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VOLUME IX, NUMBER 5
MARCH 10, 2016
Where politics meets hate: antisemitism on the 2016 campaign trail ANALYSIS BY DR. STEVEN WINDMUELLER JNS.org The Southern Poverty Law Center recently issued its annual report on hate in America. Mark Potok, the editor of the report, noted that there is “enormous rage in the electorate, the growth of hate groups and also hate speech in mainstream politics to an extent that we have not seen in decades.” The SPLC reported a 14percent increase in the actual number of hate organizations; the increase in such types of groups grew from 784 in 2014 to 892 in 2015. Hate groups are classified as organizations whose speech “maligns or demeans” an entire group of people. According to the report, “hate speech” included Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s statements on how illegal immigrants, particularly Mexicans, are more likely to be rapists; Trump’s proposal to ban Muslim immigration to America; his tweets that echo racist propaganda; and his retweeting of white
supremacists’ posts. The SPLC said that all of these statements caused Trump to receive “glowing endorsements from white nationalist leaders.” As a result of immigration and globalization, a major demographic transition is taking place within this country. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, by 2043, no one ethnic or racial group will comprise the majority. This factor is in part creating a “significant backlash” among certain groups of white Americans, who are fearful of a fundamentally different type of American society. In the current landscape of the 2016 presidential campaign, one finds angry working-class voters who feel uncertain about the future of America being attracted to candidates who seek to place the blame for the nation’s problems on foreigners and various governments across the globe. Their anti-immigrant messages and obvious distaste for Muslims have fueled the airwaves and served as a centerpiece for their political campaigns. The populist rhetoric calling for the removal of particular groups of people and returning
America to its greatness can be found on various websites and through social media messaging. All this begs the question: Are we experiencing one of the most hate-based presidential campaigns in history? Several factors contribute to the deteriorating quality of the political discourse, including the instability within the economy and the loss of the civility that once defined American politics. Elections can generate a form of hate politics and, more directly, antisemitism. In the current campaign, for example, certain candidates are described as the puppets of the Jews, while other candidates are seen as too close to Israel. During election cycles, various types of conspiratorial ideas and distorted images are accentuated. Jews are often depicted by an array of labels and negative images, including “communists,” “disloyal” or “parasites.” This rhetoric of hate is frequently generated by traditional antisemites seeking to promote their own political agenda, or by a class of discontented and angry voters who seek to place blame on a particular group.
Spotlight
Coming home: A mother leaves Prague in a cattle car and her son returns on Air Force One
away, but memories of to be ambassador in Prague other events. In 1944, Frieda of all places: “The president – along with her parents, thought it would be a resiblings, and other family markable thing for the son of members – was sent to Ausa Czechoslovak Holocaust survivor to return and repchwitz. Although she and two siblings miraculously resent the U.S.… No one survived, their parents and from my immediate famother relatives weren’t as ily had returned since my fortunate, Hashem yikom mother fled Communism damam (may Hashem in 1949, and the symbolism Norman Eisen (Photo avenge their blood). of [returning there] was just by Sharon Farmer On his first day as too unique an opportunity to Photography) ambassador, following pass up.” It wasn’t her flight from Communism all of the formal greetings and arrival that kept Eisen’s mother, Frieda, a”h, who ceremonies, after everything had quieted was born and raised in Czechoslovakia, down a bit and everyone else had gone to sleep, Eisen sat alone in the library of his new home reflecting on the events of the day. The head of the ambassador’s household, Miroslav Cernik, came into the room and informed the ambassador that there was something Cernik wanted to show him. Cernik led Eisen to a small, ornate table and proceeded to ask Eisen to please look underneath the table. The ambassador, who thought it a rather unusual request, complied nonetheless, and proceeded to get down on his hands and knees, crawling under the table. Nothing could have prepared Eisen for what he found there: a sticker with the clearly discernable image of an eagle See “Prague” on page 3 The residence of the U.S. ambassador in Prague. (Photo by Wikimedia.org)
BY ROBERT SUSSMAN Reprinted from Jewish Life magazine, www.jewishlife.co.za, download the free Jewish Life app on iOS and Android Norman Eisen met Barack Obama as law school classmates at Harvard University, where they became friends, remaining in touch even after their school days ended. When Obama eventually won the U.S. presidency, he appointed Eisen, in 2009, to serve as his Special Counsel for Ethics and Government Reform. Only a couple of years later, in 2011, the president tapped Eisen to be the U.S. ambassador to the Czechs, a position once famously held by Shirley Temple Black. And it was no coincidence that Obama chose Eisen
INSIDE THIS ISSUE Social media
For the birds...
Purim
Jewish journalist Jeffrey Goldberg confirms this scenario when writing about the 2016 campaign on Twitter, noting that “if you have a Jewish name and say something about Trump, expect to be hit by a wave of antisemitic invective.” Ted Nugent, a National Rifle Association board member and supporter of Trump’s candidacy, launched an attack on Jews and gun control by posting photos of 12 Jewish Americans overlaid with Israeli flags and antisemitic labels. “Know these punks. They hate freedom, they hate good over evil, they would deny us the basic human right to self defense & to KEEP & BEAR ARMS while many of them have tax paid hired ARMED security!… Tell every 1 you know how evil they are. Let us raise maximum hell to shut them down!” Nugent posted on Facebook. Since posting that message, Nugent apologized for his comments. Another recent example involved the campaign of Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL). Tablet magazine reported that a heckler, jumping out of his seat, shouted during a See “Politics” on page 7
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Candle lighting March 11........................................5:47 pm March 18....................................... 6:55 pm March 25...................................... 7:03 pm
A Dutch thrift store owner used Israel’s Hula Valley is a mecca A look at seven ways to combine PLUS Facebook to find relatives of a for birdwatchers with 300 bird costumes and mishloach manot Opinion........................................................2 couple murdered in the Shoah. species sighted each year. themes for Purim. D’var Torah..............................................10 Story on page 7 Story on page 8 Story on page 12 News in Brief...........................................15
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THE REPORTER ■ MARCH 10, 2016
A MATTER OF OPINION The tyranny of deceit A response to “Israel Apartheid Week” on U.S. campuses Reprinted with permission of Arutz Sheva (Israel National News) In the aftermath of World War II, with the hideous revelation that two-thirds of European Jews had been systematically exterminated by the Nazis, antisemitism became unfashionable, but that is no longer the case. Only a few days ago, a Jewish man was stabbed in Ukraine for no other reason than being Jewish, and in January [2014], pig heads were sent to Jewish institutions in Rome. A poll recently held in Poland found that 63 percent of its people believe that there is a Jewish conspiracy to control the international media and banking systems, and 13 percent of Poles still believe that Jews use Christian blood for personal ritual purposes. As Dan Margalit wrote recently in Israel Hayom, “The world’s Left and Right may be at odds over every possible issue, but when it comes to hating Jews they find common ground.” As the memory of the Holocaust fades into history, as we continue to transfer petro-wealth to our enemies; as Europe morphs into Eurabia and the most popular name for newborns in major European capitals continues to be Mohammed; as Islamists take control over the U.N. and an increasing number of Middle East and North African countries; and as our universities become hotbeds for virulent anti-
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than Israeli Jewish students. The Golani Brigade, an elite Israeli army unit, recently appointed Colonel Rassan Alian, a Druze, as its commander. Alian joins other members of the Druze community who have served or are currently serving as Israeli ambassadors to Brazil, Norway and the Dominican Republic. Moreover, in February 2013, a new Miss Israel was MARK SILVERBERG named. She was Yityish Aynaw, a 21-year old EthioNatan Sharansky uses what he terms pian-born Israeli. And she is not the first “the 3D test” to distinguish legitimate Ethiopian-born Israeli to be honored. criticism of Israel from antisemitism, In 2011, Hagit Yaso was the first Ethioand he identifies the three categories as pian-born winner of the Israeli version de-legitimization, demonization and the of “American Idol.” In 2012, Belaynesh double standard. Zevadia was appointed Israel’s first Taking these three factors into account, Ethiopian-born ambassador – to Ethiopia; one can discern that the new antisemitism in January 2013, Pnina Tamano-Shata manifests itself in many different forms and (of the Yesh Atid party) became the first in many different forums – through divest- Ethiopian woman to be elected to the ment campaigns, international boycotts of Knesset; and Ahmad Tibi, an Arab Israeli, Israeli products, entertainers and academics, is deputy speaker of the Israeli Knesset holding Israel to standards no other nations and leader of the Arab Movement for in the world are required to meet and through Change, or Ta’al. In fact, in the whole Middle East, only “Israel Apartheid Week” on Canadian and American college campuses where Israel is 1.6 million Arabs have complete political assigned the role of “Jew” among the na- and religious freedom... and all of them tions of the world to be singled-out, cursed, live in Israel. Some apartheid! The fact that these anti-Israeli boycott harassed and defamed. As Richard Cohen wrote in The campaigners on our campuses attack Israel Washington Post, “Google ‘Israel and as an apartheid state not only demonstrates Apartheid,’ you will see that the two are their ignorance of what apartheid was in linked in cyberspace despite the fact that SouthAfrica, but raises the issue of why they Israeli Arabs, about one-fifth of Israel’s do not propose boycotts of states that truly population, have the same civil and politi- merit international disgust and censure. It is because these protests aren’t just cal rights as do Israeli Jews, and even sit against Israel. They are also against the in the Knesset.” Consider this: Under apartheid in Jewish people. Israel’s Operation Cast Lead South Africa, whites and non-whites at the close of 2008 – a legitimate act of lived in separate regions of the country. self-defense by any and all international Non-whites were prohibited from running standards – evoked universal resentment businesses or professional practices in the and hatred. Around the world, synagogues white areas without permits. They had and Jewish graves were desecrated and anseparate amenities (i.e. beaches, buses, tisemitic chants were shouted at protests. In schools, benches, drinking fountains, April 2009, a swastika was found painted on restrooms), received inferior education, a Jewish fraternity house at the University medical care and other public services, of Florida and on American campuses, and and although they were the overwhelming comparisons continue to be made between majority of the population, they could not Israelis and Nazis, and between Palestinian vote or become citizens. refugee camps and Auschwitz. In contrast, Israel is a democracy in In all of this, it is quite clear that which Jews and Arabs have equal rights distinctions between anti-Zionism and under the law, live where they choose and antisemitism are increasingly blurred. benefit from the same health, welfare and Taken in its totality, Israel not only has infrastructure policies and programs. Is- no right to defend itself in response to raeli Arabs also enjoy the highest standard terrorist attacks, but it has no right to exist of living, the highest rates of longevity – which suggests that missile attacks on and literacy, and the lowest rate of infant Israel’s civilian population are not only mortality of any Arab-Muslim population justified, but desirable. The lies perpetrated by otherwise in the Middle East! Israel also has an open political system respectable international religious, educain which Israeli Arabs vote, run for office tional and political bodies, not to mention and serve in government. Moreover, Israel much of the Western media, against the allows freedom of speech to a degree not only democracy in the Middle East are tolerated in the Arab-Muslim world, and in most notable in the double standards that fact does not even employ the same kinds are applied to Israel as opposed to states of safeguards against sedition and treason that have slaughtered their own peoples that are taken for granted in the United for decades with absolute immunity from States and other Western democracies. international censure. Given all this, it should come as no It is true, of course, that criticizing Israel surprise that Salim Jubran, an Israeli Arab, does not make one an antisemite any more sits on the Supreme Court of Israel, and than criticizing the government of France Arabic is an official language in Israel and makes one anti-French. But it’s one thing is posted on all road signs. to criticize France, and something else to In 1948, there was only one Arab high declare the French nation illegitimate and school in Israel. Today there are hundreds. to advocate its destruction. Martin Luther The valedictorian of the most recent King, Jr. once referred to Israel as “one graduating class at the medical school at of the great outposts of democracy in the Israel’s MIT – Technion – was a Muslim world,” with an “incontestable right to exwoman. Israel is also the only country in ist,” but on Canadian and U.S. campuses the region in which the Christian popu- today, he would be a pariah. Funny how these campus activists lation isn’t falling precipitously. Israel’s Arab Christians in fact make up one-third never seem to mention the Syrian de jure of Israel’s pharmacists and have a higher occupation of Lebanon, or Saudi funding rate of success on their graduation exams of global jihad, or the treatment of Saudi Israel teachings and rhetoric; logic fades, fictions become facts, distinctions between democracies and tyrannies become irrelevant. History becomes unimportant, and antisemitism and anti-Zionism become indistinguishable.
