The Sydney Jewish Report - October 2020

W W W. J C A . O R G . AU

FREE

Fostering a closer Jewish community

VOL. 73 Friday, 23 October 2020 / 4 Chesvan, 5781

MAKE YOUR MARK ON

Israel’s Future P4 A man

of community, a man of his word

P3

P8

LESSONS FROM

LOCKDOWN

P15 KOSHER KAPERS

2

the sydney jewish report | october 2020 LETTER FROM THE

EDITOR TO ALL OUR READERS I hope everyone had a wonderful Rosh Hashanah, meaningful Yom Kippur and festive Succot.

We had a tremendous re- launch of the Sydney Jewish Report last month. Our stands were placed in 8 Coles & Woolworths stores in the East, South East and St Ives with over 4,000 papers distributed within a week. We have therefore increased this month’s distribution to 5,000 copies in order to meet demand.

This is a fundamental achievement for us, as our mission has always been to circulate to the community at large. Having this valuable distribution infrastructure now place, we look forward to greater community engagement.

We are appreciative of organisations and community leaders who have come forward to share their views and opinions. Please feel free to send me an email at editor@thejewishreport.com.au should you have content that you would like to contribute.

The viability of the paper depends on advertising. With our large circulation base, we believe that the paper is a cost-effective channel to reach a broad cross section of our community. Please get in touch at advertising@thejewishreport if you would like to inquire about advertising.

Best regards Dion

AROUND

T H E

COMMUNITY

DISCLAIMER: Except where expressly stated otherwise, content in The Sydney Jewish Report is provided as general informations only. The articles in this paper have been contributed by a third party. The opinions, facts and any media content here are presented solely by the author, and The Jewish Report assumes no responsibility for them. It is not intended as advice and must not be relied upon as such. You should make your own inquiries and take independent advice tailored to your specific circumstances prior to making any decisions. We do not make any representation or warranty that any material in the papers will be reliable, accurate or complete, nor do we accept any responsibility arising in any way from errors or omissions. We will not be liable for loss resulting from any action or decision by you in reliance on the material in the papers. By reading the papers, you acknowledge that we are not responsible for, and accept no liability in relation to, any reader’s use of, access to or conduct in connection with the papers in any circumstance. Photographs submitted by individuals or organisations are assumed to be their property and are therefore not otherwise credited. All articles in this paper have received the expressed consent of the author to publish in this paper.

The Jewish Report; ISSN 2204-4639 Publisher: The Jewish Report Pty Ltd (ACN 167302981) Distributor: TJR Distribution Pty Ltd ACN 165158029 Comments or suggestions to: editor@thejewishreport.com.au Article submissions to: www.thejewishreport.com.au/article-submission-guidelines Advertising: advertising@thejewishreport.com.au Website: www.thejewishreport.com.au Printer: Spotpress Pty Ltd

Israel's Corona Warriors AUSTRALIAN FRIENDS OF SHAARE ZEDEK

By Miriam Pacanowski

“I want to express my tremendous gratitude to you the medical staff; you are Israel’s warriors. You are fighting a real war.

Whilst Jerusalem’s most central hospital continues to serve on the frontline of the Coronavirus battle, the atmosphere of compassion, humanity and innovation continues to permeate all of the hospital’s operations.

During the recent Sukkot holiday, children of medical staff prepared sukkah decorations for the Corona patients to bring the Sukkot spirit to the ward.

And although the hospital’s focus is now on treating Corona patients, Shaare Zedek still has a profound responsibility to developing and expanding its medical services across all areas of the hospital.

Shaare Zedek recently installed a new suite of state-of-the-art MRI scanners.

The installation process was a complex operation which was carried out as part of the renovation of the MRI unit and without interrupting patient scanning operations. The introduction of these new scanners confirms Shaare Zedek’s position as a technological leader and one of the most accurate diagnostic centres in Israel.

However, despite this commitment to growth, the pandemic continues to exacerbate severe operational and financial challenges on the hospital.

Shaare Zedek recently hosted a visit from Israel’s Minister for Jerusalem and Heritage Affairs Rafi Peretz who expressed his support for Shaare Zedek’s ongoing efforts in the face of the Corona crisis.

Shaare Zedek’s Director General Professor Ofer Merin shared with the Minister and his staff the challenges resulting from Corona as well as numerous new projects the hospital

will be undertaking in the period ahead.

This includes the immediate opening of a new Corona Unit as well as the future expansion of the Department of Emergency Medicine and other inpatient departments.

The Minister met with the medical teams and then suited up to enter into the Keter C Corona Inpatient Unit where he spoke directly with Corona patients.

Minister Peretz said, “I want to express my tremendous gratitude to you the medical staff; you are Israel’s warriors. You are fighting a real war.

Professor Merin thanked the Minister for his visit saying, “For more than half a year, Shaare Zedek has stood on the frontlines of this battle against Corona.

“We shared with the Minister the challenges we face and the urgent development needs we have in order to expand our treatment efforts for the people of Jerusalem.”

In recognition of the need to respond to the current crisis and build for the future beyond the pandemic, the Australian Friends of Shaare Zedek Inc recently launched a fundraising campaign to support the purchase of a life-saving transport respirator as a gift from the Australian Community. Dr Allan Garfield, Chairman of AFSZ Inc says, “We deeply appreciate the support of our community especially during these most challenging times.”

and evil of the old, G-d would suddenly decide to permit an act of violence against an animal, and what lesson is there for us?

Rav Kook explained that the purpose of permitting meat consumption was to emphasise the uniqueness of each human being. The life of any animal could be taken to benefit humans, but the life of a human is sacrosanct with infinite value and at no time can be taken. However, if animals and humans were seen to be equal, albeit distinctive forms of life, then in the same way that animals were gathered and farmed (e.g. for wool and milk) so too the value of a human would be for the benefit they provided. The greater the benefit, the greater their value. Hence, if they were of no benefit, they would be of no value.

On the other hand, if humans were singled out as unique and special, by being created in the image of G-d and not merely part of the ‘food chain’, there could be no discrimination at all. Rav Kook stated that this was the reason

why the eating of meat was permitted, to elevate the status and value of human life. It stands to reason that if you treat animals as humans, you may end up treating humans as animals.

His insightful words, almost a century ago, were so predictive. Only a few years later the worst horrors to ever afflict humankind came to the world. To the Nazis, life held no intrinsic value. They assigned only a relative value to human life and treated one accordingly.

Animals to whom they assigned a higher value were treated better than the humans to whom they referred to as “Untermensch”, to whom they gave no value at all.

Chief Rabbi Lord Sacks postulates that the ‘news’ of Bereshit is not that G-d created the world. It is that G-d created every human in His divine image. That knowledge is the source of all human rights … and it is our greatest gift to humanity.

www.shaarezedek.org.au

The Value of Life THE KASHRUT AUTHORITY

By Rabbi Moshe D. Gutnick The new year has commenced and with it the annual cycle of Torah reading. In the opening portion, Bereshit, we learn of the very first commandment given to humans. It is, in fact, a kosher law – “Of all the fruits of the garden you may eat”, but not of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge as that leads you to good and evil – nor from the Tree of Life. As we all know, Adam and Eve failed Test Number One. However, there was another kosher law given at that time, one that is not as well known. Humans were only permitted to eat from the “fruit of the field,” and were not allowed to kill animals in order to consume meat. By all accounts, the aim was for them to be vegetarians. It is tricky to ascertain as to whether they were allowed to eat fish, eggs

or milk … many believe that very likely, milk (at least) was on the menu.

As time progressed, humanity digressed to such an extent that a violent, corrupt society developed affording no concern for human life or property. The descent was so dramatic that Hashem’s patience wore thin and He regretted creating Man and brought a flood of destruction upon the world. The only survivors were Noah and his family – from whom we all descend.

When Noah left the ark, the kosher laws were amended. He was told that not only was he permitted to eat all vegetation but now he was given the ‘green light’ to eat meat, provided it was killed before being portioned. Not taking a limb from a living animal was to become one of the seven Noachide Laws.

In an almost prophetic essay written in the 1930s, Chief Rabbi Kook made the following observation: What sense does it make, that in a New World established to remedy the violence

3

the sydney jewish report | october 2020

A man of community, a man of his word

AR OUND

T HE

COMMUNITY

JCA

By Lauren Finn Emery Angles was a much loved and respected member of our community who passed in July this year. Emery Angles was known as “a man of his word” and a real gentleman.

Born in 1924 in Ujpest, Hungary, Emery survived the Holocaust and emigrated to Sydney where he met his wife Anne. They were married for 65 years and have a son Mark, and grandchildren David and Laura.

Our community recently lost a humble man who had a giving heart.

As a founding supporter of Emanuel School, he worked alongside Rabbi Brian Fox to make the dream of this school a reality. He continued to support Emanuel School through capital appeals and by establishing a scholarship to ensure future generations would have the benefit of a Jewish education.

Having survived the Shoah, Emery was committed to ensuring that whatever community he then became a part of would thrive with his help.

“Community was very important to my father. While I think he would have loved to have settled in Israel, he ended up coming to Australia and found a great sense of satisfaction in being able to contribute to our beautiful community here. Helping Jewish and other community causes through his philanthropy was one of his passions. He really enjoyed engaging with people and seeing the tangible benefits from the causes

Anne and Emery Angles with their son Mark and grandchildren Lara and David. he supported,” said his son Mark.

He was also a long-term committed donor to JCA. Emery ensured that his legacy continued by the creation of a Foundation for his family’s philanthropic aspirations. The Foundation works closely with Jewish community organisations on various projects by providing funding assistance in the form of recurring annual donations. As a result, a generous contribution is disbursed to JCA each year to benefit our local Jewish community.

“We take this opportunity to thank Emery – who never spoke about his philanthropy or asked for acknowledgement – for his

commitment to JCA and community. His generosity will create a lasting impact for JCA and community for generations to come”, concluded Alain Hasson, CEO, JCA. Bequest Manager at JCA, Mark Zworestine highlighted how important long-term charitable donations are to JCA and our community. “Gifts like these from Emery’s charitable Foundation are crucial, now more than ever, to our community’s sustainability.

Particularly in uncertain and unprecedented times they give JCA the ability to ensure the continuity of the programs and services offered by our 23 member organisations."

Having survived the Shoah, Emery was committed to ensuring that whatever community he then became a part of would thrive with his help.

Your legacy is our future.

Help secure our community’s future with a bequest to JCA We can’t be sure what the future needs of our community will be, but we do know that for more than 50 years, JCA has been able to respond to its changing needs.

By leaving a bequest to JCA, you become a member of JCA Generations, enabling us to future-proof our community for the years to come.

For more information, please contact Mark Zworestine at JCA on 0412 218 918 or email mark@jca.org.au

Stronger together.

Now more than ever.

4 AROUND

the sydney jewish report | october 2020

T H E

COMMUNITY

Make Your Mark on Israel’s Future Through UIA UIA

KH-UIA remains at the forefront of almost every aspect of Israel's development and progress, working in cooperation with the Government

Planned Giving through Keren HayesodUIA is a proactive way of laying the foundations for Israel's future. While annual donations make a significant impact towards meeting Israel's immediate needs, the complex and escalating requirements of the State require a long-term vision and planning of resources for the future. KH-UIA is in a unique position to be able to ensure money reserved as a Bequest is guaranteed to go directly ‘to Israel’.

KH-UIA remains at the forefront of almost every aspect of Israel's development and progress, working in cooperation with the Government to further National Priority Projects, promoting initiatives that are of key importance to Israel and its people, responding to needs in real-time and educating about the vital programs we offer to assist the People of Israel.

By preparing a Will which includes KH-UIA, you ensure that your assets are distributed according to your wishes and guarantee that your Bequest is used to meet Israel's most urgent needs. Your Legacy Gift can be designated to a wide variety of KH-UIA projects including Aliyah, immigrant

absorption, educational opportunities for disadvantaged youth and providing care for the elderly. It can also help inspire the next generation of Jewish People in the Diaspora through Jewish and Zionist education.

If you would like more information on Bequests and Endowment Funds, or to have a confidential discussion about planning your Legacy Gift for the People of Israel, please contact Michael Jackson, Director Planned Giving: (02) 9361 4273 / 0413 441 333, michael.jackson@uiansw.org.

JEMs high holidays JEMS Many asked what will be with this years Chaggim? With the Corona era getting the best of us, Jems staff came up with a plan that worked within all the covid restrictions.

Rosh Hashana Jems and Nefesh had many sesssions that anyone can join and come to shul. Over 800 Challahs and 350 ballons were given out to make it extra spiecal. Close to 1000 heard shofar and were glad they got a taste of Rosh hashana.

