Adar I 5776/March 2016 Volume II, No. 5

TheJewishWordYour window into Israel & the Jewish world

The State of Photo: Flash 90 World Jewry Including: Jack Engelhard, Lisa Klug, Dr. Manfred Gerstenfeld Dr. Richard Landes, Rabbi Dov Fischer, Ari Soffer Alex Maistrovoy, Steven Apfel, Michael Freund Contents Her Majesty's Jews 6 From the Editor...... 3

Jewish Life in Post-War Western Europe ...... 4

Whither French Jewry? ...... 6 Germany: Where A New Generation

of Jewish Grandparents is Being Born ...... 12

A Look at America: The Jews of Russia: A"Golden 8 The Jews who live 13 Age" in a Volcano’s Crater "Down Under" A (Sometimes) Great Divide ...... 16

American Jewish anti-Zionism ...... 17

American Jews Must Not Fail Again...... 19

The State of American Jewry ...... 22

South Africa – Dark Clouds over a Diaspora Dream 14

Religious Zionists of America, Publisher TheJewishWord Martin Oliner, Editor Your window into Israel & the Jewish world Rochel Sylvetsky, Deputy Editor The Jewish Word brings together leading journalists, Subscriptions: Uzi Baruch, Ari Soffer, Shulamit Melamed,Senior Editors opinion-makers and experts to provide you with a unique One year Rabbi Dr. Solomon Rybak, Seymour Shapiro, Liaison editors window into Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world, (Continental US): USD $24.95 Board of Directors: from a Religious-Zionist perspective. One year Rabbi Dr. Norman Lamm, Rabbi Hershel Schachter, Rabbi Dr. Sol Roth, The Jewish Word is an independent newspaper and any (Canada, Mexico): USD $36:95 Rabbi Arthur Schneier, Bert L. Kahn, Jack Nagel, Rabbi Simcha Krauss, opinions presented are solely those of The Jewish Word One Year Honorary Presidents and its editors.‏ (foreign): USD $47:95 Rabbi Yosef Blau, President For questions and enquiries: [email protected] Checks should be made out to Martin Oliner, Chairman of the Board Editorial offices:500 7th Avenue - Second Floor , New Dr. Jonathan Halpert, Honorary Chairman of the Board Religious Zionists of America York, NY 10018 Dr. Ernest Agatstein, Isaac Blachor, Esq., Martin Cohen, Dr. Chanania Telephone: (212) 465-9234 , Fax: (212) 465-9246 Gang, Rabbi William Kanter, Rabbi Dr. Solomon Rybak, Seymour Shapiro, Vice Presidents See the new RZA website The Jewish Word is published monthly by The Jewish Word in association with the Religious Zionists of Asher Brukner, Treasurer https://rza.org/ America, 500 7th Ave, 2nd Floor, New York, NY 10018. Application to mail Periodicals postage is pending Mark S. Cohen, Esq., Secretary at New York, NY and additional mailing offices. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to The Jewish Word, Rabbi Gedalia Dov Schwartz, Rabbi Zevulun Charlop, Beit Din Hakavod 500 7th Ave. 2nd Floor, New York, NY 10018‏ TheJewishWord 2 Volume II, No. 5 Adar I 5776/March 2016 World Jewry: Giving the Diaspora Its Due… But what about America?

oft quoted Arab aphorism notes that “Your enemy’s enemy is your friend.”In the Does there remain a raison d'etre to the diaspora, if there now exists a Jewish country? An case of America and its Jewish citizens, our enemy’s (whether our enemy has Some Jews see diaspora support for Israel as essential, others feel less of a connection, been Germany, the Soviet Union, Arab dictators, or native anti-Semites) enemy (i.e. the some are ashamed of Israel for not living up to the ideals they set for the beleaguered, tiny United States o f America) has always been our friend. Indeed, over the centuries, America country in which they don't live but which they consider theirs, and some, of course, see has embraced its Jewish population not only because of common enemies but because residing in any land but Israel as a betrayal of the Jewish dream and ideal Jews have longed of shared values, goals, and principles. It has been a symbiotic relationship resulting in for for thousands of years. benefit to all and which has inured to the success of the majority of Americans and the security of America’s Jewish minority. This issue of The Jewish Word analyzes aspects of the current, often uneasy, "state of the Jews" in Europe, South America, Australia and the United States: Given the current world situation however and the rise of a unique foe employing terrorism, the internet, and a radical ideology, the question now arises as to whether our long time, "In the diaspora,” proclaimed The Economist in the summer of 2012, “Jewish life has never trusted friend still has the will and/or the ability to protect us from our enemies, and been so free, so prosperous, so unthreatened." It is far from certain that the magazine whether our friend can even protect itself. The merger of anti-Americanism with anti- would write that sentence today. Semitism poses a heretofore unencountered threat to both entities that will require new and different forms of strength, ingenuity, strategy, patience and courage on the part of both that only the future will show they are capable of. Indeed, the horrors of the Holocaust had given rise to the hope that anti-Semitism, at least in Western democracies, was a thing of the past. Dr. Manfred Gerstenfeld traces the change for the worse that occurred at the start of the 21st century. A statement in the Talmud (Tractate Psachim 87) notes that it was an act of kindness on G-d's part to disperse the Jewish people among the nations. In the center of this change is France, recently shocked by the horrific terror attacks on November 13th. An interview with a member of the Central Organization of French Jewry Given the many centuries of persecution and torment, it is hard to reconcile the reality of explores the way Jews feel in France and their thoughts about the future. Jewish history with the Talmud’s observation and reference to kindness.

Life in the UK today for Her Majesty's Jews is described by Arutz Sheva's managing editor Yet an analysis of the expulsion and dispersion of the Jewish people reveals several positive Ari Soffer, a fairly recent oleh from London who visits England frequently. results emerging from what was otherwise a national tragedy and for other peoples would have been, and often was, a fatal one. Surprisingly, Germany is a country where Jewish life is thriving once again. German researcher Oliver Bradley tells Almost immediately following the destruction of Judea by readers about the Jews who have permanently unpacked the Romans, the Talmudic Sages took steps to preserve their suitcases in a country other Jews refuse to even visit. Jewish unity, including changing to a fixed calendar based on astronomy and mathematics rather than reports of the new moon brought to the Sanhedrin. In this way they From the Editor Russia, too, has less anti-Semitism and more security for ensured that all Jews would continue to celebrate holidays Jews than many other European countries. Writer Alex at the same time irrespective of their location. Martin Oliner Maistrovoy puts that in perspective with wry Russian humor.

The dispersion also led to the establishment of new centers A shadow seems to be falling over South African Jewry, of Torah learning that developed lines of communication writes author Steve Apfel. Australian anti-Semitism expert with far off Jewish communities and thus preserved the continuity of Jewish scholarship, Julie Nathan and staunch Zionist David Singer tell what life is like for Jews "down under." tradition and observance Lisa Klug expresses the divided love of land of a Zionist American Jew with a beautiful A millennium later, Don Isaac Abravanel, living through the 1492 Expulsion from Spain, family story that spans Jerusalem and California. quoted the enigmatic saying in his Torah commentary, calling Jewish dispersion an act of Her “yiddishe mameh-mode ode” to chicken soup accompanies her story. "kindness on G-d's part" because it ensures the continued survival of the Jewish people. He explained that G-d saw to it that there would always be Jews in some corner of the globe who would survive even if others underwent the most horrible of persecutions. In Spain, Jews who remained hid their religion; Michael Freund tells of the Spanish crypto- Jews who are trying to return to the Jewish people. The diaspora has also had a salutary effect on the world. When given the opportunity, Jews have always become a part of the cultures of the lands in which they have lived, The diaspora was an act of kindness from G-d in yet another way: The fact that Jews contributing to those countries' development and success in numbers much higher than were dispersed but had common beliefs and practices – and were victims of common their percentage of the population. Indeed, for example, since 1901 almost one-fifth of all prejudices - gave rise to a special feeling of Jewish brotherhood, an instinctive attachment Nobel prizes have been awarded to Jews. and acceptance of mutual responsibility that Jews were known to feel for one another as distinct from their connection with the others around them. However, centuries of unabated anti-Semitism made the Avravanel's prediction that Jews would endure only by wandering from haven to haven eerily prescient. Until America opened Is that true today of liberal American Jews? Are Israel and the right of the Jewish people to its doors, the wandering Jew was not given the chance to put down roots in any one place have a homeland a part of their identity or is Israel just another place with Jews - whose for long. At the start of the twentieth century, the Jewish sociologist Yaakov Leshchinsky actions sometime embarrass them? Professor Richard Landes takes on that issue, while wrote in his text The Jewish Dispersion: Jack Engelhard finds American Jews wanting.

"When we scan the diaspora of Jewry over the entire globe and throughout the entire Finally, the rich but mixed blessing that is America is explored by Rabbi Professor Dov civilized world, we are surprised to see that this Nation, which is almost the most ancient Fischer. in the world, is in truth the youngest in terms of the land under its feet and the sky above its head. As a result of the relentless persecutions and forced expulsions, most Jews are We hope you enjoy this issue of The Jewish Word and that it enlightens you on the subject but recent new-comers to their respective lands of residence.. [The Jewish People] are of how diaspora Jews are coping in a world that is fast becoming much different from what dispersed throughout over 100 lands on all five continents." they were accustomed to; a world much more dangerous and unwelcoming.

The re-establishment of a Jewish homeland in the State of Israel changed that perception. The question to consider is whether the “kindness of G-d” in ensuring His people’s survival In the 67 years since it achieved independence, almost half of world Jewry has come to live will continue to manifest itself in the diaspora, or whether “G-d’s kindness” is now to be there. The idea that all Jews should be living in Israel seems obvious to Zionists, at least to located and reflected in a resurgent, reborn, native homeland. Israeli ones, but is less so to many diaspora Jews.

TheJewishWord 3 Volume II, No. 5 Adar I 5776/March 2016 The Highs and Lows of Jewish Life in Post-War Western Europe Western Europe's Jews rebuilt a flourishing society in the second half of the 20th century, only to see an abrupt change in the 21st. The future? Anyone's guess • By Dr. Manfred Gerstenfeld

Jewish communities of Western Europe comics. The managed to re-establish themselves after A variety of Jews occupied prominent roles in politics, WWII. The situation has changed so drastically since business, the media, art, popular culture and other In some countries, Jewish thought and culture then, that it is hard to remember that it seemed as sectors of society, often on opposing sides of political flourished. France was in the forefront, due in part though a golden age had begun and that anti-Semitism and social debate. Their importance, as has often to the size of its Jewish community. The country was has been buried once and for all. Looking back, it is been the case historically, was disproportionate to the home to “The Parisian School of Jewish Thought,” a clear that the second half of of the 20th century were percentage of Jewish citizens in each country. small group of thinkers of international rank including the best years of postwar Western European Jewry. André Neher, Emmanuel Lévinas, Leon Ashkenasi and Remember the socialist Léon Blum, the only Jew to Ėliane Amado Levy-Valensi. Philosopher and sociologist French post-war Jewry had been greatly strengthened serve as Prime Minister of France prior to the Second Shmuel Trigano stands out as a contemporary thinker. by a major influx of North African Jews, and France World War? Postwar France had three Jewish Prime Many books were published on Jewish topics, initially still has more Jews than all other Western European Ministers - Blum, René Mayer, and Pierre Mendès- mainly in France but eventually throughout Western continental countries combined. The number of Jews France. In Gibraltar, Sir Joshua Hassan became the Europe. Holocaust studies and increasing publications in Germany increased significantly over time, due to the first Jewish Chief Minister, serving two terms in that of holocaust literature made a niche for themselves arrival of Jewish immigrants, mainly from Russia and position. on the shelves. Interest in Jewish issues also grew in Israel. The Jewish population of the United Kingdom many non-Jewish environments, due to the Holocaust also showed an upward trend. Smaller numbers of In Austria, the socialist Jewish self-hater, Bruno Kreisky, and the Israel-Arab conflict. Jews arrived in Italy from countries such as Libya, became Prime Minister – that post would never go to Lebanon and Iran. Almost all Danish Jews were saved a Jew today - and in Belgium, Jean Gol was appointed Slowly, as European societies became more open, in WWII, largely by fleeing to Sweden. Deputy Prime Minister. Ministers of Jewish origin served Jews were more willing to show their Judaism outdoors. in governments in France, the Netherlands, Denmark, Some started wearing a yarmulka in public, having (On the other hand, at least three-quarters of the Italy and Switzerland, Jews chaired Parliaments and previously preferred less distinctive head coverings. 140,000 Jews living in the Netherlands at the time of there were many Jewish parliamentarians. the German occupation in May 1940 were murdered Worldwide attention was drawn to a scandal regarding with Dutch cooperation while Greek Jews suffered a European Jews received Nobel Prizes in the sciences dormant bank accounts in Swiss banks belonging similar fate.) and literature. to Jews murdered in the Holocaust with public opinion generally supporting the Jewish position. The increasing affluence of Western European countries European Jewish writers and artists achieved This ultimately led to restitution payments, both had a considerable impact on the development of international fame, including the French novelist in Switzerland and also in other countries such as their Jewish communities, while the related increase Romain Gary, the Dutch writers Harry Mulisch and Norway, the Netherlands and Austria which generated in leisure time created new opportunities for culture Leon de Winter, and the Italian Giorgio Bassani. historical studies on Holocaust-related financial and and sports, as well as religious activities. These economic matters. newer activities often facilitated the inclusion of those The Italian designer Emanuele Luzzati became who, although of Jewish origin, were not considered internationally known. René Goscinny authored and It seemed as if most European countries wanted halachically Jewish. edited the internationally treasured Asterix and Obelix to clean up their past at that time, in a fin-de-siècle

TheJewishWord 4 Volume II, No. 5 Adar I 5776/March 2016 Eastern Europe, surprisingly, has a lower incident of anti-Semitism and anti-Israelism than it had in the 20th century, despite the rise of the right."

