The New York Jewish Weekly. . .Connecting the World to Jewish News, Culture, Features, and Opinion for Friday, 21 February 2014

The New York Jewish Weekly. . .Connecting the World to Jewish News, Culture, Features, and Opinion for Friday, 21 February 2014 
Dear Reader,
"Your Semicha Or Your Wife?" YU threatened to refuse to ordain a rabbinical student because he had attended a "partnership minyan" in which women lead certain parts of the Shabbat service. Gary Rosenblatt broke the story, which has 1,600 likes on Facebook.
NEW YORK
‘Your Semicha Or Your Wife’
YU withholding ordination from rabbinic student who participated in ‘partnership minyan.’
Gary Rosenblatt
Editor and Publisher
Washington Heights. Wikimedia Commons
Yeshiva University’s rabbinical school appears to be withholding ordination next month from a student who participated in a “partnership minyan,” in which women lead certain elements of the Shabbat service, The Jewish Week has learned.
On hearing of the case, several YU-ordained local rabbis said they were stunned by the move, even though they are opposed to such services.
“I think it’s an outrage,” said the rabbi of a large congregation who wished to remain anonymous. “It’s not the way to handle this situation.”
But, contrary to discussion on the Internet in recent days, a source close to the case said the issue was not about participation in the service. Rather, it hinged on whether the student was willing to acknowledge that he should consult with his rabbinic authorities before participating in a minyan that is not acceptable to traditional halachic authorities.
While YU does not revoke semicha (ordination) from its Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary, or RIETS, graduates, the student in question is, in effect, in limbo. He has completed his five years of classes and tests, but he has not been conferred with ordination.
“Does he understand and agree that he is bound by the halachic process? That’s what this is about,” the source said.
While some observers say the decision underscores a significant shift to the right, religiously, at YU, others suggest that it reflects a heavy-handed political position that could damage the school’s image in the community.
In a letter to the RIETS student, due to receive ordination at YU’s Chag Ha Semicha ordination ceremony March 23, Rabbi Menachem Penner, acting dean of RIETS, asserted that “not all individuals given the title of ‘rabbi’ are entitled to serve as decisors of Jewish law.” The letter says this is “especially true when breaking new ground in areas unforeseen to earlier generations or when taking public stances on matters of Jewish law that are in opposition to all recognized aposkim [halachic decisors].”
The great majority of halachic sources prohibit the partnership minyan, a relatively new form of worship that gives roles to women that are technically allowed but, until now, not practiced. A recent article by Rabbis Dov and Aryeh Frimmer in Tradition, a scholarly Orthodox publication, makes a strong case against it; minority positions taken by Rabbi Daniel Sperber and Mendel Shapiro, respected scholars, have been accepting.
Most recently, Rabbi Hershel Schachter, a rosh yeshiva at RIETS, issued a responsa firmly prohibiting the practice. He also banned females praying with tefillin.
His argument is primarily based on social and political concerns and rooted in the concept that only a rabbinic decisor is qualified to rule. Deeply respected for his vast Talmudic knowledge, Rabbi Schachter has been criticized by some rabbis who question the severity of his pronouncement. One called it “Rav Schachter’s Fatwa” because of its harsh tone, suggesting that those who participate in such services amount to heretics.
But the source close to those making decisions at YU pointed out that the RIETS rabbis calling on the rabbinic student to conform to halachic standards did not include Rabbi Schachter, and their demand took place several months ago.
“This had nothing to do with Rabbi Schachter or his recent responsa,” the source said.
Partnership minyanim have become popular in some cities in recent years, notably the Shira Chadashah community in Jerusalem and Darchei Noam on the Upper West Side of Manhattan.
The RIETS student in question, who asked to remain anonymous at this point, told The Jewish Week that his intention had been to have a one-time partnership minyan in his home so that his wife, who had been ill, could be called to the Torah and recite a blessing of gratitude after her recovery.
He said that the letter from Rabbi Penner is “out there” on the Internet and receiving a great deal of attention in Orthodox circles. He added that he is in conversation with authorities in RIETS in an effort to resolve the standoff.