Yom kippur was the same and little books were give out that eveyone should be inscribed for a good year.

Sukkot was during school holidays so Jems camp was rocking. Close to 500 children enjoyed camp over the week and got to eat in the sukkah and shake the lulav.

Many parents and caretakers also joined in various activities and Jems was able to help over 1500 people celebrate sukkot.

We thank everyone who has helped us and given us the oppurtunity to help them celebrate.

au or visit uiaaustralia.org.au/states/ nsw/planned-giving Are you interested in Israeli current affairs? Join us at our weekly online Israel Updates on Tuesdays at 1.30pm.

UIA NSW Shlicha Jasmine Malul and UIA CEO Yair Miller OAM provide an indepth analysis of the latest events in Israel with Q&A and occasional special guest speakers.

Join our Israel Updates at https:// zoom.us/j/783633425 or for enquiries contact (02) 9361 4273, info@uiansw. org.au

5

the sydney jewish report | october 2020

Palestinian Propaganda in Space GERALD M. STEINBERG Hype about a small administrative change to a 1996 US federal regulation illustrates the ways in which the Palestinian propaganda (and disinformation) machine works. This public relations campaign, which turned prudent security measures into nefarious censorship cabals, was enabled by large contributions from “progressive” political donors (including US-based foundations and the governments of Switzerland and Germany).

To unravel the process, I go back to 1994, when, as an Israeli participant in an academic conference on space and security (based on my doctoral dissertation), I attended a presentation on the Clinton Administration’s post-Cold War plans to remove restrictions related to high-resolution images taken by commercial satellites. I wrote an analysis of the security implications, which was circulated among American and Israeli officials. This was the beginning of the Kyl-Bingaman Amendment (1996) to the Defense Authorization Act, which placed limits on commercial satellite imaging of Israel.

As I noted in a series of academic publications and conference presentations, on issues related to sensitive space-based strategic intelligence, Israel is an exceptional case. A very small country under threat of massive attack from conventional and unconventional forces (particularly Iraq and Syria, at the time) is severely limited in deploying defensive and deterrent capabilities, making Israel vulnerable to a surprise first strike. With the addition of very high-resolution space images available for purchase by potential attackers, including Palestinian and other terror groups, and in

real-time (unlike systems operated by Russia and others, which took months to fill orders), the threat to Israel would have been much higher.

Furthermore, following negotiations with the White House in the late 1960s, Israel had agreed not to test or reveal any details about its ambiguous nuclear deterrent capability (“don’t ask, don’t tell”.) As part of this very successful effort to avoid a chain of nuclear proliferators in the Middle East, space-based images of Israeli nuclear facilities were highly restricted. If detailed photos of the Dimona nuclear complex were routinely publicized, this would have changed the essential conditions to this contribution to stability. Understanding these concerns, the regulations were adopted, and served the purposes for which they were intended.

Now skip forward 24 years — to July 2020 — when the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration revised the limitations regarding imaging of Israel (from a minimum 2 meters to 40 centimeters), based on the improvements in technology, new Middle East strategic realities, and greater availability from non-US suppliers.

Additionally, Israel now operates its own advanced reconnaissance satellites, giving it a major advantage over Iran, Hezbollah, and Palestinian terror groups.

In sharp contrast, according to the propagandists, this minor change was turned a great political victory for the Palestinian cause. Foreign Policy’s headline screamed “Israel Can’t Hide Evidence of Its Occupation Anymore”, as if the questions of territorial control and construction over the pre- and post-1967 armistice lines, and similar issues were involved. As the record shows, these were entirely irrelevant to limits including in US licensing for commercial imaging satellites. For those whose main objective

in life is to measure Israeli, Palestinian and (unauthorized) European government construction in the West Bank, there are numerous other and less costly sources. The same is true regarding claims related to the surveying of ancient sites, as promoted by archeologists who awkwardly disguised their anti-Israel ideological campaigning in the form of academic analysis in the Space Policy journal. Repeated references to “censorship” made good fodder for political warfare, but have no basis in fact.

This disinformation campaign was led by a well-financed US-based non-government organization (NGO) known as Al Shabaka.

Zena Agha, the author of the tendentious Foreign Policy opinion piece, is employed by Al Shabaka, and has a long list of publications that promote anti-Israeli disinformation.

(According to the NGO’s website, “Her areas of expertise include Israeli settlement-building in the occupied Palestinian territory with a special focus on Jerusalem, modern Middle Eastern history, and spatial practices.”) Her triumphalist propaganda piece on satellite imaging and censorship was also pushed intensively on Al Shabaka’s social media accounts.

Al Shabaka has an annual budget of over ?500,000 – a mid-sized member in the long list of NGOs dedicated to demonizing Israel.

Their 2018 donors include the governments of Switzerland and Germany (through one of the country’s taxpayer funded left-wing and anti-Israel “political foundations”), as well as the US-based Rockefeller Brothers Fund and Open Society Foundation. The donors all claim to be promoting peace, transparency, and democratic values, but in reality, the funds they provide fuel ongoing and ideological warfare and specious “victories”.

Surely there are better ways to spend the money.

I SR AE L

NEWS

Gerald Steinberg is Professor of Political Science at Bar Ilan University and president of NGO Monitor. His latest book is "Menachem Begin and the IsraelEgypt Peace Process: Between Ideology and Political Realism", (Indiana University Press)

‘Wonder Woman’ Gal Gadot third highest-paid actress in 2020

NAAMA BARAK

Israeli actress Gal Gadot made ?31.5 million in 2020, earning her third place on Forbes’ list of this year’s highestpaid Hollywood actresses.

The bulk of her earnings, the magazine said, came from ?20 million for her role in the Netflix film “Red Notice.”

The closure of most movie theaters due to the coronavirus crisis had led studios to postpone the release of some films, the magazine noted, including “Wonder Woman 1984,” the sequel to the hit movie “Wonder

Woman” that catapulted Gadot to international fame. Originally slated to be released in December 2019, it is now set to hit screens this Dec. 25.

As such, Forbes noted, most of the actresses on the list made their earnings via TV shows or streaming services.

These include Sofia Vergara, who topped the list with ?43 million for her role in “Modern Family”, and “Grey’s Anatomy” actress Ellen Pompeo, who came in eighth place with ?19 million.

The exceptions to this were Angelina Jolie (No. 2 with ?35.5 million) and Emily Blunt (No. 6 with ?22.5 million),

who made their money largely from more traditional films.

In the 12 months leading up to June 2020, the 10 highest-paid actresses combined earned ?254 million—20 percent less than the previous year and far less than the ?545.5 million earned this year by the 10 highestearning male actors.

This year’s appearance on the Forbes list wasn’t a first for Gadot: back in 2017, she topped the list with earnings of ?1.4 billion.

This article ISRAEL21c.

first

appeared

in

Gadot made the bulk of her ?31.5 million from the Netflix film “Red Notice” in a year that traditional cinema has been gravely affected by the coronavirus crisis.

6

the sydney jewish report | october 2020

IS R AE L

NEWS

Hebrew University of Jerusalem receives world’s largest collection of postcards mailed from the Holy Land in the 19th to 21st centuries.

Long before the era of instantaneous communication, postcards served as the primary way to keep in touch, send pictures, collect souvenirs and share experiences with family and friends faraway.

Israel gets 130,000 messages from the past ISRAEL21C Ever wonder what first impressions Kaiser Wilhelm II might have tweeted upon his arrival in Jerusalem in October 1898? Or what Instagram and WhatsApp messages British soldiers in Palestine during World War I would have sent?

Long before the era of instantaneous communication, postcards served as the primary way to keep in touch, send pictures, collect souvenirs and share experiences with family and friends faraway.

Over the past 60 years, British accountant David Pearlman amassed the world’s largest collection of Holy Land postcards.

Now he is donating all 130,000 of them to the Folklore Research Center at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem’s Mandel Institute of Jewish Studies.

“I began collecting stamps as a young boy and graduated to postcards when I realized that instead of collecting dull postage stamps, I could collect these beautiful cards,” Pearlman recalled.

He scoured auction houses, private collections and estate sales to piece together his “Postcards of Palestine” collection.

The cards span from the Ottoman Period and British Mandate to the early pioneers, from the Six-Day War through the early 21st century.

Among pivotal events pictured on the cards are General Allenby’s visit to Jerusalem in 1917 and Lord Balfour’s attendance at the grand opening of Hebrew University in 1925.

‘It’s so hot here!’

Some of the cards feature artwork by leading 20th-century figures such as Meir Ben Gur Aryeh and Zeev Raban, as well as

photography by “Karimeh Abbud – Lady Photographer,” one of the first female photographers in the Arab world.

A sizeable portion of the collection are postcards sent by Christian pilgrims traveling from Egypt to Jerusalem to Damascus, visiting the holy sites along the way and sending their loved ones postcards that depicted camels, palm trees, Bedouins, pious Jews and an overflowing Dead Sea. They often included pressed flowers or scriptural quotes.

Dani Schrire, director of the Folklore Research Center, said a classic message would read, “Yesterday we were in Bethlehem. Today we’re in Jerusalem.

Tomorrow we’re going to Nazareth. It’s so hot here!”

In one postcard, a British soldier named Walter writes to his parents, “I can say ‘mafish’ which means ‘enough’[in Arabic’]… and I hope the war will soon [end] so I can go home again.”

Another soldier wrote, “I came through here…between Mt Ebal and Mt Grizim. … It is of course the Shechem where Jacob fed his flocks and Jacob’s well is here. There are many springs and consequently gardens where I saw the first green I’d seen for months.”

One British soldier mailed his parents a postcard of the Sea of Galilee, which he described to his parents as “The lake which saw so much of His life on earth and which to my mind holds such fascination.”

His message also noted, “The man in the next bed was up there with the cavalry says it’s very fine, the water being beautifully clean and there are several nice streams running into it. While there they were able to get fresh fish which was a nice change from the ‘bully [beef].’”

Another postcard shows a Hasidic Jew

choosing an etrog for the Sukkot holiday in the Ottoman period.

The fun begins Pearlman did extensive research on his postcards and provided HU researchers with valuable annotations and a complete catalogue of his collection, which includes 1,500 postcard publishers.

“In a way, Pearlman wanted these cards to return to Zion, to the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Once a collection arrives, we bring in conservation specialists to preserve the collection to the highest standards,” said Schrire.

“And then the real fun begins–HU researchers, from a variety of disciplines, are excited to begin working on the collection and to understand the imagination that the Land of Israel had on its many visitors.”

Pearlman said the collection “feels like part of my family.” But the time had come to part with them.

“I kept them in shoeboxes in my garage all these years,” Pearlman said. “At a certain point the collection grew so large that I began to park my car on the street to make room for more shoeboxes.”

The Folklore Research Center at Hebrew University was established in 1970 by the late Professor Dov Noy and is home to several important collections, including The Joseph and Margit Hoffman Judaica Postcard Collection, The Ralph Perry Palestine Postcard Collection, The Israeli Proverb Research Project, The Documentation Project of Jewish Papercuts, the Wandering Jew Archive of Yom Tov Lewinsky, and the Ya’akov Zidkoni Collection of Jewish Humor in Mandatory Palestine and Israel, among others.

This pastoral postcard from Haifa is from 1898. Image courtesy of Hebrew University

This postcard depicts four iconic Holy Land sites. Image courtesy of Hebrew University.

Etrog shopping in Ottoman-era Palestine. Image courtesy of Hebrew University

This postcard shows Jerusalem’s King George Street in the early 20th century. Image courtesy of Hebrew University

7

the sydney jewish report | october 2020

J E WI SH

WORLD

Facebook updates hate speech policy to ban Holocaust denial SOMMER BROKAW & DARRYL COOTE Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said Monday that the company will update its hate speech policy to ban Holocaust denial. Zuckerberg made the announcement in a Facebook post.

"We've taken down posts that praise hate crimes or mass murder, including the Holocaust. But with rising antiSemitism, we're expanding our policy to prohibit any content that denies or distorts the Holocaust as well," the post read. "If people search for the Holocaust on Facebook, we'll start directing you to authoritative sources to get accurate information."

The update reverses Facebook's earlier policy on the issue.

In 2018, Zuckerberg said in a Recode Decode podcast interview that the social media company does not want to ban Holocaust denial posts because people should be able to make unintentional mistakes.

"I don't think they're intentionally getting it wrong," Zuckerberg said on the podcast at the time.

Facebook Vice President of Content Policy Monika Bickert released a statement on the policy change.

"Today's announcement marks another step in our effort to fight hate on our services," Bickert said in the statement. "Our decision is supported by the well-documented rise in antiSemitism globally and the alarming level of ignorance about the Holocaust, especially among young people.

