Dear Reader,
The Speech has been spoken. And now the fallout, from praise to condemnation. Our extensive coverage includes: Government officials and pundits react; Israelis split on speech impact; our Editorial on "Bibi, Obama and Purim," and Martin Raffel oped predicts U.S.-Israel tensions will increase.NATIONAL
‘Time To Move On,’ Urges Leading House Democrat
Steve Israel says U.S., Israel must ‘get beyond optics’ of speech invitation.
Stewart Ain
Staff Writer
Rep. Steve Israel
Even as President Barack Obama was refuting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s assertion before a joint session of Congress Tuesday that a better deal is possible to keep Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, a leading House Democrat called for an end to the rancor between the two men.“It is definitely time to move on,” Rep. Steve Israel (D-L.I.), a former chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee who was among the honor guard that escorted Netanyahu into the House chamber, told The Jewish Week.
“The problem started with the way the prime minister was invited, and the optics of the invitation supplanted the substance of a deal with Iran,” he said, referring to the invitation from Republican House Speaker John Boehner without White House knowledge.
“It’s time to get past the optics of the invitation and get back to bipartisan supportfor Israel and to focus on the deal with Iran. The irony is that on everything that matters — Iron Dome, and financing for Israel’s ballistic missile program, foreign assistance — the level has been the highest it can be.”
Israel said that both Obama and Netanyahu “need to go back to a calm and productiverelationship,” and that “somebody should pick up the phone [and call the other]. ... I was skeptical about a deal with Iran before the speech. He made a forceful speech that reinforces my skepticism towards the deal.”
The speech, which was boycotted by about 50 Democrats, served to highlight the essential difference between the Obama administration and the Netanyahu government on the issue of the Iranian threat: Israel wants to eliminate the threat by compelling Iran to destroy its nuclear infrastructure, while the U.S. believes the best deal possible is one that permits international inspection to ensure that Iran does not begin making nuclear weapons.
Netanyahu argued against what he termed “two major concessions” given to Iran as part of the proposed deal still being negotiated. One is “leaving Iran with a vast nuclear program and two, lifting the restrictions on that program in about a decade. That’s why this deal is so bad. It doesn’t block Iran’s path to the bomb; it paves Iran’s path to the bomb.”
This deal is being negotiated, Netanyahu said, because the U.S. and the other five countries negotiating the deal (China, Russia, France, Germany and Britain known as the P5+1) “hope that Iran will change for the better in the coming years, or they believe that the alternative to this deal is worse.”
“I disagree,” he continued. “I don’t believe that Iran’s radical regime will change for the better after this deal.” Negotiators should “insist that restrictions on Iran’s nuclear program not be lifted for as long as Iran continues its aggression in the region and in the world. … Nuclear know-how without nuclear infrastructure doesn’t get you very much. A racecar driver without a car can’t drive. A pilot without a plane can’t fly. Without thousands of centrifuges, tons of enriched uranium or heavy water facilities, Iran can’t make nuclear weapons.”
He added: “Iran’s nuclear program can be rolled back well-beyond the current proposal by insisting on a better deal and keeping up the pressure on a very vulnerable regime, especially given the recent collapse in the price of oil. If Iran threatens to walk away … call their bluff. They’ll be back, because they need the deal a lot more than you do.”
Obama told reporters later that he did not watch Netanyahu’s speech but read it and found “nothing new.” In fact, he said, the prime minister had previously “made almost the same speech” about the dangers of the deal that brought Iran to the bargainingtable, but he said it has kept them from developing nuclear weapons.
He dismissed Netanyahu’s assertion that sanctions would extract a good agreement from Iran, saying: “If we double down on sanctions it would not do that,” and that there is evidence to support that contention.
“When it comes to this nuclear deal, let’s wait until a deal is on the table, at which point everyone can evaluate it,” Obama added. “I will be able to prove it is the best way to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, and I will take that case to every member of Congress once we have that deal.”
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) was also quick to criticize Netanyahu, saying she walked out of his remarks early because she found them to be an “insult to the intelligence of the United States.”
In a statement, she said that as “one who values the U.S.-Israel relationship, and loves Israel, I was near tears throughout the prime minister’s speech — saddened by the insult to the intelligence of the United States as part of the P5 +1 nations, and saddened by the condescension toward our knowledge of the threat posed by Iran and our broader commitment to preventing nuclear proliferation.”
Abraham Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League, said it was “sad” to hear such comments.
“The prime minister came in not to lecture but to advocate Israel’s concern,” he told The Jewish Week after attending Netanyahu’s address.
He added that in his remarks Monday before the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, Netanyahu said that both the U.S. and Israel have the same goal when it comes to preventing Iran from developing nuclear weapons. But, Foxman noted, Netanyahu said that for the U.S. “it is a matter of security, for Israel it is a matter of survival. And that is what Nancy Pelosi needs to understand. He was not lecturing or displaying arrogance or teaching us lessons. Please understand, he was saying that our anxiety is different than yours.”
But Erel Margalit, a senior member of Israel’s Labor Party who was in Washington for the AIPAC conference, told The Jewish Week that Netanyahu’s approach to the Iranian issue has caused Israel to be shut out of the P5+1 talks. If his party wins the upcoming election and assembles a coalition government, he said it would ask that Israel join the talks.
“Netanyahu has been kept on the outside without a real ability to influence,” he said. “My criticism is that a statesman uses leverage to influence reality and not just clasp the hands of audience members. Unfortunately, the president of the United States and the secretary of state have never been so remote from the Israeli government and its prime minister as they are today. As much as he got a standing ovation, he was very ineffective in convincing the U.S. administration to come back to the table with Israel and figure out a constructive solution.”
But Michael Makovsky, chief executive of the pro-Israel nonprofit organization JINSA, said he thought Netanyahu delivered a “very strong speech that addressed clearly the issues of why this be a bad deal; it was pretty sober.”
Makovsky said that Netanyahu had indeed presented an alternative to the deal now being developed: “Crippling sanctions and a credible military option.”
“Obama has been against sanctions and said he would veto new sanctions,” he said. “He has also made clear that he does not want Israel to strike [militarily], and he has indicated the U.S. would not. So he has completely undermined our leverage in the talks.”
Although Netanyahu insisted that Iran should be compelled to dismantle its nuclear infrastructure, that is something Iran would never agree to, according to Alon Ben-Meir, a professor of international relations at the Center for Global Affairs at New York University.
“Iran is not going to give up its right to enrich uranium,” he argued. “Just like in Israel, Iran has different parties that can paralyze the government. The president, parliament, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard and Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, must all be satisfied — and they are all not going to do that.”
“To suggest [as Netanyahu did] that no deal is better than a bad deal is very simplistic because there is no such thing as a perfect deal,” Ben-Meir said. “Having no deal means leaving Iran to its own devices to pursue nuclear weapons, which it could do in less than a year. An imperfect deal is better than no deal.”
But just as the free world did not compromise with the Nazis, “you don’t compromise with Iran,” insisted Israel’s former ambassador to the United States, Danny Ayalon. “When you are dealing with total evil, you need total surrender. … The prime minister’s speech was very powerful. It was probably the speech of his life and the speech of our generation as Jews and Israelis. He said Israel reserves the right to self-defense and to do all it can to ensure its future.”
Malcolm Hoenlein, executive vice chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, said he attended the speech and that “members of Congress I met on the way out said it was the best speech they heard in decades. There were some Democrats who had a more reserved reaction, but in the end they applauded. And his appeal about Jews not being defenseless anymore touched people very deeply. People said they were very moved; some were in tears.”
editor@jewishweek.org
ISRAEL NEWS
Israelis Split On Speech Fallout
Netanyahu’s supporters seen energized, but plenty of criticism too.
Joshua Mitnick
Israel Correspondent
After Netanyahu’s speech, Zionist Union leader Yitzhak Herzog said that as a result of the address “Israel is left isolated.”
Tel Aviv — While Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gave his speech Tuesday in Washington, back home in Israel television channels cut into regular programming for the broadcast, and many people gathered at home to watch the much-hyped speech.Others didn’t bother with the distraction from shopping, costumes and socializing as schools let out the day before the start of the Purim holiday.
What most seemed to agree on is that Netanyahu delivered yet another impressive speech to Congress. What they didn’t agree on was what would the fallout from the speech would be, and whether it was good or bad for Israel.
Opposition leader Yitzhak Herzog, who is hoping to unseat the prime minister after the March 17 elections, acknowledged Netanyahu’s rhetorical prowess, but he reiterated his argument that it would only backfire on Israel.
“There is no doubt that Netanyahu knows how to speak,” he said during a visit to an Israeli town near the Gaza border. “But let’s be truthful: the speech we heard today, as impressive as it was, won’t stop the Iranian nuclear program. The painful truth is that after the applause, Netanyahu remains alone. Israel is left isolated, and the negotiations with Iran will continue without any Israeli involvement. The speech therefore, is the worst undermining of Israel-U.S. relations.”
Despite Herzog’s comments, the speech seemed to energize Netanyahu’s supporters, who said they were moved by watching him make Israel’s case against Iran on the world stage. “He went to the Congress to get support for Israel from the U.S.,” said Victor Luzon, a retired military man who watched the speech at home over dinner. “I support Netanyahu. He’s a strong and responsible leader who uses sound judgment on security.”
A post on Netanyahu’s Facebook page with an excerpt from the speech garnered nearly 20,000 likes within a few hours after the speech. “A heartfelt and wonderful speech,” wrote a supporter named Moshe Shalom.
Another supporter, Liz Hakum, wrote that the remarks represented “all Jews wherever they are located, but in the Land of Israel specifically. No one should minimize or downplay the strength of the message that was expressed.”
Overall, the speech spurred hundreds of thousands of likes, comments and shares linked to Netanyahu on Israeli social media.
“That’s a very big peak in the interactions — there’s a big buzz,” said Arad Akikous, who analyzes social media in Israel. “The question is whether [the speech] helps him or not. Ultimately, I think everything stayed the same. It didn’t change their minds.”
Netanyahu has gotten plenty of ridicule as well. Hours after the speech, a popular satire show, “Gav Ha’uma,” suggested that Netanyahu’s remarks comparing the threat of Iran to the Holocaust were kitsch by playing a violin as he spoke. On Monday night, another satire show portrayed Netanyahu on a plane and being so filled with hatred for President Barack Obama that when the president makes a last-minute call to ask him to cancel the speech, the prime minister goes into a frenzy that causes the plane to crash into the Capitol building.
Watching the speech at home, Avishai Amir nodded in agreement as Netanyahu made his case against a deal with Iran. But he faulted the prime minister and the Republicans for arranging the speech behind Obama’s back.
As members of Congress rose to give Netanyahu a standing ovation in the middle of the speech, Amir, a retired journalist, said he doubted that the speech would influence Israeli voters because they are focused on issues that are more immediate than Iran.
“The Israeli public is not that dumb,” he said. “[Netanyahu] came to talk about Iran, but he didn’t solve the issues about the cost of living, rising housing prices, and hospitals — the list is long. This is the list that everyone lives. Iran is far away.”
As soon as Netanyahu finished the speech, Israeli broadcasters noted the number of standing ovations — 25 — and the number of mentions of Iran.
Yet there was ample criticism.
“This is a speech that Netanyahu should have made in private month after month,” said Alon Pinkas, a former Israeli consul general to New York. He said that Israel needs to be concerned that support is dropping among Democrats in Congress.
Israel Radio’s political commentator, Chico Menashe, said that the worth of the speech would only be measured in terms of the legislation passed in Congress on Iran. Menashe said Netanyahu’s speech damaged chances that Congress will be able to block a deal with Iran.
“It doesn’t help our interest that this has become a partisan issue,” he said. “There’s also concern that this speech drew attention to Israeli-U.S. relations and not Iran.”
On Channel 1, Dan Margalit, a veteran Israeli political commentator, said that despite the ovations, Netanyahu’s speech was leaving bad blood between himself and Democrats. He said that a quarter of Democrats did not attend, a development he said was unprecedented for an Israeli leader addressing Congress.
Eytan Gilboa, a political science professor at Bar Ilan University, told Channel 1 television that the speech “exposed the wide chasm between the U.S. and Israel over Iran.” He said that the approach of the administration is that Iran’s nuclear program can’t be dismantled, only delayed. He predicted that the U.S. is looking to normalize relations with Iran in order to fight ISIS.
Netanyahu, on the other hand, is calling for the entire program to be dismantled. The fight with the U.S., he argued, was only beginning.
editor@jewishweek.org
EDITORIAL
Bibi, Obama And Purim
Each year on Purim we celebrate the miraculous story of the Jews of Persia, saved from imminent destruction by a wicked anti-Semite long ago. This year on Purim we focus once again on Persia (now Iran) and wonder if another enemy will act against the Jewish people, as he has threatened.
Who will intercede to stop him? And how?
The most dramatic moments of the Megillah reading are when Queen Esther puts her life on the line in pleading with the Persian king to prevent Haman from carrying out his plot to kill the Jews. The beautiful queen is a supplicant, personally powerless and relying on her intimate relationship with the king.
Times have changed. In 2015, the Jewish people have a state of their own, thank God, and though its security is under constant threat, it has emerged as a major force in the Mideast. So when Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu defied U.S. protocol, and in effect President Obama, to speak out in Congress against the Iran deal, he was displaying his independence.
On the eve of Israeli elections he spoke to multiple audiences, perhaps most of all hoping to sway his countrymen as well as Washington decision makers and theAmerican people.
“We are no longer scattered among the nations, powerless to defend ourselves,” Netanyahu declared near the end of his dramatic speech Tuesday. “For the first time in 100 generations, we, the Jewish people, can defend ourselves.”
But the Israeli leader was in Washington, in part, as petitioner, well aware that his country greatly relies on the strategic, diplomatic and financial support of its one major ally in the world, the U.S. And in both his opening and closing remarks, he emphasized the shared “common destiny” of the two democracies.
But the ugly and persistent controversy over Netanyahu’s decision to come to Congress and speak out against the administration’s Iran negotiating position has underscored that Israel and the U.S. have increasingly divergent views about how to deal with the threat of a nuclear Iran. More than the reflection of a dysfunctional personalrelationship between Obama and Netanyahu, the public feud is about two different worldviews, with each leader seeing the other as naïve.
The president is a student of pragmatism. Committed to reducing America’s military presence in the Arab world after long, deeply costly conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, he is loath to engage in a potential war with Iran. His Western logic insists that an economically crippled Iran will curtail its nuclear ambitions in return for the lifting of sanctions. And by the time the proposed decade-long agreement ends, the Islamic fundamentalists ruling the country may well be out of power.
It is foolish, he believes, for Netanyahu to cling to a maximalist position on Iran, insisting that its nuclear program be dismantled. The result, Obama suggests, would be that Iran walks away from the table and doubles its efforts to produce a bomb.
The Israeli prime minister, on the other hand, is a student of history. Seared with the memory of anti-Semitic attacks on Jewish over the centuries, and most recently with the lessons of the Holocaust, when millions of Jews were slaughtered while the world remained passive, he is unwilling to accept Iran’s promises. He notes that even as it negotiates with the U.S. and other world powers, Tehran seeks to expand its global network of terror and Islamic hegemony while threatening to annihilate Israel. It is Obama, he believes, who is too trusting. According to Netanyahu, maintaining sanctions, combined with the threat of military actions, is the way to prevent Iran from threatening not only Israel but also the region and the Western world.
No fair-minded observer could dismiss the Israeli leader’s fears of a war down the road, nor could one reject outright the president’s effort to avoid risking an imminent military confrontation. But as deadlines near, emotions — and angry rhetoric — have risen to dangerous levels. Bottom line, Netanyahu no longer seems to believe Obama’s pledge over the years that “we have your back.” Still, as dozens of Democrats stayed away from the speech on Tuesday, it appears that Netanyahu hurt his cause — convincing Congress to maintain and even tighten sanctions — by coming to Capitol Hill.
In ancient Persia, Esther, the defender of the Jews, was successful because of her intimate relationship with the king. Today, Netanyahu, self-defined defender of the Jews, seeks to achieve his objective while jeopardizing his relationship with the president.
The Israeli leader promised at the conclusion of his speech that Israel will stand “even if Israel has to stand alone.”
Let’s hope his actions have not made that necessary.
editor@jewishweek.org
Bibi, Obama And Purim
Each year on Purim we celebrate the miraculous story of the Jews of Persia, saved from imminent destruction by a wicked anti-Semite long ago. This year on Purim we focus once again on Persia (now Iran) and wonder if another enemy will act against the Jewish people, as he has threatened.
Who will intercede to stop him? And how?
The most dramatic moments of the Megillah reading are when Queen Esther puts her life on the line in pleading with the Persian king to prevent Haman from carrying out his plot to kill the Jews. The beautiful queen is a supplicant, personally powerless and relying on her intimate relationship with the king.
Times have changed. In 2015, the Jewish people have a state of their own, thank God, and though its security is under constant threat, it has emerged as a major force in the Mideast. So when Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu defied U.S. protocol, and in effect President Obama, to speak out in Congress against the Iran deal, he was displaying his independence.
On the eve of Israeli elections he spoke to multiple audiences, perhaps most of all hoping to sway his countrymen as well as Washington decision makers and theAmerican people.
“We are no longer scattered among the nations, powerless to defend ourselves,” Netanyahu declared near the end of his dramatic speech Tuesday. “For the first time in 100 generations, we, the Jewish people, can defend ourselves.”
But the Israeli leader was in Washington, in part, as petitioner, well aware that his country greatly relies on the strategic, diplomatic and financial support of its one major ally in the world, the U.S. And in both his opening and closing remarks, he emphasized the shared “common destiny” of the two democracies.
But the ugly and persistent controversy over Netanyahu’s decision to come to Congress and speak out against the administration’s Iran negotiating position has underscored that Israel and the U.S. have increasingly divergent views about how to deal with the threat of a nuclear Iran. More than the reflection of a dysfunctional personalrelationship between Obama and Netanyahu, the public feud is about two different worldviews, with each leader seeing the other as naïve.
The president is a student of pragmatism. Committed to reducing America’s military presence in the Arab world after long, deeply costly conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, he is loath to engage in a potential war with Iran. His Western logic insists that an economically crippled Iran will curtail its nuclear ambitions in return for the lifting of sanctions. And by the time the proposed decade-long agreement ends, the Islamic fundamentalists ruling the country may well be out of power.
It is foolish, he believes, for Netanyahu to cling to a maximalist position on Iran, insisting that its nuclear program be dismantled. The result, Obama suggests, would be that Iran walks away from the table and doubles its efforts to produce a bomb.
The Israeli prime minister, on the other hand, is a student of history. Seared with the memory of anti-Semitic attacks on Jewish over the centuries, and most recently with the lessons of the Holocaust, when millions of Jews were slaughtered while the world remained passive, he is unwilling to accept Iran’s promises. He notes that even as it negotiates with the U.S. and other world powers, Tehran seeks to expand its global network of terror and Islamic hegemony while threatening to annihilate Israel. It is Obama, he believes, who is too trusting. According to Netanyahu, maintaining sanctions, combined with the threat of military actions, is the way to prevent Iran from threatening not only Israel but also the region and the Western world.
No fair-minded observer could dismiss the Israeli leader’s fears of a war down the road, nor could one reject outright the president’s effort to avoid risking an imminent military confrontation. But as deadlines near, emotions — and angry rhetoric — have risen to dangerous levels. Bottom line, Netanyahu no longer seems to believe Obama’s pledge over the years that “we have your back.” Still, as dozens of Democrats stayed away from the speech on Tuesday, it appears that Netanyahu hurt his cause — convincing Congress to maintain and even tighten sanctions — by coming to Capitol Hill.
In ancient Persia, Esther, the defender of the Jews, was successful because of her intimate relationship with the king. Today, Netanyahu, self-defined defender of the Jews, seeks to achieve his objective while jeopardizing his relationship with the president.
The Israeli leader promised at the conclusion of his speech that Israel will stand “even if Israel has to stand alone.”
Let’s hope his actions have not made that necessary.
editor@jewishweek.org
OPINION
Post-Speech, Relations Worsen
No nuclear program for Iran, says Israel; no nuclear weapon for Iran, says U.S.
