CT Jewish Ledger • August 14, 2020 • 24 Av 5780

Friday, August 14, 2020 24 Av 5780 Vol. 92 | No. 33 | ©2020 $1.00 | jewishledger.com

Must-see Israeli TV! 1

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INSIDE

this week

CONNECTICUT JEWISH LEDGER | SINCE 1929 | AUGUST 14, 2020 | 24 AV 5780

11 Opinion

13 Around CT

17 Crossword

20 Briefs

22 Bulletin Board

In Remembrance........................... 5 One of Judaism’s great commentators, Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz z”l wrote as many as 60 books, including commentaries on the Talmud, the Torah, Jewish mysticism, Chassidism and Jewish philosophy. He died last week at the age of 83.

Death & Devastation..................... 5 A former Israeli Military Intelligence chief analyzes the massive explosion that shook Beirut last week killing anywhere between 1,000 and 4,000 people and destroying the city’s port.

ELECTION 2020................................ 8 There was a healthy dose of Trump bashing at a Biden for President fundraiser that focused exclusively on the topic of antisemitism and featured two Jews and a comic actor (also a Jew). And then the talk turned personal.

OPINION........................................... 10 Recently, the actor Seth Rogen spent an hour of prime time savaging his fellow Jews, misrepresenting Jewish history, defaming Israel and Israelis, slandering Judaism.

What gives, Seth? wonders Rabbi Benjamin Blech.

To Russia with Love..................... 12 Russia has only one mohel – one who performs ritual circumcision – who spends his time crisscrossing that vast terrain to make sure every single Jewish male has a bris.

In the Kitchen................................ 19 How did “Jewish” cookies end up in a cookbook filled with the food of Icelandic immigrants to the New World? Like the cookies, the story is delicious.

23 Torah Portion

23 Obituaries

24 Business and Professional Directory

25 Classified

ON THE COVER:

Those who enjoy watching TV won’t be surprised to learn that, over the past decade, Israel has risen to become the third-largest content exporter in the U.S. – just behind the U.K. and the Netherlands.

A pretty impressive feat for a tiny country that only just introduced commercial television to its citizens as recently as the ‘90s. It’s clear that Israel is dominating the global television space today. And not even a pandemic can stop the Jewish state from coming out on top. PAGE 14 jewishledger.com

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UP FRONT

CONNECTICUT JEWISH LEDGER | SINCE 1929 | AUGUST 14, 2020 | 24 AV 5780

Adin Steinsaltz, acclaimed scholar who made the Talmud more accessible, dies at 83

R

abbi Adin Even-Israel Steinzaltz, the acclaimed scholar whose landmark translation of the Talmud enabled a vast readership to access one of Judaism’s most canonical texts, died in Jerusalem on Friday, August 7. He was 83.

Steinsaltz’s monumental translation of the 63 volumes of the Babylonian Talmud made the arcane rabbinic debates and folkloric tales easier to comprehend, unlocking the wonders of Talmud study for those lacking a high-level Jewish education.

The project took 45 years to complete.

Steinsaltz not only rendered the forbidding Aramaic text into modern Hebrew, but integrated his own commentary into the sparse language of the original, filling in gaps in the text that had previously required deep familiarity with the internal mechanics of talmudic discourse to decipher.

A new English version of the Steinsaltz Talmud by the Koren publishing house, and a free version of the translation available on the website Sefaria, further expanded Steinsaltz’s reach.

“The Talmud was never meant to be an elitist book,” said Arthur Kurzweil, the author of two books about Steinsaltz and a board member of the Aleph Society, which raises funds to support the rabbi’s work.

“It was meant to be for everybody. So Rabbi Steinsaltz spent 45 years trying and succeeding to make that happen.”

Described as a once-in-a-millennium scholar, Steinsaltz was renowned for his prodigious intellect and tireless work ethic.

He was reputed to put in 17-hour workdays.

Authoring a comprehensive commentary on the Talmud alone put him in a category alongside Rashi, the medieval French scholar whose commentary on the Bible and the Talmud, composed 1,000 years ago, is considered the most authoritative.

But Steinsaltz also wrote another 60 books on topics ranging from Jewish ethics to theology to prayer to mysticism. He also helped establish educational institutions in Israel and the former Soviet Union.

Born to secular parents in Jerusalem in 1937, Steinsaltz embraced Jewish practice jewishledger.com

BY BEN HARRIS

ANALYSIS

Former Israeli military intelligence chief: Full scope of Beirut disaster ‘still not understood’

BY YAAKOV LAPPIN

RABBI ADIN EVEN-ISRAEL STEINSALTZ (HOLDING TORAH SCROLL).

(CREDIT: COURTESY OF THE STEINSALTZ CENTER)

as a teenager. Though his father was an irreligious socialist, he sent his son to study Talmud with a tutor at the age of 10.

Steinsaltz’s intellectual gifts were evident early, when he became the youngest school principal in Israel at 23.

In 1965, Steinsaltz founded the Israel Institute for Talmudic Publications, the same year he began his Talmud translation.

His work was driven by a desire to educate large numbers of Jews about their heritage.

“Let my people know,” was his favorite slogan.

“The Talmud is the central pillar of Jewish knowledge, important for the overall understanding of what is Jewish,” Steinsaltz told JTA in 2010 on the occasion of the completion of the translation. “But it is a book that Jews cannot understand. This is a dangerous situation, like a collective amnesia. I tried to make pathways through which people will be able to enter the Talmud without encountering impassable barriers. It’s something that will always be a challenge, but I tried to make it at least possible.”

The completion of the translation was accompanied by a global day of Jewish learning connecting 360 Jewish communities in 48 countries. The event has since become an annual affair.

Steinsaltz’s work was long deemed controversial. His Talmud departed from longstanding conventions, introducing punctuation and paragraph breaks, altering the pagination and placing his own commentary in the space around the main text that had previously been the domain of Rashi.

Rabbi Elazar Shach, a leading haredi Orthodox rabbi in Israel, called Steinsaltz a heretic and forbade his followers from reading his works, apparently out of concern for some passages in two works on the Bible that Steinsaltz subsequently agreed to modify. Shach insisted that all of Steinsaltz’s work was heretical, however, another eminent 20th-century authority, Rabbi Moshe Feinstein, approved of the Steinsaltz Talmud. In 1998, Jacob Neusner,

(JNS) A day after Tuesday, August 4, when two enormous blasts ripped through Beirut, flattening the city’s port and causing untold destruction, it was still not possible to grasp the true scope of the calamity, a former Israeli Military Intelligence chief has said.

Speaking by video conference to journalists, Maj. Gen. (res.) Amos Yadlin, who served as former deputy commander of the Israeli Air Force and is now executive director of the Institute for National Security Studies, noted that Israel has offered medical assistance to Lebanon. “This is a terrible, terrible disaster. The big question is how many people are missing. The numbers are between 1,000 to 4,000.”

Analyzing the incidents that led to the explosion, Yadlin said it “started from a small explosion at what looks like a fireworks storage [facility].

And then the big explosion came,” he said, citing the 2,700 tons of reported ammonium nitrate stored at a warehouse at the port’s dock.

Ammonium nitrate “is material used to develop explosives,” he said.

“It is also good for agriculture, but the fact that it was there since 2014 is saying that it was not taken for agriculture. The purpose of this storage was for explosives.”

Regarding the question of who owned the warehouse and why the material was there, Yadlin said “this is something I guess that the Lebanese authorities are investigating.”

“Very much like his Iranian masters, [Nasrallah] failed operationally.”

He added that it cannot be proven at this stage that it was a Hezbollah warehouse. If, however, signs emerge CONTINUED ON THE NEXT PAGE

CONTINUED ON THE NEXT PAGE

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Steinsaltz

Beirut

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a Conservative rabbi and noted scholar of Judaism, published a 250-page book entitled How Adin Steinsaltz Misrepresents the Talmud.

Steinsaltz was also criticized for accepting the leadership of a modern-day Sanhedrin, a recreation of the ancient rabbinic body. Steinsaltz resigned the post in 2008 out of concern for potential breaches of Jewish law.

But none of that slowed Steinsaltz’s embrace as an unparalleled scholar of Judaism, both in the Jewish world and beyond. He was awarded the Israel Prize, Israel’s highest cultural honor, in 1998, along with the inaugural Israeli Presidential Award of Distinction, the French Order of Arts and Literature, and a 2012 National Jewish Book Award. He was invited to deliver the prestigious Terry Lectures at Yale University and was a scholar in residence at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington. In 2016, he was invited to a private audience with the pope.

Among his best-known works beyond the Talmud translation is The Thirteen Petalled Rose, an introduction to Jewish mysticism first published in 1980. A follower of the Chabad Hasidic movement, Steinsaltz also authored several books on Tanya, one of the group’s core texts.

In 2018, he published a translation and commentary on the Five Books of Moses.

Despite his massive intellectual achievements, Steinsaltz often appeared slightly disheveled in public and had a playful streak. Kurzweil recalled an appearance at a Long Island yeshiva at which Steinsaltz encouraged the students to do everything they could to make their teachers’ lives miserable, and even suggested a source book where they could find difficult questions sure to flummox them.

“He’s a troublemaker and he’s got a gleam in his eye at all times,” said Kurzweil, who served as Steinsaltz’s driver during his visits to New York. “He’s up to mischief sometimes. He likes to question everything.”

Long plagued by ill health, Steinsaltz suffered a stroke in 2016 that left him unable to speak.

“Jewish learning is created by the Jews and is also creating the Jews,” Steinsaltz said in 2010. “When you learn, you learn about yourself. So learning one page of the Talmud is equivalent to two or three sessions with a psychoanalyst. That’s why people are interested – Jewish learning is a mirror into our soul.”

that this is indeed the case, it would form a “very serious allegation against Hezbollah,” which could turn into significant political pressure on it to end its role as a military power in Lebanon and delegate that role to the official Lebanese military, he assessed.

Lebanese journalist Jerry Maher, however, was more certain of where to lay blame for the blast. On Wednesday, he said the blast was a “massacre” and Hezbollah is the prime suspect, said Lebanese journalist Jerry Maher.

Maher, the CEO of Radio Sawt Beirut International, told Saudi Arabia’s Al Arabiya on Aug. 5 that the Lebanese Shi’ite terror group uses the country’s ports “and all the other Lebanese government facilities” to acquire weaponry.

Hezbollah had been using the BeirutRafic Hariri International Airport for this purpose “for years,” said Maher, as well as the Beirut port.

“Today, nobody but Hezbollah is responsible” for the port blast, said Maher. “The corrupt system that allowed [Hezbollah] to use the Lebanese ports for its own objectives is also responsible,” he added.

The Lebanese political system, said Maher, had given up on confronting Hezbollah, “in order to protect their financial, economic and political gains.”

“Since 2014, it has been forbidden to even say one word to Hezbollah, as if Hezbollah is a religion or a sect not connected to reality or this country,” said Maher.

Those that criticize Hezbollah’s policy are labeled “sectarians,” he added, while

anyone that criticizes the group’s acts of terror are “agents,” “terrorists,” “criminals” or “murderers.”

“They banish you from the country, they accuse you of incitement and threaten to kill you,” he said.

Lebanon’s political system, said Maher, had surrendered to Hezbollah, “and unfortunately, today we see the result.”

Ammonium nitrate has been used before by Hezbollah operatives abroad in planning out a terror attack. In 2015, a Lebanese-Canadian man tied to Hezbollah was convicted in Cyprus after he was found in possession of 8.5 tons of ammonium nitrate in his basement. That same year, the Mossad told authorities in the U.K. of four properties in North West London that contained three tons of ammonium nitrate belonging to Hezbollah.

Earlier this year, the Mossad again tipped off Germany on Hezbollah’s activities on its soil, including warehouses in the south of the country where Hezbollah stashed hundreds of kilograms of ammonium nitrate.

“This is another blow to the Lebanese state that was already [suffering] a huge crisis,” said Yadlin. The factors that created this crisis included severe economic, financial, political and social problems.

Even prior to the blast, tensions were rising in the country. In that context, he explained, “what is important is that Hezbollah is using civilian neighborhoods to store weapons. They use civilian neighborhoods as shields for their activity.

There are elements in Lebanon and the international community calling on

Hezbollah to stop hiding behind the excuse that it needs these weapons against Israel.”

Nuclear capability and hegemony in the Middle East Yadlin pointed out that Israel hasn’t attacked Lebanon in 14 years, and that the two countries have “no real dispute” over borders. Even a disagreement over offshore gas-drilling rights in the Mediterranean Sea “was already brokered by the Americans.”

Hezbollah, he said, is looking for excuses to keep the conflict going with Israel.

“This is a very good time for Lebanese to tell Hezbollah: ‘We have so many other problems, give us a break from your excuses for Iranian interests that running behind you.’ The issue starts with Iran sending advanced weapons to Hezbollah via Syria.”

“This is another blow to the Lebanese state that was already [suffering] a huge crisis.”

More broadly, the Iranian terror axis of which Hezbollah is part of is under great pressure, said Yadlin. Factors like America’s “maximum pressure” campaign on Tehran–added to economic dysfunction, collapsing oil prices, Israel’s campaign to roll back Iranian military entrenchment in Syria, the coronavirus pandemic, the recent assassination of Quds Force Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani–have all contributed to growing discontent among the general populace.

“The Iranians are continuing, despite all of the difficulties, with two strategic efforts: come as close as possible to nuclear

DRONE FOOTAGE OF THE AFTERMATH OF THE EXPLOSIONS IN BEIRUT, AUG. 5, 2020.

SOURCE: SCREENSHOT.

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capability and to have hegemony in the Middle East,” stated Yadlin.

So far, Iran has failed operationally to deter Israel, and Syria is focused on what remains of its civil war in Idlib, so Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah decided to step up and attempt to “revenge any Israeli activities in Syria if Hezbollah terrorists will be killed as well. This is what happened last week, and Nasrallah decided to act,” he summed up.

Nasrallah attempted to calibrate his actions so that they would on the one hand kill a few Israeli soldiers, but on the other avoid all-out war. “Very much like his Iranian masters, he failed operationally,” said Yadlin.

Now, in the aftermath of the Beirut explosion, Nasrallah has found his excuse to “remove this issue from the agenda, especially if this warehouse was a Hezbollah warehouse,” he said. “And there are already a lot of voices in Lebanon that blame Hezbollah for the financial difficulties. There are new sanctions on Lebanon because of Hezbollah. The

banking system is collapsing because of Hezbollah. Every Lebanese knows that Hezbollah is the strongest military power in Lebanon with a lot of political influence.”