FROM THE DESK OF THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
women, or the crushing of all democratic dissent in Iran. They have no difficulty bemoaning capital punishment in the United States, but say nothing when the Palestinians routinely execute suspected Israeli collaborators, including the mothers of young children, or when Hamas throws Fatah supporters to their deaths off 15-story buildings. These demonstrators have no problem with the anti-democratic regimes that govern the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, the Islamic Republic of Mauritania or the Islamic Republic of Iran, but they are incensed at the idea of a Jewish state of Israel despite such a state being the only true democracy in the Middle East. It is shameful that pro-Palestinian professors and students on American, Canadian and European campuses pretend that the only reason for the problems in the Middle East is because of Israeli obstinacy, as if it is the fault of the Israelis and not the rejectionist Arab world. Not only has every Israeli concession and every act of goodwill and compassion not changed the way Israel is portrayed – but each concession, each accommodation, each withdrawal – first from Lebanon, then from Gaza – has only fed the furious hatred that Islam and the international community feels for it. Borders have nothing to do with peace in the Middle East. It is the existence of Israel as a Jewish state in the midst of the Muslim umma that offends the Arabs and their supporters. Even if the Jews were to redraw their borders along the lines proposed by the Peel Commission in 1937, hatred toward Jews would not have been affected. The Palestinians have never been willing to make do with a small state of their own. They want “justice,” revenge, recognition as victims and, above all else, the “right of return.” For that reason, they are unwilling to declare an end to the conflict, nor are they prepared to promise to make no further demands in future. They will never recognize Israel as a Jewish state. In fact, it is the history of Jews in that land stretching back 3,500 years that offends them, which accounts for their threats against Israel when it declares its intention to make the Cave of the Patriarchs and Rachel’s Tomb national historic sites with the aim of restoring them and opening them to the world. The fact that all religions will have freedom of access to such sites is irrelevant to the Palestinians, who have spent millions of U.S. and European dollars teaching their children that Jews are “the descendants of pigs and monkeys” who came to the land as usurpers less than a century ago, that the biblical Canaanites were Arabs, Jesus was a Palestinian and Abraham was a Muslim, despite the fact that he lived almost 3,000 years before Islam was born! This is all the more disturbing, as Professor Nissim Dana of Ariel University writes, when one realizes that “in the Koran, there are 10 passages which state that Allah bequeathed the land to the Jewish people. In all of these instances, it is written that there is not only the right but the obligation placed on the Sons of Israel to inherit the land. On the other hand, there is no mention in the Koran of bequeathing the land to Muslims, Arabs, Palestinians, or any other nation not called the Jewish people.” As for the claim that the Palestinians are the descendants of the Canaanites, Dana notes that “the Koran says the Canaanites were ordered expelled from the holy land by Allah after they had defiled the land.” See “Tyranny 1” on page 4
MARCH 10, 2016 ■
THE REPORTER
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COMMUNITY NEWS Temple Israel and Temple Hesed host sofer Zerach Greenfield Temple Israel and Temple Hesed welcomed sofer (scribe) Zerach Greenfield to Temple Israel on February 21. This was a joint program between the joint religious school and the congregations. Greenfield shared information about his pro-
fession, showing all how he writes a sefer Torah, tefillin and mezuzah. He brought various materials, such as quills made from turkey feathers; ink made from gall nuts; and parchment, including a section of 150-year-old parchment from Iraq. He
then conducted a workshop for those who wished to practice writing the Hebrew letters in the style of a scribe. “A wonderful time was had by all,” said organizers of the program.
Prague kitchen staff “went into overdrive and a swastika, the formal symbol mastering the Jewish dietary laws,” of the Nazi party, emblazoned learning to make traditional Jewish upon it, thus marking the table foods like challah and matzah ball as former Nazi property. Cernik soup, and sourcing kosher prodquickly explained that he had not wanted Eisen to make the upsetting ucts, especially a variety of kosher discovery for himself by chance. meats, which were unavailable Eisen, who had envisioned carryin Prague, and had to be ordered from either Berlin or Vienna. Like ing out the many responsibilities of other Jewish families around the his office, was simply unprepared world, Eisen and his family kept for such a thing and described seeShabbos in their new Czech home ing the sticker as “a punch in the each week, albeit while sometimes gut,” hitting him on an emotional, in the company of various dignitaras well as a physical, level. In an ironic twist and perhaps ies and dining in a room and at a even with a nod to yet another of our table that were once in the hands many enemies that were decimated of the Nazis. As Eisen describes for us by Hashem, Eisen would later Table and Nazi logo (Photo courtesy it, “It [was] mind-blowing, eating use that very table, during his tenure Ambassador Norman Eisen) on kosher State Department china as ambassador, as the stand for his where the commander of the Nazi Chanukah menorah. Wehrmacht used to live.” But the Nazis, yemach shemom v’zichrom (may Frieda opted not to return to her homeland, even their names and memory be blotted out), were not the when her son was there serving as the ambassador. She original owners of that table or that house. The U.S. passed away in 2012, during her son’s tenure in Prague, ambassador’s residence in Prague, named Petschek but not without a “tremendous sense of triumph” at Villa, was originally built by a wealthy Jewish indus- the fact that her son had returned to the country of her trialist by the name of Otto Petschek in the late 1920s. birth as the representative of the most powerful nation Czech. German. English. Hebrew. If the walls of that on earth. Frieda was fond of telling people, “The Nazis home could only speak and we, likewise, understand deported us in cattle cars and my son flew back on Air their many languages, oh what fantastic tales they Force One,” a reference to a trip that Eisen made to could surely tell. Petschek, who made his money Prague with Obama in 2010 for an international treaty from coal mine holdings as well as banking, was one signing ceremony. At Eisen’s nomination before the U.S. Senate Comof the wealthiest men in Czechoslovakia, before his untimely death in 1934. With Germany’s designs for mittee on Foreign Relations (which took place several Czechoslovakia clear and the threat of an invasion on months after Eisen had already begun serving his tenure the horizon, Petschek’s family fled the country in 1938. in Prague, due to his having initially received a recess The property was subsequently seized by the Germans appointment), U.S. senator (retired) and former vice and commandeered for use as the headquarters of the presidential candidate Joe Lieberman testified regardWehrmacht (German armed forces) commander of ing Eisen’s appointment: “[I]t is indeed a profound Prague, General Toussaint, his staff, and other Nazi historical justice…that the ambassador’s residence in officials and aides during their seven-year occupation Prague, which was originally built by a Jewish family of Prague. Occupied afterwards briefly by the Russians that was forced to flee Prague by the Nazis, [which], in and then the Czechoslovak General Staff, the US leased turn, the Nazis took over…as their headquarters, now the property in 1945 before eventually buying it from 70 years later, is occupied by Norman and his family. the Czechoslovak government in 1948. And I might, on a point of personal privilege, add that On his arrival at the Petschek Villa, Eisen had the they observe the Sabbath there every Friday night and home returned to its Jewish roots and made suitable for Saturday. So if you need any evidence that there is a a Torah-observant Jewish family to live in, kashering G-d, I offer that to you.” Eisen was later confirmed by the kitchens and affixing mezuzos to the doorposts of the the Senate and ended up serving in Prague for almost residence where he and his family would be staying. The four years, one of the longest tenures of any recent U.S.
Continued from page 2
ambassador there. In every generation, our enemies rise up to destroy us, but Hashem rescues us from their hand. (From The Pesach Haggadah) I am indebted to Mordechai Luchins for bringing this story to my attention, and to ambassador Norman Eisen for kindly providing me with the sources for this story, as well as making the time to read it and offer suggestions and corrections. This article (including all of the quotations) was adapted from the following sources: Anyz, Daniel. “Wes Anderson and Norman Eisen: Two Americans in Prague.” HN Weekend Magazine. Fairclough, Gordon. “Transforming a Home’s Dark History.” The Wall Street Journal. Goldman, T.R.. “The World of Norm Eisen.” The Washington Post. Kirchik, James. “Norman Eisen, Obama’s Ambassador to Prague, Bolsters Liberalism.” Tablet Magazine. Shapiro, Ari. “For U.S. Ambassador, Ties To Prague That Transcend Diplomacy.” NPR. Transcript of Ambassador Norman Eisen’s nomination before the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, Tuesday, August 2, 2011. http://prague.usembassy.gov/ambassadors_residence.html
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THE REPORTER ■ MARCH 10, 2016
Tyranny 1
Continued from page 2
The short of it is this. Israel could grant its enemies every possible concession (and has), but that would not bring peace. Nothing short of Israel’s destruction will suffice. Truth is, anti-Zionism becomes antisemitism when it reaches a certain pitch, and singling out Israel for condemnation and international sanctions – out of all proportion to any other parties in the Middle East – is antisemitic, and not saying so is intellectually dishonest. In May 2010, a Turkish Islamist “charity” with close ties to terrorist organizations, as well as Turkey’s ruling party, sponsored a flotilla that it claimed was designed to “relieve suffering” in Gaza, but whose real intention was to support Hamas and demonize Israel. Yet, these same “human rights” organizations are silent in the face of atrocities being committed in Syria today, and have offered nothing to alleviate the suffering of the Syrian people. So, why is all this passion, all this anger and rage, directed at this one country? Why not at Hezbollah, which has effectively orchestrated an Iranian-backed coup in Lebanon? Or at those who continue to persecute Christians in Libya, Syria and Iran? Let’s call it what it is for those who arrogantly hold Israel to a standard of conduct to which no other nation in this world is held. Half a million men, women and children are slaughtered in Rwanda, and there is silence. Almost a million Syrian men, women and children have been murdered or displaced by President Bashar al-Assad of Syria as a result of the current religious war raging through that country... and there is silence. The Chinese annihilate Tibetan culture, and there is silence. Tens of thousands of civilians are slaughtered in Chechnya, and there is silence. When the Muslim Brotherhood under Mohamed Morsi ruled Egypt and imprisoned the leading democracy advocate in the Arab world after a phony trial, and imprisoned U.S.-funded pro-democracy American workers, not a single student group in America called for divestiture from Egypt or rallied for the release of the imprisoned workers. Even Congress was incensed. But where were the student rallies?