Martin J. Raffel
Special To The Jewish Week
The former position, spelled out by Netanyahu in his congressional speech Tuesday, cannot tolerate the existence of thousands of spinning uranium enriching centrifuges and other elements of a nuclear program; the latter, which was articulated in National Security Adviser Susan Rice’s speech to AIPAC Monday night, is prepared to accept this situation on a limited basis, as long as there are strong safeguards in place to guarantee enrichment for peaceful purposes only for an extended period of time. It is worth noting that America’s Arab allies in the region, particularly Saudi Arabia and Egypt, seem to be more in line with Israel’s position on this issue.
Full disclosure: I was critical of Netanyahu’s decision to give his speech to a joint meeting of Congress absent coordination with the White House, rather than finding less confrontational ways to communicate his concerns to our decision-makers. The timing of the speech, coming just two weeks before Israel’s highly competitive national election, also is unfortunate. Inevitably, despite Netanyahu’s disclaimers, some have drawn the conclusion that it was as much motivated by politics as by policy. In response, as many as 57 congressional Democrats, many traditionally strong supporters of Israel, expressed their displeasure by not attending. It would be a serious mistake, in my judgment, to interpret their action as an expression of hostility to Israel. We have enough adversaries without creating new ones.
While he opened the speech effusively praising President Obama for all the “known” and “unknown” support he has given Israel since assuming the presidency, Netanyahu threw down the gauntlet by bluntly condemning the emerging deal being negotiated by the administration and the international community. Basing his assessment on information already a matter of public record, he described the deal as “very bad,” one which would actually “pave the way” toward Iran possessing a massive nuclear arsenal.
The major flaws, he observed, are two-fold. First, while it would impose some restrictions on enrichment, inspectors could not prevent violations, nor could they effectively monitor the actions of an untrustworthy Tehran regime that engages in “hide and cheat.” Second, he asserted that Iran could get to the bomb even by complying with the deal because, according to him, it would lift restrictions in 10 years without requiring Iran to change its behavior. Netanyahu argued for a performance-based standard for lifting restrictions — stop aggression against its Middle East neighbors, stop supporting global terrorism, and stop threatening to annihilate Israel. This unreformed militant Islamic regime, he asserted, will “always” be America’s enemy.
After recognizing Elie Wiesel sitting in the audience, Netanyahu ended his speech by referencing the Purim holiday and stressing that the Jewish people — perhaps with a veiled military implication — no longer will remain passive in the face of our genocidal enemies.
Reaction from the White House was swift and unequivocal. The speech was all “rhetoric,” offering nothing new. Undoubtedly, the administration will continue to make the case that the deal it envisions, while not perfect, is a good one, and that Netanyahu’s position is simply unrealistic and unattainable. The president personally offered an 11-minute rebuttal in an impromptu national television appearance, underscoring that U.S. foreign policy is run through the executive branch, “not other channels.” Frankly, one cannot escape the conclusion that the tensions of recent weeks just got a couple of notches tenser.
When controversy swirled around the interim agreement between Iran and the P5+1 powers in late 2013, I wrote in a column published here that we needed to look forward, not backward: “At bottom, both countries believe that Iran should be prevented from possessing the ingredients to easily produce a nuclear weapon. … Thus, our attention must shift to identifying with clarity and precision the elements of a comprehensive agreement that meets this objective and an acceptable timeframe for its achievement. It is absolutely critical that the United States and Israel coordinate positions…” Sadly, this did not happen. It would have been far better to engage these questions at the beginning of the negotiations over a year ago, not now, just days away from a possible breakthrough.
Will the speech help or hurt Netanyahu’s re-election bid? Only time will tell. Regardless, representatives of the P5+1 will continue pursuing negotiations with Iran with the goal of achieving a framework agreement by the end of this month and a comprehensive agreement by June. Certainly the speech will have the effect of igniting vigorous debate around the nature of the agreement.
Getting Iran’s nuclear issue right is crucial. But other important matters will engage us in the period ahead as well, from finding solutions to the festering Palestinian issue to dealing with Islamic State, Hezbollah, Hamas and the growing strength of radical Islamist groups throughout the region. We must not allow the current tensions between the Obama administration and the current Israeli prime minister to obscure the broad strategic objectives shared by these two democratic allies.
Those of us engaged in pro-Israel advocacy in the context of U.S. national interests — Democrats and Republicans, liberals and conservatives — will be challenged in the coming weeks to avoid partisanship, to protect the historically close and mutually beneficial U.S.-Israel relationship, and to concentrate with thoughtful and civil discourse on the momentous policy decisions that lie ahead. We will not know for years, maybe decades, whether Prime Minister Netanyahu’s dramatic appearance in Congress this week has contributed to or set back prudent decision-making. Much hangs in the balance.
Martin J. Raffel recently retired as senior vice president of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs (JCPA). He now consults for the JCPA and for the Israel Policy Forum.Also in this issue, pro-Israel activists assess the mood on campus; haredi leader appears to open door for controversial circumcision practice; Rabbi Elliot Cosgrove on the choices for European Jews; and conductor of "Defiant Requiem: Verdi at Terezin" (at Lincoln Center Monday night) on bringing the music of the prisoners to life.NEW YORK
American Campuses: Cause For Alarm?
Pro-Israel Jews across the spectrum agree that concern is warranted, but differ on what constitutes anti-Semitism.
Doug Chandler
Jewish Week Correspondent
A student at the University of Ohio recalls the heated moments when she and three of her classmates were arrested last September while protesting the fiercely anti-Israel rhetoric of a fellow student, the president of the Student Senate.
A young woman at the University of New Mexico worries about grade reprisals from professors who routinely denounce the Jewish state and don’t like her pro-Israel views.
Other students recall the appearance of swastikas on a Jewish fraternity house (at Emory University last fall), fake eviction notices slipped under the dorm-room doors of Jewish peers (at New York University last spring), and the refusal of some Palestinian students to engage in any sort of dialogue with pro-Israel classmates.
Those and other scenes make up the meat of a new documentary, “Crossing the Line 2: The New Face of Anti-Semitism on Campus,” screened at a special showing last week at the 92nd Street Y. Presented by Jerusalem U, a pro-Israel group that seeks to promote Jewish education and identity through film, the documentary was followed by a panel discussion that included Eric Fingerhut, president and CEO of Hillel International, and three of the students who appear in the work.
The film is aimed at “sounding the alarm within the Jewish community,” said Raphael Shore, founder and CEO of Jerusalem U. But while that alarm is shared by many in the Jewish community, the view of what constitutes anti-Semitism and of how to approach it differs greatly among pro-Israel activists.
Shore, for instance, told The Jewish Week that he subscribes to Natan Sharansky’s “3D” definition of anti-Semitism, which covers the demonization of Israel, the delegitimization of the Jewish state, or the use of a double standard in criticizing the country. By that standard, he said, he’d call the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, the leadership of which favors the elimination of Israel, an anti-Semitic group.
But Sarah Turbow, director of the left-leaning J Street U, said that painting all BDS activists with a broad brush is wrong not only rhetorically, but also strategically. “It means we can’t confront BDS in an effective way,” appealing to those segments of the movement that might be swayed, said Turbow, whose group opposes BDS.
Last week’s event coincided with the release of two reports on the subject — a listing of the 10 American universities believed by its author, the Los Angeles-based David Horowitz Freedom Center, to have the highest levels of anti-Semitism, and a study by a pair of highly respected research institutions.
The Freedom Center report, “Jew Hatred on Campus,” drew immediate fire from Jewish students and professionals from campuses appearing on the list, includingColumbia University. One of those critics, Brian Cohen, executive director of the Columbia-Barnard Hillel, said that while Jewish students have encountered some anti-Israel professors and events, the atmosphere is hardly hostile to Jewish students, even the hundreds of visibly Orthodox ones.
The report, part of a new campaign launched by the Freedom Center to fight anti-Semitism, also includes on its list, Cornell University, George Mason University, the University of California at Los Angeles, and Vassar College. But for many, developments last week involving Horowitz called into question how thoughtful or serious he is.
The conservative activist admitted in an interview with the Los Angeles Jewish Journal that he and his organization were responsible for a spate of posters on campuses across the nation that include the words #JewHaters and link Students for Justice in Palestine, a national group with chapters on dozens of campuses, with the terrorist group Hamas.
Those slamming Horowitz’s actions included Judea Pearl, president of the Daniel Pearl Foundation and a professor at the University of California at Los Angeles, who said he wished Horowitz had consulted Jewish faculty members at the school, the Jewish Journal reported. Horowitz’s actions undermine one of the strongest arguments of pro-Israel activists on campus, Pearl said — “that Israel and Zionism, as identity-forming symbols to thousands of students on campus, are entitled to the same respect and protection from abuse as Muslim students claim for their symbols of identity.
Michael Berenbaum, director of the Sigi Ziering Center for the Study of the Holocaust and Ethics at American Jewish University, said the Jewish community on campus had done a good job of defending itself and asked why “an outside agitator” would “come in uninvited and decide that his priorities should be the priorities of that community.”
In addition to Horowitz’s report, last week saw the release of the National Demographic Survey of Jewish College Students, a study by Trinity College and the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law. The two institutions surveyed self-identified Jewish students on 55 campuses, which found that more than half of the 1,157 respondents, 54 percent, believed they had experienced some form of anti-Semitism during the spring of 2014.
Conducted before Israel’s war against Hamas terrorists in Gaza, which caused an international increase in anti-Semitic incidents, the online survey showed that the rate of campus anti-Semitism varied little from region to region.
Barry Kosmin, one of the survey’s lead researchers, said the patterns reported by the survey surprised those who conducted it. “Rather than being restricted to a few campuses or restricted to politically active or religious students, this problem is widespread,” he told The Jewish Week. “Jewish students are subjected to both traditional prejudice and the new political anti-Semitism.”
That would certainly include students who appear in Jerusalem U’s documentary, a follow-up to an earlier film on the same subject. All three spoke of the harassment and intimidation they felt on campus while defending Israel’s right to exist.
The film’s director, Jerusalem U staff member Shoshana Palatnik, said she chose students who represent a diverse cross-section of students on campuses across the country. But J Street U’s Turbow suggested that the film was missing students who agreed with her organization’s view — namely, that even among those students who back BDS or criticize Israel fiercely, not all are anti-Semitic.
How you define anti-Semitism ties in, of course, to how you believe the problem can be addressed.
Discussing the subject, Shore said he believes that “the Jewish community, as a whole, tends to minimize” or deny the problem when faced with it. He believes “it’s healthy that there are voices on all sides of the spectrum when it comes to this matter,” with some people “saying things in moderate tones,” while others, like Horowitz, acting “flamboyantly and putting it in people’s faces.”
Turbow, on the other hand, believes the community has to be extremely careful not to conflate anti-Israel activity with anti-Semitism, even in cases when the views being expressed sound outrageous.
Some elements of the BDS movement are certainly anti-Semitic, while others “say things that they don’t even realize are offensive,” Turbow continued. “I like to hope that there’s hope with these people.”
Staff Writer Steve Lipman contributed to this article.
Post-Speech, Relations Worsen
No nuclear program for Iran, says Israel; no nuclear weapon for Iran, says U.S.
Martin J. Raffel
Special To The Jewish Week
Netanyahu poses with U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Minority Leader Harry Reid. Getty Images
For years, we tended to paper over a fundamental policy difference between Israel and the United States. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu long has talked about the need to dismantle fully Iran’s nuclear infrastructure that he describes as constituting an existential threat to Israel, while President Obama’s language consistently called for preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.The former position, spelled out by Netanyahu in his congressional speech Tuesday, cannot tolerate the existence of thousands of spinning uranium enriching centrifuges and other elements of a nuclear program; the latter, which was articulated in National Security Adviser Susan Rice’s speech to AIPAC Monday night, is prepared to accept this situation on a limited basis, as long as there are strong safeguards in place to guarantee enrichment for peaceful purposes only for an extended period of time. It is worth noting that America’s Arab allies in the region, particularly Saudi Arabia and Egypt, seem to be more in line with Israel’s position on this issue.
Full disclosure: I was critical of Netanyahu’s decision to give his speech to a joint meeting of Congress absent coordination with the White House, rather than finding less confrontational ways to communicate his concerns to our decision-makers. The timing of the speech, coming just two weeks before Israel’s highly competitive national election, also is unfortunate. Inevitably, despite Netanyahu’s disclaimers, some have drawn the conclusion that it was as much motivated by politics as by policy. In response, as many as 57 congressional Democrats, many traditionally strong supporters of Israel, expressed their displeasure by not attending. It would be a serious mistake, in my judgment, to interpret their action as an expression of hostility to Israel. We have enough adversaries without creating new ones.
While he opened the speech effusively praising President Obama for all the “known” and “unknown” support he has given Israel since assuming the presidency, Netanyahu threw down the gauntlet by bluntly condemning the emerging deal being negotiated by the administration and the international community. Basing his assessment on information already a matter of public record, he described the deal as “very bad,” one which would actually “pave the way” toward Iran possessing a massive nuclear arsenal.
The major flaws, he observed, are two-fold. First, while it would impose some restrictions on enrichment, inspectors could not prevent violations, nor could they effectively monitor the actions of an untrustworthy Tehran regime that engages in “hide and cheat.” Second, he asserted that Iran could get to the bomb even by complying with the deal because, according to him, it would lift restrictions in 10 years without requiring Iran to change its behavior. Netanyahu argued for a performance-based standard for lifting restrictions — stop aggression against its Middle East neighbors, stop supporting global terrorism, and stop threatening to annihilate Israel. This unreformed militant Islamic regime, he asserted, will “always” be America’s enemy.
After recognizing Elie Wiesel sitting in the audience, Netanyahu ended his speech by referencing the Purim holiday and stressing that the Jewish people — perhaps with a veiled military implication — no longer will remain passive in the face of our genocidal enemies.
Reaction from the White House was swift and unequivocal. The speech was all “rhetoric,” offering nothing new. Undoubtedly, the administration will continue to make the case that the deal it envisions, while not perfect, is a good one, and that Netanyahu’s position is simply unrealistic and unattainable. The president personally offered an 11-minute rebuttal in an impromptu national television appearance, underscoring that U.S. foreign policy is run through the executive branch, “not other channels.” Frankly, one cannot escape the conclusion that the tensions of recent weeks just got a couple of notches tenser.
When controversy swirled around the interim agreement between Iran and the P5+1 powers in late 2013, I wrote in a column published here that we needed to look forward, not backward: “At bottom, both countries believe that Iran should be prevented from possessing the ingredients to easily produce a nuclear weapon. … Thus, our attention must shift to identifying with clarity and precision the elements of a comprehensive agreement that meets this objective and an acceptable timeframe for its achievement. It is absolutely critical that the United States and Israel coordinate positions…” Sadly, this did not happen. It would have been far better to engage these questions at the beginning of the negotiations over a year ago, not now, just days away from a possible breakthrough.
Will the speech help or hurt Netanyahu’s re-election bid? Only time will tell. Regardless, representatives of the P5+1 will continue pursuing negotiations with Iran with the goal of achieving a framework agreement by the end of this month and a comprehensive agreement by June. Certainly the speech will have the effect of igniting vigorous debate around the nature of the agreement.
Getting Iran’s nuclear issue right is crucial. But other important matters will engage us in the period ahead as well, from finding solutions to the festering Palestinian issue to dealing with Islamic State, Hezbollah, Hamas and the growing strength of radical Islamist groups throughout the region. We must not allow the current tensions between the Obama administration and the current Israeli prime minister to obscure the broad strategic objectives shared by these two democratic allies.
Those of us engaged in pro-Israel advocacy in the context of U.S. national interests — Democrats and Republicans, liberals and conservatives — will be challenged in the coming weeks to avoid partisanship, to protect the historically close and mutually beneficial U.S.-Israel relationship, and to concentrate with thoughtful and civil discourse on the momentous policy decisions that lie ahead. We will not know for years, maybe decades, whether Prime Minister Netanyahu’s dramatic appearance in Congress this week has contributed to or set back prudent decision-making. Much hangs in the balance.
Martin J. Raffel recently retired as senior vice president of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs (JCPA). He now consults for the JCPA and for the Israel Policy Forum.Also in this issue, pro-Israel activists assess the mood on campus; haredi leader appears to open door for controversial circumcision practice; Rabbi Elliot Cosgrove on the choices for European Jews; and conductor of "Defiant Requiem: Verdi at Terezin" (at Lincoln Center Monday night) on bringing the music of the prisoners to life.NEW YORK
American Campuses: Cause For Alarm?
Pro-Israel Jews across the spectrum agree that concern is warranted, but differ on what constitutes anti-Semitism.
Doug Chandler
Jewish Week Correspondent
A student at the University of Ohio recalls the heated moments when she and three of her classmates were arrested last September while protesting the fiercely anti-Israel rhetoric of a fellow student, the president of the Student Senate.
A young woman at the University of New Mexico worries about grade reprisals from professors who routinely denounce the Jewish state and don’t like her pro-Israel views.
Other students recall the appearance of swastikas on a Jewish fraternity house (at Emory University last fall), fake eviction notices slipped under the dorm-room doors of Jewish peers (at New York University last spring), and the refusal of some Palestinian students to engage in any sort of dialogue with pro-Israel classmates.
Those and other scenes make up the meat of a new documentary, “Crossing the Line 2: The New Face of Anti-Semitism on Campus,” screened at a special showing last week at the 92nd Street Y. Presented by Jerusalem U, a pro-Israel group that seeks to promote Jewish education and identity through film, the documentary was followed by a panel discussion that included Eric Fingerhut, president and CEO of Hillel International, and three of the students who appear in the work.
The film is aimed at “sounding the alarm within the Jewish community,” said Raphael Shore, founder and CEO of Jerusalem U. But while that alarm is shared by many in the Jewish community, the view of what constitutes anti-Semitism and of how to approach it differs greatly among pro-Israel activists.
Shore, for instance, told The Jewish Week that he subscribes to Natan Sharansky’s “3D” definition of anti-Semitism, which covers the demonization of Israel, the delegitimization of the Jewish state, or the use of a double standard in criticizing the country. By that standard, he said, he’d call the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, the leadership of which favors the elimination of Israel, an anti-Semitic group.
But Sarah Turbow, director of the left-leaning J Street U, said that painting all BDS activists with a broad brush is wrong not only rhetorically, but also strategically. “It means we can’t confront BDS in an effective way,” appealing to those segments of the movement that might be swayed, said Turbow, whose group opposes BDS.
Last week’s event coincided with the release of two reports on the subject — a listing of the 10 American universities believed by its author, the Los Angeles-based David Horowitz Freedom Center, to have the highest levels of anti-Semitism, and a study by a pair of highly respected research institutions.
The Freedom Center report, “Jew Hatred on Campus,” drew immediate fire from Jewish students and professionals from campuses appearing on the list, includingColumbia University. One of those critics, Brian Cohen, executive director of the Columbia-Barnard Hillel, said that while Jewish students have encountered some anti-Israel professors and events, the atmosphere is hardly hostile to Jewish students, even the hundreds of visibly Orthodox ones.
The report, part of a new campaign launched by the Freedom Center to fight anti-Semitism, also includes on its list, Cornell University, George Mason University, the University of California at Los Angeles, and Vassar College. But for many, developments last week involving Horowitz called into question how thoughtful or serious he is.
The conservative activist admitted in an interview with the Los Angeles Jewish Journal that he and his organization were responsible for a spate of posters on campuses across the nation that include the words #JewHaters and link Students for Justice in Palestine, a national group with chapters on dozens of campuses, with the terrorist group Hamas.
Those slamming Horowitz’s actions included Judea Pearl, president of the Daniel Pearl Foundation and a professor at the University of California at Los Angeles, who said he wished Horowitz had consulted Jewish faculty members at the school, the Jewish Journal reported. Horowitz’s actions undermine one of the strongest arguments of pro-Israel activists on campus, Pearl said — “that Israel and Zionism, as identity-forming symbols to thousands of students on campus, are entitled to the same respect and protection from abuse as Muslim students claim for their symbols of identity.
Michael Berenbaum, director of the Sigi Ziering Center for the Study of the Holocaust and Ethics at American Jewish University, said the Jewish community on campus had done a good job of defending itself and asked why “an outside agitator” would “come in uninvited and decide that his priorities should be the priorities of that community.”
