The New York Jewish Week : Connecting the World to Jewish News, Culture, and Opinion for Wednesday, 21 January 2015
The Jewish Week Newsletter
Dear Reader,
The aftermath of the recent fatal attacks at a kosher supermarket in Paris, and arrests of suspected Islamic radicals in several European countries, continues to concern the Jewish community.
Our coverage this week includes an essay by Susan Reimer-Torn, who lived in Paris for two decades, on cultural differences between Americans and the French; an insight by Nathan Jeffay on the political repercussions of Prime Minister Netanyahu's participation in the massive solidarity march in Paris; and a report by staff writer Steve Lipman on growing worries by European Jews about an uncertain future there.
An ex-Paris resident reflects on Jewish fear and the charged topic of multiculturalism.
Susan Reimer-Torn
Special To The Jewish Week
Flanked by police vehicles, Hyper Cacher is the Parisian kosher supermarket that was the site of a recent terrorist attack.Getty
For 22 years I was an expatriate New York Jew raising a family, working as a journalist and navigating life in Paris and its upscale western suburbs. One day my husband’s secretary invited my two boys home for lunch. As it was Passover, I politely declined, explaining that week imposed too many dietary restrictions.
The exasperated woman sat me down for a much-needed talk: Didn’t I realize what a disadvantage it was for me to impose these differences on my children? It was a social stigma that brought with it no compensatory reward. Besides it rubbed people the wrong way. If I insisted on my “customs,” I must think that the French way was not as good. Why would I choose to incite the inevitable resentment my judgment provoked?
Stunned, I failed to convince her that honoring my traditions in no way inferred the inferiority of others. The dignity of difference has no resonance in a country where cultural values are understood in terms of a hierarchy of relative worth.
The French balk at multiculturalism; the attachment of a subgroup to its own traditions clashes with the Republic’s ideal of liberté, eqalité, fraternité. The privileges extended by the Republic ask in return a surrender of particularism or, at the very least, the decency to be as discrete as possible about these stubborn vestiges of a less enlightened past. The French Revolution granted its Jews full rights of citizenship, an act, however seminal and noble, that could never overcome France’s inherent aversion to Jews too tenaciously being Jews.
Author Marc Weitzmann, a regular contributor to Le Monde, recounts telling a colleague about Otzar Hatorah, the school in Toulose where one adult and three children were killed by terrorist gunmen. It is a French school of exceptional standing — an unheard of 100 percent of candidates pass the Bac (generally required for university admission) — in which 10 hours of Jewish studies are added to an already rich curriculum. His colleague’s only response: Why do some people need a special school anyway?
I was confused at first when people asked me if I was “d’origine Juif.” I would reply that I was not only of Jewish “origin,” but was Jewish still. The phrasing revealed a certain assumption. Our “origins” can’t be modified, but we needn’t cling to, much less flaunt, them in a homogenized society.
France is now home to some 6.5 million Muslims, who make up 10 percent of the population. It is quaking to its anti-multicultural foundations. You can forbid Muslim women to wear their headscarves in official establishments but you cannot by those methods win their hearts. Muslim youth are caught between a deep-seeded national disdain for who they are and a promise of full restoration of dignity if only they take up arms against the mocking infidels.
The insistence on the right to publish cruel satire of Islamic beliefs in the midst of this inflammatory situation is ill-timed, to say the least. “Je suis Charlie”? Frankly, the declaration gets stuck in my throat. I am utterly horrified by murder and I am also an ardent practitioner of free expression. I fully understand that “blasphemy” has no conceptual meaning in a secular democracy. Yet, I have never bought an issue of Charlie Hebdo, and I decline to embrace the kind of satiric journalism it practices — regardless of its long, revered history in France.
France is justly proud of its anti-clerical, pro-enlightenment, rationalist tradition. But how to identify that elusive point where free speech becomes a hate crime? How to convince an infuriated Muslim from the Euro Zone that it is justified to arrest a Jew-baiting comedian Dieudonné while cartoons showing Mohammed in a homoerotic embrace should circulate freely?
My concern is not only with the obvious risk of a double standard.
I spent last Sunday in a downtown Manhattan seminar exploring racial tensions in our own country. I came away with an important awareness: The antidote to racism is not only inclusion, it is, more importantly, relationship. It is the willingness to take a chance and get to know the other, to have difficult conversations and to learn from inevitable mistakes. It is the cultivation of empathy, even while maintaining one’s own point of view.
Ridicule, so endemic to French society, is not relating, it is standing off and taunting from a superior position. Humiliating cartoons show no empathy and utterly fail to communicate except to those already in the know. Hurtful mockery retards, rather than inspires, social change. What’s more, satire is an intellectual feat that stands between you and the baring of your soul. It is a socially acceptable distraction from facing your own essential terror.
I’ve been bruised by premature optimism about healing wounds and effecting social change. I raised my boys in the 1990s not to buy into the anti-Arab bias that was rife in our suburbs. I urged them to get to know the marginalized Arab youth. One day when my 15-year-old was alone at home, rather than submit to accusations of racism, he let a group of Arab kids into our house. One held him down while the others robbed us. When I filed a report to the police, they laughed me out of the station for my naiveté.
There was a time when only religious Jews felt like targets in France. In light of the terror, formerly discrete, socially- assimilated Jews are newly concerned about their right to their full, dual identity. The Muslim-led terror is, ironically, provoking a more self-conscious approach to the issue of multiculturalism among a wider gamut of France’s Jews.
I’m stubborn when it comes to seeking positive outcomes. Rather than turn against one another because of a small number of fanatics, the Jewish and Muslim communities can cooperate to redeem the dignity of difference in the democracy they share. French Jews can actually help French Muslims to construct their cultural identity from within: educate youth, and cultivate resources and courageous mainstream leadership. Together, France’s religious minorities can enrich its social fabric, while adding dimension and depth to its honorable ideas.
Susan Reimer-Torn is author of the recently published memoir, “Maybe Not Such a Nice Girl: Reflections on Rupture and Return.”
The prime minister should have remembered the lessons of the shiva call.
Nathan Jeffay
Contributing Editor
The story of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s participation in the recent solidarity march in Paris refuses to die.
Imagine that Bibi Netanyahu had stayed away from the Paris march, as much of the world seems to have wished?
More than a week after he returned to Israel, the scorn for the Israeli prime minister’s French trip continues. How, it is asked, did he have the cheek to go when French President François Hollande asked him to stay away?
The story refuses to die, but it is not a real story — or at least, not the way it is being told.
Israel’s prime minister is so insular that he stays at home when the rest of the world marches against terror, the world would have declared had he not gone. (Of course, nobody would have known that he was banned.) He cares more about fighting an election than standing shoulder to shoulder with the international community! So much for his constant talk of condemning terror!
Netanyahu knew that he could not stay away from Paris altogether, so for the short time that he planned to observe Hollande’s decree, he was going to visit the Jewish community later in the week. The world would have had a field day. Columnists would have concluded: So he does care about terror but only the Jewish blood that is spilled. How parochial and narrow-minded to snub the main event but run to the synagogue.
To many, Netanyahu’s whole trip was born in sin, because he originally acquiesced to the French ban and promised to stay away, only packing his suitcase when he heard that his political rivals from Israel were going. He was not prepared to be overshadowed by Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman and Economy Minister Naftali Bennett. And rightly so.
The backlash had Israeli politicians stayed away would have been bad enough, but the backlash had he been absent while two of his rivals had shown him up would have been unbearable. He would have been presented as the crazed political Machiavellian, unprepared to stop election campaigning for even a couple of days as his rivals do the decent thing and pause to mark a world tragedy. (Needless to say the electioneering value of Paris would have been discounted had he skipped the trip).
There was a real story in all of this, but it would have been inappropriate to focus on it as France was in a state of shock. How dare Hollande try to exclude Israel’s elected leader from an event where the heads of the international community were condemning terrorism? How has he the gall to do this in relation to any country, never mind one that lives in the shadow of terrorism? His request would have been unacceptable if not a single Jew had been killed, but after an attack clearly motivated by anti-Semitism, which struck targets with close links to Israel, the attempted ban became contemptible.
Paris feared that his presence could interfere with the message of the event. Imagine the uproar if Israel started excluding world leaders who may undermine its message when it holds international gatherings? How ironic that at a rally championing freedom of speech, Paris tried to silence the voice of a democratic state’s leader, lest it dislike what he has to say.
Netanyahu was right to fly to Paris. If only he had performed better when he arrived.
His need to score a point by noting that Israel “has been has been saying for many years” what others said at the march was obnoxious. And when he took the opportunity to throw down the gauntlet to other marchers from the international community to show the same opposition toward terrorism directed at Israel, his demand was fair, but it was the wrong time and place.
In the same vein his repeated encouragement of French Jews to migrate to Israel was understandable, but not needed at that time. There is nothing untoward about the Israeli prime minister encouraging diaspora Jews to relocate to Israel — it is a key pillar of the Zionism that all of Israel’s main political parties hold dear. And if French Jews really needed the idea to be raised so they could consider it, however insensitive it seemed to the non-Jewish population of France, I would have no complaints. But French Jews are packing their bags in large numbers — without Netanyahu’s encouragement. French Jews don’t need talk about aliyah; Netanyahu was playing to voters back home.
At this time, when Israel is being presented as increasingly isolated and more and more out of touch with the rest of the world, what was needed from Netanyahu was just to join in. To join in the mourning, with gentile France and Jewish France alike. To join in the commemoration. To join in with the condemnation of terror.
He needed to have the restraint, when he was on French soil, not to superimpose his ideology onto the attack and discuss international policy or the delicate subject of French Jewry’s future. This holds true however convinced he was of the correctness of what he had to say.
There were plenty of Jewish motifs in his comments; it’s just a shame that he forgot the guiding Jewish wisdom for times of loss. At a shiva, one does not talk to mourners unless they initiate conversation. The days immediately after a loss are not right for telling mourners what is on your mind, but rather about understanding and empathizing with their pain. He was visiting a country in mourning, and should have conducted himself as such.
Netanyahu needed to be in Paris, but he need to be there as joiner-inner not as a lobbyist, analyst, or cheerleader for emigration. Sometimes, a true leader needs to know when it’s the right moment to follow.
European Jews Seen Increasingly Questioning Future
In wake of Paris attacks, and arrest of jihadis in Belgium, fears over whether fabric of Jewish life will irreparably fray.
Steve Lipman
Staff Writer
Soldiers patrol in Antwerp, Belgium, home to many Orthodox Jews in the city’s diamond industry. Getty Images
Even as a rabbi in Brussels called for Jews there to arm themselves and police in Belgium stepped up security around Jewish sites, Jews across Western Europe this week are increasingly asking a frightening question: Is Jewish life still viable on the continent?
The question is being asked everywhere Jews gather: at a Jewish wedding in Paris, inside a synagogue guarded by French soldiers, and at a Brussels day school just reopened following last week’s police raid against jihadis suspected of plotting a terror attack.
“You hear people talk,” Simone Rodan-Benzaquen, director of the American Jewish Committee’s office in Paris, told The Jewish Week. “‘Should we leave? Am I a responsible parent to have my kids continue here?’ I don’t know any Jew who does not ask that question.”
The director of the AJC’s Transatlantic Institute in Brussels, Daniel Schwammenthal, put the fear Jews are feeling — and the possibility of mass aliyah — in even starker terms: “Absolutely — I absolutely see this as a threat,” he said. “The future of European Jews is being decided.”
As anti-Semitic incidents have increased in recent years, European Jews have shown a growing interest in making aliyah or settling in safer lands, especially during this summer’s Israeli war against Hamas terrorists in Gaza. But in the wake of the murder of four Jews at a Paris kosher market (which followed by two days the slaying of 12 in the Charlie Hebdo attack) and of the arrests in Brussels (and the eastern industrial city of Verviers), Jews throughout Europe feel more under attack and are weighing their future there, leaders said.
European Jews now “talk to each other more about their future,” said Serge Cswagenbaum, secretary general of the European Jewish Congress. He said EJC leaders have conducted an ongoing dialogue with prominent leaders of the Islamic community in France, but conceded that these leaders hold little influence over the young, radical members of the Muslim community who are largely responsible for terrorist attacks.
