Wednesday, August 26, 2015
Dear Reader,
Rep. Jerrold Nadler has expressed shock at what he calls "the vicious nature of the opposition" regarding his decision to support the Iran agreement. The Democrat, who is believed to represent more Jews than any other member of Congress, spoke to Staff Writer Stew Ain about his decision as bitterness over the agreement continues.National
Nadler’s Iran Vote Unleashes Vitriol
Congressman stunned by personal nature of reaction; House members come to his defense.
Stewart Ain
Staff Writer
“I never expected the vicious nature of the opposition,” Nadler told The Jewish Week Monday. Getty Images
Rep. Jerrold Nadler knew that his announced support last Friday of the Iranian nuclear agreement would trigger an angry response from opponents of the deal.
But he was stunned by stridency and personal nature of the attacks.
“I never expected the vicious nature of the opposition,” he told The Jewish Week. “It’s one thing to be told you are wrong, it’s another to say you know you are wrong and that you are doing it for terrible motives. … People are entitled to their views, but what bothers me is that people are saying, ‘You betrayed us.’ I have been a supporter of Israel all my life. This is my decision and I think it is best for the U.S. and Israel. I could be right or wrong, but to conclude that anybody who supports the deal is opposed to the Jewish people and Israel’s welfare is absurd.”
Nadler explained his decision in a nearly 5,200-word essay on his website. “After carefully studying the agreement and the arguments and analyses from all sides,” he wrote, “I have concluded that, of all the alternatives, approval of the JCPOA, for all its flaws, gives us the best chance of stopping Iran from developing a nuclear weapon.”
And in a 45-minute interview Monday with The Jewish Week, he went through the agreement in great detail. He insisted that although the agreement lifts all restrictions on Iran’s ability to develop a nuclear weapon in just 15 years, the world “would be no better off then than we are now without the deal.”
And in the meantime, Nadler stressed, the deal would increase from three months to 15 months the amount of time it would take for Iran to have a sufficient supply of fissile material to make one bomb. And for the next 15 years there are “air-tight assurances they can’t get a bomb,” he said, referring to the inspection and monitoring system the agreement puts in place.
Many of the personal attacks against Nadler, the only Jewish Democratic House member in the state to support the deal, can be found on Facebook, Twitter, various blogs, radio talk shows and opinion pieces. One writer said flatly that Nadler has “endangered the existence of the State of Israel and has disappointed the Jewish community.” Another referred to him as a “kappo,” a reference to the Jews who worked on behalf of Nazis in the concentration camp. A third called him “a True Traitor to your people and the USA,” and still another wrote that “The blood of Jews and Israel are on your hands.”
Zev Brenner’s call-in radio program on WMCA last weekend — which has a largely Orthodox following — devoted the entire hour to a discussion about Nadler’s decision. Brenner said there were so many calls and emails that he couldn’t get to them all and that all opposed Nadler’s decision.
“People in general were very upset,” he said later. “People view the deal as dangerous not only for Israel but for America. The opposition cuts across geographic areas. ... The phones were crazy — this is a very hot topic that people are passionate about.”
One of the studio guests, Mark Meir Appel, a social activist, said Nadler’s “decision was all about politics because he wanted to satisfy his constituency on the Upper West Side, which is liberal left-wing. … I believe very strongly that Congressman Jerry Nadler … betrayed us viciously and his entire record of what he did for the Jewish community goes out the window.”
The rhetoric has been so over the top that other members of the New York congressional delegation issued a statement Tuesday denouncing the vitriol. Signed by Democratic Reps. Eliot Engel, Nita Lowey and Steve Israel, it expresses concern that “both sides of the debate have resorted to ad hominem attacks and threats against those who don’t share their opinions. This is unacceptable. It is especially egregious to attribute malicious intent to decision makers who are thoughtfully debating the details and effects of the agreement. No matter where you stand on the Iran deal, comparisons to the Holocaust, the darkest chapter in human history, questioning the credentials of long-standing advocates for Israel, and accusations of dual loyalty are inappropriate.”
It added that all concerned should “refrain from attacks and focus on the substance of the agreement. Vitriolic rhetoric and threats distract from the thoughtful debate this important issue deserves and, in some cases, unacceptably perpetuate hate.”
Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), who has announced his opposition to the Iranian nuclear agreement, issued his own statement calling Nadler “one of the most steadfast supporters of Israel’s security.”
“We came to different conclusions on this decision of conscience, but to question one's loyalty to this nation or one's commitment to the security of Israel, our closest ally in the region, based on how one comes out on this issue is just absurd," he said.
A letter denouncing the personal attacks was sent to Nadler Wednesday by the chairman of the National Jewish Democratic Council, Greg Rosenbaum, in which he said “neither you nor any other elected officials should be subjected to any sort of personal threats or hateful attacks due to your votes."
“None of us are traitors; we have not betrayed our country, our people or our love of Israel," he added. "We are all allowed to have our own beliefs and our own convictions, and you and your fellow members of Congress should be applauded for your courage, rather than attacked for it.”
In an interview, Engel said that over the years controversial legislation has sparked angry calls from people “who say abusive things. And there are always some people – mostly from out of state – who say anti-Semitic things and crazy things. But the intensity this time is different. … It is coming from a few hotheads and people who are very emotional, and it obviously cannot be condoned. I wish people would realize we are human beings as well and make our decisions based on a lot of factors. If you don’t agree, you can show it at the ballot box.”
Abraham Foxman, national director emeritus of the Anti-Defamation League, sent an email to Nadler saying that although he disagreed with his decision, he admires Nadler’s “dedication, devotion and support for Israel and the Jewish people and the values our country stands for. You don’t deserve what is being thrown at you.”
Nadler represents the 10th Congressional District, which stretches from Manhattan’s Upper West Side to Greenwich Village and Battery Park City, and into Brooklyn and parts of Borough Park, Sunset Park and Gravesend. It is the district with the largest number of Jews in the U.S., and they represent a microcosm of the American Jewish community — from the liberal to the ultra-Orthodox, the latter of whom are almost universally against the Iranian deal.
The split in the community over the deal played out this week in the pages of this newspaper, and in stark ways. One full-page ad (on page 13), sponsored by American Parents & Grandparents Against the Iranian Deal, showed the Iranian and Israeli flags, with a bolt of lightning striking the Israeli flag. Its text, in part, reads: “Jerry Nadler represents more Jews than any other Congressman — He Claims To Be Pro-Israel So Why Is He Backing Obama And Iran?”
Another full-page ad (page 2), sponsored by the No Nukes for Iran Project, reads in part, “Todah Rabah [Thank You], Congressman Jerry Nadler. Thank you for leading the way to prevent a nuclear armed Iran. Kol Hakavod! [Well Done].”
Nadler’s stance on the Iranian deal has also rattled other elected representatives who serve his district. Councilman David Greenfield wrote on Facebook that Nadler is acting “against the overwhelming wishes of his Jewish constituency.”
(A spokesman for Nadler’s office said constituents are evenly divided on the issue, based upon phone calls and emails to his office.)
Assemblyman Dov Hikind, a Democrat who lives in Nadler’s district, told The Jewish Week: “I’m embarrassed that he represents me.”
He noted that shortly before announcing his support for the deal —known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) — Nadler released a letter he received from President Barack Obama that sought to reassure him about the concerns Nadler had raised during a private White House meeting.
“That letter was a joke – it was meaningless,” Hikind said. “I could just see Obama going back to the White House and saying, ‘Look at that stupid Jew.’ Obama bought him so cheap.”
Hikind said he is planning a demonstration this week in front of Nadler’s Manhattan office with about a dozen Holocaust survivors who will speak about the similarities today with what they experienced just during prior to the Holocaust.
At the same time, another group will stage a “Thank You Rep. Nadler” rally.
Competing groups have also announced demonstrations outside the offices of two local Democratic members of Congress who have yet to announce their position on the Iran deal: Reps. Carolyn Maloney and Gregory Meeks. And a rally is planned for next Tuesday outside the Manhattan office of Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y) to protest her decision to support the deal.
Hikind said he is convinced that Nadler “will have a tough time getting re-elected next year because this is such a powerful issue.”
Attempts are now reportedly underway to find a candidate to challenge Nadler in a primary. But veteran Democratic strategist Hank Scheinkopf said trying to unseat Nadler — who has served in the House since 1992 after 12 years in the Assembly — would not be easy.
“This is a test of whether the Nadler old-style liberal Jewish theology is more powerful than the newly arriving Israel-supporting Orthodox community,” he explained. “The anger over the vote is not going to dissipate quickly, and the more pro-Israel portion of his community has both the resources and the time to put together candidates. They may not beat him but they would injure him.”
Nadler told The Jewish Week that Obama’s letter about the agreement — which he said he would have voted for even without the missive — “took care of three of the four issues” he had expressed concerns about when he met Obama. The first was Obama’s commitment in writing that the U.S. would never permit Iran to have a nuclear weapon. Second, a promise that mid-level Iranian violations of the deal would be met by “smaller sanctions.” And third, that a “czar or ambassador would be put in charge of implementing the agreement and watching for violations.”
Although Nadler said he was unhappy that the deal bars international monitors from personally inspecting the Parchin military complex, Nadler said the site is believed to have been used to weaponize a nuclear bomb and “without fissile material, building a bomb is irrelevant.”
Asked about the deal’s unfreezing of billions of dollars Iran earned in oil sales and the fact that money could be used to further Iran’s terrorist activities, Nadler said the money would be unfrozen even without American support for the deal.
“We realize Iran may use some of the money for terrorism, but we will substantially increase military aid to Israel,” he said. “This deal is designed to stop Iran from getting a nuclear bomb — it doesn’t deal with the other menacing aspects of Iran. … I was shouting about the threat from Iran before other people were. But an Iran without a nuclear weapon is much less of a threat than an Iran with a nuclear weapon. It is an existential threat to Israel … and with a nuclear bomb in its arsenal, it can inhibit a lot of responses and make terrorism a much greater menace.”
stewart@jewishweek.orgWhen Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans 10 years ago, the Houston community played a major role of support. Now, after Houston's Memorial Day flood, the New Orleans community is returning the favor. Staff Writer Steve Lipman reports from Houston.
National
The Tides That Bind
Ten years after Katrina, the Jews of New Orleans and Houston remain bound by a flood of emotion and caring.
Steve Lipman
Staff Writer
New Orleans’ Congregation Beth Israel. Courtesy of Beth Israel
Houston — Ten years ago this week, with Hurricane Katrina barreling toward them, several thousand Jews from New Orleans set out on I-10 to escape the storm. They headed west, passing Baton Rouge, then Lafayette, in the heart of the Louisiana bayou, then Lake Charles, and on across the Texas line through Beaumont and the lyrically named Mont Belvieu.
They were headed for higher ground, and sanctuary, in Houston. The ribbon of highway was a lifeline, 350 miles from ruin to rescue.
ewish Houston, home to about 40,000 generous souls, opened its doors to the many Jews fleeing New Orleans. It was the start of a process that irrevocably changed both communities over these 10 years, and bound them in a SPECIAL way, even as New Orleans — both the Jewish community and the wider city — has rebounded in the last decade.
Josh Pershell was 8 years old when his family pulled onto I-10 bound for Houston. Their house, they would later learn, was “completely flooded.” Houston would now be home. “Everyone was very welcoming and supportive,” Pershell, now 18, told The Jewish Week in a recent interview.
After Katrina, Houston Jewry offered housing and office space, moral support and counseling, free synagogue membership and day school enrollment, money and prayer books and other religious supplies for the New Orleans evacuees, several hundred of whom ended, ACCORDING to estimates, ended up making Houston their home.
And then, nearly 10 years later, the high water came to Houston, on Memorial Day 2015 — 11 inches of rain in a matter of a few hours, 2,000 buildings destroyed, some of the worst flooding in the city’s history. The damage was heavy in the heart of Houston’s Jewish neighborhood, Meyerland, along Brays Bayou, home to many of its institutions.
The Jews of New Orleans — current and former ones — were among the first to reach out to the Texas city that had given them refuge. For survivors of Katrina, it was déjà vu — images from Houston of flooded buildings, of people wading in waist-deep water, of stranded individuals being rescued by rowboat.
Returning the favor done to him, Josh Pershell, a recent graduate of Houston’s Beren Academy, a Jewish day school, volunteered to help flood-battered families after the Memorial Day deluge. Along with other volunteers, he carried furniture and other ruined items out of homes, and helped people pack their intact belongings.
“I did it because I felt it was the right thing to do, and the rest of my school and my friends were doing it also,” Pershell said.
♦That the Jews of New Orleans were in a position to have lent a hand after the Houston flooding is an indication of how far the community has come since Katrina hit. In the wake of the Category 5 hurricane, the Jewish population of New Orleans plummeted by more than a third, from 9,500 to 6,000. Today, it’s 10,300. (Buoyed by a network of strengthened levees and wetlands, the city as a whole, which initially lost about 40 percent of its population of nearly 500,000, has grown to 384,000 as of March; yet Louisiana has more young people not in school or working than any state in the nation, a direct result, researchers say, of Katrina.) The local Jewish federation’s annual fundraising campaign, which took a small hit in the wake of the hurricane, has nearly reached the pre-2005 figure of $2.8 million; several Jewish institutions, which suffered heavy damage in the waters of Katrina, are located in new buildings.
“Ten years later we’re now stronger than we were before the storm,” said Bradley Bain, president of Congregation Beth Israel, a Modern Orthodox synagogue that moved into a new building two years ago, after being hosted for several years at a New Orleans Reform temple, Congregation Gates of Prayer in the suburb of Metairie.
“We’re very much a better place,” said Michael Weil, executive director of New Orleans’ Jewish federation, who helped coordinate the community-wide recovery effort, which included a campaign to attract new residents. In a telephone interview, he said Jewish New Orleans has moved beyond its initial recovery and rebuilding stages. “We’re actually rejuvenating. It’s a different world now. The community feels good about itself.”
The wider city “has become an incubator for entrepreneurship,” especially in the arts and the restaurant business, Weil said. “The Jewish community has been at the forefront of that.”
The people who left were mostly young families, who needed schools for their children; and senior citizens, who lost their homes, and lacked the resources or strength to rebuild. The people who have come are mostly young professionals, many of them single. “The new Jewish New Orleans is actually younger, in age profile, than before,” Brandeis history professor Jonathan Sarna said.
The Jewish federation’s high-visibility newcomers program, which offered a variety of financial incentives to people who moved to New Orleans, played a role, though perhaps not a crucial one, in their decision, Weil said. Instead, the city itself, its image as a vibrant place, has served as the main draw. The local economy is healthy, jobs are available. And housing, while not inexpensive, is affordable. “It’s a lot cheaper than New York City, Washington or places like that,” he said.
Weil pointed to several signs of new Jewish life in New Orleans: a Moishe House, an expanded Limmud educational program, a new Hillel House and Chabad Center at Tulane University, a new Chabad day school, an expanded JCC Uptown site and Beth Israel’s new building.
As the Aug. 29 anniversary nears, New Orleans’ synagogues are marking the decade of struggle and resilience by hosting several commemorative events that will culminate in prayer services on the weekend of the anniversary. And in a sign of the giving-back spirit, the New Orleans federation is coordinating TikkuNola volunteer work that features such activities as collecting and distributing school supplies for charter school students.
♦A few days before Katrina struck, two leaders of the New Orleans-based Jewish Children’s Regional Service, a social work agency and charitable fund that serves seven Southern states, traveled I-10 to Houston to set up a satellite office.
Led by executive director Ned Goldberg and education coordinator Melanie Musser, a small staff of displaced JCRS staffers continued to offer their services, which included personal counseling, advice on obtaining government benefits, and scholarship assistance for universities and summer camps, to New Orleans evacuees. A small JCRS satellite office remains in the JFS headquarters here; after Katrina, the agency’s client base grew by more than 50 percent.
And Goldberg, who again works fulltime in New Orleans after nearly a year in Houston, came back here recently to give back. About a month after the Houston flooding, which took place a few days before the start of the official hurricane season, Goldberg was back on I-10, this time with a carload of new and gently used Judaica, books and games for flood victims that the agency had collected from its supporters.
“Katrina families were the first to volunteer” to help Houston, said Pat Pollicoff, president of Houston’s Congregation Beth Israel, which suffered heavy water damage on Memorial Day. “They understood.”
A fundraising campaign under the auspices of the New Orleans Jewish federation, which included “dollar-for-dollar matches” for Houston Jewry from several donors, had raised “$27,470 from donors throughout the state … matched by the Goldring Family and Woldenberg foundations … for a total of $52,470,” the federation reported earlier this month.
“Katrina had a long-term effect on both New Orleans and Houston, creating a unique bond between the people of our two cities,” said Lee Wunsch, CEO of the Jewish Federation of Greater Houston.
Post-Katrina, the Jewish community of Houston was “amazing,” Weil said. “They gave us everything. Everyone was aware of the help Houston gave us.”
“The close relationship with Houston is mutually beneficial,” said Brandeis’ Sarna. “Through the years there have been Jewish communities that have closely assisted one another. Baltimore and Philadelphia have historically been intertwined. In early America, Shearith Israel [in Manhattan] helped various congregations get their start and would then, later, write to them for assistance.”
♦Houston will likely need the continued help, from New Orleanians as well as others.
Wunsch called the flooding the costliest in the Jewish community’s history. “It will take 18-24 months before things get back to normal,” he said. “The price tag for this is very significant. We’ve estimated the cost … at $3.5 million.”
