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The New York Jewish Week: Connecting the World to Jewish News, Culture, Features and Opinions for Wednesday, 29 October 2014
Dear Reader,
Fallout continues from "The Mikvah Crisis" prompted by the arrest of D.C. Rabbi Barry Freundel for allegedly videotaping women undressing before using the ritual bath.
Stephanie Doucette, an alleged victim, offers a poignant personal essay on her struggles to go forward, and Staff Writer Hannah Dreyfus reports on local efforts to ensure mikvah security, and on how Rabbi Freundel's congregation is coping. Also, columnist Erica Brown on regulating the rabbinate, and psychiatrist Michelle Friedman on who's taking care of the rabbi?
‘Even undressing in privacy of my own bedroom is difficult,’ conversion student says.
Special To The Jewish Week
Many in the Jewish community seem to be transfixed at the moment with the ongoing voyeurism scandal concerning Rabbi Barry Freundel. A flood of articles has been published throughout the United States and Israel focusing on the details of the police investigation or debating mikvah politics and Orthodox Judaism. These are important issues, but they're a bit abstract. They can't answer the question of what it feels like to be a potential victim of Rabbi Freundel. What was it like to go through a conversion with him?
I can answer that question. My name is Stephanie. I am a 22-year-old graduate student in the Washington, D.C., area and I began converting with Rabbi Freundel over a year and a half ago. I was one of the conversion students who did ‘practice dunks.’ Now I'm waiting to find out if he videotaped me in the mikvah.
I grew up celebrating my maternal Jewish heritage--though my mother's line is Jewish, her family converted to Christianity a few generations back. Then, as an undergraduate, when I found myself becoming more traditional in my observances, I decided to do an Orthodox conversion. I thought I was fortunate to be living in the same city as Rabbi Freundel, who was well known for his conversions.
At first my experiences with him were positive, and I was delighted with my decision. However, as time progressed I began having more difficulties. I started to see him as being very judgmental. He would disparage surrounding communities as not being truly Orthodox or comment on an individual congregation member’s observance level. I chose to keep my personal life to myself for fear of what he may say about me to others.
Although I was very cautious around him, I continued my conversion. Then, some time later, I began having issues with some of the male congregants saying sexually inappropriate things to me. It was at that point that I went to Rabbi Freundel for help, but he seemed to simply shrug the problem off and explained to me that as a young, attractive female, this was going to happen in any community. He then remarked that if he were younger and single he would be interested in me as well.
Over the period of my conversion process, Rabbi Freundel would remark in various conversations that I was a young, attractive female, especially during times I mentioned I was in no rush to get married. I went to several congregants with my concerns but they dismissed them. Eventually it got to the point where I kept my meetings with him brief. I would just simply tell him I was observing and studying as I should, and then just leave. Even attending services on Shabbat I kept brief. I went to pray and avoided associating with other congregants during social activities afterwards. Not only did I feel uncomfortable with him; I felt uncomfortable being in a community where the majority of the congregation seemed to follow him without question.
By the time I graduated with my bachelor’s degree I was barely speaking with him and had cut many of my ties to the Kesher Israel community. Over the summer, I returned home and had little communication with Rabbi Freundel. Upon returning to the D.C. area for graduate school, I moved to Maryland, in large part to escape Rabbi Freundel and the people that followed him blindly. Eventually, I came to the decision that I needed to discontinue my conversion with Rabbi Freundel. I decided that I would wait till the chagim (holidays) were over and then I would sit down with him and tell him I was done with wanting to complete my conversion with him.
However, I was never able to do that. Before the chagim were over, I learned of his arrest and that he was being accused of voyeurism in the mikvah. Over the course of my conversion studies with Rabbi Freundel, I had done two mikvah dunks. At first, upon hearing of the voyeurism charges, all I felt was anger. Anger that he may have videotaped me. Anger that he may have videotaped countless converts, married women and students. Anger at wondering if he felt joy over knowing how many people he has hurt. How could this have happened? Why did people not take complaints made against him more seriously? Why had people ignored me when I discussed my issues with him?
After a week, my anger gave way to a full depression. I began to find myself obsessing over this, going over every detail of the past year and a half. The only part of my conversion process that I cannot go back to in my mind are those immersions. I remember bits and pieces, but I don’t know if I can ever allow myself to fully remember. How can I, when I know someone may have videotaped and watched me? I have begun to find myself crying at random times throughout the day, whether it be sitting in a Starbucks or picking out dinner at the grocery store. I don’t know how to dress anymore. Even undressing in the privacy of my own bedroom is difficult right now. I can only wonder what other potential victims might be going through.
I know there are people who would wonder why someone like myself started a conversion process with Rabbi Freundel, or why I stayed so long. These are questions that are going to personally plague me for the rest of my life. All I know is that I justified it by telling myself that this conversion process would be the best for my future children. If I didn’t do this, then they may have to go through this process themselves one day. That was a thought I couldn’t bear, so I kept going.
Now I am choosing to speak out, not only for my children someday, but for future generations. There are many who will not like to hear what I have to say. That has become painfully obvious over the past week. But if potential victims like myself don’t speak out then tragedies like this will only continue happen. Sexual abuse is a problem that occurs in every religious group, but it only continues when those communities fail to speak out.
As I now struggle with blaming myself for what has happened, I can only look forward. Forward to a life where I continue to speak out. A life where I help others who have experienced abuse in their religious communities. But for now, like other countless potential victims, I have to wait, wait for days upon days until we receive a phone call telling us whether or not videotaped footage of us was found.
Stephanie Doucette is a graduate student in international studies at George Washington University in Washington, D.C.
Local Rabbis Sweep The Mikvah For Bugs
In wake of ‘peeping rabbi’ scandal, synagogues here ramp up security.
Mikvahs throughout the area are being checked for recording devices. Wikimedia Commons
“She told me her mikvah day had arrived, but she couldn’t go because she was ‘nauseous,’” said Rabbi Schonfeld, who spent significant time calming her fears. Her response was provoked by what happened in Washington D.C, he said.
Rabbi Schonfeld was referring to the arrest of Rabbi Barry Freundel of Congregation Kesher Israel on Oct. 14. He is facing six charges of voyeurism after allegedly planting recording devices in the local mikvah.
“Now, some of my congregants are terrified to go to mikvah,” said Rabbi Schonfeld. “They’re taking this scandal personally.”
Rabbi Schonfeld will be meeting this week with the Queens Board of Rabbis (Vaad Rabbanim) to coordinate a community-wide response. Possibilities on the table include security sweeps of the local mikvahs and placing more women in control of the “whole mikvah process,” he said.
Rabbi Schonfeld not the only community leader responding proactively.
Rabbi Steven Exler, associate rabbi of The Hebrew Institute of Riverdale, told his congregants about increased security procedures at the mikvah after the Torah reading this past Shabbat.
“I referenced when one of Noah’s son’s saw his father naked, and it was considered a shameful, humiliating act,” said Rabbi Exler. “I used that as a springboard to speak about the humiliating activity we’ve seen in our own community, and how we’ve amped up security accordingly.” A full walk-through sweep of the community mikvah was conducted, and a “spot-check” procedure, where the mikvah is checked randomly for recording devices, has been instituted, he said.
The West Side Mikvah Committee sent out a letter to all congregants, assuring them that “men are never alone in the mikvah” and if ever there are workers or other males on the premises, “they are always supervised.” The notice also reiterated security procedures in place to monitor the mikvah’s entrance at all times.
The Teaneck Mikvah Association sent out a similar notice, informing congregants that an independent security firm was hired to “conduct a sweep of our facilities.” In addition, a staff or board member will accompany men who come to service or inspect the Mikvah facilities.
“Our key system is electronic and records the time and identity of all individuals who enter the building, and these records can be and are reviewed,” wrote Miriam Greenspan, president of the association.
Rabbi Dr. Tzvi Hersh Weinreb, executive vice president emeritus of the Orthodox Union, said that while he personally thinks what happened in D.C. is an “extreme anomaly,” everything that makes women feel secure needs to be done.
“While objectively there is no reason to be concerned about local mikvaot, the feeling and fears woman are dealing with now are real,” he said. “Making women feel comfortable again is our first line of business.”
A source close to the haredi community, who asked for anonymity because members of the haredi world are often thought to be overly critical of the Centrist or Modern Orthodox world, called the incident “a sui generis happening.”
“I think that the case is so bizarre that most rabbis and administrators of mikvaot (and they are usually more than one person, unlike the case in the D.C. mikvah) would not see a need for any changes in their duties,” he said via email.
Rabbi Joseph Potasnik, senior rabbi at the Conservative Congregation Mt. Sinai in Brooklyn Heights, feels differently. The rabbi, who is also the executive vice president of the New York Board of Rabbis, said the board is planning on adding mikvah practices to its safety code, which was written several years ago in response to cases domestic violence.
“Women need to be in charge. This and other common sense measures will be enacted to make people feel fully secure,” he said.
The incident, he said, is a reminder of what can happen when power-checks are not in place.
“If the allegations are proven true, this is a shameful chapter in the history of this congregation,” he said. “It’s a sobering reminder to be fastidious when it comes to the oversight of our mivkahs. Feelings of fear are not misplaced. They’re founded.”
'Peeping Rabbi': What To Do — And Not Do — Next
How Kesher is coping with issues of responsibility, shame and blame; Catholics share their experience.
Congregants struggle to return to normalcy post 'peeping Rabbi' scandal. Via kesher.org
This past Shabbat, members of Congregation Kesher Israel filled the synagogue’s social hall for a synagogue-sponsored dinner. The meal, according to longtime congregant Elliot Lowenstein, was an ad-hoc attempt to pull together a community rocked by the arrest of their spiritual leader, Rabbi Barry Freundel, less than two weeks ago.
Police led Freundel, 62, out of his Georgetown home in handcuffs on Oct. 14. He was charged with six counts of voyeurism after secret video cameras were found in the community mikvah disguised as clock radios.
Lowenstein described the Kesher community’s reaction to the allegations as “rallying around the flag.”
“It’s brought our community closer,” he said. “I feel like a part of something bigger.”
Amidst the media hubbub and growing list of accusations against Rabbi Freundel, the shul has sought to keep congregants informed and united. Over the holiday of Simchat Torah, just days after the arrest, informal discussion groups were held for women and specifically for female converts, giving potential victims a first chance to process their shock and dismay, congregants said.
The Modern Orthodox synagogue, located just 14 blocks from the White House, is known for its prominent congregants, who have included former Connecticut Sen. Joseph Lieberman, Treasury Secretary Jack Lew and New Republic literary editor Leon Wieseltier. (I visited the shul last winter five times while my husband was a rabbinic intern there, staying with congregants as well as once with Rabbi Freundel.)
The community has since been addressed by the Metropolitan Police Department, the United States Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia, and representatives from the Jewish Social Service Agency and the Jewish Coalition Against Domestic Abuse. Additional counseling for the victims will be compensated by the U.S. attorney general’s office according to a congregant and former board member, and Kesher compiled a list of professionals in the area for congregants in need of extra support, congregants said.