According to a recent survey of adults in the US aged 18-39, almost a quarter said they believed the Holocaust was a myth, that it had been exaggerated or they weren't sure."

Bickert added enforcement of the updated policy wouldn't happen overnight since it takes time "to train our reviewers and systems on enforcement."

Bickert also said that online attacks against many groups are increasing worldwide, according to organizations that study trends in hate speech, and that Facebook has taken several steps to remove such content.

Among those steps, Facebook has banned more than 250 white supremacist organizations and updated its policies to address militia groups and QAnon, which claims that the world elites maintain a "Satanic childmurdering sex cult," that the president is working to bring to justice. QAnon "fuels antisemitism," and could cause real world violence, according to the AntiDefamation League. Facebook has also taken down 22.5 million pieces of hate speech from its platform in the second quarter of this year.

Facebook has also recently banned anti-Semitic stereotypes about the collective power of Jews that often depicts them running the world or its major institutions, Bickert said.

The World Jewish Congress, which has called for the removal of such content for years, applauded Facebook's decision on Monday, saying the social media behemoth was recognizing Holocaust denial content for what it is: a

form of hate speech.

"Denying the Holocaust, trivializing it, minimizing it, is a tool used to spread hatred and false conspiracies about Jews and other minorities," WJC President Ronald S. Lauder said in a statement. "Today's announcement sends a strong message that Facebook will not allow its platform to be misused to promote hate."

Meanwhile, the Anti-Defamation League said it was "relived" Facebook has taken this step after nearly a decade of the Jewish anti-hate group calling on it to do so.

"Whatever forces led Facebook to make this decision, we believe it will have a positive impact on the experience of Jewish users on their platform," ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt said in a statement. "It is an important move, especially at a time when antisemitism is rising around the world."

Greenblatt added that while the announcement is good news, Facebook's decision is only as good as its enforcement, calling on the company to reassure the global community it is taking the steps needed to ensure Holocaust deniers are not taking advantage of its platforms to spread hate.

"We hope that Facebook will follow up with regular progress reports documenting the steps they are taking to ensure that Holocaust denial and distortion permanently is expunged from their platform," he said.

Originally published in United Press International

CEO Mark Zuckerberg said Monday Facebook will ban content that "denies or distorts the Holocaust." File Photo by Pat Benic/UPI

8

the sydney jewish report | october 2020

JE W ISH

WORLD

Lessons from Lockdown My top three transformative takeaways.

JODY BERKEL Corona has certainly thrown us for a loop. Prior to the pandemic, we walked around with this false sense of security and control and then within a matter of days, a microscopic virus achieved something cosmic. It's hard to imagine anything that could trigger such dramatic changes in such a short amount of time.

There are so many different lessons from the lockdown and I believe there is a shared experience between them. Together they have the potential to transform us into the people we are truly meant to become.

1. From Me to We In the beginning of the pandemic, there was this overwhelming sense of fear and uncertainty. Remember the panic that ensued over food, Lysol wipes and toilet paper? It was nuts!

I had a hard time holding back judging others as I looked at their grocery cart filled with 10 dozen eggs, 10 packages of chicken, and 10 bags of milk. I tried so hard to judge favorably, thinking maybe they have a very large family, maybe they have elderly parents living with them, maybe they are delivering this food to other people…I tried, I really did.

But looking at empty grocery shelves for weeks, I felt this sense that everyone was just thinking about themselves. This attitude of “It’s all about ME and as long as I have what I need, I’ll be fine.” It was a sad state of affairs and so not Jewish.

Although the dignity of the individual is a priority in Judaism, we haven’t survived this long as a people without having a collective responsibility for each other. We see this most strongly in our prayers. On the High Holidays we come together to pray communally and ask for forgiveness together. The holiday of Sukkot we invite guests to celebrate the joy of Judaism and we bind the four species together as a sign of our unity.

Our Sages tell us, “Kol Yisrael arevim zeh bazeh,” all of Israel is responsible for one another. Judaism is not just a code of individual responsibility; we are responsible for each other as well.

Rabbi Jonathan Sacks beautifully describes this idea of collective responsibility as one that connects us as citizens of the world. To be a citizen of a state, or resident in a neighbourhood, inevitably means to be involved in a collective fate of some kind. He writes, “What happens to me is only partially determined by what I do. It is also determined

by what others do. With or against our will, we are affected by those around us”. Our role in the spread and containment of this virus speaks so deeply to our connection and responsibility to one another.

I’ve witnessed that things have changed.

At some point -- did it happen when the toilet paper was restocked? -- there was a shift; we saw the whole world move from an attitude of ME to WE. We first saw it as people began to recognize and acknowledge the incredible dedication and sacrifice of our frontline workers. There was this outpouring of gratitude worldwide, it washed over the world like a blanket of love.

It signified to me that the attitude of “it’s all about me” had been replaced with “we are all in this together!”

We saw such incredible kindness, generosity and love during this time. Just after Passover a remarkable true story of one such incredible kindness surfaced. One family reached out to a neighbour who was going to be completely alone and invited her to join their family for the Seder. They accomplished this by each family home pushing their dining room tables close to the window so they would be as “together” as possible. After the holiday the woman’s son called to see how her Seder was. She told him, “It was actually beautiful! All the tunes that the neighbors sing are the exact same tunes that we sing at our Seders, isn’t that something!?”

What makes this story of incredible kindness even more extraordinary is the backstory. The week before the Seder, once the neighbour invited the woman to join their Seder through the windows, they called her son and said, “Please teach us the tunes of the songs you sing at your table so we can make your mom feel as included as possible.” That week the family practiced the tunes to all the songs.

Covid brought out the best in us and demonstrated the unity in seeing each other as one big family, Am Echad B’lev Echad, one nation with one heart.

2. Gratitude This year will be remembered as the year that we were forced to slow down from the rapid pace of our daily lives and take stock of all our blessings. As we sat in our homes, locked away from the chaos outside, we started to appreciate more deeply what we do have – basic gifts like health, a home and a family.

And with this appreciation, we learned to humble ourselves, to give up control, to take each day as it comes, and to live a little more in the present. This has been a time to focus

us on gratitude to God for all that he is doing for us at every moment.

There was the story of an elderly man from New York who contracted Covid-19 and had to be put on a ventilator. Thank God he survived and when he was well enough to leave the hospital he was handed the bill, including payment for the oxygen for the two weeks he was on the ventilator. The man looked at the bill and began to cry. The administrator told him, “I know it’s a lot of money – don’t worry you don’t have to pay it all at once.”

The man looked up and said, “I’m not crying about the bill. I’m crying because I’m thinking how much I owe God for all the oxygen He has been giving me for the past 70 years for free!”

The pandemic has helped us realize that God is answering prayers every moment for things we didn’t even pray for. Did we ask God to wake up this morning with the ability to see, to hear, to breathe or to walk? Most of us take these things for granted. When was the last time we really asked God for them?

Yet He blesses us each day. How much more we would appreciate these blessings if they were, God forbid, taken away from us.

Through Covid we have realized that the little things are really the BIG THINGS! Let’s not let this new year go by without taking this lifechanging lesson with us.

3. God doesn’t have Plan B God is all powerful, all knowing and all good. When Covid hit, many people asked why is this coronavirus happening? Doesn’t God realize that I was supposed to send my kids to camp this summer, or marry off my daughter with 400 of her closest friends, or that I’m supposed to be taking care of my elderly parents right now?

Each of us has our own we should have been. And we think that everything that we’ve had to re-arrange is all Plan B. But God runs the world, so everything that happens to us – the good, the challenges, all of it… even corona – is PLAN A! God doesn’t have a Plan B. Where we are is where we are meant to be! Which means we are meant to be limited to seeing 10 people in a socially distanced manner, wearing masks, and for our Israeli brothers and sisters, in lockdown again.

Recognizing that we can’t control what happens to us, we can only control how we respond to what happens to us, has been life-changing for me.

One day all the drive-by bat mitzvahs and graduations, the zoom birthday parties, funeral and shiva calls, and the outdoor High Holiday services will all be a distant memory.

And despite all that’s changed in this year, what hasn’t changed are the moments in Jewish life that have been so meaningful and unforgettable.

Lockdown has brought with it many lessons. It was the year that we understood more deeply than before just how essential meaningful relationships are and the more we focus on the WE, instead of only ME, the better we all do. It was a year that we truly counted our blessings and focused on all we did have instead of what was lost. And we learned that God has no Plan B, and that how we respond to what happens to us is where our greatest power lies.

Lastly, there's a lot of talk these days about "our bubbles." In today's vernacular, it's meant to keep us safe and prevent the spread of Covid-19, but the concept is far deeper than this. Through this pandemic I have had time to reflect on my bubble, and the impact it has made on my life's trajectory. I can say for certain that bringing God into my bubble has been the greatest gift of all, because as isolated as some us might have felt, with God in our life, we are never truly alone.

What lessons have you learned during the lockdown?

Originally published in Aish HaTorah.

9

the sydney jewish report | october 2020

WJC President Ronald S. Lauder joins ceremony with Ukraine government securing future Babyn Yar Holocaust Memorial Center and Museum WORLD JEWISH CONGRESS KIEV, Ukraine – The Babyn Yar Holocaust Memorial Center will be moving forward on plans to erect a museum honoring the tens of thousands murdered at the Babyn Yar site by the Nazis 79 years ago this week. On behalf of the Supervisory Board of the Babyn Yar Holocaust Memorial Center, World Jewish Congress President Ronald S. Lauder visited the Babyn Yar site to sign a memorandum of understanding and cooperation between the Memorial Center’s board and Ukraine’s government. Lauder, as well as Ukraine’s Minister of Culture and Information Policy, Oleksandr Tkachenko, signed the agreement in the presence of Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Before the Nazis invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941, Kiev had been home to some 160,000 Jews, 100,000 of whom fled before the Nazis invaded Kiev in September 1941. In a horrific

mass murder on September 29-30, 1941, at the Babyn Yar ravine northwest of the city, the Nazis killed 33,771 of the Jews who remained. This massacre was one of the largest of the Holocaust. In subsequent months, the German killing machine brought the total killed at Babyn Yar to some 100,000, murdering thousands of additional Jews, as well as Roma and Soviet civilians, prisoners of war and government officials.

Lauder emphasized the role of the memorial and museum in expanding Holocaust education, “Babyn Yar was one of the single biggest slaughters of the Holocaust, and yet the tragic history of the murderous horrors the Nazis committed here is almost unknown to young people today. This memorial and museum will change that. This site demonstrates the most vile and murderous form that antisemitism and racism can take when allowed to go unchecked. The world must – and will – learn from Babyn Yar, as it must

3 good reasons to advertise with us: 1. Most competitive rates guaranteed.

2. Free design work.

3. Helpful, reliable and friendly sales staff.

E-mail advertising@thejewishreport.com.au for a rate card.

learn from the Holocaust as a whole, that we must stop all manifestations of antisemitism and bigotry as soon as these hatreds appear.”

Ambassador Lauder acknowledged the Ukrainian government’s commitment to honoring the Babyn Yar victims. “President Zelensky and his government have demonstrated strong support in making a memorial and museum become a reality. We have much work to do – together – to educate the next generation. I speak on behalf of World Jewish Congress in sharing how much we look forward to continuing to work closely together with the government of Ukraine in the months and years to come on this very important project.”

On the occasion of the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau in January, Zelensky joined Lauder at an event in Krakow honoring more than 100 Holocaust survivors and their families.

J E WI SH

WORLD

The world must – and will – learn from Babyn Yar, as it must learn from the Holocaust as a whole, that we must stop all manifestations of antisemitism and bigotry as soon as these hatreds appear.”

10

the sydney jewish report | october 2020

A S K

T H E

RABBI

Infection and the Orthodox RAYMOND APPLE

“Wise people, be careful with your words” (Avot 1:11).

It is better to be silent than say the wrong thing.

TO R AH

THOUGHT

Reports from Israel calculate that up to 40% of Covid infections occur in haredi (ultra-orthodox) areas, where crowds gather and many people decline to wear masks or keep their distance from others. Non-haredim are aghast and say, “I told you so!”. It’s not just that infections can attack the haredim themselves but they can affect the rest of the population.

There are two ways of dealing with people you don’t agree with – loving them, and hating them. “Love your fellow as yourself” (Lev. 19:18) is the leading principle of Judaism. “Love the stranger” comes 36 times in the Torah. You must “not hate your fellow in your heart” (Lev. 19:17). Yet the Mishnah (Sanh. 9:6) warns that if a person acts wrongly, “kana’im pog’im bo - zealots may attack him”. The Talmud says there are times for hating (Pes. 113b). Maimonides says that if a person is warned not to sin but ignores the warning, one may hate him until he repents (Hilkhot Rotze’ah 13:10).

