Dear Reader,
World leaders announced a nuclear deal with Iran yesterday and Israelis are intensely concerned, while much of the world celebrates. Stewart Ain has the reaction story.INTERNATIONAL
Leaders, Pols Focus On Iran Deal’s ‘Safeguards’
As Israel blasts nuke agreement, others are more cautious.
Stewart Ain
Staff Writer
World leaders announce an agreement on Iran nuclear talks on April 2 in Lausanne. Getty Images
RELATED ARTICLES:Nuclear Deal Reached With Iran
Israeli officials came out strongly against the agreement in principle announced today by Iran and six world powers designed to ensure Iran does not develop nuclear weapons.
But Jewish leaders and members of Congress here took a more cautious approach, saying the agreement in principle — which promises full and complete international inspection of known and suspected nuclear facilities, reduces the number of centrifuges by two-thirds and lengthens Iran’s breakout time for developing a nuclear weapon from the current two to three months to at least one year — had to be carefully reviewed and safeguards implemented to ensure Iran’s compliance.
“This is a bad framework that will lead to a bad and dangerous agreement,” a senior Israeli official told reporters.
Malcolm Hoenlein, executive vice chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, said the key to the proposed agreement will be its implementation and “safeguards” to ensure the Iran complies with the accord.
“Iran has a long history of cheating and obfuscating,” he said. “Remember, Iran did not allow IAEA [International Atomic Energy Agency] inspectors into sites it had earlier agreed to give them access to.”
The World Jewish Congress also questioned whether Iran could be trusted to adhere to the preliminary agreement.
“Iran must prove beyond doubt that it is willing to implement all aspects of the agreement prior to the lifting of any sanctions,” Ronald Lauder, WJC president, said in a statement.
“Any failure by Tehran to honor the details of the agreement in full, or any renewed attempts to pursue a covert nuclear weapons program, must immediately trigger new, stronger sanctions and render any agreement null and void.”
“A nuclear-armed Iran would pose a grave threat to the wider world and trigger a dangerous arms race in the Middle East,” he added. “We must not let that happen by putting too much faith in this regime.”
The Republican Jewish Coalition said Congress must now begin “robust debate on the parameters” of the agreement to analyze its implications and ramifications and ensure Iran’s nuclear program is totally transparent.
“This is a foundational document and is not yet a verifiable deal,” it said. “It is troubling that the Iranians are so elated with this agreement. Those worried about a nuclear Iran must remain vigilant as centrifuges keep spinning and enriching uranium and yet another stage of negotiations is poised to begin.”
Rep. Steve Israel (D-L.I.) said in a statement: “I’ve been skeptical about a deal with Iran. The details deserve and must get a vote by the U.S. Congress. Until the full details are provided to Congress on June 30th, you can keep me in the ‘highly skeptical’ column.”
Rep. Elliott Engel (D-Bronx), the senior Democrat on the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, said Congress must now “take a close look at the details [of the proposed deal] to determine if the compromises made are worth the dismantling of years of pressure built on Iran. As I’ve said again and again, no deal is better than a bad deal, and we need to ensure that this agreement forecloses any pathway to a bomb.”
He added: “Nothing in this agreement should prevent the United States from taking action to prevent Iran from sowing further chaos and violence against American interests.”
J Street, the pro-Israel, pro-peace lobby group working towards a two-state solution, issued a statement welcoming the framework agreement and said the next several months of negotiations to finalize the terms must “result in an agreement that cuts off each of Iran’s potential pathways to acquiring the fissile material necessary for a nuclear weapon. That agreement must also put in place intrusive inspections and verification methods to ensure that Iran complies with its obligations. We look forward to evaluating the final terms of such an agreement upon or before the June 30, 2015 end of the negotiating period.”
The Jewish Council for Public Affairs said in a statement that supports the Obama administration’s efforts to find a diplomatic solution to quell Iran’s nuclear ambitions. It said there are “many details that must be addressed before a final agreement can be signed, and the JCPA is eager to begin a careful review of this agreement. We take this review process with the utmost seriousness.”
Yuval Steinitz, Israel’s minister of International Relations, told reporters that the world powers and Iran are “detached from reality,” according to the Jerusalem Post.
“At a time when the representatives of the world powers were shaking hands with the Iranians in Lausanne, Iran continues its campaign of occupation and terror in Yemen and throughout the Middle East,” he was quoted as saying.
Steinitz stressed that the Israeli government would continue to oppose agreement, saying more negotiations are needed before a final accord is reached. Until then, he said, “we will continue in our efforts to explain and convince the world in the hopes of preventing a bad deal, or at least introducing changes and improvements.”
Israel’s strong reaction against the proposed agreement follows talk in recent days about possible military action by Israel to destroy Iran’s nuclear facilities. Steinitz told Israel Radio that such action is possible, even in the face of opposition from the Obama administration.
“If we have no choice,” he said, “we have no choice. … I don't want to talk about a military option, other than to say that it exists. I just want to say one thing, when we had no choice and needed to attack and destroy the reactor in Iraq [in 1981], that was against the U.S. position.
“When talking about our national security, it is our responsibility and duty to defend the state, and if the world has other ideas or illusions or agreements that do not ensure our security, we will need to weigh very carefully what to do.”
But in a statement in the White House Rose Garden, President Barak Obama insisted that if Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “is looking for the most effective way to ensure Iran doesn’t get a nuclear weapon, this is the best option.”
Maj. Gen. Nimrod Sheffer, the head of the Planning Directorate for the Israel Defense Forces, has also refused to rule out the military option.
