SURFING SEFARIA FOR SACRED TEXTS page 6

WYCKOFF, TEANECK TO HEAR FROM HARTMAN SCHOLARS pages 14, 15

ROCKLAND SHUL IS PUSHING UP DAFFODILS page 24
VOTE!
'BOMBSHELL: THE HEDY LAMARR STORY' page 53 READ
ERS'
CHOICE
SEE PAGE 60
APRIL 27, 2018
VOL. LXXXVII NO. 32 $1.00 87 2018

NORTH JERSEY THEJEWISHSTANDARD.COM

Going
International
New Milford’s
Schechter helps build
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SodaStream celebrates Israel’s 70th
● What did Israel’s founders think of
carbonated beverages?
Did Theodor Herzl sample the so-
das of the Swiss-based Schweppes
company during the first Zionist con-
gress in Basel?
Did the Milwaukee-raised Golda
Meir refer to it as “pop”?
Certainly David Ben-Gurion would
have approved of the brew-it-your-
self soda mentality behind SodaS-
tream, the Israel-based home car-
bonation kit.
A heil of a price to pay
● How much does it cost to train a
dog to make a Hitler salute?
For Mark Meechan, the answer
turns out to be $1,100.
That’s how much the Scotsman
was fined this week after being
convicted of a hate crime. He had
posted videos of his girlfriend’s dog
performing a canine variation on the
Nazi salute in response to such state-
ments as “Heil Hitler” and “gas the
Jews.”
Sheriff Derek O’Carroll of the
Airdrie Sheriff’s Court in Scotland
rejected Meechan’s explanation that
the video was made as a private joke
and pointed out that he had “not
taken any steps to prevent the video
being shared publicly.”
“You deliberately chose the Ho-
locaust as the theme of the video,”
O’Carroll said during the sentencing.
The original video, posted in April
2016 on his YouTube channel, Count
So it’s appropriate that SodaS-
tream celebrated Yom Ha’atzmaut
this year with a limited edition set of
bottles featuring the faces of Golda,
Ben-Gurion, and Herzl.
The celebratory bottles do not
seem to be available in the United
States, however, though you can buy
them in England.
Just another reason we should
have listened when Golda urged us
to make aliyah all those years ago.
LARRY YUDELSON
Dankula, was viewed more than 3
million times before it was removed
for violating YouTube’s policy on hate
speech. Meechan said on the video
that he trained the dog to annoy his
girlfriend. He later posted a video in
which he apologized for the original
dog clips, saying it was a joke and
that he has no such political leanings.
Meecham has said he will appeal
his conviction, claiming that it sets a
dangerous legal precedent against
freedom of expression. JTA WIRE SERVICE
Page 3
With a little help,
Netanyahu shows off
his bike skills
● Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu — with a little help
from a stunt double — showed
off his bicycle skills. He is team-
ing up with the Israeli national
cycling team to release a video
celebrating next month’s inter-
national Giro D’Italia bike race,
which will roll into Israel for the
first time.
In the video, Netanyahu
eschews his chauffeur-driven
limousine, removes his tie, and
hops on a bike to show off his
skills to members of the Israel
Cycling Academy.
“No need for a car. The Giro
is coming to Israel. I must prac-
tice,” he quips.
He tells the Israeli team that
bike racing is a “piece of cake”
for him, and then he shows
off his skills, doing wheelies and other million, will be one of the most expen-
stunts on the bike as text on the screen sive single sporting events in the coun-
warns “do not try this at home.” try’s history.
Actually, the stunts were performed The first three days of the 21-day
by a double. race will be held in Israel. It consists of
“Wow, prime minister, you can really a 10-kilometer time trial in Jerusalem,
ride,” says Canadian real estate mogul a 167-kilometer race from Haifa to Tel
Sylvan Adams, the driving force and Aviv, and a 226-kilometer race from
main financier responsible for bringing Beersheba to Eilat. Afterward, the 176
the Giro to Israel. riders from 22 teams will fly to Italy to
After they ride around the Prime Min-
ister’s residence for a few seconds, the
ride the remaining 18 stages of the race,
finishing in Rome.
team is shown cycling past Jerusalem’s It is the first time in the 101-year his-
Old City as the video fades out. tory of the Giro D’Italia that the race
The Giro Big Start Israel, to be held will start outside of Europe.
May 4-6 at an estimated cost of $34 TIMES OF ISRAEL
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Candlelighting: Friday, April 27, 7:30 p.m.
Shabbat ends: Saturday, April 28, 8:34 p.m.
JEWISH STANDARD APRIL 27, 2018 3
Noshes “The ‘Arabs are semitic too’ hot takes
have arrived. #Antisemitism”
— Harry Potter author J. K. Rowling on Twitter, part of a series of
tweets described as “a master class in identifying anti-Semitism.”

BARBIE’S BACK:

Documentary looks
at iconic doll
Streaming stuff
The documentary
“Tiny Shoulders:
Rethinking Barbie”
premieres on Hulu on
Friday, April 27. This film
about the iconic Barbie
doll features interviews
with leading cultural crit-
ics, including GLORIA
STEINEM, 84, and
PEGGY ORENSTEIN, 57.
No doubt Barbie’s
creator, the late RUTH
HANDLER, will be a big
figure in the film. “The
Week Of,” an original
Netflix comedy film,
premieres the same day.
There, ADAM SANDLER,
51, plays a devoted
middle-class father who
is determined to pay for
his daughter’s wedding
alone. He continually
spurns offers of help
from the father of the
groom (Chris Rock), a
wealthy doctor. It’s an
interesting twist — con-
trary to the usual
assumption, the black
father is richer than the
white, Jewish father.
(The trailer shows the
bride being lifted in a
chair at the wedding; so
I assume the bride’s
family is Jewish.)
RACHEL DRATCH, 52,
co-stars as the mother
of the bride.
Beautiful people
Last week, the
cover of People
magazine’s annual
“Beautiful” issue featured
singer PINK, 38. Last
year, for the first time,
Pink (born Alecia Moore)
described herself as a
“Jewish woman” while
responding to the
neo-Nazi march in
Charlottesville, Virginia.
(Pink’s mother is Jewish.)
She’s not the first Jewish
women on the cover. The
others are KATE HUD-
SON, 39, in 2008, and
GWYNETH PALTROW,
45, in 2013.
Avengers: Infinity
War opens April 27
There are so many
characters and
name actors in “Infinity
War” that I wonder how
much screen time they
each got. Every Marvel
superhero you can think
of has been rounded up
to take on the powerful
Thanos (Josh Brolin)
before his blitz of
destruction and ruin puts
an end to the universe.
SCARLETT JOHANS-
SON, 33, reprises her role
as Natasha Romanoff/
the Black Widow.
Gwyneth Paltrow also is
returning as Pepper
Potts, the CEO of Stark
Industries and the
fiancée of Tony Stark
(AKA Iron Man). In real
life, Paltrow is the fiancée
of producer/writer BRAD
FALCHUK, 46, and
Gloria Steinem
Rachel Dratch
rumors are hot and
heavy that their nuptials
will happen soon.
More Paltrow stuff
Last week, Time
magazine issued its
annual list of the 100
most influential people. It
includes ADAM NEU-
MANN, 38, a great-look-
ing guy who grew up on a
kibbutz. He’s the co-
founder and CEO of We
Work, an American
company that provides
innovative shared
workplaces and services
for all types of businesses.
His personal wealth now
is estimated at 2.5 billion.
His wife is REBEKAH
PALTROW NEUMANN,
40, a striking-looking
filmmaker who is Gwyn-
Peggy Orenstein
Pink
eth’s first cousin (Gwyn-
eth’s late father, BRUCE
PALTROW, and Rebekah’s
father were brothers).
Adam and Rebekah have
five children. Last year,
Adam, an Israeli Navy vet,
told an Israeli news
station that he and his
family have been rigor-
ously observing Shabbat
for two years. He said:
“During Shabbat I am
completely cut off, there
is no one to talk to, and I
do not compromise about
it. At first it felt like a
tough assignment, but it
gives me time with my
children, my wife, my
friends…. And the real
magic is that the more I
do it, the more successful
the company is. Go
figure.” –N.B.
A historical correction
● It’s the 70th anniversary of Israel, of course. The most
popular movie about the founding of Israel was, and
remains, “Exodus” (1960), starring PAUL NEWMAN.
For a long time, the theme song from “Exodus” was an
alternate Israeli national anthem for diaspora Jews. The
song always has been an oddity because its composer
and lyricist were long reported to be non-Jewish. It was
sort of the mirror image of all the popular Christmas
songs written by Jewish composers.
The theme was an instrumental in the film. Soon,
though, the singer Pat Boone, a religious Christian and a
big supporter of Israel, added lyrics. The song often was
subtitled using those lyrics (“This Land is Mine”) and
non-Jewish singer Andy Williams had a big hit singing
“Exodus.” For many years, ERNEST GOLD (1921-1999),
the composer of “Exodus,” was reported to be only one
quarter Jewish in biographies. But a reliable biographer
recently checked the records and found that both sets
of his grandparents were wed in Jewish marriages. So
the composer was Jewish, after all. (Mr. Boone, now 83,
remains a devout Christian.) A couple of footnotes: Gold
fled Austria with the Nazi takeover. His son was the late
soft rock singer/songwriter ANDREW GOLD (“Lonely
Boy,” “You’ve Got a Friend”—the “Golden Girls” theme).
Andrew’s mother was not Jewish, but his children were
raised in the faith of his Jewish wife.
–N.B.

Want to read more noshes? Visit facebook.com/jewishstandard California-based Nate Bloom can be reached at
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JEWISH STANDARD APRIL 27, 2018 5
Local
Beyond the book
Sefaria’s Lev Israel brings Torah to the digital age
LARRY YUDELSON
L
ev Israel knows he is a key player at a pivotal
moment of Jewish history.
As chief data officer for Sefaria.org, he is lead-
ing a technical process that already has placed
more than 150 million words of Jewish texts online for free
use by anyone.
He is aware that Judaism has a tradition of resisting new
media. “Matters that were written you may not express
orally, and matters that were taught orally you may not
express in writing,” the Talmud declared.
And yet the Oral Law — the Mishna and the Talmud —
was in fact written down and published. “It is time to act
for the Lord,” the Talmud explained.
These Talmud texts are at my fingertips right now
because they’re part of the source sheet that Mr. Israel
has prepared for his talk, “Old Wine in New Vessels —
Torah, Sefaria, and New Media,” which he will give on
Sunday in Teaneck. (See box.) You can read it yourself
at www.sefaria.org/sheets/15490. It’s one of more than
100,000 online pages that combine Hebrew texts, trans-
lation, and the collators’ notes that have been created by
Sefaria users. The site offers tools to select excerpts from
its library and create pages that can be handed out to stu-
dents. All told, some 4,400 people have either created
source sheets or contributed translations to Sefaria. The
site boasts 150,000 users each month.
“This is probably the most interesting analogue to
where we are now,” Mr. Israel says. He’s talking about the
rabbinic discussions of writing recorded in the Talmud
and collected in his source sheets. “The pain and difficulty
they felt in moving from an oral culture to a written cul-
ture has something of an analogue in how we feel in mov-
ing from our print culture to a digital culture.”
Mr. Israel, who grew up in Albany, went to Sefaria four
years ago with a background in both yeshiva study and
Israel’s high tech world. He had studied computer sci-
ence and philosophy at Boston University before moving
to Israel for 18 years, shuffling between the high tech start-
up world and the beit midrash — the yeshiva study hall.
Being in charge of data at Sefaria means that Mr. Israel is
both a publisher and a computer scientist. As a publisher,
he’s overseeing the copy editing of translations of classic
Jewish texts, ranging from the ninth to 20th centuries, that
Sefaria commissioned. Only about 10 percent of Sefaria’s
library is in English and he wants to expand that. A grant
enabled Sefaria to republish the English translation of
the Talmud overseen by Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz and being
published in print by Koren Publishers. He’s licensed the
Jewish Publication Society’s Tanakh translation, and has
worked with several other Jewish publishers to put their
translations on line.
Who: Lev Israel, chief data officer for Sefaria.org
What: “Old Wine in New Vessels — Torah, Sefaria, and
New Media”
When: Sunday, April 29, at 8 p.m.
Where: Congregation Rinat Yisrael, 389 W. Englewood
Ave., Teaneck.
How much: Free
6 JEWISH STANDARD APRIL 27, 2018
In general, Mr. Israel
said, Sefaria tries to get
permission to release the
works on an Open Com-
mons license — meaning
that site visitors can reuse
the materials. “One of our
working principles is what
we put on our site should
be available for people to
use downstream,” he said.
As for other works, “We
identified what we call a
core English canon,” he Lev Israel
said. “If we can’t find a
source for them, we will commission them.”
Among the fruits of that endeavor that are now being
copyedited and soon will join the site: Avot d’Rav Natan,
Sefer Hachinuch, and Tomer Devorah.
And it’s not just English translations he’s looking for.
“We’re trying to serve some languages besides Hebrew
and English,” he said. “I’m trying to track down a public
domain translation of the Tanakh into Spanish. We have a
Finnish translation. And our French translation just went
up — it was done by a former chief rabbi of France.”
And as a computer scientist, Mr. Israel is working
to automate some of the work that was the preserve of
learned Torah scholars in earlier generations and more
recently of manual indexers.
“When works on our site reference other works, we
catch it and link it,” he said. We, in this case, being his
algorithms. Now they’re updating the algorithms to cap-
ture less explicit linkages — the Hebrew equivalent of using
“ibid.”
Because the site is open source, it’s easy for researchers
to use the digitized texts for their own computer science
research.
“I spoke with a Ph.D. student at Yale yesterday who is
working on some automated methods to tag the argumen-
tation in the Talmud,” he said. “As a first step, it’s intrigu-
ing. It gets to the question of whether a computer can
understand some of the back-and-forth, and the playful
idea of a computer being able to reason its way through
the Talmud. We’re happy to support some of that.”
Sefaria has a partnership with Dicta, a group of com-
puter science professors in Israel who work on problems
in computer processing of natural language. One project
they’re working on is automating the placement of niku-
dot, the Hebrew vowel markings, in texts that had been
published without them.
“It’s possible to do a reasonable job with a computer,”
he said. “Teachers using our texts in a classroom find it
very helpful. It makes texts more accessible. It’s one of
the applications of machine learning. If you feed it enough
examples of texts with vowels it basically learns the pat-
terns. It will not do as well as a human professional but
certainly well enough. It gets in the high 90s percent cor-
rect — well enough to use in the classroom.” (You can try
this program out for yourself at nakdan.dicta.org.il.)
Another Jewish digitization project, HebrewBooks.org,
has PDFs of more than 50,000 Hebrew religious books
online. Sefaria isn’t planning on matching that.
“The long tail is very long,” he said. “A lot of books
A Sefaria source sheet
are seldom referenced. We’ve been aiming for pretty
much every book that someone would pick up in the beit
midrash. The Tanakh with 50 commentaries, the Talmud
with 20 commentaries, the Yerushalmi with a handful of
commentaries, all of the midrashim.
“Once we get past that, rather than just going for
breadth, we’re aiming more to have a really notable
library of translations. Already we have Rashi on the Torah
and much of Rashi on Tanakh in translation. We’re hoping
to get Ibn Ezra and Ramban. Much of the core midrashim
are already available in translation. That starts to open the
core of rabbinic thought, the Jewish library, to people who
couldn’t access it before.
“We’re going to spend a lot of time developing tools
for teachers and learners. As technology keeps moving,
there’s always more work to be done to keep things cur-
rent. We’re starting to put thought in voice interfaces.
What is Alexa’s place in this? How voice interfaces be help-
ful in a Torah conversation? It’s not an obvious question
but it’s one it’s timely to ask.”
As for the site’s role in a Torah conversation, “we’re
not pushing for a learner’s primary place of learning to
be on Sefaria — though I wouldn’t be upset by it. There’s
definitely an invaluable addition a computerized database
can add to a printed page. The computer has the ability
to hold and present a significant quantity of information.
I would like to get to a place where someone learning a
page of Talmud will feel they haven’t properly learned it
until they look on our site and see parallel passages in the
Yerushalmi and Tosefta.”
“There are people I know who learn primarily on
Sefaria, but the more primary usage is as the reference
shelf. It’s easier to look at a book for a long period of time.
There’s something tactile about it that’s stable and reas-
suring. When there’s a question, a quote you want to track
down, it’s much easier to have the phone or tablet next to
you than to run to the shelf. And the phone gives you the
ability to search, which you can’t do on the shelf. Using
SEE THE BOOK PAGE 59
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Local

Honoring Coach Bobby

Teaneck’s Bobby Kaplan to be recognized
by the Yeshiva High School Alumni Basketball Association
Banji Ganchrow

B
aseball legends are recognized at the Baseball
Hall of Fame in Cooperstown. Football greats
are honored at the Football Hall of Fame in
Canton, Ohio. And then there are the iconic
athletes who excelled in playing or coaching basketball
at yeshiva day schools. They are honored too, in the
Yeshiva High School Alumni Basketball Association Hall
of Fame, which exists online and in its members’ hearts.
This year’s inductee for excellence in coaching is
Teaneck’s own Irwin Robert Kaplan.
Mr. Kaplan, who was born and raised on Manhattan’s
Lower East Side of Manhattan, attended the Rabbi Jacob
Joseph Elementary and High School. “I was not a great
student, or that well behaved, “ he said, but he played
basketball there, first on the junior varsity team and
then on the championship varsity basketball team. “My
parents tolerated me playing sports because they knew
where I was,” he said.
Mr. Kaplan graduated RJJ in 1966. City College of New
York accepted all applicants then, but his
grades were so poor that he had to start in
the night school program, as a probation-
ary student. “After my first three test grades
were Fs, I decided it was time to grow up
and buckle down. I ended up being an Bobby Kaplan with a team from Frisch, years ago, and as he is today.
honor student,” he said. And it worked. Mr.
Kaplan ended up graduating magna cum
laude. He also played basketball for two basketball team needed a parent School in Madison Square Garden. According to Mr. Bal-
years on the CCNY team. coach. “My wife volunteered me,” Mr. sam, “Coach knew how to get the most out of each and
Mr. Kaplan’s coaching career also began Kaplan said. “I coached for 14 years every player. He was supportive and encouraging, and
during this time. “When I was 19 the Young and loved every minute of it.” led us to an incredible championship season.”
Israel of Manhattan, along with the Edu- Heshy Fromen, who lives in Engle- For 21 years, Mr. Kaplan worked for the Equitable
cational Alliance — one of the first JCCs in wood now, was the captain of Mr. Life Assurance Society. He also owned and operated
America — asked me to run a youth and Kaplan’s 1983-84 ASHAR basketball Camp IBA — the Israel Basketball Academy — from 1994
sports program. When they asked, I looked team. Mr. Kaplan was an incredible through 2006. He was the Torah Academy of Bergen
around and said to myself ‘Me? They want me??? Are role model for him and his teammates, Mr. Fromen said. County’s athletic director, and he taught both physi-
they crazy?’” The program grew to include more than “You are at an impressionable age and Coach Kaplan cal education and a business course there for 20 years.
120 kids and his good reputation grew as well. “I really really helped us become motivated not only in basket- One of the many students whose lives Coach Bobby, as
enjoyed directing and coaching basketball,” he said. He ball, but in how to be a good team player and a good they affectionately called him at TABC, was Yehoshua
was there from 1969 through 1975. person.” Zirman, who lives in Teaneck and graduated in 2014.
Mr. Kaplan also fell in love with a girl named Ruby The Kaplans moved to Teaneck in 1986 The Frisch “Bobby not only gave me the tools needed to excel on
Hirschman from Union City. They married in 1971 and School in Paramus asked Mr. Kaplan to coach its boys the basketball court, but also the tools to excel in my
moved to Monsey, N.Y. Eventually, they had three chil- varsity basketball team, and he was ecstatic. “I could not career and family life,” Mr. Zirman said. “He is a true
dren — Ilana, Mordechai, and Daniella. Their two daugh- believe that someone was going to pay me to do some- people person and a legendary basketball coach.”
ters live in Englewood; their son made aliyah. thing that I loved,” he said. Mr. Kaplan has written two books about playing bas-
Ruby went to a meeting for new parents at the Adolf Stephen Balsam, who lived in Teaneck then and in ketball and being an all-around good person; “Bball
Schreiber Hebrew Academy of Rockland — aka ASHAR. Florida now, was a member of Mr. Kaplan’s 1988 cham- Basic for Kids” came out in 2012 and “Hoopster: Don’t
At that meeting, someone said that the school’s new pionship varsity team, which beat Manhattan’s Ramaz Be A Bully” followed in 2015.

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Jewish Standard APRIL 27, 2018 9

Local
Hundreds packed the meeting room for a discussion about drug abuse.
An evening of healing
Teaneck family arranged panel on drug abuse; everyone showed up
JOANNE PALMER
N
o one expected a crowd this big, or this quiet.
In what they thought was an excess of ambi-
tion, Lianne and Etiel Forman decided to have
all the chairs in the huge auditorium at the Torah
Academy of Bergen County set up for the meeting they’d
called to talk about drug abuse in the Jewish community, a
meeting where they would detail their own family’s odyssey.
The room comfortably holds 500 chairs — so why not put
all of them out? Even if a handful of people ended up rattling
around in a sea of chairs? Because, really, why not?
But before the meeting started those seats all were filled,
and then the others, the ones that hadn’t been put out
because they made the room less comfortable, were unfolded
and then they were filled too. And then there was standing
room only, first in back, and then in front, and then there
were people standing in the stairwells.
The estimates are that somewhere between 600 and 700
people came out on Sunday night, and another 125 watched
the live stream.
When the speakers — Rabbi Laurence Rothwachs of Con-
gregation Beth Aaron, social worker Avi Shteingart, recover-
ing addict Etzy Finkel, Rabbi Zvi Gluck of Amudim, and Etiel
Forman — talked, the room was entirely silent. Dead silent.
Strikingly silent. Even as all those packed-together bodies
made the room get hot and then hotter, everyone was silent.
Why were so many people there?
To begin with, the evening represented an unusual effort
on the part of the local Orthodox community. (Non-Ortho-
dox Jews were welcome, and some were there, but the cam-
paign was mainly directed to the Orthodox.) The rabbis of
all 26 local Orthodox synagogues and the heads of the five
local high schools all used their pulpits and newsletters to
10 JEWISH STANDARD APRIL 27, 2018
Elana Forman, shown here last month in West Palm
Beach, Florida, was the inspiration for her parents’
work combatting the stigma that gets in between
substance abusers and help.
urge people to show up, listen, and learn. And the local
newspapers, Jewish and general, including this one, wrote
about the Formans, the meeting, and the problem of drug
use as well. (Ours was the cover story on April 13.)
Beyond that publicity, Rabbi Rothwachs said, “The For-
mans really put themselves out there, and I think that many
people who know them, and even many who don’t, wanted
to show solidarity with them.
“In my experience, the number of people was close to
unprecedented for a stand-alone event of this nature,”
he added.
Substance abuse, as well as the stigma attaching to its
sufferers and their families, is a real problem in the Jewish
community and it must be addressed, Rabbi Rothwachs
said. In fact, “I believe that the stigma is perhaps more
prevalent and more pronounced in our communities than
in others,” he said. “There are many reasons; the most
important one is that we do value morality and ethics and
proper behavior so much that it is really hard to under-
stand and accept the fact that if a person is behaving in a
certain way, that behavior is not voluntary.”
In other words, it is the truth that a person does not
abuse drugs, does not become addicted to drugs, because
he or she is weak, immoral, or ethically lacking. People do
not become addicts because they want to be addicted. It is
instead because of a combination of genetic and environ-
mental conditions that make some people far more sus-
ceptible than others.
“There is a general stigma around mental health issues,
but I think that there is an additional layer of stigma when
it comes to drug abuse,” Rabbi Rothwachs said. “In the last
few years there has been significant progress around men-
tal health, although we’re not there yet, but drug abuse
has a whole other dimension.
“People who are lost in this world” — the drug world, the
world where the idea of shooting heroin is not impossible —
“often find themselves in an environment that most Ortho-
dox Jews cannot identify with.
“What really resonated most with me from the meeting
was when Etzy Finkel was speaking about his sponsor being
someone you would think of as being one of the least inspir-
ing people” — Mr. Finkel talked about the inspiration that