Jewish institutions have been increasing security for awhile in response to years of anti-Semitic attacks, said Malcolm Hoenlein, executive vice chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations.
“I don’t think this is a sudden change — this is cumulative,” he said. While “day-to-day [anti-Semitic] incidents don’t get the visibility,” he said, the killings at the Hyper Cacher kosher supermarket “brought this to a high level of visibility. It was the bubble bursting.”
Abraham Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League agreed. “The attacks on Jews in France represent more of a rising tide than a sea change,” said. “There is a growing sense of vulnerability and insecurity in Jewish communities throughout Europe.”
Rodan-Benzaquen of the American Jewish Committee, agreed. “It’s a situation that has deteriorated over the last 15 years,” she said. She called the 2012 terrorist attack at a Jewish school in Toulouse — in which a teacher and three children were murdered — the “turning point” for French Jewry. Last week’s attack magnified the change.
“We see the same kind of [anti-Semitic] phenomenon all over Europe,” she added. “France is the worst.”
There is also a changing perception among American Jews of their French counterparts: the growing number of solidarity missions made to France’s Jewish communities, as was the case years ago to Iron Bloc countries. Within the last week, visitors to Paris included Rabbi Yehuda Sarna of New York University, Rabbi Avi Weiss and Rabba Sara Hurwitz of the Hebrew Institute of Riverdale, Rabbi Adam Scheier of Montreal’s Congregation Shaar Hashomayim, and New York Mayor Bill de Blasio.
In response, the European Jewish Congress this week urged Belgium and other European Union members to increase security around Jewish institutions, and to establish a continental-wide position — a so-called anti-Semitism czar — to deal with the threat against the Jewish community.
What actions do Jewish communities expect from their governments? Unified action against terrorism, better intelligence work, programs to prevent the radicalization of Muslims in prison, tolerance education in public schools, better protection of Jewish sites, better-enforced laws against hate speech on the Internet, measures to keep leaders of radical Islamic terrorism groups out of Europe and to keep them from preaching in mosques and teaching in Muslim schools, the Jewish leaders who talked with The Jewish Week said.
Schwammenthal said he’s looking for “more pubic gestures and visible outrage” from government officials when anti-Semitic attacks take place. “I would like to see this from every politician in Europe — outrage from the heart, and not dry token words of support.”
In the Jewish area of Antwerp, where roughly 16,000 Jews live, the majority of them chasids working in the diamond business, soldiers stood guard this week. In secular Brussels, security professionals from around Europe took part in a drill for a scenario in which a car bomb explodes outside a synagogue; and Jewish leaders there opposed the call by some members of the community to apply for gun permits “for the essential protection of their communities.”
“It’s a very small minority” of Belgian Jews who are interested in arming themselves, said Cswagenbaum. “I can understand it. I don’t accept it.” Security, he said, should be in the hands of the army or police.
Julien Klener, who heads Belgium’s Jewish umbrella organization, said that while “there is no panic” among Belgian Jews, there are more people who are considering leaving. “It is clear that after what happened in Brussels … questions are asked about individual futures,” said Klener, who is president of the Consistoire Central Israèlite de Belgique. “I know some Jews who would settle in Sarasota or the nice parts of Florida, or in Canada. The levels of security inquiries are much higher.”
“French Jews are undoubtedly living in fear, knowing that this could happen again, anywhere and at any time,” said Stella Amar-Cohen, a Jew from western France who has lived in Manhattan for a decade. “Some people have refrained from going to shul or have gone without children, but slowly regular life is resuming. Some secular people who don’t typically go to shul went after the events, to show unity and solidarity with the rest of the community.”
Today’s Jewish communities in Western Europe cannot be considered in danger of extinction they were under the Third Reich, or as the Jewish communities of Eastern Europe were during communist times, because these countries’ contemporary governments are protective of Jewish interests and share Jews’ fear of radical Muslims, Jewish leaders said. But there is a new danger, enough Jews will emigrate or drop out of Jewish life to weaken the tenor of the Jewish community.
“It’s not that [Jews] feel insecure. They are insecure,” Schwammenthal said.
He and Rodan-Benzaquen last summer wrote an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal titled “Do Jews Have a Future in Europe?”
Their answer: maybe not.
“Many in the Jewish community, perhaps for the first time since they rebuilt their homes in Europe after the Holocaust, fear once again for their security and future,” they wrote.
In England, where police expressed “heightened concern” about a possible terrorist attack on Jews, a survey found that one-quarter of British Jews have considered leaving the country. In Germany, where two suspected jihadis were arrested last week and 13 homes were raided this week, Abraham Lehrer, vice president of the umbrella organization of Jews in Germany, declared that “If Jews [anywhere] are threatened, then we all are threatened.”
The World Without Nazism organization was to release on Wednesday a 1,000-page report, “White Papers of Hate,” on the rise of neo-Nazi movements, radical nationalism and human rights violations in 19 European countries.
“The ‘White Papers of Hate’ was created to track manifestations of hate so leaders properly respond to this escalating problem,” Valery Engel, the organization’s first vice president, said in a statement. “We cannot wait for the next Charlie Hebdo, the next synagogue bombing or the next hate-fueled attack.”
For many European Jews, the next year will likely determine if they stay or if they go.
“If we find ourselves in exactly the same situation a year from now, I don’t see how Jews can continue to feel comfortable here,” Rodan-Benzaquen said.
Jewish schools in Brussels reopened this week, but many parents chose to keep their children at home for at least another day. “We’ve talked to a lot of parents” who were nervous about safety at school, said Schwammenthal.
After keeping his children out of their Jewish school in Brussels for a day, he let them go back. He said he had “no confidence” in his decision because the police “haven’t arrested everybody” who would commit terrorist attacks against Jews. But said he had little choice.
“We can’t keep our kids out of school [forever],” Schwammenthal said. “There is, of course, no 100 percent security.”
steve@jewishweek.org Web Director Helen Chernikoff reports on a new trend of "starving" young Jewish farmers. And editor Gary Rosenblatt profiles a pair of new, pro-Israel films.
Starving Farmer: The New Starving Artist
Angie Murdukhayeva is interviewing for farming jobs. Jon Leiner
Is farmer the new DJ?
Helen Chernikoff
Web Director
Wednesday, January 21, 2015 - 12:09pm
Unlike the stereotypical millennial, Allie Comet, 27, knows what she wants to be when she grows up: a farmer. Raised in Brooklyn, she’s spent her post-college years far from the city, hustling a series of farm apprenticeships and assistant farm manager jobs, making little and saving less. Then, this fall, she hurt her back — a rude wakeup call.
Late December found her at the environmental organization Hazon’s annual food conference, wondering how long she wants to work 75 hours a week while still worrying about money and health insurance.
Jewish kids just out of college have long labored lovingly as writers, musicians and filmmakers. Now they’ve added farmer to the list of sporadic, romantic jobs to which expensively educated folks in their 20s are attracted. Starving artist, meet starving farmer.
“I know that it’s work that I love,” said Comet, who got turned onto farming as a student at Pomona College in California, when she realized how much she enjoyed taking tender care of plants.
“I have to figure out how to make it work for the rest of my life,” she said.
The question of whether the farming life is viable came up often at the conference, which drew about 150 assorted foodies — farmers, butchers, beekeepers, chefs, activists, and ecologically-minded rabbis and teachers — to the Isabella Freedman Jewish Retreat Center in western Connecticut, part of Hazon since the organizations merged in 2013.
There, over four chilly days — the center nestled amid the northern Berkshire mountains was designed to be a summer camp — they observed demonstrations, from the making of beeswax salve to the ritual slaughter of a chicken; watched films; engaged in panel discussions and, at the New Year’s Eve party, divided themselves up for dancing into plants and pollinators.
But the next morning, the assembled returned to reality when they trooped to the Red Yurt for a session entitled “Growing Up To Be Farmers,” inspired by a New York Times op-ed published in August entitled “Don’t Let Your Children Grow Up To Be Farmers” that revealed the “dirty secret” of the food movement: “The much-celebrated small-scale farmer isn’t making a living.”
Janna Siller, Hazon’s field manager and a teacher in Adamah, its farm and fellowship program, moderated the session because she’s gone through it, and figured out how to make farming work for her.
“Sure, there’s a lot of risks, but there’s risks to living a suburban life, too,” said Siller, 32, who was raised in suburban Maryland.
“Your soul might not be where you want it to be.”
She felt the article was a bit pessimistic, but also told some important truths about the perils of the farming path.
“For me, being upper middle class is not a goal and it’s never been,” she said. “But I’ve spoken to parents of friends who are upset when their kids are interested in this because it’s not a path to being upper middle class. It’s just not.”
Siller’s own parents, she said, never imagined this life for her, but support her in it. Comet’s parents do, too. “They want me to be happy and they trust me,” Comet said. “They do worry that it will be hard.”
Her parents are not alone in their concern. It’s not just Jews who think farmer is the new DJ.
The National Young Farmers Coalition, founded in 2010 to help small farmers support each other and advocate for themselves, has 1,000 dues-paying members and a mailing list of 50,000, said Lindsey Shute, a farmer who co-founded the group in 2010 with her husband. Since then, twenty-four local chapters of 50 to 200 members have sprouted around the country.
“Young people are looking to start a farm in the way they might have looked at the nonprofit sector 10, 15 years ago,” said Shute. “They can make a difference every day.”
That’s what attracts Angie Murdukhayeva to farming, which she sees as a way to “use her skills and talents to help create a world that I want to live in.”
Born in Russia, she grew up in Queens, attended NYU and was working at the Environmental Protection Agency in Washington, D.C., when she decided to quit to do Adamah’s fall fellowship. Now she’s interviewing for farming jobs.
“I was living out what I imagined being 25 years old should look like, but I had a lot bigger questions than answers and bigger dreams than having a salary and a place to live,” she said.
Adamah is a leadership program that draws its inspiration and metaphors from the soil, the seasons and Jewish texts about same, not a crash course for farmers.
Yet at the end of every three-month fellowship, at least a few of the 15-member cohort, have gone on to pursue farming professionally despite the challenges, said Shamu Sadeh, who co-founded Adamah in 2003, back before the farm-to-table craze made farming a desirable career for middle-class city kids.
For folks who aren’t to the farm born, land and the capital to work it have always been hard to come by, said Leon Vehaba, 36, who attended the Hazon conference and manages the Poughkeepsie Farm Project, a nonprofit that operates a member-supported farm and works to improve access to local food. On the East Coast, land prices are especially high because farmers are competing with housing developers.
And once the individual farmer has a lease, or some land, he or she still has a tough row to hoe finding the consumer who’s willing to pay a premium for organic food and getting the food to that person.
“Even though so much has changed in the last 20 years in the food movement, with more people buying locally and organically, there’s only a certain amount that people are going to pay for food,” said Comet, who is contemplating agriculture-related graduate programs but worries they would be “selling out.”
So far, small farmers have managed distribution mainly by selling at urban greenmarkets or by creating community-supported agriculture mechanisms through which they sell shares of their harvest in advance.
And now another grassroots way of organic farmers grow and meet demand has evolved: the food hub. The Hazon conference featured one of those, too; Pound Ridge Organics is the creation of Donna Simons, who started out buying from local farms for a few friends in Westchester and now does so for about 400 members, mostly families, but also several commercial accounts. She doesn’t lose money, she said, but she doesn’t make any, either.
Early each week she sends out a list of what her farms have available; by Tuesday everyone has their orders in; Wednesday or Thursday she picks up the goods and either distributes them from a central location or delivers to the commercial clients.
“Everything happened organically,” Simons said. “This took on a life of its own. Each time I see a problem I seek a solution; each time I see a shortage, I seek a supply. I didn’t know it would go this far, and I’m determined to keep it going.”
Simons swears there’s no lack of demand, and believes more and more people will come to understand the true value of safe, local food and pay the higher prices set by small organic farms for their products.
Murdukhayeva is just starting out, but she knows farming might not be easy, so she’s trying to stay flexible about her goals.
