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Page 3
Israeli celebrity chef shocks with $24 tomato
l It’s difficult to shock New York. Greenmarket, the paper quoted Shani as
But Israeli celebrity chef Eyal Shani, saying.
best known for esoteric and poetic ram- He commented on his tomatoes before
blings about cuisine and a deep passion opening the restaurant.
for tomatoes, has just done that — with a “Yesterday, two weeks before we open
tomato. HaSalon New York, the tomatoes that
Shani’s newly opened HaSalon in Hell’s I planted ripened, and it was as if they
Kitchen offers a single tomato. It costs rubbed my eyes and said to me, ‘this is
$24. not a dream, it is reality’,” Shani wrote on
The offering, called “The best tomato in his Instagram (where, of course, he goes
NY is naked,” comes peeled, cut into eight by eyaltomato.)
chunks, and served lightly drizzled with According to the Post, the tomatoes he
olive oil and sea salt. uses are grown hydroponically in nutrient-
“It was a very nice tomato, but, for that infused liquid. The process is said to elimi-
price, it should come with a massage and nate the need to wait for the late-summer
a pedicure,” the New Yorker wrote. growing season.
The New York Post was slightly more HaSalon is Shani’s second venture in
enthusiastic about the actual tomato, New York, following the popular pita-
which it described as having a “deep, themed Miznon. It is not kosher.
nutty-and-sweet, late-August, just-picked In Israel, Shani has been a long-time
flavor.” judge on Israel’s “Master Chef” TV show,
But still. where he frequently waxes poetic about
“Its appearance on the menu offended his love for tomatoes, something he
my wallet,” the Post said. continues on his Instagram page. “This to-
“We spared no expense and journeyed mato in the picture is the single best living
for a month to find these tomatoes and at this moment in the entire universe,” he
finally found them” at the Union Square wrote in one post. Times of Israel A tomato from chef Eyal Shani’s Instagram feed.
CONTENTS
The case of the censored seafood Noshes���������������������������������������������������������4
briefly local���������������������������������������� 16
l Israel’s envoy to Brazil attempted to defend himself cover story������������������������������������������ 20
after he was ridiculed for trying to conceal the lobster oPINION������������������������������������������������������26
on his plate as he sat at a restaurant with President Jair dear rabbi zahavy���������������������������32
Bolsonaro. He claimed he’d eaten salmon. THE FRAZZLED HOUSEWIFE������������� 34
The Israeli mission tweeted a picture of Yossi Shelley crossword puzzle�������������������������� 34
and Bolsonaro eating lunch before watch the Brazil- arts & culture�������������������������������������35
Peru soccer game. Their plates were covered with black calendar�������������������������������������������������37
slashes in an apparent attempt to hide Shelley’s non-ko- obituaries�����������������������������������������������39
sher meal. But the photoshopping was sloppy and the classified ads�������������������������������������40
offending crustacean peeked out from under its cover. real estate��������������������������������������������� 41
The tweet garnered thousands of likes and comments
ridiculing the embassy for its efforts to “censor” the lob-
ster, mostly from Brazilian Twitter users. Dozens played PUBLISHER’S STATEMENT: (USPS 275-700 ISN 0021-6747)
is published weekly on Fridays with an additional edition
with the picture, superimposing other foods onto Shel- every October, by the New Jersey Jewish Media Group, 1086
ley’s and Bolsonaro’s plates, while others pointed out Teaneck Road, Teaneck, NJ 07666. Periodicals postage paid
at Hackensack, NJ and additional offices. POSTMASTER:
that the embassy could have hidden the lobsters effec- Send address changes to New Jersey Jewish Media Group,
tively by simply cropping the bottom third of the image. 1086 Teaneck Road, Teaneck, NJ 07666. Subscription price
is $30.00 per year. Out-of-state subscriptions are $45.00,
In a statement to reporters, Shelley said that “all sorts Foreign countries subscriptions are $75.00.
of foods were served, including salmon. I didn’t eat what The appearance of an advertisement in The Jewish Standard
was served to avoid offending the participants. For the does not constitute a kashrut endorsement. The publishing of
a paid political advertisement does not constitute an endorse-
same reason I blackened the photo so that it wouldn’t ment of any candidate political party or political position by
be understood otherwise, God forbid.” the newspaper or any employees.
Later, in an interview with Israel’s Channel 12 news, The Jewish Standard assumes no responsibility to return
unsolicited editorial or graphic materials. All rights in letters
Shelley clarified his remarks and said seafood had been and unsolicited editorial, and graphic material will be treated
as unconditionally assigned for publication and copyright
served but “I don’t eat those things and definitely don’t purposes and subject to JEWISH STANDARD’s unrestricted
order them. I put it aside and took salmon, which has a right to edit and to comment editorially. Nothing may be
reprinted in whole or in part without written permission from
similar color. the publisher. © 2019
“You’re at a private meal and are being served — what
will you do, throw it out?” he said. “This doesn’t cast a Candlelighting:
shadow over my relationship [with Brazilian authorities] Friday, July 12, 8:10 p.m.
or the state’s. I didn’t eat the shrimp.” Times of Israel
Shabbat ends:
Saturday, July 13, 9:17 p.m.
DARK, HILARIOUS:
‘Art of Self-Defense’
may muscle up as
sleeper summer hit
“The Art of turn things eventually A Douglas about the life and
Self-Defense” take — all to strikingly milestone career of rock legend
opens on July 12. It got original effect.” Last week, on NEIL DIAMOND, 78,
rave reviews at film YouTube, I will hit the boards
festivals. Here’s a long Family matters: sometime in the next
stumbled on a quite
quote from the The lowdown on entertaining but fairly year. The still untitled
“Variety” review that Kravitz/Glusman obscure Western movie musical will follow him
encapsulates how (“Draw!”) starring KIRK from his origins as
unusually good it is: ZOE KRAV- poor Brooklyn Jewish
ITZ, 30, wed DOUGLAS, now 102,
“Casey Davis [JESSE and the late James boy until he hits
EISENBERG, 35] may actor Karl Glusman, 31, super-stardom. Many
on June 28. The Coburn. The film
be the least macho prompted me to look at of Diamond’s songs
man you’ve ever met … secular wedding was will be used. Diamond
Jesse Eisenberg Zoe Kravitz an online bio of Douglas
mugged by thugs on held in the palatial has expressed happi-
Paris home of her and I noticed some-
motorbikes. Casey thing not in many news ness with the new
hardly puts up a father, famous rocker show and the creative
Lenny Kravitz. The four outlets: Kirk’s wife,
fight…. Dark, sinister, ANNE BUYDENS, team behind it.
and disarmingly other female stars of The two princi-
Zoe’s HBO series, “Big turned 100 last April.
hilarious [the film] tells Last May, the couple pals are topnotch:
the story of how some- Little Lies,” were there. the director is MI-
Zoe’s mother, actress celebrated their 65th
one like Casey learns wedding anniversary. CHAEL MAYER, 59, a
to stand up for himself LISA BONET, 51, was Tony winner for best
there, too, accompa- Buydens converted to
by signing up for Judaism in 2004, when direction of a musi-
karate classes. But it’s nied by her husband, cal. He’s also adept at
actor Jason Momoa the couple renewed
hardly that simple: their wedding vows. I directing dramas and
Once enrolled, he (“Aquaman”). fixing scripts when
Okay — here is the checked a bit, and
starts to feel more Lisa Bonet Neil Diamond could not find another necessary. Andrew
confident in his condensed Jewish McCarten, a long-time
story. Lenny’s father famous person who
personal life, even as now. Zoe has defined top physician, was a was alive and over 100 Diamond fan who
he begins to realize was Jewish, and his herself as a “secular WASP. (I don’t know specializes in biopics,
mother was Afri- when their spouse also
that something bizarre Jew” and does seems if she converted to Ju- turned 100. is writing the show’s
is going on behind the can-American. He had to like Jewish guys daism. Clues make me book. He wrote “Bo-
a very light exposure Douglas and
scenes of the dojo — most of her prior think she didn’t.) Karl’s Buydens may be hemian Rhapsody”
[school]: violent night to Judaism as a child, steadies are Jewish. maternal grands were (about rocker Fred-
and as an adult he unique. Statistically,
classes for select An inaccurate sto- Irish and Swedish. marriages between die Mercury) and he
students, weird mind identifies as a Chris- ry that Glusman is Bottom line: There is snared an Oscar nomi-
tian. His mother was centenarians are very
games, and broken the son of a German enough Jewish going rare, period. Imagine nation for his script for
bones… This singular African-American Jewish father is all on here that there’s “The Imitation Game”
actress Roxie Roker the odds against one
black comedy balanc- over the internet. The a chance that the 100-plus spouse being (about computer pio-
es off-kilter humor (“The Jeffersons”). true 411: Karl’s pater- newlyweds’ children, neer Alan Turing).
Bonet’s mother was famous. Imagine the
with an unexpectedly nal grandfather, Dr. if any, will be raised odds against them Sadly, Diamond
thriller-esque under- white and Jewish, and MURRAY GLUSMAN, Jewish. They will be ceased touring in Jan-
her father was Afri- both being Jewish.
current, to the extent a distinguished phy- halachic Jews, since uary 2018 following
that audiences will find can-American. She sician, was the son of their mother, Zoe, is From Brooklyn tests that determined
was raised “Jewish
it tough to anticipate Russian Jewish immi- the child of a woman, to Broadway he had Parkinson’s
either the jokes or the light” but doesn’t grants. Karl’s paternal Bonet, whose mother disease.
A new Broad-
dark, ‘Fight Club’-like practice anything grandmother, also a was Jewish. way musical –N.B.
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 JULY 12, 2019 5
JS-6*
Local
FIRST PERSON
Local
the annual march has grown today, Pro- doubt on the reliability of the “one coun-
fessor Zweig said. try, two systems” policy.
In 2003, the largest protest in Hong The looming deadline is particularly
Kong’s post-handover history took place. worrying to Hong Kong’s young people,
Then, some 500,000 people protested who have grown up with liberal values
the government’s national security legis- and expectations in an international city
lation, which they feared would restrict outside what is commonly known as Chi-
their civil liberties. In 2012, Hong Kong na’s “Great Firewall,” a combination of
students opposed mandatory curricular legislative actions and technologies that
changes that included topics on Chinese regulate the internet in China.
history, culture, and national identity, all “I am sad for the local people,” Profes-
of which were seen as vehicles to brain- sor Zweig said. “We [Westerners] have a
wash them. passport, so we can leave.”
In 2014, protestors camped out in the “On the one hand, Hong Kong stu-
streets for more than two months in dents are being encouraged to partic-
what became known as “the umbrella ipate; to make a difference, but they
movement,” referring to the makeshift now feel they are stuck in a society that
tents set up during Hong Kong’s rainy is becoming increasingly repressive, a
season. Protestors balked at not being place to which their grandparents fled
able to elect the head of the city’s gov- from China with nothing on their backs.”
ernment freely; instead, a pro-China
committee first handpicked the candi- After a 25-year career as a newspaper
dates, before they could vote. Eli Bitan, David Zweig, and Shani Brownstein, all members of the Jewish reporter, radio producer, and magazine
Now, over the past several weeks, community in Hong Kong, stand together as they protest the dissolution of editor working for such media outlets
demonstrations in Hong Kong have been democracy at home. as Dow Jones, the Voice of America, and
cited as the largest in the city’s history. Knight-Ridder in the U.S. and Southeast
Sparked by a proposal to change extradi- two marches drew astonishing numbers do not expire until 2047, but attempts Asia, Leah Krakinowski Silberstein of
tion laws that would allow suspects to be into the streets. by Beijing to exert greater control over Tenafly has chosen to apply her skills to
transferred to mainland China for trial, The tenets of the Joint Declaration Hong Kong in the meantime have cast promoting Jewish education.
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Synagogues
FROM PAGE 8
Army Reserve assignment, and both of
us skipped eye contact.
What caused this sudden surge in nos-
talgia? I trace it to the recent afternoon
when I arrived at the JCC Metrowest in
West Orange for a workout and spotted
a group of visitors deeply absorbed in
the glass-enclosed Gaelen Gallery East.
I joined them out of curiosity and in an
instant became just as engrossed as they
were in an exhibit entitled “Synagogues
of Newark”.
The space featured eye-catching bill-
boards, some suspended from the ceil-
ing, others floor-mounted, illuminating
the history and evolution of individual
shuls, their mergers, relocation to the
suburbs, or, sadly, their demise. Many
of the photos of buildings, spiritual
leaders, and bar mitzvah celebrations Jonathan Lazarus, second row from top, holding the Torah, with members of his 1958 confirmation class at Temple
stretched back a century or more. Mov- B’nai Jeshurun. Rabbi Ely Pilchik is at right.
ing from billboard to billboard created a
virtual streetscape, offering a rich pan- robust modern Orthodox congregation.
orama of a city and its Jewish underpin- Only two shuls remain in Newark;
nings. And the Gaelen’s limited space the activist, inclusive Ahavas Shalom at
actually worked to advantage, making 145 Broadway, home to the New Jersey
the tour even more intimate. Jewish History Museum on its second
Curated by the New Jersey Jewish His- floor, and Mount Sinai Congregation
tory Museum and using the resources at the Ivy Hill apartments, serving an
of the Newark Library, the records and exclusively Russian-émigré population.
archives of the synagogues themselves, One of the more dramatic examples of
and the research depth of the New Jer- the consolidation (or disappearance or
sey Jewish Historical Society, the exhibit self-selection) process occurred when
is fully titled “The Synagogues of New- Congregation Israel came into being in
ark: Where We Gathered and Prayed, 1968 as the inheritor of 16 predecessor
Studied and Celebrated.” (See box.) The shuls. Located initially at Knesseth Israel
sense of community is overwhelming on Bergen Street, only two years later
and reflects the city’s vitality as a des- it moved to join with Young Israel of
tination for immigrant German Jews in Congregation Ahavas Shalom at 145 Broadway is home to the New Jersey Springfield, where it survives under its
the early 19th century and their Eastern Jewish History Museum. original name and preserves the memo-
European cousins in even greater num- rial plaques of former congregants.
bers decades later. buildings — ranging from magnificent place of worship, view photos of its Visitors to the JCC’s “Synagogues of
These arrivals and their offspring (my edifices to humble storefronts, with leaders, its sanctuary, or even its Torah Newark” are encouraged to contribute
grandfather and mother among them) some finding second acts as homes scrolls, and learn about its ultimate insti- to a work in progress. Because certain
accounted for approximately 20 percent for black churches — underscored the tutional fate. Helpful charts delineate the older records have been difficult to vet,
of Newark’s population in the 1910 cen- assimilation, determination, prosperity, Jewish population of the city by wards and various narrative and anecdotal gaps
sus and they fully invested themselves and pride of Newark’s Jewish commu- and the number of shuls from decade to exist, exhibit-goers can become interac-
in the city’s economic, educational, cul- nity. B’nai Jeshurun and B’nai Abraham decade. A sidebar illustrates the life and tive and supply additional information as
tural, and political destiny. This in turn contained massive sanctuaries under blueprints of architect Nathan Myers, their own memories percolate. Newark’s
meant more shuls for different streams the domes. Oheb Shalom’s original whose design showpieces include Beth rich Jewish history and lore represent a
of worshippers spread across different brooding structure on Prince Street cast Israel Hospital, B’nai Abraham, Ahavath vital chapter about a city in constant
neighborhoods. The “Big Three” syna- a red brick glow of Moorish design over Zion, and the Court Theater. reinvention, and it’s certainly worth the
gogues did, however, attract congregants a swath of the Central Ward. And Aha- Of the three shuls to which my rel- efforts to preserve and pass on.
citywide. Soon after B’nai Jeshurun was vath Zion’s classic revival design, built atives belonged, two vanished and
founded in 1848, a rift developed with a on the flatiron contours of a 16th Ave- one relocated within several blocks
faction opposed to its Reform tendencies, nue tract for $200,000 in 1921, served of my West Orange home. Cousin Yale What: “Synagogues of Newark,”
an exhibit curated by the New
whose members bolted and formed Oheb the Orthodox congregation handsomely attended Young Israel, quite Orthodox
Jersey Jewish History Museum. An
Shalom in 1861. B’nai Abraham came into until it moved to Maplewood in 1967. and quite extinct after an intra-New- automated slide show highlights
being in 1853, supported by Jews from The riots represented a watershed ark relocation and the riots. Grandpa Jewish Newarkers of note
Poland who disliked the Germanic trap- for every Newark shul and resulted in a Max worshipped at tiny Agudath Israel,
Where: JCC Metrowest Gaelen
pings of the other houses of worship. rebalancing of already strained relations now forlorn and empty at Peshine and
Gallery East, 760 Northfield Ave.,
All three congregations thrive today in between Jews and blacks. For Newark- Custer avenues after being bought and West Orange
Newark’s suburbs, having been spurred ers who lived in the city from the 1940s abandoned by a church. My uncles Sam
When: Through July 31
to move by dramatic changes in demo- (when there were 33 congregations) and Hesh belonged to Ahawas Achim
graphics and the jolting aftereffects of through the early 1970s (when only eight B’nai Jacob on Hawthorne Avenue, Cost: Free to the public
the 1967 Newark riots (or civil disorders remained) and now call the suburbs which added “David” to its name when For more information: (973)
or rebellion, depending on your point home, the exhibit will prove especially it merged and moved to West Orange, 530-3400 or www.jccmetrowest.org
of view). The vacated or demolished resonant. You can locate your childhood where today it maintains itself as a
10 JEWISH STANDARD JULY 12, 2019
JS-11
JS-44*
Every year, the American Jewish Press Association gives the Rockower Awards to the writers whose work
We won!
its judges consider the year’s best. We win something every year. This year we got five. (That’s a lot!)