In addition to Horowitz’s report, last week saw the release of the National Demographic Survey of Jewish College Students, a study by Trinity College and the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law. The two institutions surveyed self-identified Jewish students on 55 campuses, which found that more than half of the 1,157 respondents, 54 percent, believed they had experienced some form of anti-Semitism during the spring of 2014.
Conducted before Israel’s war against Hamas terrorists in Gaza, which caused an international increase in anti-Semitic incidents, the online survey showed that the rate of campus anti-Semitism varied little from region to region.
Barry Kosmin, one of the survey’s lead researchers, said the patterns reported by the survey surprised those who conducted it. “Rather than being restricted to a few campuses or restricted to politically active or religious students, this problem is widespread,” he told The Jewish Week. “Jewish students are subjected to both traditional prejudice and the new political anti-Semitism.”
That would certainly include students who appear in Jerusalem U’s documentary, a follow-up to an earlier film on the same subject. All three spoke of the harassment and intimidation they felt on campus while defending Israel’s right to exist.
The film’s director, Jerusalem U staff member Shoshana Palatnik, said she chose students who represent a diverse cross-section of students on campuses across the country. But J Street U’s Turbow suggested that the film was missing students who agreed with her organization’s view — namely, that even among those students who back BDS or criticize Israel fiercely, not all are anti-Semitic.
How you define anti-Semitism ties in, of course, to how you believe the problem can be addressed.
Discussing the subject, Shore said he believes that “the Jewish community, as a whole, tends to minimize” or deny the problem when faced with it. He believes “it’s healthy that there are voices on all sides of the spectrum when it comes to this matter,” with some people “saying things in moderate tones,” while others, like Horowitz, acting “flamboyantly and putting it in people’s faces.”
Turbow, on the other hand, believes the community has to be extremely careful not to conflate anti-Israel activity with anti-Semitism, even in cases when the views being expressed sound outrageous.
Some elements of the BDS movement are certainly anti-Semitic, while others “say things that they don’t even realize are offensive,” Turbow continued. “I like to hope that there’s hope with these people.”
Staff Writer Steve Lipman contributed to this article.
NEW YORK
Charedi Leader Opens Door On Metzitzah
Agudah’s Zwiebel suggests practice of only using mohels who test negative for herpes 'worth looking into.'
Amy Sara Clark
Staff Writer
Rabbi David Zwiebel, executive vice president of Agudath Israel of America, an umbrella organization for charedi Jews, told The Jewish Week during an extensive interview Monday that he was open to the idea if two major problems could be overcome. Both involve the fact that most adults — 73 percent, according the city health officials — have the virus, and, because it’s highly contagious, anyone can catch it at any time.
“How can you be certain that at any given time the mohel doesn’t have the virus? Because he may have been tested a year ago and he may have contracted the virus since then,” he said. “There’s no foolproof way of doing something like that, although if we could find a way of doing that and ensure a proper supply of people who will do metzitzeh b’peh, that would certainly be something worth looking into.”
Rabbi David Niederman, president of the United Jewish Organizations of Williamsburg and North Brooklyn and a leader in the Satmar chasidic community, told The Jewish Week he remains steadfastly opposed to the idea, saying herpes testing would create “a false sense of security.”
“By having a test today, then tomorrow he can have it. So what added security is that at all? Should [the mohel] be tested every day? Should he be tested every half an hour? It simply doesn’t make sense,” Rabbi Niederman said. “Simply to create a false sense of security and hysteria at the same time serves no public health policy and defeats the whole purpose.”
City officials said they would welcome a discussion on such a policy shift if charedi leaders were to bring it to them.
These developments come a week after the de Blasio administration announced a deal with charedi rabbis that scraps a 2012 requirement that parents sign a consent formbefore metzitzeh b’peh. (In metzitzeh b’peh a mohel sucks on a newborn’s penis after a circumcision to staunch the flow of blood. The practice has been linked to the deaths of two infants who it is believed contracted herpes from the mohel.) In place of the forms, which were rarely used, city officials said they will ask obstetricians, pediatricians and hospitals to give out information about metzitzah b’peh’s risks and contact information for the health department should they wish to get more information.
The deal also stipulates that if an infant begins showing symptoms of herpes after metzitzah b’peh, rabbinical leaders will help the health department identify which mohel performed the bris and ask him to be tested for the virus, a level of cooperation that hasn’t happened in the past.
If the mohel tests positive, the city will use DNA testing to determine if it was the mohel who passed on the virus, or if the baby got it from someone else. If the mohel is found to be the culprit, the city’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene will ban him for life from performing metzitzeh b’peh. The rabbinical coalition has agreed to help enforce the ban.
Already in place is a city regulation that calls for fines ranging from $200 to $2,000 for mohels who defy the ban more than once. The current provision doesn’t rule out criminal charges, and city officials told The Jewish Week Friday that they would pursue them if necessary.
“If we believed a mohel were willfully ignoring the order and endangering others, we would attempt to convince a DA to bring criminal charges,” a city spokesperson said via email. Asked about such cases, a spokeswoman for Brooklyn District Attorney Kenneth Thompson said via email, “We certainly would investigate any referral from the mayor’s office in this situation to determine whether to bring criminal charges. ”
Non-charedi Jews — such as Reform, Conservative and Modern Orthodox — do not practice metzitzah b’peh. The ritual is carried out by chasidic Jews and roughly 70 percent of non-chasidic charedi Jews, according to Rabbi Zwiebel.
Since 2000, there have been 17 reported cases of infants who have contracted herpes following metzitzah b’peh in New York City, according to the Centers for Disease Control. Of those cases, two infants have died and two others suffered brain damage. Others developed other long-term health problems.
Charedi groups who practice the ritual say there is rarely proof that the babies caught herpes from the mohels rather than other caregivers, and that the low incidence of cases don’t warrant banning the practice. The Centers for Disease Control says the practice is too dangerous.
Mayor Bill de Blasio’s decision to drop the consent forms was celebrated as a victory by charedi groups but roundly criticized by the non-charedi world as a political capitulation.
In a sit-down interview with The Jewish Week Friday at City Hall, the city’s deputy mayor for health and human services, Lilliam Barrios-Paoli, defended the decision, saying that even if use of the forms were enforced, that would only serve to further alienate the charedi community and wouldn’t change anyone’s mind.
She called dropping the forms a step toward building trust between the administration and the charedi community and said educating parents about the risks of metzitzeh b’peh in the privacy of a hospital room is much more likely to convince them not to allow the ritual than if they’re asked to sign a form in front of a mohel immediately before the bris.
Pam Brier, a member of the city’s Board of Health, which must approve discontinuation of the forms, has come out in favor of the policy change, calling it a “step forward.”
“For the first time in many, many, many years there’s actually a dialogue going on about how to work together on a common goal, which is to keep babies safe,” said Brier, who is president and CEO of Maimonides Medical Center in Borough Park, which has treated three infants for herpes following metzitzah b’peh in the past 18 months.
“While I can’t predict the outcome because my crystal ball is kind of cloudy, I can tell you that I can’t imagine that it will be worse than what we have now because right now, really nothing is happening,” she told The Jewish Week in an interview Monday.
Since 2005, the city has required hospitals to give all expectant mothers a letter and a fact sheet explaining the risks of metzitzeh b’peh when they register to give birth. A Maimonides spokeswoman said the hospital continues to comply with that regulation. It’s not clear if any other hospitals give out the letter.
Communications broke down between Mayor Michael Bloomberg and charedi groups following the implementation of the consent forms in 2012. That was followed by a charedi lawsuit contesting them as unconstitutional, a case that is still in litigation. Both sides say that the communication between charedi groups and the city is better now than it has been in years.
“There’s a community practicing a religious ritual that they deeply believe in. And there’s a health department saying this is a risky thing. And there was no conversation going both ways. So we had to find that bridge so that we can begin to make sure as much as we can to safeguard the children,” said Barrios-Paoli.
“I’m an anthropologist by training and I understand cultural change,” she said. “You can only do anything if you really have trust.”
amyclark@jewishweek.org
Clarification, March 4, 2015: The article has been changed to clarify that what Rabbi Zwiebel said is "worth looking into" is the idea of only using mohels who test negative for herpes for metzitzah b'peh, not banning mohels who test positive for the virus.
OPINION
European Jewry: Stay Or Go?
Rabbi Elliot Cosgrove
Special To The Jewish Week
Prime Minister Netanyahu’s statement in the wake of the latest incident of European anti-Semitic violence, a shooting at Copenhagen’s Great Synagogue, seems to have touched a nerve in the collective Jewish psyche.
“We say to Jews,” Netanyahu declared, “to our brothers and sisters: Israel is your home. … We are preparing and calling for the absorption of mass immigration from Europe. … I would like to tell all European Jews and all Jews wherever they are: Israel is the home of every Jew.”
Repeating a sentiment expressed after last month’s Paris attacks, Netanyahu’s declaration was understood to be a not so subtle warning that the writing is on the wall for European Jewry. Copenhagen would not be the last anti-Semitic attack, and the European Jewish community would do well to leave its hostile environment and come home to the Jewish homeland.
Netanyahu’s remarks provoked a series of rebuttals from the Jewish world. Danish Chief Rabbi Jair Melchior expressed his disappointment with Netanyahu, explaining, “Terror is not a reason to move to Israel. … People from Denmark move to Israel because they love Israel, because of Zionism. If the way we deal with terror is to run somewhere else, we should all run to a deserted island.”
Or, in the pointed words of Anti-Defamation League National Director Abe Foxman: “I don’t think he [Netanyahu] should urge them. … No, I don’t think we should so easily grant Hitler a posthumous victory.”
Stay or go? Should the collective will and resources of the Jewish world be directed towards supporting Jewish life in Europe, or should those funds go towards facilitating the immigration of European Jewry to Israel. It is an internal Jewish debate that has spilled out into the open — a debate reflecting the angst of being a diaspora Jew.
The terms of the debate are not entirely new. We need look no further than the story of Esther, to understand the tensions at hand. Purim is the only Jewish holiday commemorating a struggle against anti-Semitism in the diaspora. “There is,” explains Haman to Ahasuerus, “a nation, apart and scattered from those of every other people of your empire. Their laws are different from those of every other people, and they do not keep the king’s laws. It is not in your majesty’s interest to leave them alone.” [Esther 3:9]
In a single verse, Haman gives expression to the neurosis of diaspora Jewry. A minority population that is vulnerable to the whims of the majority population. A people who are suspected of dual loyalties, fumbling as they seek to redress their exposed condition.
Esther is not overly preachy, it is supposed to feel like a fairy tale, but like all great narratives, it is filled with vexing questions. Was Esther right or wrong to hide her Jewish identity? Is the scroll’s take-home message one of assimilation into non-Jewish culture, or to maintain boundaries between the Jewish and gentile population? Purim celebrates a diaspora victory, but why does it do so without mention of God or a return to the land of Israel? Is its message one of revenge or accommodation? Is it a defense or a critique of diaspora life?
The answers aren’t clear and are not meant to be. Esther forces us to squirm on theneedlepoint of these and other questions without offering tidy answers. But the most enduring challenge of all is the one that we have never shaken off and continue to struggle with today — the haunting specter of Haman. Is it always just a matter of time before another virulent Haman-like expression of anti-Semitism rears its head, and we, like the Jews of ancient Persia find ourselves waiting on a miracle for salvation?
One need not go back to Esther to trace the intellectual pedigree of Netanyahu’s call for mass immigration. It was the 19th-century Zionist thinker, Leo Pinsker, who, in the wake of the anti-Jewish Russian pogroms of the early 1880s castigated his diaspora co-religionists for deluding themselves into thinking that they would one day be accepted by their enlightened hosts. “Since the Jew is nowhere at home,” wrote Pinsker, “nowhere regarded as a native, he remains an alien everywhere.” Pinsker’s most famous essay was entitled “Auto-Emancipation,” in which he argued that the only remedy to the diaspora Jew’s degraded status was to stop depending on the good will of a host country and create a Jewish refuge and homeland of our own. It was the prime minister’s late father, the great historian Professor Benzion Netanyahu, who, in his writings about 15th-century Spain, Pinsker’s 19th-century Russia, or 20th-century Europe, subscribed to this lachrymose understanding of Jewish history. It is a view perhaps best summed up by the elder Netanyahu’s one-time employer, Ze’ev Jabotinsky, who prophetically proclaimed to his Jewish brethren in 1937: “Eliminate the diaspora, or the diaspora will surely eliminate you.” Important as the gravitational “pull” of the Zionist dream, for Netanyahu (father and son), it is also the diasporic push of anti-Semitism that undoubtedly informs the Zionist vision.
Proof positive is the prime minister’s most recent campaign video in which he tells the story of his grandfather being beaten unconscious by an anti-Semitic mob in the heart of Europe. Before the older man passes out, the prime minister shares that his grandfather thought: “What a disgrace … the descendants of the Maccabees lie in the mud powerless to defend themselves.” If he survived, Netanyahu’s grandfather pledged, he would bring his family to Israel. At this point in the video the prime minister looks into the camera and declares: “I am standing here today as the prime minister of Israel because my grandfather kept his promise.” We can debate the sensitivity of the prime minister’s recent pronouncements, but there is no denying that Netanyahu’s ideological vision is remarkably coherent and consistent. It is a vision anchored in Jewish history, attuned to the present threats facing our people, and wholly invested in the future security of global Jewry.
Given the events of recent months, it is an assessment that cannot be ignored. As Deborah Lipstadt recently wrote: “This is not another Holocaust, but it’s bad enough.” Being Jewish in New York is an anomaly — our present comfort is the exception, not the norm. Ours is an era where large pockets of the Jewish world, in Europe and elsewhere live with physical insecurity. No different than the protagonists of the book of Esther, diaspora Jewry is holding its breath bracing for the next act of anti-Semitic violence. Esther-like, we appeal to gentile powers for justice imagining our plea to have some effect, all the while aware that the forces seeking our harm grow closer and stronger.
The difference, of course, between our era and that of Esther, is that we do have a home, we do have a State of Israel. Our diaspora is not one of forced exile; it is a choice that has been made. The question is not whether Netanyahu’s assessment is right or wrong — descriptively he is on point. The only question is the prescriptive one, namely, what shall we do about it? Netanyahu’s answer is mass immigration. If Netanyahu’s answer is not ours, then it is incumbent upon us to mobilize our resources to secure the safety and security of our at-risk brothers and sisters scattered around the world.
The turning point of the book of Esther comes in its fourth chapter when Mordecai, aware of the gravity of the situation, pleads to Esther to intervene on behalf of the Jewish people. Esther initially demurs, to which Mordecai famously replies: “Do not imagine that you, of all the Jews, will escape with your life by being in the King’s palace. On the contrary, if you keep silent in this crisis, relief and deliverance will come to the Jews from another place…” [Esther 4:13-14]
It is Mordecai’s final word, makom / place — that is the subject of much debate. What exactly, the rabbis ask, is the “place” to which Mordecai was referring that could deliver Jews from their crisis? While some understand makom to be a veiled reference to one of God’s many names, perhaps Mordecai was simply giving voice to a proto-Zionist mentality altogether resonant in our time. In other words, Esther faced the choice of either standing up to anti-Semitism or turning to a makom, a place — the Jewish homeland in which relief can be found.
This is the choice diaspora Jewry faces today. Either stand up to the present challenges or make aliyah. To do neither, to stand idly by with Jewish lives at stake, is simply not an option. To paraphrase Mordecai: Who knows, perhaps we have arrived at our position for this crisis? May we, like Esther, rise to the challenge of the hour, supporting global Jewry, supporting the Jewish state and living to see the day, please God soon, that the Jewish people know only “orah v’simcha, sasson v’yikar” “light and gladness, happiness and honor.” [Esther 8:16]
Elliot J. Cosgrove is rabbi of the Park Avenue Synagogue, Manhattan and host of “Righteous Radio” on SiriusXM121.
Charedi Leader Opens Door On Metzitzah
Agudah’s Zwiebel suggests practice of only using mohels who test negative for herpes 'worth looking into.'
Amy Sara Clark
Staff Writer
Will the city's new education campaign aimed at postpartum mothers cut down on metzitzah b'peh circumcisions? Getty Images
In what appears to be a crack in the united charedi front on metzitzah b’peh, an influential Orthodox leader said this week that the idea of only using mohelim who test negative for herpes for the risky circumcision technique is “worth looking into.”Rabbi David Zwiebel, executive vice president of Agudath Israel of America, an umbrella organization for charedi Jews, told The Jewish Week during an extensive interview Monday that he was open to the idea if two major problems could be overcome. Both involve the fact that most adults — 73 percent, according the city health officials — have the virus, and, because it’s highly contagious, anyone can catch it at any time.
“How can you be certain that at any given time the mohel doesn’t have the virus? Because he may have been tested a year ago and he may have contracted the virus since then,” he said. “There’s no foolproof way of doing something like that, although if we could find a way of doing that and ensure a proper supply of people who will do metzitzeh b’peh, that would certainly be something worth looking into.”
Rabbi David Niederman, president of the United Jewish Organizations of Williamsburg and North Brooklyn and a leader in the Satmar chasidic community, told The Jewish Week he remains steadfastly opposed to the idea, saying herpes testing would create “a false sense of security.”
“By having a test today, then tomorrow he can have it. So what added security is that at all? Should [the mohel] be tested every day? Should he be tested every half an hour? It simply doesn’t make sense,” Rabbi Niederman said. “Simply to create a false sense of security and hysteria at the same time serves no public health policy and defeats the whole purpose.”
City officials said they would welcome a discussion on such a policy shift if charedi leaders were to bring it to them.
These developments come a week after the de Blasio administration announced a deal with charedi rabbis that scraps a 2012 requirement that parents sign a consent formbefore metzitzeh b’peh. (In metzitzeh b’peh a mohel sucks on a newborn’s penis after a circumcision to staunch the flow of blood. The practice has been linked to the deaths of two infants who it is believed contracted herpes from the mohel.) In place of the forms, which were rarely used, city officials said they will ask obstetricians, pediatricians and hospitals to give out information about metzitzah b’peh’s risks and contact information for the health department should they wish to get more information.
The deal also stipulates that if an infant begins showing symptoms of herpes after metzitzah b’peh, rabbinical leaders will help the health department identify which mohel performed the bris and ask him to be tested for the virus, a level of cooperation that hasn’t happened in the past.
If the mohel tests positive, the city will use DNA testing to determine if it was the mohel who passed on the virus, or if the baby got it from someone else. If the mohel is found to be the culprit, the city’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene will ban him for life from performing metzitzeh b’peh. The rabbinical coalition has agreed to help enforce the ban.
Already in place is a city regulation that calls for fines ranging from $200 to $2,000 for mohels who defy the ban more than once. The current provision doesn’t rule out criminal charges, and city officials told The Jewish Week Friday that they would pursue them if necessary.
“If we believed a mohel were willfully ignoring the order and endangering others, we would attempt to convince a DA to bring criminal charges,” a city spokesperson said via email. Asked about such cases, a spokeswoman for Brooklyn District Attorney Kenneth Thompson said via email, “We certainly would investigate any referral from the mayor’s office in this situation to determine whether to bring criminal charges. ”
Non-charedi Jews — such as Reform, Conservative and Modern Orthodox — do not practice metzitzah b’peh. The ritual is carried out by chasidic Jews and roughly 70 percent of non-chasidic charedi Jews, according to Rabbi Zwiebel.
Since 2000, there have been 17 reported cases of infants who have contracted herpes following metzitzah b’peh in New York City, according to the Centers for Disease Control. Of those cases, two infants have died and two others suffered brain damage. Others developed other long-term health problems.
Charedi groups who practice the ritual say there is rarely proof that the babies caught herpes from the mohels rather than other caregivers, and that the low incidence of cases don’t warrant banning the practice. The Centers for Disease Control says the practice is too dangerous.
Mayor Bill de Blasio’s decision to drop the consent forms was celebrated as a victory by charedi groups but roundly criticized by the non-charedi world as a political capitulation.
In a sit-down interview with The Jewish Week Friday at City Hall, the city’s deputy mayor for health and human services, Lilliam Barrios-Paoli, defended the decision, saying that even if use of the forms were enforced, that would only serve to further alienate the charedi community and wouldn’t change anyone’s mind.
