april 19, 2013
DESCRIPTION
The Jewish StarTRANSCRIPT
By Malka Eisenberg
On Monday evening, the Young Israel of Woodmere held a communal Yom Hazikaron and Yom Haatzmaut program, with a moving and inspiring recollection by Rabbi Raphael Pelcovitz, Rab-bi Emeritus of the White shul, of others’ reactions to the re-found-ing of Israel.
A special video presentation by Knesset member Naftali Ben-nett, addressed to the “Long Is-land” community, was screened. The men and women filling the seats of the main sanctuary at the YIW stood in silence as footage of visitors to a cemetery in Israel listening to the two minute siren heard throughout Israel on their Memorial Day was shown. Other videos shown included the funer-
als of Udi Goldwasser and Eldad Regev, two Israeli reservists who were wounded and kidnapped from Israeli territory while on pa-trol on their final day of reserve duty in 2006. Their bodies were returned to Israel two years later in a prisoner exchange.
Rabbi Hershel Billet, rav of the YIW, introduced the pro-gram. Rabbi Ariel Rackovsky, rav of the Irving Place minyan, noted that praying at Har Herzl, Israel’s military cemetery, is davening at kivrei tzadikim, the graves of the righteous. “Today we mourn their loss, tomorrow we celebrate in their merit—an impossible roller coaster of emotions,” said Rabbi Yehuda Septimus, rav of the Young Israel of North Wood-mere. The presentations were
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By Malka Eisenberg The bombings at this past Sun-
day’s Boston Marathon sent reper-cussions through the Jewish com-munity, bringing up memories of terrorist attacks in Israel and New York, wreaking horror and devas-tation in what were once peaceful places and times.
“We should understand that event as we witness in Boston, are usually a product of incitement leading to terrorism. Time will tell when we get the perpetrators,” stat-ed Eli Hertz, president and author of “Myths and Facts.” He defined incitement as “a direct or indirect repetitive hateful call via any avail-able means, including print, audio, video, public or controlled media, displays or act to deliberately in-flict physical or mental damage to
a third party non-combatants in-dividuals and groups.” He further defined terrorism as a “violent act perpetrated by individual/s or entities for the purpose of delib-erately harming or cause to harm (physically or psychologically), [to] innocent individuals, groups or humanity. Terror acts may [be] perpetrate[d] by ‘individual prac-titioners,’ or organized entities, starting with incitement, promo-tion of hate and ending with bodily and/or mental harm.”
“It is a tragic reminder of the importance of concerted and un-compromising efforts against all manifestations of terrorism and that no place has immunity,” noted Malcolm Honlein, executive vice chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jew-ish Organizations. “Not only those
Boston Marathon repercussions:
Security always tight at 5T5K race
Continued on page 3
Photo courtesy of 5T5K
Participants at finish line at previous FIDV-Five Towns 5K race.
Commemorating Yom Ha’Atzmaut:
Rabbi Pelcovitz at YIW
By Malka Eisenberg An esteemed and influential
force in Jewish education will be uniting with a new and differ-ent idea of learning this coming school year.
The goal of modernizing Jew-ish education to increase learning and decrease costs galvanized a group of Five Towns parents to form Tiferet Academy. It was to start with grades K and 1 under a plan known as blended learn-ing. Beginning in the fall of 2013, the Hebrew Academy of Long Beach (HALB) will be absorbing
Tiferet Academy into its student body, incorporating its principles of blended learning into the cur-riculum of HALB’s 1700-student campuses.
Tiferet Academy’s founding was heralded in early Fall 2012 as a lower tuition school that would provide a typical class with var-ied learning opportunities, divid-ing the class into three groups, rotating through three different modes of instruction. One group would be led by a teacher, anoth-er group would work on activities supervised by an assistant and a third group would be involved in
online instruction. This method was found to increase the stu-dents’ abilities and growth in learning.
“Tiferet decided that instead of opening as an independent school they would change or im-prove HALB instead,” explained Jeff Kiderman, the Executive Di-rector of the Affordable Jewish Education Project (AJE). “When HALB and Tiferet decided to merge we supported them and we are now supporting the inte-grated program in HALB, to try to adopt blended learning tech-
HALB and Tiferet merge to benefit Jewish education
Continued on page 3
Continued on page 6
Photo by Malka Eisenberg
Rabbi Raphael Pelcovitz de-livering keynote address.
Inside
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YOM HAZIKARON AT THE KOTELTwo soldiers, sporting sfira beards, standing guard at the Kotel on Yom Hazikaron, Memorial Day in Israel. Friends of the editor go annually to the Western Wall to “pray for the souls of the holy ones who fell in the sanctifi-cation of G-d’s name, the nation and the land. Our hearts filled with pride seeing these two young bearded soldiers standing guard by our holiest site and paying respect to those who died. In which army in the world would future officers be Jews, unshaven with beards in an honor guard for reasons of religion and conscience? It is an honor and a merit to take part in defending the nation and the land and pay respect to these righteous ones. May the Holy One Blessed Be He watch and save our soldiers from all suf-fering, dire straits, injury, and disease and send blessings and success in all they do, their enemies should fall under them, and they should be crowned with salvation and victory.Chag sameach, Yehuda and Tova”
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bracketed by mincha and maariv and the recitation of a perek of Tehillim (psalm) for those injured in the bombing at the Boston Marathon.
Following videos of the first prime minister of Israel, David Ben-Gurion, reading Israel’s Declaration of Indepen-dence and a video of the prayer for the State of Israel, a video greeting by Naftali Bennett was shown. He recalled his friend Emanuel Moreno who was killed in a special mission in Lebanon years ago. He noted that 70% of Israelis agree on 70% of things. He explained that his goal is to “close the social-economic gap, to restore Jewish identity to Israel” not-ing that we are all links in a 3,800 year old chain of the na-tion of Israel, the Torah of Israel in the Land of Israel.
With the assistance of two men, Rabbi Pelcovitz, a rav who witnessed all the events in modern Israel over its 65 years, slowly climbed the steps to the podium. “All of you are part of this magnificent celebration,” he said, noting that the videos of Israel’s history “transported us back to the estab-lishment of the State on Hay (the 5th) of Iyar.” He stressed that one “can’t question the importance of the centrality of Eretz Yisrael in Hashkafas HaTorah” and “saw a tremendous change even within the Torah world, including the Yeshiva world.”
In 1960, he recounted, his father was living in Bnei Brak. The younger Pelcovitz went to visit the original Ponevitcher Rav, Rav Kahaneman to say “shalom” on Yom Haatzmaut. (Rav Pelcovitz noted that Rav Kahaneman’s only surviv-ing son from the Shoah lived in Far Rockaway at the time.) While at Ponevitch, the Rav’s wife ran in, upset that the Is-raeli flag on the yeshiva had been taken down. The Pono-vitcher smiled and replied in Yiddish, “You have to hang it up again.” “ On Yom Haatzmaut,” emphasized Rabbi Pelcovitz, “they flew the flag.”
On the day the Medina (State) was established, contin-ued Pelcovitz, he heard that the menahel of Torah Vodaas, Rabbi Shraga Feivel Mendelowitz, was “so overcome with the importance and historical importance of the day and the moment, that he said to his talmidim (students), ‘there is a thought from Rav Tzadok Hacohen in the story of the Maa-pilim in Parshat Shlach that they tried to force the hand of Hakodosh Baruch Hu (G-d), when the meraglim (spies) came back and said ‘we can’t conquer this land’ and Yehoshua and Calev said ‘aloh naaleh vyarashnu ohtah’ (let us arise and inherit it). This group was not prepared to wait for permis-sion to enter the land and went up the mountain. Moshe said ‘don’t do it, it’s not the time’—‘vhi lo titzlach’—this time it will not work, this time you can’t force G-d’s hand, with-out getting reshut (permission), but there will be a time in Jewish history when the Jews, even though they will not be
given permission and receive a sign from heaven, (can) force the hand and go back to Eretz Yisrael. Rabbi Mendelowitz said, ‘This is the time.’ This is yeshivish tradition, rooted and steeped in the Torah.”
When the State was established, said Pelcovitz, there was no guarantee that it would be successful. “Sixty-five years later, we are celebrating the anniversary. It is hashgachas Hashem—we are an interesting and strange people, we live with dreams and manage to survive.”