Syria occupied Lebanon for a quarter century, choked the life out of its democracy, assassinated its political leaders, effected a coup d’etat through its Hezbollah proxy, sent Islamic terrorists over its borders to kill Americans and Iraqis, and has slaughtered thousands of its own people, and not one single student organization on our campuses rallied against the Assad regime or called for divestiture from Syria. Iran uses its paramilitary Basij thugs to beat up student demonstrators in the streets of Tehran and squeezes the life out of that county’s embryonic democratic movement, and there is silence. Saudi Arabia denies its women the most basic human rights, and bans any other religion from being practiced publicly on its soil. So when is “Saudi Apartheid Week”? These human rights violations and tragedies dwarf anything done by the Israelis, yet they fail to elicit the same degree of moral outrage that Israel evokes among its campus critics. Several years ago, Michael Oren, Israel’s ambassador to the U.S., was shouted down by Hamas supporters and radical Leftists, and forced to leave the podium at the University of California, Irvine, but when the university pressed charges against the students, they argued that their right to free speech was being infringed! Apparently, Ambassador Oren was not entitled to that right as well. In Jenin, in April 2002, Israel was painted as the world’s pariah: “Nazis,” “butchers,” “conducting war crimes,” “surrounding the infant Jesus with Israeli tanks,” claims of 3,000 Palestinians being massacred, claims that Israelis poisoned the Palestinian water supply, and claims that Israel dumped Palestinian corpses into secret mass graves. A bishop in Copenhagen compared former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to King Herod. Newspapers across Europe, especially the BBC, “substantiated” these lies with reports of grisly deeds by Israeli soldiers. Palestinians went on international media networks with the active complicity of those networks in accusing Israel of murdering Palestinians for their body parts – lies later reinforced by respectable European newspapers, and even by a member of the British House of Lords in February 2010.
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The problem with all this is that no massacre occurred in Jenin! Less than a hundred armed terrorists were killed in Operation Defensive Shield, and almost as many Israeli soldiers were killed because they were ordered to go from house-tohouse to avoid civilian casualties wherever possible. But that was of little consequence to those in the media and on our college campuses who condemned Israel for “unspeakable war crimes.” In Lebanon in 2006, Israel was condemned for violating Lebanese sovereignty with scant mention made of the hundreds of Hezbollah missiles falling onto Israel’s civilian population centers, and its use of Lebanese civilians as human shields. The same hypocrisy held true in the conclusions reached by the Goldstone Report on Operation Cast Lead, which accepted the lies of Hamas as fact, disregarded Israeli commission findings, denied Israel’s right to defend itself and condemned Israel for having conducted war crimes in Gaza. The report made little mention of the 8,000 missiles fired at southern Israel, and minimized reports that Hamas had used civilians as human shields, and mosques, schools and houses in residential areas to conceal its weapons – not to mention the millions of leaflets dropped and cell phone calls made in Arabic by the Israeli military to provide warnings to Palestinians in targeted areas. When the U.N. hosted the Third World Conference Against Racism in Durban, the nations of the world had an opportunity to address the hatred that afflicts hundreds of millions of people, but they only found time to dwell on Israel, accusing it of genocide, ethnic cleansing, racism and apartheid, while the genocides in Bosnia and the Sudan were barely mentioned. In the name of “human rights” and “justice,” these advocates and self-proclaimed “protectors of the Free World” decry any and every Israeli action and seek to punish it by conducting academic and cultural boycotts of Israel, while Palestinian clerics call for the murder of Jews without eliciting any protest whatsoever. The Saudi and Egyptian media report on Jewish conspiracies causing 9/11, and run TV programs on Ramadan alleging blood libels, but there is no international outcry. And the Western media isn’t much better. The death of Nelson Mandela triggered a media avalanche that inaccurately singled out Israel for its trade with apartheid South Africa. The South African Institute for Race Relations estimates that in 1986, trade with Israel was about $214 million, with arms sales a further $272 million to $544 million. In contrast, two-way trade with the U.S. at that time was $3.32 billion – repeat, billion – with Japan at $3.27 billion and Britain $2.52 billion. The Soviet Union cooperated to ensure that South Africa’s De Beers company could maintain its world hold on the price of diamonds and thus helped to keep apartheid in place. Moreover, apartheid was able to survive because South Africa received all the oil
it needed from Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq and other oil states. As for arms, South Africa also bought from Britain, France, Spain and the U.S., and enjoyed nuclear cooperation with France, the U.S., and West Germany. The bitter reality is that for Israel, neither the mainstream media nor international legal frameworks provide any protection or any hope for justice. Instead, these frameworks are used to exploit the rhetoric of human rights and morality to attack Israel. Even as Israel was forced to absorb missiles fired indiscriminately at its civilian population by terrorists, one continues to hear the howls and hatred voiced about “The Wall” particularly those “innocent” suicide bombers who are being kept from their religious duty of self-detonating amid crowds of Jews. In that regard, I was asked in a lecture to explain why Israel was “ghettoizing” the Palestinians by constructing a security fence in areas that served as transit points for terrorists entering the country. The questioner noted that, as a Jew, I should be more sensitive to the concept of a ghetto, and its dehumanizing effects on human beings. I responded that the security fence was neither built for reasons of discrimination nor motivated by racism, but as a deterrent to protect the lives of Israelis from Palestinian suicide bombers and, in fact, it continues to accomplish its purpose. But the suggestion that Israel may have had racist motivations in constructing the fence disturbed me because it is a recurring theme among major international bodies and on college campuses, so I asked the questioner why she had decided to sort Israel out for “special treatment?” After all, the security fence that Israel has constructed to keep Palestinian suicide bombers out of its country is not unlike the security fence constructed by the Saudis to keep the Yemeni jihadists out of their country; or the one that India has constructed along its borders with Pakistan, Kashmir and Bangladesh for the same reason; or the one that the Thais have constructed to keep the Malaysian jihadists out of their country, or the one that the U.S. is constructing to keep Mexican illegals out of our country, although I couldn’t recall the last time a Mexican self-detonated in Albuquerque or fired missiles from Mexico into Dallas or Houston. Antisemitism has evolved from an irrational hatred or jealousy of Jews to an irrational hatred or jealousy of the Jewish state: Israel. When did the European Union last call in the Palestinian “ambassadors” to complain about the incitement that calls for Israel’s destruction and the establishment of a “Jew-free” state of Palestine? Why are European companies suggesting it’s unethical to do business with Israelis, while so many of their colleagues are flocking to Iran in search of new deals and a share of the recently-released $100 billion in frozen Iranian assets and sanctions relief opportunities – all from the land of public stonings of adulterers and the hanging of gays? See “Tyranny 2” on page 6
Planning on leaving town for a few months? Going on a long vacation? Moving any time soon? You can help save the Jewish Federation money by informing us of your plans and preventing the U.S. Postal Service from charging us for returned mail and address change notices. Before you go, call the Federation office or send us an email and let us know if you would like the mail sent temporarily to a different address, at no charge to you, or halted for a certain number of months. Give us a chance to get it right for you on the first mailing. Contact Dassy at (570)961-2300 or dassy.ganz@jewishnepa.org
MARCH 10, 2016 ■
THE REPORTER
5
NEWS IN BRIEF FROM ISRAEL From JNS.org
EU businesses urge “occupied territories” labels for Israeli settlement products
Members of Hamas’s Izzedine al-Qassam Brigades are starting to refuse orders to dig underground tunnels, which have mysteriously collapsed one after the other in recent months as the Palestinian terror group attempts to rebuild the network of cross-border attack tunnels that Israel destroyed during Operation Protective Edge in 2014. In an open field east of Khan Younis on March 3, a tunnel being dug by the al-Qassam Brigades collapsed, killing 31-year-old Muhammad Musa al Astal, Hamas said. Palestinian media quoted senior Hamas officials who confirmed that an additional five tunnel diggers were missing. The March 3 tunnel collapse was the seventh such incident in recent months. Following the latest collapse, photographs of “advanced technological equipment for the detection of tunnels” began appearing on Palestinian websites, with one Hamas website claiming that the “Zionists are worried there are tunnels underneath their communities near the border fence.” But the terrorist group has never officially said that Israel is responsible for the collapses. “The Zionists are nervous,” an anonymous member of Hamas told Israel Hayom. “They’re afraid the tunnels are underneath their homes, and because of their fear they are using very advanced tools to locate and collapse the tunnels. I know of those [Hamas members] who have been sentenced to harsh punishments for refusing to take part in the [tunnel-digging] effort. This is a serious offense and the punishment for it is extremely severe.”
Two Israeli Arabs planned Islamic State-inspired terror attacks
Two Israeli Arabs were charged on March 3 with planning Islamic State-inspired terror attacks in Jenin, Afula and Jerusalem. Bahaa al-Din Masarwa, 19, and Ahmad Ahmad, 21, have been accused of supporting a terrorist group and being in contact with Islamic State members. In particular, Masarwa allegedly conspired with his grandfather to commit an Islamic State-inspired shooting attack against Israeli soldiers. The two defendants are also accused of conspiring together to carry out a shooting attack at the Lion’s Gate in Jerusalem. Masarwa is the nephew of Ayman Kanjou, 44, who was accused of trying to join Islamic State in September 2015. He is also a student from Jenin who “passes through the Jamala checkpoint [in Jenin] all the time and was planning to hurt security forces at the checkpoint,” Israel’s Northern District Police said in a statement. Yet Masarwa denies the allegations against the Israeli Arabs. He has said, “We’ve only been arrested because we have beards,” Yediot Achronot reported.
U.S. ambassador to Israel visits new tourist info center in Akko
U.S. Ambassador to Israel Daniel Shapiro paid a visit to Jewish National Fund’s new Western Galilee Tourist Information Center, located in a centuries-old space in the heart of the old city of Akko (also called Acre), to show support for the organization’s efforts to increase tourism and employment growth in northern Israel. While in Akko, Shapiro praised the region’s multiculturalism and ongoing commitment to coexistence and “shared citizenship.” The ambassador spent a day visiting with local authorities and others to discuss development in the region. Shapiro also visited Akko’s Western Galilee College, participating in several discussions with the school’s diverse student body.