“For every year to come, I want to grow my own food,” she said, “whether that means a community garden of my own, or to manage a farm, or to work as a crew member, or own my own farm. I want produce from my own hands.”
Also, staff writer Hannah Dreyfus describes a native New Yorker who has become thefirst woman to jointly lead an Orthodox community in Israel, and our Healthcaresection features articles on aspects of breast cancer.
Healthcare January 2015
At The Intersection Of Health And Economics. Caring For A Loved One, The Play. New Subsidy For Breast Cancer Testing
Finally, the controversy over the death of Argentine prosecutor Alberto Nisman, who died hours before he was to testify about the 1994 terrorist bombing of the AMIA Jewish center in Buenos Aires. Suicide? Many Argentinians doubt that early report.
Hezbollah, Argentine gov’t fingered in death of AMIA prosecutor; suicide theory being dismissed.
JTA
Alberto Nisman launched a more professional investigation of the AMIA bombing upon being named special prosecutor in 2005.
The mysterious death of Argentine prosecutor Alberto Nisman seems ripped straight out of a crime thriller.
Nisman — the indefatigable prosecutor collecting evidence of culpability in the 1994 bombing of the AMIA Jewish center in Buenos Aires, which killed 85 people — was found dead in his apartment just hours before he was to present evidence to Argentina’s congress that he said implicated his country’s president and foreign minister in a nefarious cover-up scheme.
The charge? That the two agreed to whitewash Tehran’s role in the AMIA bombing in exchange for oil shipments to energy-hungry Argentina.
Nisman’s body was discovered late Sunday in his 13th-floor apartment with a single gunshot wound to the head.
Officials connected to the president, Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, quickly said evidence pointed to suicide, noting that a .22-caliber pistol and spent cartridge were found near Nisman’s body.
But the suicide theory was dismissed out of hand on the streets of Buenos Aires and among people around the world familiar with Nisman and his work investigating the AMIA attack. Instead, they said Nisman, 51, was the victim of foul play. The suicide theory lost more ground Tuesday with the revelation by the prosecutor investigating Nisman’s death, Viviana Fein, that no traces of gunpowder were found on Nisman’s hand. There also was no suicide note.
“The idea of suicide I think is nonsense,” Abraham Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League, told JTA.
“The Jewish community has lost a stalwart hero, and Argentina and all people who pursue the truth and justice with a passionate zeal have lost a great fighter,” Foxman said. “Throughout the years, all kinds of forces have tried to put him down, to destroy him. Every time he uncovered new stuff or exposed some interests that weren’t happy, they set the courts against him or they set the police against him. And every time they tried to put him down, he fought it, he got up and beat them.”
The investigation of the 1994 bombing — the deadliest terrorist attack in Argentine history and one of the worst incidents of anti-Jewish violence in the Diaspora since World War II — was seen as hopelessly inept and corrupt until Nisman took over the case in 2005.
There were no significant arrests for years after the AMIA bombing, which was preceded by the deadly 1992 bombing of the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires that killed 29. After 20 local men, including 19 police officers, were put on trial in 2001 on charges of involvement in the Jewish center attack, the investigating judge, Juan Jose Galeano, was caught on video offering one of the men a bribe in return for evidence. The case collapsed, the police were acquitted, and Galeano eventually was removed from the case and impeached.
Appointed to take over the case by then-President Nestor Kirchner, the late husband of the current Argentine leader who had called the handling of the case a “national disgrace,” Nisman launched a more professional investigation. He traced the links from the Iranian leaders who ordered the attack to the Hezbollah operatives who planned its execution, formally charging Iran and Hezbollah in 2006. Interpol eventually issued arrest warrants for six Iranian officials in connection with the bombing, including Iran’s defense minister at the time, Ahmad Vahidi. The Islamic Republic denied any connection and refused to hand over the suspects.
In 2013, when Argentina and Iran signed a joint memorandum of understanding to investigate the bombing, Nisman and Jewish community leaders in Argentina and abroad decried the deal as a farce. Many were particularly incensed that the deal was negotiated by Argentine Foreign Minister Hector Timerman, a prominent Argentine Jew whose father, Jacobo Timerman, had been a well-respected Argentine-Israeli human rights activist. The governments of Israel and the United States also denounced the deal.
Nisman challenged the arrangement in court as “wrongful interference” by the president in judicial affairs and the probe was never implemented.
All the while, Nisman and his investigating team continued to press forward with their effort to bring those responsible to justice. Last week, Nisman filed a 300-page complaint alleging that Kirchner, Timerman and others were seeking to “erase” Iran’s role in the AMIA bombing in exchange for establishing stronger trade relations, including oil sales to Argentina. He was slated to present his evidence Monday to Argentina’s congress.
A few years ago, during a 2009 visit to New York, Nisman said a trial of the AMIA bombing should be moved outside Argentina if it is to have any chance of success.
“I’m following the wishes of relatives and looking for a way to get them some closure,” Nisman told JTA through a translator. “I cannot give up on ways of trying to get justice.”
Among Argentina’s 200,000 Jews — the largest Jewish community in Latin America — Nisman, who also was Jewish, was seen as a crusading hero.
So who could have wanted him dead? Many Argentines are pointing the finger at President Kirchner. By Sunday night, thousands had gathered outside the presidential palace to protest Nisman’s death, with some holding aloft signs reading “Cristina murderer.” The hashtag #CFKAsesina — Kirchner’s initials and the Spanish word assassin — was one of the top topics trending on Twitter in Argentina on Monday.
In Jewish and Israeli circles, some analysts speculated that Nisman may have been killed by Hezbollah, whose operatives were fingered for carrying out the AMIA bombing on behalf of Iran.
Just hours before Nisman’s death – he did not eat dinner on Sunday night, investigators said, suggesting he likely was shot before dinnertime – several Hezbollah fighters were killed in an airstrike in southern Syria attributed to Israel. Among the dead were Mohammed Allahdadi, a general in the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, and Jihad Mughniyeh, son of the late Hezbollah mastermind Imad Mughniyeh, who was killed in a February 2008 car bombing in Damascus. Mughniyeh was the one whom Nisman found had coordinated and oversaw preparations for the AMIA bombing.
Hezbollah accused Israel of being behind Sunday’s airstrike. Israeli officials, adhering to protocol in such cases, declined to comment. But an unnamed senior Israeli security source confirmed to Reuters that Israel was behind the strike but said it wasn’t meant to target a senior Iranian general.
Could Hezbollah have pulled off Nisman’s killing so quickly after the airstrike in Syria? It would be uncharacteristic for the Lebanon-based group, which typically has carried out its well-planned reprisals months or years after Israeli attacks. But some analysts noted Iran and Hezbollah have sleeper cells that can carry out operations on short notice.
The circumstances of Nisman’s death, assuming he indeed was murdered, certainly represent a failure of the Argentine authorities. Nisman had been under police protection, including the positioning of police guards outside the luxury high-rise where he was found dead.
Nisman had made several prescient references to the possibility of his untimely demise, saying as recently as Saturday, “I might get out of this dead.”
(A JTA correspondent in Buenos Aires contributed to this report.)
Enjoy the issue,
The Editors
P.S. Check out our website for breaking news and exclusive videos, blogs, advice and opinion columns, and more. http://www.thejewishweek.com/
GARY ROSENBLATT
Between the Lines
Gary Rosenblatt
Can Pro-Israel Films Reach Wide Audiences?
Two new films deserve viewers, but Israel is a hard sell these days.
After recently screening two new, first-rate documentary films about Israel, my first thought was that they should each be made mandatory viewing for Jewish youth in the diaspora, and maybe Israel, too.
Their compelling narratives, expertly told, explore the lives of Israel’s military defenders more than six decades apart. One is the little-known story of the creation of the Israeli Air Force in 1948. The other offers a rare inside look at what it’s like to go through basic training in the IDF today. They should appeal to a wide audience because each one is an inspiring film of heroic dimensions, told by humanizing the protagonists.
But I worry whether, in fact, the films — and a number of others with similar goals — will be seen beyond the core pro-Israel community, in part because Israel is a hard sell these days, a problem exacerbated by the reluctance of those in the film industry to book movies that portray the Jewish state in a positive light.
Nancy Spielberg is the New York-based producer of “Above and Beyond,” which tells the story of the small group of American Jewish pilots, young veterans of World War II, who risked their lives and volunteered to help create the fledgling Israeli Air Force in 1948. She says she encountered great resistance in seeking to have her full-length, highly polished film accepted at international film festivals.
Theatrical distribution and the Spielberg name (Steven is her brother) will help “Above and Beyond” get attention — it opens commercially in New York on Jan. 30 at the Village East Cinema and is being shown widely in the Jewish community — but she has realistic objectives.
“Our main goal is to get this out to college campuses and try to connect with those [Jews] who may be disconnected from their history,” she said. “Ultimately, we want the world to look at Israel with fresh eyes,” though she added that the focus of the film is on “the human spirit.”
Directed by Roberta Grossman (“Hava Nagila: The Movie” and “Blessed Is the Match: The Life and Death of Hannah Senesh”), the film is anchored by interviews with a handful of the surviving pilots, now in their 90s, who helped create the rag-tag Israeli effort to defend against approaching Arab armies. As the former pilots note in their colorful comments, the air force initially consisted of four small, patched together planes smuggled in from Europe, that managed to stave off a major Egyptian assault in May 1948. Many historians believe that effort, and subsequent forays against enemy positions, saved the Jewish state from being wiped out in its infancy.
Leon Frankel, one of those pilots, told me that “if not for Nancy Spielberg [and her perseverance in making the film] we wouldn’t even be a footnote in the history books.”
“There was no interest” in or awareness of the contribution of the volunteer pilots over the years, he said. “I was never invited to speak about it until about 15 years ago,” when a local group of Christian Evangelists in Minneapolis, where he lives, invited him to share his experiences. Only now, with the film’s opening, is he being sought after by Jewish groups as well.
Frankel, whose memory is still sharp at 91, said he grew up with little awareness of Zionism. He volunteered to help fight for Israel in 1948 because he had been a victim of “virulent anti-Semitism” as a youngster and had seen the depths of the Nazi destruction of European Jewry when he served overseas in the U.S. Air Force. “I feel privileged to have been there at Israel’s birth,” he said.
Advocacy Through Film
The five Israelis at the heart of “Beneath The Helmet: From High School to the Home Front” are shown making the difficult transition from a relatively carefree 18-year-olds to combat soldiers training to protect their country, under constant threat of war.
Given unusual access by the IDF, the film, two years in the making, was produced by Jerusalem U, a non-profit organization dedicated to strengthening the bonds of young Jews to Judaism and Israel, chiefly through documentaries.
Rebecca Shore, who produced the film with her husband, Jerusalem U founder Raphael Shore, explained that it tells the story of what almost every Jewish teen goes through in Israel. “It’s a human interest story, a drama of their hopes and fears,” she said, noting that “no one in the film is over 30.”
“Beneath The Helmet” tracks a female commander; an Ethiopian young man conflicted by his army service because he is unable to fill his role as the family breadwinner; a young Lone Soldier from Switzerland; and a 24-year-old officer in the paratroopers who trains 800 soldiers over the eight months of basic training. The footage includes the arduous 16-hour, 40-mile group trek, with each soldier carrying up to 60 pounds of gear, leading up to their emotional graduation ceremony the following day.
Jerusalem U officials say the film is an apolitical attempt to personalize the story beneath every helmet in the IDF, and they hope to show it at some 200 campuses across the U.S. So far it has been screened at more than a dozen, drawing large crowds, helped by the support of a variety of campus co-sponsoring groups, Jewish and non-Jewish, from black student unions to environmental advocates.
Jacob Baime, executive director of the Israel Campus Coalition, a national network of students, faculty and communal professionals bolstering pro-Israel activities, credits Jerusalem U for helping audiences “see Israel through the eyes of Israelis,” one of the ICC’s main goals. He said Jerusalem U’s strategy of producing pro-Israel films is consistent with research that finds students far more willing to see a film than read a book.
