Southern Jewish Life Regional, August 2024

Southern Jewish Life August 2024 • Volume R1, Issue 3

REGIONAL

LOVE AND HATE IN NASHVILLE

THE ORIGINAL KOSHER BBQ CONTEST RETURNS LOUISIANA’S TEN COMMANDMENTS BATTLE WEARING JEWISH PRIDE WITH OLAM TOVA THE JEWISH NEW YORK ROOTS OF “WAR EAGLE,” WITH CHRISTMAS THROWN IN APPRECIATING KINKY FRIEDMAN ARKANSAS CHRISTIANS AND JEWS WORK TOGETHER THROUGH JNF Above, Israel breakfast at NRB convention Right, neo-Nazis march in downtown Nashville

‘The Cup Above Redemption’

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Southern Jewish Editor These are definitely unsettling times.

As of this writing, we are well over 300 days with Israeli hostages being held in Gaza by Hamas.

Hezbollah has been ramping up its attacks in Israel’s north, and tens of thousands of Israelis are still displaced within the country because of hazards in the north and near Gaza.

Iran has been playing a waiting game, whether because of external pressure to not escalate, an internal realization that they are a paper tiger, or a strategy of psychological warfare.

Classes are beginning at universities across the country, with empowered anti-Israel groups determined to escalate in the face of feckless administrations who are more concerned with appearing tolerant than, say, student safety and establishing boundaries.

Political chaos reigns in the U.S., with sharp polarization and demonization of the other side. In the span of a few days, there was an assassination attempt on Trump, and Biden deciding it was time to hang things up and give the reins to Vice President Kamala Harris.

While some celebrated the move, others saw it as bad news for U.S.-Israel relations, give the leanings of advisors that Harris has surrounded herself with (and the fact that her husband is Jewish apparently has almost no significance on that front). Just before press time, she named a Jewish outreach coordinator who was involved in the Iran nuclear deal and has raised eyebrows among much of the pro-Israel community.

Meanwhile, anti-Israel groups are invoking Chicago 1968 in the runup to this year’s Democratic National Convention — in Chicago.

There are positives, though — Israel’s record seven medals in the Paris Olympics, the coalition coming together to counter Iran — including Jordan and the Saudis.

In this issue, there’s also an examination of an event in Nashville that was a boost for anyone who supports Israel — the National Religous Broadcasters convention earlier this year, which was an oasis in what has been a contentious public square since the Gaza war began.

The Jewish world has historically worked with left-leaning churches and seen evangelicals as political opponents. But the alignment has been flipped on its head in recent years, with “social justice” favoring the Palestinians and excluding those who support Israel, while a theological shift in evangelical circles regarding the Jews has led to a greater appreciation for the Jewish people and Israel, and even a sense of obligation and responsibility, especially given the church’s anti-Jewish history.

It is something the Jewish world is still getting used to, especially since on many of the political positions, the communities remain far apart.

But at a time when traditional allies are silent, we need all the friends we can get, and we can ill afford to ignore an extended hand of friendship. And in our experience, developing those bonds helps make headway on those other issues. This issue discusses the new Ten Commandments mandate in Louisiana, and we reprint a new version of our award-winning “Ten Problems with the Ten Commandments” piece. If we are engaged, we can represent that opponents of the Ten Commandments in schools mandate aren’t a bunch of God-hating atheists — there are major objections on religious grounds by people who take the Ten Commandments seriously.

As we navigate these times, it is important to stay informed, and to have a quality, independent source of news about our community. If you haven’t already, subscribe to Southern Jewish Life Regional Edition today, and help us spread the word. And we appreciate any additional support as Lawrence Brook, Publisher/Editor well!

Agenda ASBEE Kosher BBQ Contest returns 6 Expanding Shabbat Dinner in the Carolinas 8 JFS Richmond to celebrate 175 8 Florida’s Israel license plates 9 AEPi launches Chapter Without Walls 9 Charging Antisemites with harassment 10 Israel Gala in Durham 12 Historical Groups holding conferences 14 Major gift expands JCRS college aid 16

Focus: Love and Hate in Nashville

At the NRB convention in Nashville

Feeling the Love at NRB “Most significant” Israel breakfast Unveiling the Friedman Plan for Peace Promoting Voluntourism to Israel In the Israel War Room Eyewitness to October 7 Responding to Hate Groups

N.C. flag incident shows U.S. also targeted Speaking out against silence ZAKA: The mental toll on volunteers Proud and Bold: Israel pride clothing South Carolina adopts IHRA Christians and Jews work together in Arkansas Ga. Rep launches Trees for Trolls The Ten Commandments in Louisiana

18 20 22 26 34 36 40 55

Opinion Ten Problems with the Ten Commandments Surprising Safety of Southern Judaism

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58 61

Arts Appreciating the Kinkster Collecting Torah pointers

42 45 47 48 49 49 52

64 68

Sports Mannon medals with Israel Willie Mays’ Jewish Friends “War Eagle” N.Y. Jewish Roots Coach Calipari’s Kindness

Books

72 73 74 75

Southern “Treasure” ABC’s of Ned

76 78

Rear Pew Mirror

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Last September, the new Sea Shul on 30A in the Florida panhandle held its first Rosh Hashanah services, on the beach. This year, they are planning an Erev Rosh Hashanah service, yoga and meditation service, Tashlich and a concluding service and dinner on Oct. 4 at the Watersound Beach Club. Early bird tickets for the dinner are already available.

Southern Jewish Agenda The original kosher BBQ contest returns after hiatus While many communities now have a kosher barbecue contest, the original is gearing up for its 33rd competition, returning after a four year absence.

The ASBEE World Kosher BBQ Contest and Festival will take place at Baron Hirsch Congregation in Memphis on Aug. 25. Over 40 teams will compete in beef brisket, beef ribs, chicken and beans, looking for the title of Grand Champion. There will also be prizes for creativity in team name and booth design.

The contest began in 1988 as a project of Anshe Sfard Beth El Emeth, an Orthodox congregation with roots going back to 1861. It was meant to complement Memphis in May, the annual world championship of barbecue, which is decidedly un-kosher.

The competition grew, drawing thousands of attendees, with teams from just about every Jewish organization in town, and also attracted Christian and Muslim teams. In 2011, the Halal Smokers won third place in the brisket category.

A three-on-three basketball competition added to the event’s growth, along with a pickle-eating contest. The basketball tournament returns, and will also include free throw and three-pointer shooting contests.

Admission to the event is free. Those attending can purchase barbecue beef and chicken sandwiches, burgers and other items at the Cowsher Cafe. The Kiddie Corral will include face painting, a petting zoo, bounce house, train rides and more.

The 32nd annual event was scheduled for September 2020, but was postponed because of Covid. Then came another challenge — over time, ASBEE’s membership had declined from 400 families to about 250, and in the fall of 2020, they

sold their building and moved into Baron Hirsch’s facility.

In 2023, the congregation officially merged with Baron Hirsch.

Team registration is $200, with registration due by Aug. 1.

After registering, teams will be able to customize their protein selections. Registration includes a smoker and two grills.

Registration for the basketball tournament is $25 and includes a tournament T-shirt. Day-of entries are welcome, cash or Venmo only.

Holocaust Museum Houston’s new CEO dies days after being hired The announcement of a new chief executive officer for Holocaust Museum Houston took an unexpected, tragic turn.

On May 2, the museum announced that Ivan Wolkind had been hired. On May 8, while working out at a gym in Los Angeles, he suffered sudden cardiac arrest and died two days later. He was 56.

His death stunned the Los Angeles community, where he had been chief operating and chief financial officer for The Jewish Federation of Los Angeles for 13 years, before becoming CEO of Magen Am USA last year, a nonprofit organization that provided security services along the West Coast.

In addition to his Federation position, in 2014, Wolkind trained at the Los Angeles Police Academy and held a vol6

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unteer position as a sworn reserve officer for 10 years. From 2017 to 2023 he was a national board member and later chairman of the board of the FBI’s Infragard National Members’ Alliance.

The museum named Linda Burger, who retired as CEO of Jewish Family Service of Houston in 2022, as interim CEO. Tamara Savage and Kristin Albers Lamm, who were acting co-executive directors for the previous 11 months, will continue their roles as managing director and chief financial officer, respectively.

Holocaust Museum Houston is a regional education hub and the fourth-largest Holocaust museum in the United States, as well as the first to be fully bilingual in English and Spanish.

From Medicine to Intelligence:

How the Hebrew University of Jerusalem’s unique partnership with the Israeli Defense Forces is bettering the world Since the Oct. 7 terrorist attacks against Israel, the students and faculty at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem have been focused on their continued mission of making the world a better place.

Yishai Fraenkel, vice president and director general of the university, says the campus Photo by Yoram Aschheim communities of the 100-year-old institution are experiencing a range of psychological and emotional traumas. There are those who have lost friends or family members or have suffered physical injury themselves. Still, they strive for a sense of normalcy.

“We are not stopping. We are not halting or looking for excuses,” says Fraenkel. “Hebrew University is one of the most important civilian institutions in Israel, and we want to continue offering a world class education and world class research.”

While their academic offerings cover a broad spectrum of disciplines from social sciences to medicine, the university’s partnership with the Israeli military has resulted in multiple programs that have been advancing research and development on a global scale for decades.

“We have three major programs done in collaboration with the Israeli military: Havatzalot, Tzameret and Talpiot,” explains Fraenkel. “These military programs are very important because this is an army to protect democracy, which is very precious.”

Havatzalot: Training future military intelligence leaders

More than a decade ago, the Military Intelligence Division established a program to recruit members of the Israeli Defense Forces with the potential to excel as officers in the field of intelligence. The program has been at Hebrew University of Jerusalem since 2019.

“Havatzalot is a three-year program that allows young students who are also cadets to complete a double-major bachelor’s degree with a combination of military studies and one other science like mathematics, computer science, economics and sometimes philosophy,” says Fraenkel. “They finish their training, and they serve basically as the backbone of Israeli intelligence.”

Troops who join the program graduate with the rank of lieutenant and must join the Military Intelligence Unit for at least six years.

Tzameret: Elite military medicine that save lives

Serving as a military doctor is not for the faint of heart, and admission to the Tzameret program is highly competitive.

Candidates for the program must meet rigorous cognitive and physical fitness requirements. While participating in the program, students are allowed to defer their military service and later give five years as military doctors in the IDF. One of the main objectives of the program is to increase the number of career military physicians. The more highly trained doctors in the field, the better for anyone in need of critical care. The program is in its tenth year. As of the 2018-2019 academic year, the total number of new military

physicians in training, including those that have already finished training, exceeds 590.

Like many of their other programs, Tzameret has a global reach. Up to 20 students in their sixth year of study are selected to participate in a onemonth exchange program with other military-oriented medical programs around the world.

Talpiot: Cultivating the next generation of leaders in defense and technology When you think of Talpiot, think of it as training people who develop technologies like the Iron Dome. The Talpiot pro- Photo from The Hebrew University of Jerusalem gram is one of the most prestigious academic and military programs in Israel, selecting exceptionally talented individuals from across Israel for training in science, technology and leadership.

“Talpiot takes those extremely bright scientific minds, those who excel in mathematics and physics so they can apply their talents to the development of military technology,” says Fraenkel. “Many graduates of this program go on to have a successful military career and later make their way into civilian life as successful entrepreneurs. They’re idea generators.”

Though these three programs might be the most well-known, you’ll also find programs like the Institute for Research in Military Medicine where research and development in the areas of post-traumatic stress disorder, combat casualty trauma and forensic medicine (or identifying victims) takes place. Additionally, the six-year-old Bina Elite Dentistry Reserve Track allows student-soldiers to maintain rigorous combat training standards.

The Bina cadets serve as critical dental officers as needed.

Solidarity across an ocean

These programs, Hebrew University and the wider community are receiving critical support through the We Are One campaign, a special initiative organized by American Friends of Hebrew University along with the international chapters of the organization.

“First and foremost, the We Are One campaign shows the solidarity of people throughout the world,” says Fraenkel. “Secondly, given these hardships as a university, the campaign makes it possible for us to continue our mission. We’re not just pursuing life, but the fullness of its potential.”

Resources from the initiative support a wide range of immediate community needs from mental health services and legal assistance to hosting displaced individuals and funding unique scholarships for reservists called to duty. The initiative is also looking at rebuilding the future with programs promoting mental health, a shared society between Arabs and Jews and even agricultural innovation.

Show your solidarity with the Hebrew University of Jerusalem by giving to the We Are One campaign.

Learn more or donate at AFHU.org August 2024 • Southern Jewish Life Regional

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OneTable expanding Shabbat dinner in the Carolinas OneTable, a North American nonprofit organization that empowers people in their 20s and 30s to envision new rituals and build community through Shabbat dinner, is greatly expanding its presence in the Carolinas.

On May 30, the organization announced a major grant from the Leon Levine Foundation.

“We are extraordinarily grateful for this inaugural grant from The Leon Levine Foundation to expand OneTable within the Carolinas and help even more young Jewish adults find community in the southeast,” said Irit Gross, chief advancement officer at OneTable. “This partnership marks a pivotal moment for the region, and we are thrilled that more people will engage in meaningful Shabbat experiences as a result.”

Since 2014, OneTable has facilitated more than 1 million Shabbat dinner reservations across the United States and Toronto. With the resources provided by the foundation, OneTable has hired Hannah Busis as its national field specialist, based in the Carolinas, to support the organization’s work

throughout the region.

“When I moved to Asheville in 2020, OneTable was my way to find Jewish community,” said Busis. “I’d known of OneTable from hosting with a friend a few years ago in a different city, and when I was finding it challenging to find Jewish friends my own age after moving I returned to Shabbat dinner and OneTable. It’s been the best change in my Shabbat practice. OneTable makes such a big difference, and I want to share all that it has brought into my life with others across the Carolinas.”

Among other responsibilities, Busis will provide Shabbat dinner coaching and resources to support dinner hosts and guests and deepen and grow relationships with local Jewish institutions. These efforts aim to positively impact and enrich the lives of Jewish young adults who seek community, using the Shabbat dinner as a means to gather and celebrate Jewish joy.

Based in Charlotte, the Leon Levine Foundation was formed in 1980 by the founder and former chairman of Family Dollar Stores.

Live with Jewish Family Services of Richmond: Celebrating 175th anniversary Jewish Family Services of Richmond will celebrate its 175th anniversary, “Live with Andy Cohen,” on Sept. 21 at the Dominion Energy Center. The evening will celebrate “175 years of transforming lives and strengthening our community.”

A St. Louis native, Cohen is best known for hosting the “Real Housewives” series. He is also host and executive producer of Bravo’s late night show, “Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen.” He also has two curated channels on SiriusXM and co-hosts CNN’s New Years Eve coverage.

Jayme Swain, president and CEO of VPM, will be emcee for the night. The evening will include a conversation about JFS history, and the friends and supporters who have helped the agency over the decades.

The organization traces its roots to Rabbi Maximillian Michelbacher of Beth Ahabah. He inspired the women of his congregation to form the Ladies Hebrew Benevolent Association, to help care for community members.

In the 1860s, the women cared for soldiers in the Civil War, including using their own homes to tend to the wounded.

After the war, they assisted widows and orphans.

In the first part of the 20th century, their main work was 8

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assisting families struggling with desertion, delinquent youth, elder infirmities and tuberculosis. The Great Depression brought a greater need for help with the sick and unemployed, followed by a need to find local sponsors for Jews who were able to escape Nazi Germany.

In the 1950s, the agency worked for the old and young, forming its adoption program, and introduces more services for the elderly.

In the 1960s, the organization changed its name to Jewish Family Services, expanded counseling services and invited men to join the board.

The Rap Center opened in the 1970s to assist troubled and runaway youth. It later became Daily Planet, an independent agency serving the homeless.

After the Iron Curtain fell, JFS worked to resettle a wave of immigrants from the former Soviet Union. Today, the agency serves all ages with a wide range of services.

Sponsorships start at $1,000 and include a post-event VIP dessert reception. Higher levels include an onstage reception with Cohen. Single tickets are $175. Doors will open at 7:30 p.m. for the 8 p.m. event. Reservations are requested by Aug. 16.

Order deadline approaching for Florida to make Israel solidarity plate Currently well short of the 3,000 needed for the state to start manufacturing Four years ago, there was excitement as Governor Ron DeSantis signed a bill authorizing the issuance of a Florida Stands With Israel license plate. But time is running out to actually see any of those plates hit the road.

For a new plate design to go into production, there must be 3,000 pre-sale vouchers sold within a certain time frame. The pre-sale period for the Israel plates has been extended to Oct. 14, but as of Aug. 8, only 517 had been sold.

Florida Stands With Israel has a campaign to secure enough vouchers for the plates to be issued. After that, at least 3,000 tags must be renewed or purchased each year for the plate to continue to be produced. Plates that fall under 3,000 are placed in probationary status for a year, and then withdrawn from sale unless the legislature renews it.

Individuals purchasing a voucher must have a Florida driver license or ID card, and a vehicle for the plate. Someone out of state can purchase a voucher as a gift for someone who has a Florida vehicle registration. If the 3,000 threshold is not met, vouchers will be refunded. Company vehicles and motorhomes are eligible for the specialty plate.

When he signed the legislation, DeSantis said “I am com-

mitted to deepening the relationship between Florida and the state of Israel. This specialty license plate serves as a visible symbol of our steadfast support and friendship.”

After the legislation passed, there was a contest to design the plate. Daniel Ackerman’s design features Florida’s state flower, the orange blossom, intertwined with the Star of David, symbolizing the strong bond between Florida and Israel.

A significant portion of the revenue generated from plate sales will benefit Hatzalah South Florida EMS, a nonprofit organization that deploys volunteer EMTs and paramedics during medical emergencies.

Michael Ackerman, spokesperson and marketing director for the campaign, urged widespread participation. “We envision every Floridian who values the Florida-Israel relationship to not only purchase these specialty plates for their vehicles, but also to encourage their friends and family to do the same.”

Information on purchasing vouchers is available at floridastandswithisrael.org.

South Carolina also issues a “South Carolina Stands With Israel” plate.

For universities with few Jews, AEPi fraternity launches Chapter Without Walls Alpha Epsilon Pi, the world’s largest Jewish fraternity, has made a name for itself in fighting antisemitism and promoting Jewish pride on campus. But what about campuses too small to have a chapter?

For such students, AEPi has launched a “Chapter Without Walls,” for those looking for the specific brand of Jewish leadership development and advocacy training that AEPi provides, despite not having an active chapter on campus.

The AEPi Chapter Without Walls currently has members from schools such as Clemson University, The New School, Savannah College of Art and Design, Furman University and Fordham University. The group meets virtually on a regular basis and receives guidance and support from the AEPi headquarters staff.

“I was very involved in BBYO in high school and when I chose where I went to college, I knew that there wasn’t going to be a big Jewish community or the brotherhood of a fra-

ternity. I thought that would be ok, but I was wrong,” said Chapter Without Walls President Andrew Biller, who attends SCAD. “I met some people from AEPi International at the JNF-USA conference, and they have worked hard with me to get this started. It feels great to be a part of AEPi.” Members are able to avail themselves of AEPi International’s regular leadership and advocacy training programs such as the Leven Leadership Academy and the AEPi International Convention along with a proprietary online leadership training program which is provided to all AEPi members.

“Our mission — to develop the future leaders of the Jewish community — is more important than ever at this time of rampant antisemitism and anti-Israel activity,” said Rob Derdiger, AEPi’s CEO. “Jewish communities on college campuses — no matter their size — need leadership and AEPi can provide it. I’m proud that we are continuing to innovate and finding new ways to bring the AEPi experience to more students.”

August 2024 • Southern Jewish Life Regional

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N.C. man charged with threatening Georgia rabbi Suspect apparently owns company that mails anonymous antisemitic postcards A 31-year-old man has been charged with threatening a rabbi in Georgia and faces up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Georgia.

Ariel E. Collazo Ramos, who was arrested on May 2 at his High Point, N.C. home, allegedly mailed an antisemitic postcard to Rabbi Elizabeth Bahar, of Temple Beth Israel, a Reform synagogue in Macon, Ga. Bahar was previously rabbi at Temple B’nai Sholom in Huntsville.

On Feb. 1, the rabbi received a “threatening postcard” at her home through the U.S. Postal Service, according to the indictment. The handwritten postcard, allegedly by Collazo Ramos, stated: “Is there a child rape, torture and murder tunnel under your house? We have the Zyklon B. Use Code ‘GasTheJews’ for 10% off!”

“The reverse side of the postcard displayed a hand-drawn image depicting a purported Jewish male wearing a rat costume and the words ‘Jews are rats,’” the U.S. Justice Department added.

The indictment was returned by a federal grand jury on April 9 and was unsealed on May 2.

Bahar told WMAZ that her congregation had five cases of antisemitic threats in the second half of 2023, including a swatting incident. She said “Is it a crime to have bad thoughts?

No. Is it a crime to be racist? No. Is it a crime to act on it?

Yeah.”

WMAZ reported that Ramos also sent that postcard to Esther Panitch, the only Jewish member of Georgia’s legislature, and it arrived the day before Georgia’s bill defining antisemitism was

Similar postcard received at Ali’s Cookies in Atlanta in February

signed into law. Panitch was heavily involved in its passage.

He also sent the card to Jewish groups elsewhere in Georgia and in two other states. On Feb. 24, a similar postcard was delivered to Ali’s Cookies in Atlanta, a bakery owned by Israelis.

The postcards are sold by Patriot Candle, which sends the postcards anonymously on behalf of customers, with customized messages available. The company is located in High Point, and according to the Anti-Defamation League, is affiliated with the antisemitic Goyim Defense League.

According to Triad City Beat, Patriot Candle is owned by L.O.G. Enterprises, which has Ramos listed as the owner in filings with the secretary of state.

The FBI is investigating.

In August 2023, a Olathe, Kan. farmers market kicked out a neo-Nazi pepper salesman, who offered customers a deal if they used his “GasThejews” discount code.

With SJL and JNS reports.

Applications open for JCRS Chanukah gift program It may be the middle of the summer, but thoughts are already turning to Chanukah.

Applications are open for Jewish Children’s Regional Service’s Oscar J. Tolmas Chanukah Gift Program. For over 20 years, the program has enhanced Chanukah celebrations for hundreds of children whose families are facing challenging financial times.

The program provides a minimum of eight Chanukah presents, individually wrapped by a group of volunteers, that are 10

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age-appropriate and tailored to general interests of each individual child.

To apply, families must reside in the JCRS service region of Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Tennessee, and Texas. The application is available on the JCRS website, jcrs.org, and families are encouraged to apply as early as possible. Applications will close on Sept. 27.

The program also serves adults in the service region who are living in hospital facilities or have special needs.

Mississippi man pleads guilty to antisemitic harassment in Pennsylvania Donavon Parish, 29, pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court on June 18 to cyberstalking harassment, admitting that he was motivated by Jew-hatred, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. He faced one count of cyberstalking and five counts of abuse and harassment using a telecommunications device, and admitted to a special finding that he targeted his victims abased on their actual and perceived religion.

Parish, of Hattiesburg, Miss., made threats over the phone to synagogues and Jewish businesses in Pennsylvania in April and May 2022 using Voice over Internet Protocol, according to the June 2023 indictment. He was arrested on July 13, 2023.

The Philadelphia Inquirer reported that he targeted three synagogues and three Jewish-owned delis in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, including calling one deli more than 15 times. One synagogue he called housed a preschool and kindergarten.

“He repeatedly referenced the genocide of approximately 6 million Jewish people during the Holocaust, stating, among other things, ‘Heil Hitler,’ ‘all Jews must die,’ ‘we will put you in work camps,’ ‘gas the Jews’ and ‘Hitler should have finished the job’,” according to the U.S. Justice Department.

“The calls were reported to a local police department and when an officer called Parish’s number back, he answered, prosecutors said,” the Inquirer reported. “The officer asked if Parish had called the deli, to which Parish said yes, and then declared that ‘all Jews need to die’ and ‘Heil Hitler.’ When the officer asked the Parish for his identifying information, he hung up.”

The Inquirer added that one of the synagogues that Parish targeted runs a pre-kindergarten and religious schools.

“Cyberstalking is already a serious violation and targeting victims based on their religion is a hate crime, which makes it that much more abhorrent,” stated Jacqueline Romero, U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. “We and our partners will continue to work to hold accountable anyone who criminally misuses today’s technology to spread hate and fear.”

“Antisemitism has no place in our society,” said Wayne A. Jacobs, Special Agent in Charge of FBI Philadelphia. “Today’s guilty plea reinforces that we will pursue justice against those who threaten members of our communities with such vile threats. The FBI will continue to work closely with our partners at the U.S. Attorney’s Office to ensure our citizens feel safe in the environments they live, work and play in.”

The Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Mississippi

assisted in the investigation.

Parish, who will be sentenced on Sept. 24, faces up to 15 years in jail, three years of supervised release, a $1.5 million fine and a $600 special assessment, per the Justice Department. The FBI assisted in the investigation.

In May 2022, the Forrest County Sheriff ’s Office arrested Donavon for making “abusive calls” to the 911 emergency service. He had a similar charge in October 2021.

From JNS and staff reports.

Donavon Parish, in a 2022 Forrest County mugshot.

Southern Jewish Life Staff Publisher/Editor

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Emily Baldwein connect@sjlmag.com

Contributing Writers Columnist

Rivka Epstein, Belle Freitag, E. Walter Katz Doug Brook brookwrite.com

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August 2024 • Southern Jewish Life Regional

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Gala honoring Israel to be held in Durham We Honor Israel is holding its second Honor Israel Gala on Sept. 15 in Durham, N.C., from 5 to 9 p.m. at the Hilton Durham.

The group held its first gala in January, saying “it is incumbent upon right minded people to develop a response and to educate those open to reason for the support of Israel and the Jewish people, and to openly oppose the antisemitism and its results,” given increasing antisemitism, Israel boycotts and “growing boldness” of those who want Israel destroyed.

Itai Reuveni, director of communications at NGO Monitor, will speak at the event. The group investigates non-governmental organizations that funnel money to Hamas, Hezbollah and other groups under charitable guises. He lives in Ashkelon and has been deployed to northern Israel.