Wunsch estimated that 500 Jewish families here “had their homes compromised … half will need some kind of community support.”
“Every synagogue has families affected by the flood,” he told New Orleans’ Crescent City Jewish News.
Leading the financial support of the federation’s Houston Flood Relief Fund was the Jewish Federations of North America, which made a $250,000 donation.
The buildings that sustained the most damage were those of three congregations — Beth Israel, United Orthodox Synagogues, and the Meyerland Minyan — the teen building of the Jewish Community Center, and the JCC’s racquetball courts and toddler gym. They are in various stages of rebuilding and renovation; the affected synagogues, with the approach of the High Holy Days season, are holding worship services in mold-free, repaired rooms, some using texts donated by New Orleans congregations.
Drive through Meyerland and you see storage units in front of many homes, yellow building permits in many windows.
Active in the post-flood volunteer activities here are Chabad Lubavitch of Houston, Congregation Yeshurun, the national NECHAMA and All Hands organizations, the Dallas-based Texas Torah Institute educational program, and Boy Scout Troop 806, sponsored by the Beth Israel Brotherhood. Several synagogues offered free community-wide barbecues and dinners, and the JCC ran a series of workshops about receiving government benefits, concerts and films.
JFS is still counseling people traumatized by the flooding, and offering a weekly support group, said Linda Burger, the group’s executive director. New faces show up each week, she said.
After the flood, JFS staffers set up a table at the popular Three Brothers kosher bakery, which gave out free challah rolls to flood victims.
The New Orleans JFS offered practical advice in such areas as case management and setting up an effective online communications system, Burger said. “We were very prepared. Katrina taught us not to be afraid to ask for help.”
Members of Houston’s Jewish community who had generously come to the aid of New Orleans a decade ago found themselves in an unfamiliar situation this summer, Burger said. “People said it’s a lot better to be on the giving side than on the receiving side.”
“It’s much easier to give the help,” echoed Beth El’s Pollicoff.
“It’s a humbling thing” to need help — “very humbling,” she said, adding praise for the Jewish community of New Orleans. “It’s tremendous to know we have their emotional support.”
steve@jewishweek.org
Despite denials from Jerusalem, Contributing Editor Nathan Jeffay writes that Israel appears to be holding secret talks with Hamas, and he explains why that makes sense.
Letter From Israel
Could Talks With Hamas Lead Anywhere?
A year after the Gaza war, a possibility fraught with problems.
Nathan Jeffay
Contributing Editor
Peace envoy Tony Blair. Getty Images
Despite the strong denials from Jerusalem, reports of CONTACTS between Israel and Hamas over a possible cease-fire refuse to die. In fact, it seems more and more certain that Tony Blair has been acting as a go-between and trying to close a 10-year cessation of hostilities, which would bring quiet to Israel’s border with the Gaza Strip.
It all adds up. Blair, former British prime minister, was not allowed to meet with Hamas during his tenure as the Quartet’s Middle East envoy, which ended with his resignation in May. Now he can, and is understood to be optimistic about the chances of taming Hamas, probably by way of a discrete agreement with Israel. It seems likely that there are also other channels in addition to Blair. As for Jerusalem’s denials, these are par for the course and a political necessity, whatever the reality.
It’s unclear whether talks can lead anywhere and whether, even if they did, Hamas leadership would stick to an agreement instead of breaking it when they felt like it, citing some alleged Israeli transgression. Nevertheless, it’s quite conceivable that there is some interest in an agreement — after all, a year on from the conflict with Israel which left Gaza in chaos, Hamas is interested in ways to improve life in Gaza and in so doing cementing its hold on the territory.
As families in Israel have just marked first year anniversaries of relations who died in last year’s Gaza conflict, the prospect of a calm southern border is extremely tempting. A 10-year truce, if observed, could prevent several rounds of fighting between Israel and Hamas, and allow thousands of children in Israel’s south to get through almost an entire school career without lessons punctuated by the dash to bomb shelters. But one can’t talk about Gaza-based Hamas without considering the political echelon in the West BANK.
As the REPORTS buzz of indirect contacts between Israel and Hamas, there is sense of upheaval among Hamas’ Palestinian rivals — the more moderate camp based in the West Bank.
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas is resigning his post as head of the Palestine Liberation Organization’s executive committee. It’s easy to be blasé about resignations in Ramallah — I covered the resignation of chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat in 2011, but he’s still in his post today. Threats of resignation among senior officials are repeatedly aired to make a point, whether internally or with an eye to the international community.
Abbas’ resignation from the PLO, the official representative of all Palestinians, may well be an internal political ploy, or an attempt to actually bolster his power in the organization through new elections. However, it is more than just inside baseball — it highlights the instability that EXISTS in Ramallah institutions. The PLO’s executive body hasn’t met for some six years, and the entire PLO is a shadow of its former self. Meanwhile, Abbas’ legitimacy as Palestinian president — he was elected for a four-year term in 2005 and new elections haven’t been held since — is in question.
Israelis look at the Palestinian instability and reflect that it’s nothing new, that there are always internal crises in Ramallah, and that Abbas’ position has been in question almost since the day he took office. But it’s widely presumed that if Abbas and the more moderate Palestinian camp haven’t lost or surrendered their power until now, and if they are still maintaining security to a large extent and keeping the door open, at least theoretically, to peace talks, this will continue to be the case.
However, Abbas is 80 years old and not poised to stay in his post forever. He also has serious image and popularity problems among the Palestinian public. And with talks for a two-state solution stalled he has difficulties asserting the relevance of his path compared to more militant options. Israelis shouldn’t take the fact that Abbas, or somebody with Abbas’ broad approach, is the main representative of the Palestinians, for granted. And while his conduct can be deeply problematic, they shouldn’t forget that he is better than virtually any alternative.
If Israel moves forward on a cease-fire arrangement with Hamas, leading to easier conditions in Gaza, it will pull the rug out from under Abbas and his camp. It will be handing Hamas, based on the leveraging of violence, a reward that has not been granted to Abbas’ camp based on the leveraging of diplomatic channels. And it would be doing so for a second time, after freeing more than 1,000 Palestinian security prisoners in 2011 in return for Hamas’ prize captive, Gilad Shalit. It would be sending a message to Palestinians that “resistance” can achieve what negotiations can’t, and further weaken moderates.
An agreement with Hamas would in a sense be rubber-stamping the group’s rule of the Gaza Strip, which it took violently from Abbas’ Palestinian Authority — and in so doing make it even harder than it is now for Abbas to negotiate with Israel over the future of both Gaza and the West Bank.
There is a certain attraction, given the current Israeli government, with its rightist tendencies, in a deal with Hamas. It would not require handing over any territory, but rather just a set of concessions regarding life in Gaza. And violation by Hamas could be answered with simple force. But turning Abbas and his camp into an irrelevance, and buoying militant Hamas, would be irresponsible.
If, on the other hand, Israel can craft a deal with Hamas and then, before signing, use this to push Abbas’ camp into saving itself by signing a comprehensive peace agreement that subsumes an Israel-Hamas agreement, that would be a stroke of genius.
Nathan Jeffay’s column appears twice a month.Also this issue, Natalie Portman gets mixed reviews on her Holocaust-related statements; Associate Editor Jonathan Mark on the centennial of the lynching of Leo Frank, who is buried in Queens; and Culture Editor Sandee Brawarsky on "An Improbable Friendship," the story of Ruth Dayan, widow of Moshe Dayan, and a Palestinian journalist who became dear friends.
Natalie Portman: Jewish Community Should Focus Less On The Holocaust
The Oscar-winning actress said other genocides should be taught in Jewish schools. Her comments immediately drew criticism.
Steve Lipman
Staff Writer
Natalie Portman on the red carpet at the Cannes Film Festival in May. Getty
This time, her critics aren’t film reviewers.
Natalie Portman, the Israeli-born, Harvard-educated, Oscar-winning actress, is being called on the carpet — gently, that is — for comments she made last week about the Jewish community’s emphasis on Holocaust EDUCATION.
In an interview with The Independent, the graduate of Long Island and Washington, D.C., Jewish day schools questioned “how much at the forefront we put Holocaust EDUCATION.”
“We need to be reminded that hatred exists at all times and reminds us to be empathetic to other people that have experienced hatred also,” said Portman, a descendant of Holocaust refugees, who said she first learned the extent of other genocides during a 2007 visit to Rwanda. She NOTED that as the Rwandan genocide was unfolding in 1994, her day school classes included nothing about the mass killings, while she learned extensively about the Holocaust and the subsequent birth of Israel.
With the Independent interview, the actress stepped into an ongoing debate in the Jewish community about the centrality and the exclusivity of the Holocaust, one that reflects a generational shift in Jewish life.
Portman, 34, who once said that as an actress she needs “a thick skin,” drew immediate but mixed criticism for her comments, which came in the interview in which she was promoting her new film, “A Tale of Love and Darkness,” adapted from the memoir of Israel’s Amos Oz.
“I disagree with the emphasis of her comments, and agree with much of the substance,” said Menachem Rosensaft, general counsel of the World Jewish Congress and editor of “God, Faith & Identity from the Ashes: Reflections of Children of Holocaust Survivors” (Jewish Lights Publishing).
The emphasis: Equating the Holocaust with other genocides. “Because of its enormous scope and its systematic, all-embracing nature, the Shoah is the epitome of genocides,” said Rosensaft, the son of Holocaust survivors.
The substance: An awareness of tragedies that have struck other peoples. “Neither we nor anyone else should engage in comparative suffering,” Rosensaft said. “Far too often we teach about the Holocaust and do not sensitize our kids to other atrocities, other genocides that are occurring in their lifetime.”
Rosensaft, who teaches law courses at Cornell and Columbia universities, said Portman “is very much speaking for others of her generation, both Jews and non-Jews.”
Michael Berenbaum, Holocaust author-scholar, offered a similar, “respectful” reaction.
He called Portman “an actress, not a philosopher, not a historian — actors are not the people we turn to for a nuanced understanding of the events of history.” But, Berenbaum added, she made a valid point about a Jewish responsibility to teach about history’s “succession” of genocides.
Judging by Portman’s comments, Berenbaum said, “we have succeeded in transmitting the monumental nature of the Holocaust, without transmitting how distinct an event it was.”
The Anti-Defamation League, a staunch defender of Holocaust education, said it would not be issuing a statement on Portman’s remarks. But B’nai B’rith International, in a statement, said, “An emphasis on the Holocaust in a Jewish education is extremely important as it is tied to our identity. The focus does not come at the expense of learning about other tragedies, such as those in Rwanda and Bosnia.”
steve@jewishweek.orgNew York
A Stone For Leo Frank
Centennial of a lynching that still chills from Atlanta to Queens.
Jonathan Mark
Associate Editor
Lynched in Georgia, buried in Queens, Leo Frank remains a symbol of anti-Semitic intolerance in the United States. JW
On the sweltering Georgia night of Aug. 16, nearly a dozen of Marietta’s finest citizens — a former governor, a judge, lawyers, TEACHERS, two former mayors — got into their Model T autos, driving for hours, more than 100 miles over unpaved back roads to the prison farm in Millidgeville, to hang “the Jew,” Leo Frank, convicted of murdering the beautiful 13-year-old Mary Phagan, a Christian “flower” of Southern maidenhood. During the trial, a mob shouted to the jury, “Hang the Jew or we’ll hang you!” Sentenced to death, the governor commuted Frank’s fate to life imprisonment, but if Frank could appeal so could the mob, and “Judge Lynch,” as they called their lesser instincts, insisted Frank must hang for Phagan’s death on April 26, 1913.
That 1913 day was overcast but a holiday, and Frank, 31, began that Shabbos of Pesach wishing his wife Lucille “Good Yundef” Passover greetings, and mailing his uncle and “dear tanta” (Yiddish for aunt) greetings, as well. They owned the National Pencil Company in Atlanta but lived in New York, leaving their nephew managing the factory. Frank wrote to them about the local opera and added, “Today was Yundef here,” but he was joking, referring not to Passover but Confederate Memorial Day — not a good day to be a New York Jewish Ivy League industrialist Yankee in Atlanta. There was a Confederate parade, he wrote, “and the thin, grey line of veterans, smaller each year, braved the rather chilly weather to do honor to their fallen heroes.” He wanted to watch holiday baseball, the Atlanta Crackers HOSTING the Birmingham Barons.
He didn’t bother to tell his uncle and tanta that he stopped by the office to pay his workers, including Mary Phagan, whose job it was to affix erasers onto the pencils. Her friend, Georgie Epps, was supposed to meet her at the parade. She never showed. He later told police, Mary was “afraid of advances” that Frank had made. “Frank Tried To Flirt With Murdered Girl,” headlined the Atlanta Constitution. A few days later, the headlines announced that “Mrs. Mima Famby,” proprietor of a rooming house, swore to police that Frank “wanted a ROOM for himself and a girl on the murder night.”
Two years later, in the middle of the night, the heat rising to the 90s, the lynch mob, with guns and handcuffs, arrived at the prison farm. The prison guards, without resisting, turned the key to Frank’s cell and gave Frank, Convict 965, to the hangmen. Frank was hated inside the prison, too. A few days prior, an inmate slashed Frank’s jugular vein, and Frank, expecting to die from his wounds, didn’t even want his assailant punished. Enough already, “I’m at peace with God,” he wrote, “ready to die.”
In the darkness after midnight, Frank was pushed into one of the Model T’s. Knowing his fate, he asked if one of his soon-to-be killers could please take his wedding ring off his bound hands and give the ring to Lucille, his wife of five years (three with him in jail). The ring was taken.
At dawn, back in Marietta, the blindfolded Frank, with a noose around his neck, was hoisted onto a table. The hangmen kicked the table and Frank’s slender body, all 5-feet-8 of him, gently swayed from an oak tree, his neck broken. Cut down, men stomped on his face. Killers posed for photographs with the body, the photos sold as postcards. His wedding ring, in an envelope, was thrown at Lucille’s door.
Leo’s body was sent by train to New York, to Mount Carmel Cemetery in Queens. One hundred years later, he has visitors, as can be seen from the pebbles on his gravestone: “Leo Frank / Beloved Husband / April 17 1884 / August 17 1915 / “Semper Idem” (Always the Same).
In the same cemetery, across a field of stones, there are pebbles on the grave of Mendel Beilis, another Jewish factory supervisor like Frank, who in 1913, the year of Mary Phagan’s murder, was accused around Passover of murdering a young boy in Kiev, his blood needed for matzoh, accusers said. Semper Idem.
In Frank’s final moments of life, in the cool of morning, he must have wondered, how does a man of dignity and intellect, a lover of opera, a graduate of Cornell, a “macher” in the Jewish community — president of the Atlanta B’nai B’rith; member of The Temple, Atlanta’s most elite Reform synagogue; a man who married into one of Atlanta’s most prominent Jewish families — how does it happen that he should be standing on a table under an oak tree, blindfolded, in a noose? His Cornell yearbook noted, “Leo Max Frank hails from sleepy Brooklyn, famed for graveyards, breweries and baby carriages.” An engineering student, “His genius found expression in three-phased generators and foundry work. ... His services as a debating coach [have] made him a fame hard to equal.”
Later that autumn, after the lynching, Frank’s B’nai B’rith created the Anti-Defamation League, even as the Knights of Mary Phagan, as some of the lynchers dubbed themselves, created the modern Ku Klux Klan, dormant since the 1870s. In the night, one could see flaming crosses on nearby Stone Mountain.
At the time of Frank’s hanging, there were no Jews in Marietta. A century later, there is a Chabad, and Conservative, and Reform synagogues. Living down the block from the lynching site, Rabbi Steven Lebow, 60, of Reform’s Temple Kol Emeth, says, “I feel I became Leo Frank’s rabbi.” He had a historical sign placed near the oak tree, and says Kaddish at the site on Frank’s yahrzeit (Elul 7).
Rabbi Lebow tells us over the phone that he officiated at a memorial for Frank last week, where they also said a prayer for Mary Phagan. In the room were Jews from all the Marietta shuls, and even some grandchildren of the hangmen.
“The grandchildren and great-grandchildren of some of the lynchers are friends of mine,” says the rabbi. “I socialize with them. I see them all the time. They are the nicest, kindest people. They are horrified by what happened here 100 years ago.”
On March 4, 1982, The Nashville Tennessean headlined, “An Innocent Man Was Lynched.” Alonzo Mann, 84, the last person alive who testified at the Frank trial, wanted to tell the truth that he didn’t tell at the trial, “Then I can die in peace,” said Mann. The old man, 14 in 1913 when he worked for Frank, told the Tennessean (and two lie detector tests), “I have something heavy on my heart. I was in the factory that day. I saw Jim Conley [carrying] the body of the girl, and Leo Frank was nowhere to be seen.” Mann said Conley, an African-American janitor at the factory, intimidated Alonzo into keeping quiet about what he saw. The boy ran home to his parents who advised Alonzo to indeed keep quiet.
Shortly after the trial, said Rabbi Lebow, Conley’s own lawyer, William Smith, sent word to the governor, “‘You’ve got the wrong guy. It was my guy (Conley) who did it.’”
It was rare, to say the least, that a Southern court would accept the testimony of a black man to convict a white man, but the court believed Conley’s accusation of Frank. Conley and the prosecution depicted Frank as a sexual monster, with a parade of underage factory girls testifying that Frank didn’t just look at them, he leered, he ogled. In Conley’s testimony, says Rabbi Lebow, “he wove in these lurid sexual details.” Even in those far more demure times, Conley testified, says Rabbi Lebow, “how Frank would regularly meet prostitutes in his office, performing oral sex on them,” and yet “it was also said that Frank was homosexual,” and that his circumcision accounted for his deviance. All this, despite Frank being charged with murder, not any sexual crime.
