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IN THIS ISSUE

PASSOVER GREETINGS

Escaping to freedom Ukrainian family’s escape is supported and filmed by local shul

Happy Pesach! Englewood Health wishes you and your family a happy and healthy Passover.

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CONTENTS

Pre-gaming Seder 2024 l Sure, there are roughly 380 shopping days until next year’s seder nights (5784 will be a leap year), but when could be better than now to consider what might merit an upgrade in your Passover practice? In that spirit, we’d like to highlight a couple of fascinating projects that came to our attention too late for this year’s Pesach planning. The first is the creation of Fair Lawn-native Gabrielle Rabinowitz and her cousin, Ben Bisogno. (She now lives in Brooklyn; he’s in Japan.) Both are players of role-playing games — that genre of entertainment best known for Dungeons and Dragons, which features improvisation and imagination within rules set out in rule books — possibly very long rule books. Ben has even written a few himself. At a seder a few years ago, “We were chatting along and coming up with our alternate story: What if Miriam used her power of song to change Pharaoh’s heart?” Gabrielle said. “We were just riffing and being silly. It was the most fun I had had in a seder in a long time.” That was the spark for “Ma Nishtana,” a Passover tabletop role-playing game where players tell their own version of the Exodus story. It became their pandemic project, and after development and play-testing (including at family Zoom and then in-person seders), it was written, polished, illustrated, and launched with a successful Kickstarter campaign. It’s now available for digital purchase at itch. io — a central hub for the TTRPG community, as the role players call themselves — and the cousins now are figuring out how to sell the full-color print editions after they send the promised copies to their supporters. In the course of playing “Ma Nishtana,” you hit the main touchstones of the seder — cups of wine, dip-

ping vegetables, charoset, and matzah — though the guidebook advises those who prefer a traditional seder to consider playing the game on another Passover occasion. Players choose one of six characters — Miriam, Moses, Zipporah, Aaron, Pharaoh, and his daughter Bityah — and then are guided to reenact scenes including Moses being fished out of the Nile and later confronting Pharaoh in the palace. But this is not simply a chance to reenact the Ten Commandments; the game asks its players to discuss some of the deeper questions raised by the Exodus story, such as “What makes it hard to leave?” The game was written with an audience of roleplaying novices in mind, but a frantic email Gabrielle received from her aunt led her to suggest that it might work best when led by someone with experience with such games — or at least someone who devotes some time to reading through the rule book in advance. Another way of gaming seder night comes from the creative Jewish liturgists at YourBayit.org, which “builds and curates tools for spiritual life.” Using the print-on-demand technology of thegamecrafter.com, Bayit Games has created several seder add-ons featuring custom-printed cards — the sort of hexagonal tiles used in games like Settlers of Catan. One set features the 15 stations of the seder; another is about plagues, both biblical and modern; a third acts as a seder plate that “doesn’t need to take up so much space on the table.” And of course, there are add-ons to gamify Chad Gadya. Because these components are printed on demand, you have to allow several weeks for printing and shipping. So as we said, start your seder shopping now. LARRY YUDELSON Come Purim, it will be too late.

NOSHES��������������������������������������������������������� 4 KEEPING KOSHER������������������������������������ 25 AROUND THE COMMUNITY....�������������26 COVER STORY....���������������������������������������30 JEWISH WORLD��������������������������������������� 37 PASSOVER GREETINGS�������������������������43 D’VAR TORAH�������������������������������������������54 FRAZZLED HOUSEWIFE.....................55 CROSSWORD��������������������������������������������� 55 OBITUARIES�����������������������������������������������56 OPINION������������������������������������������������������58 CLASSIFIED������������������������������������������������64 NOTEWORTHY������������������������������������������67 REAL ESTATE....����������������������������������������68 PUBLISHER’S STATEMENT: (USPS 275-700 ISN 00216747) The JEWISH STANDARD is published weekly on Fridays with an additional edition every October, by The JEWISH STANDARD, 70 Grand Avenue, River Edge, NJ 07661. Periodicals postage paid at Hackensack, NJ and additional offices. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to The JEWISH STANDARD, 70 Grand Avenue, River Edge, NJ 07661. Subscription price is $30.00 per year. Out-of-state subscriptions are $45.00, Foreign countries subscriptions are $85.00. The appearance of an advertisement in The JEWISH STANDARD does not constitute a kashrut endorsement. The publishing of a paid political advertisement does not constitute an endorsement of any candidate political party or political position by the newspaper or any employees. The JEWISH STANDARD assumes no responsibility to return unsolicited editorial or graphic materials. All rights in letters and unsolicited editorial, and graphic material will be treated as unconditionally assigned for publication and copyright purposes and subject to JEWISH STANDARD’s unrestricted right to edit and to comment editorially. Nothing may be reprinted in whole or in part without written permission from the publisher. © 2022

Candlelighting: Friday, April 7 — 7:09 p.m. Shabbat ends: Saturday, April 8 — 8:10 p.m.

Always find us at TheJewishStandard.com For convenient home delivery call (201) 837-8818 ON THE COVER: Ukrainian refugees Julia and Sasha celebrate Sasha’s nursery school graduation at the JCC Rockland. BETH HAVERIM SHIR SHALOM

JEWISH STANDARD APRIL 7, 2023 3

Noshes

“I remember noisy, joyous Passovers with a lot of Gefilte fish, chopped liver and the aroma of slow-roasting brisket.”

Terrorists or heroes?; Grease, the prequel; Newman’s natural preservative; and more The indie film “How to Blow Up a Pipeline” opens in theaters on April 7. Okay, I know most of you are not going to rush out to a theater to see a smallish budget film. You should, however, put it on your should-stream-inthe-future list. “How to” got good advance reviews from respected critics after it was shown in film festivals. “How to” is a political thriller about a group of eight young environmental activists who try to prevent the development of an oil pipeline by resorting to sabotage. Most of the film is set in West Texas. The film is based on a 2021 nonfiction book of the same name. The author, Andres Malm, used the history of social justice movements to argue that property destruction sometimes should be considered a valid tactic. The film was co-written by actress ARIELA BARER, 24, and (director) Daniel Goldhaber, 30. He may be Jewish — still checking. Barer also co-stars in the film. She was born in Los Angeles. Both her parents, who

are Jewish, were born and raised in Mexico. In one interview, Barer said that most of her extended family still lives in Mexico, and she visits them frequently. Barer first got noticed in 2017 for playing a recurring role on the Netflix reboot of 1970s sit-com “One Day at a Time.” The reboot made the One Day family Hispanic. Barer played Carmen, the Goth friend of the teen daughter in the family. Then she got a co-starring role in “Runaways,” a Marvel Universe series that streamed on Hulu. For three seasons, from 2017 to 2019, she costarred as Gertrude Yorkes, one of six teen runaways with superpowers. “Grease: Rise of the Pink Ladies” began streaming on Paramount+ on April 6. It takes place in 1954, four years before the events of “Grease” (the movie) and it chronicles the events that led to the creation of the Pink Ladies. JACKIE HOFFMAN, 62, co-stars as Assistant Principal McGee. Canadian actress JOSETTE ALPERT, 28, has a large recurring

role as Dot. Her father is of Hungarian Jewish background. Her mother is Dutch — it’s unclear if she’s Jewish. Last November, I wrote that a New York Times book review of “Paul Newman: An Extraordinary Life, A Memoir” said that NEWMAN was involved in an antisemitic incident while serving in the Navy during World War II. I noted that neither this incident from the memoir nor virtually anything else Jewish made it into an HBO series about Newman that premiered last July. I wrote that I’d get the just published memoir and report on what other Jewish nuggets were in it. Sadly, there isn’t much Jewish stuff in the memoir. The reason is clear: Newman decided, ultimately, to not write it — but audiotapes of some of his memories survived, and his children decided to have them organized into a memoir. There are huge gaps in the memoir — almost decades. There’s a lot there about the difficulties of being half Jewish, from before he was 18. But it’s sad

—P  ete Townshend of the Who in his “Who I Am: A Memoir” (which was published in 2012 but just came to our attention), describing his early childhood in poverty-stricken postwar Britain, where “We shared our house with the Cass family, who lived upstairs and, like many of my parents’ closest friends, were Jewish.”

Ariela Barer

Jackie Hoffman

A. E. Hotchner

Adam Sandler

stuff, and I will discuss it in another column. I found another, much more upbeat Newman bio, “Paul and Me,” written by his Jewish pal of 53 years, writer A.E. HOTCHNER (1917-2020), which came out in 2010, two years after Paul’s death. Here’s a fun part: Paul long made his own salad dressing, and friends loved it. Newman and Hotchner thought they could

make a quick buck selling it. To confirm that it would sell, they asked Martha Stewart, a neighbor, to put on a blind tasting test for partygoers. Newman’s dressing aced the test. Finding a bottler was very tough — finally they found one. But there was another bottleneck. The bottling company CEO told them that they had to use artificial preserva-

California-based Nate Bloom can be reached at [email protected]

Jason Berg and his team of Dream Makers would like to wish you and your family a Chag Kasher V’Sameach. Jason Berg, VP Sales · NMLS #220661 · O: 917.612.0559 411 Hackensack Ave, Suite 303 · Hackensack, NJ 07601 4 JEWISH STANDARD APRIL 7, 2023

tives because no store would stock dressing that didn’t have a long shelf life. Newman insisted on no preservatives, and when the lab tests came back — it showed that the dressing had a natural preservative. It came from the heavy dollop of mustard seeds in the dressing. After all this tsuris, the two guys reacted unlike most people would have. They said: What the hell! Give all the profits away! To date, Newman’s Own products have donated more than $500 million to charity. If you don’t get CNN, you can still watch a tape of ADAM SANDLER being presented the Mark Twain Humor Award on March 23. The ceremony was held at the Kennedy Center, and now it’s on YouTube. Simply enter “Sandler Mark Twain Award” or just search for the Kennedy Center YouTube channel. As previously noted, many top comics feted Sandler. Each comedian/speaker gets their own Kennedy Center channel –N.B. video. 

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Local Remembering what you never knew Abraham Foxman talks about the Holocaust from his vantage point as a child survivor JOANNE PALMER

T

he book must have been easy to typeset. It includes just one word. Jew. The word appears six million times. The math works out to 40 columns and 120 rows on 1,250 pages, according to the preface. (There are three pages in this massive, heavy volume, that are not simply Jew; the title page, the copyright page, and the preface.) Although the paper it’s printed on is thin, the book is heavy. Six million is a lot of Jews. The book is called “And Every Single One Was Someone,” copyrighted by Phil Chernofsky, who came up with the concept, and published by Gefen. It’s a stark reminder that Abraham Foxman of Bergen County gives people as he talks about the Holocaust, the monstrous, planned, partially successful murder of all of Europe’s Jews (as well as Romany, gay men and lesbians, people born with handicaps, and other perceived undesirables). Mr. Foxman, of course and by definition, is not a Holocaust victim but a survivor. The victims were robbed of their voices as well as their lives, so many of the survivors, who were in Europe but able to Left, young Henryk Stanislaw Kurpi, ne Abraham Henoch Fuksman, now Abraham Foxman, with his nanny, escape, or who even were in the camps Bronislawa Kurpi, in Vilna; right, Abe with his parents, Helen and Joseph, at a DP camp in Austria in 1947. but somehow didn’t die on schedule or demand, speak for them. Mr. Foxman’s own story is fairly wellminutely calculated human actions. years ago, and only those survivors who were children known. He was born in Poland in 1940, How does an older single woman or in their early teens then are still alive. They could and his mother was able to give him keep a baby safe when his parents are talk about the Holocaust firsthand; fewer and fewer of to his nanny, who brought him up as forced to leave him and might never them can undertake that emotionally heavy task now. hers. His parents, miraculously, surreturn? How does that woman deal That’s a truth weighing heavily on Mr. Foxman, who vived the war and were reunited; they with having that child, whom she will talk about the Holocaust for the Yom HaShoah commemoration in Teaneck this year. (See box.) found him, by then the devoutly Catholoves dearly, taken from her? How lic child of a doting single mother, took “When we talk about the Holocaust today, we talk does a child change the focus of his him away from her, to a DP camp and about remembrance,” he said. “There is something that affection without having his capacity then to America, where he grew up on the survivors and now the second generation have in to love be affected? What happens to an egg farm in south Jersey. They maincommon — the fear that there will be no remembrance. trust? What happens to faith? How do tained contact with the nanny, who “When I was in college, I wrote an undergraduate you — do you? — retain optimism? sued them to get the child she thought honors thesis on the Vilna ghetto,” he continued; he All these theoretical and specific of hers back, and lost. They offered to graduated from City College. “I had access to diaries questions are as far from the stark take her to the United States with them, from the ghetto, and I remember asking my father word Jew repeated six million times, and she refused; they supported her about something I didn’t understand. I saw and didn’t Jew Jew Jew Jew Jew, all those rows Henryk in Vilna in 1947. until they lost touch with her, someunderstand how people living in the shadow of death and columns of Jew. thing for which they blamed Poland’s would barter a piece of bread for a piece of paper, or a And that’s the point. communist government. bowl of soup for ink, when the bread or the soup could Every single one of those Jews was not only an individual but truly individual. As Jewish tradition tells us, There are many traumas in that story to which Mr. mean the difference between life and death. each one contained a world, and every single one of Foxman alludes but on which he does not dwell. There “He told me that they wanted so badly to write those worlds was demolished by men-turned-monsters are seeds for academic work in history, sociology, and because of the fear that if they did not, nobody would who saw all those individual people just as Jew Jew Jew psychology; there are themes for novelists and playknow that they had lived. Nobody would know the wrights. It’s about love and trauma and attachment and Jew Jew. It’s harder to kill people when you see them as difference. loss, about heroism and self-sacrifice and how emotion human beings; dehumanization is a first step toward “Fast forward 50 years,” he continued. “I was part makes people at times smaller, at times larger than mass murder. of the original group, with Elie Wiesel, trying to decide themselves, but in highly specific, particular ways; it’s There used to be many Holocaust survivors and whether or not we should have a museum about the a story that turns on both huge historic movements and escapees in the United States, but the war ended 78 Holocaust in Washington.” That group was studying the 6 JEWISH STANDARD APRIL 7, 2023

Local possible creation of what became the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. “At the time, the majority of people on the board were survivors, and I was the youngest survivor there. “Some of the survivors said that maybe we shouldn’t do this, because what if we do build a museum, and yes, all the Jews come, but after that it would remain empty?” What, in other words, if they built a museum and nobody came? “That would be an insult to the victims,” the survivor said. “And they were so wrong!” Mr. Foxman said. “Until recently, the Holocaust museum was the number two most-visited site, after the Smithsonian.” Today it’s in third place, with the new National Museum of African American History and Culture in second. “I was there a few weeks ago,” he continued. “I had to wait to be picked up, so I sat in the lobby, watching hundreds of high school kids there. Some were in Elie Wiesel and Abe Foxman. Catholic school uniforms. I had tears in my eyes just watching them. kids, in Catholic school uniforms.” “I approached some of them. At first they were hesBut most high school students are not able to get to itant about talking to me. I said, ‘I’m sorry to bother the Holocaust museum in DC, or even to the smaller you, but I’m a survivor, and I want to know how the ones that many communities around the country have museum impacted you.’ I told them my story, and I said hosted. “Now we are concerned because there are polls that if the victims had known that you could come there that show that people don’t know about the Holocaust,” to visit the museum, 80 or so years later, they would Mr. Foxman said. “Americans are so ignorant of history. not have died so all alone. We don’t teach it. I’m not shocked that 50 percent of “And then two of them embraced me. High school Americans don’t know about the Holocaust. They don’t

know much about World War II or the Civil War. We don’t teach history or geography.” But Mr. Foxman is an eternal optimist, and there always is hope. “Despite that, today there are more books, more documentaries, more films, more museums about the Holocaust than we could have imagined 50 years ago. So the story continues to be told. So I don’t think that we should worry too much. The museums will be there, and the testimonies will be there even after we lose all the survivors.” But survivors, their children, and the rest of us “have to be creative when we tell the story,” he said. “Survivors are going on TikTok, and some of them have millions of people following them. If you google TikTok and the Holocaust, you’ll find some of it. “The Shoah Foundation came up with the virtual survivor. The hologram. When I first heard about it, I thought that it would be kitsch, but when I watched kids — and adults! — ask it questions, I realized that it works. “We have to be creative and courageous. Look at films like ‘Life is Beautiful’ and ‘JoJo Rabbit’” — “Life is Beautiful,” a 1997 movie by Roberto Benigni, and “JoJo Rabbit,” a 2019 film by Taika Waititi, both were controversial; critics said that they defanged and whitewashed the grotesque horror of the Holocaust. “And there are other, newer films like that. They don’t tell the documentary story that we’re used to, and a

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Local lot of survivors look at them and say, ‘Oh my God!’ but they seem to be a way to communicate with the younger generation.” The situation around the world is changing, Mr. Foxman said. “The UAE now marks Holocaust Commemoration Day, and they instituted a study program. Can you imagine that? “So I am optimistic about memory. I’m involved with a project that tries to honor the diplomats who rescued Jews. We have to focus on the good. On the righteous. Not only on the hate, the evil, the bestiality. “Even though there weren’t that many righteous people, we have to focus on the potential of people to be good.”

‘But when you trivialize what happened, that undermines memory.’ He went back to the subject of bad people, or perhaps the simple ones, or the people who didn’t know enough to ask the right questions, and so were swayed by the wrong answers. “First there was denial about the Holocaust, and then there was trivialization. “There are four main forms of denial. Holocaust denial was primarily politically motivated. It started in Germany right after the war. The Germans tried to deny what happened.” Yes, he added, once they acknowledged it, they did teach about it, but denial came first. “Next, the Soviet Union wanted to protect World War II as the classic war between communism on one side and Nazism and fascism on the other, so they obliterated Jewishness from the Holocaust. For many years, the Soviet Union was the major proponent of Holocaust denial. “They were followed by the Arab world, which first started to say that Israel was a gift to the Jews from the West, to make up for the Holocaust, and then pivoted to say that the Holocaust wasn’t true, and therefore the Jews shouldn’t have a homeland. “Iran is still saying that,” he added. “The last groups is the antisemites, who just say that Jews are lying. “And those four levels are still there, but they’re This is one of the 1,250 stark, identical pages of “And Every Single One Was Someone.” no longer as potent or as meaningful,” Mr. Foxman said. “The trivialization is more troubling. When Whatever Trump might be, he’s not Hitler, but that’s someone denies Auschwitz happened, you can show Who: Abraham Foxman will be keynote speaker what some people call him. During the pandemic, we that it’s there. But when you trivialize what happened, What: At the 2023 Annual Yom HaShoah Holosaw people who didn’t want to be vaccinated wear a that undermines memory.” caust Commemoration yellow star. The anti-abortion movement calls abortion Much of that comes from pop culture, Mr. Foxman a holocaust. said. He traces it back to Jerry Seinfeld and the soup When: On Tuesday, April 18, at 7:30 p.m. “There are two elements at work here. One is ignoNazi. “That was the beginning of it,” he said. “Some Where: At Bergenfield High School rance, and the other is people who know very well what would say that Mel Brooks started it with ‘The ProducWhat else: The Bronkesh family represents Jewers,’ but he and I had a conversation about it, and we the Holocaust was and want to use it to distort history.” ish continuity after the Holocaust; student artwork agreed that it’s different to make fun of Hitler. Not of the Mr. Foxman is doing what he can to keep the memfrom the Na’aleh High School for Girls will be on ory alive. “I speak about it whenever I can,” he said. “It Holocaust, but of Hitler. display at the Bergenfield public library in April, gives me the opportunity to talk about my nanny, to “Charlie Chaplin did it too,” he said, in “The Great and the Teaneck public library in May, and there embrace her and what she did. Dictator,” in 1940. will be music by Jonathan Rimberg and Stephanie “I never got to say thank you to her. I never got to say “But now, if you don’t like what a policeman does, Kurtzman. goodbye. So in a way, it’s a little bit of closure.” you call him the Gestapo. You call the government Nazi. 8 JEWISH STANDARD APRIL 7, 2023

JEWISH STANDARD APRIL 7, 2023 9

Local

Being part of the conversation Rachel Kahn of Fort Lee embraces her new role as director of North Jersey-Rockland JNF ABIGAIL KLEIN LEICHMAN

— Yavneh and Frisch — and to Jewish day camps, where Zionism and y mommy works really hard to give Israeli culture is very embedded money to the people in Israel.” into the curriculum,” she continued. “It was a world where all your That’s how Rachel Kahn’s 6-yearfriends are Jewish and everyone old son, Jonah, described his mother’s profession to his kindergarten classmates in Fort has a positive outlook on Israel.” Then she went to SUNY Albany, Lee recently. which, despite having a large Jewish He certainly got that right. student body, exposed her to the Last month, Ms. Kahn took over the directorship real world. “You have this awakenof the Jewish National Fund-USA’s Northern New Jersey and Rockland County region. Her responsibiliing that you are a minority and that ties include fundraising and keeping existing donors not everyone is positive about the engaged and connected with the mission and vision of Jewish community and definitely this 122-year-old philanthropy, which supports Israel in not about Israel,” she said. “It was mind-blowing how much Rachel Kahn myriad ways. misinformation was out there, It does more than just planting trees. (And it also, even among my Jewish friends who didn’t grow up in very famously and importantly, plants trees.) the day-school circuit.” Ms. Kahn comes to JNF with experience in Jewish She kept this experience in mind when she made her philanthropy. She’s worked in development with both professional pivot to Jewish communal work. At AmeriAmerican Friends of Leket Israel and Oheb Shalom can Friends of Leket Israel — Israel’s national food bank, Congregation in South Orange. founded by another former Teaneck resident, Joseph Jewish communal work was not her first career; in Gitler — she happily discovered an avenue to forge her 20s, she worked in real estate. She explained that closer connections between the American and Israeli giving birth to Jonah — and three years later, to his communities. brother Cameron — propelled her in a different direction as she entered her 30s. And “when the opportunity at JNF came to me, it just Although she no longer lives in the Jewish cocoon of made sense; what they’ve accomplished in the philanthropic world is just incredible,” she said. Teaneck in which she was raised, she wanted to lead by Many people associate JNF with the iconic blue-andexample by modeling a commitment to Judaism in her white tzedakah box that emphasized the organization’s home and professional life, she said. primary role of foresting the holy land and maintain“I grew up in Teaneck and went to local day schools ing those forests, as well as heritage sites and water infrastructure, to this day. However, JNF-USA also supports a broad range of projects in Israel from the ecological to the social to fulfill its overall vision of “ensuring a prosperous future for the people and land of Israel,” Ms. Kahn said. To that end, JNF-USA creates and supports quality-of-life programs for people with disabilities. That includes Special in Uniform, which integrates young adults with disabilities into the Israel Defense Forces; programs for populations in the periphery, such as the reinforced Sderot Indoor Recreation Center, which gives children living on the border with Gaza a place to play safely; and programs for new immigrants, such as JNF Project Baseball in Beit Shemesh. The organization recently completed a billion-dollar campaign to further the development of new communities and employment opportunities in the north and south of Israel. And in the education arena, JNF-USA operates Alexander Muss High School in Israel, a fully accredited study-abroad experience. “There are so many different projects that everyone can find something that resonates with them,” Ms. Kahn said. “What speaks to Rachel and Freddie Kahn pose with their sons, Jonah and one person may not speak to the next person, Cameron. so when you’re looking to engage people it’s

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incredible to have all these possibilities to share. Wherever someone’s interests lie, there is a space at JNF they can commit to and support.” She plans to bring a sizable contingent from New Jersey to the organization’s first Global Conference for Israel, to be held in Denver from November 30 through December 3. “Every one of us has a responsibility to be a part of the conversation shaping our homeland’s future,” Ms. Kahn said. She emphasized that how someone feels about Israel’s government and its leaders at any particular time is irrelevant to involvement in the organization’s work. “JNF-USA is completely nonpolitical,” she said. “We always say that we like to have our conversations with the people in the streets, and not in the hallways of the Knesset.” Opportunities to have those conversations arise throughout the year through a variety of missions to

‘We always say that we like to have our conversations with the people in the streets, and not in the hallways of the Knesset.’ Israel, for example trips for rabbis or for lawyers, and tours focused on themes such as art or fashion. Ms. Kahn expects to travel to Israel for JNF-USA once or twice a year. At home in Fort Lee, Ms. Kahn and her husband, Freddie, who grew up in Riverdale, are active in Chabad of Fort Lee. Ms. Kahn’s mother, Sheila, also lives in Fort Lee. Her father, Mark Rosalimsky, and his wife, Jill, live in Teaneck. She began her duties with JNF-USA in mid-February. “JNF has done an amazing job filling director and associate director positions throughout the country, and we all strive to determine what works best in each region toward meeting our goals,” she said. “I feel privileged to work with people who have devoted their life to advocate for Israel. The lay leaders who have chosen to support us really keep us inspired.” JNF-USA is cosponsoring an Israel at 75 celebration at the JCC in Rockland Country on April 30. “As we find ourselves living in times of elevated Jew-hatred and anti-Zionism, it is crucial for our community to show support and advocate for the land and people of Israel,” Ms. Kahn said. For more information, email Rachel Kahn at rkahn@ jnf.org or call her at (973) 593-0095, ext. 824.

