Now everyone can participate in the Seder, even if you or ycnu guests can't read Hebrew This user-friendly, handy, economical Haggadah includes the complete translation, detailed instructions, short comments and a transliteration that enables those who cannot read Hebrew to recite the Hebrew text. Every word of the traditional Hagaddah is transliterated in easy-to-follow English characters, enabling everybody at your table to say, sing, and celebrate each part of the Seder. No one will be left behind. Everyone's participation an enjoyment is enhanced with the all-new, user-friendly, TRANSLITERATED Hagaddah. Economically priced for bulk purchases. Rabbi Yechiel Spero's first book, Touched by a Story, took the world by storm and became an instant best-seller. Readers asked, "When is the next one coming out?" Ask no more. Here it is! Rabbi Spero has good taste, enthusiasm, passion, and talent - the per­ fect blend for a master storyteller, which he is. See for yourself with this magnificent new collection. If you read volume 1, you'll run, not walk, to get your copy of Volume 2. If not, stop denying yourself. JEWISH PARABLES The parable has long been a favorite and very effective tool of some of our leaders and teachers. Think of the Maggid of Dubno, the Chafetz Chaim, the Ben lsh Chai, Rabbi Shalom Schwadron - these great men were Mashal Masters, with the blessed knack of creating just the right story to make an essential point. Rabbi Yisroel Bronstein has learned their lessons well. In this valuable book, he has collected hundreds of parables from classic sources and arranged them by topic. Jewish Parables makes a delightful read, a welcome companion at the Shabbos table, and an invaluable source of material for speakers, teachers, parents, and anyone looking for a way to convey an idea or spice up a talk. MY First Book of Jewish Holidays by Shmuel Blitz Every holiday has two parts: its historical background and its laws. This unique new i offering from Shmuel Blitz - especially for chi!- / dren - presents both. He begins by telling us ·/ the "story." And then - once we know the story - we learn the laws. Everything is presented simply, accurately, and clearly, in the famous Shmuel Blitz manner. With Tova Katz's beautiful illustrations, it's a treasure house of fun-filled learning. Read it to your little ones. Before long they'll know it by heart and "read" it to you. Bring a sparkle to your Yorn Tov with this new hit from a master storyteller. Large 8Y.i" x 11 " page size G GEVRIL • • The M I n I by AVENUE OF AMERICAS MINI COLLECTION HANDMADE* EXCLUSIVE MOTHER Of PE,\RL Dlc\L *TOP VVESSELTON DIAMONDS' LIMITED EDITION OF 500 PCS. PHONE: B4.5.425.'J8B2 WVVW.CEVRIL.CH Nissan 5764 •April 2004 U.S.A.$3.50/Foreign $4.50 ·VOL XXXVII/NO. 4 THE JEWISH OBSERVER (ISSN) 0021- 6615 is published monthly except July and August by the Agudath Israel of America, 42 Broadway, New York, NY10004. Periodicals postage paid in New York, NY. Subscription $24.00 per year; two years, $44.00; three years, $60.00. Outside of the United States (US funds drawn on a US bank only) $12.00 surcharge per year. Single copy $3.SO; foreign $4.50. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to: The Jewish Observer, 42 Broadway, NY, NY 10004. Tel: 212-797-9000, Fax: 646-254-1600. Printed in the U.S.A. 6 Passion, Prejudice, and Political Incorrectness, RABBI NISSON WOLPIN, EDITOR Rabbi Yonoson Rosenblum EDITORIAL BOARD RABBI JOSEPH ELIAS I 0 Never Too Bad, NeverToo Late - the Lesson of Yetzias Chairman Rabbi Fyvel Shuster RABBI ABBA BRUDNY Mitzrayim, JOSEPH FRIEDENSON RABBI YISROEL MEIR KIRZNER 16 ReframingYour Life,RabbiYehoshua Binyamin and RABBI NOSSON SCHERMAN PROF. AARON TWERSKI Mrs. Sheina Elka Falk OR. ERNST L. BODENHEIMER Z"l RABBI MOSHE SHERER Z"L F0W1ders 10 Hand or Machine:Two Roads to Fulfilling the Mitzva of MANAGEMENT BOARD Matza, Ari Y. Greenspan and Ari Z Zivotofsky AVI FISHOF, NAFTOLI HIRSCH ISAAC KIRZNER, RABBI SHLOMO LESIN NACHUM STEIN 3 4 Tefilla: Worthy of Our Effort ... as Ever, Ovadya Hertzberg RABBI YOSEF C. GOLDING Managing Editor Published by Agudath Israel of America SECOND LOOKS U.S. TRADE DlSTRIBUTOJI: ISRAELI REPRESENTATIVE Feldheim Publishers lntnl. Media Placement 200 Airport Executive Park POB 7195 / 97 Jaffa Road 3 9 Mass Aliya in 2004? Don't Bet on It!, Mordechai Plaut Nanuet NY 10954 Jerusalem 94340, !SRAEL BRITISH REPRESENTATIVE BELGIAN REPRESENTATIVE M.T. Bibelman Mr. E. Apter Grosvenor Works Lange Kievitstr. 