Also speaking is Sondra Baras, founder of Christian Friends of Israeli Communities. A Cleveland native, she moved to Karnei Shomron in Samaria in 1988 and became a spokesperson for the communities of Judea and Samaria. She founded CFOIC Heartland in 1998 after working to connect Christians with the territories. The group raises funds for those communities and encourages tourism to biblical sites.

Rebecca Pinchevsky, Southeast regional assistant director for Alums for Campus Fairness, will discuss the situation on college campuses, how universities are dealing with proHamas agitators — and how some are not.

Hal Mettes, chair of the Honor Israel Gala, will give a presentation on Islam, having lived in a Muslim majority country and visited most other Muslim majority countries in his over 40 years of study. His first visit to Israel was in 1986.

David Marini, founding pastor of Calvary Chapel in Chapel Hill, will emcee the gala. He has led numerous trips to Israel and spoken extensively on Israel. He will be joined by Calvary Chapel vocalist Vince Vincent, who has performed at Lincoln Center, as well as in Paris, Vienna and Rome.

Sponsors include NGO Monitor, North Carolina Coalition for Israel, CFOIC Heartland, and Alums for Campus Fairness.

Tickets are $100 for adults, $75 for youth. Meal choices are brisket, chicken or vegetarian pesto pasta, and are kosher.

There are discounted room rates at the Hilton available.

CUFI “Israel Is…” program in Ky. Christians United for Israel will have a presentation of “Israel Is…” at The Antioch Church in Frankfort, Ky., on Sept. 29 at 11 a.m. and at 6 p.m.

CUFI is the largest pro-Israel organization in the United States, claiming over 10 million members. The session teaches why one should stand with Israel, and what to do to defend Israel and the Jewish people.

Registration is available at cufi.org/events.

United Hatzalah founder to speak in Nashville about lifesaving work Friends of United Hatzalah will present “From the Frontlines on October 7th: The Lifesaving Story of Eli Beer and United Hatzalah” at the Gordon Jewish Community Center in Nashville on Sept. 24 at 7 p.m.

United Hatzalah is Israel’s largest all-volunteer, completely free emergency medical response service, taking over 2,000 calls per day, with a goal of having a responder at any emergency within 90 seconds. They were using GPS technology before Uber, and came up with the idea for an “ambucycle” from seeing a pizza courier arrive quicker than an ambulance.

Eli Beer is founder and president of the organization. At the age of five, he witnessed a bus blown up in a terror attack, and vowed that he would pursue a path to save lives. He dropped out of middle school and illegally imported electronic equipment into Israel so he could listen to Magen David Adom radio transmissions.

After working on the massive earthquake in Turkey, the organization decided to prepare for a similar massive need in Israel — which came on Oct. 7, leading to countless hours 12

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of first response and lifesaving, often while under fire. Eight United Hatzalah volunteers were killed on Oct. 7 and another was abducted into Gaza.

Reservations are requested to events@israelrescue.org by Sept. 20.

Craig Air Force Base and Selma’s Jews Amy Milligan of Old Dominion University will present her research on the Jewish cadets at Craig Air Force Base and the ways in which they influenced the Jewish community of Selma, Alabama. The presentation will be part of the Alabama Folklife Association’s Jewish Folklife in Alabama working group’s quarterly meeting, Aug. 29 at 1 p.m. Central on Zoom.

Craig Air Force Base was established just before World War II, and its closure in 1977 was a huge blow to Selma, but was also regarded as the death knell for the area’s Jewish community, which now numbers three individuals.

For more information on joining the presentation, contact alabamafolklife@gmail.com.

AIC hosting virtual tours of significant Oct. 7 sites in Israel During Covid, when there was virtually no international travel, the Atlanta Israel Coalition set up a series of virtual tours of Israel.

Due to the current war in Gaza, tourism is similarly way down, so AIC and the Jewish Interest-Free Loan Association of Georgia are launching a three-part free virtual tour of sites significant to Oct. 7, “Let’s GATHER Together to Rediscover the Land of Israel after October 7th.”

As before, the tours feature tour guide David Sussman and will be on Sundays at 9:30 a.m. Eastern, 8:30 a.m. Central.

Those unable to make that time should still register, as a recording will be made available a few days after each tour.

The 12 sessions from the previous series have been viewed over 16,000 times.

The series kicked off on Aug. 4 with the Nova Music Festival memorial site, a panoramic look the area’s strategic significance from a scenic lookout, and conversations with IDF soldiers at a rest stop at Shuva Junction.

On Aug. 18, there will be a tour of one of the kibbutzim that was the site of a massacre on Oct. 7, going through the ruins and hearing stories from local heroes who defended their homes and saved lives.

The Sept. 1 session visits Hostage Square in Tel Aviv, a public plaza in front of the Tel Aviv Museum of Art. Familes of hostages taken during the Oct. 7 attack have encamped in the square, and outdoor exhibits include the Empty Shabbat Table, replica Hamas tunnel and numerous Bring Them Home art installations. There will be discussions with family members of those held captive.

Southern Jewish Life and Israel InSight magazines are co-sponsors of the series.

Spend a service year in New Orleans with the Jewish Service Corps.

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Replica Hamas tunnel in Hostage Square, Tel Aviv August 2024 • Southern Jewish Life Regional

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Southern Jewish Historical Society to meet in Kentucky The Southern Jewish Historical Society is headed to Louisville, Ky., for its 48th annual conference, exploring “Home and Belonging in the Jewish South.”

This is the first time that the organization has held its convention in Kentucky. The conference is hosted by the Filson Historical Society with sponsorship from the Jewish Heritage Fund, and will take place from Nov. 1 to 3. Friday and Saturday sessions will be at the Owsley Brown II History Center at the Filson Historical Society, and the Galt House will be the conference hotel and host for Sunday sessions.

The Filson is celebrating its 140th anniversary, and recently completed a seven-year effort to build its documentation of local Jewish experiences.

The conference opens with a 9:30 a.m. welcome by SJHS President Josh Parshall. Panels during the day include Southern Jewish Health and Medicine, Jews and Slavery in the American South, Teaching the Holocaust in Kentucky, and Southern Jews: Eternal Aliens or A Portion of the People?

The evening of Nov. 1, there will be Shabbat services and dinner at the state’s oldest and largest synagogue, Adath Israel Brith Sholom. Emily Bingham will speak based on her 2022 book, “My Old Kentucky Home: The Astonishing Life and Reckoning of an Iconic American Song.” There will also be a dessert reception and tours of the congregation’s archives.

On Nov. 2, the day begins with a choice of Torah study at the Filson with Rabbi Stanley Miles, a walking tour of Old Louisville, or a tour of the Filson.

The first session of the day will be a presentation about the Shapell Roster of Jewish Service in the American Civil War, a new digital resource with military and genealogical records of the thousands of Jews who served in the war, many of whom had previously been unidentified. Director Adrienne DeAr-

mas will talk about some of those in the roster.

The other morning session will be on Americanism and Jews in the South.

Lunch will be at the Woman’s Club of Louisville, with Mark Bauman, longtime editor of the society’s journal, speaking on the journal’s history and impact on the field.

After a panel on Memorializing Home and the Holocaust, there will be a roundtable on Jewish and Radical in the American South. That will be followed by a 5:15 p.m. session about a Kentucky signature product — the Untold Stories of Bourbon Tasting: An Unconventional Journey Through Libations and Images. Janice Fernheimer and JT Waldman will lead a “sip’n study” on Kentucky bourbon, and the role of Jews and other minorities in the industry.

The dinner and evening reception will include a Havdalah concert of Appalachian mountain music by Grace Rogers and Nathan Viner.

After the membership meeting on Nov. 3, the final roundtable will be Behind the Camera and the Microphone: Oral Histories and the Southern Jewish Experience.

Registration is $200 for members, $225 for non-members through Sept. 15. Registration includes three meals each on Friday and Saturday, and breakfast on Sunday. After Sept. 15, registration will be $240 for members and $275 for non-members. Transportation will be available between the Galt House and the conference venues. Closer accommodations are available for those who walk on Shabbat.

Limmud SE at Ramah Darom over Labor Day weekend LimmudFest Atlanta and Southeast returns to Ramah Darom on Labor Day weekend, for a four-day celebration of Jewish thought, arts, culture and life.

The annual festival brings hundreds of participants for a variety of workshops, discussions, art, music, performances and outdoor activities, and will be held from before Shabbat on Aug. 30 to Sept. 2.

Limmuds are all-volunteer experiences held around the world, with dozens of presentations on a wide range of topics.

They are open to anyone interested in Jewish knowledge, regardless of experience.

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Areas include art, camp and leisure, environmentalism and policy, health and wellness, Israel and Jewish history, Jewish culture, religious services, and Torah and sacred texts.

The weekend will also include a variety of Shabbat experiences, Havdalah around the campfire, youth programming and a gala musical performance on Sept. 1.

Registration closes on Aug. 8. Accommodations range from tent camping to shared or semi-private cabins to the camp’s retreat hotels. There is also single-day registration for the Sept.

1 sessions, from 9 a.m. to 11 p.m.

Jewish Historical Society of South Carolina celebrating with KKBE Annual conference held in conjunction with the congregation’s 275th anniversary The Jewish Historical Society of South Carolina is holding its conference in celebration of the 275th anniversary of Kahal Kadosh Beth Elohim in Charleston.

Rabbi Gary Zola, longtime executive director of the American KKBE Charleston Jewish Archives, will be the keynote speaker.

The conference will be the weekend of Sept. 13 to 15, and starts with the 7 p.m. Shabbat service at KKBE. On Sept. 14, services will start at 10 a.m., followed by lunch, and opening remarks at 1 p.m. Zola will then give the keynote address, “Remembering the Days of Yore.”

Architectural historian Sam Gruber, who lectures in Jewish studies at Syracuse University, will present “Shaping American Judaism: the Origins, Architecture, and Influence of KKBE’s Synagogue Buildings” at 2:30 p.m. In 2015 he curated the online exhibit “Life of the Synagogue” for the College of Charleston.

At 3:30 p.m., Laura Yares will present “Women in American Jewish Education,” in conversation with Anita Rosenberg.

Yares is assistant professor of religious studies at Michigan State University, and author of “Jewish Sunday Schools: Teaching Religion in Nineteenth Century America.” Rosenberg is a past president of KKBE. A 4:30 p.m. presentation has not been announced, and there will be a reception at 5:30 p.m.

On Sept. 15, there will be a 9 a.m. board meeting, followed

by a 10 a.m. presentation on the Jewish Heritage Collection at the College of Charleston Addlestone Library. Daniel, who coordinates the collection, will share objects and stories from the repository for Jewish South Carolina artifacts.

At 11 a.m., there will be a walking tour of the Coming Street cemetery, which belongs to KKBE and is the oldest Jewish burial ground in the South, dating back to 1762.

Registration is $125 for the weekend, $75 for just Saturday and $50 for just Sunday. The oneg on Sept. 13 is included in all registrations. The group hotel is the Francis Marion Hotel.

Regional Jewish singles group holding second anniversary event Two years ago, Kibbitz and Konnect was established in Atlanta with a party at the BAR(n), with the goal of organizing in-person events for Jewish singles around the South, from ages 21 to 80, and around 165 singles attended that first event. On Aug. 25, the group returns to its roots for a second anniversary party.

Ray Rothman said the group was set up as the “premier in-person social network for Jewish singles to meet each other,” whether age 21 or 80. They have had singles come in from other cities for events, including from Birmingham, Chattanooga, Tallahassee and Greenville.

The non-profit generally charges $18 for an event, plus the ticketing website’s service fee.

They held their first Shabbat dinner back in May. The anniversary event will be at BAR(n) in Dunwoody Village from 4 to 7 p.m. Tickets are $20 until Aug. 22, $25 after and at the door. The event is for ages 21 and up.

An event specifically for 50+ singles will meet on Sept. 22 at Ecco Buckhead from 4 to 7 p.m.

Chattanooga hosting its first Jewish Food Festival, Aug. 18 Chattanooga has many Jewish-owned but no kosher restaurants, and the only glatt-kosher kitchen of its kind in the area is at the Jewish Federation of Greater Chattanooga. On Aug. 18, the city will have its first Jewish food festival., from noon to 2 p.m. at the Waterhouse Pavilion.

Nosh-A-Nooga will showcase “the amazing recipes of the area’s home cooks,” which “makes what we can provide very different than other cities,” Ann Treadwell, program director of the local Federation, told JNS. “This is the first event of its kind.”

“One of the best ways to learn about a people is through their

food and the cultural traditions that go with it,” she added.

Treadwell noted that participating cooks will be on hand to answer questions.

The two-hour festival will feature both Ashkenazi and Sephardi fare. Among the offerings will be brisket sliders, according to Treadwell.

“As a first-time event, we opted for it to be a tasting rather than full meals,” she said.

Food tickets are available in advance at the Federation’s website, or at the door.

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Major gift boosts JCRS’ record year in providing need-based college aid When the Jewish Children’s Regional Service college scholarship committee finished its deliberations for the 2024-25 academic year in July, it had allocated a record of over $409,000 in need-based scholarships to 115 students in the agency’s seven-state region, a large increase from the previous year.

Thanks to a gift from Houston’s Robert Zinn and his late wife Edith, each of those awards will increase by 25 percent, bringing the total amount of scholarships to over $500,000.

Protesting the Tree of Peace

On May 22, the sign in front of the Tree of Peace in Atlanta’s Freedom Park was found to have “Free Palestine” graffiti. The tree, and a similar one in Birmingham, was planted by representatives of the Abraham Accords countries in 2022 in conjunction with the World Games in Birmingham. Israel Consul General Anat Sultan-Dadon said “A better future for the Palestinians will not be achieved through supporting terror or through vandalizing a sign of peace between Israel and Muslim countries. Sadly, that is the ugly truth behind the “pro-Palestinian” vandalizers. They are against peace and against anything that acknowledges the existence of the state of Israel.” Atlanta Parks and Recreation quickly removed the graffiti.

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The awards, which consist of grants and no-interest loans, average over $4,300 per academic year.

Bob Zinn stated, “I hope my support spurs others to donate to JCRS given the huge impact JCRS has within our Jewish communities.”

According to the agency, the Zinns have been donors for decades, sharing JCRS’ vision “to provide superior levels of needs-based support, resources and services for Jewish youths and families to promote their welfare, education, and self-identity, thereby helping to prepare them to be well-adjusted, self-supStephen Davis, CPA, is a porting, young adults.” technical accounting manager The New Orleans-based for LivaNova, a global medical agency serves Jewish youth technology company in Houston. A 2015 Trinity in Alabama, MississipUniversity graduate in business pi, Tennessee, Louisiana, administration, Davis also holds Arkansas, Oklahoma and Texas. In addition to college a master’s of science degree in accounting from the University aid, the agecy provided of Houston, with certificates summer camp scholarships in oil and gas accounting and to 465 youth, totaling over assurance/financial reporting. $280,000, and provides He received college financial aid financial assistance and case from JCRS when he studied at management to 51 Jewish Trinity and Houston. children with special needs.

“Our two-fold goal for this academic year is to fund more Jewish students who need financial assistance with even larger awards. We are proud to fill this important role within our Jewish communities,” said JCRS Executive Director Mark Rubin. “We could not do what we do without the support of our generous donors like Bob Zinn.”

Since 1946, JCRS has provided college or vocational training scholarships based on financial need. Many of the Jewish college students who receive aid from JCRS are from low-income families, but middle-class families are encouraged to apply. More than half of JCRS’s college scholarships are awarded to families whose household income is between $50,000 and $150,000.

Florida issues strong penalties to pro-Hamas protestors who violated laws Chris Summerlin, dean of students at the University of Florida in Gainesville, chose not to offer slap-on-the-wrist penalties to pro-Hamas protesters arrested on campus on April 29.

Instead, Summerlin applied multiple-year suspensions of some students, the most severe penalty short of expulsion.

The students in question will need to reapply should they wish to continue their education at the school, an option not allowed if expelled.

Summerlin, who began his position in April, rejected recommendations from hearing bodies that examined police videos and heard testimony. Tess Jaden Segal, 20, and Allan Hektor Frasheri, 21, received suggested sentences of one-year suspensions; Summerlin took it a step further and administered three- and four-year suspensions, respectively.

Segal said in a statement that her protesting for the university to divest from was “is an act of tikkun olam. I stand in solidarity with Palestinians not in spite of my Judaism but because of it.”

Frasheri also faces criminal charges for allegedly spitting on a university police officer. The court scheduled a hearing for him on July 24.

Other students receiving three-year suspensions included Roseanna Yashoda Bisram, 20, and Augustino Matthias Pulliam, 20.

When the encampment was attempted, the university stated that while peaceful protests are protected, “Camping, putting up structures, disrupting academic activity, or threatening others on university property is strictly prohibited,” and the rules have been in place for years.

Steve Orlando, a spokesman for the university, said in April that “The University of Florida is not a daycare, and we do not treat protesters like children — they knew the rules, they

broke the rules, and they’ll face the consequences.” He added that the protestors had been reminded of the rules for several days, and that prohibited activities would result in a threeyear ban. “Individuals who refused to comply were arrested after UPD gave multiple warnings and multiple opportunities to comply.”

The students are appealing their suspensions and calling for the state to drop charges against them. They say the three year ban is a “de facto expulsion” as it puts their education on hold for three years if they want to continue at Florida.

The nine who were arrested, none of whom have prior criminal convictions, turned down deferred prosecution agreements from the Alachua County State Attorney’s Office, where they would plead no contest or guilty and the charges would effectively be dropped from their records if they committed no further crimes during a period of time, usually 12 months.

Fresh Take Florida, a news service of the University of Florida College of Journalism and Communications, reported that one student arrested during the protests lied about being suspended for three years by nearby Santa Fe College. The college reported that not only has Charly Keanu Pringle, 21, not been suspended, she had not been enrolled as a student since the previous spring.

She had shared fraudulent emails and an AI-generated voicemail with a reporter to back up her claims. She also said her brother had sent the emails detailing the suspension, but he had died a month before she was arrested.

Her supposed suspension was included in a news release distributed by the students who were arrested at Florida.

Pringle has been banned from Florida’s campus for three years.

From JNS and SJL reports.

For Breaking News…

Southern Jewish Life Online www.sjlmag.com August 2024 • Southern Jewish Life Regional

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Screenshot/Bryan Anderson on X

Jewish and non-Jewish students at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill hold up the American flag. A full water bottle thrown by a pro-Hamas protester at the students can be seen passing the flag.

It isn’t just about Israel

Hamas supporters’ anti-U.S. agenda opened eyes at North Carolina

By Mike Wagenheim

“They’re sending a message to people that weren’t involved at all [in the protests], who just care about America, (JNS) — When anti-Israel protesters at the University of of who these people were, and what they want to accomNorth Carolina at Chapel Hill hurled slurs and objects at plish, ” said Rosenbaum. “It wasn’t just about the PalestinJewish students, it drew little attention. ians. It was about their whole agenda, their whole ideology.”

On April 30, when those same protesters ripped down the Rosenbaum was one of an estimated 12 to 20 Jewish UNC American flag in the center of the public school’s campus students pictured in widely-circulated images helping to and replaced it with a PLO one, it seemingly served as a protect the American flag when Hamas supporters attemptwakeup call to patriotic students that the ideological battle ed to rip it down from its posting, even after the university’s being waged on campus stretched far outside the confines interim chancellor, Lee Roberts, had ordered its restoration of the Israel-Hamas conflict. on the pole on the campus’ main quad.

“They’re basically saying, ‘If you’re not with us, you’re Rosenbaum said many of the Jewish students there that against us.’ That’s the message you’re sending when you’re day were from his UNC chapter of Alpha Epsilon Pi, the taking down the American flag, because no matter what, Jewish fraternity. He said he is also involved with other Jewwe’re supposed to be united under that flag,” Brendan Rosenbaum, a political science junior from Rockland Coun- ish organizations on campus, including Chabad and Hillel, and attends events put together by the student-run Heels ty, N.Y., told JNS. for Israel.

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When it became evident that the protestors call not just heard of another pro-Hamas protest set to take place. for death to Israel, but to America as well, there was a silent “Me and a couple of people in a small group chat decided realization among non-Jewish students there that day that to show up, and then one of my friends who was part of the Jewish and pro-Israel students had been fighting a wor- my fraternity who never comes to any of the protests just thy battle largely on their own, he said. had enough, and he showed up,” said Rosenbaum. “I had Rosenbaum said that since the incident and the Jewish an Israeli flag. So I asked him if he wanted to hold the flag students’ involvement in protecting the Stars and Stripes, together.” “there is a lot more sympathy, and I think there’s a lot more For some 90 minutes, he and his friend were screamed understanding” of what Jewish Tar Heels have been going at and told “that we should die, and that we should go kill through. ourselves,” Rosenbaum said.

“It’s not just a Jewish issue. These people show that that is After the protest moved to the center of campus and the an American issue, too,” Rosenbaum told JNS. “And people PLO flag was raised in place of the American banner, “it became more invested. I got so much was honestly just a crazy sight. And as support, coming from people that I havsoon as that happened, one of the people The flag incident en’t spoken to or seen in years, or people in my fraternity ran back to the house I just see in the street.” led to much more and actually grabbed an American flag.

Rosenbaum said that “to have that as understanding of what And then from that point on, it became a Jewish student, when sometimes we an Israel and American issue,” he said.

Jewish students have feel we’re alone on a really big campus, After the American flag had been is amazing. It became something really restored by university administration, had to endure positive from a really negative experionly to be taken down again by Hamas ence, something I genuinely value.” supporters, “that’s when me and my friends moved in, surrounded the flag and made sure that the protesters didn’t Clearly a Jewish presence take it,” Rosenbaum said.

Dan Stompel, a political science sophomore from MiFull water bottles were thrown at him and his friends, ami, was also there that day. He told JNS he had organized opening up a cut on one of their faces, he said. counter-protests before, and was standing with his friends, “At one point, they tried to take fences and block us in, so absorbing the insults being slung at them by terrorism they could surround us and basically scream at us. I had to supporters. take the gates down and sit on them,” said Rosenbaum. “But He couldn’t pinpoint an exact number of Jewish students it was important for us to stand there and show that our who had arrived, “but there was clearly a Jewish presence beliefs matter no matter what and that we weren’t going to there. There wasn’t an organized response, and there never back down.” really is on this campus.”

Stompel, who is Jewish but not a member of AEPi, said Jewish organizations on the Chapel Hill campus “haven’t done much. They kind of say, ‘Don’t get involved,’” as an unofficial response to efforts to organize a response to the protests.

He said he is involved in Chabad and Heels For Israel, along with politically conservative organizations on campus.

The incident came some five days after a pro-Hamas encampment began on campus. Rosenbaum said that during that time, it was “tough for different Jewish students to walk MACHINE & CUTTING TOOLS by.” Seeing signs in the encampment such as “Resistance is not terrorism” made it difficult to “function like a normal Bringing The World Of Machine And Cutting student,” he added.

Tool Technology To You When the university ordered the encampment to be taken down, Rosenbaum said he felt he could focus on class again.

That only lasted until the next day, when he and others

1-800-462-9519

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From left: Consul General Anat Sultan-Dadon, Tina Kempin-Reuter, Miriam Schler, Meredith Jacobs and Joyce Vance.

Speaking out about silence

Women’s panel discusses the lack of response to Hamas’ sexual violence against Israelis The mantra that when it comes to sexual violence, women are to be believed and such actions condemned has been prominent in recent years, with the emergence of #MeToo and the Women’s March.

But the sudden silence when Hamas terrorists perpetrated rape, torture and mutilation on Israeli women on Oct. 7 has shocked and frustrated Jewish women and a few allies — but not the vast majority of those who were presumed before Oct. 7 to be allies. That frustration was evident at “Using Our Voices,” an international panel at the Birmingham Museum of Art on April 4.

Coordinated by the Women’s Philanthropy division of the Birmingham Jewish Federation, the panel was moderated by former U.S. Attorney and MSNBC legal analyst Joyce Vance. About 300 attended the discussion among Jewish Women International CEO Meredith Jacobs, University of Alabama at Birmingham Institute for Human Rights Executive Director Tina Kempin-Reuter, Tel Aviv Sexual Assault Crisis Center Executive Director Miriam Schler, and Consul General Anat Sultan-Dadon of the Israeli consulate in Atlanta.

Zhaundra Jones, vice president of philanthropy and learning at the Women’s Foundation of Alabama, welcomed the audience to the discussion of “a matter of grave importance.”

She condemned the “heinous acts of violence and terror” on Oct. 7, and said “WFA stands firmly against any violence against women.”

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She concluded by referencing Martin Luther King’s disappointment in “the appalling silence of the good people” in the face of injustice.

Vance started the discussion by detailing Hamas’ use of sexual violence as a tactic of war. “This was not a byproduct of war, it was a deliberate way of striking fear.”

But the women’s groups who would normally be outraged met the news with a “shrug,” as “there was silence and even denial that the sexual assaults and rapes that were well documented had occurred.”

Vance noted, as did the panelists throughout the evening, that “we should have no difficulty in saying that rape is wrong. Rape is always wrong, it does not matter who the victims are.”

In the face of the silence, Vance said, “we can arm ourselves with information… we can have a willingness to speak out.”

Jacobs said JWI is part of a feminist coalition, with a call among the group leaders every Thursday. During the call the Thursday after Oct. 7, the facilitator, who is Jewish, asked Jacobs if she wanted to talk about what happened. “Normally, that is what we do,” she said. But she sensed that it would not be safe for her to discuss it, and declined, as did Sheila Katz from the National Council of Jewish Women.

October 7 was still brought up during the call, and Jacobs said usually when something like that happens, the chat is filled with hearts, direct messages, others asking what they could do.

mented, took pride in those atrocities they were commitSilence. ting, they uploaded them to social media.”

“I have not returned to those calls,” Jacobs said.

Another objection, a lack of forensic evidence, comes In those spaces, she explained, “we are taught to believe from watching too many crime shows. There were 1200 all women,” but in this case, proof was demanded. Not only murdered by terrorists on Oct. 7. The crime scenes were that, the narrative was twisted around to state that “rape is places of active warfare, “the last thing people were thinking resistance.” about was extracting evidence of sexual assault,” Schler said.

