Aaron HowardJewish Harold Voice
Jewish community newspaper serving the Houston and Texas Gulf Coast area since 1908

A bill before the Israeli Knesset that would give full authority for conversions to the Chief Rabbinate is causing a huge controversy in Israel and in the United States.The Knesset’s Constitution, Law and Justice Committee approved 5-4, on first reading to plenum on July 12, a bill that would give the Israeli Orthodox rabbinate a monopoly on conversions to Judaism. The bill must go before second and third readings before being brought to a vote in the Knesset and can be revised during the process.

Under current practice, Israel recognizes only conversions performed by Orthodox rabbis inside Israel. But, under the Law of Return, people converted by non-Orthodox rabbis outside the country are automatically eligible for Israeli citizenship like other Jews. The proposed legislation would give Israel’s chief rabbinate the legal power to decide whether any conversion outside Israel is legitimate.

The groups most likely to be affected would be about a half-million immigrants to Israel from the former Soviet Union and those who converted to Judaism abroad and could now be denied Israeli citizenship.

The bill, supported by various religious and right-wing parties, essentially would give the Israeli Orthodox rabbinate the power to decide who is Jewish and who is not. At the same time, it would delegitimize non-Orthodox rabbis outside Israel. Opponents of the bill say that passage of the bill would defeat efforts to promote a more flexible and Halakhic conversion process and would marginalize the non-Orthodox Jewish movements.

The bill has set off a storm in and outside Israel.

“I understand the concern of the Conservative and Reform movement,” said Rabbi Barry Gelman. “From the perspective of Israel, it is already a fact that the rabbinate controls conversions in Israel. They also have retroactively nullified conversions. They have already been notoriously well-known for deciding which conversions are good and which are not good – that is, not acceptable according to Halakha.

”Rabbi Gelman is senior rabbi of United Orthodox Synagogues and president of the International Rabbinic Fellowship, a worldwide organization of rabbis founded to promote Modern Orthodoxy and serious study of Torah and Halakha and to advocate policies and implement actions on behalf of World Jewry and humankind.

“The key here, which is why I’m not so concerned yet, is what this bill does is turn into law what, in fact, is already being done,” said Rabbi Gelman. “So, how much is really being lost in that part of the negotiations? That remains to be seen, which is why I’m not ready to stand squarely behind the bill.

“On the plus side, the bill would allow city rabbis in Israel to perform conversions without the need to work with the Chief Rabbinate’s rabbinical courts. That could help in two ways. One, which is significant, is it could help liberalize the conversion standards so that the close to half-million Russian immigrants who are of Jewish stock – if not Halakhicly Jewish – can convert. The new bill is taking an approach to conversion that would not necessarily require complete mitzvah observance.

“Second, the bill will generally offer a more realistic and, in many cases, a user-friendly process for everybody.

So, there is a lot of plus side.

“The American movements are looking at the bill from the American perspective. There are very few Reform or Conservative conversions done in Israel. This bill could be the answer to the problem that many people in Israel have been complaining about. But, because it may call into question some conversions done in Israel, it has caused an uproar.

”Because of the possible upsides to the legislation, Rabbi Gelman explained that he was not ready to condemn the bill. He was hopeful that Conservative and Reform movement leaders, who have arrived in Israel on Sunday to lobby the bill’s chief sponsor, Israeli Beiteinu MK David Rotem, will find a way to alter the language in a way that is more acceptable to American critics.

One important question raised by Religious Zionists: Does the Chief Rabbinate understand their responsibility toward making conversion a realistic possibility for these half-million Russian Jews?

And, a second question raised by the Conservative and Reform movements in the United States: Does this bill disenfranchise the majority of American Jews?Rabbi Gelman argues there are well-established Halakhic ways to make the conversion process doable for these Russian Jews.

“These are not necessarily methods we would use for individual converts,” he cautioned. “But because the issue of these Russian Jews and the future of their children as well as the future of the state is affected, the rabbinate should be exercising nationalist or Religious Zionist Halakhic thinking. They should realize their decision would affect the entire country.

“We have handed the keys to the kingdom to anti-Zionists.

“But, there are city rabbis who are Zionist. There are city rabbis who understand what needs to be done in regards to converting these Russian Jews. So, that’s why I think the bill has an upside for the state. I understand it has a downside for Reform and Conservative Jews.

”Danny Horwitz, rabbi of the Greenfield Chapel at Beth Yeshurun, has been a Conservative pulpit rabbi for 30 years. He views the conversion bill as a move fraught with political peril.

“Sometimes, power politics takes precedence over what’s best for the citizens – in this case, members of the Jewish people,” said Rabbi Horwitz. “The bill is designed to place total control over the definition of Jewish identity in the hands of the Chief Rabbinate, probably the most extreme ultra-Orthodox element in Israel with any power. Not only will this be a problem in terms of recognizing conversions, but in its current form, it could affect the status of people who want to make aliyah. The rabbinate has the desire to maintain control over conversions. But, they have also retroactively annulled conversions.

“The bill maintains a certain amount of power and employment within the ultra-Orthodox community. But, as we know, the current situation of the ultra-Orthodox community is not sustainable. A majority from the ultra-Orthodox community does not work. So, where does their money come from? It must come from the government. They currently have a certain amount of votes in the Knesset. But, I also foresee a situation in 10 to 20 years where you may reach a point where 50 percent of the people who are 18 years old won’t serve in the army.

”For Conservative and Reform Jews throughout the world, the bill makes no sense, argues Rabbi Horwitz.

“Given Israel’s need to deal with much more existential problems, it doesn’t make sense that Israel would create this kind of slap in the face to the communities of Jews who have stood behind Israel. That’s part of the reason why [Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu came out on Sunday against the bill.

“However, I don’t take it for granted just because he came out against the bill that it may fail.

”Rabbi Horwitz also views the conversion bill as harmful to Modern Orthodox interests. “In general, modern Orthodox have allowed the status quo in Israel to continue,” he said. “They have hoped they would remain legitimized – that their conversions would remain legitimized by the Chief Rabbinate. Now, many of them are having their conversions rejected by the Israeli rabbinate. In my judgment, if they don’t stand up for the rights of those who are being undermined, they will also be squeezed out of the business of conversions.

”What should American Jews do? Rabbi Horwitz suggests that U.S. Jews must make a separation between those existential issues and the conversion bill.

“We have to stand with Israel,” he said. “But, we also have to be willing to say to Israel: This is not the kind of Israel we want to see. You can’t expect young American Jews to support a people whose thinking is the same ilk as the folks in Tehran. When you have women attacked for carrying a sefer Torah at the Western Wall, that’s not going to warm the hearts of American Jews. It’s not realistic for Israel to expect that every Jew will give them a pass for this behavior and allow Judaism to be defined by its most extreme elements.

“Ben-Gurion said in 1939, when the British created the White Paper: ‘We will fight the Nazis as if there was no White Paper and fight the White Paper as if there were no Nazis.’

“I think we ought to fight the enemies of Israel as if we didn’t have this internal problem in Israel. And, we ought to deal with the internal problem of freedom of religion in Israel as if she did not have external enemies.”

By NORMA DAVIDOFF SHULMAN
12/08/2010

Jerusalem Post

This storied city known as Vilna, Wilno, Vilne – however you spell it and say it – was a place of spirituality and learning for Jews. Amost intriguing aspect of Vilnius, Lithuania, is that it’s “first you don’t see it, then you do.” You can walk along the winding streets and past small inviting houses in its Old Town, without realizing you are in what was the Jewish ghetto. Yes, it is memorialized by a sign here and there, but unless you know what to look for, you will see nothing. And if you know what to look for, a world awaits.

Vilnius is not what it seems – even its name. This storied city known as Vilna, Wilno, Vilne – however you spell it and say it – was a place of spirituality and learning for Jews. Scholars and religious leaders were so profoundly important to Jewish life here that Vilna was known as the “Jerusalem of the North.” Taken with the city’s charm and vibrant religious life, Napoleon supposedly was the first to pay it that tribute.

Visiting Vilnius can be delightful.

Compact and stylish, it has a medieval castle, intriguing Old World architecture, high-quality concerts and ballet, a variety of restaurants and accommodations in every price range.

It earned its status as a UNESCO World Heritage Site and 2009 European Capital of Culture. But, as on TV’s Betipul, Vilnius has secrets. Peel back the layers, peer into the past and become inspired.

