jews, Asian persons, and Black persons were viewed as undesirable immigrants and economic competitors.”

Amid the economic misery of the Great Depression, some of Canada’s most influential leaders blamed Jews for the poor economy. Jewish stores were boycotted in Ottawa. In Quebec an Achat chez or Achat chez nous - “Buy from Home” movement quickly turned into an anti-Jewish tool, urging French Canadians to boycott Jewish businesses.

“Do not buy from the Jews…”
Quebec nationalist leader Father Lionel Grouix stirred up hatred of Jews among Quebecois. In a 1933 article, he urged readers to heed his solution to “the Jewish Problem” by boycotting Jewish businesses. “Do not buy from the Jews…” he ranted. This and similar calls to refuse to do business with Jews were repeated in other French-Canadian newspapers as well.


“While ‘Achat chez nous’ does not in its title specifically target Jews,” notes Prof. Ira Robinson, Professor of Judaic Studies at Concordia University in Montreal, “its spokesmen were clear enough. Though in theory the campaign could be directed at anyone who was not French and Catholic, (French businessman) Henri Leroux in 1926 wrote that the organization must ‘fight against only one foreign race, the Jews.’ Another Quebec cleric assured an audience in Vancouver that 'Achat chez nous’ was not directed at English Canadians but solely at Jews.”

Canadian poet Irving Layton recalled his childhood growing up Jewish in Montreal in the 1920s being marred by the ever-present threat of violence directed at him because he was a Jew. “The strongest memory I have is of clashes. Around Easter...something seemed to happen to the gentiles. They took it as a cue to come and beat up on the Jews. So, without fail, every Easter, they would descend on the embattled Jews with bottles and bricks…” (Quoted in A History of Antisemitism in Canada by Ira Robinson. Wilfrid Laurier University Press: 2015.)

Jewish Doctors in Montreal
While Jewish businesspeople and professionals were subject to boycotts in Quebec, Jewish students were also subject to quotas, not only in Quebec but throughout Canada and the United States. Universities and medical schools strictly limited the number Jews who were admitted.

For Jewish medical students, life in Montreal in the 1930s was particularly challenging. Home to two medical schools - the English language McGill University and French-language Universite de Montreal - the region only had a limited number of opportunities for would-be Jewish doctors to study and train. In the early 1930s, between 11% and 15% of McGill’s medical students and 6% of Universite de Montreal were Jews. Dr. Edward C. Halperin notes that the anti-Jewish feeling was fierce. In 1933, students from Universite de Montreal “marched in the streets, angrily shouting anti-Jewish slogans. Tear gas was required to disperse the crowd.”

Despite this hatred, the top of the Universite de Montreal’s graduating medical class in 1934 was a Jew, Dr. Samuel Rabinovitch. Four of his brothers were already doctors. Dr. Rabinovitch was offered internships in St. Louis and New York, but he wished to stay closer to home. He applied for an internship with the Hopital Notre-Dame, one of Montreal’s major teaching hospitals, despite the fact that no Jews had ever before been hired as interns there.

French-Canadian medical students demanded that Dr. Rabinovitch be fired because he was a Jew.
In February 1934, the hospital reviewed applications for new interns for the coming academic year. They filled nearly all their openings with French Canadian applicants, but still had one open spot that they couldn’t fill, and offered it to the star medical student Dr. Rabinovitch, who accepted the position. He became the first Jew to be hired as a staff physician at a French-Canadian hospital. This was to provoke a storm of outrage that threatened to shut down hospitals across Montreal.

“We do not want him because he is a Jew.”
The Hopital Notre-Dame faced criticism immediately. Letters poured in from the public, demanding that a “foreigner” or a Jew should not “replace” a Catholic intern. French-Canadian medical students submitted a petition to the hospital demanding that they fire Dr. Rabinovitch. “We do not want him because he is a Jew,” their petition read.

The incoming class of interns warned that if the hospital did not fire Dr. Rabinovitch, they would walk off the job in June when their internships officially began. In the face of increasing outrage, the Hopital Notre-Dame refused to back down. “The hospital administration was wonderful to me,” Dr. Rabinovitch later recalled.

As the days ticked down to the June 15th deadline the French-Canadian interns refused to budge. If Dr. Rabinovitch was allowed to start his internship, all the other interns at the hospital would walk out. At midnight on June 14, 1934, the interns walked out of the hospital and refused to see any patients, even those requiring urgent attention.

