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Israel blanketed by millions of butterflies
l As if in celebration of Purim, last week
millions of butterflies descended on Israel’s
parks and nature reserves, giving them a
festive look.
The butterflies’ migration is an an-
nual event, but this year’s was unusually
big. Some 10 million Vanessa cardui (also
known as the cosmopolitan or the painted
lady) crossed into Israel, according to the
Israel Nature and Parks Authority.
“The source of this unusually large mi-
gration is from the desert areas of Saudi
Arabia and Kuwait, which had an unusual
Page 3
rainy winter and lots of growth, which al-
lowed the caterpillars to eat and prosper,”
Dotan Rotem, an ecologist with the parks
authority, explained.
Rotem said the butterflies were heading
north and west; some already were nearing
Cyprus on their way to Spain, and others
were heading off to other parts of Europe.
Rotem noted that these butterflies won’t
survive to return to Israel, but their off-
spring will be back.
You might say it’s their birthright.
Times of Israel

Here’s the (actual) first Jewish woman

to finish the Iditarod sled dog race
l We have a confession to make
about the story on this page last
week, “Blair Braverman is the first
Jewish woman to finish the Iditarod
sled dog race.”
It’s long been our least favorite
sport.
Not the Iditarod race, which we
never heard of before putting to-
gether last week’s page 3. (You can
read two objections to the race from
more knowledgeable readers on
page 52.)
We mean this whole business of
naming “first Jews” in a specific cat-
egory. First Jew to win a $100 million
baseball contract. First Jew to win
the Iowa caucus. First Jew to co-
write a book with a Pope. First Jew
to be indicted for crimes related to a
presidential campaign.
Among other things, these “first
Jew” competitions require know-
ing the non-Jewish status of all the
previous contestants. That’s easy
enough when it comes to presi-
dents, and even Iowa caucus win-
ners and astronauts. When it comes
to contests with more entrants, such
as the Iditarod, it’s harder to say
with certainty that none of them
were Jewish.
finished in 37th place. In the New York Times last fall, in a
In a telephone interview, Cantor, feature asking readers to submit pic-
who lives in Chugiak, Alaska, con- tures of dogs and weddings, Susan
firmed that she was most likely the and Jim Cantor submitted a wedding
first Jewish woman to have finished photo with one of their dogs.
the race. As they wrote captioning the pho-
“My husband ran first in 1991,” Can- to, “Woodrow was our first dog. He
tor said. “I like to brag that I beat him moved with us from the University of Susan Cantor ran the Iditarod in 1992
by four days, and I think seven places.” Michigan to Alaska, back to Cornell
with that, raffling off the opportunity
(Jim Cantor, her husband, finished in University, and again to Alaska. He
to ride in a dogsled with a lifetime
44th place, in 18 days and 2 minutes.) was an enthusiastic member of our
member of Hadassah!” she jokes.
Even though her husband had early sled dog teams, a hobby we Braverman never claimed to be
competed in the race the year be- have kept up for 37 years. At our
the first Jewish woman to finish
fore, Cantor explained, “I entered the wedding, the rabbi would not allow Iditarod, and after the race she told
Iditarod with more than the usual Woodrow into the sanctuary, but he
her Twitter followers about Cantor’s
trepidation as I had recently been di- was allowed to attend the reception achievement.
agnosed with multiple sclerosis. Hap- in the temple’s social hall. Woodrow’s
And how does Cantor feel about
pily, that was not a factor in my race checkered vest and bow tie were Braverman, whose Twitter feed has
nor in my life. I truly believe running very stylish for 1983.”
made her one of the most recog-
Iditarod changed the course of my Cantor still is deeply involved in nized faces in the sport?
illness, giving me strength and new the mushing community in Alaska; “I think it’s exciting Blair finished,
focus. I’ve enjoyed decades mushing she’s on the board of directors at she seems to be doing a great job as
with my dogs and my family.” Chugiak Dog Mushers Association. an ambassador for the race and the
The Cantors first moved to Alaska Her children, now 21 and 24, raced Jewish community,” Cantor said.
after graduating from college. with the junior mushers. She added, “When I saw Blair
“We went to Bethel, Alaska, to She also is involved in the Alaskan come in on TV, she reminded me of
visit my husband’s brother,” Cantor Jewish community: Cantor works as myself.”
said. “He had four sled dogs and a an event coordinator for Congrega- The feelings are mutual.
newborn baby. So we took over the tion Beth Sholom in Anchorage and “I’m very proud to be in her com-
management of the sled dogs. And is involved with Hadassah. pany,” Braverman tweeted.
that’s how I started.” “Our synagogue once had fun Larry Yudelson & EMILY BURACK/JTA

That’s why there were some wea-

sel-words in last week’s story — Blair
Braverman was “apparently” the
first Jewish woman to complete the
race — but it turns out that the story
could have used a few more.
Because in fact Blair Braverman
wasn’t the first Jewish woman to fin-
CONTENTS
Noshes���������������������������������������������������������4
briefly local��������������������������������������� 20
cover story�������������������������������������������28
jewish world���������������������������������������33
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ish the Iditarod sled dog race, as we
mistakenly reported last week. That
title goes to Susan Cantor, who com-
pleted the race in 1992.
Twenty-seven years before
Braverman crossed the finish line,
Cantor completed the grueling
1,000-mile course in 14 days, 1 hour,
42 minutes, and 42 seconds. She
d’var torah������������������������������������������ 46
oPINION����������������������������������������������������� 48
THE FRAZZLED HOUSEWIFE������������� 54
crossword puzzle�������������������������� 54
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Jewish Standard MARCH 29, 2019 3

 JS-4*

Noshes
“The portion of the Torah known as Tazria-Metzora
describes the ancient rituals God commanded Jewish
people to undertake were they afflicted with a variety
of unfortunate ailments, including scabrous skin
infections, eruptive plague and penile discharge.”
— The first sentence of last week’s Sports Illustrated profile
of Alex Bregman of the Houston Astros by Ben Reiter
AT THE MOVIES:

Dumbo and
a beach bum
“Dumbo,” as Vesper Lynd, the he’s worth $500M sometimes a hero and
directed by Tim main Bond girl in “Casi- — who grew up in El sometimes a villain. He
Burton, is a no Royale” (2006), the Paso, which is also communicates via
live-action version of first Bond pic to star O’Rourke’s hometown. sign language.
the classic Disney Daniel Craig. Green is He has been a big Sign language is
cartoon about an the most recent Jew- supporter of Beto. My no problem for Man,
elephant whose large ish woman to play a friend has documented who is deaf. He also is
ears make him some- Bond girl. that three of William’s a member of a lot of
thing of a laughing- I am happy to say grandparents were other minorities. His fa-
stock. As the film that the first two Jew- Jewish by birth. His ther is Chinese and his
begins, the owner of a ish women to play a maternal grandmother mother is Jewish. He is
struggling circus Bond Girl are still very was not born Jewish also transgender (his
(Danny DeVito) enlists much with us: Israeli — but we think — gender at birth would
Eva Green Alan Arkin
a former star of the actress ALIAZ GUR, based on clues — that commonly be referred
circus (Colin Farrell) now 78, in 1963, “To she may have convert- to as female). He also
and his children to care Russia with Love,” ed in. William is three is strikingly handsome,
for the big-eared baby and JILL ST. JOHN months younger than and his physical beauty
elephant. Financially, (born Jill Oppen- Beto’s rival, Senator led him to be signed by
things take -off for the heim), also now 78, BERNIE SANDERS. the big modeling agen-
circus when they in 1971, in “Diamonds They aren’t related, but cy IMG last October.
discover Dumbo’s ears are Forever.” have a lot in common. Man is a proud Jew.
allow him to fly. Huge “Beach Bum,” a William’s wife, In December 2017, he
crowds come out to comedy, was writ- Louanne, was raised told photographer
see Dumbo perform ten and directed by an Episcopalian. Beto and journalist MARISA
with a spectacular and HARMONY KORINE, O’Rourke was raised CHAFETZ, “Growing
charming aerial artist 46. Korine has been Catholic. I don’t know up, my temple’s rabbi
played by French making well-received Isla Fisher Chella Man
what faith, if any, Amy was openly gay. Seeing
actress EVA GREEN, but not-much-seen Sanders, who is Beto’s our temple’s commu-
38. ALAN ARKIN, 84, indie films since 1995. least try to finish that wife and Louanne’s nity accept a queer
may be able to put his
has a supporting role He broke into the com- great American novel. daughter, was raised individual as a leader
talent to good use and
as Remington, a Wall mercial big time with (Opens March 29) in, and I don’t know gave me hope at such
finish the next great
St. tycoon. (Opens the surprise critical and how she now identi- a young age, although I
American novel.” ISLA
March 29.) financial success of
FISHER, 43, co-stars
Two Sanders fies herself. had not come to terms
Green’s mother is a the low-budget crime face off with my sexuality yet.
as Minnie, Moondog’s You can’t make
Sephardic Jew, orig- thriller “Spring Break- My family It made me feel includ-
wife. Her wealth allows
inally from Algeria. ers” (2013).
Moondog to just coast history expert this up ed in a community as
Green is secular but Matthew McCo- friend has CHELLA MAN, well as Jewish culture…
throughout most of
identifies as Jewish. naughey stars as dug-out something not 20, has just My mom [is a Jewish
his adult life. JONAH
She’s co-starred in a Moondog, a fun-lov- reported in the Jewish been cast in a hero]. Her empathy
HILL, 35, has a big sup-
number of films, in- ing, pot-smoking, or general media. Beto major role in the series and open mindedness
porting role as Lewis,
cluding two previous beer-guzzling writer O’Rourke’s father-in- “Titans.” It’s a web-only towards my struggles
Moondog’s literary
Tim Burton movies. who lives in Florida. law, WILLIAM series that is part of with gender/sexuality
agent. I won’t give it
She also was a lead in The official synopsis SANDERS, 77, is the DC Universe. Man’s have always allowed
away here—but some-
the Starz series “Penny says: “If he can put Jewish. William is a character, Jericho, is an me to feel safe with her
thing happens that
Dreadful.” I suppose down the drugs for very wealthy real intense and emotional- and ‘at home’ in our
forces Moondog to
her most-seen role was just one minute, he estate developer — ly complex person — family.” –N.B.
stop partying and to at

Want to read more noshes? Visit facebook.com/jewishstandard California-based Nate Bloom can be reached at
Middleoftheroad1@aol.com

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JEWISH STANDARD MARCH 29, 2019 5


Local
Rabbi Joseph Prouser Christopher dePhillips
‘Death with Dignity’
Panelists in Franklin Lakes look at physician-assisted suicide
JOANNE PALMER
On Monday, the New Jersey State Assem-
bly voted to pass a bill allowing what it
calls “physician-assisted suicide.” Later
that day, the state Senate also approved
the bill. Now it will go to Governor Phil
Murphy, who said that he will sign the
state’s “Death with Dignity” bill. New
Jersey therefore will become the eighth
state to allow some form of legally sanc-
tioned suicide.
For seven years, Rabbi Joseph Prouser
of Temple Emanuel of North Jersey has
been assembling panels to discuss issues
in what he calls the shul’s Moral Literacy
series. This week, he and his three pan-
elists will look at the bill and at the moral
and halachic implications of doctor-as-
sisted suicide.
Christopher dePhillips, a Republican
who was the mayor of Wyckoff, now rep-
resents New Jersey’s 40th Assembly dis-
trict. He’s a lawyer. He’s also opposed to
the bill. It’s not a partisan issue, he said;
instead, “it’s an issue of conscience.
“I respect the fact that reasonable
people can come to different positions.
And I’m sympathetic to those who are
enduring pain and suffering with a ter-
minal illness. I’ve had people in my own
family suffering in that way.”
But the bill says that doctors can pre-
scribe lethal doses of medication to
people who will die within six months,
and Mr. dePhillips’s own experience
has taught him that such prognostica-
tions are deeply flawed. “My father had
leukemia and lymphoma, and he had a
very difficult course of treatment,” he
said. At first, his father was told that his
illness was chronic and he’d likely live
for a long time, but then the diagnosis
changed to become far less hopeful, the
treatment remained hard to endure, and
“he was told at different times during his
6 JEWISH STANDARD MARCH 29, 2019
JS-6*
Rabbi Jill Hackell
illness that death was around the corner.
One night he was told that he had less
than 24 hours to live.
“Another time the doctors told us to
prepare for the worst, and that he had
much less than six months to live.
“He lived five and a half years after
that.”
He has many problems with the bill,
Mr. dePhillips said, and he understands
that his own story is anecdotal, and
it’s just one anecdote at that, and “this
might oversimplify it, but many physi-
cians would agree that these opinions
are not foolproof, and there are plenty
of examples of opinions not being
accurate.”
There’s also the question of quality
of life, he continued. “People will ask
me what my father’s quality of life was.
That’s what the whole bill comes down
to for them.
“How do you define quality of life? My
father had a very difficult course. He had
ups and downs. He had some very good
moments. He had a significant amount
of pain and suffering. He also had three
more grandchildren. So how do you
assess quality of life?”
And there’s more. “There is also the
possibility of abuse,” Mr. dePhillips
said. “It is possible that certain patients
might feel pressure or duress from fam-
ily members, and they won’t want to be
a burden on them.”
There’s also the risk posed by the
tempting presence of narcotics. “I hear
people on the other side of the issue say
that for some terminally ill patients, just
having the prescription at their bedside
helps, because it means that they have
some choice, but those narcotics could
end up in the wrong hands.” It’s like
having a loaded gun in the house; most
likely the children won’t use it, but…
Ray Lesniak, a Democrat, was in the
Ray Lesniak
state Senate from 1983 to 2018; he is
from Elizabeth and represented the
state’s 20th district. He is the founder of
the Lesniak Institute for American Lead-
ership at Kean University, and he fought
to abolish the death penalty in the state.
He’s strongly in favor of physician-as-
sisted suicide.
“I come to this from a position of com-
passion,” Mr. Lesniak said. “I believe that
compassionate actions are moral actions.
I have seen relatives die in a lot of pain,
and I don’t want anyone to impose their
beliefs on the threshold level of pain that
I or anyone else can endure.”
Rabbi Jill Hackell of the West Clark-
stown Jewish Center has an unusual bifo-
cal view of the issue; she’s both a rabbi
and a pediatrician, who spent most of
her career doing clinical research on
developing vaccines against childhood
illnesses. Medical ethics are not at all the-
oretical to her; in fact, she also teaches a
course in medical ethics and halacha at
the Academy for Jewish Religion in Yon-
kers, where she was ordained.
“The approach to physician-assisted
suicide really depends on the lens you
see it through, because American cul-
ture and secular bioethics are all about
patient autonomy and personal auton-
omy — it’s our body, it’s our life, and we
have the right to do whatever we want
to with it — and the Jewish view is that
the ultimate thing is respect for life,”
Rabbi Hackell said. “When you look at
it through a Jewish lens, you see that
suicide is so frowned upon that some-
one who has committed suicide doesn’t
get the traditional rites of burial.” That
doesn’t happen in practice, she contin-
ued; suicide traditionally is seen as the
result of an unbalanced brain, which
is an illness that renders sufferers inca-
pable of making rational decisions and
therefore blameless.
But the problem — no, a problem —
with physician-assisted suicide, as laid
out in the state bill, is that someone who
wants it “must be in their right mind.
They must request it twice, and there
can be no question about psychiatric
illness.” That means that in order to be
allowed to get a doctor’s prescription
for a fatal dose of medication, a patient
must prove him or herself sane in a way
that would preclude standard burial in a
Jewish cemetery.
Beyond that, she said, “I am very sym-
pathetic to a person who is in severe
pain and whose only out is to end their
life, but I am worried on a larger scale
in terms of how we as a society respect
life.” It’s a slippery slope argument; if we
allow this now, what next?
Rabbi Prouser has been public with his
opposition to physician-assisted suicide
since at least 2015, when he published
an op ed about it in the Jewish Standard.
“From a halachic vantage point, this
bill undoes all the social progress that
the rabbis made over the millennia,” he
said. “From my perspective, the immo-
rality of the bill is beyond debate.”
But it will be debated vigorously, both
in the outside world and at the panel in
Franklin Lakes; these are just a sampling
of the arguments that will be offered.
Who: Rabbi Joseph Prouser
What: Moderates a panel on physi-
cian-assisted suicide for the series
“Moral Literacy”
When: On Wednesday, April 3, from
7:30 to 9 p.m.
Where: At Temple Emanuel of
North Jersey, 558 High Mountain
Road, in Franklin Lakes
How much: Free
For more information: Call (201)
560-0200 or to to www.tenjfl.org
 JS-7

MY

JEWISH STANDARD MARCH 29, 2019 7


Local
Circle of life
Bob Miller of Englewood gave bone marrow, got a kidney, everybody’s fine
JOANNE PALMER
W
hatever goes around
comes around.
That’s a piece of folk
wisdom that makes so
little specific sense that it’s hard to imag-
ine ever using it for real, but consider
the story of Robert Miller of Englewood.
Everything that went around came
around.
When Bob Miller swabbed his cheek
to leave DNA for a bank for potential
bone marrow donors decades ago, he
really meant it, but he didn’t expect to
be matched.
About 10 years after that donation,
he was. The match was perfect, and
that recipient, who got Mr. Miller’s bone
marrow 19 years ago, is not only alive
but flourishing.
And then, when Mr. Miller learned
that he needed a kidney donation, his
community responded immediately and
overwhelmingly. He got a new kidney, a
gift from a live donor, a few weeks ago,
and now he’s recovering.
His story is a tale of love and generos-
ity and selflessness and hope and faith
and resilience — and inspiration.
Last week, Mr. Miller, 68, and his wife,
Sara Lee Kessler, told that story. Mr. Kes-
sler is a broadcast journalist who won
an Emmy Award for “The Gift of Life,”
the TV documentary she hosted and
produced about bone marrow donors,
which aired nationally on PBS.
It started in 1989, when Mr. Miller
and a friend heard the appeal by Allison
Atlas, then a 21-year-old NYU student,
who was diagnosed with leukemia and
given little chance to survive that illness.
She needed a bone marrow donor, and
that was the start of the first big Jewish
bone marrow donor registry. Her story
did not have a good ending — despite
signing up about 60,000 people, she
did not find a match. “These 11th hour
appeals don’t get matches,” Mr. Miller
said. She died in 1993, at 24. “But
because of the people who registered,
she saved hundreds of lives,” Ms. Kes-
sler added.
Mr. Miller was among those hundreds
of thousands of people who registered
to save Ms. Atlas. “About 10 years later,
I got a phone call,” he said. He hadn’t
entirely forgotten about his swab,
because “I had gotten a phone call three
or four years earlier, about donating to
someone in Houston, but sadly he died”
before the process could get very far, he
said. “And then in 1999, I got a call that
8 JEWISH STANDARD MARCH 29, 2019
JS-8*
Bob Miller gives a thumbs-up after surgery; he’s got a new kidney now.
I had matched someone, and I felt like I
won the lottery.
“It was the best thing I have ever done
in my life,” he continued. “It was very
humbling.”
It also was very unlikely; as it turns
out, it is highly unlikely that unrelated
people can be matched well enough for
a bone marrow donation to be possible.
That’s why the bank is done by ethnicity;
because there aren’t so many Ashkenazi
Jews in the world, relatively speaking,
and because until very recently very few
Ashkenazim had married out, if Ashke-
nazim are to find a match, it’s likely to
be to another Azhkenazi Jew.
The National Marrow Donor Program
has its headquarters in Minneapolis, Mr.
Miller said. That’s because it was started
by the baseball player Rod Carew, who
played for the Minnesota Twins, and
his wife, Marilynn. The Carews had a
young daughter who died of leukemia in
1996; because her father was from the
Dominican Republic and her mother
was an Ashkenazi Jew, her bone mar-
row was so uncommon that no donor
who matched her could be found. The
Carews became very active in establish-
ing the donor bank in the vain attempt
SARA LEE KESSLER
to help Michelle Carew, and in funding
research in her memory.
Mr. Miller’s recipient was a then-
young man named Matthew Paul, who
lived in Skokie, Illinois. He’s now 45,
married, with three children, and leuke-
mia-free. “We found out that Matthew’s
family and Bob’s came from the same
town in eastern Europe,” Ms. Kessler
said. “They were a perfect match, 10
antigens out of 10.”
Although bone marrow donors and
recipients rarely meet, Mr. Miller and
Mr. Paul did. It happened on the field at
Twins Stadium in Minneapolis. “I did it
because usually when you hear about
bone marrow donations, it’s from the
recipient’s point of view, and I wanted
people to hear from a donor to encour-
age others to donate.” It worked, Mr.
Miller and Ms. Kessler said; “I plugged
their toll free number, and just in our
area the lines were flooded with calls,”
he added.
Was it hard to donate? No, Mr. Miller
said. “I was a little sore for maybe three
or four days, and I think I had one fol-
low-up visit to the doctor.” The hard part
about the bone marrow donation was
being matched.
When he is asked about the emo-
tional effect of donating bone marrow,
Mr. Miller quotes Great Britain’s for-
mer chief rabbi, Lord Jonathan Sacks.
“He said that when you talk about the
meaning of life, it is not about how much
money we have, or how many things we
accumulate,” he said. “It’s about how we
bring God into our lives.
“When we do something Godlike, we
bring a piece of heaven down to earth,
Rabbi Sacks said, and boy did that strike
home with me,” Mr. Miller said.
So that was the bone marrow dona-
tion. What about the kidney?
“About 14 years ago, my wonderful
internist, Alvin Wertentheil, saw some-
thing in my blood, and he told me that
he wanted me to see a nephrologist,” Mr.
Miller said. He went to Dr. Marc Zelkow-
itz of Englewood. “So it’s been watched
all these years.” (Dr. Wertentheil, who
lived in Englewood, died in 2012.)
“Two years ago, Dr. Zelkowitz, God
bless him, told me that I’d need a trans-
plant in somewhere between two and 10
years, and so I should do some research
and pick a program. And I said, ‘Are you
kidding me? A transplant? That’s for
other people.’
“And he said, ‘Bob, we know how this
song ends. Either you have a transplant,
or you have dialysis.’
“I was neglectful for a few months,
and God bless him, he rode me. I saw
him every few months, and so I picked
a transplant program. ‘Do it now, get
ready now, so that if a kidney materi-
alizes for you, you’ll be ready to go,’ he
said.” And he knows how lucky he was
to get that advice, Mr. Miller added. “So
many people’s doctors told them about
it as they were going for dialysis.”
So Mr. Miller decided to work with the
transplant program at Columbia, “and at
the same time I contacted Renewal,” he
said. “And they are incredible.”
Indeed.
Renewal is a Brooklyn-based organi-
zation that supports people who need
kidneys. It began as a Jewish orga-
nization and still works mainly with
Jews, but increasingly it sees its role as
working with anyone who needs help.
Its website, www.renewal.org, offers
would-be donors and recipients a gen-
tle way into what easily could be a terri-
fying new world.
“Renewal gave me hope when I didn’t
know where to go,” Mr. Miller said.
He didn’t talk much about his med-
ical problems for years, he said.
“Really, there was nothing to tell. I was
 JS-9*

Local

asymptomatic.” He and Ms. Kessler donors,” he said. “The clearance for

are Orthodox, and they’re mem-
bers of Congregation Ahavath Torah
in Englewood. He’d told the shul’s
rabbi, Chaim Poupko, about his
health.
“And then around Yom Kippur last
year, I told Rabbi Poupko, ‘Okay, I’m
ready for a transplant,’ and he sent
out an email the day before Kol Nidre
saying, ‘Our friend Bob Miller needs
a kidney transplant,” Mr. Miller said.
“The response was unbelievable.
“You can’t imagine who I heard
from, how many people, not only
close friends but people I only knew
in passing. There were tehillim
groups, prayer groups praying for
me. There was such an outpouring
of love and support.
“I was very lucky,” he continued.
Still, he didn’t find a donor imme-
diately. The match does not have to
be perfect for a donor — Renewal
specializes, among other things,
in putting together chains of donors,
who each gives a kidney to a stranger
who can receive it, and the person to
whom the donor wished to get a kidney
donors is very strict. The donor has to
be in excellent health, because basically
the procedure is taking someone who is
very healthy and making them sick. Just
as I had a medical team at Columbia, so
does the donor, with a nephrologist and
a social worker who counsels the donor
about what they are doing, and about
their motivations.”
After three disappointments, in Feb-
ruary the chain that got him a new kid-
ney held. He now has the kidney of an
anonymous donor.
Mr. Miller now is recovering; it’s a slow
process, but headed in the right direc-
tion. His immune system is suppressed
now. It will come back close to normal,
but never get all the way back there. But
his life will be back to normal. Soon he’ll
be able to go back to work.
After many years working in Jewish
nonprofit agencies, Mr. Miller has struck
Bob stands between his wife, Sara Lee Kessler, and their son, Jon. out for himself. He now is the owner and
sole employee of Silver Streak Limou-
is at the other end of that chain. Just anyone in particular but out of a desire sine; he can use his talent for relation-
the blood type has to match, Mr. Miller to help some sick, possibly dying person ships as he drives people — often repeat
said. Renewal also recruits altruistic recover. customers, often many-times-over
donors; people who give kidneys not to “I went through four possible SEE CIRCLE PAGE 60

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Local
Telling stories, bearing witness
TABC students listen, learn, write, and tell the stories of
Holocaust survivors living in Bergen and Rockland
ABIGAIL KLEIN LEICHMAN
A
fter surviving the Holocaust
as a child through a series
of incredible circumstances,
Paul Galan of Suffern built
a distinguished career producing and
directing documentaries about the lives
of people from Richard Nixon to Red
Skelton. Since he retired in 2006, he has
been telling his own life story on behalf
of the Holocaust Museum and and Cen-
ter for Tolerance and Education at Rock-
land Community College.
Mr. Galan came to Torah Academy of
Bergen County in Teaneck earlier this
year to tell the seniors in Cary Reich-
ardt’s Holocaust studies class about his
wartime experiences, and about how he
and his immediate family miraculously
stayed alive through those nightmar-
ish years.
“His story was really like a movie,”
marveled Jacob Blumenthal of Teaneck.
“When he was around eight or nine, his
family hid at various people’s houses”
— with fake identity papers — “and one
time a Nazi came and actually slept in
the bed next to Paul the whole night.
Another time he fell down a mountain
when they were on the run, and his
mother found him. And at the end of
the war he and his family got reunited.”
Jacob will be playing the part of Mr.
Galan in “Bare Witness,” an original play
written and acted by the 14 students
in Ms. Reichardt’s class. (See below
for details.)
The play is based on personal testimo-
nies the boys heard from six men and
women — five from Rockland and Ber-
gen counties and one from Long Island —
whose experiences during the war were
unique but equally compelling.
One was among the twins subjected to
grotesquely cruel medical experiments
by the infamous Josef Mengele, one was
an American soldier who participated in
liberating several camps, one was hid-
den in an attic as an infant, one came out
of Auschwitz as the sole surviving family
member, and then there was Mr. Galan
What: “Bare Witness,” an original Holocaust play based on survivor testimo-
nies as told to students in Torah Academy of Bergen County’s Holocaust stud-
ies elective class.
When: April 11, 8 p.m.
Where: Torah Academy of Bergen County, 1600 Queen Anne Road, Teaneck
Who: Open to the public
How much: Free
12 JEWISH STANDARD MARCH 29, 2019
JS-12*
and his unlikely story of survival against
huge odds.
“When you hear these stories and sit
down and try to bring them to life in
a play, you really get a sense of visual-
ization in a way you never have,” Jacob
said. “It gives us a whole different per-
spective because we have to imagine it
and act it out as if we were there. It’s an
approach I’ve never taken before, and I
love it.”
Ms. Reichardt created this elective
class 12 years ago. “Every year I look for
different vehicles to enable the boys to
put a face on the Holocaust, because
every year that goes by the students are
less in touch with survivors,” she said.
“We want to leave an indelible impres- Concentration camp liberator Alan Moskin tells his story to TABC students.
sion through art and literature.”
Ms. Reichardt heard about Witness
Theater, a program started in Israel and
brought to the United States in 2012
by Selfhelp Community Services, an
agency assisting survivors in New York
City. Witness Theater facilitates meet-
ings between survivors and Jewish high
school students, after which the stu-
dents dramatize vignettes from the sur-
vivors’ lives. She thought the program
would be perfect for her class, but it is
strictly local.
So Ms. Reichardt asked Rebecca Lop-
kin, TABC’s performing arts instructor, if
she’d be willing to collaborate with her
to initiate a similar project-based learn-
ing experience.
Ms. Lopkin enthusiastically agreed to
help adapt the Witness Theater model to
TABC. One twist she added was having
the students write the script themselves Rosa SIrota tells students how she survived. 
from journal notes they took during the
six meetings.
“I wanted the students to have a
hands-on experience in creating the
piece,” Ms. Lopkin said. “We decided
the students would conduct interviews
with five survivors and a camp liberator.
I gave them a mini course on playwrit-
ing, and they started adapting the stories
to the stage.”
The students wrote outlines for each
protagonist and then chose which
Leo Inowlocki greets students after they’d heard his story.
 JS-13*

Local

scenes they wanted to write, either individually One student, Yoni Siegel, told Ms. Reichardt that he The name also conveys the idea that we are at a bare
or with partners. They added a cohesive frame- wanted his role to be mainly offstage. “Yoni is a truly point where we don’t have many witnesses left to talk
work to the overall story to connect the scenes into gifted artist, so we asked him to create all the sets,” she to us.”
one piece. said. “While we are rehearsing, he’s painting. Another All six witnesses plan to come to the production, “so
The two teachers edited the scripts only for student, Seth Maza, is a gifted musician and has written the boys have a tremendous responsibility to be true to
grammar and consistency. “It was interesting to see an original score for each scene that he will perform live the work,” Ms. Lopkin said. “It’s going to be incredible.”
what the students chose to write from their copious on piano.” “We definitely personalized the Holocaust for our stu-
notes; what they came away with from these stories The title “Bare Witness” was chosen, Ms. Reichardt dents,” Ms. Reichardt concluded. “The stories they heard
and zeroed in on,” Ms. Reichardt said. explained, because “we didn’t want it to be confused are engraved on their hearts. It was a wonderful collabo-
“I guided them through the process of choosing with similar programs where survivors bear witness. ration, and I hope to do it again in future years.”
the most important parts of each story to portray
onstage,” Ms. Lopkin said. “It’s our responsibility
to be true to the story, yet we can’t tell every bit of
every story or we’d have a six-hour play. It has to be
compelling for an audience and within a reasonable
playing time.” Bar-Ilan University
Avi Baer of Teaneck said the scriptwriting was
especially challenging when the students were try-
ing to describe memories that were incomplete.
Making an Impact
“Some of the survivors were very young during the
war and there was not much to go on, so we had to
improvise,” he said.
For instance, one of the survivors told them a Introducing Nano-Eye-Drops:
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story he had heard about how his father, a doctor,
was shot in the marketplace when he tried to help
someone who had fallen. “We had to write what we
thought might have happened, because his son had
not witnessed it,” Avi said.
“When I wrote my script, I tried to recall the
emotion that the survivors had and what they
focused on, to understand what to focus on in my
writing,” Eli Schiff of Bergenfield said.
Yet the most interesting and challenging part of
the process for him was learning how to act. “I’ve
never acted in a play in my life, and I didn’t come to
this class expecting to do that,” Eli said.
Ms. Lopkin led several acting workshops to get
the boys comfortable with performing. “We asked
the students who wanted to play which parts,” she
said. “Some wanted smaller roles and some larger
roles. All of them are tremendously excelling in
their capacity to present this play. They have to not
only memorize their lines but connect emotionally
to the characters — real human beings.”

