"Now on Jewish.TV: Samach Vov: Vayikach Korach, Part 10: The Ratzon Paradox - Yaakov Brawer" Jewish.TV - Chabad Video for Sunday, 13 March 2016

 "Now on Jewish.TV: Samach Vov: Vayikach Korach, Part 10: The Ratzon Paradox - Yaakov Brawer" Jewish.TV - Chabad Video for Sunday, 13 March 2016

Samach Vov: Vayikach Korach, Part 10
The Ratzon Paradox
By Yaakov Brawer

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Sunday, March 13, 2016 at 10:30am ET
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Ratzon is totally impervious to the activity and status of the limbs and organs of the body, and is thus detached and removed them. On the other hand, the limbs operate exclusively at the behest of Ratzon, indicating that Ratzon is totally bound to the limbs.
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"Golden Globe Winner, Rachel Bloom, on her rise to fame; Traveling Cuba; Deal set for embattled Riverdale rabbi to step down; How Hasid fought back terrorist; more on The Jewish Week" The Jewish Week Connecting the World to Jewish News, Culture, Features, and Opinions for Friday, 11 March 2016  - This week on TheJewishWeek.com




Interview With Golden Globe Winner, Rachel Bloom, Star And Creator Of 'Crazy Girlfriend'
Linda Buchwald

National
National
Q&A With ‘Crazy Ex-Girlfriend’ Star And Creator Rachel Bloom
Linda Buchwald
JTA

Rebecca Bunch (Rachel Bloom) facing off with her frenemy in a “JAP Rap Battle” on CW’s musical comedy “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend.” JTA
A few years ago, Rachel Bloom was best known as the creator of laugh-out-loud YouTube videos like “You Can Touch My Boobies” and “Historically Accurate Disney Princess Song.”
Now she is a Golden Globe and Critics’ Choice Award winner for her portrayal of Rebecca Bunch on “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend,” a musical comedy series she co-created with Aline Brosh McKenna, screenwriter of “The Devil Wears Prada” and “27 Dresses.”
The show — about a successful but miserable New York lawyer who decides to follow her camp ex-boyfriend, Josh Chan (Vincent Rodriguez III), to suburban West Covina, California — is hilarious, zany and addresses Jewish identity in myriad ways.
And it also nearly didn’t happen. “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend” was developed for Showtime, but the cable network declined to move forward. In her jubilant Golden Globe acceptance speech, Bloom recounts how the show was unsuccessfully shopped around — receiving six rejections in a single day — until the CW picked it up.
Last week’s episode, the 13th of 18 in the first season, was particularly memorable: Rebecca dukes it out in an epic “JAP battle” with her childhood rival Audra Levine (Rachel Grate) that included such inspired lines as “You’re trippin’ like Birthright” and “Sheket bevaka shut the f— up.”

JTA: Every episode of the show has been great, but this week’s was one of the best so far. Can you talk about how “JAP Rap Battle” came about?
Bloom: All of the writers had been talking about what’s going to happen when Audra Levine and Rebecca meet. We knew we wanted it to be some sort of rap battle because we’re all really big fans of “Hamilton.” And then, of course, “JAP Battle” is the natural title for that.
Was there any concern from anyone at the network that some people wouldn’t get it?
Not at all. They always loved it. It’s not the most relatable song, although you’d be surprised. I’ve gotten some tweets from people who are like, “I’m not Jewish, I live in the Midwest and I love this song.” I think at this point, our show lives in specificity — getting specific with different cultures and different types of people — so it just fits into that mold.
Usually when you see Jewish characters on television, it’s not really a part of their identity. But Rebecca’s entire sensibility is Jewish. Was that important to you to portray from the beginning?
It was always important to us. I think that when you get specific with cultures — especially an East Coast Jewish girl like Rebecca who was raised to succeed and went to Harvard and Yale — cultural identity is inherent in that.
Jews talk about being Jewish a lot. They’re very aware of their Jewish identity, so in getting specific with the character, it was natural to make Rebecca own that Jewishness. It also says something to my sense of humor and Aline’s. We definitely like Jewish humor.
What was your own Jewish upbringing like?
I went to Hebrew school until around age 9 and then my parents let me quit to do more theater, so I was actually never bat mitzvahed. Both of my parents are Jewish. I was raised pretty secular, but I always say, “We didn’t have Passover seders, but I know every single celebrity who’s ever said anything anti-Semitic.”

You go to my parents’ house and it’s just filled with books about Judaism and the Holocaust. It was a part of my identity and very divorced from the religious and somewhat even the traditional cultural aspects of it. And then I went to school in New York. I’d always felt like a neurotic Jewish person growing up in California, and New York really brought out in a great way those parts of me.
My husband was raised in a Conservative family and his father’s Israeli, so Judaism has come even more to the forefront of my mind because of him and his upbringing.
You said during interviews after the Golden Globes that you were planning a trip to Israel. Did you go on that trip or is that something you’re still planning?
We’re actually going next week for 10 days. And someone from the Ministry of Tourism is setting stuff up, although we’re still looking for leads on free hotels and stuff if anyone wants to hook us up.
Is that going to be your first time there?
Yeah. I’ve never been.
You were talking earlier about how you always felt like a New York Jew, so now that you’re back in California, do you feel like you fit in there?
So many of my friends out here now are also East Coast transplants, so I don’t feel like the most neurotic one anymore.
Growing up, I was not the most happy person, and now I’m much more content with who I am. I like Los Angeles a lot and I feel much more comfortable and at home here. And maybe it’s because I’m in the city and I’m in show business, but I actually like what the atmosphere does to my personality. In some ways, New York feeds into some of my worst tendencies, like staying up late, ordering in takeout, bad self discipline, being easily distracted. Here I’m a little bit more focused.
The show has been a critical success from the beginning, but it’s struggled to find its audience. Did that put more pressure on you to win awards?
Yes. The stakes are very high now every time we’re up for an award. We have survived based on critical acclaim. All I can do is make the best show I want [to make], be on social media, engage with the people who want to engage, but at a certain point, I personally cannot reach the millions of people who aren’t watching this show and missing out. So all I can do is continue to be good and everything else is out of my hands.
I think that’s why the Golden Globe and the Critics’ Choice Award were so important, because it was formal recognition that something we were doing was good. It gives us a legitimacy that we kind of always knew we had, but respected organizations officially gave us.---------------------

Deal set for embattled Riverdale rabbi to step down; Shul to vote on retirement package for Rabbi Jonathan Rosenblatt, bringing sauna controversy to a close
Gary Rosenblatt

New York
New York
Deal Set For Embattled Riverdale Rabbi To Step Down
Shul to vote on retirement package for Rabbi Jonathan Rosenblatt, bringing sauna controversy to a close.
Gary Rosenblatt
Editor And Publisher

Rabbi Jonathan Rosenblatt.
The Riverdale Jewish Center board and its embattled Rabbi, Jonathan Rosenblatt, have reached an agreement about his departure from the synagogue he has served more than 30 years.
Pending approval by a vote of the membership scheduled for March 17, Rabbi Rosenblatt will step down from his pulpit March 20 and become a private citizen, with no title in the syngagoge, according to Meyer Koplow, the rabbi’s attorney.
“The desire is for him to remain in the community and remain accessible to those in the congregation who wish to use his services,” Koplow told The Jewish Week.
As a life member of RJC, the rabbi may be called on by individuals to officiate at lifecycle events or deliver a shiur (lecture).
His current contract will convert into a retirement package, with payments spread out over time until 2032, and the house he and his family have been living in, owned by the shul and valued at approximately $800,000, will be given over to him. In all, the cost to the congregation of replacing the final years and obligations of Rabbi Rosenblatt's contract, which was to end in August 2018, is between $2.1 and $2.2 million, Koplow said.
He added that Rabbi Rosenblatt was motivated by a desire for the congregation “to be able to grow and heal.”
Since last May, when The New York Times published an article about the rabbi’s unusual practice of showering and sitting in the sauna with boys, and later, young men, the RJC has been divided between those who called for his removal and a majority who urged him to stay.----------------------

'In 5 Or 10 Years, It'll Be Like St. Martin,' Our travel guide heads to Cuba, soon to be the hottest travel destination
Hilary Danailova

Travel
Travel
‘In 5 Or 10 Years, It’ll Be Like St. Martin’
Hilary Danailova
Travel Writer