Over the next two days, the interns of the Hopital Notre-Dame were joined by interns at four other hospitals across the city. Seventy-five doctors refused to work while Dr. Rabinovitch was one of their colleagues. Nurses in these hospitals threatened to strike too, demanding that Dr. Rabinovitch be fired. Jewish leaders in Montreal worried that the strike would soon widen to include a full-scale boycott of Jewish businesses in the region. The hospital stood firm, refusing to give in to these outrageous demands, but the atmosphere in Montreal was darkening for the city’s Jews.

The French language newspaper Le Devoir covered the story, referring to Dr. Rabinovitch as “the foreign physician” and “the Jewish physician”. Dr. Rabinovitch was accused of being tied to “high finance,” in a not-so-subtle dig at the anti-Jewish stereotype that equates Jews with money and international finance.

As the strike wore on, another Montreal Jewish doctor came into the antisemites’ crosshairs. Dr. Abram Stillman was doing a post-doctoral training in urology at the Hotel-Dieu hospital, where interns were also on strike protesting Dr. Rabinovitch. A French nationalist group demanded that Dr. Stillman be fired from his post-doc and a “French Canadian (appointed) in his place” immediately.

Dr. Oscar Mercier was a famous urologist who was supervising Abram Stillman, but he refused to issue a full-throated defense of his Jewish student. Instead, Dr. Mercier reassured locals that Abram Stillman was “not taking the place of a French Canadian” and was “not occupying an official position” as a post-doc. Instead, Dr. Mercier hastened to explain, Dr. Stillman was “just...a visitor.” Abram Stillman was allowed to keep his post, but the lack of support that the Hotel-Dieu hospital extended to him was chilling. Over 75 Montreal interns continued their strike.

Resigning his Post
With interns refusing to go to work, Dr. Rabinovitch and community physicians labored feverishly to see all the patients under their care. Across Montreal, patients went unseen as the interns continued their strike. Behind the scene, representatives from Montreal's Jewish community met with administrators at city hospitals to try and mend the dire situation.

Three and a half days into the strike, Dr. Rabinovitch resigned.
Finally, on June 18, three and a half days into the strike, Dr. Rabinovitch tendered his resignation. His resignation letter was printed in several of the city’s newspapers. “In view of the serious and dangerous conditions to which the patients of the Notre-Dame and other hospitals have been exposed...I feel it is my duty as a physician to tender my resignation as intern to your hospital,” he wrote.

“...I bemoan the fact that so many French-Canadian physicians, namely (new) graduates, should have ignored the first duty of their oath which they have so recently taken, and am glad of the fact that my resignation will make possible the immediate care that is so badly needed by those poor unfortunates who are today patients in the hospitals affected by the controversy.”

“I feel deeply grieved that the French interns have taken up a racial question where the care of the sick should be their first and only consideration and that they have completely disregarded the first duty of” medical care… “The duty of a captain is not to abandon; the first duty of a soldier is not to desert his post; and the first duty of a physician is not to desert his patient…”

Dr. Sam Rabinovitch

https://www.aish.com/jw/s/Its-MyOrthodoxLife-and-Im-Standing-Up-for-It.html?s=ac&
Jul 20, 2021
by Dr. Leslie Ginsparg Kleinprint article
It’s #MyOrthodoxLife and I’m Standing Up for It
Hey, Netflix! My peers and I are not dowdy, backward, uneducated, or oppressed. We are Orthodox women leading happy, healthy, and fulfilling lives.

Over the past few days, posts written by Orthodox women started popping all over social media with the hashtags #MyOrthodoxLife and #ThisIsOrthodoxy.
These posts are part of a social media campaign designed to counter the negative messaging on Orthodoxy and Orthodox women propagated by the latest Netflix series on leaving Orthodoxy: ”My Unorthodox Life", starring Julia Haart, and focusing on how her new glamorous irreligious life is inherently better than the world of Orthodoxy that she left, with so much fanfare. Launched by Alexandra Fleksher, the social media challenge asked Orthodox women and men (mostly women are responding) to post about their varied Orthodox lives and experiences. The purpose is to show snapshots of actual Orthodox people, living normal, healthy, and fulfilling lives. Fleksher is a talented writer and social media influencer. She is also a former student of Julia Haart, then Mrs. Talia Hendler, who lived and worked in Atlanta.

"My Unorthodox Life” is yet another Netflix show that propagates negative stereotypes of Orthodoxy globally, and Orthodox women in specific.
What’s behind this campaign? Why are Orthodox women writing and sharing these posts? We are writing because we are fed up with the messages that Netflix is conveying to the world: that we’re dowdy, backward, uneducated, and oppressed. “My Unorthodox Life” is yet another Netflix show that propagates negative stereotypes of Orthodoxy globally, and Orthodox women in specific. So women who identify as Orthodox, have stayed Orthodox, have chosen to be Orthodox are finally standing up to misrepresentation. Posts are popping up all over Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. Journalist Tzippy Yarom-Diskind has created a website collecting the posts.