Nonetheless, Chief Rabbi Hertz used to say, “The Jew is not a good hater”.

Jews prefer to love than to hate. What

The Mishnah says, “Wise people, be careful with your words” (Avot 1:11). It is better to be silent than say the wrong thing. Hai Ga’on said, “Keep your tongue a prisoner in your mouth”. We should not be harassing the haredim but giving them honour, respect and the right to be heard. One may not rely on his own judgment and take the law into his own hands; in Jewish history, the elders always had to approve a course of action. Consulting others may take time but it might well find a calm solution.

One of the saddest aspects of today’s problem is that some people welcome the chance to stigmatise the haredi community. Whether the haredim are as foolish and insensitive as the media suggest is a question, though some such groups have a reputation for being intolerant and authoritarian, and some resort to ruses in order to get large numbers to events which would be better postponed. Why don’t haredi rabbis, rebbes and rashei yeshivot see this as a unique and horrible time when normal ways have to be temporarily shelved or adjusted to an interim reality?

Raymond Apple, emeritus rabbi of the Great Synagogue, Sydney

The ‘Me’ Versus The ‘We’ RABBI LEVI WOLFF

We must all strive to find the right balance between “for my sake the world was created,” and “I am but dust and ashes”.

we face today is whether to love or hate a fellow Jew or Jewish group, in particular one that follow strict standards of ideology and observance and a style marked by black hats and black coats.

But the issue is not beards or black hats but whether one may disregard the doctors and say with the Psalmist, “The Lord protects the simple” (Psalm 116:6).

No-one is against a way of life that prizes prayer and Torah study but noone should use the wrong tactics and stigmatise praying in a synagogue or studying in a yeshivah as illegal and wrongful. No Jew should be so unfeeling and indeed so un-Jewish as to send in the police and the army to turn spirituality and study into criminal acts. Let’s make no mistake: it’s not only the haredim but the so-called national religious people (of which I am one) who are profoundly shaken by what looks like a double assault – one assault by the cruel corona, one by authority figures who seem to have no heart.

This is not a time to hate but a time to love, to find the loving words which if they cannot yet conquer the corona will at least show some real sympathy for other people’s dilemma. The Bible says, “Death and life are in the power of the tongue” (Prov. 18:21).

Jewish communities around the globe wrapped up the High Holiday season earlier this month. Without exception, this experience was vastly different in a myriad of ways due to one word and one word only: pandemic. For centuries, we have warmly ushered in the New Year by stating, Tichleh shana vekileloteha; tachel shana u\'virchoteha – May the old year end with all its curses; may the New Year begin with all its blessings.

Never before have those words resonated more deeply as our collective truth – Emet.

Millions of us have been in lockdown in some way, shape or form over the past few months. Early in the 1600s, the great playwright William Shakespeare was quarantined in London when the bubonic plague hit, a challenging epoch; yet it simultaneously afforded him the opportunity to read, study and create. In fact, he penned many of his most famous plays during that time.

I can’t profess to that achievement, however during this complex time I have come to understand and appreciate the wisdom of Chassidic Master, Reb Simcha Bunim. We are told that he insisted on keeping two pieces of paper in the front pockets of his pants, each containing essential life lessons.

On one he wrote, “Bishvili nivra ha-olam; For my sake, the world was created”. This is a fundamental tenet of Judaism – the value and uniqueness of the individual.

The coronavirus proved that point in an unexpected way. There is a person I am certain no one in our community, country (or most likely hemisphere) has met who has impacted us directly. A fifty-seven year old seafood merchant in the Huanan Market named Wei Guixian, from China’s Wuhan City.

She felt unwell, visited a small, local clinic for cold medicine and went back to work.

Eight days later she was barely conscious in a hospital bed. Patient Zero. What

ensued paralysed China, gripped the global economy and has had a tsunamilike effect on us all.

The power of one.

In time, a scientist will discover the COVID-19 vaccine and will directly help to heal our world. Just as has been done before with a host of other devastating mutations of diseases. One person has the capacity to radically alter the world – we all consciously strive to make it better – not worse.

Intriguingly, Reb Simcha Bunim’s second piece of paper contained a very different message – insightful words stated by our forefather, Abraham: “V’anochi afar v’efer - I am but dust and ashes”. On a daily basis, Reb Simcha Bunim wanted a visual reminder that alone, we are infinitesimal, yet frequently dependent on the large universe surrounding us.

More than any other year I can recall, there has been a national discussion about loneliness, resulting from the necessary measures of social distancing, quarantine, and isolation. This is a topic close to my heart. As a communal rabbi I derive great joy from bringing people together. Yet, our lives are more interwoven than we think.

Following is a case-in-point: Charles Plumb was a US Navy jet pilot in Vietnam. After seventy-five successful combat missions, his plane was destroyed by a surface-to-air missile. He parachuted into enemy hands, was captured and spent six years in a Communist Vietnamese prison.

Plumb survived that ordeal and one day, years later, he was sitting in a restaurant when another patron approached and said, “You’re Plumb! You flew jet fighters in Vietnam and you were shot down!”

“How in the world did you know that?” asked Plumb.

“I packed your parachute … I guess it worked!”

That night, sleep evaded him. Plumb had been a revered and respected fighter pilot; while this man was (in naval rankings) simply a lowly sailor. He ruminated about just how frequently he may have hurried

passed the sailor without acknowledging him. He visualised this man spending many lonely hours seated by a long wooden table in the bowels of the ship, carefully stitching the fabric together. His sole mission: to ensure that the parachute met every safety requirement knowing that somebody’s life depended on it.

How interconnected we truly are.

Plumb now spends his days as a motivational speaker asking people to recognise who is packing their proverbial parachute. He also shares that he has needed many types of parachutes – physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual along his life journey. The coronavirus has given us pause to think about family, friends, medical professionals, employers, classmates and more who at some point (or points) have made or continue to make all the difference to our worlds.

Over the past few months, the coronavirus has also reminded us just how insightful Reb Simcha Bunim was in respect to his two tangible life lesson reminders.

They are pertinent now when considering open/closed borders; health/economic needs; rights/responsibilities … the ‘me’ versus the ‘we’.

We must all strive to find the right balance between “for my sake the world was created,” and “I am but dust and ashes”.

It doesn’t have to involve producing timeless plays and other literary contributions during a plague, yet we each have to play our part, so to speak. Each of us has what it takes to be a ‘parachute’ to family and community – our nation, our world!

To borrow the opening line from another literary master: in the future people may ask of 2020: was it “the best of times or the worst of times”?

The answer depends on us all, personally and as a collective.

May the new year and all its blessings now begin – we are more than ready!

Rabbi Levi Wolff is the Spiritual Leader at The Central Synagogue.

the sydney jewish report | october 2020

11 P OL I T I CAL

The antisemitism pandemic

CROSSFIRE

MATTHEW M. HAUSMAN Upon awakening in the morning, an observant Jew’s first thought is supposed to be directed toward G-d with the recitation of Modeh Ani, the prayer expressing thanks for the return of the soul to the body. Thereafter and throughout the day, observant Jews conduct their lives according to the commandments set forth in the Torah and values elucidated in sacred literature.

Knowing the laws regarding prayer, kashrut, charity, interpersonal and professional conduct, and how mitzvah observance relates to the proper functioning of society, reminds Jews of their relationship with G-d and His involvement in their daily lives. This reinforces the belief that G-d is continually engaged with the world and that every Jew has the innate ability to communicate directly with Him without need for intermediaries.

Jewish tradition similarly teaches that society cannot exist in a spiritual vacuum, a concept succinctly reflected by the words of Pirkei Avot (1:2) stating: “The world rests upon three things, Torah, avodah [divine service], and gemilut hasadim [acts of kindness].” This dictum is actualized when Jews live according to their law and tradition and recognize how belief and observance enable them to fulfill their mission as a “light to the nations”.

But what happens when they abandon traditional belief and instead worship alien ideals that contravene Jewish law? Or when nontraditional movements and secular communal organizations conflate rabbinic values with partisan politics? The result is moral confusion that threatens Jewish continuity and excuses antisemitism in progressive and identity communities with whom many liberals find common cause.

Evidence of Jew-hatred among progressives and minority communities abounds and yet liberals often deny its existence or rationalize it as a response to imaginary Jewish indiscretions.

Or they vindicate it by misrepresenting Jewish history, forsaking Israel, and shielding leftists from accusations of bias.

Radicals who preach the destruction of Israel or Jewish culture deny they are antisemitic by pointing to Jewish progressives who do the same. How can they be antisemitic, they ask, when “enlightened” Jews also reject their tradition and characterize Israel as a colonial enterprise? Even moderate liberals excuse radical hatred when they are ignorant of Jewish history or believe Torah values equal progressivism.

Nothing illustrates this more than their refusal to recognize antisemitism within the current protest movement or at the center of the revisionist Palestinian narrative.

Despite the myth of progressive tolerance, antisemitism has permeated leftist thought for generations – becoming especially shrill after the 1967 war – and has clearly infected today’s liberal mainstream. It seems that “radical chic” of the 1960s paved the way for left-wing antisemitism in the twenty-first century.

Jewish progressives who renounce tradition often seek spiritual fulfillment by sanctifying political ideologies and paying lip-service to rabbinic values they reject. Many who spurn tradition portray spirituality as progressive idealism, with typically implausible results. Some support the antisemitic Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (“BDS”) movement, Students for Justice in Palestine, or organizations like J Street or New Israel Fund. Others endorse Antifa or applaud Black Lives Matter activists who falsely accuse Israel of apartheid, support BDS, and honor Louis Farrakhan.

Progressives justify these affiliations by wrongly equating tikkun olam with “social justice” and claiming mussar-inspired introspection leads them to reject Israel. Clearly, they understand neither concept.

The result of such thinking is that liberals who tolerate no bigotry from conservatives often excuse antisemitic leftists who call for the destruction of the Jewish State.

Republicans ostracized Congressman Steve King for comments deemed racist during his tenure in the House, and the party ultimately stripped him of his committee assignments in 2018 and supported his opponent in the 2020

Republican primary. In contrast, when Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, or other Congressional Democrats made offensive or insensitive comments regarding Jews or Israel, Democratic leadership rushed to their defense and proclaimed them valuable members of the caucus.

This partisan hypocrisy runs deep and pushes Democratic priorities into the realm of the absurd. Whereas House Democrats last year held hearings on the threat of rightwing extremism, for example, they refused to investigate Antifa for domestic terrorism and instead treated violent protests where people were injured and property destroyed as “democracy in action.”

Neo-Nazis are not the ones instigating the civil unrest that is now roiling the nation and which has included physical violence, assaults on police officers and federal courthouses, and mob attacks against Jews, their businesses, schools, and synagogues.

Though liberals have made condemning racism against African-Americans and other minorities a litmus test for conservatives and Republicans, they have refused to regard anti-Jewish racism with equal seriousness.

Only Republicans have made fighting Jewhatred a moral priority, while House Democrats could not even pass a resolution condemning antisemitism (which was necessitated by comments from members of their own caucus) until they rewrote it as a generic denunciation of all hatreds and omitted specific reference to Jews.

Antisemitism is clearly at play in the 2020 presidential race, but establishment liberals will not acknowledge its pervasiveness. Moreover, they tout Joe Biden as good for Israel and the Jews without any critical analysis, irrespective of a record marked by many troubling incidents, including: threatening Menachem Begin in the halls of the Senate in 1982; blaming Israeli policies for terrorism against Jews while ignoring Palestinian antisemitic rejectionism; falsely identifying the historically Jewish Ramat Shlomo neighborhood in Jerusalem as disputed territory and condemning construction there in 2010; criticizing President Trump’s relocation of the US Embassy to Jerusalem in compliance with legislation that Biden himself had supported as a Senator in 1995. serving as vice president in a virulently anti-Israel administration that consistently undermined PM Netanyahu and Israeli national integrity, and which in 2016 coordinated UN Resolution 2334 in an effort to deny Jewish sovereignty and erase the Jews’ historical presence from Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem.

Biden’s running mate, Kamala Harris, whose

self-proclaimed affinity for Israel is inconsistent with her failure to attend this year’s AIPAC conference, desires to reinstate the Iran nuclear deal, and failed to condemn bigoted remarks by Ilhan Omar. Jewish voters should be apprehensive that Harris appeared to show greater concern for Omar’s welfare after her odious comments than the targets of her incitement.

Though the failure to condemn antisemitism among fellow Democrats should be an electoral red flag, it instead elicits silence from establishment liberals.