The letter from Rabbi Penner notes that graduates of RIETS “are entitled to their personal opinions on halachic matters … and may publicize their views as opinions that are not halachically binding.” But it says they are “expected to defer, in matters of normative practice, to the opinions of recognized poskim.”
One Orthodox professor of Jewish history said the decision to withhold semicha on the basis of taking part in a questionable religious service marked “the haredization of Modern Orthodoxy.”
But another knowledgeable source urged calm, saying the issue over the individual rabbinical student no doubt will be resolved soon and that “nothing of substance has changed.”
In the meantime, the rabbinic student in question said that while his intent had been to host the partnership minyan just once, at the request of his wife, he is now is unwelcome in his community’s Orthodox synagogue, and he has held subsequent services in his home. Compounding the situation: “The people who came like it,” he said.
Gary@jewishweek.org
Also check out our front page for a box of February's most popular JW stories, like a profile of Olympic figure skater Jason Brown. After Sochi, for Brown? Birthright.
Food columnist Amy Spiro offers a one-ingredient wonder in tender, dried apple slices: a delightful winter snack when fresh fruit 
http://www.thejewishweek.com/
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INTERNATIONAL
The Jewish Ponytail Seen Around The World
Figure skater Jason Brown is looking for gold in Sochi. And then he wants to go on Birthright.
Steve Lipman
Staff Writer
A rising star at the junior level of American figure skating, Jason Brown, 19, was little known to most sports fans a year ago. “The average Winter Olympics fan couldn’t have picked Brown out of a lineup two weeks ago,” the mashable.com social media website declared at the time. Brown himself gave little thought to qualifying for the U.S. team at the Sochi Games. Maybe he’d go to the Winter Games in 2018, or 2022.
In a telephone interview on the way to the practice rink near Colorado Springs, where he has trained since last May, Brown told The Jewish Week that he “was too young” to have thought that this year’s Games were a realistic possibility, since his skating had not developed to international standards. But he has progressed quickly, and for the last eight months he has joined the ranks of the world’s elite senior skaters.
In November, he entered France’s prestigious Trophée Eric Bompard international skating competition. He placed third.
Maybe Sochi was a possibility, after all.
His rocket-like rise continued at the recent U.S. Figure Skating Championships in Boston, where he took the silver medal, earning a spot on the Olympic team.
“I’m so excited,” said Brown, a resident of Highland Park, Ill., and a college student in Colorado. The ponytailed skater has quickly become a Winter Olympics sensation; he has appeared on the “Arsenio Hall Show,” his image is being featured in NBC promotions for the Olympics, and the YouTube video of his ebullient silver medal performance at the U.S. nationals has been viewed more than three million times.
“Today,” mashable.com reported last week, “his ponytail has its own Twitter account.”
“It’s been unbelievable,” Brown said of his sudden rise to popularity. “The reactions, I can’t explain. I was not expecting it.”
A member of a Reform family, Brown is an alumnus of the Reform movement’s Olin-Snag-Ruby Union Institute summer camp in Oconomowoc, Wis., he attended for five years.
Since qualifying for Sochi, his fan base in the Jewish community has grown, he says.
Brown, whose showmanship beat out the athleticism of Jewish skater Max Aaron (see story below) for the second spot on this year’s U.S. team, says one of his athletic role models is veteran skater Scott Hamilton, who won gold at the Sarajevo Games in 1984. “He’s so down to earth. He connects to the audience,” Brown said.
He’s met Hamilton, who gave him some Olympic advice: “It’s just another rink in another city. Just go out there and do what you do.”
Brown has taken a leave from his studies at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs to concentrate on training for the Games; he has not declared a major yet. After he’s done skating, “I really want to work with children,” he says. “I love kids.”
He’s not been to Israel yet, but hopes to go on a Birthright trip one day with Aaron. “I’m dying to go,” he said.
The excitement of making the U.S. team “is not going to wear off,” Brown said. No matter what happens at Sochi, he said, he plans to try to qualify for the Games in 2018 and 2022. “Absolutely.”