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TABC student Yoni Siegel drew this portrait Samuel.Konig@afbiu.org
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JEWISH STANDARD MARCH 29, 2019 13

 JS-14*

Local

The secret Jewish history of human rights

Virginia professor to speak at Rutgers about ‘Rooted Cosmopolitans’
LARRY YUDELSON

I
t was three years after the end
of World War II, and Jews were
busy trying to build a future
that could be radically different
from the recent, deadly past.
Some worked on a particularist
solution, creating the State of Israel,
which in 1948 at long last provided a
homeland and protection.
And some were trying to create an
international order that would safe-
guard human rights for everyone,
as embodied in the Declaration of
Universal Human Rights, which the Dr. James Loeffler
United Nations endorsed that year.
And some, as historian James Loeffler reports in his
recent book “Rooted Cosmopolitans: Jews and Human
Rights in the Twentieth Century,” were deeply involved
on both fronts.
Dr. Loeffler, who teaches history and Jewish studies of Jewish Students. Its express purpose was to fight
at the University of Virginia, will speak about his book anti-Semitism in European universities.” By then he
at Rutgers on Tuesday (see box). was in England, earning a Ph.D. from the London
Today, Israel and the United Nations’ rhetoric of School of Economics in international law. He went on
human rights often are at odds; last year, the Trump to teach at Cambridge. Dr. Hersch Lauterpacht
administration pulled the United States out of the “All the while he was involved in Zionism,” Dr. Loeffler
United Nations Human Rights Council in protest of that said. “He married a girl from Jerusalem. He was related people who don’t have a place they belong to.”
body’s disproportionate focus on Israel. A few years by marriage to Abba Eban. Through the 1930s and 40s, Dr. Loeffler says Dr. Lauterpacht and his colleagues
ago, with the 70th anniversary of both the State of Israel he was active in helping the Zionist movement think were “pragmatic idealists. Rooted cosmopolitans. They
and the Declaration approaching, Dr. Loeffler began to about legal questions. How could it make the arguments thought about the world, about universal human rights,
wonder: How do the histories of Zionism and human about law that it needed to help the world see the justice but also were very connected to Jewish concerns. They
rights connect to each other? of its cause?” understood there were real dangers and challenges out
He discovered that “these two stories intersected all After World War II, Dr. Lauterpacht was a legal advisor there that could not be fixed all at once.
along the way.” to the American and British prosecutors who tried Nazis “I don’t think we see that as much today. On the
Hersch Lauterpacht is Dr. Loeffler’s favorite example at Nuremberg, and he helped write drafts of the Declara- right and the left, there’s a lot more black-and-white
of someone whose life and career united the stories of tion of Human Rights. “He also ghost-wrote petitions for approaches to the questions. Either human rights are
Zionism and human rights, and he is one of the five fig- the World Jewish Congress trying to get more attention the enemy of the Jewish people, or Zionism has become
ures his book profiles. for the Holocaust and for the cause of Zionism and for the antithesis of human rights. That’s a dichotomy that
“I was really surprised when I found out about him,” what the Jews deserved in the aftermath of war and geno- did not exist for these people, who saw nationalism as
Dr. Loeffler said. “He was a well-regarded international cide.” He went on to serve on the international court of something that got people protections. Human rights was
lawyer, who came up with the idea of crimes against justice. He died in 1960. something that helped governments treat people justly.
humanity at the Nuremberg trials. He was a Polish Jew Underlying the biographical look at Dr. Lauterpacht “Something else that’s different about those people
who moved to England. And he was a legal advisor to and his colleagues is the broader contemporary ques- then from people today. A lot of them had deep back-
the Zionist movement. He drafted a version of Israel’s tion: “If everything was sympatico between Zionism and grounds in Jewish life. One of those I write about was a
declaration of Independence. human rights, how did things get so polarized and politi- rabbi. But they were not very theological. They didn’t
“That fascinated me. If the same guy is helping to cized in the way people think about it? talk about tikun olam or tzelem elohim. Those weren’t
build human rights and helping to build Israel, that is “In 1948, the people I write about were convinced that the reasons they decided to pursue justice. They were
an interesting story.” there would be two states, an Israeli and a Palestinian much more committed to the idea of politics, much less
Dr. Lauterpacht was born in 1897. “He grew up in state, and that would solve the conflict, and everything committed to sourcing their commitment to human
the Zionist movement,” Dr. Loeffler said. “After World else would be simple. Human rights law would make rights in what halacha says or what God tells us.
War I he lived through one of the great pogroms in sure every country behaved right. Many of these people “Regardless of their level of observance, they were
1918 in Lemberg. That’s when he began to be active in were shocked that this didn’t happen, and we’re stuck much more secularized. There’s much more talk about
the quest to protect Jews in Eastern Europe through in that moment. They had a vision that everyone has a Torah today. They were more pragmatic: What does it
minority rights, which was the precursor to modern country they belong to. They didn’t anticipate we would take to protect us?”
human rights. In 1924 he co-founded the World Union still have Palestinian and Kurdish and Syrian refugees, Dr. Loeffler found another Jewish connection to
the rise of Amnesty International and its approach to
human rights.
Who: Dr. James Loeffler, professor of Jewish history at the University of Virginia and author of “Rooted
Cosmopolitans: Jews and Human Rights in the Twentieth Century.” “It’s the dramatic story of Peter Benenson, the
founder of Amnesty,” he said. “He was a Jewish man
What: Lecture, “From Zion Shall Go Forth the Law: The Unknown History of Jews and Human Rights.”
who was born into one of the leading Zionist families
Where: Rutgers University, Douglass Student Center, 100 George Street, New Brunswick. in England. His grandfather was a donor to the Zion-
When: Tuesday, April 2, 7:30 p.m. ist movement, his mother was a British Zionist leader,
Free, but pre-registration required for parking on campus at BildnerCenter.Rutgers.edu. he dropped out of boarding school to rescue Jewish
SEE HISTORY PAGE 66
14 JEWISH STANDARD MARCH 29, 2019
 JS-15

Nearly 150 years of experience

Five generations of family heritage

Millions of bottles enjoyed

One commitment to quality

JEWISH STANDARD MARCH 29, 2019 15


Local
Borders and the Bible
Michael Wildes to speak about immigration law in Monsey
JOANNE PALMER
Jews know a lot about migration. From the begin-
ning of the Torah, when Adam and Eve are cast
out of the Garden of Eden and made to wander,
through the stories of Abraham and Sarah and
their children to the stories of Joseph and his
brothers to the story of Moshe to the story of the
Israelites in the wilderness, there is no idea of a
fixed, comfortable home.
The rest of Jewish history has reinforced that
idea; for most of our people’s long story, home is
what you have locked in your heart and soul and
the few things that you can carry with you.
“The Torah commands us to love the stranger
36 times,” Mayor Michael Wildes of Englewood,
who is an immigration lawyer, said. “Only once
does the Torah tell us to love your neighbor as you
would love yourself. That’s because we have to
make a greater effort to reach out to the stranger.”
Mr. Wildes is going to draw on his vast experi-
ence with immigration law — and with the immi-
grants who turn that abstract corpus into stories
of human suffering and resilience — and also his
background as an Orthodox Jew as he discusses
“Jews and Immigration: Lessons from Biblical
Joseph to the White House” in Monsey for the
Israel, Pearl, and Lila Stern Memorial Lecture on
April 7. (See box.)
“I will explore the Torah’s experience with
immigration and our legacy as a nation,” he said.
“I will talk about opening America’s golden doors,
using the life examples of our sages to determine
the kind of example and position they would Michael Wildes
want us to take on the modern experience of
immigration.
“I will discuss matters of personal asylum, and those
people who have well-founded fears of persecution in
their home countries because of their race, religion,
nationality, membership in a political or social group,
or their political opinions,” Mr. Wildes continued. “I
will compare it to Moses, who was a biblical asylum
seeker, and ultimately felt comfortable living among
the leaders of Egypt, which he did, and then how he
stepped into a leadership role. That sets the tone for
clients who I meet with who are seeking asylum under
similar circumstances in the modern age.”
An example? “I had a client in 1994 who hailed
from a wealthy Saudi family, who studied in the best
schools and was given the highest diplomatic jobs, but
couldn’t live comfortably knowing that his nation was
involved in supporting terrorism, both domestically
and internationally. His name was Mohammed al-Kh-
ilewi, and he had a conscience that made him put his
own life in danger.
“In his government job, he saw evidence of Saudi
support of terrorism; he knew about torture that had
been committed, and the tracking of Jewish groups
in the United States to create strife between Muslims
and Jews here. And instead of being quiet, he risked
his life, he went out, and he copied more than 14,000
documents in Kinko’s.” Mr. al-Khilewi was in the
United States then, Mr. Wildes said; he was working in
16 JEWISH STANDARD MARCH 29, 2019
JS-16*
a high-level job at the Saudi embassy. “He brought us
these documents, and long story short we were able to
get him asylum and eventually U. S. citizenship.
“Asylum is a matter of controversy under President
Trump, who wants to make it more difficult for asylum
seekers,” Mr. Wildes said. “He even insists that candi-
dates for asylum wait outside the country — that they
wait where they are being persecuted, while their claims
are being processed. This is unimaginable. They are
fleeing countries where they are scared to death, and
we tell them that they can’t come in, even temporarily.”
He also will discuss the phenomenon that Mr. Trump
calls “chain migration,” he said; it’s really “a bedrock pol-
icy of family reunification. It’s well known that a person
works harder if the family is there.” The use of such harsh
terms as “anchor babies further inflames the important
issues,” he continued. “Immigrants make many sacrifices
when they leave home. They leave jobs and families; they
don’t want to give up everything forever, while they work
day and night to support themselves, they hope one day
to be reunited with their loved ones.”
Take the biblical Joseph, Mr. Wildes suggested.
“When he gets to Egypt he is a poor immigrant, but
he is a smart kid and a good worker, and eventually
he becomes the viceroy, where he saves the people
of Egypt from likely starvation. Later he sends for his
father and siblings, trying to reunite them.
“The Torah says that there were 70 people, and that
is a lot of people. They wanted to be reunited.
“We need to balance our fight against terror-
ism and guarding our borders with an attempt
not to separate families unnecessarily in the
process.
“When you come here, you work hard, you
pay your dues, you give back to the general soci-
ety — then you should be permitted to reunite
with your family, in our great tradition, the way
our founding fathers saw it.”
He will “discuss our president’s obsession with
the wall” that he wants to build between the
United States and Mexico, Mr. Wildes said. “We
see from his many comments and tweets that he
Asylum is a matter
of controversy
under President
Trump, who
wants to make it
more difficult for
asylum seekers.
claims that the wall will keep out rapists, drug
dealers, and murderers. I believe that America
should maintain a hinged door, ready to open
to new opportunities and to close on those who
would cause us harm.
“The truth is that the homicide rate is 44 per-
cent lower for immigrants than for the native-born.
Immigrants are people just like everyone else.
“The thing that strikes me in my daily practice is the
biblical import of what I am engaging in,” Mr. Wildes
said. “I’m not working just with files and papers. I’m
working with people, real people who are on journeys,
and those journeys often are reflective of the journeys
our sages went through.”
Mr. Wildes talked about the immigration policies
that force the separation of parents and their children
at the border. “These policies will not stop families
from crossing the border, but they will lead to more
suffering,” he said. “We must not force these mothers
to weep as Rachel wept for her children.”
Who: Michael Wildes
What: Will give the 22nd annual Israel, Pearl,
and Lila Stern memorial lecture, this year on
“Jews and Immigration:
Where: At the Community Synagogue of Monsey,
89 West Maple Avenue, in Monsey
Where: On Sunday, April 7, at 10:15 a.m.
And also: Brunch
For more information: Call the shul at
(845) 356-2720.
JS-17

JEWISH STANDARD MARCH 29, 2019 17

 JS-18*

Local

Will Israel renew the Bibi show?

JPost diplomatic correspondent Herb Keinon to speak in Paramus
LARRY YUDELSON

I
f Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
continues in office through July, he will become
Israel’s longest-serving prime minister, outlast-
ing the original, David Ben-Gurion. Mr. Net-
anyahu already has logged the longest consecutive
term in office.
But Herb Keinon has been around even longer.
Originally from Denver, he started at the Jerusalem
Post in 1985. He is now its chief diplomatic correspon-
dent. And on Sunday, he will share his perspective on
Israel’s upcoming elections, set for April 9, less than
two weeks from now. (See box.)
Mr. Keinon said there are three major factors at
play in the election.
First is security. Who can best provide security for
a country under constant threat of missile barrages?
Second is Bibi. Does he continue to be the man of
the hour? Or is he past his sell-by date?
And finally, there is the hard-to-explain, hard-
er-to-predict calculus of Israel’s multiparty system,
which makes predictions near impossible.
“Security is the main issue,” Mr. Keinon said.
“That’s been the case in most of the country’s his-
tory and this election is no exception. Netanyahu is
going to the elections under the cloud of corruption
allegations against him. Yet polls are showing that
he’s most likely to be the guy setting up the next
government. You have to ask why. It goes to security
— the country’s main preoccupation. Netanyahu has Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Russian President Vladimir Putin met last month at
been able to radiate a sense of ‘Hey, I’m Mr. Secu- the Kremlin.  HAIM ZACH/GPO
rity.’ That’s why he’s been so success-
ful until now. moment. We’re not there, the Pales- inroads. Under Netanyahu, Israel has made signifi-
“It’s no coincidence that the party tinians aren’t there, the region’s not cant diplomatic inroads even though there’s no peace
running against him, Blue and White, there, nobody’s talking about it.” process going on with the Palestinians. A lot has to do
has three former IDF chiefs of staff. For his part, Mr. Netanyahu has with Netanyahu. You can’t take that away from him.
It says that they’ll out-security Mr. plenty to show for his time in office — He’s been able to leverage Israel’s advantages to a
Security. One of the lines they use is particularly in Mr. Keinon’s specialty, degree previous prime ministers haven’t.
that they have 117 years of experience diplomacy. “There’s no question that “It’s changed the country. Israel’s relationship with
between them,” Mr. Keinon said. Netanyahu has brought about a dra- the world has changed fundamentally because of this
Blue and White is an alliance matic change in Israel’s diplomatic change in diplomatic relations. Israel has positioned
between journalist and former finance standing,” he said. “He’s focused on itself where it has expertise in what other countries
minister Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid party, areas other prime ministers neglected need. Countries that might not agree with the poli-
former Chief of Staff Benjamin Gantz, in the past, such as Africa and Latin cies of the government want what Israel has to offer.
and former defense minister and chief Herb Keinon America. He was helped by having his There’s been a slow incremental change in how
of staff Moshe Ya’alon. Former chief of counterparts in certain key countries countries vote in big important votes in the United
staff Gabi Ashkenazi also is on board. be leaders who see the world through similar right-of- Nations. Countries like India and Brazil, which used
Why are the generals of Blue and White unhappy center lenses. Modi in India, Trump in the U.S., Bol- to reflexively vote against us, now don’t. It’s more dif-
with the incumbent prime minister? sonaro in Brazil. Could another prime minister have ficult for the Palestinians to get the resolutions they
“They think it’s time for a change,” Mr. Keinon done the same thing? want. Israel is saying to these countries, we’re friends
said. “They think he’s leading the country in the “His campaign argument is that nobody else can sit and we have certain expectations about how friends
wrong direction. There are all the allegations of cor- there, eye to eye with Putin and Trump and the pres- act toward one another, and voting against us in the
ruption against him. ident of China. Only he can do it, because he has the UN isn’t how it’s done.
“There’s not that much of an ideological gap experience. That’s a message that resonates. “Bibi has chipped away at the European Union,
between Blue and White and Likud,” Netanyahu’s “In the final run-up to the election, there’s a flurry which was seen as a very pro-Palestinian organization.
party, he said. “It’s more about personality. It’s just of diplomatic activity. Bibi met with Trump in Wash- He’s created sub-alliances within the EU. When Brus-
a matter of those who like Bibi and those who don’t ington, Pompeo in Jerusalem, and Bolsonaro is sched- sels wants to condemn Israel, countries like Greece,
like Bibi. uled to visit Jerusalem before the election. Netanyahu Romania, and Bulgaria will stand up and say you can’t
“It’s a change from 20 or 30 years ago, when the wants that to drive the discussion. do that. After Trump moved the embassy to Jerusalem,
debates were more ideological. These debates are not “The fascinating thing about Israel’s diplomatic stat- there were voices in Brussels that wanted to condemn
about a two-state solution, not about how to make ure right now is that in the past, there was a certain it. They couldn’t get a consensus,” he said.
peace with the Palestinians, because very few peo- conventional wisdom that if you don’t make peace “Our relationship with India is huge — that’s some-
ple in the country see that as a realistic option at the with the Palestinians, you won’t make any diplomatic thing we didn’t have 15 years ago. China is more of an
18 JEWISH STANDARD MARCH 29, 2019
 JS-19

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remain in power. Israel makes clear it’s not going
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after Assad. Israel’s goal is to keep the Iranians from
entrenching themselves there. As long as Israel hits
Iranian targets rather than Russian, they have a
working relationship. That’s no small feat.”
The final election outcome, though, may come

WITNESS
down to a question of numbers. Specifically, the
number of votes Israel’s smallest parties get.
To enter the Knesset, a party must reach the
electoral threshold of 3.25 percent, which is about
125,000 voters. “Right now, we have a number of
small right-wing parties polling just at the level

APRIL 11, 2019

of the electoral threshold,” he said. “If they don’t
pass the threshold, those votes aren’t counted. That
could tip the balance.
“The wild card is a party called Zehut, headed by
Moshe Feiglin. There’s always been a kind of wild 8 PM , TABC BEIT KNESSET
card party that attracted the protest vote, saying a 1600 Queen Anne Road, Teaneck, NJ Yoni Siegel '19
plague on both your houses. In the 2000s it was the
Pensioneer’s Party, whose whole platform was bet-
ter rights for the senior citizens. Rafi Eitan headed
it, and he got a whole bunch of young people to
vote for him. Students in the senior Holocaust
“This time that party is the Zehut party, one of
Studies elective met with survivors
I N T E G R AT E D
whose main issues is the legalization of marijuana.
and learned their stories in order
S TO RY T E L L I N G
We may have a guy whose main issue is legalization
be the kingmaker in the next government. Feiglin is to write original scripts. They will
a very right-wing guy. The contest here is who can
perform these dramatic HANDS-ON
move votes from one bloc to the other. On the left,
they’re just moving the furniture. People will vote presentations of each unique EXPERIENTIAL
Blue and White rather than Labor. Blue and White experience with the survivors in LEARNING
thought they could attract voters from the right to
go to the left because of their heavy security cre-
attendance.
dentials, but polls say that hasn’t panned out. CO L L A B O R AT I V E
“The only person who seems to be able to move
votes from one bloc to the other is Feiglin and his
Please join us for this T E A M WO R K
marijuana legalization.” enlightening & emotional
evening as our students present
the Holocaust experience in a
P R OJ E C T - BAS E D
Who: Herb Keinon,
creative and moving way.
LEARNING
Jerusalem Post diplomatic correspondent
What: Breakfast and discussion,
“Israel’s elections: Bibi’s last stand?”
When: Sunday, March 31, 9:45 a.m.
Created by TABC Faculty: Mrs. Cary Reichardt, Coordinator of Holocaust Studies
Where: Jewish Community Center and Mrs. Rebecca Lopkin, Director of Performing Arts
of Paramus / Congregation Beth Tikvah,
E. 304 Midland Avenue, Paramus Questions? cary.reichardt@tabc.org
How much: Free

JEWISH STANDARD MARCH 29, 2019 19

 JS-20*

Briefly Local

Start planning for your seders

Many local shuls and institutions offer kosher-for-Passover roasted chicken

PHOTOS BY ALAN BROOKER

Michael and Alyson Chananie
were among the event chairs
and speakers.
Record-breaking
JNF breakfast for Israel
In a record-breaking show of support,
nearly 400 people attended the Jewish
National Fund’s fourth annual Break-
fast for Israel on March 3 at Congrega-
tion B’nai Tikvah in North Brunswick.
The breakfast was the most successful
and well-attended to date.
Alon Ben-Gurion, the keynote
speaker, told personal stories about
his grandfather, David Ben-Gurion,
and the legacy he left Israel. Ben-Gu-
rion, an international hospitality con-
sultant, has managed the revenue and
operations of hotels around the world;
he’s been the general manager of the
Bonds to honor Rockland couples
State of Israel Bonds, Rockland/Upstate New York/
Bergen County/Northern New Jersey hosts a break-
From left, Israeli diplomat Danny
Ayalon; Russell Robinson, JNF’s CEO,
and Alon Ben Gurion.
Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in Manhattan.
He is using his extensive network
and hospitality know-how to actively
promote the development of Israel’s
Negev Desert, working to make the
region bloom and realize his grand-
father’s dream.
The next Jewish National Fund
breakfast is set for Sunday, May 5, at 10
a.m., at the Rockleigh. Professor Alan
M. Dershowitz and JNF CEO Russell F.
Robinson are the speakers. For more
information, call Jacqueline Yehudiel
at (973) 593-0095, ext. 823, or email
her at jyehudiel@jnf.org.
COURTESY ISRAEL BONDS
community Passover seders. These are
the ones we’ve heard about so far. Also
check the Jewish Standard’s calendar
section for some outstanding Passover
programs.
CLOSTER: Temple Emanu-El has
two family seders on Saturday, April
20; “Greatest Hits,” a shorter seder at 6
p.m.; and “Classic,” a traditional one at
7, both conducted by the shul’s clergy
with food and an engaging atmosphere.
180 Piermont Road. Call (201) 750-
9997 or go to TempleEmanu-el.com/
secondnightseder.
TEANECK: Temple Emeth holds its
annual community seder on Saturday,
April 20, at 6 p.m. Reservations are due
April 10. The shul is at 1666 Windsor
Road. Call (201) 833-1322.
PARAMUS: The JCC of Paramus/
Congregation Beth Tikvah has a
community seder on the second night
of Passover — Saturday April 20 — at
8:30 p.m. It’s hosted by Rabbi Arthur
and Shira Weiner. All are welcome.
Reservations are required by April 11.
The shul is at East 304 Midland Ave.
Email accounting@jccparamus.org. or
call (201) 262-7691.
NEW CITY: The Nanuet Hebrew
Center is hosting its 10th annual second
night of Passover seder on Saturday,
April 20. Leaders ask that participants
come at 8:10 p.m., and the seder
will start at 8:30. The cost includes a
dinner with a vegetarian option. There
is no charge for anyone under 21.
Sponsorships are welcome. The shul is
at 411 South Little Tor Road — just off
exit 10 of the Palisades Parkway in New
City, New York. Call (845) 708-9181 or
email office@nanuethc.org.
WAYNE: Rabbi Michel and Chani
Gurkov and their family host family-
friendly seders on Friday, April 19, at
7:15 p.m. and on Saturday, April 20,
at 8:15 p.m. at the Chabad Center of
Passaic County. There will be readings
in both English and Hebrew. Seders
include award-winning wines, hand-
baked surah matzah (spelt and gluten-
free upon request), and a four-course
dinner with fishes, salads, chicken soup,
main course, freshly squeezed assorted
juices, and homemade desserts.
Seders are in an elegantly set dining
hall with linens, waiter service, and
an individual haggadah at each place.
There also will be a children’s play
area with snacks. The center is at 194
Ratzer Road in Wayne. For information,
go to www.jewishwayne.com, email
Rabbi@jewishwayne.com, or call (973)
694-6274.
WYCKOFF: Temple Beth Rison
holds a community Passover seder
on Saturday, April 20, at 6 p.m.
Reservations are due by April 15.
The shul is at 585 Russell Ave. For
information, call (201) 891-4466.

fast at the New City Jewish Center on Sunday, March

31 at 9:30 a.m. NCJC congregants Eszter and Peter
Friedman and Beth and Gary Israel will be honored.
IDF Sgt Benjamin Anthony, a combat veteran who
is the founder of “Our Soldiers Speak,” is the guest
speaker.
For reservations, call Ilana Saghian at (845) 405-4028
or email her at Ilana.Saghian@IsraelBonds.com. Benjamin Anthony

Sandra Nachberg, front row, left, with Dr. Samuel Siris, Nitza Harpaz, David
Rich, Judith Bodin, Merav Dekel, and Rivkah Lewin. Rabbi Mordechai Shain,
the instructor, and Pamela Falik stand in the back.  COURTESY CHABAD

Kids pack food for the less fortunate
Congregation Kol HaNeshamah’s
USY group prepared food packs
for donation as part of the Jewish
20 JEWISH STANDARD MARCH 29, 2019
Learning crime doesn’t pay
Federation of Northern New Jersey’s Last week, Lubavitch on the Palisades’ six-week Crime and Consequence course
March Mitzvah Madness. was completed, and the participants celebrated their graduation. The program
explored Jewish views on conviction, sentencing, and criminal rehabilitation.
JS-21

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Just call 833-YU-HELPS.

JEWISH STANDARD MARCH 29, 2019 21

 JS-22*

Briefly Local

Combating hate and

anti-Semitism in Rockland
Evan Bernstein, the Anti-Defamation League’s New
York/New Jersey regional director, will speak about
anti-Semitism in the United States in general and in
Rockland County in particular on Wednesday, April
3, at 7:30 p.m. The talk, for the Rockland section
of the National Council of Jewish Women, is at the
JCC Rockland, 450 West Nyack Road, in West Nyack.
There will be refreshments.

COURTESY NCJW
The ADL, founded in 1913, is the world’s leading
anti-hate organization and a global leader exposing
extremism, delivering anti-bias education, and fight-
ing hate online. For information go to ncjwrockland. Evan Bernstein
org or email info@ncjwrockland.org.
Maxine Harelick, left, and Arlene Bernhardt, NCJW programming vice
presidents, flank Esther East, executive director of Project Sarah.

Learning about Project Sarah

The Jersey Hills section of the National
Council of Jewish Women hosted
speaker Esther East from Project
Sarah (Stop Abusive Relationships at
Home), who spoke about domestic
violence and the invaluable services
Project Sarah provides for women and
families.
Project Sarah’s 13th annual break-
fast will be on Sunday, April 7, at 9:30
a.m., at Congregation Keter Torah in
Teaneck. Drs. Chava and Ephraim
Casper are the guests of honor; Rabbi
Menachem and Sarah Genack will
receive the Rabbinical Support award,
and Mandy Richman is the Volunteer
Recognition awardee. Saranne Roth-
berg, founder of Comedy Cures, the
guest speaker, will discuss “How to
Use Humor, Laughter and Play as Your
Personal Stressbusters.”
The breakfast is chaired by Aviva
Distenfeld, Judith Halpern, and Sheryl
Schainker. The shul is at 600 Roemer
Ave. Babysitting is available with res-
ervations and there will be valet park-
ing. For information, visit www.proj-
ectsarah.org or call (973) 777-7638.

