Jewish Star 12-01-2023 by Richner Communications, Inc

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Dec. 1, 2023 18 Kislev 5784 • Vayishlach • Vol 22, No 37

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‘We must find the courage to speak truth to power’

Some of the nearly 300,000 people who spoke truth to power when they rallied on the National Mall to support the righteousness of Israel’s cause, on Nov. 15.

Rabbi avi Weiss Rabbi Emeritus Hebrew Institute of Riverdale

t has been a great zechut (merit) to be in Israel during Operation Swords of Iron. It is a zechut that we are living the dream of Israel, in both good times and bad. Dreams have their ups and their downs. Ultimately, we believe — we know, we just know — that good will prevail, and Israel will be victorious. As the war grinds on, I offer some humble thoughts and observations.

Unity

For years many have asked: What is a cause that would unite us as we were united in the movement to free Soviet Jewry? In the darkness of this war, we are living the answer. Jews with different political agendas and religious leanings have come together as never before, to stand with Israel. The unity is reactive, emerging as it has in response to the greatest assault against our

peoplehood since the Holocaust. Nothing reactive endures and so the prayer that it becomes a proactive unity after the war is won.

Showing up Today, Jews worldwide are wearing a uniform. For hundreds of thousands in Israel, it’s the Israel Defense Forces’ green fatigues. For Jews in the Diaspora, it’s blue-andwhite Israeli flags, waved by hundreds of thousands before the seat of government in Washington and by tens of thousands more in cities throughout the world. For others, it’s calling friends and family in Israel to express support, or sending food and gear to IDF soldiers, or opening homes to Israeli residents of the south and north who seek shelter. In the midst of the darkness, we, as a people, are emanating light. We are all on our own front, writing the illuminating manual on endless giving.

Invincibility Just a few months ago, we were commemorating the 1973 Yom Kippur War. In many of those 50th-anniversary ceremonies, there was an undertone of invincibility. We (and much of the world) thought Israel was invincible

and could never be taken by surprise again. But feeling invincible is the pathway to disaster. Now we see that we, like all people, are vulnerable. And recognizing vulnerability — even as we understand the strength of the enemy while still believing in our power — is, with the help of G-d, the pathway to victory.

Trust and verify The United States has stood shoulder to shoulder with Israel. In the spirit of hakarat hatov (acknowledging the good), we say: “Thank you, thank you!” The United States and its president, Joe Biden, deserve our deepest gratitude. Still, we wonder, will the United States pressure Israel as it did on the eve of the Yom Kippur War? Israel’s bowing to that pressure led to catastrophe. As the rabbis say, kabdeihu ve’chashdeihu (give credit with caution) a motto echoed by President Ronald Reagan, “Trust and Verify.”

We are all under attack The goal of Hamas on Oct. 7 was not only to murder Israelis but to attack Jews, forever shattering the canard that anti-Zionism is

Ed Weintrob, The Jewish Star

not antisemitism. If Hamas could have, they would have savagely murdered every Jew. We must feel, as the Passover Haggadah proclaims, as if we were personally butchered. And so, we must beware of anyone in the streets of New York and Los Angeles or on college campuses who support Hamas. Such support poses an imminent threat to every Jew. Hamas’s slogan, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” is not simply a political cry; it is a genocidal slogan calling for wiping out a people from a land, which can inspire attacks. Words can lead to fatal deeds.

Intelligentsia

Too often, those who seem to have the best academic credentials to know don’t know. During World War II and the Holocaust, many in the intelligentsia — professors, elite composers and artists — argued the righteousness and ethical superiority of the Third Reich. Today, too, elite faculty on North American college campuses can be heard justifying Hamas’s murders of Jews. We must find the courage to speak truth to power, declaring for one and all to hear: “The emperor has no clothes.” See Finding the courage on page 2

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Analysis: Actually, the Israel position is strong By Alex Traiman, JNS On Oct. 7, on the Jewish holy day of Simchat Torah, Hamas over 3,000 terrorists and Gazan civilians crossed into Israel and committed the most heinous single-day massacre in the history of the Jewish state. Over 1,200 were killed, thousands more were wounded and as many as 240 were taken back to Gaza as hostages. Thousands of rockets were launched into Israeli territory. The brutal attack was a declaration of war, and immediately Israel readied for battle. Devastating airstrikes on the Gaza Strip began within hours and continued for weeks. Soon after, tens of thousands of Israeli soldiers launched a ground incursion to target Hamas’s military leadership, uncover a vast underground tunnel network and weapons caches and search for the hostages. The IDF’s entry into the Strip was the first time any Israelis had set foot in Gaza since Israel’s full military and civilian withdrawal from the area in 2005. The Gaza Health Ministry — an organ of Hamas — accuses Israel of killing over 10,000 people and destroying tens of thousands of buildings since the beginning of the war. Gaza Health Ministry stats are unreliable, unverifiable and don’t distinguish between militants and civilians. Yet they give some indication as to how much damage Israel has wrought within Gaza. The ground incursion began in the northern half of the narrow enclave. The IDF methodically moved south along the coast and then encircled Gaza City — the strip’s largest city — from the south. Gazan civilians heeded Israeli warnings and moved south along protected humanitarian corridors, emptying out the north so Israel could specifically target those seeking a fight. Israel currently controls as much as a third of the Strip, and was beginning its move toward the south, where many of Hamas’ senior leadership are now believed to be operating. Hamas needed a pause Hamas has been taking a severe beating and desperately needed a pause in the fighting. Enter the hostages. With its terror militia on the run and its rocket supply rapidly dwindling. Hamas used its collateral, the hostages it took for just such a purpose, to convince Israel to halt its momentum. Hamas dangled a promise to return 50 hostages for 150 convicted terrorists sitting in Israeli prisons and a four-day pause in the fighting. The two sides negotiated terms, which include the possibility to extend the ceasefire by an extra day for each additional 10 hostages Hamas can deliver alive. Risk-reward scenario For Israel, the terms represent a high-stakes risk-reward scenario. The rewards are obvious and immediately tangible. The return of 50 hostages provides relief to many of the families who have been reliving the trauma of Oct. 7 for 50 days since the Simchat Torah massacre. The entirety of Israeli society wants the hostages home. Yet the risks are also profound. The pause provides a terror group on the run a desperately

Israeli troops operating in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip on Nov. 22.

needed opportunity to regroup, rearm and redeploy, potentially placing IDF soldiers at greater risk when fighting resumes. The prisoners Israel released back into society — at a 3-1 ratio — are terrorists, many convicted of attempted murder. Like prisoners released in the unconscionable 1,000-1 trade in 2011 to recover kidnapped IDF soldier Gilad Shalit — who was held in Gaza for five years — many are likely to commit new acts of terror following their release, threatening the lives of more Israelis. (Hamas terror mastermind Yahya Sinwar was one of those released in the Shalit deal. Worse, Sinwar was treated and had his life saved in an Israeli hospital in 2007 after suffering from lifethreatening neurological symptoms.) And nobody can predict what the current trade might mean for the safety of hostages who remain in captivity after the initial deal. Israel negotiated from strength While all Israelis want the hostages back, not all support the dangerous trade. Yet the War Cabinet, the full Cabinet and the Knesset all backed the deal. While opponents of the deal claim that Israel negotiated from a position of weakness, the exact opposite is true. Israel negotiated the hostage deal from a position of great strength. First, the IDF is one of the world’s strongest militaries. It is absolutely destroying Hamas, with only a portion of its military might. Israel and Hamas both understand well that a four-day pause does little to change Israel’s overall strategic advantage on the battlefield, even if Hamas manages to regroup and rearm. Israel’s moral superiority Second, in placing such a high value on retrieving its hostages, Israel has once again demon-

IDF

strated its moral superiority. While Hamas values martyrdom and a culture of death, Israel values life, and will risk life and limb to save one of its own. That is a message being heard loud and clear inside Gaza, where civilians recognize that Hamas has invited death and destruction into the Strip, and does little to protect its residents. It is a message that is reverberating around the world as well. The return of Israeli hostages to the headlines reminds the international community that Israel was severely victimized on Oct. 7 by a brutal terror organization. That Hamas has been essentially forced to give up 50-70 of its bargaining chips for only 4-6 days of pause in the fighting demonstrates how desperate a situation Hamas is actually in. Netanyahu shames Hamas in Gaza Adding insult to injury for Hamas was a surprise visit by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to the strip on Sunday, where he held situational assessments and met with IDF soldiers that continue to hold their positions. Netanyahu’s visit sent clear messages both in Israel and Gaza. First, Netanyahu has not-so-subtly signaled that as the head of the strongest military force in Gaza, he is now the Strip’s sovereign leader. From this point forward, it is Netanyahu who will determine the fate of Gaza, not Hamas. The visit is a terrible embarrassment to Hamas, and this is the reason they have not openly commented on it. The visit would have gone viral globally and been more difficult to ignore had Netanyahu opted to record statements in English, in addition to the statements he made in Hebrew while with the Israeli soldiers. IDF pressure campaign to resume Second, as Netanyahu repeatedly told the

soldiers, as did Defense Minister Yoav Gallant in Gaza the day before, the military campaign will resume as soon as Hamas is no longer able to deliver hostages. Gallant has repeatedly insisted that it was IDF pressure that forced Hamas to negotiate the return of hostages, and he continues to insist that further IDF pressure will lead to the release of additional hostages in the days and weeks to come. The defense minister has stated that fighting in Gaza is expected to continue for months yet. Netanyahu and Gallant have no choice but to beat Hamas at its own game. Understanding Hamas’s strategy On Oct. 7, Hamas intentionally launched an attack so heinous that Israel would have no choice but to retaliate on an unprecedented scale. And it is obvious that the IDF, as one of the world’s strongest and battle-ready militaries, has enough might to defeat a terror entity with fewer soldiers and inferior weapons. Hamas understood from the outset that it could never defeat Israel on the physical battlefield. Instead, it sought to use the physical war to defeat Israel on the psychological battlefield, and in the realm of public opinion. A weakened and divided Israel? In the weeks, months and even years leading up to the attack, Hamas and its backer, Iran, recognized severe political divisions inside Israel. They believed bogus assessments by anti-government forces that the divisions had weakened the military. Hamas believed that this supposed weakness would lead to mistakes on the battlefield that would further eat away at Israel’s waning cohesion. Hamas also believed that their network of underground tunnels and stable of improvised explosive devices would create enough surprise launch points and booby traps to cause large numbers of Israeli casualties during a ground invasion. Hamas hoped such casualties would weaken Israeli determination to fight. Hamas also hoped it could shut down the Israeli economy and homefront by firing thousands of rockets and constantly sending Israelis running to bomb shelters. And, Hamas believed that by taking hostages, they could force Israel to negotiate on highly unfavorable terms. Provoking civilian casualties in Gaza But most importantly, Hamas wanted the IDF to enter the densely populated (not one of the world’s most densely populated areas as many claim, but certainly dense enough) urban arenas in the hopes that Israel would kill as many Gazan civilians as possible. This in turn, they hoped, would cause the international community to turn on Israel, and further delegitimize the Jewish state. For decades, Palestinians have aimed to delegitimize Israel, as their primary tool to harm the Jewish state. A rude awakening Yet Hamas’ strategy has not proven sound. See Israel position strong on page 5

Finding the courage to speak truth to power… Continued from page 1

Fighting antisemitism It’s not simple to be a minority voice and speak up against antisemites. Many Jews are scared and concerned that fighting antisemitism will attract more attention to the Jewish community, thus inspiring more antisemitism. The reverse is true. The more we speak out, the stronger we are; by showing strength, we are more protected rather than rendered vulnerable.

Coping with fear These days, many Jews are afraid. There is no shame in feeling fear as fear is a feeling, and feelings are neither right nor wrong, they just are. While we cannot control what we feel, we can control how we act. Counterintui-

tively, if we act and do and stand up for Israel, our fear will dissipate. Today, more than ever, on campuses throughout America, students should openly wear their kippahs and chai necklaces, and make sure that their organizations proudly display Israeli flags on their campus buildings. Day schools should remain open, never bowing to threats. Jewish Community Centers and

In the midst of the darkness, we, as a people, are emanating light.

synagogues should be more welcoming than ever before. Yes, we must take precautions, working with police and our own Community Security Services. But we dare not cower to fear. Doing so grants victory to the enemy.

Remembering our soldiers

During the war, my wife Toby and I have been inspired by so many, but none like our precious soldiers — may they all stay safe and come home in peace. Tragically, there have been many funerals, too many shiva homes where parents are mourning their heroic sons and daughters. The term used to describe an IDF soldier killed is chayal nafal, a “fallen soldier.” In the same breath, those fallen soldiers have ascended, reaching higher and higher

as they gave their lives for Israel. Much like police and firefighters in the United States on Sept. 11, 2001, who did not die falling but climbing the Twin Towers to save the innocent, IDF soldiers have done the same. They are soldiers who made the ultimate sacrifice in defense of the State — masaru nafsham al haganat ha’aretz. Today, Jews in Israel and all over the world are not studying history, but living history — the history of barbaric attacks against our people, when Jews were slaughtered, decapitated, raped, tortured and taken hostage simply because they were Jews. This time, however, there is a difference. Today, there is a State of Israel, an IDF, and Jews and people of moral conscience everywhere who will never again be guilty of the sin of the silence that prevailed during the Shoah.