“Since it happened in the past, I have no reason to believe it won’t happen again,” he told the Israeli newspaper Israel Hayom. “If ultimately an agreement is in fact signed, we will have to ask ourselves, ‘OK, what are we going to do with this?’ If someone builds a bomb and at the same time declares that Israel has no right to exist, we have to think about how to respond.”
He added that Israel would not hesitate to take military action if its existence was at stake.
stewart@jewishweek.org
Closer to home, a local rabbi links the plague of the frogs to the difficult situation in East Ramapo, where schools are suffering -- and a noisy chorus of protest is starting to make itself heard.OPINION
Egyptian Earplugs?
The importance of oversight in East Ramapo.
Rabbi Adam Baldachin
Special To The Jewish Week
The plague of the frogs is worse than it seems. Fotolia
Each year on Passover, I get chills when we recount the plagues against Egypt: Blood, boils, hail, and death of first born children represent the stuff of horror films. And yet, the second plague tends to stand out for me. “The Nile shall swarm with frogs and they shall come up and enter your palace, your bedchamber, and your bed, the houses of your courtiers and your people, and your ovens and your kneading bowls” [Exodus 7:28].Frogs, although slimy, do not in my mind match the horror of other plagues. Some have argued that the numerical magnitude of the frogs was the power of the plague (Rashi, 11th century France) while others point to alternate interpretations of the animal; perhaps it was a beast-like creature that devoured humans whole (Rabbeinu Bahya, 14th century Spain)!
This year, however, I have been reflecting on a harrowing commentary by Abarbanel (15th century Portugal). He offers an interpretation of the plague that gives us insight into the suffering of the Egyptians and gives voice to the cry of the oppressed. Abarbanel focuses on the loud croaking of the frogs as the plague-like quality of the amphibian and explains that, when the Egyptians don’t repent for the sins they committed by enslaving the Israelites, God brings them kolanim, noisy creatures. The sound, he explains, is excruciating for the Egyptians to hear since it evokes the cries of the Israelite parents who were forced to throw their babies into the Nile. Previously, the parents’ screams in the ears of the killers of their children seemed to go unnoticed. The plague of frogs seeks to bring an acute sense of guilt to the Egyptians who are forced to hear the pain of those they oppressed.
Several chapters earlier, God heard the cries of the Hebrew slaves and decided to act. “God heard their groans, and God remembered God’s covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob” [Exodus 2:24]. Pleas to end human suffering can bring about change, and the second plague was perhaps a chance for the Egyptians to hear the cries of fellow human beings and shake loose from their tyrannical ways. Yet the Torah ultimately juxtaposes God answering the call for help with the Egyptians ignoring it. Whereas God remembered his responsibility to those in need, the slaveholders had become desensitized to the plight of others.
Throughout our lives, we hear many cries, even when we may not have personally created the conditions for suffering. They are the cries of people who are poor and homeless, disabled and infirm, lonely and depressed. These voices may be so numerous that they form a cacophony, hard to hear but nonetheless constant. We may even begin to tire of those voices, using their ubiquity as an excuse not to act. There are many pulls to choose the complacency of the Egyptians over the compassion of God.
Yet this Passover season is giving me hope that, when many people raise their voices together, change can indeed happen. For years, my neighbors—the children and families in East Ramapo Central School District here in Rockland County, New York—have railed against deep injustices in the educational system. Why are there giant trash cans in hallways gathering rainwater from leaky roofs in our public schools? Why are parents waiting hours for the school board to complete their secret “executive sessions” to have their voices heard? Why is kindergarten only two hours a day, while the district sends millions to private schools and to lawyers who defend their decisions? This goes beyond simple funding constraints; the school board here, the majority of whom send their children to yeshivas, is actively deprioritizing the children attending public school.
These cries may now be making a dent. A report by the New York State Education Department officially found that the school board has mismanaged the district, disrespected parents and students, and used its power and resources to favor private schools over public schools. Legislation written by our local lawmakers (A. 5355 / S. 3821) is now hoping to implement a monitor in the school district to ensure that all children, private and public, are given the chance to have a sound education that will prepare them for their future as upstanding citizens of America. A monitor would bring transparency to the district and allow parents to trust that their children are receiving the best possible educational experience.
Growing numbers of Senators, Assembly Members, Supervisors, Mayors, Town Council Members, and other leaders from across the state are lending their voices to support this oversight. Even Governor Cuomo said he would sign the bill if it reached his desk. And, during this month of Passover, you can, too. Please join me if you are able on April 28th for an advocacy trip to Albany. Our goal is to continue to push for this legislation and for our voices for justice and equity to be heard like the croaking of frogs. We will remind others of their responsibilities as guardians of the sacredness of public education until we cannot be ignored.
Rabbi Adam Baldachin is the rabbi and spiritual leader of the Montebello Jewish Center in Rockland County.
To a meaningful Passover.
Helen Chernikoff
Web DirectorMUSEUMS
Fabio Mauri’s Outsider Art
The late Italian’s first N.Y. show reveals a border-crossing artist informed by the Holocaust.
Sandee Brawarsky
Culture Editor
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In between an experiential installation about walking on the moon and a World War II film screened on a wall of old prison lockers, some very challenging art on the Holocaust is on view this month at Hauser & Wirth, an Upper East Side gallery.“I was not new” is the first New York show of the work of the late Fabio Mauri, an Italian artist known for his painting, installation art, theater and performance pieces, along with his teaching and writing about art and theory. He was not Jewish (many assumed he was), but much of his art is informed by and in reaction to his strong feelings about the Holocaust and fascism; he was always interested in memory, language, ideology and meaning. His work is in fact layered with meaning and often beauty: Each piece has multiple interpretations, leaving the viewer with much to ponder.