mentor, an elderly, uneducated African
American man, had on him. “He spoke
more about the truth, brought him
closer to God, than anyone else ever had
done,” Rabbi Rothwachs said.
“We assume that if someone is out on
the street, shooting himself up with her-
oin, that is an empty, soul-less being, who
has nothing to contribute. That is not true.
“This is the challenge for our commu-
nity. We are somewhat insular, and that
is by choice. That is not something we
want to change. We have deep-seated
values that we try to protect and pre-
serve, and that demands that we with-
draw from society a little bit. But if we
have people who are on the periphery,
who step out a little bit — we have to
understand that they are still a part of
our community.
“We have to hug them. We literally
have to hug them.”
On Sunday night, Rabbi Rothwachs
told a story about stigma, about how
being unable to tell a story locks people
and families into themselves, forcing
them to seal up their lives, making them
unable to breathe freely or honestly,
forcing them to put on masks.
He talked about a Shabbat dinner at
his own house, where his family hosted
two others. The guests were friends of
each other’s. One of the women said
she couldn’t understand how anyone
could deal with a child using cocaine,
heroin, or methamphetamines. The
other woman, the first woman’s friend,
sat with a frozen smile; her child was
using all three. And Rabbi Rothwachs
sat there, knowing the story, unable to
break the confidence that would unleash
the stigma. “I was completely para-
lyzed,” he said.
He does not want to be paralyzed by
the specter of stigma any longer. We all
have the responsibility to help, and that
demands that we learn, he said.
Lianne Forman had no idea what to
expect with the evening that she and
her husband had willed into being; they
still are processing what they heard, saw,
and felt, but they are confident that it
was the right thing.
“There were 700 Jews in that room,
and they all were quiet,” she said. “It
was so hot in that room, but in a good
way. Everyone was packed together, and
everyone was captivated.”
She doesn’t know why there were so
many people at the talk. “Some came
because they said they want to know
what addiction is, or because they have
teenagers or up-and-coming teenagers.
Some say they’re coming because they
know they’re naïve parents. And then
there was a woman there who had lost
her brother, and another who had lost
her son — she and I were both very emo-
tional when she told me about it just
before it started, and we’ve been email-
ing each other since.”
Ms. Forman heard from many families
AY
Local SU
ND
YOU
E
SE
that include drug abusers since the story
came out in the Standard two weeks ago,
THE ORTHODOX UNION PRESENTS
and that number has been ratcheting up
since the panel on Sunday. “A lot of peo-
ple have been writing emails and send-
ing text messages to me after the fact.
The attendance was a testament to the
NEW YORK
community’s need to look at the issue
and to understand it.
“You can’t say that 700 people all have
a loved one using drugs, or any other
issue that affects them directly, but they ‫סיטי פילד‬
all want to learn about it.”
Amudim is the Manhattan-based orga- SUNDAY APRIL 29 2018, 8:45 am - 6:00 pm
nization that provides case management
for people with substance abuse issues,
who are suffering the aftereffects of
sexual abuse and other forms of PTSD,
or have other forms of mental illness.
It’s been reaching into Bergen County
to offer help; the social worker and
the recovering addict who spoke both
have ties to Amudim. Its founder, Rabbi
Glick, told Ms. Forman that he’d heard Mrs. Michal Senator Joseph Rabbi Eli
from several people between the time Horowitz Lieberman Mansour
he spoke on Sunday evening and early
the next morning. The organization will
give them all referrals to the appropriate
treatment facilities, doctors, hospitals,
and any other services they need.
When she first thought of going pub-
lic with her story, Ms. Forman said that Mrs. Lori Palatnik Rabbi Dr. Tzvi Rabbi Moshe
it would be like pulling off a band-aid. Hersh Weinreb Weinberger
When she did it, though, she said, it was
more like taking off an entire body cast.
It wasn’t as much the liberation from the
constraints, she said, it was just removing ADDITIONAL PROGRAM SPEAKERS
all the masks and make-up and disguises
that had kept her from showing her real • Rabbi Yosef Adler • Mrs. Sivan Rahav Meir
self to the world. “When Elana was really • Rabbi Moshe Bamberger • Rabbi Yosef Tzvi Rimon
sick, and we were going from crisis to cri- • Rabbi Dr. Ari Bergmann • Rabbi Yonason Sacks
sis, I felt that I was hanging onto my san- • Rabbi Eliezer Breitowitz • Rabbi Hershel Schachter
ity and my life by a fingernail,” she said. “I • Rabbi Moshe Elefant • Mrs. Atara Segal
would walk into a store in town and paint
• Rabbi Menachem Genack • Rebbetzin Dr. Adina Shmidman
a smile on my face and say, ‘Hi, how are
• Rabbi Efrem Goldberg • Rabbi Dr. Avraham Steinberg
you, how are the kids?”’ and there was
a voice in my head screaming, ‘Do you
• Rabbi Moshe Hauer • Mrs. Esther Wein
know how hard my life is? Do you know • Rabbi Dr. Shnayer Leiman • Rabbi Gideon Weitzman
what I am going through?’ • Rabbi Judah Mischel • Rabbi Dr. Jeremy Wieder
“And now it feels like I am wearing a • Rabbi Elazar Muskin • Rabbi Mordechai Willig
sign that says, ‘This is my life. This is who • Rabbi Yaakov Neuburger • Rabbi Yitzchak Yisraeli
I am.’ I am reconciling the inner voice
and the outer appearance. I am allowed
to be myself.”
Had she allowed herself to go pub- Free parking Lunch available for purchase
lic back then, she said, she would have
been met with pity. But now, the time for
pity is over. Now it is time for her and American Sign Language interpreters available
her husband “to try to take our experi-
ences and channel them.
“Now it is time for us to practice what
we preach. We are opening up a dia-
$50 Online or Walk-ins
logue.” She hopes that everyone who 42
wants help will be able to get help, and
that once people are more able to ask for
help, the community will begin not only Bring Israel Home • Impact Accelerator • Israel Free Spirit
to get help but to begin to heal. Jewish Action • NCSY • OU Advocacy • OU Israel • OU JLIC
• OU Kosher • OU Press • OU Torah • OU West Coast
Teach Advocacy Network • Synagogue & Community
If you need help, information, or just to
Services • The Women’s Initiative • Yachad
talk to Amudim, call (201) 464-8000
or email NorthernNJ@amudim.org.
JEWISH STANDARD APRIL 27, 2018 11
Local
The 2018 New Jersey Legislators Study Mission group is at the Knesset.
Finding the Jersey connection
Bipartisan lawmakers from across the state go to Israel
ABIGAIL KLEIN LEICHMAN
F
or Passaic Mayor Hector Lora,
the New Jersey Legislators Study
Mission to Israel last month not
only was his first trip to the Holy
Land but also a symbolic opportunity to
fulfill a wish of his late father, Remigio Ale-
jandro Lora-Sanchez.
“My father passed away in January,
before fulfilling his lifelong dream of visit-
ing Israel,” Mr. Lora said. “So when I was
there, I wore different articles of his cloth-
ing each day of the trip — like his favorite
shirt that I wore at Masada — and sent pho-
tos to my siblings. It was a very impactful
experience.”
Mr. Lora had been invited on the mis-
sion by Assemblyman Gary Schaer (D-Pas-
saic, 36th District), who has been to Israel
many times and said he enjoyed seeing the
country through a first-timer’s eyes.
“Mayor Lora is a devout evangelical
minister, and for evangelicals an under-
standing of the political reality in Israel is
very important,” said Mr. Schaer, the sole
Orthodox Jewish member of the New Jer-
sey Legislature.
12 JEWISH STANDARD APRIL 27, 2018
For all the legislators, he added, such an
understanding helps them connect with
their Jewish constituents and gain valuable
firsthand insights into a complex country
that has strong emotional and business
ties with New Jersey and sparks passion-
ate emotion and debate worldwide.
“Most of the non-Jewish and even Jew-
ish participants might never have gone to
Israel and might never go again, so it was
very important for their understanding of
the Jewish community in New Jersey and
beyond,” Mr. Schaer said. “As they legislate
locally, and some perhaps nationally later
in their career, it will be to Israel’s benefit
for them to have that perspective that oth-
erwise they would not.”
The itinerary of the biennial tour, spon-
sored by the N.J. State Association of Jew-
ish Federations, was designed to impart a
deeper understanding of Israel’s history,
politics, and culture of innovation.
Jacob Toporek, the executive director
of the N.J. State Association of Jewish Fed-
erations, said the goal of the legislator mis-
sions in 2014, 2016, and 2018 was “to edu-
cate New Jersey legislators about Israel, a
nation the size of New Jersey, which shares
PHOTOS COURTESY N.J. STATE ASSOCIATION OF JEWISH FEDERATIONS
a very special relationship with our state,
including a trading partnership of more
than $1.3 billion.”
Meetings with Israeli officials and citi-
zens were intended to foster further busi-
ness and technology initiatives that could
economically benefit this partnership,
he said, and at the same time to provide
insight into how Israel responds effectively
to the interests of its multi-ethnic and reli-
gious society.
“Firsthand experience on the ground
clarifies for legislators those Israel-related
issues they only read about in newspapers
and view through the media,” Mr. Toporek
said. “And, in furtherance of our commu-
nity advocacy, the mission is an ideal forum
for building relationships with Trenton deci-
sion-makers whose votes can determine
success in enactment of anti-BDS legislation
or allocation of funding for Holocaust survi-
vors’ assistance and security grants.”
Assemblywoman Valerie Vainieri Huttle
(D-Bergen, 37th District) already had been
on two missions to Israel. This time she
was accompanied by her husband, Engle-
wood Mayor Frank Huttle III, and their
23-year-old daughter, Francesca.
“Each time I go I have a new and beauti-
ful experience,” Ms. Huttle said. “There is
so much to see and learn that even after
going to Israel three times I feel the need
to go back again.”
The group’s tour of Israel’s Parliament,
the Knesset, happened to coincide with a
heated exchange among the prime min-
ister and lawmakers about ultra-Ortho-
dox men and draft exemptions. “It was
extremely exciting to watch and to see
some members get a little rowdy, much
different than in our Assembly chamber,”
Ms. Huttle said, with a laugh.
Overall, however, she finds the two
states to be simpatico. “We can gain a lot
politically, culturally, and academically
from one another.”
At the Technion-Israel Institute of Tech-
nology she saw a demonstration of the
ReWalk robotic exoskeleton that allows
paraplegics to walk. “Because I know
so many people here in New Jersey who
could benefit from this product, seeing
how they use it was incredible,” she said.
The group traveled to Hadera, a coastal
city in the Haifa district, where they vis-
ited the Technoda Science & Technology

Francesca, Valerie, and Frank Huttle all went on the
mission; Valerie is in the state Assembly, Frank is
Englewood’s mayor, and Francesca is their daughter.
Education Center, Technoda Ness Science Library, and
Technogan preschool and kindergarten.
“Technoda is in the middle of a very depressed neigh-
borhood and has developed into a wonderful cam-
pus that attracts people to come play, work, and live,
enhancing the entire neighborhood,” Ms. Huttle said.
During a visit to the Mount Scopus campus of the
Hebrew University of Jerusalem, the legislators met with
New Jersey residents studying at the Rothberg Interna-
tional School, and they shared Shabbat dinner with lone
soldiers (IDF soldiers who do not have family in Israel)
from New Jersey. At a water-technology symposium,
they heard from Oded Fruchtman, head of Aquarius
Spectrum, about the company’s leak-detection sys-
tem, which it has sold to SUEZ North America (formerly
United Water) of Hackensack.
“No matter who we ran into, we found a New Jersey
connection,” Ms. Huttle said.
She enjoyed the tours of religious and historic sites
in the Old City of Jerusalem, including David’s Tomb,
the Western Wall, the City of David, Notre Dame Center,
the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, the Stations of the
Cross, and Gethsemane; and sites in the Galilee, includ-
ing Capernaum and the Mount of Beatitudes.
“Going to the holy sites, you really see the Bible come
alive,” she said.
A highlight for the lawmakers was watching Gov. Phil
Murphy’s March 13 budget address live from Trenton as
they were dining at Ramot Resort Hotel on the Sea of
Galilee. The governor gave a shout-out “to the biparti-
san group of NJ legislators currently visiting Israel” and
noted the $1.3 billion in goods traded between New Jer-
sey and Israel. Mr. Murphy reportedly is planning his
sixth visit to the Jewish state in the coming months.
During their trip, the legislators met with Syrian civil-
ians being treated at Ziv Medical Center in Safed; spoke
with retired Justice Elyakim Rubinstein, deputy presi-
dent of the Supreme Court of Israel; toured the Tel Aviv
Stock Exchange; and lay a wreath at Yad Vashem, the
Holocaust memorial and museum in Jerusalem.
Mr. Lora said that from his religious and political per-
spective, the tour of Yad Vashem touched him more
deeply than any Holocaust memorial ceremony ever
could. “As a person of faith, it pushes you to ask why,”
he said. “As a mayor, it made me wonder how local offi-
cials let this happen. And it gave me added courage to
stand up against hate.”
On a lighter note, the group also strolled on the Tel
Aviv beach promenade, took the cable-car up Masada,
floated in the Dead Sea, sampled the wares at Pelter
Winery in the Golan Heights, and experienced tradi-
tional Bedouin hospitality in the Galilee.
“Outside of Israel, there’s a perception of the region
being unsafe, but you feel so safe when you’re there,”
Mr. Lora said. “People are so kind and friendly.”
Local ‫בס״ד‬
He also took note of Israel’s diversity. “The first thing
I saw in Jerusalem was a kosher Mexican restaurant,” he
said with a laugh.
Mr. Lora and Ms. Huttle mentioned the camaraderie
VA L L E Y C H A B A D I N V I T E S Y O U
and friendship that bloomed among members of differ-
ent political parties on the mission. “To walk the streets, T O A N I G H T O F C E L E B R AT I O N
Republicans and Democrats together, running into Mus-
lims, Jews, Christians, Coptics — individuals of different
affiliations coexisting in harmony — sent a powerful mes-
sage of unity that I took home with me,” Mr. Lora said.
On each mission, Ms. Huttle added, this sense of unity
leads to “bringing something back we can work on in a
bipartisan way.” In this instance, that was a joint resolu- A G A L A D I N N E R C E L E B R AT I N G
tion recognizing the upcoming 70th anniversary of the 18 YEARS OF
establishment of the State of Israel. COMMUNITY. EDUCATION. OUTREACH.
Mr. Schaer said the lawmakers who participated in the
mission “jumped on board to put their names on a reso-
lution we are drafting condemning UNESCO for totally
disregarding the Jewish connection to Jerusalem.” They
pledged to urge Congress to approve a similar resolution
condemning UNESCO and affirming the historical ties of
the Jewish people to Jerusalem.
JUNE 5, 2018
“What I gained personally from this trip is a tremen-
dous appreciation for the economic and technological
6:30PM
advances that Israel has made, which are so dispropor-
Honorees
tionate to its size and population, and are accomplished
despite its difficulties in the international realm,” Mr.
Schaer said.
Assemblywoman Holly Schepisi (R-Bergen, 39th Dis-
trict) was another representative from northern New
Jersey among the 10 legislators on the trip.
Linda Scherzer of Bergen County, the director of the
Community Relations Committee of Greater MetroW-
est and former CNN Jerusalem correspondent and
Arab Affairs reporter for Israel Television, accompa-
nied the trip. C H A I L I F E AWA R D
In her trip blog, Ms. Scherzer noted: “At a time of deep Bernice &
partisan division in our country it was gratifying to see
people of all faiths, backgrounds, and political parties
Bernie Gola
come together to learn more about Israel — its strengths
and challenges — and to celebrate the U.S.-Israel rela-
tionship. … It’s the constant nurturing of those rela-
tionships — on a state level as well as with our federal
lawmakers — that will ensure the strength of our Jewish
community and appreciation for all that Israel brings to
its partnership with New Jersey, from security coopera-
tion to economic collaboration.” S H E M TO V YO U N G L E A D E R S H I P
AWA R D AWA R D
Esther & Elana &
Warren Feldman Lawrence Bibi
TEENS
Maddy Gold Mitchell Bloom
TEEN VOLUNTEER “OUR FUTURE” AWARD
ROCKLEIGH COUNTRY CLUB
2 0 1. 4 7 6. 0 1 5 7
Assemblyman Gary Schaer and Passaic Mayor C E L E B R AT I O N 1 8 . C 0 M
Hector Lora stand together in Israel; it was Mayor
Lora’s first trip there.
JEWISH STANDARD APRIL 27, 2018 13
Local
It’s complicated
How to be a committed Zionist, a realist,
a particularist, and a universalist — all at the same time
JOANNE PALMER
W
hat do you do when you
have to deal with conflict-
ing realities?
Facts are facts. Things
happened, or they didn’t happen.
Beyond that, everything gets more
complicated very quickly. Interpretations
can vary wildly. Motivations can be seen
clearly and accurately or they can be mis-
understood, and because motivations
by definition drive human beings, and
because human beings don’t necessarily
know what motivates them, and often are
motivated by more than one thing, and
tend not to come with labels explaining
them — the upshot is that motivations
aren’t so easy to tease out.
And when you’re in the middle of this
reality? When you have strong emotions
about it, and strong family and religious
and ethnic ties to one side of it? And per-
haps some fear — perhaps appropriate
fear — of the other side?
And when you firmly believe that there
is one side that is more right than the
other — that’s your side — but you under-
stand that the other side has its own nar-
rative as well?
This is a loaded
subject, the
question of how
to navigate not
only loyalty but
belief in the moral
correctness of
your own position
without negating
the humanity of
the people on the
other side of an
ugly divide.
Then everything gets even more
complicated.
And if that place is Israel, and if you’re
a Jew and a Zionist, and also a realist —
what do you do? Even more basically,
what do you think?
On Sunday, May 6, Dr. Elana Stein Hain,
the scholar in residence and director of
14 JEWISH STANDARD APRIL 27, 2018
with competing narratives. I think it is
very important right now for American
Jews to have sophisticated discussions
about these things.
“It’s important for many reasons, and
among those reasons because it’s the
question the next generation is asking
SHALOM HARTMAN INSTITUTE OF NORTH AMERICA
about.
“And it’s important because we believe
that Israel’s strength is in its goodness, its
righteousness, and its uprightness. We
have a lot to be proud of — and we can
face these hard questions.”
It really is complicated, Dr. Stein Hain
said. “For American Jews in the post-
modern age, the question is trying to
understand my loyalty to my own story
— the story of the state of Israel — and
also being able to understand how to
account for the other side of the story,
Dr. Elana Stein Hain the Palestinian narrative. What should
my response be? These are important
faculty at the Shalom Hartman Institute things to think about if you care about
of North America, will talk about that the Jewish state.”
problem in “Approaching Competing This is a loaded subject, the ques-
Narratives: Reflecting on the Israeli-Pal- tion of how to navigate not only loyalty
estinian Conflict.” (See box.) but belief in the moral correctness of
Her talk grows out of a new Hartman your own position without negating the
curriculum that examined the Six-Day humanity of the people on the other side
War, 50 years on. “Part of the goal was of an ugly divide. That’s why it’s helpful
thinking about the major milestones to consider how eminent, unassailably
in Israeli history, and what big ideas Zionist thinkers framed the question.
those milestones introduced,” she said. “If you are a person who generally
“In 1967, much of the conversation considers yourself modern and in touch
was around Jerusalem, the relation- with the world, you know that there are
ship between religion and politics, and
between politics and land.”
approaches to things that are not your
approach,” Dr. Stein Hain said. “There
That, however, was just one milestone; are many different ways to deal with that.
“what I will be speaking about now is
based on the partition plan of 1947.”
One of the ways, of course, is just to flat
out deny those approaches, but none of
That’s the United Nations-approved but the things I am going to be talking about
ill-fated plan to divide Palestine into two
states, one for Jews, one for Arabs. Two
are in that camp.
“All of them are people for whom love
states for two peoples. It did not end well; of the state of Israel was a religious tenet
it did not even begin well. “The Arab
world rejected it, and went to war against
or a social tenet or a moral tenet or a his-
toric tenet. For each of them, Israel was
the new Jewish state,” Dr. Stein Hain said. deeply personal, core to his identity.”
That was Israel’s War of Independence.
“That’s what got me thinking,” she con-
Also, and importantly, she added,
“these are people who are holding the
tinued. “I started wondering how 20th middle. They are not relativists, who are
century Zionist thinkers, mostly but not
exclusively in Israel, thought about the
saying that every version is a true ver-
sion,” that facts are relative, that contra-
narratives, because it was understood dictory bits of hard data can all be true at
immediately that it was going to be the same time. “That they are not head-
impossible to follow the partition plan. in-the-sand dogmatists,” holding onto
“I wanted to study four contempo- their version of reality despite its clear
rary Zionist thinkers” — Israelis Abra- impossibility.
ham Isaac Kook (1865-1935), Yeshayahu Like the thinkers she will discuss, Dr.
Leibowitz (1903-1994), and Yakov Meir Stein Hain said, “I am committed to the
Nagen (who is only 50 and thriving), state of Israel. I fight for it. I work on its
and the Frenchman Emmanuel Levinas behalf. And part of that work is being
(1906-1995). “I look at them to give peo- able to have some coherent way of think-
ple a sense of what you do, as a Zionist, ing about the other side’s narrative.
“Even though there is deep discomfort
about it, there are more and more Ameri-
can Jews who are trying to do that work.”
It is particularly true among young
American Jews, who are trying to fit the
specific particularism of Zionism into the
larger universalism that informs their
lives. “That’s why it is so important to
have these conversations now,” Dr. Stein
Hain said. “It’s important to reinvigorate
the conversation specifically because of
the generational rift. It’s not as if peo-
ple weren’t talking about these ideas 50
years ago, but we now are at a difficult
moment in the American Jewish commu-
nity, and the way to help that is to talk
about the hard questions.
“And it is complicated,” she added. “I
don’t know if one overarching approach
ever will be sufficient, or if it constantly
will be a work in progress.”
Dr. Stein Hain is qualified to lead this
discussion in many ways. She holds a
doctorate in religion from Columbia;
she is also a graduate of Yeshiva Univer-
sity’s Graduate Program in Advanced
Talmudic Studies for women — GPATS
— and of Cardozo’s Interdisciplinary Fel-
lowship in Jewish Law and Legal The-
ory. As these affiliations show, she is a
birthright Orthodox Jew.
And she is also deeply connected to
Bergen County; she grew up in Teaneck,
she and her family belonged to Congre-
gation Bnai Yeshurun there, and she
went to elementary and middle school at
Yavneh and to high school at Frisch.
“I am a firm believer that the future has
to be built on the past,” she said. “I think
that looking at what thinkers before us
have said is a way to root our thinking as
we become the next link in the chain.”
Who: Dr. Elana Stein Hain of the
Sholom Hartman Institute of
North America
What: Will talk about “Approaching
Competing Narrative: Reflecting on the
Israeli-Palestinian Conflict” as part of
the Distinguished Speaker Series
Where: At Temple Beth Rishon,
585 Russell Avenue, Wyckoff
When: On Sunday, April 29, at 9:45 a.m.
What else: Breakfast buffet; the talk
starts at 10:30 and will be followed
by Q & A
How much: Synagogue members,
$15 in advance, $20 at the door;
non-members, $25.
More information or reservations:
templeoffice@bethrishon.org. or
(201) 891-4466
 Local

Can this relationships be saved?

Hartman Institute leader to speak in Teaneck on ‘Pluralism, peoplehood, and the Jewish state’
LARRY YUDELSON
“It’s not going great,” Dr. Yehuda Kurtzer
said. “I’m not going to lie.”
It, in this case, is “pluralism, people-
hood, and the Jewish state” — the topic of
his upcoming talk at Congregation Beth
Sholom in Teaneck. (See box.) And while
the talk itself doubtless will go well, the
relationship between the Israeli govern-
ment and the rest of the Jewish people,
particularly American Jews, has been
strained in recent years, with each day
seeming to bring new examples.
Dr. Kurtzer — he has a doctorate in
Jewish studies from Harvard — heads the
Who: Dr. Yehuda Kurtzer, president,
Shalom Hartman Institute of North
America
What: Talk on “Israel at 70: Pluralism,
Peoplehood, and the Jewish State”
When: Thursday, May 10, 7:30 p.m.
Where: Congregation Beth Sholom,
354 Maitland Ave., Teaneck
Shalom Hartman Institute of North Amer-
ica, the American twin of the Jerusalem-
based Hartman Institute founded by the
late Rabbi David Hartman and now headed
by his son, Rabbi Donniel Hartman.
“We talk about the bi-continental chal-
lenges of running a bi-continental institu-
tion,” he said. “It’s not easy. But having a
strong foothold in both communities can
be leveraged for making a difficult con-
versation possible. As an Israeli institu-
tion that is part of the Israeli Zionist main-
stream as well as part of the American
Jewish organizational landscape, we are
in conversation with American and Israeli
Jews in their own idioms and languages.
We have a unique ability to bring the
voices of each community to each other.”
Yet despite the Institute’s ability to help
the conversation along, at the highest lev-
els it’s not going well.
“For a long time the Jewish people
were held together by their imagination
about the project of the State of Israel,”
Dr. Kurtzer said. “One of the challenges
we have right now is the translation of
Zionism into reality.” Dr. Kurtzer believes
In reality, the conflict Jewish peoplehood is an
within the Jewish people enduring value.
can be seen in a letter to “Let’s say the prime
Prime Minister Benjamin minister and his agenda
Netanyahu, released Tues- are not serving the inter-
day, complaining about est of Jewish peoplehood,”
his policy toward African he said. In that case, “I
migrants in Israel. The 18 don’t believe we are well
American Jews who signed served by blaming the
the letter are all Demo- prime minister and dis-
cratic members of Con- tracting from any respon-
gress, and it represented Yehuda Kurtzer sibility we have” for the
an unprecedented break disconnections.
between American Jewish lawmakers and “It’s convenient to make the distancing
the Israeli government. of American Jewry from Israel a single-
“There have been news stories that there issue phenomenon. You have the voices
are voices in the prime minister’s office that say that if the government of Israel
that believe the liberal wing of American wasn’t endorsing the occupation and
Jewry is not long for this world, so there’s American Jewish leaders weren’t support-
certainly no political value in maintaining ing it, this problem would be solved. That
relations with them,” Dr. Kurtzer said. “If position is naive.
he feels the American Jewish community is “American Jews are undergoing massive
disappearing, it’s not a long term bet, then ethnic, religious, and political changes.
there’s no long-term value in terms of Jew- The State of Israel is undergoing massive
ish peoplehood.” SEE RELATIONSHIPS PAGE 51

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JEWISH STANDARD APRIL 27, 2018 15

Local
FIRST PERSON
A rabbi’s daughter
Memories of growing up in my father’s shul
ESTHER KOOK
No matter how much time passes, it seems
once you are a rabbi’s daughter, you’re
always a rabbi’s daughter at heart.
When I was growing up as a daughter
of a pulpit rabbi, going to shul and every-
thing shul-related was a part of the very
fabric of our lives. My father, Rabbi Max
Posnansky, didn’t exactly leave the job at
shul — instead he brought it home each
Shabbat for all of us to discuss and digest.
Lunchtime on Shabbat was filled with talk
about his d’var Torah and a smattering of
shul politics. My uncle, a Holocaust survi-
vor, would start by critiquing my father’s
weekly speech. If my uncle approved, in
his thick European accent he’d say, “It vas
good. You made me cry.” Since he was also
my dad’s best friend and critic, however,
he’d voice his honest evaluation as well.
“Tank you for giving me a good shluf. You
need to talk more about Israel.”
The appetizer at our meal was chopped
Saving animals, serving the community
Self-professed animal lover — and mayor’s wife — raises funds for spay/neuter program
LOIS GOLDRICH
A fundraiser/community awareness pro-
gram held several weeks ago in Jersey City
taught Jaclyn Fulop two things: first, that a
lot of people really love animals, and sec-
ond, that when nonprofit organizations
and motivated people work together, great
things can happen.
At the end of the program, Ms. Fulop
— who is the wife of Jersey City’s Mayor
Steven Fulop and a co-owner of Exchange
Physical Therapy Group, an outpatient
orthopedic physical therapy clinic in Jer-
sey City and Weehawken — presented a
check for $120,000 to the Liberty Humane
Society, the local animal shelter serving
not only Jersey City but also Bayonne,
Hoboken, and surrounding areas. The
funds have been used to buy a van, which
allows the group to run a mobile low-cost
spay and neuter program.
“Not many cities have this program,”
Ms. Fulop said. She worked with EPTG co-
owner Drew Nussbaum and the 18 mem-
bers of their staff to bring this venture to
life. “New York does, and Puerto Rico just
[launched] a huge initiative.” She hopes
that her project will spur other communi-
ties to act.
“It’s probably one of the best things I’ve
16 JEWISH STANDARD APRIL 27, 2018
liver served with a heaping of shul politics,
a main dish of chicken and kugels, and a
dessert of compote and national politics.
Sometimes they’d complain about a dis-
gruntled congregant or the gabbai or the
president of the shul for not having enough
schnapps at the kiddush. Both my father
and my uncle were immigrants, well read
in both the Yiddish and English papers,
and they watched Walter Cronkite every
night. Their teasing and banter sometimes
was serious and yet also comical, as their
authoritative shul demeanor melted away.
In those days, going to my father’s shul —
Beth Sholom — was my duty as the rabbi’s
daughter. I’d enter as if it were stage left
and walk to the front of the women’s sec-
tion where I sat with my family. On the way
toward the front, I’d pass Bessie and Ida
and Mildred, who often were deep in con-
versation but would give me a quick-once
over as I passed their row. They’d smile
at me and then get back to their personal
conversation.
Jaclyn Fulop and Drew Nussbaum, sitting in front of the staff of the Exchange
Physical Therapy Group; Ms. Fulop holds the group’s therapy dog, Chloe, who
she says is “the inspiration for this program.”
done in my life,” she said, calling herself a
lifelong animal lover. “Since Steven became
mayor of Jersey City, I often hear residents
complaining about the problem with the
growing number of stray outdoor cats.
After visiting our local animal shelter … I
realized that it’s not just cats, but the shel-
ter is overcrowded with pit bulls as well.”
The problem is not unique to Jersey City,
but it may be somewhat worse there than
While my father loved
being a rabbi, it not easy
being the rabbi’s kid. In
my small town — Scran-
to n , Pe n n s ylva n i a — I
couldn’t escape the con-
fines of that identity. I’d
often be introduced as
“The Rabbi’s Daughter”
as if that were my first,
middle, and last name.
Living in a fishbowl can
be a very tricky prospect Esther Kook
for a child growing up and
trying to establish an identity. The times
I dared to attend the other shul in the
neighborhood, where several of my good
friends went, made me feel uncomfort-
able. No one ever made me feel overtly
unwelcome, but I felt like a puzzle piece
that just didn’t belong. Casual glances
were interpreted as stares that said, “You
belong in that other shul up the hill.”
I’d also react to my father’s critics and
detractors. Every rabbi has them. It comes
with the territory. One Shabbat morning, I
was in a stall in the lady’s room, doing and
minding my own business, when I heard a
cross conversation from women on either
side. “Don’t you think the rabbi should stop
raising his voice so much in his speeches,
in other, wealthier cities. “With 16 percent
of our city population living below the
poverty line, many of our local residents
simply don’t have the financial resources
to spay or neuter their pets,” Ms. Fulop
said. “This leaves many animals suscep-
tible to entering the shelter system and
possibly having to be put down if they are
not adopted.
“I brainstormed with my staff about
he’ll get high blood pres-
sure!” the first one said.
The woman on the other
side replied, “Yes, he
really should watch that.” I
wanted to yell at these bid-
dies and give them a piece
of this rabbi’s daughter’s
mind, but I let it go. Wait-
ing until they left, I quickly
scooted back to my seat. If
anything, my dad taught me
how to be diplomatic; he
dealt with so many issues
and different kinds of personalities.
There’s also the visceral temptation to
escape and rebel against it all. For me,
rebellion took shape in the way I dressed.
It was the day of the mini skirts and my
skirts got rolled, tucked, and hemmed
way up. One of my teachers took me
aside and whipped out a ruler to measure
how far up my skirt was from my knees.
My dad, who also was a clotheshorse,
seemed to be more concerned that I was
ruining my clothes. I suppose he consid-
ered this rather tame behavior when he
was dealing with more serious religious
issues with other people.
And there were occasions when the
perks were a definite plus. Receiving
how we could help. We came up with the
idea of a mobile low-cost spay and neuter
program. We felt that the mobile compo-
nent would take the burden off of many
residents who do not have the means to
transport their pets. Our goal was to raise
$15,000, to start to fund the program.
“I know a lot of people are animal lov-
ers, but I didn’t think for a moment that we
would not only fund the program for a year
but actually purchase a mobile van.” The
van, which Ms. Fulop described as “huge,”
will be maintained by Liberty Humane but
staffed with veterinarians from People for
Animals, which is in Hillside.
The original plan was to subcontract
PFA’s spay/neuter surgical truck twice a
month. That no longer is necessary.
“I truly believe this will have an everlast-
ing impact on Jersey City,” Ms. Fulop said.
“This will be the first low-cost spay/neuter
program in Hudson County, and I believe
the lowest cost in the entire state of New
Jersey. Normally, the service would cost
$220 for a big dog and $55 for a cat, but
with this program, it will only be $10 for
our residents.”
She described the problem the program
is addressing. “There are stray cats all over
my block,” she said. “They keep reproduc-
ing. In the winter you see them under cars.
 Local fleischman
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whether it’s a poignant speech, beautiful davening
from a chazan, or even a great kiddush. Call Now
“Shul centers me,” I said to a friend recently, and
I caught myself off guard after uttering these words.
201-568-2242
We had been discussing how difficult it is to get shul-
ready on Shabbat after an exhausting work week. It
came as an epiphany, and as the words tumbled out,
I realized how true it is. After a hectic, difficult, and
challenging week, I can return to the beautiful songs
in the Shabbat davening. I walk towards my “makom
kavua,” my regular seat, and I’m truly home.