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Local

Muslim and Jewish women prepare food for the iftar at Shomrei Torah in Wayne.

SHOMREI TORAH

‘Knowledge will create peace’ Jews, Muslims share iftar at Shomrei Torah in Wayne ELLEN BRAUNSTEIN

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s congregants of Shomrei Torah in Wayne gathered in the synagogue library for the evening minyan, Muslims placed mats on the floor in a nearby classroom to conduct their evening prayers. The experience of praying next to each other was just one positive outcome of Jews and Muslims coming together on March 28 for an evening of food, fellowship, and learning during Ramadan. The Conservative congregation hosted the iftar, which is the fast-breaking evening meal Muslims eat during the month of Ramadan. The iftar, which drew 50 guests, was sponsored by Peace Island Institute, a nonprofit organization of Turkish Muslims devoted to promoting interfaith and intercultural dialogue. PII New Jersey is based in Hasbrouck Heights and hosts conferences, discussions, youth events and dinners year- round. “That’s how we establish our dialogue,” Adam Ozdemir, PII’s executive director, said. “During Ramadan, we break bread together with people from different faith groups, ethnicities, and traditions to 12 JEWISH STANDARD APRIL 7, 2023

promote friendship.” Ramadan, which began on March 22, is the ninth month of the Islamic calendar, observed by Muslims worldwide as a month of fasting, prayer, reflection, and community. The iftar with Muslims and Jews “is a way of the community coming together and learning about each other and sharing,” Rabbi Randall Mark of Shomrei Torah said. Jewish and Muslim women gathered at the synagogue at noon to cook a traditional iftar meal. The menu, prepared in the kosher kitchen, consisted of red lentil soup with vegetables, Mediterranean green beans, rice and butter, chickpeas with fried colored peppers, hummus, and a bulgur salad. “It was a terrific experience,” said Sule Kerfanci of Totowa, a representative from Peace Island Institute who prepared food. Five people representing PII and five from Shomrei Torah worked together and created a bond that afternoon. “Our main aim is to get to know one another,” Ms. Kerfanci continued. “We believe that if people don’t know each other, they cannot trust each other. We believe that knowledge will create peace.”

“They decided what the menu would be, and we were there to help them, washing and chopping things, whatever they asked us to do,” Beth Julie of Wayne, incoming vice president and a teacher at Shomrei Torah, said. “The women who came were incredible, charming and friendly.” “The cooking was a wonderful example of tolerance and collaboration and interfaith dialogue,” Imam Gazi Aga said. The director of the North East Islamic Community Center New Jersey in Wayne, he spoke at the iftar. Teens from the congregation’s Hebrew high school met with their peers from the Muslim community that evening. They discovered that they have more in common than the differences that divide them. At 6:30, the two communities came together for the meal and words of welcome and teachings from Imam Aga, Mr. Ozdemir, and Rabbi Mark. At 7:45, the evening prayers began. “What a cool experience it was being across the hall from each other, with Hebrew happening in one room and Arabic in the other,” Rabbi Mark said. “It just happened that way. Neither of us was planning for it.” “Muslims were chanting and praying,

and in the other room our Jewish friends were chanting and praying,” Imam Aga said. “It was beautiful, and it showed the long relationship between the traditions. That’s why we call it Abrahamic faith. We all come from Abraham, the friend of God.” “When the imam spoke, he led everyone in prayer,” Ms. Julie said. “It was very different than how we pray in Judaism. It really showed how people who are Muslim connect to God in a very spiritual way.” More similarities can be found between the two faiths. “Both traditions have fasting, refraining from food and drink including water,” Rabbi Mark said. “We both have the connection to sunrise, sunset, and the lunar calendar. During Ramadan and our observance of mitzvot in general, it brings a certain discipline to life. If you can do these things, it can help you to do whatever it is that you are going to do in life.” Ms. Julie gave a tour of the sanctuary. Rabbi Mark opened a Torah on a table and answered questions about what it contains and its meaning to the Jewish people. “They had so many questions and were so interested in Judaism,” Ms. Julie said. “I thought it was a success at every level.”

THE HIDDEN LIGHT OF THE GALILEE JEWISH STANDARD APRIL 7, 2023 13

Local

Repairing the world Randolph woman joins nonprofit to work with young Jews on making things better JOANNE PALMER

14 JEWISH STANDARD APRIL 7, 2023

JULIA MALAGA (ALL THREE IMAGES)

B

y now, it is an eye-rolling cliché to talk about a life’s journey, but sometimes it just is necessary. But sometimes that journey comes full circle so satisfyingly that it’s hard to think in those terms, because sometimes something is a cliché because of its underlying truth. Julia Malaga’s life seems to be coming full circle now, she says; her childhood aspirations, movement toward a Jewish life and then complete membership in the Jewish people, her somewhat behind-the-scenes, essential work as CFO at the Golda Och Academy, and now her new job, with similar responsibilities as COO at Repair the World. Her last day at GOA was last Friday, and she started her new job on Monday. In fact, Ms. Malaga said, “I told one of the GOA board members, who was board chair when I was hired 18 years ago, where I was going. I said I was going to Repair the World. And he said, ‘Yes. I know that. But what’s the name of the company?’” The name of the company — the nonprofit — for real is Repair the World. So here’s Ms. Malaga’s story. She lives in Randolph now, and has for the last 18 years, but she was born and grew up in a small town in Missouri called Burlington Junction. “The population now, I believe, is 534,” she said. “We’ve all been in buildings — we’ve all been in rooms! — with more than that many people. “My mother’s family has lived in the area for hundreds of years,” she continued. “The town was founded in the 1800s, in pioneer times; my family has been in this country since the 1600s. They have very deep roots.” Her mother’s family, according to her DNA, is almost entirely British; her father’s family came here later, from Denmark. “My mother was 5 months fetal age when she came here”; she was born four months later, in Iowa. As many readers might guess from her background, Ms. Malaga was not born Jewish. “I went to a public school and I had 28 kids in my graduating class,” she said. There were no Jews; the first Jew she met, she said, is the man who now is her husband, when they met in college. Contrary to what she’s learned that many Jews believe, “I had no preconceived idea of what it meant to be Jewish,” Ms. Malaga said. “Everyone seems to assume that everyone is a small town is antisemitic, and that is not true. “My great-uncle was in the war, and he was involved in liberating a concentration camp, so I had some idea of what antisemitism was.” She was raised Methodist, which in her time and place was “plain vanilla Protestant,” she said. She also was a Girl Scout, “from a very young age,” she said. “As a Girl Scout, you make a pledge ‘to serve God and my country, to help people at all times, and to live by the Girl Scout law.’ “A basic tenet of Girl Scout law is to leave wherever you are — the world, a community, a campsite — better than it was when you found it. My mother was my Girl Scout leader, and it was our philosophy that we live our values.

Julia Malaga became bat mitzvah with a group of women in Ukraine before Russia’s invasion.

Ms. Malaga felt an immense sense of connection at the Kotel.

Ms. Malaga is at Machane Yehuda in Jerusalem.

“I wanted to make the world a better place.” Ms. Malaga went to Washington to study politics and soon switched her major to sociology. “I wanted to understand the root causes that create injustice,” she said. After college, she went to graduate school in health science administration at George Washington University. “I loved it,” she said. “I started college in 1987 and finished grad school in 1996. It took me nine years! “Then I worked in the healthcare sector for a few years.” She loved it all. Meanwhile, she married Ross Malaga, a “glatt secular” Jew who grew up in Huntington, on Long Island, Ms. Malaga said. Dr. Malaga teaches at Montclair State,

where he is a professor in the information management and business analytics department at the business school and the academic director at its Feliciano Center for Entrepreneurship & Innovation. “My Jewish story is not the traditional one,” Ms. Malaga said. “I didn’t convert when we got married. We have two children” — Rachel is now 23, and Benjamin, about to turn 20 — “and we raised them Jewish. My son had a bris and a bar mitzvah, and my daughter had a bat mitzvah. They went to public school. “We belonged to a synagogue, but I had not converted. “I started to work at GOA in 2005,” Ms. Malaga said. “And then, in 2012, seven years into my tenure there, the then head of school, Rabbi Dr. Joyce Raynor, started a program to get a cohort of family and staff to go to Israel on a trip called Neshama. “It was a diverse group; the head of the business office, the head of school’s executive assistant, many

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others; some Jews, some not Jewish. The idea was that because Israel is such an integral part of our values, we should feel that.” Part of the goal was to help the administrators and staff understand some of what their students — most of whom spend the last semester of their senior year in Israel — experience, “because Israel is such an integral part of our values.” Ms. Malaga went on Neshama, which means soul, and found it was aptly named. “That trip changed everything,” she said. “I felt a connection to the land of Israel, and I had a spiritual experience at the Kotel. I can’t even described it, but I felt so invigorated that day, at the Kotel. “I just felt like I belonged there. I felt like I was home. I had never felt anything that powerful before. When I put my face on the stones of the Kotel, I felt that 5,000 years of history washed through me.” Had she gone prepared for such intensity of emotion? No, she hadn’t. “I hadn’t expected to feel that at all,” she said. “I had a lot of conversations with some colleagues, and I came back and started exploring the idea. I started feeling that my children deserved a Jewish mother.” This process took a few years, Ms. Malaga said. During that time, “my daughter started the Diller Teen Program,” which identifies and nurtures young Jewish leaders. “As an official patrilineal Jew, for the first time she was starting to have conversations about Jewish identity, and the Orthodox kids in the group were frank about it.” Because she had a Jewish father and a non-Jewish mother, a Jewish upbringing, and a Jewish identity, the Reform world in which she grew up considered her to be Jewish, but much of the rest of the Jewish world, which operates by halacha, Jewish law, did not. “She realized that she would not be able to marry a Jewish man in Israel, and that was very distressing for her. “All that led me to solidify in my mind that conversion was the right path,” Ms. Malaga said. “My sponsoring rabbi was Joyce Raynor, and for about a year I would go into her office every Wednesday at noon and we would learn together. Then she convened a beit din.” Ms. Malaga and her daughter “did the conversion together,” she said. “We went to the mikvah on the same day — but not at the same time. 16 JEWISH STANDARD APRIL 7, 2023

Ross, Julia, Rachel, and Benjamin Malaga are dressed for a party in 2019.

“I went first, so that when she went into the mikvah, she was the daughter of a Jewish mother.” This was 2015. “I have been living as a Jewish woman for a long time, but it was not official until not so long ago,” Ms. Malaga said. The vows she made at the conversion have guided her life since, Ms. Malaga said. “You vow that your destiny forever will be bound to the Jewish people. And I also made my own vow to become much more involved in the Jewish communal world.” Much of that involvement has been through her local federation, the Jewish Federation of Greater MetroWest; she has given both money — “I’m a Lion of Judah now, and I’m very proud of it,” she said — and time. She’s chaired a formidable number of committees, both in and out of federation, and she’s gone to Israel every year except when covid did not allow it. “It’s all part of a continuum,” she said. “I got my Jewish credentials at GOA, learning alongside the kids. Then I made it official, and I transitioned to a more active role in the Jewish community. So now it feels very natural to move from GOA to Repair the World. “It’s a different prong of Jewish action and continuity. It’s about what inspires and activates young Jewish adults to act on the mitzvah of repairing the world. “How can you resist when you see a job posting for repairing the world? “I am very excited, thinking about what role I can play to assist the organization in its growth and help create a structure to fuel it into the future.” Her work at Repair the World “is very similar to my role at GOA, but a little more focused on strategic oversight,” she said. “I’ll be working with a team of professionals to help it operate in the most efficient way possible. I will work with the team to help ensure that the culture supports the values, and the values support the culture. That it meets the needs of our employees, so they can focus on the reason they are there — to repair the world. “My job is to make it easy to work for Repair the World. “It’s an operations job — it’s non-programmatic, doing what I really love to do, and I loved doing at GOA — working with the administration to make sure that the infrastructure supports their work so they can focus on their mission.” Cheryl Rosenberg, a former Englewood City Council

REPAIR THE WORLD

Ms. Malaga is on a visit to Arad, in southern Israel.

JULIA MALAGA

JULIA MALAGA

Local

Repair the World New York’s program director, Miranda Rosenblum, and two volunteers work on a mural.

member and former president of Ben Porat Yosef in Paramus, is Repair the World’s senior marketing director. She’s excited about Ms. Malaga’s joining the nonprofit. Repair the World is about 13 years old now — it’s in its b-mitzvah year, she said — and not quite two years ago, the organization got a $7 million grant from the Mackenzie Scott Foundation. That money is going very far toward helping Repair the World work on its mission, showing young Jews how they can engage in and help fix the world as an expression of their Jewish identity and values. And it means that Repair the World is growing quickly — more than half of its employees have joined the group within the last year, Ms. Rosenberg said — and can benefit from exactly the combination of heart and skills that Ms. Malaga brings to it. Learn more about Repair the World at werepair.org.

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Local FIRST PERSON

Memories of Pesachs past and present Looking back at what we remember, what we miss, and what we take with us DEB BRESLOW

M

emories of Pesach, the season of rebirth, renewal, and reflection, leave me pondering so much more than four

questions. Was it the way my mother lovingly handed my father the finger bowl of water and soft dish towel used for the spiritual hand-washing performed throughout the seder? Was it the way my baba, Gussie Sudnovsky, a Russian immigrant from Korets with an eighth-grade education, tentatively dipped her pinkie in the small glass of wine, reciting the Ten Plagues by memory as though they’d personally befallen her? Was it the two-day ordeal of hauling what was essentially the contents of a second kitchen up the rickety basement stairs, then crouching like a pretzel to clear out the cabinets of the pots, pans, dishes, and chopping blocks inside, wondering if I was still small enough to climb in, scrub the shelves, and line them with fresh, clean contact paper? Was it whether my mother, Florence Miller, exhausted and distracted from the backbreaking work required to prepare sufficiently for Pesach, would somehow forget where she’d hidden the afikomen last year so as to give me an edge on beating my brother for the finder’s fee? Was it the smell of my mother’s signature chicken soup and her perfectly proportioned, fluffy kneidlach, kneaded and rolled the way she’d watched my grandmother prepare them for years, wafting from her tiny Fair Lawn kitchen? Was it the memory of opening the cedar closet in the basement and removing a large Deb Breslow of Wyckoff is a freelance writer and college essay coach. Her personal essays on home, family, and medical advocacy appear in local, regional, and national publications. 20 JEWISH STANDARD APRIL 7, 2023

One of Deb Breslow’s childhood seders.

with the conversation in English and undoubtedly took place when there was something the kinder shouldn’t hear? Or the experience of holding my breath in anticipation of saying the last Passover blessing so my dad, David Miller, a Navy veteran and historian — and also the fearless principal of our junior high school — could lead us in the singing of La Marseillaise, the French national anthem, signifying it was finally time to eat the festive meal? I ask myself these questions hoping to recreate the experiences of the particular Jewish traditions that warm me. When I was 13, celebrating Passover tended to leave me with mixed feelings. While appreciating the meaningful rituals my family followed and the traditions passed down to us from across the world in Eastern Europe, I was regularly in a state of fight or flight. I was grateful for my many Fair Lawn Jewish friends, with whom I trekked over a mile to Thomas Jefferson Junior High School every day and sat alongside at the noisy, crowded cafeteria tables. The only thing worse than unwrapping the carefully packed sandwiches of tuna salad or egg salad on the already crumbling matzah was eyeing my father as he Gussie Sudnovsky makes walked through the room. Without changing his pesachdik matzah-meal stance or facial expression, he sternly surveyed latkes; above, the recipe the middle-school pranksters, warning them with she wrote out and used. his eyes about any planned shenanigans involving jello cubes or spitballs. Undoubtedly, while feigning interest in the sugar-covered orange, lemon, lime, and cherry jellied fruit slices that my mother included in our lunchboxes as a special treat, my older brother, Jim, Rubbermaid bin that and I both always were within envy-producing disheld years of artfully tance of a handful of jellybeans, a sweet and spongy created Passover crafts? (Some had real utility — shiny yellow Peep, or the broken-off head of a chocolate Eashand-stitched cloth matzah covers, fine-point-marker-drawn plastic seder plates, papier-mâché-covered ter bunny. Somehow, though, the secret abbreviations dishes for salt water, and other holiday-themed art projmy Jewish friends used would offset the jealousy. While ects we made in Sunday school that my mother would peering into a friend’s lunch bag, one of us might ask insist on schlepping to the dining room to adorn our the other: “Is that K for P?” table with.) Throughout my youth, the eight days of Passover Was it the banter interjected in Yiddish that melded often felt like Groundhog Day. The before-school

Local morning ritual included warm and Passover holiday on campus, I amazingly not-hard-as-rocks Passover recall looking at my brother, who rolls that my mother got up extra early was two years ahead of me, as to bake for us. They were coated with we stood on line with our trays, butter, and if you closed your eyes when eyeing the breaded fried chicken you tasted them, they might come somesteak (that I wouldn’t have chowhat close to a freshly baked challah sen even when it wasn’t Passover), meatballs so loaded with roll. Sometimes, if I awoke early enough, breadcrumbs that the inclusion she and I would make the everything-inof ground beef was questionable, one-box Streit’s Passover Crumb Cake. crumb-crusted macaroni and That’s the one that came with the baking tin that was small enough to fit in my cheese, and an array of cold-cut friend Tina’s coveted Hasbro Easy-Bake sandwiches. Oven. I asked my brother what to do. The highlight was coming home from “Get a plate of mixed vegetables,” school and seeing my baba making he offered, hurrying off to sit matzah meal latkes. She would handwith his upperclassmen friends. mix it to just the right consistency, dropI ate those no-name brand mixed ping in spoonfuls of just the right provegetables, undoubtedly poured portions of matzah meal, egg, potato from an industrial-sized drum, David Breslow with two of his young grandsons, Danny Breslow, center, and Jack starch, salt, and pepper into a very hot for a week. It was next to imposMiller. sible to skip the ice cream, profrying pan with kosher-for-Passover oil vided at lunch and dinner by the sizzling in it. I can still taste those latkes renowned Penn State Creamery and its on-site cows. I — we covered them in sugar and raced to see who could in 1978 had its own set of challenges for this Jewish girl couldn’t do it. And while I’m not one for confessioneat the most. I can still see her, in her apron, her hands from a strictly kosher home in Fair Lawn. The school als, I recall admitting to my parents, during our weekly covered in batter, bent over, frying. If it were possible was set in the center of Pennsylvania in what was fondly scheduled Sunday night calls, that I’d given in by Day 8 to toss a cup of love into every one of those delectable known as cow country, and the meal choices offered and eaten the French toast. They forgave me. latkes, she did it. in its East Halls dining room were not really meant for Heading off to Penn State University in State College someone trying to stay away from treif. During my first SEE MEMORIES OF PESACHS PAGE 24

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Local

Bringing a final measure of comfort Cantor Lenny Mandel’s life experiences allow him to conduct funerals of depth and meaning DEB BRESLOW

provide an explanation that makes sense. “I want them to know they’re e n ny M a n d e l o f We s t about to go through the most mysterious experience that we as human Orange is a person full of beings could ever know. I want them contradictions. to see in my facial expression and He has a powerful, deep in my body language that I am with voice that commands attention and them.” respect, yet he’s full of emotion and Cantor Mandel describes these cries at the drop of a hat. Knowing visits as not difficult, but uplifting. this, I also know that if I were nearing His goal is to offer peace, calm, and (and fearing) the end of my life, I would serenity. want a meeting with Lenny Mandel. “My father, an extremely devout Cantor Lenny, as he’s fondly known, man, spent the majority of his life went to cantorial school at Yeshiva University, has been the chazan at CongreCantor Lenny Mandel attempting to allay my own fears gation B’nai Israel in Emerson since about death,” he said. “He would 1997, and was ordained as a rabbi in 2010. When he tell me joke after joke until I begged him to stop. But I was a student at YU’s Philip and Sarah Belz School of think he knew if rabbinical school was in the cards for Jewish Music, he said, he performed in secular venues me, I couldn’t adequately help my congregants come as well. “From the time I was 15, I performed in almost to terms with death until I’d come to terms with death every club in Greenwich Village.” myself.” But it was an experience with his dying father and Cantor Mandel was about 7 when his fears about the vision that his father’s longtime caregiver, Mattie, death surfaced, he said, and they remained in his psyche for years. told Cantor Mandel that confirmed his belief that there When his dad was 80, Lenny was still asking him if he is more to death than dying. “There are 613 mitzvot were going to die. His father’s response remained the that we as Jews try to attain,” he said. “When I walk same: “We’re all going to die.” out of a hospital room or away from a person’s sick Affirming the truth that none of us are immune to bed, I trudge to my car, sit there for a long time, and death has opened up a way for Cantor Mandel to hone don’t move. Providing peace to the dying is the ultimate his skills as a spiritual adviser, empathic listener, colmitzvah.” orful storyteller, and insightful judge of character. “I With humor, sensitivity, and a dose of quirkiness and hope to bring people closer to a place of acceptance wit, Cantor Mandel talks about what he knows — and is by sharing what Judaism teaches us about the soul,” he honest about what he doesn’t. “When people ask me said. “As a messenger of the congregation, I ask that why someone is afflicted with ALS or why innocent God overlook my flaws and accept my prayers for them. people get hit by cars or why so many children are I know people who are dying need to talk. Can I make killed by gun violence, my answer is: ‘I don’t know.’” the experience simpler for them? I hope so.” Cantor Mandel may not have all the answers, but he Helping people who are dying, supporting the family, does know that he doesn’t want people who are dying and officiating at funerals has changed his life. “When or their families to suffer. “When communicating with I’m asked if there’s an afterlife, I tell people that I don’t someone who is nearing the end of life, I want them to believe God is the great puppeteer, manipulating what see in my eyes that I understand and care about their happens to you here and in the hereafter,” he said. “I fears, worries, and uncertainties,” he said. But he can’t

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Sandy Rosen with one of her doctors, Dr. Michael Grasso, and with her son, Michael Rosen of Upper Saddle River. 22 JEWISH STANDARD APRIL 7, 2023

believe that when you die, you go up in front of a tribunal and God welcomes you in. I hope there’s a world that is heaven, even paradise.” He puts his heart into every funeral service at which he officiates. Emotions run high. “Loving kindness — chesed shel emet — is the last mitzvah we do for the deceased by burying them.” During the height of the covid pandemic, Cantor Mandel officiated at 16 funerals in three weeks. “There were so many restrictions,”