Jews on the U.S. Team
As in past Winter Olympic years, only a few Jewish athletes from the United States have qualified for the Sochi Games. And, as in recent Winter Olympics, figure skating is emerging as the Jewish sport-of-choice.
Also on the U.S. team are:
♦ Simon Shnapir, who competes in pairs figure skating. A native of Moscow (his original name was Seymon), he came to the U.S. with his family at 16 months. He took up his sport after watching Olympic champion Scott Hamilton on television. He and his partner, Marissa Castelli, won the 2013 U.S. pairs championship.
Shnapir is studying marketing at Emerson College in Boston; he hopes for a career in the film industry, as a director or editor.
♦ Ice-dancer Charlie White, who, with his partner Meryl Davis, is a two-time world champion and the 2010 Olympic silver medalist. A native of Royal Oak, Mich., he is a former hockey player, a political science major at the University of Michigan.
Determining which athletes at any Olympics are part of the Jewish community is always challenging — some with Jewish-sounding names are not Jewish, others turn up after they achieve some success during the Games, and competitors from the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe often do not openly identify their Jewish background.
♦ American snowboarders Taylor Gold and Arielle Gold, brother and sister from Steamboat Springs, Colo., were raised with no religious upbring. Skier Mikaela Shiffrin has “some very distant heritage [but] is not connected to the Jewish community,” says a spokesman for the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Association. Figure skater Gracie Gold, according to one online biography, is active in her church. Another Jewish Olympian, who trains in the United States, is Australia’s freestyle skier Anna Segal.
Max Aaron
Ex-champ Brings Hockey Mentality To Figure Skating
How does someone from Arizona end up becoming a world-class ice skater?
Max Aaron, taking a break from his Olympic training for a telephone interview from Colorado Springs, laughs at the question. “Everyone brings it up,” he told The Jewish Week.
The answer is simple: “I wanted to be out of the heat.”
His parents took him, at 3, to one of the two rinks in Scottsdale. He was a natural. Within a few years he was a champion hockey player, championship speed skater and championship figure skater.
“I stuck with hockey,” Aaron said. Usually the smallest player on the ice, he was the enforcer, taking on the biggest player on the other team. He played tough, rough, he says. “I’m not going to back down.”
He was the “goon,” hockey’s term of affection for a player who protects the interests of his teammates?
Aaron, 21, laughs again. Guilty as charged. Usually the fastest player on the ice, he was able to escape a beating.
Aaron gave up hockey after he broke his back in 2008 and spent four months in a body cast. Slowly recuperating and regaining his strength, he concentrated on figure skating and his signature jumps, taking time off from his university studies in business to concentrate on his training. One day he hopes to become a surgeon, sports agent or stockbroker.
Results: he was U.S. junior champion in 2011, overall champion in 2013, and among the successors to defending Olympic gold medalist Evan Lysacek.
Two years ago, Aaron said, he set his sights on the 2014 Winter Olympics. At the recent U.S. national figure skating championships in Boston, he lost his title, finishing third; only the top two men are going to Sochi.
“It happened. I’m OK,” he said a few days after the U.S. championships. “I’m disappointed. I have no regrets. I don’t put [all my] cookies in one jar.” Aaron’s focus now is on the world championships in Japan in March. He finished seventh at the worlds last year.
No Sochi this year; though he is the first alternate for the U.S. team, alternates don’t travel to the Olympic venue unless a qualifier is injured.
Aaron, who now lives in Colorado Springs, near his training site, says he was raised in a tradition Conservative family, attending Hebrew school, celebrating “all the holidays.” He calls himself a big admirer of Aly Raisman, the Jewish gymnast who won three medals at the Summer Olympics in London in 2012.
“I just love that she’s a Jewish athlete,” he said. “I grew up looking to all those Jewish athletes for inspiration. I always thought the list needed to be longer.”
Aaron says he recites the Shema before and after each of his competitions.
As a (5-foot-8) kid, he hoped for a career in the National Hockey League. That’s unlikely now, because of his size. But collegiate hockey may be a possibility after his Olympic days are over, he says. “I can always go back to hockey once I’m done with figure skating.”
