The New York Jewish Week - Connecting the World to Jewish News, Culture, Features, and Opinions for Friday, 18 July 2014
Dear Reader,Israel is top of mind this week, so please read our homepage for our latest news and analysis of the conflict with Hamas.
http://www.thejewishweek.com/
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That coverage includes a very touching essay, an ode to Israel written from New York, that is one of the most popular items on our website right now.
ALL SHE WROTE
Essay: Israel At War: So Far, So Near
Elicia Brown
Special To The Jewish Week
Elicia Brown
Here in New York City, it can be difficult to wrap one’s mind around the reports we get from Israel — the vicious deaths of four teenagers followed by more death and destruction; parents singing Hebrew lullabies in the bomb shelter of a Jerusalem bookstore; elephants sheltering their young in the Ramat Gan zoo as sirens scream and also the continuity of ordinary life, a mood that one Facebook friend describes as “tense normal.”
But there’s one thing that a few resourceful individuals teach us: Even from across the ocean, it’s not that difficult to do something small but powerful to diminish suffering.
Take Leora Packer. As the rockets rained down all over Israel this past week, Packer, a Long Island native who made aliyah four years ago, launched Operation Pizza Storm, showering the hardest hit regions with crusty pies.
Her missive to the world, posted on Facebook by several of her friends, asked readers to order pizza for the families of southern Israel, where the barrage of attacks has shut down all summer camps. She and her husband Shmuel, who live in a Tel Aviv suburb, had been involved in a similar pizza drive two years ago, during Israel’s Operation Pillar of Defense.
This time, the project drew hundreds of callers from Australia to California. In sometimes-rusty Hebrew, callers stumbled over the script that had been supplied to place orders, with one woman breaking down in tears as her conversation was interrupted twice by sirens. The initiative, ongoing, feeds not only the exhausted, stir-crazy residents of the region, but also supplies income to the owners of pizza shops in these downtrodden areas.
“I wanted to reach the small businesses and simple people,” says Packer, a 25-year-old mother of two, and psychology student at Bar-Ilan University, explaining why she chose to initiate her own effort, rather than focus on a pre-existing program of a major organization. “Also, I realized that it would help people in the U.S. feel less hopeless, like there’s nothing they can do.” (grape-vine.com/offer/GrapeVine_New_York/Operation_Pizza_Storm)
Another individual who hasn’t sat idly by is Noah Greenfield, a new resident of Brooklyn, who is 30, A father of two, he has been ordained as a rabbi by Yeshiva University, and is working toward a law degree from Yale University while also completing a doctorate in religion from the University of California, Berkeley.
Like so many Jews around the world, Greenfield mourned for the four teenage boys murdered this past month. When he learned the tragic news of the deaths of Naftali Fraenkel, Eyal Yifrah and Gil-Ad Shaer, he quickly found an email address to transmit his condolences. When he learned about the loss of Mohammed Abu Khdeir, he thought that a Jewish agency would have made a similar arrangement, but couldn’t find an organized effort to offer sympathies.
“When Mohammad was murdered my wife and I felt very sad, and believed that others would be sad too, and there should be some sort of outlet,” says Greenfield, who has been involved in interfaith dialogue. “We thought about the boys in a similar way to Mohammad.”
Greenfield asked his community of more than 2,000 Facebook friends if anyone could put him in contact with the Abu Khdeir family. Greenfield then called the family, and set up a Gmail account to collect letters, so he could screen the content before delivery.
All the letters have been respectful, and a family member has expressed gratitude for the effort. Greenfield, himself, unfortunately, has received hate mail. Readers can still send condolences to this address: abu.khdeir.family@gmail.com
If the current conflict isn’t resolved soon, two Upper West Side friends, Meredith Berkman and Sarah Sternklar, plan to coordinate another “Moms For Israel” event in August in the eastern end of the Hamptons. The pair has been involved in similar efforts during past Israel crises, but for the first time this summer, their children will be organizers as well. Berkman’s daughter, Noa Mintz, suggested a companion event, “Teens for Israel.”
