Jewish News High Holidays September 25, 2017

High Holidays Supplement to Jewish News September 25, 2017

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High Holidays

Hug a chicken and 4 other twists on traditional High Holidays rituals Ben Sales

NEW YORK (JTA)—Picture services for the High Holidays: A roomful of congregants sitting with heavy books in their laps listening to a rabbi sermonize or a cantor chant is what likely comes to mind.

Baking pizza? Embracing a chicken under a tree? Not so much.

But those are some of the things that Jewish clergy, educators and activists want Jews to do during their holiest days of the year.

Aside from attending synagogue or dipping apples in honey, the extensive body of High Holidays traditions includes rituals that are participatory, intricate, and even acrobatic—but also obscure, inaccessible and sometimes distasteful.

In recent years, Jewish educators have tried to reclaim these rituals—changing and innovating them to be more engaging, understandable and relevant.

Here are five ways Jews are getting creative with the High Holidays this year.

To merit forgiveness, hug a chicken.

If you walk into a haredi Orthodox neighborhood the day before Yom Kippur, don’t be surprised to see men swinging live chickens above their heads. The ritual, called kapparot, aims to symbolically transfer a person’s sins onto the chicken, who then is donated to the poor and slaughtered for food.

Some observant Jews, unable or unwilling to gain possession of a live chicken, now swing money over their heads that then goes to charity. Others have taken to protesting communities that still use chickens.

But at the Isabella Freedman Jewish Retreat Center, Sarah Chandler has a different response: Instead of grabbing the chicken and whipping it through the air, just give it a hug.

Chandler, who was ordained as a Hebrew priestess at the Kohenet Institute and also goes by Kohenet Shamira, will

take a group to the center’s chicken coop on the Sunday before Yom Kippur and begin to recite the kapparot prayers.

Then, if the chickens agree, the assembled will take them, retreat to a shaded area and individually embrace them while completing the prayers, confessing their sins or meditating.

At the end of the ritual, the worshippers will simply let the chickens walk free.

The crowdsourced confession Every year on Yom Kippur, no matter where he’s lived, David Zvi Kalman has joined other congregants at synagogue in standing through a long list of communal sins recited by the entire congregation.

The confessional prayers, known as the Viddui (Hebrew for confession) each begin “For the sin we have sinned before you …”

The laundry list of transgressions, covering everything from eating impure foods to berating a friend, is a central piece of the day’s liturgy and is repeated eight times. Worshippers are supposed to gently beat their chests at each line.

Kalman had trouble identifying with the prayers, finding the confessions to be overly general and prescriptive. They’re the sins the liturgy says you should feel sorry for, not necessarily the ones you actually committed.

So in 2013, he created AtoneNet, a bare-bones Tumblr where people can anonymously post the sins they would like to confess and receive forgiveness for.

The past couple of weeks have seen a fresh batch of posts regarding “sins,” such as not giving enough charity or getting angry.

One post, for example, reads, “for taking housemates’ food that isn’t mine without asking.”

Kalman, a doctoral student in Near Eastern languages at the University of Pennsylvania, prints out the entire site each year as a booklet and ships it to those who order it for use on Yom Kippur. He hopes the booklet allows them to atone for sins they feel are closer to their lived experience.

Casting away pizza crusts One of the more physical rituals of Rosh Hashanah is tashlich—literally, “cast away—a ritual where people take bread to a natural body of water and throw it in, representing the casting away of their sins. (Sensing a theme here?)

But Rabbi Jeremy Fine of the Conservative Temple of Aaron in St. Paul, Minnesota, could never get people to come to the Mississippi River for the ritual after they had sat through a long service. So this year he involved the congregation’s kids.

The Sunday before Rosh Hashanah, about 100 Hebrew school students came to the synagogue and baked pizza for lunch. Then ate the pizza, but not the crusts—they went into bags marked with the kids’ names to be stored in the synagogue refrigerator. After services on the first day of the holiday, the kids retrieved their crusts, headed with their parents to the river and chucked them in.

