Stained glass from the Dutch synagogue in Assen that is now displayed at Israel’s Yad Vashem Holocaust remembrance center. Credit: Yad Vashem.
(Israel Hayom/Exclusive to JNS.org) Stained glass from the synagogue that served the Jews of the Dutch city of Assen, almost all of whom were killed in the Holocaust, is now displayed at the synagogue of Israel’s Yad Vashem Holocaust remembrance center.
The glass windows of the now-destroyed synagogue feature symbols related to the Jewish holidays, including a shofar, a sukkah and the four species used in Sukkot rituals. The windows were designed by the local Jewish architect Abraham van Oosten, who died in 1937.
According to Yad Vashem’s website, the windows “were completed and installed in 1932, as attested to by the inscription engraved upon them. Five years later, van Oosten died at the untimely age of 40. His widow, Heintje, and their three children, Gunda, Leo and Johanna, remained in the town.”
In 1940, after Nazi Germany invaded the Netherlands, Leo was deported to Auschwitz, where he was killed. Heintje, Gunda and Johanna were sent to the Westerbork transit camp. During her time there, Gunda married Asher Gerlich, a Zionist activist, and they were sent to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. They both survived and made it to British-controlled Palestine in 1946, settling in Kibbutz Beit Keshet and joining the Palmach, a pre-state Zionist militia.
Israel’s first nanosatellite, BGUSAT, which was launched in mid-February as part of an academic initiative by Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. Credit: Ben-Gurion University.
Adding to Israel’s existing reputation as the “start-up nation” and a major hub of innovation, the Jewish state is a rising star in space and satellite technology.
Several key developments in recent years highlight Israel’s growing contributions in the field, including the successful launch of the Venus satellite Aug. 2. Venus, a micro-satellite weighing 550 pounds, was jointly designed by Israeli and French aerospace firms for the purpose of monitoring climate change. The cutting-edge satellite observes 110 sites on five continents every two days, and closely monitors the impact of human activity on vegetation, water and carbon levels.
The micro-satellite was built as part of a collaboration between Israel Aerospace Industries and France’s space agency, CNES. Israel’s Rafael Advanced Defense Systems provided the micro-satellite’s electric propulsion system and Elbit Systems manufactured its high-resolution camera.
Israel is the smallest country in the world to launch its own satellites, and is also one of only 11 nations with the ability to independently launch unmanned missions into space. Currently, Israel has 17 civilian satellites orbiting the Earth, two-thirds of which are communication devices.
“Israel is one of the few countries that has the entire chain of satellite capabilities, which means launch, design, construction and operation,” Avi Blasberger, director general of the Israel Space Agency at the Israeli Science Ministry, told JNS.org. “It’s an entirely self-sustained program. Israel is one of the few countries in the world that can be proud of this.”
Preceding the launch of Venus, Israel launched its first nanosatellite, BGUSAT, in mid-February as part of an academic initiative by Ben-Gurion University of the Negev that enables researchers to study climate change as well as agricultural and other scientific phenomena.
Slightly larger than a milk cartoon, the nanosatellite is outfitted with a visual and short wavelength infrared camera and hovers at 300 miles above the Earth’s surface — allowing researchers to study a broad array of environmental phenomena, including atmospheric gases like carbon dioxide.
‘Miniaturizing satellites’
In line with the nanosatellite launch, Blasberger said one of the Jewish state’s greatest feats in the field is its “very strong” capability for “miniaturizing satellites.”
“Our satellites’ performance per kilogram is the best in the world,” he said. “For example, the Venus satellite is 250 kilograms (550 pounds). In comparison, other satellites in its class weigh at least two or three times as much.”
Besides being able to condense a large amount of technology into a small space — much like the modern state of Israel itself — other Israeli satellite innovations are being developed in the private sector.
With the global civilian satellite technology market worth an estimated $150 billion a year, Israel hopes to corner at least 10 percent of that sector, and is aiming to earn as much as $15 billion in space technology exports annually.
“Currently, we have several Israeli start-up companies with innovative ideas for space technology and services, which we hope will be on the cutting-edge of technology in this sphere within the next few years,” said Blasberger.