If Jewish Democrats were truly alarmed by surging antisemitism or existential threats to Israel, they would mobilize against the hatespeech of prominent athletes and celebrities.

They would also challenge abhorrent commentary in mainstream media outlets that provide platforms for BDS advocacy and downplay reports of antisemitic acts committed by progressive or minority activists.

Liberals prefer instead to put their slurs “in context” or blame President Trump.

Those who invoke Jewish tradition to justify partisan affiliations should learn what it actually entails before conflating it with ideals that are extraneous to or inconsistent with Jewish law.

Sadly, many seem embarrassed by Jewish pride and assertiveness, which progressives often deride as chauvinistic “microaggressions.”

Jewish voters can dislike Trump for his personality, politics, behavior, or job performance, but they cannot base their disdain on rabbinic tradition they know little about. Indeed, in the current political climate – where violent hatred of Jews and Israel has become acceptable among identity groups and progressive Democrats – they cannot claim that any current Democratic candidate is especially philosemitic or pro-Israel.

Authentic Jewish values are not synonymous with progressivism and do not demand allegiance to the Democratic Party.

Accordingly, those who invoke Jewish tradition to justify partisan affiliations should learn what it actually entails before conflating it with ideals that are extraneous to or inconsistent with Jewish law.

Whereas most American Jews are nonobservant, many still yearn to express themselves spiritually – though they may no longer know how. In contrast, those who start the morning with “Modeh Ani” are familiar with their history, traditions and holy obligations, including the commandment to end their day by reciting the bedtime Shema affirming G-d’s oneness. Beginning and ending the day with words of prayer gives traditional Jews a spiritual template for conducting their lives from dawn to dusk. Can those who abandon Torah values for temporal politics say the same?

Those who invoke Jewish tradition to justify partisan affiliations should learn what it actually entails before conflating it with ideals that are extraneous to or inconsistent with Jewish law.

12 PO LIT I C AL

CROSSFIRE

Justice Ginsburg's ruling in an appeal against the spy's life sentence exacerbated existing divisions within the Jewish American community

the sydney jewish report | october 2020

When Ruth Bader Ginsburg got it wrong on Pollard JULIO MESSER When President Clinton nominated Ruth Bader Ginsburg to the Supreme Court, he called her “the Thurgood Marshall of gender equality law.” President Trump, whom she disliked, described her as “an amazing woman who led an amazing life.” She was the first woman to receive tenure at Columbia Law School and the first Jewish woman to serve on the Supreme Court. Prime Minister Netanyahu eulogized her as “one of the great judicial leaders of our time … [s]he was proud of her Jewish heritage and the Jewish people will always be proud of her.” In a religious freedom case she sided, albeit unsuccessfully, with an Orthodox Jew who was prohibited from wearing a kippah while serving in the Air Force. But one of her judicial decisions, involving an appeal by another Jew, exacerbated a division within the Jewish community between those who openly objected to the defendant’s original sentence and those who remained conspicuously silent.

In 1983, acting on the instruction of President Reagan, Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger, an Episcopalian whose paternal grandparents had left Judaism, signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Israel establishing strategic military and intelligence cooperation. Jonathan Pollard, a Jewish American analyst of Naval Intelligence, realized in 1984 that “sensitive information about terrorism, Syrian deployments and Iraqi weapons of mass destruction was being withheld from the materials provided to Israel.”

He raised the issue with his superiors several times, to no avail. Convinced that the absence of these materials reflected Department of Defense policy, he offered his services to Israeli intelligence.

For eighteen months Pollard gave the Israelis classified information about every country from Morocco to Pakistan, including Syrian and Iraqi nuclear and biological research, Libyan air defense systems, Iranian radar stations and Soviet-built air-to-air missile systems, as well as satellite photos of PLO installations in Tunisia (bombed by the Israeli Air Force shortly afterwards). The CIA’s damage assessment, declassified twenty-five years later, did not claim that the intelligence provided by Pollard was transferred by Israel to another country.

No American agent, soldier, official or civilian was harmed or compromised.

Pollard was called in for questioning by the FBI in late 1985. His main Israeli handler, later Minister Rafi Eitan, stated that he then gave him an agreed upon sign to execute a prearranged escape plan, but “Pollard wandered around for three days” and finally showed up (with his wife) at the Israeli embassy. “No ambassador would have given him diplomatic shelter. I immediately said – throw him out,” Eitan recounted, and the

Pollards were arrested.

Pollard agreed to plead guilty to “one count of conspiracy to deliver national defense information to a foreign government” (in this case, an allied country), waive his right to trial by jury (which saved the government time, money and the discussion of sensitive information), cooperate with damage assessment, submit to polygraph examinations and criminal interviews. In return, in addition to not charging him with other crimes and entering into a plea agreement with his wife (which would otherwise not have been offered), the prosecution made three crucial promises: (1) to bring to the Court’s attention the nature, extent and value of his cooperation and testimony, representing that it was of considerable value to the government’s investigation, damage assessment and enforcement of espionage laws, (2) to recommend “a substantial period of incarceration” (but not the maximum penalty of life imprisonment, the usual sentence for this offense being no more than 6-8 years and actual jail time averaging 2-4), and (3) to limit its allocution to “the facts and circumstances” of Pollard’s crimes.

The prosecution, nevertheless, submitted to the Court a classified and unchallengeable 46-page memorandum from Weinberger cataloguing the “substantial and irrevocable” damage inflicted. The day before sentencing it submitted his unclassified supplemental declaration asserting that even in a year in which several spies for the United States’ main adversaries had been apprehended, it was difficult to “conceive of greater harm to national security,” and that Pollard’s punishment “should reflect the perfidy of his actions [and] the magnitude of the treason committed.”

As pointed out by a non-Jew (Robert Blewett, who filed an amicus curiae in Pollard’s appeal), Weinberger’s “use of the word ‘perfidy’ suggest[ed] a conscious or subconscious acquiescence to discredited and recently excised church liturgy that spoke of ‘the perfidious Jew’ … an ugly stereotype drawn from medieval theological antiSemitism.” Furthermore, the Constitution reads that “Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort.” It may carry the death penalty but clearly does not apply to non-enemies.

The nation’s top national security official in effect suggested to the sentencing judge the government’s interest in seeing the maximum sentence imposed, in violation of the plea agreement.

Pollard was sentenced to life imprisonment – the same punishment as received by John Walker, Robert Hanssen and Aldrich Ames, who betrayed the US by selling top secrets to the Soviets, endangered US security and

LEFT: Jonathan Pollard speaks during an interview, Friday, May 15, 1998, at the Federal Correction Institution in Butner, N.C. (AP Photo/ Karl DeBlaker) RIGHT: Supreme Court nominee Judge Ruth Bader Ginsburg prepares to testify in her confIrmation hearing at Capitol Hill on Tuesday, July 20, 1993 in Washington before the Judiciary Committee.(AP Photo/Doug Mills)

claimed the lives of many US agents. Mrs. Pollard was sentenced to five years, released on parole after three years and made aliyah.

Mr. Pollard’s lawyer, unexplainably, did not appeal his conviction within the ten-day statutory limit. He later made an unsuccessful motion to have the sentence reduced and, again, did not appeal when the motion was denied. In 1990, having served the intervening time in prison, Pollard sought the Court’s approval to withdraw his guilty plea – something the district judge denied without holding a hearing.

In 1991, Pollard’s new attorneys appealed the disproportionate sentence to the DC Court of Appeals before judges Ruth Ginsburg, Laurence Silberman and Stephen Williams. The appeal was denied by a vote of 2 to 1.

Ginsburg and Silberman sided against Pollard in a highly technical and convoluted decision that mentioned “our dissenting colleague” five times, suggesting that the panel had debated intensely. While admitting that “[i]t does appear that the government was engaged in rather hard-nosed dealings,” the key point made by the majority was that Pollard had waited too long.

In his riveting dissent, Williams characterized the decision as a “fundamental miscarriage of justice.” He spoke to the heart of the issue – the breach of faith in the execution of the plea bargain: “The government complied in spirit with none of its promises; with the third, it complied in neither letter nor spirit.”

“Though … not wish[ing] to be too critical of the government,” Williams closed his opinion with “Macbeth’s curse against the witches whose promises – and their sophistical interpretations of them – [had] led him to doom: “And be these juggling fiends no more believ’d, / That palter with us in a double sense; / That keep the word of promise to our ear, / And break it to our hope.” The contrast between the cold analysis of the judges that sided with the government and the hot dissent of the judge that sided with Pollard couldn’t have been more striking.

Mindful of Ginsburg’s appointment to the Supreme Court a year later, Pollard’s father wrote a bitter letter to the editor quoting a statement that he attributed to Professor Ruth Wisse: “Modern Jewish courtiers have made a specialty of sacrificing their fellow Jews for the sake of their own advancement or to win the approval of other people.”

The three judges went on to long illustrious careers on the bench. Williams died of COVID-19 in August. Ginsburg survived metastatic colon cancer but succumbed to pancreatic cancer on Rosh Hashanah eve.

Silberman is currently a Senior Judge in the D.C. Court of Appeals.

Weinberger was indicted on five felony charges related to the Iran-contra affair, including perjury and obstruction of Congress, but was pardoned by President Bush (Senior) before the trial. He omitted his involvement in the Pollard case from his memoirs. Questioned by a journalist about the omission, Weinberger nonchalantly responded, “because it was … a very minor matter … made far bigger than its actual importance.” Asked why so, he replied “I don’t know why – it just was.”

As for Pollard, the Supreme Court refused to hear his case. All requests of clemency

by Israeli prime ministers to different US presidents were denied. The only American to ever receive a life sentence for spying for an ally, he became eligible for parole and was released after thirty years, many of which he spent in solitary confinement. His parole conditions included not owning a smartphone, “unfettered monitoring and inspection” of his computers and those of any employer and a requirement to remain in the United States (and thus not make aliyah as he intended) for five years. These terms are due to expire next month but could be extended. Stay tuned.

Originally published in blogs.timesofisrael.com

the sydney jewish report | october 2020

This is not the time for our rabbis to keep quiet

13 P OL I T I CAL

CROSSFIRE

MELANIE PHILLIPS The former chief rabbi of the United Kingdom, Jonathan Sacks, has come in for some stick over remarks he recently made about religion and politics.

In an interview with JTA published in last week’s Jewish Star, he was asked what he thought about the observation by Rabbi Shmuel Kamenetsky, head of the Agudath Israel Council of Torah Sages, that Jews should vote to re-elect President Donald Trump out of gratitude for the things he has done for the Jewish people.

Rabbi Lord Sacks, who was made an independent member of the House of Lords in 2009, delivered an impassioned reply.

“The division between politics and religion is absolutely fundamental,” he said. “It’s one of the greatest things Judaism ever taught the world: Don’t mix religion and politics. You mix religion and politics, you get terrible politics and even worse religion. It’s an absolute and total outrage.”

As he said, he himself has written numerous books about political ideas. He has achieved justified global renown for his thinking about social, cultural and political trends. But as he also said, he has never taken a party political stand, never used his pulpit for a political address and never said how he votes.

He added: “I did not allow my rabbis to use the pulpit for political purposes either. And I can see that that is not the case in America. And I’m afraid American Jewry is making a big, big, big mistake. This is not a small thing. It’s a very, very big thing.”

When he was the chief rabbi of the United Kingdom, Sacks drew some criticism from the Jewish community that he was politically timid.

He always insisted, however, that rabbis had a duty to keep out of contentious political debate.

As he said in his recent interview, politics was inherently divisive while religion should be about bringing people together. In Israel, the mix of politics and religion was “a catastrophe and may one day threaten the very survival of the state.” As soon as religion became political, it, too, inevitably became divisive.

The truth of that last remark was promptly demonstrated in the reaction to his comments.

Jews who supported Trump said Sacks should have spoken in support of him. Jews who were against Trump said Sacks should have spoken against him. Ironically, therefore, Sacks’s denunciation of political divisiveness produced division.

Trump is a deeply divisive figure, not least among Jews. Obviously, therefore, either saying anything or refusing to say anything about him will alienate one section of the community or the other.

There’s a difference, however, between these two camps. One is empirical, the other ideological.

Jewish pro-Trumpers — many of whom swallow their distaste at various aspects of his character and performance — are empirical.

They support him on account of his specific policies over such matters as Iran, or Israel and the Palestinians.

Left-wing anti-Trumpers, on the other hand, are ideological. They frame everything Trump does as bad because his uncompromising repudiation of their worldview means that he is existentially bad and can do nothing that’s good. So to them, it’s a total outrage that any Jew could ever support him.

