Parshah Mnemonics: Mishpatim
Decoding the hidden messages
Aaron L. Raskin
Watch Now
About this webcast:
The parsha of Mishpatim contains 118 verses and the mnemonic are the names Uziel and Chanani. Explore the coded message in the mnemonic and its connection to the general themes of the Parshah.
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"Idealists vs pragmatists; Super Bowl 50 at 'Jewish' stadium" The Jewish Week Connecting the World with Jewish News, Culture, Features, and Opinions for Friday, 5 February 2016 - Actor "Yeshiva Bokhur" at heart
Friday, February 5, 2016
Prayer Deal Opens Rift Among Jewish Feminists
The Jewish view on the zodiac
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Airs Tuesday, February 9 at 7pm ET
Click here to browse our full programming schedule.
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"Idealists vs pragmatists; Super Bowl 50 at 'Jewish' stadium" The Jewish Week Connecting the World with Jewish News, Culture, Features, and Opinions for Friday, 5 February 2016 - Actor "Yeshiva Bokhur" at heart
Friday, February 5, 2016
Prayer Deal Opens Rift Among Jewish Feminists
Michele Chabin
Israel News
Idealists vs. pragmatists on accepting Kotel compromise.
Israel News
Prayer Deal Opens Rift Among Jewish Feminists
Idealists vs. pragmatists on accepting Kotel compromise.
Michele Chabin
Contributing Editor
Israeli police arresting Anat Hoffman in 2012 after she said the Shema prayer at the Kotel. Women of the WallJerusalem - The Israeli government’s decision Sunday to create an official, government-funded Western Wall prayer section for mixed-gender prayer and women who want to read from the Torah has gratified non-Orthodox Jews seeking government recognition. But the move has left some supporters of Women of the Wall feeling disappointed, even betrayed.
The government’s announcement capped more than two years of negotiations between the Israeli government, representatives of the Jewish Federations of North America, the Reform and Conservative movements in the U.S. and Israel and Women of the Wall (WOW), the pluralistic group that has been at the center of the effort to gain prayer equality at the holy site for more than two decades. During that time, WOW members faced harassment from charedi protesters, police detention and even arrests at monthly Rosh Chodesh services. According to Women of the Wall’s board, the group will move to Robinson’s Arch, an existing egalitarian section of the southern Western Wall that is key to the newly approved plan. It calls for the size of the area to be doubled, to 10,000 square feet, and for raising the status of the egalitarian prayer space by creating a joint entry point that will allow visitors to access either prayer space.
But some longtime members object to moving their prayer services back to Robinson's Arch. To such critics, the WOW board decision makes a mockery of the group’s mission statement, which reads in part: “to achieve social and legal recognition of the right, as women, to wear prayer shawls, pray out loud and read from the Torah collectively at the women’s section of the Western Wall.”
Critics accuse the board, led by Anat Hoffman, of selling out the women who wish to continue to pray in the women’s section of the Kotel either because they feel it is a religious and ideological imperative, or because, as Modern Orthodox women, they believe it goes against Jewish law to pray alongside men without a mechitza.
“We have no objection, of course, to prayer at Robinson’s Arch for those who wish it,” former WOW board member Shulamit Magnus wrote in a scathing op-ed in the Jerusalem Post. “We reject any deal that would infringe upon, let alone deny, the hard-earned and historic rights of Jewish women at the Kotel.
“No can concede someone else’s rights. Anyone who says she speaks for us in doing so, does not. We say clearly: any deal that delegitimizes, let alone bars, tefillah in our minhag [custom] at the Kotel has no bearing on us. We stay at the Kotel,” continued Magnus, one of the leaders of the Original Women of the Wall (OWOW), a group that vehemently opposes WOW’s decision. She is one of four Israeli women petitioning the High Court to permit women to read from the Kotel’s government-funded Torah scrolls.
In a Jewish Week interview, Magnus insisted that those who oppose the agreement “are the [real] Women of the Wall.”
“We have hundreds of supporters,” she added, referring to the supporters of the deal as “the Women of Robinson’s Arch.”
While not singling out WOW, Karen Miller Jackson, a Modern Orthodox board member of Kolech, the Religious Women’s Forum in Israel, said the agreement is “a big win for non-Orthodox Jews" but “does not improve the situation for the modern religious Zionist/Orthodox population” and for Orthodox feminists in particular.
“We still want to daven with a mechitza [divider] at the traditional Kotel site,” she said.
Cheryl Birkner Mack, a longtime WOW member and one of the four court petitioners, agrees.
Even if the committee that will oversee the new prayer space ultimately allocates a section of it for women’s-only prayer, Mack said, praying at Robinson’s Arch lacks the religious and historical significance of praying at the Kotel.
“It’s the same stone but when the Pope or the President of the United States comes to Israel they don’t go to Robinson’s Arch. They go to the Kotel.” She said the Robinson’s Arch area doesn’t have the same feeling of holiness: “It’s what Anat used to call the back of the bus.”
While taking pains not to take sides in the WOW debate, Elana Sztokman, author of the book “The War on Women in Israel,” noted that any agreement that allows women’s prayer groups in the egalitarian section and not at the Kotel further empowers the already powerful rabbi of the Western Wall, Rabbi Shmuel Rabinovitch.
“He is turning the Kotel, a national landmark, into his version of an ultra-Orthodox synagogue — which is just wrong. The Kotel should still belong to the entire nation. And it doesn’t,” Sztokman said.
Like many of WOW’s supporters, Pam Greenwood, who serves on the board of the U.S.-based Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance, said she feels “conflicted” by the “compromise.”
“The Orthodox feminist in me is not satisfied, as I feel that women should be allowed to pray within the current bounds of the Kotel with a Torah. The pragmatist in me, however, is thrilled that a solution has been found to a decades-old stalemate — one that will allow women to gather together on a regular basis without obstacle, free from the insults and abuse that they have faced to this point.”
In a frank interview, Anat Hoffman told The Jewish Week she “feels for” those who are disappointed by the agreement, but emphasized that WOW’s decision was based first and foremost on pragmatism.
“I think every group for social change needs die-hard ideologists. But the job of our board is to look at what is achievable within our lifetime. Every group needs to have someone hitting the brakes and understand at what speed society can actually tolerate change. There must be someone at the driver’s seat showing the way.”
Hoffman said she and WOW’s leaders spent countless hours deliberating the issue and ultimately agreed that, given the country’s right-wing leadership and the power charedi parties wield in the Knesset, “This is the best result we can give our group, Jewish women and the Jewish world at this time.”
Hoffman said the board was also motivated by the desire to have some control over the place where they pray. Under the agreement, the egalitarian prayer space will be jointly governed by a new body that will include representatives from Women of the Wall and the Conservative and Reform movements, and will be led by Jewish Agency for Israel Chairman Natan Sharansky.
Asked why she considers Robinson’s Arch an acceptable place to pray now, after she rejected it before, Hoffman said the promised renovations, coupled with the government’s recognition of it as a Western Wall prayer section, will put it on equal footing with the Kotel.
“Then, that was the back of the bus. This is a whole new bus and the tank is filled with gasoline,” she said.
As much as she and other Jewish feminists want “complete and full rights” at the Kotel, Hoffman said, the State of Israel isn’t willing, at this time, to give it.
“But it is willing to give us something else that is respectable and dignified and opens great opportunities for Jewish people and Israelis. We took the opportunity.”
Until the egalitarian space is completed, Hoffman said, the group will continue to pray in the women’s section of the main plaza of the Kotel, where they have been meeting each month.
“We will be there,” she said.
Staff writer Hannah Dreyfus contributed to this report.---------------------
A Tribal Super Bowl
Steve Lipman
National
National
A Tribal Super Bowl
Steve Lipman
Levi’s Stadium, above, will host Super Bowl 50 on Sunday. Rabbi Asher Knight to head a congregation later this year. Getty ImagOK, so there’s no Marv Levy (Bills coach), Alan (now “Shlomo”) Vinegrad (Cowboys offensive lineman), or Robert Kraft (Patriots owner).
But the Denver Broncos and the Carolina Panthers will play Super Bowl 50 on Sunday at a “Jewish” stadium.
Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, Calif., near San Francisco, is the only arena with a Jewish name that hosts teams of the four major sports — football, baseball, hockey and basketball.
The 68,500-seat home of the San Francisco 49ers, it is named for Levi Strauss, the founder of the company that makes the ubiquitous blue jeans bearing his name. A native of Germany, Strauss came to the States at 18, settled in New York, then Louisville, then became West Coast representative of his family’s dry goods business. He moved to San Francisco at the height of the California Gold Rush.
That’s where he found his fame and made his fortune, partnering in 1853 with a customer who had designed riveted denim pants.
A lifelong bachelor, Strauss died in 1902, leaving his fortune of about $6 million (more than $150 million in today’s dollars) to several charities, including the Pacific Hebrew Orphan Asylum and the Roman Catholic Orphan Asylum.
The fact that an NFL arena with a Jewish name merits no comment in wider society is not surprising, according to Jonathan Sarna, professor of American Jewish history at Brandeis University; in northern California, Levi’s is a familiar name, and nationally it’s a well-known brand.
“Jews were pioneering citizens of San Francisco and have long been respected there,” Sarna told The Jewish Week in an email interview. “Many of the distinguished merchants and bankers of the great 19th-century city had Jewish names. Levi’s, pronounced LEE-vi rather than the more traditional LAY-vee, does not strike locals as particularly Jewish.”
“Nationally, of course, this disinterest is just more evidence that Jews are more and more at home in America,” he said.
And speaking of being at home in America, a native of Denver and lifelong Broncos fan, Rabbi Asher Knight of Temple Emanu-El in Dallas, thought he was on safe ground, sports-wise, when he was negotiating recently to become senior rabbi of Temple Beth El in Charlotte. While the Panthers seemed Super Bowl-bound, his Broncos, suffering through a midseason slump, did not (QB Peyton Manning was injured, then benched).
Rabbi Knight’s loyalty to the Broncos would remain untested, he thought. “I can be perfectly comfortable in my Broncos fandom.”
Then both teams made it to the big game.
So who’s the rabbi rooting for? He’s heard that question in the last fortnight from old friends in Denver, from congregants in Dallas, from “future congregants” in Charlotte. Even from pro-Panther board members when he was interviewing for the job at Temple Beth El.
His answer, in all cases: Denver.
“I have remained a Broncos fan, I still watch the team,” Rabbi Knight, 37, said in a telephone interview this week. “I didn’t feel a sense of conflict. I’m a Broncos fan through and through.”
The game also has led to a friendly wager between Denver’s Temple Emanu-El, the congregation where he grew up, and Charlotte’s Temple Beth El, which he will join this summer.