Taran Chernin of Woodcliff Lake, second from right, wearing a white

shirt, stands with other mission participants from the tristate region
and the IDF “Lions of the Valley” 47th Battalion, an infantry battalion
composed of female and male combat soldiers.  NIR KAFRI

20 women FIDF supporters

on Israel unique mission
Twenty leaders and supporters of
Friends of the Israel Defense Forces
from across the United States trav-
eled to Israel last week to join the
FIDF Women’s Mission to Israel.
There, they got a rare glimpse into
the IDF and the lives of its soldiers.
Mission participants received
in-depth briefings by senior military
officers, met state leaders, heard
from Israeli women innovators who
are reshaping Israeli society, got a
behind-the-scenes look at strate-
gic IDF bases, toured Israel’s pres-
tigious Maskit fashion house, and
engaged with women in IDF combat
positions.
They visited the Israel Space
Agency and heard from Israel
Aerospace Industries’ Inbal Kreiss,
the deputy general director of the
22 JEWISH STANDARD MARCH 29, 2019
space division; working with Spa-
ceIL, she designed and built the
“Beresheet” spacecraft, which was
launched from Cape Canaveral in
DAVE WRESKI
February. When the spacecraft
makes its successful landing on the
moon in April, Israel will be the
fourth country ever to have created
such a landing. It would also be the NCJW-BCS represented
smallest spacecraft to make a con-
trolled landing on the moon, and
at community program
the least expensive mission. Members of the Bergen County section members attended the March 10 sold-
Participants also met the Dvorah of the National Council of Jewish out screening of the documentary
Forum, a professional network Women, pictured, were program part- “Brave Miss World” at the Ridgewood
that links the most senior women ners with Jewish Family & Children’s Public Library. The movie is the story
in Israeli foreign policy, security, Services of Northern New Jersey and of Israeli beauty queen Linor Abargil,
public policy, and law, who aim to YWCA Bergen County healingSPACE who was a victim of sexual assault and
advance the standing of women, and at a March 10 program organized by fought back. An online audience dis-
they learned about Israel’s humani- the JCC of Northern New Jersey in cussion with Cecilia Peck of Los Ange-
tarian efforts to treat victims of the collaboration with five synagogues les, the film’s director and daughter of
civil war in Syria. and three other community organi- Gregory Peck, followed.
zations. More than 130 community
 JS-23

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GRILLED CHICKEN CUTLETS 19.99 LB. SPINACH QUICHE 2-3lb. TIN 11.99 LB.
9.99 QT. CHICKEN FRANCHAISE BEET19.99
SALADLB. 9.99 LB. SCALLION CREAM CHEESE
11.99 LB.
MUSHROOM ONION QUICHE 2-3lb. TIN 9.99
CHICKEN MARSALA 19.99 LB. DAIRY DEPARTMENT
9.99 QT. CHICKEN FLORENTINE HEARTS OF PALM SALAD 12.99
NO ORDERS TAKEN FROM
19.99 LB. LB.
DAIRY DEPARTMENT CHEESE BLINTZES
DESSERTS 3.50
BONELESS STUFFED CAPON * 18.00 PC. ALL DAIRY ITEMS BELOW NO ORDERS TAKEN FOR BAKERY GOODS
8.00 / 4PCS. BROC. & CASHEW SALAD
SWEET & SOUR MEATBALLS * 15.99 LB. 12.99 LB.
WILL BE AVAILABLE IN OUR SHOW CASES EGGPLANT PARMESAN 2-3lb. TIN
ALL BAKERY GOODS BELOW 11.9
BRISKET OF BEEF (GRAVY) 29.99 LB. NOVA (FRESHLY SLICED) 12.99 ¼LB. WILL BE AVAILABLE AS OF APRIL 11th,2019
9.99 LB. CORNED BEEF QUINOA SALAD
28.99 LB. SABLE (FRESHLY SLICED) 12.99 LB.
14.99 ¼LB. MATZAH LASAGNA
7 LAYER CAKE2-3lb. TIN * 11.9
9.99 ¼LB.
19.99 LB. ROAST BEEF
GRAVY
SAUTEED SPINACH
28.99 LB.
9.99 QT
BAKED SALMON
WHITE FISH
12.99 LB.
16.99 LB.
BROCCOLI QUICHE 2-3lb. TIN
ALMOND MACAROONS
ASSORTED COOKIES
11.9

www.maadan.com
BLACK & WHITE SWIRL
19.99 LB. PASTRAMI
TURKEY BREAST
28.99 LB.
19.99 LB.
CHUBS
GRILLED SALMON
21.99 LB.
25.99 LB.
SPINACH QUICHE 2-3lb. TIN
BON BONS (CREAM FILLED)
11.9
SMOKED TURKEY BREAST 19.99 LB. FRIED FLOUNDER* 25.99 LB. BROWNIES
19.99 LB. TURKEY PASTRAMI 19.99 LB. HERRING IN WINE SAUCE 14.99 LB. MUSHROOM
CHOCONION QUICHE 2-3lb. TIN
DIP MACAROONS 11.9
19.99 LB. SALAMI
BOLOGNA
DAIRY DEPARTMENT
12.99 LB.
12.99 LB.
HERRING IN CREAM SAUCE
HERRING SALAD
14.99 LB.
11.99 LB.
CHOC DIPPED LEAVES
CHOC. SANDWICH COOKIES
19.99 LB. POTATO KUGEL NO ORDERS TAKEN FROM DAIRY DEPARTMENT
9.99 EA. KIPPERED SALMON SALAD 18.99 LB. CHOCOLATE CHIFFON DESSERTS
SWEET MATZAH KUGEL * 9.99 EA. WHITE FISH SALAD 14.99 LB. CHOCOLATE NUT WAFER
18.00 PC. BROCCOLI SOUFFLÉ * ALL DAIRY ITEMS BELOW
12.99 EA. TUNA FISH SALAD 12.99 LB. NO ORDERS TAKEN FOR BAKERY
CHOCOLATE ROLL
SPINACH SOUFFLÉ * 12.99 EA. EGG SALAD 9.99 LB. JELLY ROLL
15.99 LB. WILL BE AVAILABLE IN OUR
CAULIFLOWER SOUFFLÉ * 12.99 EA. FRESHLYSHOW CASES
SLICED CHEESE ALL BAKERY GOODS BELOW
KRAKOVSKI COOKIES

12.99 ¼LB.
CARROT SOUFFLÉ * 12.99 EA. AMERICAN WHITE 10.99 LB. LADY FINGERS
29.99 LB. NOVA (FRESHLY SLICED)
SWEET POTATO PUDDING * 12.99 EA. CHEDDAR 11.99 LB. WILL BE AVAILABLE AS OF APRIL 1
MARBLE CAKE

14.99 ¼LB.
STUFFED DERMA (KISHKA) 12.99 LB. EDAM 13.99 LB. MARZIPAN (RAINBOW)
28.99 LB. SABLE (FRESHLY SLICED)
MATZAH FARFEL * 12.99 LB. EMEK 13.99 LB. MOCHA ROLL 7 LAYER CAKE
9.99 ¼LB.
CARROT TZIMMES 12.99 LB. GOUDA 14.99 LB. RAILROAD CAKE
28.99 LB. BAKED SALMON
ROAST POTATOES 12.99 LB. HAVARTI 13.99 LB. ALMOND MACAROONS
9.99 QT WHITE FISH
CRANBERRY RELISH
CREAMED SPINACH
12.99 LB.
12.99 LB
HAVARTI (DILL)
MOZZARELLA
16.99 LB. 13.99 LB.
11.99 LB. OTHER DESSERTS
ASSORTED COOKIES
28.99 LB.
CHAROSES
CHUBS
SPECIALTY PASSOVER ITEMS
14.99 LB.
MUENSTER ORANGE RIND
SWISS DOMESTIC
21.99 LB. 11.99 LB.
13.99 LB.
FRUIT SALAD
FRUIT COMPOTE
BLACK
11.99 LB.
11.99 LB.
& WHITE SWIRL
19.99 LB. NECK BONES GRILLED SALMON 2.00 EA. SWISS IMPORTED 25.99 LB. 19.99 LB. BON BONS (CREAM FILLED
SEDER PLATE (COMPLETE) 29.99 EA. * GEBROKTZ CHAREIDIM SHMURAH MATZAH
19.99 LB. HORSERADISHFRIED FLOUNDER*
ROOT (PINT) 12.99 EA. 25.99
***** CHICKEN CUTLETS LB. IN
AVAILABLE HAND SHMURA MATZAH LB. BROWNIES
19.99 LB. HERRING IN WINE SAUCE BOTH GEBROKTZ AND NON GEBROKTZ
14.99 LB. CHOC DIP MACAROONS
12.99 LB. HERRING IN CREAM SAUCE 14.99 LB.
Or To Make Your PESACH Really Easy, Just Enter The Amount Of Guests You Would Like
CHOC DIPPED LEAVES
12.99 LB.
To Order For From Our "COMPLETE DINNER MENU" Which Includes: Gefilte Fish With Carrots
HERRING SALAD 11.99 LB.
And Horseradish, Chicken Soup With Large Fluffy Matzah Balls, Potato Kugel, Carrot Tzimmes, PROVIDING HOMEMADE CHOC. SANDWICH COOKIE
Health Salad, Fresh Fruit Compote, Seder Plate, Macaroons And Cake.
9.99 EA.10 PEOPLE INCREMENTKIPPEREDPER ITEM SALMON SALAD 18.99 LB. GOODNESS FOR 37 YEARS
CHOCOLATE CHIFFON
SORRY NO SUBSTITUTIONS PASSOVER WINE AND
9.99 EA.Please Enter NumberWHITE
Of People FISH
Below SALAD 14.99 LB. WE THANK YOU CHOCOLATE NUT WAFER
MAIN COURSE SECTION LIQUOR SALE
12.99 EA. Roasted Chicken TUNA FISH SALAD $ 36.00 Per Person 12.99 LB. JONNY, STUART & YOSSIE CHOCOLATE ROLL
12.99 EA. Chicken Marsala EGG SALAD $ 36.00 Per Person
Chicken Franchaise $ 36.00 Per Person GOING ON NOW THROUGH
9.99 LB. JELLY ROLL
THE END OF PASSOVER MA'ADAN IS UNDER THE SUPERVISION OF THE
12.99 EA. Boneless Capon FRESHLY SLICED CHEESE KRAKOVSKI COOKIES
Brisket Of Beef
$ 40.00 Per Person
$ 40.00 Per Person www.maadan.com VA'AD OF BERGEN COUNTY ( R.C.B.C. )
ORDERS ACCEPTED TILL THURSDAY 4/11/2019 - 8:00PM
12.99 EA. PICKUP AMERICAN
HOURS FOR PASSOVER WHITE SPECIAL HOURS 10.99
FOR PASSOVERLB. NAME: LADY FINGERS
12.99 EA. WednesdayCHEDDAR 4/17/19 7:30a.m. - 7:00p.m. Monday 4/22/2019 11.99 7:30a.m. LB.-7:00p.m. MARBLE CAKE
Thursday 4/18/2018 7:30a.m. - 8:00p.m. Tues.-Wed 4/23-24/2019 7:30a.m. -7:00p.m.
12.99 LB. Friday 4/19/2019 EDAM7:00a.m. - 12:00p.m. Thursday
13.99 LB.
4/25/2019 7:30a.m. - 4:00p.m.
MARZIPAN (RAINBOW)
12.99 LB. Sat.-Sun.EMEK 4/20/19 - 4/21/19 CLOSED Fri. - Sat. 4/26/18 - 13.99
4/27/2019 LB.CLOSED TEL: MOCHA ROLL
12.99 LB. TEL:
GOUDA 201-692-0192 446 CEDAR LANE
14.99 LB. E-MAIL ADDRESS:
RAILROAD CAKE
FAX: 201-692-3656 TEANECK, NJ 07666-1711
12.99 LB. email:HAVARTI
stuart@maadan.com 13.99 LB.
email: JONNY@maadan.com PICKUP DATE: TIME:
12.99 LB. HAVARTI (DILL) 13.99 LB.
12.99 LB MOZZARELLA 11.99 LB. OTHER DESSERTS
JEWISH STANDARD MARCH 29, 2019 23

ITEMS MUENSTER ORANGE RIND 11.99 LB. FRUIT SALAD 11.9

14.99 LB. SWISS DOMESTIC 13.99 LB. FRUIT COMPOTE 11.9
2.00 EA. SWISS IMPORTED 19.99 LB.

Briefly Local
Yudins to be feted
in Monsey on April 7
When Rabbi Benjamin and Shevi Yudin
went to Congregation Shomrei Torah of
Fair Lawn 50 years ago, they were young
and the community was just a few years
old. It had seven active member fami-
lies; 10 more families also were mem-
bers and lent their support.
That was then. The shul has grown
and flourished, with the Yudins at its
head, acting as its heart, and safeguard-
ing its soul.. Because their house always
is open and their table always set for old
friends and new ones, both Jews who
have grown up in the Orthodox world
and those who found their way there
through the Yudins’ example have joined
the Shomrei Torah, and Fair Lawn has
taken its place among the region’s most
vibrant Jewish communities.
On Sunday, April 7, the synagogue will
honor the Yudins at a tribute dinner. The
gala, a testament to their 50 years of ser-
vice to the community, at the Atrium in
Monsey, New York, begins at 5 p.m. In
24 JEWISH STANDARD MARCH 29, 2019
JS-24*
Shevi and Rabbi Benjamin Yudin
lieu of a journal, a tribute book will be
compiled and presented to the Yudins.
For more information or to register,
email Shomrei-Torah.org/Tribute or
call (201) 981-9201.
Among the audience at the Jewish Federation of Northern New Jersey’s
FedTalks, from left, were, Simone Wilker, Richard Schnaittacher, Stanley
Goodman, Seth Davis of IsraAID, Larry Silverman, JCRC director Ariella
Noveck, and Ron Rosensweig.
IsraAid representative
is JFNNJ guest
The Jewish Federation of Northern
New Jersey’s recent FedTalks speaker
series featured Seth Davis, the exec-
utive director of IsraAID, who spoke
about the Israeli-based organization.
IsraAID’s mission is to save lives
during a crisis, and then change
lives by actively supporting local and
national decision-makers as they
build a sustainable future. Mr. Davis
talked about sending humanitarian
and disaster relief missions in places
around the world, including to Nepal,
the island of Dominica, and Califor-
nia, and of providing aid to Syrian
refugees in the waters off of Greece.
While there are many emergency
relief organizations that help areas
Shlichim at AIPAC
A delegation of 120 shlichim (Israeli
emissaries) representing the Jew-
ish Agency for Israel attended the
2019 American Israel Public Affairs
Committee Policy Conference from
March 24 to 26 in Washington, D.C.
More than 2,000 Jewish Agency shli-
chim go to diaspora communities in
150 countries to strengthen Jewish
identity by bringing a taste of Israel
to them, promoting Israel experi-
ences, and facilitating Jewish social
activism. This group includes the
college campus efforts of the Jewish
COURTESY JFNNJ
and populations struck by large-
scale disasters, what makes IsraAID
unique is its ability to send delivery
aid to affected areas rapidly. IsraAID
workers remain for months — at times
even for years — helping survivors
deal with the long-term effects of
traumatic events.
The next FedTalk Israel is set for
Monday, May 6, at 7:30 p.m. The
speaker will be Tal Heinrich of i24
News, an international news station
based in Tel Aviv and New York, who
will discuss “International Media Bias
Against Israel.”
For more information, call (201)
820-3946 or email Ariella Noveck at
AriellaN@jfnnj.org.
COURTESY THE JEWISH AGENCY FOR ISRAEL.
Agency Israel Fellows, who serve for
one to three years at colleges and
and universities worldwide, with the
goal of empowering student lead-
ership and creating Israel-engaged
campuses. During this sensitive time
for Jewish unity, Shlichim represent
a crucial bridge between American
and Israeli Jews.
The emissaries’ attendance of the
AIPAC conference — the largest annual
gathering for supporters of the U.S.-Is-
rael relationship — was their latest step
to advance that mission.
 JS-25
SUPERCOUPON
GET READY FOR
$ 79
2
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Welch’s Pick Up or Delivery to Receive Discount

PASSOVER Manischewitz
Grape Juice
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Juice OR MORE
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Products sold are LIMIT 4 PER VARIETY
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2$
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Chicken Broth FOR
•ShopRite or Aviv
spiceitup 32-oz. carton (Where Available, While Supplies Last)
With this coupon and additional

2
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99¢

020340
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99
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Osem FOR
Lieber’s
Spices Consomme Soup & Yahrzeit
Tabatchnick Frozen Soups
1 to 3-oz. jar, Assorted Varieties Seasoning Mix 14.5 to 15-oz. pkg., Any Variety Memorial

0
14.1-oz. cont. (Excluding Organic) Lamp Candle

020820
$ 99
2 to 6-oz. Star

gefilte fish & more!

With this coupon. Limit one per family.
Void if reproduced, sold or transferred. Cash

499
value 1/100 cent. Good at any ShopRite® store.

$
©2019 Wakefern Food Corp. Effective Sun.,
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0
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Gefen SUPERCOUPON
Pasta Sauce Present This Coupon at Time of Purchase Order,
Pick Up or Delivery to Receive Discount

1
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$ 00
SAVE $1.00

$ 49
2
LIMIT 4 PER VARIETY

Manischewitz OFF
Gefilte Fish Toward The Purchase of Any
24-oz. jar (Excluding Gold
Wholesome Pantry

5
Label & White & Pike)
Gefen
Pasta
9-oz. box, Assorted Varieties $ 99 frozenfavorite
Jams & Preserves
with purchase of individual
1-lb. Box Streit’s

9 499
8
$ 99 $ Passover Matzo

019910
SAVE $1.00 Spring Valley
Blintzes
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LIMIT 4 PER VARIETY if reproduced, sold or transferred. Cash

A&B Gefilte Fish 13-oz. pkg., Any Variety

SAVE 50¢
value 1/100 cent. Good at any ShopRite®
store. ©2019 Wakefern Food Corp. Effective
SAVE $3.00 (Frozen) 20-oz. cont. Low Sugar, Sweet,
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Sun., March 31 thru Saturday, April 13, 2019.

0
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1
dairyfavorites
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5
3
(Appy) 8-oz., Norwegian

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17
LIMIT 4 PER VARIETY
Horse Radish
$ 99 Holiday Cream Cheese
6-oz. jar, Any Variety 8-oz. cont., Whipped
Chocolate Matzoh LIMIT 4 PER VARIETY
7-oz. pkg., Dark Chocolate

Manischewitz $ 99
2
or Milk or Dark Chocolate Egg

1
Joyva Chocolate
$ 99
3
Acme Jelly Rings
Nova $ 49 Holiday
9-oz. box, Any Variety,
Marshmallow Twists or Jelly Rings Ba-Tampte
(Appy) 12-oz. pkg., Pre-Sliced Pickles

1
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SAVE 50¢

9
8-oz. pkg. Sauerkraut or Any Variety

$ 99 $ 49
3
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Acme 16-oz.
Manischewitz
Cake Mix
11.5 to 14-oz. box (Excluding Hashahar
Galil
Roasted
Chestnuts
2$
FOR

Breakstone’s
5
Gluten Free, Blueberry & Bran)
Any Variety, Muffin or Cake
Chocolate Spread
Whitefish Salad 16-oz. cont. 3.5-oz. pkg.
Whipped Butter

$ 99
1
(Appy) 1-lb. cont., packaged 8-oz. cont., Any Variety

5 $ 99
2
(Excluding Organic)

1
2$
$ 49 4$
2
FOR
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SAVE 80¢
Manischewitz LIMIT 4 PER VARIETY
LIMIT 4 PER VARIETY
FOR

Season Club Matzo Meal Goodman’s

Terra Chips ShopRite
Sardines
16-oz. canister (Excluding
Macaroons
Whole Grain) Cake or Matzo
10-oz. canister, Coconut, Almond,
6.8-oz. bag (Excluding Exotic) Yogurt
4.375-oz. tin, in Oil, Chocolate Chip or Chocolate
Any Variety 6-oz. cont., Any Variety
Skinless & Boneless

Prices, programs and promotions effective Sun., March 31 thru Sat., April 6, 2019 in ShopRite® Stores in NJ, North of Trenton (excluding Ewing, Hamilton Square, Hamilton Marketplace, Pennington and Montague, NJ and Rockland County, NY) including E. Windsor,
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Minimum or additional purchase requirements noted for any advertised item exclude the purchase of prescription medications, gift cards, gift certificates, postage stamps, money orders, money transfers, lottery tickets, bus tickets, fuel and Metro passes, as well as milk,
cigarettes, tobacco products, alcoholic beverages or any other items prohibited by law. Only one manufacturer coupon may be used per item and we reserve the right to limit manufacturer coupon redemptions to four (4) identical coupons per household per day, unless
otherwise noted or further restricted by manufacturer. Sales tax is applied to the net retail of any discounted item or any ShopRite® coupon item. We are required by law to charge sales tax on the full price of any item or any portion of an item that is discounted with the
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All rights reserved. Digital Coupon savings can be loaded to your Price Plus® club card IN STORE at the service desk, kiosk or contact 1-800-ShopRite.

JEWISH STANDARD MARCH 29, 2019 25

 JS-26

Purim

The Glen Rock Jewish Center had a fun Cantor Sam Weiss, left, stands with young attendees, most of whom he Cantor Emeritus Charles Romalis
Purim celebration.  COURTESY GRJC taught before they became bar or bat mitzvah, at the JCC of Paramus/ wore a silly costume during the
CBT gala Purim celebration that followed the Megillah reading. Megillah reading and sing-along
 SANDRA ALPERN at Purim services at Temple Beth
Tikvah in Wayne.  COURTESY TBT

Myron Friedman, left, with Reuven Udem; Roma Fish; Megillah reader Rabbi
Abe Weintraub; Benjamin Franz; Bill Brown; Jay Richman, and Robert Cantor Ellen Tilem, left, and Rabbi Steven Sirbu, right, dress up for Temple
Dickstein during Purim at the Paterson minyan at Federation Apartments. Emeth’s Purim celebration. The rabbi and cantor read the Megillah in English
 COURTESY JERRY SCHRANZ and refreshments followed.  BARBARA BALKIN

The Religious School of Temple Emanuel of the Pascack Valley

Friends of the Israel Defense Forces distributed about 25,000 mishloach manot packages
to IDF soldiers in the many brigades and battalions the organization adopted. “Support-
ing the IDF soldiers throughout the year is the cornerstone of our organization,” said Maj.
Gen. (Res.) Meir Klifi-Amir, FIDF national director and CEO.  COURTESY OF FIDF
celebrated Purim with the Bible Players; from left, religious
school administrator Margie Shore; Bible player Jackie Grabois;
Rabbi Shelley Kniaz, director of congregational learning;
Cantor Alan Sokoloff; Rabbi Loren Monosov, and Bible Player
Aaron Friedman.  COURTESY TEPV

26 JEWISH STANDARD MARCH 29, 2019

 JS-27

Purim

Administrative and recreation staff at the Jewish Home at Rockleigh are seen with a resident as they Rabbi Lindsey Healey-Pollack in the blonde wig,
celebrated Purim.  COURTESY JHR with her husband, David, during Congregation Kol
HaNeshamah of Englewood’s Purim celebration.
Draped in costumes,
 PHOTO PROVIDED
wielding noisemakers,
and enjoying an Alice-
in-Wonderland-themed
seudah (meal) fit for a LAST CHANCE: REGISTER BY 3/31 AND SAVE $25/WEEK
king and queen, Solomon
Schechter Day School of TSKIN DA
Bergen County students
LA

Y
NEIL

C AM P S
celebrated Purim in style.
Here, Ricky Stamler-
Goldberg, the adult
dressed as Ruth Bader
Ginsburg, the school’s
Early Childhood & Lower
School principal and
Judaic studies director,
is with a fifth-grader also
dressed as RBG. 
 COURTESY SSDS

AY C A
D @ its bM P
REGISTER TODAY AT
JCCOTP.ORG/NKDC or 201.408.8963
est
FULL DAY: 9 AM-4 PM I AGES 3-7 YEARS
ALL CAMPS
LUNCH, SWIM & TOWEL SERVICE INCLUDED NOW OPEN
TO THE
TRANSPORTATION, EXTENDED CARE &
Students at all the Sinai Schools campuses celebrated Purim. Sinal at HEBREW IMMERSION OPTIONS AVAILABLE PUBLIC
RYNJ students were treated to a carnival hosted by Ma’ayanot seniors
while students at its other elementary and high schools showed off their KAPLEN JCC on the Palisades TAUB CAMPUS | 411 E CLINTON AVE, TENAFLY, NJ 07670
creative spirit with elaborate costumes.  COURTESY SINAI

JEWISH STANDARD MARCH 29, 2019 27

Cover Story
A home for nobody
is a home for everybody
Israeli nonprofit Hinam brings together everyone, with no agenda,
to learn from everyone, including in Teaneck on Tuesday night
JOANNE PALMER
W
hich view of the world
speaks to you?
Is it the world of
point/counterpoint?
Thesis/antithesis? Black/white?
Or do you see it less starkly? With con-
sensus. Synthesis. And lovely shades of
gray — blue gray and slate gray and laven-
der gray and olive gray and smoke gray
and (yes really, my friend the internet
tells me) plumbaceus gray and blackish
28 JEWISH STANDARD MARCH 29, 2019
plumbeous gray and purplish gray and
pallid purplish gray.
Hinam, the Israeli nonprofit that is
visiting northern New Jersey and New
York this week and next, believes firmly
in looking at the world that second way.
You cannot hate people you know,
its leaders say. But if you spend time
together, you get to know them. And
that also happens if you study together.
That’s why Hinam, which got its start
with the program it calls Achi Israeli —
that translates to My Brother the Israeli
— takes young people, at the time of
their lives when they’re between iden-
tities, free from obligation, and open to
new experiences, and provides them
with those experiences. It’s a short time,
between school and IDF or IDF and job,
but it’s very sweet.
Hinam’s creator and CEO, Yaron Kan-
ner, also believes in the importance of
Jews coming to know each other. That’s
what happens on the group’s tours of
the United States. This time, 19 Israelis —
mainly Jews but some of them Muslim,
The walls of the beit
midrash in Abu Ghosh are
very old, but the energy
they enclose is young.
women and men, some youngish, some
older, some older still, some secular,
some Orthodox, mainly professionals —
have become close to each other as they
have learned firsthand about how they
live. Now, they are going to share that
information with local Jews as they learn
more about yet another kind of Jewish
life — the American kind. (Which, to be
sure, is not lacking in its own divisions
and diversity.)
At the same time, the organization —
formally named the Hinam Center for

Social Tolerance — has opened what it
called a “beit midrash of tolerance” in
the Arab Israeli village just outside Jeru-
salem called Abu Ghosh.
“This beit midrash is unique in that
everyone, from any identity, can come
not only to learn, but to teach anything
he wants,” Mr. Kanner said. That’s new,
he added.
And it’s free.
That’s not the way it used to be, at
least most of the time.
“In the history of the Jewish peo-
ple, there always were guards at the
entrance,” Mr. Kanner said. “There
always were guards at the door to the
batei midrash,” the houses of study. “In
the time of Hillel, they charged money,
and when Hillel was the president, the
nasi, the first thing he did was to send
the guards away. He felt that education
should be for everyone.”
But after Hillel died, he said, the beit
midrash no longer was free. “It was elit-
ist,” he said. Poor people felt that it just
was not for them.
“Today we have other kinds of
guards,” Mr. Kanner said. “Unseen
guards.” (Apart, of course, from the
guards who are positioned outside
You stop seeing a
person as Arab or
ultra Orthodox or
settler or Ethiopian.
You start seeing
the person.
Jewish and other institutions today, in
response to threats of physical violence.)
“Ideological guards.
“That means that every beit midrash
now has its own identity. It belongs to
some ideological house. We have charedi
batei midrash, we have dati leumi, we
have modern Orthodox, Conservative,
Reform batei midrash. We even have sec-
ular batei midrash, like Alma, and Binah,
and Elul.” (All three of those Israeli-based
institutions teach Jewish texts and con-
cepts to secular students.)
“It is of course okay to have a beit
midrash have an identity. But the main
goal of our beit midrash is to bring peo-
ple together, to get to know each other,
through and around the learning.”
That means that Hinam’s beit midrash
cannot have an ideology more firm than
Cover Story
Participants not only learn together, they also cook and play together.
the desire for its students to learn from
each other.
“If you want people to get to know
each other in a beit midrash, you have to
get them to feel that the beit midrash is
their home,” Mr. Kanner said.
“Not that they are guests in
someone else’s beit midrash.
“Let’s say that you’re an
ultra-Orthodox man, and
you have come to a secular,
pluralistic beit midrash. Of
course they will treat you with
respect. They might even let
you teach something, to give
a lecture. But you will always
feel like a guest there. It is not
your place. There is a very
clear agenda — but it is not
your agenda.
“What we are looking to create is a
place that because it has no agenda, it is
home to nobody — and because of that,
it is home to everybody.”
The beit midrash, which opened in
June, is in “an old and beautiful stone
house in Abu Ghosh. We decided that it
was the best location for it because we
didn’t want just Jews to come. We also
wanted Muslims and Christians and
Druse and everyone else who wants to
come to learn, and to learn about other
cultures’ religious traditions.
“They are all invited.
“In a regular evening in our beit mid-
rash, the village head — he’s the imam
— was teaching about charity in Islam,
and right after the imam an ultra-Ortho-
dox guy, a chasid, a Nadvornerer, was
teaching about charity in the Shulchan
JEWISH STANDARD MARCH 29, 2019 29
Cover Story

Aruch. It’s very interesting to compare charity

in Judaism and Islam. And then we can hear
a lecture in Talmud from a Conservative lady
rabbi, and from settlers and Orthodox Jews
and seculars and really everyone.
“It is a mosaic of people and lectures and
subjects, and somewhere someone always is
eating something.” The language usually is
Hebrew, in which Arab Israelis, as Israelis, are
fluent, although if there are American groups
visiting, the talks generally switch to English.
The food often is Arab — often it’s maqluba,
a regionally popular tower of chicken, rice,
and fried vegetables — but “of course it always
is kosher,” he added. “Everyone is sitting
together, eating and learning, and through the
whole experience — not just the learning, but
the entire experience, week after week, when
they meet the same people, and talk to them —
this way they get to know each other.
“We believe that it really can work, as long as
you do it right,” Mr. Kanner said. “You stop see-
ing a person as Arab or ultra Orthodox or set-
tler or Ethiopian. You start seeing the person.
“When that happens, you see the person
behind the label. You will feel more sympa-
thetic to the complexity of his life. You might
not agree with his way of life, even if you have
This isn’t a group you’d expect to find eating together, but they do. All the food is kosher. different opinions about his choice of moral

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30 JEWISH STANDARD MARCH 29, 2019

 Cover Story

issues — like maybe not serving in the
army — you will not hate him.” (He’s
talking there about the young charedim
who decide not to serve in the IDF
when they graduate high school, leav-
ing that job to their less religiously right-
wing peers.)
“After you learn with someone, after
you eat with him, you cannot hate him,”
Mr. Kanner said. ‘Your conversation will
be more soft. More respectful. We believe
that this is the main challenge in Israeli
society today, the hate between the dif-
ferent groups. The feeling that if you are
not 100 percent like me, I hate you.”
There are two main groups who come
to the beit midrash, Mr. Kenner said.
Most come for the evening, or the after-
noon and evening, or even the whole
day. Hinam’s been successful at con-
vincing companies to bring employ-
ees to learn together. “We had workers
from a meteorological services firm,” he
said. “It was 60 people, and they came
for the whole day. The week before that,
the Rothschild Foundation came, along
with the heads of the organizations it
supports. The Jewish federations of San
Francisco came, and the Philadelphia
federation is coming.” Birthright groups
sometimes extend their stay in Israel
to learn at Hinam’s beit midrash, and
charedi Jews from Telz-Stone have come
as well. It’s a broad range.
Now, the beit midrash is expanding
even further, adding Midrasha L’Sovla-
nut, a program that is set to open in less
than two months. Young people fresh
from their IDF stints are welcome to stay
at the beit midrash (although they do
have to pay for it. Hinam does not make
a profit, but it does want to break even).
“It’s open to everyone, but it’s mainly
for young people,” Mr. Kanner said.
“They can stay here before or after
their service, and stay at our beit mid-
rash. The second floor now is two apart-
ments, with beds, that can host between
20 and 30 people.”
Hinam also is planning a gap-year
track, so that students from North Amer-
ica can spend the year between high
school and college there. “They can
come either for the whole year or for
just three or four months,” Mr. Kanner
said. “We will have a special program for
them. The head of the beit midrash will
build a learning plan that will suit them.”
This week, 10 Hinam participants are
staying in Teaneck, hosted by local fam-
ilies; on Tuesday, April 2, they will be at
Congregation Beth Sholom there.
The connection between Beth Sho-
lom and Hinam is a miniature of the
kind of relationships that Hinam fosters.
It started with the relationship between
the Conservative synagogue’s rabbi,
Joel Pitkowsky, and David Jacobowitz, a
member of Congregation Rinat Yisrael,
an Orthodox shul in Teaneck. The two
came to know each other through the
annual Shabbat afternoon study session
that was groundbreaking when it first
started, about five years ago (and still has
not been replicated in other local shuls).
Mr. Jacobowitz is a strong supporter of
Hinam; when he wanted local partners,
he reached out to Rabbi Pitkowsky.
When a cohort of Hinam travelers came
to Bergen County last fall, “David asked
me if I would sit on a panel with two other
rabbis,” Rabbi Pitkowsky said. The panel
then included Rabbi Nathaniel Helfgot of
Netivot Shalom in Teaneck, who is Ortho-
dox, and Rabbi Paul Jacobson of Tem-
ple Avodat Shalom in River Edge, who is
Reform. “I found it really meaningful,”
Rabbi Pitkowsky said. “That’s the idea of
Hinam — to break down barriers between
groups, to encourage people to think of
each other as people, not just as members
of rival tribes.
“I heard that members of the group
found the panel to be one of the most
important experiences they had during
their trip. To be able to see a Reform,
an Orthodox, and a Conservative rabbi
together, and that we are all friendly —
that we can talk, and we can disagree,
and be friendly — just blew them away.”
On this visit, Rabbi Jordan Millstein of
Temple Sinai in Tenafly represented the
Reform movement.
“I got involved and stayed involved in
Hinam because I believe that we should
do everything we can do to encourage
breaking down the barriers between dif-
ferent groups in Israel,” Rabbi Pitkowsky
said. “It also helps Israelis understand the
American Jewish community better, and
see that there actually are elements of this
community that actually might enrich
Israeli life. All that is sorely needed.
“I look forward to meeting new peo-
ple, making new friends, and breaking
down barriers between the American

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Cover Story

and Israeli communities,” he concluded. other’s narratives, wanted to learn from

“We both have what to learn from each
other. It’s a great model for all of us.”
“I first heard about Hinam when the
Young Israel of Teaneck invited them in,
maybe a year and a half ago,” Mr. Jaco-
bowitz said. “I went, and I was blown
away by their mission, and by the diver-
sity of the people who were part of the
group. They ranged from charedi all the
way through secular, and there were sev-
eral Arab participants as well.
“I had never imagined a group of peo-
ple like that who were so open to each
Who: Congregation Beth Sholom
What: Will host visitors from the
Hinam Center for Social Tolerance
and invites community members to
meet them
When: On Tuesday, April 2, at 8:15
p.m.
Where: At the shul, 354 Maitland
Avenue, in Teaneck
How much: Free
For more information:
Call Congregation Beth Sholom
at (201) 833-2620
each other, and were willing to spend
time in each other’s neighborhoods.”
He is interested in diversity, he con-
tinued, because “I think the key way
we can build understanding and com-
munity within our Jewish family is by
talking to each other. The less we talk
to each other, the more likely we are to
become entrenched in our own narra-
tives, which often will exclude others.
“I’m not the sort of idealist who thinks
that you can just snap your fingers, and
everyone will get along,” he said. “In
Rinat and in many other Orthodox shuls,
there are people who have children who
live in Israel, and they live in proximity
to terrorists. This leads to a high degree
of distrust, which is natural.
“So to get people to be open to
the Other, where there is a palpable
fear that the Other is out to eliminate
you — that’s very hard. Hinam is to be
admired for its inclusiveness, its inclu-
sion of non-Jewish participants. The old building was renovated for its new use.
“And it’s the same thing to get the
charedim and the modern Orthodox is extremely powerful, and it could be and hopefully they will serve as a model
and the secular to sit down with each very helpful. for more and more understanding,” Mr.
other and to speak to each other. That “It is to Hinam’s credit that they do it, Jacobowitz concluded.