With all of these multiple crises in Lebanon, joined by the latest disaster in Beirut, some Lebanese civilians will likely be thinking “why do they need another dimension of destruction that will come from Nasrallah attacking Israel? So I think he will find a ladder to come down from the tree,” said Yadlin.

Asked whether the Beirut disaster will set the stage for the International Monetary Fund to provide major assistance to Lebanon, Yadlin said that remains unclear.

“It could on the one hand say, ‘Let’s put aside everything and help Lebanon.’ On the other hand … [the blast] may help those who say Hezbollah is the problem, and that this was a Hezbollah warehouse. The IMF could say ‘until you move Hezbollah away from its positions that they took in Lebanon, we are not helping you despite the disaster.’”

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Israel offers Lebanon humanitarian and medical aid following Beirut disaster

BY LILACH SHOVAL AND ARIEL KAHANA

This article first appeared in Israel Hayom. jewishledger.com

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(Israel Hayom via JNS) Israel has offered Lebanon humanitarian aid following a huge explosion in Beirut on Tuesday that killed at least 78 people and left more than 4,000 injured.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has approved medical and humanitarian aid to Lebanon and has instructed National Security Council head Meir Ben-Shabbat to speak with U.N. envoy Nickolay Mladenov to determine additional ways in which Israel can help, according to a statement by the Prime Minister’s Office.

Israel Defense Forces Spokesman Brig. Gen. Hidai Zilberman tweeted: “Humanitarian aid to Lebanon–now is the time to rise above any conflict.”

IDF Lt. Col. Avichay Adraee, head of the Arabic division of the IDF Spokesperson’s Unit, tweeted: “Under instructions from the defense minister and the foreign minister, Israel has reached out to Lebanon via international diplomatic officials and offered the Lebanese government medical humanitarian aid. Israel has much experience in these areas and has proven it by the humanitarian delegations it has sent throughout the world in recent years.”

Adraee echoed Zilberman’s call to “rise above any conflict.”

Israeli President Reuven Rivlin said on Tuesday that Israel “shares the pain of the Lebanese people in this time of disaster and extends its hand to help at this difficult time.”

Meanwhile, Israel is making preparations to take in UNIFIL personnel wounded in the explosion. As of Tuesday evening, the plan was for the wounded U.N. force members to be taken to the border crossing at Rosh Hanikra and treated at Rebecca Sieff Hospital in Tzfat.

Israeli Welfare Minister Itzik Shmuli tweeted: “The heart breaks at the difficult images coming out of Beirut. Our heart is with the Lebanese people at this difficult time and we will do everything we can to help. When tragedies like these happen, even the most tense border cannot make us forget that we’re all human beings.”

As of Tuesday night, Egypt, Jordan, Turkey and Qatar had also offered to provide humanitarian aid to Lebanon.

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ELECTION 2020

Biden fundraiser with Schiff, Rosen and Jason Alexander focuses on antisemitism…and gets personal

BY RON KAMPEAS

(JTA) – A fundraiser for Joe Biden on Monday night, Aug. 3, was billed as a “Virtual Conversation on Anti-Semitism” with three marquee speakers: Rep. Adam Schiff, the California Democrat who chairs the U.S. House of Representatives Intelligence Committee; Nevada freshman Sen. Jacky Rosen; and Jason Alexander of “Seinfeld” fame.

The conversation, co-organized by the Biden campaign and the Democratic National Committee, included plenty of critique aimed at President Trump, whom liberal Jews accuse of stoking anti-Semitism in the U.S. – but it also veered into poignant territory at times, offering a rare window into the politicians’ personal Jewish identities. Biden did not attend.

Alexander, who moderated the talk, invited Rosen (who last year co-founded the Senate Bipartisan Task Force for Combating Anti-Semitism) and Schiff (who spearheaded Trump’s impeachment proceedings last year) to draw a direct line between Trump’s rhetoric and the rise in antisemitism during his term, evidenced in attacks such as the Pittsburgh Tree of Life and Poway synagogue shootings.

Trump’s defenders counter that by saying the president forcefully and unequivocally condemned anti-Semitism after the Tree of Life attack.

“We have to assume that our president has exacerbated the problem. Adam, he typically refers to you as ‘Shifty Schiff,’ so he obviously plays into anti-Semitic tropes and stereotypes,” Alexander said. “How much do you hold him, and frankly the Republicans that echo and abet him, responsible for these increases in the amount of hate activity that we’re seeing?”

Schiff said Trump was ultimately responsible for a rise in bigotry, noting his recent appeal to “suburban housewives” that he would protect their neighborhoods from interlopers.

“The president has a unique capability to set the tone, nationally, and he has set the most ugly, bitter, divisive and sometimes racist tone of any president, certainly in my lifetime,” Schiff said. “And, you know, people follow that.”

Rosen said education was critical to countering antisemitism and referred to the Never Again Act, which funds Holocaust education, and which she helped pass this year. Holocaust survivors were dying off, she said.

“It’s important that we tell those stories, because if we don’t learn from them, if we don’t shine a light to educate, then we’re 8

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lost,” Rosen said.

Alexander asked Schiff to comment on the false claim proliferating on the far right that he is in cahoots with the liberal Jewish billionaire, George Soros.

“The main one that’s been circulated is that George Soros and I are related because my sister is married to his son,” he said.

“When that first caught on like wildfire, I called my brother and I said ‘Dan I’ve got some good news and some bad news. The good news is we have a sister. Why didn’t Mom tell us? And the even better news is, she married really well.’”

Jewish critics of Trump point to several examples that they say proves he either has a blind spot on antisemitism. Trump has told Jewish donors that he “doesn’t want your money,” has said Jews who vote for Democrats are disloyal to other Jews and posted an ad during the 2016 campaign superimposing Hillary Clinton’s face on a pile of money and a six-pointed star.

His first statement on the Holocaust as president omitted any mention of Jews.

Biden rolled out his campaign in April 2019 with a video in which he said he was spurred to run after Trump equivocated in condemning the deadly neo-Nazi violence at a 2017 March in Charlottesville, Virginia.

Biden often cites the rise of anti-Semitism.

Alexander asked Schiff and Rosen what he should tell politically conservative Jewish friends who say Trump has been good for Israel. Republicans “paint any criticism of Israel as anti-Semitic,” Rosen said. “We can criticize our own government, we can criticize our spouse or family or kids, it doesn’t mean you don’t love them.

It doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have a robust

| AUGUST 14, 2020

conversation.”

Tickets to the event, made public on Monday by Jewish Insider, were at a minimum $250, although donors could check amounts up to $50,000. About 400 people called in, raising $200,000. (JTA obtained a phone call-in number, so a reporter was able to hear, if not see the proceedings.)

Alexander also asked Schiff and Rosen to personalize their Jewish experience, and that’s when the conversation took a turn.

“Do you know how much your bar or bat mitzvah actually cost, within five thousand dollars?” Alexander asked at one point.

Rosen, a former synagogue president who was bat mitzvahed as an adult, knew but would not tell. Schiff said he did not know, except for the fact that his cost less than his older brother’s did.

Did they remember “even one line” of their haftarah? (No.) “I remember having my voice crack,” Schiff said. Had they ever not fasted on Yom Kippur? (Yes.) Had they ever built a sukkah? “Yes!” said Rosen, sounding surprised she was able to answer in the affirmative. (Schiff was a “no.”)

What was their favorite Chanukah present? “I remember my favorite present when I was a kid,” Schiff said. “It was this self-winding car, you pull back a little lever and it would scoot across the floor.”

“We had the piano bench,” Rosen said.

“That’s what that’s where all the Chanukah presents were, so I just remember always going under… opening presents under the piano.”

After recalling how he set a favorite Gumby doll’s head alight with a menorah flame, Alexander then asked how their

Jewishness led them into public service.

Neither answer had anything to do with Israel or with religious learning.

Rosen recalled her grandmother discussing the “old country” and the sense of want she attached to it, and how her “bubbe” inculcated in her the idea that she should always reserve something for those less fortunate. For Schiff, it was education.

“My father, who is 92 and is watching us this evening, telling me how, the one thing they can’t take away from you is your education,” he said.

Alexander also asked them to describe personal experiences of antisemitism. Both their answers typified the experience of their generation – Rosen is 63 and Schiff is 60.

“I don’t have an actual memory of it but a memory of a story,” Rosen said.

Her parents “took me to Florida I think must have been about 1960 or so, and we were swimming in a pool, and somebody came up to my mom and said she had to take her daughter out of the pool,” Rosen said. “‘She’s a dirty Jew, you have to get out of the pool’.”

Schiff described the experience of a pastor’s candid antisemitism, expressed because the pastor did not realize Schiff was Jewish. “Look at the Jews, they don’t have their spiritual house in order, and they say ‘never again’ but if they don’t get their spiritual house in order, it will happen again,” Schiff quoted the pastor as saying.

“It gave me a window into how much antisemitism there is,” he said, adding that he informed the pastor he was speaking to a Jew.

FROM LEFT: SEN. JACKY ROSEN, JASON ALEXANDER AND REP. ADAM SCHIFF. (CREDIT: GETTY IMAGES)

jewishledger.com

ELECTION 2020: SHORT TAKES

(JNS) U.S. President Donald Trump is scheduled to attend a private fundraiser at the New Jersey home of Syrian-Jewish leader Stanley Chera on Aug. 9. Chera, a real estate developer and friend of the president, died in April at the age of 77 due to complications from coronavirus.

According to Yeshiva World News, which first reported the fundraiser, the cost to attend the event in Deal, N.J., starts at $5,600. It will cost $250,000 to meet the president at a roundtable, and $35,000 for photo opportunities and to attend a reception. Chera’s home hosted a fundraiser with Trump in 2016 when he was running for president. The fundraiser is not being backed by any official Jewish organization.

The Trump Victory Committee is hosting the event, which will include Republican National Committee chairwoman Ronna McDaniel, RNC co-chairman Tommy Hicks Jr., RNC finance chairman Todd Ricketts and Trump Victory Finance Committee national chair Kimberly Guilfoyle.

against Israel, or BDS. “In these times, it is important to be specific with our language and direct in the actions we take. In our current geopolitical economy, money talks far louder than speech alone,” the website said. “This is why nonviolent actions like the BDS movement are so important–and why the effort to mischaracterize and demonize the BDS movement by its opponents is so urgent.”

If Bush still holds these views, she is set to become the third BDS supporter in Congress; Missouri’s 1st District is solidly Democratic. The two incumbent BDS supporters, like Bush, are Democrats: Rep. Rashida Tlaib of Detroit (who defeated challenger Brenda Jones in her Michigan district’s Democratic primary on August 4) and Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minneapolis (who is facing a strong challenge in her primary bid on August 11). Tlaib, a Palestinian American, favors a binational state as an outcome of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Bush was backed by the party’s left, including the Justice Democrats group and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders. She failed in her first attempt to oust Clay in 2018.

Clay has been a congressman since 2001 and was preceded by his father, Bill Clay, a founder of the Congressional Black Caucus.

Clay who voted to condemn the BDS movement in a nonbonding vote last year.

BDS supporter Cori Bush defeats longtime congressman in Missouri primary

Rashida Tlaib, who supports BDS and a onestate solution, wins in Michigan

(JTA) – Cori Bush, a civil rights activist who has expressed support for the boycott Israel movement, defeated a longtime pro-Israel incumbent in a Democratic congressional primary in St. Louis. Bush defeated Lacy Gray by three percentage points, 48.6% to 45.5% in the primary Tuesday.

In a now-deleted page on her campaign website, first uncovered by Jewish Insider, Bush expressed support for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement

(JTA) – Rashida Tlaib, one of two Congress members (with Minnesota’s Ilhan Omar) to support the boycott Israel movement, defeated a challenger in her Michigan district’s Democratic primary as she bids for a second term. Tlaib was declared the winner against Brenda Jones, who had preceded her in representing the Detroitarea district. Tlaib, a Palestinian American, favors a binational state as an outcome of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Trump holds fundraiser at NJ home of late SyrianJewish leader

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JEWISH LEDGER

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AUGUST 14, 2020

9

Opinion

An Open Letter to Seth Rogen

BY RABBI BENJAMIN BLECH

D

ear Seth,

I know that you’ve never claimed to be a historian, a theologian, a philosopher or a scholar. You’re a famous actor and comedian. Until two weeks ago, you pretty much stuck to the areas of your expertise.

I can’t blame you for going on Marc Maron’s podcast to plug your new movie – after all Maron has more downloads than any cable show has viewers. Your new film, An American Pickle, is a pretty far out fantasy with a Jewish “hook” that might even have an important message. It’s the story of a simple Jewish man named Herschel Greenbaum who works in a pickle factory in Brooklyn, falls into a vat of brine and stays there perfectly preserved for 100 years until he comes back to life to be with his great-great-grandson Ben in contemporary Brooklyn. I have no inkling how you developed the idea but to my mind it certainly would make for an interesting opportunity to focus on the link between generations as well as the mystical and miraculous reality of Jewish survival.

Seems that was wishful thinking on my part. Seth, you spent an hour of prime time with many millions of listeners savaging your fellow Jews, misrepresenting Jewish history, defaming Israel and Israelis, slandering Judaism and, in your own words, testifying that “religion is silly” and “for the preservation of the Jewish people it [Israel] makes no sense.”

I can’t help but wonder how your grandparents who taught you about the reality of antisemitism would feel about your performance if they could have been “pickled” and returned to life like the hero of your film. What I can tell you though is the absolute glee of Jew haters in the aftermath of your hour of shame.

Mondoweiss, a left-leaning news website co-edited by journalists Philip Weiss and Adam Horowitz – two Jewish founders who describe themselves as progressive and anti-Zionist – reacted to your statements with the bold headline “Israel Is Ridiculous, Antiquated and Based on Ethnic Cleansing, Seth Rogen Says, But He’s Afraid To Tell Other Jews.” But obviously not afraid enough to prevent him from sharing his views on the most listened-to podcast in the world.

Seth, I don’t mean to swell your ego 10

JEWISH LEDGER

SETH ROGEN

but in a celebrity-driven culture such as ours, what you say matters, and what you claim as truth can unfortunately influence the thinking of countless people. You have an obligation to think before you speak and to have some familiarity with facts before you libel people. How terrible, you shared with millions, that you were “fed a huge amount of lies about Israel my entire life! They never tell you that – oh by the way, there were people there. They make it seem like it was just like sitting there, like the (obscenity) door’s open they forget to include the fact to every young Jewish person.”

I understand that you’re not a scholar, Seth. It seems that it comes as a shock to you that there were in fact people other than Jews living in Palestine. Let me explain that to you how that happened.