But Isaac Zablocki, director of the JCC Manhattan’s Israel Film Center, worries that both “Beneath The Helmet” and “Above And Beyond,” for all their artistic talents, essentially will “preach to the choir,” reaching limited audiences due to the nature of their subjects. He wonders how many college students, neutral or uninformed on the Mideast conflict, would choose to see a film about Israel’s military, especially one made by an organization called “Jerusalem U.”
Both films, he said, are well produced and “are able to humanize soldiers,” but “they are almost insider films where the emphasis is the message, not the story.”
His advice to pro-Israel filmmakers is to “create change by making movies that others [besides like-minded advocates] would want to see.” And that is best accomplished, he believes, by presenting criticism, not just praise, of the Israeli policies or institutions examined. “A film that criticizes the IDF humanizes it,” Zablocki said, noting the irony of the situation.
He and others in the field praise the approach of a college residency program sponsored by the Schusterman Family Foundation that brings 10 noted Israeli writers, artists, musicians, choreographers or filmmakers to American campuses each year for a semester. They offer courses and speak to student and communal groups about their work. It’s a deeper and more nuanced approach, according to Marge Goldwater, director of arts and cultural programs at the Schusterman Visiting Israeli Arts Program, part of its Israel Institute.
“We’re not about advocacy, we’re Israel education,” she said.
With the anti-Israel BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions) movement on campus gaining momentum, and increasing international dissatisfaction with Jerusalem’s actions, it is important to recognize that Zionist supporters are employing a variety of methods and strategies to boost Israel’s image. And even films aimed primarily at young Jews serve a purpose in educating and inspiring them, not taking their support for granted.
The more the world sees Israel’s reality, with all its complexities, the better — from its fight for survival against all odds in 1948 to its unwavering pledge to protect and serve society with integrity today.
The philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer criticized Judaism for being an optimistic religion. One could make a case for Judaism’s pessimism based on a history of suffering, or even on certain verses from the Tanach, (e.g. Ecclesiastes 7:1: “The day of death is better than the day of birth”). Nonetheless, Schopenhauer was right. Judaism is, in the end, optimistic.
The Torah teaches that the world is created by a God who cares, and therefore our losses are not ultimately meaningless and our struggles are not futile. Even though at times we feel dismayed by the injustice and anguish of the world — just the sort of sentiments to which Ecclesiastes gives voice — that is not the final verdict.
The greatest spirits of Judaism have known darkness. We read about depression in such spiritual titans as Maimonides and Rebbe Nahman. But in the end, each rose to a height that dwarfed the depth. The sin is not sadness, but despair; not pain, but the conviction that pain has the final word. In the evening there will be weeping, writes the Psalmist, but joy will come in the morning.
Rabbi David Wolpe is spiritual leader of Sinai Temple in Los Angeles. Follow him on Twitter: @RabbiWolpe. His latest book, “David: The Divided Heart” (Yale University Press), has recently been published.
Jewish Journeys
Special Supplement
Thinking about your next vacation? Read Jewish Journeys and learn about great destinations for the holidays, weekend escapes, Costa Rican Adventures and more. Click here.
Jewish Journeys 2014
Take that Borat! Next year in Kazakhstan. Nature beckons in Eilat. Hummus in Berlin? The Israelis are here. Aulus-les-Baines and the need to remember.
Get out of the classroom and into the places where Jewish civilization unfolded!
See, hear, taste and touch the rich history of our global community and learn from outstanding Judaic Studies scholar-teachers on one of our extraordinary and meticulously executed experiential study tours or cruises. Our 2015 trips include a behind-the-scenes look at the Judaica collections of England, The Golden Age of Spain, The Jews of France, the Rise of the Rabbis in Classical Israel, and a cruise to Cuba to learn about the Jews of the Americas.
Email: info@jewishlearning4adults.com
Website: www.groupist.com/jewishexplorations
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BBYO PASSPORT
Welcome to BBYO Passport – the leader in travel for Jewish teens and their families of all backgrounds. Summer programs for students in 6th-12th grade are our flagship experiences. We offer cultural travel opportunities across five continents! Be a part of our national March of the Living delegation, and stand with thousands of fellow teens in remembrance and renewal. For graduating high school seniors, launch your next chapter on beyond, our 4-9 month gap year in Israel program. Finally, adults and families are invited, too! Our 8-12 day Israel Family Journey experiences are scheduled throughout the summer and winter break season.
Contact:JULIET BERMAN,
Email: Juliet@bbyopassport.org
Telphone: 202-537-8091
Website: www.bbyopassport.org
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CHAI Missions, Inc
Helping Jewish Communities Worldwide with Immediate Focus On:
CUBA…One CHAI MISSION at a time!
Living with meager provisions under difficult circumstances, the small Cuban Jewish community needs us. Not only will we bring urgently needed items, attend private meetings with community leaders, enjoy the sites and sounds of this colorful island country, we’ll form lifelong friendships!
Two exciting itineraries:
Cuba: East to West, March 5 – 13
Cuba: Western Triangle, April 19 – 27
Our personalized attention to detail and limited group size assures an exceptional experience. There are private group missions available. Deadline for completion of this information is December 2, 2015.
Contact: Randi Simenhoff or Rhonda Slater
Email:CHAImissions@gmail.com
Telephone: 530-618-2424
Website: www.chaimissions.org
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Dan Hotels, Israel
Dan hotels, Israel is the country’s longest established hotel chain with a reputation for providing the very best in hospitality and luxury accommodation. The chain’s flagship is the legendary King David, Jerusalem, voted several times as Israel’s finest hotel, and steeped in history and elegance. While each property has its own unique characteristics, all Dan hotels retain the same high level of attention to detail in providing excellent service to all their visitors. The properties are located in popular tourist areas offering a variety of activities and attractions that will appeal to all members of the family or travel group.
Website: www.danhotels.com
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El Al Israel Airlines
EL AL Israel Airlines is offering an exclusive featuring round-trip Business Class travel on a nonstop flight from New York (JFK/Newark) or Los Angeles plus a three-night, five-star stay at the newly opened Waldorf Astoria Jerusalem or Hilton Tel Aviv.
EL AL business class passengers can take advantage of this special offer that is available for departures January 4-March 15, 2015. Deluxe accommodations are provided at the Waldorf Astoria Jerusalem and a Vista Club Seaview room with access to the Vista Club Lounge at the Tel Aviv Hilton. Daily Israeli buffet breakfast is also included. From New York (JFK/Newark), the air/hotel package is $3,699 and from Los Angeles $4,999. All taxes and the fuel surcharge are included.
The newly opened Waldorf Astoria Jerusalem offers five-star luxury while staying in Jerusalem and bridges regional history and international style. The Tel Aviv Hilton is situated on a cliff overlooking the Mediterranean Sea and is bordered on three sides by Independence Park and overlooks the vibrant marina.
For additional details and to purchase the package, contact your travel agent or call:
Telephone:(800) EL AL SUN or (800-352-5786)
Website: www.elal.com/en/USA/Pages/default.aspx
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Eldan Transportation
As the leading car rental firm in Israel, Eldan offers the most attractive online prices in the industry. With branches throughout Israel, Eldan offers the ultimate car rental experience with the highest standard of service at the lowest rates.
Imagine a place as uplifting for the soul as it is relaxing for the body.
The Elma Arts Complex and Luxury Hotel is that place. Located atop the hills of Zichron Ya'akov, its elevated position allows for breathtaking views of the Mediterranean. The Elma Hotel is itself a work of art. And like the pioneers who built Zichron over a century ago, Elma brings something completely new to the world. Unique among luxury hotels in Israel, it is the vision of arts patron Lily Elstein, and it offers an experience that pampers the body as it nourishes the spirit.
Contact: David Ur
Email: davidu@elmahotel.co.il
Telephone: 972-4-630 0111
Website: http://www.elmahotel.co.il/
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Emunah of America
EMUNAH has been bringing people to Israel since 1968, offering customized family and group trips that have been enjoyed by generations. They understand that each group has its own needs, and they design itineraries to satisfy the most discerning of travelers, securing expert tour guides, the best hotels, and any special requests, all at the best prices. EMUNAH specializes in unforgettable personalized Bar and Bat Mitzvah celebrations in Israel, creating meaningful memories that last a lifetime. In addition, the celebrant can choose to celebrate with children at the EMUNAH children’s residential home. The success of the department is a result of the professional staff, which is renowned to its commitment to delivering the best Israel experience possible.
For more information call the EMUNAH Missions Department at:
Contact: Debbie
Email: Debbie@emunah.org
Telephone: 212-947-5454 ext. 321
Website: www.emunah.org
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Eretz Israel Movement
Providing year round 2-week tours, great for families, Bar & Bat Mitzvah kids, seniors, synagogue groups, day school trips. Excellent English speaking guides traveling with you throughout Israel instilling love of Eretz Yisrael from a biblical historic & modern perspective. Shabbats spent in Yerushalim, 2 kosher meals daily. Create a personalized private group tour [large families, synagogue groups, schools, special missions] or join our regular departures. Based in Jerusalem with northern overnights (summer) & Eilat (winter) with Petra option. Our Passover, Succot & and popular summer departures sell out early. Highlights are: Massada, Dead Sea, Zfat, Galil, Golan Heights, Hevron, Yaffo, coastal area.
Email: EretzIsrael1@gmail.com
Telephone: 212-684-7370
Website: www.Israelmovement.com
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Greener Travel
Jewish group adventure tours, tailored trips and honeymoon trips to Costa Rica.
Greener Travel is an eco-tour company based in DC. We have been leading Jewish group tours and tailoring individual travel packages to Costa Rica for over 5 years. We have refined our offering by visiting the region numerous times and building personal relationships with local adventure providers, hotels, the Jewish community and non-for profit organizations that benefit the communities in the region. Recently, we have started to offer experiences in Alaska, Trinidad & Tobago, Baja California Sur and Maine. We attract travelers, who want to have an authentic, relaxing vacation - yet be off the beaten path at the same time.
Contact: Ami Greener
Email: ami@costaribbean.com
Telephone: 202-599-0655
Website: www.costaribbean.com
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HARRIS’S HAPPY HUNTER HIDEAWAY
Kosher Bread & Breakfast
Harris’s Happy Hunter Hideaway is a cozy Bed & Breakfast where one can relax in the spacious living room and enjoy three freshly prepared koher meals a day under Orthodox Rabbinic Supervision. Regular minyanim during the summer are at the Hunter Synagogue, a historic 100-year-old Shul, 1/10 of a mile from the house. Check our website at www.harrishunter.com
Contact: Neal Harris
Email: nealkharris@gmail.com
Telephone: 518-263-3984
Website: www.harrishunter.com
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The Inbal Jerusalem Hotel
The Inbal Jerusalem Hotel a five-star deluxe resort and spa situated in Jerusalem, overlooking the Old City walls. The 283-room hotel is known for its intimate authentic Jerusalem character, its impeccable world-class service and gourmet cuisine.
For four consecutive years echelon of all hotels around the globe, by TripAdvisor®., the Inbal Jerusalem Hotel has been ranked one of the top rated hotels.
The Inbal Spa and Wellness Center is a recognized member of the International Spa Association that attests to the highest quality service. A wide variety of relaxing massages and treatments are offered, in addition to wet and dry saunas and a semi-Olympic swimming pool, heated and covered during the winter months.
Contact: Barak Roth
Email: barakr@inbalhotel.com
Telephone: +972-2-6756684
Website: www.inbalhotel.com
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Jewish Historical Society of Greater Washington
We explore the unique Jewish heritage of Washington as a hometown and as the nation's capital. We engage and inspire adults and children through our exhibitions, landmark historic 1876 synagogue, public programs, and educational initiatives. Offerings include private and public walking tours of Jewish Downtown Washington, Old Town Alexandria, Sites at Arlington National Cemetery, and Union Terminal Market.
Contact: Samantha Bass, Program Coordinator
Email: sbass@jhsgw.org
Telephone: 202-789-0900
Website: www.jhsgw.org
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Jewish Heritage Travel
Jewish Heritage Travel, a program of the Museum of Jewish Heritage in New York City, is dedicated to trips with a focus on content while enjoying deluxe accommodations and traveling in comfort. All our trips combine in-depth exploration of Jewish history and culture; accompanying, dynamic scholars; important local sites of interest; striking countryside; luxury accommodations; and the company of like-minded travelers. From the places you will visit, to the places you will sleep, from our experienced guides to our superb scholars, we create an atmosphere of ease and camaraderie combined with in-depth educational content.
