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hypnotize a nun,
and other lessons
from the life of
the north Jersey
psychiatrist and
prolific author
Rabbi Abraham
Twerski
JSTANDARD.COM
2014 83
ISRAELI, NJ TEENS MEET IN REAL LIFE page 6
THE FAMILY THAT SCHOOLS TOGETHER page 8
TIPS FOR FUTURE COLLEGE STUDENTS page 14
SPORTS: THE JEWS OF SUMMER page 36, 38
J e w i s h S t a n d a r d
1 0 8 6 T e a n e c k R o a d
T e a n e c k , N J 0 7 6 6 6
C H A N G E S E R V I C E R E Q U E S T E D
Healing
habits
page 24
MAY 23, 2014
VOL. LXXXIII NO. 37 $1.00
NORTH JERSEY
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About
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NOSHES ...................................................4
OPINION ...............................................20
COVER STORY .................................... 24
GALLERY .............................................. 39
FLASHBACK 1974 ..............................40
TORAH COMMENTARY ................... 43
CROSSWORD PUZZLE ....................44
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CLASSIFIEDS ......................................50
REAL ESTATE ...................................... 52
CONTENTS
Candlelighting: Friday, May 23, 7:56 p.m.
Shabbat ends: Saturday, May 24, 9:03 p.m.
Worlds oldest man lives on
Upper West Side, eats matzah balls
Alexander Imich has held
the title of the worlds oldest
man for the past month.
It is a dangerous claim
to fame; his predecessor,
Arturo Licata of Italy, held
the position for only a little
more than seven months
before dying eight days be-
fore what would have been his 112th
birthday.
Mr. Imich, however, who turned 111
on February 4, has survived danger-
ous situations before.
As a 15 year old in Poland, he
drove trucks for the army in the fight
against the Bolsheviks in 1918.
After earning a PhD in zoology in
Krakow in 1929, he couldnt find a job
because of anti-semitism so he
switched to chemistry.
His first wife ran off with another
man so he married a friend of hers,
Wela.
During World War II,
he and Wela fled to So-
viet Biaystok. He found
work as a chemist, but
he and Wela refused
Soviet citizenship, so
they were deported to a
labor camp.
In 1951, they immigrat-
ed to the United States.
He worked as a chem-
ist and she as a psy-
chotherapist. When she
died in 1986, he moved
into her office suite on
the Upper West Side,
near Fairway.
In 1992, he published
an anthology, Incred-
ible Tales of the Paranormal:
Documented Accounts of
Poltergeist, Levitations, Phan-
toms, and Other Phenomena.
He told the New York Times
that his interest dates back to
his 20s, when he was fasci-
nated with a Polish medium
whose sances reportedly
called up the dead.
His father lived till his 90s, and in
one interview he credited good genes
for his longevity.
But in another interview, he cred-
ited not having children, not drinking
alcohol, quitting smoking, playing
many sports, and a diet inspired by
Eastern mystics who disdain food.
His diet reportedly includes mat-
zah balls, gefilte fish, chicken noodle
soup, Ritz crackers, scrambled eggs,
chocolate, and ice cream.
LARRY YUDELSON
Israeli mikvahs going solar
Deputy Religious Services Minister Eli
Ben-Dahan wants Israels mikvahs to be
greener and cleaner at least when it
comes to energy use.
Rabbi Ben-Dahan has instructed the
countrys state-funded religious councils
to switch to solar energy to heat their
mikvahs, in order to reduce pollution
and energy costs. In the overcast winter
months, mikvah facilities will use a back-
up system of gas-powered heating.
The objective is to make religious
services more innovative and more invit-
ing, Rabbi Ben-Dahan said. Even in
terms of environmental protection, we
aim to prevent pollution and to reduce
the expenses so that we can redirect the
funds to adding additional new services
and expanding the basket of services
available to every citizen. JNS.ORG
Phony Mandela interpreter
mock-signs for Israeli ad campaign
Genius move or tasteless
advertising campaign?
The jury (social media)
is debating the audience-
grabbing move Israeli start-
up LiveLens has served up
by hiring disgraced phony
sign-language interpreter
Thamsanqa Jantjie for a
new ad campaign.
Users on Facebook and
comment platforms are
trading barbs over whether
the mentally ill South Afri-
can imposter from Nelson
Mandelas memorial service should
have been cast in the commercial for
live video streaming.
We decided that the guy who had
the worst live show ever would be the
best person, LiveLens CEO Max Blu-
vband told NBC News while justifying
the decision.
LiveLens is promoting a new app
that lets users click a button and
instantly share a streaming video on
Facebook.
The company hired a Zulu-speak-
ing journalist to visit Jantjie in the
psychiatric hospital at which hes
incarcerated and got him released for
one day to shoot the marketing cam-
paign. Reports say the ad was shot in
just a few hours.
In the ad, Jantjie pokes fun at him-
self for not really knowing how to
sign, apologizes to the world for the
embarrassment, and then reminds
viewers that the most interesting
things happen live.
We saw him with our own eyes;
hes a normal guy, Sefi Shaked,
LiveLens marketing manager, has
been quoted as saying in many re-
ports. Now he can have the closure
and earn some money from it. Its
morally right. We see it as sort of a
sad story with a happy ending.
The National Association of the
Deaf in the United States didnt quite
agree. The group issued a statement
saying it expresses outrage and
disappointment that any company
would think it appropriate to hire and
portray any individual who has be-
come synonymous with mockery of
sign-language interpreting based on
his extremely offensive actions at the
funeral of Nelson Mandela.
Comments on social media sites
show mixed reactions. Some people
are very happy to see Jantjie getting
a second chance. Others are utterly
confused by the move and are siding
with NAD.
LiveLens, meanwhile, says it is sur-
prised by the feedback.
We never thought our video ad
would gather so much interest from
people, the company posted on its
Facebook page. There is absolutely
no disrespect meant at deaf people
or anyone! The interpreter was star-
ring before on SNL, Jay Leno and
others. Its also ok to give people a
2nd chance. Thamsanqa is mentally
ill and admitted several times he
made a mistake that day. Should he
be banned for life? Please share your
thoughts.
You can judge for yourself by
searching for Livelens on YouTube.
VIVA SARAH PRESS / ISRAEL21C.ORG
Jantjie interpreting for President Obama at
Mandelas funeral.
Noshes
4 JEWISH STANDARD MAY 23, 2014
JS-4*
Want to read more noshes? Visit facebook.com/jewishstandard Want to read more noshes? Visit facebook.com/jewishstandard
taries on Jewish/Israeli
subjects.)
In 2003, the press
was full of reports that
Michael and his wife,
actress Catherine Zeta-
Jones, were flying to
Wales, her homeland,
to have their young son
and daughter baptized
at a charming Roman
Catholic chapel. A raft of
celebs was supposed to
attend. This event was
called off mysteriously at
the last minute.
I was, frankly, sur-
prised, when the New
York Post reported on
May 8 that Michael told
guests at a party cel-
ebrating a new book by
his friend, producer JER-
RY BRUCKHEIMER, that
he injured his leg the pre-
vious week while danc-
ing at the bar mitzvah of
his son, DYLAN, 13.
Clearly, there is a fam-
ily story here how
Dylan came to become
bar mitzvah. But I dont
know it. Still, I would bet
big money that Dylans
Jewish grandfather
is schepping nachas.
By the way, Michael
Douglas and Catherine
Zeta-Jones, who pub-
licly announced a trial
separation last summer,
are now officially back
together.
N.B.
Adam Sandler
WILL THEY BLEND?
Adam and Drew
pair up again
Kirk Douglas
Simon Kinberg Bryan Singer
My opinion: ADAM
SANDLER, now
47, made a couple
of crude but still re-
ally funny comedies at
the start of his career,
like The Waterboy
(1998). He also made a
few dramas (like Span-
glish) with very good
directors intelligent
films, but they didnt
quite work. But I agree
with critics that almost
all his comedies since
1998 have been crude,
with few funny moments
(even though many were
box office smashes). The
exceptions are the two
charming films he made
with Drew Barrymore
The Wedding Singer
and 50 First Dates.
The pair has chemistry.
So, heres hoping that
Blended doesnt end
this streak. Adam and
Drew play single parents
who go on a bad blind
date, but by coincidence
later end up sharing a
suite at an African resort
for a week.
By the way, Barrymore,
39, and her husband, art
consultant WILL KOPEL-
MAN, 35, who wed in a
Jewish ceremony in 2012,
had their second child,
FRANCES BARRYMORE
KOPELMAN, last month.
(Their daughter OLIVE
was born in September
2012.) On the down side,
Barrymore recently told
an interviewer that she
had decided that conver-
sion to Judaism was a
bigger undertaking than
she previously thought
and she wasnt convert-
ing. Just before her wed-
ding, she told a couple
of reporters that she was
seriously interested in
converting.
The Marvel comic se-
ries X-Men has become
a mega-profitable movie
franchise. X-Men: Days
of Future Past is the
seventh X-Man film since
the series began in 2000.
It is billed as the ultimate
X-Men ensemble in that
the characters from the
first movies join those in
later flicks. One con-
stant is Hugh Jackman
as Logan/Wolverine. The
script is co-written by
SIMON KINBERG, 40,
and BRYAN SINGER, 48,
directs.
Acting legend
KIRK DOUGLAS,
now 97, became
an observant Jew in 1991.
He celebrated his sec-
ond bar mitzvah in 1999,
when he was 83. In 2012,
13 years later, he had his
third bar mitzvah.
However, his most
famous son, MICHAEL
DOUGLAS, 69, while
respectful of his fathers
faith, always has made
it clear that he was
half Jewish and firmly
secular. (To his credit,
Michael has participated
in a number of Jewish
cultural things, like nar-
rating several documen-
HBO tackles
Normal Heart
On Sunday, HBO is presenting a new ilm version
of The Normal Heart, the 1985 Tony-award winning
largely autobiographical play by LARRY KRAMER,
now 78. The main character based on Kramer is Ned
Weeks, a Jewish writer who struggles, during the early
days of the AIDS crisis, to put together an organization
that will combat the indifference of the government and
even some gay leaders to the growing HIV/AIDS crisis.
Mark Ruffalo plays Weeks, with Julia Roberts and Jim Par-
sons playing other big parts.
TV Guide recently declared their love (their word)
for Wendi McLendon-Covey, the actress who plays the
mom/wife on the ABC series The Goldbergs. Why do
they love her? Because: She spins one of the mustiest
clichs the overbearing Jewish mother into some-
thing fresh and revelatory. I ind this interesting in that
an entire season of the series has been shown, and so far
as I know I might have missed something the Gold-
berg family never has been identiied as explicitly Jewish.
The whole show seems like a twist on the usual pattern,
in which characters seem very Jewish, but are never
identiied, flat-out, as Jewish. We now have a show about
a family with a very Jewish name but no Jewish con-
tent. TV continues to drive Jewish viewers crazy.
N.B.
Larry Kramer
California-based Nate Bloom can be reached at
Middleoftheroad1@aol.com
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For a time in 2002 I had the notion
of our moving to Israel so I could
run for the Knesset.
Geraldo Rivera, speaking May 14 at the Jewish Federation of
Northern New Jerseys Womens Philanthropy luncheon
JS-5
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6 JEWISH STANDARD MAY 23, 2014
JS-6*
Hanging out together
Young Israeli and local young leaders meet through federation
ABIGAIL KLEIN LEICHMAN
I expected everything in Amer-
ica to be big, but not that big, said
Yuval Calderone, 17, one of the 10
Israeli members of the young lead-
ership delegation that recently met
with peers in North Jersey through
the NNJ Federation-sponsored Part-
nership2Gether, a people-to-people
exchange with the northern Israeli
city of Nahariya.
The buildings and the food it
was all very big, said the awed first-
time visitor. It was so much fun, and
I got to know a new culture. You can
see the teenagers there are so much
like us they love music and hang-
ing out.
From May 2 to May 8, the young
ambassadors hosted by local fami-
lies made presentations to students
at the Gerrard Berman Day School in
Oakland, New Milford High School,
the Frisch School, the Bergen County
High School of Jewish Studies, Para-
mus High School, and the Paramus
Jewish Community Center. They
participated in Yom Hazikaron and
Yom Haatzmaut events and met with
U.N. Deputy Ambassador from Israel
David Roet, representatives from the
Israel advocacy group Stand With Us,
and community leaders.
A lot of people want to know about
Israel, and it was amazing to tell peo-
ple things they didnt know and to see
in their eyes how they are learning,
Yuval said. We need to protect our
country by telling the world what it
really is about.
The Young Leadership program
identifies budding teen leaders on
both sides of the ocean, grooms them
through a course (in North Jersey, it
is held at BCHSJS in Paramus), and
enables them to get acquainted via Face-
book, Skype and other means. This is the
second year that 10 of the 30 Israelis and
10 of the 20 Americans in the program
are visiting each other in person. The
New Jersey residents will go to Nahariya
in December.
Despite the expense, We felt it was a
priority, because the future of the Amer-
ican-Israeli relationship in the Jewish
community depends on really getting
to know each other as people, Martha
Cohen, northern New Jerseys P2Gether
chair, said.
That has to start from the high school
stage, if not before. A lot of people cant
afford to travel internationally, so we
wanted to make sure our kids in Naha-
riya and North Jersey have the opportu-
nity to connect socially and through the
dynamic of education. We always have
a Shabbaton for the kids to have con-
centrated time together and get a sense
of knowing each other from all angles,
because that will cement their future
relationship.
In addition to school presentations,
the Israelis participated in a program at
the J-ADD home in Leonia for adults with
developmental disabilities, and they gar-
dened at the home of a Westwood Holo-
caust survivor through the federations
Bonim program. They had time to shop
at Garden State Plaza and the Bergen
Town Center, and they explored Times
Square and Rockefeller Center with their
new friends.
The visit was successful in every
which way, said BCHSJSs principal, Bess
Adler. It is particularly impactful for the
Americans to make connections with the
Israelis, and that is our overarching goal
because few of our kids have personal
connections to Israel. The news is all
about bashing Israel left and right, and
its difficult for our kids to see Israel as
anything but an aggressor. This program
has enabled us to put a face on Israel.
Susan Penn, head of the federations
Community Task Force, said the meeting
with New Milford High School history
students none of them Jewish was
especially memorable.
This was the first time these stu-
dents had ever met teens from Israel,
and their questions were remark-
able, she said. They wanted to
know about the army and how long
they serve and how they prepare,
and whether they get paid. The Israe-
lis were quite articulate and passion-
ate about how excited they were to
serve their country. You could tell
this was something the Americans
didnt expect to hear. They could not
believe that these teens view serving
their country as a highlight of their
lives.
Yuval noticed that in this respect,
the gulf between Israeli and Ameri-
can teenagers is wide. His impression
is that Israelis mature earlier because
they face compulsory military service
at 18, while Americans get to be kids
much longer. And U.S. teens, particu-
larly in the suburban Northeast, tend
to have little understanding of mili-
tary matters.
People dont know much about
the army that you can be many
other things, such as a mechanic or a
driver or social worker, and not just a
fighter, he said.
Ms. Cohen said the tables will be
turned when the young leadership
ambassadors from New Jersey are
hosted in Nahariya. When our kids
go there, they bring a new dimension
to the Israeli understanding of who
American Jews are, she said.
Gali Avraham, 17, said she is looking
forward to seeing her new American
friends again. We have already been
in touch a few times since we left, and
Im waiting to see them in December.
I already miss them, she said.
Ms. Cohen said the program contin-
ues beyond high school so that the rela-
tionships can continue as well.
Weve put in place the ability to do
an alumni project, she said. Our first
cohort is working on that, and were dis-
cussing what this cohort will do. Each
young leader chosen for the program is
told that this is training for the future.
The expectation is to take these skills and
continue their connection and bring oth-
ers into the understanding theyve cre-
ated between one another.
Next years leadership class is being
recruited now. Any Jewish high school
sophomore or junior in North Jersey is
welcome to apply; for information, email
Galeet Lipke at GaleetL@jfnnj.org.
The young leadership delegation finally meets in real life, high above Manhattan.
Local
JS-7*
JEWISH STANDARD MAY 23, 2014 7
Rabbi Mark and Linda Karasick
Shalem High Schools
Present
Their 6th Annual Production
An American
Tale
An American
Tale
An extraordinary production by extraordinary individuals!
MAY 29th
at Maayanot
Yeshiva High School
The Tale begins
at 6:30 PM
www.sinaischools.org
201-833-1134
FREE
and open
to the public.
Free of Charge All are Welcome
For more information about this program, please contact
Genene Kaye, NewJersey Regional Director, at gkaye@yu.edu or 212.960.0137
8 p.m.
Screening of Menachem Begin
Documentary I Am a Simple Jew
Welcome and Introductory Remarks by Rabbi Neil Winkler, President, RCBC
8:30 p.m.
Lecture by Rabbi Dr. Meir
Soloveichik
Director, Zahava and Moshael Straus Center for Torah and Western Tought,
Yeshiva University
What Menachem
Begin Taught Me
about Zionism
Introductory Remarks by Phil Rosen
A Special Yom Yerushalayim
Community-Wide Event
Wednesday May 28, 2014 Congregation Keter Torah, Teaneck, NJ
Letter from Israel: Memorial Day
ABIGAIL KLEIN LEICHMAN
I usually speak with my son in New York
on Friday mornings, so when his number
popped up on caller ID a
couple of Sundays ago, I
felt a flutter of anxiety
until I heard him wishing
me a happy Mothers Day.
Mothers Day? Oh, right.
Living in Israel for nearly
seven years, my awareness
of Hallmark holidays has
faded almost as much as
the Mothers Day artworks
my children brought home
from Moriah eons ago though I did hang
these sentimental treasures in our house
in Maaleh Adumim.
While some secular holidays are gain-
ing popularity in Israel especially Valen-
tines Day, which is strange since we have
our own Jewish version on Tu BAv every
summer the only one that most Ameri-
can olim seem to hang onto for eternity
is Thanksgiving. In December, unless you
happen to be in Haifa, the Christian Quar-
ter of Jerusalem, or Nazareth, youd forget
there is such a thing as Christmas.
Labor Day, Columbus Day, Presidents
Day all those Monday holidays are off
my radar until I try reaching Americans at
work on those days.
We have our own Inde-
pendence Day in Israel
complete with ceremonies,
fireworks, and cookouts
and I get much more emo-
tional about it than I ever
did on July Fourth, even
though I was raised to be
a proud American and can
sing every number from
1776 by heart.
Nevertheless, we and
our children always greatly anticipated
U.S. Independence Day. We lived near
Queen Anne Road in Teaneck, where the
annual parade passes by. Schmoozing with
neighbors on the sidewalk that morning
was a highlight of the year, and the pic-
tures we snapped marked the growth of
our progeny from one July to the next.
A couple of times, our sons marched
down Queen Anne Road as Cub Scouts.
My husband, a Teaneck Volunteer Ambu-
lance Corps member, drove an ambulance
in the procession. It was plain goofy fun to
watch the stilt-walking Uncle Sam or catch
a candy tossed by a politician. By the end
of the parade, our faces were tired from
grinning and our arms ached from waving.
I really do miss that experience.
Memorial Day (or as my grandmother
used to call it, Decoration Day) is not noted
on my Israeli desk calendar, of course, but
it is more meaningful to me these days.
The idea of pausing to reflect on the fallen
soldiers who sacrificed their young lives
so that I might enjoy peaceful freedom is
a good and universal value.
The musical 1776 focuses on members of the Continental Congress as they
debate the Declaration of Independence.
SEE LETTER PAGE 18
Local
8 JEWISH STANDARD MAY 23, 2014
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Sunday, November 16, 2014 - Rockleigh Country Club
No school like home
Conference taking place in Englewood for those outside the mainstream
LARRY YUDELSON
Y
ael Aldrich of Indianapolis irst
started thinking of home school-
ing when her irst child was
about 3 years old.
The advantages were obvious to her:
More time with her child. More control over
the curriculum.
Then, when her oldest, Gavriel Tzvi, was
6, the family went to Japan for a year, where
her husband, Daniel, now a professor of
political science at Purdue University in
Indiana, was a visiting professor.
Japanese public schools werent attrac-
tive. They are very conformist and bul-
lying is part of the environment, Ms.
Aldrich said. And we nixed the interna-
tional schools, because the days are long
and tuition is about $25,000 a year.
So she researched home schooling a lit-
tle, found that it was possible, and took a
bunch of schoolbooks to Japan, where she
put her career as a fundraiser for a Jewish
organization on hold to home school her
children.