“As this drags out, a public showing of support becomes more important,” says Berkman, who will invite the local synagogues to participate.
These grassroots events date back to 2006, when Berkman recalls that she and Sternklar couldn’t imagine “just sitting around enjoying our vacations while there was a ground invasion in Lebanon.” With 10 days of planning, that first event attracted 400 people, and Magen David Adom received $250,000 in charitable funds. Berkman, a writer, says, “It was unprecedented for me. I had never raised a dollar in my life.”
Elicia Brown’s column appears the second week of the month. Email: eliciabrown@hotmail.com.
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Another article lots of people are reading is our columnist Tim Boxer's account of a recent awards dinner at which Rabbi Shmuley Boteach saluted Sean Penn for his rescue of Jacob Ostreicher. The actor/director did it because he could, because it was the right thing to do -- not because his father happened to be Jewish, he said in his speech.
TIM BOXER
Shmuley Salutes Sean
Actor/director Penn: saved Ostreicher for moral, not tribal, reasons.
Tim Boxer
Jewish Week Online Columnists
Jacob Ostreicher and Sean Penn. Tim Boxer/JW
Sean Penn, the actor acclaimed by Rabbi Shmuley Boteach as a hero for providing 60,000 people with housing after the devastating Haiti earthquake of 2010, was honored by the rabbi in May for rescuing one Brooklyn Jew from unjust imprisonment in Bolivia.
Boteach honored the two-time Oscar winner at the second annual Champions of Jewish Values gala sponsored by his organization, This World: The Values Network, at Cipriani 42nd St. in Manhattan. The rabbi praised Penn as an actor who “does more humanitarian work than any Hollywood celebrity alive."
Penn noted that innocent people around the globe sit in prisons as political pawns: “They are Israeli, they are Palestinian, they are American, Cuban, Afghani, Pakistani.”
And then there is Jacob “Yanky” Ostreicher, 54, owner of a flooring firm in Brooklyn who invested in a rice farming venture in Bolivia and ended up in an infamous prison.
On a visit to the rice farm in 2011, Ostreicher found that a Colombian woman, managing the enterprise, was skimming cash from the investors. Ostreicher was charged with money laundering. He spent 18 months in a dangerous filthy prison, trying to figure out what happened.
Aleph Institute, a Chabad prison chaplaincy in Surfside, Florida, reached out to Sean Penn to help liberate Ostreicher from captivity.
Penn insisted that his own Jewish connection was not a factor in agreeing to bring hope to Ostreicher, an American Orthodox Jew. (Sean’s father was film director Leo Penn, son of Lithuanian Jewish immigrants. Sean’s mother was Catholic of Irish/Italian heritage.)
He emphasized that he did not act because “my father’s family is Jewish and I’m committed to an insular tribal protection.”
While he feels “a strong embrace of my Irish/Italian roots, and my Lithuanian roots and my patriotism as an American,” he acted because Ostreicher was one of “those political among the human brotherhood trapped where I had some regional access and we are obligated to move hopelessness to hope.”
Penn saw Ostreicher as a man “railroaded by a corrupt Bolivian judiciary."
Due to his ties to the late Venezuela President Hugo Chavez, Penn was able to meet with Bolivian President Evo Morales and arrange for Ostreicher to be transferred to house arrest in Santa Cruz. From there it became a covert operation to spirit the man out of the country.
Ostreicher revealed some details at the New York awards dinner, saying that after he landed on American soil, Penn “put me up in a 5-star hotel and then brought me into his home, gave me a warm bed and a refrigerator stocked with kosher food. He sat with me for hours, sometimes all night. He gave me his white shirt, black suit and black shoes. He even took me to synagogue and sat by my side as I attended Friday night prayer services for the first time in three years.”
Boteach presented the Champion of Jewish Justice Award to Penn, saying that while he disagrees with Penn on other issues, what he did for Ostreicher “blew my mind and in the spirit of gratitude, I must acknowledge it.”
Boteach’s organization also presented Champion of Jewish Values awards to Ron Dermer, Israeli ambassador to the U.S.; Cory A. Booker, U.S. senator from New Jersey; philanthropists Judy and Michael Steinhardt and human rights activist John Prendergast.