That narrative says “those women deserved what hapThere were truckloads of bodies that had to be identified pened to them. That somehow their bodies represented the and then given to their families for burial. state of Israel, the oppressor… it is beyond horrific.

The ”double standard and hypocrisy” have been “a huge “The disbelief has been so painful. I believe it is antisedisappointment, a feeling of betrayal, a feeling of abandonmitic. It is dehumanization, it is delegitimization and it’s a ment.” double standard,” echoing Natan Sharansky’s definition for Based on the testimony of hostages that were released when criticism of Israel crosses over into antisemitism. toward the end of last year, Sultan-Dadon said, there is ev“One of the worst traumas for us was the deafening siidence that hostages are facing sexual violence in captivity. lence of the world,” Schler said. The feminist icons she was “It cannot be that every person in the world who talks about raised on, such as Judith Butler and Susan Sarandon, were human rights is not screaming for their release.” stating “either it didn’t happen, or it was justified because of Kempin-Reuter said sexual violence is the occupation.” prevalent in war, but even in the Geneva “No matter what your political opinion #MeToo unless Convention in 1949, it wasn’t really talked is… rape can never be a weapon of war.” about. It wasn’t until the 1990s in Rwanda Jacobs said the United Nations was silent. the victim is and Yugoslavia that attention started to be Finally, 50 days after Oct. 7, there was a paid.

Israeli tweet condemning the Hamas attack and Even so, sexual violence is still seen as a calling for the release of the hostages. “It “side note” to war, and it takes a long time was deleted,” Jacobs said. for any type of prosecution. She said there were four trials After numerous Jewish women’s leaders pressured the a couple years ago for crimes that took place in the 1990s.

U.N. in December, a special envoy was sent to examine “There could and should be more done from international what happened, and though she characterized the result actors.” as positive, she said the envoy complained about not being Schler said not to look for criminal prosecutions for Oct. able to talk to survivors. “There are very few survivors left,” 7. Most survivors will not come forward, and most don’t Jacobs said, “and they aren’t going to trust the U.N.” know who the perpetrators were. “We’re talking about Schler said that is part of an unrealistic expectation being thousands of terrorists who infiltrated Israel.” And many of imposed on Israeli victims. “It is as if everything we know the surviving terrorists are likely to be released in a possible about sexual assault and what happens to victims has been swap of Palestinian prisoners for Israeli hostages. erased when it comes to the victims of Oct. 7.”

The message of tearing down the silence and the double While skeptics demand more evidence, Schler said what standard is needed, Sultan-Dadon said. “Silence is not an is actually available is the dream of everyone involved in option… if I am not taking a clear stand and using my voice prosecuting sex crimes. “If they had this amount of eviagainst evil, then I am enabling evil.” dence — it’s always he said, she said. We never have this “The astonishment in Israel,” Sultan-Dadon said, “is that abundance of evidence,” from eyewitnesses who were forced we woke up to the realization that while so many speak of to watch their loved ones being raped, to the perpetrators human rights… all of a sudden, when it comes to Israel, to filming their actions.

Israeli women, those values do not apply.

Similarly, “victims don’t come forward” in the vast ma“That is what we still can not digest.” jority of cases, especially to relive their trauma in public.

Jacobs related a story from San Diego, which welcomed There’s a demand “to be this freak show where the survivors a delegation from its Israeli sister city. As the community have to come out in front of the world… and tell their story.” came out for a huge welcome, a young Israeli girl burst into Sultan-Dadon noted that many victims can not give their tears. The girl, Jacobs said, expressed “I thought everyone stories “because they are no longer alive.” But there is plenty hated us.” of evidence, because “the perpetrators themselves docuAugust 2024 • Southern Jewish Life Regional

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ZAKA revisits New Orleans to discuss

aftereffects of Oct. 7, including mental toll Since Oct. 7, ZAKA has played a key role in dealing with the aftermath of the Hamas massacre in Israel, and is preparing for the possibility of war in the north. Israel’s non-governmental rescue and recovery organization is now turning to supporters around the world to ensure that its volunteers have what they need to do their jobs, and the mental care resources to deal with what they have seen.

On June 5, ZAKA held a program in one U.S. community that is very aware of the organization — New Orleans, which was the site of ZAKA operations following the levee failure after Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

An iconic photo shows ZAKA volunteer Rabbi Isaac Leider carrying waterlogged Torahs in waist-deep water through the flooded sanctuary of Beth Israel. The June event began with a donor reception in the sanctuary of the Orthodox congregation’s new building, and continued next door at Gates of Prayer, a Reform congregation that housed Beth Israel until their new building could be constructed.

Rabbi Phil Kaplan of Beth Israel said the Torah rescue was not why ZAKA originally came to town in 2005 — in addition to general assistance, they sought to retrieve the body of Meyer Lachoff, longtime gabbai of the congregation, who died two days after being evacuated to Baton Rouge. Lachoff was

Photo by James Henry Brook

Beth Israel Rabbi Phil Kaplan, ZAKA volunteer Micha Lader and Gates of Prayer Rabbi David Gerber.

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eventually buried in New Orleans, and the ruined scrolls were buried next to him.

Dan Forman, president of Gates of Prayer, said after Katrina, “we took care of each other, as Jews generally do,” and the decision to have Beth Israel build next door was based on the close relationship that developed after the storm. “This gathering is a true reflection of our values.”

ZAKA has about 3,000 volunteers around the world, ready to deploy anywhere in the world on two hours’ notice. The organization has just 12 employees.

One of the volunteers is Micha Lader, who has been a volunteer search and rescue supervisor for the Rockaway Nassau Safety Patrol for 15 years. Among the sites he has been sent to over the years are the World Trade Center and the Surfside building collapse in Florida.

He was at Shemini Atzeret services in Toms River, N.J., when “we knew something big was going on” as the sheriff entered the sanctuary and said “don’t get scared, but you will see a lot of police outside now,” as a precaution.

He contacted his brother, who by then was at the Shura military base near Ramle, “where all the bodies were taken to get identified” after the Hamas massacre. Initial reports had the death toll from 400 to 600, but his brother told him “it is far more than that.”

At that point, it was only a matter of when, not if, he would head to Israel. The June 5 event, held in conjunction with Jerusalem Day, was the first time he publicly spoke about his experiences. “It’s been difficult to put into words.”

About two weeks after Oct. 7, Lader was part of a team sent to the Gaza Envelope communities to relieve those who had been there since Oct. 7,” to “give them a break.”

Though the scenes were still horrific, “what we saw and what they saw were two different things.” They were looking for bodies and helping clean up the scene. There was a list of places they still could not go, because live grenades were present.

Moshe Rozenberg, executive director of ZAKA, said at the beginning, the priority was “collect the bodies and go,” because it was too unsafe to collect tissues and other samples.

There were still terrorists who had not been located, and constant rocket barrages from Gaza.

They finally got a call from the government that it was safe

Photo by Arie Leib Abrams/Flash90

A ZAKA—Disaster Victim Identification volunteer at Kibbutz Kfar Aza, near the Gaza Strip, Nov. 2, 2023.

to expand their work, but it was still on ZAKA to fund the Lader insisted “we will rebuild. We will heal. We will ensure needed supplies. Some volunteers on Oct. 7 were relying on the light of those we lost will live on through our acts.” the flashlights from their cell phones.

Responding to terror While Lader said he has been to sites of hurricanes, tornaThe roots of ZAKA go back to what is called the first Paldoes and other natural disasters, “this was different. This was estinian suicide attack, in July 1989 when the 405 bus from deliberate,” and what he had seen in the past did not prepare Tel Aviv to Jerusalem was commandeered and plunged into a him for what he would see. ravine, killing 16. Students from the nearby Or smell. He knew the smell of death, but Telz-Stone yeshiva rushed to administer aid, this was far worse, and pervasive. and one of them went on to found ZAKA in Many ZAKA Kibbutz Be’eri, where 101 civilians were 1995. murdered along with 31 security personnel, volunteers Lader said the 405 attack showed a need for “was the worst I have ever seen,” with holes knowledge on how to treat a disaster scene have gone to in every single home. There were homes that — marking where bodies were taken from, had rooms with blood but no bullet holes, psychiatric wards finding out where survivors had been sitting, shrapnel or fire markings. That’s where terrorto cope with what “all these details are extremely important to ists stabbed people or killed them with their identify bodies later on.” bare hands. they saw after That was especially important following He said it was a scene of “murder for the Oct. 7, and many bodies were beyond recogOctober 7 sake of suffering,” and “there was no line that nition. Days or weeks later, Zaka volunteers was not crossed.” went to where unidentified charred bodies had been found, As houses were checked, they were marked with an X and based on details on the body bag, to look for any blood, tissue codes for what was found inside — markings familiar to anyor other source of DNA. “Many bodies were identified based one who experienced the aftermath of Katrina. on this,” such as in burned-out cars.

Getting the word out about what happened “is everything,” ZAKA is the acronym for disaster victim identification in Lader said.

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Hebrew. In Israel, they have sole responsibility to deal with incidents of “unnatural death,” such as from terror attacks.

They work with emergency services and security forces to ensure that the dead are handled with respect, a mitzvah of the highest order because the deceased has no way to repay the kindness.

In addition to working in Israel, an international team is ready to be dispatched to major mass casualty incidents. The ZAKA International Rescue Unit works in close cooperation with Israel’s Foreign Ministry, the IDF and other government bodies.

In 2005, ZAKA was recognized by the United Nations as an international volunteer humanitarian organization, citing its work at the scenes of terror attacks in Mombasa, Istanbul and Taba, recovery of remains from the Space

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Shuttle Columbia disaster, and natural disasters such as a tsunami in Southeast Asia.

The organization has a legal department to help families when a government insists on an autopsy, which most of the time violates Jewish custom, or if cremation is ordered. When there is no other choice but to do an autopsy, there is a ZAKA volunteer “to make sure nothing is taken out.”

Though many think of ZAKA as an Orthodox agency, Lader said it is apolitical and ready to grant humanitarian assistance to anyone, anywhere. They have secular volunteers and volunteers from other faiths, such as Muslim volunteers versed in their rituals in handling the dead.

Rozenberg says his organization steps in “when Magen David Adom is step-

ping out.”

Nobody else does what ZAKA does, he said. “Very few people in the world can physically and mentally do the work that ZAKA volunteers are doing.”

But even that has its limits. Rozenberg said two “perfectly healthy” volunteers died of heart attacks since Oct. 7 — one was 39, one was 44. “They couldn’t take it.” Nineteen volunteers have been in and out of psychiatric wards after what they saw in the communities bordering Gaza.

Rozenberg met with a volunteer in New York who is a successful real estate lawyer. He is paying for weekly therapy sessions. He told Rozenberg, “That, I can afford. What about the people who can’t afford?”

The organization is looking to raise funds “to give them the proper mental support they need. Also, their spouses and kids, who now have a ‘different’ father.”

Gates of Prayer Rabbi David Gerber said that the ZAKA volunteers “witnessed first-hand the cruelty of our enemy.”

Arnie Fielkow, former CEO of the Jewish Federation of Greater New Orleans, said he knew a little bit about ZAKA, but “the more that I learned about this organization, the more impressed I become. They are truly doing God’s work.”

After ZAKA showed “dignity and respect” for the Beth Israel Torahs and the Jewish victims of Katrina, the event was “our opportunity to thank ZAKA and those affiliated with it for all they do in Israel and around the globe.”

Fielkow said the best way to show appreciation to ZAKA is to support their efforts in a time of great need and uncertainty in Israel. “Let’s partner up and make sure they have whatever they need in order to fulfil their mission.”

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Proud and Bold Olam Tova launches with clothing designs promoting Israel

At a time when many people are reluctant to make a public display about supporting Israel, Jenna Galbut is helping people wear it on their sleeves.

And their chests, their legs, their foreheads…

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Galbut, who made a name for herself in the last decade as a personal development guide online, and has more recently done brand development and investment advising, recently opened Olam Tova, an online clothing store with bold, youthful designs that carry a message — that the wearer is a proud supporter of Israel, and isn’t going to hide it.

The clothes also have another purpose — profits are sent to help Israel recover from the Oct. 7 attacks.

Olam Tova, Hebrew for “A Good World,” is part of her response to how October 7 changed her outlook, and enables people to “support Israel, and look good doing it.”

On July 24, there was a launch party in Miami for Olam Tova, with singer and social media influencer Montana Tucker as keynote speaker. The evening also included former Israeli spokesman in Britain Eylon Levy, who is the subject of one of the designs. Also on the program were IDF paratrooper Sam Fried, UnOrthodox comedian Chani Lisbon, author Dov Forman, activist Adela Cojab, comedian Yechiel Jacobs, life coach Vivace Maxvictor and producer Zack Sage Fox. “Growing up, I was very Americanized,” Galbut said. “A lot of American Jews took Israel for granted — it would always be around, we didn’t have to worry.”

But growing up with relatives who survived the Holocaust, she was taught to “be careful,” that there is never a period of 100 years without something bad happening to the Jews.

October 7 “shifted and repositioned my identity,” while being very depressing. She had been active with the Me Too movement and marched with Black Lives Matter, but found that when it came to the largest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust, her concern and solidarity for their causes was not reciprocated.

“It was really hard being abandoned by my friends, the people I marched with,” she said.

“I’m showing them video of October 7 and they won’t say a thing. That was really heartbreaking.”

She decided to channel her energy into doing something for Israel.

She has a friend who is connected to a family in Kfar Aza that stayed in hiding for 48 hours as Hamas rampaged through the area. “When they came out, everyone was dead.” She really wanted to be able to help families like that, and came upon the idea of designing Israel-themed clothing as a way of raising a lot of money quickly, to help Israelis.

She figured that she taught herself how to design materials when she self-planned her wedding in 2022, so “I could probably figure this out.”

In November, she started organizing Olam Tova and coming up with “trendy and cool” Israel-related designs.

It turns out that the clothing has a dual purpose. In addition to raising money for causes in Israel, it is a physical demonstration of support.

“It is time to start being loud and proud, because we won’t survive otherwise,” she said. “We don’t have time any more to be hiding.”

Fashion “is inherently activism,” she said. “Any time you are wearing an article of clothing… you are sending a subliminal message to the one who is seeing it.”

Wearing Israel In May, she did photo shoots in Mississippi and Georgia, spotting the occasional Israel flag on the back roads or outside a church.

Some Olam Tova designs are more subtle, like a turquoise, blue and green pattern with the Hebrew word Shalom in black, or the word ‘Freedom” with a subtle American and Israeli flag pattern.

Others are much more pointed — shirts that say “Hamas was not expecting October 8 Jews” and an even more direct play on the Hebrew phrase for “The nation of Israel lives” — “Am Yisrael F—ing Chai,” only the actual shirt eschews the hyphens.

Bad words are a motif for other shirts, such as one stating “’Israel’ and ‘Jewish’ are not bad words,” and “If Zionism is a dirty word, then talk dirty to me.”

Other phrases include “Spread hummus not hate,” “Only losers are antisemites,” “Dear Antisemite, your hate only makes us stronger,” “Zionism is sexy” and “Jews bite back.”

The abandonment she felt from previous allies after October 7 is manifested in a shirt with the quote “I was a bleeding heart liberal but they left me with a bleeding heart.”

There are dresses with Israeli flag, Chai or Israeli national seal patterns, Israeli flag leggings, and a July 4 pattern in reds and blues incorporating five- and six-pointed stars.

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There are sneakers with Israeli flag designs, and for beach activism certain to draw attention, an Israeli flag bikini. For those at the other end of the clothing spectrum, there is a Tznius collection for dressing modestly.

In June, a few of the Israeli flag items, including yoga leggings, the bikini and a pencil skirt added a rainbow motif for Pride Month. A ‘Pride” tank top includes the Israeli, U.S. and Pride flags.

Not everything has to do with Israel. Some patterns incorporate bagels, nosh or hamsas, or a “Schvitz” shirt perfect for this summer’s heat.

In addition to clothing, Olam Tova offers many of the patterns on suitcases, travel bags, hats, pet clothing, slide sandals, weekend bags, socks and yoga mats.

Galbut sees Olam Tova creating “a community of like-minded individuals who share a passion for Israel and Jewish causes,” confronting and changing the narrative set by anti-Israel groups.

If one feels too self-conscious, Galbut said to go out with friends who are wearing similar messaging, as there is strength in numbers. Not everyone is bold enough to be the “the first wave of pioneers to take it on and have courage” to wear these messages. “We’re doing it. The first wave is already here,” which will prompt others to join the second wave.

“Join the first wave, or join the second wave,” she urged.

Orders can be placed at olamtova.com.

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“Insulting” interpretation

In voting against antisemitism measure, Reps. Gaetz, Greene claim stating that Jews killed Jesus would be considered a criminal act; pro-Israel Christian groups say that’s nonsense While many House Democrats opposed a bill defining antisemitism on the claims that it might criminalize anti-Israel rhetoric, some Republican opponents used an even older argument — that it would criminalize Gospel claims that Jews killed Jesus.

Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and Matt Gaetz of the Pensacola area of Florida made that claim in defending their vote against the Antisemitism Awareness Act, which passed the House 320-91 on May 1. There were 70 Democrats who voted against the bill, and 21 Republicans.

The bill, aimed at combating rampant antisemitism on U.S. college campuses, adopts the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism in determining whether a crime is antisemitic. It would require the Department of Education to use the IHRA definition when considering whether Jews had been discriminated against under Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. The IHRA definition is not binding under law.

The U.S. Department of Education has used the IHRA definition of antisemitism in civil rights cases since 2018. Former president Donald Trump issued an executive order applying the IHRA definition to Title VI cases in 2019.

Opponents of the IHRA definition, which has been adopted by dozens of countries and a majority of U.S. states, claim the definition goes against First Amendment rights of freedom of speech, but the IHRA definition comes into play only after a crime has been committed, as an advisory opinion of whether or not antisemitism was part of the motivation for committing the crime.

Those simply making statements defined by IHRA as antisemitic could not be prosecuted for their speech, but if they committed a connected crime, that speech could be used as a factor to determine whether hate crime status should be used.

One example cited is that a school administrator could not be targeted for online posts that run afoul of the definition.

However, if there is a Title VI suit against the university by Jewish student organizations who are the only ones running into “no available space” responses to routine facilities requests, and that administrator is in charge of coordinating those spaces, the hostile posts become germane in determining if discrimination is at play.

Greene said that she would vote against the bill because of the role of “the Jews” in the crucifixion.

“Antisemitism is wrong, but I will not be voting for the

Photo by Gage Skidmore via Wikimedia Commons.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) at the 2021 AmericaFest in Phoenix, Ariz.

Antisemitism Awareness Act of 2023 (H.R. 6090) today that could convict Christians of antisemitism for believing the Gospel that says Jesus was handed over to Herod to be crucified by the Jews,” Greene wrote.

Crucifixion was a Roman form of capital punishment, and in those days the Jewish leaders did not have the authority to condemn anyone to death.

Greene cited the definition’s ninth example, “using the symbols and images associated with classic antisemitism (e.g., claims of Jews killing Jesus or blood libel) to characterize Israel or Israelis.” The claim that Jews killed Jesus fueled church-sanctioned antisemitism and mass murder for centuries.

In modern-day usage, anti-Israel groups routinely use imagery of Israel — and Jews in general — crucifying Palestine, killing Jesus a second time, or tying Israel’s actions against Palestinians as having its roots in the Jewish treatment of Jesus.

Responding to Greene, the Jewish Community Relations Council of Atlanta said there is no controversy in the IHRA’s definition of that argument as antisemitic. “Blaming Jews for the death of Jesus is antisemitic. It has been the most consistent, most used excuse for Jew-hatred for nearly 2,000 years.”

Gaetz said “This legislation is written without regard for the Constitution, common sense or even the common understanding of the meaning of words,” Gaetz wrote. “The Gospel itself would meet the definition of antisemitism under the terms of this bill!”

“The Bible is clear,” Gaetz added. “There is no myth or controversy on this.”

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Gaetz further quoted Acts 4:10, “Be it known to you all, and demonstrators claiming their genocidal ambitions are merely to all the people of Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ of anti-Israel, this legislation is timelier than ever.”

Nazareth, whom you crucified,” and 1Thessalonians 2:15, “for They pushed back against claims that it could punish Chrisyou suffered the same things from your own countrymen as tian free speech. “To the biblically literate, claims that the they did from the Jews, who killed both the Lord Jesus and Antisemitism Awareness Act is anti-Christian are as insulting the prophets.” as they are injurious,” wrote Hagee and Reed.

He then stated that “To be clear — I take no view on who They said those opposing the law seem to ignore that it is killed Jesus in how I voted on this measure. It was a matter of focused on “preventing unlawful action, not speech. For the the Constitution. The Bible is clear in that its words plainly, law to apply, a student would have to have an unlawful act textually, would violate this law. That is nuts — and in deep committed against them first.” conflict with the First Amendment.”

They added that “this law no more stifles free speech than He later defended his vote to Politico, saying he condemns the presence of a thermometer would change the temperature. antisemitism, but approving a “poorly drafted bill that could This law is sound. The biblical and moral mandate is clear.” literally deem the Bible antisemitism CUFI sent the letter to leaders in is our response, then the antisemites To the biblically literate, Congress. win.”

The Jewish Federations of North claims that the Antisemitism The pro-Israel Christian organization America, AIPAC, the Conference of Awareness Act is anti-Christian Passages blasted Greene and Gaetz, Presidents of Major American Jewish with CEO Scott Phillips saying “It is are as insulting as they are Organizations, the Orthodox Union, exactly at this moment, as the Jewish injurious Combat Antisemitism Movement and people are under attack across our Christians United for Israel applauded — Pastor John Hagee country that Christians are called to the bill’s passage in the House. be firm allies… Unfortunately, there and Ralph Reed On the Democrat side, Rep. Jerry are some Members of Congress, who Nadler opposed the “misguided” bill have a history of flirting with conspiracies against Jews who on First Amendment grounds.

Rep. Ritchie Torres of New have tried to appropriate Christian Scriptures to defend their York, one of the Democratic co-sponsors, said Nadler’s objecunjustifiable beliefs.” tions were “complete nonsense.”

In 1965, the Catholic Church repudiated the idea that Jews He told NPR “If you can figure out how to critique the polwere collectively responsible for the crucifixion, and in a 2011 book, Pope Benedict XVI specifically said there is no scriptur- icies and practices of the Israeli government without calling for the destruction of Israel itself, then no reasonable person al evidence to back the idea of Jewish culpability. would ever accuse you of antisemitism.”

“Insulting” claim Kenneth L. Marcus, founder and chair of the Louis D. Christians United For Israel released a letter on May 3 from Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, praised the its national chairman, Pastor John Hagee, and Ralph Reed, House’s passage of the bill, which he called “the game-changchairman of the Faith and Freedom Coalition, both of whom ing response that we’ve been waiting for.” praised the passing of the Antisemitism Awareness Act. “The Biden administration has long promised to codify They wrote: “As is clear, the world’s oldest hatred is alive the IHRA definition via regulation, but they have repeatedand well on both fringes of the partisan divide. Likewise, as ly missed their self-imposed deadlines. From conversations American colleges are taken over by hordes of pro-Hamas with numerous administrators, I can say that many university leaders are unaware that the IHRA definition is already woven into the Department of Education’s current, active guidance, hampering how they address soaring antisemitism on their campuses,” added Marcus, a former U.S. assistant secretary of education for civil rights. “Today’s monumental vote will remove all doubt.”

“From a federal perspective, this legislation won’t change current practice so much as it will reinforce it. From a univerusing the QR code here, sity perspective, however, there are few U.S. universities that are consistently applying the IHRA definition in appropriate or go to https://issuu.com/store/publishers/sjlmag/subscribe cases,” he added. “This legislation should put a stop to that.”

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From the back page of this magazine to under your drink on the coffee table Great reading during the Rosh Hashanah sermon “He periodically spells my name right.”

– Moses “Yes, we gave him a graduate degree.

We’re looking into it.”

– chancellor, Jewish Theological Seminary “Half of the things he says I said, I never said. Including this.”

– his mother “He knows more about Judaica than most, and you won’t find any of it in this book.”

– his fourth-grade teacher “His translation skills are second to none, and it’s a very close second.”

– his Hebrew professor “I’ll deal with him.”

– The Almighty Big G

W wai hy Cha t until nuk ah?

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Anti-Israel demonstrations at many Southern schools faced pushback While building takeovers and illegal “Free Palestine” encampments being cleared on college campuses across the country have been all over the news, demonstrations in the Deep South have generally been quieter — and faced more pushback.

Conversely, large protests at Tulane, Emory and Georgia have resulted in arrests.

A couple hundred anti-Israel protestors and counter-protestors faced off across rope barricades and a line of police on May 1 at the University of Alabama, in what many characterized as a couple groups shouting at each other for an hour and then going home.

Once news of the planned gathering emerged, Bama Hillel asked students “not to engage or bring attention to this group,” and said they would be open extended hours for Finals Week, with additional security.

The anti-Israel group gathered in front of the student center, behind a banner that said “Tide Against Genocide.” Other posters included “USA How Do Israeli Boots Taste,” “Jews Against Genocide” and “Where War Criminals Are Made: The University of Alabama Must Divest from the War Machine.”

Before the rally, university officials said no student group had asked for permission to hold a rally. The event was coordinated by the UA Leftist Collective, which focused on the university’s ties to Lockheed Martin. Among the six demands made by the group were to stop allowing the company to recruit on campus, and to no longer be a “partner university.”

Other demands included a public statement by the university calling for a ceasefire in Gaza, divesting “from corporations that are supporting the genocide in Gaza,” stop conducting research for the Department of Defense, and to rename Hewson Hall, which is named for a former CEO of Lockheed.

The group stated that “As students of the University of Alabama, we can no longer stand by in silent complicity as our institution supports a state-sponsored massacre of Palestinians,” and referred to Israel as an “apartheid state.”

The collective issued a notice that “if you see any statement in support of Hamas or antisemitism, that is not the UA Leftist Collective or anyone affiliated with the protest. We vehemently denounce all forms of racial or ethnic hatred, and our focus is on institutions here that need to change.”

The event did have an incident that went viral online — those in both the anti-Israel and pro-Israel groups were simultaneously chanting “F— Joe Biden.”