3 THE JEWISH STAR December 1, 2023 • 18 Kislev 5784

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The US college is a long-term strategic threat Perspective by David Bernstein The author is founder of the Jewish Institute for Liberal Values and author of “Woke Antisemitism.” By now it’s clear to anyone paying attention that many American college campuses have become hotbeds of anti-Zionism and antisemitic fervor. One Jewish professor at a small liberal arts college in the Pacific Northwest, an institution you’re not hearing about in the news, recently told me that “From the River to the Sea” is among the mildest chants he hears in the raucous daily campus protests beneath his office window. That same professor has been subject to ongoing, fierce harassment from radical students for expressing moderate pro-Israel positions on social media. Jewish students on his campus have faced death threats and intimidation. Some have been escorted to class by campus security to avoid angry mobs. And we are seeing similar anti-Israel activity on numerous other campuses across the country. My intention in this article is not to recount the horrors of the current moment, but to examine the roots of the problem and to offer a series of recommended long-term interventions. I say long-term because much of the discussion in the mainstream Jewish community revolves around short-term actions that may temporarily ameliorate the mayhem but fail to address root causes and stem the tide of hate and erosion of support for Israel. The problem on campus has been a long time in the making and it will take a long time to unmake. As challenging as it will be to effect such a shift, the stakes couldn’t be higher. If future generations of young elites continue to be educated into hostility toward Israel, we should expect to see a decline in US-Israel ties, with increasing pressure to end the countries’ special relationship. And if they continue to be educated into

antipathy toward what America stands for and its role in the world, we can expect an America that will withdraw from the global scene, eschew the use of power and abandon the field to hostile powers such Iran, Russia and China. It’s hard to imagine that seemingly absurd ideological trends in the humanities departments at American universities could wreak such havoc. But quackery in American universities is a long-term threat to global stability.

Roots of campus hate

Three trends converge in the emergence of today’s campus hate. The first factor is the Soviet anti-Zionist campaign of the late 1960s. Wilson Center scholar Izabella Tabarovsky describes the development of a field called “Zionology” in the late 1960s in the USSR that actively discredited Zionism. In the wake of the 1967 Six-Day War, the Soviets were distressed that Israel had handily defeated their Arab allies, and that Soviet Jews, inspired by Israel’s victory, increasingly identified with the Jewish state. In 1969, a party official, Yuri Ivanov, wrote “Beware: Zionism!,” which sold upwards of 800,000 copies in the USSR alone. Tabarovsky explains that the Zionologists’ “most important contribution to global anti-Jewish discourse was to make antisemitic conspiracy theories, typically associated with the far right, not only palatable to the Western hard left but politically useful to it.” In other words, the Soviets successfully created the template for the anti-Zionist campaign we are seeing on American campuses today. The second factor is the emergence of postmodern and postcolonial studies in American universities. Postmodernism holds that all of what we consider “knowledge” and attribute to science and free discourse is really the outgrowth of powerful interests encoding their preferred understanding of the world in social discourses so that they can

continue to rule over the masses. In the late 1960s, at the same time the Soviets were delegitimizing Zionism, postmodern scholars with an activist agenda forced their way into higher education and established ethnic studies and other “Studies” departments across the country, which did not adhere to usual standards of scholarly inquiry. Over time a more activist and less scholarly brand of postmodern scholarship emerged and became the basis of today’s radical leftist discourse, which gained further momentum through the writings of the Palestinian-American literary critic Edward Said, among the founders of postcolonial thought. Said discredited the Western study of the Middle East and influenced scholars to see Zionism as a colonialist project. These popular academic theories today see the world through a stark oppressed/oppressor binary, and are predisposed to keeping alive anti-Zionism and other such canards about white, Jewish and colonial power. The third factor is the role of Middle Eastern money. In 2019, the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy (ISGAP) first presented research findings to the Department of Justice titled “Follow the Money.” The research examines illicit funding of United States universities by foreign governments, foundations and corporations. The research revealed billions in Middle Eastern funding, primarily from Qatar, to US universities that had not been reported to the Department of Education. Such funding has had a substantial impact on fueling antisemitic discourse, identity politics and anti-democratic sentiment within these institutions of higher education. In other words, the ideological trends described above have been fomented by Qatari financing of American universities. A report issued by the National Association of Scholars, “Hijacked,” describes the problem: “The same leftist hysteria which has consumed the humanities and social sciences since the 1960s has spread to MESCs (Middle East Studies Centers) … Academics have repurposed critical theory to galvanize activism on Middle East issues. For instance, they have recast the Israel-Palestine debate as a fight for ‘indigenous rights’ against the supposed evils of colonialism.”

Formulating long-term strategy

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There is an abundance of short-term responses currently under consideration. Among them are some which might reduce tensions, including exhorting university presidents to actively oppose radical voices and to discipline perpetrators who intimidate or accost Jewish students; enforcing Title VI anti-harassment laws against those who generate a hostile environment; banning Students for Justice in Palestine chapters that cross the line and bully Jewish students. These interventions can help, but none will likely permanently lower the level of animosity from students and professors. Some interventions, like trying to accommodate Jewish concerns in existing campus Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) efforts, may be downright counterproductive and merely reinforce the ill-bred ideological conditions that fomented the hostile sentiment in the first place. Supporters of Israel and Jewish security in America and, indeed, all those concerned about the health of American democracy, need to mount a sustained effort to change the campus culture. Here’s what this involves:

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Ed Weintrob Editor-Publisher • Nechama Bluth, Associate • Stuart Richner, RCI President

1. End or transform DEI

Campus DEI bureaucracies function as an ideological authority, reinforcing political orthodoxies on campus. The National Association of Diversity Officers in Higher Education describes itself as “a leading voice in the fight for social justice” by “creating a framework for diversity officers to advance anti-racism strategies, particularly anti-Black racism, at their respective institutions of higher education.” Sprawling bureaucracies in major universities now typically have 45 paid staff members who reinforce the overall illiberal ideological

environment. A 2021 study conducted by Jay Greene at the Heritage Foundation reviewed the social media output of campus DEI officers and found that a high percentage had hostile views toward Israel. One can only imagine what such a study would show today. Bari Weiss, among others, argues that “it is time to end DEI for good.” “The answer,” she states, “is not for the Jewish community to plead its cause before the intersectional coalition, or beg for a higher ranking in the new ladder of victimhood. That is a losing strategy — not just for Jewish dignity, but for the values we hold as Jews and as Americans.” Another approach, proposed by interfaith leader Eboo Patel, is to replace DEI with a less ideological form of diversity built on the traditional American model of pluralism. Either way, as long as the current model of DEI reigns supreme, many universities will be hostile places for Jews and Israel.

2. Recommit to the liberal university As stated above, university humanities departments have become riven with ideological academic programs that perpetuate notions of power and oppression that cast Jews and Israel as oppressors. It will not be easy to totally unseat these departments, but over time we can weaken their influence. Major Jewish donors have begun to withdraw their philanthropy from elite universities often run by weak-kneed presidents, such as those at Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania. One of the most important things these donors can do is to reinvest their philanthropy in new academic programs that specifically and explicitly elevate free inquiry and freedom of expression. Yale Law School, for example, recently established a new free speech and academic freedom center. Such centers can begin to compete with the politicized “Studies” programs and attract superior faculty and student talent. Indeed, there seems to be a strong correlation between campuses that stifle free inquiry and promote anti-Israel climates. The free speech organization FIRE, which conducts an annual College Free Speech Rankings, ranked Harvard and University of Pennsylvania, respectively, last and second to last. Not coincidentally, these schools are among the most hostile environments for Jewish students who support Israel. Restoring freedom of inquiry in college campuses is a long-term, generational challenge, and a necessary condition for improving attitudes toward Jews and Israel.

3. Cut Middle Eastern sources of funding There is no reason that the United States must continue to allow foreign funding of American university programs. In the aftermath of Oct. 7, efforts to expose Qatari funding of American university programs have picked up steam. Hearings have been held on Capitol Hill detailing the failure of universities to disclose sources of funding. Now is the time to redouble such efforts. We should not forget that Saudi Arabia was once the major funder of such anti-American academic programs but, under the scrutiny in the post-911 atmosphere, largely pulled back. Qatar filled the vacuum. Like Saudi Arabia before it, Qatar has much at stake in its relationship with the United States. Last year, Washington designated Qatar a major non-NATO ally, undoubtedly owing in large part to the role the Gulf state played as an intermediary with Iran. Until recently, however, the Biden administration has shielded Qatar from scrutiny over its funding of universities. Turning up the heat on the administration to hold Qatar accountable will be critical. Such a long-term, strategic approach to changing university cultures will not be easy. But unless we are successful in affecting such a change, the environment toward Jews and Israel will only worsen.

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THE JEWISH STAR December 1, 2023 • 18 Kislev 5784

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The organization UN Women regularly issues civil commission for crimes against women and DARE TO CARE: RESILIENCE, STRENGTH & SONG! statements condemning specific RESILIENCE, instances of vio- children. We remainTO alarmed by gender-based CARE: DARE CARE: STRENGTH RESILIENCE, & SONG! ST DARE TO CARE: RESILIENCE, STRENGTH & SONG! lence and abuse of women worldwide. But it took violence reports on 7 Oct. and call for rigorous this UN agency, which purports to advocate for investigation, prioritizing the rights, needs and gender equity and female empowerment, nearly 50 safety of those affected.” days to condemn Hamas terrorists for raping and The second post mentioned neither Hamas sexually assaulting Israeli and other women, which nor Jewish victims. video footage and witnesses documented on Oct. 7. Those gathered on Monday were dressed in “Me, too, unless you are aH Jew!”O was among white with red paint symbolizing blood splattered S T: the rallying cries, as 100 women protested Mon- near their groin and other areas. The protesters day outside the NYC headquarters of UN Women. carried signs demanding “Believe all women” and “We came here to demand from them to speak up “Rape is rape.” and to condemn the horrific acts that Israeli womOne sign — “Your silence is loud” — was dien, Muslim women, Jewish women, Thai wom-en, rected at Sima Bahous, a Jordanian woman who American women, German women went through on serves as the executive director of UN Women. Oct. 7 by Hamas terrorists,” Shany Grubot-Lubaton, Bahous remained silent in response to a JNS one of the protest organizers, told JNS. request for comment. “It seems like they forgotLive that they’re fight-Music! Granot-Lubaton told JNS that she is disaping for all women,” she said of the UN agency. “If pointed that the international community supVIP Presenters! they’re not fighting for all women, then they’re porting women’s rights and safety, which Jewish fighting for none.” women have backed on many issues for many Almost immediately after it posted on Ins- years, is failing to come to the aid of Israelis. tagram — “We condemn the brutal attacks by “Last Saturday was the International Day for Hamas on Oct. 7 and continue to call for the im- the Elimination of Violence against Women, and mediate and unconditional release of all hostag- they did not speak up,” she said. “They had all es” — UN Women deleted it. these conferences and roundtables and events, It replaced the post on Instagram and X with a but not one word against these horrible acts that’s broader statement: “We met with Israeli women’s been just recently committed on Israel land and organizations and heard about the work of the it’s a real shame on them.”