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The European Union, responding to demands by businesses in its member nations, plans to step up its labeling measures for Israeli products by requiring farmers based beyond the 1967 lines to clearly label produce as coming from “the occupied territories,” Israel Hayom reported on March 4. Farmers in Israel’s Jordan Valley were recently informed by two companies that export their produce to the EU that the new directive will take effect in mid-April. One Israeli exporter told Israel Hayom that following the EU’s decision to remove “Made in Israel” labels from settlement products in November 2015, many clients across Europe have made arrangements to implement the directive. EU guidelines have left the exact nature of product labeling to the discretion of each member state. For the most part, settlement products imported to the EU are repackaged upon arrival at their destination, and a small sticker is added indicating Judea and Samaria as the goods’ point of origin. But one exporter said he was recently approached by several German supermarket chains which told him that Israeli manufacturers must now label their products prominently to indicate to consumers that they were “manufactured in territories occupied by the Israeli government.” Some German clients have decided to cease importing settlement goods altogether, he said. The Dutch Agriculture Ministry informed importers in late February that Israeli settlement products must be clearly labeled before leaving Israel, according to the Israel Hayom report. “This is a purely antisemitic decision,” David Elhayani, the head of Israel’s Jordan Valley Regional Council, told Israel Hayom. “This is because we’re Jews. This is an act of humiliation and they (the EU) are trying to make it look like we’re occupiers and land thieves.”
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ÊCheck out the Federation’s new, updated website at www.jewishnepa.org or find it on Facebook
Scra Wyo
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THE REPORTER ■ MARCH 10, 2016
Tyranny 2
Continued from page 4
Why do the EU foreign policy chief and the U.S. State Department swiftly condemn each and every Israeli building announcement beyond the 1967 lines, but never condemn Palestinian incitement to murder Jews through their schools or continue to name shopping centers and tournaments after these murderer “martyrs”? Why aren’t there demonstrations against the enslavement of the millions of women who live without any legal protection? Why aren’t there demonstrations against the use of children as human bombs by jihadists? Why has there been no leadership in support of the victims of the Islamic dictatorship in Sudan? Why is there never any outrage against the acts of terrorism committed against Israelis? Why is there no outcry by the Europeans against jihadism? Why don’t they defend Israel’s right to exist? Where are the flotillas heading to Syrian (as opposed to Gaza’s) shores? Where are the student demonstrations against female genital mutilation, to which 90 percent of Egyptian females are subjected, according to the World Health Organization? Where are the student demonstrations against the continuing persecution of Christians by Islamists in Egypt, Syria and Pakistan? Where is the condemnation of the genocidal antisemitism that governs Hamas and Hezbollah, who treat the murderers of Israeli men, women and children as heroes? And finally, why are the Europeans so obsessed with one of the most stable democracies on earth (Israel), rather than with the world’s worst dictatorships? So many stupid and irresponsible comments have been made and written about Israel, that there aren’t any accusations left to level against it. At the same time, the press never discusses Syrian and Iranian interference in propagating violence against Israel and around the world; the indoctrination of children or the corruption of the Palestinian leadership, or the millions of dollars in international foreign aid that has been transferred into their private bank accounts, as was exposed by a former Palestinian leader in February 2010. And when reporting about victims, why is every Palestinian casualty reported as a tragedy while every Israeli victim is reported with disdain, if at all? This obsession with Israel represents a callous disregard for fundamental justice, and antisemitism cloaked as righteous indignation. For example, with the start of Ramadan (the Islamic
month of fasting) in early September, Israeli forces manning West Bank checkpoints were instructed to avoid eating or smoking in front of Palestinians as a sign of respect, even as the Palestinians continue to use the Tomb of Joseph as a garbage dump and have urinated next to the Torah scrolls in the Cave of the Patriarchs. And there’s more. Israel was constantly confronted with the demand that it must return Gaza and the West Bank to the Palestinians and the Golan Heights to Syria – areas seized during the 1967 Six-Day War waged against it by the Arab world. Why then do we never hear that same argument being raised against other nations? After World War II, Poland annexed 10 percent of historic Germany (East Prussia); Morocco controls the Western Sahara; Armenia has controlled 15 percent of neighboring Azerbaijan since 1994; Turkey has controlled half of Cyprus since its 1974 invasion; Russia has controlled the Kurile Islands off northern Japan since the end of World War II, and China has occupied Tibet since 1950. One can only imagine the fury of the British government if Israel were to question the British occupation of the Falkland Islands off the coast of Argentina. So, where is the international outcry demanding that these countries return lands they seized in war? Why is it that only Israel’s control over the West Bank – territory it seized in a war of aggression against it no less – merits international censure? And what of the demand that the Palestinians be allowed a “right of return” to Israel proper or at least fair compensation for having been displaced as a result of Israel’s War of Independence in 1948? Some 850,000 Jews left behind $300 billion in assets when they were forced to flee for their lives from Arab and Persian lands after the birth of the state of Israel. So why are similar demands not being made of the Syrians, the Iranians, the Libyans, the Iraqis, the Yemenis and the Egyptians who displaced (or more specifically expelled) their Jews? I don’t recall any demands being made of any nation for compensation or allowing a right of return to any refugees displaced after any wars in modern times – except of course for those being made of Israel. Czechoslovakia expelled its Sudetenland Germans from their homes after World War II. The Poles expelled millions of Germans from East Prussia and absorbed that territory into Poland in 1945. Thousands of Turk-
Friends of The Reporter Dear Friend of The Reporter, Each year at this time the Jewish Federation of Northeastern Pennsylvania calls upon members of our community to assist in defraying the expense of issuing our regional Jewish newspaper, The Reporter. The newspaper is delivered twice of month (except for December and July which are single issue months) to each and every identifiable Jewish home in Northeastern Pennsylvania.
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ish Cypriots were displaced by Greek military forces in the 1960s and early 70s while Turkish forces displaced thousands of Greek Cypriots from Northern Cyprus after their 1974-76 war. Four-hundred and fifty thousand ethnic Chinese were expelled from Vietnam between 1978 and 1979. The Bangladeshis expelled more than three million Hindus in 1974. Two hundred and fifty thousand Georgians were displaced from Abkhazia between 1993 and 1998. Five-hundred thousand ethnic Russians in Chechnya were displaced during the First Chechen War in 1994-1996, and more than 800,000 Kosovar Albanians were expelled from Kosovo during the Kosovo War in 1998-1999. Somehow, I must have missed offers of a right of return or any compensation package being offered to these millions upon millions of persons displaced by wars – except in the case of Israel. Then there’s the issue relating to Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians in Gaza. Lauren Booth, sister-in-law of former British premier Tony Blair, entered Gaza aboard a protest boat and told Israel’s Ynet News in Israel that Gaza was “the largest concentration camp in the world today” and a “humanitarian crisis on the scale of Darfur.” She was later photographed at a seemingly well-stocked grocery store in the so-called “concentration camp.” So, let’s consider how these Israeli “monsters” have behaved. Hamas has declared its intention to destroy Israel and murder every Jew residing there, and has fired more than 8,000 missiles at southern Israel. In return, Israel is providing 70 percent of Gaza’s electrical power and, each week sends tons of food, fuel and humanitarian aid to an enemy whose entire rationale for existence is the extermination or subjugation of every Jew in Israel. During World War II, the Allies firebombed Dresden, obliterated German cities, and dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Talk about “proportional response!” Israel feeds its enemies! And finally, Israel has been condemned for retaliating against Hamas and Hezbollah for their missile attacks on Israel’s southern and northern civilian populations because, it is said, Israel is (and this is a direct quote from Human Rights Watch) “endangering non-combatants, using disproportionate force and committing crimes against humanity.” If Israel fired missiles into Gaza City, Sidon or Tyre, the world would be enraged, the U.N. Security Council would be called into special session, the U.S. and EU would be threatening Jerusalem and the media would be having a field-day. So why is it that when the Palestinians in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon fire missiles at Israeli civilians as their primary target, it is barely mentioned in the media, but when Israel retaliates against those missile sites in targeted bombings, it’s considered “disproportionate force” – all of which leads to the real issue lurking behind the scenes here: our enemies’ tactical use of human shields. Why is criticism never leveled at Hamas or Hezbollah, who regularly use children as human shields to protect their leaders, schools, private homes and mosques to protect their weapons? In all the condemnation being heaped on Israel by the media and the Goldstone Report for Israel’s retaliatory strikes in Gaza, and before that in Lebanon during the Second Lebanon War (and indeed any future conflict, should a regional war erupt over Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons), no one ever asks how any democracy can expect to win a war without “endangering civilians,” especially when the enemy uses human shields as a tactical weapon to insulate itself from military strikes? Are we not handing our enemies an enormous tactical advantage? How can any free nation ever hope to win a future war against enemies who use human shields if it is condemned for “endangering civilians”? It is this absence of balance, this flagrant unforgivable deceit that is most troubling. In all this, one can only conclude that Israel is inferior and must not enjoy the same rights accorded other peoples. So, for those who argue that their right to “fair criticism” of Israel is being infringed, let them understand what “fair criticism” is not. It is not “fair criticism” to portray Israel’s presence on the West Bank as an illegal occupation (which it is not, according to U.N. Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338), yet never utter a word of objection about Chinese, Serbian, Syrian, Turkish or Russian ethnic cleansing. It is not “fair criticism” to place the blame for Middle East violence at Israel’s doorstep while ignoring 14 centuries of Sunni-Shiite hatred, the damage done to Arab society through decades of misrule by dictators, despots and Islamists, the Koranic-inspired hatred of a Jewish state existing in the midst of the Islamic umma and the immense risks that Israel took in withdrawing from Lebanon in 2000 and Gaza in 2005, not to mention See “Tyranny 3” on page 10
MARCH 10, 2016 ■
THE REPORTER
Using Facebook, Dutch thrift store brings closure to painful Holocaust story
Bob Baars at his thrift shop near Amsterdam on February 18. (Photo by Cnaan Liphshiz)
Politics
BY CNAAN LIPHSHIZ AMSTERDAM (JTA) – Two months before they were deported from the Netherlands to Auschwitz, Louis Barzelay and Flora Snatager invited a few guests to their wedding in Amsterdam. Instead of the yellow star he was legally required to wear, Louis wore a white flower on his lapel as he posed with Flora in a doorway for their wedding photo. Flora is smiling faintly and looking slightly to the side while Louis stares straight at the camera, his lips pursed. It was May 31, 1942. For more than 70 years, the photo was all that remained of the young couple, who were murdered along with other relatives four months after it was taken. But that changed recently, when the couple’s wed-
Continued from page 1
Rubio rally, “Marco Rubio is owned by Jews! Jews and freemasons!” Pastor Mike Bickle, a supporter of candidate Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), was quoted as saying in a 2011 sermon that God would allow Jews to convert to Christianity and “raise up the hunters” against those who don’t. In 2005, Bickle was quoted as saying that prior to the return of Jesus, “a significant number of Jews will be in work camps, prison camps, or death camps.” The Cruz campaign has not disavowed Bickle’s endorsement. According to Jewish Insider, Cruz adviser Nick Muzin said in a statement that the Cruz campaign “welcomes support from faith leaders across the country. Mike Bickle is one of the hundreds who have endorsed us.” Diane Rehm of National Public Radio last year apologized after falsely claiming on the air that Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and other Jewish members of Congress hold dual citizenship with Israel. “The real concern is the way insidious tropes about the dual loyalty of American Jews are working their way into mainstream conversation as a result of the invective being hurled against the Jewish state and its friends,” Jonathan Tobin wrote for Commentary magazine. Reporting on how social media users frame Sanders’ campaign, Harold Brackman wrote for the Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles, “They prefer to describe Sanders as ‘an atheist’ rather than a Jew, love him for his critical comments on Israel, and even reinterpret his ideology as opposition to ‘Jewish billionaires preying on the white working class.’” On a parallel track with the rise in inflammatory election rhetoric, the general tenor of antisemitism is escalating in
Ted Nugent’s recent Facebook post blaming gun control on prominent American Jews. (Photo courtesy of Facebook) America. A total of 912 antisemitic incidents across the U.S. were reported during 2014, according to the Anti-Defamation League. The results, ADL said, show a 21 percent increase from the 751 incidents reported during the same period in 2013 and mark the first time in nearly a decade that the overall numbers of such incidents have substantially risen. As the 2016 campaign continues to unfold, we are likely to see more examples of antisemitism as well as the embrace of racist ideas, making this one of the most hate-based election cycles in American history. Dr. Steven Windmueller is the Rabbi Alfred Gottschalk Emeritus Professor of Jewish Communal Service at the Jack H. Skirball Campus of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, Los Angeles. His writings can be found on www.theWindreport.com.