gesture. extermination against the Palestinian Arabs. in central locations in many cities. These ceremonies are often attended by local authorities. 2000-2015 Efforts by political parties to attract Muslim votes All that was to change: Although Jews continued to do affect their policies. The EU's November 11 decision, Eastern Europe, surprisingly, has a lower incident of well economically and were to be found in all fields of announced the day after Kristallnacht memorials took anti-Semitism and anti-Israelism than it had in the 20th endeavor, the 21st century started off badly, with anti- place, to label products from areas Israel conquered century, despite the rise of the right. In fact, Vladimir Semitic incidents unprecedented since the Second during the 1967 war, was a low point of political Putin often appears in the company of a Chabad rabbi. World War. Many of these were caused by Muslim double standards. In a Kafkaesque move, Jews were The present reality for Jews in Western Europe is immigrants or their descendants. A non-selective not invited to the Kristallnacht memorial in Sweden, confusing. This year's influx of hundreds of thousands immigration policy had brought large numbers of and anti-Israel Arab MK Haneen Zouabi was invited to of Muslim refugees with no end in sight, particularly Muslims into Europe from countries where anti- speak at a ceremony held in Amsterdam. in Germany and Sweden, is already posing more Semitism was widespread. Some were radicalized challenges to local Jews and will in all probability get and some were simply hooligans. Those who took the This negative view of Israel has had an impact on worse. Murderers from the Islamic State movement Koran literally considered Jews to be pigs and monkeys the image of all Jews in Western Europe, and “anti- who have infiltrated the mix of today’s refugees could in an extreme case of unadulterated racism. Israelism” is seen by many as a 21st century cloak for target Jews specifically. anti-Semitism. The horrendous November 13th terror massacre France, the Western European country with the in Paris was not aimed specifically at Jews, but highest percentage of Muslims, had the most extreme At the same time, right wing parties opposing Islam exacerbated the fears of that community and, since anti-Semitic incidents. Several Jews were murdered have become stronger. Ritual slaughter has been the Islamist terrorists have already announced that in racist motivated crimes over a decade. In 2014 attacked in certain countries, which although aimed this is but the first of a series of attacks, has brought a a number of French synagogues were attacked by largely at Muslims, also affects the Jewish population. constant feeling of insecurity to an already frightened Muslim gangs. Similarly, the prohibition of female circumcision, community. exclusively practiced by Muslims, has also drawn Had this article been written five years ago, it would All this must also be seen against the backdrop of attention to male circumcision, leading to calls for its have been less negative. The question is whether the mantra of "multiculturalism", aka the failure of prohibition. five years from now, such an article will be even more Western democracies to integrate their large immigrant negative. populations and where most remain in enclaves where There are many indications, including a negative birth even the police fear to tread. rate and failing economies, that both the European Dr. Manfred Gerstenfeld, a prolific author and Union and Europe at large are decaying societies. columnist, is a board member and former chairman of Widespread European anti-Israelism finds its Conscious Jews are increasingly asking themselves the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs and recipient of expression in extreme, false negative stereotypes what the future there holds, in particular, for their the Lifetime Achievement Award (2012) of the Journal of the only democratic country in the Middle East. children. In the meantime, more and more European for the Study of Anti-Semitism. His newest book is The A recent survey revealed that over 40% of adult EU Jews hide their Jewish identity in public. One major War of a Thousand Cuts on 21st century anti-Semitism. citizens view Israel as a Nazi-like entity, believing, exception is the Chabad movement, which has for example, that the country is conducting a war of introduced public lighting of the Hanukkah candelabra

TheJewishWord 5 Volume II, No. 5 Adar I 5776/March 2016 Her Majesty's Jews British leaders are overwhelmingly confident about the future, despite the spike in anti-Semitism. A look at the thriving UK Jewish community shows why. • By Ari Soffer

any Israeli or American Jew about Europe Jonathan Arkush, a successful lawyer and longtime ic crime in London specifically nearly doubled, with Ask and one of the first things they will invari- campaigner against anti-Semitism, has made good 499 incidents recorded compared with 258 the pre- ably say is “anti-Semitism.” on his promise to remain just as outspoken as ever, vious year. if in his very British way; “not whispering, but not This, as far as the majority of Jews in the world are shouting either,” as he puts it. Indeed, although other communities also face hate concerned, is the sum total of Jewish existence in crimes in Britain, no other religious or ethnic commu- Europe: misery, oppression – essentially a ticking And today, he and other British leaders are over- nity is forced to fortify its places of worship, schools time-bomb to the next Holocaust. whelmingly confident about the future, despite the and other institutions in such a way. The Conser- simmering anti-Semitism. vative government has been taking the threat se- The truth, of course, is far more nuanced. In fact, riously, and as recently as May granted an annual Jewish life in Europe is something of an enigma, par- It’s not hard to see why. Visit the UK – London in par- budget of £10 million (more than $15.23 million) to ticularly to Jews who have never lived it. ticular – and you will find a Jewish community that provide permanent security for synagogues and Jew- is thriving in every sense: highly successful Jewish ish schools. But the very fact it is even necessary, schools, a seemingly endless crop of kosher restau- speaks volumes of the precarious situation in which On the one hand, less than a century since the Holo- British Jewry finds itself. caust, Europe is witnessing its worst rise in anti-Sem- rants, a plethora of youth movements spanning ev- itism since those darkest of days. ery ideological and religious hue (although unlike in America the majority – around 54% – associate with Things have gotten tangibly worse. The new Leader Orthodoxy, with the Reform Movement coming a dis- of the Opposition is one Jeremy Corbyn, a man who It’s as if Jew-hatred has reached a deadly critical tant second at less than 20%), thriving synagogues, once invited Hezbollah and Hamas members to par- mass. economic affluence, an endless number of charita- liament and referred to them as his “friends” in a ble organizations, and plenty of young, energized video widely circulated online. "When Jews are killed in Europe today because they rabbis and teachers filling ever-more dynamic batei are Jews, for me that's a critical mass,” a veter- midrash. Corbyn won the Labor Party leadership elections by an campaigner warned. “If you can be killed in the a landslide in spite of – or perhaps because of – his streets of Europe because you're identifiably Jewish What’s more, Britain’s 290,000-strong Jewish com- astonishingly radical politics, which also included that's as critical as it can be.” munity is one of the few in the Diaspora that is not associating with an array of Holocaust deniers and shrinking but growing, albeit at a relatively modest extreme, anti-Semitic Muslim and Christian preach- Yet at the same time, while some Jewish communi- rate (again, unlike the gradually-shrinking American ers. Among those on the far-left crowing his victory ties are packing up and leaving as a result – most Jewish community). This is in no small part due to is none other than George Galloway – who just hap- notably in France, where terror is not only aimed at the high hareidi birthrate, helped along by the steady pens to be running for Mayor of London next year. Jews – others elsewhere in Europe have no intention migration of Jews fleeing rampant anti-Semitism and of going anywhere, and are flourishing both spiritual- economic depression on the continent, particularly In Manchester, shockwaves were sent through the ly, culturally and economically, even as one nervous France and Belgium. community after a Jewish teenager was beaten un- eye watches the hate simmering beneath the sur- conscious in an unprovoked anti-Semitic assault, face. British Jews are also, largely speaking, free of the and left with a bleed to the brain which would have sort of life-under-siege experience of their brethren killed him, had doctors not operated quickly. Nowhere is this contradiction more apparent than elsewhere in Europe, perhaps most notably in Par- the UK, the country where I was born and spent most is. In contrast to the French capital, London – home So, given such an alarming reality, why do British of my life – although I didn’t truly appreciate it until a to the largest Jewish community in Britain (some Jews still, for the most part, feel secure enough to recent trip back. 60,000) – is a place where Jews can travel freely on stay, laughing off the often alarmist rhetoric emanat- public transport without hiding their identity and not ing from Israel and the US? encounter so much as a single hostile stare. It was two years since my aliya, and more than one year since the shocking spike in anti-Semitism during “This absurd perception some people have that we Operation Protective Edge in Gaza. That traumatic But with all that, anti-Semitism still lurks just be- are living in Berlin of 1933, and that we should all be summer saw Jews physically assaulted and Jewish neath the surface, and it’s becoming steadily more packing up, just isn’t grounded in reality,” Arkush told institutions vandalized with alarming regularity, and difficult to ignore. me – and even with all their concerns, most British anti-Israel protesters were pictured brazenly wav- Jews share his sentiment. ing signs declaring “Hitler was right!” among other It hit me in the face as I strolled down to my old local fiercely anti-Semitic phrases and imagery. shul for shacharit on my first morning back, only to Why, when French Jews are leaving by the tens of be confronted by a fortification not dissimilar to what thousands, did only 6,356 British Jews make aliyah That violent convulsion of anti-Semitism left the com- you might expect to see in a prison: a massive iron between 2004-2013, with the rate of aliyah dropping munity feeling more vulnerable than ever, and for the gate topped with rather forbidding-looking spikes, by 27% in 2013? Aliyah did rise slightly in 2014, and first time you could hear Jews questioning their fu- followed by yet another gate – both of which required likely will continue to rise in 2015, but it is still no ture in Britain. It triggered demands for a more activ- a code to open. exodus. ist leadership – demands which took shape with the To be fair, most congregants did see it as overkill, but election of a rather more outspoken president of the when a study was released a few days later showing Board of Deputies, the body which has represented a 63% rise in anti-Semitism in the UK over the first For a start, it’s because in 2015, anti-Semitism British Jews since 1760. half of 2015, it all suddenly appeared a little bit less has adapted. It’s more subtle than the days of the exaggerated. A September survey showed that in the brass-knuckled neo-Nazis my father got “acquaint- 12 months between July 2014 and 2015, anti-Semit- ed” with when his family first moved to the UK from

TheJewishWord 6 Volume II, No. 5 Adar I 5776/March 2016 Baghdad in the 1970s.

Today, anti-Semitism in the UK comes with a sort of perverse “get out” clause: avoid supporting Israel, and you’ll be spared the brunt of the hatred (until it boils over). It doesn’t sound like too bad a deal, until one considers the implications: surrender your right to dignity, to support Israel and Zionism and all the legitimate national aspirations of the Jewish nation which they represent – and you’ll be fine. For the most part.

Go to any demonstration or anti-Israel event, and you will find the most brazen, foaming-at-the-mouth an- ti-Semitism you could ever imagine – but hop back on a bus or a train and return to Golders Green or Hendon for maariv, and everything seems totally fine. It’s not like living under siege – more like living in two worlds.

But as even the most neurotic Jewish parent will ad- mit, you can only stay sheltered for so long. And the longer that hatred is left to foster, the bolder it becomes.

This fact was exhibited during Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s visit to London, when anti-Is- rael protesters subjected their pro-Israel opponents to a torrent of openly anti-Semitic abuse, handily doc- umented by camera-wielding activists.

In one incident, a pro-Palestinian activist waved – then threw – money at Jewish activists; in another, a man calmly explained to an interviewer why the Holocaust was a totally reasonable thing to happen to Jews “trying to take over” Germany; and in anoth- er incident (currently being investigated by police) a woman goaded pro-Israel activists by first denying the Holocaust, then proudly calling for another one.

Footage of the incidents went viral, thanks to groups like the Zionist Federation and Israel Advocacy Move- ment who documented them, once again sending shockwaves throughout the community.

That shock soon died down, and London mayor Bo- ris Johnson has visited Israel recently to strengthen economic ties between Israel and London. But, as British Jews nervously wait for the next “flare up,” they would do well to ask themselves how often such incidents can be written off as anomalies, before be- coming a dangerous trend for Her Majesty's Jews.

Ari Soffer is Managing Editor of Arutz Sheva/Israel National News. He was born in London, UK, and prior to his aliyah to Israel in 2013, was active in a variety of pro-Israel and anti-extremism organizations. To- day, he lives in the town of Shiloh in Samaria, Israel.

TheJewishWord 7 Volume II, No. 5 Adar I 5776/March 2016 WhitherThe answer seems obvious. An interview with theFrench Secretary General of CRIF, the umbrella organization for FrenchJewry? Jewry. • By Tzvika Klein and The Jewish Word Editors

massive terror attack in Paris on November 13 the highest levels since the Second World War. And the "About 1000 to 2000 Jews used to immigrate to Israel The and the many Jewish-aimed terror incidents November 13th Paris massacre made Jews feel that they every year. Now it is over 8000 Jews who left France for preceding it have made the question posed in the title are an even more vulnerable target than before. Israel in 2015. This is the after effect of Toulouse. extremely relevant for the Jews of France, a country where Jews have lived as loyal citizens, despite persecution and How do you see the situation for Jews in France? "We have to fight for Jews to be able to live safely in France. recurrent expulsions, since the Middle Ages. Ejnes: "We all remember the well-attended march of world We have been in France for over two thousand years and leaders in the streets of Paris [after the Charlie Hebdo our job is to see to it that Jews here can continue to live In the 1960's the nationalist upheavals in North Africa led and Cacher Market massacres], but that made it more normal lives. over 200,000 French-speaking Sephardi Jews to emigrate upsetting to remember that we didn't see them march to France, as a result of which the community became the following the 2012 terrorist shooting of four Jews, three of "After all, a long list of sages called 'Scholars of Provence' second largest Jewish population in the world, numbering them children, at Otzar Hatorah in Toulouse, or in 2006 lived in southern France in the Middle Ages and the famed about half a million, concentrated mainly in the cities of when Ilan Halimi was kidnapped in a residential area Torah luminary Rashi, was born in France in the 11th Paris, Marseilles, Lyon, Strasbourg and Toulouse. and tortured to death after his screams were ignored by century. The infamous 19th century Dreyfus Case is not neighbors. the whole picture of French Jewry, nor is the shameful France, however, currently also has the largest Muslim rounding up of Parisian Jews to the Vel D'hiv in 1942. population of Europe, and although estimates vary, "The Jewish community in France, the second largest in Muslims number about 10% of the population. France, says the world, felt that it had been pushed outside the French "However, outside the Rambam School in Boulogne there Israeli Middle East expert Guy Bechor, is fast becoming an family, that it did not belong anymore. However, what are now eight meter high walls and soldiers stand on Islamic country, and Jews and non-Muslims are leaving it happened in January at Charlie Hebdo and the horrible guard inside and outside the premises. It is frightening for in droves. Over 2 million Frenchmen have emigrated from terrorist attack in November in Paris seems to have shown parents to bring children to a school that stands behind the country in recent years. the French that all French people, Christian and Jew, face massive walls and looks like a military compound. They the same dangers; that our tragedies are similar, and, as find it hard to imagine their children's future in France." A Jew on the Streets of Paris – Yitzchak Klein a result, it is as if we are once more part of the national Terror murders and anti-Semitic incidents have escalated family. It's not quite the same, but we have returned to This year, 8000 Jews are expected to leave the country, as the number of Muslims grows. As a reporter for Israel's some extent, even though we have a long way to go." but the number may be much larger after the threat of ISIS Makor Rishon newspaper, I decided to see what it feels like has become real There are still about half a million Jews to be a European Jew who does not conceal his religion and You say that the terrorist murders brought Jews back in France, but those who are leaving include the central recently walked the streets of Paris wearing my Judaism – into the consensus, but we see them leaving in droves. pillars of the community. a kippa and fringes, tzitzit – where they could be seen. Ejnes: "French Jews began discussing aliyah years ago. The pressure they felt was reduced when Nicolas Sarkozy While a fourth of those moving to Israel are post high I did not expect the video shot by a hidden camera that became president because he was the first leader, from the school youth, and another quarter are retirees, half of the showed people cursing, threatening and even spitting at time he was Interior Minister, who fought anti-Semitism." immigrants are young families with children. me, to go viral. Tens of millions of people all over the world saw the film; all the major media, from the Washington Post "Francois Hollande does the same and his prime minister, I was told that in a meeting of synagogue rabbis, most and CNN to Arab sites and Japan's commercial television, Manuel Valls, is very adamant about it. At the memorial said they do not see their future in France. reacted to it. ceremony a year after the Toulouse terrorist murders, he Ejnes: "I don’t' know of that meeting, but many non-Jewish said that a 'France without Jews would not be France.' Those Frenchmen do not see their future in France either, so that Observant Jews take hiding their religion in most of Europe are strong words and not to be taken for granted, and he it may not be just a Jewish matter. Most of the students for granted, but the rest of the world and Europe, still in proved that he meant what he said, following them up by at our most elite colleges see their future outside France. denial, was shocked. putting armed forces at the entrance to every synagogue, It's not just anti-Semitism that is convincing Jews to leave school or Jewish center. Despite those measures, the Jews France. And, by the way, not all of them go to Israel. What is going through the minds of the Jews of France? of France are still talking about aliyah." To find out, I met with Robert Ejnes, the Secretary General "Jews leave for London, which has become fifth in the of CRIF, Conseil Représentatif des Institutions Juives de After the Charlie Hebdo massacre it was decided to put list of the world's French speaking cities, and to the USA, France (the Representative Council of French Jewish thousands of armed soldiers in front of Jewish institutions Canada, China, Japan, Singapore and Australia. Institutions – serving as the French Jewish political umbrella in urban areas, especially Paris. This sets a precedent, organization affiliate of the World Jewish Congress) to hear turning French streets into battlefronts and has had a "The president of the Jewish community of Shanghai is a about French Jewry. negative effect on the tourist trade. French friend of mine. He used to sit next to me in shul." This past year, violence against Jews in France reached

