The Jewish Star 01-26-2024 by Richner Communications, Inc

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January 26, 2024 16 Shevat 5784 • Beshelach • Vol 23, No 4

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Jewish Star asks about Israel, antisemitism, border security, Trump

2 rivals for Santos seat crow that they’re the best on Israel TOM SUOZZI

MAZI PILIP

‘Another pro-Israel Republican is not going to add much.’

‘I grew up there. I know Israel from the bottom up.’

By Ed Weintrob ampaigning to retake his former seat in the House of Representatives, Democrat Tom Suozzi told The Jewish Star that “there is no difference” over Israel between him and his rival, Republican Mazi Pilip. “Except,” he added, “I have experience in relationships with people and know how to get things done in government.” Competing in the Feb. 13 special election to fill the unexpired term of ousted Republican Rep. George Santos, Suozzi emphasized his long-term broad support for the Jewish state and a record of bipartisan action during six years in Congress. He gave up his House seat in 2022 for a failed Democratic primary challenge to Gov. Kathy Hochul. “I consider myself a Zionist, I’ve always been supportive of Israel in every single way,” Suozzi See Tom Suozzi on page 2

By Ed Weintrob here’s a “big difference” over Israel between the two candidates in Long Island’s Feb. 13 congressional primary, Republican nominee Mazi Pilip told The Jewish Star. “I grew up there. I served in the Army. I know Israel from the bottom all the way up. I know it all,” she said, countering a claim by her rival, Democrat Tom Suozzi, that his experience in government puts him on top in this and other areas. “With all respect to his statement that he can do a better job because of his experience — I have been living there and I know what my people are going through,” Pilip said during a sit-down with The Jewish Star on Friday. Pilip is a two-term Nassau County legislator who is facing Suozzi, who represented the area for six years in Congress before giving up the seat to challenge Gov. Kathy Hochul in last See Mazi Pilip on page 2

Former Rep. Tom Suozzi during his interview Tim Baker, The Jewish Star with The Jewish Star.

Nassau Legislator Mazi Pilip during her interview Tim Baker, The Jewish Star with The Jewish Star.

Sanctuary from campus hate

Touro U offers a ‘safe campus scholarship’ Touro University has announced a “Safe Campus Scholarship” to encouraging students who want to transfer from their current schools due to the uptick in campus antisemitism. Founded in New York to foster Jewish higher education — and now with branches throughout the United States, including several in the New York area — Touro is offering to cover 25% of tuition for these new enrollees. The university ran ads following the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks and the resulting boom in pro-Hamas and anti-Israel rallies on US campuses. One ad said, “Jewish students are under attack” and “At

Touro, you’re home — a place where your values are celebrated.” Touro University President, Alan

Kadish, stated that “we just want to make sure that students have a place [where] they feel comfortable.” Catholic universities have also invited Jewish students to transfer to their schools. Franciscan University of Steubenville in Ohio and Walsh University in North Canton, Ohio, said that their campuses offer a refuge. Rev. Dennis Holtschneider, president of the Association of Catholic Colleges and Universities and a former president of DePaul University in Chicago, told JNS that many Catholic universities “were founded during waves of immigration that included both Catholics and Jews.” —JNS

For 30+ Years!

Tim Baker, The Jewish Star

TOM SUOZZI

MAZI PILIP

s a county legislator, in 20222 Pilip was involved in establishing a Special Legislative Task Force to Combat Antisemitism in Nassau County. Asked whether she personally encountered antiseminism since emigrating to America, she cited an incident involving her son that she said led her to enter the political arena. She recounted how her son had asked for a Magen David as a bar mitzvah gift. “I thought would ask me for something crazy, but he wanted a simple necklace. And I was very proud of him,” she said. “But I’m not going to lie to you. I [thought], how am I going to give him [this at a time] when antisemitism is on the rise, what about G-d forbid somebody can attack my son because they’re going to just see the Star of David. “I never told him that. I decided to keep it for myself. But the fact is that I had to think about this twice. I said, I have five children, I’m pregnant, and I’m afraid to give a necklace to my son. That is wrong. Absolutely wrong. How am I supposed to raise my children with that fear? “That is the reason why I got involved.” oes she envision a long-range solution to the conflict between Israel and those commonly referred to as Palestinians? She said peace would be possible when the other side has leaders “who care about their people” and do not use them as human shields. Today, those leaders “have luxury lives” while “all the money that’s coming from United States and around the world, instead of building Gaza, building good schools [and a] quality of life, what they are doing is building rockets, thinking how to destroy Israel,” she said. “How can we have a peace with that kind of mind.” “This is not about land, this pure hate,” she continued. “They don’t believe Israel should exist. That’s not going to happen.” hile Israel is issue number one for many, it is not the only topic over which the 3rd CD candidates have been tussling. Immigration is a central theme of the campaign, with Pilip TV commercials linking Suozzi to a border crisis they blame on President Biden. See Pilip on page 4

Continued from page 1 year’s Democratic primary. Whoever is elected on Feb. 13 will complete the unexpired term of Republican Rep. George Santos, who was expelled by the House, which runs until a new session of Congress begins on Jan. 3, 2025. “I’m a mother, I’m a fighter,” she said. “I’m doing this not because of politics and power; I’m doing it because in our country, the left-progressive policies out there are taking us to one place and somebody has to stop it.” Pilip questioned Suozzi’s pro-Israel credentials, alleging that as a member of the House he failed to challenge its anti-Israel “Squad” and even — as her campaign extrapolated from a comment Suozzi made in a televised interview in 2019 — asked “to be one their honorary members.” “Why he didn’t he stand against the Squad all those years when he was there, and even asked to join them? That’s a big problem,” she said. The Squad has done great damage “over years,” Pilip said. “Nobody held them accountable. Nobody faced them. He failed to do that when he had the opportunity.” Suozzi has explained that his defense of the Squad during that TV interview was a narrow one, intended as criticism of President Trump’s suggestion that Squad members — at the time including Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, Rashida Tlaib of Michigan and Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts — “go back” to the countries they came from. Of the group, only Omar, who is from Somalia, was born outside the United States. In an interview with The Jewish Star and LI Herald, Suozzi said he spoke out for the Squad in that one instance because Trump’s comment recalled how his Italian-immigrant father was often told to “go back” where he came from. Pilip pushed back at that defense, asking, “what about every time Squad members were talking so viciously about Israel, why didn’t he stand with Israel? I didn’t see that.” “Our rights as the Jewish people will be protected. And the only person who is going to be clear about this is me,” she said.

Tim Baker, The Jewish Star

congressmembers) but that he asked “to be one their honorary members.” “That’s all made up,” he said. “Let me tell you the whole Squad story so people know what it is. “My father was born in Italy, came to the United States a young boy. You know the story: First kid in the neighborhood to go to college; fought in World War Two, got the Distinguished Flying Cross on a B24; came back home and went to Harvard Law School on the GI Bill. What a country! “Even though he went to Harvard Law School, he couldn’t get a job at a law firm because nobody liked the Italians because the Italians had teamed up with the Germans during World War Two, and because of the mafia, so his whole life in the 1930s, the ’40s ’50s, even into the ’60s, people would say to him, go back to where you came from. … That’s why my father was always so strong against discriminating against anybody.” Just before he went onto a live TV interview, “they’re talking about how Donald Trump told the Squad they should go back to where they came from — to their crime-infested blankety blank countries. … That really set me off. “And so I got on the TV — I was on the show for another reason — [and said], let me just go back to your previous segment for one second. I think what the president said was totally inappropriate and totally unAmerica because that’s what they said to my father, to go go back to your country. I said I don’t agree with the Squad on most issues, but today I want to be an honorary member of the Squad, because I don’t think it’s right that the president spoke about going back to where you came from. So that’s what they’re using to try and say Tom Suozzi is a Squad member. It’s complete you know what.” “The idea of saying I’m a Squad member is absurd. I took on the Squad on Israel and other issues,” he said. uozzi was asked about a TV commercial that derisively called Pilip a “Maga Republican,” and pictured Rep. Elise Stefanik as See Suozzi on page 4

Continued from page 1 said during a sit-down with The Jewish Star and LI Herald Newspapers in the offices they share in Garden City last Wednesday. He emphasized that he “would not condition aid” to Israel, including “on what the leader of Israel was saying or doing or that kind of stuff,” recalling that he’d “signed letters and spoken out about that while I was in Congress.” “People who are concerned about conditioning of aid should be very concerned that the Republicans have conditioned aid to Israel on cutting $14 billion dollars from the IRS — that was just totally irresponsible,” he said. “And they should further be concerned” about Republican efforts to link aid for Israel and Ukraine with a border security fix — while at the same time they are refusing to negotiate on border security in the House.” sked why Orthodox Jews increasingly have been leaning Republican, and whether he expected to win their votes, Suozzi said: “I think that the far left — the Squad, the 14 members of Congress that have been giving us a hard time — have damaged the Democratic brand.” “My argument to my Orthodox friends and to other pro-Israel Jews and other pro-Israel people is that another pro-Israel Republican is not going to really add much to the equation right now,” he said. “If you really care about Israel, and you care about the Israel-United States relationship, you want to keep it bipartisan, no matter what, so it will withstand the vagaries of our internal domestic politics. Wwe don’t know who’s going to be in power next year, or in five years or in 10 years. You need to have strong, outspoken pro-Israel Democrats now more than ever, and I am that person.” “People know me and they know that I’m a reasonable person that is not going to fall for the far left stuff,” he said later. “I’ll fight against the far left and I’ll fight against the far right and I’ll fight for the people. I’ll fight for the things that people care about.” he Mazi campaign alleges not only that Suozzi has been soft on the Squad (the radical left anti-Israel group of Democratic

Tim Baker, The Jewish Star

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SUOZZI Continued from page 2 a right-wing villain. He both criticized the commercial and defended Stefanik, a formerly moderate Republican from upstate New York who’s now viewed as an unhinged right-wing radical by many on the left. Regardless of her history as a moderate or her standing as a radical, Stefanik’s grilling of college presidents, at a House hearing in December, raised her to hero status among fighters against campus antisemitism. “I think she did an excellent job in her inquiries regarding antisemitism on college campuses,” he said. “I’m not happy with the way she’s changed as dramatically as she has on other issues and has gotten so extreme on certain things — but as far as her performance regarding the college campuses I thought she did an excellent job.” V commercials supporting Pilip attack Suozzi as a partner with President Joe Biden in opening America’s southern borders to unchecked migration. “Tom Suozzi helped create our immigration crisis,” asserts one commercial. “In Congress, he’ll make it worse.” Another begins, “Biden’s policies are opening the border, ruining the economy, destroying America. Tom Suozzi voted with Biden every single time.” But Suozzi told The Jewish Star that “we have to secure the border,” and while in Congress he worked across the aisle to craft “a grand compromise on immigration.” He said he jointly published an op-ed piece in the New York Times with former Long Island conservative Rep. Peter King. The op-ed — “which I still stand by” — “had three elements: border security, treat people like human beings, and pay for it. Peter King’s “not endorsing me, but we made a deal to get it done,” Suozzi said.

One of Suozzi’s ideas involves building an Ellis Island-type site to screen and process immigrants entering along the southern border. “Let’s say you don’t like my idea, something’s wrong with my idea or my compromise with Peter King. When was the last time you heard anybody talking about a solution? All it is is attacking — ‘Suozzi is the godfather of the migrant crisis,’ ‘Suozzi’s in the Squad,’ ‘This one’s no good.’ Let’s talk about solutions!” Pilip’s offered no detailed plan on immigration, he said. n the hot-button topic of crime, things may not be as bad as perceived, but “you can’t you can’t tell people to perceive something that they perceive [one way] differently than they perceive it,” he said. “People are worried.” “I campaigned for governor on crime, taxes and corruption. I’ve always been pro law enforcement. In the middle of the George Floyd protests, I did ceremonies honoring the cops in Queens, Glen Cove, Nassau and Suffolk.” As Nassau County Executive, “I ran the twelfth largest police department in the United States; when I left we had the lowest crime rate in the country for any community over 500,000 people. When I was mayor of Glen Cove, I reduced the crime rate to half of what it was in Nassau County, and Nassau County had a low crime rate.” hy is she hiding?” Suozzi asked of Pilip, who has declined all but one opportunity to participate in a debate — a News 12 event five days before the election and five days after early voting starts. “I have the higher name recognition. I’m the one who should be denying the debates. … She should be clamoring for debates, to get people to find out who she is. She’s hiding. “She’s relying upon the Republican machine — which is very strong in Nassau County, the strongest Republican machine in the country. … They have 400 people that go out every weekend, campaigning door to door with literature. I don’t have that type of organization. And she’s hiding behind that and hoping that she’ll win the same way the Republicans have won everything else on Long Island.”

PILIP Continued from page 2 The Jewish Star asked Pilip how she reconciles her status as a two-time immigrant — first fleeing Ethiopia for Israel, later coming to the United States — with her opposition to the current wave of immigrants entering the US across the southern border. “There’s a different situation now,” she said. “I came in the legal way.” “We should protect asylum seekers,” she assured. “But millions are coming in — everybody’s an asylum seeker now. You don’t think the United States of America and our president should verify those people?” “I don’t want terrorists to make their way here,” Pilip added. “If you have a wide-open border, that’s a big concern.” She scoffed at Suozzi’s suggestion of building an Ellis Island-type site as a fix for the southern border crisis. “He was in the majority when they decided to open the borders, and he’s not going to go back to fix it because he’s not capable,” she said. “The American people don’t trust him.” ilip has always been a registered Democrat, and was elected a Nassau County legislator on the Republican line. She won’t change her registration now, mid-campaign, to avoid potential problems, she said. “The Democratic Party that I joined 17 or 18 years ago is not the same party today,” she said. “I realized my values go more with the Republican Party. Therefore I decided to run as a Republican.” Pilip declined to criticize Republican House Leader Mike Johnson’s refusal to approve additional emergency aid to Israel unless Democrats cut aid to Ukraine and act decisively on US border security. While strings should not be attached to aid to Israel, that’s not the case with aid to Ukraine, she said.

rom the opening day of her campaign — when she was hustled through a side door at the American Legion Hall in Massapequa to avoid reporters’ questions after being introduced to the press — Pilip’s been dogged by suggestions that Republicans have been running an under-the-radar campaign, and that she’s refused to debate her opponent. “First of all, I’m out there. And every press request I got, I was trying to accommodate anybody,” she said. “I’m not afraid of no one. I’m meeting a lot of people on the ground.” As for her agreeing to only one debate with Suozzi — on Feb. 8, five days before the election and five days after early voting began — she said, “I don’t have that much time to have debates. We’re talking about a very short time to the election.” n her interview with The Jewish Star, Pilip exuded confidence and answered questions clearly — until this year’s political elephant entered the room. “I’m here to talk about me” and not former President Donald Trump, she said, adding that “whoever is going to be [the Republican presidential nominee], I know I’m going to work with him.” She said Trump did “great things for this country — when it comes to improving our economy, when it comes to our position on the international level; when it comes to Israel, he was a big supporter of Israel, he brought the Abraham Accords peace process.” Of Trump’s web of legal woes, she said, “Any allegation about him is something between him and our court system to go through. I don’t want to conclude anything before that. Let him go through the process.” As to what happened on Jan. 6, it “should not happen,” she said. “We are one nation, and we have to be respectful, even when we don’t agree with each other. I don’t encourage violence, no violence with me.” If elected Feb. 13, then reelected in November, Pilip would be in the House next Jan. 6 when members will be asked to certify the presidential election. Trump urged members on Jan. 6, 2021, to overturn votes certified by some states. Pilip said she would respect the certification process.

