43 New Yorkers among 225 aboard 65th Nefesh B’Nefesh aliyah charter
By Ed Weintrob
As the wheels under Nefesh B’Nefesh’s 65th aliyah charter flight rose from a JFK runway on Tuesday afternoon, the olim onboard cheered their journey home.
“Israel wants you, Israel needs you, Israel’s waiting to welcome you,” NBN Executive Director Yehoshua Fass told the 225 olim — including 43 from New York — before boarding. “Israel needs your optimism, your idealism and your chizuk.”
“Your decision will set in motion a new legacy for your children, grandchildren and great grandchildren,” he said. He congratulated the olim for making the decision to “be part of this incredible move.”
The flight was the first charter ar-
The olim preparing to board a Nefesh B’Nefesh ElAl charter flight at JFK on Tuesday were bursting with happy anticipation. Pictured from left: The Mermelsteins from Kew Gardens Hills (Alexander and Ilana and their three children); The Frenkels from Woodmere (Ilan and Sarah); The Wertentheils from West Hempstead (Sruli and Atara with their two children), and The Cymbalistas of Cedarhurst (Ariel and Rachel) with blue and white shirts proclaiming on the back, “The Cymbalistas are finally coming home.” Ed Weintrob, The Jewish Star
ranged by NBN since the Oct. 7, 2023, invasion. It carried 45 families, 125 children and 10 singles.
The continued flow of olim to the Jewish state, personified by the NBN charter, “shows the enemies of Israel they cannot put us down,” Fass said.
In addition to New Yorkers, homeward bound passengers hailed from ten states and Ontario.
As the olim arrive in Israel, The Jewish Star’s coverage will continue in its next edition.
Jew-hate spreads thru ‘denial disease’
Outlandish and truth-defying, the sweep of Jew-hate today is breathtaking
THANE ROSENBAUM
Distinguished University Professor Touro College
The hatred of Jews, from time immemorial to the outlandish way it has resurfaced globally today, is truly breathtaking. What on earth could this infinitesimal population of Jews, and their tiny ancestral homeland, Israel, have possibly done to inspire such universally unflinching contempt?
Many of the original justifications for why Jews are to be despised above all others — why hating them is so justly deserved — have been debunked by the absurdity of those blood libels and the upsurge of a (relatively)
enlightened public.
No, Jews did not kill Jesus; and no, they don’t murder Christian children to improve the taste of Passover matzoh. As for having horns and tails, no one has ever seen a Jew with such anatomical features.
More stubbornly historical tropes require Olympian suspensions of disbelief. You don’t need to be a savant to recognize that levers that “control the world” are not being pulled by Jews. Would Israelis and the Diaspora be this perpetually miserable if they were in possession of such powers?
Here’s one obvious example: the yellow fever of yellow journalism practiced daily against the Jewish state. Only a diehard conspiracist believes that Jews actually control the major news outlets.
See ‘Denial disease’ supercharges on page 2
Antisemitism in Russia led to the mass expulsion of Jews in a Podolian village. Antique illustration, 1882, via Adobe
There are always reasons to hate the Jews
n the first century, the Roman poet Juvenal disliked Jews. Besides circumcising themselves, he wrote, in the 14th chapter of his Satires, that they “revere the Sabbath … treating every seventh day as a day of idleness, separate from the rest of daily life.”
They were, well, lazy.
Marx, in his 1843 critique of Bernard Bauer, suggested that “the basis of the Jewish religion? Practical need, egoism. … Money is the jealous G-d of Israel. … The bill of exchange is the real G-d of the Jew.” Hating Jews for economic reasons seeks to tarnish them.
There is also the application of a stigma, a black mark of disgrace or worse. Jews killed Jesus. Jews killed Christian children, especially before Passover, so they could use their blood for baking matzot. Jews poisoned wells. Jews enticed
In Spain, racial definitions emerged. It wasn’t what Jews did or did not do, but whether they possessed “pure blood” that would determine who was and who was not Jewish. This approach, using a biological standard for religious identification, created a revulsion against “Jewish contamination.”
Then there was Martin Luther’s antisemitism, which resulted from a frustration with Jewish unwillingness to convert to Christianity.
That theme, it is suggested, lay at the root of Muhammad’s confrontation with the Jews of Medina and nearby communities. Jews are portrayed as ingrates because they rejected Muhammad and his status as a prophet. Quranic verses are negative and hostile to
‘Denial
Continued from page 1
AJews, as Muslims presume to judge Jewish disobedience of G-d.
Subsequently, the Muslim Hadith literature late posits that a Jewish woman, Zaynab bint Al-Harith, of the conquered town of Khaybar, prepared for Muhammad a roasted, poisoned sheep of which he took but one bite. Four years later, it contributed to his death. Jews had Jesus killed, and Jews killed Muhammad.
A continuation of the theme of collective guilt.
For more than 2,000 years, Jews have been and are hated. Hated for their religious customs, for their presumed economic success. Hated for their genes, for the blood in their veins. Hated for their accomplishments. And for what they did or some did or very few did, if at all, but mostly hated for what they haven’t done.
Most of all, hatred of Jews is not directed at individuals, for, after all, “some of my best friends are … .” Nevertheless, any Jew can be hated and usually for any reason.
Today, Jews are informed that tens of thousands of “children” are being killed by the Israel Defense Forces along with the starvation visited on hundreds of thousands of Palestinian Arabs in the Gaza Strip. There is no real fact-based objective truth to that claim, or to the claim the IDF is gunning down aid seekers. That Israel is engaged in “genocide. ”
What’s at work here is a desire and a willingness to attach both blemish and stigma to being Jewish. To tarnish, discredit, shame and taint Jews. Jews, not Israelis. Jews, not Zionists. Stalk and harass them in cafes and on subways. Make them feel extremely uncomfortable for something they personally haven’t done.
Jewish schools, school buses and young schoolchildren have recently objects of vicious verbal beratement. Synagogues and Jewishsponsored hospitals as well. Pro-Palestine protesters can enter a subway car, and threaten and yell at someone with a Jewish appearance
for an action that occurred in Gaza, just like an action that happened in Khaybar or Jerusalem or Lincoln, England in 1255, or at the Tower of London in 1279, where almost 300 Jews were executed for “coin-clipping.”
False accusations, made-up crimes and misinterpreted events are among the many historical causes for the deaths and injuries of Jews. That history continues. Jews are to be considered contaminated, a singular caste of modern “untouchables,” due to their love of Zion, their attachment to Jerusalem and their 3,000-yearold religious traditions that include nationalist elements.
Whether practiced and propagated by nonJews or Jews, Muslim Arabs or those practicing other religions or no religion, anti-Zionism is a subset of classic antisemitism paradigms. Lauren Smith calls the British version the “Rise of ‘Respectable’ Antisemitism.”
Progressives are utterly convinced that their antisemitism is simply a crusade for morality and humanitarian values. However, at its root, it’s not only Jew-hatred but seeing the age-old opportunity for that hate to evolve into acts of violence done to Jews and, ultimately, their eradication, along with Israel’s elimination.
It’s crystal clear. But it leaves us with a dilemma: Why would, for example, New York City rabbis support mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani, a Democratic Socialist who hasn’t spoken well of the Jews? And do so to “address antisemitic violence?”
They cannot expect that from a person who founded the chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine at Bowdoin College in Maine, and who cannot seem to decry the hate-filled chant to “globalize the intifada.”
Self-tainted Jews?
Write: Columnist@TheJewishStar.com
disease’ supercharges hatred of Jews…
nyone who has visited an Ivy League campus these days knows that Jews were defenseless to curtail the antisemitic convulsions and open calls for their death.
Overrepresentation in certain professions did not empower Jews, either. Doctors and lawyers were unable to sway patients and clients to adopt more sympathetic views about Israel’s war against terrorists.
Lies about a “genocide” and “mass starvation” persist, despite all kinds of rebuttal evidence that receives little attention. Causalities of war are not victims of genocide. In any other war, the Palestinian body count would be tragic but typical collateral damage. The IDF, however, is charged with war crimes before they fire their first shot.
The Jews of Hollywood provide another example of the myth of Jewish invincibility. When the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures opened four years ago, the permanent installation forgot to mention the outsized role Jews played in inventing literally everything about the movie industry.
Information is readily available in this new digital age, but it’s all too often falsified. Antisemitism is a disease largely about denial.
Jews were left out of the picture, ironically. That, too, happened when African-Americans scrubbed their own history clean of any Jewish involvement in the struggle for civil rights.
Antisemitism in this new digital age where information is readily available, but all too often falsified, is a disease largely about denial.
The list is exhaustive: The Holocaust is still being denied, despite an overabundance of dispositive proof — including actual survivors being told that their nightmares are just dreams.
Imagine if people said that about American slavery?
Nations around the world deny the very existence of Israel, even though the Jewish state was formally created and recognized by both the League of Nations and United Nations. Meanwhile, a Palestinian state — a true global fiction without any historical or legal legitimacy — has been unilaterally recognized by several Western powers.
Almost immediately after the massacre on October 7, 2023, the drumbeat of denial could be heard. Painstaking film footage simultaneously taken by Gazans and projected around the world was not to be believed. Posters of hostages were torn from walls by snickering antisemites. No measure of Jewish sympathy was allowed.
When female survivors of Hamas’ brutality testified to the sexual assaults that took place on October 7, and inside tunnels in the days and weeks that followed, their anguished retellings were dismissed. The #MeToo movement now had a new hashtag: #BelieveBarbarians.
Speaking of barbarians on film, the Toronto International Film Festival cancelled the screening of an October 7 documentary that left no doubt as to the savagery of
Hamas’ assault. Was the aim now to bury the incriminating evidence? Although already in the public domain, the festival organizers claimed that Hamas’ permission was necessary to showcase the movie.
Hitler and his henchmen instantly burst out in laughter from their front row seats in hell.
One of the subjects of the film who led the rescue operation said, “The truth cannot be erased. The atrocities committed by Hamas cannot be erased or denied.”
The documentary was ultimately screened, but that doesn’t prevent erasure. It was all reminiscent of “The Cartoons That Shook the World,” a 2009 book on the Danish cartoons that mocked the Prophet Muhammad and led to worldwide Muslim rioting. The publisher, Yale University Press, chose not to include the actual cartoons in the book. They, understandably, feared a lethal response from the “Religion of Peace.” Muslims have repeatedly shown a true weakness for setting liberal values aflame.
Denial is much easier when risks come with speaking truth. The world believes the worst about Israel with little pushback. Independent verification is for sissies. An “academic” who teachers at Rutgers University wrote, “The Right to Maim: Debility, Capacity, Disability.” It is not sold as a work of fiction even though it charges the IDF with deliberately firing bullets to maim children and harvest the organs of dead Palestinians. No evidence is introduced to support these claims. Apparently, it is unnecessary given the ovations the author receives whenever she presents her “findings” at universities around the country.
Meanwhile, actual evidence is too inconvenient to share widely if it exonerates Israel. The USAID inspector general’s office uncovered evidence that Hamas has, indeed, confiscated humanitarian aid trucks and placed terrorists in UN facilities. Moreover, we now know that the U.N. is playing fast and loose with data on the famine they claim is happening in Gaza. An entirely different metric applies to Palestinians, a lowered threshold for categorizing malnourished children.
Media factfinders also failed to report that an Israeli hostage whose body was returned in February had been tortured to death, according to an updated autopsy. He did not, as Hamas had pronounced, die of a heart attack.
Yet, the international media lost their minds when “one of their own” had been killed by the IDF. He was actually a Hamas terrorist moonlighting as an Al Jazeera correspondent. Major news outlets ignored his Hamas affiliation. The story accused Israel of cynically covering up its genocide by murdering journalists.
The social media postings of this erstwhile “journalist” and full-fledged terrorist, however, showed him to be a giddy participant on October 7. Newsprint should not paper over the blood on his hands.
But it does in this ever-replenishing cesspool of denial, indefatigably erasing and trivializing crimes against Jews. Blatant antisemitism seamlessly explained away. Unadulterated hate, truly without shame.
Thane Rosenbaum’s column appears weekly in JewishJournal.com
Write: Columnist@TheJewishStar.com
Na’amod: British Jews Against the Occupation at a protest in November 2023. ReelNews
After visit, Gillen touts bipartisan support for Israel
By Ed Weintrob
Rep. Laura Gillen reiterated her support for Israel and vilified Hamas on Monday, during an interview with The Jewish Star after she returned from a visit to the Jewish state.
Gillen joined 14 Democratic members of Congress on a weeklong trip to Israel sponsored by the AIPACaffiliated American Israel Education Foundation, meeting with officials and visiting significant locations around the country.
“We hear a lot from the fringes on both sides of the aisle, but the majority of the members understand that Israel is our ally, and we need to support them, and we need to get the hostages back,” Gillen said. “Hamas can end this war and end the suffering of Israelis and Palestinians by giving back the hostages and relinquishing its power.”
The freshman congresswoman, whose district includes the rightleaning Five Towns and other South Shore communities, overcame a Trump sweep in Nassau County to defeat one-term Republican Rep. Anthony d’Esposito in 2024.
During her Israel trip, the delegation visited the port at Ashdod where they observed aid collection and discussed the difficulties of distributing it in Gaza.
“One thing that we found by meeting with various aid organizations is that there is aid going into Gaza,” she said. “There are challenges providing aid to folks, because Hamas is engaging in military operations and trying to take the food away for its own uses.”
That “there need to be more distribution sites was kind of a general consensus,” she added, “but Israel is letting aid get into Gaza.”
Gillen said that Hamas “is effectively trying to change the narrative about what is really going on there,” and that “what is getting lost right now is why this conflict started, and it’s because Hamas launched a brutal terroristic attack, unprovoked, to destroy peace in the region, to kill Israelis and Jewish people, and they did it in the most savage, brutal way.