#MyOrthodoxLife posts have ranged from heartfelt to humorous. Here are a few snippets of some of my favorite posts. I encourage you to read them in their entirety.

Fleksher kicked off by posting: “I want the world to know that there are Orthodox women who are leading happy, healthy and fulfilled Orthodox lives.”


Educator Eve Levy wrote on Facebook: “I am connected to thousands of other modern, educated, worldly, rockstar Orthodox Jewish women who feel just as passionate and inspired as I do about the lifestyles we choose to uphold.”

Chana Chava Ford wrote: “It ain’t all bagels and lox with a side of female subjugation.”

Influencer Bari Mitzman wrote a poem on Instagram:

Every hemline I choose to lower
Every strand I choose to cover
Is an emblem of freedom
Freedom to observe
Freedom to choose my path

Journalist Susan Jacobs Jablow posted on Facebook: “I’ve never felt that I fit inside a box, and I have never felt that Orthodox Judaism required that of me.”

Motivational speaker Gila Ross posted on Instagram:

What do you see when you see my large Orthodox family? Do they know about birth control? (I’ve been asked that…) Let me tell you what I see… Each child a decision, a continued prayer, a blessing.

My contribution to the trend, posted on Facebook and Instagram:

Stop watching Netflix and meet some real Orthodox women!
“People have told me I shattered their stereotypes of Orthodox women. I say stop watching Netflix and meet some real Orthodox women! I have been Orthodox all my life. I love being frum (religious). I’m a graduate of a Bais Yaakov high school. I have a PhD from NYU and I work as the dean of a college. I’m writing a book – a history of Orthodox girlhood in America.

"My favorite author is Jane Austen. My favorite band – the Beatles. My favorite game…Trivial Pursuit, Azul, Ticket to Ride…. I’m a bit of a fashionista and kind of an adrenaline junkie, but I know there is more to life than superficial appearances and short-term thrills. While I don’t always love covering my hair, wigs give me the opportunity to radically switch up my hair length and color and NEVER have a bad hair day. I always love Shabbos & the break it gives me from the hectic pace of my life – 25 hours of family time and no phone!

"I love to travel. I’ve road-tripped all over the USA, surfed in Hawaii & backpacked Europe twice…. Being frum gives me the opportunity to ground my life and my family in meaning. Seeing my children’s joy in the same rituals and observances that I love brings me so much happiness. And I have never felt that being an Orthodox woman and being an accomplished woman were mutually exclusive. This is my Orthodox life.”

For many of the women posting – myself included – this wasn’t a typical social media post. Many of us do not usually get so personal. And I don’t think I’m all that special or unique. Like others, I am a normal woman struggling to balance life and keep it together. No one’s life is perfect, but the fact remains: Orthodox women are living inspired and interesting lives, delicately balancing tradition and modernity. We are far more common than Netflix makes us out to be.

There has been pushback on the campaign. I have been accused of silencing stories from those who left Orthodoxy. So let me be clear. I don’t have a problem with these stories. I have a problem with this particular story, or how it is being portrayed on Netflix. Here is why:

This show is woefully inaccurate. The showrunners regularly conflate the very different orthodox communities in America. In the first few minutes, Haart talks about her "Litvish Yeshivish" community in Monsey (she invents the term Yeshivishe – Heimishe) while the B-roll video shows footage of Hasidim in Brooklyn. The footage would be more appropriate to the previous Netflix show on leaving Orthodoxy, Unorthodox. That show was set in the Hasidic community and centered around a young woman raised in an extremely sheltered environment.

That was not the world Julia Haart was raised in, or the one she raised her family in. Orthodoxy is not monolithic. The two communities are radically different. “Unorthodox.” “My Unorthodox.” The shows have almost identical names, but Netflix doesn’t seem to know or care about the differences. In a later episode, the show adds Modern Orthodoxy to the fundamentalist mix, again failing to draw important distinctions.

Haart herself seems to be purposefully disingenuous in the way she describes Orthodoxy. Her claims of how unaware of the outside world she was when she was frum (religious), the level of insularity, the lack of secular education, the restrictions on women, are not representative of the Yeshivish Orthodox community of which she was a part.