He recounted when the Chofetz Chaim was visiting with the original Rav Yoshe Ber Soloveitchik and a delegation from Brisk requested from the then disillusioned rov to be-come the Rav of their 30,000 Jews. When he agreed because so many wanted him, the Chofetz Chaim cried, saying—so why doesn’t Moshiach come with so many Jews waiting for Moshiach, and he was answered-because they don’t really mean it. If they really meant it, he would come. And in this case, he said, it didn’t come from the Torah world it came from Jews estranged from Torah—it is not for us to under-stand. “We have been matzliach (successful) and we were matzliach and we are celebrating Yom Haatzmaut,” stressed Pelcovitz.
He noted that the name “Atzmaut” bothers him, that Jews have other words for freedom, chayrut, dror, even chofesh. The secret of our success, he stressed, is our dependence on Divine assistance and involvement, and the miracles that we
saw since the War of Liberation, the Six-Day-War and all theother battles--that Tzahal (IDF) is dependent on hashgachasHashem.
He recalled the story of the Sadigura Rebbe who, as aleader of the Jewish community in Austria, was forced by the Nazis to sweep the streets. He prayed, “let me be worthy tosweep the streets in Eretz Yisrael.” When he was forced tohang the Nazi flag on the highest building, he prayed, “some-day let me hang a flag of a Jewish medina (country) in EretzYisrael.” Eventually he was saved and went to Israel and opened a Beit Midrash (study hall/synagogue) in Tel Aviv. Everyday he would sweep the sidewalk in front of his shteibleand on Yom Haatzmaut, he hung the Israeli flag on the roofof the synagogue on Allenby Street, saying, “My prayers wereanswered.”
“We grow older and we lose our strength,” said Rabbi Pel-covitz, “You are as young as your faith, and as old as yourdoubts, as young as your courage and as old as your fears and as old as your despair. Never lose faith, courage or hope.”
Do not ask for ratification, agreement or legitimacy of the State of Israel, he said. “After 65 years we have not been able to crack the walls that separate us from the people of the world…know that Hashgachas Hashem was with us at alltimes; our existence is not dependent upon the acceptanceof the world. They can refuse to recognize us—we have the legitimacy from the Sovereign of the Universe.”
Five Towns community gathers for Yom HaatzmautContinued from page 1
Continued from page 1who carry out such attacks but also those who aid and abet them, incite or encourage such acts must be held to account. This was an act of terror regardless of whether it involved foreign elements. Such acts are called terror because they seek to spread fear, to coerce, intimidate, and we have to show resolve, determination to fight them. Often we are told that it was a lone actor and then we find out that they were indoctrinated in prison, by a cleric, during a visit to another country.”
At the end of the Young Israel of Woodmere’s gathering for Yom Hazikaron and Yom Haatzmaut (Israel’s Memorial Day and Independence Day), the participants recited a perek of Tehilim (psalm) for those injured in the blast. The national Council of Young Isreal released a statement: “The National Council of Young Israel joins with the entire nation as we share our grief and concern with the people of Boston in the aftermath of this horrific tragedy. This senseless act of vio-lence is an unfortunate reminder of the vigilance that must always endure despite the freedoms that we are privileged to enjoy. Our thoughts and prayers are with the families who lost loved ones in this heinous attack and with all those who sustained injuries as a result of the bombings. We also com-mend the heroic first responders who immediately sprang into action and cared for the wounded, comforted the grief-stricken, and helped maintain a sense of calm in the midst
of complete chaos. We may have been the target of a deadly attack, but we are confident that our law enforcement of-ficials will apprehend the perpetrators of the bombings and bring them to justice. In the face of great adversity and try-ing times, the American spirit will prevail and our democratic values will persevere.”
The Friends of Israel Disabled Veterans Five Towns 5K race will be held at North Woodmere Park on Branch Bou-levard in North Woodmere on Sunday, April 21st. “We will take every possible precaution that the Nassau County Police Department can muster,” said Kenneth Lack, Commanding Officer and Inspector at Nassau County Police Department. He did emphasize that there is “no terrorist threat against any institution or event in Nassau County.” He said that the police will survey the route and provide any additional secu-rity that is necessary and will implement “some things but won’t publicize them.”
Dr. Isaac Seinuk, the race director, noted the high level of security in every year’s race, and stressed the importance of the charity, raising funds and awareness for Israeli disabled veterans and the Beit Halochem centers in Israel that help the veterans. He also emphasized the feeling of community and fun inherent in such an event. “Every year the Nassau County police and the auxiliary police have come out in force to make the 5Towns 5K a great event and a safe event for all the participants. Last week, before any thing had hap-pened in Boston, they had committed 15 auxiliary police and
5 regular Nassau County police in addition to 8 patrol cars to insure the safety of the 5 Towns 5k. In the past we have had similar numbers, which is a testament to the commit-ment that our local police have in insuring the safety of our participants and our community in general. Granted, due to the events in Boston, we will be more vigilant, but every year I had, along with the park director, done a complete sweep of the park prior to the run. This will be done again this year.I have confidence in the safety of all the participants, young and old, and this has been reflected in the response from thecommunity as people are not hesitating to sign up. I wouldsay to people who have not yet signed up: Don’t miss out on one of the safest and most fun events in our community that you can do in support of a charity. “
To date, 250 people have registered for the race, said Sei-nuk. He is expecting an additional 300 participants to join on Sunday. Some participants are looking at the race as a challenge he said “excited about trying to finish first in theirage groups.” Others are looking forward to walking the routewith their children and grandchildren, he added.
“I participate in many different races: running, open wa-ter swimming , and triathlon.,” he reflected. “The feeling of good will to one another that there is among the participantscan always be felt. It saddens me that someone or some peo-ple should cause harm to that positive feeling by their actions in Boston. “
For more information go to www.5towns5K.org.
Jewish leaders comment on Boston bombings
Photo by Malka Eisenberg
Participants filled the benches of the festively decorated YIW for the communal Yom Hazikaron/YomHaatzmaut program sponsored by 14 congregations from the Greater Five Towns and Far Rockaway
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Opinion
N ews of the approaching Gosnell trial began to appear on conservative web-sites in January, but as the gruesome
proceedings entered its fourth week, much of the liberal media was ignoring the proceed-ings.
Breitbart.com posted a picture showing the roped off press area of the Gosnell court-room; it was empty.
For some liberals, the trial of “Doctor” Kermit Gosnell is about abortion rights, but as liberal columnist Kirstin Powers (who is pro-choice) wrote the other day, it’s about barbaric murder:
“Infant beheadings. Severed baby feet in jars. A child screaming after it was delivered
alive during an abor-tion procedure. Haven’t heard about these sick-ening accusations?
It’s not your fault. Since the murder trial of Pennsylvania abor-tion doctor Kermit Gos-nell began March 18, there has been precious little coverage of the case that should be on every news show and front page. The revolt-ing revelations of Gos-nell’s former staff, who have been testifying to what they witnessed and did during late-term abortions, should
shock anyone with a heart.NBC-10 Philadelphia reported that, Ste-
phen Massof, a former Gosnell worker, “de-scribed how he snipped the spinal cords of babies, calling it, ‘literally a beheading. It is separating the brain from the body.” One for-mer worker, Adrienne Moton, testified that Gosnell taught her his “snipping” technique to use on infants born alive. “
Massof, who, like some of the other wit-nesses, had himself pleaded guilty to serious crimes, testified “It would rain fetuses. Fetus-es and blood all over the place.”
The Associated Press published a story about the Massof testimony that he saw 100 babies born and then snipped: “Staffer de-scribes chaos at PA abortion clinic.” Snipped? That sounds like a haircut! These live babies were murdered!
There has been scant coverage of the trial of this barbaric monster who killed live ba-bies at will, practiced his “medicine” in squal-id conditions (according to the nurses had nicer rooms for the white patients because the doctor said whites would complain). Gos-nell also killed a woman during a botched procedure.
According to the Washington Post earlier
this week, the reason the trial hadn’t been covered was they didn’t know about it.
Martin Baron, The Post’s executive editor, said the lack of coverage had nothing to do with bias; instead he offered a more mun-dane rationale for the newspaper’s lack of coverage: He wasn’t aware of the story until Thursday night April 11 when readers began e-mailing him about it (the trail began mid-March). “I wish I could be conscious of all stories everywhere, but I can’t be,” he said. “Nor can any of us.”
He pointed to the fact the media appears to be responding to the criticism. CNN de-voted multiple segments to the story Friday. CBS said it plans two segments and MSNBC discussed the trial on its “Morning Joe” pro-gram Monday. The Post ran a full AP report on it in Saturday’s editions; the paper has also assigned its own reporter to cover the trial in Philadelphia this week.
“We talked about the story during the day on Friday and decided that, in fact, the story warranted our staff attention because of the seriousness and scope of the alleged crimes and because this was a case that resonated in policy arguments and national politics,” said Baron. “In retrospect, we regret not having staffed the trial sooner. But, as you know, we don’t have unlimited resources, and . . . there is a lot of competition for our staff’s atten-tion.”