Military and civilian applications
While Venus and BGUSAT are two prominent examples showcasing Israel’s prowess in space technology, these public-facing initiatives fall under the smaller of two separate organizations that comprise the Israeli space program.
“The Israeli space program is supported by two government agencies, the Ministry of Defense and the Israel Space Agency,” Blasberger explained. “Israel’s largest space program today is run through the Ministry of Defense. This program started back in 1983, and most of Israel’s [space-related technological innovations] were gathered through this program.”
The Defense Ministry initiative is mostly focused on the “development of observation satellites,” Blasberger said, without elaborating.
The need for these observation satellites was originally a consequence of Israel’s 1979 peace treaty with Egypt. Then-Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin tasked nuclear physicist Yuval Ne’eman with creating Israel’s space program in 1983, to develop satellites capable of monitoring the newly demilitarized Sinai Peninsula, thus eliminating the need for spy planes.
The technology developed under this military space program was eventually applied to produce civilian satellites. The civilian program, Blasberger said, was funded “just within the past four or five years, with a relatively small budget.”
As of 2016, the Israel Space Agency’s annual budget stood at $15 million, comparable in size to the Mexican, Swiss and South African space programs.
Following the Venus satellite’s launch in August, Israel’s Science, Technology and Space Minister Ofir Akunis noted the need to expand funding for similar future space endeavors to maintain the Jewish state’s status as a leader in the field.
Nevertheless, with its relatively small budget, the public face of the Israeli space program runs various advanced initiatives. These programs “are only for peaceful purposes and based on a lot of international cooperation, and a lot of investment in education of youth,” Blasberger said.
In recent years, the Israel Space Agency has cooperated on various projects with international space agencies such as France’s CNES, Italy’s ASI, NASA, the German Aerospace Center DLR and India’s ISRO.
In 2016, the Israel Space Agency also became an official member of the United Nations Committee on Space Affairs, after Israel was accepted into the U.N. Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space in October 2015.
President Donald Trump delivers remarks announcing the result of the administration’s strategic review of the policy toward Iran, October 13, 2017, in the Diplomatic Reception Room at the White House. Credit: White House/D. Myles Cullen
In fulfilling a key campaign pledge, President Donald Trump announced in a White House speech Friday he decertified the Iranian nuclear deal as part of a new and tougher approach towards the Islamic Republic. The move brings a new level of challenges and uncertainty in handling one of the most complex international agreements in recent years.
“We cannot and will not make this certification,” Trump said. “We will not continue down a path whose predictable conclusion is more violence, more terror and the very real threat of Iran’s nuclear breakout.”
Proponents of the deal fear dismantling it could lead Iran to restarting its nuclear weapons program, while also undermine U.S. leadership and credibility. Opponents, including Trump, believe the deal doesn’t go far enough in addressing Iran’s ballistic missile program and regional behavior.
“President Trump’s Iran speech set the U.S. on the right path to fix a nuclear accord that members of his administration have rightly called ‘fatally flawed,’” Behnam Ben Taleblu, a senior Iran analyst at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told JNS.org.
“The president’s framing of decertification matters just as much as the decision itself,” he said. “By placing Iran’s problematic behavior under the accord in the broader context of the non-nuclear threats the Islamic Republic poses, as well as the decades-old enmity Tehran has harbored against the West and the U.S., Trump reminded audiences why the Islamic Republic remains a rogue regime.”
According to Trump, the new strategy to deal with Iran will include working with allies to counter Tehran’s “destabilizing activities and support for terrorist proxies in the region,” as well as addressing the “regime’s proliferation of [ballistic] missiles and weapons that threaten its neighbors, global trade and freedom of navigation.”
Trump also blamed his predecessor, President Barack Obama, for lifting sanctions on Iran right before “what would have been the total collapse of the Iranian regime.”
“As I have said many times, the Iran deal was one of the worst and most one-sided transactions the United States has ever entered into,” the president declared.
Punting to Congress
While the decertification stops short of pulling out of the agreement, the move sends a decision to Congress regarding whether to reimpose sanctions originally lifted in 2016.