She called dropping the forms a step toward building trust between the administration and the charedi community and said educating parents about the risks of metzitzeh b’peh in the privacy of a hospital room is much more likely to convince them not to allow the ritual than if they’re asked to sign a form in front of a mohel immediately before the bris.
Pam Brier, a member of the city’s Board of Health, which must approve discontinuation of the forms, has come out in favor of the policy change, calling it a “step forward.”
“For the first time in many, many, many years there’s actually a dialogue going on about how to work together on a common goal, which is to keep babies safe,” said Brier, who is president and CEO of Maimonides Medical Center in Borough Park, which has treated three infants for herpes following metzitzah b’peh in the past 18 months.
“While I can’t predict the outcome because my crystal ball is kind of cloudy, I can tell you that I can’t imagine that it will be worse than what we have now because right now, really nothing is happening,” she told The Jewish Week in an interview Monday.
Since 2005, the city has required hospitals to give all expectant mothers a letter and a fact sheet explaining the risks of metzitzeh b’peh when they register to give birth. A Maimonides spokeswoman said the hospital continues to comply with that regulation. It’s not clear if any other hospitals give out the letter.
Communications broke down between Mayor Michael Bloomberg and charedi groups following the implementation of the consent forms in 2012. That was followed by a charedi lawsuit contesting them as unconstitutional, a case that is still in litigation. Both sides say that the communication between charedi groups and the city is better now than it has been in years.
“There’s a community practicing a religious ritual that they deeply believe in. And there’s a health department saying this is a risky thing. And there was no conversation going both ways. So we had to find that bridge so that we can begin to make sure as much as we can to safeguard the children,” said Barrios-Paoli.
“I’m an anthropologist by training and I understand cultural change,” she said. “You can only do anything if you really have trust.”
amyclark@jewishweek.org
Clarification, March 4, 2015: The article has been changed to clarify that what Rabbi Zwiebel said is "worth looking into" is the idea of only using mohels who test negative for herpes for metzitzah b'peh, not banning mohels who test positive for the virus.
OPINION
European Jewry: Stay Or Go?
Rabbi Elliot Cosgrove
Special To The Jewish Week
Rabbi Elliot Cosgrove
Should European Jewry stay or go?Prime Minister Netanyahu’s statement in the wake of the latest incident of European anti-Semitic violence, a shooting at Copenhagen’s Great Synagogue, seems to have touched a nerve in the collective Jewish psyche.
“We say to Jews,” Netanyahu declared, “to our brothers and sisters: Israel is your home. … We are preparing and calling for the absorption of mass immigration from Europe. … I would like to tell all European Jews and all Jews wherever they are: Israel is the home of every Jew.”
Repeating a sentiment expressed after last month’s Paris attacks, Netanyahu’s declaration was understood to be a not so subtle warning that the writing is on the wall for European Jewry. Copenhagen would not be the last anti-Semitic attack, and the European Jewish community would do well to leave its hostile environment and come home to the Jewish homeland.
Netanyahu’s remarks provoked a series of rebuttals from the Jewish world. Danish Chief Rabbi Jair Melchior expressed his disappointment with Netanyahu, explaining, “Terror is not a reason to move to Israel. … People from Denmark move to Israel because they love Israel, because of Zionism. If the way we deal with terror is to run somewhere else, we should all run to a deserted island.”
Or, in the pointed words of Anti-Defamation League National Director Abe Foxman: “I don’t think he [Netanyahu] should urge them. … No, I don’t think we should so easily grant Hitler a posthumous victory.”
Stay or go? Should the collective will and resources of the Jewish world be directed towards supporting Jewish life in Europe, or should those funds go towards facilitating the immigration of European Jewry to Israel. It is an internal Jewish debate that has spilled out into the open — a debate reflecting the angst of being a diaspora Jew.
The terms of the debate are not entirely new. We need look no further than the story of Esther, to understand the tensions at hand. Purim is the only Jewish holiday commemorating a struggle against anti-Semitism in the diaspora. “There is,” explains Haman to Ahasuerus, “a nation, apart and scattered from those of every other people of your empire. Their laws are different from those of every other people, and they do not keep the king’s laws. It is not in your majesty’s interest to leave them alone.” [Esther 3:9]
In a single verse, Haman gives expression to the neurosis of diaspora Jewry. A minority population that is vulnerable to the whims of the majority population. A people who are suspected of dual loyalties, fumbling as they seek to redress their exposed condition.
Esther is not overly preachy, it is supposed to feel like a fairy tale, but like all great narratives, it is filled with vexing questions. Was Esther right or wrong to hide her Jewish identity? Is the scroll’s take-home message one of assimilation into non-Jewish culture, or to maintain boundaries between the Jewish and gentile population? Purim celebrates a diaspora victory, but why does it do so without mention of God or a return to the land of Israel? Is its message one of revenge or accommodation? Is it a defense or a critique of diaspora life?
The answers aren’t clear and are not meant to be. Esther forces us to squirm on theneedlepoint of these and other questions without offering tidy answers. But the most enduring challenge of all is the one that we have never shaken off and continue to struggle with today — the haunting specter of Haman. Is it always just a matter of time before another virulent Haman-like expression of anti-Semitism rears its head, and we, like the Jews of ancient Persia find ourselves waiting on a miracle for salvation?
One need not go back to Esther to trace the intellectual pedigree of Netanyahu’s call for mass immigration. It was the 19th-century Zionist thinker, Leo Pinsker, who, in the wake of the anti-Jewish Russian pogroms of the early 1880s castigated his diaspora co-religionists for deluding themselves into thinking that they would one day be accepted by their enlightened hosts. “Since the Jew is nowhere at home,” wrote Pinsker, “nowhere regarded as a native, he remains an alien everywhere.” Pinsker’s most famous essay was entitled “Auto-Emancipation,” in which he argued that the only remedy to the diaspora Jew’s degraded status was to stop depending on the good will of a host country and create a Jewish refuge and homeland of our own. It was the prime minister’s late father, the great historian Professor Benzion Netanyahu, who, in his writings about 15th-century Spain, Pinsker’s 19th-century Russia, or 20th-century Europe, subscribed to this lachrymose understanding of Jewish history. It is a view perhaps best summed up by the elder Netanyahu’s one-time employer, Ze’ev Jabotinsky, who prophetically proclaimed to his Jewish brethren in 1937: “Eliminate the diaspora, or the diaspora will surely eliminate you.” Important as the gravitational “pull” of the Zionist dream, for Netanyahu (father and son), it is also the diasporic push of anti-Semitism that undoubtedly informs the Zionist vision.
Proof positive is the prime minister’s most recent campaign video in which he tells the story of his grandfather being beaten unconscious by an anti-Semitic mob in the heart of Europe. Before the older man passes out, the prime minister shares that his grandfather thought: “What a disgrace … the descendants of the Maccabees lie in the mud powerless to defend themselves.” If he survived, Netanyahu’s grandfather pledged, he would bring his family to Israel. At this point in the video the prime minister looks into the camera and declares: “I am standing here today as the prime minister of Israel because my grandfather kept his promise.” We can debate the sensitivity of the prime minister’s recent pronouncements, but there is no denying that Netanyahu’s ideological vision is remarkably coherent and consistent. It is a vision anchored in Jewish history, attuned to the present threats facing our people, and wholly invested in the future security of global Jewry.
Given the events of recent months, it is an assessment that cannot be ignored. As Deborah Lipstadt recently wrote: “This is not another Holocaust, but it’s bad enough.” Being Jewish in New York is an anomaly — our present comfort is the exception, not the norm. Ours is an era where large pockets of the Jewish world, in Europe and elsewhere live with physical insecurity. No different than the protagonists of the book of Esther, diaspora Jewry is holding its breath bracing for the next act of anti-Semitic violence. Esther-like, we appeal to gentile powers for justice imagining our plea to have some effect, all the while aware that the forces seeking our harm grow closer and stronger.
The difference, of course, between our era and that of Esther, is that we do have a home, we do have a State of Israel. Our diaspora is not one of forced exile; it is a choice that has been made. The question is not whether Netanyahu’s assessment is right or wrong — descriptively he is on point. The only question is the prescriptive one, namely, what shall we do about it? Netanyahu’s answer is mass immigration. If Netanyahu’s answer is not ours, then it is incumbent upon us to mobilize our resources to secure the safety and security of our at-risk brothers and sisters scattered around the world.
The turning point of the book of Esther comes in its fourth chapter when Mordecai, aware of the gravity of the situation, pleads to Esther to intervene on behalf of the Jewish people. Esther initially demurs, to which Mordecai famously replies: “Do not imagine that you, of all the Jews, will escape with your life by being in the King’s palace. On the contrary, if you keep silent in this crisis, relief and deliverance will come to the Jews from another place…” [Esther 4:13-14]
It is Mordecai’s final word, makom / place — that is the subject of much debate. What exactly, the rabbis ask, is the “place” to which Mordecai was referring that could deliver Jews from their crisis? While some understand makom to be a veiled reference to one of God’s many names, perhaps Mordecai was simply giving voice to a proto-Zionist mentality altogether resonant in our time. In other words, Esther faced the choice of either standing up to anti-Semitism or turning to a makom, a place — the Jewish homeland in which relief can be found.
This is the choice diaspora Jewry faces today. Either stand up to the present challenges or make aliyah. To do neither, to stand idly by with Jewish lives at stake, is simply not an option. To paraphrase Mordecai: Who knows, perhaps we have arrived at our position for this crisis? May we, like Esther, rise to the challenge of the hour, supporting global Jewry, supporting the Jewish state and living to see the day, please God soon, that the Jewish people know only “orah v’simcha, sasson v’yikar” “light and gladness, happiness and honor.” [Esther 8:16]
Elliot J. Cosgrove is rabbi of the Park Avenue Synagogue, Manhattan and host of “Righteous Radio” on SiriusXM121.
MUSIC
The Music Of Defiance
A chance encounter at a Minneapolis bookstore led acclaimed conductor Murry Sidlin to recreate the Verdiwork performed at Terezin.
George Robinson
Special To The Jewish Week
Twenty years ago on a beautiful spring day in Minneapolis, Sidlin, already a highly regarded orchestra conductor and professor of music, found himself walking past a used bookstore in front of which was a table piled high with bargains. Naturally, he recalled in a telephone interview from his home near Baltimore last week, he stopped to browse, and in the midst of a wobbly pyramid of paperbacks noticed one book that was sticking out slightly.
“It became a game, to see if I could extract that one book without disturbing the pile,” he said, laughing. “And I did.”
The book was a small work entitled “Music in Terezin,” a short précis of the difficult but rich cultural life created by the Jewish prisoners of the concentration camp in Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia.
Sidlin was riveted and baffled. And energized. “Defiant Requiem,” the program that he would create in response, would take many forms, from an Emmy-nominated documentary film to a series of widely acclaimed concerts with narration. In that latter form, “Defiant Requiem: Verdi at Terezin” will be performed Monday, March 9.
Sidlin, 74, remembers looking at the little book in confusion.
“Terezin? Where is that,” he said he asked himself. “I knew it was a concentration camp — a showplace for the Nazis — that was the way it was presented, and a lot of people thought that, myself included.”
Essentially, what the Nazis had done was to take a medieval Czech fortress town and convert it into a massive, horrifically overcrowded ghetto and transit camp. From there the next stop was Auschwitz.
The response of the Jewish prisoners was nearly unique. They created a rich cultural life for themselves, as Sidlin noted, including “2,400 lectures, 16 performances of the Verdi Requiem, 38 performances of [Smetana’s opera] ‘The Bartered Bride,’ 50 performances of [Czech children’s opera] ‘Brundibár,’ and performances of ‘Tosca’ and ‘The Magic Flute,’” as well as cabaret and jazz events.
One figure at the heart of their cultural efforts was Rafael Schächter, a Romanian-born Czech conductor, composer and choral director, whose promising career in opera was cut short when the Nazis invaded Czechoslovakia and banned Jews from public life. Sidlin’s discovery had a succinct three-page chapter on Schächter, ending with his crowning achievement in Terezin: 16 performances of Giuseppe Verdi’s Requiem Mass.
Sidlin, a son of Jewish immigrants who lost family in the Shoah, readily admits that he couldn’t believe what he was reading.
“I know what it takes to perform this piece under optimum circumstances,” he said last week about the massive, densely wrought work. “There’s so much wrong with that. Why would these people use precious time to learn a work so steeped in the Catholic liturgy? He had only one copy of the score; how could he teach this by rote to an entire chorus?”
As Sidlin noted drily, Terezin didn’t present “ideal conditions.”
“These people are eating gruel twice a day, with no real nutritional value, there’s no medical attention; if you’re ill there’s little you can do about it,” he said. “They work all day, people are dying of malnutrition and disease, there is the constant terror of violence and deportation. There are dead people lying in the streets. They’re living in filth. And they’re going down into a dank, cold basement to learn the Verdi Requiem and give 16 performances? There’s either something radically wrong here or something extraordinary.”
Sidlin quickly learned that it was the latter. He left Minneapolis shortly after to become resident conductor of the Oregon Symphony. He also taught at Pacific University, just outside of Portland, where he became friends with two Holocaust scholars on the faculty. In the very early days of the Internet, they helped him begin researching the cultural life of Terezin, most specifically Rafael Schächter’s Verdi Requiem.
Against all odds, Sidlin would track down and become good friends with Edgar Krasa, who had not only sung in the choir that performed the piece in Terezin but had been Schächter’s bunkmate and friend. He would meet and interview several other survivors from those performances as well.
Eventually, Sidlin decided to put together a performance of the Requiem to be given at Terezin, an event that took place in 2006. By this time he was a professor at Catholic University, where he continues to teach today, and had an excellent student choir and a talented orchestra that would be supplemented by local Czech musicians.
And he found himself working with a documentary filmmaker, Doug Shultz, who brought along a film crew and made a film, “Defiant Requiem,” about the Terezin trip and performance, “Defiant Requiem.” That effort also put Sidlin in touch with actress Bebe Neuwirth.
“We were looking for a narrator and Bebe’s name was on the list, and she came in and read,” Sidlin recalled. “I called Doug and said, ‘I was just listening to [a tape of] Bebe Neuwirth and I was just going to call you,’ he said. ‘We loved her voice. It’s a storytelling voice.’”
Although she has done plenty of dramatic work, Neuwirth is usually thought of as a comic actor, singer and dancer. Not a problem, she told Jewish Week.
“Any acting piece — slapstick or Shakespeare, however funny or tragic it is — they all require a scrupulous adherence to the truth,” she said in a telephone interview last week. “You’re always looking for the truth.”
When Sidlin decided to create a live vehicle that would combine elements Shultz’s film and a full performance of the Verdi piece with a recounting of the events in Terezin, it was logical that Neuwirth would be one of the actors he contacted, and she was delighted to be asked back.
“I’m honored that they invited me to do the documentary, and that they invited me to do the concert [two years ago], and that they invited me back to do another concert,” she said without hesitation. “I find as my career my work continues, there’s the stuff I wanted to do — I wanted to dance on Broadway, for example, and I have — and then somebody says, ‘Would you do this for us, talk to these veteran soldiers, sing this for us?’ These are ... I don’t have a word for it, they’re the surprise bits. My work is my work but this stuff is ... it’s so powerful and has provided the most profound and moving and humbling experiences and I’m so deeply grateful.”
For Sidlin, the journey from that Minneapolis sidewalk has been transformative.
“I can never hear the Verdi without thinking of Rafael Schächter,” he said. “I wanted to make people see him as a hero of the Shoah and I want anyone who comes in contact with what we are doing to hear the Verdi Requiem and think of it in relation to the people in the chorus in Terezin.”
“Defiant Requiem: Verdi at Terezín” will be performed on Monday, March 9 at 7:30 p.m. at Avery Fisher Hall, Lincoln Center, with the Orchestra of Terezín Remembrance conducted by Murry Sidlin, the Collegiate Chorale, Bebe Neuwirth, John Rubinstein and a distinguished group of soloists. For information, gowww.defiantrequiem.org or http://lc.lincolncenter.org.
The Music Of Defiance
A chance encounter at a Minneapolis bookstore led acclaimed conductor Murry Sidlin to recreate the Verdiwork performed at Terezin.
George Robinson
Special To The Jewish Week
Conductor Murry Sidlin has brought the music of Terezin prisoners to life in “Defiant Requiem.” Jeff Roffman
It was a simple act, one that book-lovers perform every day. But it changed Murry Sidlin’s career forever.Twenty years ago on a beautiful spring day in Minneapolis, Sidlin, already a highly regarded orchestra conductor and professor of music, found himself walking past a used bookstore in front of which was a table piled high with bargains. Naturally, he recalled in a telephone interview from his home near Baltimore last week, he stopped to browse, and in the midst of a wobbly pyramid of paperbacks noticed one book that was sticking out slightly.
“It became a game, to see if I could extract that one book without disturbing the pile,” he said, laughing. “And I did.”
The book was a small work entitled “Music in Terezin,” a short précis of the difficult but rich cultural life created by the Jewish prisoners of the concentration camp in Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia.
Sidlin was riveted and baffled. And energized. “Defiant Requiem,” the program that he would create in response, would take many forms, from an Emmy-nominated documentary film to a series of widely acclaimed concerts with narration. In that latter form, “Defiant Requiem: Verdi at Terezin” will be performed Monday, March 9.
Sidlin, 74, remembers looking at the little book in confusion.
“Terezin? Where is that,” he said he asked himself. “I knew it was a concentration camp — a showplace for the Nazis — that was the way it was presented, and a lot of people thought that, myself included.”
Essentially, what the Nazis had done was to take a medieval Czech fortress town and convert it into a massive, horrifically overcrowded ghetto and transit camp. From there the next stop was Auschwitz.
The response of the Jewish prisoners was nearly unique. They created a rich cultural life for themselves, as Sidlin noted, including “2,400 lectures, 16 performances of the Verdi Requiem, 38 performances of [Smetana’s opera] ‘The Bartered Bride,’ 50 performances of [Czech children’s opera] ‘Brundibár,’ and performances of ‘Tosca’ and ‘The Magic Flute,’” as well as cabaret and jazz events.
One figure at the heart of their cultural efforts was Rafael Schächter, a Romanian-born Czech conductor, composer and choral director, whose promising career in opera was cut short when the Nazis invaded Czechoslovakia and banned Jews from public life. Sidlin’s discovery had a succinct three-page chapter on Schächter, ending with his crowning achievement in Terezin: 16 performances of Giuseppe Verdi’s Requiem Mass.
Sidlin, a son of Jewish immigrants who lost family in the Shoah, readily admits that he couldn’t believe what he was reading.
“I know what it takes to perform this piece under optimum circumstances,” he said last week about the massive, densely wrought work. “There’s so much wrong with that. Why would these people use precious time to learn a work so steeped in the Catholic liturgy? He had only one copy of the score; how could he teach this by rote to an entire chorus?”
As Sidlin noted drily, Terezin didn’t present “ideal conditions.”
“These people are eating gruel twice a day, with no real nutritional value, there’s no medical attention; if you’re ill there’s little you can do about it,” he said. “They work all day, people are dying of malnutrition and disease, there is the constant terror of violence and deportation. There are dead people lying in the streets. They’re living in filth. And they’re going down into a dank, cold basement to learn the Verdi Requiem and give 16 performances? There’s either something radically wrong here or something extraordinary.”
Sidlin quickly learned that it was the latter. He left Minneapolis shortly after to become resident conductor of the Oregon Symphony. He also taught at Pacific University, just outside of Portland, where he became friends with two Holocaust scholars on the faculty. In the very early days of the Internet, they helped him begin researching the cultural life of Terezin, most specifically Rafael Schächter’s Verdi Requiem.
Against all odds, Sidlin would track down and become good friends with Edgar Krasa, who had not only sung in the choir that performed the piece in Terezin but had been Schächter’s bunkmate and friend. He would meet and interview several other survivors from those performances as well.
Eventually, Sidlin decided to put together a performance of the Requiem to be given at Terezin, an event that took place in 2006. By this time he was a professor at Catholic University, where he continues to teach today, and had an excellent student choir and a talented orchestra that would be supplemented by local Czech musicians.