‘Loving kindness — chesed shel emet — is the last mitzvah we do for the deceased by burying them.’ he recalled. “Five people were allowed at the gravesite, and that included the rabbi and the funeral director. There was no touching, no shovels. We filled the graves with dirt using our hands.” In one case, a 105-year-old man who had no next of kin was not given a eulogy. “No one knew the man.” Cantor Mandel respectfully performed a service for only the funeral director and three gravediggers. “Sometimes Jewish Family Service refers an indigent family to one of the local Jewish funeral homes,” he said. These services are referred to as tzedakah funerals. “It is our duty to offer the dead and their family rachmones,” mercy, he said. Cantor Mandel explained that both cantors and rabbis can officiate at any event that is considered religious, with no concern for synagogue affiliation, religion, race, or gender. He is deeply grateful for the opportunities he’s had to give back to the community. “All cantors serve as a shaliach tzibur, messengers of the congregation.” Jayne Demsky of Mahwah thinks about her mother’s death. When Sandy Rosen, from Chestnut Ridge, N.Y., was diagnosed with breast cancer, she was in her 50s. After it metastasized to her bladder, then spread to her kidneys and lungs, her decline was fairly rapid. “She’d also battled chronic lymphocytic leukemia, all with grace, courage, and a positive outlook,” Jayne Demsky said. Ms. Rosen had trouble walking and soon needed a wheelchair. It became clear to her doctors that she was dying. Since Ms. Demsky no longer was a member of a shul, she asked around, and was introduced to Cantor Mandel. “It was a blessing,” Ms. Demsky said. “Not only did he share my late dad’s name, his words of comfort and genuine kindness towards my mom were what got her through her last days.” Many people who have not renewed their memberships at the synagogues where their children attended preschool, Hebrew school, and celebrated becoming bar or bat mitzvah have similar concerns. “I was terrified that when the time came, there wouldn’t be

Local someone to adequately represent Mom— all that she was to her friends, neighbors, family and community,” Ms. Demsky said. “From a three-hour meeting with Mom and several follow-up calls with me and my younger brother, Michael, Lenny’s comforting approach meant so much to us. He made himself available for whatever we needed, big and small.” “Mom was the skeptic beyond skeptics,” Ms. Demsky said. “She was scared to death and didn’t want to die. She wanted answers.” David Cooper, with his dog While she knew intellectually and later with his sisters, that Cantor Mandel might not be Nicole Ehrhart, left, able to offer anything tangible, and Michelle Blieberg. Ms. Demsky appreciated how he praised her mother for the wonderful life she had led. “My mom needed someone who they had each other, they’d carry on as adults, together would care enough to allay her fears, listen, empathize, and separately, in the way she’d raised them. “He didn’t understand and care about how she lived her life. Cansell us a bill of goods about the great temple in the sky,” tor Mandel was deeply interested in her life and encourMs. Demsky said. “Knowing Mom was looking for someaged her to express her deepest fear — leaving her two thing, anything, he gave her hope that there was something more to consider. He believed and expressed that children.” her soul would move on in her children.” Cantor Mandel assured Ms. Rosen that because she’d In October 2022, knowing her son and daughter raised such strong and amazing children, and because

always would be close, Sandy Rosen died. Her life was honored with respect and dignity, with Lenny Mandel leading her funeral. When Michelle Blieberg’s 51-year-old brother, David Cooper, was diagnosed with stage 4 pancreatic cancer in November 2020, his doctors told him his cancer was inoperable. “My sister and I had no unrealistic SEE MEASURE OF COMFORT PAGE 24

SPENCER TRASK LECTURE

Alexandra Horowitz

Head of the Dog Cognition Lab at Barnard College

Jeff f Bukant ff Bukantz tz

President, Maccabi USA A Join us on April 9th to hear Jeff Bukantz, president of Maccabi USA, speak on how Maccabi USA continues to build Jewish pride around the world through sports among Jewish athletes. We’ll also have the chance to hear from former Maccabiah Games participants who will share how their experiences in these games became a transformational moment in their lives. We urge you to invite Jewish athletes and your children’s Jewish teammates to hear this important message.

CALLING JEWISH ATHLETES

April 12, 2023

SUNDAY, APRIL 9th 12:00 PM

6 to 7:15 p.m., McCosh 50

http://lectures.princeton.edu

Temple Beth Rishon 585 Russell Ave., Wyckoff, NJ www.bethrishon.org / 201-891-4466

of ALL AGES! COME JOIN US!

ADMISSION: TBR Members: $18 pp Non-Members: $25 pp (Children under 18 yrs. old FREE) Visit us at bethrishon.org.

WALK-INS WELCOME! JEWISH STANDARD APRIL 7, 2023 23

Local Memories of Pesachs FROM PAGE 21

As far as establishing community, if my memory serves me right, my brother, a collegiate fencer, was invited, along with the other Jewish fencers on the team, to the home of his coach for one of the seders. He brought me along. While I appreciated the invitation and the hospitality, I missed the warmth, familiarity, and customs of Pesach at home. Getting married and having kids set a new tone for the Passover holiday. For one, my mother was happy to pass the torch, hang up her apron, and exit her kitchen, which grew smaller with each new grandson who’d made his way under her feet and into her heart. “Let me know what you’d like me to bring,” she’d ask blithely. “Everything!” I’d reply. Between her, my mother-in-law, and me, we had the makings of a festive meal each year. My dad remained at the helm, just six miles up Rt. 208 to my dining room table in Wyckoff vs. theirs in Fair Lawn. The kids began to participate, each having his turn at the Four Questions, each contributing his hand-stitched cloth matzah cover, plastic seder plate, and papier-mâché saltwater dish. It really did feel like we were passing along our traditions from generation to generation. When my dad and then my mom died within eight short months of one another, it felt incomprehensible that I’d ever be able to host a Passover dinner, do them justice in leading a seder, or express myself with feeling when reciting the prayers or singing the songs I’d learned to say without a Haggadah in hand. I called Elyse Frishman, rabbi emerita at Barnert Temple, to ask her what to do. How could I bear to continue the

From left, Ms. Breslow, her mother, Florence Miller, and her baba, Gussie Sudnovsky.

David and Florence Miller ritually wash their hands as their grandson Rob Breslow watches and learns.

traditions I’d been brought up with without my dad seated at the head of the table, his eyes filled with pride for the family we’d created? And without my mom, handing out song sheets, leading us in “Dayenu” with her sweet, melodic voice? “Make new memories,” she’d said. “Love the ones you’re with.” It’s April 2023. My youngest is teaching English in Poland, my middle is working hard in San Francisco, and my oldest is living in Boston, planning to bring his girlfriend home to celebrate her first Jewish holiday. As I chop three pounds of ground beef in a wooden chopping bowl (known in Yiddish as a hock-messer) gifted to me by my dear Uncle Harry, I carefully follow the steps to make my mother’s Passover sweet-and-sour meatballs. Holding open the pages of her careworn

Fair Lawn Hadassah cookbook, I scroll through my Spotify playlist. Memories of sharing the piano bench with my talented mother as we sang and harmonized to the Irving Berlin Holiday Songbook seep into my pores. Who should I choose to serenade me as I cook with purpose, hoping to bring me closer to my beautiful and beloved late mother, my strong and steady late father, and my precious, steeped-in-tradition, cherished baba — the Barry Sisters, Judy Garland, Dean Martin, or Peggy Lee? If my dad was open to honoring the French in his annual rendition of their national anthem, I’m meant to sing along with Judy. “In your Easter bonnet/with all the frills upon it/ you’ll be the grandest lady in the Easter parade.”

expectations for his course,” Ms. Blieberg said. “Nor did he.” They were both committed, from the inexplicable news of his condition to his death just nine months later, to following his lead. Mr. Cooper, the father of two children, Marielle and Will, lived in North Babylon on Long Island. He was offered the opportunity to live in comfortable private housing in northern New Jersey, much closer to his oncology team at Memorial Sloan Kettering in Montvale and Basking Ridge and Hackensack University Medical Center in Hackensack. But despite the commute to regular and exhausting appointments, he insisted on staying on Long Island “He wanted to be as close to his kids as possible.” Knowing that the end of Mr. Cooper’s life was near, Ms. Blieberg and her sister, Nicole Ehrhart of Fair Lawn, had candid conversations about what was important to him. “David was explicit about not having his funeral in a temple,” Ms. Blieberg said. “He did not want anything religious.” Mr. Cooper’s idea of a sendoff was similar to the fraternity parties he’d David Cooper stands between his sisters, Michelle enjoyed at Syracuse University, complete with speBlieberg, left, and Nicole Ehrhart. cially themed Yankees or Beatles or other “I knew David when…” giveaways. Mr. Cooper at Vitas Hospice in Wayne, unfortunately by “Our brother had a million friends,” Ms. Blieberg then Mr. Cooper was unresponsive. “But David knew said. “He brought lightness to people’s lives and had an that a cool rabbi was coming to see him, someone he’d amazing sense of humor.” His sisters felt it was important to have a nice mix of religious tone and sharing of really like,” Ms. Blieberg said. After long telephone discussions with Ms. Blieberg from her home in Old Greenmemories. “Our goal was to find a rabbi that David wich, Connecticut, about who Mr. Cooper was and the could relate to.” While Cantor Mandel had every intention of meeting kind of service he wanted, Cantor Mandel arrived at the

hospice in Wayne. The first person he encountered was David’s ex-wife, Jill. Coincidentally, Jill had just attended a funeral on Long Island for a young person who had died tragically. Cantor Mandel had officiated. This endeared her to him. Since David was unable to speak to or hear him, Cantor Mandel took the opportunity to get to know David’s kids, Marielle, 16, and Will, 14. Will, reluctant to communicate about his dad, deferred to Marielle. “Watching how Lenny engaged Marielle and drew her out was indescribably touching,” Ms. Blieberg said. While Cantor Lenny was interested in learning about Mr. Cooper, he seemed more concerned about connecting with his daughter. “It was palpable how much David loved his kids and Cantor Lenny could see that.” Michelle and Nicole were impressed by Cantor Mandel’s sensitive and thoughtful approach to their niece and nephew as they prepared to lose their father. After his death in August 2021, Mr. Cooper’s friends came to New Jersey from all over the world to honor him. “For someone who never really had the chance to meet or talk with David, Lenny got it down,” Ms. Bleiberg said. Throughout the service, Cantor Mandel, wearing a Grateful Dead T-shirt that peeked from his suit jacket, was able to communicate to everyone at the funeral not only who David was as a friend, sales and marketing professional, partner, brother, uncle, son and father, but also was able to interject with empathy and emotion the challenges, interests, passions, and essential moments that made up his life.

Measure of Comfort FROM PAGE 23

24 JEWISH STANDARD APRIL 7, 2023

Keeping Kosher Spice up your Passover

A picture of Binghamton’s Shabbat 2000 taken before Shabbat.

Shabbat 2000 at Binghamton University Twenty-nine years ago, Binghamton University’s Rohr Chabad Center for Jewish Student Life began what has become a longstanding tradition — hosting a large gathering for a Shabbat dinner. It has been replicated on more than 50 campuses throughout the world; still, Binghamton maintains the national record for gathering the largest number of students in one place for a Shabbat dinner. Shabbat 1000 (2000 in Binghamton) is a national Chabad on Campus initiative.

This year’s 29th annual Shabbat 2000 dinner at Binghamton on March 24 drew more than 2,000 students to a meaningful Shabbat dinner. BU’s president, Harvey Stenger, joined other members of the school’s faculty and administration at the dinner. This year’s Shabbat 2000 also celebrated the year of hakhel or “gathering,” a biblical event brought to modern times as a year of unity, education, and spiritual growth.

Lemon & dill chicken 1 lemon - zested then cut into 1/4-inch slices 4 tablespoons olive oil, divided 1 tablespoon Pereg dill 1 teaspoon Pereg basil 1 teaspoon Pereg fine red sea salt, divided 1⁄4 teaspoon Pereg butcher style black pepper 2 chicken breasts, cubed 3 red potatoes, cubed 10 ounces green beans 3 cloves of garlic, grated Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a large bowl combine lemon zest, 3 tablespoons olive oil, dill, basil, 1⁄2 teaspoon salt, and black pepper. Add in cubed chicken and potatoes, and toss to coat. Spread mixture evenly in one layer on parchment-lined sheet pan. Top with sliced lemons. Cook on middle rack for 30 minutes. Meanwhile, in a large bowl combine grated garlic with 1 tablespoon olive oil and 1⁄2 teaspoon salt. Chop green beans in half and toss in bowl and coat with olive oil mixture. Remove sheet pan from oven and toss chicken/potato mixture and top mixture with green beans. Spread mixture evenly in one layer on sheet pan and return to oven. Increase oven temp to 450 degrees and roast for 10 minutes or until chicken reaches internal temperature of 165 degrees, and potatoes are golden brown.

PHOTO COURTESY TEMPLE BETH SHOLOM

Nifty kitchen gadget serves two purposes BETH JANOFF CHANANIE During the pandemic, I spent some of my free time going on Zoom programs and I followed many terrific kosher cooking programs. I have to say, I love gizmos and gadgets, and this one is a winner. I had my iPad carefully placed on the Eva Solo Mat by Cribsi and it never moved – I could place it up and down or sideways. I was totally hands-free to pay attention to my lesson. When it’s not being used for this purpose, it is also an amazing mat for a hot saucepan or dish. There are different-sized grooves at various angles so that you can place your tablet or phone as you want it’s made from

COURTESY PEREG

S. WILSON/CHABAD OF BINGHAMTON

Some people say that Passover dishes are bland, and some argue that blandness is a part of the tradition. To quell the thought that a meal should ever be boring, Pereg offers a variety of kosher for Passover spices including shawarma, dill, basil, spearmint, and cinnamon sticks, plus its signature za’atar spice mix recreated for Passover (made without chickpea flour and sesame seeds.) All Pereg Passover products are made under strict rabbinical supervision. Here’s a recipe from Pereg to make for one night of Passover or anytime.

Fair Lawn food drive durable, heat-safe silicone, and it is even dishwasher safe. Check it out this stress reliever on Cribsi.com.

Temple Beth Sholom of Fair Lawn delivered items collected during its Purim/ shalach manot food drive to the Fair Lawn Food Pantry. That included edible/shake-able groggers — boxes of pasta that made noise and were used for

groggers. The shul also donated more than $1,000 in ShopRite scrip. Here, from left: TBS president Mitch Friedman, TBS first vice president Diane Haft, and Marcy Kissane of Fair Lawn’s health and human services department. JEWISH STANDARD APRIL 7, 2023 25

Around the Community Sunday APRIL 9

Shem Tov, whose custom it was — at the Chabad House, 6:30 p.m. 11 Harold St. (201) 871-1152 or Chabadlubavitch.org/ moshiachmeal.

Friday APRIL 14 Hybrid memoir workshop: Jewish Jeff Bukantz

Talking about Maccabi in Wyckoff: Jeff Bukantz, president of Maccabi USA, speaks at the Henry and Elaine Kaufman Center for Jewish Living at Temple Beth Rishon. Noon. bethrishon.org, or (201) 891-4466.

Monday APRIL 10

Dr. Jacob Ari Labendz

Yom HaShoah in Mahwah: Dr. Jacob Ari Labendz, director of the Gross Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Ramapo College, offers “A Conversation about Contemporary Antisemitism in Honor of Yom HaShoah” at the center’s Special Collections Reading Room, LC-215. Tour the Gross Center and then have a free kosher lunch and conversation with Dr. Labendz. 1 p.m. Co-sponsored by Ramapo Hillel. For parking on the Ramapo campus, email [email protected].

Thursday APRIL 13 Moshiach meal in Tenafly: Lubavitch on the Palisades hosts its moshiach meal — the third meal of the last day of Passover, named by the Baal

Family Service of Atlantic County offers a workshop led by Harriet Levin Millan, an award-winning author and Drexel University creative writing professor, on Zoom. 10:30 a.m. tserota@ jfsatlantic.org or (609) 287-8872.

Sunday APRIL 16 Jewish solidarity: Forward Association president Sam Norich discusses “Israeli Government Policy and the Limits of Jewish Solidarity” on Zoom for Kol Rina in South Orange. The Forward Association is the not-for-profit that publishes the Forward. 10:30 a.m. For link: email kolrinanjwelcome@ gmail.com.

Talking about Sephardic Jews: In “A New Awakening,” Sol Romano talks about the history and background of the Sephardic Jews of Spain, focusing on his family’s heritage, for the Jewish Heritage Museum of Monmouth County in Freehold. In person and on Zoom. 2 p.m. Reservations: www.jhmomc.org, or call (732) 252-6990.

Marking the Holocaust in NYC: Temple EmanuEl of NYC has its annual Gathering of Remembrance, both in person and livestreamed, Fifth Avenue and East 65th Street. 2 p.m. Livestreamed at mjhnyc.org/agr and youtube.com/ MuseumJewish Heritage. More info at mjhnyc.org.

Yom HaShoah in Fair Lawn: The Fair Lawn

26 JEWISH STANDARD APRIL 7, 2023

Jewish Center/CBI holds its annual Zachor observance, focusing on spiritual resistance, with presentations by religious school students and candle lighting to honor survivors and World War II veterans. Refreshments, 11 a.m. (201) 796-5040.

Michele WaldmanWegodsky and Yedidya Harush, the Halutza liaison to Jewish National Fund-USA

Yom HaShoah in Bergen County: The Jewish Federation of Northern New Jersey’s Yom HaShoah commemoration is at Temple Beth Rishon in Wyckoff and on Zoom. Dr. David Frey will discuss “Finding Inspiration in History: From Camp Ritchie in World War II to West Point Today.” 3 p.m. Register: JFNNJ. org/yomhashoah or (201) 820-3923.

Chamber music in Tenafly: Violinist Sharon Roffman, the artistic director of the Kaplen JCC of the Palisades’ Thurnauer music school; cellist Clancy Newman; and pianist Orion Weiss at the school’s chamber music series at the JCC on the Palisades. 3 p.m. (201) 408-1461

Yom HaShoah in Rockland: David Harris, the former American Jewish Committee CEO, is the keynote speaker at Rockland County’s communitywide Holocaust commemoration at Congregation Shir Shalom in New City. Funds raised from the Yom HaShoah appeal will go toward customized education programs for local Title I schools in under-resourced communities. 5 p.m. holocaustrcc@ gmail.com or www. holocauststudies.org.

Reparations and restorative justice: A film screening of “Reckonings,” about the post WWII era, followed by a presentation by Rabbi J.J. Schacter, at Teaneck’s Congregation Rinat Yisrael in the Social Hall. 7:30 p.m. www.rinat.org.

COURTESY JNF

Love for Israel from generation to generation Benjamin Waldman, who directed Jewish National Fund-USA New Jersey in its Teaneck office, and his wife, Annette, formerly of New Milford, were recently memorialized by their daughter, lawyer Michele Waldman-Wegodsky, and her family in Halutza, Israel. The Waldman-Wegodskys, from Highland Park, dedicated a new daycare center in Halutza, which is in a remote area of Israel between the Egyptian and Gaza borders. Halutza, an affiliate of Jewish National FundUSA, works to support growth and development on Israel’s frontiers, the remote southern and northern regions. For the Waldman-Wegodsky family, supporting one of the organization’s initiatives was a natural fit. Michele remembered growing up in a home infused with a deep love for Israel. “It wasn’t just a job for my father, it was the source of a lot of happiness and pride,” she said. A plaque in honor of her generosity and in memory of her parents is outside of the daycare. “People sacrifice a lot to live here,” she said. “I feel very proud to be supporting Halutza.” The next generation of the Waldm a n -We go d sk y f a m i ly i s a l s o

supporting Halutza. Ms. Waldman-Wegodsky’s daughter, Melanie, has embarked on her own career at Jewish National Fund-USA. “Michele’s generosity is coming from a beautiful place of honoring her father’s love for education and for empowering the next generation of the Jewish people,” Anna Millstein, director of the Central New Jersey office of the Jewish National Fund-USA, said. “This partnership with the people of Halutza reminds our brothers and sisters there that we are always there for them, in good times and bad, that the Jewish people worldwide share our love and help each other with our burdens. Michele’s commitment to Halutza extends beyond this daycare into a real love for the community and this plaque finally provides a physical and visible testament to that.”

Rockland film festival is coming The 20th JCC-Rockland International Jewish Film Festival will be held from April 18 through May 9, featuring 12 films that can be screened in person or online. The opening night feature, “The Devil’s Confession: The Lost Eichmann Tapes,” is at the AMC

Palisades IMAX. All this year’s films will be available to stream from home from May 10 through May 24. An in-person or virtual pass for the whole festival is available. For more information, go to jccrockland.eventive.org/welcome.

 

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  ‫י״ח ניסן תשפ״ג‬

 

     

  

   

  

   

       

  
 

JEWISH STANDARD APRIL 7, 2023 27

COURTESY NJJBA

COURTESY OF ISRAEL BONDS

Around the Community

David Rosenberg, front center, NJJBA’s founder and executive director, led the forum; Nicole Suissa, right, was among the attendees.

NJJBA panel focuses on business survival The New Jersey Jewish Business Alliance hosted its Economic Development Forum last month at St. Peter’s University Sky Room in Jersey City. Participants from many industries met to talk about how businesses survive and thrive in the current economy. David Rosenberg, NJJBA’s founder and executive director, welcomed the guests, sponsors, and presenters, and Gary Minkoff, a Rutgers Business School professor, was the moderator. Maksim Sheyn, the event chair, a Citizens Bank senior vice president and an NJJBA board member, chaired the meeting, saying that he hopes the program would “infuse some optimism in the current conditions and future conditions of the U.S. markets.” Ted Zangari of Sills Cummis and Gross P.C.

recommended that business owners conduct a stress test to identify vulnerabilities in a company. Daniel Stolz, a bankruptcy attorney and partner at Genova Burns, explained how there can be benefits for some or all parties within bankruptcy cases. Sheon Karol, managing director of Hilco Corporate Finance, recommended that to stay advanced in this unstable environment, it is wise for business owners to invest in technology. Christopher Philips, Valley Bank senior vice president, talked about the role banks play in business loans and debts, stressing that businesses should make sure their debt service coverage is covered and that cashflows are set up correctly. For more information email [email protected].

From left: Israel Bonds’ national and international board chair Howard L. Goldstein; Uri and Sharon Sasson; Michael Herzog, Israel’s ambassador to the United States; and Dani Naveh, president and CEO of Israel Bonds.

Sassons of New City honored at Israel Bonds conference Uri and Sharon Sasson of New City were among 11 people honored by Israel Bonds at a dinner hosted by Michael Herzog, Israel’s ambassador to the United States, at the Israeli embassy in Washington last month. The Sassons are longstanding advocates for Israel and the Development Corporation for Israel/ Israel Bonds. Sharon Sasson is on the Women’s Division National Council and is chair of Bonds Rockland, NY. Uri Sasson, a developer, established the Holocaust Museum and Center for Tolerance and Education at Rockland Community College in Suffern, NY. Ambassador Herzog congratulated the honorees, saying, “Israel Bonds International Leadership Conference has a special meaning this year as we mark the 75th year of independence of the Jewish, democratic State of Israel. This year we also mark 75 years of the unique alliance between Israel and the United States of

America, our closest ally. In its 75 years of existence, the State of Israel has been propelled to success by a variety of important supporters and organizations and a key one is Israel Bonds. Perhaps it has become a cliché, but it’s true when they say, ‘it takes a village.’ Our village is made up [of these] honorees and I want to take this opportunity to congratulate and thank each and every one of you.” “We are so proud of Uri and Sharon Sasson,” Israel Bonds’ president and CEO, Dani Naveh, said. “They are role models for unconditional support for the State of Israel and its people. Our honorees play a decisive role in Israel Bonds campaigns, with their support and their valuable introductions which enable Israel’s rapid evolution into a global leader in pioneering cutting-edge technologies — all while making a financial investment on a personal level. This win-win proposition offered by Israel Bonds is poised to stand the test of time.”