“It remains to be seen what Congress will decide, but ultimately, I think there will be support for the president to deal with then non-nuclear sources of Iranian aggression,” Ben Taleblu said. “While some may see the decertification as akin to a withdrawal from the JCPOA (the Iran deal’s formal name), that would be a mistake.”
Under the 2015 nuclear deal, which was negotiated along with the U.K., France, Germany, Russia and China, U.S. law states that the Trump administration must certify every 90 days whether it believes Iran is in compliance with the agreement. While international nuclear inspectors and U.S. intelligence agencies say Iran has been in compliance, the Trump administration has argued Tehran violated the spirit of the deal through ballistic missile testing and its regional aggression. In accordance with the law, Congress now has 60 days to decide whether or not to reimpose the sanctions.
President Donald Trump, shown on screens, addresses the United Nations General Assembly Sept. 19. Credit: UN Photo/Mark Garten.
The Trump administration has been working with Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) to devise a plan for legislation that would set new conditions for U.S. participation.
“We have provided a route to overcome deficiencies and to keep the administration in the deal,” Corker told reporters during a conference call Friday. “And actually make it the kind of deal that it should have been in the first place.”
According to The New York Times, the Trump administration is asking Congress to establish “trigger points” that would prompt the U.S. to reimpose sanctions. This could include continued ballistic missile launches by Iran, a refusal by Iran to extend constraints on its nuclear fuel production or intelligence that Iran could produce a nuclear weapon in less than a year.
Congress will also seek to address the so-called “sunset clauses” in the agreement, which allow Iran to have a pathway to the bomb no later than 2030.
Nevertheless, Trump said he would cancel the deal if Congress does not come up with a solution.
“In the event we are not able to reach a solution working with Congress and our allies, then the agreement will be terminated,” he said. “It is under continuous review and our participation can be cancelled by me, as president, at any time.”
While Republican leaders seemed open to the idea of renegotiating the Iran deal, senior Democrats, even those who opposed the original 2015 accord, denounced Trump’s move.
“I strongly disagree with the President’s reckless, political decision and his subsequent threat to Congress,” Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.), the top Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee, said in a statement. “Despite his assertions to the contrary, the President’s rhetoric and actions today directly threaten U.S. national security and damage our credibility and reputation on the world stage.”
Iran’s reaction
Shortly after Trump’s speech, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said the American leader could not decide the fate of the deal on his own.
“This is an international, multilateral deal that has been ratified by the U.N. Security Council. It is a U.N. document. Is it possible for a president to unilaterally decertify this deal? Apparently, he’s not in the know,” said Rouhani.
Ben Taleblu said that “the most important Iranian reaction to the deal remains Foreign Minister [Mohammad Javad] Zarif’s September commentary calling the debate over decertification an ‘internal procedure.’”
The impact on Israel
Prior to Trump’s address, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson reportedly called Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has been a strong critic of the deal, to update him on the contents of Trump’s strategy.
In an address to the United Nations General Assembly last month, Netanyahu urged the world community to “fix or nix” the nuclear deal.
Netanyahu said Friday that Trump had “boldly confronted Iran’s terrorist regime.”
“If the Iran deal is left unchanged, one thing is absolutely certain—in a few years’ time, the world’s foremost terrorist regime will have an arsenal of nuclear weapons,” he said.
Netanyahu said Trump’s actions have led to an opportunity to fix “this bad deal, to roll back Iran’s aggression and to confront its criminal support of terrorism.”
Europe’s view
The European Union’s top diplomat, Federica Mogherini, said the Iranian agreement was “working and delivering” and that Trump did not have the power to terminate it.
Meanwhile, the leaders of the U.K., France and Germany, who were all involved in the 2015 agreement, said in a joint statement that they remain committed to the deal.
British Prime Minister Theresa May, French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel said they “encourage the U.S. administration and Congress to consider the implications to the security of the U.S. and its allies before taking any steps that might undermine the JCPOA, such as re-imposing sanctions on Iran lifted under the agreement.”
Nevertheless, Taleblu said most European leaders understand the threat that Tehran poses and the deficiencies in the nuclear agreement, and believes now is the time for the U.S. to engage in diplomacy with Europe.