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Israel position strong…

by election cycles and a toxic media caused unContinued from page 2 First, the attack on Oct. 7 was so heinous and ceasing bickering in the Jewish state, the foundaso barbaric that even those who disapproved of tions of the nation remained strong. Rather than years of Israeli policy toward Palestinians had weaken the country, the Oct. 7 attack galvanized little choice but to side with Israel and express and unified the nation against a common enemy. STARRI NG: their outright support S for the dismantling stronger Tfull A R R I Israel NisG : today than it was on Oct. 6. S STARRI T ANG: RRI NG: of Hamas. In the opening weeks of the war, Ne- Israelis are prepared for the resumption of the tanyahu ran a masterclass in international diplo- military campaign following the pause, and supmacy, inviting the leaders of the free world to see port the military objective of dismantling Hamas STA R R I N G : Singer, Performer the carnage for themselves, and recruiting their and removing it from political power in the Gaza Sensational Singer , Performer Sensational SensationalSensational Singer, PerformerSinger, Performe steadfast support. Strip. & Musician & Musician & & Musician Musician Support has lasted for seven weeks already, Restoring deterrence Sensational Singer, Performer much longer than Hamas would have hoped. The severity of the IDF’s response in Gaza is & Musician Once the ground fighting began, the IDF obvious to Iran its other terror proxies. As such, moved slowly and methodically through the Hamas has not (to date) received the support it Strip. While thousands of Hamas soldiers have may have expected from its fellow Iranian proxy, been killed, Israel has lost significantly less than Hezbollah in southern Lebanon. While Hezbollah 100 soldiers, exponentially lower than what has fired over 1,000 mortars and anti-tank guided Hamas would have expected. Meanwhile, morale missiles at Israel, they have hesitated to rush Isamong the soldiers and trust in the battle plans rael with an attack that would draw the type of World Musical Artist & Cantor Renowned Cantor World Artist Renowned World Cantor World Musical Musical Artist & Renowned Artist & Renowned Ca has grown strongerMusical with each day. response now& unfolding in Gaza. World Musical Artist & Renowned Cantor The IDF’s Iron Dome missile defense system A war about Iran, not Palestinians shoots Hamas’s Kassam rockets out of the sky That said, the border continues to heat up with over a 90% interception rate. Israel has suc- and a larger regional conflict cannot be ruled out. cessfully weathered the storm of rockets with From the beginning, it was assumed that Israel very little damage and barely any casualties. preferred to tackle the terror threats at its borders Special Dedications toIDF IDF and allof of our brothers and sisters in the land of Israes Special Dedications and all of our brothers and sisters inholy the holy land of Israel! ons Ato IDFfor and all of our Dedications Special and Dedications to IDF sisters to IDFand andtoall of in our all brothers the and our holy sisters brothers in the land land of ofholy Israel! Israel and gold standard modernSpecial warfare one at a time, andbrothers it appears that strategy is playFurthermore, the IDF has gone out of its way ing itself out. not to harm civilians. 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CENTER Contact: 516.739.3636 ER residential neighborhoods, schools, mosques JERRYS AUTO JERRYS AUTO CENTER MANES AMERICAN PEACE FOUNDATION www.chanukahtelethon.com KLERER FINANCIAL SERVICES www.chanukahtelethon.com www.chanukahtelethon.com www.cha hospitals as firing zones and military command The days ahead MICHAEL MIROTZNIK, ESQ. SERVICES KLERER FINANCIAL SERVICES KLERER FINANCIAL SERVICES and Facebook The Chanukah Telethon isLive theand Annual centers in a desperate and obvious attempt to inMany unknowns remain, yetand the pause inFacebook the LEND LEASE Live and Facebook Live Facebo GARY NUDELMAN LEND LEASE LEND LEASE BenefitContact: of NCFJE Chabad Mineola 516.739.3636 flate civilian deaths. war provides an important opportunity for asMANES AMERICAN PEACE FOUNDATION MICHAEL L. SOSHNICK, ESQ. Contact: 516.739.3636 Contact: 516.739.3636 Contact: 51 PEACE MANES FOUNDATION MANES AMERICAN PEACE FOUNDATION A portion of your donation will be Will FOUNDATION Gazans flee the Strip? sessment.AMERICAN PEACE STRICKOFF FINANCIAL SERVICES, LLC MICHAEL MIROTZNIK, ESQ. dedicated to Israel Relief Funds. K, ESQ. MICHAEL MIROTZNIK, ESQ. MICHAEL MIROTZNIK, ESQ. Over 1 million Gazans have been displaced, Hamas certainly did more damage on Oct. 7 The Chanukah Telethon is the Annual UNIQUEPRINTNY.COM GARY NUDELMAN The Chanukah Telethon is The Chanuk The the ChanukahAnnual Telethon is the Annual and currently sit near the Egyptian border. As the than any Israeli would have imagined, igniting GARY NUDELMAN GARYthe NUDELMAN Benefit of NCFJE Chabad Mineola MICHAEL L. SOSHNICK, ESQ. Benefit of NCF JE Chabad Mineola Benefit of NCFJE Chabad MineolaBenefit of N IDF continues to move south, there is likely to be current conflict. Yet while Israel has been forced CK, ESQ. MICHAEL L. SOSHNICK, ESQ. MICHAEL L. SOSHNICK, ESQ. A portion of your donation will be of your will be A portion of your donation will be A portion of STRICKOFF FINANCIALdonation SERVICES, LLC increased international pressure to open the bor- to fight Hamas on its own turf inA moreportion ways than IAL SERVICES, LLC STRICKOFF FINANCIAL SERVICES, STRICKOFF FINANCIAL SERVICES, LLC LLC dedicated to Israel Relief Funds. der and allow safe haven and even resettlement one, Israel has responded with overwhelming dedicated to 1Israel Reliefdedicated Funds. to to Israel Relief Funds. dedicated UNIQUEPRINTNY.COM jewish star.indd 11/9/23 12:04 PM OM for Gazan residents that wish to leave the Strip. UNIQUEPRINTNY .COM UNIQUEPRINTNY.COM military precision and force, diplomatic support Israeli cohesion and most importantly, domestic resolve. Perhaps Hamas’s largest miscalculation, howOn top of that, IDF pressure has forced Hamas ever, was their wrongheaded assessment of Israe- to send more than 50 of its hostages home. May 1237808 11/9/23 12: li cohesion, or lack thereof. Whilejewish politics fueled the rest come home in the days ahead.jewish star.indd 1jewish star.indd 1 star.indd 1 11/9/23 11/9/23 12:04 PM 12:0

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Gaza border kibbutzniks waiting to come home By Etgar Lefkovits, JNS “If the terrorists get in, kill me and then the dogs.” It was the deadly morning of Oct. 7 in Kibbutz Nirim. Huddled in their safe room with their two dogs, a young Israeli couple heard the gunfire and the shouts of Hamas terrorists who had just overrun this southern communal farm, along with more than 20 towns and villages near the border with Gaza. Moments earlier, Michelle Mari, 22, had begged her boyfriend, Amit Shaar, 22, not to leave the safe room to go to his sister’s home, which was under attack nearby. Shaar’s father also urged him by text message to stay put. He took a shirt and tied it to the door handle of their shelter to hold it closed, while staying away from the door itself so as not to be shot. As bullets hit the window of their sealed room, Mari uttered the harrowing words. “Chag sameach, Jews!” the Palestinian attackers shouted from outside. ••• An unnatural silence hung in the autumn air in Nirim on Sunday afternoon as a handful of survivors of the Oct. 7 attack took advantage of the ceasefire with Hamas to return home to pick up some personal effects, and inspect the damage. Military personnel were on guard. “Here’s the shirt he used,” said Mari, pointing to the knotted blue garment still lying on the bed. The mats of their two dogs, Belle and Tokyo, were still in place. In the seven weeks since the at-

tack, the grass has grown wild at the kibbutz. Cats amble the grounds and rabbits furtively burrow in empty gardens. Like other villages in the area, Nirim, less than a mile from the border with Gaza, is still a closed military zone, with only residents allowed in, and will likely remain shuttered for months more. The lifeless stillness is unnatural, and together with the gutted cars and burned homes near the edge of the kibbutz, haunting. “Of course we’re eager to get back home,” Mari said as she walked through the desolate kibbutz, checking out the damage. “But there’s also a gnawing fear of what will happen if we do.” “There are days I asked myself how will I sleep here, but if we cave to these fears then they have won,” she said. However, Barel Efraim, a 37-yearold father of three, said he’s not bringing his family back unless something changes. “We are currently talking about today and tomorrow,” he said, broom in hand. He was cleaning up his home, the scene of a shootout between Israeli security forces and two terrorists while he and his family were hiding in the sealed room. “If Hamas will be on the border like before, we aren’t coming back,” he said, adding that something — a security zone, an international force — needs to be put in place. “Your home is always your security, and for us there is no sense of security,” he said. “At the same time, if I leave my house, they won, because that is what they wanted.”

Michelle Mari inspects the aftermath of Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre in her community of Kibbutz Nirim, on Nov. 26. Castelnuovo

During the attack, his wife asked for the sharpest knife in the kitchen to protect her children, aged 3, 6 and 8, as they hid in the shelter, and, in the rush, he grabbed a mallet that she used for schnitzel and a rolling pin, he said, both now neatly arranged back in the kitchen cabinet. Efraim noted that he had always wanted to carry a weapon, but that before the attack his wife was afraid of having one in the house. Now she has told him that if they come back, they will both have guns, he said. “Of course we’ll be back,” said Eli Uzan, 46, a member of the kibbutz emergency response team. “We know where we’re living,” he said.

“We’re not in [the swanky Tel Aviv district of] Ramat Aviv.” “We will return,” concurred kibbutz farmer Bar Hefetz, 47, a father of two who has an avocado field and was awaiting a group of hired workers after his Thai laborers went home. “We’re farmers. Where else would we go?” he asked. “Unfortunately I love this place too much, otherwise I would look for a more normal place.” For Mari, the horror of that Saturday morning reopened a personal childhood trauma. Her mother, a Ukrainian-born immigrant, had married a Palestinian from Tulkarem, who abused them both. After

being raised till the age of five at her father’s home in the Palestinian city to hate Israel and Jews, she was taken to the Israeli city of Ashdod by her mother, only to be kidnapped by her father, who brought her back to his home. Then Mari’s grandmother arranged to have her rescued by an ultra-Orthodox Jewish organization which works against missionaries and interfaith marriages, Yad L’Ahim, and she was brought back under armed guard, in the dead of night, to her mother and grandmother. After further abuse by her mom, the young girl hung out on the streets until her case was brought to the attention of social services. She later went to boarding school, and cut all contact with her abusive parents. Mari met her kibbutz-born boyfriend in national service. Her four years at Kibbutz Nirim — where he and his family welcomed her with open arms — were her first stable home. “For the first time in my life I felt at home,” she said. “This was my first home.” “It pains me to wake up every morning now thinking that I am again running away, and that they have taken away my home,” she said. Still, Mari dreams of a future return to the community — if not the same home — next year, and of once again watching the heavenly sunsets at the edge of the kibbutz. “We will come home and build the kibbutz anew,” she said. “We will sit opposite the sunset and write songs of camaraderie and heroism.”

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Argentina’s new president visits Rebbe’s Ohel By Combined Sources President-elect Javier Milei of Argentina flew to New York and prayed on Monday at the Ohel, the resting place of the Chabad-Lubavitch Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, zt”l. The Roman Catholic-raised Milei has spoken about the inspiration he has gained from the Rebbe and his teachings. Monday’s visit to the Ohel in Cambria Heights, Queens, was his first foreign trip since he won the presidency by a wide margin on Oct. 22. Milei has made no secret of his philo-semitism, expressing a deep love and admiration for Judaism and the Jewish people. The Argentinian electorate is 92% Catholic, with Jews making up less than 1% of the population. “I don’t go to church. I go to synagogue. I don’t follow a priest. I follow my rabbi. I learn Torah,” he told La Nacion. “I’m known internationally as a friend of Israel. And as someone who learns Torah, I’m almost Jewish. I’m just missing the ‘blood covenant’.” “I am thinking about converting to Judaism and I aspire to become the first Jewish president in Argentine history,” Milei has said, according to Argentina’s Radio Perfil. He’s said that what gives him pause is that Sabbath observance would interfere with his presidential duties. He has promised to move the Argentinian embassy in Israel to Jerusalem and to make the Jewish state his first international stop after he is sworn in as president on Dec. 10. During the campaign, Milei spoke

about his reverence for the Rebbe. In an interview with Argentinian TV last July, he noted that “I was recently in New York and I even had the privilege of visiting the office of the Lubavitcher Rebbe,” and spoke about the Rebbe’s sichot (Torah discourses) and how he treasured a book of the Rebbe’s teachings. Milei was accompanied by Rabbi Mendy Kotlarsky, director of Merkos L’Inyonei Chinuch’s Suite 302 division, and Chabad scholar and author Rabbi Simon Jacobson. The Argentinian joins a long list of world leaders who have sought the Rebbe’s blessings and guidance, both before and after the Rebbe was niftar in 1994. Among other heads of state to visit the Rebbe was Luis Alberto Lacalle, former president of Uruguay, who visited the Rebbe in 1989, receiving a dollar and a blessing. “He had a way of looking at you very, very deeply,” he recalled. “It was a very moving experience” after which “ I have been much more attentive and aware of the message of the Rebbe … and the wider message of the Jewish religion,” he said. His son, Luis Lacalle Pou, is the current president of Uruguay. In 1966, Israel’s President Zalman Shazar famously broke protocol by directing his limo towards 770 Eastern Parkway in Crown Heights, the Rebbe’s synagogue and headquarters, rather than request that the Rebbe visit him, a head of state, at his Manhattan hotel. A decade later, just after his election as prime minister of Israel, Menachem Begin visited the Rebbe in

Brooklyn on his way to Washington, for his first meeting with President Jimmy Carter. When the three-hour long private audience had ended, a member of the press asked what had been discussed. Begin responded, curtly: “Whatever I say to the Rabbi and he says to me is between us.” The Rebbe received and corresponded with politicians and statesmen of all political streams and parties — from President Ronald Reagan to Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, and from King Hassan II of Morocco to Brazilian President Jose Sarney — both in public and private, always encouraging them to utilize their unique positions of influence for the betterment of all people. Agentina has a long history of overt antisemitism. It welcomed Nazis fleeing Germany after World War II (Adolf Eichmann was captured there by Israel agents in 1960). In 1994, 85 people were killed and more than 300 injured at the Asociación Mutual Israelita Argentina, in Buenos Aires, when a bomb-laden van was driven into the building and detonated. Through the years, Agentinian governments attempted to coverup Iran’s ties to the bombing, and failed to prosecute those responsible. The Chabad-Lubavitch movement has an expansive presence in Argentina, recently inaugurating a 250,000-square-foot Jewish educational complex in the center of Buenos Aires, among other projects. With 200,000 Jews, Argentina has the largest Jewish population in Latin America.