Editorial
Division A. Newspapers 15,000 circulation and over; Broadcast; Magazines; Web-based Outlets
Second Place
“How to say it?,” “Ban assault weapons,”
“Taking children from their parents” Joanne Palmer
How to say it?
TruTh regardless of consequences
I
JS-22
THEJEWISHSTANDARD.COM
87 2018
I
We did not use contractions, we did not Africa; fear and hope fighting hard with
How Fair Lawn’s
former refusenik
outplayed the
Soviet Union Page 22
Soviet chess grandmaster-turned-refusenik-
turned-Fair Lawn householder talks about his life
First Place
use slang, we did not use nicknames. We
wrote everything out in very long form.
each other.
When they got here, they were not wel-
was profoundly shocked to learn that
a colleague and friend that I greatly
that must be totally and completely rebutted.
I
Joanne Palmer
We wrote in the third person. (If we could come. They were among the unwanted admire, Professor Alan Dershowitz, autocratic regime that has exercised “full exec-
grandmaster who became a refusenik, Boris Gulko was born in Erfurt, East Ger- expelled from Poland, and that he was The family escaped, by freight train, to
the veteran of three hunger strikes and a many, in 1947. His father, Ephraim, was an lucky. The Germans, he said, wanted to the Ural mountains, on the western edge
brilliantly conceived monthlong series of officer in the Soviet army, stationed in the kill all the Jews. The Soviets were intent of the vast expanse of the Soviet Union
demonstrations that finally forced his Rus- Soviet zone; his mother, Genashia, and on keeping that information quiet, and that is Siberia. It was an industrial region,
sian overlords to let him and his family go. their daughter, Bella, joined him there. he was putting himself at risk by warning and Ephraim worked in a factory. He was
have, we would have written in the 93rd who were told dismissively not to bother became the latest Jewish junketeer utive power” since 1868 and whose constitu-
in the Soviet army, and later was moved
to Germany. The army celebrated the first
anniversary of its victory over the Axis
person.) We were pompous, perhaps even applying for jobs. to succumb to the lure to visit Qatar and be tion “provides for hereditary rule by men in I asked my
mother why
didn’t she make “People of air” Joanne Palmer
ponderous, but we also were polite. Very They often brought children with them duped to parrot the emirate’s propaganda. the emir’s branch of the Al Thani family.”
me a bris, and
she said, ‘Exactly
very polite. — those were our parents or grandparents It is sad that someone so renowned for fight- He says that Qatar, which is surrounded
in Germany
in 1947?’
forces, and “I was born exactly a year and
Things have changed. We use contrac- or great-grandparents — who were too ing anti-Semitism — and a hero to so many, not by enemies, but by friendly Arab/Islamic
nine months later,” Boris said. After two
tions. We use slang. We use short sen- young to remember much about the old myself included — would enable the Qataris’ countries engaged in a temporary political dis-
to by Jerry Szubin
The Gulkos were not able to practice
Judaism — “I had my bris in the United
States when I was 40 years old,” Mr. Gulko
said. “I was born in Germany. I asked my
mother why didn’t she make me a bris,
tences. We write in the first person singu- country, too young to have any choice in anti-Semitic belief that Jews are pute, is similar to Israel, which
a mohel in Germany in 1947?’”
Also, he said, the word “Jew” — in
CHANGE SERVICE REQUESTED Boris Gulko achieved grandmaster status in the Soviet Union and had his salary as a chess professional funneled through German, in Russian — “was not such a
Teaneck, NJ 07666 the KGB. He came to chess relatively late but learned quickly. good word to use then. We tried to use
lar (even though here I’m writing in the where they were taken. Those children so powerful in the United States has fought multiple wars with its
1086 Teaneck Road
Jewish Standard 22 Jewish standard nOVeMBer 23, 2018
first person plural — but whoops!). We grew up to be citizens of the United States. that convincing prominent Jews neighbors and remains threat-
try not to be pompous. We try not to be They were the Dreamers of their day, and of the virtue of their cause will ened by Islamic radicals, terror-
ponderous. We might not always succeed, we should not forget that. lead them to provoke a change ists, and countries such as Iran.
but we try. They were the tired, the poor, the hud- in U.S. policy. JS-1* He compares the boycott of
Despite all that, we do hope that we’re dled masses yearning to be free that the Professor Dershowitz is Qatar,JS-16
which is maintained by
still polite.
But how are we supposed to report on
Statue of Liberty welcomes with her lamp.
Had they been sent back, many of us
known for sometimes working
for unsavory characters, based
NORTH JERSEY
87 DECEMBER 21, 2018
VOL. LXXXVIII NO. 14 $1.00 2018
its neighbor Gulf states based
only on their unhappiness
The David Frank Award for
Excellence in Personality Profiles
THEJEWISHSTANDARD.COM
the world around us? would not be here. That is a simple and on the attorney’s mantra that with the emirate’s policies and
Yes, this part is about our president. incontrovertible truth. the U.S. constitution guaran- Rabbi support of terrorism with the
How do we report on what he said? We also think of the irony that it was tees everyone a fair trial and the Shmuley international anti-Semitic cam- Second Place
What do our readers want? We could use not one of those s-hole countries that right to a defense. The emir of Boteach paign to boycott Israel based
asterisks to replace some of the letters in created and carried out the Shoah. No, Qatar, however, is not an Ameri- COVER STORYon its existence.
Division A. Newspapers 15,000 circulation
it was a clean, efficient, well-educated, can citizen and is not entitled to Popeye Dershowitz claims that Qatar,
the four-letter word he used, or we could
call it the place that a barnyard epithet thoroughly modern state. Germans were these protections. He is, in fact, a dictator; the rankedthetheSailor’s
richest country on the planet by
and over; Broadcast
man inno one threatening its existence,
could fall into (or, in the alternative version,
the place where the barnyard epithet lives).
welcome here.
It is the immigrants from poor countries,
State Department Human Rights Report says
his government “prohibited organized politi-
Forbes,
Glen
with
Rock
is struggling for survival like Israel, a country
“Popeye the Sailor’s man
in Glen Rock” Larry Yudelson
Meet Hy Eisman,
We’re a weekly, so we know that all our who come here fueled with desperation Popeye the Sailor’s
cal parties and restricted civil liberties, includ- that last
hasof been threatened with genocide by
the old-time
cartoonists
readers and all their reading-age children and hope, who are determined to make ing freedoms of speech, press, and assembly terrorists and neighboring states for nearly
Glen Rock man
“Good read, the subject comes alive, along with
LARRY YUDELSON The old man shows up in the center of Popeye readers might know, Mr. Geezil understand.) Mr. Eisman didn’t learn Eng-
T
a nine-panel Sunday cartoon. (The strip is a Russian Jewish immigrant, complete lish until he started school. His mother
oward the end of the interview, would have arrived in Sunday newspapers with a stereotyped accent and a job as a learned it with him. His father never did.
will have read the unvarnished, un-aster- their way here, to learn and to earn, and and accessMeet toHyaEisman,
fair trial for persons held under 70 years.
Hy Eisman of Glen Rock pulls in glorious color, but it left Mr. Eisman’s pawnbroker. George W. Geezil was created by Elzie
out a comic strip featuring an drawing board, and entered his collection, Mr. Eisman has been drawing the Sun- Crisler Segar, the cartoonist who first cre-
who draws
old man with a beard. in black ink.) “There goes Mr. Geezil,” Pop- day Popeye comic strip since 1997. (The ated Popeye as a bit character in his pop-
The reporter has closed up his note- eye muses, as he watches the old man go weekday strip has been in reruns since ular comic strip, “Thimble Theater.” Mr.
book, but Mr. Eisman still is flipping by. We see Popeye from behind, his sailor’s then.) As he talks about Mr. Geezil, it’s Geezil first appeared in 1932. Popeye first
isked, un-gussied-up version of what he have good lives, or at least give good lives the Protection ofPopeye’s
and writes Society Law and the Combat-
adventures I am in shock.
through the framed comic strips that are hat, corncob pipe, jutting chin, and prom- clear the insult inherent in the character showed up on January 17, 1929.
propped up against a bookcase in front of inent muscles instantly recognizable. “I is personal for Mr. Eisman, the son of Pol- And yes, that means that Popeye is
said, so in some senses our decision mat- to their children — immigrants like our ing Terrorism Law.” The report also says that In an effort to appear tough on the Qataris,
Teaneck, NJ 07666
1086 Teaneck Road
Jewish Standard 16 JEWISH STANDARD DECEMBER 21, 2018
ters less. It’s the daily media, the up-to-the- ancestors — who have succeeded here, and women’s participation in society is “limited by he says he asked them about all the allegations
second online news sources, that really who have given birth to us. It is something cultural discrimination” and that “trafficking made against them and declares them inno-
JS-1*
have to worry about that decision. And it’s we owe them to remember. in persons” is an ongoing problem. cent of all charges. JS-32 I doubt Dershowitz is as
the on-air reporters and podcasters who
have to figure out exactly what to say.
Here at the Jewish Standard we try not
to be political — it is far too divisive — and
These are all the human rights abuses that
Dershowitz normally fights against. How can
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AOC-01
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SURVIVORS IN A BUNGALOW COLONY page 6
RALLYING AGAINST AR-15S pages 10, 42
naïve when defending clients who also declare
their innocence.
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A PROUD GRANDMOTHER IN JERUSALEM page 14
So really we could skip it. we will continue that attempt. We know he defend such an unsavory regime? 86 He makes Qatar sound like some pathetic
ROCKLAND FILM FESTIVALS HAVE SOUL page 22
But there is something that we really do that the immigration laws need a great By far the most outrageous comment Der- victim of crimes committed by bullies. He
NORTH JERSEY THEJEWISHSTANDARD.COM
on Twitter @RabbiShmuley. JOANNE PALMER academic, a man in his mid-30s with a his- family — he couldn’t eat in other people’s historical terms,” he said. “In 1909. And
Web-based Outlets.
W
tory that stretches back centuries, a Brazil- houses, he didn’t go to church ever, he that branch of the family always empha-
hat is Jewish identity? ian-American, a born Jew who had no idea knew that he, like his parents and aunt sized what it is to be an immigrant, so I
Tent I Dwell’
That’s an old question, that he was Jewish, much less what being and uncles and cousins, eventually would grew up with them always telling us that
on display in Teaneck
Jewish
1086 Teaneck Road
Jewish Standard 32 Jewish standard FeBrUarY 23, 2018
James L. Janoff
NORTH JERSEY THEJEWISHSTANDARD.COM
Classified Director P.O. Box 7195 Jerusalem 91077
Tel: 02-6252933, 02-6247919 Ceil Wolf (1914-2008)
I
JOANNE PALMER of drug abuse is skyrocketing, where the the Centers for Disease Control, in 2010 recovery sometimes chimerical.
opioid crisis is making itself felt even in approximately 88,000 people basically Given all this, given the stigma that
t would be wonderful to live in a places where no one ever imagined it drank themselves to death. envelops drug and alcohol use, and given
world where all you have to do is could be felt. There are very real mental health issues the close-knit nature of the Jewish com-
refuse to acknowledge a problem, In places like the local Jewish community. that underlie these statistics, as well as munity, and the myth that Jews never fall
“Addiction isn’t someone else’s problem, as one Bergen County, N.J., family learned. In this
and then it would dutifully go away. On Sunday, April 22, Torah Academy of social policy decisions. There also is the prey to such problems, it takes courage
You know, a world where denial Bergen County will host a meeting about the fact that addiction is a very real physical for families to admit that they have that
truly would be a river in Egypt. opioid crisis, detailing, among other things, phenomenon, not a moral failing, and problem. But of course once those fami-
But we don’t live in that world. what parents should look for and where that some people’s body chemistries make lies do take that step, the easier it becomes
We do live in a world, though, where they can turn for help. (See box on page 28.) them more likely than others to develop for others to admit to their own problems.
some problems are swept under rugs and According to a March 2018 report by physical addictions. Because it is even harder to deal with
left to molder, where some issues aren’t a the National Institute on Drug Abuse, part It is a messy and unpleasant subject. drug abuse when people feel isolated by
big deal but others are paralyzingly embar- of the National Institutes of Health, more Often it is easier to stigmatize people who it, because there is strength in these num-
rassing. We live in a world — all of us live than 155 Americans die of drug overdoses develop drug or alcohol dependencies as bers, the more people come forward, the
perceptive piece, Joanne Palmer relates the story of a young Jewish woman in rehab for drug
in a world, no matter which world we live every day; opioids include prescription morally delinquent than it is to acknowl- better it gets.
in — where no matter how you define per- medications, synthetic opioids, and her- edge the illness and help them recover That’s why the Forman family of
fection, the ability to enact perfection con- oin, among others. It is a horrifying sta- from it; the fact that there is no simple Teaneck has decided to go public about
CHANGE SERVICE REQUESTED vincingly is highly valued. tistic. It does not include deaths that are remedy, no magic pill, no penicillin equiv- the problems their daughter Elana, the
We also live in a world where the rate alcohol related, although, according to alent, makes treatment hard and complete second of their five children, has had with
Teaneck, NJ 07666
1086 Teaneck Road
Jewish Standard 22 JEWISH STANDARD APRIL 13, 2018
addiction and her parents’ decision to demystify addiction by speaking publicly about it at a
Jewish community event. Palmer deftly captures the daughter’s struggles and the parents’ angst,
and supplements the family portrait with details about a local Jewish organization helping
victims of sexual and drug abuse. The family’s courage and the compassion of caregivers are both
memorable, thanks in good part to Palmer’s thorough and probing research and forceful writing.”