Among the guests were New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, Texas Governor Rick Perry, Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel, women’s activist Ayaan Hirsi Ali and law professor Alan Dershowitz.
“Why did I help Jacob Ostreicher? Because it [was] the right thing to do," Penn said.
Tim Boxer was a columnist at the New York Post for two decades. Currently he has been writing a column for The New York Jewish Week for 35 years and is a writer-photographer at 15MinutesMagazine.com for 16 years. He is the author of “Jewish Celebrity Hall of Fame,” interviews of Hollywood stars about their Jewish roots.
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Shabbat Shalom to everyone,
Helen Chernikoff
Web Director
The Arts
The Music Of Spanish ExileIn her N.Y. debut, a Catalan singer and lutenist moves from Sephardic songs to John Donne. by George Robinson, Special To The Jewish Week
Clara Sanabras knows something about exile. The thirty-something Catalan singer was born in France, raised in Barcelona and for the past 20 years has lived in London. Her family history is so complicated that even she finds it a bit amusing. Her career path has had enough unlikely turns for an entire music festival.
So it is appropriate that her new album and her American performing debut on July 20 should have as their shared theme Spanish songs of exile, drawing on everything from Catalan to Ladino, from John Donne to her own great-grandfather.
“When I reflect on the songs on this album, on the history behind them, it makes me value the fact that I’ve had a choice about where I live,” Sanabras said last week in a telephone interview from her home in Stoke Newington. “I’ve always embraced whatever place I was in, and I’ve always been a hybrid. The exiles I’m singing about didn’t have a choice.”
It was music that brought her to London, a young classical pianist looking to study early music.
“When I hear early polyphony, that’s where my heart is at,” she confessed. “I’ve always been obsessed with medieval and baroque music, and that’s what brought me to London, because people told me that if I wanted to study early music, this was the place to go.”
It was that fascination that led her to learn to play the lute and then a succession of other period instruments, which, in turn, led her to Arabic music, which led her to a wide range of folk music, which led her to songwriting, which ... you get the idea.
“It’s kind of schizo, but very fruitful,” Sanabras said laughing.
Her speaking voice, like her singing voice, is rich and dark, her accent a beguiling mix of Stoke Newington and Catalonia.
The spark for the new album was a gift from her mother, a book of poems by the Catalan poet Joan Llongueras, Clara’s great-grandfather.
“I opened it to the first page and there was a line that gave me the title of the song and the album, ‘Scattered Flight,’ ‘el vol dispers.’”
“To me that is a universal image,” Sanabras said quietly. “I had learned a lot about exile from Spain here in England — more than I could learn in Spain, because it wasn’t censored in England.”
She learned Sephardic songs from a close friend, a Moroccan Jew. The Catalan songs were in her blood. She wanted to pay homage to Ernest Hemingway and was grabbed by the phrase that he took as the title of his novel of the Spanish Civil War, “For Whom the Bell Tolls.”
“I hadn’t realized until I looked it up that the title actually came from John Donne,” she said. “But Donne’s words say it all, so I sat down and set it to music.”
Asked if there is something in Spanish history or culture that seems to engender a particular need for exile, she paused.
She then refers to the legendary period of peaceful coexistence in which Jews, Muslims and Christians lived together on the Iberian Peninsula in relative harmony and intellectual ferment.
“I think that this era has been romanticized a bit, but you had the biggest minds of Europe living together and learning from each other,” Sanabras said. “Then it was all destroyed by the Catholic Church and the Crown.”
She feels a particular affinity for the songs of the Sephardic diaspora. “They are mathematically perfect; they conjure up the harmony of the stars,” she said.
Her family bloodlines are not only Catalan; she counts among her many forebears Roma and Sinti and even Sioux. She doesn’t know of any specific Jewish ancestors but suspects that, given the workings of Spanish history there probably are some.
“If they are there, they would have converted during the time of the Inquisition,” Sanabras speculates. “My grandmother looked extremely Jewish, and she didn’t know for sure the family roots, when they became Catholic.”