And he found himself working with a documentary filmmaker, Doug Shultz, who brought along a film crew and made a film, “Defiant Requiem,” about the Terezin trip and performance, “Defiant Requiem.” That effort also put Sidlin in touch with actress Bebe Neuwirth.
“We were looking for a narrator and Bebe’s name was on the list, and she came in and read,” Sidlin recalled. “I called Doug and said, ‘I was just listening to [a tape of] Bebe Neuwirth and I was just going to call you,’ he said. ‘We loved her voice. It’s a storytelling voice.’”
Although she has done plenty of dramatic work, Neuwirth is usually thought of as a comic actor, singer and dancer. Not a problem, she told Jewish Week.
“Any acting piece — slapstick or Shakespeare, however funny or tragic it is — they all require a scrupulous adherence to the truth,” she said in a telephone interview last week. “You’re always looking for the truth.”
When Sidlin decided to create a live vehicle that would combine elements Shultz’s film and a full performance of the Verdi piece with a recounting of the events in Terezin, it was logical that Neuwirth would be one of the actors he contacted, and she was delighted to be asked back.
“I’m honored that they invited me to do the documentary, and that they invited me to do the concert [two years ago], and that they invited me back to do another concert,” she said without hesitation. “I find as my career my work continues, there’s the stuff I wanted to do — I wanted to dance on Broadway, for example, and I have — and then somebody says, ‘Would you do this for us, talk to these veteran soldiers, sing this for us?’ These are ... I don’t have a word for it, they’re the surprise bits. My work is my work but this stuff is ... it’s so powerful and has provided the most profound and moving and humbling experiences and I’m so deeply grateful.”
For Sidlin, the journey from that Minneapolis sidewalk has been transformative.
“I can never hear the Verdi without thinking of Rafael Schächter,” he said. “I wanted to make people see him as a hero of the Shoah and I want anyone who comes in contact with what we are doing to hear the Verdi Requiem and think of it in relation to the people in the chorus in Terezin.”
“Defiant Requiem: Verdi at Terezín” will be performed on Monday, March 9 at 7:30 p.m. at Avery Fisher Hall, Lincoln Center, with the Orchestra of Terezín Remembrance conducted by Murry Sidlin, the Collegiate Chorale, Bebe Neuwirth, John Rubinstein and a distinguished group of soloists. For information, gowww.defiantrequiem.org or http://lc.lincolncenter.org.
On the lighter side, a young Jewish woman describes being a human cannonball at the circus; what it's like directing Larry David on Broadway; and (drum roll, please) our annual Purim Spoof breaks the story on Bibi and Obama's upcoming wedding, and more.
NATIONAL
Jewish Human Cannonball
Ringling Bros. stunt women opens up about the highs, lows and her Jewish heritage.
Hannah Dreyfus
Staff Writer
Ask Gemma irby about how her flight was, and you might be surprised what you hear.
Gemma “The Jet” Kirby, 25, considers soaring several hundred feet through the air at 75 miles per hour an average day’s work. As the youngest performing human cannonball in the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey circus — she just celebrated her one-year “cannonversary” — some might consider her a big shot.
But her day job isn’t the only thing that gives her a rise.
Kirby, who grew up in Minneapolis, is a passionate feminist and a proud Jew who has even managed to lead makeshift Passover seders on the fly during the circus’ grueling schedule.
Wearing her silver sequined bodysuit, silver gloves, flight goggles and stage makeup, the statuesque Kirby spoke to The Jewish Week during a brief intermission last week at the Barclay’s Center, in a room directly behind the circus ring. Two performers practiced nearby, balancing on one another’s shoulders before hitting the ring, while another did back flips to warm up. The ringleader’s booming voice was audiblethrough the music.
Though Kirby had been launched out of a cannon just minutes before — gracefully arching her back in mid-flight and executing a forward somersault — she was unruffled and poised, the rigors of circus life at a temporary remove.
“Bringing joy and excitement to others is why I do what I do,” she said, adding that she was raised on the ethic of helping others. “And who has to be asked twice to be a human cannonball?”
Not Kirby, it turns out. The cannonball, she said, actually found her. She began her journey as a dancer at the age of 7, and later attended a circus school in St. Paul to explore aerial arts. Her talent as a flying trapeze artist caught the attention of the Big Apple Circus, where she performed from 2011-2012. Ringling then asked her to join its show.
“I fit the description of what they were looking for — I’m not afraid of heights, obviously,” she joked. “It was the right time in my life. They didn’t have to ask twice.”
And so Kirby took her place as part of an enduring staple of American popular culture stretching back more than 150 years.
While the job commands a certain glamour, it remains one of the most dangerous in the world. According to the late British historian A.H. Coxe, 30 human cannonballs have died on the job, usually the result of bad landings. Human cannonballs have been know to blackout in mid-air, due to the extreme G-force, which can be nine times as strong as normal gravitational pull.
Though Kirby knows the dangers — compressed air launches her upwards of 75 feet in the air and into inflatable targets about 200 feet away — she remains fearless. (She does not wear a helmet.) “Life’s about the challenge,” she said. To date, she has not been injured on the job.
To stay fit for the job, Kirby, like many other circus performers, logs 14-hour days filled with strength training, stretching, dance practice and rehearsals.
“One thing audiences might not understand is the tough schedule,” said Kirby, who said getting used to train life is a must. “No one pours this much of their life into their job unless they are 100 percent passionate.”
Despite her hectic schedule — her Ringling “Xtreme” troupe performs 850 shows over two years — Kirby finds ways to bring her Jewish identity with her on the road. She has a menorah, which she proudly lights in the window of her train car every Chanukah. And, along with two of her fellow circus-mates (one Jewish, one just curious), she was able to celebrate Passover, her favorite Jewish holiday, while on the move.
“I led a seder while we were on tour!” Kirby exclaimed. She described how she and her two circus mates set up the ritual feast below a bridge in a “sketchy” park outside Washington, D.C., dining on matzah ball soup and a festive cup of wine. “It’s one of my fondest memories — bringing my faith and traditions with me wherever I go.”
A Birthright Israel trip in 2009, when she was 19, helped solidify her Jewish identity. “I always knew I was Jewish growing up, but visiting Israel made me feel truly connected to my roots,” Kirby said.
While in Israel, Kirby received a Hebrew name at a special ceremony on Masada: Michal.
“I wasn’t given a Jewish name when I was born, so one of the rabbis on the trip asked if I wanted one,” she said. “When I’m performing, I think of myself as Gemma, but Michal is now a deep part of who I am.”
Alongside the hard work and the adventure of Passover seders on the run, there are some funny perks for Kirby. For instance, watching people’s reactions when she tells them about her day job. Most people, she said, “Flat out don’t believe me.”
While staying in a Brooklyn hotel last week during the circus’ late-February run, Kirby relayed how she heard one hotel guest ask another, “Did you know that there’s a cannonball staying in this hotel?”
“That’s me,” she said, laughing. “For me, small talk is never a problem.”
Though the physical strain of circus life is draining, Kirby says she’s not in the business to feel “happy or content.”
“At this point in my life, it’s about growing pains,” she said. “I would much prefer discomfort to comfort. You don’t move forward if you’re too comfortable.”
Kirby also hopes her example will help other young women challenge gender stereotypes, adding that she speaks with groups of students around the county while on tour.
“When young girls come to the circus and see what I do, maybe they’ll say, ‘Hey, I didn’t know that’s something a girl can do!’” said Kirby, who speaks with groups of students around the country. Seeing young women lose interest in sports, math and science starting in middle school is a trend that needs to be fought, she said. “‘If the human cannon ball is a girl, what does that mean for me?’ That’s what I hope they’ll ask.”
Ten years from now, Kirby does see herself settling down with a family, and possibly pursuing higher education. (She holds a BA in psychology and hopes some day to get a graduate degree in American Sign Language.)
But, though she’s used to moving like, ahem, a shot, there’s no rush. “I want to do what I love until I don’t love it anymore,” she said. “For the moment, that’s the cannon.”
As an afterthought, she added, “My grandma is going to be so psyched to see this! She can’t get enough Jewish news.”
And with that, Gemma Kirby, the Human Cannonball and nice Jewish girl from the American heartland, zips up her silver sequined body suit, pulls down her flight goggles and prepares for another blast of a day at the office.
editor@jewishweek.org
NATIONAL
Jewish Human Cannonball
Ringling Bros. stunt women opens up about the highs, lows and her Jewish heritage.
Hannah Dreyfus
Staff Writer
Gemma "The Jet" Kirby, nice Jewish girl from Minneapolis, just before take off. Courtesy of Hannah Dreyfus/JW
Ask Gemma irby about how her flight was, and you might be surprised what you hear.
Gemma “The Jet” Kirby, 25, considers soaring several hundred feet through the air at 75 miles per hour an average day’s work. As the youngest performing human cannonball in the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey circus — she just celebrated her one-year “cannonversary” — some might consider her a big shot.
But her day job isn’t the only thing that gives her a rise.
Kirby, who grew up in Minneapolis, is a passionate feminist and a proud Jew who has even managed to lead makeshift Passover seders on the fly during the circus’ grueling schedule.
Wearing her silver sequined bodysuit, silver gloves, flight goggles and stage makeup, the statuesque Kirby spoke to The Jewish Week during a brief intermission last week at the Barclay’s Center, in a room directly behind the circus ring. Two performers practiced nearby, balancing on one another’s shoulders before hitting the ring, while another did back flips to warm up. The ringleader’s booming voice was audiblethrough the music.
“Bringing joy and excitement to others is why I do what I do,” she said, adding that she was raised on the ethic of helping others. “And who has to be asked twice to be a human cannonball?”
Not Kirby, it turns out. The cannonball, she said, actually found her. She began her journey as a dancer at the age of 7, and later attended a circus school in St. Paul to explore aerial arts. Her talent as a flying trapeze artist caught the attention of the Big Apple Circus, where she performed from 2011-2012. Ringling then asked her to join its show.
“I fit the description of what they were looking for — I’m not afraid of heights, obviously,” she joked. “It was the right time in my life. They didn’t have to ask twice.”
And so Kirby took her place as part of an enduring staple of American popular culture stretching back more than 150 years.
While the job commands a certain glamour, it remains one of the most dangerous in the world. According to the late British historian A.H. Coxe, 30 human cannonballs have died on the job, usually the result of bad landings. Human cannonballs have been know to blackout in mid-air, due to the extreme G-force, which can be nine times as strong as normal gravitational pull.
Though Kirby knows the dangers — compressed air launches her upwards of 75 feet in the air and into inflatable targets about 200 feet away — she remains fearless. (She does not wear a helmet.) “Life’s about the challenge,” she said. To date, she has not been injured on the job.
To stay fit for the job, Kirby, like many other circus performers, logs 14-hour days filled with strength training, stretching, dance practice and rehearsals.
“One thing audiences might not understand is the tough schedule,” said Kirby, who said getting used to train life is a must. “No one pours this much of their life into their job unless they are 100 percent passionate.”
Despite her hectic schedule — her Ringling “Xtreme” troupe performs 850 shows over two years — Kirby finds ways to bring her Jewish identity with her on the road. She has a menorah, which she proudly lights in the window of her train car every Chanukah. And, along with two of her fellow circus-mates (one Jewish, one just curious), she was able to celebrate Passover, her favorite Jewish holiday, while on the move.
“I led a seder while we were on tour!” Kirby exclaimed. She described how she and her two circus mates set up the ritual feast below a bridge in a “sketchy” park outside Washington, D.C., dining on matzah ball soup and a festive cup of wine. “It’s one of my fondest memories — bringing my faith and traditions with me wherever I go.”
A Birthright Israel trip in 2009, when she was 19, helped solidify her Jewish identity. “I always knew I was Jewish growing up, but visiting Israel made me feel truly connected to my roots,” Kirby said.
While in Israel, Kirby received a Hebrew name at a special ceremony on Masada: Michal.
“I wasn’t given a Jewish name when I was born, so one of the rabbis on the trip asked if I wanted one,” she said. “When I’m performing, I think of myself as Gemma, but Michal is now a deep part of who I am.”
Alongside the hard work and the adventure of Passover seders on the run, there are some funny perks for Kirby. For instance, watching people’s reactions when she tells them about her day job. Most people, she said, “Flat out don’t believe me.”
While staying in a Brooklyn hotel last week during the circus’ late-February run, Kirby relayed how she heard one hotel guest ask another, “Did you know that there’s a cannonball staying in this hotel?”
“That’s me,” she said, laughing. “For me, small talk is never a problem.”
Though the physical strain of circus life is draining, Kirby says she’s not in the business to feel “happy or content.”
“At this point in my life, it’s about growing pains,” she said. “I would much prefer discomfort to comfort. You don’t move forward if you’re too comfortable.”
Kirby also hopes her example will help other young women challenge gender stereotypes, adding that she speaks with groups of students around the county while on tour.
“When young girls come to the circus and see what I do, maybe they’ll say, ‘Hey, I didn’t know that’s something a girl can do!’” said Kirby, who speaks with groups of students around the country. Seeing young women lose interest in sports, math and science starting in middle school is a trend that needs to be fought, she said. “‘If the human cannon ball is a girl, what does that mean for me?’ That’s what I hope they’ll ask.”
Ten years from now, Kirby does see herself settling down with a family, and possibly pursuing higher education. (She holds a BA in psychology and hopes some day to get a graduate degree in American Sign Language.)
But, though she’s used to moving like, ahem, a shot, there’s no rush. “I want to do what I love until I don’t love it anymore,” she said. “For the moment, that’s the cannon.”
As an afterthought, she added, “My grandma is going to be so psyched to see this! She can’t get enough Jewish news.”
And with that, Gemma Kirby, the Human Cannonball and nice Jewish girl from the American heartland, zips up her silver sequined body suit, pulls down her flight goggles and prepares for another blast of a day at the office.
editor@jewishweek.org
SHORT TAKES
Curb Your Nervousness: Directing Larry David
Ted Merwin
Special To The Jewish Week
Shapiro has directed the Broadway and Steppenwolf productions of Tracy Letts’ “August: Osage County,” along with the Broadway productions of “The Mother****** With the Hat,” “Of Mice and Men” and “This is Our Youth.” But none of these plays have returned Shapiro to her Jewish roots, she said, in the ways that this one has.
Shapiro grew up in Evanston, Ill., in a secular Jewish family that she describes as “very, very close.” A long-time member of the Steppenwolf Theater Company in Chicago (which has just named her artistic director), she acted in 2004 in “I Never Sang For My Father,” about a widowed non-Jewish college professor who is dominated by his father. “I was so surprised that the parents and children talked to each other only once a year; everyone else in the cast thought that it was normal.”
“Fish in the Dark” is also about parent-child relationships; it focuses on two brothers, played by Ben Shenkman and David, who are dealing with their father’s death. The members of the older generation in the play “expect to be always disappointed,” Shapiro noted. “They have a worldview that was shaped by persecution. There’s a wonderful lack of sentimentality that comes from having to be pragmatic” — an uncompromising attitude toward life that in both the play and in David’s HBO sitcom “Curb Your Enthusiasm” leads to toward awkward, uproarious humor.
While episodes of “Curb,” which ended in 2011 after eight seasons, were developed through improvisation, “Fish in the Dark” was tightly scripted by David. “He often stops an actor from adding even a word to the dialogue, and throwing off the rhythm of the joke.”
Shapiro described David as a “master who assembles his wares in front of him, and watches everyone ping off each other.” While she noted that David is the “center of everything,” she described the play as a “real ensemble piece,” with a 15-member cast that includes Rita Wilson, Rosie Perez, Lewis J. Stadlen and Jane Houdyshell. The show has received tremendous publicity, including last weekend’s “60 Minutes” interview with David, and a plug by Perez on the “Today” show — both of which aired after the play had already broken box office records for advance sales ($49-$275;telecharge.com).
David is known for creating bizarre situations and exploiting them for maximum comedic effect. But Shapiro emphasized that, in the end, his humor derives from his characters. “You can’t just put someone you don’t know in a situation and expect it to be funny.” David’s humor is, she concluded, is about “people needing and wanting things.”
editor@jewishweek.org
Purim Spoof 2015
Enjoy the read and Happy Purim,
Gary Rosenblatt
P.S. For the latest in breaking news and exclusive videos, features, opeds, advice and more, check out our website, always there for you.
http://www.thejewishweek.com/
Between the Lines
Gary Rosenblatt
Fear And Loathing In The Jewish World
Musings
Rabbi David Wolpe
The Short Of It
Linda Welser Friedman: The roots of modern Jewish humor can be traced back to the Torah.
THE JEWISH Q&A
A Serious Study Of Jewish Humor
Steve Lipman
Staff Writer
The Deutsche Bank building in Frankfurt. Hilary Larson
TRAVEL
Echoes Of The Rothschilds
Hilary Larson
Travel Writer
JEW BY VOICE
A Matter Of Trust
Erica Brown
Special To The Jewish Week
TOP STORIES
Charedi Leader Opens Door On Metzitzah
Amy Sara Clark
Staff Writer
Will the city's new education campaign aimed at postpartum mothers cut down on metzitzah b'peh circumcisions? Getty Images
In what appears to be a crack in the united charedi front on metzitzah b’peh, an influential Orthodox leader said this week that the idea of only using mohelim who test negative for herpes for the risky circumcision technique is “worth looking into.”
Rabbi David Zwiebel, executive vice president of Agudath Israel of America, an umbrella organization for charedi Jews, told The Jewish Week during an extensive interview Monday that he was open to the idea if two major problems could be overcome. Both involve the fact that most adults — 73 percent, according the city health officials — have the virus, and, because it’s highly contagious, anyone can catch it at any time.
“How can you be certain that at any given time the mohel doesn’t have the virus? Because he may have been tested a year ago and he may have contracted the virus since then,” he said. “There’s no foolproof way of doing something like that, although if we could find a way of doing that and ensure a proper supply of people who will do metzitzeh b’peh, that would certainly be something worth looking into.”
Rabbi David Niederman, president of the United Jewish Organizations of Williamsburg and North Brooklyn and a leader in the Satmar chasidic community, told The Jewish Week he remains steadfastly opposed to the idea, saying herpes testing would create “a false sense of security.”
“By having a test today, then tomorrow he can have it. So what added security is that at all? Should [the mohel] be tested every day? Should he be tested every half an hour? It simply doesn’t make sense,” Rabbi Niederman said. “Simply to create a false sense of security and hysteria at the same time serves no public health policy and defeats the whole purpose.”
City officials said they would welcome a discussion on such a policy shift if charedi leaders were to bring it to them.
These developments come a week after the de Blasio administration announced a deal with charedi rabbis that scraps a 2012 requirement that parents sign a consent formbefore metzitzeh b’peh. (In metzitzeh b’peh a mohel sucks on a newborn’s penis after a circumcision to staunch the flow of blood. The practice has been linked to the deaths of two infants who it is believed contracted herpes from the mohel.) In place of the forms, which were rarely used, city officials said they will ask obstetricians, pediatricians and hospitals to give out information about metzitzah b’peh’s risks and contact information for the health department should they wish to get more information.
The deal also stipulates that if an infant begins showing symptoms of herpes after metzitzah b’peh, rabbinical leaders will help the health department identify which mohel performed the bris and ask him to be tested for the virus, a level of cooperation that hasn’t happened in the past.
If the mohel tests positive, the city will use DNA testing to determine if it was the mohel who passed on the virus, or if the baby got it from someone else. If the mohel is found to be the culprit, the city’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene will ban him for life from performing metzitzeh b’peh. The rabbinical coalition has agreed to help enforce the ban.
Already in place is a city regulation that calls for fines ranging from $200 to $2,000 for mohels who defy the ban more than once. The current provision doesn’t rule out criminal charges, and city officials told The Jewish Week Friday that they would pursue them if necessary.
“If we believed a mohel were willfully ignoring the order and endangering others, we would attempt to convince a DA to bring criminal charges,” a city spokesperson said via email. Asked about such cases, a spokeswoman for Brooklyn District Attorney Kenneth Thompson said via email, “We certainly would investigate any referral from the mayor’s office in this situation to determine whether to bring criminal charges. ”
Non-charedi Jews — such as Reform, Conservative and Modern Orthodox — do not practice metzitzah b’peh. The ritual is carried out by chasidic Jews and roughly 70 percent of non-chasidic charedi Jews, according to Rabbi Zwiebel.