President-elect Javier Milei of Argentina and his sister, Karina Milei, pay their respects at the resting place of Rebbetzin Chaya Muska Schneerson after praying at the resting place of the Rebbe. Chabad.org

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THE JEWISH STAR December 1, 2023 • 18 Kislev 5784

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For someone who’s been a hostage, returning to normal life is not easy

December 1, 2023 • 18 Kislev 5784 THE JEWISH STAR

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Israelis in Tel Aviv rally for the release of hostages, on Nov. 24.

By Amelie Botbol, JNS “I was six years old when I was captured by terrorists during the Entebbe hostage crisis, and Emilia Aloni, who was just released, is the same age. I can’t get her out of my head,” Shay Gross told JNS. Aloni, 5, was freed from Hamas captivity on Friday, along with her mother Danielle, as part of the ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas. The Palestinian terror group took captive some 240 people during its Oct. 7 attack on southern Israel, which left 1,200 Israelis dead and thousands more wounded. Gross was among 246 civilians taken hostage by Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) terrorists on June 27, 1976, when they hijacked an Air France flight from Tel Aviv to Paris and landed in Entebbe, Uganda. Gross spent a week in captivity. “I’m one of the few people capable of understanding what they are going through,” she said, stressing the difficulty of reintegrating into normal life. “It’s not easy to come back,” he said. “We can’t find the words to describe our emotions after 50 challenging and complicated days,” said Tom Hand, the father of Emily Hand, a 9-year old who was among the 13 Israeli hostages freed on Saturday. “We are overjoyed to embrace Emily again, but at the same time, we remember all the hostages who have yet to return. We will persist in doing everything in our power to bring them back home,” he said. Gross was freed on June 4, 1976, during “Operation Entebbe,” the Israeli rescue mission during which then-Sayeret Matkal commander Yonatan Netanyahu, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s brother, perished. “When I was released, I went through a lot,” Gross said. “My mother took care of me. I had trouble sleeping, I couldn’t listen to words in Arabic or voices over megaphones. It lasted for many years.” Professor Hagai Levine, head of the medical team at the Hostages and Missing Families Forum, echoed Gross’s concern regarding the captives’ physical and emotional status, saying they would likely require a lengthy rehabilitation process. “The issue at stake is control. They need to take back control over their lives,” Levine told JNS. “The longer they are in captivity, the longer the recovery takes. That is why it is so urgent for

Yonatan Sindel, Flash90

everyone around the world to do everything in their power for us to bring all hostages back now.” On Monday, Pvt. Ori Megidish, captured by Hamas on Oct. 7 and freed by Israeli forces during a raid in the Gaza Strip on Oct. 30, issued her first public message since being rescued. “Hi, I’m Ori Megidish. I returned home nearly a month ago, and first of all I’m happy to see the moving videos of hostages who are returning to their families,” she said in a video posted to social media. “I hope and wish that all the families still waiting for captives reunite with them and experience moments like I did. “I hope everyone comes back, and they will come back, G-d willing. I’m okay, and I’m at home with my family, enjoying and I’m happy I got my life back.” Her story has provided encouragement to the hostages’ families, who have already spoken of negative effects linked to their relatives’ captivity. Eyal Nouri, nephew of Adina Moshe, who was released on Friday, told Israeli media his aunt “had to adjust to the sunlight” after weeks of darkness in the tunnels under Gaza. Yair Rotem, uncle of Hila Rotem Shoshani, who was freed on Saturday, said his niece was fine, but only communicated in whispers. Erez Kalderon, 12, and sister Sahar, 16, were released from Hamas captivity on Monday. Their father Ofer, 50, is still in Gaza. “It’s the first time we’ve smiled since Oct. 7,” Abbey Onn, a cousin of the Kalderons, told JNS. “Relief and joy mixed with sadness and grief. We are still fighting for Ofer and every hostage to come home,” she added. Tali Amano slammed the Red Cross over its failure to provide hostages with medical care; her 84-year old mother, Elma Avraham, was freed on Sunday and remains hospitalized in critical condition. Amano said her mother had been “medically neglected” and returned with “a heart rate of 40 [beats per minute] and a body temperature of 28 degrees Celsius, on the verge of losing consciousness and injured all over.” While Israel holds its collective breath over the prospective return of additional hostages, Gross’s survival story offers hope, including to those who have already come home. “Rely on your loved ones, be strong and think positive,” he said. “Time will heal you the way it healed me and allowed me to build a family.”

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December 1, 2023 • 18 Kislev 5784 THE JEWISH STAR

17 THE JEWISH STAR December 1, 2023 • 18 Kislev 5784

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December 1, 2023 • 18 Kislev 5784 THE JEWISH STAR

WIne AnD DIne Everything’s better with Chanukah beignets etheL G. hoFmAn

t’s tradition! The Jewish holiday of Chanukah means latkes and sufganiyot — lots of them, crisp, hot, and hopefully not too oily — to help celebrate the victory of Judah Maccabee and his four brothers over the SyrianGreeks in 165 BCE. This year, the eight-day holiday begins on the 25th day of Kislev — this year, on the evening of Thursday, Dec. 7 — and ends on the evening of Friday, Dec 15. Dishes fried in oil symbolize the miracle of the one cruse of oil left in the Holy Temple that lasted for eight days instead of one. On each of the eight nights, candles are lit on the menorah, dreidel games are played, and heaps of crisp fried latkes and sufganiyot are dished up in bowls, with applesauce and sour cream to spoon over the top. Consider adding related treats to the table this season — cousins of a culinary sort in the form of beignets and funnel cake, also fried in oil. They both come with powdered sugar, and kids and adults alike will enjoy these added delicate desserts that please palates the world over. For Eastern Europeans, potato latkes were a symbol of Chanukah, with potatoes cheap and often fried in fat leftover from the Passover duck. In modern-day Israel, sufganiyot are the fried doughnuts sold in nearly every food store and on every street corner, and come in absolutely every kind of flavor these days (sea-salt caramel next to fig- and date-filled). But in the American South in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, in an effort to assimilate, immigrant Jewish women combined regional flavors with Old World ingredients. Think salt herring, fried and served with grits. On a sweeter note, past and present recipes merged into dishes such as pecan pie and beignets — the latter being those scrumptious pastry squares fried in oil and dredged with sugar that have become a mainstay for tourists in places like New Orleans. Today, Jewish homes there celebrate the holiday with platters of hot fried beignets alongside crisp potato latkes. Make it a family affair. Everyone can pitch in; even little ones can stir the batter with a wooden spoon and be the first official tasters. The recipes below include traditional potato latkes, made easy by using the food processor, so there’s no risk of scraping fingers on a box grater. Leekand-Parsley Fritters are based on a recipe from

Cheese wheels.

This beignet is pictured at the kosher Cafe du Monde in New Orleans..

my Israeli friend, Alisa Shaya; and crisp, puffy New Orleans beignet recipe uses baking powder instead of yeast. Oil is the essential frying ingredient The variety on supermarket shelves can be overwhelming these days. Good frying oil is known for three qualities: being flavorless, affordable and having a high “smoke point.” (A high smoke point is considered 375 degrees Fahrenheit and higher, and is best for frying.) For the recipes here, avoid using olive oil with its overly robust flavor; better to save that more expensive variety for salad dressings and sautéing purposes. Here’s a primer for some common supermarket oils. Corn oil: most affordable with a high smoke

point. Good for deep frying or shallow frying in a skillet. Vegetable oil: multipurpose with a high smoke point. Canola oil: versatile, neutral-flavored cooking oil. Great for all frying methods. Peanut oil: good for deep-frying with a high smoke point (avoid for those with allergies). Coconut oil: with a smoke point of 350 to 400 degrees, it’s good for sautéing vegetables and light pan frying (also avoid for those with allergies). Refined generally has a higher smoke point than unrefined. This year, the message of Chanukah is more significant than ever as Jews the world over search for happiness amid grief and concern for Israel. The light of the menorah gives us hope that soon there will be peace, no more bloodshed, and that all hostages return home to their loved ones.

Classic Potato Latkes (Pareve)

Makes 18 to 20 Cook’s Tips: •Use a combination of white and red-skinned potatoes. No need to peel redskinned potatoes. •May substitute matzah meal for flour. •Leftovers may be refrigerated. Reheat at 350 degrees for 10 minutes. Ingredients: • 2 eggs • 1/4 small onion, cut into 3 to 4 pieces • 4 medium potatoes, about 1-1/2 pounds peeled and cut into 1-inch chunks • 1/4 tsp. baking powder • 3 Tbsp. all-purpose flour • 1 tsp. salt • 1/2 tsp. freshly ground pepper

PIxabay

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• Vegetable oil for frying Directions: Break eggs into a food processor. Add onion and potatoes. Pulse 3 to 4 times, or until the potatoes are coarsely chopped. Transfer to a bowl. Add the baking powder, flour, salt and pepper, mixing well. Heat about a quarter-inch oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Drop rounded tablespoonfuls of the potato mixture into skillet pressing lightly with the back of a wooden spoon to flatten slightly. Reduce heat to medium. Cook on both sides until nicely browned, 2 to 3 minutes per side. Drain on paper towels. Continue frying adding more oil as needed until the batter is used up. Serve hot with applesauce for a meat meal or sour cream for a dairy meal.

Alisa’s Leek-and-Parsley Fritters (Pareve)

Makes 10 to 12 Cook’s Tips: •Pick up store-bought frozen cooked leeks. Thaw and use as needed. No need See Chanukah beignets on page 20

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Chanukah beignets… Continued from page 18 to cook first. •To clean leeks: Slice 1-inch thick. Place in a bowl and cover with cold salted water (2 to 3 tsp. to 1 quart water). Press the center of each slice to separate the rings. Rinse again in cold water to clean thoroughly. •Add another egg if the mixture is too stiff. •For deep frying, a thermometer should register 350 to 375 degrees Fahrenheit. •Sumac (berries) is related to the cashew family and ground into a rich, red-colored spice. It has a similar taste to lemon and brings out the natural flavors of foods it is cooked with. Ingredients: • 2 to 3 medium leeks, white and 2 inches of green part • boiling water to cover • 1 cup parsley, cut coarsely, rinsed and packed • 3 large eggs, lightly beaten • 1-1/2 tsp. sumac • 1 tsp. each salt and freshly ground pepper or to taste • 3/4 to 1 cup matzah meal • Vegetable oil for frying Directions: Place cleaned leeks in a large pot. Cover with boiling water. Cook for 3 to 4 minutes or until just beginning to soften. Drain well. Place in a food processor. Pulse 4 to 5 times to chop coarsely. Transfer to a mixing bowl. Add parsley to the food processor (no need to wash the processor). Chop coarsely. Add to leeks along with eggs, sumac, salt and pepper. Stir in enough matzah meal to make a soft mixture. If too stiff, add another beaten egg. Heat about a quarter-inch of oil in a heavy skillet. The oil is ready when a 1-inch bread cube toasts in 30 seconds. Drop by Tbsp. into the hot oil. Press with a wooden spoon to flatten. Fry over medium-high heat for 2 to 3 minutes

on each side until nicely browned. Do not crowd; allow about a half-inch space between each fritter. Drain on paper towels. Serve warm.

New Orleans Yeast-Free Beignets (Dairy or Pareve)

Makes 18 to 20 Cook’s Tips: If using a deep-fry thermometer, the temperature should reach 360 to 375 degrees, or use the bread test: A 1-inch cube should brown in 30 seconds. Make sure baking powder is not outdated. Dredge with confectioners’ sugar instead of granulated sugar. Ingredients: • 3 large eggs • 1/4 tsp. salt • 1/4 tsp. nutmeg • 1/2 cup (1 stick) very soft butter or margarine • 3-1/2 tsp. baking powder • 1-1/2 cups all-purpose flour • 1-1/2 tsp. vanilla extract • 2 to 3 Tbsp. granulated sugar, divided • Vegetable oil for frying Directions: Using an electric hand mixer, beat together the eggs, salt, nutmeg, butter or margarine, flour, vanilla and 1 Tbsp. sugar until the mixture comes together to form a sticky ball. Turn out onto a well-floured board and knead for a minute or two until the mixture forms a smooth ball. Wrap in plastic wrap. Refrigerate for 1 to 2 hours. Divide the dough in half. Roll into a rectangle about 1/4-inch thick. With a sharp knife, cut into squares or triangles. Repeat with the remaining dough. Heat 2-1/2 to 3 inches of oil in a heavy pan over medium-high heat to 360 to 375 degrees. Line a baking sheet or large dish with paper towels. Slide pastry pieces into hot oil, a few at a time. Do not crowd. Fry for 1 to 2 minutes to golden brown.