For Mauri, as Umberto Eco explains in the preface to a book “Fabio Mauri: Ideology and Memory,” “Art is the way of reliving (and not forgetting) the history of the present.”
Mauri was born in Rome in 1926 into circles of wealth and culture. At 18, he was drafted into the Italian army, and as he learned the details of the horrors of the Holocaust, he went silent for a year, and was sent to a psychiatric hospital. Only his father knew at first where he was, said his younger brother, Achile Mauri, here in New York for the opening of the show. In the hospital, Mauri received 33 electroshock treatments. But, as he would often sit surrounded by the other patients, teaching them, the doctors came to see that he was indeed quite sane. After being discharged, he taught in an orphanage before joining his family’s publishing company, Bompiani. He went on to teach aesthetics, and beginning in the late 1950s he created art in many formats, crossing borders between avant-garde styles, always on the outside.
“I’m not Jewish, nor were my parents. I remember wishing I was. I feel Jewish as often as possible, each time I am discriminated against,” he wrote. In fact, as his brother said, he had one Jewish grandmother, which would make his father Jewish, but he didn’t identify as such.
Perhaps his most famous work is the performance piece, “Ebrea,” or Jewess, which had its debut in Venice in 1971 and has been restaged many times, most recently — and for the first time in the U.S. — at Hauser & Wirth last week. A solo female character removes her work shirt and approaches a mirror cabinet, her back to the public. Six times, she slowly cuts of strands of her hair and applies it to the mirror, creating a Star of David. (The Jewish Museum has in its collection the mirrored cabinet and shirt from a production, “Small Closet with Shirt.”)
A lot of the works on view involve representations of screens, related to Mauri’s interest in television, cinema, and the idea of projected images. Many of the screens are white, and it’s up to the viewer to transfer an image; some of the screens are broken. A series of large doormats he created with words cut out fill the floor of one room. One features the words “Non ero nuovo,” I was not new. In another room, he has written the words “On The Liberty” in script along a wall, out of a chord that leads to a lamp, lit with a single bulb, illuminating freedom.
To view and experience “Luna,” one takes off one’s shoes and enters a room through two oval doors, resembling the doors of a spaceship. The floor of the dark space is lined with about a foot or two of tiny white polystyrene balls; footsteps create tracks and piles — it feels like walking through piles of very light sand. The piece was created a few months before the Apollo 11 landing in 1969.
Not on display here, one of Mauri’s most well-known works is his wall of packed suitcases, as though left behind, with one left open, or perhaps torn open. Titled “Il muro occidentale o del pianto” (The Western or Wailing Wall), it is a powerful statement about exile and displacement, and has been on display in museums in Europe, as part of the Italian exhibition at the Venice Biennale, and his brother reports that a major American museum tried to acquire it.
Achile Mauro, 13 years junior to Fabio, said that he was the person Fabio confided in, despite the age difference. He praises his brother’s eclecticism and says their childhood home was filled with poets, doctors, artists, engineers — “and most were not only one thing.” He recalls that Fabio first learned of the Shoah reading the international newspapers their father would bring home daily.
The works available for sale are priced between $35,000 and $1 million. Mauri’s work will again be featured at this year’s Venice Biennale.
“Fabio Mauri. I was not new” is on view through May 2 at Hauser & Wirth, 32 E. 69thSt. hauserwirth.com.
FOOD & WINERecanati And Abarbanel Chardonnays: Hear Us Out
Joshua E. London And Lou Marmon
Jewish Week Online Columnists
The world has a love/hate relationship with Chardonnay. On the one hand, it is one of the most widely planted grapes, while on the other hand, it tends to elicit scorn and even contempt. Many consumers continue to ascribe to the ABC school of wine selection: “Anything But Chardonnay.”
A rise in the grape varietal’s popularity in the 1980’s led to increased production without a concomitant attention to quality. The result was an ocean of over-oaked, flabby and out-of-balance Chardonnay wine that rarely displayed any character or charm. Oak can be used to hide a lot of faults, especially lazy winemaking and poor viticulture. Chardonnay remains popular, but there has been a steady movement toward lighter, less oaky white wines like Pinot Grigio.
Thankfully there are still many winemakers and growers out there who treat Chardonnay with some respect, and allow this grape to really shine.
One moderately priced example from Israel is the delicious kosher Recanati Diamond Chardonnay 2013 ($15). Creamy without being buttery, the wine exhibits delicate yet bright apple, pear and tropical fruit notes with some minerality and enough acidity to maintain balance and keep it food-friendly.
For a totally different yet also enjoyable and food friendly example, consider the mevushal Abarbanel, Batch 30, Unoaked Chardonnay 2013 ($14), from the Les Chemins de Favarelle single vineyard in the Aude River Valley in southwest France.
The Abarbanel Chardonnay is uncomplicated with clean and inviting notes of melon, citrus, apple, pear and light clover honey, with just enough balancing acidity to keep it all genuinely refreshing to drink. It’s a lovely little quaffer.
On the spirits side, the improving weather has turned our thoughts to sunny Spain, where we've connected directly with one of the larger sherry wine producers and providers of used sherry casks for the Scotch whisky industry. So even though sherry isn’t really a spirit but a fortified wine, and even though we’ve recommended it before, we find ourselves once again enjoying the kosher-certified Tio Pepe Fino Sherry ($24). Be certain to check that it is the kosher version, which is also kosher for Passover. There is a nonkosher version of the sherry that is widely available. The kosher version is a much more limited, more expensive run.