TheJewishWord 8 Volume II, No. 5 Adar I 5776/March 2016 It is important to note that we are fighting anti-Semitism alongside the government, not Whither French Jewry? against it."

How are Jewish schools being hit by the exodus? Semitism, relatively speaking, of course. Many people not do so will distance themselves from Judaism for fear of Ejnes: "When I was young, most Jewish children attended have been doing 'step-one aliyah' from areas in France that being hurt by the connection with their religion, that Jews public schools and received their Jewish education at they feel are lost to Jews and have moved to those where will lose their pride in being Jewish. home or in Bnai Akiva. We had lots of non-Jewish friends it is more comfortable to be a Jew, such as my city. I walk and we were a part of French society." its streets with a kippa" – he jokes, alluding to that well- "After the Holocaust, there were Jews who did not tell publicized walk in Paris. their children that they were Jewish. We have a troubling "In 1970 there were 7000 pupils in Jewish schools and intermarriage problem, as does all of Europe, and that today there are 34,000, a full third of Jewish children in Several months ago, CRIF conducted an in depth research must be fought. France. Many Jewish children today have no non-Jewish project with selected groups from different populations, friends at all. We played soccer as members of regular querying them on their feelings about the Jewish "Those who make aliyah are those who are involved, teams. Today, because of anti-Semitism, parents send community. and who send their children to our schools and attend their children to Jewish soccer leagues. synagogue. Some of schools are suffering from loss of Ejnes: "The Muslims were jealous of our umbrella pupils. We hope that those who leave are doing so for a "We try to fight this isolationism. Jews going back to the organization that every group and stream is willing to be good reason." ghetto is not a good thing in my opinion. The entire society represented by. They don't have anything of that nature. around us must make an effort to be more welcoming They all understood the link between Jews and Israel, but What do you want the rest of world Jewry, and Israelis in and open, allowing the Jews to once again assume their there were those who were under the impression that particular, to know about French Jewry? natural place as members of French society. every Jew has an Israeli passport. Ejnes: "The Jewish community in France loves Israel and feels close to it. Every year, some 250,000 tourists go "It is important to note that we are fighting anti-Semitism "We asked them to define ‘Zionism’ and soon understood to Israel, not all of them Jewish. French Jews do much alongside the government, not against it. Many people that for most of them the word is the Jewish equivalent to hasbara and battle for the positive image of Israel. talk about the poison of freedom of expression and the Jihad, a kind of extremist Judaism; that Zionism refers to President of CRIF says that ' during wartime one cannot let people who are violent and imperialistic. We were in shock. "Our ties with the French community in Israel have gained everyone say whatever he wants to.'" It taught us to speak differently about Israel. in importance, something new for us. I surmise that most of the Jewish-French men of thought are now in Israel, PM Hollande said "we are at war." Are the Jews affected "The study showed that many Frenchmen feel that the Jews figures such as Rabbis Ben Yishai, Uri Cherki, Moshe by that war? 'live among themselves', and 'are not open enough to the Butsako, Eliyahu Zini." Ejnes: "Yes, this is a period when there is a war going on rest of the French community.' Others said that the Jews against radical Islam. There are proofs of its going on all the have the power, and that every time something happens Five of Ejnes' eight children live in Israel and he admits that time. When the masses of pro-Palestinians surrounded the to them it makes the headlines. Muslims, especially, this may have an effect on him as well. Abarbanel Synagogue last July, there was an emergency expressed the feeling that no one 'fights for them,' because government meeting and I told the Interior Minister 'bring 'the media is in the hands of the Jews.'" "I have two grandchildren in France, but four in Israel. I on the army'. He answered: 'If I call in the army, that means hope to follow in their footsteps and live in Israel one day," there is a war going on.' In Europe there are several multi-national Jewish he says. organizations, as well as branches of American and "Now there are thousands of soldiers in the streets, global Jewish organizations. Most of the established As you said, the affiliated Jews are leaving. So in the end because this really is a war - against terror and Jihad." European Jewish communities believe, correctly or not, you will as well? that these organizations are not necessarily supportive Ejnes: Our goal is that the others, who are not affiliated CRIF, established in 1944, is the most important Jewish of their welfare. Often, the communities feel that these Jews now, will become involved in the future. In another organization in the French Republic and represents organizations' intervention damages their own ability twenty years, French Jewry will be different than it is today. the French Jewish community in the media, and before to represent the Jewish community and would prefer to I believe it will be perhaps smaller, surely more French, the government and the world. Ejnes explains that the function without their presence. They feel that these same but no matter what, there has to be a framework for those organization has three main aims: "We constitute a pro- organizations' influence is not felt enough at the decision Jews who choose to remain in France. Israel and pro- Holocaust memory lobby, and we fight anti- making levels in the EU. Semitism." Tzvika Klein is an intrepid and popular writer for Israel's What about the future of the French Jewish community? Makor Rishon newspaper, who became world famous Ejnes is also the president of the Jewish community of Ejnes: "The members of France's Jewish community when he was filmed as he walked through Paris wearing Boulogne, one of the largest and most dynamic in France, who attend synagogue and send their children to Jewish a kippa. he says. "In Boulogne, we don't really suffer from anti- schools will continue to do so. Our fear is that those who do

TheJewishWord 9 Volume II, No. 5 Adar I 5776/March 2016 The Jews of Russia: A "Golden Age" in a Volcano’s Crater Putin’s era is signified by the relative prosperity of Russian Jewry. Its future, however, looks gloomy. • By Alexander Maistrovoy

cynically call their are now only about 230,000 Jews in the country. They It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to claim that this is Russians homeland "a country with belong to the middle class - businessmen, engineers, a most favorable time for Russian Jews. This is the an unpredictable past" due to the dramatic changes lawyers, doctors, scientists, representatives of first time Jews feel free after suffering more than 200 that frequent its official history. bohemia - and are concentrated mostly in the big years of the Tzars' Pale of Settlement, massacres and cities, such as Moscow, St. Petersburg, Yekaterinburg libels, and after the discrimination and humiliation As "unpredictable" as the past is, however, the future and Novosibirsk. they underwent in the Soviet Union. All doors and is even more unpredictable and regrettably, the career opportunities are open to them and they are Jews will, to all accounts, be the first victims of this The percentage of Jews is extremely high among not afraid to preserve and observe a Jewish lifestyle. "unpredictability." the Russian breed of tycoons, commonly called "oligarchs," including Roman Abramovich, Oleg In February of this year, at the Congress of Federation At present, however, the lives and wellbeing of Russian Deripaska, Mikhail Fridman, Viktor Vekselberg, of Jewish Communities of Russia (FJCR) 2015, , Chief Jews are stable and thriving, but that will continue Leonid Mikhelson and Mikhail Prokhorov. Rabbi of Russia Berel Lazar said that the Jewish only as long as the Russian political volcano’s crater community has been significantly strengthened is dormant. According to the leading Russian news portal Lenta. during the past 15 years, to say the least. ru, only 89 of the country's 200 billionaire oligarchs Equal among equals are ethnic Russians. Many of the "ethnically non- The relative prosperity of Russia in Putin’s era has Russian" ones are Jews, although Jews comprise only moderated domestic anti-Semitism, and the Muslims After the mass Exodus in the 90’s, the Jewish 0.11% of the general population. from the Caucasus and Central Asia have replaced population of Russia decreased by two-thirds; there the Jews as the main threat in Russian collective

TheJewishWord 10 Volume II, No. 5 Adar I 5776/March 2016 consciousness. The Emperor and His Jews doesn’t indulge them. Putin despises liberal democracy. In his spirit, he Stereotypic, unlikable Jews - greedy nouveaux is an adherent of enlightened absolutism, as was The question is, what will happen “after Putin?" riches and unscrupulous lawyers, who dominated Frederick the Great. Like Frederick, he believes that only tough centralized power can restrain the decay the Russian cinema in the 90s - were replaced by Clouds on the Horizon “respectable” Jews who are professors and doctors. of the state and civil strife. He relies on national aspirations and traditions, believes in the destiny of According to the head of the Federation of Jewish Russia and desires to make history by returning and Communities of Russia, Alexander Boroda, Putin’s Russian Jews are in a better position than their reuniting Russian lands. departure from the political arena would pose a counterparts in Western Europe who live in fear of serious threat to the Jews. rising anti-Semitism and violence. Moreover, Russian Jews actually maintain rather friendly relations Nonetheless, like Frederick, he is a stranger to with the Muslim community - the Tatars, Tajiks and xenophobia and irrational hatred. On the contrary, Chaos or a new ruler with traditional anti-Semitic Caucasians. Unlike in France, Belgium, Holland, he seeks to present himself as the patron of the prejudices will put an end to the "golden era" of Denmark, Sweden or Norway, the Jews in Moscow, sciences, arts and minorities. Russian Jewry. St. Petersburg and Yekaterinburg are not asked to Traditionally, Russia has always been rife with anti- conceal Jewish symbols. Just as the German Protestant King favored Jews, Semitism. There are many fables in its people’s Muslims and Catholics, demanding loyalty in return, collective consciousness about "Judeo-Masonic Conspiracies" and any serious crisis can revive old "This is an unprecedented Phenomenon" the new Russian Orthodox "Tsar" favors other phobias. "None of the former Russian or Soviet leaders ever did minorities in return for respect to him. Anti-Semitism as much as Vladimir Putin has done for the Jews. It is is damaging to his reputation as the fair ruler of an felt in every aspect of life. This is an unprecedented empire. The Russian Internet is obsessed with anti-Semitism. phenomenon,” Rabbi Lazar said. “Many mayors, Numerous sites abound which list Jewish names regional governors and ministers in modern Russia Jews are allowed to show sympathy to Israel, just as hiding under Russian pseudonyms, "fake numbers are Jews. It is the norm." Muslims are allowed to sympathize with the Islamic of Jews" in the government; claims that Gorbachev, world, as long as all of them are obedient to him. Yeltsin and Putin are actually "undercover Jews," that the October Revolution of 1917 was the result of a This is not an expression of loyalty to the ruler, so Russian Jews supported the Kremlin on key issues. Only recently, Rabbi Boruch Gorin, a Chabad senior “Khazar Khaganate” conspiracy which Stalin tried to typical of Russia. It is the truth. Putin can be accused resist. of many things, perhaps, but not of anti-Semitism. aide to Berel Lazar, welcomed the action of the Russian Air Force in Syria. On these sites, the reader can discover that the Jews In his heartfelt speech to the Jewish leaders at the There is another point to be considered with regard to have intoxicated and corrupted the Russian people, FJCR, the rabbi called for a "revival of religious, and that the "Elders of Zion" have manipulated spiritual and cultural traditions of Russian Jews." Putin: Jews played an important and positive role in his life. He was very grateful to his German teacher, the Soviet rulers through their wives. Renowned a Jewess named Mina Yuditskaya, and was always liberal cultural figures who criticize the Kremlin are That appeal, trivial in the West, was unthinkable open about it. As soon as he became president, he immediately branded “Jews.” until now in Russia, whose past leaders deliberately purchased an apartment for her in Tel-Aviv. showed their indifference and even contempt towards Boruch Gorin accused the country’s Communist Party the Jews. Putin’s decision to transfer his monthly His Judo coach, Anatoly Rakhlin (also Jewish), played of “vulgar and primitive anti-Semitism.” The Orthodox salary to the construction of the Jewish Museum Church feeds these chimeras as well. and Tolerance Center, which opened in Moscow, in an important role in his life. Putin’s best friends in his November 2012, was an example of the change in Judo club, and later his partners in business, were mindset. Jews named Arkady and Boris Rotenberg. Patriotic hysteria coupled with a deteriorating economic situation always frightens Jews, who begin to consider aliyah. In 2014, the wave of Jewish Russian Jews and Israel: Zero Political Correctness For Putin, who cultivates courage and honor, the image of a Jew is not associated with fraud or immigrants from Russia doubled and it continues to Jewish leaders in Russia, unlike Jews in the West, intellectualism, but with fighters, and this attitude grow. don’t hide their strong support for Israel. extends to Israel. The "Golden Age" of Russian Jewry is currently intact, In October, a delegation that included 50 rabbis, Putin respects Israel and its leaders for their thanks to Putin's leadership, but it's probably only a headed by Rabbi Lazar, as well as community leaders persistence and strength, while considering Western matter of time. and businessmen from Russia, visited Israel. countries and leaders faint-hearted, naive and mercantile. He deliberately humiliates Western Alex Maistrovoy is a graduate of Moscow Univ. in Lazar publicly condemned Arab terror without any leaders by systematically arriving late for meetings Journalism who made aliyah in 1988. He works at politically correct equivocations about the "peace with them (more than 4 hours with Angela Merkel, 3 the Russian language newspaper Novosty Nedely process" and "ending the occupation;" the delegation hours – with John Kerry and 40 minutes – with Barak and authored Ways of God and the Russian book visited Rachel's tomb and Gush Etzion. Obama), but acts as an equal with Netanyahu, whose Jewish Atlántida with Mark Kotliarsky . military past has impressed him. It wasn’t the first example of open solidarity with Israel, in contrast to the ambiguity, distancing, In an interview with Russian journalists, Netanyahu confusion and timidity of Western Jewry. repeatedly talked about “strong chemistry” with the Russian leader, and that there is a "hotline" between Putin and himself (the only other one is between In October 2015, Dr. Yuri Kanner, the president of the Israel and the US). Russian Jewish Congress, said that the PA provoked the current wave of terror in Israel because of their fear of losing European donations, explaining forthrightly After the much-publicized affair of the Russian that “compassionate Europeans switched to other feminist punk protest rock group Pussy Riot in miserable people [refugees], and functionaries Moscow Cathedral, Putin justified the harsh of Fatah decided to regain the monopoly, using reaction of the authorities in a very interesting Palestinian suffering.” way: "Had they desecrated something in Israel - you probably know - that the strong guys there would make them pay!"(August The paradox is that the approach of pro-Israeli 2012). community leaders does not fit well with the official policy of Moscow, which has a "special relationship" with the PA and a “flirtation” with Hamas, organizations Obviously, Putin doesn’t stress out about whose leaders are honored guests at the Kremlin. Israel, but at same time he isn’t biased This is a phenomenon of the Putin era; he plays a by ideological clichés, like Obama and rather enigmatic role in both arenas. other Western leaders. Although he is surrounded with an abundance of anti-Semites, as an absolute ruler he