“That is why everybody is suffering right now, not because of Israel but because of Hamas,” she said.
Gillen said the most moving moments during her trip came in visits to Kibbutz Nir Oz and the site of the Nova Music Festival, and a meeting with Ilay David, brother of Evyatar David, who remains a Hamas captive.
The representatives were briefed by IDF officials about how Iron Dome, David’s Sling and Arrow-3 protect Israelis, and heard them tout the value of the US-Israel strategic defense partnership.
They visited the northern border and the Golan Heights, threatened by Hezbollah in Lebanon and terrorist groups in Syria, as well as the Gaza envelope. And they heard Maj. Gen. Tamir Hayman, former head of IDF military intelligence, discuss the threat posed by Iran.
“I am very hawkish when it comes to dealing with Iran,” she said, “and I think that the [Trump] administration’s strong stance against Iran obtaining a nuclear weapon is extremely important, something that I support.”
Other stops on the tour included meetings with Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu, opposition leader Yair Lapid, President Isaac Herzog, and US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee.
Asked about her prospects in a district that views the president and Republicans favorably, Gillen said she’s “not running against Trump for president, I’m their representative in Congress.”
“I can give credit where credit is due,” she added. In addition to praising Trump on Iran, she cited the Abraham Accords as “a huge accomplishment that made great strides in terms of finding peace between Israel and its neighbors. And I think that’s the reason we saw some Arab states condemn Hamas and condemn October 7 in the wake of that attack.”
“I would be completely supportive of the administration trying to work with Israel to see those relationships continue and expand going forward as we look to a resolution of this conflict,” she said.
Among the 14 House Democrats travelling with Gillen were 11 firstterm lawmakers, including George Latimer of Westchester one-third of the 33 freshman Democratic members, which Jewish Insider reported was “a sign of AIPAC’s continued pull among more centrist pro-Israel Democrats even as progressives have sought to make the group politically toxic.”
A Republican trip the previous week sponsored by the same AIPAC affiliate included around the same number of freshman lawmakers, Jewish Insider said.
Rep. Laura Gillen was joned by her husband Chris Finegan at a visit with Israeli President Isaac Herzog in the presidential residence last week. Office of Rep. Gillen
Euro Pal-state mania poses troubling questions
DAVID BEDEIN
Currently, there are a number of essential questions not being asked of nations that will recognize a planned Palestinian state. Journalists should pose these questions to the foreign ministers of France, the United Kingdom, Norway, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
•Will the planned Palestinian state abolish the Palestinian Charter, which mandates the destruction of Israel?
•Will the planned Palestinian state revoke the law that guarantees salaries to anyone who murders a Jew?
•Will the planned Palestinian state remove texts that glorify those who murder Jews?
•Will the planned Palestinian state eliminate educational materials that glorify the murder of Jews?
•In the maps of the planned Palestinian state, will the State of Israel appear alongside it?
•Will the planned Palestinian state can-
Religions, such as Christianity, not to mention Judaism, were denied any juridical status under the Palestinian State Constitution.
cel the slogan of the “Right of Return through armed struggle”?
•Will the planned Palestinian state abide by the Constitution of the State of Palestine based on Quranic Sharia Law?
In 2003, the Vatican Ambassador to the Holy Land — Archbishop Msgr. Pietro Sambi, known as the Papal Nuncio — warned a US congressional delegation that the new Palestinian State constitution, funded by USAID, provided no juridical status whatsoever for any religion other than Islam in the emerging Palestinian Arab entity.
I covered that briefing at the time for the Israeli newspaper Makor Rishon and FrontPage Magazine.
At that briefing, the Papal Nuncio expressed his concern to visiting US lawmakers that the PA had adopted Sharia Islamic law, based on the model of the Sharia from Quranic edicts as practiced in Iran or Saudi Arabia.
Article (5) of the official Palestinian State Constitution reads as follows: Arabic and Islam are the official Palestinian language and religion. Christianity and all other monotheistic religions shall be equally revered and respected.
In other words, as Sambi noted, other religions, such as Christianity, not to mention Judaism, were denied any juridical status under the Palestinian State Constitution.
The status of Islam as the official religion of any future Palestinian Arab entity is also expressed in Article (7) of the official Palestinian State Constitution, which states that:
The principles of Islamic Sharia are a major source for legislation. Civil and religious matters of the followers of monotheistic religions shall be organized in accordance with their religious teachings and denominations within the framework of law, while preserving the unity and independence of the Palestinian people.
The Palestine constitution translation and analysis can be accessed here.
Islamic nations that have adopted Sharia law have mandated the absolute supremacy of Muslims over non-Muslims as a matter of law.
What worried the archbishop was that Christian churches and all Christian schools would be placed under the arbitrary authority of Islamic Fundamental Law, which allows nothing more than tolerance of other religions, at best.
The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) financed the creation of the PA State Constitution, which meant the imposition of Islamic law throughout the jurisdiction of the Palestinian Authority.
DESK of RABBI S.M.
A research study released by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, titled “The Beleagured Christians,” noted that in Egypt, Muslim but not Christian schools receive state funding. “It is nearly impossible to restore or build new churches. … Christians are frequently ostracized or insulted in public, and laws prohibit Muslim conversions to Christianity.”
In other words, USAID fostered an Islamic totalitarian state of Palestine, devoid of religious freedom and human rights. Yet that is the Palestinian state that nations of the world clamor to recognize.
David Bedein is director of the Nahum Bedein Center for Near East Policy Research. Write: Columnist@TheJewishStar.com
Note the ACCOLADES from our CLIENTS
RE: SYNAGOGUES and YESHIVOS
Dear Rabbi Leiner, Thank you for replacing the Insurance for our Synagogue, with a Savings of almost 50%.
B.F. Executive Director
RE: REAL ESTATE CORPORATION
Dear Rabbi Leiner, You and Your Experts, have saved our Corp. Very Substantial Sums, with your Quality Insurance Replacement on our Real Estate Buildings. Thank you, M.B. Pres.
RE: HOMEOWNERS INSURANCE
Dear Rabbi Leiner, Our Insurance Company Refused to renew our Insurance Homeowners Policy. However, You and Your Experts were able to Secure for us other Insurance Coverage, even at a much lower Premium, than the Prior Canceled Insurance Policy. Thank You So Much. Mrs. D.S.
Palestinians protest in southern Gaza near the border with Israel, demanding a “right of return” for descendants of all Arabs that fled during the 1948 War of Independence, on April 15, 2018. Abed Rahim Khatib, Flash90
—Lisa Basini, Baking Coach, Bellport
Lisa’s passion is baking. Opening a store was a big step—one she made with support from PSEG Long Island’s Business First Program. She earned incentives for choosing a vacant space and rebates for upgrading to efficient LED lighting. Now, she’s saving on energy costs and her thriving business has made life a little sweeter for all of us.
Winemakers bring hope from Israel’s frontlines
By Maayan Hoffman, JNS
On Oct. 7, 2023, everything changed for David Pinto.
The co-founder and CEO of Pinto Winery was vacationing in northern Israel, far from his home in Yerucham in the country’s south. But when Hamas brutally infiltrated Israel that morning, Pinto — an IDF officer with the rank of major — was immediately called up to serve in the reserves.
It took him a whole day to reach his home, with roads shut down across the country. He gathered his belongings, left his wife and daughters in Jerusalem and spent 170 of the next 22 months fighting for Israel’s survival.
The timing couldn’t have been worse for Pinto Winery, which launched in 2020. The war struck a significant financial blow to the young business, derailing its ambitious plans for growth — including opening a flagship visitor center.
“It was not easy,” Pinto told JNS. “We had to reinvent ourselves.”
Instead of expanding across Israel, the company pivoted to exports. Despite complex global markets, Pinto said the family-run winery — now producing around 100,000 bottles annually — managed to sell its entire supply. Still, with limited staff and resources, not everything ran smoothly.
The Pintos — a philanthropic family who launched the winery as an impact investment to boost Yerucham’s economy and image — remained focused on their main mission, “to sell top-quality wines from the desert because of the desert, not despite it.”
“The desert is so extreme — 325 days of sun a year and only 80 millimeters of rain annually,” Pinto explained. “Vines shouldn’t grow here. But we make them grow because we’re crazy — and because we have access to water to irrigate. Wines from the desert are very special. The whites are crisp, rich and beautiful. The reds are spiced and fruitful.”
This month, Pinto Winery was preparing to finally open its long-awaited visitor center and, for the first time, participate in the Israel Museum Wine Festival in Jerusalem.
Festivalgoers can sample unlimited tastings from dozens of booths while enjoying live performances by popular local artists, including Sugarbeat, the Salomon Brothers, the Tzanchani Brothers, Gavraband, and several surprise street acts.
Alongside Pinto, guests will have the chance to try wines from across the Negev and the North regions that the ongoing war has deeply impacted. Wineries from Judea and Samaria as well as from other parts of the country will also be featured. Participating producers include Tania Winery, Jaffa Winery, Har Bracha, Teperberg, Chateau Miron, Adir Winery and many more.
The organizers reflected on the festival’s legacy, recalling moments over the past two and a half decades that left a lasting impression — like discovering a small boutique winery and becoming a loyal fan, dancing under the stars, raising glasses in celebration and soaking in the unique Jerusalem atmosphere.
Yaara Alfasi Biadgalin, vice president of marketing and export for Mount Odem, said that winery barely paused operations since the war began. Her parents founded Mount Odem when she was a child.
On Oct. 7, the winery was in the middle of its annual harvest. Her two older brothers — Yishai, the winemaker, and Adam, the vintner — were both called to reserve duty, along with her husband, who manages the agricultural department, and the company’s CEO. Alfasi Biadgalin was seven months pregnant with their third child.
“It was a tough spot since all of our vineyards were declared a military closed area and we could not harvest them,” she recalled.
Almost all of the winery’s employees had either been drafted or evacuated. But the grapes couldn’t wait.
“We knew we had to harvest the grapes or everything would be lost,” she said.
Ten days into the war, the family secured special permission to return to their vineyards in the Valley of Tears, just 500 meters from the Syrian border. Determined not to lose the season, they handpicked the grapes themselves, one by one, and produced the 200,000 bottles they had committed to for the year.
About 45 days later, Alfasi Biadgalin made another bold decision: to reopen the winery’s visitor center.
“Even if no one would come, we did it for ourselves,” she said. “We opened this winery when I was 12 years old. If we closed, someone else was winning the war — and it wasn’t us.”
What stood out most to her during this time was the people’s resilience in Israel’s northern region.
“You don’t think about the consequences. I stayed the whole time,” she said. “The people of the North are very brave. I didn’t realize it then, but you can now see how people in the North and South stood together — with each other and their land.”
Although Odem Winery has often participated in the Jerusalem festival, Alfasi Biadgalin admitted that this year feels different.
“I feel awful. There is nothing nice about this war that keeps going on and on,” she said. “Two years is too long. It’s surreal to be at a wine festival while the country is still under fire.”
Still, for her, sharing her family’s story is part of their mission.
“All this time, we’ve been living in this beautiful place, high up in the mountains. We have a mission to be there,” she said.
Now, more than ever, she believes it’s essential to support the people of the periphery — winemakers and farmers who have held the line under unimaginable pressure.
“Show them how much you care,” she exhorted.
David Pinto inspects his Pinto Winery’s Chardonnay white wine grapes at the start of harvest season on July 19, 2022.
David Silverman, Getty Images via JNS
mountsinai.org/southnassau
The IDF in Syria: ‘They beg for an Israeli flag’
By Idan Avni, Israel Hayom
Once a week, an IDF truck convoy crosses the border into Syria carrying wheat, diesel fuel and a list of basic supplies. Occasionally, the Druze communities on the slopes of Mount Hermon request additional items.
Last week, it was medicines and basic medical equipment.
The four Druze villages in the northern Syrian Hermon are almost completely cut off from the world, and their only connection is through Israeli soldiers.
Coordination with the village councils is carried out by an IDF unit tasked with liaising with them. The troops guarding the convoy are reservists from the 299th “Sword” Battalion, a reserve infantry unit that was formerly the predominantly Druze regular army unit 300th Battalion, serving in the western sector of the Lebanon border as part of the Mountain Brigade.
Today, Druze reservists make up 30% of the battalion, with the remaining 70% mostly Jewish veterans of the Golani Paratrooper brigades. Most of the command remains Druze.
Many of the Druze troops have relatives in the villages across the border, making the unit a human bridge between the local population and Israel.
“There isn’t a Druze soldier who hasn’t asked to visit these villages,” Lt. Col. N. said of the emotional encounters. “They offer coffee and snacks.”
“It’s our duty, and it’s part of our
core values, to provide them with basic needs,” N. said. “They don’t ask for much, and they are very happy the IDF is here. The children beg me for the Israeli flag from my uniform. They ask me, ‘Next time you come, bring us an Israeli flag.’”
While the aid is mainly basic supplies, patients have also been brought into Israel for medical care.
“At the end of the day, there are babies, families, people here. This isn’t our primary mission, but we can’t ignore the humanitarian need,” N. said. “They’re afraid of what happened in Sweida [in southern Syria, where Sunni Islamists have massacred Druze]. The younger ones are already saying they want to be part of Israel, while the village sheikhs are still afraid and don’t express an opin-
ion. They worry we might abandon them.”
The residents, most of them farmers who grow deciduous fruit and raise livestock, live as if time has stood still. Running water is available for only one hour every five hours, electricity for limited periods each day, and to bathe, residents heat water over a fire.
“They live like people did 100 years ago,” said N., who comes from a Druze village in the Galilee and is now finishing his term as commander of the 299th Battalion.
We drove from the Israeli outpost line to the border after looking down from above at the Syrian Druze village of Hader and the hospital built by Israel to provide its residents with medical care.