I am a researcher of American Orthodox girlhood. My doctoral dissertation and upcoming book are on the history of the Bais Yaakov school system that Haart attended, and the development of Orthodox girl culture. Haart’s descriptions, and the broad generalizations advanced by the show, do not match any reality. Certainly not that of Monsey in the 1980s or Atlanta in the 1990s. Dr. Dainy Bernstein, a formerly Orthodox researcher of Orthodox children’s literature, did an excellent play-by-play analysis of all the inaccuracies in the show.


Haart, and, later, her daughter claim that girls in the Orthodox community receive no secular education, do not go to college, and that women in the community are expected to be nothing more than babymakers. This is patently false. Girls in the yeshivish community do receive a real secular education, typically stronger than their male counterparts. Bais Yaakov schools participate in robotics competitions and hackathons, they have job fairs, and New York schools take regents exams. Many women go to college and go on to be the primary breadwinners of their families, working while their husbands learn in kollel (full-time Torah study).

Far from being discouraged from working, women are highly encouraged to work, even in the most right-wing Bais Yaakov schools. But Haart claims she had to keep the fact that she was running a side business a secret, as if Orthodox women are not successful and well-known entrepreneurs. And Haart did indeed publicly work during her marriage as a teacher, but that seems to be left out. Perhaps it does not jive with the “fundamentalist” narrative the producers are spinning.

Haart’s claims about her experiences within the community are further called into question by those who knew her. Haart was quoted by the New York Times as saying that she had no exposure to television or magazines, and that fashion was a “giant no-no.” Yet her students – Haart taught at a Modern Orthodox high school and Bais Yaakov high school – remember her openly carrying Vogue magazine at work. And they thought she was so cool for it. They remember her in stiletto heels and designer clothes, hardly a woman whose fashion was dictated by a culture where women are not supposed to care about their appearance.

But that’s not the sensational narrative. To quote Fleksher, “‘BCBG-clad, stiletto-wearing, frum woman becomes model exec’ doesn’t hit the same way.”

Haart’s former students remember her as being a fantastically brilliant master teacher, with a photographic memory, tremendous knowledge, and incredible depth. They are left trying to reconcile their memories of Mrs. Hendler with the phony and manipulative Julia Haart character of the show. “She was the paradigm of the empowered frum woman,” said Elise Steinharter, a former student of hers at the Bais Yaakov high school in Atlanta, “We looked up to her. She taught us to be our own person, to be proud women, and that frum didn’t have to mean frumpy.”

Some of the lines are falsifications. Some are true, but taken out of context. Some of her criticism is legitimate. But all of it is expressed with such a level of disdain and disrespect.
I do not know how much of this disingenuous negativity is Haart and how much of this comes from the producers, but it is hard to watch a show where the main character makes fun of your community at every opportunity. Every scene is cringeworthy. Some of the lines are falsifications. Some are true, but taken out of context. Some of her criticism is legitimate. But all of it is expressed with such a level of disdain and disrespect. She encourages that disrespect in her children as well; when her non-religious daughter intends to wear “tzanua” or “tznius” (modest) clothes to visit Monsey, in respect for the community norms, Haart encourages her to not to. Because, she says, respect needs to go both ways. On this point, Haart is absolutely correct.

In the show, Haart seems hellbent on stamping out every vestige of Orthodox observance in her children, berating them for keeping observance, even when that is what her children want. She contrives to get her adult son to stop keeping Shabbos. At the end of the second episode, there is a particularly painful scene where she chastises her teenage son because he does not want to have a girlfriend or watch television anymore (wait, I thought Orthodox Jews in Monsey don’t know about television!). She tells him she wants him to have all the options in life open to him, but she makes clear that her path is the only acceptable choice.

This show rewrites my community’s past. It misrepresents its present. And I fear it could damage its future.
Ultimately, this show isn’t helpful to anyone. Not to the global Netflix viewership, who are given a distorted and misleading perspective on traditional Judaism. Not to Jews globally. With rising antisemitism, a show like this is hardly what we need. Certainly not to Orthodoxy, which is presented as a fundamentalist cult. Not even to formerly Orthodox, the population she purports to champion. “If that’s what you need to do to live your life, that’s cool,” tweeted Dr. Bernstein during episode 2, “But you are casting all the rest of us OTD (Off the Derech – formerly Orthodox) in a terrible light by confirming the stereotype of OTDers as angry and bitter and out to shtuch (antagonize).”

