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New Jersey Jewish News September 18, 2020 Flipbook PDF
New Jersey Jewish News September 18, 2020
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September 18, 2020 Vol. LXXXIX NO. 45 $1.00
NEW JERSEY
JEWISH NEWS Njjewishnews.com
A Jewish Standard Publication
We’re Back!
A New Year, A New Beginning Telling MetroWest’s stories
W
e believe that a community needs its own local newspaper. We’re not provincial enough to think that’s all it needs. A community needs international and national news; it needs the up-to-the-second information it can get online, as well as the more measured analysis and in-depth reporting that comes from the great national dailies. But it also needs to know its own stories, the smaller, intensely specific ones that weave it together, that give it heft and memory and a shared future. See EDITORIAL page 50
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AGAIN, AND AGAIN, AND AGAIN MORRISTOWN | OVERLOOK | CHILTON | NEWTON | HACKETTSTOWN
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to schedule a mammogram
Now in its fourth year, #AskHer is a movement that has impacted thousands of lives in our communities. Speak up and start the conversation now about breast health. Ask your loved ones to schedule their annual mammogram. Or, take the initiative and do it for yourself. When it comes to breast cancer, early detection literally saves lives. Book online today at atlantichealth.org/askher or call 844-343-3540. 2 NEW JERSEY JEWISH NEWS SEPTEMBER 18, 2020
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Page 3 Drone drops dope near Dizengoff ● A drone dropped more than one hundred small packets of marijuana over Tel Aviv’s Rabin Square one afternoon recently. Pedestrians quickly snatched up many of the packets, though the police confiscated some too. Shortly afterward, the two men suspected of operating the drone were arrested at the scene by police for alleged drug trafficking. The drone operators were promoting their marijuana delivery service, “The Green Drones,”
which potential buyers can connect to through the Telegram app. The small clear plastic packets that fell from the sky were filled with free samples of marijuana and business cards promoting the delivery services, with contact information and the phrase “Free love.” Dozens of packets that landed in a children’s playground were promptly confiscated to prevent endangering minors, according to a statement
the police released. “The distribution of a suspected narcotic substance is considered as trafficking a dangerous drug in all respects and the arrested suspects will be investigated accordingly,” a police spokesperson said. Marijuana possession is partially decriminalized in Israel in the case of small amounts, but distribution remains a criminal offense. JESSICA STEINBERG/TOI
CONTENTS NOSHES ......................................................... 4 AROUND THE COMMUNITY .................22 JEWISH WORLD .......................................28 OPINION ..................................................... 50 THE FRAZZLED HOUSEWIFE ..............58 CROSSWORD PUZZLE ...........................58 ARTS & CULTURE .....................................59 LIFECYCLE ................................................. 60 CLASSIFIED ADS ......................................62
PUBLISHER’S STATEMENT: (USPS 275-540) The New Jersey Jewish News is published weekly by JJMedia LLC at 70 Grand Ave.,Suite 104, River Edge, NJ 07661. ©2020, NJ Jewish News. All rights reserved. Periodical postage is paid in South Hackensack, NJ and additional entries. Postmaster: Send address changes to JJMedia LLC, 70 Grand Ave., Suite 104, River Edge, NJ 07661. SUBSCRIPTIONS: Annual subscriptions (including postage) New Jersey: $52. Out of state: $56. TELEPHONE: 201-837-8818 The appearance of an advertisement in the New Jersey Jewish News does not constitute a kashrut endorsement. The publishing of a paid political advertisement does not constitute an endorsement of any candidate, political party, or political position by the newspaper or any employees.
Netta’s Mary Poppins number ● Singer Netta Barzilai has taken on Dame Julie Andrews with a cover of the “Mary Poppins” song “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious” that Disney Records posted to its Facebook page. In the video, Barzilai is dressed in fairytale princess white; she sports purple tresses. She used her looper, the electronic keyboard that allows musicians to record what they are playing or singing and then repeat, or “loop,” it while playing over the part. It’s the instrument Barzilai used for several years during her music studies, and that she used to great effect for her performance of “Toy,” the song with which she won the 2018 Eurovision Song Contest for Israel. The result is a very 2020 take on the 1964 song. “When Walt Disney Records gives you the opportunity to put a spin on an iconic Disney song, you don’t turn it down!” JESSICA STEINBERG/TIME OF ISRAEL Barzilai says.
The New Jersey Jewish News assumes no responsibility to return unsolicited editorial or graphic materials. All rights in letters and unsolicited editorial, and graphic material will be treated as unconditionally assigned for publication and copyright purposes and subject to New Jersey Jewish News’ unrestricted right to edit and to comment editorially. Nothing may be reprinted in whole or in part without written permission from the publisher. ©2020.
Candlelighting: Friday, Sept. 18 - 6:41 p.m. Shabbat ends: Saturday, Sept. 19 - 7:38 p.m.
Knesset cutie ● Rachel Zandberg points out a noteworthy passage in a Health Ministry report on smoking in Israel to her mother, Tamar, a Knesset member, during a meeting of the Knesset Health and Welfare Committee.
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NEW JERSEY JEWISH NEWS SEPTEMBER 18, 2020 3
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Noshes
“This is really when you’ll appreciate having the neurotic Jews around.” — According to Bob Woodward’s new book, “Rage,” this is what Jared Kushner told his father-in-law, President Donald J. Trump.
Two new series, new doc, more Away, and fun “Racheted,” an original Netflix series that begins streaming on September 18, is a horrific prequel to “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.” The setting is a mental hospital ward. The new series focuses the “cleverly evil” Nurse Ratched, who was a major character in “Cuckoo. (She was the villain.) Sarah Paulson plays Ratched. The supporting cast includes COREY STOLL, 44, and SOPHIE OKONEDO, 52. Okonedo, who got a supporting actress Oscar nomination for “The Hotel Rwanda” in 2005, is the daughter of a white English Jewish mother and a black African father. Her parents split when she was 5, and her mother brought her up Jewish in the U.K. She spent a lot of time with her Yiddish-speaking grandparents. The documentary “All In: The Fight for Democracy” also begins streaming on the 18th, on Amazon Prime Video. LIZ GARBUS, 51, directed this film about voter suppres-
sion. It is narrated by Stacey Abrams, an African-American Georgia politician and anti-suppression movement leader. “Filthy Rich” is an ABC drama, starting on September 21, about a mega-rich Southern family that made their money off of a Christian TV network. The founder suddenly dies and his will discloses the he has three heirs—the children of his extra-marital affairs. Jewish Broadway singing star AARON LAZAR, 44, plays Reverend Paul Luke Thomas, a popular and ambitious televangelist who is a rising star in the network. I wrote about “Away,” an original Netflix series about the first space flight to Mars, before it premiered on September 4. Here’s some new info. JOSH CHARLES, 48, is not one of the five spaceship crew members, as I guessed. He plays Matt, a NASA engineer who is the husband of Emma, the American mission commander (Hilary
Sophie Okonedo
Aaron Lazar
Josh Charles
Mark Ivanir
Swank). While Emma is traveling to Mars, Matt works with her from mission control on Earth. We learn about their pre-flight lives via flashbacks. I correctly guessed that MARK IVANIR, 51, would be a Mars crew member. He plays Misha, a Russian cosmonaut and engineer. Ivanir was born in the Ukraine, then part of
the Soviet Union, in 1961; he and his family moved to Israel in 1972. It’s really great when a veteran character actor like Ivanir gets a big, juicy part after years of small parts in big projects, like “Schindler’s List,” For most character actors, it’s like winning the lottery when they get a chance to shine in a widely seen, meaty part. It literally
transforms their lives. “Away” is uneven, but a nice thing happens in episode 6. Viewers learn, mostly in flashbacks, about the very surprising Jewish background of a crew member. I’ll reveal this surprise in a future column. Meanwhile, you have time to watch “Away.” I’m giving you a headsup, not a full spoiler. “Away” has got a huge viewing audience, despite overall tepid reviews. A second season is likely. Most critics praised the actors but found most of the scripts to be way too predictable and the pace of the episodes too slow. I agree with these criticisms, but I did find that the series got better in the later episodes. Here’s a trick I stumbled on: you can watch the first episode and then jump to episode 6. You will not have missed any plot twists in the intervening episodes that you really can’t figure out. So, you can get to the big Jewish reveal pretty soon without penalty. Trust me, the really, really, cool and well-written Jewish re-
veal is worth your time, either via viewing the episodes in order or by the jump-ahead trick. Here’s a Jewish-related entertainment anecdote to make you smile in these difficult times. On YouTube, I recently came across a 1970 Dick Cavett interview with star actor William Holden. Cavett asked Holden about on-set difficulties, and Holden said that getting into make-up and costume can take hours. Holden then told about a story about Charlton Heston, who played MOSES in “The Ten Commandments” in 1956. Heston, he said, was dressed up as the elderly Moses when he met Bob Hope on a studio street. Heston told Hope that it took hours to put on and take off his heavy make-up, which included a pasted-on full white beard and pasted-on bushy white eyebrows. Heston then added that he was dying from the heat in his heavy robe and he was drenched in sweat. Hope listened to all this and replied: “Well, as I have always said, it’s hard to be a Jew.” –N.B.
California-based Nate Bloom can be reached at [email protected]
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Local Taking it on the road Rutgers Hillel makes a connection with students throughout the state Lois Goldrich
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t’s not a new marketing strategy, but still it’s an effective one. If your customer can’t come to you, take your show on the road! So far, Rutgers Hillel is getting good mileage out of that policy. “We recognized that with most classes being virtual, most students would be remaining home,” Rabbi Esther Reed, senior associate director for Jewish Campus Life at Rutgers Hillel in New Brunswick, said. She has worked with the group since 2001. “Labs and art are in person, but only a small number of students are living on or near campus.” So, with all that Hillel has to offer, and with so many students spread all over the state, “we wanted to bring it to them,” Rabbi Reed said. “We thought the best way would be to set up tents in public parks throughout the state and use this as an opportunity to meet students we’ve never met and reconnect with others.” In addition to targeting incoming students and greeting familiar faces, “We also have returning students who have never connected with us.” The group, which has dubbed its Tuesday outings “roadshows,” has run one in New Brunswick, one in West Orange, and a third in Lincroft. Two more are planned for later in September, one in Cherry Hill on September 22 and one in the Teaneck area on September 29. “We handed out T-shirts, Rutgers Hillel’s custom face masks, free snacks, and information about Hillel events for this semester,” Rabbi Reed said, describing the meetings that already have been held and laying out the game plan for the ones to come. “We insisted that everyone be masked. There were lots of activities, games to play — including ring toss and cornhole, or baggo — an arts table, and a table announcing virtual events and activities. “There was also a table for Israel engagement, information about Birthright, and grab-and-go Israeli snacks, individually wrapped.” Reservations were not required, and Rabbi Reed said that she expected about 30 students to turn up for each event. “But Middlesex County included many Rutgers students on or near the campus, so we had more than 100,” she added. So far, the feedback has been extremely positive. “Students in West Orange were so grateful,” she said. “They said thanks so much for coming to where we are, so we can be with other students and not see them only through a screen.” Rabbi Reed noted that the pandemic quarantine began right around Purim, forcing Hillel to cancel its laser tag Purim party. “After that, we would have had Passover and a huge celebration for Yom Ha’atzmaut,” she said. “And we always have a big, large-scale Shabbat dinner, with between 200 and 400 students, every week. At the end of the year, we do a large celebratory banquet for student leaders.” It’s hard to do that virtually. While Hillel offered a virtual Kabbalat Shabbat service 6 NEW JERSEY JEWISH NEWS SEPTEMBER 18, 2020
Students show off their shirts at Hillel’s Road Show in New Brunswick; from left, Marli Dinovitzer of Englewood, Leora Landy of Silver Spring, MD, and Ephraim Linder of Teaneck. rutgers hillel during the semester, Rabbi Reed happily reported that the university’s Conservative and Orthodox students “kept up their virtual pre-Shabbat service every Friday during the whole summer. Even though the students were home, they wanted to connect. “Services, like other Hillel events, are student-run,” she said. She is a Conservative rabbi ; she’s logged in for the services, but “the students lead and give the divrei Torah.” She spoke highly of their skills and commitment. “We know that 50 percent of them remain in New Jersey and become the future leaders of synagogues and Jewish organizations.” Thinking back on what Hillel did to replace the major events canceled during the quarantine, she recalled that Hillel ran an education program during the week leading up to Passover and posted material on how to host a virtual seder, downloadable haggadot, “and all sorts of different links so they could choose what would be best for them.” Right now, she added, there are enough students to hold two daily Orthodox minyanim,
one in the morning and one in the evening. Hillel has been providing Shabbat-to-go boxes for students who live off campus in the New Brunswick area. “They would have come to us to eat,” Rabbi Reed said, but because the pandemic has made in-person gathering impossible, “now we distribute boxes, including tea lights, mini bottles of grape juice, challah rolls, and the actual meal.” And that’s not all. Aside from virtual education activities, “there are events every day. “Community service is done virtually by students who did hospital visits, distributing cards and flowers. Now they’re meeting over Zoom to do the card-making at home.” They send the cards to Hillel, which distributes them. And what has Rabbi Reed learned from the unique situation in which Hillel now finds itself? “Being home all the time is lonely,” she said. “Any way we can foster community helps both mental health and one’s sense of well-being.” She noted that a member of Rutgers’ counseling and psychological services works with
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Rutgers Hillel staff member Ryan Siegel stands in between Gideon Fox of West Orange, and Aliza Kedar-Mehl of Livingston in Degnan Park. rutgers hillel
The meeting at Degnan Park in West Orange drew, from left, Rutgers Hillel staff members Ryan Siegel and Adva Solomon and students Julian Goodman of Florham Park, Sam Weiner of Rockaway, Dina Doctoroff of Livingston, and Yossi Tobin of West Orange. rutgers hillel Hillel, and “has done a tremendous amount of counseling. There’s a great need for it.” The greatest challenge for Hillel, she continued, “is not being able to be with the students in person.” Before, “students would walk by every day and we could see them and say ‘hi.’ It’s hard to catch them when they’re home.” For more information about the roadshows, go to Hillel’s website, RutgersHillel.org.
At Rutgers Hillel, Rabbi Esther Reed stands with students JJ Rosenblum of West Orange; Jonathan Linder and Max Lightman, both of Teaneck, and Robert Samuel of Long Branch. Rutgers hillel
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School in the time of coronavirus Kushner, GOA retool for the new reality Larry Yudelson
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obody said that going to school during a pandemic would be a picnic. But they should have. Because outdoor dining is one of the changes to pre-pandemic routine that local Jewish day schools made when they opened up. Gathering everyone in the lunchroom would be an easy way for disease to spread. Eating lunch outdoors under tents let students have lunch while being appropriately distant from each other. Al fresco dining is only one of the many changes that both the Golda Och Academy campuses in West Orange and Livingston’s Joseph Kushner Hebrew Academy and Rae Kushner Yeshiva High School made as they worked toward the goal of preventing the spread of infection. “We all got adjusted and accustomed to it very
quickly,” Rabbi Eliezer Rubin, head of the Kushner schools, said. The school’s dining hall no longer has any furniture in it. At dismissal time, students use it as a waiting area; it’s such a big space that they don’t have to get too close to each other as they wait to be picked up. Many more students are being driven to and from schools by their parents, who are reluctant to have their children on a bus. The schools’ outdoor spaces also are being used as meeting areas. “All casual conversations between students and teachers are done outside,” Rabbi Rubin said. A slew of tents means that meals and even classes can take place outdoors, rain or shine. On the inside, “all of the public spaces like student lounges and libraries have been repurposed as classrooms,” Rabbi Rubin said. “Even the stage in the
Students pray outdoors at Joseph Kushner Hebrew Academy
JKHA
FIRST PERSON
About name and recognition Amir Cohen
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ynergy. The one big, bold word on the front page 23 years ago introduced the newly created New Jersey Jewish News. Gone were the MetroWest Jewish News and Jewish Horizon, replaced by an ambitious new brand. In the months — which seemed like years — that it took for that merger to happen, the foundation for more expansion was laid. Within three years, the New Jersey Jewish News reached more than 50,000 households in communities from Princeton, Freehold, and Edison to Randolph, South Orange, and Plainfield. Along the way, the paper received many awards, and also one unique compliment from Professor Jonathan Sarna — the historian of record for all things about Jewish publishing — declaring it to be the best in the land. Editor-in-chief David Twersky was so happy that the greater New Jersey Jewish News idea took place that he didn’t even care that the cover idea was not his. Debbie Rubin, then managing editor, reminded me recently that she hated the synergy idea, but on that day I was not going to be denied. It was a tougher battle with the sometimes combative David,
until he climbed down from naming the new publication the Greater Jersey Jewish News. It was the working title for our growth plans for so long that it took him awhile, but eventually he came around. The new logo, expertly designed by the super-talented team of Lynn Pelkey and Trish Rogers, was introduced, on that same synergy cover. The rest, as they say, is history. I was thinking about David Twersky, my friend and partner in this NJJN endeavor more than 20 years ago, as his 10th yahrzeit approached earlier this summer, when I heard the news that the Jewish Week was closing and that the New Jersey Jewish News also would shut down as a result. The connection made both more painful to accept. I was disappointed, and a little angry, too. After the Forward, the Canadian Jewish News, and the Connecticut Jewish Ledger all closed — all before the added burden of the pandemic — I was not entirely surprised. But this was the New Jersey Jewish News. Heck, I kinda named it. During my publishing years in New Jersey, I always saw the Jewish Standard as an obvious partner for future merger and expansion. Life took me to New England, though, and I never
In 1997, New York Times columnist Tom Friedman, second from left, joins the New Jersey Jewish News at the Crystal Palace as it celebrates its 50th anniversary. From left, Amir Cohen, its publisher; Mr. Friedman; incoming NJJN board chair Michael Miller, outgoing board chair Paul Goldman, and editor in chief David Twersky.
got to explore that option. Shortly after the news about the Jewish News broke, I was pleased to hear from Jamie Janoff, publisher of the Jewish Standard and a much better guitar player than I am, asking me if I would assist him with the transition should the Jewish Standard undertake the publishing restart of the NJJN. Synergy was again on the front page. I did not think twice — I signed up. For the past few weeks, and as long as I am asked, I will continue to play whatever role I can to help NJJN succeed. Of course, there are
no guarantees; Covid-19 and the publishing interruption hurt NJJN in what already had become a challenging environment. The days of robust ad revenues and 100page issues are gone. But I have known the MetroWest community for many years. It holds a leadership position in many areas of Jewish life and I’m optimistic about the chances the Jewish News has going forward. I may be biased, but even the new logo on this inaugural issue reminds me of that very first logo from all those years ago. I hope it brings similar success.
Amir Cohen was the publisher of the New Jersey Jewish News from 1994 to 2001. He now lives in Rhode Island, where he’s the executive director of the Jewish Federation of Greater New Bedford; the coordinator of the consortium that connects 12 New England federations to the Afula-Gilboa region in Israel; owns Mediabuy, an ad agency specializing in the Jewish print media, and is a publishing consultant to the Jewish Standard. Amir founded the David Twersky Award for Journalism 10 years ago. He misses his friend every day. 8 NEW JERSEY JEWISH NEWS SEPTEMBER 18, 2020
JS-9 Local auditorium is now a classroom.” That is because grades have been divided into pods of no more than 20 students. That means more classes, and a need for more makeshift classrooms. The classrooms have been retrofitted with HEPA air filters and window screens. Students wear masks throughout the day; teachers are further isolated by Plexiglas. Each pod — that is, each group of students — will be screened for covid twice a week. Dr. Steven Stein, the head of the high school’s science department, will analyze the collected saliva samples from each pod in the high school’s science lab, which has the DNA amplification technology needed to run the test. “We don’t want to wait for symptoms to determine the need for quarantine,” Rabbi Rubin said. If a test comes back positive — so far none has — then the students in that pod will have to quarantine at home, but the rest of the school can continue as usual. For Rabbi Rubin, it’s important to stress the spiritual side of the adaptation. The Shabbat before school opened on Monday, August 31, the Torah reading
At the Golda Och Academy, students are distanced and the teacher wears a microphone so she can be heard through her mask. discussed the need for preventive safety. Deuteronomy 22:8 commands: “When you build a new house, you shall make
GOA
a railing for your roof, so that you do not bring bloodguilt on your house if anyone should fall from it.” Rabbi Rubin told his
students that “the masking is a way to build a fence around a roof, to make sure we keep our community healthy. We’re teaching our students about personal responsibility and communal responsibility. Our students now understand and appreciate that they’re wearing masks not just for themselves, but they’re taking on the responsibility to help others. We are using the opportunity of covid to teach the children about proactive support for one another, referencing the commandment to build a fence around the roof of a house. “We don’t only wait for someone to be in need — we proactively help people so they won’t be in need.” Adam Shapiro, head of school at the Golda Ochs Academy, said that reconfiguring for covid has meant adding lots of Plexiglas dividers, as well as “ensuring our students are wearing masks at all time.” The teachers wear masks and face shields. To compensate for the protection in front of their faces, the teachers also wear portable microphones and speakers to amplify their words. Keeping kids properly distanced See SCHOOL page 63
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As many answers as questions Local students score during finals in Chidon HaTanach USA competition ABIGAIL KLEIN LEICHMAN
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eni Romm of White Plains, 17, is a pizza chef, a second-degree black belt in tae kwon do, and now a Bible champ too. Beni, a senior at the Frisch School in Paramus, recently placed first among four finalists in the Hebrew high-school division of the National Bible Contest, formally known as the Dr. Shimshon Isseroff Chidon HaTanach USA. This achievement qualifies him to compete in the international competition in Jerusalem next Yom Ha’atzmaut. Beni distinguished himself with a perfect score in the 100-question test on 196 chapters of Tanach — the Hebrew biblical canon — including most or all of Numbers, Samuel I and II, Kings I and II, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Amos, Ezra and Nehemiah. He studied 5,000 practice questions in preparation for the online competition. The second-place winner of the division, Elana Rosenblatt of Highland Park, is a student at Bruriah High School in Elizabeth. She also qualified to compete in the international round next spring along with the first-place winners of the English and middle-school divisions. In the 2019 National Bible Quiz, Elana had placed third and Beni placed fourth. This year, the other two finalists in the Hebrew high-school division were Adielle Rosenblum of Manhattan High School for Girls and Elimelech Novick of West Orange, a student at the Rae Kushner Yeshiva High School in Livingston. Samuel Colchamiro of Short Hills, a student at Joseph Kushner Hebrew Academy, was another local finalist, in the Hebrew middle-school division. Elimelech, 17, said that preparing for the quiz enhanced his appreciation of Tanach. “Even though it is the foundation of all Jewish belief, it is often overlooked, and people jump ahead to learning other things,” he said. “I really got to go back and start from the beginning and get a taste of what that foundation is, and I can better go forward in my Judaism from there.” Beni said that his interest in the Chidon HaTanach was sparked by his fourth-grade teacher at Westchester Day School, although he had to wait until sixth grade to participate. One of his friends, Uriel Simpson of Teaneck, won first place in the Hebrew middle-school division of the quiz in 2016, when he was a Yeshivat Noam seventh-grader, and he placed in the top
This screenshot shows the national champions taking the quiz on 196 chapters of Tanach online. Top row from left: Beni Romm, Eliana Levenzon, Eliana Waghalter, and Talia Weinstein. Middle row: Yaelle Shaye, Tamar Dahan, Adielle Rosenblum, and Samuel Colchamiro. Bottom row: Elana Rosenblatt, English Consultant for USA Chidon Avi Shaveron, and Eli Novick.