“If we just did a little piece of bread, we don’t know if it’s so important,” Fine says. “But when the kids see the crust cut off, it’s like there’s actually something we’re giving away.”

Yizkor for gun victims Yizkor, the memorial service for deceased relatives, is among the most well-known and attended parts of the High Holidays service. But what to do if you live in a place where people are regularly getting killed?

That’s the challenge confronted by Tamar Manasseh, a rabbinical student and anti-gun violence activist on Chicago’s South Side. Manasseh runs Mothers Against Senseless Killing, a group of moms that patrols a street corner in the violence-plagued neighborhood of Englewood. Given the local strife affecting the largely non-Jewish neighborhood, Manasseh felt a service focused only on relatives who passed would be inadequate.

So last year, Manasseh organized a Yom Kippur service on her street corner

that along with a shofar blast and prayers included a reading of the names of Chicago’s gun violence victims that year.

Just reading the list, she says, took 15 minutes—and she hopes to do it again this year.

Atonement by meditation and performance art For Ashkenazi Jews, the kickoff to the High Holidays happened this year on the Saturday night before Rosh Hashanah, when congregations gathered to say selichot, or prayers of atonement. Depending on a congregation’s tradition, the prayers range from a lively call-and-response to long, complex poems muttered almost silently.

But this year, two people did it differently.

At Lab/Shul, an experimental Jewish congregation in Manhattan, Rabbi Amichai Lau-Lavie noted that Rosh Hashanah this year coincides with the beginning of the Muslim year—so the synagogue’s theme for the High Holidays is interfaith worship.

The congregation will be praying with Muslims throughout the holidays, but for the Selichot service, it partnered with the New York Zen Center for Contemplative Care, a meditation space.

Another take on Selichot happened in Providence, Rhode Island, where musician Noraa Kaplan turned the service into a concert. Kaplan invited fellow musicians to perform and ended the night with a piece of performance art that challenged a range of Jewish rituals, including her parodying a bad bar-mitzvah DJ, as well as swinging a rubber chicken over her head.

The event benefits charity. To her, there’s not a lot of difference between traditional Selichot and a weekend show.

“Selichot is supposed to happen in this late-night setting, and in many communities you see these Jewish people gathering at midnight or later,” she says.

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High Holidays

Simchat Torah doesn’t have to be a ‘men’s holiday’ Sarah Rudolph

(Kveller via JTA)—There seems to be a widespread misconception in the Orthodox world that the upcoming holiday of Simchat Torah is a “men’s holiday.”

I can understand the confusion, stemming from what we celebrate and how we celebrate it. Simchat Torah has evolved as a celebration of the annual cycle of weekly Torah readings—readings that in Orthodox shuls occur purely on the men’s side of the mechitza, or divider. And we celebrate it by taking all the Torah scrolls out of the ark—also on the men’s side—and dancing seven circuits, or hakafos, with them. There is much joyful singing, generally in a masculine timbre, and the dancing men take turns holding the heavy scrolls.

With so much action naturally taking place on the other side, I can understand—sort of—why things tend to be much less lively on my side of the mechitza. Depending on the community, the women might dance, but it is rarely as exuberant, as populated or as sustained as the men’s dancing. My childhood memories of the holiday involve a core group of women who enjoyed dancing and would try to get things going, while most of the women might join for a few minutes in between their primary activities of chatting, chasing sugared-up children (did I mention excessive candy often plays a role in the celebrations?) and watching the men. From what I have experienced and heard since, my shul was fairly typical, though in many places the women don’t dance at all—or even show up.

My husband likes to tell of the girl he once dated who was surprised at the suggestion that she might go to shul on Simchat Torah.

“Why would I go?” she asked. “I have no one to watch!”

For her, I think, it was accepted as a matter of course that dancing on Simchat Torah is what men do, and she wouldn’t have ever imagined that she could—or should—have a part in it.