While the anti-Israel group chanted “Free Palestine,” the counter-protestors belted out the “Star Spangled Banner.”

Among the speakers were individuals looking to start a 32

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chapter of the anti-Israel Jewish Voice for Peace.

Rabbi Kussi Lipskier from Chabad at the University of Alabama attended the counter-demonstration to support the Jewish students and offer prayers. He told WVTM-TV that he was surprised there was a demonstration because he figured students there were more knowledgeable on what is happening in the Middle East, and that Israel seeks only to defend itself from Hamas, not oppress Palestinians.

After the event, the university issued a statement saying they appreciate “that attendees peacefully exercised their free speech rights with no disruptions, violence, vandalism or arrests,” and noted that University staff and University Police were on hand to make sure the event remained peaceful and in compliance with university policies.

A small protest took place at the University of Mississippi on May 2, dwarfed by about 200 counter-protestors. The counter-protestors endeavored to drown out the anti-Israel group’s chants with “The Star Spangled Banner.” Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves tweeted footage, saying it “warms my heart.”

Before the protest, Reeves said “peaceful protests are allowed and protected — no matter how outrageous those protestors views may seem to some of us. But unlawful behavior will not be tolerated.”

An incident at the Mississippi event also went viral, as fraternity brothers mocked a Black woman who was among the protestors and who came outside the barricades to confront them, as middle finger salutes were exchanged. One fraternity member who apparently made “King Kong” noises at the woman was expelled from his fraternity.

On May 3, a small anti-Israel group at Louisiana State University was also met with counter-protestors waving American and Israeli flags, to chants of “USA.” One student was filmed asking the anti-Israel group how many Southeastern Conference championships Hamas has.

The anti-Israel group chanted “From the River to the Sea, Palestine Will Be Free.”

The protestors were critical of LSU ties with Israel in energy exploration, which they said was off the shores of Gaza. The protest began outside the engineering building and then moved to Free Speech Alley. In 2020, the College of Engineering started a collaboration to run one of three U.S.-Israel Energy Centers, for the production of natural gas in the Eastern Mediterranean.

Most of the fields being developed by Israel are offshore in the northern part of the country. In June 2023, Israel had approved opening an area off Gaza for natural gas production that would benefit the Palestinians, but that has been set back since Oct. 7.

Jewish student Gabriella Magenheim told WAFB-TV that “do I think the university is doing anything to protect us?

Absolutely not.”

Hannah Poltorak added, “We feel so alone in the world and like Gabby just said, thank God we have our American friends here because I don’t know where we would be without them.”

On April 24, Students for Justice in Palestine at LSU held a “die-in” supporting Gaza on the steps of the student union.

They demanded the university and state divest from pro-Israel companies.

While graduation ceremonies at many universities were interrupted by protestors, the University of Florida had no incidents at its graduation. Signs at the entrance stated that “Protesting not permitted inside Ben Hill Griffin Stadium.”

There were also no incidents at Florida State.

Recently, University of Florida President Ben Sasse said that “we will always defend your rights to free speech and free assembly — but if you cross the line on clearly prohibited activities, you will be thrown off campus and suspended…

We’re a university, not a daycare. We don’t coddle emotions, we wrestle with ideas.”

N.C. State, Charter school settle Dept. of Education antisemitism complaints The Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law announced a settlement with the North Carolina State University on Aug. 1, following an early mediation process through the U.S. Department of Education to address a complaint about campus antisemitism.

The student who filed the complaint reported incidents of harassment the university failed to address, including a tunnel filled with swastikas and someone screaming at her “Death to Jews! Death to Zionists!”

Brandeis reported that the academic institution will implement a non-discrimination policy aligning with the 2019 Executive Order 13899 and North Carolina’s House Bill 942 (also known as the Shalom Act) which utilizes the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism.

North Carolina State will also revise training for students and staff, and conduct a campus survey to assess the depth of anti-Jewish sentiment.

Kenneth Marcus, founder and chairman of the Brandeis Center, called the settlement “a significant step forward in our efforts to combat antisemitism on college campuses.” He said the agreement “paves the way for meaningful change on both NCSU’s campus and on college campuses throughout the country.”

Robin Pick, senior counsel at the Brandeis Center, stated that “by committing to combat antisemitism in accordance with Executive Order 13899 and North Carolina House Bill 942, which apply to training, education, recognizing, identifying and combating antisemitic hate and discrimination, NC State has the opportunity to be a leader and a model for other universities in the fight against antisemitism.”

Middle School antisemitism Earlier this summer, a North Carolina public charter school agreed to settle a U.S. Department of Education investigation into severe, persistent and pervasive antisemitic bullying that went unaddressed in one of its charter schools for two full academic years. The settlement requires the school to take

concrete steps to address the systemic antisemitism it allowed to fester in its community.

According to the settlement, the Community School of Davidson has entered into a resolution agreement to resolve a federal complaint filed by the Brandeis Center on behalf of a non-Jewish eighth-grade boy who faced daily abuse after he wore the Israeli Olympic jersey of his favorite Major League Baseball player.

From that moment on he was treated with vicious, severe and relentless harassment and bullying by a group of nine classmates for being a Jew. He was called “dirty Jew,” “filthy Jew,” and “penny picker upper,” and told to “get in the gas chamber,” “go back to your concentration camp,” “go to your oven Jew,” “the oven is that way,” and “go die Jew.” The bullying occurred every single day all over school, even during Holocaust class, for two years. He was also threatened and physically assaulted.

“It would be hard to overstate the impact this has had on my child,” said the boy’s mother, who asked that her name and her son’s name be withheld, during a recent congressional briefing on Capitol Hill about rising anti-Semitism in K-12 schools.

“As a parent this has been completely devastating.”

In the settlement, the Department of Education confirmed that the evidence substantiated the Brandeis Center’s claim that the child was subjected to a hostile environment based on his perceived Jewish shared ancestry, and that the school knew about it and refused to take prompt and effective steps to address it or the broader hostile environment at the school.

“This is a very important settlement. It reflects the severity of anti-Semitism we’re now seeing not only on college campuses but also in K-12 schools. This case also shows the various ways in which non-Jews as well as Jews can be harmed by antisemitic attitudes,” said Marcus. “The law recognizes that discrimination against those ‘perceived’ to be Jewish must be addressed because it is still bigotry, and it can quickly and dangerously multiply and seep into an entire community. We commend the courage of this family including a child for coming forward.”

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South Carolina added to list of states using the IHRA definition of antisemitism (JNS) — South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster signed H. 4042, a bill that codifies the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism, into state law on May 23.

“Following the brutal terrorist attacks on Israel, we have seen an alarming rise in antisemitism not only around the world but shockingly on many of our nation’s college campuses and on the streets of many large cities,” the governor stated.

“South Carolina has long stood with Israel and with our Jewish community, which has a long proud history in our state,” he added. “This bill signing sends a clear and unified message that South Carolina will continue to stand firm against antisemitism.”

Photo courtesy S.C. Governor’s Office The House passed the measure unaniSouth Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster signs a bill into law codifying the IHRA working mously on May 4, 2023. An amended bill definition of antisemitism, on May 23. passed the Senate, 44-0, on April 17, and the revised bill passed the House, 71-26, on April 24.

“You know, that’s the old ‘don’t buy from the Jews’ moveAt the bill signing, the governor said “I don’t know if every- ment,” he said. “It’s a very old movement and now it applies to the Jewish state.” one recalls, but the oldest continuously operating synagogue in this country is in Charleston, South Carolina — 1749,” He “Thank you to Gov. McMaster for signing H.4042, the was referring to the Reform congregation Kahal Kadosh Beth IHRA Antisemitism definition bill, into law today,” wrote Elohim, which is celebrating its 275th anniversary this year.

Brandon Fish, director of community relations at the Charles“For all the history buffs out there, that is, in fact, before the ton Jewish Federation. “Thanks to Beth Bernstein for authorDeclaration of Independence and before there was a country,” ing the bill and taking it to the finish line.”

McMaster said. “At the time of the Revolutionary War, there Fish also thanked the Federation, IAC and “many others for were more Jews in South Carolina, specifically Charleston advocating for this bill for two years.” with that synagogue, than there was at any other place in the The Israeli Consulate in Atlanta also thanked those involved country.” in the bills’ passage. “Thank you to Governor Henry McBeth Bernstein, a state representative and the bill’s main Master for signing this important bill into law, and for your sponsor, said that there must be clarity about what antisemlongstanding support of Israel and the Jewish people. Thank itism means before one can try to solve it. “South Carolina you to Rep. Alan Clemmons for first introducing the bill, and needs this working definition of antisemitism, and I am deto Rep. Beth Bernstein for championing it in the General Aslighted that we will now be one of those states,” she said. sembly. We deeply appreciate everyone who worked tirelessly on accomplishing this legislative achievement.”

“Today, we stand united for the future of our children because together, we will build a better, more just future that In early August, New Hampshire became the most recent our children and grandchildren deserve, and, as always, South state to adopt the definition. Thus far, 37 states have adopted Carolina is leading the way,” said Elan Carr, CEO of the Israeli the definition. Over 40 countries have done so.

American Council.

Municipalities and universities also have adopted IHRA. On Speaking during the signing ceremony, Carr noted that July 16, Mercer Island, Wash., across from Seattle, adopted the “South Carolina was the very first state in the union to adopt IHRA definition. laws against the notorious boycott, divestment and sanctions With staff reports. movement targeting Israel.”

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Alabama AG organizes national support for Fla. Chabad’s lawsuit Transit authority turned down Chanukah event ads over religious speech policy The rejection by a state agency of a Florida synagogue’s advertisement for a “Chanukah on Ice” event has resulted in a Supreme Court case supported by more than half of America’s states on the grounds of religious freedom.

A coalition of 26 states joined to advocate on July 5 for Young Israel of Tampa, which wanted to place ads for a holiday gathering, after the Hillsborough County Transit Authority denied such on the grounds of a “no religious speech” advertising policy.

The authority, however, had accepted a similar ad for a “Winter Village” event with no religious mention.

Young Israel is a Chabad center under the direction of Rabbi Uriel Rivkin.

“By unlawfully denying a Jewish synagogue’s proposed holiday advertisement solely because it was religious, the transit authority brazenly targeted religious speech as the object of its discrimination,” stated Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall, who is spearheading the coalition.

He said the coalition “recognizes that such discrimination is a direct attack on the First Amendment, and we look forward to continuing our support of Young Israel.”

Alabama had previously organized two multistate briefs in support of Young Israel at the Eleventh Circuit court.

John M. Formella, attorney general of New Hampshire, called the goal of the case to uphold “religious liberty and the fundamental rights guaranteed by the First Amendment.”

The policy of the transit authority, he said, “to censor religious speech while allowing similar non-religious speech is not only discriminatory but also unconstitutional. The government has no place in determining which religious viewpoints can be expressed in public forums.”

The attempt to place the ad was in 2020. Young Israel filed suit in February 2021. In January 2024, the 11th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals upheld the District Court for the Middle

From Young Israel of Tampa’s 2020 Chanukah on Ice event

District of Florida, which issued summary judgment in favor of Young Israel in January 2022 citing viewpoint discrimination and how the transit authority’s policy did not have workable standards and was inconsistently applied.

The guideline, adopted in 2013, prohibits ads that “primarily promote a religious faith or religious organization,” without defining “religious” or “primarily promote.” There was no history of problems due to religious ads, but in 2013 there were “limited complaints” over a Council on American-Islamic Relations ad, but no disruptions or vandalism occurred.

The ruling sent ordered the transit authority to come up with a more workable guideline, but the groups of AGs said that the ruling would allow the authority to come up with more consistent guidelines against religious ads, while the objective should be to end such discrimination altogether.

Therefore, they are asking for a Supreme Court review, as there are many other transit authorities with similar guidelines.

The 24 other supporting states included Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, West Virginia and Wyoming.

From JNS and staff reporting.

For Breaking News…

Southern Jewish Life Online www.sjlmag.com August 2024 • Southern Jewish Life Regional

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Becoming family through supporting Israel Jewish, Christian communities in Arkansas work together to benefit JNF projects After the horrors of October 7 became apparent, the Jewish National Fund-USA assisted in evacuating residents from the communities near Gaza to the region that a coalition of Christians and Jews in Arkansas have been investing in for the past decade, said Reagan Weil, JNF-USA Southwest regional director.

He made those remarks at a Feb. 29 “Build Together: Arkansas Stands with Israel” interfaith event in Little Rock, while reflecting on how the Christian and Jewish communities in the state have been working together on several initiatives in Israel, while building their own friendship at home.

Held at Agudath Achim in Little Rock, the event was co-hosted by the Jewish Federation of Arkansas, Lubavitch of Arkansas, Congregation B’nai Israel and Commission Fields, an Arkansas-based non-profit that does faith missions from “A to Z, agricultural to Zionist,” connecting Christians to their Hebraic roots.

JNF-USA CEO Russell Robinson attended the event, discussing how their Israel team mobilized to support the affected communities, evacuating, feeding, clothing, and providing other supplies and trauma therapy to tens of thousands of evacuees.

At the time of the event, JNF-USA had raised almost $60 million in immediate relief funds through its Resilience Campaign, including a “Livnot B’Yachad — Build Together” plan, to restore the Israel Envelope near Gaza.

“With volunteers from Israel and around the world coming together and working with community leaders, we will rebuild, repaint, and replant,” said Robinson. “We will provide new furniture. We will place benches on front lawns, redo the roads, rebuild parks, and repaint shelters and buildings. The sound of building is the sound of creating tomorrow.”

At the event, the Federation presented a check for $36,000 toward the effort.

Cathie Dorsch was on the pastoral staff of Agape Church in Little Rock, which has long held Nights to Honor Israel.

Dorsch said she “grew up loving Israel, and being part of a congregation that wanted to do tangible things.”

She became friends with Tettlebaum, and while serving as interim principal of her school, she hosted Tettlebaum, Weil, and Joel and Irene Spalter for a meeting in the school office. The Spalters, of Fayetteville, are members of the JNF Housing Development and Arava Task Forces.

At the time, the school had launched an introduction to Hebrew class, and “B’reisheet,” Hebrew for “in the beginning” was on the blackboard. “Joel walked in and saw the Hebrew, it probably looked very elementary, and said ‘can you read it.’ I read it to him and we laughed.”

It was an auspicious beginning, and the group evolved from there. The first project they supported together was a Magen David Adom emergency station at JNF’s new Emergency Response Center in the central Arava region, in Southern Israel near the Jordanian border. In November 2016, the Federation voted to commit to raising $100,000 toward the project to replace a dilapidated 40-year-old clinic, located in a place 80 miles from larger communities like Beersheva and Eilat. In all, Arkansas donors contributed $200,000 toward the effort.

According to a 2019 Federation release, “The further development of the Arava depends on the region’s ability to provide basic public services to its current and future residents.”

In 2018, the group participated in a mission to Israel, to dedicate the facilities Arkansas had supported. Weil said that trip “really solidified the connection between the Agape Church and the Jewish community,” and the church has focused its philanthropy from their Nights to Honor Israel on the joint projects sponsored by the Arkansas Jewish community.

Dorsch said she “has evolved from being a friend on the periphery to a real family member,” and “I don’t think we Interfaith partners knew at the time how far we could go.”

Marianne Tettlebaum, former executive director of the She left Agape and started Commission Fields that year, Jewish Federation of Arkansas, said developing the partner- her work evolving “into a network of clergy and partners, ship was one of the highlights of her tenure. It is estimated who want to do this through the Arkansas community.” that there are about 2,250 Jews in Arkansas.

On the 2018 trip, they decided their next project would “We’ve become family over the last eight years,” Weil said. be the Red Mountain Therapeutic Riding Center, and 36

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Arkansas delegation at the Red Mountain Therapeutic Riding Center August 2024 • Southern Jewish Life Regional

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Dorsch said that project “really began to expand the involvement of other Christian congregations, individuals and businesses in Arkansas.”

The riding center is located 45 miles north of Eilat and provides horseback riding therapy to children with physical or mental disabilities, and emotional and behavioral issues.

Because of the threat of missile and terrorist attacks, all public spaces are now required to have protective spaces.

Since the school did not have a bomb shelter, they would have been forced to close.

In 2018, the Federation, Commission Fields and Agape committed to build a dual-use facility that can serve as a classroom and a bomb shelter, enabling the facility to remain open.

Joel Spalter said that the next project at Red Mountain, in 2023, came from Dorsch’s love of gardens. “A shelter isn’t enough because it is hot in the Negev, and there are plenty of people who accompany the person getting therapy, and it would be nice if they had a comfortable place to talk to each other,” he explained.

Dorsch said “nature is part of the healing process in

Irene Spalter and Cathie Dorsch in Israel in 2018

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recovery from war trauma,” and the project provides “a more restful environment.” The project included a patio and pergola attached to the building, a garden, trees and a playground coordinated by a different donor. “Multiple projects were accomplished through that addition,” she said.

The outdoor area was completed just before October 7.

Spalter said their bags were packed and they “were ready to fly to Israel” on Oct. 9 to visit and dedicate the projects.

“That trip was not cancelled, it was postponed,” he said.

Southern roots

Dorsch said Arkansas is a “Southern community, doing something for the Southern community of Israel,” putting “deep South roots” with projects that speak to them.

Tettlebaum said that working with JNF enabled them to “find projects that fit our community, those interests we had a passion for, and gave something tangible that people could see when they go to Israel.”

She added, “We wanted people in Arkansas to see that you can have this tangible impact on an important part of Israel.”

Weil said that Red Mountain has been a partner with JNF for over 20 years, and is one of over 70 groups they work with “to create a quality of life that enables people to move to more remote parts of the country.” Aside from special projects like the bomb shelter and the garden, JNF raises funds for scholarships at Red Mountain, to cover costs for families in need.

The group continues to work on Israel projects, focusing on the Resilience Campaign for post-October 7 needs. A large number of evacuees from the border communities near Gaza wound up in the area near Red Mountain, and have been receiving therapy there.

They are also embracing the Halutza village concept, rebuilding the area near the Gaza border so residents can return. The original Halutza community was constructed near the meeting point of the borders of Israel, Egypt and Gaza, in a place where there had not been a community before. The residents are those who were evacuated from the Jewish communities in Gaza when Israel withdrew from the area in 2005, and took on the mission of expanding physical presence in the Negev.

Dorsch said this will be a long, ongoing project, and they are working to get the word out, “so we can adopt Halutza and help rebuild the area.”

Weil also noted that Dorsch recently made “the largest order of JNF Blue Boxes ever,” referencing the charity boxes that have been ubiquitous in Jewish homes for a century, as a fundraiser for needs in Israel. She ordered 1,000 to place in churches and Sunday School classrooms.

The dual-use classroom and bomb shelter at Red Mountain

Tettlebaum said it is important to note that “This is a joint effort, this is us deciding together where we want to move forward. This isn’t one or the other saying this is where we want to go,” but Dorsch and Agape have “always been willing to support what the Jewish community’s priorities were, and this has continued into a great mutual relationship.”

Dorsch said “we’re called to a leap of action,” and “this is the place where our faith and our action get to work together.” They’ve had to overcome some of the unpleasant history of Christian interactions with the Jewish community, but now they have “put a stake in the ground” for moving forward in “a productive, life-giving, genuine relationship.”

Spalter said there is a commonality of purpose between the Christian and Jewish communities, as “this is the front line of the preservation of Western society.” He said that “until we understand” Houthis, Hezbollah, Hamas and Iran “are all an axis, just as there was an axis in the 1930s, we will not defeat them. We have to understand they are all one and the same.”

By working in Halutza, he added, “we are standing to-

gether defending the U.S. as well as Israel, and defending all of western civilization. That’s why we continue on.”

Weil said that since 2018, the Jewish and Christian communities in Arkansas have contributed roughly half a million dollars to Israel. “JNF-USA has been the vehicle, but through their philanthropy they have created real, tangible impact to the citizens of the Arava.”

As Dorsch has built her organization, Weil said, “she has spread the relationship throughout many different pockets of the non-Jewish community,” far beyond the involvement of any one church.

“Everywhere I go, people want to do something,” Weil said. “I haven’t seen anybody be able to actually put it into action the way that Arkansas has,” with that kind of interfaith partnership.

He explained, “It takes progressive leadership, it takes trust, it takes faith, it takes love and it takes selflessness.

There can be no ego in who gets credit, who raises the most money, who makes decisions. That’s been the secret to the success.”

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“Trees for Trolls”

Georgia Representative has a “Southern Jewish” way to say “Bless Their Hearts”

By Menachem Wecker (JNS) — Esther Panitch was inspired when Renee Evans, of the World Jewish Congress, bought trees in Israel recently for Peach State legislators who voted in favor of a bill to codify into law the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism.

Evans put Jewish National Fund tree certificates on the lawmakers’ desks. “I saw the certificate, and I was like, ‘Huh. This would be great if I could just name it in honor of a troll’,” Panitch, a Democrat who is the only Jewish state representative in Georgia, told JNS. And so her “trees for trolls” approach was born.

“This is my southern, Jewish, pearl necklace-wearing, womCourtesy Georgia House of Representatives an lawyer from Miami’s way of saying ‘Bless their hearts’,” she told JNS. Esther Panitch, a state representative, in the Georgia House of Representatives chamber in the state Capitol in Atlanta, on Jan. On April 11, Panitch posted on social media that she 25, 2024. donated a tree in Israel in honor of the University of Georgia chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine. “We should build a not be on social media, definitely, on Shabbat,” she told JNS. forest for all the trolls,” she wrote.

She and her husband, who met at a Greater Miami Jewish The trees cost $18 apiece — $10 each when purchased 10 at Federation singles event — “We’re like poster kids,” she said a time.

— keep a kosher home. She went to Camp Ramah and all of “It made me feel so good when I did it,” she told JNS. “It’s a her kids went to Camp Judaea. Both Panitch and her husband great feeling. You can get back at the trolls in a way that helps grew up in Zionist homes.

Israel.”

“We wanted to make sure that our kids had that education,” Panitch grew up with a JNF pushke — charity box — near she said. the Shabbat candles and kiddush cup. “For me, it was, ‘Oh. Having raised alarms about Jew-hatred long before Oct. 7, Keren Kayemeth LeIsrael/JNF. It’s a win-win.

Panitch has, to some extent, seen others catch Israel benefits, and the trolls get a little of up in the past six months. their own medicine,” she told JNS. Panitch discovered “The non-Jewish community really has seen “Doing something to help Israel during this JVP was lying to what we deal with, because there’s no way to time is great,” Panitch, who is also active in ignore it anymore,” she told JNS. “It may not Hadassah, told JNS. “And if it means that I her colleagues have happened in their neighborhoods. Their leaned into my petty side a little bit to do it, about being houses may not have had the fliers, but there’s then that’s fine, too.” no avoiding what’s going on in the world. The representative Conservadox anti-Israel people are blocking airports and of the Jewish other areas of commerce. You cannot avoid Panitch grew up in North Miami Beach and community it.” went to Lehrman Community Day School there. She was raised “kind of Conservadox,” “I feel good that we have a government that she told JNS. is supporting not just Israel but the Jewish community within the United States,” she added. “I’m especially grateful to live She and her husband, who were married by an Orthodox in Georgia, where I have a state legislature and an executive rabbi, are members of a Conservative shul. “We’ve always branch that stands by the Jewish community, as evidenced by gone between both areas,” she said. the passage of the IHRA definition this past year.”

“I’m not shomer Shabbos, but I’m trying to get better, and 40

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Thick skin Panitch had a run-in with Jewish Voice for Peace in March 2023, which led her to buy an Israeli tree in honor of that anti-Israel group earlier this month.

After seeing JVP members at a hearing, she invited them to meet with her in her office. Though they scheduled a meeting, the JVP people didn’t show up, Panitch told JNS. “I’m sitting in my office emailing them, ‘Hey are you in the building? Are you close?’ They said, ‘Oh sorry. We couldn’t get to the Capitol today’,” Panitch said. “Then I saw my minority leader, who said, ‘Can you meet with me this afternoon, there are some Jewish people coming.’ I’m like, ‘Who?’” He told Panitch the names, and it turned out to be JVP. “I was in his office when they walked in,” she told JNS. “I was there and they started to cry and insisted that someone who was pro-their side be present in the room, even though we weren’t alone. It was me, my minority leader, the Democratic lawyer, who told them, by the way, that the IHRA definition doesn’t infringe on free speech.”

“Some of their strategies to waste my time backfired,” Panitch said.

It took her some time to realize that Jewish Voice for Peace was going around telling Georgia lawmakers that it represents the Jewish community.

“By the time that we realized that they were lying, it was a little late in the session to educate my colleagues about who actually represents the Jewish community, or who didn’t represent the Jewish community,” she said.

In late November, State Affairs Georgia asked Panitch in an interview what the people of Georgia should know about the war against Hamas in Gaza.

“So I want them to know that anybody who tokenizes Jews by holding up JVP, or IfNotNow, that’s what they’re doing, they’re tokenizing the Jewish community by using some who are willing to be used as a cover,” Panitch told the news outlet.

“Don’t forget, there were Jews who supported the Nazi party before they were killed.”

“Well, they didn’t like that,” Panitch told JNS, of Jewish Voice for Peace. “They tweeted that Esther essentially called us Nazis.”

“I said, ‘Thanks for spending so much time on my bill. Am Yisrael chai’,” she said, using the Hebrew for “the nation of Israel lives.”

Asked how many Georgians JVP actually represents, Panitch said “The only people that show up to their events are like 20 core people. Tiny. I don’t even know that it’s a rounding error.”

She receives antisemitic attacks from both the far left and

Representative Esther Panitch buys a tree in Israel “for” Motaz Azaiza, a Hamas “journalist” and terror supporter recently honored by Time Magazine.

far right, she told JNS. The latter came after her in particular when she criticized Rep. Mike Collins (R-Ga.) for amplifying an antisemitic account that attacked a Jewish Washington Post journalist. (Collins’s social-media post remains live.)

Panitch told JNS that she had asked the congressman’s staff in private for him to apologize. “It wasn’t like I initially just slammed him on Twitter,” she said.

Many of the antisemitic attacks she receives also have “a misogynistic slant” to them, Panitch said.