Westchester Day School eighth-grader, placed third in the middle-school division.
I really got to go back and start from the beginning and get a taste of what that foundation is... Beni Romm won first place in the Hebrew high-school division of the 2020 National Bible Contest USA.
eight in the international round in 2017. That’s an unusual accomplishment for a middle-schooler. “Uriel showed me it was possible to win if you put the work into it,” Beni said. Beni studied on his own for the preliminary national round in May, also held online for the first time. According to Rabbi Dovi Nadel, coordinator for the National Bible Contest at the Jewish Agency for Israel, 200 students qualified, out of more than 600 who took a written test. Beni’s brother, Ilan, a
20 NEW JERSEY JEWISH NEWS SEPTEMBER 18, 2020
ELIMELECH NOVICK
“In preparation for the finals on August 23, a competition of only four people, I asked my Hebrew teacher at Frisch, Rabbi Yair Shahak, to work with me,” Beni said. “I knew it would be harder, and I studied multiple hours a day.” Rabbi Shahak, who lives in Teaneck, is the Hebrew department chair at Frisch and tied for first place in the 2016 International Adult Chidon HaTanach in Israel — the first American ever to do so. He will coach Beni once a week before the international round next spring. When he was asked to share one of
the insights he gained from his studies, Beni replied, “Ezekiel is an interesting prophet, who doesn’t get enough credit. His radical ideas are pertinent to today. He placed a big emphasis on everyone being responsible for his own actions. When many people in his time were blaming the destruction of the First Temple on the actions of their grandparents, he said, ‘No, you have to look at your own actions and what you can change to make a better world today.’” Beni is diligent in exercising not only his mind but his body as well. “Pre-pandemic, I did tae kwon do,” he said. “The fun part of that, besides working on yourself and controlling your body and your technique, is that when you get to a certain point you are asked to teach others, and you progress from student to teacher.” Over the summer, Beni operated an informal pizza restaurant in his family’s backyard. “There is no kosher restaurant in White Plains,” he explained. “I’m still keeping it up on Tuesdays, when we have school over Zoom, and after Shabbat.” Beni is the pizza chef, and his brothers Ilan and fifth-grader Ori lend a hand, along with their parents, Gideon and Dr. Jana Romm. After graduating, Beni hopes to spend a gap year of study in Israel before starting college.
JS-11 WHETHER A VIRUS OR TERRORISTS, ISRAELIS DEPEND ON ONE ORGANIZATION WHEN LIVES NEED SAVING.
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afmda.org NEW JERSEY JEWISH NEWS SEPTEMBER 18, 2020 11
JS-12 Local First Person
Covid Diaries 4.0 We’ve made it to the cusp of autumn … what could possibly be in store next? Jonathan E. Lazarus
T
he surreal summer seemed to move by briskly, certainly in comparison to the surreal spring. Perhaps my mental calendar was propelled more by wishful thinking rather than the easing of covid restrictions or any meaningful improvement in racial tensions, employment, food insecurity, and political histrionics. I still keep losing dates occasionally, especially the Wednesday-to-Thursday connection, but I am firmly on the glide path to autumn, with the High Holy Days, school re-openings, and political campaigns sharpening the focus. My tiny triumphs during the pandemic’s warmest months pale by comparison to global concerns but include keeping our backyard hostas off limits to the ravages of deer through applications of natural repellant and a canopy of netting, and by hiring skilled craftsmen to reconstruct our deck and complete long-overdue home improvements. And don’t let me minimize making it through a three-week hiatus at the Shore, seemingly unscathed by the pandemic. If our leader can exist in a parallel universe where we’ve turned the covid corner, why can’t I live in one in which everything is relatively peaceful, with the volume turned down? I am writing this just hours after getting my flu shot at the supermarket. Vaccines have been much in my thoughts lately, and I wonder how effective the 2020 version will be in fighting the annual influenza scourge. I didn’t bother to ask my pharmacist, Kush, the degree of efficacy scientists predict for it, since they can hazard only an educated guess as to what strain may make it to our shores. But he did tell me I received the larger of two doses available, because at age 78 I’m in the highest risk category. My mind leaped ahead to potential covid vaccines, their effectiveness and distribution, and the politicalization surrounding Operation Warp Speed, to use Donald Trump’s grandiloquent term for the project. Perhaps with his penchant for the overblown and in his role as the unofficial conspiracist-in-chief, the offensive ought to be rechristened Jonathan E. Lazarus of West Orange, a former editor at the Star-Ledger, is a proofreader and contributor at the Jewish News.
Our correspondent, Jon Lazarus of West Orange, tends to the hostas in his backyard.
Operation Warped Speed. Although young at the time, I don’t remember President Dwight Eisenhower trying to exploit the Salk and Sabin polio treatments as his personal triumph when the public went through mass inoculations. And Ike really was used to using big names, like Operations Torch and Overlord in World War II. Trump’s ineptitude and abdication during the pandemic cannot be minimized … or can it? New York Times columnist Ross Douthat recently tried to quantify just how many lives have been lost through his premature push for re-openings (liberate Michigan!) and disregard for science (why not take a shot of bleach?). Douthat, a conservative writer, kept occluding his projections with comparisons of geography, the political leanings of leaders, and other impedimenta. His conclusion: we are in the middle of the pack of nations and could have done better. My conclusion: we should be so much better than middle of the pack and have done abysmally. Perhaps a more accurate gauge of
12 NEW JERSEY JEWISH NEWS SEPTEMBER 18, 2020
Trump’s cringe-inducing performance can be gleaned from Bob Woodward’s recently aired taped interviews, where the president admits knowing the severity of the virus early on but purposely downplayed it so as not to “alarm” the public. Earlier in his term, when Trump took a pen to an official government hurricane map and “extended” the path of destruction for political gain, and when he suggested raking forest floors as a cure for fires continuing to rage in the West, I knew this guy wasn’t too respectful of science. But are we numb to his latest outrage and the number of lost lives? Are we in total fatigue mode? Although an incredible long shot, if a vaccine were to arrive at just the right moment, and is effective, the election gods still could smile on Donald John Trump. All his attempts to corrupt the mails; his connivance with Russia; the shameless racial agitprop; the endless lies, mistruths and distortions; his belittling of war dead and his denigration of military brass, may have been unnecessary. Joe Biden, observant, decent,
compassionate, and all masked up, might fall victim to the same vagaries as Hillary Clinton did in 2016, through the electoral college and Trump’s unbudgeable 40 percent of voters. This was much on my mind as my wife and I spent the days sunning on the shores of Long Beach Island recently, except when the winds shifted and brought in hordes of flies, sending us scurrying back to our rental. The beach teemed with vacationers, but very few wore masks. Even so, safe distancing seemed to be observed. Family pods banded together and were separated by buffers well in excess of six feet. My wife and I factored in the possibility of bad behavior when making the decision to return to LBI during this extraordinary summer, but we found that parents were acting responsibly with youngsters, and beachgoers of all ages seemed to have a sense of safety and courtesy. During morning jogs, I positioned my mask more as a chinstrap, should a messy situation arise. It didn’t. Since LBI boasts See diaries page 49
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JS-14 Local
New Jewish high school to offer alternatives to college Builders School will focus on training for trades Larry Yudelson
W
hat if high school were not just a way station on the road to college? What if high school were to prepare graduates to start earning a wage? That’s the premise of the Builder School, which hopes to join North Jersey’s growing rank of Jewish high schools. It’s the longtime dream of Rabbi Eliyahu Teitz, who until recently was associate head of school at the Jewish Educational Center in Elizabeth, working under his father, Rabbi Elazar Teitz. That school, the JEC, was founded in 1941 by his grandfather, Rabbi Pinchas Teitz; it was one of the first seven Jewish day schools in the United States. Back in February, the Builder School was on the verge of signing a lease with the Fair Lawn Jewish Center. In March, however, covid came along, and Rabbi Teitz postponed the opening to the 2021 school year. The idea, however, remains constant: A four-year coed program that will focus on practical education, in Jewish as well as secular classes. Ninth graders will take fairly standard high school courses; starting in 10th grade, however, students will select one of four tracks that will see them well prepared for a job when they graduate. “One track will be hands-on construction,” Rabbi Teitz said. “One will be technological — coding and app construction and things like that. One will focus on business and real estate, with the goal that you will graduate high school with a real estate license. That’s a leg up on the competition. The fourth we’re looking at now is law, where you’ll graduate with a paralegal certification. “We’ve had kids ask about medicine. These are the four models now. If one doesn’t gain traction, we can swap it out for medicine, with students graduating with EMT certification. “The idea is to give them options. You’ll have something you can leverage and use, and it looks great on a college resume. A lot of parents are saying they can’t afford to pay for college. They don’t want the debt. This gives the kids lots of possibilities. They can work while they’re in school, or they can put money away before school. We’re looking to create realistic options for kids.” Rabbi Teitz sees his new school as the answer to the high school students he has encountered throughout his career, “who are just not really engaged. They sit there saying, ‘When am I ever going to use this? Why do I need to know this?’ You see they’re not connecting, but we push them through the system and we do them no favors. “A lot of these kids don’t know what they want from college. It’s not them. They don’t want to be doctors and lawyers. They don’t want 9-to-5 jobs. They don’t want to be tied down to a desk. What do we do for these kids?” Rabbi Teitz emphasizes that this is “high school plus, not high school light. It’s not a failure. The kids are getting a high school diploma like any other diploma. They’ll take SATs and ACTs. “Baby Boomers and Gen Xers take it as a personal failing of their parenting if their child doesn’t go to 14 NEW JERSEY JEWISH NEWS SEPTEMBER 18, 2020
Rabbi Eliyahu Teitz wants the Builder School to offer a new model of Jewish education. college. But college is not the benchmark of success any more. A lot of kids go and find that they still need a masters degree. They end up earning less than an electrician who has no educational debt. “The community has to understand that being a professional, a lawyer, a doctor, an accountant, is not the only path to a happy life, a meaningful life, a successful life,” Rabbi Teitz said. The fact that construction licensing standards are set state-wide in New Jersey, whereas in New York every municipality can have its own licensing requirement, is one of the reasons why Rabbi Teitz wants the school to be placed on this side of the Hudson. It turns out that there are three components to becoming a licensed electrician in New Jersey. One is a high school diploma. Check. The second is a four-year educational program taught by electrician unions and independent electrical contractors. Rabbi Teitz will hire certified trainers to teach his students. The third requirement is five years of hands-on work, starting from age 18. The school obviously can’t provide that, but its graduates, having already taken the hands-on curriculum, will have learned about — and implemented — three-way switches and light fixtures and all the rest of the skills taught to aspiring electricians. “When they tell an electrician that they want to be an apprentice, they can’t say they have worked on a job site, but they’ll have lots of skills,” he said. Rabbi Teitz wants the spirit of practicality to infuse the entire curriculum. “My dream is that a student will never sit in a class and say, ‘Why do I need to know this?’
That means math classes devoted to financial literacy for small business owners, rather than to calculus. Business ethics and contract law will be part of the social studies curriculum. The same practicality will be applied to the Jewish studies curriculum. “The focus is not going to be on Gemara per se,” Rabbi Teitz said. “The primary focus will be on Mishna, covering ground, so they’ll know what every chapter is talking about, so they can see the entire breadth of halacha.” Torah classes will focus on the commandments, not on the narratives, he said, and there will be a particular focus on business ethics. “I am looking to recast the model of Torah education,” Rabbi Teitz said. “I’m trying to create this integrated whole, where everything relates to where the students are and what are their goals for the future. “If you take a kid and force him to sit in four hours of calculus every day, will he want to be a physicist? So why are we dong it with Gemara? I’m saying now is the time for looking at a different model. Gemara will be an elective for the kids who want an intellectual challenge.” Rabbi Teitz said that he expects his school to attract students who are only accepted grudgingly by the existing academically-focused yeshiva high schools. “For us, the key is that the kid is committed to working hard,” he said. “If you’re committed to buckling down and working hard, we want you. We want the kids to feel wanted. We want them to feel this is a place that’s proud to take them in.
JS-15 Federation cares for people in need, builds Jewish life, and saves the world, one person at a time, every day. JEWISH COMMUNITY FOUNDATION
32nd Annual Newark Cemetery Visiting Day Sunday, September 27, 2020 9 a.m. – 1 p.m.
Beth El Memorial Park Foundation, a supporting foundation of the Jewish Community Foundation of Greater MetroWest NJ, is proud to support these at-risk cemeteries. To donate or get involved, contact us at (973) 929-3113 or [email protected].
IT IS TRADITIONAL TO VISIT THE GRAVESITES OF LOVED ONES DURING THE HIGH HOLIDAYS.
Registration for visiting day is not required but is appreciated. Please register at:
Cemeteries included: • Grove Street Cemetery • Talmud Torah Cemetery • Union Field and B’nai Abraham Cemeteries • McClellan Street Cemeteries
The shaded areas on this map indicate the sites included in the Grove Street and South Orange Avenue areas. Detailed cemetery information, including for the McClellan Street area near Newark Airport, will be available at the office of Raiken Monuments at 308 Grove St., Newark.
jfedgmw.org/visiting-day
The Jewish Federation of Greater MetroWest NJ, in conjunction with the Essex County Sherriff’s Department, will provide additional security so you can feel comfortable visiting the historic Jewish cemeteries of Newark during this time. Masks and social distancing will be required Building an inclusive community is a priority. Contact us and we will make every effort to meet your needs.
NEW JERSEY JEWISH NEWS SEPTEMBER 18, 2020 15
JS-16 Local
How’d he get on Chopped? Shalom Yehudiel of the Humble Toast in Teaneck tells his story Joanne Palmer
“I
still don’t know until today how they found me,” Shalom Yehudiel said. “I have asked three, four times, and they just say, ‘We have our sources.’” “ They ” are the producers of “Chopped,” a popular Food Network show that demands that competing chefs make meals out of random, apparently ill-assorted ingredients. He is an American-Israeli chef, entrepreneur, and philanthropist whose Teaneck restaurant, the Humble Toast, draws customers from around the region and whose delivery service, perhaps inevitably named the Humble Truck, provisions simchas throughout Bergen and Essex counties. Mr. Yehudiel, who lives in Fort Lee, is the first contestant who both keeps and cooks kosher; in another first, the show made all necessary provisions for him. The pretaped show that Mr. Yehudiel filmed will air on September 22. Then we’ll find out who won — he knows but is not allowed to say — but we still won’t know how their sources heard about him. On the other hand, when you look at his career, it makes sense that he’d be on a cooking show’s radar screen. Mr. Yehudiel was born in Israel in 1982, the descendant of Yemenite Jews who’d been flown to Israel on eagles’ wings — that is, on the 1948 Israeli Operation Magic Carpet — and he was brought to the United States in 1989. His young parents, Sasi and Mazal, settled first in Elizabeth and then in Fair Lawn, where Rabbi Benjamin Yudin and his wife, Shevi, the founders and leaders of Shomrei Torah and the Orthodox community that grew around it, took an interest in them. That interest was providential for the Yehudiels, who were not finding it easy to live in this strange land; they’d come looking for a better life, but their lack of resources, including their inability, at first, to speak English, threw hurdle after hurdle in their way. Eventually Shalom’s parents divorced; he and his siblings stayed in Fair Lawn with their father. The Yudins were a lifeline for father and children; still, Shalom’s path wasn’t clear. “Because of Rabbi Yudin, I got the basis of what it is to grow up with a Jewish upbringing,” he said. The Yudins saw that he went to Camp Hillel; “the fondest memories of my life are from those summers in camp,” he said. He also went to
Shalom Yehudiel is the first chef to cook a kosher meal under rabbinical supervision on “Chopped.”
three local yeshivot. But his wasn’t a straight-ahead success story from the beginning. “Every one of those, I got thrown out of,” Mr. Yehudiel said. “I was a bit of a class clown; I like attention, and the rabbis weren’t having that.” So he graduated from Fair Lawn High School and got a job as a teller at the Commerce Bank when he was 19. Mr. Yehudiel liked his work, and he did well. By the time he was 23, he’d risen to become a finance officer. “But I said to myself, ‘Listen, this is all good. I like what I do. But it’s not my passion. I want to do something I love.’ “And the first thing that came to my mind was food. “Food to me is not just nourishment. To me, it’s very simple. Food equals love. When you put a plate of food in front of someone — a plate that you’ve put your heart and soul into making — it’s a way of showing them how much you care about them, and about how much attention you are paying to what is going into their body. And into their soul.” The more he thought about it, the more Mr. Yehudiel realized that the restaurant business seemed right for him. “I love people, and for the most part people love me,” he said. He did some research and signed up for an online class at the Art Institute of
16 NEW JERSEY JEWISH NEWS SEPTEMBER 18, 2020
Phoenix; he knew that he “wanted to be someplace else. Not in New Jersey.” The first class he took was online, from Fair Lawn; “then I said okay, this is the time to sign up for the whole thing.” So he did, and moved to Phoenix. The classes he took weren’t only about cooking. “You learn how to run a restaurant, set up a menu, cost things out,” Mr. Yehudiel said. He flourished. The NBA had an all-star game in Phoenix, and “they asked people in my school if they’d like to do a charity event for the NBA, where they’d be paired with different chefs from around the valley.” He jumped at the chance, and was paired with Aaron May. “He’s also Jewish,” Mr. Yehudiel said; he also owns parts of at least three Phoenix-area restaurants. The two hit it off. “When I got there that evening, he told me my job basically would be plating hundreds of different little amuses” — that’s amuse bouche, little fancy appetizers that must both taste and look good — “and at the end he looked at me and said, ‘I like the way you work. Do you want a job?’” The answer, of course, was yes. “I will never forget walking into my first real professional kitchen,” Mr. Yehudiel said. “To say it was intimidating is a huge understatement.’” His job was working with cold salads
and desserts. “That’s usually the entrylevel job. You’re not cooking anything. You’re not searing a duck. You’re just putting together salads and plating desserts.” He did that for six months, while he still was at culinary school; eventually he realized that he could learn more by working full time. Mr. Yehudiel worked with Mr. May for a few years, “opening up restaurants, learning different cuisines,” he said. “He helped me get my start.” But because he knew that “when you are first starting out in your career, you should work for as many chefs as possible,” eventually Mr. Yehudiel left Mr. May’s group to work for the Arizona Biltmore, an extremely high-end hotel, and then for a group called Fox Restaurant Concepts. “That was also started by a Jewish guy,” Mr. Yehudiel said. (One of the restaurants where he worked is called the Arrogant Butcher; it’s notable because it’s just about the opposite of the Humble Toast, at least in name.) As he moved around, Mr. Yehudiel also moved up; he became a sous chef, an executive sous chef, and eventually an executive chef, overseeing huge operations and starting new ones. As he climbed the restaurant ladder, he also moved farther and farther away from See chopped page 18
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NEW JERSEY JEWISH NEWS SEPTEMBER 18, 2020 17
JS-18 Local Chopped from page 16
actual cooking, although he always was in the business of feeding people’s bodies and souls. At the Arrogant Butcher, where he was a sous chef, “it had $7 million in sales, and it was always busy. That started giving me the experience of how to run a busy place. How to set it up, how to train your cooks, how to standardize your recipes. I got the knowledge and experience eventually to do it on my own.” To clear something up here — Mr. Yehudiel did not keep kosher then. “Zero. Zilch. It meant nothing to me at that time,” he said. “I just focused on my career. I was maybe a little bitter about having been thrown out of all those yeshivas.” After some time, Mr. Yehudiel moved to California. “I’d always had the itch to move there,” he said. “Ever since I was a little kid. Even when I was in Israel, my father used to listen to the Eagles’ ‘Hotel California.’ Moving there was a dream.” He had so many restaurant contacts by then that putting out feelers brought very fast results. He interviewed for Disney Land in Anaheim, “and they hired me on the spot,” without even watching him cook. “So all of a sudden I am a cast member at Disney,” Mr. Yehudiel said. He had a wonderful job; he was paid very well; he lived in Huntington Beach. “Everything was going fantastic,” he said. “But somehow I still felt unfulfilled. “At the pinnacle of my success, 10 years being away from New Jersey, I looked back and said, ‘Great. You have a great career. You work for a great place. But you see your parents and your brothers and sisters once or twice a year. So what are you doing all this for? All this hard work and dedication — what is it all for?’ My dad is my king, and I see him once or twice a year. “So what is all this for?” So after thinking about it for a few months, Mr. Yehudiel decided to take a break. He drove back to New Jersey, and moved back in with his father. “My father keeps Shabbat and keeps kosher, so out of respect for my father I started keeping Shabbat,” Mr. Yehudiel said. “I didn’t want to be in my father’s house turning on the TV on Shabbat. That’s disrespectful. “And after a few weeks of keeping Shabbat, my soul said to me, ‘This is what you have been missing all these years.’ After all those years of focusing on success, my neshama,” my soul, “was telling me what was important.” He turned down a lucrative offer from Madison Square Garden. That was a hard choice that he does not underplay. “‘You followed your gut, not your soul, for your whole career,’” he remembered telling himself. “‘What are you going to
Mr. Yehudiel’s Humble Truck delivers meals throughout the region, pandemic or no pandemic.