They’re both raising money for a pair of local charities, two-thirds of the combined totals to go to the one in the city whose team wins on Sunday, the rest to the losing side. The “United in Orange” (Denver’s color) campaign had reached $2,400 this week, with a goal of $3,600, said Rabbi Knight, who made a contribution to the collective cause but does not bet on games.
Rabbi Knight said his loyalty will remain unwavering once he moves to Charlotte. “But,” he said, “if my children grow up as Panthers fans, I’ll be perfectly happy.”
steve@jewishweek.org
---------------------
Purim Baskets With A Political Punch
Steve Lipman
New York
New York
Purim Baskets With A Political Punch
Steve Lipman
Staff Writer
Young Israel of Jamaica Estates’ Purim food packages this year, with Israeli-only contents. Young Israel of Jamaica EstatesThe leaders of the Young Israel of Jamaica Estates came to Rabbi Shlomo Hochberg with a question last year.
The sisterhood leaders told their synagogue’s spiritual leader that they wanted participants in the Young Israel’s annual mishloach manot project, which sends food baskets to hundreds of recipients on Purim, to make a political and financial statement by only including Israeli products.
The activist Queens congregation, which sponsors a series of social action programs on behalf of Israel and the synagogue’s local community, had completed a five-year-long project, conducted at Purim, which raised funds for refurbishing a Torah scroll for an Israeli army base.
This year’s project would be a strike against the international BDS (boycott, divestment and sanctions) movement and serve as economic support for Israeli businesses, they told Rabbi Hochberg. They asked him how they could expand it beyond their congregation.
The rabbi contacted the National Council of Young Israel, which endorsed the idea – the National Council is urging its 150 member congregations to have congregants fill their mishloach manot packages exclusively with items from Israel on Purim, which begins on the evening of Wednesday, March 23.
Mishloach manot (Hebrew for the sending of portions), is based on a commandment derived in a verse in the Scroll of Esther; mishloach manot drives have become a popular Purim-time activity in many Jewish homes and congregations.
This year, said Rabbi Hochberg, his congregation’s project will feature anti-BDS tags explaining the provenance of each package’s products, “To show our moral support” for Israeli businesses that are the target of the BDS movement.
“They’re on the front line,” he said.
Participants can order products directly from Israel or from local vendors — as long as items come from Israel proper or from businesses in the West Bank across the Green Line that separates Israel from the Palestinian territories, Rabbi Hochberg said, noting that Young Israel doesn’t differentiate between the two areas.
As a facet of BDS, some supporters, including the European Union, have begun to label items made on the West Bank, which they consider subject to Israeli “occupation.”
“The message” of the Young Israel campaign “is about showing a connection between Jews” in the diaspora and those in the Jewish homeland, said Rabbi Hochberg.
“We must battle against the Hamanic decree of the BDS movement,” said Rabbi Binyamin Hammer, director of rabbinic services at the National Council. “Rabbi Hochberg and his congregation … are our modern-day Mordechais and Esthers.”
Rabbi Hochberg and his wife Karen, who during 25 years at the Young Israel congregation have pioneered such activities as a Memorial Day Run for Israel and a collection of blankets for homeless people in their area, will be honored at the synagogue’s annual journal dinner Saturday, Feb. 6 at the Old Westbury Hebrew Congregation.
Members of Rabbi Hochberg’s congregation will send at least 1,000 mishloach manot packages on Purim next month, he said. His family’s will probably include a bottle of grape juice, some crackers and some candy.
“Everything will be from Israel, he said.”
For information about the Young Israel of Jamaica Estate’s mishloach manot project contact Rivkyorlow@aol.com.
---------------------
Israeli Port-style wines are rapidly increasing in quality.Chocolate And Bubbly: Not A Good Match
Gamliel Kronemer
Idealists vs. pragmatists on accepting Kotel compromise.
Israel News
Prayer Deal Opens Rift Among Jewish Feminists
Idealists vs. pragmatists on accepting Kotel compromise.
Michele Chabin
Contributing Editor
Israeli police arresting Anat Hoffman in 2012 after she said the Shema prayer at the Kotel. Women of the WallJerusalem - The Israeli government’s decision Sunday to create an official, government-funded Western Wall prayer section for mixed-gender prayer and women who want to read from the Torah has gratified non-Orthodox Jews seeking government recognition. But the move has left some supporters of Women of the Wall feeling disappointed, even betrayed.
The government’s announcement capped more than two years of negotiations between the Israeli government, representatives of the Jewish Federations of North America, the Reform and Conservative movements in the U.S. and Israel and Women of the Wall (WOW), the pluralistic group that has been at the center of the effort to gain prayer equality at the holy site for more than two decades. During that time, WOW members faced harassment from charedi protesters, police detention and even arrests at monthly Rosh Chodesh services. According to Women of the Wall’s board, the group will move to Robinson’s Arch, an existing egalitarian section of the southern Western Wall that is key to the newly approved plan. It calls for the size of the area to be doubled, to 10,000 square feet, and for raising the status of the egalitarian prayer space by creating a joint entry point that will allow visitors to access either prayer space.
But some longtime members object to moving their prayer services back to Robinson's Arch. To such critics, the WOW board decision makes a mockery of the group’s mission statement, which reads in part: “to achieve social and legal recognition of the right, as women, to wear prayer shawls, pray out loud and read from the Torah collectively at the women’s section of the Western Wall.”
Critics accuse the board, led by Anat Hoffman, of selling out the women who wish to continue to pray in the women’s section of the Kotel either because they feel it is a religious and ideological imperative, or because, as Modern Orthodox women, they believe it goes against Jewish law to pray alongside men without a mechitza.
“We have no objection, of course, to prayer at Robinson’s Arch for those who wish it,” former WOW board member Shulamit Magnus wrote in a scathing op-ed in the Jerusalem Post. “We reject any deal that would infringe upon, let alone deny, the hard-earned and historic rights of Jewish women at the Kotel.
“No can concede someone else’s rights. Anyone who says she speaks for us in doing so, does not. We say clearly: any deal that delegitimizes, let alone bars, tefillah in our minhag [custom] at the Kotel has no bearing on us. We stay at the Kotel,” continued Magnus, one of the leaders of the Original Women of the Wall (OWOW), a group that vehemently opposes WOW’s decision. She is one of four Israeli women petitioning the High Court to permit women to read from the Kotel’s government-funded Torah scrolls.
In a Jewish Week interview, Magnus insisted that those who oppose the agreement “are the [real] Women of the Wall.”
“We have hundreds of supporters,” she added, referring to the supporters of the deal as “the Women of Robinson’s Arch.”
While not singling out WOW, Karen Miller Jackson, a Modern Orthodox board member of Kolech, the Religious Women’s Forum in Israel, said the agreement is “a big win for non-Orthodox Jews" but “does not improve the situation for the modern religious Zionist/Orthodox population” and for Orthodox feminists in particular.
“We still want to daven with a mechitza [divider] at the traditional Kotel site,” she said.
Cheryl Birkner Mack, a longtime WOW member and one of the four court petitioners, agrees.
Even if the committee that will oversee the new prayer space ultimately allocates a section of it for women’s-only prayer, Mack said, praying at Robinson’s Arch lacks the religious and historical significance of praying at the Kotel.
“It’s the same stone but when the Pope or the President of the United States comes to Israel they don’t go to Robinson’s Arch. They go to the Kotel.” She said the Robinson’s Arch area doesn’t have the same feeling of holiness: “It’s what Anat used to call the back of the bus.”
While taking pains not to take sides in the WOW debate, Elana Sztokman, author of the book “The War on Women in Israel,” noted that any agreement that allows women’s prayer groups in the egalitarian section and not at the Kotel further empowers the already powerful rabbi of the Western Wall, Rabbi Shmuel Rabinovitch.
“He is turning the Kotel, a national landmark, into his version of an ultra-Orthodox synagogue — which is just wrong. The Kotel should still belong to the entire nation. And it doesn’t,” Sztokman said.
Like many of WOW’s supporters, Pam Greenwood, who serves on the board of the U.S.-based Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance, said she feels “conflicted” by the “compromise.”
“The Orthodox feminist in me is not satisfied, as I feel that women should be allowed to pray within the current bounds of the Kotel with a Torah. The pragmatist in me, however, is thrilled that a solution has been found to a decades-old stalemate — one that will allow women to gather together on a regular basis without obstacle, free from the insults and abuse that they have faced to this point.”
In a frank interview, Anat Hoffman told The Jewish Week she “feels for” those who are disappointed by the agreement, but emphasized that WOW’s decision was based first and foremost on pragmatism.
“I think every group for social change needs die-hard ideologists. But the job of our board is to look at what is achievable within our lifetime. Every group needs to have someone hitting the brakes and understand at what speed society can actually tolerate change. There must be someone at the driver’s seat showing the way.”
Hoffman said she and WOW’s leaders spent countless hours deliberating the issue and ultimately agreed that, given the country’s right-wing leadership and the power charedi parties wield in the Knesset, “This is the best result we can give our group, Jewish women and the Jewish world at this time.”
Hoffman said the board was also motivated by the desire to have some control over the place where they pray. Under the agreement, the egalitarian prayer space will be jointly governed by a new body that will include representatives from Women of the Wall and the Conservative and Reform movements, and will be led by Jewish Agency for Israel Chairman Natan Sharansky.
Asked why she considers Robinson’s Arch an acceptable place to pray now, after she rejected it before, Hoffman said the promised renovations, coupled with the government’s recognition of it as a Western Wall prayer section, will put it on equal footing with the Kotel.
“Then, that was the back of the bus. This is a whole new bus and the tank is filled with gasoline,” she said.
As much as she and other Jewish feminists want “complete and full rights” at the Kotel, Hoffman said, the State of Israel isn’t willing, at this time, to give it.
“But it is willing to give us something else that is respectable and dignified and opens great opportunities for Jewish people and Israelis. We took the opportunity.”
Until the egalitarian space is completed, Hoffman said, the group will continue to pray in the women’s section of the main plaza of the Kotel, where they have been meeting each month.
“We will be there,” she said.
Staff writer Hannah Dreyfus contributed to this report.---------------------
A Tribal Super Bowl
Steve Lipman
National
National
A Tribal Super Bowl
Steve Lipman
Levi’s Stadium, above, will host Super Bowl 50 on Sunday. Rabbi Asher Knight to head a congregation later this year. Getty ImagOK, so there’s no Marv Levy (Bills coach), Alan (now “Shlomo”) Vinegrad (Cowboys offensive lineman), or Robert Kraft (Patriots owner).
But the Denver Broncos and the Carolina Panthers will play Super Bowl 50 on Sunday at a “Jewish” stadium.
Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, Calif., near San Francisco, is the only arena with a Jewish name that hosts teams of the four major sports — football, baseball, hockey and basketball.
The 68,500-seat home of the San Francisco 49ers, it is named for Levi Strauss, the founder of the company that makes the ubiquitous blue jeans bearing his name. A native of Germany, Strauss came to the States at 18, settled in New York, then Louisville, then became West Coast representative of his family’s dry goods business. He moved to San Francisco at the height of the California Gold Rush.
That’s where he found his fame and made his fortune, partnering in 1853 with a customer who had designed riveted denim pants.
A lifelong bachelor, Strauss died in 1902, leaving his fortune of about $6 million (more than $150 million in today’s dollars) to several charities, including the Pacific Hebrew Orphan Asylum and the Roman Catholic Orphan Asylum.
The fact that an NFL arena with a Jewish name merits no comment in wider society is not surprising, according to Jonathan Sarna, professor of American Jewish history at Brandeis University; in northern California, Levi’s is a familiar name, and nationally it’s a well-known brand.
“Jews were pioneering citizens of San Francisco and have long been respected there,” Sarna told The Jewish Week in an email interview. “Many of the distinguished merchants and bankers of the great 19th-century city had Jewish names. Levi’s, pronounced LEE-vi rather than the more traditional LAY-vee, does not strike locals as particularly Jewish.”
“Nationally, of course, this disinterest is just more evidence that Jews are more and more at home in America,” he said.
And speaking of being at home in America, a native of Denver and lifelong Broncos fan, Rabbi Asher Knight of Temple Emanu-El in Dallas, thought he was on safe ground, sports-wise, when he was negotiating recently to become senior rabbi of Temple Beth El in Charlotte. While the Panthers seemed Super Bowl-bound, his Broncos, suffering through a midseason slump, did not (QB Peyton Manning was injured, then benched).
Rabbi Knight’s loyalty to the Broncos would remain untested, he thought. “I can be perfectly comfortable in my Broncos fandom.”
Then both teams made it to the big game.
So who’s the rabbi rooting for? He’s heard that question in the last fortnight from old friends in Denver, from congregants in Dallas, from “future congregants” in Charlotte. Even from pro-Panther board members when he was interviewing for the job at Temple Beth El.
His answer, in all cases: Denver.
“I have remained a Broncos fan, I still watch the team,” Rabbi Knight, 37, said in a telephone interview this week. “I didn’t feel a sense of conflict. I’m a Broncos fan through and through.”
The game also has led to a friendly wager between Denver’s Temple Emanu-El, the congregation where he grew up, and Charlotte’s Temple Beth El, which he will join this summer.
They’re both raising money for a pair of local charities, two-thirds of the combined totals to go to the one in the city whose team wins on Sunday, the rest to the losing side. The “United in Orange” (Denver’s color) campaign had reached $2,400 this week, with a goal of $3,600, said Rabbi Knight, who made a contribution to the collective cause but does not bet on games.
Rabbi Knight said his loyalty will remain unwavering once he moves to Charlotte. “But,” he said, “if my children grow up as Panthers fans, I’ll be perfectly happy.”
steve@jewishweek.org
---------------------
Purim Baskets With A Political Punch
Steve Lipman
New York
New York
Purim Baskets With A Political Punch
Steve Lipman
Staff Writer
Young Israel of Jamaica Estates’ Purim food packages this year, with Israeli-only contents. Young Israel of Jamaica EstatesThe leaders of the Young Israel of Jamaica Estates came to Rabbi Shlomo Hochberg with a question last year.
The sisterhood leaders told their synagogue’s spiritual leader that they wanted participants in the Young Israel’s annual mishloach manot project, which sends food baskets to hundreds of recipients on Purim, to make a political and financial statement by only including Israeli products.
The activist Queens congregation, which sponsors a series of social action programs on behalf of Israel and the synagogue’s local community, had completed a five-year-long project, conducted at Purim, which raised funds for refurbishing a Torah scroll for an Israeli army base.
This year’s project would be a strike against the international BDS (boycott, divestment and sanctions) movement and serve as economic support for Israeli businesses, they told Rabbi Hochberg. They asked him how they could expand it beyond their congregation.
The rabbi contacted the National Council of Young Israel, which endorsed the idea – the National Council is urging its 150 member congregations to have congregants fill their mishloach manot packages exclusively with items from Israel on Purim, which begins on the evening of Wednesday, March 23.
Mishloach manot (Hebrew for the sending of portions), is based on a commandment derived in a verse in the Scroll of Esther; mishloach manot drives have become a popular Purim-time activity in many Jewish homes and congregations.
This year, said Rabbi Hochberg, his congregation’s project will feature anti-BDS tags explaining the provenance of each package’s products, “To show our moral support” for Israeli businesses that are the target of the BDS movement.
“They’re on the front line,” he said.
Participants can order products directly from Israel or from local vendors — as long as items come from Israel proper or from businesses in the West Bank across the Green Line that separates Israel from the Palestinian territories, Rabbi Hochberg said, noting that Young Israel doesn’t differentiate between the two areas.
As a facet of BDS, some supporters, including the European Union, have begun to label items made on the West Bank, which they consider subject to Israeli “occupation.”
“The message” of the Young Israel campaign “is about showing a connection between Jews” in the diaspora and those in the Jewish homeland, said Rabbi Hochberg.
“We must battle against the Hamanic decree of the BDS movement,” said Rabbi Binyamin Hammer, director of rabbinic services at the National Council. “Rabbi Hochberg and his congregation … are our modern-day Mordechais and Esthers.”
Rabbi Hochberg and his wife Karen, who during 25 years at the Young Israel congregation have pioneered such activities as a Memorial Day Run for Israel and a collection of blankets for homeless people in their area, will be honored at the synagogue’s annual journal dinner Saturday, Feb. 6 at the Old Westbury Hebrew Congregation.
Members of Rabbi Hochberg’s congregation will send at least 1,000 mishloach manot packages on Purim next month, he said. His family’s will probably include a bottle of grape juice, some crackers and some candy.
“Everything will be from Israel, he said.”
For information about the Young Israel of Jamaica Estate’s mishloach manot project contact Rivkyorlow@aol.com.
---------------------
Israeli Port-style wines are rapidly increasing in quality.Chocolate And Bubbly: Not A Good Match
Gamliel Kronemer
Jewish Week Online Columnist
Food & Wine
Chocolate makes most sparkling wines taste bitter.Chocolate season is upon us. Americans will purchase about 29,000 tons of chocolate in the week leading up to February 14, according to the Nielson Company. That same week will also see a surge in the sale of sparkling wines, when approximately 900,000 bottles will be sold.
The problem with these sales trends is that while chocolate and sparkling wine are both very celebratory and romantic, they don’t really play well together. When consumed together, chocolate’s sweetness can make many sparkling wines seem a bit bitter. So instead of chocolate and bubbly, a better pairing is chocolate and Port.
Port is a fortified wine produced in the Douro Valley in the northern provinces of Portugal. During production, aguardente, a clear grape-based spirit, is added in order to stop the fermentation, leaving residual sugar in the wine, while also increasing the wine’s alcohol content. Port tends to have complex, sweet flavors with notes of stewed or dried fruits, along with a rich, velvety texture, making for a very good match with chocolate, and particularly with dark chocolate.
While true Port only comes from Portugal, the Port wine-making formula has been successfully copied the world over. In Israel, the quality of Port-style wines has been rapidly improving in recent years, and a few of those wines are truly worth seeking out. So in preparation for the upcoming deluge of chocolate, we’ve found some very good Ports and Israeli Port-style wines, any of which would be a good choice to go along with a chocolate binge.
Porto Cordovero, Late Bottled Vintage Port, 2005: Made in Porto by the noted Port lodge of Taylor, Fladgate & Yeatman, this rich, sweet, full-bodied, garnet-colored wine has a delightful nose of red cherries, stewed rhubarb, and prunes, with a slight but pleasant whiff of menthol. Look for flavors of raisins, black currents, cherries, prunes, dried figs, and mocha. While not quite as vibrant as it once was, this wine still has a bit of life. Drink within the next year. Score A- ($49.99 Available at Beacon Wine & Spirits 2120 Broadway [Manhattan], [212] 877-0028.)
Porto Quevedo, Ruby Port, non-vintage: This was the bargain of the tasting. With an inky dark ruby-to-garnet color, and a full body, this richly sweet wine has a bouquet of cherries, stewed prunes and chocolate, with a hint of menthol and an underlying earthy layer. Look for flavors of plums, stewed cherries and prunes, with hints of cherry brandy and chocolate. Drink within the next two years. Score B+ ($19.95 Available at Sherry-Lehmann Wine and Spirits, 505 Park Ave [Manhattan], [212] 838-7500.)
Carmel, Vintage, Judean Hills, 2007: Made from Petite Sirah grapes, and fortified with grape alcohol, this garnet-colored, full-bodied wine is made in a style somewhat reminiscent of a Tawny Port. The nose is redolent of cassis, blackberries, cherries, chocolate, and spice. Flavors of cherries, cassis and mocha interplay nicely with elements of stewed prunes and cantaloupe. Look for a lively note of black pepper on the finish. Drink soon. Score B+ ($42.99 Available online from www.Kosherwine.com, [866] 567-4370.)
Tishbi, Jonathan Tishbi, Barbera-Zinfandel, Galilee, 2006: Made from unusual mixture of equal parts Barbera and Zinfandel grapes, and fortified with a pot still brandy made from Red Muscat, this tawny-garnet-colored, full-bodied, sweet wine has flavors and aromas of dried cherries, dried cranberries, gooseberries, candied almonds, and mocha, with a light touch of spice on the finish. Drink within the next year. Score B+ ($69.99 Available online fromwww.Kosherwine.com, [866] 567-4370.)
Odem Mountain, Scarlet, Galilee, Non-vintage. Made from grapes picked at the end of the harvest, and aged for thirty months in barrels under direct sunlight, this full-boded, dark-garnet-colored, lightly-maderized, fortified wine has a nose of oak, plums, and espresso. Look for flavors of stewed cherries, plums, and chocolate. Drink within the next three years. Score B/B+. ($50.99 Available at Rockland Kosher Wine and Liquor, 27 Orchard Street [Monsey], [855] 756-7437.)
Please note that unlike table wines, Port, like other fortified wines, can last anywhere from a week to a month after opening. Port and Port-style wines are best served slightly chilled (somewhere around 55F).
Wines were scored on an ‘A’-‘F’ scale where ‘A’ is excellent, ‘B’ is good, ‘C’ is flawed, ‘D’ is very flawed, and ‘F’ is undrinkable. Prices listed reflect the price at the retailer mentioned.