“I don’t pay attention to people I don’t know. They can spend all of their time trolling me. It’s fine,” she told JNS. “It’s the people I do know, many of who have either been silent or have refused to stand up, notwithstanding that we, the Jewish community, have stood up for other minorities in their times.”

“I’m a lawyer. I have a thicker skin. I do divorce and criminal defense. I’ve been the subject of hate campaigns before,” she added. “It’s just something you deal with. It’s not fun, but you deal with it. You don’t let it distract you, and frankly, the more it comes, you know you’re closer to your target.”

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Southern Jewish Cover Story Editor’s Notebook

Feeling the Love in Nashville National Religious Broadcasters’ Christian Media Convention has special emphasis on standing with Israel With its indoor river and expansive gardens, the Gaylord Opryland Hotel in Nashville seems like its own little bubble in the universe.

For those who have been dealing with the venom and invective aimed at Israel and its response to Hamas’ Oct. 7 invasion and massacre, with anti-Israel demonstrations taking place repeatedly across the country and worldwide, the hotel was indeed an oasis as the National Religious Broadcasters held its annual Christian Media Convention in late February. Even with a neo-Nazi group marching on downtown Nashville a couple days earlier.

Reflecting the high level of support for Israel in the evangelical Christian community, NRB has long been vocally supportive of the Jewish state, with an annual Israel breakfast and usually a session or two about Israel. In 2019, there was a particular emphasis on encouraging Christians to speak out against a national rise in antisemitism.

With the war against Hamas raging, this year’s NRB had much more of a focus on Israel, with numerous expressions of love and support.

Along with the breakfast, there were several programs with families of Israeli hostages held in Gaza, discussions on how to support Israel, and the announcement of an NRB fact-finding mission to Israel that took place the end of May. Troy Miller, CEO of NRB, told this publication that he had visited Israel in December, and saw the aftermath of Oct. 7.

“There is no other description, it was pure evil,” he said. “This was an attack on the Jewish people and on humanity.”

Keep God’s Land, a new organization dedicated to advocating for Israel to maintain sovereignty over the territories that most of the world chalks up to a future Palestinian state, was also unveiled, with former U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman unveiling his peace plan that would keep Israeli control of the territories while giving Palestinians maximum autonomy.

With that, NRB made headlines through the Biblical Heartland Resolution, a request for member outlets to stop using 42

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the term “West Bank” in Middle East coverage, and instead use the correct Biblical names, Judea and Samaria, as the term “West Bank” referred only to the 19 years Jordan held the area, from 1948 to 1967, while Judea and Samaria go back to Biblical times.

The NRB also passed a resolution pledging “its continued support and friendship with Israel in her time of need,” condemning terrorism and calling on the hostages to be released, and noting the important role Christian media play in educating about antisemitism. The resolution said “an attack on the Jewish people and their historic connection to the Land of Israel is an assault on the deep roots of the Christian faith.”

Hosted by Israel’s consulate in Atlanta, there were also screenings of the 45-minute documentary of raw footage from the Oct. 7 attacks, filmed by Hamas members who were looking to boast about their atrocities.

The Israel365 news outlet held an Israel War Room experience, with briefings on the situation, a conversation with hostage families and suggestions on how to engage in the social media battle.

The Israel Prime Minister’s office hosted “Bear Witness,” an immersive virtual reality visit to the aftermath of Oct. 7.

In the expo, there were numerous Israel-focused booths, including Magen David Adom, the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, Tennessee-based Proclaiming Justice to the Nations, the International Christian Embassy Jerusalem, the Philos Project’s White Rose Resistance, and the Israel Ministry of Tourism, along with a couple vendors of Israeli products. Perhaps reflecting the war-time situation, there were fewer organizers of tours to Israel than usual.

“The Christian community has always had a strong affinity for Israel and for the Jewish people,” Miller said. “The events of Oct. 7 have only solidified that,” and while many among the left and progressive communities have “abandoned” Israel, “the Christian evangelicals support Israel stronger than ever.”

Getting a geographical briefing inside the Israel War Room at the National Religious Broadcasters convention.

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The concept of Christian support for Israel is still relatively new to many in the Jewish community, especially as it comes from a segment of the Christian world that the Jewish community has not regarded as a traditional ally, given mainstream positions in the American Jewish community regarding separation of church and state, teaching of evolution instead of Creationism, abortion rights and acceptance of the LGBTQ community, to name a few where Jewish views and evangelical activism diverge. Not to mention historical concerns of a conversionary agenda.

But with “mainstream” churches and left-leaning non-profit advocacy groups becoming neutral or outright hostile to Israel, many in the Jewish community have felt abandoned by their traditional allies that they have worked with on social justice issues, while the evangelical community has been supportive and vocal on behalf of Israel and in fighting antisemitism on its own, without lumping it in with fighting other forms of hate.

While many Jews assume this is just a ploy to missionize, there has been a major shift in the Christian world over the last several decades. Replacement theology, the idea that the church replaced Jews in God’s covenant and that Christianity was supposed to replace, or fulfil, Judaism, has been increasingly rejected. Instead, there is an emphasis on a continuing role that the Jewish people play in history, and that the divine covenant between God and the Jewish people endures — and Christians feel they have been added as a branch, rather than replacing the tree.

The most vocal pro-Israel Christian groups, such as Christians United for Israel, won’t go anywhere near missionizing.

Now, that isn’t universal — there are still some groups whose goal is to convert the Jews, and a couple of them had booths in the NRB expo, though there seemed to be more who were working on missionizing the Muslim world.

But for most Christians, it all rests on Genesis 12:3, where God tells Abraham that He will bless those who bless him, and curse those who curse him. They’d much rather be on the side of blessing. And from there also comes the notion of shared values, democracy, strategic importance as a beacon of freedom in a tough part of the world.

They also feel a debt toward the Jewish people, as their savior, Jesus, was Jewish, lived in a Jewish context, and the first part of their scripture came from the Jews. Without the Jews, they would not have knowledge of God, notwithstanding the difference of opinion we have over God’s nature.

There is an ever increasing number of organizations with Christians and Jews, often Orthodox and many in the territories, working together for Israel causes. There are also institutes where Christians go to learn the Jewish approach to scripture.

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The re-establishment of Israel not only was a key in the repudiation of replacement theology, it and Jewish immigration to Israel are seen as fulfilments of prophecy and the truth of the Bible. Many Jews express concern that this support is ultimately about sparking a battle of Armageddon, but again, there is a wide range of opinion within Christianity as to what will ultimately happen, and most Christian supporters of Israel are thinking about today, not some ultimate battle where they say the timing is up to God and not man, and which isn’t part of the Jewish worldview regardless.

That is embodied in the joke about Jews and Christians waiting together for the messiah, and then asking “first or second visit?” Until then, the sentiment is, why not work together on an important common cause?

In 2015, a large group of Orthodox rabbis in Israel published “To Do the Will of Our Father in Heaven: Toward a Partnership between Jews and Christians,” which says that neither Jews nor Christians can bring redemption on our own, it must be a partnership.

Around the same time, Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI stated that the Catholic Church is called to dialogue with, not missionize, Jews, as Jews “alone, among all people” already know God. Even with the knowledge of how Christian theology and views of the Jews have changed, attending NRB is still a paradigm shift that can sometimes be uncomfortable, coming from the political worldview of the American Jewish community to an expo where booths include groups that fight against abortion, advocate against the “LGBTQ agenda,” with an increased emphasis on transgender issues this year, and advocacy for Christian “religious freedom” in government.

To be an actual NRB member, one must profess faith in Jesus and subscribe to certain views about marriage and sexuality.

As the very small Jewish presence at NRB increases, this year there was a bit of a change in that when someone mentioned being Jewish, it was much less common for the followup question to be “messianic?” Mostly because that has been the segment of what they perceive as the Jewish community (mistakenly) that is most likely to have engaged with them in the past. A gentle “no” was never an issue.

But at a time when Jews around the world are wondering if we need to hide who we are, NRB was a place where one could wear a yarmulke the whole time and not have a care in the world. And it is preferable to have people genuinely praying for your well-being than being out on the streets calling for your destruction.

What follows are some of the events from this year’s conference.

“Significant” breakfast Early in the morning of Feb. 22, hundreds of delegates to the NRB convention turned out for “one of the most significant Breakfasts to Honor Israel in the history of the NRB.” That was how Chris Mitchell, Jerusalem bureau chief at CBN News and emcee for the breakfast, described the soldout event.

Mitchell noted the show of support for Israel comes during the war against Hamas, the possibility of a wider war with Hezbollah, legal proceedings in heavily-biased international courts, a United Nations that has “a lopsided General Assembly and a hostile Security Council,” and efforts in Washington to impose a two-state solution “that would divide God’s land.”

Not to mention Iran’s “genocidal plans to wipe Israel off the map.”

“Our times cry out for unprecedented cooperation between Jews and Christians,” Mitchell said.

The keynote address was given by International Christian Embassy Jerusalem President Juergen Buehler, who has lived in Israel for 30 years and has two sons in the Israel Defense Forces, including one in Gaza.

He said Israel needs to have a decisive victory over Hamas so there can be a Marshall Plan for Gaza, and a deprogramming of the decades of Palestinian hate education regarding Israel and Jews. He related what his father told him about his own experiences as a soldier for Hitler’s Wehrmacht. “You have to be thankful what America did to our nation. They brought us to our knees to eradicate any form of Nazism from our country.”

Buehler said “We are praying at the ICEJ every day that God would release 4000 missionaries to Gaza” to build schools and hospitals, “to educate a new generation… like America did 75 years ago to my country.”

Fighting Hamas a moral issue Anat Sultan-Dadon, Israel’s consul general to the Southeastern U.S., told the crowd that supporting Israel against Hamas “is not a political issue, it is a moral issue.”

She reiterated that Israel did not want this war. “Our choice as a people and a

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nation has always been peace,” but “we are fighting to defend ourselves, which is the right and duty of every sovereign nation.”

The battle is not just against Hamas, nor is it just Israel’s fight, she said. It is part of “a genocidal Islamist ideology that is a threat to the free world.”

And yet, the world has not spoken up for Israel, or to condemn Hamas. “The silence by those who should be speaking up is deafening,” she said, including international women’s organizations who “have mostly been silent in the face of gender-based violence carried out against Israeli women and girls.”

She also called out the rampant antisemitism on college campuses that is “being tolerated by too many,” including “genocidal chants for the elimination of the state of Israel.”

She said Palestinian self-determination will never happen “at the cost of the existence of the state of Israel.”

She urged everyone at the breakfast to “use your voices to share the truth of Oct. 7,” and speak out against demonstrations “that are called pro-Palestinian,” but are actually “pro-terror, pro-murder and pro-rape.”

If they were truly pro-Palestinian, “they would be using their voices with us in calling for Gaza to be free of Hamas.”

She said “every single one of you has the power to do so much.” And that includes visiting Israel. “If you are asking yourself if now is the time, now is the time.”

Sultan-Dadon also urged those at the breakfast to remind the world that there were still, at that point, 134 Israeli hostages in Gaza, including five Americans. “Use any platform you may have, to call for their immediate and unconditional release.”

Presidential visit Just as Israel was a major focus of events at the National Religious Broadcasters convention in Nashville, it also was a focus of President Donald Trump’s address to the group on Feb. 22, as he said the October 7 attack by Hamas would not have happened if he were in office.

“Israel wouldn’t have been attacked,” Trump said. “Ukraine wouldn’t have been attacked. China wouldn’t be thinking about Taiwan.”

A very friendly crowd of thousands crowded the ballroom at the Gaylord Opryland to hear the former president.

While Trump recounted his first-term successes, the largest applause line of the night was when he spoke about moving the U.S. embassy in Israel to Jerusalem.

Trump said that he “will stand proudly with our friend and ally, the state of Israel.”

By moving the embassy in 2019, “I kept my promise, recog46

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Ambassador David Friedman talks Middle East politics with President Donald Trump at NRB address

nized Israel’s eternal capital. That was a big thing. Every president for decades was saying during their process of getting elected that we will move to Jerusalem, we will do all these things. It never happened.”

Trump added, “I understood why. Once I got in, the pressure that was put on me by other countries was extraordinary.”

But he said the biggest thing was that his administration “withdrew from the disastrous Iran nuclear deal. The Biden administration did nothing. We could have made any deal we wanted. Iran was broke.”

Trump said Iran was hurting because his administration said any country buying oil from Iran was not going to do business in the U.S. As a result, Iran “had no money for Hamas, no money for Hezbollah, they were totally broke, and we could have made any deal we want.”

When the election “ended” in 2020 “and it was a great tragedy,” Trump said, that approach to Iran changed.

The legacy of peace, through the Abraham Accords, was “one of the greatest things ever done for peace in the Middle East, and the Biden administration didn’t take advantage of it, and they didn’t take advantage of the weakness of Iran,” Trump said.

He also cut off funding for United Nations agencies that were teaching terror to Palestinians and hindering efforts for peace in the Middle East. “Joe Biden gave it back.”

U.S.-Israel Relations October 7 ushered in “a new era on the importance of standing with the Jewish people,” said Chris Mitchell, Jerusalem bureau chief of the Christian Broadcasting Network, at an NRB forum on the future of U.S. and Israel relations from a Christian and Jewish perspective.

He said, “I’ve never seen the Jewish people feeling so alone, so isolated” by the world’s response to the Oct. 7 invasion and Israel’s attempts to uproot Hamas from Gaza.

Ambassador Friedman unveils plan for peace with the Palestinians With support in Israel for a two-state solution cratering, and a one-state solution a non-starter, former U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman unveiled the Friedman Plan for Peace at the NRB Convention.

The plan was introduced during a session for Keep God’s Land, a new coalition of Christians and Jews “dedicated to strengthening and defending Israel’s right to its biblical homeland, with the ultimate goal of sovereignty over Judea and Samaria.”

Friedman said his plan deals with security, being Biblically correct regarding God’s promise of the land to the Jewish people, and civil rights for all. He said it “recognizes that every human being is created in the image of God.” When it comes to the Palestinian issue, he said doing nothing is not tenable, especially with how the world is turning against Israel. The two-state solution is non-realistic and it is time to “give up all the fantasies.”

The two-state solution, currently being pushed by the United States and many other countries, has been “the mother’s milk of the Democratic party, and to an extent, the Republicans.” After Oct. 7 “there can’t be a twostate solution,” especially given that polls show 85 percent of Palestinians approved of the Oct. 7 attacks.

Until a few months ago, Israelis were 50-50 on a two-state solution. “Not any more,” he said, noting that the day before his presentation, all members of the Knesset, from far right to far left, who are not in Arab parties, voted to reject any unilateral declaration of Palestinian statehood. The vote was 99-11, with the 11 Arab party members voting against and the Labor Party boycotting the vote.

Friedman said his plan is a “generational plan” and is not going to happen in just a year or two.

The plan starts with an ultimatum to terrorists. “Those of you who want to kill us, we’re going to kill you first. We’re not going to give in to terrorism.” But, “those who want to live with us, live with us.” In the Bible, he said, there were plenty of groups who peacefully lived in the area under Jewish sovereignty.

The plan would then be led by Israel, the United States and the Abraham Accords countries, with Israel retaining sovereignty in Judea and Samaria. There would be a Marshall Plan to build up Palestinian areas, funded by Gulf states, and the Palestinians would have “maximum civil autonomy,” with

Israel retaining control of security.

The Palestinians would have permanent resident status and Israeli documents. The only restriction would be that while they could vote in local elections, they could not vote in national elections, because that would give them a way to change Israel from being a Jewish state.

“There are 30 Muslim states. If you want to live in one, pick one. There’s only one Jewish state,” Friedman said. This will give the Palestinians full civil rights, “other than the right to destroy the world’s only Jewish state through demographic power.”

For those who would consider the plan to be apartheid, Friedman asks “is America an apartheid state?” After all, residents of territories like American Samoa, Guam, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands can not vote in national elections, and have just non-voting representation in Congress.

“These arrangements are accepted because there are significant reciprocal benefits,” he explained, and “Israel has to help the Palestinians get out from the depths.”

There would be no change in status for Israeli Arabs, they would retain their national voting rights.

While there inevitably will be objections, Friedman said “let’s not let the perfect get in the way of the possible.” He anticipates Palestinian opposition, but there is no clear successor to the aging and widely unpopular Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, and in the aftermath of the war against Hamas, “Israel will have to increase security” to deal with the “vacuum.”

Initiatives to build real lives for Palestinians, rather than recycling the refugee camps and a grievance mentality, “will improve stability” as they come on line, and there needs to be promotion and empowerment of Palestinian leaders who can give the Palestinian people the opportunity for a better future, free of conflict.

The plan “addresses needs on the ground, including the need to improve the Palestinian quality of life,” Friedman said, and it builds upon the Abraham Accords.

With Israel retaining sovereignty in Judea and Samaria, it also ensures that the holy sites of all faiths remain open and are protected.

The message to the Palestinians would be “you’re going to live here forever… we can prosper together.”

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Juergen Buehler, president of the International Christian Embassy Jerusalem, said that they had over 3500 pilgrims in Israel for Sukkot the week before the attack, and just two days earlier, a delegation of about 700 from over 50 countries went to the Gaza envelope for a celebration. “We didn’t have any inclination something would be coming up within 36 hours,” he said.

They were in the area on Oct. 5 for a solidarity gathering with the Israeli communities who had been living under constant threat of rockets from Gaza. With representatives of Keren Kayemeth LeIsrael-Jewish National Fund, they dedicated a section of the Be’eri Forest that had burned in recent years. The 126-acre section was renamed the Christian Embassy Nature Park.

The delegation also visited some of the over 140 bomb shelters that ICEJ donated in the region, and held a rally and security briefing at the Sha’ar HaNegev Regional Council near Sderot, 10 miles from Be’eri.

They “felt an incredible presence of God there,” Buehler said. “Thirty-six hours later, the streets we were driving on became killing fields.”

Be’eri Forest starts just a few hundred feet from the Gaza border and is between Gaza and Kibbutz Be’eri, which became

Blowing two silver trumpets from the Temple Institute in Jerusalem. In addition to the shofar, silver trumpets were blown during war in Biblical times.

one of the focal points of the Hamas attack on Oct. 7. Over 110 residents of Be’eri were murdered, and 23 were taken hostage.

In March the Czech branch of ICEJ donated a fully-equipped military ambulance to serve the area, part of a campaign to replace dozens of ambulances that were destroyed on Oct. 7 and after. The ICEJ fundraiser was sparked by footage of Hamas gunmen shooting up an ambulance during their attack on Kibbutz Be’eri.

Among the speakers at the ICEJ rally on Oct. 5 was Ofir Libstein, head of Sha’ar HaNegev. Buehler tried to call him after hearing of the attack, but he soon found out that Libstein was the first confirmed fatality in the Hamas attack, along with one of his four children.

Buehler said the Hamas killing spree was “demonic” and “you were really looking at the face of Satan… I didn’t even think animals would do that.”

And yet, “before any Israeli soldier put a foot in Gaza, there were tens of thousands of people in the streets” around the world, protesting the notion of any Israeli response.

He added that “it is very important that Israel has the support of the U.S., that they finish the job, that they not negotiate with terrorists.”

Voluntourism

Susan Michael, U.S. director for the International Christian Embassy Jerusalem, interviews representatives of Magen David Adom.

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Tourism to Israel in 2023 was shaping up to be the best year ever, “better than the pre-pandemic year of 2019,” said Lorin Mauguery, the Israel Ministry of Tourism consul for tourism affairs to the Southern United States.

Then, October 7 happened.

As Jill Daly, director of the Israel Ministry of Tourism’s Midwest region reported, before Oct. 7, there were over 12,000 visitors arriving in Israel daily. On Oct. 8, there were 26.

While a lot of group trips were put on hold due to the war with Hamas, participants on an Israeli tourism panel held at NRB said that tourism is starting to pick up, often in a very different form. “The best way to support Israel is by visiting Israel,” Mauguery said, adding that is why the panelists were at NRB. “We see support through volunteer and solidarity trips,” Mauguery said, “from the Christian community and the Jewish community, and it is so important.”

As of mid-February, there had been about 60,000 visitors from the United States. Complicating matters is that many airlines shut down their flights to Israel after Oct. 7.

Daly said the January tourism figures were about 30 percent of normal, and a lot of the visitors are coming for “voluntourism.”

Mauguery added, “It means so much for (Israelis) to see people from abroad, you cannot imagine.”

Israel War Room This year, the hospitality lounge for Israel365 at the National Religious Broadcasters convention was a bit different than anything the convention has seen.

Instead of having snacks and promotional materials, their Israel War Room was an immersive, interactive space to learn about the Oct. 7 Hamas invasion of Israel and its aftermath, modeled on an Israeli command center.

Israel365 was founded in 2012 by Tuly Weisz, an Orthodox rabbi from Columbus, Ohio, who moved to Israel and has worked to build bridges between Jews and Christians in support of Israel.

Groups of up to 20 participants at a time started the experience by watching an exclusive 12-minute video about Oct. 7, put together by The Israel Guys, an online pro-Israel media initiative started by the Christian non-profit HaYovel. Previously the Joshua and Caleb Report, it has evolved into its current form with five different hosts.

The next part of the room held a strategic map of the region, with an Israel Defense Forces officer giving a briefing about the current situation.

The third room included family members of three Israelis currently being held hostage in Gaza.

The families urged those in the War Room to help in the effort to bring them home, by spreading the word, learning their stories to humanize them, and to send messages to Congress to keep the pressure on.

They also urged attendance at pro-Israel rallies, or organizing events where there are none, and being active on social media.

The final section of the War Room was the social media

Effi Yahalomi, Moshe Lavi and Malki Shem Tov, family members of Israeli hostages in Gaza, tell their stories at the National Religious Broadcasters Convention

space, where Luke Hilton explained the importance of being active online, as highly-organized anti-Israel groups are flooding social media with their misinformation.

Rabbi Eliezer Mischel, director of education at Israel365, spoke about the relaunch of The Israel Bible, an online site developed by Orthodox Jews for Jewish and non-Jewish readers.

He said “the goal is to bring us together,” not to change either group. The site contains thousands of essays on Biblical topics and the Jewish holidays.

First published in 2018, The Israel Bible is the first Tanach focused on the land and people of Israel, with commentary that explores God’s focus on the land of Israel.

Weisz said he hopes to bring the War Room experience to churches and synagogues across the United States.

Black Sabbath One morning, Adele Raemer decided to skip out on her passion of taking photos of wildflowers at sunrise. Had she gone out that morning, she told an audience at NRB, “I would not be sitting here today.”

That morning was Oct. 7, and Raemer is from Kibbutz Nirim, which was one of the battlegrounds after Hamas terrorists flooded into the region from Gaza, killing over 1,200 Israelis.

She spoke at a session organized by the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews. Governor Mike Huckabee interviewed her and reflected on his own recent visits to that area.

He was in Israel in mid-December and “I saw the homes of August 2024 • Southern Jewish Life Regional

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Jewish families that were destroyed by Hamas… the destruction that was intentional and despicable.”

Seeing video of it “doesn’t touch it.”

He reflected, “It’s bad enough they did what they did, but they did it with an extraordinary sense of glee. So that’s what makes it more difficult to comprehend.”

It was also incomprehensible for the residents of Kibbutz Nirim, who were optimistic about a peaceful future in the area. The kibbutz was one of 11 established by David Ben-Gurion to promote a Jewish presence in what was the wilderness of the Negev, and the kibbutz had just celebrated its 77th birthday the night before.

Around 6:30 a.m. on Oct. 7, the Hamas rocket warnings were sounded. Being so close to Gaza, that gives the kibbutz residents about 10 seconds to get to a shelter. The “unprecedented barrage” was aimed to the area from Tel Aviv to south of the kibbutz, and Raemer was too scared by the intensity to close the shelter screen on their safe room that protects from shrapnel.

But the rockets were “to camouflage the main event” taking place at the border, she said. On their phones, she and her son started seeing messages from people who said they were hearing Arabic being spoken outside their homes… then inside.

“The Nazis of 2023 were invading my community,” she said.

Her family managed to not attract the attention of terrorists, staying in their safe room until soldiers arrived at 5:15 p.m.

Five kibbutz members were abducted into Gaza, “stolen from their homes in their pajamas.” Three were released in November, two remained captive.

Since NRB, though, it appears that both of the remaining hostages from Nirim have died.

“I’m not an observant Jew,” she said, “but I am a Jew. For the first time ever I Googled Birkat HaGomel,” the traditional prayer offered by one who has survived a near-death experience.

With the kibbutz devastated, the survivors stayed for a while in Eilat, then most of the kibbutzniks decided to go to a different place near Beersheva, which is about 40 minutes from the kibbutz.

“A hotel is not a place to be with a family with children for a long time,” she said, and the close-knit family nature of a kibbutz is hard to replicate elsewhere.

In the kibbutz, she said, 30 houses need to be bulldozed, and another 40 suffered damage. But she is certain that they will rebuild. “We were pioneers in 1946 and we believe we are going to be able to be pioneers again.”

Would she consider moving elsewhere? “Where would I go?” she asked. The Galilee has been dealing with rockets 50

August 2024 • Southern Jewish Life Regional

Mike Huckabee and Adele Raemer at NRB

from Hezbollah in Lebanon, and she reminded everyone that the day before she arrived in Nashville for the talk at NRB, there was a parade of neo-Nazis downtown.

“I was born in the Bronx,” she said. “I don’t do ‘victim’ well… I’m not going to let terror win.”

One thing that has changed is the idealism so many in Kibbutz Nirim felt. “We’ve only ever held out our hands in peace to our neighbors,” Raemer said. One resident routinely shuttled Gazans from the border to hospitals in Israel.

The kibbutz’s motto has been that “we’ll have peace in this area, sit with Ahmed around the campfire, complaining about (things), and take our guard tower and bring it to the (Gaza) beach as a lifeguard tower.”

But that seems farther away. She said something in her DNA changed on Oct. 7, as she thinks she got the ratios wrong. “I know there are people who want to live in peace.

Unfortunately, Hamas is an excellent educator… and they have been teaching their population to hate us.”

She added, “I can’t live with neighbors like that any more.”

Instead of building a “beautiful Gaza” with aid from the international community, they used those funds to build “an entire terror city underneath Gaza.”