Scholar speaks on the art of biblical narrative

Jennifer Sauer, right, with seder attendees.

Passover for seniors in River Edge More than 50 people attended the JCC of Northern NJ’s Active Seniors community Passover seder and sing-along. Seder plates included oranges and olives symbolizing LGBTQ+ inclusion and peace in Ukraine, respectively. The seder and sing-along were led by Jennifer Sauer, 28 JEWISH STANDARD APRIL 7, 2023

the JCC Active Seniors program manager, with musical accompaniment by Hal Keshner on electric piano, guitar, and kazoo. The celebration ended with a line of women dancing around the room to “Lashanah Haba’ah Bi’yirushalaim” — next year in Jerusalem.

The stories of the Hebrew Bible are the foundational texts of western civilization. On April 19, at 7:30 p.m., Robert Alter, professor emeritus of Hebrew and comparative literature at UC Berkeley, will discuss the poetry, prose, and literary genius of the Hebrew Bible at a public talk at Rutgers. In 1981, Dr. Alter wrote “The Art of Biblical Narrative,” which was considered a groundbreaking book on biblical studies. In 2018, he published “The Five Books of Moses,” an English translation of the complete Hebrew Bible. It won the PEN

Center Literary Award for Translation. Dr. Alter’s talk is free and open to the public at the Douglass Student Center, 100 George St., in New Brunswick. Refreshments will be served after the talk, which is presented by the Allen and Joan Bildner Center for the Study of Jewish Life at Rutgers University as part of its 25th anniversary celebration. The program is made possible through funding from Leon and Toby Cooperman. Free campus parking is available. For more information and to register, go to BildnerCenter.Rutgers.edu.

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JEWISH STANDARD APRIL 7, 2023 29

Lisa Estrin drives Julia and Sasha. ALL PHOTOS COURTESY BETH HAVERIM SHIR SHALOM

COVER STORY

Putting the spotlight on ‘Julia’s Journey’ A congregation rallies round a refugee family from Ukraine JOANNE PALMER

T

he world is a very big place. It’s hard to fix it. But Jewish tradition teaches us that we have to try. We have to just start somewhere, with something, and then keep going. That’s what a group of congregants at Beth Haverim Shir Shalom in Mahwah decided to do. To pick a place — a person — to start with, and then to keep going. They might have been propelled by their Reform synagogue’s name; Beth Haverim Shir translates to House of Friends and Song of Peace in English. So how do you work with friends and bring peace into your home? Recently, the three members of the committee who have produced a documentary that will be screened on April 30 talked about what they’ve been doing. Harvey Weinberg of Upper Saddle River has been a member of Beth Haverim Shir Shalom since 1993, was 30 JEWISH STANDARD APRIL 7, 2023

its president for three terms, and now co-chairs its tikkun olam committee. Linda Schwartz of Suffern, who has been a member since 2005, has held many committee assignments, most recently as the other tikkun olam co-chair. And Iris Greenberg of Wayne is now in her 19th year as the synagogue’s executive director. (A tiny bit of geography — Beth Haverim Shir Shalom is in Bergen County, but it’s very close to the state line. It draws about a third of its membership from Rockland County.) Together, Mr. Weinberg, Ms. Schwartz, and Ms. Greenberg produced “Julia’s Journey: A Story of Love, Courage, and Hope,” a documentary that tells the story of Julia and her family. Mr. Weinberg directed; the videography was by Kyle Dubiel, a synagogue member who graduated from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts and is a professional filmmaker. “In March of last year, right after Russia invaded Ukraine, a friend who is active in Jewish organizations

sent me an article about a rabbi in Florida who had taken a Ukrainian refugee family in his home,” Mr. Weinberg said. “He welcomed them and got them settled, got the children into school.” (The rabbi is Adam Watstein; his shul is close to Miami, and the story about him was in the Forward last year.) “That was early in the war, and they were early refugees. “The rabbi’s thinking was that it is wonderful to donate food and clothing and to contribute money, but the highest order of giving is what he called inconveniencing yourself. “So we got together, and tried to figure out what to do, how to get matched with a Ukrainian refugee family.” The three got in touch with some Jewish organizations, but the process went slowly. They grew impatient. “Then a member of the group, Lisa Estrin, read a Facebook post about a 27-year-old Ukrainian refugee

Cover Story

Julia talks to the camera in the film’s trailer.

Harvey Weinberg wrote and coproduced “Julia’s Journey.”

On their first visit to Manhattan, Julia and Sasha went to the September 11 Memorial, where the Twin Towers once stood.

mom and her 4-year-old son, Sasha, who had lost their luggage in Mexico City. They were in Suffern by then; they needed help and were asking for it directly. “So Lisa reached out to them by Facebook, and we had a first meeting with Julia” — she’s Yuliia in transcribed Ukrainian — “who was staying at that time on her aunt’s couch.” Her aunt has been in this country for about a decade, Mr. Weinberg added. “That meeting began a relationship that now is coming up on one year strong.” In the trailer for the documentary, Julia talks about how hard it was to leave Ukraine — and how necessary. She did not want to leave her husband, Stas, even temporarily — and a truth about immigration, particularly during wartime, is that you can never know if a temporary parting will end up being permanent. If it’s au revoir or goodbye. Men between 18 and 65 are not allowed to leave Ukraine unless they have some sort of disability that would keep them out JEWISH STANDARD APRIL 7, 2023 31

Cover Story

Stas holds baby Sasha. Julia and Sasha get a ride out of Slovakia.

Stas and Julia have been reunited.

of the war effort. But this was war, and Julia and Stas knew that they wanted a better life for Sasha. Leaving was hard — we never should sugarcoat how hard it is — but they decided that it was necessary. Julia

and Sasha went to Slovakia, then to Poland, where they stayed for a few weeks. “She helped in an immigration center in Poland, because she speaks fluent Ukrainian, Russian, and Polish,” Ms. Schwartz said. And then Julia and Sasha went to Mexico, and then

on to the United States. Because they realized that the way to establish a strong person in a new life is not by wrapping her in gauze but by allowing her to engage with her new world, “we identified what Julia and her son Sasha

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Cover Story

When Julia and Sasha were in Poland, Sasha got sick.

Sasha buckles his seatbelt for the flight to the United States.

When they first got to Suffern, Julia and Sasha stayed in this basement room.

needed,” Mr. Weinberg said. “That included a place to live. It took several months until Julia was on her feet. We helped her find an apartment in Suffern. We subsidized it. And she needed a job. The Saddle River Inn is one of the top restaurants

in the state, and the Saddle River Café is a beautiful place right next door.” The owner gave Julia a job. “She began as a hostess and barista, and now does whatever she can there,” Mr. Weinberg said. “She’s been working there since May of last year.”

The job was a logical fit for Julia because she had worked in restaurants in Ukraine; the refugees are coming from a country not so unlike the United States that skills learned at home are not useful here. Restaurants, at least to some extent, are restaurants, here and in

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Cover Story eastern Europe. Then there is the language question. Ukrainians start learning English in third grade, Mr. Weinberg said. “Her English was okay when she got here,” but okay isn’t great, he added. “One of our synagogue members taught English on the secondary-school level. She has been tutoring Julia since last spring. Julia’s English is now imperfect but entirely understandable, although she might mess up a tense here or there.” And then there was Sasha, “who needed to go to school,” he continued. He talked to

David Kirschtel, the CEO of the JCC Rockland, and as a result of that conversation, “Sasha was enrolled at the school there, at no cost. He began in May 2022, went through the summer there, and now has transitioned to pre-K in Suffern.” He’s in public school now, “and he’s doing wonderfully well.” As for Sasha’s English, small children pick up languages quickly. “Within a week or two, I met him and dropped him off at school. I said, ‘See you later,’ and he said, ‘See you later!’” Sasha’s English is just fine. The family is not Jewish, a fact that

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puts off no one on any side of this relationship. Now that Julia had a job and Sasha was in school, the next question was transportation. “Julia didn’t know how to drive,” Mr. Weinberg said. She comes from Ivano-Frankivsk, a city in western

“So Linda organized 10 volunteers to drive to Julia’s apartment, pick them up, take Sasha to school and Julia to work, and then reverse it at 3,” Ms. Greenberg said. “That went on five days a week for four months,” Ms. Schwartz said. “The

‘...it is wonderful to donate food and clothing and to contribute money, but the highest order of giving is ... inconveniencing yourself.’ Ukraine. “At home, she would bike or use public transportation.” But public transportation in Rockland and northern Bergen County doesn’t go where Julia has to go, and it’s hard to always rely on a bike, especially when you have a growing child to take with you.

beauty of it was the relationships developed. It was intimate in the car,” just Julia, Sasha, and the driver. There were 10 drivers, but each one drove alone. “We realized that Julia is fiercely independent,” Ms. Greenberg said. “She wanted to learn to drive. So

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ORANGETOWN JEWISH CENTER Julia is at work at the Saddle River Cafe. 34 JEWISH STANDARD APRIL 7, 2023

Cover Story

Julia, second from right, sits with some members of the team who drove her, before she earned her license.

Linda arranged for her to take driving lessons at David Driving School in Monsey. She had, give or take, half a dozen lessons, and then she got her license.” (That’s not a feat that many new teenage drivers can match — six lessons behind the wheel and then passing the road test

the first time.) Now, Julia needed a car. “Here’s where the tears come in,” Mr. Weinberg said. “We have people giving gift cards for food, furniture, and clothing. So Iris sends a note asking if anyone has a car for Julia, and someone answers.

Sasha is at the computer in his school library.

“It’s Len Kaplan. He’s 76, his wife died a year ago, and he donates her car. You can envision the scene when it happened, with Julia hugging him,” Mr. Weinberg said, his voice suspiciously froggy. There still was the question of where Julia and Sasha could live. Her aunt’s

apartment was crowded, and it’s hard sleeping on a couch. “We found an apartment — and guess what? The landlord is a member of the congregation.” There hadn’t been time for the apartment to be cleaned before Julia and Sasha moved in, “so Julia cleaned it, and

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Cover Story then we had a painting party.” Everything was going well. And then it got even better. “Her mother and brother were still in Ukraine,” Mr. Weinberg said. There’s a nine-year age gap between Julia and Vasl — he’s 19. “When she left Ukraine, he drove her to the border with Slovakia, and then he went home,” Mr. Weinberg said. The frog had returned to his throat. Vasl has a medical condition that is not visible but keeps him out of the army. “He is allowed to leave, but he needed to be sponsored,” so the synagogue committee “facilitated that process,” Mr. Weinberg said. Both Vasl and his mother, Svetlana, were able to leave. When Vasl and Svetlana got to Suffern, they stayed with Marianna — Svetlana’s sister and Vasl and Julia’s aunt. Vasl slept on his aunt’s couch at first, just as his sister had. But then the synagogue arranged to have him live at Len

Kaplan’s house — it’s a big place for a recently widowed man to live in and listen to echoes in alone. “Hopefully he’ll go to Ramapo College in the fall, but he has to perfect his English first, so now he’s working on it at Bergen Community College,” Mr. Weinberg said. Our shul members are at it again. He works in Allendale, at a place called Primo Hoagies. “It’s new. It just opened up in a strip mall, and I walked in there and told the owner about Vasl, and he was hired on the spot. So now he has a job and a place to live, and he’s getting an education.” And then there’s Stas. He’s now in the United States; it’s unclear how that happened, but “it’s 100 percent legal,” Mr. Weinberg said. “He hadn’t seen Julia or Sasha from last February until December, but then we learned that he’d be able to leave and be reunited with his wife and son. “He had been a chef, so Linda arranged for him to find

THE HOLOCAUST COMMEMORATION COMMITTEE OF THE JEWISH COMMUNITY COUNCIL OF GREATER TEANECK

The 2023 Annual Yom Hashoa Holocaust Commemoration

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ABE FOXMAN

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LEGACY FAMILY

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Student artwork from Naaleh High School for Girls will be on display at the Bergenfield Public Library for the month of April, and at the Teaneck Public Library in May.

36 JEWISH STANDARD APRIL 7, 2023

Musical Performance by Jonathan Rimberg & Stephanie Kurtzman

The Yavneh Academy Concert Choir will be performing under the direction of Marsha Motzen. For tax deductible donations, visit teaneckyomhashoa.org or send checks payable to Jewish Community Council of Greater Teaneck 1168 E. Laurelton Pkwy, Teaneck, NJ 07666

work. He has a job at the Pearl River Hilton now.” It takes money to put people on their feet. $40,000, to be precise. Synagogue members raised $36,000, mostly by word of mouth, and received two grants of $2,000 each from the Union of Reform Judaism. Mr. Weinberg, Ms. Schwartz, and Ms. Greenberg joked about making a movie of the story. “We’d have Jewish actors play the roles, so Natalie Portland would play Linda, Harrison Ford would be in it, and Scarlett Johansen would play Julia,” Mr. Weinberg said. Needless to say, that didn’t happen. But there was real intent behind the joking. “It became clear that this story had to be told,” Mr. Weinberg said. He’s retired from a career as a financial consultant; he thought he’d write about it, but soon learned that writing “was not fun.” But then “I had a vision of creating a documentary, and I wrote 13 scenes in six locations,” he said. “It’s the people’s own words, but I wrote what should be said in every scene and who should say it. “I shared it with my friends here, and most importantly shared it with Julia. She came over to my house, and even before I showed her the script, she said, ‘We’re in business.’ “She is something else. “So I took her through the whole thing, and she looked me in the eye and said, ‘Let’s make a movie!’” The congregants featured in the film raised almost all the money necessary to create it. The three producers admire Julia immensely. “She has incredible character, she is strong as hell, and she is smart,” Mr. Weinberg said. At first, Julia was uncomfortable about being the focus of the film, but “she recognizes that she and her family are very lucky to have met us, and we know that we are very lucky to have met her.” With the film, “we are acknowledging that Ukraine is a real issue, and a real horror. “Our rabbi, Ilana Schwartzman, has relationships with a Ukrainian priest from a congregation in Passaic with whom she has done a prayer vigil. He will be coming, as will someone from a small Ukrainian church in Ramsey. We hope that someone from a Ukrainian center in Whippany will be able to come too. “This is more than just us. It’s more than just Julia’s story. It’s about tikkun olam. That’s why we’re so glad to bring in other organizations. “It’s about how a small handful of people can help another small handful of people.” That’s real help, from which real people benefit. And then, those small groups of people add up, and pretty soon you’re making a real difference. What: Beth Haverim Shir Shalom will screen “Julia’s Journey: A story of love, courage, and hope,” a film directed by Harvey Weinberg and filmed by Kyle Dubiel. Where: At the synagogue, in Mahwah When: On Sunday, April 30; the doors open at 5 and the film begins at 5:30. What else: A reception with Julia and her family will follow. Reservations: Are necessary. Go to www. bethhaverimshirshalom.org or call (201) 5121983.

Jewish World

Jewish chair of Florida’s Democratic Party arrested at abortion rights protest

Nikki Fried was arrested in Florida as she protested the state’s proposed new law on abortion. DREW ANGERER/GETTY IMAGES

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ikki Fried, who chairs Florida’s Democratic Party, was arrested at a protest for abortion rights in the state capital, along with 10 other demonstrators. The protest on Monday night, which took place outside Tallahassee City Hall, was in opposition to a proposed six-week abortion ban in Florida that the state Senate passed on Monday evening. The bill must pass the state House of Representatives before heading to the desk of Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis. Fried, who is Jewish, previously served as Florida’s commissioner of agriculture, a rare Democrat elected to statewide office in Florida. Last year, she mounted an unsuccessful bid for the Democratic nomination for governor. She became the state Democratic Party chair earlier this year. The legislation that the state Senate advanced would tighten Florida’s already limited access to abortion. A Boynton Beach synagogue filed an early lawsuit challenging the state’s new 15-week abortion ban last year, part of a wave of activism by Jewish leaders across the country to make religious freedom arguments in favor of abortion rights. Fried and the other protesters were arrested hours after the state Senate vote, according to the Tallahassee Democrat, a local newspaper. The arrest occurred as they sat in a circle on the ground and sang “Lean on Me,” surrounding a yellow flag with a picture of a uterus. Fried wore a T-shirt reading “Just f**k!ng vote.” The protest, which was led by women, had begun early in the day. State Senate Democratic Leader Lauren Book also was arrested. Both Fried and Book were released overnight, according to a local TV station. “I’m out. And not ever backing down,” Fried tweeted along with a photo of herself in handcuffs Monday night. The tweet also repeated the slogan on her shirt. “Florida Democrats will not back down in our defense of abortion rights,” the state Democratic Party tweeted. “Our Chair made that clear tonight.” The state Republican Party chairman, Christian Ziegler, posted a tweet Tuesday morning mocking Fried and asking if federal loans are available because the state Democrats are “in need of extra cash to bailout their Chairman.”

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Jewish World

Payment to Putin’s former teacher for her Tel Aviv home came from Abramovich ASAF ELIA-SHALEV

A

fter Russian President Vladimir Putin reunited with his Jewish high school teacher on an official visit to Israel in 2005, he bought the elderly widow an apartment in

Tel Aviv. That’s according to a widely circulated story based on an interview that the former teacher, Mina Yuditskaya-Berliner, gave to an Israeli news outlet in 2014. At the time, Putin was facing international rebuke over his invasion of Crimea, but

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Yuditskaya-Berliner had nothing but praise for him. “When I got the apartment, I cried,” she said. “Putin is a very grateful and decent person.” Newly uncovered financial records, however, reveal that the funds for the $208,000 apartment came from a bank account in Cyprus that belonged to Russian Jewish billionaire Roman Abramovich, according to reports published as part of a collaboration among Israeli investigative outlet Shomrim, the Washington Post, and the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists. A company controlled by Abramovich transferred $245,000 to Yuditskaya-Berliner on the same day she bought the apartment, documents show. The discovery of the transaction is notable because it undermines denials by both Abramovich and Putin that the two are financially linked and is likely to bolster suspicions that Abramovich’s ascent to the top of Russia’s business world indebted him to the country’s ruler. Abramovich is now under United Kingdom and European Union sanctions aimed at Russian oligarchs, enacted in the wake of Putin’s invasion of Ukraine last February, to target his wealth abroad and penalize his associates. “The Israeli apartment story perfectly encapsulates how unwritten understandings and winks and nods lie at the heart of the Putin-era system,” Andrew Weiss, a Russia expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace who has held positions at the White House and the State Department, told the Washington Post. “Tycoons like Roman Abramovich

don’t need to be strong-armed into taking care of small-time stuff at Putin’s behest. They know precisely what’s expected of them and all too happily play along.” Records of the transaction are part of a trove obtained by the nonprofit group Distributed Denial of Secrets and shared with journalists at several outlets, including Shomrim’s Uri Blau, Greg Miller of the Washington Post, and Spencer Woodman of ICIJ. Asked to respond to questions, a spokesperson for Putin referred reporters to the Federation of Jewish Communities of Russia and said the organization would have been responsible for “any charitable work in Israel.” Through his own spokesperson, Abramovich said he donated the funds for the apartment, but not at Putin’s request. The gift was made in response to “a request received from the Jewish community,” the spokesperson said. Abramovich amassed his wealth by buying state assets on the cheap after the fall of the Soviet Union and has used his fortune, estimated at as much as $13 billion, to become a major philanthropist. He says he has donated more than half a billion dollars to Jewish causes, including to Yad Vashem. Rabbi Alexander Boroda, president of the Federation of Jewish Communities of Russia, was quoted in the Jerusalem Post as saying that it was he who had asked Abramovich for a donation for a new apartment after learning that Yuditskaya-Berliner was living in a fourth-floor public housing unit with no elevator and a leaky ceiling.  Putin was a student in Yudit­skayaBerliner’s German class at High School 281 in Leningrad, now St. Petersburg, SEE ABRAMOVICH PAGE 54

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Mina Yuditskaya-Berliner, photographed in her Tel Aviv apartment in 2014, said her home was a gift from her former student, Vladimir Putin.

Jewish World

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he Israeli government approved the creation of a new, 2,000-member national guard demanded by Itamar Ben Gvir, the far-right minister of national security, in a cabinet vote on Sunday. The new force won’t begin operating immediately. A government committee will spend 90 days evaluating its details — meaning that its future, including whether Ben Gvir will control it as directly as he desires, is not assured. Still, it is getting a budget of roughly $278 million, necessitating a budget cut of 1.5% across all government ministries. The plan for the new force is eliciting concerns from moderate government ministers and security officials, who say Israel does not need a competing force alongside the country’s existing Israeli security services — including the Israel Defense Forces, police, and Shin Bet intelligence service. One former chief of the Israel Police, Moshe Karadi, warned that Ben Gvir, who has a track record of provocations, particularly against Palestinians, could use it to “launch a coup.” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu agreed to establish the national guard last week in order to secure Ben Gvir’s support for a temporary suspension of the government’s proposed judicial overhaul. Ben Gvir issued a statement calling the establishment of the national guard “good news for the residents of the state of Israel.” He added that the force will “act to restore personal security and governance in all parts of Israel.” According to a report in the Times of Israel, the new force will focus on “nationalist crime” and terrorism, particularly in areas where police are stretched thin. The new force has been criticized as unnecessary, divisive, and dangerous by current and former Israel Police commissioners. The current police commissioner, Kobi Shabtai, sent a letter to Netanyahu saying that establishing a national guard could lead Israel to pay a “heavy price, including hurting the personal security of civilians.” “The purpose of the initiative that has been laid before us is completely unclear,” read Shabtai’s letter, according to Israeli newspaper Makor Rishon. “This is a waste of resources, a doubling of staffs, and a gamble whose advantage is unproven. The proposal is likely to cause significant damage to the operational ability of the country’s internal security apparatus, and will hurt the unity of command.” Netanyahu’s promise to Ben Gvir influenced this week’s protests against the government’s planned judicial overhaul, which continued despite the overhaul legislation’s pause. In Tel Aviv, protesters dressed as a paramilitary brigade goose-stepped in the streets in a demonstration designed to paint Ben Gvir’s planned national guard as fascist.

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Israel advances plan for Ben Gvir’s 2,000-member national guard Itamar Ben Gvir is at a protest in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah on March 2, 2022.

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Jewish World

Malka Leifer, Australian girls’ school principal who fled to Israel, convicted of abusing students PHILISSA CRAMER

A

former principal at an Australian school for Orthodox girls has been convicted on 18 counts of abusing students, including a charge of rape, in a case that strained relations between Australia and Israel. The conviction came more than two years after Malka Leifer was extradited from Israel, where she had fled in 2008 amid allegations that she had sexually abused three sisters who were her students at the Adass Israel school in Melbourne. “To get to this moment is absolutely overwhelming.… It was so unbelievable that we’d get to this time and we have. She is guilty,” Dassi Erlich, one of the sisters, said after leaving the courtroom, according to Australian media.

Erlich and her sisters, Elly Sapper and Nicole Meyer, alleged that Leifer had abused them while they were her students from 2003 to 2007. Erlich’s campaign, called Bring Leifer Back, aimed to pressure Australia and Israel to return Leifer for trial, and she met with many prime ministers over the course of the years-long extradition battle that soured some Australian Jews on Israel. Leifer was arrested in Israel in 2014 at Australia’s request, but she was not extradited for nearly seven years. Her attorneys claimed she was mentally unfit to stand trial. Israeli authorities initially agreed, but after an investigation showed she was living a normal life in a charedi Orthodox West Bank settlement, she was re-arrested in 2018 and later cleared for extradition. In early 2021, Israel announced that it would send Leifer to Australia to stand trial, saying the country had

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been the “victim to a fraud perpetrated by Leifer and her supporters.” Last year, a former Israeli minister, Yaakov Litzman, admitted to abusing his powers to try to protect Leifer from prosecution. Litzman, a charedi Orthodox politician, resigned from the Knesset and was sentenced to probation and a nominal fine as part of his plea deal.