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32 JEWISH STANDARD MARCH 29, 2019

 Jewish World

At AIPAC, Republicans and Democrats

spar on what defines anti-Semitism
RON KAMPEAS not mention that the alleged Pittsburgh shooter was a freshman, Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, who back BDS.
white supremacist who was acting on an anti-Semitic “Anti-Zionism denies the very legitimacy of the Israeli
WASHINGTON — Sen. Chuck Schumer, the New slander that Jews were organizing an “invasion” of Latin state and of the Jewish people. So, friends, let me go on
York Democrat who is the Senate minority leader, American migrants into the United States. The assailant record: Anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism,” Pompeo said
had heard one too many of his Republican col- was not known to be exercised by Israel. to applause. “The Trump administration opposes it
leagues talk about anti-Semitism on the left — and it “This bigotry is taking on an insidious new form in the unequivocally, and we will fight for it relentlessly.”
appeared that he had had enough. guise of ‘anti-Zionism,’” Pompeo said in his address on Pompeo did not mention anti-Semitism on the far right.
“It will always be wrong to use anti-Semitism as Monday. “It has infested college campuses in the form Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), the minority leader,
a political weapon, always,” Schumer said, remind- of the Boycott, Divest and Sanctions movement. It’s dis- was even more direct in making the connection. “We look
ing the 18,000 activists at this week’s AIPAC confer- cussed in our media. It’s supported by certain members at the horrific action of what took place in Pittsburgh in
ence that he is the highest-ranking Jewish lawmaker of Congress, I suspect none of whom are here tonight.” October,” he said on Monday, segueing directly to say “I
in the government. “And let me tell you if you only He was referring to Omar and another Democratic heard language in our own floors of Congress, I want you
care about anti-Semitism coming from your politi-
cal opponents, you are not fully committed to com-
bating anti-Semitism.”
Beneath the increasingly fraught debate that
plays out in discussions of what it means to be
pro-Israel, another even more sensitive fight is
143 PROJECT S.A.R.A.H. CLIENTS SEEN THIS YEAR
emerging along the partisan divide: what it means 25% INCREASE FROM LAST YEAR
to be anti-Semitic.
That fight played out at this year’s AIPAC policy
conference, where Democrats and Republicans
decried expressions of anti-Semitism and anti-Zi-
onism, but where Republicans barely spoke about
white supremacism and other manifestations of
anti-Semitism on the right.
The emphasis on anti-Zionism made sense at a
pro-Israel conference, and especially because it was
being held in the wake of attacks on the lobby by
a freshman Democrat, Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minne-
sota. Comments Omar made about AIPAC’s influ-
ence and the pro-Israel movement’s purported
power seemed to many to recall ancient anti-Jew-
ish slanders.
Omar was called out by name and implication
at AIPAC in speeches by Secretary of State Mike
Pompeo, Vice President Mike Pence, and Rep. Steny
Hoyer (D-Md.) — and Schumer — to name a few.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in a
video address on Tuesday, also picked up on the
theme, referring to Omar’s tweet that U.S. policy
toward Israel is “all about the Benjamins” — that is, GUESTS OF HONOR
distorted by AIPAC money. (Benjamin Franklin is
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our money, it’s because they share our values.” RABBI MENACHEM
(Omar hit back on Twitter by referring to the cor-
ruption scandals besetting the Israeli prime minis-
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ter, saying “This from a man facing indictments for
bribery and other crimes in three separate public VOLUNTEER RECOGNITION AWARD
corruption affairs. Next!”)
But it was conspicuous that just five months after
SUNDAY, APRIL 7, 2019 MRS. MANDY RICHMAN
the murder of 11 Jewish worshippers at the Tree of 9:30 AM -11:30 AM KEYNOTE SPEAKER
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It became even more conspicuous when several
Republican speakers drew a line connecting Pitts-
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Pompeo cited the Pittsburgh shooting as an TO MAKE A RESERVATION OR TO DONATE:
example of the scourge of anti-Semitism, but spoke
about the causes of anti-Semitism almost exclu-
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JEWISH STANDARD MARCH 29, 2019 33
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both McCarthy and President Donald
Trump have been accused of enabling
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“When someone names only promi-
nent Jews as trying to buy or steal our
elections, we must call it out,” Schumer
said.
Last year, McCarthy posted a tweet
accusing three billionaires of Jewish
heritage of buying the midterm elec-
tions. He insisted, however, that the
tweet was not anti-Semitic. The post
later was deleted.

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triggers Israeli wine shopping craze
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AMSTERDAM — As a supporter of
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when she posted a picture of it on sale
at the Hema Dutch supermarket chain
on Twitter.
#notAgainAye!??” Zagt wrote, attaching
a picture of the bottles in question.
In reality, the Efrat Winery is one of
Israel’s oldest, and it’s in Tsor’a, a town
that is within Israel’s 1949 armistice
line. Despite its name, the wine is not
from disputed territory.
But Zagt’s tweet ended in more than

R F O
P E@ its R M I N G But her tweet, meant to protest the
sale, prompted Israel supporters here
to mount a social media reaction so
a geography lesson.
Gideon van der Sluis, a Dutch-born
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34 JEWISH STANDARD MARCH 29, 2019
successful that the Israeli wines sold
out at the Hema and the campaign
became the number-one trending topic
on Dutch Twitter on Tuesday.
The opening shot for the #tipvan-
Mieke campaign was a tweet that Zagt,
a scholar and Electronic Intifada con-
tributor who has fewer than 1,300
followers on Twitter, posted Monday
afternoon. “Hey, Hema, you’re selling
Efrat wine from Judean Hills [as] made
jccotp.org/camps in Israel. Is this possible? Efrat and
201.408.8963 Judean Hills are in occupied Palestin-
ian land. Efrat is an illegal Israeli col-
ony. Can you verify the origin? #hema
eral other pro-Israel advocates began
engaging on Twitter with like-minded
users about Zagt’s tweet, labeling it
with a hashtag meaning “TipFrom-
Mieke.” Within 24 hours it became the
top-trending item on Dutch Twitter,
with people from around the country
using it with pictures of freshly bought
Efrat wine bottles.
Within hours, Hema’s online store
was sold out of Efrat wines. Hema is a
huge chain, with 525 stores in the Neth-
erlands alone.
The social network campaign seems
to have originated with the hard core

“When someone looks at a neo-Nazi
rally and sees some very fine peo-
ple among its company, we must call
it out,” McCarthy said, referring to
Trump’s controversial comments after
the deadly neo-Nazi march in Charlot-
tesville, Virginia, in 2017.
Schumer also noted that the Pitts-
burgh killer was a white supremacist.
The activists again roared in approval
on Tuesday morning when Sen. Rob-
ert Menendez (D-N.J.) spoke about
anti-Semitism on the right and left.
“Having spent more than a quarter-cen-
tury advocating for a strong relationship
between the United States and the Jew-
ish state, I cannot stay silent when the
entire Democratic Party is castigated as
‘Jew haters’ when what we really need
is leadership that unites this nation and
the world against the rise of anti-Sem-
itism, hatred and white supremacy
around the globe,” Menendez said.
“So yes, when you imply that money
is the only driving factor of a strong
U.S.-Israel relationship, you are fanning
those flames. And just the same, when
you accuse Jews of funding caravans of
asylum seekers at our Southern bor-
der, or fail to call out and condemn the
rise of white supremacy at home and
abroad, you are fanning those flames.”
Trump had accused liberal philan-
thropist George Soros of funding the
migrant caravan — a baseless and
false narrative shared by the alleged
of Israel’s supporters here — van der
Sluis was joined by Hidde J. van Kon-
ingsveld, who heads the CiJo pro-Israel
group. But it seems to have reached
far beyond the usual suspects from
the Netherlands’ Jewish community of
about 40,000 people.
Menno de Bruyne, a chief strategist
for the Reformed Political Party, had a
colleague post a picture of de Bruyne
at the office with three Efrat wine bot-
tles. Sjoukje Dijkstra, a journalist from
Utrecht, wrote on Twitter: “Thanks for
the tip! Straight to Hema!”
Henk Bakboord, a dancer and activ-
ist for the Jimmy Nelson Foundation
for documenting indigenous cultures,
also sarcastically thanked Zagt, adding
that the Hema store at Amsterdam’s
Oostpoort neighborhood still has Efrat
wines “but they are selling out fast.”
They began selling even faster after
Christians for Israel, an international
group whose headquarters is just out-
side Amsterdam, posted an article on
its website and Facebook page encour-
aging its many thousands of readers
and supporters to buy Efrat Wines.
(Christians for Israel, which brings
in 120,000 bottles of Israeli wine each
Jewish World
T H E OU W O M E N ’ S I N I T I A T I V E
Pittsburgh killer.
AIPAC, for its part, opened the con-
ference with a blessing by a rabbi who
grew up in the Tree of Life congrega-
tion and a Pittsburgh-area choir singing
“The Star-Spangled Banner.”
David Kaufman, a Reform rabbi
from Des Moines, Iowa, said he wanted
to hear more of both sides calling out
their own. “I think we are still very
much in the mode of each side con- A two-day summit of workshops and networking
demning the anti-Semitism on the with innovative thinkers and leaders.
other side, but not necessarily on their
own side,” said Kaufman, who attended MAY 20-21, 2019
the conference. HILTON WOODCLIFF LAKE, Northern New Jersey
“Look: I’m not crazy about politi-
cization of #antisemitism,” tweeted
P R E S E N T E R S I N C LU D E :
attendee Jeremy Burton, the execu-
tive director of the Jewish Commu-
nity Relations Council of Greater Bos- ERICA BROWN
Associate Professor, George
ton. “But, over the last two days we Washington University. Join a nation-wide
at #AIPAC2019 heard many Dems call Director, Mayberg Center community of
out the BDS/antizionist/AS left. Would for Jewish Education and
have been nice if even one Republican Leadership. Author. engaged and inspired
main stage [speaker] called out white female lay-leaders
supremacy/right wing AS for what it is.” who are impacting
For her part, Omar seemed ready to AVITAL CHIZHIK- synagogues, schools
move on. GOLDSCHMIDT
“It’s been interesting to see such a Journalist, Life editor at and other community
powerful conference of people be so The Forward. Rebbetzin. organizations.
fearful of a freshman member of Con-
gress,” she told the New York Times,
DESIGNED FOR A
“so I hope that they figure out a way
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year through its own import agency, Founder and Director • Involved in building
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cle about Hema.)
• Committed to the
Yanki Jacobs, a rabbi from Amster- spiritual growth and
dam who runs Chabad on Campus well-being of her
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here, said he was “delighted” about Senior Advisor to the Director
how the campaign turned out. “It’s a of the National Security Agency.
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On Twitter, she seemed to suggest that Connect. Develop. Impact. Grow.
of her community
the people mocking her were engaged
in “intimidation and defamation.” Her
hecklers, she added, “are showing their
real Twitter nature,” which she called
“very disturbing.” Zagt did not reply to a
request for comment on Twitter.
Hema declined to say how many
bottles were sold, but acknowledged
that like its online story, many of its
branches have run out of Efrat wine.
Esther Voet, the editor-in-chief of SPACE IS LIMITED | SIGN-UP DEADLINE: MARCH 31, 2019
the NIW Dutch Jewish weekly, said she
found the story amusing. “It’s hilari-
APPLY TODAY AT OU.ORG/SUMMIT
ous,” she said. “Everybody started to
buy Israeli wine.” JTA WIRE SERVICE
JEWISH STANDARD MARCH 29, 2019 35
Jewish World
Gaza escalation holds both promise and perils for Netanyahu
SAM SOKOL
JERUSALEM — Benjamin Netanyahu’s week had been
carefully scripted: Less than one month away from Israeli
elections, the prime minister was traveling to Wash-
ington, D.C., to meet with President Donald Trump. A
friendly photo op would become even friendlier when
Trump announced that he wanted to recognize Israeli
36 JEWISH STANDARD MARCH 29, 2019
sovereignty over the Golan Heights.
From there, Netanyahu was going to speak to the
annual conference of the American Israel Public Affairs
Committee, reminding viewers back home that he is
the essential man in shepherding the vital U.S.-Israel
relationship.
And then the script changed.
By Tuesday, troops were massed along the Gaza
border, in response to an unexpected escalation
that saw dozens of Hamas rockets rain down on
Israeli towns, including one that destroyed a home
near Netanya and injured seven people.
And while a tense calm has descended on the
region, Israeli news outlets have cited a senior offi-
cial close to Netanyahu as saying that “there was no
agreement over a cease-fire” and that the conflict
was “not over.”
Some political pundits mused that the prime
minister may have welcomed a limited conflict with
the Palestinians as a way of shoring up his security
credentials in a tough re-election race. His main
rivals, the centrist Blue and White alliance, include
three former IDF chiefs of staff among its leaders:
Benny Gantz, Moshe Yaalon, and Gabi Ashkenazi.
For a long time, Netanyahu has positioned him-
self as the only leader who can provide Israel with
the security its citizens so desperately crave. A
recent survey of more than 1,000 Hebrew and Ara-
bic speakers found that security was the No. 1 con-
cern among Israelis; it’s more important to them
than employment, education, and corruption. (For-
mer Netanyahu staffer Mitchell Barak conducted
the poll on behalf of the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung.)
Netanyahu largely has succeeded in turning
this fact to his political advantage. Even the recent
announcement that the country’s attorney general
plans to indict Netanyahu for corruption has not
had the effect many of his detractors have wished.
A Channel 12 poll released last Sunday showed
that even though Blue and White leads Netanya-
hu’s Likud party by several seats, the new party is
unlikely to muster enough partners to form a ruling
coalition in the 120-seat Knesset.
The prime minister “has only always run on
the security ticket and the danger and fear ticket,
and has convinced Israelis he’s the best and only
guy when it comes to Israel’s security,” Barak, the
 Jewish World
Sandi M. Malkin, LL C
Interior Designer
pollster, said. The “drama” of Netanyahu’s abrupt (former interior designer of model
exit from Washington, D.C. — he flew home after rooms for NY’s #1 Dept. Store)
meeting with Trump in order to supervise Israel’s
response — showed Israelis that “he’s the commander
in chief and in control and they can feel safe.”
Barak said that Netanyahu is very unlikely to order
For a totally new look using
a ground incursion into Gaza because “Israelis can
tolerate civilian casualties but can’t accept military your furniture or starting anew.
casualties. It’s one of the few countries in the world
where civilians do more to protect the soldiers than Staging also available
the soldiers do to protect the civilians.”
Despite his security bona fides, however, risking
an escalation would be an extreme political risk for
973-535-9192
Netanyahu, Yohanan Plesner, the president of the
Israeli Democracy Institute, said.
“Traditionally we would say that a security esca-
lation before elections would be good for the incum-
bent because it portrays him as someone in charge,
and it would be good for the right because it raises
security fears,” Plesner said. “However, it is unclear if
the latest escalation would have such an effect.”
Netanyahu, who has been prime minister for a
decade, is widely considered responsible for the cur-
rent security situation “and the public at large is not
satisfied with the way this policy is going,” Plesner
said. In other words, focusing on Hamas’s audacity
may be the last thing Netanyahu needs right now.
Figures the Israeli Democracy Institute released
last week show that while 60 percent of the Israeli
public thinks that the Israel Defense Forces is deal-
ing very well with maintaining security along the
Gaza border, only 22 percent thought as highly
of the government’s handling of the conflict.
(Israelis trust the military more than civilian deci-
sion-makers as a rule.) And while nearly 70 per-
cent of Israelis approved of Netanyahu’s decision
not to launch a large-scale operation in Gaza in
late 2018 in response to similar provocations, a
Midgam poll conducted in November showed that
FAIZ ABU RMELEH/ANADOLU AGENCY/GETTY IMAGES

A rocket fired from the Gaza

Strip leveled a house near
Tel Aviv and injured seven
people on March 25, 2019.

JEWISH STANDARD MARCH 29, 2019 37

Jewish World

nearly three-quarters of Israelis initially
expressed disapproval of the prime
minister’s handling of that escalation.
In other words, no one can predict
how public attitudes will shift in times
of conflict.
“There are a lot of different scenar-
ios of how things can play out, and it’s
very difficult to know where this can
go,” political analyst and Jerusalem
Post senior contributing editor Lahav
Harkov said. “There’s no winning with
Hamas. Nobody is satisfied at the end of
one of these rounds of violence. I keep
seeing these foreign press analyses that
Bibi wants a war because it will bolster
him. There’s no evidence that this has
ever happened. Bibi is a status-quo per-
son who is very cautious. People get
frustrated. People are still talking and
annoyed about the last cease-fire a few
months ago.
“It’s really a lose-lose situation for
Bibi.”
Netanyahu’s political opponents
certainly have taken the opportunity
to criticize his handling of the latest
escalation. Gantz accused him of being
weak on security and “paying protec-
tion to Hamas.” Labor leader Avi Gab-
bay said the prime minister, who dou-
bles as the defense minister, wasn’t
hitting Gaza hard enough to stop the
attacks. Kulanu party head Moshe
Kahlon called for a return to targeted
killings of Hamas leaders.
“Some people are tweeting a lot of
tripe about Netanyahu wanting to fight
an ‘election war’ in Gaza,” Haaretz jour-
nalist Anshel Pfeffer tweeted.
“Bibi is totally aware once he cries
havoc in Gaza the dogs can’t be leashed
easily again. War on April 9 won’t bring
him voters. Netanyahu doesn’t trust the
IDF, certainly not its ground forces, to
deliver the result he needs — a fast oper-
ation with minimal Israeli casualties. He
only used large-scale ground forces once
in 10 years, in 2014, and that was after
being dragged in despite his wishes.”
And that is not the Netanyahu brand.
“Netanyahu’s biggest asset in this elec-
tion is having kept the calm for a decade
without giving the Palestinians conces-
sions,” Pfeffer said. “Soldiers coming
back in coffins will lose that asset. He’s
in a lose-lose situation now after being
shown up so many times recently by
Hamas rockets.”
Meanwhile, the escalation appears
to have overshadowed the proclama-
tion Trump signed on Monday recog-
nizing Israel’s authority over the Golan
Heights, which had been expected to
burnish Netanyahu’s diplomatic creden-
tials with voters.
Netanyahu expressed anger at the
media for what he perceived to be their
failure to headline an important event.
“That you haven’t covered this more
than a minute is something you will be
held to account for, but in the reckoning
of history,” he told Israeli reporters in
Washington, Globes reported.
On the other hand, the conflict also
has pushed the latest developments in
the corruption cases against the prime
minister off the front page.
In sum, the timing of this week’s vio-
lence isn’t the political boon some pun-
dits are making it out to be.
“We’re 2 1/2 weeks before an election,
and it’s hard to see any possible out-
come that will be good for him,” Harkov
said. “No matter what comes out of this,
it will be very easy for opponents to crit-
icize him and people won’t be happy.”
JTA WIRE SERVICE

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JEWISH STANDARD MARCH 29, 2019 39

Jewish World

Rockland County declares emergency

Measles cases have been clustered in parts of Rockland County, including
the all-chasidic New Square, an all-chasidic village.
over measles outbreak
Rockland County declared a state of
emergency over a serious measles out-
break on Tuesday.
The county will prohibit unvacci-
nated minors under the age of 18 from
going to public places, including schools,
shopping centers, businesses, and
synagogues.
The prohibition, which took effect on
Tuesday night and lasts for 30 days, will
be enforced retroactively. Parents will
be penalized if they are found to have
allowed their unvaccinated children into
URIEL HEILMAN prohibited places, according to the New
York Times.
Rockland County, which has a popula-
tion of more than 300,000 people, has
had 153 confirmed cases of measles since
October; 48 of them have happened since
the beginning of 2019, county spokesman
John G. Lyon told the newspaper.
The outbreak was centered in an
Orthodox Jewish community where
many residents had not been vaccinated,
CBS News New York reported. Most of
the cases now are clustered in eastern
Ramapo, home to a high percentage of
charedi Orthodox Jews.

Measles outbreak in
Detroit is linked to
Israeli carrier
STACY GITTLEMAN

SOUTHFIELD, MICH.— Health officials and local

Jewish institutions are warning about an outbreak
of measles in the Detroit area that has been linked
to a person who was visiting from Israel.
Eighteen cases of the contagious disease have
been confirmed in Oakland County since March 13.
Officials say people may have been exposed this
month in Detroit and the suburbs of Oak Park,
Southfield, and Berkley, in locations that include
synagogues, Jewish schools, a kosher market, and
grocery stores, according to the Associated Press.
The Israeli had visited synagogues, businesses,
and yeshivas before Purim after arriving from New
York, where there is a measles outbreak in some
Orthodox Jewish communities.
By Friday, more than 200 people had been vac-
cinated at two clinics conducted by the Oakland
County Health Division. Another clinic was set up
on Sunday at Young Israel of Oak Park. Hatzalah
Detroit, an Oak Park-based nonprofit first-respond-
ers organization, set up a measles question-and-an-
swer line.
“All I can say is that as someone who has grand-
Thursday children too young to be immunized and a daugh-
ter who potentially would be much more danger-
ously affected by the measles than the general
population, I’m horrified that this is even still an
issue,” Lisa Shevin of Oak Park told the Jewish
News. “I get that some people are concerned about
the issue of parental choice, but there comes a time
when the good of society as a whole needs to take
precedence.”
Lisa Klein, who is a pediatrician, said her cell and
office phones are “exploding” with calls from con-
cerned caregivers.
Michigan law requires children enrolled in public
and private schools, licensed day care centers, and
preschools to be vaccinated unless a waiver is given
based on medical or religious objections. Private
schools can choose not to accept waivers.
DETROIT JEWISH NEWS VIA JTA

40 JEWISH STANDARD MARCH 29, 2019


County Executive Ed Day said in a
news conference on Tuesday that many
Orthodox rabbis have been working
with health officials to encourage vac-
cination in their community.
The Health Department is offering
free vaccines to boost the county’s
immunization rate.
An outbreak in New York City also
mostly has affected charedi Orthodox
communities, where vaccination rates
tend to be lower and anti-vaccina-
tion literature has spread, the Times
reported, citing public health officials.
Charedi Orthodox rabbi
praises Nazis for gender separation
MARCY OSTER
JERUSALEM — When it comes to the
issue of gender separation on buses,
Israel is worse than the Nazis, a leader
of a charedi Orthodox political party in
Israel said at a campaign rally.
Rabbi Aviezer Piltz, who is prom-
inent in the right-wing United Torah
Judaism party and heads a yeshiva in
southern Israel, criticized Israel for not
allowing gender separation on buses.
“Start to organize, to ride sepa-
rately,” he said at the meeting last Sat-
urday night in the charedi enclave of
Bnei Brak. “It’s forbidden to travel on
gender-separate buses. Is there a state
in the world where they don’t allow
[gender] separation on buses?
“Apart from this country, here they
don’t allow it. This is a state of idol wor-
ship. Even the Nazis, may their names
be erased, knew that there should be
separate living quarters for men and
women.”
His remarks first were picked up by
the Hebrew-language news website
Maariv.
Jewish World
Unity
Cmunity
There also have been measles out-
breaks in Washington State, Texas,
Illinois and California, according to
the Centers for Disease Control. The
Detroit area has declared an outbreak
associated with a suspected carrier
Harmоy
from Israel.
Rockland’s measles outbreak and
cases in New York City, in Bergen
County, and in Lakewood have also
been linked to travelers from Israel,
according to the Rockland/Westches-
ter Journal News.
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the director of the Israel office of the
Simon Wiesenthal Center, told the Jeru-
salem Post that Piltz’s comments were
“unfortunate.”
“I’m hoping that he didn’t really want
to convey a message that Israeli society
is worse than the Nazis,” Zuroff said.
“That a rosh yeshiva could say some-
thing like that is shocking and unaccept-
able. The honorable rabbi should apol-
ogize for this comment, which at least
would be a constructive step.”
JTA WIRE SERVICE
HaZamir JS NO2 sm.indd 1 3/4/19 4:36 PM
JEWISH STANDARD MARCH 29, 2019 41
Jewish World

Nathan Englander on the book

he has been waiting his whole life to write
GABE FRIEDMAN
Sitting in a kosher bakery in the town
of West Hempstead, on Long Island,
Nathan Englander admits it: He sees
the world through, in his words, “hum-
mus-colored glasses.”
“Without being silly, every character,
every setting, every food, every thought
— the weather in my books is Jewish,” he
Carvel ice cream store where he used
to hang out now has signage on its win-
dow marking it as kosher. Decades ago,
he explains, kosher certification wasn’t
as big a deal — people looked through
ingredients on packages to determine
for themselves if something was kosher
enough to eat.
Englander, 49, grew up wearing tzitzit
and studying hours of Talmud a day, but

COVER: ALFRED KNOPF; PHOTO: JOSHUA MEIER

says, speaking at a whirlwind pace and
clutching a cup of coffee.
His Jewish roots are in the small town of
West Hempstead, with its sizable modern
Orthodox community. It’s about 45 min-
utes by car from where he lives now, in
brownstone-lined Clinton Hill, Brooklyn.
West Hempstead is even more Jewish
than he remembers it — a half hour ear-
lier, he pointed out a couple of Hatzalah
first-responder trucks parked across
the peaceful suburban street from his
old modest-sized synagogue. The old
now he looks like just about any other sec-
ular Brooklyn dad — he has a 4-year-old
daughter. He’s about 5-foot-8, with slight
bags under his eyes that hint at a mix of
child care and his obsessive editing pro-
cess: He jokes that he has only recently
lowered his average time in between pub-
lishing books to about four years from
over twice that. His fuzzy gray sweater
tastefully matches the same-colored hair
that’s starting to spread from his side-
burns to the top of his head.
SEE ENGLANDER PAGE 44 Nathan Englander returns with a novel called “Kaddish.com.”