That year went smoothly, and when the
family returned to the United States and
moved to Indiana, they decided to continue.
Now, theyre in their sixth year of home
schooling. Gavriel Tzvi will become bar
mitzvah this summer, and his 10-year-old
brother, Yaakov, and 7-year-old sister, Yehu-
dis, are being home schooled as well. (Their
4-year-old brother, Dov Ber, is at home
with them, but is not yet receiving formal
education.)
And Ms. Aldrich has become a leader in
the Jewish home schooling community,
coordinating the ifth annual Torah Home
Schooling Conference, taking place Sunday
at the Moriah School in Englewood.
Topics to be addressed range from pro-
viding a preschool education to getting
home-schooled children into college.
The conference is for people who have
been doing it for years and want a shot in
the arm, she said, and for people who
have a child who is three years old and want
to learn more.
For the veterans, it provides a chance to
look at curricula and to gain community
for what can be a lonely enterprise.
It is an enterprise that is not without some
stigma in the Orthodox community.
(In a possible sign of a reluctance to go
public as a home schooler, one Bergen
County home-schooling parent whom Ms.
Aldrich had identiied as likely to talk to the
Jewish Standard declined.)
Perhaps its not a surprise that its
controversial.
The Orthodox Jewish community has
invested a great deal in its educational
system.
Home school parents sometimes have a
very hard time dealing with the peer pres-
sure to put their kids in school, Ms. Aldrich
said. Youre swimming against a tide, that
99.9 percent of the people in your syna-
gogue are sending their kids to some day
school, and because youre not, youre out
of the loop for a lot of things. People think
they may be ostracized or viliied for some
people thats a reason not to home school.
She knows families who have moved to
Baltimore for its more friendly attitude.
She estimates there are 70 or 80 Orthodox
home schooling families there.
And she has heard horror stories about
people shunned in their synagogues. Its
hard in a one-synagogue community, if peo-
ple think youre off your rocker and doing
a disservice to the Jewish community, she
said.
According to the Department of Educa-
tion, in 2012 there were about 1.7 million
students being home schooled in the United
States, representing about 3.4 percent of the
school-aged population.
Ms. Aldrich estimates that there are prob-
ably two or three thousand Jewish home-
schooling families in America. In the irst
ive years after the Yahoo list she helps run
for Jewish homeschoolers was created, 300
families joined it. Last year, another 125
signed up.
Earlier Jewish home-schooling confer-
ences have attracted between 100 to 120
people.
This one, so far, has fewer. Its the irst not
being held in Baltimore, and she wonders
whether New Jersey and New York may be
less hospitable.
You guys have a lot of educational
choices, she said. Possibly theres a larger
amount of conformity. When youre out-of-
town meaning not in the New York met-
ropolitan area youre already a little bit
weird, so why not home school?
Fortunately, her children arent
ostracized.
They have friends in the day school, she
said. They play after school and on Sunday
and Shabbos. On Shabbos, our house is one
of the fun places to be. Its packed with kids
after lunch.
Her children are able to make friends in
extracurricular activities they might not
have time to pursue were they to attend a
day school.
My oldest son is just shy of a black belt in
kendo, Japanese fencing. Hes probably the
highest ranking non-Japanese child in the
sport in the U.S. Hes able to do that because
he can stay up to 10 oclock several nights a
week, and able to have lessons during the
school day. I can always rearrange school to
it schedules.
Theres flexibility to days off in the mid-
dle of the week, to stay up late, to sleep in,
to rearrange our children.
Another reason for home schooling is we
want our children to be a team. We call our-
selves Team Aldrich. When a family sends
their kids to an educational institution, they
dont see the kids so often. A lot of my non-
home schooling friends complain that they
wish they had more influence on their kids.
We continue to have influence on our kids.
There are online courses for home-
schooled students, and now there are some
programs with Jewish content, but Ms.
Aldrich is opposed to her children having
too much screen time.
For secular studies, I dont use comput-
ers for any of the education. I adhere to a
Torah Home Schooling Conference
When: Sunday, May 25,
9 a.m - 6 p.m.
Where: The Moriah School, 53 S.
Woodland St., Englewood
More info: 2014theconference.
eventbee.com
Yael Aldrich and her daughter Yehudis, 7
SEE HOME SCHOOLING PAGE 18
JS-9
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Local
10 JEWISH STANDARD MAY 23, 2014
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To tell the truth?
Interfaith panel examines moral issues in Franklin Lake shul
JOANNE PALMER
A lie is a lie, right?
Its black and white, isnt it?
And in that case, there should be no
difference between the way different
faith groups define or allow lies. Its all
bad, no?
Of course, if it were that easy, there
would be no reason for Rabbi Joseph
Prouser of Temple Emanuel of North
Jersey to host the panel he has planned
for Tuesday night at the shul in Franklin
Lakes. And there certainly would be no
reason to include representatives of four
religious groups Jewish, Roman Cath-
olic, Russian Orthodox, and Mormon.
(Although the three last groups all are
Christian, the differences in doctrine and
practice between them are huge.)
To moor what could be an extremely
abstract conversation to American real-
ity, the panel, formally called How Much
Truth Is Enough? is anchored firmly
to American history. It is part of a new
series Rabbi Prouser is calling Moral Lit-
eracy, and coincides with the 40th anni-
versary of Watergate, the scandal based
around a so-called third-rate burglary
where the president and his men meted
out melded bits of truth and lies in a
strategy they called a modified limited
hangout.
We have been 40 years in the wilder-
ness, and now we are ready to examine
these issues, he said. Although he is not
sure exactly where the discussion will go,
Im sure that WikiLeaks will be promi-
nent among the subjects we discuss, he
said. How much truth does the govern-
ment really owe its people? Panelists
will look at medical issues. And of course
well delve into personal relationships. In
our own daily relationships, what are the
parameters of truth and honesty?
I will ask the panelists to draw a dis-
tinction between honesty and integrity,
he said. He has given them a chapter from
a book by Steve Carter called Integrity.
Carter writes that sometimes having
integrity in your relationship requires a
modification of truth in the most literal
sense. Sometimes you have to part from
raw honesty to develop integrity in a
relationship. That analysis of human
behavior will be included in the evenings
debate.
He is interested in the panel, Rabbi
Prouser continued, because examining
current pressing moral issues through a
religious lens really emphasizes the rel-
evance that our religious tradition has
in the lives of contemporary Jews. And
why the extra fillip of interfaith vantage
points? First, he has a personal rela-
tionship with each of the panelists, and
knows each one to be not only learned
but also smart and interesting. And I
think that when Jewish tradition enters
the marketplace of ideas, we come out
of it with a stronger appreciation and
respect for its perspective.
I dont think anyone will come out of
a panel discussion discredited, he added
quickly. But I think that in examining
the moral tradition that our faith offers,
we can only strengthen our understand-
ing by entering into discussion with other
faiths.
Archpriest Eric G. Tosi of Syosset, N.Y.,
an U.S. Army veteran and the secretary
of the Orthodox church in America, now
lives in Syosset, but grew up in Passaic.
He is his churchs chief administrative
officer.
His church, he said, is heir to the
Russian Orthodox church, and it came
to this country in 1794 through Alaska,
which at that point belonged to Russia.
When Alaska became part of the United
States, the churchs headquarters moved
down to more accessible and comfort-
able San Francisco, making it one of the
only churches to come east through the
West Coast, Father Eric said. Its ranks
were augmented by the massive waves
of immigration from eastern Europe; we
are familiar with the Jews who made up
much of those waves, but others who
crossed the same seas at the same time
were Eastern Rite Christian and found
their way to the Orthodox church in
America.
There are 14 different independent
ethnically based Orthodox churches in
America, he added; each has its own
structure, but they share one theology.
He will look at the question of truth-
telling through an Orthodox back-
ground, which is first and foremost bib-
lically based but also patristic, Father
Eric said. Patristic means that the tradi-
tion draws heavily from the early church
fathers, he explained; the Orthodox
church shares its early fathers with the
Roman Catholic church, from which it
split in 1054.
He is planning to rely on the work of St.
John Chrysostom, who lived in the fourth
century C.E. He has a whole chapter on
lying, Father Eric said. He actually does
say that there are certain circumstances
in which lying is acceptable. It has to do
with salvation.
He says that we always should be
forthright and honest but there are
cases in which its important not to have
people fall because you are telling the
truth. There are times when a person
must be shielded from the terrible truth
of his situation, because the abject terror
and grief that would result would keep
him from saving himself and his soul.
In the Old Testament, Abraham lied
about Sarah being his sister. Jacob lied
about Esau.
But it has to be understood that it is
never clear-cut, and that when you do
it when you lie you are taking it on
yourself for the betterment of the other
person. Not surprisingly, this is a par-
ticularly Christian concept, he agreed.
He told the story of a Russian Orthodox
nun, Maria Skobtsova, otherwise known
as Mother Maria of Paris, who hid Jews in
her house and then went to her death at
Dachau to save them. You are taking on
the consequences of that lie. Its on you,
Father Eric said.
The Rev. Donald Hummel, like Father
Eric, knows Rabbi Prouser through their
work for the Boy Scouts of America. A
Roman Catholic priest, Father Hummel,
who has had a long career teaching at the
high school and college levels, and whose
subjects have ranged from social justice,
at one end of the continuum, to criminal
justice at the other, now is a chaplain and
teacher at Paramus Catholic High School.
He said that interfaith work takes a
lot of sensitivity; words are loaded with
different meanings for different groups.
The word ecumenical, for example,
comes from the Greek word for house,
and implies a certain insider-ness. Most
ecumenical groups include many Chris-
tian denominations but are confined to
the Christian world, Father Hummel said.
Truth and integrity are pretty broad
concepts, he said. There are many ways
we can approach them. Im a Roman
Catholic priest, so Im approaching them
from a Christian perspective. But each
panelists view of truth and integrity also
necessarily is filtered through his or her
own life experiences, which makes the
mix even more interesting, he said.
Joel Wiest, Toy R Uss senior vice
president for finance, also is young mans
stake president and a former stake presi-
dent and bishop for the Church of Jesus
Christ of Latter-Day Saints. He will offer
the Mormon view.
The Jewish perspective on the panel
will be presented by Dr. Ora Horn
Prouser, who is the vice president and
academic dean of the Academy for Jew-
ish Religion in Yonkers N.Y. Dr. Prouser,
who is married to Rabbi Prouser, earned
From left, the Rev. Donald Hummel, Dr. Ora Horn Prouser, Archpriest Eric Tosi, Joel Wiest, and Rabbi Joseph Prouser
In our own daily
relationships,
what are the
parameters of
truth and
honesty?
RABBI JOSEPH PROUSER
I came to
the conclusion
that lying or
deception is
successful in the
Bible when it is
used by the
weaker party.
DR. ORA HORN PROSSER
Local
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JEWISH STANDARD MAY 23, 2014 11
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Who: The Rev. Donald Hummel, Dr. Ora
Horn Prouser, Archpriest Eric Tosi, and Joel
Wiest are panelists; Rabbi Joseph Prouser
will moderate
What: How Much Truth Is Enough: An
interfaith panel looking into members
traditional understandings of truth-telling
and lying
Where: Temple Emanuel of North Jersey, at
558 High Mountain Road, Franklin Lakes
When: Tuesday, May 27, at 7:30
Why: To mark the 40th anniversary of
Watergate and the vibrancy of interfaith
dialogue on moral issues
How: The discussion is free, although
reservations are encouraged. For
more information or to make reservations,
email office@tenjfl.org or call
(201) 560-0200.
a doctorate in Bible from the Jewish Theological
Seminary. Her dissertation, fittingly enough, was
on the phenomenology of the lie.
Lies are fascinating, Dr. Prouser said, because it
goes beyond being an ethical issue its also a cul-
tural and narrative issue.
Biblical characters often tell lies to advance the
narrative. The prime example of that is Jacob and
Isaac; the lie that Jacob told his brother Esau is the
necessary springboard into the rest of the Bible. If he
had not told that lie, Jacobs story would have ended
almost before it began. Why was lying comfortable
for them? Why do those elements appear with no
apparent disapproval? The Bibles legal sections
specify that lying is unacceptable, she added, and so
does the wisdom literature, but the stories do not.
Characters in the Bible do not lie often, she added;
thats why their lies are taken seriously. They are
rare and therefore unexpected.
I came to the conclusion that lying or deception is
successful in the Bible when it is used by the weaker
party, she said. It is very much a tool of the weak.
It is not successful when it is used by the stronger
party. Jacob can fool Esau; Abraham can tell Pha-
raoh that Sarah is his sister, not his wife, and that
will keep them safe.
The metaphor is clear.
Despite our deep-seated if irrational view of our
people and the land of Israel as being important
being central, in fact, to human history in fact,
Israel has always been tiny, Dr. Prouser said, and
there never have been many of us, either as Israelites
or more recently as Jews. Here they were with this
idea, the covenant, the blessing, yet they were noth-
ing. So a constant motif is the idea that things are not
always as they appear.
The one who looks small actually is great. The
one who looks weak is powerful but not powerful
in an obvious way.
The exile in Babylonia had no land, no Temple,
and here they are, still saying that theyre the chosen
ones. How do you get away with that? It is because
things are not always as they appear.
And that, of course, brings us back to Watergate.
Local
12 JEWISH STANDARD MAY 23, 2014
JS-12*
FIRST PERSON
Tips for fighting campus anti-Israel activity
Local groups combine to give advice for college students and parents
BESS ADLER
If you have been paying attention to the
news lately, you know that anti-Israel sen-
timent and activity on college campuses is
growing. Many of these hate-based initia-
tives pass the 3D anti-Semitism litmus
test developed by Nathan Sharansky and
adopted by the U.S. State Department.
They are the new face of anti-Semitism our
teens must be prepared to counter as they
head off to college.
For example, mock eviction notices
were slipped under some colleges dorm
room doors by pro-Palestinian groups
who say that forced evictions are part of
Israels apartheid policies ... to cleanse
the region of its Arab population. Lie-
filled Israeli Apartheid Week campaigns
have become annual campus events. The
Boycott Divestment and Sanctions move-
ment is trying to gain a foothold on cam-
pus as well, led by student groups such as
Students for Justice in Palestine as well as
by pro-Palestinian community groups and
even some high profile anti-Zionist Jews
like Max Blumenthal.
At the University of Michigan, this anti-
Israel coalition forced the Student Coun-
cil to vote on a resolution calling for the
University to divest from companies that
invest or operate businesses in Israel,
staging sit-ins and threatening council
members to influence their vote albeit
unsuccessfully.
This week, the University of California
schools were the focus of controversy,
when anti-Israel groups at UCLA tried to
get student council candidates to sign a
pledge that they wouldnt go on trips to
Israel sponsored by certain Jewish organi-
zations. And closer to home, the right-wing
Anti-Zionist Never Again for Anyone
tour made a stop at Rutgers University to
link atrocities committed at Auschwitz to
the plight of Palestinians in Gaza.
Perhaps more insidious are cases where
visiting scholars, community leaders,
and even university professors use their
lecterns to espouse anti-Israel propa-
ganda, spinning it to look like academic
research.
Unfortunately, Jewish students are
not always sure how to respond to anti-
Israel foment on campus, or even if they
should respond, and many times they feel
unequipped to speak up against the tide of
hate they encounter.
Last week, the Bergen County High
School of Jewish Studies hosted an eve-
ning program for parents and college-
bound teens in the community. The eve-
ning was a follow-up to the schools yearly
Stand Up with Israel schoolwide pro-
gram. Co-sponsored by ZOA, StandWi-
thUs, the Jewish Federation of Northern
New Jersey, and the Kaplen JCC on the
Palisades, the program was designed to
bring awareness of these troubling cam-
pus events to a wider audience, and to
teach parents and students how they can
respond. More than one hundred people
teens and adults attended.
Below are the eight scenarios StandWi-
thUs presented to the students, along with
some specific advice on how to fight back:
Encountering problems with a pro-
fessor espousing anti-Israel propaganda
is especially difficult because challenging
a professor could affect your class grade.
Among the options offered were to ask
the professor clarifying questions espe-
cially if you dont want to out yourself as
a pro-Israeli advocate or to ask the pro-
fessor respectfully to cite his or her infor-
mation sources. Or you can meet with the
professor privately after class to express
your concerns. You also can go to the
head of the department and explain that
youre hearing a very one-sided argu-
ment in class.
If there is an anti-Israel group such
as SJP that brings a hate-filled speaker to
campus, how do you counter it? Options
include attending the lecture with a group
of friends and asking questions in a polite
and non-inflammatory way; bringing in
your own pro-Israel speaker as a coun-
termeasure; promoting or helping to run
other pro-Israel events; or writing an arti-
cle in the school newspaper (or publish-
ing a blog or on social media) about the
event and its bias.
During Israel Apart-
hei d Week, a yearly
event on college cam-
puses across the country,
mock Apartheid Walls
are brought to campuses
to whip up anti-Israel sen-
timent. Suggestions to counter it include
hosting a seminar to explain how Israel
isnt an apartheid state; going directly to
the administration of the university and
complaining that the anti-Israel activists
are engaging in hate speech; handing out
sweets (or cups of SodaStream drinks)
with a fun fact about Israel; and having
a public display with positive messages
about Israel.
What do you do when your student
government tries to get a university to
divest from Israel? Suggestions are to
boycott the boycott with the help of the
local Hillel house; draft a new bill to com-
bat the bill offered; and prepare and hand
out a point-by-point review of the anti-
Israel rhetoric refuting them with facts
and figures.
When the school newspaper publishes
an article about the brutality of the Jew-
ish state, or the IDF is demonized, what is
a student to do? Among the suggestions
offered were to send a letter to the editor,
write an op-ed, or bring IDF soldiers to the
campus to give lectures and put a human
face on those people who are being called
aggressors.
What do you do if one of your room-
mates comments at dinner that Israel
should return to the Green Line, and
people around the table nod and agree?
You can ask clarifying questions to the
speaker, ask where they got their infor-
mation, and also share positive, personal
stories about Israel.
When an anti-Israel group plans to
show anti-Israel films, especially if it is
sponsored by one of the schools depart-
ments, and students are given extra credit
if they attend, how do you respond? You
can host your own pro-
Israel movie night and dis-
cussion, and write to the
school newspaper about
the bias being portrayed.
A new thing on cam-
puses this year is the
open Hillel, which advo-
cates bringing in anti-Israel
speakers to campus. To
combat this phenomenon,
you can bring your friends
to the events they sponsor
and respectfully ask clari-
fying questions (see the
second entry); maintain
your own pro-Israel groups
(or create one if none cur-
rently exist on campus);
talk to the leadership in
your community and craft a support state-
ment to the tradition Hillel organization;
and tell Hillel that you dont support it
being an open Hillel.
While the situation certainly is upset-
ting, there are many resources to enlist
for help so you dont feel like youre fight-
ing back alone. Contact the campus Hillel
and organizations like StandWithUs (www.
standwithus.com), and the ZOA (www.zoa.
org), among others. Check out their web-
sites for materials and fact sheets, and
reach out to them for assistance to deal
with particular situations that arise on
your college campus or your childs.
Finally, as was encouraged by one of the
college students speaking at our event,
Jewish college-bound students should
make sure they know the history and facts
of the Israeli-Palestinian peace talks and
conflicts. This way they can zoom out to
provide compelling arguments and con-
text when Israels detractors hurl false
claims and misleading sound-bites.
Beginning next year at BCHSJS, our elec-
tive course Israel on the College Campus
will become a mandatory course for all
graduating seniors, to give them the tools
and confidence to fight back against anti-
Israel/anti-Semitism on campus.
Bess Adler is the principal of the Bergen
County High School of Jewish Studies.
At Fight Back, Jake Binstein, a graduating senior at Rutgers Univer-
sity, Jake Haber, a BCHSJS alumnus and freshman at the University of
Michigan, and Laura Adkins, an NYU sophomore, talked about anti-
Israel campaigns they have encountered on their own campuses.
Bess Adler is the prin-
cipal of the Bergen
County High School of
Jewish Studies.
JS-13
JEWISH STANDARD MAY 23, 2014 13
OF NORTHERN NEW JERSEY
Jewish Federation
On May 14, almost 500 womenand a few mengathered at the
Rockleigh Country Club to celebrate Federation and the impact
women have on philanthropy in the Jewish community. Honored this
year were Gale S. Bindelglass, Tifany Kaplan, and Rita Merendino.