After Mann’s revised testimony, a Georgia parole board ruled in 1983 and again in 1986 — with the Phagan family insisting (as they insist to this day) on Frank’s guilt — that “in an effort to heal old wounds,” the parole board would pardon Frank for being lynched, but not for murdering the girl. Pardoned, because the State of Georgia failed to protect him from the lynching, precluding future legal appeals, but pardoned “without attempting to address the question of guilt or innocence” in the Phagan case. He remains guilty in the eyes of the law.
The month of Elul, prelude to Rosh HaShanah, is the season to visit cemeteries, mystics teaching that the souls of our loved ones are able to advocate and intercede for us in these Days of Judgment. Who better than Leo Frank to advocate for his people, the lonely, the unfairly accused? In his time, said classmates, he was quite the debater.
jonathan@jewishweek.orgBooks
Across The Great Divide
Ruth Dayan, Raymonda Tawil and a hard-won friendship amid the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Sandee Brawarsky
Culture Editor
On the sweltering Georgia night of Aug. 16, nearly a dozen of Marietta’s finest citizens — a former governor, a judge, lawyers, TEACHERS, two former mayors — got into their Model T autos, driving for hours, more than 100 miles over unpaved back roads to the prison farm in Millidgeville, to hang “the Jew,” Leo Frank, convicted of murdering the beautiful 13-year-old Mary Phagan, a Christian “flower” of Southern maidenhood. During the trial, a mob shouted to the jury, “Hang the Jew or we’ll hang you!” Sentenced to death, the governor commuted Frank’s fate to life imprisonment, but if Frank could appeal so could the mob, and “Judge Lynch,” as they called their lesser instincts, insisted Frank must hang for Phagan’s death on April 26, 1913.
That 1913 day was overcast but a holiday, and Frank, 31, began that Shabbos of Pesach wishing his wife Lucille “Good Yundef” Passover greetings, and mailing his uncle and “dear tanta” (Yiddish for aunt) greetings, as well. They owned the National Pencil Company in Atlanta but lived in New York, leaving their nephew managing the factory. Frank wrote to them about the local opera and added, “Today was Yundef here,” but he was joking, referring not to Passover but Confederate Memorial Day — not a good day to be a New York Jewish Ivy League industrialist Yankee in Atlanta. There was a Confederate parade, he wrote, “and the thin, grey line of veterans, smaller each year, braved the rather chilly weather to do honor to their fallen heroes.” He wanted to watch holiday baseball, the Atlanta Crackers HOSTING the Birmingham Barons.
He didn’t bother to tell his uncle and tanta that he stopped by the office to pay his workers, including Mary Phagan, whose job it was to affix erasers onto the pencils. Her friend, Georgie Epps, was supposed to meet her at the parade. She never showed. He later told police, Mary was “afraid of advances” that Frank had made. “Frank Tried To Flirt With Murdered Girl,” headlined the Atlanta Constitution. A few days later, the headlines announced that “Mrs. Mima Famby,” proprietor of a rooming house, swore to police that Frank “wanted a ROOM for himself and a girl on the murder night.”
Two years later, in the middle of the night, the heat rising to the 90s, the lynch mob, with guns and handcuffs, arrived at the prison farm. The prison guards, without resisting, turned the key to Frank’s cell and gave Frank, Convict 965, to the hangmen. Frank was hated inside the prison, too. A few days prior, an inmate slashed Frank’s jugular vein, and Frank, expecting to die from his wounds, didn’t even want his assailant punished. Enough already, “I’m at peace with God,” he wrote, “ready to die.”
In the darkness after midnight, Frank was pushed into one of the Model T’s. Knowing his fate, he asked if one of his soon-to-be killers could please take his wedding ring off his bound hands and give the ring to Lucille, his wife of five years (three with him in jail). The ring was taken.
At dawn, back in Marietta, the blindfolded Frank, with a noose around his neck, was hoisted onto a table. The hangmen kicked the table and Frank’s slender body, all 5-feet-8 of him, gently swayed from an oak tree, his neck broken. Cut down, men stomped on his face. Killers posed for photographs with the body, the photos sold as postcards. His wedding ring, in an envelope, was thrown at Lucille’s door.
Leo’s body was sent by train to New York, to Mount Carmel Cemetery in Queens. One hundred years later, he has visitors, as can be seen from the pebbles on his gravestone: “Leo Frank / Beloved Husband / April 17 1884 / August 17 1915 / “Semper Idem” (Always the Same).
In the same cemetery, across a field of stones, there are pebbles on the grave of Mendel Beilis, another Jewish factory supervisor like Frank, who in 1913, the year of Mary Phagan’s murder, was accused around Passover of murdering a young boy in Kiev, his blood needed for matzoh, accusers said. Semper Idem.
In Frank’s final moments of life, in the cool of morning, he must have wondered, how does a man of dignity and intellect, a lover of opera, a graduate of Cornell, a “macher” in the Jewish community — president of the Atlanta B’nai B’rith; member of The Temple, Atlanta’s most elite Reform synagogue; a man who married into one of Atlanta’s most prominent Jewish families — how does it happen that he should be standing on a table under an oak tree, blindfolded, in a noose? His Cornell yearbook noted, “Leo Max Frank hails from sleepy Brooklyn, famed for graveyards, breweries and baby carriages.” An engineering student, “His genius found expression in three-phased generators and foundry work. ... His services as a debating coach [have] made him a fame hard to equal.”
Later that autumn, after the lynching, Frank’s B’nai B’rith created the Anti-Defamation League, even as the Knights of Mary Phagan, as some of the lynchers dubbed themselves, created the modern Ku Klux Klan, dormant since the 1870s. In the night, one could see flaming crosses on nearby Stone Mountain.
At the time of Frank’s hanging, there were no Jews in Marietta. A century later, there is a Chabad, and Conservative, and Reform synagogues. Living down the block from the lynching site, Rabbi Steven Lebow, 60, of Reform’s Temple Kol Emeth, says, “I feel I became Leo Frank’s rabbi.” He had a historical sign placed near the oak tree, and says Kaddish at the site on Frank’s yahrzeit (Elul 7).
Rabbi Lebow tells us over the phone that he officiated at a memorial for Frank last week, where they also said a prayer for Mary Phagan. In the room were Jews from all the Marietta shuls, and even some grandchildren of the hangmen.
“The grandchildren and great-grandchildren of some of the lynchers are friends of mine,” says the rabbi. “I socialize with them. I see them all the time. They are the nicest, kindest people. They are horrified by what happened here 100 years ago.”
On March 4, 1982, The Nashville Tennessean headlined, “An Innocent Man Was Lynched.” Alonzo Mann, 84, the last person alive who testified at the Frank trial, wanted to tell the truth that he didn’t tell at the trial, “Then I can die in peace,” said Mann. The old man, 14 in 1913 when he worked for Frank, told the Tennessean (and two lie detector tests), “I have something heavy on my heart. I was in the factory that day. I saw Jim Conley [carrying] the body of the girl, and Leo Frank was nowhere to be seen.” Mann said Conley, an African-American janitor at the factory, intimidated Alonzo into keeping quiet about what he saw. The boy ran home to his parents who advised Alonzo to indeed keep quiet.
Shortly after the trial, said Rabbi Lebow, Conley’s own lawyer, William Smith, sent word to the governor, “‘You’ve got the wrong guy. It was my guy (Conley) who did it.’”
It was rare, to say the least, that a Southern court would accept the testimony of a black man to convict a white man, but the court believed Conley’s accusation of Frank. Conley and the prosecution depicted Frank as a sexual monster, with a parade of underage factory girls testifying that Frank didn’t just look at them, he leered, he ogled. In Conley’s testimony, says Rabbi Lebow, “he wove in these lurid sexual details.” Even in those far more demure times, Conley testified, says Rabbi Lebow, “how Frank would regularly meet prostitutes in his office, performing oral sex on them,” and yet “it was also said that Frank was homosexual,” and that his circumcision accounted for his deviance. All this, despite Frank being charged with murder, not any sexual crime.
After Mann’s revised testimony, a Georgia parole board ruled in 1983 and again in 1986 — with the Phagan family insisting (as they insist to this day) on Frank’s guilt — that “in an effort to heal old wounds,” the parole board would pardon Frank for being lynched, but not for murdering the girl. Pardoned, because the State of Georgia failed to protect him from the lynching, precluding future legal appeals, but pardoned “without attempting to address the question of guilt or innocence” in the Phagan case. He remains guilty in the eyes of the law.
The month of Elul, prelude to Rosh HaShanah, is the season to visit cemeteries, mystics teaching that the souls of our loved ones are able to advocate and intercede for us in these Days of Judgment. Who better than Leo Frank to advocate for his people, the lonely, the unfairly accused? In his time, said classmates, he was quite the debater.
jonathan@jewishweek.orgBooks
Across The Great Divide
Ruth Dayan, Raymonda Tawil and a hard-won friendship amid the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Sandee Brawarsky
Culture Editor
“A moral meeting point”.Ethel Dizon
The former wife of Israel’s most famous general, and a Palestinian journalist and activist have been talking, meeting, trying to understand each other, fighting, reconciling and laughing together since a chance meeting SOON after the Six-Day War.
Ruth Dayan, now 98, was bringing toys to wounded children in a Nablus hospital. Raymonda Tawil, alsot there to visit the children, recognized her immediately and shouted in perfect Hebrew, “How dare you come in here pretending to care for children. Do you know what YOUR husband is doing to us?”
“I don’t believe we’ve met,” Dayan replied. “But you should know, I married a farmer and NOT a general. Don’t blame me for all this horror.”
As Dayan would reply many times to the woman who would become her dear friend, “I am NOT Moshe Dayan.” She then went on to listen to the stories of the women who gathered.
Last week, on the PHONE from her home in Malta, with Dayan on the line from Tel Aviv, Tawil, 74, who is the mother-in-law of Yasser Arafat, recalls, “We were not kind to her. But we felt her humanity. She looked at us with light in her eyes.”
In “An Improbable Friendship: The Remarkable Lives of Israeli Ruth Dayan and Palestinian Raymonda Tawil and their Forty-Year Peace Mission” (Arcade), Anthony David transports readers across the divide. It’s a well-written book about empathy, hinting at possibilities for peace.
David provides valuable reading, especially for American Jews who will see the history of Israel ANEW through the life of Dayan, and will come to see a perspective they don’t often encounter firsthand, in the experience of Tawil.
Dayan, the daughter of Jerusalem lawyers well CONNECTED TO the Zionist leadership, was born in Palestine in 1917 and raised in part in London. Her grandfather Boris from Kishinev had STUDIED at the Sorbonne and moved to Palestine in 1903. In 1934, Ruth met Moshe while at Nahalal, the farming village where his family lived, and they married in 1935.
David points out parallels between the women’s distinguished familyACKGROUNDS without suggesting that their experiences were equivalent.
Tawil’s father Habib Hawa, who also studied at the Sorbonne, was called “the Syrian Prince” by the British. His family had a castle not far from Nahalal. Her mother, who was raised in New York and returned to her village near Haifa, had “New York attitudes about gender, democracy, equality” that were, as David writes, the source of her daughter’s feminism. Tawil’s mother also taught her about avoiding hatred. After her parents’ 1947 divorce, she was raised in convent schools.
In our telephone conversation, both women remember the days following the Six-Day War differently. Dayan, with her phenomenal memory, recalls walking in the Old City of Jerusalem and feeling very comfortable, reconnecting with friends not seen since 1948. For Tawil, while she had the freedom to travel back to Haifa, “it was not the opening of the gates but the Occupation. For us it was defeat.”
In 1953, Golda Meir, then the Labor minister, asked Ruth Dayan to head up a department for women’s work. Dayan founded Maskit, promoting handicrafts and training new immigrants and Arab villagers to produce items for sale. The business flourished, and she still travels to visit villagers and see their work. Meanwhile, Tawil was reading voraciously, finding her feminist voice in her traditional marriage, advocating against honor killings, eventually becoming the first woman to drive on the West Bank, and turning her home into a salon for journalists, intellectuals and left-wing Israelis. The book includes the difficult-to-read account of her solitary confinement by Israeli authorities.
While their friendship wasn’t a secret, it wasn’t well known, outside of their close circles. They would meet to talk, share ideas about their work, and Dayan would use connections to pull strings and carry messages from Tawil to the Israeli government. She is the sister-in-law of Ezer Weizman, aunt of Uzi Dayan, who built the Separation Wall, friend of Shimon Peres (and the list goes on).
“Raymonda has been working politically, and Ruth has been working practically, and they have a moral meeting point,” David says.
David began working with them in 2009, and would meet with Dayan in Tel Aviv, and Tawil in Malta, in person or by Skype. Once, the three were together in Baltimore. Along the way, there were flare-ups between the two, usually over a small detail that pointed to a more fundamental difference.
“Both of them were right from my perspective – it was a ping pong match going back and forth,” David says. They’d argue and then they’d be back in each other’s arms. “They really love each other,” he adds.
David, an author of books on kabbalist scholar Gershom Scholem, publisher Salman Schocken and of “Once Upon a Country: A Palestinian Life,” with Palestinian leader Sari Nusseibeh, brings a biographer’s eye for detail and nuance, and the sensibility of a Middle-Eastern insider and outsider to the project. The 50-year-old scholar was first drawn to visit Israel while studying philosophy in Berlin in 1992; he and a friend were beat up by skinheads after attending a Kristallnacht service. In Jerusalem, he immediately felt at home, particularly among Sephardic people, who reminded him of his relatives in New Mexico, where he was born.
On both sides, David is a descendent of Sephardic Jews who left Spain for the American Southwest; all became Catholic. He was raised with an awareness of his family history.
“When in Israel, I identify as Jewish, without denying the Catholic side. I feel like I’m a hybrid. I have no problem going to synagogue on Saturday and mass on Sunday, without theological beliefs, but appreciating beautiful ceremonies,” he says.
“It’s easy for me to fit into other people’s skin. I have so many different layers of skin.”
On the phone, the women praise each other. Each favors a two-state solution and would like to see the walls separating the two peoples lifted.
“I hope the book will be a strong message to end the bloodshed, that we can talk,” Tawil says.
Dayan adds, “The only thing is to communicate. To stop running around in circles and trying to kill each other.”
editor@jewishweek.orgEnjoy the read.
Sincerely,
Gary Rosenblatt
P.S. Remember that our website is always there for you with breaking news and exclusive videos, blogs, opinion pieces, advice columns, and more. Check it out.
http://www.thejewishweek.com/
BETWEEN THE LINES
Gary Rosenblatt
The State Of The Jewish Union (Then, And Now)
Editor's Note: On rereading this column, first written and published here in September 1996, I realized how many key concerns about Jewish life remain today, almost two decades later.
One of the most beautiful elements of the High Holy Day liturgy is that Jews pray collectively, not individually. The word "we" is central to our prayers, not "I," whether it involves asking for God's blessings or acknowledging our sins. We realize intuitively that there is strength in numbers and that all we have is each other.
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Gary Rosenblatt
The State Of The Jewish Union (Then, And Now)
Gary Rosenblatt
Editor And Publisher
Gary Rosenblatt
Editor’s Note: On rereading this column, first written and published here in September 1996, I realized how many key concerns about Jewish life remain today, almost two decades later.
One of the most beautiful elements of the High Holy Day liturgy is that Jews pray collectively, not individually. The word “we” is central to our prayers, not “I,” whether it involves asking for God’s blessings or acknowledging our sins. We realize intuitively that there is strength in numbers and that all we have is each other.
Yet for an American Jewish community obsessed with survival, focusing on statistical surveys that indicate our numbers may be dwindling through intermarriage and assimilation, we spend a lot of time alienating rather than embracing each other.
Approaching Rosh HaShanah, it is fitting to reflect on our shortcomings as a community and resolve to improve ourselves in the coming year.
The litany of our communal feuds is well known: Orthodox, Conservative and Reform leaders continue to denigrate each other, eschewing dialogue on religious matters because each believes the other’s form of Judaism will soon disappear. The result is that many young people are disillusioned by a religious community perceived as more committed to building walls than bridges between denominations.
When it comes to the Mideast, hawkish and dovish Jews spent more time vilifying each other this past year than working together on Israel’s behalf. Each side thinks the other’s policies spell doom for the country they all claim to love, but whose cause they hurt by quarrelling with each other. And for all the calls for civil discourse and more respectful debate — particularly in light of the Rabin assassination and the ugly rhetoric that preceded and some say precipitated it — our level of tolerance has not increased.
Former Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres, speaking here this week, expressed deep concern about the nature of democracy in Israel and said the lack of tolerance has grown worse since Rabin’s death.
Even a New York community rally called last winter to memorialize the fallen Israeli leader was marred by political differences as some sought to insure that their presence at Madison Square Garden would not be viewed as an endorsement of the peace process that led to the prime minister’s murder.
I am not suggesting that we take the famous UJA rallying cry “We Are One” too literally. Throughout our history we Jews were never one; indeed unanimity is a dangerous sign in a society that values freedom, individual rights and diversity. Why would young Jews want to become ACTIVE in a community so lacking in creativity and choice that its views are all the same, dictated from above? Disagreement and debate are healthy signs of life, indicating a passion of concern.