There are fascinating traces beyond the faint Yiddish letters on ghetto buildings. Starting with the Middle Ages, Jews arrived here. By the 1700s, their numbers and influence became significant. Before World War II, Jews made up more than a third of the city.

Then the whole country seemed to disappear for 50 years behind the Iron Curtain; it was the first to break away from the USSR, in 1990. By that time most of its Jews were already gone.

Some had made Aliya, like the Litvak families of Binyamin Netanyahu and Ehud Barak. Shimon Peres lived 100 kilometers from Vilnius.

Before the war, there were a hundred synagogues and study houses.

Fifteen years ago Chabad opened its doors in an apartment house. The city has but one synagogue building: the Choral Synagogue in the heart of the ghetto. This Moorish-style edifice, with its blue letters in Hebrew, had a congregation with a progressive outlook when it was built in 1894. It allowed music, thus the name “choral.”

WHEN I WENT there to Shabbat services, there were initially so few people that services were to be held in a small side chapel. It seemed difficult to get a minyan. But Rabbi Chaim Burnshtein, who commutes between Vilna and Israel, told me they always have a minyan and hold services three times a day. “Vilna’s Jews don’t have strong roots,” he said, “but they have a strong sense of Jewish identity.”

Just minutes before we were to begin, the situation changed. Local tour guide Yulik Gurewich brought in a raft of young Russians to tell them about this beautiful synagogue with its domed ceiling painted with clouds.

The visitors wanted to stay for services, so the congregants switched to the main sanctuary.

As a woman, I was seated behind a lace curtain on the first floor off to the side. The young Russian women sat upstairs in the ornate balcony, also reserved for females. The Russian men prayed along with the locals on the first floor facing the ark and then turning around to face Jerusalem. Again things are not what they seem. The synagogue was used as a warehouse during the war, its contents stolen by both Germans and Lithuanians.

Today it is sparingly furnished.

Finances are a constant problem for this synagogue, as they are for the whole fragile Jewish community, which is subsidized by the Joint Distribution Committee and several other Jewish organizations. As Simonas Gurevicius, executive director of the Jewish Community of Lithuania, explained, “From more than 50 families before the [economic] crisis, now we have got more than 150 young Jewish families who are in need.”

After services, I made my way through the ghetto area. It is charm central! Cobblestone streets, smallscale buildings with folkloric motifs painted on window shutters. Store windows are full of tempting designer pastries, amber and luxury linens, mostly for visitors. Antiques and art galleries make up the rest of the shops.

Vilna’s one kosher restaurant, the Kinneret, sports white tablecloths.

Vilna’s past glories overshadow today’s luxuries. Old Town once was truly Jewish. In fact, one street is named Jew Street (Zydu Street). Another is named for the revered Vilna Gaon who lived here from 1720-1797. The Gaon’s house on Zydu Street was destroyed, along with others. Close by was the Strashun Library, renowned for Jewish scholarship. The Great Synagogue, built in 1572, was nearby. All gone, except for a few plaques! But it is what the plaques don’t say that is most important. During World War II, Jews not from this part of the city, were forced into the ghetto. People lived too many to a room, struggling to get by. The Jewish community was basically in prison, one in which contagion spread easily. These people were cut off from the rest of the city – its schools and culture. What did they do? The Jewish community started its own schools, set up medical clinics, created its own orchestra – even an active lending library. Songs of defiance, songs of hope were composed. (You can hear them once again at the city’s Holocaust museum.) The community held strong.

It kept its humanity and its desire to live. This besieged Jewish community created, lived, studied, taught, and survived– up to a point.

Statues of significant Jewish citizens erected in the last few years can be found throughout the area. One statue is of Dr. Tzemah Shabad, the community leader who, among other contributions, created TOZ, providing much-needed medical services for the poor. Another sculpture honors novelist Romain Gary, who lived here before moving to France. (Strangely enough, there is a statue of rock star Frank Zappa, who has no connection to the city. Citizens liked him so much they honored him.) At the Little Green House in town, more comes into perspective. This unassuming place is a Holocaust museum with a profound impact. Photos on the wall remind us of the talented and famous of Vilna: violinist Jascha Heifetz, painter Chaim Soutine and sculptor Jacques Lifschitz. Prominent artist Samuel Bak was just a boy in the ghetto.

This is where YIVO, the repository of East European Jewish culture and history, now based in New York, started.

Documents present straightforward facts. They are staggering. A German report lists the number of Jews killed in each country: 220,000 Jews were in Lithuania before the war, 3,500 after.

Today, according to the Jewish Community, there are 5,000 in the whole country – 3,500 in Vilnius.

Equally meaningful in the ghetto area is the Tolerance Museum, also known as the Museum of the Vilna Gaon. This building survived from the 1800s. Its incarnations reflect some history of Jewish life here. Early on, it was a soup kitchen for the poor – as the Jewish community always looked after its own. Then it became a small exquisite concert hall – concerts can still be held here. It has been beautifully restored in the last 20 years.

Today its glass and its gleaming floors help create an aesthetic setting for a museum of Jewish culture. You can’t help feeling proud to see what Jews created for their spiritual and daily life.

Strikingly crafted are sterling Torah pointers, colorful painted wooden plaques, memorabilia of the great Romm publishing family – numerous reminders of the rich center of Jewish learning and spirituality that typified Vilna for 600 years. Not just artifacts, but people and ideas, of course, made Vilna great.

SADLY, THE many deaths in this ghetto area was only phase one. One of Vilnius’s beautiful aspects became its ugliest.

Pine forests surround much of the city, peaceful, quiet, lush – so attractive that feature film producers use them for location shoots. But it was to one of these forests, Panaerai, also called Ponar, that the Jews were transported by the Nazis. Some were killed immediately and thrown into death pits. Others were forced to clear the bodies. More than 70,000 Jews were murdered. Large marble monuments attest to those atrocities.

Right by the monuments is a small museum. The exhibits are both edifying and horrific; victims’ shoes, photos, clothing, tefillin, remnants of papers and identification are on display. One story about forced laborers tells how they dug a tunnel to escape from their German captors. Chilling, remarkable accounts, like this one, known as the escape of the burner’s brigade, are still being researched and revealed.

The history of Vilna is sobering, heartbreaking and heartening all at the same time. Although much has been lost, if you go to the “Jerusalem of the North,” there is still much to be found.

By PETE YOST (Associated Press) – 10 hours ago

WASHINGTON — A federal judge has issued a judgment against the Russian government for its refusal to return a library of historic books and documents to a Jewish group.

Royce Lamberth, the chief judge of U.S. District Court in Washington, ruled that taking the material was discriminatory, not for a public purpose and occurred without just compensation to the Jewish religious organization that is suing, Chabad-Lubavitch.

At issue are 12,000 religious books and manuscripts seized during the Bolshevik revolution and the Russian Civil War from 1917 to 1925 and 25,000 pages of handwritten teachings and other writings of religious leaders stolen by Nazi Germany during World War II.

The documents seized by the Nazis were transferred by the Soviet Red Army as trophy documents and war booty to the Russian State Military Archive.

Last year, lawyers for the Russian government argued that judges have no authority to tell the country how to handle the sacred Jewish documents.

Under the U.S. Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, a sovereign nation is not immune to lawsuits in cases where property is taken in violation of international law.

Lamberth found that the religious group had established its claim to the material, which he said is “unlawfully” possessed by the Russian State Library and the Russian military archive.

According to court papers reciting the history behind the case, Russian President Boris Yeltsin once gave an explicit assurance to President George H.W. Bush’s emissary, Secretary of State James Baker, that the Russian government would return the library of religious books and manuscripts to Chabad-Lubavitch.

Lamberth issued his decision on Friday.

Nathan Lewin, a longtime Washington lawyer representing the religious group, said that the U.S. government “has always supported the return of these materials. I would hope that the State Department would not interfere with enforcement of this order.”

The State Department declined to comment because the issue involves an ongoing legal case.

JENNIFER PELTZ (Associated Press) – 8 hours ago

NEW YORK — The debate over a planned Islamic community center and mosque near ground zero became a court fight Wednesday, as a conservative advocacy group sued to try to stop a project that has become a fulcrum for balancing religious freedom and the legacy of the Sept. 11 attacks.

The American Center for Law and Justice, founded by the Rev. Pat Robertson, filed suit Wednesday to challenge a city panel’s decision to let developers tear down a building to make way for the mosque two blocks from ground zero.