We just finished commemorating Tisha B’Av, the ninth day of the Hebrew month of Av. For thousands of years Jews around the world have fasted and observed a day of mourning. We weep for what we once had. Our ancestors settled in the land God promised to Abraham in biblical times.

There 12 tribes became a nation. There we had prophets who taught us as well as the rest of the world how to live lives of holiness, of justice and righteousness. And there we built a temple to the Almighty in order to bring His presence down to earth and His values and wisdom to serve as beacon for all mankind.

It was on Tisha B’Av that the Babylonians destroyed that temple and sent us into our first exile. But we wept by the

| AUGUST 14, 2020

rivers of Babylon and we would not forget our homeland. We returned and rebuilt.

We saw the glory of yet another temple.

And once again we learned that those who serve as the conscience of the world will be hated. The second Temple was destroyed by the Romans and in a striking coincidence – or as we see it the serendipity of God’s management of the universe – the date of the tragedy was once more the ninth of Av. Again we were forced into exile.

History had a remarkable sense of irony. The first Crusade was declared by Pope Urban II on July 20, 1095, leading to the death of 1.2 million Jews. The Hebrew date? Tisha B’Av. In 1492, the Golden age of Spain came to a close when Queen Isabella and her husband King Ferdinand ordered that the Jews be banished from the land “for the greater glory of the church and the Christian religion.” The edict of expulsion gave the Jews exactly four months to the day to put their affairs in order and leave the country. The Hebrew date on which no Jews were allowed any longer to remain in the land where they had enjoyed welcome and prosperity for centuries? Of course, Tisha B’Av. And yet Jews never despaired. We never gave up on our “silly religion” or our claim to our national homeland – a place, Seth, you seem to think we don’t need because we can rely on other safe havens in spite of our history of oppression, exile and Holocaust.

When Dr. Chaim Weizmann, later to become the first president of the state of Israel, met with Lord Balfour, former prime minister of UK, and explained to him the Zionist idea, Balfour asked him why the Jews were opposed to the Uganda Plan as a substitute for Palestine. Wiseman responded: “Lord Balfour, suppose that I would offer to you Paris instead of London, would you accept?” “But,” Balfour said, “Dr. Weitzman, London is ours.”

“That’s true,” Wiseman answered, “but Jerusalem was ours when London was still a swamp.”

Seth, maybe you really should study a little more about the history of your people. Yes, other people were in Palestine.

But even a Jew-hating world somehow miraculously recognized, first by way of the Balfour declaration and then with United Nations recognition, that amidst a sea of

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OPINION

Is resigning in protest becoming a Jewish tradition?

BY RAFAEL MEDOFF

W

ith her recent resignation from The New York Times, Bari Weiss joined a small but distinguished group of American Jews who have resigned in protest from positions of stature, choosing to sacrifice their selfinterest for the sake of principle.

Weiss, a prominent commentator on Jewish affairs and antisemitism, was hired by the Times three years ago to provide a more centrist perspective within an editorial staff that mostly leans further to the left.

In her letter of resignation, Weiss reported that she had been the target of “constant bullying by colleagues who disagree with [her] views.”

Weiss’ harassers called her “a Nazi and a racist” and harangued her for “writing about the Jews again.” In the Times’ internal discussion forums, she was “openly demeaned” by co-workers who said she “needed to be rooted out.” Even staff members who were “perceived to be friendly” with Weiss found themselves “badgered” for associating with her.

The Weiss resignation brings to mind a handful of others who have sacrificed

their professional positions for matters of conscience.

One was Mark Siegel, a former executive director of the Democratic National Committee, who served as President Jimmy Carter’s liaison to the American Jewish community. In 1978, Siegel was assigned the task of convincing Jews not to oppose Carter’s planned sale of sophisticated

Bari Weiss’ resignation brings to mind a handful of others who have sacrificed their professional positions for matters of conscience. military aircraft to Egypt and Saudi Arabia.

National Security Council briefers told Siegel that the aircraft were intended for civilian purposes, but when he shared that information with the audience at a United Jewish Appeal meeting, he was roundly booed. Surprised by that hostile reception, Siegel checked with the Defense Department and was informed that the aircraft in question were, in fact, “the

Rogen CONTINUED FROM PAGE 10

newly created Arab countries Jews had a right to at least a tiny sliver of land they could call their own, harking back to thousands of years of linkage, physical, spiritual and emotional.

The following story is probably apocryphal but its message is a truth, Seth, that should speak directly to your heart. Napoleon was once walking through the streets of Paris on Tisha B’Av. As he passed the synagogue he heard the sounds of crying and mourning. “What’s this all about?” Napoleon asked. An aide explained that the Jews were mourning for the loss of their temple. “When did this happen?” Napoleon asked. The agent replied, “About 1700 years ago.”

Napoleon was incredulous. “Certainly a people which has mourned the loss of their temple for so long,” he said, “will merit to see it rebuilt.”

This Tisha B’Av, I wept for the two temples destroyed and the many other tragedies that were the result of horrors inflicted on us by others. I cried for the insensitivity, the thoughtlessness and – I hate to say it – the stupidity of our own people. How painful that post-Holocaust Jewry fails to recognize that suicide may be just as destructive as murder.

Seth, would you allow me to guide you and to help you find out why you are so gravely mistaken about Israel, about Judaism and about the Herschel Greenbaum you really are in the depths of your soul?

I would welcome the opportunity to learn with you.

Respectfully yours, Benjamin Blech This article is reprinted with permission of aish.com.

Rabbi Benjamin Blech, a frequent contributor to Aish, is a professor of Talmud at Yeshiva University and an internationally recognized author, educator, religious leader, and lecturer. jewishledger.com

best-fighter-bombers in the world.” A few days later, Siegel submitted his letter of resignation and shared it with the press.

In an interview with The Washington Post, Siegel said that resigning in protest was the obvious step. “Whenever you’re in any kind of position in life and there are things you cannot do, you don’t do them,” he said.

Walter Reich, executive director of the

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, felt the same way. The “thing” he could not do was escort Yasser Arafat on a tour of the museum. State Department official Aaron Miller came up with the Arafat tour idea in 1998, as a way of trying to improve the terrorist leader’s image in the eyes of the Israeli public. “To many Israelis, among the worst of the Palestinian transgressions was Holocaust denial,” Miller later wrote. “What better way to counter Holocaust denial than by having the alleged denier in chief visit the museum?”

The invitation was first cancelled after a backlash, but then extended again.

Dr. Reich was ordered by the museum’s leadership to welcome Arafat and accompany him on the tour. “I refused,” Reich later recalled. “I told them the museum mustn’t be used as a political tool and I wouldn’t be part of that. I said it was a matter of conscience in a museum of conscience. I knew that such a refusal constituted an act of resignation. But I felt that the principle of protecting the museum – and, more importantly, the memory of the Holocaust dead – was more important than holding onto my job.”

Reich lost his job. Ironically, Arafat backed out of the tour at the last minute, when the eruption of the Monica Lewinsky scandal diverted the Washington press corps on the morning of his planned visit to the museum – thus confirming that he was interested only in the photo-op, not actually learning about the Holocaust, exactly as Reich had warned.

In an oped 12 years too late to save Reich’s job, Aaron Miller admitted that his Arafat plan was “one of the dumbest ideas in the annals of U.S. foreign policy,” but only because he failed to foresee that it would set off a storm of protest. Reich told me in an interview that Miller has never

apologized to him. In his oped, Miller did not even acknowledge the price that Reich was forced to pay for Miller’s actions.

Andrew Tarsy’s experience had a better ending. Tarsy, the New England regional director of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), put his job on the line in 2007 by publicly dissenting from the national ADL’s position regarding Turkey’s mass murder of 1.5 million Armenians. The official ADL line was to refrain from calling it genocide for fear of offending the Turkish government.

Despite the risk to his job and possibly career, Tarsy publicly acknowledged that the slaughter of the Armenians was genocide. For the sin of telling the truth, Tarsy was fired the very next day. “I was not the least bit surprised,” Tarsy told me recently. “But I asked myself, how can we sustain a recognizable moral tradition and presume to lead on any subject of significance in Jewish life or American civic life while being complicit in the denial of a genocide? I knew I could not.”

An outcry in the Jewish community resulted in Tarsy’s reinstatement, however; and the national ADL eventually changed its position and accepted the historical reality of the Armenian genocide.

Bari Weiss’ high-profile clash with The New York Times will no doubt make her unwelcome in some segments of the media world, and complicate her professional prospects. But whatever Weiss’ future holds, one thing is certain. She has already ensured that she will have what Mark Siegel, Walter Reich, and Andrew Tarsy earned with their principled resignations: a clear conscience.

This essay was originally published in The Algemeiner and is reprinted by permission of the author.

Dr. Rafael Medoff, the director of the David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies, is a historian and author of more than 20 books about Jewish history, Zionism and the Holocaust.

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JEWISH LIFE AROUND THE WORLD

Russia has a full-time surgeon whose only job is circumcising Jewish men

BY CNAAN LIPHSHIZ

(JTA) – The religious Jewish world has created some unusual jobs, from shofar makers to etrog pickers to mashgichim – kosher certifiers whose job is literally to watch others cook.

But one of the more bizarre surely belongs to Dr. Yeshaya Shafit, who is Russia’s only mohel, or professional circumciser, for adult men.

Shafit, a 56-year-old surgeon, travels across that vast country to circumcise about 10 Jewish adults every week, splitting his time between Russia and the United States.

A bris or brit milah, is typically performed on 8-day-old babies, as dictated by Jewish law. Adult circumcision is common for Orthodox converts to the religion and others who become more religious later in life.

In Russia, the adult demand is very high because many Jewish men were denied the procedure during the time of the communist Soviet Union, when Jewish religious practice was effectively outlawed.

Throughout the country, circumcision was not allowed unless it was required by a medical condition.

Russia’s chief rabbi, Berel Lazar, a Chabad-Lubavitch leader who grew up in Italy and settled in Russia in 1987, remembers a time in his new land when performing a bris required being part of an illegal conspiracy.

“There was a clandestine underground.

You’d show up at a designated time, get picked up in a car, blindfolded and taken to an apartment in Moscow where the mohel would wait,” said Lazar, who helped facilitate many of these procedures. The blindfold was to prevent men who were circumcised from later divulging, willingly or otherwise, the location and identity of those who helped circumcise them, the rabbi explained.

The conditions “were not great for surgeries,” Lazar said, “yet dozens of people asked to be circumcised.”

Fortunately, “nothing bad happened during those clandestine britot,” he added.

But as soon as the Soviet Union fell, “it was clear that we needed to improve conditions, and that included hiring an experienced, talented and motivated surgeon for this position.”

The procedure is much more complicated for adults, requiring a skilled surgeon who is qualified to administer

12

JEWISH LEDGER

RABBI CHAIM DANZINGER, LEFT, INTRODUCES DR. YESHAYA SHAFIT, SECOND FROM LEFT, TO JEWS AWAITING CIRCUMCISION AT THE SYNAGOGUE OF ROSTOV-ON-DON IN RUSSIA, JULY 27, 2020.

(COURTESY OF THE JEWISH COMMUNITY OF ROSTOV)

anesthesia and perform medical interventions if complications arise. Mohels who perform infant circumcisions are often not doctors.

So, in 1990, Lazar hired Shafit, a Russia native who moved to Israel in the 1980s. Shafit spent time as a hand surgeon at Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem, but returned to Russia to work under Lazar and as a representative of the Brit Yosef Yitzchak charity, an international organization affiliated with Chabad.

Founded in 1989, the group facilitates free circumcisions for Jews around the world.

Before the fall of the Berlin wall, Shafit would perform the circumcisions during his vacations. It’s a tough job involving much travel and time away from his wife and two children living in Philadelphia, where the family had moved about a decade ago in connection with the higher education of his children.)

Now Lazar’s Federation of Jewish Communities of Russia, a nonprofit that is the main organization in that country’s Jewish community of about 250,000, keeps a permanent clinic for circumcision in Moscow, where most Russian Jews live.

But Russia, whose land area is nearly twice that of the United States, has many far-flung Jewish communities, including in Kaliningrad in Russia’s far west and

| AUGUST 14, 2020

Vladivostok, opposite the Japanese shoreline.

His travel expenses are covered by Chabad emissaries who invite him over to perform operations or by Lazar’s office. And Shafit sees the work as a worthy cause.

“It’s like a vaccine for a person’s sense of identity,” he said. “Once you do it, that man will never forget who he is.”

Shafit has circumcised at least 7,000 Russian men since entering his post, with some of the procedures conducted at clinics and hospitals. Rabbis in each city – typically emissaries for the Orthodox Chabad movement, the largest organized Jewish group in Russia – line up several candidates.

Other times Shafit uses more unusual settings: apartments, synagogue back rooms or even a rabbi’s office.

For the more remote communities without a devoted clinic, Shafit came up with a cheap and hygienic solution: foldable massage tables.

“Economic, easily stowed, designed to be cleaned to sterility. Huge improvement,” said Shafit, a laconic interlocutor who during an interview showed a preference to discussing logistics over emotions or ideology. “You’ll find one in the storage room of most Russian provincial synagogues today.”

These arrangements were of no use during the coronavirus crisis, which hit when he was visiting his family in the U.S. He was kept out of Russia for four months due to the country’s emergency measures.

When he was finally allowed to reenter, Shafit had to self-isolate for two more weeks.

Meanwhile, Sergei Chernovol, a 37-yearold man who learned that he is Jewish only two years ago, was “climbing the walls” waiting for Shafit to travel to Chernovol’s hometown of Rostov-on-Don in western Russia.

“I made the decision, picked the date for March 27 – and then everything was canceled indefinitely,” said Chernovol, a renovations contractor who belongs to the Chabad congregation in Rostov and discovered his Jewishness after digging into the history of his maternal relatives.

The waiting was “devastating,” Chernovol said with tears in his eyes during a recent video interview.

His chosen date was the 100th anniversary of the death of the fifth spiritual leader of Chabad, Sholom Dovber Schneersohn, who died in Rostov. Two other members of the congregation were supposed to be circumcised at the end of an event commemorating Schneersohn’s passing.

Shafit finally made it to Rostov, where he circumcised Chernovol and the two others on July 27.

To Chernovol, the sense of urgency stemmed from the Hebrew-language meaning of the term brit milah – its literal translation is “pact of circumcision.”

“Two years after reconnecting with my Jewish identity, I had already made the pact in my mind and my soul,” Chernovol said. “But to move on and live the way I’m supposed to live, I still needed to do the actual milah.”