do now? Take the money and run, or stay with what your soul is telling you?’” Instead, he did some consulting for kosher restaurants in Monsey, and then he started the Humble Toast. It opened in October 2018. Its striking name is not accidental. “I try to live by the word humble,” Mr. Yehudiel said. “We have to realize that everything we receive in life is from God. We should always keep that mindset. “No matter what happens, we should be humble and thankful, and we always should treat people the way they want to be treated. We should spread joy and love.” What about toast? “Toast means a piece of bread, and it also means a l’chaim,” he said. “People can interpret it in whichever way they want.” He also got married; his wife, Jacqueline Yehudiel, is the director of the Jewish National Fund in northern New Jersey. They are the parents of baby Nava. Since the pandemic, the Humble Toast and the Humble Truck have been able to keep going. “The pandemic hit us like a ton of bricks and right away we knew that we would either sink or swim,” Mr. Yehudiel said. “Luckily, I didn’t have to fire anyone.” He is running a robust takeout and delivery service instead. But he’s doing more. “Within the first week of the pandemic, I put a message on Instagram saying, ‘I know that this is a crazy time, but please know that we are in this together, and that God is with us. “‘If you don’t have food to eat, if you
18 NEW JERSEY JEWISH NEWS SEPTEMBER 18, 2020
don’t know where your next meal is coming from, please talk to me.’” Since then, he’s given food to people who need it, and his efforts have been supported by others who have seen what he’s doing and are moved by it. “In the toughest of times, it’s been so wild to see the best side of people coming out,” he said. “Their really heartfelt emotions. “I am so proud of my family and my staff. We really all rose to occasion, and we’ve been taking care of people who need to be taken care of.” Okay. So how about “Chopped?” How did it happen? A few months after the Humble Toast opened, “I got an email, and the subject line says, ‘Chopped interview.’ I opened it up, and I saw that they asked if I would be interested in coming into Manhattan for an interview. They reached out to me. It was nuts. It fell into my lap.” He went for an interview, somewhere in the meatpacking district. “They put makeup on me, and there were cameras in front of me, and I was just talking about my past. It took two hours or so, and they said, ‘Thank you very much for your time. We will be in touch.’” He heard nothing from them for six months, “and I just thought, ‘You know what? I’m not for them,’” Mr. Yehudiel reported. And then “I got an email saying, ‘When can we come to film a biopack?’” That’s a clip that’s edited into a 20- or 30-second introduction to each chef. “They came and filmed me,” he said. “It took pretty much all day.” He cooked for the camera crew and
interviewer. And then, again, he waited. “I didn’t know how TV works, but they did mention to me that at a certain point we rush, rush, rush, rush, and then we just wait,” he said. “And then months later, I got another email that said, ‘These are the available dates that we have for you to be able to compete. Can you come in on one of those dates?’” That’s when the question of kashrut became real. “I said, ‘Before I can sign off on this, let me speak to the Kof-K and the RCBC.” The Kof-K is a local organization that certifies kashrut, and the Rabbinical Council of Bergen County is the local association of Orthodox rabbis. The two groups work together. Rabbi Daniel Senter, the Kof-K’s director, told Mr. Yehudiel that “this is a great opportunity for you, but you have to make sure that whatever you do, you do it in the right way. You are in the public eye. You don’t want to go on a show and have people wonder if he cooked nonkosher or would eat nonkosher.” Rabbi Senter and “Chopped” representatives worked together; “they decided that rabbis could come and kasher my section of the kitchen and use only kosher ingredients.” Because all the contestants get the same ingredients, all the contestants who competed against Mr. Yehudiel used only ingredients that could be kosher, but only Mr. Yehudiel’s ingredients were certified as kosher. This was a first, Mr. Yehudiel said, and he’s grateful to “‘Chopped’ for being so accommodating, and to the RCBC and Kof-K for facilitating the whole thing.” On the contest day — June 20, 2019, “a year and three months ago” — “I showed up at 6 a.m. at an undisclosed location,” Mr. Yehudiel said. “It was me and three other competitors and someone from the Food Network.” From there, they walked over to the studio. “They started hooking us up with microphones and gave us the chef jackets. They walked us through the set. “And then the competition started. “I am not going to lie to you. It was the most nerve-wracking thing I have ever done in my life. “I can barely remember what I saw. What I cooked. What I did. It flew by. It is an immense amount of pressure. I have worked for Disney, for restaurant groups around the country, I am used to high intensity, to being very busy in a hot environment, but this was another level. “This is not just about the food. It is also about you. “I am very happy that I did it, and very proud that I represented Jews in a good light,” Mr. Yehudiel said. If you want to find out what happened next, you’ll have to wait until September 22.
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NEW JERSEY JEWISH NEWS SEPTEMBER 18, 2020 19
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Teach Coalition secures critical programs and government funding for Jewish Day Schools and Yeshivas, with a goal of ensuring ALL students have equal access to the educational resources they need to succeed. From grants for security, to scholarships, to STEM, COVID relief and more...
Teach Coalition fights for you!
Secured over
Grown to
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106
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states
member schools
Distributed over
2.5 Million Kosher meals
One of our top priorities at Yeshiva Merkaz HaTorah/RJJ is the safety of our children. Therefore, we sincerely appreciate all the hours that the Teach Coalition team dedicated to our anti-hate crime grant applications. Their impressive skills, level of knowledge, patience, and accessibility resulted in our school receiving not one, but two grants, totaling $100,000 for security measures. The yeshiva feels a huge debt of gratitude to the Teach Coalition, and we look forward to collaborating with them on future projects to benefit our Yeshiva. -Board Member Stacey Emmer, RJJ
20 NEW JERSEY JEWISH NEWS SEPTEMBER 18, 2020
Serving
229,000 students
My family and I love getting a new box every week. It helps us with our grocery bills and it gives us a fun activity on how to prepare and use the items. I appreciate every food item I get and realize and acknowledge all the hard work that must go into a program like this. I am grateful this program came to our neighborhood. Thanks again! - Yosefa Wiesen Feldhamer, Teach NJ
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Member Schools Teach Florida Beth Emet Elementary School Brauser Maimonides Academy Donna Klein Jewish Academy Hadar High School for Girls Hebrew Academy Miami Hebrew Academy of Margate Katz Hillel Day School Katz Yeshiva High School Lanaar Elementary School Lubavitch Educational Center Mizrahi Torah Academy Orlando Torah Academy Posnack School Scheck Hillel Community School Sha’arei Bina Torah Academy for Girls The Jewish Academy Torah Academy of Boca Raton Yeshiva Elementary School Yeshiva Toras Chaim Toras Eres Teach NJ Ben Porat Yosef Heichal Hatorah Hillel Yeshiva Hillel Yeshiva High School IDEA School Kellman Brown Academy Joseph Kushner Hebrew Academy Maayanot Yeshiva High School for Girls Politz Day School Rabbi Pesach Raymon Yeshiva Rae Kushner Yeshiva High School Rosenbaum Yeshiva of North Jersey Solomon Schechter Bergen County Tenafly Chabad Academy The Frisch School The Hebrew Academy The Moriah School Torah Academy Bergen County Yavneh Academy Yeshivat He'atid Yeshivat Netivot Montessori Yeshivat Noam Teach PA Abrams Hebrew Academy Jack M. Barrack Hebrew Academy Caskey Torah Academy of Greater Philadelphia Cheder Chabad of Philadelphia Hillel Academy of Pittsburgh Kohelet Yeshiva Kosloff Torah Academy High School for Girls The Mesivta High School of Greater Philadelphia Perelman Jewish Day School Politz Hebrew Academy
Teach NYS Adolph Schreiber Hebrew Academy of Rockland (ASHAR) Barkai Yeshivah Beit Rabban Beit Yaakov Orot Sarah Bnos Bais Yaakov Darchai Menachem Derech HaTorah of Rochester/Talmudic Institute of Upstate NY Gan Academy Gan Aliya/Bnos Aliya Gesher Early Childhood Center Hebrew Academy of Five Towns and Rockaway (HAFTR) Hebrew Academy of Long Beach (HALB) Hebrew Academy of Nassau County (HANC) Ivdu School Jewish Foundation School of Staten Island Lamplighters Yeshiva Luria Academy of Brooklyn Magen David Yeshivah Maimonides Hebrew Day School of the Capitol Manhattan Day School Mazel Day School Mesivta Ateres Yaakov Midreshet Shalhevet North Shore Hebrew Academy Ohr Temimim Rabbi Arthur Schneier Park East Day School Rabbi Jacob Joseph School (Boys and Girls Divisions) Ramaz School Rambam Mesivta SAR Shaare Torah (All Divisions) Shulamith Solomon Schechter School of LI Solomon Schechter School of Manhattan Solomon Schechter School of Queens Staten Island Hebrew Academy Syracuse Hebrew Day School The Brandeis School The Leffell School (Solomon Schechter School of Westchester) Westchester Day School Westchester Hebrew High School Westchester Torah Academy Yeshiva Darchei Torah Yeshiva Har Torah Yeshiva Ketana of Manhattan Yeshiva of Central Queens Yeshivah of Flatbush Yeshiva Torah Temimah Yeshiva Toras Chaim of South Shore Yeshiva University High School (Boys and Girls Divisions) Yeshivas Ohavei Torah Yeshivat Darchei Eres (YDE) Yeshivat Mekor Haim
See your school missing? Contact us at [email protected] to get your school involved! NEW JERSEY JEWISH NEWS SEPTEMBER 18, 2020 21
JS-22 Around the Community Wednesday September 23
NCJW wants you to vote The Metro Jersey section of the National Council of Jewish Women will email all unregistered voters a voter registration form; to get one, email [email protected]. All New Jersey residents who are registered to vote automatically will be mailed a hard-copy mail-in ballot for the election in November.
High Holy Days in Livingston “Becoming Israeli”: The Jewish National Fund’s Zoom book club discusses Akiva Gersh’s “Becoming Israeli: The Hysterical, Inspiring and Challenging Sides of Making Aliyah.” IsraelCast’s host, Steven Shalowitz, leads this segment of JNF’s virtual fall reading series. 8 p.m. Register at jnf.org/fallreadingserie for link.
Shofar blowing in Montclair All four synagogues around Montclair are teaming up for a second day shofar blowing event. There will be 30 shofar blowers at 30 sites so people can show up in small groups and hear the shofar blown near their home in a safe way. For more information, go to the sign-up page, www.nertamid.org/form/shofar.
Temple B’nai Abraham’s services are open to all. They’re going to be streamed on TBA’s Facebook page via Facebook Live. Erev Rosh Hashanah services will be on Friday, September 18, at 7:30 p.m. Rosh Hashanah morning services begin on Saturday, September 19; young children’s services are at 8 a.m.; the family service is set for 9, and regular services will be at 10. On the second morning of Rosh Hashanah, Sunday, September 20, the family service is at 9 and regular services begin at 10. For Yom Kippur: Kol Nidrei services are on Sunday, September 27, at 7:30 p.m. Services on Yom Kippur day — Monday, September 28 — start at 8 a.m. with young children’s services; the family service is at 9, and regular services begin at 10. Services resume at 3:30 p.m., and Yizkor is at 5. For information, call (973) 994.2290. To confirm service times, go to tbanj.org.
Chabad to host High High Holy Day services in Convent Station The community is welcome to indoor and outdoor, socially distanced High Holy Day services hosted by Chabad of Southeast Morris County at the Madison Hotel, 1 Convent Road in Convent Station. Masks will be required at all times. Services have both Hebrew and English prayers, a friendly and welcoming environment, and a lively commentary accompanying the service, which will be led by Rabbi Mendy Lubin. Rosh Hashanah indoor services will be on Saturday September 19, and Sunday, September 20, beginning at 10 a.m. Kol Nidrei indoor services will be on Sunday, September 27, at 7 p.m., and Yom Kippur services are on Monday at 10 a.m. Outdoor shofar blowing will be on
September 20 at 2 p.m., and there will be an outdoor Yizkor service on September 28 at 2 p.m. There are no membership fees or tickets needed for the High Holiday services; donations are appreciated and help cover the High Holiday expenses. People who attend Chabad’s High Holy Day services come from many backgrounds and levels of observance. Chabad is not a synagogue, but a center for Jewish life, offering programs and guidance to nurture your Judaism at your own pace in a non-judgmental atmosphere. For more information, call (973) 3770707. Reservations are required; to make them, go to www.ChabadCares. com/HighHolidays2020.
22 NEW JERSEY JEWISH NEWS SEPTEMBER 18, 2020
Getting ready for the new year Yeshivat Netivot Montessori in East Brunswick has r e o p e n e d f o r i n - p e rson instruction; students are learning about Rosh Hashanah. For information, go to mynetivot.com or call (732) 985-4626.
Register your kids for Hebrew school in South Orange Temple Sharey Tefilo-Israel, a Reform synagogue in South Orange, has opened registration for its Linda and Rudy Slucker Religious School. The school offers a creative student-centered curriculum for children in kindergarten through 7th grade; it also has a Hebrew high school and a confirmation class. The instruction will be online. “Our students completed the last school year from their homes, taking full advantage of our programming
in every grade, as our creative staff designed new ways to deliver an enriching experience remotely,” Mindy Schreff, the school’s director, said. “Our teachers have been learning all summer and are looking forward to welcoming returning and new students to our virtual classrooms in September.” Curriculum details are at tsti.org/ religious-school. For information, email [email protected].
Revisit the art — 6 feet apart in Montclair The Montclair Art Museum, which was closed for six months in response to the pandemic, reopened its its galleries to the public on September 13. “We are thrilled to open our doors for our members and friends to once again experience our exciting exhibitions,” the museum’s interim director, Ira Wagner, said. “Our staff has worked hard to create a comfortable and safe visit for our guests. We look forward to welcoming you back soon. As our new signage says, ‘Come visit the art — 6 feet apart.’” You’ll be happy you did.” MAM has developed comprehensive safety protocols based on CDC guidelines and guidance from the state of New Jersey to ensure the health and
safety of its visitors and employees. Measures include limiting the number of visitors to well below the governor’s current mandate of 25 percent of capacity, providing timed entrance ticketing for one-hour reservations, mandating masks and temperature checks, providing social distancing markers and one-way pathways, placing hand sanitizer units throughout the building, and ensuring enhanced cleaning of high-touch surfaces throughout the day. The museum has upgraded its restrooms with contactless units and made improvements to its ventilation systems. There is more information at montclairartmuseum.org/visit-mam/ plan-your-visit.
High Holy Days in South Orange Temple Sharey Tefilo-Israel offers “Home for the Holy Days” — virtual services, open to the entire community. Rosh Hashanah observances are on Friday evening, September 18 and Saturday, September 19; Yom Kippur will be observed from Kol Nidrei on Sunday evening, September 27 through Neilah and Yizkor on Monday,
September 28. The temple’s popular family services on the afternoons of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur are included in the schedule. Members and non-members must pre-register in order to get the links to requested services; for more information, go to tsti.org. To register, click on the registration link there.
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JS-24 Around the Community Simon Wiesenthal Center honors heroes Last month, the Simon Wiesenthal Center hosted its 5th annual event honoring Heroes for Tolerance. The celebration usually is held in Yankee Stadium — the honorees are brought to home plate for an on-field ceremony — but in this pandemic year it was moved to a large private space. Heroes for Tolerance, hosted by Polly and Gabriel Bousbib in Englewood, honored New Jersey State Senator Joseph Lagana (D-Bergen). He has been a strong voice in the legislature, working to make sure that New Jersey Jewish institutions have the resources they need for security measures, given the rise of anti- Semitic attacks. He has advocated for bringing members of the legislature from all backgrounds together to foster better understanding, collaboration, and unity. The Summit-based Nassau Consulting Group also was honored; principals Michael Pock and Matthew Dikovics accepted the award. They both spent more than a decade on the staff of former Senator Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) and have helped the Murphy administration combat hate and anti- Semitism. David Heskiel of New York, a chaplain for the New York Police Department PBA and the New York State Police, was recognized for his efforts to develop better relationships and cultural sensitivity between law enforcement entities and local communities. Israel Nitzan, Israel’s Acting Consul General for Israel in New York, talked about the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s advocacy as nearly 30 New Jersey municipalities passed an anti- BDS resolution. He also held a Zoom meeting with all of those city’s mayors and the consulate so that the State of Israel could formally voice its appreciation. Rabbi Aron Kotler, head of the Beth Medrash Govoha in Lakewood, described his first-hand experience as the Wiesenthal Center worked to remove the southern New Jersey hate group Rise Up Ocean County from its Facebook platform. Elias Levy, Consul General of Panama for New York,
David Heskiel, Israel Nitzan, Michael Cohen, Senator Joseph Lagana, Michael Pock, and Matthew Dikovics.
New Jersey State Assembly members Gordon Johnson and Gary Schaer, Bergen County Sheriff Anthony Cureton, and Andrew Gross, executive director of the NJIsrael Commission, all were at the celebration. “I would like to commend the Simon Wiesenthal Center and its director Michael Cohen for its 5th Annual Heroes for Tolerance award ceremony,” Mr. Cureton said. “It was a great program, highlighted by the honorees who advocate for programs that assist in eradicating anti-Semitism. I would also like to thank director Michael Cohen for his never-ending commitment to fighting for equality for all people.” “I am humbled to have been honored at this event and am inspired to continue the fight for justice and tolerance,” Mr. Lagana said. “It’s clear that increasing
threats and violence associated with hate must be met by the even stronger momentum that is building for social justice. This moment calls for us to actively strengthen the bonds of our communities through condemning messages of hate, both veiled and blatant, and by rising above the ignorance and apathy that enable further division.” “SWC would like to thank all involved for helping ensure that this event produced the resources necessary to continue forwarding the institution’s critical programs and fulfilling the mission at a time that is both more challenging and critical than any time in recent memory,” Mr. Cohen added. “The SWC family is truly humbled at the generosity of the Northeast region and are immensely grateful.”
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With the High Holidays approaching and covid-19 creating difficulties for many people as they consider going to a traditional synagogue services, Chabad of Livingston and Friendship Circle will offer outdoor shofar blowing on Sunday, Sept. 20, at various locations around Livingston, including at the Oval and Town Center. “The Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, of righteous memory, insisted that the observance of hearing the shofar be made accessible to all Jews regardless of whether they were at synagogue,” Rabbi Zalman Grossbaum said. “Friendship Circle and Chabad of Livingston have always been available to sound the shofar for anyone who could not attend a synagogue service. “During the covid-19 pandemic, this has taken on a whole new meaning, and we are increasing the number of sites and times where we will have a public shofar blowing to accommodate that need,”
he continued. “We respectfully ask that anyone coming to hear the shofar please heed the rules of our local health officials, and wear masks and remain six feet apart during the shofar service.” In past years, rabbis from Friendship Circle have blown the shofar at senior residences, local hospitals, and rehabilitation centers to ensure that every Jew could partake in this mitzvah. For a list of locations and times of shofar blowing in Livingston or to arrange to hear a shofar blowing on your street, visit FCNJ. com/ShofarOutdoors or call Friendship Circle at (973) 251-0200. In addition to the shofar blowing, Friendship Circle is offering Rosh Hashanah-at-Home kits, which include a holiday guide, candles, and traditional Rosh Hashanah treats including apples, honey, and challah. For more information, go to FCNJ.com/HighHolidays.