‘To get to this moment is absolutely overwhelming.… It was so unbelievable that we’d get to this time and we have. She is guilty.’ Leifer initially had faced 74 charges stemming from the accounts of the alleged victims, was prosecuted on 27 charges, and was convicted of 18 of them, including raping a 17-year-old. The jury, which deliberated for nine days and at one point appeared deadlocked, acquitted Leifer of charges of rape and assault related to one of the sisters. Leifer will be sentenced at a future date. During the trial, prosecutors presented evidence showing how Leifer managed to escape Australia, showing that members of the school’s board convened after learning of the allegations against her and that board members and Leifer booked tickets to Israel for later that night immediately after the meeting. (A 2016 film about the Adass Israel community of about 200 families alleged that the wife of a board member had bought the tickets for Leifer, her husband, and four of their eight children.) This week, Australian authorities said they would not charge anyone there with aiding Leifer’s flight, citing a lack of evidence. JEWISH TELEGRAPHIC AGENCY

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Paramus & Englewood

PARTNERS

Barnert Temple/ Congregation B’nai Jeshurun • BBYO • Ben Porat Yosef • Bergen County High School of Jewish Studies (BCHSJS) • Beth Haverim Shir Shalom • COJECO • Congregation Ahavath Torah • Congregation Beth Israel of the Palisades • Congregation Beth Sholom, Teaneck • Congregation Beth Tefillah, Paramus • Congregation B’nai Israel of Kearny and North Arlington • Congregation Bnai Yeshurun • Congregation Darchei Noam • Congregation Gesher Shalom/Jewish Center of Fort Lee • Congregation Kol HaNeshamah • Congregation Micah of NJ, Cresskill • Congregation Mount Sinai of Jersey City Heights • Congregation Netivot Shalom • Congregation Rinat Yisrael • Congregation Shaare Tefillah of Teaneck • Congregation Shomrei Emunah • Fair Lawn Jewish Center/Congregation Bnai Israel • Friends of Israeli Scouts Inc Tzofim • Glen Rock Jewish Center • Hadassah • Hillel of Northern New Jersey • Israeli American Council (IAC) • J-ADD • Jewish Center of Teaneck • Jewish Community Center of Northern New Jersey • Jewish Community Center of Paramus/Congregation Beth Tikvah • Jewish Family & Children’s Services of Northern New Jersey • Kaplen JCC on the Palisades • Kehilat Kesher • Kol Dorot: A Reform Jewish Community • Ma’ayanot Yeshiva High School for Girls • Moishe House • Naaleh High School for Girls • NJY Camps • North Jersey Board of Rabbis • Ohr Saadya of Teaneck • Sephardic Congregation of Fort Lee/Beit Yossef • Shaarei Orah Sephardic Congregation of Teaneck • Shomrei Torah, Wayne • Sinai Schools • Solomon Schechter Day School of Bergen County • Temple Avodat Shalom • Temple Beth El, Hackensack • Temple Beth Rishon • Temple Beth Tikvah, Wayne • Temple Emanu-El of Closter • Temple Emanuel of North Jersey • Temple Emanuel of the Pascack Valley • Temple Emeth • Temple Israel and Jewish Community Center • Temple Sinai of Bergen County • The Frisch School • The Idea School • The Jewish Home Family • The Moriah School • The Wayne YMCA • Torah Academy of Bergen County (TABC) • United Synagogue of Hoboken • Yachad New Jersey • Yavneh Academy • Yeshivat He’Atid • Yeshivat Noam • Yeshivat Shalshelet • Zahal Shalom

*in formation

JEWISH STANDARD APRIL 7, 2023 41

Jewish World

Jewish journalist Evan Gershkovich jailed in Russia DAVID I. KLEIN

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hayndi Raice, a Wall Street Journal reporter based in Israel, hoped that Jews around the world dedicate a portion of their Passover seder to one of her colleagues, now detained in a Russian prison. “This Passover, please consider setting a place at your Seder table for @evangershkovich,” Raice tweeted the Sunday before Pesach. “As you celebrate freedom, join us in demanding freedom for Evan.” The call — echoing a tactic used in the 20th-century campaign for the freedom of Soviet Jews — grew louder on Monday as it was shared by prominent personalities from tech journalist Kara Swisher to the former chief rabbi of Moscow to Rabbi Angela Buchdahl of Manhattan’s Central Synagogue, who said she would be leaving an empty chair at her own seder in honor of Gershkovich, a Moscow correspondent for the Wall Street Journal. Gershkovich, 31, has been charged with espionage, in a move that human rights organizations are decrying and the Biden administration is fighting. He was arrested March 29 while he was dining at a restaurant in the city of Yekaterinburg, about 800 miles east of Moscow in the Ural Mountains. The Wall Street Journal has denied the allegations against Gershkovich, who pleaded not guilty during a court appearance last week, according to Russian state and international media. He reportedly has not been able to speak to an attorney representing him while he is held in the notorious Lefortovo Prison, whose past inmates include the famous Soviet Jewish dissident Natan Sharansky. Gershkovich is the first American journalist since the Cold War to face spying charges in Russia, which carry a sentence of up to 20 years in prison. People charged with espionage are almost always convicted in Russia, according to the New York Times. “Let him go,” President Joe Biden said last Friday about his message to Russian authorities in Gershkovich’s case, using a phrase that itself is redolent of the Passover story and the Soviet Jewry movement. The arrest has propelled Gershkovich to the front lines as tensions between the United States and Russia deepen. It also has drawn attention to Gershkovich’s background as the child of Jews who fled the Soviet Union — and renewed questions about whether people like him can be safe in Russia today. “He cares a lot about his identity as a Jew, and especially his identity as the son of Soviet Jewish immigrants,” his friend and former roommate Jeremy Berke said. “I think that was a large part of why he wanted to go back to Russia.” Gershkovich was born in New York City to Jewish immigrants from the former Soviet Union who left in the late 1970s, when the Communist state briefly opened the gates to emigration for some of its Jewish citizens. His father is from Odessa — today in Ukraine — and his mother is from St. Petersburg, Time Magazine reported. According to an account published by the Wall Street Journal, the only outlet to which his family has spoken, his mother fled Russia using Israeli documents with her mother, a Ukrainian Holocaust survivor, after hearing rumors that Jews were going to be deported to Siberia. 42 JEWISH STANDARD APRIL 7, 2023

Evan Gershkovich, a Moscow correspondent at the Wall Street Journal, has been arrested in Russia and charged with espionage.  PHOTO OF GERSHKOVICH: DIMITAR DILKOFF/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES; #FREEEVAN IMAGE VIA TWITTER

Gershkovich grew up speaking Russian at home in Princeton and graduated from Princeton High School before heading to Bowdoin College in Maine. After college, he got a job at the New York Times before moving to Moscow in 2017 to report for the Moscow Times, an English-language news organization that has been a launching pad for many high-profile Russia reporters. His reporting there included coverage of Chanukah celebrations in Moscow. He was hired by the Wall Street Journal in 2021. His mother told the Journal that Gershkovich had become more interested in his Jewish identity when he was in Russia, taking her to a synagogue that she had been warned as a child never to enter. “That’s when Evan started to understand us better,” she said. “Part of his mission was to not only explain Russia to a Western audience, but to really kind of pierce the bubble and tell the stories of Russians themselves, which was something he was able to do, because he’s fluent in Russian,” Berke said. He said his friend sought to tell “stories that weren’t necessarily just the purely kind of economic stories that you saw coming out of the country, but that were really about what the people were doing — you know, people in synagogues, people in nightclubs, like all aspects of Russian society.” Like many foreign journalists, Gershkovich left Russia in February 2022, after Russia invaded neighboring Ukraine and turned overnight into a pariah state that intensified its crackdowns on dissenters. But he returned later in the year on the longstanding assumption that foreigners would be insulated from the harsh treatment that Russian journalists can face. “By detaining the American journalist Evan Gershkovich, Russia has crossed the Rubicon and sent a clear message to foreign correspondents that they will not be spared from the ongoing purge of the independent media in the country,” the Committee to Protect Journalists said. “Authorities must immediately and unconditionally release Gershkovich, drop all charges against him, and let the media work freely and without fear of reprisal.”

Gershkovich most recently had reported on Russia’s declining economic position and was reportedly in Yekaterinburg reporting on the Wagner Group, a Russian mercenary force, and Nizhny Tagil, a factory town where Russian tanks are made. Wagner’s owner, Yevgeny Prigozhin, joked about Gershkovich and other journalists being found in a mass grave or a torture chamber when reached by the Daily Beast last week. Prigozhin said he had not known about Gershkovich’s arrest at that time. Julia Ioffe, a fellow Russian-American Jew and journalist, said after Gershkovich’s arrest that the Kremlin takes criticism from people of their background differently than from other journalists. “Although he was born in the U.S., his parents were immigrants from the Soviet Union, Jewish immigrants,” Ioffe told CNN. “There is a sense in Moscow, especially in the foreign ministry and in the Kremlin, that people of this background — my background — they are particularly sensitive to … our criticism. They feel that it is a different kind of betrayal.” The former chief rabbi of Moscow, Pinchas Goldschmidt, who fled Russia shortly after the invasion of Ukraine last year, suggested that Russia had targeted Gershkovich because of his identity. “He just happened to be Jewish, right?” Goldschmidt tweeted sarcastically last week. Goldschmidt has emerged as a prominent critic of the Russian government after leaving the country last year, saying that as a prominent rabbi he faced pressure to support Putin’s war. “When we look back over Russian history, whenever the political system was in danger, you saw the government trying to redirect the anger and discontent of the masses towards the Jewish community,” he told the Guardian in an interview late last year. Gershkovich is not the first American to be arrested in Russia amid rising tensions between the countries. Last year, the basketball star Britney Griner was sentenced to nine years in a Russian prison on drug charges, then traded to the United States in exchange SEE GERSHKOVICH PAGE 54

Passover Greetings Est. 1983

PRIME STEAKHOUSE Warm wishes for a Happy Passover

1416 RIVER ROAD · EDGEWATER, NJ

201-224-2013

FIRST PLACE STEAKHOUSE

www.riverpalm.com

Jewish Family & Children's Services of Northern NJ

HADASSAH WISHES YOU A Happy Passover. Chag Sameah.

Thank you for helping JFCS deliver freedom from hunger, mental illness, isolation and financial insecurity to the entire Northern NJ community this Passover!

Older Adult Services Mental Health Services Food Insecurity Services Basic Needs Assistance To Learn More, Volunteer or Donate:

(201) 837 9090

[email protected] a beneficiary agency of

JFCSNNJ.ORG

Serving Bergen, Passaic and Hudson Counties

a beneficiary agency of

JEWISH STANDARD APRIL 7, 2023 43

Passover Greetings

Together Again

Wishing you health, happiness, peace, prosperity, and all the joys of Passover. From your Temple Emanu-El family.

Wishing You a Meaningful Passover TEMPLE EMETH

180 PIERMONT RD. CLOSTER, NJ 07624

TEMPLEEMANU-EL.COM

201-750-9997

Chelsea Senior Living is happy to celebrate and share in the festivities of this holiday.

chag Pesach sameach Communities in Bergen, Passaic, Morris, Union, Sussex, Warren, Somerset, Middlesex, Monmouth, and Ocean Counties

1-877-243-5732 www.ChelseaSeniorLiving.com

44 JEWISH STANDARD APRIL 7, 2023

1666 Windsor Road · Teaneck, NJ www.emeth.org · (201) 833-1322

Wishing you a happy Passover

Cedar Lane Management Group

Support Your Local Merchants! A&S Comics

Creations Fine Haircutting Inc.

*Ma’adan

Rock Collage

563 Cedar Lane

509 Cedar Lane

446 Cedar Lane

364 Cedar Lane

Allergy Partners of NJ P.C.

Cut & Sew

Manor Shoes Repair

Roberto’s Pizzeria

553 Cedar Lane

398 Cedar Lane

445 Cedar Lane

435 Cedar Lane

Amazing Savings

CVS Pharmacy

Marburn Curtain Warehouse

Rocklin’s Paper & Cards

647 Cedar Lane

540 Cedar Lane

647 Cedar Lane

58 Cedar Lane

Angelo’s Tailor

Design by Flora

Maum Meditation

Rudra Indian Bistro

358 Cedar Lane

437 Cedar Lane

475 Cedar Lane

561 Cedar Lane

Annapurna Indian Grocery & Catering

Dfferent Breed Sports Academy

Mei Salon

*Sababa Grill

401 Water Street

447 Cedar Lane

456 Cedar Lane

557 Cedar Lane

Direct Line Carpet & Flooring

*Mortgage Apples Cakes

Sciarra & Company

Aquarius Health Foods

553 Cedar Lane

740 Chestnut Ave

504A Cedar Lane

408 Cedar Lane

*Dovid’s Fresh Fish Market

Mr. FreshCut

Shear Design

AR Lash & Brows Studio

736 Chestnut Ave

394 Cedar Lane

738 Chestnut Ave

Signature Appliances

490 Cedar Lane

Empire Hunan II

Nail Garden

B. Dinelli for Hair

444 Cedar Lane

444 Cedar Lane

513 Cedar Lane

491 Cedar Lane

*Estihana

NAAG

State Farm Insurance

Back in Touch Massage Therapy

504 Cedar Lane

515 Cedar Lane

668 American Legion Dr

427 Water Street

Eyecare Plus

*Narruto Bowl

Stop & Shop

Bellissima Hair & Beauty Salon

489 Cedar Lane

461 Cedar Lane

665 American Legion Way

433 Cedar Lane

Fifth Avenue Haircutters

New Asia Chinese Takeout

Straight Nappy

Bettina’s Boutique

401 Cedar Lane

567 Cedar Lane

411 Cedar Lane

388 Cedar Lane

Five Star Coffee Shop

*New Teaneck Fish Market

Strom’s Custom Cleaners

Blooming Nails

540 Cedar Lane

356 Cedar Lane

431 Cedar Lane

451 Cedar Lane

FrameWorks

New to You Consignment

Subway

Brier Rose Books

477A Cedar Lane

457 Cedar Lane

559 Cedar Lane

450 Cedar Lane

IHOP

*Noah’s Ark

Swaddles Baby

BRVSH CUL7UR3

610 Cedar Lane

493 Cedar Lane

500 Cedar Lane

International Beauty Supply and Salon

OnPoint Fitness Studio

T-Mobile

409 Cedar Lane

449 Cedar Lane

Tate Academy

482 Cedar Lane

Budget Print 426 Cedar Lane

492 Cedar Lane

PPM Fitness

*Butterflake

J & J Pharmacy/Liquors

341 Cedar Lane

519 Cedar Lane

448 Cedar Lane

527 Cedar Lane

Parisian Cleaners

Teaneck Locksmith

BV Tuscany Restaurant

Janet Joyner Photography

429 Cedar Lane

509B Cedar Lane

368 Cedar Lane

406 Cedar Lane

Passion Flux Dance Co.

Teaneck Nails

*Cake & Co

J R Coiffure Hair Salon

416 Cedar Lane

386 Cedar Lane

454 Cedar Lane

443 Cedar Lane

*Patis Bakery

Teaneck Speedway

Carly’z Craze

545 Cedar Lane

Judaica House

439 Cedar Lane

472 Cedar Lane

478 Cedar Lane

*Pickle Licious

Thai Shack

Castillo Salon

Just Right Fitness

384 Cedar Lane

445 Cedar Lane

398 Cedar Lane

494 Cedar Lane

PlatterHouse

Three Star Bagels

Cedar Lane Furs

Kameleas Beauty Boutique

540 Cedar Lane

402-04 Cedar Lane

498 Cedar Lane

362 Cedar Lane

Pottery, Paint & Love

*Cedar Market

KFC

488 Cedar Lane

Trim & Estilo Barber Shop & Salon

646 Cedar Lane

585 Cedar Lane

RAIN Event Space

453 Cedar Lane

Chonji Academy of Martial Arts

Krisota’s Cake Shop

399 Water Street

UPS Store

496 Cedar Lane

Rainbow Jewelry & Watches

492C Cedar Lane

*Veggie Heaven

424 Cedar Lane

Kumon

497 Cedar Lane

547 Cedar Lane

570 Cedar Lane

Raven Hair

473 Cedar Lane

Companion Pet Food Supply

Kunath Sign Co

388 Cedar Lane

Victor’s Pizzeria

441A Cedar Lane

449 Cedar Lane

Realistic Beauty

540 Cedar Lane

CompuTeaneck

LabCorp

412 Cedar Lane

Walgreens

569A Cedar Lane

463 Cedar Lane

Regina’s Tailoring/Bridal Boutique

520 Cedar Lane

Couture de Bride

Lark Street Music

405 Cedar Lane

Cohen Invitations & Stationery

406 Cedar Lane

Yarn Dezvous

479 Cedar Lane

495 Cedar Lane

* KOSHER

JS

Sponsored by CLMG • www.cedarlane.net • Always FREE Parking JEWISH STANDARD APRIL 7, 2023 45

Passover Greetings

Happy & Healthy Passover

Wishing everyone a Chag Sameach!

District 37 State Legislators

Daughters of Miriam Apartments II Esther & Sam Schwartz Bldg.

Senator Gordon M. Johnson Assemblywoman Shama A. Haider Assemblywoman Ellen J. Park

a Jewish Senior Independent Living Bldg. 135 Hazel Street, Clifton, NJ 07011 The Center is a beneficiary agency of the Jewish Federation of Northern New Jersey

Paid for by the Election funds of Johnson, Haider, and Park

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46 JEWISH STANDARD APRIL 7, 2023

Passover Greetings CONGREGATION SONS OF ISRAEL NYACK

Happy Healthy Passover!

6.5x5 6/18/14 3:42 PM Page 1

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Join Us for a Summer BBQ Creating Jewish Community since 1891

Jewish Community Center of Paramus/ Congregation Beth Tikvah

Come see why COMMUNITY is part of our name!

An inclusive and embracing congregation where Jews of all races, sexualities, gender-identities and abilities can experience a sense of belonging Rabbi Ariel Russo · Joe Zweig, president 300 North Broadway, Nyack, N.Y. 10960 Reserve thisUpper summer and 845-358-3767. Save $3,000www.csinyack.org You’re Invited to a BBQ by the pool to learn more.

A Zissen Pesach!

✔ Wed., Aug. 20th at 11:30 am ❑ Please RSVP 1-888-831-8685. Limited Seating - By Reservation Only

2014

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201-262-7691 or www.jccparamus.org

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2000 FountainView Drive Monsey, NY Premier Retirement Community

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We would like to wish our friends and patrons a happy & healthy Passover

!‫חג כשר ושמח‬ George & Steve Siderias & Staff

516 Kinderkamack Rd River Edge, NJ · 201-262-4976

Wishing you a wonderful Pesach from Schechter Bergen! for more information: ssdsbergen.org [email protected]

JEWISH STANDARD APRIL 7, 2023 47

Passover Greetings

As we celebrate our freedom, may we remember those who are fighting for theirs. Wishing you a Passover filled with family and friends.

pkfod.com

David J. Goodman, Partner 201.712.9800 [email protected]

Happy Passover from our family to yours!

JS-66

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Fair Lawn · Hackensack · Mahwah · Pompton Plains · Woodland Park

www.PediatriCareAssociates.com

Special Passover greetings from

Happy Passover

Beth and Robert Chananie Josh and Arlene Chananie, Kylie & Taylor Rachel and Adam Jay, Rebecca & Abby Michael, Alyson, and Sadie Chananie and all our furry friends too!

Bram Alster, DMD, PA Jason Alster, DDS, MBS

TE Passover

Family & CosmetiC Dentistry

From our family to yours, best wishes for a happy Passover 201-797-3044 20-20 Fair Lawn Ave. · Fair Lawn

www.bramalsterdmd.com 48 JEWISH STANDARD APRIL 7, 2023

2023

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Wishing my family, friends, and wonderful clients Happy Passover Natalie Jay

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Happy Passover

Passover Greetings

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Wishing Everyone Happy Passover Deb Herman & Joff Jones

Best wishes from Gail Rottenstrich, Councilmember Fair Lawn

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Sheriff Anthony Cureton

District 39 Team

Senator Holly Schepisi Assemblyman Robert Auth Assemblywoman Deanne DeFuccio

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Ever yday Wishes

great prices!

All Friends and Constituents

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Women, Children, Home & Gifts

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Happy Passover from your friends at

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www.BogotaSavingsBank.com JEWISH STANDARD APRIL 7, 2023 49

Passover Greetings

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ColumbiaBankOnline.com

A Zissen Pesach to my Family and Friends Marcia Garfinkle

Have a  happy &  healthy Passover!  

Wishing you peace, good times, good health, & happiness on Passover & always! alwa wa w a

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from your friends at Columbia Bank

Best Wishes for a Happy & Healthy Passover Robin Frizzell

2 01. 6 6NJ 4 . 24 4 0 • (201) 421-3604 560 Cedar Lane, Teaneck, 07666 Lobby & Drive Thru 9am 3 5 0 - Hours: 3 6 8 C eMon. n t e r A- vFri. e We s t w-o5pm o d N •J Sat. 9am - 1pm

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WE WISH YOU A HAPPY PASSOVER!

Hios General Auto Repairs

BENZEL-BUSCH WISHES YOUR FAMILY A HEALTHY & JOYOUS PASSOVER.

OFFICIAL NEW JERSEY INSPECTION STATION DOMESTIC & FOREIGN CAR REPAIR TOWING SERVICE ESTABLISHED 1979

JIMMY MOUTAFIS, JOHN MOUTAFIS, & VICTOR GIAMOS 153 State Street • Teaneck, NJ 07666 Phone: 201-833-4744 • Fax: 201-833-2033

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Page 1

Mayor Michael Putrino Council President Hedy Grant Councilwoman Randi Duffie Councilwoman Thea Sirocchi-Hurley Councilman Ira Grotsky Councilwoman Lisa Sandhusen Councilman Matt Seymour NEW MILFORD

Glen Rock Jewish Center

682 Harristown Rd, Glen Rock, NJ (201) 652-6624 · www.grjc.org

PASSOV Y P E AP

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Happy Passover!

A ZissenPesach!

H

Passover Greetings

DAY CAMP

(973) 956-1220 www.campveritans.com e-mail:[email protected] 255 Pompton Road Haledon, NJ 07508

Best wishes for a happy and healthy Passover.

J&J P H A R M AC Y CEDAR CHEMISTS, INC.

Michael Fedida, R.Ph., M.S. TEL: (201) 836-7003 527 Cedar Lane, Teaneck, NJ 07666 EMAIL: [email protected]

Wishing your family a Happy Passover!

Celebrating our 77th Anniversary

Ani’s Tailoring FIRST PLACE

100 Midland Avenue, River Edge, NJ (201) 599-0830

BEST TAILOR

Happy Happy Passover

Passover

REP. BILL PASCRELL, JR. 9th Congressional District, NJ

Wishing You a Sweet & Healthy Passover

Paid for by Pascrell for Congress

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Happy

Barbara K Ed Pon

Passover Warm wishes for a Happy Passover Northern Valley Affairs at Temple Emanu-El, Closter · 201 750-0333

Cantor 10/15/08 5:09 PM Barbra Lieberstein

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The Sutcliffe Family Teaneck

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JEWISH STANDARD APRIL 7, 2023 51

___ OK AS IS

Passover Greetings

Happy Passover

Happy Passover from Dr. Jennifer Suss and the staff at

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We have you covered from head to toe. BEST WISHES FOR A HAPPY PASSOVER!