That’s why Ben Gould wrote in The Forward: “My fellow Jews: getting rid of Trump is a

religious imperative.”

This eschatological view of the president is usually linked to the belief on the left that no Jew should support Israel’s policies on the Palestinians, or any action by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, or anything that contradicts left-wing cultural orthodoxies.

That’s why Peter Beinart wrote, also in The Forward, that his previous hero-worship of Sacks had now taken a hit. Despite Sacks’ unrivaled intellectual accomplishments as “the most acclaimed rabbi in the United States,” wrote Beinart, he had “not challenged a single action of either Benjamin Netanyahu or Donald Trump.”

There then followed a long litany of the alleged evil deeds of both the Trump and the Israeli governments that Sacks had unaccountably failed to criticize (migrants, settlements) along with evil deeds that he had unaccountably supported (war in Iraq, moving the US embassy to Jerusalem).

For such Jews, moral responsibility is strictly a one-way street. They think that rabbis certainly should express political views, but only those that accord with left-wing dogma. And they think that rabbis should express one political view in particular: that Jews should not vote for Trump.

Many American rabbis follow this doctrine.

Last year, the leaders of all 12 institutions associated with the Union of Reform Judaism accused Trump of spreading hate, charging that he was associated with white supremacy and racism.

Many progressive rabbis go much further than merely demonizing Trump himself. They support the enemies of the Jewish people — whether these are “The Squad” of venomously anti-Israel congresswomen, or the anti-Israel and anti-Jewish activists of Black Lives Matter, or the Democratic Party, which is increasingly embracing these and other enemies of the Jewish people.

Such rabbis have bought into the whole package of identity politics, victim culture and intersectionality. These doctrines are all based on a repudiation of the core Jewish ethical principles of moral responsibility, resisting abuses of power and upholding truth against lies.

Yet such Jews tell themselves that these doctrines conform to Jewish ethical principles.

In other words, these rabbis aren’t just Jews

expressing political views. They have replaced Judaism by politics.

While rabbis should indeed avoid divisive political partisanship, they surely have a political duty to stand up for their own community if it is under threat. That’s why Rabbi Sacks’ successor as chief rabbi, Ephraim Mirvis, denounced the Labour Party’s previous leader, Jeremy Corbyn, for promoting anti-Semitism.

America’s wartime rabbinic leader, Stephen Wise, was a baleful example of a rabbi who failed to fulfil this duty.

As Rafael Medoff observes in his devastating book, “The Jews Should Keep Quiet,” Wise allowed himself to be so compromised by his friendship with President Franklin D. Roosevelt that in the early 1940s, he suppressed any disclosure of Roosevelt’s apparent indifference to the fate of the Jews in Nazi Europe and his refusal to allow desperate Jewish refugees into America.

Instead, Wise sanitized Roosevelt’s policy, allowed no public criticism of the president and tried to undermine those who were desperately trying to sound the alarm about the Holocaust.

In order to stifle Jewish criticism of Roosevelt’s appeasement of Nazi Germany and his refusal to rescue large numbers of European Jews, the president exploited and manipulated Wise “to help ensure that the Jews would keep quiet.”

Rabbis surely have a duty to speak up against any danger that threatens either the Jewish community or the fundamental precepts of civilized life. What’s crucial, however, is that they make a correct judgment-call on such matters, one that accurately reflects Jewish ethical principles of truth and justice.

While it may well be unwise for rabbis to speak in favor of Trump, it’s therefore wrong for them not to speak out against the threat posed by the Democrats’ lurch into far-left policies that threaten both Jews and the core values of the West.

The tragedy is that so many American rabbis and other Jews — making the wrong judgment-call that the greatest danger comes not from the enemies of the Jewish people and the West but from their true defenders — not only keep quiet, but actually support the enemies of civilization.

Originally published in The Jewish Star.

They have a duty to speak up against any danger that threatens the Jewish community or the fundamental precepts of civilized life.

14

the sydney jewish report | october 2020

FOO D I E S

CORNER

Meat-stuffed kreplach Kreplach is to Jewish cuisine what ravioli are to Italian cuisine - delicious parcels of homemade pasta stuffed with meat (or sometimes cheese or vegetables).

Leah Koenig Ingredients Dough 2 cups (280 g) plain (all-purpose) flour, plus more for kneading 2 eggs 1 tsp kosher salt Filling 2 tbsp vegetable oil ½ small onion, finely chopped 3 garlic cloves, minced or pushed through a press ½ tsp onion powder ½ tsp sweet paprika 225 g (½ lb) minced (ground) beef or chicken ½ cup (25 g) finely chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley 1 egg ½ tsp kosher salt, plus more for boiling ¼ tsp freshly ground black pepper Instructions 1. To make the dough, in a food processor, combine the flour, eggs, salt,

and 5 tablespoons water and pulse until the dough begins to come together in a ball. Transfer to a lightly floured surface and knead until soft and supple, 2–3 minutes. Place the dough in a bowl, cover the bowl with a tea towel, and let rest for 30 minutes.

2. Meanwhile, make the filling. In a medium frying pan, heat the oil over medium heat. Add the onion and cook, stirring occasionally, until softened and lightly browned, 6–8 minutes. Add the garlic, onion powder, and paprika and cook, stirring, until fragrant, about 1 minute. Remove from the heat and let cool slightly.

3. In a medium bowl, combine the beef, parsley, cooled onion mixture, egg, salt, and pepper and mix well with your hands.

Set aside while rolling out the dough.

4. On a lightly floured surface, using a lightly floured rolling pin, roll out the dough to less than 3 mm (inch) thick. (You want it as thin as possible without tearing.) Using a 7.5 cm (3-inch) round biscuit cutter

or glass, stamp out as many rounds as possible. Place a rounded teaspoon of the filling in the center of one round. Run a wet finger around the outside edges of the round, then fold in half, enclosing the filling inside and ending up with a half-moon shape. Press the edges firmly to seal. Repeat with the remaining dough and filling.

5. To boil the kreplach, bring a large pot of salted water to a boil over high heat.

Add the kreplach and cook, stirring occasionally, until tender, 15–20 minutes.

Drain well.

6. Alternatively, to fry the kreplach, Line a large plate with paper towels. In a large frying pan, heat 3 mm (¼ inch) vegetable oil over medium heat. Working in batches of 4 or 5, fry the kreplach until golden brown and cooked through, about 3 minutes per side. Transfer to the paper towels to drain.

The Jewish Cookbook by Leah Koenig (Phaidon ?65, hbk). Photography by Evan Sung.

15

the sydney jewish report | october 2020

KOSH E R

KApers

Kosher KApers RAMONA FREEDMAN In this edition, The KA is delighted to feature the brand-new KA eatery Yoni’s Poke & Sushi Bar. Located at 554 Old South Head Road, Rose Bay, customers can order from a range of perfectly balanced Poke Bowls, Sushi Rolls or Baby Sushi Rolls or simply create your own. Utilising fresh protein staples such as salmon, tuna and kingfish sashimi to miso eggplant, tofu and more, there is a plethora of toppings, salad ingredients and sauces galore. Yoni’s has also helpfully established a modern ordering process that is streamlined and efficient.

Yoni's Poke & Sushi Bar is open SundayThursday 11am-8pm & Friday 10am-3pm.

There are bar seats in store or simply preorder to go – from the minute it opened, this has instantly become a healthy and tasty staple for so many.

If you love pizza make sure you sample the most recent menu addition at Mendy’s.

Seamlessly fusing cultural and culinary skills, the Great Wall Pizza creation features sweet and sour sauce, mozzarella, green beans, broccoli, carrots, capsicum, onions & baby corn - it is also topped with pineapple and garnished with sesame seeds. For a truly innovative kosher pizza taste sensation and so much more, visit Mendy’s – you can also conveniently order a vegan version.

Speaking of new vegan kosher options, The KA welcomes the introduction of new COYO products. COYO is the world’s most awarded coconut milk yoghurt and The KA has recently certified the COYO Probiotic Dream Treats range in the following three flavours: Lemon & Cream; Salted Caramel and Sticky Date. These delicious pots of dairy-free goodness are also gluten and preservative-free, containing bio-active plant powered probiotics and vegan cultures. Truly the most terrific ‘treats’ in every respect, all are pareve and currently are sold in 125gm pots. Given their instant popularity, a new chocolate flavour is in production plus all will be available soon in a larger size as well (500g). They do not require The KA logo on the packaging, and you can find them in Coles stores across the country. There are now also two new flavours of COYO probiotic coconut milk yoghurt: Mango & Mixed Berry.

Here is one more vegan kosher news item: KA-certified Simply Hummus Bar (393 Liverpool Street Darlinghurst) is now offering two new desserts: Chocolate Brownie & Tahini Cookies – enjoy with a coffee or sachlav, a warm beverage (unique in Sydney to this kosher eatery) made with almond milk and infused with rose water. Both new additions are balanced and baked to perfection and can be enjoyed along with so many savoury options from freshly made hummus to Baladi Naked Eggplant; Shawarma Cauliflower; Falafel or Sabich Salad and more.

Our KA HQ is a hive of activity, day in, day

out. We are now pleased to advise another new convenience: kosher consumers can now helpfully find KA-certified M&M Poultry products located at Harris Farm Markets Westfield Bondi Junction and Bondi Beach.

Deliveries are made multiple times a week.

Kosher catering for the community over the Yom Tov season was incredibly meaningful and rewarding for the dedicated and talented culinary masters in our midst. They each exhibited creativity when frequently called upon to offer COVID-safe solutions – from individual grazing picnic boxes (Good Food Kosher Catering) to the sweetest mini honey cakes (Grandma Moses) to single serves of chocolate covered honeycomb (The Bagel Co.). They have the impressive ability to shift, anticipate and accommodate exactly what is needed.

In Kosher news just in as this newspaper goes to print, The KA announces an awardwinning coffee company, Gourmet Gold, now offers two dozen KA-certified premium hand-roasted coffee varieties. Featuring traditional and contemporary coffee blends as well as single origin specials, all are consistently freshly roasted, and all are

Kosher for Passover too (file that information away for now).

Finally, one chessed initiative that truly resonates has just been launched this month

by L’amour Kosher Catering: The Chicken Soup Project. Placing social impact on the front burner, so to speak, L’amour, with the support of the City of Sydney Council, will be providing nutritious meals to those who are ‘food insecure’, unsure of where their next meal will come. A true help to so many in these challenging times.

For more information about kosher products & initiatives around town visit: Yoni’s Poke & Sushi Bar: www.yonis.com.au Mendy’s: www.mendys.com.au or call 1300 636 397 COYO: www.coyo.com.au Simply Hummus Bar: www.simplyhummusbar.com.au L’amour Catering: www.lamourcatering.com.au Gourmet Gold Coffee: www.gourmetgold. com.au For the complete list of kosher establishments/caterers: www.ka.org.au

KA UPDATES In addition to the kosher news above, The KA offers this snapshot of newly certified products now available: • Arkadia – Chai Tea No Added Sugar; Golden Latte Turmeric Powdered Beverages • Chef’s Choice organic certified jars (all with a KA logo on label): Sweet Corn; Sauerkraut with Beetroot; Sauerkraut with Ginger & Turmeric; Sauerkraut; Red Cabbage – Sliced; Garden Peas; Gherkins – Sweet & Sour; Celery Salad; Beetroot Slices; Bean Sprouts; Spinach – Ready to eat • DJ&A – Garlic Crisps; Strawberry & Manuka Apple; Apple Manuka Honey; Bush Berry Mix; Sunshine Veggie Mix; Nature\'s Protein Wasabi Peas & Nature\'s Protein Roasted Edamame • Falcone’s Mini Pide 4 Rolls (520g); Turkish Pide White (430g); Turkish Rolls – 4 White Rolls (520g) – bags now include KA logo; Super Soft White Plus Fibre (700g) • Licorice Lovers - Traditional Raspberry Licorice Bullets - White Chocolate; Traditional Licorice Bullets - Milk Chocolate • Masterfoods – Smokey BBQ Sauce; Tomato Sauce Hidden Veg (500ml) • Queen Fine Foods Pareve: Meringue & Pavlova Powder Mix; Navy Blue Food Colour Gel; Peach Food Colour Gel; Royal Icing Original; Metallic Icing Writing Gel; Blueberry Maple Flavoured Syrup – Sugar Free; Dairy: Buttercream Icing Original

16

the sydney jewish report | october 2020

HE A LT H

&

FITNESS

Different Sleep Training Techniques CHERYL FINGLESON

Cheryl Fingleson is a paediatric sleep consultant. As a mother of two, she very well knows the feelings of agony and desperation when you have a child that struggles to settle and sleep. She doesn’t believe in leaving babies or children to cry it out, nor in the practices of controlled crying. Her approach is to empower parents with the right tools and techniques to teach their babies and children to go to sleep calmly, happily and independently.