For others, the questions around women and Simchat Torah are more fraught—and many focus on the Torah scrolls themselves, arguing that if the women can’t dance with a Torah, then they feel excluded, like their dancing is pointless. Indeed, in more recent years, as this sort of discomfort with gender disparities has increased, many rabbis have concluded that there is no real halachic problem with a woman carrying a Torah scroll, and in some shuls a scroll or two will be passed to the women’s side for the dancing.

This is the part where I have a harder time understanding.

So often I hear some version of either, “My rabbi lets the women have a Torah, so the women’s dancing is nice,” or “The women in my shul don’t have a Torah, so it’s lame; they just stand around talking and watching the men dance.”

It is really easy to blame the men and the rabbis. It is really easy to say, “If only we were granted equal rights and could dance with a Torah scroll, we would dance and celebrate, too.” It is really easy to say, “I’m not going to shul if the women are just going to sit around schmoozing and watching the men. It’s a men’s holiday; I don’t feel a part of it.”

It’s really easy to say those things, but if I may be frank, I think it’s all baloney. We have an equal right to Torah. I’m not talking about holding the scroll; that, to my mind, is secondary. The real point is that we have an equal right to rejoice in our sacred heritage.

Nobody is making us chat; ultimately, no one is stopping us from dancing. If it’s a men’s holiday, that is because we let it be. We can unite and take back Simchat Torah. We can choose to dance.

And we don’t need a scroll to do it.

What are we dancing for, after all?

On Simchat Torah, I dance for the concept of Torah, not the object. I dance for myself

High Holidays and my love of Torah study. I dance for the joy of the completed cycle of reading, and I dance for the joy of beginning all over again. I dance because I will shortly have tears in my eyes, like I do every year, as I listen to the account of Moses’ death in the last few verses of the Torah.

I dance because I will shortly be awed, as I am every year, when we begin again and read, “And it was evening, and it was morning, one day.” The very beginning of everything; something, where there had been nothing.

I, too, can make something from

nothing, in my own little way. I can walk into a women’s section full of schmoozing women and wild kids, grab some hands and create a circle of joy. I can rejoice in Torah, and nothing—no object or lack of it, no mechitza, no rows of chairs presenting a logistical challenge—will stop me.

I only hope, this year, the other women on my side get up and dance, too.

Sarah Rudolph lives in Cleveland with her family. She has been teaching Jewish text studies for over 10 years to students ranging from elementary school to retirement age.

OP-ED

Yom Kippur is a reminder of the awesome, and awful, power of words Joyce Newmark

(JTA)—For nearly 50 years, my father had a best friend named Al. They grew up in the same neighborhood in Brooklyn, and after returning from the service in World War II, they each married and moved to the same Long Island town and opened related businesses.

They were closer than brothers. In fact, when my brother and I were growing up, our parents’ wills named Al and his wife, rather than any relatives, as the people who would become our guardians should that become necessary. Even after my parents moved to Nevada, the two couples remained close, speaking on the phone every week or so and visiting back and forth every couple of years.

Almost 40 years ago, Al’s daughter was getting married and my parents were planning to travel to New York for the wedding. One day, the two couples were on the phone talking about the wedding.

My mother had recently undergone foot surgery and was walking around in ugly post-surgery shoes.

“I may have to wear blue jeans and sneakers, but we’ll be there,” she told Al’s

wife.

The response: “But the wedding is formal!”

My mother was hurt. She thought the only proper response to her statement was, “We don’t care what you’re wearing, we just want you to be there.”

Al’s wife was hurt, too. She felt that my mother had to know how stressed she was trying to plan the perfect wedding and shouldn’t have teased her.

Neither would apologize.

The phone calls became less frequent and my parents began saying that traveling to New York would be expensive and uncomfortable—and in early September it would be hot and humid. They decided not to attend the wedding.

Nine months later Al was dead of lung cancer and my father finally flew to New York to be a pallbearer at the funeral.