TheJewishWord 11 Volume II, No. 5 Adar I 5776/March 2016 Germany – Where a New Generation of Jewish Grandparents is Now Being Born The fastest growing Jewish community in Europe is witnessing the fastest growing Muslim community in Europe • By Oliver Bradley

really knows how many Jews live and that anti-Semitism is far from dead – especially bridges of understanding and reconciliation, particularly Nobody in Germany today. Demographers among neo-Nazis and offspring of Arab migrants, whose among Muslim youth. are still arguing about the exact figures. Estimates numbers have swelled enormously. Neo Nazi groups still range anywhere between 200,000 and 350,000. These remain the biggest threat, particularly in southeastern One of these leaders, Rabbi Daniel Alter, Anti-Semitism are staggering figures which contrast sharply with the Germany, but Muslim violence against Jews is growing at Ombudsman of Berlin’s Jewish Community, was himself approximately 30,000 who - demographers agree - lived an alarming rate. a victim of anti-Semitic violence. In 2012 while he and his in Germany in 1990. What alarms anti-racism activists even more, however, children were walking home in what had been deemed is the current trend of left-wing politicians camouflaging one of Berlin’s safest districts for kippa-wearing Jews, a This surge in growth was made possible through a special their anti-Semitism through their anti-Israeli stances, gang of Muslim youths beat him up – his small children government program that eased Jewish immigration from watching. the former Soviet Union. With an average of 15,000 new arrivals entering the country each year, Germany claimed Rather than leaving him bitter, the violence led Alter to the fastest growing Jewish community in the world intensify his Muslim-Jewish dialogue and reconciliation between 1995 and 2005. projects – particularly among young Muslims.

A change in the immigration law has since seen this Is Germany safe for kippa-wearing Jews, such as Rabbi average drop to a comparative trickle. However, this Alter? Over the years, several Jews were attacked because decline has been offset by an unprecedented influx of of their outwardly Jewish appearance. A Germany-wide Israelis. In Berlin alone over 5,000 Israeli passport holders kippa-test, in 2007, proved that kippa-wearing people [the have registered. But even here, exact figures are unknown test was conducted by non-Jews] were prone to stares and since a majority of the estimated 15,000 to 30,000 often at the same demonstrations attended by far right verbal attacks. Israelis living in Germany today have been registered with neo-Nazi groups. their dual EU-citizenship

On the other hand, a kippa-test at the beginning of 2015 Despite these challenges, Germany is a far cry from what resulted in no action or violence. Attacks on people, such The exact numbers are less important than the it was in 1945. Its generous immigration policies, the as Rabbi Alter, it was inferred, were simply a result of phenomenon that thousands of Jews have decided to continuing expansion of restitution programs, and the being someplace at the wrong time. make Germany their home - within only two generations hindrance of large-scale right-wing marches by counter- of the Second World War. It is an enormous change from demonstrators are examples that attest to this. the first post-Holocaust generation, when many Jews The over one million migrants who entered Germany from refrained from setting foot in Germany or buying products Muslim countries at Angela Merkel's invitation by the end made in that country. The building of massive monuments, such as the of 2015, including refugees from war-torn Syria, will pose Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe - a mere 160 a challenge to the German government which has already feet from the German capital’s iconic Brandenburg Gate been sharply criticized for failing to integrate tens of In the past 25 years alone, over 80 synagogues have been – underlines Germany’s commitment to reconciliation. thousands of children of Muslims who have already lived built or re-consecrated. And while churches in the United However, the main leap forward in Jews’ confidence in in Germany for generations. States, South Africa and other countries are being sold off Germany followed Chancellor Angela Merkel’s speech and transformed into mosques, Germany has seen about before the Knesset in 2008 where she declared that a dozen of its churches converted into synagogues – Israel’s safety was an integral part of Germany’s raison It may signal a huge change for Jews, and perhaps for all most recently the prominent Castle Church of the eastern d’état. Germans, as it has, tragically, done in France. Many Jewish German city of Cottbus, in 2014. leaders fear that this influx of Muslim newcomers will

include ISIS members and sympathizers and will lead to Since then, most Jews in Germany have ceased referring a sharp increase in Muslim-based anti-Semitism, but not This renaissance has, however, also brought with it a to the metaphoric “packed bags” they claimed to be sitting only Jews are worried. ISIS has announced that Germany growing friction among Germany’s institutional Jewish on before moving elsewhere – finally acknowledging is on its hit list after the horrendous terror massacre in congregations – with their hodgepodge of Russian, Polish, Germany as their permanent home. This has given rise to Paris on November 13. German, Israeli, liberal and Orthodox membership. a new generation of Jews in Germany – the generation of the grandparent - a luxury that only a few Jewish children born in Germany had, prior to 1990. Despite these fears, Josef Schuster, Chairman of the Germany’s pre-1990 Jewish elite, made up mostly of Central Council of Jews in Germany, Germany’s largest displaced Orthodox Jews from Poland and remnants of federation of Jewish communities, said that Germany is German-Jewry, have not yet come to terms with their loss Their bags may be unpacked and stored in the attic, the last country in the world that should refuse entry to of administrative power to the current Russian-speaking but Jews in Germany are well aware of the threats from migrants seeking its protection. majority. And although Germany was the birthplace of the extremist groups, despite the government’s commitment reform movement, liberal congregations are still struggling to reinforcing and protecting Jewish life. Potential violence to gain equal government recognition in order to receive against Jews remains high - just not at epidemic levels. The shocking events of New Year's Eve 2016 in Cologne the subsidies which Orthodox communities enjoy. may be a wakeup call.

Anette Kahane, of the Amadeu Antonio Foundation, has What binds these wrangling congregations – and also been one of the most vocal advocates combatting racism Only time will tell. allows them to wrangle - is the confidence that they are and anti-Semitism in Germany. She blames eastern relatively safe in Germany - or were, at least, up to now. German xenophobia on that region’s relatively sparse Oliver Bradley is Media-Relations Representative for population structure – claiming that most people in the Europe Israel Press Association in the Berlin Area Confidence aside, synagogues and Jewish institutions in rural areas have rarely come into contact with people of and for the ghettospuren website. He owns OQB. Germany must be guarded by the police as they are in the different color or background. COMMUNICATIONS. a public relations, media and rest of Europe. Violence following the Gaza war of 2014 Multi-denominational and dedicated NGOs, such as marketing consultancy. showed that this security is a necessary inconvenience Kahane’s Foundation, have been working hard at building

TheJewishWord 12 Volume II, No. 5 Adar I 5776/March 2016 The Jews who Live "Down Under"

Not just "Waltzing Matilda" and kangaroos, Australia is a country that boasts a thriving Jewish community. Anti-Semitism is carefully monitored. • By Julie Nathan and David Singer

many Americans, Australia conjures up pictures schools, communal organizations and community the mainstream of society. To of kangaroos and a melodic national anthem, centres, for security reasons, operate under protective some of whose words are unintelligible to the non- measures such as high fences, armed guards, metal The mainstreaming of anti-Semitism in Australia is most Aussie. "Waltzing Matilda," however, actually describes detectors, CCTV cameras and the like. The necessity vividly seen in the ABC, the national public broadcaster, the early days of a vast, as yet unexplored country, arises from the incidence of physical attacks against and other major mainstream media outlets. For traversed by free-spirited swagmen - slang for hoboes - Jews and Jewish communal buildings over the last three example, a documentary produced by the ABC, “Stone unwilling to be fenced in by rules and regulations, some decades as well as continuing threats. Cold Justice," was aired in February 2014, which made undoubtedly the ex-convicts Britain sent to its far-off some uninvestigated and unsubstantiated allegations possession in order to get rid of them - a hymn to a As has been the pattern in previous years, Jews continue that Jewish soldiers crucify Palestinian boys, and other country just coming into its own. to be targeted for harassment, abuse and threats at equally absurd and inflammatory claims tinged with synagogues and other Jewish institutions, including classical anti-Semitic tropes. In response, virulently Jews were part of the story even then. In fact, the Jewish schools. This occurs around synagogues on the Jewish anti-Semitic comments were posted on ABC Facebook people have been part of Australian history since 1788 Sabbath on Friday evenings and on Saturday mornings pages. This ABC documentary continues to elicit anti- - when at least 8 of the 751 convicts transported on the when Jews are walking to and from synagogue, and Semitic comments to this day via its posting on Youtube. First Fleet from Britain were Jewish. Over a thousand attending religious services. These incidents are persons of Jewish descent were sent to Australia as certainly not the norm, yet they persist at a low but When mainstream media outlets are prepared to convicts during the next 60 years. steady rate. publish or host unsubstantiated claims and irrational bias combined with outright demonizing of Jews, then Today, Australia, although physically remote from most There is often a correlation between spikes in violence a signal is sent that anti-Semitism is acceptable and of the Jewish world, has a thriving and proud Jewish in any of the various conflicts in the Middle East (and even respectable, and Jew-haters feel emboldened to community of about 120,000, ninth largest in the a concomitant increase in media coverage), whether promote their views and to act on them. This an area world. The Jewish community has the highest number or not the conflict involves Israel, and an upturn in anti- which the peak Jewish representative organization, of Holocaust survivors per capita in the diaspora, and Semitic incidents. In addition, when issues involving the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, monitors greatly benefited from post war immigration as well as Jews or Israel receive prominent coverage in the closely, and where warranted, raises objections. Most more recently, South African and Russian immigration. mainstream media this often leads to a rise in anti- of the anti-Semitic content on mainstream media has A very high proportion of Jewish school students, over Semitic commentary and incidents. ultimately been removed following representations to 75% of primary and over 50% of secondary school those media outlets. students, attend Jewish day schools. Two incidents in recent years shocked the Jewish community. In 2013, a Jewish family of five, walking For a diverse society such as Australia's to be harmonious, The community is well integrated into the wider Australian home after attending synagogue and Shabbat dinner it is imperative that all Australians, regardless of race or community and although only 0.5% of the population, in Sydney were physically assaulted by a group of eight religion, be able to live without harassment and hatred, its members have made impressive contributions to young males. Ten months later, during the 2014 Israel- without vilification and violence. Anti-Semitism is virtually every aspect of Australian life, distinguishing Gaza war, around thirty Jewish students, aged 5-12 pervasive and pernicious. It targets Jews but has always themselves in the fields of academia, medical research, years old, on a school bus in Sydney, were subjected had a wider fall-out, as a litmus test for the degree to business, arts and culture, sports and politics, including to physical and verbal threats, by five male teenagers which a society tolerates racism generally. Countering two governors general. who yelled anti-Semitic abuse at them, including “all anti-Semitic and other racist expressions is therefore in Jews must die”, “Heil Hitler”, and threatened them with everyone's interests. Australian Jewry also has some unique stories. Is there “we’re going to slit your throats”. Fortunately, such any other Jewish community in the world that can match incidents are rare, but they do serve to remind Jews a deceased member leaving a substantial annual that there are people who will act out their prejudices bequest to his Synagogue conditioned on his seat and hatred. There have been no such incidents since. (including nameplate) being permanently retained and chained off to prevent others ever sitting there? In addition to occasional physical attacks and threats, the sense of security of Australian Jews is affected More seriously, the vast majority of the Jewish by such factors such as occasional hostile media community identifies with and supports Israel. Over coverage of Jewish and Israeli issues, political and 10,000 Australians - assisted by the ZFA Aliyah online commentary, as well as anti-Israel propaganda Department and by the ZFA Israel Office - have made and protests. It is words, when given free reign, which aliyah - giving Australia one of the highest aliyah rates create a poisonous atmosphere for those targeted by (per capita) in the Western World. racism. It is words that incite hatred and violence.