Fino means fine in Spanish and, Tio Pepe is very delicate, light and elegant, produced by the Gonzalez Byass Sherry House in the Jerez region of Andalusia in Spain.
Made of Palomino grapes, fortified to around 15 percent alcohol, the wine develops a top layer of oxygen-inhibiting yeast called flor, Spanish for flower, which imparts much of the distinctive flavor.
Then, wines from different stages of the aging process, are blended together so that the winery can ensure a certain consistency of product over different vintages.
Tio Pepe Fino Sherry ($24): a bone-dry fortified wine, brilliant aromas of bread and yeast, straw, green olives, almonds, fruit, and brine, and immensely satisfying flavors of almonds, walnuts, fruits, olive oil, salty crackers, and Granny Smith apples. With a lovely long and smooth finish that is bone-dry, refreshing, a little tangy, and a tad herbaceous, this is an excellent aperitif. It’s not for all tastes, but an excellent and enjoyable. Should be drunk young and well-chilled. Keep it in the fridge and drink it within a week or so after opening. L’Chaim!
TRAVEL
Wine, Wildflowers And Kolache, Texas Style
Hilary Larson
Travel Writer
Texas isn’t an especially popular vacation destination for New Yorkers. (Many Democrats, you may recall, viewed President George W. Bush’s choice of hot, arid Midland for summer vacations as proof of his poor judgment.)
A notable exception is the Texas Hill Country — the very mention of which prompts people who have been there to gush, reminisce and otherwise wax nostalgic about this verdant landscape out of a fairy tale.
Like everything in Texas, the Hill Country is bigger than you expect it to be. That was our conclusion as my husband, Oggi, and I consulted maps in advance, wanting to make sure our cross-country driving route would take us through at least a swath of this fabled region. We needn’t have worried, though: if you’re driving anywhere south of Dallas, near Austin or San Antonio, the Hill Country is hard to avoid.
Sprawling over 25 counties in south-central Texas, the Hill Country owes its beauty to a topography of grass-covered limestone hills, lush groves of Southern oaks and the odd yucca or prickly pear. In mid-March, bright blue and yellow flowers greeted us along the roadsides and along the creeks that trickle between hills, each marked with an evocative name: Live Oak Creek, Honey Creek, Walnut Creek.
Amid all this natural beauty exists a culture that is both unique to this corner of Texas and surprisingly sophisticated for rural parts. Evidence of the latter is found in the region’s burgeoning wine scene: the Texas Hill Country AVA (American Viticultural Area) is arguably the biggest recent story in American viticulture.
Every time Oggi and I exited Interstate 10 — our route from Los Angeles across the American South — we found ourselves on twisting, scenic byways peppered with local wineries. And every time we stopped at a tasting room, we were sampling among other city folk on wine country getaways —– including more than a few Jewish couples from Houston, San Antonio and Austin, all within an afternoon’s drive.
So I was a little surprised that with all this oenophilia, there doesn’t yet appear to be a kosher winery. This is definitely Bible country: modest churches of every denomination, steepled and storefront, constitute the major landmarks in every tiny town, and the motel guides to local houses of worship offer dozens of options — all of them Christian.
But we passed more than one wall painted with some variation on “We Stand With Israel.” And a little research turned up the Jewish Community of the Hill Country in picturesque town of Kerrville — a permanent congregation that gathers at the Unitarian Universalist church for weekly Shabbat services with potluck suppers.
The Jewish community believes that its antique Torah is of Czech origin, which would be fitting, since the Hill Country has a decidedly Central European flavor. Towns like Fredericksburg and New Braunfels were largely settled by immigrants from Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Poland and Czechoslovakia. “Wilkommen!” is the greeting on signposts; wood-frame eateries feature schnitzel, strudel and kolache, the fruit-, poppy seed- or cheese-filled pastry that’s been in Texas for decades, and has become increasingly popular in hipster hot spots in Brooklyn and D.C. When I walked into the Pioneer Memorial Library, set back against a lawn on Fredericksburg’s Main Street, I was greeted by dusty stacks of clothbound German-language books.
But you would never mistake Fredericksburg for Heidelberg. Despite the overlay of Teutonic kitsch, Main Street Fredericksburg looks every bit the Western prairie town. And on the afternoon we stopped by, the most popular joints were the upscale, low-lit winery tasting rooms — not the oompah beer gardens.
At the Fredericksburg outpost of Grape Creek Winery, a Hill Country pioneer established three decades ago, tasting room manager Patrick Goodman told me that most Hill Country wineries import their grapes from slightly further north, in the area surrounding Lubbock. To make really good wine, he explained, you need the kind of reliably cold nights rare in the Hill Country.
That still felt pretty local. And so did the speed limits on our way out of town, which were easily double what they would have been back home. “It says 65,” pointed out my normally very cautious husband, as we rounded yet another curve on what felt like two wheels, and I struggled to snap photos out the window.
Oggi and I got lost trying to find our way back to the 10. And the GPS on my phone, instead of backtracking, sent us on an incredibly picturesque route through the back country — on white-sand farm roads that wound past fields of grazing sheep and goats, bridges that arched over burbling creeks, and vistas over velvety green hills.
Were we making good time? Google said yes, though we had our doubts. But one thing was certain: as we wended our way through the hills of South Texas, with nary a McDonald’s or a Mobil in sight, we were thoroughly seduced by the charms of the Hill Country.
editor@jewishweek.org
NEW YORK
A New Lens On Settler-Palestinian Relations
New York native, now in Israel, is completing his documentary about an unusual rabbi and his protégés.