Still largely undeveloped, Cuba offers scenes of simple charm. Wikimedia Commons
You wouldn’t know it from all the breathless articles about the wide new world of Cuba travel, but tourism in Castro’s paradise is still illegal in the eyes of Uncle Sam.
Yes, visiting our Cold War nemesis is easier lately. With the resumption of diplomatic relations and the loosening of restrictions on activity between the two countries, highly motivated Americans can now explore Cuba without complicated maneuvers through a third country. But the 55-year-old trade embargo is still in place; tourism is officially illegal, so you can’t plan a week on the beach.
Most American visitors will obtain the required visa through a guided program, since the Treasury Department requires American travel to Cuba to fall into one of a half-dozen non-tourism categories — including family visits, humanitarian and research projects, arts or religious exchanges, and so-called people-to-people travel. These categories include the small but proliferating niche of Jewish travel to Cuba.
People-to-people trips — in which Americans follow a highly structured itinerary of cultural and educational engagement with their Cuban counterparts — are the legal basis for many of the new tour offerings, which are licensed through the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (known as OFAC; its updated guide to the legalities of Cuba travel can be found at treasury.gov/resource-center/sanctions/Programs/Documents/cuba_faqs_new.pdf).
To learn more, I spoke recently with Arthur Berman, a pioneer of American Cuba travel and as of last year vice president of the new Latin America and Cuba division he created at Central Holidays, a venerable New Jersey-based tour operator.
Drawing on Berman’s long experience with people-to-people programs in Cuba, Central last year launched five of them — including L’Chaim Cuba, a nine-day tour of the Jewish communities in Havana and Cienfuegos. The $3,999 trip includes visits to Ashkenazic and Sephardic synagogues, the UNESCO World Heritage city of Trinidad, a cigar factory and Hemingway’s home.
And it’s one of few tours for which participants are encouraged to overpack. Unlike tourists in France or Italy, those heading to Cuba typically bring along baby clothes, toothpaste, Tylenol and other everyday items to donate, since the embargo has made such essentials difficult to buy. In Havana, Berman’s guests tour the Jewish pharmacy, which operates more like a food pantry: foreigners contribute products that are distributed free to local residents.
That personal engagement is what distinguishes person-to-person travel. It’s also the kind of experience unique to this moment — an opportunity, Berman said, that has an expiration date.
“It’s like going into a time capsule, going back 55 years,” he explained, citing a common sentiment among Americans determined to get there before the diluting effect of foreign influence. “Everywhere else you go, it’s today — London, Paris, even in Rio de Janeiro; it’s poor, but you’re living in today’s world.”
But in Havana, “there’s nothing American. There’s no McDonald’s,” nor any of the other chains that have homogenized the downtowns of most foreign capitals, Berman noted. Instead, visitors explore cobblestone streets lined with restored colonial buildings; make friends over local rum at family-run restaurants called paladars; and enjoy the same views that inspired Hemingway. “People are going now because that’s what they want to see,” said Berman. “In five or 10 years, it’ll be like St. Martin.”
For now, Cuba’s distinctiveness comes with challenges of the sort unfamiliar to St. Martin tourists. To begin with, there is the well-documented shortage of hotel rooms, especially those with the standards American travelers expect. Those four- and five-star lodgings constitute less than a third of Havana hotels, and the recent explosion of Cuba tours has complicated matters.
“It’ll get better eventually,” said Berman, though he noted that Cuba’s tourism infrastructure has been severely overburdened in the two years since President Obama’s diplomatic overture. As Americans clamored to visit, top hotels initially triple-booked and demanded the names of individuals in tour groups — along with payment — a year in advance. “And in Cuba, if the five-star bumps you, they bump you to a two-star,” Berman added with a shudder. (He assured me that Central’s rooms are reserved through 2017, thanks to longstanding relationships with local operators.)
The shortages may seem odd, considering that America’s embargo has not prevented Canadians and Europeans from vacationing on Cuban beaches over the years. But as Berman explained, beach resorts are one thing; Americans look to Cuba as a cultural experience, so hotels are lacking in precisely the urban locales where demand is now highest.
And that’s just once you get there. Reaching the island remains an expensive challenge; while commercial airlines are planning Cuba routes, the only flights to Havana currently are on expensive charter planes. Options are expected to expand throughout 2016, but for now, the 35-minute charter flight from Miami to Havana costs between $500 and $700.
All of which explains why weeklong tours typically cost $4,000-$5,000 or more — and why Berman takes care of every detail for his guests, from meals and transportation to visas and bilingual tour guides. The payoff is worthwhile for those eager to see Cuba in what many consider its pre-capitalist sweet spot. “We tell people it’s not a vacation,” said Berman. “It’s an experience.” --------------------

A Q&A with Jonathan Holub on Leveling The Playing Field For Special Needs Learners
Amy Sara Clark

National
The JW Q&A
Leveling The Playing Field For Special Needs Learners
Amy Sara Clark

Jonathan Holub. Courtesy of Carmel Academy
In December, Jonathan Holub, 35, took over the helm of the PALS (Providing Alternative Learning Strategies) program for students with learning disabilities at Carmel Academy, a K-8 Jewish day school in Greenwich, Conn. The Jewish Week caught up with him via email to discuss how the field of special education has changed over the past decade and a half and the unique challenges Jewish schools face in serving students with learning disabilities.
Q.: You have worked in special education since 2003. How has the field changed in that time?
A.: For so long, special education was not part of the mainstream culture — there was a stigma and stereotype attached to students and programs. It has been gratifying to witness schools moving away from the exclusive self-contained classroom model toward mainstreaming, which allows students to learn with typically developing peers in subject areas of strengths and receive the extra support in areas of need. For example, a student can learn in a mainstream math class, while receiving maximum support in a self-contained ELA [English Language Arts] class. This represents a significant shift from prior models, when a student was solely identified as needing “special education” with little opportunity for peer integration.
Does special education in a Jewish context have any challenges that secular special education programs do not face?


First and foremost is the challenge of a dual-language Hebrew curriculum for students who may have language-based disabilities. Should the focus be solely on English language skills until they are remediated? Does this put the child at a serious disadvantage in their Hebrew learning? Does learning Hebrew while addressing English language deficiencies benefit the learner and promote language growth? I have heard many great arguments and support for all sides of this debate, and it is a main point of discussion when creating our learning plans.
Another issue that Jewish day schools encounter is the lack of well-trained Hebrew and Judaic studies special educators. We address this by hiring teachers based on their strength in Judaic studies and then invest a great deal of resources in training them to apply special education strategies in their classrooms.
Time is perhaps the greatest difference between secular special education and Jewish special education. Jewish day schools have the additional charge to teach the same curriculum as secular schools in addition to multiple Judaic studies and Hebrew curricula. The additional material adds a challenge when designing the optimal individual learning program for a student. One Judaic studies area where we have been especially successful is the integration of our PALS students with grade-wide and school-wide learning celebration of chagim (holidays) and participation in integrated, lifecycle events. We also often integrate students for T’fillah (prayers), physical education, art, music, lunch, recess, special projects, ceremonies and other activities.
Although the mainstreaming model requires a lot of thought and planning to ensure that the needs of all students are being accommodated without compromising the integrity of either the child or the curriculum, for students with learning disabilities, being part of a thriving, accepting Jewish school community can be incredibly impactful on their self-esteem, sense of acceptance and belonging.

Carmel Academy began the PALS program as a pilot initiative 10 years ago. What prompted the initiative?
When Carmel Academy was founded in 1997, our mission was to provide an alternative option to the established Jewish day schools in the Westchester and Fairfield area. Creating a program for children with special needs is a natural outgrowth of Carmel Academy’s commitment to providing a meaningful Jewish day school experience for all children. Within its first few years of existence, Carmel’s professional and lay leadership recognized a glaring need for special education options within the Jewish day school world. There were stand-alone special education programs and there were Jewish day schools, but no Jewish day schools offered a special education program. We piloted the program with just a handful of students and today offer a full-fledged K-8 program.
What made you decide to go into the field of special education? Has anything over the years been a surprise to you?
Just out of college, I worked as a permanent substitute in the middle school I attended as a student. When I did not have a specific assignment, I worked with children in the resource room. I fell in love with special education almost immediately. The individualized attention and small group instruction was directly in line with my personal educational philosophy. Every student can learn when in the right environment.
The biggest surprise to me over the years is the continued stereotype and stigma associated with having special learning needs. I expect these to fade as special education continues to grow and mainstream integration opportunities continue to expand. It is our responsibility as educators to help shift this thinking and level the playing field for students with special needs. This can only happen when educational leaders step outside of their comfort zones and get creative with meeting the needs of all students. It is a difficult road, but one worth traveling.
Image 1: Jonathon Holub. Courtesy of Carmel Academy
Image 2: An educator at the Carmel Academy interacting with a student. Courtesy of Carmel Academy---------------------


Westhampton Beach Eruv To Stand
Stewart Ain

New York
New York
Westhampton Beach Eruv To Stand
Last East End municipality drops its fight over halachic boundary.
Stewart Ain
Staff Writer