I have been asked many times how to make sense of all the sleep training techniques and how to decide which one's right for your family.

There are so many different methods that promise to help your little one sleep through the night. But understanding the differences between them all can be confusing - especially if you haven't had a good night's rest in a while! Just remember, your baby is unique and you know her best so have the confidence to adapt whatever technique you choose to work for you.

Cry It Out When a baby is put down for their nap or night-time sleep, with this method they are left on their own even if they start to cry. It's argued that the cry-it-out technique teaches a baby to self-settle and soothe so he doesn't rely on mum or dad to respond to his cries in a certain way.

This 'tough love' philosophy of sleep training was very popular in previous generations when it was thought that a child would be 'spoilt' if they were comforted when crying at night and as a result wouldn't be able to sleep alone.

But critics of this method point out that babies don't wake up at night to cause trouble but because they need a feed, comfort or even pain relief.

After all, crying is the main form of communication for babies. They don't have any other way to tell us how they feel!

Most parents find this very difficult.

Controlled Crying This method is when parents check on their baby at intervals after they have been put down for their nap or

night-time sleep. The time between comforting and checking on their little one and leaving them alone is gradually increased, usually in minute-long stages.

The idea is that the child learns to selfsoothe but with the back up of knowing mum and dad will come in frequently to check on them.

This technique is also known as 'Feberizing' after the American doctor Dr Richard Ferber. Parents who've used this technique successfully like it because it helps children sleep independently while allowing them to regularly reassure and comfort their child.

But often parents - and child - find the process stressful and upsetting. It's also not recommended for babies younger than six months.

The Gentle Soothing Way Parents who chose a more gentle approach often have to spend longer working at it to see results, but find the process far less upsetting than other, tougher cry-it-out methods.

The pick-up-put-down method can be good for babies who want and need full physical contact when they're upset. This involves following a set bedtime routine, putting your baby down in their cot or basket when they are dozy but not asleep, then if he cries, picking him up, saying quietly and firmly, 'Night night, sleep time now', soothing and shh-ing him until he stops crying and then putting him back down. If he cries again, mum and dad repeats the process until he settles.

Other babies prefer stroking or being patted when they need comfort while trying to get to sleep. This is also a better approach for older, heavier babies as it's much less stress on your back!

The No-Cry Solution

Also known as the gradual retreat method, this works best if you've already established a regular bedtime routine with your child but want them to sleep independently - and without tears.

It's the very successful and stress-free technique I adopt with the parents and babies I help in my role as a paediatric sleep consultant.Simply put, here's how it works: put a chair beside your baby's cot and at bedtime, put him down, say, 'Night, night, sleep time now' and then sit down and wait. If he starts to cry, go over and pat him, make soothing sounds and then move your chair a little further away from the cot. Repeat this process until he's asleep. Over the following days, the chair is put further and further away, until you are by the door, or outside it.

This technique works well with babies who are used to being held or nursed to sleep as it can be done in a very gradual and gentle manner. The first stage can even be cuddling your baby in their cot, the second stage patting or resting your hand on their back, the third, sitting very close to the cot and then moving slowly away from the cot, little by little, over the course of several nights and weeks.

Sleep deprivation is like torture!

You don't need to do sleep training alone.

Give me a call or email.

For more sleep tips and advice, please visit www.cherylthesleepcoach.com.au Or why not like our facebook page? www.facebook.com/thesleepcoach Check article

out @

at

part

One

of

cherylthesleepcoach

Yiddish word of the month PLOTZ

www.cherylthesleepcoach.com.au

This

www.wordpress.com/

Exploding with emotion Extra credit: In Yiddish, plots means to crack; split; give out (like your patience); fizzle out or burst.

Compare with krapirn, which means “to expire horribly.” In the song “Yosl Yosl,” there’s a lyric that says “Ikh krapir nokh dir,” which loosely means “I’m dying for you” (and not in a fun way).

17

the sydney jewish report | october 2020

Self-care: Why I’m OK with not being liked

H E ALT H

&

FITNESS

LINDI COHEN Build the courage to be disliked and challenge the status quo FACT: Standing up for yourself is scary.

How do I know this?

Because whenever I decide to do or say something, not in line with the status quo – which is pretty much every day – I feel fear creep in.

The fear of being disliked, judged, criticised, laughed at, left out, yelled at, you name it.

I used to believe, like so many women, that being “likeable” was the most desirable trait.

I was a people-pleaser at my own expense.

I’d say yes to things I felt I ‘should’ do then feel exhausted and depleted afterwards – resenting my decision AND the person I thought asked too much of me.

Do you ever feel: • Like you do things because you should?– If I don’t do it, she won’t like me • Scared of saying “no” – If I don’t agree, he will think I’m boring • Afraid to stand up for yourself – If I ask them to stop commenting on my weight, they won’t understand • Like you mirror the people around you, even if it feels wrong – Everyone else is saying yes, so I better say yes as well.

The truth is, we all crave the freedom to be ourselves.

To say what we really think, eat what we want to eat, wear what we want to wear, and openly share what we believe.

But we also want to feel loved and accepted.

Life has tricked us into believing we’ll only be loved if we show up as the prettiest, happiest, thinnest version of ourselves… and push anything “undesirable” deep down where no one can see it.

There are days when the fear of being disliked will be enough to keep you quiet so you go with the flow – even if feels all wrong.

But here’s the thing…

Setting boundaries helps keep you healthy, with enough energy for yourself.

Prentis Hemphill famously said: Boundaries are the distance at which I can love you and me simultaneously.

If you’re constantly serving others – and doing what you think is expected of you instead of what you really want to be doing – you’ll become depleted and low in energy.

While setting clear, healthy boundaries is essential, so is accepting that it’s OK if not everyone likes and agrees with you.

No matter what you do, what you look like, how much you weigh, what you wear or what you believe, there will always be someone who doesn’t accept you.

You can be worlds the juiciest peach, and yet some people simply don’t enjoy peaches.

So many people I know end up being the passenger in their own life (as I used to be). But you – my dear – you are the main character in your life. You need to be in the driver’s seat, and choose which direction to go.

But to do this, you need strong healthy boundaries and the ability to say NO – even if means being unliked.

Accepting that being disliked is inevitable frees you up to choose what you REALLY want to do – instead of living your life for other people.

According to palliative nurse Bronnie Ware, the most common regret of the dying is this: I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.

Courage is a choice. Your choice.

It takes courage to create change and challenge the status quo.

I get why it’s so hard. Common sense and human instinct make us not want to be hated.

So saying NO when people ask too much of you or standing up for yourself means you have to have courage.

The beauty is when we have the courage to show up as our REAL selves, we also give the people around us permission to do the same.

And it’s a relief to those around us because now they can finally speak their mind too. Courage is contagious Ready to feel the fear and do – or say or write or wear or dance – it anyway?

Let’s do this: CHALLENGE #1 – Care enough about yourself to say no People are going to continue to ask too much from you. That you can’t control.

You can either get angry with them for asking too much of you (but this method doesn’t work, I’ve tried) OR you can get good at setting clear boundaries.

Here’s my own example: About once a week I get an email asking me to work for free. I’ve agreed in the past but these type of requests

always drain my energy and leave me feeling resentful.

Instead of getting angry at people for asking me to work for free, I realised that I was the boss of my boundaries. So now I use this phrase to guide me: If it’s not a ‘Hell Yes!’ then it’s a ‘No Thanks’.

In other words, if it doesn’t light you up and excite you for the very start – if you have to think about it – then it’s probably best to say no.

People will always ask too much of you. It’s up to you to enforce your own boundaries because no one is going to do it for you.

You need to care enough about yourself to say no.

CHALLENGE #2 – Say yes to yourself first Paulo Coelho said it best: “When you say yes to others, make sure you are not saying no to yourself.”

If you aren’t ready to make drastic life changes, start small.

Instead of saying yes to dinner with someone who spends the entire night talking about themselves… suggest a 30-minute coffee catch up instead.

Sure, it might feel uncomfortable at first.

The discomfort of saying no is better than resenting it later.

Chances are, your friend will be totally fine with it, and you will get 90 minutes of your life back.

Here’s another example.

I’ve noticed many women do this thing where you make all of your family members lunch to take to school/work but then don’t make yourself food.

It’s really important that you prioritise feeding yourself nutritious food – just as you try to feed your family.

Here’s my challenge for you: When you are next making food for the family, make your food first and then provide for others.

“You are worthy of the life you so easily give to others” – unknown CHALLENGE #3 – Speak your mind (kindly) If you sit on the fence for too long you’ll end up with splinters on your bum.

So now it’s time to let your words and actions reflect what you actually believe to be true.

Chances are, if you speak your truth and stand up for yourself, not everyone will be happy about it. And that’s OK. My advice? Be kind.

It’s really hard to be mean to someone who is genuinely kind. And if they are mean about it, then it says more about their insecurity and fear than it does about you.

Also, I think it’s a good idea to share your opinion as it happens instead of bottling it all up and then one day erupting.

CHALLENGE #4 – Remind yourself what brings you joy In order to set healthy boundaries, first, get curious about what brings makes you happy – and what doesn’t.

Spend a day asking yourself if you like/enjoy/ agree with the things you do, see or hear.

Try not to put any judgement behind it. Just notice if your mind or body feels open or closed to it.

If you normally agree with your partner or a

friend because ‘it’s easier’, take a moment to really think about what you want.

Here’s an example of what I figured out: I don’t like watching scary films. I’d prefer to read a book.

Being busy all the time makes me feel depleted.

I’d rather spend time with my friend in person than text.

Being on social media for too long makes me feel anxious and not-good-enough.

You may be surprised by what doesn’t bring you joy, which will help you get clearer on what actually does.

It’s liberating to finally be aware of how crappy it feels when your actions or words don’t align with what you actually believe.

And once you start noticing when things don’t feel “right”, it’ll be hard to ignore.

The next time someone asks you what movie you want to watch, what you feel like eating or whether you have spare time – speak up and stand up for yourself.

CHALLENGE #5 – What’s the worst that can happen?

I’m not a superstitious person. If you’re not either, hear me out.

Grab a piece of paper and write down the worst thing that could happen if you do X. For example, what’s the worst that can happen if: I tell my boss I believe I deserve a promotion? I don’t get the promotion I stop meeting my friend for dinners → They get offended and we will drift apart as friends I finally sign up for that beginner Hip Hop class I seriously suck at dancing hip hop I don’t send that chainmail to 15 of my closest friends Nothing will happen – no one will die.

Now – is it really that bad?

If it is that bad, then of course reconsider.

But if it’s not… let’s potentially fail/embarrass ourselves together :) I’ll be right there next to you!

CHALLENGE #6 – Practice until it becomes a habit If something is worth fighting for, chances are it’s not going to be easy.

Being courageous is a habit.

And it’s still something I struggle with every day.

Sometimes, I’m so overwhelmed by how much still needs to change in the wellness industry that I contemplate moving to Costa Rica and raising a family of sloths (true story).

So when life gets overwhelming, take a step back, get some clarity, seek out the help you need, and get back on the proverbial horse.

Because by practising courage, you are putting your desires first, and lighting the way for the dreams of those around you.

And that’s worth a few dislikes. hat have you always wished for the courage to do? How have you learned to set healthy boundaries and put yourself first?

If you want to dig deeper into this topic, try reading these books: The Top Five Regrets of The Dying by Bronnie Ware The Courage To Be Disliked by Ichiro Kishimi and Fumitake Koga Me Time by Jessica Sanders

“When you say yes to others, make sure you are not saying no to yourself.”

18

the sydney jewish report | october 2020

B O O K

REVIEW

Elly Kadoorie and his sons, Lawrence, left, and Horace. Jonathan Kaufman's book "The Last Kings of Shanghai" details how the Kadoorie family -- along with another Jewish dynasty, the Sassoons -left a lasting mark on China. (Courtesy of Hong Kong Heritage Project)

The last kings of Shanghai

RON GLUCKMAN BANGKOK -- At the outset of his awardwinning career, American journalist Jonathan Kaufman found himself staring at the story of a lifetime. Fresh from college at 23, and working in Hong Kong, he was sent to Shanghai -- one of the first Western journalists allowed into China in the 1970s. It was the start of a lifelong study of China's modernization.

But it was not until decades later, working in Beijing as China bureau chief for The Wall Street Journal from 2002 to 2005, that a familiar but surprising shadow caught his eye. Connecting the dots helped him to produce his fascinating third book, "The Last Kings of Shanghai."