Co-Presidents, Lauri Bader and Jodi Epstein thanked those who have
already made their gift to the 2014 Annual Campaign. They extended
a special thanks to Spring Luncheon Co-chairs, Karen Farber, Gail
Loewenstein, and Tara Merson. To date Womens Philanthropy has
raised over $2 million for the 2014 Annual Campaign.
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Local
14 JEWISH STANDARD MAY 23, 2014
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Keeping the
malls safe?
Young Israelis denied U.S. tourist visas;
local relatives react with disbelief
JOANNE PALMER
G
eoffrey Lewiss son is getting
married this weekend.
The South African-born Mr.
Lewis and his wife, Karen, live
in Tenafly, where his three children, Larry,
Kira, and Amy, grew up; but his family, dis-
persed by the Holocaust and freed to fol-
low opportunities where they led, sprawls
across four continents.
Because a wedding is a celebration not
only of romantic love but also of family, its
not just about the couple, but about their
roots, and about the hope for the eventual
flowering of their love into more branches
on the family tree.
That means that its also a reunion. Every-
one is invited, and everyone who can travel
makes the pilgrimage; the chuppah is sym-
bolic not only of the home the couple will
create but also of the extended family itself.
But its not so easy.
Travelers need documents to enter coun-
tries not their own. Israelis need visas to
enter the United States. Israelis who want
to come here for family celebrations need
tourist visas.
The U. S. State Department has been
denying tourist visas to Israelis particu-
larly young ones at unusually high rates.
According to the departments own figures,
the refusal rate was 9.7 percent last year; in
2007, it was 2.5 percent. In 2013, 32 percent
of 21- to 26-year-old Israelis were refused
visas. Refusal rates for would-be visitors
from other countries are not nearly as high.
The State Department has acknowledged
the problem and said it would try to fix it;
many politicians, including New York Sena-
tor Charles Schumer and Representative
Nita Lowey, are on it.
But action has not followed talk.
Mr. Lewis is livid. Three of his Israeli
nieces and nephews will not be at the wed-
ding. They were not able to get tourist visas.
There seem to be two overall prob-
lems. One is a fear that Israelis might be
spies a high number of Israeli intelli-
gence officers have been denied entry.
The other, the issue that disrupted Mr.
Lewiss relatives trip, is a fear that young
Israelis are storming in to take over all the
kiosks in all the malls from coast to coast,
Larry Lewis and Corina Platon are getting married this weekend; some Israeli cous-
ins will not be there because they could not get U.S. tourist visas. GEOFFREY LEWIS
Local
JS-15
JEWISH STANDARD MAY 23, 2014 15
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a Dead Sea-product-pushing invasion.
That is not true, Mr. Lewis said.
Its bizarre, he continued. Four
months before the wedding, his young
relatives applied to the Israeli embassy
in Tel Aviv for visas. I sent them copies
of the wedding invitation proof that it
will be held at the New York Botanical
Gardens, which we had printed early
just for this reason and a letter from
me, offering to put up a substantial finan-
cial bond that I was prepared to forfeit
if these three young Israelis overstayed
their visas.
They applied four times. Not only were
the visas denied the first time, they were
denied the second time, the third time,
and finally the fourth time, Mr. Lewis said.
Each time, the United States embassy was
more than happy to take the $170 per per-
son application fee.
If the United States embassy is that short
of money to cover their operating costs, ask
for donations from the public at large. Dont
ask young Israelis to pay fees for applica-
tions you are going to deny in any event.
As a result of the refusal, he continued,
Some smug manager at the United
States embassy will have the thrill of hav-
ing met a denial quota to meet his supe-
riors demands, and one family wont be
able to celebrate another chapter in the
circle of life together.
And the lack of common sense of seichel,
as he put it also angers him. Youve got 10
people from Israel traveling together for a
wedding, and then, at the end of the wed-
ding, you really think three of them are going
to slip off and work at a mall?
Dalia Sakai of Paramus had a similar
experience.
She does understand the problem, she
said. I know a lot of kids who come here
and stay here, and it isnt right, she said.
But her 21-year-old cousin was denied a visa,
and that is wrong too, she feels.
She tried twice, once this year and once
last year, Ms. Sakai said. The American
person who interviewed her looked at her
and said, Im so sorry. If you were married,
youd be able to get a visa.
I emailed a note saying that Im a teacher,
Im off for the summer, and I hoped that my
cousin could come to America and spend
time with me and my family. It didnt help.
And she does have a job, and the people
there, at her job, wrote a note saying that we
are allowing her to leave for six weeks, and
we expect her back. That didnt help either.
My daughter is turning 21 this summer.
The two of them wanted to spend time
together, do things together. I never thought
it would be a problem. I always have cous-
ins, uncles, and aunts come over all the
time. It never was a problem.
Americas doors should be open, Ms.
Sakai said.
The United States offers a visa waiver pro-
gram allowing citizens of countries accepted
into the program to enter without a tour-
ist visa. Israel is not part of the program;
there is a working group that has convened
to examine the possibility that it might be
included, but there are some problems
that must be overcome first, according to
Julia Frifeld, assistant secretary of state for
legislative affairs, the Jewish Telegraphic
Agency reported. One is the mall situation;
the other is U.S. allegations that Israel dis-
criminates against Arab-Americans in their
attempts to visit Israel.
According to Shahar Azani, the spokes-
person for Israels consulate general in New
York, We are in the process of negotiations
with the United States to include Israel in
the U.S. Visa Waiver Program. Until that
happens, Israelis are dependent on deci-
sions made by the Consular Department of
the U.S. Department of State to be issued a
visa, similar to citizens of other countries
around the world.
That is cold comfort to Mr. Lewis.
We are small fry, but this is the kind of
thing that leads people to devalue what
the government does, he said. Its not
asking the government to pay for any-
thing. It is just asking the government
to do what we pay our taxes to do and
thats to facilitate things.
Last year, he said, his older daughter mar-
ried an Israeli. The couple lives in New York,
but the wedding was in Israel. Everyone was
able to go. It was fantastic.
My younger daughter at this point has no
intention of getting married any time soon,
he continued. But when she does, Ill tell
her not to get married in this country.
Not only were
the visas denied
the rst time,
they were denied
the second time,
the third time,
and nally the
fourth time.
GEOFFREY LEWIS
Local
16 JEWISH STANDARD MAY 23, 2014
JS-16 JS-16*
Chabad dinner set for June 1
Chabad of NWBC Frank-
lin Lakes is hosting its 14th
anniversary gala dinner
and evening of entertain-
ment. It will honor Frank-
lin Lakes residents Carol
and Bill Kurtzer and Paul
and Ronnie Beckoff-Borins.
The Sunday, June 1 dinner
at the New York Country
Club in New Hempstead,
N.Y., will include a new
Torah dedication, a cock-
tail reception, and a pro-
duction of Circumcise Me by Yisrael
Campbell, an Orthodox-convert come-
dian dubbed the Matisyahu of comedy.
Journal ads and reservations can be placed
online at www.galadinner.org or by calling
(201) 848-0449.
Ohel carnival for siblings
of special needs children
Last month, more than 100 peo-
ple attended Ohels Sibshops
carnival as part of its annual Sib
Day celebration in Brooklyn.
The carnival was for children
with disabilities, their siblings,
friends, family, and volunteers.
In two years, the Sibshop pro-
gram at Ohels Childrens Home
and Family Services has grown
throughout the New York area.
The program empowers and
enables children and teens with
siblings who have a develop-
mental disability, allowing them
to share their concerns and
feelings among their peers, develop
friendships, and just have fun.
Participants received red clown
noses and created their own paper
clown mouths. Once dressed up, they
took pictures in a photo booth and
Giggles the Clown was among those
entertaining.
Ohel Bais Ezra runs monthly sep-
arate boys and girls groups for 6- to
11-year-olds in Brooklyn and Far Rock-
away. Ohel provides supportive hous-
ing, treatment, care coordination,
education, and outreach to elevate
lives and strengthen individuals and
communities in New Jersey, New York
City, Long Island, Florida, California,
and worldwide on the web. Call (718)
686-3491 or email chayale_green-
wald@ohelfamily.org.
BPY begins chesed project
for Jewish soldiers overseas
Kindergartners at Ben Porat Yosef
embarked on a chesed project to
enhance the Shabbat experience for
Jewish-Americans in the armed forces
who are serving overseas. The children
made special items and bought oth-
ers to assemble care packages, which
included challah, grape juice, candles,
and a challah board and cover, as well
as bsamim (spices to help mark the
end of Shabbat). As part of the learning
experience, the children also met with
Beverly Wolfer-Nerenberg, the founder
of MSAWI (Major Stuart Anthony Wolfer
Institute). That organization collects and
sends care packages to Jewish soldiers in
Kuwait, Afghanistan, and Iraq. As part of
her visit, Ms. Wolfer-Nerenberg brought
uniforms and objects used by the sol-
diers for the students to explore.
Four on RTMA hockey team
play in yeshiva all-star game
Four top Jewish Educational Center, Rav
Teitz Mesivta Academy (RTMA) Thun-
der hockey players played in the Yeshiva
Hockey League All-Star game last week at
the Torah Academy of Bergen County in
Teaneck.
The game was in memory of Esther
Semmelman, the mother of TABC stu-
dent David Semmelman, to raise tzedakah
(charity) in her memory to benefit i-Shine,
a Chai Lifeline afterschool program for
children dealing with serious illness or loss
in the family. During her many years of
struggling with breast cancer, she attended
his hockey games, cheering on the team,
encouraging positive middot (good ethics)
and a sense of sportsmanship.
For the game, top players from two
yeshiva high school divisions combined to
play an East (Brooklyn and Long Island) vs.
West (New Jersey and New York City) match.
RTMA won both the JV and Varsity games.
Abe Foxman receives honorary degree
Abraham Foxman was the
keynote speaker at Suffolk
University Law Schools
commencement ceremony
on May 17 at the Citi Per-
forming Arts Center-Wang
Theatre in Bostons The-
atre District. He was also
among the universitys
honorary degree recipi-
ents. The ADL national
director told the law school
graduates to use their legal
expertise to recognize
injustice and to be coura-
geous enough to speak out
against bias.
Israeli author and lecturer
coming to shul in Teaneck
Dr. Micah Goodman of Hebrew
University will discuss The Col-
lapse of Israels Secular-Religious
Divide and the Emergence of
a New Zionist Paradigm, on
Sunday, June 1, at 8:45 p.m., at
Congregation Rinat Yisrael in
Teaneck.
Dr. Goodman, a senior fellow
at the Shalom Hartman Institute
in Jerusalem, is a leading voice in
Israel and North America on Zion-
ism, Judaism, the Bible, and a variety of
issues facing contemporary world Jewry.
He lectures overseas and at Israels lead-
ing universities and is the author of
Secrets of the Guide to the Perplexed
and The Dream of the Kuzari.
In addition, he is
the creator and direc-
tor of the Ein Prat
Academy for Lead-
ership, a transfor-
mative beit midrash
where young post-
army Israelis in their
20s from across the
religious and politi-
cal spectrum come
together to l earn
Torah, Zionism, and leadership training.
He also hosts a popular weekly show on
Israel televisions Channel 2.
The shul is located at 389 W. Engle-
wood Ave. For information, call (201)
837-2795.
Dr. Micah Goodman
Bill and Carol Kurtzer Paul and Ronnie
Beckoff-Borins
U.S. Senator Edward Markey (D-Mass.), left,
Abraham Foxman, national director of the Anti-
Defamation League, and Cedric Cromwell, Tribal
Council chair of the Mashpee Wampanoag, received
honorary degrees from Suffolk University Law
School.
JS-17
JEWISH STANDARD MAY 23, 2014 17
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Clinical medical expertise in an emergency is crucial. As the countys largest 24/7
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On site, they immediately assess the severity of your condition, and continue emergency
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at our Emergency Care Center, where Englewood Hospitals Emergency Department
team takes over, delivering the highest level of medical care.
When an emergency strikes, you can trust Englewood Hospital EMS to deliver
the national gold standard of excellence.
Tikkun Leil Shavuot
SHAVUOT the holiday that marks
the giving of the Torah, when the
Israelites massed at the bottom of
Mount Sinai to the sound of lightning
and the vision of thunder begins at
sundown on Tuesday, June 3. We have
inherited the tradition of Tikkun Leil
Shavuot all-night Torah study hon-
oring that anniversary. Here is a list
of synagogues, accurate as of press
time, that feature late night Torah
study that evening. (Note that tradi-
tion dictates that we eat dairy foods
on Shavuot, and cheesecake, as the
list makes clear, features heavily dur-
ing this holiday.)
Local
18 JEWISH STANDARD MAY 23, 2014
JS-18
But like most of my generation, I
had no personal connection, no spe-
cific grave to visit. I am not proud to
admit that I never attended a Memorial
Day ceremony at Teanecks municipal
green, five minutes from my house.
Unfortunately, Memorial Day was much
more about sales, swimming, and bar-
becues than memorials.
Coming three weeks before U.S.
Memorial Day (at least it did this year),
Israels Memorial Yom Hazikaron is
intensely personal. Everything comes
to a halt when a siren wails for two
minutes at dusk and again in the morn-
ing throughout this little country, so
heartbreakingly soaked in the blood of
soldiers and civilians who are not at all
nameless or faceless.
In Maaleh Adumim I always walk
the five minutes to our neighborhoods
Yom Hazikaron tekes (ceremony). How
could I not honor the memory of that
neighbors father, that ones brother,
that ones teacher, uncle, wife, in-law,
cousin, best friend, or child?
This Yom Hazikaron, I emailed Dan
Mokady to say I was thinking of him.
Dan, a retired Israeli fighter pilot and
proprietor of a skydiving business and
civilian aircraft museum at Habonim
Beach south of Haifa, was only a few
years old when his father, Rafi, died in
the 1967 Six-Day War.
Dans sister made a documentary,
If You Pull North, revealing how
their father was left wounded in the
Golan Heights for several days (you
can watch a trailer with English sub-
titles at https://www.youtube.com/
watch?v=d0J4ir6iuE0). I went to the
premiere at the Jerusalem Cinemate-
que a couple of years ago with Barbara
Casden, a fellow migr from Teaneck.
I was casually acquainted with Dan and
had never met his mother or siblings,
yet I felt an instant kinship. On Yom
Hazikaron I wanted him to know his
father was not forgotten, and he appre-
ciated my note.
My heightened awareness of Yom
Hazikaron heightens my awareness
of Memorial Day in America as well.
Ive become sensitized to the idea of
national mourning for specific individ-
uals whose loss may or may not have
changed the face of history but cer-
tainly changed those they left behind.
Theres no memorial siren in Amer-
ica, but a day off from work affords an
opportunity to spend a few minutes
directing our thoughts to fallen sol-
diers, terror victims and bereaved fam-
ilies on both sides of the ocean.
Letter
FROM PAGE 7
philosophy called classical education.
Its a good old-fashioned education, of
the late 1800s and early 1900s. Its very
heavy on a very strict and simple view of
the three Rs. We do a lot of reading, a lot
of math, nothing fancy.
We dont use too many textbooks; we
try to use as many primary sources as
possible.
And in that classical mode, her oldest
two children are learning Latin (using a
self-taught home schooling curriculum
that boasts of its vibrant, rich, fun dif-
ference), in addition to Japanese and
Hebrew.
For Jewish studies, we more or less
follow what their peers would be doing in
school. My oldest does Gemara four days
a week with the rabbi in the synagogue,
and reviews with his father and myself.
The oldest two do Mishna with my hus-
band or myself. My daughter just started
Chumash this year.
As a professor with classes scheduled
only three days a week, Dr. Aldrich is avail-
able to teach his children on Tuesdays and
Thursdays.
Teaching one or two or three or even
four is easier than teaching a whole class,
Ms. Aldrich said. My oldest is in school
from about 9 to around 3 or 3:30; it com-
pares to a regular school day, but my kid
gets a lot more subjects.
It doesnt mean they sit there all day
long. They can wander off. I sometimes
have to corral children back to the table.
My children are not angels. Theyre regu-
lar children.
My youngests school day can be com-
pressed to an hour and a half. She has a lot
more time to play, read, color, play with
her dolls, all things a 7-year-old girl wants
to do, she said.
Home schooling is a Jewish tradition,
Ms. Aldrich continued. If you read the
hagiographies of the great Jewish sages,
many were taught at home by tutors or
their father or mother.
As for what it takes to be a home
schooler to be your childrens tutor
You can learn on the job. A lot of
things are self-taught or scripted. You
dont have to be an educator to teach
your children.
A lot of educators say their training
and experience in the classroom did not
prepare them in the least to home school
their children.
You have to really care about your
children and be willing to do the
research and speak to people who are
doing it, she said.
Home schooling
FROM PAGE 8
www.jstandard.com
Bergeneld, Congregation Ohr Ha
Torah (Orthodox)
When: Begins midnight and ends at
Shacharit the next morning
What: Five classes throughout
the night taught by Rabbi Zvi
Sobolofsky; independent learning
available.
Refreshments.
Emerson, Congregation Bnai Israel
(Conservative)
When: 7:30 p.m.
What: Rabbi Debra Orenstein
invites the synagogue community,
as well as friends from local area
shuls and churches, to an interfaith
learning session and conversation
about Shavuot.
Topics: Questions under
consideration include Can
revelation or theophany be
deliberately cultivated? and How
can one hear from and experience
the Divine and the Holy on Shavuot
and every day?
Refreshments: Dairy desserts,
including cheesecake.
Franklin Lakes, Barnert Temple
(Reform)
When: 10 p.m. to midnight
What: Midnight at the Oasis,
a Shavuot study session, taught
by Rabbi Elyse Frishman. Yizkor
service to follow at 7:30 the next
morning.
Refreshment: Cheesecake and
more
Ridgewood, Temple Israel and JCC
(Conservative)
When: 8 p.m.
What: Erev Shavuot evening
services will be followed by a late-
night marathon study session, led
by Rabbi David J. Fine, focusing on
the laws about the Torah scroll.
Refreshments: Cheesecake and
coffee.
River Edge, Temple Avodat Shalom
(Reform)
Sparks from Sinai is a joint
learning session sponsored by
Temple Avodat Shalom of River
Edge, Temple Israel of Cliffside
Park, Temple Emeth of Teaneck,
Temple Beth El of Closter, Temple
Sinai of Tenafly, and Temple Beth Or
of Washington Township.
When: 9 p.m. until after midnight;
Shavuot morning service at 10 a.m.
on Wednesday.
What: Leaders and members of
the participating congregations
will share brief presentations on a
variety of edgy and controversial
topics, grounded in text from
Torah and Jewish tradition. Each
hour will feature four or five
different presentations, and then
an opportunity for the audience to
comment and ask questions of the
presenters.
Topics: Some lecture titles include:
Its all about me - how coveting
has become the communal sin
of the 21st century, What does
it mean to see the human being
in one another, How Jewish
are the concepts of giving back
and coexistence? and Should
worshipping at the Wall in
Jerusalem be considered a form of
idolatry?
Refreshments: Cheesecake
Teaneck, Jewish Center of Teaneck
(Orthodox)
When: 9:30 pm
What: Rabbi Lawrence Zierler
will lead a disuccsion of the first
commandment, examining God
in history and the concept of a
personal God.
Refreshments: The talk will be
preceded by a gourmet meal and
cheesecake dessert. Cost: $25 per
person. RSVP no later than May 27.
(201) 833-0515, ext. 200.
Tenay, Lubavitch on the Palisades
(Chabad)
When: 10:30p.m 1 a.m,
1 a.m. 4 a.m.
Topics: Discover The Ethics of
Insider Trading and The Ethics of
CEO Compensation based on
Maimonides and Jewish law, and
study the 613 Mitzvot with Rabbi
Mordechai Shain.
Refreshments: Cheesecake and ice
cream
OLIVIA ROSENZWEIG
JS-19
JEWISH STANDARD MAY 23, 2014 19
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Editorial
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jstandard.com
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Ceil Wolf (1914-2008)
Editor Emerita
Rebecca Kaplan Boroson
KEEPING THE FAITH
Lest we forget
to remember
E
arlier this month, on May 17, the United
States marked the 60th anniversary of the his-
toric decision by the U.S. Supreme Court, in
Oliver Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka,
Kans., that declared separate educational facilities [to be]
inherently unequal, and therefore unconstitutional.
That decision kick-started a half-century-old but as yet
moribund national movement that led to the Civil Rights
Act of 1964. The act, whose 50th anniversary will be cel-
ebrated on July 2, did not end racial segregation and other
forms of discrimination against minorities in this country
entirely, but it was a major step forward.