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42 JEWISH STANDARD MARCH 29, 2019

UPCOMING AT KAPLEN
Lavish Lunches
OUR ANNUAL CULINARY ADVENTURE TO SUPPORT
SENIOR ADULT PROGRAMS AT THE J!
Join us for a light breakfast at the home of
Michele and Daniel Ross, with guest speaker and best-
selling cookbook author, Tanya Steel who initiated the
Healthy Lunchtime Challenge & Kids’ “State Dinner”
with Michelle Obama. Breakfast is followed by a themed
luncheon of your choice. Also, new this year, join us at
the Mitzvah lunch on Thursday, April 11 for a rewarding
experience to share a meal with seniors at the JCC.
Visit jccotp.org/lavishlunches to register & for
menu of luncheons.
Thur, Apr 4
Israel in the Lobby
CELEBRATING PASSOVER
Join us for arts and crafts, songs, information, and
tasting of Passover and get ready for Passover Night!
Presented by Tzofim (The Israeli Scouts) and Emek.
Mon, Apr 1, 3:30-5:30 pm, Free
n
NE IL KL AT SK IN
V ac a t i o
m p s
Ca
COMMUNITY
The Opposite of Hate PA
A DISCUSSION WITH SALLY KOHN
Sally Kohn, a progressive commentator
on CNN and formerly Fox News, joins us
to discuss her new book The Opposite
of Hate: A Field Guide to Repairing Our
Humanity. She will share the surprising
lessons she learned from her meetings
with terrorists, white supremacists, and
even some of her own Twitter trolls. It’s a
discussion you shouldn’t miss.
Sponsored in part by the James H. Grossmann
Memorial Jewish Book Endowment Fund.
Wed, Apr 10, 8 pm, $10/$12,
Free for students
KAPLEN JCC on the Palisades TAUB CAMPUS | 411 E CLINTON AVE, TENAFLY, NJ 07670 | 201.569.7900 | jccotp.org
JCC on the Palisades
APRIL 4, 2019
LAVISH
LU NCHES
presented by
THE KAPLEN JCC ON THE PALISADES
Schools Out! What Now?
The JCC has you covered! We will fill your
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ones, there’s something for everyone!
Extended care available!
Grades K-5: Trips to Bounce U, Billy Beez,
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Mon, Apr 15–Thur, Apr 18 and
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CHILDREN ARTS
THE LEONARD & SYRIL RUBIN
Young Picasso
Nursery School WITH MICHAEL NORRIS, PHD
Open House Pablo Ruiz Picasso was a prodigy in art from childhood
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changing world through his paintings from the MET’S
Join us for a fun and groovy Shabbat
permanent collection, from his teenage years through
celebration at our weekly Tot Shabbat,
his twenties—including his Blue and Rose periods
followed by a tour of our nursery school.
and his early experimentation that led to Cubism.
Meet our admin team, see learning in action,
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JEWISH STANDARD MARCH 29, 2019 43
Jewish World

said. “There’s a lot of ‘we’ll figure it out,’ which I find very

Englander
FROM PAGE 42
He’s brought along his black dog, Calli, a rescue who
periodically telegraphed her separation anxiety through-
out the ride from Brooklyn from the back of his sedan.
“Sometimes I get introduced as a young writer, which
I love, ‘cause I’m not 50 yet,” he said.
Englander was gearing up for the publication of his
fifth book, a darkly funny novel titled “Kaddish.com”
that hit the shelves last week. It features a formerly
Orthodox man named Larry, who goes to stay at his
sister’s house in Memphis to sit shiva for his father. Sec-
ular Larry clashes with his still-Orthodox sister and the
rest of the community there, and he won’t promise to
say Kaddish three times a day for a year for his father,
as required by Orthodox law.
So Larry, his sister, and her rabbi come up with a plan:
Larry simply can find a proxy to say Kaddish for him. He
does just that through the website Kaddish.com, which
does not exist in real life, despite Englander’s attempts
to buy the domain from its unwilling current owner (he
does have Kaddish.com.com, however). But over time,
Larry starts to feel remorse about his decision, and the
story takes a sharp, unexpected turn.
“What I like about Judaism — Jewish law is very strict,
but there are a lot of ways to make stuff OK,” Englander
nice and comfortable.”
Englander certainly wasn’t comfortable growing
up, studying through long days of Jewish and secu-
lar subjects, holding in his questions about God and
being bullied by anti-Semitic kids from the other side
of town. Literature always was a solace — he calls find-
ing his sister’s copy of “1984” and his parents’ copy
of “Portnoy’s Complaint” life-changing moments —
but being a fiction writer was never a realistic career
choice in his world.
“I felt like I was living this life, it’s not a fit for me, but
… this is my lot in life, I’m going to live in a world where
I don’t fit in, and I’ll just be an unhappy person,” he said.
That changed when Englander studied abroad in Jeru-
salem during his junior year of college and came in con-
tact with secular Israelis.
“Obviously I knew secular Jews in college, but they
were so different from what I was I couldn’t make the
leap,” he said. “But it was in Israel [where people had the]
same reference points … Seeing an atheist who’s speaking
Hebrew and knows what Purim is and knows the same
songs … I was like ‘Ah, this is what it means to be a cul-
tural Jew, and that’s what I am.’”
That didn’t mean he wrote only about secular Jews.
For instance, the titular story in his acclaimed debut
book of short stories, “For the Relief of Unbearable
What I like about
Judaism — Jewish
law is very strict,
but there are a lot
of ways to make
stuff OK.
Urges,” involves a chasidic Jew whose rabbi allows him
to see a prostitute. Another from that collection, “Reb
Kringle,” involves a bearded Orthodox man who plays
Santa Claus at Christmas.
But even more so than “Unbearable Urges,” Englander
calls “Kaddish.com” the book he’s been waiting his
“whole life” to write, and the one that brought him back
to where he started. Besides the secular/Orthodox ten-
sion, the book’s other major theme involves the interac-
tion between God — a concept he has contemplated since
his early teenage Shabbat nights, staying up late in the
dark in his bedroom — and the internet, something he has
a lot to say about these days.

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44 JEWISH STANDARD MARCH 29, 2019

 Jewish World

“The omniscience of God … if you’re plugged

in right now, we’ve already achieved that: They
know everything you’ve done, everything you’re join us for our first
currently doing,” he said, referring to online per-
sonal data mining. “Everyone needs to buy in, but
we have beta God.”
Memory Café
After walking by the town pond he used to skate
for younger-onset dementia
on (where he laments that climate change has left
A place where individuals with early-
it unfrozen in February) and his old day school
(where a security guard and the principal imme-
support. c onset memory loss and caregivers
explore challenges while participating
diately swarm us, in case we were somehow con-
nected to the creepy possible anti-Semites who’ve
on in activities that will promote social
been spying on the school recently), we get in the engagement and support.

nec
car to drive back. In a pocket of the dashboard sit
a few Lactaid pill packs, which he says he drops all
Wed, Apr 10, 11:30 am-1 pm. Lunch will

tion. h
over Brooklyn like breadcrumbs. be provided. RSVP required by Apr 8.
“I’m tolerant of all things, except lactose,” he says. Program offered monthly.
Back in Brooklyn, we visit his writer’s studio
For more info contact Judi at

ope.
— which turns out to be a small room lined with
books in an artfully decorated Park Slope apart-
201.408.1450 or jnahary@jccotp.org
ment owned by fellow writer John Wray. Wray lets
some other famous writer friends, such as Marlon
SENI R

AT THE
James and Akhil Sharma, write in other rooms on
the same floor as Englander. The bottom main
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and confusing just because [of the question], ‘do
you believe in God?’ I don’t know, I don’t even

How I relate
Jewishly today is
kind of fraught
and confusing just
because [of the
question], ‘do you
believe in God?
have to invest in that … but now that I’m a dad,
it’s really interesting to decide what I’m passing
on,” Englander says. “There’s a lot I have to fig-
ure out now.”
He’s not sure of the exact topic for his next
book either, but he does know that he’s going to
put a lesson gleaned from his late friend Philip
Roth into practice and write constantly.
Roth “talked about finishing a book and going
to the Natural History Museum and standing
under the big whale and thinking, ‘That’s what
I’m going to do all day?’” Englander said. “And he
went home and started the next novel.”
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JEWISH STANDARD MARCH 29, 2019 45
D’var Torah
Shabbat Parah:
How did the red cow make people whole?
A
ccording to Jewish tradition,
the wisest person who ever
lived was King Solomon.
According to the Midrash, he
could understand the details of every
commandment in the Torah — except one.
He just threw up his hands when he came
to one particular commandment in the
Torah, and said, “I thought I was wise, but
this one is beyond me.” (Ecclesiastes 7:23, Rabbi Robert
quoted in Bamidbar Rabbah 19) Scheinberg
The commandment that, according to United Synagogue
the Midrash, was so perplexing to him is the of Hoboken,
commandment of the Red Heifer, the Parah Conservative
Adumah. (March 31, 2019 is designated on
the Jewish calendar as Shabbat Parah, one
of the four special shabbatot leading up to Passover, so
this passage is read alongside the regular weekly torah
portion of Shmini.) This commandment remains per-
plexing even though it has not been performed for 2000
years since the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem.
What is perplexing about this commandment?
According to the Torah, when people come in contact
with the dead, they are rendered ritually impure. The
way for them to become pure again is for the priests to
slaughter a red cow, mix its ashes with various other
substances, and then sprinkle the ashes on the person
who came in contact with the dead, who is thereby ren-
dered pure again. We read this passage a few weeks
before Passover each year, presumably because in
ancient times, at this time of year, many people would
be getting ready to go on their pilgrimage to Jerusalem
for the Passover holiday. Presumably, most of these
46 JEWISH STANDARD MARCH 29, 2019
people had come in contact with a dead
body over the course of the last year; even
being in the same room as a dead body, or
entering a cemetery, would make you rit-
ually impure. This passage would be read
as a reminder that these pilgrims would
be undergoing the ritual of the Red Heifer
before entering the Temple precincts.
By contemporary standards, this ritual
is unusual enough — but I have not yet
said what the commentators say really
bothered King Solomon. They say: the
truly perplexing part of this ritual is that
all the priests who are involved in prepar-
ing these purifying ashes — from the per-
son who slaughtered the cow, to the one
who burned it, to the one who collected its ashes, to
the one who sprinkled its ashes — all become impure
through their involvement with the ashes (though their
level of impurity is lower than that of the person who
came in contact with the dead). This is apparently the
question that kept King Solomon awake at night. How
can the same action, and the very same ashes, render
some people pure and some impure?
One traditional Jewish understanding of King Solo-
mon’s unresolved question is that the Red Heifer is simply
inexplicable. Not all the commandments in the Torah are
undertaken for rational reasons; some are undertaken
simply as acts of love and obedience.
But some see another hidden question in King Solo-
mon’s question. The ritual of the Red Heifer is a ritual
to enable people to experience purity and wholeness
and completeness again after they have had contact
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with death. Truly, how some are able to recover
from loss and to emerge whole again is one of the
greatest unsolved mysteries in our world. Per-
haps this is what King Solomon’s cry of confusion
was really about.
While we could not state exactly how some peo-
ple manage, over time, to overcome grief, this pro-
cess may operate in a similar manner to the most
mysterious detail in the account of the Red Heifer.
For example, picture what happens in a shiva
house, when visitors come to comfort someone
who has lost a family member within the last sev-
eral days. Hopefully, through their presence, they
help the bereaved person to feel marginally bet-
ter. At the same time, however, comforting people
Not all the
commandments in
the Torah are
undertaken for
rational reasons;
some are
undertaken simply
as acts of love
and obedience.
who are in mourning can be intensely challenging.
Those who engage in this sacred task sometimes
walk away from the encounter feeling at least a lit-
tle deflated, as if we have accepted upon ourselves
a measure of the other person’s grief or anxiety.
The very same action has nearly opposite effects
on the two different people. One person, who is suf-
fering, becomes somewhat more whole and com-
plete from the encounter, while the other person
becomes just a little bit broken down.
The Talmud suggests that a similar process hap-
pens when people visit someone who is ill: “Every-
one who visits a sick person takes away one-sixtieth
part of the illness.” (Nedarim 39b) The process of
helping the ill person to feel marginally better often
involves the visitor enduring at least a little bit of
discomfort, as if an exchange is taking place. (The
Talmud goes on to note that it won’t work to simply
get 60 people to visit the ill person, one after the
other. Rather, each visitor has a marginal effect on
the ill person, taking away 1/60 of the amount of
illness that remains.)
This Talmudic source may describe the process
of comfort in an overly formulaic and mathematical
way. There is much that remains just as mysterious
for us about how people emerge whole after loss as
it was for King Solomon. But may we remember that
diminishing our own joy slightly is an appropriate
trade-off when we have the potential to bring some-
one else out of a time of difficulty. Our Torah reading
suggests that doing so is an act of supreme holiness.
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JEWISH STANDARD MARCH 29, 2019 47
Editorial
Using Israel
I and sisters, and we must fight
srael is shaped like a wedge.
How convenient can you get?
Politicians can use its long, narrow, pointed lead-
ing edge to insinuate it in between communities of
Jews and between Jews and non-Jews. It already is being
used as a classic wedge issue, dividing us into enemy
camps, glowering at each other across the divide it’s been
used to create.
We can’t let that happen.
We understand that anti-Semitism never really died
away. That ancient, inexplicable hatred just has been hid-
ing underground, feeding off the rot that lives in the sewers
that run beneath our lives. It’s been surfacing again. Who
knows why? Maybe the anti-Semites are jealous of us, of our
longevity and resilience as a people, of the creativity and
curiosity and courage that have marked our history.
But for whatever reason, all sorts of ancient hatreds
are surfacing again. It’s no longer out of fashion, it seems,
to hate openly. It’s considered brave. Anti-PC. A mark of
free-thinking. Whatever.
Anti-Semitism is resurfacing, and often it’s cloaked as
anti-Zionism. There certainly are many valid reasons for peo-
ple to dislike many Israeli policies, as there are many valid
reasons to either approve of or at the least understand them,
and the history that drives them. Much of the criticism of
Israel is based on real disagreement with its policy. Much of
it comes from people who love Israel. It’s just like the very
real disagreement with American policy that comes from
many of us who love the United States, and consider our-
selves deeply patriotic Americans. It would take an odd, rig-
idly ideology-driven, deeply unimaginative person to agree
with every policy of any country, including the United States
and Israel. It is not disloyal to disagree loyally.
But there’s something else going on now.
People’s feelings about Israel divide them more and
more. Look at how, all of a sudden, some politicians have
decided that it would not be politically advantageous for
them to go to AIPAC. Look at how politicians who used to
lavish praise on Israel no longer find it easy to say much at
all. Look at how other politicians flaunt their support of
Israel, newly discovered and skin-deep as it might be.
Each of us may love or loathe each one of those poli-
ticians, or find them compelling new stars, or see them
as toxic clowns. But we should be clear-eyed about how
they use Israel. When Israel becomes less a country of real
people and more just a symbol of anything else — no mat-
ter how virtuous or loathsome that symbol might be — we
should see what’s going on.
Just because Israel is shaped like a wedge, it shouldn’t be
used as a tool to divide us. —JP
Jewish Editor
Joanne Palmer
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thejewishstandard.com
48 JEWISH STANDARD MARCH 29, 2019
TRUTH REGARDLESS OF CONSEQUENCES
Jews and Muslims are brothers
our common enemies
R
epresentatives Ilhan Omar of Minnesota
and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan are trying
their best to rip apart the American Mus- New Zealand, where the attack was so out of character
lim and Jewish communities.
With their constant attacks against Israel, open
support for BDS, and Omar’s overt and incessant
anti-Semitism, the two believe they can drive a wedge
between Muslims and Jews, as they also try to bring a
wrecking ball to the American-Israel relationship.
We should not let them.
I returned to Sydney, Australia, last
week after completing a short speaking
tour in New Zealand. I had the oppor-
tunity to interact with the warm peo-
ple of that country and engage my fel-
low Jews in conversation about my new
book, co-written with Pamela Anderson,
called “Lust for Love: Rekindling Inti-
macy and Passion in Your Relationship.”
I never could have imagined the horrific
attack at two mosques in Christchurch Rabbi Shmuley
against our Muslim brothers and sisters Boteach
that occurred just a day after I left.
I found the news especially trau-
matic having just been in the country, which is
known for beauty and tranquility. What kind of
monster would open fire on men, women, and
children in their houses of prayer? And if murder-
ing people at prayer in a house of worship is not
evil, then the word has no meaning.
Sadly, we have gotten to know all too well the rac- lim community came out to express their support for
ist and anti-Semitic fiends in our midst. We see them
hiding beneath white robes, marching with torches
and saluting, Heil Hitler¸ posting rambling manifestos to speak out against the violence in New Zealand and
filled with vitriol directed at Jews, Africa-Americans, to pledge their solidarity with the Muslim community.
gays, Muslims and immigrants. We’ve seen them run
over and beat peaceful protestors, gun down Jews in a
synagogue in Pittsburgh, murder an elderly Holocaust
survivor, and now massacre 50 Muslims.
At this point we no longer should be surprised
Rabbi Shmuley Boteach is the author of 30 books,
including his most recent, “The Israel Warrior.”
Follow him on Twitter @RabbiShmuley.
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that even the most tranquil place can be shaken by
violence. Still, I was shocked after having just visited
for a country that rarely sees gun violence. In fact, it
struck me when I entered the country how, unlike the
United States and so many other Western countries,
there seemed to be so little concern about poten-
tial terrorists. New Zealand should be applauded for
bringing in refugees from Turkey, Syria, Afghanistan,
and other countries who are unwanted elsewhere.
You feel the difference in their
society as soon as you arrive and
discover the greatest concern of
New Zealand customs agents is
whether you’re bringing in agricul-
tural contraband. We actually had
our kosher chicken meal taken away
because you’re not allowed to bring
chicken into the country.
Now, literally overnight, everything
has changed, and avocados and grapes
no longer are some of the biggest
threats to the beautiful islands. New
Zealanders have discovered the awful
truth that hatred and terrorism has no borders. It was
inspiring to see Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern reach
out so warmly to the Muslim community, showing
comfort, connection, and concern.
After the murder at the Tree of Life Synagogue, it
was gratifying to see how many people from the Mus-
the victims and to condemn the murderer. Not sur-
prisingly, Jews around the world were among the first
This is as it should be.
Jews and Muslims are uniquely targeted by neo
Nazis, white supremacists, and Islamists. Let us never
forget that the first victims of Islamists are Muslims.
Our compassion for our Muslim brothers and sisters
does not mean we should ignore the fact that Islamist
extremists — who target Jews, Christians, and Muslims
— remain a global threat. Simultaneously, we cannot
overlook the growing number of white supremacists
Production Manager
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Founder
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 Opinion

who seem to have become emboldened

and perpetrated horrific murders in
doors to people seeking to escape from
genocidal maniacs such as the leaders Lobbying Congress
Charlottesville, Virginia, the Tree of Life
Synagogue in Pittsburgh, and now two
in Syria, Iran, and groups such as ISIS
and al-Qaeda. This is yet another area of with the JFWS

mosques in Christchurch.
Rather than focus on the issues that
divide us, which we are not going to
agree on, the people of these two great
religions must emphasize the values we
share and work together against the dan-
gers directed at both of our communities.
Jews and Muslims have a great deal in
common. Both are targeted not only by
extremists but also by politicians. A num-
ber of governments, for example, have
either banned or considered banning
the methods of ritual slaughter used to
make food kosher for Jews and halal for
Muslims; those countries include Belgium,
Denmark and New Zealand. Both Jewish
and Muslim communities have an interest
in fighting together against these discrim-
inatory laws, as well as proposals in coun-
tries such as Iceland to ban circumcision.
I arrived to serve as rabbi at Oxford
University in 1988. The great Israel battles
on campus were just beginning, in part
because the PLO had been legitimized
through Yasser Arafat declaring, under
American pressure, that he accepted
Israel’s right to exist. Our organization,
the Oxford University L’Chaim Society
— of which both Senator Cory Booker of
New Jersey and Ambassador Ron Dermer
served as president — hosted six Israeli
prime ministers at Oxford to counter the
anti-Israel offensive.
One of our principal opponents at the
time was the Oxford Middle East Society,
comprised mostly of Arab and Muslim
students, who hosted leading Palestinian
officials, such as Hanan Ashrawi, to make
the case against Israel.
Yet there were many personal friend-
ships between the two organizations,
even as we battled it out over Middle
East policy. Our policy disputes did not
trickle down into personal animus. The
L’Chaim Society regularly hosted Mus-
lim students — many of whom were sci-
ons of distinguished Arab families — and
we also helped provide kosher meat to
halal students who did not have direct
halal options. I remember so well how
Ron, then a student in his early twenties,
counted Muslim students among his clos-
est friends, even as he led our organiza-
tion in passionate pro-Israel advocacy.
Some of the laws in Europe seem
to be designed specifically to discour-
age Muslim immigration but collater-
ally impact the native Jewish commu-
nity. While I recognize the importance
of vetting prospective immigrants from
countries where terrorists have success-
fully recruited Muslims for the purpose
of infiltrating Western societies, as a
Jew, I have a special understanding of
the consequences of closing America’s
common interest for Jews and Muslims.
There is also no reason why we both
should not condemn terrorist attacks
against Israeli civilians by Hamas, such
just this week, when Hamas rockets fell on
an Israeli home, or human rights abuses
by Palestinian authorities. Jews have no
reticence about criticizing extremism by
Jews, however seldom, such as Baruch
Goldstein, who murdered Muslims at
prayer in Hebron.
Mutual interest, however, should not
be confused with moral equivalence or
a conflation of the threats directed at
Jews with those targeting Muslims. In the
United States, for example, the number
of religion-based attacks against Jews is
far greater than those against Muslims.
Both should be condemned equally but
the degree of threat is not the same. In
the case of the Middle East, Jews do not
seek the elimination of Muslims; how-
ever, there are Muslims who wish to
exterminate the Jews.
Jews and Muslims must work together
to fight against the prejudices of those
within their own faiths as well as the
extremists who see both as a threat to
their narrow, intolerant points of view.
But doing so means not allowing
extremists to dominate the conversation.
On Sunday, our organization, the World
Values Network, took out a full-page color
ad in the Washington Post calling out Rep.
Ilhan Omar for her anti-Semitic remarks
and showing Americans that Omar’s
anti-Semitism is classic and her state-
ments a repetition of age-old canards. We
actually dug up those canards from classic
anti-Semitic tracts. The resemblance was
striking and frightening.
We compared her claim that “Israel has
hypnotized the world” into being blind
from its “evil doings” with that made by the
foundational text of modern anti-Semitism,
“The Protocols of the Elders of Zion,” which
explains that gentiles are blind to the evils
of the Jew because he “hypnotizes by his
daring and strength of mind.”
We also took aim at Omar’s claim that
America’s alliance with Israel is “all about
the Benjamins baby.” (Here, “Benjamins”
means money. In his prized compendium
of Jew-hatred, the “International Jew,” the
founder of the Ford Motor Company and
frothing anti-Semite Henry Ford, wrote
something similar. “Money” he claimed,
“is the only means [the Jew] knows by
which to gain position.”
Let’s make sure that such anti-Se-
mitic drivel is never allowed to define
the relationship between two great
faith communities and point out that
Ilhan Omar speaks not for Muslims but
only for herself.
I
t was not the most difficult ques- to our elected officials because of the
tion our American Jewish World
Service lobby team faced during
our day of advocacy for human
rights issues on the Hill, but arriving at United States would come to Wash-
an answer required consensus.
Where were we going to eat lunch?
We agreed to eat in the cafeteria of
the Longworth House Office Building.
I was glad.
It is hectic and crowded in the cafe-
terias of the office buildings on Capitol
Hill, but there, more than anywhere
else, you can sense your place in the
experience of civic engagement.
As I looked around the large room,
I saw Americans of every age and eth-
nicity, all spending time
in Washington to advo-
cate for vital issues. I
overheard conversations
about leadership training
for teachers in struggling
school systems, sanctuary
cities, and Medicare fund-
ing of psychological ser-
vices. Sitting in the midst
of New York physicians Rabbi Paula
in their white lab coats, Mack Drill
Kentucky firefighters, and
environmental activists,
we ate our lunches and discussed our
meetings in the afternoon ahead.
As part of the American Jewish World
Service’s Rabbinic Convening, we had
been educated on crucial issues: Burma
and the Rohingya crisis, Guatemala and
the rule of law, and the repeal of the
global gag rule. These issues were our
issues not because they involved Jews,
but because we are Jews.
AJWS is an international human
rights and advocacy group that Ruth
Messinger founded decades ago. Today
AJWS is operating in 19 countries in the
developing world by supporting grass-
roots organizations fighting for human
rights in their home countries. Ameri-
can Jewish World Service is inspired by
the Jewish commitment to justice.
Almost 30 rabbis, accompanied by
AJWS staff, held 63 meetings in Sen-
ate and congressional offices, reflect-
ing our values in discourse regarding
global human rights. We had access
Rabbi Paula Mack Drill is one of the
three rabbis at the Orangetown Jewish
Center in Orangeburg.
The opinions expressed here are those of the authors, not necessarily those of the
newspaper’s editors, publishers, or other staffers. We welcome letters to the editor.
Send them to jstandardletters@gmail.com.
communities we represent.
You rightfully could ask why 30 rab-
bis with busy pulpits from across the
ington for three days to learn about,
discuss, and advocate for issues other
than Israel and the alarming rise of
anti-Semitism in America. Stated
frankly, how did I have the chutzpah to
prioritize global human rights for three
days of my completely scheduled rab-
binate? When I think about the way I
see my rabbinate and all that I learned
in D.C., I answer the question with a
question: How could I not?
In less than a month, we will be cele-
brating the Pesach seder,
where all of the story-
telling and discussion
points to one core Jewish
value — redemption. We
remember our slavery
and revel in our freedom,
so that next year we will
be in Jerusalem. But not
just today’s Jerusalem
with its fast train, Knesset
building, and Ben Yehuda
street. No, as Jews, today’s
reality is not enough to be
called “Jerusalem.” We want Yerusha-
layim Lemala, the heavenly, spiritual,
perfected Jerusalem. And for me, Jew-
ish liberation and freedom only come to
fruition when all people created in God’s
image experience the same. This rea-
soning is why we are called “or l’goyim,”
a light to the nations.
The covenant we made with God
calls us to work toward redemption for
all. The Israelites merited the Torah not
because of what we were, but because
of what we would become. For many
Jews, this deep universal understand-
ing is in our souls, or our DNA, how-
ever you see it.
With two rabbis from New Jersey,
Rabbi Rachel Kahn-Troster of Teaneck
and Rabbi Jay Kornsgold of East Wind-
sor, I visited the offices of Senator Bob
Menendez and Representatives Josh
Gottheimer (D-Dist. 5), Bonnie Watson
Coleman (D-Dist. 12), and Mikie Sherrill
(D-Dist. 11). We spoke about three com-
plicated crises that are represented in
legislation on the Hill.
Discrimination against the Rohingya
SEE LOBBYING PAGE 51