With a slotted spoon, flip over and cook for another 1 to 2 minutes. Both sides should be nicely browned. Drain on paper towels. Dredge with remaining sugar and serve hot.

Cocktail Cheese Beignets (Dairy)

Makes 15 to 18 Cook’s Tips: •Any finely grated cheese will do or a mixture of cheeses. •Crisp on the outside, softly melted inside. Ingredients: • 1 cup water • 1/4 cup (4 Tbsp.) butter • 1-1/2 cups all-purpose flour, divided • 1/2 tsp. salt • 4 to 5 drops hot sauce

• 2 rounded tsp. Dijon-style mustard • 3 eggs, lightly beaten • 2 cups grated Parmesan cheese • Vegetable oil for frying Directions: Place water and butter in a medium pot and bring to a boil. Stir to blend in the butter. Add 1-1/4 cups flour, salt, hot sauce and mustard. Stir until the mixture forms a sticky ball. Transfer to a food processor. Add the eggs, processing to a smooth mixture. Add the cheese and process until blended. Cover and chill for 1 hour. Roll into bite-sized balls and toss in the remaining 1/4 cup flour. Deep-fry in hot oil for 2 to 2-1/2 minutes, turning with a slotted spoon to brown evenly. Drain on paper towels. Serve warm.

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December 1, 2023 • 18 Kislev 5784 THE JEWISH STAR

21 THE JEWISH STAR December 1, 2023 • 18 Kislev 5784

Making Jewish journalism great again.

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Honest reporting. Torah-true.

December 1, 2023 • 18 Kislev 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 contributing writers: •Rabbi Sir Jonathan Sacks zt”l,

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.

contact our columnists at: Publisher@TheJewishStar.com Five towns candlelighting: From the White Shul, Far Rockaway, NY

Fri Dec 1 / 18 Kislev

Fri Dec 15 / 3 Teves

Thurs Dec 7 / 24 Kislev

Fri Dec 22 / 10 Teves

Vayishlach Candles: 4:10 • Havdalah: 5:19

First Night Chanukah

Fri Dec 8 / 25 Kislev

Friday: Second Night Chanukah Vayeshev • Shabbos Mevarchim Candles: 4:09 • Havdalah: 5:18

Friday: Last day of Chanukah / Miketz Candles: 4:10 • Havdalah: 5:20

Friday: Fast of Teves / Vayigash Candles: 4:13 • Havdalah: 5:23

Fri Dec 29 / 17 Teves Vayechi Candles: 4:17 • Havdalah: 5:27

While we have collective responsibilities, must we share punishments as well? rabbi sir jonathan sacks zt”l

y any standards it was a shocking episode. Jacob had settled on the outskirts of the town of Shechem, ruled by Hamor. Dina, Jacob’s daughter, goes out to see the town. Shechem, Hamor’s son, sees her, abducts and rapes her, and then falls in love with her and wants to marry her. He begs his father, “Take this girl as a wife for me” (Gen. 34:4). Jacob hears about this and keeps quiet, but his sons are furious. She must be rescued, and the people must be punished. Hamor and his son come to visit the family and ask them to give consent to the marriage. Jacob’s sons pretend to take the offer seriously. We will settle among you, they say, and intermarry, on condition that all your males are circumcised. Hamor and Shechem bring back the proposal to the people of the town, who agree. On the third day after the circumcision, when the pain is at its height and the men incapacitated, Simon and Levi, Dina’s brothers, enter the town and kill every single male (Gen. 34:26). It was a terrible retribution. Jacob rebukes his sons: You have brought trouble on me — you have made me odious to the inhabitants of the land, the Canaanites

There are differences of opinion, and Maimonides and Nachmanides disagree. This discussion requires nuance.

and Perizzites. I am few in number, and if they join forces and attack me, I and my household will be destroyed. Gen. 34:30 But Simon and Levi reply: Should he have treated our sister like a prostitute? Gen. 34:31 There is a hint in the text that Simon and Levi were justified in what they did. Unusually the Torah adds, three times, an authorial comment on the moral gravity of the situation: Jacob’s sons, having heard what had happened, came back from the field. They were shocked and furious, for Shechem had committed an outrage in Israel by sleeping with Jacob’s daughter. Such a thing cannot be done! Gen. 34:7 The sons of Jacob came upon the slain, and spoiled the city, because they had defiled their sister. Gen. 34:27 Yet Jacob condemns their action, and although he says no more at the time, it remains burningly in his mind. Many years and fifteen chapters later, on his deathbed, he curses the two brothers for their behavior: Simon and Levi are brothers; weapons of violence their wares. Let me never join their council, nor my honor be of their assembly. For in their anger they killed men; at their whim they hamstrung oxen. Cursed be their anger, for it is most fierce, and their fury, for it is most cruel. I will divide them up in Jacob, and scatter them in Israel. Gen. 49:5-7 ho was right in this argument? Maimonides vindicates the brothers. In his law code, the Mishneh Torah, he explains that the establishment of justice and the rule of law is one of the seven Laws of Noah, binding on all humanity: And how are the Gentiles commanded to establish law courts? They are required to establish judges and officers in every area of habitation to rule in accordance with the enforcement of the other six commands, to warn the citizenry concerning these laws and to punish any transgressor with death by the sword. And it is on this basis that all the people of Shechem were guilty of death (at the hands of Simon and Levi, sons of Jacob): because Shechem (their Prince) stole (and raped) Dina, which they saw and knew about, but did not

bring him to justice. Maimonides, Laws of Kings, 9, 14 According to Maimonides, there is a principle of collective responsibility. The inhabitants of Shechem, knowing that their prince had committed a crime and failing to bring him to court, were collectively guilty of injustice. Nachmanides disagrees. The Noahide command to institute justice is a positive obligation to establish laws, courts and judges, but there is no principle of collective responsibility, nor is there liability to death for failure to implement the command. Nor could there be, for if Simon and Levi were justified, as Maimonides argues, why did Jacob criticize them at the time and later curse them on his death bed? The argument between them is unresolved, just as it was between Jacob and his sons. We know that there is a principle of collective responsibility in Jewish law: “Kol Yisrael arevin zeh bazeh (All Jews are sureties for one another).” But is this specific to Judaism? Is it because of the peculiar nature of Jewish law, namely that it flows from a covenant between G-d and the Israelites at Mount Sinai, at which the people pledged themselves individually and collectively to keep the law and to ensure that it was kept?

aimonides, unlike Nachmanides, seems to be saying that collective responsibility is a feature of all societies. We are responsible not only for our own conduct but for those around us, amongst whom we live. Or perhaps this flows not from the concept of society but simply from the nature of moral obligation. If X is wrong, then not only must I not do it. I must, if I can, stop others from doing it, and if I fail to do so, then I share in the guilt. We would call this nowadays the guilt of the bystander. Here is how the Talmud puts it: Rav and R. Chanina, R. Yochanan and R. Habiba taught [the following]: Whoever can forbid his household [to commit a sin] but does not, is seized for [the sins of] his household; [if he can forbid] his fellow citizens, he is seized for [the sins of] his fellow citizens; if the whole world, he is seized for [the sins of] the whole world. Clearly, however, the issue is a complex one that needs nuance. There is a difference between a perpetrator and a bystander. It is one thing to commit a crime, another to witness someone committing a crime and failing to prevent it. We might hold a bystander guilty, but not in the same degree. The Talmud uses the phrase “is seized.” This may

mean that he is morally guilty. He can be called to account. He may be punished by “the heavenly court” in this world or the next. It does not mean that he can be summoned to court and sentenced for criminal negligence. The issue famously arose in connection with the German people and the Holocaust. The philosopher Karl Jaspers made a distinction between the moral guilt of the perpetrators and what he called the metaphysical guilt of the bystanders: There exists a solidarity among men as human beings that makes each co-responsible for every wrong and every injustice in the world, especially if a crime is committed in his presence or with his knowledge. If I fail to do whatever I can to prevent them, I too am guilty. If I was present at the murder of others without risking my life to prevent it, I feel guilty in a way not adequately conceivable either legally, politically, or morally. That I live after such a thing has happened weighs upon me as indelible guilt. So there is real guilt, but, says Jaspers, it cannot be reduced to legal categories. Simon and Levi may have been right in thinking that the men of Shechem were guilty of doing nothing when their prince abducted and assaulted Dina, but that does not mean that they were entitled to execute summary justice by killing all the males. Jacob was right in seeing this as a brutal assault. In this case, Nachmanides’ position seems more compelling that of Maimonides. One of Israel’s most profound moralists, the late Yeshayahu Leibowitz (1903-1994), wrote that though there may have been an ethical justification for what Simon and Levi did, “there is also an ethical postulate which is not itself a matter of rationalization and which calls forth a curse upon all these justified and valid considerations.” There may, he says, be actions which can be vindicated but are nevertheless accursed. That is what Jacob meant when he cursed his sons. Collective responsibility is one thing. Collective punishment is another.

Rabbi DR. tzvi heRsh weinReb Orthodox Union

ou don’t hear much about them, and sometimes you don’t even know their names, but they are the true heroes and heroines in our lives and in our times. It was also true in biblical times that very important characters in the narrative are hardly mentioned, perhaps only hinted at. I first became interested in this phenomenon shortly after the events of Sept. 11, 2001. I was listening to one of my favorite radio talk shows while driving. The guest was a professor of sociology who was insisting, much to the chagrin

of the host, that the firemen who lost their lives saving others at the World Trade Center were not true heroes. He maintained that a true hero does something neither he nor anyone else typically does. These firemen, he argued, were simply doing their duty. They showed up to work in the morning, went through their usual routine, and responded to this assignment as part of their job. The announcer was horrified by this professor’s opinion and pronounced it a typical example of “academic snobbery.” That was my gut reaction as well. Continuing to drive, I began to reflect upon the definition of “hero” in the Jewish tradition. From the Jewish perspective, is a hero a Superman who behaves in an extraordinarily dramatic fashion? Or is the true hero the person who, day in and day out, does what is expected of him in a

faithful and diligent manner, humbly and anonymously, never making the headlines? My research soon convinced me that the latter definition was the accurate one from a Jewish point of view. As an example, let me introduce you to a personage who is mentioned in this week’s Torah portion, Vayishlach, although even if you read the portion carefully, you may not have noticed her name. Her name was Deborah. pen your Bible with me and turn to Genesis 35:8. Jacob, his wives and their many children have returned to the Land of Israel. They have reached Bethel, Jacob’s original starting point. Jacob erected an altar there. And then we read: And Deborah, Rebecca’s nurse, died and she was buried ... under the oak, and it was called the “Oak of Tears.” Who was this woman, never mentioned by

name before? Why did her demise evoke such grief? Why is she important enough to “make it” into the biblical narrative? Now turn back a few pages to Genesis 24:59. Here we read that when Rebecca left her birthplace to journey to the Land of Israel and marry Isaac, she took her nurse with her. A nurse with no name, whom we know nothing about until we learn of her death in this week’s Torah portion. Our rabbis speculate that nurse Deborah was a major part of the epic drama of Rebecca’s life with Isaac and Jacob. They suggest that she was the one sent by Rebecca to retrieve Jacob from his long exile. Our rabbis tell us, too, that she was nurse to Rebecca’s many grandchildren who shed those many tears under the old oak tree. Jewish mystical sources even aver that nurse Deborah was reincarnated into the much later See Weinreb on page 27

Stifling angry speech: Better quiet than sorry from heart of Jerusalem

Rabbi binny fReeDMan

Jewish Star columnist

nger is one of life’s greatest challenges. Who can resist and overcome its formidable temptations? There is a fascinating moment in this week’s parsha of Vayishlach that demonstrates this point: After the death of Yaakov’s beloved wife Rachel (Bereshis 35:19) the Torah tells us that “Reuven went and bedded Bilhah, the handmaiden of his father, and Yisrael (Yaakov) heard; and the sons of Yaakov were 12.” Although the verse seems to imply that Yaa-

kov’s eldest son Reuven actually slept with his father’s concubine, the Talmud (Shabbat 55b) suggests otherwise: R. Samuel b. Nachman said in R. Jonathan’s name: “Whoever maintains that Reuven sinned is merely making an error, for it is said, ‘Now the sons of Yaakov were 12, teaching that they were all equal.’ Then how do I interpret, and he lay with Bilhah his father’s concubine? This teaches that he transposed his father’s couch, and the verse blames him as though he had lain with her.” Whatever happened in that moment, it is clear that Reuven crossed a line and did something terrible. In fact, many years later, on his deathbed, Yaakov seems to recall this moment and takes Reuven to task for it: “Reuben, you are my first-born. … Unstable as water, you shall excel no longer. For when you

mounted your father’s bed, you brought.” (ibid. 49:3-4) Yet in the actual moment we see no such response from Yaakov and a close look at the verse in question suggests something is not quite right. The verse in Hebrew has a fascinating rare occurrence — a particular scribal phenomenon known as a “piska be’emtsa passuk (a break in the middle of a verse).” Grammatically the verse makes no sense, telling us that Israel heard and then seemingly changing the subject to exclaim that the sons of Yaakov were 12, a fact we already know, which seems to have no connection to the first part of the verse. once heard from Rav Riskin in the name of Rav Soleveitchik that Yaakov understood here that he had to remain silent; even if what Re-

uven did was “only” to switch the bed of his father and move it into the tent of his mother Leah out of a love for and sensitivity to the distress and pain of his mother, it was still a highly inappropriate thing to do. Yaakov, suggests Rav Soleveitchik, understood he was at a critical juncture in his relationship with Reuven. And that is why the verse continues by saying that the sons of Yaakov were 12 — because an angry word might have alienated Reuven forever. And because Yaakov, in his righteous anger, succeeded in remaining silent, Reuven remained in the fold and Yaakov had all his 12 sons with him the next day. In the face of such a painful distressing and inappropriate moment, perpetrated by his eldest son no less, how did Yaakov control his anger? See Freedman on page 27