The city Landmarks Preservation Commission moved too fast in making a decision, underappreciated the building’s historic value and “allowed the intended use of the building and political considerations to taint the deliberative process,” lawyer Brett Joshpe wrote in papers filed in a Manhattan state court. The Washington, D.C.-based group represents a firefighter who responded to and survived the terrorist attack at the World Trade Center.

City attorneys are confident the landmarks group adhered to legal standards and procedures, Law Department spokeswoman Kate O’Brien Ahlers said. A spokesman for the planned Islamic center, Oz Sultan, declined to comment on the lawsuit but said organizers were continuing to work toward choosing an architect.

The mosque has become a national political flashpoint, pitting several influential Republicans and the nation’s most prominent Jewish civil rights group against New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and others. In one of the latest signs of the issue’s political reach beyond Manhattan, Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick expressed support Wednesday for the proposed mosque.

The group behind the $100 million project, the Cordoba Initiative, describes it as a Muslim-themed community center. Early plans call not only for prayer space but for a swimming pool, culinary school, art studios and other features. Developers envision it as a hub for interfaith interaction, as well as a place for Muslims to bridge some of their faith’s own schisms.

“We want to create a model that shows the world that you can develop moderate Muslim communities,” Sultan said Wednesday. “We would admonish people to, at least, give us a fair shake.”

Opponents, including some Sept. 11 victims’ relatives, see the prospect of a mosque so near the destroyed trade center as an insult to the memory of the nearly 3,000 people killed by Islamic terrorists in the 2001 attacks. Shouts of “shame on you!” erupted from the audience after the city panel voted Tuesday to deny landmark protection to the existing building, saying the 152-year-old structure wasn’t distinctive enough.

Big-name Republicans including former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich have criticized the plan — as has the Anti-Defamation League, a Jewish civil rights group known for advocating religious freedom.

Former Rep. Rick Lazio, a Republican running for governor of New York, has raised questions about the Cordoba Initiative’s imam, Feisal Abdul Rauf. In a “60 Minutes” interview televised shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks, Rauf said that “United States policies were an accessory to the crime that happened.”

But supporters of the planned Islamic center see it as a monument to tolerance and religious liberty.

“The World Trade Center site will forever hold a special place in our city, in our hearts,” Bloomberg, a Republican-turned-independent, said Tuesday. “But we would be untrue to the best part of ourselves, and who we are as New Yorkers and Americans, if we said no to a mosque in lower Manhattan.”

For now, the court case centers on the legalities of the landmarks commission’s vote, which the lawsuit seeks to overturn.

The existing, Italianate building was built for shipping magnates and later occupied by the pharmaceuticals giant Merck & Co., among other businesses.

The law center argues it deserves landmark status for its architectural features — and for its newer historical significance as a structure that withstood being hit by debris from one of the hijacked jetliners used in the terrorist attacks.

“The building is the only building of its kind that links the growth of American free enterprise to the present-day events and the aftermath of Sept. 11, 2001, events which stand as a testament to economic, social and political freedom in the face of violence,” Joshpe wrote.

Op-ed: EU hostile to Jewish State because Israel’s success flaunts Europe’s failure

YNET NEWS
Moshe Dann 

Antipathy for Israel among Europeans is increasing and alarming as campaigns of de-legitimization and vilification spread across the world, fueled by Muslim propaganda and money, whetted by the hunger for oil. Even once friendly European countries, those that helped establish the State of Israel and tried to assist Jews during the Holocaust, have become more hostile towards Israel. Europe’s brief love affair with Israel seems over. Why?

Yoram Hazony, director of Jerusalem’s Shalem Center, offers a unique and compelling perspective:

“The path of national self-determination … lies beneath the nearly boundless disgust so many feel towards Israel, and especially toward anything having to do with Israel’s attempts to defend itself… It is driven by the rapid advance of a new paradigm that understands Israel, and especially the independent Israeli use of force to defend itself, as illegitimate down to its foundations.”

Still, this does not explain why the right of self-defense, sacrosanct and enshrined in national and international law, does not apply to Israel.

For Europeans today, who did not experience the Holocaust, Israel is a constant reminder of their complicity and guilt in the genocide of Jews. They want to forget it; Israel can’t.

Before and after World War II, the Soviet Union slaughtered, persecuted and enslaved Jews in gulags, sponsored and trained Arab terrorists, and attempted to wipe out Judaism. Eventually, the barriers fell, Jews emigrated, and the USSR folded and became the FSU.

Every time we force European dignitaries to visit Yad Vashem, we rub their noses in what they allowed; a return to scenes of their crimes. We make them pay when they see how vibrant we are and - the ultimate snub, except for Russia - with an army more powerful than their own!

Deliberately, methodically, Europe became Judenrein; instead it has mosques and veils, and primitive Islamic laws to worry about.

Europe rid itself of most of its Jews - some escaped, built a country, and now Israel has a more stable economy than theirs. What an indignity that those whom you punished and persecuted for so long sing and dance before you, and make you pay to see their heritage revealed in archeological sites.

Let Arabs do dirty work

For 2,000 years, Europe expelled or murdered Jews, stole their property, tried to crush their spirit, and yet, they came back even stronger. Jews are on the cutting-edge of everything, while Europe can’t seem to find the tools. It doesn’t make sense.

Jews were supposed to be finished off in ghettos, gas ovens, and slave labor prisons. That didn’t work. Ok, give them a state and let the Arabs, generously supplied by most European governments and corporations, finish them off; that didn’t work either.

Ok, Oslo, a diplomatic coup, land-for-nothing: still undecided. Welcome Iran to do the job, its nuclear reactors built by Russians, French and Germans, financed by the ever-neutral Swiss; well, maybe that will work.

Israel’s success flaunts Europe’s failure. And, despite European economies going down the tubes, EU countries still fund Arab Palestinian hate groups and rescue terrorists. Having used the most powerful forces in the world to eliminate the Jewish people, Europeans must feel frustrated at the audacity of Jews, not only to defend themselves, but to survive as Jews, forcing their leaders to salute a flag that bears a Jewish symbol, and shake hands with Jewish generals.

Instead of their traditional Jew-hatred, Europeans smile, and slip cash to the Arabs to do their dirty work. Condemning Israel is easier than feeling shame.

Jews in Israel are a traumatized people. Traumatized by the Holocaust and by constant Arab terrorism, we are also traumatized by our own leaders who, in the name of peace, emboldened our sworn enemies and exposed us to their murderous efforts. And many Israeli academics never lose an opportunity to condemn the country that pays their salaries. Israel’s media often operate as propaganda machines for the Left.

How Europeans must relish their bigotry when they see Israeli political cartoons, opinion pieces (as “news”), literature and art that depict Israelis as vicious, Jews as despicable, and Judaism as worthless.

Ach, Europe, how you must shiver with humiliation when you need Israeli-produced technology, science and medicine. What angst overtakes you when you must decide whether to boycott Israeli fruit and vegetables, or enjoy them.

Like a supposedly dispatched victim, Israel comes back to haunt Europe, not only to confront it with its strength, but ablaze with Jewishness. What an indignity for Europeans to see flourishing Jewish communities instead of piled corpses, bones of those buried in mass execution pits renewed in Israeli children.

Europe hates Jews, finally, because it hates itself; it knows what European civilization allowed, permitted, and condoned. “Never Again” is the Jewish password; Europeans know it can.

By JIM HEINTZ (AP) – 13 hours ago

Then, tendrils of the acrid smoke from the peat-bog fires surrounding the city wafted in, bringing nausea and dry-mouth.

The recommendation of Russia’s top doctor to hang wet sheets at the windows to block the smoke just makes the rooms more stifling. With no end in sight to the misery, another doctor’s advice may be the only one thing that brings relief — think as little as possible.

In my 11 years in Moscow, the most frequent question from friends abroad has been “Aren’t the winters tough?” Maybe so. But Russians handle winter with aplomb — fur hats, afternoons in steamy bathhouses, long evenings gulping warming vodka around the table in toasty kitchens.

The country’s not geared for summer, however.

Air conditioning is rare, many apartments are laid out in a way that discourages air circulation, and their brick and concrete walls tend to hold heat like a pottery kiln.

Even appliances aren’t up to coping with heat: a colleague complained with amused outrage that the ice in her freezer was melting.

Usually these summer snags are little more than a brief irritation; a few days of 30 C (85 F) heat, followed by rains that cool things off to around 23 (75 F). This year is different — several unbroken weeks of temperatures as high as 38 (100 F).