An eruv is strung across phone lines to create a halachic boundary.
The Village of Quogue dropped its fight this week against the erection of an eruv or religious boundary to accommodate congregants of The Hampton Synagogue in Westhampton Beach, L.I.
The village was the last of three municipalities to oppose the eruv, which was first proposed in 2008 and triggered court battles with each of them. The eruv consists of lechis, wooden or plastic strips affixed to telephone and utility poles to form a boundary within which observant Jews may push baby carriages and carry items on the Sabbath.
Rabbi Marc Schneier, the congregation’s spiritual leader, said of the village’s decision, “Thank God it’s over.”
Yehudah Buchweitz of Weill, Gotschal & Manges, the pro bono lawyer representing the East End Eruv Association that went to court to fight the municipalities, said that both state and federal courts had ruled in the synagogue’s favor.
Although there were three earlier favorable court decisions regarding eruvs in New York and New Jersey, Buchweitz said that until now “no court had ruled as the state court or the Second Circuit did here, saying there is an affirmative obligation to reasonably accommodate [an eruv] under the First Amendment.”
Morris Tuchman, the synagogue’s honorary president, said in a letter to the congregation that the case “established legal precedents on the establishment of an eruv that will benefit generations of Jews all over the United States.”
The Quogue settlement is identical to one the Town of Southampton entered into last September when it dropped its opposition to the eruv’s expansion into the hamlets of Westhampton and Quogue. Although the eruv has been erected in Westhampton Beach, the case against that municipality is still pending, Buchweitz said.
Rabbi Schneier said he hoped to have the eruv expansion completed by Passover. Buchweitz said the eruv would extend at least two miles from the synagogue in all directions. ----------------------
Latest Headlines:
How Hasid With Knife In Neck Stabbed The Terrorist Back
Israel News
How Hasid With Knife In Neck Stabbed The Terrorist Back
Ben Sales
JTA

Yonatan Azriaev recovering from his wounds at a Petach Tikvah hospital, March 10, 2016. JTA
Petach Tikvah, Israel — Only after Yonatan Azriaev grabbed the terrorist’s arms and threw him against a wall of soft drinks did he think he was about to die.
Azriaev, a member of the Breslov Hasidic sect, had been handing out religious pamphlets in the open-air market here when he stepped inside a shop at around 4 p.m. Tuesday hoping to give one to the cashier. Then he felt sharp blows to his back and shoulders.
Feeling like he was punched, Azriaev said he figured he was being attacked by someone who hated religious people. But then the shop owner started yelling, “It’s a terrorist! It’s a terrorist!”
Realizing he had been stabbed, Azriaev said he followed his instincts. He swiveled around, grabbed the attacker by the arms, swung him in a circle — “like you would with a kid,” he explained — and threw him against the wall. The attacker fell to the floor and Azriaev realized he was bleeding from the neck.
“I thought that was it, I wouldn’t live,” Azriaev told JTA in a bedside interview Thursday from Rabin Medical Center here, where he is recovering from his injuries. “I saw he was fighting with someone else. When I saw that, I said, ‘I won’t live.’ So, I said, he shouldn’t kill more people.”
After slamming the attacker against the wall, Azriaev’s memory went blank and he doesn’t remember what happened next. Some of the details remain unclear, but the story that has emerged sounds like something from an action movie.
Azriaev, still bleeding from his wound, pulled the knife from his own neck and stabbed his attacker, reportedly a Palestinian, who died a few minutes later. According to one report, Azriaev initially fled the store before returning to confront the attacker, but Israeli police were unable to confirm that, telling JTA only that some part of the incident occurred inside the shop and some part outside.
The next thing Azriaev remembers is leaving the store and paramedics rushing to help him. He was taken to the hospital and is due to be released Thursday.
Upon returning home, Azriaev said he plans to resume his mission in life: distributing the pamphlets.
“I thought, if there was one thing that could save me, it would just be that I would keep handing out these pamphlets,” he said. “That’s why God would save me.”
A burly man with a calm face engulfed by a bushy black-and-white beard, Azriaev, 35, has spent the past 16 years studying religious books. He lives with his wife and five children in Yavniel, a 4,000-person agricultural village near the Sea of Galilee in northern Israel. He served in a non-combat position in the Israeli army. He doesn’t exercise.
Azriaev joined the Breslov sect at 19 after reading one of its pamphlets. Today, he spends his mornings studying Torah and afternoons traveling around Israel distributing the glossy, palm-sized booklets with Hasidic texts to passersby. On Tuesday, he was distributing one titled “You will succeed.”
Azriaev’s story was one of the few silver linings in a day marred by tragedy. Two stabbing attacks and one shooting in three Israeli cities left 11 injured and one American tourist, Taylor Force, dead.
Every day, when he leaves home and when he returns, Azriaev thanks God for keeping him healthy and whole. He doesn’t take credit for saving lives on Tuesday — not even his own. He still doesn’t know exactly how he did it but says God, not him, deserves praise.
“I thank God for the miracle he did for me,” Azriaev said. “As much as someone takes care of himself, it’s not enough. What can save us is just a short prayer to God.”----------------------
Sacha Baron Cohen Screens 'Bruno' Interview With Kansas City
JCC Shooter
New York
Sacha Baron Cohen Screens ‘Bruno’ Interview With Kansas City JCC Shooter
Curt Schleier
JTA

Actor and comedian Sacha Baron Cohen attending ‘The Brothers Grimsby’ fan screening at Regal Union Square in New York. JTA
On Tuesday night, a theater full of New Yorkers sang a rollicking rendition of “Throw the Jew Down the Well” led by Sacha Baron Cohen in a cowboy hat and Western shirt.
They seemed to know the words. Baron Cohen, who was at the Manhattan movie theater for a screening of his latest film, made the anti-Semitic song famous on “Da Ali G Show,” the satirical HBO series where he introduced now-iconic characters like Kazakh reporter Borat Sagdiev and gay Austrian fashionista Bruno Gehard.
On the show, Baron Cohen’s characters (including suburban, hip-hop loving Ali G) interviewed unsuspecting public figures, often asking ridiculous questions. At the screening, Baron Cohen had questions for the audience. “Are there any Jews here? Any non-Jews?” he asked.
Fans of all faiths had come out to see a preview of “The Brothers Grimsby,” which opens nationally Friday. The screening was supposed to be followed by a Q&A with Baron Cohen, so his appearance beforehand was a surprise.
Baron Cohen showed up early to introduce an 8-minute tape of unused footage from his 2009 film, “Bruno,” including an attempted prank interview with F. Glenn Miller, a violent white supremacist who had just been released from prison.
In the interview, Miller tells Bruno that “all the problems of white people pale in comparison to the problems of the Jewish menace.”
The conversation at Miller’s home is interrupted when a staffer “accidentally” trips and spills a drink on Bruno’s expensive trousers, forcing him to strip down to his underwear. Later, Bruno’s “boyfriend” storms in and accuses them of fraternizing. Miller threatens to do bodily harm, and everyone runs.
Afterward, in the safety of the car, Baron Cohen says he thought he saw Miller reaching for a gun.
The New York audience howled. Until, that is, on-screen text explained that the mark was the same F. Glenn Miller who was later sentenced to death for killing three people in a shooting at a Jewish center in Kansas City in 2014. After several quiet minutes, “The Brothers Grimsby” began.
The whole intro was typical Baron Cohen — outrageous, serious and, in a way, brave.
Meanwhile, “The Brothers Grimsby,” which Baron Cohen co-wrote, is about two orphan siblings, Nobby (Baron Cohen) and Sebastian (Mark Strong), who are separated as youngsters. Nobby becomes a football hooligan in the poor village of Grimsby and has 11 children, which he raises on the dole.
Sebastian, the younger brother, becomes a top agent for MI-6, the British intelligence service. But, as luck would have it, while on assignment, he’s misidentified as a spy and reluctantly relies on his brother to save him.
The film, too, is typical Baron Cohen. Many of its laughs — more accurately, nervous titters — are generated by discomfort, as people turn away from the screen. But unlike the “Borat” or “Bruno” films, in which much of the discomfort is generated by moments that challenge the status quo, here, the laughs are the result of vulgarity and over-the-top antics.
Still, there are some genuinely funny moments — and if you dig deep enough, there’s a message about the importance of family.
After the screening, Baron Cohen answered questions from the audience.
Some of his revelations: He doesn’t make films for the box office. He makes films he wants to be proud of if he sees them 20 years later. His motivation is very simple: “I want to hear you guys laugh,” he said.
Also, “The Brothers Grimsby” is partly based on a real-life situation: Baron Cohen’s father was estranged from his brother.
Toward the end of the evening, an audience member — who said he was Jewish and knew that Baron Cohen was active in Jewish circles in England and California — asked if Baron Cohen had gotten any negative feedback from the Jewish community for his antics.
Yes, Baron Cohen replied. “Throw the Jew Down the Well” elicited a letter from Abe Foxman, the former president of the Anti-Defamation League. He said Foxman wrote that while he realized the song was satirical, he “thought it increases anti-Semitism.”
“Now, when I check into a hotel, my code name is Abe Foxman,” Baron Cohen said.---------------------
Obama To Netanyahu: As Black Son Of Single Mother,
I Understand Israel's Harsh Reality
National
Obama To Netanyahu: As Black Son Of Single Mother, I Understand Israel’s Harsh Reality
JTA