‘Inside Chanukah’: A full historical presentation Kosher bookworm

alan Jay GeRbeR

Jewish Star columnist

abbi Aryeh Pinchas Strickoff, author of “Inside Chanukah: Fascinating and Intriguing Insights on Chanukah, Its Miracles, and its History” (Feldheim 2012) perhaps said it best in his perceptive opening preface: “Jewish holidays serve a much loftier purpose than simply marking special moments in time or commemorating historical events, though

those functions are no doubt important. The fundamental goal of celebrating the Jewish holidays is the internalization of the specific messages each respectively imparts, to help us grow spiritually and ultimately draw closer to G-d. The holiday of Chanukah is no different. During the cold and dark days of the month of Kislev, Chanukah comes with its message of hope and lights to inspire every Jew to recognize

the enormous potential within his soul.” Within the contents of this large and comprehensive 700 page work can be found just about every major topic and teaching related to the Chanukah story. From ritual practice to history, the author brings to the lay reader a fully annotated work of pure scholarship that includes 700 fully annotated footnotes, textual sources that include historical texts and their background, Talmudic and Rabbinic texts, a Torah perspective on the holiday’s historical texts, and the historical context of the holiday. Also to be found, are detailed descriptions of the laws and practices that give the holiday its unique flavor and image. All of this is presented

with relevant historical background and geographic detail in plain and clear English, absent the technical jargon so common in other works. And there is much more. One fascinating chapter is “section seven” wherein is found the answers to the following two pivotal questions: •Why does Chanukah always coincide with the parashiyot that tell the story of Joseph (Vayeshev, Mikeitz, and Vayigash)? •What is the underlying parallel between Chanukah and these three parashiyot, which, depending on the year, we read during Chanukah? Each one of these three Torah portions are See Gerber on page 27

Different meanings for different name changes torah

Rabbi DaviD etenGoff

Jewish Star columnist

efer Bereshis presents three celebrated name changes that were declared by the Almighty or one of His angels. The first two were Avram and Sarai, whose names were changed to Avraham and Sarah. Midrash Bereshis Rabbah makes it very clear that Avraham’s name change is absolute and universal in nature, to the extent that it is forbidden to call him by his prior appellation. According to our midrash, however, Sarah’s name change is directed solely to Avraham, since the verse reads: “Your wife Sarai — you shall not call her name Sarai, for Sarah is her name.” In other words,

Hashem gave Avraham a clear-cut personal directive to help him understand that his beloved wife was no longer his princess alone (“Sarai”), rather, she was now ready to take her place on the stage of world history as “Sarah.” As the verse states: “I will bless her, and she will become [a mother of] nations; kings of nations will be from her.” (17:16) Our parasha contains the third divinely decreed name change that narrate Ya’akov’s transition from Ya’akov to Yisrael. Our midrash asks whether Ya’akov’s name change to Yisrael was similar to his grandfather’s transformation from Avram to Avraham, or was it substantively different? “It has been taught: The name, Ya’akov, has not been uprooted, rather, the name Yisrael is now the essential appellation, whereas, the name, Ya’akov, is now of secondary import. In other words, Ya’akov was his main name, and Yisrael was his additional

secondary name. Ya’akov, unlike Avraham, retains his original name. The only question under debate is whether or not “Ya’akov” remains his essential name, or is it somehow eclipsed by the new name, “Yisrael?” In my view, the midrash is teaching us a profound lesson regarding Ya’akov’s very nature: henceforth he has a dual persona that is reflected by each of these names. As such, there are periods when he thrives as Ya’akov and lives as “an innocent man, dwelling in tents,” (25:27) and there are times when he must rise to existential challenges and be Yisrael, the one who has “commanding power with [an angel of] G-d and with men.” (32:29) The Ya’akov persona is illustrated by the prophet Michah when he speaks of him in this manner: “You (Hashem) shall give the truth of Ya’akov, the loving-kindness of Avraham,

which You swore to our forefathers from days of yore.” (Michah 7:20) In my estimation, Emet l’Ya’akov is only possible when Ya’akov is living a tranquil and introspective existence. Little wonder, then, that the first pasuk of Parashat Vayeshev states: “Ya’akov dwelt (vayeshev) in the land of his father’s sojourning, in the land of Canaan.” (37:1) In line with this analysis, Midrash Rabbah, Bereshis 84:3, interprets “vayeshev” as Ya’akov’s manifest desire to dwell serenely (b’shalveh) in the Land of Canaan, the land of his grandfather and father. May we be zocheh to see the fulfillment of emet l’Ya’akov, and the final words of the Kaddish realized in our time: “May He Who makes peace in His celestial heights make peace in His ultimate compassion for us and for all the Jewish people.” May this take place soon and, in our days, v’chane yihi ratzon.

THE JEWISH STAR December 1, 2023 • 18 Kislev 5784

Our true heroes are unheralded and essential

December 1, 2023 • 18 Kislev 5784 THE JEWISH STAR

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Schools’ antisemitism spreads beyond the Ivy League JONATHAN S. TObiN

JNS Editor-in-Chief

he tally of antisemitic incidents in which mobs have called for Israel’s destruction — and even the genocide of Jews on the streets of American cities and on elite college campuses — grows with every passing week. But the shocking footage of a student riot at Hillcrest High School in Queens shows just how far the poison of Jew-hatred has spread in the educational system. In the wake of the Oct. 7 Hamas terrorist atrocities, antisemitism has gone both viral and mainstream. The Hillcrest High riot might be considered just one more example of what happens when lies — about Israel being an “apartheid state” that commits “genocide” or about the necessity to “free Palestine” — are fed to impressionable and ignorant youngsters. But as frightening as it might have been, the worst thing about it was the way school authorities reacted to it. On Monday, hundreds of students at the school staged a planned demonstration inside the building. They were prompted by the fact that a female Jewish teacher, who has taught at New York City public schools for 23 years (the last seven at Hillcrest) posted to social-media picture of herself attending the Nov. 14 March for Israel in Washington. In it, she is holding a sign printed by the American Jewish Committee that says, “I Stand With Israel.” Witnesses described what happened as hundreds of students flooded into the halls chanting anti-Israel slogans, waving Palestinian flags

A riot targeting a proIsrael teacher at a Queens high school is the latest incident that shows how Islamism and toxic woke ideology is fueling Jew-hatred.

and banners, committing vandalism and shouting abuse at the teacher, who they said “had to go.” The New York City Police Department responded to the emergency, and with their help, the teacher reportedly fled her classroom. According to some accounts, she spent hours in a locked office while students ran amuck. Eventually, the police and school officials herded the teenage rioters back into classrooms, and the besieged teacher was able to leave the building. Social-media posts by students, published subsequently by the New York Post, contained vulgar threats as well as antisemitic propaganda. his isn’t the only case in which high school students have joined those on college campuses, as well as others demonstrating on the street, in acting out their hatred for Israel and Jews. In this case, their actions were not only particularly egregious but also put New York City Department of Education officials and city government on the spot. There was no public acknowledgment of the incident by authorities until the Post published a story about it days later after videos of the rampage were posted on TikTok. Yet even after the extent of the outrage became known, the reaction from those in charge spoke volumes about why such a thing had happened in the first place. Rather than an immediate promise of a crackdown, arrests and stern warnings about the consequences of a possible repetition of this hate crime, the tenor of the statements from New York City Schools Chancellor David C. Banks was more about the need to understand the motivations of the rioters and to condemn those sounding the alarm about the incident than anything else. An alumnus of Hillcrest himself, Banks seemed most concerned with downplaying the story and defending the students at a press conference held at the school a week after the riot. He complained about “misinformation” about what happened and asserted that the teacher was never in “direct danger.” If that is true, that begs the question as to why the calls for assistance were such that the NYPD reportedly responded by sending 25 police officers to the scene. Perhaps he would have considered it dangerous if the cops had arrived after the rioters got their hands on the teacher rather than in time to save her. Banks acknowledged that “violence, hate and disorder have no place in our schools,” and spoke of

potential disciplinary actions. But he was clear that it was more important to rationalize the motives of the rioters and to defend them against charges of supporting terrorism than to ensure that violence, hate and disorder are severely punished. According to the New York Times, “The chancellor also called for a measure of understanding, saying the war was a ‘very visceral and emotional issue’ at Hillcrest, where about 30 percent of students are Muslim. ‘They feel a kindred spirit with the folks of the Palestinian community,’ Mr. Banks said, adding that the ‘notion that these kids are radicalized’ was irresponsible.” o one present demanded that Banks explain why a mob chanting for Israel’s destruction with the usual “from the river to the sea” mantra while threatening a pro-Israel Jewish teacher is not evidence of radicalization. That view was echoed by others who spoke at the event, including the student body president, who defended the idea of students conducting what he said was intended as a “peaceful protest,” that just got out of hand because

kids “lacked maturity” and just wanted “to enjoy themselves.” School administrators agreed, since they, too, think that demanding the firing of a Jewish teacher for backing the Jewish state is a reasonable exercise of the student’s First Amendment rights and not an example of bigotry. If Banks and others don’t think that the students were radicalized, it’s because they — following the lead of corporate mainstream media outlets like the Times that have mainstreamed antisemitic attacks on Israel’s existence — believe that there’s nothing particularly radical about such a position. That mindset governed the way the school handled the incident. As reporting about the lead-up to the riot shows, administrators were aware of the plans for the “peaceful protest” against a member of their faculty for expressing her Jewish identity and beliefs. But instead of acting to ensure that this bigoted attack would be forestalled, they simply let it happen. They were more afraid of being labeled “Islamophobic” or See Tobin on page 27

Viewpoint

BEN COHEN

early five years ago, I wrote a piece for this column in which I argued that the term “anti-Zionism” would be better rendered as “antizionism.” My thinking on this subject was heavily influenced by a similar debate over whether to include a hyphen in the word “antisemitism.” At the time, I argued that “anti-Semites are not people who are opposed to ‘Semitism,’ a non-existent word, and nor are they opposed to a race of ‘Semites’ since there isn’t such a race in the first place, just a language group. If you include the hyphen, the argument goes, then you are boosting antisemitism’s self-image as a revelatory, liberating and compelling explanation of why the world is such a rotten place. Leave the hyphen out and you see ‘antisemitism’ for what it really is: a malicious conspiracy theory about Jews that carries genocidal intentions towards them.” Much the same point can be made about antiZionism. The people who define themselves as “antiZionists” these days — from the thugs tearing

What we are dealing with here is not ‘criticism’ of Israel’s policies, but outrage that Jews are even in a position where they can make policy!

down posters advertising the plight of hostages seized by Hamas during its Oct. 7 pogrom to the Hamas rapists and murderers themselves — are not opposed to Zionism as most Jews understand it, nor are they representative of the currents opposing Zionism that existed within Jewish communities prior to World War II, which argued upon tragically mistaken grounds that a sovereign Jewish state would not provide Jews with the security they so desperately needed. he anti-Zionists of the 21st century are not simply rejecting the idea of a Jewish state — they are depicting the Jewish state as the root of the world’s evil, dedicated to the murder of children and the carpet-bombing of civilian areas as it pursues its nefarious goal of colonizing Palestine and permanently displacing its indigenous Arab inhabitants. What we are dealing with here is not “criticism” of Israel’s policies, but outrage that Jews are even in a position where they can make policy! To illustrate this without any ambiguity requires the removal of the hyphen from the term “anti-Zionism,” so as to show that what is being pushed is not merely an objection to the program of the World Zionist Organization, but a full-blown conspiracy theory that transfers traditional antisemitic tropes about Jews to the Jewish state. Like antisemitism, “antizionism” is genocidal in intent. And in the wake of the atrocities of Oct. 7, one can argue that it is the most lethal form of antisemitism in existence today. The reason is that unlike other forms of antisemitism, antizionism is an open, generously proportioned tent. Anyone is welcome to stroll inside so long as they subscribe to a set of basic principles: that nowhere between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea should there be a place called Israel, that anyone complaining about antisemitism is engaged in a ruse to divert attention from the Palestinians, and that there isn’t a single place on earth — not Sudan, not Ukraine, not Kurdistan, not Burma, not China — where people have suffered as the Palestinians

The word Zionism word in a dictionary.