Doug Chandler
Jewish Week Correspondent
The late Rabbi Menachem Froman, center, chief rabbi of Tekoa, is flanked by Ziad Sabatin, left, and Nachum Pachenik.
Harvey Stein speaks of the people in his documentaries almost as if they were characters in a feature film or play.
“They’re living people with motivations and conflicts and their relationship to the outside world,” says Stein, 49, a native of New Rochelle, who now makes his home in Jerusalem.
In the case of Stein’s latest film, “A Third Way: Settlers and Palestinians as Neighbors,” the main characters are a tiny group of people who coalesced several years ago around the late Rabbi Menachem Froman, chief rabbi of Tekoa, and became protégés or friends.
The title itself could be jarring to many audiences, especially those who regard Jewish settlers and Palestinians only as antagonists.
Think of relations between the two groups and what may come to mind are the tensions between settlers and Palestinians in Hebron, an area often described as a hotbed of radicalism on both sides. Or perhaps the subject might evoke memories of the three yeshiva students murdered last June after hitchhiking in the West Bank. Or “price tag” assaults by bands of settlers against Palestinian farmers.
One of the few points of contact between the two groups occurs at Israeli-owned supermarkets and factories in which Palestinians are employed, an arrangement often scorned as paternalistic on the Israeli left or dangerous on the Israeli right. Rarely does anyone hear of social gatherings attended by both groups, or of visits to each other’s homes.
But that’s precisely the area explored by Stein’s film, which includes scenes of various gatherings in Tekoa in the Gush Etzion bloc of settlements, a Palestinian village and a field owned by the family of a Palestinian activist. It also includes extensive interviews with Rabbi Froman, who died in 2013, and with four settlers and Palestinians who share his values. Finally, the camera also captures some lively conversations among members of the rabbi’s circle.
What drew Stein to the subject is the attraction he has to “people who are able to embrace contradictions,” he said in a recent phone interview from Jerusalem. “Here was a story about a rabbi who lived in a settlement and yet was longtime friends with [Palestinian leader Yassir] Arafat.”
In one of Stein’s interviews with the rabbi, the filmmaker asked him if he’d be happy as a Palestinian citizen, Stein recalled. In response, the rabbi smiled and said, “I’m a citizen of the state of God. It’s not so important who is the man, who is the government.” At another point in the film, one of Rabbi Froman’s Palestinian protégés, Ziad Sabatin, describes a meeting between the rabbi and Arafat at which the rabbi raised the question of Jews living in a Palestinian state. According to Sabatin, Arafat’s answer was: “I agree — this is a new plan — and you will be the minister responsible for Israelis living within Palestine.”
The rabbi’s views compelled him not only to develop his friendship with Arafat, a relationship more or less accepted in Israel after the Oslo agreement, but to make repeated visits to Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, a founder of Hamas — a move that drew fierce denunciations from other Israelis. Rabbi Froman’s meetings with Yassin, who was eventually assassinated by Israel in 2004, came while the Hamas leader was in jail and, later, before an audience of thousands of Hamas members in Gaza City.
“A Third Way” covers that sensitive subject by cutting repeatedly between separate interviews with Gershon Baskin, a peace activist who defends the rabbi’s meetings with Yassin, and the more centrist Yossi Klein Halevi, an author and journalist who criticizes those moves.
But other segments also stand out, including those like an interview with Ali Abu Awwad, a Palestinian whose brother was killed in the conflict, but who made the conscious decision to devote his life to peace, not hate. It’s Awwad who has created a center of sorts on land owned by his family — a center where settlers and Palestinians have come together, often with their families, to learn, socialize and create even tighter bonds.
Describing his relationship with settlers, Awwad said that, in general, settlers and Palestinians “are enemies. … On the other hand, because we know each other, it makes a big difference. It doesn’t mean that everything is perfect, by the way, but we have created our own small, safe place. From the small, safe place, we will grow.”
Awwad also appears in other scenes, including an exchange with Shaul Judelman, an American-born settler, during last summer’s Gaza conflict. Although the two express markedly different views, it’s clear from the exchange that both have a deep admiration for each other and that both are committed to a solution.
Stein, too, is invested in the region’s future, having married an Israeli woman and then making aliyah in 2006. He also has an 8-year-old son, born in Israel shortly after the couple moved there, said Stein, who lived for a while on the Upper West Side and in Astoria.
But although he has his views, his aim is to tell a story and hope that it challenges people “on both sides of the conflict,” Stein said. “Left and right doesn’t do it these days. Life is more complex.”
A playwright, actor and director before he began making promotional videos and, later, documentaries, Stein noted that both the settlers and the Palestinians face intense challenges within their own communities as they reach out to each other. But Rabbi Froman’s Jewish protégés risk disapproval at worst, while his Palestinian friends are courting danger, he said.
Many Palestinians harbor “great hatred” toward settlers and object to any contact between the two groups, Stein said. In fact, Sabatin, one of the Palestinians appearing in the film, has been interrogated and jailed repeatedly by the Palestinian Authority for associating with settlers.
It’s in part to protect the Palestinians in his film that Stein plans to initially screen “A Third Way” before private, invitation-only audiences in the late spring. He also hopes that many of those events will include panel discussions and that some will be co-sponsored by Jewish and Muslim organizations.