Does he plan to try to qualify for the U.S. Olympic figure skating team in four years?
“I really hope so.”
In the coming weeks, Aaron says, he’ll watch the Games on TV and wish the best for the men who won the spots he had hoped to fill. “I’ll be cheering the whole time.”
Israel
Virgile Vandeput
Skiing For Israel, Living In Belgium
Ski racer Vandeput, who will compete at the slalom events in Sochi, may have a unique distinction among this year’s Olympic skiers — he has never skied in the country he represents.
Vandeput, 19, is a native of Belgium, where he has lived his whole life; his mother is a Sabra, hence his ability to ski for Israel. “I wanted to represent Israel,” he told The Jewish Week. “I am proud to represent Israel.”
But not to ski there.
Israel has only one skiing site, Mount Hermon in the Golan Heights, which is not considered an Olympic-caliber slope.
So Vandeput has never set foot — or ski — on that mountain.
Instead, he trains in France and competes in Europe, he tells The Jewish Week in a telephone interview. “The Alps are the best.”
A competitor in skiing events since he was 9, he enrolled in lessons and ski camps, showing early promise.
After graduating from high school two years ago, he has concentrated on preparing for – and qualifying for – this year’s Winter Games – the slalom and giant slalom.
As usual, Israel, which has competed in the Summer Olympics since 1952, will send a small team to the Winter Olympics, where it has never won a medal.
Joining Vandeput on the Israeli team at this month’s Games are:
♦ Figure skater Alex Bichenko and short track skater Vladislav Bikanov, both from the former Soviet Union.
♦ Pairs figure skaters Evgeny Krasnopolski and Andrea Davidovich. He was born in Ukraine; she, in Vermont to émigré parents. Krasnopolski, a three-time Israeli nation silver medalist as a singles skater before he switched to pairs in 2009, achieved notoriety in 2011 when he was arrested and briefly jailed on a charge of desertion from the Israeli Army when he returned from an international competition in Moscow. The pisode was a “misunderstanding” between the Israeli Skating Federation and the Ministry of Science, Culture and Sport, said his attorney.
Israel, which provides a small budget for the training of elite athletes (they must raise most of their own training and travel budgets), sends small squads to the Winter Olympics every four years, setting high qualification standards and choosing only those men and women (often ones who immigrated from the former Soviet Union) judged likely to return with a medal.
In many years this has kept Jews from the diaspora, who have had aspirations to represent Israel in such sports as figure skating or bobsledding, from having that chance.
Unlike most of his 2014 Olympic teammates, Vandeput does not have a Soviet background.
Like them, he lives and trains outside of Israel.
He has relatives in the Jewish State and has visited there “lots of times.” Eventually, Vandeput says, he would like to study engineering. He might do it in Israel, he says.
Canada
Dylan Moscovitch:
An Early Eye On The Prize
A few years after Dylan Moscovitch learned to ice skate in his native Toronto, showing an early potential, someone asked him if he wanted to go to the Olympics one day.
“No,” he answered, “I want to win the Olympics,”
Now 29, he and his pairs partner, Kirsten Moore-Towers, the fourth-ranked team in the world, 2011 Canadian national champions, will represent Canada at Sochi.
“I played all sports growing up — I always knew I wanted to go to the Olympics as a skater,” he told The Jewish Week in a telephone interview.
Formerly a singles skater, he later switched to pairs, skating originally with his sister, Kyra, who gave up the sports after she developed scoliosis.
Moscovitch and Moore-Towers teamed up in 2009.
Raised in a secular Jewish household, he attended a “secular Jewish school” where the subject of his bar mitzvah speech was Nazi-hunter Simon Wiesenthal.
After going on a Birthright trip to Israel three years ago, for the first time, he says became more involved in Toronto’s Jewish community, offering to speak at Jewish groups and to help raise money for other prospective Jewish Olympians.