Like many men of his generation, my father wasn’t one to talk about his feelings, but from the day Al died he insisted that when you were invited to a simcha you must go, no matter the circumstances.

Still, it was too late to repair what had been broken. continued on page 20

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High Holidays continued from page 19

All this hurt resulted because no one involved could take back a few unthinking words spoken in haste.

The power of words has a very real, almost physical presence on Yom Kippur.

Look at the list of “al chets,” or confessions, that we recite again and again on this day. We confess our sins of using foul language, speaking falsehoods, idle chatter, slander, disrespecting our parents and teachers, and spreading gossip. On and on; perhaps half the sins we confess are sins of speech.

Why? Because, despite our communal confessions on Yom Kippur, most of us are not thieves or doers of violence. We are not evil people, but sins of words are easy to commit. We do it every day. That’s why at the end of every Amidah we recite the prayer of Mar, son of Ravina, “My God, keep my tongue from evil, my lips from lies,” rather than praying “God, help me not to steal, help me not to murder.”

The truth is, you can never take back words, you can’t go back to the time before the words were spoken.

There’s a story about a man in a small village in Eastern Europe who didn’t like the rabbi. No one knew why he didn’t like the rabbi; perhaps even he didn’t know.

But there was no doubt that he didn’t like the rabbi. So, no matter what the rabbi did, this man had something nasty to say about it—often, and to whomever would listen.

One year, as the High Holidays approached, the man realized that his nasty gossip was a terrible sin, so he went to the rabbi’s office to ask for forgiveness.

The rabbi said, “Of course I’ll forgive you, but first you must do something for me.

Go home, take your fattest pillow up to the roof, open it up, and shake it out.”

The man thought this was odd, but he did as he was asked. It was a windy day and the feathers from the pillow were blown in every direction. He returned to the rabbi and asked again for forgiveness.

The rabbi replied, “There’s one more thing. First you have to pick up all the feathers.”

Like feathers turned loose, words have a life of their own. You can’t take them back and pretend they were never said because words have power. “Taking back” only happens in children’s games.

You can’t forget, but you can forgive.

The Torah tells us that the first luhot, the tablets of the Ten Commandments that Moses shattered after the sin of the Golden Calf, were made by God. The second luhot, given after Moses persuaded God not to destroy the Israelites, were made by Moses. God said to Moses, “Carve out two stone tablets like the first ones.” The new ones would not be the same because the people’s sin could not be undone or forgotten, but God could forgive them.

Rabbinic tradition holds that the second tablets were given on Yom Kippur as a sign that God forgives and that people

must forgive. Forgive doesn’t mean forget, but it is possible to gather the broken pieces and build a new relationship.

The rabbis teach that both the second set of tablets and the broken pieces of the first were placed together in the Holy Ark. Why? To teach us that just as the second tablets could be broken as easily as the first, relationships are fragile, so we must guard our tongues. Moreover, even if a break occurs, the relationship can be repaired. It won’t be exactly the same, but a break should not be permitted to last forever.

And most important, the time to do something about broken relationships is now and not next year or someday.

Nothing is more precious than love and friendship. Because words have power, not only to hurt, but to heal.

Rabbi Joyce Newmark of Teaneck, New Jersey, is a former religious leader of congregations in Leonia, New Jersey, and Lancaster, Pennsylvania.

Rosh Hashanah 5778

May this New Year be filled with health and happiness, and sweet moments for you and your family.

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High Holidays First Person

A Legacy for the New Year Barb Gelb

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wenty three years ago, my grandfather had the honor of reading a midrash at my daughter’s baby naming ceremony. The midrash described the Jewish people standing at the foot of Sinai, eagerly waiting for God to give them the Torah. Before God will give it to them, however, God demands that the people provide guarantors. After all, until now, the Torah had been in heaven with the angels. Who would be responsible for protecting the Torah on earth?