Esther Kook is a reading specialist and language arts

teacher. She lives in Teaneck.

The problem is ballooning and it’s impossible to stop

without a subsidized program.”
Ms. Fulop, who grew up Protestant in Rhode Island
and converted to Judaism several years ago, said that she
always has been drawn to Jewish teachings, especially
those concerning tikkun olam and acts of kindness.
Before she became a Jew by choice herself, “A friend of
mine converted and explained the concepts to me,” she
said. “I was really interested in hearing what she had to
say about the religion. I seemed to identify more with
Judaism than with my own religion.”
“I loved the symbolism of the seders,” she said,
adding that she also read books about Judaism before
making the decision to convert. Her husband’s grand-
parents were Holocaust survivors, but his parents did
not try to convince her to convert. “But I wanted it for
them and for myself,” she said, describing conversion
as a “long process.”
Jaclyn and Steve Fulop now are planning a trip to
Israel.
Ms. Fulop said that she is grateful to her staff for
their hard work in raising the funds needed for the
program. “We all really hustled,” she said, noting that
Mr. Nussbaum made presentations to animal activists
to enlist support and that all staff members urged their
clients to attend the event and sent out emails seeking
sponsors. “They went above and beyond,” she said,
adding that as the mayor’s wife, “I’m lucky enough to
have a platform to help out as best I can.”
While her husband was not involved in the effort,
“he’s definitely proud of me,” Ms. Fulop said. “He was
shocked that we raised that much money.” She hopes
that the fundraiser will become an annual event. Lib-
erty Humane has asked her to serve on its board, she
said, and she’s “very excited. I hope cities around the
country will follow suit, saving animals and serving
their communities.”

JEWISH STANDARD APRIL 27, 2018 17

Local

Letter
from
Israel
The HOGs and us
ABIGAIL KLEIN LEICHMAN

How did my husband and I end up singing

the classic Naomi Shemer ballad “Lu Yehi”
with a friendly group of leather-jacketed,
tattooed Harley Davidson bikers and their
sweethearts in a graveyard on Israeli Inde-
pendence Day?
It’s a long story.
Let’s begin with Steve’s inspired notion,
back in 2012, to spend our day
off for Yom Ha’atzmaut (Inde-
pendence Day) visiting Mount
Herzl, the 25-acre national mili-
tary and police cemetery in
Jerusalem.
People always look puzzled
when we tell them that this has
become our Yom Ha’atzmaut
ritual. They assume we must The HOGs leave Mount Herzl.
mean the previous day, Yom  ABIGAIL KLEIN LEICHMAN

Hazikaron (Memorial Day) when

Mount Herzl teems with digni-
taries, bereaved families, and
representatives of organizations The grave of police
laying wreaths and paying trib- officer Baruch Mizrachi is
ute to servicemen and women, adorned with flag, flowers,
presidents, prime ministers, and biographical information
the father of modern Zionism, and a child’s drawing.
Theodor Herzl. ABIGAIL KLEIN LEICHMAN

Visiting this beautifully land-

scaped final resting place on
Independence Day — when most One of our fellow visitors
Israelis have put aside the sad- to the National Memorial
ness of Yom Hazikaron and are Hall for Israel’s Fallen
busy fanning barbecue flames on Yom Ha’atzmaut.
at family picnics — has become STEVE LEICHMAN

a poignant highlight of the day

for us.
The cemetery is nearly empty of visitors,
except for an occasional group of young
people on the Israel leg of the March of
the Living experience. The sound of chirp-
ing birds and gentle breezes bears no hint
of the cries that surely permeated the air
only yesterday. Yet the visual traces of the
previous day are extraordinarily moving.
On each of the approximately 3,500
graves, the Ministry of Defense’s Depart-
ment of Families and Commemoration has
placed a small Israeli flag encircled with a
black ribbon; several memorial candles;
and multiple floral bouquets. (This hap-
pens in each of the country’s 52 military
cemeteries.)
Every headstone reveals the name of
the person buried below it, as well as his
or her parents (if known), the date and
place of birth and death, and when the
person came to Israel if he or she was not
born here. We see a staggering variety of
nations of birth — Poland, Romania, Hun-
gary, Germany, Belgium, Iraq, Iran, Tuni-
sia, Morocco, Yemen, Egypt, Lithuania,
Latvia, Russia, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia,
France, Austria, Italy, Bulgaria, Turkey —
and a few English-speaking countries, too.
As at any Jewish cemetery, visitors to
Mount Herzl place small stones on the
graves to signify that someone has been
there. On Yom Hazikaron, many also leave
a handwritten note or children’s drawing,
or a form requesting anyone with bio-
graphical information on the deceased
to write to a certain email address. Some
graves are topped with carefully typed
information on the deceased tucked into
a plastic sleeve, providing us with
additional insights into a life cut short by
war or terror.
This year we were eager to add Mount
Herzl’s new National Memorial Hall for
Israel’s Fallen to our route.
When we arrived, we were told a group
was starting its tour and we could join
in. To our surprise, the group comprised
members of the Israeli HOG (Harley Own-
ers Group) community and their signifi-
cant others.
We asked permission to photograph
some of them, and it was granted gra-
ciously, with a smile.
The visitors listened with respect and
patience — not always evident in Israeli
tour groups — as a female soldier and a
female police officer described the mag-
nificent new building and its symbolism.
The interior periphery is lined with a
Wall of Names composed of nearly 23,000
aluminum bricks, personally engraved and
arranged by year of death.
Adding a Jewish touch, a video display
shows the faces and biographical details
of those whose yahrzeit coincides with the
day of your visit — in our case, the fourth of
Iyar. The corresponding brick in the wall
lights up that day as well.
At the heart of the hall, shafts of bright
Jerusalem sunlight cascade down through
a 60-foot funnel of 6,000 additional
bricks.
Gathering in a circle around the funnel,
we received sheets with the words to “Lu
Yehi.” Every Israeli knows the melody and
we raised our voices together.
“Lu yehi” means “may it be” or “let it
be,” but not in the Paul McCartney sense

18 JEWISH STANDARD APRIL 27, 2018

 Local

of accepting what is. Naomi Shemer’s very

Israeli song is a passionate prayer for what
could be.
Here are three of the verses in
translation:

There is yet a white sail on the horizon,

Set against the dark and heavy clouds,
All that we ask for, let it be.
And if in the windows by evening,
The festive candles should flicker,
All that we ask for, let it be.

And if the messenger should

come to the door,
Place good news on his lips,
All that we ask for, let it be.
If your soul asks to pass on,
From blooms and harvests,
All that we ask for, let it be.

And if suddenly from the dark should shine, This brick funnel is at the center of Mount Herzl’s National Memorial Hall for Israel’s Fallen. ABIGAIL KLEIN LEICHMAN

The light of a star on our faces,

All that we ask for, let it be.
Give peace and also strength
To all those we love,
All that we ask for, let it be.
So there we were, the bikers and the two
American émigrés, belting out our hopes
for peace and strength in the special land we share.
Walking out of that hallowed ground into the
bright Jerusalem sunlight, the HOGs mounted their
Israeli-flag-bedecked motorcycles and roared off
down Herzl Boulevard, while overhead Israeli jets
performed a fabulous flyover. Being neither bikers
nor pilots, we wended our way on foot down the
boulevard toward a favorite café, grateful for the
privilege of celebrating 70 years of Israeli statehood
at the heart of it all.

We all sing “Lu Yehi” with our guide. ABIGAIL KLEIN LEICHMAN The Wall of Names. ABIGAIL KLEIN LEICHMAN

JEWISH STANDARD APRIL 27, 2018 19

Briefly Local

Sharsheret annual benefit honors sisters and longtime volunteer

Sharsheret, a national not-for-profit organization dedicated
to addressing the needs of women and families facing breast
cancer and ovarian cancer, hosts its annual benefit on Sun-
day, May 6, at 10 a.m. Holy Name Medical Center is the lead
sponsor. The event at the Marriott at Glenpointe in Teaneck
includes a high-end silent auction.
Sisters Gila Pfeffer and Miryam Reinitz-Kops are the guests
of honor and volunteer Jonathan Blinken will receive the
Lisa Altman Volunteer Tribute award. Tanya Zuckerbrot,
founder/CEO of F-Factor and a Sharsheret Medical Advisory
Board member, is the guest speaker. For information, go to
Sharsheret.org/benefit. Gila Pfeffer Miryam Reinitz-Kops Jonathan Blinken Tanya Zuckerbrot

Dedication this weekend at Tenafly shul

COURTESY HILLEL OF ROCKLAND

The official dedication for an
extensive renovation project at
Temple Sinai of Bergen County in
Tenafly is set for Saturday, April
28, at 6:30 p.m. The evening will
include a gala honoring Rabbi Jor-
dan Millstein for his decade of ser- ROBERT LIEBERMAN

vice to the congregation and his

25 years in the rabbinate. It will
feature a strolling dinner, cham-
pagne, music, and dessert.
The Reform synagogue’s new
Kaplen sanctuary and Taub Fam- Rabbi Jordan
ily social hall, and the next phase Millstein
of work for the building, repre-
sent the latest trends in worship, learning,
and socializing. The new building will fea-
ture Jewish art expressly created for Tem-
ple Sinai.
“This is a transformative moment in
our history,” Rabbi Millstein said. “We are
a dynamic and vibrant congregation, but
the spaces within our facility, as they were
originally built, did not reflect who we are
today.”
Initial discussions about the project
began three years ago, when two families
— both families are longstanding members
of the congregation, and both chose to
remain anonymous — offered to fund the
renovation of the building’s sanctuary and
social hall.
“These incredibly generous gifts ignited
our vision to renovate the entire building,”
said Ilana Matteson, immediate past presi-
dent and co-chair of the Capital Campaign
committee. It was in the early months of
Matteson’s presidency that the two lead
donors — who also want to keep the sizes of
their donations private — stepped forward.
“We wanted to create a spiritually inspiring
space, one where the members of our con-
gregation would have a meaningful experi-
ence in any and every way they participate
in synagogue life,” she said.
To explore the project’s potential,
Rabbi Millstein; the synagogue’s execu-
tive director, Joseph Slade; Ms. Matte-
son, and another past president, visited
a dozen recently renovated synagogues
along the east coast and in the Midwest.
A design committee and a steering com-
mittee were created, and more research
followed. The group chose to partner with
Rabbi Beth
Kramer-Mazer
Levin/Brown Architects, a Maryland-based
firm specializing in houses of worship. The
firm’s principal, Mark Levin, a Reform Jew
and past president of his synagogue, led
the project.
Phase I of the renovations focused on
the synagogue’s sanctuary and social hall.
The sanctuary now is circular, so the con-
gregants can see one another and feel
connected. The hard-backed pews were
replaced with comfortable chairs that
could be easily reconfigured to accom-
modate gatherings from 50 to 200 peo-
ple, while still maintaining a sense of inti-
macy. An expandable bimah rises only
six inches above the ground and can be
lowered to ground level. Drop-down
television screens were installed and
the acoustics throughout the space were
vastly improved.
A ner tamid conceived by artist Claude
Reidel hangs from the central skylight. Its
central location in the sanctuary signals
that God is at the center of the community.
Six new stained-glass windows, designed
by third-generation Jewish artist David
Ascalon, surround the bimah and the
ark. Each window shows a biblical scene
in which the word Hineini is spoken. Hin-
eini — “Here I am” — is a guiding principle
at Temple Sinai. The ark doors show the
burning bush, representing the scene in
the Torah when Moses said Hineini to God.
Another change at Temple Sinai is the
addition of Rabbi Beth Kramer-Mazer, who
will begin in July as a rabbi-educator and
the director of lifelong learning.
For information, call (201) 568-3035 or
go to TempleSinaiBC.org.
Hillel of Rockland holds
commemoration at RCC
Bernard Storch, center, a 96-year-old
Polish-born Jew and decorated veteran
of the Polish army who liberated four
concentration camps and received 10
medals of distinction from the Polish
government, with students and leaders
Bikur Cholim has May 12 Melava Malka
Bikur Cholim Bergen County is host-
ing its second annual Melava Malka, an
evening of awareness, inspiration, and
opportunity, on Motzei Shabbat, May
12, at 9 p.m. It culminates in the annual
“Shabbat of Awareness” when rabbis
throughout Bergen County address their
congregants about the mitzvah of bikur
cholim and the valuable services that
Bikur Cholim Bergen County provides.
The evening will be hosted at the
Shearit HaPlate welcomes leftover food
Because there aren’t planned smachot
and few organizational events during the
Sefirat ha-Omer, Shearit HaPlate finds
itself with less donated catered food now
than during the rest of the year. Never-
theless, it does its best to serve 60 recipi-
ent families every week.
The non-profit organization is dedi-
cated to minimizing the waste of kosher
food within the community by distribut-
ing that food to people in need, usually
within 24 hours. SHPBC collects, repack-
ages, and distributes surplus food to indi-
viduals and families within Teaneck and
surrounding communities in a respectful
of Hillel of Rockland at Rockland Com-
munity College, after he told his story.
When asked what he thinks the Jewish
people will look like 96 years from now,
he told the students, “That’s up to all
of you.”
Teaneck home of Marcia and David Kre-
inberg. There will be a video presenta-
tion about the services BCBC provides.
Speakers include people whose lives
were touched by chesed during times of
illness, and volunteers who talk about
the profound effects of their good deeds.
All are welcome to the free event. For
information, go to bikurcholimbergen-
county.org, call (201) 579-3066, or email
info@bikurcholimbergencounty.org.
way that helps to ensure the recipients’
privacy and self-esteem.
Consider donating kosher catered
or takeout food from kiddushes, meet-
ings, and home events; the quantity
does not need to be large and food can
be picked up, even for one family. Also
note that despite a known hesitation to
donate food from a shiva house, there
is a psak that says it is permissible, and
even should be encouraged when it pre-
vents waste/bal tashkit. For information,
call pickup coordinator Daniel Chazin at
(201) 835-5338, email him at dchazin@
aol.com, or go to www.shpbc.org.

20 JEWISH STANDARD APRIL 27, 2018

 UPCOMING AT KAPLEN
Shop for a Cause!
Featuring jewelry, accessories and clothing favorites
along with NEW vendors offering books, camp
gear, floral design, pottery, and more! Shop for
Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, graduation, teachers,
children and YOU! Proceeds support enrichment
programs at the Leonard & Syril Rubin Nursery
School. Free admission.
For more info email Michal at
mkleiman@jccotp.org.
Sun, Apr 29, 10 am-5 pm &
Mon, Apr 30, 9 am-4 pm
The Leonard & Syril Rubin Nursery
COURTESY HILLEL OF ROCKLAND
School - Registration is Open!
AGES 3 MONTHS-KINDERGARTEN
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Meet Our CSA Farmers
2018 HAZON COMMUNITY SUPPORTED
AGRICULTURE AT THE JCC
Our farmers from Free Bird Farm will help us
launch our new CSA season with a veggie
stir-fry demo and tasting for adults, and a
planting demo for kids. Join us and register
to become a CSA member and enjoy 22
weeks of fresh organic produce.
Sun, Apr 29, 1 pm, $5 per adult CSA
members/$10 per adult public/children free
Visit jccotp.org/jewish-community-events
ADULTS
Israeli Society Through the Lens of
Cinema with Eric Goldman, PhD
Israel has emerged as one of the great centers
for filmmaking and is celebrated for its artistic
excellence, and intimate insights into the dynamic
nature of Israel and its people. View film clips and
examine the changing nature of Israeli society.
Sun, May 6, 7:30pm, $10/$12
TO REGISTER OR FOR MORE INFO
VISIT jccotp.org
STAY IN THE KNOW! LIKE US ON
facebook.com/KaplenJCCOTP
JEWISH STANDARD APRIL 27, 2018 21
 Briefly Local
Bernice and Bernie Gola Warren and Esther Feldman Lawrence and Elana Bibi
Maddy Gold
Save the date for
Valley Chabad celebrating 18
Valley Chabad hosts “Celebrate 18 — Cel-
ebrate Life,” a gala dinner marking 18 years
of community, education, and outreach,
on Tuesday, June 5, at 6:30 p.m., at the
Rockleigh.
Bernice and Bernie Gola are the Chai
Life recipients; Esther and Warren Feld-
man are the Shem Tov awardees, and
Ahavath Torah
dinner honors
three couples
Congregation Ahavath Torah of Engle-
wood will holds its annual dinner on May
6. Michelle and Mitchell Weitzner are the
guests of honor; the Young Leadership
award will be given to Dr. Stu and Ahuva
Warburg Halpern, and Rabbi Mark and Joy
Berman are the Harbatzat Torah award-
ees. Renowned mentalist Oz Pearlman will
perform.
The event also celebrates Israel’s 70th
birthday with a culinary journey through
Israel’s sheva minim (seven spices) with
wine and cocktail pairings. To register go
to www.ahavathtorah.org/dinner2018.
Mentalist Oz Pearlman
1 22 JEWISH STANDARD APRIL 27, 2018
Mitchell Bloom
Elana and Lawrence Bibi will receive the
Young Leadership award. The Teen Volun-
teer “Our Future” award will go to Maddy
Gold and Mitchell Bloom.
For information, call (201) 476-0157,
email celebration18@valleychabad.org, or
go to Celebration18.com.
PHOTOS PROVIDED
Dr. Stu and Ahuva Warburg Halpern
Michelle and Mitchell Weitzner
Rabbi Mark and Joy Berman
Marking the Holocaust
in Teaneck and Hackensack
David Fox of Temple Emeth,
holding the shul’s Holocaust
Torah, spoke at the Yom
Hashoah memorial service
on April 15 held near the
synagogue’s garden. With
him, from left, are Rabbi Ste-
ven Sirbu, religious school
student Iris Pierce, and the
school’s director, Dora Geld
Friedman. BARBARA BALKIN
Bergen County commemorated Holocaust Memorial Day on April 18 at the
Bergen County Plaza. From left, acting prosecutor Dennis Calo, Bergen
County Sherriff Michael Saudino, County Executive James Tedesco, and
Rabbi Mordechai and Shterney Kanelsky of Bris Avrohom. Rabbi Kanelsky
talked about the Holocaust and led the memorial prayers; Claire Kahane,
Leon Kozak, Yitz Stern, Deborah Veach, Assemblyman Gary Schaer, and
Rabbi Kanelsky lit six candles. BRIS AVROHOM
Magdelena Devorah Hilsenrath, an Auschwitz survivor, lights a candle with her
great-grandson Elijah Mosberg at the annual Teaneck Yom HaShoah com-
memoration sponsored by the Jewish Community Council of Teaneck on April
11. Dr. Moshe Avital, who survived 10 concentration and labor camps before
he was liberated from Buchenwald 73 years ago, was the keynote speaker.
More than 1,100 people were at the commemoration. Jonathan Rimberg sang;
he was accompanied by violinist Stephanie Kurtzman and the Yeshivat Noam
choir. Rabbi Jonny Krug and Arline Duker read the names of relatives of com-
munity members who died in the Holocaust and Rabbi Yosef Adler of Congre-
gation Rinat Yisrael recited the Kaddish and Kel Maleh Rachamim.
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JEWISH STANDARD APRIL 27, 2018 23

Rockland
Daffodils, memory, and joy
Montebello Jewish Center’s nursery school children
dedicate their garden to Holocaust memory
Joanne Palmer

A
Jewish star is just a six-pointed
star. If it’s yellow, it’s yellow.
The symbolism is added later.
The Nazis made Jews wear
a yellow star on their arms. During that
time, in that place, the yellow star was a
symbol of degradation, displaying its wear-
ers as less than fine, upstanding people,
and eventually displaying its wearers as
less than people. As not quite human.
It was meant to be a sign of shame.
A daffodil is a glowingly yellow flower,
innocent, vulnerable, a buttery sign of
spring and hope and life.
It looks a little bit like a yellow star.
So why not take the yellow star and
transform it into a daffodil? “We trans-
form it into a thing of beauty and a sign of
pride,” Rabbi Joshua Finkelstein, the rabbi
of the Montebello Jewish Center, said.
Wait. What? No. It’s a real thing. The
daffodil project honors the memory of the
children who died in the Shoah
by trying to plant 1.5 million of
the yellow blooms. That’s one
daffodil for each child.
On Sunday, one month into
nominal spring, after weeks of Trudy Album, inset, launched the idea for the daffodil memorial at the
cold, clammy, drippy winter Montebello Jewish Center.
that refused to make way for
spring, synagogue members planning daffodils, Ms. Album added. another, waiting on line to be gassed to
and the children in the shul’s The deer can’t eat them. “We have a death and then cremated. Ms. Album went
nursery school will dedicate the lot of deer here,” she said. from concentration camp to concentra-
daffodils they’ve planted. With “We want to make sure that this is tion camp, always on the brink of violent
luck, it will be warm enough not a one-off,” Rabbi Finkelstein said. death, never falling into the abyss.
and dry enough to allow them “The symbolism for us also is the Jew- But she survived.
to do it outside. ish idea that we must be grounded in She also has written about her life. It’s
Trudy Album is a Holocaust the past and looking forward toward online, at www.trudyalbum.com; it’s hard
survivor who lives in Suffern the future.” to read it without crying, and it is impos-
and is an active member of Ms. Album has a terrible past, sible to read it without being moved enor-
the Montebello Jewish Center; although her life since then has been mously by Ms. Album’s tenacity, strong
she is “one of the community’s good. She was born into a large, lov- will, courage, and refusal to give up hope.
superstars,” Rabbi Finkelstein ing family in Czechoslovakia, in a After a long life, a good marriage to a
said. “All the local rabbis know town where everyone really did get man she loved, who now is dead, and chil-
her. Everyone knows her wher- along, she said; she remembers her dren, Ms. Album never has stopped trying
ever she goes, and she goes childhood as idyllic. Eventually the to figure out how to keep the understand-
everywhere.” Germans came in, and life became ing of the horrors of the Shoah real, while
The daffodil project at Monte- first sour and then increasingly not only allowing for but actively seeking
bello was her idea, he said. impossible. When she and the other sunlight and joy.
“About a year ago, she came Jews first had to wear yellow stars, That’s where the daffodils came in.
to the synagogue with the idea “some people didn’t talk to me any- Ms. Album’s son Keith died this year,
of the daffodil project,” he said. The daf- harbinger of spring.” more, or even look at me, and other peo- so the dedication on Sunday will be in his
fodil project involves planting daffodils So that’s what the shul did. Both chil- ple didn’t let that happen,” she said. “But memory as well as the memory of the chil-
in memory of the children the Nazis mur- dren and adults planted bulbs, working I always was proud of being a Jew, and I dren slaughtered by the Nazis and their
dered, using the plant’s characteristics — from designs drawn up by synagogue wore it like a badge.” collaborators. But the daffodils are beauti-
the bright, hopeful, pure color, the star- member Elaine Allenson, Ms. Album said. Things got worse and worse, until the ful. “The purpose is to remember the past
like shape, the fragility and vulnerability, Now the children and the adults will dedi- Jewish community was shipped off to Aus- and look toward a good Jewish future,” Ms.
and the ability to push through frozen cate the garden together. chwitz. Ms. Album was sent to one line Album said. “They tried to kill us, but we
ground and leftover brown grass to be the There are also practical reasons for while her mother and sisters filed off to still are here.”