Local
W
Near Eastern literature. And
hy do we blow I went from there to folklore
a shofar? — superstition.”
W hy d o e s Some Jewish superstitions
the groom are similar to other cultures’;
smash a glass underfoot at the some probably were influ-
end of the wedding ceremony? enced by the outside world,
Where do demons live and others probably by human
anyway? needs that undergird cultural
And what does this have to understanding.
do with anything? That’s fancy! What about a
Abraham Eckstein, the long- real-life application? “If some-
time leader and now rabbi one is lying down, what happens
emeritus of the Little Neck Jew- if you walk over them? If they’re
ish Center in Queens, has con- maybe lying on the floor watch-
sidered these and many other ing television, and you have to
questions; he’ll discuss the get something? If you walk over
answers either to them or to them, they will not grow any
similar ones on July 17 at Con- more, so you have to walk back
gregation Sons of Israel Nyack. over them to cancel it.
(See box.) “Or say that you lost a button
It’s folklore, he says; ancient on your blouse, and you say,
Jewish folklore, superstition, ‘Hey, Ma, will you sew my button
with centuries if not a full back on?’ And you’re still wear-
millennium of rabbinic mid- ing the blouse? If you sew some-
rash and other explanations thing on while you’re wearing
accreted to it. it, you will sew up your brains.
WIKIMEDIA COMMONS
Before he plunges into a dis- You counteract that by chewing
cussion of where his under- something — sometimes thread
standing of folklore, as well as — in your mouth.
his fascination with it, comes “Some superstitions are dis-
from, Rabbi Eckstein wants to tinctly Jewish, but these two
make clear that he is not say- are not.”
ing — he would never say — that This 1903 painting by Dutch artist Jozef Israëls shows a traditional Jewish wedding ceremony. Okay. What about distinctly
these are customs that should Jewish superstitions?
be abandoned, because of their provenance. Not at all, exposed to biblical criticism, and the idea that the Bible Start with the understanding that demons live in
he says. It’s just fascinating to know where they come and Jewish law and lore have antecedents and parallels caves; they yearn for darkness and silence. That’s not
from. in other ancient cultures. “No one had ever told me that a particularly Jewish understanding, Rabbi Eckstein
He is “a rationalist,” he said. “I am a person who there were other flood stories,” he said; it was there said. It’s more general than that. But it has Jewish
always asks why something is. Why is it done that way? that he first heard about Gilgamesh. implications.
What does it mean?” From JTS, Rabbi Eckstein became an Army chaplain; Why do we blow a shofar on Rosh Hashanah and
Rabbi Eckstein’s background is wide-ranging. He was after that he was a pulpit rabbi, moving around the met- at the end of Yom Kippur? The Bible doesn’t specify
born in 1931 and went to Orthodox yeshivas; his under- ropolitan area before settling in Queens. Now, in retire- a reason; we’re told, in later sources, that it’s to get
graduate degree is from Yeshiva University, and so is his ment, he lives in Great Neck. He was not an academic our attention, to call us to attention, to repentance, to
rabbinic ordination. Then he went to the Conservative — “I had a pulpit! Who had time?” — but he was an insa- spiritual reawakening. It does mean all those things,
movement’s Jewish Theological Seminary, where he tiable reader, and superstition intrigued him. Rabbi Eckstein said, but at its base it is to scare away
earned a doctorate in Bible. It was there, at JTS, which “My interest always was in Bible rather than in Tal- the demons. A shofar traditionally is inside a tallis
then was home to the scholars Nahum Sarna and Louis mud because it deals with people; the Talmud is legalis- bag; the shofar blower walks up to the bimah with his
Ginsburg, among others, that Rabbi Eckstein first was tic, and I am a people person. My doctorate is in biblical horn hidden in the bag. That’s to ensure that demons
Local
of the destruction of Jerusalem,” Rabbi Eckstein said. against it that actually is an eye.” That jewelry — usu-
“Where does that come from? Not the Bible. And the ally a necklace — usually is a blue stone with an eye-
Talmud tells the story of the great rabbi whose daugh- ball, with a pupil centered in it. “The Italians wear a
ter was getting married, and the party was getting out horn, to stick it in the evil eye — they call the evil eye
of control. Glass was very expensive, and he took up a malocchio.” That’s literally “evil eye.” “And Jews wear
very valuable glass, and smashed it, and that shocked the hamsa, the hand with the fingers extended, to stick
everybody into sobriety. That had nothing to do with it in the evil eye,” he said.
the Bible.” That was an accretion on top of an accre- Rabbi Eckstein will be in Nyack for the M. Nathan
tion; the original reason for smashing the glass was to Cember Memorial Lecture Series. It’s presented by
scare away demons. Mr. Cember’s widow, Esther. Both the Cembers were
And that is absolutely not a reason to stop smashing very active members of Sons of Israel. “He was very
a glass at the end of a wedding, Rabbi Eckstein said. Of prominently involved locally,” Ms. Cember said. “He
course smash the glass! was president of Bnai Brith District 1, head of the Israel
The most basic reason for superstition is “supersti- Commission, a former president of the shul — a major
tious people believe, although they may never verbal- macher in Jewish life, so I figured that this would be a
ize, that there are evil spirits in this world that want nice way to memorialize him.”
to harm humans. We have to combat them, and there She heard Rabbi Eckstein speak twice in Florida,
are certain things that we can do to prevent them from where she spends six months every year. “He was very
doing their wickedness. If we don’t do those things — entertaining, very knowledgeable, and everybody
we’ve got problems.” loved him,” Ms. Cember said. If only he could get to
In Nyack, Rabbi Eckstein will talk about the evil eye. Rockland County to speak. Once she learned that he’d
That’s not a uniquely Jewish concept, he said; “every been visiting Florida but lives in Great Neck, everything
The hamsa — this modern version was made in culture has an evil eye. In Turkey, you can buy jewelry fell into place. “I’m thrilled about it,” Ms. Cember said.
Venezuela — is an amulet Jews wear to ward off
the evil eye. WIKIMEDIA COMMONS
34
candles, as they do in very traditional weddings?
one
Why do they walk around the groom seven times?
It’s because the candles and their light, and then
the circles, protect him against Lilith, Adam’s first
lives
month
wife, who would suck his soul.
saved
Rabbi Eckstein also has been struck by non-Jew-
ish applications of this principle. He remembers his
time at Fort Dix, when he saw a Catholic mass. At
the moment of transubstantiation, when the wafer in June, 2019
and wine become Jesus’s body and blood, accord-
ing to Catholic belief, “when the priest picks up the
wine and turns it into blood, all of a sudden the
bells ring.” It’s the only time during the mass that World’s Largest Jewish
they are sounded, Rabbi Eckstein said. Why? “The
priest said it’s to emphasize it — but it’s because the
Bone Marrow Registry
noise scares away the demons.”
In all these stories, the sound and light ward off J U N E 2 0 1 9 M O N T H LY U P D AT E
the attacks that would happen at liminal moments,
times of change, when people are open to that 34 transplants facilitated in June, 2019
change, and therefore vulnerable.
Back at a Jewish wedding, why does the groom
3,230 total transplants including 1,965 from IDF Recruits
smash the glass? “We’re told that it’s in memory 985,186 members in registry
including 544,281 IDF HEROES
TRANSPLANTS FACILITATED IN: Argentina, France, Germany, Israel, Italy,
Who: Rabbi Abraham Eckstein
Netherlands, Spain, UK, USA: Seattle, WA; Tampa Fl; Gilbert, AZ
What: Will talk about “The Evil Eye:
Superstition in Jewish Life” TRANSPLANTS FACILITATED FROM THE FOLLOWING DONOR POOLS:
Where: At Congregation Sons of Israel, 300 • S. Adelsberg & Co. • Adiram • Blood Brothers • Brazil Community - 5
North Broadway, Upper Nyack • Damaghi Family • Izzy Englander • Michael David Falk Foundation
When: On Wednesday, July 17, at 7 p.m. • David & Sara Farajun - 3 • Hershel Fink • Florida Community
• Chana Perl Freund • Gimzu Community • David & Judy Hager
Why: For the M. Nathan Cember Memorial
Lecture Series • Hole In One • Harvey & Gloria Kaylie • Ronald O. Perelman
• Ira & Ingeborg Rennert • George & Pamela Rohr - 2 • Mark & Barbara Silber
How much: Free, but RSVP is requested;
• Benjamin & Friedl Sommer • Tobetta
email csioffice@optonline.net or call (845)
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For more information: Go to www.csinyack. Become a hero today at ezermizion.org
org or call (845) 358-3767 For more information, contact Ryan Hyman at 718-853-8400 • ryan@ezermizionusa.org
T
here is a case to be made that the
works of William Shakespeare
are the Talmud of English litera-
ture. It is part of the canon — by
terms lively and convoluted, contemporary
in its concerns yet often obscured by the
dust of a dimly understood old-fashioned
language. And while we are past the era
when Shakespeare dominated our theater
and culture as he did a hundred years ago,
his work remains a solid and stolid part of
our curriculum.
But the works of Shakespeare hold an
advantage over the Talmud. When a bad
classroom experience has drained the joy
from the texts, there is always the bracing
experience of the live stage.
And now it’s summertime, and the Shake-
speare is free — at least in Teaneck’s Votee Stacy Cancelarich
Park, at Englewood’s library, and other
stages in Bergen County where Black Box
Studios will present Shakespeare in the
Park, thanks to the sponsorship of the local
towns and institutions, including Englewood
Health and Holy Name Medical Center in
Teaneck.
“It’s free theater for the masses,” Matt
Okin said. Mr. Okin is the founder of the
Black Box Studios. “We modernize the set- Ben Shanblatt
tings and the feel, but the language stays the
same. Everyone likes a little fighting, a little murder.” starting in September, we will do five main stage shows.
Black Box is presenting “Romeo and Juliet” as “punk “The theater school is the lifeblood of what we do.
rockers versus country clubbers,” he said. (Mr. Okin The classes are for ages seven to adult. There’s acting,
used a similar punk rock versus Starbucks theme when improv, writing classes, drama, musical theater. We
his student troupe staged “Fiddler on the Roof” several have about 55 students and hope to get to our height
years ago.) He’s staging “Othello” as a story of corporate of 70 again.
intrigue. “It tells how one corporation eats itself alive “In ‘Romeo and Juliet,’ you have a bunch of Black
over jealousy,” he said. Box students represented. One of the more advanced
Mr. Okin said that understanding the 400-year- teams from our group is acting in it. A couple of teens Matt Okin
old plays is not difficult when they are performed by are doing all the tech. And our assistant director, Ben Stacy Cancelarich plays Lady Capulet. It’s her first
actors who understand what they’re saying. At Black Shanblatt, is in college now but only a couple years professional performance. A native of Teaneck who
Box rehearsals, Shakespeare’s words are translated into out,” Mr. Okin said. now lives in Hillsdale, she discovered Black Box five or
modern idiom; the words revert to their original form “I started as an actor in one of the teen productions six years ago, when her son, Sam, then in high school,
in performance. around 2013,” Mr. Shanblatt, 19, said. “I’ve been doing was looking for an acting opportunity. She signed up
“If you have a bunch of well-trained actors, it’s guar- music and acting for them since.” Mr. Shanblatt lives for adult acting class with Black Box. “I did six shows
anteed you will understand it,” Mr. Okin said. “It’s the in Fair Lawn and is a student at the School of Jazz and with them,” she said. “Then Matt Okin asked me to
exact words, a little edited down. Each show is a little Contemporary Music in the New School in Manhattan. audition for Shakespeare. They thought I was ready to
under two hours. He said his experience with Shakespeare had been move on up. So this is my first time with the pros.
“It’s great exposure to what we do all year round, but limited before this summer. “I read a few plays in high “It’s great. It’s a lot of fun. But it’s much more of a
for free. It’s the sort of theater we do. It’s very intimate. school,” he said. “I did a reading of ‘A Midsummer time commitment — it’s a lot of fun. I’m learning a lot.
The audience is very close to the actors. You get to see Night’s Dream’ when I was younger. If you’re a runner and they put you with faster runners,
the type of talent we work with.” Many of the actors are “During the rehearsal process for ‘Romeo and Juliet,’ you learn to run faster. It’s a wonderful thing to do
part of the Black Box repertory company during the year. a lot of us were surprised by how modern and relevant something brand new in a second or third part of your
Black Box started as an after-school acting school. the material felt. Putting it into a more modern con- life. It’s great to discover something I love and always
Three years ago, it began presenting professional the- text really felt pretty natural. I can tell you the way we wanted to do and didn’t do.
ater from its own small building in Teaneck, awkwardly physicalize things makes the text clearer. Everything is “I don’t think I was a fan of Shakespeare in high school.
positioned in the parking lot of a kosher grocery store. presented in a clear way, so it’s easy to understand.” The language was challenging. When we started rehears-
Now it has moved out of that building and is looking Besides directing and acting in the play, Mr. Shanblatt als, I didn’t fully grasp all of the beauty of it. Now I love it.
for a larger space, probably in Englewood, for the fall. performs on electric and acoustic guitars. “I allow the Once you get into it, it’s really great. I find myself wanting
Meanwhile it is rehearsing in the park. music and acting choices to connect,” he said. “I feel to use Shakespeare on a daily basis at home.
“We’ve done about seven shows a year in the last them as one thing. A lot of time I’m doing both at the “Speaking in iambic pentameter is fun. Much less
three years,” Mr. Okin said. “In our fourth season, same time.” Jersey-like.”
14 JEWISH STANDARD JULY 12, 2019
JS-15*
Local
IDF veterans in the Peace of Mind program gather with their host
familes at Ahavath Torah in Englewood.
FIRST PERSON
AFFORDABLE, HIGH-QUALITY CARE
Their peace of mind TO BRING YOU AND YOUR LOVED ONE PEACE OF MIND
W
Israel Psychotrauma Center at Herzog
hat an inspiring week Hospital in Jerusalem, that helps veter-
it was! ans process and heal from the invisible
The Ahavath Torah effects of service-related trauma. A cen-
Brightview.
community in Engle-
wood hosted 15 members of the IDF
tral component of the Peace of Mind
program is a week of therapy in a dias-
Bright Life!
Givati Brigade, and all of us, veter- pora community abroad; the distance
ans and host families alike, were pro- from Israel, from family, and from job
foundly moved by the experience. In obligations is deemed critical to the
fact, we feel we got back much more therapeutic process.
than we gave. Traveling together with their two
As one of the hosts shared in the therapists, the group landed early
farewell circle on the final morning, Sunday morning and were welcomed
“15 strangers arrived last Sunday, and into the warm embrace of our modern
yet we welcomed them into our homes Orthodox community. The veterans’
as family because they are acheinu, kol days were comprised of eight hours of Independent Living: It’s the carefree
beit Yisrael.” The house of Israel are all group and individual therapy sessions. retirement you’ve dreamed of! At Brightview,
our brothers and sisters. In the evening, there were trips to the Let Your all you have to do is what you want to do.
Life
That is exactly how we all felt; as it mall and New York City, with carpools
is written in the scriptures, so it was in
reality.
shuttling the group back and forth.
There were BBQs and pool parties.
Bright Assisted Living: Highly trained
associates provide the care you need.