Added Baron, “We never decide what to cover for ideological reasons, no matter what critics might claim. Accusations of ideologi-cal motives are easy to make, even if they’re not supported by the facts.”
Isn’t it incredible how the mostly part-time journalists in the blog world knew all about the Gosnell trial but a large newsgath-ering organization like the Washington Post knew nothing? How did they find out about the Jodie Arias trial in Texas, but not the se-rial killer on trial in Pennsylvania?
How can the Washington Post which edi-torially supports Barack Obama’s gun control push because it’s “for the children” but knows nothing about a mass murder trial where up to 100 newborn babies had their spinal cords severed with a scissors.
The Post offered another supposed ex-cuse; the right wing media didn’t cover it either—that too was a lie –coverage began over two years ago.
Michelle Malkin wrote in a column on Jan-uary 21, 2011:
In the City of Brotherly Love, hundreds of babies were murdered by a scissors-wielding monster over four decades. Whistleblowers informed public officials at all levels of the wanton killings of innocent life. But a parade of government health bureaucrats and advo-cates protecting the abortion racket looked
the other way — until, that is, a Philadelphia grand jury finally exposed the infanticide factory run by abortionist Kermit B. Gosnell, M.D., and a crew of unlicensed, untrained butchers masquerading as noble providers of women’s “choice.”
Columnist Mark Steyn, February 10, 2011: As I was leaving Fox News last night, I
glanced up at the monitor and caught Juan Williams expressing mystification to Sean Hannity as to why Republicans in Congress were wasting the country’s time on a “little thing” like abortion.
Gee, I dunno. Maybe it’s something to do with a mass murderer in Pennsylvania, or Planned Parenthood clinics facilitating the sex trafficking of minors. From the Office of the District Attorney in Philadelphia:
Viable babies were born. Gosnell killed them by plunging scissors into their spinal cords. He taught his staff to do the same.
This is a remarkable moment in American life: A man is killing actual living, gurgling, bouncing babies on an industrial scale – and it barely makes the papers.
Here’s Rich Lowry, Feb. 4, 2011: The nightmarish case of the Philadelphia
abortionist Kermit Gosnell and the sting vid-eo of a counselor at a Planned Parenthood clinic cooperating with a supposed pimp, show the dignity of women is decidedly sec-ondary. The 261-page grand-jury report in the Gosnell case could have been written by Stephen King. Gosnell’s gruesome operation was, on its own terms, highly efficient. Dur-ing the day, his assistants administered labor-inducing drugs to pregnant women, over-whelmingly poor minorities. Then the good doctor showed up in the evening. On some women, he performed traditional abortions, occasionally butchering them in the process. Other women had delivered babies before he arrived. Here, he performed post-birth abor-tions–
The Washington Post and the other Lib-eral outlets were very quick to pick up David Corn’s tape of Mitch McConnell’s office that turned out to be falsely transcribed but they had no idea about the trial of a mass mur-derer, which conservative outlets have been reporting about for over three years
Does Kirsten Powers have an alert system that much better than the WAPO and other liberal outlets? Or is there a reluctance to cover the story because liberal outlets believe the case is about abortion—it’s not. This sto-ry is about the murder of an adult woman and newborn infants.
Jeff Dunetz is the Editor/Publisher of the political blog “The Lid” (www.jeffdunetz.com).
Letter to the editorFreedom of speech?
Dear Friends:This is an open letter which concludes
with a notice of cancellation of Sunday’s event at the Great Neck Synagogue.
The synagogue, and particularly Rabbi Polakoff, merit a debt from American Jewry for an instinctive understanding of the need to awaken us all to a gathering storm. In theend, the pressure from left-wing Jews, de-liberate media ignorance, “shtetl” mentality which informs that a problem goes away ifyou ignore / do not discuss it; and the re-sulting enormous cost burden for securityand the fear engendered in our school kids’parents - was simply too great a cost for thesynagogue to bear. I understand it and none of us have the right to demand a differentoutcome. We do, however, have that absoluteobligation in a larger context.
This is a national Jewish responsibility and our Jewish defense organizations have been woefully derelict. They expertly cata-logue the murderous and or violent attacks on Jews in America with complete accuracy. They disclose that anti-Semitism is by far the greatest hatred per capita. Yet they engage in uni-directional dialogue with dubious part-ners who support or who themselves partner with supporters of those who plot against us – here, abroad and in Israel.
Let us note that experts on Islamic ex-tremism did not speak at the El Al counterin Los Angeles or the JCC in Seattle or any ofthe hundreds of other U.S. locations where Jews have been attacked or murdered al kid-dush Hashem. Pam Geller has never set foot in the Riverdale Jewish Center which Mus-lim extremists sought to bomb last year, nor any of these other places. The containment of our free speech is a dangerous ruse. Thatwe all pay for security for years at Great Neck Synagogue is not a reaction to “speakers.” It is because there are those who have evil de-signs on us.
As the extremists are protected by the “tikkun olamers” and the leftists; as our op-ponents gain more influence in this greatcountry, our situation will become moreprecarious. Security and related costs will continue to increase with NO speakers. Can you imagine the debates which will now en-sue internally anytime there is a proposalfor ANY speaker who touches upon sensitive subjects? I assure you that we will self-censor to a greater extent going forward.
Our synagogue did what it HAD TO DO.However, it bodes ill for all of us. OUR com-munity was convulsed, but the Islamists and their enablers won. Rabbi Davidson – he of
POLITICO TO GO
Jeff Dunetz
The Gosnell murder trial: An exercise in Liberal media bias
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From left, Jeffrey Wiesenfeld, Pamela Geller, Dr. Paul Brody at Great Neck Chabad. Wiesenfeld and Brody were instrumental in having Geller speak in Great Neck. Rabbi Yosef Geisinsky of Great Neck Chabad invited her to speak when her appearance was can-celed from another synagogue.
Continued on page 15
C omments by two friends of mine con-cerning the link between the recently deceased former British Prime Minister,
Margaret Thatcher and the Jewish people prompts this week’s review; this time, a re-view of essays, not of books.
Ashley Rogoff of London wrote: “From a Jewish perspective, she was a warm friend of the Jews and represented a constituency with a large Jewish population. She had a great affinity with Jewish work ethic values, as reflected in her ennoblement of Lord Jaco-bovitz to the House of Lords, the first Chief Rabbi to do so. He was often referred to as her ‘archbishop’ – she had little time for the Christian incumbent of that post.”
British trained Rabbi Jeremy Rosen, now of the Persian Syna-gogue in New York dif-fered:
“But it’s also true that she was respon-sible for the policy of appeasing and empow-ering the largely Mus-lim immigrants and turning a blind eye to their extremism. But, that could be a culture thing, the old English attitude of appease-ment that only acts when it’s almost too
late.”A fascinating aspect of her biography ap-
peared in an essay in Tablet Magazine, De-cember 28, 2011, entitled, “Thatcher and the Jews” by historian Charles C. Johnson.
“The woman who reshaped British poli-
tics and served as prime minister from 1979 –1990 often said that her greatest accom-plishment was helping save a young Austrian girl from the Nazis. In 1938, Edith Muhlbau-er, a 17-year old Jewish girl, wrote to Murial Roberts, Edith’s pen pal and the future prime minister’s older sister, asking if the Roberts family might help her escape Hitler’s Austria. The Nazis had begun rounding up the first of Vienna’s Jews after Anschluss, and Edith and her family worried she might be next. Alfred Roberts, Margaret and Murial’s father, was a small-town grocer; the family had nei-ther the time nor the money to take Edith in. So Margaret, then 12, and Murial, 17, set about raising funds and persuading the local Rotary club to help.”
“Edith stayed with more than a dozen Ro-tary families, including the Robertses, for the next two years, until she could move to join relatives in South America. Edith bunked in Margaret’s room, and she left an impression. ‘She was 17, tall, beautiful, evidently from a well-to-do family,’ Thatcher later wrote in her memoir. But most important, ‘she told us what it was like to live as a Jew under an anti-Semitic regime. One thing Edith re-ported particularly stuck in my mind: The Jews, she said, were being made to scrub the streets.’ For Thatcher, who believed in meaningful work, this was as much a waste as it was an outrage. Had the Roberts not in-tervened, Edith recalled years later, ‘I would have stayed in Vienna and they would have killed me.’ Thatcher never forgot the lesson; ‘Never hesitate to do whatever you can, for you may save a life,’ she told an audience in 1995 after Edith had been found located, alive and well, in Brazil.”