We continued deeper into Syrian territory along a road the IDF expanded under Israel Nature and Parks Authority guidelines. Once we passed the red barrels marking the border, the road widened. The wider road ensures that trucks and supplies can get through even when the mountain is covered in snow. Along the way is Majdal Beit Jann, a Sunni village separating Hader from the northern Druze villages.
Roadblocks there prevent the Druze from reaching Hader, so the IDF delivers supplies through the Hermon sector. While Sunni Muslims can travel to nearby Damascus without concern, such a trip could cost a Druze his life.
Below us are the villages of Arneh, Rima, Beqaasem and Qalaat al-Jandal. Most residents are Druze, with small Christian and Sunni minorities. The IDF helps them all. Beyond the humanitarian aspect, control of the area is a clear security interest, N. explained.
“If these villages fall, the next step is our outposts and communities. That’s why we must strengthen the villages and the population. As long as Syria is unstable, we cannot leave the Hermon.”
In the past, Israel held only 7% of the Hermon. Today, it controls the entire mountain, a strategic buffer against any military force that might try to take it. “It was absolutely the right decision to take the Hermon,” said. N.
“To get a sense of its size, the drive from Israel’s Hermon ski site to the far end of the Syrian Hermon takes about an hour. On the way, you cross the smugglers’ route, which leads to the villages, once used to move goods to Shebaa and Southern Lebanon, including electronics and cigarettes.
“Now that the IDF controls the area, the smuggling has stopped or shifted further north, beyond the Hermon ridge,” he said.
The IDF has two outposts on the Syrian Hermon: One that overlooks the Druze villages and the smugglers’ route further north, and another built on the site of a former Syrian position.
Snow on the highest peaks can pile up more than 10 meters (33 feet) deep, with freezing temperatures and snow lingering into mid-summer. The IDF prepares for the possibility that the outposts could be cut off for weeks, ensuring they can function independently in terms of supplies and combat readiness.
“Eating hummus in Damascus is detached from reality,” said N. “As a Druze who follows social media, I don’t believe [Al-Qaeda-linked Syrian President] Abu Muhammad al-Julani [Ahmed al-Sharaa].
“A terrorist remains a terrorist. But maybe we can have hummus here in the Druze villages,” N. said.
Looking ahead with a more tourist-minded vision, he added, “Israel could develop an international ski resort here, something the Syrians never did.”
An IDF soldier on the Syrian Hermon with the Druze and Israeli flags. Ayal Margolin
WINE AND DINE
Gather ’round for a summer family supper!
In summer, when appetites are lighter, we often prefer to cook and eat at home. And for families with kids home until the school year gets underway, this is a surefire formula to save money and spend quality time together in the kitchen.
Below are a few recipes easy for kids to pitch in with and that can even be directed by teens. They need to learn how to cook sometime, so why not now in the hazy days of summer?
These recipes are dairy, meat and pareve, and not meant for a single meal.
STONE SOUP: With or without the actual stone, this is the best catch-all for veggies past their prime. Tomatoes, lettuce, arugula — any greens for that matter — give flavor and body to the soup.
The story goes, in Eastern Europe, a wandering Jewish man arrived in a village looking for food. “There’s no food here,” he was told. “No problem. I’ll make stone soup.”
He dropped a stone into a cauldron of boiling water, stirred it, sniffed it and said loud enough to be heard. “This is good, but a bit of cabbage would be better.” Soon a villager came with a cabbage he’d been hoarding. They stirred it in and tasted. “Delicious,” said the wanderer, “though some salt beef would make it fit for a king.” The butcher came with salt beef … and so it continued with potatoes, carrots, onions and mushrooms until there was a thick, hearty soup to be shared by all contributors.
The Jewish man was offered a great deal of money for the stone but refused to sell it and went on his way having both helped feed the villagers and never to be hungry again.
The moral of this story? Work together, be smart, and success is at hand.
SCOTCH BOMBS: These have nothing to do with Scotland. “Scotching” refers to mincing. A hard-cooked egg is coated in ground meat and breadcrumbs and then baked or fried. Fortnum’s of London claims to have invented the dish as part of their picnic basket trade in the early 16th century. I cut the eggs in half before coating.
BUTTERFLY CAKES: When I was growing up in the Shetland Islands, there were no computers, cell phones or even
television. After school, in the short winter days, I’d rush home to bake these dainty little cakes. Cupcakes were called “Fairy Cakes,” the British name for a feather-light cupcake that rose in a peak in the center. Slice the top off, cut in half to make the wings and set on top of a blob of jam or frosting. They were always served at birthdays and at my Mom’s card evenings. Easy and fun, they simply delight children (and their parents).
STICKY TOFFEE PUDDING: Francis Coulson at Sharrow Bay in the Lake District claims to have created the original recipe in the 1970s, though the Scots claim it as their own. “Nobody loves sugar more than the Scots,” goes the saying, evident from the sweet shops on every street corner in the country. The popular, dark date dessert is crowned with a rich toffee sauce. To be more decadent, top it off with a dollop of whipped cream. The recipe below is from Mike Benayoun, the” daredevil” who with Vera “the expert” writes “196 Flavors,” a unique culinary blog.
Stone Soup (Pareve)
Serves 10 to 12
Cook’s Tips: •Chop the veggies in the
food processor or slice thinly. •Do you have the remains of shredded cabbage in a bag? Use it. •Vegetable juice may be used for part of the water. •Leftovers taste even better second day or may be frozen.
Ingredients:
• 1/4 cup vegetable oil
• 2 large onions, chopped coarsely
• 4 to 5 cups total of sliced or chopped greens, cabbage and root vegetables
• 2 Tbsp. vegetable bouillon powder or 6 cubes
• 1 (28-oz) can diced tomatoes
• 1/4 cup fresh lemon juice
• 1/4 cup brown sugar, packed
• 1-1/2 tsp. chopped bottled garlic
• 1-1/2 tsp. cumin or to taste
• 6 to 8 cups water
• Salt and pepper to taste
Directions: Heat oil in a large soup pot. Add the onions. Cover and simmer over low heat until onions are soft and yellow, 10 to 15 minutes. Do not brown.
Add the vegetables. Cover and cook over low heat until vegetables are soft, 15 to 20 minutes.
Stir in the bouillon powder, tomatoes, lemon juice, brown sugar, garlic and cumin. Add enough water to come about 2 inches above the vegetable mixture. Cover and simmer 15 to 20 minutes longer. Add more water and bouillon if too thick. Season to taste with salt, pepper and more cumin, if desired.
Scotch Bombs (Meat)
Makes 8
Cook’s Tips: •Ground beef, turkey or chicken may be used. •Process two slices bread in a food processor for fine breadcrumbs.
Ingredients:
• 3/4 lb. ground beef
• 1 Tbsp. dried parsley, sage or thyme
• 1/4 tsp. each salt and pepper
• 4 hard-boiled eggs, halved crosswise
• 1 egg, beaten
• 1/2 cup fine breadcrumbs
Directions:
Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Line a baking sheet with foil. Spray with nonstick cooking
See Hofman on page 15
HOFMAN
A whole cabbage and a cross-section. WikiCommons
Butterfly Cakes.
Ethel G. Hofman
Organically produced blackstrap molasses produced in Paraguay. Badagnani via WikiCommons
Teens and their siblings can take the lead helping prepare meals. Pixabay
My father escaped the Shoah, but I got stuck
JENNIFER KREBS
‘Stumbling Blocks’
’ve never been much of a flirt with people, but ideas? I flirt shamelessly. I don’t fall head over heels, but I linger. I’ll bat my lashes at a seductive concept, maybe take it out for coffee, but I rarely commit. One of my life mottos (possibly from Stephen Colbert?) is “Don’t believe everything you think.” It has served me well, especially when it comes to the thoughts that won’t leave me alone.
Take “child of a Holocaust survivor.”
My father was born in Germany in 1928. His teacher was a Nazi. He witnessed Kristallnacht in November 1938. He was eventually sent on a Kindertransport to Belgium. He and his parents made it to the United States in 1941 have taken one of the last trains out of Germany.
But he never saw himself as a Holocaust survivor. He wasn’t in a camp. He never sought therapy. He worked nonstop, had chronic insomnia (a family tradition) and could be shorttempered, but he genuinely loved to laugh. He was the sane one in the family. The stable one. The survivor who didn’t make a big deal out of surviving.
Still, there were moments … like when we were at my grandparents’ house and the conversation suddenly flipped into German, shutting me out. When I asked for a translation, I’d get: “That’s not for children.”
Once, I joined a six-week support group for children of Holocaust survivors. I mostly stayed quiet. Other participants had parents who’d been in camps. One had been born in a
The first Stolpersteine in Cologne, Germany, with Nazi military leader Heinrich Himmler’s order for the initiation of Jewish deportations, set on Dec. 16, 1992. Willy Horsch via WikiCommons
Displaced Persons’ camp. Another had a serious illness. Who was I to claim their trauma?
But trauma doesn’t care about credentials. Some people say it’s passed down epigenetically, through blood or bone or breath. I have my father’s insomnia, his bad back, his congenital mitral valve issue. I’m quick to anger, quick to judge, and I often assume other people should be able to tough it out, too. Is that trauma? Genetics? Just being human?
Now, well into my sixth decade, I think I’m finally getting a handle on it. I hope so — for my kids’ sake.
Below are a few key insights I’ve gleaned:
1. Demons. Utopia is for books; dystopia is what we have. Demons lurk behind the trees, stepping off the bus at school or at the town hall. Some are named on the nightly news. Others appear in your dreams. The Bible is full of them. Your parents are worried. Your grandparents have advice on how to negotiate living among them. You live with your eyes wide open.
2. Save the world. When people ask you what you want to do with your life, you’re unable to pick something reasonable. You have to do something big. I wanted to be the diplomat to bring peace to the Middle East. When I learned that I was ill-suited for work as a diplomat, I became an environmental planner to heal the planet.
3. Become a detective. In your spare time, you obsess over old family stories that don’t make sense. How is it that your father survived to get out of Germany, but his cousin did not? Surely, your grandmother’s answer of luck doesn’t explain it. There are archives, books, videos, museums. Get on it.
4. Have children. When my parents came to visit shortly after we adopted my daughter, I realized that I’d finally fulfilled their wishes. A new generation had come. Dad was a great snuggler and joke-maker. But he still had a hard time talking about his childhood and was slow to answer when my kids inquired. I had to step into the breach. I found myself examining my memories and the family stories, once again trying to determine which ones were most important moving into the future.
5. Write about it. I started in my 20s, even before I had children. Reams and reams of paper about the demons, the heroes and luck in its various shades of gray. You might paint. Throw pots. Knit. Crochet. Create family dinners. Something that connects your heart, your head and the world.
Iscribbled, typed and researched for years before I called my project a memoir. I called it
“Stumbling Blocks” after the Stolpersteine, the small brass memorial plaques embedded in European sidewalks to remind the living of the Jews who used to live among them. Those who they forced to flee or who were deported to Auschwitz. Like my father, my grandparents and all their relatives, but with less luck.
I began to face the fact that we all stumble, that it is a good thing. We live in a complicated world. Stumbling blocks are the tip of the iceberg. Below them are demons, laws, newspaper articles, aspirations, luck and a crazy range of responses to reality. Certainly lots of tears. Outrage. Hope.
Maybe you’ll call yourself a child of survivors. Or a child of the Holocaust. Maybe you’ll just call yourself human.
But here’s what I know: Pain isn’t the end of the story. If you trace it far enough, you’ll find something else waiting — compassion, clarity, even joy.
Every time I dig into the past, I find a thread of resilience running through it. My father didn’t just escape; he rebuilt. He loved jokes. He loved parties, dancing and games. And he loved family. That’s something worth carrying forward. History doesn’t need to be about blaming and shaming. History needs to be about sharing, finding common threads, as well as different interpretations or meanings in the world that we inherited.
Memory is not a weight, but a tool. It builds bridges between generations, between strangers, between the living and the dead. And that is how pain becomes purpose.
That is how being stuck becomes being engaged.
Jennifer Krebs was an environmental planner. Write: Columnist@TheJewishStar.com
Israeli rabbi marries off fallen son’s ex-fiancée
By Canaan Lidor, JNS
Nearly two years after Capt. Amitai Tzvi Granot was killed fighting Hezbollah terrorists in the Galilee, his father, Rabbi Tamir Granot, officiated on Monday at the wedding in Caesarea of Amitai Tzvi’s former fiancée, Roni.
In an interview with JNS, Granot described the wedding as a joyous occasion that was nonetheless punctuated by some grief, and a testament to the Jewish people’s capacity for renewal despite catastrophic loss.
The idea of having Granot officiate at the wedding came from the bride, he said, adding that her request surprised him.
“She told us that we’re a part of the story [of her marriage], of the hope for life. And that Amitai is with her spiritually, and that my officiating at her wedding would be an expression of that presence,” said Granot, a prominent Religious-Zionist spiritual leader and head of the Orot Shaul hesder yeshiva in Tel Aviv’s Shapira neighborhood.
Amitai Tzvi Granot, 24, when he died, asked Roni to marry him shortly before he killed on Oct, 15, 2023, defending Shtula, a moshav on the border with Lebanon, from an incursion by Hezbollah terrorists. The weeks following his engagement “were the peak of his happiness in life,” Rabbi Granot said of his son.
At Amitai Tzvi’s funeral, Rabbi Granot was strug-
gling with his personal grief, that of his wife, Avivit, and their six children. Yet in that moment, he also considered Roni’s future. “I felt a statement, a cry, rising from within in me, that I needed to convey to Roni: I told her then: ‘Choose life’,” he recalled. Granot described feeling conflicting emotions at the wedding. He and his family “felt joy” at Roni’s wedding, he said. But there was also “pain, a feeling of terrible loss because it should have been Amitai getting married. Yes, also that feeling was in the mix. But then that gets replaced by happiness for Roni and her husband,” he said.