Eight Ahavath Torah families hosted
the IDF veterans, while many more
Local kosher restaurants generously
donated all the veterans’ lunches. Shine Wellspring Village®:
congregants were involved in the The IDF veterans were astonished at Bergen County’s Premier Compassionate professionals
countless tasks (carpooling, organizing to learn how much our diaspora com- deliver our highly specialized
Senior Living Community dementia care program
sports activities, donating meals, and munity was willing to do for them, and
on and on) needed to make this week how eager everyone was to be part of in a state-of-the-art
a huge success. We raised $53,000 to this initiative. Throughout the week, neighborhood.
cover the all-expense-paid program, we tried to convey how much the IDF
which is funded solely by the host and the state of Israel mean to us. We Call Mary or Marianne to
community. explained that by protecting Israel they schedule your personal visit.
The Givati unit had fought in the are in fact protecting us and our free- 201.479.9437
second Lebanon war and later in dom to be practicing Jews, both here 396 Forest Avenue • Paramus, NJ 07652
Gaza. These 15 veterans now were and across the globe. www.BrightviewParamus.com
in the United States as participants While the veterans repeatedly
in Peace of Mind, a nine-month thanked us for inviting them so warmly
into our homes, we told them that it is
Tani Foger, Ed.D, LPC of Englewood us who should be thanking them. We
is a psychologist and educational told them how much we appreciate
consultant and the founder of “Let’s- their sacrifice, dedicating three years of www.thejewishstandard.com
Talk” Workshops, guidance workshops their lives to serving in harm’s way, and
for all ages at all stages. SEE PEACE PAGE 24
JEWISH STANDARD JULY 12, 2019 15
JS-16*
Briefly Local
Blackburn (R-Tenn.)
met with leaders of
OU ADVOCACY CENTER
the Orthodox Union
on Capitol Hill on
June 26 to discuss
the organization’s
IDF lone soldiers enjoy FIDF “Fun Day” at the Israeli water park. federal advocacy
priorities, including
Cool day for FIDF lone soldiers funding for Depart-
ment of Homeland Security grants to protect synagogues, day schools,
One June 27 — “Fun Day” — 5,000 lone and other nonprofits. Joining her, from left, are OU board members Man-
soldiers launched Israel Defense Forces ny Schnaidman of Teaneck and Drew Parker of Englewood.
Appreciation Week in Israel at Shefayim
Water Park, the nation’s largest water-
park, just outside of Tel Aviv. There are
about 6,116 lone soldiers from 80 coun-
tries in the IDF, including 810 from the
United States.
The day of rest and recuperation was
hosted by Friends of the Israel Defense
Forces in partnership with the IDF and
Yachad Le’maan Ha’chayal (the Associa-
tion for the Wellbeing of Israel’s Soldiers
and the LIBI Fund).
In addition to the park’s attractions, The Friends of the Israel Defense
the day included a pool party with Force’s New Jersey chapter — of-
Israeli DJ Eran Barnea, access to game ten referred to as the Lone Soldier
and fitness areas, and an all-day smor- chapter — was co-founded by
gasbord featuring barbecue and des-
serts. The lone soldiers also received
Sammy Bar-Or, left, an FIDF nation-
al board member who moved to
Cancer survivors rally at ‘Relay’
information about life after their mili- Israel from Iran when he was 13 and Seventy cancer survivors who par- to remember loved ones who died
tary service, including about the FIDF served as a lone soldier in the IDF’s ticipated in the seventh annual Relay from cancer. The day was organized
IMPACT! Scholarship Program, which Paratroopers Brigade. He joins Brig. for Life of Paramus at Paramus High by a committee of student and adult
grants college scholarships to Israeli Gen. (Res.) Effi Idan, FIDF’s execu- School last month raised more than volunteers, and it featured an all-stu-
combat veterans of modest means. IDF tive director in Israel; Alon Even, its $90,000. In addition, more than dent executive board. Donations can
unit commanders, non-commissioned managing director in Israel; and Maj. 500 community members partici- be made at relayforlife.org/paramusnj.
officers, high-ranking military officials, (Res.) Relli Zin, IDF’s chief operating pated in the 12-hour event, which is For more information or to be involved
and FIDF supporters also attended the officer, at “Fun Day.” FIDF a fundraiser for the American Cancer in the planning for the 2020 fund-
“Fun Day” festivities to meet and thank Society. A luminaria ceremony fea- raiser, email relayforlifeofparamus@
the soldiers for serving. Go to fidf.org. turing a caregiver speaker was held gmail.com.
16 JEWISH STANDARD JULY 12, 2019
JS-17*
Briefly Local
BARBARA BALKIN
COURTESY KOL DOROT
Rabbi David Widzer leads a service on the Palisades last year. New boards in Teaneck and Wayne
During Shabbat services on June 21, assistant financial secretary Emily
Shabbat ‘Prayers on the Palisades’ Rabbi Steven Sirbu and Cantor Ellen
Tilem installed Temple Emeth’s new
Hadjis of Fair Lawn, and Rabbi Steven
Sirbu.
Kol Dorot: A Reform Jewish Commu- both prayers and songs. officers. Front, from left, Cantor Ellen Back, from left, financial secretary
nity, the new congregation formed State Line Lookout is at the highest Tilem, assistant secretary Jill Kantor Alan Winters of Leonia, secretary
with the merger of Temple Beth El of point on the Palisades Cliffs, and it of Leonia, first vice president Michael Robert Kahn of Tenafly, and treasurer
Northern Valley in Closter and Tem- has a large parking lot. Enter off the Robinson of Teaneck, president Nicole Gary Richards of Cliffside Park. Ellen
ple Beth Or in Washington Township, Palisades Interstate Parkway north- Falk of Glen Rock, second vice presi- Buckwalter of Fort Lee, third vice
plans two outdoor family-friendly bound, two miles north of Exit 2. dent Michael Goldberg of Teaneck, president, is not pictured.
Shabbat services. The first will be held Bring lawn chairs and bug spray. If it
on Friday, July 19, at 6:30 p.m., at the rains, the service will be held at Kol
State Line Lookout off the Palisades Dorot, 56 Ridgewood Road, Washing-
Parkway. Kol Dorot’s clergy, Rabbis ton Township. A second service will
David Widzer and Noah Fabricant and be on Friday, August 23. For more
Cantor Sarah Silverberg, will lead the information, go to koldorot.org or
informal service, which will include call (201) 664-7422.
Front row, from left, Olena Marchenko, Lovey Beer, Arielle Gorbatov,
Norman Gurman, and Ronald Brisman. Back row, Julia Nock, Alisa Macari,
Zarina Kosinovsky, Rivkah Lewin, Rabbi Mordechai Shain, Yossi Levy, and
Norman Findling. COURTESY LOTP
AND EFFORTS
has elected Dr. Howard Zvi Gold-
schmidt of Teaneck as its new pres-
ident. He takes over for Debbie Kes-
TO COMBAT
tenbaum, who served for the last
three years.
Dr. Goldschmidt’s maternal grand-
father, Herman Warisch, was a class-
ANTI-SEMITISM
mate and lifelong friend of Dr. Falk
Schlesinger, the hospital’s second
director-general. His paternal grand-
father, Carl Goldschmidt, was an
COURTESY ACSZ
American Committee board mem-
ber in the 1960s and 1970s and was
honored posthumously in the 1980s.
His parents, Helen and Eric Gold-
The Fascinating Personal and schmidt, were strong supporters of
Shaare Zedek, and Dr. Goldschmidt
Dr. Howard Zvi Goldschmidt
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I
JOANNE PALMER how to work them, and how to search.)
There was no organization then that
n the end, his is a happy story, could help him. “You are like a deer in the
Oded Grinstein of Fair Lawn says. headlights,” Oded said. “You don’t know
He repeats that frequently, and what to do, and you deal with doctors like
he’s right. In the end, his daugh- they are God.” Still, he was looking for a
ter survived the childhood cancer god with experience in the sarcoma that his
that would have killed her if her daughter had.
parents didn’t work as hard and They found the doctor they needed at
tirelessly and selflessly and cleverly as they Memorial Sloan Kettering in Manhattan.
did, and if they hadn’t had the resources — Dr. Leonard Wexner, a pediatric hematolo-
not only financial but also intellectual and gist and oncologist, “is one of the leading
emotional — that allowed them to keep going. experts in the world on pediatric sarcoma,”
But not every story ends as Oded’s did. Oded said. “He’s seen about three-hundred
Sometimes children die of cancer. Some- cases.
times their cancer is incurable — maybe “My brother took a plane from Israel to
some day it won’t be, but today it is. But New York and met with him, and he basi-
sometimes we can’t be sure. Some cancers cally said to me, in a nutshell, ‘If you want
are very rare, but curable with the right to save my niece, bring her over,’ and that’s
approach. Sometimes, if a patient (or the what we did. It was a very tough decision, to
patient’s family) can find a doctor with the leave your comfort zone, your support sys-
right experience, aware of the right studies, tem, to go to the other side of the world, to
seeing the right data, that child might be a different language and a different medical
cured, just like Oded’s daughter was. system, which you do not understand.”
The first step for parents who are faced Oded Grinstein’s roots in Israel are deep.
with the nearly unendurable news that their “My mother’s family are several generations
child — it could be a newborn, an infant, a there,” he said. “And Meital’s parents are
toddler, a school-age child, or a teenager, seventh-generation in Jerusalem, from Iran
that part doesn’t matter — has cancer is and Iraq.”
learning how to navigate that new reality. As On the other hand, he already spoke
they so often report, they find themselves English, but despite his background in inter-
complete strangers in a terrifying new land, national business, “it was tough to do the
where people use incomprehensible lan- research,” he said. His daughter was being
guage that conceals harsh truths behind its treated in Israel, and “we didn’t have an
impenetrable syllables. Oded Grinstein cradles his infant daughter, who suffered from a rare iPhone then. I did research on a Nokia, at
Although Israel is known — and known and aggressive cancer. night, from the hospital, on dial-up internet.
correctly — for its extraordinary advances “In the hospital in Israel, the protocol
in medicine, often it’s not the best place to find treat- Israel, “we noticed a little bump on her lower back,” called for her being treated first with chemotherapy,
ment for children with rare cancers. That, Oded said, he said. “By the time she was nine months old, she was and then radiation, and then surgery — or maybe it
is because it’s small. “Israel is at the forefront of med- diagnosed with a very rare and aggressive type of sar- was surgery first, and then radiation — but mind you,
ical research, but because it’s small there is not a lot coma, a soft tissue cancer that in her case attached to she was like two feet long, so radiation to her lower
of experience,” he said. “We know that there are more the muscle tissue in her lower back. It is very rare. The back would get all her internal organs. We were very
than 50 types and subtypes of pediatric cancers.” That chances of having it at her age, in that location, was one concerned about the implications of that.” That, in
means that there are few doctors there with more than in 403 million.” But she did have it. fact, was the trigger for his investigation into overseas
limited experience with a few of those types. “I don’t When Oded and Meital Grinstein realized that there options. “She completed chemo in Israel — the Israeli
want parents to start leaving Israel — but with any rare were no doctors in Israel with experience in their doctors said that she couldn’t get any more chemo
disease, you want your child to be seen by experienced daughter’s condition, “we searched all around the — and then we came to the United States basically to
doctors.” globe, in Japan and Switzerland and a number of other undergo surgery, and then potentially radiation.
When the elder of Oded’s two daughters, who now places in Europe and in the United States.” (Oded is “We came to the United States for two months, we
is 10 1/2, was six months old, and the family lived in a business developer; he has connections and knows thought. The doctors here looked at her scans, and
20 JEWISH STANDARD JULY 12, 2019
JS-21
Cover Story
said, ‘No no no. She is not ready for surgery. The tumor sees us, and he stands up, and he says, ‘Hi. I’m Dr. Wex-
has been growing. It would be wrong to do surgery ler.’ And I think, ‘This is the best doctor in the world?’
now. We need to do chemo.’ And he said, ‘Sorry. I saw that there was a baby coming
“So I said, ‘But she got the maximum chemo she to see me, so I just wiped all the toys on the floor with
could get in Israel!’ sanitizer.’ That’s Dr. Wexler.”
“And the doctor said, ‘Let me do my job.’ Despite her doctor’s sensitivity, the treatment neces-
“That’s where experience comes into play,” Oded sary to save the little girl’s life was hellish. “Luckily she
continued. “Chemotherapy is a recipe. There’s some was a baby, and she doesn’t remember the suffering,”
of this, and some of that. They check with 50 kids, and Oded said. “But it was really really tough.
they take the average. But if the kid gets too much of “Not to mention that my wife was 8 1/2 months preg-
this or of that, it is toxic. And if it’s too little, it’s not nant with our second child — there are only a year
effective. So what if your kid is on one of the edges? and three months between them. We timed the birth
“That’s when the doctor can take the recipe and his between the chemo cycles. My wife was admitted to The Grinsteins decided to stay in the United States
experience and intuition.” Medicine is as much art as Cornell Weill for ten days, and our other daughter was because they knew that Dr. Wexner saved their daugh-
it is science — it is very much science but it also is very across the street, at Memorial Sloan Kettering. ter’s life. “We know this is the guy we want to be near
much art. “It was an emotional roller coaster.” if and when the cancer God forbid returns,” he said.
“The doctor gave her nine times the dose she got in Now that ride has ended. “We stayed for a year. The “Cancers tend to come back. So I want to be a taxi ride
Israel. He killed her — and he saved her.” doctor said, ‘No surgery now, no radiation, we’re going away from him. If we go back to Israel, what happens if
He remembers the first time he met Dr. Wexner. back to chemo, so we did a whole other cycle, and then she has a relapse? So for the first year we lived in Man-
“We were in the waiting room at Memorial Sloan Ket- the doctor said, ‘Now it’s time for surgery to remove hattan, and the second year we got some courage and
tering, waiting, anxious about our first meeting with the tumor.’” Then the little girl underwent radiation, moved to Queens, and then six years later we moved
the doctor. We’re with the baby. They call us, and they then more chemo, and then, “in 2010, she was offi- to New Jersey.”
say that he’s waiting for us in Room 9. We enter the cially NED.” There was No Evidence of Disease. “Today, (As readers might notice, when he talks about them
area, and start walking down a long hallway, down to at 10 1/2, she is the leading scorer on her hockey team,” for publication, Oded does not use his daughters’
the room, which was at the end. her father said. names. He talks about the daughter who survived can-
“I see it at the end of the hallway, and I see someone “She’s an athlete, and a good student, and mainly cer all the time, but he balances his need to publicize
down on his knees and elbows, doing something on the what she has, aside from a couple of marks on her body, his cause with his daughter’s need for privacy, and that,
floor, and I’m sure that it was the janitor. And then he is just a story. And she doesn’t remember any of it.” he says, demands that he refer to his daughters only by
JEWISH STANDARD JULY 12, 2019 21
JS-22
Cover Story
relationship, not by name.) who needs it, though, Oded said, and so second opinions from some of the best It is the way that he, his board, and the
“I always joke that after their treat- far the group has worked with children doctors in the country. other people who work for My Child’s
ment, teenagers and young adults from other countries as well. “Eventually the decision was not to Cancer can help heal the world, one sick
should be entitled to PTSD treatment, Oded Grinstein still has his day job, do it. This girl is now receiving radiation child at a time.
but with babies, it’s the parents who but he devotes much time and attention instead of surgery.” That was after con- Tobi Bressler, who is on the group’s
should get it,” Oded said. “But that was to My Child’s Cancer. It is his passion. sulting with Dr. Wexner; it seems to have board, is a registered nurse, and has a
our journey. I did my research, and then It “has four programs,” he said. been the right decision. doctorate in nursing, is the director of
I was in Memorial for almost a year, The first is “personalized research. “We do personalized research,” Oded nursing for oncology and clinical qual-
and I became an expert in this specific “For each and every child, we build a said. “We have teams of cancer research- ity at Mount Sinai’s medical school, and
kind of cancer. I knew the treatments research team to find the best expert for ers, of doctors who can take a case, learn she is an assistant professor of medical
and the protocols and the complica- their own specific condition or complica- it, just dive into it. And we also have a oncology there.
tions. I met other parents who became network of parents, who have connec- “I can see from the other end” — the
experts on the specific kinds of cancer tions. I don’t know another organization hospital end, that is, rather than the par-
they were dealing with — brain cancer that does that.” Those researchers, like ent’s — “the need for something like My
or lymphoma — and I thought to myself, Oded, are volunteers. Child’s Cancer,” Dr. Bressler said. “How
‘Where does all this information go at This is how we My Child’s Cancer’s researchers do can I not do this? As a Jewish woman,
the end of the journey? At the end, we
may have a child, or we may not have a
took our not offer advice, he added. “We find
information. We give the information.
this is about doing chesed. This is the
ultimate form of chesed. It is an oppor-
child. But we have all this information.’ lemonade and We say, ‘Go discuss it with your doctor.’ tunity to be part of people’s lives at a
“And I thought that it would be a total
waste to let all this information just stay
made lemons Sometimes doctors are not open to sec-
ond opinions. If someone still wants to
time when they need it the most.