President Barack Obama, right, meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the Oval Office of the White House. JTA
Washington — President Barack Obama told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that as “the African-American son of a single mother” he understands Israel’s harsh Middle Eastern reality.
The revelation of another wrinkle in the contentious relationship came during an extensive interview Obama gave Jeffrey Goldberg of the Atlantic that was posted online Thursday.
Obama describes his frustrations with world leaders, including Arab and Muslim leaders. In Netanyahu’s case, he says he believes Netanyahu might have been the leader to forge a peace deal with the Palestinians but is hemmed in by Israel’s politics.
“Bibi, you have to understand something,” Obama recalls telling Netanyahu after the Israeli prime minister launched into what Obama considered a “condescending” explanation of the ruthlessness of the Middle East. “I’m the African-American son of a single mother, and I live here, in this house. I live in the White House. I managed to get elected president of the United States. You think I don’t understand what you’re talking about, but I do.”
The leaders did not always disagree. Netanyahu, Goldberg writes, was the rare figure who agreed that Obama’s handling of the Syrian chemical weapons crisis was a success.
Obama’s major foreign policy frustration, Goldberg makes clear in the article, is that his 2013 decision to pull back from a threat to bomb Syria should it use chemical weapons against insurgents is, in the conventional wisdom, seen as a capitulation. Once it was clear Syria had used the weapons, Obama backed away from his pledge to strike and instead sought — but did not receive from Congress — a go-ahead to bomb. Subsequently, he worked with Russia to strip the Assad regime of its chemical weapons capabilities. Goldberg reports that Netanyahu described the deal as “the one ray of light in a very dark region.”
Obama acknowledges that his 2009 speech in Cairo addressing the Islamic world was not a success in that it did not spur reflection among some Muslims and Arabs about the reflexive tendency to blame Israel.
“My argument was this: Let’s all stop pretending that the cause of the Middle East’s problems is Israel,” he told Goldberg. “We want to work to help achieve statehood and dignity for the Palestinians, but I was hoping that my speech could trigger a discussion, could create space for Muslims to address the real problems they are confronting — problems of governance, and the fact that some currents of Islam have not gone through a reformation that would help people adapt their religious doctrines to modernity. My thought was, I would communicate that the U.S. is not standing in the way of this progress, that we would help, in whatever way possible, to advance the goals of a practical, successful Arab agenda that provided a better life for ordinary people.”
The speech, at the outset of both leaders’ terms, helped sour relations with Netanyahu, in part because Obama appeared to justify Israel’s existence by invoking the Holocaust, and also because Obama did not travel to neighboring Israel during the tour, something his closest advisers have since said was a mistake.
Obama also says for the first time that he would have struck Iran if it came close to nuclear breakout.
“I actually would have,” he told Goldberg, who has written in the past about the skepticism he has encountered among Israelis and some in the pro-Israel community, who believe Obama was bluffing. “If I saw them break out.”
Obama said striking Iran’s nuclear program “was in the category of an American interest.”
Instead, Iran and six major powers, led by the United States, agreed last year to a sanctions relief for nuclear rollback deal. Netanyahu believes the deal, while stripping Iran of its weapons capability for now, allows it to quickly resume its capability once some of the regimens in the deal lapse in 15 years.---------------------
Latest SodaStream Drama Falling Flat 
Letter From Israel
Latest SodaStream Drama Falling Flat
BDS, Palestinian workers, and the company’s new Negev plant.
Nathan Jeffay
Contributing Editor

Palestinian SodaStream employees show identity cards after being laid off from Negev plant as a result of a permit battle. Getty
Can everybody please stop talking nonsense about Sodastream?
The company, which closed down its West Bank plant in October and moved its Middle East production solely inside the Green Line, last week said goodbye to its last Palestinian workers.
When the main plant for its home-carbonation machines was in a settlement, located close to Palestinian areas, it employed hundreds of Palestinians. Now, it’s located in the Negev Desert, and the company is expected to employ Israeli citizens.
SodaStream got a temporary permit for 74 Palestinians to stay with the company for a few months despite its move into Israel’s internationally recognized borders, where the employment of Palestinians is rarer. But last week time ran out, and despite the company’s utter fury, the employees left. They are expected to be replaced by people who live close to the new plant, many of whom are Arabs from Israel’s impoverished Bedouin community.
This is, of course, the same company that was the target of intense protests by the anti-Israel boycott movement BDS, especially around the time of the 2014 Super Bowl when it put out an ad starring Scarlett Johansson. And so, two and two have been added together to make five.
“BDS efforts cost Palestinian workers their SodaStream jobs,” yelled a headline in the right-leaning Israel Hayom newspaper. Despite the divergent politics at the left-wing Haaretz, it drew the same conclusion. “Sodastream’s last Palestinian workers lose jobs after BDS pressure leads company to relocate,” claims its headline.
Commentators have rushed to discuss the development. “Another great victory for BDS,” wrote Sherwin Pomerantz in the Jerusalem Post sarcastically, calling it a “big financial defeat” for the families of the Palestinian workers. Even an anonymous official from the Prime Minister’s Office was quoted saying that “BDS” is behind what has happened.
They say never let the facts get in the way of a good story, and in this case, there’s a bizarre case of media, anti-boycott forces and pro-boycott forces all doing exactly this in (uncoordinated) unison. For media, it’s a good headline. For those who oppose boycotts, this seems to be a way of illustrating its absurdity. And for the boycotters, the kudos from the suggestion that they are responsible for SodaStream’s move outweighs any qualms about the unemployed Palestinians.
But SodaStream didn’t move inside the Green Line as a knee-jerk reaction to the boycott movement. The factory where its operations are now centered was being planned long before the 2014 Super Bowl when the furor about its location reached full throttle.
A grant from the Israeli government toward construction of its new Negev plant had already been approved in April 2012. And it wasn’t hard to work out why the company was attracted to the Negev — there are swaths of empty land and large state incentives to get companies relocating there and employing local Bedouins. In short, the Negev now offers the kind of attractive prospects that Peter Wiseburgh, the British-born Israeli who established SodaStream in the 1990s, saw in the West Bank when he was drawn to a cheap and empty plot there.
The company had, back in 2012, considered the possibility that politics would force it to leave the West Bank, but it wasn’t building for an exit strategy — the company was growing at a dizzying pace and it needed more facilities. The next year, however, the earth shook under SodaStream.
It’s a company that dreamed of rivaling Coke and Pepsi and built its marketing strategy around this desire, but it took its eye off the ball. And when it did, people started spurning sugary fizzy drinks. In short, at some point in late 2013 it was focused on the wrong market, and its sales then stopped rising and dropped significantly. It started the hard work of redesigning products and rebranding itself to focus on fizzy water rather than sugary drinks.
So here’s a company that decided to build an additional plant when it was at an all-time high, and which has since found itself in a very different situation — having had to totally rethink its focus, realize that it’s not the big hitter it thought it was, and cut its costs. It has shuttered a facility in northern Israel and, yes, decided to leave the West Bank instead of keeping the plant there in addition to the new Negev site. Yet all the complexity that surrounded the company’s decision-making is widely ignored as people presume that the boycotters simply cast a spell and it worked.
SodaStream’s CEO, Daniel Birnbaum, has said he didn’t leave the West Bank plant based on boycott pressure, but he did acknowledge that once the decision was made, the pressure made them execute it quicker than it may have otherwise. Even if he’s underplaying the significance of the boycotters’ pressure slightly, it was but one factor among many in deciding the fate of the West Bank plant.
Why does all of this matter? Because when the decision is presented as a simple cause-and-effect response to boycotters, it buoys them beyond all imagination. It gives their cynical movement the recognition and sense of success that it craves — and which it then uses to strengthen itself.
Now, if we can’t rage against the boycott movement for the Palestinian SodaStream workers losing their jobs, can we unleash anger toward the Israeli government? SodaStream certainly has, running a PR campaign to this effect, and Birnbaum has called the failure to renew the permits of Palestinian workers to be “ridiculous” and “immoral.” As regular readers know, I don’t hesitate to criticize Israel’s government, but these claims against it are unwarranted.
I hope for a day when there is a comprehensive peace plan, and there are processes in place for Palestinian workers to have long-term jobs at Israeli companies, but we are a long way off. Israeli companies know that if they are located within the Green Line, there is no guarantee they can rely on Palestinian workers. SodaStream was located in the West Bank and, taking into account all the implications of its decision, decided to move to the other side of the Green Line. It has to embrace all that goes along with that based on the political reality of the day, not the political reality that it may like to see in existence.
As for the company’s suggestion that Jerusalem is wasting a ready-made opportunity for positive PR, that’s not so clear. Yes, having Palestinians in a high-profile company that touts its peace ethos could have promoted a progressive message about Israel. But it could have led to the opposite outcome. The current reality in this part of the world is harsh, and passage from the West Bank to Israel can be far from simple for Palestinians. Certain security situations result in closures. Every time SodaStream employees were subjected to closures or prevented from getting to work, that fact could have generated a news story suggesting that Israel is a thorn in the side of this coexistence company.
Beyond all of this, SodaStream stresses the large number of people supported in extended Palestinian families by the wages it pays. One of the government’s reasons for investing so heavily in bringing business to the Negev is to see it transform reality for local residents. Just as 74 jobs support big Palestinian families, they can support big Bedouin families. The government is entitled to want to see its investment in the Negev region benefit locals, who are its own citizens.
What the current media fest has done is to obscure the expansion of job opportunities in the Negev, including Bedouin tribes, by putting all attention on Palestinian work permits that were never really expected to be renewed. And it has given much more oxygen to the boycott movement, which will help it turn into the monster we think it has already become.
Nathan Jeffay’s column appears twice a month.---------------------
Trending Stories:
Jews For Trump, Kind Of, Maybe
National
Jews For Trump, Kind Of, Maybe
David Duke, the Hitler salute: It’s not easy backing The Donald.
Jonathan Mark
Associate Editor