This point is particularly relevant for a Jewish newspaper that seeks, as this one does, to REPORT and comment as thoroughly and objectively as possible on the news of the community.
There are those in positions of leadership who would stifle debate and muzzle the press in a misguided belief that the community’s best interests are served through consensus, not only in action but thought. Yet such policies would only lead to higher levels of disinterest among the masses, and particularly the young, who recognize the difference between Pravda and a FREE press, between airing points of view and imposing them.
Where, then, do we draw the line within communal debate between diversity and destruction? The critical components are mutual respect and over-arching beliefs and values. Those criteria GO BACK to the Talmud, which, in describing the sharp debates between the rabbis over religious practices, said in effect that both sides are correct because “the words of God are alive.”
That is to say there need not be only one right approach, as long as each side sees the legitimacy of the other, and its POSITION That last point is critical, and too often missing today. When the rabbinical students of the schools of Hillel and Shammai disagreed in Talmudic times, as they did constantly, they still believed in the same God and the sacredness of the words of the Torah. That is no longer always true of rabbinical students of our various denominations, some of whom believe the Torah is written by God and others that it is written by man. These are not minor differences that can be papered over or willed away by those who value pluralism but also the weight of halacha, or Jewish law.
What is required, though, is not a compromise of one’s principles but a willingness to discuss these important issues and differences, without rancor or PERSONAL insult. Or decide not to discuss them at all, and simply focus on what draws us together as Jews rather than what divides us.
We can’t expect miracles from heaven but we can demand respect of each other. This Rosh HaShanah and Yom Kippur, as we recite the petitions for Clal Yisrael, the peoplehood of Israel, let the true meaning of those words pierce the boundaries that separate our hearts. In that way the new year can bring an answer to our prayers, by bringing us closer to the source of our tradition, and to each other.
gary@jewishweek.org
MUSINGS
Rabbi David Wolpe
Abundantly Clear
The miracles of the Bible are mostly survival miracles: water splitting so the Israelites can cross, manna dropping in the desert so they can eat, the sun stopping in its course so Joshua can win a battle. But there are also what we might call miracles of extravagance - Samson's strength or Jacob's striped sheep. These are not miracles designed to help human beings survive, but to help them thrive.
Read MoreMusings
Abundantly Clear
Rabbi David Wolpe
Special To The Jewish Week
Rabbi David Wolpe
The miracles of the Bible are mostly survival miracles: water splitting so the Israelites can cross, manna dropping in the desert so they can eat, the sun stopping in its course so Joshua can win a battle. But there are also what we might call miracles of extravagance — Samson’s strength or Jacob’s striped sheep. These are not miracles designed to help human beings survive, but to help them thrive.
For understandable reasons, miracles of survival tend to be more dramatic and seem more powerful. In our own lives, when someone is cured, or escapes disaster, we feel a tremendous rush of gratitude. There is a prayer, the Gomel prayer, designed to mark such wondrous occasions.
But the awake soul will not ignore the miracles of extravagance. Our ability to fly across the world in hours, or grow more food than we will ever need, or hold all of human knowledge in our pocket — these things should call up gratitude as well. Abundance is, in its way, as praiseworthy as deliverance. We have been given minds and resources that can accomplish astonishing things. As Rav teaches in the Talmud, we should even give thanks that we are able to give thanks.
Rabbi David Wolpe is spiritual leader of Sinai Temple in Los Angeles. Follow him on Twitter: @RabbiWolpe. His latest book, “David: The Divided Heart” (Yale University Press), has recently been published.
Savannah, with its lyrical, historic-district parks, is perfect for a late-summer visit. Wikimedia Commons.
TRAVEL
Post-season Escapes
Hilary Danailova
Travel Writer
Many people vacation in July and August for solid reasons: school is out, office schedules loosen, days are long and beaches beckon.
But if August is drawing to a close and you still haven't gotten away, don't fret. There's still time to bask in the sun, take in culture or savor the outdoors before winter sets in. Yes, the holidays are around the corner - but depending on your level of spontaneity, you may still be able to manage a getaway before, after or in between. (And it's not for everyone, but I've found that observing the holidays in a new environment can be a singularly memorable way to connect with a destination.)
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Travel
Post-season Escapes
Hilary Danailova
Travel Writer
Savannah, with its lyrical, historic-district parks, is perfect for a late-summer visit. Wikimedia Commons
Many people vacation in July and August for solid reasons: school is out, office schedules loosen, days are long and beaches beckon.
But if August is drawing to a close and you still haven’t gotten away, don’t fret. There’s still time to bask in the sun, take in culture or savor the outdoors before winter sets in. Yes, the holidays are around the corner — but depending on your level of spontaneity, you may still be able to manage a getaway before, after or in between. (And it’s not for everyone, but I’ve found that observing the holidays in a new environment can be a singularly memorable way to connect with a destination.)
So just in time for the New Year, here’s some inspiration for renewal — post-season getaways that range in scope from a weekend drive to a trans-Atlantic jaunt.
For a spontaneous beach day: Try the Connecticut shore. Most of us reflexively head to Long Island or New Jersey, which might explain why the quietly lovely coast of eastern Connecticut looks just as it did when my father spent summers there in the 1940s.
So for a restorative change of scene, leave high-octane culture and nightlife behind, pack a picnic and take the Amtrak Shore Line East from New Haven to Old Saybrook. The train ride along Connecticut’s eastern stretch is one of the prettiest in all of the U.S., hugging the coastline as it glides along beaches and salt marshes, past harbors full of sailboats. This is Long Island Sound at its prettiest, with clear, gentle waters and unspoiled nature just steps from convenient train stations. And if you choose to drive, Old Lyme, Niantic and the historic port at Mystic all offer bucolic scenery, parks galore and maritime magic.
For the joys of a summer arts festival, well into fall: Consider the Ontario countryside for a quick, budget getaway combining theater, harvest festivals and even the beach. The gateway airports of Toronto are a mere 1.5 hours from JFK; with fares as low as $200 round-trip and the Canadian dollar at a 20 percent discount, this region is ideal for a pre-winter escape.
In a recent column, I extolled the virtues of the Stratford Festival, Canada’s mecca for Shakespeare and first-class theater. Unlike most summer festivals, this one goes strong through October. And around the region, a flowering foodie scene showcases local agriculture, artisanal products and Niagara wine at farm-to-table restaurants and harvest festivals. Meanwhile, the sandy beaches and gentle waters of Grand Bend, on the shores of Lake Huron, are pleasant throughout the warm autumn.
For a Southern beach weekend, with Jewish history: Follow the birds south to Savannah, Ga., where September is low season in this palmetto-fringed beach town. Hotel occupancy is generally low as kids get back to school — but the weather is still summery, the water warm, and the downtown lively. Nonstop flights on JetBlue take just over two hours and can run less than $150 round-trip, making Savannah (or its resort neighbor, Hilton Head Island, in South Carolina) doable for a weekend.
The Shalom Y’All Jewish Food Festival has been a highlight of the Savannah calendar for a quarter century; it’s held on the fourth Sunday of each October. Ten thousand hungry visitors flock annually to Forsyth Park for homemade blintzes, kosher tongue, Sephardic-style lamb and more, as well as music, dancing and kids’ activities. All are sponsored by the nearly 300-year-old Congregation Mikve Israel, which is housed in an 1870’s neo-Gothic building in the city’s historic district.
For a West Coast summer adventure: September and October are California’s summer, bringing the hottest, driest weather to a region that is often foggy and cold. Fly to San Francisco for around $300 round-trip — then decide whether to linger in the city, where the Contemporary Jewish Museum has a slate of high-profile shows (including an Amy Winehouse exhibition), or venture across the Bay, where the Google-sponsored Silicon Valley Jewish Film Festival (Oct. 10-Nov. 8) casts a youthful, cosmopolitan eye on global Jewish cinema.
In the region that invented modern foodie culture, harvest season is celebrated throughout Napa and Sonoma wine country; highlights include the Sonoma Music Festival and the Sonoma County Harvest Fair (both Oct. 2-4). And the Harvest Fair features numerous Jewish winemakers and Jewish artisans, gastronomic and otherwise, at this massive celebration of all things local and seasonal.
For a Continental jaunt, with a dose of Jewish culture: Pick up a cheap, last-minute flight to anywhere in Europe — they’re around, for those with flexibility — and catch the European Days of Jewish Culture, an annual Continent-wide event during the first week of September.
You’ll hit that European sweet spot: a strong dollar and low tourism, as locals head back to work and school after August vacations. And the Days of Jewish Culture, celebrated in 20 countries from Sweden to Serbia, offer concerts, lectures, exhibitions and historic-district tours that illuminate the breadth and diversity of Old World Jewry.
Getty Images / Ilya S. Savenok
Featured on NYBLUEPRINT
The Fat Jew Has Cooked His Goose
Maya Klausner
Editor
If you put your hand on the stove you are going to get burned. And "The Fat Jew" a.k.a "The Fat Jewish" a.k.a Josh Ostrovsky keeps coming back to get singed.
Read More
The Fat Jew Has Cooked His Goose
Getty Images / Ilya S. Savenok
Restaurants can’t handle the heat in Josh Ostrovksy’s kitchen
Maya Klausner
The former wife of Israel’s most famous general, and a Palestinian journalist and activist have been talking, meeting, trying to understand each other, fighting, reconciling and laughing together since a chance meeting SOON after the Six-Day War.
Ruth Dayan, now 98, was bringing toys to wounded children in a Nablus hospital. Raymonda Tawil, alsot there to visit the children, recognized her immediately and shouted in perfect Hebrew, “How dare you come in here pretending to care for children. Do you know what YOUR husband is doing to us?”
“I don’t believe we’ve met,” Dayan replied. “But you should know, I married a farmer and NOT a general. Don’t blame me for all this horror.”
As Dayan would reply many times to the woman who would become her dear friend, “I am NOT Moshe Dayan.” She then went on to listen to the stories of the women who gathered.
Last week, on the PHONE from her home in Malta, with Dayan on the line from Tel Aviv, Tawil, 74, who is the mother-in-law of Yasser Arafat, recalls, “We were not kind to her. But we felt her humanity. She looked at us with light in her eyes.”
In “An Improbable Friendship: The Remarkable Lives of Israeli Ruth Dayan and Palestinian Raymonda Tawil and their Forty-Year Peace Mission” (Arcade), Anthony David transports readers across the divide. It’s a well-written book about empathy, hinting at possibilities for peace.
David provides valuable reading, especially for American Jews who will see the history of Israel ANEW through the life of Dayan, and will come to see a perspective they don’t often encounter firsthand, in the experience of Tawil.
Dayan, the daughter of Jerusalem lawyers well CONNECTED TO the Zionist leadership, was born in Palestine in 1917 and raised in part in London. Her grandfather Boris from Kishinev had STUDIED at the Sorbonne and moved to Palestine in 1903. In 1934, Ruth met Moshe while at Nahalal, the farming village where his family lived, and they married in 1935.
David points out parallels between the women’s distinguished familyACKGROUNDS without suggesting that their experiences were equivalent.
Tawil’s father Habib Hawa, who also studied at the Sorbonne, was called “the Syrian Prince” by the British. His family had a castle not far from Nahalal. Her mother, who was raised in New York and returned to her village near Haifa, had “New York attitudes about gender, democracy, equality” that were, as David writes, the source of her daughter’s feminism. Tawil’s mother also taught her about avoiding hatred. After her parents’ 1947 divorce, she was raised in convent schools.
In our telephone conversation, both women remember the days following the Six-Day War differently. Dayan, with her phenomenal memory, recalls walking in the Old City of Jerusalem and feeling very comfortable, reconnecting with friends not seen since 1948. For Tawil, while she had the freedom to travel back to Haifa, “it was not the opening of the gates but the Occupation. For us it was defeat.”
In 1953, Golda Meir, then the Labor minister, asked Ruth Dayan to head up a department for women’s work. Dayan founded Maskit, promoting handicrafts and training new immigrants and Arab villagers to produce items for sale. The business flourished, and she still travels to visit villagers and see their work. Meanwhile, Tawil was reading voraciously, finding her feminist voice in her traditional marriage, advocating against honor killings, eventually becoming the first woman to drive on the West Bank, and turning her home into a salon for journalists, intellectuals and left-wing Israelis. The book includes the difficult-to-read account of her solitary confinement by Israeli authorities.
While their friendship wasn’t a secret, it wasn’t well known, outside of their close circles. They would meet to talk, share ideas about their work, and Dayan would use connections to pull strings and carry messages from Tawil to the Israeli government. She is the sister-in-law of Ezer Weizman, aunt of Uzi Dayan, who built the Separation Wall, friend of Shimon Peres (and the list goes on).
“Raymonda has been working politically, and Ruth has been working practically, and they have a moral meeting point,” David says.
David began working with them in 2009, and would meet with Dayan in Tel Aviv, and Tawil in Malta, in person or by Skype. Once, the three were together in Baltimore. Along the way, there were flare-ups between the two, usually over a small detail that pointed to a more fundamental difference.
“Both of them were right from my perspective – it was a ping pong match going back and forth,” David says. They’d argue and then they’d be back in each other’s arms. “They really love each other,” he adds.
David, an author of books on kabbalist scholar Gershom Scholem, publisher Salman Schocken and of “Once Upon a Country: A Palestinian Life,” with Palestinian leader Sari Nusseibeh, brings a biographer’s eye for detail and nuance, and the sensibility of a Middle-Eastern insider and outsider to the project. The 50-year-old scholar was first drawn to visit Israel while studying philosophy in Berlin in 1992; he and a friend were beat up by skinheads after attending a Kristallnacht service. In Jerusalem, he immediately felt at home, particularly among Sephardic people, who reminded him of his relatives in New Mexico, where he was born.
On both sides, David is a descendent of Sephardic Jews who left Spain for the American Southwest; all became Catholic. He was raised with an awareness of his family history.
“When in Israel, I identify as Jewish, without denying the Catholic side. I feel like I’m a hybrid. I have no problem going to synagogue on Saturday and mass on Sunday, without theological beliefs, but appreciating beautiful ceremonies,” he says.
“It’s easy for me to fit into other people’s skin. I have so many different layers of skin.”
On the phone, the women praise each other. Each favors a two-state solution and would like to see the walls separating the two peoples lifted.
“I hope the book will be a strong message to end the bloodshed, that we can talk,” Tawil says.
Dayan adds, “The only thing is to communicate. To stop running around in circles and trying to kill each other.”
editor@jewishweek.orgEnjoy the read.
Sincerely,
Gary Rosenblatt
P.S. Remember that our website is always there for you with breaking news and exclusive videos, blogs, opinion pieces, advice columns, and more. Check it out.
http://www.thejewishweek.com/
BETWEEN THE LINES
Gary Rosenblatt
The State Of The Jewish Union (Then, And Now)
Editor's Note: On rereading this column, first written and published here in September 1996, I realized how many key concerns about Jewish life remain today, almost two decades later.
One of the most beautiful elements of the High Holy Day liturgy is that Jews pray collectively, not individually. The word "we" is central to our prayers, not "I," whether it involves asking for God's blessings or acknowledging our sins. We realize intuitively that there is strength in numbers and that all we have is each other.
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Gary Rosenblatt
The State Of The Jewish Union (Then, And Now)
Gary Rosenblatt
Editor And Publisher
Gary Rosenblatt
Editor’s Note: On rereading this column, first written and published here in September 1996, I realized how many key concerns about Jewish life remain today, almost two decades later.
One of the most beautiful elements of the High Holy Day liturgy is that Jews pray collectively, not individually. The word “we” is central to our prayers, not “I,” whether it involves asking for God’s blessings or acknowledging our sins. We realize intuitively that there is strength in numbers and that all we have is each other.
Yet for an American Jewish community obsessed with survival, focusing on statistical surveys that indicate our numbers may be dwindling through intermarriage and assimilation, we spend a lot of time alienating rather than embracing each other.
Approaching Rosh HaShanah, it is fitting to reflect on our shortcomings as a community and resolve to improve ourselves in the coming year.
The litany of our communal feuds is well known: Orthodox, Conservative and Reform leaders continue to denigrate each other, eschewing dialogue on religious matters because each believes the other’s form of Judaism will soon disappear. The result is that many young people are disillusioned by a religious community perceived as more committed to building walls than bridges between denominations.
When it comes to the Mideast, hawkish and dovish Jews spent more time vilifying each other this past year than working together on Israel’s behalf. Each side thinks the other’s policies spell doom for the country they all claim to love, but whose cause they hurt by quarrelling with each other. And for all the calls for civil discourse and more respectful debate — particularly in light of the Rabin assassination and the ugly rhetoric that preceded and some say precipitated it — our level of tolerance has not increased.
Former Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres, speaking here this week, expressed deep concern about the nature of democracy in Israel and said the lack of tolerance has grown worse since Rabin’s death.
Even a New York community rally called last winter to memorialize the fallen Israeli leader was marred by political differences as some sought to insure that their presence at Madison Square Garden would not be viewed as an endorsement of the peace process that led to the prime minister’s murder.
I am not suggesting that we take the famous UJA rallying cry “We Are One” too literally. Throughout our history we Jews were never one; indeed unanimity is a dangerous sign in a society that values freedom, individual rights and diversity. Why would young Jews want to become ACTIVE in a community so lacking in creativity and choice that its views are all the same, dictated from above? Disagreement and debate are healthy signs of life, indicating a passion of concern.