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Survivor déjà vu: Renewed antisemitism, war By Deborah Fineblum, JNS For months, the news has been filled with some chilling events aimed at the Jews: Kidnap, rape, torture, murder and war with a brutal enemy that hides in schools, hospitals and an endless network of underground tunnels. And from around the globe, rising antisemitism on college campuses, protests and marches down city streets, news broadcasts in the media — not to mention getting a thumbs up from global agencies like the United Nations and the Hague’s International Court of Justice. For Holocaust survivors, all of this seems an eerie sense of déjà vu, taking them back eight decades to a time everyone thought was ancient history. The three who spoke to JNS are following news of Israel’s war against Hamas closely — a war that came out of pogroms on Oct. 7 inside its borders. “When I think of the captives being burnt alive, I think of my mother and brothers whose bodies were burnt in crematoria,” says Rena Quint, an 88-year-old survivor living in Jerusalem. “And when I think of the hostages living on half a pita and a bit of rice, I remember how we nearly starved and how towards the end in Bergen-Belsen, we drank water from puddles. I completely understand how they must feel.” Since Oct. 7, survivor Bronia Brandman of Brooklyn, N.Y., has kept her computer tuned to the news of the war in Israel. “I can see how the media is really giving Israel a bad name and social-media platforms, too,” says the 93-yearold. “They’re totally distorting what’s happening there. It’s a myopic view that reminds me so much of the Nazis, like a repetition. And, if the Jewish bigwigs think they can close their eyes and it will go away, they are very much mistaken.” David Frenkel, a survivor living in Jerusalem who is a 58-year veteran of the Israel Defense Forces, as well as a retired judge, is equally concerned. “In schools with tunnels under them, our soldiers found books including the ideology of Hitler,” he says. “Every country has to stand up against this horrible hatred; it needs to be stopped before it goes any further.” And although the Nazis took years to develop their policy of mass destruction of the Jews, he adds, “the kind of inhuman cruelty we’re seeing now against men, women, children and even babies sounds very familiar.” These survivors are also watching with concern the steep increase in antisemitism around the world, a phenomenon that transports them

Holocaust survivor Bronia Brandman of Brooklyn looks through the Book of Names at UN headquarters in New York. Her arms bears witness with tattooed numbers from her time as a concentration-camp prisoner.

back to their own childhoods. “In 1933, Jews were already experiencing restrictions, and in 1938, you already had Kristallnacht,” says Quint. “Today, there are Jews who are afraid to wear a Magen David” (a “Star of David”), and, she notes, she read that “nearly 20 percent of people in New York say they believe Jews caused the Holocaust.” This triggers early memories for the mother, grandmother and great-grandmother. Born in 1935, the only thing Quint recalls of her first three years was her two big brothers pulling her on a sled in their hometown of Piotrków, in central Poland. The happy childhood ended on Sept. 5, 1939, when after the country was invaded by German Nazis on the first of the month, they rolled into her town in tanks and airplanes, throwing grenades into Jewish homes. When they were rounded up in the town synagogue, a stranger shouted at her to run and she did, never seeing her mother or brothers again. Eventually reuniting with her father and uncle, she was disguised as a boy and put to work with them in a glass factory until they were shipped to Bergen-Belsen, where a series of

Bronia Brandman with her mother, Ida Rubin, and her younger sister, Rutka.

women took her under their wings. Quint was on a death march at the time of liberation and then sent to Sweden to recover from typhus, eventually landing in America, where she was adopted. “My life ended at 3 and began again at 10,” she says. In 1984, she moved to Israel with her husband and children. Of the more than half a million Hungarian Jews who were murdered, 100 of them were Frenkel’s family. “So when some Germans came to ask for forgiveness, I said I don’t have the right to grant forgiveness on behalf of the 6 million,” he says. “No one gave us power of attorney to do that.” Before his ninth birthday, Frenkel’s childhood took him from his native Hungary through

the Budapest ghetto and to Bergen-Belsen after most of his family perished in Auschwitz. He was 9 in the fall of 1945, on his way by himself to prestate Israel through the Youth Aliyah program. Like Quint and Frenkel, Brandman grew up fast. She was 8 when the Nazis invaded her hometown of Jaworzno in southern Poland. “We heard their booming, threatening voices — just to hear those voices made your blood curdle,” she recalls. “We knew that life would never be the same.” From a family of eight, only she and one brother survived Auschwitz. One moment particularly haunts her: Staying with a sick sister in the camp infirmary, she was warned that all patients would be killed the next day. Though she felt terrible leaving her sibling, Brandman fled the infirmary. Like Quint, she, too, was sent on a death march before liberation. Brandman did not speak of her Holocaust experience for 50 years, nor did she really laugh for 25. “The Nazis left me without any tears,” she says. In the end, she and the one brother were among the 17 Jews who survived the war out of the 2,000 who once lived in their hometown. They made it to America in 1950, where she married and had a family. From this, Brandman has a theory explaining why antisemitism keeps resurfacing: “I think people have that streak in them always, and when it’s unveiled, we’re scapegoated again and again.” Of course, survivors like these are increasingly a rarity: Of the 3.5 million alive at liberation in 1945, an estimated 250,000 remain today as International Holocaust Remembrance Day draws near on Jan. 26-27. One of them is Sheryl Ochayon’s 88-year-old mother, who was hidden for two years by nonJewish friends in southeastern Poland near today’s Ukrainian border. “She’s very disturbed by what she’s seeing in the media about Israel; she finds it shocking and depressing,” says Ochayon, a project director at Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Center. “And the more we learn about what happened in Israel on Oct. 7, the more it reminds her and all of us of the sadism of the Nazis.” Ochayon adds that “the more we hear about the world looking the other way, including the Red Cross refusing to help the Israeli hostages, the more familiar this is sounding. It’s especially shocking to those of us who have always thought that the world is a much better place than it was in 1939.”

For the love of Israel: Making aliyah post-Oct. 7 By Efrat Forsher, JNS Until Oct. 7, the number of people making aliyah in 2023 was in decline. The last three months changed that trajectory. Since the outbreak of the war, there has been a significant increase in the number of new immigration files opened — a figure that will necessarily impact immigration data in the first months of 2024. According to Qualita, the umbrella organization of French immigrants in Israel, there has been a 500% surge in the number of aliyah files opened in France. “The antisemitism and thousands of violent incidents against Jews in France have led to an unprecedented desire for French Jews to immigrate to Israel and assist in the war effort,” said CEO Ariel Kandel. “This is an opportunity that must not be squandered. The State of Israel needs to initiate and implement a program to bring new immigrants as soon as possible, to strengthen the state during and after the war.” According to Nefesh B’Nefesh, which operates in North America, since the start of the war, some 4,200 aliyah files have been opened with them — an increase of 120% compared to the same period the year before (October to early January). Nefesh B’Nefesh co-founder and Executive Director Rabbi Yehoshua Fass told Israel Hayom: “North American Jewry is voting with its feet and

New immigrants from North America arrive on a flight organized by Nefesh B’Nefesh in 2019.

Flash90

choosing to immigrate to Israel in its difficult hour. The war did not cause Jews who wanted to immigrate to cancel their plans — it even intensi-

fied the urgency to get to the land, out of a sense of belonging and solidarity.” The Aliyah and Integration Ministry, the Jewish Agency and other organizations also estimate that the reasons for the spike in requests to open immigration files are the war in Israel and the growing antisemitism worldwide. However, half of the candidates who opened aliyah files in the United States stated Zionism as the main reason for their aliyah. According to research conducted at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem’s Kantor Center for the Study of Contemporary European Jewry, an antisemitic incident occurs somewhere in the world every 80 seconds. According to the organization Fighting Online Antisemitism, which prepared a report together with the WZO, since the outbreak of the war, there has been a 300% spike in antisemitic content on social networks. “The immigration of many Jews to Israel during the war and the tremendous spike in opening immigration files are an important Zionist act and expression of solidarity with the state at this time,” said Aliyah and Integration Minister Ofir Sofer. Doron Almog, chairman of the Jewish Agency for Israel, added: “Immigration to Israel at times like these is yet another testament to the degree to which Diaspora Jewry has partaken in build-

ing the State of Israel and its revival. I welcome every one of the immigrants who are building their home in Israel these days.” Lior Pirouzian, 25, arrived in Israel in the last week of December through Nefesh B’Nefesh. She grew up in New York, the eldest daughter of an Israeli mother and a father who fled Iran during the revolution. Part of her father’s family still resides in Iran. Pirouzian is a nurse by profession, and before arriving in Israel she completed her nursing studies and began working as a nurse in a hospital. “My entire life, since I was five years old, I had dreamed of immigrating to Israel and building my life here,” she said, adding that she decided to come now and take this step specifically because of the war. “I felt in my gut that this was the right thing to do. I wasn’t scared, my heart so wanted to come here. I said to myself that this is the time to do it. It’s either now or never.” She said that while she did not fear the rising antisemitism in New York, she did feel uncomfortable: “The situation is not easy. You’re a target because you’re Jewish. There are more pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel demonstrations. There were times I didn’t feel comfortable speaking Hebrew in Manhattan. There is some fear. That is not our country — and that’s another reason why I wanted to come, to feel more belonging.”

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10 SAR seniors experience Judaism in Havana By Jason Kwalwasser and Sean Shteingart The plane carrying 10 students from SAR High School in Riverdale to Cuba took off at 5 am on Sunday, Jan. 14, but planning began months earlier. The Spanish language students, accompanied on the trip by two teachers, had been collecting donations that amounted to over 500 pounds of medication, toiletries and other essentials for Jewish Cubans. The first full day in Cuba began with a lecture by former Cuban diplomat turned university professor Camilo Lopez-Trigo, who said the United States’ embargo was an “economic war against Cuba” that imposed struggles on the Cuban people. The SAR group then visited the Patronato (Beth Shalom), a Conservative Ashkenazic synagogue that, despite many congregants having emigrated, still maintains a thriving Sunday school. The synagogue also operates a pharmacy and food pantry. The students cleaned the steps of the main entrance so the synagogue would continue to sparkle. Noah Marks called it a “meaningful and rewarding act of chesed, and a great way to help Cuban Jewry.” The group participated in a walking tour in Old Havana, taking in the neighborhood’s beauty and poverty and learning about Cuba’s rich history. Samantha Feit described the experience as “incredibly eye-opening and meaningful. Despite often living in terrible conditions, the people live joyfully and walk the streets with smiles on their faces.” The next day, speaker Marta Nuñez Sarmiento, a retired professor of sociology at the University of Havana, discussed gender roles in Cuban society. Then the students packed the bus, or la guagua, with all of their gifts for the Jewish community. The first stop was at the local fruit market to pick up produce for the Jewish seniors. After hopping back on la guagua, they continued to El Centro Hebreo Sefaradí de Cuba to converse and socialize with 30 Jewish seniors, trading pieces of chocolate for hugs and kisses. Many of the stu-

From left: SAR students Jason Kwalwasser, Sean Shteingart and Noah Marks, with some of the few remaining Orthodox Jewish men in Cuba.

From left: SAR students Sydney Fishkin, Avielle Shiller. Charlotte Moreen, Abigail Chill, Talia Pollard, Samantha Feit and Honor Greenberg during their visit to Havana, Cuba, this month.

dents played games with them while others sat and talked about their lives. The students learned that most of their children have made aliyah or left the country for other destinations, and several have grandchildren currently serving in the IDF. “As we left, tears poured down my face,” said Jason Kwalwasser, one of the trip’s organizers, whose family is Cuban. “After only just learning that many of these individuals were my tía’s childhood friends, I was bespeckled with kisses from all of the women with the message, ‘One for you and one for your family’.” Afterward, the group stopped at the Jewish cemetery, founded in the 20th century but still operating, where they weeded and learned about in-

fluential members of the Cuban Jewish community. The next activity was to learn traditional Israeli circle dance and Cuban salsa dance from Cuban Jewish teens. Honor Greenberg poignantly noted, “Even though we come from vastly different backgrounds, we connected with the Jewish Cuban teens over delicious food and a fun evening. Sharing our experiences in both Spanish and English helped bridge our cultural gap in a fun and meaningful way.” To end the day, the group went to El Cañonazo, a centuries-old Havanese ritual signifying the closure of Havana Bay for the night. The final day began with an early morning wake-up because of a minyan on the occasion of the yahrzeit of the mother of Rabino Drelich, an

SAR Judaic Studies teacher who accompanied the group. He describes the experience as being “filled with gratitude, especially that many of the participants for the minyan spent over an hour in a taxi in order to help make a minyan for someone they never met before.” After a quick visit to the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes de la Habana, they loaded onto la guagua to see Muraleando. On the outskirts of Havana, their tour guide, Victor, explained how he and a couple other local artists cleaned up the local garbage dump to create a free museum and art center for children. Using trash found during the renovation, the artists made beautiful murals that extend beyond the walls of the building and into the surrounding streets. The most amazing part was that this was all volunteer work, with the workers’ only motivation being to help their communities. How can they leave Havana without riding in the cars from the 1950s prevalent on the city’s streets? So they drove through the city in vintage American cars without seatbelts or a roof. The final night echoed the sounds of banging drums, shaking maracas, and a performance of the iconic song, “Guantanamera.” The experience was so impactful that Sydney Fishkin realized, “I want to spend a year abroad in a Spanishspeaking country to fully immerse myself in the culture.” While they did not return with rum or cigars, the students’ perspectives have forever changed. “When I spoke to our tour guide, Nubia, I was struck by her perspective on life,” Avielle Shiller explained. “While she and many other Cubans live on a low monthly income, she still has a positive attitude and makes the most of everything she has. I now see and appreciate my own life so differently.” The trip was chaperoned by Bonnie Myers, SAR HS Spanish teacher, who worked hard to provide the students with a truly memorable experience.