Jews and blacks both tend to forget that we once
marched side by side in that struggle for equality not just
because it was the correct course to take, a good enough
reason by itself, but because we were among those most
discriminated against.
From 1776 to this very day,
the battle has raged to make
this a Christian nation, and
if at all possible, to make it a
white Christian nation.
In the republics earliest
days, states adopted all kinds
of laws to exclude non-Chris-
tians, not just non-whites.
For example, in 1808, a Jew,
Jacob Henry, won a seat in
the North Carolina House of
Commons. When he tried
to take that seat at the beginning of 1809, he was told he
could not because North Carolina law required all office-
holders to believe in the Christian Bible.
Are you prepared to plunge at once from sublime
heights of moral legislation into the dark and gloomy cav-
erns of superstitious ignorance? Mr. Henry asked the
House of Commons the day it refused to seat him. Will
you drive from your shores and from the shelter of your
constitution all who do not lay their oblations on the same
altar, observe the same ritual, and subscribe to the same
dogmas...?
The religion I profess inculcates every duty which man
owes to his fellow men; it enjoins upon its votaries the
practice of every virtue and the detestation of every vice;
it teaches them to hope for the favor of heaven exactly
Shammai Engelmayer is rabbi of Temple Israel
Community Center | Congregation Heichal Yisrael in
Cliffside Park and Temple Beth El of North Bergen.
20 JEWISH STANDARD MAY 23, 2014
JS-20*
Good basketball news
M
aybe its going to take
a basketball team to
unify Israel.
Okay, so maybe its
not as important as the recent ADL
study showing that about 25 percent
of people around the world hold
some anti-Semitic beliefs.
Nor is it as important as failed
peace talks between Israel and the
Palestinians.
And after a couple of weeks of
watching Los Angeles Clippers owner
Donald Sterling dig himself in ever
deeper, at last we can feel proud about
Jews and a basketball game.
On Sunday night, Maccabi Electra
Tel Aviv surprised even its own fans
when it won the Euroleague bas-
ketball final, against Real Madrid
96-86. Israeli media described
the game, played in Milan, as a
nail-biting victory.
Israelis were surprised by the
mere fact that Israels best-known
basketball team made it to the final
four of the Euroleague tournament
this year. Winning the entire tourna-
ment shocked everyone, including
the players.
Israeli fans are calling the vic-
tory the greatest win in the teams
history.
For one evening at least, most
Israelis who seem to be divided
about everything, from politics to
religion to the rights of women to
drafting charedim into the IDF
could agree that their favorite col-
ors are their teams yellow and blue.
Maccabi last won the coveted Euro-
pean championship with consecutive
wins in 2004 and 2005. This year,
more than 10,000 Israelis went to
Milan to see the team do it again.
Sure, we know that Israelis face
many complicated issues. But for
this one night in a Milan arena, Mac-
cabi Electra Tel Aviv brought this
often divided country together.
If only that could be achieved off
of the basketball court.
- PJ
Pope Francis in Israel
S
o a rabbi, a sheik, and a
priest go to Israel
Okay, so the priest is
the chief priest, the Arch-
bishop of Rome, Pope Francis, and
the rabbi and the imam are two
old friends from Argentina, Rabbi
Abraham Skorka and Sheik Omar
Abboud. (Rabbi Skorka, the former
rector of the Latin American Rab-
binical Seminary in Buenos Aires,
co-wrote a book with the pope when
he was still Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio,
and Sheik Omar Abboud is a former
secretary-general of the Islamic Cen-
ter of Argentina.)
And the situation is not a joke but
something both real and good.
Pope Francis is going to Jordan,
the West Bank, and Jerusalem this
week; he will visit places sacred to
Jews and Muslims as well as to Chris-
tians. His visit, the fourth made by
a pope to the Jewish states, comes
50 years after Pope Paul VI toured;
that pope helped reconcile Eastern
Rite and Roman Catholics, but he
did not once use the word Israel
as he breathed the countrys air and
stood in its pure golden light.
Each visit since then has improved
the relationship between Catholics
and Jews. Granted, there has been
a chasm between us, but the tec-
tonic motions have been drawing
us slowly closer.
Three local rabbis Shmuel
Goldin, Eugene Korn, and Noam
Marans all have met with Pope
Francis, and each one has been
moved by the popes sincerity,
goodness, humility, and charisma.
He is the real thing, each of them
has said.
That allows us to hope that this
visit, too, will be something real.
Of course the visit by a pope who
presides over an institution with
enough of its own problems to keep
him busy can provide nothing
more solid or long-lasting than the
memory of a goodwill gesture, but
the gesture is powerful.
-JP
Each visit
since then has
improved the
relationship
between
Catholics and
Jews.
At last we
can feel
proud about
Jews and a
basketball
game.
Shammai
Engelmayer
KEEPING THE FAITH
Lest we forget
to remember
E
arlier this month, on May 17, the United
States marked the 60th anniversary of the his-
toric decision by the U.S. Supreme Court, in
Oliver Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka,
Kans., that declared separate educational facilities [to be]
inherently unequal, and therefore unconstitutional.
That decision kick-started a half-century-old but as yet
moribund national movement that led to the Civil Rights
Act of 1964. The act, whose 50th anniversary will be cel-
ebrated on July 2, did not end racial segregation and other
forms of discrimination against minorities in this country
entirely, but it was a major step forward.
Jews and blacks both tend to forget that we once
marched side by side in that struggle for equality not just
because it was the correct course to take, a good enough
reason by itself, but because we were among those most
discriminated against.
From 1776 to this very day,
the battle has raged to make
this a Christian nation, and
if at all possible, to make it a
white Christian nation.
In the republics earliest
days, states adopted all kinds
of laws to exclude non-Chris-
tians, not just non-whites.
For example, in 1808, a Jew,
Jacob Henry, won a seat in
the North Carolina House of
Commons. When he tried
to take that seat at the beginning of 1809, he was told he
could not because North Carolina law required all office-
holders to believe in the Christian Bible.
Are you prepared to plunge at once from sublime
heights of moral legislation into the dark and gloomy cav-
erns of superstitious ignorance? Mr. Henry asked the
House of Commons the day it refused to seat him. Will
you drive from your shores and from the shelter of your
constitution all who do not lay their oblations on the same
altar, observe the same ritual, and subscribe to the same
dogmas...?
The religion I profess inculcates every duty which man
owes to his fellow men; it enjoins upon its votaries the
practice of every virtue and the detestation of every vice;
it teaches them to hope for the favor of heaven exactly
Opinion
in proportion as their lives have been directed by
just, honorable, and beneficent maxims. This, then,
gentlemen, is my creed.
Jacob Henry was seated, but the law went
unchanged for another 60 years.
Then there are the so-called Blue Laws, for which
Bergen County has the distinction of being the last
great holdout in the nation. The late Chief Justice
Earl Warren defended this obnoxious category
of legislation in a 1961 decision, arguing that such
laws had as their stated goal the better observation
and keeping holy the Lords Day, commonly called
Sunday.
America was a land of opportunity for Jews, that
is undeniable, but it also was a frightening place for
us. Signs all over our nation attested to that. One
kind of sign was Leo Frank hanging from a tree out-
side an Atlanta jail in August 1915, lynched by an ex-
governor of Georgia, a superior court judge, several
Georgia mayors, and the son of U.S. senator who
were publicly encouraged to do so by a onetime vice
presidential candidate who soon would become a
U.S. senator.
Other signs were more common: No Jews, blacks,
or Catholics allowed. No Jews, blacks, or women
allowed. No Jews, blacks, or dogs allowed. At the
University of Southern California, there were signs
all over the campus that read, No Jews, blacks, or
Orientals allowed.
The common thread for all of such signs was No
Jews or blacks. Everything else was regional.
Brown v. Board of Education helped pushed the
civil rights movement into high gear, but the move-
ment had been around since the start of the 20th
century, and Jews played a very significant role in it
from the very beginning.
The leading civil rights organization in this
country, the NAACP, was founded in 1911 in signifi-
cant part by Jews, who also helped fund it. Among
them were Sears president Julius Rosenwald; the
social and political activist and communal leader
Henry Moskowitz (he would go on to help found
the League of New York Theaters); Henry Street
Settlement founder Lillian Wald; and Rabbis Emil
Hirsch and Stephen Wise. One hundred years ago,
in 1914, the NAACP elected a Jew, Columbia Uni-
versity Professor Emeritus Joel Spingarn, to be its
chairman. He brought other Jews onto the NAACP
board, including the banker and philanthropist
Jacob Schiff.
During the 1960s, nearly half the countrys civil
rights lawyers were Jewish; more than half the
white civil rights workers were Jewish. And, of
course, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner,
two of the three young men killed in Mississippi
50 years ago on June 21, 1964, in the midst of the
Freedom Summer, were Jewish. The third, James
Chaney, was black.
The civil rights movement worked for us a lot
more quickly than it did for blacks, not because the
white world liked Jews better than they liked black
people (white supremacists still do not include us
in their definition of white), but because most of us
could pass for white.
So many anniversaries: Spingarns leadership of
the NAACP (100 years); Brown v. Board of Education
(60 years); Freedom Summer and the murders of
Goodman, Schwerner, and Chaney (50 years); the
Civil Rights Act of 1964 (50 years). So many anni-
versaries, yet they go by almost unnoticed in our
community.
How sad is that?
JS-21*
JEWISH STANDARD MAY 23, 2014 21
Moms Guide to Life
T
o my endless surprise, two of my chil-
dren are graduating this spring, one
from eighth grade, one from high
school.
How did this happen? In my heart, were still
looking at houses, choosing what town to move to,
then a babysitter, next a grammar school.
The high-schooler was my first. With her arrival,
I, a girl who never played with dolls, who never
babysat, a girl whose only concerns were art, mov-
ies, and books, had to learn how to change a dia-
per, how to push little limbs into stretchies, how
to finagle a stroller bearing a sleeping infant down
the subway steps or up a set of brownstone stairs,
how to care for a helpless little human being day and night. As
she slept, I watched her, marveling as traces of relatives features
and expressions crossed her face, then departed.
Overnight, I shed all semblance of self-consciousness or dignity.
There were spontaneous parades around the dining room while
we clanged on pots and pans to the tune of When the Saints
Come Marching In; I sprawled on Brooklyn sidewalks while she
traced my outline with colored chalk; to comfort her, I sang The
Itsy Bitsy Spider aloud on trains and airplanes, heedless of how
many strangers were listening. She taught me how to play.
As for my graduating eighth grader he was my constant com-
panion for our early years in Teaneck. With my first two, there
were daily trips to the playground in Park Slope as we walked the
10 blocks home from nursery school. But Number 3 was born
right before our big move. He accompanied me on countless
trips to hardware stores, furniture stores, paint supply stores,
and gardening centers, good-naturedly approaching each chore
like it was an adventure. I spent the early shock-filled hours of
9/11 curled up on his bedroom floor, watching the twin towers
fall as he built his own towers with wooden blocks. With him at
my side, I learned how to drive, painted the house, watched a
hundred of my older childrens baseball and soccer games from
the distance of the playground.
To me, all that happened just yesterday. But my curly-haired
toddlers are taller than I am now, with their own interests and
friends and skills and tastes and opinions and slang, moving fur-
ther out into the world and away from me. In this short span of
adult time, Ive stayed pretty much the same, while they have
grown to undreamt-of heights. They have acquired wings.
What do I have that I can give them? What advice? What
wisdom? How do I teach them to be aware of dan-
ger while simultaneously encouraging them to
embrace experience? How do I pass over my sys-
tem of faith and beliefs while also training them to
see a thing from all sides, to ask good questions?
This Mothers Day fell a day after the anniver-
sary of my moms birthday. As we always do for
her birthday and yahrtzeit, we met at a restaurant
in the city, my brothers, my sister, and me, to share
good food and memories. We remembered Moms
deeds, her words, her sense of humor, all shaped
by a hard life, and complicated by the disasters and
disruption of the Holocaust.
We remembered her gleeful smile, her bound-
less good spirits, her childlike wonder. And then it came to me. I
knew what I would tell my new graduates.
Moms Guide to Life
1. A difficult start in life shouldnt keep you from having a good
life. You are the master of your own fate.
2. Be a good listener.
3. Learn how to cook at least one thing, anything, very well.
4. Dont mix a shirt that has one kind of pattern with pants that
have a different kind of pattern. This is best left to experts.
5. Stand up for your rights.
6. Help people who would never tell you that they need help.
7. Look at all the sides in a story before you make any judgments.
8. Bite back those first words that rise to your lips when youre
angry. Think of another way to say it.
9. Read, read, read. Then read some more.
10. If you want kids to play your game, you might have to play
their game first.
11. You will not need this one for a few years, but Im telling you
anyway: Give your children independence in order for them to
grow. Whether you like it or not.
12. Learn how to tell a good story.
13. Treat all people with respect.
14. Be a good friend.
15. Happiness is about being happy with what you already have.
16. Remember only the good things.
Helen Maryles Shankmans short fiction has appeared in many
publications, including The Kenyon Review and JewishFiction.net.
Her debut novel, The Color of Light, is available on Amazon. She
lives in Teaneck.
Helen
Maryles
Shankman
A view from the pew
O
ne of the blessings of retirement, after
40 years of leading worship, has been
the opportunity to worship, study,
and participate in communal activi-
ties in many different communities across Juda-
isms streams, both in America and in Israel.
One of the lessons I learned through my rabbin-
ate and confirmed this year is that unity does not
demand unanimity. Rather, we need to both toler-
ate and respect the differences in observance and
opinion that exist within our Jewish community.
This year, we celebrated the 25th anniversary of
Operation Exodus, through which 1.8 million Jews
were able to emigrate from the Soviet Union. And we continue
to celebrate the rebirth of Jewish communal life that has taken
place for the more than one million Jews who chose to remain
in Ukraine, in Russia, or in other states created from the for-
mer Soviet Union. This miracle took place only because Amer-
ican Jewry and the Jews of the State of Israel worked together
in harmony, ignoring party lines and religious
differences.
Tragically, over the last quarter century, reli-
gious conflict and partisan politics within our Jew-
ish community has made it harder for Jews with
differing opinions to talk to rather than at each
other. While the same can be said for American
society as a whole, and for the global community
of nations as well, the lack of civility and the frat-
ricidal conflicts within the Jewish community are
things we American Jews can ill afford, as the Pew
Study of American Jewish life points out.
Locally, our northern New Jersey Jewish com-
munity is rich in diversity. We have a healthy mix of Jews rooted
in the former Soviet Union, Israeli-born Jews, and Jews whose
American roots go back one and even two centuries. We have
a multiplicity of synagogues across the streams, and a structure
of communal institutions that are the envy of our neighbors of
Rabbi Neal
Borovitz
SEE PEW PAGE 22
Opinion
22 JEWISH STANDARD MAY 23, 2014
JS-22*
A new gauge of global anti-Semitism
T
he Anti-Defamation
Leagues Global 100
Index of Anti-Semi-
tism is the broadest
public opinion survey of atti-
tudes toward Jews ever con-
ducted. It is one of the most
important efforts we have
undertaken in our history as
an organization.
The survey was conducted in
more than 100 countries and
territories, and 53,100 people
were interviewed, representing 4 billion
adults around the world.
Our basic findings were sobering: More
than one-quarter of the people surveyed
(26 percent) harbor anti-Semitic attitudes.
The stereotypes receiving the most sup-
port worldwide were those questioning
the loyalty of Jews and those asserting
excessive Jewish power and influence.
And despite decades of efforts to promote
Holocaust awareness, only 33 percent of
those surveyed are aware of the Holocaust
and believe that it is described accurately
by historians.
We approach this project with a sense
of pride but also humility, knowing that it
provides direction rather than definitive
answers. The survey will form a baseline
for further consideration of anti-Semitism
and Holocaust awareness.
Most importantly, we hope that the
survey will begin conversations among
governments, scholars, NGOs, and oth-
ers around the world on attitudes toward
Jews, and lead to new ini-
tiatives to counteract these
pernicious attitudes. In
this regard, a few com-
ments are in order.
Fi rst, we recogni ze
that polling public opin-
ion, however important a
barometer of the state of
anti-Semitism in a particu-
lar country, is only one fac-
tor. Other indicators, such
as how many anti-Semitic
incidents there are, how secure the Jewish
community feels, how anti-Semitism plays
out in politics, culture, entertainment and
religion, all are elements in assessing the
extent of anti-Semitism in a particular
society.
In polling anti-Semitic attitudes, this sur-
vey plays an important role in setting the
stage for the broader discussion of anti-
Semitism in varying societies.
Second, as the organization primarily
responsible for dealing with anti-Semitism,
ADL frequently encounters comments sug-
gesting we have a vested interest in finding
anti-Semitism. With this global survey we
do not seek to exaggerate how much anti-
Semitism there is in the world; rather, we
want to document empirically how things
actually are.
Indeed, one of the many fascinating
aspects of this poll is the positive side of
the story, highlighted by countries where
anti-Semitic attitudes are absent or rela-
tively minor. We see that in several Asian
countries, including Laos, Vietnam and
the Philippines. We see lower numbers in
several West European countries, such as
Sweden and the Netherlands. And, in gen-
eral, English-speaking countries have sig-
nificantly better attitudes than the world
at large toward Jews.
These positive findings are important.
They show how varied attitudes are and
suggest the need for further investigation
to determine what common factors bring
people in some countries to have more
positive attitudes toward Jews.
Third, over the years questions have
been raised about ADLs methodology in
assessing attitudes through similar poll-
ing. ADL polling is based on an index of
anti-Semitism developed back in the 1960s
by academics from the University of Cali-
fornia, Berkeley. They looked at 11 classic
stereotypes about Jews statements about
Jewish power and influence, Jewish loy-
alty, and personal traits.
The index we used in the Global 100 is
based on these 11 stereotypes. Our analy-
sis rests on the idea that if someone agrees
with six or more of these stereotypes, he
or she is deemed to have anti-Semitic atti-
tudes. The strength of this methodology is
its high bar: It does not rest on agreeing
with any one statement. But agreeing to
six or more of these age-old anti-Semitic
assertions makes clear a respondents
biased attitude toward Jews.
Moreover, these 11 statements are not
random. These are stereotypes that repre-
sent the main anti-Jewish canards through
the millennia.
Fourth, there is the question of the
relationship between attitudes toward
Israel and attitudes toward Jews. It is evi-
dent that the Middle East conflict matters
with regard to anti-Semitism. However,
from our findings in the survey, it is not
clear whether the Middle East conflict is
the cause or the excuse for anti-Semitism.
Either way, the high numbers of those who
harbor anti-Semitic attitudes in the Middle
East and North Africa are a challenge to
the region and the international com-
munity going forward.
When it comes to religious factors
affecting anti-Semitic attitudes, Muslims
have significantly higher anti-Semitic atti-
tudes overall than do members of other
religions. If, however, we only look at the
countries outside of the Middle East and
North Africa, the numbers for anti-Semitic
attitudes for Muslims are still higher than
those among Christians but not signifi-
cantly so.
For the ADL, this survey is an impor-
tant beginning. The conversations that
will ensue, in governments and in civil
society, will ultimately be the test of the
impact of this worldwide poll. We trust
it will provide a better understanding of
global anti-Semitism and its global reach,
and will lead to serious efforts to address
this worldwide problem. JTA WIRE SERVICE
Abraham H. Foxman of Bergen County
is the national director of the Anti-
Defamation League.
Abraham H.
Foxman
other ethnic backgrounds and different faith
communities, despite the myriad problems
facing them. The troubling view, as I see it
from my seat in the pew, is that our grow-
ing inability to work together on projects
not only threatens the long-term viability of
our communal institutions, it also threatens
our viability as a community, and weakens
our communal voice in support of Israel and
Jews around the world.
On the national level, I firmly believe that
the decision to reject J Streets application for
membership in the Conference of Presidents
of Major American Jewish Organizations was
a grievous mistake. The conference loses
credibility with the American government
and with other groups to whom it claims to
speak in the name of the American Jewish
community when an organization the size of
J Street, with 180,000 followers, is excluded.
When we demand unanimity in the name
of unity, we weaken ourselves and alienate
members of our extended Jewish family.
One of the most challenging results of the
Pew study of American Jewry was that we
have to find more diverse ways to reach new
generations of American Jews. I hope, as I
wrote in a recent letter that appeared in the
Standard, that the Presidents Conference
reconsiders its decision.