Meanwhile, Stein said, he’s made “the same journey” that he expects some of the film’s viewers to make. “Ten years ago,” he said, “I might have said that settlers are the obstacle to peace, and now I know that it’s not that simple.” editor@jewishweek.org
THE NEW NORMAL
All Are Welcome At The Seder
Rabbi Michael Levy
A contemplative girl is full of questions: How could a respected family in Egypt so quickly become an enslaved nation? Why was Pharaoh so stubborn?
There’s the "Squirmer." If he doesn’t declare outright that he’d rather not be at the Seder, his body language clearly broadcasts the message.
Seated next to each other are two frustrated guests. One is always losing his place in the Haggadah, and the other’s eyes often stray to the kitchen.
During its recounting of the Exodus from Egypt, the Haggadah “pauses” to consider Seder participants resembling those described above. They are portrayed as four sons: one wise, one wicked, one simple and one who doesn’t know how to ask.
How should a Seder leader treat these participants? What if they have disabilities?
The Wise Child
Thirsting for knowledge, this wise child can’t stop asking questions. Perhaps she’s been preparing questions for weeks.
Print-disabled individuals also thirst for knowledge. So do those who are nonverbal, and those who can’t climb two flights of stairs to join a Seder celebration. If we haven’t accommodated them this year, we should, when we plan our 2016 Seder.
The Wicked Child
At a Seder when I was 18 years old, my older cousin concluded that I was an “angry young man.” Rebellion strains the parent-child relationship, but it’s a very “old normal.”
With so much medical attention focused on some adolescents with disabilities, we must recognize rebellion for what it is, and not reflexively diagnose it as a disability-related behavior disorder.
The Haggadah rather harshly rebukes the rebellious participant. Nowadays, a rebuke should be “customized” to the recipient so that it may benefit him, whether or not he’s disabled.
The Simple Son
The simple son isn’t a simpleton. He’s straightforward. He doesn’t put on an act. If he loses the thread of the Haggadah’s discussion, he reaches out for assistance.
Unfortunately, many in our communities automatically treat people with physical or sensory disabilities as “low-functioning." This ignores our capabilities and puts a negative spin on “simple.” Such prejudices have no place at the Seder table, or in any congregational or community activity.
The Son Who Doesn’t Know How to Ask
Perhaps this son has never been allowed to experience the curiosity, contradictions, mistakes and uncertainty that engender questions. Everything is arranged for him. There’s nothing about which to inquire.
Well-meaning parents and educators sometimes conclude “Disabled children and adults struggle through life. Let’s make things easier and arrange all their activities.”
The Haggadah instructs: “You open (a discussion) with him.” Stir him up. Who knows? His newly awakened curiosity could gradually transform him into the wise child, overflowing with questions.
All Are Welcome at the Seder
We welcome “sons” of any age and character to the retelling of the Exodus from Egypt at the Seder. They too share in our dream: to rid the world of slavery, and to liberate ourselves from any inner Egypt that may enslave us as individuals.
A native of Bradley Beach, New Jersey, Rabbi Michael Levy attributes his achievements to God’s beneficence and to his courageous parents. His parents supported him as he explored his small home town, visited Israel and later studied at Hebrew University, journeyed towards more observant Judaism, received rabbinic ordination, obtained a master’s degree in social work from Columbia University and lectured on Torah and disability-related topics.
As a founding member of Yad Hachazakah, the Jewish Disability Empowerment Center, Rabbi Levy strives to make the Jewish experience and Jewish texts accessible to Jews with disabilities. In lectures at Jewish camps, synagogues and educational institutions, he cites Nachshon, who according to tradition boldly took the plunge into the Red Sea even before it miraculously parted. Rabbi Levy elaborates, “We who have disabilities should be Nachshons, boldly taking the plunge into the Jewish experience, supported by laws and lore that mandate our participation.” Rabbi Levy is currently director of Travel Training at MTA New York City Transit. He is an active member of Congregation Aish Kodesh in Woodmere, NY. He invites anyone who has disability-related questions to e-mail him.
Homophobes Win In Indiana
Douglas Bloomfield
A reputation for homophobia that has dogged Republicans for many years got worse this week when Indiana Gov. Mike Pence (R) signed a new law protecting discrimination against lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transsexuals (LGBT).
His state's "Restoring Religious Freedom Act" gives businesses the right to refuse service to LGBT individuals based on religious grounds.
That means even though same sex marriage is legal in Indiana, a florist or bakery or any other business can refused to do provide its services on religious grounds. From there it is a short step to claim that religious beliefs can be used for anything else.
If anyone can refuse to serve LGBT people for what they claim are religious reasons, why not turn away blacks, Hispanics, Jews, Muslims, Mormons, Catholics, atheists?
But that creates a problem for those pious business people. How can they tell who is LGBT? Perhaps Pence could pass a law requiring those undesirables to wear pink triangles on their clothing to help identify them.
And for those Indiana businesses that, because of their deeply held religious beliefs, don't want to serve Muslims, Mormons or Jews, perhaps other forms of identification could be mandated by Gov. Pence and his legislature. How about a large Star of David pinned to the clothing of Jews? A crescent and star for Muslims? And what about Irish Catholics who don't want to deal with Protestants?
Who's next? If you don't know the answer to that question, Google Martin Niemoller athttp://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007392
Gov. Pence, who is reportedly thinking of running for president, even trotted out an Orthodox rabbi for the signing ceremony. His insistence that "Hoosiers don't believe in discrimination" had a hollow ring. Pence said if he thought this was about discrimination he would have vetoed it. He knows better. It is all about legalizing discrimination and playing to the party's conservative ultra-religious base.
The GOP has been having a lot of trouble dealing with its reputation for homophobia and this display of intolerance doesn't help.