“It is humbling.
in our heads, so I decided to document out of it. pursue other options, then our second “Oded is inspiring, and his story is
our journey, and the journeys of the
other people who were willing to share
Knowledge can program kicks in.”
That second program entails patient
profound, but it is not unique, although
what he did with it is unique. His experi-
it. I uploaded it on a website, and I called save lives. advocacy and facilitating treatment. “We ence is the experience of many families.
it mychild’scancer.org. represent patients in front of hospitals,” Of too many families.”
“And then parents started contact- tion. No two kids are the same. And it is Oded said. “In many cases, these are Her job, she said, is to “provide a clin-
ing me to ask for more information and this program that has the biggest impact. international patients. Often they’re from ical lens, so Avital and I” — that’s Avital
advice.” That how the website grew to “Just a couple of examples, from the Israel. We help deal with the language Gaziel, another board member — “look
what it is today. last few months. An 11-year-old girl was barrier. We help negotiate prices down.” through the most recent data, the most
“This is how we took our lemonade scheduled to have her leg amputated, Some of the families who work with recent studies, the most recent clinical
and made lemons out of it. Knowledge and information from us changed that My Child’s Cancer stay in their home trials” — and after they conclude that the
can save lives, and I wanted all the par- decision. January 26 was when she was countries — most but not all are Israeli — information is accurate and applicable,
ents who are going through this process supposed to undergo the surgery, and and they too need help negotiating a sys- they translate it into a form that parents
to share information with other parents. as of July she still has two legs.” That tem that works in their native language, can use, and give it to them.
“When you go online to buy a car, you decision was based not on an aversion but not with their vocabulary. What she does, Dr. Bressler said, “is
can find all the details. When you want to the surgery, but to new information, In the third program, “when a family combine science and love.” What the
to save your child’s life, the information he added. needs to relocate, we help them to find organization does is “an act of loving
is not available. If you go online, prob- “There also was an 18-year-old girl housing. Sometimes there are siblings; kindness, through science.
ably the first search results would be who has cancer in her lower back, and we help them find schools and summer “Parents have a lot of questions,” she
the hospitals with the biggest marketing she was scheduled to undergo a surgery camps. We host them during holidays said. “It sometimes can be hard to trans-
budgets. Where do you find the informa- that would have left her disabled, para- and Shabbat.” late everything into terms parents can
tion about what to do next? Where do lyzed in at least one leg. It was not clear And then, finally, “at the end of the understand. You walk into a physician’s
you find advice? how many internal organs would have journey, we interview the parents. We office, and you leave with a thousand
“This is the information that we have been affected. It was very complicated take all that information, curate it, put questions.”
on our website.” surgery. it on the website, and make it avail- She also can provide the kind of con-
Most of the parents who My Child’s “Her parents didn’t want to go that able to everyone. We also have a You- nections that parents should not need
Cancer helps are Israeli. That’s because route,” at least without knowing that Tube channel with parents sharing this — but this is the all-too-real world, and
most of them find the group through it was inevitable, “so they contacted information. they do need them. “Because I am in
word of mouth. It’s open to everyone us. We did our research, and brought “That is our tikkun olam,” he added. the health care field, I have worked with
22 JEWISH STANDARD JULY 12, 2019
JS-23
Cover Story
many of those providers,” Dr. Bressler they live — they are ours. We have to do “I had that knowledge from my work few of them who have some of these
said. “We all know each other. So when right by them. with pharmaceutical companies. I knew very rare illnesses. “It is very hard to dig-
someone calls a physician’s office or a “It is hard work,” Dr. Bressler con- about clinical trials, and how cancer italize this right now,” she said. “Every
hospital or a clinic and says I need an cluded. “There is a lot of heavy emo- patients are treated. I know that space case is so specific. We have to look at
appointment, they say come in six weeks. tional lifting. But when you have the very well. We met in 2015, and I was their medical records, and find this
But if you know someone on the inside, opportunity to know that you have had extremely moved by his story and by one surgeon who has done this surgery
you can send them a note, or a text, or a small part in making someone’s expe- his journey, and I understood that there twice in his or her entire career, and this
give them a call, and I say I know this rience just a drop easier, it is worth all was something that I could do.” Now, as would be the third surgery.
family — and they get seen right away. the tears.” a volunteer, Dr. Gaziel does the person- “It’s not like, say, breast cancer, where
“We can use the connections that we Avital Gaziel earned her doctorate in alized research that helps parents, their there is so much information that we can
have through our day jobs to do import- molecular oncology and immunology at children, and their doctors learn what digitalize it.
ant work for the most vulnerable.” For NYU’s medical school, and she also is on specific treatment might be most likely “With my company, we are trying to
desperately sick children. My Child’s Cancer’s board. Like Oded, to work for them. eliminate the need to know someone.
“This is a very family-centered she was born in Israel. Her own business, Trialjectory, is not We are trying to eliminate the need to
approach,” Dr. Bressler said. “We are She’s a cancer researcher; after she nonprofit, but it fits in with her volun- have someone like me. But until then, I
not only caring for the child, and inves- finished her post-doctoral work, also at teer work. “We are using artificial intel- am committed to doing this.
tigating the science for the child, we are NYU, she worked with pharmaceutical ligence to match cancer patients to “Losing a kid is not what nature
taking care of the whole family. We are companies, doing communications. “And clinical trials,” she said. “So what I do intended for us. It was such a great loss
creating a cocoon, a support system. We then I started my own business,” she said. manually and very specifically for kids, to lose my mom, but that is the cycle of
are making a place for them.” That’s Trialjectory, where she’s head of we are trying to automate and democ- life. When you see these parents strug-
These are Jewish values, she added. medical affairs. “Throughout this pro- ratize for the people across the world.” gling to save their kid’s life, and the kid
“The strongest one is tikkun olam. Of cess, I lost my mom to cancer,” she said. Remember how important person- is 4 years old, it breaks my heart. That is
healing the world. We live our lives “So I was kind of trying to make a differ- alized connections are for the parents not right, and it needs to be fixed.
through the service of others. That is ence from the scientific point of view. I of sick children? That’s true now, but if “That is my personal connection.”
not only a Jewish concept. That is an was trying to do something good with Dr. Gaziel’s company is successful, that Michael Kasdan of Maplewood — who
everybody concept. But it is also a Jew- my knowledge. And then a mutual friend might cease to be true some day. That’s went to the Frisch Academy in Para-
ish concept. introduced Oded and me. The friend said where the democratization comes in. mus for high school, he said parentheti-
“What really drives this mission, is that Oded needed help figuring out the But it’s different for children now, cally— also is on the board. He’s an intel-
that these children, no matter where whole clinical part of things. because — happily — there are so very lectual property lawyer, not a medical
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professional; he is as passionate about the mission of My I think we can reach out to corporate and private Jewish understanding of community only helps — and
Child’s Cancer as Dr. Gaziel and Dr. Bressler are, but he foundations. Until now, our most effective develop- it helps everybody.
helps in another way. “My focus is on development,” he ment has been with people who are interested in Limor Offer, another Israeli native, lives in Closter;
said. Jewish causes — individuals and families who we’ve unlike the board members, she is an employee of My
To back up, Mr. Kasdan’s connection to My Child’s Can- known through personal connections. Child’s Cancer. “In January, I started as the program
cer, like Dr. Gaziel’s and Dr. Bressler’s, began with Oded “I’ve always been told to have one big event a director,” she said. “I am responsible for the family
Grinstein, whose affect clearly is charismatic. “I met Oded year, but we’ve found that what’s most effective for coordinators. There are five of them, wonderful women
when he was working at the Israeli economic ministry, us is to have small events, either a breakfast in the who help our families in New Jersey and New York.”
and I was focused on doing an IP for startups and entre- city or living-room events. Most of the work that she and the family coordinators
preneurs,” he said. Although Mr. Kasdan then was working “That’s because every time you put someone in do is related to comfort, not research.
with another nonprofit, the two men kept in touch. “I don’t a room with Oded, that gets them. That reaches “We have families who come to the United States for
have a personal connection to pediatric cancer, but I was them.” treatment, and some that stay in Israel,” she said. “If
drawn to what he was doing,” Mr. Kasdan said. “His story He works on My Child’s Cancer because, he said, they stay in Israel, we support them. We are in touch
is really compelling, and I love the concept of using infor- “to me it is the ultimate tikkun olam. It is being with them every other week, to see if they need a sec-
mation from parents’ experiences to help other patients. there. It is the community aspect, of relying on a ond opinion or to check about insurance, or anything
“My day job is fun and interesting, but I tend to look out- Jewish community that always is going to be there else they need.
side it for my real passion projects.” for us, across the world. “If they come here, it is complicated. Not all insur-
So he became a board member. “At first, I thought that I had a resistance to chari- ance companies cover it. We don’t encourage any
“We are looking to grow,” he said. “We are getting to be ties that seemed to be only Jewish, that seemed only family to come to the United States for treatment. We
the size, and we are getting to have the track record, where tribal,” he added. “But now, with the perspective I listen to them and offer options.” She and the fam-
have on life, I think that the community aspect of it ily coordinators help the families who come to this
is important. There is something about being able country “find apartments, rent cars, find a school. We
ammy’s to come from Israel to America, to a scary place, to invite them to Shabbat dinner. We are like a second
Sammy’s
S have someplace to go for Shabbat or holidays.” That
matters, he said; and, he pointed out, My Child’s
family for them.
“We also have families who came here and then go
Cancer isn’t only for Jews anyway. But having that back to Israel when the treatment is done. They need
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FROM PAGE 15
then continuing to do a month of reserve duty each
Solved!
year until they turn 40. So the least we can do is to offer
them one week of our time, we told them, to help them
Overwhelmed? gain some peace of mind, and a healthier emotional life
going forward.
It became apparent that the vast majority of Israe-
Out of control? lis know very little about the Jewish community in the
diaspora. Our guests seemed oblivious to the vital role
Craving shalom that Israel plays in the lives of our families and in our
bayit? children’s education. I wondered how is it that most
Israelis are so unaware of the centrality of Israel to our
lives. And what can be done about that? We implored
our guests to become ambassadors for us and to let
(201) 364-6833 ! LGOrganized.com their friends and families know that Israel is so near
and dear to our hearts.
Helping You As one of the hosts so poignantly said, “Thank you
Make Space for Blessings!
for giving us the opportunity to give back to you, and
Sandi M. Malkin, LL C
help with follow-up.”
Ms. Offer finds the work emotionally compelling.
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She also tells the story of “a family that went back
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“The kid was nine months old, and was isolated
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Had it not been for My Child’s Cancer, and for
Oded Grinstein and the work he’s done, that mother
might not have been cutting that tomato.
It’s pure tikkun olam.
Learn more about My Child’s Cancer at www.
mychildscancer.org.
Editorial
Try a podcast!
keeping the faith
I
though he also loved the movies he saw the
Loew’s (pronounced Low-eez) Pitkin in Brook-
lyn. That was a movie palace, but the radio played to the pal-
ace in his head. His imagination, he told me dreamily, could
“ ’ve seen thousands of men lying on the
ground, their dead faces looking up at the
skies,” Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman
have no interest, however, in really following
what God actually has to say.
Those who “know” that God “opposes” war are
build a better, grander, more royal palace than even the Pitkin. told the Michigan Military Academy gradu- quick to note that all human beings are created in
I think of my father often as I listen to podcasts. ating class in June 1879. “I tell you, war is Hell!” God’s image (see Genesis 1:26-27). Thus, to maim
I know that some people listen to podcasts as they talk, mix- The Civil War general, who is considered one of or kill a fellow human is to commit sacrilege against
ing the sounds coming from their car radios with horns and the earliest advocates of “total war,” in which every- God’s very own likeness. God said as much to Noah
turn signals and conversations with their kids. But I listen to thing is fair game, including attacks on civilian infra- after the Great Flood (see Genesis 9:6).
them as I walk, just the voice coming directly into my ears and structure and resources, surely could not have imag- After Cain kills Abel in Genesis 4, God confronts
me. (And yes traffic sounds, and yes dogs, and yes people on ined how hellish war would become 140 years later. Cain with the words, “your brother’s bloods cry out
the streets, but it’s all filtered, and I can make it all go away.) He also could not have imagined how widespread to Me,” rather than “your brother’s blood.” From
This week, the new season of the English-language Israeli war would become in the world. this we learn that for someone who destroys a single
podcast Israel Story began. The couldn’t-be-anyone-else’s voice In his world, wars happened, but they were not individual it is as if that person destroyed an entire
of Mishy Harman, with his mix of almost entirely unaccented ubiquitous in any sense, they did not run concur- world (see Mishnah Sanhedrin 4:5).