She feels an obligation to tell the story of Oct. 7, as “I’ve lost more people than I can even count.”

Being at NRB “is so inspiring. To see the support we are getting from the Christian community here… we need your strength,” as do American Jews who are feeling fear and isolation after Oct. 7, she said.

It is also important to “recapture the word Zionism” which she noted has been turned “into a four-letter word by our detractors.”

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Responding to Hate in Nashville Neo-Nazi groups target city for numerous high-profile actions While much of the country has been dealing with a surge of antisemitism from anti-Israel activists and groups taking over college facilities, Nashville has been dealing with a rash of hate from a more “traditional” source — neo-Nazi and white supremacist groups.

After numerous parades and incidents, on July 21, hundreds attended a peace rally organized by the Jewish Federation of Greater Nashville at the Bicentennial Park Amphitheater.

“What was so heartening to me was the number of non-Jewish Nashvillians who came to support our community,” Judy Saks, a former editor of the Nashville Jewish Observer, told JNS. “The women next to me were Catholics. Another from a Baptist church,” added Saks, who is part of the progressive group Nashville Jewish Social Justice Roundtable. “I felt surrounded and supported by Nashville neighbors, who believe hate has no home here.”

Ellen Levitt, who is very involved in the Nashville Jewish community, also attended the event and was encouraged that “citizens of all religious backgrounds” rejected the bigotry of neo-Nazis.

“Our community was absolutely united in our message that people of all faiths and beliefs are welcome to live openly and free in our city,” she told JNS. “It was especially gratifying to watch the Nazis leave the event once it was clear that their efforts to disrupt our show of unity were unsuccessful.”

Freddie O’Connell, the Nashville mayor, attended the July 21 rally.

“As someone who stands here before you today because some of my ancestors escaped the Holocaust in Poland — and not all of them — I defiantly tell you, while shocked that I even have to, that Nashville stands strong against Nazis, and those who share their hateful ideology,” O’Connell said, according to the Tennessean. The mayor has said that he is of Jewish ancestry.

“Over the past few weeks, we have seen clown cars of a circus of fear and hatred bring their tour to Nashville in rented box trucks,” he added at the rally. “Those who abuse the powers of the First Amendment for the powers of hatred and fear are not entitled to tolerance and acceptance. We will continue our efforts to ensure they confront ongoing difficulty when they try.”

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“In the face of this darkness, it is time for all of us, Jews and non-Jews, to stand together and say ‘enough’,” Leslie Kirby, the president of the Nashville Federation, said at the rally. The groups’ hate “does not end with us, it extends to anyone they define as ‘other’.”

She added that elected officials have “not done everything they could do to keep us safe.”

There was also an unwanted presence, as a group of neo-Nazis gathered outside the area and attempted to shout down speakers. They especially shouted over Council member Sheri Weiner, who spoke of being harassed while walking to school growing up in Memphis, with rocks hurled at her to taunts of “Jew girl.”

Weiner spoke of how the swastika-bearers were going after Nashvillians visiting the courthouse daily, and attacked citizens in the Council chambers. “Ultimately though, the strength of Nashville prevailed, as we linked arms and stood against the weak, misguided, and vile visitors who sullied our public square.”

“One of our community members reached out to me earlier this week and said ‘Leslie, it feels like we’re under siege. What do we do?’” Kirby said. “This, all of us here together. This is what we do. Nashville together, Nashville united, Nashville strong.”

She spoke of the “hope” that comes from community response, like the cleaning of antisemitic graffiti in the Sylvan Park neighborhood last year.

Rabbi Dan Horwitz, Federation CEO, explained how his grandmother survived the Holocaust and made it to America, wondering “what her response would be if she knew that we were still fighting against Nazi hate and its underlying ideology generations later in the United States.”

“What helps me cope is that people of good will are speaking up,” he said.

Numerous Marches The series of events started on Feb. 17, when Blood Tribe, a group of neo-Nazis, marched in downtown Nashville. Governor Bill Lee responded that “Nazism and antisemitism should never be tolerated in any form. As Jewish people around the world continue to face persecution, Tennessee remains unwavering in our support for the nation of Israel and her

Courtesy Jewish Federation of Greater Nashville

A rally against antisemitism hosted by the Jewish Federation of Greater Nashville on July 21, 2024.

people.”

There was a march in the city by Patriot Front on July 4, where chants included “Reclaim America,” “Sieg Heil” and “Deportation saves the nation.”

On July 6, the Federation issued a statement saying this was not a free speech issue, as the white nationalist groups had broken multiple local laws, condemned the groups “in the strongest possible way” and referred to them as “cowards and criminals.”

There was another downtown protest on July 14, which resulted in two arrests after a member of a group carrying Nazi flags struck a bartender with a flagpole.

Before the flagpole fight, there was also a confrontation where some of the supremacists harassed a group of five Black youth, ages 9 to 14, who were playing drums on Broadway.

On Aug. 6, the Metro Council passed a resolution denouncing the neo-Nazis for that encounter.

After the group demonstrated at Broadway and Third Street, they started marching south on Third. There, bartender Deago Buck got into a confrontation with one of the supremacists.

When they were separated, Ryan Scott McCann, 29, of Ontario, Canada, struck Buck in the face and ribs with the flagpole.

He was charged with felony aggravated assault.

Buck was also arrested for disorderly conduct and resisting police, both misdemeanors.

On July 17, Chief of Police John Drake issued a letter “to our Nashville neighbors” sharing concerns over the demonstrations and hate speech, “which I publicly condemned last weekend.”

He said his officers were using their presence to deter confrontations between group members and citizens, and will swiftly make arrests for violations of Tennessee criminal law.

“As unsettling as the protest actions of this group are, even Nazi hate speech is protected under the United States Constitution,” he noted, adding that there are also free speech exemptions to municipal parade permit requirements.

Drake added that they feel the group has a short-term rental in Scottsville, Ky., about 60 miles northeast of town, and travels to Nashville from there.

Early in the morning on July 18, antisemitic flyers were dropped in yards in Gallatin.

The group also took over a bridge in Madison on July 15, waving swastika flags and giving the Nazi salute to motorists below.

The group then sought to take over a city council meeting on July 16. Several members of Whites Against Replacement August 2024 • Southern Jewish Life Regional

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sought time during the public comment period. During pre-meeting announcements, Council Member Zulfat Suara said “to all these visitors from out of town: You’re not welcome here. You have the right to march, but there is no room for hate here.”

During her remarks, the neo-Nazis heckled and yelled epithets.

Jacob Kupin, a council member who is on the Federation board, noted that his grandfather had liberated Nazi concentration camps. “We’re here and will continue to be here.”

After more heckling and insults toward women, Jews and immigrants, the room was cleared of visitors. On the courthouse steps, the neo-Nazis faced off with a few Anfita members, then headed off and did not return for the public comment part of the meeting.

At the council meeting, Horwitz advocated for stricter enforcement of the

law to curtail future antisemitic demonstrations.

“These groups have violated several city ordinances,” Horwitz said. “But the laws that you all passed are not being enforced.”

Those laws include prohibitions on masking to disguise identities, and groups of 20 or more parading without advance notice.

He said the city and state should issue statements saying that the laws would be uniformly enforced going forward, “and then enforce the laws,” he insisted.

“With the laws on the books not being enforced, you can come march with your mask on during the day, go honky tonking with your friends at night, without any concerns that you will lose your job on Monday,” he said.

He reminded the council that there have been multiple incidents of flyers being dropped in neighborhoods, and

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August 2024 • Southern Jewish Life Regional

Rabbi Dan Horwitz addresses the council

“our institutions have received multiple bomb threats.”

Earlier in the day, one of the institutions was targeted as about 15 members of the Goyim Defense League marched outside of West End Synagogue for about 15 minutes. The congregation called police, and after a brief demonstration the group headed downtown.

The group had also distributed hate literature in the area.

“We are grateful to our Temple staff, security patrol, and the Belle Meade and Metro Nashville Police Departments for their immediate action and attention to this matter,” congregational leaders said.

“Together we remain strong and hope for the day when hatred will give way to love.”

Wes Scoggins, owner of the Jewish Cowboy food truck, spent the July 21 event cooking for the participants and laughing at the absurdity of the antisemitic insults thrown his way by the bigoted protesters.

“They are another group of losers on a long list of people that have tried to hurt the Jews and now no longer exist,” Scoggins told the Tennessean. “They are losers and they are a dying breed, and that’s what they are.”

The groups reportedly left the area the next day.

By SJL staff reports and David Swindle of JNS.

Photo courtesy Louisiana Department of Education via X

Governor Jeff Landry signs education bills, including the posting of the Ten Commandments, on June 19 at a ceremony in Lafayette

Louisiana heads into the Ten Commandments battlefield Two decades after a lengthy battle in Alabama leading to the removal of the state’s Supreme Court chief justice from office, Louisiana is jumping into the battle over governmental displays of the Ten Commandments.

On June 19, Governor Jeff Landry said he “can’t wait to be sued” as he signed a law requiring all public schools in the state to have a display of the Ten Commandments in each classroom by Jan. 1, 2025.

The lawsuit followed immediately, filed by nine families, three of whom are Jewish and reside in Orleans Parish.

On July 19 in Baton Rouge, U.S. District Judge John DeGravelles signed a compromise between the plaintiffs and the state to halt implementation of religious displays until Nov. 15. A hearing on the suit has been set for Sept. 30.

The new law makes Louisiana the first state to mandate posting the Ten Commandments in all K-12 classrooms, as well as at universities that receive public funding. The display must be poster-sized and be in a “large, easily readable font,” and is to be funded through donations, not through public funds.

The posters are to be accompanied by a four-paragraph explanation of how the Ten Commandments were part of public education for almost three centuries.

The law also “authorizes” but does not mandate the display of the Mayflower Compact of 1620, the Declaration of Independence and the Northwest Ordinance.

Similar bills have been proposed in Oklahoma, Texas and Utah.

Representative Dodie Horton, the primary sponsor of House Bill 71, said the law would “have a display of God’s law in the classroom for children to see what He says is right and what He says is wrong.”

The Jewish Federation of Greater New Orleans issued a statement on June 20 stating that while Judaism holds the Ten Commandments in high regard, “this mandate undermines the core principles of religious freedom and the separation of church and state that are essential to our democracy,” and goes against “the spirit of religious neutrality.”

Furthermore, the statement read, it “imposes a specific interpretation that does not encompass the diversity of religious beliefs in our society.”

The statement continues, “We urge the state legislature to prioritize creating inclusive educational settings that respect and accommodate the diverse religious and cultural backgrounds of all students,” so all students can learn without “imposition of specific religious doctrines.”

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The bill prescribes one specific English translation that divides the Ten Commandments into 12. The version includes “Thou shalt not kill,” a translation popular among Christians, but the original Hebrew references “murder.”

Most of the longer commandments are abridged, though the commandment about honoring parents continues, “that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.”

The suit notes that many faith traditions do not have the Ten Commandments, and that there are different versions among Protestants, Catholics and Jews. “The version of the Ten Commandments mandated in H.B. 71 does not match any version or translation found in the Jewish tradition,” and the suit notes “key language and context” in the Torah that is omitted, such as the message about being brought out of Egypt to freedom, and that several commandments are summarized.

The lawsuit points out that there are factual errors in the Ten Commandments bill, including a fabricated quote about the Ten Commandments attributed to President James Madison, and that there is no “longstanding tradition” of the Ten Commandments being displayed in Louisiana schools.

The lawsuit states that “As evinced by the nature of the mandatory displays themselves, the history of H.B. 71, and comments made by various lawmakers, the state’s main interest in enacting and implementing H.B. 71 is the imposition of religious beliefs on public-school children.”

Rep. Sylvia Taylor stated that “A lot of people, their children, are not attending churches or whatever… So what I’m saying is, we need to do something in the schools to bring people back to where they need to be.”

Rep. Roger Wilder, a co-author of the bill, said opponents are “waging a war on Christianity,” and bemoaned that if his wife were a teacher “she would be asked to teach evolution which is in complete contradiction with the theory of creation that we believe out of the Bible.”

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Unitarian Rev. Darcy Roake and Jewish spouse Adrian Van Young, as an interfaith couple, seek “a secular, religiously unbiased education,” and the Ten Commandments displays interfere with that by misappropriating and altering the text from the Jewish version, and lack context for Unitarian interpretations, such as the commandment about coveting thy neighbor’s wife centering a heterosexual male perspective that regards women and others as property.

Gary Sernovitz and Molly Pulda also joined the suit on behalf of their child, who is being raised Reform and attends Jewish summer camp. They object to a Jewish text being misappropriated and altered, along with the characterization of it as a “historically significant document” that reflects nothing more than the “function of civic morality to the functioning of self-government,” as opposed to being a sacred foundational document to Judaism.

Removing the part of the First Commandment about freedom from Egypt, they argue, is “tantamount to an official, governmental erasure of the Jewish significance of the Ten Commandments.”

They are also concerned that their child would be taught that the state-mandated version is the “correct” one, not the one being taught at religious school.

Joshua Herlands says the law would usurp his parental role in his children’s religious upbringing, and goes against Jewish values of not forcing religious teachings on others.

He also objects to God being written out in the posters, as many Jews use “G-d” in written form as a way of not taking the divine name in vain.

In the suit, he also notes that the official version prohibits any graven images, while the actual commandment also prohibits any “likeness,” which he says “ensures that popular Christian iconography of G-d (e.g., images of Christ) is not in violation of the commandment, erasing the commandment’s Jewish significance and rendering the display of the state’s approved Ten Commandments Christian-centric.”

Writing for Religion News Service, Rabbi Jeffrey Salkin, senior rabbi at Temple Israel of West Palm Beach, said that the Ten Commandments aren’t merely a list of moral precepts.

“The revelation of those commandments forms the core of the Jewish covenant with God,” which makes their posting in government buildings a violation of the Establishment Clause of the Constitution.

Alanah Odoms, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Louisiana, stated that “public schools are not Sunday schools. We must protect the individual right of students and families to choose their own faith or no faith at all. The separation of church and state is a bedrock of our

nation’s founding principles; the ten commandments are not.”

Rabbi Mendel Rivkin from Chabad of Louisiana said that “We must certainly protect against the encroachment of one religion on the rights of others,” but it is “valuable for Americans to otherwise recognize that our moral foundation is the commitment to Divine Truths articulated in the passages we call the Ten Commandments.”

The display in government buildings and deciding what version to use, he noted, “may be problematic,” and a better fit would be the Seven Universal Noahide Laws, especially since at least one of the Ten Commandments — the Sabbath — was given exclusively to the Jewish people.

On July 18, Landry said in an interview at the Republican National Convention that had there been Ten Commandments posters in classrooms where would-be presidential assassin Thomas Crooks attended, “maybe he wouldn’t have took a shot at the president.”

Past legal battles In 1980, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a similar law in Kentucky, saying the law plainly served a religious purpose.

In 1995, there was an effort by the American Civil Liberties Union to stop the practice of Christian prayers in state courtrooms, as well as displays of the Ten Commandments.

In 1995, a suit was filed against Etowah County Circuit Judge Roy Moore, who had both in his courtroom. In 1997 a judge ruled it had to be removed, but Moore vowed to defy the ruling.

In 2000, Moore was elected chief justice of the state Supreme Court, and after six months had a three-ton granite monument of the Ten Commandments brought into the judicial building overnight. In November 2002, it was ordered removed, but Moore refused. An ethics complaint was filed, and in November 2003 Moore was removed from office.

Moore then ran unsuccessfully for governor twice, and in 2012 ran for his old seat on the Supreme Court, which he won. He did not bring the monument back, but in 2016 he was removed from office again after advising probate judges to not issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, despite the 2015 Supreme Court decision recognizing such unions.

In the newsletter from his Foundation for Moral Law, Moore responded to the Louisiana act by praising God, “in a time where the People of our Nation are more sick, depressed, and lost than at any other time in history, desperately in need of Jesus Christ and the Gospel.”

He added, “The enemies of God and freedom are fervently speaking out against Louisiana’s law and plan to attack it at the first available opportunity.”

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Southern Jewish Opinion

Ten Problems with the Ten Commandments: Louisiana Version Editor’s Note: A version of this editorial originally appeared in our publication in September 2001, during the Judge Roy Moore monument dispute at the Alabama Supreme Court building. It was updated slightly to refer to a 2014 Alabama bill to require its posting in government buildings, and again here in June 2024, after Louisiana mandated the Ten Commandments be displayed in every school. The original piece won the 2001 Simon Rockower Award for Excellence in Jewish Journalism from the American Jewish Press Association, first place in the editorial category.

Written by Larry Brook, editor.

Several years after Alabama embarrassed itself repeatedly over graven images of the Ten Commandments, Louisiana ran head-first into its own controversy in mandating that the Ten Commandments be displayed in the state’s schools.

Perhaps the state’s Chabads can donate the posters, in the original Hebrew, of course. If we want to be authentic to the divine word…

Clearly, the legislature is trying to flex those religious-majority muscles on feel-good legislation that signifies nothing.

The battle lines are being drawn yet again between good Christians and the evil forces of atheism and secularism that want to… what, exactly?

There are many reasons for people who take the Ten Commandments seriously to oppose efforts to have them placed as a trophy in schools or any government buildings. There are many problems with the claim that the Ten Commandments form the basis of our legal system and society.

A closer examination of the Ten Commandments, where they came from and what they mean gives numerous arguments — even ignoring the obvious problem with breaking the separation of church and state.

Here are 10 such problems: 1. What is the First Commandment? According to Christian versions, it is “You shall have no other gods before Me.” But in the original Hebrew, the First Commandment is “I am the Lord your God who brought you out of Egypt.” Even allowing for intermarriage over the last couple millennia, the vast majority of Louisianans can not say their ancestors were slaves to Pharoah in Egypt. Therefore, the Jewish First 58

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Commandment is ignored, and the second one is split in half — into two commandments, covering other gods and graven images separately.

Some versions we have seen, including the mandated Louisiana version, have the first phrase of the First Commandment, skip the Egypt part, then list both halves of the Second Commandment — resulting in 11 Commandments.

2. Define “other gods.” According to Judaism, God is an infinite, indivisible entity that cannot be defined or limited in any way. God has no human form. In Christianity, there is a very distinct idea of God — the trinitarian form, of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. The Son, named Jesus, is regarded as God “in the flesh,” in human form. To Judaism, the notion of a human regarded as God is anathema. One could even say such a philosophy violates the prohibition against “other gods,” according to Jewish interpretations.

3. Bug off, Uncle Sam. Where in the Louisiana Code is faith in God mandated? And of such faith, where is it written what form of deity should be worshiped? Is it against state law to be an atheist? To believe that Elvis Presley or Drew Brees was God? By now, we have covered the first three Commandments.

We have yet to find one that has any relevance to the Louisiana Code.

One may argue that our Founding Fathers felt human rights were inalienable because they are God-given, not granted by government or by man. True, they did hold that philosophy, and it is a philosophy that should hold government in check, but they were deliberately vague about defining our Creator. The concept of inalienable rights from a higher power belongs to national history and, even with the separation of church and state, must be understood. But after starting with that premise, the law itself is of this world. A judge should be concerned with what is in the law books, and the legislators should concern themselves with the earthly affairs of state.

That is their job.

4. Remember when? The Fourth Commandment is about the Sabbath. Again, this is an area where the state has little to say. “Blue laws” closing businesses on Sunday are a thing of the past — the only remaining restrictions in some places are on alcohol sales on Sundays.

But remember, the Sabbath originally was sundown Friday

to sundown Saturday, and still is for us. It is a time when there The concept of “keeping up with the Joneses” comes directly is supposed to be no commerce, no work. Any bets on the from that. chances of legislation being passed to cover that? Especially That commandment, though, is interpreted as prohibiting during college football season? Ready for Tiger Stadium After the type of desire that would cause one to break laws in order Havdalah? That will happen about the same time you see a to gain what one desires. It’s perfectly fine to desire your glatt-kosher boudin and cracklins stand in Lafayette. neighbor’s new car, quite another to steal it.

The Sabbath Day was also given by God as “an eternal sign Further, coveting by itself could be construed as a thought. between Me and the children of Israel,” a sign of the eternal Many of those on the end of the political spectrum who nature of God’s covenant applaud the Ten Commandwith the Jewish people. Inments mandate also are teresting, then, that the only against hate crimes legislapeople who observe the origtion. Such legislation calls for inal Sabbath day is the Jewish added penalties for actions people. Christians, aside that came forth because of from a few small offshoots, thought. Punish the action, observe Sunday. Muslims not the thoughts, the arguobserve Friday. ment goes. If the state gets Shall Louisianans “reinto the business of policing member” the Sabbath day? coveting, it is doing the same It could be seen as evidence thing. that we Jews are not damned, 8. Graven images. What that our covenant with God is the political display of the endures, and that our souls Ten Commandments itself if need not be “saved” by not a graven image? The two well-intentioned missionaries tablets have become a larger who think we are missing than life symbol, one seemsomething. Good luck selling ingly infused with mystical that idea. power. Its absence is blamed 5. Their honor: Honoring for the downfall of American one’s parents is something to schools. The hand-carved strive for. However, it too is plaque Alabama Chief Justice none of the state’s business.

Roy Moore hung in his Where does the state mancourtroom three decades ago date conduct toward one’s was deemed so important parents? nothing short of an action by the National Guard could 6. So much for the milicause Moore to remove it. tary. The Sixth Commandment prohibits killing, A cult of worship seems according to Louisiana. Howto be growing around the ever, the original Hebrew Ten Commandments — and This Ten Commandments monument was at the center of a 2001 word is for murder, not for a significant percentage of controversy in Alabama’s Supreme Court building. all killing. One is justified in those passionately behind killing an attacker. If all killing is against the Ten Commandthis couldn’t list all 10. ments, we’d better dismantle the military right now. Again, the 9. Curse of the law. The passion behind the Ten Commandlikelihood of folks in Louisiana going for that… ments is even more puzzling because of Christian theology.

7. What do you want? Taking the literal words to another The “Old Testament” law, of which the Ten Commandments commandment… one should not covet. That is a major prob- is central, is seen by Christianity as a curse. It is so difficult lem, because coveting is the whole foundation of capitalism. to follow to the letter that no one could possibly get it right, August 2024 • Southern Jewish Life Regional

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according to Christianity. Jesus came to free the world of that law — that curse.

Further, nobody can get to the eternal reward through that law — all one’s works are nothing. Faith is what matters.

Of course, Judaism holds that the Law is God’s greatest gift, not a curse, and that nowhere is it stated that everything must be followed to the literal letter. The Oral Law — which Christianity rejects as a rabbinic invention — explains the law as it applies to daily life. To Jews, following that law, even when we fall short, is the way to have a relationship with God. God knows we are imperfect. He would not give us a strict law and expect that we would never miss the mark. That is why there is t’shuvah, returning to the proper path.

In rejecting the Law, Christianity misreads the Jewish view of God. In that is a fundamental difference in the way the Law — including the Ten Commandments — is regarded.

Furthermore, according to Judaism, all non-Jews are expected to follow only seven laws — the Seven Noahide Laws given to all humanity after the Flood. Aspects of the Ten Commandments come from the Noahide Laws. But those laws are found in just about all civilizations on the planet.

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10. Judeo-Christian what? And so, we reach the bottom line. Displaying the Ten Commandments is a tribute to our “Judeo-Christian” heritage.

That term is a farce. It is a way for Christians to show inclusiveness to the Jewish community and a way the Jewish community tried to show the Christian world that we’re not all that different.

But it glosses over very real differences in philosophy.

Christians believe man is born evil and condemned to sin.

Judaism believes we are born neutral, and if we choose sin, we can also choose to repent and return to the proper path — and God will welcome us back, if we are sincere.

Christianity holds that there is a constant struggle between good and evil — that Satan and God are locked in a battle for the world. Judaism sees no such dichotomy — nobody challenges the authority and position of God. Where Satan appears in Judaism, it is as a messenger, a servant of God, never doing anything that God does not allow. That is a far cry from the battle of Armageddon envisioned by Christianity.

Christians believe man is so sinful, he can’t approach God without an intermediary — Jesus. Judaism states anyone can approach God. All that is required is a humble heart and a desire to follow God’s expectations.

There’s a lot more to the difference between Judaism and Christianity than the question of “is he or isn’t he?”

———————————– The Ten Commandments contain important precepts. They are an important religious document. Sadly, they are being turned into a symbol unto themselves, a political football.

The Ten Commandments as a display are nothing more than a quick fix, an attempt to make people think we as a society are tackling our problems.

True progress will come from all being seen as equal before the law. True progress will come when values are taught in the home and reinforced on the street. True progress will come when families are intact, when personal responsibility is realized.

Hanging a poster at the State House, hauling a monument into the court building or posting the commandments in a school building does nothing to accomplish that.

And we haven’t even mentioned that there are differences between the Ten Commandments in Exodus and in Deuteronomy, let alone how the Jewish, Protestant and Catholic versions of the Ten Commandments differ. Whose version will be… ahem… “established” by the state? According to Louisiana, not ours, despite ours being the original.

Respect the divine word by not making it a method to score political points.