Roni was introduced to her husband by Tsofia Dickstein, a resident of Eli in Samaria. Her son,
Lt. Ivri Dickstein, was killed in action in Lebanon, a little over a year after Amitai Tzvi’s death.
Fighting in Israel’s north began on Oct. 8, 2023, when Hezbollah started firing rockets into Israel in solidarity with Hamas, which had invaded Israel from Gaza the previous day. Out of the 898 troops who have died since that day, 81 fell in the north. Another 326 were killed during the Hamas invasion, along with more than 870 civilians, and most of the remaining troops were killed in the Gaza Strip.
In November 2024, Lebanon accepted the terms of a ceasefire that required Hezbollah
to leave the border area and move north of the Litani River. Israel killed 3,500-4,000 of its terrorists, including its top command, before the ceasefire, and another 240 since then in strikes to enforce its terms, according to Tel Aviv University’s Institute for National Security Studies.
Hamas has also lost its top brass and the bulk of its ballistic capabilities. The Israel Defense Forces are deployed in the Gaza Strip ahead of a campaign to capture more of that territory to dismantle Hamas completely, Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir, the IDF chief of staff, authorized on Wednesday. Granot’s joy despite his personal grief is informed by his understanding of Jewish history and destiny, he said.
The word in Hebrew for “crisis,” mashber, also means the place where a woman gives birth, he noted. “So this realization that out of crisis comes birth is reflected in our language from millennia ago, it is part of our DNA and it’s the reason that not only were we able to withstand catastrophes that very few if any peoples recovered from, we were able to leverage them into betterment: They propelled us forward, we built on them,” he said. This was the case in the Holocaust, which boosted efforts to build a Jewish national home in Israel; the fateful Independence War of 1948, the Six-Day War and “very clearly after Oct. 7, 2023,” Granot added.
Rabbi Berel Wein: Beloved US rabbi in J’salem
“We mourn the passing of this unique rav, educator and communal leader and will remain forever indebted to him both for his enduring impact on Klal Yisrael and for his lifelong support and involvement in the work of the Orthodox Union,” the OU said. “Rabbi Wein was a uniquely impactful rav whose work, perspective and voice profoundly influenced generations of Orthodox Jewry.”
Jewish history, recorded more than 1,000 audio tapes and wrote regular newspaper columns in the Jewish and Israel press. He also authored and edited a monthly newsletter, The Wein Press, and appeared on public television in Israel as part of a program called “Ask the Rabbi.”
Rabbi Wein authored dozens of books in both Hebrew and English, focusing on Judaism and
Born in Chicago to a family descended from Lithuanian rabbis, he received semicha from the Hebrew Theological College, which was founded by his maternal grandfather, Rabbi Chaim Tzvi Rubinstein. At age 38 he became executive vice president of the OU, later heading OU Kosher for five years. He is credited with transforming kosher supervision in North America through his leadership of the OU’s Kashrut Division.
By Steve Linde, JNS
Rabbi Berel Wein, a charismatic and eloquent Illinois-born spiritual leader and scholar, educator and historian, writer and orator who made aliyah in 1997, was niftar in Jerusalem on Saturday at the age of 91.
Capt. Amitai Tzvi Granot.
Rabbi Tamir Granot officiates at the wedding of his late son’s ex-fiancée in Caesarea on Aug. 11.
Hofman…
Continued from page 12
spray. Set aside.
In a bowl, mix together the beef, parsley, salt and pepper. Pat into 8 rounds. Work 1 round over each egg half to cover completely. Roll in the beaten egg, then in breadcrumbs. Place on prepared baking sheet.
Bake in preheated oven until meat is beginning to brown, about 15 minutes. Serve at room temperature.
Perfect Hard-Cooked Eggs: Place in one layer in a pot. Pour water over to come about an inch above the eggs. Bring to a rolling boil. Continue for 3 minutes. Turn off heat, cover, and let stand on burner for 10 minutes. Pour off the hot water. Crack shells with a heavy spoon. Under cold running water, peel off shells beginning at the narrow end.
Butterfly Cakes (Dairy)
Makes 12
Cook’s Tips: •Any preserves may be used instead of frosting. •Use paper muffin liners to line muffin pans. •If frosting becomes too stiff, zap in the microwave for 7 seconds.
Ingredients:
• 1 stick (4 oz.) butter, softened
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 3/4 cup all-purpose flour
• 2-1/2 tsp. baking powder
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract
Frosting:
• 6 Tbsp. butter, softened
• 1-1/2 cups confectioner’s sugar
• 1 tsp. milk or cream
• Confectioners’ sugar for dusting (optional)
Directions:
Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Line a 12cup muffin pan with paper liners.
In a bowl, beat the butter and sugar until pale, 1 to 2 minutes. Beat in eggs, one at a time, with 1/4 cup flour, beating well between each addition.
Add remaining 1/4 cup flour, baking powder and vanilla extract. Beat well to blend. Mixture will be smooth and creamy. Bake in preheated oven, 15 minutes or until risen and golden-brown. Lift out of muffin pan and cool on wire rack.
Prepare frosting: Beat the butter and sugar until pale, about 1 minute. If too stiff, add a little milk or cream, sparingly, to make a spreadable mixture.
To assemble: With a sharp knife, slice the
top off of each cupcake. Cut in half to resemble two wings. Spread the top of the cupcake with frosting and place the wings on top, like butterfly wings. Dust with confectioners’ sugar (optional).
Sticky Toffee Pudding (Dairy)
Serves 10 to 12
Cook’s Tips: •May use salted butter instead of unsalted. •Chopped dates are available in markets. •Use baking soda, not baking powder, to add to dates.
Ingredients:
• 1-1/4 cups chopped pitted dates
• 3/4 cup boiling water
• 1 tsp. baking soda
• 6 Tbsp. unsalted butter, softened
• 2 Tbsp. molasses
• 1/4 cup brown sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1-1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 tsp. baking powder
• butter to grease baking dish
Sauce:
• 1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened
• 1-1/2 cups brown sugar
• 1 Tbsp. molasses
• 3/4 cup heavy cream
Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Lightly grease an 11x8-inch baking dish. Place the dates, boiling water and baking soda in a medium bowl. Stir and set aside for 15 minutes.
In a separate bowl, beat the butter and molasses until blended. Add the sugar, one egg and 1/4 cup flour. Beat to blend. Add the remaining egg with 1/4 cup flour and beat to blend. Add the remaining 3/4 cup flour gradually, beating well between each addition. Add the baking powder with last addition. Pour the chopped date mixture over the batter. Stir with a wooden spoon to blend thoroughly. Pour into the prepared baking dish.
Bake in preheated oven for 35 to 40 minutes or until firm in center. As soon as cake is out of the oven, prick all over with a fork. Pour about half the sauce over. Set aside for 30 minutes.
To serve, cut into squares and pass the remaining sauce to spoon over.
Prepare the sauce: While cake is baking, melt butter, brown sugar and molasses in a pan over lowest heat. Stir in the cream and turn heat to medium. Stir often. When it begins to bubble, remove from heat. Use as above. Put a lid on the remaining sauce to keep warm.
Write: Columnist@TheJewishStar.com
Jewish Star Torah columnists: Rabbi Benny Berlin, spiritual leader of BACH Jewish Center in Long Beach; Rabbi Avi Billet of Anshei Chesed, Boynton Beach, FL, mohel and Five Towns native; Rabbi Binny Freedman, rosh yeshiva of Orayta, Jerusalem; Dr. Alan A. Mazurek, former ZOA chair, retired neurologist, living in Great Neck, Jerusalem and Florida.
Contributing writers: Rabbi Sir Jonathan Sacks zt”l, former chief rabbi of United Hebrew Congregations of British Commonwealth; Rabbi Yossy Goldman, president South African Rabbinical Association; Rabbi Dr. Tzvi Hersh Weinreb, OU executive VP emeritus.
Five Towns Candlelighting: From the White Shul, Far Rockaway, NY
Scarsdale Candlelighting: From the Young Israel of Scarsdale, Scarsdale, NY
Tzedakah’s unique, an untranslatable virtue
rabbi Sir JonaThan
SaCkS zt”l
Tucked away in this week’s sedra, almost as an aside in the course of explaining the law of shemittah (the year of “release” in which debts were cancelled), is one of Judaism’s most majestic institutions, the principle of tzedakah: If there is a poor man among your brothers in any of the towns of the land that the L-rd your G-d is giving you, do not be hard-hearted or tightfisted towards your poor brother. Rather, be openhanded and freely lend him sufficient for his need in that which he lacks.
Tzedakah lies at the heart Judaism’s understanding of mitzvoth bein adam le-chavero, interpersonal duties. An idea going back 4,000 years, it remains challenging today. To understand it, though, a brief historical note is necessary.
In a key passage in Bereishit — the only passage in which the Torah explains why G-d singled out Abraham to be the founder of a new faith — we read:
Then the L-rd said, “Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do? Abraham will surely become a great and powerful nation, and all the nations of the earth will be blessed through him. For I have chosen him so that he will direct his children and his household after him to keep the way of the L-rd by doing what is right and just, so that the L-rd will bring about for Abraham what He has promised him.
The “way of the L-rd” is defined here by two words, tzedakah and mishpat. They are both forms of justice but are quite different in their logic.
Mishpat means retributive justice. It refers to the rule of law, through which disputes are settled by right rather than might. Law distinguishes between innocent and guilty. It establishes a set of rules, binding on all, by means of which the members of a society act in such a way as to pursue their own interests without infringing on the rights and freedoms of others.
But mishpat alone cannot create a good society. To it must be added tzedakah, distributive justice.
One can imagine a society which fastidiously observes the rule of law and yet contains so much inequality that wealth is concentrated into the hands of the few, and many are
left without the most basic requirements of a dignified existence. There must be justice not only in how the law is applied, but also in how the means of existence — wealth as G-d’s blessing — are distributed. That is tzedakah
Maimonides, in his halachic code the Mishneh Torah, makes a fascinating observation: “We have never seen or heard of a Jewish community without a tzedakah fund.”
Thus far, deliberately, I have left the word tzedakah untranslated. It cannot be translated, and this is not accidental. The word is untranslatable into a system like Judaism that values humility and the kind of dignity that attaches to the person as such, regardless of their income or social position.
Tzedakah cannot be translated because it joins together two concepts that in other languages are opposites, namely charity and justice. Suppose, for example, that I give someone £100. Either he is entitled to it, or he is not. If he is, then my act is a form of justice. If he is not, it is an act of charity. In English (as with the Latin terms caritas and iustitia) a gesture of charity cannot be an act of justice, nor can an act of justice be described as charity. Tzedakah is therefore an unusual term, because it means both. It arises from the theology of Judaism, which insists on the difference between possession and ownership. Ultimately, all things are owned by G-d, creator of the world. What we possess, we do not own — we merely hold it in trust for G-d. If there were absolute ownership, there would be a difference between justice (what we are bound to give others) and charity (what we give others out of generosity). The former would be a legally enforceable duty, the latter, at best, the prompting of benevolence or sympathy. In Judaism, however, because we are not owners of our property but merely guardians on G-d’s behalf, we are bound by the conditions of trusteeship, one of which is that we share part of what we have with others in need. What would be regarded as charity in other legal systems is, in Judaism, a strict requirement of the law and can, if necessary, be enforced by the courts.
The nearest English equivalent to tzedakah is the phrase that came into existence alongside the idea of a welfare state, namely social justice. Behind both is the idea that no one should be without the basic requirements of existence, and that those who have more than they need must share some of that surplus with those who have less. This is fundamental to the kind of society the Israelites were charged with
There must be justice not only in how the law is applied, but also in how the means of existence — wealth as G-d’s blessing — are distributed. That is tzedakah.
creating, namely one in which everyone has a basic right to a dignified life and equal worth as citizens in the covenantal community under the sovereignty of G-d.
Tzedakah concerns not just physical needs but psychological ones also. The rabbis gave the following interpretation of the key sentence in this week’s sedra, “Be open-handed and freely lend him sufficient for his need in that which he lacks”:
Sufficient for his need — means that you are commanded to maintain him, but you are not commanded to make him rich. That which he lacks — means even a horse to ride on and a slave to run before him. It is told of Hillel the elder that he bought for a certain poor man of good family a horse to ride on and a slave to run before him. On one occasion he could not find a slave to run before him, so he himself ran before him for three miles.
The first provision (“sufficient for his need”) refers to an absolute subsistence level. In Jewish law this was taken to include food, housing, basic furniture and, if necessary, funds to pay for a wedding.
The second (“that which he lacks”) means relative poverty — relative, however, not to others but to the individual’s own previous standard of living. This is an indication of something which plays an important role in the rabbinic understanding of poverty. Beyond sheer physical needs is a psychological dimension. Poverty humiliates, and a good society will not allow humiliation.
Protecting dignity and avoiding humiliation was a systematic element of rabbinical law. So, for example, the rabbis ruled that even the richest should be buried plainly so as not to shame the poor. On certain festive days girls, especially those from wealthy families, had to wear borrowed clothes, “so as not to shame those who
do not have.” The rabbis intervened to lower the prices of religious necessities so that no one would be excluded from communal celebrations. Work conditions had to be such that employees were treated with basic respect. Here, the proof text was G-d’s declaration, “For to Me the children of Israel are servants” — meaning that they were not to be treated as servants of any human being. Freedom presupposes self-respect, and a free society will therefore be one that robs no one of that basic human entitlement.