“There’s not a lot of highly competitive Jewish athletes in Canada,” he told the Jewish Tribune newspaper. “Knowing personally how difficult it is to obtain sponsors/donors … I would like to assist Canadian Jewish athletes
England
A.J. Rosen:
From New Rochelle, With Pride
Watching the 1994 Winter Olympics on television, 9-year-old Adam Rosen was intrigued by the sight of people barreling down an icy track on a sled at speeds approaching 90 miles an hour.
He decided to become a luger.
Rosen (everyone calls him A.J.), 29, a native of New Rochelle who played football for New Rochelle High School, will compete in his third Olympics — representing England — this month. He finished 16th at the Torino and Vancouver Games.
After training with the U.S. Luge Association and failing to be picked for the Olympics-eligible senior roster, he qualified for England’s Olympic team (he has dual citizenship because his mother, Gay, is a British native) and has ranked for several years as the country’s top luge competitor. Last year the British Olympic Association named him one of the Olympians of the Year.
US luge officials have made overtures to Rosen to slide for his native country, Rosen says, but he’ll continue to represent England, which gave him his first chance to compete internationally. “My loyalty is with them.”
Rosen, who trains with the Canadian luge team (Canadian lugers call him “the fastest Jew on ice”) wants to become a pilot one day; he’s worked for the New York Civil Air Patrol and has earned a Cadet Senior Master Sergeant rank.
He’s hooked on speed — one of his hobbies is riding on roller coasters, upside down.
A medal at Sochi is probably out of reach, Rosen says, but he has a simple goal: “I want to improve on my past performances.”
World-class lugers don’t reach their peak will their 30s. Which means he could return to the 2018 Winter Games, in Pyeonchang, South Korea. “That,” he said, “will be possible.”
steve@jewishweek.orgis in low supply.
And did you know the Oscar-nominated film "Philomena," which focuses on Ireland's Catholic culture, has a Jewish moment? Culture editor Sandee Brawarsky reveals it.
WELL VERSED
Philomena’s Jewish Moment
Sandee Brawarsky
"Philomena" may be the come-from-behind winner in Sunday night’s Academy Awards presentations. The outstanding film –based on a true story -- about an Irish Catholic woman searching for the son she was forced to give up as a teenager when she was sent to a convent has been nominated for four Oscars, including Best Film.
Philomena, the lead character played by Judy Dench, is helped in her search by a British journalist, played by Steve Coogan, who also wrote the script, based on the book written by the real journalist, Martin Sixsmith.  The film returns several times to the convent in Ireland and its sisterhood of nuns.
But at one point in this film that takes a critical view of policies of the Catholic Church, the camera pauses on an item that’s clearly an etrog box, used to hold the “product of hadar trees” referred to in the bible.
That line, from Leviticus 23:40  inspires the commandment to “take” the lulav and etrog (“You shall take unto you on  the first day the product of hadar trees, branches of palm trees, boughs of leafy trees and willows of the brook, and you shall rejoice before the Lord your God seven days.”) and frequently appears on etrog boxes. Here, the camera shows the blue-green box with its traditional shape and the first words of the line in Hebrew -- Ulakahtem lachem, you shall take unto you – that wraps around the rim of the beautiful box.
At first, I thought I was imagining something, that my journalistic focus on Jewish culture was causing me to see Jewish imagery everywhere, but indeed it’s there, confirmed by subsequent viewers.
The etrog box doesn’t have to do with the plot, but it’s a thing of beauty, meant to hold something of beauty, and it’s noticed. It’s on a shelf in the Washington home of the partner of Philomena’s son. But I don’t want to give away the story here. Before or after the Oscar envelope is opened, be sure to see this film.
Best,
Helen Chernikoff, Web Director
The Arts
The Battle Of Stalingrad, In 3-D
Fedor Bondarchuk's 'Stalingrad' tries to balance the epic with the intimate. 
Grossman’s monumental novel “Life and Fate” is surely one that, like its inspiration “War and Peace,” defies easy adaptation to the movie screen. Frederick Wiseman’s “The Last Letter” took a masterful minimalist approach, using a single chapter from the 900-page volume and turning it into a monodrama showcasing Catherine Samie as a Jewish doctor recounting the coming of the Nazi murder machine to her hometown. The BBC turned “Life and Fate” into an eight-hour radio drama anchored by Kenneth Branagh and David Tennant. And Russian television tackled it in 2012 in a nine-hour miniseries.