English (there are tiny vowel shifts that occasionally gives him rently, and they did not go on for interminable God, in fact, hates killing so much, so the argu-
away as not American, but they’re rare) studded with abso- periods of time. ment goes, He even tried —unsuccessfully — to
lutely unmistakably Israeli Hebrew when he mentions names Today, war is a fact of life in the keep humans or animals from killing
or places, told a story that had absolutely everything. world, and “thousands of men lying for food (see Genesis 1:29-30). This
Israel Story is a marvel. It proclaims itself apolitical, but for on the ground” has been replaced by changed after the Great Flood, but
an Israeli production to be entirely, truly apolitical it would millions, and includes women and only because God recognized that
have to be stupid, and Israel Story is anything but stupid. It’s children too. Some 600,000 peo- human nature is baser than He hoped,
brilliant. It’s apolitical in that it doesn’t take sides on partisan ple died in the war Sherman fought forcing Him to make some conces-
issues, but it’s deeply political in that it considers a question in. More than 100 million people — sions and set new rules.
from all sides and manages to be sympathetic and, somehow, civilians as well as military — died in God’s aversion to killing for food,
warmly unjudgmental to everyone its interviewers get on tape. the 20th century’s two world wars, however, never changed. This is
This week’s Israel Story traces a Hungarian Auschwitz survi- Korea, and Vietnam combined. Today, brought home in Leviticus 17:3-4,
vor whose life was Dickensian even before the Holocaust, and wars are being fought in Afghani- Shammai where we are told that a person who
then plunged into hell. It tracks her family-less, friendless trek stan, Yemen, Syria, South Sudan, Engelmayer kills an animal for food without some
through the DP camps and then to Israel, and it follows her and Ukraine, with more than a mil- kind of sacred justification, “blood
from two marriages to two Muslims — one of them abused her lion people dead so far and with no shall be imputed to that man; he has
and the other loved her; what she felt toward either is not at all end in sight on any front. Civil war may break out shed blood….” The late 19th century founder of rab-
clear — to childbirth at the Kotel the day it was liberated, with at any time in Nigeria, Cameroon, and Venezuela. binic moralist moralist, Samson Raphael Hirsch, put
the help of the soldiers who had just reached it, to life in Mea War between the United States and Iran remains a it bluntly. Killing an animal for no “sacred” purpose,
Shearim. It’s an extraordinary story, deeply human, and also looming possibility, and could involve other nations, he wrote, “is to be taken as murder.”
deeply Israeli. including Saudi Arabia and Israel, as well as several As for killing animals with a sacred purpose, the
My father, who also loved tinkering with radios — I spent U.S. allies in Europe. If Hezbollah ever succeeds in Torah suggests that sacrifices were yet another con-
many bored-to-tears childhood mornings with him in Lafay- carrying out a terrorist attack here, we could expect cession on God’s part. His preference, we are led to
ette Radio as he worked his way through rack after rack of tran- the United States to bring that war home to Lebanon. believe (and as Maimonides, the Rambam, argues in
sistors — died without ever listening to a podcast, much less And, of course, Israel is in an unending war against several places), was prayer.
figuring out how they worked. But I know that he would have Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad, and Hamas. To all this, add God’s aversion to killing in general.
loved their combination of intimacy and sweep, their appeal In virtually every conflict, God is invoked by We see this in the laws God gave prohibiting mur-
to our imagination, their letting us make our own pictures out those who start the war, and by those who claim der, severely restricting the taking of human life in
of their words. they are merely carrying out God’s will by fight- general, and otherwise protecting the sanctity and
If you listen to podcasts — or maybe even more if you don’t ing to stop it. Either way, everyone, it seems, dignity of the human being. Thus, “there can be no
— try Israel Story. See what pictures you can make for yourself knows God’s mind when it comes to war. They doubt” where God stands.
with its words in your ears. -JP
Shammai Engelmayer is a rabbi and adult education teacher in Bergen County. His website is www.shammai.org.
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Opinion
A
shall not murder” (see Exodus 20:13), by the Torah. That would seem to
He did not issue a blanket ban on shut down the possibility of obliga- few weeks ago, I thought I of the county where the disease is most
killing. Only moments after proscrib- tory wars in our day, since neither should check if I needed a prevalent, having gained a foothold late
ing murder, God makes clear that a the Canaanite nations nor Amalek measles vaccine. last year after visitors to Israel brought
distinction exists between murder exist any longer. Rambam, however, Measles, once a childhood back the unwelcome souvenir. Currently,
and manslaughter (see Exodus 21:13). includes as obligatory a war waged scourge, has become a viral infection on the number of cases in Rockland County
Then, in Exodus 22:1-2, He asserts to fend off an attacking army (see MT my social media feeds — not to mention in stands at 275 confirmed. That’s a quarter
that a difference exists between jus- Kings 5:1). Elsewhere, he refers to real life, too — and somewhat of a personal of the total in this largest outbreak — at
tifiable homicide and cold-blooded the defensive war as a “commanded” obsession. I didn’t really think I needed 1,095 cases — in the United States since
murder. God does not like violence one, in an effort to distinguish it to be vaccinated. But I live in Rockland 1992, and since the measles was declared
and bloodshed, that is true, but He from the “obligatory” war. Ostensi- County, and measles is having a bit of a eliminated here in 2000.
also is a realist. bly, he bases this on Numbers 10:9, renaissance here. But elimination is a porous concept
As for war, it was God, after which recognizes the need to “go to First, let me categorically state that my when vaccine hesitancy takes hold. It
all, who literally sank the advanc- war in your land against an enemy mom is super diligent, and I know with- seems to have traction in insular com-
ing Egyptian army at the Red Sea. who oppresses you.” out question that I must have had a vac- munities whatever their flavor — Amish,
“The Lord is a man of war,” Moses Pre-emptive strikes against an cine when I was a kid. I vividly remember Nation of Islam, far-right Texans, charedi
declared at the time (see Exodus enemy who poses a credible and the pain, itch, and remaining scar of the Jews, progressive leftists. These groups
15:3-4). Only weeks later came the somewhat immediate threat falls smallpox vaccine; the tiny multiple tines must create eternal feedback loops
war against Amalek, an unbeliev- under Rambam’s definition of a of the tuberculosis one; the sweet sugar of misinformation within their tribes,
ably cruel enemy. When it ended, defensive war. syrup for polio; and the flyers they sent which no amount of data or science
we are told that “the Lord will have That leaves us with the hala- home from school about getting a new- seem able to undo.
war with Amalek from generation chic rules of engagement. Rule fangled shot against rubella In Rockland County, the
to generation.” (See Exodus 17:9-16.) No. 1 requires that the enemy be — German measles — when vaccine issues in the charedi
Later on (Deuteronomy 25:17-19), we offered more than enough seri- I was in third grade. So I’m community did not give
are told that God’s war with Amalek ous chances to “make peace,” as sure that at some point, birth to anti-Semitism — that
was ours to carry out: “You shall blot required by Deuteronomy 20:10. good ol’ garden-variety mea- flourishes over a myriad
out the remembrance of Amalek Rambam, in MT, Kings, 6:1, claims sles had been taken care of. of other unrelated issues,
from under heaven.” that this is a requirement in both But the local measles including schools, taxes,
God also tells the Israelites of the sanctioned wars, but others dis- hysteria was reaching a and development. But it
Exodus that they must make war on agree with him as far as obligatory fever pitch. All the com- has allowed what was there
the seven nations that populated wars are concerned. munity board groups on to spread like a contagion.
Canaan at the time, although this law The second rule, as Rambam for- Facebook have been filled Marla Cohen Comments on social media
was limited to those nations and no mulates them, is that once an enemy with anti-vaxxers — reli- go unchecked. “Dirty self-
longer applies. (See the Babylonian is surrounded, there must be a way gious and not — insisting on ish measles people” is one
Talmud tractate Yoma 54a and Ram- left open for innocent civilians and their right to infect me and mine, facing of the more printable ones.
bam’s Mishnah Torah “The Laws of even faint-hearted combatants to off against the pro-vaccine anti-Semites The Luddite mindset extends to the
Kings and Their Wars” 5:4.) Never- escape (see MT, Kings, 6:7), some- who have decided that measles is just one local “progressive” community in Rock-
theless, it is hard to make a case that thing severely lacking in modern more awful thing that charedi Jews have land. At the start of the measles outbreak,
God is anti-war when He Himself wars and even, perhaps, in Sher- brought to the world. Green Meadow, the local Waldorf school,
mandates some conflicts. man’s idea of “total war.” Sadly, Ram- In the midst of this, I learned that those had a stunningly low vaccination rate
Based on all the Torah says on bam offers no suggestion on how of us born in the 1960s just might want to of 42.3 percent for the 2017-2018 school
either side, Jewish law deduces that such a rule can be made practical. get checked for immunity. Since I live near year, according to the New York State
only two kinds of war are acceptable: The third rule is to leave stand- a measles hotspot, I asked my doctor. She Department of Health. That was the very
the obligatory war and the discretion- ing the fruit-bearing trees of the agreed. When the results of my titer test lowest in the county. Some 20 Green
ary but divinely sanctioned one. enemy, as demanded by Deu- popped up in the online app the medical Meadow parents sued the county health
The discretionary war that has no teronomy 20:19—a law violated practice uses for communications, it bore department when their unvaccinated kids
sanction is an “illegal war.” David’s when “scorched earth” is part of a rather blunt note at the top: were banned from attending school. But
war of conquest against Syria may the war plan. Says Rambam, “any- You need to get vaccinated. because the actual measles cases stem
have been one such war (see Sifre one who breaks utensils, tears gar- I was a bit shocked. I hadn’t really from the charedi community, the idea
to Deuteronomy, Piska 51). At least ments, destroys buildings, stops thought I was going to need it. I imag- persists that they are the font of anti-
some of the wars now being fought up a stream, or ruins food with ined I was being kind of snarky, having an vaxx fervor. You don’t see anyone writing
fall under this category, no matter destructive intent (derech hash’cha- over-the-top overreaction to the escalat- “dirty selfish measles people” about natu-
what its combatants claim. There are tah) transgresses the command….” ing numbers of measles cases so close to ral-fiber yoga-mat Green Meadow parents.
no “rules of engagement” for an ille- (See MT Kings 8 and 10.) Obviously, where I live. But clearly, time was up on I never imagined that I’d ever see
gal war because there should be no only that which is used as cover for my resistance. people so dead-set against one of the
engagement at all. Any deaths that aggression is fair game. There is no I got the vaccine. My arm was sore. greatest feats of modern medicine. Vac-
occur in the course of such a war are question, however, that this rule is I moved on. I now don’t have to worry cines are a victim of their own success
considered to be outright murder. being violated in every current war about contracting measles while kosher — they’ve eradicated the very evidence
The Talmud explains the two as it was in past ones. food shopping in the Orthodox areas that proves why they’re necessary. My
legitimate categories (see BT Sotah “War is hell,” Sherman said, mom remembers polio outbreaks that
44b) in this way: “The wars waged without understanding just how Marla Cohen is a freelance writer. She lives closed the pools during the summer in
by Joshua to conquer [Canaan] hellish war can be. Even though in Rockland County. See vaccine page 29
were obligatory…, [while] the wars some wars are necessary, however,
waged [with divine sanction] by the it should be obvious that, at least The opinions expressed here are those of the authors, not necessarily those of the newspaper’s editors, publishers,
House of David [to complete the the way wars are fought these days, or other staffers.We welcome letters to the editor. Send them to jstandardletters@gmail.com.
conquest of Canaan which Joshua God would agree with him.
Jewish Standard JULY 12, 2019 27
JS-28*
Opinion
S
ometimes I feel as if I have several separate am not (currently) struggling with all of about things and experiences, whereas
lives. the overwhelming hardships that keep a goal-based life plans trend more to issues
I have my life as a mom of four kids, my life person frantically paddling to stay afloat of the overall quality of living.
as a single woman working full time, my life rather than adjusting the sails for slight I imagine I am in good company when
as an elected official, my life as a friend and a partner course-correction. And knowing that I I say that when I think about what I truly
and a community member and an elementary school could be thrown back into the deep end want for my life, it is more about people
parent, and, and, and... at any time is just as good a reason as any and relationships than it is about things
I’m not sure how most people manage the juggling to attempt to tackle this question right that can be checked off a bucket list.
act that comes with adulthood, but for me, I seem to now, while I have, in theory anyway, Strategic planning for a business or an
be best at addressing things in bite-sized pieces. Often some time to map out what I really want Cheryl Weiner organization is mostly about measurable
this works great — I dig in, chewing each individual bite my life to look like. Rosenberg impact and financial sustainability or
of my many separate lives as I tackle one challenge at It’s funny, in a way, to think about success. To relate this to our lives, I imag-
a time. Occasionally, though, these small, easy-to-man- your daily existence in terms of a stra- ine we similarly would want to measure
age bits come at me all at once, and I end up with a tegic plan, but, then again, don’t we all have bucket in terms of how we impact others — our families, our
mouth so full of bite-sized pieces of my life that I am lists? The real question is how these lists of things we friends, and the sustainability of positive relationships.
worried I will choke on the sheer volume of them. hope to do before we die tie in to our life goals. Are I have started to map out a plan for my goals in life, and
It is precisely at these moments that I wonder how these our measurable outcomes? Are they perhaps a it looks much less like a bucket list and much more like
realistic it is to try to unravel the many intercon- reflection of our priorities? a Venn diagram — one where family and relationship
nected and complicated parts of my life into seem- Instead of checking specific things off our list, which goals, grand achievements, and world surroundings
ingly easy-to-tackle buckets, and why I prefer this feels great but seems all too similar to approaching overlap in the middle, in a place defined as joy.
over taking the broad view of my life in all its mess- separate parts of our life in bite-sized pieces without I am choosing to pursue happiness and joy with the
iness and plotting a more strategic path forward. In regulating the pace, why can’t we instead plan for the same kind of aggressive plan I would use to achieve
my professional and volunteer leadership positions, achievement of our life goals in a more methodical higher profits for a business, and I hope that others will
I advocate goal-setting, benchmarking, and making and strategic manner? join me in taking a leadership role in choosing the qual-
data-driven decisions. But somehow when it comes If my bucket list consists of things like eat at this ity of the life they want to lead and live.
to managing my own life (personal and professional place, travel to that place, and experience that amaz-
together), long ago I fell into survival mode and hav- ing adventure, my strategic life plan probably would Cheryl Weiner Rosenberg lives in Englewood where she is a
en’t yet begun to plan to strategically and methodi- contain more all-encompassing goals, like “make council member representing the First Ward and a member
cally meet my life goals, year after year. meaningful memories and create solid relationships of Kehilat Kesher Synagogue. She’s the senior director of
I recognize, of course, that future planning is a lux- with my children” and “ensure that I surround myself marketing and communications for Prizmah: Center for
ury that some who are struggling to survive don’t have. with people who make life happy and joyful.” Essen- Jewish Day Schools, the immediate past president of Ben
Perhaps this is why it’s taken me so long to begin to flirt tially, when I break it down, to-do lists — even really Porat Yosef in Paramus, and a long-time activist in the areas
with the idea, beginning only now, at a point where I awesome and awe-inspiring bucket lists — are more of civil liberties, equality, and women’s rights.
28 Jewish Standard JULY 12, 2019
JS-29*
Opinion
I
recently had the honor
of raising a flag in
honor of Pride Month
in my hometown
of Englewood. It was one
of many events across the
county where family, friends,
and neighbors came together
in the celebration of a value
that we all share — love. Michael
Pride celebrates the Wildes
achievements of the LGBTQ
community and invites all of
us to consider how far we have come as a nation and the
journey that still remains. Pride events ask us to consider
the often-lonely fight against intolerance and discrimina-
tion, reminding us that acceptance and diversity are truly
the qualities that make America great.
On May 31, 2016, President Barack Obama pro-
claimed June to be Pride month, and it so happens
that this year marks the 50th anniversary of Stonewall,
which propelled the gay rights movement forward and
was a turning point of sorts for LGBTQ acceptance
in America. It was a struggle that unfolded on busy
streets and in quiet homes, in raucous rallies and aus-
tere courtrooms. Across countless flickering screens we Michael Wildes, right, with members and support staff of the Englewood police department.
watched as private lives became public policy.
Throughout our nation’s history, long before Mar-
sha P. Johnson threw the first brick at the Stonewall
Inn on June 27, 1969, the LGBTQ community struggled
with hatred and hardship. The riots that followed were As a person of faith, the principles of
a response to the persecution and violence that kept
countless men and women closeted, fearful of the con-
compassion and acceptance have been
sequences that would follow simply for living their lives fundamental to my understanding of the world,
honestly and without malice.