The Jewish people suggested that our ancestors could be the guarantors, but God did not accept that. Then they suggested the Prophets, and God turned them down again. Finally, they offered their children as guarantors, and God replied, “Indeed, these are good guarantors. For their sake, I will give the Torah to you.”

If our children are the guarantors for the Torah, we must provide them with Jewish education, places of gathering and worship, and community. If we do not provide that, we are not holding up our end of the bargain.

I can still remember the tears of joy in my grandfather’s eyes as he spoke.

He had worked his entire life to ensure a Jewish future. He sat on boards, went to meetings, and made donations. He insisted that money not be a barrier to anyone receiving a Jewish education, and put his money where his mouth was in supporting institutions that would ensure a Jewish future. His legacy was very clear to me from the way he lived his life, the stories he told us, his philanthropic activities, and the pride and happiness he demonstrated as he welcomed his first great granddaughter into the covenant.

At this time of year, we are reflecting on our lives, relationships, and actions. Many of us are thinking about our ancestors as

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we sit beside them at services, or as we feel their presence among us. Many of us are thinking about our children and the world we will be leaving for them.

Are we providing future generations with what they will need for a thriving Jewish community?

What I love about the reflective New Year time is that it can steer us towards choices and decisions that will clarify our own legacy.

Part of the mission of the Tidewater Jewish Foundation is to ensure the future of the Jewish community and help people create their own legacies. Embarking on the Life and Legacy program has enabled people of all ages and giving capacities to join us in doing that.

For more information about the Life and Legacy program, contact Barb Gelb at bgelb@ ujft.org or 757-965-6105. All of us at TJF wish you a sweet and happy New Year!

Barb Gelb is development associate and Life and Legacy coordinator for Tidewater Jewish Foundation.

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High Holidays

11 inspiring Jews who died in 5777 Gabe Friedman

NEW YORK (JTA)—It’s always difficult to whittle down the list of influential Jews who died in a given year, but this year the task seemed to be especially tough. The number of Jews who left historic marks on their fields—and, more broadly, on Jewish culture—was remarkable.

Here are some members of the tribe— representing areas as diverse as pop culture to politics—we’ve mourned since last Rosh Hashanah.

Carrie Fisher, 60

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ost know Carrie Fisher because of her iconic role as Princess Leia in the original Star Wars films, but her tumultuous career extended Carrie Fisher, September 2013. beyond that.

The actress, who struggled with addictions to cocaine and prescription medications, also wrote four novels and three memoirs along with acting in dozens of other films.

Fisher landed the Star Wars role as a relative unknown despite being the daughter of Jewish singer Eddie Fisher and movie star Debbie Reynolds. After she died of a heart attack in December, her only child pointed out that Fisher’s real cause of death was her substance abuse issues.

Leonard Cohen, 82

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he grandson of a rabbi who grew up in an Orthodox home in Montreal became one of the most beloved folk artists of the 20th Leonard Cohen, August 2013. and 21st centuries. Leonard Cohen launched his musical

career late, releasing his first album at 33 after writing multiple books of poetry. But he would go on to release 13 more records and often incorporate Jewish themes into his meticulously crafted songs. His song Hallelujah became one of the most covered and revered songs in pop music history.

Just weeks before his death in November, Cohen released his final album, which included a track featuring a chorus saying “I’m ready, my Lord.”

Simone Veil, 89

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ewer than 70 people have been awarded France’s Grand Cross of the Legion of Honor —Simone Veil, a Holocaust survivor who became a pillar of French Simone Veil, February 2008. politics, was one of them. After making it out of Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen, Veil became a lawyer and served as France’s minister of health and later as president of the European Parliament. She also was one of the few female members of the prestigious French Academie Francaise and spearheaded the legalization of abortion in France in the 1970s. Veil died in June, less than a month from her 90th birthday.

Jerry Lewis, 91

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on’t let the funnyman’s stage name fool you: Jerry Lewis was born Joseph Levitch to parents who performed on the Borscht Belt hotel circuit.