Moscow, a city that has beaten back huge military assaults and survived horrifying terrorist attacks, is under a quiet siege that it seems helpless to repel.

Moscow’s aggressive and autocratic mayor, Yuri Luzhkov, in the past has made headlines by claiming the ability to control the weather, seeding clouds on the city’s outskirts to ensure that rain doesn’t spoil parades and ceremonies. He can’t be a rainmaker this summer — climate scientists say there isn’t enough moisture in the air to create rain artificially.

Subway riders, generally docile even in the system’s appalling crowds, have suddenly grown restive, demanding that authorities start putting air conditioning on the trains. Each day the rides become worse, as trains acting like giant pistons suck smoke from the outskirts’ fires into center-city stations.

The official response hasn’t brought peace of mind. The Emergencies Ministry announced it was buying more firefighting planes — Russian-made Be-200s that the ministry touts as the best in the world for the job — but they won’t be ready for years.

State-controlled television news shows plodding footage of leaders meeting with officials and telling them to work diligently. President Dmitry Medvedev this week pointedly told the country that even though he was in the resort city of Sochi, he wasn’t on vacation.

Relentless heat, thickening smoke, dubious officialdom — it’s a lot to have on one’s mind, and a prominent Russian physician warns that worrying about it all could be dangerous.

“It’s been shown that mental activity in the heat unfavorably affects the nervous system,” Igor Stupakov, deputy director of the Russian Academy of Medicine’s Bakulev heart surgery center, was quoted as saying by the ITAR-Tass news agency.

But it’s hard not to think about it. The usual Russian strategies for escape are dachas and drinking, but neither seem attractive this summer. Dachas can be lovely, but only if the forests around them aren’t on fire. Personal experience suggests that the morning-after effects of a few drinks are significantly aggravated by a night of breathing in peat smoke.

And thinking actually can help Muscovites get through the heat, at least in the cold-comfort sense of realizing that much of the country has it worse. The city’s not in flames. Residents are trudging and griping, but not yet fleeing and weeping like thousands of people in the fire zones.

That point came home this week in the office, when I was sweating and griping after a 10-minute walk from the grocery store. A colleague who had spent the day amid fires about 150 kilometers (100 miles) outside the city came in and exclaimed:

“Moscow smells great!”

NY TIMES

To the Editor:

Alana Newhouse’s compelling Op-Ed article, “The Diaspora Need Not Apply” (July 16), addresses issues arising from proposed legislation regarding conversion in the State of Israel.

The impetus behind this bill, it must be stressed, was humanitarian — to facilitate the conversion of tens of thousands of Israelis, most of them immigrants from the former Soviet Union or their Israeli-born children.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, while supporting this goal, has objected to the bill as it is currently presented on the grounds that it may cause divisions within the Jewish people. The prime minister has reiterated his commitment to engage diaspora Jewish and Israeli leaders in a dialogue to achieve the largest possible consensus on conversion and to strengthen Jewish unity worldwide.

Jonathan Peled
Spokesman, Embassy of Israel
Washington, July 19, 2010 

•

To the Editor:

The essay about a bill granting ultra-Orthodox rabbis in Israel authority over conversions to Judaism reminds us that all religions are obsessed with the question of who is the “real” adherent.

But while Jews ask, “Who is the real Jew?” and Christians ask, “Who is the real Christian?” I ask, “Who cares, really?”

If one believes in God, then God knows who we really are without our wearing religious identification tags. And if the point is that God may know who we are but we ourselves need help knowing who our neighbors are, I cannot do better than quote the words attributed to a Jew who became identified with Christianity: “By their fruits you shall know them.” People are defined by their acts, not their membership in this or that religion.

Steven Tiger
Philadelphia, July 16, 2010

•

To the Editor:

As Alana Newhouse points out, “almost no one” will be considered a Jew if Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, passes the bill that seeks to place authority over all Jewish births, marriages and deaths in the hands of a small group of ultra-Orthodox rabbis.

For centuries it was Christian leaders who strove to diminish the numbers and influence of Jews; now, sadly, it’s Jewish leaders.

Seymour D. Reich
New York, July 16, 2010 

The writer is past chairman of the International Jewish Committee on Interreligious Consultations.

Joe O’Connor
National Post

Stephanie Butler had not seen Reggie Wilson in almost a decade and then there he was, standing beside her, at a grocery store in St. Petersburg, Fla.

Reggie was new in town, so Ms. Butler invited her old college pal over to watch what every other University of Alabama alumnus watches in early September: Alabama’s season-opening football game.

On game day, in addition to serving snacks, they chatted, like old college friends do, about old times, about life, and how hard it was for Stephanie and her husband, Kevin, to scratch out a living in an expensive big city like St. Petersburg — especially with two toddlers — and how much the Butlers missed Alabama and wanted to move back.

“So Reggie says,” says Ms. Butler, “ ‘Have you heard about those Jews who are paying other Jews to move to Alabama?’ ”

She had not heard. In fact, she had never really heard of Dothan, Ala., either, except to drive by it on her way to someplace else. Or considered what she and her Alabama-raised-non-Jewish husband would do if a Jewish congregation in a small Southern city in a state where they wanted to live offered them US$50,000 to move there.

“I couldn’t believe it,” Ms. Butler says. “So I called them up.”

Rob Goldsmith answered. He is the executive director of the Blumberg Family Jewish Community Services of Dothan, runs the Family Relocation Project and goes home each night to his wife, Lynne, the rabbi at Temple Emanu-El.

The synagogue has served Jews in Dothan and surrounding counties for more than 80 years. The Goldsmiths are relatively new to the place, and when they showed up three years ago the Temple looked like Heaven’s waiting room.

Almost 95% of the faces were elderly. The Sunday school had five students. A once robust congregation of 100 families had dwindled to 40 and was dying off fast.

“Dothan was just like so many small towns in the South that had thriving Jewish communities in the 1800s and the 1900s and have seen their Jewish populations wither,” Mr. Goldsmith says.

Larry Blumberg, a Dothan native who operates 67 hotels across the southeast, wanted to stop the bleeding and was willing to put up a million dollars to do so. His vision: convince 20 young families to move to the town of 60,000 in southeastern Alabama — the added incentive: $50,000 per family.

“It’s a pretty interesting idea,” says Dr. Stuart Rockoff, head of the history department at the Institute of Southern Jewish Life in Jackson, Miss. “Dothan is a pretty small community, and if they are even able to attract a handful of Jewish families it is going to have a transformative effect on the congregation.”

Jews have been shaping Southern life for almost 300 years. The first Jewish congregation was established in Savannah, Ga., in the 1730s, and up until 1820 Charleston, S.C., boasted the largest Jewish community in the United States.

The diaspora enjoyed freedom of religion in the United States, and blew all around the South, collecting in port cities and market towns — and smaller places like Dothan — where Jews were the merchants, wholesalers and retailers.

Anti-Semitism, while it existed, and always will, was the exception. The South, first with slavery and then with segregation, was a binary society. It was black and white. And Jews were white. They owned slaves, held elected office, joined the local chamber of commerce and fought for the Confederacy in the American Civil War. They were Southerners, through and through.

“It is remarkable how well the Jews were received,” Dr. Rockoff says. “There are examples in old newspapers celebrating the arrival of a town’s first Jewish merchant. It was a sign that your town had arrived, that it was on the move and doing well.”

By the mid-20th century Dothan’s main street was lined with marquees for Blumberg’s department store, Bauman’s, Greenburg’s, Kraselsky’s and more. The Jewish community was thriving, while also undergoing a tectonic shift where the sons and daughters of Dothan’s merchant class were leaving for college to become doctors and lawyers and bankers and never looking back.

In 1980, the Jewish population of Atlanta, Ga., was 20,000. Today it is closer to 120,000, thanks to the small town exodus that ultimately produced Larry Blumberg’s million-dollar solution for Dothan.

For Rob Goldsmith, selling the Butlers on Alabama life was a slam-dunk. Alabama was already sweet home in their eyes. But for other prospects interested in relocating the sales pitch is not always so easy. Indeed, the thought of moving to small-town Alabama three years ago wasn’t all that easy for the Goldsmiths to digest.

He is originally from Baltimore. His rabbi wife is from New England. The couple’s preconceived notion of the Deep South had a decidedly Northern influence, and was painted with images of Civil Rights marches, men in white hoods, shotgun shacks and burning crosses.