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9 THE JEWISH STAR January 26, 2024 • 16 Shvat 5784

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Hostage Sq: Epicenter of #BringThemHomeNow By Amelie Botbol, JNS “I’m fasting. Ask me why,” reads a sign on a chair at Hostage Square in Tel Aviv. “In Judaism, fasting allows us to correct wrongdoing. I am very fearful for those who are currently in captivity. I am worried that they might not return home. I am fasting to avoid this horrific scenario,” Dubi Avigur from Rakefet, a village in the Lower Galilee, explains to JNS. “We are a big group. Each one of us fasts once a week. We have been doing it now for a month,” he adds. Nearby, five people sit silently in a circle, their legs crossed in the lotus yoga position, fasting too but quietly with their eyes closed. Signs around their necks read, “I am fasting in solidarity with the hostages and all the others starving in Gaza.” At the center of the plaza near the Tel Aviv Museum of Art which has been nicknamed Hostage Square, a Shabbat dinner table is divided into two sections. The first 100 places are replete with plates, glasses and cutlery as well as a neat tablecloth and a sticker on each plate that reads, “How good is it to have you here!” The second section is filled with rugs, bottles of undrinkable brown water and bits of pita bread. No plates or cutlery. Instead of chairs, there are cement blocks and barbed wire. “We are here to remind the Israeli government of the Jewish moral obligation to bring back the 136 hostages who are still in Gaza and who have been there for 100 days. Every minute counts,” Allie, 45, from Tel Aviv, holding a megaphone and a poster of the Bibas children, tells JNS. “All of us, mothers, Israelis and citizens of the world were touched by the Bibas family as we watched, on October 7, Shiri holding [9-monthold] Kfir and [4-year-old] Ariel in her arms covered by a sheet, petrified being abducted from her safe room in her kibbutz by Hamas terrorists,” Allie says.

On a rainy January day in Tel Aviv, candles were replaced by blocks of dry ice, one for each hostage, next to heart-shaped notes and “Bring Them Home” flags waving in the breeze. A black, silent piano was brought to the square by the mother of Alon Ohel, 22, a talented pianist who was kidnapped on Oct. 7 at the site of the Supernova music festival. On top of the piano, a yellow sculpture reads: “You Are Not Alone.” Dozens of people wait in line to enter a dimly lit tunnel simulation designed by artist Roni Levavi, who told AFP that he wanted to create “the most faithful reconstruction” of the Gaza tunnels and relied on images from the media. On the walls of the narrow passage, words of love and support were written by visitors, family members and former captives, in solidarity with those still being held in Gaza’s terror tunnels. The sound of shelling and explosions can be heard inside the tunnel. “We decided to enter the tunnel, even though we knew that the experience was difficult and unpleasant. I was fearful of feeling suffocated, confined and claustrophobic,” Gila, 64, from Ramat Gan, tells JNS. “While I know that this does not come even close to the suffering of the hostages who have now spent 100 days underground with no air, no food and no contact with the outside world, coming here was the minimum that I could do,” she says. Inside a tent where merchandise including Tshirts, hoodies, yellow ribbon, dog tags and posters of the hostages are being sold by volunteers, two teenagers hold a banner portraying Agam Berger, 19, whom the terrorists abducted from the Nahal Oz IDF base on Oct. 7; she recently appeared in footage released by Hamas, wounded and terrified. In a nearby tent, at the entrance of which is written: “My home is Nahal Oz,” survivors of the

Allie from Tel Aviv holds a sign with a portrait of the Bibas children on Jan. 12. Amelie Botbol

attacks respond to queries from reporters. “We are survivors of the Oct. 7 massacre. Hundreds of our friends and our friends’ family members were killed. Others close to our heart are currently held in Gaza,” Ela, from Kibbutz Nirim, tells JNS outside the tent as she held a sign calling for the release of the hostages that

she would not let go of throughout the interview. “We are asking the world to do everything necessary to release the hostages from Gaza. They are civilians who were taken in underwear and pajamas from their beds on Oct. 7 at 6:30 a.m. We have to get them out of Gaza before there is no longer anyone to take out,” she cries. JNS met with families and co-workers of the hostages, including the brother of Naama Levy, 19, who was taken captive at the IDF base at Nahal Oz on Oct. 7 and who appeared shortly afterward in a Telegram video — her hands tied, the bottom of her pants covered in blood, as she was pulled out of a pickup truck by her hair and pushed into the back seat. “Every day could be her last. We want to emphasize the sense of urgency and how important it is to bring her back now. The love we get from Israeli citizens is incredible and we feel like one big family,” Naama’s brother Amit, from Ra’anana, tells JNS. “I feel awful reaching 100 days. It is unbearable. That is why we are here and so many people who are now family to us and to Naama are here as well,” he laments. Many Israelis and foreigners have visited Hostage Square over the past 100 days and taken part in demonstrations of support every Saturday evening and on other occasions, calling for the release of those abducted into Gaza. “There isn’t much that citizens like us can do aside from coming here and showing how much we care, together with the families of the hostages and the Israeli people,” Lilach, 45, from Moshav Nevatim near Beersheva, tells JNS. Lilach came in support of her co-worker Carmel Gat, 39, an occupational therapist from Tel Aviv, who was visiting her parents in Kibbutz Be’eri when Hamas terrorists abducted her into Gaza. “Carmel would have been the first to be here, so we are here for her,” Lilach says.

Father says US abandoned his terror-victim son By Amelie Botbol, JNS A 16-year-old dual American-Israeli citizen wounded on Jan. 15 in a Palestinian terrorist attack in Ra’anana while waiting at the bus stop outside his school has been abandoned by the United States, according to the victim’s father. “We thought we would receive some kind of communication from the US government,” Nick Merkin, who is keeping the name of his minor son private, told JNS on Sunday. “They have many resources in the Middle East, including law enforcement to probe crimes against Americans. I would have expected some level of support as well as their involvement in the investigation,” he added. A 79-year-old woman was murdered in the stabbing and car-ramming attack and another 16 people were wounded, including seven children and teenagers, one of whom remains hospitalized in serious condition. Israeli forces arrested Mahmoud Zaidat, 44, and his nephew Ahmad Zaidat, 24, who were employed at a car wash in the Ra’anana industrial area without valid work permits. Both suspects, from Bani Naim near Hebron in Judea, were known to Israeli security forces. The attack came shortly after Israelis marked 100 days of war against Hamas, following the Palestinian terrorist group’s massacre of some 1,200 persons. Merkin described the US administration’s silence as consistent with a policy of “both-sideism.” If the US government expresses any concern for Jewish Americans harmed by Palestinian terrorism, it could be perceived as favoring one side over the other in the conflict, according to Merkin. Even so, Washington has taken a very clear stance regarding the death of 17-year-old Palestinian-American Tawfic Abdel Jabbar, who was killed last week in Judea during clashes with the IDF precipitated by stone-throwing Palestinians. The State Department has called for “an urgent investigation” and is seeking “accountability.” “If the US government fails to act with moral clarity, the world will become a much more dan-

The scene of a terrorist attack in Ra’anana, north of Tel Aviv, on Jan. 15.

gerous place not only for Americans but for victims of terror worldwide,” he said. In 2001, during the height of the Second Intifada, a Palestinian suicide bomber killed 15 people in the Sbarro pizzeria in Jerusalem, including two Americans. Ahlam Ahmad al-Tamimi, who helped to plan the attack and drove the bomber to the final location, was later arrested and sentenced to 16 life sentences in prison. However, she was released in 2011 as part of the deal in which IDF soldier Gilad Shalit, captive in the Gaza Strip, was exchanged for 1,027 jailed Palestinian terrorists. Al-Tamimi moved to Jordan where she became a television host and is glorified as a hero. “To this day, the woman has not spent a single day in Jordanian prison,” dual US-Israeli citizen Arnold Roth, whose 15-year-old daughter Malki was killed in the attack, told JNS. “Even if this was happening in Libya or Afghanistan, it would be unacceptable. But this is happening in Jordan, a prominent US ally that

Avshalom Sassoni, Flash90

receives more money from American taxpayers through USAID [the United States Agency for International Development] than any other country on Earth,” he added. In 2013, the US District Court for the District of Columbia charged al-Tamimi with conspiring to use and using a Weapon of Mass Destruction against American nationals abroad resulting in death. The charges were sealed and only made public in July 2017, something Roth sees as an attempt to cover up unsuccessful negotiations to get Amman to deport her to the United States. “Jordan refused to abide by the extradition treaty signed between the countries in Washington in 1995, and the US just accepted it. They make us feel like we are the problem,” he said. In 2017, shortly after the charges were made public, the Jordanian Court of Cassation, the kingdom’s highest court of appeals, deemed the extradition treaty invalid because it had not been approved by the Jordanian Parliament as mandated by the country’s constitution.

Though she remains on the FBI’s list of “Most Wanted Terrorists” with a $5 million bounty on her head, al-Tamimi continues to live freely in Jordan. On Jan. 16, the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations sent a letter to Secretary of State Antony Blinken demanding that al-Tamimi be brought to the US for trial. “Jordan’s refusal to extradite Ahlam al-Tamimi represents a breach of the 1995 bilateral treaty between the United States and Jordan,” the letter reads. “Despite her confessions and incriminating statements, she has enjoyed immunity from justice, further exacerbating tensions and fostering an environment of hatred and extremism in the region,” it continues. Roth, who has for years felt betrayed by American Jewish organizations, views the letter as a breakthrough. Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, founder of Shurat HaDin-Israel Law Center, has for years been demanding the extraditions of al-Tamimi and Saleh al-Arouri, the deputy Hamas chief who was killed in Beirut in an alleged Israeli drone strike on Jan. 2. Al-Arouri planned the kidnapping and murder in 2014 of 16-year-old American-Israeli Naftali Frenkel and two other teens, in 2014, in an incident that sparked the ensuing 50-day aerial war (“Operation Protective Edge”) against Hamas in the Gaza Strip. “When an American gets killed or injured in a terror attack abroad, the US government has the authority to demand the extradition of the suspect and indict them for crimes based on the Anti-Terrorism Act enacted by Congress in 1986,” Darshan-Leitner told JNS. “When it comes to Jewish lives, the United States does not pursue Palestinians even though they have been doing so in the case of Pakistani and Iraqi terrorists,” she added. “The Palestinians sometimes walk free and do not pay any price for killing Jews while the US does nothing.”

11 THE JEWISH STAR January 26, 2024 • 16 Shvat 5784

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WINE AND DINE Leah Adler’s magical Milky Way experience EthEL G. hofmAN

ining at the Milky Way was an experience — kosher food with zip and a dash of ethnicity served up in a cozy atmosphere where family photos and Leah’s paintings lined the walls. It was more than 20 years ago when Leah Adler gave me a tour of her Los Angeles restaurant, the Milky Way. One of her comments then remains lodged in my memory: “My food has to be exceptionally good — and it just happens to be kosher.” The Milky Way. In astronomy, it means the stars that meld together into a single band of light. Maybe that was the inspiration for Leah and her second husband, Bernie Adler, to combine the very best in a strictly kosher dairy restaurant. When the restaurant opened in 1977, Leah was determined to introduce fine comfort food, redolent with spices and fresh flavors, to the Orthodox Jewish community. And it took off. Dining at the Milky Way was an experience — kosher food with zip and a dash of ethnicity served up in a cozy atmosphere where family photos and Leah’s paintings lined the walls. Then there was the added attraction of a feisty, petite Leah flitting between tables. She was like the Energizer Bunny. A slash of bright red lipstick and swanky denim reflected her adventurous, bold spirit. She talked to everyone, schmoozing with celebrities equally with the not-so-famous. Everyone was welcome, no matter their faith or background. People loved it. She was the family matriarch of the place (and being Steven Spielberg’s mother didn’t hurt). Leah reached outside culinary norms. Forty years ago, who would have ever thought that chimichangas could be made kosher? Under the direction of a mashgiach, she encouraged Latino cooks who made LA their new home to prepare dishes they had grown up with. Sure, there were still the mouthwatering kugels, blintzes and kreplach on the menu that catered to the traditionalists, but the multi-ethnic dishes quickly attracted a growing clientele. When Leah Adler passed away at the age of 97 on Feb. 21, 2017, the restaurant closed. Could the Milky Way be the same without Leah’s dynamic personality? The Spielberg family — Steven and his sisters, Nancy, Sue and Anne, decided to reopen — with

Leah (Spielberg) Adler, the mother of Steven, Nancy, Sue and Anne Spielberg.

a facelift. They reached out to Phil Kastel, the founder of PK&J Hospitality, a group that provides strategic guidance and leadership in culinary development. Bright, innovative and with years of experience as an executive corporate chef, Phil was ready to work with the family to lead the Milky Way into a new era. The red carpet was replaced by glossy wood floors and the blue booths were reupholstered, while framed family photos still hang on newly painted walls. A three-minute video of Leah and her family is shown all day. Although the staff is small (only one chef and three cooks in the kitchen), everyone pitches in. On any given day, you might find a cook passing out menus, the mashgiach may be rinsing fresh herbs, and Phil or Stephanie, the general manager, are delivering plates to the table. The Milky Way has expanded its repertoire with Sunday brunch and special events, such as dinner and a screening of short, award-winning movies. Milky Way’s “Classic Kosher Cuisine” is a combination of contemporary flavors and eye-appealing dishes. Phil notes that “with travel, tastes have become sophisticated and that extends into the kosher culinary world.” Plenty of classics like Adler’s own cheesecake remain, but you’ll find dishes like Salmon Piccata Linguine, the “Impossible” (plant-based) Cheeseburger and Carrot Cake with Toasted Coconut on the menu; Leah

The interior of Milky Way, at 9108 Pico Blvd. in Los Angeles, has been updated (above), while the cozylooking exterior continues to welcome diners.