Email: info@jhtravel.org
Telephone: 845-256-0197
Website: JHTRAVEL.org
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Jewish National Fund
Alternative Spring Break in Israel
ASB (Ages 18-30) trips leave February 28, March 7, 14, 22, 2015
Young Professionals/Post College (Ages 22-30) March 14, 2015
Want to do something good, fun and totally cool? Join JNF for an unforgettable week volunteering in Israel. JNF’s Alternative Spring Break in Israel is a FREE trip for Jewish college students and young adults. This exciting weeklong adventure allows participants to make a personal impact in Israel. This year's volunteering will take place both in the North of Israel and in the Negev Desert. Participants are responsible for raising a minimum of $1,500, using an easy online program to communicate by email to family and friends for the trip. Monies raised go towards JNF’s Blueprint Negev campaign (for trip to Israel’s south), and to Operation Carmel Renewal (for trip to Israel’s north). Blueprint Negev supports Israel’s newest generation of pioneers in developing, inhabiting and preserving the Negev Desert, and Operation Carmel Renewal helps to rebuild Northern Israel from the devastating December 2010 fire. Both trips include opportunities to get your hands dirty and help out, meet people who are changing the world, and reflect on the Jewish service experience. For more details
Email: education@jnf.org
Telephone: 212-879-9305
Website: www.jnf.org
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Jewish National Fund
JNF Queen of Sheba Mission to Israel: March 15–22, 2015
JNF Queen of Sheba Mission to Israel: March See and feel Israel as you connect with the land and people. This is a once-in-a-lifetime experience; a unique and unforgettable trip to Israel for women only–no husbands, no boyfriends–just women, experiencing life as our Israeli sisters do. Meet a diverse group of Israeli women including a Bedouin entrepreneur, bereaved mother, IDF soldiers, top Israeli chef, wine expert, students, artists and more. Travel north along the scenic coastal route, visit vibrant Tel Aviv, experience Jerusalem’s multi-layered history come alive and journey through the Western Galilee and taste the food and wine of the Carmel Mountains. Relax and pamper yourself with spa treatments at Mitzpe Hayamim Hotel & Spa. Shop and dine in Jaffa and visit the beach in Tel Aviv for morning yoga. Visit JNF’s projects and partners in Northern Israel - including Alexander Muss High School in Israel, Lotem, Akko Visitor Center, and the Hula Valley. Explore Jerusalem’s Machane Yehuda Market, Ammunition Hill, the 9/11 Memorial and American Independence Park. Optional tours to Masada, the Dead Sea or the Israel Museum are also available. Call us today at 877-JNF-TOUR.
Email: customerservice@jnf.org
Telephone: 212-879-9305
Website: www.jnf.org
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Jewish National Fund
JNF Sunshine Mission to Israel: May 27–June 4, 2015
Jewish National Fund welcomes active 55+ adults to experience a unique up close and personal 9-day excursion through Israel with Emmy® Award–winning celebrity Hal Linden. JNF’s Sunshine Mission will put magic in your life as you follow the trail of history and leadership, from the War of Independence through today’s modern Israel; enjoy home hospitality with Israelis — hear them share their personal stories of heroism, leadership, and everyday life. Travel through history in the Old City of Jerusalem and witness its multi-layered history first-hand. Explore modern Tel Aviv, it’s Israel’s vibrant city on the Mediterranean coast. Journey along Israel’s scenic shoreline and taste the food and wine of the Western Galilee. Tour the Golan Heights, one of Israel’s most beautiful regions and discover its strategic importance. Take a cable car ride to Masada’s summit and float in the waters of the Dead Sea. Witness the Negev desert and see Abraham’s Well in Be’er Sheva. Visit the port city of Haifa, the magnificent Bahai Gardens and nearby German colony. Attend insider briefings by top Israeli newsmakers, experts and leaders. The Sunshine Mission will be life - changing. Call us today at 877-JNF-TOUR.
Email: customerservice@jnf.org
Telephone: 212-879-9305
Website: www.jnf.org
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Jewish National Fund
JNF Young Professionals Mission to Israel for singles ages 30-45:
July 12 - July 18, 2015
Join other Jewish singles and experience the sights, sounds, flavors and spirit of Israel on a unique and unforgettable journey. As you explore the country from north to south, watch as Jerusalem’s multi-layered history comes alive before your eyes. Discover the trendy neighborhoods of Tel Aviv, Israel’s largest and most vibrant city on the Mediterranean coast. Journey through the picturesque Negev Desert and travel north along the scenic route to the Galilee. Gaze on the sunrise during a yoga class on the beach, take an exciting jeep ride through the magnificent Golan Heights and go for a night swim under the stars. Explore the country’s thriving food, wine and culinary scene, and tour local markets and taste some great vintages at award-winning vineyards. Attend insider briefings by top Israeli newsmakers, experts and opinion leaders. Enjoy Israel’s world-famous nightlife, indulge in optional spa treatments and enjoy a special and memorable Shabbat experience in the Holy Land. Witness the amazing transformation of the Negev and Galilee and see Jewish National Fund’s work come alive. Call us today at 877-JNF-TOUR.
Email: customerservice@jnf.org
Telephone: 212-879-9305
Website: www.jnf.org
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JUSTIFI
(Teen, College and Young Professional Leadership Programs) Justifi: Jewish Social Justice. This is a life-changing trip for Jewish Idealists. Experience Thailand, Nicaragua, South Africa, and Peru with like-minded peers and make YOUR impact! Incredible trips for college students, young professionals, and teens coming this Summer! Safe and professional international programs since 2010. Fresh, local kosher cuisine provided, fully welcoming of secular and observant participants! Justifi.org for more information, apply today!
Contact: Steve Marcinuk
Email: office@justifi.org
Telephone: 347 627 0097
Website: www.justifi.org
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Kinar Galilee Hotel
A little slice of heaven on the shores of the Sea of Galilee, the Kinar Galilee Hotel and Resort is the perfect “home base” for families and couples seeking to explore northern Israel, the ideal destination for those seeking a vacation brimming with deep history and natural beauty. Book a stay at the Kinar to relax in nature or spend time with loved ones – all in a religious, respectful and kosher environment. Enjoy the on-site Olympic-sized pool, beach, Jacuzzi, sauna and fully equipped gym. Kinar Galilee is accommodating to both Shabbat and festivals, and the gourmet-dining hall only offers the highest quality kosher food.
Contact: Mimi Yaron
Email: kinaroffice@kinar.co.il
Telephone: 04-673-8822
Website: www.kinar.co.il
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Kosher Casas, LLC
Kosher Casas is a new and unique travel company for those who keep kosher and are tired of schlepping suitcases of food and cookware on each vacation. The company was born out of our own personal experiences as modern Orthodox Jews who found vacation options limiting because of kashrut restrictions. Thinking that there must be a better way to travel than having to pack suitcases of food and cookware for each vacation--and being restricted by where we could travel based on the availability of kosher food--we decided to start a company that brings the food, dishes, pots and pans to the travelers.
Contact: Bryna Landes
Email: bryna@koshercasas.com
Phone: 914-278-9454
Website: www.koshercasas.com
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KOSHERICA, LLC
Kosher cruises and hotel programs offering 5- star gourmet kosher cuisine to destinations all over the world. We have cruises to exotic destinations all over the world and hotel programs in luxury resorts in Florida, the Bahamas and British Columbia.
Contact: Hilit Shifman
Email: 613TRAVEL@gmail.com
Telephone: 877-724-5567 or 305-695-2700
Website: www.Kosherica.com
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Lasko Kosher Getaways
Delighting the International Jewish Community for 27 years, LASKO Kosher Getaways continues to offer their luxurious Passover program at the famed Fontainebleau, Miami Beach. Being among the finest oceanfront resorts in the United States with the outstanding gourmet cuisine of RAM Catering. BRAND NEW for Passover 2015: Sheraton Lake Buena Vista Resort, Orlando- a Lasko Magical Experience! Your family can enjoy all the Lasko hands-on service and exceptional programming at affordable rates with deluxe rooms and family suites, plus special Disney World discounts and exceptional food by New Star Caterers. Both locations offer accredited CME programs and Ashkenaz & Sephardic Minyanim.
Contact: Arlene Lasko
Telephone: 954-251-1940
Fax: 954-399-8589
3100 North 29th Court #100
Hollywood, FL 33020
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Leisure Time Tours
Leisure Time Tours has been recognized for almost 60 years as the leader in Glatt Kosher Travel. The operation of Glatt Kosher Pesach resorts and hotels is a highly specialized field. Kosher Passover hotels and Kosher Passover resorts have now become a fixture of Passover travel and trips. This year we will be offering Kosher for Pesach luxury holiday vacations in Miami Beach, Palm Beach, Boca Raton in Florida, Phoenix Arizona, New York, Italy in Europe for the Jewish and Orthodox market.
Contact: Donna Berk
Email: Donnab@leisurett.com
Telephone: 718-528-0700
Website: www.leisuretimetours.com
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Lotus Tours, Ltd.
Journeys through Jewish eyes™ is the theme of our deluxe, kosher, escorted, shomer Shabbat group tours to China, Hong Kong, India, Japan and Southeast Asia. In addition to all the ‘must see’ sights such as the Great Wall, the Ginza, Taj Mahal, Saigon and more, you’ll see them from a Jewish perspective- like having 2 tours in 1. Portions tax deductible to support the endangered Jewish communities on the periphery of the Diaspora.
Email: info@lotustours.us
Website: www.jewisheyes.com
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Mark David Hospitality | Passover 2015
Celebrate Passover in style at our two exclusive destinations - The Ritz-Carlton Golf Resort in Naples & The Ritz-Carlton Dove Mountain in Arizona. With exclusive occupancy of the Ritz-Carlton Golf Resort, Naples, MD Passover utilizes every experiential amenity the Five–Star premises has to offer including access to the beach at The Ritz–Carlton, Naples, a state of the art spa, the award winning Tiburon golf course, tennis courts and a heated pool for the whole family.
Presented by renowned Ritz-Carlton chefs, the various culinary experiences include themed ballroom dinners, an a-la-carte poolside menu, beachfront barbeque service; daily treats in the lobby lounge, and a round-the-clock Candyland.
MD Kids offers a fully engaging and interactive day camp program led by youth director Andrew Leibowitz in conjunction with Ritz-Carlton personnel. MD Kids offers a fully packed daily schedule including arts and crafts, lessons and sing-alongs with esteemed entertainers and scholars in residence, and mock Seder celebration, as well as an interactive game and media room.
Each year MD Passover works hard to bring in world-class entertainment, as well as thought-provoking daily lectures from inspiring scholars in residence. We are excited to welcome back esteemed Chief Rabbi of the Commonwealth, Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis, for another amazing Passover.
Contact: Moshe David
Email: info@markdavidhospitality.com
Phone: 212.579.7700
Website: www.markdavidhospitality.com
332 East 86th Street
NY, NY 10028
Phone 212.579.7700
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Margaret Morse Tours Inc.
Margaret Morse Tours, family owned and operated since 1980, is known for offering the finest tours to Israel for adults only, families, and Bar and Bat Mitzvah. A unique trip of a lifetime that we have designed carefully from beginning to end to provide you with the most meaningful experience in Eretz Israel!
Contact: Robyn Morse O’Keefe
Email: info@margaretmorsetours.com
Telephone: 800-327-3191
Website: www.margaretmorsetours.com
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Majestic Retreats
Majestic Retreats will surround you with an elegant ambience and unrivaled care and courtesy this Passover 2015, in the AAA 4-Diamond, Westin Beach Resort & Spa in Fort Lauderdale, an upscale and sophisticated property, located on the Beach of the Atlantic Ocean. The luxurious and elegant accommodations will allow us to provide you with everything you need to enhance your stay in a completely Kosher-for-Passover experience. Our impeccable service and attention to detail will create an enriching and unforgettable Passover experience for you and our family.