Much as Grossman harkens back to a 19th-century model of novel writing, Fedor Bondarchuk’s new film “Stalingrad,” which opens this week, is a throwback to an old-fashioned model of film narrative, albeit with the latest technological trappings. The largest-grossing Russian film of 2013, it is also the first Russian film made in IMAX 3D©, with all that implies both good and bad.
As a director, Bondarchuk didn’t have to look far for his inspiration. His father, Sergei Bondarchuk, who has a small but significant part in the film, directed and starred in the Oscar-winning 1966 version of “War and Peace,” and unsurprisingly, “Stalingrad” resembles that film in its dogged but effective effort to balance the epic with the intimate. The end result is a film with a certain cumulative power, more effective in its quiet moments than its noisy set pieces but with a few indelible images of massive destruction.
Like Grossman, Bondarchuk focuses much of his attention on the Battle of Stalingrad as a microcosm of the social, political and military forces at play in Stalin’s Russia. The screenplay by Ilya Tilkin and Sergey Shazhkin has a rather clumsy framing device in which a Russian doctor (Sergei Bondarchuk) working in a rescue crew in Fukushima, Japan, tells the story of his mother’s survival of Stalingrad as a way of distracting a young German woman trapped in the rubble left by the 2011 earthquake and tsunami. It’s an arbitrary and awkward way of establishing that in the 21st century old enmities are forgotten and it is nature rather than man that wreaks havoc. However, Bondarchuk fils uses the constant rain of ashes in 3-D quite effectively to link Fukushima and Stalingrad visually, one of the film’s nicer grace notes.
From there we are thrown into the maelstrom of 20th-century warfare at its most brutal. After a nightmarish attack in which Russian soldiers, set on fire by the ignition of a fuel dump, surge forward into German machine-gun nests, the film settles into the ebb and flow of close combat with a handful of Russians holding a single apartment building that controls access to the Volga River. From here, despite 3-D and CGI (Computer-Generated Imagery) and all the other technology at his disposal, Bondarchuk falls back on the 70-year-old conventions of the WWII combat film, counterposing seemingly imperturbable Russian officer Gromov (Petr Fedorov) and beleaguered “good” German officer Kahn (Thomas Kretschmann), and fleshing out the other Soviet soldiers who are dug in. They are, of course, an ill-assorted group thrown together by chance, representing obvious facets of the society of the period, but all basically stoic and heroic. The Germans, except Kahn of course, unquestioningly obey their evil commanding officer, burning to death a woman and child suspected of being Jewish and terrorizing civilians.
Period films are never about the period in which they are set. They are about the period in which they were made. “Stalingrad” is no exception. Grossman’s book spends a lot of pages on the aftermath of the war, in which Stalinism proves to be nearly as brutal and every bit as repressive as Nazism. Somehow all of that material disappears in this adaptation, and we are left with a final image of the saintly Russian doctor bonding with a now-rescued young woman who bears a faint resemblance to Kahn’s ill-fated Russian mistress. Whether he meant to or not, Fedor Bondarchuk has made a small contribution to the ongoing rehabilitation of Joseph Stalin by his post-modern avatar, Vladimir Putin.
“Stalingrad” opens on Friday, Feb. 28 at AMC 34th Street, AMC Lincoln Square and AMC Kips Bay.
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Blogs
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THE NEW NORMAL
A Completely Unremarkable Story
A few weeks ago I attended our synagogue’s Kabbalat Shabbat service. This once-a-month service has an earlier start time than our traditional service and is followed by a congregational potluck dinner. The shorter service is ideal for many: Our youngest children who aren’t ready to be out past their bedtimes; teens who want to go out with friends later in the evening and adult members who don’t want to be out past their bedtimes after a full week of work. Our Kabbalat Shabbat is also a wonderful fit for an adult member of our congregation with developmental disabilities.