The surprising safety of Southern Judaism A restauranteur friend here hosted a fundraiser for World On October 8, there was a knock at my parents’ door on St. Central Kitchen on November Simon‘s Island, Ga., a barrier island about halfway between 2, long before their workers Savannah and Jacksonville. A neighbor they had not yet met perished in Gaza. She asked me presented something freshly baked and offered her sympato offer a blessing at the beginthies, concern and support in the wake of the events of the ning of the meal. I prayed for previous day. “We love you.” she said. peace. I did not have to choose As the rabbi in this same southern Georgia, Bible-belt a side or a perspective. I did not community, my instinct after the harrowing attack by Hamas have to question Israel’s right to Rabbi Rachael Bregman on the peoples (Jews, Druze, Bedouin, foreign-born and of exist, nor did I have to apologize for the deaths of innocents. the land alike) of Israel on October 7 was to gather. I wanted Just peace. And all heads in the room nodded regardless of the Jewish community to feel surrounded by love. I wanted who they felt was “right.” Because no one here is pushing for the larger community to have an outlet for their grief, fear and everyone to stake out a particular position. pain. I reached out to my closest clergy friends. Given that our Here, we’re surrounded by non-Jews who believe Jewish synagogue is the only one for almost 100 miles in any direcchosenness of all things makes us worthy of protecting. Forevtion, all these friends are from other faiths. On the same day er, Jewish chosenness has, to me, to many, felt somewhere beas the cake delivery, I sent a message inviting them and their tween uncomfortable to burdensome. A relic of a bygone era congregations to join us for Shabbat services the following that we struggle to make sense of today. At a gathering for my Friday. “Please come if you can,” I wrote. “We need you.” congregants on May 11 to express, listen, hold The response was unequivocal support. the enormity and complexity of this moment, But I was worried; Worried they’d find a non-Jewish spouse shared that growing up When everyone themselves in an impossible bind of having to in real rural southern country, she was told choose. Worried they would slip away. “Hispersonally knows The Jews are God’s chosen people. If you ever torically the world has about three days in someone else who meet a Jew, you will protect them, you will lay these situations before Israel/Jews start getting down your life for them. Many gasped hearis “other,” the blamed. I can’t tell the future of course. It’s ing this. It was quiet as chosenness became possible that by Friday, standing with us will world is different. an unexpected bridge, a bond. Truthfully, I’m be more difficult.”

Here we learn to still trying to make sense of it.

Their replies: “difficult or not — support Here, we are majority politically conservalive together. will be there,” “Here for it all,” “Praying for tive. While Atlanta may be purple, the coast peace.” “Father we need Thee” “Joining the is like a hot sunburn; very, very red. Coming Palestinian and Israeli people in prayer today.” from the northeast, Jews were, generally speaking, politically left. Here, it runs the gamut. As the Democratic party On Friday, October 13, over 300 people filled the Episcopal views the war in Israel as wealthy White European colonizers Church one block away from the synagogue for Shabbat seragainst the minority, impoverished, indigenous Brown people, vices. There was standing room only as the church was filled many Jews are feeling alienated or even threatened. Here, beyond capacity. there is overwhelming Republican support for the existence of Writing about this now, what feels like several eternities the Jewish state. Within Christian circles, especially Evangellater, I am moved that this support for Jews and Judaism in ical ones, which dominate the religious landscape here, there Brunswick has not wavered since this time. is a belief that the Second Coming of the Messiah requires the I grew up in the Northeast and have lived in the South for existence of a Jewish Israel with its capital in Jerusalem. In this the last 14 years; three years in Atlanta and 11 years in Glynn worldview, Israel must exist as a Jewish homeland.

County, Ga., a few blocks from the tidal marsh surrounded by In December, the Georgia legislature overwhelmingly, sweetgrass, palm trees, jasmine blooms, and the magnificent although not without controversy, passed Resolution HR4EX live oaks. What strikes me as unique is we are free from local condemning the Oct. 7 Hamas attack and supporting Israel. protests or on the ground rhetoric. I believe this makes more My local state rep, who is not Jewish and comes to synagogue room to be nuanced here.

By Rabbi Rachael Bregman

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events with some regularity, sent me a text message with a selfie. The background was Governor Brian Kemp signing and formalizing the resolution.

In January, after years of trying, an anti-antisemitism bill was passed. In March, I gave the invocation at a small, big-ticket, Republican fundraiser. One of our national representatives was wearing a pin with both the Israeli and the US flag. I thanked him for his support of Israel. He said, “Rabbi, I support a cease-fire… when all the bad guys are dead.” While I do not share his sentiment, the extreme and unequivocal support was surreal juxtaposed to what is happening elsewhere in the nation.

Here, we live separated AND close. The South is no stranger to segregation. In my community, some neighborhood affinity groups may segregate by block, sometimes even just half a block. This street may be populated by people who are Black and poor, this block by people who are White and poor, and so on. As a native New Englander, I used to feel a sense of judgment over the South because of segregation. I’ve come to realize that there is deep segregation in the North as well, but the groups are so separate, so large, so far apart that it can be challenging for people from one group to even interact with

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Beth Tefilloh, Brunswick, Ga.

each other.

Here, whatever group you’re in, you’re going to regularly come face to face with someone who is not your tribe. There, you must cross the tracks or the river or the valley or major highway. Here you just walk down the street. People from different cultures, socio-economic backgrounds, religions, races

all overlap at grocery stores, community events, beaches, and just being out and about. When Ahmaud Arbery was lynched in the streets here, a thousand people were called for jury duty because everyone here knows everyone here. It was incredibly difficult to find jurors who knew neither the victim, nor the accused, or both.

When everyone personally knows someone else who is “other,” the world is different. Here we learn to live together.

We’re not perfect at it by any measure. And, this is our Southern Way. I have an infinite number of stories like the plenitude of offers from friends and strangers to hide me and my family “if the time comes.” Or the many who volunteer to patrol the synagogue during services so no one will mess with us. But I will close with this one.

I have a friend here, Deena, who grew up in Gaza. She hosted a fundraiser for Palestinian Children’s Relief Fund, a yoga class with proceeds going to the organization, and I went. The newspaper did a story of people standing together for peace.

I ran into her at the gym the other day. She looked down so I asked how she was doing. “I can’t look at one more dead baby in my social media feed.” Her heartbreak and agony were pal-

pable. I had no need to defend, no need to take sides because I live somewhere where I feel valued and heard. I just needed to show up and have empathy for another human being in pain.

I said to her, “Don’t. Don’t look at another dead baby.” I then quoted Pirkei Avot which teaches “you do not have to finish the task nor are you free to walk away from it.” And I suggested that if looking at one more dead baby would make a difference it would be worth it, but that it won’t. And please don’t harm yourself because the world needs you whole and strong.

Deena and I will be speaking together at St. Athanasius, a Black Episcopal church, later this month where we won’t agree on everything, but we will live together in a world where we can hold so much variety, diversity and love all at the same time.

Rachael Bregman is the Berman Family Rabbinate rabbi for historic Congregation Beth Tefilloh in Brunswick, GA. She was ordained from Hebrew Union College in 2010. She grew up in the northeast and now lives in The South which makes for a very interesting experience. She is a hiker, a baker and an antiracist. Most importantly she is a mom to a tiny human and two rescue dogs. This article first appeared in The Wisdom Daily.

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Southern Jewish Arts

They ain’t makin’ Jews like Kinky any more Editor’s Note: This publication isn’t into “trigger warnings,” but if you’re not comfortable with certain words being discussed in an historical context, just be aware…

Richard “Kinky” Friedman, novelist, country songwriter and occasional politician known for his quirky humor and passion for all things Texas, died on June 27 at his longtime family home at Echo Hill Ranch, a former Jewish summer camp his parents ran and which remained his home. He was 79.

According to friends, the Kinkster, as he was often called, had Parkinson’s disease.

In 2006 he ran a gubernatorial campaign in Texas, confounding many as to whether it was a serious run. Behind slogans of “how hard could it be?” and “why the hell not?” he got 12 percent of the vote, and then unsuccessfully ran for agriculture secretary in 2010 and 2014.

Born in 1944, he formed a satirical country band in the early 1970s, Kinky Friedman and the Texas Jewboys, a name that his father hated. Among his more famous songs were “They Ain’t Makin’ Jews Like Jesus Anymore,” a slur-filled piece about the idiocy of bigotry, and “Get Your Biscuits in the Oven and Your Buns in the Bed,” which roiled feminists. He also recorded what is probably the only country song about the Holocaust, “Ride ‘Em Jewboy.”

He claimed to be the first fully-Jewish performer at the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville.

The tape of his performance for Austin City Limits is reportedly the only one that never aired.

He was boldly Jewish, commenting during a series of concerts in Europe that the Germans are his second-favorite people. “After everybody else.”

A poster with a black-hat-and-payos bedecked Friedman, smoking his trademark cigar, touted his 2011 Chanukah tour.

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For Kinky Friedman, being able to draw a crowd after 40 years in the business was “very satisfying.”

In 2012, the outspoken Jewish country songwriter and performer embarked on a Southern Discomfort tour that took him through the Deep South in a new way. While he was best known for being in the band with the Texas Jewboys in the 1970s, this was a solo tour. When seeing a performer solo, Friedman said, one gets to really see who the performer is, and “the solo nature of this gets the lyrics across.”

He visited a lot of places “I haven’t been to in a very long time, or that I haven’t been to at all.” The performances were mostly music, with some humor and politics thrown in, as well as a reading from his new book, “Heroes of a Texas Childhood,” which he had available for signing, “and I will sign anything except for bad legislation.”

That was one of his campaign slogans in 2006 when he ran for governor of Texas, coming in fourth in a six-man race.

After 2010, he was said to be swearing off running for office but then said “I don’t know. Rick Perry’s run for president has really improved my image. It’s made George W. look like Thomas freakin’ Jefferson.”

“I grew up in Texas and I admired the country music greats.

I was also heavily influenced by Irish folk music,” said Friedman. “When I was young, I knew I wanted to make it as a country music star. But I had several strikes against me; I was Jewish, from a middle-class family and I ended up getting a college degree. Most country stars at the time and in the past were not Jewish and came from poverty,” he said.

“I wanted to be a country music singer growing up so that’s why I am a novelist now,” said Friedman, adding that “being from Texas is conducive to being a satirist.”

As a child, Friedman wrote his first song, the somewhat distasteful “Ol’ Ben Lucas.” The song only charted in his head, but through his late childhood and early adult years, he would continue to write and perform humorous music with roots in country and folk balladeering.

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Inspired by President John F. Kennedy, Friedman joined the Peace Corps after graduating from the University of Texas and went to Borneo. “I taught farming to people who had farmed perfectly well for 2,000 years,” he said.

Friedman would come back to Texas and team up with some friends to form the Texas Jewboys. Another Jewish man by the name of Robert Zimmerman (known to most as Bob Dylan) liked the group and would bring the Jewboys on tour as his opening act in the 1970s and early 1980s.

The Texas Jewboys were known for pushing the envelope with some of their songs, or shredding the envelope altogether. When he ran for governor, the lyrics of “They Ain’t Making Jews Like Jesus Any More” became an issue because of the presence of the word “nigger.” It also contained numerous other ethnic slurs.

“I was surprised how people completely distorted that when I ran for governor,” he said. Inspired by a bar-room brawl in the Texas Hill country, the song is actually an anti-bigotry anthem. “I was called a racist because of those lyrics. You can’t explain it. You get defensive and I couldn’t believe it.”

He noted the irony in that he was the only candidate against the death penalty, and the only one who was a part of the civil rights movement, “that actually picketed segregated restaurants and other places… and yet they hung me out as a racist.

Of course, they think Mark Twain was a racist.”

He noted that in many places, there are efforts to get “Huckleberry Finn” banned because of that word, which completely misses the importance of Twain’s novel. “It’s the first novel that takes a guy like Jim and makes him the guy with humanity, dignity and honor, and he’s surrounded by scoundrels and hypocrites who are all white,” he noted.

He decries political correctness. “Nigger,” he asserts, “is a lot nicer word than going around saying ‘the n-word.’ That’s about the worst thing — it goes against everything Lenny Bruce believed, and Richard Pryor believed.”

He tells audiences “If a young Richard Pryor walked in here tonight we couldn’t make a star of him in this country. The same is true of Mel Brooks, George Carlin, Lenny Bruce… and that represents a cultural step backwards, a giant one. I thank the Lord we still have ‘They Ain’t Making Jews’.”

The previous summer he toured Australia, and noted that the audience “laughed when something was funny and cried when something was sad. They didn’t look around to see what the rest of the audience was doing.

“In America that’s what you see,” he said. “Our puritanical roots are showing. We ‘re just hung up politically, racially, sexually, spiritually. Maybe one of the most hung up societies on Earth.”

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But he keeps trying. “Blessed is the match that kindles the flame. The pendulum has to swing back on political correctness,” he said.

A song’s life is interesting, he noted. “Get Your Biscuits in the Oven and Your Buns in the Bed” actually started a riot during a 1973 performance at the University of Buffalo as a “crazed group of lesbians” attacked the stage. “It may sound humorous… they were winning. They were smashing things, beating up the Texas Jewboys,” and the campus police had to escort them out of town. He was soon awarded the Male Chauvinist Pig of the Year by the National Organization for Women because of the song. “That one today is now a harmless feminist ditty,” he said.

Regarding “They Ain’t Making Jews,” Friedman joked “I am glad that Mel Gibson didn’t contact me about remaking the song for his movie (“Passion of the Christ”).” Then he added about the movie in humorous Kinky style, “it would probably make a good book.”

He wrote “Ride ‘Em Jewboy” in tribute to the victims of the Holocaust while in the Peace Corps, working for “11 cents an hour. Best job I ever had.”

The up-front nature of the Jewboys caused some problems in the Jewish community. “Store chains owned by Jews, Jewish executives at record companies. We had a sweet record deal blown down like that by just the name Texas Jewboys or by some of the songs,” he said.

But that has turned around also. At a show in Tucson, he was amazed at how many in the audience were Jewish — probably half the crowd. During his 2012 tour, he hoped the Jewish communities in the South would help him achieve his two favorite words in the English language — “sold out.”

On the other hand, he was proud that he never “sold out” in a different sense, being true to himself instead of seeking mainstream popularity — even while running for office, where that sort of thing goes with the territory. “Every artist wants immortality, but too much success takes immortality away in my mind. I fight popularity.”

During his gubernatorial run, he said “I’m not a politician.

I am not a bureaucrat. I am a writer of fiction who speaks the truth and I want to bring back the glory of Texas.”

Friedman said that “people have asked me if this is a joke.

I’d always seen myself, in the words of Billy Joe Shaver, as a serious soul nobody took seriously. Why should they take me seriously now?”

The question, he noted, was “whether my candidacy is a joke or whether the current crop of politicians is the joke.”

Jewish influences Being Jewish, he said, “is very subliminal sometimes. It has to do with interweaving your life and your art.”

He said, “In Judaism, humor is a vessel of truth for mankind.” He also likes being the underdog, which is how he describes the Jewish religion over time. “A lifelong love of the underdog has been accrued to the Kinkster because of Judaism. A good Jew is a good thing and by that same token, a good Christian is a good Christian.

“We need more good people in this world. Someone like Mel Gibson thinks that he has done a good service and that he is a good Christian, but he really is not,” said Friedman.

As his music career gracefully came “to a screeching train wreck” in 1984, as Friedman put it, he began working on his first novel. He decided to try his hand at writing mysteries since he and his mother, Min, had always been interested in reading them.

Friedman felt that he should use his own name and those of his friends as various characters in the stories. He made himself the retired country music performer turned detective and the setting, for the most part, was a loft on Vandam Street in the Greenwich Village section of New York City. His first book was titled “Greenwich Killing Time.”

“I have churned out — um, I mean carefully crafted — 17 novels now,” said Friedman in 2005. Some of his books are even in Hebrew and have been released in Israel. He wound up releasing 20 novels and seven non-fiction books.

“Heroes of a Texas Childhood” profiled 23 Texans who were and are very influential in Texas history. Of the 23, he said, “you probably know more of them than most college graduates in Texas,” he said, critiquing the lack of historical awareness among today’s youth. “They don’t know on whose shoulders they stand,” Friedman said, and noted that if he had been elected, the book would have been required reading in the public schools.

When asked if he felt that songwriting or novel writing was more difficult, Friedman chose the former. “Songwriting is the hardest thing in the world, even more so than poetry. The best work is about tragedy, like you are trying to pay the rent but you are failing,” he said.

He bemoans the current state of the music industry, saying there are few out there with staying power. You’re not going to see a young John Lennon come along today, because acts become “a product instantaneously, like Justin Bieber or Lady Gaga. They’re not stars, they’re a product. If they wrote beautiful stuff, you’d never know it.”

Nashville is filled with “corporate whorehouses” filled with

songwriters who churn out product. “Everything they do is derivative. It’s selling, someone is recording it, so it’s making money. It manages to be important without being significant.”

And yet, in decades of that process “no one has written ‘Hello Walls,’ and no one has written ‘Me and Bobby McGee’,” he said. “Three stoned drunk guys, Willie Nelson, Roger Miller and Kris Kristofferson, wrote so much classic stuff in a short period of time in the same town.”

To really see an inspiring show these days, “you gotta go see a geezer these days.” He added, “I don’t count myself in that category, at least not yet.

In addition to politics, his novels and his interest in animal rescue, he started his own cigar line, run by former sidekick Little Jewford, and included cigars named after his Utopia animal rescue ranch, Willie Nelson and the Texas Jewboy. He also launched Man in Black tequila, “the best Mexican mouthwash you’ll ever drink,” saluting Zorro, Paladin and Johnny Cash.

(2005 interview by Lee Green).

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Handing it over

Collection of over 150 Torah Yads donated to University of Virginia museum

By Menachem Wecker (JNS) — Clay Barr’s husband Jay D. A. Barr had been ill for “quite a long time” when she brought him home in early 1994. “There was no more to be done, and I’m pacing around thinking this wonderful 57-year-old man needs to have some memorial so his name will keep being spoken,” she told JNS. “In the Jewish religion, if your name is spoken, you’re not completely gone.”

Then she remembered that he had gifted two antique Torah pointers — or yads in Hebrew — that he bought at Sotheby’s that January to their synagogue, Congregation Beth El in Norfolk, Va. The Conservative shul traces its origins back to 1850 and was where her husband had his bar mitzvah.

“He loved the hand in art. So it seemed, ‘Aha!’ I had an epiphany,” Barr told JNS. “This is what I’ll do to memorialize him. It will be 30 years come the second of July that he died.

This has been a dedication of 30 years so far. Hopefully, I’ll hang around and make it a lot longer.”

As it approaches the three-decade mark since her husband died, Barr, who is in her early 80s, has gifted a minimum of 150 Torah yads, or hand-shaped pointers, to the Fralin Museum of Art at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. Torah pointers enable the reader (ba’al koreh) to follow along in the scroll without touching the parchment, which is religiously anathema.

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baroque embellishments. Barr’s collection includes pointers that date back some 325 years. She owns one with a ruby ring dated around 1700; an Italian pointer likely made in the 17th or 18th century; a 1789 German wood yad with three movable spheres; and an 18th-century Dutch silver one.

She’s particularly proud of one by an English artist whom Barr calls “truly astounding.”

“Hester Bateman to this day is the most renowned English woman silversmith. She inherited her husband’s business on his death — ran it for 20 years, in which time she made about 1,000 pieces,” Barr said of Bateman (c. 1709-94).

“But they were all for the home. She made teapots. She made bowls. She made creamers. She never made anything for outside the home,” Barr added. “How she ever happened to make a Torah pointer, how I was ever lucky enough to see it at auction and get it, it’s just remarkable. That’s from 1781.”

The New York auction house Kestenbaum & Company, which sold a Bateman Torah pointer for $5,000 on June 25, 2015, tells the story a little differently. It dates the pointer, which it says “perfectly demonstrates Bateman style,” to 1778 and notes that Bateman made George III silver Torah finials for England’s Great Portsmouth synagogue, which Christie’s sold for a little more than $300,000 in 1999, and a 1781 silver Shabbat hanging lamp now at the Yeshiva University Museum.

However infrequently Bateman created Judaica for use outside the home, Barr told JNS that the bulk of her energy and interest has been devoted to commissioning contempo-

Photo courtesy Fralin Museum of Art at the University of Virginia.

Torah pointer (yad) by Hester Bateman (1781).

Barr Foundation collection.

rary artists to make new Torah pointers. “That excites me,” she said.

“I really don’t haunt the auction houses,” she said, adding that her sister collects 17th-century Dutch paintings — the era of Rembrandt — which she finds dull.

“I’ll always eat the chocolate dessert and skip the lemon,” Barr said. “We all have things that please us, and certainly contemporary pleases me more at this point than antiquity, though I was raised with antiquity.”

Concrete, Legos, skateboard As a collector, Barr is very interested in materials, and she has hired artists to create Torah pointers out of things that would have surely astounded the Jews who used the silver ceremonial objects in the 18th century, which form the chronological beginning of her collection.

Her father worked in the concrete business, so Barr commissioned the Israeli designer Marit Meisler to create a cast concrete yad in 2001. Barr’s grandson made a Torah pointer out of a toilet paper roll and a chopstick, which “has caused a sensation,” she told JNS. And she recently received a yad she commissioned out of Lego.

“It’s certainly not the most gorgeous in the collection, but this is just to show this is what that man works in,” she said.

In 2004, Barr hired Wendell Castle to make a silver and stained-walnut Torah pointer that lies on a hand, made of foam board and painted with acrylic, which rests on a rose-

wood and maple wood table. When the furniture maker and sculptor in Emporia, Kan., died in 2018 at age 85, The New York Times described him as a “whimsical designer who coaxed wood into weird, mind-bending shapes that blurred the boundary between serviceable furniture and fine art.”

“He’s this great famous man, and I’m talking to him like I’m talking to you. He was easy to talk to,” Barr told JNS. “We went back and forth over a year, and he finally said, ‘I’m a furniture maker. I’m going to make a table. I’ll put a hand on it. And we’ll put a Torah pointer.’ I said, ‘Great, Wendell. Go’.”

Four years earlier, Barr commissioned Orthodox Jewish N.Y. artist Tobi Kahn — whose work, in part, is among the collections of the Guggenheim Museum, Houston Museum of Fine Arts, Phillips Collection (Washington), Minneapolis Institute of Art and Yale University Art Gallery — to make a Torah pointer. Kahn’s wood and acrylic yad has an organic feel, perhaps evoking a flowering plant or a seal balancing a ball on its nose.

Barr met Kahn at a dinner party, and he invited her to his studio one Sunday in Queens, N.Y. She saw a table full of stuff he had found out on walks. “I picked up three pieces from nature and put them together and I said, ‘OK, Tobi. Make me a Torah pointer,’” Barr said. “If you look at it, there are three very distinct pieces from nature that he put together, and I think it’s wonderful.”

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“Seven Fingers” because he lost three in a childhood accident — and owns four of his Torah pointers. And she has a Torah pointer made out of her grandson’s broken skateboard by Norfolk artist Spencer Tinkham. It’s shaped like a rabbit.

“I had no idea skateboards were so beautiful,” Barr told JNS.

‘Meaningful tribute’ Barr’s gift, which is also supported by the Barr Foundation, is “the first major gift of Judaica in the university’s history,” according to the University of Virginia. The gift includes funding to “preserve the collection and support related staff as well as educational programming and touring of the objects,” per the university, which notes that the late Barr earned undergraduate and law degrees from the school.

“This meaningful tribute includes support for the collection and provides educational programming,” James Ryan, president of the University of Virginia, stated in February. “I look forward to an exciting initial exhibit in 2025.”

M. Jordan Love, the academic curator of the Fralin Museum, called Barr’s “extensive” Torah pointer collection “singular for its robust catalog of both antique and commissioned works.”

Abby Schwartz, curatorial consultant and director emerita at the Skirball Museum in Cincinnati, told JNS that it was of “special interest” to the museum to show Barr’s collection — it plans to do so from April 11 to July 28 — “because it reflects such a wide range of artistic excellence.”

“There are no specifications for materials or style or size in the making of Torah pointers. What results is dazzling,” Schwartz said. “Not to mention the historic importance of this remarkable collection: wooden and silver yads from the 18th century on one hand and pointers made of paper, glass and found objects made very recently on the other — a testament to the enduring art of the guiding hand that brings humankind in connection with Torah.”

Barr’s husband had wanted to own a sculpted hand by Auguste Rodin — of The Thinker fame, Barr told JNS. “I never managed.”

“Even when he looked at portraits, he’d say, ‘Oh, look how wonderfully’ or how ‘badly’” the hands were depicted, she said. “He just seemed to gravitate toward the hand in art. It was something he was always cognizant of.”

She began by emulating her husband’s collecting, by going to antique stores, including a “lovely” Judaica dealer “right down from Trump Tower on 56th Street in New York.” She “fell in love” with three Torah pointers and bought them, and went “right to Moriah” every time she went to New York and would “find something that I couldn’t resist.” Moriah Galleries closed in 2015 after six decades.

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“At some point, it just dawned on me that the Judaica that is made today is far from superior, as rightly as I can put it, and maybe I can make a difference. And I have,” she said. “It’s no question that I have turned a lot of people on to what a Torah pointer is who have never heard of it.”

At a recent craft show in Baltimore, she asked people if they knew what a Torah pointer is. “They usually say, ‘A what?’” she said. “I explain, ‘In the Jewish religion, we read from a scroll.

It’s called a Torah, and it has no punctuation. It’s just almost impossible, so you need something to guide your eye to protect the sacred parchment’.”

Barr, who can’t read Hebrew but says she has the letter aleph “down pat,” reads transliterated blessings when she is called up to the Torah for an aliyah. She grew up — and has spent her whole life — in Norfolk with a “devout” atheist father and a mother who “was so in awe of him.” Sunday Reform Jewish school was “so boring,” she said. “We drew pictures of trees. It was so ridiculous.”

She says Judaism’s after-death rituals turned her on to faith.

“The torn piece of cloth. The candle. All those sorts of things were so comforting,” she said. “I think that’s when I became a Jew — as a widow, at 53.”

She went to Israel for the first time in 1985 when she was 44.

“You can’t go there and not be spellbound by what an amazing country it is,” she said. She has been back only once, with her daughter, son-in-law and their three children for her eldest granddaughter’s bat mitzvah.

She offered the collection to her hometown museum — the Chrysler Museum of Art in Norfolk — but the director only wanted seven or eight, and she was loath to split the collection up. “That meant nothing to me. What’s the impact?” she said.

“If you take the seven best, it diminishes the collection.”

‘I’m so enchanted by them’ A member of the Jewish Museum acquisition committee in New York, she notes that the museum has more than 2,200 Torah pointers. “At any time, you can see seven or eight on exhibition, which drives me crazy,” she told JNS. “I’m so enchanted by them.”

Barr was in the process of setting up a fund for collecting Judaica at the Chrysler, with a meeting scheduled for Oct. 9 — two days after the Hamas terrorist attacks in southern Israel.

“We sort of tabled that,” she said. “Money’s going to Israel for things other than collecting Judaica at this point.”

So the collection is headed to the University of Virginia, where her late husband was in the last year of law school when they married. “We started our marriage in Charlottesville,” Barr said. “They will have it, but I have provided funding for a part time staff person to make sure that it keeps

traveling. I don’t want it to stay in the basement.”