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W

1154 Teaneck Rd. · Teaneck · www.bergenvet.com



Bergen County Section

National Council of Jewish Women

www.ncjwbcs.org

HIRING EVENT

Best Wishes for a Happy Passover

May 12 | May 25 | June 2 | June 9 | June 12 10am-4pm

Best wishes Paramus, forNJa07652 Happy and Healthy Passover Location: 50 Eisenhower Drive

FROM DISTRICT 38

We are hiring professionals to support individuals living in the community. Full-Time | Part-Time | All Shifts Available

Senator

Deborah Orlan-Marcus

MS, CCC-A NJ Audiology Lic. #435 NJ Hearing Aid Dispenser Lic. #778 Audiology Associates of North Jersey

Robert Marcus, DPM, FACPM Diplomate American Board of Podiatric Medicine Foot & Ankle Center of Teaneck

Over 30 years in trusted patient care!

185 Cedar Lane Suite L2, Teaneck, NJ

Joseph A. Lagana

Please bring your updated resume, non-probationary driver’s license, social, and vaccination card (including booster). Applicants who do not have proof of vaccination will not be permitted to enter the building.

aSSemblywoman

Lisa Swain

Contactof us at: National Council Jewish Women

Chris Tully

www.ncjwrockland.org Walk-ins welcome!

aSSemblyman

[email protected] Rockland Section 201-754-1829

201-928-0808

TEANECK DENTIST

Bergen County Executive

Warm Wishes for a Happy Passover Englewood Primary Assoc, PC (Harvey R. Gross, MD, PC)

Dr. Sami Solaimanzadeh

Dr. Ari Frohlich

370 Grand Avenue, Englewood 810 River Road, New Milford 695 Anderson Ave, Cliffside Park

Wishing you bright smiles for Passover

201-567-3370

1008 Teaneck Road · Teaneck, NJ

James J. Tedesco, III

Wishing our friends and constituents a safe, healthy, and Zissen Pesach Paid for by Tedesco for County Executive 2022

52 JEWISH STANDARD APRIL 7, 2023

www.primarycarenj.com

201.837.3000

A member of the Englewood Health Physician Network

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www.InvisionOptics.com · Open Monday - Saturday JEWISH STANDARD APRIL 7, 2023 53

D’var Torah Pesach: Themes of Thanks-Giving

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favorite standup comic of mine starts one of his routines with a great bit: “I’ve been doing comedy for 25 years, and for five years it’s been going great. The first twenty years I struggled; I used to stay in lousy motels, but my life was lousy so I didn’t know better. Now, I stay in beautiful five-star hotels — and I’m miserable…!” It’s a humorous truism that many of us can relate to. The more we gain, the more spoiled we become, and the higher our needs and expectations are. Instead of being grateful for the modern miracles that abound, we complain about smartphones that glitch for a few seconds, or jets that spend extra time on the runway before whisking us through the air. (How dare they make us wait!) While Sukkot traditionally draws comparisons to Thanksgiving, I find that it is Passover that brings themes of gratitude sharply into focus in a variety of ways. What is the poem Dayenu, after all, if not the paradigmatic Jewish framework for expressing thanks? Clearly, not every stanza of Dayenu “would have been enough” in a literal sense; if we’d only crossed the sea and not made it through the desert to Eretz Yisrael, we wouldn’t be having seders today. Yet with this song the Haggadah insists that we recognize what we have at each interval in life, and express thanks in the moment. The Sefardic custom of whipping our tablemates with scallions during Dayenu (a custom my family adopted years ago and one that I highly recommend) further emphasizes this theme. According to the Torah (Num. 11:5), the Israelites whined in the desert: “We remember the leeks and onions…that we ate for free in Egypt.” Imagine uttering this complaint after just experiencing the miraculous journey out of bondage! As a student of mine quipped, “the onions really are always greener...” Playfully whipping those next to us reminds us not to fall into that comedian’s trap, as the Israelites did, of

show gratitude for food while we’re hunlosing focus on the blessings in our lives. Moses himself emphasizes this theme gry and eyeing a delicious meal, while in the Passover narrative. One image that equally likely to be complacent once appears repeatedly throughout the story of we’ve finished and are moving on. The the exodus is that of Moses raising his staff to Haggadah surely recognizes this by placing Hallel, the psalms of praise, directly act as God’s conduit for bringing the plagues. after Birkat Hamazon, further promptIt is noteworthy, therefore, that the plague of ing us to reflect upon all we’ve been blood is actually not brought by Moses himself; rather, it is Aaron who raises the staff to given and express the proper thanks Rabbi Micah strike the Nile and turn it to blood. before proceeding to the next step. Liben The rabbis notice this deviation and ask Over the years I have often thought Education the obvious question — why does Moses about this in the midst of quieting down Director delegate this task instead of doing the job a room full of young people (not always Temple himself? Rashi, the great French commenan easy task!), whether at camp, school, Emanuel of the tator, explains that Moses did not want to or a shul Shabbat dinner, in order to Pascack Valley strike the Nile because he was protected recite Birkat Hamazon. It can be temptConservative ing in such a context to dismiss this postby the river as a child; his feelings of gratitude thus impelled him to refrain from meal ritual as superfluous, or simply not striking the water. worth the time and effort. But the value We might ask why Moses would care so much about of cultivating gratitude in our youth is critical, not only the “feelings” of an inanimate object; would the water in the religious context, but also for personal growth and really care if Moses struck it? The answer, of course, well-being. The American Psychological Association, for is that his actions inspire us to consciously cultivate example, has published research showing that higher hakarat ha-tov, that is, “recognition of the good” or, gratitude in teens results in lower levels of drug abuse, more broadly, a proverbial attitude of gratitude toward and is linked to improved self-esteem, higher empathy, others. If Moses showed such consideration toward and lower aggression. Similarly, the Anxiety and Depression Association of America links gratitude in adolesthe water, then all the more so are we obligated to give cents to decreased risk following traumatic experiences, thanks to the people in our lives who help us in so many as well as stronger bonds with family and friends. Sigways, large and small. nificantly, the Torah’s model for living a life of meaning This attitude applies to that which is greater than and fulfillment is borne out by modern scientific studies. ourselves. The religious imperative to demonstrate As we dispose of our physical and spiritual chametz gratitude finds its expression in our recitation of and enter the spring season, the themes of Pesach prob’rachot (blessings). Reciting a blessing before eating vide a powerful reminder to focus not on what we lack is common to many traditions, but the Torah extends but rather on the blessings that we already have (even if this obligation and dictates that we also recite a blessing after eating. Perhaps this is because we are likely to we end up in a mediocre hotel over vacation). Dayenu!

Jewish World Gershkovich FROM PAGE 42

for the release of Victor Bout, a Russian convicted of dealing arms. In a social media post this weekend, Griner called on the United States to “continue to use every tool possible to bring Evan and all wrongfully detained Americans home.” The Wall Street Journal has made Gershkovich’s reporting free and produced a video highlighting his importance as a journalist. Meanwhile, Gershkovich’s Jewish supporters are putting their own spin on the campaigns to raise awareness of Gershkovich’s plight and lobby for his release. “Dear friends, if you are in shul this weekend, please say an extra tefillah for the release of @evangershkovich, a @WSJ reporter and son of

Soviet Jewish immigrants, who was detained this week by the Russian government,” tweeted Chavie Lieber, a Wall Street Journal reporter, last week. (Lieber was a JTA reporter in 2012 and 2013.) On Monday, Raice’s call for a place at Passover seders for Gershkovich was shared widely. “A worthy endeavour. However, Evan is not the only political prisoner in Russia and Byelorussia. Thousands of people are being held in prisons in Russia and Byelorussia, among them Alexei Navalny, Vladimir Kara Murza, Ilya Yashin and others, many, who are of Jewish descent,” Goldschmidt, the former Moscow chief rabbi, tweeted. “We should remember all of them, when we celebrate freedom at the Seder table Wednesday evening!”

54 JEWISH STANDARD APRIL 7, 2023

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Abromovich FROM PAGE 38

in the 1960s. Yuditskaya-Berliner left for Israel in 1973, during a wave of Jewish emigration from the Soviet Union, which she said was characterized at the time by “suspicion, terror and fear.” Putin went on to become a KGB officer in East Germany.  Yuditskaya-Berliner told the story of her reunion with Putin and credited him with buying her an apartment in an article published by Ynet in 2014 under the headline, “I was Vladmir Putin’s teacher.” She said she had lost track of Putin for decades until she saw his face on television next to that of Russian President Boris Yeltsin in the late 1990s. Putin was in charge of Russia’s internal security agency but soon succeeded Yeltsin as president.  Before Putin’s announced state visit

to Israel in 2005, Yuditskaya-Berliner decided she’d like a chance to see Putin in person and reached out to the Russian consulate. She eventually was invited to an event honoring World War II veterans at the King David Hotel and seated across the table from the Russian president. Afterward, Putin invited her to have tea with him in a private room. The two reminisced about their shared history and before the meeting ended, Putin had his former teacher write down her address. Gifts started arriving, including a commemorative watch and an autographed copy of Putin’s book. Soon someone showed up and arranged to move her into a new apartment. Yuditskaya-Berliner died in 2017 at 96. In her will, she instructed that her apartment be given to the Russian government. JEWISH TELEGRAPHIC AGENCY

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Babka goes to Israel — Part II

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actually have no idea how many parts this is going to end up being, so I apologize in advance. But I would like to give credit where credit is due and give a shoutout to Jo the Genius and the Apple Store in Garden State Plaza. Leading up to my trip, I noticed my battery was having some issues keeping up with my very busy schedule of writing and watching Netflix. Of course I didn’t realize this until a few days before my trip, and because I cannot remember my Apple ID, I wasn’t able to make an appointment online. Yes, I was one of those middle-aged women who shows up with her computer, begging one of the 12-year-old employees to help her with her battery dilemma. Long story short, Jo got the job done, found me a battery in the American Dream Apple store, and here we are. In Sanhedria Merchevet, where nary an Apple store exists. Where an apple is still an apple. All’s well that ends well. Back to Israel. Without boring you too much with the details of this journey, we needed to order food for Shabbos. My Oreos in Israel are very kosher. I know that sounds like a redundant phrase, but, apparently in Israel, the Jewish homeland, there are different levels of very kosher. Who knew? Well, now you do. And that is why I would like to share ShabbosKodesh.com with you. It was so easy to order food for Shabbos, has a clever name, wasn’t crazy expensive, and ended up being delicious. Oh, and was kosher enough for my Israeli Oreos, which is the most important part. My mother-in-law enjoyed the stuffed Banji cabbage, the chicken fingers were probaGanchrow bly the best I’ve ever had, and it came in lovely containers. Baruch Hashem. As I mentioned in my previous column, I “celebrated” my dad’s birthday at the Kotel. Son #3, who is really awesome and knows how to figure out everything (Son #1 and Son #2 are also awesome and also know how to figure out everything, but they weren’t with me at the time and I love all of them equally, for the most part), got us a cab to the Old City. Unbeknownst to us, on Fridays during Ramadan, most roads to the Kotel are closed. The cab driver had a lot to say to us, in Hebrew and in English about that fact, and it was highly entertaining in both languages. I was wearing my dad’s Brooklyn Dodgers hat and I am hoping that wherever he is, someone got him a Carvel ice cream cake. And that is all I will say about that. What I always find amazing about Israel, and about the Old City specifically, is that there you are, surrounded by thousands and thousands of years of Jerusalem stone and history, and you turn around, and there is a store called Holy Bagels, a Burgers Bar, and hundreds of places that sell tchotchkes galore. It really is crazy. Is this what God intended? And when Moshiach comes, do those stores all go out of business and it is back to square one? Are these thoughts what happen when I am not near a television? In any event, in a miraculous turn of events, we saw a cab dropping off an elderly gentleman, and I had Son #3 run over to see if he would take us back to the apartment. And he did. As I write this, I am sitting on the couch in DIL 2’s apartment. She is working, Danish is sleeping, Son #2 and Son #3 are learning, my MIL is with her dear friends from Monsey who now live in Israel, and my clothes are in the dryer. It is totally surreal. Husband #1 has been, hopefully, surviving without me, and I haven’t seen Strudel in over a week and hope she remembers who I am. I have been wearing only skirts, but still prefer pants. And that is all I got for this week. Banji Ganchrow of Teaneck is hoping that your Passover is going well, and would like to wish Son #1 a happy half-birthday because he for sure thinks that his mother forgot.

Across 1. Where you may do your bidding? 5. Heavy influence 10. Israeli singer Haza 14. First, middle, or last 15. Certain cycle 16. Cheer 17. Causes of Sukkot hold ups? 19. Leah, to Joseph 20. Lead in to Spice 21. 2010 World Cup host country: Abbr. 22. Paying one might slow you down 24. Grab for Batya? 28. 2.2 in a kg 31. James and Kett 32. Memorial ___ Ketterling 33. “Jurassic Park” mathematician Malcolm 34. Airport org. 36. “Not ___ many words” 37. Org. where Giannis Antetokounmpo is a star 38. Start of a soliloquy by Hamlet 41. One not fried as much this time of year 43. Range Rover rival 44. Controversial Simpsons character, apparently 45. 1978 World Series MVP Bucky 46. Instigate litigation 48. Get along well 49. Glorify 51. Brother of Rebekah 55. Sandler’s old stomping grounds, for short 56. Possible Golani outpost workout? 58. Aspirin target 60. Traveler’s info, briefly 61. Home of Sun Devil Stadium, for short 62. Ham’s brother 64. Back to back performances of “Funny Girl” and “Fiddler of the Roof” on Broadway? 68. Bob who created Batman 69. Amazon transaction, e.g. 70. What we all do eventually 71. Part of 37-Across: Abbr. 72. Football great Grier 73. Related to

Down 1. Cover completely 2. ___ Teshuva 3. In a crowd of 4. Japanese dough 5. Aim alternative 6. Purple flowers 7. Words between “I’m” and “diet” 8. Conservative youth org. 9. Guinea pigs 10. Torah, e.g. 11. Bit from Lenny Bruce or Andrew Dice Clay? 12. 1989 Gold Glove winner Darling 13. Person with a J.D. 18. Kind of rehearsal 23. “Alas!” 25. The “shrew” in “The Taming of the Shrew” 26. Somewhat 27. Honky ___ 29. Ruth of diamonds 30. Pop’s pal 35. Conqueror who dreamt of the Kohen Gadol 38. Prevents one from stealing 39. Like an uncovered base 40. Locale for sacrifices? 42. Santa ___ (desert winds) 43. Valjean of note 45. Mazar of “L.A. Law” 47. Bones in forearms 50. Kind of clef 52. Hayim or Mayim 53. Aziz some consider funny 54. Most common family name in Vietnam 57. Former All-Star Chase often booed by Mets fans 59. End of many a service 62. Jamaican genre of music 63. Owns 65. Bear, in Mexico 66. ___ in “Ulysses” 67. Grp. concerned with curriculum

The solution to last week’s puzzle is on page 66. JEWISH STANDARD APRIL 7, 2023 55

Obituaries

Seymour Stein, Jewish music mogul who discovered Madonna and the Ramones, dies at 80 GABE FRIEDMAN

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eymour Stein, one of the most influential music executives of the 20th century, who frequently throughout his career referred to his Jewish Brooklynite roots, died at 80 at his home in Los Angeles on April 2.

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The cause was an unspecified form of cancer, according to reports. Stein, born Seymour Steinbigle in 1942, grew up in Brooklyn, near Bensonhurst. The artists he signed to his Sire record label ranged from pop superstars like Madonna to punk rockers like the Ramones to New Wave pioneers like the Talking Heads. He also helped found the

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Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in the early 1980s and was inducted with a lifetime achievement award in 2005. As he details in his 2018 autobiography, Stein’s father became closer to Orthodox Judaism in his 30s and 40s, regularly bringing his family to a nearby synagogue, where he was a vice president. Stein wrote that his father stopped by the synagogue at 6 every morning before going to work in Manhattan’s Garment District and then again after work on his way home every day. He described the Jews of 1940s Brooklyn in detail in “Siren Song: My Life in Music”: “We had every flavor of Ashkenazim — Russian, Polish, Baltic, Romanian, Austrian, Hungarian, German, and Czech Jews, including about fifty thousand survivors from the concentration camps. We had lost tribes you didn’t even know existed — Syrian, Iraqi, Persian, Yemeni, Ethiopian, even some Sephardic Jews whose family trees had curled through Spain, North Africa, the Middle East, and South America…. [E]ach Jewish community was distinct, often with its own native food and language.” In 1966, Stein — who shortened his last name on advice from an early mentor, the Jewish executive Syd Nathan — co-founded Sire Records, which would go on to sign and promote artists from a range of burgeoning genres in the 1970s, ’80s and ’90s: British indie rockers like the Smiths and the Cure, electronic innovator Aphex Twin, the rapper Ice-T. “He knows all the lyrics to every song you’ve ever heard,” said Chrissie Hynde, the famed leader of The Pretenders, another Sire band. Along the way, Stein wrote and mentioned in interviews how he found camaraderie with other Jewish executives and stars, after having grown up in an era when Jews were implicitly banned from some professions in the United States but found a haven in the entertainment industry. In his autobiography, for instance, he calls Lou Reed and New Wave electro-rocker Alan Vega fellow Brooklyn Jews. “It’s amazing now that so many doctors and lawyers are Jewish,” he said in a 2013 interview with Tablet magazine. “Jews in America weren’t allowed in those professions 120 years ago. Music is something Jews were good at and they could do. All immigrants into America tried their hand at show-business.” Stein signed Madonna from his hospital bed, where he was recovering from an open-heart surgery, in 1982. She would release three top-of-thecharts albums with Sire before creating her own imprint in 1992. In 1975, his wife, Linda, encouraged him to look into the Ramones, a group of scrappy punks in ripped jeans from Queens (two of whom were Jewish). She would co-manage the band for a time before becoming a real estate agent. Stein, who later came out as gay, wrote that “the roles were a little confused” in his marriage and that he felt pressured to hide his attraction to men in part because of his traditional Jewish

Obituaries upbringing. “Just because I may have been gay didn’t mean I wasn’t Jewish,” he wrote. He and Linda had two children but eventually divorced. In the Tablet interview, Stein mentioned that he stayed observant, though not Orthodox, throughout his life. He visited Israel several times and worked with Israeli pop star Ofra Haza on many albums. In the 1990s, he visited the grave of Rabbi Nachman of Breslov in Uman, Ukraine, a small town where thousands of Orthodox Jews gather on Rosh Hashanah every year. “I feel a strong attachment to Nachman’s teachings,” he said. Linda Stein was murdered by her assistant in 2007, and their daughter Samantha died of brain cancer in 2013. Stein is survived by their daughter Mandy, a sister, and three grandchildren.  JEWISH TELEGRAPHIC AGENCY

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Dalia Gutenberg

Dalia Gutenberg of Bellevue, WA, formerly of Fair Lawn, 88, died on March 30. She was a Hebrew school teacher at Temple Beth Tikvah in Wayne. Predeceased by her husband Alfred, she is survived by her sons Neil (Laurie) and Jeffrey (Lori Garrison); three grandchildren; nieces, and nephews. Arrangements were by Louis Suburban Chapel, Fair Lawn.

Mildred Millstein

Mildred Millstein, née Sokoloff of Delray Beach, FL, formerly of Rockaway Township, Fair Lawn, and Elmwood Park, 90, died on April 1. She is survived by her husband, Morty; her sons, Allan ( Jackie), Neal (Kate), and Steven (Mara); six grandchildren; four great-grandchildren; and nieces and nephews. Arrangements were by Louis Suburban Chapel, Fair Lawn.

Sy Rosensweig

Sy Rosensweig of Montville, formerly of Parsippany, 80, died on April 1. He worked in the garment industry and was a limousine driver. He is survived by his wife, Fran; his children Michael, Gina, Todd, and Stephen; his sisters, Rachel Blumenstyk and Nechama Melech; and nine grandchildren. Arrangements were by Louis Suburban Chapel, Fair Lawn.

Obituaries are prepared using information provided by funeral homes or families. It is the funeral homes’ or families’ responsibility to correct errors.

Arthur Hirschberg

Arthur Hirschberg, 95, of Boca Raton, formerly of Paramus and West Orange died on March 11, 2023. Predeceased by his wife Karen of 23 years and Dr. Margret Wolf of 20 years. Arthur was born in Hachenburg, Germany, June 24, 1927 and left at age eleven prior to Kristallnacht. Arthur, his sister Ilse and his parents settled in Washington Heights. Arthur was the president and owner of Vo-Toys, Inc where he was a pet industry pioneer. Arthur grew VoToys, Inc. into one of the premier

manufacturers and importers in the industry. He served as an officer of the Jewish Community Center of Paramus and also served as President of the American Pet Products Manufacturers Association. He is survived by his wife Linda of 18 years; children, Gary (Beth), Mark (Debra), and Lori (Shawn); stepson, Richard (Hillary); grandchildren, Danielle and Josh, Brett and Sam, Bari and Blake, Carly and Bennett, Dean, Kara, Alexa, Justin, Emily and Lauren, and greatgrandchildren, Jack, Noah, Drew, Ellie, Talia, and Maya.

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JEWISH STANDARD APRIL 7, 2023 57

Editorial Liberation, Pesach, and Yom HaShoah

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e Jews do a lot of counting down and moving toward things. After the second seder — count them, one two — we’re counting questions, counting sons, counting and recounting and re-recounting plagues, as if they’re 2020 voting machines, as we begin to count the omer, moving toward the revelation of Torah on Shavuot. But less than two weeks after the first seder, we get to Yom HaShoah, from the evening of Monday, April 17, to nightfall on April 18. One of the lessons of the Holocaust is that if you want to commit genocide, you should start by dehumanizing people. Turning them into numbers. (That’s why the concept of names, not numbers, is a major concept in Holocaust education.) I was reminded of that by a book that Abe Foxman gave me; there’s an image of it in the story about his Yom HaShoah talk. It’s a large book, and it’s heavy. After the first three pages, it consists of just one word. Jew. The book is stark. Maybe it’s just my eyes, but when I look at it, the three letters blur and swim. There’s really nothing to focus on, because everything on every single page is exactly the same. The pages aren’t even differentiated with page numbers. It’s all just Jew Jew Jew. There are six million Jews in this book.