Johnson also wrote:“Thatcher’s philo-Semitism went beyond the people she ap-pointed to her government; it had clear po-litical implications as well. She made Jewish causes her own, including by easing the re-strictions on prosecuting Nazi war criminals living in Britain and pleading the cause of the Soviet Union’s refuseniks. She boasted that she once made Soviet officials ‘nervous’ by repeatedly bringing up the refusniks’ plight during a single nine-hour meeting with Gorbachev. ‘The Soviets had to know that every time we met their treatment of the refusniks would be thrown back at them,’ she explained in her book, The Downing Street Years.
Johnson also cites many negative aspects concerning British relationships in the Mid-dle East. Nevertheless, Johnson maintains that her core values as seen in her absolute intolerance of anti-Jewish bigotry was un-common in British politics of that time,and her appointment of a large, record number of Jews to high public office, was deeply ap-preciated by the British Jewish community.
As for Soviet Jewry, Colin Schindler in the April 11, 2013 Jewish Chronicle of London, wrote, “In Her Fury, I Saw Values Alien To Us,” wherein he attributed her concerns on this issue to her anti-Communist political be-liefs, something that I would find to be an ideological virtue and not a vice.
In another fascinating essay, this one in The Jewish Chronicle of April 4, 2013, en-titled “Her Bond With Lord Jakobovits Was Profound – and It Helped Save Shechita,” reveals a previously little known episode in the late prime minister’s relationship with the Jewish community. The writer, Shimon
Cohen, a member of the chief rabbi’s staff at that time, goes into some detail concerning the availability of shechita. “Much has been written of the special bond between Baron-ess Thatcher and Lord Jakobovits.” This wasa relationship that was to loom large to both of them in the years to come.
“When shechita came under attack in thelate 1980s, Dayan Berger and I went to seethe Agriculture Minister, John Gummer. Hewanted to help us but was under pressure from animal groups. He suggested that the matter would only be resolved if the Chief Rabbi approached the Prime Minister.
“Lord Jakobovits was hesitant, reluctantto circumvent the formal process. But so se-rious was the situation, that he recognizedthat his relationship with the PM was theonly card left to play. In a private meetingin her flat above Number 10, a deal washatched which secured shechita. The PM’sclear statement of support has been success-fully won from every successor.” If I am not mistaken, no other European head of state has ever performed so effectively in the mat-ter of the performance of shechita.
Also, “Baroness Thatcher was in awe ofLord Jakobovits’ passion for Jewish educa-tion and Jewish schools.” This began whenshe was Education minister in a previousgovernment and continued for all her years as PM. “He taught her why Jewish educa-tion is the security of our people and why thebond between Jews of the Diaspora and theState of Israel is so vital to our future.”
There are many other reactions to theThatcher legacy concerning the Jewish peo-ple, much too numerous to detail here. How-ever, in her long tenure as PM, she set the mark that served to help enhance the British Jewish community’s quality of life, a legacy that will be deeply appreciated in the annalsof world Jewish history in the many years tocome.
Alan Jay Gerber
The Kosher Bookworm
A review of the Thatcher Jewish connection
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niques as an affordability tool.”AJE was founded at the end of 2011,
noted Kiderman. The organization started with Mark Nordlicht, AJE’s lay leader. “The goal of AJE is high quality affordable Jewish education available to every Jewish child,” Kiderman said. They are attempting to cus-tomize the curriculum for each child, target-ing each child’s individual needs and yet save on costs with this method.
“Depending on the school,” noted Kider-man, instituting the program “can require upfront investments of hardware, infrastruc-ture, training. New schools are not funda-mentally non-blended learning” since many already include computer based learning. ‘Starting a new school takes tremendous ef-fort, tremendous resources. If the same goal can be accomplished with an existing struc-ture, it makes a lot of sense. HALB bought into the same mission; with a school of that size, if the leadership is on board and wants to pursue it, there is no need to start a school from scratch.”
There have been a lot of inquiries, said Kiderman, with schools asking “can you
work with us. We want to choose based on which schools are best suited and willing and able. The BOLD (Blended & Online Leraning in Day Schools) program launched a national search to find schools to embark on this jour-ney.” The hope is to “take the mission of AJE and Tiferet and launch it into the environ-ment where” it would present “a tremendous opportunity to have a tremendous impact and potential.”
“We decided to join with Tiferet and the AJE because we believe that we have similar objectives in terms of incorporating educational technology into our program-ming,” said Lance Hirt, president of HALB. “We have been working on many initiatives geared toward delivering an outstanding aca-demic program and have found that technol-ogy will play an increasingly central role in that over time. In addition, we believe that over the longer time frame, technology may allow us to better manage the overall educa-tional expense as well. The more time that we spent with the AJE/Tiferet leadership, the more convinced we became that they would be able to be much more effective working within the walls of an existing school with
some 1700 students rather than starting from scratch with one or two classes. We also became convinced that we share the same vi-sion and objectives for what technology can do to enhance the educational process. We are very much aligned in our thinking and are excited to work together. Rabbi Avromie Sacks will continue to be employed by the AJE but will be spending his time rolling out blended learning programs at HALB. We are very excited to have Rabbi Sacks working in partnership with HALB in this effort.
“We are not yet sure how many kids will be joining from Tiferet. We hope that they all decide to join us at HALB. Tiferet was plan-ning to open with K and 1st grade. Within HALB, there will not be any separate entity. Everything will be fully integrated. Having said that, we will initially only be rolling out blended learning programs in certain classes. We hope to do more over time.”
As of now, HALB is not sure which classes will have blended learning. Hirt confirmed that K and 1st grade would have blended learning as Tiferet had planned, but since there are a number of classes on each grade level, it is as yet uncertain how many would
incorporate blended learning. There is a“decent chance that we will role out some other blended learning pilot programs in other grades as well over the course of the upcoming school year,” said Hirt. He pointedout that they will begin use of the techniques with secular courses, expecting to use it even-tually for Jewish studies, as well.
HALB, with branches in Long Beach,Woodmere and Hewlett Bay Park, has beenproviding an education steeped in halachicJudaism, in Torah and its Oral tradition, re-ligious Zionism, scholastic achievement andpersonal growth to students for over 40 years
HALB and Tiferet unite in BOLD moveContinued from page 1
Courtesy HALB
Tiferet Academy is scheduled to join with HALB in the fall of 2013.
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By VIKAS GIRDHAR
The Hempstead Town Board members present at Town Hall on April 9 voted 5-1 in favor of a new redistricting map, which drew the ire of some residents there for the vote.
The one dissenting vote on the plan was Councilman James Darcy’s, whose district lost part of the Five Towns area.
Town Supervisor Kate Murray was absent from the hear-ing. Councilman Anthony Santino moderated instead. San-tino said Murray was at home and under the weather.
The approved map is made up of six districts “of virtually equal population,” Michael Deery, communications director for the Town of Hempstead, told the Herald. Deery said that Town Attorney Joseph Ra oversaw the redistricting work and made sure that it conformed to state and federal laws. He also said that bipartisan support on the town board helped protect minority voters’ voices.
Residents took turns expressing their concerns and rais-ing questions to the board about the map, which sets voting districts for the next election and all others until after a new census is conducted in 2020. Many residents’ questions and comments expressed accusations of gerrymandering — re-shaping districts for political gain — on the part of Repub-lican town officials and what they described as too little at-tention paid to demographic shifts in minority populations.
Uniondale residents in particular were upset that parts of their area were being referred to as East Garden City.
Steve Anchin, the Hewlett Democratic zone leader, said he believes that town officials have created the new map for their own interests and without regard for the recent census.
“When redistricting is based on political goals and ger-rymandered to give one party an advantage, it is to the detriment of citizens,” Anchin said. “It should be nonparti-san and there should be a nonpartisan commission for dis-tricts to comply with the population numbers from the new census.”
Santino, who represents the Fourth District, said that the new map is based on equalizing population and follows spe-cific guidelines.
“We make sure that each district is as near in equal popu-lation as possible,” Santino said. “That’s one of the purposes of redistricting. The map is proposed by the town and com-plies with the Constitution, the Voting Rights Act and all ap-plicable federal laws. Redistricting accounts for the concept of ‘one man, one vote.’”
The Democratic Committee and the League of Women Voters of Nassau County separately presented their own maps to counter the town Republicans’ proposal. Speakers from both groups stressed the need for two minority-majority
districts, which are districts in which a majority of residents are members of racial minorities.
Democratic Committee First Deputy Leader Bob Young said that the district boundaries should have better reflected communities of common interests. Young promised a lawsuit against the town.