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JS-26 Jewish World
Kosovo’s Jews cheer their Muslim-majority state’s new deal with Israel Cnaan Liphshiz
Armend Nimani/AFP via Getty Images
F
or Flori Dedoni, a member of the tiny Jewish community of Kosovo, the news that his country is establishing formal diplomatic ties with Israel is cause for celebration. Until last week, Israel was among the dozens of countries that had not recognized the Muslim-majority territory sandwiched between Albania and Serbia. “When someone learns I’m Jewish, they usually ask sometime during the conversation why Israel doesn’t recognize us,” Dedoni said. “Now, finally, it’s happening, and the feeling is just festive. Plus, I don’t have to explain anymore.” Israel’s implied recognition of Kosovo is part of a threeway deal that the White House announced on September 4. According to the announcement, Serbia, which claims ownership of Kosovo’s territory and has fought against international recognition of its declaration of independence in 2008, has agreed to cooperate on some economic issues with the government of the breakaway region. The deal stipulates that both countries will open embassies in Jerusalem — a development that Israel and the United States are advancing despite opposition by the Palestinians and the European Union, who say that the city should be recognized as Israel’s capital only after a peace deal with the Palestinians. The United States is one of the 116 countries that recognize Kosovo, a landlocked nation with about 1.8 million inhabitants with a land area roughly half the size of New Jersey. China, Russia, and India, among other powers, have not recognized it. Their non-recognition, and that of other important countries including Spain, Israel, Morocco, and Ukraine, is believed to be a consistency issue: They fear encouraging unilateral independence
A statue of former US President Bill Clinton is pictured at a boulevard named after him, in Pristina, Kosovo, on June 23, 2020.
declarations in territories they control. But Israel’s position had been met with incomprehension in Kosovo, whose people are overwhelmingly pro-American and have a long tradition of philo-Semitism. During World War II, Kosovars and Albanians famously rescued local Jews and helped refugees fleeing from other Nazi-occupied countries.
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“It’s ironic that Israel doesn’t recognize us,” Kosovar President Hashim Thaçi said in a 2016 interview with Ynet. Kosovo’s 12-year-long quest for recognition, and the consistent opposition to it by major world powers, have made Dedoni and his wife question whether it’s the best place to raise their 7-yearold son, Lior. Dedoni is a technical engineer and a member of the World Jewish Congress’ Jewish Diplomatic Corps. “It creates all kinds of issues, including visa and travel issues, when much of the world doesn’t recognize your country, your passport,” Dedoni said. “We want Kosovo to succeed and wish for it, but with all the difficulties we were wondering whether it will ever become a fully recognized country because you also want to give your child the best start in life.” The Dedonis have been considering immigrating to Israel for a number of years now, but the new Israeli recognition of their country, and Serbia’s apparent amenability to normalizing relations with Kosovo, are giving the Dedonis “new hope” for staying put, he said. It’s unclear whether Israel will officially recognize Kosovo beyond the embassy terms — an anonymous source told the Times of Israel that an official declaration would “destroy” Israel’s relationship with Serbia. But either way, the news has energized the local Jewish community of 100 or so, which is based in the Kosovar capital, Pristina, but has no synagogue there. Its members meet for Shabbat dinners and on holidays at a hotel in Pristina that is owned by a Muslim Albanian with an interest in Judaism — particularly Kabbalah and the spiritual book of Zohar, Dedoni said. “There is an atmosphere of excitement” in the community right now, he added. Dedoni was born in Kosovo, but many other members of his community are citizens of Israel and employed by international firms that are active in Kosovo, he said. About 50 people show up regularly for the Shabbat services, he said. Most of them earn salaries that are far above the country’s average monthly pay of about $500, but are on par with the income of other Kosovars employed in highly-skilled professions. The Kosovar Jews also love Donald Trump. The U.S. president is not known for his popularity in Muslim countries, where many believe he harbors an anti-Muslim animus, including because he has limited travel visas for citizens of several Muslim-majority countries. But in a Gallup poll from 2018, support for Trump was about 75 percent in Kosovo, higher than anywhere else in Europe (followed by Albania, with 72 percent). In this year’s Gallup poll, the approval rating in Kosovo rose to 82 percent, again the highest in Europe. Dedoni attributes this to reports of the diplomatic deal trickling in this month. In Kosovo, “Trump is America, and America, and also Israel, stand for success and freedom,” Dedoni Jewish Telegraphic Agency said.
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NEW JERSEY JEWISH NEWS SEPTEMBER 18, 2020 27
JS-28 Jewish World
‘This is what we expected’ Covid closures and quarantines already widespread at metropolitan-area day schools Shira Hanau
I
n a boys’ yeshiva high school in Teaneck — the Torah Academy of Bergen County — a suspected covid case in an 11th grader sent the entire grade home for quarantine. A Jewish high school in Manhattan — Ramaz — shut down on Monday, after two students in 11th grade and two in 12th grade tested positive. Several students in the younger grades exhibited symptoms. On Long Island, the North Shore Hebrew Academy asked between 15 and 20 families to quarantine after they were found to have attended a wedding of about 200 people. “We spent a lot of time, energy and resources getting school ready for a full reopening,” said Rabbi Jeffrey Kobrin, North Shore’s head of school. “Our concern had always been what would happen when the kids were not in school. “If I sound exhausted, I am,” he added. Just weeks into the beginning of the new school year, a
Students at the Moriah School in Englewood are at a socially distanced assembly on the first day of school. Courtesy of The Moriah School
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JS-29 Jewish World year when schools have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on Plexiglas shields, personal protective equipment, teacher training, and reconfiguring classrooms, the Jewish day schools that hoped their smaller sizes and tight-knit school communities would keep them open through the pandemic already are beginning to close or quarantine students. A number of schools have been forced to quarantine classrooms or grades after positive cases or exposures of students to positive cases. In Chicago, the Rochelle Zell Jewish High School switched to remote learning just three days after reopening, when two faculty members tested positive. Ramaz’s Upper School was shut down for two days and transitioned to distance learning after four students tested positive and several others showed symptoms of covid-19. (The preschool, lower, and middle schools, which are in a different building, remain open.) For many schools, there’s little that can be done to stem the new cases. That’s because the virus most likely is being transmitted outside of school, where the strict protocol meant to keep students and teachers safe are not enforced. The cases are likely developing from the interactions outside of school buildings — weddings, parties, Shabbat meals and playdates — that school administrators are struggling to control. In Bergen County, seven Orthodox day schools sent a joint letter on August 26 outlining expectations for the coming weeks: Families that fly anywhere or travel to a hot-spot state for the High Holidays would have to quarantine for 14 days before returning to school, the letter said, and all attendees at bar and bat mitzvahs would have to wear masks. “The current threshold for school closing is a relatively low number of positive cases,” they wrote. “Only by our joint efforts can we individually and collectively do our part to enable our community schools to remain open, an effort that helps all of us, especially our children.” By early September, at least five of those seven schools had notified parents about cases or exposures in the school. They included students who tested positive or were exposed to someone who tested positive and faculty who were exposed to someone who tested positive. One school emailed parents begging for cooperation on social distancing guidelines outside of school after several families in the area gathered for a Shabbat meal and a parent at the meal tested positive. To some, the cases in schools and the quarantines and classroom closures that follow are inevitable. “Whenever they would have opened, it would have happened,” said Dr. Hylton Lightman, a pediatrician in Far Rockaway who tested hundreds of students at local Orthodox day schools before school started. Several Long Island schools required testing and kept those who tested positive out of school to quarantine. “Schools can control a certain amount … but the parents also need to show they’re mature enough to follow these guidelines.” Lightman said he’s noticed a surge of anxiety over the recent upticks in cases in his community of Far Rockaway and other Orthodox communities in the New York area. In the last few weeks, his office has received as many as 40 to 50 calls a day from
parents anxious about their children possibly exhibiting covid symptoms. “The anxiety level from the parents and the children has escalated astronomically,” he said. At the Moriah School in Englewood, no classrooms have had to quarantine due to exposure, though one faculty member has. But “we’re just waiting for it,” Erik Kessler, the school’s executive director, said of the possibility that a positive case would cause a cohort of students to quarantine. “I think this is what we expected,” Kessler said of the positive cases and exposures causing quarantines of classes in several local schools. “We were hoping that people would stay within their pods but we’re realistic, as well.” The roller coaster at New York-area Jewish schools
comes as Israel prepares to shutter its schools for several weeks, amid rising cases there. There, many classes and grades have been sent to quarantine since schools reopened on September 1, and during the upcoming closure, it is not clear whether children in all grades will receive instruction online. For the New York and New Jersey schools, learning is continuing from a distance even as schools close or quarantine individual students or classrooms. In addition to outfitting schools with Plexiglas barriers and new distanced desk arrangements, many schools have spent the summer installing cameras in classrooms so students can participate from home if they are quarantined. Some schools have spent time and money training teachers See expected page 30
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JS-30 Jewish World
Wishing you a Happy New Year from your friends at Investors Bank
Jewish World Expected from page 29
to improve the Zoom teaching experience, with the understanding that some closures or quarantines would be inevitable. Daniel Rubin, a father in Queens whose three children returned to in-person schooling last week, said he still believes reopening schools is the right decision. “I maintain that right now schools are practically the only place outside of homes that are actually enforcing some degree of distancing/masking, and so it’s not the schools I’m worried about,” Rubin said. “If a school needs to shut down, it’ll shut down.” But with the High Holidays approaching, bringing extended family gatherings over Rosh Hashanah and social meals shared by families and friends over Sukkot, and upticks in several heavily Jewish neighborhoods in New York City, several schools in New York and New Jersey are desperately trying
to avoid letting the holidays further derail in-person schooling. The Hannah Senesh Community Day School in Brooklyn asked families not to travel for the holidays, only to attend High Holiday services with 50 people or fewer if they are outdoors or at 33 percent capacity if they are inside, to ensure that indoor services take place in spaces with HVAC systems that have been vetted by experts, and to maintain a distance of 12 feet from other participants while singing. “If you attend a communal prayer service that does not follow the above guidelines, you are asked to self-quarantine for 14 days,” the school wrote. Solomon Schechter of Bergen County in New Milford sent out a notice to their families, as well. “I implore everyone to make responsible choices during the Jewish holidays and for the duration of the pandemic,” the head of school, Steve Freedman, Jewish Telegraphic Agency wrote.
Shana Tova May your year be filled with good health, sweetness and happiness.
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Steve Cohen reaches agreement to buy the Mets Gabe Friedman Jewish billionaire Steve Cohen is set to become the next owner of the New York Mets. “I am excited to have reached an agreement with the Wilpon and Katz families to purchase the New York Mets,” Cohen said. The deal, rumored to be around a record $2.4 billion, must be approved by Major League Baseball. Cohen, a hedge fund manager whose father worked in New York’s garment district, had widely been expected to be the Mets’ next owner; the Wilpons and Saul Katz — all Jewish — have looked for potential buyers over the past year. But in February, talks about the sale seemed to have stalled. Cohen said he had given the deal his “best shot.” At one point, former star player Alex Rodriguez and Jennifer Lopez, who are a couple, were among the
interested buyers. Cohen, who the Wall Street Journal has characterized as one of the industry’s most talented money managers, is valued at around $14 billion, more than most sports franchise owners. His famed art collection alone is worth around $1 billion. Cohen’s former wife once sued him in a case that involved insider trading allegations. The case was dropped in 2011. Mets fans, many of them New Yorkarea Jews, have complained that Fred Wilpon and his son Jeff have refused to spend enough money to attract star players in their prime, keeping the team locked in a cycle of near-success and a lot of losing. Cohen is a life-long Mets fan who has said he will spend more than his predecessors to construct a winning team.
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As covid continues, Selichot services were packed at Chabad’s Brooklyn headquarters Philissa Cramer Men packed into a late-night prayer service at Chabad’s main synagogue in Brooklyn last Saturday night, in violation of New York’s health rules and against the advice of local doctors. On Friday, the Gedaliah Society, a collective of doctors that has been advising Orthodox Jews in Crown Heights during the coronavirus pandemic, issued a stern exhortation against attending services at the synagogue, which is inside Chabad’s headquarters at 770 Eastern Parkway. “Given the recent developments of continued positive cases in our community, many of which are associated with 770, and given the inherent crowded indoor mixing nature of 770, we strongly advise that all people avoid davening in 770 for the time being,” the doctors wrote in an update posted to their blog and amplified by many news sites serving the Crown Heights Orthodox community. “There is significant risk of
Men danced late into the night at 770 Eastern Parkway in Brooklyn after Selichot services early on Sunday, Sept. 13, 2020. Screenshot from livestream
contracting the virus in 770 currently.” Also on Friday, the synagogue’s managers decreed that masks would be required for anyone entering and said that a service on Saturday night would be limited to a small number of participants, according to the Orthodox news
34 NEW JERSEY JEWISH NEWS SEPTEMBER 18, 2020
service COLlive. Photos showed piles of surgical masks ready to be distributed to visitors. Yet a livestream from the main synagogue at Chabad’s headquarters showed the cavernous space filled with men packed closely together during the
Selichot service, which is traditionally held the Saturday night before Rosh Hashanah. While some wore masks, many did not. The service did not conform to current New York health regulations, which allow houses of worship to operate at up to one-third of their capacity, provided that six feet of distance can be maintained between people from different households. (A lawsuit this summer argued that houses of worship should not be held to a higher standard than other indoor gathering places; malls are currently allowed to operate at 50 percent capacity.) The gathering — which was likely the largest but by no means the only crowded service taking place that Saturday night — comes as the number of cases appears to be on the rise in New York’s Orthodox communities, inducing fear about whether schools and synagogues can safely continue to operate. Covid tests in another heavily Orthodox See Brooklyn page 63
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White House ceremony celebrates new era for Israel, UAE, and Bahrain — details to follow Ron Kampeas WASHINGTON — Benjamin Netanyahu has complained for years about Arab leaders telling their people one thing in Arabic and diplomats saying another to Western audiences in English. Not on Tuesday. Abdullah bin Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, the foreign minister of the United Arab Emirates, was on the White House lawn speaking — in Arabic — about the “innate principle” of peace and thanking the Israeli prime minister for helping to bring it about. If the agreements signed Tuesday by leaders of the UAE, Israel, the United States, and Bahrain were historic, it was because of this: Two Arab leaders were praising peace not simply as a means of ending bloodshed, the precipitate for the cold peace that Israel has had for decades with Jordan and Egypt, but as an end in itself.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel and President Donald Trump participate in the signing ceremony of the Abraham Accords on the South Lawn of the White House on September 15, 2020. THE U.S. chief of protocol, Katherine Henderson, stands behind them. Alex Wong/Getty Images
“We are witnessing today a new trend that will create a better path for the Middle East,” bin Zayed said.
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territories he hopes to annex. Reports were circulating that the United States had provided assurances to the UAE that Israel would not move ahead with annexing parts of the West Bank until at least 2024. Did the deals signed on the South Lawn to applause mention annexation? It’s not yet clear, as the details have yet to be released. A senior administration official said on Monday evening that the documents were just being finalized and would be made available to the public after the ceremony. Two hours later, that was not the case. That didn’t stop a smiling Netanyahu from posting a video on Twitter saying in Hebrew, “I have in my hands the draft of the historic peace treaty between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, as well as the historic peace declaration between Israel and Bahrain.” Except on close examination, it appears he was holding several blank sheets of paper. Gilad Erdan, the Israeli ambassador to the United Nations who was present at the ceremony, said Netanyahu’s pledge to annex parts of the West Bank was not moribund, but acknowledged that it was dependent on the Trump administration. “He said ‘the stopping’ and not ‘canceling,’” Erdan said, referring to bin Zayed’s comments about annexation. “And I spoke with the prime minister and I know we never gave up on our sovereignty, and that is for now, and we understand everyone understands that when we want to extend our sovereignty over to Judea and Samaria, we need the support and the cooperation of the American administration and right now they have decided upon their priorities.” The other matter of substance that may have unnerved Netanyahu were the talks between U.S. and UAE officials over the sale of F-35 stealth combat jets. The Israeli government is opposed to the sale. Trump made clear that he is not. “We’re going to work that out. We’ll work that out,” Trump said at an appearance with Netanyahu before the signing ceremony, when he was asked whether he would press ahead with the sale even if Israel objected. “That’s going to be an easy thing.” The day was marked repeatedly by signals that Netanyahu owed much to Trump. He sat silently as Trump disparaged his rival in the November presidential elections, Joe Biden, as “sleepy Joe” three times, effectively becoming a prop for Trump in his reelection campaign. Netanyahu, having just shut down his country for the second time since the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic, appeared maskless alongside Trump, who continues to reject strictures to contain the pandemic, and did not maintain a social distance from the president. For all of those concessions, there was much for Netanyahu to celebrate. As Trump put it, “There’s less isolation right now for Israel than there’s ever been.” The Trump administration teased some of the contents of the deals in a news release, saying the UAE, Israel and Bahrain “have committed to the exchange of embassies and ambassadors, and to begin cooperation across a broad range of fields including education, health care, trade and security.” More poignantly, after the ceremony broke up, a TV crew from the Emirates filmed an unusual scene: Jewish celebrants, one wrapped in a tallit, praying the afternoon Mincha service on the South Lawn. Jewish Telegraphic Agency
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Major League Baseball’s official historian talks about Jews in baseball — and this weird season Stephen Silver
F
rom Hank Greenberg to Sandy Koufax to Alex Bregman, Jews and baseball go way back, all the way to the 19th century. And it’s not just players and fans — the participation even extends to the role of official baseball historian of Major League Baseball. The first man to hold the title, the legendary Chicago sportswriter Jerome Holtzman, was Jewish, and an inductee to the International Jewish Sports Hall of Fame. Holtzman died in 2008, and in early 2011, the role of official baseball historian went to John Thorn, a prolific historian and author. Thorn, the son of Holocaust survivors who was born in a displaced persons camp, remains in the role today. His works include “Baseball in the Garden of Eden: The Secret History of the Early Game,” a study of the often controversial question of exactly how and when baseball was invented. He also consulted on “Chasing Dreams: Baseball and Becoming American,” an exhibition on Jews and baseball that originated at the
National Museum of American Jewish John Thorn: Judaism has played a History in Philadelphia and is now great part in my life, in terms of my available online. birth, childhood, and circumstances, This season, which started in July and as I have written elsewhere, just rather than April because of the corowhen you think that maybe you’re not navirus pandemic, will be of particular so Jewish, the world will remind you. interest to historians. There have been So, as I’ve become older, it’s clear that entire weeks of games postponed in the Judaism is a central part of my life and wake of infections, and some players my worldview, though I am no longer have opted out of the season over covid religious. fears. Among the wacky things this seaI went to an Orthodox Hebrew son, thousands of cardboard cutouts John Thorn has been school, and after my bar mitzvah, Major League Baseball’s with fans’ faces have filled the stands. have scarcely been in a synagogue official historian since Thorn, 73, talked to us earlier this since. So my appetite for organized 2011. Courtesy of MLB season about this most unusual of religion of any sort is slim, and no years, as well as about his work and greater for Judaism. I will say that the connection between the American game and while Wikipedia has me as being born in Germany, American Jews. this always irritates me because I was born in the This interview has been edited and condensed for American-occupied sector of Germany, in a displaced clarity. persons camp. My parents are Holocaust survivors, Stephen Silver: Tell me a bit about the role Judaism and we had three visas we applied for — Australia, See baseball page 38 has played in your life.
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Argentina, and the U.S. — and were prepared to take whichever came first, and that turned to be the United States. So I came here at age 2 1/2. SS: How did it come about that you became Major League Baseball’s official historian? JT: Well, at age 63 I guess I became this overnight sensation, courtesy of the commissioner, who appointed me to this post. But I had been writing baseball books since 1974 and had created the official encyclopedia for Major League Baseball, which was called “Total Baseball.” It went through eight editions, 1989 to 2004. So I was not exactly an unknown quantity, either to the commissioner or to the baseball community. But this position of baseball historian — and I’m now in my 10th year — has been well-suited to me, I enjoy it. And I will be happy to continue with it for as long as I continue to show up. SS: What does the job entail? What do you do on a day-to-day basis? JT: Availability, and other duties as assigned, is the most important part. So I respond not only to the Office of the Commissioner, but also to the promotions department, to the marketing department, to legal, to general services, and an extraordinary level of contact with the media, sometimes on deadline, who need the answer to an historical question, or need me to provide historical perspective on a current controversy. I also write a blog for Major League Baseball called Our Game, which has been going for 10 years now, and I contribute to that at least once a week and often more. SS: I know you’ve done a lot of work on the origins of baseball, and I think there was a commission you were on related to that. I’ve been to Cooperstown, and I actually lived in Hoboken for a time. [Both those places are said to have been the game’s birthplace.] What’s the short answer to who invented baseball, and where was it invented? JT: The short answer is no one invented baseball and it wasn’t invented anywhere. You may have been to Cooperstown, and you may have lived in Hoboken, and both of those places have laid claim to a bogus invention, and it’s thus a bogus claim.