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Dictators, fascists, Nazis around the world have learned that the more you think of people as less than human — you can begin by calling them animals, as has occurred in our own public discourse in these last few weeks — the more easily you can imagine dispatching them. And if you turn them into abstractions, black marks on a white page, well, who’s going to miss them? Compare that with the work that members of Beth Haverim Shir Shalom are doing with a Ukrainian family. And please note that we know that it is not the only shul to be doing similar work; in fact, quite a few local institutions are doing similar wonderful work. When people here in the United States work with refugees — from Ukraine, from Afghanistan, from Syria, from wherever people have to flee — that work becomes intensely personal. We’re not talking about agencies, whose work is important but by definition bureaucratic, but people, families or small groups of friends. They come to see the refugees not as symbols but actual living breathing people, with all the quirks and oddities and specific history that each of us has. Instead of seeing people as numbers, they’re taking numbers and turning them back into people. They’re rehumanizing abstract facts and restoring them to the world of three-dimensional breathers. That’s a very real form of liberation. —JP

Editor Joanne Palmer Community Editor Beth Janoff Chananie Our Children Editor Heidi Mae Bratt Copy Editor Jonathan E. Lazarus

thejewishstandard.com 58 JEWISH STANDARD APRIL 7, 2023

Opinion

American Jewish criticism of Israel is increasingly ignorant and libelous

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was in Dubai last week as scholar in resibe punished by the protesters are the tourists. But dence for the Jewish community — started were they the ones who were at fault? I ask this question not to challenge the proin 2013 by my former Oxford student, a testers’ right to take action against the governgreat visionary named Ross Kriel — and ment — that is the very essence of democracy leading the prayers at the brand new and absolutely spectacular Abrahamic Family House, — but rather to simply note that even protests built by the Abu Dhabi government at huge often have boundaries, something American expense to house a synagogue, a mosque, and Jews ought to consider as they increasingly a church. The shul, named after Maimonides, pummel the Jewish state in the media. soars to the heavens and has a kosher mikveh, Let me be clear. I am not one of those people all built by an Arab Muslim government, a fact who believe that American Jews have no right to that is simply astonishing. speak about Israel’s internal affairs. Of course But just as my heart swelled with Jewish pride, they do. American Jews are proud supporters of it was felled by the mess going on in Israel. The Israel. But the criticism should be accurate and strikes that followed Prime Minister Benjamin fair rather than fanatical and extreme. Netanyahu’s firing of his defense Recently, a well-respected minister included a shutdown of American Jewish commentator Israel’s international airport, Ben made a statement to the Jerusalem Post that I found shocking. “I Gurion. I was stuck at the airport in never thought that I would reach Dubai trying to fly back to Tel Aviv. that point where I would say The shutdowns and general strike that my support of Israel is conin Israel were hugely embarrassing to the Jewish state, especially ditional,” he said. “I’ve always as seen from the vantage point of said that [my support of Israel] Israel’s Abraham Accords partners, is unconditional, but it’s conRabbi Shmuley ditional. I don’t think that it’s a who value stability over all else. Boteach Was Israel still a stable nation, horrific condition to say: ‘I love they wondered? Israel and I want to love Israel as My father passed away at the a Jewish and democratic state that beginning of covid, in May 2020, and we burrespects pluralism. If Israel ceases to be an open ied him — at unimaginable effort — in Israel. As I democracy, I won’t be able to support it.” returned from the Holy Land, I was confronted Wow. Let’s unpack this for a moment. Even Bibi’s with New York City on fire. George Floyd had just been murdered by a Minnesota police offi- worst critics admit that Israel is in need of some cer and tens of thousands of protesters moved kind of judicial reform, even if they argue that the about New York, in stark contrast to Jerusalem, reform proposed by the government is extreme. which was in total lockdown, which is what Why? Because the Supreme Court, while highly prodded my immediate departure from Israel respected around the world, has become its own as I was not permitted to say Kaddish for my oligarchy, with judges appointing other judges father (imagine the irony of exiting the Jewish with no accountability to the people. Yes, in the state in order to come back to the United States United States our judiciary is a completely separate branch of government. But Supreme Court to find Jewish prayer). But even then not a single New York airport justices are nominated by a President s elected was shut down. Not Kennedy, not La Guardia, and by the people and is confirmed by senators who not Newark. In Israel, it seems, the first group to are also elected by the people. Rabbi Shmuley Boteach of Englewood is the author of “The Israel Warrior” and “Judaism for Everyone.” Follow him on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter @RabbiShmuley.

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Opinion In Israel, no such procedure exists. The people have no say in who their judges are. We can say that the Netanyahu coalition wants to go way too far, and some would point especially to the proposal of the 61 members of the Knesset being able to overrule the Supreme Court. But however misguided, to say that Netanyahu is proposing this change in order to save himself from a corruption investigation is going way too far. Do you really believe that a man who fought in two wars, buried his brother who was the hero at Entebbe, fought for Israel with great eloquence at the U.N., revolutionized Israel’s economy, and forged the Abraham Accords, would destroy his entire country over allegations that he illicitly took cigars, champagne, and pistachio ice cream? Unlike here in the United States, Netanyahu never denied an election, never said that voting in Israel is corrupt, and never incited his supporters to storm the Knesset. So why is he being demonized? He can be opposed without being called the devil. Moreover, however misguided, the proponents of the judicial overhaul cite judicial overreach, like the Supreme Court blocking a proposal to institute a death penalty for terrorists, a no-brainer here in America where monsters like Timothy McVeigh were put to death for murdering 168 people, including 19 children. Anyone miss him? Few were opposed to the capital punishment meted out to this evil mass murderer. One of the reasons I was in Israel last week was to participate in the graduation of our son Yosef from Sayeret Golani, a distinguished Israeli combat unit. This is our third child who has served in the IDF. If you ask me, as the parent of three IDF soldiers, whether I believe in the death penalty for terrorists, the answer is, sadly, yes. The terrorists murder Jews, they are put in Israeli prisons where they and their families receive pensions from the Palestinian Authority in “Pay for Slay” payments — some of it provided by the American taxpayer — and then Hamas tries their best to kidnap Israeli soldiers to exchange 1000 terrorists and murders for a single Israeli soldier, as happened with Gilad Shalit. Leaving these murderers alive in Israeli prisons — after all their legitimate legal appeals have been heard — is an invitation to kidnap Israeli soldiers. Yes, Israel needs a Supreme Court with the power to strike down inhumane laws. But even here there must be balance, as there is here in the United States. But let’s return to how another prominent American Jewish personality dealt with the questions of judicial reform. Last Sunday Noah Tishby, who has done an admirable job standing up for Israel with passion and eloquence, posted on her Instagram that her position as Israel’s Envoy Against BDS and Antisemitism had been terminated by the Netanyahu government. She publicly attacked the very government she was supposed to defend and said that she had been fired because of her criticisms of Israel’s elected government. How sad that she undermined her own belief in democracy and her credentials as a defender of the Jewish State with this petty public complaint. She is well aware that this is completely normal practice here in the U.S. and around the world for ambassadors to be

replaced with every change of administration. Every American ambassador knows that as soon as a new President comes into office, they must voluntarily submit their resignation, as a President has a right to choose the ambassadors he or she wishes to represent them. Thus, my friend Ambassador Elan Carr did an amazing job as America’s antisemitism envoy under President Trump. But he was quickly replaced by Deborah Lipstadt under President Joe Biden, who is likewise doing a very good job. Elan did not pen a screed attacking America publicly or engaging in conspiracies as to why he was replaced. Trump lost the election and he was replaced. It’s standard practice. Noah Tishby would be wise to amend her public comments as she is falsely maligning the Jewish state and its democratically elected government. Then there is the utterly bizarre story of Asaf Zamir, Israel’s largely undistinguished Consul General in New York, who finally got noticed by New York media last week, but only because he resigned and humiliated the country he is supposed to represent. Here is how ABC 7 New York reported his actions: “Israel’s Consul General in New York — Asaf Zamir — says his decision to resign should not be seen as a rejection of Israel or its people, but rather a move to join the fight for Israel’s future and democracy. Zamir says the political situation in Israel has reached a critical point — as evident in the chaos there now.” Hey, Asaf? Was it more chaotic than the burning of Paris at the same time? But did you hear of the French Consul General in New York cursing out Emmanuel Macron and resigning in protest? I would guess not. And why? Because the right to public protest is the very proof of a free democracy, even as in France it led to widespread violence and destruction of property, unlike in Israel. While in Israel last week I sat with my close friend Amir Ohana, the new speaker of the Knesset, who is openly gay. In his inaugural speech before the Knesset, he gave the most moving tribute to his husband, Alon, and his two children, born of an American surrogate mother. Needless to say, no speech like this had ever been delivered in the Knesset in its history and perhaps not even in the halls of United States Congress. And he delivered it as part of what is being labeled the most extreme, fanatical, homophobic right-wing government in Israel’s history. Which leads me to the following conclusion. Israel is a robust democracy, and the hundreds of thousands of people protesting the government of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu just proves it. Unlike Paris, which is being torched so badly right now over the raising of the retirement age that King Charles of Great Britain had to cancel his first overseas trip as sovereign, the demonstrations in Israel have been entirely peaceful. Netanyahu has now paused the judicial overhaul and his government is participating in talks with the opposition, overseen by Israel’s president, Yitzchak Herzog, which shows that public protest in Israel works. Try that in any Arab nation. So before prominent Jews give eulogies over democracy in the Jewish state, it would be wise for them to study the facts and get them straight, lest they not only fail in their stated goal of defending Israel against defamation, but participate in a libel.

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For posterity

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riting blogs often leads me to questions that I just cannot answer. My family roots, and routes, often are unknown to me — and to any other living person. Those who experienced life 100 or many more years ago always are gone. Dead. No one survives life. Therefore, unless they left written memoirs, their stories are not known to me or the rest of their progeny. This leads me to surmise, but surmising is a fragile method of learning and teaching and writing. It lacks a certain nuance and its imputed information is often — or probably —incorrect. Thus, when Zayda came to America, for instance, and left my Bubba Rifka and the three very young older kids back in Poland, when she was in late stage pregnancy with my father and his twin sister, was there an argument where she screamed at him that this was an inopportune time to leave her with such an overflowing plate, which included a little grocery store to manage? Or did she quietly encourage him and acknowledge that this was the time to go and not to worry about her or the kids or the poverty or how she would Rosanne possibly manage labor Skopp and delivery on her own? I do not have a clue as to the answer. But she was my grandmother, and I know that if I take after her at all, I would not have agreed calmly to such a plan. Yet that plan was put into action and he went to New Jersey where he stayed with some of her Zaentz relatives in Passaic, not his own Litwaks. Why, I cannot say. And throughout my childhood it was the Zaentz family events that we attended, never the Litwaks. Why, I cannot say. This is just one small example where skeletal information is not nearly enough. But what about all those many generations, and human lives, who came even before Zayda and Rifka, hundreds and thousands of years before? I know nothing. None of them were written about in the world history books, or the Bible for that matter. At least I don’t think they were. I’m not even sure of that. We Jews always say we know each other from Har Sinai. Truthfully, I don’t think I know anyone from there at all. I really wish I knew our own family stories. But I know our progeny will learn about us. This is due to an important activity that we fell upon the other day. We hadn’t planned it ourselves, but now that we’ve done it, I can’t understand how we possibly hadn’t sought it out on our own. You have to read this and then you too have to do something about it. It’s not optional! Even though we spent a Shabbat weekend at Camp SEE POSTERITY PAGE 62

Rosanne Skopp of West Orange is a wife, mother of four, grandmother of 14, and great-grandmother of three. She is a graduate of Rutgers University and a dual citizen of the United States and Israel. She is a lifelong blogger, writing blogs before anyone knew what a blog was! JEWISH STANDARD APRIL 7, 2023 59

A rally in Englewood.

Netanyahu’s assault on democracy hits a speed bump

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rom Saturday evening, March 25, through Monday evening, March 27, Israelis’ desperate struggle to preserve their democracy reached an unprecedented new level. The leaderless popular revolt against the dangerous power grab proposed by Benyamin Netanyahu and his hard right coalition rocked the nation. This new government coalition, formed with the slimmest of majorities, is only three months old and has announced plans not simply to revise the judicial system but to cripple it, removing the teeth from the watchdog that protects Israel’s democracy — the Supreme Court. Hundreds of thousands of Israelis were in the street demanding an end to Netanyahu’s judicial coup. Dr. Mark Gold Workers walked off their jobs, departing flights were canceled, and the port of Haifa shut down. Air Force pilots and members of the highly esteemed computer divisions of the Israeli Army announced their decision to refuse to serve in their reserve units. Even McDonalds shuttered its shops. The pressure compelled parts of Netanyahu’s coalition to waver. The defense minister, Yoav Gallant, recognized the security threat and declared his official opinion that the juggernaut of anti-judicial legislation had to be stopped. Netanyahu responded to Gallant’s statement by removing him from office. But by the end of Monday, Dr. Mark Gold of Teaneck holds a Ph.D. in economics from NYU. He is on the executive board of Partners for Progressive Israel, a member organization of the American Zionist Movement and an affiliate of the World Union of Meretz. Hiam Simon of Englewood is the past chief operating officer of Ameinu, the leading progressive Zionist membership organization in the United States. He lived in Israel for many years, where he was the dean of students at what is now the Alexander Muss High School, and he served in the IDF as a noncommissioned officer in the artillery. 60 JEWISH STANDARD APRIL 7, 2023

Netanyahu was forced to hit the pause button. But only for a short time. All his programs remain ready for final enactment as soon as the Passover break is over. And while many eyes were focused on the drama in Israel, few understood that the plans to subvert Israel’s democracy were largely conceived and written right here in the United States. Before we examine all of this, first, a little background. Israel is governed through a parliamentary system. Voters elect party representatives, and a government is formed through a coalition that manages to muster a majority. That majority chooses a prime minister and the government. There is no separation of powers between the legislature and the executive. The Hiam Simon legislature is unicameral, so there is no check on the legislation by a second body. Unlike the United States and many other democracies, Israel has no constitution to define and limit powers. The only check to the power of any administration in Israel is the enforcement of previous law through independent courts. In Israel, the independence of the courts, unfettered by politicians, is assured by a selection system that includes political representatives but subordinates their power. Judges are appointed through a selection committee of nine members: three Supreme Court members, one of whom is the president of the Supreme Court; two government ministers, of whom one as the minister of justice presides over the selection committee; two Knesset members, one of whom often, but not always, is a member of the opposition; and two members of the Israeli Bar Association. In this construction, the politicians are always in the minority while the majority are from the legal profession. To preserve balance, Supreme Court judges must be appointed by a majority of seven. In this way, representatives of the Knesset majority could have a blocking vote on the most important judicial appointments. While Israel does not have a constitution, it does have Basic Laws, which, in place of a constitution, define

governmental procedures and authority and place certain limits on that authority. The passage of two Basic Laws in 1992 were interpreted by the Supreme Court as giving the court the power of judicial review. This allows the Court to nullify acts of the Knesset it deems as violating existing law. Part of the parameters for nullifying a law is what has been called the reasonableness test. The test examines the law within the parameters of expected results and determines if those results are reasonable according to the panel of Supreme Court judges. Additionally, in Israel, the attorney general places officers within the various government departments; those officers are responsible for ensuring that the actions of those government agencies fall within legal boundaries. By being answerable to the attorney general, these legal advisers are independent of the ministers they advise. The Supreme Court and Basic Laws are the checks in Israel’s system of governance, and through the attorney general, rule of law is maintained in the ministries. Each one of these barriers are the targets of the new administration. By politicizing the appointment of judges, removing the legal advisers from the authority of the attorney general, and, for good measure, allowing the Knesset to override any Supreme Court ruling, this coalition, led by a prime minister under indictment and bolstered by thugs and hooligans, will be able to make its dreams come true, unfettered by law and some pesky Supreme Court. Yair Levin, the deputy prime minister and minister of justice, has proposed in the Knesset to alter the composition of the judicial selection committee, increasing the size to 11 members. Three would be government ministers and three would be Knesset committee chairs;all of them would be members of the governing coalition. Three would be judges, one of whom would be the president of the Supreme Court. Two would be members of the public, and at least one of them would be a lawyer. They would be selected by the justice minister. This new selection committee make-up is designed to be controlled overwhelmingly by the governing coalition. This would be particularly true as the proposal includes a change in the way the president of the Supreme Court is chosen. Now, the president is decided by seniority. Levin’s proposal gives the governing coalition the unilateral power to appoint the president. The

Opinion

president of the Supreme Court has important powers as the chief administrator of Israel’s court system. Not only would Levin’s proposal completely politicize the selection of judges, including Supreme Court judges, it would politicize the operations of the entire court system. This newly stacked committee also would have enough votes to meet the existing threshold to remove judges, for any or no reason, allowing the court system to be completely packed by the governing coalition, or at minimum, would subject the judges to the coercive pressure of the threat of removal. The only point to expanding the committee is to dilute the existing thresholds and put them within the control of the sitting government. Levin’s proposals also would eliminate the reasonableness test and place other limits on the judicial review authority of the Supreme Court. It would place the legal advisers to Knesset ministers under the control of the respective ministers they advise instead of the Attorney General, undercutting their authority. The icing on this cake: Levin’s proposals would allow the Knesset, by a simple 61-vote majority, to overrule any Supreme Court decision. The timing of the proposal is no accident. The new administration wants to advance its agenda quickly and remove any barriers the current court system might impose because there is a mandatory retirement age for Supreme Court members and two of those members, including the president of the court, will be compelled to step down this year. A third member will reach retirement age next year. In the face of growing criticism, Levin’s program has been hustled through committees while opposition Knesset members have been silenced, shouted down, or expelled from committee sessions. Clearly the implications are very serious, and the results are all too visible wherever programs like this have been installed. There is a consistent pattern around the world that illiberal democracies apply to take control of the judiciary and then use it as a tool to suppress criticism and debate. That allows the government to eliminate political opponents and opposition parties and to suppress the votes of target populations to ensure that existing power blocs remain unchallenged. In India and Turkey, trials before judicial panels appointed by a compromised judiciary systems have been abused to arrest and imprison opposition candidates and prevent them from running in elections. In

India, courts have permitted the wholesale removal of citizenship rights from targeted Muslim populations. Laws are crafted or abused to target critical journalists and independent media. These actions have been seen and their lessons learned. Once Levin’s proposals are enacted into law, there will be nothing to prevent the same thing happening in Israel. We know that this government already has plans to make it easier for Arab parties and candidates to be excluded from elections. Similar procedures could be used to exclude Jewish candidates and parties that are perceived as threats. There would be nothing to stop the Knesset majority from requiring media outlets to register, subsequently using that act of registration as a vehicle for self-censorship or the elimination of independent voices. Citizenship rules, civil rights, and voting rights could be changed completely. This is particularly important as the new administration moves toward annexing the West Bank. The Supreme Court has been crucial in protecting women’s rights, particularly from enforced segregation and separation from public life as pressed by ultra-Orthodox parties. With the court under political control, it is unlikely to continue to serve as a shield against governing charedi party efforts to compel segregation. In the unlikely event that the court continued its protection, the majority coalition could overrule it in the Knesset. Among the governing coalition today are parties that are openly anti-gay. Legislation discriminating against gays and lesbians or criminalizing them now are blocked by Basic Law and the courts. Those barriers would be swept away by Levin’s proposals. Existing protections for Israel’s non-Orthodox Jewish streams, as limited as they are, could be removed as well. An independent judiciary is a vital bulwark against corruption. Here is yet another reason the new administration has targeted it. This year, the court blocked a member of the governing coalition, Aryeh Deri, from taking a ministerial post in the government. Deri, one of the founding members of the Shas party, was convicted of bribery, fraud, and breach of trust in 1999. Returning to politics in 2012, he was pressured to resign from the Knesset due to his violations of tax laws. As part of the Shas party list he returned to the Knesset in the December 2022 elections. Levin’s proposals would sweep away obstacles to Deri’s control of a ministry and its budget. Netanyahu himself is the subject of a long, drawnout corruption trial. As part of the coalition’s judicial agenda, a law already has been passed to restrict the

attorney general’s ability to remove the prime minister from office. The attorney general has just filed a suit against the new law, saying it represents a violation of an existing agreement with Netanyahu that permitted him to serve while under indictment. The proponents of these changes to the judiciary claim that none of the charges of corruption, embezzlement, and breach of trust by sitting — or in Deri’s case recently removed — ministers have anything at all to do with their plans for the court. But sometimes, if it looks like a duck and sounds like a duck, it must be a duck. For these reasons, protesters against Levin’s Knesset proposals do not speak of them, as the press often does, as “judicial reforms.” They call them bluntly and explicitly for what they are: a coup. But where did the blueprints for this coup come from? The plans for the assault on Israel’s democracy were created in the United States by a right-wing think tank, the Kohelet Policy Forum, formed and operated by Moshe Koppel, an American immigrant to Israel. The forum is reported to be funded by Arthur Dantchik, an extremely wealthy resident of Queens. Their involvement was uncovered and reported in an Israeli newspaper, Haaretz, and the Democratic Bloc, a research group whose director, Ran Cohen, is an immigrant born in Iraq and a former member of Knesset from the Meretz party. Kohelet, which has a Jerusalem office, regularly advises members of the Netanyahu administration and the governing Knesset coalition on a range of topics, occasionally participating actively in meetings and negotiations. Moshe Koppel was in Englewood on March 25; congregants of the East Hill Synagogue had invited him to speak that Shabbat. He was met by a large contingent of Israelis and Americans, all lovers of Israel and defenders of democracy, who stood out in the rain with Israeli flags. They shouted in Hebrew and English “Shame on Kohelet — Bushah” and they sang Hatikvah. They were joining their voices with protesters in Israel demonstrating against the plan cooked up by Kohelet and Koppel; they were joining their voices with Israelis across a wide swath of political opinion who are coming out onto the streets to defend a democratic future for the state of Israel and all its inhabitants. While the judicial coup attempt is very much a partisan affair, the streets of Israel are filled with protesters who run the gamut. They range across party lines; they include Likud voters, observant Jews, and even West Bank settlers, as well as supporters of Israel’s opposition parties. Opponents of the coup include those who link the judicial program with the new government’s annexation plans and its virulent anti-Arab character. One of last week’s protesters came dressed in an elephant costume, with a hand-printed sign reading “Occupation-The Elephant in the Room.” Suddenly, and for the first time in years, the differences that have divided Israelis, keeping them from talking to those with whom they disagreed, have found at least one common threat that they can coalesce behind. Opinion polls showed that two-thirds of the country oppose the Netanyahu administration’s judicial proposals. Women’s rights activists dressed in long red cloaks and white bonnets inspired by the “Handmaid’s Tale” have been particularly stunning. Numbering in the hundreds, walking silently in pairs, heads bowed, accompanied by drums, they are readily visible in aerial photos, a bright red line among the scores of thousands of fellow demonstrators. In support, women have begun arriving JEWISH STANDARD APRIL 7, 2023 61

Opinion to protests wearing red shirts. Tens of thousands of women dressed in red shirts joined in a special protest across the country on International Women’s Day. Weekly protests in Israel began the first weekend in January, shortly after Levin made his program public. A crowd of about 20,000 met at Habima Square in Tel Aviv, with a much smaller group of about 200 meeting in Haifa. The following week, the size of the protest in Tel Aviv had multiplied by four, and there were smaller demonstrations in Jerusalem and Haifa. By the third week, Israeli police estimated that there were 100,000 protesters gathered on Kaplan Street in Tel Aviv, with others not only in Haifa and Jerusalem but also in Beersheva. By February, the weekly demonstrations had spread to smaller towns as well as the main protest sites in the large cities. By mid-February, the demonstrations featured the active involvement of such public figures as a former military chief of staff, General Moshe Ya’alon. Short-duration strikes involving both workers and business owners began. At one of the demonstrations, an old clip of Netanyahu extolling the importance of a strong and independent judiciary was shown. In March, the size of the protests escalated rapidly. On March 11, more than half a million people protested. The demonstrations were the visible part of a growing resistance movement. Millions of private discussions are not visible, but suddenly people were talking to each other about public affairs, broaching topics that had long been suppressed by disagreements. The conversations were shaping a building consensus against

the administration’s judicial program but were opening dialogues on other topics, too. There also was a growing revolt among Israeli Defense Force reservists, including reservist volunteers serving in the air force and special services. These took different forms. Some involved polite but firm letters to senior commanders, jointly signed by loyal soldiers. Other communications were more blunt. Reservists told their senior officers they could not serve under a dictatorship. Reservists — particularly volunteers in key service units — stopped showing up. On Sunday morning, March 26, the day after massive demonstrations across the country in which more than 600,000 protested — fully 7% of the country was out on the streets — Defense Minister Moshe Gallant announced his opposition to the judicial program, warning that the divisions in the country were harming its security preparedness. Shortly after Gallant spoke, Netanyahu announced he was removing him from his post. Demonstrators who had returned home from protests Saturday night turned back out into the streets in a massive and spontaneous reaction. By Monday morning, there were 100,000 protesters in front of the Knesset where key parts of Levin’s program were hurriedly pushed through for a final vote. Israel’s labor federation, the Histadrut, called a general strike. The owners of businesses promised to pay their striking workers’ wages. In the face of this opposition, parts of Netanyahu’s coalition blinked. Suddenly they were ready to postpone the program.