This point is particularly relevant for a Jewish newspaper that seeks, as this one does, to REPORT and comment as thoroughly and objectively as possible on the news of the community.
There are those in positions of leadership who would stifle debate and muzzle the press in a misguided belief that the community’s best interests are served through consensus, not only in action but thought. Yet such policies would only lead to higher levels of disinterest among the masses, and particularly the young, who recognize the difference between Pravda and a FREE press, between airing points of view and imposing them.
Where, then, do we draw the line within communal debate between diversity and destruction? The critical components are mutual respect and over-arching beliefs and values. Those criteria GO BACK to the Talmud, which, in describing the sharp debates between the rabbis over religious practices, said in effect that both sides are correct because “the words of God are alive.”
That is to say there need not be only one right approach, as long as each side sees the legitimacy of the other, and its POSITION That last point is critical, and too often missing today. When the rabbinical students of the schools of Hillel and Shammai disagreed in Talmudic times, as they did constantly, they still believed in the same God and the sacredness of the words of the Torah. That is no longer always true of rabbinical students of our various denominations, some of whom believe the Torah is written by God and others that it is written by man. These are not minor differences that can be papered over or willed away by those who value pluralism but also the weight of halacha, or Jewish law.
What is required, though, is not a compromise of one’s principles but a willingness to discuss these important issues and differences, without rancor or PERSONAL insult. Or decide not to discuss them at all, and simply focus on what draws us together as Jews rather than what divides us.
We can’t expect miracles from heaven but we can demand respect of each other. This Rosh HaShanah and Yom Kippur, as we recite the petitions for Clal Yisrael, the peoplehood of Israel, let the true meaning of those words pierce the boundaries that separate our hearts. In that way the new year can bring an answer to our prayers, by bringing us closer to the source of our tradition, and to each other.
gary@jewishweek.org
MUSINGS
Rabbi David Wolpe
Abundantly Clear
The miracles of the Bible are mostly survival miracles: water splitting so the Israelites can cross, manna dropping in the desert so they can eat, the sun stopping in its course so Joshua can win a battle. But there are also what we might call miracles of extravagance - Samson's strength or Jacob's striped sheep. These are not miracles designed to help human beings survive, but to help them thrive.
Read MoreMusings
Abundantly Clear
Rabbi David Wolpe
Special To The Jewish Week
Rabbi David Wolpe
The miracles of the Bible are mostly survival miracles: water splitting so the Israelites can cross, manna dropping in the desert so they can eat, the sun stopping in its course so Joshua can win a battle. But there are also what we might call miracles of extravagance — Samson’s strength or Jacob’s striped sheep. These are not miracles designed to help human beings survive, but to help them thrive.
For understandable reasons, miracles of survival tend to be more dramatic and seem more powerful. In our own lives, when someone is cured, or escapes disaster, we feel a tremendous rush of gratitude. There is a prayer, the Gomel prayer, designed to mark such wondrous occasions.
But the awake soul will not ignore the miracles of extravagance. Our ability to fly across the world in hours, or grow more food than we will ever need, or hold all of human knowledge in our pocket — these things should call up gratitude as well. Abundance is, in its way, as praiseworthy as deliverance. We have been given minds and resources that can accomplish astonishing things. As Rav teaches in the Talmud, we should even give thanks that we are able to give thanks.
Rabbi David Wolpe is spiritual leader of Sinai Temple in Los Angeles. Follow him on Twitter: @RabbiWolpe. His latest book, “David: The Divided Heart” (Yale University Press), has recently been published.
Savannah, with its lyrical, historic-district parks, is perfect for a late-summer visit. Wikimedia Commons.
TRAVEL
Post-season Escapes
Hilary Danailova
Travel Writer
Many people vacation in July and August for solid reasons: school is out, office schedules loosen, days are long and beaches beckon.
But if August is drawing to a close and you still haven't gotten away, don't fret. There's still time to bask in the sun, take in culture or savor the outdoors before winter sets in. Yes, the holidays are around the corner - but depending on your level of spontaneity, you may still be able to manage a getaway before, after or in between. (And it's not for everyone, but I've found that observing the holidays in a new environment can be a singularly memorable way to connect with a destination.)
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Travel
Post-season Escapes
Hilary Danailova
Travel Writer
Savannah, with its lyrical, historic-district parks, is perfect for a late-summer visit. Wikimedia Commons
Many people vacation in July and August for solid reasons: school is out, office schedules loosen, days are long and beaches beckon.
But if August is drawing to a close and you still haven’t gotten away, don’t fret. There’s still time to bask in the sun, take in culture or savor the outdoors before winter sets in. Yes, the holidays are around the corner — but depending on your level of spontaneity, you may still be able to manage a getaway before, after or in between. (And it’s not for everyone, but I’ve found that observing the holidays in a new environment can be a singularly memorable way to connect with a destination.)
So just in time for the New Year, here’s some inspiration for renewal — post-season getaways that range in scope from a weekend drive to a trans-Atlantic jaunt.
For a spontaneous beach day: Try the Connecticut shore. Most of us reflexively head to Long Island or New Jersey, which might explain why the quietly lovely coast of eastern Connecticut looks just as it did when my father spent summers there in the 1940s.
So for a restorative change of scene, leave high-octane culture and nightlife behind, pack a picnic and take the Amtrak Shore Line East from New Haven to Old Saybrook. The train ride along Connecticut’s eastern stretch is one of the prettiest in all of the U.S., hugging the coastline as it glides along beaches and salt marshes, past harbors full of sailboats. This is Long Island Sound at its prettiest, with clear, gentle waters and unspoiled nature just steps from convenient train stations. And if you choose to drive, Old Lyme, Niantic and the historic port at Mystic all offer bucolic scenery, parks galore and maritime magic.
For the joys of a summer arts festival, well into fall: Consider the Ontario countryside for a quick, budget getaway combining theater, harvest festivals and even the beach. The gateway airports of Toronto are a mere 1.5 hours from JFK; with fares as low as $200 round-trip and the Canadian dollar at a 20 percent discount, this region is ideal for a pre-winter escape.
In a recent column, I extolled the virtues of the Stratford Festival, Canada’s mecca for Shakespeare and first-class theater. Unlike most summer festivals, this one goes strong through October. And around the region, a flowering foodie scene showcases local agriculture, artisanal products and Niagara wine at farm-to-table restaurants and harvest festivals. Meanwhile, the sandy beaches and gentle waters of Grand Bend, on the shores of Lake Huron, are pleasant throughout the warm autumn.
For a Southern beach weekend, with Jewish history: Follow the birds south to Savannah, Ga., where September is low season in this palmetto-fringed beach town. Hotel occupancy is generally low as kids get back to school — but the weather is still summery, the water warm, and the downtown lively. Nonstop flights on JetBlue take just over two hours and can run less than $150 round-trip, making Savannah (or its resort neighbor, Hilton Head Island, in South Carolina) doable for a weekend.
The Shalom Y’All Jewish Food Festival has been a highlight of the Savannah calendar for a quarter century; it’s held on the fourth Sunday of each October. Ten thousand hungry visitors flock annually to Forsyth Park for homemade blintzes, kosher tongue, Sephardic-style lamb and more, as well as music, dancing and kids’ activities. All are sponsored by the nearly 300-year-old Congregation Mikve Israel, which is housed in an 1870’s neo-Gothic building in the city’s historic district.
For a West Coast summer adventure: September and October are California’s summer, bringing the hottest, driest weather to a region that is often foggy and cold. Fly to San Francisco for around $300 round-trip — then decide whether to linger in the city, where the Contemporary Jewish Museum has a slate of high-profile shows (including an Amy Winehouse exhibition), or venture across the Bay, where the Google-sponsored Silicon Valley Jewish Film Festival (Oct. 10-Nov. 8) casts a youthful, cosmopolitan eye on global Jewish cinema.
In the region that invented modern foodie culture, harvest season is celebrated throughout Napa and Sonoma wine country; highlights include the Sonoma Music Festival and the Sonoma County Harvest Fair (both Oct. 2-4). And the Harvest Fair features numerous Jewish winemakers and Jewish artisans, gastronomic and otherwise, at this massive celebration of all things local and seasonal.
For a Continental jaunt, with a dose of Jewish culture: Pick up a cheap, last-minute flight to anywhere in Europe — they’re around, for those with flexibility — and catch the European Days of Jewish Culture, an annual Continent-wide event during the first week of September.
You’ll hit that European sweet spot: a strong dollar and low tourism, as locals head back to work and school after August vacations. And the Days of Jewish Culture, celebrated in 20 countries from Sweden to Serbia, offer concerts, lectures, exhibitions and historic-district tours that illuminate the breadth and diversity of Old World Jewry.
Getty Images / Ilya S. Savenok
Featured on NYBLUEPRINT
The Fat Jew Has Cooked His Goose
Maya Klausner
Editor
If you put your hand on the stove you are going to get burned. And "The Fat Jew" a.k.a "The Fat Jewish" a.k.a Josh Ostrovsky keeps coming back to get singed.
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The Fat Jew Has Cooked His Goose
Getty Images / Ilya S. Savenok
Restaurants can’t handle the heat in Josh Ostrovksy’s kitchen
Maya Klausner
Editor
Comedy, Fundraising
If you put your hand on the stove you are going to get burned. And “The Fat Jew” a.k.a “The Fat Jewish” a.k.a Josh Ostrovsky keeps coming back to get singed.
The difference is this time the Instagram legend is being scorched by masters of the culinary arts instead of masters of comedy. Ostrovsky, who went from being famous to infamous for ceaselessly and, until very recently in aninterview with Vulture magazine, unapologetically plagiarizing the jokes of other comedians, has flown too close to the flame and like our fallen Icarus, is melting fast. Which is not a good look for a food festival.
According to Business Insider Kenji López, the managing culinary director of the website Serious Eats, released a statement on Facebook yesterday saying that he and his publication withdrew from the New York City & Food Festival’s “Late-Night Ramen Party” since Ostrovsky has been scheduled to host the event.
The post, which has been deleted read:
"I opened up the event's official website and saw not the event we'd been planning, but The Fat Jew's ramen party. His face, his name, all listed above ours, despite the fact that we were neither consulted nor alerted to his involvement in the event.
The Fat Jew is the antithesis of everything I represent in the media world ... He is a plagiarist, a thief, a misogynist, and absolutely the wrong choice of co-host for a food event, or really any respectable event.”
Since López’s post went up four other restaurants and an artisan noodle maker have backed out of the event, including Yuji Ramen and Ivan Ramen.
Ostrovksy’s iconic “Jewnicorn” was once a lightning rod for lucrative success but now seems to serve as a periscope for impending disaster.
The festival’s proceeds will be donated to the Food Bank For New York City and the No Kid Hungry campaign. López is confident that the event will still sell out and the charities will not be harmed by the restaurants’ choice to bow out.
However, it’s not clear how people are going to eat a plate of stolen jokes. But knowing Ostrovsky, he’ll probably whip something up ... or just pilfer a few dishes from a nearby eatery, ba-zing.
Either way, we’ll have the opportunity to witness it on Instagram, which still hasn’t deactivated his account.TOP STORIES:
The Tides That Bind
Jonathan Mark
Associate Editor
Houston - Ten years ago this week, with Hurricane Katrina barreling toward them, several thousand Jews from New Orleans set out on I-10 to escape the storm. They headed west, passing Baton Rouge, then Lafayette, in the heart of the Louisiana bayou, then Lake Charles, and on across the Texas line through Beaumont and the lyrically named Mont Belvieu.
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National
The Tides That Bind
Ten years after Katrina, the Jews of New Orleans and Houston remain bound by a flood of emotion and caring.
Steve Lipman
Staff Writer
New Orleans’ Congregation Beth Israel. Courtesy of Beth Israel
Houston — Ten years ago this week, with Hurricane Katrina barreling toward them, several thousand Jews from New Orleans set out on I-10 to escape the storm. They headed west, passing Baton Rouge, then Lafayette, in the heart of the Louisiana bayou, then Lake Charles, and on across the Texas line through Beaumont and the lyrically named Mont Belvieu.
They were headed for higher ground, and sanctuary, in Houston. The ribbon of highway was a lifeline, 350 miles from ruin to rescue.
Jewish Houston, home to about 40,000 generous souls, opened its doors to the many Jews fleeing New Orleans. It was the start of a process that irrevocably changed both communities over these 10 years, and bound them in a special way, even as New Orleans — both the Jewish community and the wider city — has rebounded in the last decade.
Josh Pershell was 8 years old when his family pulled onto I-10 bound for Houston. Their house, they would later learn, was “completely flooded.” Houston would now be home. “Everyone was very welcoming and supportive,” Pershell, now 18, told The Jewish Week in a recent interview.
After Katrina, Houston Jewry offered housing and office space, moral support and counseling, free synagogue membership and day school enrollment, money and prayer books and other religious supplies for the New Orleans evacuees, several hundred of whom ended, according to estimates, ended up making Houston their home.
And then, nearly 10 years later, the high water came to Houston, on Memorial Day 2015 — 11 inches of rain in a matter of a few hours, 2,000 buildings destroyed, some of the worst flooding in the city’s history. The damage was heavy in the heart of Houston’s Jewish neighborhood, Meyerland, along Brays Bayou, home to many of its institutions.
The Jews of New Orleans — current and former ones — were among the first to reach out to the Texas city that had given them refuge. For survivors of Katrina, it was déjà vu — images from Houston of flooded buildings, of people wading in waist-deep water, of stranded individuals being rescued by rowboat.
Returning the favor done to him, Josh Pershell, a recent graduate of Houston’s Beren Academy, a Jewish day school, volunteered to help flood-battered families after the Memorial Day deluge. Along with other volunteers, he carried furniture and other ruined items out of homes, and helped people pack their intact belongings.
“I did it because I felt it was the right thing to do, and the rest of my school and my friends were doing it also,” Pershell said.
♦That the Jews of New Orleans were in a position to have lent a hand after the Houston flooding is an indication of how far the community has come since Katrina hit. In the wake of the Category 5 hurricane, the Jewish population of New Orleans plummeted by more than a third, from 9,500 to 6,000. Today, it’s 10,300. (Buoyed by a network of strengthened levees and wetlands, the city as a whole, which initially lost about 40 percent of its population of nearly 500,000, has grown to 384,000 as of March; yet Louisiana has more young people not in school or working than any state in the nation, a direct result, researchers say, of Katrina.) The local Jewish federation’s annual fundraising campaign, which took a small hit in the wake of the hurricane, has nearly reached the pre-2005 figure of $2.8 million; several Jewish institutions, which suffered heavy damage in the waters of Katrina, are located in new buildings.
“Ten years later we’re now stronger than we were before the storm,” said Bradley Bain, president of Congregation Beth Israel, a Modern Orthodox synagogue that moved into a new building two years ago, after being hosted for several years at a New Orleans Reform temple, Congregation Gates of Prayer in the suburb of Metairie.
“We’re very much a better place,” said Michael Weil, executive director of New Orleans’ Jewish federation, who helped coordinate the community-wide recovery effort, which included a campaign to attract new residents. In a telephone interview, he said Jewish New Orleans has moved beyond its initial recovery and rebuilding stages. “We’re actually rejuvenating. It’s a different world now. The community feels good about itself.”
The wider city “has become an incubator for entrepreneurship,” especially in the arts and the restaurant business, Weil said. “The Jewish community has been at the forefront of that.”
The people who left were mostly young families, who needed schools for their children; and senior citizens, who lost their homes, and lacked the resources or strength to rebuild. The people who have come are mostly young professionals, many of them single. “The new Jewish New Orleans is actually younger, in age PROFILE, than before,” Brandeis history professor Jonathan Sarna said.
The Jewish federation’s high-visibility newcomers PROGRAM, which offered a variety of financial incentives to people who moved to New Orleans, played a role, though perhaps not a crucial one, in their decision, Weil said. Instead, the city itself, its image as a vibrant place, has served as the main draw. The local economy is healthy, jobs are available. And housing, while not inexpensive, is affordable. “It’s a lot cheaper than New York City, Washington or places like that,” he said.
Weil pointed to several signs of new Jewish life in New Orleans: a Moishe House, an expanded Limmud EDUCATIONAL PROGRAM, a new Hillel House and Chabad Center at Tulane University, a new Chabad day school, an expanded JCC Uptown site and Beth Israel’s new building.
As the Aug. 29 anniversary nears, New Orleans’ synagogues are marking the decade of struggle and resilience by hosting several commemorative events that will culminate in prayer services on the weekend of the anniversary. And in a sign of the giving-back spirit, the New Orleans federation is COORDINATING TikkuNola volunteer work that features such activities as collecting and distributing school supplies for charter school students.
♦A few days before Katrina struck, two leaders of the New Orleans-based Jewish Children’s Regional Service, a social work agency and charitable fund that serves seven Southern states, traveled I-10 to Houston to set up a SATELLITE office.
Led by executive director Ned Goldberg and education coordinator Melanie Musser, a small staff of displaced JCRS staffers continued to offer their services, which included personal counseling, advice on obtaining government benefits, and SCHOLARSHIP ASSISTANCE for universities and summer camps, to New Orleans evacuees. A small JCRS satellite office remains in the JFS headquarters here; after Katrina, the agency’s client base grew by more than 50 percent.
And Goldberg, who again works fulltime in New Orleans after nearly a year in Houston, came back here recently to give back. About a month after the Houston flooding, which took place a few days before the start of the official hurricane season, Goldberg was back on I-10, this time with a carload of new and gently used Judaica, books and games for flood victims that the agency had collected from ITS SUPPORTERS.