JS-39 Jewish World procedures, and gambling, and drunkenness and a variety of moral and practical failings, was demoted as a major league. And Major League Baseball was redefined as having begun on Feb. 2, 1876, with the founding of the National League in New York City. SS: What other leagues have there been that have been classified as major or considered as major? JT: The American Association, The Union Association, The Players League, the Federal League, the American League, of course, which survives. But we have never given consideration to the Negro Leagues. And this seems
to me a possibly fruitful area for research. SS: I know you’re an historian, but let’s talk about baseball’s future. How do you feel about the future of the game? Do you think baseball’s going in a good direction and is as popular as it should be? JT: I think baseball’s in a momentary period of crisis, but that is true of all sports because we have to make do without spectators, we have to create cardboard cutouts in the stands and artificial noises, it’s very very peculiar. So I think the future of baseball, and any other sports, See baseball page 40
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Baseball was played in other places, including in New York City, prior to any record of its being played in Hoboken, or being played in Cooperstown. So we have dated baseball in literature to, at least, 1791 in North America, and in all likelihood it was played in New England in the 1730s. SS: There’s a large swath of Jewish baseball fans who pay close attention to Jewish baseball players and keep tabs on up-and-coming Jewish prospects. Have you had much of an interaction with this subculture, and is that something you pay attention to? JT: Yes, some. There’s a set of Jewish Major League baseball cards, there are people who argue about who was the first Jew in Major League Baseball, who was the first Jew of the amateur era to play baseball. So I’ve gotten caught up in such things, as I was the chief curatorial consultant to the National Museum for American Jewish History exhibition called “Chasing Dreams.” The key to that exhibition, I believe, and its subsequent success and its touring success, has been to identify Jews as not unique as outsiders in baseball, and being brothers under the skin with African-Americans and Latinos in particular, but earlier, Italians and Irish and other nationalities, including Native American. SS: When you were the curatorial consultant, what did that entail exactly? JT: I was the baseball expert. I interacted with other consultants on behalf of the museum, helped secure artifacts, helped to position the exhibition and its companion book. SS: Turning to the current baseball season, obviously there’s a lot about it that’s completely unprecedented, from the pandemic to how short it is to the lack of fans. What stands out to you most about this year, and what do you think future historians will say about it? JT: That this was a year unlike any other. The pandemic of 1918 and 1919 barely affected baseball. They were able to get through two regular seasons, and didn’t miss a World Series, and no player at the Major League Baseball level died, although one umpire did. SS: The shortened season, the delayed season, the possibility of statistical anomalies — all of this must be viewed by subsequent generations with historical perspective. The mere placing of an asterisk alongside somebody’s record, how do you view it? Does the asterisk help you with anything? JT: My view is that it doesn’t. SS: What’s something about baseball, or baseball history, that most fans think they know but is actually wrong? JT: Well, for starters, that it was invented anywhere, and at any particular time. [Early baseball reporter] Henry Chadwick had the right line, echoing Harriet Beecher Stowe: He said “baseball had no father — it was like Topsy, it just grew,” referring to the character Topsy in “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.” For a hundred years or so, the National Association of Professional Baseball Players was regarded as the first major league, even though it lasted only from 1871 through ’75. When the MacMillan Baseball Encyclopedia of 1969 came out, there was the creation of a special baseball records committee to review the status of all of the variant or challenging major leagues, besides the two extant ones, the National League and the American. So, the National Association, because of its erratic scheduling and
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Baseball from page 39
ought not to be judged by the events of 2020. The aging demographics of baseball fans is certainly a concern, and the shifting allegiances of younger fans is also a concern for me because the allegiance is not so much to the
team in your locality, but to a team of fantasy players, or players on whom you placed bets, and you have devised your own drafts and your own leagues and your own game, and what you’re checking in the morning is not the box score of the Mets or the Yankees, but rather the box score of those players on your draft roster. Jewish Telegraphic Agency
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JS-42 Jewish World
Jews have lived in Bahrain for 140 years — the new deal will change their lives Josefin Dolsten
E
brahim Dahood Nonoo, the leader of Bahrain’s tiny Jewish community, was among the Gulf country’s approximately 50 Jews who thought peace with Israel would never arrive “in our lifetimes. “It just didn’t seem possible,” Nonoo said; he was in Manama, the capital city where he lives with his wife. Tuesday’s signing of the agreements called the Abraham Accords is expected to open up routes for collaboration, trade, and travel between Bahrain and Israel, which all had been restricted. It will have a significant impact on Bahrain’s Jews, many of whom have relatives in Israel whom they have not been able to visit. Bahrain’s Jews weren’t the only ones shocked when President Donald Trump announced that he had brokered peace agreements between Israel and two Arab states, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, within a month of each other. Israel has relations with only two other Arab nations in the region, and most of its neighbors have long isolated the Jewish state and at times even gone to war with it.
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Jewish representative Nancy Khedouri, second from left, and other Bahraini officials meet with foreign representatives, including U.S. Ambassador Justin Siberell, far left. Courtesy of Khedouri
“We can talk to our relatives and we can feel more comfortable now about going and coming. It actually changes
quite a lot,” said Nonoo, a businessman who in 2001 became the first Jewish person appointed to serve on to the country’s Shura Council, the upper chamber of its National Assembly. The Jewish community in Bahrain, an island nation of some 1.5 million people, dates back about 140 years to the late 1800s, when a group of Iraqi Jews arrived in search of economic opportunities. Many were poor and lacked education but found jobs, and eventually success, in the clothing industry. Nonoo’s grandfather came as a 12-year-old together with his uncle and found a job picking silver threads out of discarded dresses and selling them. “They were kind of misfits coming out of Iraq,” Nonoo said of the first arrivals. “In other words, they weren’t getting anywhere in Iraq, so they decided to try their luck in Bahrain.” A smaller number of Jews also settled in Bahrain from Iran at around the same time. At its height in the 1920s and ’30`s, the community had about 800 members, according to Nonoo, though others have said the number was as high as 1,500. Though community members mixed socially with Bahraini Muslims, they mainly married within the community and lived close to each other in Manama. Members continued to speak a Jewish dialect of Iraqi Arabic and still do. In 1935, a member of the Cartier family, the Jewish clan who founded the eponymous jewelry company, passed through on a business trip and ended up donating money to build a synagogue and bring in a rabbi, according to Nonoo. Over the next 10 years, the community continued to flourish economically and gathered in the synagogue for services. “That was a fantastic time for all of them,” Nonoo said. But things took a turn for the worse after the 1947 U.N. Partition vote, which recommended the creation of a Jewish state in then-Palestine alongside an Arab one. The move led to anti-Semitic riots throughout the Arab world, including in Bahrain.
JS-43 Jewish World
Shanah tovah
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Ebrahim Dahood Nonoo’s family has been in Bahrain since the late 1800s. Courtesy of nonoo
A group of rioters — Nonoo said they were migrants from other Arab countries — burned the synagogue to the ground and stole the country’s only Torah scroll. Most of the community left after the attack or in the decade and a half following, settling in Israel. The few who remained or their descendants make up the 50 or so Jews living in the country. There is an active Jewish cemetery, but the synagogue — rebuilt by Nonoo’s father in the 1980s — never officially reopened and most of the community continues to pray at home. Nonoo is renovating the building and hopes to reopen it next year as a house of worship and museum. And on Monday, Jared Kushner, Trump’s Jewish son-in-law who serves as his senior adviser, gifted Bahrain’s King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa a Torah scroll for the synagogue. Most of the community members today are financially successful and continue to be represented in the Shura Council, which has designated a seat each for representatives of the country’s Jewish and Christian populations. Nonoo’s successor was Houda Nonoo, who later went on to serve as Bahraini ambassador to the United States. She was succeeded by Nancy Khedouri, a relative of the powerful Kadoorie family, a Hong Kong-based Jewish family of Iraqi origin who went on to become one of the wealthiest families in Asia (and transliterated the surname differently). Houda Nonoo and Khedouri are Ebrahim Nonoo’s cousins. “It is indeed a privilege to be part of the Law-making process with my multi-faith Colleagues, where we all enjoy Equality and Freedom of Expression and where we continue to strive to draft out Laws to be implemented, that will be fair, serving in the best interests of our Country and to all Citizens, regardless of Religious differences,” Khedouri wrote in an email. Still, the local Jewish community is aging, as many young people leave to study abroad and often choose to remain in other countries after their studies — including Nonoo’s children, who both live in the United Kingdom. “Hopefully they’ll be back soon,” he said.
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NEW JERSEY JEWISH NEWS SEPTEMBER 18, 2020 43
JS-44 Wishing you a Healthy & Sweet New Year!
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This is a photo of Ebrahim Nonoo’s family; it was taken in the 1950s, in Bahrain. Courtesy of Nonoo
Bahrain from page 43
Nonoo hopes the new agreement with Israel will turn around the trend and that plans to build the Abrahamic Family House, a site that will host a church, a mosque, and a synagogue in the nearby United Arab Emirates, may draw more Jews to settle in the Gulf. “We are very, very happy to see that that’s going to be a place that many Jews can stay in the UAE and build up
BEFORE
families there, so we’re hoping that with that we will get Jews coming to Bahrain,” he said. For his part, Nonoo doesn’t see himself settling anywhere else. “Our religion is Jewish, but really our culture is very Arabic, and we feel very at home,” he said. “I honestly could not see myself living anywhere else.”
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Courtesy of Nonoo
JS-45
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JS-46 Jewish World Sacha Baron Cohen announces Instagram freeze to protest Facebook’s failure to fight hate Marcy Oster
Shana Tovah!
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Actor and comedian Sacha Baron Cohen took a day of posting on his Instagram account in protest of parent company Facebook’s failure to fight hate. Cohen made the announcement in support of the Week of Action organized by the Stop Hate for Profit campaign, which was spearheaded over the summer by the Anti-Defamation League, the NAACP, and several other civil rights groups. The groups are protesting Facebook’s unwillingness to police hate speech or monitor posts for misinformation. The same groups called for a pause in advertising on Facebook during the month of July. The tweet posted Monday by
Cohen included a photo of Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg wearing whiteface. The message reads: “The only thing more terrifying than Mark Zuckerberg surfing in whiteface … Is the white supremacy and lies Facebook spreads every day. This Weds Sept 16 I’m freezing my Instagram to tell Mark to #StopHateForProfit. Who’s in?!” Cohen has been a public critic of Facebook, which he called “the greatest propaganda machine in history” last November in a speech after receiving an international leadership award from the ADL. He added that “if Facebook were around in the 1930s, it would have allowed Hitler to post 30-second ads on his ‘solution’ to the ‘Jewish problem.’” Jewish Telegraphic Agency
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JS-47 Jewish World Trump campaign calls Bloomberg ‘elitist globalist’ after $100M pledge to defeat Trump in Florida Ron Kampeas The Trump campaign called former New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg an “elitist globalist” after he pledged $100 million to help Joe Biden defeat President Donald Trump in the key state of Florida. “Accepting Mini Mike’s money means Biden and Harris will be indebted to an elitist, globalist billionaire who said Biden lacked ‘management experience’ and wouldn’t be an effective president,” the campaign said last Sunday in a press release. Bloomberg, whom Trump has dubbed “Mini Mike,” ran for a brief period in the Democratic primaries.
Sen. Kamala Harris of California is Biden’s running mate. Bloomberg is Jewish. The terms “globalist” and “elitist” sometimes are used to invoke bigoted tropes about Jewish control and a lack of Jewish roots. Bend the Arc-Jewish Action, a liberal Jewish group that has endorsed Biden, accused the campaign of using “anti-Semitic dog whistles.” “Trump is desperate to distract from his catastrophic handling of the covid crisis, so he’s trying to point the finger at some of his favorite targets — so-called ‘globalist elites’ who just happen to be Jewish,” the group said.
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JS-48 Jewish World Israelis prepare for a second national lockdown to prevent coronavirus spread
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Marcy Oster Israelis are preparing for a second nationwide lockdown, set to start on Friday, even as government officials are suggesting that some of the specifics could change. The new lockdown represents a full concession that the country’s efforts to bring the coronavirus pandemic under control have fallen short. This spring, Israelis largely were limited to their homes during a monthlong lockdown, which sharply reduced cases in the country. But after restrictions were lifted and schools reopened, the virus resumed its spread. Now, the country has the highest per-capita infection rate in the world, and the death toll, which was about 250 when the first lockdown ended, stands at 1,136. Under the terms of the lockdown regulations, which were announced last Sunday night to begin on Friday at 2 p.m., most businesses will be shut and most Israelis will have to stay within a mile of their homes. Israeli police plan to enforce the rules and issue fines of about $150 to violators. Schools also will close for the next month, a portion of which is a holiday period even in normal
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times, and gatherings will be limited to 10 people indoors and 20 outside. But a complicated formula involving the number of entrances and the square footage of the space will allow many synagogues to admit more people than that, a crucial concession on the eve of the High Holidays. A top charedi Orthodox lawmaker, Yaakov Litzman, resigned as housing minister, expressing anger that the lockdown would prevent Jews who normally do not attend religious services from going to synagogue for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. Other exceptions could limit the impact of the lockdown. For example, Ben Gurion International Airport will remain open for air travel. Some business owners have vowed to ignore the rules. And organizers of the weekly protests outside of the prime minister’s residence in Jerusalem say they will not cancel their Saturday night rallies. The lockdown will run for at least three weeks, though it could be extended if the numbers of infected do not fall enough. Additionally, the nation’s coronavirus czar has signaled that he believes the rules are too draconian, and with days before they are imposed, the details could still change. Police are working to organize hundreds of checkpoints across the country to prevent people from leaving their homes and their communities. Some 50 communities and neighborhoods with especially high infection rates have been subject to nighttime curfews for the last two weeks. On Sunday night, residents of the mostly charedi Orthodox city of Bnei Brak rioted as police worked to enforce Jewish Telegraphic Agency the curfew there.
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JS-49 Jewish World Leading Orthodox Israeli lawmaker compares ignoring lockdown rules to murder Marcy Oster A leading Orthodox lawmaker said that not following the country’s lockdown rules to slow the spread of the coronavirus is comparable to murder. Aryeh Deri, the head of Israel’s Sephardic Orthodox Shas Party, who also serves as Israel’s interior minister, made his comments last Saturday night and posted a clip of the speech on his Facebook page. He criticized the members of the charedi Orthodox community who deny that the coronavirus is a threat. Israel is preparing for a lockdown to contain an outsized second wave of covid-19 cases. “It’s murder,” Deri said of those who disregard the regulations. “It ‘will not stand on the blood of your neighbor,’” he added, quoting Leviticus 19:16,
which is an injunction that if one sees his neighbor in danger and has the ability to do something, he must do everything in his power to help him. Israel’s lockdown will start on Rosh Hashanah and last until after Sukkot in early October. Members of the charedi Orthodox community, including former health minister Yaakov Litzman, have been criticized for gathering in large groups in defiance of national rules and guidelines. “It is spreading all over the country,” Deri said, referring to the coronavirus. “It is spreading because many rabbis unfortunately do not follow the instructions. The weddings and restaurants. I walk around and see
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nicely spaced and mindful, and since I am the slowest jogger of my cohort, folks just breezed by. Mask wearing was completely the norm at supermarkets, shops, and restaurants featuring outdoor dining or takeout. Vacationers seemed to want to enjoy themselves while observing precautions. But all my observations and generalizations are speculative, however, since we won’t know the true extent of post-Labor Day Covid numbers for a few weeks and how firmly to brace for a second wave, which is surely to come. Crowded holiday outings and ill-advised partying don’t bode well for the equation. And school re-openings still loom as the biggest question mark. In one sense I’ve returned to school — I’m using West Orange High’s superb track and field facilities on a daily basis. The gate to the compound has been left unlocked and the facilities remain deserted since the football team hasn’t been practicing. Using a rubber compound track does wonders for my back while jogging, and the quiet and solitude help concentrate my thinking. One place that I’m not quite ready to return to is the JCC Metrowest, which reopened its �ym and health facilities on September 8. Despite a host of precautions, I’ll let others try it first and listen for feedback. If all is positive, I’ll be ready to rejoin at the stroke of October. I really miss that place and the people. I just hope muscle memory takes over when I use the exercise equipment again. In the meantime, I’ll continue to catch up with my reading, binge on Australian legal dramas, and play online chess globally, but especially with my grandson, Daniel, back at Ithaca College for a virtual junior semester. I hope my other grandson, Dylan, is adapting to life as a virtual freshman at George Washington University, along with his two other roommates in a rented D.C. townhouse. For these students, the most enjoyable years of their lives are now circumscribed by something beyond their control, and ours. The least we can hope for is a profusion of fall foliage.
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observant Jews, with beards, walking without masks. I look and want to shout ‘Who gave you permission? This is harmful, you owe it to me (to wear a mask).’” Deri pledged to do everything possible to allow synagogues to be open for the High Holidays, but he cautioned that this year will be different. “It is not possible to have the same density as other years,” he said. The lockdown rules for indoor worship provide a complicated formula for the number of people allowed inside synagogues, which involves the number of entrances to the space and room square footage. Jewish telegraphic agency
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JS-50
Editorial Telling MetroWest’s stories
Keeping the Faith
CONTINUED from page 1
NJJN
When it’s the Jewish community, we believe that it also needs a shared vocabulary and history, which provides a particular point of view. That’s not to say that it provides agreement — that might be true in other communities, but we Jews tend to like arguing — but it does give us shared tools to argue with. We also believe that there is something about a physical newspaper, a tangible object, something that you can hold in your hand and jab at with your finger and carry around with you as you move from the kitchen to the living room and then relax and read, that is satisfying in a way that headlines on your phone just can’t be. At the Jewish Standard, we’ve been in the business of weaving our community together since 1931. We’ve moved north together, leaving Jersey City for greener Teaneck (physically, that is; we still cover Jersey City), branching out into the rest of Bergen County, then taking on Rockland in New York State and more of Hudson, to our south. We have bound copies of our paper back in our office; they trace the community’s history as we watched European Jews suffer as World War II approached, the horror as we learned more and more about what happened to them, the joy as the war ended, the elation as Israel was created, the bated breaths as it was attacked, the overwhelming relief as it survived. There’s so much unself-conscious social history in our page; the ads alone tell us more about us as an evolving people than the most ponderous editorial might. We also help our community by providing a forum for our advertisers, who can show our readers the goods and services they offer. And now we’re ready to cover another community too. Your community. We were enormously saddened when the New Jersey Jewish News stopped publishing. We know that even before the pandemic, this has been a hard time for print publications. As covid forced the economy to close, wreaking absolute havoc on so many of our lives, many newspapers, including the NJJN and the Jewish Week, which had taken it
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over, foundered. But we did not. We’re still here. And now, so is the New Jersey Jewish News. We feel that it is our obligation to try to save another Jewish newspaper. We firmly believe that our two communities have so very much in common. You begin where we leave off physically — we’re just to your north, the next Jewish federa-
We feel that it is our obligation to try to save another Jewish newspaper. tion catchment area over — and we share demographics, socioeconomics, and basic worldviews and assumptions with you. So we think that we understand the background for your stories, as we understand our own, and we look forward to telling them. We invite you to share them with us. We hope that you’ll make reading the New Jersey Jewish News a habit again. We hope that you’ll patronize our advertisers. We hope that you’ll feel just a little more tightly woven into the community because of something you read in these pages. We can’t wait to hear more of your stories. Please send them to us; email story ideas to me at [email protected]. If you are interested in advertising with us, email For display advertising, email Nancy Karpf at [email protected]. For classified and display advertising, email Lauri Sirois at [email protected]. We would like to wish everyone a sweet, healthy, and productive new year. We hope that it will be sweeter and healthier than last year — really, 5780 has left us nowhere to go but up. We hope that 5781 will be better for all of us. Ketivah v’chatimah tovah to all our readers, old and new. —JP
Editor Joanne Palmer Associate Editor Larry Yudelson Community Editor Beth Janoff Chananie Our Children Editor Chana Stiefel
Publisher James L. Janoff
50 NEW JERSEY JEWISH NEWS SEPTEMBER 18, 2020
Correspondents Warren Boroson Lois Goldrich Banji Ganchrow Abigail K. Leichman Miriam Rinn Dr. Miryam Z. Wahrman Advertising Director Natalie D. Jay
Pray as if the whole world depends on it
O
n Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, for whose well-being in the coming year do we pray—(a) each of us for ourselves, (b) for ourselves and for all Jews everywhere, (c) for all people everywhere and not just Jews, or (d) for all creatures within whom there is the breath of life? The answer is “d.” We pray for all creatures within whom there is the breath of life. In other words, we pray for ourselves and for all of God’s creatures great and small, human and non-human. As the British theologian and scholar Rabbi Jeffrey M. Cohen notes, this is confirmed by one of the most significant prayers in the High Holy Days liturgy—the U’netaneh Tokef K’dushat Hayom (We attest to the holiness of the day), when it says that “all who have come into the world pass before” God, to be judged “as would a flock of sheep.” God judges all His creatures at this time, not to sentence them to death, but to give them a chance to live. As Ezekiel quotes God as saying, “Do I want an evil one to die…; what I want is for him to return and live...[b] ecause he took note of his wrongdoings that Shammai he has done and returned from them.” (See Engelmayer Ezekiel 18:23-24; better yet, read the entire chapter; it is most instructive.) Because that is what God intends by judging all His creatures, we must pray for them as well as ourselves, because we are commanded to emulate God, to “walk in His ways” (see Deuteronomy 28:9). As the Thirteen Attributes we recite over and again during our prayers, especially during the High Holy Days, tell us, God is “compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in kindness and faithfulness, extending kindness to the thousandth generation, forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin.” For those who would interpret this narrowly—that these attributes extend to Israel only—Judaism rejects that view. God cares for everyone, and all that He does is for the benefit of everyone. “The Lord is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in kindness. The Lord is good to all, and His mercy is upon all His works.” (See Psalms 145:8-9.) Keep in mind, too, Jonah’s complaint to God, which we read about on Yom Kippur during the afternoon service. Jonah was sent to Nineveh to announce the city’s imminent doom because of its evil ways—an assignment he did everything he could to avoid fulfilling, because he feared what would happen if they actually listened to him. Jonah’s fear was well founded. God, seeing that the people of Nineveh Shammai Engelmayer is a rabbi-emeritus of Congregation Beth Israel of the Palisades and an adult education teacher in Bergen County. He is the author of eight books and the winner of 10 awards for his commentaries. His website is www.shammai.org.