Adler would be proud. It’s a fitting testimony to a fearless, multi-talented woman who was ahead of her time. The recipes below include Leah’s famed chimichangas, printed with permission from the Spielberg family. Guacamole, Blackened Halibut and Carrot Cake are my interpretation of some of the menu items. The Milky Way, at 9108 Pico Blvd. in Los Angeles (310-859-0004), observes Shabbat. It is closed for dinner on Friday and all day Saturday.

Leah Adler’s Chimichangas (Dairy) Makes 14 chimichangas (4 cups of filling at 2 oz. of filling per chimichanga) Ingredients: • 2 cups canned black beans (pulse in a food processor until broken up) • 1/4 cup onions, diced 1/4 x 1/4 inch • 1 cup mozzarella cheese, shredded • 3/4 cup cooked brown or white rice • 1 cup roasted and seeded Anaheim chilies, diced 1/4 x 1/4 inch • 1 teaspoon ground cumin • 1/2 cup cilantro, roughly chopped • 1 1/2 tsp. kosher salt • 1 tsp. black pepper • 14 each wonton wrappers, 3.5” x 3.5”

Courtesy of the Spielberg family

Directions: Caramelize onions in a sauté pan with a small amount of butter and oil. Mix all ingredients until combined. Place 1/4 cup of mixture into a wonton wrapper, secure the edges with water and fold until tightly sealed. Heat the oil in a heavy-bottomed pot on the stove until it boils to 325 degrees to 350 degrees (use a food-safe thermometer). Gently place tightly sealed chimichangas in oil and fry until golden brown, turning over once. Remove from the fryer. Place on a paper towel to absorb some of the excess oil, and sprinkle with additional kosher salt. Serve chimichangas with a dollop of guacamole, sour cream, chopped tomatoes, olives and additional cilantro on top.

Quick, Easy Guacamole (Pareve) Makes 2 cups Cook’s Tips: •To make ahead, drizzle guacamole lightly with freshly squeezed lemon juice or lime juice and cover with plastic wrap. Make sure to press the wrap down with your fingers to prevent air from getting into the mixture and causing the surface to brown. •May add chopped tomato, finely minced chilis or bottled salsa.

13 THE JEWISH STAR January 26, 2024 • 16 Shvat 5784

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January 26, 2024 • 16 Shvat 5784 THE JEWISH STAR

Avocado.

Kjokkenutstyr, Pixabay

Halibut.

Eskymaks, Shutterstock

Adler’s Milky Way… Continued from page 8 To cut avocados: Run a knife around the outside of the avocado horizontally and carefully twist it in half. Discard the pit and remove the flesh with a spoon or finger. Ingredients: • 3 ripe avocados, peeled and pit removed • juice of 1 large or 2 small limes • 1/2 to 1 teaspoon bottled minced garlic • pinch kosher salt (and pepper) or to taste Directions: Place avocado flesh in a medium bowl. Add the lime juice, 1/2 teaspoon of minced garlic, and salt (and pepper, if using). Mash gently with a fork to a coarse consistency. Add a little more garlic (up to another 1/2 teaspoon, if needed) and salt to taste. Best served immediately.

Blackened Halibut With Avocado (Pareve) Serves 4 Cook’s Tips: •May substitute salmon or cod. •Halibut is a white fish, fresh-tasting with a

dense, firm texture. Most halibut now comes from the Pacific. •Substitute 1/4 cup of Mediterranean spice mix for garlic, oregano and thyme. Ingredients: • 2 Tbsp. powdered garlic • 1 tablespoon sumac • 1 tablespoon dried oregano • 1 tablespoon dried thyme • 1 tablespoon paprika • 2 tsp. cayenne pepper • 2 tsp. freshly ground pepper • 3 Tbsp. vegetable oil • 4 halibut fillets (4 oz. to 6 oz. each) • 4 tortillas, warmed • Sliced avocado and arugula salad to plate Directions: In a large shallow dish combine the seven spice ingredients. Add the fillets, tossing to coat all sides. Pat spice mixture lightly to press into fillets. In a large heavy skillet, heat the oil over mediumhigh heat. Add the fillets in one layer. May need to cook in two batches. Cook for 3 to 4 minutes on each side, or until the coating is charred and the fish is opaque and flakes easily. Check in the thickest part

Carrots.

with a sharp pointed knife, or when inserted, a meat thermometer should register 145 degrees. To serve: Place each fillet on a warm tortilla. Top with half a sliced avocado and arugula salad on the side.

Carrot Cake With Toasted Coconut (Dairy) Serves 10 to 12 Cook’s Tips: •May use yellow or white cake mix for carrot-cake mix. •Save time. Buy storebought grated carrots. Ingredients: • 1 box carrot-cake mix (about 15.25 oz.) • 2 cups grated carrots • 1/2 cup water • 3 large eggs • 1/2 cup vegetable oil • 3/4 cup raisins or dried cranberries • 1/2 cup canned crushed pineapple, undrained • 11/2 tsp. cinnamon • 2 tsp. coffee granules • 1/2 cup coarsely chopped nuts • Orange frosting and coconut (recipe and ingredients below) Directions: Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray two

HilaryFran, Pixabay

8-inch round cake pans with nonstick baking spray. Set aside. In a large bowl, place cake mix, carrots, water, eggs and vegetable oil. Beat until the batter is smooth. Add the remaining ingredients. Stir with a wooden spoon to mix well. Divide the batter equally between the two cake pans. Bake in a preheated oven for 35 to 40 minutes. After 35 minutes, insert a toothpick in the center of each cake. If it comes out clean, the cakes are done. Let cool for 10 minutes in pan before inverting onto a wire tray. Cool completely before frosting. Orange Frosting: Beat together 1 (8 oz.) package of softened cream cheese and 1 stick (1/2 cup) of softened butter until smooth. Gradually add 1 box (16 oz.) of confectioners’ sugar, beating well after each addition. Add 3/4 teaspoon of orange extract (can use vanilla instead, if that is handy). Beat well until the frosting is smooth and fluffy. Spread about a 1/2 cup of frosting between cake layers. Spread the remaining frosting over the top and sides of the cake. Sprinkle with toasted coconut. Chill for at least 2 hours before serving. To toast coconut: Spread a 1/2 cup of unsweetened coconut on a small baking sheet. Place under broiler until golden brown, 2 to 3 minutes. Watch carefully; coconut scorches quickly. Use as needed.

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January 26, 2024 • 16 Shvat 5784 THE JEWISH STAR

‫כוכב של שבת‬ Jewish Star Torah columnists: •Rabbi Avi Billet of Anshei Chesed, Boynton Beach, FL, mohel and Five Towns native •Rabbi David Etengoff of Magen David Yeshivah, Brooklyn •Rabbi Binny Freedman, rosh yeshiva of Orayta, Jerusalem

former chief rabbi of United Hebrew Congregations of the British Commonwealth •Rabbi Dr. Tzvi Hersh Weinreb, OU executive VP emeritus •Rabbi Raymond Apple, emeritus rabbi, Great Synagogue of Sydney •Rabbi Yossy Goldman, life rabbi emeritus, Sydenham Shul, Johannesburg and president of the South African Rabbinical Association.

Fri Jan 26 / 16 Shevat

Fri Feb 16 / 7 Adar I

Fri Feb 2 / 23 Shevat

Fri 23 / 14 Adar I

Contact our columnists at: Publisher@TheJewishStar.com Five Towns Candlelighting: From the White Shul, Far Rockaway, NY

Fri Feb 9 / 30 Shevat

Mishpatim • Rosh Chodesh Adar I Candles: 5:04 • Havdalah: 6:14

Fri March 1 / 21 Adar I

Contributing writers: •Rabbi Sir Jonathan Sacks zt”l,

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Supreme power of ruach: Splitting the Red Sea rabbi Sir JonaThan SaCkS zt”l

n September 2010, BBC, Reuters, and other news agencies reported on a sensational scientific discovery. Researchers at the US National Center for Atmospheric Research and the University of Colorado were able to show — through computer simulation — how the division of the Red Sea may have taken place. Using sophisticated modelling, they demonstrated how a strong east wind, blowing overnight, could have pushed water back at a bend where an ancient river is believed to have merged with a coastal lagoon. The water would have been guided into the two waterways, and a land bridge would have opened at the bend, allowing people to walk across the exposed mudflats. As soon as the wind died down, the waters would have rushed back in.As the leader of the project said when the report was published, “The simulations match fairly closely with the account in Exodus.” This is how the Cambridge University physicist Colin Humphreys puts it in his The Miracles of Exodus: Wind tides are well known to oceanographers. For example, a strong wind blowing along Lake Erie, one of the Great Lakes, has produced water elevation differences of as much as sixteen

What happens at the sea is poetic justice of the most exquisite kind.

feet between Toledo, Ohio, on the west, and Buffalo, New York, on the east… There are reports that Napoleon was almost killed by a “sudden high tide” while he was crossing shallow water near the head of the Gulf of Suez. (Colin Humphreys, The Miracles of Exodus) To me, though, the real issue is what the biblical account actually is. Because it is right here that we have one of the most fascinating features of the way the Torah tells its stories. Here is the key passage: Then Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and the L-rd drove the sea back with a strong east wind all night, turning it into dry land and dividing the water. So the Israelites walked through the sea on dry land. To their right and left, the water was like a wall. Ex. 14:21-22 he passage can be read two ways. The first is that what happened was a suspension of the laws of nature. It was a supernatural event. The waters stood, literally, like two walls. The second is that what happened was miraculous, but not because the laws of nature were suspended. To the contrary, as the computer simulation shows, the exposure of dry land at a particular point in the Red Sea was a natural outcome of the strong east wind. What made it miraculous is that it happened just there, just then, when the Israelites seemed trapped, unable to go forward because of the sea, unable to turn back because of the Egyptian army pursuing them. There is a significant difference between these two interpretations. The first appeals to our sense of wonder. How extraordinary that the laws of nature should be suspended to allow an escaping people to go free. It is a story to appeal to the imagination of a child. But the naturalistic explanation is wondrous at another level entirely. Here the Torah is using the device of irony. What made the Egyptians of the time of Rameses so formida-

ble was the fact that they possessed the latest and most powerful form of military technology, the horse-drawn chariot. It made them unbeatable in battle, and fearsome. What happens at the sea is poetic justice of the most exquisite kind. There is only one circumstance in which a group of people travelling by foot can escape a highly trained army of charioteers, namely when the route passes through a muddy seabed. The people can walk across, but the chariot wheels get stuck in the mud. The Egyptian army can neither advance nor retreat. The wind drops. The water returns. The powerful are now powerless, while the powerless have made their way to freedom. This second narrative has a moral depth that the first does not; and it resonates with

the message of the book of Psalms: His pleasure is not in the strength of the horse, Nor His delight in the legs of the warrior; The L-rd delights in those who fear Him, Who put their hope in His unfailing love. Psalm 147:10-11 In Bereishit Rabbah, it is indicated that the division of the sea was, as it were, programmed into Creation from the outset. It was less a suspension of nature than an event written into nature from the beginning, to be triggered at the appropriate moment in the unfolding of history. Rabbi Jonathan said: The Holy One, blessed be He, made a condition with the sea [at the beginning of creation], that it should split asunder See Sacks on page 22

Considering the musical notes of our parsha Torah Questions

rabbi Dr. raYMonD aPPLE ‘Then Moses sang’

This week’s Torah portion, Bershalach (Ex. 15:1), begins, “Az Yashir Moshe” (usually translated “Then Moses sang,” though literally they mean “Then Moses will sing”). In the Talmud the future tense of the verse indicates “Then (thereafter) Moses will sing” (in the future messianic era.) Rashi suggests that the verse combines past and future; when he saw the miraculous re-

demption at the Red Sea, he thought he would sing a song about it in the future. Others say we are dealing with a strange Hebrew grammatical form which, though it looks like future tense, refers to history, i.e. to events in the past tense.

Did Miriam sing?

The Bible is not sure that Miriam herself sang at the Sea, but Dead Sea texts say she did. In the Torah, Moses says “ashirah” (“I sing”); Miriam tells the women, “Shiru” “you sing”). Possibly the women responded with the words beginning with “ashirah.” The text says “Vata’an,” literally “she answered” (verse 21), but the root “ayin-nun-heh” cannot mean “to answer,” unless there is a preceding state-

ment to which to respond (e.g. Deut. 26:5, 21:7, 27:14-15; II Kings 1:11, I Chron. 12:18); hence it means “to utter” (here, “in song”) or “to chant”. Targum Pseudo-Yonatan renders “vata’an” as “v’zamrat” (“she sang”). Mekhilta Shirata says, “As Moses recited the song for the men, so Miriam recited the song for the women” (JZ Lauterbach’s translation). In Ex. 32:18, “anot” is “tune” or “song.” In I Sam. 18:7, “vata’anennah hanashim” is, “and the women sang.” Gersonides says they sang a one-verse precis; Chiz’kuni agrees that the Torah gave a precis. In Onkelos and Peshitta, “vata’an” is “ume’anya” (“and she answered”), i.e. the women responded to Moses’s lead. Malbim says that the women insisted on singing as a contribution to the redemption.