But the most extreme elements of Netanyahu’s extremist coalition were too committed to their vision of an Israel unrestrained by the rule of law. Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, the head of the Kahanist Otzma Yehudit faction, threatened to bring down the government if the judicial program were not brought to a Knesset vote. To appease him, and to remain in power (and perhaps out of jail), in an extremely dangerous move, Netanyahu agreed to create a new armed militia and place it under Ben-Gvir’s direct control. It must be said that Ben-Gvir never served in the Israel Defense Forces. Not because he didn’t want to but because the Army determined he was too violent, too dangerous, to serve. In a country with a universal draft, Ben-Gvir failed to pass muster. Netanyahu bequeathed this prize upon Ben-Gvir to prevent him from toppling the government. Only then could Netanyahu announce a temporary pause for the judicial overhaul bill package, until after the Pesach holiday. Israel’s president, Isaac Herzog, whose call for compromise had been refused by the government, again has invited all sides to the table. Demonstrators left the streets, and Histadrut leaders called off their strike but warned it would be renewed if the legislation were brought to a Knesset vote. The politicians do not represent the demonstrators. For the protesters, there can be no compromise of Israel’s democratic future. And the best thing we as American Jews can do for Israel is to speak out in their support. For the future of a Jewish and democratic Israel, we need to ensure that this speed bump turns into a dead end.

Posterity

our Jewish lives, our thoughts, and what we did with our precious gift of years. Shmu is a professional. He probed gently. He listened carefully. He followed no script but he always climbed the next step, the deeper level. In about an hour with both of us, he learned what was important to us and led us to a clearer understanding of our own drive, decisions, and dreams. It was remarkable and it is a gift to those who follow us. Everyone, of a certain age, needs to create such a simple, easy, legible legacy. When we discussed our ancestry we were both ill prepared, but even the history in our own generation was not elucidated sufficiently. Living through the years of the Holocaust was not enough to scorch our memories with its horrors. No. We were among the generation that grew up ignorantly unaware, except in the most superficial ways. I remember my mother telling us to finish the food on our plates because the children in Europe were starving. I did not get her thrust then and she never expanded it. Was I too young to understand? Undoubtedly. But, then again, when I got older and it was long postwar, I still wasn’t made to understand, by parents or teachers. Is this relevant to the lives of our progeny? I don’t know, but I think it was fairly typical, and I also think it’s a spin on our lives, that our children, without the tape, would not believe or expect. They would have thought that we, Jews comfortably settled in a nice home in Newark, far from the winds of war, would have experienced fear. The truth is that we had no idea at all that our cohort was being exterminated in Europe. While they were dying we were playing in the backyard. Our children have no obligation to make heroes of us at all. I discovered that my most significant Jewish value is in-marriage. This is a topic that I have not written about, but in the interview, hypnotically, it emerged.

It was my red-button issue, more than antisemitism, more than religious observance. I referred to the many cousins in my generation, my own cousins and their children, who have left Judaism, or ignored it, and who do not even have any remnants left to return to. It makes me tremble to think how easily my own direct family line could be similarly challenged, and it makes me think how abused and depressed my grandparents would feel with the knowledge that their descendants are simply and sadly no longer Jews. In my extended family there is not a single convert to Judaism. I made clear to Shmu that when serious converts are serious Jews, they are among my favorite people. We delved into love for Israel, and the animosity that I feel towards the present government and its fomenting of sinat chanim, causeless hatred. I hope that those reviewing the tape will wonder, at some future date, what I could have been referring to, and that they will need to be reminded of these terrible days. I hope to be remembered as a fervent, life-long Zionist! I shared my commitment to Jewish education and the hope that my progeny will always find it possible to assure that their children benefit from comprehensive lifelong Jewish learning. There is much more. It is amazing how much such a short period of time, an hour, can include. I was gently nudged into thinking about my life, my Jewish life, and blessedly being able to communicate to those who follow me, my descendants. And the same is true for my husband. No doubt we each left many things unsaid. The takeaway must be to dwell on what was said, what was urgent and important enough to be said, rather than on what wasn’t. I owe huge debts of gratitude to those who led us to embark on this very intense, but incredibly easy, interview. It is a wonderful gift to the future of our family.

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Ramah in New England many years ago learning about ethical wills from a brilliant scholar named Rela Geffen, and proceeded to write our own on that Sunday morning, we still had not conjured up the idea of doing interviews. One step should have led us to another but that’s not what happened. So we wrote the wills and they were beautiful, and my husband, a gentle soul, was crying, and driving, on the long road from Palmer, Massachusetts, to central New Jersey, as I read him mine. And then, I read his, and it was beautiful and meaningful and touching and loving, and I too cried. And we never shared them with anyone else and they lie amongst our important papers, I hope! But, surely, in today’s technological era, where computers and videography are ubiquitous, there is more to do. And now we have done it, although the idea did not germinate from either one of us. Our old friend Shmu, a prominent Jewish historian, a writer of books about the Shoah, a brilliant researcher, and an all-around scholar and mensch, called and asked if he could interview us. We agreed without even asking why, assuming it was for some study he was engaged in where he needed to investigate the lives of elderly American-born Jews. It would be done on videotape, each of us separately. We asked no questions other than would he eat bagels and lox for lunch. He would! I’m still not sure who put him up to this but whoever suggested it has earned our eternal gratitude. It is an absolutely wonderful — and obvious — way to communicate with future generations. Each interview was done in a quiet, private place. We were not privy to what we would be asked but it was clear from the start that he wanted to ask about 62 JEWISH STANDARD APRIL 7, 2023

Israel and India—perfect together

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here are an estimated 5,000 Jews living in India, a nation with a population of 1.4 billion and counting. That means Jews represent 0.000357 percent of Indians. Even before many of the approximately 30,000 Indian Jews made aliyah once the State of Israel was formed, their percentage of the population was minuscule. But behind that microscopic number lies a proud legacy of Jewish life in India that has endured for thousands of years. That legacy includes a warm and high regard for its Jews and an absence of persecution. Those who went to Israel left out of choice, not Robert S. necessity. Peckar T h i s h i s to r y h e l p e d inform a recent mission to India by the American Jewish Committee’s Asia Pacific Institute, which I chair. The mission was led by AJC CEO Ted Deutch, a former member of Congress who represented Florida from 2010 to 2022, and came at a time when India has forged stronger economic, strategic, and technological ties with both Israel and the United States. I have visited India many times over the last 22 years. India is a vast, diverse, and complex nation that is an endless source of fascination — but it’s also a nation rife with opportunity. India offers Israeli innovation the opportunity to scale up in the world’s fourth-largest economy. More engagement can lead only to better outcomes, not just in economic ties but in promoting a healthier political dialogue and people-to-people understanding. Our delegation met with leading Indian officials — including the defense and foreign ministers — and we engaged in discussion with them about strengthening the I2U2 Group, a coalition of the U.S., India, Israel, and the United Arab Emirates that aims to promote cooperation in such fields as technology, health, and energy. Those relationships were on display when the delegation visited one of the Centers for Excellence that Israel has opened outside Jaipur. These centers, which are joint projects between the Israeli and Indian governments, aim to improve the lives and yields of farmers in India by training them to use Israeli technology that helps them use water more efficiently, and works with them to increase crop diversity. The U.N. estimates that 70% of rural Indian households depend on agriculture for their livelihood. Indian and Israeli representatives advised the delegation that the 30 existing Centers of Excellence have Bob Peckar and his wife, Maxine live in Alpine. Mr. Peckar, an attorney and the founding partner of Peckar & Abramson, P.C., has been an active participant in Jewish communal life in Bergen County for decades, including the Jewish Federation of Northern New Jersey and the Jewish Home at Rockleigh. He is chair of AJC’s Asia Pacific Institute and the former chair of AJC’s Project Interchange, which sends delegations of important opinion-makers from around the world on seminars to Israel for first-hand exposure to Israel.

Members of the American Jewish Committee’s Asia Pacific Institute mission to India paid a visit to the Taj Mahal in Agra.

Synagogue, founded in 1864 by Iraqi Jews who had settled in the city. While we were in Mumbai we visited the Chabad House, where seven people were killed in 2008. Those murders were part of a spree of terrorist attacks against the Taj Palace Hotel and other sites that claimed 166 lives. The terrorists, who came by sea, launched from Pakistan. As tragic as that incident was, I take comfort in knowing it is in no way representative of the extraordinarily positive relationship we witnessed between the Indian people and the Jewish community in India and around the world. Because AJC is an American nonpartisan organization with a longstanding reputation as an honest broker and an influential voice, it has access to top decisionmakers and stakeholders throughout Asia. Missions like these enable AJC to AJC’s mission participants visit the India/Israel agricultural build upon its reputation and longstandCenter of Excellence near Jaipur. ing relationships and forge new ones to benefit world Jewry and Israel. improved farming for four million Indian farmers, I know that many American Jews might question why and 15 more centers are planned. No country is better we focus attention on Asia, where Jews are few and far suited than Israel to offer this level of expertise. Israel between. But regardless of the number, I have found is a mostly dry land, much of it desert. Yet it is a leader it is important to glean perspectives from countries in in the Middle East when it comes to food security, agrithe Asian-Pacific region, which is home to 60% of the cultural innovation, and making the most of its water world’s population. It is also essential to engage with resources. Sharing that knowledge already has made a their governments on issues of importance to Jews and difference in the lives of millions of Indians, especially Israel, from the fight against antisemitism wherever for those whose income is only a few dollars a day. in the world it endangers Jews to support for Israel in We also traveled to Agra to check off what is invariably world bodies, especially the U.N. at the top of any Indian travel bucket list — a visit to the Indeed, I have found that as we engage with Asian Taj Mahal — and to Mumbai, the center of Indian Jewish countries, the more they want to engage with us. Israel life, where we toured several synagogues. Ted Deutch and the Jewish people have a great story to tell, and it’s helped lead Shabbat services at the ornate Magen David one that we’re always happy to share. JEWISH STANDARD APRIL 7, 2023 63

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Jewish World Law to bar Congo’s only Jewish politician from presidency is reconsidered DAVID I. KLEIN Backers of a law that would bar the Democratic Republic of Congo’s only Jewish politician from becoming president are trying again to get it passed, in a move decried by Jewish leaders abroad. The law, reintroduced to the African nation’s parliament in Kinshasa this week, would bar anyone without two Congolese parents from ascending to the presidency. Its main effect would be to block Moise Katumbi from succeeding in his presidential bid, which is underway now. Katumbi is the son of a Congolese woman from a local royal family and a Greek Jew, Nisim Soriano, who fled to what was then a Belgian colony during the Holocaust. “The controversial bill on nationality has been considered by the opposition as a means of blocking the way for Moise Katumbi, the leading candidate in the 2023 presidential election and who is considered to have the best chance of defeating the incumbent president,” a spokesman for Katumbi said. It’s not the first time Katumbi has come up against the bill, known as the Tshiani Law; it’s named after its

proponent Noel Tshiani, a rival politician. Tshiani introduced a similar bill in 2021 — Katumbi was running as well — citing concerns about foreign meddling in the country’s elections. “Any mercenary could no longer slip to the top of the Congolese state,” Tshiani said in defense of his bill. On Twitter, he likened the legislation to a biblical command, specifically in Deuteronomy 17:15, which says, “You may not put a foreigner over you who is not your brother.” Katumbi is a lifelong resident of the DRC, and on his mother’s side he is the great-grandson of a king of the local Lunda ethnic group. He owns a range of companies in the mining, transportation, and food-production sectors and is one of the richest men in the country. In 2016, the Economist called him “the second most powerful man in the Democratic Republic of Congo” after its then-president, Joseph Kabila. As governor of the DRC’s southern Katanga province, he was wildly popular, increasing revenue in the region tenfold during his rule from 2007 to 2015 and overseeing similar jumps in access to water infrastructure and literacy rates. Over the course of both his business and political

career, Katumbi has maintained close ties with Israel, where his father ultimately moved. Katumbi visited the country frequently while his father was still alive and once even was suggested as a potential buyer of an Israeli soccer team, Maccabi Netanya. Katumbi already owns the DRC’s TP Mazembe team. The bill has been criticized by people both in and outside the country, with human rights organizations calling it unconstitutional, fearing that it could reignite violence in the recently war-torn state. “I am appalled by the proposed legislation that would disqualify a leading candidate from running for office based solely on their Jewish heritage.” said Rabbi Menachem Margolin, chairman of the European Jewish Association, who has a close relationship with Katumbi.  “This is an egregious violation of human rights and a dangerous step backward for the Democratic Republic of Congo,” Margolin said. “I am sure Congolese citizens will fight against this unjust bill and ensure that all people are able to participate in the electoral process regardless of their background. I call on all who believe in justice and equality to unite in this crucial fight for the future of the DRC and the African continent as a JEWISH TELEGRAPHIC AGENCY whole.” 

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Noteworthy ‘Free Chol Soo Lee’ to be shown virtually at TIFF “Free Chol Soo Lee” — the last selection of the virtual film series presented this winter and spring through the partnership of the Teaneck International Film Festival, The Puffin Foundation Ltd., PBS, and Indie Lens Pop-Up — will be shown Wednesday, April 19, at 7:30 p.m. via Ovee. “Free Chol Soo Lee” is a documentary about Lee, a Korean immigrant who was sentenced to life in prison for a 1973 murder in San Francisco. After 10 years of fighting for his life inside California prisons, he was freed after a pan-Asian solidarity movement helped overturn his conviction. Following his release, Lee found himself in a new fight to rise to the expectations of the people who believed in him. Following the film, Amy Torres of

the NJ Alliance for Immigrant Justice will moderate a talkback via Zoom with Eugene Yi and Julie Ha, directors of “Free Chol Soo Lee.” The film will be shown with a short from the NJ PBS “21 Film Series,” which presents the story of someone from each of New Jersey’s 21 counties. The April 19 short introduces viewers to Edgar Aquino-Huerta of Cumberland County. The son of migrant workers, he uses his protected status and voice to help educate the local undocumented community and advocate for immigration reform. Viewers can watch the films free of charge from home, via Ovee. Advance registration is required; go to to teaneckfilmfestival.org and click on Eventbrite to sign up.

Deadline extended for B’nai B’rith scholarship application B’nai B’rith International will award the annual Sally and George Schneider Scholarship to a deserving Jewish female graduate student this spring. The new deadline for submission of applications is Friday, April 28, 2023. Sally Schneider, born in Brooklyn in 1919, was a voracious reader and a passionate supporter of Israel who felt strongly that women should be independent and educated. She and her husband, George, were longtime B’nai B’rith members. In 1998, after Sally’s death, the

family set up an endowment fund in their honor. The  scholarship, approximately $1,000, will be awarded to an individual from among the applicants meeting the following qualifications: 1) A deserving Jewish female graduate student 2) Residing in the greater metropolitan New York area, including northern and central New Jersey 3) Currently enrolled in and attending a graduate program (as of Jan. 31, 2023) in a field benefiting humankind, including, but not limited to, medicine,

medical research, education, social work, psychology, chiropractic medicine, nursing, or public health 4) The candidate should demonstrate an involvement or interest in Jewish culture. To apply, submit a statement (no more than two pages, typed and double-spaced, including home and email address) indicating the applicant’s qualifications to Andrea Cure at [email protected]. For information, go to bnaibrith.org.

BergenPAC adds Mandy Patinkin and more to lineup Four shows have been added to the lineup of great entertainment at the Bergen Performing Arts Center’s recently renovated theater in Englewood. Mandy Patinkin in Concert: Being Alive Thursday, May 18, 8 p.m, ($65-$165) The acclaimed actor and singer will present a passionate evening of song that includes his favorite Broadway and classic American tunes, along with selections from his newest recordings. From Randy Newman to Stephen Sondheim, from Harry Chapin to Rufus Wainwright, Patinkin takes audiences on an unforgettable musical journey. He’s accompanied by Adam Ben-David, an arranger, music director, conductor, and pianist on Broadway. Patinkin won a Tony for his Broadway debut role as Che in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s ”Evita” in 1980. He began his concert career in 1989 at Joseph Papp’s Public Theater in New York and has toured his solo concerts Off-Broadway and on and across North America and beyond. His film and TV credits include ”Yentl,” “Wish I Was Here,” “The Princess Bride,” “Ragtime,” “The Good Fight,” “Chicago Hope,” and “Homeland.”  race Adkins T Thursday, June 15, 8 p.m. $105-$145) In his 25-year career in country music, Trace Adkins has sold over 11 million albums, charted over 20 singles, and earned numerous awards and Grammy nominations. A Grand Ole Opry member for nearly two

decades, he has expanded his career to include film and TV acting. His 1996 debut album, ”Dreamin’ Out Loud,” made it to the Top 5 of Billboard’s Hot Country Songs chart following with the No. 1 hit “This Ain’t (No Thinkin’ Thing).”  op 2000 (O-Town, BBMak, Ryan Cabrera, & LFO) P Friday, July 21, 8 p.m. ($45-$85) This concert — hosted by Chris Kirkpatrick, a founding member of NSYNC — will bring audience members back to the early 2000s. As a voice actor, Kirkpatrick has worked on numerous kids’ shows, including the “The Fairly Oddparents,” and has competed in “Celebrity Big Brother and The Masked Singer.” O-Town’s first two albums included the No. 1 singles “Liquid Dreams” and “All or Nothing” and the Top 40 hit “We Fit Together.” BBMAK (Mark Barry, Christian Burns, and Stephen McNally) are back after a 15-year hiatus. The multi-platinum-selling English pop group is best known for “Back Here,” “Out of My Heart,” and “The Ghost of You and Me.” Ryan Cabrera is the singer and songwriter behind such hits as “On the Way Down,” “True,” and “Shine On” and was featured on MTV’s “Ashlee Simpson Show” and “The Hills.” LFO had the No. 1 hit “Summer Girls” in 1999, and followed with “Girl on TV” and the top-10 hit “Every Other Time.” Today, lone surviving member Brad Fischetti

Mandy Patinkin keeps the name of LFO alive, performing for fans new and old.  oco in Concert on Tour C Wednesday, Oct. 11, 7 p.m. ($45-$85) AMP presents Disney Pixar’s Coco in Concert featuring a screening of the film with Oscar- and Grammy-winning composer Michael Giacchino’s score performed by a 20-member Latin ensemble. ”Coco” also features the Oscar-winning song “Remember Me” by Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez. Go to bergenpac.org for more information. To purchase tickets, go to ticketmaster.com  or call 201-227-1030. JEWISH STANDARD APRIL 7, 2023 67

Real Estate DEAR MONTY

Two accepted offers on the same house... What? RICHARD MONTGOMERY Dear Monty: Our offer was accepted after the first buyer backed out because they didn’t like the inspection report. We have already signed the contract with the seller and transferred the earnest money. The

original buyer has resurfaced and wants to continue where they left off. The seller sent a mutual release to the first buyer, who never signed it. Our agent says we have the right to move forward, but the other agent says they are ahead of us. What is your opinion?

NAAMA MANAHAN Realtor (201) 655-2316 Cell

‫ַחג ָּכָ ֵֵׁשר וְ ָָׂש ֵמ ַח‬

May this spring bring with it new beginnings. SELL • BUY • RENT • INVEST 873 TEANECK RD., TEANECK (201) 837-8800 OFC [email protected]

Monty’s Answer: A real estate company’s worst fear is having two accepted offers on the same property. Real estate companies are obligated in every state to treat all customers fairly. This rare event can and does happen. There are no excuses in this situation. The listing agent will have a difficult time finding someone else to blame. Even with a rational reason, the company is ultimately responsible for the acts of its agents.

The unknowns

A few questions need to be known before one can accurately make a suggestion or render an opinion. Because of two accepted offers, it does not sound like a supervisor was involved. One question is: Who was involved? A second question is a wording question: How was the mutual release language written? A third question is: Was the listing agent working with the first buyer? More questions will arise as the facts emerge.

The first step

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Consider deciding first if you are

willing to defend your position. Do you want the house badly enough to invest the time that may be necessary? If you are ambivalent, how much money would you accept to assign your contract to the first buyer or sign a cancellation and mutual release? Once you have a sense of what you may do, consider immediately calling the broker of the listing company. Bypass the agents. Tell the broker the purpose of the meeting is to gather information (the answers to the questions in the unknown section above) so you can understand the situation. Don’t give away your thoughts. Take notes on a legal pad or notebook and date them. Your goal is to get an appointment today, so call the broker’s mobile number early. Try 7 or 7:30 a.m., as the broker is often the first in the office. The broker should be happy you are willing to talk. If the broker tries to put you off, try again to get in today.

Your options if your contract stands

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Potential options if there are two accepted offers

JAMES DULLEY

No. 1: If they pay you a fee, assign your offer to the first buyer. No. 2: If the broker pays you a fee, assign your offer to the first buyer. No. 3: If the broker AND the first buyer pay you a fee, assign your offer to the first buyer. No. 4: You can fight for the house and take your chances. Several events that could occur here will change your options. Consider either you or your attorney taking the first step. Then your decisions will crystallize much earlier.  COPYRIGHT 2023 CREATORS.COM Richard Montgomery is the author of “House Money: An Insider’s Secrets to Saving Thousands When You Buy or Sell a Home.” He advocates industry reform and offers readers unbiased real estate advice. Follow him on Twitter at @dearmonty, or at DearMonty.com.

A Happy & Healthy Holiday to All! Chag Pesach Sameach!

Add another doorbell chime in large house

chime. This low-voltage circuit is easy and safe to work with for even inexperienced do-it-yourselfers. First, find your electrical circuit breaker box, usually in your utility room or basement. You will see the small transformer (they often hum a little) located near the box or actually attached to it. Don’t just start grabbing wires because one side of the transformer is attached to the 110volt house current. Look over the transformer to see its wattage rating. Ten watts is usually adequate for one chime, but you should probably replace that one with a 30-watt model to power both chimes or even a third one if needed later. Switch off the circuit breaker leading to the transformer and test it with an inexpensive circuit tester to make sure

Dear James: When I am on the back deck or even sometimes in my kitchen in our big house, I have trouble hearing the doorbell ring. Can I add another ringer to the doorbell? — Keith S. Dear Keith: Even in a smaller house, it can be difficult to hear the doorbell chime (technical term for ringer) when you are involved with other activities or many people are talking. Multiple doorbell chimes can be attached to any standard system and located on each floor or even on your deck. Installing an additional doorbell chime does not require the skill of a professional electrician. The entire electrical circuit for doorbells uses a low-voltage transformer, converts 110-volt house current usually down to 16 volts, to power the

Wishing you a Happy Passover from all of us at Anhalt Realty

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Chag Pesach Sameach!

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Real Estate the power to it is off. Install the new, more powerful transformer in the exact location as the old one. When you buy your chime, I suggest sticking with a standard two-tone model for simpler wiring. All new chimes come with simple wiring diagrams to show you how to wire them. Since you have only one doorbell button on your front door now, wiring it is simple. Just locate the wires, one from the transformer and one from the doorbell button that lead to the old chime, and attach these to the new chime. Do not be alarmed when you pull off the cover of the new chime and see several sets of screw terminals. They may be marked front, side, rear, etc. These are used if you have doorbell buttons at each of the doors. Just use the one marked front, but any of them will work fine. The hardest part of the job is running the wires to the new chime in your kitchen. Fishing the wire through the walls is slow and can be a frustrating experience. Use U.L.-listed 18- or 20-gauge solid wire. Do not use stranded copper wire for this application. Now, let’s assume that you did not lose

your mind fishing the wire through the wall to where you want to locate the new chime. Prepare the ends of the wires and attach them to the appropriate terminals on the chime. Switch the power on again to the circuit breaker and give the doorbell button a push. Both should ring loudly. If the new one does not work, make sure the connections are tight. Since these use low-voltage circuits, clean, tight connections are imperative for it to function properly. Although this really is quite simple, if all this wiring sounds like more than you want to tackle, consider installing a wireless remote chime. These rely on a radio signal. When the doorbell button is pushed, a radio signal is received by the new chime, and it sounds. COPYRIGHT 2023 CREATORS.COM  Send your questions to Here’s How, 6906 Royalgreen Dr., Cincinnati, Ohio, 45244 or visit www.dulley.com. To find out more about James Dulley and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

Wishing the Entire Community, A Happy Passover CT

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