One element of self-respect is independence. This explains a remarkable feature of tzedakah legislation. Maimonides lists the various levels of giving-to-others, all except one of which involve philanthropy. The supreme act, however, does not:
The highest degree, exceeded by none, is that of one who assists a poor person by providing him with a gift or a loan or by accepting him into a business partnership or by helping him find employment - in a word by putting him in a situation where he can dispense with other people’s aid. With reference to such aid it is said, “You shall strengthen him, be he a stranger or a settler, he shall live with you” (Leviticus 25:35), which means strengthen him in such a manner that his falling into want is prevented.
This ruling is the result of a profound wrestling, within Judaism, with the fact that aid in the form of charity can itself be humiliating for the recipient. (One of the most powerful expressions of this is to be found in birkat hamazon, the Grace after Meals, when we say, “We beseech You, G-d our L-rd, let us not be in need of the gifts of men or of their loans, but only of Your helping hand … so that we may not be put to shame nor humiliated for ever and ever”).
See Rabbi Sacks: Tzedakah on page 22
Only a partial teshuva, done with a full heart
In Devarim 11:26 we read, “See, I set before you today a blessing and a curse.” Imagine standing before two clearly marked paths, one leading upward toward light and one fading into shadow, and knowing the choice is entirely yours. Parshas Re’eh opens with this challenge to look with clarity at the direction we are taking.
This Shabbos is Shabbos Mevarchim, when we bless the coming month of Elul. Elul places that same challenge before each of us: will this be a season of real movement toward personal growth, or another year of remaining exactly as we are?
We know the ideal. The Rambam in Hilchos Teshuva describes complete return as abandoning a sin entirely, removing it from our thoughts, resolving never to return, and reaching a point where G-d Himself could testify that we will not
repeat it. That is the gold standard, yet many of us feel far from it. Our reality is often more modest: less gossip, more patience, a bit more concentration during tefillah. Can such partial steps truly matter?
The Mishnah at the end of Yoma points us toward an encouraging answer. Rabbi Akiva teaches that G-d purifies us in two ways: like a mikvah, which requires total immersion, and like the sprinkling of the Parah Adumah, which can purify with even a single drop. The mikvah represents those rare moments when we are completely immersed in change, such as Ne’ilah on Yom Kippur. The sprinkling represents the steady, smaller steps we take daily. Both count. Both transform.
Ihave three small sons, and bath time is an important routine in the Berlin home. I know my two-year-old will get dirty again very quickly, but I never say I am not going to bother bathing him because the cleanliness will be short-lived. I know there is a good chance my children will get dirty between bath time and bedtime, but I bathe them anyway. Without regular cleansing, the dirt builds up.
Young Jewish students who are just beginning to study world history are often surprised to learn that early theorists of socialism and communism were Jews. Having been raised in essentially capitalist countries, they cannot fathom the fact that a large percentage of early supporters of those movements, especially in Russia and in Eastern Europe, were Jews themselves.
During the many years I served as a pulpit rabbi, I would meet regularly with a group of teenagers from my synagogue. Our discussions ranged across a wide spectrum of topics, and more than once the question was posed to me, “Rabbi, what attracted so many members of our faith to socialism and communism?”
Like all such general questions, there is not one simple answer. I explained that to the teenagers. But I did assert that one component of that phenomenon was connected to our religion and its values.
Even if the child will be messy again before bedtime, each bath teaches the joy of feeling clean. Elul and the High Holidays work the same way. Even if we know we will stumble again, we wash away the year’s buildup so we can remember what it feels like to be pure.
The Shem Mishmuel notes that the shofar recalls “Vayipach B’Apav Nishmas Chayim,” when G-d breathed His essence into us as a living soul. Blowing the shofar acknowledges that spark and reminds us it is still there. Teshuva uncovers that spark, even for a moment, so we remember who we truly are.
A young girl once walked into a jewelry store in Israel, pointed to a $3,000 bracelet, and said she wanted to buy it for her older sister who had been caring for her since their parents died. She emptied her pocket, offering less than eight
shekels, and the storekeeper told her it was exactly the right price, wrapping the bracelet as she wrote a card. Later, the older sister arrived to return it, insisting her sibling could not have paid, but the jeweler replied that she had paid in full with seven shekels, 80 agurot, and a broken heart.
This is Elul. We point to a bracelet, a year of blessing, health, and redemption, something far beyond what we could afford spiritually. We place on the counter our few mitzvos, our sincere promises, and our heartfelt tears. And G-d, our Father in Heaven, looks at us with love and says, “You have paid in full.”
As we enter Elul, let us strive for as much teshuva as we can. This week, choose one small area to improve, whether it is a single blessing recited with full concentration, a moment of patience, or an opportunity to hold back from gossip, and make it yours. Make it sincere. May our efforts, however imperfect, rise before G-d as fully accepted, so that we may be blessed with a year of growth, joy, and a deep and enduring connection to the Almighty.
Write: Columnist@TheJewishStar.com
Undoubtedly, many who were attracted to those movements in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century were, to some extent, influenced by a desperate need to heal the rampant poverty that typified the human condition throughout history, especially since the Industrial Revolution. That desperate need was consistent with the religious teachings that these individuals imbibed in their formative years.
Generally, by the time they became active members of these new movements they had
Are you into the TV show “American Idols?”
Do you enjoy watching all that talent on television? What about other “idols?”
In this week’s Torah reading, Re’eh, Moses warns the Jewish people not to follow the pagan ways of the Canaanite nations when they inherit the Land of Israel. There is to be zero tolerance for idolatry and paganism. Those nations practiced the most outrageous forms of idolatry, including child sacrifice and other depravities. The great Torah scholar Rashi quotes Rabbi Akiva as saying he’d witnessed a pagan man tie up his own father and then unleash a pack of wild dogs who killed the father. Such was the norm in that ancient pagan society. The Israelites were taught repeatedly not to learn from them in any way.
The Torah offers three examples of how people may be swayed and seduced into idolatry.
The first is by listening to a false prophet. Such a charismatic individual may lure people away from Jewish values, charming them and
tempting them to embrace an idolatrous path.
The second is when a family member or friend incites, instigates or persuades others to practice idolatry.
The third example is when an entire city is overcome by temptation and swept up into practicing idolatry. This is called a “wayward city,” when a whole town has gone astray and engages in paganism.
The whole thing sounds rather ancient and archaic. People today are not into idolatry. I don’t know of anyone who is tempted to go out and buy a statue and get on his or her knees to bow down to it. But there are still lots of “idols” out there that we may be tempted to worship.
For instance, even today we have false prophets — powerful and charismatic spiritual leaders who command the obedience of many followers. We’ve even read or heard about the tragic outcomes of some of these strange cults where a magnetic personality led his people to disaster or mass suicide.
We’ve seen family members and the wrong kind of friends mislead individuals and drag them down to the depths of despair and desperation.
And today we’ve even seen entire communities, cities, and sometimes even whole countries,
long since rejected Jewish belief and Jewish observance. But the imprint of their family environment and cheder education remained alive and motivated the political direction they took as they approached adulthood.
The roots of the Jewish attitude toward poverty are to be found in this week’s Torah portion, Re’eh, which contains upwards of 100 mitzvot (the exact number debated by various authorities). How many of these commandments do you think relate to the themes of poverty and charity?
I count at least 20. They include tithes to the Priests, Levites, and to the poor, especially widows and orphans; to walk in the paths of the gracious L-rd; to fear the L-rd and to cleave to Him and to His Torah sages; to protest against those who persecute others; that members of the Israelite nation display compassion toward each other; to forgive debts with the approach of the seventh year of the shemittah cycle; to avoid becoming dependent on charity oneself; to conform to the priorities among charitable causes; not to
be cold-hearted when distributing charity; not to be stingy; to free a Hebrew slave after six years of service, to reward him or her generously at the conclusion of their term of service, and to always remember that we were all once slaves in Egypt!
Quite a list, wouldn’t you say? No wonder so many of our co-religionists were deluded by the new political and economic movements that vainly promised to defeat poverty once and for all! The fact remains, however, that poverty exists, even in our own circles. Indeed, the gap between needy Jews and affluent ones has demonstrably increased in recent years. Dire poverty has been exacerbated by the current post-October 7 war. How apt are the words we read this Shabbat: “For there will never cease to be needy ones in your land, which is why I command you: open your hand to the poor and needy kinsman in your land.” (Deut. 15:11)
The above verse is severely disappointing. “Never cease!”? Ever? Yet it is reaffirmed by at least one Talmudic passage, in Tractate
being swept up in a strange ideology that is different and dangerous.
So, I was wondering, of these three examples, which do you think is the hardest to resist?
For people who lack self-esteem and are easily influenced by others, perhaps the first two situations may be the most difficult to resist. Yet I imagine that for most of us, it is the third scenario, where an entire city is caught up in paganism, that may be the most difficult of all to resist.
Why?
Because it’s one thing to resist a powerful, charismatic individual or a few friends who want to tempt you into doing something you know is wrong, but to reject what your whole town is doing takes unusual strength of character.
When everyone else is doing something, most people just follow the herd. If everyone else says “Yes,” who am I to say “No?” I don’t want to be different. People don’t enjoy standing out in a crowd and being looked at as funny
or peculiar. Who wants to stick out like a sore thumb? No one!
A person may think, “Well, if everyone else is bowing down to those idols it must be OK. So, why shouldn’t I?”
What about worshipping idols of stage and screen? Are you a “Swifty?” Who do you “follow?” Today, we are blessed with a host of self-appointed celebrities who have absolutely nothing of significance to offer other than an attractive face. And yet they have millions of followers!
To me, the biggest “idolatry” of all is to follow the norm.
What is the “norm?”
Is getting divorced “normal?” If so many others are doing it, then why shouldn’t I? Why should I work at my marriage? It’s too hard. I’ll just get divorced. After all, it’s “normal.”
If the standard business practice in my industry is to bribe your way to get that big order, then why shouldn’t I do it as well?
And if the norm in my school is to cheat on exams, then why shouldn’t I? Everyone else is. And if the norm in my community is that Shabbat ends on Friday night and Saturday is for golf or the hairdresser, then why must I be
It’s Jerusalem, original shining city on the hill
DR. ALAN MAZUREK
Sometimes your enemies inadvertently reveal what is most important and valuable to you.
Pharaoh killed the male children born in his kingdom because he thought one would arise to threaten his power to rule. (About that he was correct.)
Haman and Hitler both saw the Jews as a threat to their evil rule. (As Hitler put it, the Jews are “the conscience of the world.”)
As for Hamas, you can find their reason for wanting to kill us is in the name they gave to their Oct. 7 pogrom — the Al-Aqsa Flood. AlAqsa, of course, is their mosque on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem; the Temple Mount is the heart of Jerusalem, and Jerusalem is the key to the entirety of the Holy Land. Take the heart and the land dies.
Jerusalem was not always the capital of Israel — it was not under King Saul and for the first seven years under King David (when the capital was Hebron). The name Yerushalayim does not appear in Torah except as an oblique reference to the city of Shalem (Breishit 14:18) — but it is mentioned almost 700 times in the Neviim and Ketuvim (and not once in the Quran).
This week’s parsha, Re’eh, speaks of the different occasions when Jews were required to make a pilgrimage to bring their offerings and prayers to Hashem.
For most of our history that was the Holy Temple in Jerusalem and yet Jerusalem is nowhere mentioned. Rather we find these words: “Ba Makom” or “Ha Makom” or “asher yivchar Hashem” (in the place or the place that Hashem will choose). That phrase is used 21 times in Torah, all in sefer Devarim, 16 of which appear in Re’eh.
Rambam suggests that the name was not explicitly stated so as to avoid inciting jealousy among the tribes who would desire that “the place that Hashem your G-d will choose” be in their allotted portion. Only after David Hamelech purchased the land and gave it its name did it establish itself as the one and only place of permanent kedusha, holiness.
Jerusalem possessed a kedusha that remains eternal, at least according to the Rambam, even if Kedushat Eretz Yisrael has been lost. That is because of the eternal presence of the Shechina, the Divine Presence.
Tosafot disagrees that the kedusha of Jerusalem remains once the Temple is destroyed but all agree that once the Holy Temple is restored, the kedusha returns to both Jerusalem and the Holy Land. As a result, thereafter no other places are permitted for karbanot (sacrifices), avoda (Temple worship), and terumot and maasrot (priestly gifts and tithes).
In our Re’eh, when we read multiple times of “the place that Hashem will choose” it is usually in the context of sacrifices brought to Hashem on “His Mizbe’ach, the altar of Hashem“ (Devarim 12:27). And immediately Hashem grants us a blessing (Ibid 12:28):
Shmor, v’shamata et kol hadevarim haeleh asher anochi metzaveka, l’man yitav lecha u’levanecha acharecha ad olam, ki taaseh hatov
v’hayashar b’enei Hashem Elokecha (safeguard and hearken to all these words that I command you, in order that it be well with you and your children after you forever, when you do what is good and right in the eyes of Hashem, your G-d).
What an extraordinarily powerful Bracha! Forever! For us and our children! This is the power of Kedushat Yerushalayim.
Which brings us to the title of this piece, Jerusalem as the “original shining city on the hill.” This is a term usually associated with President Ronald Reagan who, in 1989, used it to describe a vision of America, a prosperous and harmonious society open to all.
It actually predates Reagan by more than 350 years when John Winthrop referred to the Massachusetts Bay Colony of 1630 as an example to the world, highlighting the importance of unity, charity and Puritan religious devotion. But it goes back another 1000 years, to sefer Yirmiyahu chapter 30 verse 18: “Thus says Hashem: Behold! I am returning the captivity of the tents of Jacob and I will have mercy on his abode, and the city will be built upon its hill, and the palace will sit in its proper place.”
Virtually all commentators agree that the chapter and verse refer to the time of the Acharit Hayamim (the End of Days, the days of the Moshiach), with the “palace,” the Beit HaMikdash, and “the city to be built upon the hill” is Jerusalem.