“That chip on our shoulder that we had in the northeast before we moved here, it just hasn’t proven out,” Mr. Goldsmith says, chuckling. “We have Starbucks. We have highways. People wear shoes. It is the new South, and the quality of life here has been great.”

And that old myth, about Southern hospitality, well, apparently it is not a myth. Lisa Greenman-Gonzalez, a Spanish teacher, and her husband, Dany, an El Salvadoran-born flight instructor, were greeted by 20 members of the Temple on the day they moved into their apartment in Eufaula, a town even smaller than Dothan 40 minutes from the synagogue.

“I didn’t know any of them,” Ms. Greenman-Gonzalez says. “Some of them stayed late helping us. Some even brought flowers.”

The family has two boys. A third child is due in December. Their move from Granite City, Ill., was not a matter of money, but a matter of faith. Lisa is Jewish. Dany is Catholic. They could not find a house of worship anywhere near their previous home that would accept them both.

“For us, the $50,000 — and we have only spent about half of what was offered — was only really a factor in terms of covering our moving costs,” Ms. Greenman-Gonzalez says. “We have received some funding to go towards my student loan and that helped, and it’s nice. But I really think we still would have come anyway.”

Dothan welcomed them with open arms, and helping hands. It is a welcome that occurs after a vetting process lasting several months. It involves filling out questionnaires, exchanging multiple phone calls and finally meeting Mr. Goldsmith, when he travels to an applicant’s home city for an intense three-night, two-day, get-to-know-each-other visit followed by a return engagement in Dothan.

The rabbi’s husband has met seven families so far: in Illinois, Massachusetts, Florida and North Carolina. Three have moved to Alabama. Three out of the other four are in the “pipeline,” waiting for a lurching U.S. economy to improve.

For the Butlers, there was no hesitation. Their family dog is named Bama. Alabama is where they wanted to be.
The place they could not really afford in St. Petersburg is a now a three-bedroom house with a big backyard in a quiet neighbourhood that costs US$750 a month to rent.

They are 20 minutes — at most — from everywhere in town, and less than two hours from some of the best beaches in Florida. Ms. Butler recently secured a teaching job at a nearby high school, while Mr. Butler has gone back to school to study finance while working full-time at one of Mr. Blumberg’s hotels, a job arranged through the congregation.

“It’s cheap, it’s quiet, it’s calm, and the people here are really nice,” Ms. Butler says.

It is the kind of place where a young couple can raise a few kids and grow old together, can put down roots and never leave.

Change has come to Dothan’s Jewish community. Heaven’s waiting room is looking more and more like romper room. Temple Emanu-El’s Sunday school will have 22 students in September, and Rob Goldsmith is always on the lookout for more.

“This place has been reinvigorated, and now, when you look around at the congregation, there are younger faces, younger families,” he says. “We’ve actually had quite a few contacts from Jewish families in Canada, especially when it gets cold.

“And we’d really like to keep hearing from them.”

National Post
joconnor@nationalpost.com

Just because Israel is a Jewish country doesn’t mean all Jews are the same.

By Aviya Kushner

Israel’s mandate as an ingatherer of the Jewish exiles from all four corners of the earth has made it one of the most ethnically diverse countries in the world. This article covers the variety of Jewish ethnic groups found in Israel and the history of how these different Jewish communities have come to call Israel home.

Walk through the Carmel open-air market in Tel Aviv and you’ll hear Russian, Arabic, Yiddish, Amharic, German, Spanish, and of course, Hebrew. You’ll smell foods from Libya, Russia, and Venezuela, and your eyes will notice mounds of yellow and red spices from the Middle East displayed in large wooden barrels. If you talk to a fruit-seller, he’ll gruffly tell you he stocks three kinds of bright-orange persimmons—soft for the Russians, hard for the Israelis, and medium for Americans.

While you try to process how country of origin affects fruit-firmness preferences, and how any businessman can ever keep track, a woman will swish by in a crinkled cotton scarf with gold coins attached to the end, in traditional Yemenite style. Next, an old woman in perfectly pressed linen will bump into you, giving you a perfect snapshot of what was in style in Berlin in 1932. For anyone who thinks a Jewish country means everyone looks the same, sounds the same, or eats the same food, a few days in Israel can be a shocking education.

As you shop, the radio might blare songs with beats ranging from belly-dancing swivels to a slow ballad that feels like it could have been written on the Volga River. No wonder—these songs are written by people whose parents came from every imaginable country, and some singers have one Libyan parent and another Brazilian parent. The market stands hawk a dizzying array of prepared foods—Argentinian beef, Hungarian pastries, and a slew of Iraqi options. You can eat gefilte fish on one corner, shish-kebab on the next. Stuffed grape leaves and black olives abound, and if you tire of that, you can go eat some Ethiopian food with your bare hands. You can hear prayers in dozens of accents and intonations. In fact, some say it’s only possible to understand the magnitude and reach of the Diaspora in modern-day Israel.

A Little History

Persecution, wandering, economic interests, and adventure sent Jews around the world, and Israel has seen immigrants from Shanghai, India, Moscow, and South Africa, to name a few. The modern Zionist movement coincided with rising anti-Semitism in Europe, where pogroms, compulsory army service, and constant discrimination made the dream of a Jewish state a very attractive and somewhat crazy-sounding idea. What began as a pragmatic response to European anti-Semitism has become a living dream—the worldwide return to the Jewish homeland.

Israel’s Jewish population came in several waves. The first wave of immigrants to present-day Israel began arriving in 1882, following two years of terrible Russian pogroms, and those First Aliya immigrants were therefore from Russia. The Second Aliya, from 1904-1914, was sparked by another rise in persecution of Russian Jews. Through the 1940s, the vast majority of immigrants were from Europe, and so German, Polish, and Russian traditions were important to Israel’s major institutions.

The Nazi threat brought hordes of German Jews, or yekkes, to Israel in the 1930s, and they left their mark on Israel’s major institutions. The legal code is based on Germany’s, and the universities are also founded on the German model. German immigrants founded orchestras, art museums, and populated entire neighborhoods, such as Rechavia in Jerusalem, known for its neat, classy apartments and residents wearing perfectly pressed shirts.

During the years of the British Mandate, stiff, hat-wearing German Jews clashed with jolly, boisterous, and prank-happy Russian Jews. Israel’s socialist roots—seen in its universal health-care and generous social-welfare programs—are tied to the large number of immigrants from the Soviet Union, who were raised on Communism. German-Russian couples sometimes banned each other’s songs from the house, and Hebrew was the compromise language.

But after the War of Independence in 1948, over 700,000 Jews were expelled from Arab lands. Arriving by foot or through Operation Magic Carpet, which airlifted tens of thousands to Israel, these Jews had darker skin, different songs, different foods, and a somewhat different outlook on life. The arrival of these Sephardic Jews changed the dynamic to Ashkenazic-Sephardic as opposed to Russian and German, or German and Polish styles.

For decades, tension brewed between Ashkenazic Jews, and Sephardic Jews in Israel. A marriage between an Ashkenazi and a Sephardi was called one of the “nisuei ta’arovet,” or mixed marriages. The stereotype was that Sephardim were less intellectual, less wealthy, and less educated than Ashkenazim. While a girl from an Ashkenazic family might wear traditional European-inspired pearls or gold jewelry, a Yemenite girl would have filigree jewelry and long, flowing skirts. A Yemenite girl might know how to belly-dance—not a skill the average German-Jewish girl has.

On Shabbat, an Ashkenazic family will serve cholent, a cold-weather food of beans, potatoes, and meat. A Sephardic family might have malawach and jachnun, fried dough and a hot red sauce. On Passover, Sephardim eat foods that Ashkenazim won’t touch for the duration of the holiday. The status of women was also different in each community, as most traditional Sephardic women stayed home and raised large families, while Ashkenazic women were more likely to work in outside jobs.

Slowly Coming Together

Over time, Sephardim and Ashkenazim have come closer together. Today, Sephardic Jews hold key political, rabbinic, and defense positions. Shaul Mofaz, who was the Army’s Chief of Staff, is a Sephardic Jew, and Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, who served as Secretary of Defense, was born in Iraq. The large number of Arabic-speaking Jews is a great asset to the military and intelligence efforts. Young people who study together and then serve in the army together don’t see the same differences their parents and grandparents did, and many laugh at the idea of a “mixed marriage” being any kind of mix at all.