Even after Stonewall and the resulting achievements, consistent refrains in the lessons I learned
like the decriminalization of homosexuality and the enact-
ment of laws to protect people regardless of their sexual
from my rabbis, family, and community.
orientation or sexual identity, the LGBTQ community faced
incredible adversity. The community battled the AIDS epi- concepts tested under the law. Countless articles have could be free to worship, to love, and to live freely and
demic and a government initially indifferent to the dire been written criticizing the U.S. Citizenship and Immi- without fear. We also must be prepared to extend this
need for treatment and a cure. Its members challenged gration Services (and I would know — I’ve written a few acceptance to those outside our shores, welcoming
Don’t-Ask-Don’t-Tell because it institutionalized discrimi- of them), but to the service’s credit, it was prepared to in those who might face abuse and even death for no
nation and marginalization. They stood strong in the face support same-sex marriage even before the Defense of other crime than being true to themselves.
of public contempt, which claimed the lives of innocent Marriage Act was struck down in 2013. Moreover, recent Regardless of the flag that is flying or the month of the
young victims like Matthew Shepard, Brandon Teena, and affirmative asylum decisions handed down by immigra- year, we have a duty to accept each other. If we can do
Sakia Gunn. And in what has forever redefined true equal- tion courts around the country show a growing under- that, we can all share in the pride that a courageous few
ity, they fought for — and won — the right for everyone to standing of the humanitarian issues faced by members of fought for — a fight that continues to this day.
marry and be recognized as equal under the law. the LGBTQ community around the world, and the need
As a person of faith, the principles of compassion and to protect those most at risk from persecution. Michael Wildes is the mayor of Englewood, a member of
acceptance have been fundamental to my understanding America is many things, but at our core we are a col- Congregation Ahavath Torah there, and the author of “Safe
of the world, consistent refrains in the lessons I learned lection of people who respect and seek out love. As Haven in America: Battles to Open the Golden Door.” He is
from my rabbis, family, and community. In my profes- we evolve as a nation, we must continue to build upon a former federal prosecutor and an adjunct professor of
sional life as an immigration attorney, I have seen those the successes of earlier generations, who fought so we immigration law at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law.
we can be cavalier about protecting that had not seemed possible until who contract the disease will die from
Vaccine ourselves and our children — or con- the breadth of this outbreak. It is a it, even with the best of care, accord-
from page 27
versely, infecting everyone else — relief, and yet the objections cast as ing to the CDC. Deaths from the mea-
Houston, where she grew up. because these diseases are phantoms. an assault on religious or parental sles vaccine? One in 1.5 million.
The last known case of smallpox in None of us has seen measles since the freedom remain. There does not seem The risk/benefit analysis is obvi-
the world occurred in Somalia in 1977, last of the baby boomers (of which I to be any statistic you can throw at ous. Get the vaccine. And when they
according to the World Health Orga- am one) were, well, babies. determined anti-vaxxers to change come up with a vaccine for virulent
nization. People a generation older New York State just passed legisla- their minds. What exactly is unper- anti-Semitism?
than I actually might remember the tion banning the religious exemption suadable about this: In every 1,000 We could use that, too.
ravages of these diseases. But today, for vaccine avoidance, something cases of measles, one or two people
Jewish Standard JULY 12, 2019 29
JS-30
Letters
Offcials urged to remedy reason in that letter. It is excellent because different Kashuv repeated his transgression since the incident
plight of immigrant kids points of view are presented in it. over two years ago? If not, then why no forgiveness?
My family and I appreciate the hard work and dedica- We still have freedom of speech in this country and Why won’t Harvard change their decision?
tion of Senator Booker, Representativer Gottheimer, hopefully will continue to have it. And that means If we are to follow the direction of Rabbi Engel-
and Senator Menendez to public service. Right now, speech that you may not agree with and even very mayer concerning the path of Kyle Kashuv and his
I’m appalled by the humanitarian crisis at our border strongly oppose. Please do continue to print the rab- condemnation by Harvard and the rabbi, why has he
and the children being separated from their parents bi’s column. I, for one, will read what he has to say, not written an article of condemning those seeking
and detained without adequate basic necessities like whether I agree with it or not. the Democrat nomination for president? We had, it
drinking water, soap, and diapers. Susan Ebenstein seems, all of them traveling to grovel at the feet of
As a parent, I’m disgusted. As an American, I’m Hackensack Rev. Al Sharpton to get his blessing. Kashuv’s indis-
ashamed. I urge my elected officials to use their posi- cretions were bigoted posts on the internet. Sharp-
tion of power to raise their voice to help these most Harvard was unfair to Kashuv ton’s? The incitement to riot, anti-Jewish incitement,
vulnerable people. Their voice matters, and the con- It was interesting but not surprising to read the den- incitement to murder and the fostering of civil unrest
stituents of New Jersey are watching. It is essential igration of Kyle Kashuv by Rabbi Engelmayer, “The to name a few. More than enough to earn an article
to remedy this terrible situation as soon as possible. Kashuv controversy: Post haste can make waste” complete with references to Jewish Law.
Nessa Liben ( June 28). I have yet to figure out what the headline Howard J. Cohn
Teaneck means but my comments concern the body of type. New Milford
We learn from the rabbi that Kashuv is Jewish,
Does Rabbi Boteach really he hid in a closet during the massacre, he posted a Palestinians should go live in Jordan
love all Jews unconditionally? video of himself firing an AR-15 (the rifle used in the I would strongly agree with the opinion of the
Rabbi Boteach portrays himself as the greatest shooting) that so upset “many” that police questioned extreme leftist writer Aryeh Meir (“Annexation: The
defender of Jews and Jewish interests in the United him. He “became a politically (C)onservative activist.” road to a binational State of Israel/Palestine,” July 5).
States (“The liberal crusade against Holocaust mem- “Unlike most of his fellow classmates ...his activism He expressed his concerns about a binational state in
ory,” July 5). His love for Jews, however, is very selec- was geared to staunchly opposing restrictive gun con- the Land of Israel should the “West Bank” be annexed
tive, and excludes Jews who don’t adopt his extreme trol legislation.” The other side of the story. He hid along with its Arab population. It has been more than
right-wing views. In fact, he is scornful of his fellow in a closet during the shooting but so did the darling obvious over the last 100 years that the Arabs in the
Jews who hold opinions that differ from his own. If of the Left and MSM, David Hogg as did many oth- Land of Israel cannot coexist peacefully with Jews,
you are a Jew who feels that detention centers bear ers in the school. He posted the video of his visit to a despite all the rights and privileges afforded to many
some modest similarity to the infamous concentration shooting range with his father. He went to learn gun of them as Israeli citizens. They have been a source
camps in Poland and Germany, the rabbi is contemp- safety, how to properly handle weapons and in the of terrorism, murder, and sabotage. Jews also need
tuous of you, and of that belief. The arrested Phila- process fired an AR-15. How many were “many” con- not rule over other peoples, as we have enough chal-
delphia Jews who witnessed their love for would-be cerning the students complaining of the video? We lenges dealing with each other. It is plainly clear that
immigrants by displaying timeless Jewish values of will never know but he spoke with police officers and even when Arabs are granted autonomy or sover-
compassion and respect are labeled misguided fools he was given a clean bill of health by them. Kashuv eignty, they will still seek to push the Jews into the
by the rabbi. Is the rabbi too young or too ignorant to opposed some parts of gun control legislation but sea. The withdrawals from Lebanon and parts of
remember the ill-fated ship the St. Louis? not all. After being accepted to Harvard, he notified Judea and Samaria (the “West Bank”) and, of course,
We celebrate the yahrzeit of the Lubavitcher rebbe, them that he wanted to take a gap year off and work, Gaza show the folly of “land for peace.”
a man who had room in his big heart for all Jews. amongst other things, for the “STOP School Violence The League of Nations Mandate of Palestine com-
Rabbi Boteach must, indeed, have a very small heart Act”. He wanted to work for improving the safety of prised today’s Israel as well as Jordan. Britain cut off
with room in it only for his brand of Jews. all in schools and other public areas against the threat 75 percent of this territory to give to a political pup-
I question, again, the wisdom of our Jewish Stan- of gun violence. He is for certain restrictions concern- pet and created the artificial state of Transjordan in
dard in giving Boteach such a prominent place in ing gun control but not all. 1921. Today, Jordan’s population is majority Palestin-
the paper. The Standard is a lover of all Jews. The Rabbi Engelmayer must then negatively paper Kyle ian Arab and the queen is a Palestinian Arab herself.
rabbi is not. Kashuv with meeting Melanie and President Trump At the end of World War II, Greece and Turkey
Herb Steiner at the White House and working for “a (C)onservative exchanged populations allowing for a homogeneous
Mahwah group with ties to the Trump family”. society in both nations. In 1945, millions of ethnic
Harvard later rescinded his admission to their Germans were purged from the countries they had
Holocaust is not a brand name school after protests from some schoolmates con- lived in for centuries and were sent back to Germany.
You don’t honor the victims of the Holocaust by cerning videos he posted as a 16 year old. The videos India and Pakistan similarly exchanged millions in
assigning them their place in history, as victims of the contained offensive material including racial terms. 1947. As recently as the 1980s, Bulgaria sent hun-
worst genocide, by giving their experience a brand Kashuv apologized for the material, stated that it dreds of thousands of Turks to Turkey. Borders are
name, as if it were Kleenex, Rabbi Boteach. (“The lib- does not reflect the person he is and that it was writ- not permanent, and neither are the populations of
eral crusade against Holocaust memory,” July 5.) You ten several years before. One is inclined to question territories.
honor their suffering and their memory by using their whether his Conservative activism played a larger Therefore, rather than partitioning each rock and
experience to learn how not to allow it to happen role in getting him banned from Harvard. There were hill in the Land of Israel creating yet another terrorist
again. We do that by paying attention, and by calling some who questioned why David Hogg was accepted state, the clear approach is to have the Palestinian
things what they are. to Harvard? When one compares the scholarship cre- Arabs go live in a Palestinian majority nation, Jor-
The dishonor is in having them pulverized and us dentials of both, Kashuv has an SAT score 280 points dan. The two-state solution has already happened.
learning nothing. For us to have allowed it and now higher and a weighted GPA of “A” compared to Hogg’s The creation of a Palestinian Arab state in the “west
to allow other people to be dehumanized. It’s only 70 “B”. Then again Hogg is the darling of the Left and bank” would simply create a third. The behavior of
years later. Survivors still are watching. Kashuv is not. the Arabs in Gaza obviously precludes allowing them
Lynn Makler The rabbi then devotes almost half of his opinion more territory from which to murder Jewish women
Metuchen piece to prove that Jewish Law upholds his position. and children. Rendering Judea and Samaria Judenrein
He continually questions the sincerity of Kashuv’s [free of Jews] as demanded by the Arabs would also
In support of Rabbi Boteach apologies and regrets and denies them as sincere. be a violation of Jewish rights as well, although few
I am taking issue with the July letter to you request- The rabbi writes, “It is proper to question Kashuv’s seem to care about that. Perhaps the far left here and
ing that you discontinue printing Rabbi Boteach’s col- sincerity, but is it proper to give him the benefit of in Israel will realize that reality sometimes trumps
umn. (“Please no more from Rabbi Boteach.”) Others the doubt?” According to Rambam there should be ideology and accept it.
in the past have done so also. I do agree with his state- a period of wait and see and it seems Engelmayer Scott David Lippe, M.D.
ment that yours is an excellent paper, but not for the agrees. With regard to this quote I must ask, has Fair Lawn
30 Jewish Standard JULY 12, 2019
JEWISH STANDARD JULY 12, 2019 31
Dear Rabbi Zahavy
W
e often get too complacent in our read- to the Israelites for the duration of their become overloaded at the divine voice
ings of the Torah. Such is the case with wanderings, but became unnecessary as and a synesthesia occurs whereby one
this week’s portion, easily one of my the desert generation gave way to those type of sensory information is perceived
favorites (due in large measure to its about to enter the landX. by a different sense pathway by everyone
impenetrability and obscurity). Examples of moral dis- A leader with his wits about him might there. This is a sure sign that God is speak-
comfort or outrage, along with too cursory a reading, look at the death of Miriam and the dis- ing, even though the voice is emanating
doom many people to not confronting the crucial ques- appearance of the water as a positive sign from Moses’ throat. Performing the mira-
tions that stare us in the face, blunting our rational minds that their long trek in the wilderness is cle of bringing water to the people is not
and our ethical hearts. But the Torah — and we, ourselves coming to its conclusion, and they’ll soon enough! Yes, leaders must “produce” and
— deserve better! Up until this juncture in the Book of set foot in their own homeland. But Moses, Rabbi David “accomplish.” Yes, the miraculous support
Numbers (Bamidbar), various Israelites have challenged after all, is human, too. When the people Bockman to address the peoples’ needs must be met.
Moses, unsuccessfully, as the putative leader of the nation kvetch at him as he is sitting shiva for his Congregation But not, says Rabbi Meir Simcha, “by any
in their desert travels between Egypt and the Promised older sister, he snaps back at them and Beth Shalom, means necessary.”
Pompton Lakes,
Land of Canaan. His ingenuity, his earnestness and his fate is sealed: “Listen here, you rebels, A miracle that provides for the people is
Conservative
humility, and his leadership skills always manage to bring shall we bring you water out of this rock?” not enough, even if it is a miracle. Provid-
him through each crisis not merely unscathed, but often Instead of speaking to the rock, as God had ing food and water for an entire nation is,
stronger in the eyes of the people, as sometimes might instructed, he hits the rock, bringing forth indeed, a miracle. It’s something that God
happen in a candidates’ debate. copious water for the people and their animals. A good accomplishes day in and day out (see Ashrei: “You open
Now, however, after many revolts, we learn that being outcome for a leader, no? your hand and provide for every living being that which
in proximity to a dead body forces a distancing from the Well, no. satisfies it.”) But a leader who opens his mouth and does
holiness of the sanctuary that only an inexplicable and God becomes angry at Moses and Aaron, telling them not emanate a Divine voice detracts from the people’s
irrational ritual — using a purely red cow and fresh “liv- that because of what they did, they would die with the perception of the truth. And that is inexcusable!
ing” water — can dispel. Such a fate befalls Moses when generation that left Egypt and would never set foot in the It is neither Moses nor his magical staff that bring
his sister Miriam dies and there is a concurrent lack of Promised Land. This is seen by most people as a pun- about the quite unexpected miracle. It is always, as
water! What is even the finest leader to do? ishment, and in some sense unfair. Moses got the peo- originally, the voice of God speaking through the leader
Some people will no doubt recall the midrashic con- ple water, from a rock, keeping them alive, miraculously. that must be demonstrated. When a politician’s voice
nection of the two ideas: that the miraculous well of Problem solved, leadership accomplished! only reflects him — or herself — all the greater perspec-
water that has accompanied the people on their travels What do we miss when we analyze the situation this tive and opportunities are forfeit and the leader has
due to Miriam’s merit dried up upon her death. One way? Rabbi Meir Simcha ha-Kohen of Dvinsk points out failed to lead. It is an impossible standard, but one that
version of this text, quoted by Rabbi Gedalya Shor in his the rather unusual wording in the verse where God com- all great mayors and presidents have embodied. We
Or Gedalyahu, explains that three miracles were sus- mands Moses to provide water: “ve-dibartem el ha-sela should expect no less of those who would deign to lead
tained by the three leaders of the generation of the des- le-eineihem — Speak to the rock so they can see (Num- us: “(S)he opens her mouth with wisdom, and Torah
ert: Miriam’s spring of water, Aaron’s Clouds of Glory bers 20:8).” Just as in the revelation at Mount Sinai, this of lovingkindness is on her tongue.” Absent that, every
(that protected and guided them), and the manna that miracle is to take place by the people seeing the sounds moment that passes hides and thus destroys a potential
fed them in honor of Moses. These were special gifts of speech. Just as in that moment, the human senses Sinai, bringing darkness to the world.