Since 2000, there have been 17 reported cases of infants who have contracted herpes following metzitzah b’peh in New York City, according to the Centers for Disease Control. Of those cases, two infants have died and two others suffered brain damage. Others developed other long-term health problems.
Charedi groups who practice the ritual say there is rarely proof that the babies caught herpes from the mohels rather than other caregivers, and that the low incidence of cases don’t warrant banning the practice. The Centers for Disease Control says the practice is too dangerous.
Mayor Bill de Blasio’s decision to drop the consent forms was celebrated as a victory by charedi groups but roundly criticized by the non-charedi world as a political capitulation.
In a sit-down interview with The Jewish Week Friday at City Hall, the city’s deputy mayor for health and human services, Lilliam Barrios-Paoli, defended the decision, saying that even if use of the forms were enforced, that would only serve to further alienate the charedi community and wouldn’t change anyone’s mind.
She called dropping the forms a step toward building trust between the administration and the charedi community and said educating parents about the risks of metzitzeh b’peh in the privacy of a hospital room is much more likely to convince them not to allow the ritual than if they’re asked to sign a form in front of a mohel immediately before the bris.
Pam Brier, a member of the city’s Board of Health, which must approve discontinuation of the forms, has come out in favor of the policy change, calling it a “step forward.”
“For the first time in many, many, many years there’s actually a dialogue going on about how to work together on a common goal, which is to keep babies safe,” said Brier, who is president and CEO of Maimonides Medical Center in Borough Park, which has treated three infants for herpes following metzitzah b’peh in the past 18 months.
“While I can’t predict the outcome because my crystal ball is kind of cloudy, I can tell you that I can’t imagine that it will be worse than what we have now because right now, really nothing is happening,” she told The Jewish Week in an interview Monday.
Since 2005, the city has required hospitals to give all expectant mothers a letter and a fact sheet explaining the risks of metzitzeh b’peh when they register to give birth. A Maimonides spokeswoman said the hospital continues to comply with that regulation. It’s not clear if any other hospitals give out the letter.
Communications broke down between Mayor Michael Bloomberg and charedi groups following the implementation of the consent forms in 2012. That was followed by a charedi lawsuit contesting them as unconstitutional, a case that is still in litigation. Both sides say that the communication between charedi groups and the city is better now than it has been in years.
“There’s a community practicing a religious ritual that they deeply believe in. And there’s a health department saying this is a risky thing. And there was no conversation going both ways. So we had to find that bridge so that we can begin to make sure as much as we can to safeguard the children,” said Barrios-Paoli.
“I’m an anthropologist by training and I understand cultural change,” she said. “You can only do anything if you really have trust.”
amyclark@jewishweek.org
Clarification, March 4, 2015: The article has been changed to clarify that what Rabbi Zwiebel said is "worth looking into" is the idea of only using mohels who test negative for herpes for metzitzah b'peh, not banning mohels who test positive for the virus.
Ask Gemma Kirby about how her flight was, and you might be surprised what you hear.
Gemma “The Jet” Kirby, 25, considers soaring several hundred feet through the air at 75 miles per hour an average day’s work. As the youngest performing human cannonball in the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey circus — she just celebrated her one-year “cannonversary” — some might consider her a big shot.
But her day job isn’t the only thing that gives her a rise.
Kirby, who grew up in Minneapolis, is a passionate feminist and a proud Jew who has even managed to lead makeshift Passover seders on the fly during the circus’ grueling schedule.
Wearing her silver sequined bodysuit, silver gloves, flight goggles and stage makeup, the statuesque Kirby spoke to The Jewish Week during a brief intermission last week at the Barclay’s Center, in a room directly behind the circus ring. Two performers practiced nearby, balancing on one another’s shoulders before hitting the ring, while another did back flips to warm up. The ringleader’s booming voice was audible through the music.
Though Kirby had been launched out of a cannon just minutes before — gracefully arching her back in mid-flight and executing a forward somersault — she was unruffled and poised, the rigors of circus life at a temporary remove.
“Bringing joy and excitement to others is why I do what I do,” she said, adding that she was raised on the ethic of helping others. “And who has to be asked twice to be a human cannonball?”
Not Kirby, it turns out. The cannonball, she said, actually found her. She began her journey as a dancer at the age of 7, and later attended a circus school in St. Paul to explore aerial arts. Her talent as a flying trapeze artist caught the attention of the Big Apple Circus, where she performed from 2011-2012. Ringling then asked her to join its show.
“I fit the description of what they were looking for — I’m not afraid of heights, obviously,” she joked. “It was the right time in my life. They didn’t have to ask twice.”
And so Kirby took her place as part of an enduring staple of American popular culture stretching back more than 150 years.
While the job commands a certain glamour, it remains one of the most dangerous in the world. According to the late British historian A.H. Coxe, 30 human cannonballs have died on the job, usually the result of bad landings. Human cannonballs have been know to blackout in mid-air, due to the extreme G-force, which can be nine times as strong as normal gravitational pull.
Though Kirby knows the dangers — compressed air launches her upwards of 75 feet in the air and into inflatable targets about 200 feet away — she remains fearless. (She does not wear a helmet.) “Life’s about the challenge,” she said. To date, she has not been injured on the job.
To stay fit for the job, Kirby, like many other circus performers, logs 14-hour days filled with strength training, stretching, dance practice and rehearsals.
“One thing audiences might not understand is the tough schedule,” said Kirby, who said getting used to train life is a must. “No one pours this much of their life into their job unless they are 100 percent passionate.”
Despite her hectic schedule — her Ringling “Xtreme” troupe performs 850 shows over two years — Kirby finds ways to bring her Jewish identity with her on the road. She has a menorah, which she proudly lights in the window of her train car every Chanukah. And, along with two of her fellow circus-mates (one Jewish, one just curious), she was able to celebrate Passover, her favorite Jewish holiday, while on the move.
“I led a seder while we were on tour!” Kirby exclaimed. She described how she and her two circus mates set up the ritual feast below a bridge in a “sketchy” park outside Washington, D.C., dining on matzah ball soup and a festive cup of wine. “It’s one of my fondest memories — bringing my faith and traditions with me wherever I go.”
A Birthright Israel trip in 2009, when she was 19, helped solidify her Jewish identity. “I always knew I was Jewish growing up, but visiting Israel made me feel truly connected to my roots,” Kirby said.
While in Israel, Kirby received a Hebrew name at a special ceremony on Masada: Michal.
“I wasn’t given a Jewish name when I was born, so one of the rabbis on the trip asked if I wanted one,” she said. “When I’m performing, I think of myself as Gemma, but Michal is now a deep part of who I am.”
Alongside the hard work and the adventure of Passover seders on the run, there are some funny perks for Kirby. For instance, watching people’s reactions when she tells them about her day job. Most people, she said, “Flat out don’t believe me.”
While staying in a Brooklyn hotel last week during the circus’ late-February run, Kirby relayed how she heard one hotel guest ask another, “Did you know that there’s a cannonball staying in this hotel?”
“That’s me,” she said, laughing. “For me, small talk is never a problem.”
Though the physical strain of circus life is draining, Kirby says she’s not in the business to feel “happy or content.”
“At this point in my life, it’s about growing pains,” she said. “I would much prefer discomfort to comfort. You don’t move forward if you’re too comfortable.”
Kirby also hopes her example will help other young women challenge gender stereotypes, adding that she speaks with groups of students around the county while on tour.
“When young girls come to the circus and see what I do, maybe they’ll say, ‘Hey, I didn’t know that’s something a girl can do!’” said Kirby, who speaks with groups of students around the country. Seeing young women lose interest in sports, math and science starting in middle school is a trend that needs to be fought, she said. “‘If the human cannon ball is a girl, what does that mean for me?’ That’s what I hope they’ll ask.”
Ten years from now, Kirby does see herself settling down with a family, and possibly pursuing higher education. (She holds a BA in psychology and hopes some day to get a graduate degree in American Sign Language.)
But, though she’s used to moving like, ahem, a shot, there’s no rush. “I want to do what I love until I don’t love it anymore,” she said. “For the moment, that’s the cannon.”
As an afterthought, she added, “My grandma is going to be so psyched to see this! She can’t get enough Jewish news.”
And with that, Gemma Kirby, the Human Cannonball and nice Jewish girl from the American heartland, zips up her silver sequined body suit, pulls down her flight goggles and prepares for another blast of a day at the office. editor@jewishweek.org
Curb Your Nervousness: Directing Larry David
Ted Merwin
Special To The Jewish Week
Larry David and Ben Shenkman in “Fish in the Dark,” left. Joan Marcus
I was very nervous at first,” Anna D. Shapiro told The Jewish Week about her reaction to being chosen to direct Larry David’s “Fish in the Dark,” which opens this week on Broadway. “I adore the guy; he’s been so seminal in the formation of my own sense of humor. I didn’t want him to think that I wasn’t funny.”Shapiro has directed the Broadway and Steppenwolf productions of Tracy Letts’ “August: Osage County,” along with the Broadway productions of “The Mother****** With the Hat,” “Of Mice and Men” and “This is Our Youth.” But none of these plays have returned Shapiro to her Jewish roots, she said, in the ways that this one has.
Shapiro grew up in Evanston, Ill., in a secular Jewish family that she describes as “very, very close.” A long-time member of the Steppenwolf Theater Company in Chicago (which has just named her artistic director), she acted in 2004 in “I Never Sang For My Father,” about a widowed non-Jewish college professor who is dominated by his father. “I was so surprised that the parents and children talked to each other only once a year; everyone else in the cast thought that it was normal.”
“Fish in the Dark” is also about parent-child relationships; it focuses on two brothers, played by Ben Shenkman and David, who are dealing with their father’s death. The members of the older generation in the play “expect to be always disappointed,” Shapiro noted. “They have a worldview that was shaped by persecution. There’s a wonderful lack of sentimentality that comes from having to be pragmatic” — an uncompromising attitude toward life that in both the play and in David’s HBO sitcom “Curb Your Enthusiasm” leads to toward awkward, uproarious humor.
While episodes of “Curb,” which ended in 2011 after eight seasons, were developed through improvisation, “Fish in the Dark” was tightly scripted by David. “He often stops an actor from adding even a word to the dialogue, and throwing off the rhythm of the joke.”
Shapiro described David as a “master who assembles his wares in front of him, and watches everyone ping off each other.” While she noted that David is the “center of everything,” she described the play as a “real ensemble piece,” with a 15-member cast that includes Rita Wilson, Rosie Perez, Lewis J. Stadlen and Jane Houdyshell. The show has received tremendous publicity, including last weekend’s “60 Minutes” interview with David, and a plug by Perez on the “Today” show — both of which aired after the play had already broken box office records for advance sales ($49-$275;telecharge.com).
David is known for creating bizarre situations and exploiting them for maximum comedic effect. But Shapiro emphasized that, in the end, his humor derives from his characters. “You can’t just put someone you don’t know in a situation and expect it to be funny.” David’s humor is, she concluded, is about “people needing and wanting things.”
editor@jewishweek.org
D.C. 'Mikvahgate' Rabbi Flees To Israel; Yeshivas Seek To Prevent Mikvah Scandals; InternationalSynagogues in Slovenia (ISIS) Considering Name Change
INSIDE THIS SPECIAL SECTION
Gary Rosenblatt
P.S. For the latest in breaking news and exclusive videos, features, opeds, advice and more, check out our website, always there for you.
http://www.thejewishweek.com/
Gary Rosenblatt
Fear And Loathing In The Jewish World
Now that Benjamin Netanyahu has made The Speech, after a prolonged, bitter spat between the White House and Jerusalem, we should soon get a sense of how this embarrassing drama has played out at home for the prime minister. The national elections are set for March 17, and Israelis will speak up through the ballot box.
It will be more difficult, though, to measure the impact of the rift on American Jewry, and to see what its impact on our relationship with Israel will be.
If Netanyahu’s Likud party prevails and achieves a significant victory, observers will attribute much of its success to the Israeli electorate deciding that its desire for security — in this case, from the threat of a nuclear Iran — trumped its goal of maintaining strong ties between Israeli and American leaders.
If, on the other hand, Netanyahu stumbles at the polls, his decision to circumvent Washington protocol and engage in a public feud with President Obama over the Iran negotiations will be viewed as the decisive blow that brought him down.
Given the nature of the Israeli political system, it may take weeks for the election results to produce a coalition government. In Israel it’s not the leader of the party with the most votes that automatically wins; last time around, Tzipi Livni’s Hatnuah party received more votes than Netanyahu’s Likud. But she could not put together a coalition of at least 61 of the Knesset’s 120 seats, so Netanyahu got his turn and he managed to do so.
Once again he would have the advantage in cobbling together a working government because he could turn to two other right-of-center parties, Naftali Bennett’s Bayit Yehudi, which is expected to do well in the polls, and Avigdor Lieberman’s scandal-plagued Yisrael Beiteinu, even though there is strong personal animosity between Netanyahu and Bennett, and no love lost between Netanyahu and Lieberman. (Both men served as top advisers to Netanyahu earlier in his career, which led to animus between them and their former boss.)
It seems clear that Netanyahu would also bring the religious parties back into the government. That would present a setback for non-Orthodox Jews in the U.S. critical of the high halachic bar set for marriages, divorces and conversions by the chief rabbinate in Israel. Until those standards are eased, the great majority of diaspora Jews will feel they are second-class citizens in their own Jewish homeland.
What’s more, that feeling of disenfranchisement will be fueled by the increasingly dim prospects for a two-state solution and by the fracture between Netanyahu and Obama on a personal level that has seriously strained the U.S.-Israel relationship. A third term for the prime minister could further alienate many, if not most, American Jews.
“It would mean a more hawkish government in Jerusalem and that will turn off people all the more,” said an executive of a leading centrist Jewish organization, noting that about 70 percent of American Jews voted for Obama in 2012. No doubt many feel they have been placed in a position of having to choose between their loyalties to their country and their homeland.
Indeed, the long-heralded “unshakeable bond” between Washington and Jerusalem could be seen as shuddering in the wind.
The nasty political campaign being waged in Israel may be attributed to the fact that the stakes are so high. Each side, left and right, is convinced that a win by its opponents could spell the end of Israel. The right thinks a Herzog-Livni victory would mean dangerous territorial concessions to the Palestinians that would threaten Israel’s existence. And the left believes another Netanyahu win would jeopardize the state’s democratic values and further isolate Israel around the world, with a less than sympathetic U.S. unwilling to come to Jerusalem’s diplomatic rescue.
As a result, the personalized insults traded back and forth in Israel are intended to demonize one’s opponents, not just counter them.
That air of animosity is evident here as well. Shmuley Boteach, self-defined as “America’s Rabbi,” sponsored a full-page ad on Iran in last Saturday’s New York Times and asserted that National Security Adviser Susan Rice has “a blind spot” when it comes to “genocide.” (Jewish groups quickly and strongly condemned him for his language.) A couple of weeks ago the rabbi publicly suggested that NYU’s Hillel is not sufficiently pro-Israel (because it chose not to partner with his organization in a planned event). And in recent days several top Jewish lay leaders in New York have been called out by a small group of vocal critics for donating to the New Israel Fund, which the critics consider to be anti-Israel. (No mention was made of the fact that the lay leaders targeted by name give generously to a wide range of Jewish causes, including those considered right of center on Israel as well.)
The political atmosphere here these days in regard to Israel is more than tainted — it’s toxic. Some suggest privately that the anti-left charges are part of a campaign paid for by Sheldon Adelson, the Las Vegas-based businessman and hard right supporter of Israel who backed a number of Republican candidates in prior elections. But such talk is based more on speculation than proof, indicative of the mood of suspicion that prevails.
Perhaps it will ease after the Israeli elections, when a governing coalition emerges and becomes the focus of attention. But already the community-sponsored Celebrate Israel parade, held each spring on Fifth Avenue, has become a source of controversy once more. Some vocal opponents of the New Israel Fund are insisting it not be allowed to march in the one major public event whose goal is to show the size, depth and diversity of our support for the Jewish state. It’s a sad statement on the anger, intolerance, distrust and pettiness that seeks to divide rather than unite, proof that at times we — from the prime minister of Israel on down — can be our own worst enemy.
Gary@jewishweek.org
Rabbi David Wolpe
The Short Of It
Mark Twain wrote of his experience in church: “I couldn’t wait for him to get through. I had $400 in my pocket. I wanted to give that and borrow more to give. You could see greenbacks in every eye. But he didn’t pass the plate, and it grew hotter and we grew sleepier. My enthusiasm went down, down, down — $100 at a time, till finally when the plate came round I stole 10 cents out of it.”
Kol Hamosif Goreah, we say in Hebrew — all who add, subtract. The notion that the level of conviction rises with the number of words is contradicted by the Gettysburg Address and the Ten Commandments. Too much is just too much.
For close to 25 years I’ve sent 200 words weekly to this newspaper. Sometimes the cuts I made bothered me, but mostly they were improvements. And people often read them to the end, in an age when Twitter begins to seem long-winded.
There are definite virtues to length; some books, movies and speeches benefit from complications of plot, from the luxuriance of symbols and nuance. But for the most part, be blunt, be brief — be gone.
Rabbi David Wolpe is spiritual leader of Sinai Temple in Los Angeles. Follow him on Twitter: @RabbiWolpe. His latest book is “David: The Divided Heart” (Yale University Press).
THE JEWISH Q&A
A Serious Study Of Jewish Humor
Steve Lipman
Staff Writer
There’s a lot of laughter at Baruch College this year, and it’s coming from the classroom of a professor of statistics & computer information systems. The new course is “Jewish Humor,” which attempts “to walk the fine line between scholarship and playfulness.” The teacher is Linda Weiser Friedman, co-author — with her husband, Heshy Friedman, a professor of business at Brooklyn College — of “God Laughed: Sources of Jewish Humor” (Transaction). On the eve of Purim, a Jewish holiday that celebrates humor, The Jewish Week caught up with Friedman by email. This is an edited transcript of the interview.
Q: Jewish humor is a rich enough field to warrant its own course?
A:Are you kidding? Just look at all the books published, conferences, scholarly articles, even entire journals devoted to the subject. There is a tremendous interest in humor, and in Jewish humor in particular. One of the most fascinating aspects of studying Jewish humor is trying to answer the question — what is unique about Jewish humor?
What is unique about the type of Jewish humor that has developed in this country?
This country has an entire genre of Jewish humor — jokes about assimilation — that is missing or very limited elsewhere. In much of assimilation humor we poke fun at ourselves for even considering being able to “pass” — which, when you think about it, is supposed to be easy for the Ashkenazi-skinned Jews that populate this genre. Certainly easier than for an African-American trying to pass as white.
We are all familiar with the insult “Oreo,” which African-Americans use to imply that someone may look black but is really white on the inside. In contrast, in assimilation humor, Jews are trying hard to pass as non-Jews, but the joke is that no matter how “white” they are on the outside, they are still Jews in their cores.
What type of distinctive coping humor have you found among Jews who survived the Holocaust and other times of persecution?
The Holocaust [brought] … a coping mechanism on a societal scale. Mel Brooks, creator of that wonderful show “The Producers,” said: “One of my lifelong jobs has been to make the world laugh at Adolf Hitler, because how do you get even? There’s only one way to get even, you have to bring him down with ridicule.”
A young standup comic, David Finkelstein, has a bit in which he describes seeing a swastika spray-painted on the sidewalk in his neighborhood. He thinks it’s hysterical (as a comedian) that the anonymous vandal thought it was necessary to add the words “Kill the Jews,” like a caption. Because we might make a mistake and think that the swastika was just an interesting symmetrical design.
There is no shortage of books about Jewish humor. What is distinctive about what you and your husband co-author add?
Our book takes the position that Jewish humor goes all way back to ancient times. We use examples from the Hebrew Bible and the Talmud to show that much of the humor we think of as modern Jewish humor is very similar to that found in these ancient documents.
You write that “it may be futile” to offer a brief definition of what constitutes Jewish humor. Can you do it in one paragraph?