29 Mount Pleasant Hill 2018 Antwerp INSIGHTS AND INSPIRATION tondon ES 9NE, ENGlAND BELGIUM FRENCH REPRESENTATIVE SOUTH AFRICAN Rabbi Bamberger REPRESENTATIVE 44 The Time has Come, a poem by Michelle Borinstein 21 Boulevard Paixhans Mr. V. Taback 57000 Metz PO Box 51552, FRANCE Raedene, Johannesburg 2124 SOUTH AFRICA SWISS REPRESENTATIVE Mr. S. Feldinger le\rnanstrasse 36 4051 Basel, SW!TZERlAND Statement of Policy THE JEWISH OBSERVER does not The Jewish Observer has devoted a and controlled to every possible assume responsibility for the great deal of space to the perils of the degree, our gedofim recognize that Kashrus of any product, Internet and to the need for everyone many people and businesses require its publication, or service advertised to be extremely vigilant in its use. We use, and therefore it has not. been in its pages have echoed the pleas of our gedolim banned. This is why we accept adve_r­ @_Copyright 2004 that it should not be in use, unless it tisements listing website addresses; but is an unavoidable necessity, and then in no way does this imply that_ ~h~ Aprll 2004 only with all suitable safeguards. gedolirn or The Jewish O_bserve:r VOLUME XXXVJVNO. 4 While its dangers must be recognized done casual use of the lnterne , Yonoson Rosenblum Passion, Prejudic:e, and Political Incorrectness I. AS THE CRITICS SEE IT blood are the Jews. Pontius Pilate, the church accusing Jews of deicide, there Roman prelate who ordered the cruci­ were no reports of anti-Semitic incidents fter nearly a year of pre-release fixion, is portrayed as a reluctant exe­ traceable to viewing The Passion. It may publicity, Mel Gibson's The cutioner. He remonstrates with the well be, however, that the greatest dan­ A Passion finally opened February High Priest for the savagery with which ger to Jews from The Passion lies not in 25 in more than 3,000 theaters across the Jewish authorities treat the victim, the United States, where taboos against America. Based on initial reviews, the and only orders his crucifixion to calm the open expression of anti-Semitism are movie more than fulfills the worst fears the Jewish mob demanding it. At one more firmly in place than anywhere else of the Jewish community. point, even the Roman soldiers cannot in the world, but from audiences in Latin Gibson pulled out every Technicolor bring themselves to inflict further agony. America and Eastern Europe, where such special effect at his disposal to make his Only the Jews go on demanding more. taboos were never firmly planted. If the subject's suffering as shocking as possi­ The physiognomy of the Jewish last year has proven anything, it is the ble. Reviewers were struck by the relent­ characters is taken from the stock anti­ degree to which anti-Semitic attitudes less, graphic brutality of the film. A Semitic stereotypes. A number of continue to lurk just beneath the surface scourging scene that takes no more than reviewers remarked on the cut from a of even the most civilized societies. one sentence in any Gospel account, for close-up of one hook-nosed Jew to that instance, takes ten minutes in the film. of another hook-nosed Jew to open the II. HOW SHOULD THE JEWISH The New Republic's Leon Wieseltier next scene. "Sundry Jews lean into the COMMUNITY HAVE RESPONDED! accused Gibson of being "intoxicated by camera and hiss or keen through rotted blood," and of having created a film teeth,'' writes David Edelstein in Slate. learly the concerns about the film which in its bloodthirstiness is "startling It is far too early to tell what the effect expressed by Jewish defense and quickly sickening." of The Passion will be on attitudes Corganizations over the last year Those calling throughout for that towards Jews. 1 Apart from one Denver were well founded. Long before the film pastor who posted a notice outside his opened, the warning lights were already Rabbi Rosenblum, who lives in Jerusalem, is a flashing. "Passion plays" have a long his­ 1 contributing editor to The Jewish Observer. He Mark St~yn, generauY·o~e of the most astute tory of stirring up anti-Semitic violence. commentators around, has gone on record that is also director of the Israeli division of Am Echad, Hitler, yemach shemo, recommended that the Agudath Israel-inspired educational outreach there is not the slightest chance of one Jew being effort and media resource. killed as a consequence of The Passion. all Germans attend the traditional pas- 6 The Jewish Observer, April 2004 sion play at Oberammergau to under­ in the Gospels:' Another section details still predicting that The Passion would stand his hatred of Jews. Gibson's historical errors. For instance, be one of the biggest bombs in history. Then there was the matter of in order to give the film a tone of his­ The controversy stirred by the attacks on Gibson's membership in a renegade sect torical veracity all the dialogue is in either Gibson aroused huge interest in the film, of Catholic "traditionalists." Aramaic or Latin.