Email: Info@majesticretreats.com
Telephone: 718-969-9100
Website: www.majesticretreats.com
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Meira Goren: Prestige travel & tourism
Whether you're seeking rugged adventure, history and culture, nature, or panoramic vistas, Meira Goren: Prestige travel & tourism has the right vacation for you. For the past 20 years, Meira Goren has been providing ideal, family-oriented boutique vacations for the religious community in Israel and worldwide. Our projects offer a bit of everything and include stays at comfortable and deluxe hotels, resorts and inns. Explore a new destination and infuse the trip with class, gourmet cuisine and exclusive tours. Join Meira Goren in creating amazing memories and experiencing an out-of-the-box trip of a lifetime.
Contact: Meira Goren
Email: Meira@gorentours.co.il
Phone: +972-9-7742847
Website: www.gorentours.co.il
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Mendy Vim’s Holidays
Indulge in a heavenly mineral water soak this Passover, while staying at an historic hotel tucked away inside a State park. Under 3 hours from the Lincoln Tunnel, Mendy Vim's Holidays presents the Gideon Putnam Resort in Saratoga Springs, NY. WIth Spa, golf, skiing, +40 years of outstanding Passover hotel programs, it's sure to be a unique Passover destination.
Email: mendy@vimsholidays.com
Website: www.vimsholidays.com
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Passover Kosher Cruises Passover Kosher Cruises
Join us for our 14th Annual Passover Kosher Cruise sailing from Tampa, FL March 29th to April 12, 2015. Spend 15 Days/14 Nights on the Holland America Line - Ms Ryndam. We offer a Conservative Passover experience with our own Gourmet Caterer, Rabbi, Cantor, Private Seders, Daily Prayer Services, Program of Lectures and Special Events, Full Escorted and Much More!
Contact: Lauren Beardsley
Email: info@passoverkoshercruises.com
Telephone: 888-745-6951 or 561-737-2991
Website: www.PassoverKosherCruises.com
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PEARLSTONE CENTER / PESACH AT PEARLSTONE
Now in its 11th year, Pesach at Pearlstone 2015 continues to engage its guests with strong traditional Pesach Seders and davening mixed with an experience not found at resort hotels. Star-K gourmet fare, returning Scholars in Residence, working farm, multi-generational programming and social activities, kids’ Day Camp, Chol HaMoed day trips, and many other unique amenities make us stand out from the rest.
Contact: LAURA LEVENTHAL, PESACH PROGRAM COORDINATOR
Email: PESACH@PEARLSTONECENTER.ORG
Telephone: 410-500-5375
Website: www.pearlstonecenter.org
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Protexsia Plus+
(Event & Trip Planning In Israel)
We are an international simcha, event & trip planners in Israel. We arrange and organize every aspect of one’s trip and simcha in Israel.
Contact: Shari Alter
Email: SHARI@PROTEXSIAPLUS.COM
Telephone: 973-715-813
Website: www.protexsia.com
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RAMADA JERUSALEM HOTEL
The affordable luxury hotel with recently renovated large elegantly appointed rooms and public areas, with delicious cuisine (non Gebrochts for Passover). There is also year round Glatt Mehadrin certificate under the Badatz Rabbinate of Jerusalem and the Orthodox Union.Shmita Le Humrah,free entrance for guests all year round to the indoor pool and fully equipped health club, plus outdoor pool and children's pool in the summer. The hotel has Free WIFI for one applinace per room. There are special packages for holidays and special rates for children.
Free onsite parking, tennis courts, various functionroooms includinga 1,000 square meter grand ballroom, perfect for a wedding or any simcha. The hotel has a dairy coffee shop, ala carte meat restaurant, dining rooms and a full time synagogue.
Contact: Mr. Gerry Budwig
Email: gerry@herzlhotel.com
Telephone: 972 2 6599999
Website: www.ramada.com
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Shorashim
Shorashim-Israel with Israelis is a widely recognized non-profit organization that offers Taglit-Birthright Israel trips. Through Shorashim’s award-winning itineraries, participants visit amazing sites and have the time of their lives, all while learning from fun and experienced staff. You only get to experience this free trip of a lifetime once, so make sure to go with Shorashim!
Contact: Zach Pellish
Email: info@shorashim.org
Telephone: (312) 267-0677
Website: www.israelwithisraelis.com
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Shorashim
Shorashim is a widely recognized non-profit organization dedicated to building bridges between American and Israeli Jews. Our high school summer program gives teens the opportunity to spend three weeks exploring Israel with Israeli teens through hiking, rappelling, snorkeling, climbing Masada, floating in the Dead Sea, visiting the Jerusalem, and much more, with the option to add an eye-opening excursion to Poland.
Contact: Rachel Kesner
Email: rachel@shorashim.org
Telephone: 312-267-0677
Website: www.shorashim.org
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TRAVELJULES
TRAVEL Companions and Personal Assistants. Luxury travel for seniors & other adventurers! Pick up anywhere in the United States and Israel. Serving individuals, groups, family offices and travel agencies. Travel arrangements tailored to your wishes. Reputable, vetted, friendly, skilled travel companions. Julie Haskovitz (owner) works meticulously and creatively to fulfill your travel goals. Israel, Florida, Weddings, Bar Mitzvahs, Vacations, You-Name-It!
Contact: Julie Haskovitz
Email: jhTraveljules@gmail.com
Telephone: 612-616-9195
Website: www.traveljules.com
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Torah in Motion
Description of services:
Join Torah in Motion for our fifth summer of Journeys though Jewish History to Alluring Spain, Spectacular Italy, Central Europe, Poland and an African Safari. Led by Drs. Marc Shapiro, Shalom Berger or Rabbi Natan Slifkin these trips offer luxury hotels in prime locations, strictly kosher food and expert local tour guides. Inspiring. Informative. A most unique and unforgettable experience!
Contact: Rabbi Jay Kelman
Email: rabbijay@torahinmotion.org
Phone: 416-633-5700 or 866-633-5770
Website: www.torahinmotion.org
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UJA-Federation of New York
Conga in Cuba, belly dancing in Morocco, or the troika in St. Petersburg … whatever you, UJA-Federation has a trip after your own heart. Travel to Israel and other countries with friends and family, or travel on your own and make new friends. Explore UJA-Federation's work and learn firsthand the impact of your generosity in the former Soviet Union, Israel, Latin America, and other places around the world. Whatever your interests, UJA-Federation has a trip for you. For more information, contact the Missions Department at missions@ujafedny.org
Telephone: 212.836.1761
Website: www.ujafedny.org/trips
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VIP RAM Destinations
VIP Ram Destinations is the leading luxury Passover Tour operator. This year we will be hosting Passover at the Trump National Doral Miami. The entire hotel has been transformed into the finest Golf resort in the United States and we are proud to have Ram Caterers and Danziger Caterers offering the finest Passover cuisine along with the Trump standards of service. The programming will certainly match the intensity and luxury of what the Trump brand has come to stand for.
Contact: Jeremy Goldfeder
Email: Jeremy@ramny.com
Telephone: 516-331-4000
Website: www.viprampassover.com
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Waldorf Astoria Jerusalem
Special Passover 2015 package for 8 nights stay April 3-11, 2015 including 6 festive meals. Package prices starts from $4,052 per person in double deluxe room. "Early Birds promotion" for bookings made till February 1 2015 a 10% discount is granted on package rates. Booking must be secured with 2 nights deposit nonrefundable after February 1 2015. The hotel has the right to stop selling the package without prior notice. For reservations please contact: Jrs.res@waldorfastoria.com
Contact: Mr. Gil Drory – Reservations and revenue manager
Email: gil.drory@waldorfastoria.com
Telephone: 972-2-5423313
Website: www.waldorfastoria.com/jerusalem
ich lists hotels, tour operators, heritage tours, trips to the Far East, missions to Israel and tons more!
What does it mean for Jewish travel if everyone makes aliyah?
I ask this question rhetorically, of course. No matter how charged the rhetoric or how tense the security situation, some Jews will always feel a stronger pull to their native or adopted territory — to the brilliance of South African sunshine or, yes, the warm, crisp baguettes and tidy green parks of the Paris Marais. And the solidity of our American Jewish community is reassuring.
But the furor over Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s suggestion that French Jews, in the wake of the recent Paris terror attacks, ought to consider relocating to the Jewish homeland prompted me to consider anew the value of diaspora Jewish communities — and our role, as Jewish travelers, in supporting and appreciating them.
In a lot of places, you have to look hard for the Jews. You don’t have to look very hard at all for the anti-Semitism, though; it is sprayed upon walls in blood-red graffiti paint, sputtered from the mouths of bus drivers and casual acquaintances who assume their interlocutors are not Jewish, promulgated on Facebook pages and even in magazines at a corner kiosk.
But the Jews are there — still. While vast majorities have emigrated to America, Canada or Israel, Jewish communities maintain their distinctive presences around the globe.
These days, I usually have to call in advance if I want to visit the local synagogue, where pews are typically less than half-full even on holidays. But there is usually a warmly proffered Shabbat meal, and a proud group of locals eager to share what makes their tiny corner of the Jewish diaspora unique — be it guava cake for the Jamaican Kiddush or chicken baked with olives in a Catalan village.
The Jewish story, as of the 21st century, is in no small part a tortuous narrative of displacement and exile. To be sure, it is also a story of joyous rebirth, of hardscrabble success on pioneer shores, of achievement and integration and cultural triumph.
But to write about Jewish travel means to revisit — over and over again, from Thessaloniki to Samarkand — the sites of Jewish suffering, persecution and demise. Jewish travel is far more than an itinerary of loss, just as travel is much more than the accumulated detritus of human history.
Still, in large European cities and small North African islands, Central Asian villages and Latin American capitals, a similar narrative emerges. Here there was a ghetto, where Jews were herded. Over there was a mikvah, but the site has grown over with weeds since the last Jews fled. In this century, the Jews were expelled; in that era, there was an exodus to a more favorable regime; at one time, there were nearly a dozen working synagogues. Now there is one, or maybe none, only a mournful cemetery or — in the best case — a small museum to mark where Jews once lived.
So much of Jewish travel is heritage travel. And this is important, not only for the preservation of memory and deepening of primal connections, but also for the way such travel brings a visible Jewish presence — in the form of tourists — to places that rarely encounter Jews. In a world of virtual realities, live human contact is a powerful thing.
But it is infinitely more satisfying to visit a living Jewish community, however small and tenuous, than to bear witness to the vestiges of a dead one. France is a particularly rich example: In the heart of Europe, Jews are a towering intellectual and cultural presence, an integral part of the historical fabric, both in the arrondissements of Paris and the outposts of empire.
None of this is to deny the value of having a Jewish homeland to settle in; the critical importance of immigration for Israel; nor the very real compromises — in quality of life, opportunity and security — that Jews who live in small, relatively remote communities often make. And whether by tradition or necessity, Jews are resourceful and migratory enough that we will continue to encounter each other in some of the world’s far-flung places.
For the traveler, these are encounters to be cherished. Most of Bulgaria’s Jews immigrated to Israel after World War II — but not everybody, and the Chanukah candles flickering from windows were a lovely sight on my recent visit to Sofia.
And amid the ubiquity of Catholicism in the Spanish urban landscape, it was heartening to walk into a Barcelona café where the windows were lettered in Hebrew, and to share the New World stories that had brought a generation of Venezuelan Jews back to Iberia.
Like the bakeries and butcheries of Paris’ Marais quarter, each of these communities offers flavors, traditions and stories that cannot be found elsewhere. They are the stories that keep this Jewish traveler on the move.
Perfect for afternoon snacking with coffee or tea. Or dessert. Breakfast. Midnight snack ... Ronnie Fein/JW
FOOD & WINE
A Persimmon Primer
There are several varieties of persimmon, all delicious.
Ronnie Fein - Special To The Jewish Week
Perfect for afternoon snacking with coffee or tea. Or dessert. Breakfast. Midnight snack ... Ronnie Fein/JW
Persimmons are the most delightful fruits you may have never heard of. They are sweet, firm and versatile, and this time of year, you can treat yourself and support the state of Israel at the same time, because Israel produces wonderful persimmons and they are on supermarket shelves now.