But beneath the efforts, cracks persist. Two female converts and potential victims of the videotaping, Stephanie Doucette and Emma Schulevitz, insist that Kesher refused to heed the warning signals, far before the full extent of Rabbi Freundel’s alleged violations came out.
“People followed him with blind faith,” said Douchette, a 22-year-old graduate student in international affairs at George Washington University. Douchette decided to freeze her conversion process with Rabbi Freundel after he made repeated comments about her appearance that made her feel increasingly uncomfortable.
“On several occasions, he made comments that I’m a young, attractive female,” said Doucette, who said the remarks continued for several months and became more frequent as time went on.
Rabbi Freundel asked Doucette to perform two “practice dunkings” at the local mikvah. According to Doucette, he personally escorted her to the changing area, and explained what she was supposed to do.
Though she approached several members of the synagogue with her concerns before leaving Kesher earlier this year, she said that her comments were “dismissed.”
“In the wake of this tragedy, people don’t want to hear that there were signs that were overlooked,” said Doucette.
Schulevitz had a similar experience. After beginning her conversion process with Rabbi Freundel in June 2012, she said that “things got fishy” when he asked her to do several “practice dunks” in the mikvah. She has since left the Kesher community.
“No one can understand the power he had,” said Schulevitz in a recent phone interview. “His word was law. Those who tried to question some of his strange practices were brushed aside.”
Responding to these accusations, president of the Kesher board Elanit Jakabovics said via email, "“Unfortunately, neither of these individuals contacted me directly nor was I made aware of any complaints made to anyone in Kesher Israel leadership about anything that had to do with the horrific alleged criminal acts.” She urged potential victims and anyone else with additional information to reach out to “reach out to law enforcement to help them do their job.”
Overly Protective
Dr. Samuel Klagsbrun, psychiatrist and executive medical director at Four Winds Hospitals, said the divide between protecting the community’s reputation and accusing they synagogue is understandable.
“Public organizations tend to be very protective of their reputations when a key person in the system behaves badly,” said Klagsbrun. “The irony is that trying to be overly protective can further damage their reputation down the line.”
In Rabbi Freundel’s case, disregarding some of the signs early on was a grave mistake, he said. “Protecting a rabbi’s ‘good name’ might be short-term strategy, but in the long run, the community will be weakened,” he said.
To be sure, the problem of clergymen abusing power is not exclusive to the Jewish community. Mary Gail Frawley-O'Dea, author of “Perversion of Power: Sexual Abuse in the Catholic Church,” has been working with sexual abuse survivors for 30 years. She explained that when a priest is ordained in the Catholic Church, it’s as if he’s “perfumed with the divine.”
“The priest becomes an alter-Christ,” said Frawley-O’Dea, who was raised in a devoutly Catholic home. “For too many people, this faith is immature. A more mature faith understands that a clergy is a person with special training, but he is human and fallible.”
Amy Neustein, author of “Tempest in the Temple: Jewish Communities and Child Sex Scandals,” described a similar phenomenon in synagogues.
“Rabbis are given a semi-God like status,” she said. Neustein did not describe this tendency as a criticism, but rather as a natural human need.
“In order to trust someone to lead you in a time of personal crisis, a congregant needs to put the leader on a pedestal,” she said. “Otherwise, they would never accept his guidance or authority.”
For this reason, Neustein said the phenomenon of whitewashing a leader’s record is common. She refereed to the tendency as “community inertia.”
“When an opinion or perception is formed up front, any kind of challenge to that perception is something we minimize and push out of our mind,” said Neustein. “We do it with marriage prospects, stocks — and community rabbis.”
If the synagogue was negligent in heeding the warning signs, she said, the blame should rest more upon the institution of the rabbinate than upon members of the board.
“The rabbinate is not on its toes,” she said, citing the many incidents of sexual abuse she has chronicled in her career. “There’s a tsunami out there, and every now and again children and women become the victims.”
Luxury Of Hindsight
Former Kesher board member Stephanie Vidikan defended the synagogue’s leadership, saying there weren’t red flags for them to miss.
“Now, with the luxury of hindsight, we can of course see that something was wrong,” she said. “Hindsight is 20/20. But, prior to this, there was nothing to indicate any type of criminal activity on Freundel’s part.
“This is a horrible thing, but I don’t think there’s any reasonable way the board could have known or suspected this,” she added.
Vidikan, who been instrumental in organizing the post-arrest discussion sessions, said more support groups and open table discussions would undoubtedly be made available to congregants in the coming months, even after the initial shock has subsided.
“The question is where do we go from here,” she said.
Taking Responsibility
One critical step towards recovery is combating the shame and embarrassment that victims of sexual abuse often feel, said Dr. Ziv E. Cohen, a forensic psychiatrist who works on the Upper West Side.
“Even though feeling shame is irrational, it is a normal and expected response in victims of sexual abuse,” said Cohen, who used to be a staff psychiatrist for the Israeli Defense Force, focusing on cases of sexual abuse. “Victims somehow feel it is their fault, or that they could have prevented it. They’re often scared that if they come forward, it will draw attention to something embarrassing about them,” he said.
This response, though common, can be fought on a communal level, Cohen noted.
“Community leaders can play an essential role by acknowledging that there has been a breach of trust,” he said. “When the community takes responsibility for what happened, it validates the experiences of the victims.”
Frawley-O’Dea said “shunning the victim” is a tendency within the Catholic Church as well as in the Orthodox community.
“When confronted with accusations of abuse, it’s common for the church to back the abuser over the victim,” she said. The most helpful way to recover from an instance of sexual abuse is through “transparency,” she said, though this is “sadly rare.”
“A bishop should come visit the congregation where the abuse occurred to acknowledge what happened, and to apologize,” she said, explaining that that’s the recommended procedure for Catholic churches. “The community needs a space to talk about what happened, and come to grips with their disappointment.”
Officials of the Rabbinical Council of America, the central policy-making body for Orthodox rabbis, paid a visit to Kesher last week to acknowledge and apologize for what happened. Rabbi Freundel was a longtime and influential member of RCA’s executive committee.
All of these efforts have helped the congregation stay unified, said Rella Kaplowitz, another longtime member of Kesher. “We’re all grieving together,” she said.
“Everyone wants to be surrounded by others going through the same rollercoaster of emotions,” she said. “We’re all grappling with the same things. We were betrayed. There are no secrets anymore.”
Mikveh Scandal Underscores Need To Regulate Rabbinate
Special To The Jewish Week
It’s been a rough post-Yom Kippur for Jews in Washington, D.C. What shook me most about the Freundel scandal — our “Water”gate — is how many people said, “I’m shocked but not surprised.” Really?
Rabbi Barry Freundel, who was arrested for voyeurism last week, is an articulate scholar with a reputation as a forceful leader who put down other rabbis and congregations and could be fierce about institutions and practices he did not like. (The allegation is that, making use of a hidden camera, he watched women in his synagogue’s mikvah, or ritual bath.) A friend who heard the news observed, “Beware the rabbi who protests too much.” If the allegations are true, this was not a crime of intimacy. It was a crime of power. Crimes of power happen when power is unchecked. Another friend said, “The problem is that the rabbinate is still a deregulated industry.”
We tend to look at rabbinic crimes that traumatize congregants and break up families as terrible one-off misdemeanors that have little to do with us and nothing to do with normative behaviors in congregations. They are an aberration, of course, and we should never blame the victims. We can question, however, if we are doing enough to “regulate the industry.” Many synagogues are hesitant to institute real feedback loops, oversight committees and annual performance reviews for rabbis. We often let rabbis transcend professional evaluation until they fail us and fall far below expectation.
Feedback is often given with contract negotiations, but are true measures of accountability put into place? And how often do such negotiations take place? If you have an annual performance review in your job, so should your rabbi. A rabbi is there to serve a congregation — that’s you. You need to let the rabbi know if he or she is doing a good job. If there are any red flags, they must be identified swiftly and without hesitation. One woman in a leadership seminar asked about giving feedback to her rabbi who lacked skills in pastoral care.
“When is your rabbi’s contract up?”
“He has a life contract.”
“My advice: move soon.”
Be wary the board that claims its rabbi has been in place for ages and is, therefore, trustworthy. Most of these scandals happen because a rabbi is a little too comfortable and too secure in position. Anyone with a healthy balance of insecurity and intelligence would rarely take such risks. In the book “Primal Leadership,” Daniel Goleman and his co-authors write that the more senior leaders are, the more feedback they need, and the less feedback they get.
Mary Faulkner in “Supreme Authority,” analyzes the systemic issues that create the conceptual possibility for abuse within the Catholic Church:
1. “Identification of what is working or not working is done by the leaders. People’s experiences are not used to help define reality, which is assessed only from the perspective of those on top…”
2. “What the people need is determined by the leaders.”
3. “Leaders are the only ones who know how to get things done. Regardless of what information the worker might have because of his or her close relationship with the situation, educational background, experience, or just plain intelligence, the leader knows best.”
4. “Communication is one-way only: from leaders to subordinates. All communication originates at the top and is passed down through the ranks.”
5. “Accountability is one-way: up from people to leaders…”
6. “Opportunity for leadership is reserved for certain types of people, often based on race, gender, or religious affiliation.
To reverse these dangers is to reverse the culture dramatically and offset the balance of power. Needs and problems must be determined in partnership. Mutual accountability must be equally distributed between leaders and congregants. Communication must be two-way. Leadership qualifications must be more open. This won’t stop abuse, but it will make it a lot harder.
Let’s face it, if you wrote a novel about a rabbi who stared at female congregants in the mikveh by using a clock radio that doubled as secret video surveillance, no one would believe you. And no one would buy the book. A few years ago, I wrote a nonfiction book about scandal in the Jewish community following Madoff and the New Jersey sting operation that involved a number of rabbis. No one bought that either. I went to 19 cities on a book tour to talk about the need to strengthen ethics in our organizations and leadership. This past year, the publishing house Jewish Lights sent the stats for “Confronting Scandal.” It sold 33 copies. When it comes to looking at our ugly selves, we’re just not that interested. Yes, it’s been a rough post-Yom Kippur for Jews in D.C. But don’t think it can’t happen where you live.
Some of my best friends are rabbis. They are some of the best people I know. They are suffering. Deep trust has been broken by a colleague of theirs. Let’s help our rabbis by professionalizing their evaluation process and by questioning hierarchical practices that encourage power over humility.
Erica Brown’s “Jew By Voice” column appears in the Back of the Book slot the first week of the month.
Who’s Taking Care Of The Rabbi?
Special To The Jewish Week
Many important conversations have resulted from the Rabbi Barry Freundel episode. (The spiritual leader of Congregation Kesher Israel in Washington, D.C., has pleaded not guilty to charges that he used a hidden camera to watch women in his synagogue’s mikveh.) These dialogues touch on a variety of interrelated concerns — safeguarding mikvaot, the vulnerability of converts, the need for clear reporting policies regarding allegations of improper conduct, and the need for greater involvement of women in the power centers of religious life. A less-discussed but equally critical topic is the psychological health and well-being of our clergy.