Warming the bread

Chapter 16 verse 3 of Sh’mot — part of this week’s reading — reports that the fleeing Israelites complained in the wilderness that life had become too difficult. “When we sat by the flesh pots,” they said in recollection of life in Egypt, “we ate bread to the full.” It seems that in Egypt they had to cook the meat for their masters but they were not permitted to eat it. So their task was limited to warming their bread on the vapour of the roasting meat. They enjoyed the savoury smell even if they got no actual meat. In the wilderness they didn’t even get any meat vapour.

rABBi dr. Tzvi hersh weinreB Orthodox Union

ewish history is a series of encounters with evil rulers. Pharaoh, whom we have been reading about up until this week’s Torah portion of Beshalach, was just the first tyrant who persecuted us. He was followed by Nevuchadnezzar, Haman, Antiochus, Titus, Hitler, Stalin, and others too numerous to mention. Each of those men, without exception, did not act alone. Rather, they represented a culture, an ideology, which opposed the Jewish

people and its religion. They enlisted the help of huge constituencies who believed their teachings and who followed their example. Without the support of the masses, they could not have wrought destruction. An excellent illustration of this is the book “Hitler’s Willing Executioners” by Daniel Jonah Goldhagen. The author demonstrates that only because Hitler had the cooperation of so many followers, all of whom believed as he did in the need to exterminate our people, was he able to be so tragically successful. Pharaoh at the beginning of our history, and Hitler in our more recent past, were able to create belief systems that pervaded their societies and enabled them to execute their heinous schemes. The enemy is never a single king or dicta-

The enemy is never a single king, but an entire culture that opposes everything we stand for. tor. Rather, it is an entire culture that opposes everything we stand for. One lesson of our history is that just as the individual leaders were vanquished, so too did their ideologies fall into oblivion. This is the meaning of the statement of our Sages: “The Holy One, blessed be He, does not bring about the downfall of the enemy until He

first defeats its G-ds.” The G-ds of a nation, and in some versions its ministering angels, represent what we would call today a nation’s culture, its weltanschauung. here is this idea expressed in this week’s Torah portion, Beshalach? Long ago, I heard a lecture from the late Rabbi Aharon Soloveitchik. He based it on a phrase from the beginning of the Song of the Sea (Exodus 15:1): “I will sing unto the L-rd, for He is highly exalted; the horse and his rider hath He thrown into the sea.” What is the significance of the horse being thrown into the sea? Why do the Israelites, led by Moshe, open their song of praise to G-d by singing of the horse’s downfall? Rabbi Soloveitchik answered that the horse See Weinreb on page 22

Forging a path of their own and doing it together from heart of Jerusalem

rABBi Binny freedMAn

Jewish Star columnist

ay 1948. Tough times for the Jewish people, particularly for Jews struggling to claw out a place for themselves in a land they hoped to claim as their own. A few months after the United Nations voted to partition the British Mandate for Palestine and allow the creation of a modern Jewish state, six Arab armies were poised to attack. They were waiting for the British to leave, so as not to attack British sovereign territory.

The Arabs already in country, however, had no such dilemma, which was why the Jordanian legion was on the offensive. Even as the Jews celebrated the partition plan, the Jordanians were on the march. The Jordanian Legion, commanded by Abdullah Tell, was without a doubt the best fighting force in the Middle East. Thirty-two hundred strong, three full brigades, British-trained and French-armed, they had no equal at the time. Despite its strategic insignificance, they had set their sights on the heart of the Jewish people: the Old City of Jerusalem. For six bitter months, Jordanian legionnaires laid siege to the Jewish Quarter. There were 1400 civilians trapped inside the walls. The Jewish command had to do something.

And so it was. In the middle of the night, May 3 and 4, 1948, 22 fighters of the Palmach found themselves slowly climbing up the hill below the Old City walls under the noses of the Jordanian soldiers. Taking cover behind the ruins of a Crusader fortress, the irony was not lost on them: These same crusaders who had massacred the Jewish communities of Europe a thousand years earlier had built a wall to protect Jewish fighters in their quest to redeem the ancient city for the modern State of Israel. As they neared the final stretch of path that would bring them to their objective of the Zion Gate, they were literally right under the guards’ positions on the walls. They had to advance the last hundred yards one at a time so as to mini-

mize the noise and avoid detection. And as they all waited, each fighter advanced a hundred yards, one at a time, all alone. It must have been terrifying. It was nearly 3 am, and they had to maintain total silence. If even one Jordanian soldier happened to look down, they would have had nowhere to run or hide. There is a comfort to being part of a unit, moving with men with whom you have become one and having each other’s backs. But all alone? his week we read the portion of Beshalach, most famous for the dramatic splitting of the sea and destruction of the Egyptian Army. And amidst the powerful spectacle we often miss the details. See Freedman on page 22

Our never-ending war against the evil of Amalek Kosher Bookworm

AlAn JAy GerBer

Jewish Star columnist

his coming Shabbat is called Shabbat Shira inasmuch as the Torah reading is Parashat Beshalach whose centerpiece is Az Yashir, the Song of the Sea. What is least known of this Shabbat is the reading at the end of the Torah selection on the aggression that Amalek committed against the newly liberated and militarily defenseless Jewish people. It is this later event that will be the focus of this week’s essay. Within the final volume of the Maggid Tanach Companion series, “Textual Tapestries: Explorations of the Five Megillot,” by Dr. Gabriel Cohen of Bar Ilan University and longtime head of Ma-

chon Gold in Jerusalem, is to be found a series of seven essays dealing with Megillat Esther, the centerpiece of the ritual observance of Purim, which is approaching. Among these essays is one entitled, “Continuing the War Against Amalek.” This excellent analysis of that sad and perfidious action, a Pearl Harbor-like sneak attack upon the Jewish people, goes to the very heart of why this event plays such a serious role in our history filled with so many other tragedies. Please consider this from Dr. Cohn: “The war between Amalek and Israel, which begins in the Torah and continues in the Prophets, continues further in the Writings — in the Book of Esther. In various ways, the Book of Esther highlights the reality that the conflict is not a chance personal struggle between Haman and Mordechai, but rather the continuation of the national struggle between Amalek and Israel.” Dr. Cohn helps give Amalek’s perfidious ac-

tions their historic due. “According to the Torah, the remembrance of Amalek must be entirely blotted out. In his instructions to King Saul, Samuel emphasizes that this decree includes the utter destruction of Amalek’s property. … In contrast to Saul, who did not fulfill this command, the Book of Esther emphasizes that Mordechai and his men derived no benefit from the property of the descendants of Amalek.” Further on we learn from Dr. Cohn the following: “The commandment to blot out the remembrance of Amalek applies ‘from generation to

generation.’ The story of Esther, which fulfills the blotting out of Amalek in actual practice, is also remembered ‘throughout every generation’ (Esther 9:28). … “It is clear that the Book of Esther recounts the continuation of the historic struggle between the people of Israel and Amalek. … Over the generations, Amalek has come to symbolize the enemies of Israel, and Haman’s hatred of Mordechai to be viewed as an expression of the historic loathing of Israel. The enemies of Israel justify their hatred of the Jewish people in different ways. They stress, for example, the differences between the Jewish people and the other nations.” These brief citations from Dr. Cohn’s essay are meant to give you a hint as to the teachings that are to be found in this work. There is much irony to be learned and much about the rabid nature of our adversaries that unfortunately, tragically continues unto this very day. See Gerber on page 22

I raise my eyes and sense the power of Hashem Torah

rABBi dAvid eTenGoff

Jewish Star columnist

he concluding section of our parasha, Beshalach, contains the account of our ancestors’ mortal combat with Amalek, the marauding desert tribe that sought to destroy us following our departure from Egypt. The narrative begins with a pasuk that reverberates until our own historical moment: “Amalek came and fought with Yisrael in Rephidim” (Shemot 17:8). Moshe immediately recognized the gravity of the situation, and quickly responded to this existential threat against our

fledgling nation: “So, Moshe said to Yehoshua, ‘Pick men for us, and go out and fight against Amalek. Tomorrow I will stand on top of the hill with the staff of G-d in my hand;’ Yehoshua did as Moshe had told him, to fight against Amalek; and Moshe, Aharon, and Chur ascended to the top of the hill” (17:9-10). Moshe’s reaction is swift and easily understandable. The next verse, however, is difficult to comprehend: “It came to pass that when Moshe would raise his hand, Yisrael would prevail, and when he would lay down his hand, Amalek would prevail.” The question is clear, “Why would Moshe raising or lowering his hand have anything to do with our people’s success or failure in their battle against Amalek?” Not too surprisingly, parallel versions of this question have been asked by Chazal (our Sages

of blessed memory) in both Mechilta d’Rabbi Yishmael and Mishnah Rosh Hashanah III:8. The answer given by the Mechilta is particularly pertinent to our discussion: “And is it possible that Moshe’s hands could make the Jewish people victorious, or could they destroy Amalek? Rather [this is what the raising of Moshe’s hands actually means]: Whenever Moshe would raise them toward Heaven, the Jewish people would look upon him, and believe (u’ma’aminim) in the One who designated Moshe to act in this manner. For at those times, the Holy One blessed be He would perform miracles and mighty deeds for them.” he Mechilta is teaching us that Moshe’s hands pointing heavenward were heuristic devices to teach our ancestors to believe in Hashem and internalize the message, “Not by

military force and not by physical strength, but by My spirit, says the L-rd of Hosts” (Zechariah 4:6). After all, there appeared to be no way an untrained and inexperienced band of Jewish guerrilla fighters could possibly win a pitched battle against Amalek’s impeccably skilled soldiers — whose stock-in-trade was murder and mayhem. Yet, when they looked toward Shamayim and focused upon the immanent presence of the Almighty in their lives, they won! Moshe passionately wanted the Jewish people to realize that there is one place, and one place only, from which authentic salvation will come. As Dovid HaMelech proclaimed: “I shall raise my eyes to the mountains, from where will my help come? My help is from the L-rd, the Maker See Etengoff on page 22

THE JEWISH STAR January 26, 2024 • 16 Shvat 5784

It takes a village: Drowning a horse with its rider

January 26, 2024 • 16 Shvat 5784 THE JEWISH STAR

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What they mean when they cry ‘Islamophobia’ JonAthAn S. tobIn

JnS Editor-in-Chief

slamophobia struck again in the US Senate’s Judiciary Committee this week. Or so we’re supposed to believe. During the confirmation hearings for Adeel Mangi, a nominee to the Third Circuit of the US Court of Appeals — one of the courts one rung below the US Supreme Court — Senate Republicans brought up a jarring entry on his otherwise glittering résumé that some people think should not be discussed. Mangi, a Harvard Law School graduate, is a partner at a large and influential Manhattan law firm. He’s also a supporter of a laundry list of liberal causes that endear him to Democrats. That makes him a natural choice for the lifetime appointment to one of the nation’s most important courts by President Joe Biden. But Sens. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) thought his role as a former member of the advisory board of Rutgers University’s Center for Race, Security and Rights was a red flag. As far as committee chair Dick Durban (D-Ill.) was concerned, however, the GOP’s questions about Mangi were impermissible, even in the context of a confirmation hearing grilling. He said that they were evidence of prejudice since Mangi is a Muslim-American and that the Newark-based think tank he was associated with says its goal is promoting, “the civil and human rights of America’s diverse Muslim, Arab and South Asian communities.” Sen. Corey Booker (D-NJ), compared the quizzing of Mangi to the McCarthyism of the 1950s. They weren’t alone in making this claim. The Star-Ledger in Newark editorialized that the senators who asked Mangi — who, if confirmed, would become the highest-ranking Muslim-American judge in American history — about his ties to the center had created an “ugly spectacle” during which they asked “irrelevant, salacious questions about Israel, Hamas — even whether he celebrated 9-11.” This point of view was seconded by letters read into the record from the Anti-Defamation League

Both indoctrinating students in hate and making the lives of Jews on college campuses intolerable.

and the American Jewish Committee, organizations that also bashed Republican senators for badgering Mangi “with endless questions that appear to have been motivated by bias towards his religion.” The liberal groups — always eager these days to lend a hand to their political allies on the left and to virtue signal their belief in interfaith amity — were quick to rise to the defense of the wellconnected Mangi and to consider any questions about his affiliations or beliefs to be out of bounds. After the contentious hearing, the committee approved the nomination by an 11-10 party-line vote. It will now go to the Senate, where it’s likely that a similar narrow partisan vote will put Mangi on the Third Circuit. ut there’s more to this controversy than the usual bitter partisanship that characterizes the efforts of Republicans and Democrats to pack the federal courts with judges who conform to their ideological preferences whenever the White House and the Senate are controlled by the same party. Whether or not Mangi is confirmed is of lesser importance than the principle that Democrats are trying to lay down in this controversy. That’s because once people understand what the Rutgers Center for Race, Security and Rights is doing, it’s easy to see that questioning those who support it, as Mangi did until he resigned in advance of his confirmation hearings, isn’t Islamophobia. It’s an entirely necessary and reasonable examination of a state-supported institution that is a prime example of how academia has become a hotbed of antisemitism and Israel-bashing, both indoctrinating students in hate and making the lives of Jews on college campuses intolerable.

Anti-Israel hotbed

The center is a cesspool of anti-Israel propaganda helmed by a radical Rutgers Law School professor Sahar Aziz, an avowed opponent of Israel’s existence. It has a record of programs aimed at delegitimizing the Jewish state and the rights of the Jewish people, as well as promoting Islamist radicals. Just one among a number of egregious incidents involved the center holding a 9/11 anniversary event to provide a platform for supporters of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorist group. You don’t have to do a deep dive into its history to see exactly what kind of an organization it is. A glance at the center’s website provides a quick understanding of its “educational” mission. Who do they think is the real problem in American foreign policy? That would be the activities of the “Israel Lobby and its Zionist supporters to shame and silence critics of Israeli ethnic cleansing and apartheid.” It says that to label these smears of Israel and Jews (“Zionists”) as antisemitic is “Islamophobic.” If there were any doubts about the point of its goals and practices, they were erased in recent months when it helped sponsor events at Rut-

Adeel Mangi.

Senate Judiciary Committee, X

gers in conjunction with the blatantly antisemitic Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) at which a speaker denied the Hamas atrocities of Oct. 7. This was part of a pattern of events that had created a dangerous atmosphere for Jewish students who were being harassed on the Newark campus, leading to protests from local Jewish groups to demand that Rutgers suspend its SJP chapter. The student group has since been reinstated, though is on probation. As far as Mangi was concerned, this was all news to him. He told the senators that he was unaware of the 9/11 event, and deplored Hamas and the terrorist attacks in Israel on Oct. 7. He claimed that his affiliation with the center was minimal but his denials don’t pass the smell test. He acknowledged that he joined the board at the request of Aziz. And his law firm is one of the center’s financial sponsors. t the very least, Mangi’s affiliation with an institution that is part of a movement whose avowed purpose is opposing Israel — and has repeatedly hosted people affiliated with terrorist movements and their supporters — is worth questioning. Mort Klein, national president of the Zionist Organization of America, wasn’t wrong when he wrote: “If a nominee for a top judicial post asserted that he was merely a Ku Klux Klan advisory board member, and merely advised on the KKK’s ‘academic research,’ his nomination would be flatly rejected.” But that’s the thing about people who are connected with groups or institutions that traffic in hate for Israel and Jews. In the current environment in which the political left has embraced woke ideology that treats Israel and Jews as “white” oppressors, places like the Rutgers Center can masquerade as advocates for human rights when their goals are actually to strip Jews of their humanity and rights — and ultimately destroy their homeland. Anyone who dares to bring this up, however, is quickly labeled as an Islamophobe. Most political liberals, including groups like the ADL that are

supposed to be defending Jews against hate, are so afraid of being accused of racism and so enamored of the concept of interfaith alliances that they are ready to excuse ties to such hate groups. You would think that the events of the last 100 days following the Oct. 7 Hamas pogroms in Israel and the surge in worldwide antisemitism, especially on college campuses, that have arisen since then would have made affiliations with a place like the Rutgers Center politically radioactive. Yet rather than making them more sensitive to the cost of turning a blind eye to groups that are part of this terrible plague of Jew-hatred, the Mangi nomination shows us that it’s still business as usual for Democratic politicians and liberal Jewish organizations.