Barbara Epstein, co-president of the League of Women Voters of Nassau County, said that she is advocating for fair and transparent planning from the Town of Hempstead and for the creation of a second minority-majority district.
Epstein also said that an issue of such importance de-serves to be discussed in more than one morning meeting.
“We believe that the redistricting of Hempstead’s coun-cilmanic districts has significant ramifications for the people of the town [and should not] have just one hearing,” Epstein said. “Today should not be the only opportunity to address the redistricting, which will have lasting effects on all of us for the next 10 years.”
Ra said that the opportunity to create a second minority-majority district did not present itself because District Onewas overpopulated and had to be reshuffled a bit, but was still kept 99.4 percent intact. District One is represented by Dorothy Goosby, the only Democrat on the board.
Deery told the Herald that the maps presented by the Democratic Committee and League of Women Voters of Nas-sau County would have actually been counter-productivewith regard to the voice of minorities.
“The town’s councilmanic redistricting vigorously safe-guards the voting rights of minority voters,” Deery said.“[The] two alternative council district maps presented byother organizations at the April 9 meeting actually diluted the voting power of certain minority communities in coun-cil district one. Indeed, one of the alternative maps actually split the Village of Hempstead in half, dividing it between two council districts, thereby weakening the voice of the larg-est geographic community in our township with a substantialminority population.”
Supervisor Murray and Councilman Darcy were both un-available for comment.
Town Board OKs redistricting plan
Vikas Girdhar/Herald
Councilman Anthony Santino moderated the hear-ing on redistricting and addressed concerns of an-gry residents on April 9.
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Kashruth questions? Email Andy Lauber at [email protected]
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By Rabbi David Etengoff
Dedicated to the sacred memories of my mother, Miriam Tovah bat Aharon Hakohen, father-in-law, Levi ben Yitzhak, sister-in-law, Ruchama Rivka Sondra, sister, Shulamit bat Menachem, Shifra bat Chaim Alter, and Yeho-natan Binyamin ben Mordechai Meir Halevi, and the refuah shlaimah of Yosef Shmuel ben Miriam.
You shall commit no injustice in judg-ment; you shall not favor a poor person or respect a great man; you shall judge your fel-low with righteousness. (Sefer Vayikra 19:15, this and all Bible translations, The Judaica Press Complete Tanach)
Our underlined phrase, “you shall judge your fellow with righteousness,” is found in the second of the two parshiot we read this Shabbat. As noted in Talmud Bavli, Shevuot 30a, one of the interpretations of this ex-pression is the obligation to judge our fel-low Jews in a favorable fashion: “Our Rab-bis taught: ‘You shall judge your fellow with righteousness’ - judge your neighbor to the side of merit (Hevay dan et chaverchah l’kaf zechut).” This idea is echoed in the famous words of Rabbi Yehoshua ben Perachyah, head of the Sanhedrin in the latter half of the 2nd century BCE: “Establish a permanent and lasting connection with your Rabbi, ac-quire a friend (i.e. intimate confidant), and judge all people in a meritorious manner.” (Pirkei Avot 1:6)
At first blush, it appears that the exhor-tation to “judge all people in a meritorious
manner” may very well be a morally positiveact devoid of any clear halachic mandate - i.e., a mere description of ideal behavior that lacks prescriptive force. In reality, however,nothing could be further from the truth. Noless than two 13th century giants among the Rishonim (11th-15th century Torah Sages),the anonymous author of the Sefer HaChi-nuch and Rabbeinu Yonah in his Shaarei Teshuvah (Gate III, section 218), assert thatthe action (ma’aseh) of judging one’s fellow to the side of merit is a fulfillment (kiyum) of “…You shall judge your fellow with righ-teousness.” Therefore, it is a positive Torahcommandment that is counted in the TaryagMitzvot (613 Commandments). Accordingly, the Sefer HaChinuch states:
Moreover, included in this commandment[you shall judge your fellow with righteous-ness] is the concept that it is fitting and prop-er for everyone to judge his friend in a posi-tive way. As such, he should only interpret someone’s actions and words in a virtuous manner… The underlying reason inherent inthis mitzvah is to engender peace and good will between all people. We, therefore, find that the essence and overall intention of thisDivine directive is to facilitate peace in thecommunities of men – through fair, gener-ous, and righteous judgment – replete with the removal of any doubts regarding the in-tentions of their fellow man’s actions. (Rabbi Chaim Dov Chavel edition, Commandment 217)
Rabbeinu Yonah (op. cit.) provides uswith a well-defined roadmap for implement-
Parshiot Acharei Mot - Kedoshim
Judge your fellow man favorably
Continued on page 9
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WE MUST NEVER FORGETPlease join us on Wednesday, April 24th at 7pm at the
Hewlett-Woodmere Public Library to view the documentary film, The Lion of Judah, Leo Zisman’s fascinating story of his
journey surviving the Holocaust
THE LION OF JUDAH THE TRUE STORY OF A BRAVE SOUL
Sponsored by The Five Towns Community Chest, The Jewish Community Center of the Greater Five Towns, The Jewish Star, and The Nassau Herald
The use of the Library and Gold Hall is appreciated by our community.
Questions and Answers to follow
Meet and greet author Leo Zisman. Autographed books will be available
for purchase, with proceeds going to support the JCC’s Holocaust Survivors Program.
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ing this commandment in our daily lives:Behold, when you see someone that says a
certain thing, or performs a particular action wherein you can judge his words or actions in either a negative or positive manner, if the one who has performed this act is known to be a G-d-fearing individual (yireh Elokim), then you are obligated to judge him as being absolutely guiltless in this behavior. This is the case, even if the matter – upon due reflec-tion – logically appears to place him in the category of one who is, indeed, guilty.
If the individual who has performed the questionable action is considered to be on the middle level (bainoni) of human behavior i.e., wherein he usually is careful and holds himself back from sinning – yet, on occasion, does sin – here, too, one should remove his doubts regarding the actor’s undefined con-duct and judge him as being guiltless. (Un-derlining my own)
Fulfilling this commandment, and the concomitant development of the middah (ethical characteristic) of judging one’s fel-low man favorably, were deemed to be so important in the overall scheme of Jewish living that our Sages declared: “One who judges his fellow man in a positive manner will be rewarded by having the Omnipresent One (haMakom) judge him in a positive fash-ion.” (Talmud Bavli, Shabbat 127) Therefore, Rabbeinu Yonah concluded this section with the following words: “[In the case of the bai-noni,] if the action appears to be negative in nature, you should perceive it as only being doubtfully so (k’mo safek) – and do not judge him as being guilty.”
It should be noted that we extend the ben-efit of the doubt only to the yireh Elokim and the bainoni. A rasha (one whose behaviors are deemed to be consistently negative and in purposeful violation of the Torah’s ethics and values) who performs problematic ac-tions, however, is judged as guilty in order to protect the fabric of society from being ripped asunder.
Rabbi Baruch Halevi Epstein (1860-1941), author of the monumental commentary on the Torah entitled, Torah Temimah, opined that the halachic principle underlying the Torah obligation to judge all men favorably is that of chezkat kashrut (the pre-existent assumption of positive status). Fascinating-ly, this legal concept is partially echoed in American jurisprudence wherein the general operating norm is the presumption of inno-cence:
presumption of innocence noun a fun-damental protection for a person accused of a crime, which requires the prosecution to prove its case against the defendant be-yond a reasonable doubt. This is opposite from the criminal law in many countries, where the accused is considered guilty until he/she proves his/her innocence or the gov-ernment completely fails to prove its case.
(Gerald N. Hill and Kathleen T. Hill, http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Innocent+until+proven+guilty)
The above sources and commentaries al-low us to understand Chazal’s (our Sages) prologue to each chapter of Pirkei Avot: “Ev-ery member of the Jewish people has a share in the World to Come, as the text states: (Sefer Yeshiyahu 60:21): ‘And your people are all righteous, they shall inherit the land forever. They are the branch of My planting, the work of My hand in which to take pride.’” (Underlining my own)
May each of us be zocheh (merit) to judge our fellow man favorably and with mercy and compassion. Then, we, too, will be among those about whom our Sages de-clared: “One who judges his fellow man in a positive manner will be rewarded by having the Omnipresent One (haMakom) judge him in a positive fashion.” V’chane yihi ratzon.
Shabbat ShalomPast drashot may be found at my blog-
website: http://reparashathashavuah.orgThe email list, b’chasdei Hashem, has ex-
panded to hundreds of people. I am always
happy to add more members to the list. If you have family or friends you would like to have added, please do not hesitate to contact mevia email [email protected].