The rabbinate is a lonely vocation. From the moment a person announces the intention to become a Jewish spiritual leader through study for ordination at a yeshiva or seminary, he or she is set apart from the lay community. We expect our rabbis to be learned, wise, kind and to lead exemplary personal lives. We want them to teach, inspire and offer pastoral guidance in normative life cycle events as well as in times of crisis or tragedy. Clergy are first responders in times of emotional upheaval, including for those who have no formal connection to religious life. In contrast to mental health therapists, who conduct their sessions at scheduled times and in professional offices, rabbis hear profound and wrenching stories while greeting people at kiddush, in the middle of dinner, in emergency rooms, and at the hospital bedside.
How do we prepare and support our rabbis to juggle these multiple roles? Some women and men may be instinctively talented as listeners and advisors. Those who are not naturally inclined or trained to attend to pastoral needs are likely to stumble through sensitive situations, sometimes to the detriment of those they are trying to help. Pastoral education, however, goes deeper than learning a set of skills. Rabbis need to identify their own personal issues. As religious leaders who work in the hot zone of spiritual life, conflicted relationships and complex feelings, they must get to know themselves first. Every day, rabbis counsel men and women going through religious transition, couples whose marriages are on the rocks, teens in crisis, and families making end-of-life decisions for their loved ones. This work demands constant emotional output that leaders cannot provide unless they are in touch with their own feelings.
Clergy face challenges from many directions. What happens when the rabbi doesn’t know the answer? When the cantor feels that she has failed a congregant? When the rabbi’s own marriage has hit a low point or his synagogue appears to be failing? What about when the rabbi finds a congregant alluring, boring, or repellent? While most rabbis have an advisor they can consult regarding questions related to Jewish law, it can be harder to find someone to turn to for support when they feel stuck in a personal or pastoral quandary. Has their education taught them that exposing vulnerability and sharing strategies is not only useful but essential? Does the rabbi have a friend from rabbinical school, a mentor, a therapist or a supervisor?
These exhortations in no way excuse clergy violations. Rather, they are a plea for the urgency of putting the psychological health and pastoral competence of the rabbi front and center in the ordination process. Admissions committees at rabbinical schools need to include men and women with sophisticated psychological training and perspectives. Rabbinical schools must support the value of personal psychotherapy and help students access affordable treatment. Communities should provide supervision for their rabbis and other spiritual leaders. Most of all, clergy themselves must work to create relationships in which they can air challenges, express feelings and share strategies. There will always be rabbis who transgress boundaries. Good clergy and communities suffer each time a rabbi slips into darkness. In order to cherish the sacred work that we want our rabbis to do for us, we need to care for them.
Israel Correspondent Josh Mitnick reports on Jerusalem's light rail as the new flashpoint for new tensions in the city. And my column suggests that despite increasing anti-Semitism and assimilation in Europe, we should not write off European Jewry, with its sparks of renewal.
Jerusalem Light Rail Now ‘Lightning Rod’
Once a symbol of coexistence, the line is new flashpoint for rising tensions.
Border police patrol the light-rail station where two people were killed last week in a terrorist attack. Joshua Mitnick/JW
Jerusalem — The light-rail platform outside of the 1967 war memorial to the soldiers who united this city was crawling with security Tuesday morning: paramilitary border policeman with M-16s and green berets, a burly private guard with an earpiece and a handgun, even a bomb-sniffing dog.
“We’re supposed to be here to ensure public safety, but we’re not really succeeding,” explained a private guard employed by the light-rail line who declined to give his name. “We need more forces.”
Nearly one week after a Palestinian driver ran down a crowd of early evening train passengers on the same platform, killing a 3-month-old baby and a young Ecuadorian woman, tensions have only escalated in the city.
The turmoil, which some are calling an urban uprising, has been complicated by recent announcements by the Israeli government of plans to add new neighborhoods in parts of the city claimed by Palestinians as a future capital; the announcement by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu prompted protests from the U.S., Europe, Jordan and the Palestinians.
While security chiefs scramble to find the formula to tamp down three months of chronic violence, politicians and the Israeli public are howling about the worst spate of unrest in Jerusalem in more than a generation. Sparked by the July 2 murder of a Palestinian teenager from the Jerusalem neighborhood of Shuafat by Jewish vigilantes avenging the murder of three teens in the West Bank, rock throwing, rioting and demonstrations have become a daily occurrence.
Through it all, the light-rail line has become a flashpoint for tensions. In use for nearly three years, the 8.6-mile line was at first a symbol of coexistence in the city because it brought Palestinians and Israelis together on their daily commutes — one of the few places of overlap between two mostly separate communities. Now the line has become a target for attack by young Palestinians looking to act out against Israel.
Before the terrorist attack last Wednesday evening that killed the infant, Haya Zissel Braun, the train line had been targeted by riots sparked by the July 2 murder of Abu Khdeir; young Palestinians destroyed ticketing kiosks and threw rocks at train cars, resulting in 40 percent of the trains being taken out of commission; major delays in train service ensued.
City Pass, the rail-line operator that built the transportation system for about $1 billion, is still waiting for violence to ease before it repairs the damage.
“There can be days without an attack, and there can be days with five attacks,” said Ozel Vatik, a City Pass spokesman. “The attacks on the train are not aimed at the train. It’s a symbol of Israeli rule.”
In the north of the city — where most of the attacks have occurred — the rail line starts in the outlying neighborhood of Neve Yakov, runs past the shopping mall in Pisgat Ze’ev and then heads southward through the Palestinian neighborhoods of Beit Haninah and Shuafat. Then, it passes by French Hill, a Jewish suburb near Hebrew University’s Mount Scopus campus, passes roughly along the old border between east and West Jerusalem when Jordan controlled part of the city from 1949 to 1967, and then by the Old City.
This week, as the train pulled out of the Pisgat Zeev mall, Julie Dahan, a 51-year-old émigré from France who uses the light rail to commute to an office job in the city center, said she was not afraid of taking the train, even though her daughter and grandchild were riding at the time of a stoning.
“The Arabs threw it. What can we do?” said Dahan. “They [the trains] shouldn’t go through the Arab neighborhoods. If it were normal, it would be fine, but it’s not normal.”
That sentiment has apparently spurred rumors among Palestinians in Shuafat and Beit Haninah that there are plans to re-route the trains around their neighborhoods. One conspiracy theory posits that the new deployment of uniformed and undercover police in Palestinian neighborhoods is intended to provoke more violence by children against the line to serve as an excuse to change the route.
As the train passed through Palestinian neighborhoods, commuter Ghaleb Asmar asked a train security guard whether there were plans to cancel the stops in the Arab neighborhoods. Asmar recalled a time when he was a on a train and it was hit by a rock — “kids” involved in “nonsense,” he explained.
When pressed about why the rock attacks persist, Asmar blamed it on festering unrest surrounding the Temple Mount in the Old City; Palestinians believe that Israel’s government is preparing to bow to Jewish activists who want a ban removed on Jewish worship there.
“Of course [the rock attack] didn’t feel very good. … Everyone is losing because of this. This helps us,” Asmar said, reflecting widespread sentiment among Arab residents of Jerusalem that the train has made commutes more convenient for Palestinians. “Look — there are Arabs getting on the train,” he said.
At one bend in the line outside of a mosque in Shuafat, a two-story banner with the image of Mohammed Abu Khdeir, the slain teenager, hangs. The 16-year-old was kidnapped just steps from the train line and burned to death hours later in the Jerusalem forest. At his funeral, mourners knelt in prayer amid the glass shards from a destroyed train station.
In recent days, border police in bulletproof vests and helmets patrolled nearby. Police balloons provide real-time surveillance from above and videos of cat-and-mouse chases of rock throwers for the department’s Facebook page.
On the platform in Shuafat, there are signs posted where ticket kiosks used to be informing passengers that ticketing services are temporarily unavailable.
“The fact that the train continues to pass here means it passes against our will. It brought problems for us — they’ve started arresting people and giving fines,” said Hani Dweik, a 24-year-old Shuafat resident who said that he opposes the rock throwing.
Despite that, he said, “The train unfortunately has become a symbol of racism, and a symbol of Jewish presence in Arab areas. ... I have Jewish friends. I would like things to go back to normal.”
Last Wednesday — just hours after the Israeli police chief predicted that calm would be restored swiftly to the city — a Palestinian from the Arab neighborhood of Silwan drove a compact car onto the train line at the Ammunition Hill train stop located across the street from the national Israeli police headquarters — a nexus between Jewish and Arab neighborhoods. The driver was shot by police and later died of his wounds, spurring more riots.
A day after the attack, dozens of Jewish demonstrators gathered at the rail stop and held up signs calling for revenge — “Death to Terrorists” some read — and criticizing the Israeli government for not doing enough to get control of the violence.
“The Arabs do what they want. First, it started with rocks, and the police didn’t respond,” said Naftali Karlowitz, a 15-year-old yeshiva student who was attending the demonstration. “Then there was a terrorist attack,” referring to the driver’s actions.
Ever since the attack, the violence in Jerusalem has dominated the news. Tel Aviv schools cancelled field trips scheduled for this week at the request of parents. The police called in fresh reinforcements to patrol east Jerusalem.
In recent days, Prime Minister Netanyahu has blamed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, Hamas and the Islamic Movement of Israel for stoking the violence. He and others said there’s no excuse for rock throwing at the train line. But despite all of the reinforcements and stepped-up alerts, Public Security Minister Yitzhak Aharanovitch acknowledged that getting the violence under control will take some time.
The violence, which has been contained to Palestinian areas of Jerusalem, has focused on meeting points between Jews and Arabs in and around those neighborhoods, said Daniel Seidemann, a Jerusalem lawyer and peace activist who monitors east Jerusalem.
“The light rail has been a lightning rod,” he said. “This paradigm of coexistence in Jerusalem was always a little disingenuous —with the image of the Palestinian in a keffiyeh, sitting next to ultra-Orthodox Jew, sitting next to a soldier with an M-16. It was all Kumbaya. Whoever is doing this is saying, ‘We’re not going to be extras in your the fantasy world.’”
At the Ammunition Hill stop, a burly security guard named Hyman (who declined to give his last name) pointed out places where various cars had been hit by stones. While a pair of riders debated whether there was reason to feel scared while riding the rails, they had one point of consensus: Palestinians should be banned from the trains. “They shouldn’t be here at all,” said Liron Ashtor, a 24-year-old passenger.
Back on the rail line northward, as the train passed through the Beit Haninah stop en route to Pisgat Zeev, Shimi Gidinyan played with his infant son and said that right at the same spot three days ago rocks had slammed into the car while he was riding. He said that the attacks were actually more “massive” a month ago, prompting him to take taxis.
But with the persisting violence seemingly uncontrolled in Jerusalem, there’s no way to tell if the coming days would bring a new surge of rock attacks.