Some Orthodox supporters of GOP frontrunner Donald Trump complain that they’re being called racist.Getty Images
In a campaign stained by insults and innuendo, has anyone been more smeared than conservative Republicans supporting Donald Trump?
More than a few Orthodox Zionists among them complained to us that in a dangerous, uncertain world, their fears are dismissed as phobias: xenophobia, homophobia, Islamophobia; they’re called racist, nativist, fascist. Their candidate, Trump, is routinely compared to “Hitler” by professors, comedians, even Anne Frank’s half-sister, Eva.
(Despite the oft-repeated charges that Trump hates Muslims, a March 1 poll conducted by CAIR, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, found that 18 percent of American Muslims are now Republican and Trump is their favored nominee.)
Last week, Trump asked those at a rally to “raise your hand,” like a juror at a swearing-in, in a pledge to vote for Trump in the primary. To the people at the rally, an innocent gesture, surely, but it was “Heil Hitler” in the eyes of Abe Foxman, formerly of the Anti-Defamation League, signaling “obedience to their leader.”
Foxman, for decades, scolded those who made Holocaust comparisons to petty politics. Americans are routinely scolded against comparing the nuclear deal with Iran to the 1938 Hitler appeasement. “We can’t even compare Islamic terrorists to Nazis — or even to Islam,” said one Trump supporter, “and suddenly we’re told that a Trump rally is a Nuremberg rally on the eve of the Holocaust.” Incivility is contagious; Trump’s campaign, drizzled with impolitic insults, is being mirrored on the left by intemperate critiques as incendiary as Trump’s own.
J.J. Gross, a New York writer now living in Jerusalem, e-mailed: “I am not for Trump; I am against Hillary [Clinton] and [Bernie] Sanders. Hence I will vote for Trump, absent any other opponent to those two.”
Gross was one of several who pointed to Sidney Blumenthal as an example why “Hillary can’t be trusted.” Blumenthal’s son, Max, is a fierce critic of Israel; The Nation called “Goliath: Life and Loathing in Greater Israel” by Max Blumenthal, “the ‘I Hate Israel’ handbook.” The elder Blumenthal suggested Clinton read Max’s articles, some of which Clinton distributed to her staff.
Gross continued, “Bernie Sanders’ Jewishness is the most dangerous kind. … My worry with Sanders is not what he would do ‘for’ Israel but what he would do ‘to’ Israel. Yes, Trump is a bombastic, bloviating egomaniac, in the American tradition of Teddy Roosevelt and P.T. Barnum; such ego demands greatness for America, and by extension its allies, of which Israel is certainly one, if not the only one.”
In Brooklyn, one rabbi, familiar with back-room conversations in Borough Park and chasidic Williamsburg, said Trump’s supporters were “not the sophisticated people.” But even unsophisticated people can have good reasons, said the rabbi, who asked not to be named because of his political ties. “There’s great anger at the Democratic Party,” and “here comes a man who speaks his mind, telling everyone off. He’s not really a nice guy. The Yiddish word is prust,” crude, coarse.
Nevertheless, in Florida, Sid Dinerstein, former Palm Beach County Republican chair, said, “The Republican Jews I speak to seem very solid for Trump.”
Larry Spiewak, chairman of the Flatbush Council of Jewish Organizations, was cited last summer in Hamodia and Haaretz as a Trump supporter. (In the American Jewish Committee poll of Jewish attitudes released last fall, Trump polled higher than any other GOP hopeful.) Spiewak told Haaretz that Trump was like Howard Stern. “Only Trump has the guts to say what others are afraid to say out loud. … Is he abrasive sometimes? Yeah, but that’s what people like…”
Six months later, Spiewak is not so sure. He senses that Trump supporters may be less apt to express their support. “Look,” Spiewak told us, “I listen to Howard Stern every morning, but I don’t go around telling everybody. I still agree with what Trump’s saying on the issues, but I’m not agreeing with how it is said — the way he puts people down. He’s losing respect from the community. My respect level is less than it was.
“You know,” said Spiewak, “I always say to my friends, ‘anybody but Hillary.’ But I really don’t know what I’m going to do now. Hey, it’s early. My father used to say, an hour before Shabbos isn’t Shabbos. A lot can happen.”
What about him being neutral on Israel? (Trump has said that in negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians he would be “evenhanded,” an honest broker.) “I don’t think he’s neutral on Israel,” said Spiewak.
Dr. Alan Rosenthal, a professor of surgery at New York University, said he had no problem with Trump’s “neutral” comment regarding Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. “He is correct in ‘not showing his cards’ at this time. I would not want to play poker with Donald Trump. I don’t think Trump would hesitate to treat Arab leaders as condescendingly as he did Chris Christie.”
Rosenthal continued, “From an Israel/Jewish perspective, a priority to me, I trust Trump to be a very strong, positive candidate. People I know who have had dealings with Trump, both business and personal, never heard him intimate even the most subtle anti-Jewish or anti-Israel comments.” His Jewish daughter, son-in-law and grandchildren, “all of whom he loves dearly,” are all shomer Shabbat, “making an anti-Israel/Jewish position very unlikely.”
There hasn’t been much polling on the race in Israel, but the Jewish Journal cited an Israeli Democracy Institute monthly Peace Index poll saying that 60 percent of Israelis say that Trump is good for Israel, while 51 percent say the same for Hillary Clinton. Seventeen percent of Israelis say Trump would be bad for Israel; 32 percent say Clinton would be bad for the Jewish state.
Rather than Establishment and anti-Establishment, which is how the Trump phenomenon has been largely framed, Peggy Noonan writes in The Wall Street Journal, in a column that sets out to explain Trump’s appeal, that this is an election between “the protected and the unpredicted.” The protected are those who are isolated from the roughness of the world, be it the roughness in the Middle East or the results of open borders.
“You know the Democrats won’t protect you and the Republicans won’t help you. Both parties refused to control the border. ... Many Americans suffered from illegal immigration — its impact on labor markets, financial costs, crime, the sense that the rule of law was collapsing. But the protected did fine.” In Germany, on New Year’s Eve, “Packs of men, said to be recent migrants, groped and molested [more than 300] young women. … And it was not the protected who were the victims. … It was middle- and working-class girls, the unprotected, who didn’t even immediately protest,” some fearing they’d be dismissed as Islamophobic. The girls, writes Noonan, “must have understood that in the general scheme of things they’re nobodies.”
As Rosenthal said, “Humans have an innate drive to connect with a protector.”
Trump supporters sense that he’ll protect them — and an Israel increasingly unprotected in Washington and Europe. Lawrence Stern, a Los Angeles attorney and Democrat, told JTA, “I have seen the Democratic Party move away from … its roots and its core foundation to a closer relationship to those who are both anti-Semitic and anti-Israel.
“This is to me more about who I don’t like than who I like."
Stern said he won’t vote for Clinton because of her support for the Iran nuclear deal, her 1999 embrace of Yasir Arafat’s wife, and the support given to the Clinton Foundation from Arab donors.”
Michael Koplen, an attorney, president of the Washington Online Learning Institute, and a former Republican legislator in the Rockland County legislature, told us that if Trump is the nominee, “I will support him, and hope for the best. The Democratic Party has shifted far to the left, and the left, for its own peculiar reasons, is hostile to Israel,” while expanding government and welfare. “I would never vote for Hillary or Bernie.”
Which, at this point, leaves Trump.
jonathan@jewishweek.org---------------------
Major Pew Survey Charts 'Two Planes of Existence'
National
Major Pew Survey Charts ‘Two Planes of Existence’
Poll finds American Orthodox increasingly aligned with Israelis on hot-button issues; Israeli society losing its religious middle.
Robert Goldblum
Managing Editor

A showdown in 1997; the divide has only grown worse in the decades since. Menachem Kahana/AFP/Getty
To say that deep fissures cut through Israeli society is a little like saying the San Andreas Fault is a hairline fracture. But the depth of those divisions — over the commitment to democratic principles, the role of religion in society, the meaning of Jewish identity and the prospects for peace and even coexistence with the Palestinians — comes into sharp relief in a major new Pew Research Center survey.
And the divisions the study documents between secular, “traditional,” “religious” and charedi Jews in Israel do not end at Israel’s shoreline.
Deep rifts also exist between Israeli Jews and American Jews — ones that liberal Jewish leaders here have been warning about for years — especially over lightning-rod issues like Jewish settlements in the West Bank. At the same time, the two groups share a strong sense of peoplehood and a common destiny. The study reveals as well that the gulf between Orthodox and liberal branches in America is creating a situation where the former is more in line with Israeli attitudes on a range of issues than with Reform and Conservative Jews in the U.S.