At least one prominent Jewish author must have had a similar suspicion. When he began work on his BBC television series “The Story of the Jews,” Simon Schama and his musical director invited Sanabras to provide songs for the program’s soundtrack.
“It was serendipitous,” she says. “Simon had been at work on the project on and off for many years and I had worked with his musical director before. They wanted music to illustrate the history and I was particularly happy with the medieval episodes.”
As for “El Vol Dispers,” Sanabras says the album, although designed to focus on the more intimate aspects of exile rather than the political ones, has a clear message.
“I want this music to carry a message of hope,” she says. “A message that life is enhanced by solidarity and coexistence.”
Clara Sanabras will make her American debut on Sunday, July 20 at Joe’s Pub (425 Lafayette St.) at 7 p.m. For information go to http://joespub.publictheater.org. Her album “El Vol Dispers (Scattered Flight): Songs of Spanish Exile” is released on the Smudged Discs label.
Blogs
THE POLITICAL INSIDER | THE ROSENBLOG | THE NEW NORMAL | A COMIC'S JOURNEY | WELL VERSED
THE NEW NORMAL
New Camp Program Provides Supports For Boys Who Are Deaf by Rabbi Yehoshua Soudakoff
It was everywhere. Madrid, Paris, New York, Moscow - everyone was watching. I’m talking about the FIFA World Cup, of course. According to statistics, a full 1/9 of the planet watches the proceedings of this tournament. We’re talking here about hundreds of millions of people. From distant corners of the globe, people watch the same ball bouncing on the screen and cheer for their favorite teams.
Well, there's another global event coming up, though not on the scale of the World Cup. Next month, boys are flying in from Israel, from Russia, from Germany and from all over the United States to New York City. What for, you ask? To participate in a Jewish camp. For many of them, it will be their very first time living and experiencing Judaism among their peers.
I am proud to be behind the planning of this unique program for Jewish deaf boys between 8-16 years old.
For too long, there been an unfilled gap in the area of Jewish camp for deaf boys the world over. Of course, there are Jewish summer camp programs in Los Angeles, New York City, Jerusalem, Moscow, and many other exotic locations. But what has been missing is a program that addresses the distinct needs of children who are deaf. For people like myself, our primary mode of communication is in sign language. When such children participate in a mainstream camp, they lose out, communication-wise. They have no idea what is going on, and they have a hard time developing friendships with the other children. Perhaps this explains why very, very few Deaf children attend a Jewish camp.
This year, Camp L’man Achai in upstate New York, will serve as the home base for our Jewish Deaf camp project from August 7 through 18. Our program will run alongside their regular camp session. However, we will balance out the program with our own Deaf counselors and sign language interpreters. For most of the day, the children - hearing and deaf - will play together. But when it comes to activities that depend heavily on listening, like a concert, for example, or storytelling around the campfire, we will have a parallel activity for the Deaf children to participate in and enjoy. As the boys will be communicating in different sign languages (including American Sign Language, Israeli Sign Language, and Russian Sign Language), it will be a fun task to find some common ground. The truth is, though, language barriers are no match for the language of the heart. There will be plenty of brotherly love to go around at our camp, especially due to our shared Jewish deaf background.
This year, we are already expecting around 15 boys. I am in constant touch with them and their families, and they are so excited for camp. I don’t know about you, but when a child is excited about something Jewish, I think it is a great sign. Too often, Jewish children grow up into Jewish adults who have a negative perspective on Judaism because of their less-than-ideal childhood experiences with Jewish things. Whatever the reason, it is of obvious importance that we make a positive impact on our children during the crucial period of growth and development of one’s identity. Our camp, which will be chock-fulll of exciting activities and enriching Jewish lessons, promises to do just that.
And yes, we will be playing soccer at camp too.
To find out more about our deaf summer camp program, please contact Rabbi Yehoshua Soudakoff at yehoshua@camplmanachai.com.
Editor's Note: The hope is to create a parallel program for girls for next year.