“Maybe,” Gidinyan said, “it’s the calm before the storm.”
| Between the Lines - Gary Rosenblatt |
Don't Write Off European Jewry
Serious threats, but sparks of renewal.
Gary Rosenblatt
Editor and Publisher
For many American Jews the well-documented reports of increased anti-Semitism this summer in such countries as England, France, Hungary, Germany and Sweden, sparked by the Gaza war, only confirmed a perception that there is no future for Jewish life in Europe.
There were large protests and demonstrations on the streets of major cities during the 50-day conflict, some punctuated by calls to “kill the Jews,” as well as physical attacks on Jews and efforts in some countries to ban shechita (kosher slaughter of animals) and brit milah (circumcision). And assimilation rates continue to rise, in some nations as high as 80 percent.
All true and alarming.
But not the full story, according to Barbara Spectre, the founding director of Paideia, the non-denominational European Institute for Jewish Studies, in Stockholm. The main program of the institute, founded in 2001 with funding from the Swedish government, is a full academic year of interactive study of Jewish texts and courses in leadership development, with the goal of educating and training “the best and the brightest” young people “who can lead a true renaissance of European Jewish culture,” according to its website. It now has 450 alumni in 35 countries.
Since my encounter with Paideia in the summer of 2010, when I visited and met more than two dozen participants from Eastern and Western Europe who were initiating renewal efforts in their own communities, I have come to recognize that while the future of Jewish life in Europe is deeply worrisome, the headlines we read here don’t tell the whole story.
So I appreciated the opportunity to speak with Spectre during her visit to New York this past week. The American-born educator, who left the faculty of the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem to found Paideia, acknowledged at the outset that the “unholy alliance” of anti-Israel and anti-Semitic sentiment from both the far left and the far right has created “a severe problem that must be dealt with.” But she cautioned against making sweeping statements about Europe in general, and suggested that the problem be explored on a country-by-country basis, noting that many European governments are “our allies.”
“We have to be careful and strategic,” she said. While Hungary, with its strong supremacist, nationalist government presents a threat, for instance, the German government is aggressive in its efforts to confront the anti-Jewish problem. Just last week the Conference of European Rabbis, meeting in Tbilisi, Georgia, urged governments across the continent to pass laws banning hate speech against Jews, as have France and Germany
And while Sweden has endorsed a Palestinian state, that doesn’t mean its government is anti-Semitic, Spectre said, noting that Stockholm officials are in close consultation with local Jewish leaders in dealing with issues as heightened security, anti-Semitism and the Mideast conflict.
“We should be celebrating complexity or at least dealing with it,” Spectre said.
The Ugly Backlash
Jewish communal leaders in European (and South American) countries may not say so publicly, but they resent when some American Jewish officials or activists fly in after a disturbing incident, hold a press conference, denounce the anti-Semitic act — as well as the authorities, on occasion, for lack of vigilance — and then fly home, leaving the local Jewish leaders to deal with the ugly backlash.
Similarly, European Jewish officials cringe when Israeli political leaders, in their quest to promote aliyah, assert that there is no future for European Jewry. Asserting that “the world hates us, Israel is the only safe haven,” could become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Such an attitude is far from helpful to those who would prefer to build a more secure future in their native country, fostering democracy and pluralism, rather than emigrate out of fear of oppression.
For a still small —but growing —percentage of European Jews, aliyah is the answer, but they are often motivated by declining economic conditions as well as concerns over anti-Semitism.
Spectre believes the main underlying problem for European society is its lack of integration of its Muslim populations. Ironically, based on the horrors of what happened to the Jews during the Holocaust, some countries “over-reacted” by creating separate neighborhoods and schools for their immigrant populations to protect them, leading to separatism and deep, sometimes violent, resentment. She believes that Muslim extremism is more about this cultural upset than religion.
Many sociologists point to the fact that the U.S. has seen less extremism of this nature because its emphasis on multiculturalism allows minorities to maintain their own sense of identity within the shared goals of the larger society.
Signs Of Life
In the midst of erosion of Jewish life in Europe there are signs of hope, if you look for them.
Spectre spoke with pride of a group of 10 Paideia alumni who created a think tank that met in mid-September. Its members are writing position papers based on approaching contemporary issues through the lens of Jewish texts. They call their group Beit Machshavah (The House of Thought) because their focus is on ideas rather than ritual practice, said Spectre, noting that they are “deeply rooted in Judaism and deeply rooted in Europe.”
Another Paideia program, held each June and called “Paradigm,” brings 10 New Yorkers and 10 Europeans — young Jewish professionals, educators and entrepreneurs — to Stockholm for five days to study Jewish texts together, hear from top scholars, explore issues of identity and better understand each other’s communities.
As noted in last week’s issue, a new documentary on Jewish life in Poland just had its premiere in New York City and will be shown here again in several weeks. Perhaps surprisingly, the film, entitled “The Return,” focuses on the remarkable popularity of things Jewish in the land of Auschwitz — from klezmer to cuisine (especially gefilte fish) to interest in Jewish practice. It highlights the stories of four women, two of whom were not born Jewish, becoming closer to Jewish life in a culture where many young people are discovering their long-buried Jewish roots.
Earlier this month, the $67 million Museum of the History of Polish Jews opened its core exhibition in Warsaw, covering Jewish life in Poland from the Middle Ages to today. The Holocaust is included, but only in one of the museum’s eight galleries, which are expected to attract 500,000 visitors in the next year.
Sigmund Rolat, a Jewish concentration camp survivor who settled in America and is now a major funder of the museum, explained that he was concerned about the perception young American and Israeli Jews have on their visits to Poland.
They see “death camps and cemeteries and empty places where synagogues used to be,” he told a New York Times reporter. “Ours is not another museum of the Holocaust. We are more than victims. Ours is a museum of life.”
Jonathan Ornstein, director of the JCC in Krakow, called popular trips for American teens such as March of the Living “death tours,” which he said are “not good for Judaism,” a religion he describes as one “of life, of the future.”
Overall, to be sure, European Jewry is in decline, in numbers, affiliation and morale. Anti-Semitism presents a serious threat, and aliyah is a valued goal for those who choose it. But it is self-defeating to write off those who remain, to think of Europe as a vast graveyard. It’s our responsibility to help nurture the budding renaissance taking place among young Jews across Europe and support those who want to maintain and strengthen their communities, just as we seek to do here in the U.S.
gary@jewishweek.org
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Also this week, the Met Council scandal might not be over yet; a sexy calendar of IDF women causes a stir; author Gary Shteyngart's "Little Failure" makes good; our Editorial questions Netanyahu's decision to take on Washington over Jerusalem construction; slain freedom fighters honored here 50 years later; a film is planned about the Soviet Jewryhijacking plot of 1970.
Met Council Probe Not Over Yet: AG
Eric Schneiderman: Probe could be broadening. Getty Images
The scandal involving the Metropolitan Council on Jewish Poverty, which provided a stunning example of charities fraud and toppled one of the Jewish communal world’s most respected figures, might not be over, The Jewish Week has learned.
That revelation came in an exclusive interview last Thursday with Eric Schneiderman, New York State’s attorney general, who suggested that his office may be broadening its probe after convicting Met Council leaders of inflating insurance bills. The extra money, which totaled $9 million in insurance overpayments over the course of 20 years, went primarily to the campaign coffers of political leaders who have helped Met Council win state and city contracts to aid the city’s poor.
Schneiderman was circumspect about the continuing probe, saying only: “The investigation has not yet wrapped up.”
He disclosed that his office is following up leads provided by Met Council’s former CEO, William Rapfogel, 59, who pleaded guilty to pocketing more than $1 million in the kickback scheme and was sentenced in July to 3 1/3 to 10 years.
“He [Rapfogel] has provided us with some other angles. There are a few angles we’re following up on that are separate from the current board.” Schneiderman stressed, “There is no allegation that anyone on the current board is a target of the investigation.”
The attorney general expressed “confidence” that about a year after the scandal first broke the current management of the once-influential agency has righted the ship.
“I’ve been working with the board,” Schneiderman said on Thursday. “This was not a case of a board being asleep at the wheel; they flagged the problem and brought it to our office. … The scandal hurts. It’s very challenging because these nonprofits are dependent on raising money. But [Met Council is] spinning off some of the services they provided. And I am absolutely sure that anyone giving them a donation should feel confident that it is going for the purposes for which it was intended — to provide services.”
One of the lingering questions surrounding the Met Council scandal is whether Rapfogel’s longtime friend and powerful political ally, Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, might somehow be implicated. The two are fellow residents of the Lower East Side and, as power brokers in the area, have been involved in real estate development issues there for years. And Rapfogel’s wife, Judy Rapfogel, is Silver’s the longtime chief of staff.
While Schneiderman, a Democrat who is running for re-election Nov. 4 against Republican challenger John Cahill, expressed faith in the current leadership of Met Council, he suggested that other shoes might drop regarding the joint investigation between his office and that of the state comptroller.
Political observers say that it would be highly unlikely for Silver, a political powerhouse, to be a target. “Schneiderman would only go after Shelly if there was something really egregious,” says a highly placed source. “And Willie would never give Shelly up.”
More likely, says the source, is that the “slush fund was used in ways where people have culpability — a quid pro quo with a politician or a violation of campaign finance law.”
Sexy ‘IDF’ Calendar Draws Fire
Out of uniform: New calendar features Israeli soldiers, appealing to readers’ nonmilitary leanings. Courtesy of MTKL
A pair of entrepreneurs say they’re helping Israel shed its negative image with their calendar of sultry, scantily clad female Israeli soldiers.
The photos range from (relatively) chaste — Miss March wears a sleeveless top and mini skirt, for example — to nearly nude, with Miss June reclining amid weapons and ammo with only carefully placed ammunition belts to keep the calendar pinup rather than porn.
Amnon Shenfeld and Ilan Missulawin are selling the calendar on indiegogo to fund their military-themed clothing company.
The goal is to raise $30,000 through sales of the $25 calendars and higher priced items, such as 14-karat gold dog tags for $600 or a 24-inch print for $200. In the two weeks since they launched, they’ve raised just over $3,500.
The pair is calling the company MTKL — a transliteration of the Hebrew acronym “Matkal,” the IDF’s General Staff unit. And while they make no bones about the fact that the venture is commercial, they argue that having sexy Israeli women gracing the walls of frat houses and sports bars can only help harsbara, Israel's public relations efforts.
“We think that we’re passing [along] something, which is young and interesting to look at because it’s sexy, because it’s funny and it gives a message that is easily relatable,” said Shenfeld during a telephone interview from his home in Tel Aviv. “And that’s good for our hasbara efforts, which are usually much heavier than these sorts of messages.”
Plenty of people disagree. There are those who argue the photos are degrading to women, others that it degrades Israel and/or the IDF and still others who point out that there’s nothing sexy about war.
The company’s fiercest critics are pro-Palestinian activists. Online, some conflate MTKL with the IDF or Israeli society:
“Boycott Boycott, this is shameful, I am no longer surprised at what level the IDF stoops too [sic], child killers, amoral, heartless, cruel, sociopaths,” reads one comment on an Al Jazeera blog post about the calendar.