Lewis, who died of cardiac disease in August, rose to prominence as part Jerry Lewis, 2013. of a duo with Dean Martin, with whom he made over a dozen wacky comedy films from 1949

22 | Jewish News | High Holidays | September 25, 2017 | jewishnewsva.org

to 1956. He would go on to star in dozens of other films, including The Nutty Professor (yes, the original one, well before Eddie Murphy’s 1996 remake) and Martin Scorsese’s The King of Comedy.

Zsa Zsa Gabor, 99

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hough this legendary Hollywood socialite and sex symbol was buried in a Catholic cemetery, she had Jewish roots.

Born to Hungarian Zsa Zsa Gabor, circa 1955.

Jewish parents in Budapest, Sari Gabor (her real name) was married nine times and appeared in films such Moulin Rouge and Lovely to Look At. Her love life was a tumultuous public affair, and she has been called the first celebrity to be famous for being famous.

Zsa Zsa Gabor died in February, less than two months from her 100th birthday.

Don Rickles, 90

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he wellk n o w n comic nicknamed “Mr. Warmth,” who loved to hurl insults at his audience members, was also a serious actor Don Rickles, June 1973. trained at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. He appeared in countless TV shows, performed standup into his 80s and acted alongside legends such as Clark Gable and Clint Eastwood on the silver screen.

Younger audiences know him as the voice of Mr. Potato Head in the Toy Story series. He passed away in April from kidney failure.

Vera Rubin, 88

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ithout this g r ou ndbreaking scientist, we still might not understand what 27 percent of the universe is made up of: dark matter. Rubin, an astronomer from Vera Rubin, October 2009.

Philadelphia, discovered that galaxies don’t rotate the way previous scientific models led us to believe, which led to the proof of the invisible, undetectable stuff that makes up nearly a third of our world. Rubin, who passed away in December, once said that science was separate from religion: “I’m Jewish, and so religion to me is a kind of moral code and a kind of history,” she said. “I try to do my science in a moral way, and I believe that ideally, science should be looked upon as something that helps us understand our role in the universe.”

Otto Warmbier, 22

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fter being held in North Korea for more than 17 months for allegedly tearing down a propaganda poster during a student tour, Otto Otto Warmbier.

Warmbier was released, comatose, in June. He did not survive the injuries—Warmbier died a week after being returned to the United States. He was an active member at the University of Virginia Hillel, but North Korea’s narrative said that Warmbier stole the poster for an American church. So his Jewish identity was kept under wraps so as not to embarrass North Korea during negotiations for the release of the student—“if that’s what their story is, there’s no point fighting it if your objective is to

High Holidays get him out,” the family spokesperson explained—who had been sentenced to 15 years of hard labor.

journalists, Jewish or not, began her career at the New York Herald Tribune in 1947. She lived to 105.

known as the Heimlich valve. He died last December from complications following a heart attack.

Ruth Gruber, 105

Henry Heimlich, 96

Sara Ehrman, 98

mong the i mpr e s s i v e accomplishments on Ruth Gruber’s resume: a pioneering reporting stint in the Soviet Arctic, a trip ordered by President Ruth Gruber, April 2007.

F r a n k l i n Roosevelt to comfort post-Holocaust Jewish refugees, and reportage of the Nuremberg trials and Operation Moses.

The writer, who will go down as one of the 20th century’s most important

es, that Heimlich— the person who invented the famous H e i m l i c h maneuver that has saved countless numbers of choking people Henry Heunlich. since its inception in 1974. Dr. Henry J. Heimlich was a thoracic surgeon born to Jewish parents in Wilmington, Delaware. Besides the famous life-saving method, he also invented the chest drainage flutter valve,

his longtime Democratic Party activist, adviser on the IsraeliPalestinian conf lict and friend of the Clintons, described herself as “first a Jew, second a Democrat and Sara Ehrman. above all a feminist.” Sara Ehrman may be most famous for advising Hillary Clinton not to move to Arkansas to marry Bill, though she worked on George McGovern’s 1972

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presidential campaign and later advised President Clinton on Israel-Arab peacemaking. She also helped organize Bill Clinton’s first trip as president to Israel, served as AIPAC’s political director and later worked with J Street. She died in June, more than 50 years after her entree into politics.