24 Jewish Standard APRIL 27, 2018

 Rockland

Award-winning film producer
to speak at women’s gala
Women’s Philanthropy, a divi-
sion of the Jewish Federation
& Foundation of Rockland
County, will host its annual
spring outreach event at the
Rockleigh Country Club on
Thursday, May 17. This year,
it will feature movie producer
and philanthropist Nancy
Spielberg.
Nanc y Spielberg is an
award-winning writer and Nancy Spielberg
producer of Jewish and Israel-
themed documentaries and feature films.
Most recently, she produced “Above and
Beyond,” winner of the audience award
at more than 20 film festivals. Ms. Spiel-
berg is the executive producer of Sophie
Sartain’s documentary “Mimi and Dona,”
which was broadcast nationally on PBS in
2015. She is also the executive producer of and-greet at 6; attendees can have their
“Who Will Write Our History,” the story
of the buried archive from the Warsaw
Ghetto, and of “On the Map,” a documen-
tary by filmmaker Dani Menkin.
According to the evening’s co-chair,
Carol Schiller, “Federation’s
mission includes education
about the State of Israel. We
are very excited that Nancy
Spielberg will be our Wom-
en’s Philanthropy guest this
year as we celebrate Israel’s
70th anniversary.” Her co-
chair, Bonnie Werk, added
“Philanthropy and educa-
tion have always been cor-
nerstones of Jewish culture.
Women’s Philanthropy is
today’s modern expression of ancient
values, which have never been as impor-
tant as they are today. That’s why the Jew-
ish Federation & Foundation of Rockland
County has this outreach event each year
and I’m so proud to be a part of it.”
The evening begins with a VIP meet-
pictures taken with Ms. Spielberg. The
buffet dinner, auction, and program begin
at 7. For more information or to buy tick-
ets, go to jewishrockland.org/womensgala
before the May 10 deadline.
Save the date for
May 6 RJFS event
Rockland Jewish Family Service will
“Launch RJFS Into the Future” on Sun-
day, May 6, at 5 p.m., at Congregation
Shaarey Israel, 18 Montebello Road,
in Suffern. The evening will include a
cocktail hour and a dessert buffet hon-
oring Dr. Nancy Goldman, Cantor Barry
Kanarek of the Nanuet Hebrew Center,
and Dr. Steve and Judy Levy. Call (845)
354-2121 or go to www.rjfs.org.
NCJW meeting
features memory
enhancing strategies
Dr. Anna MacKay-Brandt of the Nathan
Kline Institute offers a program, “Strat-
egies for Improving Your Memory,” for
the Rockland section of the National
Council of Jewish Women on Wednes-
day, May 9, at 7:30 p.m. The program,
which will include refreshments, will
be at the JCC Rockland, 450 West
Nyack Road, in West Nyack. For infor-
mation go to ncjwrockland.org.
Sign up for Rockland
Birthright trips
Hillel of Rockland’s Dov and Shevy Oli-
ver will lead Birthright trips to Israel this
summer. College-age students are wel-
come on the June 4 to 14 trip; young pro-
fessionals can apply for the trip planned
from July 12 to 19. Register at MayanotIs-
rael.com or call (845) 659-2388.
March in the
Celebrate Israel
parade on June 3
Join the Jewish Federation & Foun-
dation of Rockland County and the
Rockland community as they march
down Fifth Avenue in Manhattan in
the annual Celebrate Israel Parade.
This year’s theme is Seventy and
Sababa (awesome). Meet at the Rock-
land Jewish Community Campus, 450
West Nyack Road, West Nyack, at 8
a.m., to board buses taking the con-
tingent to Manhattan. Register to get
a spot on the bus and a “Seventy and
Sababa” tee-shirt. For information, go
to JewishRockland.org.

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Rockland

Documentary
highlights anti-Semitism
on college campuses
“Hate Spaces,” a documentary about anti-Semi-
tism and intimidation on college campuses, will be
screened on Sunday, April 29, at 2 p.m., at Congrega-
tion Shaarey Israel in Montebello. A discussion and
refreshments will follow. It is sponsored by FOR (Focus
on Reality), an organization that advocates for Jewish
concerns.
The shul is at 18 Montebello Road. For information,
call (845) 369-0300, go to shaareyisraelrockland.org,
or email forrock2016@gmail.com.

Taken at last year’s event. CoUrTeSY FrIenDSHIP CIrCle oF roCKlanD

Rockland friendship
walk/family fun day is May 6
WELCOME CENTER NOW OPEN
More than 600 people are expected to
walk in support of children with special
needs at the Friendship Circle of Rock-
land’s Friendship Walk, set for Sunday,
May 6, at the RCC Fieldhouse, 145 College
Road, at Rockland Community College,
145 College Road in Suffern. (Use the viola
entrance.) Registration opens at noon,
families are invited to celebrate and
enjoy a fair with inflatables, rides, art,
face painting, and an open vendor booth
market. There will also be a “Cirque Tac-
ular Show” performance.
“Rockland Friendship Walk helps
develop a strong sense of community,
while showing support for special chil-

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New Retirement Community
and online registration is until May 5. All
proceeds will fund social and educational
experiences for people with special needs
dren and their families,” the organiza-
tion’s director, Devorah Sirota, said.
For information, go to www.Rockland-
Is Coming to Rockland County. After the walk, participants and their FriendshipWalk.com.

Brightview is bringing Reducing stress and anxiety

carefree, resort-style living – On the first Wednesday of each month, are welcome.
Call Cindy or Dorothy
with no large entrance fee – Rockland Jewish Family Service offers Meditative practices have been deeply
to Rockland County. to schedule your visit. mindfulness and meditation and other rooted in Judaism for thousands of years.

845.203.2338
techniques to reduce stress and anxiety.
Brightview Lake Tappan offers Experience deep relaxation and peace
with music, mindfulness, and other sim-
access to tri-state shopping, ple tools you can use in daily life. All levels
The next class is May 2 at 11 a.m. RJFS is
at 450 West Nyack Road in West Nyack.
All proceeds support RJFS’ mission. Call
(845) 354-2121, ext. 142.

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BVK • SCI • #9a • JobBVK • SCI • #9a

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Estelle and Murray Appelbaum Cherie and Dr. Steven Starkman
Migdal Ohr honors Monsey, Englewood families
Migdal Ohr, Israel’s premier education-focused organi-
zation for underprivileged, orphaned, abused and new
immigrant children, will hold its annual gala dinner on
Wednesday, May 9, at 6 p.m., at the Edison Ballroom in
Manhattan. Supporters from across the tristate area are
invited to attend and raise funds for the at-risk children
Migdal Ohr serves, and also honor distinguished support-
ers who have contributed significantly to its success over
its 45-year history.
Murray and Estelle Appelbaum of Monsey, the guests
of honor, became involved with Migdal Ohr 30 years ago
when they met Rabbi Yitzchak Dovid Grossman. Murray
Appelbaum soon became a board member of the Ameri-
can Friends of Migdal Ohr. Estelle Appelbaum has volun-
teered with Amit, Yeshiva University, and Ashar School.
The couple have been active members of the Community
WOMEN’S PHILANTHROPY
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Caroline Starkman
Synagogue of Monsey for more than 40 years.
Dr. Steven and Cherie Starkman, the Tower of Light
awardees, and their daughter, Caroline, the Lev Tov - Young
Leadership award-winner, are from Englewood. Steven
and Cherie Starkman have been involved with Migdal Ohr
for more than 25 years and are longtime members and sup-
porters of Congregation Ahavath Torah. Caroline Starkman,
a member of the Young Leadership Committee of the Ameri-
can Friends of Migdal Ohr, has been involved with the orga-
nization since she was a young girl.
Rabbi Yitzchak Dovid Grossman, Migdal Ohr’s founder
and dean, and an Israel Prize winner, will present the
awards. This year’s gala theme celebrates Israel@70. It will
feature a musical performance by the Frisch school choir.
Call (212) 397-3700 or go to www.migdalohrusa.
org/2018gala.
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A Family-Owned Residence.
Keeping Seniors Active, Social, and Engaged for Over 50 years.
Rockland
Bereavement
support at RJFS
Bereavement specialists at Rockland Jewish
Family Service provide counseling for peo-
ple and families who are dealing with the
death of someone they loved. RJFS also has
bereavement support groups and assists
schools and other institutions when grief
counseling is needed. All bereavement ser-
vices are insurance reimbursable.
RJFS’s support groups, After Shiva and
Moving On, are open to people of all faiths.
After Shiva is for people mourning the
death of a spouse or partner, and Moving
On offers spouses and partners who already
have been part of a bereavement group at
Rockland Jewish Family Service or else-
where the opportunity to continue meet-
ing in a facilitated group setting. Members
discuss their challenges and experiences as
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For information, call Carol King at (845)
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Jewish Standard APRIL 27, 2018 27
 Visiting writer Caitlin Alifirenka talks
about her memoir, “I WIll Always Write
Back,” the school’s One Community,
One Read selection; the memoir, about

C
a penpal friendship that changed lives,
inspired students’ social action.

This is the school in Langabuya, South Africa,

whose library Schechter is creating.

28 Jewish Standard APRIL 27, 2018

Cover Story
Books to Africa,
IB to Schechter
As it packs up books to bring to South Africa, Schechter in New Milford
learns it won certification as International Baccalaureate middle school
T
Joanne Palmer
he Solomon Schechter
Day School of Bergen
County in New Milford
has big news. Its middle
school had been certified
as an International Bac-
calaureate World School, the only Jewish
day school between Maine and Georgia to
have gained that credential. (Only six secu-
lar schools in New Jersey have it.)
As it continues on the IB path it formally
began three years ago, as it began to make
formal the inquiry-based, child-centered,
multidisciplinary, deeply Jewish approach
it has employed for years, the school also
is putting its values into practice.
This summer, its head, Ruth Gafni, and
its librarian, Beryl Bresgi, will go to South
Africa, to dedicate the library they have
sent to a school there.
What can be more Jewish than giving
books? Than realizing that the human
need to lose yourself in another time and
Middle-schoolers build the solar-powered lights that will be sent to South Africa.
place, to learn what it’s like to be someone
else, to learn facts and burrow deep into
interpretations and worldviews and stories
stories stories?
And what can be more open to the rest
of the world, more indicative of the under-
standing that we all exist in a web, not a
vacuum, than to send books outside our
own world? To make a connection with
someone else’s world? And to do it person-
ally, with an open mind and heart
So — the books to South Africa.
Ms. Bresgi grew up on a farm in South
Africa, about an hour outside Johannes-
burg, in a town called Leslie. “The South
African Jewish community got there in the
early 20th century,” she said. “A lot of our
parents and grandparents lived on farms
together. We had three generations liv-
ing on our farm. And it was not a mom-
and-pop operation. It was huge. There is a
South African measurement called a mor-
gen; my father had 2,000 morgen.” That’s
about 14,234 acres.
“There were about 200 black fami-
lies, with kids, living on the farm, plus
migrant workers,” she said. Apartheid
did not end until 1991, so there were rigid
rules in place that restricted these fami-
lies’ movement. They were not free, as
we understand freedom.
“So my father started a little school with
a teacher,” Ms. Bresgi said. “As a kid, I was a
Jewish Standard APRIL 27, 2018 29
Cover Story

huge reader”— remember, she’s a librarian!
— “so I would look through those books.”
Some of them were in a language she could
not read — Xhosa, the native language.
“I was fascinated by how different this
school was from my school,” she said. “We
went to an Afrikaans school. There was a
strong Jewish community, so we had a
Hebrew school that was built by my father
and his generation.” Teachers would come
to the afterschool program twice a week.
“Elementary school only went up to the
seventh or eighth grade, and then parents
had to make a decision,” Ms. Bresgi said.
“We could either go to an English school
that was farther away, or to a Jewish board-
ing school in Johannesburg called the King
David School. That’s where most of the
kids in our community went. It was the
only Jewish boarding school in sub-Saha-
ran Africa. It had kids from all over South
Africa and Zambia.”
The school was huge, it was famous, “it
was a British-style boarding school, and I
hated it,” Ms. Bresgi said. She was 11 when
she started there.
She was the second of four children,
and her parents decided that they could
not stomach the idea of all of them being
away, so after a year they all moved to
Middle school students learn to code the robots they build as part of the
expanded STEAM program.
Johannesburg, and she became a day stu-
dent at King David. “I liked it much better
after that,” she said.
Her parents were deeply involved in
Jewish life in the city. “My father repre-
sented all the rural communities on the
Jewish Board of Education,” the local
umbrella group, she said.
This is not only interesting in the
abstract but also relevant, because “I grew
up knowing about the rural schools, and
the school on the farm made a big impres-
sion,” she said.
Eventually her parents made aliyah,
along with her two younger siblings; she
and her brother Morris stayed. He is a doc-
tor in South Africa today; Ms. Bresgi, who
had gotten married, came to the United
States with her husband, Ivan, so he could
go to graduate school, earning a doctorate
in psychology at Columbia. “We were on
our way to Israel, but we never made it,”
she said.
“I was here on a J2 visa, so I couldn’t
work,” she said. “That left me with not
much else to do other than study. I found
out that Columbia had a library school, so
I enrolled.” That was 1983.
The family moved to Teaneck, where
they joined Congregation Beth Sholom, put
their children in Solomon Schechter, and
Ms. Bresgi joined the faculty. “I’ve been at
Schechter for 29 years, and now I have two
grandchildren there,” she said. (Now she
and her husband live in Fort Lee.)
And then, years later, just last year, she
was at a bat mitzvah for a friend’s daugh-
ter, “and I was talking to my friend’s sister,
who lives in South Africa and is the head
of pediatrics at the Red Cross hospital in
Cape Town.” That’s Dr. Heather Zar, who,
among other awards and prizes, most
recently was named 2018 L’Oreal–UNESCO
Women in Science Laureate. Dr. Zar knows

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30 Jewish Standard APRIL 27, 2018


Ms. Bresgi’s brother, because of course
there aren’t so many degrees of separation
between South Africa Jews.
A few years ago, Ms. Bresgi and Ms.
Gafni, the head of school, went to Rwanda;
“our Holocaust curriculum is connected
to the universal message,” Ms. Bresgi said.
“We teach the particular and keep bring-
ing in the universal. We are always looking
for global reach.”
So “when we became an IB school, and
talked about the global connection, all of
this is constantly whirling in my head,” she
continued. “I thought about what the needs
must be in South Africa — I’m sure they’re
huge — and I asked Heather about them.
“She said that she is doing epidemiolog-
ical research on under resourced areas,
and that one of the schools they’re study-
ing needs a soccer field and a library, and
it gelled for me.
“I said, ‘I can’t do a soccer field — but a
library I can do.’
“Heather told me that I wouldn’t know
anything about the school, or even the
place where the school is. It’s a little place
outside Cape Town, she said. I said, ‘Tell
me,’ and she said, ‘It’s Paarl.’
“That’s the little town my mother and
grandparents came from.” (It’s also the
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region of South Africa that produces most of
the wines the country exports, she added.)
“So I sat with that, and then I talked to
Ruth, and I said that this is what I would
like to do, and she was incredibly support-
ive. It began with fund-raising.”
That’s always a taut line to walk, on one
side the tug is toward the absolute need to
GRAN
GRA
raise money for your own school, and on
the other is to do it for an outside cause.
“And then we came up with a wonderful
model,” Ms. Bresgi said. “Let’s do it for
both libraries.”
It’s particularly important because
“our children have a very narrow lens on
life. They’re Jewish white kids in Bergen
County. I really want them to understand
the world generally.
“Our library collection is strong on
Africa. I really want them to understand
the concept that Africa is not a country. Caitlin Alifirenka stands with a middle school student.
It is a continent. So I thought I would
develop our collection to show the diverse community was incredible,” she said. “We NGO called Biblionef; recently, the school
experiences of diverse groups.” Her collec- didn’t expect such a generous response. shipped out about 700 books, for 5-
tion includes both books about Jewish chil- And such fantastic notes! It was so satisfy- through 14-year-olds. They’re all in Eng-
dren living Jewish lives and stories about ing. Even the small donations came with lish; another collection, in Xhosa, comes
people “who don’t look like them, speak such wonderful words! It was so gratifying. from South Africa.
like them or act like them.” “So I started buying books.” “At first, I thought I would just buy the
When she began to fund raise for books She is working with people in Dr. Zar’s books and send them,” Ms. Bresgi said.
to send to Africa, “the response from the department and with a book-donation “But I realized that I am not just sending
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Cover Story

books. I am sending a library. So I realized that I should How is this relevant?

A student works with a 3-D printer, which is used not
as a flashy toy but a tool to help repair the world.
send a catalogue.”
The catalogue will be a physical list, printed out in ink
on paper, the old-fashioned way, and color-coded. There
would be no point to a digital one. The school library does
not have a computer; moreover, its leaders do not want
one. “They said it would just get stolen,” she said.
“I have our kids learning about South Africa, and the
continent of Africa in general,” she said. “I had them write
some notes for the books; I will take a lot of the notes with
me.” She and Ms. Gafni plan to go to the school in July.
“Ruth and I are going because of our whole global con-
nection and Holocaust connection,” she said. “We are
going to do a workshop at the new Johannesburg Holo-
caust and Genocide Center. We met the director, Tali
Nates, in Rwanda; we will do a talk on what we do on
Holocaust and genocide education there, and we will
learn from them. And then we are going to Cape Town to
meet with a library committee, and maybe the education
department at Western Cape University.
“And then we will go set up the library.”
Whitney Barnett is a link in the chain between the school
and the library. She is from Tennessee, but now she lives in
South Africa. (That results in an interesting hybrid accent.)
She works at the Research Centre for Adolescent and Child
Health at the University of Cape Town, where she is the proj-
ect manager of a study “looking broadly at how risk factors
are determinative of child health,” she said. “It’s a multidisci-
plinary study led by a pediatric pulmonologist and has since
grown to encompass more fields.”
“We have been doing this study in two communities in
Paarl,” she said. “As researchers we have an ethical obli-
gation to community engagement. That comes in many
forms. Some of it is just disseminating research findings
from the study.”
Another part of it is trying to meet some of the needs
the researchers uncover.
“We have identified a school that is close to one of our
research sites,” Ms. Barnett said. “Some of the kids in the
study have enrolled in this school. It’s an underprivileged
community — a historically disadvantaged black African
community — with about 1,400 kids, more or less a pri-
mary school, first through 8th or 9th grades.
“We reached out to the school to find out if there is a
way to partner with it, so find out what it needs. They
came back with a long list.” That list included a library.
From the ground up. Literally. There is no building for it,
no infrastructure, and no books.
Enter the Solomon Schechter Day School of Bergen
County. (And, of course, enter the worldwide network of
Jews.) The school will provide the books; the researchers
have connected to funders who will house those books.
“Part of the IB program is to have a global lens on every
unit of study,” Ms. Gafni said. “We are pushing beyond our
classroom walls, so that our students will have an under-
standing of what is going on in the world, and they will be
empowered to act about it.
“The IB is transforming the way that we teach our core
curriculum.”

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As they combine ideas and disci-
plines, Schechter students learn to use
ideas to figure out how to make things —
and then actually to make those things.
Case in point — flashlights.
“Our students are working on build-
ing mini lights,” Ms. Gafni said; “they’re
about the size of cigarette boxes,” she
added, dating herself. (But what else is
just about that size?)
They’re for people, like the ones
in South Africa, who do not have reli-
able access to electricity, and so can-
not charge devises even if they were to
get them. “The top of the flashlight is a
small solar panel, and there is a circuit
within it that you can switch on or off.
“During the day, you can put it in the
sun, and it will charge itself. At night,
you use it. Schechter’s design instructor, Harley Ungar, talks about designing and building solar
“The kids created it. They are build- light boxes.
ing it. The circuits were preordered, but
they designed it.”
The lights also are very inexpensive to make.
Why do middle-school students need a design class? Why
is one even an appropriate use of their time? “Because even
though design seems like something that is more esoteric or
artistic, in this class you learn about precision. You have to
follow a certain set order of things, and do it exactly right, in It is tikkun olam, repairing the world, and it is taking what provide. It’s a constantly moving target, and one at which
order to have the thing you are making work.”
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“It is not that we are going to learn pre-
cision in applying measurements in the
abstract. It is that there is a real need.
There are real people in this village who
cannot read in the evenings because they
do not have electricity for power, but
with this little solar panel they will have
access to light.”
The precision, the attention to detail,
and the interdisciplinary push to pay
attention to what you see and learn and
know is all part of the IB curriculum,
which is specifically for the middle school
but makes itself felt through the school.
“There is a lot of innovation,” Ms. Gafni
said. “When you see the little ones, the
5-year-olds, you see it.”
Now that the school has been certified
as an IB institution — a difficult process,
not unlike getting certifications from such
institutions as the Middle States Associa-
tion and the New Jersey Association of
The Schechter delegation will bring the lights to South Independent Schools, certifications Schechter already
Africa, “fusing the design work and the understanding has secured — it plans to continue to develop its students’
that there are places in the world where people are not as intellects, emotions, their connections to the Jewish world
privileged as we are,” Ms. Gafni said. and to the outside world, and their ability to navigate
The project of sending books and flashlights to South those worlds with the skill, delicacy, insight, and attention
Africa “is an example of how we broaden the classroom. to nuance and detail that education at its best is meant to
we teach and having it come to life. the best schools, across the spectrum, aim.
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Jewish World

In Krakow, Jews celebrate community’s

‘revival’ amid rising xenophobia
CNAAN LIPHSHIZ
KRAKOW, POLAND — At one of Poland’s
plushest synagogues, leaders of this city’s
small but vibrant Jewish community wel-
comed visitors from around the world to
a celebration of what the hosts call their
minority’s “revival” in this country.
The occasion for the party at Tempel
Synagogue last Sunday was the 10th anni-
versary of the adjacent Jewish Community
Center of Krakow. The JCC is in the heart of
the city’s historic Jewish quarter, Kazimierz.
Since it opened in 2008, the three-story
building, with its club for some 60 Holo-
caust survivors and newly opened Jewish
kindergarten, has become a symbol for the
anniversary party. “Thank you for letting
me be a part of the bright, beautiful Jewish
future we are building together.”
Many of Krakow’s hundreds of Jewish
residents acknowledge the progress made
since communism, which drove what
little remained of its Jewish community
underground. But not all of them share
Ornstein’s optimism in a country whose
nationalist government recently unleashed
what critics say is one of the worst waves
of anti-Semitic rhetoric in decades.
Several blocks away from the JCC, volun-
teers of the Czulent association of Jewish
students are converting the cellar of their
building — a former apartment synagogue, A participant at the 10th anniversary celebration of the Jewish Community Cen-
or shtiebel — into what Czulent founder ter in Krakow blows a shofar on April 22, 2018.  PHOTOS BY JAKUB WŁODEK

return of Jewish community life to this city
near Auschwitz, where the Nazis obliter-
ated centuries of Jewish presence.
“As we have grown, we have also been
able to share the story of Krakow’s Jew-
ish revival with hundreds of thousands of
visitors,” a beaming Jonathan Ornstein,
the New York-born director of JCC Kra-
kow, told the 200 people attending the
Anna Makowka-Kwapisiewicz calls a “safe
space.” It’s essentially a room where Jews
can hole up in the event of an emergency.
“It’s not something I thought I’d be
doing in Poland even five years ago,” she
said about the shelter.
Makowka-Kwapisiewicz said her con-
fidence began to recede two years ago,
when five men harassed and intimidated
Jewish boys playing at a playground in a
poor area of Krakow because one was
wearing a kippah. One of the men spat
on a Jewish child at the playground while
shouting at both kids.
The boys’ parents never pressed
charges, which is why the incident was
not widely reported in the media, said a
mother of one of the boys, according to
Makowka-Kwapisiewicz, who works for
the international nonprofit National Dem-
ocratic Institute.
Since the fall of communism, such inci-
dents were unheard of in Krakow, a tourist
magnet for its Jewish heritage sites and one
of the few old Polish cities that was spared

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34 JEWISH STANDARD APRIL 27, 2018