“Again evidence of the moral decay in the Zionist country of Israel,” reads another.
Other comments defend the company. “Shows the cultural differences between women. Israeli women seem equal to their men[,] which is to be applauded. If the women want to make a calendar thats [sic] their business, [Y]ou can either buy it or not,” said another comment on Al Jazeera.
The IDF declined to comment on the calendar, other than to confirm they had nothing to do with it and that the models are not "active duty soldiers."
Shenfeld, a 37-year-old software developer, defended the brand, pointing out that there’s no shortage of military-style clothing right now. Marc Jacobs introduced his own military-themed clothing during fashion week this year, he said.
Pro-Palestinian supporters would never buy the clothing line anyway, Shenfeld, said, and he argued that the calendar is the opposite of degrading because is shows how strong and competent women can be.
“I can guarantee that all the women that participated in our calendar felt OK about being judged by their looks,” Shenfeld said. “But beyond this point, yes, we’re realistic. Fashion is sexy,” he said.
Missulawin, Shenfeld’s partner, said he knew the project would draw criticism, but he didn’t realize how much.
“We never imagined that it would be this controversial. I should have known better. My phone is every minute getting a beep with something very hateful,” from Facebook or Twitter, the 35-year-old former marketing consultant said in a telephone interview, also from his home in Tel Aviv.
 But Missulawin, who lived in the West Village for about 18 months while consulting for Macy’s, stands by his decision to make the calendar. “I truly believe in what we’re doing. I don’t think there’s any kind of cynicism here,” he said.
Keren Walsh, who is shown in the calendar posing in stilettos and holding a semiautomatic weapon, said she’s proud of her participation. “What we’re trying to do is create a different name, a different perspective for Israel,” the 25-year-old former weapons instructor said during a telephone interview from Michigan, where she was visiting her family.
A fashion design student in Tel Aviv, Walsh made aliyah on her own as soon as she graduated high school. She said firmly believes the calendar will help put a new face on Israel. “We want to represent Israel in a positive, fun, tasteful way,” she said. “To show that we are regular people.”
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‘Little Failure’ Makes Good
Gary Shteyngart, with Jonathan Safran Foer. Hello Video and Photo Studio
Every great writer has an inspiration. Gary Shteyngart, whose novels combining hilarity and poignancy in describing the immigrant experience for Russian-born Americans have won him critical acclaim and a large readership, says he was first motivated by cheese.
At a Jewish Week Forum co-sponsored with the Genesis Philanthropy Group last Wednesday evening at The Great Hall of Cooper Union, he noted that when he was 5 years old, back in Russia, his grandmother gave him a cheese sandwich for each chapter of a novel he wrote involving a statue of Lenin, an attack on Finland and a giant goose. Don’t ask.
Interviewed by his friend and fellow best-selling author Jonathan Safran Foer, Shteyngart delighted the large audience with tales from his newest book, “Little Failure: A Memoir,” which has received rave reviews. It tells of his coming to the U.S. from Moscow with his parents in 1979, when he was 7, and how this “furry, nebbishy Soviet Jew,” suffering from asthma and anxiety, struggled mightily for acceptance in his new world, well into adulthood.
On stage he seemed like a younger, Russian-American version of Woody Allen as he discussed reducing his visits to his psychiatrist, after 15 years, to four days a week, and offered numerous examples of how he was ostracized or bullied by his classmates at the Jewish day school in Queens he was “sentenced to for eight years.”
At that time, being Russian was so unpopular, Shteyngart said, that he tried to convince his classmates he was from East Germany. How pathetic, he mused, that it was a step up to tell his Jewish peers he was German.
But underneath the rapid-fire one-liners of self-deprecation, he acknowledged as accurate Safran Foer’s observation that the book was “about language, culture, redemption,” but “primarily a love story.” As he was writing, Shteyngart said, he was able to channel his anger toward his parents that came out in his earlier books into a genuine sadness in recognizing the sacrifice they made in leaving Russia and coming to the U.S.
“I had never quite acknowledged how hard their lives were,” he said, noting that his father’s earliest memories included witnessing the deaths of his father and his best friend in Leningrad during World War II.
Having mined his neuroses now, he said he is working on his “empathy muscle” in the novel he is writing. “I feel a little out at sea,” he acknowledged. “I’m always trying to replicate the experience of being lost, and afraid you can’t fit in.”
As for advice on writing, he responded to a questioner from the audience: “Keep throwing out drafts until it’s good.”
The diplomatic rift between Washington and Jerusalem reached a new low this week. Israeli Defense Minister Moshe “Bogie” Yaalon’s snub by senior members of the Obama administration was made public here, a week after his U.S. visit, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced plans to build more than 1,000 new units in Jerusalem neighborhoods beyond the Green Line, fully aware of the negative response it would receive in America and in the international community.
And it did, with the State Department calling the plans “incompatible with the pursuit of peace.” A European Union spokeswoman went further, asserting that the move “once again” calls into question Israel’s commitment “to a negotiated solution with the Palestinians.” She also warned that “the future development of relations between the EU and Israel will depend” on Jerusalem’s “engagement towards a lasting peace based on a two-state solution.”
Netanyahu responded by saying that Israel will “continue to build in our eternal capital,” adding: “I heard the claim that our building in Jewish neighborhoods in Jerusalem makes peace more distant, but it is the criticism itself that makes peace more distant.” He said the criticism feeds the Palestinians’ false hopes and is “detached from reality.”
But it’s fair to ask just who is more detached from reality these days, the president of the U.S. and leader of the free world, or the leader of a small country almost totally dependent on American support? (It’s not so much the $3 billion a year in U.S. aid that counts as much as its support at the UN and in countless other ways that would be felt should the relationship continue to erode.)
Netanyahu and his defenders point out that despite the many concessions Jerusalem has made over the last few years regarding the peace process, from a 10-month settlement building freeze, to releasing dozens of Palestinian prisoners “with blood on their hands,” to agreeing to every proposed cease-fire this summer in the war with Hamas, the world continues to blame Israel for the lack of progress on the peace front. The prime minister has let it be known of late that he has, essentially, given up on repairing his relationship with Obama and is relying on Congress for support, especially on the negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program.
But key Israeli leaders like Yair Lapid, the treasury minister, and Tzipi Livni, the minister of justice, oppose the Jerusalem expansion announcement, warning that Netanyahu is out of his league in taking on Obama.
As Lapid noted, “Whether we agree with this or not, we have to understand we cannot act this way to our most important ally.”
Make that “allies.” Lapid was referring to Washington, but the EU is vitally important to Israel as well, particularly in terms of economic trade.
Netanyahu’s bold, or brazen, move (depending on one’s politics) is based less on international diplomacy than internal politics, as is often the case in these flare-ups. The prime minister, sensing calls for a new election, is bolstering his political right and keeping his right-leaning coalition together. That may play well among the Israeli electorate — after all, Netanyahu has no real serious contender on the horizon. But it’s a dangerous and unnecessary provocation.
Jeopardizing Israel’s relationship with its most important allies to prove a point — that Jerusalem is not up for grabs — at a time when his country is increasingly isolated on the diplomatic level, when violent unrest in the capital since the summer has prompted some to call it “the silent intifada,” and when the Palestinians may well seek statehood through the UN, makes sense if the prime minister is ready to go it alone. But that’s not what his citizens want, and it would be a terrible mistake.
The diplomatic rift between Washington and Jerusalem reached a new low this week. Israeli Defense Minister Moshe “Bogie” Yaalon’s snub by senior members of the Obama administration was made public here, a week after his U.S. visit, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced plans to build more than 1,000 new units in Jerusalem neighborhoods beyond the Green Line, fully aware of the negative response it would receive in America and in the international community.
And it did, with the State Department calling the plans “incompatible with the pursuit of peace.” A European Union spokeswoman went further, asserting that the move “once again” calls into question Israel’s commitment “to a negotiated solution with the Palestinians.” She also warned that “the future development of relations between the EU and Israel will depend” on Jerusalem’s “engagement towards a lasting peace based on a two-state solution.”
Netanyahu responded by saying that Israel will “continue to build in our eternal capital,” adding: “I heard the claim that our building in Jewish neighborhoods in Jerusalem makes peace more distant, but it is the criticism itself that makes peace more distant.” He said the criticism feeds the Palestinians’ false hopes and is “detached from reality.”
But it’s fair to ask just who is more detached from reality these days, the president of the U.S. and leader of the free world, or the leader of a small country almost totally dependent on American support? (It’s not so much the $3 billion a year in U.S. aid that counts as much as its support at the UN and in countless other ways that would be felt should the relationship continue to erode.)
Netanyahu and his defenders point out that despite the many concessions Jerusalem has made over the last few years regarding the peace process, from a 10-month settlement building freeze, to releasing dozens of Palestinian prisoners “with blood on their hands,” to agreeing to every proposed cease-fire this summer in the war with Hamas, the world continues to blame Israel for the lack of progress on the peace front. The prime minister has let it be known of late that he has, essentially, given up on repairing his relationship with Obama and is relying on Congress for support, especially on the negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program.
But key Israeli leaders like Yair Lapid, the treasury minister, and Tzipi Livni, the minister of justice, oppose the Jerusalem expansion announcement, warning that Netanyahu is out of his league in taking on Obama.
As Lapid noted, “Whether we agree with this or not, we have to understand we cannot act this way to our most important ally.”
Make that “allies.” Lapid was referring to Washington, but the EU is vitally important to Israel as well, particularly in terms of economic trade.
Netanyahu’s bold, or brazen, move (depending on one’s politics) is based less on international diplomacy than internal politics, as is often the case in these flare-ups. The prime minister, sensing calls for a new election, is bolstering his political right and keeping his right-leaning coalition together. That may play well among the Israeli electorate — after all, Netanyahu has no real serious contender on the horizon. But it’s a dangerous and unnecessary provocation.
Jeopardizing Israel’s relationship with its most important allies to prove a point — that Jerusalem is not up for grabs — at a time when his country is increasingly isolated on the diplomatic level, when violent unrest in the capital since the summer has prompted some to call it “the silent intifada,” and when the Palestinians may well seek statehood through the UN, makes sense if the prime minister is ready to go it alone. But that’s not what his citizens want, and it would be a terrible mistake.
50 Years Later, Honoring Slain Freedom Fighters
Jewish and black congregants pay tribute to three activists murdered in 1964.
Special To The Jewish Week
At Freedom Place on the Upper West Side, the Rev. Jacques DeGraff memorializes the three slain volunteers. Michael Doppelt
You couldn’t blame the passersby for their extended stares and double takes. It must have seemed a strange scene: a black Baptist minister leading a crowd of Jews and a smattering of African Americans in the singing of “We Shall Overcome” on an Upper West Side street corner, yarmulkes flying every which way in the chilly autumn wind.