---------------------
Actor Josh Radnor is a 'Yeshiva Bokhur' At Heart
Talia Lakritz
Briefs
Day school graduate of 'How I Met Your Mother' fame says his passion for acting relates back to his Jewish roots.
Many Jewish parents hope their children will grow up to become doctors. Actor Josh Radnor grew up to play one on TV, currently operating as Dr. Jedidiah Foster, a surgeon in PBS’ new Civil War drama series "Mercy Street."
Radnor is perhaps best known for his role as Ted Mosby in "How I Met Your Mother," but his career spans television, theater, and film both behind and in front of the camera. He has written, directed, and starred in 2 films: "Happythankyoumoreplease" in 2010, which won the Sundance Film Festival Audience Award and was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize, and "Liberal Arts," which premiered at Sundance in 2012. Radnor also made his Broadway debut in 2014 as Isaac in "Disgraced."
Raised in Bexley, Ohio, a suburb of Columbus, Radnor attended Columbus Torah Academy, an Orthodox day school (though he describes his upbringing as American Conservative) and participated in Livnot U’Lehibanot, a hiking, volunteering, and community building program in Tzfat.
According to Radnor, his passion for acting relates back to his Jewish roots.
“I’ve always loved sitting around, reading text and talking about it,” he told The Forward in 2008. “I’ve thought, ‘You know, I would have been a good yeshiva bokher.’”
Radnor channeled this love of text study into "Unscrolled: 54 Writers and Artists Wrestle with the Torah." Released by Reboot, a network of Jewish artists and creators, the book features Radnor’s musings on B’reishit.
“I believe in God,” he writes before presenting the text of a prayer he composed. “I try to feel the room before I blurt that out in conversation, but ... it’s a feature of my personality and a fact of my life.”
---------------------
Decision 2016: Disability Scorecards
Gabrielle Kaplan-Mayer
The New Normal
Editor's Note: As the primary season begins, we bring you this exclusive interview with Jennifer Laslzo Mizrahi, President of RespectAbilityUSA, an important organization working on disability rights. Jennifer is on the campaign trail advocating for people with disabilities and answered our questions via email.
NN: Can you describe RespectAbilityUSA's mission in terms of inclusion in the Jewish community and why following the presidential race is connected to your mission?
JLM: Our work is all about improving the lives of people with disabilities. There is a big role for Jewish institutions in that work, and we are deeply committed to Jewish inclusion. But ultimately the disability agenda is a civil rights agenda and an anti-poverty agenda. And it’s far bigger than just the Jewish community. And the only way to move those agendas is to ensure that it is on the “to do list” of the next president of the United States. We want our issues to be center stage in the first 100 days of the next president's first term, and beyond.
#JDAIM16: Disability And LanguagePosted: Sat, 01/30/2016 - 06:38 | Posted by: Steven Eidelman | The New Normal
Editor's Note: February is Jewish Disability Awareness & Inclusion Month, an international effort to raise awareness (#JDAIM16 on twitter). "The New Normal" will share blogs all month long about the language we use when we talk about disability. Please comment here or on our Facebook page — share with your community and join the conversation!
Does it really matter what we call people? Is terminology and language use important? By now you may think you have heard too much about person-first language, or at least the intent which is to emphasize the person and not the label. This works for most groups, although increasingly those who are autistic, or at least organizations representing them, seem to prefer the term "autistics" over "people with autism" (Read more about that debate here).
So what does it really matter?
Blogging Jewish Disability Awareness and Inclusion Month - #JDAIMblogs by Lisa Friedman
Food & Wine
Chocolate makes most sparkling wines taste bitter.Chocolate season is upon us. Americans will purchase about 29,000 tons of chocolate in the week leading up to February 14, according to the Nielson Company. That same week will also see a surge in the sale of sparkling wines, when approximately 900,000 bottles will be sold.
The problem with these sales trends is that while chocolate and sparkling wine are both very celebratory and romantic, they don’t really play well together. When consumed together, chocolate’s sweetness can make many sparkling wines seem a bit bitter. So instead of chocolate and bubbly, a better pairing is chocolate and Port.
Port is a fortified wine produced in the Douro Valley in the northern provinces of Portugal. During production, aguardente, a clear grape-based spirit, is added in order to stop the fermentation, leaving residual sugar in the wine, while also increasing the wine’s alcohol content. Port tends to have complex, sweet flavors with notes of stewed or dried fruits, along with a rich, velvety texture, making for a very good match with chocolate, and particularly with dark chocolate.
While true Port only comes from Portugal, the Port wine-making formula has been successfully copied the world over. In Israel, the quality of Port-style wines has been rapidly improving in recent years, and a few of those wines are truly worth seeking out. So in preparation for the upcoming deluge of chocolate, we’ve found some very good Ports and Israeli Port-style wines, any of which would be a good choice to go along with a chocolate binge.
Porto Cordovero, Late Bottled Vintage Port, 2005: Made in Porto by the noted Port lodge of Taylor, Fladgate & Yeatman, this rich, sweet, full-bodied, garnet-colored wine has a delightful nose of red cherries, stewed rhubarb, and prunes, with a slight but pleasant whiff of menthol. Look for flavors of raisins, black currents, cherries, prunes, dried figs, and mocha. While not quite as vibrant as it once was, this wine still has a bit of life. Drink within the next year. Score A- ($49.99 Available at Beacon Wine & Spirits 2120 Broadway [Manhattan], [212] 877-0028.)
Porto Quevedo, Ruby Port, non-vintage: This was the bargain of the tasting. With an inky dark ruby-to-garnet color, and a full body, this richly sweet wine has a bouquet of cherries, stewed prunes and chocolate, with a hint of menthol and an underlying earthy layer. Look for flavors of plums, stewed cherries and prunes, with hints of cherry brandy and chocolate. Drink within the next two years. Score B+ ($19.95 Available at Sherry-Lehmann Wine and Spirits, 505 Park Ave [Manhattan], [212] 838-7500.)
Carmel, Vintage, Judean Hills, 2007: Made from Petite Sirah grapes, and fortified with grape alcohol, this garnet-colored, full-bodied wine is made in a style somewhat reminiscent of a Tawny Port. The nose is redolent of cassis, blackberries, cherries, chocolate, and spice. Flavors of cherries, cassis and mocha interplay nicely with elements of stewed prunes and cantaloupe. Look for a lively note of black pepper on the finish. Drink soon. Score B+ ($42.99 Available online from www.Kosherwine.com, [866] 567-4370.)
Tishbi, Jonathan Tishbi, Barbera-Zinfandel, Galilee, 2006: Made from unusual mixture of equal parts Barbera and Zinfandel grapes, and fortified with a pot still brandy made from Red Muscat, this tawny-garnet-colored, full-bodied, sweet wine has flavors and aromas of dried cherries, dried cranberries, gooseberries, candied almonds, and mocha, with a light touch of spice on the finish. Drink within the next year. Score B+ ($69.99 Available online fromwww.Kosherwine.com, [866] 567-4370.)
Odem Mountain, Scarlet, Galilee, Non-vintage. Made from grapes picked at the end of the harvest, and aged for thirty months in barrels under direct sunlight, this full-boded, dark-garnet-colored, lightly-maderized, fortified wine has a nose of oak, plums, and espresso. Look for flavors of stewed cherries, plums, and chocolate. Drink within the next three years. Score B/B+. ($50.99 Available at Rockland Kosher Wine and Liquor, 27 Orchard Street [Monsey], [855] 756-7437.)
Please note that unlike table wines, Port, like other fortified wines, can last anywhere from a week to a month after opening. Port and Port-style wines are best served slightly chilled (somewhere around 55F).
Wines were scored on an ‘A’-‘F’ scale where ‘A’ is excellent, ‘B’ is good, ‘C’ is flawed, ‘D’ is very flawed, and ‘F’ is undrinkable. Prices listed reflect the price at the retailer mentioned.
---------------------
Actor Josh Radnor is a 'Yeshiva Bokhur' At Heart
Talia Lakritz
Briefs
Day school graduate of 'How I Met Your Mother' fame says his passion for acting relates back to his Jewish roots.
Many Jewish parents hope their children will grow up to become doctors. Actor Josh Radnor grew up to play one on TV, currently operating as Dr. Jedidiah Foster, a surgeon in PBS’ new Civil War drama series "Mercy Street."
Radnor is perhaps best known for his role as Ted Mosby in "How I Met Your Mother," but his career spans television, theater, and film both behind and in front of the camera. He has written, directed, and starred in 2 films: "Happythankyoumoreplease" in 2010, which won the Sundance Film Festival Audience Award and was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize, and "Liberal Arts," which premiered at Sundance in 2012. Radnor also made his Broadway debut in 2014 as Isaac in "Disgraced."
Raised in Bexley, Ohio, a suburb of Columbus, Radnor attended Columbus Torah Academy, an Orthodox day school (though he describes his upbringing as American Conservative) and participated in Livnot U’Lehibanot, a hiking, volunteering, and community building program in Tzfat.
According to Radnor, his passion for acting relates back to his Jewish roots.
“I’ve always loved sitting around, reading text and talking about it,” he told The Forward in 2008. “I’ve thought, ‘You know, I would have been a good yeshiva bokher.’”
Radnor channeled this love of text study into "Unscrolled: 54 Writers and Artists Wrestle with the Torah." Released by Reboot, a network of Jewish artists and creators, the book features Radnor’s musings on B’reishit.
“I believe in God,” he writes before presenting the text of a prayer he composed. “I try to feel the room before I blurt that out in conversation, but ... it’s a feature of my personality and a fact of my life.”
---------------------
Decision 2016: Disability Scorecards
Gabrielle Kaplan-Mayer
The New Normal
Editor's Note: As the primary season begins, we bring you this exclusive interview with Jennifer Laslzo Mizrahi, President of RespectAbilityUSA, an important organization working on disability rights. Jennifer is on the campaign trail advocating for people with disabilities and answered our questions via email.
NN: Can you describe RespectAbilityUSA's mission in terms of inclusion in the Jewish community and why following the presidential race is connected to your mission?
JLM: Our work is all about improving the lives of people with disabilities. There is a big role for Jewish institutions in that work, and we are deeply committed to Jewish inclusion. But ultimately the disability agenda is a civil rights agenda and an anti-poverty agenda. And it’s far bigger than just the Jewish community. And the only way to move those agendas is to ensure that it is on the “to do list” of the next president of the United States. We want our issues to be center stage in the first 100 days of the next president's first term, and beyond.