An open letter on Facebook to Haart from Michla Berlin, a woman who knew her growing up, provides a fascinating response to the show. After describing Haart as a vibrant, cool, talented, funny, and (non-surprisingly) well-dressed young woman, she expresses her disappointment with Haart for sensationalizing their childhood community. She writes, “I totally support your journey. Hell, I believe we all form and find our own paths and what works for some doesn’t work for all. I might have even picked that up in a bechirah (free choice) class in good old Bais Yaakov. But your journey is your journey and while revisiting your past, you seemed to have altered all the facts of my past too. Because Monsey was not a shtetl, you did not grow up not watching movies, not reading magazines, not talking to boys…While you may have struggled personally or behind closed doors our everyday world and our society was not what you claim it to be.

This is what bothers me about the show as well. As an Orthodox woman and as a historian. This show rewrites my community’s past. It misrepresents its present. And I fear it could damage its future.

Julia Haart is a fascinating, impressive, and brilliant woman. She clearly experienced a lot of pain and she has achieved tremendous professional success. I would be very interested in hearing her story. But “My Unorthodox Life” is not telling that story. Netflix is not telling that story (or any story that has positive representation of traditional Judaism). So to borrow from Berlin’s terminology: Speak your truth, Julia Haart. But please, for all of our sakes, speak the truth. In the meantime, I will be speaking mine.

https://www.aish.com/f/p/Why-Im-Having-Kids-Despite-World-Turmoil.html?
Why I'm Having Kids Despite World Turmoil
Jul 18, 2021  |  by Kylie Ora Lobellprint article
Why I'm Having Kids Despite World Turmoil
Yes having a kid can be frustrating, nerve-wracking, scary and exhausting, but becoming a parent is also the most fulfilling thing I’ve ever done.

My husband Daniel and I were worried about becoming parents. I was scared about how we would afford it and how I would balance my work with being a mother. It all seemed so overwhelming.

I watched many movies where parents were stressed out and they fought about their kids, and I heard horror stories from anxious moms and dads who told us to get ready, because everything was about to change… and sometimes not for the better. My own parents divorced after having three kids. Daniel and I waited more than three years from our wedding date to start trying.

We had our daughter and everything did change. While there have certainly been challenges – especially during the pandemic when we didn’t have childcare – becoming a parent has been the most fulfilling thing I’ve ever done.

Sure, having a kid can be very frustrating, nerve-wracking and frightening. But now I laugh ten thousand times a day because of our daughter. She puts a smile on my face first thing in the morning, and when I check on her before I go to bed at night my heart feels overwhelmed with love. This is a feeling I never could have imagined before having a child.

Being a parent has been much more enjoyable and meaningful than I could have ever imagined.
Thanks to a dedicated husband who co-parents with me, as well as family members who visit us and the amazing staff at our daughter’s daycare, I'm able to handle everything pretty well most of the time. Being a parent has been much more enjoyable and meaningful than I could have ever imagined.


I’m now 32 and I noticed that a lot of millennials are putting off becoming parents. Birthrates have been falling for the past six years in the United States; the pandemic “baby boom” that was apparently going to occur turned out to be a baby bust.

Prior to having our daughter, like many people my age, I wanted to be out of debt and on my way to owning a home if I was going to become a parent. Then, at some point, I realized that not everything was going to line up perfectly. Instead, I channeled my inner courage and faith and took that leap. It turned out the old saying is true: Every baby comes with a loaf of bread under their arm. I started making more money pretty soon after our daughter arrived and I learned work-life balance. It’s a work in progress and changing all the time, but I manage. I’m content.

People my age are delaying having kids for a multitude of reasons. The pandemic threw us off and made us feel like the world was completely unstable. Inflation and the rising cost of living have outpaced wages. Home ownership seems out of our grasp. Some people believe that the U.S. is on a downward trajectory. We have student loan debt and credit card debt, and many young people don’t have communities or religion or their family around to make them feel more secure and give them support. Everything seems much more complicated nowadays.

On the other hand, the world has never been a stable place. Our baby boomer parents had to deal with the aftershock of World War Two, the unstable political climate in the ‘60s, Vietnam War drafts, the Cold War, gas shortages, missile and hostage crises, and much more. Other generations had their own multitude of issues. I would be much more scared and hesitant to have children if I knew they’d have to go to school and hide under desks to protect themselves from missiles or if I knew my husband could be drafted at any moment, potentially making me a widow and a single mother. Today’s problems are monumental, but they aren’t new.

Becoming a mother has introduced me to the fierceness of love and has injected so much more meaning into my life.
A lot of it comes down to faith. We have no idea what it’s going to be like when we get married, when we have kids, when we move to a new city, or when we take on a new job. The best things in my life have always come out of taking a calculated risk and hoping for the best.