JEWISH STANDARD MARCH 29, 2019 49

Opinion
I’VE BEEN THINKING
Learning and not learning from history
I
t was a wonderful Shabbat lunch.
The homemade food was deli-
cious, and we had just one first-
world problem: the variety and
amount were so overwhelming that we
all had an undeniable urge to taste just a
bit (or more) of everything, despite know-
ing there would be a price to pay on the
scale Sunday morning — as indeed was
the case for me. And the intriguing mix of Joseph C.
company — men and women, baby boom- Kaplan
ers and millennials, family and friends,
Americans and Israelis, liberals and con-
servatives — presaged simulating conversation.
And so it was. American politics, Israeli politics, shul approaches 1 — unfortunately applies far beyond online
politics wove their way around and through overlap-
ping discussions of people getting to know each other,
adorable stories about even more adorable grandchil-
dren, and our newlywed couple describing their excit-
ing new Jewish neighborhood — which, in reality, is an
old Jewish neighborhood (the westernmost block of
Crown Heights, across from the Brooklyn Botanical Gar-
dens) in new garb. We chatted, laughed, and debated,
although sometimes too loudly for everyone’s comfort,
and discussed, sang, and argued as we enjoyed each
other’s company in both agreement and disagreement.
And then I stopped the conversation.
Please understand that there are almost no taboos
regarding civil discussion in our house. The old rule — we sible without it. So I suggest that if you need to make a his-
don’t discuss politics, religion, money, or sex in polite
You’re a vegan?!
H
ow can you be a vegan and an
Orthodox Jew, I was asked.
I understood the con-
flict. Like all observant
Jews I had been raised to fulfill the
culinary commandment, on Shabbat
and holidays, to eat meat and fish and
all tasty foods. Yet now I was doing the
exact opposite, giving up meat, fish,
poultry, and dairy products, Tani Foger
After immersing myself in a 10-day
vegan-holistic program, listening to
experts in the fields of cardiology and internal
medicine as they extolled the benefits of a plant-
based diet, it became problematic for me to con-
tinue eating brisket, chicken soup, and cholent.
According to these medical experts, the science is
unequivocal; eating a plant-based diet can prevent
and even reverse many life-threatening diseases
without medication. On my father’s side I have
strokes and heart disease to look forward to, and
there’s Alzheimer’s on my mother’s side. So I was
listening to those doctors closely.
According to Dr. T. Colin Campbell, a biochemist
and author of “The China Study,” “people who eat a
predominantly whole-food, plant-based diet—avoid-
ing animal products as a main source of nutrition,
including beef, pork, poultry, fish, eggs, cheese, and for calcium and to eat meat for protein. I know
milk, and reducing their intake of processed foods
50 JEWISH STANDARD MARCH 29, 2019
company — never applied at our Shabbat or
yom tov table, and all were fair game for old
and young alike. We therefore never had to
resort to discussing the weather unless we
were conversing about climate change.
Nonetheless, when someone analogized
a controversial current event to one during
the Shoah, I used what I deemed was my
host’s prerogative and decreed: no Holo-
caust analogies.
I should have realized the Holocaust anal-
ogy was almost inevitable because Godwin’s
law — as an online discussion grows longer,
the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler
discussions. My experience is that when this happens,
the discussion veers to and concentrates on the analogy.
Thus, instead of continuing with the topic under discus-
sion, everyone starts arguing about whether the analogy
is apt; some claim that no one can be compared to Hitler
or the Nazis and others argue that even if it is not an exact
comparison the factual settings are close enough. And on
and on and back and forth until the earlier topic fades into
the mists of memory, never to resurface again.
I understand that my no-Nazi analogies rule is unfair to
those whose personal connection to the Shoah is real, tan-
gible, and very much a part of their being. Nonetheless,
continuing a thoughtful discussion often becomes impos-
torical comparison, try to come up with one that didn’t
and refined carbohydrates—will escape,
reduce, or reverse the development of
numerous diseases.” I was surprised
to learn that heart disease, strokes,
Parkinson’s, diabetes, osteoporosis,
Alzheimer’s, and even late stage can-
cers all have been treated with a plant-
based diet, with very positive results.
Dr. Campbell claimed that “Everything
in food works together to create health
or disease. The more we think that a
single chemical characterizes a whole
food, the more we stray into idiocy.”
I began to ask myself, how can I continue to
feed my family the traditional foods of gefilte fish,
chicken soup, cholent, and chopped liver? And I
wondered, how was I so misinformed? Why did
I not know, all these years, that animal products
including milk and eggs are not healthy for human
consumption?
Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn explained that “Collec-
tively the media; the meat, oil, and dairy indus-
tries; most prominent chefs and cookbook authors;
and our own government are not presenting accu-
rate advice about the healthiest way to eat.” So I,
like many others, was a good consumer of false
advertising and believed that we need to drink milk
now that we don’t. I learned that:
occur between 1933 and 1945. And if not, unfair though it
is, please make your arguments another way.
(I do have one exception to this rule. If the person you
are comparing to Hitler was personally responsible for
the murder of more than a million people, I’ll let the ref-
erence fly. Luckily for humanity, not too many fall within
this category.)
That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t discuss the Shoah, or
that there are no lessons to learn from it. Of course we
should, and of course there are many nuanced lessons that
arise out of its specific horrific events. But simple analogies
to Shoah events or people, in addition to interfering with
discussions, all too often are unhelpful. And this applies as
well to historical analogies beyond the Holocaust.
What I’m objecting to is the too-often-glib use we make
— and I plead guilty to have fallen into this “we” in the
past — of Santayana’s famous maxim, as paraphrased by
Churchill, that those who fail to learn from history are
condemned to repeat it. There are serious lessons to be
learned from history, but they’re not as simple as saying
that because we did x in the past and y happened, if we
do x again we’ll be forced to repeat y.
One reason that doesn’t work is not that we don’t know
enough about history. Rather, it’s that we know too much
about history and not enough about the present. By that
I mean, we know the results of our historical actions and
now have knowledge about why many of those results
occurred. So, for example, we now know that the Munich
Agreement of 1938 didn’t work; those who entered into
it didn’t, of course, know that. (Yes, I realize the irony of
• Heart disease can be reversed through nutrition.
• A plant-based diet can ward off diabetes, obesity,
autoimmune diseases, and bone, kidney, eye, and brain
diseases.
• There are virtually no nutrients in animal-based foods
that are not better provided by plants.
• Protein, fiber, vitamins, mineral all are found in
plants.
• Animal protein promotes the growth of cancer.
• People who ate the most animal-based foods got the
most chronic disease.
• People who ate the most plant-based foods were the
healthiest.
As an educator, I feel a responsibility to share this
information. In countries where the American diet
does not exist, the cancer rate is significantly lower. If
we start feeding our children a healthier diet, we will
begin to see a reduction in these frightening diseases.
I propose that schools begin teaching about the bene-
fits of plant-based nutrition along with the 3 Rs (read-
ing, writing, arithmetic). And let’s offer plant-based
school lunches instead of the more popular though
less healthy American diet.
I realize that this will not be a popular position.
After all, who doesn’t love a good steak dinner or
a hot dog at a family BBQ? My personal favorite,
which I will miss, is schnitzel. But I realize now
that these comfort foods, like Hansel and Gretel’s

using a Holocaust example in an argument against using
Holocaust analogies.)
And with our 20-20 hindsight glasses on, we have
additional information that explains why it didn’t
work — information we don’t have about present-day
situations. We also know that small changes in facts
can result in large changes in outcome and that post
hoc ergo propter hoc is a logical fallacy, all of which
should serve as a brake on facile analogies.
So, to continue with Munich, we err if we use Santaya-
na’s adage to say that history has taught us that appease-
ment — the policy of making concessions to an aggressive
power in order to avoid conflict — doesn’t work. That’s too
easy since isn’t appeasement, in one sense, simply diplo-
macy that didn’t work? Had it actually achieved the desired
results, as did other diplomatic efforts in different historical
contexts, we’d call it smart diplomacy and learn different
lessons. Moreover, learning not to make concessions to
avoid conflict sometimes can be a wrong lesson; as some
have argued, look at what happened in Vietnam and Iraq.
The lessons we truly need to learn, therefore, are
the ones beneath the surface: for example, how care-
fully we must know our enemies and understand
their intentions; how important it is sometimes to
walk away from the table if we can’t adequately pro-
tect crucial interests; how the law of unintended con-
sequences looms over critical decisions; how there’s
so much we don’t know about which factors influ-
ence outcomes; how seriously we must consider the
adverse effect of the agreement on others, and the
breadcrumbs, are leading us straight to a heart
attack, stroke, diabetes, high blood pressure, high
cholesterol, and more.
As modern Orthodox Jews, we’re no strangers to
dietary restrictions as we keep the laws of kashrut as
commanded in the Torah. But no one would argue
that keeping kosher is in anyway synonymous with
eating a healthy diet. From large Shabbat meals, laden
with chicken, brisket and kugels, to Saturday morning
cholent and herring Kiddush in shul, teenagers lured
to meetings with BBQ chicken wings and sliders; hot-
dogs at sporting events, and of course the kosher deli
famous for its triple-decker pastrami and corned beef
sandwiches! When examined in this light, to be an
observant Jew can be seen as being on the fast track to
the cardiologist, and the best recipe for obesity.
While we pride ourselves on excelling in many
fields, including science, education, and the arts,
when it comes to the nutritional and health deteriora-
tion of our nation, sadly we’re on par with the rest of
the pack. We suffer from the same Western diseases:
heart attacks, obesity, diabetes, autoimmune ailments,
and cancer, even as we may avoid the pitfalls of the
many fast food chains such as McDonald’s, Wendy’s,
and so on. As matter of fact, our failure is even more
profound, since a lot of us cannot hide behind the
excuse of living below the poverty line, where the
most easily attainable food for those with little means
is a Happy Meal.
fact that there will be others adversely effected even
by wise and necessary decisions.
It’s those lessons and the many others that good histori-
ans tweak out of the past that we need to apply to current
situations before us. That type of meaningful learning from
history goes way beyond superficial analogies between
events that span decades or even centuries.
There’s a wonderful Isaac Asimov time travel novel,
“The End of Eternity,” whose conceit is that a group of
trained time travelers make very minimal changes to past
events that have enormous repercussions in the future.
We know this as the butterfly effect — a butterfly flapping
its wings in China can cause hurricanes in Texas. But since
we’re mortals who don’t live with time travel and can’t
adequately assess butterfly wing-flapping, we can’t simply
assume that because something happened once under
certain circumstances it will happen again in similar — but
not the exact — circumstances.
So let’s continue vigorous discussion without simple his-
torical analogies or comparisons to the Shoah. Hopefully,
listening to and learning from each other will enable us to
gain new insights while appreciating our agreements, and
even disagreements, over that often completely unneces-
sary but always delicious second helping of dessert.
Joseph C. Kaplan, a regular columnist, is a long-time
resident of Teaneck. His work also has appeared in various
publications including Sh’ma magazine, the New York Jewish
Week, the Baltimore Jewish Times, and, as letters to the
editor, the New York Times.
For many of us, the American diet is too entrenched
in our lives for us to disengage — even if our lives
depend on it.
Various Torah scholars suggest that we were orig-
inally meant to be vegetarians. In Bereishit (Genesis
1:29-30) it says: “And God said: Behold, I have given
you every herb yielding seed which is upon the face
of all the earth, and every tree that has seed-yielding
fruit—to you it shall be for food.” This is also the Tal-
mud’s view: The first human was not permitted to eat
meat, as it is written, “[The vegetation] shall be yours
for food, and for all the animals of the earth...and the
animals of the earth are not for you.”
Adam and Eve followed this commandment. They
did not eat animal flesh, as all humans and animals
originally were commanded by God to eat only plants.
It was only after the flood, upon realizing that it was
too hard for us to follow, that God allowed us to eat
animal flesh. When the sons of Noah came, it was
permitted for them, as it is said, “As with the green
grasses, I give to you everything (Genesis 9:3).”
Yet we have evolved and learned much over the past
five millennia. Maybe it’s time for us to stop hurting
ourselves and our environment, and to once again
observe this mitzvah, as God originally had intended.
Tani Foger, Ed.D, of Englewood is a school psychologist,
educational consultant, and founder of “Let’s Talk”
guidance workshops. Email her at DrFoger@gmail.com
Opinion
Lobbying
FROM PAGE 49
people has been going on for decades, stripping
them of citizenship and subjecting them to waves of
mass violence and persecution. Today, almost one
million Rohingya languish in camps in Bangladesh.
The Jewish Rohingya Justice Network, made up of
19 major Jewish organizations and representing all
four streams of Judaism in America, agrees that
the crisis constitutes a genocide. The legislation
authorizes humanitarian assistance, restoration of
citizenship, and a safe and voluntary repatriation
process, as well as use of the Magnitsky Act to use
targeted sanctions and visa denials against military
officials implicated in human rights abuses.
The Guatemala Rule of Law Accountability Act
seeks to return democracy and the rule of law in
Guatemala. As Jews, we understand from our his-
torical experience of being denied our human
rights that guaranteeing the rule of law is crucial
in society. The bill seeks to defend the inherent
dignity of Guatemalans and the right of people to
live free from fear and exploitation. In recent years,
Guatemala has made strides in its battle against cor-
ruption with the U.N.-backed CICIG, a commission
that investigated illegal groups and secret intelli-
gence organizations with ties to political and mil-
itary elites, identifying 600 elected officials and
bureaucrats and breaking up 60 criminal networks.
The country’s current president, Jimmy Morales,
threw CICIG out of Guatemala when it started
investigating him and his family. The bill promises
to take meaningful action against the crisis in rule
of law and support the Guatemalan people in their
fight against corruption and impunity.
The global gag rule is a human rights violation
that violates women and girls’ rights to health,
life, privacy, and access to information. The gag
rule says that foreign NGOs receiving money from
USAID’s global health programs must affirm that
they do not support or refer for abortions or advo-
cate for the liberalization of abortion laws. The
policy has a chilling effect on grantees who believe
that they can no longer talk about contraception,
HIV prevention, or even sexuality education. These
practices have cascading negative health impacts
and disproportionately impact marginalized peo-
ple, such as the LGBTI community, sex workers,
and young women and girls.
The issues are all complicated, with many more
layers of nuance and political understandings than
I could explain in one opinion piece. But when I
was on the Hill, I know that I was calling for jus-
tice in the names of vulnerable people around the
world and in my own name, as a Jewish person
committed to a vision of a perfected world for all
of God’s children. I heed the call of AJWS founder
Ruth Messinger: “We cannot afford the luxury of
being overwhelmed.” And so we must act where
we can, when we can. And as an American with
access to my representatives, I found the place and
the way to act.
In grammar school, I studied civics. More than 50
years later, those lessons came to fruition in three
days of life experience in civics. This is what makes
our government work for all of us, for all those peo-
ple in the cafeteria of the Longworth building, and
for three rabbis working hard to heed the call of our
tradition: Justice, justice pursue!
JEWISH STANDARD MARCH 29, 2019 51
Opinion
New Zealand is now news —
and so are we
T
he tragedy in Christchurch,
New Zealand, again strikes all
of us personally, and not only
because we recoil from the
recurrence of brutality. We are increas-
ingly aware of terror’s relentless prox-
imity. Certainly New Zealanders, prid-
ing themselves as insular and inoculated
from the poison of human slaughter,
have been initiated into the messy con- Dennis Klein
sequences of populist racial and religious
hate. As Kathleen Belew observed in her
2018 book “Bring the War Home,” the new white
nationalism is transnational, targeting countries
with large white populations. We are not much
different, really — we thrive in the delusion of dis-
tance until it is no longer sustainable. I am told that promote perseverance.
among our neighbors in Hackensack are relatives of
a victim who did not survive the attack on mosques
in far-away New Zealand.
As I was listening to speakers at the prayer gath-
ering at Teaneck’s Darul Islah mosque, I couldn’t
help but imagine its possible violent disruption.
Now that sacred space is violated space, now that
the confidence in the security of our homes and
houses of worship is shaken, I am sure that others
in that hall were feeling the same way.
Could it happen here?
Appeals to peace and to a common cause marked
the vigil, but one speaker made it clear that we live
in perilous times of centrifugal forces — when a
rabbi and an iman walk into a bar, it’s not the begin- their perspective. As Kelly argued, their hidden
ning of a joke. It’s a press release. It was hearten-
ing, perhaps news, to see a full house here, as else-
where, when Muslims, Jews, Christians, Sikhs, and
members of other faith traditions came together to
remember for the future. But I wonder: Were we in
the process of renewing our commitment to peace?
Or having devoted two hours to commemoration,
were we self-satisfied with our transient demon-
stration of solidarity, believing that we have done
due diligence?
The underlying question that refuses to go away
is this: How much longer will we remain bystand-
ers? We owe it to Holocaust witnesses for redefin-
ing bystanders as tacit collaborators rather than
as mere spectators detached from crime scenes.
By remaining on the sidelines, those who did not
intervene were incriminated because they abdi-
cated their moral responsibility to intervene. When
Holocaust memoirs emerged in the 1960s as a col-
lective reminder of lethal disintegration and the
consequences of onlooker-inertia, bystanders, in
their judgment, mutated fully to accomplices.
We are at the crossroads of proximate terror and
bystander futility. Some argue that we are on the
way to responding to acts of social injustice, point-
ing to this past weekend’s prayer gatherings and
recent demonstrations by more than one million
students in 125 countries who struck for climate;
www.thejewishstandard.com
52 JEWISH STANDARD MARCH 29, 2019
to the Standing Rock Sioux pro-
test, women’s marches, and the
March for Our Lives students’
national protest against gun vio-
lence; and to organized move-
ments, such as Black Lives Mat-
ter, the Occupy movement, and
voter registration drives during
last fall’s midterm electioneer-
ing. Others assert that these acts
are merely episodic, abetted by
the online environment of metas-
tasizing memes that saturate our overstimulated
attention spans. Studies suggest that social media
are too diffuse to nurture thick relationships con-
ducive to common purpose and too momentary to
Yet we extract hope from one movement that
changed everything — the civil rights movement from
the mid-1050s to the mid-60s. We give credit to the
peerless moral leadership of Martin Luther King Jr,
who cannily framed the struggle for social integra-
tion in nonpartisan, transcendent terms: “I just want
to do God’s work.” He chided bystanders, remark-
ing indelibly, “In the end, we will remember not the
words of our enemies but the silence of our friends.”
But perhaps just as significant is what scholar
Robin Kelley termed “hidden transcripts.” The con-
ventional iconography depicts blacks confined to
the back of the bus; by contrast, we have nothing
similar to show how black passengers saw it from
experiences amounted to nothing less than the
preconditions of social transformation. They were
seated apart but also together, and that instilled a
sense of kinship. They seemed compliant but felt
contempt for whites’ arrogant injustice. In this set-
ting, blacks acquired a sense of congregation that
paved the way for political movement.
The legacy of episodic gatherings, like the one
at the Darul Islah mosque, will surely fade as our
daily routines resume their prominence. But still
it is potent, for it embodies another congregation
in the making.
In an earlier piece written after the Tree of Life
synagogue tragedy I ended by writing that it is
time to step up. In response, readers asked why I
wasn’t more specific. Beyond periodic post-tragedy
demonstrations, just what would make a lasting
difference? We cannot be more specific, perhaps,
because the dynamics of congregation are hidden
and formative. Or maybe it’s best not to be pre-
scriptive. As terrorism and other acts of injustice
that threaten our civic well-being grow closer to us
and as our reflexive responses over time converge,
we will know what to do.
Dennis Klein, Ph.D., is a professor of history and
director of the master’s degree program in Holo-
caust and Genocide Studies at Kean University. He
lives in Teaneck.
Letters
Iditarod is cruel to dogs I
While I usually take great pride in reading about the accom-
plishments of my fellow Jews in this publication, I could
not enjoy the same in reading about Ms. Blair Braverman,
who participated in the Alaskan Iditarod (March 22). I have
long opposed and distained this event as an unnecessary
and brutal experience for animals, who have no choice in
being included. Historically, scores of dogs have perished
during the grueling ordeal, and while I generally support and
admire accomplished athletes, it always has seemed an unap-
pealing sport due to the conditions endured by defenseless
participants.
I recognize that other events, such as horse racing and
equestrian competitions, also utilize animals for sport and
entertainment. And I am aware that occasionally there is a
fatal consequence as a result of the intense efforts during
such events. However, it is only in the Iditarod that death and
injury may reasonably be considered a statistical probability.
I am sure Ms. Braverman is a lovely, caring individual
who otherwise takes wonderful care of her faithful dogs.
However, it does seem to clash with Jewish culture that we
would subject the creatures who give us their utmost loyalty
in exchange only for love and care, to the tortuous rigors of
such a competition.
Martin H. Basner
Paramus
Iditarod is cruel to dogs II
I was very disappointed to read “Blair Braverman is the First
Jewish Woman to Finish the Iditarod Sled Dog Race,” which
held up the Iditarod race as something to admire. The truth
is that this 1,000-mile race, which pushes dogs beyond all
reasonable limits, is blatant animal cruelty.
The 2016 documentary “Sled Dogs” and many publications
such as the Washington Post have reported on the cruelty
that many of the dogs face. Countless animals have died and
continue to die due to this barbaric “sport.” The dogs are
often chained up and neglected between races.
Just last year, the race had a doping scandal when some of
the dogs tested positive for tramadol, an opioid pain reliever,
administered to mask the abuse the dogs were suffering. This
year, a 5-year-old dog named Yoshi died of “aspiration pneu-
monia” — choking on her own vomit, which is a common
form of death annually during this race. Moreover, many dogs
are killed each year because they don’t perform well.
In keeping with the tenets of our religion, we should be
stressing kindness to animals. I would have more admiration
for Ms. Braverman if she were leading a protest against the
Iditarod rather than participating in it.
Dr. Julie O’Connor
Tenafly
No dual loyalty
In my mind I have two loyalties. They are separate and dis-
tinct. There is no conflict between them.
First is my “spiritual” loyalty. This is my devotion to God
and the moral precepts of divine Torah.
Second is my “temporal” loyalty. This is my singular devo-
tion to the land (nation state) of my birth and citizenship. This
is the United States of America — the land that has provided
me with safety, sustenance, freedom, and endless opportu-
nity for growth. My gratitude to her is boundless. I yearn for
her safety and well being.
No other nation state has a claim on my temporal loyalty.
This holds true for the nation State of Israel (which I love and
admire immensely).
This my reaction to the disgusting, hateful statements and
innuendos of Rep. Ilan Omer.
Jerrold Terdiman MD
Woodcliff Lake

Cheating is stealing the mind
I quote from Rabbi Joseph Telushkin’s “A Code of
Jewish Ethics” — “G’neivat da’at (literally “stealing
the mind”) refers to deceiving others so that they will
think more highly of you than you deserve.”
I am angry and outraged with regard to the college
deception scandal. What kind of parents teach their
children to be dishonest and deceitful, by paying hun-
dreds of thousands of dollars, to get their kids into Ivy
League schools? Have they no shame? They disgust
me. What hurts more than anything is that the deserv-
ing students who have high grades, play by the rules,
and don’t have wealthy parents, do not get into the
favored colleges. This is shameful.
The students who got into the Ivy League schools
due to their dishonesty, whether it be cheating on
their entrance exams or lying about their athletic skills,
should be told to leave, since their entrance was based
on fraud. They should be replaced by students who
are honest and deserving. I blame the colleges as well.
They should get serious about fixing their admission
policies and make them fair, honest and just.
I want to share this from Rabbi Telushkin’s “A Code
of Jewish Ethics”: “Another form of stealing the mind”
is cheating on a test, thereby misleading the teacher
into thinking that you are entitled to a higher grade.
This can have extensive ramifications. Rabbi Moshe
Feinstein ruled that if a person obtained a better pay-
ing job as a result of having cheated on a test, the
higher salary earned is regarded as a form of stolen
money, since it is based upon a false premise.”
Being proud of my two masters’ degrees, one in
my five-year study of philosophy, I quote Immanuel
Kant, who believed that telling the truth was a uni-
versal moral absolute that allowed for no exceptions.
Grace Jacobs
Cliffside Park
Reality of facts
It would be beneficial if Zachary Nelkin (Letters,
“Don’t speculate about annexation,” March 15), and
others whose mindset matches his, would concen-
trate on the reality of facts rather than the reality of
facts as they would desire them to be.
The Geneva Conventions ban the acquisition of ter-
ritories as the result of an offensive war. In 1967, Israel
fought a defensive war, a major difference. Israel
was attacked, defended herself and won. One of the
results was Israeli control of the area from the Green
Line to the Jordan River. To halt the fighting, U.N.S.C.
Resolution 242 was passed. Resolution 242 calls for
Israel to withdraw FROM territories occupied as a
result of the war, not FROM THE territories. A very
crucial difference specifically stated by the authors
of the resolution, meaning that Israel was not obliged
to leave all the areas captured from the Jordanians. It
was understood, determined, and stated that Israel
would be able to establish more easily defensible bor-
ders as a result of the defensive war she had to fight.
The Geneva Conventions forbid the government to
enforce non-voluntary transfer of its population into
areas acquired, not citizens going by their own deci-
sion to move into these areas.
Mr. Nelkin also wrote that Israel has taken over “the
majority of the West Bank’s natural resources and
development potential.” Is this his desired fact or a
factual reality? I prefer that the real facts are that the
Israelis now living on this land saw the potentials and
exploited what was on the land through foresight,
investment, and hard work. Mr. Nelkin, what did Tel
Aviv, the Huleh Valley, the kibbutzim and moshavim
in the Negev look like 120 years ago?
Is it the fault of Israel that the Arabs living from
the Green Line to the Jordan River are living in the
conditions they are living in? For almost 19 years they
lived under Jordanian rule. It wasn’t the Israelis who
held them back. Arab construction and investments
should have taken place to improve their living condi-
tions, infrastructure, and economic growth. The Jor-
dan River should have served as a friendly and conve-
nient border between the two. Why wasn’t it? Before
terrorism against Israelis took hold, travel between
Israel and the “territories” was more commonplace
and easy. There were interchanges, Arabs coming into
Israel to work and Israelis into Arab areas to shop and
do business. To combat Arab terrorism, walls were
built and checkpoints established. The Israelis want
neither, but there is a difference between want and
need. Israelis are not suicidal, and the walls and secu-
rity checkpoints have severely cut down on the num-
ber of terrorist attacks.
Once the Arabs give up their mindset that they
must and can destroy Israel and the Jews, that they
should have no contact with Israelis or their insti-
tutions, that most of the rest of the world supports
them and their efforts, then peace has a chance to
arrive between Israel and the Palestinian Arabs. As
long as they are encouraged by many nations, the
U.N. General Assembly, and many U.N. committees
who seek to isolate and condemn Israel, they will not
seek peace. If the U.N. General Assembly could, they
would vote Israel out of existence.
Mr. Nelkin, I am disturbed by the contents of the
“facts” contained in your letter and knowing that
there is a large segment of our population who agree
with you. I wish that more people would research
the facts rather than read the headlines promoted by
those they ideologically agree with.
Howard J. Cohn
New Milford
Trump supports Jews
I take strong exception with part of Rabbi Engel-
mayer’s editorial on March 22. He writes “Although
President Trump, through his rhetoric, including his
anti-immigrant rants, has helped spur the hatred from
the right (not just here but, as the horrific massacre
in New Zealand and the murderer’s so-called “mani-
festo” show around the world, as well....)” How does
the rabbi know that President Trump influenced this
sick individual? What evidence does he have, besides
him conveniently picking and choosing some content
from the killer’s so-called manifesto, which does not
prove anything anyway? How do you so indict our
president, and like it or not he is our president, with
no evidence at all?
I have what I believe is a good follow-up question. If
President Trump is so influential, why has there been
such an increase in “anti-Jew hatred” and behavior
during the President’s administration, which the Rabbi
references in his article? Even the most anti-Trump
individual would have a tough time arguing against
the fact that Mr. Trump has been the president who
has been most supportive of Jews and Israel, perhaps
in American history. So anti-Jew incidents should have
decreased, using Rabbi Engelmayer’s reasoning.
Finally, I am not a Jewish scholar, but I suspect that
what Rabbi Engelmayer wrote violates Jewish law, per-
haps several. For example, it is well known that it is
forbidden to spread information about someone even
Letters
if such information is obviously true. There is no evi-
dence for the rabbi’s claims against our president, but
still he states them as fact. If he had stated that “in my
judgment” and then articulated his diatribe against
Pres. Trump, I would disagree with him and question
his judgment, but at least he would not be stating “fact.”
Finally, while I do not know if the Standard has a
political preference, allowing this type of drivel to
pass by the censors, raises serious questions about
your objectivity and sense of fairness.
Chuck Levner
Bergenfield
Talk not action
We are all talk and little action. We Jews do not adver-
tise our humane contributions to the world. Jews have
saved millions of lives in the last 20 years through our
advances in medicine and science. The internet was
founded by Jews. Goebbels proved that a lie stated
often enough becomes truth. the same is true for
truths. We must publicize the positives to eliminate
the negatives. No Jewish organization has done this.
At the seder, what should the wise son say? The real
question is what should the wise son do? The answer
lies with the action of each Jew. Let our positive effect
on the world be known!
Shel Haas
Fort Lee
Disenfranchised
independent voters
I am one of the 2.4 million independent voters in New
Jersey. Independents outnumber both the Democrats
and the Republicans here, yet we are excluded from
the primaries and locked out of the most important
electoral decisions in our state. That means a whop-
ping 40% of NJ voters are effectively disenfranchised.
Political scientists say that we are just “leaners”;
closeted Democrats and Republicans. In truth, we
are people of all stripes who want to vote for the best
candidates and policies, regardless of party label.
We elected President Obama, President Trump
and even Senator Menendez. Over the summer,
the largest survey of independent voters nationally
was conducted. I helped to coordinate the survey
in NJ where 83% said they wanted to see the pri-
maries open to independents without requiring us
to affiliate with a political party and 87% believed
the debates should be nonpartisan. Over 80% are
unhappy our tax dollars are being spent to adminis-
ter elections that exclude us.
Things don’t have to remain this way. The
Supreme Court has established the Democratic and
Republican Parties’ right to open their primaries to
independent voters. A national organization, Inde-
pendent Voting, is leading the effort to open the
2020 presidential primaries to independents. It is
estimated that in 2016, over 25 million voters were
excluded because the primaries were closed to inde-
pendents in their state.
As part of this effort, New Jersey Independent Vot-
ers (“NJIV”) has reached out to Democratic Party
Chair John Currie to discuss this matter. We will be
reaching out to Republican Chair Doug Steinhardt
and other leaders in New Jersey. Our effort to bring
all of New Jersey citizens into the voting booth and
political decision making in our state is open to all
readers who want our democracy to include all citi-
zens of voting age.
Sue Davies
JEWISH STANDARD MARCH 29, 2019 53

BY YONI GLATT, KOSHERCROSSWORDS@GMAIL.COM
DIFFICULTY LEVEL: CHALLENGING
Across
1. Word with chocolate or tree
5. Kind of korban
10. It’s doubled this year
14. It may be gray
15. Inscribed pillar (Var.)
16. Mate of The Edge
17. Great Smoky Mts. state
18. Fast food deal, often
19. They might be filled
before Shabbat
20. “‘Nuff ___!”
21. Alternative name for abalone
22. Causes of some highlights
23. One against 16-Across and his folk
26. Kemba Walker’s team on the
scoreboard
27. Three-in-one M.D.
28. Sinai preceder
30. Have ___ (converse)
32. Org. for movie helmers
33. Notable Barry from Hawaii
36. Law in 10-Down
38. Crime stories?
39. Bucks, bulls, etc.
40. “The Fault in ___ Stars” (John
Green best-seller)
42. Brazil’s Paulo
43. Choy veggie
44. Dim-witted
46. Someone/thing that’s impure
48. She played Dottie in “A League of
Their Own”
50. Word with king or carte
52. Hammer who played twins in “The
Social Network”
55. Prime Minister also called Arik
56. Evidence gatherer: Abbr.
57. City in northern England
58. “What?”, to 55-Across
59. Piece of bedroom furniture
62. ___’easter
63. Palindromic king
64. Capital of Kenya
65. Not a lager
66. First word of many French titles
67. It didn’t even last one trip
68. CBS show with several spin-offs
54 JEWISH STANDARD MARCH 29, 2019
Kosher Crossword The Frazzled Housewife
“ALTERATIONS”
The talk
BANJI GANCHROW
S
ometimes kids find it hard to
talk to their parents. Especially Whatever they think of me, they still
when it comes to telling them
things, making confessions, or
opening up about issues
or events that might be
uncomfortable. As chil-
dren, we receive uncon-
ditional love from our
parents. Yet sometimes
that love can be tested,
especially when we don’t
agree on various topics.
But as parents, we want
our children to feel com- Banji
fortable talking to us about Ganchrow
anything.
Actually, that isn’t true.
There are many, many topics that hus-
band #1 has absolutely no interest in dis-
cussing with his children. There are also
many, many questions that husband #1
has absolutely no interest in answering
Down
especially because he doesn’t know a lot
1. Has a go, on the diamond
2. Sort of rug or code of the answers. But we can go into that
3. Italian painter Guido another time.
4. City in Afghanistan So we want our kids to talk to us,
5. Fancy tie to trust us, but then if we don’t agree
6. Legendary with them or don’t say what they want
7. Doing some pants work...or a hint to
to hear, they get upset for talking to us
solving 24, 25, 26, and 29-Down
8. Where to find Calgary in the first place! And as a kid, we want
9. Indigenous Kiwi to get our parents’ approval, we want
10. Emirate capital to talk to them, but then it seems that
11. Nemo found her they don’t hear us, and how can a par-
12. Youngest Bronte ent possibly relate to anything a young
13. Rich Perot
person says!
24. “Hatikvah”, e.g.
25. He created Tevya the Milkman It is a vicious cycle. Kind of like bang- roel. Where did I go wrong? Is it genetic?
26. “G-d’s loving-kindness” ing your head against a wall.
29. ___ Mendel Schneerson When I was in my late teen years,
30. Bonfire remnant there were a couple of things that I
31. Mate of Fidel did that I knew my parents would not
34. “‘O Sole ___’”
be happy about. So I would wait until
35. Pose
37. Where “women glow and men Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement,
plunder”; Abbr. to tell them. My thinking was that
38. Battery option if God could forgive me (hopefully)
41. Let in again my parents would have to forgive me
42. Base (hopefully). It usually turned out okay,
45. Sderot to Jerusalem dir.
because, really, at that point, what
47. Before, of yore
48. Nasser or Mubarak were they going to do? Sometimes
49. Expunge the things that I confessed to had hap-
51. Hebrew name meaning pened months before. Fortunately,
“light unto me” I survived all of those things that I
53. Big no-nos in Judaism should not have done, and for some
54. Shmona follower?
reason, I was blessed, truly blessed,
60. BBC’s Italian counterpart
61. 1-Down are needed to produce one with boys who didn’t really seem to do
anything wrong.
I have really tried to be the kind of
parent who has an open relationship
The solution to last week’s with her kids. Granted, this ends up
puzzle is on page 62.
having your kids think of you as more
of a friend than a parent. (My kids think
of me as a crazy person, but why should
they be different than most people…).
Do they respect me? Possibly. Do they
fear me? Not a chance. But do they hate
me? Not yet… I guess there is still time.
know that when the time is right, to
smear some chocolate on a pillow, put
the pillow over my face,
and let nature take its
course. Hopefully they
won’t do this before the
time is right.
In any event, the
other day son #1 told
me he had to talk to me
about something. As any
mother of sons knows,
any time one of your
boys wants to talk to you,
no matter what time it is,
what temperature it is,
where it is — you talk to them. So I was
looking forward to this talk.
We are in the car, and the tone
becomes serious. What could he pos-
sibly want to talk to me about? “Mom,
I think I did something wrong.” As my
son, the things he could have done
wrong are endless. But as husband #1’s
son, the list is very very short. I had no
idea what was coming next. “Kid, you
can tell me anything. There is noth-
ing you could say that would make me
love you any less. Ever.” “Mom, please
don’t be upset, but a few months ago, I
became cholov yisroael, and I think I ate
something that wasn’t cholov yisroel,
and I need you to help me find out.”
Cholov yisroel. My son is cholov yis-
Is it nurture versus nature? Is there a
special therapist I could send him to?
I’m kidding. Cholov yisroel, which
I just found out, means that he eats
only milk products that come from a
cow. Not a goat or a chicken (do chick-
ens make milk?). Only a cow. Appar-
ently, the muffins from Costco are dairy
because they have nonfat milk in them,
and even though I tried to convince
son #1 that the “C” in Costco stands for
“cow’s milk,” he didn’t believe me. We
called Costco and the poor lady who
answered the phone had to walk all the
way to the bakery section to read us the
ingredients.
But the damage was done. No more
muffins for son #1 from Costco. Fortu-
nately, he is still talking to me, despite
all of the things that I do wrong….
Banji Ganchrow of Teaneck also believes
that the “C” in Carvel stands for cows’
milk as well. Apparently, she is wrong
about a lot of things. But she does really,
really love her boys.