#JDAIM16: Disability And LanguagePosted: Sat, 01/30/2016 - 06:38 | Posted by: Steven Eidelman | The New Normal
Editor's Note: February is Jewish Disability Awareness & Inclusion Month, an international effort to raise awareness (#JDAIM16 on twitter). "The New Normal" will share blogs all month long about the language we use when we talk about disability. Please comment here or on our Facebook page — share with your community and join the conversation!
Does it really matter what we call people? Is terminology and language use important? By now you may think you have heard too much about person-first language, or at least the intent which is to emphasize the person and not the label. This works for most groups, although increasingly those who are autistic, or at least organizations representing them, seem to prefer the term "autistics" over "people with autism" (Read more about that debate here).
So what does it really matter?
Blogging Jewish Disability Awareness and Inclusion Month - #JDAIMblogs by Lisa Friedman
The New Normal
Editor's Note: Next week begins Jewish Disability Awareness & Inclusion Month--a time when the Jewish community puts extra focus on the inclusion of people with disabilities. At "The New Normal," we know that this is a 365-day effort and appreciate all of our readers and contributors giving attention to this issue. We are sharing this blog from contributor Lisa Friedman and will be featuring a series of blogs about disability and language through the month.
For those of you who have been following this event for a few years or more, you will note that the acronym has changed. Since 2009, Jewish Disability Awareness Month has taken place each February with the tagline “From Awareness to Inclusion”. In keeping with that trend, the various organizers of this annual event have added “I” for inclusion right into the title: Jewish Disability Awareness and Inclusion Month.
The Typical Israel Experience And A Whole Lot More by Howard Blas
Editor's Note: Next week begins Jewish Disability Awareness & Inclusion Month--a time when the Jewish community puts extra focus on the inclusion of people with disabilities. At "The New Normal," we know that this is a 365-day effort and appreciate all of our readers and contributors giving attention to this issue. We are sharing this blog from contributor Lisa Friedman and will be featuring a series of blogs about disability and language through the month.
For those of you who have been following this event for a few years or more, you will note that the acronym has changed. Since 2009, Jewish Disability Awareness Month has taken place each February with the tagline “From Awareness to Inclusion”. In keeping with that trend, the various organizers of this annual event have added “I” for inclusion right into the title: Jewish Disability Awareness and Inclusion Month.
The Typical Israel Experience And A Whole Lot More by Howard Blas
The New Normal
Eight brave young adults with disabilities from across the United States traveled to Israel over winter break as part of Ramah Israel Institute’s Tikvah Ramah Israel Trip. Most of this year’s travelers are current participants in or recent graduates of the various vocational training programs at Ramah camps. They are in transition to the world of work and, in some cases, moving from their parents’ homes to other living environments. Their itinerary included many of the sites and experiences of a “standard 10-day Israel trip" and a whole lot more.
Ramah offers a Tikvah Israel trip every two years.
Inclusion Panel At JTS: Expanding The Circle And Embracing Diversity by Abigail Uhrman
Eight brave young adults with disabilities from across the United States traveled to Israel over winter break as part of Ramah Israel Institute’s Tikvah Ramah Israel Trip. Most of this year’s travelers are current participants in or recent graduates of the various vocational training programs at Ramah camps. They are in transition to the world of work and, in some cases, moving from their parents’ homes to other living environments. Their itinerary included many of the sites and experiences of a “standard 10-day Israel trip" and a whole lot more.
Ramah offers a Tikvah Israel trip every two years.
Inclusion Panel At JTS: Expanding The Circle And Embracing Diversity by Abigail Uhrman
The New Normal
On Tuesday, December 8, The Jewish Theological Seminary hosted the Jack and Lewis Rudin Lecture, titled “Disabilities, Inclusion, and Jewish Education.” As an educator and researcher, I was honored to moderate the program with an esteemed panel of guests: Howard Blas, director, National Ramah Tikvah Network; Dori Frumin Kirshner, executive director, Matan; Arlene Remz, executive director, Gateways: Access to Jewish Education in Boston and Ilana Ruskay-Kidd, founder and head of school, The Shefa School in New York City.
I am sure many of you echo my enthusiasm when I say, “At last!” While disability issues are becoming an increasing priority on the communal Jewish agenda, we admittedly have a long way to go.---------------------
MORE HEADLINES:
After Historic Deal At Kotel, Next Steps Seen As Elusive >
Israel News
After Historic Deal At Kotel, Next Steps Seen As Elusive
Liberal streams hail egalitarian prayer at holy site, but push for greater religious pluralism faces strong headwind.
Hannah Dreyfus
Staff Writer
Mixed-gender prayer gets boost at Western Wall. Getty ImagesThe Israeli government’s decision Sunday to approve a compromise expanding the egalitarian prayer section of the Western Wall is being hailed as a historic moment by leaders of the Reform and Conservative movements.
The compromise emerged after a decades-long stalemate between Israel’s charedi Orthodox religious establishment and their liberal counterparts, including Women of the Wall, a multi-denominational feminist organization in Israel.
“For the first time, people have a real alternative and choice when they come to pray at the Kotel,” said Rabbi Rick Jacobs, president of the Union for Reform Judaism, who called the decision “historic.”
“It’s also significant because now, for the first time in the State of Israel, there is an oversight body compromised of non-Orthodox leaders,” he said, referring to the joint committee that will oversee the policies and day-to-day operations of the expanded section.
Plans for the non-Orthodox section’s expansion, spearheaded by Jewish Agency for Israel Chairman Natan Sharansky, began in December 2012. Previous scuffles — especially between police and Women of the Wall chair Anat Hoffman, who was arrested in October of that year for leading a prayer group in which women recited the Shema out loud and wore shawls in violation of Israeli law — heightened the need for a solution. Though the deal still contains a few unknowns, including how long construction will take and how visitors will be directed to the non-Orthodox section, it is being heralded as a victory for religious pluralism.
But questions remain this week about whether the Western Wall deal is a one-off decision, or might lead to further advances for those advocating for religious pluralism in Israel. Leaders of the liberal denominations have been pushing for years for greater government funding for their streams, and for state-sanctioned civil marriage. But they admit that, given the makeup of the current ruling coalition in Israel, these efforts will face strong headwinds.
“This was a big step forward, but there are many more steps to take,” said Rabbi Steven Wernick, chief executive officer of the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism. He stressed that “parity” in terms of funding Conservative rabbis, communities and synagogues, does not exist. “The state is either going to have to break the Orthodox monopoly, or fund the different streams,” he said, referring to the Conservative and Reform movements in Israel. The challenge of the moment is remaining “hopeful and pragmatic,” even in the face of new gains.
Though Rabbi Jacobs praised the “support” he and other non-Orthodox leaders received from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Minister of Diaspora Affairs Naftali Bennett with regard to the Western Wall compromise, he said other changes are bound to be stymied by the heavily right-wing government.
“I’ll be candid — it’s unlikely that a new bill about civil marriage will make its way through the Knesset under this government,” he said, referring to the many charedi ministers committed to opposing such a bill. Currently, Jewish marriages in Israel must be performed under the auspices of the Israeli Chief Rabbinate and the rabbinical courts, both strictly Orthodox bodies. “This is not an acceptable reality for a democratic country,” said Rabbi Jacobs. Still, he added, while the “bridge” of civil marriage may be a pipe dream in the current climate, the “symbolism” of the Western Wall compromise is heartening.
“The majority of Jews around the world are not Orthodox, and there was no way to justify the status quo before Sunday’s decision,” said a Reform leader, who asserted that his movement in the U.S. “continues to stand whole-heartedly behind Israel.” (According to the 2013 Pew Portrait of American Jewry, the biggest stream of Judaism in the U.S. is, at 35 percent, the Reform movement.) “It’s nice when the state of Israel acknowledges that we exist and that we have a place in the religious life of Israel.”
To be sure, ultra-Orthodox groups here and in Israel have been quick to criticize, and even mourn, the new compromise.
“Designating an area at the Kotel Maaravi [Western Wall] for feminist and mixed-gender prayer not only profanes the holy site, it creates yet a further lamentable rift between Jews,” wrote the Agudath Israel of America in a statement. The group represents one of the largest charedi Jewish communal organizations in the United States. In Israel, Shmuel Rabinowitz, the ultra-Orthodox head rabbi of the Western Wall, greeted the news with a “heavy heart.”
Rabbi Julie Schonfeld, executive vice president of the Rabbinical Assembly, the international membership association of Conservative rabbis, said that equal access to “administration, governance and funding” is the most promising accomplishment of the compromise.
“Separation between synagogue and state is simply not happening today in Israel, but it is feasible to expect equal access and funding for all streams of Judaism,” she said. “This is a first step.” She noted that the new liberal section would still receive far less funding than the northern Kotel, the part of the Western Wall that will remain under Orthodox control. “But,” the rabbi said, “this is finally a chink in the armor of the ultra-Orthodox monopoly.”
“We’re moving from episodes of outrage and a painful lack of religious freedom to actually having a strategy and a voice,” she added, referring to the body of Reform and Conservative rabbis who will oversee the upcoming changes. “It’s a step in the right direction for equal funding of the streams.”
Steven Bayme, director of contemporary Jewish life at the American Jewish Committee, said that the compromise is the “right step in the larger trajectory towards religious pluralism.” While next steps for non-Orthodox movements in Israel remain hazy, the gains thus far are “quite significant” when weighed against the challenges the Reform and Conservative movements faced in years past, he said.
“One generation ago, the Reform and Conservative movements weren’t allowed any inroads in Israel,” he noted, speaking of his experiences in Israel in 1989 while part of an AJC delegation. “These movements were seen as American phenomena.” He recalled a charedi intellectual leader at the time telling him that Reform and Conservative Judaism might be alright as a solution in America, but they were “not right” for Israel.
Though Reform and Conservative Jews are celebrating for the moment, Jonathan D. Sarna, professor of Jewish History at Brandeis University, said the “big losers” of the agreement are Modern Orthodox women — those who want to preserve a mechitza, the traditional separation between male and female worshippers, but who also want to play a larger and more active role in services.
Still, in theory, the deal represents an “important step” in the official recognition of non-Orthodox movements, he said. The proof promises to be in the details. “Will it really be two equal options? That remains to be seen,” he said. Charedi efforts to “subvert the deal” before it goes into effect are also likely. “Nevertheless, the very fact that there was a deal matters,” he said.
Whether or not the compromise will pave the road for more significant wins — mainly with regard to civil marriage and non-Orthodox conversions and religious courts — is tenuous. But the compromise does promise to “embolden folks” to take on bigger issues, according to Sarna.
“The agreement was made notwithstanding the significant and vociferous objections of the charedi element,” he said. “That will impact what happens next.”