Casimiro PT, Shutterstock

have simply for being who they are. Sign up to those principles, and it doesn’t matter if you are black or white, Asian or Native American, a woman or a man or someone of fluid gender, young or old, gay or straight. You can even be Jewish, albeit within strictly defined parameters that will require you to hang your head in shame every time Israel is mentioned. No other form of antisemitism — the most obvious example being the Jew-hatred espoused by white supremacists and other far-right groups — is this accessible. he fact that a rainbow coalition is promoting antizionism these days is also a smart move, creating a set of optics that make it much harder to discern genocidal intent. By contrast, a muscled white male skinhead wearing a swastika and a pair of street-fighting boots doesn’t present the same problem. But when uninitiated members of the public look at images of the proHamas demonstrations that have mushroomed globally over the last six weeks, seeing women in hijabs marching alongside transgender activists, they can be forgiven for concluding that what is in the spotlight is an alliance of diverse constituencies coming together in the name of human rights — and not a movement for the elimination of all Jews, everywhere.

Yet as Jewish communities, we have to admit that we have not made the case that antizionism is an insidious form of hatred, rather than a legitimate political position within the framework of the Middle East conflict. Jewish organizations and the Israeli government have been delighted in recent years by the widespread endorsement of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) working definition of antisemitism, which includes several examples of anti-Israel invective. However, the terms “Zionism,” “anti-Zionism” and “antizionism” are all absent from the definition, which means, much as I don’t like saying so, that it is very weak on this crucial point. By adding a clarification that Zionism is a Jewish national movement with left-wing, rightwing and centrist varieties, as well as religious and secular adherents, the definition would act as a counterweight to the more ghoulish interpretations — for example, that Zionism is a form of racism or a conspiracy of the powerful. The sentence in the definition that identifies as antisemitic “[D]enying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g. by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor” might be rewritten to say, “Depicting Zionism, the Jewish national movement, as inherently racist and the State of Israel as an illegitimate entity.” This isn’t a matter of pedantry. If we have learned anything from the debates around antisemitism over the last two decades, it is that words matter and definitions matter, particularly when it comes to the application of the law. In countries where there are no First Amendment-style guarantees of free speech (and that’s most of them), it is already a crime to deny the Holocaust or to traffic in traditional antisemitic memes. Advocating Israel’s elimination and bullying Jews into accepting permanent minority status — second-class, at best — should be seen in a similar light. The protection of our increasingly vulnerable communities demands nothing less.

What is Hitler’s ‘Mein Kampf’ doing in Gaza? rafaEl MEdOff

sraeli President Isaac Herzog has revealed that an Arabic-language copy of Adolf Hitler’s notorious manifesto of antisemitism and militarism was found in a Gaza apartment that Hamas was using as a base of operations. The terrorist who was studying it wrote notes in the margins. Sixty-seven years ago, another Israeli leader announced the discovery of copies of “Mein Kampf” in the possession of a different enemy. On Dec. 5, 1956, Golda Meir, then foreign minister of Israel, spoke before the General Assembly of the United Nations to explain why her country had been compelled to launch a pre-emptive strike against Egypt a week earlier. Her remarks included a surprising reference to Hitler’s book. Ever since Israel’s War of Independence concluded in 1948, Egypt had been preparing its next attempt to destroy the Jewish State, Meir explained. There had been constant attacks by terrorists based in Egyptian-occupied Gaza, relentless economic warfare (an early version of the BDS movement) and a massive arms deal

Hitler’s manifesto has continued to enjoy considerable popularity in the Arab world.

between Egypt and the Soviet Union. “For eight years,” she said, “Israel has had no respite from hostile acts and loudly proclaimed threats of destruction.” The Egyptians left Israel no choice but to strike first, or face annihilation. Foreign Minister Meir saw a connection between the Holocaust and Egypt’s aggression. “The concept of annihilating Israel is a legacy of Hitler’s war against the Jewish people,” Meir said. “It is no mere coincidence that the soldiers of [Egyptian dictator Gamal Abdel] Nasser had an Arabic translation of ‘Mein Kampf’ in their knapsacks.” itler wrote Mein Kampf (My Struggle) while in prison after his failed coup, the Beer Hall Putsch of 1923. With its numerous references to internal German controversies and domestic policy matters, the book might not seem to have any natural appeal to non-Germans. But after Hitler’s rise to power in 1933, Mein Kampf attracted widespread international attention, both from those who feared him and those who admired him. The book’s extreme antisemitism and advocacy of German territorial expansion attracted sympathetic interest in the Arab world. Extracts appeared in the Arabic press in Iraq and Lebanon in 1934. Unauthorized translations were published in Egypt in 1937 and Palestine in 1938. According to a Jewish Telegraphic Agency report at the time, the editor of the Palestinian edition “carefully purged the passage in which the Arabs are graded fourteenth on the racial scale.” As part of the deNazification process implemented in Germany by the Allies after World War II, the Nazi Party was banned, public display of the swastika was prohibited and the printing of Nazi literature, including Mein Kampf, was outlawed. It was only due to a legal technicality

Israeli President Isaac Herzog holds up a copy of an Arabic translation of “Mein Kampf” that was found by IDF troops in a children’s room used as a Hamas terror base in the Gaza Strip, on Nov. 12. Israeli President’s Residence

— the expiration of the book’s copyright — that as of 2016, selling or purchasing Mein Kampf is no longer a crime in Germany. The question of the copyright to Mein Kampf set off a curious legal battle in the United States in 1939 involving Alan Cranston, the future US senator. Cranston, who was fluent in German and had visited Germany in 1936 as a journalist, noticed that the American edition, published by Houghton Mifflin, omitted the most extreme and violent passages from the original edition. Determined to expose the real Hitler to the American public, Cranston set to work preparing a condensed tabloid edition that highlighted the omitted sections. One of Cranton’s secretar-

ies misunderstood the nature of the project and reported to the Anti-Defamation League that Cranston was preparing Nazi propaganda. After realizing what Cranston was actually doing, ADL staffer Benjamin Epstein assisted him with the research. Cranston called it a “Reader’s Digest-like version” of Mein Kampf. Priced at just 10 cents, the tabloid sold 500,000 copies in 10 days, according to Cranston. While Houghton Mifflin was paying Hitler royalties from sales of its sanitized version of Mein Kampf, the Cranston edition carried a blurb which read “Not 1 cent of royalty to Hitler,” and pledged to send the profits to refugees fleeing the Nazis. “Fritz Kuhn’s American Nazis threw stink bombs at newsstands selling it in Yorkville and St. Louis,” Cranston biographer Eleanor Fowle wrote. Houghton Mifflin sued Cranston for copyright infringement. Cranston’s novel legal defense (recounted in my forthcoming book, “Whistleblowers: Four Who Fought to Expose the Holocaust to America”) was unsuccessful; he was ordered to halt publication and destroy all existing copies of his edition of Mein Kampf. In more recent years, Hitler’s manifesto has continued to enjoy considerable popularity in the Arab world. In 1982, Israeli troops found numerous Arabic-language copies of Mein Kampf in PLO strongholds that they overran in Lebanon. In 1999, the French news agency AFPreported that it was a bestseller in the Palestinian Authority-controlled territories, according to sales figures compiled by the most popular bookstore in Ramallah, the PA capital. Although it is now nearly a century old, the fiery message of Mein Kampf evidently still appeals to those who share at least some of its author’s sentiments.

THE JEWISH STAR December 1, 2023 • 18 Kislev 5784

Antizionism: Most lethal form of antisemitism

December 1, 2023 • 18 Kislev 5784 THE JEWISH STAR

Biden will be the primary obstacle to victory caroline glick Israel Hayom

he time has come to discuss the Biden administration’s relationship with Israel. With each passing day, two things become obvious. First, Israel cannot fight the war without US resupply of the Israel Defense Forces (and as a consequence, Israel is beholden to the administration’s directives). Second, if Israel follows the Biden administration’s directives, it will lose the war. Israel’s dependence on the United States was stated bluntly by retired IDF Maj. General Yitzhak Brick in an interview earlier this week. “All of our missiles, the ammunition, the precision-guided bombs, all the airplanes and bombs, it’s all from the US. The minute they turn off the tap, you can’t keep fighting. You have no capability. … Everyone understands that we can’t fight this war without the United States. Period.” •Brick went on to explain that President Joe Biden’s demand that Israel permit “humanitarian aid” to enter Gaza means that he is demanding that Israel keep Hamas fully supplied with food, water and fuel. •His demand that Israel minimize Palestinian civilian casualties endangers IDF soldiers and renders the expansion of the ground offensive into central and southern Gaza, where the bulk of Hamas’s force is now located, almost impossible to carry out. Brick suggested various forms of long-term tunnel warfare and other suggestions for how the IDF may be able to defeat Hamas over time while operating within the constraints that Biden and his top advisers are dictating. It is hard to judge whether Brick’s suggestions are workable without access to situational intelligence about conditions on the ground in southern Gaza. At a minimum, it is clear that Biden’s preference for the lives of civilians in Gaza over the lives of IDF soldiers on the ground ensures that far more soldiers will be killed in the fighting than would otherwise. Three weeks ago, the administration began demanding that Israel limit (or cancel entirely) its pre-ground battle aerial bombings. Consequently, in the week that preceded this week’s “humanitarian pause,” the IDF’s battle losses were overwhelmingly the consequence of sniper fire from Hamas terrorists hiding in buildings that the air force did not destroy before the battles, due to US pressure. hen there is the issue of the hostages. Israel is duty-bound to the hostages, their families and Israeli society as a whole to rescue them. There are two ways to do this. Israel can bow to Hamas’s demands, as it is presently doing by suspending its offensive, and endangering Israel’s soldiers and civilians by permitting Hamas to rebuild and reorganize its

Martyrs Brigades terror group posted videos of its members in Gaza participating in Hamas’ Oct. 7 slaughter. Fatah terrorists killed, tortured and kidnapped Israelis, and took videos of their actions. nlike Gaza, Judea and Samaria is a stone’s throw from all of Israel’s major population centers, and half a million Israelis live in cities and villages throughout Judea and Samaria. Last Friday night, the threat posed by Palestinian terrorist and paramilitary forces in Judea and Samaria to the lives of millions of Israelis came into sharp relief with the public lynching in the city of Tulkarm of two Palestinians accused of collaborating with Israeli counter-terror operations. To the roars of a crowd of thousands — secured by PA security forces — Hamas publicly hanged the two men from an electricity tower. The two men’s bodies showed signs of brutal torture that preceded their execution. Tulkarm is controlled by the PA and is located less than a kilometer from the Cross Israel Highway and a few minutes’ drive to Kfar Yona and Netanya. Israel’s dependence on the US weapons makes it impossible for the Netanyahu government to publicly air the strategic threat the administration’s policies pose to its war effort and its long-term ability to survive in the post-Oct. 7 Middle East. Israel cannot risk additional stress to its position vis-à-vis the Biden administration and wants to avoid exposing the rift to its already emboldened enemies from Gaza to Lebanon, Yemen to Iran. Congressional lawmakers face no such constraints, however. Moreover, they have an interest in exposing the truth and working to compel a change in the administration’s Hamas-enabling policies. Polling data shows that the overwhelming majority of Americans support Israel in this war and want it to destroy Hamas. The overwhelming majority of lawmakers from both parties share their view. To date, the Republican majority in the House has made no effort to exercise oversight over the Biden administration’s policies in relation to Israel’s war with Hamas, largely due to the Israeli government’s unwillingness to air the actual state of relations. As the humanitarian pause is extended to secure the release of additional hostages and before the Christmas recess, House Republicans and likeminded Democrats should open hearings to compel the administration to explain its policies. Specifically, it should be asked to explain how Israel can defeat Hamas given the constraints the administration is placing on IDF operations. The administration should also be asked why it supports the PA, given the PA’s involvement, support and defense of Hamas’ invasion of Israel, and the slaughter of its civilians on Oct. 7. Congress should also ensure that the aid package, when passed, contains no conditions on Israel’s use of the weapons it will receive. Lawmakers must understand the source of the Israeli government’s fulsome praise for Biden. They should then take action to prevent the administration from maintaining its policy of paying lip service to an Israeli victory while preventing Israel from achieving one.