In general, Australia has been very good for Jews, and While anti-Semitism has been confined to the fringes of Jews appreciate the rights and freedoms they have. society, that is, to the far Right and far Left of politics, However, although most Australian Jews, as individuals, and to bigoted religious extremists within Christianity are able to lead a life free of harassment, abuse, and or Islam, the situation for Australian Jews has been Julie Nathan is the Research Officer for the Executive assault, some anti-Semitism exists. Its impact on the manageable. Anti-Semitism will never disappear or be Council of Australian Jewry, and has authored the day to day lives of Jews is minimal and, as an overall destroyed. The best that can be achieved is that society ECAJ’s annual Anti-Semitism Report since 2013. problem, it is far less significant in Australia than in as a whole deems anti-Semitism, and other forms of other countries. racism, to be socially unacceptable, not to be tolerated, and to be actively countered. Such an atmosphere gives David Singer, an Australian lawyer and Arutz Sheva Jew-haters very little breathing space from which to columnist, is active in Zionist community organizations.. Nevertheless, the Jewish community is the only launch their hate propaganda and activities. The danger He founded the "Jordan is Palestine" Committee. community within Australia whose places of worship, arises when anti-Semitism moves from the margins into

TheJewishWord 13 Volume II, No. 5 Adar I 5776/March 2016 South Africa Dark clouds over a Diaspora Dream Although South Africa's Jews have no political clout and anti-Zionism abounds, the community pioneered the international Shabbat project. • by Steve Apfel

the Jews do one thing well, it’s to imprint their the hive. Jewish mayors and councillors abounded, and achievement peaked. If mark on new lands. And if their imprint describes and the biggest city, Johannesburg, had 22 Jewish one pattern, it would be some black punishment on mayors between 1886 and 1993. A decade later a threatening cloud gathers over the the heels of great Jewish impact; as invariably as community. Jewish business clout can’t seem to buy dark night follows day, this has been the experience The Apartheid era brought political activists out in any lobbying power. Muslim interests are all over the of exile. Spain before the expulsion scaled a pinnacle droves, but more as communists than as Jews. Lay government and Jews perforce have to fall back on of Jewish life and achievement. Germany, many felt, and rabbinic leaders, with the rare exception, kept the path of least resistance. Two dictums have been was the Promised Land, Vilna the New Jerusalem. It their heads down while non-whites suffered the indig- the Jewish Board’s rule of thumb: (1) Do and say would be hard for third or fourth generation Jews not nity of third class treatment in their own land. When nothing that might close government doors. (2) Avoid to have similar feelings about the country their grand- majority rule came in 1994, the Jewish Board of offending the nation by offending its favourite son, parents adopted – about South Africa, warts and all. Deputies went to inordinate lengths to make amends Archbishop Tutu. It was soon made obvious that both for the silence it kept during Apartheid. The transition the government and Tutu felt free to treat the Jewish If Jews were too late on the scene to shape the de- was better than many had been right to fear, for by community with disdain. velopment of the American West, they arrived in time that time Jews in large numbers had left for greener to remake a primitive South Africa. “We built this pastures: England, America, Australia and Canada In quick succession the ruling party hosted and feted country with heart and soul,” the slogan for the 2015 made them welcome, and some even went to Israel. a terrible trio: Leila Khalid the old matriarch of terror; annual Jewish Achiever Awards, was no trumpet Only the timing was bad. The émigrés skipped too Mahmoud Abbas, inciter and diplomatic thorn in blast. Offstage from the glittering event the die had early, and missed a golden age. Under South Africa’s Israel’s body; but most horrendous of all, the political been cast and a dark shadow was a-creeping. The black President, Nelson Mandela, Jews could enjoy head of Hamas. With an invitation to Khaled Me- summit of Jewish pride was actually scaled 21 years their old privileged life, only now with a clear con- shaal, South Africa became the first country outside before the Achievers of 2015 bathed in the limelight. science. the Muslim world to give the Jihadist red carpet treatment. Perhaps South African Jews were too occupied The Chief Rabbi was the late Cyril Harris, a bonny making their mark to get involved in national govern- Scotsman who became Mandela’s bosom buddy. He If the ruling party must be appeased, the nation’s ment because, unlike American Jewry, they never stood on the inauguration podium next to the first icon, Desmond Tutu, must be worshipped. The wily mixed business with politics. For all that, Jews have black President, and delivered ringing words from cleric can tie the Jewish community in knots, winning clustered around local government like bees around Isaiah. Here was the moment when communal pride contests by grinning while the Jews tear into one

TheJewishWord 14 Volume II, No. 5 Adar I 5776/March 2016 With an invitation to Khaled Meshaal, South Africa became the first country outside the Muslim world to give the Jihadist red carpet treatment."

another over him. In 2011 a handful of Jews cam- support of the boy. The ruling ANC, which votes at either. Jewish events have been rudely disrupted paigned to get Tutu removed as Trustee of the Holo- the UN with Iran and other “beacons of freedom”, and even vandalized in Brown Shirt manner. BDS caust Centre, which was a quirky honor to bestow on lionized their “hero Jew of the day.” The ANC issued hooligans barged into a campus recital featuring an a man given to blatant anti-Jewish sentiments. The a statement. “The actions of Josh Broomberg to sym- Israeli-born pianist, blew hooligan horns and forced hue and cry against the instigators was louder within bolically support the Palestinian people by wearing a the artist to flee. To his credit, the university’s Vice the community than anywhere. The petition went Palestinian scarf, is an embodiment of the principles Chancellor, a Muslim, had the students disciplined nowhere. that many South Africans and peoples of the world and facilitated another musical event with Israeli died for. The African National Congress applauds artists. The online edition of Jewish Report ran an article the principled stance on the injustice of the Israeli that likened the cleric to Hitler and Stalin. The writer aggression against the defenseless people of Pales- The pig head placed in a supermarket’s kosher referred to him as “the latest self-appointed midget tine.” What could Jewish educators do that would not counter (it turned out to be the Halaal counter) of history who wants to destroy the Jewish people.” fan the flames? The Board of Education issued their marked another anti-Semitic low by BDS activists. statement. “This has been a learning opportunity Either the writer or Editor had touched up Tutu’s lip for the 17-year-old pupil concerned and he has both Jews nonetheless are kept on the right side of pes- with a Hitler moustache, and superimposed his head explained his stance in a later posting and genuinely simism by three bright spots. One is that, except for onto the Fuehrer’s uniformed torso. The anti-Semitic apologized for the hurt it produced. His apology has a long ago fire bomb lobbed at a shul in Cape Town, local weekly Mail & Guardian was on to it in a flash. been accepted.” terrorism has never struck the community. This is Everything blew together. “It largely speaks to a all the more remarkable considering the open secret Jewish audience,” bewailed the Jewish Report Editor, that Al Qaeda and Hezbollah operate training camps waiting for the axe to fall. ”We try not to censor Today it is difficult for a Jew not to feel the weight of in the vast empty spaces of the north-eastern Cape viewpoints. We were asked by a member of the Jew- being a South African. Part of the problem is that and that the ruling party has invited Hamas to open ish board to remove the picture from the site.” The President Jacob Zuma and his cronies act like Ali a local branch. One may view South Africa’s welcome offending article was removed with it. Baba and his forty thieves, so that all social and mat to Islamists as a blessing in disguise, for mess- economic indicators are heading to hell in a basket. ing on your own doorstep never made sense. Then there are the openly anti-Zionist Jews. Zapiro, One development weighs above all: The Jew among the Jewish anti-Israel cartoonist, uses libelous car- nations is a proven device for diverting anger or The second bright spot is that from out of South toons to compare Israel to Nazis, claiming that South catching votes and Israel is the new catchall. Zuma’s Africa comes innovation in Torah observance. The African Jews have been brainwashed by Zionism. counting and reading may be at the level of junior Chief Rabbi, Warren Goldstein, launched two initia- school, but he keeps a finger on the angry pulse of tives that have taken the Jewish world by storm. One Some of the younger generation seem to agree. Josh society. The millennial Jewish problem remains a is Generation Sinai, a parent-and-child Torah learn- Broomberg, a debating champion at a Jewish day handy antidote for the ills that the ruling party has ing program that takes place before every Jewish school in Johannesburg, donned a Palestinian scarf created. festival in hundreds of schools worldwide. The other at a debating contest as a gesture of solidarity with is the Shabbos Project. What began as a local “unity the Palestinians. The image went viral. The South To prove how accommodating and moderate Zionists initiative” to encourage local Jews of all persuasions African Jewish community, tightly knit after a 12,000 can be, Jewish communal leaders keep coaxing the to observe a full, halachic Shabbat together, became strong rally, awoke to a public scandal. Broomberg ruling party to play a constructive role in the Israe- a global grassroots movement. This year it will reach apologized. The apology, like the keffiyeh, was a li-Palestinian “Peace Process”. For its part the ruling a million Jews in 464 cities and 65 countries. trademark posture, borrowing the wild claims and party keeps mouthing support for the “Two-State self-contradictions of all Jewish ‘critics of Israel’ who solution.” No peace process to play a role in, and the Third, South Africa has the world’s only full baal say “I am a Zionist. We stand with the thousands two-state solution long dead and buried, matters not teshuva community. It’s the one example where a of civilians who have lost their lives in the conflict. one iota: both sides feel they have to pay lip service. whole swathe of the community – in Johannesburg We stand with a people who do not yet have a state Meanwhile the ruling party has put members under perhaps one Jew out of every two - spontaneously to protect themselves. We stand for two states. We a travel ban. Go to Israel and lose your party mem- became observant. This may mark a precedent in the stand for Palestine. We do not stand against Israel…” bership. So a ruling elite that lives off the fat of the annals of the stiff-necked people. Rather than pull the boy’s statement apart, many land without doing an honest day’s work, stays home, Jews fired off vitriolic attacks, aimed at Broomberg, keeps the blinkers on, and knocks away at the Jews Steve Apfel is an essayist and author of novels and his family and school. and Israel for their "Apartheid state." non-fiction. Among his books are The Paymaster, Hadrian’s Echo: The whys and wherefores of Israel’s Israel-haters were quick to capitalize. Five hundred Brazen BDS tactics are another given. If life for Jews critics and the recent Enemies of Zion Jews found it in their conscience to sign a letter in on campus is not dangerous, it’s not comfortable

TheJewishWord 15 Volume II, No. 5 Adar I 5776/March 2016 A (Sometimes) Great Divide Being an American Zionist Jew means straddling two universes, two cultures, two economies and wrestling with the dialectic between one's physical and religious base. • By Lisa Klug (photo credit: author)

I was born, my grandmother gifted phenomenon. Compared to most of Jewish history, so much time in When my mother with a tiny emblem of this anecdote speaks not only to the unprecedented Israel that friends the state of Israel rendered in gold. Some years ago, ease of travel to and from the Holy Land. More think I live there… my mother passed it along to me, together with its importantly, it also evokes the deep connection Jews and so little time origin story. This tiny piece of jewelry attracts a lot around the world today easily forge with, what was for in my native of comments, especially when Israelis discover my millennia, a distant, near-mythical destination for our California that American accent. prayers. Today, “Hatikva” is real. It is manifest. And upon my return, yet, for those of us who remain in the Diaspora, some acquaintances My grandmother, Yehudit Alcalay (nee Levy) was aspect of this age-old longing surrounds 'our Israel.' ask, “What are Levy Family Portrait in Jerusalem among the early residents of Ohel Moshe in Jerusalem. you doing here?” Her portrait as a young woman, together with her That was true for me in my childhood. But for decades My response, “I live here,” feels as odd to say as it parents, Leah and Yitzchak Levy, and several of their now, ‘my Israel,’ is more real than imagined. When I must be to hear. other children, is embedded in the walls of what today was invited to write this piece, I explained that I have is better known as the Nachlaot neighborhood. For as spent more time over the past year in Israel than in For me, for now, and for who knows how long, being long as I can remember, I knew my mother's mother the U.S. Perhaps that is part of being an American an American Jew means straddling two universes, was Israeli but I did not know much more about Jew... or at least this American Jew. two cultures, two economies, 'two of' so many things. her during my childhood in the reclaimed desert of I'm far from alone. This dichotomy is well known to all Southern California. A little more than a year ago, on the 16th of Sivan, Zionist Diaspora Jews spending extended periods of or as I now think of it, on “6/13/14,” my beloved time in the womb of ‘the mothership.’ While a student in Israel, my grandmother, whose long father passed to the next world. Within days, I buried suffering from Parkinson's made travel impossible, him on Har Menuchot. My father was a Holocaust And so, my being an American Jew means wearing my shared with me the remarkable story of her own survivor who had long dreamt of retiring in Israel, precious heirloom, a symbol of personal and national grandmother and mother. They made aliyah by donkey joining a brother and sister who had escaped Nazi connection, near my heart. It means pondering when, in a journey that took three (!) years. DNA tests confirm Europe for Palestine during the 1930s, served in whether and how to shift my physical base to match my grandmother's ancestry. My only--and closest-- the Jewish Brigade and the Palmach, respectively, my spiritual base, and how, meanwhile, to infuse a matches are Sephardic women of Bulgarian descent and helped found kibbutzim. Illness prevented the sense of home to everywhere I am. It means wrestling living in Israel. realization of my father’s dream. But his burial in holy with myself, with long-held dreams, and even with ground, overlooking the Jerusalem forest, represents some of what is sent from the Master of the Universe. More of my grandmother revealed itself a decade a personal redemption: his reunification with both the You might say, I’m simply maintaining the tradition of after her passing. In 2009, while traipsing around the people of Israel and the land of Israel. His love of both our people. Our forefather Jacob wrestled. So do I. historic neighborhood sandwiched between Mahane is etched into his epitaph. Yehuda and the heart of downtown Jerusalem, I was Identity is about fundamentals. What is inscribed upon shocked to discover that the family portrait I had After the shiva, I was not ready to leave Jerusalem. your soul is more significant than any seal imprinted featured on page 175 of my book, Cool Jew, had Soon after that fateful transitional walk around the on your passport. I am a bat Yisrael. This is what it recently become part of Jerusalem lore. In a series block arm in arm with two dear friends, the Gaza War means to be a daughter of the one who wrestled. of photos that highlight early residents of the historic erupted. I stayed and stayed and stayed. Six months neighborhoods outside the Old City, the Levys once later, it was time to leave. Another five months passed Lisa Alcalay Klug is a widely published journalist, the again inhabit Jerusalem. Just past the community and it was already time to return for the first yahrzeit. author of Cool Jew and Hot Mamalah, a member of center, near Rav Aryeh Levine Street, their picture I remained almost two more months. And as always, it the JFNA and JNF speakers bureaus and a direct faces the Great Synagogue of Ohel Moshe. was difficult to leave. descendant of one of the first 'Chovevei Zion,' Rabbi That I can write these words from California and Long before, and ever since, the ongoing expression of Yehuda Alcalay. anyone reading this article can readily call to mind my family legacy is much more than a piece of jewelry. this iconic Jerusalem neighborhood, is a modern-day For decades now, I straddle two worlds, spending

A Jewish American Love Poem by Lisa Klug Your mama made it. near, ever clear and revealing, healing. Your loving care. Your bubbie made it. Sending you reeling through memories of shtetlach and Your recipe for making everyone better and fed and held You make it. shtieblach, of kishke and kreplach, of lullabies and lilach, in the embrace of a memory that still tastes like a better Or if you haven’t yet, you will soon. of sunny days and cold nights, of soothings and eased world. frights, of Old World delights and Yiddishkeits. Because life without it makes no sense Unfurled on a table each Shabbos. Soaring through skies and new heights of sensuality and (unless you’re vegan). No love loss. pleasure you never knew could be contained in a spoon. No conflict of Ashkenazi, Sephardi. Because a whole bowl is filled with the soul of your When the bowl is empty, the pot is not. people. Just you and me, dear chicken soup. There is somehow always more to explore. A belly full. Until my head droops into the sleep that heals and And revisit the hearth where the “ess my kind” doctrine A side of noodle. mends the ache in my limbs and my heart so I can start was born. to cook a fresh pot anew. Steaming and warm, "fluid and soft, hot, comforting Where no one is forlorn or forgotten but adorned with And when you do, just use a whole chicken because that’s spoonfuls that send you back home, never alone, a recipe the elixir of life. honed over generations and generations, and large cast the way Jewish girls make it smell so heavenly, iron pots and wood chopped . . . hard. The original penicillin so many women before you also So healing. learned to prepare. A precious match that lit the "amen that sent your So feeling. neshama from shamayim to eretz, with loads of fresh And now, if you dare. So real. carrots and fennel/ shumar, picked from afar, or perhaps It’s your dinner fare.