Beyond the 150 promised to the university, Barr has about 75 more. She told JNS that she talked with 11 artists at the Baltimore craft show, so the collection appears poised to keep growing.

While she acknowledges being tempted by other isolated Judaica works at auction, she plans to collect nothing else seriously beyond Torah pointers. And that is all about her late husband.

“This is a memorial,” she said.

If her talks at the Baltimore show are any indication, a different kind of memorial is in the works. Barr told a jewelry designer, who works in etched lucite, about Kristallnacht, and there may well be a piece in the works that addresses that subject.

“I’m an interior designer. I work in many instances on the design with the artists. So it’s not that I see something and I say, ‘Oh, I’ll buy it’,” Barr said. “Not only do I not see it. They don’t know what I’m talking about when I start out.”

Photo courtesy Fralin Museum of Art at the University of Virginia

Torah pointer (yad) by Wendell Castle. Silver and stained walnut; hand: sign foam and acrylic paint; table: rosewood, maple wood.

8 in. high. (2004). Barr Foundation collection.

Now Online…

from the team at Southern Jewish Life

Announcing the new magazine for Israel’s Christian friends… (but accessible to all!)

To view our Recent Issue, scan this QR code, or go to issuu.com/israelinsight israelinsightmagazine.com August 2024 • Southern Jewish Life Regional

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Southern Jewish Sports Mannon once again a silver medalist with Israel Lacrosse Olivia Mannon is coming home from Portugal with more hardware — a silver medal in the 2024 Women’s European Lacrosse Championship as part of Team Israel.

She also was named Player of the Game in the quarterfinals, a 19-5 win over Italy on July 17.

Mannon, who grew up in Birmingham, played in all seven matches of the tournament, but as a defensive player did not score.

She is the legislative director for Rep. Nancy Nathanson in the Oregon House of Representatives. This past year, she was an assistant coach with the women’s lacrosse team at Williamette University.

England took home its fourth consecutive European title, and eighth out of 12 overall, defeating Israel, 12-5, on July 20. The game was a rematch of the 2019 final in Netanya, which England won, 10-7. Mannon was part of that history-making 2019 team.

For Israel, it was the second silver medal in the tournament.

In all three appearances, Israel has placed in the top four. Israel had four of the top five points earners in the tournament, with Hannah Hilcoff, Jordan Lipkin, Zoe Martin and Jackie Stoller each having over 27 points in the seven matches.

By placing in the top seven, Israel qualified for the 2026 World Lacrosse Women’s Championship in Japan in 2026.

There were 19 teams in the tournament.

For the Israeli team, this was an opportunity to build momentum from the second place finish in the 2019 European Championship, and a successful run in 2022. Due to timing, that summer Israel had to split its squad between the World Championships in Towson, Md., and the World Games in Birmingham.

Israel had its best-ever result in the World Championship, placing sixth in the world, and then bested it by placing fifth in the World Games.

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showed her Israeli teammates where she grew up. She moved to Birmingham in fifth grade, having already competed in lacrosse in Maryland. She attended Altamont School and played soccer there, but had to go to Mountain Brook for a lacrosse team. She signed with Fresno State in 2015.

She said that the World Games provided her favorite Israel lacrosse memory, in the battle with Japan for fifth place. On a scorching day where everyone was tired, “It was pretty much back and forth all game until the last 2 minutes. I somehow snuck one into the net, placing us up one goal, only to run back down the field.

“Once I made contact with the ball carrier my shaft snapped in half and they scored — tied up again. I ran off the field and grabbed a random stick, eventually making the winning assist to put us up again. We won that rally in last few seconds and a win never felt so good. It was a culmination of hard work and knowing that I had the support of Team Israel, the Jewish community of Birmingham, my parents and friends supporting me all along the way.”

Entering the tournament in Portugal, Israel was ranked second in Europe.

The team spent time in Israel for training camp before heading to Braga, Portugal, for the tournament. They began pool play against Switzerland on July 11, with Mannon as the face of promotional graphics online. Israel won, 22-6.

On July 12, Israel took down Poland, 19-2, then swamped Latvia, 20-2. On July 15, they concluded pool play undefeated, beating Germany, 13-5.

Israel’s dominance continued with the win over Italy, setting up a July 18 semifinals match with Wales, which Israel also dominated, 14-4.

“Team Israel has been a means for me to celebrate of my Jewish heritage,” Mannon said before the tournament. “Team Israel has bridged my love for the game of lacrosse to my religious and cultural roots.”

Baseball legend Willie Mays’ Jewish “best friends”

By Louis Keene (The Forward) — Willie Mays was in the prime of his career in 1963, but his finances were a mess. The Giants’ star outfielder had plunged into debt amid divorce proceedings, and even with more than half of his career home runs under his belt, was staring down bankruptcy.

Then he met Jacob Shemano.

Shemano was a banker whose kid, Gary, was shagging fly balls during warmups that day at Candlestick Park. They connected in the locker room afterward, where Mays asked Shemano to help him smooth out his money problems. Shemano agreed on one condition: He wouldn’t take a dime for his work.

What began with Shemano rescuing Mays from bankruptcy evolved into a close friendship that spanned generations and made Mays an honorary member of sorts not just in the Shemano family, but also in the San Francisco Jewish community. Mays in 1964 told the San Francisco Examiner the Shemanos were “the best friends I’ve ever had in my life.”

“Anything that we did, Willie was here,” Gary Shemano, now 79, recalled by phone on June 18, hours after 93-year-old Mays died. “He was close to the Jewish community because of my dad.”

To some it might have seemed an unlikely pairing: Shemano, a Conservative Jew who had immigrated from Russia as a toddler, and Mays, a Black man born and reared in coal-mining, rural Alabama, who got his start with the Birmingham Black Barons at the age of 17. But both had overcome the odds against them as minorities to find success. Shemano was one of the first Jews in California to receive a charter to run a bank. Mays played in the Negro Leagues as a teenager prior to Major League Baseball’s integration.

Shemano had a civil rights bent — he insisted on hiring Black tellers for his bank — and in Mays, he had found a stylistic peer. Shemano favored green velvet shirts and Mays steered a pink Cadillac around the Bay — including on trips to his Jewish friend’s home.

“The kids in the neighborhood all knew when he was at Shemano’s,” Gary recalled.

The founder of Golden Gate National Bank, Jacob Shemano did squeeze something out of his new friend: Mays became a celebrity ambassador for the business. He was universally popular, a star in the field and at the plate, a perennial winner with a carefree smile.

The slugging center-fielder was helpful when Gary and his

Photo courtesy of Gary Shemano

Willie Mays (left) with Jacob Shemano and the Dodgers’ Leo Durocher.

brother Ritchie took dates to the ballpark, too. They’d call him up and give him the girl’s name in advance, and Mays would toss them a signed ball as he ran onto the field.

When Gary enrolled at the University of Southern California, Mays would swing by the dorms if the Giants were in town playing the Dodgers. “‘Let’s go shopping, get your ass out of bed’,” Gary recalled Mays telling him. “We had so much fun.”

As good as he was with a bat — Mays retired behind only Babe Ruth for career home runs, and his 660 still ranks sixth today — Gary described Mays as an awful golfer. The elder Shemano taught the slugger how to play.

“He said, ‘Jake, how can this game be so tough when the ball’s not moving?’” Gary said.

The relationship ultimately ingratiated Mays with the Jewish community. Shemano once took Mays on a visit to the local Jewish Home, Gary said, and Mays later made visiting there a habit.

He appeared at Jewish community events so often that Mays was eventually invited into the local Concordia-Argonaut Club — a Jewish social club — as the first Black member, according to James Hirsch, author of the biography “Willie Mays: The Life, The Legend.”

And while Mays frequented the Shemano home on holidays, there was one Jewish delicacy he couldn’t handle.

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“He loved my mother until she made him eat some smoked salmon on a bagel for Thanksgiving and he couldn’t swallow it,” Gary said. “It was hysterical.”

Gary said that Mays’ short-term memory was fading when he last visited, about six months ago. There was a photo of Jacob Shemano, who died in 1979, and his wife, Rhoda, on the wall.

“The day that my grandmother died, my father’s mother, he

called my dad,” Gary recalled. “He said, ‘I don’t know what to do for you, but, you gonna go to the game tonight?’ My dad said, ‘Yeah.’ He says, ‘Well, I’m gonna try to do something for you at the game.’ He hit three home runs.”

Louis Keene is a staff reporter at the Forward covering religion, sports and the West Coast. He can be followed on Twitter @thislouis. Reprinted with permission.

The New York, Jewish origins of “War Eagle” What Auburn’s fight song also has in common with a Christmas standard Editor’s Note: As football season approaches, we visit our Radio City Music Hall, and co-wrote “I Believe” for Jane Froarchives from September 2016 for this little-known story. man’s show, which became the first hit song ever introduced on TV. He also co-wrote “Jukebox Saturday Night,” a hit for How is it that the Jewish authors of the Christmas standard Glenn Miller. He did the scores for “Virginia” and a number “Home for the Holidays,” a couple New Yorkers, also wrote of other stage ice spectaculars that were so popular in the late “War Eagle,” one of Auburn University’s most beloved songs?

‘30s and through the ‘40s.

That’s an easy answer for Patty Allen, Allen started writing for television shows, as she described her late husband, Robert composing for “The Colgate Comedy Hour,” Allen, as a true “renaissance man.” And and is credited with the closing song for she’s accustomed to getting calls about the “Perry Como’s Kraft Music Hall” and “Sing Auburn fight song from ESPN and others, as Along” for Mitch Miller’s “Sing Along with she’s the copyright holder after the Auburn Mitch.”

Alumni Association somehow neglected to renew it in 1983.

Still, he attained his greatest success through his collaboration with Stillman.

Undoubtedly, the lives of the Jewish Como’s “To Know You (Is To Love You)” composer and lyricist pair of Allen and Al reached No. 19 on the Billboard charts.

Stillman changed forever after they were given a one-day deadline in 1954 to write Their greatest initial project, “Home for the what would become one of the world’s most Holidays” was no theological issue for Allen, treasured Christmas songs. it was just a job. His wife Patty explained that Allen had an unfortunate experience with a It was around the same time Allen and bigoted neighbor when he was age five, and Stillman were working on that Perry Como he remained strong in who he was. hit that wealthy Auburn booster Roy B. Sewell decided Auburn needed a new fight Decades later, Allen collaborated with song, and calling professionals in New York black artists in Detroit and saw first-hand Courtesy Robert Allen Estate was the way to go about it. how they were discriminated against when Robert Allen hoteliers wouldn’t let them stay in the same The existing song, “Auburn Victory establishment.

He didn’t put up with it.

March,” included lines like “We’re the drilling, shrilling, thrilling, willing Auburn boys” and “We are game, all the same, Are In the late 1950s Allen went on to have huge hits with we down hearted boys? Well I should say ‘No’!”

Johnny Mathis, including “Chances Are,” “It’s Not for Me to Say” and “Teacher, Teacher.” The Shirelles took “Everybody After giving the fans and students a try at coming up with Loves a Lover” to No. 19 on the charts in 1962. Billie Holiday something more contemporary, Sewell gave up and called New York, to commission two of the most respected, success- recorded her take on “It’s Not for Me to Say” in 1959, and it’s since been covered dozens of times, from Paul Anka to Barry ful songwriters, “to express the spirit which has sparked the Manilow, to She & Him just two years ago.

Tigers’ amazing football comeback.”

A long career in music followed, with soundtracks, more Allen and Stillman already did have an amazing reputation. album compositions, and the score and production of a 1963 Stillman had collaborated with a number of notable combenefit album for the United Nations which included Judy posers, including George Gershwin, was a staff writer for 74

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Garland, Sammy Davis Jr., Bing Crosby and Carol Burnett.

His work was included in the soundtracks of “Tin Men,” “Close Encounters of the Third Kind,” “Chances Are” and “Goodfellas,” among others.

Today, the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers presents the annual Robert Allen Award to aspiring songwriters in the pop or jazz genres. Allen was a recipient of its Lifetime Achievement Award in pop music.

Without a doubt, Sewell knew, after gaining permission from officials at Auburn (then called Alabama Polytechnic Institute), that calling the man Newsweek magazine had proclaimed “the most popular songwriter in America” would result in a hit, even if it wasn’t meant to appear on any Billboard chart. He was footing the bill, after all. And sure enough, when Allen and Stillman delivered “War Eagle,” Sewell declared it “a peach of a song.”

While Sewell heartily approved, legendary coach Shug Jordan’s reception of it was reportedly a little more tepid — and the Montgomery Advertiser deemed it “anemic” and better suited “for the Ladies’ Aid Society, not Auburn.”

Hubert Liverman, who was then the head of Auburn’s music department, agreed with Sewell about its merit. His opinion was that it was “very, very good — extremely good — and that we ought to use it.”

Though “War Eagle” made its first major debut at the Auburn-Chattanooga game on Sept. 24, 1955, it was performed by the Jordan Vocational High School band of Columbus, Ga., as classes at API did not begin until Sept. 26 that year.

John H. “Pete” Mosley, class of 1958, wrote to Auburn Magazine in 2012 that he was there when then-director Burton Leidner passed out the music to “War Eagle” for the first time.

Mosley and his classmates had been loyal to the old Auburn Victory March and were reluctant to try the new tune. He said it was “none too exemplary for a peppy and winsome tune. In fact, the words had the expression, “give ‘em hell, give ‘em hell, stand up and yell.” But as they played it over and over, faster and louder, “it began to take on new life… it was apparent that we had found an Auburn treasure that would resonate around the world.” Even today, the arrangement the band plays is faster and more staccato than the original.

After each score (and countless other times), the Auburn University Marching Band performs its official fight song, “War Eagle,” and the Samford Hall carillon on campus rings it each day at noon. But today, few among the thousands who sing “War Eagle, win for Auburn, Power of Dixieland!” on any given fall Saturday would imagine that those words came from a couple of northerners who were best known for writing pop music standards.

Coach Calipari’s kindness Bluegrass Rabbi recalls gesture after Tree of Life As Coach John Calipari left the University of Kentucky in April after 15 years, taking the head coaching job at Arkansas, “Bluegrass Rabbi” Shlomo Litvin, director of Chabad of the Bluegrass and the UK Jewish Student Center, described him as a “mensch” and spoke of a series of encounters with him.

In 2018, Litvin had a weekly appointment not far from a local coffee place, so he would go in and grab a coffee, coincidentally at the same time Calipari would come in to do the same.

“We would greet each other every week, sharing a word or two about campus, sports, or other light conversations,” he said.

That changed at the end of October in 2018, when the Tree of Life shooting took place in Pittsburgh. The next time Calipari saw Litvin at the coffee shop, he went directly to Litvin’s table to talk about how he was horrified by the shooting, and to see how Litvin and the Jewish community were doing in the aftermath.

Calipari grew up in the Pittsburgh area, and knew the community there. He asked Litvin how he could help, and Litvin knew “it wasn’t a platitude.”

Thinking of how the rebbe had always taught about fighting darkness with light, he asked Calipari if he would join

the community Chanukah menorah lighting ceremony that would be a couple weeks from then.

Despite it being the middle of basketball season, Calipari immediately replied, “give me the date and I’m there.”

Litvin related that while many students were “blown away” that Calipari would be lighting the menorah, “several employees tried to pressure him not to take part in a Jewish ceremony.

“They were ignored, and he showed up,” Litvin related.

The event was held on Dec. 5, the fourth night of Chanukah that year. Litvin said it was brutally cold and windy, and they were having problems getting the menorah to light. He was silently concerned about Calipari’s schedule until he heard Calipari tell the crowd “we’re not going anywhere until we light this menorah!”

Eventually it was lit, and he stayed for photos and latkes.

“I’ve been blessed to work with him on several projects since, and seen how he was always there for his team and Kentucky in times of need, such as after the 2021 tornado, Litvin said.

For him, Calipari “will always be summed up by that moment of kindness and light in a week so dark and painful.”

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Southern Jewish Books Library of Israel’s “101 Treasures” includes Southern philanthropy ledger A ledger book from the 1800s referencing communities such as Augusta and Nashville is being featured alongside an autographed copy of Maimonides’ Mishneh Torah, theological thoughts of Isaac Newton and the last poem by Hannah Szenes.

Last year, the National Library of Israel released “101 Treasures from the National Library of Israel,” the first book in its 130-year history.

The official library of the State of Israel has materials spanning two millennia, from all of Israel’s communities and faiths, and from the Jewish people worldwide. The library has over 5 million books.

Selected by the Library’s curators and collections experts, the fine-art volume presents 101 of the most precious items in the library’s collections, from 5th century Babylonia to modern day Tel Aviv, and shares illuminating stories and anecdotes about these significant works and the intriguing people behind them.

“The decision to present these pieces thematically, not chronologically, was deeply intentional,” says Raquel Ukeles, Head of Collections of the National Library of Israel. “We strove to convey the fascinating stories that these items carry. Understood in context, we see that there has always been a thriving dialogue with the cultures around us. We wanted to signal that conversation and show that this movement, this interchange, is ongoing and dynamic,” she explained.

Featured items include manuscripts, books, periodicals, archives, maps, posters, photographs, music, and recent digital acquisitions. Many of the items have not been publicly seen before.

The ledger is a record of four rabbis who were sent to the United States from Jerusalem between 1848 and 1869, to raise money for the impoverished community of Jerusalem.

The ledger was to keep a record of funds raised to lessen the chance that funds would go to personal use by the rabbis, though their expenses did come out of what was raised.

British author Harry Freedman wrote that an American visitor to Jerusalem during that time wrote about “appalling 76

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conditions” with “no work to be had, that disease was rife, there was no health care and the town was full of old people who had no means of support, who had come to the Holy Land simply to end their days.”

In 1844, the population of Jerusalem was 15,500, roughly half Jewish and one-third Muslim, and the rest were Christians.

Rabbi Nathan Nata Natkin visited the U.S. in 1867 and 1876. The title page of his ledger, with the signatures of community leaders who sent him, is in the book, along with speculation of how he must have appeared to locals when he got off the train in Shelbyville, Tenn., about 60 miles south of Nashville.

The ledger shows $45.10 collected in Nashville on Oct. 22, 1877, starting with $5 from the Hebrew Ladies Benevolent Society.

Another page, from Aug. 18, 1868, shows $74.35 from Congregation Children of Israel in Augusta, and an additional $6.45 raised after the first entry. The page also lists $13.25 from Congregation Bet Israel in Macon.

Other highlights in the book include the “Damascus Crowns,’’ including a vitally important 10th century Hebrew Bible codex; love poetry by Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent; the Afghan Geniza with documents from the 10th to 13th centuries; the Offenbach archives of retrieved books looted by the Nazis, and other rare materials documenting Israeli history.

“101 Treasures” was published to mark the inauguration of the library’s brand-new, state-of-the-art building, which was to be dedicated in late October 2023, but the ceremony was postponed by the war in Gaza. The building has 11 stories, five of which are below ground, and was designed by world-renowned architects Herzog and de Meuron. It is LEED Platinum certified, and has a main reading hall with a capacity of 600 people.

“This book, along with the new building, is a new era for the library. We have set out to actively engage diverse audiences, from academics and teachers to journalists and artists – anyone and everyone who seeks to study their past and expand their horizons,” says Ukeles.

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Posthumous Publisher: Goldbergs do “The ABC’s of Ned” Tribute to long-time head of Jewish Children’s Regional Service is fundraiser for agency As the first Father’s Day approached since the death of longtime Jewish Children’s Regional Service executive director Ned Goldberg, his family launched a tribute in the form of a children’s book.

“This marks my dad’s long-awaited publishing debut,” said Adam Goldberg.

“The ABC’s of Ned” highlights his “Ned-isms,” from A to Z. Adam explained that “as my dad’s cancer progressed, my family decided to write a children’s book as a creative coping mechanism. We wrote this book, with my dad’s help.”

In the 1980s, Ned nearly published a comedic manuscript titled, “The Single Man’s Illustrated Dictionary.” However, he soon met his wife, Wendy, and “lost all credibility within the singles community.”

Ned is described as an avid fisherman and a collector of rocks, shells, souvenirs, close friends, distant cousins, and stories. In his lifetime, he cared for two dozen turtles, a vibrant fish tank, and had a deep love for all living things and helping others.

The book is illustrated by Gripless, Zach Weinstein.

Proceeds from the book go to JCRS, which provides needbased services to Jewish youth in a seven-state region that includes Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee, Arkansas, Louisi-

ana, Oklahoma and Texas. The agency, which was formed out of the closure of the Jewish Children’s Home in New Orleans after World War II, provides need-based overnight summer camp scholarships and college aid. Under Ned’s leadership, the portfolio widened to include special needs and disaster relief, along with JCRS coordinating PJ Library regionally. The agency also serves Jewish adults who are isolated in specialized adult care facilities.

Authors seek food-related stories of Southern Jewish celebrations The co-authors of “Kugels and Collards: Stories of Food, Family and Tradition in Jewish South Carolina” are looking for Southern Jewish food stories throughout the region for their new work, “Southern Simchas: Food Traditions for Jewish Celebrations.”

“Kugels and Collards” was published in 2023 by Lyssa Kligman Harvey and Rachel Gordin Barnett, based on their blog that collected South Carolina Jewish family food-related stories and recipes. While touring to promote the book, they have found that

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many of the South Carolina stories are echoed throughout the Jewish South, so they began this project to tell those stories.

They explained that Jewish life cycle rituals always involve food, and they want to chronicle the tendency in the South to incorporate Southern aspects into Jewish practices.

They are looking for story contributors to do a 900 to 1100 word piece exploring how their family life cycle events have endured through time and evolved with the addition of new family customs. They are looking for pieces related to family brises, namings, bar/bat mitzvah, confirmations and weddings. The stories should encompass family history, traditions and foods.

They encourage the inclusion of three to five family photographs and, where possible, one or two recipes or menus.

Marcie Ferris will be writing the introduction.

Those interested in submitting a story should email rgbarnettsc@gmail.com by Sept. 30. Submissions will be due on March 1. They hope to have a good representation from throughout the region, and want to be sure that smaller communities are represented.

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Rear Pew Mirror

by Doug Brook P’Sukei Man Billy Joel recently released his first new song in decades. In recognition of this Messianesque return, this column presents another nevertofore heard classic.

The few. The proud. The people present at the start of Shabbat morning services. The nearly several people who pray the introductory Psalm-filled service, P’Sukei D’Zimra. The least we can do is give them a song. As we’re always ready to do the least, here one is.

In 1973, Billy Joel released what would become his signature song, “Piano Man.” As with many songs by many artists, this ballad went through early iterations that significantly differed from how it was ultimately recorded.

Owners of the My Lives boxset have heard the demo track where he sings, “Sing us a song, little piano man.” In this take, at nine o’clock on a Saturday “drinks were going fast,” and the old man sitting next to him was “dreading the time that has passed,” along with other lyrical changes, more prominent harmonica, and excessive reverb.

This happened with many of his songs, such as “I’ve Loved These Days” originally being “These Rhinestone Days,” “Worse Comes to Worst” was originally “New Mexico,” “The Longest Time” has roots in “The Prime of Your Life,” “Elvis Presley Blvd” evolved from “The End of the World,” and “Only the Good Die Young” was a reggae track until the drummer, the great Liberty DeVitto, hurled his drumsticks in protest.

According to legend, even “Honesty” was once “Sodomy,” though it was never clear if this alternate lonely word was in allusion to the book of Genesis or Leviticus.

But Billy Joel, like so many of us, is a nice Jewish boy. So, it’s little-known that an even earlier version of the song that ultimately became “Piano Man” was, in fact, a tribute to those early-morning Saturday stalwarts who get the service going so latecomers don’t have to wait too long for the Kiddush luncheon afterward.

It’s nine o’clock on a Saturday The regular crowd shuffles in, There’s an old man sittin’ next to me Wonderin’ when we’ll get a minyan.

He says, “Son, can you daven the liturgy?

I’m not really sure how it goes But it’s now nine-o-eight and the rabbi is late, And I’m late for my mid-morning doze.”

La, la-la, di-di-dum All Shabbos I bi di-bum Sing us a Psalm, you’re the P’Sukei Man, Sing us a Psalm today, Well, we’re all in a tallis and yarmulke And you’ll get us ready to pray.

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Now Sy in the back is a friend of mine At the ripe young age of eighty-three, And he’s quick with a joke I heard last time we spoke But it still gets a laugh out of me.

He says, “No, I don’t know where the rabbi could be,” As a smile ran away from his face, “So, I better come up with a sermon dvar, Or we’ll never get out of this place.”

La, la-la, di-di-dum All Shabbos I bi di-bum Now Saul is a retired physicist Who never had time for a wife, And he’s talkin’ with Dvorah, who’ll soon chant the Torah To teach us some more about life.

And the board members arguing politics As we hear about sinners getting stoned, Yes, they’re standing and praying in cold silence But it’s better than prayin’ alone.

Sing us a Psalm, you’re the P’Sukei Man, Sing us a Psalm today, Well, we’re all in a tallis and yarmulke And you got us ready to pray.

It’s a pretty good crowd for a Saturday And the rabbi he gives me a smile, He arrived nine-fifteen which by me went unseen I forgot about life for a while.

And the courtyard, it sounds like a carnival, And we’re starting to smell lox and schmear, And they sit in the back and sneak their kids a snack And say “man, how long have you been here?”

La, la-la, di-di-dum All Shabbos long bi di-bum Sing us a Psalm, you’re the P’Sukei Man, Sing us a Psalm today, Well, we’re all in a tallis and yarmulke And you’ll get us ready to pray.

Doug Brook is a lifelong Billy Joel obsessive wannabe fanatic, whose first date and first concert ever were both the Billy Joel concert on March 7, 1987, at the Birmingham Jefferson Civic Center Arena. Even though she brought a friend. And her father drove us. (Yes, he had to research the exact date.)

He also always gets to services by nine. (Him, not Billy Joel.

That we know of.)

If you want to actually hear the song, check out the Rear Pew Mirror podcast.

To acquire the FIVE-star rated Rear Pew Mirror book, read past columns, or listen to the FIVE-star rated Rear Pew Mirror podcast, visit http://rearpewmirror.com/.