 Jewish World

major damage during World War II.
The city celebrates its ancient Jewish
heritage at the annual Jewish Festival, one
of the largest events of its kind in Europe.
The city’s seven large synagogues — of
which three are active — swing open their
doors for one night a year, attracting thou-
sands of visitors.
On the way to the nearby museum on
the grounds of the former Auschwitz death
camp, hundreds of thousands of tour-
ists pass through Krakow’s picturesque
streets, some of them featuring Jewish-
flavored shops and restaurants with Yid-
dish signs. Many visit the grounds of Oskar
Schindler’s factory, where the German
industrialist saved hundreds of Jews.
The playground incident came one year
after the 2015 election of the right-wing
Law and Justice party, which some lead-
ers of Polish Jewry and others accuse of
encouraging or tolerating a wave of xeno-
phobic incidents, including against Jews.
The taboo on open expressions of hatred
toward Jews in Poland, where the Nazis
killed millions of Jews in the 1940s, began
to loosen in 2015, Makowka-Kwapisiewicz
said. That year, a far-right activist burned
the effigy of a charedi Orthodox Jew dur-
ing a march against Muslim immigration
in Wroclaw.
Jonathan Ornstein lights fireworks at the 10th anniversary celebration of the JCC
Krakow on April 22, 2018
“I never expected I would live in such
circumstances,” she added.
More recently, in November, tens of
thousands of nationalists marched through
Warsaw shouting “Jews out” and other rac-
ist slogans while carrying anti-Muslim ban-
ners. Two weeks after the march, a War-
saw mosque that was targeted with threats
for years was vandalized.
“When places of worship are being
attacked, we need to prepare,” Makowka-
Kwapisiewicz said of the shelter her group
is preparing.
Against this backdrop, the president
of the Union of Jewish Communities in
Poland, Leslaw Piszewski, and Anna
Chipczynska, who heads the Warsaw
community, wrote to a founder of Law
and Justice last year to say that they are
“appalled by recent events and fearful for
our security as the situation in our country
is becoming more dangerous.”
Things went from bad to worse follow-
ing a row between Poland and Israel over
a law that Warsaw passed in January that
criminalizes blaming the Polish nation
for Nazi crimes. The dispute unleashed
the worst wave of anti-Semitism since the
fall of the Iron Curtain, according to Rafal
Pankowski, co-founder of the Polish anti-
racism group Never Again.
In the wake of the fight over the law, he
said: “In the space of one month, I have
seen more anti-Semitic hate speech than in
the previous 10 years combined.”
At least one person reported an assault
that he suspected was anti-Semitic in
nature. The Catholic journalist Bogdan
Bialek said he was attacked by a person
who shouted about Bialek’s efforts to
commemorate victims of an anti-Semitic
pogrom in Kielce in 1946.
Poland lacks a systematic effort by the
state to collect data on attacks against
minority groups, according to Amnesty
International, “meaning that authorities
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JEWISH STANDARD APRIL 27, 2018 35
Jewish World
Krakow
FROM PAGE 35
have no way of knowing the scope of the
problem,” the group said.
The tsunami of hate speech about Jews
was conducted mostly on social networks,
where calls to “stuff TNT up Pankowski’s
ass” and “punch him” were recorded after
a government official singled him out for
attack on Twitter.
But since January, several Polish politi-
cians and prominent figures have joined
the Twitter rabble.
Beata Mazurek, the spokeswoman for
Law and Justice and a deputy parliament
speaker, favorably tweeted a quote from
a Catholic priest who said that the Israeli
ambassador’s criticism of the Holocaust
bill “made it hard for me to look at Jews
with sympathy and kindness.”
TVP, a public television station, aired an
interview with a priest who said that the
Jews’ perception of the truth is whatever
is “beneficial” to them or Israel. And Do
Reczy, a conservative weekly, published
a drawing showing two silhouettes — one
bearing a swastika and the other a Star
of David — pointing a gun at a third figure
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36 JEWISH STANDARD APRIL 27, 2018
emblazoned with the Polish flag.
Last month, Kornel Morawiecki, a former
senator whose son, Mateusz, became prime
minister last year, said in an interview that
Jews moved gladly into ghettos during the
Holocaust to avoid having “to deal with
those nasty Poles,” as the ex-senator put it.
Government officials have consistently
vowed to act tough on nationalist extrem-
ism, “but at the same time they are encour-
aging it, creating a schizophrenic attitude,”
Makowka-Kwapisiewicz said.
Despite the rhetoric, many Poles still
say their country is safer for their reli-
gious minorities than many Western Euro-
pean countries, where Islamists and other
extremists are responsible for hundreds of
physical assaults on Jews, including deadly
ones.
“OK, the situation is less comfortable than
one year ago,” Peter Nawrocki, a 44-year-old
computer science university professor, said
at the JCC celebration. “Extremists are a
problem. But this is not France.”
Nawrocki is confident that Poland is a good
place to raise his 1-year-old son, Shimon.
“I think Poland is one of the safest places
in Europe to be Jewish,” he said, citing the
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absence in recent years of a violent hate World Jewish Relief group in the United
crime attack on a Jew. Kingdom and the American Jewish Joint
Anna Swies, a Jewish-American invest- Distribution Committee. Chupryna said it
ment consultant with Polish roots, traded has become “something of a safe space”
Chicago for Krakow six years ago and mar- amid growing expressions of hostility.
ried a local man. She said she feels “con- The current reality in Poland makes the
nected” to her true identity here. Having JCC’s mission “even more critical,” said
a luxury Jewish kindergarten for her two Dan Rosenfield, the chair of the World Jew-
children, aged 4 and 6, for a fraction of ish Relief group, which provides the insti-
what a comparable institution would cost tution with $140,000 annually.
in the United States “also helps,” she said. In recent weeks, “things have calmed
But like Makowka-Kwapisiewicz, who down a little bit” when it comes to expres-
said she would like to leave at least for one sions of anti-Semitism, Jonathan Ornstein,
or two years, some JCC regulars are having the JCC director, said. But even at the height
a tough time envisioning a future for them- of the anti-Semitic wave, Krakow Jews have
selves here because of rising xenophobia. not experienced direct assaults, he added.
Serhii Chupryna, a Ukrainian-Jewish stu- Nonetheless, young people who are now
dent who settled in Krakow in 2013 for his discovering their Jewish ancestry — many
studies, said he feels significantly less com- Jewish Poles hid it during communism
fortable living in Poland than he did when — “are starting to question their place in
he first arrived. As a gay man, “I feel like Poland moving forward,” he said.
I’m everything the ultranationalists here The new challenges, Ornstein sug-
hate rolled into one person,” he joked. gested, “are a reminder of how we’ve
Adding that “Ukraine is no better,” he said taken for granted all these incredible posi-
he plans to save some money and move to tive changes in Poland. When something
Israel in a few years. bad happens, it’s shocking for us, which is
The JCC, with an annual budget of $1.5 maybe a sign of how good we’ve come to
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 Jewish World

What it’s like to support Israel at NYU

JOSEFIN DOLSTEN resolution’s publication, Cojab, who is president of Realize signatories included groups such as the Asian American
Israel, described the atmosphere on campus surrounding Women’s Alliance, the Black Students Union, and the Mus-
Though it was raining, students still gathered to cel- Israel as “one of animosity.” But at the Independence Day lim Students Association. A university spokesman said
ebrate Israel’s Independence Day at New York Uni- celebration, she felt relief. “The climate that exists is mostly that boycotting student groups “is at odds with our tradi-
versity’s downtown Manhattan campus. Passers-by among the activism community and the students who are tions and values,” and NYU President Andrew Hamilton
mostly rushed past them as organizers blasted pop highly involved in campus life,” she said. denounced BDS at a public forum on Friday. (In 2016, he
music, displayed Israeli flags, and shouted “Happy The NYU administration criticized the resolution, whose said that the school would not acquiesce to a demand by its
Birthday, Israel!” Some stopped to grab a blue-and-
white cookie.
One person shouted at an organizer who was
draped in an Israeli flag, and someone else criticized
the group for a poster featuring a quote by the Rev.
Martin Luther King Jr. praising the Jewish state, but
there were no major disruptions.
The relative lack of negative reactions put things in
perspective for Adela Cojab, a Jewish student leader
on campus who said that a recent resolution signed by
over 50 student groups pledging support to the move-
ment to boycott Israel had made it “the worst week Save the Date
for our Family Celebration
of my life.”
“Watching people who walk by and smile reminds
me that a list of 50 clubs sounds really big, but in a
school this big, most people have no idea that this is
happening,” Cojab, 21, said.
Last week’s resolution, signed by 53 student groups
among the some 300 on campus, was spearheaded by
the NYU chapters of Jewish Voice for Peace and Stu-
dents for Justice in Palestine. In addition to calling on
the university to boycott companies that do business
with Israel, the groups also pledged not to co-sponsor
any events with two Israel advocacy campus groups —
Realize Israel and TorchPAC — as well as eight off-cam-
pus groups, including Birthright-Taglit, the American
Israel Public Affairs Committee, and the Anti-Defama-
tion League.
The NYU resolution is part of a campaign on col-
lege campuses by BDS activists to isolate Israel and its
supporters. On Wednesday, the student government
at Barnard College, a women’s college affiliated with
Columbia University, said that nearly two-thirds of stu-
Sunday, June 10
50 Eisenhower Drive
dents voted to ask the administration to divest from
eight companies doing business with Israel.
Both Barnard and NYU have large Jewish student
populations, suggesting to some that the tide against
Israel has swelled even — or precisely — at campuses
that should be friendly to Israel.
Cul-de-sac
But the reality is more nuanced. Following the

Join the community and celebrate Israel’s

special 70th anniversary!

jfnnj.org/israel70 | 201.820.3900 | details to follow

Student organizers of an Israel Independence

Day celebration at NYU on April 19, 2018. They
include Adela Cojab, Jenny Labovitz and Esther
Bildirici, front row, left to right, and Gabe Hoff-
man, back row, right. JOSEFIN DOLSTEN

JEWISH STANDARD APRIL 27, 2018 37

d Jewish World
graduate student union to cut its Israel ties.)
Gabe Hoffman, who is Realize Israel’s treasurer, believes
that many of the groups who signed the resolution have
overlapping membership. “I still think it’s a group of 15, 20,
30 students that are running 50 groups on campus and it’s
kind of their choir, and their echo chamber doesn’t like our
echo chamber,” he said.
Hoffman, 21, said that despite the resolution, he is com-
fortable identifying publicly as Jewish and pro-Israel on
campus. “It’s unfortunate that it happens to be those
7 38 JEWISH STANDARD APRIL 27, 2018
student groups that are running the [student] govern-
ment, but I still feel proud to walk around with a kippah
on my head, proud to walk around with an Israeli flag on
my back,” he said.
Still, Realize Israel member Marci Brustman, 19, said the
resolution changed her level of comfort about speaking
about Israel. “Once this protest came out, I feel like I have
to hold my tongue in some places,” she said.
Between handing out cookies and singing along to Hebrew
songs, Brustman said she worried that there might be a
confrontation at the Yom Haatzmaut event. “There
definitely is a pit in my stomach right now,” she said.
Earlier this month, the NYU student government
passed a resolution urging the university to look into
its policies at a program the university runs in Tel Aviv.
The resolution cited an Israeli law enacted last year
that bans entry into the country for foreigners who
call for a boycott against Israel and said that members
of NYU’s Jewish Voice for Peace and Students for Jus-
tice in Palestine would be affected by the law.
Both Barnard and NYU
have large Jewish
student populations,
suggesting to some
that the tide against
Israel has swelled even
— or precisely — at
campuses that should
be friendly to Israel.
Two of the resolution’s signatories — the Asian
American Women’s Alliance and Brownstone Publica-
tion, a black student publication — said they decided
to sign the resolution because they sympathized with
the Palestinians’ struggles.
The Asian American Women’s Alliance was
approached by the resolution’s sponsors and invited
to learn more about the struggles of Palestinians, Vice
President Julia Yuge said in an email.
Yuge said her group “learned that the Israeli state
systematically violates Palestinians’ rights under inter-
national law, including the right to education.” In her
group’s decision to sign the petition, she also cited the
fact that academic bodies — including the Association
for Asian American Studies and the National Wom-
en’s Studies Association — have endorsed boycotts of
Israel. “There are many ways in which Asian-Ameri-
can women relate to their human rights being stripped
away, such as the incarceration of Japanese Americans
during World War II,” Yuge added.
Brownstone Publication said it decided to sign
the petition because it supports “the liberation of all
people.”
“This includes the people of Palestine,” the group
said in a statement. “That is why we have given our
support to BDS. We are happy to stand alongside them
and support their efforts to obtain justice for the peo-
ple of Palestine.”
Jenny Labovitz, a Realize Israel board member, said
the point of the Yom Ha’atzmaut celebration and simi-
lar events was to show pro-Israel students that there
are others who share their opinions. “It’s more impor-
tant, not necessarily to counter JVP, but to provide a
space for pro-Israel students to say it’s OK to celebrate
Yom Hazikaron, it’s OK to celebrate Yom Ha’atzmaut
with us,” said Labovitz, 21.
Even so, fellow group member Esther Bildirici, 20,
said she generally did not feel comfortable speaking
about Israel in class. “Somehow it became the cool
thing to do, to be anti-Zionist on the college campus,”
Bildirici said. “In school or in class, I have a very hard
time ever admitting that I’ve been to Israel and I’ve
studied in Israel.” JTA WIRE SERVICE

Van-mounted billboards in central London were the latest escalation in British
Jews’ publicized row with Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn.
 COURTESY OF JONATHAN HOFFMAN
‘Three Billboards’-style
campaign fails to sway Brits
CNAAN LIPHSHIZ
LONDON — Keith Walker was having a
sandwich in Parliament Square when
he saw something that made him sit up
straight and cut short his lunch.
What did the 42-year-old activ-
ist for disabled people’s rights find
so fascinating?
It was three billboards on wheels that
circled around the square for several
long minutes last week during one of
its busiest days of the year. They car-
ried text accusing Labour leader Jeremy
Corbyn of tolerating anti-Semitism in
the party.
Inspired by the award-winning Ameri-
can film “Three Billboards Outside Ebb-
ing, Missouri,” the billboards were part
of a series of unprecedented street pro-
tests by British Jews against a leader of
the party that used to be their politi-
cal home.
The April 17 protest coincided with a
rare parliamentary debate on anti-Semi-
tism that focused on Labour. During the
discussion, Jewish Labour lawmakers
like Ruth Smeeth and Luciana Berger
recounted the many verbal attacks that
they have encountered since 2015, when
Corbyn was elected party leader.
The row over anti-Semitism in Labour
under Corbyn has been raging for two
years inside the party and beyond.
The Board of Deputies of British Jews
and other Jewish groups have accused
Corbyn, a hard-left politician, of toler-
ating and at times encouraging expres-
sions of anti-Semitism disguised as anti-
Zionism or anti-capitalism by thousands
of supporters who joined the party
under him.
Corbyn has vowed to fight racism.
His party has kicked out some members
Jewish World
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The signs, which cost $6,300 that
organizers raised online from dozens of Ms. Lawrence’s book will be released in mid-May 2018.
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porters against him over these issues,
then they have had only partial results.
“I think it’s a load of bollocks,” an out-
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give to the rest of us,” Walker said.
Igor Martynowski, a 26-year-old car-
toon artist, also was “disgusted” by
the protest.
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Jewish World

Billboards
FROM PAGE 39
money smearing someone else. It’s just sad,” he said about
the signs, which spoke about “Holocaust deniers har-
bored by Labour” and “institutional anti-Semitism in Cor-
byn’s Labour.”
Carina Garret, a 21-year-old student from Liverpool, said
she agreed that Labour has an anti-Semitism problem, “but
Corbyn’s not it.” Some of his supporters are the problem,
she said. Garret called the initiative of the three signs and
Jewish Federation of Northern New Jersey
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other initiatives targeting Corbyn a “distraction” and a
“real shame.”
Her schoolmate Dave Aldwinkle said Corbyn’s Jewish crit-
ics have “gone too far.”
Aldwinkle and Garret, who are not Jewish, both said they
support Corbyn for prime minister.
“He’s an activist, not a politician, and that’s his strength,”
Aldwinkle said.
Garret said she could think of no weaknesses or faults
preventing Corbyn from being a good prime minister.
Aldwinkle said Corbyn at times was “too soft” on his
critics instead of “fighting back.”
Amid intense and unprecedented scrutiny by the
media over Labour’s anti-Semitism problem, Corbyn
won 40 percent of the vote in the 2017 parliamentary
elections despite predictions that Prime Minister The-
resa May of the Conservative Party would win handily.
But among Jews, Corbyn is so unpopular that some,
including Jonathan Hoffman, an organizer of the tree
signs initiative and former vice chair of the Zionist Fed-
eration of Britain, are saying they would leave Britain
if he is elected prime minister.
Last month, hundreds showed up at a rally protest-
ing Labour anti-Semitism organized by the Board of
Deputies of British Jews outside Parliament under the
banner “Enough is Enough.” On April 8, hundreds of
demonstrators gathered at a rowdier rally by a British
Jewish group, the Campaign Against Anti-Semitism, in
which speakers accused Corbyn personally of being
an anti-Semite.
The street-level mobilization follows recent cases in
which Corbyn was implicated personally in a speech
deemed anti-Semitic, according to Hoffman, who
called it a “tipping point.”
Corbyn recently has had to apologize for his 2013
defense of a London mural widely seen as anti-Semitic.
It shows stereotypical Jewish men playing Monopoly
on the backs of black men. After the media dredged
up his Facebook post on the mural, Corbyn deleted it.

May 17, 2018 | 7 pm He also was found this year to have been a longtime
member of a private Facebook group rife with anti-
Semitic hate speech. He left the group in 2015.
$
18/ticket “In the past, Corbyn was able to hide behind criti-
Register today! www.jfnnj.org/oboc cism of Israel to dismiss allegations of anti-Semitism,”
Hoffman said. “But the mural had nothing to do with
Israel, and Corbyn was personally a member of the
anti-Semitic Facebook group.”

A Wo r l d In an apparent bid to mollify his Jewish critics, on

of Israeli
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Elisa J. Hirsch | elisah@jfnnj.org | 201-820-3918

ONE BOOK, ONE COMMUNITY

a project of the Synagogue Leadership Initiative, is sponsored Jonathan Hoffman, the organizer of the van-
by the Jewish Federation of Northern New Jersey and the Henry and Marilyn Taub Foundation. mounted billboard campaign, in London, on April
17, 2018.  JONATHAN HOFFMAN

40 JEWISH STANDARD APRIL 27, 2018


Keith Walker engages the driver of a van transporting a billboard about anti-
Semitism in the Labour Party on London’s Parliament Square on
April 17, 2018. 
Passover Corbyn attended a seder din-
ner — organized, however, by a fringe
far-left group called Jewdas. But even
this gesture backfired when the Jewish
media highlighted how Jewdas’ Hagga-
dah, the text used during the seder din-
ner, was an alternative version featuring
a prayer for Israel’s destruction.
Whereas Corbyn has shown him-
self capable of transcending his Jewish
detractors in elections, the issue none-
theless is exposing him to scathing criti-
cism within his own party. And it has
cost his party several major donors,
including Jewish ones, while widen-
ing the gulf between Labour centrists
who resent Corbyn and those further
to the left.
During the parliamentary debate last
week on anti-Semitism, Smeeth, the Jew-
ish Labour lawmaker, denounced inac-
tion on anti-Semitism within her own
party. She read out in Parliament one of
the thousands of anti-Semitic emails she
says she has received since 2015.
“Hang yourself, you vile treacherous
Zionist filth, you’re a cancer of human-
ity,” one email said.
She and Berger both received standing
ovations in the House of Commons, the
Parliament’s lower house, after detailing
some of the abuse they had received.
But even Smeeth conceded that oppo-
sition to the alleged proliferation of anti-
Semitic rhetoric within Labour is caus-
ing some Corbyn supporters — known
in Britain as “Corbynistas” — to rally
around him.
“For every comment like those you
just heard,” she said of the anti-Semitic
emails she had read aloud, “you can
find 10 people ready to dismiss it, to cry
‘smear,’ to say that we are weaponizing
anti-Semitism.”
As the debate grinds on, the Corbyn
effect is making itself felt in very tan-
gible ways in some Jewish households
in London.
Jewish World
CNAAN LIPHSHIZ
Mark Ruben, a 57-year-old hotelier,
recently sold his $7 million property
in London, which he called his “dream
home,” partly out of concern over Cor-
byn winning an election and imposing
a mansion tax, as his party has vowed
to do.
Another consideration in favor of
selling, Ruben said, had been the pro-
liferation of anti-Semitic rhetoric and
incidents. In 2017, they reached a new
record for the second straight year, at
1,382 cases.
“The prospect of Corbyn becoming
prime minister is deeply worrisome
to me also because of anti-Semitism,”
he said. “It’s suppressed now, and
Corbyn
has shown
himself
capable of
transcending
his Jewish
detractors in
elections.
he’s denying being anti-Semitic, but
it could all be reversed the day he’s
in power.”
But the concern of Jews — a population
of 250,000 in a country of 65 million —
is of little interest to the average voter in
Britain, Ruben said.
“We’re just a small minority,” he said.
“Even with all the headlines about anti-
Semitism, Corbyn will get the Muslim
votes, he’ll get the votes of students
whose loans he’s promising to repay
because he’s offering something that
doesn’t exist and they’re too young and
naive to realize it.” 
 JTA WIRE SERVICE
JEWISH STANDARD APRIL 27, 2018 41
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 Jewish World

PHILLIP FARAONE/GETTY IMAGES

SPENCER PLATT/GETTY IMAGES

Natalie Portman speaking at the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netan-
Environmental Media Association’s yahu speaks at the 72nd United Nations
27th Annual EMA Awards in Santa General Assembly at U.N. headquarters
Monica, Calif., on Sept. 23, 2017. in Manhattan on Sept. 19, 2017.

Does Natalie Portman’s snub

of Netanyahu make her the
face of liberal Zionism?
RON KAMPEAS
WASHINGTON — Natalie Portman’s
statement explaining why she declined to
attend an award ceremony in Israel in her
honor was a pointed rebuke, and of a par-
ticular person.
“I did not want to appear as endors-
ing Benjamin Netanyahu,” she said of the
Israeli prime minister.
But it also was an intimate and tactile
embrace of her native land, covering
its flavors, its images, its vision, even
its movement.
“I treasure my Israeli friends and
family, Israeli food, books, art, cinema,
and dance,” the Jerusalem-born direc-
tor and actor said late last Friday, in
an Instagram post explaining why she
would not take part in the festivities
surrounding the 2018 Genesis Prize.
The argument that it is possible both
to love Israel and to despise its leaders is
as old as the state and has traversed the
political spectrum: In Israel’s first years,
the famed screenwriter and Zionist Ben
Hecht accused the Labor Party leadership
there of betraying the country’s rightists.
Yet something about Portman’s deci-
sion not to go to accept the Genesis Prize
— given to celebrities who exemplify “the
core traits of the Jewish character and val-
ues of the Jewish people — has resonated
like no similar statement in decades.
JTA’s initial story about her non-appear-
ance is among the most-read in the news
service’s online history, and the intensity
of the response from Israelis was white
hot, with government ministers accusing
Portman of borderline anti-Semitism.
“Like many Israelis and Jews around the
world, I can be critical of the leadership
in Israel without wanting to boycott the
entire nation,” Portman said.
J Street, the liberal Jewish Middle East
policy group, had sustained support for a
decade on essentially that principle, and it
is one also embraced by Sen. Bernie Sand-
ers, (I-Vt.), a 2016 Democratic presidential
candidate. In fact, Sanders anticipated
Portman’s case just days before at the J
Street annual conference.
“As someone who believes absolutely
and unequivocally in Israel’s right to
exist and to exist in peace and security,”
the Jewish lawmaker said, “we must say
loudly and clearly that to oppose the reac-
tionary policies of Prime Minister Netan-
yahu does not make us anti-Israel!”
The J Street crowd ate it up, but the
comment went largely unremarked upon
outside of the conference. Why did Port-
man’s comment draw such heat?
“We are living in a celebrity media envi-
ronment, we just elected a reality TV star
president,” Jeremy Ben Ami, J Street’s
president, said in an interview. “It means
a lot more for the debate when Natalie
Portman says it.”
Ben Ami wasn’t complaining.
“This is the most prominent figure in
American entertainment who has deliv-
ered this message,” he said.
Not only has Portman won an Academy
Award (in 2011 for “Black Swan”), but her
Jewish bona fides are unassailable: She
was born in Israel. She made the Hebrew-
language movie “A Tale of Love and Dark-
ness.” And as a Harvard student, she
worked as a research assistant to attorney
Alan Dershowitz for his 2003 book “The
Case for Israel.”
Mik Moore, a strategic consultant to lib-
eral groups, including a number of Jewish
groups, said Portman’s fame was critical
to advancing the topic because it attached
a name and face to liberal Zionists. As a
SEE SNUB PAGE 44

JEWISH STANDARD APRIL 27, 2018 43

Jewish World

Snub
FROM PAGE 43
group, Moore said, liberal Zionists have
felt squeezed by the pro-Israel right on
one side, and on the other by the non- and
anti-Zionist left, including advocates of the
Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions move-
ment targeting Israel, or BDS.
“Portman occupies a gray area where
many American Jews live: hating Bibi
while maintaining love or at least affection
for Israel and Zionism,” Moore said, using
Netanyahu’s nickname.
“But this is a space that lacks the clar-
ity of purpose that exists to its left among
BDSers, and to its right among love-it-or-
leave-it supporters of Bibi and company,”
he said in an interview on Facebook. Such
clarity, Moore said, “allows people to
very quickly identify a point of view that
they can claim as their own. And it gives
the media a way to categorize this demo-
graphic like ‘Reagan Republicans’ did for
many years.”
Jill Jacobs, the director of T’ruah, a rab-
binical human rights groups, said Portman
provided relief from the squeeze that lib-
eral Zionists feel from both sides.
“It’s the people on the right and far left
who are collaborating to erase this space
and to insist on a false dichotomy between
pro-Israel and anti-occupation/pro-democ-
racy,” she said on Facebook.
Libby Lenkinski, the vice president for
public engagement for the New Israel
Fund, said her group, which funds liberal
Israeli advocacy groups, hoped Portman’s
statement would bring attention to its
agenda, noting that in her statement Port-
man said she was exploring Israeli chari-
ties to support.
“The right celebrity can open up more
space on an issue and give more permission
to more people to reflect their position,”
Lenkinski said. “It can be a catalyst.”
A number of liberal Zionists who praised
Portman were aggravated by the patroniz-
ing responses the actor received from the
right and the left, particularly the insistence
on both sides that she was indeed embrac-
ing BDS, despite her denials.
“While the far left and right are bent on
mischaracterizing Portman’s stance as BDS,
we take her at her word,” Debra Shushan,
the director of policy for Americans for
Peace Now, said in an email. “Natalie Port-
man is more dangerous [to Netanyahu] than
the BDS movement because she can’t be dis-
missed as an anti-Zionist Israel hater.”
So, like Reagan Republicans, is “Portman
Zionism” going to become a thing?
Not so fast, said Lev Gringauz, a stu-
dent at the University of Minnesota and a
reporting fellow for New Voices, a Jewish
campus magazine.
The viciousness of the response from
Netanyahu’s defenders, which included
calls that Portman have her citizenship
revoked, might discourage like-minded
people, he said in a Twitter interview.
“When you get attacked quickly on all
sides for so much as trying to be nuanced,
even if imperfectly so, that means the
space for conversation is too narrow for
any of us to operate in anymore,” Grin-
gauz said.
For the pro-Israel right, Portman was the
latest in a long line of liberal posturers, espe-
cially when she decried “the mistreatment
of those suffering from today’s atrocities.”
Many interpreted those words as referring
to Israeli troops who have killed more than
30 Palestinians protesting along the Gaza
border in recent weeks. (An Israeli televi-
sion station reported Monday night that
Portman originally told the Genesis Prize
that she was canceling her participation in
the award ceremony over Gaza.)
“She didn’t express love for Israel,” Ari
Teman, an entrepreneur and stand-up
comic, said on Facebook. “At most, she
expressed love for hummus and dancing.
She stabbed Israel in the back for defend-
ing itself from Hamas, a terror organiza-
tion sworn to kill Jews everywhere, and
she knew exactly what message she was
sending and how it would be used by
Israel-haters.”
Josh Block, CEO of the Israel Project,
said in an interview that there was a les-
son for both Portman and her critics: Port-
man should be heeded as an intimate of
Israel, but should also be cautious in how
she expressed her criticism.
“People ought not be working overtime
to turn an ally into an adversary, and those
with special platforms and such deep
ties to Israel need to take care that when
expressing their legitimate disagreements,
they don’t take actions that as Daniel Pat-
rick Moynihan would say, could be seen
as ‘joining the jackals,’” he said, recalling
the late New York senator. “The better
approach for her would be to go to Israel
and give a speech and highlight the values
important to her in the presence of people
she wants to persuade.
“The better response is not to dis-
engage and cede the discussion to oth-
ers, but to engage more deeply, on the
ground, in Israel, with the only — and
necessarily imperfect — nation state of
the Jewish people.” JTA WIRE SERVICE

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44 JEWISH STANDARD APRIL 27, 2018