“Katrina families were the first to volunteer” to help Houston, said Pat Pollicoff, president of Houston’s Congregation Beth Israel, which suffered heavy water damage on Memorial Day. “They understood.”
A fundraising campaign under the auspices of the New Orleans Jewish federation, which included “dollar-for-dollar matches” for Houston Jewry from several donors, had raised “$27,470 from donors throughout the state … MATCHED by the Goldring Family and Woldenberg foundations … for a total of $52,470,” the federation REPORTED earlier this month.
“Katrina had a long-term effect on both New Orleans and Houston, creating a unique bond between the people of our two cities,” said Lee Wunsch, CEO of the Jewish Federation of Greater Houston.
Post-Katrina, the Jewish community of Houston was “amazing,” Weil said. “They gave us everything. Everyone was aware of the help Houston gave us.”
“The close relationship with Houston is mutually beneficial,” said Brandeis’ Sarna. “Through the years there have been Jewish communities that have closely assisted one another. Baltimore and Philadelphia have historically been intertwined. In early AMERICA, Shearith Israel [in Manhattan] helped various congregations get their start and would then, later, write to them for assistance.”
♦Houston will likely need the continued help, from New Orleanians as well as others.
Wunsch called the flooding the costliest in the Jewish community’s history. “It will take 18-24 months before things get back to normal,” he said. “The price tag for this is very significant. We’ve estimated the cost … at $3.5 million.”
Wunsch estimated that 500 Jewish families here “had their homes compromised … half will need some kind of community support.”
“Every synagogue has families affected by the flood,” he told New Orleans’ Crescent City Jewish News.
Leading the financial support of the federation’s Houston Flood Relief Fund was the Jewish Federations of North America, which made a $250,000 donation.
The buildings that sustained the most damage were those of three congregations — Beth Israel, United Orthodox Synagogues, and the Meyerland Minyan — the teen building of the Jewish Community Center, and the JCC’s racquetball courts and toddler gym. They are in various stages of rebuilding and renovation; the affected synagogues, with the approach of the High Holy Days season, are holding worship services in mold-free, repaired rooms, some using texts donated by New Orleans congregations.
Drive through Meyerland and you see storage units in front of many homes, yellow building permits in many windows.
Active in the post-flood volunteer activities here are Chabad Lubavitch of Houston, Congregation Yeshurun, the national NECHAMA and All Hands organizations, the Dallas-based Texas Torah Institute educational program, and Boy Scout Troop 806, sponsored by the Beth Israel Brotherhood. Several synagogues offered free community-wide barbecues and dinners, and the JCC ran a series of workshops about receiving government benefits, concerts and films.
JFS is still counseling people traumatized by the flooding, and offering a weekly support group, said Linda Burger, the group’s executive director. New faces show up each week, she said.
After the flood, JFS staffers set up a table at the popular Three Brothers kosher bakery, which gave out free challah rolls to flood victims.
The New Orleans JFS offered practical advice in such areas as case management and setting up an effective online communications system, Burger said. “We were very prepared. Katrina taught us not to be afraid to ask for help.”
Members of Houston’s Jewish community who had generously come to the aid of New Orleans a decade ago found themselves in an unfamiliar situation this summer, Burger said. “People said it’s a lot better to be on the giving side than on the receiving side.”
“It’s much easier to give the help,” echoed Beth El’s Pollicoff.
“It’s a humbling thing” to need help — “very humbling,” she said, adding praise for the Jewish community of New Orleans. “It’s tremendous to know we have their emotional support.”
steve@jewishweek.orgNadler's Iran Vote Unleashes Vitriol
Stewart Ain
Staff Writer
Rep. Jerrold Nadler knew that his announced support last Friday of the Iranian nuclear agreement would trigger an angry response from opponents of the deal.
But he was stunned by stridency and personal nature of the attacks.
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National
Nadler’s Iran Vote Unleashes Vitriol
Congressman stunned by personal nature of reaction; House members come to his defense.
Stewart Ain
Staff Writer
“I never expected the vicious nature of the opposition,” Nadler told The Jewish Week Monday. Getty Images
Rep. Jerrold Nadler knew that his announced support last Friday of the Iranian nuclear agreement would trigger an angry response from opponents of the deal.
But he was stunned by stridency and personal nature of the attacks.
“I never expected the vicious nature of the opposition,” he told The Jewish Week. “It’s one thing to be told you are wrong, it’s another to say you know you are wrong and that you are doing it for terrible motives. … People are entitled to their views, but what bothers me is that people are saying, ‘You betrayed us.’ I have been a supporter of Israel all my life. This is my decision and I think it is best for the U.S. and Israel. I could be right or wrong, but to conclude that anybody who supports the deal is opposed to the Jewish people and Israel’s welfare is absurd.”
Nadler explained his decision in a nearly 5,200-word essay on his website. “After carefully studying the agreement and the arguments and analyses from all sides,” he wrote, “I have concluded that, of all the alternatives, approval of the JCPOA, for all its flaws, gives us the best chance of stopping Iran from developing a nuclear weapon.”
And in a 45-minute interview Monday with The Jewish Week, he went through the agreement in great detail. He insisted that although the agreement lifts all restrictions on Iran’s ability to develop a nuclear weapon in just 15 years, the world “would be no better off then than we are now without the deal.”
And in the meantime, Nadler stressed, the deal would increase from three months to 15 months the amount of time it would take for Iran to have a sufficient supply of fissile material to make one bomb. And for the next 15 years there are “air-tight assurances they can’t get a bomb,” he said, referring to the inspection and monitoring system the agreement puts in place.
Many of the personal attacks against Nadler, the only Jewish Democratic House member in the state to support the deal, can be found on Facebook, Twitter, various blogs, radio talk shows and opinion pieces. One writer said flatly that Nadler has “endangered the existence of the State of Israel and has disappointed the Jewish community.” Another referred to him as a “kappo,” a reference to the Jews who worked on behalf of Nazis in the concentration camp. A third called him “a True Traitor to your people and the USA,” and still another wrote that “The blood of Jews and Israel are on your hands.”
Zev Brenner’s call-in radio program on WMCA last weekend — which has a largely Orthodox following — devoted the entire hour to a discussion about Nadler’s decision. Brenner said there were so many calls and emails that he couldn’t get to them all and that all opposed Nadler’s decision.
“People in general were very upset,” he said later. “People view the deal as dangerous not only for Israel but for America. The opposition cuts across geographic areas. ... The phones were crazy — this is a very hot topic that people are passionate about.”
One of the studio guests, Mark Meir Appel, a social activist, said Nadler’s “decision was all about politics because he wanted to satisfy his constituency on the Upper West Side, which is liberal left-wing. … I believe very strongly that Congressman Jerry Nadler … betrayed us viciously and his entire record of what he did for the Jewish community goes out the window.”
The rhetoric has been so over the top that other members of the New York congressional delegation issued a statement Tuesday denouncing the vitriol. Signed by Democratic Reps. Eliot Engel, Nita Lowey and Steve Israel, it expresses concern that “both sides of the debate have resorted to ad hominem attacks and threats against those who don’t share their opinions. This is unacceptable. It is especially egregious to attribute malicious intent to decision makers who are thoughtfully debating the details and effects of the agreement. No matter where you stand on the Iran deal, comparisons to the Holocaust, the darkest chapter in human history, questioning the credentials of long-standing advocates for Israel, and accusations of dual loyalty are inappropriate.”
It added that all concerned should “refrain from attacks and focus on the substance of the agreement. Vitriolic rhetoric and threats distract from the thoughtful debate this important issue deserves and, in some cases, unacceptably perpetuate hate.”
Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), who has announced his opposition to the Iranian nuclear agreement, issued his own statement calling Nadler “one of the most steadfast supporters of Israel’s security.”
“We came to different conclusions on this decision of conscience, but to question one's loyalty to this nation or one's commitment to the security of Israel, our closest ally in the region, based on how one comes out on this issue is just absurd," he said.
A letter denouncing the personal attacks was sent to Nadler Wednesday by the chairman of the National Jewish Democratic Council, Greg Rosenbaum, in which he said “neither you nor any other elected officials should be subjected to any sort of personal threats or hateful attacks due to your votes."
“None of us are traitors; we have not betrayed our country, our people or our love of Israel," he added. "We are all allowed to have our own beliefs and our own convictions, and you and your fellow members of Congress should be applauded for your courage, rather than attacked for it.”
In an interview, Engel said that over the years controversial legislation has sparked angry calls from people “who say abusive things. And there are always some people – mostly from out of state – who say anti-Semitic things and crazy things. But the intensity this time is different. … It is coming from a few hotheads and people who are very emotional, and it obviously cannot be condoned. I wish people would realize we are human beings as well and make our decisions based on a lot of factors. If you don’t agree, you can show it at the ballot box.”
Abraham Foxman, national director emeritus of the Anti-Defamation League, sent an email to Nadler saying that although he disagreed with his decision, he admires Nadler’s “dedication, devotion and support for Israel and the Jewish people and the values our country stands for. You don’t deserve what is being thrown at you.”
Nadler represents the 10th Congressional District, which stretches from Manhattan’s Upper West Side to Greenwich Village and Battery Park City, and into Brooklyn and parts of Borough Park, Sunset Park and Gravesend. It is the district with the largest number of Jews in the U.S., and they represent a microcosm of the American Jewish community — from the liberal to the ultra-Orthodox, the latter of whom are almost universally against the Iranian deal.
The split in the community over the deal played out this week in the pages of this newspaper, and in stark ways. One full-page ad (on page 13), sponsored by American Parents & Grandparents Against the Iranian Deal, showed the Iranian and Israeli flags, with a bolt of lightning striking the Israeli flag. Its text, in part, reads: “Jerry Nadler represents more Jews than any other Congressman — He Claims To Be Pro-Israel So Why Is He Backing Obama And Iran?”
Another full-page ad (page 2), sponsored by the No Nukes for Iran Project, reads in part, “Todah Rabah [Thank You], Congressman Jerry Nadler. Thank you for leading the way to prevent a nuclear armed Iran. Kol Hakavod! [Well Done].”
Nadler’s stance on the Iranian deal has also rattled other elected representatives who serve his district. Councilman David Greenfield wrote on Facebook that Nadler is acting “against the overwhelming wishes of his Jewish constituency.”
(A spokesman for Nadler’s office said constituents are evenly divided on the issue, based upon phone calls and emails to his office.)
Assemblyman Dov Hikind, a Democrat who lives in Nadler’s district, told The Jewish Week: “I’m embarrassed that he represents me.”
He noted that shortly before announcing his support for the deal —known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) — Nadler released a letter he received from President Barack Obama that sought to reassure him about the concerns Nadler had raised during a private White House meeting.
“That letter was a joke – it was meaningless,” Hikind said. “I could just see Obama going back to the White House and saying, ‘Look at that stupid Jew.’ Obama bought him so cheap.”
Hikind said he is planning a demonstration this week in front of Nadler’s Manhattan office with about a dozen Holocaust survivors who will speak about the similarities today with what they experienced just during prior to the Holocaust.
At the same time, another group will stage a “Thank You Rep. Nadler” rally.
Competing groups have also announced demonstrations outside the offices of two local Democratic members of Congress who have yet to announce their position on the Iran deal: Reps. Carolyn Maloney and Gregory Meeks. And a rally is planned for next Tuesday outside the Manhattan office of Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y) to protest her decision to support the deal.
Hikind said he is convinced that Nadler “will have a tough time getting re-elected next year because this is such a powerful issue.”
Attempts are now reportedly underway to find a candidate to challenge Nadler in a primary. But veteran Democratic strategist Hank Scheinkopf said trying to unseat Nadler — who has served in the House since 1992 after 12 years in the Assembly — would not be easy.
“This is a test of whether the Nadler old-style liberal Jewish theology is more powerful than the newly arriving Israel-supporting Orthodox community,” he explained. “The anger over the vote is not going to dissipate quickly, and the more pro-Israel portion of his community has both the resources and the time to put together candidates. They may not beat him but they would injure him.”
Nadler told The Jewish Week that Obama’s letter about the agreement — which he said he would have voted for even without the missive — “took care of three of the four issues” he had expressed concerns about when he met Obama. The first was Obama’s commitment in writing that the U.S. would never permit Iran to have a nuclear weapon. Second, a promise that mid-level Iranian violations of the deal would be met by “smaller sanctions.” And third, that a “czar or ambassador would be put in charge of implementing the agreement and watching for violations.”
Although Nadler said he was unhappy that the deal bars international monitors from personally inspecting the Parchin military complex, Nadler said the site is believed to have been used to weaponize a nuclear bomb and “without fissile material, building a bomb is irrelevant.”
Asked about the deal’s unfreezing of billions of dollars Iran earned in oil sales and the fact that money could be used to further Iran’s terrorist activities, Nadler said the money would be unfrozen even without American support for the deal.
“We realize Iran may use some of the money for terrorism, but we will substantially increase military aid to Israel,” he said. “This deal is designed to stop Iran from getting a nuclear bomb — it doesn’t deal with the other menacing aspects of Iran. … I was shouting about the threat from Iran before other people were. But an Iran without a nuclear weapon is much less of a threat than an Iran with a nuclear weapon. It is an existential threat to Israel … and with a nuclear bomb in its arsenal, it can inhibit a lot of responses and make terrorism a much greater menace.”
stewart@jewishweek.orgCould Talks With Hamas Lead Anywhere?
Nathan Jeffay
Contributing Editor
Despite the strong denials from Jerusalem, reports of contacts between Israel and Hamas over a possible cease-fire refuse to die. In fact, it seems more and more certain that Tony Blair has been acting as a go-between and trying to close a 10-year cessation of hostilities, which would bring quiet to Israel's border with the Gaza Strip.
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Letter From Israel
Could Talks With Hamas Lead Anywhere?
A year after the Gaza war, a possibility fraught with problems.
Nathan Jeffay
Contributing Editor
Peace envoy Tony Blair. Getty Images
Despite the strong denials from Jerusalem, reports of contacts between Israel and Hamas over a possible cease-fire refuse to die. In fact, it seems more and more certain that Tony Blair has been acting as a go-between and trying to close a 10-year cessation of hostilities, which would bring quiet to Israel’s border with the Gaza Strip.
It all adds up. Blair, former British prime minister, was not allowed to meet with Hamas during his tenure as the Quartet’s Middle East envoy, which ended with his resignation in May. Now he can, and is understood to be optimistic about the chances of taming Hamas, probably by way of a discrete agreement with Israel. It seems likely that there are also other channels in addition to Blair. As for Jerusalem’s denials, these are par for the course and a political necessity, whatever the reality.
It’s unclear whether talks can lead anywhere and whether, even if they did, Hamas leadership would stick to an agreement instead of breaking it when they felt like it, citing some alleged Israeli transgression. Nevertheless, it’s quite conceivable that there is some interest in an agreement — after all, a year on from the conflict with Israel which left Gaza in chaos, Hamas is interested in ways to improve life in Gaza and in so doing cementing its hold on the territory.
As families in Israel have just marked first year anniversaries of relations who died in last year’s Gaza conflict, the prospect of a calm southern border is extremely tempting. A 10-year truce, if observed, could prevent several rounds of fighting between Israel and Hamas, and allow thousands of children in Israel’s south to get through almost an entire school career without lessons punctuated by the dash to bomb shelters. But one can’t talk about Gaza-based Hamas without considering the political echelon in the West Bank.
As the reports buzz of indirect contacts between Israel and Hamas, there is sense of upheaval among Hamas’ Palestinian rivals — the more moderate camp based in the West Bank.
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas is resigning his post as head of the Palestine Liberation Organization’s executive committee. It’s easy to be blasé about resignations in Ramallah — I covered the resignation of chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat in 2011, but he’s still in his post today. Threats of resignation among senior officials are repeatedly aired to make a point, whether internally or with an eye to the international community.
Abbas’ resignation from the PLO, the official representative of all Palestinians, may well be an internal political ploy, or an attempt to actually bolster his power in the organization through new elections. However, it is more than just inside baseball — it highlights the instability that exists in Ramallah institutions. The PLO’s executive body hasn’t met for some six years, and the entire PLO is a shadow of its former self. Meanwhile, Abbas’ legitimacy as Palestinian president — he was elected for a four-year term in 2005 and new elections haven’t been held since — is in question.
Israelis look at the Palestinian instability and reflect that it’s nothing new, that there are always internal crises in Ramallah, and that Abbas’ position has been in question almost since the day he took office. But it’s widely presumed that if Abbas and the more moderate Palestinian camp haven’t lost or surrendered their power until now, and if they are still maintaining security to a large extent and keeping the door open, at least theoretically, to peace talks, this will continue to be the case.
However, Abbas is 80 years old and not poised to stay in his post forever. He also has serious image and popularity problems among the Palestinian public. And with talks for a two-state solution stalled he has difficulties asserting the relevance of his path compared to more militant options. Israelis shouldn’t take the fact that Abbas, or somebody with Abbas’ broad approach, is the main representative of the Palestinians, for granted. And while his conduct can be deeply problematic, they shouldn’t forget that he is better than virtually any alternative.
If Israel moves forward on a cease-fire arrangement with Hamas, leading to easier conditions in Gaza, it will pull the rug out from under Abbas and his camp. It will be handing Hamas, based on the leveraging of violence, a reward that has not been granted to Abbas’ camp based on the leveraging of diplomatic channels. And it would be doing so for a second time, after freeing more than 1,000 Palestinian security prisoners in 2011 in return for Hamas’ prize captive, Gilad Shalit. It would be sending a message to Palestinians that “resistance” can achieve what negotiations can’t, and further weaken moderates.