But then you won’t read the book. Or come to my class. Or attend any of our book talks.
The title of chapter 3 is, “Does God Have a Sense of Humor?” What’s the answer?
Read the book. Mine, not God’s. Oh, OK, read God’s book too. There’s funny stuff in there.
Obvious question. What’s your favorite Jewish joke?
That changes. Generally, I like the ones that are very Jewish rather than the ones that could be told by, for, and to any people. Purim might be a good time for us to remember Robin Williams who, while not Jewish, told the story of the time he was interviewed in Germany: “I was once on a German talk show, and this woman said to me, ‘Mr. Williams, why do you think there is not so much comedy in Germany?’ And I said, ‘Did you ever think you killed all the funny people?’”
steve@jewishweek.org
TRAVEL
Echoes Of The Rothschilds
Hilary Larson
Travel Writer
When I am asked about my least favorite airport, I never hesitate. While my relationship with JFK, my home base, is of the love-hate variety, there is no airport I loathe the way I loathe Frankfurt.
And yet I enjoy the city. Unlike most international travelers, who tend to view Frankfurt the way New Yorkers view the Time Square shuttle, I have actually made the effort to get out of that sprawling German air hub and explore the energetic metropolis that surrounds it.
Oh, OK, I haven’t really made the effort. I’ve actually been stranded in Frankfurt on numerous occasions, so no initiative was necessary on my part. Nevertheless, I am always pleasantly surprised at all the history and attractions that Frankfurt, located in the German state of Hessen, has to offer — especially its Jewish heritage, which is intimately connected to its status as the Continent’s financial capital. (The banking city is distinguished from its edible homonym by the addendum “am Main,” though apart from train schedules, you’ll rarely see all three words.)
Indeed, a tour of Frankfurt’s leading Jewish attractions reveals that this city of bankers is also, in no small part, a city of prominent Jewish bankers — most prominent among them Mayer Carl von Rothschild, a member of of the illustrious family whose 19th-century villa, known as the Rothschild Palace, now houses part of the Jewish Museum Frankfurt am Main. Germany’s fourth-largest Jewish community has been fortified over the years with newcomers drawn to the financial industry here.
Today the city is presided over by a Jewish mayor, Peter Feldmann. And it has been the site of pro-Jewish demonstrations organized in response to a rash of anti-Semitic incidents throughout Germany (and Europe); a recent event drew a reported 3,500 to protest anti-Semitism, including a visible effort by the Kurdish-Israeli Friendship Society — evidence of the both the city’s pragmatic pluralism and its thriving immigrant cultures.
Those cultures have a long, turbulent history in this ancient town — a history vividly on display at the Jewish Museum, which presents nearly a millennium of Frankfurt Jewish life in two white neoclassical buildings on the banks of the Main River. With substantial archives, libraries, education and media centers in addition to an impressive collection of cultural artifacts and important Jewish art, the museum opened on the 50th anniversary of Kristallnacht in 1988.
Few of the lavish 19th-century Rothschild interiors remain intact, but several are preserved inside Mayer Carl’s villa; they include his smoking salon, a mirrored stairway inlaid with multicolored marble, and a white-and-gold music room. All flaunt the fluted columns and Rococo touches favored by the Francophile elite.
For me, a particular highlight of the museum is the collection of paintings and other works by German-Jewish artists who are not well known in the U.S., but whose lives and careers reflect the fascinating vicissitudes of German-Jewish fortune. These include works by Eduard Bendemann, son of a 19th-century banker, and Jacob Steinhardt, who emigrated to Palestine in the 1930s, founded one of Jerusalem’s early art academies and became known for his Jewish and biblical themes. Steinhardt’s iconic woodcuts, together with the etchings of Berlin-Jewish artist and fellow Israeli émigré, Hermann Struck, are the focus of a current exhibition at the museum.
You can also see paintings and theatrical settings by Henry Gowa, a German stage designer and artist. Gowa escaped the Holocaust in France, where he was heavily influenced by French aesthetic culture, became an intimate of Marc Chagall and other heavyweights, and returned to become a leading figure in the postwar art scene in Germany, where he maintained ties to French culture.
Many Jewish families, including those in the banking industry, had historical roots in the Judengasse — Frankfurt’s historic Jewish ghetto, which lasted the 15th through the 18th centuries. Pedestrians scurrying through an ugly modern intersection might never suspect that the grim brick façade of the Museum Judengasse today rests on the foundations of Jewish houses from that era.
The museum has been closed for renovation and will reopen later this year with a new permanent exhibition documenting the history of that community — including the original walls from an ancient German synagogue.
Meanwhile, Frankfurt’s leading institution for Holocaust research, the Fritz Bauer Institute, has a new home on the campus of Goethe University, on the green northern fringe of the center city. Named for the Jewish lawyer (and later attorney general for Hessen) who was a leading figure in both the Frankfurt Auschwitz trials and the capture of Adolf Eichmann, the Institute hosts frequent lectures, exhibitions and events exploring the blackest of German chapters.
It’s a reminder that the workaday bustle of dark-suited bankers in this consummately modern city has a venerable, complicated Jewish past — a past worth exploring just outside Europe’s most exasperating airport.
editor@jewishweek.org
A Matter Of Trust
Erica Brown
Special To The Jewish Week
This article is sponsored by the letter “C” — actually by two words that begin with “C”: conspiracy and context. The more you work within the Jewish community the more you realize that Elvis and JFK are still alive. Evidence of this, you ask? We Jews love a good conspiracy theory.
When we don’t know a piece of information, we are all too ready to blame leadership for conspiring against us, hiding something from us or failing to be transparent. Sometimes there is truth to this. Leaders do make mistakes. When Jewish nonprofit leaders fail to communicate appropriately they leave themselves open to such criticism.
But very often we are too quick as a Jewish public to call out lack of transparency when we failed to read the memo that explained everything or almost everything. We jump to criticize. We use harsh, loaded words. We gossip. We tweet it out instead of talking it through. Someone else is always at fault. That someone has to pay. Leaders then have to defend themselves. It’s never the followers. Followers handle themselves perfectly.
The French philosopher Paul Ricouer (1913-2005) coined a term that explains a lot about conspiracy theories: the hermeneutics of suspicion; all interpretation reveals and conceals. Hermeneutics is roughly the study of theories of interpretation. We humans are naturally interpretive beings. Interpretation involves choices of how we frame what we see and read. Too often we suffer from a tendency to frame something in a negative light — to be suspicious instead of trusting. As a Jewish community, we have a bankruptcy of trust right now.
Purim is just behind us. Mordechai called out a real conspiracy against Ahashverosh; it was almost ignored. R. Eliezer Ashkenazi, a 16th-century scholar, draws our attention to one line in the Megillah that points to an imaginary conspiracy. Haman was at the height of his power but told his wife and friends, “all this is worth nothing as long as I see Mordecai the Jew sitting there at the palace gate” (5:13). At the height of his power, Haman lost perspective. As a result of anger towards one, he was willing to kill an entire people.
R. Ashkenazi points to a similar theme in Genesis 21. Sarah threw Hagar and Ishmael out of Abraham’s house. She, too, was at the height of happiness celebrating an impossibly miraculous moment, the weaning of Isaac. In both these instances, Rabbi Ashkenazi regards high points as times when we can miss the larger picture. We focus on the one ugly thing that bothers us and take it totally out of proportion.
Beware the arrogance that underlines conspiracy theories, which are tools we use to help absolve ourselves of our responsibility to put things in context — our other “C” word. In “Ethics of the Fathers,” we are told to judge everyone with the benefit of the doubt. And yet some of the most “religious” people I know are the quickest to lose perspective, to judge, to ascribe bad motives, to ignore facts and to fail to check if their own assumptions are correct. It’s totally befuddling and anti-spiritual. Where is the context?
Jewish leaders and institutions can implode from the inside because of our capacity for conspiracy and our incapacity for trust. If Purim is to have an enduring message, it will mean more than girls dressed in Esther costumes and extravagant mishloach manot. Let’s finally internalize the demand to judge all people favorably, to trust more and to assume less.
Haman did not allow that. He criticized us precisely because we were a people of different laws and practices that failed to conform to his notion of Persian citizenship (3:8). Mordechai and Esther prevented a real conspiracy from downing Persia’s leadership. They also had a moral victory; they returned us to the wholeness and authenticity of a people allowed to self-identify.
The Talmud advises us to drink on Purim so that we don’t know the difference between Haman and Mordechai, disastrous advice unless it’s telling us to do that which perhaps only alcohol and real kindness can achieve. Look at people without labels — or with the only label that ever matters: being human. Let’s name the conspiracy problem in our midst and redeem it by creating context. Trust more. Suspect less.
Erica Brown’s column appears the first week of the month. Her latest book is “Seder Talk: A Conversationalist Haggada” (Koren).
Charedi Leader Opens Door On Metzitzah
Amy Sara Clark
Staff Writer
In what appears to be a crack in the united charedi front on metzitzah b’peh, an influential Orthodox leader said this week that the idea of only using mohelim who test negative for herpes for the risky circumcision technique is “worth looking into.”
Rabbi David Zwiebel, executive vice president of Agudath Israel of America, an umbrella organization for charedi Jews, told The Jewish Week during an extensive interview Monday that he was open to the idea if two major problems could be overcome. Both involve the fact that most adults — 73 percent, according the city health officials — have the virus, and, because it’s highly contagious, anyone can catch it at any time.
“How can you be certain that at any given time the mohel doesn’t have the virus? Because he may have been tested a year ago and he may have contracted the virus since then,” he said. “There’s no foolproof way of doing something like that, although if we could find a way of doing that and ensure a proper supply of people who will do metzitzeh b’peh, that would certainly be something worth looking into.”
Rabbi David Niederman, president of the United Jewish Organizations of Williamsburg and North Brooklyn and a leader in the Satmar chasidic community, told The Jewish Week he remains steadfastly opposed to the idea, saying herpes testing would create “a false sense of security.”
“By having a test today, then tomorrow he can have it. So what added security is that at all? Should [the mohel] be tested every day? Should he be tested every half an hour? It simply doesn’t make sense,” Rabbi Niederman said. “Simply to create a false sense of security and hysteria at the same time serves no public health policy and defeats the whole purpose.”
City officials said they would welcome a discussion on such a policy shift if charedi leaders were to bring it to them.
These developments come a week after the de Blasio administration announced a deal with charedi rabbis that scraps a 2012 requirement that parents sign a consent formbefore metzitzeh b’peh. (In metzitzeh b’peh a mohel sucks on a newborn’s penis after a circumcision to staunch the flow of blood. The practice has been linked to the deaths of two infants who it is believed contracted herpes from the mohel.) In place of the forms, which were rarely used, city officials said they will ask obstetricians, pediatricians and hospitals to give out information about metzitzah b’peh’s risks and contact information for the health department should they wish to get more information.
The deal also stipulates that if an infant begins showing symptoms of herpes after metzitzah b’peh, rabbinical leaders will help the health department identify which mohel performed the bris and ask him to be tested for the virus, a level of cooperation that hasn’t happened in the past.
If the mohel tests positive, the city will use DNA testing to determine if it was the mohel who passed on the virus, or if the baby got it from someone else. If the mohel is found to be the culprit, the city’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene will ban him for life from performing metzitzeh b’peh. The rabbinical coalition has agreed to help enforce the ban.
Already in place is a city regulation that calls for fines ranging from $200 to $2,000 for mohels who defy the ban more than once. The current provision doesn’t rule out criminal charges, and city officials told The Jewish Week Friday that they would pursue them if necessary.
“If we believed a mohel were willfully ignoring the order and endangering others, we would attempt to convince a DA to bring criminal charges,” a city spokesperson said via email. Asked about such cases, a spokeswoman for Brooklyn District Attorney Kenneth Thompson said via email, “We certainly would investigate any referral from the mayor’s office in this situation to determine whether to bring criminal charges. ”
Non-charedi Jews — such as Reform, Conservative and Modern Orthodox — do not practice metzitzah b’peh. The ritual is carried out by chasidic Jews and roughly 70 percent of non-chasidic charedi Jews, according to Rabbi Zwiebel.
Since 2000, there have been 17 reported cases of infants who have contracted herpes following metzitzah b’peh in New York City, according to the Centers for Disease Control. Of those cases, two infants have died and two others suffered brain damage. Others developed other long-term health problems.
Charedi groups who practice the ritual say there is rarely proof that the babies caught herpes from the mohels rather than other caregivers, and that the low incidence of cases don’t warrant banning the practice. The Centers for Disease Control says the practice is too dangerous.
Mayor Bill de Blasio’s decision to drop the consent forms was celebrated as a victory by charedi groups but roundly criticized by the non-charedi world as a political capitulation.
In a sit-down interview with The Jewish Week Friday at City Hall, the city’s deputy mayor for health and human services, Lilliam Barrios-Paoli, defended the decision, saying that even if use of the forms were enforced, that would only serve to further alienate the charedi community and wouldn’t change anyone’s mind.
She called dropping the forms a step toward building trust between the administration and the charedi community and said educating parents about the risks of metzitzeh b’peh in the privacy of a hospital room is much more likely to convince them not to allow the ritual than if they’re asked to sign a form in front of a mohel immediately before the bris.
Pam Brier, a member of the city’s Board of Health, which must approve discontinuation of the forms, has come out in favor of the policy change, calling it a “step forward.”
“For the first time in many, many, many years there’s actually a dialogue going on about how to work together on a common goal, which is to keep babies safe,” said Brier, who is president and CEO of Maimonides Medical Center in Borough Park, which has treated three infants for herpes following metzitzah b’peh in the past 18 months.
“While I can’t predict the outcome because my crystal ball is kind of cloudy, I can tell you that I can’t imagine that it will be worse than what we have now because right now, really nothing is happening,” she told The Jewish Week in an interview Monday.
Since 2005, the city has required hospitals to give all expectant mothers a letter and a fact sheet explaining the risks of metzitzeh b’peh when they register to give birth. A Maimonides spokeswoman said the hospital continues to comply with that regulation. It’s not clear if any other hospitals give out the letter.
Communications broke down between Mayor Michael Bloomberg and charedi groups following the implementation of the consent forms in 2012. That was followed by a charedi lawsuit contesting them as unconstitutional, a case that is still in litigation. Both sides say that the communication between charedi groups and the city is better now than it has been in years.
“There’s a community practicing a religious ritual that they deeply believe in. And there’s a health department saying this is a risky thing. And there was no conversation going both ways. So we had to find that bridge so that we can begin to make sure as much as we can to safeguard the children,” said Barrios-Paoli.
“I’m an anthropologist by training and I understand cultural change,” she said. “You can only do anything if you really have trust.”
amyclark@jewishweek.org
Clarification, March 4, 2015: The article has been changed to clarify that what Rabbi Zwiebel said is "worth looking into" is the idea of only using mohels who test negative for herpes for metzitzah b'peh, not banning mohels who test positive for the virus.
'Time To Move On,' Urges Leading House Democrat
Stewart ain
Staff Writer
Rep. Steve Israel
Even as President Barack Obama was refuting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s assertion before a joint session of Congress Tuesday that a better deal is possible to keep Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, a leading House Democrat called for an end to the rancor between the two men.
“It is definitely time to move on,” Rep. Steve Israel (D-L.I.), a former chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee who was among the honor guard that escorted Netanyahu into the House chamber, told The Jewish Week.
“The problem started with the way the prime minister was invited, and the optics of the invitation supplanted the substance of a deal with Iran,” he said, referring to the invitation from Republican House Speaker John Boehner without White House knowledge.
“It’s time to get past the optics of the invitation and get back to bipartisan supportfor Israel and to focus on the deal with Iran. The irony is that on everything that matters — Iron Dome, and financing for Israel’s ballistic missile program, foreign assistance — the level has been the highest it can be.”
Israel said that both Obama and Netanyahu “need to go back to a calm and productiverelationship,” and that “somebody should pick up the phone [and call the other]. ... I was skeptical about a deal with Iran before the speech. He made a forceful speech that reinforces my skepticism towards the deal.”
The speech, which was boycotted by about 50 Democrats, served to highlight the essential difference between the Obama administration and the Netanyahu government on the issue of the Iranian threat: Israel wants to eliminate the threat by compelling Iran to destroy its nuclear infrastructure, while the U.S. believes the best deal possible is one that permits international inspection to ensure that Iran does not begin making nuclear weapons.
Netanyahu argued against what he termed “two major concessions” given to Iran as part of the proposed deal still being negotiated. One is “leaving Iran with a vast nuclear program and two, lifting the restrictions on that program in about a decade. That’s why this deal is so bad. It doesn’t block Iran’s path to the bomb; it paves Iran’s path to the bomb.”
This deal is being negotiated, Netanyahu said, because the U.S. and the other five countries negotiating the deal (China, Russia, France, Germany and Britain known as the P5+1) “hope that Iran will change for the better in the coming years, or they believe that the alternative to this deal is worse.”
“I disagree,” he continued. “I don’t believe that Iran’s radical regime will change for the better after this deal.” Negotiators should “insist that restrictions on Iran’s nuclear program not be lifted for as long as Iran continues its aggression in the region and in the world. … Nuclear know-how without nuclear infrastructure doesn’t get you very much. A racecar driver without a car can’t drive. A pilot without a plane can’t fly. Without thousands of centrifuges, tons of enriched uranium or heavy water facilities, Iran can’t make nuclear weapons.”
He added: “Iran’s nuclear program can be rolled back well-beyond the current proposal by insisting on a better deal and keeping up the pressure on a very vulnerable regime, especially given the recent collapse in the price of oil. If Iran threatens to walk away … call their bluff. They’ll be back, because they need the deal a lot more than you do.”
Obama told reporters later that he did not watch Netanyahu’s speech but read it and found “nothing new.” In fact, he said, the prime minister had previously “made almost the same speech” about the dangers of the deal that brought Iran to the bargainingtable, but he said it has kept them from developing nuclear weapons.
He dismissed Netanyahu’s assertion that sanctions would extract a good agreement from Iran, saying: “If we double down on sanctions it would not do that,” and that there is evidence to support that contention.
“When it comes to this nuclear deal, let’s wait until a deal is on the table, at which point everyone can evaluate it,” Obama added. “I will be able to prove it is the best way to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, and I will take that case to every member of Congress once we have that deal.”
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) was also quick to criticize Netanyahu, saying she walked out of his remarks early because she found them to be an “insult to the intelligence of the United States.”
In a statement, she said that as “one who values the U.S.-Israel relationship, and loves Israel, I was near tears throughout the prime minister’s speech — saddened by the insult to the intelligence of the United States as part of the P5 +1 nations, and saddened by the condescension toward our knowledge of the threat posed by Iran and our broader commitment to preventing nuclear proliferation.”
Abraham Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League, said it was “sad” to hear such comments.
“The prime minister came in not to lecture but to advocate Israel’s concern,” he told The Jewish Week after attending Netanyahu’s address.
He added that in his remarks Monday before the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, Netanyahu said that both the U.S. and Israel have the same goal when it comes to preventing Iran from developing nuclear weapons. But, Foxman noted, Netanyahu said that for the U.S. “it is a matter of security, for Israel it is a matter of survival. And that is what Nancy Pelosi needs to understand. He was not lecturing or displaying arrogance or teaching us lessons. Please understand, he was saying that our anxiety is different than yours.”
But Erel Margalit, a senior member of Israel’s Labor Party who was in Washington for the AIPAC conference, told The Jewish Week that Netanyahu’s approach to the Iranian issue has caused Israel to be shut out of the P5+1 talks. If his party wins the upcoming election and assembles a coalition government, he said it would ask that Israel join the talks.
“Netanyahu has been kept on the outside without a real ability to influence,” he said. “My criticism is that a statesman uses leverage to influence reality and not just clasp the hands of audience members. Unfortunately, the president of the United States and the secretary of state have never been so remote from the Israeli government and its prime minister as they are today. As much as he got a standing ovation, he was very ineffective in convincing the U.S. administration to come back to the table with Israel and figure out a constructive solution.”
But Michael Makovsky, chief executive of the pro-Israel nonprofit organization JINSA, said he thought Netanyahu delivered a “very strong speech that addressed clearly the issues of why this be a bad deal; it was pretty sober.”