Locally, I am gladdened by the increased
participation of Jews across the religious
streams in many of our Jewish federation
activities, including programs that have been
co-sponsored this past year by the Berrie Fel-
lows and the Jewish Community Relations
Council. However, I am concerned about the
future of the Florence Melton School of Adult
Jewish Education, which has been sponsored
by our federation for many years. The fed-
eration has decided to end its sponsorship
of Melton in June.
This intensive Jewish learning program
has provided a unique opportunity for teach-
ers from across the Jewish political and reli-
gious spectrum to teach Jews from a variety
of backgrounds in an intensive 30-week per
year two-year program over the past two
decades. Many of the Melton graduates have
gone on to become lay teachers and lay lead-
ers in their congregations and our communal
Jewish agencies. Moreover, Melton students
from different backgrounds have often kept
in contact with each other and have served
as a bridge across the religious divide that too
often their own rabbis were unable or unwill-
ing to cross. I hope that everyone reading
this column will encourage their synagogue
or JCC to join in a new partnership being ini-
tiated by members of the North Jersey Board
of Rabbis to restructure and retain the Melton
program for our community as well as to sup-
port the federations new education initiative.
There is a connection between American
and Israeli Jewrys ability to act in concert and
unity, although not unanimity, in the mira-
cle of the Soviet Jewry movement, and the
divide in American Jewry that is so evident
right here in our own local community. On
the one hand, we are confronted by the dan-
gers of assimilation detailed in the Pew study.
On the other hand, we are confronted by
the dangers of continuing anti-Semitism, as
expressed overtly in a detailed new ADL sur-
vey, and covertly through the BDS (Boycott
Disinvestment and Sanction) movement. To
overcome both dangers, we must keep open
the current pathways of intergroup engage-
ment of the kind the Melton study program
provides. We must encourage dialogue on
issues of Jewish concern across both partisan
political divides and the religious streams.
During the weeks between Passover and
Shavuot, we are directed by tradition to
study Tractate Avot of the Mishna, better
known as Pirke Avot, Ethics of the Fathers.
There we find a teaching from a rabbi
named Tarfon, who taught: The time is
short and the task of redeeming the world
is great! Even if we do not live to see its
completion, we are nonetheless required
to work toward it.
This Shabbat, we begin the study of the
fourth Book of Torah, called Numbers in
English and Bemidbar In the Wilderness
in Hebrew. As we count the numbers
of Israelites in the wilderness sojourn,
we must begin to count ourselves among
those numbers who are willing to respect
the tribal differences that today we call
Reform, Orthodox, Conservative, Recon-
structionist, Israeli, American, Russian,
and so forth. And we must also answer the
question first posed by Cain with an affir-
mative YES. I am my brothers keeper
and my sisters, as well.
Neal Borovitz is rabbi emeritus of Avodat
Shalom of River Edge, chair of the intergroup
relations committee of the Jewish Community
Relations Council of the Jewish Federation of
Northern New Jersey, and a member of the
federations board.
Pew
FROM PAGE 21
Letters
JS-23
JEWISH STANDARD MAY 23, 2014 23
The French and the Jews
Ben Cohens opinion column (A fearsome test for
French Jews, May 16) was both the best of times
and the worst of times. (Hats off to Charles Dick-
ens.) It was commendable that Mr. Cohen now real-
izes and reports that the French Jewish community
is strong and surviving. His meeting with CRIF lead-
ers parallels the same message that I heard from
leaders of the French Masorti community last sum-
mer. Their view is that Frances problems are not
unusual, that anti-Semitism pervades other parts of
the world, and that for the most part, the lives of
French Jews go on in a normal manner, just as ours
do. Thats the good news.
The worst of times was that the Standards pre-
sentation was implicitly racist. The picture of the
French comedian shows a grimacing, hateful person
of color. While it may be true that Dieudonne (liter-
ally, God-given) Mbala Mbala is filled with hate, an
image like this does nothing more than to incite and
exacerbate racial tension and hatred. It has no place
in a Jewish publication.
The French Jewish community is the third largest
on earth. In the aftermath of the Shoah, France has
become the de facto center of Jewish life in West-
ern Europe. It is arguable that Jewish life in England
(and certainly in Ireland) is less hospitable than on
the other side of La Manche (aka the English Chan-
nel). It is incontrovertible that anti-Semitism is more
endemic in places like Sweden and Hungary. Whats
more, the last two French administrations (Sarcozy
and Hollande) have been extremely supportive of
their Jewish community. Hollandes statements
about Drancy and collective French guilt are a testa-
ment to morality and truth. Most recently, Frances
position on Iran makes American foreign policy mak-
ers look like naive appeasers.
So why all this continued focus on France as the
seat of European Jew-hatred? I suspect that it has to
do with the Anglo outlook that permeates Ameri-
can society. All things French are suspect, ergo anti-
Semitism in France must be worse than anywhere
else on the planet. The French certainly have a part
in the creation of anti-Francism. But it takes two
sides to make this work, the hater and the hated.
Lets resolve to not engage in hateful attitudes. And
if, God forbid, there is a shooting at a JCC here, or
a skinhead rally, lets hope that the French do not
jump down our American throats. It would be only
fair of them to do so.
Eric Weis
Wayne
Its always our fault
Ron Kampeas May 9 article, Whose fault is it?
reminds me of a story that explains whose fault it is.
Off in the not-too-distant future, the world finally
has come up with a solution of how best to handle
Jewish issues on the planet Earth. They build mas-
sive space ships, fill them with all kinds of supplies,
and ship all the Jews off to the other side of the moon.
About 25 years later, a delegation from Earth travels
to the other side of the moon. After the perfunctory
salutations, the Jewish leader asks the delegation what
their mission here on the moon might be. The leader
begins to tell the Jews that men and women of Earth
are dying in the thousands from new ailments. There
are no remedies. Businesses are failing in the billions
of dollars because there is no guidance. Morals and
ethics are concepts that havent been used in a quarter
of a century. In short, Earths human population is self
destructing and its all the fault of the Jews.
The Roman emperor Hadrian lived almost 2,000 years
ago. He had all the riches of the world at his beck and call.
He hated the Jewish people. In one story, he punishes a
Jew who failed to greet him, and then punishes another
Jew who wished him well. When asked what the logic was
for his punishing both men, he replied: You wish to give
me advice on how to kill my enemies?
The Jews always will be blamed. There is never a good
reason and there is never a way to get around it or away
from it. Jewish hatred is millennia old and will not end
anytime soon. It is hate for the sake of hate. So if the world
body hates us anyway, then we may as well do what we
need to do to safeguard our own lives by ourselves and for
ourselves and to hell with what anyone thinks.
I would rather be alive and safe because I have been
protected by Jews then living with a false illusion of safety
from those who appear to be my friends.
Varda Hager
Teaneck
www.jstandard.com
Cover Story
24 JEWISH STANDARD MAY 23, 2014
JS-24
LARRY YUDELSON
I
ts a fair bet that the most prolific
author living in Teaneck if not all
Bergen County boasts rabbinic
ordination, a medical degree, and
an impressive chasidic pedigree.
Rabbi Abraham Twerski has written 70
books, most shelved in the self-help/psy-
chology sections. Some are Jewish in focus
but others are not, including a series fea-
turing his psychological advice illustrated
with Peanuts cartoons. His latest, The
Rabbi and the Nuns, is a memoir with
a strong helping of psychology, because it
chronicles his career as a psychiatrist, with
particular emphasis on his twenty years at
St. Francis Hospital in Pittsburgh.
How does a rabbi end up heading psy-
chiatric services at a Catholic hospital
managed by nuns, let alone counseling
nuns and priests?
In this case, by wanting to fill the very
large shoes of his father, Rabbi Jacob
Twerski.
The senior Rabbi Twerski immigrated
to America in 1927. Scion of a chasidic
dynasty going back to the 18th century (his
ancestor Rabbi Menachem Nachum Twer-
ski was a student of the Baal Shem Tov,
and he held court in the Ukranian town
of Chernobyl), he first planned to settle in
Chicago. But a cousin had preceded him
by a year, so instead he moved to Milwau-
kee. No reason to confuse the community
with two rabbis Twerski.
Milwaukee had a Jewish community
whose population was estimated at 25,000
compared to more than 300,000 Jews
in Chicago.
Unlike the chasidic rabbis who settled
in Brooklyn after the Holocaust and rec-
reated chasidic courts in the old country
image, Rabbi Jacob Twerski became a pro-
totypical American clergyman to an Amer-
icanizing community. (In the chasidic
fashion, however, he married a cousin,
Devorah Leah Halberstam, daughter of the
second Bobov rebbe, Rabbi Ben Zion Hal-
berstam, who was murdered by the Nazis.)
Abraham Twerski tells how during the
Second World War, his father frequently
would visit a family whose son, who was
serving in the Air Force, had been reported
missing in Europe.
He wanted to cheer them up, to give
them the strength to believe that their
Max was alive, his son said. It turned out
that the flier had been shot down and was
a prisoner of war.
When the flyer came home, he found
a stack of letters my father had written
him. Before he went to visit Maxs family,
my father wrote him a letter, to convince
himself that the boy was alive. Only once
he believed it could he visit. He told the
family, What do you think I am, a fool? Im
writing a letter to somebody whos alive.
I learned from that to convince some-
one of something you have to believe it
yourself.
Thats the kind of intuitive seichel
Rabbi, doctor, author, shrink
Teanecks Rabbi Abraham Twerski, M.D.
Cover Story
JEWISH STANDARD MAY 23, 2014 25
JS-25
wisdom my father had,
he said. He was a very empa-
thetic person, very charis-
matic. He had a way of get-
ting people to feel good about
themselves. I tried to pick it
up from him.
The younger Twerski was born in 1930.
He was educated in Milwaukees public
schools Milwaukees Hillel Academy
day school didnt open until 1960 and
then he spent his high school years at the
Chicago yeshiva that is now known as the
Hebrew Theological College, and was
ordained there. Then he returned to Mil-
waukee, and in 1951 he started working
as his fathers assistant. The next year he
married Goldie Flusberg. His uncle, acting
as shadchen, set them up, and the couple
got engaged after their second date.
He had a way of getting people to feel
good about themselves, Rabbi Twerski
said of his father. I tried to pick it up from
him. One time I came to a patients room
in Mount Sinai Hospital. The patient said,
Your father came to me yesterday. After
surgery, I was in such pain. When your
father came in, the pain left. I came home
and told my wife, Im not going to be able
to follow that act. I dont have that kind of
ability.
There was another problem with the
rabbinate: The postwar era had seen the
rise of psychology and psychiatry.
I realized people were not going to
see me for counseling like they had my
father, Rabbi Twerski said. What was I
going to be doing as a rabbi? Bar mitzvahs
and weddings and unveilings and funer-
als. Thats not what I wanted to do with
myself. If I wanted to be like my father, I
had to become a psychologist or psychi-
atrist. My father agreed and I went to
medical school.
In The Rabbi and the Nun, Rabbi
Twerski details some of the obstacles
he overcame in getting through medical
school. He was able to go to Marquette
Universitys medical school because it had
just moved to a five-day-a-week schedule.
Even without Saturday classes, the medi-
cal school had a Jewish quota accepting
only four Jews in his class of 102. He pored
over his textbooks during summer vaca-
tion to prepare to miss classes for the fall
holiday season and passed the course.
Another course actually was held on Shab-
bat at the instructors insistence. Rabbi
Twerski had asked a friend to make him
a carbon copy of his class notes but he
discovered that the notes covered only a
third of each lecture. It turned out the lec-
turer was putting the class to sleep. Rabbi
Twerski, who had to rely on the textbook
and not the lectures, ended up scoring at
the top in the class.
In 1959, the graduation of a rabbi from
a medical school was newsworthy enough
that Time magazine ran a story, titled
Rabbi in White, which reported that to
keep the Torah as an Orthodox Jew for six
years of studies in Milwaukees Roman
Catholic Marquette University was some-
thing like running a sack race, an egg race
and an army obstacle course at the same
time.
After graduating medical school, Rabbi
Twerski went to the University of Pitts-
burgh for his psychiatric training. The
program taught orthodox Freudian psy-
chology; Rabbi Twerski wasnt convinced
by the doctrine and its ideal treatment
years of daily therapy sessions. He tells
how his father ridiculed the notion with
the old Jewish joke of the Polish landowner
who loved his pet dog, and threatened to
expel the Jews from his estate after being
If I wanted to be
like my father, I
had to become a
psychologist or
psychiatrist.
At his middle school
graduation.
Abe Twersky was on a Little
League team in Milwaukee.
Rabbi Abraham Twerski, his wife, Goldie, and three of their four children.
Celebrating
with his mother
when he finished
medical school.
His graduation
was reported by
Time magazine,
which dubbed
him the rabbi in
white.
Rabbi Twerskis
newest book, his
70th, tells tales of his
life as a psychiatrist
in a Catholic
hospital.
Cover Story
26 JEWISH STANDARD MAY 23, 2014
JS-26
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told that the Jews had the secret of teaching a dog to talk
and kept it from him. One Jew promised to teach the
nobles dog to talk if only the Jews could remain but
warned that it would take six years for the dog to learn.
The landowner agreed.
The other Jews turned to the Jew who had agreed to
teach the dog. Youre crazy. How are you going to teach
the dog to talk?
Look, he said. Six years is a long time. Maybe the
dog will die. Maybe I will die. Maybe the landowner will
die. Maybe something else will happen. In the mean-
time, we dont have to move.
It was the same with long-term psychological treat-
ment, his father told him.
Any treatment that lasts for five years, you cant take
credit for. So many things may happen that will change
the person, Rabbi Twerski said his father told him.
I never did treatment for five years, he said.
After his three years of training, he spent two years
on staff at a state hospital. Then he expected to join the
faculty at the University of Pittsburgh. Instead, he was
asked to take over the psychiatric department at Pitts-
burghs St. Francis Hospital, which hadnt been able to
hold onto a director.
He was willing to give it a try but there was that mat-
ter of his being an Orthodox Jew.
I told them they needed someone who is available
seven days a week, 24 hours a day, he said. I cant be
reached from sundown on Friday.
The hospitals chief executive was a nun, Sister Adele
Meiser. Sister Adele was unfazed by the rabbis religious
needs. Dr. Twerski, we would never think of calling you
on your sabbath, she told him.
In fact, being religious put him in good graces with the
Catholics. The Pittsburgh diocese turned to him to lead
a team of psychologists to help the nuns who ran the
hospital, as well the dioceses other clergy and members
of religious orders.
I cant sent them to an average psychiatrist, the
bishop told him. He might attack their religion.
The reforms that resulted from Vatican II presented
a particular challenge to members of religious orders.
The rules that governed their lives had changed. Nuns
no longer had to wear habits. They were allowed more
choice in their assignments. While some welcomed the
reforms, others, particularly those who had been in the
Clockwise, from far left,
his grandfather, Rabbi
Yehuda Leib Twerski; his
great grandfather, Rabbi
Mordechai Dov Twerski; his
maternal grandfather, Rabbi
Benzion Halberstam; and
posing with his father, Rabbi
Jacob Twerski.
Playing ping pong at the Gateway Rehabilitation center he founded.
Rabbi Twerskis books on practical psychology, illustrated with Peanuts and other cartoon characters, are
popular around the world.
Cover Story
JS-27
JEWISH STANDARD MAY 23, 2014 27
2014
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Barbara Cohen at barbarac@rutgershillel.org or at 732-545-2407
The Rutgers Hillel Board of Directors
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hold onto a director.
He was willing to give it a try but there was that mat-
ter of his being an Orthodox Jew.
I told them they needed someone who is available
seven days a week, 24 hours a day, he said. I cant be
reached from sundown on Friday.
The hospitals chief executive was a nun, Sister Adele
Meiser. Sister Adele was unfazed by the rabbis religious
needs. Dr. Twerski, we would never think of calling you
on your sabbath, she told him.
In fact, being religious put him in good graces with the
Catholics. The Pittsburgh diocese turned to him to lead
a team of psychologists to help the nuns who ran the
hospital, as well the dioceses other clergy and members
of religious orders.
I cant sent them to an average psychiatrist, the
bishop told him. He might attack their religion.
The reforms that resulted from Vatican II presented
a particular challenge to members of religious orders.
The rules that governed their lives had changed. Nuns
no longer had to wear habits. They were allowed more
choice in their assignments. While some welcomed the
reforms, others, particularly those who had been in the
order for many years, feared them.
There were few sisters who left,
Rabbi Twerski said. There were a few
we helped to make the adjustments
needed to stay in the convent. There
were some who were aged 40 or over
who said, This isnt what I asked for, but
to leave now doesnt make much sense.
Im not marriageable. We had to deal
with this feeling of anger at the church
and the changes.
He encouraged the church to make a
change in the way it treated the nuns.
I found out that if a sister left the con-
vent she was called a fugitive. I told the
cardinal thats not fair. This woman gave
20 years of her life to the convent and
now shes going to be called a fugitive?
So the convent issued an order that the
term fugitive is not to be used again, he
said.
Rabbi Twerski became friends with
the dioceses bishop, John Wright, who
was appointed a cardinal and moved to
Rome in 1969. This friendship proved
useful when Rabbi Twerski had to treat
an alcoholic priest whose addiction sent
him to the intensive care unit, where he
spent five days and received last rites.
The day he came out of intensive care,
he started drinking mouthwash.
You have absolutely no self control,
Rabbi Twerski told him. If you take a
drop of alcohol youre going to die from
alcoholism. I have to put you on Anta-
buse, a medicine that makes it impos-
sible to drink alcohol.
Can I say mass? asked the priest.
Use grape juice, the rabbi said.
No, it must be wine, the priest
insisted.
So Rabbi Twerski called the Vatican
and asked Cardinal Wright for a dispen-
sation for the priest to use grape juice for
the mass.
Rabbi, the cardinal said, I will per-
sonally hand carry the request to the
Holy Father.
The next day the cardinal called with a
new dispensation: Alcoholic priests may
use grape juice.
Tell the Pope he did a mitzvah, the
rabbi told him.
Rabbi Twerski used to tease the nuns
about the changes that were taking
place. They took it quite well, he said.
In a toy store I picked up a little statue
of a nun, the old-fashioned kind, and
I put it in my office with a sign saying
museum of ancient history.
One of his most fascinating psycholog-
ical cases concerned a nun who couldnt
get over her depression.
She came with her superior. The
superior said to the sister, Have you told
our doctor about Elaine? and she burst
out crying.
She tells me the story that when she
was 12 years old, she had a little sister
who was 3 or 4. Their mother left the
house and told her to take care of Elaine.
I wanted to have girlfriends over. My
mother said I couldnt have girlfriends
over unless I cleaned the house. I was
working down in the cellar. Elaine was
standing at the head of the steps. She
said, come play with me. I said I cant.
She wanted me to play with her. I went
out and we played tag. She ran around
the house and I ran after her.
She was holding a collapsed rubber
balloon in her teeth and she aspirated
it and asphyxiated and died. She died
in my arms and I feel so guilty and Ive
never been able to get over it. Ive con-
fessed it a hundred time. The priests
have told me: Stop confessing it, youve
done nothing wrong, its a freak acci-
dent, the nun said.
She had seen other psychiatrists but
Playing ping pong at the Gateway Rehabilitation center he founded.
Rabbi Twerskis books on practical psychology, illustrated with Peanuts and other cartoon characters, are
popular around the world.
Cover Story
28 JEWISH STANDARD MAY 23, 2014
JS-28
never told them the story.
The only thing Rabbi Twerski could
think of doing was hypnotizing her,
regressing her to the day when the inci-
dent happened, and extirpating the
memory so that as far she knew, it never
happened. Its a crazy thing to do, he
realized. He called the leading expert on
hypnosis and told him his plan.
He said, Dr. Twerski, thats an insane
thing to do. I said, I got the idea from your
book.
The nun proved a good candidate for
hypnosis.
I regressed her back to the day. What
she initially told me was that she was play-
ing tag with Elaine.
When she repeated it while under hyp-
nosis, she said Elaine had thrown a rug at
her, so she ran after her to hit her.
I saw where the trouble was.
But then something fortunate hap-
pened. She is relating this story under hyp-
nosis, and says, Then Elaine is running
into the alley and I say stop, stop!
I said, Why did you say stop?
She said, She might be hit by a car.
I said, Sister, you wanted to punish
her, but you didnt want her to die. I went
over that phrase about twenty times. Then
she went on and described the scene of
how the child asphyxiated.
When I brought her out, her first words
were I wanted to punish her but I didnt
want her to die.