An agreement with Hamas would in a sense be rubber-stamping the group’s rule of the Gaza Strip, which it took violently from Abbas’ Palestinian Authority — and in so doing make it even harder than it is now for Abbas to negotiate with Israel over the future of both Gaza and the West Bank.
There is a certain attraction, given the current Israeli government, with its rightist tendencies, in a deal with Hamas. It would not require handing over any territory, but rather just a set of concessions regarding life in Gaza. And violation by Hamas could be answered with simple force. But turning Abbas and his camp into an irrelevance, and buoying militant Hamas, would be irresponsible.
If, on the other hand, Israel can craft a deal with Hamas and then, before signing, use this to push Abbas’ camp into saving itself by signing a comprehensive peace agreement that subsumes an Israel-Hamas agreement, that would be a stroke of genius.
Nathan Jeffay’s column appears twice a month.Natalie Portman: Jewish Community Should Focus Less On The Holocaust
Steve Lipman
Staff Writer
This time, her critics aren't film reviewers.
Natalie Portman, the Israeli-born, Harvard-educated, Oscar-winning actress, is being called on the carpet - gently, that is - for comments she made last week about the Jewish community's emphasis on Holocaust education.
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Natalie Portman: Jewish Community Should Focus Less On The Holocaust
The Oscar-winning actress said other genocides should be taught in Jewish schools. Her comments immediately drew criticism.
Steve Lipman
Staff Writer
Natalie Portman on the red carpet at the Cannes Film Festival in May. Getty
This time, her critics aren’t film reviewers.
Natalie Portman, the Israeli-born, Harvard-educated, Oscar-winning actress, is being called on the carpet — gently, that is — for comments she made last week about the Jewish community’s emphasis on Holocaust education.
In an interview with The Independent, the graduate of Long Island and Washington, D.C., Jewish day schools questioned “how much at the forefront we put Holocaust education.”
“We need to be reminded that hatred exists at all times and reminds us to be empathetic to other people that have experienced hatred also,” said Portman, a descendant of Holocaust refugees, who said she first learned the extent of other genocides during a 2007 visit to Rwanda. She noted that as the Rwandan genocide was unfolding in 1994, her day school classes included nothing about the mass killings, while she learned extensively about the Holocaust and the subsequent birth of Israel.
With the Independent interview, the actress stepped into an ongoing debate in the Jewish community about the centrality and the exclusivity of the Holocaust, one that reflects a generational shift in Jewish life.
Portman, 34, who once said that as an actress she needs “a thick skin,” drew immediate but mixed criticism for her comments, which came in the interview in which she was promoting her new film, “A Tale of Love and Darkness,” adapted from the memoir of Israel’s Amos Oz.
“I disagree with the emphasis of her comments, and agree with much of the substance,” said Menachem Rosensaft, general counsel of the World Jewish Congress and editor of “God, Faith & Identity from the Ashes: Reflections of Children of Holocaust Survivors” (Jewish Lights Publishing).
The emphasis: Equating the Holocaust with other genocides. “Because of its enormous scope and its systematic, all-embracing nature, the Shoah is the epitome of genocides,” said Rosensaft, the son of Holocaust survivors.
The substance: An awareness of tragedies that have struck other peoples. “Neither we nor anyone else should engage in comparative suffering,” Rosensaft said. “Far too often we teach about the Holocaust and do not sensitize our kids to other atrocities, other genocides that are occurring in their lifetime.”
Rosensaft, who teaches law courses at Cornell and Columbia universities, said Portman “is very much speaking for others of her generation, both Jews and non-Jews.”
Michael Berenbaum, Holocaust author-scholar, offered a similar, “respectful” reaction.
He called Portman “an actress, not a philosopher, not a historian — actors are not the people we turn to for a nuanced understanding of the events of history.” But, Berenbaum added, she made a valid point about a Jewish responsibility to teach about history’s “succession” of genocides.
Judging by Portman’s comments, Berenbaum said, “we have succeeded in transmitting the monumental nature of the Holocaust, without transmitting how distinct an event it was.”
The Anti-Defamation League, a staunch defender of Holocaust education, said it would not be issuing a statement on Portman’s remarks. But B’nai B’rith International, in a statement, said, “An emphasis on the Holocaust in a Jewish education is extremely important as it is tied to our identity. The focus does not come at the expense of learning about other tragedies, such as those in Rwanda and Bosnia.”
steve@jewishweek.org______________________________
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If you put your hand on the stove you are going to get burned. And “The Fat Jew” a.k.a “The Fat Jewish” a.k.a Josh Ostrovsky keeps coming back to get singed.
The difference is this time the Instagram legend is being scorched by masters of the culinary arts instead of masters of comedy. Ostrovsky, who went from being famous to infamous for ceaselessly and, until very recently in aninterview with Vulture magazine, unapologetically plagiarizing the jokes of other comedians, has flown too close to the flame and like our fallen Icarus, is melting fast. Which is not a good look for a food festival.
According to Business Insider Kenji López, the managing culinary director of the website Serious Eats, released a statement on Facebook yesterday saying that he and his publication withdrew from the New York City & Food Festival’s “Late-Night Ramen Party” since Ostrovsky has been scheduled to host the event.
The post, which has been deleted read:
"I opened up the event's official website and saw not the event we'd been planning, but The Fat Jew's ramen party. His face, his name, all listed above ours, despite the fact that we were neither consulted nor alerted to his involvement in the event.
The Fat Jew is the antithesis of everything I represent in the media world ... He is a plagiarist, a thief, a misogynist, and absolutely the wrong choice of co-host for a food event, or really any respectable event.”
Since López’s post went up four other restaurants and an artisan noodle maker have backed out of the event, including Yuji Ramen and Ivan Ramen.
Ostrovksy’s iconic “Jewnicorn” was once a lightning rod for lucrative success but now seems to serve as a periscope for impending disaster.
The festival’s proceeds will be donated to the Food Bank For New York City and the No Kid Hungry campaign. López is confident that the event will still sell out and the charities will not be harmed by the restaurants’ choice to bow out.
However, it’s not clear how people are going to eat a plate of stolen jokes. But knowing Ostrovsky, he’ll probably whip something up ... or just pilfer a few dishes from a nearby eatery, ba-zing.
Either way, we’ll have the opportunity to witness it on Instagram, which still hasn’t deactivated his account.TOP STORIES:
The Tides That Bind
Jonathan Mark
Associate Editor
Houston - Ten years ago this week, with Hurricane Katrina barreling toward them, several thousand Jews from New Orleans set out on I-10 to escape the storm. They headed west, passing Baton Rouge, then Lafayette, in the heart of the Louisiana bayou, then Lake Charles, and on across the Texas line through Beaumont and the lyrically named Mont Belvieu.
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The Tides That Bind
Ten years after Katrina, the Jews of New Orleans and Houston remain bound by a flood of emotion and caring.
Steve Lipman
Staff Writer
New Orleans’ Congregation Beth Israel. Courtesy of Beth Israel
Houston — Ten years ago this week, with Hurricane Katrina barreling toward them, several thousand Jews from New Orleans set out on I-10 to escape the storm. They headed west, passing Baton Rouge, then Lafayette, in the heart of the Louisiana bayou, then Lake Charles, and on across the Texas line through Beaumont and the lyrically named Mont Belvieu.
They were headed for higher ground, and sanctuary, in Houston. The ribbon of highway was a lifeline, 350 miles from ruin to rescue.
Jewish Houston, home to about 40,000 generous souls, opened its doors to the many Jews fleeing New Orleans. It was the start of a process that irrevocably changed both communities over these 10 years, and bound them in a special way, even as New Orleans — both the Jewish community and the wider city — has rebounded in the last decade.
Josh Pershell was 8 years old when his family pulled onto I-10 bound for Houston. Their house, they would later learn, was “completely flooded.” Houston would now be home. “Everyone was very welcoming and supportive,” Pershell, now 18, told The Jewish Week in a recent interview.
After Katrina, Houston Jewry offered housing and office space, moral support and counseling, free synagogue membership and day school enrollment, money and prayer books and other religious supplies for the New Orleans evacuees, several hundred of whom ended, according to estimates, ended up making Houston their home.
And then, nearly 10 years later, the high water came to Houston, on Memorial Day 2015 — 11 inches of rain in a matter of a few hours, 2,000 buildings destroyed, some of the worst flooding in the city’s history. The damage was heavy in the heart of Houston’s Jewish neighborhood, Meyerland, along Brays Bayou, home to many of its institutions.
The Jews of New Orleans — current and former ones — were among the first to reach out to the Texas city that had given them refuge. For survivors of Katrina, it was déjà vu — images from Houston of flooded buildings, of people wading in waist-deep water, of stranded individuals being rescued by rowboat.
Returning the favor done to him, Josh Pershell, a recent graduate of Houston’s Beren Academy, a Jewish day school, volunteered to help flood-battered families after the Memorial Day deluge. Along with other volunteers, he carried furniture and other ruined items out of homes, and helped people pack their intact belongings.
“I did it because I felt it was the right thing to do, and the rest of my school and my friends were doing it also,” Pershell said.
♦That the Jews of New Orleans were in a position to have lent a hand after the Houston flooding is an indication of how far the community has come since Katrina hit. In the wake of the Category 5 hurricane, the Jewish population of New Orleans plummeted by more than a third, from 9,500 to 6,000. Today, it’s 10,300. (Buoyed by a network of strengthened levees and wetlands, the city as a whole, which initially lost about 40 percent of its population of nearly 500,000, has grown to 384,000 as of March; yet Louisiana has more young people not in school or working than any state in the nation, a direct result, researchers say, of Katrina.) The local Jewish federation’s annual fundraising campaign, which took a small hit in the wake of the hurricane, has nearly reached the pre-2005 figure of $2.8 million; several Jewish institutions, which suffered heavy damage in the waters of Katrina, are located in new buildings.
“Ten years later we’re now stronger than we were before the storm,” said Bradley Bain, president of Congregation Beth Israel, a Modern Orthodox synagogue that moved into a new building two years ago, after being hosted for several years at a New Orleans Reform temple, Congregation Gates of Prayer in the suburb of Metairie.
“We’re very much a better place,” said Michael Weil, executive director of New Orleans’ Jewish federation, who helped coordinate the community-wide recovery effort, which included a campaign to attract new residents. In a telephone interview, he said Jewish New Orleans has moved beyond its initial recovery and rebuilding stages. “We’re actually rejuvenating. It’s a different world now. The community feels good about itself.”
The wider city “has become an incubator for entrepreneurship,” especially in the arts and the restaurant business, Weil said. “The Jewish community has been at the forefront of that.”
The people who left were mostly young families, who needed schools for their children; and senior citizens, who lost their homes, and lacked the resources or strength to rebuild. The people who have come are mostly young professionals, many of them single. “The new Jewish New Orleans is actually younger, in age PROFILE, than before,” Brandeis history professor Jonathan Sarna said.
The Jewish federation’s high-visibility newcomers PROGRAM, which offered a variety of financial incentives to people who moved to New Orleans, played a role, though perhaps not a crucial one, in their decision, Weil said. Instead, the city itself, its image as a vibrant place, has served as the main draw. The local economy is healthy, jobs are available. And housing, while not inexpensive, is affordable. “It’s a lot cheaper than New York City, Washington or places like that,” he said.
Weil pointed to several signs of new Jewish life in New Orleans: a Moishe House, an expanded Limmud EDUCATIONAL PROGRAM, a new Hillel House and Chabad Center at Tulane University, a new Chabad day school, an expanded JCC Uptown site and Beth Israel’s new building.
As the Aug. 29 anniversary nears, New Orleans’ synagogues are marking the decade of struggle and resilience by hosting several commemorative events that will culminate in prayer services on the weekend of the anniversary. And in a sign of the giving-back spirit, the New Orleans federation is COORDINATING TikkuNola volunteer work that features such activities as collecting and distributing school supplies for charter school students.
♦A few days before Katrina struck, two leaders of the New Orleans-based Jewish Children’s Regional Service, a social work agency and charitable fund that serves seven Southern states, traveled I-10 to Houston to set up a SATELLITE office.
Led by executive director Ned Goldberg and education coordinator Melanie Musser, a small staff of displaced JCRS staffers continued to offer their services, which included personal counseling, advice on obtaining government benefits, and SCHOLARSHIP ASSISTANCE for universities and summer camps, to New Orleans evacuees. A small JCRS satellite office remains in the JFS headquarters here; after Katrina, the agency’s client base grew by more than 50 percent.
And Goldberg, who again works fulltime in New Orleans after nearly a year in Houston, came back here recently to give back. About a month after the Houston flooding, which took place a few days before the start of the official hurricane season, Goldberg was back on I-10, this time with a carload of new and gently used Judaica, books and games for flood victims that the agency had collected from ITS SUPPORTERS.
“Katrina families were the first to volunteer” to help Houston, said Pat Pollicoff, president of Houston’s Congregation Beth Israel, which suffered heavy water damage on Memorial Day. “They understood.”
A fundraising campaign under the auspices of the New Orleans Jewish federation, which included “dollar-for-dollar matches” for Houston Jewry from several donors, had raised “$27,470 from donors throughout the state … MATCHED by the Goldring Family and Woldenberg foundations … for a total of $52,470,” the federation REPORTED earlier this month.
“Katrina had a long-term effect on both New Orleans and Houston, creating a unique bond between the people of our two cities,” said Lee Wunsch, CEO of the Jewish Federation of Greater Houston.
Post-Katrina, the Jewish community of Houston was “amazing,” Weil said. “They gave us everything. Everyone was aware of the help Houston gave us.”
“The close relationship with Houston is mutually beneficial,” said Brandeis’ Sarna. “Through the years there have been Jewish communities that have closely assisted one another. Baltimore and Philadelphia have historically been intertwined. In early AMERICA, Shearith Israel [in Manhattan] helped various congregations get their start and would then, later, write to them for assistance.”
♦Houston will likely need the continued help, from New Orleanians as well as others.
Wunsch called the flooding the costliest in the Jewish community’s history. “It will take 18-24 months before things get back to normal,” he said. “The price tag for this is very significant. We’ve estimated the cost … at $3.5 million.”
Wunsch estimated that 500 Jewish families here “had their homes compromised … half will need some kind of community support.”
“Every synagogue has families affected by the flood,” he told New Orleans’ Crescent City Jewish News.
Leading the financial support of the federation’s Houston Flood Relief Fund was the Jewish Federations of North America, which made a $250,000 donation.
The buildings that sustained the most damage were those of three congregations — Beth Israel, United Orthodox Synagogues, and the Meyerland Minyan — the teen building of the Jewish Community Center, and the JCC’s racquetball courts and toddler gym. They are in various stages of rebuilding and renovation; the affected synagogues, with the approach of the High Holy Days season, are holding worship services in mold-free, repaired rooms, some using texts donated by New Orleans congregations.
Drive through Meyerland and you see storage units in front of many homes, yellow building permits in many windows.
Active in the post-flood volunteer activities here are Chabad Lubavitch of Houston, Congregation Yeshurun, the national NECHAMA and All Hands organizations, the Dallas-based Texas Torah Institute educational program, and Boy Scout Troop 806, sponsored by the Beth Israel Brotherhood. Several synagogues offered free community-wide barbecues and dinners, and the JCC ran a series of workshops about receiving government benefits, concerts and films.
JFS is still counseling people traumatized by the flooding, and offering a weekly support group, said Linda Burger, the group’s executive director. New faces show up each week, she said.
After the flood, JFS staffers set up a table at the popular Three Brothers kosher bakery, which gave out free challah rolls to flood victims.
The New Orleans JFS offered practical advice in such areas as case management and setting up an effective online communications system, Burger said. “We were very prepared. Katrina taught us not to be afraid to ask for help.”
Members of Houston’s Jewish community who had generously come to the aid of New Orleans a decade ago found themselves in an unfamiliar situation this summer, Burger said. “People said it’s a lot better to be on the giving side than on the receiving side.”
“It’s much easier to give the help,” echoed Beth El’s Pollicoff.
“It’s a humbling thing” to need help — “very humbling,” she said, adding praise for the Jewish community of New Orleans. “It’s tremendous to know we have their emotional support.”
steve@jewishweek.orgNadler's Iran Vote Unleashes Vitriol
Stewart Ain
Staff Writer
Rep. Jerrold Nadler knew that his announced support last Friday of the Iranian nuclear agreement would trigger an angry response from opponents of the deal.
But he was stunned by stridency and personal nature of the attacks.
Read More
National
Nadler’s Iran Vote Unleashes Vitriol
Congressman stunned by personal nature of reaction; House members come to his defense.
Stewart Ain
Staff Writer
“I never expected the vicious nature of the opposition,” Nadler told The Jewish Week Monday. Getty Images
Rep. Jerrold Nadler knew that his announced support last Friday of the Iranian nuclear agreement would trigger an angry response from opponents of the deal.
But he was stunned by stridency and personal nature of the attacks.
“I never expected the vicious nature of the opposition,” he told The Jewish Week. “It’s one thing to be told you are wrong, it’s another to say you know you are wrong and that you are doing it for terrible motives. … People are entitled to their views, but what bothers me is that people are saying, ‘You betrayed us.’ I have been a supporter of Israel all my life. This is my decision and I think it is best for the U.S. and Israel. I could be right or wrong, but to conclude that anybody who supports the deal is opposed to the Jewish people and Israel’s welfare is absurd.”