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JS-51 Opinion “were turning back from their evil ways… renounced the punishment He had planned to bring upon them and did not carry it out. This displeased Jonah so much that he preferred to die. “Please, Lord, take my life, for I would rather die than live.” (See Jonah 3:10-4:3.) God’s response: “Should I not care about that great city, Nineveh, in which more than a 120,000 people reside who cannot tell the difference between their right hand and their left, and for the many beasts there, as well?” (See Jonah 4:11.) So if God cares for the people of Nineveh (and everywhere else) and even “the many beasts,” so must we all care for them. Bluntly stated, then, on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, all of those identifiers we humans adopt to keep us apart from each other—religion, race, skin color, nationality, language, gender, politics, and so forth—are declared nonsense, artificial constructs that have no basis in the reality of God’s world. “God created ha-adam [the human] in His image…; male and female He created them.” (See Genesis 1:27.) As for the so-called “lower life forms,” Genesis 2:7 and 19 tell us: “The Lord God formed ha-adam from the dust of the earth [ha-adamah]…. And the Lord God formed from ha-adamah all the wild beasts and all the birds of the sky.” In other words, all creatures with a breath of life in them—human, animal, avian—all came “from out of the earth,” all were made from the same material. In the words of the biblical commentator, grammarian, and philosopher Joseph ben Abba Mari Ibn Caspi, all creatures—in the sea, in the air, on the ground, from the smallest to the largest—are “k’ilu avoteinu,” meaning “they are like our ancestors.” (See his comment to Deuteronomy 22:6-7.) So, yes, we do pray on the High Holy Days for the well-being of every creature within whom there is the breath of life. Praying for them, however, is not enough. We have to spend the rest of the year actually working to improve life for every creature—human, animal, or avian—which also means we have to spend the rest of the year improving the natural world in which we all live. We call the period from the start of Rosh Hashanah to the end of Yom Kippur “The Ten Days of Repentance” and “The Days of Awe.” As the U’netaneh Tokef puts it, this is a time of “fear and trembling.” Such descriptions distort the reality of these days. To be sure, as we also read in U’netaneh Tokef, “on Rosh Hashanah, it is written and on Yom Kippur it is sealed.... Who shall live and who shall die,” and so forth. That is very scary stuff— unless we understand what these words actually say. Consider how this “who shall” litany ends: “But through repentance, prayer, and deeds of kindness, we can avoid the severe decree.” In other words, these verses are not about the terrible things that will happen to us. They are about the things that will not happen to us because we know the formula for avoiding them: through t’shuvah—evaluating our behavior and consciously deciding to change the flaws we find in our character; through t’fillah—if we pray for the strength we will need to do the work required to change; and through tz’dakah—through
actually doing that work, thereby testifying to the sincerity of our repentance. That is not something to tear out our hair over; it is something to dance in the streets about. All the moaning, and the groaning, and the crying, and the breast-beating, tomorrow, Sunday, a week from Sunday night through the end of the next day are so unnecessary, because we know the secret formula. So few people see anything joyous here, though. We are so conditioned to see this period through a much darker lens that we lose the true sense of these days. There is a genuine lack of understanding about these next 10 days, what they really are, what they really mean, and how we really should relate to them. Calling these days from tonight through Yom Kippur the Ten Days of Repentance is a bit weird, in any case, because in 5781 there are “353 days of t’shuvah,” not 10 (on our calendar, 5781 has 353 days). Referring to this period as “the Ten Days of Repentance” suggests that these are the only days when repentance is achievable. They may be the most propitious days, as our sages taught, but they are not the only days. T’shuvah can be achieved at any time of the day or night on any day of the year. All that is required is a sincere desire to change for the better and then doing what it takes to make that change happen. These 10 days are not about obtaining instant absolution for our sins. They are for taking stock of our lives and making a plan to improve ourselves. Only after they end do the true “days of repentance” begin, and absolution comes only after we have truly changed our ways. These days should not be seen as days of great sadness, but of great joy. Fear and trembling are not required for repentance; only sincerity is needed—and that sincerity is measured by what we do and how well we do it during the year ahead to change the flaws in our character that we identified during the High Holy Days. Fear and trembling are meaningless emotions; only our actions count. Besides, fear and trembling violate the spirit of the period, especially on Rosh Hashanah. Rather, we should heed the advice of Nehemiah, Ezra, and the Levites, who told the people on “the first day of the seventh month” how it really should be celebrated: “This day is holy to the Lord your God: you must not mourn or weep…. Go your way, eat fat foods and drink sweet beverages, and send portions to those for whom nothing is prepared; for this day is holy to our Lord; do not grieve, for the joy of the Lord is your strength….” May we all pray for ourselves, for our loved ones, for our people, for all people, and for all creatures with a breath of life, that 5781 is the year we all come to realize that the world will only become a better place if we all work together to make it so, and then may we act in every way we can to make it so. The opinions expressed in this section are those of the authors, not necessarily those of the newspaper’s editors, publishers, or other staffers. We welcome letters to the editor. Send them to [email protected]
Trump is bad for America and bad for the Jews
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othing pains me more than to speak up with anguish in the face of this presidential election. But silence is not an option. American Jewry confronts a fateful choice. Another four years of Donald Trump will be nothing less than a body blow for our country and our community. I must acknowledge the unexpected nature of this statement. For more than half a century, I avoided public positions on electoral politics. When I chose a career working for the Jewish people, I took on a sacred obligation, like so many other professionals, to avoid taking sides in partisan contests. That is an obligation that I carried into retirement. But there is more than enough evidence showing that Trump is a demAbraham agogue and his presidency threatens Foxman American democracy. When our democracy is weakened, and when nativism is stoked, the rights of Jews and other minorities will be diminished too. It may not happen overnight, but it will happen, and Jews know this well from bitter experience. I respect any American, and any Jewish American, who continues to identify with and support the Republican party, which has made significant and lasting contributions to the Jewish community. And I understand why some of these voters are struggling with their decision. In my mind, the case is closed. His leadership endangers our democracy, and therefore our community. My reasoning is simple and stark: Trump’s presidency — in spirit and in deed — has given succor to bigots, supremacists, and those seeking to divide our society. He and his administration dehumanize immigrants, demonize the most vulnerable, and undermine the civility and enlightened political culture that have allowed Jews to achieve what no diaspora community outside Israel can claim in two millennia. What’s more, American Jews look beyond our own parochial interests, for we know that our future is inextricably tied to the welfare of others. Promoting tolerance, inclusion, and equality is non-negotiable. Defending immigrants and refugees is an inseparable part of our collective story — and my own, as a Holocaust survivor and a refugee. We must ask ourselves: Is America stronger, more stable and more caring, than it was before Trump entered office? For me, the answer is clear. No. I know I am not alone. Talk to Jewish community leaders in private and read surveys of the Jewish public. After decades of progress, following successive generations of rising metrics of safety and security, Jews are filled with fear and anxiety. President Trump shoulders a good measure of the blame. Is the president of the United States an anti-Semite? No. But that’s not the right question. Has his leadership lifted America? Has it made Jews feel more secure? Is he our best hope for healing our nation and addressing the twin crises of a pandemic and a reckoning with racism? If anyone needs another reason, look beyond our borders. A See FOXMAN page 54
Abraham Foxman of Bergen County is director emeritus of the Anti-Defamation League. NEW JERSEY JEWISH NEWS SEPTEMBER 18, 2020 51
JS-52 Opinion
Jewish and proud? Really?
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f you are on Facebook and have JewI am? I could just as logically say that I am ish friends — excellent possibilities since “Blue-Eyed and Proud,” “Illinois Native and you’re reading the Jewish News — you’ve Proud,” or “5’ 8” inches and proud.” doubtless come across the meme Jewish Or “white and proud.” and Proud. Jewish and Proud is problematic because A true meme gains momentum on its own, it’s an existential statement, and Jews don’t do going viral as it spreads (like a virus, as we existential. We do actual. Of the 613 mitzvot know too well today) from person to person. in the Torah, none command us “be proud.” This meme came out of a January campaign In fact, only two are not about an action: one by the American Jewish Commit(“I am the Lord your God Who tee, “amid rising anti-Semitism brought you out of Egypt”) is a in the U.S. and abroad.” statement of bona fides, so we The campaign urged Jews to accept God’s sovereignty. And wear “your Judaism with pride,” the rabbis explain the other which you could do by don(“You shall not covet….”) as an ning “a kippah, or anything else aspiration, because how can a identifiably Jewish,” or “Printing feeling be commanded? (That’s a AJC’s #JewishandProud sign or reason why we are commanded making your own using #Jewisto honor our parents rather than handProud and posting a photo to love them.) Rabbi Clifford of yourself with the sign on And just as the Torah’s comM. Kulwin mandments are about actions, social media.” any Jewish pride we feel should If Jews were feeling besieged, not be about being Jews, but about what we do the idea went, if the world was hostile, as Jews. I am Jewish. So what? What matters doing something overtly Jewish could be is not that I am Jewish, but what I do with it. empowering. I inherited an extraordinary tradition, I’ve seen the meme often on Facebook over whose values and humanity are ineffable. the last several months, but I saw it in a new But unless I do something with that tradition, light a few days ago, when I happened upon it what do I have to be proud about? Pride can after reading a New York Times article headlined “Trump Emerges as Inspiration for Gerbe a mile wide but also only an inch deep. many’s Far Right.” What is the basis of my pride? That other His face was emblazoned on banners, people with whom I share a gene pool do neat T-shirts and even on Germany’s pre-1918 impethings? That there is an impressive tradition rial flag, popular with neo-Nazis in the crowd with which I can be associated, even if I’m not of 50,000 who had come to protest Germany’s particularly involved in it? To showcase Jewish pandemic restrictions,” the story, by Katrin pride, as an answer, is facile, like putting up a Bennhold, read. “His name was invoked by lawn sign. It expresses a lovely sentiment but many with messianic zeal.” what does it accomplish? Jewish and Proud already struck me as a Anti-Semitism is too real. It can be racial, simplistic response to a genuine danger. Now religious, or economic. It can be national. I realize it has some serious shortcomings. It can attack us as a people or us as a faith Jewish and Proud is an existential statecommunity. It is complex. And the proper ment. I find pride in something I am. That response is not simple. sounds okay, except that if I get to say it, there There are serious, substantive ways to fight are several others who get to say it, too: anti-Semitism. We can vote for candidates Gangster Meyer Lansky, the “mob’s accounwho abhor it and we can not vote for canditant,” sought to make aliyah. Golda Meir said dates who give it water and sun. We can write no way. checks to the agencies and institutions that Samuel Flatto-Sharon fled France for Israel stand up to prejudice. Instead of walking out in 1972, amid charges that he embezzled $60 onto the lawn to put up a sign, we can walk million. To avoid extradition, he founded a down the block, around the corner, and to one-man party and bought his way into the the other side of town and march, rally, or Knesset. demonstrate. In 1986 the Jewish Theological Seminary And if we wear a kippah while we do that, scrubbed Ivan Boesky’s name from the $20 so much the better. For hundreds of years, from the establishmillion library he donated, after the SEC fined ment of the first unions to the founding of him $100 million. the NAACP, Jews have been central to every Others who easily could say (and maybe single social and political movement to have said) “Jewish and Proud” include Bernie improve the common good in this country. Madoff and Harvey Weinstein. That is a wonderful part of our history and That’ not the kind of company which I’m we must remember it, though not as a cause interested in keeping. Which is part of the reason why Jewish and Proud is a bit more comfor pride, but as a source of inspiration. plicated than it appears. And what’s the big deal about being proud Clifford Kulwin is rabbi emeritus of Temple of something that’s just a natural part of who B’nai Abraham in Livingston. 52 NEW JERSEY JEWISH NEWS SEPTEMBER 18, 2020
I’VE BEEN THINKING
Who questions much, learns much
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y brother Lawrence, the academic in my family (Sharon has two brothers who also are academics), is a professor of rabbinics and Jewish philosophy in the department of Jewish studies of McGill University, with an exceptionally wide range of interests and areas of expertise. In addition to his university role, he’s also a major exponent of the thought of Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik; he has translated two of the Rav’s major essays into English. Lawrence recently began a weekly series on Facebook of parshat ha-shavu’a divrei Torah. As you might expect from a scholar of his caliber, his essays are quite, well, scholarly, with references not only to the Rav (of course) and all the well-known, and Joseph C. even lesser known, traditional exegetes Kaplan and rabbis, both ancient and modern, but also to those not commonly found in Orthodox parsha discussions, including such modern Bible scholars as Jacob Milgrom and Jeffrey Tigay, “The Godfather,” R. Abraham Joshua Heschel, William Blake, Malcom Gladwell, Moshe Halbertal, and Machiavelli. But he works hard, most often successfully, at making his weekly analyses understandable to the general reader, though some effort may be required. I highly recommend them. A few weeks ago, while discussing Parshat Ki Tetzei, he focused on the law of ben sorer u-moreh — the defiant and rebellious son. The Torah tells us (Deut. 21:18-21) that if parents have a son who has committed certain specified acts of wrongdoing, they shall bring him to the town elders, testify to his rebellion, and he is stoned to death. The rabbis, confronted by the problem that the actual acts of wrongdoing do not constitute capital crimes, conclude that the Torah penetrated the ultimate mindset of the rebellious son and based his punishment on actions he would otherwise commit in the future (Sanhedrin 71b-72a). That too, however, is problematic, because as a matter of law and morality it’s wrong to punish people based on future possible, even if highly likely, actions. Not to worry. Most rabbis, though not all (do all rabbis ever agree about anything?), believe that because of all the rabbinical requirements that need to be met to apply the law, “there has never been a rebellious son, and there will never be one in the future.” That is, the law is theoretical. This made me think of another law in Deuteronomy that has similar legal and moral problems — ir ha-nidachat (a city of idolaters). The Torah rules (Deut. 13:13-19) that if there is a city in which a majority of the inhabitants practice idolatry, we kill all of the city’s inhabitants, even the minority who were not idolators. (Whether children are to be killed is disputed among the rabbis. See the parenthetical above and Tosefta Sanhedrin 14:1.) Like ben sorer, however, most rabbis believe that there was never an instance of ir ha-nidachat. It too is theoretical. The question is obvious: If they are theoretical, why are these laws included in the Torah? And as to both, the rabbis have one answer: derosh ve-kabel schar; expound upon it and receive a reward (Sanhedrin 71a). There’s another Torah law that seems to me to fit into this See KAPLAN page 55
Joseph C. Kaplan, a regular columnist, is a long-time resident of Teaneck. His work also has appeared in various publications including Sh’ma magazine, the New York Jewish Week, the Baltimore Jewish Times, and, as letters to the editor, the New York Times.
JS-53 Opinion
For the love of God
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n a year defined by its compound anxieties — medical, racial, political, environmental, and economic — we are in last days of the most anxious month on the Jewish calendar. Lacking much of an independent identity, Elul is the final stretch of the religious year and a prelude to the impending Days of Awe. Traditionally, it is a time of increased religious vigilance, including heightened introspection, Selichot (penitential prayers), revisiting personal and communal moral standards, and stricter observance, all in anticipation of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. But there’s more to Elul, even in a year like this one, than brooding over the prior year’s shortcomings or worrying about the weeks and months ahead. For the sensitive religious soul, this seaDavid S. son also can be a time of deep spiritual Zinberg yearning and an intensified love for the divine. A memorable epigram, citing the Song of Songs (6:3), literally spells this out: “‘I am for my beloved, and my beloved is for me’ — this is an acronym spelling ‘Elul.’” Love and fear often come in tandem. And in Jewish thought, love of God and fear of God are considered opposite but conjoined poles of a unified response to divinity: “And now, Israel, what does the Lord your God demand of you? Only this: to fear the Lord your God, to walk only in His paths, to love him . . .” (Deuteronomy 10:12). The traditional Siddur for children begins (right after Modeh Ani) with a declaration — “the beginning of wisdom is the fear of God” (Psalms 111:10)
— that places the latter at the epicenter of intellectual achievement. And the second verse of Shema, almost a credo of Jewish faith, is the commandment to love God. While both mitzvot are somewhat amorphous, fear of God may be the easier of the two, both to grasp and to implement. But how can the Torah mandate loving God? What does it mean in practice? In the very first chapters of his Mishneh Torah code, Maimonides lists love and fear of God as distinct but tightly coupled commandments. Characteristically, he intellectualizes the effort required to attain both. Maimonides states that love and fear of the divine, properly fulfilled, arises from an appreciation of God’s majesty and man’s humility, which can be accomplished only with training in physics and metaphysics: “One can only love God by the knowledge with which one knows Him. According to the knowledge, will be the love . . . a person ought therefore to devote himself to understanding those sciences and studies which will inform him concerning his Master” (Laws of Repentance 10:6). Such learning, Maimonides assures us, ultimately will result in an obsessive love for God (in an unexpected near-poetic flourish, he compares this love to romantic infatuation) and to a concomitant feeling of smallness within the vastness of the universe. This sense of humility is what the Torah means by fearing God. Note that the type of fear that God demands, for Maimonides, is not the fear of punishment — in fact,
he rejected the concept of divine retribution in the afterlife by suffering. He has little patience for those who worship exclusively out of fear, as commonly understood, or expectation of reward. Rather, he says, one who worships God as intended, out of love, “does what is true because it is true” (ibid., 10:2). As always, Maimonides sets the bar high — in this case, possibly too high. His definition of love and fear of God is so consciously elitist as to be out of reach for most people: “This standard [to worship God from love],” he admits, “is indeed a very high one; not every sage attained it.” (Rather than the conclusion of an intellectual journey, the biblical meaning of “loving” God is to commit to worship Him exclusively, and to observe the mitzvot — in short, “to walk only in His paths.”) On this and many other matters, both philosophical and halachic, Maimonides had his detractors. It also goes without saying that Maimonidean (unsurprisingly, largely Aristotelian) physics, as summarized in the earliest chapters of Mishneh Torah, is hopelessly out of date. But the idea that loving God must begin, both logically and practically, with a love for the truth, is a timeless one that should be the foundation of our spiritual lives. In pledging their loyalty and love to God, religious people should never be asked, or ask themselves, to forsake science and fact. And while the beginning of wisdom may be the fear of God, human wisdom itself, both secular and divine, is only possible with an irrevocable commitment to the truth. David S. Zinberg lives in Teaneck with his wife and three sons. He works in financial services.
A kavanah for Rosh Hashanah in this year of covid-19
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nn and I have been living in western Massasmall Berkshire minyan, outdoors, under tents with chusetts since mid-March. We came up to open sides. Everyone will be socially distanced and what is usually our summer residence after will wear a mask. I will be honored on the second Purim, with the intention of morning of Rosh Hashanah to share a returning home by Pesach. Back then, kavanah with my friends here in Stockbridge, and I want to share these words like so many of you, we believed that and thoughts with all of you, my beloved the covid-19 epidemic would have been Jewish community of northern New under control in the New York/New Jersey metropolitan area by then. After sharJersey. ing Passover seders with family on Zoom, This is what I have written and plan and attending Zoom services on Shabbato say before the open ark before Unetot these many months, I still have had a tane Tokef: very hard time imagining, after being in In the Avinu Malkeynu, we appeal to Rabbi Neal crowded synagogues every Rosh HashaGod to be merciful and answer us; to Borovitz nah since my birth in 1948, what the High deal with us with tzedaka and chesed. Holy Days would be like. Now, we are about to stand together Truth be told — and this is the week before the open ark and repeat the when truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the words of Unetane Tokef: “On Rosh Hashanah our truth is what we are commanded to speak to each future is written, and on Yom Kippur our fate is sealed other, to God, and to ourselves — I am blessed this in the Book of Life. Who shall live and who shall die; year to be able to attend a live service, with our who by fire and who by flood; who by disease and who in war.” The prayer concludes with the hopeful Neal Borovitz, rabbi emeritus of Temple Avodat but challenging promise that tshuvah, t’filah and tzedaka, can at the very least, temper, if not change, our Shalom in River Edge, is a former chair of Jewish individual and communal inscriptions in the metaCommunity Relations Council of the Jewish Federation phoric Book of Life.” of Northern New Jersey.