The Jewish Week
A New Lens On Settler-Palestinian Relations
New York native, now in Israel, is completing his documentary about an unusual rabbi and his protégés.
Doug Chandler
Jewish Week Correspondent
Harvey Stein speaks of the people in his documentaries almost as if they were characters in a feature film or play.
“They’re living people with motivations and conflicts and their relationship to the outside world,” says Stein, 49, a native of New Rochelle, who now makes his home in Jerusalem.
In the case of Stein’s latest film, “A Third Way: Settlers and Palestinians as Neighbors,” the main characters are a tiny group of people who coalesced several years ago around the late Rabbi Menachem Froman, chief rabbi of Tekoa, and became protégés or friends.
The title itself could be jarring to many audiences, especially those who regard Jewish settlers and Palestinians only as antagonists.
Think of relations between the two groups and what may come to mind are the tensions between settlers and Palestinians in Hebron, an area often described as a hotbed of radicalism on both sides. Or perhaps the subject might evoke memories of the three yeshiva students murdered last June after hitchhiking in the West Bank. Or “price tag” assaults by bands of settlers against Palestinian farmers.
One of the few points of contact between the two groups occurs at Israeli-owned supermarkets and factories in which Palestinians are employed, an arrangement often scorned as paternalistic on the Israeli left or dangerous on the Israeli right. Rarely does anyone hear of social gatherings attended by both groups, or of visits to each other’s homes.
But that’s precisely the area explored by Stein’s film, which includes scenes of various gatherings in Tekoa in the Gush Etzion bloc of settlements, a Palestinian village and a field owned by the family of a Palestinian activist. It also includes extensive interviews with Rabbi Froman, who died in 2013, and with four settlers and Palestinians who share his values. Finally, the camera also captures some lively conversations among members of the rabbi’s circle.
What drew Stein to the subject is the attraction he has to “people who are able to embrace contradictions,” he said in a recent phone interview from Jerusalem. “Here was a story about a rabbi who lived in a settlement and yet was longtime friends with [Palestinian leader Yassir] Arafat.”
In one of Stein’s interviews with the rabbi, the filmmaker asked him if he’d be happy as a Palestinian citizen, Stein recalled. In response, the rabbi smiled and said, “I’m a citizen of the state of God. It’s not so important who is the man, who is the government.” At another point in the film, one of Rabbi Froman’s Palestinian protégés, Ziad Sabatin, describes a meeting between the rabbi and Arafat at which the rabbi raised the question of Jews living in a Palestinian state. According to Sabatin, Arafat’s answer was: “I agree — this is a new plan — and you will be the minister responsible for Israelis living within Palestine.”
The rabbi’s views compelled him not only to develop his friendship with Arafat, a relationship more or less accepted in Israel after the Oslo agreement, but to make repeated visits to Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, a founder of Hamas — a move that drew fierce denunciations from other Israelis. Rabbi Froman’s meetings with Yassin, who was eventually assassinated by Israel in 2004, came while the Hamas leader was in jail and, later, before an audience of thousands of Hamas members in Gaza City.
“A Third Way” covers that sensitive subject by cutting repeatedly between separate interviews with Gershon Baskin, a peace activist who defends the rabbi’s meetings with Yassin, and the more centrist Yossi Klein Halevi, an author and journalist who criticizes those moves.
But other segments also stand out, including those like an interview with Ali Abu Awwad, a Palestinian whose brother was killed in the conflict, but who made the conscious decision to devote his life to peace, not hate. It’s Awwad who has created a center of sorts on land owned by his family — a center where settlers and Palestinians have come together, often with their families, to learn, socialize and create even tighter bonds.
Describing his relationship with settlers, Awwad said that, in general, settlers and Palestinians “are enemies. … On the other hand, because we know each other, it makes a big difference. It doesn’t mean that everything is perfect, by the way, but we have created our own small, safe place. From the small, safe place, we will grow.”
Awwad also appears in other scenes, including an exchange with Shaul Judelman, an American-born settler, during last summer’s Gaza conflict. Although the two express markedly different views, it’s clear from the exchange that both have a deep admiration for each other and that both are committed to a solution.
Stein, too, is invested in the region’s future, having married an Israeli woman and then making aliyah in 2006. He also has an 8-year-old son, born in Israel shortly after the couple moved there, said Stein, who lived for a while on the Upper West Side and in Astoria.
But although he has his views, his aim is to tell a story and hope that it challenges people “on both sides of the conflict,” Stein said. “Left and right doesn’t do it these days. Life is more complex.”
A playwright, actor and director before he began making promotional videos and, later, documentaries, Stein noted that both the settlers and the Palestinians face intense challenges within their own communities as they reach out to each other. But Rabbi Froman’s Jewish protégés risk disapproval at worst, while his Palestinian friends are courting danger, he said.
Many Palestinians harbor “great hatred” toward settlers and object to any contact between the two groups, Stein said. In fact, Sabatin, one of the Palestinians appearing in the film, has been interrogated and jailed repeatedly by the Palestinian Authority for associating with settlers.
It’s in part to protect the Palestinians in his film that Stein plans to initially screen “A Third Way” before private, invitation-only audiences in the late spring. He also hopes that many of those events will include panel discussions and that some will be co-sponsored by Jewish and Muslim organizations.
Meanwhile, Stein said, he’s made “the same journey” that he expects some of the film’s viewers to make. “Ten years ago,” he said, “I might have said that settlers are the obstacle to peace, and now I know that it’s not that simple.” editor@jewishweek.org
All Are Welcome At The Seder
Rabbi Michael Levy
Rabbi Michael Levy
In your mind’s eye, look around at those with whom you have celebrated past Seders.A contemplative girl is full of questions: How could a respected family in Egypt so quickly become an enslaved nation? Why was Pharaoh so stubborn?