Nachshonim’s team in action.
Startup
FROM PAGE 42
According to Nachshonim, the results
from the work of the fellows can be felt
clearly in the organization’s first pilot
projects in the Israeli city of Lod.
One of the small businesses Nach-
shonim helped there is Amany Stu-
dio Nail Art, a nail salon that started
in the home of a young Arab-Israeli
woman. Just one year after beginning
to work with Nahshonim, Amany’s
salon increased revenues by 40 percent,
added more services, and opened its first
location. To date, Nahshonim fellows
have invested 20,000 hours in 80 small
businesses, resulting in a combined $10
million growth in beneficiaries’ revenue.
“If we help one small business thrive,
we can change a family,” Shahar said. “If
we can help five businesses in one loca-
tion, we can help a neighborhood. But
when we help 50 businesses in one city
thrive, we can start to change a city. We
believe we could change the entire eco-
system of that community.”
Nachshonim also works with a non-
profit organization, Natal, the Israel
Trauma Center for Victims of Terror and
War. In addition to helping Natal gener-
ate its own revenue, Shahar’s company
worked with it to build a training pro-
gram to increase resiliency in communi-
ties affected by trauma. So far, Natal has
partnered with Chicago, New York, and
Berlin, which has sent teams to Israel
to get hands-on experience of Natal’s
methodology.
According to Shahar, “50 percent of
the social sector’s budget comes from
the government.” As such, “we are
trying to support them to create new
sources of income. We helped Natal
build a new source of self-generated rev-
enue, not dependent on government or
philanthropy.”
According to Orly Gal, Natal’s executive
Jewish World
NACHSHONIM
Nahshonim
fellows have
invested 20,000
hours in
80 small
businesses,
resulting in a
combined $10
million growth
in beneficiaries’
revenue.
director, before Nachshonim helped its
program and budget, 70 percent had
come from donations and 30 percent
from selling services. After Nachshonim’s
help with Natal’s newly developed pro-
gram set to launch in October, the busi-
ness hopes to increase its income from
services by another 30 percent.
The new program will offer seminars
and training in Israel every year for offi-
cers of municipalities, teachers, first
responders, social workers and health-
care professionals to better treat PTSD
within their communities, especially
following emergencies and disasters.
Natal is already working with various
American organizations and commu-
nities, such as the Wounded Warrior
Project, to help veterans from Iraq and
Afghanistan, with African-American
communities in Chicago and hospitals
in New Jersey.
“The work Nachshonim did with us
was very special and very professional,”
Gal said. “We plan to use the money we
get from this program to take care of the
people who need support the most.”
 JNS.ORG
JEWISH STANDARD APRIL 27, 2018 45
Editorial
The Israel Story
I W
t’s unfashionable to defend
Israel too publicly just now;
chronic latent anti-Semitism in
much of the world frequently
is set off by official Israeli actions that
are either inexplicable or distasteful to
the rest of the world — often includ-
ing in the liberal diaspora — and it all
explodes in a toxic mess.
When that happens, the bedrock of
decency and goodness and pride and
courage that undergirds the modern
state of Israel is hidden in the nox-
ious fumes.
How do we talk about Israel honestly?
Probably there are many ways,
although most seem to escape us. But
the creators and performers who have
put together the Israel Story seem to
have found a way.
That’s a lot of pressure to put on a
podcast. But the live show that the
company performed at the Kaplen
JCC on the Palisades in Tenafly — one
of its many stops across the country —
shows that it can work.
The thing about Israel Story is that
it is not polemical. As Mishy Harmon
told us a few weeks ago, it works hard
not to take sides; in a country where
taking a side, loudly, fervently, and as
often as possible, is not only a birth-
right but an active responsibility,
that’s an impressive accomplishment,
all by itself.
In this performance, Israel Story
celebrated the country’s 70th anni-
versary through music, which, as its
cofounder and most visible presence,
Mishy Harmon, said, is the one thing
most likely to evoke good feelings
rather than provoke high dudgeon.
It started with the story of Hatikvah,
the anthem that Theodor Herzl hated,
whose lyricist, the drunken loutish
poet Naftali Herz Imber, did not see as
a song, and whose music came from
a random Romanian folk tune. Israel
Story also talked about the Israeli
Arab football star who was proud to
represent his country but could not
sing the anthem, because the words
“nefesh Yehudi” — the soul of a Jew
Jewish Editor
Joanne Palmer
Standard Associate Editor
Larry Yudelson
1086 Teaneck Road
Community Editor
Teaneck, NJ 07666
Beth Janoff Chananie
(201) 837-8818
Fax 201-833-4959 About Our Children Editor
Heidi Mae Bratt
Publisher
James L. Janoff
Associate Publisher Emerita
Marcia Garfinkle
thejewishstandard.com
46 JEWISH STANDARD APRIL 27, 2018
— did not apply to him.
We heard the stories of Naomi
Shemer, who wrote the iconic “Yerush-
alayim Shel Zahav” — Jerusalem of Gold
— and of Meir Ariel, the IDF veteran who
countered it with Yerushalayim Shel
Barzel” — Jerusalem of Iron — angry lyr-
ics to the same soaring melody.
We heard the stories of many other
songs, including some of the catchy
pop pieces that won the hilariously
cheesy Eurovision contests, and we
heard the songs, sung and accompa-
nied by a group of talented and gor-
geous young musicians. They brought
to mind the Sabra liqueur ads of my
childhood, glossy full pages in the
New York Times magazine section that
showed photos of stunningly beautiful,
impossibly glamorous Israelis. That
was what Israel looked like then.
At the end, we heard “Shir le’Shalom.”
We heard about how it was first per-
formed, how it was controversial,
how it was iconic. We saw a video of it
being sung at a peace rally in Tel Aviv
in 1995, including a visibly uncomfort-
able Yitzhak Rabin, who was both shy
and tone-deaf. Minutes after that video
was filmed, Rabin was dead; we saw the
blood-soaked copy of the lyrics that had
been removed from his pocket.
One of the striking aspects of Israel
Story is how low-tech it is. Israel
is high-tech heaven, and podcasts
themselves are the result of high-tech
magic — what do you mean that a little
flat box you carry in your pocket can
grab words and sounds from the sky
and funnel them into your ear? — but
the performance itself is clever — lots
of brilliant stop-action animation on
screen — but in a way that relies more
on timing than technology. Not high
tech but high technique.
In a way, it is a reversion to radio as
it used to be — the theater of the mind.
You listen and absorb and visualize
and imagine.
And you see Israel as a place of so
very many stories. Of people, and their
various truths. And of hope, and of love.
 —JP
Correspondents
Warren Boroson
Lois Goldrich
Banji Ganchrow
Abigail K. Leichman
Miriam Rinn
Dr. Miryam Z. Wahrman
Advertising Director
Natalie D. Jay
Classified Director
Janice Rosen
TRUTH REGARDLESS OF CONSEQUENCES
Et tu, Natalie?
hy is Natalie Portman, the especially on behalf of women, where she is
Israeli-born actress whom an activist.
we all thought was a lover of In announcing the award, Stan Polovets,
Israel, suddenly boycotting co-founder and chairman of the Genesis
the Jewish state, even while she promotes Prize Foundation, said: “Natalie’s charis-
film festivals hosted by state-run Chinese matic on-screen presence has touched the
censors? hearts of millions. Her talent, her commit-
Last week, Natalie Portman refused to go ment to social causes and her deep connec-
Israel to accept the Genesis Prize, known tion to her Jewish and Israeli roots are greatly
as the “Jewish Nobel,” saying “she does not admired. She exemplifies the core traits of
feel comfortable participating the Jewish character and val-
in any public events in Israel” ues of the Jewish people — per-
and does not want to appear sistence and hard work, pursuit
to “endorse” Israeli Prime of excellence, intellectual curi-
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. osity, and a heartfelt desire to
Netanyahu is the only dem- contribute to making the world
ocratically elected leader in a better place.”
the entire Middle East, having Portman responded to the
been elected not once but four announcement enthusiastically,
times. He stands at the helm of “I am deeply touched and hum-
a country that features equality Rabbi bled by this honor. I am proud
regardless of religion, ethnicity, Shmuley of my Israeli roots and Jewish
and gender, along with univer- Boteach heritage; they are crucial parts
sal voting rights, judicial and of who I am. It is such a privi-
parliamentary checks and bal- lege to be counted among the
ances, and a completely free and unfettered outstanding Laureates whom I admire so
press. This, in the heart of a region where much. I express my heartfelt gratitude to the
brutality and government oppression are Genesis Prize Foundation and look forward
the norm. to using the global platform it provides to
Nevertheless, Natalie has chosen to refuse make a difference in the lives of women in
association with Israel, even as it afforded Israel and beyond.”
her these freedoms and protected her in her Then, just weeks before the prize was to be
early years. awarded, Portman announced that in light of
It was not always so. “recent events,” she could not now visit Israel
When the Genesis Foundation first decided and would not accept the prize. She did not
to bestow its prestigious prize on the Oscar elaborate on the “recent events,” but subse-
winner, I was a bit confused. Another celeb- quent emails between her representatives
rity recipient? Natalie did not have a long his- and the Genesis Prize officials make it clear
tory of work on behalf of the Jewish people that she was referring to Israel’s clashes with
that ordinarily would make someone a can- Hamas on the Gaza border.
didate for the prize. Yes, she did produce Sorry, Natalie.
a film adaptation of an Amos Oz novel and The Jews learned in the Warsaw ghetto
has said some nice things about Israel. Still, a uprising, whose 75th anniversary was com-
Jewish Nobel would seem to demand greater memorated just last week, that those who
work on behalf of the Jewish state and Jewish promise a genocide of the Jewish people, like
community. Still, Portman’s high profile as an the Nazis and their ideological heirs Hamas
actress and her charitable work gave Genesis — whose very charter calls for the murder
publicity and offered a chance for Portman of every Jew, including Natalie Portman —
to put the $1 million prize money to good use, must be resisted. And the Jewish people will
Rabbi Shmuley Boteach is the author of 31 books. His most recent is “The Israel Warrior.”
Follow him on Twitter @RabbiShmuley.
Advertising Coordinator
Jane Carr
Production Manager
Jerry Szubin
Founder
Morris J. Janoff (1911–1987)
Account Executives
Peggy Elias
Graphic Artists
Deborah Herman
Editor Emeritus
Meyer Pesin (1901–1989)
Bob O'Brien
Brenda Sutcliffe City Editor
Administrative Assistant Mort Cornin (1915–1984)
Jenna Sutcliffe Editorial Consultant
Max Milians (1908-2005)
International Media Placement
P.O. Box 7195 Jerusalem 91077 Secretary
Tel: 02-6252933, 02-6247919 Ceil Wolf (1914-2008)
Fax: 02-6249240 Editor Emerita
Israeli Representative Rebecca Kaplan Boroson

defend themselves against terrorists
and mass murderers, with or with-
out your approval.
I visited the Gaza border last Fri-
day and watched the Hamas dem-
onstrations from just a few hundred
meters away. I watched as Hamas
flew burning kites to ignite Israeli
agricultural fields and I watched
as burning tires made the sky ran-
cid with acrid air. Israel has been
forced to respond to actual assaults
on its border fence by Hamas that, if
breached, would lead to the murder
of countless Israelis.
Why would Natalie condemn
Israel for defending its citizens
against a terror organization that
openly declares its intention to
exterminate the Jewish people? Was
one holocaust not enough? Would
she return the Jewish people back
to a time of utter helplessness and
defenselessness, as existed before
Israel’s creation?
But true to the hypocrisy that
characterizes so many of Israel’s
boycotters, Natalie seems to have
no problem with actual despotic
regimes.
In 2014 Natalie attended the Shang-
hai International Film Festival and
then she went to the Beijing Interna-
tional Film Festival in 2016, although
both events were sponsored and
hosted by the Chinese State Admin-
istration of Press, Publication, Radio,
Film and Television — best known as
the censorship enforcer and propa-
ganda machine of the Chinese com-
munist government.
The body gained notoriety for its
2014 broadcast of prisoners being
led to their executions.
Together, these outlets constitute
the mainstay of China’s state-spon-
sored propaganda.
It’s also responsible for much
of the censorship in the Chinese
Authoritarian State. According
to the Congressional-Executive
Commission on China, the SARFT
“controls the content of all radio,
television, satellite, and Internet
broadcasts in China.”
So Natalie is boycotting the coun-
try of her birth, Israel, along with its
elected officials, all the while will-
ing to support and even whitewash
some of the world’s worst authori-
tarian offenders. These are double
standards that we’ve seen from BDS
time and again.
Natalie owes her fans in general,
and the Jewish community in
particular, an explanation. What
would lead her to announce a
boycott of democratic Israel on
its 70th birthday?
The hypocrisy is especially galling.
If she had a problem with the gov-
ernment of Israel, she could have
turned down the prize at the outset
rather than embarrassing the foun-
dation. Netanyahu was prime minis-
ter when the award was announced,
and it did not seem to bother her.
Worse, she is happy to use the
government and her Israeli roots
when it suits her purposes. When
Portman needed funding for her
film “A Tale of Love and Darkness,”
she had no problem taking money
from other Jewish foundations and
the film fund that receives its fund-
ing from the Israeli government of
Benjamin Netanyahu.
Portman also is an outspoken
critic of President Donald Trump.
Is she going to boycott the United
States? She is a critic of Hollywood’s
treatment of women. That is noble.
Yet she didn’t boycott the Oscars or
the Golden Globes. Actually, she
made a statement about the issue
when she announced one of the
categories. She could have done the
same in Jerusalem.
This PR debacle returns us to the
earlier question of why Natalie was
given the award in the first place.
Because of the size of the monetary
award, the press has made compari-
sons to the Nobel, but the choices
the Genesis Foundation has made
hardly reflects the same gravitas.
Actor Michael Douglas? Good
actor, proud of his Jewish lineage,
but not necessarily someone who
has distinguished himself for his
work in the Jewish world.
Sculptor Anish Kapoor? How
many in the Jewish world have even
heard of him?
Michael Bloomberg? Amazing
mayor and inspired philanthro-
pist. But the billionaire mayor of
New York needed another million
dollars?
Itzhak Perlman was an inspired
choice as he is someone of world
renown who has inspired millions
and dedicated himself to music
while also remaining true to his
Israeli Jewish roots.
When the World Values Network
gave Caitlyn Jenner our prize last
month for her compassion and com-
mitment to human rights, we did
not have to award her a million dol-
lars. Unlike Portman, she proudly
accepted the award, despite being
condemned by the anti-Semites and
critics of Israel who accused her of
pink-washing. She stood before our
gala and spoke affectionately of Israel,
its democratic values and defense of
human rights. That is the response
we should expect from the winner
of a Jewish Nobel prize, not the self-
indulgent cowardice of a Hollywood
celebrity who, however unwittingly,
trashed her own country’s democ-
racy and gave comfort to its enemies.
Opinion
Portman’s complaint
N
atalie Portman, the Israeli born,
proudly Jewish Schechter Day
School graduate; Natalie Port-
man the Oscar winning actress,
made headlines in the Jewish world this week
because of what she rejected instead of what
she accepted.
Portman was selected to be the 2018 recipi-
ent of the Genesis award, a relatively new prize their arguing and justifying their positions to
devised to be a so-called Jewish Nobel for peo-
ple who are ambassadors of Israel and Judaism.
Previous awardees include Itzhak Pearlman,
Michael Douglas, and Michael Bloomberg.
Portman was an excellent choice to keep that
standard high and strong.
Little fanfare was made when
Portman was selected, but the
news cycle reeled when she
decided, just weeks before the
ceremony, which was to be held
in Jerusalem, that she will refuse
the award because of “recent
decisions” made by the Israeli
government.
Because of the vagueness Port- Rabbi
man offered in her reason for David-Seth
abandoning the award, armchair Kirshner
pundits divined her meaning and
intention with certainty. It was
another fuel source for the ongoing fire that
divides the left and the right, the Likud and
Labor, the Hatfields and the McCoys. One side
claimed victory, while another side demanded
that Portman’s Israeli citizenship be revoked.
We seem to operate best in the mud-pit of
anger and aspersion. It seems that we no lon-
ger can create space to listen and understand.
Natalie Portman at the Women’s March in
Los Angeles on Jan. 20, 2018.
 EMMA MCINTYRE/GETTY IMAGES
The opinions expressed in this section are those of the authors, not necessarily those of the newspaper’s editors,
publishers, or other staffers. We welcome letters to the editor. Send them to jstandardletters@gmail.com.
After fur ther clar ific ation, Por t man
explained that her decision was made because
Prime Minister Netanyahu would be at the
award ceremony and would make a speech.
Portman was afraid that his attendance and his
talk would imply her endorsement of Netan-
yahu’s views.
Sadly, the extremists were too embroiled in
even hear the explanation she offered.
I assume that Portman is angry with Netanya-
hu’s decision to renege on his promise to grant
asylum to refugees seeking a haven in Israel.
After long challenge and debate, a compromise
was made that would have offered
a fair solution for asylum seekers
and refugees. These are people
who came to Israel for salvation
from oppression — something we
Jews are too familiar with. Then
Bibi broke his own deal to accom-
modate his base, leaving these dis-
placed seekers without a place to
call home or any certainty about
their future.
I came to this conclusion sim-
ply because this situation with
refugees is the only significant
event that has happened from the
time the award was offered to Portman and she
accepted it, and when she changed her mind.
Israel being a force in Judea and Samaria was
the status quo before and after the award was
offered to Portman. Humanitarian crises in
Gaza were, sadly, the status quo before Port-
man was selected and remain so after she
pulled out. Toughness on the Iran nuclear
regime and stopping Hezbullah has been an
ethic for all time with Israel. The only change I
notice during this time was the agreement and
then renege by Netanyahu on asylum seekers.
Still, Portman made a mistake. By not accept-
ing the award she punishes everyone who is
blameless and she further empowers Bibi.
The Genesis committee is wounded by this
move, which has caused it to lose irreparable
resources and time that cannot be recaptured.
Further, not by design, Portman has made
the Genesis Prize a thick log that she has now
thrown into the burning fire of political divide.
Natalie has given fuel to the trigger-happy
extremists to jump to conclusions about the
other side. That is a shame.
Were I deputized with giving Portman coun-
sel, I would have advised her to go to Jerusa-
lem and make a powerful and impactful speech
in what would be known as her finest perfor-
mance. I would have encouraged her to speak
directly to the prime minister, the cabinet,
and all of the citizens of Israel, those on the
fringe and those in the center. She could have
crafted words that speak of her immense pride
in being Jewish and Israeli, and how that has
caused her always to accept the good and look
SEE PORTMAN PAGE 49
JEWISH STANDARD APRIL 27, 2018 47
Opinion

Death of the pronoun

S
ubject pronouns are falling by
the wayside, and nobody seems
to care.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m all for
the evolution of language. Etymology and
linguistics are fascinating. I welcome col-
loquialisms and slang, and I’m not always
a stickler for proper grammar, either. For
example, when called for, I’ll begin a sen-
tence with the words And or But.
(Yes, I know, that’s living on the edge.)
But lately, pronoun omission has been
chipping away at my hope for the future
of the English language.
I wonder why these opening pronouns
are being discarded. Why is the pronoun
going the way of the dodo bird? Why are
people leaving out these words?
Is it an effort at humility? Does “Would
love to know what you think” take the
focus off of the speaker and place it onto
the person with whom he is speaking? As
in, “It’s not so much that you should tell
me your thoughts because I, as Mr. Awe-
some, want to know them, but rather that
your thoughts are important and should
be heard.” Or is that too technical? Am I
analyzing too much?
Maybe these subject pronouns are
dropping like flies because people are
lazier than they used to be. It’s kind of
like in text messages, when a person’s fin-
gers are too tired to type out full words
and sentences and resort to shortcuts
like:
c u soon
gr8
lol
u2
omg
Or maybe dropping pronouns is along
the lines of how it is on Facebook, when
people only have enough time to write
“hbd” on the birthday girl’s wall. Or, a
“BDE” when someone passes away, as
if writing three words (Baruch Dayan
ha’Emet) exerts so much more energy
than three letters. As if we can’t get any
more impersonal than a “BDE” on a Face-
book wall.
And don’t get me started on emojis.
I’m probably being unfair. People learn
to speak the way those around them
speak. It’s nothing intentional. It just is.
What I’m trying to under- more noticeable than from
stand, though, is how this the spoken word because
particular change started. these days we live in such a
Who started dropping the text-based world. I cringe at
subject pronoun? Who was phrases in emails like, “Glad
the first person to say “See you thought the meeting
ya soon!” and how many went well” or “Would love to
people did it take to follow talk about it later” or — one
in kind until “See ya soon” to which I’ve certainly fallen
became the norm? Dena Croog prey — ”Looking forward to
Maybe people think that a seeing you soon!”
sentence without a subject Come on, people. I under-
pronoun sounds more fluid. Could that stand the desire to increase morale by
be the reason? Personally, I think leaving creating a more casual work environ-
out the pronoun sounds too rushed, like ment—but dress-down Friday has no
the speaker wants to get the sentence out place in sentence structure.
and over with. Look, language evolves, I get it. Ye Olde
The act of dropping subject pronouns English becomes New English. Some lan-
also has made its way into the business guages meld into each other and form new
world. I have no idea how that hap- languages (German+Hebrew=Yiddish).
pened. It’s one thing to omit pronouns One language borrows from another.
in speech. It’s another thing altogether How many words in the English language
when pronouns are omitted when they derive from Latin? Did the Romans fore-
are written down, particularly in emails, see this poaching of words, and had they
and more specifically in professional seen, would they have minded? And I’d
correspondence. imagine, as another example, that some
Omission from the written language is people in the U.K. might view American

Russia and Israel, seven decades on

A
mid all the diplomatic maneu-
verings in the months that led
up to the creation of the State
of Israel 70 years ago, none are
more curious than those undertaken by
the Soviet Union.
It’s fair to say that Soviet support was a
necessary condition for the emergence of
an independent Jewish state in what was
then British Mandate Palestine. The Zion-
ist leadership certainly understood this,
with both Chaim Weizmann and David
Ben-Gurion courting Soviet foreign min-
istry officials as World War II came to an
end. But until the middle of 1947, the Sovi-
ets remained firmly against partitioning
the country into Jewish and Arab states.
The about-turn in favor of partition was
announced by Andrei Gromyko, the Soviet
ambassador to the United Nations, in May
1947, in a remarkable speech that upended
decades of Communist doctrine by speak-
ing of “the Jewish people” and mourning
the sight of “hundreds of thousands of
Jews wandering about in various countries
of Europe in search of means of existence
and in search of shelter.”
So began a period of two or three years
when the idea of a Soviet-Israeli alliance
was discussed as a serious prospect.
Indeed, Gromyko turned out to be one of
the most aggressive advocates of the Zion-
ist cause at the United Nations, impatiently
reminding the American delegation in
March 1948 that “the only way to reduce
bloodshed is the prompt and effective cre-
ation of two states in Palestine.
“If the United States and some other
states block the implementation of the
partition and regard Palestine as an ele-
ment in their economic and military-
strategic considerations, any decision
Israel’s present-
day relations
with Russia are
complicated
by many of the
same issues that
prevailed during
the Cold War.
on the future of Palestine . . . will mean
the transformation of Palestine into a
field of strife and dissension between the
Arabs and the Jews and will only increase
the number of victims,” Gromyko said,
expressing the sort of indignation that
might come from an Ameri-
can delegate today.
The princ ipal reason
behind this brief flash of
Soviet support for Israel
was geopolitical. The USSR
had come to the end of the
war without a coherent pol-
icy toward the Arab world,
but with a basic distrust of Ben Cohen
the pan-Arab pretensions
of the newly formed Arab
League. Moscow also was keen to hasten
the decline of the British Empire in the
Middle East and saw the State of Israel as a
potential ally in its emerging contest with
America. So for once during that terrible
decade, the diplomatic stars had aligned in
favor of the Jewish people, and the votes in
favor of partition cast by both the United
States and the USSR was one of the last
examples of international consensus as the
Cold War took hold.
The story ended, as we all know, with
Israel firmly in the camp of the United
States and the Soviet Union as the prin-
ciple backer of Arab rejectionism. The
Gromkyo who admitted at the United
Nations in 1947 that it was “difficult to
express in dry statistics” the “sorrow and
suffering of the Jewish victims of the fascist Sharett’s broader hope was fulfilled as
aggressors” was the same Gromyko who
served as Soviet foreign minister when
that same world body passed
a resolution in 1975 equating
Zionism with racism.
In any case, by the early
1950s Israel’s leaders under-
stood pretty clearly that
the Soviet embrace easily
could turn into a noose. In
his monumental history of
the State of Israel, the late
Martin Gilbert writes of an
October 1955 conversation
between Israeli Foreign Minister Moshe
Sharett and U.S. Secretary of State John
Foster Dulles, in which the former com-
plained that Israel had “lost everything”
with regard to its relations with the Sovi-
ets, “without gaining a thing” from the
Americans. At the same time, Sharett
was under no illusions about Soviet
totalitarianism, telling Dulles that Israel
maintained an embassy in Moscow only
“in order to encourage the Jews of Russia
to hold out — so that they can see before
them a mark and token that the day will
come when their link with Israel and the
Jewish people will be renewed.”
By the time that day actually came,
Israel’s embassy in Moscow had been
shuttered for more than 20 years. Still,
nearly 1 million Jews from the former
Soviet Union emigrated to Israel in the

48JEWISH STANDARD APRIL 27, 2018

 Opinion

English as the bastardization of a per-
fectly good language.
Over time, yes, old rules are dis-
carded. For example, the rule not to
end a sentence with a preposition was
borrowed from the Latin, and in English
it may sound kind of snobbish. Combine
that with the use of the word “whom”
and you’ve got a double dose of elitism.
Think of it this way. Upon answering
the phone, few people today ask, “To
whom am I speaking?” Come to think
of it, the person answering the phone
might even forgo “Who am I talking to?”
and simply say “Who’s this?”
(Or, as I might answer when a tele-
marketer calls during bedtime, “Hey
there, can you let me know when you’re
putting your kids in for the night so
that I can call you at the exact moment
they’ve finally quieted down?”)
Old rules and words are discarded
and indeed, over time, new words are
added. In January 2018, for example,
the words selfie, mansplain, and baby-
moon were added to the Oxford English
Dictionary.
So fine, language has been evolv-
ing forever. And maybe there’s always
been some opposition to these changes.
Maybe dropping subject pronouns from
sentences only bothers me because it’s a
change-in-progress. It’s happening right
now. We’re caught in the middle of the
pronoun’s demise, bearing witness to it
being shoved overboard, yet unable to
prevent it from plunging to its death.
When it comes to sentences, im not
interested in rushing thru my words. I
like pronouns and dont want 2C them
go. Not interested in shortcuts. Subject
pronouns help clarify meaning of sen-
timents. IMHO, sound more confident
2. Will be a sad day for the English lan-
guage when pronouns become obsolete.
Dena Croog is a writer and editor in
Teaneck and the founder of Refa’enu, a
nonprofit organization dedicated to mood
disorder awareness and support. More
information about the organization and
its support groups can be found at www.
refaenu.org; email dena@refaenu.org
with any questions or comments.
Portman
FROM PAGE 47
for better. I would have told her to look
Bibi in the eye and explain to him that
Israel should be tough on Iran and elimi-
nate threats within Syria’s borders and
We can only
hope that those
who step up
in her absence
speak truth
to power.
still open our gates to those wounded
who cannot find medical attention in
the war-savaged country. We should
stop — at all costs — terrorists on the
fence in Gaza, who are trying to break
down our borders and who seek to do
harm to our citizenry; at the same time
we should have empathy for the Gazan
mother who prays only to have milk for
her baby. Israel can indeed offer a home
to all of its people who align their destiny
with the Jewish people according to the
“Law of Return” and still make space for
those who are persecuted, oppressed,
and under the threat of death in their
own country.
That is the balance necessary to live
in a Jewish state and in a Jewish state of
mind.
Sadly, Portman left an empty micro-
phone and ceded the podium to pun-
dits instead of using her voice to shape
the place she wants to help create. We
can only hope that those who step up in
her absence speak truth to power and
make the most of the opportunity she
squandered.
David-Seth Kirshner is senior rabbi of
Temple Emanu-El of Closter, immediate
past president of the New York Board of
Rabbis, and the president of the North
Jersey Board of Rabbis.

decade following its collapse in 1990,

bringing to a democratic resolution the
so-called “Jewish Question” confronted
by tsarists and revolutionaries alike for
more than a century.
Even without the issues of anti-Semitic
persecution and bans on Jewish emigra-
tion to deal with, Israel’s present-day
relations with Russia are complicated
by many of the same issues that pre-
vailed during the Cold War — foremost,
its continued investment in Syria’s Assad
dynasty. Some might argue that’s a good
thing, in that Vladimir Putin will act as
a restraining influence on Assad and on
the Damascus regime’s allies in Iran. But
it also demonstrates that the historically
fraught relationship between Jews and
Russians continues in the sphere of inter-
national politics.
Seventy years after Israel’s creation, Rus-
sia remains the world power that is closest
to the Jewish state’s most implacable ene-
mies, providing them with diplomatic and
military sustenance — and keeping those
old memories alive. JNS.ORG
KOBI GIDEON/GPO

Ben Cohen writes a weekly column for

JNS on Jewish affairs and Middle Eastern
politics. His work has been published
in Commentary, the New York Post,
Haaretz, the Wall Street Journal, and From left, Russian President Vladimir Putin, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Environmental Protection Minister Ze’ev
many other publications. Elkin and the chief rabbi of Russia, Berel Lazar, are at the Jewish Museum and Tolerance Center in Moscow, Jan. 29, 2018.