‘Vilna’ explores
the moral quandary
of the Judenrat
Miriam Rinn
T
he tag line for the new Holo-
caust play “Vilna,” now at the
Theatre at St. Clement’s on
West 46th Street, is “If God cre-
ated monsters, He also created heroes.”
The heroes playwright Ira Fuchs
refers to are two historical figures,
Motke Zeidel and Yuri Farber, who were
part of the “burning brigade.” The Nazis
sent this group of 80 men and women
to the Ponar killing fields outside of the
city of Vilna to dig up and burn corpses,
so there would be no evidence of the
Nazi slaughter of civilians. The women
were responsible for cooking and laun-
dry; the men excavated and burned
many thousands of bodies, sometimes
coming across the corpses of people
they knew.
My uncle was a member of that bri-
gade, and he found the bodies of his
mother and sisters. He told that story
in Claude Lanzmann’s film “Shoah.”
Knowing that they would be killed
whenever they completed their grisly
work, some of the men decided to dig
an escape tunnel. Most of the escap-
ees were shot as they ran from the
tunnel, but eight survived the war, my
uncle among them. Recently, a group
of scientists and archaeologists discov-
ered the remains of the tunnel using
specialized equipment called Electric
Resistivity Tomography. That effort
was described in an episode of the PBS
science series “NOVA” titled “Holocaust
Escape Tunnel.”
The play “Vilna” begins long before —
too long before — when Motke and Yuri
are schoolboys. We see the embedded
anti-Semitism among the Poles (Vilna
was part of Poland at the time) when
Motke’s elegant physician mother must
bribe an official to enable her husband
to continue his glove manufacturing
business. Yuri, an orphan, joins the
Zeidel family as he and Motke become
best friends at school. The boys’ per-
sonalities are lightly sketched: Yuri is
a by-the-rules straight ahead boy, des-
tined to be an engineer; Motke is the
looser, more-resistant-to-authority type.
He eventually becomes a lawyer.
These early scenes, which take up a
lot of the first act, establish the general
JS-55
Arts & Culture
atmosphere of Jew hatred as well as
emphasizing what a spiritually and cul-
turally rich Jewish environment existed
in Vilna (now Vilnius in Lithuania),
where almost half of the population was
Jewish before the war. They also con-
tribute to the exposition-heavy dialogue,
which adds to the didacticism of the play.
That may be necessary for audience
members who are not familiar with the
history of the Holocaust, but it makes for
less than riveting theater at times.
The most original and intriguing
aspect of “Vilna” is Fuchs’ bold choice
to make heroes of members of the Jud-
enrat, the Jewish governing council
PHOTOS BY Carol Rosegg
of the ghetto. In most survivor com-
munities, these people who collabo-
rated with the Nazis were considered
traitors and worse. Fuchs makes the
reasonable, if chilling, argument that
many more Jews would have died of
hunger, disease, and plain wretched-
ness if the Judenrat had not organized
bathhouses, soup kitchens, hospitals,
schools, and other community services,
and enforced strict adherence to the
rules. The fact that the Judenrat also
provided the Nazis with selections of
Jews to be killed and cooperated with
thugs and criminals to maintain order
is presented as a necessary sacrifice for
the greater good.
The characters Motke and Yuri are
part of the Vilna Ghetto Judenrat, which
is led by the historical figure Jacob Gens.
I couldn’t find any confirmation that the
real-life Motke and Yuri were part of the
Judenrat, but that doesn’t matter for
the play. The two young men struggle
with the difficult choices they have to
make until the Nazis resolve their moral
dilemma by sending them to Ponar as
part of the burning brigade.
“Being a Jew is like gravity, it always
pulls you back,” a Vilner rabbi tells
Motke when he objects to studying
his bar mitzvah portion. The same is
true of the Holocaust. No matter how
many books, films, plays, or TV series
are produced, there is always some
new tale that pulls us back in. And in
these days, when the familiar crude
anti-Semitism of the first half of the
twentieth century seems to be making
a comeback, it’s useful to be reminded
of where it once led. Scenes from the play, “Vilna.”
Jewish Standard MARCH 29, 2019 55
Calendar
Elections: Bibi’s Last
Friday  Stand?” at breakfast at
the JCC of Paramus/
MARCH 29 Congregation Beth
Tikvah, 9:45 a.m. East
304 Midland Ave.
(201) 262-7691.

Celebrating Rabbi
Dresner: Temple
Beth Tikvah in Wayne
celebrates its rabbi
emeritus, Rabbi Israel
Dresner, on his 90th
birthday, 11 a.m. Buffet
lunch by Kosher Nosh.
950 Preakness Ave.
(973) 595-6565.

Peri Smilow
COURTESY TEMPLE SINAI

Shabbat in Tenafly:
Temple Sinai of
Bergen County offers
“Rock Shabbat”;
congregational
dinner at 6:15 p.m.,
services, with guest
singer/songwriter
Peri Smilow, at 7:30. 1
Engle St. Reservations, Cheryl Vigder Brause,
(201) 568-3035 or MAR. The Zamir Choral Foundation, founded and directed by SANDRA WONG GEROUX
Matthew Lazar, presents a gala benefit concert by HaZamir,
31
Templesinaibc.org.
Meditation and
the international Jewish high school choir, at David Geffen Mindfulness: The
Hall at Lincoln Center at 4 p.m. Nurit Hirsh and Zoe Avery sisterhood of Temple
Emanuel of the
Grossman will be honored. HazamirGalaConcert.org or (212) 595-3386. Pascack Valley in
Woodcliff Lake offers
a program, “Mindful
chief rabbi, and Cantor April 1 listing. 950 Tools for Everyday
Yitzchak Meir Helfgot.
Ezer Mizion is the
Saturday  Queen Anne Road.
(201) 836-6210 or
Living: An Introduction
world’s largest Jewish MARCH 30 www.bethaaron.org.
to Meditation and
Mindfulness,” led by
bone marrow registry; Cheryl Vigder Brause,
Rabbi Yisrael Meir Lau the Englewood
community Shabbaton
Sunday  a certified mindfulness
instructor and the
honors the IDF soldiers MARCH 31 founder of 2bpresent,
who are members of 10:15 a.m. 87 Overlook
its registry. Kabbalat Drive. Reservations,
Shabbat services Dr. Philip N. Eisner (201) 391-0801 or www.
at 7 p.m.; program COURTESY TBT tepv.org.
continues all day on
Shabbat beginning at Shabbat in Wayne: Passover food expo:
9 a.m., with kiddush Dr. Philip N. Eisner, Seasons Clifton has
sponsored by Ezer physicist and global Zalman Suldan a Passover food
Cantor Yitzchak Mizion; Mincha/Seudah warming expert, expo, noon to 3 p.m.,
Meir Helfgot Shlishit, 6:15 p.m.; discusses “Global Shabbat/Passover with food tastings
musical Havdalah with Warming – A Disaster ideas in Teaneck: Herb Keinon
and children’s
Shabbat in Simcha Leiner at 8:45, Coming Faster Zalman Suldan offers activities. 467
Jerusalem Post writer
Englewood: with Israeli wines, and Faster,” for the creative hands-on Allwood Road Clifton.
in Paramus: Herb
Congregation Ahavath cheese, and halava annual Rabbi Israel S. ideas for making (973) 339-0900 or
Keinon, an author
Torah hosts Ezer from Shuk Machane Dresner Tikkun Olam seders more exciting seasonskosher.com.
and the diplomatic
Mizion Shabbat, Yehuda. 240 Broad lecture at Temple and kid-friendly at
correspondent for
Shabbat of Heroes, led Ave. (201) 568-1315, or Beth Tikvah, 7:30 p.m. “Seder Surprises” at
the Jerusalem Post,
by Rabbi Yisrael Meir ShabbatOfHeroes.com. 950 Preakness Ave. Congregation Beth
will discuss “Israel’s
Lau, former Ashkenazi (973) 694-6565. Aaron, 4 p.m. See also

56 JEWISH STANDARD MARCH 29, 2019

 Calendar

Living,” noon. The have been featured with handcrafted Disabilities offers an Ramapo College, in the
program, with lunch, on PBS, leads “300 jewelry and gifts, ID/DD informational H-Wing Auditorium
is part of Jewish Ways to Enhance made by stroke workshop, “Lifespan (H-129), 10 a.m. It is
Federation of Northern Your Seder: Make It survivors with aphasia, Advocacy Issues for a memorial for John
New Jersey’s “One Unforgettable,” an 10:30 a.m. — 7:30 p.m. Children and Adults Gunzler, a Gross
Book One Community” interactive, multimedia In conjunction with with Special Needs,” Center advisory board
events. 10-10 Norma presentation Something Special, for family members member. 505 Ramapo
Ave. Reservations, for women, at the center’s vocational with intellectual Valley Road.
(201) 796-5040. Congregation Sons artisan program’s or developmental (201) 684-7409.
of Israel, 7:30 p.m. 10th anniversary, disabilities, 7 p.m.
Kid-friendly seders: Hors d’oeuvres at 7. the center’s Attorney S. Paul Prior Parsha study group
Film in Glen Rock: Congregations Rinat in Closter: Temple
The Glen Rock Jewish 300 North Broadway, artisans designed is the guest speaker.
Yisrael and Shaare Upper Nyack, N.Y. a commemorative Refreshments. Program Emanu-El of Closter
Center screens Tefillah and Young hosts “Parsha for
the documentary Reservations, (845)- serenity bracelet at J-ADD offices, 50
Israel, all of Teaneck, 358-3767 or csinyack. that will be sold. Eisenhower Drive, Dummies,” exploring
“Heading Home: The join Yavneh Academy’s the highlights of the
Tale of Team Israel,” org. Sales support the Paramus. Register,
YPAA and Ben Porat center’s programs (201) 754-1834 or email week’s Torah reading, 11
3 p.m., followed by Yosef to host “Seder am. 180 Piermont Ave.
a Q&A with Jeremy Surprises,” hands-on Wednesday  and services. Door
prizes. Tours available.
ESobolofsky@J-ADD.
org . (201) 750-9997.
Newberger, one of the
film’s producers, and
ways to make your APRIL 3 60 West Hunter Ave.
seders amazing,
photo opportunities engaging, and exciting, Combating hate
(201) 368-8585 or www.
AdlerAphasiaCenter.
Thursday 
with team mascot
Mensch on the Bench.
with Zalman Suldan, in Rockland: Evan org. APRIL 4
at Shaare Tefillah, 7: Bernstein, Anti-
682 Harristown Road. 30 p.m. 510 Claremont Reducing stress and
(201) 652-6624 or grjc. Defamation League
Ave. (201) 357-0613 or NY/NJ regional anxiety in West
org. office@shaaretefillah. Nyack: Rockland
director, discusses
org. “Combating Hate and Jewish Family Service
anti-Semitism” for the offers mindfulness
Tuesday  Rockland section of
the National Council
and meditation and
other techniques that Dr. Bat Sheva Marcus
APRIL 2 of Jewish Women at work to reduce stress COURTESY HILLEL ROCKLAND

the JCC Rockland, and anxiety, the first

Wednesday of every Sex therapist speaks
450 West Nyack
month, at the Jewish in Suffern: As part
Road, West Nyack, NY, Film in Mahwah:
Community Campus, of Jewish Heritage
7:30 p.m. Refreshments. Ramapo College’s
11 a.m. 450 West Nyack Month and Holocaust
ncjwrockland.org. Gross Center for
Road, West Nyack, N.Y. commemorations at
Film in Wayne: In Holocaust and Rockland Community
conjunction with
Boutique in (845) 354-2121, ext.142.
Genocide Studies
Maywood: The Adler College, Dr. Bat Sheva
Jewish Federation Life care planning: screens “1945!” based Marcus, a sex therapist
Aphasia Center hosts on the acclaimed short
of Northern New Jewish-Association and clinical director
an open house and story “Homecoming”
Jersey’s “One Book for Developmental of Maze Women’s
spring boutique by Gábor T. Szántó, at
One Community” Sexual Health, one of
programs, the Wayne Yaakov Rosenthal
YMCA shows the COURTESY HILLEL ROCKLAND

documentary “From

Coppélia
Swastika to Jim Crow,”
Graphology workshop
5 p.m., for viewers 13
in Suffern: As part
of Jewish Heritage
and older. The movie
Month and Holocaust
shows the similarities
commemorations at
between anti-Semitism
Rockland Community
in Nazi Germany
College, Yaakov
and racism in the
Rosenthal, certified
American south. The
graphologist, life
Metro YMCAs of the
Oranges is a partner
coach, and author
of “Unlock the
One of the greatest comic ballets of all time!
of the YM-YWHA of
Secret World of
North Jersey. Light
refreshments. 1 Pike
Teenagers Through Saturday, April 6 | 7PM
Their Handwriting,”
Drive. (973) 595-0100
or hchizever@
discusses “What Does
Your Handwriting Say
Bergen PAC
metroymcas.org.
About You,” in RCC’s
Ellipse Technology 30 N. Van Brunt St.,
Monday 
APRIL 1
Center, 12:15 p.m.
145 College Road. Englewood, NJ
201.227.1030
Rabbi Dov Oliver,
(845) 574-4422 or
doliver@sunyrockland.
edu. bergenpac.org

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COPPELIA25
Book discussion:
The Fair Lawn Jewish
Center/CBI holds its
Book of the Lunch Murray Spiegel
program with a
discussion by Diane Women’s seder in
© Richard Termine
Fogel on Jonathan Upper Nyack: Murray
Rabb’s “Among the Spiegel, whose seders

JEWISH STANDARD MARCH 29, 2019 57

Calendar

the largest centers
for women’s sexual
health in the country,
discusses “Judaism &
Sexuality: Let’s Take a
New Look,” in RCC’s
Ellipse Technology
Center, 12:15 p.m.
145 College Road.
Rabbi Dov Oliver,
Saturday  for Pesach,” 9:30 a.m.
Goldmann with the
junior choir, Rinat
Beth El, and religious
school students. 221
Schraalenburgh Road.
(201) 768-5112 or www.
tbenv.org.
Children’s Passover
program: The JCC of
Paramus/Congregation
Beth Tikvah hosts a
monthly preschool
program for 3-to
5-year-olds and their
caregivers, “Preparing
(973) 595-6565 or
templebethtikvahnj.
org.
Englewood mayor
in Monsey: The
Community
Synagogue of Monsey
and the Stern family
hold the 22nd annual
demonstrations, and
camp tours, 1- 4 p.m.
Meet the leadership
team. 225 Pompton
Road. (973) 956-1220.
In New York
Theological Seminary,
7:30 p.m. 3080
Broadway (at 122nd
Street) in Manhattan.
Reservations and
photo ID required. jtsa.
edu/renewing. Live
streamed at www.jtsa.
edu/live.

(845) 574-4422 or APRIL 6 Stories, projects, music,

doliver@sunyrockland.
edu.
Friday  the Fair Lawn Jewish
APRIL 5
Women’s study group
in Closter: Rabbi
David-Seth Kirshner
leads a study group
at Temple Emanu-El
of Closter, 10:30 am.
180 Piermont Ave.
(201) 750-9997.
Shabbat in Wyckoff:
Temple Beth Rishon
hosts Shabbat Kulanu,
a new Shabbat
experience for all, on
the first Friday of each
month at 6:13 p.m.,
in honor of the 613
mitzvot. Music and a
story will replace the
sermon. 585 Russell
Ave. Reservations,
(201) 891-4466 or
www.bethrishon.org.
Shabbat in Closter:
Temple Beth El of
Northern Valley has a
family friendly Hagigah
Shabbat, 6:45 p.m., led
by Rabbi David Widzer
and Cantor Elizabeth
Comedy in Fair Lawn:
The sisterhood of
Center/CBI presents
“Howdy Stranger!”
a sketch comedy
show with an improv
group, 8:30 p.m.
Admission includes
show, appetizers, and
desserts. 10-10 Norma
Ave. (201) 796-5040 or
RFlanzman@aol.com.
Sunday  American Jews
APRIL 7
Spring boutique in
Tenafly: The Kaplen
JCC on the Palisades
offers a boutique, with
more than 50 vendors
selling gifts, home
furnishings, jewelry,
women’s fashions
and accessories,
children’s clothing, and
summer camp items,
10 a.m.-5 p.m., and on
Monday, 9 a.m.-4 p.m.
Proceeds support
the JCC Leonard and
Syril Rubin Nursery
School. 411 E. Clinton
Ave. (201) 408-1435 or
fkoszer@jccotp.org.
cooking and activities.
East 304 Midland Ave.
Marcia, (201) 262-7733
or edudirector@
jccparamus.org.
Film in Closter: The
Sisterhood of Temple
Emanu-El screens
“93 Queen,” 9:00 a.m.
180 Piermont Ave.
(201) 750-9997,
templeemanu-el.
com/93queen.
Learning about
Passover in Wayne:
Rabbi Meeka Simerly
offers a comprehensive
look at Passover — its
traditions, its rituals,
the seders, and the
foods we eat during
the festival, at Temple
Beth Tikvah, 10 a.m.
Bagel breakfast. 950
Preakness Ave.
Israel and Pearl Stern
Memorial Lecture,
10:15 a.m. Michael
Wildes, mayor of
Englewood, NJ, and
managing partner of
Wildes and Weinberg,
PC, will tackle “Jews
and Immigration:
Lessons From Biblical
Joseph to the White
House.” Brunch
served. 89 West
Maple Ave., Monsey,
NY. No solicitation.
(845) 356-2720 or
comsyn.org.
Fundraiser for
animals: START II,
Save the Animals
Rescue Team, holds
its annual Spring
Fling fundraiser at
Vitales in Teaneck,
11 a.m.-3 p.m. Tricky
tray, 50/50, auction,
gift certificates, brunch
with vegetarian
options. 293 Queen
Anne Road. Joan,
(201) 368-2743.
Camp open house
in Haledon: Camp
Veritans will hold
its annual spring
open house at the
camp, with family
fun activities, snacks,
Thursday 
APRIL 4
Dr. Jack Wertheimer
Talking about
at JTS: Dr. Jack
Wertheimer, who
teaches American
Jewish history at JTS;
Rabbi Neil Blumofe of
Congregation Agudas
Achim in Austin,
Texas; Rabbi Jessica
Minnen, director of
Jewish learning at
OneTable; and Rabbi
Dan Smokler, Hillel’s
chief innovation officer,
talk about “Renewing
American Judaism:
Experimentation
and Creativity in a
Changing Landscape,”
for the annual
Rapaport Memorial
Lecture at the Jewish
Singles
Sunday 
APRIL 7
Seniors meet in
West Nyack: Singles
65+ meets for a get
together at the JCC
Rockland, 11 a.m. All are
welcome, particularly if
you are from Hudson,
Passaic, Bergen, or
Rockland counties.
Refreshments. 450
West Nyack Road.
Gene, (845) 356-5525.
Singles meet in
Caldwell: New
Jersey Jewish Singles
45+ meets for food,
fun, mingling, and
a dessert buffet, to
celebrate the group’s
eighth anniversary, at
Congregation Agudath
Israel, 2:30 p.m. 20
Academy Road. Sue,
(973) 226-3600,
ext. 145, or singles@
agudath.org.

Kaplen JCC ‘Lavish Lunches’ supports community seniors

Lavish Lunches, an annual culinary expe- the Healthy Lunchtime Challenge & Kids’
rience that supports a broad range of pro- State Dinner with First Lady Michelle
grams and services for senior adults at the Obama, which took place annually at the
Kaplen JCC on the Palisades in Tenafly, White House for five years. She also was
will begin on Thursday, April 4, at 10:15 an editor at Bon Appetit and Food & Wine
a.m. Funds raised allow seniors to age in and wrote for the New York Times. She is a
COURTESY JCCOTP
disease and dementia; REAP, which offers extensive
programming for active retirees; the Club, a social
group for individuals with mild cognitive impairment;
the Senior Activity Center; and intergenerational
programs with children in the JCC Early Childhood
Center. Many of these programs offer door-to-door

place and remain socially, mentally, and
physically connected to the world around
them. For the first time, this year the JCC
will host its Mitzvah Lunch with seniors on
a different day — Thursday, April 11, at 12:15
p.m. This will give everyone who attends a Tanya Steel
rare opportunity to witness first-hand the
joy the JCC brings into the lives of seniors every day.
On April 4, the culinary journey that is Lavish Lunches
will begin with a light breakfast at the home of Michele
and Daniel Ross and will feature a culinary presentation
by Tanya Steel, a global leader in the food world. She is
the executive director of the International Association of
Culinary Professionals, the award director for the Julia
Child award, and the author of the new “Food Fight: A
Mouthwatering History of Who Ate What & Why Through
the Ages.” She conceived Canada’s Kid Food Nation and
58 JEWISH STANDARD MARCH 29, 2019
co-author of the award-winning “Real Food
for Healthy Kids” and the New York Times
bestseller “The Epicurious Cookbook.” Ms.
Steel won a James Beard award for jour-
nalism, and as part of a talented team,
won dozens of awards including Webbys,
ASMEs, James Beards, and an Emmy.
After the breakfast, participants will attend the lunch
of their choice, served in local homes and other ven-
ues, where hosts will provide a memorable experience.
Each meal will have a unique theme, ranging from
painting to fitness to an afternoon of mah jongg.
The JCC Senior Services Department delivers a
broad range of social, cultural, educational, and rec-
reational programs for older adults and their caregiv-
ers. Highlights include the Kaplen Adult Reach Cen-
ter, a social adult day care for people with Alzheimer’s
transportation in wheelchair-accessible vehicles, pro-
grams for the arts, lectures and concerts, discussions
of current affairs, exercise, sing-alongs and dancing,
and birthday and holiday celebrations. The JCC serves
more than 24,000 free hot kosher lunches annually.
Lavish Lunch sponsors include the Kaplen Founda-
tion, Englewood Health, Artistic Tile, the Dean Foun-
dation/Francie & Stephen Steiner, ShopRite/Treeco,
Gilly’s Organics, Orly Chen/Re/Max Properties Plus, M
Ross & Associates LLC, and MYRON.
Committee members include co-chairs Lorin Cook
and Brandi Rubin, Orly Chen, Stephanie Cohn, Alissa
Epstein, Merle Fish, Kiera Flynn, Jenna Gutmann,
Jackie Pollack, Michele Ross, Jennifer Schiffman, Jillian
Somberg, and Francie Steiner.
For more information, go to jccotp.org/lavishlunches
or call Francine at (201) 408-1404.
 Calendar

Seasons Clifton plans Heart Health Program

Passover food expo this Sunday
The Seasons Clifton team welcomes its
customers to its Passover food expo
on Sunday, March 31, from noon to 3
p.m. The family-friendly expo includes
food tastings with kosher for Passover
recipes, family-friendly activities,
appearances from kosher foodies,
including influencers Gabe Boxer (the
Kosher Guru) and Dani Klein (Yeah
That’s Kosher). Guests will be able to
get healthy shopping tips and recipes
from nutritionist Daniella Cohn, and
buy cookbooks from Jose Meirelles,
owner of Manhattan kosher steak-
house Le Marais. There will also be a
photo booth, bounce house, balloon
animals, and children’s crafts.
The Seasons brand is known for hav-
ing a vast variety of products so that
every family can find the products they
need at a competitive price. “We are
‘Shtisel’ schmooze
in Wayne
Young Jewish Families of Passaic County hosts its inau-
gural event – a discussion of season 1 of “Shtisel,” an
Israel television Netflix series — on April 4, at 8 p.m., at
known for turning over our store into
one of the largest kosher-for-Passover
shopping experiences in the tri-state
area,” Solomon Heineman, general
manager of Seasons Clifton, said. “I’m
so excited to kick off Passover shop-
ping with an event that will remind our
shoppers how many various products
and services Seasons carries, espe-
cially around such a big holiday.”
Seasons Cliton turns eight aisles of
the store into a completely kosher-for-
Passover section. Under new owner-
ship, Seasons is focusing on its family
values, and providing the highest-qual-
ity, most comfortable experience for
its customers.
The store is at 467 Allwood Road
in Clifton. For more information, call
(973) 339-0900 or go to seasonsko-
sher.com.
COURTESY CHABAD
in Englewood and Tenafly
The Kaplen JCC on the Palisades
of Tenafly and Englewood Health
offer the Wellness and Longevity
Heart Health Program, aimed
at people with heart disease or
who have such risk factors for
heart disease as diabetes, high
blood pressure, and a family his-
tory of heart disease; as well as
for people who are overweight
or have completed a formal car-
diac rehab program. The struc-
tured five-week program, led
by medical and fitness experts,
aims to lead participants into a A JCC trainer leads a class in the Heart
well-rounded, healthy lifestyle. Health program.  COURTESY ENGLEWOOD HEALTH
Physician clearance is required.
The introductory session will be on The time commitment is 60 min-
Thursday, April 4, from 6 to 7 p.m., at utes twice a week for five weeks, for 10
the Graf Center for Integrative Medicine session in total. Participants will have
at Englewood Health. The session will access to the JCC gym at no additional
give a program overview and partici- charge. Fitness staff will be available to
pants will hear tips from experts in car- help with personal workouts at the JCC
diology, nutrition, and other services.
Baselines will be taken if requested. Doc-
and participants will receive a free JCC
membership for one month.
tor clearance forms should be submitted A final wrap-up session will be held
by the first class. on Thursday, May 9, from 6 to 7 p.m., at
Group fitness classes led by certified the Graf Center for Integrative Medicine.
trainers will be held at the fitness cen- Baselines will be taken if requested.

the Chabad Center of Passaic County in Wayne. ter at the Kaplen JCC on the Palisades on
The series follows the Shtisels, a chasidic family liv- Mondays and Thursdays at 6 p.m. The
ing in the Geulah neighborhood of Jerusalem; it looks class will be tailored to the participants’ ister, call (201) 608-2377 or go to www.
at their daily lives, their inner struggles, and the humor individual needs.
of the Jewish experience.
The evening will include a “Shtisel” spread of traditional foods found in the
series, including homemade kugel. Register at jewishwayne.com.
Reduce stress and anxiety in Rockland
On the first Wednesday of each month,
Rockland Jewish Family Service offers
mindfulness and meditation and other
techniques that work to reduce stress
and anxiety. Experience deep relaxation
and peace with music, mindfulness, and
other simple tools you can use in daily
life. People at all levels of experience are
welcome.
The cost for the entire program is
$100. For more information or to reg-
EnglewoodHealth.org/HHP.
Meditative practices have been deeply
rooted in Judaism for thousands of
years. Mindful Mornings takes place the
first Wednesday of every month at the
Jewish Community Campus. The next
class is April 3 at 11 a.m. RJFS is at 450
West Nyack Road in West Nyack. All pro-
ceeds support RJFS’ mission. Call (845)
354-2121, ext.142.