And even if you experience stress and life gets more complicated with your new additions to your family, the rewards outweigh it all.

During the height of the pandemic, witnessing my daughter learning how to walk tempered my anxiety. Seeing her big goofy smile puts me in a wonderful mood. Becoming a mother has introduced me to the fierceness of love and has injected so much more meaning into my life. Everyone should have the chance to experience this unique mixture of exhaustion and elation.

https://www.aish.com/ci/s/The-Church-of-Englands-Too-Late-Apology-to-the-Jews.html?
The Church of England's Too-Late Apology to the Jews
Jul 15, 2021  |  by Dr. Yvette Alt Millerprint article
The Church of England's Too-Late Apology to the Jews
The Church of England is repenting for its past actions persecuting England’s Jews. Better late than never.

The Church of England – Britain's official religious body which counts Queen Elizabeth II as its head – has announced that it is planning an “act of repentance” for anti-Jewish decrees that its predecessor issued 800 years ago.

The act will take place next year, to coincide with the anniversary of the 1222 Synod of Oxford, an anti-Semitic clerical meeting which imposed a series of harsh decrees against England’s Jews. “The phrase ‘better late than never’ is truly appropriate here,” noted Dave Rich, the Head of Policy for the Community Security Trust, a body that tracks anti-Jewish hate in Britain, and the author of The Left’s Jewish Problem: Jeremy Corbyn, Israel & Anti-Semitism (2016). “The historic trauma of Medieval English anti-Semitism can never be erased and its legacy survives today – for example, through the persistence of the ‘blood libel’ allegation that was invented in this country.”

England was the first to promulgate against the Jews and the first to expel its Jewish population.
Some of the most pernicious anti-Jewish slanders and acts of persecution that tormented Jews in the Middle Ages and beyond were invented in England. Even today, the Church-based anti-Semitism of Medieval England continues to color how people look at Jews and treat us. There is much to apologize for and regret. (Note: in the Middle Ages, the Church of England didn’t yet exist; it was founded in 1534. During the Middle Ages, the state religion of England, like all of Western Europe, was Roman Catholic, and it was that body that lent its considerable clerical weight to a series of harsh decrees against England’s Jews.)

The pogroms, blood libels, persecution and expulsion of Jews in Medieval England continues to live on, affecting us all to this day. Here are a few of the precedents that were set.

Jews as Property
Historians believe that some Jews might have lived in England as far back as Roman times, when they arrived in Britain as traders or as slaves. However, England’s Jewish community was formally established in 1066, the year of the Norman Conquest when William of Normandy defeated King Harold II at the Battle of Hastings. William brought Jews with him from his holdings in France to help cement his new position as King of England. These Jews – and subsequent generations of Jews in England – were considered property of the king.


Medieval English Jews existed outside of the traditional feudal system. Instead of pledging allegiance to a local lord, they were owned – the term used was chattels – of the king himself. Jews were expected to work in finance, lending money and collecting funds for the monarch. In 1253, this relationship was codified by King Henry III, who promulgated that “No Jew remain in England unless he do the king’s service, and that from the hour of birth every Jew, whether male or female, serve Us (the monarch) in some way.”

Jews were increasingly hated, both as enemies of Christians, and also as agents of the unpopular kings. Theologian William de Montibus, who worked in the English town of Lincoln, called Jews “sponges of the king. They are blood-suckers of Christian purses, by whose robbery kings despoil and deprive poor men of their goods.”

As chattel of the king, Jews could be taxed with impunity.
The Magna Carta enumerated limits on the king’s power in 1215 and is sometimes held up as an early instance of Western democratic values. In fact, it deals extensively with Jews, and two of its 62 clauses are devoted to enumerating circumstances in which Christians could default on debts they owed to Jews.

As chattel of the king, Jews could be taxed with impunity. In 1239, King Henry III demanded a third of all property belonging to England’s Jews. Those Jews who could not pay were imprisoned in the Tower of London and their property was seized. Later on, royal decrees demanded even larger taxes from England’s Jews. Historian Norman Roth notes that “These excessive tax assessments finally destroyed the economic foundation of the Jewish community and thus its value to the crown. The groundwork had been prepared, perhaps unwittingly, for the final scene.” (Quoted in Medieval Jewish Civilization: An Encyclopedia, edited by Norman Roth (Routledge: 2003). The Jewish community of England was soon to experience even greater levels of hatred than they’d seen before.

First Blood Libels
Blood libels, the false allegation that Jews kill Christians in order to use their blood for ritual purposes, have bedeviled Jewish communities for centuries. The effects of blood libels can be seen even today when Jews (or the Jewish state) are accused of having a blood-lust for Christians.