TheJewishWord 16 Volume II, No. 5 Adar I 5776/March 2016 American Jewish anti-Zionism Liberals want the world to see them as "good" people and Israel's hard reality does not suit that image. • By Professor Richard Landes

Recently Peter Beinart wrote a piece about the growing split between American Jewish youth and "Well, I’m the head of the J Street club on my campus Of course, given that Israel has been providing Israel, which he sees as the inevitable cost of Israel’s and what you don’t understand is that we see Israel medical care for wounded Syrians for years, and failure to make peace with the Palestinian Arabs, on as our younger sister. We want our younger sister to absorbed hundreds of thousands of Jewish refugees the one hand, and the long-term effects of seeing an be better — we love her and care about her." from Arab lands, the depth of this shame seems a bit Israeli Goliath bullying the Palestinian Arab underdog outlandish: on the other. Maybe that’s what is done in some neighborhoods,

American Jewish youth, he claims, has “imbibed some of the defining values of American Jewish culture: a belief in open debate, skepticism about military force, a commitment to human rights.” Studies show Jewish youth “resist anything they see as ‘group think’… want an ‘open and frank’ discussion of Israel and its flaws… and desperately want peace.”

And every effort to defend Israel by criticizing the Palestinians merely offends their sense of fairness: blaming those they see as the victim is not a winning strategy.

Beinart asserts that "for several decades, the Jewish establishment has asked American Jews to check their liberalism at Zionism’s door, and now, to their horror, they are finding that many young Jews have checked their Zionism instead. Morally, American Zionism is in a downward spiral.”

Given what they perceive as a choice between Zionism and liberalism, much of American Jewish youth has chosen the latter.

For them, the case is pretty much open and shut. Israeli political choices are illiberal and bad, and its politicians act in bad faith. The split between American Jews and Zionists, therefore, is inevitable. but most people believe that you don’t show love "I love you no longer, my homeland. This is no longer There is little sympathy for the plaints from Israel and loyalty to a sister by trash talking her. On the my country. As far as I’m concerned, you can scream that the neighborhood there does not permit such contrary, that will most likely get her killed because of or be silent – do whatever you want, unbeloved land. simplistic naïveté. Not much room in this worldview the peculiar power of shame and the overwhelming The place of love has been taken by shame. I am for Palestinian Arab contributions to the endlessness desire to annihilate such feelings. ashamed, which means I still care, it still hurts, but of the conflict, for Islam's poisonous hatreds, for less. See how you look, our little country, our petty prevailing insane religious violence, for blaming The Shame of it all: Panic in a Crooked Mirror country." terrorists who stab, shoot and throw firebombs at A significant amount of this “split” in the American unarmed civilians of all ages. Jewish community between liberals and Israel can Since the Second Intifada (aka the Oslo War), when be understood not as a response to real problems in the doctored pictures of a 12-year-old Palestinian Remember - don’t blame the [perceived] victim. Israel – of which, like any country, there are many – boy, cowering in fear behind his father, “gunned down Israel, says a generation of Jewish critics of Israel, but as responses to feeling ashamed of it. in cold blood” by the IDF hit the news media, and should act like a liberal, or lose their affections. brought to prominence the “Israeli-Goliath” school of The feelings stem not because of what Israel has journalism, Jews the world over have felt horror and To which the obvious response is, “Are you kidding done, or is accused of doing, and certainly not in shame. me? Do you know what they’re dealing with there?” comparison with its neighbors, but because of “how it looks” to outsiders. Shame comes from looking bad The relentless drumbeat of false accusations against To which the apparent response is, “No. And I’m not in the eyes of people whose opinion matters to you. Israel for (non-existent and unproven) unspeakable listening.” brutality – the never-happened Jenin Massacre, It is not easy to see picture after picture, hear story Gaza open-air prison (with its luxury hotels and But why? Why do so many Americans turn a deaf ear after skewed story, read analysis after mendacious markets), fabricated child-killing – has dominated the on the Jewish state, their family, as it tries to explain analysis, all depicting Israel as a bully Goliath beating mainstream news media (MSNM). When I gave a talk how hard it is for Israel to survive in the Middle up relentlessly on a victim David, as the “roadblock in 2007 in Europe and called Al Dura a “blood libel”, Eastern neighborhood? Why join groups that claim to peace,” as the wholesale killer of thousands of one of the participants objected (and thereby proved they’re “pro-Israel, pro-peace” when they relentlessly innocent Palestinian civilians, murderer of children. my point): “It’s not a libel: Everyone knows that every criticize Israel, and team up with groups that hate it? day the IDF kills children.” There is not a Jew alive, What is going on here? One of Oslo’s most fervent architects, the late Yossi who doesn’t live under the cloud of the ferociously Sarid, said in response to Israel’s refusal to take in negative depiction of Israel in the public sphere of the In a recently reported exchange, a J-Street organizer refugees from Syria: “My love for Israel has been 21st, the global, century. explained their self-perception vis-à-vis Israel: replaced by shame.”

TheJewishWord 17 Volume II, No. 5 Adar I 5776/March 2016 Some of us were in our prime when it began, others Tuvia Tenenbom explains how such Jews, who as liberals in a "good" world. grew up in a changed world. Among the global embrace the accusations, clean their blackened progressive left, Zionism became a dirty word, in some face by remorselessly scanning for ways "to catch The tribal response – aka “Israel-firster” in this cases a global villain, a Nazi avatar, an incarnation of a[nother] Jew" misbehaving. context – is the normal human response to us-them evil. As Beinart says, Jewish liberals and progressives conflicts. Rally round one’s family, clan, people. had to choose between what they saw as principles Perhaps it’s a mental problem. For 2000 years Jews Post-Zionist self-criticism flips this to “Israel-lasters” and family. have been persecuted, for 2000 years they have whose default mode is “their side right or wrong.” So been told taught they are the worst of humanity. how do we navigate between this Scylla of refusal to What is that deep desire for approval that drives Some people cannot handle it and you get a kind take any responsibility and the Charbydis of taking it us to conspicuous self-criticism? Why are Jews of Stockholm syndrome, which leads them to say: 'If all on our shoulders? willing to believe every fabricated lie about their own everyone in the world says I’m bad, that I am ugly, a people, rather than the reports of Israel's army and thief, a murderer, horrible shrewd person, a money For one thing, we who remain relatively sane, must government press office? grubber, it must be so. What can I do to cleanse rebuke those driving headlong in either direction. We myself of it?' should not suffer Jews, furious at the hatred directed "Proxy“ Honor-Killings against them, to rage against whole peoples. Nor When liberals hear about Muslim “honor-killings” And what do they do? Catch another Jew doing wrong. should we stand by while people, in the name of the (really shame-murders), they feel horror: kill your That makes them feel better – it's not them, it’s Jewish people, spread hatred of Jews among gentiles, daughter or sister for having shamed the family?! another Jew. especially when their most eager audience is filled Who would do that? with those who actively seek for reasons to hate the See the sign held by one demonstrator during the Jews and delegitimize the one Jewish homeland. A close look at the behavior of some prominent voices Gaza war of 2014: ANOTHER JEW ASHAMED OF among Jews, suggests that similar dynamics are at ISRAEL’S INSATIABLE WAR MACHINE. Above all, we must face the shame and ask whom are play in the anti-Zionism which not only criticizes Israel those who feel shame trying to please, appease, gain constantly (what Anthony Julius calls “scolds”), but What do you do to a family member that has deeply approval from? Are there limits to self-abasement tolerates, even encourages the application of terms shamed you in the eyes of the world? In the Muslim before one's people’s accusers? like “racist,” “apartheid” and “Nazi.” world, you kill that member. But those Jews who feel such horror at being shamed, do not want to actually Many of the West’s ills in this baleful century, are Liberals tell us that they model themselves on the kill their embarrassing family member. Most Jewish related to, or mirror the Jewish tendency of dealing prophets. But they keep company no ancient prophet anti-Zionists, like Judith Butler and Jewish Voice for with shame, even unjustified shame, by compulsive would. Prophets of yore lived between the desert and Peace are avowed pacifists. conspicuous self-criticism. Until Jews learn how to their own people’s public sphere; these post-modern be fair to themselves as well as others, until they are critics disparage their people in the public sphere of As a result, they have to outsource the job of murder willing to live with the hard facts of survival in the their people’s enemy – not exactly an act of prophetic to a proxy. Thus, Butler in 2006 welcomed Hamas and beleaguered Jewish state, our people cannot possibly love. Hezbollah as “part of the global progressive Left.” In contribute to a true tikkun olam. doing so she embraced Jihadi forces that betrayed

For these Jews, the shame of having a family member every fiber of progressive values. Post-modern honor- Professor Richard Landes is an American historian – Israel – viewed by others as a brutal and heartless killings are done in the name of peace, by proxy. and author specializing in Millenialism and currently Goliath is too much to bear. It has produced a assoc. professor at Boston University. He coined the bumper crop of “Theobald Jews” (a Jewish convert This deep shame is, I submit, the force driving a term "Pallywood" for what he considers the practice to Christianity who claimed that blood libels were wedge between American Jews who think this way of "staged filming" of "evidence" against Israel for the correct and Jews had to sacrifice a Christian child and Jewish Israelis. American Jews may be able to benefit of the Palestinians. every year) who “as-a-Jew” feel compelled to bear have a healthy “skepticism about the use of force;” witness against their own people in front of a hostile Israelis, who must deal with neighbors bent on their world audience. These are Jews who are proud to be destruction, cannot. And the reason that American ashamed to be a Jew, because it shows how “good” Jewish liberals can’t listen is because they must, they are. above all, maintain their self-image as "good" people,

TheJewishWord 18 Volume II, No. 5 Adar I 5776/March 2016 American Jews Must Not Fail Again

American Jews did not protest enough during WWII. Are they sitting on the sidelines again? The danger began with Israel, but as is now obvious, it will not end there. A wake up call. • By Jack Engelhard

Hecht, in his autobiography, writes about So what happened to this country? Ben finally gathering the most prominent Jews Our duty is to stop him by whatever means, and the in New York to do something about the Holocaust. occasional letter to the editor won’t mean a thing. As a Jew, as an American, and as someone who Time was running out. Jews were being systemically survived the Holocaust, I find too many American murdered at the rate of thousands a day. Where was Where is the Jewish genius and where is the American Jews slacking once again and this is shameful and Roosevelt? Okay, no Roosevelt. But where were the embarrassing. To sit back and to quiver in our tents Jews here in America? spirit that changed the course of Western civilization? Jews gave America Einstein and Salk. Jews pioneered as our brothers fight to survive and to win against radio, television and Hollywood. Jews lit up Broadway, overwhelming odds, 1.7 billion Muslims against 6 The meeting began at someone’s fancy apartment. It built Jewish hospitals that serve and cure everyone million Israelis, this is not Jewish and it certainly is ended the moment someone got up and announced, throughout the land -- and at this moment we permit not the American way. “If Cohen is in, I am out.” our kids on campus to shiver and quake before student bullies from Arab lands whose parents and King David runs through our veins. Where are we That’s the way we were. ancestors produced nothing. when the shofar sounds? Our ears blocked? Our tongues tied? The man who carried me on his back throughout the Granted, a number of us are in the fight. They’re Pyrenees found no help when he raised the alarm from showing up. But the numbers are too small and the People are dying, our people, our brothers, our sisters, France to America. He appealed to Canada where the jihad is too long. our kids, and some of us have the gall to understand Mackenzie King Government had already announced both sides. This is sick. that “none is too many” so far as accepting Jewish Where is today’s Ben Hecht who had better luck refugees from the Gestapo. galvanizing righteous gentiles like Frank Sinatra and What was Israel before the Jews cultivated the John Wayne for the sake of his people? land? It was a swamp. The Palestinians didn’t want The woman who pushed my stroller – upon finally it because there were no Palestinians before Yasser reaching these shores she asked her New York Roosevelt (they were told) was busy golfing when Arafat made them up. Four times they were offered relatives, “Where were you? Where were you?” Cincinnati’s legendary Rabbi Silver was part of a a share of the country and four times they turned it legation of rabbis who marched on Washington to ask down. Dead Jews, that is all they want, and it’s what American Jews fiddled. European Jews died…and it’s the President to please bomb the railway tracks that they are getting as we play dead through silence…in déjà vu all over again. The numbers are different, led to Auschwitz. Nothing was done to cool the ovens other words, compliance. the place is different, but the silence is the same. and it is an open secret that some well-established Now it’s Israel and even as I write this, Arabs are on American Jews preferred the European Jews to say Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks says that Judaism is a a fanatical but systematic killing spree, stabbing and where they were as too many might fail to measure religion of protest. From Abraham onward, we are a shooting as many Israelis as they can. up to “Our Crowd.” people defiant against injustice, even if we perceive it coming from above. There is a moment in our Abbas says, “Murdering Jews is a national duty.” My first impression on arriving to America, as a child, Scriptures when Abraham defies God, as did Moses Where have we heard this before? Where is the was this: “People don’t have to whisper. Wow! What time and again – and yet we in America, land of the uproar against such talk? a country!” free, home of the brave, cannot find the spine to defy Obama.