Getting off Shafit’s operating table was “a great relief, like a weight had been lifted and an obstacle has been cleared,” he added. “[The circumcision demand] is a symbol to how Russian Jews are connected to Judaism even after decades of repression,” Lazar said, “and the sacrifices they’re willing to make to establish that connection.”

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Around Connecticut Two bar mitzvah boys make a difference in Greater Hartford

H

ow can a young person make a positive difference in the world during a time of pandemic?

That was the question two West Hartford boys asked themselves as each individually mulled over ideas for suitable “mitzvah projects” to engage in as they prepared to celebrate becoming bar mitzvah.

“My son, Adam, initially wanted to do something related to baseball,” says Monica Gold, “but when the season was canceled because of the coronavirus, Adam had to really think outside the box. He got an idea from my sister, Robin, who lives in New Jersey, who had purchased a set of ‘happy birthday’ lawn letters and was setting them up at her oldest son’s best friend’s house as he was the first birthday being celebrated during the quarantine with a drive-by birthday parade. We realized that not only was this a beautiful way to recognize someone’s birthday during this time but, by renting out the letters, we could raise money for an important cause.”

Before long, Adam and his family were “renting” the birthday lawn letters for $25 a pop, setting them up on the recipients’ lawns after dark so that they would wake up to a welcome surprise. All proceeds were donated to the West Hartford Food Pantry

ZACH GERKIN SHOWS OFF SOME OF THE SNEAKERS HE COLLECTED FOR HIS BAR MITZVAH PROJECT.

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and Jewish Family Services Anja Rosenberg Kosher Food Pantry.

Kicked off on Memorial Day via social media, the signs became so popular that the Gold family eventually purchased three sets of birthday letters and one set of Mazel Tov letters. Adam had 50 booking in June and donated a split of the $1400 to both food pantries. By mid-June, he had more than close to 60 book scheduled for the remainder of the summer.

“It has been so amazing knowing that people that don’t have food are now able to get the food that they need because of the money that I’ve raised,” says Adam, who will celebrate his bar mitzvah later this year.

The true impact of his mitzvah hit Adam when he handed over the first checks to the two food pantries, says his mother. “Adam had no idea how many people come through the food pantries each week and how much he will help those with food insecurities,” she says.

Like Adam, Zach Gerken also had something sports-related in mind for his bar mitzvah project. Then earlier this year, his mother Jonna Gerken noticed a sign for a sneaker collection tacked to a board at the Mandell JCC in West Hartford. Monies collected from sale of the sneakers would benefit the Jessie’s Community Garden initiative, which honors the life of Jessica Lynn Kostin who died unexpectedly in 2010.

“We decided this was a win-win,” says Jonna. “I had hoped Zach would gain some humility in realizing how much we have and how such a seemingly small mitzvah could have such a large impact.”

There are 16 Jessie’s Community Gardens in Greater Hartford, each one donating at least 75% of produce harvested to local organizations, such as food pantries.

“I was amazed and humbled by the generosity of all our neighbors, friends and strangers,” says Jonna. “I’m still getting messages wondering if we are collecting.”

The sneaker collection was initiated by PJ Library of Greater Hartford as part of the JCC’s ‘Reduce, Reuse, Recyle’ Tu Bishvat service project, working with ‘Got Sneakers’ recycling organization.

“It was a good project,” says Zach, who collected more than 120 pairs of sneakers, “because we are helping people and the earth, keeping the sneakers out of landfills.”

Zach, who was to have celebrated becoming a bar mitzvah this past May, will mark the occasion via Zoom this summer.

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AUGUST 14, 2020

13

ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT

8 incredible Israeli shows y With the beginning of a tumultuous new decade, there have been some silver linings – it’s pretty clear that Israel is dominating the global television space today. Not even a pandemic can stop Israel from coming out on top.

I

BY BRANDON SCHUSTER

t’s no secret that for more than a decade now, Hollywood has turned toward Israel to look for new show formats that could be adapted well for English-language audiences.

Award-winning hit series adapted from Israeli shows, like HBO’s In Treatment and Showtime’s Homeland, have helped Israel become the third-largest content exporter in the U.S. over the past decade, just behind the U.K. and the Netherlands, an incredible and unlikely feat for such a small country, and one that only just introduced commercial television to its citizens as recent as the ‘90s.

Successful U.S. series with major Israeli ties – including Netflix’s Unorthodox and HBO’s Euphoria – recently received a slew of Emmy nominations. Unorthodox landed the coveted nomination for best limited series and both shows saw their leading actresses, Shira Haas and Zendaya, nominated alongside major stars.

Yet when Israeli television is mentioned today, one of two shows usually follows in the conversation: Fauda or Shtisel. These shows have become bona fide and critically adored hits on Netflix, well before the pandemic. In particular, the global success of Shtisel, five years after the show first aired in Israel, has led the beloved series about a haredi Orthodox family to be renewed for a new season that is currently shooting in Israel.

So what is it about Israeli shows that are so appealing and winning over millions of viewers from around the world? Even with smaller budgets to work with, Israeli series offer a unique cinematic appeal that most other television shows don’t have. The lack of budget has allowed for more focus on incredibly rich character development, brought to life by the Israeli and Palestinian talents behind and in front of the camera, 14

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that’s almost always rooted in conflict, a common theme that people who live in this Middle Eastern region face on a daily basis.

At the end of the day though, Israeli shows have one thing that most other shows around the world don’t necessarily have – chutzpah (even if that word has a completely different meaning in the Jewish state). Israeli series aren’t afraid to push the envelope and “go there.” And they’re certainly not afraid to be critical of their own country and downright controversial at times either. Look no further than the debate and controversy that HBO’s Our Boys spurred around the world (more on that below).

As COVID-19 has shut down production sets, North American broadcast networks and streaming platforms have been looking abroad to fill the void for new content in the coming months. A number of Israeli series have certainly benefited from this. In recent weeks, as a result, we’ve seen streaming platforms buying the international rights to and signing on as co-producers for some of Israel’s top series. Apple TV+ alone has added an unprecedented five Israeli productions and adaptations to its roster in recent months, including a limited series about Hedy Lamarr starring Gal Gadot, which was originally supposed to air on Showtime.

We’re at a very exciting point now when audiences and critics around the world are starting to discover that there are other fantastic Israeli series worthy to binge on beyond just Fauda and Shtisel. Here are eight Israeli shows that you might not have heard of yet – and that you should definitely start watching right now. Six of these shows are currently available for streaming here in North America, along with two other highly anticipated shows that you’ll be able to stream very soon.

themselves wrapped up in the high-profile kidnapping of an Iranian government minister from his Moscow hotel room. The only catch is that they all claim that they weren’t even in Moscow and that they do not work for the Mossad.

After False Flag premiered to roaring success at the Berlinale Film Festival, Hulu scored the exclusive U.S. streaming rights for the anthology series. But stateside, it largely flew under the radar until recently.

Many viewers have discovered the show in recent months after a handful of TV critics started pushing False Flag as a quality quarantine binge suggestion. Apple TV+ also recently bought the rights to produce an English-language adaptation called Suspicion, starring Academy Award nominee Uma Thurman. Filming for the new show started in March but was suspended during its first week of shooting due to the pandemic.

Stockholm (Topic / CBC)

When the front-runner for the Nobel Prize in Economics is found dead in his bed, his four closest friends scramble to keep him “alive” in the increasingly hectic days leading up to the big announcement. This Weekend at Bernie’s meets Grace and Frankie series is based on the popular novel

by Noa Yedlin and has been a huge hit in Israel, where it airs on Kan 11. The cast of this hilarious dark comedy is also comprised of Israeli acting royalty, including Sasson Gabai (The Band’s Visit) and Tikva Dayan (The Golden Girls).

In this high-paced espionage and conspiracy thriller, five seemingly ordinary citizens find

| AUGUST 14, 2020

After Netflix struck gold with Fauda in 2016, they knew that they had to carefully select what their next Israeli hit would be.

The result – When Heroes Fly – did not disappoint. The series follows four IDF veteran soldiers who reunite and travel deep into the Colombian jungle on a mission to find a loved one they presumed to be dead.

Loosely based on the popular novel of the same name by the late Amir Gutfreund, the show stars some of Israel’s highest-profile actors, including Tomer Kapon (Amazon’s The Boys) and Michael Aloni (Shtisel).

The series made waves when it won the top prize at the inaugural Cannes International Series Festival in 2018, beating out top global shows in the competition like Killing Eve and State of Happiness. One month later, it went on to become the most-watched drama on Israel’s Keshet 12. Just this past month, Apple TV+ announced that they’ve ordered an English-language remake of the hit show led by Academy Award winner Mark Boal (The Hurt Locker). The remake, which will be retitled as Echo 3, will begin filming soon in South America, just like the original version.

Confess (web series)

STREAMING NOW: False Flag (Hulu)

When Heroes Fly (Netflix)

Stockholm was the first-ever Israeli show selected to premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival, where it earned a ton of buzz and critical raves. Shortly thereafter, the CBC, home to the Emmynominated hit Canadian series Schitt’s Creek, scooped up the rights to stream the Hebrew language show during its fall premiere season. In the U.S., when the new streaming platform Topic launched a few months ago, it put Stockholm front-andcenter as one of its main showcase offerings.

Looking for your “after hours” fix? This provocative web series not only broke ground, but created quite the stir in Israel.

Confess is an anthology series that explores hook-up culture in Tel Aviv today and how dating apps have changed millennials’ dating and sex lives. Each episode is based

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you may not have heard of on the real-life confessions of dating app users and features the talents of some of Israel’s hottest rising stars, including Noa Koler (The Wedding Plan), Omer Perelman Striks (Shababnikim), and Ori Laizerouvich.

The series comes from one of Israel’s most promising directing talents, Moshe Rosenthal (Our Way Back). Two-time Academy Award nominee Julie Delpy (Before Sunset) is currently developing an American adaptation of Confess for AMC, the cable home to hits like Mad Men and Breaking Bad. You can view all episodes for free with English subtitles directly on Confess’ website.

Our Boys (HBO)

Set during the summer of 2014, Our Boys is based on the painful true events of the kidnapping and murders of young Israeli and Palestinian teenagers that led to the outbreak of the bloody 2014 Israeli-Gaza conflict. This series was a co-production between HBO and Keshet 12, officially making Our Boys the first Hebrew and Arabic language series for HBO. The series was written, directed, and produced by three of the region’s top filmmakers, all with diverse backgrounds: Hagai Levi (Showtime’s The Affair) is Israeli, Joseph Cedar (Norman: The Moderate Rise and Tragic Fall of a New York Fixer) is American-Israeli, and Tawfik Abu Wael (Last Days in Jerusalem) is Palestinian.

Autonomies (Topic)

In this gripping dystopian drama, we’re transported to a present-day alternatereality where the Jewish state is divided by a heavily secured wall. One side is the secular “State of Israel,” with Tel Aviv as its capital. The other side is the ultra-Orthodox “Jewish Autonomy” based in Jerusalem.

Autonomies comes from Shtisel writers Yehonatan Indursky and Ori Elon, who were inspired to create this controversial series due to the belief that the real-life conflict between the ultra-Orthodox and secular societies within Israel might be more destructive than the Palestinian conflict.

The show airs on Israel’s HOT and has become one of the TV provider’s most successful dramas to date. Some critics have called it “ultra-Orthodox society meets Black Mirror.” The series is currently available to stream in the U.S. alongside Stockholm on Topic. An English-language adaptation is also in the works and is being reformatted to use America’s own blue state-red state divide as a substitute for the original Israeli plot.

STREAMING SOON: Tehran (Apple TV+) The show ignited a splitting, emotional debate within Israel that was covered by the media all around the world. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu added to the debate by launching a boycott campaign against the show during the Israeli election, calling it anti-Semitic. Yet at this year’s Israeli Television Academy Awards (Israel’s answer to the Emmy Awards), it walked away as the big winner of the event, winning Best Drama Series. Over here in the U.S., the series was recently nominated for a Peabody Award in May and was named one of the New York Times’ top 10 shows of 2019. jewishledger.com

Israel’s hottest new show of the year, Tehran follows Tamar Rabinayan (Niv Sultan, Flawless), a young Mossad agent who is sent to Iran to hack and disable a nuclear reactor. When her dangerous mission takes an unexpected turn, she finds

herself stuck in the Iranian capital, where she rediscovers her roots and befriends prodemocracy activists. The electrifying new show is currently being broadcast on Israel’s Kan 11 and comes from Moshe Zonder, the head writer of the hit Netflix series Fauda.

During quarantine, Apple TV+ bought the international rights to the series outside of Israel in a multi-million dollar sale.

Apple has also signed on as a co-producer for Tehran and will announce the streaming premiere date very soon.

Losing Alice (Apple TV+)

In this neo-noir psychological thriller, we’re introduced to Alice (Ayelet Zurer, Superman: Man of Steel and Shitsel), an accomplished filmmaker in her 40s who struggles with her career after having a family. When she meets Sophie (Lihi Kornowski), an aspiring screenwriter in her 20s, she becomes obsessed with the younger woman and brings her into her life, both professionally and personally. But soon enough, Alice realizes that Sophie might not be who she thinks she is, and the decision to bring her into her world may have fatal consequences.

WHAT MIGHT BE NEXT? We know die-hard Israeli television fans are holding their breath for streaming services to pick up Israeli series like Shabbanikim, a comedy about yeshiva students; Muna, a Hebrew and Arabic language drama about a Palestinian photographer living in Tel Aviv; Transkids, a coming-of-age docu-series about four transgender teens preparing for mandatory military service; Nevsu, a comedy about a multicultural EthiopianAshkenazi family; and Your Honor, a legal thriller that stars legendary Israeli film actor Yoram Hattab and popular ArabIsraeli newscaster-turned-actress Lucy Aharish. The show has also been adapted in the U.S. and will premiere later this year on Showtime, starring Academy Award nominee Bryan Cranston.

However, two Israeli series in particular will most likely be the next shows to be picked up. The upcoming Valley of Tears, an eight-part emotional and action-packed limited series depicting the Yom Kippur War, was reportedly the highest-budgeted Israeli show ever created, costing $1 million per episode. On the Spectrum, a touching dramedy that brings us into the lives of three 20-something autistic roommates who learn to cope with the world around them is already a huge hit in Israel. Amazon just gave a series order last month for an English-language adaptation of the show, which features a leading cast of actors who are all on the autistic spectrum themselves in real life.

This story originally appeared on Kveller.

The show, which just premiered this summer on HOT, was created by Sigal Avin, who has widely been regarded as one of the top female filmmakers to watch over the next few years. She created this show as a “love letter for the still-too-rare female director.” Apple TV+ recently announced that they bought and will co-produce Losing Alice, only a few days after they made a similar announcement for Tehran. Apple will announce the streaming premiere dates for both shows very soon.