Myth of Islamophobia

In the last 20 years, terrorism apologists like the Council of American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) have prospered despite their ties to violent radicals and vicious attacks on Israel and Jews. They’ve done so by pretending to be a civilrights group and promulgating a myth about a post-9/11 backlash against Muslims in the United States for which there has never been any empirical evidence. FBI statistics have consistently shown that religious-based hate crimes against Muslims have never been numerous and are dwarfed by those against Jews, which continue to be the largest in that category. Still, that mythical backlash has become widely accepted by the mainstream media and liberal groups, which have bought into the idea that Islamophobia is not only rampant in the United States but somehow comparable to antisemitism. Jewish groups like the ADL and AJC that rushed to the defense of someone like Mangi are giving the lie to their claims to be defending Jews against the hatred that’s become so obvious since Oct. 7. The ZOA and others, like StopAntisemitism and the Coalition for Jewish Values, that opposed his nomination were right to do so. All hatred based on religion is to be deplored. The Mangi nomination battle, however, shows that most of what is labeled Islamophobia are attempts to call out antisemitism from Muslims. While American Muslims as a group should not be wrongly labeled as promoters of Jew-hatred, the agencies that purport to speak for them — namely, CAIR and institutions that claim to be defending their rights, like the center at Rutgers — are integral to the movement that has mainstreamed antisemitism, sending its supporters into the streets and onto campuses to spread hate against Jews. The lesson here is that in the current political context, crying “Islamophobia” is just a way to make us discount that antisemitism, as well as to shut up those trying to draw attention to a problem that can no longer be ignored.

Viewpoint

BEN COHEN

s unsettling and painful as the current wave of global antisemitism that followed the Oct. 7 Hamas pogrom in Israel is, it’s still important to remember that those bestial atrocities were an episode in, and not the fundamental cause of, the renewal and remodeling of this ancient superstition. Where it all began remains a matter of debate. Many analysts nod to the UN World Conference Against Racism in 2001 in Durban, South Africa, where several of the memes visible in today’s pro-Hamas protests were rudely on display, as the point of origin. Others go back further, into the Cold War, when the Soviet Union ran a vicious campaign of anti-Zionist propaganda centered on the claim that Zionism is a form of Nazism. And one can go back even further, to the antisemitic riots and revolts targeting Jewish communities in British Mandate Palestine in 1929 and 1936. The point is that the basic message — Jews as colonial interlopers who must be destroyed — hasn’t really changed.

The world of sport is emerging as the next battleground.

The other consideration is that certain sectors are more amenable than are others to anti-Zionist antisemitism, or antizionism, as I prefer to call it. Over the last two decades, the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement seeking to quarantine Israel alone among the world’s nations has been the most tangible and energetic expression of contemporary opposition to Zionism. In the worlds of culture and academia, especially, boycotts of Israel and shrill rhetoric denouncing Zionism (or more precisely, a caricature of Zionism) have been the order of the day. Regardless, then, of where and when we believe the current wave began, that discussion is less important than an assessment of where we are headed — and specifically, which spheres of human activity alongside art and education will start to echo the growing antisemitic chorus, both in their words and in their deeds. he world of sport is emerging as the next battleground. It is a much more fearsome prospect; a row over an art exhibition featuring antisemitic caricatures or a lecture at a provincial campus promoting antisemitic tropes is, let’s be honest, a picnic compared to a row involving an athlete with instant, global name recognition. Someone like the French soccer icon Karim Benzema, a former Real Madrid striker and winner of the coveted Ballon d’Or football (soccer) award who now plays in Saudi Arabia, and who this week announced that he would be suing Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin. A devout Muslim, at least outwardly, Benzema fired off an angry social-media post denouncing Israel’s “unjust bombardments” in the Gaza Strip. When Darmanin was asked about

millions of soccer fans that the State of Israel is a criminal enterprise — whether or not he wins or loses any eventual court case. he demonizing discourse about Israel now percolating in the world of sports is, alarmingly, being matched with acts of discrimination against Israeli and Jewish athletes — just as Jewish and Israeli academics, artists and musicians have suffered discrimination as a result of antisemitic agitation in their spaces. Last week, Sagiv Jehezkel, an Israeli winger playing for the Turkish soccer club Antalyaspor, was arrested by security forces before being booted out of both his contract and the country. Jehezkel’s offense was to score an equalizing goal in a match against Trabzonspor and then celebrate by displaying his bandaged wrist to the cameras. On the bandage, Jehezkel had scrawled a Star of David and the words “100 days” (a reference to the continuing plight of Israeli hostages in Gaza) and “7/10” (the date of the Hamas pogrom.) The reaction in Turkey was furious. Jehezkel was abused as a “Zionist dog” and accused of violating Turkish sensibilities. Should he ever return to Turkey, he will likely face arrest and prosecution. But it is unlikely that he will go back, just as it is unlikely that any Israeli soccer talent will find its way to Turkey for the foreseeable future. Sports in Turkey are effectively Judenrein. There are good grounds to fear that a similar situation is emerging in South Africa, too, where the U-19 Cricket World Cup is currently being hosted. One week before the tournament commenced, Cricket South Africa (CSA), the sport’s domestic governing body, announced that it was removing David Teeger, the South African See Cohen on page 22

Sagiv Jehezkel played for the Turkish soccer team Antalyaspor. Antalyaspor

the post in an interview with a conservative broadcaster, he lambasted Benzema for his silence on the Oct. 7 atrocities in Israel and then charged that the player retained close links with the Muslim Brotherhood, the global Islamist network that includes Hamas. Benzema angrily denied any links with the Brotherhood, accusing Darmanin of exploiting his fame — and notoriety — to push an Islamophobic smear. Now Darmanin may have to answer in court for his impulsive statement (it would have been more prudent to describe Benzema as an “echo chamber” for the Brotherhood) in a spectacle that will draw the French and international media like bees to honey. Benzema will present himself as the victim and will enclose the Palestinian population of Gaza in his victimhood in a circus that will only compound the fear prevailing among French Jews and bolster the view among hundreds of

From the days of Rome, ‘Palestine’ itself is genocide BENjamiN KErstEiN

ne of the more irritating and frankly offensive developments in the wake of the Israel-Hamas war has been the infection of the public discourse by the word “Palestine.” Slogans like “free Palestine” and the openly genocidal “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” are now common, and many otherwise well-meaning people refer to “Palestine” without giving it a second thought. At first glance, this can seem relatively benign. To many, “Palestine” simply refers to a controversial region of the world. Certainly, activists can use it in a tendentious and strident manner, but this is true of most political rhetoric. Why not let the ultras have their fun? This is a comforting delusion, but it is a delusion all the same. The truth is that “Palestine” is a monstrous term, the product of a history of genocidal violence that dates back some 2,000 years. While “Palestina” has been used as a general reference to parts of the Levant since antiquity, it did not become the official designation of a demarcated territory until the second century as the culmination of an exterminationist war against the Jews.

From ancient Rome to today’s progressive antisemites, the term ‘Palestine’ has always been a means of erasing the Jews.

In 132 CE, the Jews of Judea rose up against their Roman oppressors for the second time in a century. In the initial stages of what has come to be called the Bar Kochba Revolt, the Romans got the worst of it. So the legions adjusted their strategy. Rather than concentrate on suppressing the rebels, the Romans decided to destroy the entire Jewish population of the Land of Israel. The results were horrific. Ancient historian Cassius Dio wrote of the Jews: “50 of their most important outposts and 985 of their most famous villages were razed to the ground. 580,000 men were slain in the various raids and battles, and the number of those that perished by famine, disease and fire was past finding out. Thus, nearly the whole of Judea was made desolate.” he early Christian historian Eusebius confirmed Dio’s narrative, writing succinctly, “Jerusalem was completely destroyed and the Jewish nation was massacred in large groups at a time, with the result that they were even expelled from the borders of Judea.” The Talmud states simply, “For seven years the gentiles fertilized their vineyards with the blood of Israel.” It was only then that the Land of Israel was officially given the name “Palestina,” replacing the term “Judea.” Clearly, the Romans were making a point: Judea, they were saying, is dead; and it is dead because its people dared to challenge the power of Rome. The word “Palestina” was, in effect, the last nail in the crucifixion of a people. It was genocide. The same is true today. This is proved by the simple fact that “Palestine” does not exist. That is, there is no sovereign nation-state called “Palestine.” Nor, in fact, has there ever been one. To refer to “Palestine” as if such a nation did exist is rather like referring to France as “Gaul” or Iraq as “Babylon.” The only reason to use the term is as a statement of intention. That is, people refer to the Land of Israel as “Palestine” in order to assert that the real country on that land — the Jewish state — should not exist and that eventually, through their efforts, it will not.

A map of the ancient Roman province of Judaea.

DEGA MD, Wikimedia

In this sense, “Palestine” is not a geographic term but a weapon. It is used to imply that any country in the Land of Israel other than “Palestine” is so illegitimate that its name cannot be uttered. Instead, it must be replaced, in classic imperialist fashion, with a term preferred by foreigners. This sinister absurdity may reach its apex in the risible term “Israel/Palestine.” This is a remarkable formulation that succeeds in a) putting an existing country on equal footing with a nonexistent one, and b) delegitimizing the existence of the former by designating it as nothing more than one-half of a fantastical entity. This is especially specious because not even the most fanatical Palestinian ultra-nationalists believe in “Israel/Palestine.” They make no attempt to conceal what the word “Palestine” means to them: An Arab supremacist state “from the river to sea” that has erased its Jews

as effectively as its Roman predecessors did. To them, like the Romans, “Palestine” is genocide. ven those who claim to advocate a binational “Israel/Palestine” are not innocent. They are very clear about the fact that this binational entity will preclude the existence of a Jewish state. Given that “Israel” is the name of the existing Jewish state that is to be precluded, it is obvious that “Israel/Palestine” will at best render the “Israel” half of the term irrelevant. In practical terms, moreover, all the binationalists acknowledge that their state will have an Arab majority or quickly acquire one through the “return” of the descendants of Palestinian refugees. In others words, “Israel/Palestine” will be “Palestine” in all but name. It is true that, while of fairly recent vintage, Palestinian nationalism as we know it today is a genuine nationalism, and those who subscribe See Kerstein on page 22

THE JEWISH STAR January 26, 2024 • 16 Shvat 5784

Time for us to huddle: Antisemitism on the field

Genocide allegations Against Israel a threat to Jews everywhere

Tonello Photography, Shutterstock via JNS

Rabbi WaRRen Goldstein South Africa’s chief rabbi

he South African government’s application to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on grotesquely false allegations of genocide against Israel needs to be seen for what it is: A defamatory lie that not only threatens the Jewish state, but stigmatizes and endangers Jews throughout the Diaspora. The genocide label paves the way for the discrimination, persecution, and ultimately, the murder of Jews. The stigmatization and eventual dehumanization of Jews is something we have seen before. The chillingly titled “Warrant for Genocide,”a book published in 2005 by British historian Norman Cohn, exploring the myth of the Jewish world conspiracy and “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion,” describes a situation that feels all too familiar: “Throughout the world in the fateful years 1943-1945 … people were unwilling to bestir themselves on behalf of the Jews. The very widespread indifference, the ease with which people disassociated themselves from the Jews and their fate was certainly in part a result of a vague feeling that, even if there were no Elders of Zion, Jews were somehow uncanny and dangerous. And ironically enough this feeling grew stronger as the persecution of the Jews grew worse.” If Iran gets a nuclear bomb and destroys Israel, God forbid, people will say Israel had it coming. They were occupiers. They perpetrated apartheid. They inflicted war crimes and genocide. And that’s what happened in Nazi Germany. Hitler convinced people that the Jews were responsible for the worst ills of society, and so when the Holocaust came, nobody opposed it. he false accusations that Israel is responsible for genocide don’t just threaten the Jewish state. They also stigmatize the Jews of the Diaspora. We who support Israel — if these allegations are true — are, by extension, supporters of genocide and evil. The result of

South Africa has declared open season on us.