---------------------
Fake NY Times 'Supplement' Trashes Israel >
New York
Fake NY Times ‘Supplement’ Trashes Israel
Gary Rosenblatt
Editor And Publisher
A Fake New York Times Supplement, Tuesday February 2, 2016.No, Hillary Clinton has not quit her race for president to advocate for Palestinian rights. Sen. Chuck Schumer is not calling for the end of U.S. aid to Israel. And The New York Times is not searching for a new publisher to end its biased, pro-Israel reporting.
A sophisticated, fake four-page supplement to The New York Times featuring those “stories” and others promoting the Palestinian cause and denigrating Israel was distributed in Manhattan on Tuesday, and The New York Times is not laughing.
The supplement includes phony anti-Israel ads, made no mention of a sponsoring group. And while one of several young women distributing the propaganda near the Port Authority Bus Terminal in Midtown Tuesday morning told this reporter, when asked, that “this is a supplement of The New York Times,” the paper of record had nothing to do with it.
“We’re protective of our brand and other intellectual property and object to this group (or any group’s) attempt to cloak their political views under the banner of The New York Times,” according to a statement from Eileen Murphy, senior vice president of communications at the paper. “We believe strongly that those advocating for political positions are best served by speaking openly, in their own voice.”
On Wednesday, Jewish Voice for Peace took credit for the supplement.
The handout featured a box above The Times logo that read, “Rethinking Our 2015 Coverage On Israel-Palestine — A Supplement.” In the upper left-hand corner was a spoof of The Times motto, reading “All The News We Didn’t Print.”
The online version of the phony paper has been taken down but can be seen here.
Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt called the mock issue “deceptive” and welcomed the Times’ statement objecting to the effort to fool the public.
“The diatribe, published anonymously, conveys false facts and themes consistent with anti-Israel advocates and supporters of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement,” he said.
Clearly, it was a costly and carefully orchestrated project, which is almost identical in appearance to the real thing. Copies were delivered to some Manhattan residential buildings where they were included, unintentionally, with the day’s copy of the “real” Times at the front door of tenants’ apartments.
Shahar Azani, executive director of StandWithUs Northeast, commenting on the “supplement,” noted that “the U.S.-Israel alliance is strong and founded on shared values and strategic interests. Any attempt to subvert it is doomed to fail.” He added that “spreading lies and demonizing Israel will not bring peace to both parties,” which will only come through “direct dialogue and education. It is a shame there are those who chose to waste paper and contaminate the environment with unwarranted garbage.”
If nothing else, a read through the “supplement,” with its “Editorial” calling for an end to the distortions in The Times’ coverage of the Israel-Palestine conflict, may convince some pro-Israel readers that not everyone sees the paper’s Mideast coverage as slanted against the Jewish state.
Note: This story was updated on Feb. 3 to include that Jewish Voice for Peace has taken credit for the supplement.---------------------
Post-Iowa, 5 Questions For Jewish Voters >
National
Post-Iowa, 5 Questions For Jewish Voters
Looking to New Hampshire, and beyond.
JTA
Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton participating in a town hall forum last week at Drake University in Des MoinesThe Iowa caucuses are over — and the first real test of the presidential candidates’ viability gave us more questions than answers.
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) won the Republican caucus on Monday night, relegating Donald Trump, the real estate billionaire, to second place. Both Trump and Cruz ran insurgent anti-establishment campaigns. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) made a strong showing for third place, well ahead of the other “establishment” candidates.
On the Democratic side, Hillary Rodham Clinton and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) effectively tied for first.
The New Hampshire primary is on Feb. 9, with Nevada and South Carolina later this month.
By March 2, the day after Super Tuesday, when 14 states and a territory select favored candidates, we should have some answers — like who among the 11 GOP candidates is serious, how much stamina Sanders has and what the general election might look like on Nov. 8.
In the meantime, here are some of the known unknowns for the Jewish and Middle East obsessed:
1. Will Jeb’s exclamation point turn into a question mark?
A year ago Jeb Bush, the former Republican governor of Florida, was the GOP’s favored son, literally and figuratively, despite his convoluted attempts to distant himself from his father and his brother, including dropping “Bush” from his logo and replacing it with an exclamation point.
Bush attracted the lion’s share of the party’s traditional fundraisers, including Jewish funders like Fred Zeidman of Texas, Mel Sembler of Florida and Sam Fox of Missouri. They raised over $100 million toward an extension of the Bush dynasty.
Trump, who went hard at Bush from the outset, has more or less killed that dream. Bush scored 3 percent in Iowa, and before the Iowa vote was polling at 6 percent in New Hampshire. His backers have been loyal until now, but it may be time for a reality check. Rubio — once Bush’s protégé, although they have clashed during the campaign — is hoping to reap the establishment dividends of a Bush departure.
2. Is Donald Trump fired?
Before the Iowa vote, the reality TV star — who relegated dozens of would-be apprentices to the unemployment line — was well ahead in the New Hampshire race and nationally. But he has staked his candidacy on being a winner and decreed his victory in Iowa a foregone conclusion. On Monday night, he delivered an uncharacteristically subdued concession speech, promising to win in New Hampshire and consider buying a farm in Iowa.
Plenty of Jewish Republicans wouldn’t mind seeing Trump with a hoe. He has alienated a broad cross-section of the community, offending the socially moderate with his broadsides against Muslims and Hispanics, while unnerving conservatives with his dithering over whether all of Jerusalem is Israel’s capital and questioning of Israel’s commitment to making peace.
3. “Cruz and the Neocons”: A new hit band?
Cruz has been second to none in his Israel boosterism; of the four victory speeches Monday night, only his mentioned the country.
“If you want a candidate who will stand unapologetically with the nation of Israel, then support a candidate who has led the fight over and over again to stand by our friend and ally, the nation of Israel,” he said.
But Cruz has also faulted neoconservatives for leading the country into too many wars, among them the signature foreign policy event of George W. Bush’s presidency, the Iraq War. The Venn diagram overlap between Jewish Republicans and neoconservatives is substantial. Cruz’s broadsides against that ideology, coupled with attacks on “New York values,” have made some Jewish Republicans wary of whether the Texan is using code to appeal to the less salutary values in the American conservative heartland.
Now that he has emerged as a front-runner, does Cruz reach out to the establishment’s Jewish wing of the party and make nice?
4. What will the Adelsons do?
Sheldon Adelson, the casino magnate, pro-Israel powerhouse and Republican kingmaker has taken to joking in recent weeks about his bickering with his physician wife, Miriam, over Cruz and Rubio. She favors the former, he the latter. On the eve of the Iowa caucuses, it was revealed that the couple had maxed out direct donations to Cruz’s campaign, each anteing up $2,700.
It doesn’t necessarily mean they’ve made up their minds. The Adelsons gave similar amounts last year to the campaign of Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), but thus far have refrained from spending the tens of millions to fund political action committees not directly affiliated with candidates. The couple have made known to associates that they do not want to repeat what they now feel was a mistake in 2012 — giving millions to groups supporting Newt Gingrich, only to wound the ultimate nominee, Mitt Romney, who lost to Obama in the general election.
With Cruz and Rubio still viable, don’t expect an Adelson determination just yet. One thing the couple will be watching is whether Rubio improves his ground game, the network of volunteers and staff necessary to get out the vote state by state. Reporting has suggested that he was surprisingly weak in this area in Iowa.
5. Does Bernie do foreign policy?
In his speeches, Sanders manages to turn typically soporific economic analysis — income inequality, banks, health care — into a rousing call to action.
Not so on foreign policy, where he has allowed himself to be put on the defensive by Clinton, the former secretary of state and first lady, who has framed Sanders as naive and inexperienced — with some success.
It doesn’t help that in one debate, Sanders called for “normalization” of ties with Iran and then seemed to backtrack, or that he has repeatedly called Jordan’s King Abdullah, a monarch not especially thrilled with the democratic process, one of his heroes.
Sanders has focused on the opposing votes he and Clinton cast 14 years ago on the Iraq War: He voted against when he was in the U.S. House of Representatives, she voted for when she was a New York senator.
If Sanders hopes to peel away foreign policy-focused voters from Clinton, he will need to flesh out his plans for the Middle East in particular, where he has said he agrees with Obama and Clinton that America needs to maintain leadership. ---------------------
For Progressives, A False Dichotomy On Israel >
Opinion
For Progressives, A False Dichotomy On Israel
David Shmidt Chapman
Special To The Jewish Week
David Shmidt ChapmanConflicted young Jews who feel caught between the progressive values we hold in our DNA and an increasingly radical “left” agenda that demonizes all things Israel may have come to another fork in the road. The silencing of activists from Jerusalem Open House at the Creating Change conference last week sent a signal to those of us at the intersection of an American Jewish community struggling with its relationship to Israel, and an LGBTQ movement trying to deepen its solidarity with other liberation movements around the world.
I work at the New Israel Fund, an organization that promotes social justice and human rights in Israel and the Occupied Territories, and I also serve on the board of Congregation Beit Simchat Torah, an LGBTQ synagogue in New York. These affiliations put me right at the crosshairs of a growing schism.
What does it mean for us when we see, as we increasingly do, an “either/or” attitude that forces us to choose between being affiliated with Israel and being good progressives? And for those of us that identify as LGBTQ, what do we do when our desire to participate in that movement comes into conflict with a monolithic stance against Israel? How do we respond to events like Friday night’s scene at the Creating Change conference, when Israelis trying to make change in their own society are silenced, accused of “pinkwashing” (the charge that Israelis use the country’s gay-friendliness as a smoke screen for its West Bank policies) and shut out from a global Queer-led justice movement that they need to be part of and that needs them to take part?
In the face of these impossible questions, we must not allow ourselves to be co-opted either into tone-deaf “Israel advocacy” or equally one-sided “anti-Zionism.” We are smarter than that.
Our true movement — the movement for a just, democratic Israel and a free Palestine — needs us. It needs our voice calling for something a bit hard to capture in a tweet or on a protest sign: nuance. By conflating every struggle into one struggle, by dismissing any sign of progress as a condemnation that we haven’t gone far enough, by calling any individual bravely working for change within hostile systems an accomplice to the enemy, we sell ourselves and our intelligence short.
The pinkwashing argument denies our ability to understand nuance. It assumes that I cannot simultaneously hold in my head two realities: that Israel must do much more to protect the rights of Palestinians (including queer Palestinians), and that Israeli society has made great strides towards acceptance of LGBTQ people generally.
A historic and unfair claims of pinkwashing suggest that to be a “good” member of a broad-based queer movement, one must categorically reject not only the Israeli government but also any individual Israeli who falls short of calling for dismantling the entire state. It is a false notion that would force some into positions that almost all progressives disagree with — such as calling for the forced expulsion of millions of Jews in Israel.