The Hebrew words for “the city will be built upon its hill“ are “v’nivnita ir al te’la,” something recognizable to many of us because we say it every Friday night in the poetic prayer L’cha Dodi. Written by Rabbi Shlomo HaLevi Alkabetz (1505-1584), he calls out to a forlorn Jerusalem: Lo teivoshi, v’lo tikalmi, mah tishtochachi u’mah tehemi (Feel not ashamed, be not humiliated. Why are you downcast? Why are you disconsolate?)
Bach yechesu aniyei ami, v’nivnita ir al te’la
(in you will my peoples’ afflicted, find shelter, as the city is built upon its hill).
The first part of the stanza, “Feel not ashamed,” is taken from the prophet Yeshayahu (54:4) which we will read in a few weeks in the haftara for parshat Ki Tezeh. But the latter part of the stanza refers to “the city built upon its hill? from the prophet Yirmiyahu quoted above.
This is the power of a restored and rebuilt Jerusalem. Not only will it serve as a shelter for the downtrodden, what’s more the verse specifically says ,“Behold I am returning the captivity of the tents of Jacob and I will have mercy on his abodes.”
It’s actually more understandable in the original Hebrew, “Hineni shav shevut, Ohalei Yaakov, u’mishkenotav arachem (Behold, I Hashem am returning the captives and on the inhabitants of all the tents of Jacob I will have mercy).” The captives, not only the hostages, but all of us, the returnees, even outside the land of Israel! We will be returning home! Like a powerful magnet, the Shechina eternally present in Jerusalem, that city on the hill, will draw us back.
If you want to derive some nechama (comfort) in this time of travail, read that short chapter 30 of sefer Jeremiah. Not only will we return to Jerusalem, but those who seek to stop us, do us evil, destroy us, will themselves be destroyed. As the last three verses conclude:
Behold the storm of Hashem: a rage shall go forth, a tempest shall seek rest; it will rest upon the head of the wicked. Hashem’s burning wrath will not recede until He has accomplished it, and until He has upheld the plans of His heart; in the End of Days you will understand it. At that time — the word of Hashem — I will be G-d for all the families of Israel, and they will be a people for Me. Shabbat Shalom.
Write: Columnist@TheJewishStar.com
Published weekly except during certain religious and civil holidays by The Jewish Star LLC New York City office: 5676 Riverdale Ave Suite 311, Bronx NY 10471 • LI office: 2 Endo Blvd, Garden City NY 11530 Here’s how to reach The Jewish Star — Write: Editor@TheJewishStar.com. Call: 516-622-7461 ext 291
Editor & Publisher: Ed Weintrob
516-622-7461 ext 291
Jewish Star Associate: Nechama Bluth
516-622-7461 ext 241
Content: The Publisher endeavors to ensure that our content is within the bounds of normative halachah and hashkafah. Anyone who feels anything we publish may be inappropriate in this regard is urged to bring the item in question to the attention of the Publisher.
Advertising is accepted at the sole discretion of the Publisher and should conform to standards appropriate for distribution in an Orthodox community. Send us your news! Editor@TheJewishStar.com
Advertising: Publisher@TheJewishStar.com
Kashrut: The Jewish Star is not responsible for the
kashrut of any product or establishment featured in its pages. If you have questions regarding any establishment or product, including its supervision, please consult your rabbi for guidance.
Submissions: All submissions become the property of The Jewish Star and may be edited and used by the Publisher, its licensees and affiliates, in print, on the web and/or in any media that now exists or will exist in the future in any form, including derivative works, throughout the world in perpetuity, without additional authorization or compensation. The individual or entity submitting material affirms that it holds the copyright or otherwise has the right to authorize its use in accordance with The Jewish Star’s terms for submissions.
Opinions: Views expressed by columnists and other writers do not necessarily reflect the position of the Publisher or of The Jewish Star LLC.
Distribution: The Jewish Star is available free in kosher food establishments, stores, synagogues, and curb-side newsboxes on Long Island, in New York City and elsewhere. To request free delivery to your location, write Publisher@TheJewishStar.com.
Copyright: All content is copyright and may not be republished or otherwise reproduced without written permission by The Jewish Star; to do so without permission is against the law and halacha. For content reproduction write to Publisher@TheJewishStar.com.
The Jewish Star subscribes to JNS. It, or its contributors, own the copyrights on material attributed to them. The length and content of JNS material and all other submitted material may be edited by The Jewish Star. Member: American Jewish Press Association. This newspaper contains words of Torah. While it is not considered shaimos, please dispose properly.
OPINION COLUMNISTS
Mitchell Bard, foreign policy analyst, authority on USIsreal relations; Ben Cohen, senior analyst, Foundation for Defense of Democracies; Stephen Flatow, president, Religious Zionists of America-Mizrachi and father of Alisa Flatow, murdered in an Iranian-sponsored Palestinian terrorist attack in 1995; Yisrael Medad, Americanborn Israeli journalist and political commentator; Rafael Medoff, founding director of David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies; Fiamma Nirenstein, Italian-Israeli journalist, author of 13 books, leading voice on Israeli affairs, Middle Eastern politics and antisemitism; Melanie Phillips, British journalist; Moshe Phillips, national chairman, Americans for a Safe Israel; Thane Rosenbaum, Distinguished University Professor at Touro University (published by Jewish Journal); Jonathan S. Tobin, editor-in-chief, Jewish News Syndicate.
Why Dreyfus matters now more than ever
For as long as people have cared about the arts, the question about whether one’s personal foibles or even crimes are more important than their work has always bedeviled audiences and critics. Perhaps no artist has embodied that dilemma more fully than the film director Roman Polanski, whose 2019 film “An Officer and a Spy” about the Alfred Dreyfus case 130 years ago in France is belatedly receiving a first screening in the United States with a limited engagement at the Film Forum in New York’s Greenwich Village.
The 91-year-old Polanski, who survived the Holocaust as a boy, is responsible for a long list of highly respected films, such as “The Pianist” (2002), “Chinatown” (1974) and the psychological thriller “Rosemary’s Baby” (1968), all of which won Oscar awards. His second wife, actress Sharon Tate, was murdered by the Charles Manson cult in 1969 in one of the most publicized crimes of the 20th century.
But his legacy is forever linked to the fact that he has himself been a fugitive from American justice since 1978, when he fled the country the day before he was to be sentenced by a California court for drugging and raping a 13-year-old girl.
Polanski had agreed to a plea bargain that would have had him confined to a psychiatric facility for three months; however, he learned that the judge was going to reject it and sentence him to 50 years in jail. He escaped to France, safe from extradition because of his French citizenship, eventually remarrying, raising a family and resuming his career, as well as continuing to win accolades for his work.
Fugitive from justice
Since then, Polanski has been accused by other women of abuse during his time in Hollywood in the 1970s, but he has always seemed to consider himself more a victim, whether of the justice system and especially the press, than a criminal. He managed to avoid any accountability until 2009, when he was arrested in Switzerland at the request of the United States. But a Zurich court rejected the American extradition
request and freed him. Though reportedly the Interpol alert issued in 1978 that had limited his travel to France, Switzerland and his native Poland is still in effect, he is no longer on its wanted list.
The difficult question of whether his crime should mean that his work shouldn’t be seen has been revived with the New York showing of the French-language “An Officer and a Spy,”
which was originally shown in France under the title “J’ACCUSE” Indeed, the Film Forum posted a trigger warning about it on its website, acknowledging that many believe that the director’s work ought not to be shown because of his sexual-assault conviction and other allegations.
The film won a raft of important European film awards, including multiple Césars, known as the French Oscars. But in the wake of the rise of the #MeToo movement in 2017, some denounced the acclaim it received, and it didn’t get a distributor in the United States. Nor was it ever released on home video in the American market. While many in the film industry had rallied to his defense during his Swiss imprisonment, the ranks of those actors and fellow directors willing to speak up for him either out of friendship or respect for his artistic genius have thinned.
because of its director’s crime, the best film made about the ‘Affair’ belatedly arrives in the US, posing difficult ethical, artistic and political questions.
The debate about Polanski and this film has been exacerbated by the fact that he was open about saying that he identifies closely with the fate of Alfred Dreyfus, the French Jewish military officer falsely accused of treason and sent to Devil’s Island before eventually being vindicated. Dreyfus, however, was innocent. Polanski was clearly guilty of the crime for which he was to be sentenced. The comparison is absurd — an insult to the memory of Dreyfus and an illustration of the director’s insufferable narcissism. Though Polanski may be deplored as an individual, the film is certainly worth seeing. It is based on the brilliant novel “An Officer and a Spy” by the British author David Harris, who was encouraged to write about the subject by Polanski. That’s beyond off-putting, but both the book and the movie provide as good an introduction to a case that has been the subject of innumerable volumes as well as a few cinematic adaptations. Indeed, if one were to see just a single film about the case, it would have to be this one. It’s far superior to any previous such effort, including the 1937 “The Life of Emile Zola,” the 1958 “I Accuse” and the 1993 “Prisoner of Honor,” all of which had some virtues.
Tobin: Dreyfus matters on page 23
Rally at the César Film Awards Ceremony in 2020 against the nominations of Roman Polanski’s French film “An Officer and a Spy.” Aurelien Meunier, Getty Images via JNS
A monument to French Jewish artillery Capt. Alfred Dreyfus in Tel Aviv. Dr. Avishai Teicher via WikiCommons
The human suffering that protesters write off
GLOBAL
Several million people around the world have participated in pro-Hamas demonstrations since the Islamist organization’s atrocities in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. Nearly every major city has been the location of one or more of these “From the river to the sea” spectacles.
There can be no doubt: The cause of Palestine has seized the world’s imagination with an intensity that has surpassed other major conflicts in recent memory, like Vietnam or Iraq. Palestine is a cause with which most of them have no direct connection — for example, through family members, friends and work colleagues, or because their own country’s troops are on the ground. Still, in downtown neighborhoods from Los Angeles to London, from Milan to Dhaka, from Cape Town to Kuala Lumpur and from Toronto to Sydney, protesters come in droves, banging drums, draped in keffiyehs and brandishing Palestinian flags alongside elaborate banners and scrawled homemade signs muttering darkly about “Zionist” influence.
With the war in Gaza entering what may be its most difficult phase, there is little reason to believe that the clamor in the streets, echoing discordantly throughout the media and in the halls of government, will quiet down.
The reasons for this present state of affairs
‘The
are debated endlessly — and with increasing anxiety — among Jews as we witness the rising tide of hatred lapping at our communities. But that debate is not going to be my focus here.
These days, we rarely discuss the impact of our Gaza-centric culture on the wars, humanitarian crises and heartbreaking atrocities taking place outside the coastal enclave. The lack of attention, lack of interest and lack of empathy when it comes to those human-made disasters are the collateral damage of the world’s fixation upon Palestine.
In Syria, the Kurdish factions that bravely allied with the United States to defeat ISIS are being squeezed by the new regime of Ahmad alSharaa, which was bolstered last week by the military accord signed with Turkey. Using the war in Gaza as cover, the authoritarian regime of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has stepped up its attacks on the Kurds. And yet, the outside world remains largely unmoved by his neo-Ottoman imperial foreign policy.
In Sudan — without question the world’s most pressing humanitarian crisis — more than 100,000 people have been killed and 15 million displaced as the civil war there approaches its second anniversary. Cholera has spread. Amid all the coverage of the breakdown of the aid delivery system in Gaza, few have noticed that only 10% of the funds for the U.N.’s $4 billion relief plan in Sudan are in place, resulting in brutal cuts to programs ranging from children’s education to support for local farmers.
writer Bernard Henri-Levy asserted in the Wall Street Journal following a recent visit to Sudan. “To open one’s eyes is a duty.”
IThe fighting between the central government and the rebel Rapid Support Forces has led to serious atrocities targeting civilians, including executions and mass rapes. At the Zamzam camp for displaced persons in Darfur, an RSF fighter who arrived moments before an appalling massacre last April screamed, “Come out, falangayat [slaves]!” — a racist barb directed against the camp’s African inhabitants. Then the bullets started flying, striking women, children and men indiscriminately.
“To refuse to hear is a shame,” the French
That message is not restricted to Sudan alone. One of the most harrowing aspects of the ongoing Russian aggression against Ukraine has been the abduction of at least 20,000 Ukrainian children (many believe that number may be much higher) by Russian forces. According to Yale University’s Humanitarian Research Lab, around half of them are being held at 57 different facilities, mostly in Russia, along with a few in Belarus, its neighbor aligned with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
ilar size. After all, Russia’s actions have been monstrous; in the Russian-occupied Ukrainian city of Luhansk, the authorities have gone as far as creating a database advertising more than 300 Ukrainian children for “adoption,” providing descriptions of their physical appearances and highlighting such character traits as “obedient” and “respectful to adults.”
If the concern for Palestine was truly based on universal principles of justice, then the plight of these children would surely have sparked international demonstrations of a sim-
As Mykola Kuleba, CEO of the Save Ukraine organization, told the New York Post: “This is not adoption. This is not care. This is digital child trafficking, masked as bureaucracy.” Other advocates have noted that the online marketing of these children is a gift to pedophiles and other abusers. Certainly, the testimonies of the small number of youngsters who have managed to return to their families
See Cohen on page 22
Green Prince’ and the truth about Hamas
n a quiet room at Israel’s soon-to-be inaugurated October 7 Museum, Mosab Hassan Yousef — the son of Hamas co-founder Sheikh Hassan Yousef who is known as “The Green Prince” — looked at the evidence of Hamas’s atrocities and spoke the truth that too many still refuse to hear: “Hamas is not just at war with Israel. It is at war with Jews, Christians and the very foundations of civilization itself.”