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jewishnewsva.org | September 25, 2017 | High Holidays | Jewish News | 23

High Holidays

The top 10 moments that mattered to Jews in 5777 Josefin Dolsten

NEW YORK (JTA)—This Jewish year was not a quiet one, to say the least. From the tumultuous first eight months of Donald Trump’s presidency, to a wave of bomb threats against Jewish community centers, to a neo-Nazi protest in Charlottesville that turned violent, to the twin weather catastrophes of Hurricanes Harvey and Irma, Jews, like so many others, found it hard to take their eyes off the news.

JTA looks back at some of the moments of 5777 that had the most significance for Jews, sorted below by date.

Bob Dylan is awarded the 2016 Nobel Prize in Literature.

In an unexpected move, the Swedish Academy bestowed the iconic Jewish American singer—born Robert

Zimmerman—with the highly coveted prize in October. Though Bob Dylan’s fame is indisputable—he wrote some of the most well-known and culturally significant songs of the 1960s—the decision raised eyebrows because the prize has traditionally been given to novelists and poets, not songwriters. Dylan did not seem as enthusiastic as some of his fans: He took two weeks to acknowledge the award and said he was unable to travel to Sweden for the official ceremony, though he traveled there at a later date to accept the award and present the required lecture.

prospects of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Traditionally, the United States has vetoed such resolutions—but in its waning days the Obama administration chose not to follow suit. The move prompted outrage from Israel, centrist and right-leaning Jewish groups and then President-elect Donald Trump, who called the resolution “extremely unfair.” Samantha Power, then the American envoy to the U.N., defended the abstention, saying the resolution was in line with longstanding U.S. opposition to Israeli settlements.

the slogan—the name of an isolationist and often anti-Semitic movement leading up to World War I—alarmed some Jews, but Trump said the phrase had no connection to the earlier usage. Trump brought with him a cadre of Jewish advisers, including his daughter, Ivanka Trump, and her husband, Jared Kushner. The couple, both of whom are observant Jews, would take on critical roles in the administration as senior advisers to the president, with Kushner in charge of a thick portfolio that included brokering a peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians.

U.N. criticizes Israeli settlement, and the U.S. abstains.

In December, the United Nations sharply condemned Israeli actions in a resolution calling settlements “a flagrant violation of international law” that damage the

Trump takes office, bringing Ivanka and Jared with him.

Trump took office in January after his unexpected victory over Hillary Clinton in November, pledging in his inaugural address to put “America first.” The use of

JCCs in U.S. and Canada targeted with more than 100 bomb threats.

From January to March, Jewish community centers, Jewish schools and other institutions were hit with more than 100 bomb threats. None of the threats, many

The year ahead is still an open book.

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H EBREW A CADEMY T IDEWATER

High Holidays of which were called in, turned out to be credible, but they forced evacuations and spread fear among local communities.

Several Jewish cemeteries were also vandalized, prompting some to blame the rise of the “alt-right”—some say the movement was legitimized following Trump’s election—for the threats. However, neither of the two men arrested for making the threats turned out to be motivated by far-right beliefs. One of the accused, Juan Thompson, was arrested for making bomb threats against eight Jewish institutions in the name of an ex-girlfriend in a revenge plot. The main suspect, however, turned out to be an Israeli-American teenager, Michael Kadar of Ashkelon, who was arrested for making hundreds of threats.

Kadar reportedly sold his bomb threat services online and suffers from a brain tumor, according to his lawyer.

Trump shouts down reporters who ask him about a rise in anti-Semitism.