But this argument also does a disservice to the thousands of Israeli activists and organizers — queer and straight — who are struggling every day to reverse the injustices committed by that state. It alienates those learning from and contributing to a global struggle for justice and liberation from oppression of all kinds. Ironically, when we apply the label pinkwashing with so little consideration, we actually help make it happen: We distract from Israel’s actual shortcomings by purporting that the gains made by LGBTQ Israelis — over the fierce opposition of many Israeli leaders — was actually part of a plot to burnish Israel’s reputation abroad. It makes it harder to discern actual Israeli-government supported smokescreening when it does happen —and it happens plenty.
If we, like those on the right, deny a middle path we will ensure only that the very people working hard to make change within a deeply unjust system are further isolated from the world, from their progressive counterparts and from access to all that these communities and networks provide. This will further entrench isolationism and nationalism in Israel.
What happened at the Creating Change conference, the outright violent hostility to people that my own organization supports, was difficult to watch from afar. I felt torn between an LGBTQ movement of which I feel proud to be a part, and my support for Israeli activists who should be natural allies. That is the “intersectionality” I believe in, and that is why I see no contradiction between my work supporting civil and human rights in Israel and Palestine, and my activism in the LGBTQ movement.
So let’s not fall prey to the false belief that supporting the positive change-makers within Israel means colluding with an evil state. This is as absurd as suggesting that by working at a public university you therefore must support every action taken by the State that issued its charter. Let’s be brave enough to hold multiple and even conflicting narratives at the same time. Be big-hearted enough to extend compassion and respect to those holding viewpoints that we deeply disagree with. And believe in the change — towards justice for everyone — that we know someday is coming.
David Shmidt Chapman is senior program officer for the tri-state office of the New Israel Fund.
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The Jewish Week
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On Tuesday, December 8, The Jewish Theological Seminary hosted the Jack and Lewis Rudin Lecture, titled “Disabilities, Inclusion, and Jewish Education.” As an educator and researcher, I was honored to moderate the program with an esteemed panel of guests: Howard Blas, director, National Ramah Tikvah Network; Dori Frumin Kirshner, executive director, Matan; Arlene Remz, executive director, Gateways: Access to Jewish Education in Boston and Ilana Ruskay-Kidd, founder and head of school, The Shefa School in New York City.
I am sure many of you echo my enthusiasm when I say, “At last!” While disability issues are becoming an increasing priority on the communal Jewish agenda, we admittedly have a long way to go.---------------------
MORE HEADLINES:
After Historic Deal At Kotel, Next Steps Seen As Elusive >
Israel News
After Historic Deal At Kotel, Next Steps Seen As Elusive
Liberal streams hail egalitarian prayer at holy site, but push for greater religious pluralism faces strong headwind.
Hannah Dreyfus
Staff Writer
Mixed-gender prayer gets boost at Western Wall. Getty ImagesThe Israeli government’s decision Sunday to approve a compromise expanding the egalitarian prayer section of the Western Wall is being hailed as a historic moment by leaders of the Reform and Conservative movements.
The compromise emerged after a decades-long stalemate between Israel’s charedi Orthodox religious establishment and their liberal counterparts, including Women of the Wall, a multi-denominational feminist organization in Israel.
“For the first time, people have a real alternative and choice when they come to pray at the Kotel,” said Rabbi Rick Jacobs, president of the Union for Reform Judaism, who called the decision “historic.”
“It’s also significant because now, for the first time in the State of Israel, there is an oversight body compromised of non-Orthodox leaders,” he said, referring to the joint committee that will oversee the policies and day-to-day operations of the expanded section.
Plans for the non-Orthodox section’s expansion, spearheaded by Jewish Agency for Israel Chairman Natan Sharansky, began in December 2012. Previous scuffles — especially between police and Women of the Wall chair Anat Hoffman, who was arrested in October of that year for leading a prayer group in which women recited the Shema out loud and wore shawls in violation of Israeli law — heightened the need for a solution. Though the deal still contains a few unknowns, including how long construction will take and how visitors will be directed to the non-Orthodox section, it is being heralded as a victory for religious pluralism.
But questions remain this week about whether the Western Wall deal is a one-off decision, or might lead to further advances for those advocating for religious pluralism in Israel. Leaders of the liberal denominations have been pushing for years for greater government funding for their streams, and for state-sanctioned civil marriage. But they admit that, given the makeup of the current ruling coalition in Israel, these efforts will face strong headwinds.
“This was a big step forward, but there are many more steps to take,” said Rabbi Steven Wernick, chief executive officer of the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism. He stressed that “parity” in terms of funding Conservative rabbis, communities and synagogues, does not exist. “The state is either going to have to break the Orthodox monopoly, or fund the different streams,” he said, referring to the Conservative and Reform movements in Israel. The challenge of the moment is remaining “hopeful and pragmatic,” even in the face of new gains.
Though Rabbi Jacobs praised the “support” he and other non-Orthodox leaders received from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Minister of Diaspora Affairs Naftali Bennett with regard to the Western Wall compromise, he said other changes are bound to be stymied by the heavily right-wing government.
“I’ll be candid — it’s unlikely that a new bill about civil marriage will make its way through the Knesset under this government,” he said, referring to the many charedi ministers committed to opposing such a bill. Currently, Jewish marriages in Israel must be performed under the auspices of the Israeli Chief Rabbinate and the rabbinical courts, both strictly Orthodox bodies. “This is not an acceptable reality for a democratic country,” said Rabbi Jacobs. Still, he added, while the “bridge” of civil marriage may be a pipe dream in the current climate, the “symbolism” of the Western Wall compromise is heartening.
“The majority of Jews around the world are not Orthodox, and there was no way to justify the status quo before Sunday’s decision,” said a Reform leader, who asserted that his movement in the U.S. “continues to stand whole-heartedly behind Israel.” (According to the 2013 Pew Portrait of American Jewry, the biggest stream of Judaism in the U.S. is, at 35 percent, the Reform movement.) “It’s nice when the state of Israel acknowledges that we exist and that we have a place in the religious life of Israel.”
To be sure, ultra-Orthodox groups here and in Israel have been quick to criticize, and even mourn, the new compromise.
“Designating an area at the Kotel Maaravi [Western Wall] for feminist and mixed-gender prayer not only profanes the holy site, it creates yet a further lamentable rift between Jews,” wrote the Agudath Israel of America in a statement. The group represents one of the largest charedi Jewish communal organizations in the United States. In Israel, Shmuel Rabinowitz, the ultra-Orthodox head rabbi of the Western Wall, greeted the news with a “heavy heart.”
Rabbi Julie Schonfeld, executive vice president of the Rabbinical Assembly, the international membership association of Conservative rabbis, said that equal access to “administration, governance and funding” is the most promising accomplishment of the compromise.
“Separation between synagogue and state is simply not happening today in Israel, but it is feasible to expect equal access and funding for all streams of Judaism,” she said. “This is a first step.” She noted that the new liberal section would still receive far less funding than the northern Kotel, the part of the Western Wall that will remain under Orthodox control. “But,” the rabbi said, “this is finally a chink in the armor of the ultra-Orthodox monopoly.”
“We’re moving from episodes of outrage and a painful lack of religious freedom to actually having a strategy and a voice,” she added, referring to the body of Reform and Conservative rabbis who will oversee the upcoming changes. “It’s a step in the right direction for equal funding of the streams.”
Steven Bayme, director of contemporary Jewish life at the American Jewish Committee, said that the compromise is the “right step in the larger trajectory towards religious pluralism.” While next steps for non-Orthodox movements in Israel remain hazy, the gains thus far are “quite significant” when weighed against the challenges the Reform and Conservative movements faced in years past, he said.
“One generation ago, the Reform and Conservative movements weren’t allowed any inroads in Israel,” he noted, speaking of his experiences in Israel in 1989 while part of an AJC delegation. “These movements were seen as American phenomena.” He recalled a charedi intellectual leader at the time telling him that Reform and Conservative Judaism might be alright as a solution in America, but they were “not right” for Israel.
Though Reform and Conservative Jews are celebrating for the moment, Jonathan D. Sarna, professor of Jewish History at Brandeis University, said the “big losers” of the agreement are Modern Orthodox women — those who want to preserve a mechitza, the traditional separation between male and female worshippers, but who also want to play a larger and more active role in services.
Still, in theory, the deal represents an “important step” in the official recognition of non-Orthodox movements, he said. The proof promises to be in the details. “Will it really be two equal options? That remains to be seen,” he said. Charedi efforts to “subvert the deal” before it goes into effect are also likely. “Nevertheless, the very fact that there was a deal matters,” he said.
Whether or not the compromise will pave the road for more significant wins — mainly with regard to civil marriage and non-Orthodox conversions and religious courts — is tenuous. But the compromise does promise to “embolden folks” to take on bigger issues, according to Sarna.
“The agreement was made notwithstanding the significant and vociferous objections of the charedi element,” he said. “That will impact what happens next.”
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Fake NY Times 'Supplement' Trashes Israel >
New York
Fake NY Times ‘Supplement’ Trashes Israel
Gary Rosenblatt
Editor And Publisher
A Fake New York Times Supplement, Tuesday February 2, 2016.No, Hillary Clinton has not quit her race for president to advocate for Palestinian rights. Sen. Chuck Schumer is not calling for the end of U.S. aid to Israel. And The New York Times is not searching for a new publisher to end its biased, pro-Israel reporting.
A sophisticated, fake four-page supplement to The New York Times featuring those “stories” and others promoting the Palestinian cause and denigrating Israel was distributed in Manhattan on Tuesday, and The New York Times is not laughing.
The supplement includes phony anti-Israel ads, made no mention of a sponsoring group. And while one of several young women distributing the propaganda near the Port Authority Bus Terminal in Midtown Tuesday morning told this reporter, when asked, that “this is a supplement of The New York Times,” the paper of record had nothing to do with it.
“We’re protective of our brand and other intellectual property and object to this group (or any group’s) attempt to cloak their political views under the banner of The New York Times,” according to a statement from Eileen Murphy, senior vice president of communications at the paper. “We believe strongly that those advocating for political positions are best served by speaking openly, in their own voice.”
On Wednesday, Jewish Voice for Peace took credit for the supplement.
The handout featured a box above The Times logo that read, “Rethinking Our 2015 Coverage On Israel-Palestine — A Supplement.” In the upper left-hand corner was a spoof of The Times motto, reading “All The News We Didn’t Print.”
The online version of the phony paper has been taken down but can be seen here.
Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt called the mock issue “deceptive” and welcomed the Times’ statement objecting to the effort to fool the public.
“The diatribe, published anonymously, conveys false facts and themes consistent with anti-Israel advocates and supporters of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement,” he said.