Rabbi Soudakoff is a well-known figure in the Jewish Deaf community, and the executive director of a newly-formed nonprofit, The Jewish Deaf Foundation. Despite his deafness, he earned a rabbinical smicha degree from Yeshivas Tomchei Temimim Lubavitch - Chovevei Torah in Brooklyn, NY. He lives in Brooklyn and travels extensively to varied locales such as Moscow, Toronto, and Washington, D.C. He also serves on the board of the Jewish Deaf Congress, a national organization for Deaf Jews. One of his earliest projects for the Jewish Deaf community is the Jewish Deaf Multimedia educational website.
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WELL VERSED
Punk Rock Pioneer 'Tommy Ramone' Passes Away At Age 65 by Gabriela Geselowitz
Tommy Ramone. Wikipedia
The drummer known as Tommy Ramone passed away on Friday due to bile duct cancer. Though he was only 65, he was the last living original member of the Ramones, and instrumental in the creation of punk rock as a musical genre.
Tommy was born Erdélyi Tamás in Budapest to two Holocaust survivors; the couple had hidden with neighbors for the duration of the war. The Erdélyi family immigrated to the United States when Tamás was four.
Two of the four Ramone boys from Queens were Jewish: in addition to Tommy, front-man Joey was born Jeffrey Hyman. The group formed at Forest Hills High School. Like later additions to the group, they all took on the last name Ramone, a name none of them had at birth, and one that certainly didn't sound typically Jewish.
As part of the band's early boundary-pushing that would become typical of punk, the Ramones often featured Nazi references and imagery in their music (think "Blitzkrieg Bop"). But here the difference between Tommy and Joey and the gentile half of the band Johnny and Dee-Dee became acute: the latter two were both obsessed with Nazi imagery and paraphernalia in a way that transcended the band's image; Johnny was even said to have a portrait of Hitler above his fireplace.
"Growing up with a fear of the Holocaust, being with Johnny and Dee Dee was like living with danger," Tommy once told author Steven Lee Beeber. "There might have been an element of that -- just as there was in my attraction to rock 'n' roll. It could have been that I was rebelling by hanging with them."
Food & Wine
Get DevilishPunched up with fried onions and lox, deviled eggs will be the hit of your next picnic or brunch.
Deviled eggs have gotten a bit of a bad rap over the past few years. They're often seen as dated or retro. And eggs have certainly been demonized for their cholesterol levels (though the science of that is questionable). Well I'm here to bring deviled eggs back to every barbecue, brunch, picnic and Shabbat meal you host. But not the boring old kind. My version gets a flavor boost from fried onions mixed right into the yolks, and a splash of color and fun from tiny strips of lox laid on top. The perfect appetizer, with just a little bit of Satan in them.
Amy Spiro is a journalist and writer based in Jerusalem. She is a graduate of the Jerusalem Culinary Institute's baking and pastry track, a regular writer for The Jerusalem Post and blogs at bakingandmistaking.com. She also holds a BA in Journalism and Politics from NYU.
Hide Servings & Times
Yield:
Serves 8
Active Time:
30 min
Total Time:
30 min
Hide Ingredients
8 hardboiled eggs
1 small onion
1 tablespoon canola oil
1/4 cup mayonnaise
Salt and pepper to taste
About 2 ounces lox, cut into thin strips
Hide Steps
Peel the hardboiled eggs and set aside.
Dice the onion into very, very fine pieces. Heat the oil in a pan over medium heat. Add the onion and stir, cooking for 20-30 minutes until nicely browned. Do not allow to burn.
Gently slice each of the eggs in half lengthwise and pop out the yolks. Mash the yolks with a fork, or for a very fine texture, press them through a wire sieve.
Mix the yolks with the mayonnaise and fried onions and season with salt and pepper to taste.
Pipe or spoon the mixture evenly among the egg white boats. Top with thin strips of lox immediately before serving.
Hide Recipe By
Amy Spiro
Jewish Week Online Columnist
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Featured Video
Red Alert: Israel App
Israelis have 15 seconds to get to a bomb shelter once a siren is sounded. Video blogger Aaron Herman speaks with a developer of the Red Alert app, which provides a visual warning to back up the aural system.
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