Ribono shel Olam, Master of the Universe, was the fate of the hundreds of thousands who have died from covid-19 this past year sealed in Your Book last Yom Kippur? God, I cannot and will not accept that their deaths were punishment for their sins. I do not believe that it was your divine will that more people were not saved. Rather, it was a lack of human will. One of the many names for Rosh Hashanah is Yom Harat Olam, the anniversary of the creation of the world. God, you created us human beings to be your partners in the ongoing process of creation. I know that I and we have failed, but in the names of our patriarchs and matriarchs, whose merits we invoke as we plead our case before You, I cry out to You now, before the Unetane Tokef, not only as avinu malkeynu, our parent and our ruler, but as moreynu, our teacher! Teach us, teach me, how we can be better custodians of your world! Teach us, teach me, how we can fulfill what Rabbi Akiva called the greatest teaching in your Torah: Love your neighbor as yourself! Teach us, teach me, to be your voice and your hands in this world. Teach us, teach me how we can choose life by choosing to be a blessing to others, and to stand humbly before You. God, may our See BOROVITZ page 54
NEW JERSEY JEWISH NEWS SEPTEMBER 18, 2020 53
JS-54 Opinion
The holiday of the hidden moon
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ow do we know that Rosh Hashanah is There are no coincidences on the Jewish calendar. Rosh Hashanah? Why does the awesome occasion of Rosh Hashanah This question sounds strange; but I specifically fall on a day when the moon is hidden? The assure you, it is not… very idea seems counterintuitive! The Torah never refers to this festival as Rosh The moon’s journey in the heavens is one of the most Hashanah, never clearly identifies the first day of foundational symbols in Jewish thought. This journey, Tishrei as the start of the year, never representing the passage of time, is the makes any clear mention of the occasion basis of the first mitzvah given to the Israelites, kiddush hachodesh, the mitzvah of as a “Yom Din,” a day of judgment... sanctifying the new moon. Through this If the Torah doesn’t tell us, how do mitzvah, God connects the phenomenon we know that Rosh Hashanah is Rosh of time and time sanctification to Jewish Hashanah? thought from the first moments of the The answer can be found in rabbinic nation’s birth. literature. Piecing together clues from Why, then, would one of the holiest across Tanach, the rabbis discover a pattern that points to the first day of Tishrei days of our year be marked on a day when Rabbi Shmuel as the Rosh Hashanah we know. the moon, and thus time itself, is hidden? Goldin Many years ago, an answer occurred Among these clues is a passage from to me as I sat through one of the sadTehillim 91: “Sound the Shofar at the dest experiences of my rabbinic career. moon’s renewal — ba’cesse l’yom chageinu, at the time appointed for the day of our festival The occasion was a funeral, which is an inherently sad — because it is a decree for Yisrael, a judgment day for event. In this case, however, the main source of sorrow the God of Yaakov.” did not stem from the death of the deceased. He was Carefully examining this passuk, the rabbis connect an elderly man who had been sick for many years. His the word ba’cesse to the root l’chasot, to “cover or death was sad, but not tragic. hide.” “During which festival is the moon hidden? Let What made this funeral particularly tragic was the us say; it is [the first day of Tishrei] Rosh Hashanah.” behavior of the surviving relatives. Many of them The rabbinic logic is clear. Tehillim identifies a holirefused to sit with, or even talk to, each other. When I day on which the moon is hidden as “a day of judgment inquired as to the origin of the family friction, they had for the Jewish people.” The moon is hidden from sight difficulty remembering the exact source of the discord, each month on rosh chodesh, when its journey begins so temporally distant was that source from the day of in the sky. The only Torah festival, however, that corthe funeral. responds to rosh chodesh falls on the first day of the “It happened way back, Rabbi. We can’t really month of Tishrei. Rosh Chodesh Tishrei thus is identiremember the specifics. But it was really bad. Both fied as Rosh Hashanah, a day of judgment for the year. sides of the family haven’t spoken to each other for This derivation, however, raises a deeper problem. years; and we will be darned if we will be the ones to
Foxman from page 51
stable, credible, influential, revered — and sometimes feared — America has been a force multiplier for world Jewry for decades, often in ways that are most clearly visible to those of us working behind the scenes on behalf of global Jewish causes. Remember freedom for Soviet, Ethiopian, and Syrian Jewry. Here, too, there is no doubt in my mind that Trump’s failings of character and America’s dismal global standing have hurt Jewish interests. It is true that Trump has made decisions that many in our community have waited for, including his decision on Jerusalem, which I support. But these decisions have come at the cost of Trump’s frontal assault on bipartisan support for Israel, and some have been clothed in deeply offensive stereotypes about Jews and their ties to the Jewish state. Our community has an enormous stake in bipartisanship. It is the only way to combat anti-Semitism and bigotry. It is how we built a strong U.S.-Israel alliance. Indeed, I grew up in an America where Jews were not fully integrated and Washington’s support for Israel was wafer thin. Yet the reality is
different now, in large part because leaders of conscience have cultivated and sustained the broadest possible base of support for this agenda. Trump has damaged that necessary consensus, and we cannot permit Jews and Israel to be weaponized for anyone’s narrow political interests. We do have reason for hope. I have known Joe Biden for many years, and I have confidence that he will restore the equilibrium that has been lost. He has been an ally, and he has pledged repeatedly to fight anti-Semitism aggressively. I am confident he and Kamala Harris will not back down from confronting Israel’s enemies and detractors, even if they emerge within their own party. I am old enough to remember a world where illiberalism ran amok and dictators held vast numbers of our brothers and sisters hostage, behind Iron Curtains and worse. And I am old enough to recall a style of Jewish American politics that was more quietist, more hesitant, a politics of a minority too accustomed to keeping its head down. But thankfully, American Jews left this behind — yet another reason I cannot be silent at this inflection point in history. Nor can any of us, for the sake of our nation, our people, and our world.
54 NEW JERSEY JEWISH NEWS SEPTEMBER 18, 2020
break the ice….” It was then that I realized that we grant too much power to time. Time heals, we say, Give it time… The truth is that the passage of time, in and of itself, is inconsequential. It is what happens during that time, how we use its moments, grants those moments meaning. In the case of the funeral family, time certainly did not heal. Instead, it hardened. Slights that might have been resolved years earlier had become issues beyond repair. Hurts were not discussed; insults, perceived or actual, were not dealt with. Certainly, a cooling-off period sometimes may be called for in personal relationships. Ultimately, however, concerns must be addressed. By the time the members of the funeral family came together no one could remember why, but they would not sit together, even in mourning. A possible answer, then, to our question. Rosh Hashanah is celebrated when the moon is hidden to remind us that the passage of time, in and of itself, has no power. What we do with our time determines its ultimate significance. Rosh Hashanah challenges us not to wait until things get better; not to delay in the hope of automatic resolution. Our job is to make things better now, as best we can. Tomorrow may be too late. Rabbi Shmuel Goldin is rabbi emeritus of Congregation Ahavath Torah in Englewood and past president of the Rabbinical Council of America. He is the author of a five-volume set on Chumash, “Unlocking the Torah Text,” and of “Unlocking the Haggada.” He lives in Jerusalem with wife, Barbara, and continues to write, lecture and teach around the world.
Borovitz from page 53
determination to do tshuvah not be a vow merely to turn away from transgression, but also to turn from apathy to action. God, as we plead with you through t’filah, prayers of gratitude as well as of petition, and as we commit ourselves to tzedakah, righteous and charitable actions, may you, avinu, malkeynu, moreynu, our parent, our ruler, and our teacher, chanaynu v’anaynu — be gracious and answer us — vasey imanu tzedaka v’chesed v’hosheaynu — by dealing with us with charity and love and guiding us to be your partners in redeeming our world. As we all pray this year to be inscribed and sealed in God’s Book of Life, may we each also ask ourselves over not only the next 10 days, but every day, how we can kinder to others, not only to our sisters and brothers, but to the unknown others with whom we share this planet. One clear lesson for me from this pandemic of covid-19 is that it does not distinguish between economic status, political affiliation, race, religion, or birthplace. On this Rosh Hashanah I hear a resounding Yes as the answer to the question posed by Cain in Genesis: Yes, we all are our brothers’ keepers, and our sisters’ as well. May we all be inscribed and sealed in the Book of Life. May we all vow to be better custodians of God’s world and better partners with God in making the world a better place for all humanity and for all of God’s creations.
JS-55 Opinion
Say their names: The forgotten American victims of Palestinian terror
M
any of the recent protests over police in the State Department’s “Rewards for Justice” program, shootings have focused on a specific vicwhich offers rewards for information leading to the captim, Ms. Breonna Taylor. The “Say Her ture of killers of Americans abroad. Name” campaign has taught millions of In March 2015, France revealed that Hamada and people about Breonna as a person, about her life and Abu Zayed were living in Norway, and that two other what happened to her. The same canterrorists connected to the attack, Mahnot be said for Grace Cutler or Ann Van moud Khader Abed and Zuhair al-Abbasi, Zanten. I wonder if even a single person were living in the Palestinian Authority and Jordan, respectively. To protect reading this column will recognize their al-Abbasi, the Jordanians “arrested” him names. That is a tragedy. Grace and Ann’s names should have and then quickly released him on bail. been in the news last week, because one That year, the Obama administration of their killers was finally arrested after gave the Palestinian Authority $500 million in aid. Yet it never demanded that decades of living freely. Yet I could not the P.A. hand over Abed. The Trump find a single article, among the many Stephen M. administration currently gives Jordan reports of the arrest, that mentioned the Flatow $1.5 billion annually. Yet it never has victims’ names. Of course, they all mentioned the murderers’ names. demanded that Jordan hand over al-Abbasi. Nor does it demand extradition in On August 9, 1982, two Palestinian terrorists—Nizar Tawfiq Mussa Hamada and Walid Abdulthe similar case of Ahmed Tamimi, who was involved rahman Abu Zayed—fired submachine guns and threw in the murder of Malki Roth in the Sbarro restaurant hand grenades at the Jo Goldenberg restaurant in the bombing on August 9, 2001 in Jerusalem during the Jewish quarter of Paris. Six people were murdered lunch hour, killing 15 civilians, including seven children and a pregnant woman, and wounding 130. and 22 wounded. The French asked Norway to surrender Abu Zayed. Among the fatalities were two women from Chicago: 66-year-old Grace Cutler and 31-year-old Ann The Norwegians refused. The United States, which Van Zanten, the curator of architectural collections at does more than $12 billion in trade annually with the Chicago Historical Society. Ann’s husband, David, Norway, evidently did not consider the murderers a professor at Northwestern University, was among of Grace and Ann important enough to demand that the injured. Norway surrender the terrorists. Hamada and Abu Zayed escaped. United States law In recent weeks, the French were able to obtain permits capturing foreign terrorists who have killed additional information about Abu Zayed and renewed Americans and bringing them to the United States for their request to extradite him. At the moment, he is trial and punishment. Yet the U.S. government has never in Norwegian custody while the authorities there consider the French request. shown any interest in capturing the murderers of Grace The Norwegians may well decide (again) to reject and Ann. Hamada and Abu Zayed are not even included
Kaplan from page 52
category of theoretical laws — mechi’at Amalek, the commandment to utterly destroy all individual members of Amalek, men, women, and children. Deut. 25:19. This law, incumbent upon every Jew (R. Joseph B. Soloveitchik, Kol Dodi Dofek (KDD), footnote 25 (trans. Lawrence Kaplan)), was, at one time, actually carried out. 1Samuel 15:1-35. As the Rav notes, however, it applies only to genealogical descendants of Amalek, and no identifiable genealogical descendants exist today. Indeed, the Mishna teaches that “Sancheriv, king of Assyria, came up and mingled all the nations.” Yadayim 4:4. Thus, like ben sorer and ir ha-nidachat, this law has become theoretical. (Note that a separate Amalek-related law — to be ready to do battle as a community against the people of Amalek (Exod. 17:16) which includes their modern-day spiritual descendants who conspire to destroy the Jewish people (KDD, fn. 25) — still applies today.) To me, all three laws have two things in common. First, they raise serious legal and moral questions that make it inconceivable, in practical terms, to actually carry them out. Second, the rabbis, using their genius and ingenuity, found ways to ensure, on the
one hand, that these laws are not erased from the Torah, and on the other hand, that no one is forced to violate basic human morality as we understand it and kill innocents. In a comment on Lawrence’s parsha post, I noted that all three laws have another commonality; they appear to me to follow the paradigm set by the Akedah, the binding of Isaac. That event, too, recounts, in narrative and not legal form, an almost impossible-to-contemplate command that Abraham sacrifice his son Isaac. But Isaac doesn’t die — like the three laws discussed above, the command was only theoretical. (See Rabbeynu Bachya for a very different comparison of ben sorer to the Akedah.) Thus, notwithstanding the underlying questions that are, despite the numerous answers we were taught, seemingly unanswerable, it remains part of our canon that we can, and should, study, question, and grapple with, though we may not arrive at satisfactory answers. Derosh ve-kabel schar. In just a day or two, we will be gathering for Rosh Hashanah services, celebrating this yom tov in a manner unlike any in years past. Some of us may be in sanctuaries; others, perhaps, sitting in outdoor tents or backyards, participating over
France’s demand. Politically or financially, the French may not have sufficient clout to force Norway’s hand. But America is the most powerful country in the world. Norway cannot refuse a serious U.S. demand to hand him over. Nor can Jordan refuse a serious American demand to surrender al-Abbasi. And if the United States really wanted to capture Mahmoud Khader Abed, who lives in the P.A. capital of Ramallah, I have no doubt that it could find a way to get him. U.S. counterterrorism agents are wellknown for their ability to apprehend or eliminate terrorists around the world. Yet so far, the Trump administration has been silent. No extradition requests. No rewards for information leading to the terrorists’ capture. Not even a statement of sympathy for the Cutler and Van Zanten families as they endure the harrowing process of watching Norway and France wrangle over the legal technicalities of justice for their loved ones. And what about the American Jewish community? Where are the memorial rallies and candle-lit vigils for Grace and Anne? Where are the demands to bring the killers to American justice? Where are the letter-writing campaigns to press the Trump administration to act? As Americans, we have a moral obligation to demand justice for American victims of Palestinian Arab terrorism. So, let’s start by saying their names: Grace Cutler. Ann Van Zanten. Say their names. Again and again. Maybe if we say them often enough, and loud enough, JNS.ORG somebody will finally listen. Stephen M. Flatow of West Orange is a lawyer, the vice president of the Religious Zionists of America, and the father of Alisa Flatow, who was murdered in an Iraniansponsored Palestinian terrorist attack in 1995.
Zoom, or praying at home. We’ll be wearing masks, socially distanced from friends and fellow congregants, listening to blasts of a shofar that itself may be masked, and hopefully having shorter services with no singing and fewer piyuttim recited. Wise rabbis will deliver fewer, shorter, or no sermons, and wiser chazanim will reduce their repertoires drastically. Most of us will share our meals only with immediate family, and tashlich will not be the usual community social event. But one thing will be the same. On the second day of the holiday, after the Torah is taken out of the ark, placed on the shulchan, and opened, the ba’al koreh will begin reading “vayehi achar ha-devarim ha-eleh, ve-haElokim nisah et Avraham” (And it came to pass after these things, that God tested Abraham) (Gen. 22:1) — the Akedah story. We’ll listen to a tale about God, a father, a test, a son, an angel, a knife, a ram; a story we may find difficult and question. But it will be read and we will listen. Derosh ve-kabel schar. Expound upon it and receive a reward. Ketivah ve-chatimah tovah to all. May we be granted a year of health, peace, and the wisdom to question and discuss. NEW JERSEY JEWISH NEWS SEPTEMBER 18, 2020 55
JS-56 Rosh Hashanah Our family meals will be very different, socially distant, and often lonely. Some of us will attend in-person services, following the many CDC rules and guidelines. Others will watch services livestreamed at home. The bottom line is that there will be cooking, and
Apple cake for yom tov and more It would not be Rosh Hashanah without the proverbial delicious apple cake. I found this recipe from Kosher.com by Elky Friedman and it is a true winner. It is light and does not have a lot of ingredients. Check out the complete collection of Rosh Hashanah and other holiday recipes for mains, sides, soups, desserts, and inspiration for the holidays.
—Beth Janoff Chananie
Honey cake never made it in my house. Most family members won’t touch it. The next best option for Rosh Hashanah? This moist and rich...apple cake! Of course, with less oil, this is a lighter version than most other apple cakes. You can also swap out the flour for white whole wheat (I use half white whole wheat and half regular flour for the best — Elky Friedman balance). Enjoy!
Light n’ moist apple cake Ingredients 3/4 cup sugar 3/4 cup brown sugar 1 cup almond or Gefen soy milk 1/2 cup oil 2 teaspoons Gefen vanilla 2 eggs 3 cups flour 1 teaspoon Haddar baking powder 1 teaspoon baking soda 1/2 teaspoon salt 1 teaspoon cinnamon 3 cups finely chopped apples (3 medium apples), peeled 1 cup shredded coconut (optional*) Instructions Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray a baking or bundt pan with nonstick cooking spray. In the bowl of an electric mixer, combine sugar, brown sugar, almond milk, oil, vanilla, and eggs. Mix well. Add flour, baking soda, salt,
families will gather in some way or other, either in person or on Zoom. Either way, enjoy that special time. Here’s hoping that next year will be a better year for all. Healthy and sweet happy new year wishes to all!
-Beth Janoff Chananie
Boys Town Jerusalem shares Rosh Hashanah recipe Boys Town Jerusalem’s Israeli-born chef Avi Chamal is preparing savory meat bourekas, the crispy pocket pastries that are a beloved staple of Israeli cuisine, for Rosh Hashanah this year. According to Chamal, who has headed the Boys Town Jerusalem kitchen for 16 years, “This dish is a special crowd-pleaser for the 950 Boys Town Jerusalem students we feed here six days a week.” The easy-to-prepare recipe lends a delectable flavor to Rosh Hashanah celebrations of every tradition. For more information, go to boystownjerusalem.org.
Courtesy Boys Town
R
osh Hashanah begins tonight, September 18, at sundown, about 8 p.m. It will be a busy holiday season, as it always is, a bit more challenging because it falls over several Shabboses, and of course, it’s much more challenging during a pandemic.
Chef Avi Chamal
Meat bourekas
and cinnamon. Mix until combined. Slowly fold in chopped apples and shredded coconut. Transfer batter to prepared pan. Bake for 45 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean. Garnish with additional coconut if desired. • Note: I love the flavor coconut adds to this cake, but if you’re not a EF fan, you can leave it out.
Ingredients
Instructions
1 pound ground beef 1 onion, chopped 1 teaspoon salt 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon 3 tablespoons silan (date honey) or honey optional: 1/2 cup thinly sliced cranberries, dates, and/or other dried fruits phyllo dough egg wash (one egg + water)
Sauté onions until translucent. Add chopped meat and brown until mostly cooked. Add salt, silan, and cinnamon, plus dried fruit if desired. While the meat mixture is cooling, preheat oven to 350 degrees. Cut phyllo dough into 3-inch squares. Place about 2 tablespoons of the meat mixture into the middle of each square, and bring two corners together to form a triangle. Pinch the sides to close the triangle. Place bourekas on a baking sheet. Brush the egg wash over the bourekas and top with sesame seeds, if desired. Bake the bourekas for 20 minutes, or until the dough is raised and golden.
Here’s one more easy recipe to adorn your holiday table. Enjoy! Apples & honey mustard chicken Ingredients: Honey mustard: 1⁄2 cup honey (spray the measuring cup with nonstick spray before measuring the honey; it will slide right out) 1⁄3 cup Dijon mustard 3 tablespoons mayonnaise Chicken: 1 large yellow onion, halved and thinly sliced 1-2 green apples, peeled, cored, and thinly sliced 1 whole chicken, cut into 10 pieces (or 8-10 pieces of whatever you like) kosher salt and coarsely ground black pepper, for seasoning the chicken 1 to 2 cups panko breadcrumbs
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Coat a large Pyrex baking dish or 9x13 inch pan with nonstick cooking spray. In a bowl, combine the ingredients for the honey mustard; set aside. Place sliced onions and 1⁄2 the sliced apples into the pan. Top with chicken pieces.
Sprinkle chicken liberally with salt and pepper. Use a spoon to coat all the chicken pieces with the honey mustard.
Sprinkle the breadcrumbs over the honey mustard till the chicken is fully coated. Place remaining apple slices in the little nooks and crannies all around the chicken. Spray the breadcrumbs with nonstick cooking spray. Cover the baking dish tightly with foil. Bake for 1 hour 20 minutes.
Remove foil; continue baking until the top is crispy and the chicken is cooked to —BJC your taste. Serve hot and enjoy!
56 NEW JERSEY JEWISH NEWS SEPTEMBER 18, 2020
Excerpted from Peas Love and Carrots by Danielle Renov. Copyright 2020 by ArtScroll Mesorah Publications, photos by Moshe Wulliger. Reproduced with permission of the copyright holder. All rights reserved.
JS-57 Rosh Hashanah
New cookbook out in time for Rosh Hashanah Penne “carbonara” with sweet peas and oven-dried tomatoes
Beth Chananie Award-winning food writer Michael Aaron Gardiner has written a new cookbook, “Modern Kosher: Global Flavors, New Traditions” (Rizzoli; September 2020). The book’s collection of recipes is divided into three parts — large and small plates of culturally Jewish recipes from Ashkenazi, Sephardic, and contemporary Israeli traditions; global recipes from Asia, India, Latin American, and European countries, and the Middle East; and “The Pantry,” which includes essential sauces, stocks, pickles, spice blends, garnishes, and flourishes. The book also includes a variety of vegan, vegetarian, and gluten-free fare. There are recipes for meals ranging from weeknight dinners to holiday feasts, and include new takes on traditional dishes. Photographs are by Sam Wells. As I’ve written before, when we receive cookbooks to consider for review, we decide if they �it the standards for our busy readers. Namely, the recipes must be kosher, user friendly, have a limited list of ingredients that are mostly at hand, have a short and clear instruction list, and be easy to prepare. We leave the books that come minus photographs and with complicated steps and ingredients to share with staff and/or we donate them to charities. Normally, my cookbook reviews are limited to those that �it our criteria, but “Modern Kosher” is not like typical cookbooks. It is for chefs who love kosher cuisine and will take the time to create special dishes. For example, the recipe for Roast Chicken With Schmaltz Massage and Le Puy Lentils calls for schmaltz, as the name suggests, and includes a recipe for fresh schmaltz. The ingredient lists are a bit long, and cooks must be ready for extra prep time, but in the end, you will be creating true masterpieces. The book takes kosher cooking to the next level. With High Holy Day and Sukkot lunches in mind, I chose this delicious recipe. Enjoy.
sam wells
“Traditionally, carbonara is pasta with egg, hard cheese, guanciale (or pancetta or prosciutto), and black pepper. Sweet peas are a frequent addition that I chose to include here for the sweetness and freshness they add to the dish. Because guanciale, pancetta, and prosciutto are pork products, of course, traditional carbonara is not kosher. But when you look at the role guanciale plays in the dish, it really comes down to one word—umami. There are other ways to get the sort of umami those pork products bring to the party, one of the best being oven-dried tomatoes, which bring a similar depth of flavor and a similar savory pro�ile as the cured pork. Carbonara is classically made with bucatini or spaghetti, but I love making it with penne pasta. Why? Because the little bits—the peas and oven-dried tomatoes in this recipe—get stuck in the tubes of penne. But you can use whichever shape you prefer.” — miChael gardiner
IngredIents Salt 1 pound dry penne 3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil 1/4 pound oven-dried tomatoes (recipe right), sliced into small strips 4 cloves garlic, finely chopped 1 cup frozen sweet peas, thawed 2 large eggs 1 cup freshly grated Pecorino Romano cheese (plus more for serving) 1 handful fresh parsley, chopped
Oven-dried tomatoes IngredIents
InstructIons Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil, add the pasta, and cook for 8 to 10 minutes, to the point that the pasta is al dente. Drain the pasta well, reserving at least 1/2 cup of the starchy cooking water to use in the sauce. Meanwhile, heat 2 tablespoons of the olive oil in a deep skillet over medium heat. Add the oven-dried tomatoes to the pan, increase the heat to high, and cook for about 2 minutes, until the tomatoes are slightly caramelized. Turn the heat down to medium, add the garlic and sweet peas, and cook for another 2 minutes. Beat the eggs and cheese together in a medium bowl, stirring well to prevent lumps. Add the hot, drained pasta to the pan along with the remaining 1 tablespoon olive oil and toss to coat the pasta. Reduce the heat to maintain a simmer and pour the egg mixture into the pasta, mixing quickly until the eggs thicken but do not scramble (it is lower risk to do this off the heat, but the results will never be as good). Thin out the sauce with a bit of the reserved pasta water, until it just clings to the pasta. Taste the dish and adjust the seasoning. Divide the carbonara among plates and garnish with the parsley.