Clearly, it was a costly and carefully orchestrated project, which is almost identical in appearance to the real thing. Copies were delivered to some Manhattan residential buildings where they were included, unintentionally, with the day’s copy of the “real” Times at the front door of tenants’ apartments.
Shahar Azani, executive director of StandWithUs Northeast, commenting on the “supplement,” noted that “the U.S.-Israel alliance is strong and founded on shared values and strategic interests. Any attempt to subvert it is doomed to fail.” He added that “spreading lies and demonizing Israel will not bring peace to both parties,” which will only come through “direct dialogue and education. It is a shame there are those who chose to waste paper and contaminate the environment with unwarranted garbage.”
If nothing else, a read through the “supplement,” with its “Editorial” calling for an end to the distortions in The Times’ coverage of the Israel-Palestine conflict, may convince some pro-Israel readers that not everyone sees the paper’s Mideast coverage as slanted against the Jewish state.
Note: This story was updated on Feb. 3 to include that Jewish Voice for Peace has taken credit for the supplement.---------------------
Post-Iowa, 5 Questions For Jewish Voters >
National
Post-Iowa, 5 Questions For Jewish Voters
Looking to New Hampshire, and beyond.
JTA
Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton participating in a town hall forum last week at Drake University in Des MoinesThe Iowa caucuses are over — and the first real test of the presidential candidates’ viability gave us more questions than answers.
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) won the Republican caucus on Monday night, relegating Donald Trump, the real estate billionaire, to second place. Both Trump and Cruz ran insurgent anti-establishment campaigns. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) made a strong showing for third place, well ahead of the other “establishment” candidates.
On the Democratic side, Hillary Rodham Clinton and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) effectively tied for first.
The New Hampshire primary is on Feb. 9, with Nevada and South Carolina later this month.
By March 2, the day after Super Tuesday, when 14 states and a territory select favored candidates, we should have some answers — like who among the 11 GOP candidates is serious, how much stamina Sanders has and what the general election might look like on Nov. 8.
In the meantime, here are some of the known unknowns for the Jewish and Middle East obsessed:
1. Will Jeb’s exclamation point turn into a question mark?
A year ago Jeb Bush, the former Republican governor of Florida, was the GOP’s favored son, literally and figuratively, despite his convoluted attempts to distant himself from his father and his brother, including dropping “Bush” from his logo and replacing it with an exclamation point.
Bush attracted the lion’s share of the party’s traditional fundraisers, including Jewish funders like Fred Zeidman of Texas, Mel Sembler of Florida and Sam Fox of Missouri. They raised over $100 million toward an extension of the Bush dynasty.
Trump, who went hard at Bush from the outset, has more or less killed that dream. Bush scored 3 percent in Iowa, and before the Iowa vote was polling at 6 percent in New Hampshire. His backers have been loyal until now, but it may be time for a reality check. Rubio — once Bush’s protégé, although they have clashed during the campaign — is hoping to reap the establishment dividends of a Bush departure.
2. Is Donald Trump fired?
Before the Iowa vote, the reality TV star — who relegated dozens of would-be apprentices to the unemployment line — was well ahead in the New Hampshire race and nationally. But he has staked his candidacy on being a winner and decreed his victory in Iowa a foregone conclusion. On Monday night, he delivered an uncharacteristically subdued concession speech, promising to win in New Hampshire and consider buying a farm in Iowa.
Plenty of Jewish Republicans wouldn’t mind seeing Trump with a hoe. He has alienated a broad cross-section of the community, offending the socially moderate with his broadsides against Muslims and Hispanics, while unnerving conservatives with his dithering over whether all of Jerusalem is Israel’s capital and questioning of Israel’s commitment to making peace.
3. “Cruz and the Neocons”: A new hit band?
Cruz has been second to none in his Israel boosterism; of the four victory speeches Monday night, only his mentioned the country.
“If you want a candidate who will stand unapologetically with the nation of Israel, then support a candidate who has led the fight over and over again to stand by our friend and ally, the nation of Israel,” he said.
But Cruz has also faulted neoconservatives for leading the country into too many wars, among them the signature foreign policy event of George W. Bush’s presidency, the Iraq War. The Venn diagram overlap between Jewish Republicans and neoconservatives is substantial. Cruz’s broadsides against that ideology, coupled with attacks on “New York values,” have made some Jewish Republicans wary of whether the Texan is using code to appeal to the less salutary values in the American conservative heartland.
Now that he has emerged as a front-runner, does Cruz reach out to the establishment’s Jewish wing of the party and make nice?
4. What will the Adelsons do?
Sheldon Adelson, the casino magnate, pro-Israel powerhouse and Republican kingmaker has taken to joking in recent weeks about his bickering with his physician wife, Miriam, over Cruz and Rubio. She favors the former, he the latter. On the eve of the Iowa caucuses, it was revealed that the couple had maxed out direct donations to Cruz’s campaign, each anteing up $2,700.
It doesn’t necessarily mean they’ve made up their minds. The Adelsons gave similar amounts last year to the campaign of Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), but thus far have refrained from spending the tens of millions to fund political action committees not directly affiliated with candidates. The couple have made known to associates that they do not want to repeat what they now feel was a mistake in 2012 — giving millions to groups supporting Newt Gingrich, only to wound the ultimate nominee, Mitt Romney, who lost to Obama in the general election.
With Cruz and Rubio still viable, don’t expect an Adelson determination just yet. One thing the couple will be watching is whether Rubio improves his ground game, the network of volunteers and staff necessary to get out the vote state by state. Reporting has suggested that he was surprisingly weak in this area in Iowa.
5. Does Bernie do foreign policy?
In his speeches, Sanders manages to turn typically soporific economic analysis — income inequality, banks, health care — into a rousing call to action.
Not so on foreign policy, where he has allowed himself to be put on the defensive by Clinton, the former secretary of state and first lady, who has framed Sanders as naive and inexperienced — with some success.
It doesn’t help that in one debate, Sanders called for “normalization” of ties with Iran and then seemed to backtrack, or that he has repeatedly called Jordan’s King Abdullah, a monarch not especially thrilled with the democratic process, one of his heroes.
Sanders has focused on the opposing votes he and Clinton cast 14 years ago on the Iraq War: He voted against when he was in the U.S. House of Representatives, she voted for when she was a New York senator.
If Sanders hopes to peel away foreign policy-focused voters from Clinton, he will need to flesh out his plans for the Middle East in particular, where he has said he agrees with Obama and Clinton that America needs to maintain leadership. ---------------------
For Progressives, A False Dichotomy On Israel >
Opinion
For Progressives, A False Dichotomy On Israel
David Shmidt Chapman
Special To The Jewish Week
David Shmidt ChapmanConflicted young Jews who feel caught between the progressive values we hold in our DNA and an increasingly radical “left” agenda that demonizes all things Israel may have come to another fork in the road. The silencing of activists from Jerusalem Open House at the Creating Change conference last week sent a signal to those of us at the intersection of an American Jewish community struggling with its relationship to Israel, and an LGBTQ movement trying to deepen its solidarity with other liberation movements around the world.
I work at the New Israel Fund, an organization that promotes social justice and human rights in Israel and the Occupied Territories, and I also serve on the board of Congregation Beit Simchat Torah, an LGBTQ synagogue in New York. These affiliations put me right at the crosshairs of a growing schism.
What does it mean for us when we see, as we increasingly do, an “either/or” attitude that forces us to choose between being affiliated with Israel and being good progressives? And for those of us that identify as LGBTQ, what do we do when our desire to participate in that movement comes into conflict with a monolithic stance against Israel? How do we respond to events like Friday night’s scene at the Creating Change conference, when Israelis trying to make change in their own society are silenced, accused of “pinkwashing” (the charge that Israelis use the country’s gay-friendliness as a smoke screen for its West Bank policies) and shut out from a global Queer-led justice movement that they need to be part of and that needs them to take part?
In the face of these impossible questions, we must not allow ourselves to be co-opted either into tone-deaf “Israel advocacy” or equally one-sided “anti-Zionism.” We are smarter than that.
Our true movement — the movement for a just, democratic Israel and a free Palestine — needs us. It needs our voice calling for something a bit hard to capture in a tweet or on a protest sign: nuance. By conflating every struggle into one struggle, by dismissing any sign of progress as a condemnation that we haven’t gone far enough, by calling any individual bravely working for change within hostile systems an accomplice to the enemy, we sell ourselves and our intelligence short.
The pinkwashing argument denies our ability to understand nuance. It assumes that I cannot simultaneously hold in my head two realities: that Israel must do much more to protect the rights of Palestinians (including queer Palestinians), and that Israeli society has made great strides towards acceptance of LGBTQ people generally.
A historic and unfair claims of pinkwashing suggest that to be a “good” member of a broad-based queer movement, one must categorically reject not only the Israeli government but also any individual Israeli who falls short of calling for dismantling the entire state. It is a false notion that would force some into positions that almost all progressives disagree with — such as calling for the forced expulsion of millions of Jews in Israel.
But this argument also does a disservice to the thousands of Israeli activists and organizers — queer and straight — who are struggling every day to reverse the injustices committed by that state. It alienates those learning from and contributing to a global struggle for justice and liberation from oppression of all kinds. Ironically, when we apply the label pinkwashing with so little consideration, we actually help make it happen: We distract from Israel’s actual shortcomings by purporting that the gains made by LGBTQ Israelis — over the fierce opposition of many Israeli leaders — was actually part of a plot to burnish Israel’s reputation abroad. It makes it harder to discern actual Israeli-government supported smokescreening when it does happen —and it happens plenty.
If we, like those on the right, deny a middle path we will ensure only that the very people working hard to make change within a deeply unjust system are further isolated from the world, from their progressive counterparts and from access to all that these communities and networks provide. This will further entrench isolationism and nationalism in Israel.
What happened at the Creating Change conference, the outright violent hostility to people that my own organization supports, was difficult to watch from afar. I felt torn between an LGBTQ movement of which I feel proud to be a part, and my support for Israeli activists who should be natural allies. That is the “intersectionality” I believe in, and that is why I see no contradiction between my work supporting civil and human rights in Israel and Palestine, and my activism in the LGBTQ movement.
So let’s not fall prey to the false belief that supporting the positive change-makers within Israel means colluding with an evil state. This is as absurd as suggesting that by working at a public university you therefore must support every action taken by the State that issued its charter. Let’s be brave enough to hold multiple and even conflicting narratives at the same time. Be big-hearted enough to extend compassion and respect to those holding viewpoints that we deeply disagree with. And believe in the change — towards justice for everyone — that we know someday is coming.
David Shmidt Chapman is senior program officer for the tri-state office of the New Israel Fund.
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1501 Broadway, Suite 505
New York, New York 10036, United States
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