The 237-page report, which was released Tuesday and includes interviews with 5,600 Israelis conducted from October 2014 to May 2015, references some familiar, and well-publicized, issues when it comes to the country’s long-running secular-religious war: fights over public transportation on the Sabbath, gender segregation on buses, Orthodox control of marriage, divorce and conversion, and military service for the ultra-Orthodox.
The findings about the friction between Israeli Jews and Israeli Arabs also have a familiar ring, given the persistent charge by the country’s largest minority group (19 percent of Israel’s adult population) that its members are second-class citizens.
But the starkness of the divides on those and other issues revealed in the study points to the dizzying complexities of Israeli society and raises questions about whether the chasms can be bridged. And demographic trends are likely to calcify the problems.
The religious middle, so to speak, represented by the “Masorti” cohort — Israelis who hold moderate levels of religious practice — is in clear decline. In 1999, 45 percent of Israelis identified themselves as religiously middle of the road. By 2015, that figure had dropped to 34 percent. At the same time, the charedi population is on the rise, and those who identify as secular (“Hiloni”) Israelis, though their numbers have held steady over the last 10 years, have a higher percentage of those over age 50 (52 percent) than under 30 (44 percent). Secular Israelis make up 40 percent of Israeli Jews, Masorti, 23 percent, “Dati” (religious), 10 percent, and charedi, 8 percent.
The study’s lead researcher, Neha Sahgal, put the religious, political and social differences among segments of Israeli society in stark terms.
“Every society has divisions,” she told The Jewish Week on the eve of the survey’s publication. “But in Israel these divisions aren’t just on political topics. They’re on social topics, too. Israelis live religiously balkanized lives. They have no friends outside their circle. They don’t intermarry and they don’t want their children to intermarry. Secular Israelis find it more problematic for one of their children to marry a charedi Jew than to marry a Christian.”
Sahgal added, “We’re seeing evidence of further polarization in Israeli society across time.”
Israelis aren’t just polarized religiously, of course. On the central question of whether Israel can be both a democratic and Jewish state, there is a broad consensus across Israeli society that yes, in fact, it can. Three out of four Israelis say so.
But on what Sahgal refers to as a “where the rubber meets the road” follow-up question — If there is contradiction between democratic principles and religious law, which should take priority? — there is a gaping difference of opinion: Nearly 9 in 10 charedim and 65 percent of “Dati” (religious) Jews side with religious law, while nearly 9 in 10 secular Jews and 56 percent of Masorti Jews side with the principles of democracy.

“It’s a mirror image,” Sahgal said. “The religious in Israel want public life to be largely governed by religion. Secular Israelis want religion to be separate from the public square.”
When it comes to Israeli Arabs, nearly two-thirds say Israel cannot be both a democracy and a Jewish state at the same time. In another mirror-image finding, 79 percent of Israeli Arabs say there is a lot of discrimination in Israeli society against Muslims, while 3-in-4 Israeli Jews say they don’t see much discrimination against Muslims.
In addition, nearly half of Israeli Jews say Arabs should be expelled or transferred from Israel, a figure that garnered headlines in Israel, though it came under fire; the divide in Israeli society is particularly evident here, with 71 percent of Datim agreeing and 58 percent of secular Israelis disagreeing. Israel Prize-winning sociologist Sammy Smooha, an authority on relations between Israel’s Jewish and Arab citizens, criticized the expulsion/transfer question for its vague wording. Since the question doesn’t specify those who might be expelled, he told the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, “this question can be understood in various ways.” He said he believed that “about a quarter of the Jews oppose coexistence with Arab citizens.”
These societal realities in Israel reach across the Atlantic, too, and affect attitudes among American Jews. (The figures for American Jews in the current survey, “Israel’s Religiously Divided Society,” were culled from Pew’s 2013 study, “A Portrait of Jewish Americans.”)
The study reveals a strong bond between Israeli and American Jews — 70 percent of American Jews say they are either very or somewhat attached to Israel, and more than 80 percent say that caring about Israel is either an essential or important part of what being Jewish means to them. Sixty-nine percent of Israeli Jews say the diaspora is central to Jewish survival.
But when politics enters into the equation, the differences between the two groups — and between the Orthodox and non-Orthodox here — begin to emerge, and in stark ways.
On the contentious issue of Israel’s settlement building in the West Bank, 42 percent of Israeli Jews believe continued construction helps the country’s security. For American Jews, that figure stands at 17 percent, with 44 percent saying the settlements hurt Israel’s security.(Thirty-four percent of Orthodox Jews say settlements help Israel’s security; 15 percent of non-Orthodox Jews say so.)
About whether Israel’s government is making a sincere effort to achieve peace with the Palestinians, the divides are also great. Fifty-six percent of Israeli Jews believe that Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing coalition is making a sincere effort, while only 38 percent of American Jews believe so. (Sixty-one percent of Orthodox Jews say the Israeli government is making a sincere effort.) In addition, 61 percent of American Jews think a two-state solution is possible, a view held by only 43 percent of Israeli Jews. (Only 30 percent of Orthodox Jews believe it is possible.)

And when it comes to American support for Jerusalem, there are yet more divisions. More than half of Israeli Jews (52 percent) think Israel should be getting more support from Washington, and 34 percent think the support is about right. For American Jews, those figures are reversed: 54 percent say the support is about right, while 31 percent say U.S. support should be greater. (Fifty-three percent of Orthodox Jews say the U.S. is not supportive enough of Israel.)
“What stood out for me in the survey,” said Steven Bayme, director of the American Jewish Committee’s contemporary Jewish life department, “is the convergence of views between Orthodox Jews in America and Israeli society as a whole. American Jews are not convinced that settlements enhance Israel’s security. Yet only 16 percent of Orthodox Jews say settlements are a problem. … We’re talking about two planes of existence, a real divide between Orthodox and non-Orthodox.”
Bayme said he was also struck by the fact that only 29 percent of Israeli Jews have college degrees, compared to 58 percent of American Jews. “College tends to be a liberalizing experience,” Bayme said, “and it’s where we learn that the world is very different, and we learn to cope with that. Less than a third of Israeli Jews have that experience, and so perhaps it’s not surprising that they hold attitudes that are contradictory to democratic norms.”
In a “what planet are you on?” result, Israeli Jews identified their country’s most-pressing long-term problems as economic issues (39 percent) and security (38 percent). Nearly two-thirds of American Jews (66 percent), however, cited security — perhaps an indication of the type of coverage the Israeli-Palestinian conflict tends to receive in the U.S. media — and a mere 1 percent said economic issues. About 15 percent of Jews in both countries said social, religious or political issues are the biggest problems facing Israel.
On issues of Jewish identity, Israeli Jews and American Jews part ways, too. Nearly 70 percent of U.S. Jews say living an ethical and moral life is key to their Jewish identity; 47 percent of Israeli Jews say so. And 56 percent of American Jews say working for justice and equality is central to their Jewish identity; in Israel 27 percent of the Jewish population thinks so. Nearly half of American Jews say intellectual curiosity is part of what it means to be Jewish, while 16 percent of Israeli Jews think it is. The gulf is even wider on whether having a sense of humor is important to one’s Jewish identity, with 42 percent of American Jews and only 9 percent of Israeli Jews saying it is.
But nearly twice as many Israeli Jews as American Jews see observing Jewish law as essential to being Jewish (35 percent to 19 percent). And 53 percent of Israeli Jews say providing a Jewish education to their children is central to their Jewish identity.
Asked if there was one figure from the poll that surprised her the most, Sahgal, the study’s lead researcher, thought for a moment and said, “We asked Muslims in Israel about the experiences they had facing discrimination because they were Muslim — getting stopped and questioned by security forces, that kind of thing. Seventeen percent said they had.”
Sahgal continued, perhaps finding a data point out of the hundreds in the survey that was a metaphorical bridge across a fault line. “But 26 percent said they had a Jewish person express sympathy for them.”
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Vanderbilt U. Business Student Killed In Mass Stabbing In Tel Aviv
Israel News
Vanderbilt U. Business Student Killed In Mass Stabbing In Tel Aviv
JTA