Yousef knows this from the inside. Raised in a home steeped in Hamas ideology, he was taught from childhood that Jews must be killed, Christians eliminated, and “infidels” subjugated. He was beaten at school, indoctrinated on the streets, and expected to take his place in a cult of death. Instead, he broke free, worked with Israeli intelligence to prevent countless terror attacks, and later embraced Christianity. His father disowned him and sentenced him to death.
When Yousef looks at Hamas’s hand-written instructions for Oct. 7, 2023 — orders to
A world fixated upon Palestine lacks empathy for those suffering elsewhere. Hamas seeks to replace
rape women, burn babies alive and kidnap hundreds — he doesn’t see aberrations. He sees the logical outcome of Hamas’s creed.
“This is not politics,” he told us. “This is a religious war. Its purpose is to replace Judaism and Christianity with radical Islam. If the world does not understand this, everyone will pay the price.”
He is right.
The “Al-Aqsa Flood,” as Hamas named its Oct. 7 attacks, was not about borders or blockades. It was framed explicitly as a religious conquest, part of a centuries-old war of replacement. In Hamas’s view, Judaism and Christianity are illegitimate faiths that must yield to Islam.
That is why Hamas teaches Palestinian children to glorify death, publishes math textbooks where subtraction problems involve dead Jews, and hands out Hitler’s Mein Kampf alongside the Quran in Gaza schools.
This is why Yousef calls Hamas a “death cult.” It does not seek compromise. It seeks annihilation.
And yet, despite the mountains of evidence — videos of atrocities, testimonies of survivors and confessions of captured terrorists — the world still looks away. International organizations rush to accuse Israel of “war crimes” while ignoring the very real war crimes of Hamas: mass rape, child murder, incineration and abduction.
“Here are 1,200 war crimes,” Yousef said, gesturing to the museum’s displays while referring to the 1,200 people murdered on Oct. 7. “And yet the world remains silent.”
His warning could not be clearer: Oct. 7 was not only Israel’s tragedy. It was the frontline of a civilizational struggle. If Hamas and its allies succeed, it will not end with the Jews. Christians and all free peoples are next.
Yousef has devoted his life to exposing this truth, often at great personal risk. “I dedicate myself to defending Israel and the Jewish people from this psychopathic war against Jews and Christians,” he declared. “If nobody listens, I will continue alone.”
The world cannot afford to ignore him. The son of Hamas is telling us plainly: this is a neo-Nazi religious war of extermination. Israel is on the front lines, but the battle is for all of us. The only moral response is to stand with Israel — unflinchingly, decisively, and without illusion. Because if Hamas’s “flood” is allowed to spread unchecked, it will not stop at the borders of Israel. It will drown us all.
Write: Columnist@TheJewishStar.com
Cholera-infected patients receive treatment from an isolation center at a refugee camp in western Sudan, on Aug. 14, 2025. AFP via Getty Images via JNS
Mosab Hassan Yousef speaks at a screening of uncensored footage from the Oct. 7. Noam Galai, Getty Images via JNS
Today’s Madonna is no friend to Gaza’s people
melanie phillips
British journalist
The superstar Madonna has urged the Pope Leo XIV to visit the Gaza Strip and “bring his light” to the children there “before it is too late.”
The singer pleaded on Instagram: “We need the humanitarian gates to be fully opened to save these innocent children. As a mother, I cannot bear to watch their suffering.”
Relations between Catholics and Jews are always fragile and often fraught.
After the history of the church’s murderous persecution of Jews in medieval Europe and the refusal by Pope Pius XII to denounce the Nazis, the church tried to repair relations through its penitential Nostra Aetate declaration in 1965.
Things went backward under Pope Francis, who died in April and was profoundly hostile to Israel. Although it was hoped that his successor, Leo XIV, would be an improvement, he has sadly adopted the Western narrative of Israel demonization.
Pope Leo has condemned the “ongoing military attacks against the civilian population and places of worship in Gaza”; expressed
concern about “the many dying of hunger”; and urged the world to stop Israel’s “collective punishment, the indiscriminate use of force and the forced displacement of populations.”
But the pope is repeating lies. No one in Gaza is dying of starvation; the Israel Defense Forces go to greater lengths to protect civilians on the battlefield than any other military force in the world; and there are no deliberate attacks on places of worship.
The tragic killing in July of three people at Gaza’s only Catholic church occurred after it was accidentally hit by an errant Israeli tank shell in an attack on a neighboring terrorist target.
In the same month, church leaders claimed that “settlers” had committed an arson attack against an ancient church in the Christian village of Taybeh in Judea and Samaria, the disputed “West Bank.” Vatican News claimed that “the fire nearly completely destroyed one of Palestine’s oldest religious buildings, the ruins of the fifth-century Byzantine church of St. George al-Khader.”
A subsequent investigation, however, found that this was totally false. There had been a blaze on nearby land that hadn’t even touched the church.
The current onslaught of lies about Israel demands moral clarity in response. By repeating these blood libels against Israel, the Catholic Church has instead joined those who have torn up truth, conscience and moral decency.
The onslaught of lies about Israel demands moral clarity in response. By repeating blood libels, the Church has instead joined those who have torn up truth, conscience and moral decency.
The theological overtones in the Church’s position, reflecting its profound and unceasing difficulty with accepting the continuing existence of the Jewish people and their redemption in the State of Israel, are unmistakable.
In Britain, Cardinal Vincent Nichols, archbishop of Westminster and president of the Bishops’ Conference, has condemned Israel’s plan to take control of Gaza City. “Already too much innocent blood has been shed; too many lives destroyed; too much hunger and starvation,” he said. “This war must be ended not increased.”
Worse was the context in which his remarks were framed. He made them celebrate
the feast day of someone he referred to as “Our Lady of Gaza, St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross.”
In fact, the original name of this Catholic nun was Edith Stein. Born into an Orthodox Jewish family in Germany in 1891, she became a Catholic 30 years later and was murdered in Auschwitz in 1942.
In 1933, identifying herself as both “a child of the Jewish people” and also “ a child of the Catholic Church,” she implored Pope Pius XI to intervene with Hitler on behalf of the Jews. In 1998, Pope John Paul II named her a patron saint of Europe. Stein’s canonization was deeply troubling.
See Phillips on page 22
World pulls a ‘Chamberlain’ on Ukraine, Israel
peTeR KinG
Retired Congressman
When Adolf Hitler was rearming the Nazi war machine in the early 1930s and beginning his invasions of neighboring nations under the guise of safeguarding Germans living in regions of those countries, Europe’s leaders chose to ignore reality and look the other way. Nothing was more shameful than the Munich Conference in September 1938 when British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain capitulated to Hitler’s seizing of the Sudetenland from Czechoslovakia which he labeled a “quarrel in a far away land.” Chamberlain proudly returned to cheering crowds in Britain proclaiming he had secured “peace in our time.” Barely more than a year later, Britain was at war with Germany enduring the bombing assaults of the Battle of London and fighting for its very survival. Chamberlain was forced to resign as Prime Minister. He was replaced by Winston Churchill whose warnings of Hitler’s arming of the Nazi war machine and the lethal threat that posed to Europe had been largely ignored and often ridiculed throughout the 1930s.
While Hitler was advancing in Europe, too many Americans chose to follow the Cham-
Europe stood with Ukraine but is joining the antiIsrael chorus.
berlain route of appeasement. Led by Charles Lindbergh and the America First isolationist movement, they argued there was no American interest in stopping Hitler or assisting Britain. This was Europe’s war.
Similarly, Hitler’s sworn policy to persecute Jews was an internal issue. It took Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor and Hitler’s declaration of war against us for the United States to fully mobilize and join with Churchill to lead the successful war effort to destroy Hitler and defeat Nazi Germany’s existential threat to Western Civilization.
In the post World War II period, there was the threat of Soviet imperialism and expansion. Isolationism was discredited, discarded and consigned to history’s trash bin. The United States assumed the position of free world leadership and alliances such as NATO were formed to preserve order and stability.
Despite bumps and controversies along the
way, the system worked. Europe was rebuilt and the Soviet Union collapsed.
The defeat of Hitler and the world’s realization of the horrors of genocide also brought about the recognition of the State of Israel which despite wars and terrorist attack established itself as a thriving democracy and strong ally of the United States.
All this is now threatened.
A resurgent Russia led by its dictator Vladimir Putin has invaded Ukraine. This was the first invasion of a sovereign European nation since the end of World War II and Putin employs arguments to justify the invasion similar to what Hitler claimed justified his attacks on Czechoslovakia and Austria.
And in Israel, Hamas carried out a terrorist attack on Israeli civilians causing the highest number of Jewish deaths since World War II.
At this time when Ukraine and Israel are fighting for survival, the civilized would be expected to have learned the lessons of history and stand united against Russian aggression and Hamas’s threat to destroy the Jewish state. Instead, in the United States, the isolationist movement has emerged from the deep, dark shadows and anti-Semitism is again rearing its ugly head.
Dilettante influencers like Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens are today’s Charles Lindbergh. Going so far as to ascribe blame for World War II on Churchill, they enable Putin, disparage Ukraine’s President Zelensky and accuse Israel and its Prime Minister Netanyahu of war crimes and genocide.
Underlying all this madness is the discredited shibboleth that none of these crises affects the United States: that we can survive in our own isolationist world.
As for Europe, while it has stood strong with Ukraine against Russia, it is joining the anti-Israel chorus calling for rewarding Hamas with the creation of a Palestinian state and accusing the Jewish state of inducing a famine and committing war crimes.
The stark realities Americans must face are: •Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is not just “Europe’s war” anymore than Hitler’s seizure of the Sudetenland was a mere “quarrel in a faraway place;” and
•Hamas’s attempt to destroy Israel is not just a “Jewish issue;” Israel was not the aggressor; and is not committing war crimes or genocide.
These are conflicts which affect the future of the world and demand strong, assertive American leadership.
This column was published by the LI Herald. Write: Columnist@TheJewishStar.com
Madonna and Child,” oil painting by Giovanni Bellini, between 1485 and 1490. Metropolitan Museum of Art
Rabbi Sacks: Tzedakah, untranslatable virtue…
Continued from page 16
Aid can also create welfare dependency, reinforcing rather than breaking the cycle of deprivation. The greatest act of tzedakah is therefore one that allows the individual to become selfsufficient. The highest form of aid is one that enables the individual to dispense with aid. Humanitarian relief is essential on the short term, but in the long run, job creation and the promotion of employment are more important.
Weinreb…
Continued from page 17
Shabbat 151b, which reads: “Samuel [an early Talmudic sage] said, ‘There is no difference between this world and the Era of the Messiah, except that we will no longer be dominated by alien kingdoms, as it is written that there will never cease to be needy ones in your land’.”
Even the Messiah himself will not eliminate poverty!
There are other texts, however, which are more reassuring and which clearly indicate that poverty will cease if we do our part in our own reaction to it. Thus, “There shall be no needy among you … if only you heed the L-rd your G-d and take care to keep all this instruction that I enjoin upon you this day” (Deut. 15:4-5).
As Maimonides comments near the conclusion of his Hilchot Melachim in describing the Era of the Messiah: “At that time there will be neither famine, nor war, nor envy or conflict, for all good things will be as plentiful and as readily available as the earth itself.”
It is up to us, folks, and we need not resort to newly discovered economic strategies. We must simply cling to the values expressed in this week’s parsha, act compassionately to all, avoid selfishness and self-aggrandizement, and open our hearts and hands to those in need.
I feel compelled to close with an insight into the minds of poor people. It is presented creatively in an interpretation of a Mishnah in Tractate Bikkurim 3:8.
The Mishnah elaborates upon the mitzvah of bikkurim, bringing the first fruits of one’s field to the Kohen in the Beit HaMikdash in Jerusalem. The fruits are to be brought in a basket to the Kohen, as described in a parsha we will read in several weeks, Ki Tavo.
The Mishnah reads:
The wealthy would bring their first fruits in containers of silver and gold, while the poor would bring them in baskets of woven strands of peeled willow branches. The baskets and fruits were gifted to the Kohanim.
The Talmud (Bava Kama 92a) understands this to mean that the “baskets” of the poor were handed to the Kohen together with the fruits. But the “silver and gold containers” of the wealthy were returned to them. The Talmud there sees this as an example of the Aramaic adage, “Poverty pursues the poor,” or more bluntly, “the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.’
The commentaries on the Mishnah wonder why some adjustment was not made to avoid embarrassing the poor. After all, the Rabbis could have required the wealthy to bring modest baskets so that the poor would not feel humiliated.
Pinchas Kehati, in his outstanding explanation of the Mishnah, a work I prefer in my own Mishnah study, refers to an explanation offered by Malbim, the nineteenth century commentator on Chumash, in his remarks on Devarim 26:4.
The poor person, argues Malbim, wove the basket with his own hands. He could afford nothing but willow branches, and he painstakingly peeled off the bark and carefully wove the strands of wood into the form of a primitive basket. He was proud of his work and felt honored to donate the gift. The Kohen appreciated the ar-
In this context, one detail of Jewish law is particularly fascinating. It specifies that even a person dependent on tzedakah must himself or herself give tzedakah
On the face of it, the rule is absurd. Why give X enough money so that he can give to Y? Giving to Y directly is more logical and efficient. What the rabbis understood, however, is that giving is an essential part of human dignity. As an African proverb puts it: the hand that gives is almost up-
duous effort of the poor man. The poor man was by no means humiliated. Quite the contrary, he was gratified to have his puny basket ceremoniously received.
The wealthy man, however, put no effort into his golden or silver container. He ordered it at the local shopping mall. The Kohen, as a Temple stand-in, is not impressed by material trinkets. He gladly, with no fanfare, handed it back to the rich man without so much as a thank you.