While differences in practice and tradition once divided Ashkenazim and Sephardim, today there are efforts to have just one Chief Rabbi of Israel instead of the two that are currently elected— one catering to the Ashkenazic and the other to the Sepharadic community. Tel Aviv already has one rabbi making decisions for all citizens. If sales figures are any indication, many Ashkenazim of all ages have come to appreciate and even love the vibrating Yemenite-influenced songs of Ofra Haza, the spicy food available in the markets, and the emphasis on large, family events that is a hallmark of Sephardic tradition. Everyone eats falafel, olives, hummus, labane, and other traditional Middle Eastern foods.

Although relations have improved, most Israelis are aware of the history of ethnic tension. During the first 40 years of statehood, the Ashkenazic-Sephardic divide was particularly salient, posing a major political problem in trying to forge governments and create a cohesive society. Menachem Begin came to power by courting the Sephardic vote, and since then, politicians have tried to appeal to one group or both. However, two waves of immigration in the late 1980s and 1990s added more spice to Israel’s ethnic mix.

Contemporary Challenges

The fall of Communism caused a flood of immigrants from the former Soviet Union. For years, Sephardim had been gaining ground in Israeli society, while Ashkenazim felt their numbers dwindling. But with the arrival of Russians, hundreds of thousands of Ashkenazim were back. Today, one million Israeli citizens are recent immigrants from the former Soviet Union, accounting for one in five Jews in the country. The Russian immigrants brought many accomplished musicians, scientists, and professors. Local orchestras were suddenly stocked with first-rate musicians who played classical European music, and the universities saw a surge in students and professors from the European tradition.

At around the same time, three dramatic modern attempts at creating an exodus—dubbed Operations Moses, Joshua, and Solomon—brought Jews from Ethiopia to Israel. These Jews were black, and they spoke Amharic, a race and a language that were for the most part new for Israel. Initially, Ethiopian Jews were greeted with euphoria as descendants of the 10 lost tribes, but as time passed, these immigrants faced special problems. They had little or no formal education, were used to life in an undeveloped country, and spoke no Hebrew or English. Many adults were illiterate, and their job prospects were bleak. Not understanding Hebrew during a tense security situation caused extra problems, so new steps had to be taken to accommodate the nearly 40,000 Ethiopians who now call Israel home. A television station began broadcasting the news in Amharic, and social workers created special programs for the Ethiopian community. Still, there is no Amharic-Hebrew dictionary, and while many younger Ethiopians are doing well, older immigrants sometimes complain of being bewildered and isolated.

The future of Israel has always depended on immigrants’ ability to integrate into a vibrant and changing society. The “Israeli” is a relatively new creation, and many immigrants embrace the ideals of physical vitality, commitment to the land and to the Jewish people, and the unique mix of toughness and sweetness that has come to define the country.

While a visitor to the market in 1956 might be able to tell where someone was from by his accent, today’s young Israelis often don’t have a Sephardic accent or an Ashkenazic accent. Now in the 21st century, what unites Israelis is not where their parents came from, but where they now live—one of the most diverse tiny countries in the history of the earth.

Aviya Kushner is a Lecturer of Creative Writing at Columbia College of Chicago. She is the author of And There Was Evening, And There Was Morning.

What should have been the happiest time of Sagit’s life turned into a nightmare. According to their documents, her mother and grandmother are Jewish and her parents were married by a Chabad rabbi, but even so, she’s being asked to convert in order to marry. The new regulations provide that this can happen to you too!

Rivkah Lubitch
Ynet News

Sagit (not her real name) and her fiancé are getting married in September. At least that’s what they thought till now. But there’s a small detail standing between them and the hoped-for wedding: confirmation that Sagit, whose parents married as Jews in Israel years ago, is Jewish. Until Sagit manages to prove she’s Jewish to an investigator of the rabbinic court she won’t be able to get married in the State of Israel. This case is an example of the implications of the new guidelines that the Office of the Chief Rabbi of Israel published last week, regarding the possibility of holding inquiries into the Jewishness of any person. In the wake of my article about the new guidelines, Sagit called and told me her story. She came on aliyah with her parents when she was 9 and has been living in Israel for 19 years. Even though her family wasn’t observant in Russia, everyone in Mogilov, Belarus, knew they were a Jewish family. When she registered to get married, she was sent to a rabbinic court investigator. The investigator, who apparently was particularly unfriendly, asked to see documentation. Sagit and her mother presented the birth certificates of Sagit’s mother and her grandmother in both of which it was written that they were Jews. This should have been enough. It’s true that the documents were replicas and not originals, as is the case with most of the documents of immigrants from Russia, but the mother’s document was a replica from 1958, when she was 12 years old (at that time, who would have considered forging a document in order to add that she was Jewish?) Regarding the replica of the grandmother’s document, testimony was brought before the court in Mogilov that the grandmother was known to be Jewish and that her parents had been killed in the ghetto. But the rabbinic court in Israel isn’t prepared to accept the ruling of the court in Mogilov. After checking with the archives of the offices in Mogilov, it turned out that they don’t retain original documents from before 1962.

‘Convert? Why should I convert, I’m Jewish!’

The rabbinic court investigator sent Sagit to the project “Shoreshim” run by the organization “Tzohar.” They also didn’t receive her kindly there. According to her, the investigator said something like “I really hope that you are telling the whole truth” or “think very, very carefully about what you’re saying.” At the end of the day Tzohar’s investigator told her “I could have helped you more if you had come to me first.”

Sagit’s questions are excellent. I don’t have any answers. Another interesting part of the story is that Sagit’s parents were married according to religious law by Rabbi Mordechai Shmuel Ashkenazi, the rabbi of Kfar Chabad, after their aliyah to Israel. In Russia there weren’t Jewish weddings, and her parents were happy about the idea of holding a religious wedding ceremony after they came to Israel. No one forced them to do it. They did it because they are Jewish. The rabbi of Kfar Chabad would not have officiated at their wedding if he hadn’t looked into the matter, with the help of Russian speakers, and ascertained that they were indeed Jewish. When they told the investigator this, he said: “That’s not evidence. They didn’t know how to investigate then, and they couldn’t have known if your parents were Jewish or not.”

The investigator suggested that she convert. “Convert? Why should I convert, I’m Jewish!,” Sagit says. Even from the purely religious perspective this is an outrage. Who knows how many Jews will “turn into” non-Jews because of some investigator who thinks that a particular document is insufficient to prove that they’re Jews. I wonder: Could the investigator prove that he’s Jewish? Can the dayanim - who are now questioning whether tens of thousands of people are Jewish – prove that they’re Jews? Is this something that can even be proven? Let the Jew who can prove that he’s Jewish step forward. In fact, other than someone who has a certificate of conversion, there is no Jew in the world who can prove he’s Jewish. Rivka Lubitch is a rabbinic pleader who works at the Center for Women’s Justice , tel. 02-5664390.

Beyond Eyruv

(2006)
Film Written and Directed by John Mounier

Best Documentary 2006 Woodstock Film Festival

I’ve read the reviews about the documentary “Beyond Eyruv,” and I can’t wait to see it.

I can only imagine how difficult it would be, to go from Hassidic to secular life. How do you learn to live amongst what you’ve never known?

Imagine knowing there was no way back to the Hassidic community (because they turned their backs on you too)?

-David Mirand

Russian Jewish Institute

Beyond Eyruv

Link to IMDb  film database

Plot Summary:

“Beyond Eyruv” is a feature-length documentary that examines the life of a young Hasidic man-20 year old Moshe Galan- who’s chosen to leave behind the only world he’s known, the ultra-orthodox community, out of curiosity for the ‘world out there’ and an urgent need to relieve himself of the limitations inherent in such a closed community. This documentary is, at its heart, about transformation and the challenges that Moshe faces as he departs from his familiar community and enters into an unknown world and culture, a secular society. This new life that Moshe undertakes is filled with struggles as he works toward earning a High School diploma, negotiates his relationship with his grandparents who have encouraged his departure, tries to support himself, all the while, lacking the basic skills to survive in our world. Ultimately, Moshe’s biggest struggle is one of faith and his relationship with God and his family who live in Israel. As the story unfolds, we see that Moshe is living in between these two worlds, not finding comfort in either. While he desperately wants to find recognition and acceptance in his new life, he’s unable to leave the past behind him, making his future unclear and questionable

Huffington Post
David Shasha
Director, Center for Sephardic Heritage July 1, 2010 

In the wake of an Israeli court ruling confirming anti-Sephardi bias in the case of the Beis Yaakov girls’ school in Immanuel, many have scrutinized the Shas party leadership’s bizarre response of defending the Ashkenazim.