Louis and Flora Barzelay photographed in Amsterdam on May 31, 1942. (Photo courtesy of Stans Barzelay) ding guest book turned up in a thrift shop near Amsterdam and was returned to the family thanks to “a massive response” on social media. “I was totally unprepared for what happened after I posted that message on Facebook, in which I asked for help in tracking down the family,” said Bob Baars, the manager of the Kringloper Almere, a three-story shop situated 15 miles east of the Dutch capital. Within hours of the January 25 posting, Baars and his staff were inundated with e-mails and calls from across the Netherlands and beyond, either seeking or offering information about the guestbook, a pocket-sized volume whose first page contains the couple’s names inside a blue, hand-drawn Star of David with the Hebrew and Gregorian calendar years. Several local media outlets reported on the unusual find, resulting in a record surge of more than 300,000 views of the Kringloper’s post about the booklet. Of those, some 3,300 shared the post on their own Facebook pages.
7
Thanks to the publicity, Baars was able to speak with surviving descendants of Louis and Flora mere hours after posting and to return the booklet to them. “World War II remains a very live issue, especially the Holocaust, at a time of rising antisemitism,” said Baars, who hopes his effort to locate the couple’s survivors will serve as a message against hate. The guestbook’s emergence comes amid a number of developments related to the Holocaust in the Netherlands, which lost 75 percent of its 140,000 Jews during the war, the highest death rate in Nazi-occupied Western Europe. Amsterdam is preparing to open its first Holocaust museum in 2018, as well as the city’s largest monument for the genocide. In February, the municipality launched a campaign to track down Jewish families who were fined after the war for failing to pay taxes while they were in concentration camps or in hiding. The 2013 revelation of that practice led to another discovery this month that the city had dramatically raised the rents of Jews who were forced to move into the ghetto. Meanwhile, calls have intensified recently for the Dutch prime minister to apologize for the wartime actions of collaborationists – including thousands of policemen – who helped send Jews to their deaths. “It’s as though there was a long silence, and now the dam has broken,” said Stans Barzelay, Louis Barzelay’s niece, who received her uncle’s booklet from Baars in January. Barzelay, who also chairs the Amsterdam branch of the Women’s International Zionist Organization, heard about Baars’ discovery from friends. “I turned off my cellphone for a couple of hours that day,” See “Facebook” on page 8
Save the Date
Sunday, May 29 at the JCC
Scranton Hebrew Day School 68th Anniversary Dinner Guests of Honor – Meshulem and Rivky Epstein
Grandparents of the Year – Jeffrey and Dassy Ganz Yovel Jubilee Alumni Awardees – Shlomo Fink / Jay Kauffman/ Sandy Shapiro The establishment of the Rabbi Yitzchok Gass and Rabbi Philip Polaqtoff Memorial Scholarship Fund • More details will follow •
Save the Date! e ate I a P ade Sunday, June 5, 2016 This year’s theme: Sight and Sounds of Israel ÊCheck out the Federation’s new, updated website at www.jewishnepa.org or find it on Facebook
8
THE REPORTER ■ MARCH 10, 2016
Why Israel is a pilgrimage site for birds – and birdwatchers
BY BEN SALES HULA VALLEY, Israel (JTA) – Thousands of cranes sit in pairs in a field here, their outlines approaching the horizon. Then, all at once, they take flight, a cloud of black-and-white feathers filling the sky. Shai Agmon isn’t interested in most of these. All he cares about is one pair near the front, slightly shorter than the rest. Most of the birds are common cranes, but these two are demoiselle cranes – a rare find in these parts. “They can’t sleep in the desert and can’t stop in southern Israel,” said Agmon, director of the Hula Valley Avian Research Center for Keren Kayemeth L’YisraelJewish National Fund, which manages the valley’s birdwatching park. “Here they have food and a safe place to rest.” With 300 bird species passing through each year, the Hula Valley in northern Israel is one of the prime birdwatching spots in a country that has gained a reputation as a mecca for birdwatchers. With a location at the nexus of three continents and a climatic diversity that ranges from arid desert in the south to a cooler mountainous region in the north, Israel draws about 500
Shai Agmon is director of the Hula Valley Avian Research Center for Keren Kayemeth L’Yisrael-Jewish National Fund, which manages the valley’s birdwatching park. (Photo by Ben Sales)
million birds annually from 550 species. The entire continent of North America, which is 1,000 times Israel’s size, sees barely twice as many species. Israel’s unique geographic features – it is also one of the last green spots before the adjacent Sinai and Sahara deserts – has also made it a destination not only for birds but for people who live for the thrill of identifying a rare species perched on a branch or lake. “The more I go see places in the world, the more I see how much richness of nature I have in Israel, and some of it is so close to home,” said Yuval Daks, a bird photographer for the Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel. “It’s hard to compete with the richness of Israel because we have so many climates. We have the desert, [Mount] Hermon.” For the estimated tens of thousands of birdwatchers who come to Israel every year, the must-see sites aren’t the Western Wall or Masada, but the Hula Valley and the Eilat Birdwatching Park. Sometimes armed with telephoto lenses, birdwatchers will wake up before dawn and drive for hours to find a species. When they’re successful, the experience can be electrifying. Dan Alon, director of the Israel Ornithological Center, recalled being overwhelmed the first time he encountered a flock of 200,000 honey buzzards in 1984. “It filled the sky,” Alon said. “You couldn’t see the sky. You can’t forget that. I love birds. I love this world. I find new things all the time.” The Hula Valley became a prime birdwatching spot by accident. Drained of its swamps in the 1950s, the valley was re-flooded four decades later when KKL-JNF realized the drainage had damaged the local ecosystem. Farmers began planting corn and peanuts in the
PA S S O V E R 2016 Deadlines: April 13 (April 27 issue) Passover is traditionally a time for sharing with family, friends and strangers. While your seder table may not be large enough to fit all these people, you can share the warmth of this holiday with the entire local Jewish community by placing a Passover greeting in The Reporter.You may choose from the designs, messages and sizes shown here - more are available. You may also choose your own message, as long as it fits into the space of the greeting you select. (Custom designs available upon request.) The price of the small greeting is $18 (styles C & F), the medium one is $36 (styles A & D) and the largest one (style G, not shown - measures 3.22” x 3.95”) is $72. To ensure that your greeting is published, simply fill out the form below and choose a design that you would like to accompany your greeting, or contact Bonnie Rozen at 724-2360, ext. 244 or bonnie@thereportergroup.org. Checks can be made payable to The Reporter and sent to: The Reporter, 500 Clubhouse Rd., Vestal, NY 13850.
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Thousands of cranes took flight in Israel’s Hula Valley. (Photo by Ben Sales) newly re-moistened soil – exactly the crops cranes like to eat. Soon, rather than just pass through the valley, 30,000 cranes stayed there every winter, feasting on the crops and sleeping perched in an artificial lake. Now, to protect the farmers’ livelihood, the government feeds the cranes up to eight tons of corn a day. KKL-JNF is setting up six birdwatching parks throughout Israel in an effort to draw birdwatchers to sites across the country. Every year the society holds Champions of the Flyway in Eilat, in which international teams compete to see how many different species they can spot in one day. “We’re not going to manage nature,” said Yaron Charka, KKL-JNF’s chief ornithologist. “The most important thing is that there will be interesting birds that come here naturally.” Some of Israel’s birdwatchers have done more than just look at the winged creatures. Yossi Leshem, director of the Israel-based International Center for the Study of Bird Migration, set up a radar
system that detects bird migration patterns to avoid crashes that could down Air Force jets. Leshem pioneered the use of mice-eating birds like kestrels and barn owls as a means of pest control. And he has helped Israeli schoolchildren learn geography by studying bird migration patterns. “What’s important to me is to preserve nature,” Leshem said. “So I looked for some applied area that’s not just theoretical.” Some birdwatchers, however, prefer Israeli activists to leave the country’s avian ecosystem as is. Clive Bramham, an avid American birdwatcher who lives in Norway, has visited Israel twice – in 2002 and a decade later. The first visit, with less infrastructure and fewer crowds, was more pleasant. “You want access, but you want the real experience,” Bramham said. “The Hula was exciting, [but] I would not go there on a Saturday. I would not do that again. There’s more traffic on the weekend. If you really want to see the birds, get there early.”
SCIENCE NEWS IN BRIEF From JNS.org
Recent Mediterranean drought was region’s worst in 900 years, NASA says
A newly published National Aeronautics and Space Administration study has concluded that a drought from 1998-2012 in the eastern Mediterranean was the region’s worst drought during the past 900 years. The drought’s history in Cyprus, Israel, the Palestinian territories, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and Turkey was reconstructed by studying tree rings in order to understand the region’s climate and determine what shifts water to or from the area. Dry years are indicated by thin tree rings, and relatively wet years are indicated by thick rings, according to NASA. The research seeks to improve computer models that simulate climate in the present and the future. NASA’s team also discovered patterns in the geographic distribution of droughts that provide a “fingerprint” for identifying droughts induced by human-driven climate change. “The magnitude and significance of human climate change requires us to really understand the full range of natural climate variability,” said Dr. Ben Cook, lead author and climate scientist at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies and the Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory at New York’s Columbia University. “If we look at recent events and we start to see anomalies that are outside this range of natural variability, then we can say with some confidence that it looks like this particular event or this series of events had some kind of human caused climate change contribution.”
Barzelay recalled. “When I opened it I saw an onslaught of missed calls, texts, Facebook messages and tweets.” To thank the thrift shop’s staff, Barzelay had a tree planted in Jerusalem’s Peace Forest by the Jewish National Fund. A certificate from the JNF sits on Baars’ desk. Barzelay said she was overcome with emotion when she opened the booklet and thought of her late father, Louis’ brother Sally, a Holocaust survivor who escaped the Westerbork concentration camp in eastern Holland. “For years, my father expected Louis to return,” Barzelay said.