*** My audio shiurim for Women on “Tef-ilah: Haskafah and Analysis,” may be found at: http://tinyurl.com/8hsdpyd
*** I have posted 164 of Rabbi Soloveit-chik’s English language audio shiurim (MP3 format) spanning the years 1958-1984. They are available here: http://tinyurl.com/82pgvfn.
Etengoff:
Judging your fellow man favorablyContinued from page 8
The Jewish Star newspaper
(Long Island, NY)
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By Meir Indor
My late father was a survivor of Aus-chwitz. He arrived there as a young Hassid from a Jewish village in Poland, and he left as he had arrived, with his faith intact, and with an awareness that following the Holo-caust, he must not be tempted by the offers of the JDC and HIAS to travel to America. As he put it one of the few times he broke the long silence that characterized his life: “The time had come to go home.”
He went to fight in the War of Libera-tion, although my mother, who had survived the ghettos, already was carrying me in her belly. They had made a decision to build a family together, and were married by a Brit-ish military rabbi in a Cyprus detention camp for Jews who attempted to break the British blockade of the Land of Israel. Upon arriving here, he was immediately conscripted and sent to infantry training and then to serve at Haganah positions. He left my pregnant mother in a village in the north with other families that had come from the gloom of the Diaspora and forged a community of Has-sidic laborers out of its wreckage.
Alongside him served other survivors. The cynics among them would later laugh about those days of “Yiddish soldiers” whose maneuvers were executed in exquisite Yid-dish that to my ears sounded like a Dzigan sketch. I remember their reminiscences about mortar-firing exercises accompanied by otherwordly orders straight out of the shtiebl. “Arise, Reb Yechiel—honored with the firing of one bomb!”
As much as this was a Hassidic commu-nity, it was a Zionist one, at once hard-nosed and idealistic. Its members took Indepen-dence Day with the utmost seriousness, and recited the formal blessing over the Hallel prayer. “Anyone who wasn’t there has no business telling us not to say a blessing,” Das-kal, the synagogue manager, once said to me. He would later lose his son Ya’akov, a bril-liant yeshiva student, when he fell with two fellow students in a terrorist ambush in the Jordan Valley.
There was no quibbling with decisions as to who was called up for duty. Encounters at the shtiebl between Torah students and fight-ers lacked the tension that is there today. There was agreement that everyone was on a mission, whether a military mission or one of Torah.
“A Head with Tefillin”It was the first day of the Yom Kippur War.
We were in the middle of the Mussaf prayer, and I was there in my commanding role in the Hassidic choir as we sang “Be with the mouths of your people the House of Israel.”
My mother, who had been informed well in advance that two consecutive calls were due cause to pick up the phone on a Shabbat or holiday, arrived at the synagogue and hur-ried me out.
“I think they’re calling from your unit,” she said nervously.
Before saying goodbye to me, the old Has-sidim sent me to receive a blessing from the rebbe of the neighboring shtiebl, who was considered a miracle worker. He too had come from there.
With the convulsions of war and the bat-tles, I moved around between various units so as to stay on the front. As time went on, as would be expected of me, I lost more and more of my equipment—but not my gun or my tefillin.
My gun—granted, but tefillin? To under-stand that, you have to know a story from my youth.
One day in yeshiva I received a package of
cookies from my mother, accompanied by an agitated letter from my father.
“My dear son,” he wrote in the rugged handwriting of a manual laborer, “you know what ‘a head without tefillin’ is. But the head of the yeshiva has informed me that you missed putting on tefillin one day!”
He continued, adding that in Auschwitz there were no tefillin, until in 1943 a certain group of Hungarian Jews arrived. When he heard that they had a pair of tefillin, he be-gan crossing the fence that separated him from them very early each morning to put on tefillin for a moment and say “Shema.”
“Let this deed not seem trivial to you,” he wrote in Diasporic Hebrew. “It was a very difficult thing to do, it was cold, and I stood the risk of missing the distribution of ra-tions—and someone who missed receiving food for one day was in danger. Neverthe-less, this was [serving G-d] ‘with all your means.’”
When I came home I wanted to hear more of the story. Was the fence electrified? It wasn’t every day that he opened up, and I wanted to take advantage of the opportunity.
“What was, was,” he said definitively. “That is all.”
“But wasn’t your life at risk?!” I said devi-ously. “Is it really permitted to risk your life in order to perform a mitzva?”
That already was a halakhic discussion. He responded.
“True. As soon as I saw that other Jews were copying me and waiting on line, I stopped.”
I took this story with me to every war. Be-fore beginning a day of forced labor, a Jew goes and finds other Jews like him waiting at dawn on a long line to put on tefillin. Just so they would not have “a head without tefil-lin,” as the Talmud puts it. How then could I not be sure to put on tefillin every day?
Still, the Lebanon War came and, as luck would have it, my tefillin remained in the APC behind the lines with the rest of my equipment, while I was in the alleys of Baabda at the entrance to Beirut, part of the first battalion to arrive there. A few inquiries later, a pair of tefillin was found for me, and I went to the side, dressed in tefillin and talit.
Suddenly an Arab couple appeared, a man and woman dressed in their finest. They drew closer, heading straight for me.
I pulled my gun out of the folds of the talit.
“Rifa ayadikum!” I ordered in Arabic.
“Put your hands up!”As they stood there opposite me, their
hands aloft, the man made a gesture to his wife with his raised hand.
“Marati!” he exclaimed. “Yahudi.” “She is a Jew.”
“Prove it,” I countered. “What does it say inside this box?” as I pointed in the direction of my forehead.
“Shema Yisrael,” she answered, lowering one hand from above her head, covering her eyes, “Hashem elokeinu, Hashem echad.”
“Uchtei anta,” I said. “You are my sister.” Her eyes were moist. I think mine were, too.
I could feel my father standing there with me, and his fathers as well.
“How great tefillin are,” I thought. “They connect different worlds and different gen-erations. If I hadn’t been wearing them, the lost daughter who married a Christian man might not have dared approach the enemy invaders. She might never have reconnected with her family in Bat Yam.” Now, as she told the story of her family members with whom she had lost contact when they departed for Israel, the connection was renewed.
One good deed leads to another. I don’t know what happened to that woman, but maybe, just maybe, her earth-shattering “Sh-ema Yisrael,” together with the prayers for the safety of our soldiers, gave us the boost we needed in the ensuing battles.
A DreamI have a strange occupation: I attend fu-
nerals and memorial services. After a recent funeral, I had a dream in which my father ap-peared, waking me with his numbered hand.
“You cried?” he said.“No. Why?”“I heard you cry. I know you. You’ve cried
every time since you came back from the Six-Day War as a young man. Anyway, I thought I heard you crying from up here, so I came.”
“So I cried. So what?“I’ve told you a thousand times you don’t
have what to cry over. We didn’t cry ….” He gestured with his numbered hand. “What we went through without crying … Thousands of us killed every hour, herded by the hun-dreds into the crematorium every seven min-utes, and we didn’t cry!”
“Then maybe the time has come to cry,” I said. “The numbers keep adding up. There’s no end. You promised us that we had come here to put an end to the era of death!”
“Nu, nu,” said my father in his Polish Yid-
dish Hebrew, clicking his tongue. “Have youforgotten the inheritance I left you?”
“What inheritance, Abba? You worked liked a dog your whole life, but there was no inheritance! Not a dime!”
“What about the Kaddish prayer I left you? That inheritance. Every year I saidKaddish on the Tenth of Tevet and on Ho-locaust Remembrance Day in memory of allthe relatives who were murdered by the hun-dred. Now it’s you, my heir, who has to sayit instead of me.”
“What kind of an inheritance is that,Abba?” I yelled. “I should say Kaddish? I never even met them!”
“Precisely,” my father exclaimed with a victorious smile. “You understand now. You never met them, and I never meet them ei-ther. They went to their deaths anonymously by the hundreds, by the thousands, by themillions. Now everything has changed. To-day your newspapers are full of names, pic-tures, stories. Every person who is killedhas a name, and the whole nation remem-bers him. Where we were, who remembered them?
“Now you understand that there is a dif-ference. In between the tears, you can smile a little, you have to allow yourself some hap-piness. Now you have a state, and an army, and someone to bury the dead, which we didnot have …”
With that my father disappeared, wearing the doleful smile he had worn when he came,offering a survivor’s consolation so relevant to these days.
Meir Indor is a lieutenant-colonel (ret.) in the IDF, a son of Holocaust survivors, and the head of the Almagor Terror Victims Associa-tion.