These are only eight Israeli series that are or will be available on streaming platforms across North America, but expect plenty more incredible series to be added to this list very soon.

(Images via Yes Studios/Kan 11/Dori Media/HBO/ConfessTLV)

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CT SYNAGOGUE DIRECTORY To join our synagogue directories, contact Howard Meyerowitz at (860) 231-2424 x3035 or howardm@jewishledger.com.

BLOOMFIELD B’nai Tikvoh-Sholom/ Neshama Center for Lifelong Learning Conservative Rabbi Debra Cantor (860) 243-3576 office@BTSonline.org www.btsonline.org BRIDGEPORT Congregation B’nai Israel Reform Rabbi Evan Schultz (203) 336-1858 info@cbibpt.org www.cbibpt.org Congregation Rodeph Sholom Conservative (203) 334-0159 Rabbi Richard Eisenberg, Rabbi-in-Residence Cantor Niema Hirsch info@rodephsholom.com www.rodephsholom.com Jewish Senior Services Traditional Rabbi Stephen Shulman (203) 396-1001 sshulman@jseniors.org www.jseniors.org CHESHIRE Temple Beth David Reform Rabbi Micah Ellenson (203) 272-0037 office@TBDCheshire.org www.TBDCheshire.org

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CHESTER Congregation Beth Shalom Rodfe Zedek Reform Rabbi Marci Bellows (860) 526-8920 rabbibellows@cbsrz.org www.cbsrz.org COLCHESTER Congregation Ahavath Achim Conservative Rabbi Kenneth Alter (860) 537-2809 secretary@congregationahavathachim.org EAST HARTFORD Temple Beth Tefilah Conservative Rabbi Yisroel Snyder (860) 569-0670 templebetht@yahoo.com FAIRFIELD Congregation Ahavath Achim Orthodox (203) 372-6529 office@ahavathachim.org www.ahavathachim.org Congregation Beth El, Fairfield Conservative Rabbi Marcelo Kormis (203) 374-5544 office@bethelfairfield.org www.bethelfairfield.org GLASTONBURY Congregation Kol Haverim Reform Rabbi Dr. Kari Tuling (860) 633-3966 office@kolhaverim.org www.kolhaverim.org

GREENWICH Greenwich Reform Synagogue Reform Rabbi Jordie Gerson (203) 629-0018 hadaselias@grs.org www.grs.org Temple Sholom Conservative Rabbi Mitchell M. Hurvitz Rabbi Chaya Bender Cantor Sandy Bernstein (203) 869-7191 info@templesholom.com www.templesholom.com HAMDEN Temple Beth Sholom Conservative Rabbi Benjamin Edidin Scolnic (203) 288-7748 tbsoffice@tbshamden.com www.tbshamden.com MADISON Temple Beth Tikvah Reform Rabbi Stacy Offner (203) 245-7028 office@tbtshoreline.org www.tbtshoreline.org MANCHESTER Beth Sholom B’nai Israel Conservative Rabbi Randall Konigsburg (860) 643-9563 Rabbenu@myshul.org programming@myshul.org www.myshul.org

MIDDLETOWN Adath Israel Conservative Spiritual Leaders: Rabbi Marshal Press Rabbi Michael Kohn (860) 346-4709 office@adathisraelct.org www.adathisraelct.org NEW BRITAIN Congregation Tephereth Israel Orthodox Rabbi Andrew Hechtman (860) 229-1485 NEW HAVEN The Towers Conservative Ruth Greenblatt, Spiritual Leader (203) 772-1816 rebecca@towerone.org www.towerone.org Congregation Beth El-Keser Israel Conservative Rabbi Jon-Jay Tilsen (203) 389-2108 office@BEKI.org www.BEKI.org Orchard Street ShulCongregation Beth Israel Orthodox Rabbi Mendy Hecht 973-723-9070 www.orchardstreetshul.org NEW LONDON Ahavath Chesed Synagogue Orthodox Rabbi Avrohom Sternberg 860-442-3234 Ahavath.chesed@att.net Congregation Beth El Conservative Rabbi Rachel Safman (860) 442-0418 office@bethel-nl.org bethel-nl.org NEWINGTON Temple Sinai Reform Rabbi Jeffrey Bennett (860) 561-1055 templesinaict@gmail.com www.sinaict.org NEWTOWN Congregation Adath Israel Conservative Rabbi Barukh Schectman (203) 426-5188 office@congadathisrael.org www.congadathisrael.org

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NORWALK Beth Israel Synagogue – Chabad of Westport/ Norwalk Orthodox-Chabad Rabbi Yehoshua S. Hecht (203) 866-0534 info@bethisraelchabad.org bethisraelchabad.org Congregation Beth El-Norwalk Conservative Rabbi Ita Paskind (203) 838-2710 Jody@congbethel.org www.congbethel.org Temple Shalom Reform Rabbi Mark Lipson (203) 866-0148 admin@templeshalomweb.org www.templeshalomweb.org ORANGE Congregation Or Shalom Conservative Rabbi Alvin Wainhaus (203) 799-2341 info@orshalomct.org www.orshalomct.org RIDGEFIELD Congregation Shir Shalom of Westchester and Fairfield Counties Reform Rabbi David Reiner Cantor Debora Katchko-Gray (203) 438-6589 office@ourshirshalom.org SIMSBURY Chabad of the Farmington Valley Chabad Rabbi Mendel Samuels (860) 658-4903 chabadsimsbury@gmail.com www.chabadotvalley.org Farmington Valley Jewish Congregation, Emek Shalom Reform Rabbi Rebekah Goldman Mag (860) 658-1075 admin@fvjc.org www.fvjc.org SOUTH WINDSOR Temple Beth Hillel of South Windsor Reform Rabbi Jeffrey Glickman (860) 282-8466 tbhrabbi@gmail.com www.tbhsw.org

SOUTHINGTON Gishrei Shalom Jewish Congregation Reform Rabbi Alana Wasserman (860) 276-9113 President@gsjc.org www.gsjc.org

Congregation Beth Israel Reform Rabbi Michael Pincus Rabbi Andi Fliegel Cantor Stephanie Kupfer (860) 233-8215 bethisrael@cbict.org www.cbict.org

TRUMBULL Congregation B’nai Torah Conservative Rabbi Colin Brodie (203) 268-6940 office@bnaitorahct.org www.bnaitorahct.org

Congregation P’nai Or Jewish Renewal Shabbat Services Rabbi Andrea Cohen-Kiener (860) 561-5905 pnaiorct@gmail.com www.jewishrenewalct.org

WALLINGFORD Beth Israel Synagogue Conservative Rabbi Bruce Alpert (203) 269-5983 richardcaplan@sbcglobal.net www.bethisrael/wallingford. org WASHINGTON Greater Washington Coalition Rabbi James Greene (860) 868-2434 admin@jewishlifect.org www.jewishlife.org WATERFORD Temple Emanu - El Reform Rabbi Marc Ekstrand Rabbi Emeritus Aaron Rosenberg (860) 443-3005 office@tewaterfrord.org www.tewaterford.org WEST HARTFORD Beth David Synagogue Orthodox Rabbi Yitzchok Adler (860) 236-1241 office@bethdavidwh.org www.bethdavidwh.org

Kehilat Chaverim of Greater Hartford Chavurah Adm. - Marcey Ginsburg Munoz (860) 951-6877 info@ kehilatchaverim.org www.kehilatchaverim.org The Emanuel Synagogue Conservative Rabbi David J. Small (860) 236-1275 communications@emanuelsynagogue.org www.emanuelsynagogue.org United Synagogues of Greater Hartford Orthodox Rabbi Eli Ostrozynsk i synagogue voice mail (860) 586-8067 Rabbi’s mobile (718) 6794446 ostro770@hotmail.com www.usgh.org Young Israel of West Hartford Orthodox Rabbi Tuvia Brander (860) 233-3084 info@youngisraelwh.org www.youngisraelwh.org

Beth El Temple Conservative Rabbi James Rosen Rabbi Ilana Garber (860) 233-9696 hsowalsky@bethelwh.org www.bethelwesthartford.org

WETHERSFIELD Temple Beth Torah Unaffiliated Rabbi Seth Riemer (860) 828-3377 tbt.w.ct@gmail.com templebethtorahwethersfield. org

Chabad House of Greater Hartford Rabbi Joseph Gopin Rabbi Shaya Gopin, Director of Education (860) 232-1116 info@chabadhartford.com www.chabadhartford.com

WOODBRIDGE Congregation B’nai Jacob Conservative Rabbi Rona Shapiro (203) 389-2111 info@bnaijacob.org www.bnaijacob.org

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Gantz: Israel to begin human trials on a COVID-19 vaccine in September

THE KOSHER CROSSWORD AUGUST 14, 2020 “Extinct Empires”

By: Yoni Glatt

Difficulty Level: Manageable

(Israel Hayom via JNS) Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz said on Thursday that the Jewish state will soon begin human trials on a potential COVID-19 vaccine.

Gantz, who visited the Israel Institute for Biological Research earlier in the day to monitor the early stages of the vaccine’s development, said a group of Israelis will start getting shots after the High Holy Days in September.

The institute, which is run under the auspices of the Defense Ministry, has recently said it has had promising results in lab testing for a potential vaccine. Some of those findings were shown to Gantz on Thursday, August 6.

According to Israel Hayom, the vaccine’s production line will be in Israel, but the antibody production – which is less sophisticated – will be carried out abroad due to high costs.

“Just like the Israel Defense Forces has special units that go behind enemy lines to clear the way forward, you are Israel’s special forces when it comes to vaccines,” Gantz told the institute’s staff.

The first phase of the human clinical trial will look to evaluate its safety. The second phase, which may get a green light even as the first phase is being carried out, will determine its effectiveness on a small sample, with the final stage involving widespread injections on a large group of people, while observing a control group, to determine its overall impact in fending off the disease among the population.

This article first appeared in Israel Hayom.

Friday, June 19, 2020 27 Sivan 5780 Vol. 92 | No. 25 | ©2020 $1.00 | jewishledger.com

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Across 1. All the empires in this puzzle controlled land here at some point 5. Mahershala with two Oscars 8. Oppressive empire in the days of the Maccabees 13. They were good with Lebron, not so much without him 14. Neighbor of Isr. 15. 1920s fashions in the 2020s, e.g.

16. Oppressive empire in the days of Moses 18. “I Love Lucy” neighbor 19. Strong wood 20. Stan or Bruce 21. Rate or evaluate 25. Oppressive empire in the days

of Esther 29. They’re often brushed (hopefully!)

30. Card in a cell phone 31. Alvin and the Chipmunks, e.g.

32. Big name in violins 33. Big name in cosmetics 35. Advanced in years 36. Empire that destroyed the first Temple 39. Org. that restarted late July 41. Torah measurements 42. Debra (Messing) role 45. Anna’s Disney sister 47. Trig function, in short 48. Mother of Yishmael 49. Empire responsible for many a pogrom

51. Playful marine mammals 52. TV channel with the slogan “Very Funny” 53. It’s dew, in Israel 54. Insects that eat clothes 57. Empire that dispersed the Lost Tribes 62. Japanese cartoon art 63. “No” in Edinburgh 64. Org. defending the Bill of Rights 65. Empire that destroyed the second Temple 66. 1040 issuers 67. They’ve outlived all the empires in this puzzle

Down 1. Kind of bandage 2. Make like a weeping willow 3. League with Dartmouth and Cornell 4. Egyptian cobra 5. AKA 6. Security breach 7. The ___ Ezra, Great rabbinic scholar 8. Actresses Garson (“Mrs Miniver”) or Judy (the “Ant-Man” movies) 9. Exam again 10. Biblical suffix after bring or speak 11. Preposition in poetry 12. Nidre preceder 17. Sony competitor 20. People often think an etrog is

this 21. Words between “one day” and “time” 22. Yeshiva alternative: Abbr 23. “Chilean” fish 24. James, of jazz 25. Makes like Ross Geller moving a couch 26. Archaeological tool-making period 27. Be in pain 28. Silent “yes” 30. Brawl setting in many westerns 34. How often “Shema” is said before bed 37. Community fitness centers, for short 38. What suspicious folks may smell 39. Jewish flame

40. ___-ray disc 43. Tesla, e.g.

44. Loc. where you might get stitches 46. Attack that takes your breath away 50. “A Doll’s House” playwright Henrik 51. Places with water in deserts 53. 49-Across ruler 54. Ding or dent 55. Yoko’s surname 56. Apple’s Cook 57. “___ ledodi v’dodi li” 58. “The Big Bang Theory” astrophysicist 59. Type of pick or pack 60. Baseball div.

61. Ns, in 8-Across

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IN THE KITCHEN ICELANDIC JEWISH COOKIES: A DESSERT WITH A FASCINATING STORY TO TELL

BY RACHEL RINGLER

This recipe originally appeared on The Nosher.

Y

ou’ve heard of the wandering Jew, but have you heard of the wandering Jewish cookie?

As Jews move from country to country, they pick up recipes, spices and dishes along the way.

Sometimes, even after a Jewish community is no more, their food remains, an echo of a world that once was. Such is the case of the “Jewish cookie” from Iceland.

Recently I learned of a cookbook, The Culinary Saga of Iceland, Recipes From the Shores of Lake Winnipeg, compiled by Kristin Olafson Jenkyns, a writer with forbearers from Iceland. Her book documents the history and culinary traditions of immigrants from Iceland who settled in North America at the end of the 19th century. Many of them moved to Manitoba, Canada, on Lake Winnipeg, where they formed a community that came to be known as “New Iceland.” In the section of the book titled “Cakes and Cookies,” following classic Icelandic foods like skyr, smoked fish, and brown bread, are recipes for cookies traditionally eaten on Christmas. Their name in Icelandic is gyðingakökur, which translates to “Jewish cookie.”

How did “Jewish” cookies end up in a cookbook filled with the food of Icelandic immigrants to the New World? You can be sure that there weren’t many, if any, Jews among those settlers 150 years ago. Yet, there are three recipes for Jewish cookies nestled between other traditional sweets like Vinarterta and ginger cookies.

Olafson Jenkyns is not sure how they came to be part of the culinary canon of the New Icelanders. Her guess is that the Jewish cookies came to Iceland by way of Denmark. For hundreds of years, Iceland was closely tied to Denmark; traders and merchants, some of them Jewish, moved back and forth between the two countries.

Perhaps the cookies came via that trade route.