Continued from page 7 “He thought he’d survive because he was such a strong man.” Official word of Louis’ death came only six years after the war. “It’s something tangible from people whom I never knew except in stories,” Barzelay said of the booklet. Yet Barzelay is not sad that her father isn’t alive to see the book’s return. “Maybe it’s better this way,” she said, explaining that like many Holocaust survivors in the Netherlands, her father preferred not to speak of that period. “I’m afraid this would’ve been too difficult for him to handle.”
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THE REPORTER
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THE REPORTER ■ MARCH 10, 2016
D’VAR TORAH
Uniting despite differences – possible? BY RABBI LEVI Y. SLONIM, DIRECTOR OF PROGRAMMING AND DEVELOPMENT, ROHR CHABAD CENTER FOR JEWISH STUDENT LIFE AT BINGHAMTON UNIVERSITY Pekudai, Exodus 38:21-40:38 Wherever one turns, there is a sense of divide. Differences in perspective and opinion are as old as the creation of man. The Talmud (Berachos 58a.) tells us that “just as God did not create any two people looking exactly alike, so too are their views not uniform.” But sometimes it feels like the conversations are less about issues and more about the individuals in question, opinions to about people. What is the remedy? How best can we find it within us to accept others irrespective of how different their opinion might be from ours? Even more challenging is accepting those we know to have committed actual crimes or wrongdoings. Perhaps this week’s parasha can shed some light on this matter. The Torah tell us “[Moses] burned an incense offering on [the Inner Altar], as God had commanded him.” (Exodus 40, 27) An interesting aspect of the incense offering, which was comprised of 11 fragrances, was that it included galbanum, which is widely recognized for its foul smell. This seems troubling – why would God
Tyranny 3 the sacrifices that it continues to make in its quest for peace with the Palestinians. It is not “fair criticism” to accuse Israel of apartheid or to support international boycotts, divestment and sanctions against Israel when it is the Arab world that preaches “Death to the Jews,” spreads antisemitic hatred from its mosques, teaches “martyrdom” in its schools and summer camps, demands that any Palestinian state established on the West Bank be Judenrein (Jew-free), and dances in the streets when jihadists succeed in murdering Israelis in their homes (as in the case of the Fogel family), pizza parlors, marketplaces, during their Passover Seders and most notably in celebration of the 9/11 attacks. The short of it is this. Demanding that good German Aryans boycott Jewish shops in Nazi Germany in 1935 is no different in its essence from demanding that good Western universities and businesses boycott and divest from the Jewish state today. Injustice in any language is still injustice. It’s all part of the same poison that feeds on the fabric of human decency. If a 5-year-old child can understand that slaughtering innocent people is wrong, then why can’t these campus student organizations, religious establishments like the United Methodist Church, the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), the U.N., the international media, the Europeans and the academics on American and British college campuses see it and voice their dissent? If we cannot tell the difference between a democratic Israel and an apartheid South Africa, or a jihadist from a peacemaker, then we are all parties to the greatest moral
command us to include this foul smelling substance in the holy incense offering? Is this fitting for God’s holy tabernacle? Perhaps there is an important lesson for us here: The fact that the galbanum was an essential component of the incense teaches us that at our core, all Jews are an essential part of the Jewish nation, even if one’s behavior, at times, may seem inappropriate. How much more so when we merely disagree: every one of us, by virtue of our divine soul, is an aspect of the Divine and as such, possessed of inestimable worth.. Each of our unique personalities, opinions and views play a crucial role in the destiny of our people and the world-at-large. The biblical word for the incense offering is ketoret, which means “bond.” The name alludes both to our bond with each other and our national bond with the Divine. But there is more: even what appears to be foul smelling has positive characteristics necessary to the whole and lends profound breadth to the totality that is the Jewish people. Equipped with this perspective, we can affect the proper bond with each other. United, we present a proper “offering” before God. Based on the teachings of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, of righteous memory. Continued from page 6
failure of our time: the inability to distinguish between those who defend basic moral values and respect the sanctity of a single human life, and those who are the enemies of such values by justifying the murder of the innocent in the name of some religious or ideological cause. We have every right to expect more from those who teach our children on the campuses of America or who preach to the faithful from their pews. Their positions of authority do not entitle them to foster antisemitism in the name of “justice” and “moral decency.” Until there is universal condemnation of the discriminatory doublestandards applied to Israel, claims by self-righteous international organizations such as Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, the U.N. General Assembly, Oxfam, U.N.R.W.A. and the U.N. Human Rights Commission are more than meaningless. They are offensive and deceitful. As Bret Stephens writes: “If one expects nothing of Palestinians then they will be forgiven for everything. If one expects everything of Israel, then it will be forgiven for nothing, putting the country to a perpetual moral test it will always somehow fail and that can only energize the boycott enthusiasts.” Israel’s willingness to make peace has made it a target by an international community that blames Israel for Muslim violence around the world. As their thinking goes, if Israel would just do whatever it takes to make peace, then Muslim violence would stop not just in Israel, but in Burgas, Paris, Toulouse, Marseilles, Lyons, London, Malmo, Brussels, Mumbai, Bangkok, Manchester, Basra and Kabul. Anyone with any understanding of world events knows that this is pure, unadulterated garbage. All of this can be summarized as follows – the most dangerous threat posed to the Western world is its inability or unwillingness to stand together against those who seek to destroy our way of life. If we do not, as a collective, take a firm stand against these defamations; if we do not stand behind Israeli democracy in its just and moral struggle against expanding jihadism; if we do not prevent this widening witch hunt, the international arrest warrants for Israeli diplomats, the indictments against Israelis for war crimes in the Hague, the erosion in the U.N. and the incitement against Israel; if we sit quietly and allow this insidious evil to flourish in our midst; then the legitimacy of the free world’s own struggle against jihadism will most assuredly be undermined. Mark Silverberg’s archived articles can be found at www.marksilverberg.com.
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THE REPORTER
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HAVE YOU MADE YOUR 2016 PLEDGE TO THE... The mission of the Jewish Federation of Northeastern Pennsylvania is: To rescue the imperiled, to care for the vulnerable, to support Israel and to revitalize and perpetuate the Jewish communities of Northeastern Pennsylvania.
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Examples Of Ways To Fund Your Pace Gift Are: * outright contribution of cash, appreciated securities or other long-term capital gain property such as real estate * charitable remainder trust * gift of life insurance Using appreciated property, such as securities or real estate, * charitable lead trust affords you the opportunity to eliminate the income tax on the * gift of IRA or pension plan assets long-term capital gain, will in some instances generate a full income tax charitable deduction and will remove those assets * grant from your foundation from your estate for estate tax purposes. * reserved life estate in your residence * bequest For more information contact Mark Silverberg at Mark.Silverberg@jewishnepa.org or call 570-961-2300, ext. 1.
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THE REPORTER ■ MARCH 10, 2016
BY MAAYAN JAFFE-HOFFMAN JNS.org Groggers, candy and music. A story that involves royalty, a beauty pageant and the antagonist getting hung on a tree. And let’s not forget the costumes. Purim is a joyful holiday that children of all ages can enjoy and appreciate. My children start thinking about their next year’s Purim costumes before I can even rid the house of the chametz (leavened products) from the traditional “mishloach manot ” Purim gift baskets in order to prepare for Passover cleaning. Throughout the course of the year, their ideas change and evolve. One of my daughters will want to be a princess in April and a surgeon in October. While my son may envision a character from one of his computer games, he’ll eventually be a character from a popular film. One year, we all dressed up to the theme of pirates – except for one daughter, who insisted on being a princess. She became
the princess captor. Our mishloach manot included Pirate’s Booty snack balls, chocolate coins and a miniature bottle of whiskey. Pairing family-themed costumes with mishloach manot never became a family tradition for us, but there are loads of families who do it. There’s even a Facebook group, “Purim Themes and Ideas for Shalach Manos,” through which families share their ideas, stories and pictures, and even barter off pieces of costume clothing. Considering a theme this year? JNS.org brings you seven costume mishloach manot pairing ideas to get you started: Lego family; Neeli Engelhart of Modi’in, Israel, started with familythemed costumes before she even had children. Now, with four boys aged 4 to 13, it has become a family tradition. Engelhart says the kids get involved early on. “They give us ideas and we work with those,” says Engelhart. “It’s
At left: The Schwartz family’s “Goldilocks and the Three Bears” Purim costume theme. (Photo courtesy of the Schwartz family)
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One year for Purim, Neeli Engelhart and family of Modi’in, Israel, dressed up as a Lego family. (Photo courtesy of the Engelhart family) important to get your kids involved as much as possible.” One year, they dressed as a Lego family. Months before Purim, Engelhart started buying cheese balls in large plastic jugs from Costco. As the containers emptied, she cleaned and dried them, converting them into Lego heads. Cardboard placards were cut to create bodies and plastic strips were assembled for arms and legs. Each family member picked his or her own character. “My husband had a sweater vest and a kippah on his Lego head. I was more like a princess, with pink appliqués. One son was a football player,” Engelhart recalls. To complete the theme, the Engelharts gave out mishloach manot that looked like Lego characters, too: a can of Pringles (the body), topped with a baby jar head (cleaned and filled with candy). Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory: Rachel and Netanel Weinman of Efrat, Israel, recommend a theme modeled after the popular 1971 film “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.” To make it work, Netanel was Wonka and Rachel the golden ticket. The mishloach manot: boxes of candy with homemade Wonka chocolate bar labels. Bugs and butterflies: Meghann Schwartz of Silver Spring, MD, and her family have been dressing up and theming their mishloach manot for seven years, ever since they had their first child. It started because someone gave them a butterfly costume for their baby. Mom and dad decided to transform into bugs, too – a bee and a ladybug, respectively – and they became an insect family. For the mishloach manot, “I filled small pots with chocolate cake to look like dirt. I added gummy worms and lollipops,” Schwartz recalls. She says she makes 70 mishloach manot packages a year, so doing something clever, cute, and inexpensive is key. To find good mishloach manot packing ideas, Schwartz says she looks at stores such as Oriental Trading. Goldilocks and the Three Bears: As Schwartz’s family grew, she started expanding the themes. One year, they did “Goldilocks and the Three Bears.” She was Goldilocks and each of her then three daughters was a different bear. Husband Ben wore a t-shirt that read, “She was just right.” Ensuring maximum fun, but without breaking the bank, Schwartz says she made the bear costumes with a base of simple brown clothing that the family already owned. She added brown winter hats resembling bears for the kids and a blonde wig for herself as a finishing touch. Another rule when doing family costumes is comfort, notes Schwartz. “I always try to find costumes that are wear-
able and that start with normal clothing that kids can keep on all day,” she says. “If I have crazy costumes, I know the kids won’t be comfortable and will take them off.” The Goldilocks mishloach manot : Empty bear honey jars filled with gummy bears and a cookie on the side. Schwartz penned her own version of “Goldilocks and the Three Bears” that year to correspond to the Purim narrative. The rocker family; Naava Shafner of Jerusalem converted her family of four into punk rockers for the holiday. Their 2-month-old baby was the microphone. The mishloach manot: Coca-Cola and Pop Rocks candy. “We are all about minimum effort, maximum cuteness,” Shafner says. Batter up: Another idea from the Schwartz family is to be members of your favorite sports team. One year, they went with Major League Baseball’s Philadelphia Phillies. “We had enough clothing that we didn’t have to buy anything,” Schwartz recalls. The mishloach manot: A hot pretzel, can of beer, crackerjacks and peanuts. An A-Waze-ing Purim: Last year, the Engelharts chose a theme that was fitting for their aliyah: Waze, the world’s largest community-based traffic and navigation app, which was invented in Israel and later acquired by Google. Engelhart was the map of the family’s old neighborhood in Chicago, wearing a t-shirt that said, “Let’s get started.” Her husband, Ari, was the map of their new neighborhood in Modi’in. The kids were each one of the traffic issues to which Waze alerts you while driving: accident, police reported ahead, traffic jam. Engelhart painted logos onto white pieces of fabric and glued them onto t-shirts. For mishloach manot, they made bowls and filled them with cheese-cracker fish, accompanied by a poem about being a fish out of water and needing Waze to get around. A bottle of water was re-labeled with, “Have an A-Waze-ing Purim.”