Israel’s are the Fuyu variety; these look like flat-ended tomatoes; they’re usually yellowish, but can veer toward orange. This is a firm, crisp fruit, seedless, and usually rock-hard at the store (like pears, they ripen after being harvested). You can eat it, skin and all, like you would an apple. Or slice or cube it for salad. Bonus: You can prepare this fruit ahead because it doesn’t oxidize. It pairs nicely with roasted beets, soft lettuces such as Bibb and works well into a salsa (chopped and mixed with scallion, chili pepper, olive oil, chopped mint and lime juice). Fuyus are also fine for cobbler and pie.
Hachiyas are the other major variety. They are deep orange and have an elongated shape. They start out crisp, but you can’t eat them at that point because they are too tart and astringent. The flesh ripens almost to custardy-soft and tastes gloriously sweet. This persimmon is perfect for puddings, custards, ice cream and quick breads, or, when blended with yogurt, into a delicious smoothie.
My local market also sold Chocolate Persimmons, so-named because the inside flesh is brown, the kind of brown you normally associate with fruit that’s past its prime. But it isn’t; the chocolate color tells you it’s perfectly tender and ripe for eating out of hand, with a sweet flesh meant only for snacking, not competing with other ingredients in a recipe. On the other hand, you can mix mashed chocolate persimmon with sweetened whipped cream for an incredibly easy-to-prepare, rich and fabulous fruit “fool.”
With this embarrassment of riches, I had a bit of a persimmon fest this week, and I offer to you one of my most delicious experiments. It’s a coffee cake topped with lemon-infused chopped Fuyus and coated with sweet, oat-based streusel. It’s nice for dessert or snacking with afternoon tea or coffee.
European Jews Seen Increasingly Questioning Future
In wake of Paris attacks, and arrest of jihadis in Belgium, fears over whether fabric of Jewish life will irreparably fray.
Steve Lipman
Staff Writer
Soldiers patrol in Antwerp, Belgium, home to many Orthodox Jews in the city’s diamond industry. Getty Images
Even as a rabbi in Brussels called for Jews there to arm themselves and police in Belgium stepped up security around Jewish sites, Jews across Western Europe this week are increasingly asking a frightening question: Is Jewish life still viable on the continent?
The question is being asked everywhere Jews gather: at a Jewish wedding in Paris, inside a synagogue guarded by French soldiers, and at a Brussels day school just reopened following last week’s police raid against jihadis suspected of plotting a terror attack.
“You hear people talk,” Simone Rodan-Benzaquen, director of the American Jewish Committee’s office in Paris, told The Jewish Week. “‘Should we leave? Am I a responsible parent to have my kids continue here?’ I don’t know any Jew who does not ask that question.”
The director of the AJC’s Transatlantic Institute in Brussels, Daniel Schwammenthal, put the fear Jews are feeling — and the possibility of mass aliyah — in even starker terms: “Absolutely — I absolutely see this as a threat,” he said. “The future of European Jews is being decided.”
As anti-Semitic incidents have increased in recent years, European Jews have shown a growing interest in making aliyah or settling in safer lands, especially during this summer’s Israeli war against Hamas terrorists in Gaza. But in the wake of the murder of four Jews at a Paris kosher market (which followed by two days the slaying of 12 in the Charlie Hebdo attack) and of the arrests in Brussels (and the eastern industrial city of Verviers), Jews throughout Europe feel more under attack and are weighing their future there, leaders said.
European Jews now “talk to each other more about their future,” said Serge Cswagenbaum, secretary general of the European Jewish Congress. He said EJC leaders have conducted an ongoing dialogue with prominent leaders of the Islamic community in France, but conceded that these leaders hold little influence over the young, radical members of the Muslim community who are largely responsible for terrorist attacks.
Jewish institutions have been increasing security for awhile in response to years of anti-Semitic attacks, said Malcolm Hoenlein, executive vice chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations.
“I don’t think this is a sudden change — this is cumulative,” he said. While “day-to-day [anti-Semitic] incidents don’t get the visibility,” he said, the killings at the Hyper Cacher kosher supermarket “brought this to a high level of visibility. It was the bubble bursting.”
Abraham Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League agreed. “The attacks on Jews in France represent more of a rising tide than a sea change,” said. “There is a growing sense of vulnerability and insecurity in Jewish communities throughout Europe.”
Rodan-Benzaquen of the American Jewish Committee, agreed. “It’s a situation that has deteriorated over the last 15 years,” she said. She called the 2012 terrorist attack at a Jewish school in Toulouse — in which a teacher and three children were murdered — the “turning point” for French Jewry. Last week’s attack magnified the change.
“We see the same kind of [anti-Semitic] phenomenon all over Europe,” she added. “France is the worst.”
There is also a changing perception among American Jews of their French counterparts: the growing number of solidarity missions made to France’s Jewish communities, as was the case years ago to Iron Bloc countries. Within the last week, visitors to Paris included Rabbi Yehuda Sarna of New York University, Rabbi Avi Weiss and Rabba Sara Hurwitz of the Hebrew Institute of Riverdale, Rabbi Adam Scheier of Montreal’s Congregation Shaar Hashomayim, and New York Mayor Bill de Blasio.
In response, the European Jewish Congress this week urged Belgium and other European Union members to increase security around Jewish institutions, and to establish a continental-wide position — a so-called anti-Semitism czar — to deal with the threat against the Jewish community.
What actions do Jewish communities expect from their governments? Unified action against terrorism, better intelligence work, programs to prevent the radicalization of Muslims in prison, tolerance education in public schools, better protection of Jewish sites, better-enforced laws against hate speech on the Internet, measures to keep leaders of radical Islamic terrorism groups out of Europe and to keep them from preaching in mosques and teaching in Muslim schools, the Jewish leaders who talked with The Jewish Week said.
Schwammenthal said he’s looking for “more pubic gestures and visible outrage” from government officials when anti-Semitic attacks take place. “I would like to see this from every politician in Europe — outrage from the heart, and not dry token words of support.”
In the Jewish area of Antwerp, where roughly 16,000 Jews live, the majority of them chasids working in the diamond business, soldiers stood guard this week. In secular Brussels, security professionals from around Europe took part in a drill for a scenario in which a car bomb explodes outside a synagogue; and Jewish leaders there opposed the call by some members of the community to apply for gun permits “for the essential protection of their communities.”
“It’s a very small minority” of Belgian Jews who are interested in arming themselves, said Cswagenbaum. “I can understand it. I don’t accept it.” Security, he said, should be in the hands of the army or police.
Julien Klener, who heads Belgium’s Jewish umbrella organization, said that while “there is no panic” among Belgian Jews, there are more people who are considering leaving. “It is clear that after what happened in Brussels … questions are asked about individual futures,” said Klener, who is president of the Consistoire Central Israèlite de Belgique. “I know some Jews who would settle in Sarasota or the nice parts of Florida, or in Canada. The levels of security inquiries are much higher.”
“French Jews are undoubtedly living in fear, knowing that this could happen again, anywhere and at any time,” said Stella Amar-Cohen, a Jew from western France who has lived in Manhattan for a decade. “Some people have refrained from going to shul or have gone without children, but slowly regular life is resuming. Some secular people who don’t typically go to shul went after the events, to show unity and solidarity with the rest of the community.”
Today’s Jewish communities in Western Europe cannot be considered in danger of extinction they were under the Third Reich, or as the Jewish communities of Eastern Europe were during communist times, because these countries’ contemporary governments are protective of Jewish interests and share Jews’ fear of radical Muslims, Jewish leaders said. But there is a new danger, enough Jews will emigrate or drop out of Jewish life to weaken the tenor of the Jewish community.
“It’s not that [Jews] feel insecure. They are insecure,” Schwammenthal said.
He and Rodan-Benzaquen last summer wrote an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal titled “Do Jews Have a Future in Europe?”
Their answer: maybe not.
“Many in the Jewish community, perhaps for the first time since they rebuilt their homes in Europe after the Holocaust, fear once again for their security and future,” they wrote.
In England, where police expressed “heightened concern” about a possible terrorist attack on Jews, a survey found that one-quarter of British Jews have considered leaving the country. In Germany, where two suspected jihadis were arrested last week and 13 homes were raided this week, Abraham Lehrer, vice president of the umbrella organization of Jews in Germany, declared that “If Jews [anywhere] are threatened, then we all are threatened.”
The World Without Nazism organization was to release on Wednesday a 1,000-page report, “White Papers of Hate,” on the rise of neo-Nazi movements, radical nationalism and human rights violations in 19 European countries.
“The ‘White Papers of Hate’ was created to track manifestations of hate so leaders properly respond to this escalating problem,” Valery Engel, the organization’s first vice president, said in a statement. “We cannot wait for the next Charlie Hebdo, the next synagogue bombing or the next hate-fueled attack.”
For many European Jews, the next year will likely determine if they stay or if they go.
“If we find ourselves in exactly the same situation a year from now, I don’t see how Jews can continue to feel comfortable here,” Rodan-Benzaquen said.
Jewish schools in Brussels reopened this week, but many parents chose to keep their children at home for at least another day. “We’ve talked to a lot of parents” who were nervous about safety at school, said Schwammenthal.
After keeping his children out of their Jewish school in Brussels for a day, he let them go back. He said he had “no confidence” in his decision because the police “haven’t arrested everybody” who would commit terrorist attacks against Jews. But said he had little choice.
“We can’t keep our kids out of school [forever],” Schwammenthal said. “There is, of course, no 100 percent security.”
Ex-New Yorker to take on rabbinic roles in Modern Orthodox community; local experts agree that ‘progress there means progress here.’
Hannah Dreyfus
Staff Writer
New York City native Jennie Rosenfeld. Courtesy of Kruter Photography.
At age 11, Jennie Rosenfeld, originally from Riverdale, decided to attend daily prayer services, an obligation only for men according to traditional Jewish law. She was often the only girl there.
“There were times I prayed in the kitchen,” said Rosenfeld, a student in a five-year ordination program in Jerusalem, in a phone interview with The Jewish Week from Jerusalem. “The community has come a long way since then.”
Today, Rosenfeld serves as the first female spiritual leader to jointly lead an Orthodox community in Israel. Though not assigned the title rabbi, Rosenfeld works alongside Rabbi Shlomo Riskin, Efrat’s municipal chief rabbi, providing guidance, expertise in Jewish law and a voice of religious authority to community members. Rabbi Riskin led Lincoln Square Synagogue in New York to prominence in the 1970s and ’80s. His community in Efrat is seen as fashioned in Rabbi Riskin’s Modern Orthodox image.
Though appointed in the fall, Rosenfeld’s post was officially announced last week. She will be giving her inaugural lecture on Feb. 2.
According to Rabbi Riskin, there has been no prior appointment of this nature in Israel to date. “There’s a strong need for women’s halachic and spiritual leadership,” said Rabbi Riskin, who handpicked Rosenfeld for the role. “Frankly, I jumped at the opportunity to work with her.”
Rosenfeld is being referred to as a manhiga ruchanit, or spiritual adviser.
In the U.S., feminist Jewish leaders agree that the appointment marks an important turning point for Orthodox ritual life.
Blu Greenberg, founder of the Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance referred to Rosenberg’s appointment as “another milestone in the historic journey of Orthodox Israeli women to full communal religious leadership.”
“Over the course of that journey, American and Israeli Orthodoxy have marched in tandem, and each step forward enlarges and enriches the entire enterprise,” she wrote in an email.
“The reality of women’s leadership in America mirrors what happens in Israel,” said Rabbi Jeffrey Fox, head of Yeshivat Maharat, the first Orthodox program in America to ordain women as clergy. He refereed to the mutual influence between Israel and America as “cross pollination.”
“Progress there means progress here,” he said.
Rabbi Fox noted that last year, Yeshivat Maharat graduates had more job offers than they could fill.
“These women can do the job no matter what they’re called,” he said, referring to the touchy question of what title to use for female spiritual leaders, if not rabbi. “We’ve stayed away from the issue over the last couple years. As long as they’re getting jobs, it doesn’t matter what they’re called,” he said.