The fact she was running after Elaine to
hit her and the fact that Elaine died were
brought together in her mind. I separated
the two. She recovered beautifully.
Rather than removing her memory
of that day as he had planned, he had
restored it. Either way, it was a victory for
hypnosis.
If Rabbi Twerski had to preach only
one psychological principle, however,
it wouldnt be the power of hypno-
sis, nor even the power of the Twelve
Step approach developed by Alcoholics
Anonymous.
His key principle would be the impor-
tance of self esteem.
Im hung up on the concept that every
person, unless he has made an effort to
overcome it, walks around with feelings
of inferiority he has no business having,
he said. Its a contributing factor in every
emotional issues.
You might think, What about a guy
whos an egotist, who thinks hes Gods gift
to the world? Theres an interesting state-
ment by Rabbeinu Yonah thats Rabbi
Yonah of Girona, the 13th century author
of Gates of Repentance, an ethical guide
still studied in Orthodox circles who
says a vain person is really suffering from
low self-esteem but trying to compensate
by acting superior to others.
Rabbi Twerski said he had a beautiful
childhood and loving parents, but became
an overachiever to compensate for my
feelings of inferiority.
Looking back, he can remembers being
7 or 8 years old and trying to show off, an
act he now attributes to lack of self esteem.
He discovered this lack in himself after
his third year at St. Francis Hospital. Every
night, he would be awakened several times
to make urgent emergency room deci-
sions. So he decided it was time for a real
two-week vacation, so he could just sit in
a room and close the blinds. He and his
wife ended up at in Hot Springs, Arkansas,
in December. The town was closed down.
He checked into the spa and prepared to
take the mineral baths for his aching back.
I got into the whirlpool and the atten-
dant gave me two glasses of hot water to
drink. I felt it was a mechaye a revital-
ization. I wasnt reachable by anybody.
This was Gan Eden. Paradise.
After five minutes, he got out of the
whirlpool to go for a massage.
He was told: You cant get the rub-
down until you stay in the whirlpool for
20 minutes.
Eager for his rubdown, he returned to
the whirlpool. But he couldnt relax.
I went back in for 15 more minutes of
absolute hell. I had taken 3 years of con-
stant stress at St. Francis but I couldnt tol-
erate more than five minutes of Gan Eden.
That for me was an awakening, he said.
He discussed this with a psychologist
friend, who told him: If you ask people
what they do for relaxation, theyll tell you
what they do to relax. Thats not relax-
ation. Thats diversion. Relaxation means
doing nothing. In that whirlpool, they
take away all of your diversions from you.
There was nothing to look at, nobody to
talk with. You were left in the immediate
Rather than
removing her
memory of that
day as he had
planned, he had
restored it.
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Hillarys choice
Clinton seeks to differentiate herself from Obama on Mideast
RON KAMPEAS
WASHINGTON A month before her foreign policy
autobiography, Hard Choices, hits the bookstores, Hill-
ary Rodham Clinton made an easy choice: She pitched
her diplomatic credentials to a friendly Jewish audience.
Ms. Clintons speech to the American Jewish Commit-
tee on May 14 was meant to send a signal to the pro-Israel
community that a Clinton presidency would smooth
over tensions ruffled by the Obama White House, insid-
ers say. So while she broadly defended Obama adminis-
tration policies, she also suggested areas where she had
differences with the president, such as on Iran.
President Obama has said that the odds of reaching a
comprehensive agreement are no more than 50-50, Ms.
Clinton said, referring to the U.S.-led talks between the
major powers and Iran on the latters nuclear program.
I personally am skeptical that the Iranians will fol-
low through and deliver. Ive seen many false hopes
dashed over the years, she said. We will have to be
tough, clear-eyed and ready to walk away and increase
the pressure if need be.
No deal is better than a bad deal, she continued.
From my perspective, we cannot and should not
accept any agreement that endangers Israel or our own
national security.
Robert Wexler, the former Democratic congressman
from Florida who in early 2007 became the first major
Jewish politician to join the Obama campaign, said the
differences Ms. Clinton is emphasizing reflected not
just her worldview, but also the changed foreign pol-
icy reality she heads into should she announce for the
presidency.
President Obama, in terms of foreign policy, was
elected to end the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. That
was his primary charge, said Mr. Wexler, who now
heads the Center for Middle East Peace. The expecta-
tions the American people would have for a President
Hillary Clinton would be different. The calling may be
to reassert to a degree of American leadership, which is
entirely consistent with Secretary Clintons worldview.
Aaron David Miller, a former Middle East negotia-
tor under a succession of Republicans and Democrats,
including Bill Clinton, said that Hillary Clinton was a
good soldier for Obamas bid to transform the world,
but also demonstrated understanding that her boss may
have overreached.
She understood the world was not a transformative
place, it was transactional, said Dr. Miller, now vice
president at the Wilson Center, a foreign policy think
tank. In that respect she was much more hawkish on
Syria, where Ms. Clinton joined calls for a U.S. strike
on the Assad regime to contain the bloody civil war. Mr.
Obama opted to seek authorization for a strike from
Congress, and then abandoned the option when it was
clear he lacked support.
On Israel-Palestinians she knew it was not going any-
where, Dr. Miller said. If the president wanted her to
focus on it, she did it in a rhetorical way, but she had no
interest in being a linchpin.
That, Dr. Miller said, was in contrast to John Kerry,
her successor, who made the revival of Israeli-Palestin-
ian talks a centerpiece of his policy only to see them col-
lapse last month.
The June 10 release of Hard Choices is widely per-
ceived as Ms. Clintons opening salvo for a 2016 run for
the Democratic presidential nod, the prize Mr. Obama
took from her in the bitter 2008 primary season. As
her Jewish campaign goes forward, a source close to
Ms. Clinton said, she and others close to her will subtly
introduce three areas of Middle East policy in which her
2008 differences with Mr. Obama were validated over
time.
They include two postures that got her into trouble
with the Democratic base in 2008 and helped contrib-
ute to her defeat: Her stated opposition during the pri-
maries to meeting with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, then
Irans president, and her support as a U.S. senator from
New York for legislation that would have designated
Irans Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps as a terror-
ist group.
Mr. Obama said during the campaign that he would
meet with Mr. Ahmadinejad, seen as a Holocaust denier
and seeker of Israels destruction. Mr. Obamas cam-
paign also mercilessly ripped Ms. Clinton for backing
the Revolutionary Guards designation, likening it to her
support for the legislation used by President George W.
Bush to go to war with Iraq.
The third difference to be highlighted is Ms. Clintons
opposition during the 08 campaign to participating in
Durban II, the 2009 reprise of the 2001 U.N. anti-racism
conference that devolved into an anti-Israel free-for-all.
Obama would not commit to boycotting the 09 confer-
ence during the campaign.
In each case, the source argued, Ms. Clinton was vin-
dicated. Mr. Ahmadinejad ignored Mr. Obamas spring
2009 call for dialogue with Irans leadership. The legis-
lative bid to designate the Revolutionary Guards as ter-
rorist did not pass, but the guards were implicated in
the violent repression of mass Iranian protests follow-
ing the contested 2009 presidential election and were
accused of torturing and raping men and women in pris-
ons around Iran.
As for Durban II, the Obama administration at first
sought avenues through which U.S. participation would
prevent an anti-Israel tone, but eventually conceded
this was unlikely and chose not to participate. The per-
son who made the decision was Samantha Power, then
a National Security Council member, who had derided
Hillary Rodham Clinton speaks at the American
Jewish Committees Global Forum on May 14.
RONALD SACHS
SEE HILLARY PAGE 44
JS-35
JEWISH STANDARD MAY 23, 2014 35
J
udy I.S
chaffer
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MON, MAY 26, 2014
Jewish World
36 JEWISH STANDARD MAY 23, 2014
JS-36*
Look for it in our May 30 issue
COMING SOON
FROM THE JEWISH STANDARD
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A special issue of The New York Jewish Week,
North Jersey Jewish Standard and the New Jersey Jewish News
Bat Yam
:
The N
ew
Israeli Riviera
page 4
Israels
Luxe
Boom
page 14
Is Israel The
Prom
ised Land
For Investors?
page 6
Bat Yam
:
The N
ew
Israeli Riviera
page 4
Israels
Luxe
Boom
page 14
Is Israel The
Prom
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For Investors?
page 6
L
U
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H
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&
IN
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S
T
M
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IN
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H
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&
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IN
IS
R
A
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A special issue of The New York Jewish Week,
North Jersey Jewish Standard and the New Jersey Jewish News
Bat Yam
:
The N
ew
Israeli Riviera
page 4
Israels
Luxe
Boom
page 14
Is Israel The
Prom
ised Land
For Investors?
page 6
Bat Yam
:
The N
ew
Israeli Riviera
page 4
Israels
Luxe
Boom
page 14
Is Israel The
Prom
ised Land
For Investors?
page 6
HILLEL KUTTLER
BALTIMORE The initial meeting of first-
year Detroit Tigers manager Brad Ausmus
and his second baseman Ian Kinsler, newly
traded from the Texas Rangers, was some-
thing very rare: a Jewish player reporting to
a Jewish manager.
Ausmus was raised the same way I was,
Kinsler learned, with one Jewish parent and
an upbringing in which Judaism wasnt
something that was completely ingrained in
our lives, the 31-year-old Arizona native said
in his pronounced Texas twang.
The chat also covered Ausmus experiences
piloting Israels World Baseball Classic entry in
2012, his only previous managerial job.
Both have settled in quickly in Detroit,
helping to lift the Tigers to the best record
in Major League Baseball as of last week-
end. Batting leadoff, Kinsler carries a .300
average and stands among the American
League leaders in runs and hits.
They join Cy Young award-winning
pitcher Max Scherzer as Jews on the roster.
Tigers fan Morris Amitay, AIPACs for-
mer executive director, who came to watch
Detroit sweep the three-game series here,
said he cant help but kvell over the combi-
nation of Jewish manager and player.
Heres a team that had Hank Greenberg,
and now its gone back to its Jewish roots,
he said.
Kinsler wears number 3; the 5 he wore for
Texas had been retired by Detroit to honor
Greenberg, its Hall of Fame first baseman
from 1930 to 1946.
A uniform-always-dirty player, Kinsler
draws ire from opponents and admiration
from teammates. Hes a welcome sparkplug
for a team that has ridden power hitting and
dominant starting pitching to three consecu-
tive A.L. Championship Series and the 2012
World Series.
In eight seasons with the Rangers, Kin-
sler was a three-time All-Star who helped
the Western Division club reach the World
Series in 2010 and 2011. In postseason play,
his average is .311.
His November 20 trade for first baseman
Echoes of Greenberg
Tigers roaring with Jewish duo Ausmus and Kinsler
Prince Fielder was a little bit shocking,
he acknowledged while dressing for a
recent game here. But playing for Detroit
is awesome, he added.
Ausmus was hired two weeks before
the trade.
Sitting in his Camden Yards office dur-
ing a trip to Baltimore to play the Ori-
oles, Ausmus said his experience with
the Israeli team provided a little bit
of a glimpse into how managers build
rapport with players and cultivate club-
house camaraderie.
In terms of preparation, I dont know
that theres a ton of parallel because
theres so much more information [avail-
able] on major league players than there
is on WBC players in fact, sometimes
even no information on WBC players,
he said. I guess that in some regards
you learn to make decisions you dont
really want to make [to cut players].
The experience didnt necessarily
place him on the major league manag-
ing track, Ausmus said.
There are only 30 managerial jobs.
Theres no guarantee youre going to get
one of those, he said. Id thought of it,
but I never assumed it.
A priority heading into 2014 was get-
ting to know his Tigers as people and
players. Six weeks into the season, Aus-
mus said, nothing has surprised him.
That could be because of his playing
experience toiling for four teams, includ-
ing the Tigers, in 18 years, and winning
three Gold Gloves at catcher, the think-
ing mans position.
Those parallels between the jobs are
apparent, Ausmus said.
As a catcher, youre planning ahead,
youre strategizing, youre dealing with
a pitching staff, he said. You also know
what its like to be an everyday player.
As a catcher, it gives you a pretty good
feel for what you would come across as
a manager, for what the players are think-
ing, whats going through their minds,
what emotions theyre feeling.
Given his short time with Team Israel,
Ausmus figured he certainly didnt have
any impact on several players subse-
quently reaching the majors, but added,
Im happy for them.
Thats a sentiment the Tigers echo
about working alongside Kinsler and
Ausmus, at 45 a generation younger than
his retired predecessor, the crusty Jim
Leyland.
Pitching coach Jeff Jones said Ausmus is
very low-key, doesnt panic, doesnt get
excited when things dont go right, and is
extremely prepared. All-Star pitcher Justin
Verlander said his new manager is more
relaxed on the bench and totally differ-
ent than Leyland, with whom he remains
close.
Kinsler, he said, brought a new dimen-
sion to the Tigers: speed. (Kinslers 177
steals set a Rangers record.)
Its been a lot of fun to watch. I love the
way he plays the game, Verlander said. I
hated the way he played the game when
he was with the Rangers and we had to
play against him. Thats a sign of respect.
Told of Verlanders description, Kinsler
was pleased.
Thats the kind of player I want to be,
he said. I like to cause problems. If youre
not noticed, then youre not doing some-
thing right.
Off the field, a synagogue in suburban
Bloomfield Hills, Mich., has invited Kin-
sler to enroll his two children in its sum-
mer program. In Texas, Kinsler said, his
daughter Rian attended a JCC of Dallas
program.
Judaism is definitely something I want
to teach them about, he said, adding that
his wife, a Catholic, is supportive. To
have that knowledge is important.
JTA WIRE SERVICE
Detroit Tigers first-year manager Brad
Ausmus, a player for 18 seasons, throwing
batting practice before a game against the
Baltimore Orioles on May 13.
PHOTOS BY HILLEL KUTTLER
Ian Kinsler is thriving in his
first couple of months in
Detroit after being traded
from the Texas Rangers.
JS-37
JEWISH STANDARD MAY 23, 2014 37
TO REGISTER OR FOR MORE INFO, VISIT
jccotp.org OR CALL 201. 569.7900.
UPCOMING AT
KAPLEN JCC on the Palisades
KAPLEN JCC on the Palisades TAUB CAMPUS | 411 E CLINTON AVE, TENAFLY, NJ 07670 | 201.569.7900 | jccotp.org
Shavuot Seminar
WITH RABBI REUVEN KIMELMAN
Why does Ruth deserve her own book of the
bible? Come discuss it in our Shavuot seminar.
Wed, May 28, 8:15-9:30 pm, Free
Teen Adventures Travel Camp
An exciting ve-week program for teens that
features daily trips to amusement parks, water
parks, beaches, baseball games, trips into
Manhattan and more! This summer, the program
will feature two community service days
every week, a two-night trip to Lake George,
an overnight in Wildwood, and an amazing
extended trip to Los Angeles, California!
For more info, contact Alexis Robins at
201.408.1470 or arobins@jccotp.org.
Entering Grades 7-10, Mon-Fri, Jun 23-Jul 25
(Extended trip to LA Jul 20-25), $4,050/$4,500
Family Caregiver Training
Arm yourself with essential information, acquire day to day
strategies and skills, and learn how to properly prepare for a
new role as a caregiver for a loved one. Topics to be addressed
include recognizing early warning signs of Alzheimers and
dementia and techniques on how to best deal with them.
Hear from Eldercare law experts; get advice for proper legal
and nancial planning, and learn essentials of monitoring
associated health issues. Register online or contact Judi at
201.408.1450 or Marlene at 201.569.7900, ext. 439.
4 Mondays, June 2-23, 7-8:30 pm, $80/$100
TEENS
Play Fore! The Kids
Golf Classic
Reserve your foursome today and join us
for a full day of fun on the course, lunch,
cocktails, auctions and dinnerand enrich
the lives of hundreds of individuals with
special needs. Help us provide summer camp
for children with cancer and other blood
disorders; help children with special needs
develop life skills; provide summer camp for
children with autism, and much more!
For more info and sponsorship opportunities,
contact Sharon Potolsky at 201.408.1405 or
spotolsky@jccotp.org.
Mon, July 14, Montammy Golf Club, Alpine, NJ
ADULTS JUDAICS
Prostate Cancer: Prevention
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Dont miss this important health symposium
featuring top medical experts in urology
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info, call Esther at 201.408.1456.
Tue, May 27, 7:30-9:30 pm,
Free and Open to the Community
Find exciting performance opportunities and improve your skill
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Jewish World
JS-38*
For Astros Josh Zeid, road to The Show
has been an excellent adventure
HILLEL KUTTLER
BALTIMORE A recent game against
the Baltimore Orioles provided Houston
Astros pitcher Josh Zeid a microcosm of
his up-and-down tenure in organized base-
ball and with the club over the past several
months.
Entering a 2-2 game in the seventh
inning, with two runners on and two outs,
Zeid struck out Manny Machado to end the
threat. But he allowed a leadoff homer to
Nelson Cruz on his first pitch of the next
inning before retiring the side.
Houston rallied for two runs in the top
of the ninth, putting Zeid in position to
gain the win. But facing other relievers,
Baltimore tied the score in the bottom of
the inning and won in the 10th.
Within a 20-minute span, it was pretty
intense, Zeid said the following morning,
sitting near the Astros on-deck circle.
You have such an emotional high, and
then you have one quick, mechanical-
mental lapse. Thats the thing in the major
leagues: One bad pitch can lose the game
in a heartbeat.
Zeids path to the majors has zigzagged
much like the Baltimore sequence.
The Astros promoted the right-hander
from AAA Oklahoma City last July, but
he didnt make the team out of spring
training. Zeid, 27, was back shortly after
the season launched, on April 8, but was
demoted two days later, and then rejoined
the Astros in Detroit nearly a month after
that.
In college, after being named Gatorade
Connecticut High School Player of the
Year, he pitched sparingly at Vanderbilt
before transferring to Tulane. In 2009
he was drafted in the 10th round by the
Philadelphia Phillies, but was traded two
years later to the Astros. Six months before
reaching the majors, Zeid married Steph-
anie Tiedemann, whom he had met at
Vanderbilt.
He also played for the Israeli team trying
to qualify for the 2012 World Baseball Clas-
sic, where his manager was current Tigers
skipper Brad Ausmus.
Its been a pretty interesting journey,
said Zeid, who flashes a near-constant
smile on his bearded face.
His mother, Karen, has been docu-
menting every step. Since her sons base-
ball abilities took off when he was a high
schooler in New Haven, she has written
entries in journals covering each peak and
valley 15 books and counting that no
one has been allowed to read.
In March, she and her husband, Ira,
drove to Philadelphia to attend the open-
ing of the National Museum of American
Jewish Historys exhibition on Jews and
baseball. Two Zeid items are displayed
there: a baseball-themed white kippah she
painted and gave to guests attending her
sons bar mitzvah and the lineup card from
his first major league game.
The couple and their daughter, Emily,
were here to watch Zeids roller-coaster
game and the one on Mothers Day, when
the Astros won but he did not pitch. His
grandparents and other relatives were on
hand, too, for the extra-inning loss.
To see his dream become a reality, to
see his hard work, his determination, pay
off you always want your childs dreams
fulfilled, Karen Zeid said at the Mothers
Day game as she sat behind home plate
with other Astros families.
Hes taken us on a journey with him,
she said.
Jarred Cosart, who was pitching for the
Astros that day, also has been along for the
ride. The two played together in the Phil-
lies system before their trade to Houston.
A row in front of the Zeids, Cosarts
mother, Cindy, turned around to display a
smartphone photo of Cosart at Zeids wed-
ding; he was the best man. Cosarts par-
ents attended, too.
Astros pitching coach Brent Strom says
Zeid is an aggressive pitcher who com-
petes extremely well, adding that Zeids
cerebral approach will help him learn
from failures like Cruzs homer.
His ability to make the adjustment is
going to be key, Strom said. I see him
doing it. Hes an intelligent young man
with a passion for pitching.
Strom says Zeid is a very valuable part
of our future, in my mind. Hes here now,
and I expect him to stay.
Contributions from Zeid and anyone
else are desperately needed on a young
team experiencing growing pains. The
Astros are last in the American League
West and were on pace to match last years
51-111 record, the worst in major league
baseball. Houstons bullpen stands second-
worst in runs allowed per game and blown
saves.
In a conversation with JTA at the Astros
Minute Maid Park, Zeid discussed the joy
of reaching the majors and striving to
improve. He recalled attending baseball
camps at Yale, where an alumnus and
fellow Jewish pitcher, current Red Sox
reliever Craig Breslow, offered instruction.