There was, of course, an explanation. Members of the two communities had come together to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the murders of civil rights activists James Chaney, Michael Schwerner and Andrew Goodman. They were abducted in 1964 on the first day of “Freedom Summer,” an initiative to integrate Mississippi’s segregated political system and bring national attention to the indefensible treatment of the state’s black population. The bodies of Chaney, Schwerner and Goodman, the first an African American, the others Jews from New York, were found 44 days later.
Both the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Acts of 1965 were passed in large part because of the well-publicized events of that summer.
The gathering, held Sunday, was not only an opportunity to honor the ultimate sacrifice of the victims, but also to serve as a reminder that their work is not yet done. Standing in Freedom Place, a four-block stretch in Manhattan dedicated to the memory of the three, the Rev. Jacques DeGraff of the Canaan Baptist Church of Christ in Harlem challenged the unlikely assembly to take further action to curb racism and bigotry.
“The question for each of us is, what are you doing today that will make a difference 50 years from now?”
Before the ceremonial visit to Freedom Place, the program kicked off at Lincoln Square Synagogue with a short video documenting the Freedom Summer. Several elected officials were present, including Reps. Charles B. Rangel and Jerrold Nadler, Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer and Upper West Side Assemblywoman Linda B. Rosenthal.
But it was Rev. DeGraff, a contributor on Fox News and a speaker at the rally in Midtown Manhattan to support Israel during this summer’s Gaza war, who energized the room. As he took to the podium he frowned after his “Good afternoon” was met with silence.
“When a Baptist preacher says something like that he expects a response,” he said. “Good afternoon!” This time, to his satisfaction, the entire congregation loudly returned his salutation.
He noted that it was fitting to hold the event in a synagogue.
“When we celebrate freedom it’s appropriate that we’re in this place, because this community particularly knows the horrors, because you’ve been through Kristallnacht, you know about nightmares, you know about terrorism, state sponsored.”
Also in attendance were the victims’ siblings, the Rev. Julia Chaney Moss, Steven Schwerner and David Goodman. Each spoke briefly, recalling stories of their respective brothers and lamenting the Supreme Court’s 2013 decision to strike down much of the Voting Rights Act, allowing states to change voting laws without securing federal approval. Critics of the change fear that states will enact tougher voter identification standards in an effort to suppress minority voters for political purposes.
“We have a Supreme Court that decided that we’ve made enough progress. There are no more problems. There’s no more prejudice,” said Nadler. “Whether that’s naïve or deceitful I don’t know. It doesn’t matter.”
Stooped but still dapper in a grey, pinstriped suit and multi-colored tie, elder statesman Rangel urged the members of the audience to stand up to racism in everyday life as a tribute to the slain civil rights workers.
“When you think of these young people who actually lost their lives because of what they believed in, then maybe it’s not asking too much of us to be able to speak out when we hear bigotry and anti-Semitism,” said the 84-year-old Rangel, who has served in Congress since 1971.
Bernard J. Kabak, who chaired the event, referenced a comment Chaney made to his mother to explain his participation in the Freedom Summer campaign: “This is not for me and this is not for you; this is for everyone.”
“In uttering those words, James did not know the unspeakable fate that awaited him,” Kabak said. “There is something else he did not know. He did not know how encompassing the ‘everyone’ whose freedom he was fighting for would turn out to be.”
Prior to the procession to Freedom Place where, to symbolize the importance of the next generation taking up the cause, 9-year-old Joseph Savenor would read aloud a plaque memorializing the deaths of the freedom fighters, Lincoln Square Synagogue’s Rabbi Shaul Robinson described the significance of 50 years in the Jewish tradition. During Biblical times, he said, the Jewish nation sanctified the yovel, the Hebrew term for jubilee, at the end of each 50-year cycle.
“In the yovel year … you blow the shofar, you blow the ram’s horn, and the Torah tells us ‘You shall proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants,’” said Rabbi Robinson. “Let us remember 50 years after this tragedy, after the inspirational Freedom Summer of 1964. It’s time again to sound the shofar, to sound the ram’s horn, and to proclaim liberty throughout the land.”
The Soviet Jewry hijacking plot of 1970, soon to be a film.
Director Anat Kuznetzov-Zalmanson, daughter of Edward Kuzentzov and Sylva Zalmanson. Michael Datikash/JW
In the Orwellian Soviet Union, the 1970 hijacking of a plane by Soviet Jews was the crime of the century, its masterminds sentenced to death, although the hijacking never happened. It was a time, as Dylan sang, when too much of nothing could make a man abuse a king, sleep on nails or eat fire, and Soviet Jews had too much of nothing, routinely sent into — and lost within — the gulag “archipelago” of icy Siberian labor camps for simply teaching Hebrew or requesting a visa to Israel. And so a handful of Soviet Jews dreamed of hijacking a plane, flying over the Iron Curtain to freedom. They were caught in the airport, in the early morning fog, sentenced to years in the gulag and two were sentenced to death for hijacking — sentenced for dreaming; they never got on a plane.
It was the stuff of movies, an international sensation, and now the filmmaker daughter of two of the hijackers, Anat Kuznetzov-Zalmanson, 34, is working on a documentary about it, one of the most dramatic, pivotal chapters in the Soviet Jewry movement. Kuznetzov-Zalmanson was recently in New York, attempting to raise the estimated $200,000 she needs to complete the project.
The film, “Next Year In Jerusalem,” not only includes remarkable archival footage and interviews with the “hijackers,” but Kuznetzov-Zalmanson — two magical names in the movement — even interviews two of the KGB agents that broke the case that saw her mother, Sylva Zalmanson, sentenced to a decade in Siberia, and her father, Edward Kuznetzov, sentenced to death.
All the while, the KGB knew everything. There was a parallel hijacking group in Leningrad. Too many Jews were invited to be on the planes, and too many were talking. Says Anat, “If more than two people were talking, the KGB was listening. During the interrogation, the KGB was even telling the [hijackers] what wine they were drinking at their meetings.”
The film takes its title from Zalmanson’s plea at the group’s trial: “If you would not deny us our right to leave Russia, this group wouldn’t exist. We would just leave to Israel with no desire of hijacking a plane or anything else that’s illegal. Even here, on trial, I still believe that someday I’ll make it to Israel. I feel I’m the Jewish people’s heiress so I’ll quote our saying in Hebrew, ‘Next Year in Jerusalem,’ and ‘If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, may my right hand forget its cunning.’”
Sylva and her two brothers (both in the plot) never said goodbye to their widower father. Brother Zev left a letter for his father in the transistor radio, to be found when he changed the batteries. (The KGB found the letter the very next day.) Sylva cleaned the house for her father, one last time, and cooked his favorite meal, a “goodbye” she left on the stove.
It started as a fantasy, “Operation Wedding,” as outrageous as it was simple: The hijackers would buy every ticket on a small 12-seater plane, so there would be no passengers but them, no innocents in harm’s way. The plane was scheduled to fly from Smolnoye, near Leningrad, to Priozersk, 10 minutes from Finland. When the plane would land in Priozersk, one passenger, Mendel Bodnya, an amateur wrestler, would tackle the pilot. A second passenger, Yosef Mendelevich, with brass knuckles and handcuffs, would jump the co-pilot. Both pilots would then be thrown off the plane and into a forest near the Priozersk runway. Four more Soviet Jews were waiting in the forest, ready to jump on board. Then Mark Dimshitz, a former pilot in the Soviet Air Force, would enter the cockpit and fly the 16 runaways (14 Jews and two non-Jews) into the sky, over the Russian border, over Finland, on to Sweden, bound for Israel.
No one really knew what would happen. It was the season of the “white nights.” There was no sun in the pre-dawn but a gray, whitish color, dim like fog, the color of something vague. It was as romantic as it was political. Kuznetzov, then 30, and Zalmanson, 25 at the time, were newlyweds, the hijacking was to have taken place on June 15, 1970, their six-month anniversary.
Anat, while in New York, recalled, “I asked my mother how they first fell in love, and she said, ‘We were talking about Israel.’ They were both brave, fighters, and could not be broken.” Anat’s mother was so sure they would be successful that when she left home for the last time she carried a suitcase packed for Israel. Anat’s father, who had previously served seven years of hard labor for publishing an anti-Soviet paper, was more hardened. He packed for prison – a Bible and cigarettes. He, nevertheless, believed in the symbolic power of trying. He later told his daughter, “It’s better to [try to] leave it [than just] rot here and never see Israel.”
“The minute he was released,” from his first prison sentence, said Anat, “he started to think about how to escape the country. They wanted to do something dramatic. They felt they couldn’t live a normal life anymore.” Mendelevich prepared a manifesto, to be published if they were killed or captured, prefaced with a verse from Zechariah, “Come, Zion! Escape, you who live in Babylon.” Mendelevich later wrote, “I felt with every fiber of my being that I was fulfilling the commandment of God.”
The hijackers were jumped, beaten, arrested before takeoff. The hijacking never happened but the death sentences were real enough. The sentencing came on Christmas Eve, a slow time for news, so Walter Cronkite reported it at the top of his CBS Evening News, which had never before covered the Soviet Jewish awakening or repression. (Footage of Cronkite’s broadcast, a stunning moment for the Soviet Jewry movement in the United States, is typical of the rare archival broadcasts that Kuznetzov-Zalmanson has already obtained for the film). Cronkite reported, “In emergency session of the Israeli parliament today, Prime Minister Golda Meir, dressed in mourning, appealed for world intervention to save the lives of two Russian Jews [Kuznetzov and Dimshitz] sentenced to death for trying to hijack a plane out of Soviet Russia.”
Around the time of the Soviet case, Spain had sentenced several Basque terrorists to death. With demonstrations in Europe for the relief of the Basque and Jewish prisoners, the Israeli government sent a backdoor message to Spain’s ruler, Generalissimo Franco, who was rumored to be descended from Marranos and had a record of occasional kindness to Jews. Israel asked Franco to commute the Basque sentences as a way to pressure the Soviets to commute the Kuznetzov-Dimshitz sentence. Franco had mercy on the Basques, and within days the Soviets commuted their death sentences, as well. Kuznetzov and Dimshitz eventually served nine years before being sent to Israel.
The international fury and spotlight on human rights in the Soviet Union is credited with a temporary but significant thaw in Soviet oppression. In the decade before the trial, less than 5,000 Soviet Jews were allowed to leave; in the decade after, that number ballooned to 160,000.
After lengthy sentences for the others (10 years for Sylva and her brother Zev; eight years for her brother Yisrael; 15 years for Mendelevich and Yuri Fuderov; the rest sentenced from four to 14 years) all the hijackers made it to Israel, but left their youth in Siberia. In Israel, Sylva and Edward reunited, married for 10 years but nine of those in prison. After Anat’s first birthday, they divorced, in sorrow without hostility.
The hijackers still have proud reunions. Anat’s father is now 73. He worked for Radio Free Europe and Russian-language newspapers. Anat’s mother is now 70 and worked as an engineer before taking up painting. When Anat was in her mid-20s, after graduating the London Film School and directing music videos, her mother would laugh and say, “You know at your age I was already in prison.”