And how did those “Jewish” cookies land in Denmark in the first place? According to Gil Marks, author of Encyclopedia of Jewish Food, Jewish butter cookies originated in Holland. Many of the Jews who were expelled from Spain and Portugal in the 15th and 16th centuries found a safe haven in Holland. There they merged, “… their Moorish-influenced Iberian fare with the local Scandinavian cuisine. Instead of olive oil, they used the butter found in great quantity in Dutch cookery to create small rich morsels, still called Joodse boterkoeke (Jewish butter cookie) in Holland.”

Until today, Dutch Jews serve those cookies on Chanukah and Shavuot and at other dairy meals.

From Holland, the cookies spread to Denmark where they became a traditional pre-Christmas treat.

As is the case with all immigrants, when the Icelanders left their homeland in 1875 for the New World and created the community of New Iceland in Canada, they brought their culinary traditions with them.

Gyðingakökur were part of that tradition.

“The cookies must have been popular for them to have made it from Denmark to Iceland to New Iceland,” said Olafson Jenkyns.

(CREDIT: GETTY IMAGES)

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In scouring through old cookbooks from the New Iceland community, Olafson Jenkyns found these three recipes for Jewish cookies – slightly different one from the next but all most definitely known as “Jewish.” One recipe was from a cookbook, circa 1915, from Reykjavik, Iceland. The other two came from community cookbooks from New Iceland from the middle of the 20th century.

In Gil Marks’ book, the Jodekager, or Jewish cookie recipe, was attributed to Denmark. His recipe is very similar to the Icelandic ones – all have lots of butter, all are rolled out into a thin dough, and then cut into rounds. And all are topped with a wash and a sweetener that combines sugar and nuts.

Are the cookies Icelandic? Canadian?

Dutch? Or Danish? No matter where you find them, the name is the same, hearkening back to a Jewish presence and the Jewish bakers who created them.

This recipe for gyðingakökur comes from The Culinary Sage of New Iceland, Recipes From the Shores of Lake Winnipeg.

Ingredients: For the dough: 2 1/2 cups flour 1/2 teaspoon salt 1 teaspoon ground cardamom 3/4 cup butter, cut into 1/2 inch cubes 1 egg For the topping: 1 cup cold, strong coffee 1 cup blanched slivered almonds, coarsely chopped 1 cup crushed sugar lumps (coarse bits, not fine) Directions: 1. Stir flour, salt, and cardamom together.

2. Work the butter into the flour mixture by rubbing it between your fingers, as if you were making a pie crust.

3. Beat egg with a fork and add to dough.

Combine well.

4. Wrap in wax paper. Chill thoroughly (at least 1 hour) until firm.

5. Roll out dough on wax paper until 1/8 inch thick. Cut in 1 1/2 inch rounds with a cutter. Brush tops with coffee; mix the almonds and sugar and sprinkle generously on top. Press down gently with your hand to help the almond-sugar mixture stick. Place on greased baking sheets and bake at 350 F. for about 12 minutes or until lightly golden brown.

Zach Banner tries challah and he loves it

BY MARCY OSTER

(JTA) – Zach Banner of the NFL’s Pittsburgh Steelers now knows what challah tastes like – and he can say the word properly.

With “a little phleghm,” the ZACH BANNER offensive lineman said TRIES CHALLAH. in a tweeted video of (TWITTER) himself this week.

In a recent interview, Banner said that after he posted tweets and videos embracing the Jewish community amid the anti-Semitism furor involving fellow NFLer DeSean Jackson, he has received an outpouring of love – including the delivery of loaves of challah.

That affection has also included donations to his B3 Foundation, which supports children academically and athletically in Tacoma, Washington; Los Angeles; and Guam.

So he was profoundly grateful when he heard that four sisters in NewsJersey who call themselves the Challah Back Girls announced that they would donate 50% of their proceeds for a week from July 13, and some challah, to the foundation.

Since early June, the sisters have been baking and delivering the bread and donating a portion of the proceeds to social justice groups, The Los Angeles Jewish Journal reported. They bake in their own kitchen and say they use all kosher ingredients.

“These incredible women have used their passion and love to raise money for a lot of organizations, especially the ones who are supporting the Black Lives Matter movement,” Banner tweeted in a video on July 15. “This is gonna be my first time eating challah bread and I’m so excited. God Bless. Thank you, ladies!”

On Tuesday, August 4, Banner tweeted a video of himself making his challah-tasting debut. He showed a preference for the coffee crumb version.

“That is fire, wow!” he exclaimed.

He said it had been a long time since he had eaten any carbs or sugar.

Along with learning the correct pronunciation of challah, Banner now knows to omit the word bread afterward – it’s redundant.

Responses to his tweet included the suggestion that he try gefilte fish and matzah ball soup. Someone also warned him away from raisin challah, calling it “the reason we all have trust issues.”

The Challah Back Girls, by the way, are diehard Steelers fans and have season tickets, according to the Jewish Journal, driving seven hours each way to attend every home game.

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Briefs Former NFL player Larry Johnson accuses Jews of pedophilia and more (JTA) – Larry Johnson, a former running back who played seven seasons for the Kansas City Chiefs, tweeted multiple times to his more than 147,000 followers over the weekend that a Jewish “cabal” is involved in “Human Trafficking, Sex Trafficking, Pedophilia, Ritualistic Child Torture, Perversion, Human Sacrifice/Murder.” As of Thursday, August 6, he showed no signs of apologizing, nor did he remove his posts.

Johnson framed one of those tweets as a response to Max Kellerman, the Jewish co-host of ESPN’s “First Take” show, who said on the air recently that “Jews do not have a plan for world domination.”

Kellerman was responding to social media posts by another NFL star, DeSean Jackson, who last month posted a quote he attributed to Adolf Hitler accusing Jews of having a “plan for world domination.”

Jackson subsequently removed the post and apologized.

The following is the text of one of Johnson’s tweets: A Racial Disparity I’m proud to be apart of… African Americans overwhelmingly underperform in the area of: Human Trafficking; Sex Trafficking; Pedophilia; Ritualistic Child Torture; Perversion; Human Sacrifice/Murder ...than the Jewish cabal @maxkellerman said don’t exist.

On August 3, Johnson posted a video of Alan Dershowitz speaking to the pro-Israel organization Stand With Us in which the attorney said, in part, “We have earned the right to influence public debate, we have earned the right to be heard.” Johnson’s accompanying tweet accused Jews of seeking to conceal “a lucrative market in pedophilia, human trafficking, child sex trafficking & torture.”

Johnson played for the Chiefs until 2009, when he was suspended for “conduct detrimental to the club” for a series of tweets using gay slurs. He was later waived by the team. Since February, he has hosted a podcast called “Sight to the Blind,” which its description says “explores the dark roots of our society and culture to expose deep secrets that remain untold.”

Johnson frequently quotes antisemite Louis Farrakhan.

An early July episode of the podcast is entitled “Anti-Semite.” The episode description reads: “This is not a war of races but a war of nations. If you don’t know who controls the propaganda in this war, how can you tell who is the real enemy? Those who are not a nation have conspired to keep the true nation of Israel asleep and will use race and Hollywood marriages like The

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Smiths to do it.” Another podcast episode description reads, in part: “What is the true nation of Israel? Where does the bloodline really come from? What is Satan’s scheme in today’s world?”

much more important to do it. And any fear I had about how Jewish a movie it was, I honestly thought that if there was ever a time to double down on this, now was that time.”

Seth Rogen: Israel should exist, but my critique of Jewish education stands

Nick Cannon reviews Bari Weiss’ ‘How to Fight AntiSemitism’

(JTA) – In a new interview, Seth Rogen said his comments about Israel being a bad idea for a state were made in jest but affirmed that he found his childhood education about the country, which he received through Jewish schools and camps, to be problematic.“I don’t want Jews to think I don’t want Israel to exist and I understand how they could have been led to think that,” the actor and comedian said on a Zoom interview with Haaretz reporter Allison Kaplan Sommer published Monday, August 3. “I was just not given a full picture of the situation and I understand it’s a wildly complex picture to give a child,” he said.

The interview came a day after Jewish Agency Chairman Isaac Herzog released a statement saying he had talked with Rogen about “the current situation in Israel,” and that Rogen had “apologized” for his comments. (The Jewish Agency is a nonprofit that works to bolster IsraelDiaspora relations.) Rogen told Haaretz that he did not tell Herzog that he could make details of their talk public. “I did not apologize for what I said. I offered clarity.

And I think [Herzog] is misrepresenting our conversation,” Rogen told Haaretz.

The new interview and ongoing conversation come nearly a week after Rogen discussed Israel on Marc Maron’s popular “WTF” podcast, and the pair’s comments sparked an outcry among many Jews. Rogen said he was “fed a huge amount of lies about Israel” as a child in Vancouver and that Israel’s organizing principle – grouping Jews together in one state – “doesn’t make sense.”

He clarified to Kaplan Sommer that the principle was “a joke I’ve heard Israelis make.” He also said that comedy inherently carries the risk of being perceived as offensive. “If you take any comedic monologue and treat it as though it is not based in humor, there’s probably some very questionable thoughts in there,” Rogen said.

Rogen, who reiterated to Haaretz his pride in being Jewish, also discussed “An American Pickle,” his film that comes out this week. He was on site shooting the film in Pittsburgh when the 2018 Tree of Life synagogue shooting occurred.

“It was, in a sense, very scary, but in another sense I remember thinking: I’m about to make the most Jewish movie I’ve ever made, probably the most Jewish movie that almost anyone’s ever made, in the wake of the most violent antisemitic attack in the history of America, in the same city. And there was a sense that it suddenly became

Nick Cannon and Bari Weiss exploded into the news within a day of each other this month. So perhaps it is only fitting that the entertainer, who found himself in hot water after making antisemitic comments on his podcast, ended the month by reviewing the former New York Times writer’s 2019 book, How to Fight Anti-Semitism. Cannon apologized after his remarks came to light and promised to educate himself about Judaism and antisemitism. In addition to meeting with a rabbi whose focus is on combatting antisemitism, he also committed to reading Weiss’ book.

Last week, he posted his review on Instagram, calling the book “an insightful and powerful read.” In his post, he said he had learned about Weiss – who resigned from The New York Times in an open letter that accused the newspaper of fostering a hostile workplace – because she had retweeted a story that criticized him. He wrote: In this insightful read, the words that stood out to me were “Anti-Semitism is fueled by the malicious but often feeds on the ignorance of the well-intentioned.”

Asking myself, is she talking about me?

Knowing that my intentions have never been hateful but recently I had fallen into the same category that the author despises and writes about like Henry Ford, Charles Coughlin, and more recently the abhorrent American Terrorist Robert Bowers, who on Oct. 27, 2018 murdered 11 worshippers at the Tree of Life Synagogue in the author’s home neighborhood in Pittsburgh, which ultimately inspired her to write this book. …

In her solutions to fighting Anti-Semitism she suggests building community, loving your neighbor and praising those who do the right thing, along with not ‘worshiping the group over the dignity of the individual in fear of worshiping another false deity.’ … So TOGETHER let’s bring Light into this world and get rid of what is known as its oldest hatred.”

Some of Cannon’s followers criticized him after his earlier apology, in a situation that Cannon said on Twitter last week had saddened him. While some commenters responded to his post Friday by criticizing his book review, many Instagram users, including some who have made a point of using the platform to educate other Jews about racism, responded by thanking him and even contended with his critics.

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Critics: Netflix’s ‘The Umbrella Academy’ promotes antisemitic stereotypes (JTA) – The Netflix superhero series “The Umbrella Academy” is being called out by critics who say it promotes antisemitic stereotypes. The show, based on a comic book series of the same name, includes an underground society of lizard people who secretly control the world and their handler – who speaks Yiddish in at least one scene.

The Board of Deputies of British Jews published an open letter criticizing the show. “The use of a Yiddish saying by the evil boss of an organization which controls the world’s timeline is clearly an antisemitic trope,” the group’s vice president Amanda Bowman told the Sun, a British tabloid, after the open letter was published.

“Whether intentional or not, this makes for very uncomfortable viewing. Netflix should take action to remove the racism from this scene.”

Jewish writer Katherine Locke told the Sun that she also believes the show, which co-stars Ellen Page promotes the “antisemitic conspiracy theory that there’s a secret cabal of Jews controlling or manipulating the world.”

“This scene played right into that. And I think the important part here is: some people will brush this scene off. A lot of people didn’t even see it … But there are two groups of people who will see it, and whom I believe are meant to see it: Jewish viewers, and antisemites. It felt like a dog whistle and a warning all in one,” she said.

The real-life modern conspiracy theory involving lizards who control the world is often associated with British writer David Icke, who draws from the antisemitic tract “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.”

Many took to social media to air their frustrations.

YouTube removes rapper Wiley’s channel over ‘repeated violations’ (JTA) – YouTube is the latest media platform to remove Wiley over what it termed the British rapper’s “repeated violations.” The decision to remove his channel comes after pressure by groups in the United Kingdom, including the Campaign Against Antisemitism. Wiley was removed late last month from Facebook, Twitter and Instagram following a series of tweets widely regarded as antisemitic and other social media posts.

Last week YouTube, which is owned

by Google, suspended monetization on Wiley’s videos. But on Wednesday, reports noted that Wiley’s YouTube channel had disappeared from the media platform. In one video posted by the rapper in recent days, he reads the name of a Twitter user and demands to know whether she is a Jew. jewishledger.com

In another, Wiley calls on “you,” appearing to mean Jews, to try to take his passport away so he can see quite how much power this “you” has, according to the Campaign Against Antisemitism.

4 men arrested for hanging ‘Hitler Was Right’ banner on bridge in Arizona (JTA) – Four men were arrested for hanging a banner reading “Hitler Was Right” on a railroad bridge in Arizona.

The men were seen hanging the banner on the bridge on Saturday morning, the NBC affiliate KPNX 12News reported. They were caught posing and taking pictures with the sign. The banner also included a link to a website that contained “bigoted and explicitly racist pronouncements,” according to the report. The Sheriff’s Office is not pursuing hate crime charges against the men, aged 27 to 38. They were charged with misdemeanor criminal trespassing since the area is marked as “no trespassing.”

Three are from Arizona and one is from Oklahoma, according to the report.

“People who don’t have a strong enough sense of history or their own identity gravitate toward hate communities that give them this little hit, a feeling they’re accepted,” Paul Rockower, the executive director of the local Jewish Community Relations Council, told 12 News. “But unfortunately this leads down a path to nowhere.”