Zeid told of going from being Connecti-
cuts elite pitching prospect to going virtu-
ally unused at Vanderbilt to nearly scrap-
ping baseball for law school at Tulane.
It humbles you, he said. Its a slow
process of how to heal from that. It still
reminds me that I have to work harder
than anyone else.
The baseball pressures eased at Tulane,
Zeid said, after he put greater focus on his
studies as a senior and attained a 3.7 GPA.
His enhanced production for the Green
Wave led to his being drafted what he
called the coolest thing on the face of the
planet.
Zeid is four credits short of a degree in
English and political science. He intends to
graduate one offseason or post-baseball.
While some figure that playing for the
Astros is demoralizing, Zeid begged to
differ.
Theres no better place, if youre a
young player, to be than the Houston
Astros, he had said in the earlier conver-
sation. The future is bright. Im serious.
Back in Baltimore, Zeid echoed his opti-
mism from October.
We have a very strong group of guys,
character-wise [and] the talent to win
some close games, but the ball hasnt been
rolling the right way as of yet, he said at
Camden Yards. There are still over a hun-
dred games left in the season, and any-
thing can really happen. Thats why you
play the game. TA WIRE SERVICE
Josh Zeid has had an up-and-down career, but he and the Astros think the future
looks bright for improvement.
Karen Zeid, right, with husband Ira
and daughter Emily at the Astros
game against the Orioles in Baltimore
on May 11, has chronicled her sons
roller-coaster baseball journey with a
journal. HILLEL KUTTLER
38 JEWISH STANDARD MAY 23, 2014
Gallery
JS-39*
n 1 The JCC of Fort Lee/Congre-
gation Gesher Shalom hosted
Blue and White: The Story of
Israel featuring Zamira Chenn.
The program included songs and
stories of Israel. PHOTO PROVIDED
n 2 Rabbi Kenneth Brander, vice
president for university and com-
munity life at Yeshiva University
and the David Mitzner Dean of the
Center for the Jewish Future, at
left, with Rabbi David Baruch Lau,
the Ashkenazi chief rabbi of Israel,
and YU President Richard M. Joel.
In addition to YU, Rabbi Lau also
visited Orthodox Union headquar-
ters as part of his whirlwind tour
of metropolitan New Yorks Jew-
ish organizations and institutions,
and Congregation Bnai Yeshurun
in Teaneck, in his first official visit
as chief rabbi. COURTESY YU/OU
n 3 Aleph class parents at the
Glen Rock Jewish Center He-
brew School made special cov-
ers for their childrens siddurim
(prayerbooks). COURTESY GRJC
n 4 The Northern New Jersey Jew-
ish Academy held its aleph sid-
dur ceremony at Temple Israel &
JCC in Ridgewood. From left, Zoe
1 2
3
4 5
6 7
Saperstein, Jenna Lincoln, Jack Isachsen,
Ethan Holden, Lilly Goldfarb, and Samatha
Cohen hold their siddurim. The ceremony
was underwritten by Temple Israels Amster-
dam Family Endowment. COURTESY NNJJA
n 5 The Jewish Home at Rockleigh held
a Mothers Day plant/vendor sale, which
included items made by JHRs residents.
Phyllis Freilich left, bought a painting by
resident Renee Kleinberg, seated. Diane
Smith also is pictured. Participants from
the Adler Aphasia Center in Maywood also
sold many handmade decorative items.
Teen brothers Zach and Josh Kauderer,
manned a table for the charity they started,
www.elephanthighway.org. COURTESY JHR
n 6 The Pre-K class at Gan Yaldenu of Teaneck
davened at the Kotel on their imagi-
nary trip to Israel during the schools Yom
Haatzmaut celebration. COURTESY GAN YALDENU
n 7 Barnert Temple in Franklin Lakes cel-
ebrated double 25th anniversaries last month
at The Big Event at Preakness Hills Country
Club in Wayne. The celebration marked both
Sara Loschs 25th anniversary as the shuls pre-
school director and the 25th anniversary of the
Preschool and Family Center. COURTESY BARNERT
JEWISH STANDARD MAY 23, 2014 39
40 JEWISH STANDARD MAY 23, 2014
JS-40
Flashback 1974
Forty years ago, the Jewish Standard was still based in Jersey City,
though it had just moved to new ofices. The biggest news was the
aftermath of what had happened on May 15 in Maalot, Israel: 22 high
school students were killed after being taken hostage by Palestinian
terrorists.
JS-41
JEWISH STANDARD MAY 23, 2014 41
06.02.14
ZVI S. MARANS, MD
PRESIDENT
STEPHANIE GOLDMAN-PITTEL
2014 ANNUAL CAMPAIGN CHAIR
MERLE FISH
MAJOR GIFTS CHAIR
WWW.JFNNJ.ORG/KINGDAVID
FOR INFORMATION CONTACT BETH JENIS
BETHJ@JFNNJ.ORG OR 201-820-3911
KING DAVID SOCIETY/INITIAL GIFTS DINNER*
GUEST SPEAKER
Noam Shalit
FATHER OF GILAD SHALIT WHO WAS ABDUCTED BY HAMAS IN JUNE 2006
AND HELD CAPTIVE FOR MORE THAN FIVE YEARS
JEWISH FEDERATION OF NORTHERN NEW JERSEY
CORDIALLY INVITES YOU TO A SPECIAL GATHERING
FOR FEDERATIONS LEADING SUPPORTERS
*KING DAVID SOCIETY
IS A COMMUNITY OF PHILANTHROPISTS WHO HAVE
CONTRIBUTED $25,000 OR MORE TO THE 2014 ANNUAL CAMPAIGN
MONDAY, JUNE 2 | 6 PM AT A PRIVATE HOME IN ENGLEWOOD
JASON SHAMES
CEO/EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT
GARY SIEPSER
CHIEF DEVELOPMENT OFFICER
JODI HEIMLER
MANAGING DIRECTOR, DEVELOPMENT
KING DAVID SOCIETY MEMBERS
ANONYMOUS (6)
DANA AND JAMES ADLER
ELAINE AND MYRON ADLER
LOVEY AND MURRAY (ZL) BEER
ROSALIE AND DR. LAWRENCE BERMAN
GAIL BILLIG
VIVIAN AND MICKEY BREGMAN
NANCY AND HOWARD BROWN
SUSAN AND JULIE EISEN
DEBORAH AND RONALD EISENBERG
ELEANOR AND EDWARD EPSTEIN
NANCY AND LARRY EPSTEIN
MERLE AND FRED FISH
EVA LYNN AND LEO GANS
ROSALIND GREEN
LESLIE AND STEPHEN JEROME
MAGGIE KAPLEN
MIRIAM KASSEL
ELAINE AND HENRY KAUFMAN
LINDA AND ILAN KAUFTHAL
SHELIA AND MEYER LAST
LEWIS FAMILY TRUST,
LARRY LEVY, TRUSTEE
WILLIAM LIPPMAN
NINA L. KAMPLER AND DR. ZVI S. MARANS
BETH AND MARK METZGER
BARBARA AND PHILIP MOSS
JUDY AND MELVIN OPPER
ANN OSTER
MAXINE AND ROBERT PECKAR
JAYNE AND DAVID PETAK
STEPHANIE GOLDMAN-PITTEL AND
ANDREW PITTEL
DONNA AND BARNETT RUKIN
SYLVIA AND ALBERT SAFER
KAREN AND ALAN SCHARFSTEIN
BARBARA AND NORMAN SEIDEN
CAROL AND ALAN SILBERSTEIN
JOAN AND DANIEL SILNA
ERICA AND JERRY SILVERMAN
MARILYN AND LEON J. SOKOL
KATHY AND GARY THAL
HENRY TAUB PACE FUND
THE HENRY AND MARILYN TAUB
FOUNDATION
THE RUSSELL BERRIE FOUNDATION
LOUISE AND RONALD TUCHMAN
HELEN AND DAVID WAJDENGART
PACE FUND
MARIE AND GARY ZWERLING
OF NORTHERN NEW JERSEY
Jewish Federation
42 JEWISH STANDARD MAY 23, 2014
JS-42
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favorite retailers and professionals and you will
be entered into a drawing to win one of these prizes:
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JEWISH STANDARD MAY 23, 2014 43
Dvar Torah
T
his weeks Torah portion, Bemidbar, begins
the book of the same name, meaning in the
desert or in the wilderness. In English, the
book is called Numbers, because it begins
with a census.
Our Torah portion covers the military census, the holy
tasks of the Levite clans, and the positioning of tribes
for both travel and rest. Four families among the Levites
surrounded the tabernacle to the north, south, east, and
west, respectively. Then, in a wider, outer formation, the
remaining tribes took their places on the four sides.
The center was occupied by the sanctuary the lit-
eral and figurative core of community. Each tribe had
its leader, its flag, its location in short, its own identity.
At the same time, each tribe was part of a pattern and a
people. Any absence or shift would disturb the balance
of the whole.
This Torah portion, so full of details and numbers,
is also an apt introduction to the broad themes of the
book. Can people be counted (upon) for military and
communal service? Can each individual and group find
our own independent expression, while still supporting
and playing a vital role in the wider community?
Over the course of Bemidbar, the Israelites repeat-
edly complain, rebel against divine and human author-
ity, become embroiled in political conflicts, lust after
physical comforts, and want
to give up. Sound familiar?
Those same tendencies can
be observed, at least occa-
sionally, in Jewish communi-
ties today.
The opening of Numbers
suggests that, despite the
chaos we create, there is a
holy order to things. There
is a way of organizing the
organized Jewish commu-
nity so that each person,
each tribe has a rightful and
respected place in it.
In the Beginning, God
created the Heavens and the Earth. In the Wilderness,
we created Community, under the tutelage of God and
Moses. We learned to distinguish self-interested power-
grabs (Korach, Datan, and Aviram, Num. 16) from
healthy aspirations for participation (Machlah, Noa,
Choglah, Milcah, and Tirzah, Num. 27) and leadership
(Eldad and Medad, Num. 11: 26-29). We learned to trust
God and each other.
Its common to describe the time in the wilderness
as the adolescence of the Jewish people. We wanted
our independence except when we wanted Moses to
do everything for us. We thought we could succeed for
and by ourselves, yet we depended from day to day on
our Parent for food. We thought we were the center;
we hadnt yet truly understood that, to be fulfilled, we
would have to put the Ark and the Tablets at the center.
Jeremiah portrayed the years in the wilderness as a
kind of honeymoon. I remember the affection of your
youth, the love of your nuptials, how you walked after
Me in the desert [bamidbar] in a land that was not sown
( Jer. 2:2). Given the dissent and rebellion in the desert,
you might accuse Jeremiah of rewriting history. But you
could say instead that Jeremiah is seeing those desert
years in the fullness of perspective. Like an older couple
reflecting on their first years of marriage, he remembers
the arguments and the struggles to feed the family, but
he accounts the early days, in retrospect, as pure. We
had nothing but each other. We learned to know and to trust
each other. Those were the years that shaped us.
We should not take life-stage analogies (whether to adolescent
angst or to newly-wedded bliss) too literally. The point is: Build-
ing community, especially new community, involves both angst
and bliss. Those formative years are full of outsized arguments,
as well as outsized idealism. Teens, newly-weds, and humans
in general, wish for control and independence and, simulta-
neously, for protection and union. Maturity demands that we
Rabbi Debra
Orenstein
Congregation Bnai
Israel, Emerson,
Conservative
Bemidbar: In the wilderness
know that about ourselves, that we cultivate inter-depen-
dence, and that we respect both ourselves and the Other.
The midrash teaches that Torah was given in the desert
(bemidbar) because Torah is wild and free. So are people.
God didnt want to tame us in the desert, but to help us find
our place in relation to everyone else who is finding theirs.
In short, God wanted us to grow up. This week is a good time
to pause and consider how that enterprise is going.
Rabbi Debra Orenstein is on a mission to free 100 slaves
before Rosh Hashanah. Learn more and join in at
RabbiDebra.com.
N
E
W
&
E
X
C
I
T
I
N
G
!
Nusa Ashkenaz
Nusa Ashkenaz
Nusa Sepharadim
(Edot HaMizra)
Nusa Sepharadim
(Edot HaMizra)
Translation by Rabbi Jonathan Sacks
Commentary by Rabbi Jay Goldmintz, Ed.D.
KOREN PUBLISHERS JERUSALEM
WWW.KORENPUB.COM
Available online and at your
local Jewish bookstore.
THE KOREN
ANI TEFILLA WEEKDAY SIDDUR
For the inquiring high-school student and thoughtful adult
Innovative and inspiring commentary
Unique layout for creating personal
connection
Narratives & questions for refection
Frequently Asked Questions on Jewish prayer
THE KOREN
CHILDREN'S SIDDUR
Captivating illustrations
Thought-provoking
educational resource
Instructional navigation
icons
Online explanatory
guidebook
END OF YEAR GIFTS
FOR STUDENTS
OF ALL AGES
44 JEWISH STANDARD MAY 23, 2014
JS-44*
Crossword BY DAVID BENKOF Jewish World
Across
1. News network that Richard Wolffe con-
tibutes to
6. Lichtenstein and others
10. Many Passover recipes call for them
14. Sage who started learning Torah at age
40
15. Fleischer and Emanuel
16. Quality of those who took refuge at
Masada
17. United Synagogue Youth Israel ___
19. Bush adviser Karl who worked alongside
Josh Bolten
20. Part of the carefree refrain of the
Yiddish song Dos Lid fun der
Goldener Pave
21. Genesis records him as the second
oldest man after Methuselah
22. The Exodus or the Altalena
26. One trip around the pool for Mark Spitz
28. Job for Bob (Dylan)
29. Producer Goldman and essayist
Finkielkraut
30. Time to watch Jon Stewart
31. Suffix with Ess
32. He said, Say goodnight, Gracie
33. Subject of Nezikin, one of the six
orders of the Talmud
35. ___ for the Omer (way to keep count)
36. Ner ___ (synagogue feature)
37. The Egyptian magicians had some that
got swallowed
40. Author of nearly 1,000 books, mostly
on Judaism
42. Seat on the bimah, perhaps
43. Michael Dells are famous
45. The floor of the synagogue in Curacao
is covered with it
46. One style used to illuminate a ketubah
47. Uzi Gal may have said this when he
invented a new kind of gun
48. Israeli cartoon ___ Bones
49. 1982 Dustin Hoffman title role
50. Stage in the life of a certain non-kosher
critter
52. Hebrew term for the organized Jewish
community
54. Dirty Jew!
55. Arrested Development actor
60. Hammerstein and Rombergs Softly,
___ a Morning Sunrise
61. Hebrew letter thats really a glottal stop
62. ___ Moishy and the Mitzvah Men
63. Turn into a shaliach
64. Actress Campbell of the Scream
movies
65. Canadian Histadrut backer Albert
Down
1. Item that in Saudi Arabia may not include
Israel
2. Something to do on Mount Hermon
3. Bubkes
4. International youth grp. for young
women
5. Some kibbutzim use them as containers
6. ___ Beit Shemesh (Jerusalem suburb)
7. Nature of Sabins vaccine
8. Assassin of 1995
9. Beirut-to-Jerusalem dir.
10. ___-Nehemiah
11. Billionaire backer of liberal causes
12. Yielded during peace talks
13. ___ hammer (one translation of
Maccabee)
18. Gershwin, Glass, and Magaziner
21. Kind of image davka sold by Davka
22. Savtas husband
23. It comes before Tishrei
24. Creator of The West Wing and
Sports Night
25. Opposite of fast
27. A bissel
30. Latke beginner
33. Star of The Secret Life of Walter Mitty
(1947)
34. Chabad likes to do it in public with
menorahs
36. Bane of Russian Jewry
38. Geonic period year
39. A leather one isnt worn on Yom Kippur
41. Agency that investigated the
Agriprocessors kosher slaughterhouse
42. Prop used by Paul Newmans character
in The Hustler
43. Alternatives to horas
44. Marghanita Laskis novella The
Victorian ___ Longue
46. Paradise ___ (1997 film with Julianna
Margulies)\
49. Biblical possessive
51. Be a peddler
53. Rocker Geffen
55. Jewish musician Nichols (The Na Na
Song)
56. It might contain the Cohen gene
57. Mo. of Sukkot, frequently
58. Sign that might be in front of a yeshiva
day sch.
59. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), e.g.
The solution for last weeks puzzle
is on page 51
Ms. Clinton as a monster during the
campaign and championed engagement
in international forums.
Ms. Clinton will face fierce resistance
from Republicans to any bid to differ-
entiate herself from Mr. Obama. Repub-
licans in the U.S. House of Representa-
tives already are investigating her role in
securing the consulate in Benghazi, Libya,
before and after the September 2012 attack
that left four Americans dead.
In her AJC speech, Ms. Clinton said she
helped shepherd sanctions through Con-
gress that set the stage for the pressures on
Iran that brought about Iranian President
Hassan Rouhanis election in 2010.
Senator Mark Kirk (R-Ill.), a key sponsor
of those sanctions, derided the claim.
The fact is the Obama administration
has opposed sanctions against Iran led by
Senator Menendez and me every step of
the way, as was thoroughly documented
at the time, Mr. Kirk said in an email to
JTA, referring to Robert Menendez (D-N.J).
I agree with Secretary Clinton that U.S.
sanctions have proven successful, but it
was the Congress, not the White House,
that led the way.
At the time, Obama administration offi-
cials said they wanted to delay the sanc-
tions until they were undergirded by U.N.
Security Council sanctions, a sequence
Ms. Clinton noted in her speech. After the
Security Council resolutions were in place,
Mr. Obama green-lighted the congressio-
nal sanctions.
Steven Rabinowitz, a publicist who
works with Jewish and Democratic groups,
said Ms. Clinton might have work to do in
a pro-Israel community that had avidly
embraced her during her Senate career.
I hope people can draw the distinc-
tion between Hillary the person who we
know and love and Hillary the loyal secre-
tary of state for the guy who beat her and
embraced her, Mr. Rabinowitz said.
Judging from the reaction to her AJC
speech, Ms. Clinton is on her way. Mat-
thew Bronfman, a member of the groups
executive council, spoke right after she
did.
Thank you Madam Secretary, and
speaking of hard choices, we know you
have a hard choice to make coming up
soon, and speaking on behalf of AJC we
hope you make the right one, he said.
The crowd whooped its delight.
JTA WIRE SERVICE
Hillary
FROM PAGE 34
BRIEFS
IDF chief deeply concerned about reserves
as effects of budget cuts are felt
Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Lt.
Gen. Benny Gantz said Monday that he is
deeply concerned about the readiness of
the reserves at the present time, as well as
in the foreseeable future.
Gantz has warned that the budget cuts
already imposed on the military, and
the Israeli Finance Ministrys refusal to
approve additional funds, will spell a seri-
ous blow to reservists training and the
IDFs overall emergency readiness.
Speaking at a ceremony honoring out-
standing reservists, Gantz said the IDF
has made the regular forces training its
top priority not because reservists are
unnecessary or unimportant, but because
of [budgetary] constraints, Israel Hayom
reported.
We are dealing with an unprecedented
and highly complex human resources
challenge and it may have dramatic effects
on the IDF, he said. JNS.ORG
Israel celebrates as Maccabi Tel Aviv wins
European basketball title in Milan
Israeli underdog Maccabi Tel Aviv won
its sixth European basketball title on
Sunday, with a 98-86 victory over Real
Madrid in Milan.
After the final buzzer sounded, Mac-
cabi players and coaches celebrated on
the court while the more than 9,000
Maccabi fans who made the trip to Milan
cheered on ecstatically in the stands.
Back in Tel Aviv, the victory set off
Revelry in the streets, with thousands
of people filling Rabin Square. During
the game, bars throughout the city were
packed with fans watching the action on
large screens.
Both Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu and President Shimon Peres
called Maccabi coach David Blatt on Sun-
day night to congratulate him on the
win. The 90-year-old Peres joked that
the game almost gave him a heart attack.
Guard Tyrese Rice led Maccabi with
26 points, 21 of which came in the fourth
quarter and overtime. Rice, who hit the
game-winning shot in Maccabis semifi-
nal victory over CSKA Moscow on Friday,
was named the MVP of the 2014 Eurole-
ague Final Four. JNS.ORG
Arts & Culture
JS-45*
JEWISH STANDARD MAY 23, 2014 45
FDR and the Jews
JONATHAN E. LAZARUS
I
n January 1933, Adolph Hitler brow-
beat and bluffed his way to the chan-
cellorship of Germany. Weeks later,
Franklin Delano Roosevelt took the
oath for the irst of four terms as president
of the United States.