I have been thinking about writing this story for some time now. On this blog, sharing this man’s story would seem logical and meaningful. But quite honestly, it’s pretty unremarkable. I mean, he’s a really nice guy, but so are a lot of our members.  He lives in a local group home and another member of our congregation picks him up each month, but he’s not the only congregant who needs a ride. I’ve watched his level of comfort increase, but that’s true of all of us as we spend more time somewhere. The melodies of the prayers have become more familiar to him, but that’s the learning curve every congregant climbs. I’ve noticed how other congregants have come to recognize him; again, that’s typical.
So I have been trying, for sake of this blog, to find the right angle. I’ve been looking for that “aha moment” to share.  But he’s been a member of our congregation for the better part of two years now, and I have yet to find the right hook to demonstrate the value of including people with disabilities. It’s just normal, and that’s how it should be, and that’s the point of the story.
Lisa Friedman is the Education Co-Director at Temple Beth-El in Hillsborough, New Jersey. She oversees an extensive special needs program within the religious school, with programs designed to help students learn about their Jewish heritage, feel connected to their Jewish community and successfully learn Hebrew. Additionally, Lisa facilitates conversations about inclusion throughout the synagogue as whole and helps the congregation to shape its best practices. Lisa writes a blog about her experiences in Jewish special education: http://jewishspecialneeds.blogspot.com/
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POLITICAL INSIDER
Ted Nugent, Keeping Minorities Out Of The GOP
If you’re a conservative politician courting the votes of bigots and racists, especially in Texas, Ted Nugent is your go-to guy.
 Those good ole pols have been enthusiastically embracing Nugent for years because he draws the kind of crowds Republicans want in the Lone Star State. None of them voiced any objections when he called the president a “subhuman mongrel” and a “chimpanzee” or a communist. Not until it made headlines in the Dallas Morning News this month.
And even then the reaction was muted, sort of “Hey, that’s Ted,” or “I wouldn’t have said it that way myself.”
In a January 17 interview with Guns.com, Nugent called the President of the United States a “"a communist-raised, communist-educated, communist-nurtured, subhuman mongrel" and a “chimpanzee.”
Racists commonly use primate comparisons to refer to blacks. “Communist” is a favorite epithet of wing nuts on the far right.  And “subhuman mongrel” is a term the Nazis used to justify the extermination of the Jews, and the fact that Nugent said that on a gun website takes on added significance. Nugent is an NRA favorite and a gun enthusiast who has called the president a “gangster” and said he should “suck on my machine gun.”
He made these comparisons in January, and they must have impressed Greg Abbott, the Texas attorney general who is running for governor, because Abbot invited Nugent to make at least two campaign appearances with him.  One Republican operative explained that was because Nugent is good at riling up the party's base.
Abbott shrugged off criticism from his likely Democratic opponent, State Sen. Wendy Davis, for campaigning with Nugent until the Dallas Morning News took notice of the “subhuman mongrel” attacks.  After a period of silence, the Abbott campaign said the candidate may not necessarily agree with everything Nugent says but "we appreciate" his support.
When called on his use of a favorite Nazi term, Nugent attacked CNN as Nazi-like and compared himself to a "black Jew" in Nazi Germany.
Nugent didn’t start this stuff last month; he has been spewing this vile for years.  It was so popular with Republican politicians that they courted his support.  Rep. Steve Stockman (R-Texas) invited Nugent to be his guest at last year’s State of the Union Address because he knew it would be a highly visible insult to President Obama.
Sarah Palin is a Nugent fan. She wrote on her Facebook page that if Greg Abbott “is good enough for Ted Nugent, he’s good enough for me!” Politico reported.
Mitt Romney courted Nugent's support in his 2012 presidential campaign but ultimately disavowed his "divisive language," although, said a Romney aide, Nugent's "strident criticism of the president" was appreciated by party activists.
Only after the Dallas Morning News stories appeared did some Republicans begin to take notice.
Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who is reportedly planning to make another run for the GOP presidential nomination, shrugged off Nugent’s comments as “inappropriate,” adding, "Anybody that’s offended – sorry, but that’s just Ted. I mean, the idea that Ted Nugent said something that’s outrageous shouldn’t surprise anyone, he’s been saying outrageous things for a lot of years.”