Wandering one day into Shanghai's rundown neighborhood of Hongkew he saw the unmistakable mark of a mezuza -- a case containing a parchment inscribed with religious texts that is attached to the doorpost of a Jewish house as a sign of faith. For Kaufman, who is Jewish, the doorpost revived recollections of his first visit to Shanghai, when he marveled at the scores of magnificent abandoned buildings lining the Bund, or embankment, on the Huangpu River.

"I walked into the Peace Hotel [near the Bund] and it felt like stepping from a black and white movie into the 1930s," he recalls in a phone interview from Boston, where he is director of Northeastern University's School of Journalism. The Peace Hotel, formerly known as the Cathay, was a favorite of stars such as Charlie Chaplin and Laurence Olivier. Noel Coward drafted his play "Private Lives" during a long stay. But in the 1970s, the hotel and surrounding art deco office buildings that once defined the district were deserted. "I was trying to figure out what that meant," says Kaufman. The connection was the Jewish legacy in Shanghai, and later Hong Kong -- and particularly the Sassoon and Kadoorie families. These are what the book's subtitle calls "The Rival Jewish Dynasties That Helped Create Modern China."

The families were often partners rather than rivals, and shared similar stories of success, as Baghdadi Jews who moved first to India and then to China. David Sassoon was the earlier tycoon. With his eight sons, he created a business empire in China that ranged from property to opium trading. The Kadoorie patriarch Eleazer, or Elly, worked for the Sassoons, later establishing his own family business encompassing power production and hotels, including the luxury Peninsula brand.

Kaufman details the rise of the two families, and their rescue of an estimated 18,000 Jewish refugees fleeing the Holocaust, who found a safe haven in Shanghai. Jews huddled in the Hongkew ghetto even during the Japanese occupation of the city, and

it was there that Kaufman stumbled on the marks of a mezuza more than half a century later.

Kaufman's two previous books were also Jewish stories: "Broken Alliance: The Turbulent Times Between Blacks and Jews in America," and "A Hole in the Heart of the World: Being Jewish in Eastern Europe." Yet "The Last Kings of Shanghai" is much more than just a story of two Jewish families in China.

Kaufman's career blossomed in Boston, where he was part of a team at The Boston Globe that won a Pulitzer Prize, America's top award for journalism, in 1984. He was a finalist for his own work the following year, and as the Globe's Berlin bureau chief he covered the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989.

But he continually circled back to China, marveling at the country's transformation from the poor backwater he visited in the 1970s to the miracle economy of the 2000s. He wanted to tell the story of China's emergence from centuries of turmoil, through occupation by foreign powers to the rise of the Communist Party and the modern republic. Focusing on the Sassoon and Kadoorie families provided a personal tale of the transition and a wealth of fascinating characters.

"When we write the history of the world, we tend to focus on politicians and generals," he says. "I think there's a kind of dynamism here that business brings to history which hasn't been talked about that much."

Kaufman's timing proved opportune. The Kadoories, the richest Westerners in Hong Kong, had curated their family history in the Hong Kong Heritage Project. Besides mining these previously unpublished archives, he also had invaluable access to diaries from both families.

Much has been written about the Sassoons, in particular Victor, the high-flying playboy and party king of Shanghai. His greatgrandfather David Sassoon and his sons became wealthy traders in China, controlling an estimated 20% of the opium trade in the 1800s. Victor left his imprint on Shanghai with a series of stunning art deco buildings, including landmark structures along Suzhou Creek, where his 20-story Broadway Mansions became a haughty address. His Embankment House, across the river was even bigger, with a curving frontage that survives to this day.

Both were upstaged by the Cathay, then one of the world's top hotels. "It soared over the Bund," Kaufman quotes an architectural writer of the times as saying, "like an Art Deco rocket ship rising from the Huangpu River."

A favorite of stars such as Charlie Chaplin and Laurence Olivier, the Cathay, as it was originally known, was one of the world's top hotels. "It soared over the Bund like an Art Deco rocket ship rising from the Huangpu River," wrote one architectural writer. Š AP Victor's taste also ran to showgirls and

horses. He was a mainstay at the Shanghai racetrack, reportedly quipping: "There is only one race greater than the Jews, and that's the Derby." His parties were the talk of the town. Likewise his affairs, including one with Emily Hahn, a writer for the New Yorker, who was described by a correspondent for Time magazine as "a superb mad woman, brilliant, beautiful ... extraordinarily clever, smokes cigars, talks Chinese, has every man in love with her."

The Kadoories were more grounded in conventional business practices, but were innovators in education, founding schools that bettered the lives of thousands of students in China and Hong Kong. Laura Kadoorie, Elly's wife, moved from England to Hong Kong, but refused to play the part of a sheltered high-society lady. Instead, she joined him in China, and her observations are a delight of the book, culled from her diary of the late 1800s. "It was like reading something out of, you know, Katharine Hepburn," Kaufman says.

"It's an impressive story," says Mark Clifford, a writer and historian in Hong Kong, and an expert on the Kadoories' role in the former British colony. "They are very lowkey," he says of the family's contribution to the development of China and Hong Kong.

"Hopefully, this will usher in a new era of scholarship, with more coming out."

One criticism of the book is that it has too many characters, and tries to cover too much ground. Another is that this story about two icons of the China business world includes little detail about their investment strategies, which is surprising given the writer's background in business journalism.

Kaufman says he wanted to deliver a book for a mainstream audience and aimed to tell a larger story about the modernization of China.

"The more I got into it, the more it really became, I guess, two stories, one about the two families, but the other about modernization and globalism, which is how China connected with the world initially," he says. "And so the book evolved into kind of an examination of the ... alternate history of China. Shanghai had been more outward looking, admittedly under colonialism, under imperialism. But there was incredible dynamism as the Chinese were learning from these foreigners about capitalism."

In the book, he writes: "The Sassoons and the Kadoories exploited Shanghai, but they also ignited an economic boom that attracted ... millions of others who found in the city a place to pursue their entrepreneurial dreams as China wrenched itself from a sclerotic, feudal society into a modern industrial one. It was the Chinese who transformed Shanghai, and China. The Sassoons and the Kadoories helped light the fuse."

Yet it all came crashing down as corruption and poverty brought the communists to power. The foreigners were locked up and expelled. Victor Sassoon fled, leaving a fortune in Shanghai, never to return. The Kadoories rose again in Hong Kong, where they helped the colony to capture some of the vitality of Shanghai of the early 1900s.

The last section of the book illuminates some little-known achievements of the Kadoories, including loans to Hong Kong farmers, many of them refugees from the communists in China. Visitors to this city of electrifying high-rises nowadays have little sense of how fragile Hong Kong was while rebuilding after World War II. The Kadoories spent lavishly on increased self-sufficiency, and are widely credited with revolutionizing pig production. Kaufman repeats a Chinese joke: "The Kadoories know everything about pigs, except what they taste like." Pork is forbidden by Jewish tradition.

Kaufman also wonders about history repeating itself. Shanghai taught a hard lesson about diversification. The Kadoorie fortune is estimated at over ?10 billion, but much of it is tied up in Hong Kong, facing increasing Chinese control after a year of protests. "They have to be wondering, could this be Shanghai all over again?"

"The Last Kings of Shanghai: The Rival Jewish Dynasties That Helped Create Modern China" (Viking, 2020)

19

the sydney jewish report | october 2020

MOV I E

REVIEW

An Aimless life NORMAN LEBRECHT Savage (MA) – 100 minutes Brutal. Devastating. Powerful.

A war of attrition borne of a rough, tyrannical upbringing in New Zealand told in three timeframes over 24 years, from 1965.

That is Savage – Savages being the name given to a patched-up gang started by a couple of cell mates from juvenile detention once they ran away together.

But let’s go back a step, Danny (known in the gang as Damage, Moses – the leader’s – right hand man or Sergeant, an enforcer with scary facial tattoos), came from a big family whose father had a vicious temper, which was easily set off.

After breaking into a shop and stealing, he was sent to juvie, where the overseer used violence in an effort to control the kids.

Once Danny and Moses get onto the streets they quickly realise how difficult it is to survive.

It is actually Moses’ idea to start a gang, after he spots the pubic reaction to another patched mob.

Thereafter, members of the Savages – which quickly swells in number – hang out together, drink, fight and exact punishment at Moses’ instigation.

As I mentioned earlier, Danny (by now known as Damage) is the man to ensure others are put in their place.

And that includes a run-in with his brother Liam, whom he hadn’t seen in years and is now a member of a rival gang.

The result of that is ugly.

Also in the fray is a young recruit to the Savages, known as a prospect, who receives punishment in order to toughen him up.

Damage more than once faces a moral dilemma – leave the Savages and join his brother’s rival gang and, later, simply leave the Savages full stop.

But Moses’ influence appears all powerful, although Moses’ respect within the Savages is fast waning.

Testosterone-filled Savage doesn’t hold back in painting a searing portrait of the consequences of verbal and physical abuse.

The message is clear – violence begets violence and becomes a vicious circle.

And all of that leads where? Nowhere … because the stock in trade is fear mongering.

Three actors fill the respective key roles of Moses and Danny/Damage.

It is undoubtedly Jake Ryan (The Sapphires) as Damage in his mid 30s who has most impact.

Complete with striking facial tattoos, his characterisation is that of a man possessed and torn asunder by a life which has

amounted to nothing.

Damage is caught between a rock and a hard place.

As Liam says at one point, he has become a chip off the old block – significantly more hard core, if truth be known.

Writer and director Sam Kelly has painted a powerful portrait of the soul-destroying nature of gang life.

The film was inspired by the stories and history of New Zealand’s violent street gangs.

The decision to move back and forth through three time periods was a masterful one.

Savage is a film that has impact and resonance and won’t easily be forgotten.

The message is clear – violence begets violence and becomes a vicious circle.

And all of that leads where?

Nowhere … because the stock in trade is fear mongering.

Rated MA, it scores a 7½ out of 10.

Marriage Strife ALEX FIRST Hope Gap (M) – 100 minutes She, Grace (Annette Bening) is intelligent, strong willed, heavily opinionated, volatile and fearsome – a force of nature.

He, Edward (Bill Nighy) is intelligent, introverted and averse to confrontation. He likes to be left in peace.

Married for 29 years, both are unhappy.

She wants to work through it, believing they are a couple for life.

He doesn’t, but the news – delivered when their adult son Jamie (Josh O’Connor) visits – totally blindsides her.

Distraught, Grace refuses to accept the new reality and continues to lash out.

Jamie, who himself hasn’t been good at romantic relationships, provides his mother with support, but doesn’t take sides … although he does try to save the situation.

He visits his mum – who is forced to face the

possibility of spending the rest of her life alone – every weekend.

Meanwhile, Edward wants to make sure his wife is okay, but not withstanding her pleas won’t reverse his decision to leave her.

So, this is a look at the unravelling of a family unit through stages of shock, disbelief and anger.

Three strong performances characterise a slice of life piece, written and directed by William Nicholson (who wrote the screenplay for Breathe), with angst the common denominator.

Each reflects the pain of their character in their own way.

You may well form your own opinion of the way they behave. Regardless, none are bad people.

Stunning landscapes and beautiful cinematography by Anna Valdez-Hanks are the film’s hallmarks.

Hope Gap refers to a place near home where their son loved to spend time when he was a youngster.

It could also spell the brunt of the gulf between husband and wife from the get-go.

Although grounded, the movie also has poetic, lyrical and spiritual components.

It should strike a chord with those looking for quality adult drama.

Rated M, Hope Gap scores a 7½ out of 10.

You can hear more of Alex First’s film reviews each Sunday between 11am and midday on J-AIR (j-air.com. au) on a program titled “First on Film and Entertainment”. The show is also available as a podcast by clicking onto the Program Grid on the web site.

Wide Circulation Over 4,000 papers

taken home in 10 days!

Pick up your copy at:

COLES

WOOLWORTHS (BONDI JUNCTION)

(EASTGARDENS)

WOOLWORTHS

COLES

WOOLWORTHS

WOOLWORTHS

KATZYS

... MORE TO COME

(BONDI JUNCTION)

(MAROUBRA)

(DOUBLE BAY)

(ST IVES)

(BONDI BEACH)

COLES

(ST IVES)

Also available at: JCA, COA, Montefiore, JEMS, Burger Center, Wolper Hospital, Our Big Kitchen, Bagel Company, Jesses, Kadimah Synagogue, Kesser Torah College, Sydney Jewish Museum, North Shore Lindfield Shul, North Shore Synagogue (Lindfield), JLC, Jewish Care.

Please contact us at editor@thejewishreport.com.au if you would like to distribute.