The Engelhart family’s Waze-themed mishloach manot (Photo courtesy of the Engelhart family)
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THE REPORTER
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Can bridal fashionista Berta Balilti turn Israel into the dress-up nation? BY KAREN MCDONOUGH JNS.org It’s already known as the “start-up nation.” But can bridal fashionista Berta Balilti turn Israel into the dress-up nation? Balilti, owner of Berta Bridal, presides over an internationally successful business, creating luxurious and glamorous wedding gowns sold worldwide. From her fashion house in the southern Israeli port city of Ashdod, she exports detailed gowns to boutiques and stores in more than 20 countries. You can feel the love on the company’s social media sites from more than 1.2 million followers – most of them (875,000) on Instagram – who routinely gush over brides from around the globe pictured in her dresses. This isn’t your mother’s wedding dress. Balilti is known for her shapely modern designs with signature daring bare backs, dramatic trains and intricate lace and tulle. She has certainly found her place in the multi-billion dollar wedding industry – $60 billion a year in the U.S. alone. And with the worldwide appeal of her designs, Balilti’s spot as a high-end wedding gown designer has helped place Israel at the top of bridal haute couture fashion. “There’s nothing like Berta’s dresses,” said Renata Kukielka, the buyer for L’Fay Bridal in New York City. “She has brought something unique to this market, classic and sexy designs. Brides try her dresses on and most are in disbelief, they feel so gorgeous they don’t want to take them off.” Balilti’s success may have seemed un-
A Berta Bridal dress (Photo courtesy of Berta Bridal via Facebook) imaginable just a generation ago. Born in Cairo, Egypt, she emigrated at age 3 with her parents to Israel just prior to 1967’s Six-Day War, which had devastating consequences for Egyptian Jews. Years earlier, some of her family migrated to Paris with the help of the Jewish organization HIAS before coming to America. Though Balilti’s large Jewish family lived there for many generations, Jews weren’t accepted citizens of Egypt, but rather were considered a people without a country. Her maternal grandfather, Mordachai Elgazzar, had owned a jewelry store in Cairo, but life wasn’t easy for Jews. Her family experienced antisemitism, bombings, threats and devastating repercussions from the 1948 war once Israel became a
country. With the fall of King Farouk in 1952, Jewish families lost everything. Under Egyptian President Gamel Abdel Nasser, in 1956, the country declared all Jews enemies of the state, ordering thousands to leave. Each person was permitted to take only one suitcase and a sum equivalent to $25, as the government confiscated Jews’ property. When the 1967 war broke out, Egyptian Jewish men were rounded up and sent to prison camps. Once Balilti’s family settled in Israel, her father, after suffering an injury while working on a boat, could no longer work. Every hardship and triumph her parents experienced later played a role in their daughter’s success. Growing up in the Holy Land offered
Balilti a far different childhood than that of her parents. She found her flair for fashion and dreamed of designing the ultimate dress for a woman’s most important day. After graduating from Ramat Gan’s Shenkar College of Engineering and Design, she worked during the day as a seamstress, and later, as a junior designer at a ready-to-wear company in Tel Aviv. At night, she sketched and sewed wedding gowns at home, determined to make her dream come true. In 1995, she opened her first bridal salon, La Belle, a small shop where she was the sole designer and had a staff of about 25 people working for her. From the beginning, her business has been closely held, with family members helping out. Her daughter is one of her models. Less than a decade later, in 2004, Balilti expanded – moving her operation into a larger space, turning her boutique into a full-fledged fashion house, and taking on the name Berta Bridal. “We had reached a point in which I felt like the place became too small for my needs, in terms of production and the level of service I expect my team to grant my brides,” Balilti told JNS.org. “Then we decided to move to our new place.” By 2005, the company had 15 retailers, and a year later more than 30 stores were carrying the Israeli-made gowns. A few years later in 2012, when her son-in-law Nir Moscovich joined the team, he took the company international, overseeing its global operations. On her journey to success were encouraging parents who inspired her to never quit See “Bridal” on page 14
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THE REPORTER ■ MARCH 10, 2016
Lecture to be live-streamed
Frederick M. Lawrence – Yale Law School senior research scholar, past president of Brandeis University and an expert on civil rights, free expression and bias crimes —will “Examine Changing Boundaries of Free Speech” on Monday, March 28, at 7:30 pm, on the Jewish Theological Seminary campus, 3080 Broadway (at 122nd St.), New York City. The lecture will also be live streamed, at no charge, at www.jtsa.edu/live. (Registration not required for the livestream). Marc Gary, executive vice chancellor and chief operating officer of JTS and former general counsel, Fidelity Investments and BellSouth Corporation, will moderate. JTS invites synagogues and other Jewish communal organizations to hold a public screening of the program. To learn more, contact JTS at publicevents@jtsa.edu.
High school student can explore Jewish literature
High school students can spend a week exploring modern Jewish literature at the 2016 Great Jewish Books Summer Program at the Yiddish Book Center in Amherst, MA. The program, which is open to rising juniors and seniors, will offer two sessions in 2016: July 24-29 and July 31-August 7. The deadline to apply for either session is April 1. All students accepted to the program receive full scholarships covering the cost of tuition, room and board, books, and special events At Great Jewish Books, students read and discuss a wide range of modern Jewish literature, including fiction and nonfiction, poetry and graphic novels, by writers including Isaac Bashevis Singer, Grace Paley, SholemAleichem,Anna Deveare Smith and Etgar Keret in seminar-style classes led by college professors. After class, the students participate in small discussion groups, meet contemporary writers and take part in recreational activities under the supervision of resident advisers from the program. They also experience a taste of college life, living in a dorm at Hampshire College, adjacent to the Yiddish Book Center. For more information, visit www.yiddishbookcenter. org/educational-programs/great-jewish-books-summerprogram. Applications are available on the website.
Art Kibbutz residencies
Art Kibbutz is accepting applications for our Summer Residency on Governors Island, a public island in the waterways of New York City. With studios for visual artists, writers, composers, performing artists as well as presentation space, the Art Kibbutz summer studios building is a place for artists interested in a Jewish arts community. Art Kibbutz residencies are available for a range of summer dates, with a minimum of two weeks, and up to 12 weeks from May 29-September 19. For more information or to submit an application, visit https://artkibbutz.submittable.com/submit.
Bridal
Continued from page 13 pursuing her goals. Their example of persevering even in the toughest circumstances set a lasting foundation for her to build upon. “My parents raised me to believe I can be anything I want, so I just went ahead and chased my dream,” Balilti said. “I didn’t let go until I found my way. My family’s history [in Egypt] wasn’t very positive at the end. But I grew up in a family that always cherished the positive things they had there. I am obviously a proud Israeli, and do not take anything we have here for granted.” When her first major retailer, L’Fay Bridal, placed its initial order, Balilti was on the road to industry respect. “The very first time I saw one of her dresses, it was style #12-32 with long sleeves, [with a deep V-cut] and a sparkling top and I knew it was going to be a big seller,” said L’Fay’s Kukielka, who’s spent 15 years in the bridal business. “The first dress we ordered, the bride put it on and that’s all she wanted and she started crying.” Things took off when her dresses were featured in top fashion magazines, including Vogue and Elle and the bridal magazines Martha Stewart Weddings, Grace Ormonde Wedding Style, and Brides, as well as on popular blogs. These days, Berta Bridal is approaching 900,000 followers on Instagram. “Everything happened really fast in the international scene,” she said. “We were constantly getting inquiries from brides and many retailers all over the world who wanted to carry my line.” Today, her gowns are sold at more than 60 retailers in close to two-dozen countries, including in the U.S. department store giants Saks Fifth Avenue and Nordstrom. Though she has made her dream come true, Balilti isn’t complacent. “I still chase my dreams,” she said. “I’m grateful for all I have achieved so far, but there’s much more ahead, and I have no plans of taking a break.”
MARCH 10, 2016 ■
THE REPORTER
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NEWS IN BRIEF From JTA
Distribution of federal funds for Holocaust survivors begins
The Jewish Federations umbrella organization disbursed $2.8 million in federal grants to assist Holocaust survivors. With matching private funds, required under terms of the Department of Health and Human Services allocation announced last year, the Jewish Federations of North America said its disbursement announced on March 2 will result in $4.5 million in assistance for Holocaust survivors. The allocation is a tranche of $12 million to be distributed over five years and is part of an initiative launched in late 2013 by Vice President Joe Biden. A statement from the Jewish Federations of North America described the services as “person-centered and trauma-informed,” saying it is a “holistic approach to service provision that promotes the dignity, strength, and empowerment of trauma victims by incorporating knowledge about the role of trauma in victims’ lives into agency programs, policies and procedures.” The grant recipients include Jewish social service agencies in 11 states and the Washington, DC, metropolitan area. The statement said that of the more than 100,000 survivors in the United States, one in four is 85 or older and the same number live in poverty. “Many live alone and are at risk for social isolation, depression, and other physical and mental health conditions stemming from periods of starvation, disease and torture,” according to JFNA.