this stigmatization has been only too plain to see: surging antisemitism across the world. Cries of gas the Jews in Sydney. An elderly pro-Israel demonstrator killed at a pro-Palestinian rally in California. Students hounded into the library at an Ivy League university. A rabbi attacked with a screwdriver in Genoa. A mob stormed an airport in Russia chanting antisemitic slogans and demanding to know where the Jews are. The smashing of the shopfront window of a kosher restaurant in London. In South Africa, while these kinds of antisemitic incidents on the ground are unheard of, we’re seeing this stigmatization emanate right from the top — from the president himself. The South African Jewish community is one of the most proudly and openly Zionist in the world. And so when the country’s head of state says that Israel is guilty of apartheid, occupation, genocide and war crimes, he is, in effect, labeling all of us who support Israel as apologists for crimes against humanity. By implying that South African Jews support genocide, in particular, the president sends a powerful message to all South Africans that any Jew who is a supporter of Israel is fair game. He has declared open season on us. Recently, we experienced a disturbing example of this. In the same week that South Africa brought its case against Israel to the ICJ, the captain of the South African under-19 national cricket team, David Teeger, was stripped of his captaincy for expressing words of support for Israel and the IDF at a private Jewish function. Following the event, the Palestine Solidarity Alliance (PSA), an organization with ties to Hamas and Iran whose supporters celebrated the killing of 1,200 Jews on Oct. 7, began lobbying the CSA to strip Teeger of the captaincy. Subsequently, an independent tribunal initiated by CSA (in itself an outrage) cleared Teeger of any wrongdoing. And yet, days before the u19 cricket world cup, Teeger was nevertheless removed as captain on the flimsiest of pretexts — that his captaincy position posed a security threat and could lead to “conflict or violence between rival groups of protesters.” t’s no coincidence that the day after South Africa made its case at the ICJ, a young proud Jewish boy, hounded and stigmatized by anti-Israel groups and government ministers, was finally removed as national captain. The groundwork was laid by the genocide allegation, which puts a target on the back of Jews not just in South Africa but everywhere. See Goldstein on page 22

www.liherald.com

January 26, 2024 • 16 Shvat 5784 THE JEWISH STAR

Public Notices

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LEGAL NOTICE PUBLIC NOTICE OF NASSAU COUNTY TREASURER’S SALE OF TAX LIENS ON REAL ESTATE Notice is hereby given that commencing on February 20th, 2024, will sell at public on-line auction the tax liens on certain real estate, unless the owner, mortgagee, occupant of or any other party in interest in such real estate shall have paid to the County Treasurer by February 15th, 2024 the total amount of such unpaid taxes or assessments with the interest, penalties and other expenses and charges against the property. Such tax liens will be sold at the lowest rate of interest, not exceeding 10 percent per six-month period, for which any person or persons shall offer to take the total amount of such unpaid taxes as defined in Section 5-37.0 of the Nassau County Administrative Code. Effective with the February 2019 lien sale Ordinance No. 175-2015 requires a $175.00 per day registration fee for each person who intends to bid at the tax lien sale. Ordinance No. 175-2015 also requires that upon the issuance of the Lien Certificate there is due from the lien buyer a Tax Certificate Issue Fee of $20.00 per lien purchased. Pursuant to the provisions of the Nassau County Administrative Code at the discretion of the Nassau County Treasurer the auction will be conducted online. Further information concerning the procedures for the auction is available at the website of the Nassau County Treasurer at: https://www.nassaucount y n y. g o v / 5 2 6 / C o u n t y Treasurer Should the Treasurer determine that an inperson auction shall be held, same will commence on the 20th day of February 2024 at the Office of The County Treasurer 1 West Street, Mineola or at some other location to be determined by the Treasurer. A list of all real estate in Nassau County on which tax liens are to be sold is available at the website of the Nassau County Treasurer at: https://www.nassaucount yny.gov/527/Annual-TaxLien-Sale A list of local properties upon which tax liens are

to be sold will be advertised in this publication on or before February 07th, 2024. Nassau County does not discriminate on the basis of disability in admission to or access to, or treatment or employment in, its services, programs, or activities. Upon request, accommodations such as those required by the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) will be provided to enable individuals with disabilities to participate in all services, programs, activities and public hearings and events conducted by the Treasurer’s Office. Upon request, information can be made available in Braille, large print, audiotape or other alternative formats. For additional information, please call (516) 571-2090 ext. 1-3715. Dated: January 24, 2024 THE NASSAU COUNTY TREASURER Mineola, NewYork ___________________ TERMS OF SALE Such tax liens shall be sold subject to any and all superior tax liens of sovereignties and other municipalities and to all claims of record which the County may have thereon and subject to the provisions of the Federal and State Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Civil Relief Acts. However, such tax liens shall have priority over the County’s Differential Interest Lien, representing the excess, if any, of the interest and penalty borne at the maximum rate over the interest and penalty borne at the rate at which the lien is purchased. The Purchaser acknowledges that the tax lien(s) sold pursuant to these Terms of Sale may be subject to pending bankruptcy proceedings and/or may become subject to such proceedings which may be commenced during the period in which a tax lien is held by a successful bidder or the assignee of same, which may modify a Purchaser’s rights with respect to the lien(s) and the property securing same. Such bankruptcy proceedings shall not affect the validity of the tax lien. In addition to being subject to pending bankruptcy proceedings and/or the Federal and State Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Civil Relief Acts, said purchaser’s right of foreclosure may be affected by the Financial

Institutions Reform, Recovery and Enforcement Act(FIRREA),12 U.S.C. ss 1811 et.seq., with regard to real property under Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation(FDIC) receivership. The County Treasurer reserves the right, without further notice and at any time, to withdraw from sale any of the parcels of land or premises herein listed. The Nassau County Treasurer reserves the right to intervene in any bankruptcy case/litigation where the property affected by the tax liens sold by the Treasurer is part of the bankruptcy estate. However, it is the sole responsibility of all tax lien purchasers to protect their legal interests in any bankruptcy case affecting their purchased tax lien, including but not limited to the filing of a proof of claim on their behalf, covering their investment in said tax lien. The Nassau County Treasurer and Nassau County and its agencies, assumes no responsibility for any legal representation of any tax lien purchaser in any legal proceeding including but not limited to a bankruptcy case where the purchased tax lien is at risk. The rate of interest and penalty at which any person purchases the tax lien shall be established by his bid. Each purchaser, immediately after the sale thereof, shall pay to the County Treasurer ten per cent of the amount for which the tax liens have been sold and the remaining ninety per cent within thirty days after such sale. If the purchaser at the tax sale shall fail to pay the remaining ninety per cent within ten days after he has been notified by the County Treasurer that the certificates of sale are ready for delivery, then all amounts deposited with the County Treasurer including but not limited to the ten per cent theretofore paid by him shall, without further notice or demand, be irrevocably forfeited by the purchaser and shall be retained by the County Treasurer as liquidated damages and the agreement to purchase shall be of no further effect. Time is of the essence in this sale. This sale is held pursuant to the Nassau County Administrative Code and interested parties are

referred to such Code for additional information as to terms of the sale, rights of purchasers, maximum rates of interest and other legal incidents of the sale. Furthermore, as to the bidding, 1. The bidder(s) agree that they will not work with any other bidder(s) to increase, maintain or stabilize interest rates or collaborate with any other bidder(s) to gain an unfair competitive advantage in the random number generator in the event of a tie bid(s) on a tax certificate. Bidder(s) further agree not to employ any bidding strategy designed to create an unfair competitive advantage in the tiebreaking process in the upcoming tax sale nor work with any other bidder(s) to engage in any bidding strategy that will result in a rotational award of tax certificates. 2. The tax certificate(s) the Bidder will bid upon, and the interest rate(s) bid, will be arrived at independently and without direct or indirect consultation, communication or agreement with any other bidder and that the tax certificate(s) the Bidder will bid upon, and the interest rate(s) to be bid, have not been disclosed, directly or indirectly, to any other bidder, and will not be disclosed, directly or indirectly, to any other bidder prior to the close of bidding. No attempt has been made or will be made to, directly or indirectly, induce any other bidder to refrain from bidding on any tax certificate, to submit complementary bids, or to submit bids at specific interest rates. 3. The bids to be placed by the Bidder will be made in good faith and not pursuant to any direct or indirect, agreement or discussion with, or inducement from, any other bidder to submit a complementary or other noncompetitive bid. 4. If it is determined that the bidder(s) have violated any of these bid requirements then their bid shall be voided and if they were the successful bidder the lien and any deposits made in connection with said bid shall be forfeited. Dated: January 24, 2024 THE NASSAU COUNTY TREASURER Mineola, New York 144440 Search for notices online at: www.newyorkpublicnotices.com

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caroline glick Israel Hayom

s Israel on the cusp of political upheaval? In recent days, evidence has grown that two key actors — the Biden administration and Israel’s security establishment — are both pushing the country in that direction to advance their longstanding common goal of ousting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the religious-right bloc from power. The Biden administration showed its hand on last Tuesday when US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken gave Israel an ultimatum to support Palestinian statehood or risk demonization by the administration. Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Blinken restated the administration’s demand that Netanyahu present a plan for the day after the war against Hamas in Gaza and the administration’s goal of using the war to establish a Palestinian state. Blinken insisted that the only side that refuses to accept the administration’s goal is the Israeli public — and its leader, Netanyahu. Insisting that “Arab leaders, Palestinian leaders” have prepared their people for Palestinian statehood, Blinken said: “I think the challenge now, the question now, is is Israeli society prepared to engage on these questions? Is it prepared to have that mindset?” Israelis, of course, have engaged in the question of Palestinian statehood. After the atrocities that the Palestinians carried out against their people and state on Oct. 7 — and as the full mobilization of Palestinian society in Gaza and Judea and Samaria on behalf of Hamas’s war of genocide against Israel has been revealed — Israeli support for Palestinian statehood dried up. As Direct Polls revealed last month, 81% of Israelis, including Arab Israelis, say there is no prospect for peace with the Palestinians, including 70% of leftwing voters. Some 88% of Israelis do not trust the Palestinian leadership. Blinken, however, doesn’t seem to care what Israelis think. He wants them to obey, and he views Netanyahu as the obstacle to Israeli obeisance to the administration’s program. As a result, he wants the prime minister ousted from power, as NBC News’ Andrea Mitchell reported on Wednesday. She wrote that during his visit to Israel last week, Blinken offered Netanyahu a deal. In exchange for Israeli support for Palestinian statehood, Saudi Arabia would normalize its ties with Israel. Netanyahu said no. Netanyahu’s position, the administration believes, means he has to go. “Three senior US officials say the Biden administration is looking past Netanyahu to try to achieve its goals in the region. Several senior US officials told NBC News that Netanyahu ‘will not be there forever,’” Mitchell wrote. “The Biden administration is trying to lay the groundwork with other Israeli and civil society leaders in anticipation of an eventual post-Netanyahu government. In an attempt to work around Netanyahu [during his visit to Israel], Blinken also met individually with members of his war Cabinet and other Israeli leaders, including opposition leader … Yair Lapid.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu meets with Secretary of State Antony Blinken at the Kirya military headquarters in Tel Aviv on Nov. 3, 2023. Amos Ben-Gershom, GPO

ignificantly, Blinken tried to compel Netanyahu to agree to a plan that would see the US-supported, Fatah-controlled Palestinian Authority that nominally controls the Palestinian autonomous areas in Judea and Samaria take over Gaza. The PA’s US-financed forces train for war against Israel and participate in terrorist attacks. The PA pays salaries to jailed terrorists, including the Hamas murderers and rapists who carried out the Oct. 7 atrocities. The PA schools, universities and media indoctrinate Palestinian children and society as a whole to seek the annihilation of Israel and the Jewish people through a genocidal jihad. The PA’s official position since Oct. 7 is to seek the establishment of a unity government between Fatah and Hamas in Judea and Samaria, as well as Gaza. In other words, empowering the genocidal PA means maintaining Hamas’s grip on power. Neither PA leader Mahmoud Abbas nor any PA or Fatah official has yet condemned the atrocities of Oct. 7. Blinken insists that Israel cannot win a military victory in Gaza. As Mitchell put it, “Blinken told Netanyahu that ultimately there is no military solution to Hamas … and that the Israeli leader needs to recognize that or history will repeat itself and violence will continue.” War, in other words, is futile. Although the public and Netanyahu reject this view, Blinken does have partners in Israeli “civil society” for his position. And those partners — led by retired generals — began a massive, multimillion-dollar campaign for new elections just before Blinken arrived in Israel. Last month, the Hakol Hayehudi news agency reported that immediately after Oct. 7, the Mitvim think tank put together a “civil society” action group led by retired general Nimrod Sheffer to build a plan for the establishment of a Palestinian state after the war. heffer, a retired head of the Israel Defense Forces’ Planning Division and a fighter pilot, was one of the most prominent retired generals push-

ing for Netanyahu’s ouster during the 10-month-long left-wing insurrection that preceded the Oct. 7 Palestinian invasion of southern Israel. Among other things, Sheffer was a leader of the campaign to convince active reserve Israeli Air Force pilots to refuse to serve in reserves as long as the government advanced its legislative effort to limit the powers of the Supreme Court. Hakol Hayehudi published the minutes of Sheffer’s group’s weekly meetings. From week to week, as the depth of the public’s rejection of Palestinian statehood became clear, the group realized that they wouldn’t be able to sell their plan to the Israeli people. So, they changed gears. They wouldn’t bother trying to convince the public of anything other than that the “settlers” and the “extremist right” are responsible for the war. Instead, they would have the United States run their campaign.

The secretary of state has tried to compel the prime minister to agree to a plan that would see the PA take over Gaza. “The Americans are the ones that need to lead, craft and manage the process,” they wrote. “The US needs to implement policy steps that Israel won’t be able to veto.” To safeguard their plans for Palestinian statehood, the Mitvim group argued that Israel must not destroy Hamas’s “civil infrastructure,” which it foresees the PA taking over. Last month, opposition leader Yair Lapid participated in a Mitvim conference on “the day after.” The next day, Lapid parroted Mitvim’s plan in an interview with Israel Radio. While Lapid is a big fish, the IDF General Staff and Defense Minister

Yoav Gallant are even bigger fish. For more than a month, the General Staff has insisted that the government must begin discussions about “the day after the war.” On Jan. 4, Gallant presented his plan for “the day after” and insisted that the government discuss it. To date, Netanyahu has refused. allant’s plan bears notable similarity both to Mitvim’s plans and the Biden administration’s positions. It calls for the PA employees in Gaza, who operate the “civil” infrastructure of the Hamas regime, to be retained in their positions. The fact that these 17,000 PA employees overwhelmingly support Hamas, that many Oct. 7 terrorists were PA employees and that Fatah forces in Gaza, ostensibly subordinate to the PA, filmed themselves participating in the slaughters of Oct. 7 clearly made no impression on him. Gallant insisted that a US-led international force, including Arab governments, should have overall control over governance. Gaza residents who left their homes should be allowed — even forced — to return. Gallant’s plan calls for the IDF to have the right to operate freely in Gaza. But his plan does not foresee any permanent IDF presence — and through it, control — over Gaza. Reportedly due to massive pressure from Blinken and against the expressed recommendations of commanders on the ground, on Friday the General Staff stunned the public by announcing that it was removing a division from Gaza. In the days immediately following the troop withdrawal, the city of Netivot was attacked by rockets twice from areas IDF forces had abandoned in central and northern Gaza. On Monday, Gallant gave a news conference where he restated his demand that the cabinet and government discuss his “day after.” Gallant insisted that without a plan for the day after, the army wouldn’t know what to fight for. “The end of the military campaign has to be anchored in a diplomatic action. The diplomatic plan must be the roadmap for military action. The absence of a diplomatic decision is liable

to undermine military operations.” Notably, when Gallant laid out the government’s war goals on Monday evening, he failed to mention the goal of eradicating Hamas’s political capabilities. He also scaled back the goal of defeating Hamas militarily from “eradicating” to “dismantling.” According to Channel 13, the day before Gallant’s press conference, Chief of General Staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi essentially said that from his perspective, the war was basically over, and it was up to the government to develop a diplomatic plan for the day after. According to Channel 13’s report of Halevi’s remarks, he insisted that all of the army’s hard-fought achievements were about to be erased “because there is no strategy for the day after.” Halevi said: “It’s possible that we’ll have to go back and act in areas where we already finished fighting.” “We are worried that the Hamas will reorganize in northern Gaza. We need to determine the way we want to finish the war. The current achievements in the war are being eroded. We need a civil [governance] plan,” he continued. ike Netanyahu and the public, Halevi and Gallant must know that the only way to secure Israel’s war aims is to complete the IDF’s conquest of all of Gaza. Even then, the only way to ensure that Gaza does not pose a continued threat to Israel is for the IDF to remain in charge of Gaza for the foreseeable future and for the population of Gaza to be permitted to leave the area for third countries. The administration totally opposes all of these actions. This then brings us to the reason Netanyahu has to date refused to set a plan for the day after the war. Given Israel’s requirements for victory, the moment Netanyahu allows the government to discuss them — much less adopt them — Israel will find itself in an open breach with the Biden administration. So long as Sen. Charles Schumer, the Democratic Senate Majority Leader from New York, blocks the Senate from voting to approve the $14.3 billion military aid package Biden pledged to Israel in October, Israel cannot risk such a breach. Given the depleted state of Israel’s current inventory of ammunition for its ground and air forces, without the supplemental aid, the IDF will be hard-pressed to fight the war to victory. By demanding that Netanyahu adopt the softened version of the US position, the General Staff and Gallant, along with the anti-Netanyahu national security establishment as a whole, are presenting Israel’s leader with an impossible choice. Netanyahu can adopt a policy for victory but endanger US rearmament, thus increasing the danger that the United States will abandon Israel at the United Nations. Or he can accept a version of the US position and commit Israel to strategic defeat. If he does the former, he will face a protest campaign led by the media and the security brass accusing him of destroying Israel-US relations and enabling them to plunge Israel into a new round of political instability. And if he does the latter, his coalition partners are likely to leave the government and overthrow it, and give the United States and the left their wish for new elections in the midst of war.