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), another presidential wannabe, defended Nugent on CNN. He said he might not agree with Nugent’s statements but he would welcome his support and love to have him campaign along side him. When pressed, he added that he didn’t agree with Nugent’s “sentiments” but he’d bet “the president’s Hollywood friends have said some pretty extreme things.”
In the face of such mild rebukes, a reluctant Nugent offered a lame apology – to Abbott, not to the man he insulted.  He told a radio interviewer Friday, “I crossed the line. I do apologize, not necessarily to the President, but on behalf of much better men than myself.” 
That was good enough for Abbott, who offered no regrets or apologies of his own.
Some on the right of the GOP, however, may now recognize how out-of-bounds Nugent is.
One was Sen. Rand Paul, R-Kentucky, another presidential possibility, who said on Twitter, “Ted Nugent's derogatory description of President Obama is offensive and has no place in politics.He should apologize,” CBS reported.
You can debate whether hate speech is protected by the First Amendment, but there should be no place for it in political campaigns, particularly at the high levels of governor, Congress and president, yet that seems to be Nugent’s specialty and the reason so many seek his support.
You can expect Nugent to keep appearing with Republican candidates in Texas and elsewhere because he brings out the crowds, and that says a lot about the mindset of the candidates, the message they want to deliver and what they think of their followers.  And as long as racism, hate, Nazi references and bigotry is condoned, and Republican leaders like Gov. Rick Perry shrug it off with statements like “That’s just Ted,” Jews, Hispanics, blacks and other minorities will keep voting Democratic.
editor@jewishweek.org
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Food & Wine
Persimmon Season Is Upon Us
Blend the sweet fruits into whiskey for an incredible cocktail.
I distinctly remember the first time I tasted a persimmon: I was 19 and visiting Israe l— on a Birthright trip, of course — and for the fifth morning in a row was hitting the breakfast buffet, hard: I had fallen in love with the savory Israeli morning meal, habitually filling up on chopped salad, squares of fresh white cheese, and rounds of warm pita. I had hardly any room left on my plate when I came to the fruit area of the buffet table and spied a bowl of bright-orange, roundish fruits that looked something like an underripe tomato. Taking note of my curiosity, a hotel worker said, “They’re persimmons, and they’re delicious.”
She was right: taking a spoon to the soft, jelly-like flesh, I gulped down my first persimmon: it was honey-sweet and incredibly juicy. Soon afterwards, I ate my second persimmon.
The fruits, which originate in Asia, are extremely popular in the Middle East. Israel is the world’s second-largest exporter of persimmons, which are grown in the Sharon valley under the name Sharon Fruit, and they’re in season from January through March. So get them while they’re hot! The fruits are readily found in gourmet supermarkets, and while they can be pricey —about a dollar apiece — they’re certainly worth it.
Just as I like to eat in season, I also like to drink in season, and I often incorporate my produce into the cocktails I shake up at home. The bright flavor of persimmons is a wonderful match for smooth, bold bourbon: blended into a Technicolor purée and sweetened with a spiced simple syrup, a spoonful or two of persimmon makes an unforgettable Old Fashioned. Just be sure to try it out before March.
Ingredients: 
For the Persimmon Purée:
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup water
Small piece cinnamon stick
2 cardamom pods, lightly crushed
2 medium persimmons, peeled and cut into chunks
For the Old Fashioned:
2 ounces bourbon
2 tablespoons persimmon purée
4-5 generous dashes orange bitters
Orange slice, for garnish
Recipe Steps: 
To make the persimmon purée: begin by making the spiced simple syrup. In a small saucepan, combine sugar, water, cinnamon stick and cardamom pods. Simmer until sugar dissolves; cover and set aside. Add persimmon cubes to a food processor or blender and blend on high. While machine is running, add 5 tablespoons simple syrup.
To mix the drink, fill a cocktail shaker with ice and add bourbon, persimmon purée and bitters. Shake well, then strain into a chilled highball glass. Garnish with orange slice and serve.
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