The lesson is an important one. The poor man acting simply but sincerely and authentically stands higher than the wealthy man who merely spends a few dollars to grudgingly do his duty.
Let’s assist the needy person, but let us not belittle him, nor, Heaven forbid, treat him condescendingly.
Write: Columnist@TheJewishStar.com
Goldman…
Continued from page 17
religious fanatic?
Or if the norm in my community is to keep a kosher home but to eat out at non-kosher restaurants, then who am I to be “holier than thou?”
So the story of the wayward city gone astray reminds us that the “norm” is not necessarily “normal.” In fact, normal may just be another word for average or mediocre. Why be normal? Swim upstream, go against the current and be a mensch. Celebrate your individuality! Why be average? Be exceptional! Be special!
When ungodly, immoral or any other unwise behavior is “normalized,” then we mustn’t be normal. We must stand out with pride and principle. Who knows? Others may follow our lead.
Write: Columnist@TheJewishStar.com
Cohen…
Continued from page 20
in Ukraine bear this out. Ksenia Koldin, an 18-year-old who in a decent world would be a household name, told the London Times about her recent journey to Russia, where, against all odds, she managed to rescue her 11-year-old brother Serhiy, who has now returned home to Kyiv.
“I wanted to hug him, but he moved away as if didn’t know me, tugging at his clothes and acting as if I was a scary monster,” Ksenia said of their first encounter. “I realized he was brainwashed.”
Why such indifference to all the ongoing suffering outside of Gaza’s borders? In the case of Sudan, it’s key to remember that the Western left long ago abandoned any commitment to human rights in the post-colonial world. To do so would be an act of neo-colonialism, an attempt to impose Western values and policy imperatives upon non-Western nations. It would also mean shifting attention away from the true enemies: American imperialism, Zionism and the potential expansion of the NATO Alliance. Unlike the Sudanese, the Kurds and the Ukrainians, the Palestinians tick all the ideological boxes here.
permost; the hand that receives is always lower. The rabbinic insistence that the community provide the poor with enough money so that they themselves can give is a profound insight into the human condition.
With its combination of charity and justice, its understanding of the psychological as well as material dimensions of poverty, and its aim of restoring dignity and independence, not just meeting needs, tzedakah is a unique institution.
This should prompt a good deal of soulsearching, among Palestinians, above all. No rational person could deny that there is immense suffering in Gaza right now; saying so is not a concession to Hamas, but rather, recognition that eternal misery for Gaza is part of the terror group’s war strategy. Nor is it a concession to Hamas’s Western cheerleaders, who are only animated when they have an opportunity to attack Israel, which is why they remained silent when Hamas thugs crushed protests in the Gaza Strip supporting the release of the Israeli hostages to speed up an end to the war.
A handful of Palestinians are asking these difficult questions of their leadership and their international supporters, resentful of their status as mere props in an ideological war.
Encouraging and guiding those discussions would be a worthy implementation of the principle of “common humanity” that so many of Hamas’s useful idiots are fond of citing. A reckoning with Hamas — and the broader discourse of “Palestinianism” spawned by the Oct. 7 massacre — would also help reset the world’s moral compass, so that humanitarian disasters are addressed on the basis of need, and not by the revolutionary fantasies of Western performative leftists.
Write: Columnist@TheJewishStar.com
Phillips…
Continued from page 21
When he beatified her in 1987, John Paul said the church was honoring “a daughter of Israel who, as a Catholic during Nazi persecution, remained faithful to the crucified Lord Jesus Christ and, as a Jew, to her people in loving faithfulness.”
The fact that Stein remained attached to her Jewish roots was irrelevant. She was murdered because she was a Jew. By beatifying her, the Vatican turned her into a Christian martyr.
According to Philip Cunningham, director of the Institute for Jewish-Catholic Relations, Stein’s canonization reflected John Paul’s sincere belief that Jews killed by the Nazis should be honored and revered in the Catholic Church.
“The highest recognition the Catholic Church can give someone with heroic virtues is to canonize them, declare them to be with God, to be saints,” Cunningham said. Finding a candidate for sainthood who was “Jewish, or was of Jewish ethnicity, built a connection to all the victims of the Nazis,” he said.
That sounds pretty, but it doesn’t work at all. Beatifying a woman who was murdered because she was a Jew is an attempt to Christianize the Shoah. It’s a grotesque affront to the Jewish victims of the Shoah and the Jewish people in general. It’s an attempt to erase the Jewish element in Jewish suffering.
And that chimes with a key reason for the West’s obscene turn against the Jewish victims of today’s attempted genocide by the forces of Islam.
This is that the West also can’t tolerate the idea of Jewish suffering. It’s determined to erase all acknowledgement of that suffering, because if it turns the Jews from victims into
It is deeply humanitarian, but it could not exist without the essentially religious concepts of Divine ownership and social covenant.
The prophet Jeremiah says of king Josiah, “He judged the cause of the poor and needy; then it was well. Is this not to know Me? says the L-rd.”
To know G-d is to act with justice and compassion, to recognize His image in other people, and to hear the silent cry of those in need.
Nazis, it can finally slough off the collective cultural guilt it feels for the Holocaust.
What church leaders are saying about Gaza has enormous influence, even in post-religious circles. Their message that Israel is a cruel force oppressing the wretched of the earth plays directly into the West’s Christian conscience, even among people who are not believers.
This is wrapped up further with the church’s ineradicable ambivalence toward Jews, which reflects Western society’s own deep-seated antisemitism.
The Islamists, who understand the West better than it understands itself, have grasped the centrality of Christianity to the West, as well as its profound Jew-hatred, and realize that they can manipulate this to their advantage.
That’s why the now-notorious picture of the skeletal Gazan child, prominently displayed in The New York Times and countless other media outlets around the world as allegedly dying of starvation, packed the punch it did. It wasn’t merely that it was a dreadfully distressing picture of a dying child. It was that it was posed to call irresistibly to mind the original Madonna, the mother of Jesus, cradling him in her arms.
This image, termed the Pietà, has been repeated countless times in paintings and sculptures. It is burned into the Western consciousness not only as an iconic image of Christianity but one that identifies that faith with love and compassion for the vulnerable and innocent, represented by the baby in his veiled mother’s arms.
The carefully staged photograph of the veiled Gaza mother holding the skeletal child was thus a diabolical masterpiece of manipulation and deceit.
Not only was the child emaciated, but suffering from cerebral palsy, not from starvation. By inciting horror and revulsion at the Israelis for apparently provoking the suffering of a Gazan Pietà, the picture also replaced Jews with Muslim Arabs in the iconography of Christianity.
It thus manipulated some of the deepest feelings in the emotional range of the Western world to embrace an evil lie.
The propaganda war is all about playing on emotion. That’s why these mendacious claims are impervious to facts and evidence.
Christians are among the staunchest supporters of Israel, particularly in America. But many, especially in the progressive Protestant churches, are its enemy. Even the support of American Christians is eroding, particularly among the young, under an onslaught of secularization and the unprecedented global propaganda war that’s manipulating the Western public into believing that evil is good and goodness is evil. Their minds have been twisted into believing the big lie that the Israelis, who are defending themselves against an Islamic holy war of extermination, are themselves guilty of the very things of which they are, in fact, the victims.
It is a godless lie. And the Vatican’s support for it is a moral stain spreading backwards into its terrible history with the Jews.
Write: Columnist@TheJewishStar.com
Tobin: Dreyfus matters now more than ever…
Continued from page 19
Man of honor
Harris’s novel and Polanski’s film are different in one way because the main protagonist of the story related in the screenplay (co-written by Harris and Polanski) is not the victim, Dreyfus. Instead, its focus is Georges Picquart, the man who — though largely forgotten by history — did more to win Dreyfus’s freedom than anyone else involved in the controversy.
What makes that so remarkable is that Picquart, then the youngest colonel in the French army and who had been his instructor at a staff college, neither liked Dreyfus or Jews, in general. A rising star in an institution where antisemitism ran rampant, the cultured Picquart was typical of his class and despised the bourgeois, unsociable and rich Jewish officer. After being appointed the head of military intelligence in 1895, he uncovered what at first he thought was a second German spy, another French officer named Ferdinand Walsin Esterhazy. He soon uncovered definitive proof that there was only one spy, Esterhazy, and that Dreyfus had been wrongly convicted.
Told to bury the damning evidence, Picquart — a man of honor, even if he was as hostile to the Jews as his peers — refused to do so. As a result, he was demoted, isolated and eventually imprisoned on other false charges. But by bringing the truth to the attention of the Dreyfus family and to French author Emile Zola, whose famous essay “J’Accuse… !,” revived the debate about the case, the path to the falsely accused victim’s redemption was set.
Polanski’s film unravels how Picquart learns the truth, and how both his superior officers and one of his subordinates — the despicable Major Hubert-Joseph Henry, who had forged some of the original evidence against Dreyfus and per-
jured himself in court — turned on him for not going along with their lies.
Each step of the way in what is an even more complicated story than superficial students of the case may know — from the opening scene depicting Dreyfus’s appalling degradation in the courtyard of the École Militaire with a mob screaming for his death and that of the Jews, to Picquart’s astonishment at the dishonesty of his fellow officers to the trials where the truth comes out but is still denied by the courts — is heartbreaking. Indeed, so convincing is the account of how the plot unraveled that it’s almost possible to forget that we know how the story will turn out.
Of particular note is the performance of French actor Jean Dujardin, best known to international audiences for winning an Oscar for his role in the 2011 silent film “The Artist.” His Picquart manages to be both an imperturbable and somewhat stoic military type, yet so invested in the idea of integrity and honesty that he was willing to destroy his own career and life, as well as that of his married mistress, Pauline Monnier (played by Polanski’s real-life wife, Emmanuelle Seigner). Louis Garrel similarly embodies the desperation of Dreyfus, a man caught in a nightmare he knows is rooted in the Jew-hatred of the country he loves.
The case split France down the middle and illustrated scholar Ruth Wisse’s teaching that antisemitism is a way to weaponize hate against Jews to achieve a political end. In the case of Dreyfus, the Catholic army establishment desired to achieve dominance in a republic where arguments that had begun during the French Revolution a century earlier remained unresolved. As we learn, it’s not the justice system that achieves the officer’s vindication as much as it is a shift in the country’s political mood that brought to power Dreyfus and Picquart’s advocates.
Though six years old, the movie is particularly timely at a moment when, once again, hatred is on the rise and lies about the Jews — this time not an isolated French officer but the Jewish state itself — are similarly being concocted out of whole cloth and spread by those who should know better.
Polanski, and perhaps some of his admirers, seem to think that his status as a survivor provides some insight into his behavior and maybe even something like a pass for his misbehavior.
Polanski’s childhood trauma helped form him. His Catholic mother died in Auschwitz, and his Jewish father survived Mauthausen, while the 10-year-old Polanski escaped from the Krakow Ghetto and was then hidden by Polish Catholics.
Still, however much we may sympathize with that aspect of his biography, it can’t grant him absolution for abusing girls and young women. Nor does his great art mean that we should ignore his crimes.
Unanswerable question
The question of whether we can separate the artist from his art is as unanswerable with respect to Polanski as it has been for anyone else whose personal behavior or beliefs were repugnant but produce work that is not only admired but also elevates humanity. It’s worth noting that the music of the vicious antisemite Richard Wagner, whose operas still hold the stage, was loved by Picquart as well as Theodor Herzl, the founder of modern Zionism, who witnessed Dreyfus’s degradation and was in part influenced by the case during the period when he was writing his seminal book The Jewish State. It’s easier to think of the world as divided between good and bad people, and that we must always shun the latter. But the truth is that bad people can create good art that helps inspire good people to do great and noble things.
I understand and sympathize with those who believe that Polanski should have spent the last half-century rotting in jail rather than living the good life in Europe making movies. And yet I also understand and sympathize with those who would answer that the world would be much poorer without the art that Polanski created during those years, in particular, films like “The Pianist” and “An Officer and a Spy,” which do so much to inform and elevate our discourse on important issues like the Holocaust and antisemitism.
The questions this version of a well-known story asks pointedly are those we must ask ourselves today. Are we willing to stand up against mobs spewing hate against Jews like those who howled at Dreyfus? Is it possible to defy a widely believed consensus that holds that the Jews are guilty of terrible crimes because it is so much easier to go along with that prejudice?
Georges Picquart’s answer to those questions, like that of righteous gentiles in every generation, was “yes.” And while for a time he was crushed by the enemies of the truth, eventually, he and Dreyfus won. In Picquart’s case, he was returned to the army, promoted to the rank of general and made Minister of War by Dreyfusard politician Georges Clemenceau (who would lead France to victory a decade later in World War I).
The two men who were the heroes of the story never became friends; indeed, they actually resented each other. But as the film’s final scene relates, Dreyfus understood that his freedom was won primarily by the fact that Picquart did his duty irrespective of prejudice or personal advantage.
While we should ignore Polanski’s claim to be another Dreyfus, the message his film brings is one that should challenge every honest person to do the same — and refuse to be complicit in another generation of antisemitic lies.
Write: Columnist@TheJewishStar.com
DO YOU HAVE WHAT IT TAKES TO SUCCEED IN MULTIMEDIA SALES?
At The Jewish Star, selling advertising for the newspaper is just part of the job.
Our staff’s toolkit includes an exceptionally broad range of useful products (including both religious and secular publications and websites; digital, email, radio and social media marketing; in-person events; direct mail; commercial printing, and more) — whatever it takes to build business and raise revenue for our commercial and non-profit partners.
Employees are trained by the best in the business, in a supportive, collegial and kosher environment.
These F/T positions (P/T schedules may be arranged) offer competitive compensation ($40k-$90k) with excellent commission and bonus opportunities, paid holidays (including Jewish holidays), time off, medical and 401(k).