JEWISH STANDARD APRIL 27, 2018 49

Jewish World
A Montreal pilgrimage
in the footsteps
of Leonard Cohen
BEN HARRIS
MONTREAL — Just inside the gate of
the Shaar Hashomayim synagogue,
off Boulevard du Mont Royal, a grave-
stone bears an unusual Star of David,
the sharp angles of its two opposing
triangles — one reaching heavenward,
the other aimed at the earth — softened
into the shape of hearts.
A dozen red roses scattered on the
ground are signs of recent visitors, and
an overflowing mound of stones on
top, in keeping with the Jewish custom,
is evidence of many more.
The footstone is engraved in Hebrew
with the name of the deceased, Eliezer
the son of Nissan HaKohen. And
beneath that, the name by which he
was known to the world.
Leonard Cohen.
The legendary singer, songwriter,
poet, and novelist was buried here in
a private ceremony in 2016, just hours
before his family would inform the
world that he had died days earlier, at
the age of 82, at his home in Los Ange-
les. Though Cohen had been suffering
from cancer and knew his death was
looming, he died peacefully in his sleep
after a nighttime fall.
His grave is in the family plot beside
three generations of his forebears.
“He came into the world a Montreal
Jew and he left the world a Montreal
Jew,” said Gideon Zelermyer, the can-
tor at Shaar Hashomayim, who pre-
sided over the burial with the syna-
gogue’s rabbi.
It’s little surprise that a steady stream
of visitors continues to make its way
to Cohen’s gravesite more than a year
after his death. When he was already
well into his 70s, the singer achieved
something rare in popular music — a
late-career renaissance. It included five
years of worldwide touring, hundreds
of sold-out shows, and several cele-
brated albums including “You Want It
Darker,” which was released just weeks
before he died. That album earned him
his only solo Grammy Award.
With his death, interest in Cohen has
surged even more, particularly in his
hometown.
Musee d’Art Contemporain du
Montreal recently wrapped up a five-
month multimedia exhibition that
featured works by 40 artists commis-
sioned by the museum in “loving trib-
ute” to Cohen. A 10,000-square-foot
portrait of the singer, with barely a
smile, shadowed by his trademark
fedora and hand held over heart, tow-
ers over Crescent Street, in the heart of
50 JEWISH STANDARD APRIL 27, 2018
downtown. Another nine-story mural
of Cohen was completed last year.
And in November, a star-studded trib-
ute concert at the city’s Belle Centre
featured appearances by Sting, Elvis
Costello, Seth Rogen, and Prime Min-
ister Justin Trudeau.
The Montreal Jewish community
that nurtured Cohen in his early years
has not been overlooked in the Cohen
surge. For a while, media interest in
Shaar Hashomayim was so intense that
its leadership had to issue a statement
asking people to stay away.
Inquiring at the city’s Jewish institu-
tions today inspires knowing smiles
from people who have grown accus-
tomed to fielding questions about
Cohen. “At least the third today,” said an
official at the cemetery when a visitor
asked for directions to Cohen’s grave.
Cohen first encountered the biblical
metaphors and liturgical themes that
would inspire so much of his life’s work
at Shaar Hashomayim, a fortress of a
synagogue built by his ancestors that
today occupies the better part of a city
block. Cohen’s childhood home, at 599
Belmont Ave., is just up the hill, and
a photograph of a teenage Cohen in
double-breasted jacket at his Hebrew
school graduation in 1949 still hangs
on the wall.
Music remains central to the service
at Shaar Hashomayim, with a cantor
leading prayers in the now nearly obso-
lete choral tradition once prevalent in
Europe. It was that sound that Cohen
sought out for “You Want It Darker,”
which features Zelermyer and the syn- A mural of Leonard Cohen towers above Crescent Street in downtown Montreal.
agogue choir providing backing vocals.
But Cohen’s connections to the afflu-
ent Montreal Jewish community of his
youth was never without complica-
tions. He fled the city’s confines early
and often — first to study literature at
Columbia, then to the Greek island
Hydra, and eventually to Southern Cal-
ifornia, where he lived in a Zen mon-
astery for years. Montreal was a place
to which he returned occasionally “to
renew my neurotic affiliations,” he
once wrote.
Liel Leibovitz, the author of a 2014
book exploring Cohen’s artistic evo-
lution, points to a 1964 speech that
Cohen delivered to a symposium at
the Montreal Jewish Library as the
moment he found his prophetic voice.
In the speech, which Leibovitz recon-
structed from notes found in Cohen’s
papers, the singer lambasted Mon-
treal Jewry for worshipping a “hid-
eous distortion” of God. Leonard Cohen’s grave, next to three generations of his family, is in Congregation
SEE COHEN PAGE 56 Shaar Hashomayim’s cemetery in Montreal. PHOTOS BY BEN HARRIS

Acharei Mot/Kedoshim: We’ve got you covered
“I’ve got you covered.” For anyone who
has found themselves in a difficult situa-
tion, there is great comfort in knowing
that someone has got us covered. Per-
haps someone may provide cover for us
to escape, or they may cover our story, or
cover our losses. In the first of this week’s
double Torah portion of Acharei Mot/
Kedoshim, we learn about the power of
covering and about the day devoted to cov-
ering known as Yom Kippur.
At the end of the story of Noah, human
beings are left on earth while God remains
at a distance in heaven. Before the flood,
human beings were able to talk directly
to God as one speaks to a friend, but after
the flood, Noah was only able to draw
close to God by sending up sweet-smelling
smoke as an offering. As we come to this
week’s portion, we stand at the foot of
Mt. Sinai with the hope of drawing close
to God again. We know God is present on
the mountain when a cloud blankets the
top of Sinai. Rather than God’s presence
being tangible, it is represented in the
amorphous anan hakavod, “The Cloud
of Glory,” which is as manifest as God
becomes. As close as God is on the moun-
tain, the Children of Israel are still sepa-
rated from God’s presence by a boundary
that maintains the people’s distance from
the Cloud of Glory. Later, God instructs the
Children of Israel to build the Mishkan, the
Relationships
FROM PAGE 15
ethnic, religious, and political changes.
As American Jews, we have to take our
responsibilities in the relationship seri-
ously and not simply look for a single
cause to blame a complex social problem.”
Part of that answer, he said, “is to popu-
late the relationship with new meanings,
rather than trying to retrieve the mean-
ings it once had.”
A generation or two ago, he said, Ameri-
can Jews had an important role to play “in
the project of a much more vulnerable
Jewish state. Now the state of Israel’s chal-
lenge is in the marketplace of Jewish iden-
tities. Does it provide meaning to Ameri-
can Jews?”
It’s a mistake, he said, to take Israel for
granted, “just because it worked as part of
the identity of American Jews in the past.”
And it’s also a mistake not to realize
that “our politics of loyalty around Israel
are actually hurting the cause of being
pro-Israel.”
The Hartman Institute, he said, “is try-
ing to introduce a countercultural pos-
ture of learning and nuance and serious
discourse into the community.”
D’var Torah
place on earth where God’s
presence will dwell among
us. Upon its completion
and purification and along
with our own purification,
the Cloud of Glory descends
from Mt. Sinai and covers
the Kaporet which is itself
the cover of the Ark of the
Covenant. Rabbi Barry
The name of the first Diamond
Torah portion, Acharei Mot,
literally means “after the
Beth Haverim Shir
Shalom, Mahwah,
death” of Aaron’s sons Nadav
Reform
and Avihu. In a previous
portion, Nadav and Avihu
bring a “strange” or perhaps “foreign”
fire towards God’s presence. Just as Noah
used fire to create smoke that rose up to
God, and their father Aaron offered up a
sacrifice that he turned into smoke that
reached God, Nadav and Avihu wished to
draw close to God as well.
In many ways they acted like young lov-
ers who feel inextricably drawn to one
another. This feeling, called limerence, is Aaron creates a human-made cloud of
powerful and intoxicating, but it can also
be dangerous. People can become lovesick
and ignore their own health and safety for
the sake of closeness. This is what hap-
pened to Nadav and Avihu as they des-
perately wanted to approach God’s pres-
ence as it covered the Ark. They were like
In northern New Jersey, the New York
branch of the Hartman Institute has been
most visible with its iEngage program of
Israel education, which the Jewish Feder-
ation of Northern New Jersey brought to
several area synagogues a couple of years
ago. Several area rabbis, among them Beth
Sholom’s Rabbi Joel Pitkosky, have studied
in the Institute’s Jerusalem branch.
“The majority of the work we do is
around the table with leaders in the Jew-
ish community, studying the big ques-
tions,” Dr. Kurtzer said.
With political divisions bigger than
ever, with the conflict between Israeli and
American Jews, is it possible to stop the
Jewish community from fissuring?
“It might be too late,” he conceded. “But
the only technique I know that creates plu-
ralism that really works is the pluralism
that comes about through learning. I have
seen the way where we can sit down with
people on the opposite side of both the
Israeli and American political spectrum
and use learning as a way to humanize the
other. It doesn’t mean they agree but they
don’t demonize the other. We’re not going
to reach consensus but we still might be
able to sustain some community.”
a boyfriend or girlfriend who
constantly calls the person
they love until their pester-
ing drives their potential
lover away. Nadav and Avi-
hu’s yearning to be close to
God led them to bring a for-
eign fire into God’s presence
which provoked a powerful
and deadly reaction.
In this week’s portion, we
are told that only Aaron, in
the role of High Priest, may
approach the most holy
place with God’s presence
covering the Ark of the Cov-
enant. Not only may the High Priest alone
have access to God’s presence, but he may
only enter once a year on the day that
became known as Yom Kippur. The word
Kippur is related to the word Kaporet,
the cover of the Ark. Yom Kippur is the
day of covering, the day when our sins
are shrouded from God’s sight. Not only
does Aaron enter the most holy place, but
smoke that rises up and mingles with the
Cloud of Glory. Everything is covered. The
Ten Commandments are covered by the
Kaporet; the Kaporet is covered by God
who is obscured in the Cloud of Glory,
and our human cloud, created by Aaron,
comingles with the divine cloud. At that
BRIEF
U.S. Supreme Court rules against Israeli
terror victims in case against Arab Bank
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that foreign
victims of human-rights abuses and terror
attacks cannot sue foreign businesses in
U.S. courts.
In Jesner v. Arab Bank, a suit by Israeli
victims of Palestinian terrorism in the
West Bank and Gaza from 1995 through
2005 against the Jordan-based Arab Bank,
U.S. justices voted 5 to 4 that the victims
could not use the alien tort statute to make
claims against the bank. The 18th-century
alien tort statute says that foreigners may
bring lawsuits in American courts for seri-
ous violations of international human-
rights laws.
The plaintiffs argued that the Arab
Bank’s New York branch knowingly pro-
vided millions of dollars to finance sui-
cide bombings and so-called martyrdom
moment, in that holy place, we are as
close to God as we can ever be. The smoke
that represents us intermingles with the
cloud that represents God’s presence. In
that moment, we affirm the Covenant and
all that our agreement covers; God covers
our sins and forgives us; God’s presence
covers us, sheltering us from harm. In
As we come
to this week’s
portion, we
stand at the foot
of Mt. Sinai with
the hope of
drawing close to
God again.
turn, we affirm the purpose of the curtain
that covers God’s presence. As much as
we wish to be constantly close to God and
even possess God’s powers, there must be
a boundary separating us from the divine.
If we strive for closeness with divinity, we
can only do so safely when recognizing
the need for placing limits on our desires.
payments to reward the families of ter-
rorists who succeeded in killing civilians,
keeping accounts for known terrorists and
accepting donations they knew would be
used for terrorist activity in Israel.
The bank denied the allegations and
argued that if the court allowed it, such
cases would interfere with U.S. foreign
policy and diplomacy.
In 2013, the Supreme Court ruled that
people or entities sued under the Alien
Tort Statute must have a real connection
to the United States, but did not decide
whether businesses could be sued.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor issued the dis-
sent, stating that the majority opinion
“absolves corporations from responsibil-
ity” for “conscience-shocking behavior.”
 JNS.ORG
JEWISH STANDARD APRIL 27, 2018 51
Crossword
“A YIDDISHE CUPFUL” BY YONI GLATT
KOSHERCROSSWORDS@GMAIL.COM
DIFFICULTY LEVEL: CHALLENGING
Across
1. “I Don’t Want to ___ Thing”
6. Money in the bank, say
11. “___ Bom” (Shabbat song)
14. Biblical man involved in a water dis-
pute
15. “The Hunger Games” tribute
16. Cell stuff, briefly
17. Cupful for a sweaty monarch?
19. Dad of 14-Across, for short
20. “Why?”
21. Discourteous
23. “Geez!”
24. At a quick rate, poetically
27. F or G, but not H
28. Kind of artery
30. Cupful for one who enjoys watery
suds?
33. Hero Ramon
34. Cadillac hybrid
35. 1997 Lisa Loeb hit
36. Cupful for one putting cream cheese
on a bagel?
40. Tool not used by one observing the
sabbatical year
41. Shabbat wear, often
42. Slave girl of opera
45. Cupful for one spoofing pop hits?
49. Ma’ariv
50. Jabotinsky of note
51. Charlton’s “Touch of Evil” co-star
53. Second palindrome in the Bible
54. Notable seder guest
57. In awe, visually
59. Ryerson met repeatedly by Phil in a
Ramis classic
60. Cupful for a big tzeddakah giver?
64. Nazareth to Tiberias dir.
65. Garden-variety
66. Remains of an ancient statue, maybe
67. Gabriel or Marino
68. Fires off, as a text
69. Browser history list
The solution to the puzzle is on page 59.
52 JEWISH STANDARD APRIL 27, 2017
The Frazzled Housewife
How are your ovaries?
BANJI GANCHROW
A
s winter finally, hopefully,
p o s s i b ly, m i r a c u l o u sly didn’t force me to get bifocals yet. Yes,
turns to spring, it is time
for another edition of “you
know you are getting old when…”
Spring has brought this topic up again
because with the nice weather comes
people walking outside, which means I
have to see them and be as
friendly as I can. Last week,
I crossed the Teaneck/Ber-
genfield border in order
to visit a good friend who
was visiting her friend for
the weekend. Crossing the
border is an experience.
You don’t need a passport
— but it seems you do need
an AARP card. Banji
Every person we passed Ganchrow
was pregnant. Or pushing
a stroller. Or pregnant and
pushing a stroller. Or on her way to the
mikvah (ok, I am kidding about that one,
unless women have started going to the
mikvah during the day and I just don’t
know about it). The point is, with every
person we passed, my friend asked, “Do
Down
you know that person?”
1. Fire starter?
2. Half-brother of 14-Across And then it hit me. I no longer know
3. Grassy plains anyone who has viable ovaries! I mean,
4. “And G-d ___ ...” they have ovaries, most of them, but
5. Genuine they no longer have the ability to pro-
6. Financing abbr.
duce actual children.
7. “Told ya!”
8. Transitioned A few years ago, I had surgery that
9. Writer-Director Cohen rendered by uterus useless (ya think Dr.
10. Creator of a bathroom cloud Seuss has a book called “The Useless
11. Three cheers, perhaps Uterus”?) Anyway, I have been included
12. You might get one before a party
in a strong group of women who are past
13. Author Norman
18. Blast, sci-fi style their childbearing abilities. Which is fine
22. To such a degree, with “as” — but seeing all these women with their
23. Picture of health, for short? fertility powers exposed made me real-
25. Up to it, not Cain’s brother ize that I am closer in age to their moth-
26. Museum honcho
ers than I am to them! When did that
29. Herringlike fish
31. App for short videos happen????? Their husbands are closer
32. Ruckus in age to my sons!! When did that hap-
34. Hefer or Refaim pen??? They don’t need to take off their
37. Ad ___ glasses to read! When did that happen???
38. Criticizes harshly
Sorry, I am getting a little carried away.
39. Kind of essay or plot structure
43. Multifaceted You know you are getting old, and
44. “I ___ no pleasant bread” (Daniel 10:3) forgive me if I have used this example
45. Heroic poet Hannah before, but you know you are getting
46. Montana’s capital old when you walk by the baseball fields
47. Dutch city where Rembrandt was born
and you no longer have a child playing
48. Bird with a heck of a schnoz
49. Feelings of anxiety on them AND you cannot even see who
52. Propel, in a way is playing on them. I think that last year
55. Kiss equipment I could almost make out familiar shapes
56. Healthy Revolutionary?
58. Marseille “mine”
61. Crawled under the bed, say
62. Minyan need?
63. Big hits, for short
You know you are getting
old when, for the life of you,
you cannot remember
someone’s name.
of parents I might know, but this year
I cannot do even that. Yes, I have been
to my wonderful eye doctor, and no, he
I know I need them. But that still won’t
help me see the parents watching their
kids play little league.
You know you are getting old when
you can’t decide whether you need
a jacket or not, and by the time you
decide you have to go to
the bathroom, and when
you are finished you can’t
remember if you decided
if you needed a jacket or
not. And then you can-
not remember where
you were going when you
started deciding if you
needed a jacket.
You know you are get-
ting old when, for the life
of you, you cannot remem-
ber someone’s name. And
then you ask your spouse — in my case
that would be husband #1 — and he
cannot remember that person’s name
either. And then you are just so happy
that you both are losing your minds at
the same time! And then you start dis-
cussing which of your kids will take care
of you when you both forget how to use
a fork. And then you can’t remember
why you started discussing something
so depressing.
You know you are getting old when
your friend’s kid comes for the weekend
and he is old enough to drink alcohol
and you think to yourself, “Hey, wait a
second, wasn’t I just drinking with his
mother?” Of course, you don’t give him
alcohol because even though he is 21,
you and your friend aren’t old enough
to have a kid that age so it’s just grape
juice for him!
You know you are getting old when
you write a whole column about getting
old… and all of your kids shave… and
all of your kids drive… and you preheat
your oven and can’t understand why it
smells like something is burning and you
open it and realize you left something in
it the day before. Oops…….
Banji Ganchrow is happy that she is
getting older and she is looking forward
to the first of three gel injections in her
knee. Another “you know you are getting
older when……”
 Arts & Culture
Bombshell
CURT SCHLEIER she married Fritz Mandl, one of the

B
wealthiest men in Austria, a Jewish arms

“ ombshell: The Hedy

Lamarr Story” is a docu-
mentary about a woman
who may have been too
beautiful for her own good.
Lamarr — who was born Hedwig Eva
Maria Kiesler to a Jewish family in Vienna—
made her bones by showing her bones —
and the rest of her — in a 1933 Czech film
called “Ecstasy.”
The film was a revelation. Pun intended.
Running naked through the woods and
swimming, simulating orgasm, it made her
— just 18 years old when she filmed it — an
immediate international sensation.
But while she is mostly remembered
as a silver screen sex symbol, Hedy was
more than just a pretty face. She invented
an early version of spread spectrum com-
munications, a technique of frequency
hopping integral to modern communica-
tions technology, including cell phones
and GPS.
This intellectual side of Hedy’s life
was not a secret; Pulitzer Prize-winner
Richard Rhodes wrote about it in 2011
in “Hedy’s Folly: The Life and Break-
through Inventions of Hedy Lamarr.” But
this television exposure (once again, pun
intended) will reveal this side of her to a
far wider audience.
At first glance it appears that Hedy
was destined to live a storybook life. Her
dealer who cavorted with and sold weap-
ons to Mussolini and Hitler.
The marriage turned out to be unhappy.
Hedy fled it, literally, disguising herself
as the maid and sewing all her jewelry into
the lining of her coat. From there she went
to Paris, where she met Louis B. Mayer,
who brought her to the United States
and cast her in a string of successful films
opposite some of the biggest names in the
film biz: Charles Boyer, Spencer Tracy,
and Clark Gable, to name just three.
She became the model for Disney’s Snow
White and the comic books’ Cat Woman.
She so moved Mel Brooks that he named
the Harvey Korman character in “Blazing
Saddles” after her — Hedley Lamarr.
But Hedy Lamarr, far from the stereo-
typical Hollywood airhead, didn’t let the
acclaim go to her head. “Any girl can be
glamorous,” she said. “All you have to do
is stand still and look stupid.”
Hedy didn’t stand still. “Bombshell”
makes great use of recently uncovered
audio tape in which Lamarr talks about
her life in a way that makes clear how self-
aware and smart she really was.
Though she had no technical training,
she seemed able to visualize solutions to
problems some people didn’t even know
existed. Imagining the way birds fly, she
convinced buddy Howard Hughes that
planes should do away with the tradi- In 1941, Hedy Lamarr stars in “Ziegfeld Girl.” EVERETT COLLECTION

beauty landed her early film roles and
marriage. She was still a teenager when
Although she was an inventor in real life, Hedy Lamarr lets Spencer Tracy play
chemist in “I Take This Woman,” in 1940.
tional design, in which wings are per-
pendicular to the frame. She argued they
EVERETT COLLECTION
should be swept back, which is the stan-
dard form today.
She also created a bullion-like cube;
when you put it in water it would produce
a Coca-Cola-like drink. “One of my boo-
boos,” she acknowledges.
Another invention, noted in Rhodes’
book but not in the film — she also created
a tissue box attachment for disposing of
used tissues.
Her breakthrough was for a guidance
system to control torpedoes after they
leave a submarine. At the time, torpedoes
were directed via a radio signal that the
enemy easily could jam. Her thought was
to create a way for the frequencies to be
changed simultaneously in the torpedo
and in the guidance system on the sub.
She worked with composer George
Antheil to bring the idea to fruition; the
two ultimately shared the patent. Though
it is not entirely clear why, the Navy
rejected the idea. Perhaps it was too far
ahead of its time. Ultimately, it became the
basis for secure WiFi, GPS, and Bluetooth,
though by the time that happened Hedy’s
patents were expired and she no longer
could sue for recompense.
It takes something of a leap of faith to
believe that the mind that created a used-
tissue holder also came up with an idea as
sophisticated as a frequency modulator.
One train of thought is that she overheard
some discussion on the subject over din-
ner at the Mandl house, where Nazi scien-
tists were frequent guests.
Certainly it would be nice to credit
Hedy, if only because the fairy tale that
was her early years went bad. She ulti-
mately married six times, saying, “I must
quit marrying men who feel inferior to
me. Somewhere there must be a man who
could be my husband and not feel inferior.
I need a superior, inferior man.”
She never found him. Unfortunately,
in her later years Hedy became a virtual
recluse, going through a series of poorly
executed plastic surgeries. Also, her
money ran out.
Sadly, there was no fairy tale ending
here.
“Bombshell” is a worthy addition to the
PBS American Masters series, a fascinat-
ing look at a woman for whom physical
beauty was not enough. It airs on PBS May
18 at 9 p.m. (Best to check local listings.)