In February, the president shouted at two journalists who asked him about an increase in anti-Jewish sentiments and incidents, and said he “hates” being called an anti-Semite, although neither reporter called him one. After asking for a “friendly” reporter, Trump interrupted a question by a haredi Orthodox journalist—he accused him of lying about his intentions—and claimed to be the “least anti-Semitic person that you have ever seen in your entire life.” Trump’s response drew criticism from Jewish groups, many of which had already criticized him a month earlier for releasing a statement on International Holocaust Remembrance Day that notably did not mention Jews.

His defenders said the president’s critics were politically motivated.

On first overseas trip, Trump visits Israel.

Trump paid a visit to the Jewish state on his first overseas trip as president in May, which also included stops in Italy and Saudi Arabia. The two-day trip included a stop at Yad Vashem and meetings with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Reuven Rivlin, as well as Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. Trump, accompanied by his daughter Ivanka and her husband Jared Kushner,

High Holy Days • 5778 also stopped at the Western Wall for a private visit, making him the first sitting U.S. president to visit the holy site and earning him high praise across Israel. A few months after the visit, Trump dispatched a team of top aides, including Kushner, Jason Greenblatt and Dina Powell, to visit Israel and other Middle Eastern countries in an attempt to revive peace talks.

Israel freezes pluralistic Western Wall agreement.

A June decision by Netanyahu’s Cabinet to put a hold on the creation of an egalitarian section of the Western Wall, a deal passed in 2016, drew the ire of American Jewish leaders. Some leaders, also angered by the advancement of a bill to give the Orthodox Chief Rabbinate complete control of conversions performed in Israel, warned of a growing schism between American Jews and Israel. Natan Sharansky, the chairman of the Jewish Agency for Israel, also joined critics of the decision, saying it “will make our work to bring Israel and the Jewish world closer together increasingly more difficult.” In August, the Israeli Supreme Court said the government must either reinstate the agreement or provide an explanation as to why it had put a hold on it.

Chicago Dyke March bans three women for carrying flags with Jewish stars.

In June, a Chicago lesbian march ejected three women for carrying Gay Pride flags with Jewish stars, saying the march was “anti-Zionist” and “pro-Palestinian.” The decision drew heated debate, and the Jewish reporter who first wrote about the incident for a Chicago LGBTQ newspaper said she was removed from her reporting job as a result of the article. The Dyke March controversy—as well as similar debates about the role of Zionists in the feminist movement and whether demonstrators could bring banners with Jewish stars to a Chicago feminist march —illuminated a growing challenge for Zionist Jews who feel unwelcome in liberal spaces.

Neo-Nazis rally in Charlottesville.

Neo-Nazis and white supremacists gathered in a Virginia park in August to protest the removal of a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee. The far-right protesters chanted anti-Semitic and racist

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Virginia Beach’s only Reform Temple slogans, including “Jews will not replace us,” and brawled with counterprotesters.

One counterprotester, Heather Heyer, was killed when a suspected white supremacist rammed his car into a crowd. Trump waffled on condemning the protest, calling out neo-Nazis and white supremacists in one remark, but blaming both sides for the violence at other times, and saying there were “some very fine people” in both groups. Jewish groups, lawmakers from both sides of the aisle and the president’s top economic adviser, Gary Cohn, criticized Trump for his response, saying he was not doing his part to condemn hate.

Hurricane Harvey floods Houston Homes were flooded and lives were turned upside down as Hurricane Harvey hit Texas in August, forcing mass evacuations across the state. Over 70 percent of the city’s Jews live in areas that experienced high flooding, and synagogues, schools, and other Jewish community buildings sustained significant damage. Recovery from the hurricane is expected to take years, but the disaster also served as a point of coming together for the community, as Jewish groups rallied to distribute donations and local Jewish camps offered housing to those with nowhere to go.

jewishnewsva.org | September 25, 2017 | High Holidays | Jewish News | 25

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26 | Jewish News | High Holidays | September 25, 2017 | jewishnewsva.org

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