The prison years were hard on Sylva, once spending six months in solitary during a Siberian winter. “It was freezing,” said Anat. “My mother found a mouse in her soup, cockroaches were normal. She’d jump up and down, so as not to freeze to death. She put papers inside her dress to keep warm.
Anat added, “The KGB said, ‘If you ask for forgiveness we will let you go to Israel.’ She said ‘No, I will never ask anything from you.’ They told her, ‘Tell us you’re sick and want out and we’ll let you go.’ She said, ‘I will never ask anything from you.’ After years, in terrible conditions, sick and alone, she still wouldn’t surrender anything. She couldn’t be broken.”
Growing up in Israel, recalled Anat, she’d go walking with her mom or dad and “People in the street would stop and talk to us. Then they looked at me and said, ‘Do you know who your parents are?’ Every year since the first grade, my teachers used to ask me to stand up in class and tell my parents’ story. Back then, I didn’t know how to tell it, but I knew that someday I would.”
Enjoy the read,
Gary Rosenblatt
P.S. Just a reminder to check out our website any time of the week for breaking news and exclusive videos, opeds, blogs and features.
http://www.thejewishweek.com/
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| Between the Lines - Gary Rosenblatt |
Don't Write Off European Jewry
Serious threats, but sparks of renewal.
Gary Rosenblatt
Editor and Publisher
For many American Jews the well-documented reports of increased anti-Semitism this summer in such countries as England, France, Hungary, Germany and Sweden, sparked by the Gaza war, only confirmed a perception that there is no future for Jewish life in Europe.
There were large protests and demonstrations on the streets of major cities during the 50-day conflict, some punctuated by calls to “kill the Jews,” as well as physical attacks on Jews and efforts in some countries to ban shechita (kosher slaughter of animals) and brit milah (circumcision). And assimilation rates continue to rise, in some nations as high as 80 percent.
All true and alarming.
But not the full story, according to Barbara Spectre, the founding director of Paideia, the non-denominational European Institute for Jewish Studies, in Stockholm. The main program of the institute, founded in 2001 with funding from the Swedish government, is a full academic year of interactive study of Jewish texts and courses in leadership development, with the goal of educating and training “the best and the brightest” young people “who can lead a true renaissance of European Jewish culture,” according to its website. It now has 450 alumni in 35 countries.
Since my encounter with Paideia in the summer of 2010, when I visited and met more than two dozen participants from Eastern and Western Europe who were initiating renewal efforts in their own communities, I have come to recognize that while the future of Jewish life in Europe is deeply worrisome, the headlines we read here don’t tell the whole story.
So I appreciated the opportunity to speak with Spectre during her visit to New York this past week. The American-born educator, who left the faculty of the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem to found Paideia, acknowledged at the outset that the “unholy alliance” of anti-Israel and anti-Semitic sentiment from both the far left and the far right has created “a severe problem that must be dealt with.” But she cautioned against making sweeping statements about Europe in general, and suggested that the problem be explored on a country-by-country basis, noting that many European governments are “our allies.”
“We have to be careful and strategic,” she said. While Hungary, with its strong supremacist, nationalist government presents a threat, for instance, the German government is aggressive in its efforts to confront the anti-Jewish problem. Just last week the Conference of European Rabbis, meeting in Tbilisi, Georgia, urged governments across the continent to pass laws banning hate speech against Jews, as have France and Germany
And while Sweden has endorsed a Palestinian state, that doesn’t mean its government is anti-Semitic, Spectre said, noting that Stockholm officials are in close consultation with local Jewish leaders in dealing with issues as heightened security, anti-Semitism and the Mideast conflict.
“We should be celebrating complexity or at least dealing with it,” Spectre said.
The Ugly Backlash
Jewish communal leaders in European (and South American) countries may not say so publicly, but they resent when some American Jewish officials or activists fly in after a disturbing incident, hold a press conference, denounce the anti-Semitic act — as well as the authorities, on occasion, for lack of vigilance — and then fly home, leaving the local Jewish leaders to deal with the ugly backlash.
Similarly, European Jewish officials cringe when Israeli political leaders, in their quest to promote aliyah, assert that there is no future for European Jewry. Asserting that “the world hates us, Israel is the only safe haven,” could become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Such an attitude is far from helpful to those who would prefer to build a more secure future in their native country, fostering democracy and pluralism, rather than emigrate out of fear of oppression.
For a still small —but growing —percentage of European Jews, aliyah is the answer, but they are often motivated by declining economic conditions as well as concerns over anti-Semitism.
Spectre believes the main underlying problem for European society is its lack of integration of its Muslim populations. Ironically, based on the horrors of what happened to the Jews during the Holocaust, some countries “over-reacted” by creating separate neighborhoods and schools for their immigrant populations to protect them, leading to separatism and deep, sometimes violent, resentment. She believes that Muslim extremism is more about this cultural upset than religion.
Many sociologists point to the fact that the U.S. has seen less extremism of this nature because its emphasis on multiculturalism allows minorities to maintain their own sense of identity within the shared goals of the larger society.
Signs Of Life
In the midst of erosion of Jewish life in Europe there are signs of hope, if you look for them.
Spectre spoke with pride of a group of 10 Paideia alumni who created a think tank that met in mid-September. Its members are writing position papers based on approaching contemporary issues through the lens of Jewish texts. They call their group Beit Machshavah (The House of Thought) because their focus is on ideas rather than ritual practice, said Spectre, noting that they are “deeply rooted in Judaism and deeply rooted in Europe.”
Another Paideia program, held each June and called “Paradigm,” brings 10 New Yorkers and 10 Europeans — young Jewish professionals, educators and entrepreneurs — to Stockholm for five days to study Jewish texts together, hear from top scholars, explore issues of identity and better understand each other’s communities.
As noted in last week’s issue, a new documentary on Jewish life in Poland just had its premiere in New York City and will be shown here again in several weeks. Perhaps surprisingly, the film, entitled “The Return,” focuses on the remarkable popularity of things Jewish in the land of Auschwitz — from klezmer to cuisine (especially gefilte fish) to interest in Jewish practice. It highlights the stories of four women, two of whom were not born Jewish, becoming closer to Jewish life in a culture where many young people are discovering their long-buried Jewish roots.
Earlier this month, the $67 million Museum of the History of Polish Jews opened its core exhibition in Warsaw, covering Jewish life in Poland from the Middle Ages to today. The Holocaust is included, but only in one of the museum’s eight galleries, which are expected to attract 500,000 visitors in the next year.
Sigmund Rolat, a Jewish concentration camp survivor who settled in America and is now a major funder of the museum, explained that he was concerned about the perception young American and Israeli Jews have on their visits to Poland.
They see “death camps and cemeteries and empty places where synagogues used to be,” he told a New York Times reporter. “Ours is not another museum of the Holocaust. We are more than victims. Ours is a museum of life.”
Jonathan Ornstein, director of the JCC in Krakow, called popular trips for American teens such as March of the Living “death tours,” which he said are “not good for Judaism,” a religion he describes as one “of life, of the future.”
Overall, to be sure, European Jewry is in decline, in numbers, affiliation and morale. Anti-Semitism presents a serious threat, and aliyah is a valued goal for those who choose it. But it is self-defeating to write off those who remain, to think of Europe as a vast graveyard. It’s our responsibility to help nurture the budding renaissance taking place among young Jews across Europe and support those who want to maintain and strengthen their communities, just as we seek to do here in the U.S.
gary@jewishweek.org
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| NEWS and FEATURES |
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| Nassau County District Attorney Kathleen Rice. Getty Images |
Will L.I. Elect The Next Eric Cantor?
With no Jews in the House, Blakeman and Zeldin face uphill battles as Israel emerges as key issue.
Stewart Ain - Staff WriterIt’s Israel — not the economy — stupid.
That’s emerging as one of the key mantras in Long Island’s 4th Congressional District race where a Republican Jewish candidate is hoping to win a rare open seat.
Although he’s running in a district that includes the heavily Jewish Five Towns, Former County legislator Bruce Blakeman faces an uphill battle. He’s running against Nassau County District Attorney Kathleen Rice, a Democrat, to fill a congressional seat being vacated by retiring Democratic Rep. Carolyn McCarthy. Polls show Blakeman trailing Rice by a double-digit margin.
The district is said to have the largest Jewish constituency in the nation — nearly 20 percent of voters are Jewish — and both candidates have worked hard to show their unwavering commitment to the Jewish state.
During last summer’s Gaza war, both candidates left the campaign trail to fly to Israel. And while campaigning in the Five Towns with Rice, Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) was heard telling shoppers that Rice, 49, is a “strong fighter for Israel and a strong fighter against terrorism.”
Blakeman, 59, a former presiding officer of the Nassau County Legislature who represented the Five Towns from 1996 to 1999 and then served as commissioner of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, has stressed his close ties to the local community as well as to Israel. In fact, a local Five Towns newspaper accompanied him on his recent trip to Israel, during which he became engaged to a woman whose family is from Israel.
“They are both serious candidates with strong political resumes,” said Lawrence Levy, executive dean of the National Center for Suburban Studies at Hofstra University in Hempstead, L.I.
Meanwhile, on the eastern end of Long Island Lee Zeldin, a second term state senator, is challenging incumbent Rep. Tim Bishop in the 1st Congressional District, which extends from Smithtown to the end of Suffolk County — the largest district in terms of square miles on Long Island. Zeldin, 34, tried unsuccessfully to unseat Bishop in 2008; Bishop, 64, is seeking his seventh term.
Both men hope to return a Republican Jewish presence to the House following the June primary defeat of Eric Cantor, who at the time was the House majority leader.
Levy pointed out that the 1st Congressional District is a “true swing district” that in the past has elected Republicans and even a Conservative. In 2010, Bishop squeaked to victory by just 593 votes.
“Zeldin is running against an incumbent who has been there a long time and could be vulnerable if people decide to opt for a change,” he said. “For the most part, people like their incumbents, but in a year in which people are not happy with the status quo, an incumbent could be vulnerable. …This race is the most negative you will see on Long Island. Negative ads always have an impact on the target but can also have an impact of the person who produces them.”
The 4th Congressional District is seen as a Democratic seat and polls show Rice with a wide lead over Blakeman in part because she is much more widely known. One poll last month found that more than half of those questioned were unfamiliar with Blakeman.
But Blakeman insists the race is now “neck and neck” and that a strong anti-Obama feeling among the electorate will sweep him to victory. He cited no polls to support that belief.
“My opponent supports [President Barak] Obama’s policies — every single one of them,” he insisted.
But in an interview, Rice distanced herself from Obama on a number of Middle East issues. For instance, although Secretary of State John Kerry said he wants to restart peace talks between the governments of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, Rice disagreed. Noting that Abbas’ Fatah party has formed a unity government with the terrorist Palestinian organization Hamas with which Israel fought a 50-day war in Gaza this summer, Rice said: “The Israelis should not be forced to negotiate with anyone involved with a terrorist organization. I don’t think Israel should be forced to negotiate under those conditions.”