Translated from Hebrew by David B. Green-berg. For more information go to al-magor.com/en/
Almagor was founded in 1986 in the wake of the 1985 Jibril Deal when then Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres and Ahmed Ji-bril, head of the Popular Front for the Libera-tion of Palestine exchanged 1,150 jailed ter-rorists for three IDF soldiers kidnapped duringthe First Lebanon War. Many of the terroristsreleased became leaders of the “first intifada,” and returned to terrorism. Almagor advocatesfor terror victims’ rights and opposes releasingterrorists from prison. They note that terror victims suffer their entire lives from the act ofterror.
The Tale of the Brave Soldier from Auschwitz
Photo courtesy Google Images
The infamous gates of the notorious Auschwitz Concentration Camp. Meir Indor’s father was a survivor of Auschwitz.
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Apr 21Friends of Israel Disabled Veterans Five Towns 5K run/walk
North Woodmere Park, NY, in support of disabled Israeli veterans and victims of terror
The race is on Sunday April 21, 2013 and starts at 10 AM from North Woodmere Park. Be at the park no later 9:30 AM.
Number pick up for pre registered partici-pants and day of race registration will be from 8:00 AM to 9:30 AM. The race will begin promptly at 10 AM. Warning, after 9:30 access to North Woodmere Park parking lot may be limited. Ar-rive early!
North Woodmere Park is located on the cor-ner of Branch Blvd and Hungry Harbor Road.
For more information go to: www.5towns5k.org
7th Annual NCSY Men’s Basketball Tournament
Please join the Jewish communities of Long Island, Westchester, and the Five Boroughs in supporting NY NCSY on Sunday, April 21st, 2013 for the 7th Annual NCSY Men’s Basketball Tourna-ment. This competitive basketball tournament features both 5-on-5 and 3-on-3 teams which play from 9 am - 12 pm throughout gyms in the Five Towns area and come together for the Sweet Sixteen, Final Four, and Championship Game at 1 pm at Lawrence High School, 2 Reilly Road. Each year, over 1000 people come out for this excit-ing event and worthy cause. All of the monies collected from players, sponsors, and donations are used to provide scholarships for hundreds of public schools teens looking to study in Israel post-high school or for NCSY Summer Programs.
Join thousands of players and spectators for a competitive basketball tournament, child and family entertainment, and a raffle drawing for 2 roundtrip tickets to Israel! Child and family entertainment will be available from 2 pm - 4 pm and will consist of blow-up moon bounces, face painting, arts and crafts stations, and free pop-corn. Dinner will be available on-site provided by David Kay of Distinctive Catering. Raffle tickets will be available for purchase throughout the event. Each raffle ticket allows you a chance at winning 2 roundtrip tickets to Israel. Tickets are $20 for one; $180 for a book of 10.
For more information, please visit www.ncsyb-asketball.com or call (516) 569-6279.
Young Israel of Wood-mere Gilbert Davidoff Memorial Lecture
Sunday Evening, April 21st, at 8 PM. “Com-munication in the age of Facebook, Twittter & the iPhone,” Rabbi Dovid M. Cohen, Rav of the Young Israel of the West Side.
April 22One Israel Fund, 19th anniversary dinner,
6 PM, Three Sixty, 10 Debrosses Street, NYC. For more information call 516 239-9202 or email [email protected] or visit: www.oneisraelfund.org/dinner
April 24Hewlett-Woodmere Li-brary-The Lion of Judah
Long time Cedarhurst resident and Ho-locaust survivor, Leo Zisman, has released a documentary film produced by Woodmere’s own Matt Mindell entitled THE LION OF JUDAH. This critically acclaimed film will be presented free of charge as a public service in the Gold Hall of the Hewlett-Woodmere Library on Wednesday evening, April 24th, at 7:00pm. The event will feature the documentary followed by a question and answer opportunity. Mr. Zisman will have autographed copies of his book, I Believe-Ani Ma’amin, available for purchase with all proceeds going to support the JCC’s Holocaust Survivors Program. The Five Towns Community Chest, The Jewish Community Center of the Greater Five Towns, The Nassau Herald and The Jewish Star are proud sponsors of this informative evening. Armed with the power of knowledge and under-standing of our history we will uphold the cry of “NEVER AGAIN” for generations to come.
Apr 28A Magic Carpet Ride: Celebrating the Jews of
Yemenat the Museum of Jewish Heritage—A Living
Memorial to the HolocaustNew York, NY— On Sunday, April 28, from 1 p.m.
to 4 p.m., the Museum of Jewish Heritage – A Living Memorial to the Holocaust will present A Magic Carpet Ride: Celebrating the Jews of Ye-men, an afternoon that will feature the Sephardic rhythms of the band Asefa and a taste of the distinctive cuisine of the Jews of Yemen.
A century ago, approximately 50,000 Jews lived and thrived in Yemen. While that population has all but vanished, the Jews of Yemen were well known for their special traditions, customs, ceremonies, art, music, and dance. Many of these unique traditions are still celebrated and prac-ticed today in Israel and the United States.
Tickets are $18, $15 for students/seniors, $12 for members. Tickets are available online at www.mjhnyc.org or by calling the Museum box office at 646.437.4202.
May 1Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary (RIETS),
an affiliate of Yeshiva University, will honor dedicated leaders and educators of the Jewish community at its Annual Gala Evening of Tribute
on Wednesday, May 1, 2013 at The Grand Hyatt in New York City. Honorees include Rabbi Hyman (Hy) and Ann Arbesfeld, Etz Chaim Award; Rabbi Hershel Schachter, Guest of Honor; and Rabbi Eliezer Zwickler, Distinguished Rabbinic Leader-ship Award.
JCC of Greater Five Towns Annual Dinner
at Sephardic Temple in Cedarhurst at 6:30 PM. Contact Debbie Averbach at 516 569-6733
May 2North Shore Hebrew Academy Annual Journal Dinner at Citi Field.
6:15 PM. Contact: Mr. Arnie Flatow 516 487-8687 x2
May 591st Annual Dinner of Agudath Israel of America
on Sunday, May 5, 2013 at the Hilton New York.For more information contact the dinner of-
fice at: 212 797-8177.
Kevin O’ Keefe’s One-Man Circus in-a- Suitcase at Kulanu
Five Towns Community Chest and friends brings the Circus to The Five Towns!
Take a break from your usual routine and come out and see Kevin O’ Keefe’s One-Man Circus in-a- Suitcase, an enthralling whimsical celebration of the imagination sure to please the entire family.
Can you imagine an entire circus appear-ing out of a small suitcase? Kevin’s marvelous story about a man who wants to run away to the circus and ability to include the audience in his show makes this one unique and outstanding performance!
One critic says, “I can’t recall when I last saw so many beaming faces lighting up!”
Kevin’s “Circus Minimums” has appeared on NBC, ABC, Fox and hundreds of stages around the world. This production is brought to you by several service agencies of your community: The Peninsula Counseling Center Children’s Services, Let all the Children Play, and The Five Towns Community Chest. On Sunday Kulanu and The Jewish Community Center of the Greater Five Towns are also joining in on the fun.
Our children will enjoy the laughter thanks to the generosity of our sponsors, The Altheim Fam-ily, The Dime Bank, Gourmet Glatt, The Kellner Family, The Scharf Family, The Zisman Family, Warren Levi Karate, Rolling River Day Camp, The Nassau Herald and The Jewish Star.
Show times are: Sunday, May 5th at 11am and 1pm at Kulanu Advanced tickets: $5 per child/ $10 per adultTickets at the Door: $10 per child/ $15 per
adult For reservations and to purchase tickets
please call 516-374-5800All proceeds will benefit the participating
service organizations serving our community.
Photo Courtesy of HAFTR
HAFTR alumna Leor Bareli came to speak with HAFTR High School seniors about her experiences in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). Despite receiving a full scholar-ship to attend a prestigious university in the United States, Leor made aliya and volunteered to join the IDF. She serves as a commander in the elite “Search and Rescue” unit of the IDF. She took time out of her busy schedule on her three week furlough from the army to visit her high school, and inspired the seniors with her dedication and service to the Jewish State. She said that she has no regrets and feels that she is doing something very positive and meaningful for her people and the Jewish homeland. Her service as a religious Jewish female is important, be-cause it illustrates the importance of following one’s Zionist convictions. She re-minded the seniors that we can travel, study, and live at peace in Israel because young boys and girls give the best years of their lives, and sometimes even their very lives, to keep the Zionist dream alive.
ON THE
CalendarSubmit your shul or organization’s events or shiurim to [email protected].
Deadline is Wednesday of the week prior to publication.
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W illiam Faulkner was a master of writ-ing single sentences that span an en-tire page. Though they run on and
on, the sentences could not be marked as “run-on” by a grammar teacher. It is a unique skill possessed by the loquacious, which mar-vels readers.