Italian Torah scroll identified as oldest still in use by a Jewish community
A Torah scroll from the synagogue in the northern Italian town of Biella has been identified as probably the oldest in the world still owned and used by a Jewish community. Dario Disegni, the president of the Foundation for the Preservation of Jewish Heritage in Italy, told a meeting of the foundation board in Rome on March 2 that Carbon 14 dating carried out by the Geochronology Laboratory of the University of Illinois put the date of the scroll at around 1250. “This is exciting news that is of extraordinary importance for Italian Judaism,” he said. The scroll, which since 2012 had undergone restoration on behalf of the foundation by an Italian scribe, or sofer, was to be returned to the Biella synagogue at a ceremony on March 6. The scroll was one of several ancient Torah scrolls examined by experts in 2012 and then chosen as the one best suited for restoration. It was believed originally to date from the 14th century. It is not rare to find extremely old Torah scrolls, the sofer, Amedeo Spagnoletto, told Italian Jewish media. “But in this case the scroll has remained completely intact, without a single piece of parchment substituted, from 1250 until today,” he said. The Biella scroll is not the oldest Torah scroll to have been found in Italy, but is the oldest that is still kosher and used by a Jewish community. In 2013, a Torah in the collection of the University of Bologna library was carbon dated to between 1155 and 1225, and identified as the oldest complete Torah scroll known to exist. The foundation has launched a $22,000 crowd-funding campaign to cover the costs of the Biella scroll restoration.
House bill links the issue of Jewish refugees from Arab lands, peace talks
A bipartisan slate of House lawmakers introduced a bill that would ensure that claims of Jews from Iran and Arab lands are addressed in any Arab-Israeli peace talks in which the United States is involved. The bill introduced on March 2 also requires that any administration report to Congress each year what it has done to address the issue of those Jews. Reps. Jerry Nadler and Eliot Engel (both D-NY), Ileana RosLehtinen (R-FL) and Ted Poe (R-TX), are the main sponsors of the measure. A number of groups in recent years have demanded that compensation for Palestinians made refugees by the 1948 Independence War be considered in the context of Jews driven out of Arab countries and Iran since that time. The statement thanked the American Jewish Committee and B’nai B’rith International for helping to shape the bill.
Obama urged to meet survivors of terror attacks on Argentina Jewish sites
Leaders of the House Foreign Affairs Committee urged President Barack Obama to meet with survivors of two 1990s terrorist attacks on Jewish institutions when he travels to Argentina. “As you work to renew the partnership between the United States and Argentina, we would like to suggest that you use this visit as an opportunity to pay tribute to victims of terrorism in Argentina and pledge to help bring those responsible to justice,” said the March 1 letter from Reps. Ed Royce (R-CA), the committee chairman, and Eliot Engel (D-NY), its top Democrat. “The attacks that targeted the Israeli Embassy on March 17, 1992, and the Argentine Israelite Mutual Association (AMIA) on July 18, 1994, were the deadliest in the country’s history,” the letter said. “Recognizing the victims and pledging assistance would send an important signal that the U.S. will stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Argentina to fight terrorism.” Obama plans to travel to Argentina on March 23-24. The Lebanese terrorist group Hezbollah is widely believed to have carried out the attacks with Iranian backing. The embassy bombing killed 29 people and the AMIA Jewish center attack left 85 dead. Hundreds of people were wounded. Argentina has yet to bring the killers to justice, and there are allegations that over the years some Argentine authorities, including former President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, were compromised by efforts to maintain ties with Iran. A Jewish federal prosecutor investigating the crime, Alberto Nisman, allegedly was murdered last year after making charges to that effect against Kirchner.
Hillel International fellowships to train young Jewish professionals
A new Hillel International project will send hundreds of recent college graduates to campuses nationwide for training as Jewish professionals. The two-year Springboard Fellowships will see the placement of 500 fellows in the first five years, Hillel said on March 2 in a statement. The program is part of the organization’s Drive to Excellence initiative to increase student engagement in Hillel on college campuses. “One of Hillel’s key roles is to build and grow the next generation of Jewish talent, both for our own movement and the broader Jewish world,” said Eric Fingerhut, president and CEO of Hillel International: The Foundation for Campus Jewish Life. “Through the Springboard Fellowship, we can build on the relationships we develop with young Jews on campuses across the country and around the world to provide college graduates with innovative education and skills training while serving our communities.” The fellowship is scheduled to begin this fall with 20 fellows. The fellows will be jointly funded by Hillel International and by the Hillel campuses they serve. A grant from
the Pittsburgh-based Beacon and Shapira Foundations made the fellowship launch possible in large part. The Springboard Fellowships are an outgrowth of the Steinhardt Jewish Campus Service Corps Fellowship that Hillel ran from 1994-2008.
Philly-area Jewish middle school to open with $25 million grant
A modern Orthodox elementary school in suburban Philadelphia will launch a middle school with a $25 million grant from a local foundation. The Yeshiva Lab School in Lower Merion, PA, said the week of March 3 that it would open the school for the 2017-18 academic year. The Kohelet Foundation, which assists Jewish day schools in the Philadelphia region and nationally, has pledged to invest up to $25 million to develop the school. “We’re investing in YLS for our local community and for the field” of Jewish education, Holly Cohen, Kohelet’s executive director, said in a statement.
Report: Growing numbers of Arab-Israelis joining ISIS
The Islamic State terrorist group reportedly is gaining in popularity among Arab citizens of Israel. Thirty-four Arab-Israelis have been indicted for offenses tied to activities in support of ISIS, according to a television program aired on March 3 on Israel’s Channel 10 and covered by the Times of Israel. The report said ISIS has 100 activists in Israel and is pushing them to launch a major terrorist attack there. It also said 40 Arab-Israelis have left the country and traveled through Turkey in order to join ISIS forces in Iraq and Syria, and 10 Palestinians are “missing” from Palestinian Authority areas and are believed to have joined up with ISIS.
U of Missouri hit with third antisemitic incident in less than a year
University of Missouri officials condemned an antisemitic incident at a campus residence hall, the second this school year and the third in less than a calendar year. A poster reading “Hitler rules” was hung on Feb. 29 on a bulletin board in the Gateway Hall student residence on the university’s main campus in Columbia, according to the school’s newspaper, The Maneater. The school’s interim chancellor, Hank Foley, and interim vice chancellor for inclusion, diversity and equity, Chuck Henson, expressed anger at another antisemitic incident in a school residence hall. “This type of vandalism attacks everyone,” they said in a statement on March 1. “Our core values – including that of respect – must become more than words on paper or a banner. They are the foundation of who we desire to be as a campus community and the way we all need to conduct ourselves.” No one has been apprehended in the vandalism. On Oct. 24, a swastika drawn in feces was found on the wall of a bathroom in a residence hall. And in April 2015, swastikas and antisemitic epithets were written in ash in the stairwell of a campus dormitory. A freshman at the university was arrested for the vandalism. The university’s Jewish Student Organization also released a statement on March 1 saying it “strongly condemns this expression of hatred. ...This type of hate speech isn’t merely an attack on religious minorities; it also targets other cultural and ethnic groups,” the group said. “This act occurred in a residence hall, a place students call home. Home should be a haven where people feel safe from hatred.” The statement added that the Jewish Student Organization was “humbled by the support from student leadership on campus since the incident was reported.” In November, the university’s chancellor and president resigned over questions about their leadership in the wake of racial tensions on campus, which led to a student hunger strike and football players threatening to boycott a game.
Ex-spy links Argentine gov’t to Nisman death, spurring venue change to murder court
A former Argentine spymaster accused the government of former President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner of being responsible for the death of AMIA prosecutor Alberto Nisman, spurring a venue change to a court that hears murder cases. Following more than 15 hours of testimony on March 1 from Antonio “Jaime” Stiuso, the former operations chief of the Intelligence Secretariat, or SI, the country’s spy agency, Judge Fabiana Palmaghini said the case would be investigated by a federal court. Stiuso’s testimony, some of which leaked during the day, was not released because Palmaghini placed a gag order on the investigation. But the Argentine media reported that Stiuso said Nisman’s death “was intimately linked with the complaint that he made” accusing the Kirchner government of deciding to “not incriminate” former senior officials of Iran and trying to “erase” their roles in planning the bombing. Stiuso had assisted Nisman in the investigation into the 1994 attack on the Buenos Aires Jewish center, which left 85 dead and hundreds wounded. Nisman was found shot and killed in the bathroom of his apartment on Jan. 18, 2015. No official cause of death has been presented. Ten hours after hearing Stiuso’s testimony, Palmaghini declared herself “unfit” to continue with the case and changed the venue. She overturned her own Feb. 12 ruling saying there was no evidence indicating Nisman had been murdered, the Buenos Aires Herald reported. The judge also lodged a complaint against prosecutor Viviana Fein for allegedly failing to register information, including some data provided by Stiuso in his first testimony in the Nisman investigation made in February 2015. The change of jurisdiction was requested less than a week ago by Ricardo Sáenz, the attorney general for Argentina’s Criminal Appeals Court, who also asserted that Nisman was murdered. In a letter to the judges, Sáenz wrote that a federal magistrate “has the broadest jurisdiction to clarify which of all the assumptions” into Nisman’s death are correct. Nisman’s body was found hours before he was to present evidence to Argentine lawmakers that Kirchner covered up Iran’s role in the AMIA attack. According to Stiuso, Nisman was murdered for not stopping the investigation, as Kirchner had requested. “She decided to negotiate the pact with Iran and ordered the SI to stop providing evidence or information to the AMIA case,” Stiuso reportedly said on March 1 during his testimony. According to Palmaghini, some evidence at Nisman’s apartment could have been tampered with before Fein’s arrival at the scene, since at least 20 people , including former security secretary Sergio Berni, entered the apartment the night that Nisman’s body was discovered. Also on March 1, addressing the first session of the national Parliament, Argentine President Mauricio Macri said: “Let’s not forget that little more than a year ago, prosecutor Alberto Nisman turned up dead in circumstances that remain uncertain but that are slowly starting to clear up.” Macri did not explicitly mention the change in venue of the case, or that the focus of the investigation has turned more to the homicide theory rather than suicide or uncertainty, as previously argued by Fein.
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THE REPORTER â– MARCH 10, 2016
Israel Mission 2016 We leave the US on Sunday, September 4, and return on Friday morning, September 16. The land cost is $3,875 and the air cost will be $1,100. This trip is designed for people who have been to Israel before and are looking for those special places that we just don't have time to get to with first-time visitors.
Some of the special sites we'll be visiting are the new Yitzhak Rabin Museum, telling the story of Israel from 1948 to the present. We'll visit the Stella Maris Monastery, located above the hill going to Elijah's cave. We'll visit the largest apple packing plant in the Middle East, on the Golan Heights. We'll ascend Mt. Hermon. We'll go to Mitzpe Ramon, the site of the Ramon crater, which is about 24 miles long, 4 miles wide and about 1/4 mile deep. It's one of only two craters like it in the world. We'll also stay at an amazing new resort, built right on the edge of the crater. We'll enjoy the spa and the entire experience there. In Jerusalem, we'll visit the Knesset, take a tour of the facility, and have lunch with a Knesset member. We’ll tour the recently built Supreme Court building, the Friends of Zion Museum, and Oscar Schindler's gravesite. We'll also visit the world-famous Alyn Children's Hospital, and many more sites throughout the country. This is a very special tour that we have arranged, and one that may not be repeated due to the difficulty of making all these arrangements. Space is limited. We are already taking reservations, and will have more information available as we go further. You can call Mark Silverberg (ext 1) or Dassy Ganz (ext 2) for further information, at 570-961-2300. This is a trip you won't want to miss!