Taylor Force. JTA
A 29-year-old American business school student was killed in a stabbing attack in the Jaffa area of Tel Aviv.
Taylor Force, a student at the Vanderbilt University Owen Graduate School of Management, was on a school trip to Israel when he was killed Tuesday evening, the university said. As many as 10 people were wounded in the attack at and near the Jaffa Port, Force’s wife seriously, Ynet reported.
Force and other Owen school students had gone to Israel to learn about the high-tech industry there. No one else on the trip was hurt, the university said.
“This horrific act of violence has robbed our Vanderbilt family of a young hopeful life and all of the bright promise that he held for bettering our greater world,” said Vanderbilt Chancellor Nick Zeppos in an email to students, faculty and staff.
The Jaffa attack came less than two hours after terror attacks in Jerusalem and central Israel left a haredi Orthodox man and two Israeli Border Police officers seriously injured.
Four of the injured are reported to be in serious condition and four others in moderate condition, according to Israel’s Channel 2. The attack lasted about 20 minutes in three locations.
Police said the assailant was “neutralized.” He was later identified by the Palestinian Maan news agency and then by police as a 22-year-old man from the Palestinian city of Qalqilya in the northern West Bank. Haaretz named him as Bashar Masalha.
At the time of the attack, U.S. Vice President Joe Biden was less than 2 miles away meeting with former Israeli President Shimon Peres at the Peres Center for Peace. He is in Israel on a two-day trip.
At the entrance to the Jaffa port, the assailant stabbed two people before running up the promenade, including to near the Dolphinarium Club, according to reports. The port is a popular seaside shopping and dining center for Israelis and tourists in Jaffa, the predominately Arab area of south Tel Aviv.
The Tel Aviv-Jaffa municipality vowed to step up security in the wake of the attack.
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CUNY Response To Alleged Bias 'Inadequate'
New York
CUNY Response To Alleged Bias ‘Inadequate’
ZOA, Council members say pledge to investigate campus actions fails to hold perpetrators accountable.
Amy Sara Clark
Deputy Managing Editor

An SJP “Die-in/Vigil for Ferguson and Gaza” held in John Jay’s atrium, the main common area. Tomer Kornfeld
Two and a half weeks after a group of students chanting slogans including “Zionists off campus” broke up a Brooklyn College faculty council meeting, City University of New York Chancellor James B. Milliken announced the school had hired outside attorneys to investigate complaints that a student group is causing Jews to feel harassed and physically unsafe.
But while some Jewish organizations have praised CUNY for its response, others say it’s not enough and that the student group behind most incidents, Students For Justice In Palestine (SJP), must be shut down.
Milliken’s announcement last week came in response to a 14-page letter from the Zionist Organization of America, detailing numerous complaints the group has received from students at four CUNY campuses: Brooklyn College, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, Hunter College and the College of Staten Island. The complaints ranged from individual comments (“I don’t hug murderers” was one) to swastikas carved into desks, to students yelling offensive slogans at unrelated rallies, including “We should drag the Zionists down the street!” and “Jews out of CUNY.”
At the College of Staten Island, SJP’s banner depicting the State of Israel covered by a keffiyah hangs in the campus center, the rotunda, despite Jewish students’ complaints. At Brooklyn College, a professor wearing a kipa was called a “Zionist” something — he couldn’t hear the second word though another professor at the scene said it was “pig.”
In addition to the probe, Milliken also announced that he has appointed two separate committees of administrators, faculty, and students to address the situation. One would “define best practices” to foster “a climate of mutual respect and civil discourse” on campus, and the other would make sure the university’s policies protect free speech.
“We’re deeply disappointed with Milliken’s actions,” said ZOA’s national president, Morton Klein. “All Milliken has done is condemn anti-Semitism. We demand that they condemn the student conduct,” and, if merited, revoke the club’s student-group status.
“When these sort of things have happened to other groups at other schools, those student groups have been shut down,” he continued. “No gay, black or Hispanic group would accept the administration saying: ‘We’ll look into it.’”
The ZOA’s letter pointed to several other universities that responded significantly more forcefully to bias incidents, including: University of Oklahoma, where a fraternity was kicked off campus, two members expelled and about 20 more disciplined after a video of the students reciting a racist chant was made public; Yale, where a fraternity was suspended for five years and individual students penalized for chanting “No means yes! Yes means anal!”; and at University of California San Diego, where a student was suspended for hanging up a noose in the library.
ZOA attorney Susan Tuchman pointed out that Jewish students are a protected group under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act and that, under that act, universities must take prompt and effective steps to address the situation and prevent a hostile atmosphere from reoccurring.
“It’s been done [before] and we’re saying: There’s no reason to treat the concerns of Jewish students less seriously,” she said.
Klein criticized other Jewish organizations for failing to join ZOA in speaking up. “Why isn’t ADL demanding this? Why isn’t AJCommittee? [sic],” he said.
In fact, the Anti-Defamation League released a statement commending CUNY for “taking these allegations seriously.”
“I think CUNY’s steps in doing the probe are the right first steps,” said Evan Bernstein, ADL’s New York regional director. “I think doing things in a smart fashion and not as a [hasty] reaction is a smart approach.”
An AJC spokesman said his organization has a different approach from ZOA and also noted that Milliken traveled with AJC to Israel in 2008.
Jacob Levkowicz, AJC’s assistant director of campus affairs, said in a statement: “Combatting BDS is a top AJC priority, and our 22 regional offices across the country are working closely with like-minded campus-based organizations, reaching out to university leaders to counter SJP and other anti-Israel groups, while also deepening understanding of and support for Israel among students and faculty.”
Members of the City Council Jewish Caucus also released a statement calling the CUNY response inadequate. In a letter to Chancellor Milliken, dated March 1, all 14 members of the group save Stephen Levin said CUNY needs to “develop a comprehensive plan” and “implement system-wide policies to swiftly and openly address anti-Semitic incidents.”
Saying that the “proliferation” of swastikas and anti-Semitic graffiti on many campuses indicates “latent hostility,” university officials should be “decrying the creep of hate onto their campuses” and using it as an opportunity to educate students about anti-Semitism and the need for inter-cultural tolerance. Instead, the letter says “administrators at some colleges have remained silent about the graffiti’s anti-Semitic nature, or, worse yet, ignored it entirely.”
“When anti-Semitism rears its ugly head, it must be named and condemned — as must all bigotry,” it continued, noting that at several CUNY schools, “Jewish students have reported feeling that the campus environment was so hostile that they could not wear Stars of David or kipas, openly identifying as Jewish, or espouse pro-Israel beliefs without fearing for their safety.”
Councilmen Mark Levine, David Greenfield, Barry Grodenchik, Rory Lancman and Mark Treyger followed up the letter by using the public comment portion of a meeting of the City Council Committee on Higher Education to demand stronger action.
After listening to CUNY Vice Chancellor Fred Schaffer read a statement condemning “all forms of bigotry and discrimination including anti-Semitism” and laying out plans for the investigation and two committees, David Greenfield called the response unacceptable.
“I have a student who is my constituent who is getting a master’s degree and she tells me that she cannot wear her star of David at Brooklyn College because she feels intimidated and threatened,” he said, “and your response is: ‘Well, we’re not really sure what we’re going to do so we’re going to hire some experts to tell us.’ Come on, that’s just not acceptable.”
Like the ZOA, Greenfield asked that SJP be punished, saying “they’re not engaging in free speech, they’re engaging in hate speech. ... And honestly, if God forbid something happens to these students,” he warned CUNY administrators, “we’re going to hold you guys accountable.
Other councilmen were more measured, saying they weren’t asking for anything to be done to SJP but rather that specific systems needed to be put into place to prevent all forms of bigotry, such as a system-wide protocol requiring that hate-based incidents be reported to the police.
Levine stressed at the hearing the need for training and protocols — especially for professors who encounter bias issues. “Are there no guidelines that stipulate faculty interactions in this cases? Is there no training?” he asked.
SJP chapters from each college as well as the national and regional offices did not immediately respond to request for comment. However, the organization Palestine Legal had issued a response to the ZOA’s letter on their website immediately after it came out.
“The ZOA wants to shut down all speech on Israel/Palestine that doesn’t hew to its narrative that Israel can do no wrong,” Palestine Legal attorney Radhika Sainath said in the statement. “They’ve routinely misstated the law, misstated the facts, or both. And this is why their attempts to punish speech critical of Israel routinely fail.”
Grodenchik took on the issue of censorship at the City Council committee hearing, saying that free speech is fine as long as it doesn’t cross impinge upon the rights of others:
“I’m not asking that anyone’s speech be impinged upon, I believe wholeheartedly in the First Amendment as we all do, but there has got to be a strong policy ... that when people cross the line you have got to be there.”
The administration, he said, has to “understand that the infringement of anybody’s rights, and especially their personal safety, is totally unacceptable.” ---------------------
Giving Voice To Inclusive Orthodoxy
Gary Rosenblatt
Giving Voice To Inclusive Orthodoxy
New grassroots group seeks to revive and expand ideals of Edah, which folded a decade ago.
Gary Rosenblatt
Editor And Publisher