There’s the "Squirmer." If he doesn’t declare outright that he’d rather not be at the Seder, his body language clearly broadcasts the message.
Seated next to each other are two frustrated guests. One is always losing his place in the Haggadah, and the other’s eyes often stray to the kitchen.
During its recounting of the Exodus from Egypt, the Haggadah “pauses” to consider Seder participants resembling those described above. They are portrayed as four sons: one wise, one wicked, one simple and one who doesn’t know how to ask.
How should a Seder leader treat these participants? What if they have disabilities?
The Wise Child
Thirsting for knowledge, this wise child can’t stop asking questions. Perhaps she’s been preparing questions for weeks.
Print-disabled individuals also thirst for knowledge. So do those who are nonverbal, and those who can’t climb two flights of stairs to join a Seder celebration. If we haven’t accommodated them this year, we should, when we plan our 2016 Seder.
The Wicked Child
At a Seder when I was 18 years old, my older cousin concluded that I was an “angry young man.” Rebellion strains the parent-child relationship, but it’s a very “old normal.”
With so much medical attention focused on some adolescents with disabilities, we must recognize rebellion for what it is, and not reflexively diagnose it as a disability-related behavior disorder.
The Haggadah rather harshly rebukes the rebellious participant. Nowadays, a rebuke should be “customized” to the recipient so that it may benefit him, whether or not he’s disabled.
The Simple Son
The simple son isn’t a simpleton. He’s straightforward. He doesn’t put on an act. If he loses the thread of the Haggadah’s discussion, he reaches out for assistance.
Unfortunately, many in our communities automatically treat people with physical or sensory disabilities as “low-functioning." This ignores our capabilities and puts a negative spin on “simple.” Such prejudices have no place at the Seder table, or in any congregational or community activity.
The Son Who Doesn’t Know How to Ask
Perhaps this son has never been allowed to experience the curiosity, contradictions, mistakes and uncertainty that engender questions. Everything is arranged for him. There’s nothing about which to inquire.
Well-meaning parents and educators sometimes conclude “Disabled children and adults struggle through life. Let’s make things easier and arrange all their activities.”
The Haggadah instructs: “You open (a discussion) with him.” Stir him up. Who knows? His newly awakened curiosity could gradually transform him into the wise child, overflowing with questions.
All Are Welcome at the Seder
We welcome “sons” of any age and character to the retelling of the Exodus from Egypt at the Seder. They too share in our dream: to rid the world of slavery, and to liberate ourselves from any inner Egypt that may enslave us as individuals.
A native of Bradley Beach, New Jersey, Rabbi Michael Levy attributes his achievements to God’s beneficence and to his courageous parents. His parents supported him as he explored his small home town, visited Israel and later studied at Hebrew University, journeyed towards more observant Judaism, received rabbinic ordination, obtained a master’s degree in social work from Columbia University and lectured on Torah and disability-related topics.
As a founding member of Yad Hachazakah, the Jewish Disability Empowerment Center, Rabbi Levy strives to make the Jewish experience and Jewish texts accessible to Jews with disabilities. In lectures at Jewish camps, synagogues and educational institutions, he cites Nachshon, who according to tradition boldly took the plunge into the Red Sea even before it miraculously parted. Rabbi Levy elaborates, “We who have disabilities should be Nachshons, boldly taking the plunge into the Jewish experience, supported by laws and lore that mandate our participation.” Rabbi Levy is currently director of Travel Training at MTA New York City Transit. He is an active member of Congregation Aish Kodesh in Woodmere, NY. He invites anyone who has disability-related questions to e-mail him.
Homophobes Win In Indiana
Douglas Bloomfield
A reputation for homophobia that has dogged Republicans for many years got worse this week when Indiana Gov. Mike Pence (R) signed a new law protecting discrimination against lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transsexuals (LGBT).
His state's "Restoring Religious Freedom Act" gives businesses the right to refuse service to LGBT individuals based on religious grounds.
That means even though same sex marriage is legal in Indiana, a florist or bakery or any other business can refused to do provide its services on religious grounds. From there it is a short step to claim that religious beliefs can be used for anything else.
If anyone can refuse to serve LGBT people for what they claim are religious reasons, why not turn away blacks, Hispanics, Jews, Muslims, Mormons, Catholics, atheists?
But that creates a problem for those pious business people. How can they tell who is LGBT? Perhaps Pence could pass a law requiring those undesirables to wear pink triangles on their clothing to help identify them.
And for those Indiana businesses that, because of their deeply held religious beliefs, don't want to serve Muslims, Mormons or Jews, perhaps other forms of identification could be mandated by Gov. Pence and his legislature. How about a large Star of David pinned to the clothing of Jews? A crescent and star for Muslims? And what about Irish Catholics who don't want to deal with Protestants?
Who's next? If you don't know the answer to that question, Google Martin Niemoller athttp://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007392
Gov. Pence, who is reportedly thinking of running for president, even trotted out an Orthodox rabbi for the signing ceremony. His insistence that "Hoosiers don't believe in discrimination" had a hollow ring. Pence said if he thought this was about discrimination he would have vetoed it. He knows better. It is all about legalizing discrimination and playing to the party's conservative ultra-religious base.
The GOP has been having a lot of trouble dealing with its reputation for homophobia and this display of intolerance doesn't help.
The Jewish Week
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