In 2014, the Anti-Defamation League requested that Facebook remove “Jewish Ritual Murder” pages accusing Jews of killing non-Jews for religious purposes. In 2020, the Committee for Accuracy in Middle Eastern Reporting and Analysis (CAMERA) noted that popular Italian artist Giovanni Gasparro, whose work is shown in churches and basilicas, had posted a cartoon on social media of Jews preparing to kill a Christian child. This slander is persistent and continues to poison the image of Jews world-wide.

The slur of the blood libel originated in England where Jews were first accused of killing Christian children.

Detail from a painting depicting blood libel in St. Paul's Church in Sandomierz, Poland.

The first instance was in 1144 in the English town of Norwich. A boy named William ran away from home and was found days later, in a clearing in the woods, unconscious and with signs of violence on his body. Contemporary records show that even though William didn’t appear to be dead, his family buried him at the site and later accused local Jews of having murdered him.

The nearby Lewis Priory declared that William was a martyr and priests at Norwich Cathedral claimed his body for their cathedral. William became a saint and some locals began profiting off his death and canonization. William’s brother and uncle were appointed officials in the monastery and a local man who was said to be a convert from Judaism to Christianity told Church officials that Jews had murdered William as a sacrifice for the Jewish holiday of Passover. The local sheriff declined to prosecute St. William’s supposed murder. Despite the wild accusations against them, the Jews of Norwich remained safe.

Tragically, the Jews of the English town of Lincoln fared much differently. In 1255, the body of a nine-year-old boy named Hugh was discovered in a well in Lincoln. The child’s friends told local priests that Hugh had been kidnapped by a local Jew who held him captive for a month, torturing him and eventually killing him. The boys said that when the Jew tried to bury Hugh’s body, the earth refused to accept his corpse, so the Jew threw Hugh into a well.

This time, the local sheriff in Lincoln took the charges seriously and arrested over 90 local Jews. Eighteen were executed. Like William, Hugh was canonized as a saint and a cult of popularity grew up around “Little St. Hugh of Lincoln.” Miracles were attributed to him, and songs and poems told the story of his supposed murder.

Chaucer’s Prioress’ Tale is based on this legend. Though he’s commonly revered as the “Father of English literature,” his Prioress’ Tale is a graphic, violent and mean-spirited paean to anti-Jewish hatred, and has tragically shaped perceptions of Jews for hundreds of years. “Jews have conspired to drive this innocent out of the world,” Chaucer wrote, describing a supposed band of Jews who plan to murder a Christian child. “And as the child began to pass by / This cursed Jew seized him, and held him tightly / And cut his throat, and cast him in a pit…” Still taught in schools and universities in England and around the world, Chaucer’s poem perpetuates the original anti-Jewish blood libel to this day.

Tragedy in York
Conditions for Jews in England declined in the Middle Ages. Reviled on religious grounds and for their connections with the king, England’s Jews were objects of hatred for commoners and noblemen alike. The Crusades also motivated European Christians to turn on their Jewish neighbors, attacking them as part of the Christian drive to conquer the Holy Land.

In 1189, with the coronation of England’s King Richard I, violence broke out across England. Contemporary records are scant, but it seems that some Jews attended Richard I’s coronation in London, bringing gifts in an attempt to curry favor with the new monarch. Jews were barred from the festivities, and a mob turned on them. Historian Norman Roth records that “several Jews were beaten and trampled to death” in the ensuing melee.

Soon, word spread that the new king himself had ordered the killing of Jews. Mobs turned on Jews in several English cities, including London, Norfolk and Norwich. The worst violence, however, occurred in the northern English city of York, where 150 Jews lived.

Benedict of York was the most prominent Jew in the city, and he’d been killed in the anti-Jewish riots at Richard I’s coronation. Local townspeople set fire to his house in York, and were whipped up into a mob by three local lords who were indebted to Jewish moneylenders and saw an opportunity to get rid of York’s Jews.

Medieval Jewish moneylenders

Since the Jews were officially “chattels” of the king, the entire Jewish community of York – men, women and children – hurried into a royal castle seeking royal protection. Outside, the mob brayed for blood. As the calls for the Jews to die grew ever louder, the Jews inside the castle faced a choice. They could surrender to the mob and be slaughtered or else accept forced conversion, or they could remain inside the castle and accept death on their own terms. The Jews of York chose the latter, and took their own lives inside the castle.

Each year on the Jewish mourning day of Tisha B’Av Jews around the world remember the Jews of York with a special prayer written by the Medieval scholar Menachem ben Jacob. It laments the hatred that haunted the Jews of York and led to their horrific deaths.