The phenomenon of female Orthodox representation is not relegated to the religious level, said Rabbi Asher Lopatin, president of Yeshivat Chovevei Torah, the only rabbinical school in the U.S. that is Open Orthodox, a liberal offshoot of the wider Modern Orthodox movement. Rabbi Lopatin was a recent panelist on the topic of women’s roles and rabbinic authority at JOFA’s annual conference.
“This shift is also happening on a lay level within the chief rabbinate,” said Rabbi Lopatin — earlier this year several women were appointed to the board of the Beis Din of America, the largest Orthodox rabbinical court. “If half of the congregants are women, clergymen should be women,” he said.
Rabba Sara Hurwitz, the first female member of the clergy to receive Orthodox ordination in the U.S., regards the appointment as the “natural next step” in a shifting communal landscape.
“Communities in America have already discovered that they can’t function without female spiritual leadership in partnership with the rabbi,” said Rabba Hurwitz, who serves at the Hebrew Institute of Riverdale alongside Rabbi Avi Weiss. “There is a gradual understanding that this is becoming necessary. Other communities in Israel and in America will follow suit.”
Rabba Hurwitz said she knew Rosenfeld personally from her days as a congregant at HIR. Rosenfeld lived in New York until 2008, during which time she completed a doctorate in English at the CUNY Graduate Center. A Wexner fellow, she wrote her dissertation on finding a Modern Orthodox sexual ethic within the Talmud. Rosenfeld also cofounded and directed Tzelem, a project at Yeshiva University that made resources on sexuality available to the Orthodox community. She also co-wrote a sex manual for Orthodox Jewish couples. She was named one of the 36 under 36 by The Jewish Week in 2008.
Rosenfeld admitted that she never foresaw the path of communal leadership for herself.
“Growing up, I didn’t envision this. My work on issues of sexuality in the Orthodox community led me to where I am. I realized that while I could give advice on these issues, I was missing a voice of halachic authority,” she said.
In order to gain this authority, Rosenfeld has embarked on 15 years of formal training. She is currently in her second year of a five-year ordination program at Midreshet Lindenbaum in Jerusalem, which will gain her the title heter horaah, literally “permission to rule,” upon completion.
After that, she plans to pursue a 10-year program at Lindenbaum to become a formal female dayaan, or religious judge. Only four women are enrolled in this track.
Though she does anticipate some opposition to her new role, Rosenfeld is confident that her goals fall in line with Orthodox tradition.
“This idea might be new, but I hope to be taking the age-old principles of Jewish learning and texts with me,” she said. “I’m driven by a void in female leadership that needs to be filled, and a voice that needs to be heard. I’m not yet sure where the road will lead.”
The prime minister should have remembered the lessons of the shiva call.
Nathan Jaffey
Contributing Editor
The story of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s participation in the recent solidarity march in Paris refuses to die.
Imagine that Bibi Netanyahu had stayed away from the Paris march, as much of the world seems to have wished?
More than a week after he returned to Israel, the scorn for the Israeli prime minister’s French trip continues. How, it is asked, did he have the cheek to go when French President François Hollande asked him to stay away?
The story refuses to die, but it is not a real story — or at least, not the way it is being told.
Israel’s prime minister is so insular that he stays at home when the rest of the world marches against terror, the world would have declared had he not gone. (Of course, nobody would have known that he was banned.) He cares more about fighting an election than standing shoulder to shoulder with the international community! So much for his constant talk of condemning terror!
Netanyahu knew that he could not stay away from Paris altogether, so for the short time that he planned to observe Hollande’s decree, he was going to visit the Jewish community later in the week. The world would have had a field day. Columnists would have concluded: So he does care about terror but only the Jewish blood that is spilled. How parochial and narrow-minded to snub the main event but run to the synagogue.
To many, Netanyahu’s whole trip was born in sin, because he originally acquiesced to the French ban and promised to stay away, only packing his suitcase when he heard that his political rivals from Israel were going. He was not prepared to be overshadowed by Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman and Economy Minister Naftali Bennett. And rightly so.
The backlash had Israeli politicians stayed away would have been bad enough, but the backlash had he been absent while two of his rivals had shown him up would have been unbearable. He would have been presented as the crazed political Machiavellian, unprepared to stop election campaigning for even a couple of days as his rivals do the decent thing and pause to mark a world tragedy. (Needless to say the electioneering value of Paris would have been discounted had he skipped the trip).
There was a real story in all of this, but it would have been inappropriate to focus on it as France was in a state of shock. How dare Hollande try to exclude Israel’s elected leader from an event where the heads of the international community were condemning terrorism? How has he the gall to do this in relation to any country, never mind one that lives in the shadow of terrorism? His request would have been unacceptable if not a single Jew had been killed, but after an attack clearly motivated by anti-Semitism, which struck targets with close links to Israel, the attempted ban became contemptible.
Paris feared that his presence could interfere with the message of the event. Imagine the uproar if Israel started excluding world leaders who may undermine its message when it holds international gatherings? How ironic that at a rally championing freedom of speech, Paris tried to silence the voice of a democratic state’s leader, lest it dislike what he has to say.
Netanyahu was right to fly to Paris. If only he had performed better when he arrived.
His need to score a point by noting that Israel “has been has been saying for many years” what others said at the march was obnoxious. And when he took the opportunity to throw down the gauntlet to other marchers from the international community to show the same opposition toward terrorism directed at Israel, his demand was fair, but it was the wrong time and place.
In the same vein his repeated encouragement of French Jews to migrate to Israel was understandable, but not needed at that time. There is nothing untoward about the Israeli prime minister encouraging diaspora Jews to relocate to Israel — it is a key pillar of the Zionism that all of Israel’s main political parties hold dear. And if French Jews really needed the idea to be raised so they could consider it, however insensitive it seemed to the non-Jewish population of France, I would have no complaints. But French Jews are packing their bags in large numbers — without Netanyahu’s encouragement. French Jews don’t need talk about aliyah; Netanyahu was playing to voters back home.
At this time, when Israel is being presented as increasingly isolated and more and more out of touch with the rest of the world, what was needed from Netanyahu was just to join in. To join in the mourning, with gentile France and Jewish France alike. To join in the commemoration. To join in with the condemnation of terror.
He needed to have the restraint, when he was on French soil, not to superimpose his ideology onto the attack and discuss international policy or the delicate subject of French Jewry’s future. This holds true however convinced he was of the correctness of what he had to say.
There were plenty of Jewish motifs in his comments; it’s just a shame that he forgot the guiding Jewish wisdom for times of loss. At a shiva, one does not talk to mourners unless they initiate conversation. The days immediately after a loss are not right for telling mourners what is on your mind, but rather about understanding and empathizing with their pain. He was visiting a country in mourning, and should have conducted himself as such.
Netanyahu needed to be in Paris, but he need to be there as joiner-inner not as a lobbyist, analyst, or cheerleader for emigration. Sometimes, a true leader needs to know when it’s the right moment to follow.
An ex-Paris resident reflects on Jewish fear and the charged topic of multiculturalism.
Flanked by police vehicles, Hyper Cacher is the Parisian kosher supermarket that was the site of a recent terrorist attack.Getty
For 22 years I was an expatriate New York Jew raising a family, working as a journalist and navigating life in Paris and its upscale western suburbs. One day my husband’s secretary invited my two boys home for lunch. As it was Passover, I politely declined, explaining that week imposed too many dietary restrictions.
The exasperated woman sat me down for a much-needed talk: Didn’t I realize what a disadvantage it was for me to impose these differences on my children? It was a social stigma that brought with it no compensatory reward. Besides it rubbed people the wrong way. If I insisted on my “customs,” I must think that the French way was not as good. Why would I choose to incite the inevitable resentment my judgment provoked?
Stunned, I failed to convince her that honoring my traditions in no way inferred the inferiority of others. The dignity of difference has no resonance in a country where cultural values are understood in terms of a hierarchy of relative worth.
The French balk at multiculturalism; the attachment of a subgroup to its own traditions clashes with the Republic’s ideal of liberté, eqalité, fraternité. The privileges extended by the Republic ask in return a surrender of particularism or, at the very least, the decency to be as discrete as possible about these stubborn vestiges of a less enlightened past. The French Revolution granted its Jews full rights of citizenship, an act, however seminal and noble, that could never overcome France’s inherent aversion to Jews too tenaciously being Jews.
Author Marc Weitzmann, a regular contributor to Le Monde, recounts telling a colleague about Otzar Hatorah, the school in Toulose where one adult and three children were killed by terrorist gunmen. It is a French school of exceptional standing — an unheard of 100 percent of candidates pass the Bac (generally required for university admission) — in which 10 hours of Jewish studies are added to an already rich curriculum. His colleague’s only response: Why do some people need a special school anyway?
I was confused at first when people asked me if I was “d’origine Juif.” I would reply that I was not only of Jewish “origin,” but was Jewish still. The phrasing revealed a certain assumption. Our “origins” can’t be modified, but we needn’t cling to, much less flaunt, them in a homogenized society.
France is now home to some 6.5 million Muslims, who make up 10 percent of the population. It is quaking to its anti-multicultural foundations. You can forbid Muslim women to wear their headscarves in official establishments but you cannot by those methods win their hearts. Muslim youth are caught between a deep-seeded national disdain for who they are and a promise of full restoration of dignity if only they take up arms against the mocking infidels.
The insistence on the right to publish cruel satire of Islamic beliefs in the midst of this inflammatory situation is ill-timed, to say the least. “Je suis Charlie”? Frankly, the declaration gets stuck in my throat. I am utterly horrified by murder and I am also an ardent practitioner of free expression. I fully understand that “blasphemy” has no conceptual meaning in a secular democracy. Yet, I have never bought an issue of Charlie Hebdo, and I decline to embrace the kind of satiric journalism it practices — regardless of its long, revered history in France.
France is justly proud of its anti-clerical, pro-enlightenment, rationalist tradition. But how to identify that elusive point where free speech becomes a hate crime? How to convince an infuriated Muslim from the Euro Zone that it is justified to arrest a Jew-baiting comedian Dieudonné while cartoons showing Mohammed in a homoerotic embrace should circulate freely?
My concern is not only with the obvious risk of a double standard.
I spent last Sunday in a downtown Manhattan seminar exploring racial tensions in our own country. I came away with an important awareness: The antidote to racism is not only inclusion, it is, more importantly, relationship. It is the willingness to take a chance and get to know the other, to have difficult conversations and to learn from inevitable mistakes. It is the cultivation of empathy, even while maintaining one’s own point of view.
Ridicule, so endemic to French society, is not relating, it is standing off and taunting from a superior position. Humiliating cartoons show no empathy and utterly fail to communicate except to those already in the know. Hurtful mockery retards, rather than inspires, social change. What’s more, satire is an intellectual feat that stands between you and the baring of your soul. It is a socially acceptable distraction from facing your own essential terror.
I’ve been bruised by premature optimism about healing wounds and effecting social change. I raised my boys in the 1990s not to buy into the anti-Arab bias that was rife in our suburbs. I urged them to get to know the marginalized Arab youth. One day when my 15-year-old was alone at home, rather than submit to accusations of racism, he let a group of Arab kids into our house. One held him down while the others robbed us. When I filed a report to the police, they laughed me out of the station for my naiveté.
There was a time when only religious Jews felt like targets in France. In light of the terror, formerly discrete, socially- assimilated Jews are newly concerned about their right to their full, dual identity. The Muslim-led terror is, ironically, provoking a more self-conscious approach to the issue of multiculturalism among a wider gamut of France’s Jews.
I’m stubborn when it comes to seeking positive outcomes. Rather than turn against one another because of a small number of fanatics, the Jewish and Muslim communities can cooperate to redeem the dignity of difference in the democracy they share. French Jews can actually help French Muslims to construct their cultural identity from within: educate youth, and cultivate resources and courageous mainstream leadership. Together, France’s religious minorities can enrich its social fabric, while adding dimension and depth to its honorable ideas.
Susan Reimer-Torn is author of the recently published memoir, “Maybe Not Such a Nice Girl: Reflections on Rupture and Return.”
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