The longest sentence I am aware of in the Torah has 34 words in it (Shmot 32:1). The Torah certainly doesn’t hold its breath in making a point. But sometimes one has to wonder why the Torah goes on and on about a point or topic that it could express in much
fewer words.Towards the end
of Vayikra 17, the Torah tells us (as it does in Bereishit 9, Vayikra 3, 7, 19 and Devarim 12) not to eat blood. Were I to write such a commandment, I would write once “You may not eat the blood of hu-mans or animals.” Pretty clear.
But the Torah does not do this. In addition to writing about it five times,
in three different books, the Torah says the following in our parsha:
“If any person, whether of the family of Israel or a proselyte who joins them, eats any blood, I will direct My anger against the per-son who eats blood and cut him off [spiritu-ally] from among his people. This is because the life-force of the flesh is in the blood; and I therefore gave it to you to be [placed] on the altar to atone for your lives. It is the blood that atones for a life, and I therefore told the Israelites, ‘Let none of you eat blood.’ A pros-elyte who joins you shall [likewise] not eat blood. If any man, whether of the family of Israel or a proselyte who joins them, traps an animal or bird that may be eaten and spills its blood, he must cover [the blood] with earth. [All this] is because every living creature has its blood associated with its life-force. Tell the Israelites not to eat any blood, since the life-force of all flesh is in its blood. Whoever eats it shall be cut off [spiritually].” (Vayikra 17:10-14)
Not only is the prohibition very clear, but the other factors thrown in essentially amount to the same idea: “A Jewish person may not eat blood.”
Perhaps the message behind the over-and-over element of these instructions is reflec-tive of another prohibition we have in our double parsha – Vayikra 19:16, “Do not stand idly over the blood of your neighbor.”
All of these images of blood remind me of the excited pronouncement by the great swordsman Inigo Montoya who, on the verge of storming the castle and avenging the death of his father, said, “There will be blood tonight.”
We live in a time when we can have a more complete understanding and appre-ciation of what a book that transcribes one’s every deed might look like. We call it the In-ternet.
I once participated in a conference where a Reform rabbi was presenting material for High Holiday sermons (he was quite knowl-edgeable) and he kept on referring to his own “teshuvah process” and how it helped him develop some of the ideas he was shar-ing. Someone in the room asked, “What are you referring to?” and he said that as a young rabbi he had made a terrible mistake and was unfaithful in his marriage. One time. And kept the secret for 20 years – at which point, it came out.
He said, “Google my name – this story is the first one that will come up. And I have to live with that.” He had traveled to the deep-est and darkest places in his soul, his mar-riage and family fell apart, and he had to put his life back together.
Hearing all this, I was struck by a flood of contradictory feelings. At first judgmen-tal, and then forgiving. “You wicked per-son. Have you no soul? How could you! And you’re a rabbi!” was followed by, “You have gone through so much, hiding your secret, being outed, losing everything, and your personal teshuvah. Perhaps G-d has forgiven you. Why can’t I?”
The experience is still haunting because I am not sure which feeling is correct. Or are both proper?
In our life experiences, we will always find people who make errors. No one is perfect. “To err is human, to forgive – divine,” said Al-exander Pope. And he was on to something.
Perhaps the blood references in our dou-ble parsha are reminding us not to look to skewer someone when we don’t like what they’ve done. We can’t stand by idly when blood is being spilled – even the blood of the guilty. And we may not look to exact the ven-geance Inigo Montoya was looking to have with his father’s killer.
There are cases where we can draw a line and say there’s no going back. I personally have no sympathy for terrorists, deliberate murderers, thieves, or those who commit forceful crimes of a sexual nature. Immoral crimes between consenting adults is a dif-ferent story – they make a very poor choice, have their own demons to deal with, and will certainly pay for their crimes in their fami-lies and communities and with G-d. And the same is true of other examples of poor judg-ment, particularly when a crime has been committed. And I certainly hope the same is true when no crime has been committed.
Do all “misdeeds” warrant everyone else to skewer the guilty and seek their blood over and over and over again? If that were the case, many in our community would not be able to pass muster. No one is perfect. We all bend corners and rules when we can. Per-haps the Torah is saying that when blood is spilled, it is its own punishment. But then we are required to cover the blood and move on to the next story. A life which has seen a dark side of mistakes and poor choices has its own recovery to go through.
But we may not devour, eat and consume the blood. We don’t stand idly by while blood is spilled. We make room for a teshuvah pro-cess and hope that we can all merit to achieve what Alexander Pope declared to be a divine trait – to forgive, and then to move on.
Parshat Acharei Mot-Kedoshim:
Prohibition of consuming blood: Of the dead, and of the living
Rabbi Avi Billet
Hebrew only please!
If I was to be confronted by a Charedi individual es-pousing an anti-Zionist world view, I would have plen-ty to say. Religious Zionist thought is firmly founded in sources ranging from the Bible, through Talmudic literature, to late authorities. However, in one impor-tant area I would be seriously challenged: Do we, in the Religious Zionist world, recognize Hashem`s great present to us and reflect that through constant efforts towards spiritual growth and commitment?
Reflections on Yom Ha`atzmaut
Rabbi Noam Himelstein studied in Yeshivat Har Etzion and served in the Tanks Corps of the IDF. He has taught in yeshiva high schools, post-high school women’s seminaries, and headed the Torah MiTzion Kollel in Melbourne, Australia. He currently teaches at Yeshivat Orayta in Jerusa-lem, and lives with his wife and six children in Neve Daniel, Gush Etzion.
By Rabbi Noam Himelstein
On Sunday, April 14, Rabbi Isaac Elchan-an Rabbinical Theological Seminary (RIETS) and Yeshiva University’s Center for the Jew-ish Future commemorated the 20th yahrtzeit [anniversary of death] of “the Rav,” Rabbi Yosef Dov Soloveitchik zt”l, Torah luminary and YU Rosh Yeshiva, with a full-day learn-
ing program that took place in the Lamport Auditorium on YU’s Wilf Campus. Thousands attended in-person or followed the event online to gain insight into the Rav’s life and legacy through lectures, discussions and pre-sentations given by his family and closest students.
YU reflects on Rav Soloveitchik’s 20th yahrtzeit
Rabbi Soloveitchik’s daughter, Dr. Ata-rah Twersky, described her father as a teacher and a man of faith.
Photos courtesy of Yeshiva University
Thousands of participants attended the full day of learning in person at the Lamport Auditorium on YU’s Wilf Campus or online.
Rabbi Mayer Twersky, RIETS Rosh Ye-shiva and grandson of the Rav, deliv-ered the day’s keynote lecture
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“no menorahs on my Village Green” – cel-ebrates his victory and his love for the insti-tution where Gazi Khankan preached that “Israel and the CIA” begat 9/11 to shame Islam and where supporters of Hamas speak openly.
We are now cast members in a “hefker velt.”
It is my sincere prayer that Rabbi Pola-koff will consider addressing us with some perspective this Shabbos, so that our efforts shall not have been fully in vain. G-d was “on sabbatical” from 1939 to 1945. We just commemorated those years this past week. Today, we have those accursed years to in-form us. The clouds gather – around Israel, in Iran, South America, Hungary, even here – wherever we Jews are available as “canaries in the coal mine.” Are we listening?
My brothers and sisters: if you want to know the future for your Jewish children in this great nation….
Just ask the Jews of Paris.Good Shabbos. I love each and every one
of you as my brothers and sisters – yes – even those of you who did not favor this activity.
“As the notoriety and media exposure of the planned program this Sunday have in-creased, so has the legal liability and poten-tial security exposure of our institution and its member families. In an era of heightened security concerns it is irresponsible to jeopar-dize the safety of those who call Great Neck Synagogue home, especially our children, even at the risk of diverting attention from a potentially important voice in the ongoing debate. Accordingly, the Great Neck Syna-gogue Men’s Club will no longer be sponsor-ing the appearance of Pamela Geller this coming Sunday, and no event will be taking place in our facility.”
Jeffrey S. WiesenfeldExecutive Board
Great Neck Synagogue
Editor’s note: The event was held on Sun-day at Chabad of Great Neck. Pamela Geller spoke. There were no protests except for one man outside handing out leaflets.
Letter to the editor cont.Continued from page 4
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“A KOSHER PICKLEBARREL OF LAUGHS!
Five terrifi c performers. Fiendishly Madcap”– New York Daily News
“HILARIOUS!”– New York Daily News – The Village Voice
– The New York Times – Backstage – Variety
”YOU’LL LAUGHYOUR TUCHUS OFF!This show could run forever.”
– Variety
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