THE JEWISH STAR January 26, 2024 • 16 Shvat 5784

The persistent US campaign to oust Netanyahu

January 26, 2024 • 16 Shvat 5784 THE JEWISH STAR

Sacks...

Continued from page 16 for the Israelites. That is the meaning of “the sea went back to its full flow” — [read not le-eitano but letenao], “the condition” that G-d had earlier stipulated. Bereishit Rabbah 5:5 miracle is not necessarily something that suspends natural law. It is, rather, an event for which there may be a natural explanation, but which — happening when, where, and how it did — evokes wonder, such that even the most hardened sceptic senses that G-d has intervened in history. The weak are saved; those in danger, delivered. More significant still is the moral message such an event conveys: that hubris is punished by nemesis; that the proud are humbled and the humble given pride; that there is justice in history, often hidden but sometimes gloriously revealed. The elegantly simple way in which the division of the Red Sea is described in the Torah so that it can be read at two quite different levels, one as a supernatural miracle, the other as a moral tale about the limits of technology when it comes to the real strength of nations: that to me is what is most striking. It is a text quite deliberately written so that our understanding of it can deepen as we mature, and we are no longer so interested in the mechanics of miracles, and more interested in how freedom is won or lost. To be clear, it’s good to know how the division of the sea happened, but there remains a depth to the biblical story that can never be exhausted by computer simulations and other historical or scientific evidence and depends instead on being sensitive to its deliberate and delicate ambiguity. Just as ruach, a physical wind, can part waters and expose land beneath, so too ruach, the human spirit, can expose, beneath the surface of a story, a deeper meaning beneath.

Weinreb…

Continued from page 17 was the symbol of the culture of Egypt. When the Israelites sang of the downfall of horse and rider, they were expressing their appreciation of the fact that not only were Pharaoh and his slave masters being removed from the scene, but so too was the culture of Egypt coming to an end. Throughout the Bible, we find the culture of Egypt identified with the horse. The horse is a symbol of militarism, of “might makes right.” It is also a symbol of arrogance and pride. When G-d brought down Pharaoh, He also in effect removed from the world a belief system that justified crushing and enslaving other human beings. The removal, not only of the dictator but of his doctrine, and not only of the tyrant but of his theology, is part of the pattern of history from a Jewish perspective. On Purim, we do not just celebrate Haman’s hanging, but the triumph over a culture that arbitrarily planned a genocide. On Chanukah, we honor a victory over Hellenism, not just a victory over an alien occupier of our land. In more modern times, the triumph over Nazism was not just the defeat of brutal and sadistic men and women. It was a triumph over a racist and bigoted worldview, and for a while, many believed that triumph was permanent. An excellent example of the horse and the rider both being thrown into the sea is the fate of Communism. True, the communist foe was personified in Joseph Stalin and his henchmen, and his several successors. But what eventually came about was the sudden total abandonment of the communist approach to economics, to the organization of society, and to the religious and spiritual aspects of humankind. t is instructive to read the writings of men who were once avowed communists but later abandoned that philosophy when they realized its corruption. There is a book edited by Arthur Koestler, who had Jewish roots, entitled The G-d That Failed. He and the other famous thinkers who contributed essays all saw Communism as a

kind of G-d. Long before their G-d met his final defeat, they foresaw that defeat was not far away. When our Sages say that the Holy One, blessed be He, first brings about the downfall of the G-ds of our enemies, they are already using a term for a failed ideology that Arthur Koestler and others used centuries later. Our Sages spoke of the downfall of the enemy and of its G-ds, and in this week’s Torah portion, the Bible speaks of the downfall of the rider and of the horse. Different metaphors, but the same idea. Today, we confront not only “evil kings” and “evil kingdoms,” but evil ideologies. Systems of belief masquerading as sacred religion, calling for murder and mayhem, torture and genocide. We pray to witness both horse and rider cast into the depths of the sea.

Gerber… Continued from page 17 This coming week’s Torah readings reflect upon the ups and downs of our people’s life journey. And, the current events of each day reflect on how history, even as far back as biblical times, sadly reflects upon us now. In “The Religious Meaning of the Book of Esther,” Dr. Cohn writes: “We may thus see the Book of Esther as a completion of the Bible. It was intentionally written in an extremely ‘secular’ form in order to teach us that G-d’s providence is found even in places and situations that are far from holiness, and that the hand of G-d governs the world, even when His providence is concealed.” Previously published in 2017.

Freedman… Etengoff…

Continued from page 17 The Torah tells us (Exodus 14:22) that “the water was a wall for them on their right and on their left.” And the Talmud (Yoma 4b) explains that the water did not simply recede, leaving dry land. Rather, it literally split, leaving a path for them to pass through. One wonders why it happened in this way, and moreover, why the Torah takes the time to share this detail with us. Rav Baruch Halevy Epstein, in his Torah Temimah, suggests that this way, the miracle was even greater. No one would say it was simply a coincidence, that the sea had dried up. But that does not seem to answer the question. Besides, the fact that the sea suddenly dried up just when the Jewish people needed it most and then came crashing down again just as the Egyptians were closing in was not a big enough miracle? Perhaps there is a deeper idea here. Interestingly, the Talmud compares the Jews’ entering a path into the sea with walls on both sides to Moshe’s entering the cloud at Mt. Sinai, suggesting that the identical language implies that Moshe forged a path through the cloud. He wasn’t just walking through it; he was walking on a path. To receive the Torah, to discover meaning, to be imbued with a sense of purpose, is to be on a journey. Indeed, the redemption only began when Moshe, alone in the desert in Shemot 3, saw a burning bush and turned off the path to see it, recognizing the need to change direction. Perhaps a path signifies a direction, and a journey. In fact, one opinion in the Midrash suggests each Tribe had its own path, so that there were thirteen paths through the sea in total. Another Midrash suggests that each Jew had his or her own path! edemption, it seems, comes when a person is ready to take his or her own journey; when a person sees the path they are meant to take. Just before the sea splits, Moshe holds out his staff over the sea, pointing forward. Think about it: The Torah tells us there were six hundred thousand men, terrified by the sight of six hundred chariots. A thousand men were afraid of a chariot? They were stuck. When the sea split, they finally realized that they needed to take their own steps to leave Egypt behind. Over three thousand years later, a small band of Jewish fighters, carrying the Jewish people on their shoulders, each alone with his or her thoughts, stepped out on a path all alone, determined to bring us home. Many of those fighters did not survive that battle; indeed, the Jewish quarter fell to the Jordanian legion some four weeks later, on May 28, 1948. But walk through the Shaar Tzion today and you will see a monument to the memory of those fighters and the courage with which they carried themselves on that day. “With no armor nor artillery, with their own bodies, they sacrificed themselves on the walls of the ancient city of Jerusalem. Let he who walks through this gate remember them.” Each of us has our own Egypt that constricts us. The question is whether we are ready to forge the path that will leave it behind.

Continued from page 17 of heaven and earth. He will not allow your foot to falter; Your Guardian will not slumber. Behold the Guardian of Yisrael will neither slumber nor sleep. The L-rd is your Guardian; the L-rd is your shadow; [He is] by your right hand” (Tehillim 121:1-6). Although the actual tribe of Amalek no longer exists, its successors continue to infect humanity with their vitriolic hatred. This idea was given powerful voice by the Rav in his synopsis of the dark forces that continue to drive the Amalek way of life: At a Mizrachi convention I cited the view expressed by my father [Rav Moshe Soloveitchik zatzal] and master of blessed memory, that the proclamation, “The L-rd will have war with Amalek from generation to generation” (Exodus 17:16) does not only translate into the communal exercise of waging obligatory war against a specific race but includes as well the obligation to rise up as a community against any people or group that, filled with maniacal hatred, directs its enmity against Kenesset Israel [the Jewish people]. When a people emblazons on its banner, “Come, and let us cut them off from being a nation: that the name of Israel may be no more in remembrance” (Psalms 83:5) it becomes, thereby, Amalek. In the 1930’s and 1940’s the Nazis, with Hitler at their head, filled this role. They were the Amalekites, the standard-bearers of insane hatred and enmity during the era just past.” We must never forget that antisemitism, and the denial of the existence of Hashem, are the principles by which and for which Amalek lives. Moreover, as we have seen in our own time, Amalek has one undeniable goal: to destroy each and every one of the Jewish people so that G-d’s name, chas v’shalom, would be obliterated from the world. Therefore, we must ever be vigilant, and stand shoulder to shoulder to ensure the physical and spiritual safety of our fellow Jews, wherever they may be. Perhaps, then, no truer expression was ever spoken by Chazal than kol Yisrael arevim zeh l’zeh (all of the Jewish people are responsible for one another). May the time come soon when these words will serve as a beacon of light as we join together and witness the fulfillment of Dovid HaMelech’s stirring words: “This was from the L-rd; it is wondrous in our eyes” (Tehillim 118:23). V’chane yihi ratzon.

Cohen...

Continued from page 19 team’s sole Jewish player, from his role as captain, citing “security fears” about angry protests by Hamas supporters targeting Teeger as the official reason. This was — in a word summed up by MLB Hall-of-Famer Kevin Youkilis, who declared his solidarity with Teeger—“bullsh*t.” Shortly after the Hamas pogrom, Teeger was the subject of a complaint submitted to CSA by pro-Hamas campaigners who objected to his remarks at a Jewish communal award ceremony, where he

lauded “the State of Israel and every single soldier fighting so that we can live and thrive in the diaspora.” They argued that Teeger had brought the game into disrepute, though an independent commission reporting to CSA duly found that Teeger had not violated CSA’s code of conduct with his speech, clearing the way for the talented young batsman to be appointed as captain the following month. Even so, the political pressure from the ruling ANC was unrelenting. It is no accident that Teeger was humiliated in the same week that South Africa launched a legal case against Israel at the International Court of Justice on the trumped-up charge of “genocide” — elegantly, if inadvertently, illustrating the inevitable domestic impact of an antisemitic foreign policy. Here in the United States, Jewish professional athletes are unlikely, for the moment, to experience this kind of discrimination. Yet as the recent antisemitism scandal involving the NBA’s Kyrie Irving (and others in different athletic arenas before him) demonstrated, our sporting scene is as vulnerable as anywhere else to antisemitic propaganda, often of the crudest sort. It’s definitely time to huddle.

Kerstein… Continued from page 19 to it sincerely believe that the Land of Israel is a “Palestine” to which they have an absolute right. But today’s Palestinian national identity, one regrets to say, is inextricably tied to its name’s long tradition — dating back to ancient Rome — of dispossessing and annihilating the Jews. This is simply what “Palestine” has always been: A negation of Jewish rights, Jewish history, and Jewish existence. All of this may seem pointless nitpicking. Political terms and slogans come and go; they are usually disingenuous or simply silly, and we should not expend too much effort debunking them, if only because another will always arise in short order. Unfortunately, this is not true. Deconstructing “Palestine” is not nitpicking but an absolute moral imperative, because the long and bitter legacy of “Palestine” provides an object lesson in how genocides happen. It teaches us that such atrocities never occur spontaneously. The writ is always drawn up beforehand. Words must precede the bloody work of extermination. The history of humanity is littered with these demonic words. “Palestine” is one of them.

Goldstein... Continued from page 20 This tactic of stigmatization goes back to the origins of our people. We are currently reading the Torah portions from the early chapters of the book of Exodus that tell of the first exile and persecution of the Jewish people. Eerily, it forms a prototype for future eras of discrimination and threats against Jews. Note how Pharaoh paves the way for the enslavement, and later, the killing of Jewish babies, by saying to the Egyptian people: “Come, let us act wisely with [the Jewish people] lest … if a war will occur, it, too many join our enemies and wage war against us.” Before Pharoah could begin to enslave and persecute the Jews, he had to stigmatize them as a threat to Egypt. He accuses them of something antisemites have always accused Jews of — disloyalty to the country they live in. He tells the Egyptian people that the Jews would join invading enemies. Today, with the fabricated charge of genocide, apartheid and war crimes against the Jewish state, we’re seeing the same thing play out. And that is why the Jewish world needs to fight this vicious campaign against us with all the resources at our disposal. These allegations are not just offensive and insulting; they are dangerous. And as such, they should be treated as a matter of the highest national security for the State of Israel, and a clear and present danger to Jews everywhere.

23 THE JEWISH STAR January 26, 2024 • 16 Shvat 5784

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