Nadler explained his decision in a nearly 5,200-word essay on his website. “After carefully studying the agreement and the arguments and analyses from all sides,” he wrote, “I have concluded that, of all the alternatives, approval of the JCPOA, for all its flaws, gives us the best chance of stopping Iran from developing a nuclear weapon.”
And in a 45-minute interview Monday with The Jewish Week, he went through the agreement in great detail. He insisted that although the agreement lifts all restrictions on Iran’s ability to develop a nuclear weapon in just 15 years, the world “would be no better off then than we are now without the deal.”
And in the meantime, Nadler stressed, the deal would increase from three months to 15 months the amount of time it would take for Iran to have a sufficient supply of fissile material to make one bomb. And for the next 15 years there are “air-tight assurances they can’t get a bomb,” he said, referring to the inspection and monitoring system the agreement puts in place.
Many of the personal attacks against Nadler, the only Jewish Democratic House member in the state to support the deal, can be found on Facebook, Twitter, various blogs, radio talk shows and opinion pieces. One writer said flatly that Nadler has “endangered the existence of the State of Israel and has disappointed the Jewish community.” Another referred to him as a “kappo,” a reference to the Jews who worked on behalf of Nazis in the concentration camp. A third called him “a True Traitor to your people and the USA,” and still another wrote that “The blood of Jews and Israel are on your hands.”
Zev Brenner’s call-in radio program on WMCA last weekend — which has a largely Orthodox following — devoted the entire hour to a discussion about Nadler’s decision. Brenner said there were so many calls and emails that he couldn’t get to them all and that all opposed Nadler’s decision.
“People in general were very upset,” he said later. “People view the deal as dangerous not only for Israel but for America. The opposition cuts across geographic areas. ... The phones were crazy — this is a very hot topic that people are passionate about.”
One of the studio guests, Mark Meir Appel, a social activist, said Nadler’s “decision was all about politics because he wanted to satisfy his constituency on the Upper West Side, which is liberal left-wing. … I believe very strongly that Congressman Jerry Nadler … betrayed us viciously and his entire record of what he did for the Jewish community goes out the window.”
The rhetoric has been so over the top that other members of the New York congressional delegation issued a statement Tuesday denouncing the vitriol. Signed by Democratic Reps. Eliot Engel, Nita Lowey and Steve Israel, it expresses concern that “both sides of the debate have resorted to ad hominem attacks and threats against those who don’t share their opinions. This is unacceptable. It is especially egregious to attribute malicious intent to decision makers who are thoughtfully debating the details and effects of the agreement. No matter where you stand on the Iran deal, comparisons to the Holocaust, the darkest chapter in human history, questioning the credentials of long-standing advocates for Israel, and accusations of dual loyalty are inappropriate.”
It added that all concerned should “refrain from attacks and focus on the substance of the agreement. Vitriolic rhetoric and threats distract from the thoughtful debate this important issue deserves and, in some cases, unacceptably perpetuate hate.”
Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), who has announced his opposition to the Iranian nuclear agreement, issued his own statement calling Nadler “one of the most steadfast supporters of Israel’s security.”
“We came to different conclusions on this decision of conscience, but to question one's loyalty to this nation or one's commitment to the security of Israel, our closest ally in the region, based on how one comes out on this issue is just absurd," he said.
A letter denouncing the personal attacks was sent to Nadler Wednesday by the chairman of the National Jewish Democratic Council, Greg Rosenbaum, in which he said “neither you nor any other elected officials should be subjected to any sort of personal threats or hateful attacks due to your votes."
“None of us are traitors; we have not betrayed our country, our people or our love of Israel," he added. "We are all allowed to have our own beliefs and our own convictions, and you and your fellow members of Congress should be applauded for your courage, rather than attacked for it.”
In an interview, Engel said that over the years controversial legislation has sparked angry calls from people “who say abusive things. And there are always some people – mostly from out of state – who say anti-Semitic things and crazy things. But the intensity this time is different. … It is coming from a few hotheads and people who are very emotional, and it obviously cannot be condoned. I wish people would realize we are human beings as well and make our decisions based on a lot of factors. If you don’t agree, you can show it at the ballot box.”
Abraham Foxman, national director emeritus of the Anti-Defamation League, sent an email to Nadler saying that although he disagreed with his decision, he admires Nadler’s “dedication, devotion and support for Israel and the Jewish people and the values our country stands for. You don’t deserve what is being thrown at you.”
Nadler represents the 10th Congressional District, which stretches from Manhattan’s Upper West Side to Greenwich Village and Battery Park City, and into Brooklyn and parts of Borough Park, Sunset Park and Gravesend. It is the district with the largest number of Jews in the U.S., and they represent a microcosm of the American Jewish community — from the liberal to the ultra-Orthodox, the latter of whom are almost universally against the Iranian deal.
The split in the community over the deal played out this week in the pages of this newspaper, and in stark ways. One full-page ad (on page 13), sponsored by American Parents & Grandparents Against the Iranian Deal, showed the Iranian and Israeli flags, with a bolt of lightning striking the Israeli flag. Its text, in part, reads: “Jerry Nadler represents more Jews than any other Congressman — He Claims To Be Pro-Israel So Why Is He Backing Obama And Iran?”
Another full-page ad (page 2), sponsored by the No Nukes for Iran Project, reads in part, “Todah Rabah [Thank You], Congressman Jerry Nadler. Thank you for leading the way to prevent a nuclear armed Iran. Kol Hakavod! [Well Done].”
Nadler’s stance on the Iranian deal has also rattled other elected representatives who serve his district. Councilman David Greenfield wrote on Facebook that Nadler is acting “against the overwhelming wishes of his Jewish constituency.”
(A spokesman for Nadler’s office said constituents are evenly divided on the issue, based upon phone calls and emails to his office.)
Assemblyman Dov Hikind, a Democrat who lives in Nadler’s district, told The Jewish Week: “I’m embarrassed that he represents me.”
He noted that shortly before announcing his support for the deal —known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) — Nadler released a letter he received from President Barack Obama that sought to reassure him about the concerns Nadler had raised during a private White House meeting.
“That letter was a joke – it was meaningless,” Hikind said. “I could just see Obama going back to the White House and saying, ‘Look at that stupid Jew.’ Obama bought him so cheap.”
Hikind said he is planning a demonstration this week in front of Nadler’s Manhattan office with about a dozen Holocaust survivors who will speak about the similarities today with what they experienced just during prior to the Holocaust.
At the same time, another group will stage a “Thank You Rep. Nadler” rally.
Competing groups have also announced demonstrations outside the offices of two local Democratic members of Congress who have yet to announce their position on the Iran deal: Reps. Carolyn Maloney and Gregory Meeks. And a rally is planned for next Tuesday outside the Manhattan office of Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y) to protest her decision to support the deal.
Hikind said he is convinced that Nadler “will have a tough time getting re-elected next year because this is such a powerful issue.”
Attempts are now reportedly underway to find a candidate to challenge Nadler in a primary. But veteran Democratic strategist Hank Scheinkopf said trying to unseat Nadler — who has served in the House since 1992 after 12 years in the Assembly — would not be easy.
“This is a test of whether the Nadler old-style liberal Jewish theology is more powerful than the newly arriving Israel-supporting Orthodox community,” he explained. “The anger over the vote is not going to dissipate quickly, and the more pro-Israel portion of his community has both the resources and the time to put together candidates. They may not beat him but they would injure him.”
Nadler told The Jewish Week that Obama’s letter about the agreement — which he said he would have voted for even without the missive — “took care of three of the four issues” he had expressed concerns about when he met Obama. The first was Obama’s commitment in writing that the U.S. would never permit Iran to have a nuclear weapon. Second, a promise that mid-level Iranian violations of the deal would be met by “smaller sanctions.” And third, that a “czar or ambassador would be put in charge of implementing the agreement and watching for violations.”
Although Nadler said he was unhappy that the deal bars international monitors from personally inspecting the Parchin military complex, Nadler said the site is believed to have been used to weaponize a nuclear bomb and “without fissile material, building a bomb is irrelevant.”
Asked about the deal’s unfreezing of billions of dollars Iran earned in oil sales and the fact that money could be used to further Iran’s terrorist activities, Nadler said the money would be unfrozen even without American support for the deal.
“We realize Iran may use some of the money for terrorism, but we will substantially increase military aid to Israel,” he said. “This deal is designed to stop Iran from getting a nuclear bomb — it doesn’t deal with the other menacing aspects of Iran. … I was shouting about the threat from Iran before other people were. But an Iran without a nuclear weapon is much less of a threat than an Iran with a nuclear weapon. It is an existential threat to Israel … and with a nuclear bomb in its arsenal, it can inhibit a lot of responses and make terrorism a much greater menace.”
stewart@jewishweek.orgCould Talks With Hamas Lead Anywhere?
Nathan Jeffay
Contributing Editor
Despite the strong denials from Jerusalem, reports of contacts between Israel and Hamas over a possible cease-fire refuse to die. In fact, it seems more and more certain that Tony Blair has been acting as a go-between and trying to close a 10-year cessation of hostilities, which would bring quiet to Israel's border with the Gaza Strip.
Read More
Letter From Israel
Could Talks With Hamas Lead Anywhere?
A year after the Gaza war, a possibility fraught with problems.
Nathan Jeffay
Contributing Editor
Peace envoy Tony Blair. Getty Images
Despite the strong denials from Jerusalem, reports of contacts between Israel and Hamas over a possible cease-fire refuse to die. In fact, it seems more and more certain that Tony Blair has been acting as a go-between and trying to close a 10-year cessation of hostilities, which would bring quiet to Israel’s border with the Gaza Strip.
It all adds up. Blair, former British prime minister, was not allowed to meet with Hamas during his tenure as the Quartet’s Middle East envoy, which ended with his resignation in May. Now he can, and is understood to be optimistic about the chances of taming Hamas, probably by way of a discrete agreement with Israel. It seems likely that there are also other channels in addition to Blair. As for Jerusalem’s denials, these are par for the course and a political necessity, whatever the reality.
It’s unclear whether talks can lead anywhere and whether, even if they did, Hamas leadership would stick to an agreement instead of breaking it when they felt like it, citing some alleged Israeli transgression. Nevertheless, it’s quite conceivable that there is some interest in an agreement — after all, a year on from the conflict with Israel which left Gaza in chaos, Hamas is interested in ways to improve life in Gaza and in so doing cementing its hold on the territory.
As families in Israel have just marked first year anniversaries of relations who died in last year’s Gaza conflict, the prospect of a calm southern border is extremely tempting. A 10-year truce, if observed, could prevent several rounds of fighting between Israel and Hamas, and allow thousands of children in Israel’s south to get through almost an entire school career without lessons punctuated by the dash to bomb shelters. But one can’t talk about Gaza-based Hamas without considering the political echelon in the West Bank.
As the reports buzz of indirect contacts between Israel and Hamas, there is sense of upheaval among Hamas’ Palestinian rivals — the more moderate camp based in the West Bank.
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas is resigning his post as head of the Palestine Liberation Organization’s executive committee. It’s easy to be blasé about resignations in Ramallah — I covered the resignation of chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat in 2011, but he’s still in his post today. Threats of resignation among senior officials are repeatedly aired to make a point, whether internally or with an eye to the international community.
Abbas’ resignation from the PLO, the official representative of all Palestinians, may well be an internal political ploy, or an attempt to actually bolster his power in the organization through new elections. However, it is more than just inside baseball — it highlights the instability that exists in Ramallah institutions. The PLO’s executive body hasn’t met for some six years, and the entire PLO is a shadow of its former self. Meanwhile, Abbas’ legitimacy as Palestinian president — he was elected for a four-year term in 2005 and new elections haven’t been held since — is in question.
Israelis look at the Palestinian instability and reflect that it’s nothing new, that there are always internal crises in Ramallah, and that Abbas’ position has been in question almost since the day he took office. But it’s widely presumed that if Abbas and the more moderate Palestinian camp haven’t lost or surrendered their power until now, and if they are still maintaining security to a large extent and keeping the door open, at least theoretically, to peace talks, this will continue to be the case.
However, Abbas is 80 years old and not poised to stay in his post forever. He also has serious image and popularity problems among the Palestinian public. And with talks for a two-state solution stalled he has difficulties asserting the relevance of his path compared to more militant options. Israelis shouldn’t take the fact that Abbas, or somebody with Abbas’ broad approach, is the main representative of the Palestinians, for granted. And while his conduct can be deeply problematic, they shouldn’t forget that he is better than virtually any alternative.
If Israel moves forward on a cease-fire arrangement with Hamas, leading to easier conditions in Gaza, it will pull the rug out from under Abbas and his camp. It will be handing Hamas, based on the leveraging of violence, a reward that has not been granted to Abbas’ camp based on the leveraging of diplomatic channels. And it would be doing so for a second time, after freeing more than 1,000 Palestinian security prisoners in 2011 in return for Hamas’ prize captive, Gilad Shalit. It would be sending a message to Palestinians that “resistance” can achieve what negotiations can’t, and further weaken moderates.
An agreement with Hamas would in a sense be rubber-stamping the group’s rule of the Gaza Strip, which it took violently from Abbas’ Palestinian Authority — and in so doing make it even harder than it is now for Abbas to negotiate with Israel over the future of both Gaza and the West Bank.
There is a certain attraction, given the current Israeli government, with its rightist tendencies, in a deal with Hamas. It would not require handing over any territory, but rather just a set of concessions regarding life in Gaza. And violation by Hamas could be answered with simple force. But turning Abbas and his camp into an irrelevance, and buoying militant Hamas, would be irresponsible.
If, on the other hand, Israel can craft a deal with Hamas and then, before signing, use this to push Abbas’ camp into saving itself by signing a comprehensive peace agreement that subsumes an Israel-Hamas agreement, that would be a stroke of genius.
Nathan Jeffay’s column appears twice a month.Natalie Portman: Jewish Community Should Focus Less On The Holocaust
Steve Lipman
Staff Writer
This time, her critics aren't film reviewers.
Natalie Portman, the Israeli-born, Harvard-educated, Oscar-winning actress, is being called on the carpet - gently, that is - for comments she made last week about the Jewish community's emphasis on Holocaust education.
Read More
InternationalNatalie Portman: Jewish Community Should Focus Less On The Holocaust
The Oscar-winning actress said other genocides should be taught in Jewish schools. Her comments immediately drew criticism.
Steve Lipman
Staff Writer
Natalie Portman on the red carpet at the Cannes Film Festival in May. Getty
This time, her critics aren’t film reviewers.
Natalie Portman, the Israeli-born, Harvard-educated, Oscar-winning actress, is being called on the carpet — gently, that is — for comments she made last week about the Jewish community’s emphasis on Holocaust education.
In an interview with The Independent, the graduate of Long Island and Washington, D.C., Jewish day schools questioned “how much at the forefront we put Holocaust education.”
“We need to be reminded that hatred exists at all times and reminds us to be empathetic to other people that have experienced hatred also,” said Portman, a descendant of Holocaust refugees, who said she first learned the extent of other genocides during a 2007 visit to Rwanda. She noted that as the Rwandan genocide was unfolding in 1994, her day school classes included nothing about the mass killings, while she learned extensively about the Holocaust and the subsequent birth of Israel.
With the Independent interview, the actress stepped into an ongoing debate in the Jewish community about the centrality and the exclusivity of the Holocaust, one that reflects a generational shift in Jewish life.
Portman, 34, who once said that as an actress she needs “a thick skin,” drew immediate but mixed criticism for her comments, which came in the interview in which she was promoting her new film, “A Tale of Love and Darkness,” adapted from the memoir of Israel’s Amos Oz.
“I disagree with the emphasis of her comments, and agree with much of the substance,” said Menachem Rosensaft, general counsel of the World Jewish Congress and editor of “God, Faith & Identity from the Ashes: Reflections of Children of Holocaust Survivors” (Jewish Lights Publishing).
The emphasis: Equating the Holocaust with other genocides. “Because of its enormous scope and its systematic, all-embracing nature, the Shoah is the epitome of genocides,” said Rosensaft, the son of Holocaust survivors.
The substance: An awareness of tragedies that have struck other peoples. “Neither we nor anyone else should engage in comparative suffering,” Rosensaft said. “Far too often we teach about the Holocaust and do not sensitize our kids to other atrocities, other genocides that are occurring in their lifetime.”
Rosensaft, who teaches law courses at Cornell and Columbia universities, said Portman “is very much speaking for others of her generation, both Jews and non-Jews.”
Michael Berenbaum, Holocaust author-scholar, offered a similar, “respectful” reaction.
He called Portman “an actress, not a philosopher, not a historian — actors are not the people we turn to for a nuanced understanding of the events of history.” But, Berenbaum added, she made a valid point about a Jewish responsibility to teach about history’s “succession” of genocides.
Judging by Portman’s comments, Berenbaum said, “we have succeeded in transmitting the monumental nature of the Holocaust, without transmitting how distinct an event it was.”
The Anti-Defamation League, a staunch defender of Holocaust education, said it would not be issuing a statement on Portman’s remarks. But B’nai B’rith International, in a statement, said, “An emphasis on the Holocaust in a Jewish education is extremely important as it is tied to our identity. The focus does not come at the expense of learning about other tragedies, such as those in Rwanda and Bosnia.”
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