Rockland Jewish Film Festival

COURTESY JCC OTP

“Women and Children Left,” by Rose Hertzberg
Art exhibit focuses
on the Holocaust
The Waltuch Gallery at the Kaplen
JCC on the Palisades will feature “The
Holocaust Remembered,” works by
Rose Hertzberg z”l, for the month of
April. Rose used watercolor, oil, col-
lage, handmade poured paper, pen
and ink, and sketching in creating her
paintings.
Art is on display through April 30.
The JCC is at 411 E. Clinton Ave., in
Tenafly. For more information, call
(201) 569-7900 or go to jccotp.org.
The 19th annual JCC Rockland Jewish Film Festival launches Sunday night with
a sold-out showing of “Golda’s Balcony, The Film.” Because of demand a second
showing has been added for Tuesday, April 16, at 7:30 p.m.
“Golda’s Balcony, The Film” tells the story of te rise of the Golda Meir from
Russian schoolgirl to Prime Minister of Israel. In “Golda’s Balcony, The Film,”
Tovah Feldshuh recreates her award-winning stage performance as Golda Meir
in this filmed performance.
This Tuesday, April 2, at 7:30 p.m., the festival will present “The Interpreter,”
Slovakia’s official entry for Best Foreign Language Film in the 2018 Oscars. This
tragicomic story follows the son of Holocaust victims and the son of the SS officer
responsible for their deaths as the two go on a road trip to discover the hidden
truth of their pasts.
All films are screening at Regal Cinemas at The Shops at Nanuet, 2601 Fashion
Drive, Nanuet. Visit www.jccrockland.org/film-festival for more information and
to purchase tickets.
JEWISH STANDARD MARCH 29, 2019 59
Local
Circle
FROM PAGE 9
repeat customers — wherever they want
to go. It’s not a career that’s possible for
someone on dialysis.
Dr. Stuart Greenstein of Teaneck, a
transplant surgeon at Montefiore Medi-
cal Center in the Bronx, gave Mr. Miller
his new kidney.
Dr. Greenstein feels very strongly about
his work. “The need for transplants keeps
growing every year, and the supply of kid-
neys does not keep up with the need,” he
said. He started doing kidney transplants
when he was a young doctor, in 1986 —
“I was Doogie Howser, M.D.,” he joked.
He went to Montefiore in 1988 and has
been there ever since. “I don’t believe
in jumping from bed to bed,” he said. “I
Passover 2019: perfect timing for exciting new wine releases
Wine expert Gabriel Geller shares his top picks for Passover seders and festive meals
Wine is essential to Passover, when Jew-
ish people around the world gather with
family and friends to recount the story of
the Exodus from Egypt and share a fes-
tive meal. It is customary for all (adults)
to drink four cups of wine at the seder.
That’s a lot of wine for one meal. This year
Passover begins on the night of April 19,
which is somewhat later than usual. But
it’s great news for wine lovers, according
to Royal Wine’s public relations director,
Gabriel Geller. In the run-up to Passover
2019, Geller recommends new bottlings
to explore for the “Feast of Freedom” —
the commemoration of the redemption
of the Jewish people, some 3,500 years
ago, from centuries of slavery in Egypt.
His suggestions pair exceptionally well at
the seder table or any other special occa-
sion, and run the gamut of varieties and
price points.
Promising rosés
According to Geller, some outstanding
new 2018 rosé wines were released in
time for Passover 2019, and the new vin-
tage is promising. “I enjoy starting the
seder with a glass of cold, fresh rosé, so
the timing is perfect.”
Smooth and easy to drink, rosés are
best consumed young and fresh. He cites
the Herzog Lineage Rosé from Clarks-
burg, CA (srp $19.99) as a delicious, fruity,
and herbal complement to light starters.
Other good bets include Gush Etzion and
Flam (srp $24.99 and 34.99 respectively).
These wineries, both located in Israel’s
Judean Hills, were among the first out of
the gate with their new rosés this year.
60 JEWISH STANDARD MARCH 29, 2019
believe in developing relationships with
referring doctors and patients. I had a
patient whose transplant I did when she
was 13. I saw her a couple of weeks ago;
she’s 43 now. That’s what makes you feel
really good, when you see patients doing
so well. For me, that’s my high.
“The need is tremendous,” he con-
tinued. “What we have to understand is
that transplants and dialysis do the same
thing. They keep patients alive.
“But one does a better job than the
other. A kidney transplant gives you
your quality of life back. Dialysis doesn’t
do that.”
He shares a special tie with Bob
Miller. “I have a niche,” Dr. Greenstein
said. “I’m Orthodox, and I attract a lot
of Orthodox patients. I enjoy them espe-
cially, because we get to schmooze.
Complex reds
“As soon as the main course is served,”
Geller said, “I will typically move on
to a more multi-layered wine such as
the Carmel Limited Edition 2014 (srp
$79.99), a Bordeaux-style blend from
Israel.” Also of note is Domaines Rol-
lan de By, owned by Jean Guyon. The
extravagant designer just released
the first-ever new kosher run from
his estates: Chateau de By Medoc
2016 (srp $27.99). “Well-balanced and
medium-bodied, this Bordeaux from
an exceptional vintage is silky in the
mouth and pairs well with many types
of dishes,” claims Geller. “It would be
a good choice for the Passover seder.”
Lineage Choreograph, a field blend
of more than a dozen different grapes,
comes from an experimental plot on
the Herzog estate vineyard — the wine
is soft and inviting while at the same
time complex and flavorful, and very
reasonably priced (srp $20.00)
Herzog Wine Cellars also recently
released Herzog Special Reserve Quar-
tet 2015, a blend of varieties grown in
prime regions of California. The wine,
as its name indicates, comprises 4 grape
varieties: Malbec, Petit Verdot, Cabernet
Sauvignon, and Zinfandel. Full-bodied,
rich, complex, and spicy, it impresses
with its remarkable balance, while show-
casing the unique characteristics of each
variety (srp: $39.99).
Geller also noted that Italian wines
have been gaining in popularity among
kosher consumers. Wine Spectator
recently awarded the Terra di Seta
“Bob’s life has been given back to him,
after he gave the gift of life 20 years ago.
It has come full circle. Hopefully he will
do quite well. If you take good care, you
will live a healthy, normal life.”
Dr. Greenstein, Bob Miller, and Bob
and Sara Lee’s son, Jon Miller, davened
at the minyan at Montefiore the morn-
ing of Bob’s surgery. “It was very special
for me to daven with Bob and his son,”
Dr. Greenstein said. “And then Bob
asked me to make a Mi Sheberach” —
the prayer for healthy recovery — for the
donor. It was a very special, very strong
feeling to know that we are thankful for
someone else giving the gift of life.”
He remembers saying kaddish in a
hospital minyan the day of another
transplant. It was a rosh chodesh — the
start of a new month — and so the Torah
Chianti Classico Riserva (srp $34.99)
an impressive 93 points. Now that the
2013 has made its way to the shelves,
Geller predicted that this superior vin-
tage will outperform its predecessor.
Sweet endings
A long meal such as the Passover seder
also requires some fine dessert wine
to end the night on a sweet note. Cha-
teau Guiraud, which was absent from
the kosher scene since 2001, recently
made a comeback with two new wines
available for the first time in a kosher
version.
G de Guiraud 2017 (srp $39.99) is a
satisfying, dry blend of Sauvignon Blanc
and Semillon, while the chateau’s sec-
ond Sauternes, Petit Guiraud 2017, is a
luscious, wonderful dessert wine (srp
$74.99). Herzog Late harvest Orange
Muscat 2018 — don’t be fooled by this
wine’s orange tinge and floral near
orange aromas. Its 100 percent Orange
Muscat Grape has great lively acidity
and sweetness, all rolled into this floral,
long-lasting luscious wine (srp $22.99).
New kosher
for passover spirits
• Hacienda de Chihuahua Sotol Anejo:
Sotol is from the northern state of Chi-
huahua in Mexico. Sotol is not made
out of Blue Agave like tequila, but
Dasylirion wheeleri, otherwise known
as Desert Spoon, or Sotol in Spanish
(My wife translated that for me). This
Anejo Sotol is rich and smoky with
slight hints of grapefruit.
was read. That means there were three
aliyot — Torah honors — to distribute.
The donor was there. Dr. Greenstein
is a Levi, so he had the second aliyah,
and the donor had the next one; he’s a
Yisrael. “Nobody else knew that, but we
both got to get an aliyah and share the
experience,” Dr. Greenstein said. “That
was a special little thrill.
“I did the first Renewal transplant,”
he added. The recipient was an Israeli
woman “in her 30s, who now has five
kids. I visit her often.
“I recognized that this would fly in
the Jewish community,” he continued.
“That’s because we have this kind of
kinship,” the kind of connection one to
the other that would impel people to
donate kidneys out of generalized love.
“And that’s what it’s all about.”
• Hac ienda de Chihu ahu a Sotol
Reposado: Like a typical Reposado
from Mexico, this is aged only for six
months. A special uniqueness to Sotol
is the oak used for ageing the product
is Virgin oak, unlike tequila, which uses
bourbon barrels. The fresh oak gives
added tannins and spice to this tasty
item.
• Zachlawi Dry Arak: Arak, which
means perspiration in Arabic, is the
spirit drink of choice in the countries
of the Middle East. Abe Shrem, founder
of Zachlawi, brought his family’s old
Syrian recipe back to life here in the
U.S. Bold anise aromas shine through
with delicious licorice finish.
• Elite Arak: Elite Arak is one of the
leading Israeli producers of this
centuries-old spirit. Every Friday
afternoon, a day off for many Israelis,
men and women sit outside together
with friends while sipping a cold shot
of Elite Arak.
• Alouf Arak: The most popular Arak in
Israel, Alouf Arak is silky smooth with
notes of sweet anis and fig.
• Godet Fine de Cognac: A wonderful
blend of eau-de-vie from the Grande
Champagne and Petite Champagne
growing regions. These two growing
regions have very chalky soil which
helps to make a very aromatic eau-
de-vie, which is distilled to make this
special cognac.
 JS-61

Eva Forst
Eva Joan Forst, née Warburg, 91, died March 26.
A Holocaust survivor, she and her husband ran a
business together, which she was active in until her
death.
Predeceased by her husband, Jacob, she is sur-
vived by children Arthur (Susan) and Renee;
brother, Herbert (Rosa); six grandchildren; and eight
great-grandchildren.
Arrangements were by Robert Schoem’s Menorah
Chapel, Paramus.
Briefs
Hasmonean-era village
Obituaries
Dolores Kaplan
Dolores Kaplan, 81, of Nanuet, N.Y., died March 23. Obituaries are prepared with
Predeceased by her husband, Jay, she is survived information provided by funeral homes. Correcting
by children Barry ( June) of Englewood and Lisa errors is the responsibility of the funeral home.
Press (Gary) of Park Ridge; siblings, Leonard and
Sherman Malech; three grandchildren; and four
great-grandchildren.
Contributions can be sent to United Hospice of
Rockland County. Arrangements were by Gutterman
and Musicant Jewish Funeral Directors, Hackensack.
Funeral Planning Simplified
BergenJewishChapel.com
Germany’s non-Jewish parents
are loving Hebrew Bible names 201.261.2900 | 789 Teaneck Road, Teaneck, NJ 07666

discovered in Jerusalem Toby Axelrod Owner/Manager Daniel W. Leber, NJ Lic. No3186

A large Hasmonean-era Jewish agricultural village BERLIN (JTA) — Non-Jewish parents in Germany are picking
was uncovered by archaeologists in the Arab neigh- names straight out of the Hebrew Bible for their newborns, Robert Schoem’s Menorah Chapel, Inc
borhood of Sharafat, with a major multigenera- and they might not even know it. Jewish Funeral Directors
tional burial chamber, an olive press, ritual baths, According to the Society for the German Language, Ben Family Owned & managed
Generations of Lasting Service to the Jewish Community
a water cistern, a dovecote, rock quarries and jar was the most popular name for boys in 2018, with Hannah,
• Serving NJ, NY, FL & • Our Facilities Will Accommodate
fragments dating back to the time of the Macca- Lea, Noah and Jakob also showing up on the top 10 lists for Throughout USA Your Family’s Needs
bees, providing concrete evidence of the Jewish boys and girls, according to a report by Deutschlandradio. • Prepaid & Preneed Planning • Handicap Accessibility From
• Graveside Services Large Parking Area
history of Jerusalem as far back as 2,150 years ago. Among the top 10s, four boys’ names and five girls’ names
Gary Schoem – Manager - NJ Lic. 3811
The excavation was funded by the Moriah Jeru- have Hebrew origins. Jordan E. Schoem – Funeral Director - NJ Lic. 5146
salem development corporation on behalf of the But few non-Jewish parents actually know the meaning Conveniently Located
City of Jerusalem as part of preparation for the con-of such names — they just like how they sound, according to W-150 Route 4 East • Paramus, NJ 07652
struction of a new elementary school in the Mus- Frauke Rüdebusch, a linguist with the Society for the German 201.843.9090 1.800.426.5869
lim and Christian Arab neighborhood of Sharafat, Language, which has put out an annual list since 1977. The top
between Jerusalem’s Biblical Zoo and the neighbor- 10 lists through 2017 are available online.
hood of Gilo on the southeastern side of the city. Rüdebusch told Deutschlandradio that Hebrew bibli-
The Israel Antiquities Authority said that part ofcal first names grew in popularity after the end of World
the site, which is believed to have been home to a War II, but became especially noticeable in the 1970s, and
wealthy or important family, eventually may open again in the last decade or two.
for an exhibit. It might not be very surprising for Jews to pick such names,
“Such quality craftsmanship of architectural but in fact there may also be a trend within that population of
elements is very rare, found mostly in monumen- approximately 200,000, educator Elena Pavda of Kassel told
tal buildings or burial estates in the Jerusalem Deutschlandradio.

L ’ Shana
area, such as the burial estate of the priestly fam-

L ’ Shana
ily of Benei Hazir in the Kidron Valley, and several
tombs in the Sanhedria neighborhood,” a press
Some 90 percent of Jews here come from families that
immigrated to Germany from the former Soviet Union, where
Jewish names could be a liability, said Pavda, who is Jewish.

Tovah!
release said. “You always had to expect some kind of harassment. …

Tovah!
Jerusalem is believed to have grown from [But] here in Germany you can [choose Jewish names], of
5,000 residents centered around the City course. And many do.”
of David to 25,000 residents under the According to Rüdebusch, a survey done several years ago
Hasmoneans, which led to more agricultural showed that most people chose names based on how they
production around the city. sounded rather than their origin.
A mikvah, or ritual bath, was found in the area in But if they are curious, they might check the online
We continue to be Jewish family managed,
Wishing you a sweetyou
1994 and a Hasmonean coin was uncovered in 2007.
 Wishing
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magazine Wunderweib (Wonder Woman), which last
summer listed its favorite Jewish biblical names complete knowing that caring people provide caring service.
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Jewish Standard MARCH 29, 2019 61

BVK • SCI • #9a • JobBVK • SCI • #9a

No 025012 • JobHashanah
• Rosh No 025012
ad••Rosh
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 JS-62

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62 Jewish Standard march 29, 2019

Tr a d i t i o n ! Happy
Passover
A Zissen Pesach!

Wish your family, friends, #1

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 JS-64
 Real Estate & Business
A kosher jewel in the heart of NYC, UN Plaza Grill
refreshes its menu and creates an unforgettable dining experience
A hidden gem in the heart of the United Nations, UN
Plaza Grill offers international cuisine created by award
winning chefs. Located in a beautiful, open space with
floor to ceiling windows and spectacular décor, The UN
Plaza Grill has given new life to its menu, offering lunch
specials, dinner, and Sunday brunch,and appealing to
those socializing with friends or family, discussing busi-
ness, or hosting an event.  more than any other fine jeweler, with the com-
Known as the jewel of the United Plaza, the fine-din-
ing restaurant’s newly refreshed menu is delicious
and appeals to all palates with flavors inspired by Jap-
anese signature cuisine, featuring delectable seafood
and sushi, as well as USDA Kosher prime-aged beef
and steaks, stand-out cocktails, and delicious des-
serts. Not only is the food sensational, but each dish
OPEN HOUSES and drink are displayed to entice the senses through
ceremonial presentation for a dining experience to
SUNDAY, MARCH 31 • 1PM – 3PM never forget.
t TEANECK t Beyond the amazing menu, UN Plaza Grill is a great
setting to listen to live music, on select weekends,
showcasing local and emerging talent. The UN Plaza
Grill also offers catering for all occasions: engage-
ments, weddings, post wedding events, bat and bar
mitzvahs’ naming and bris ceremonies, sweet 16,
bridal showers, holiday events, corporate parties and
special menus for Jewish and other holidays. While
the restaurant appeals to all walks of life, it is kosher
and therefore suits the needs of the growing kosher
population in NYC and the tri-state area.
The restaurant is owned by entrepreneur Albert
Gad, who has an apartment in the building just
above the restaurant.v Unable to find a great kosher
970 Lincoln Pl. $849,000 meal in the city, Mr. Gad bought UN Plaza Grill and
Storybook Tudor. 100' x 100' Prop. Perfect for Prof Home+Ofc/Sep opened it in 2017 to create a restaurant that would
Priv Prof Ofc/In-Law Suite. 6 BRs, 5 bath units (incl Huge Master appeal to kosher consumers, business profession-
Bath). Grand LR/Fplc, Fam Rm, Fin Bsmt/2nd Fplc. Fab Solarium/
als, and individuals seeking a truly special dining
Stone Flr leads to I/G Pool+Priv Yard. C/A/C, Generator, Gar.
657 Northumberland Rd. $499,000
Prime W. Eglwd. Compl Renov. LR/Fplc, FDR, Sky Lit Great Rm, New
Quartz MEIK, .5 Bath. 2nd Flr: 3 BRs + Marble Tiled renov Bath. Tiled
Recrm Bsmt/.5 Bath. C/A/C. Secluded Yard. Also For Rent @ $3,700/mo FORT LEE – THE COLONY
150 Stuyvesant Rd. $410,000 The Ultimate Fort Lee Penthouse
Spacious Split. Refinished H/W Flrs. Freshly Painted. LR, FDR, MEIK.
3 BRs, 2.5 Baths + Fabulous Vaulted Ceil Game Rm/Poss Master
Suite. Fam Rm, Fin Basmt. C/A/C. EZ to NYC Transp.
1146 Stasia St. $325,000
Lov Col. Tree-lined St. Open Front Porch, LR, FDR, EIK. 3 BR. Walk-up
to 3rd Flr. Full, Unfin Bsmt. H/W Flrs. Gar. Needs TLC.
64 Bilton St. $320,000
Quiet, Convenient Street. Room for Extend Fam. Encl Porch. LR,
MEIK, 3/4 BRs, 2 Full Baths. Fin Bsmt. Newer Windows + Siding.
TEANECK BORDER/
t BOGOTA t
151 E. Fort Lee Rd. $399,900
Faces Crestview. Filled with Charm. New England Style Cape. Lg
LR/Fplc open DR, Country Kit, Lov 3 Season Porch. 4 BRs, 2 Baths.
Paver Patio, C/A/C, Gar
BUYERS’ SEMINAR 3/31 Renovated 5br. 4.5 baths. Unobstructed sunrise and sunset views
from approx 2500 sq ft of terraces and approx 4980 of interior space.
CALL TODAY FOR MORE INFORMATION! Woodburning fireplace, herringbone floors, top of the line kitchen
ALL CLOSE TO NY BUS / HOUSES OF WORSHIP / appliances, full laundry room and much more. Must see to fully
HIGHWAYS / SHOPS / SCHOOLS appreciate. Price upon request.
Allan Dorfman
Free mobile real estate app. Broker/Associate
http://app.russorealestate.com/
201-461-6764 Eve
www.RussoRealEstate.com 201-970-4118 Cell
201-585-8080 Office
(201) 837-8800 Realtorallan@yahoo.com
64 JEWISH STANDARD MARCH 29, 2019
experience. Albert is also the CEO and presi-
dent of Diamonds International,  founded more
than 30 years ago. What began as one store in St.
Thomas has now blossomed into more than  125
locations. Diamonds International is one of the
largest jewelry retailers in the world with loca-
tions in the Caribbean, Mexico, and Alaska,
pany’s headquarters in New York and Miami. 
As a business owner, Mr. Gad believes in giving
back and social responsibility for his business
ventures and UN Plaza Grill is no exception. UN
Plaza Grill donates 10 percent of any non-profit,
synagogue, or Jewish organization’s check back
to their organization, as way to show support for
the amazing work they are doing.
UN Plaza Grill has a team of award-winning chefs
from across the globe who create outstanding and
exquisite dishes to entice any palate. These include
shared plates and appetizers, entrees ranging from
seafood, prime-aged beef, steaks and some of the
best sushi on the planet, as well as tasty sides, des-
serts, and innovative cocktails. The extraordinary
team includes executive chef Hok Chin, who was
named one of Best Chefs America; Haitian-born
pastry chef Felencia Darius, and sushi chef Kai
Hong Chan whose sushi dishes rival those of the
best in the world. General manager Ghandi Kimia
is no stranger in the restaurant industry with his
impressive roster of restaurants including Reserve
Cut, Jezebel, Tavern On The Green, Ben Benson’s
Steakhouse, and Sparks to name a few.
“With my vast experience in the kosher and
mainstream restaurant industry, I was thrilled
to open UN Plaza Grill in the heart of the United
Nations,” Mr. Kimia said. “The restaurant, while
offering the finest cuisine that is kosher, exempli-
fies the finest diversity just like the United Nations
Plaza it sits in and that is reflected in the chefs,
the menu, and the unmatched service and atmo-
sphere,” adds Kimia.
“We needed a restaurant like UN Plaza Grill in
New York City to not only meet the needs of the
kosher consumer but to serve the finest food and
atmosphere that offers an unmatched social and
dining experience,” Mr. Gad said.
To learn more about the UN Plaza Grill and its
newly refreshed and sensational menu, special
events, and five-star dining experience, visit UN
Plaza Grill or follow UN Plaza Grill on Facebook
and Instagram.
‘Annie’ in Teaneck
The musical Annie will be presented in three
performances at Teaneck High School — Friday,
March 29 at 8 p.m.; Saturday, March 30 at 8
p.m.; and Sunday, March 31, at 3 p.m. The play
will be staged in the Helen B. Hill Auditorium
at Teaneck High School, 100 Elizabeth Avenue,
Teaneck. Admission is $15 at the door, $12 in
advance, students $8. Call (201) 862-2468 for
more information.
 JS-65*

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201.992.3600 I LINKSNJ.COM

JEWISH STANDARD MARCH 29, 2019 65

 JS-66

Real Estate & Business/Local

Dr. Raffaella Exploiting the full potential

Kalishman
Dr. Raffaella Kalishman is thrilled
to help Bergen County residents get
healthy. She is board certified in inter-
nal medicine and infectious diseases,
focusing on preventive care, women’s
health, chronic conditions, and infec-
tions. With her primary care patients,
Dr. Kalishman (or Dr. K as many
patients call her) works to optimize
health. She focuses on setting reason-
able goals and strong follow-up to make
sure those goals are met. What sets
Dr. Kalishman apart is her philosophy
about patient care. She truly believes
that knowledge improves health out-
comes and welcomes her patients to
ask questions and be involved in their
care plans. Dr. Kalishman understands
that some patients’ medical histories
can be complicated. She makes a point
to reach out to their specialists person-
ally, to insure that her patients’ doctors
are all connected, and working towards
a common goal.
In her infectious disease practice,
Dr. Kalishman tackles both acute and
chronic issues. Conditions such as skin
infections, Lyme disease, chronic uri-
nary tract infections, and poorly heal-
ing wounds are addressed on a regular
basis. She also sees and treats patients
with HIV and hepatitis. Dr. Kalishman
always stays current on new literature
and treatments so that she can offer
her patients optimal care. She is now
taking new patients in both her Fair
Lawn and Teaneck offices and looks
forward to improving the health of her
local community. For more informa-
tion call (201) 855-8480.
of realtors when purchasing property
ADINA GROSSMAN
Purchasing a home is an important
(and sometimes very difficult) phase
in life. With the thousands of available
properties listed for sale, one may
think it comes down to a simple task
of choosing one of them. However,
finding the right property can be quite
tricky and very time-consuming, not
to talk about the heartbreaks endured
during the process. The easiest way
of finding the best property for you is
by making use of a real estate agent.
Most real estate agents have vast expe-
rience in helping hundreds of people
find their dream homes, so hiring one
seems like the best place to start this
journey from. Here are a few other
benefits of using real estate agents
when purchasing a home.
Code of ethics
Real estate agents are held to a code
of ethics which requires them to put
the needs of their clients above their
personal needs and to disclose any
information which may influence the
buyer’s opinion of his desired prop-
erty. This essentially means that real
estate agents have your best interests
at heart and are working for the sole
purpose of helping their clients find
their desired homes. Understandably
a few unprofessional agents may have
tarnished the general notion people
have of real estate agents, but there
are thousands of others out there who
will go the extra mile to help you real-
ize your goals.
No fees paid
Quite contrary to public opinion,
buyers do not usually pay for the
real estate agent’s commission. This
is more often than not paid by the
seller of the property. The amount
often represents a percentage of the
selling value of the property and
is later on split between the buy-
er’s agent and the seller’s agent. On
rare situations, provisions may be
made in the listing agreement for
the fees to be shared between buyer
and seller. This is very uncommon
though, and very unlikely to happen.
Professional experience
Most real estate agents have had
prior experience in selling homes.
They understand the type of prop-
erty their buyers are looking for, as
well as the accessories their imme-
diate surroundings (or the neighbor-
hood) has to offer such as schools
and medical care centers. They can
easily guide you to the ideal neigh-
borhoods which can provide you
with the type of property you want.
Equally most real estate agents have
had some experience in negotiating
and can keep a cool head and strike a
hard bargain when needed the most.
Time-saving
Finding the right property can be
very time consuming, not to talk
about monotonous and stressful.
Without knowing the right search
parameter, buyers could easily be
misled and may end up wasting
too much of their time inspecting
the wrong properties. Using a real
estate agent takes this burden away.
They have already amassed so
much knowledge and have the right
tools and information to guide you
properly.
Closing issues
It is not uncommon to hear of sev-
eral real estate deals that have bro-
ken down in the final stages of nego-
tiations due to very trivial issues.
Real estate agents know which
issues to fuss over such as request-
ing repairs and maintenance, as
well as check for any problems in
the contract which may result in
problems such as unclear titles or
mortgage delays. Real estate agents
equally keep records of their past
transactions with clients, once
again guaranteeing their clients of
future coverage from any possible
repercussions.
Adina Grossman is a Realtor with
Links Residential in Teaneck. She is
a resident of Bergen County, with
extensive knowledge of the area.
She is committed to educating her
clients and guiding them through
both the buying and selling process.
Adina is a member of the National
Association of Realtors, New Jer-
sey Association of Realtors, Eastern
Bergen County Board of Realtors,
and New Jersey Multiple Listing Ser-
vice. Call (917) 405-0094 or email to
Adina@@linksnj.com

and Polish. He has so much to say.

J J
History

immy Jim
im
“It turns out that he is a passionate
FROM PAGE 14
Zionist, interested in Jewish women’s
children during the Holocaust. He issues, teaching at the rabbinical school
became a Zionist leader in his own right. in Warsaw. He makes a couple of cam-

the Junk Man

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Then he went through a dramatic pro- eos in ‘Rooted Cosmopolitans,’ but I felt
cess and converted to Christianity. He he deserved his own story. the
the
used to be a secular socialist Zionist and
became a Catholic human rights activ- RESIDENT
“I also want to look at how this
word genocide that he invented has
ist. That explains part of why Amnesty changed. It’s gotten
WE to the point where
focuses so much on the sins of Israel.” white • supremacists talkAttabout white
Dr. Loeffler’s next project is a book genocide and Palestinians accuseDe
about Raphael Lemkin, the man who Israel of committing genocide. All
W
CALLinvented the word genocide. The
book will be about Lemkin’s “life TODAY
these groups mention Lemkin. He
comes up as a symbol in the Eastern

201-66•1845-600-5941
201-661-4940 - 4940
We “We
We do not transport solid or hazardous waste
www.thejewishstandard.com
66 JEWISH STANDARD MARCH 29, 2019
201- 6
and activism and his efforts to fight
anti-Semitism.
do know him as this crusadingnot law- say that Poles were trans
yer, this guy who suffers the Holocaust.
But he was a journalist for the Jewish
press in Warsaw for years and years. In
the 1920s and 30s, he is writing columns
and reporting in Yiddish and Hebrew
European debates about the Holo-
caust, in Ukraine and Poland. They
never anti-Semitic
because the guy who invented the
word genocide was a Polish Jew who
loved Poland. They’re ignoring the
fact that he fought Polish anti-Semi-
tism for 20 years.”
 Making your real estate dreams come true
Ruth Miron-Schleider
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308 BOOTH AVENUE $2,488,000 170 HILLSIDE AVENUE 140 GLENWOOD ROAD 320 MOUNTAIN RD $5.5M
PI CO UN J
C
CO TUR NT DER SO UST SO
LD
LO ESQ RA LD !
NI U CT !
AL E !

234 CEDAR STREET $1,498,000 286 ROBIN ROAD 285 STARLING ROAD 191 GLENWOOD ROAD
SO SO SO SO
LD LD LD LD
! ! ! !

201 ALLISON COURT 411 CUMBERLAND STREET 132 LYDECKER STREET 140 LYDECKER ROAD
SO SO SO SO
LD LD LD LD
! ! ! !

19 LEXINGTON COURT 212 MAPLE STREET BRINCKERHOFF MANOR #D5B 161 BRAYTON STREET
SO SO SO SO
LD LD LD LD
! ! ! !

184 SHERWOOD ROAD 139 MAPLE STREET 401 DOUGLAS STREET 30 SUTTON PLACE
SO SO SO SO
LD LD LD LD
! ! ! !

360 THORNTON ROAD 215 EAST LINDEN AVENUE 150 WALNUT STREET 341 MOUNTAIN ROAD

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Office: 201.266.8555 Mobile: 201.906.6024
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www.MironProperties.com JEWISH STANDARD MARCH 29, 2019 67