The Shas party is the most prominent political representative of Sephardic Jews in Israel, so its support for the Ashkenazi Ultra-Orthodox rabbinic leadership of Immanuel has baffled many.

In order to fully grasp the Shas leadership’s apparent acceptance of the Ultra-Orthodox racism, we need to examine how Sephardic citizens were treated in Israel’s early days.

One of the most prominent Sephardic Zionist leaders was Elie Eliachar (1899-1981). Eliachar understood that Sephardim were being kept out of the political leadership cadre because of Ashkenazi racial prejudice.

In the posthumously-published English translation of his book Living with Jews he makes the point explicit:

This phenomenon — the exclusion of Sephardim from decision-making levels — became particularly conspicuous in the process of building a civic bureaucracy after independence. Despite the fact that Sephardim had comprised the great majority in the Mandate civil service, the new government offices were staffed almost entirely without them. Not one Sephardi was found in any position of influence in the political, economic or cultural ministries. The new law courts too were established on a political basis. No Sephardi judges were appointed to the Supreme Court, and only a few of the distinguished group of Sephardi judges from Mandate times were given posts in the lower courts.

In concert with the marginalization of the Sephardi elite class was the concomitant attempt to resocialize the Sephardim. Guided by the implicitly racist assumption that Sephardim were less capable than their Ashkenazi brethren, most Israelis saw them as culturally and intellectually “backward,” like the Arabs in whose countries they once lived. The Israeli political system forced many Sephardim to live at the margins of society, where they often found themselves caught between the warring forces of religious extremism and imposed secularization.

It should be remembered that one of the most important Israeli cultural products of the early 1960s, Ephraim Kishon’s “Sallah Shabbati” — a deeply misguided and racist portrayal of bumbling Sephardi immigrants cast in the most offensive terms possible — was produced in this racially charged climate. Its assertions of Sephardi barbarity and incompetence permeated all levels of Israeli society.

NYU scholar Ella Shohat looks at Sephardi marginalization from the religious standpoint in her seminal 1988 article “Sephardim in Israel: Zionism from the Standpoint of its Jewish Victims”:

Those Sephardim who came under the control of Ashkenazi religious authorities, meanwhile, were obliged to send their children to Ashkenazi religious schools, where they learned the ‘correct’ Ashkenazi forms of practicing Judaism, including Yiddish-accented praying, liturgical-gestural norms and sartorial codes favoring the dark color of centuries-ago Poland. Some Oriental Jews, then, were forced into the Orthodox mold.

This same point is reinforced by Norman Stillman in his 1995 study “Sephardi Religious Responses to Modernity”:

At first, the Sephardi newcomers were so-to-speak ‘religiously invisible.’ As with so much else in the early days of Israeli statehood, the new Sephardi immigrants were dependent upon establishment institutions even in matters of religion. The Ministry of Religious Affairs provided houses of worship, prayer books, and an official state-salaried rabbinate. The Ministry of Education provided religiously-oriented public schools. And the religious political parties offered various forms of patronage. Some of the traditional spiritual leaders who came to Israel with their communities experienced a loss of their authority. Young Sephardim who entered the religious youth movements or went on to higher religious education usually found themselves in an Ashkenazi environment. Since most of the rabbinical colleges were also European-founded, new Sephardi rabbis were often trained in the Ashkenazi orthodox fashion with its different world outlook, its very distinct approach to piety, and even its own distinctive dress code.

The negative outcome of this troubling socio-religious process has been marked by the Bar-Ilan University scholar Zvi Zohar in his 2006 article “Aspects of Halakhic Identity: On European Jewish Orthodoxy, Sephardic Tradition and the Shas Movement”:

In more general terms, there exists a deep gap between the education and halakhic identity of the Shas cadres, and the cultural ideal they seek to represent. Focusing on the slogan ‘To Return the Crown to its Ancient Glory,’ the party advocates leading the Oriental-Sephardic sector of Israeli Jews back to religious observance, i.e., to the religion, Torah and cultural heritage of their forefathers. However, the European ultra-Orthodox halakhic identity and ethos that the movement’s cadres internalized, are radically different from the halakhic identity and traditions of the Sephardic-Oriental Torah sages in the Middle East and North Africa - characterized by openness to general education, Zionism, new political trends, etc.

The emergence of the Shas party must then be understood in the larger context of Sephardi disenfranchisement in Israel and the ascendance of Ashkenazi Ultra-Orthodox religious hegemony.

In his 1989 book “Israel: The Oriental Majority”, the Israeli sociologist Shlomo Swirski presented the political weakness of the Sephardi political movements:

In fact, demands for improved and expanded welfare measures have made up the major part of the platforms of most Oriental slates in elections to the Knesset. The most recent example was provided by Tami, a party formed by young Orientals who split from the National Religious Party. It gained the support of many young activists who saw in it a means of expressing an independent Oriental consciousness. After a year and a half of very passive participation in the [Menachem] Begin cabinet (Tami obtained three Knesset seats in the 1981 elections and was assigned one cabinet post in the governing coalition), the party’s leaders threatened to walk out of the coalition if the government failed to pass a law providing special benefits to families with many children. The government accommodated them - and Tami returned to its political and social passivity.

The Shas approach has evolved from a moderate political position to an extreme one on the contentious issues of religion, the Palestinians, and the settlements; as this move has occured, the demands of the Sephardi political leaders have shifted from social justice to the flow of government money into a network of Sephardi communal institutions. The great success of Shas in getting a nice chunk of the government budget for their institutions has permitted it to relinquish the primary raison d’etre of their movement.

As the journalist Rachel Shabi states in her landmark 2008 book “We Look Like the Enemy: The Hidden Story of Israel’s Jews from Arab Lands”:

SHAS is concerned more with religion than ethnicity or social justice - as shown by its use of the religious term ‘Sephardi’ and not the sociopolitical appellation ‘Mizrahi.’ Its solutions were religious first and social as a byproduct if at all.

The flood of statements from the Shas leadership in the wake of the Immanuel affair reflect the close ties that the party now has with the Ashkenazi Haredi leadership and its institutional cadre. The Shas rank-and-file often send their children to Ashkenazi schools — hence the problem raised in Immanuel, where Sephardi parents are fighting to have their children accepted as equals in the Ultra-Orthodox Ashkenazi Yeshiva — and are often beholden to that leadership in religious affairs.

Shas has not sought to effectively redress the secular-political problems of the Israeli Sephardim, but has relentlessly pursued its own parochial interests as an Ultra-Orthodox party in the Ashkenazi mold.

The spiritual leader of Shas, former Israeli Chief Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, is well known for his voluminous legal output; he has written scores of books that deal with the minutiae of Jewish ritual law, on which he is considered one of the most important experts of his generation. What often gets overlooked is how his ritual-centered approach to Judaism tends to exclude the wider humanistic learning of the classical Sephardic tradition.

While Rabbi Yosef vigorously asserts Sephardic custom in his legal rulings, his exclusive focus on the details of Jewish ritual often obscures the fact that unlike many of his Sephardic predecessors — who buttressed their legal writings with studies of philosophy, the social sciences, the literary arts, mathematics, and science — Rabbi Yosef remains almost completely oblivious to the world outside the confines of Jewish ritual. With government control of civil society, the traditional place of the rabbinical court in the everyday lives of Sephardic Jews has been blunted and left the rabbinical leadership with little to do but to focus on ritual matters, just as in the case of the Ashkenazi Ultra-Orthodox rabbis.

The lack of a more worldly perspective from Rabbi Yosef and the Shas rabbinate has led to a more intimate entente with the Ashkenazi Ultra-Orthodox. And it has found a set of common interests in the Immanuel case despite the ethnic divide. Shas leaders are equally disdainful of life outside the Ultra-Orthodox Jewish community and have largely ignored the traditions of Sephardic Rabbinic Humanism that were passed down to us from Moses Maimonides in his great intellectual synthesis. Such learning is alien to the Shas faithful.

In their vocal support for the Ultra-Orthodox Ashkenazi leaders, the Shas figures, led by Rabbi Yosef and his disciple Eli Yishai, have shown the myriad ways in which they have not only abandoned the classical Sephardic tradition, but have forsaken the Sephardic community in Israel in its struggle to achieve social justice and dignity in its battle against Ashkenazi prejudice. As a political party originally designed to serve the interests of the Sephardic community, Shas has now thrown in its lot with those who would continue to denigrate Sephardim.