Forcing Jews to Wear Special Patches
England was the first Catholic country to force Jews to wear distinctive badges on their clothing. (In Muslim-ruled lands, Jews had long had to wear distinctive and humiliating special clothes whenever they ventured outside.) 

Archbishop of Canterbury Stephen Langton was a delegate to the Fourth Lateran Council of 1215, a major gathering of Catholic leaders. The Council passed a number of anti-Jewish measures, including suggesting that Jews be identified by a patch sewn onto their clothing so that nobody could ever mistake a Jew for a Gentile. No nation implemented this decree, however, until Langton urged his fellow priests in England to implement this and other anti-Jewish decrees.

He convened a Synod near Oxford in 1222, where English Catholic leaders passed a number of decrees. Jews would henceforth wear an identifying insignia. The Synod also passed rules forbidding Jews from mixing with Christians, owning slaves, or building new synagogues.

First Country to Expel the Jews
Anti-Jewish hatred continued to grow in England in the 1200s. In 1275, King Edward I passed a law forbidding Jews from moneylending. England’s Jews experienced some new freedoms – for the first time they were allowed to enter into new professions, such as being artisans or merchants – but in many ways their freedom was ever more restricted. All Jews had to wear a badge out of doors. Jews had to pay a special tax to the Church.

After 1275, Jews could only live in English cities that were under royal control. In 1278, the entire Jewish population of England was arrested for supposedly “clipping” pieces of metal off of coins in order to melt the metal down. Many of the arrested Jews were hanged. Once they could no longer be of service to the king as moneylenders, the royal protection that the Jews of England had once relied on waned.

Expulsions of Jews in Europe from 1100 to 1600

Most of all, Jews were hated not because of any real or imagined offenses, but because they were Jews. Historian Norman Roth observes that “Religious factors played an important role in the growing atmosphere of hostility. Ritual murder charges continued, and a wealthy Jew of Northampton was burned on charges of blasphemy, resulting in a warning on pain of earth to Jews not to ‘offend’ Christianity.”

In 1279, King Edward returned from an extended visit to Europe and faced a dilemma about what to do with “his” Jews. On Tisha B’Av, in the Jewish year 5051 (the Gregorian year 1290), a royal decree was promulgated: all Jews were to leave England. They were given until November 1 to leave the country. Jews were not allowed to sell their possessions, and everything the departing Jews had owned became property of the Crown.

On Tisha B’Av, 1290, a royal decree was promulgated: all Jews were to leave England.
It was the first time any European country had expelled its Jews. Unique among Europe, the ban continued for hundreds of years. No Jew was allowed to settle in England until 1656 when Oliver Cromwell reversed King Edward I’s harsh decree.

Anti-Semitism Today
Jewish life in England is flourishing today, but it does so against a backdrop of rising antisemitic violence. The Community Security Trust routinely logs many hundreds of antisemitic actions each year in the UK, including abusive behavior, property damage, and violent assaults. A 2018 poll found the highest levels of concern about anti-Semitism in Europe occurred in Britain, where 84% of British Jews felt that anti-Jewish hatred was an issue. Nearly 40% of British Jews indicated that they’d consider emigrating because of concerns about their safety.

The Church of England has taken steps in recent years to make amends to the Jewish community for hatred that it’s helped foment. In 2019, the Church released a document acknowledging that Christian antisemitism helped lay the foundations for the Holocaust. Earlier this year, the current Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, tweeted his response to rising levels of Jew hatred in England, Tweeting “There can be no excuse for the appalling antisemitism we have seen in the UK.”

There is still much more for the Church of England to do. If it wants to get serious about stopping antisemitism, it should stop attacking the Jewish state, and halt cooperation with those who slander Israel and Zionists.

A recent Report by the Church of England’s Board for Social Responsibility contained scathing criticism of Israel that is redolent of the antisemitic slurs used by the Church in the past. Church documents have accused Israel’s conflict with the Palestinians of “eroding” Israeli “ethics”. At times, Church of England activists have allied themselves with extreme anti-Israel activists from the Middle East. This creates a continual feeling in the Church that Israel is in the wrong, and is somehow uniquely evil on the world stage.

The Church of England’s desire to make amends for Christian antisemitism in the past is commendable. One Bishop has suggested holding a symbolic service to do so. Another way to begin making amends is to start being more even-handed about the Jewish homeland. Then perhaps the Church of England and its many members can truly come to terms with the Jew-hatred that Christian churches have promoted.

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