Asked how she would react if Abbas cut ties with Hamas, Rice replied, “I would reassess the situation to see if it was really a break.”
She noted that she (as did Blakeman) visited Israel during the Gaza war.
“I must be a vocal supporter of Israel, regardless what people in my party are saying. There is a big pro-Israel constituency in my district and they will inform my opinion. I have political independence and will break away from the party” if necessary.
Rice also broke with the Obama administration on the issue of Iran and its quest for nuclear power, agreeing with Israel’s opposition to any agreement with Iran that would permit it to continue to enrich nuclear fuel, thereby keeping the materials needed to make nuclear weapons.
The Obama administration and five other world powers now negotiating with Iran are reportedly prepared to allow Iran to maintain a scaled back nuclear development program with safeguards in place to guard against Iran surreptitiously pursuing the development of nuclear weapons.
Blakeman said he favors “stricter sanctions” and a 90-day deadline by which Iran must dismantle their nuclear program otherwise “America should take military action and destroy Iran’s nuclear program.”
Blakeman said he agreed with Netanyahu’s claim that “ISIS is Hamas and Hamas is ISIS,” saying: “I believe Hamas is equally as dangerous as ISIS and that Hamas wants to destroy the Jewish state — and after that Western civilization as we know it.”
Asked about Abbas’ demand that Jews should be banned from the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, he said they were “anti-Semitic, racist statements that show his true intentions — he wants a Middle East without Israel.
“A two-state solution is a fiction,” he continued. “There is nobody on the Palestinian side to negotiate with. Abbas has no control and Hamas would never agree to a Jewish state on its border.”
Zeldin agreed with Israel that Iran should not be allowed to have the capability of developing nuclear weapons. He disagreed that Israeli settlement building was the biggest obstacle to Israeli-Palestinian peace, calling the idea “complete nonsense,” saying that the settlements “have actually stabilized the region” and that Israel shouldn’t “give up land for a fictional peace.”
“I believe many of the elements fighting Israel will not stop until Israel is wiped off the map,” Zeldin said, adding that the U.S. should consider “eliminating foreign aid to the Palestinian Authority if it does not step up and root out extremist elements from within its ranks.”
He said it is “becoming increasingly clear that the Palestinian Authority has no will whatsoever to secure a long lasting peace accord with the State of Israel.
“Israel has made an important strategic decision to defend itself and destroy Hamas,” he said, adding that “since it is our strongest ally in the world, we should support Israel’s decision.”
Bishop, on the other hand, said he believes Netanyahu’s comparison of ISIS to Hamas “is a little extreme.”
“Hamas is a terrorist organization and their position on Israel and other matters is offensive — deeply so. But they exist in partnership with the Palestinian Authority to try to govern Gaza,” he said. “I am not a defender of Hamas and they need to disarm and recognize the State of Israel and cease terrorist atrocities.”
Asked about settlements, Bishop said he believes the “No. 1 obstacle to peace remains the refusal of Hamas to lay down its arms and recognize the legitimacy of the State of Israel. Terror must stop. That is the No. 1 prerequisite for settling this dispute. Settlements is an issue that ought to get resolved in negotiations that hopefully will bring an end to this decades-long conflict.”
Asked whether he believes Abbas is a partner for peace in light of his claim at the United Nations that Israel committed “genocide” in the Gaza war, Bishop replied: “It was a pretty inflammatory statement, but if not with him, who then?”
“The only way to get this [conflict] settled is with negotiations and both sides that are willing to trade land for peace. … We can no longer allow the status quo to continue,” he added.
Regarding Iran, Bishop said: “I don’t think the U.S. said it would accept a nuclear-capable Iran. The purpose of the [talks] … is to see to it that Iran not have a nuclear program and that the program thus far be capped.”
All four candidates said that if elected they would work to close a loophole in the law that since 1979 has allowed the U.S. to pay millions in Social Security benefits to at least 38 of 66 suspected Nazi war criminals and SS guards who were forced from the U.S., an effort already begun by Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.), who has already announced plans to introduce a bill that would address this problem.
stewart@jewishweek.org |
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| Food and Wine |
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| Jewish owner John Rubin founded Conflict Kitchen, where politics spices up the menu. Courtesy of Conflict Kitchen |
In Steel City, co out for Palestinian instead of Italian, say.
Hannah Dreyfus - Staff WriterJon Rubin, a Jewish restaurateur from Pittsburgh, has a special taste for conflict.
His four-year-old eatery, Conflict Kitchen, has a rotating menu featuring foods from countries currently or previously in conflict with the United States. In the past, he’s featured delicacies from Afghanistan, North Korea, Cuba, Iran, and Venezuela. The menu at his food stand these days: Palestinian takeout.
“Pittsburgh’s a small town, and we don’t have much cultural diversity,” said Rubin, who comes from a strongly Jewish background. “We need to represent cultures that are not represented here, on a culinary level and on a political level.”
Months before the recent war in Gaza, Rubin decided to feature a Palestinian menu at his sidewalk cafe. Two weeks before the conflict broke out, Rubin traveled to the West Bank with his head chef to conduct food research and ensure the authenticity of his menu. While there, he was also open about his American Jewish identity.
“People were unbelievably accepting,” he said, recalling how he stayed in people’s homes, eating “lunch with one family and dinner with another.”
“Even when the war in Gaza started to intensify, their attitude towards me didn’t change,” he said. “Palestinian families were incredibly generous, teaching me their century-old family recipes.”
The menu features classic Palestinian fare including Musakhan, toasted flatbread topped with chicken, sumac and pine nuts; Rumaniyya, eggplant, lentil and tart pomegranate stew; and Maftoul, Palestinian couscous with slow-cooked chicken and chickpeas in a fragrant broth. All meat is halal, though not kosher.
Rubin noted that although the dishes are specifically Palestinian, they have broader regional roots. “You’ll see a lot of overlap between Israeli food and Palestinian food,” he said. “It’s the flavor of the region.”
Among Pittsburgh’s Jews, Rubin’s unconventional menu didn’t always go down easy, so to speak. Though much of the community embraced the joint’s new food beat, some Jewish organizations cited the Palestinian focus as “one-sided and anti-Israel,” according to local media reports.
Still, Rubin remained confident in his cuisine selection, which will stay on the menu for several more months.
“It was a bit upsetting to see the response from some of the Jewish community,” he said. “Continuing to perceive the Palestinian people and Palestinian culture as a threat will only fan the flame.”
Though his cafe, which is in the Oakland neighborhood near the University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie-Mellon, is named for conflict, Rubin’s true intention is to create an open forum for conversation. Aside from serving up unique dishes, he uses the restaurant as a space to host cultural and political discussions. A week before launching his Palestinian menu, he hosted an informal round-table discussion, featuring a former IDF solider and a Palestinian medical student originally from the West Bank. Israelis, Palestinians and many others attended.
“People from different backgrounds were exchanging experiences, and listening to each other,” Rubin said. “Yes, there was disagreement. But more importantly, there was exchange. What more could I want?”
editor@jewishweek.org |
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| Travel |
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| An apple store and a farm store make for good shopping in harvest season in rural California. Hilary Larson/JW |
The Core Of California
Hilary Larson - Travel Writer
High up in the San Bernardino Mountains, I found all the apples I needed to ring in the Jewish New Year.
In fact, in the mile-high town of Oak Glen, Calif., I was surrounded by more apples than I’d ever seen in my life. Plenty of honey, too.
Dozens of orchards dotted the winding mountain road; farm stores advertised local honey, jam and chutney. From either side, “Pick Your Own!” signs beckoned weekend fruit enthusiasts, and every eatery advertised apple pie.
Oggi and I had come to Oak Glen for the same reason everyone does: to escape California’s notorious fall heat, and to entertain the children. We were spending the holidays with family in Los Angeles, where the September afternoons soared well over 100 degrees, and the sun beat down until well past dinner. Our 6-month-old daughter, Zelda, was fussy in the air-conditioned house; the rest of us longed for crisp autumn air.
We found it in Oak Glen, about a two hours’ drive east of the city. The route seemed unpromising most of the way, a never-ending morass of exurban sprawl, until we finally started climbing and ours ears popped with the altitude. Behind us, the valleys disappeared into a smoggy mirage. Palms and cactus gave way to a lush forest of very tall, very green trees.
Stepping out of the car, I gasped: the air was a good 30 degrees cooler than where we’d started out. After the sun-baked Los Angeles desert, this landscape of rustic clapboard houses, maple groves and burbling brooks felt almost like New England. But Oak Glen is very much a Western town; it has no center or walkable district, and instead consists of a long strip of businesses strung out along a winding, vertiginous mountain road.
Most of these businesses are family farms, and most of the farms long ago retired from commercial agriculture. Once innovators in the cultivation of exotic apple varieties, Oak Glen orchards today exist to provide rustic weekend entertainment for nature-starved city slickers — the kind for whom it is novelty, not drudgery, to spend your afternoon picking fruit.
While that novelty wore off for me long ago, Oggi and I decided it might appeal to Zelda, who is passionate about apples (despite having no teeth to eat them with). Since apple picking is hardly enough to justify those hours in the car, Oak Glen farms also offer petting zoos, old-time farm machinery, and homespun diners and boutiques to keep the family occupied.
I decided that Zelda was too young to appreciate Oak Tree Village, a 14-acre theme park in the heart of Oak Glen that includes a trout pond, a petting zoo, pony rides, goat milking and a model train. During the fall tourist season, the Village also has a weekend arts and crafts fair and live entertainment. This explains why fall- weekend parking rivaled the gridlock in Santa Monica, and why virtually every party included young children (Oak Tree Village even hosts the odd bar and bat mitzvah).
Hungry for apples, we pulled over on a less-trafficked, woodsier stretch of road and headed for the orchards. It was Sunday afternoon, so many of the more popular trees — Fuji, Braeburn — were picked bare. I still managed to fill a bag with purplish Spartas, and anyhow, the pleasure was in strolling through groves of ripe-smelling trees.
I bought some freshly pressed cider while Oggi took Zelda to visit a grunting black pig, two miniature ponies and an enormous rabbit up close. If she had been older, she would have loved the do-it-yourself apple presses, where kids were lining up to crank out juice the old-fashioned way.
“Old-fashioned” is a shtick Oak Glen works hard to cultivate. At some of the farms, employees dress in aprons and bonnets, Sturbridge Village-style; at others, antique-looking wells, water wheels and donkey carts aim to evoke the Old West. Oak Glen doesn’t really need the hokum. The orchards feel timeless, and the majestic setting — yellowing fall leaves against blue sky and purple mountains — is draw enough.
Still, in a state where history is in short supply, you can’t blame Oak Glen for pulling out the stops. And while I could survive without the costumes, I refused to drive back without a slice of hot-out-of-the-oven apple pie à la mode. We shared it three ways, the steam escaping from under a six-inch-high golden crust, and it was a sweet New Year indeed.
editor@jewishweek.org |
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