Hundreds of musicians speak out after rapper’s antisemitic posts (JNS) Hundreds of musicians in the United Kingdom made a stand against “all forms of racism” following antsemitic social-media posts by British rapper Wiley. Popular names like Rita Ora, Niall Horan, Lewis Capaldi, Lily Allen and Little Mix joined fellow artists and music labels, in addition to industry figures, in signing an open letter titled “#NoSilenceInMusic” on Aug. 1. They said “whether it be systemic racism and racial inequality highlighted by continued police brutality in America or anti-Jewish racism promulgated through online attacks, the result is the same: suspicion, hatred and division. We are at our worst when we attack one another.”

The letter also read: “Minorities from all backgrounds and faiths have struggled and suffered. From slavery to the Holocaust, we have painful collective memories. All forms of racism have the same roots – ignorance, lack of education and scapegoating. We, the British music industry are proudly uniting to amplify our voices, to take responsibility, to speak out and stand together in solidarity. Silence is not an option.”

The letter was posted after Wiley, whose real name is Richard Kylea Cowie Jr., went on an antisemitic tirade a few weeks ago. jewishledger.com

ZOA calls on HIAS to end its ‘partnership’ with Hamas-linked Islamic group (JNS) The Zionist Organization of America is calling on HIAS to end its “partnership” and “collaboration” with the Islamic Relief Worldwide (IRW), whose leadership has made antisemitic statements and is banned in Israel for its ties to Hamas. IRW director Heshmat Khalifa, who has since resigned, recently called Jews the grandchildren of monkeys and pigs”; called Egypt’s president a “Zionist pimp”; and praised Hamas as “the purest resistance movement in modern history.” In addition to the antisemitic statements, the group and its affiliates also have well-documented ties to Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood.

In 2014, Israel declared IRW to be illegal, based on its role of funneling money to Hamas, and it is banned from operating in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The United Arab Emirates has also blacklisted Islamic Relief-UK and Islamic Relief Worldwide for its ties to the Muslim Brotherhood.

HIAS has worked with Islamic Relief USA and Islamic Relief Worldwide on different issues for several years. Its joint program with IR-USA, started in 2018, sought to provide legal assistance to mainly Muslim migrants into Greece.

In 2020, HIAS and Islamic Relief Worldwide announced a manual on “faith-sensitive humanitarian action.”

“IR-USA is the American branch of, and has extensive financial and leadership ties to and interchanges with, Islamic Relief Worldwide,” according to the ZOA, which “strongly urges that HIAS immediately end its collaborations and partnerships with the terrorist-affiliated Islamic Relief terrorist group.”

Israeli chemistry students win gold, silver and bronze at Olympiad (JNS) A member of the Israeli delegation to the 52nd International Chemistry Olympiad (IChO), held this year in Istanbul, became the first Israeli competitor in a decade to win a gold medal at the prestigious event.

Israel’s young chemistry whizzes competed against 240 youths from 60 nations, including Iran and Syria. Because of the coronavirus pandemic, this year’s IChO was held via Zoom. Roi Peer, 18, of Gan Haim scored a total of 90.35, qualifying him for the gold medal. Last year, he won a silver medal, and the year before that he won bronze. Peer’s teammates, Ron Shprints and Bar Sheffer, both earned silver medals. Team member Ward Yahya of Taibe scored 62.05, earning a bronze medal. The Education Ministry and the Maimonides Fund’s Future Scientists Center oversaw the team’s training.

Jewish, Black historical cemeteries vandalized in Virginia with Nazi symbol (JTA) – Two historic cemeteries in Virginia, one Jewish and one African-American, were vandalized with graffiti featuring “777,” shorthand for the triskele hate symbol.

The vandalism was discovered Monday at Richmond’s Evergreen Cemetery and at the Sir Moses Montefiore Cemetery in Henrico County on the border with Richmond. The triskele, or triskelion, looks like three interlocking sevens and was one of many ancient European symbols appropriated by the Nazis and later by white supremacist groups, according to the Anti-Defamation League. The “777” stand-in for the symbol was spray-painted throughout the Montefiore Cemetery, which was founded in 1886 and is the burial place of many Jewish immigrants from the former Russian Empire. Evergreen Cemetery houses multiple African American leaders “from the post-Reconstruction and civil rights eras,” including Maggie Walker, the first African American woman to charter a bank in the United States.

“These acts of hate degrade and denigrate our way of life. They are designed to stoke fear in the hearts of both Jewish and Black communities. We stand together with our Black neighbors in proclaiming that these cowardly acts have not, and will not break us,” the Jewish Community Federation of Richmond said in a statement posted on Facebook.

‘Harry Potter’ star Jason Isaacs talks about his struggle with addiction (JTA) – British Jewish actor Jason Isaacs opened up about his longtime struggle with drug addiction to the British magazine The Big Issue on Monday, Aug. 3, saying he first got drunk at age 12 and “by the age of 16 I’d already passed through drink and was getting started on a decades long love affair with drugs.” “Every action was filtered through a burning need I had for being as far from a conscious, thinking, feeling person as possible. No message would get through for nearly 20 years. … I think what would surprise the 16-year-old me is that I’m okay,” he added.

Isaacs, 57, born in Liverpool to Jewish parents who have since moved to Israel, is perhaps best known for playing Lucius Malfoy in all eight “Harry Potter” films. He has spoken at length about growing up in the Jewish community, and his experience with antisemitism as a Jewish teenager in London. “There were constantly people beating us up or smashing windows,” he told the Independent in 2013 about his upbringing in the suburb of Childwall. “If you were ever, say, on a Jewish holiday, identifiably Jewish, there was lots of violence around.

Israeli tech firm offers app to gov’t to track quarantined COVID-19 patients (JNS) Israel’s Synel, which develops technical solutions based on geographical location, has reached out to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Health Minister Yuli Edelstein and coordinator of Israel’s efforts to curb the coronavirus outbreak Professor Ronni Gamzu to offer an app that tracks the digital presence of people in quarantine without using their smartphone’s microphone or camera. The Harmony Smart application allows users in quarantine to supply updates about their location, matching their addresses with their physical locations or the physical locations of their devices. The only information passed along to the government is the location from where the report was sent, and the time and telephone number of the quarantined user.

Synel stressed that the app cannot access any hardware on users’ phones because it is based on GPS data.

In March, the company reached out to the relevant ministries and offered them the use of its app, but the government did not express an interest.

“Today, in the midst of the second wave [of coronavirus] with tens of thousands of citizens in quarantine, as a proud Israeli business concerned about the health of the public, we are again reaching out and offering effective, immediate help in enforcing quarantine for thousands of Israelis,” the company stated in a letter to the government.

Austria will allow descendants of Holocaust victims to receive citizenship (JTA) – Austria will allow the descendants of Holocaust victims to receive citizenship beginning Sept. 1, the country’s embassy in Israel announced Sunday, Aug. 2. Before an amendment to Austria’s citizenship law ratified last September, only survivors were entitled to receive citizenship, and then only if they left Austria due to Nazi persecution before May 1945. Ynet reports that tens of thousands of Israelis will now be eligible for Austrian citizenship under the new rule.

The application process will be free.

The amendment is “in line with Austria’s ongoing endeavour for reconciliation with all those who suffered under the totalitarian Nazi-regime in Austria,” Austria’s government website states. Normally Austrians lose their Austrian citizenship when they apply for citizenship in another country. Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz has forged very close ties with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over the past few years.

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BULLETIN BOARD Shop for Seniors in Greenwich Supermarketing for Seniors, a program of Jewish Family Services of Greenwich is seeking a volunteer shopper to work alongside JFS members Barbara Salop and Jenny and Zaac Lake. Supermarketing for Seniors helps local senior adults remain in their homes and maintain their independence by helping them with their shopping needs.

For more information, visit jfsgreenwich. org/supermarketing-for-seniors.

To volunteer, email ebrown@ jfsgreenwich.org with the “I WANT TO SHOP!” written in the subject line.

Virtual Havdalah service, Aug. 15 Congregation Shir Ami will host a Havdalah service on Zoom, on Saturday, August 15 at 7:30 p.m. A virtual oneg will follow the service. For more information, email shirami.info@gmail.com, call (203) 9007976, or visit congregationshirami.org.

“Super Tribe” Virtual Havdalah, Aug. 22 Congregation Beth Israel in West Hartford will host a “Super Tribe” havdalah on Zoom on Saturday evening, Aug. 22. Havdalah will be followed by a meet-and-greet for people 35 to 50 years old. For more information, visit cbict.org/calendar.

Museum of Jewish Heritage virtual programs in August The Museum of Jewish Heritage–A Living Memorial to the Holocaust, continues to host virtual programs while the museum remains closed during the COVID-19 crisis.

All events take place at 2 p.m. Suggested donation for each event is $10.

For more information or to sign up for the following August Zoom events, visit mjhnyc.org/events.

Family Papers: A Sephardic Journey Through The Twentieth Century Tuesday, August 11 | 2 PM For centuries, the Greek port city of Salonica was home to the sprawling Levy family – leading publishers and editors who helped chronicle modernity as it was experienced by Sephardic Jews across the Ottoman Empire. As the wars of the twentieth century redrew borders around them, the Levys were gradually transformed from Ottomans to Greeks.

Family members soon moved across boundaries and hemispheres, stretching the familial diaspora from Greece to Western Europe, Israel, Brazil, and India. In time, the Holocaust nearly eviscerated the clan, eradicating whole branches of the family tree.

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In Family Papers: A Sephardic Journey Through the Twentieth Century, prize-winning Sephardic historian Sarah Abrevaya Stein uses the Levy family’s correspondence to tell the story of their sprawling journey.

Author and Columbia University Professor of Israel and Jewish Studies Clémence Boulouque will discuss Stein’s book as well as Sephardic experiences during the Holocaust.

virtual festival to be held online Sunday, August 23 at 3 p.m. Participants will have the opportunity to meet other Jewish teens from Israel and around the world.

Teens can move between activities and choose which events to join: interactive conversations, art workshops, study sessions, gaming areas, mingling, plus live performances from youth bands and firstrate artists. For information, email Sharon Franklin at ujf.org.

“While we have been hard at work trying to keep our doors open and delivery trucks rolling, we are proud of our commitment to those in need and our tradition of giving by donating meals to frontline workers and Masks for CT volunteers” adds Abel-Berei.

To find out more about Neil’s Wheels Mobile Kitchen, visit www.abelcaterers.com.

“No. 4 Street Of Our Lady” Film Discussion August 13 | 2 PM Fran Malkin, her daughter Debbi Schonberger-Pierce, and filmmaker Judy Maltz will talk about their film, “No. 4 Street of Our Lady.”

Born in Sokal, Poland (now Ukraine), Fran “Fay” Malkin was 3-years-old in 1941 when the Germans invaded the Sokal region and shot and killed 400 of the town’s Jewish men, including Fran’s father.

Fearing for their lives, Fran’s remaining family fled to the home of a Polish Catholic woman, Francisca, who hid them in a hayloft for two years, while passing off as a Nazi sympathizer.

In 1949, Fran moved with her family to the U.S., where she went on to become a successful real estate broker. In 2007, she returned to Sokal with her cousin, filmmaker Judy Maltz, to a documentary about her rescue. At war’s end, only 30 of Sokal’s 6,000 Jews had survived, half of them rescued by Francisca. The film draws on excerpts from a diary kept by Fran’s uncle Moshe Maltz, and incorporates testimonies from Fran, other rescued Jews, and Francisca’s two granddaughters as they reconnect on a journey back to Sokal.

Book Talk with National Jewish Book Award winner Pamela S. Nadell, Aug. 25

The Board of Directors of the Temple Beth Israel Preservation Society in Danielson has announced that, in light of the current pandemic, the congregation’s High Holiday services will be held online this fall.

Noting that their difficult decision was arrived at using the CDC, the State of Connecticut health authorities and the Rabbinical Assembly as guides, the Board noted in a statement posted on its website that, “while the specifics of our holiday observances are still being shaped, we are excited about the creative possibilities and energy this situation presents. We will use recorded and live-streamed elements including singing and reflection. Our ritual committee is hard at work preparing our observances. They promise to be fresh, progressive and meaningful connections to a rich tradition. … We are excited by the opportunity to try something new and to achieve broader participation. Traditions begin somehow – perhaps we will discover something that will become a memorable feature of future holiday observances.

For more information, visit templebethisraelct.org.

“Demagogue: The Life and Long Shadow Of Senator Joe McCarthy” with Larry Tye Thursday, August 20 | 2 PM U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy was one of the most controversial people in 1950s America, championing an anti-communist movement that often gave way to antisemitism. In Demagogue: The Life and Long Shadow of Senator Joe McCarthy, bestselling author Larry Tye offers a comprehensive portrait of McCarthy based on the first-ever review of his personal and professional papers, medical and military records, and recently unsealed transcripts of his closed-door Congressional hearings.

Join Tye for a discussion of his new book and McCarthy’s complex legacy.

A Virtual International Teen Festival, Aug. 23 Jewish Agency for Israel (JAFI) invites teens, ages 14-19, to a creative and fun

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Prof. Pamela S. Nadell will deliver a virtual lecture on the topic her book, America’s Jewish Women: A History from Colonial Times to Today, on Tuesday, August 25, at 5 p.m. America’s Jewish Women is winner of the 2019 National Jewish Book AwardEverett Family Foundation Jewish Book of the Year Co-sponsored by The Emanuel Synagogue, the Jewish Historical Society of Fairfield County and the UCONN Judaic Studies Program, Nadell’s talk celebrates the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment granting women the right to vote, highlighting activist Jewish women, including some of those who fought for 72 years for women’s suffrage.

Nadell holds the Patrick Clendenen Chair in Women’s and Gender History at American University where she directs the Jewish Studies Program. She is a recipient of the university’s highest award, Scholar/ Teacher of the Year. She is also the author of Women Who Would Be Rabbis: A History of Women’s Ordination, 1889-1995.

To register and receive a link to the virtual program, visit jhsgh.org/virtualbook-talk-with-pamela-s-nadell. to receive a link to the virtual program.

Neil’s Wheels kosher food truck rolls in Neil’s Wheels Mobile Kitchen rolled into Connecticut last month. An off-shoot of the Woodbridge-based kosher Abel Caterers, Neil’s Wheels is a kosher food truck that offers a variety of food items – including thin-crust pizza, Mediterranean fare, fried chicken and sides, or a New York Style Deli – to celebrate weddings, bar mitzvahs and birthdays or to host fundraisers, school and shul events, and the like.

“We had been focused on simchas and conferences for so many years, but a kosher food truck was always part of the larger plan” states Meredith Abel-Berei, owner of Abel Caterers. “Although parties and events may look a little different these days, we can now bring our quality food experience to any backyard or parking lot.