forces, and by releasing terrorists from its prisons and retuning them to Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria. Or it can renew its military operation, locate the hostages and rescue them itself. Clearly, the second option is preferable. Until Monday, it appeared the reason that Israel had accepted the deal it is currently operating under owed to its inability to locate the hostages. The London-based Daily Express reported on Monday that the real reason Israel is not rescuing the hostages — and instead agreed to the current deal with all of its tactical and strategic costs — is related to the Biden administration’s directive not to harm Palestinian civilians. Based on Israeli sources, the British Daily Express reported that Israel knows where many of the hostages are located. It has opted not to rescue them because Hamas is holding the hostages among civilians. Rescuing them would involve collateral damage to those Palestinians and risk US resupply, which Israel cannot fight without. Here it is important to note that the number of actual civilians that have died as a result of Israel’s bombings remains unknown. On Oct. 25, Biden acknowledged that the Gaza Health Ministry’s data on civilian casualties lacks credibility in light of the fact that the Health Ministry is simply an organ of Hamas and reports the numbers it is told to report by Hamas’s terror masters. That data counts every dead terrorist as a dead civilian. Israelis were thrilled with Biden’s statement. But the next day, he apologized for it. According to Fox News, in a meeting with Muslim American leaders on Oct. 26, Biden apologized for telling the truth. “I’m sorry. I’m disappointed with

An overwhelming majority of Americans — including an overwhelming majority of lawmakers from both parties — support Israel and want it to destroy Hamas.

myself,” he said. Since Oct. 26, the administration has embraced as fact Hamas’s casualty counts and uses them as the basis for its demand that Israel minimize Palestinian casualties. The administration’s willingness to ignore the fallacies at the heart of those data indicates that its policy is based on something other than concern for Palestinian civilians, and therefore is not a tactical challenge that Israel may be capable of contending with and still win. o be sure, Biden, Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin have all expressed their solidarity with Israel, as well as their revulsion at Hamas’ actions and desire to see the genocidal jihadist terror group defeated. And to be sure, Biden has taken steps to resupply Israel — requesting $14.3 billion in military supplies to the Jewish state (although the assistance has yet to be approved by Congress or signed into law by Biden). These positions and at least partial actions lend credence to Brick’s assessment, shared by the IDF and the government, that the challenge the Biden administration’s position on civilian casualties in Gaza is an operational or tactical challenge and not a strategic conundrum. But there are additional indications that Biden doesn’t want Israel to win. First, there is the issue of Egypt. Due to the US decision to support Egyptian President Abdel Fattah elSisi’s determination to prevent Gazans from fleeing to Egypt or to a third country through Egypt, the million or so Gazans who evacuated the northern end of the Strip during the fighting are now concentrated in the south. Among them are the bulk of Hamas’ forces, which Israel must destroy to win the war. Facing the US-backed Egyptian refusal to permit these civilians to leave Gaza on the one hand and the US directive to keep civilian casualties close to zero on the other, Israel is facing an impossible operational challenge. Brick may be right that a low-key, slow offensive would be capable of

achieving the goal. But he may be wrong. Certainly, a more conventional operation would have a much higher chance of succeeding. To this must be added the Biden administration’s demands for a postwar settlement. Israel’s goal is not only to defeat Hamas now but to prevent it from rebuilding and to prevent other terror groups from emerging in a post-war Gaza. To this end, at a minimum, Israel will be required to take two actions. irst, it must retain permanent military control over all of Gaza. Second, Israel must seize a buffer zone several kilometers wide on the Gaza side of the border to protect civilian communities and military bases from a repeat of Oct. 7. Biden and his advisers oppose both of these goals. Not only do they completely oppose Israeli military control over Gaza and the establishment of buffer zones inside Gaza, they demand that in a post-war settlement, Israel end its maritime blockade of the Gaza coast, and permit everything and anything to enter Gaza from the sea. In other words, the US position is to permit terrorist forces — whether they call themselves Hamas or anything else — to rebuild their capabilities unfettered in post-war Gaza. Even worse, the administration’s position is that Gaza must be ruled by the Fatah-controlled Palestinian Authority after the war has ended, and that Gaza be united with Judea and Samaria in a post-war era, and together receive full sovereignty. In other words, the administration’s war goal is to establish a Fatah-dominated Palestinian state in these areas. On its own, this position is antithetical not only to an Israeli victory in the war but represents an existential threat to Israel’s continued existence. Fatah — and the PA it runs — is a terrorist organization and regime. The PA’s US-armed and funded security forces are Hamas’ junior partners in terror. As Eugene Kontorovich and Itamar Marcus reported in the Wall Street Journal this week, PA-controlled Fatah terrorists from Fatah’s Al-Aqsa

Continued from page 23 Deborah, who was a judge and prophet in Israel! Deborah is an excellent example of someone who “just did her job,” regularly and consistently, and who had an impact upon three generations of major biblical characters, including a matriarch, two patriarchs, and the forbearers of the 12 tribes. She exemplifies the type of person that the Talmud refers to when it asks: “Who deserves a place in the world to come,” and answers: “He who slips in silently and slips out silently.” abbi Akiva taught us a similar lesson. At a critical juncture in his life, he was inspired by the fact that a stone is impenetrable by ordinary means. But when a gentle waterfall drips upon stone for hundreds of years, it succeeds in boring a hole in stone. Quiet consistency and persistence are the true ingredients of heroism and strength. In the Bible, as in all of life, there are major figures who work behind the scenes but who are indispensable to the important events of history. They are unheralded and often anonymous. They are real heroes too. In the words of the poet John Keats, they are the children “of silence and slow time.” They help us see the truth in that poet’s exquisite words: Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard are sweeter.

Freedman...

Continued from page 23 Simply put, he remained silent. It is a great life lesson to understand that words spoken in anger never come out right. No matter how right a person may be, if they react in anger they will always realize later on that they could have done a better job communicating. Indeed Rambam, the great advocate of the balanced approach to life (see Hilchot Deot, the laws of character development, chapter 1), has an interesting take on anger. Despite pointing out in chapter one that the ideal in Judaism is to lead a balanced life midway between the extremes of any character trait, when it comes to anger (2:3) Rambam suggests it is an extremely negative character trait which a person should always avoid. Indeed, even in a rare occurrence when anger might appear to be a worthwhile tool to prevent an event from recurring (1:4; 2:3), he suggests that a person should feign anger while internally maintaining a balanced composure. Because one cannot be balanced and angry at the same time, anger is by definition an imbalanced state of mind. o what should one do when feeling anger? Quite simply, one should be quiet. A person will almost always regret what he or she says in anger. When thinking about it later, one usually will realize they could have done a better job; so the smartest thing to do when angry is simply to keep quiet.

Gerber...

Continued from page 23 given detailed analytical treatment, in a question and answer format, that serves to further expand the reader’s knowledge of the basic themes and teachings of this holiday. This chapter not only helps us to gain a better perspective of Chanukah’s importance, it also gives us a deeper appreciation of the whole story of Joseph in both its theological and historical, perspectives in light of the Chanukah episode. Another unique feature presented in this work is a detailed English commentary of the famed piyut of praise, “Maoz Tzur,” which, in and of itself, serves as a history-based timeline of the Jewish people. This commentary is based upon the interpretations found in “Siddur Avodat Yisrael”; “Yalkut Ohr HaGanuz L’Yemei Chanukah”; Rabbi Avraham Rosenwasser’s S”efer Pardes HaChanukah”; and Rabbi Tzvi Cohen’s “Chanukah: Halachot U’Minhagim.” Note is made by the author of those whose scholarship was referenced in the compilation of this volume. Among those cited and acknowledged with grace are Rabbi Dr. Berel Wein of the Discovery Institute in Jerusalem; Rabbi Dr. Shnayer Leiman of Brooklyn College; and the dean of American Jewish historians, Dr. Louis Feldman z”l, of Yeshiva University. The introductory essay, “Judaism vs. Hellenism,” seems to reflect collectively the work of these three outstanding scholars. In Rabbi Strickoff’s “Author’s Note” we find a series of qualifications concerning some of the historical terms used in his work. One in particular deserves mention in its entirety, as a crucial lesson when studying the history of Chanukah: “Unless otherwise noted, references in this sefer to ‘Yavan’ [literally, Greece] generally refers to the Syrian-Greek kingdom ruled by Antiochus from his capital city Antioch in Syria that dominated the Land of Israel during the time of Chanukah. “After the demise of Alexander the Great, his

great Greek kingdom was divided amongst his three generals, creating three separate and independent Greek kingdoms in Asia Minor, Egypt, and Syria respectively. Thus, it is important to specify which kingdom one is referring to when using the term Yavan for the Greeks during that time period. Alternatively, as it may apply in the context, Yavan may also refer to Greek culture and society in general.” This carefully crafted qualification makes this entire book a must-read. The intellectual integrity that is at the foundation of this work, makes it one of the best Chanukah books ever authored in English for the Jewish layperson.

Tobin...

Continued from page 24 confronting a student body with a record of violence than of protecting Jews from antisemitism. They are not alone in thinking this way. he initial reaction to the Post story from Mayor Eric Adams was to post on X: “The vile show of antisemitism at Hillcrest High School was motivated by ignorance-fueled hatred, plain and simple, and it will not be tolerated in any of our schools, let alone anywhere else in our city.” But Adams, generally regarded as an ally to the Jewish community, followed that up with another post about the need for “outreach” with such students. Banks’s justification for the riot and the New York City Department of Education’s full-court press to defend the rioters rather than the Jewish teacher demonstrates that such behavior is being tolerated. This may seem reasonable to those who agree with the mob that a Jew publicly standing with Israel is a provocative act worthy of being protested. Imagine, however, the reaction from school authorities had a mob of white students targeted an African-American teacher for supporting the black community against violent attacks. Or if a school with a 30% Jewish population was the scene of a riot in which kids threatened an Arab or Muslim-American teacher. We know exactly what would have happened. The story would have been on the front page of the Times the next day, rather than buried inside the paper a week later. And those involved would have not just been immediately expelled from school but subjected to arrests with liberal politicians clamoring for the rioters to be prosecuted as adults rather than minors. Certainly, their chances of being admitted to college would be compromised. But as the Times article made clear, the main concern of authorities was not so much about the riot as the possibility that — as in the case of a high school rally against Israel in San Francisco where the antisemitic “from the river to the sea” chant was employed — those involved would be identified because a video of their actions was viewed by millions on X. Suffice it to say that the Hillcrest rioters are unlikely to get much more than being forced to sit through some meaningless sessions about diversity that will downplay the threat to Jews while

focusing on the problem of Islamophobia, which 27 is what attempts to hold Muslims accountable for spreading hatred of Jews is usually labeled. s angry as the public should be about both the incident and the pleas for understanding of the rioters’ state of mind, the problem goes beyond the travails of a New York City public school system that is already widely viewed as failing its students and their families. The hate that the students spewed as they sought to attack a Jewish teacher is not merely the product of a few teenagers’ extreme political beliefs. It is the result of years of indoctrination about “white privilege” and “decolonization” throughout the schools that, contrary to liberals, has now spread into primary and secondary education. It’s also due to the Muslim-American community’s embrace of hatred for Israel and support for groups like Hamas. The leading anti-Israel group on college campuses throughout the nation is Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), which traffics in the crudest antisemitic propaganda. As the Post reported this week, they’ve also created a cut-and-paste toolkit for high school students to use for planned “Days of Resistance” and walkouts to publicize their hate for the one Jewish state on the planet. Among the graphics they provide to kids is one that depicts a hangglider descending on protesters — an invocation of the Hamas slaughter and gang rape of young Israelis at a music festival on Oct. 7. This amply illustrates the danger that the spread of toxic left-wing ideologies like critical race theory and intersectionality pose. Groups like SJP clearly cross over the line that separates legal protests guaranteed by the First Amendment into incitement to violence and thus deserve to be banned from college campuses as some leaders, like Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, have tried to do. For all of the lip service that is paid to the postOct. 7 surge of incidents of hate crimes targeting Jews, so long as we’re asked to “understand” the motives of those who buy into the antisemitic propaganda that fuels these attacks rather than to seek accountability for those who commit and justify them, they will continue unabated. American antisemitism is no longer a problem of a few “lone wolf” armed right-wing lunatics or even the toleration of a small cadre of Jew-hating leftists who use anti-Zionism as a thin disguise for their efforts to intimidate, shun and silence the entire Jewish community. What happened at Hillcrest High is a warning that woke ideas and acceptance of Jew-hatred come with consequences Americans are only just beginning to glimpse. The mainstreaming of the lies about Israel — and the nature of the Palestinian war to destroy it and commit the genocide of its Jewish population — has reached a critical point. High-schoolers in Queens have been led to believe that they are entitled to riot, threaten and chase a Jewish teacher who had the temerity to stand with Israel out of school and not face the most severe punishment. If that is so, then U. education is in a downward spiral that will require urgent and even radical reform if it is to be saved.

THE JEWISH STAR December 1, 2023 • 18 Kislev 5784

Weinreb...

And that is precisely what Yaakov does — he remains silent, with no words causing irreparable damage. And thus Reuven remains in the family. And what does one do in that state of silence? What thoughts would be worthwhile to have when in a state of anger? Well, anger is really all about expectations. We get angry because we expect a better outcome, which most often, even if subconsciously, means we think we deserve better. But if we accept that Hashem runs the world, we would spend less time in a state of anger over what happened, and more time in a state of soul-searching as to why it happened and what Hashem was trying to teach us, which of course would leave much less room for anger. This, as the Torah intimates here, would result in our being much more together, and “the children of Israel would be 12,” with all of us together at the table.

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