TheJewishWord 19 Volume II, No. 5 Adar I 5776/March 2016 To so many American Jews, so locked into the ideology of the Left, Obama is greater than God, greater than America, and certainly greater than Israel.

Such worshipfulness has rendered us sickly and feebleminded. The man said if he could run again he would be elected again. He was right. The third time, instead of 80 percent he would get no more than 79 percent support from Jewish voters. We never learn? Don’t we care?

Those who do care, those who do fight, I know who you are and you have my respect and admiration.

But generally we turn mute when Mr. Obama offers Iran all the means to destroy both Israel AND the United States and we whimper when he equivocates about Arabs killing Israelis. Both sides? No, only one side is initiating the entire killing as the other side buries its dead and says Kaddish.

Is it fear? American Jews – are we a fearful people, a timid people, a frightened people?

Not so when the fight comes to America. In every war Jews fought high above their numbers relative to the general population. Abraham Lincoln personally awarded eight Medal of Honor citations to Jewish Americans who fought so bravely on both sides of the Civil War. So it has been in every war.

But the war goes on and it is time we remember our Judeo-Christian values and realize that Israel is not them, it’s us.

The Pilgrims and Puritans who came here in the 1600s imagined themselves to be Hebrews. King James was their Pharaoh. The Atlantic Ocean, to their thinking, was the Red Sea. They brought with them the Old Testament as their guide. Their first translated work was King David’s Book of Psalms. We share this heritage, Jews and Christians alike, America and Israel – inseparable.

How did Liberalism become the new Jewish faith? From whom did we buy the concept that evil and good are the same and that we dare not distinguish the one from the other? Who sold us the proposition that everything is really our fault? Who preached the notion that even our most fanatical enemies can be disarmed if only we can sit down and talk?

Trained soldiers from Islamic countries, who pose as students, roam our American campuses to humiliate our kids…kids raised too comfortable to know what’s really going on, too innocent to know what’s really happening, so they imagine that they can win friends and influence people merely by hosting chats and discussions. The enemy has nothing to discuss. They act as we discuss.

During the High Holy Days many synagogues (I speak of New York) passed around the plate for Israel Bonds. Good enough.

But some rabbis only romanticized the migrant Syrian boy who washed up dead in Turkey.

What? We don’t have enough Israelis to grieve over? If any American rabbi needs a list of boys and girls who have been murdered in Israel simply for being Jewish, I can have it available in a moment. But the accounting of these slain innocents from one Rosh Hashanah to the next might cause the congregation to squirm.

TheJewishWord 20 Volume II, No. 5 Adar I 5776/March 2016 We’d rather not know the details. We’d rather have It’s time to gather up our numbers and our strength “You shall not shirk from a cry in your camp”, urges The New York Times explain about the “settlers” and if we lack numbers we have the strength of our Scriptures, or as our parlance would have it, and about “The Temple Mount” in order to justify the wisdom, wisdom that has served us across the “heed the distressed.” killing of Israeli Jews. Justified, because the Jews are centuries. sitting on "occupied territory." Hitler said the same That’s where our kids come in. thing. I know. I was there. It’s time to confront our politicians, beginning at the top, with the facts, the most important fact being that Are we to leave them defenseless because we failed Hitler did it a step at a time. First he came for the whatever helps Israel helps America. to teach them about their heritage, a heritage second shops, then the professions, then our homes until we to none? had nothing but the death camps. Whatever hurts Israel hurts America. It has already hurt France. Are we to send them out tottering because we failed to He knew how to condition his people. Too often inform them that Judaism is the mother of all faiths? we use their language, like “occupied territory” or Make the calls. They will listen. They need your votes. “apartheid” where there is none. Are we to introduce them to the world before they It’s time to deluge the media in its entirety, including know that, while other civilizations prayed to plaster, Consider us conditioned by the Palestinian Arabs and Fox News, with the news that it’s not about ”both sticks and stones, Israel produced prophets, judges the news media that coddles and pets them. sides.” and kings, and that in Jerusalem, David prepared a palace for God, which his son Solomon built and still How is it that the Radical Islam we fear everywhere It was not about both sides when the Japanese exists beneath mosques? around the world is suddenly washed clean when it attacked us at Pearl Harbor and it was not about both appears in Israel? sides when Islamists attacked us on 9/11. Do they know that the enemy cannot produce a single coin, a single king, a single judge in a land that they Why are they cannibalistic barbarians everywhere We figured this out before. Why can’t we figure this say belongs to them? else, but pitied victims only in Israel? out again? Are we to ship them out stumbling because we Every step a Jew takes, every garden where a Jew Those who are not with us are against us. Individuals, failed to inform them that Moses and the Ten plants, every bedroom where a Jewish child finds a nations and media organizations who are not our Commandments are featured everywhere throughout pillow – this is "occupied territory." friends, are our enemies. our nation’s capitol?

Who needs Moses when we’ve got Tom Friedman… Once we know and accept the facts we can begin This is the fullness of our task. This is the completeness Tom Friedman to understand the Arab point of view to take action – and action is demanded of us not a of our duty, to our kids, our grandkids. and to justify their need to kill? moment too soon. To give them the knowledge and to give them the Justified because the Jews grow too numerous. Hitler Start with your local newspaper or TV station. Or strength to succeed where we keep coming up short said the same thing. So did Pharaoh. go national. But raise your voice. They do change for America and failing for Israel. headlines and whistle a different tune when enough Jusified because the Jews stole property. Hitler said people complain. Even the BBC and even The New Now and thereafter it is for them to call into account the same thing. York Times change their minds when enough of us every slander against Israel and every falsehood speak up. against America. Justified because the Jews have no rights to runa business. Hitler said the same thing. You know it – but make them wake up and smell the We failed the past. We will be called to answer for the jihad, the jihad that started in Israel. Israel was the present. But we still have a chance to atone. Upon Justfied because the Jews have no rights as doctors, first to taste their hatred for all things decent. our children falls our salvation. Through them there is professors, rabbis, carpenters, and plumbers. Hitler still a chance to get it right. said same thing. Blood is thicker than geography so it makes no difference whether we live in America or in Israel – Let them declare, as proclaimed Isaiah, “that for the Jusified because the Jews have no right to defend we are family. Whenever we forget this, our enemies sake of Zion I will not be silent.” themselves. Hitler said the same thing. remind us. When they came after us, as they did in New York, they did not ask if these 3,000 souls were For the sake of America we will sound the wake up Democrats or Republicans. Justified because the Jews have no right to claim any call. land as their own – even land that they fought and died for, and even the land that was deeded to them When they stab and shoot to kill Israelis in Jerusalem Certainly it hurts. We want our kids to behave more than 3,000 years ago by God Almighty Himself or Tel Aviv, they do not ask who voted for Netanyahu perfectly in a perfect world. In our culture we raise – and this too Hitler said even before The New York or the other guy. our kids to be learned, lawful, creative, productive, Times. upright and obedient. But we have no choice except They do not ask who is Likud or who is Labor. It’s all to prepare them for another culture. That other Justified because Jews have no rights, period. Hitler the same to them. culture manufactures suicide killers in the womb. So said the same thing. we hope for the best but must prepare them for the Even the most self-righteous peace-loving tree- worst. Yes, it hurts. But American Jews – too often we cling to The New hugging Leftist needs to watch his back. It’s the same York Times as our prophet and we cling to Barack so far as they are concerned. They must be taught to speak up and learn never to Obama as our savior. whisper…never to whisper in any language, in any For the sake of our children, it is forbidden for us to land. We don’t know a blessing from a curse. equivocate and show weakness. Children know the difference between right and wrong, good and bad. American Jews – are we a fearful people, a timid people, a frightened people? One of America’s most famous writers compared Jews to horses. “If Jews, like horses, knew their own We teach it to them every day around the house. We strength we should be afraid to ride them.” need to teach them how it works around the world…a Jack Engelhard is a NY based best-selling author who world that will be theirs when we are gone. writes a regular column for Arutz Sheva. His novel Indecent Proposal was translated into more than 22 So said Mark Twain after meeting Theodor Herzl. Are we to leave them lost and helpless because we languages and turned into a Paramount movie. His failed to teach them that the love of your brother and latest thriller is The Bathsheba Deadline. Perhaps it is time to learn from this. the pain of your sister come first?

TheJewishWord 21 Volume II, No. 5 Adar I 5776/March 2016 The State of American Jews: The best of times, the worst of times By Rabbi Prof. Dov Fischer

I. The Beginnings of American Jewry of Jewish immigration numbering 3,250,000 Jews passed a hat around the meeting room asking people from Eastern Europe burst onto the American scene. to donate money. Many of the young adults, shocked North America’s first Jews arrived in 1654 aboard Overwhelming the prior landed German Jews by more and appalled by the desecration of Shabbat, instead the “St. Charles,” sailing with a desperate shipload than ten-to-one, the religious among these “Orientals” filled the hats with buttons lying around the factory. that brought 23 Spanish-Portuguese Jews to New were profoundly more Orthodox than the Reform Days later, they gathered and founded their alternative Amsterdam as they fled from the vestiges of the “Occidentals” on the scene, even as the secular among Americanizing program that would teach young adults European Inquisition that had come to the New World them were more extremely radical than anything the American values while simultaneously honoring in Spain’s and Portugal’s South American colonies. German Jews could imagine. Arriving in the millions Orthodox Judaism. They called themselves “Young These Jews sought refuge in New Amsterdam, the with long beards and peyot (sideburn curls that many Israel.” The playing field now was set for the Reform sole Dutch colony among the original thirteen colonies Orthodox do not cut), their look and practices terrified assimilationists and the newly arrived Torah-observant that eventually would comprise the United States. the assimilated Reform German Jews, who feared that to embrace America over the next century. The Dutch had been among the friendliest European these “Ostjuden” (Jews from the East) would stoke countries for Jews, as Holland itself had to ward off anti-Semitism in the New World. These newcomers III. The State of American Jewry a Century Later – the perils of Catholic intolerance amid the Catholic wore obvious Jewish religious head coverings. The the Superficial Successes Crusades, Inquisitions, and other Christian religious German Reform Jews mocked those head coverings, which they felt resembled the look of Eastern Orthodox wars that dominated Western Europe during those The established American German Jews, who had centuries. Christian clerics, and they disparagingly called these newly arrived religious people “The Orthodox.” The arrived half a century ahead of the East European name stuck. Jews, made their bargain with America: in return for In time, those first “American Jews” found themselves greater tolerance and even eventual acceptance, the confronted with a most anti-Semitic force, Peter Jews would abandon much of what made them unique Stuyvesant, then the governor of the North American By now landed and feeling some security as they as Jews. By today, outside the Orthodox population Dutch colony. Peg-legged and crusty, Stuyvesant endeavored to be indistinguishable from their Christian of American Jewry, that bargain presently manifests. barred Jews from participating in the common neighbors in this New World, the German Reform Jews Much of America’s historic genteel anti-Semitism defense of the colony and instead demanded that urgently organized programs and schemes to break seems, on the surface, to have disappeared. In return, Jews pay a special tax levied on them alone, to pay for up the concentrated settlements of Orthodox East except for the Orthodox Jews of America, much in not serving. One defiant holdout, Asser Levy, insisted European newcomers and to scatter them across the America of what historically has defined Jews as Jews on serving in the military defense and refused to pay country. Meeting many immigrants as they arrived at also has disappeared. For the non-Orthodox, with the tax. He fought Stuyvesant and won. Today, there Ellis Island, these Jewish “philanthropists” would put intermarriage rates above 50 percent, it is the Liberal is a small intersection of streets in lower Manhattan them immediately back on other boats and ship them Democrat agenda that today comprises their “Jewish” named Asser Levy Square. No one knows whom that to Galveston, Texas or to other cities. They tried to religion. For example, outside the Orthodox, American space is named for. There is also a prominent New make farmers out of the newcomers, in an era where Jews proved to be Barack Obama’s most reliable York City public school, one of the city’s three or four the main anti-Semitic stereotype that was rampant in Caucasian constituency in both his Presidential finest, named Stuyvesant High School. Through most America — and intensified at the Democrat National campaigns, as he garnered well more than 80 percent of the latter half of the Twentieth Century, much of that Convention of 1896 after Presidential candidate of the non-Orthodox American Jewish vote even though top school’s student body was comprised of Jews. No William Jennings Bryant’s “Cross of Gold” speech — Obama, by any yardstick, is not identified as Israel’s one knows — or cares — whom that school is named associated Jews with banking, investing, and Wall best friend. The overwhelmingly one-sided support for for. And in that first Jewish encounter with Stuyvesant, Street finance. So the German Jewish investment the Democrat candidate, any Democrat candidate, a there may be seen a metaphor describing the entirety financiers donated to Jewish philanthropies shipping phenomenon that has been repeated through virtually of the American Jewish experience. newcomers to lightly populated northern New York every American election this past century, speaks State in the Catskill Mountains and to Vineland, New not so much to “political affiliation” but to social Jersey, to make them farmers. (The schemes failed, agendas. For those Jewish voters, their focus is not on The experience of American Jews is comprised of three and many of those families instead turned their farms main waves of immigration, followed by processes of the candidate who will best support Israel — nor, for into hotel resorts.) Continually, the landed Reform that matter, on the candidate who will best support assimilation. First came the earliest 25,000 Jews, Jews established institutions aimed at the single goal the Spanish and Portuguese who survived Catholic interests parochial to Jews. Rather, he is the one most of assimilating the newcomers, to not only blend them certain to pursue a liberal agenda. Crusades, Inquisitions, and Blood Lies. They were into America’s “melting pot” but to dissolve them. moderately Orthodox and Old Worldly. Then came the secular, anti-Orthodox, German Reform Jews who Along the way, Jewish political influence in America has arrived between 1840 and 1880, fleeing reactionary The radicalism of German Reform Judaism was so dropped substantially from what existed thirty and forty Germany during the Age of Metternich. Those shocking to the newcomers that many sought a more years ago. This reduction of influence was reflected 250,000 Jewish newcomers to America outnumbered tempered, conservative approach to “modernizing” most recently in the failed effort to oppose the Iran the landed Sephardic community by ten-to-one and Judaism, creating “Conservative Judaism.” Among the Nuclear Deal. Even large numbers of Jews in Congress redefined the very meaning of being a Jew in America. early founders of that movement were several of the voted for the deal, and the few who voted against They established American Jewry’s institutions: prominent American Orthodox rabbis who expected were circumspect to oppose in a low-key manner that charitable Jewish Federations, fraternal orders like and intended for that movement to be Orthodox in assured the deal’s passage. B’nai B’rith, and low-key defense agencies like the practice. In time, however, Conservative Judaism American Jewish Committee and, amid the Leo Frank would depart from Torah observance, and newer and more carefully focused Torah-observant efforts Jews in America also matter less numerically today. lynching, the Anti-Defamation League. They worked At one point, half a century ago, there were six million hard to assimilate. And then came the East Europeans. ensued, resulting in the founding of the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations (“OU”) and the planting American Jews, comprising three percent of America’s of Agudath Israel onto American soil. Meanwhile, one population of 200 million. Today that percentage II. The East European Immigration of 1881-1914 Friday night, at an “Oneg Shabbat” program organized has decreased by fully one-third: There are some on the Lower East Side to “Americanize” East European 300 million Americans today, but still only six million From 1881 (when Tsar Alexander II was assassinated Jewish young adults, the prominent Reform Rabbi Jews, and actually fewer when “patrilineal” non-Jews by radical revolutionaries, followed by the “May Laws” of Stephen Wise came to speak and teach them about are excluded from the count, reducing the Jewish 1882) through1914 (when America sealed its borders American ways and values. To pay for the program, percentage of the population to less than two percent. to foreigners, as World War I erupted), a tsunami held at a local garment button factory, organizers At the same time, by way of comparison, America’s Arab