Makovsky said that Netanyahu had indeed presented an alternative to the deal now being developed: “Crippling sanctions and a credible military option.”
“Obama has been against sanctions and said he would veto new sanctions,” he said. “He has also made clear that he does not want Israel to strike [militarily], and he has indicated the U.S. would not. So he has completely undermined our leverage in the talks.”
Although Netanyahu insisted that Iran should be compelled to dismantle its nuclear infrastructure, that is something Iran would never agree to, according to Alon Ben-Meir, a professor of international relations at the Center for Global Affairs at New York University.
“Iran is not going to give up its right to enrich uranium,” he argued. “Just like in Israel, Iran has different parties that can paralyze the government. The president, parliament, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard and Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, must all be satisfied — and they are all not going to do that.”
“To suggest [as Netanyahu did] that no deal is better than a bad deal is very simplistic because there is no such thing as a perfect deal,” Ben-Meir said. “Having no deal means leaving Iran to its own devices to pursue nuclear weapons, which it could do in less than a year. An imperfect deal is better than no deal.”
But just as the free world did not compromise with the Nazis, “you don’t compromise with Iran,” insisted Israel’s former ambassador to the United States, Danny Ayalon. “When you are dealing with total evil, you need total surrender. … The prime minister’s speech was very powerful. It was probably the speech of his life and the speech of our generation as Jews and Israelis. He said Israel reserves the right to self-defense and to do all it can to ensure its future.”
Malcolm Hoenlein, executive vice chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, said he attended the speech and that “members of Congress I met on the way out said it was the best speech they heard in decades. There were some Democrats who had a more reserved reaction, but in the end they applauded. And his appeal about Jews not being defenseless anymore touched people very deeply. People said they were very moved; some were in tears.”
editor@jewishweek.org
Staff Writer
Even as President Barack Obama was refuting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s assertion before a joint session of Congress Tuesday that a better deal is possible to keep Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, a leading House Democrat called for an end to the rancor between the two men.
“It is definitely time to move on,” Rep. Steve Israel (D-L.I.), a former chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee who was among the honor guard that escorted Netanyahu into the House chamber, told The Jewish Week.
“The problem started with the way the prime minister was invited, and the optics of the invitation supplanted the substance of a deal with Iran,” he said, referring to the invitation from Republican House Speaker John Boehner without White House knowledge.
“It’s time to get past the optics of the invitation and get back to bipartisan supportfor Israel and to focus on the deal with Iran. The irony is that on everything that matters — Iron Dome, and financing for Israel’s ballistic missile program, foreign assistance — the level has been the highest it can be.”
Israel said that both Obama and Netanyahu “need to go back to a calm and productiverelationship,” and that “somebody should pick up the phone [and call the other]. ... I was skeptical about a deal with Iran before the speech. He made a forceful speech that reinforces my skepticism towards the deal.”
The speech, which was boycotted by about 50 Democrats, served to highlight the essential difference between the Obama administration and the Netanyahu government on the issue of the Iranian threat: Israel wants to eliminate the threat by compelling Iran to destroy its nuclear infrastructure, while the U.S. believes the best deal possible is one that permits international inspection to ensure that Iran does not begin making nuclear weapons.
Netanyahu argued against what he termed “two major concessions” given to Iran as part of the proposed deal still being negotiated. One is “leaving Iran with a vast nuclear program and two, lifting the restrictions on that program in about a decade. That’s why this deal is so bad. It doesn’t block Iran’s path to the bomb; it paves Iran’s path to the bomb.”
This deal is being negotiated, Netanyahu said, because the U.S. and the other five countries negotiating the deal (China, Russia, France, Germany and Britain known as the P5+1) “hope that Iran will change for the better in the coming years, or they believe that the alternative to this deal is worse.”
“I disagree,” he continued. “I don’t believe that Iran’s radical regime will change for the better after this deal.” Negotiators should “insist that restrictions on Iran’s nuclear program not be lifted for as long as Iran continues its aggression in the region and in the world. … Nuclear know-how without nuclear infrastructure doesn’t get you very much. A racecar driver without a car can’t drive. A pilot without a plane can’t fly. Without thousands of centrifuges, tons of enriched uranium or heavy water facilities, Iran can’t make nuclear weapons.”
He added: “Iran’s nuclear program can be rolled back well-beyond the current proposal by insisting on a better deal and keeping up the pressure on a very vulnerable regime, especially given the recent collapse in the price of oil. If Iran threatens to walk away … call their bluff. They’ll be back, because they need the deal a lot more than you do.”
Obama told reporters later that he did not watch Netanyahu’s speech but read it and found “nothing new.” In fact, he said, the prime minister had previously “made almost the same speech” about the dangers of the deal that brought Iran to the bargainingtable, but he said it has kept them from developing nuclear weapons.
He dismissed Netanyahu’s assertion that sanctions would extract a good agreement from Iran, saying: “If we double down on sanctions it would not do that,” and that there is evidence to support that contention.
“When it comes to this nuclear deal, let’s wait until a deal is on the table, at which point everyone can evaluate it,” Obama added. “I will be able to prove it is the best way to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, and I will take that case to every member of Congress once we have that deal.”
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) was also quick to criticize Netanyahu, saying she walked out of his remarks early because she found them to be an “insult to the intelligence of the United States.”
In a statement, she said that as “one who values the U.S.-Israel relationship, and loves Israel, I was near tears throughout the prime minister’s speech — saddened by the insult to the intelligence of the United States as part of the P5 +1 nations, and saddened by the condescension toward our knowledge of the threat posed by Iran and our broader commitment to preventing nuclear proliferation.”
Abraham Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League, said it was “sad” to hear such comments.
“The prime minister came in not to lecture but to advocate Israel’s concern,” he told The Jewish Week after attending Netanyahu’s address.
He added that in his remarks Monday before the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, Netanyahu said that both the U.S. and Israel have the same goal when it comes to preventing Iran from developing nuclear weapons. But, Foxman noted, Netanyahu said that for the U.S. “it is a matter of security, for Israel it is a matter of survival. And that is what Nancy Pelosi needs to understand. He was not lecturing or displaying arrogance or teaching us lessons. Please understand, he was saying that our anxiety is different than yours.”
But Erel Margalit, a senior member of Israel’s Labor Party who was in Washington for the AIPAC conference, told The Jewish Week that Netanyahu’s approach to the Iranian issue has caused Israel to be shut out of the P5+1 talks. If his party wins the upcoming election and assembles a coalition government, he said it would ask that Israel join the talks.
“Netanyahu has been kept on the outside without a real ability to influence,” he said. “My criticism is that a statesman uses leverage to influence reality and not just clasp the hands of audience members. Unfortunately, the president of the United States and the secretary of state have never been so remote from the Israeli government and its prime minister as they are today. As much as he got a standing ovation, he was very ineffective in convincing the U.S. administration to come back to the table with Israel and figure out a constructive solution.”
But Michael Makovsky, chief executive of the pro-Israel nonprofit organization JINSA, said he thought Netanyahu delivered a “very strong speech that addressed clearly the issues of why this be a bad deal; it was pretty sober.”
Makovsky said that Netanyahu had indeed presented an alternative to the deal now being developed: “Crippling sanctions and a credible military option.”
“Obama has been against sanctions and said he would veto new sanctions,” he said. “He has also made clear that he does not want Israel to strike [militarily], and he has indicated the U.S. would not. So he has completely undermined our leverage in the talks.”
Although Netanyahu insisted that Iran should be compelled to dismantle its nuclear infrastructure, that is something Iran would never agree to, according to Alon Ben-Meir, a professor of international relations at the Center for Global Affairs at New York University.
“Iran is not going to give up its right to enrich uranium,” he argued. “Just like in Israel, Iran has different parties that can paralyze the government. The president, parliament, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard and Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, must all be satisfied — and they are all not going to do that.”
“To suggest [as Netanyahu did] that no deal is better than a bad deal is very simplistic because there is no such thing as a perfect deal,” Ben-Meir said. “Having no deal means leaving Iran to its own devices to pursue nuclear weapons, which it could do in less than a year. An imperfect deal is better than no deal.”
But just as the free world did not compromise with the Nazis, “you don’t compromise with Iran,” insisted Israel’s former ambassador to the United States, Danny Ayalon. “When you are dealing with total evil, you need total surrender. … The prime minister’s speech was very powerful. It was probably the speech of his life and the speech of our generation as Jews and Israelis. He said Israel reserves the right to self-defense and to do all it can to ensure its future.”
Malcolm Hoenlein, executive vice chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, said he attended the speech and that “members of Congress I met on the way out said it was the best speech they heard in decades. There were some Democrats who had a more reserved reaction, but in the end they applauded. And his appeal about Jews not being defenseless anymore touched people very deeply. People said they were very moved; some were in tears.”
editor@jewishweek.org
Shooting Star
Hannah Dreyfus
Staff Writer
Hannah Dreyfus
Staff Writer
Gemma "The Jet" Kirby, nice Jewish girl from Minneapolis, just before take off. Courtesy of Hannah Dreyfus/JW
Ask Gemma Kirby about how her flight was, and you might be surprised what you hear.
Gemma “The Jet” Kirby, 25, considers soaring several hundred feet through the air at 75 miles per hour an average day’s work. As the youngest performing human cannonball in the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey circus — she just celebrated her one-year “cannonversary” — some might consider her a big shot.
But her day job isn’t the only thing that gives her a rise.
Kirby, who grew up in Minneapolis, is a passionate feminist and a proud Jew who has even managed to lead makeshift Passover seders on the fly during the circus’ grueling schedule.
Wearing her silver sequined bodysuit, silver gloves, flight goggles and stage makeup, the statuesque Kirby spoke to The Jewish Week during a brief intermission last week at the Barclay’s Center, in a room directly behind the circus ring. Two performers practiced nearby, balancing on one another’s shoulders before hitting the ring, while another did back flips to warm up. The ringleader’s booming voice was audible through the music.
Though Kirby had been launched out of a cannon just minutes before — gracefully arching her back in mid-flight and executing a forward somersault — she was unruffled and poised, the rigors of circus life at a temporary remove.
“Bringing joy and excitement to others is why I do what I do,” she said, adding that she was raised on the ethic of helping others. “And who has to be asked twice to be a human cannonball?”
Not Kirby, it turns out. The cannonball, she said, actually found her. She began her journey as a dancer at the age of 7, and later attended a circus school in St. Paul to explore aerial arts. Her talent as a flying trapeze artist caught the attention of the Big Apple Circus, where she performed from 2011-2012. Ringling then asked her to join its show.
“I fit the description of what they were looking for — I’m not afraid of heights, obviously,” she joked. “It was the right time in my life. They didn’t have to ask twice.”
And so Kirby took her place as part of an enduring staple of American popular culture stretching back more than 150 years.
While the job commands a certain glamour, it remains one of the most dangerous in the world. According to the late British historian A.H. Coxe, 30 human cannonballs have died on the job, usually the result of bad landings. Human cannonballs have been know to blackout in mid-air, due to the extreme G-force, which can be nine times as strong as normal gravitational pull.
Though Kirby knows the dangers — compressed air launches her upwards of 75 feet in the air and into inflatable targets about 200 feet away — she remains fearless. (She does not wear a helmet.) “Life’s about the challenge,” she said. To date, she has not been injured on the job.
To stay fit for the job, Kirby, like many other circus performers, logs 14-hour days filled with strength training, stretching, dance practice and rehearsals.
“One thing audiences might not understand is the tough schedule,” said Kirby, who said getting used to train life is a must. “No one pours this much of their life into their job unless they are 100 percent passionate.”
Despite her hectic schedule — her Ringling “Xtreme” troupe performs 850 shows over two years — Kirby finds ways to bring her Jewish identity with her on the road. She has a menorah, which she proudly lights in the window of her train car every Chanukah. And, along with two of her fellow circus-mates (one Jewish, one just curious), she was able to celebrate Passover, her favorite Jewish holiday, while on the move.
“I led a seder while we were on tour!” Kirby exclaimed. She described how she and her two circus mates set up the ritual feast below a bridge in a “sketchy” park outside Washington, D.C., dining on matzah ball soup and a festive cup of wine. “It’s one of my fondest memories — bringing my faith and traditions with me wherever I go.”
A Birthright Israel trip in 2009, when she was 19, helped solidify her Jewish identity. “I always knew I was Jewish growing up, but visiting Israel made me feel truly connected to my roots,” Kirby said.
While in Israel, Kirby received a Hebrew name at a special ceremony on Masada: Michal.
“I wasn’t given a Jewish name when I was born, so one of the rabbis on the trip asked if I wanted one,” she said. “When I’m performing, I think of myself as Gemma, but Michal is now a deep part of who I am.”
Alongside the hard work and the adventure of Passover seders on the run, there are some funny perks for Kirby. For instance, watching people’s reactions when she tells them about her day job. Most people, she said, “Flat out don’t believe me.”
While staying in a Brooklyn hotel last week during the circus’ late-February run, Kirby relayed how she heard one hotel guest ask another, “Did you know that there’s a cannonball staying in this hotel?”
“That’s me,” she said, laughing. “For me, small talk is never a problem.”
Though the physical strain of circus life is draining, Kirby says she’s not in the business to feel “happy or content.”
“At this point in my life, it’s about growing pains,” she said. “I would much prefer discomfort to comfort. You don’t move forward if you’re too comfortable.”
Kirby also hopes her example will help other young women challenge gender stereotypes, adding that she speaks with groups of students around the county while on tour.
“When young girls come to the circus and see what I do, maybe they’ll say, ‘Hey, I didn’t know that’s something a girl can do!’” said Kirby, who speaks with groups of students around the country. Seeing young women lose interest in sports, math and science starting in middle school is a trend that needs to be fought, she said. “‘If the human cannon ball is a girl, what does that mean for me?’ That’s what I hope they’ll ask.”
Ten years from now, Kirby does see herself settling down with a family, and possibly pursuing higher education. (She holds a BA in psychology and hopes some day to get a graduate degree in American Sign Language.)
But, though she’s used to moving like, ahem, a shot, there’s no rush. “I want to do what I love until I don’t love it anymore,” she said. “For the moment, that’s the cannon.”
As an afterthought, she added, “My grandma is going to be so psyched to see this! She can’t get enough Jewish news.”
And with that, Gemma Kirby, the Human Cannonball and nice Jewish girl from the American heartland, zips up her silver sequined body suit, pulls down her flight goggles and prepares for another blast of a day at the office. editor@jewishweek.org
American Campuses: Cause For Alarm?
Doug Chandler
Special To The Jewish Week
The Jewish Week
Doug Chandler
Special To The Jewish Week
A student at the University of Ohio recalls the heated moments when she and three of her classmates were arrested last September while protesting the fiercely anti-Israel rhetoric of a fellow student, the president of the Student Senate.
A young woman at the University of New Mexico worries about grade reprisals from professors who routinely denounce the Jewish state and don’t like her pro-Israel views.
Other students recall the appearance of swastikas on a Jewish fraternity house (at Emory University last fall), fake eviction notices slipped under the dorm-room doors of Jewish peers (at New York University last spring), and the refusal of some Palestinian students to engage in any sort of dialogue with pro-Israel classmates.
Those and other scenes make up the meat of a new documentary, “Crossing the Line 2: The New Face of Anti-Semitism on Campus,” screened at a special showing last week at the 92nd Street Y. Presented by Jerusalem U, a pro-Israel group that seeks to promote Jewish education and identity through film, the documentary was followed by a panel discussion that included Eric Fingerhut, president and CEO of Hillel International, and three of the students who appear in the work.
The film is aimed at “sounding the alarm within the Jewish community,” said Raphael Shore, founder and CEO of Jerusalem U. But while that alarm is shared by many in the Jewish community, the view of what constitutes anti-Semitism and of how to approach it differs greatly among pro-Israel activists.
Shore, for instance, told The Jewish Week that he subscribes to Natan Sharansky’s “3D” definition of anti-Semitism, which covers the demonization of Israel, the delegitimization of the Jewish state, or the use of a double standard in criticizing the country. By that standard, he said, he’d call the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, the leadership of which favors the elimination of Israel, an anti-Semitic group.
But Sarah Turbow, director of the left-leaning J Street U, said that painting all BDS activists with a broad brush is wrong not only rhetorically, but also strategically. “It means we can’t confront BDS in an effective way,” appealing to those segments of the movement that might be swayed, said Turbow, whose group opposes BDS.
Last week’s event coincided with the release of two reports on the subject — a listing of the 10 American universities believed by its author, the Los Angeles-based David Horowitz Freedom Center, to have the highest levels of anti-Semitism, and a study by a pair of highly respected research institutions.
The Freedom Center report, “Jew Hatred on Campus,” drew immediate fire from Jewish students and professionals from campuses appearing on the list, including Columbia University. One of those critics, Brian Cohen, executive director of the Columbia-Barnard Hillel, said that while Jewish students have encountered some anti-Israel professors and events, the atmosphere is hardly hostile to Jewish students, even the hundreds of visibly Orthodox ones.
The report, part of a new campaign launched by the Freedom Center to fight anti-Semitism, also includes on its list, Cornell University, George Mason University, the University of California at Los Angeles, and Vassar College. But for many, developments last week involving Horowitz called into question how thoughtful or serious he is.
The conservative activist admitted in an interview with the Los Angeles Jewish Journal that he and his organization were responsible for a spate of posters on campuses across the nation that include the words #JewHaters and link Students for Justice in Palestine, a national group with chapters on dozens of campuses, with the terrorist group Hamas.
Those slamming Horowitz’s actions included Judea Pearl, president of the Daniel Pearl Foundation and a professor at the University of California at Los Angeles, who said he wished Horowitz had consulted Jewish faculty members at the school, the Jewish Journal reported. Horowitz’s actions undermine one of the strongest arguments of pro-Israel activists on campus, Pearl said — “that Israel and Zionism, as identity-forming symbols to thousands of students on campus, are entitled to the same respect and protection from abuse as Muslim students claim for their symbols of identity.
Michael Berenbaum, director of the Sigi Ziering Center for the Study of the Holocaust and Ethics at American Jewish University, said the Jewish community on campus had done a good job of defending itself and asked why “an outside agitator” would “come in uninvited and decide that his priorities should be the priorities of that community.”
In addition to Horowitz’s report, last week saw the release of the National Demographic Survey of Jewish College Students, a study by Trinity College and the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law. The two institutions surveyed self-identified Jewish students on 55 campuses, which found that more than half of the 1,157 respondents, 54 percent, believed they had experienced some form of anti-Semitism during the spring of 2014.
Conducted before Israel’s war against Hamas terrorists in Gaza, which caused an international increase in anti-Semitic incidents, the online survey showed that the rate of campus anti-Semitism varied little from region to region.
Barry Kosmin, one of the survey’s lead researchers, said the patterns reported by the survey surprised those who conducted it. “Rather than being restricted to a few campuses or restricted to politically active or religious students, this problem is widespread,” he told The Jewish Week. “Jewish students are subjected to both traditional prejudice and the new political anti-Semitism.”
That would certainly include students who appear in Jerusalem U’s documentary, a follow-up to an earlier film on the same subject. All three spoke of the harassment and intimidation they felt on campus while defending Israel’s right to exist.
The film’s director, Jerusalem U staff member Shoshana Palatnik, said she chose students who represent a diverse cross-section of students on campuses across the country. But J Street U’s Turbow suggested that the film was missing students who agreed with her organization’s view — namely, that even among those students who back BDS or criticize Israel fiercely, not all are anti-Semitic.
How you define anti-Semitism ties in, of course, to how you believe the problem can be addressed.
Discussing the subject, Shore said he believes that “the Jewish community, as a whole, tends to minimize” or deny the problem when faced with it. He believes “it’s healthy that there are voices on all sides of the spectrum when it comes to this matter,” with some people “saying things in moderate tones,” while others, like Horowitz, acting “flamboyantly and putting it in people’s faces.”
Turbow, on the other hand, believes the community has to be extremely careful not to conflate anti-Israel activity with anti-Semitism, even in cases when the views being expressed sound outrageous.
Some elements of the BDS movement are certainly anti-Semitic, while others “say things that they don’t even realize are offensive,” Turbow continued. “I like to hope that there’s hope with these people.”
Staff Writer Steve Lipman contributed to this article.
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