6 pounds plum tomatoes, halved lengthwise 1/4 cup fresh oregano, rosemary, and/or thyme leaves 1 teaspoon salt 1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper 1 1/2 cups extra-virgin olive oil (optional), for storing YIeLd: ABout 2 cuPs InstructIons Preheat the oven to 250 degrees and set two racks in the upper- and lower-middle of the oven. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper and place a wire rack on each sheet. Lightly brush each rack with oil. Arrange the halved tomatoes on the racks, cut-side up, then sprinkle with the herbs, salt, and pepper. Place one sheet on the top rack and the other on the bottom. Roast for 2 hours, then switch the two racks. Continue roasting until the tomatoes have shrunk by approximately half and are dry to the touch, about another 2 hours. Remove from the oven, take the racks off of the baking sheets, and let cool completely. Use the oven-dried tomatoes immediately or transfer to 1-quart mason jars and cover with the olive oil. They will keep in the refrigerator for up to 2 weeks. serVes 4 to 6 reCipes © modern kosher
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JS-58 Kosher Crossword
“Starts of the New Year?” By Yoni Glatt [email protected] Difficulty Level: Medium
The Frazzled Housewife
Another new year, hopefully
A
Across
Down
1. Annoys 5. Not live, as on TV 10. Snake sound 14. Mine finds 15. Kemper who played Kimmy Schmidt 16. Moab’s state 17. Trips couples are unlikely to take over 10 Tishrei 19. Prefix with phone, tron or bytes 20. Leb. neighbor 21. Mimicked 22. Big name in Jewish camps 23. Chew on a baby toy, say 25. “The Man” Musial 27. Building a sukkah near them is a bad idea 33. Cold home 36. Make into a movie, maybe 37. Soap ingredient 38. “Dark” film 39. Makes mittens, in a way 40. “Just Do It” brand 41. . follower 42. Da follower, in art 43. With ___ breath (showing anticipation) 44. They can remind people to burn more (Rosh Hashanah) calories 47. Hawaiian necklaces 48. Best Actor winner in 2017 52. They aren’t given to Israelis in some countries 55. Batman’s hood 57. Some kosher symbols 58. First name? 59. The tale of Jonah? 62. Del Rey or Turner 63. Legendary composer Morricone 64. Dershowitz of note 65. They might be split 66. Linda Ronstadt hit “Blue ___” 67. Fem. counterpart
1. Like a rare baseball game 2. Got up 3. 38-Across, e.g. 4. Tel Aviv to Hebron dir. 5. Short fuse, so to speak 6. Sunburn soother 7. Slog (through) 8. ___ Gedi, Israel 9. Moines preceder 10. Compassionate 11. Tabloid twosome 12. Long tale 13. Iran ruler, once 18. Where many play Fantasy Football 22. Deliver a diatribe, e.g. 24. One eyed Marvel hero 25. Crackling noise, in radio 26. Recipe abbr. 28. Mums’ mums 29. Authoritative order 30. Skirt opening 31. Little one 32. Plant starter 33. Ancient Peruvian 34. Gunk 35. Favor one leg 39. One from New Zealand 40. ___AQ, NYSE competitor 42. Victory letters 43. Quasimodo rang them 45. Alpaca relatives 46. “___ doin’?” (“Friends” catchphrase) 49. Cash, casually 50. Angels might have them 51. Big boy band in 2000 52. Land between hills, poetically 53.”Boee” singer Raichel 54. Beach, mostly 55. They sang 56-Down 56. State that was a hit for 55-Down 59. Summer mo., in Australia 60. “Barefoot” Garten in the kitchen 61. When doubled, a cracker
58 New Jersey Jewish News SEPTEMBER 18, 2020
new year. Never in the histhe whole world has been subject to tory of all the Jewish New the 2020 version of the Spanish flu. Years in my 49 years of Perhaps if I had paid more attention in life, has the concept of a history class, I would have been a little more prepared, but truth is, I don’t “new year” had more significance than think it would have made a difference. this one. When you are in school, you learn Six months into this disaster, people all about the Jewish new year. The are still ashamed to be honest about apples and the honey, and a plethora whether they have had it. Heavens forbid we should get the of melodies to combine name of a person, so we the two. The honey is for or our kids can know if a sweet new year. I am not they came in contact really sure about the apple with the person. Peo(hopefully the teachers ple — it isn’t a sexually who taught me the origin transmitted disease — of the apple are not reading this — unfortunately it you didn’t get it because is probably because they you were cheating on are no longer with us). We your spouse! There is Banji get a new fruit to signify nothing to be ashamed Ganchrow the beginning of a new of! And while I am on year. This year, because this tirade, when you husband #1 doesn’t eat any are outside walking fruit, I decided to save money on the WEAR A FREAKIN MASK!!!!!! At least seven dollar prickly whozzitfruit (not wear it around your neck so you can its real name) and just buy a nectarine. pull it up if someone walks by you. Jeez I haven’t had one all year — and huslouise. Sorry, went off track again. band #1 has never had one — so I will Everything is going to be different in save the money for my 50th birthday the way we celebrate starting this new present and call it a day. year. Shofar blowing will be performed Some people — I think my father-indifferently, no wanna-be-chazzans will law is one of them — eats the head of a be trying their best to sing for hours, fish. It’s also about starting out the year company isn’t supposed to be had. Lots “a head.” Get it? A head? At least it is of people will be alone…again. Not the the head of a fish and not a cow. Yuck. ideal situation. The real question is, will But people have their beliefs (not to be our prayers be different? After many of confused with superstitions, because us have faced life or death situations, we are not a superstitious people. I even will we be different? Better? Kinder? gave up reading my horoscope when I More patient? Will we say the words got married because husband #1 was with meaning and not just by rote? Will so opposed to it. And, I guess marrying be be true to any resolutions or promises we make to God? Did we learn any him was the ultimate horoscope fulfillment of “you will find love”…to be read lessons from anything that happened with slight sarcasm...) this year or do we just go back to being But this year has been quite the the miserable, self centered humans of doozy. For me, it started out great. Son years past? #1 and dil #1 got married right before Human nature dictates the latter, the Jewish new year, so not only did unfortunately. But, perhaps, even if we they survive their first year of marall make just one small change, a teeny riage, dil #1 survived her first year of tiny adjustment — a smile or a wave or a marriage that included living with quarter in the tzedakah box — perhaps me for a few weeks in the beginning all those changes can add up to something extraordinary. of quarantine! Now that is something Wishing all of you a healthy and worth celebrating! Of course this past happy and sweet and prosperous and new year brought other trials and tribulations. I had my “episode” in Decemmagical new year. ber, when I woke up in the back of an ambulance with no recollection of Banji Ganchrow of Teaneck is hoping how I got there. My dad was back in to learn how to keep her mouth shut the hospital, back in rehab and, unforthis year, but it is doubtful that it will tunately, not ever back to himself. And happen. But she will try her best.
JS-59
Arts & Culture The tribe goes to the virtual Emmys
T
Pundits say she is likely to win an Emmy this year. Supporting actress, drama series: JULIA GARNER, 26, “Ozark.” Non-Jews nominated for playing Jews: Rachel Brosnahan, as Mrs. Maisel; Tony Shalhoub and Marin Hinkle as Mrs. Maisel’s parents; and Tracey Ullman as the late BETTY FRIEDAN (“Mrs. America,” a limited series).
he Primetime Emmys, for excellence in TV, will be presented — virtually, of course — on Sunday, September 20, at 8 p.m. on ABC. Jimmy Kimmel will host. The red carpet parade, of course, will not happen. However, there may be unexpected amusing glitches and perhaps intentional mishigosh that the nominees, streamed sitting in their homes, devise. It might really be fun to see an Emmy nominee, in her home, in her pajamas, or in a house dress, wearing a diamond tiara.
Directors
The director nominations list a specific episode, but I have omitted the episode name. Comedy series: Amy Sherman-Palladino, “Mrs. Maisel,” MATT SHAKMAN, 45, “The Great,” and JAMES BURROWS, 79, “Will & Grace.” Burrows is in the pantheon of TV directors. Older readers will remember his father, ABE BURROWS (originally Abram Borowitz), a great comedy writer who co-wrote such classics as “How to Succeed in Business” and “Guys and Dolls.” He frequently appeared on “What’s My Line” in the 1950s (see YouTube). WOODY ALLEN is a distant cousin of Abe and James Burrows. Drama series: LESLI LINKA GLATTER, 67, “Homeland,” MIMI LEDER, 68, “The Morning Show,” and ALIK SAKHAROV, 62, “Ozark.” Sakharov was born in Tashkent, in the former Soviet Union. He came to the States in the ’80s and worked himself up, first shooting industrial films, then musical videos, TV ads, and, finally, narrative films and TV shows. He has long been a top director of photography and he was the D.P. for many episodes of “The Sopranos” and “Game of Thrones.” Since 2006, he also has directed many TV shows. Limited series/TV movie: LENNY ABRAHAMSON, 53, “Normal People,” and NICOLE KASSELL, 48, “Watchmen.” Abrahamson, as I have noted before, was born and raised in Ireland. He was Oscar-nominated in 2015 for directing “Room.” “Normal People”, on Hulu, follows an Irish couple from high school through college.
Best series nominees
If a series creator (below) has a “W” near their name, they also are nominated for a writing Emmy for a specific episode. I have omitted the episode name. There are no Jewish nominated writers other than the ones with a “W” near their name. The award for best comedy, drama, and so on is given to the series’ principal producers. My practice is to note that best series creator, who is always a nominated producer, too. Seven of the eight series nominated for best comedy have a Jewish creator: “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” LARRY DAVID, 73; “Dead to Me,” LIZ FELDMAN, 43; “The Good Place,” MICHAEL SCHUR, 44 (W); “The Kominsky Method,” CHUCK LORRE, 67; “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel,” AMY SHERMAN-PALLADINO, 54; “Schitt’s Creek,” EUGENE LEVY, 73, and his son, DAN LEVY, 39 (W); and “What We Do in the Shadows,” TAIKA WAITITI, 45. Three of the eight nominated best drama series have a Jewish creator: “The Crow,” PETER MORGAN, 57 (W); “The Handmaid’s Tale,” BRUCE MILLER, 55ish; and “The Mandolarian,” JON FAVREAU, 53. The following were nominated for best limited series and had a Jewish creator(s): “The Watchmen,” DAMON LINDELOF, 47 (W) — Lindelof grew up in Teaneck; “Unbelievable,” AYELET WALDMAN, 55, and her husband, MICHAEL CHABON, 57; and “Unorthodox” (based on a book by DEBORAH FELDMAN, 34 ). The series, about a chasidic woman, was written by ANNA WINGER, 49 (W), ALEXA KAROLINSKI, 34, and DANIEL HENDLER, 40ish. The first two also produced the series. Winger and Hendler are Americans who lives in Germany. Karolinski was born and raised in Berlin’s small Jewish community.
Creatives
The acting nominees
Here are the Jewish acting nominees in the categories presented in the main Emmy ceremony: Lead actor, comedy series: MICHAEL DOUGLAS, 75, “Kominsky Method,” and Eugene Levy, “Schitt’s Creek.” Supporting actor, comedy: ALAN ARKIN, 86, “Kominsky,” and Dan Levy, “Schitt’s Creek.” Lead actress, comedy: TRACEE ELLIS ROSS, 47, “Black-ish.” Supporting actress, comedy: ALEX BORSTEIN, 49, “Mrs. Maisel.” Lead
actress, limited series: SHIRA HAAS, 25, “Unorthodox.” Haas, who was born and raised in Israel, is the first Israeli to be nominated for a Primetime Awards Emmy in acting. She is the granddaughter of a Holocaust survivor who was imprisoned in Auschwitz.
Many Emmy awards are given at the separate Primetime Creative Arts Emmy ceremonies. (This year it was held on September 14-17 and will air on FXX on September 19.) Here are just some of the Jewish “creative” nominees: Best Variety Sketch Show: “SNL,” produced and created by LORNE MICHAELS, 75, and “Drunk History,” co-created by JEREMY KONNER, 45ish. Guest actress, comedy series: BETTE MIDLER, 74, “The Politician,” and MAYA RUDOLPH, 48, “SNL” (for a comedy skit in which she played Sen. Kamala Harris) AND for “The Good Place” (two nominations). Unstructured Reality Show: “Amy Learns to Cook,” AMY SCHUMER; 39. Hosted Non-Fiction Series: JERRY SEINFELD, 66, “Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee,” and JEFF GOLDBLUM, 67, “The World According to Jeff Goldblum.” Outstanding Short Form Comedy Series: RANDY RAINBOW, 39, “The Randy Rainbow Show” (on YouTube). Voice/ Animated Character: HANK AZARIA, 56, “The Simpsons,” Maya Rudolph, “Big Mouth,” and Taiki Waiti; – Nate Bloom “The Mandolorian.”
NEW JERSEY JEWISH NEWS SEPTEMBER 18, 2020 59
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Mitchell Friedman
Mitchell Friedman, son of Sharleen and Andrew Friedman, celebrated becoming a bar mitzvah on Saturday, September 5, during Mincha services, on Zoom, at Temple B’nai Abraham in Livingston.
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JS-63 Lifecycle He is survived by his children, Nancy Medford (David), Cathy Dobkins, and Karen Dobkins; nine grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren. Donations to the Heart Success Program at Morristown Medical Center.
Leona Green
Leona “Lee” Green, 89, of Newark and Livingston died on August 9. She taught children with disabilities and was an active member of Temple B’nai Abraham in Livingston. Her husband, Herman, died in 1978. She is survived by her children, Robert (Mindee), Marla Lubetkin, Susan Krantz (Mark), and David; and six grandchildren. Donations to the Alzheimer’s Association, act.alz. org/goto/LeeGreen.
Millie Zuckerman
Millie Zuckerman, 95, of Livingston died on August 9. She was born in Poland and was a hidden child during the Holocaust. Predeceased by her husband, Abraham, a Holocaust survivor who was saved by Oskar Schindler, she is survived by their children; Ann Sklar (Bernard), Ruth Katz (Steven W.), and Wayne (Deborah); 10 grandchildren, and eight great-grandchildren. The Zuckermans never forgot the people who saved them. Abe and his business partners honored Oskar Schindler in many ways, including dedicating streets in his name throughout the many communities they built in New Jersey and the New York metropolitan area. Millie was instrumental in having the family who saved her recognized at the Avenue of the Righteous among Nations at Yad Vashem.
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School from page 9
poses a challenge to Jewish studies teachers who use the chevruta method, where pairs of students study the texts together. “Our teachers are incredibly creative,” Mr. Shapiro said. “While we may not have our kids pushing their desks together, there are ways to bridge that divide, either through technology, or through after schoolwork the kids do through Zoom. “Just because they’re unable to be physically with one another doesn’t mean they can’t learn closely from one another,” he added. As at the Kushner schools, GOA students eat their lunch outside. “We have a number of tents,” Mr. Shapiro said.
“Every student was supplied with a very cool stadium seat type cushion, like a portable chair. Whether they’re on the grass, under a tent, or at a picnic table, they’re able to eat outside and be distanced from one another. “What it really boils down to is our community, and our community has been able to support one another even though we are remaining distanced from one another. It’s forced us throughout to find new ways to connect to one another, to look out for one another. “Though we may not be able to stand next to to one another, that connectedness to our community has never been stronger.”
Brooklyn from page 34
Brooklyn neighborhood, Borough Park, have come back positive at more than four times the citywide rate recently, and large gatherings such as weddings have been eyed as a culprit in the virus’ spread there. 770 Eastern Parkway closed for the first time ever in March as the pandemic settled over New York City. Its reopening in June, which featured dense and largely unmasked crowds, was a sign that many in Brooklyn’s
Orthodox communities felt the worst had passed. Local doctors and community leaders are now trying to shake that sense of security. “Over the past 24 hours we have become aware of multiple new cases of COVID here in Crown Heights, both in residents and those from out of town,” the Gedaliah Society posted early Sunday morning. “This represents for the first time since Purim a very worrisome surge in new cases.” Jewish Telegraphic Agency
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L’SHANA TOVA Once again, we approach a major Jewish holiday season in the era of COVID-19. There’s no doubt that 5780 will long live in our memories as a trying time for all of us, but we’ll also look back with pride on the work we accomplished together, as a community, to support and care for one another. As we eagerly welcome 5781, we’ll surely rely on the community partnerships we’ve forged over the past 100 years to re-open, reintegrate, and rebuild. It’s a symbolic time to launch a new relationship with a local Jewish newspaper. We’re proud to partner with the Jewish Standard and to reaffirm our commitment to serving and informing our Greater MetroWest community. We wish you a Chag Sameach and best wishes for a sweeter, healthier new year. Your Family at Jewish Federation of Greater MetroWest NJ
Federation cares for people in need, builds Jewish life, and saves the world, one person at a time, every day. Building an inclusive community is a priority. Contact us and we will make every effort to meet your needs.
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HIGH HOLIDAYS @HOME Federation has collaborated with community clergy, educators, and leaders to compile High Holidays@Home. This web page is chock-full of videos, supplemental resources, and a list of Greater MetroWest synagogues that are making their virtual or in-person services open to the public, all to help you make the upcoming holidays uniquely meaningful for your family. jfedgmw.org/highholidays
For the latest information & happenings in the Jewish community, visit us at jfedgmw.org
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JS-66 Jewish World
Trump supporters display QAnon posters at a 2018 rally in Florida. Recently, Latinos in the state have been inundated with anti-Semitic messages, many relating to the false QAnon conspiracy theory. Thomas O’Neill/NurPhoto via Getty Images
Florida Latinos flooded with anti-Semitic conspiracy theories before the election Ben Sales
A
nti-Semitic conspiracy theories are spreading among Florida’s Latino communities before the presidential election. They’re being amplified by social media and messaging apps as well as by respected mainstream outlets. According to a report in Politico, much of the anti-Semitism stems from QAnon, the false but growing conspiracy theory that claims that Democrats and what it calls the “deep state” run a pedophile ring and are working to take down President Donald Trump. Purveyors of the theory often traffic in classic anti-Semitic tropes, claiming that powerful Jews control the anti-Trump cabal. The exact origin of the messages — which are circulating in groups on WhatsApp, the Facebook-owned messaging app, or on social media — is unclear. But they reflect both the themes in the QAnon theory and rhetoric deployed widely on the right that
urges voters to fear disorder if Trump is unseated. The theories have also been amplified by more respected outlets. Radio Caracol, a well-regarded Colombian radio network, hosted someone who claimed that Jewish American financier George Soros is “the world’s biggest puppet master,” and ran a 16-minute paid segment in August claiming that if Joe Biden wins the election, it would lead to a dictatorship in the United States run by “Jews and Blacks.” Radio Caracol since has apologized. In another instance last Friday, the Miami Herald’s Spanish partner, El Nuevo Herald, included an advertising insert called “Libre” that included anti-Semitic views and attacked Black Lives Matter. The paper apologized and ended its relationship with Libre. “What kind of people are these Jews?” the ad insert said, according to Politico. “They’re always talking about the Holocaust, but have they already forgotten Kristallnacht, when Nazi
66 NEW JERSEY JEWISH NEWS SEPTEMBER 18, 2020
thugs rampaged through Jewish shops all over Germany? So do the BLM and Antifa, only the Nazis didn’t steal; they only destroyed.” Much of Trump’s recent campaign has revolved around the national protests against racism and the looting and rioting that at times accompanied them. He has said, without providing any evidence, that if Biden defeats him, American voters can expect more disorder. That message could resonate among some of Florida’s Latino voters. They include some who are Jewish, including a substantial community of Cuban émigrés in Miami who fled the Communist regime there and who tend to be politically conservative. Dina Siegel Vann, director of the American Jewish Committee’s Belfer Institute for Latino and Latin American Affairs, said the anti-Semitic conspiracies appear to be coming mostly from the right. She said she’s “very concerned” about them, and that her office has been reaching out to media outlets
to combat the stereotypes. But she said that the spread of conspiracy theories doesn’t surprise her given QAnon’s increasing popularity and the significance of Florida in the coming election. “I would be surprised if Florida were not inundated,” she said. “You have it all over the country, and Florida is a very important swing state. Latinos are such an important constituency in Florida.” She said that before this year, among Latino communities, “you didn’t see these types of conspiracy theories in the least.” While Annette Taddeo, a Colombian-American Jewish state senator from Miami, did call out the Radio Caracol segment as a “disgusting message,” Siegel Vann said she’s disappointed that there hasn’t been a stronger response to the anti-Semitism from opinion makers and government officials. “There should have been an outcry in the media itself and there should have been an outcry in government from both parties,” she said. “You didn’t see that.”
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
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