Neither could imagine they would soon
face off as leaders of the free and fascist
worlds. That juxtaposition lasted until
early 1945, when the president was felled
by a cerebral hemorrhage and the Nazi dic-
tator took his life in a Berlin redoubt.
During the intervening 12 years, the pair
stood at the center of cataclysmic events,
with the very outcome of Western civiliza-
tion at stake. No two men could have been
more diametrically opposite in their per-
sonal, political, moral, or ethical dimen-
sions, and in no sphere were these traits
more striking than in their worldview and
their treatment of the Jews.
While Hitlers unspeakable record in
this regard has been amply documented
and denounced, Roosevelts is still being
tallied, a subject of itting and extended
debate among scholars, ideologues, and
the extended Jewish community. Middle
ground is a rare commodity here, but
American University professors Richard
Breitman and Allan J. Lichtman attempt to
stake out just such territory in FDR and
the Jews, published last year by Belknap/
Harvard University Press.
The two historians meticulously ana-
lyze and explicate FDRs personal feelings
and appraisal of the Jews as a people; his
political calculus and penchant for secrecy
in the way he dealt with them as he did
with all of his constituencies; and the per-
sistent allegations about what he knew of
the Final Solution, when he knew it, and
whether he did enough to combat it.
Dr. Breitman and Dr. Lichtman also dis-
sect two of the most contentious accusa-
tions against Roosevelt: that he callously
prevented the docking in the United States
of the SS St. Louis after the German vessel
transporting more than 900 Jewish refu-
gees was turned away by Cuba in 1939, and
that he failed to order the bombing of gas
chambers or the railroads leading to them
in 1944, when it seemed feasible to do so.
Their proile of the enigmatic Hudson
Valley patrician and master of the Machi-
avellian arts who forever refashioned
the presidency is thoughtful, crisp, and
unapologetic. If there are any judgments
to render on arguably one of the top three
chief executives in U.S. history (Lincoln
and Washington are the oth-
ers; readers are free to rank
them), Dr. Breitman and Dr.
Lichtman do so with balance
and dispassion, showing a sure feel for the
fraught, unprecedented situations of the
1930s and 40s.
FDR clearly exceeded all of his predeces-
sors in support from Jews. He reciprocated
by appointing them to key positions during
his governorship of New York and the presi-
dency. Fully 15 percent of his choices were
Jewish, an astounding number for the time.
He also nominated a second Jewish justice
to the Supreme Court (Felix Frank-
furter joined Louis Brandeis after Benja-
min Cardozos death) and was so openly
groundbreaking that his programs were
derisively dubbed the Jew Deal.
Perhaps this was due to Roosevelt being
shielded to some extent from the anti-
Semitism of his privileged class by par-
ents who instilled tolerant attitudes for
President Franklin Delano Roosevelt meets with leaders of the Jewish
Welfare Board.
Professors Richard Breitman and Allan J. Lichtman, co-authors of
FDR and the Jews.
SEE FDR PAGE 48
The two historians
meticulously
analyze and
explicate FDRs
personal feelings
and appraisal of
the Jews as
a people.
Calendar
46 JEWISH STANDARD MAY 23, 2014
JS-46*
Friday
MAY 23
Shabbat in Teaneck: The
Jewish Center of Teaneck
offers Carlebach-style
davening, 7 p.m. 70
Sterling Place. (201) 833-
0515 or www.jcot.org.
Saturday
MAY 24
Shabbat in Teaneck: The
Jewish Center of Teaneck
offers services at 9 a.m.;
next, Rabbi Lawrence
Zierler discusses To
Serve and Protect: Stop
and Frisk Revisited and
Revised and the Role
of Law Enforcement in
Society as part of the
Three Cs Cholent,
Cugel, and Conversation.
Kinder Shul for 3- to
8-year-olds while parents
attend services, 10:30-
11:45. 70 Sterling Place.
(201) 833-0515 or www.
jcot.org.
Sunday
MAY 25
Movie in Bayonne:
Temple Emanu-El
screens Jewtopia as
part of its spring movie
festival. Coffee, cake, and
schmooze, 9 a.m.; film
at 9:30. 735 Kennedy
Boulevard. (201) 436-
4499.
Tuesday
MAY 27
Blood drive in Teaneck:
Holy Name Medical
Center holds a blood
drive with New Jersey
Blood Services, a division
of New York Blood
Center, in the hospital
parking lot, 1-7 p.m. 718
Teaneck Road. (800)
933-2566 or www.
nybloodcenter.org.
Hadassah meets: Tri
Boro Hadassah meets
at the JCC of Paramus/
Congregation Beth
Tikvah to hear Bruce
Prince, owner of the
Teaneck General Store,
discuss fair trade and
coffee, and Alex Michelini
talk about trees and
Joyce Kilmer, 1 p.m.
Refreshments. East 304
Midland Ave. (201) 384-
8005.
Film in Ridgewood:
The Ridgewood Public
Library screens The
Lady in Number 6,
this years Academy
Award-winner for best
documentary short,
7 p.m., followed by a
discussion led by Rabbi
Dr. David J. Fine of
Ridgewoods Temple
Israel. The 38-minute film
is about the life of Alice
Herz-Sommer, a 110-year
old Holocaust survivor
who died in February. 125
N. Maple Ave. (201) 670-
5600.
Thursday
MAY 29
Celebrating Israel in
Fort Lee: The JCC of
Fort Lee/Congregation
Gesher Shalom
continues its Celebrate
Israel Month with a
symposium, New York
State of Mind/Jewish
State of Mind Raising
Jewish Children in a
Diverse Landscape,
7:30 p.m. 1449 Anderson
Ave. (201) 947-1735 or
anat@geshershalom.org.
Beth Kramer
Jewish identity through
film: Temple Beth El
of Northern Valley in
Closter begins a new
adult ed series led by
Beth Kramer, the shuls
director of education and
a fourth year rabbinical
student, 7:30 p.m. Two
short films with be
screened and discussed.
221 Schraalenburgh
Road. (201) 768-5112 or
www.tbenv.org.
Friday
MAY 30
Shabbat in Glen
Rock: The Glen Rock
Jewish Center holds a
family Shabbat service,
5:30 p.m., followed by a
catered dinner at 6. 682
Harristown Road. (201)
652-6624.
Shabbat in Closter:
Temple Beth El offers
services led by Rabbi
David S. Widzer and
Cantor Rica Timman with
the Shabbat Unplugged
Band, 7:30 p.m. 221
Schraalenburgh Road.
(201) 768-5112 or www.
tbenv.org.
Sharon Keller
Shabbat in Englewood:
Congregation Kol
HaNeshamah hosts a
Shabbaton with guest
scholar-in-residence Dr.
Sharon Keller, on the
premises of St Pauls
Church, 113 Engle St.,
Englewood. Dr. Keller,
author/lecturer/professor
of Bible and Ancient
Near East, centers her
presentations on From
Passover to Shavuot: Sex,
Murder, and More Sex.
On Friday night, she will
speak at 9 p.m., and will
be at the teen Shabbat
caf during Shabbat
morning services at
11 a.m. Dr. Keller will
speak again at 1:15 p.m.
(201) 816-1611, rsvp@khnj.
org, or www.khnj.org.
Sunday
JUNE 1
Rummage sale in
Closter: The sisterhood
of Temple Beth El
of Northern Valley
holds its semi-annual
rummage sale, 10 a.m.-
noon and 1-3 p.m. 221
Schraalenburgh Road.
(201) 768-5112.
Finishing the Torah in
Woodcliff Lake: Temple
Emanuel of the Pascack
Valley completes its
two-year Torah writing
project with a community
celebration, 1:45 p.m. The
last of the text will be
inscribed by the shuls
rabbi emeritus, Andr
Ungar. Refreshments.
87 Overlook Drive. (201)
391-0801.
Flower making for
women: The Jewish
Womens Circle of
the Chabad Center of
Passaic County offers
an evening of art, fun,
and inspiration, creating
flower arrangements
and gathering dairy
recipes for Shavuot, at
the Chabad Center of
Passaic County in Wayne,
7:30 p.m. For those 9
and older. $10. 194 Ratzer
Road. (973) 694-6274 or
jewishwayne.com.
Monday
JUNE 2
Book discussion: The
Fair Lawn Jewish Center/
Congregation Bnai Israel
holds its Book and
Lunch program with
a discussion by Ilene
Wolosin on Dara Horns
book A Guide for the
Perplexed, noon. Lunch
served. 10-10 Norma Ave.
(201) 796-5040.
Family caregiver training
in Tenafly: The Kaplen
JCC on the Palisades
begins a four-session
course to prepare people
as they face their new
roles as caregivers for a
family member. Through
June 23, 7-8:30 p.m. 411 E.
Clinton Ave. Judi Nahary,
(201) 408-1450.
Singles
Sunday
JUNE 8
Senior singles meet in
West Nyack: Singles
65+ meet for a social
event/bagels & lox get-
together, at the JCC
Rockland, 11 a.m. 450
West Nyack Road. $8.
Gene Arkin, (845) 356-
5525.
Comedy in NYC: Its
About Time Jewish
Singles partners with
Geoff Koles The
Funniest Jewish
Comedian of The
Year Contest at the
Broadway Comedy
Club, 6-9 p.m. Special
singles tables and guest
comedians. Its About
Time Jewish Singles
is a modern Orthodox
all-Jewish organization
that holds functions
for Jewish singles 35+
in New York and New
Jersey. 318 W. 53rd St.,
between Eighth and
Ninth avenues. (973) 851-
9070 or grin31@gmail.
com.
New Yorks Celebrate Israel Parade, the worlds largest public
gathering honoring the State of Israel, marches up Fifth
Avenue, from 57th to 74th streets, on Sunday June 1, from 11
a.m. to 4 p.m. Check local synagogues, JCCs, and organizations
for participation information. The parade will be televised live by WWOR-
TV, My9, from noon to 2 p.m., and streamed online at celebrateisraelny.org.
For information, go to celebrateisraelny.org.
JUNE
1
Calendar
JEWISH STANDARD MAY 23, 2014 47
JS-47*
Aquatics
open house
The Bergen County YJCC plans an
aquatics open house on Sunday, June
1, from 11 a.m.-2 p.m., to showcase
the aquatics program and staff.
Jason Schmeltzer, the new aquat-
ics manager, will be on hand to meet
prospective students. Participants can
sample a private or semi-private swim
lesson, try an aquacise class, learn
about swim lessons, and see a dem-
onstration by the YJCC Bergen Sharks
swim team. Call (201) 666-6610, ext.
5750.
Teaneck to host Memorial Day family event
The Teaneck Family Festival, presented by
the Cedar Lane Management Group, is set
for Memorial Day, Monday, May 26, from
11 a.m.-6 p.m., rain or shine, on Cedar
Lane. The festival, which celebrates veter-
ans from past and current wars, features
patriotic music, a cabaret competition, a
street fair, and an awards ceremony.
Event sponsors include Holy Name Med-
ical Center, Butterflake Bakery, and Davis,
Saperstein & Salomon, PC.
At 11 a.m., local veterans organiza-
tions will hold a remembrance service at
Teanecks Municipal Green. The opening
ceremony begins at 12:30 p.m. Merchants
and outside vendors will have booths on
both sides of Cedar Lane and local restau-
rants will be open. There will be activi-
ties for children, including a clown, stilt
walker, face painter, games, and rides.
Awards will be presented in the Chest-
nut Avenue Plaza at Cedar Lane and Gar-
rision Avenue, beginning at 12:15 p.m.
with a performance by opera singer Pat-
ric Hale and soprano Heather OConnor.
Awardees are Gene Cornish (the Rascals),
also a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame member;
Assemblywoman Valerie Vainieri Huttle;
retired U.S. Marshals commander Lenny
DePaul; Judy I. Schaffer, Heroes to Heroes
foundation president; the Teaneck Police
Department and its acting chief, Robert
A. Carney; Ariel J. Luna, FDUs director of
veteran services; Brenda A. Beavers, the
Salvation Armys New Jersey director of
human services; Ernest Revell, tenor, and
Travis and Jaimee Tuft, a champion ball-
room dance team.
At 1:30 p.m., the Teaneck Community
Chorus will perform, followed by the
Rock n Roll Chorus at 2:30. From 3 to
6, cabaret performers from the tri-state
area will compete in the festival cabaret
competition.
The favorite blueberry pie with whipped
cream eating contest, sponsored by But-
terflake Bakery, is at 2 p.m.
The Teaneck Family Fun Festival is pro-
duced by Mort and Ray Productions. For
information, call (201) 907-0493, or email
www.cedarlane.net or www.mortandray.
com.
Gene Cornish
The
ORIGINAL PARODY
of Fifty Shades of Grey
Directed by
Al Samuels
Rob Lindley
866-811-4111
Circle of Excellence
Sales Award
, 2012-2013
Coldwell Banker Advisory
Council, 2013
Member of NAR, NJAR,
EBCBOR, NJMLS
Bilingual in English/Hebrew
Licensed Realtor
in NJ & NY
37 King Street, Englewood.
100 E Palisade,
Englewood.
Beautiful 3 bdrm,
2 bath.
East Hill location.
1530 Palisade Ave., Fort Lee. 275 E Palisade, Englewood.
Need Help With
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25 E. Spring Valley Ave., Ste 100, Maywood, NJ
201-368-3140
www.classicmortgagellc.com
MLS #31149
Larry DeNike
President
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Daniel M. Shlufman
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MLO #6706
dshlufman@classicllc.com
SELLING YOUR HOME?
Call Susan Laskin Today
To Make Your Next Move A Successful One!
2014 Coldwell Banker Real Estate LLC. Coldwell Banker is a registered trademark licensed to Coldwell Banker Real Estate LLC.
An Equal Opportunity Company. Equal Housing Opportunity. Owned and Operated by NRT LLC.
Cell: 201-615-5353 BergenCountyRealEstateSource.com
Allan Dorfman
Broker/Associate
201-461-6764 Eve
201-970-4118 Cell
201-585-8080 x144 Ofce
Realtorallan@yahoo.com
FORT LEE - THE COLONY
1 BR 1.5 Baths. Updated. 39' terrace. Sunset
view. $139,000
1BR 1.5 Baths. Just painted. Move in ready.
High oor. New windows $152,500
1BR 1.5 Baths. Renovated. Full river view.
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$624,900
Serving Bergen County since 1985.
Coldwell Banker Real Estate Corp. an equal opportunity company, equal housing opportunity, owned and operated by NRT Inc.
Renee Bouaziz Coldwell Banker 130 Dean Drive Tenay, NJ
Cell 201 233-1852 O ce 201 567-7788 Fax 862 345-2468 www.reneebouaziz.net
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Real Estate & Business
JS-54
54 JEWISH STANDARD MAY 23, 2014
Jeff@MironProperties.com www.MironProperties.com
Ruth@MironProperties.com www.MironProperties.com/NJ
Each Miron Properties office is independently owned and operated.
Contact us today for your complimentary consultation!
BAYONNE
2-story building. 37,740 sq. ft. $2.5M
TEANECK
Vintage expandable Col. Prime loc. $649K
FORT LEE
Spectacular 3 BR/2 BTH corner unit. $418K.
FORT LEE
The Palisades. Beautiful 2 BR w/views.
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TENAFLY
Stately Old Smith Village Colonial.
TENAFLY
Old world charm. Timeless elegance.
TENAFLY
Unique 4 BR/3 BTH. 1 acre. $6.5K/MO
TENAFLY
Stunning Contemporary. Cul-de-sac. $2.1M
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ENGLEWOOD
7 BR/3.5 BTH renov Col. Centrally located.
ENGLEWOOD
Updated 5 BR Colonial. Prime loc. $995K
ENGLEWOOD
Classic East Hill Colonial. Half acre.
ENGLEWOOD
Exquisite 8 BR/7 BTH Colonial. $2.4M
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CHELSEA
Spacious ex 1 BR. Doorman building.
MIDTOWN EAST
Spacious corner 1 BR/1.5 BTH. Sutton Place. $599K
GREENPOINT
Gorgeous 2-family. 3 BR & 1 BTH. $1,895K
WILLIAMSBURG
Sleek penthouse duplex. City views.
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LOWER EAST SIDE
X-large 2 BR/2 BTH apartment. $4,150/MO
WILLIAMSBURG
2 BR/2 BTH penthouse. Full-service bldg. $6K/MO
EAST VILLAGE
Sleek one-of-a-kind brownstone penthouse.
MURRAY HILL
Condo bldg. w/doorman, elevator & gym.
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Jeffrey Schleider
Broker/Owner
Miron Properties NY
Ruth Miron-Schleider
Broker/Owner
Miron Properties NJ
NJ: T: 201.266.8555 M: 201.906.6024
NY: T: 212.888.6250 M: 917.576.0776
Remarkable Service. Exceptional Results.
JS-55
JEWISH STANDARD MAY 23, 2014 55
Jeff@MironProperties.com www.MironProperties.com
Ruth@MironProperties.com www.MironProperties.com/NJ
Each Miron Properties office is independently owned and operated.
Contact us today for your complimentary consultation!
BAYONNE
2-story building. 37,740 sq. ft. $2.5M
TEANECK
Vintage expandable Col. Prime loc. $649K
FORT LEE
Spectacular 3 BR/2 BTH corner unit. $418K.
FORT LEE
The Palisades. Beautiful 2 BR w/views.
H
U
G
E
W
A
R
E
H
O
U
S
E
!
M
O
V
E
I
N
!
A
D
D
O
N
!
J
U
S
T
L
I
S
T
E
D
!
J
U
S
T
S
O
L
D
!
TENAFLY
Stately Old Smith Village Colonial.
TENAFLY
Old world charm. Timeless elegance.
TENAFLY
Unique 4 BR/3 BTH. 1 acre. $6.5K/MO
TENAFLY
Stunning Contemporary. Cul-de-sac. $2.1M
S
O
L
D
!
S
O
L
D
!
J
U
S
T
L
I
S
T
E
D
!
J
U
S
T
L
I
S
T
E
D
!
ENGLEWOOD
7 BR/3.5 BTH renov Col. Centrally located.
ENGLEWOOD
Updated 5 BR Colonial. Prime loc. $995K
ENGLEWOOD
Classic East Hill Colonial. Half acre.
ENGLEWOOD
Exquisite 8 BR/7 BTH Colonial. $2.4M
J
U
S
T
S
O
L
D
!
J
U
S
T
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U
N
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R
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N
T
R
A
C
T
!
P
R
E
S
T
I
G
I
O
U
S
A
R
E
A
!
CHELSEA
Spacious ex 1 BR. Doorman building.
MIDTOWN EAST
Spacious corner 1 BR/1.5 BTH. Sutton Place. $599K
GREENPOINT
Gorgeous 2-family. 3 BR & 1 BTH. $1,895K
WILLIAMSBURG
Sleek penthouse duplex. City views.
S
O
L
D
!
J
U
S
T
L
I
S
T
E
D
!
J
U
S
T
L
I
S
T
E
D
!
J
U
S
T
S
O
L
D
!
LOWER EAST SIDE
X-large 2 BR/2 BTH apartment. $4,150/MO
WILLIAMSBURG
2 BR/2 BTH penthouse. Full-service bldg. $6K/MO
EAST VILLAGE
Sleek one-of-a-kind brownstone penthouse.
MURRAY HILL
Condo bldg. w/doorman, elevator & gym.
J
U
S
T
L
I
S
T
E
D
!
J
U
S
T
L
I
S
T
E
D
!
S
O
L
D
!
S
O
L
D
!
Jeffrey Schleider
Broker/Owner
Miron Properties NY
Ruth Miron-Schleider
Broker/Owner
Miron Properties NJ
NJ: T: 201.266.8555 M: 201.906.6024
NY: T: 212.888.6250 M: 917.576.0776
Remarkable Service. Exceptional Results.
56 JEWISH STANDARD MAY 23, 2014
JS-56
get the 5th free!
G
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Tis Memorial Day, were stocking your weekend barbecues with the
best of everything! From prime steaks to fresh ground meat, quality
produce to tasty sauces, we have everything youll need for a summer
of delicious grilling. At Glatt Epress, youll barbecue well! Really well!
Sun - Mon: 7am - 6pm Tue: 7am - 7p Wed - Tu: 7am - 9pm Fri: 7am - 4:30pm RCBC
201.837.8110 GlattEpress@gmail.com 1400 Queen Anne Road, Teaneck, NJ
Express Your Side!
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