Gary Rosenblatt
Ten years ago, when Edah, an organization devoted to the ideology and values of Modern Orthodoxy, closed its doors, founding director Rabbi Saul Berman said it had largely achieved its goal of reversing “the separatist trend within Modern Orthodoxy, which was isolating” that community “from the rest of the Jewish people.” He added that after a nine-year tenure it was “time to pass the challenge on to others to do the work.”
Since then, Modern Orthodoxy has in many ways moved further to the religious right, in part driven by young people who return from a post-high school gap year or two of yeshiva/seminary study in Israel with a more rigorous commitment to ritual observance and to strict separation of the sexes, influenced by the religious teachings of their rebbes in Israel.
A Pew report on American Orthodox Jews in 2015 indicates the growth of the religious right. It found that while about 10 percent of American Jews are Orthodox, 60 percent of that segment now is charedi (ultra-Orthodox) and about 30 percent is Modern Orthodox, with each group defined in part by its resistance to, or acceptance of, secular society.
Now comes a new grassroots group seeking to revive and advance many of the principles and ideals of Edah, whose motto was “the courage to be modern and Orthodox.”
The formation of PORAT (People for Orthodox Renaissance and Torah), first being announced on these pages, comes at a key moment, marking a renewed effort to bridge the widening gap between Orthodox Jews and the rest of the American Jewish community.
The group will hold the first of several planned public events for the year on May 15, at Congregation Kehilath Jeshurun (KJ) on the Upper East Side. A panel discussion on the future of Modern Orthodoxy will feature Chaim Steinmetz, the recently appointed senior rabbi of KJ; Blu Greenberg, a writer, activist and founder of JOFA; and Binyamin Lau, rabbi of the Ramban Synagogue in Jerusalem as well as professor, writer, lecturer and activist on issues of halacha and social justice.
A board of directors for PORAT (Hebrew for “fruitful”) is in formation and there are plans to raise funds for a staff to sponsor public forums and educational programs, create a website that will serve as a network and forum for the exchange of ideas relevant to Jewish life, and support organizations and projects already in place that foster Modern Orthodox ideals.
Rabbi Avi Weiss, who recently stepped down as full-time senior rabbi at the Hebrew Institute of Riverdale, is the force behind PORAT. Having long led the campaign for a more inclusive form of halachic life, which he calls Open Orthodoxy, and founded Yeshivat Chovevei Torah for men, Yeshivat Maharat for women, and co-founded the International Rabbinic Fellowship, he may be seen by some as creating this new lay group to bolster his institutions. But he insists that his goal is to create a “safe space” for what he believes to be “the silent majority” of Orthodox Jews — variously referred to as liberal, modern or open — “in the tens of thousands around the country” who would welcome and support efforts to broaden the conversation on issues like rabbinic authority, conversion, ethics, social justice, gender equality, relations with other denominations and faith groups, and the place of gays and lesbians in the community.
“This is an effort that goes well beyond any individual,” the rabbi said in an interview this week, “and the goal is very specific: to demonstrate that a critical mass of Orthodox Jews support the values of an inclusive Modern Orthodoxy.” He added that “it’s time to stop looking over our shoulders” at those on the religious right to verify one’s authenticity as Orthodox. Commitment to “the mesorah (tradition) doesn’t mean being cemented to the past,” he said.
What has changed in the last decade, according to Rabbi Weiss, “are the daily attacks on blogs and in other writings that seek to marginalize the left” within Orthodoxy, asserting that it has crossed the line and is no longer part of the halachic community. Such statements come not only from groups like Agudath Israel on the right but from rosh yeshivas at Yeshiva University, the flagship institution of Modern Orthodoxy.
“We want to create a safe space for reflection and conversation,” the rabbi said.
Key Role For Modern Orthodox
Though relatively small in number, Orthodox Jews play an outsize role in Jewish life, not only because their numbers are increasing — to a remarkable degree — but because of their dynamism and commitment to the faith, to Jewish education and to the Zionist ideals of Israel. That makes the notion of the Modern Orthodox serving as a link between the liberal denominations on the left, and the centrist and charedi groups on the right, appealing. The reality, though, is that Modern Orthodox views on issues from abortion to Zionism, and from President Obama to the settlements, differ sharply with the large majority of American Jews. The move to the right finds some Modern Orthodox adapting to the fundamentalists around them and others feeling marginalized and overwhelmed.
That’s what prompted the founding group of about 20 men and women of a wide range of ages in the New York area to launch PORAT.
Steven Bayme, a member of the founding group and an executive at the American Jewish Committee, said that many Modern Orthodox Jews are frustrated that their values of inclusion are de-emphasized or marginalized by those on the right.
He noted that over the last four decades the influence of pulpit rabbis in their communities has diminished and authority has become more centralized, in the hands of Talmudic scholars and rebbes cloistered in yeshivas. But Bayme senses “a swing of the pendulum” amid signs that the cultural atmosphere is changing. He cited more open inquiry into Jewish texts, renewed efforts to free agunot (or, chained wives) and training rabbis to be sensitive to and more accepting of their congregants.
For Laura Shaw Frank, a Jewish educator who is part of the founding group, a key issue is the role of women in synagogue. She spoke of her frustration when, in 2003, the new rabbi of the Baltimore congregation she belonged to decided that women should no longer dance with the Torah on Simchat Torah, as had been the custom. She noted that “there was a great deal of anger and resentment among the women about this decision, but no one really stood up to the rabbi” to question his more stringent interpretation of Jewish law on the matter.
Recognizing the women’s discontent, the rabbi asked Shaw Frank, an attorney learned in Jewish law, to give a shiur (class) for the women of the congregation on Simchat Torah morning while the men danced with the Torah. She agreed out of respect for the rabbi, though she felt it was being done “to keep the women busy and placate them.”
Shaw Frank chose to discuss issues of women and halacha (Jewish law). Feeling “empowered” by the experience, she began offering a weekly shiur in her home for women willing to probe sources but with “enormous respect for halacha and the halachic process.” She later helped found a congregation more inclusive to women.
“There are many people outside of the New York area who feel frustrated and disenfranchised, as if Orthodoxy has left them,” said Shaw Frank, who is now an administrator of Yeshivat Maharat, the first yeshiva to ordain women as Orthodox clergy. “I think PORAT can offer them a lifeline.”
Victoria Lindenbaum Feder, a co-founder of JCP (Jewish Community Project) in Tribeca, says she felt a responsibility to join the PORAT founding group because “I’m living the benefits” of those who advocated for “inclusivity and tolerance within the framework of halacha.” She said she constantly struggles with “being told what is and isn’t Orthodoxy,” and dealing with “lines drawn” rather than feeling free to discuss and debate complex religious issues. “We need a voice of moderation,” she said, “and we need to make it louder.”
Anat Barber, another member of the founding group of PORAT who works professionally in the Jewish community, said she and her fellow millennials “are less interested in labels and institutional hierarchies” than their elders. What’s more meaningful to younger people, she said, are open and honest conversations on complex issues. Barber describes herself as “a sucker for Jewish unity,” and hopes PORAT can foster “civil discourse among people who don’t agree with each other, but who can show deep and profound respect for choices that others make Jewishly.”
Much To Offer Charedim
Rabbi Berman, the Edah founder and a professor at both Stern College and Columbia Law School, observed with irony this week that the harsh charedi critics of Modern Orthodoxy may well have the most to gain from engaging with that community. He said that with more charedim seeking professional degrees in fields like law, accounting and business after years in the yeshiva, a group like PORAT could have “much to offer them in making the cultural adjustment,” maintaining strict adherence to halachic life while engaging with the outside world.
For now, the prospects of that happening seem highly unlikely. Indeed, even Modern Orthodoxy’s central institutions and rabbinic leaders set themselves apart from Rabbi Weiss’ brand of Open Orthodoxy. YU, through its Center for the Jewish Future, has exposed students to the wider world through volunteer programs for social justice and tikkun olam, including projects in Third World countries. And Stern College now has an established program in Talmud study for women. But leading YU rosh yeshivas have spoken out against the dangers of Open Orthodoxy, described as outside the boundaries of halacha. The Rabbinical Council of America, the largest group of Orthodox rabbis, will not accept rabbis ordained by Yeshivat Chovevei Torah, few of whom have been hired to lead mainstream Orthodox congregations. Partly in response, Rabbi Weiss co-founded the International Rabbinic Fellowship as an alternative to the RCA, from which he resigned. His decision to ordain women as rabbinic clergy through Yeshivat Maharat has deepened the split within Modern Orthodoxy.
In truth, there has always been a struggle between liberals and traditionalists within the movement. What has changed in recent years, reflecting the increasing polarization and lack of discourse in American society in general, is the angry tone and effort to delegitimize rather than just dispute those seen as challenging tradition. Whether PORAT succeeds in bolstering those who seek a more inclusive approach or flames out in the face of fundamentalism remains to be seen. Hopefully its call for deep dialogue and engagement with the realities of a rapidly changing culture will be discussed rather than dismissed — an opportunity to build bridges rather than walls in our community.
Gary@jewishweek.org---------------------

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