New York Times

By Dennis Overbye

The reclusive Russian mathematician Grigory Perelman, aka Grisha, gained worldwide fame by claiming to have solved one of the world’s most intractable mathematical problems, the Poincaré conjecture, and then disappearing in St. Petersburg. On Thursday he said he had rejected a $1 million prize from the Clay Mathematics Institute in Cambridge, Mass., for the feat.

“I have refused,” Interfax, a Russian news agency, quoted him as saying. “You know, I had quite a lot of reasons both for and against. That is why I took so long to make up my mind.”

James Carlson, president of the Clay institute, said he had spoken with Dr. Perelman by phone. “He was, as usual, quite pleasant, though quite firm in his decision,” Dr. Carlson said.

The problem, named after the great French polymath Henri Poincaré, has led mathematicians on a frustrating chase for a century. It hypothesizes that any three-dimensional space without holes is essentially a sphere.

In 2003, Dr. Perelman posted a series of papers on the Internet claiming to have proved the conjecture, and a deeper problem by the Cornell mathematician William Thurston, building on work by Richard Hamilton, a Columbia University mathematician.

After a brief barnstorming tour in the United States, during which he refused interviews, Dr. Perelman returned to Russia, leaving the world’s mathematicians to pick up the pieces and decide whether he had really done it.

A worldwide race to retrace, explicate and check Dr. Perelman’s proof ensued. In the meantime, Dr. Perelman quit his post at the Steklov Mathematical Institute, moved in with his mother and ceased communicating with the outside world.

By 2006, as learned papers totaling more than a thousand pages of dense mathematics slouched toward publication, it was becoming apparent that Dr. Perelman had indeed solved the conjecture, and he was awarded a Fields Medal, the most prestigious award in mathematics, at the International Congress of Mathematicians in Madrid.

Dr. Perelman, who already had a history of declining awards, did not show.

So when the Clay institute announced in March that he had won the big prize, many doubted that he would accept. In June, a three-day symposium in Paris celebrating the proof of the conjecture went on without him.

Dr. Perelman said Dr. Hamilton deserved as much credit as he did, Interfax reported. “To put it short,” he said, “the main reason is my disagreement with the organized mathematical community. I don’t like their decisions; I consider them unjust.”

The Clay institute said it would announce this fall how it would spend the award money.

There may be no way to overlook the thriving, insular community of 50,000 Bukharian Jews from Central Asia now settled in Forest Hills and Rego Park, but there is a way to look in. Last Tuesday, journalist Sergey Kadinsky of Forest Hills presented an eyeful in his lecture on Bukharian history and culture at the Central Queens YM & YWCA.

In a neighborhood of smaller houses, the architecture of Bukharian buildings, including the walled, brick mansions on 110th and 112th Streets, has provoked antipathy among locals.

Kadinsky — who first began investigating the Bukharians’ past when Rego Park resident and retired urologist Robert Pinkhasov asked the Latvian native to translate his Bukharian encyclopedia from Russian to English — said the community’s intentions have been misunderstood. While many Bukharians are employed as white-collar workers, they build large houses to accomodate their multi-generational families, rather than showcase their salaries.

Most emigrated here from Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, where it is believed their ancestors, possibly one of the Lost Tribes, first settled under the Persian Empire in the 6th century BCE. Their unique dialect, influenced by Farsi and Hebrew, became known as Bukhori. In cities like Bukhara, from which the Jews took their name, and Samarkand near the Silk Road, their merchants prospered and their communities flourished undisturbed.

Before Muslim Arabs conquered the region, Central Asia was a melting pot of different faiths: Buddhism, Zoroastrism, Christianity and Judaism. Bukharian Jews still celebrate what was originally a Zoroastrian festival, Persian New Year or Nowruz, on March 21; they are, in their everyday lives, more secular than Conservative Jews, but, in observance of traditional holidays, just as devout as the Orthodox.

When the Muslims came, the Jews were the only religious minority to evade forced conversion. Essentially cut off from the rest of the Jewish world for more than 2,000 years, they managed to survive and preserve their Jewish identity and unique heritage despite waves of Muslim, Uzbeki and Russian invaders. With a knowledge of the Bukharian’s past, it’s not surprising their community should be so tightly knit.

Of Pinkhasov’s apartment, which revealed itself as a metaphor for the Bukharian community itself, Kadinsky said, “On the outside, it looks like a catalogue,” assimilated just enough. “On the inside” of the residence, the walls of which are covered in carpets and portraits, “it takes you back in time.”

Kadinsky conveyed a message of tolerance for one’s neighbors, Bukharian or otherwise. “We have way too many differences, on religion, on the Israeli-Palestine conflict. Let’s start with the easier things, like music,” he suggested to his elderly, non-Bukaharian audience, illuminating the geneology of Jewish court singers. “When it comes to music, we all play the same tune.”

Lilianna Zulunova, a Bukharian Jew born in Uzbekistan who teaches English as a Second Language at LaGuardia Community College, believed Kadinsky “did a fabulous job presenting [her people’s history and culture] to the non-Bukharian audience. I think that the young Bukharian generation would definitely benfit from this because I think they are forgetting the core of their history.” Zulunova, now 27, wasn’t interested in her heritage, besides the music and food, until her early 20s.

This past spring, Queens College offered a course on the history of Bukharian Jews taught by Imanuel Rybakov, a member of the Bukharian Jewish Congress. Pinkhasov’s self-published book was the text for the class.

Clearly, it’s not just Kadinsky who’s curious.

A traditional Bukharian teacher instructs students. Photo courtesy of Central Queens YM & YWHA

YourNabe.com

By Anna Gustafson
Monday, June 28, 2010 1:13 PM

Forest Hills and Rego Park are home to one of the largest populations of Bukharian Jews in the world, but not many of their neighbors know much about the religious group that hails mainly from Central Asia — something Forest Hills resident Sergey Kadinsky said he hopes to change.

Kadinsky will speak about the history and culture of the Bukharian Jewish community at the Central Queens YM & YWHA in Forest Hills at 1:30 p.m. June 29.

“I’ve noticed many don’t know much about Bukharians besides the fact they have big fences and houses,” said Kadinsky, 25. “I want them to see the culture that resides in these homes.”

Tensions have surfaced between Bukharians and non-Bukharians in recent years, predominantly because Forest Hills residents have said they were resentful that some Bukharians would tear down smaller homes in the neighborhood and build larger ones.

In response to complaints about over-development in the Cord Meyer area of Forest Hills, the City Council passed a rezoning plan last year that limits a house’s height.

“By learning about their history and culture, you’ll appreciate their ideas,” Kadinsky said. “For example, why do they like to build large homes? Because they like to have grandparents and grandchildren in the same home.”

Kadinsky, a Latvian native, is not Bukharian but has spent years researching Bukharian culture after Robert Pinkhasov, a retired urologist from Rego Park, asked Kadinsky, who speaks fluent Russian, to help translate a book he was writing about Bukharians.

Bukharian Jews, who primarily come from Central Asia, faced economic decline and civil unrest following the breakup of the former Soviet Union. Many of the world’s 250,000 Bukharian Jews left Central Asia for places like Israel and the United States, with some 50,000 now living in Forest Hills and Rego Park, according to the United Jewish Appeal Federation of New York.

Pinkhasov’s book, “Bukharian Jews: An Encyclopaedic Reference,” was published by the author and may be used in a recently launched Queens College course on Bukharian Jews taught by Rego Park resident Imanuel Rybakov.

The Bukharian community has become increasingly involved in area politics, and Kew Gardens resident Albert Cohen was the first Bukharian Jew to run for citywide office last year. Cohen, originally from Tajikistan who became known to some as the “Bukharian Barack Obama,” ultimately lost the Democratic primary for the 29th Council District to present Councilwoman Karen Koslowitz (D-Forest Hills), but many Bukharians saw it as an important first political step for their community.

The Central Queens Y is at 67-09 108 St. in Forest Hills. The June 29 event is open to the public and a $5 donation is suggested. For more information, call 718-268-5011, Ext. 151 or visit cqyjcc.org.

Reach reporter Anna Gustafson by e-mail at agustafson@cnglocal.com or by phone at 718-260-4574.