O Canada
H
ello there! Let me set the that he had a problem, as he was miss-
scene for you. It is a sunny ing the top portion of his finger. She
Thursday afternoon. It is went downstairs and found the piece of
July Fourth — the birthday finger and took husband #1 to the hospi-
of America. tal, where they were able to successfully
I never really understood how July reattach it. Now this is a great date story,
Fourth became the official birthday so I am not sure why I heard it for the first
of our country. I am assuming it was time at a Shabbes table at my parents’
the culmination of some sort of war. house. But that is neither here nor there.
Unfortunately, the person who I am So we are in the car now, driving to
driving with, husband #1, is equally as Montreal for a wedding, and we are play-
bright as I am, and neither of us have ing this game. Husband #1 and I know
an answer to this question. We cannot each other pretty well, as most married
even google it because we couples do, so it is really
are in the middle of the good to know that after
Adirondacks and there all of these years of being
is no cell reception. So together, of going through
what happens when two life-altering events, good
adults who have known times, bad times, that he
each other for more still has the ability to make
than 30 years, have been me laugh so hard that I
married for almost 24 of almost pee in my pants.
them, share the parental (Almost, not almost, I am a
responsibility for three Banji woman of a certain age, so
adult-aged sons (adult Ganchrow anything is possible.)
Across Down only in age, not in any Of course this story
1. WWII-ending weapon 1. JFK tower grp. other respect, unfortu- involved him driving
6. Quarrel 2. “Constrictor” snake
nately), get stuck in a car away with the bumper
10. Skinny 3. “Harry Potter” letter-carrier
14. Go ___ (start fighting) 4. Feeling of uneasiness driving to Canada with no cell phone of another car attached to the front of
15. Not quite a soprano 5. The Giants made a shocking trade reception? I will tell you. You play the his car, and all of these years later, he
16. Zeus’s wife with them in March “Did I ever tell you this story” game. cannot figure out how he pulled that
17. What most Israelis answer at 18? 6. Hawkins or Sink A fun fact about husband #1 — one of off without actually hitting said car,
19. Ben (Platt’s) Tony role 7. Former planet his fingers was accidentally amputated and I cannot stop laughing because
20. Anticipate, as an arrival 8. iPhone carrier, initially
by a barbell in the basement of some- I can totally see him doing this, see-
21. Use a roller and brush 9. Buzz or Woody, e.g.
22. Son of Esther and Ahasuerus, for 10. Scissors one’s house in Monsey. This person ing his sons do this, and not have any
one? 11. Wranglers rival whose barbell it was lives in Teaneck, idea how it happened. Now, none of
26. You can put it in your hair or in 12. One from Tehran but I am not sure if he reads my column. you probably think this is funny, but I
your mouth 13. Black ___, foe of Aquaman He has many family members who live am the one stuck in the car, so just use
27. Auction units 18. Kind of time or value in Teaneck, so hopefully one of them will your imagination.
28. Women’s fashion magazine 21. Father of Meg, Chris, and Stewie
pass this column onto him. Normally, Why are we driving to Montreal
29. Trifle with 22. Dot or music
31. “Outs” partners 23. Refs enforce them your reaction would be, “Yuck, how did instead of flying? Well, for sure, some
34. Comic actor Barinholtz 24. Refs throw them that happen? What happened to his fin- of you can figure it out. Driving to Can-
35. One getting around the second 25. What a model may strike ger?” He didn’t tell me this story until we ada doesn’t faze us, because for seven
plague? 26. Iron Lady of Israel had been married for a few years, and summers we drove to a lot of places that
37. Golf prop 29. Book believed by many to be my reaction to this story was, “How are were even farther away than Montreal.
38. Dorm supervisors, briefly 3,300 years old
we married and I never heard this story This road trip is like a trip to New York
39. Moolah in Milan 30. Not id
40. Schmooze 31. What “Some Like” in a Wilder before?” (I did think it was odd that he City for us. The only difference is that
41. Palindromic girl’s name classic waited to tell me this story, as it is kind we don’t have our three adorable mon-
42. It’s a cliché to say it after drinking 32. “Rad!” of a traumatic thing to happen to a kid. keys in the back seat. The only one who
scotch 33. Adam’s third son Did he think it might ruin the shidduch if is asking annoying questions and needs
44. Vehicular violation of the eighth 35. Repels, with “off” I knew his finger had been stitched back to stop for snacks or the bathroom is
commandment? 36. Shrimp
together?) So, yes, husband #1 was work- husband #1. And that is OK, because it
49. “Monopoly” payments 40. Like Isaac and Rebekah
50. Many politicians 41. “Friends, Romans, countrymen” ing out with barbells (not working out, is just going to be the two us for, God
51. Interested orator but it sounds better than, “I was lifting it willing, for a very long, long time.
52. One illegally entering The Cave of 42. Lior Raz on “Fauda”, e.g. up to see how heavy it was,” which is an Hope you all had an enjoyable holi-
the Patriarchs? 43. Hand-held percussion instrument actual quote). He dropped the barbell, day weekend!
57. Bright signage light 44. Crush, as coffee beans somehow it landed on his finger and the
58. “Gotcha” 45. Fleming or Zellweger
top portion flew off and landed across Banji Ganchrow of Teaneck enjoyed her
59. A Benjamin 46. “Uncle Vanya” author Chekhov
60. Refuse to grant, as access 47. Toon Fudd the room (also true). stay in Canada, our favorite neighbor to
61. Kitty sound 48. Essential for a healthy diet According to husband #1, he went the north. And that is the extent of her
62. “Have ___!” (inviting words) 52. Suggestion upstairs, sans finger, to tell the mother geographical knowledge.
53. “The” sch. in Columbus
54. Buck’s companion
The solution to last week’s puzzle 55. Elal landing info.
is on page 40. 56. No longer working: Abbr. www.thejewishstandard.com
the Jews of North Macedonia — was inau- her grandfather ran a large hospital, was
gurated in Skopje. It contains such rare because of how she became an orphan,
items as a German tank engine like the she said. After the earthquake, “my
ones whose fumes were used to kill Jews grandparents and I were the only branch
and prisoners of wars, and wagon carts Rachel Shelly Levi-Drummer speaks at a Holocaust commemoration in left standing on this enormous fallen
like the ones used to ship Macedonian Bitola on March 10, 2019 as Israel’s Minister of Jerusalem Affairs, Zeev tree,” she said. “My memories, roots,
Jews to their deaths. Elkin, listens. and what used to be my home brought
The museum also has scrolls with the me back here.”
names of 7,144 Macedonian Holocaust national one: Only one and a half percent ambassador to North Macedonia, along Levi-Drummer was scheduled to be in
victims, of whom only about 150 sur- of Bitola’s 3,400-odd Jews survived. with others began a project to clean up Skopje with her parents when the 1963
vived. The Jewish community of Bitola, In 2015, Levi-Drummer, now the Bitola’s Jewish cemetery — an 11-acre earthquake struck, on July 26. But her
North Macedonia’s second-largest city, academic secretary of Israel’s Bar Ilan hillside whose gate boasts an impressive grandmother, Berta, kept her in Bitola
had an even lower survival than the University, and Dan Oryan, Israel’s arch, but that essentially had been used SEE MACEDONIA PAGE 36
JEWISH STANDARD JULY 12, 2019 35
Arts & Culture
Macedonia
FROM PAGE 35
a day later than the original plans had
specified. Berta had been making a dress
for her granddaughter, and she hadn’t
finished yet. Levi-Drummer’s grand-
parents did not tell her about the earth-
quake immediately, as her grandfather
searched for her parents and his son.
He and other diggers found their bodies
under a totally collapsed building. He
had them shipped to Israel for burial.
So far, cleaners at the Bitola Jewish
cemetery have unearthed only 40 per-
cent of its estimated 10,000 headstones.
They’re weather-resistant slabs of stone,
some dating back to the 15th century,
that were placed flat on the ground in
the Sephardic tradition.
The headstones turned out to be
unusual in other ways, too. Instead
of the terse epitaphs characteristic
CNAAN LIPHSHIZ
of Jewish tombstones today, the ones
unearthed in Bitola contained rich
descriptions and even poems about the
deceased.
This verbosity isn’t unique to Bitola: It Maria and Zoran Behar visit the Jewish cemetery in their native Bitola, North Macedonia, on March 10, 2019.
can be found in various Sephardic Jew-
ish cemeteries, including ones in Ham- Bar-Zohar’s account isn’t entirely
burg, Germany, and even as far east as accurate, according to Hassan Jasari,
present-day Ukraine. a Muslim from Bitola who says his late
But in Bitola’s case, these epitaphs uncle risked his life to bring water to
became the only source of information Jews awaiting their deportation. Has-
about victims who died in obscurity. san Jasari participates each year in the
Bela Balashnikov, 76, learned the annual March of the Living Holocaust
only information she has about her commemoration event in Bitola. Point-
great-grandfather, Matityahu Shmaya ing at the Israeli flags of other partic-
Zarfati, from an epitaph exposed in the ipants of the march in March, he said,
cleanup in 2015. “It’s great to see this flag waving here, of
“I was so moved to learn that he the greatest country on Earth.”
was a donor to communal causes, that Macedonia’s Jews were detained with-
he cared about the poor, that he was a out food or water for about three days at
learned man,” said Balashnikov, whose a disused tobacco factory before being
CNAAN LIPHSHIZ
Zionist parents escaped the Holocaust transported for days by train to Nazi-oc-
when they moved to pre-state Israel in cupied Poland.
1932. “Before the cleanup, I knew only “By the time they arrived at Tre-
his name. My parents wouldn’t speak of blinka, they were probably eager to
the people they lost. It was too painful.” Hassan Jasari, whose Muslim uncle assisted Jews awaiting deportation, cram into that gas chamber, believing
His poetic Hebrew epitaph from greets participants at the annual Holocaust commemoration in Bitola. it was a shower where they could drink
1901, featuring Aramaic and written and wash away the filth they had been
in rhymes, reads: “Inside this lump community with a lot tolerance that “Family lore was lost because whole forced to live in,” said Balashnikov, who
of earth lies a man of great descent … basically functioned like an extended families were executed together,” lost several uncles there.
who studied the Talmud and Torah, the family,” she said of Bitola’s Jews. Levi-Drummer said. Levi-Drummer, Balashnikov, and oth-
good and honest, his hands were never According to Balashnikov, matriarchs, The pain of the loss was so traumatic ers interviewed for this article believe
without a book. Then came the Angel of rather than men, had the ultimate say in that it made the few survivors suppress that the Abravanels were “the last Jew-
Death before the due date and left his many Jewish families in Bitola. their communal memories, she added. ish family who left Bitola.”
wife and sons bereaved. He died in the None of the Bitola community’s build- Michael Bar-Zohar, an Israeli Bulgari- Yet Bitola now is home to Maria Behar,
prime of his life.” ings — it had several synagogues — sur- an-born historian, lamented the obscu- 60, and her son, Zoran. She said they are
Another epitaph, of Esther Calderon, vived World War II and the subsequent rity of Macedonian Jewry in his 1998 the last Jews living in Bitola — and they
who died in 1891, noted in remarkable communist rule when North Macedonia book, “The Trains Left Empty.” are preparing to leave for Israel after the
candor that she had visited Jerusalem was part of Yugoslavia. The area’s Jews “became victims for death of her late husband. He is not bur-
twice and tried to live there but never The sudden and radical annihila- the second time after their death,” he ied at a Jewish cemetery. Additionally, an
acclimated. She returned to Bitola to tion of Macedonian Jewry — within wrote. “Their sacrifice and suffering Israeli family recently moved to Bitola,
live out her life in penury, the grave- days, the Nazis achieved their highest were washed in waves of cold indiffer- where they have businesses.
stone says. death rate anywhere — represents an ence. Their memory had been erased Balashnikov and others agree that
According to Levi-Drummer, this unusual challenge for activists seeking as though they had never lived on the “the Jewish community of Bitola no
openness is typical of the Jews of Bitola, to preserve the memory of this extinct golden shores of the Aegean Sea or in longer exists, and will probably never
which today is a quiet and ornate city community, which is believed to have the green valleys of turbulent Mace- return,” she said. “At least now the world
with a developed café culture but few settled in Bitola not later than the third donia. In life and death, they were the knows a little more that they even ever
tourists. “It was a warm Sephardic century CE. orphans of the Balkans.” existed.” JEWISH TELEGRAPHIC AGENCY
Butterfly walk in
Saturday Ringwood: The New
JULY 13 Jersey State Botanical
Garden offers an easy
butterfly walk led by
the Bergen County
Audubon Society,
1 p.m. Meet at the
Carriage House Visitor
Center, Morris Road,
Ringwood State Park.
Wear comfortable JULY The Kaplen JCC on the Palisades in Tenafly presents
shoes. Rain cancels. “Becoming Astrid,” 7:30 p.m. The film is about Astrid
Frieda Vizel
(973) 962-9534 or
njbg.org. 18 Lindgren, Pippi Longstocking’s creator. In Swedish and
Danish with English subtitles. (201) 408-1496
Shabbat in Fort Lee: Old Jewish radio or jccotp.org/films. COURTESY JCCOTP
Frieda Vizel speaks in Franklin Lakes:
during services for Temple Emanuel of
the CSI Scholar Fund North Jersey plays Life,” for the M. Nathan
at the JCC of Fort some surviving Jewish Cember Memorial American Jewish
Lee/Congregation radio broadcast Lecture series at history: Visiting
Gesher Shalom, recordings from the Congregation Sons of scholar Rabbi David J.
9:30 a.m. Ms. Vizel, a 1930s to the ’50s, Israel, 7 p.m. 300 North Fine of Temple Israel
former member of the including a simulated Broadway, Upper & JCC in Ridgewood
Satmar community two-hour broadcast Nyack, N.Y. (845)-358- continues a new series,
of Kiryas Joel/Palm of “Yiddish Melodies 3767 or csinyack.org. “American Jewish
Tree in Orange in Swing,” with a History,” for the CSI
radio commercial Scholar Fund of the
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program between Congregation Gesher Broadway music in
An Insider’s Insights JULY 18 Benjamin Anthony Wayne: The eight
into the Chasidic songs, 2 p.m. Temple Shalom. Refreshments
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Charlie Sokol added “Jewish Culture and concert series at the
Anderson Ave., Fort in Rockland: The City: Rockland Israel
a descriptive video Identity in America Rosen PAC, housed
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Rockland County’s dinner at a private
Englewood: Rabbi and ice cream. 558 12:45. Series continues “Married to Broadway,”
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Lindsey Healey- High Mountain Road. July 25 and August 1. starring Ron Sharpe,
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will perform Broadway
HaNeshamah, 11:15 a.m.
Kiddush lunch follows.
Wednesday Brian Leiken, 10 a.m.
D. Sarna’s book
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cifically target assisting residents care option. The college’s health
im
im
in the state’s underserved popula- professions degree, certificate,
tions, including displaced, unem- and licensing programs currently
ployed, underemployed, and vet- enroll more than 1,400 students
eran workers. Health care added and offer a direct pipeline to
201-66•1845-600-5941
- 4940
career and credential pathway ety of fields. More students grad-
201-661-4940
We do not transport solid or hazardous waste
201-
collaboratives in key workforce
sectors. The program remains
uate from Bergen than any other
community college in the state.
We do not tran