TheJewishWord 22 Volume II, No. 5 Adar I 5776/March 2016 population has grown from one million to somewhere favoring Israel. The second half of that equation no Judaism is sustaining enormous losses, as they between two and three million people during the same longer holds true. Democrat Presidential candidates desperately try to increase their numbers by adopting, period. campaigning in New York now know that the Jewish on delayed bases, most innovations previously initiated vote is in their pockets, secure and dependable, by Reform. Superficially, the Jewish population seems more regardless of their stand on Israel. Thus, a Barack prominent and influential in America today than ever Obama could generate a decade of conflict with Israel The only Jewish population in America that is before. An Orthodox Jew, U.S. Sen. Joseph Lieberman, and its leaders, clash with Israel over an Iran nuclear growing, even surging, within the American Jewish ran as a Vice Presidential candidate in 2000 on the deal, insist on unilateral Israeli concessions, and press community are the Orthodox. According to the most ticket headed by Al Gore in their unsuccessful race for a return to pre-June 1967 boundaries in Israel, definitive population survey done, the 2013 Pew against George W. Bush and Dick Cheney. Barack all without sacrificing Jewish support and financial Research Center survey of American Jews, since 1990 Obama’s closest advisors have included Jews like backing. Similarly, his aspiring Democrat successor, American Orthodox adult congregants have doubled. David Axelrod, his chief campaign advisor, and Rahm Hillary Clinton, could demand Israeli “settlement Orthodox youth have quadrupled: in 1990 there Emanuel, his first White House Chief of Staff. Until a freezes” and even scream at Israeli Prime Minister were 85,000 American Orthodox Jews under age 17; recent New York City election, the mayors of America’s Binyamin Netanyahu on the phone when she was U.S. today that number is 350,000. In New York City’s three most prominent cities all were Jewish: New York Secretary of State, demanding that Israel be barred five boroughs today, Orthodox children comprise 74 City (Michael Bloomberg), Chicago (Rahm Emanuel, from building Jewish homes even in East Jerusalem, having moved back there from Washington, D.C.), and Los Angeles (Eric Garcetti, son of a Jewish mother). Similarly, although comprising only two percent of America’s population, Jews comprise nine of the 100 United States Senators (and typically count a tenth, Diane Feinstein, although she is not actually Jewish). Jews comprise approximately 5 percent of the House of Representatives. The probable Democrat candidate for president, Hillary Clinton, has a Jewish son-in-law, married to the Clinton's only child.

In the Ivy League, comprising some of America’s most highly regarded universities, where the numbers of Jewish students and faculty once had been severely restricted by targeted anti-Jewish quotas as late as the 1950s, virtually every Ivy League university has had a Jewish university president in the past decade, and Jewish student enrollments far out-distance the Jewish percentages of the population, with Jews comprising at least 25 percent of the Harvard, Yale, Columbia, and University of Pennsylvania student populations, 20 percent at Cornell, and 15 percent at Brown. There are now three Jewish United States Supreme Court justices among the nine. (There never had been any until Louis Brandeis ascended to the Court in 1916.) Touro Synagogue in Providence, Rhode Island, built in 1763 (wikipedia)

So it would seem that American Jews, whose doctors once could not gain admittance privileges at and yet she can rely on Jews to fund her and back her percent of all Jewish children, and they comprise 61 prestigious hospitals, whose attorneys once could not Presidential campaign, even as she could depend on percent of all Jewish children in the Greater New York gain entry into any prestigious American law firms, Jews to elect her to the United States Senate from New region including Westchester and Long Island. The whose executives could not gain admittance into York. intensity and passion of Orthodox Jews in prioritizing American banking, and who could not gain admittance Jewish concerns and religious practices is profound. into alumni and fraternal societies or country clubs, Meanwhile by contrast, strongly pro-Israel Republican Moreover, voting patterns among Orthodox Jews are never have had it better. So it would seem. Presidential candidates like Sen. Marco Rubio opposite those of other American Jews, with more (who never uses the term “West Bank,” but instead voting Republican in recent years, motivated by their IV: The State of American Jewry a Century Later – speaks of “Judea and Samaria”), Sen. Ted Cruz (who heightened concerns over Israel, which they prioritize. Beneath the Surface famously walked out of a mass gathering of Lebanese Americans, after they booed a pro-Israel comment he No Jewish community outside Israel ever has survived made, and told them that “If you will not stand with the Exile, and American Jewish life will not be However, beneath the surface of the extraordinary Israel, I will not stand with you”), Gov. Mike Huckabee, attainments and the successes described above, the permanent either. As we recite every Shabbat at Musaf: and others have had only the most modest of success “Because of our sins we were exiled from our land and deeper truth requires considering carefully the price in attracting Jewish support outside of limited circles. of this “success.” To be a son-in-law to the Clintons have been [driven] from our soil.” In America today Instead, their strongest pro-Israel supporters have outside the Orthodox community, Jewish dissolution means marrying a Methodist at a ceremony where been the Christian evangelical community. a reform rabbi co-officiates with a United Methodist and disappearance are already proceeding apace. pastor, the Rev. William Shillady. Although Jews speak Meanwhile, Orthodox parents likewise must contend glibly about the “minyan” in the United States Senate, Thus, American Jews have paid a serious price for against a brutal and coarse culture that grates against the reality is that, except for Lieberman, few of those acceptance in the United States. Along the way, the values of a Torah society. The cost of a Jewish senators would know which way to hold a siddur well-funded demographic surveys have found that Day School education in America, the most reliable (prayer book) — and Lieberman no longer holds office. American Jews marry later than do others, have fewer defense against the social and cultural challenges, has Indeed, Lieberman himself, when he ran for Vice children than do others, and therefore are experiencing skyrocketed to unbearably costly levels. As American President, found that the price to pay America for such a marked population reduction and rapid aging of the Jews go forward, theirs is the epoch described in a acceptance included changing his position on moving population, even as intermarriage rates skyrocket different context by Charles Dickens at the outset of A America's Israel embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. and affiliations with even non-Orthodox expressions Tale of Two Cities: It is the best of times; it is the worst He gave a radio interview during the campaign stating of Judaism recede. To bolster their sagging numbers, of times. that he saw nothing wrong with intermarriage between amid the striking population decline and surging Jews and Christians. intermarriage rates, Reform Judaism had to redefine Rabbi Dov Fischer is author of General Sharon’s Jewish identity by also including as “Jews” those who War Against Time. His political commentaries have are born to non-Jewish mothers, as long as they have The price of acceptance in America has included a appeared in the Wall Street Journal, The Weekly a Jewish father. That urgent change to “patrilineal Standard, National Review, Los Angeles Times, and dramatic change in voting priorities and concerns descent” saved Reform temples from closing, as they for American Jews. Half a century ago, candidates others. He is an adjunct professor of law at two law could expand the population of children and paying schools, Rabbi of Young Israel of Orange County, for President knew that the New York primary would families enrolled in their “bar/bat mitzvah” programs demand not only eating a knish in Brooklyn and a California and a member of the National Executive and “Hebrew Schools,” the center-piece of reform Committee of the Rabbinical Council of America. bagel in Queens but also staking out strong positions temple revenue streams. Meanwhile, Conservative

TheJewishWord 23 Volume II, No. 5 Adar I 5776/March 2016 An RZA Initiative: Successful Student Mission Boosts Continued Torah Learning in Israel Jerusalem and its Future

As is their purpose, terror attacks create fear. After the brutal terrorist mur- No matter who wins the next American election, one thing is clear. Those der of Ezra Schwartz, an American studying in an Israeli yeshiva for his who value and cherish Jerusalem must not only take steps to ensure the in- “gap” year, many American parents became nervous and hesitant to send tegrity of Israel’s eternal capital, but must also ensure that there will always their children to Israel. be people who value and cherish Jerusalem. The RZA reacted to this insidious threat with an initiative that successful- There are, unfortunately, significant challenges that we are facing in this ly and publicly demonstrated solidarity with Israel. It offered a subsidy to regard. reduce the cost for students who had spent their gap year studying Torah One challenge is the open warfare that the Palestinians are conducting in Israel and chose to return, during this year's college winter break, to the upon Jerusalem’s citizens. Stabbings, shootings and automobile terrorism yeshiva or seminary they had attended. are tactics that are being combined in an attempt to take over Jerusalem. Two graduate students Jacob Bernstein, studying for Semikha at RIETS, There is, however, another challenge, an internal one. We must face a and Sarah Robinson, attending GPATS, the graduate Talmud program at rather harsh truth. Both of the Diaspora Jewish communities, observant Stern, volunteered to coordinate this special mission. Of the two hundred and non-observant, have undergone change in the past two decades. The applicants, seventy five students were accepted and attended a variety of change is subtle, yet significant. educational institutions in Israel. The reality is that both Israel and Jerusalem are no longer a significant part As part of their stay, the participants attended a Yom Iyun at the World Miz- of the everyday lives of too many American Jews. Most Jewish students in rachi headquarters in Jerusalem. They heard talks and shiurim from Rabbi yeshivas and day schools do not think about Jerusalem in their day-to-day Shlomo Riskin and Rabbi Yosef Tzvi Rimon, and noted women educators, lives. This is also the case of Jewish students in the non-observant com- Racheli Frankel and Shani Taragin. The speakers were introduced by the munity. Their firsthand view of the Holocaust made the previous generation founder of Shurat Hadin, Mrs. Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, the organization push more for the security of Israel in decades past than in recent times. which employs lawsuits to combat the financial backers of terrorism. Think about it: Jewish anti-Israel organizations exist and thrive, primarily The program also introduced them to the role of World Mizrachi in promot- because of apathy about Jerusalem and Israel. Israel, in the eyes of many ing Torah education around the world from a Religious Zionist perspective, Jews in the Diaspora is less a homeland for Jews and more a nation that with presentations by Rabbi Doron Perez, Head of World Mizrachi, and RZA seems to be at war with its neighbors. President, Rabbi Yosef Blau, as well as a panel composed of Att'y Steven BDS and the “apartheid-like” characterization of Israel of the biased media Flatow (whose daughter was killed in a terror attack), media personality have made inroads in our world as well. The combined results of the lack Yishai Fleisher, and Rabbis Blau and Perez who discussed being a Zionist of education about Jerusalem, negative media bias, and taking things for while living outside of Israel. granted have led to the forgetting of Jerusalem – and can have a devastat- A Melava Malka is planned to reunite the Mission’s participants and further ing impact on the future. King David said it best in words immortalized in encourage their continued involvement in Religious Zionism. the 137th chapter of Psalms: “If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let me forget The mission was a win-win experience: The RZA initiative received kudos my right hand..” from the students, thrilled to spend time and be uplifted by learning Torah To address this pressing issue, leaders in the Jewish community have at the yeshivas and seminaries they had once attended in Eretz Yisrael and launched the creation of a new organization to be called The Jerusalem from the various institutions who warmly welcomed the participants, grate- Forever Foundation. ful for their visit and the solidarity they represented. The purpose of the organization is to develop educational, promotional and The message is loud and clear: Terrorists will not succeed in reducing the curricular material for people of all affiliations, enhancing awareness and commitment to learn Torah in the land of Torah and the RZA will continue knowledge of Jerusalem. It will also provide media sources with new and to encourage more and more American students to spend at least a year fresh material about Jerusalem. The Jerusalem Forever Foundation is dedi- learning in Eretz Yisrael. cated to preserving the integrity of the city, its significance and value and to encouraging conscious pride in Jerusalem. It is dedicated to upholding the For further information, biblical ideal in Divrei HaYamim (23:25), “..the G-d of Israel has given rest Sarah Robinson can be contacted on her cell at 617-412-1724 unto His people and dwells in Jerusalem forever.” It is up to all of us to ensure that Jerusalem will once again be a peaceful and unified city. We call on you to join this effort by supporting the activities of the Jerusalem Forever Foundation in spreading knowledge and love for Jerusalem to young and old alike.

The organization’s website is JerusalemForever.org.

at $24.95 Order your annual subscription to Call Monica 212-465-9234 TheJewishWord msokol@rza org

Return to RZA, 500 7th Ave, 2nd Fl, NY, NY 10018 TheJewishWord 24 Volume II, No. 5 Adar I 5776/March 2016