JEWISH STANDARD APRIL 27, 2018 53

Calendar
Friday  Rabbi Yosef Adler, Rinat’s
APRIL 27
Shabbat in Wyckoff:
Temple Beth Rishon
offers the chance to
meet its new rabbi,
Beni Wajnberg, after
services, where he will
give a sermon, 7:30 p.m.
Anyone interested in
joining is welcome.
585 Russell Ave.
(201) 891-4466 or www.
bethrishon.org.
Shabbat in Closter:
Temple Beth El holds
a service led by Rabbi
David S. Widzer and
student cantor Julie
Staple, with organ
accompaniment,
7:30 p.m. 221
Schraalenburgh Road.
(201) 768-5112.
Shabbat in Parsippany:
Award-winning author
and Holocaust scholar
Robert Jan Van Pelt
gives the annual Joseph
Gotthelf Holocaust
memorial lecture at
Temple Beth Am,
7:30 p.m. He has studied
Holocaust denial and
testified for the defense
in Deborah Lipstadt’s
civil libel suit; that story
is in the 2016 movie
“Denial.” 879 Beverwyck
Road. (917) 940-7876.
Saturday  APRIL 29
APRIL 28
Dr. David Shatz
Shabbat in Teaneck:
Dr. David Shatz, Yeshiva
University’s Ronald P.
Stanton professor of
philosophy, ethics, and
religious thought, is
scholar-in-residence
at Congregation Rinat
Yisrael, where he will
give the drasha at the
54 JEWISH STANDARD APRIL 27, 2018
9 a.m. minyan. At 6 p.m., (201) 408-1412 or Division of Consumer
rabbi and rosh yeshiva
mkleiman@jccotp.org. Affairs, Office of the
NJ Attorney General,
of Torah Academy of will discuss consumer
Bergen County, offers fraud prevention.
a commemoration of Refreshments. 10-10
Rabbi Ozer Glickman. Norma Ave. (201) 873-
Afterward, as part of 2476 or l.felner@att.net.
the shul’s “Rambam
and Moreh Nevuchim:
Innovation and
Tuesday 
Controversy” shiurim MAY 1
in memory of Rabbi
Ozer Glickman, Dr. Sally Pillay
Shatz will discuss
“Rambam, Maimonides,
ICE and immigration:
Sally Pillay, director
or Both? The Perennial
of First Friends of NJ
Controversy About
and NY, will discuss
Interpreting the Man.”
immigration, the ICE
After Mincha, his talk is
detention system, the
on “What is Perplexing
immigration legal system,
About the Guide to the
and the mission of First
Perplexed?” Shiurim
Friends at Temple Emeth
continue through June
at Teaneck’s B’yachad Dina Charnin
9. 389 W. Englewood
breakfast, 10:30 a.m.
Ave. (201) 837-2795 or
1666 Windsor Road. Israel at 70: Dina
Rinat.org.
Breakfast reservations, Charnin, director of Israel
Film in Teaneck: Temple (201) 833-1322 or www. policy and programs
emeth.org. for the National Council
Emeth’s adult education
of Jewish Women, will
group screens a movie,
lead a study group,
7 p.m., as part of a
“Israel at 70 Through a
“Movies That Matter”
Gender Lens,” for the
series. Wendy Winograd,
Bergen County section
clinical social worker and
certified psychoanalyst, of the National Council APRIL The JCC of Paramus/
will analyze the film of Jewish Women Congregation Beth
29
at the Riverside Mall
through both a Jewish
and a psychoanalytic Conference Center, Tikvah welcomes
lens. Refreshments. lower level, in the mall multi-instrumentalist
1666 Windsor Road. in Hackensack, 1 p.m. Andy Statman and his trio for a
Light refreshments.
(201) 833-1322 or www.
emeth.org. (201) 385-4847 or www. klezmer concert Sunday, April
Documentary
in Montebello:
ncjwbcs.org. 29, at 3:30 p.m. 304 East Midland
Sunday  Congregation Shaarey Planning a Jewish Ave., Paramus. (201) 262-7691 or
Israel screens “Hate wedding: Rabbi Rob www.jccparamus.org.
Spaces,” a documentary Scheinberg leads a
about anti-Semitism workshop so couples
Breakfast for Israel:
and intimidation on can learn about Jewish 6:30 p.m. 40-25 Fair with live entertainment
Jewish National Fund
college campuses, wedding traditions and Lawn Ave. Reservations, and the chance to
hosts its Breakfast for
2 p.m. Sponsored customs and can meet (201) 797-9321. win a vacation at
Israel, at the Rockleigh.
by FOR (Focus on other soon-to-be-married the Marriott Saddle
Registration, 9:30 a.m.,
Reality). Refreshments. couples at the United Rethinking our Brook, 6-8:30 p.m. 138
featuring Rabbi Joseph
18 Montebello Road, Synagogue of Hoboken, universe: The Chabad New Pehle Ave. www.
Telushkin, lecturer and
Montebello, N.Y. 7:30 p.m. 115 Park Ave. Jewish Center in Franklin EverythingBridalShows.
bestselling author of
(845) 369-0300 or www. (201) 659-4000 or office@ Lakes continues the com.
more than 15 books
shaareyisraelrockland. hobokenSynagogue.org. newest JLI course,
on Jewish ethics and
org. “What Is? Rethinking Lag B’Omer in Fair
literacy. (973) 593-0095,
or jnf.org/breakfastnnj. Wednesday  Everything We Know Lawn: Bris Avrohom has
Spring boutique in
Monday  MAY 2
About Our Universe,”
7:30 p.m. 375 Pulis
a family fun night with
inflatables, pony and
APRIL 30
Tenafly: The Kaplen JCC Ave. (201) 848-0449 or train rides, marshmallow
on the Palisades offers Dinner and fashions chabadplace.org. roasting, music, crafts,
a boutique featuring Consumer fraud talk in Fair Lawn: The and more, 6 p.m. Beer for
in Fair Lawn: The
more than 50 vendors,
10 a.m.-5 p.m., and on Fair Lawn chapter of
sisterhood of Temple
Beth Sholom holds
Thursday  adults. 30-02 Fair Lawn
Ave. Admission includes
Hadassah meets at MAY 3
Monday, 9 a.m.-4 p.m. a dinner by Kosher rides, attractions,
the Fair Lawn Jewish
Proceeds benefit the Nosh of Glen Rock crafts, and food. www.
Center/CBI, 7:30
JCC Leonard and Syril and fashion show by Bridal show in Saddle jewishfairlawn.org.
Rubin Nursery School. p.m. Melanie Hazin, Soft Surroundings Brook: Everything Bridal
outreach director of the
411 E. Clinton Ave. in Paramus Park, holds a bridal show
 Calendar

Distinguished Speaker
series at Temple Beth
at Tiffany’s,” a 1958
bestseller, in celebration Sinai art show
Rishon in Wyckoff.
Sponsored by the Fred
of the JCCP/CBT’s
60th anniversary of its is May 1
Emert Memorial Adult ground breaking, 7 p.m. On Tuesday, May 1, Sinai Schools
Education Fund with TBR Breakfast foods served.
patron support. Breakfast 304 E. Midland Ave. will partner with Bear Givers for
buffet, 9:45 a.m.; talk at (201) 262-7691 or www. “Unique Inspirations,” an annual
10:30. 585 Russell Ave. jccparamus.org. student art show and auction. The
(201) 891-4466 or www. show, featuring artwork created
bethrishon.org.
by Sinai students, is at the at Ave-
Scene from “1945”
COURTESY RAMAPO
Lag B’omer in Emerson: In New York nue at 1382 Queen Anne Road in
Congregation B’nai Israel Teaneck, from 6 to 8 p.m. Cocktails
Hungarian film: “1945,”
hosts a spring barbecue
(with vegetarian
Sunday  and hors d’ouevres will be served;
an acclaimed Hungarian
options), a petting zoo, APRIL 29 admission is free and children are
film, is screened in
the Trustees Pavilion
yoga led by Andrea encouraged to attend.
Collier, and games for Day of Torah and more: The show is an opportunity to
(PAV 1-2) at Ramapo The Orthodox Union
children and adults,
College in Mahwah,
11 a.m.–12:30 p.m., after sponsors the “Torah experience the world through the
7 p.m. Sponsored by New York,” for women eyes of Sinai students. Working with
the Hebrew school’s
Ramapo’s Gross Center and men, featuring 30
for Holocaust and
moving-up ceremony. Sinai Schools’ art therapist Sarah
53 Palisade Ave. speakers from across the
Genocide Studies. The Orthodox world. Indoors
Tarzik, students are encouraged to
(201) 265-2272 or
program is in memory
bisrael.com. at Citi Field Convention express themselves using various Judah Gross, a junior at Sinai’s Maor
of Holocaust survivor/ Center in Queens, media, creating artwork they are High School at Rae Kushner Yeshiva High
advisory board member, Teaneck boutique: Sinai 8:45 a.m.–6 p.m. Free
John Gunzler, who died proud to display and put up for auc- School, stands next to his charcoal work,
Schools holds its annual parking; kosher food, and
recently, 505 Ramapo spring boutique with American Sign Language tion. All sale proceeds will benefit displayed at NJPAC. Judah was selected
Valley Road, Mahwah. duffels, sleeping bags, interpreters available. the school’s scholarship funds. as an exhibiting artist in the “Late Winter”
(201) 684-7409. sweats, tzitzit, kippot, Register at ou.org/ Bear Givers is a nonprofit orga- exhibit sponsored by the Art Educators of
beach towels, Judaica, torahNY. nization dedicated to bringing New Jersey. 
Saturday 
COURTESY SINAI
gifts, tablecloths,
joy to the lives of children and
MAY 5
clothing, cash for gold
jewelry, and more, at Saturday  adults with the symbolic gift of a love- Schools, to feel the satisfaction of being
Temple Emeth, 5-9 p.m. MAY 5 able teddy bear. Its programs facilitate able to give back to others.
Broadway in Closter: Refreshments available.
Temple Beth El of Camp items can be
an environment where “givers” are For reservations, email Kristen@bear-
ASL-interpreted
Northern Valley shipped. 1666 Windsor Shabbat service: Town empowered by bringing joy to others givers.org or call Bear Givers at (212)
welcomes Tony Award- Road. (201) 833-1134, ext. & Village Synagogue and enabling young people with spe- 224-0140.
nominated actor Jarrod 105, or sinaischools.org.
Spector and his wife,
in Manhattan holds an cial needs, like the students of Sinai
ASL-interpreted Shabbat
Kelli Barrett, in “Funny service, with full readings
How It Happened,” an from the Torah and
inside scoop on life as a haftorah, 10 a.m. Kiddush
married Broadway power will follow. 334 East 14th
couple, 7 p.m. Tickets
include performance,
St., between 1st and 2nd
avenues. www.tandv.org, Wurzweiler talk focuses
hors d’oeuvres, and wine
bar. 221 Schraalenburgh
(212) 677-0368V, or email
bramweiser@usa.net. on screen addiction
Road. (201) 768-5112 or
www.tbenv.org. Dr. Nicholas Karakas East Hampton, N.Y., and is a
will discuss his book, professor of neuropsychol-
Sunday 
Dr. Moshe Sokol
Singles “Glow Kids: How Screen ogy and co-creator of clini-
Shiur in Teaneck: Dr. Addiction is Hijacking cal protocols with Harvard
MAY 6 Moshe Sokol, dean
of Lander College
Wednesday  Our Kids—And How to Medical School’s Division of
Charity walk in Teaneck: for Men, discusses APRIL 25 Break the Trance” on Addiction. He has appeared
The Teaneck Chamber “Providence, Evil, and Wednesday, May 2, at on ABC’s 20/20, Good Morn-
of Commerce holds the Seniors meet in
Human Suffering” at the YU Museum, 15 West ing America, CBS Evening
“Run for Education,” a 5K Congregation Rinat Orangeburg: Singles
run/walk/roll and one- 65+ from the JCC 16th Street in Manhat- News, and NPR; and has
Yisrael as part of the
mile fun run, at Votee shul’s “Rambam and Rockland meet for dinner tan. The talk, sponsored written on addiction for
Park, beginning at 9 a.m. Moreh Nevuchim: at Hogan’s Diner in by Yeshiva University’s Scientific American, Psy-
Benefits the children Innovation and Orangeburg, N.Y., 6 p.m. Wurzweiler School of Dr. Nicholas Karakas chology Today and TIME
of the Teaneck Public Controversy,” shiurim Individual checks. 17
School and sponsored by in memory of Rabbi Dutch Hill Road. Gene, Social Work, explores the  COURTESY YU Magazine.
the Teaneck Organization Ozer Glickman. Series (845) 356-5525. impact of technology on The program is part of
for Public Schools. continues through June young minds. Wurzweiler’s Care Café series: a free,
RunSignUp.com/
Teaneck5K.
9. 389 W. Englewood
Ave. (201) 837-2795 or
Sunday  Dr. Karakas is a writer, clinician, and traveling, psycho-educational commu-
Rinat.org. APRIL 29 educator; he is one of the country’s nity resource program that support indi-
Israeli-Palestinian foremost addiction experts. He argues viduals and families seeking help and
conflict: Dr. Elana Singles meet in
Stein Hain, director of Tuesday  Caldwell: New Jersey
that technology has affected children’s information.
leadership education brains profoundly —and not necessarily The grant-funded program is pro-
MAY 8 Jewish Singles 45+
for the Shalom Hartman meets at Congregation for the better. In his talk, he’ll touch on duced and staffed by the Wurzweiler
Institute of North Agudath Israel for group screen culture and how it is correlated School of Social Work, in collaboration
Book discussion in
America, discusses trivia with prizes and
“Approaching Competing
Paramus: The JCC of with spiking rates of ADHD, anxiety, with local community partners. For
Paramus/Congregation dessert buffet, 2:30 p.m.
Narratives: Reflecting 20 Academy Road. Sue, depression, opioid addiction, and youth more information or to participate, go
Beth Tikvah offers a
on the Israeli-Palestinian
discussion of “Breakfast (973) 226-3600, ext. 145, suicide. to www.yu.edu/wurzweiler/carecafe or
Conflict” for the or singles@agudath.org. Dr. Karakas was the clinical director email katherine.mitchell@yu.edu or call
of the Dunes Rehabilitation Center in (631) 481-6550.

JEWISH STANDARD APRIL 27, 2018 55

Jewish World

Cohen
FROM PAGE 50
“Bronze plaques bearing names like
Bronfman and Beutel were fastened to
modern buildings, replacing humbler
buildings established by men who loved
books in which there were no plaques at
all,” Cohen said.
Today, the library has migrated from the
cold water flat it once occupied to a mod-
ern campus in the western suburbs of the
city, a symbol of the very Jewish fixation
on buildings decried by the young poet.
Yet Cohen never severed his connec-
tion to Montreal and its Jews, and the
embrace seemed only to intensify as the
years passed.
“There are times when you want to
show the flag, when you want to indicate
that there is nourishment to be had from
this culture, that it is not entirely irrele-
vant to the present situation, that it does
not serve a nation’s best interests to reject
and despise it,” Cohen told an interviewer
in 2016.
And the synagogue reciprocated,
proudly waving the flag of its most cele-
brated alumnus.
Outside the sanctuary, across the lobby
from where the faces of Cohen’s grand-
father and great-grandfather, both past
presidents of the synagogue, peer down
from austere Victorian portraits, a glass
case houses a vinyl copy of “You Want It
Darker” and the Juno Award the album The sanctuary at Congregation Shaar Hashomayim in Montreal.
won from the Canadian Academy of
Recording Arts and Sciences. Facing the we hang on to these traditions,” Zelermyer
case is a display showcasing Canadian said of Cohen’s enduring connection to
Jewish history that prominently features a the synagogue. “I go and I teach cantorial
photo of Cohen onstage in a section about students and I tell them the same thing:
the community’s cultural contributions. You never know who that young person is
After Cohen’s death, Zelermyer chanted going to be sitting a few rows away from the
the El Malei Rachamim memorial prayer pulpit and how the experience of being in
for him during Shabbat services, sung to shul and listening to someone praying with
the tune of the singer’s iconic “Hallelujah.” intention, how they’re impacted by that. I
“It was such a validation of the fact that just find it remarkable.” JTA WIRE SERVICE

A photograph of Leonard Cohen, front right, at his 1949 Hebrew school Portraits of Leonard Cohen’s grandfather, Lyon Cohen, left, and great-grandfather,
graduation, hangs in a foyer at Congregation Shaar Hashomayim in Montreal. Lazarus Cohen, at Congregation Shaar Hashomayim in Montreal.

56 JEWISH STANDARD APRIL 27, 2018


Albert Benson
Albert Benson, 90, of Fair Lawn, died April 20.
A City College graduate, he was a chemist with
the Witco Chemical Company and was named on a
number of patents.
A U.S. Navy veteran of World War II and the Korean
conflict, he belonged to the Fair Lawn Jewish Center
and Temple Beth Sholom.
Predeceased by a brother, Sidney, he is survived
by his wife of 67 years, Minnie; children, Ira
(Nancy), Karen Papsin (Rick), Stuart ( Jodi), and Ellen
Benson ( Jim Judd); a sister, Rhoda Kream ( Jack); 11
grandchildren, and one great-grandchild.
Arrangements were by Louis Suburban Chapel,
Fair Lawn.
Doris Forstot
Doris Forstot, née Stabin, a New Milford resident for
54 years, died April 22.
Predeceased by her husband, George, and a son,
Todd, she is survived by sons, Dr. Robert (Tammy),
and Jonathan (Rochelle); and grandchildren, Daniel,
Jordana, Jesse, and Zachary.
Donations can be made to Hadassah.
Arrangements were by Gutterman and Musicant
Jewish Funeral Directors, Hackensack.
The Christopher Family
Obituaries serving the Jewish community
since 1900
Edwin Kaplan
Edwin Kaplan of Tenafly died April 21.
Paterson Monument Co.
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Schechter (Paul Dinovo), and Andrew (Pam); and
grandchildren, Laila and Samuel Dinovo, and Kirstyn
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Arrangements were by Louis Suburban Chapel,
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Millicent “Penny” Kammerer, 82, of Manchester
Township, formerly of Emerson, died April 15.
She attended City College of New York and was a
secretary at Scientific Devices in Englewood.
Her husband, Edward, children, Melinda Sulzbach
Jerilyn Barbara Weiner, 76, of Mahwah, formerly of
Wayne, died April 18.
She graduated William Paterson University and
earned a master’s at Columbia University. She was a
teacher for 25 years in North Jersey and a member of
BergenJewishChapel.com
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Owner/Manager Daniel W. Leber, NJ Lic. No3186

(Philip), and Mark (Rosanne); and grandchildren,
Evan Sulzbach, and Wesley, Taylor, and Madison
Kammerer, survive her.
Donations can be made to the Susan G. Komen
Breast Cancer Foundation. Arrangements were by
Louis Suburban Chapel, Fair Lawn.
the New Jersey Education Association.
Her brothers, Dr. Martin (Fami), and Alan; and a
niece, Melanie, survive her.
Donations can be made to the Alzheimer’s
Association or ALS. Arrangements were by Louis
Suburban Chapel, Fair Lawn.

Robert Schoem’s Menorah Chapel, Inc

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Advance Planning Conferences Conveniently Arranged
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JEWISH STANDARD APRIL 27, 2018 57

Classified
Cemetery Plots For Sale Cemetery Plots For Sale Situations Wanted
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AIDE available to do elder care. CNA with over 20 yrs experience,
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experience in converting industry. Knowledge of
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58 JEWISH STANDARD APRIL 27, 2018
 Classified/Local

The Book person’s mouth to a person’s ear. That’s why part of our
FROM PAGE 6 mission is creating tools that can be used in the class-
Handyman Plumbing both the book and the device is the mode that’s most room, in conversations. We’re not trying to replace the
common in the beit midrash. magic or real transformative relationships and honest
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don’t have a beit midrash. We got a letter from an avia- culture. We’re not the only ones going online. This isn’t
Instagram: yourneighborwithtools 201-358-1700 · Lic. #12285
tor in the U.S. Air Force, thanking us for letting him learn the only place where things that were very physical are
Masonry while on duty in undisclosed locations. becoming more ephemeral, where barriers to commu-
Roofing
“Also, non-Jews use us. We just spoke with a professor nication and access are dropping, where things that
PICCA Masonry at Yale Divinity School who said the students are so happy used to be local and communal are becoming global. It’s
Est. 1955
Waterproofing · Steps
ALL ROOF that they can read these rabbinic commentaries on the
Bible. It’s an area of fascination but it wasn’t accessible.
upsetting to a lot of norms in a lot of ways.”
Sefaria is eager to help other cultures use its technol-
Walls · Tile · Repairs
Lic #13vh00258800
REPAIRS “It’s great that I can learn on my phone wherever I
go, but it’s a trade-off. If I’m honest, I’ve got to admit I
ogy for organizing and displaying digitized texts.
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201-967-9295 Shingles | Flat | Slate
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201-837-8818 sible. Technology trains us into a distractable mindset.
Mr. Israel admits that “there’s something bittersweet
“We have software that is free for the taking. We’re
thinking of doing a couple projects ourselves so people
about putting it all online.” Nonetheless, he says, “It’s can see what the potential is. Maybe Shakespeare or
Roofing the call of the age. If people are going to be online, the something from philosophy. It’s fun to think that the
Torah has to be online. tools and norms of the beit midrash can echo into other
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JEWISH STANDARD APRIL 27, 2018 59

 LET THE
VOTING
BEGIN
2018
READERS’
2018
CHOICE 2018

Cast your votes for your favorite

retailers, restaurants, and professionals.
You could win Visa gift cards,
gift certificates to stores, restaurants, and shows!

Log onto www.jstandard.com/survey and cast your votes!

DEADLINE FOR ENTRIES IS MAY 10

60 JEWISH STANDARD APRIL 27, 2018
  Real Estate & Business

Get the facts about

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OPEN HOUSES
Adler Aphasia Center
Bank Owned — Priced Below Appraised Value SUNDAY, APRIL 29
will be at annual GARDEN STATE HOMES t TEANECK t
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Martin H. Basner, Realtor Associate
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the Care Fair steering committee.
The Care Fair was developed by community leaders 764 Hartwell Street $339,000 2 PM – 4 PM
throughout Bergen County in 2017 as a response to Pretty CH Col. Oak Flrs. LR/Fplc, DR, New, MEIK open to 3 Season
the ever-increasing complexity of the health and sup- Daniel M. Shlufman Porch. 3 BRs + 2nd Flr Deck. Rm to Exp. Gar.
Larry DeNike
port care systems and related public frustration in the
BY APPOINTMENT
President Managing Director
face of trying to find the right medical care providers, MLO #58058 MLO #6706
dshlufman@classicllc.com
treatments, and support services needed to deal with
a health crisis or chronic physical or mental health
ladclassic@aol.com
t TEANECK t
Classic Mortgage, LLC 4 Brm Col. LR/Fplc, Form DR, Eat in Granite Kit/Bkfst Area, Fin Bsmt,
issue. Bergen County Executive Jim Tedesco and the Serving NY, NJ & CT Lg Yard. Polished Oak Flrs. 2 Car Gar. $469,000
Board of Chosen Freeholders continue to spearhead Mostly Brick CH Col. Expansion Poss. 70'x144' Prop. Prime W
25 E. Spring Valley Ave., Ste 100, Maywood, NJ
the organization of the fair and will attend. Eglwd. LR/Fplc, Cov Slate Patio. 4 BRs, 3 Bths, Huge Bsmt. 2 Car
Last year, 135 exhibitors attended. This year, the
201-368-3140 MLS Gar. C/A/C. $749,000
www.classicmortgagellc.com #31149
county anticipates a full house of approximately 200 ALL CLOSE TO NY BUS / HOUSES OF WORSHIP /
exhibitors. Admission and parking will be free, Span- HIGHWAYS / SHOPS / SCHOOLS
ish, and Korean translators will be available on-site, For Our Full Inventory including
and the venue is handicap accessible. It will take place Details & Pictures, Visit our Website
on Sunday, May 6 from 12 to 4 p.m. at Fairleigh Dickin- www.RussoRealEstate.com
son University Rothman Center, 100 University Plaza thejewishstandard.com
Drive, Hackensack. (201) 837-8800
JEWISH STANDARD APRIL 27, 2018 61
Real Estate & Business

Wine glasses: a guide for the perplexed

SELLING YOUR HOME? That awkward moment when the server
brings an extra-tall wine glass for you,
a tulip-shaped one for your dining part-
ner, and narrow ones to the next table. It
makes you wonder if you’ve been doing it
wrong all along.
Why do wine glasses come in so many
styles? How do you know which kind to use?
Does it really make a difference?
“The world of wine glasses can seem
intimidating,” acknowledges Gabe Geller, a
top sommelier and director of public rela-
tions for Royal Wine. “The varieties are end-
less. The truth is, it can be as simple or as
complex as you want it to be.”
Royal Wine, a leading producer, importer
and exporter of wines and spirits, wants
to demystify the wine glass so people can
spend more time enjoying their wine – and
less time worrying about the vessel.
It’s all about physics, says Geller. “The
bowl of the glass is designed with surface
area in mind. Red wines generally need
Call Susan Laskin Today
to breathe, so a fuller, rounder bowl with
To Make Your Next Move A Successful One!
a wide opening suits them best. Whites
BergenCountyRealEstateSource.com Cell: 201-615-5353 stay cooler in bowls that are straighter on
©2018 Coldwell Banker Real Estate LLC. Coldwell Banker is a registered trademark licensed to Coldwell Banker Real Estate LLC. the sides.”
An Equal Opportunity Company. Equal Housing Opportunity. Owned and Operated by NRT LLC.
Rosés can be served in white wine glasses
because the two are produced similarly.
NVE-3518 2Q Spring Mortgage Ad 5x6.5_NVE-3518 4/4/18 11:37 AM Page 1 But, says Geller, there are glasses made spe-
cifically for rosés. They have shorter bowls
that are slightly tapered and sometimes
have a flared rim. “The rim affects the way
you sip,” he explains. “The flair helps direct
Mortgage rates and options are blooming at NVE Bank. the wine directly to the tip of the tongue.”
Tall, narrow glasses, sometimes called
flutes, capture the carbon dioxide in spar-
kling wines, keeping the bubbly bubblier.
15-YEAR
MORTGAGE The smallest of them all is the dessert/forti-
7-YEAR 25-YEAR
MORTGAGE fied wine glass, designed to send the sweet
MORTGAGE
sip directly to the back of the mouth.
3.625% Serious oenophiles may insist on subtle
3.250 % Rate
4.250% variations within the basic categories above.
3.684%
Rate Rate
mouth holds the delicate aromas of light
whites like Teal Lake Sauvignon Blanc.
In theory, crystal is preferable to glass.
Geller says the biggest advantage to crystal
is its mineral content, which makes it dura-
ble enough to produce very thin stemware.
This allows for a smoother flow into the
mouth, not to mention a clearer view of the
wine’s color and viscosity.
But does it affect the taste? Some insist
it does. According to the website Wine
Tasting Reviews, “The best explanation
offered so far is that crystal is rougher
than regular glass and this roughness
creates turbulence in the wine which, in
turn, causes more of the aromatic com-
pounds in the wine to be released.”
But for most people, the main difference
between crystal and glass is cost. Geller
assures us it’s perfectly acceptable to serve
wine in a regular glass made of glass — pref-
erably one that’s clear, un-etched, and uncut
to better see what’s inside. Again, it’s easier
to enjoy your wine when you’re not worried
about breaking your valuable crystal.
Many in the industry share a healthy
skepticism when it comes to amassing a
collection of “perfect” glasses for every
type of wine on the market. Some even
suspect it’s all a marketing ploy by upscale
stemware manufacturers.
Geller agrees. “There’s no reason to think
you’ll ever be judged by your stemware,” he
says, “and you don’t have to be a profes-
sional sommelier to choose the right glass.”
In fact, you can get by with one set (or
two if you like to serve bubbly). Geller rec-
ommends a thin glass with a large bowl that
narrows at the top, ideally holding about 13
oz. of wine. “A good universal wine glass is
perfectly suitable for anything, from your
summer afternoon Ramon Cardova Rosa-
doto to a vintage Bordeaux such as Baron

3.359% A pinot noir, for example, would be served
APR*
APR* 4.304% APR* in a balloon-shaped glass, while its more
rarified red cousin, the grand cru, is best
featured when sipped over a flared rim. A
wider mouth helps release the bold, acidic
qualities of full-bodied whites like Herzog
Lineage Chardonnay, whereas a smaller
Make your arrangements today!
Finding the right mortgage to fit your needs should be quick, easy and
de Rothchild Haut-Medoc,” he says.
Royal Wine offers libations to fill every
type of wine glass, with wines and spirits
from the best wine producing regions of the
world, available in almost every price range.
Today their Bartenura Moscato in its iconic
blue bottle is a top seller among all Moscatos.

Jimmy J
J
painless — exactly what you’ll find when you work with our Mortgage
Specialist at NVE. Plus, our decision makers are local — providing a 88
1

7 2018
smooth and hassle-free process from start to finish.

Call today at 201-816-2800, ext. 1233,

or apply online at nvebank.com
the Junk Man
NMLS #733094
RESIDENTIAL & COMMERCIAL
*APR = Annual Percentage Rate. APR is accurate as of 4/8/18 and may vary based on loan amounts. Loans are
WE CLEAN OUT:
for 1-4 family New Jersey owner-occupied properties only. Rates and terms are subject to change without Basements •Baseme
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notice. The 7-year loan at the stated APR would have 84 monthly payments of $13.33 per thousand borrowed
based on a 20% down payment or equity for loan amounts up to $750,000. The 15-year loan at the stated
Construction Debris • Hoarding Specialists
Constru
APR would have 180 monthly payments of $7.21 per thousand borrowed based on a 20% down payment or
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equity for loan amounts up to $750,000. The 25-year loan at the stated APR would have 300 monthly
payments of $5.42 per thousand borrowed based on a 20% down payment or equity for loan amounts up to
$500,000. Payments do not include amounts for taxes and insurance premiums, if applicable. The actual CALL TODAY FOR A FREE ESTIMATE
201-66•1845-600-5941
201-661-4940 - 4940 2
payment obligation will be greater. Property insurance is required. Other rates and terms are available.
Subject to credit approval.

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We do not transport solid or hazardous waste
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62 JEWISH STANDARD APRIL 27, 2018

JEWISH STANDARD APRIL 27, 2018 63