Danielson shul to host virtual High Holiday services

Hartford’s Jewish agencies offer help to those in need The expiration of Federal Pandemic Unemployment Compensation and the devastating impact of Tropical Storm Isaias have over the past few weeks brought with them additional challenges for many in our region. The Greater Hartford Jewish community is here to help. If you or a friend or family member living in the Hartford are are struggling to make ends meet, please visit www.jewishhartford.org/get-helpcovid19 to find out how you can receive: to know that your Jewish community is here to help: • Bags of nonperishable kosher food items, provided by Jewish Family Services of Greater Hartford; • Emergency financial assistance provided by the Jewish Hartford Rapid Relief and Recovery Fund, administered by the Jewish Federation of Greater Hartford and the Jewish Community Foundation of Greater Hartford.

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TORAHPortion Re’eh

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BY RABBI TZVI HERSH WEINREB

his week’s Torah portion, Re’eh (Deuteronomy 11:2616:17), is read near the beginning of the Hebrew month of Elul – the last month of the year before Rosh Hashanah.

It is viewed as a time to prepare oneself for the process of divine judgment.

I became aware of the significance of Elul during my post-high school Jewish studies. It was then that a teacher, Rabbi Zeidel Epstein zt”l, introduced me to a spiritual approach known as the Mussar movement, which was inspired by a charismatic, scholarly Lithuanian rabbi in the mid-19th century namedIsrael Salanter. He was convinced that people were ignoring the ethical dimensions of our tradition. He insisted that one had to be very meticulous in one’s ethical behavior and devote extra caution to relationships with other people. He was also concerned with the lack of true faith, the absence of yir’at shamayim, fear of Heaven.

Thus, he developed a comprehensive methodology for achieving faith in the Almighty, true “fear of heaven.” He also formulated a program through which individuals could attain greater sensitivity to their own ethical behavior with regard to other people, Jewish or otherwise.

He placed special emphasis upon the month of Elul, when Jews approach the impending days of judgment; he realized that these days of the Jewish year represent the optimal time to focus on what we would call faith in God and one’s duties to his fellow man.

Rabbi Salanter suggested that to achieve emunah, faith – or to use the term he preferred, yir’at shamayim, fear of heaven – one must engage in moral behavior and character refinement. He maintained that only when we improve our relationships with others do we begin to connect with God. To illuminate Rabbi Salanter’s theory I refer to a passage from Fyodor Dostoevsky’s novel, The Brothers Karamazov. In it, one of the brothers, Ivan, states that “if God is absent, then everything is permitted.” In other words, without God, there is no reason to be ethical or moral, and anarchy reigns in human life. But Ivan Karamazov’s words, if inverted, express Rabbi Salanter’s insight very well: Instead of “If God is absent then everything is permitted” invert the words to read “If everything is permitted, then God is absent.” Meaning, God is absent in a society where men behave as if everything is permitted and

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there is no distinction between right and wrong. On the other hand, if a society acts in accordance with principles of right and wrong, and realizes that not everything is permitted, possibilities of faith in the divine open up. Belief in God depends upon righteous behavior.

Elul is the time to intensify and enhance righteous behavior in the individual and in society, thus creating an opening for emunah and yir’at shamayim.

In the words of one of Rabbi Salanter’s disciples, “Emunah (faith) can only be achieved through tikkun hamidot (character development).”

This insight is expressed in the wording of one particular phrase in this week’s Torah portion: “Observe and understand (shamor v’shamata) all these matters that I command you; so that it will go well with you and with your descendants after you forever, for you will be doing what is good and right in the sight of the Lord your God” (Deuteronomy 12:28).

The commentator Ohr HaChaim wonders about the first part of this verse.

Should it not read “understand and observe?” Surely it would be preferable to first understand and only then to obey. Rabbi Chaim Zaitchik, a devotee of Rabbi Salanter’s movement, wrote an essay entitled “Flawed Character Traits Weaken Faith,” which offers the following explanation of why we must first “do what is good and right in the sight of the Lord” and only then understand Him: “From this we gain the following guidance: in order for a person to achieve the precious quality of faith in the Almighty in his life, he cannot do so through intellectual inquiry. He must first rectify his ethical and moral conduct, laying down a foundation of good deeds and charitable acts, and then thereby develop a complete and strong faith. Only then can he understand the meaning of yir’at shamayim, only then will faith be revealed to him.”

As we advance from the advent of Elul to the High Holy Days, to the days of awe and judgment, we would do well to remember the teachings of the 19th century Rabbi Israel Salanter, and the teachings of those of his disciples, Rabbis Epstein and Zaitchik, who survived into the late 20th and even early 21st century.

We would do well to focus on character development and self-improvement in our ethical and moral conduct; for to the extent that we grow in our behavior to other persons, we will be granted strengthened faith and a more profound appreciation of the Ribbono shel Olam, the Master of the Universe.

OBITUARIES The Ledger prints a basic obituary free of charge. Free obituaries are edited to fit the newspaper’s style. Obituaries that those submitting would like to run “as is,” as well as accompanying photos, may be printed for a charge. For more information: j­ udiej@jewishledger.com, 860.231.2424.

AGDISH Melvin Agdish, 82, of Newington, died July 31. He was the widower of Sandy Agdish.

Born in Hartford, he was the son of the late David and Mollie Agdish. He is survived by his sons and their partners, Marc Agdish and Nicole Montipagni of Newington, and Matthew Agdish and his wife Ericka of West Bradford, Penn.; his sister and brother-inlaw Fran and Mal Abrams of Long Island, N.Y.; his brother-in-law and sister-in-law, Grover and Andy Fugate of North Kingston, R.I.; his grandchildren, David, Anderson and Molly; and several nephews and nieces.

EISENBERG Selma Eisenberg, 97, of West Hartford, died August 2. She was the widow of Morton Eisenberg. She was the daughter of the late Golda and Jacob Schachmer. She was born in Romania and came to the US in 1935.

She taught Hebrew school at Agudas Achim Synagogue. She is survived by her children, Charles Eisenberg of West Hartford, and Rachel Braun of Silver Spring, Md. KOFSKY Alan G. Kofsky, 55, of New Hampshire, died July 8. Born in Frankfurt, Germany, and raised Newington, he was the son of the late Sandra (Rosenwald) and Seymour Kofsky of Farmington. He is survived by his sister Mindy R. Kofsky and her husband Steve Zimmerman of West Hartford; his former spouse Tessie D. Dubois of Wallagrass, Me.; his companion Jillian Felleman of Southampton, Mass.; and many close friends.

LERNER Ann C. Lerner, 92, of Hillsboro Beach, Fla., formerly of Middletown, died July 28. She was the widow of Arthur Lerner. Born in Vienna, Austria, she was the daughter of on Moses and Sime Reitzfeld. After fleeing Nazi Austria in 1938 and living in Belgium and Uruguay, she and her family arrived in the United States in 1940. She was an active member of Congregation Adath Israel in Middletown, and Congregation Beth Ami in Boca Raton, Fla.; she is survived by her sons, Mark Lerner and his wife Inna, and Howard Lerner and his wife Lorraine; and her grandsons, Misha and Sammy.

NATKIN Yvette Natkin, 76, of Boynton Beach, Fla., formerly of West Haven, died July 29.

She was the daughter of the late David and Diane Natkin. She is survived by her brother Sheldon Natkin and his wife Geraldine; her nieces, Lisa Natkin, Heidi Natkin, and Jonathan Natkin; and three grandnephews and one grandniece.

SCHWEDEL Marilyn (Cohen) Schwedel, of Bloomfield, died August 1. She was the wife of Alan R. Schwedel. Born in Philadelphia, PA, she was the daughter of the late Hyman and Bess (Kesluk) Cohen. In addition to her husband, she is survived by her son H. Andrew Schwedel and his wife Erica Breckner Schwedel; her grandchildren, Daniel James Schwedel and Emily Claire Schwedel of New Canaan; her sister Janet C. Davidson and her husband Aron of Mount Laurel, N.J.; and many nieces, nephews, andcousins.

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CALL 1.800.852.8865 • 203.287.1593 • nolanshamdenmonumentco.com JEWISH LEDGER

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AUGUST 14, 2020

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BUSINESS & PROFESSIONAL DIRECTORY COMPUTER TECH

DRUM LESSONS

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MASONRY

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ROOFING

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Daniel S. Levine, CPA Certified Public Accountant

WITH ZAMAN ROOFING

You’re in Good Hands

n Roof Replacements n Roof Repairs n Gutters n Exterior Carpentry 24

Call to schedule your free estimate today.

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JEWISH LEDGER

| AUGUST 14, 2020

Individual and Business Tax Preparaion Low Reasonable Rates

860.729.6036

email: dansethlev@cox.net Willing to travel to residence jewishledger.com

CLASSIFIED

LOOK for these MAGAZINES in your INBOX!

To Place An Ad: PH: 860.231.2424 x3035 • Fax: 860.231.2485 Email: howardm@jewishledger.com

The Jewish Ledger assumes no responsibility for the product and services advertised

TRENDING

CELEBRATIONS • JUNE SENIOR LIVING • AUG.

MARCH JUNE SEPTEMBER NOVEMBER

PROFESSIONAL SERVICES

PROFESSIONAL SERVICES

REAL ESTATE

Caregiver - Willing to care for your loved ones overnight - Excellent local references Avoid nursing home or hospital in light of Covid 19. Call 860550-0483.

New England Jewish Academy in Greater Hartford - Preschool aide to assist our two dynamic lead teachers - Wonderful children and supportive environment - Hours are 11:005:00 M-TH, 11:00-4:00 on Friday’s with the exception of winter when Friday hours are 11:00-2:20. We are also looking for an art teacher who can work one full day each week. Please email your resume to zsilver@ sigelacademy.org.

FOR SALE- Delray Beach condo.

Over 55 community. Furnished one bedroom. Fabulous meal plan in dining room. Daily social activities & amenities. Gorgeous community, great location. Rare opportunity. $48,500. Call 215740-1165.

Tricia’s Cleaning Service - Residential & Commercial Detailed cleaning for Home & Office - For Free Quote call 860477-8636.

BLACK FRIDAY GIFT GUIDE: NOVEMBER

Kosher NEW ENGLAND

MARCH

Polish certified nursing assistant.

Twenty years experience in hospitals, nursing homes and private home settings looking to help your loved ones. Please call 860-803-6007.

Certified Home Care Aide - Live-in - HHA Certficate Experience with dementia, stroke, alzheimer’s - Driver’s License - References - Lydia 718- Home Health Aide - Two Years 864-7600.

Experience - Reliable - Livein seven days. References Mikael Poreshi - Remodeling & available, negotiable rates. Call Painting - 860-978-2505 - miki.

Kwasi 774-253-5479. pori87@gmail.com.

Driver available for shopping & Home Health Aide - Companion errands in the greater Hartford available for live in/live out Mon. area. Reasonable rates, senior - Fri. Valid driver’s license. Over discount and references 15 years experience. Excellent available. Call Ira 860-849-0999.

References. Call 860-796-8468.

Caregiver looking for full time CNA - 8 Years Experience live-in job - HHA/Precursor CNA Reliable - Own Car - Live-in 24/7 - 12 Years experience - Friendly, - Negotiable Rates - Please call outgoing, dependable - Please Tina 860-461-8692. call Janet at 412-527-9285.

Compassionate Elder Companion - Driver & Cook Beth: alifeofplantsandart@gmail. com.

All Things

JEWISH CONNECTICUT September MASSACHUSETTS December

For more information on advertising in these magazines, call Donna 860.833.0839 or DonnaE@jewishledger.com jewishledger.com

NURSE SEEKING POSITION: GETTING BETTER TOGETHER! Adult care only. Live-in, days or nights and weekends.

Responsible and dedicated caregiver with medical education. Leave message: 860-229-2038 No Text Please.

P.C.A. - HHA Caregiver - 17 Years Experience - Available Live In or Live Out - Five Days a Week - Car Available - Have References - Please Call K.B. 860-796-8468.

Nurse (LPN, Male). 2 Years Experience in long term care.

4 Years Home Care as CNA and Nurse. Seeks Private duty.

Reliable, honest, hardworking.

860-656-8280.

Caregiver for your elderly loved one available Thursday evenings to Sunday evenings. Kosher experience, stellar references.

Monica - 347-486-0911.

CNA with 25 years experience, reliable car, live-in or hourly.

References available, and negotiable rates. Call Sandy 860-460-3051.

For lease- Boca Raton, FL. Fully furnished 2 bedroom, 2 bath condo with kosher kitchen in beautiful Century Village. First floor, parking, pool & club house. Call Mike 561-654-4221.

WANTED TO BUY

Third Generation Jeweler - Gold & Diamond Buyer - Is Buying All Gold Jewelry - Sterling Silver Flatware Sets - Diamonds Over 2 Carats - Fast Payment Contact - mitchellrosin@gmail. com.

Collector looking to purchase coins and currency, silver, copper, and gold. No collection is too small. Will travel. Call 860951-5191 paprfred@aol.com.

TUTOR

Accounting & Math Tutor Retired College Accounting Teacher Will Tutor at Your Home - Call For Appointment 860-402-1201.

FOR SALE

Motorized KD Smart Chair rarely used - excellent condition - Call or text 203-710-0615.

CHAUFFEUR, WEST HARTFORD will drive you to New York, Boston, New England tristate area. Reasonable rates.

References. Call Jeff 860-7124115.

Have something to sell?

Have something to rent?

Have a service to promote?

Reach our highly qualified readers by placing your display classified ad in our digital issue with a LIVE link to your website!

Contact Leslie 860.231.2424 or leslie@jewishledger.com JEWISH LEDGER

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27

Deliveries are made in a refrigerated van and our drivers observe all safety protocols recommended for everyone’s safety.

Y

2020

OSH HASHANAH RO

Now Accepting Orders For Rosh Hashanah

M K

The Crown Market Is Pleased To Continue Our Connecticut Deliveries To Central Locations In: New Haven and Norwich

I P P

(Details and Times On Our Website)

High Holiday Delivery Date For Out Of Town Pickups: Tuesday, September 15th Order Deadline: Monday, September 7th 4PM We offer the finest custom-butchered kosher meats, delicious gourmet prepared foods, deli-sliced meats, sliced cheeses, holiday meal packages, from-scratch delectable baked goods, store-made artisan breads and hard-to-find groceries.

U The Crown Market R

2471 Albany Ave West Hartford, CT 06117

860.236.1965

www.crownmarketonline.com

L’shanah tovah tikateivu v’teichateimu

5780-5781

HKC supervises the Bakery, Five o’clock Shop, Butcher Department and Catering.

We’re not JUST kosher...we’re DELICIOUS! 28

JEWISH LEDGER

| AUGUST 14, 2020

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