A reconstructed wooden building around the former Majdanek death camp’s original crematorium. Credit: Wikimedia Commons.
German prosecutors have charged a former guard at the Majdanek death camp in Nazi-occupied Poland with accessory to the murder of at least 17,000 Jews.
The 96-year-old Frankfurt man—whose name was not released due to German privacy regulations—allegedly served as a member of the Nazi SS’s Death’s Head division as a perimeter guard at the death camp between August 1943 and January 1944.
“According to the known evidence, the suspect, as well as all other SS members of the camp, knew of the cruel and organized mass murder,” the German prosecutors said in a statement, The Associated Press reported.
“He also knew that these people, facing their fate innocently and defenselessly, were killed for inhuman reasons based on race,” they added.
The prosecution said it is prioritizing the investigation of the man’s involvement in the so-called “Operation Erntefest” of Nov. 3, 1943, in which at least 17,000 Jewish prisoners at the camp as well as others were shot in ditches. The man “contributed in his role as a perimeter guard and as a tower guard, and thus knowingly and deliberately aided” the killings, the prosecutors said.
Lymphoma cells. Credit: Gabriel Caponetti via Wikimedia Commons.
(Israel Hayom/Exclusive to JNS.org) Kite Pharma, founded by Israeli-American professor Arie Belldegrun in 2009, announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted regular approval for its cancer treatment, Yescarta.
California-based Gilead Sciences bought Kite Pharma for $12 billion in August.
The product, which the FDA approved on a fast-track process, is based on innovative technology that recruits the body’s immune system to identify and destroy cancer cells.
Yescarta is approved for the treatment of adult patients with relapsed or refractory large B-cell lymphoma after two or more lines of conventional therapy. To date, 100 patients have reportedly been treated with Yescarta.
The treatment is based on CAR-T therapy, which was developed by Israeli researchers at the Weizmann Institute of Science and the Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center. It represents a breakthrough in hematologic cancer treatment in which a patient’s own T cells are engineered to seek and destroy cancer cells. CAR-T therapy is customized for each patient.
“The FDA approval of Yescarta is a landmark for patients with relapsed or refractory large B-cell lymphoma,” Belldegrun said. “This approval would not have been possible without the courageous commitment of patients and clinicians, as well as the ongoing dedication of Kite’s employees. We believe this is only the beginning for CAR-T therapies.”
The White House. Credit: Matt Wade Photography via Wikimedia Commons.
(Israel Hayom/Exclusive to JNS.org) A senior White House official dismissed ongoing reports in the Israeli media that the U.S. would soon unveil an ambitious Middle East peace plan.
“While we are having productive conversations with all relevant parties, we have not set a timeframe nor created any deadlines,” the official told Israel Hayom. “Our efforts are designed to facilitate a deal between the Israelis and the Palestinians that improves conditions for all parties. The notion that this would cause a ‘political earthquake’ is nonsense and was in response to a false report created by people who want to play the role of spoiler. We are going to ignore the noise and focus on our work.”
Earlier this week, Israel’s Channel 2 reported on an alleged comprehensive U.S. peace plan that would be “sharp and to the point,” and drastically depart from the proposals of previous American administrations.
Albert Einstein. Credit: Orren Jack Turner via Wikimedia Commons.
A note handwritten by Albert Einstein in the 1920s, detailing the German-born physicist’s simple theory for a happy life, sold in a Jerusalem auction to an anonymous European buyer on Tuesday for $1.56 million.
The auction began at $2,000 and a series of bids pushed the price up rapidly until two final bidders competed by phone to own the historic piece. Thunderous applause erupted at Jerusalem-based Winner’s Auctions when the final bid was closed.
“It was an all-time record for an auction of a document in Israel,” Winner’s spokesman Meni Chadad told AFP.
The auction house originally estimated that the note would sell for between $5,000 and $8,000. The note was written during Einstein’s 1922 visit to Japan after he was informed that he would be awarded the Nobel Prize for physics. It was penned on Imperial Hotel Tokyo stationery and says in German, “A quiet and modest life brings more joy than a pursuit of success bound with constant unrest.”
The note is one of two that were gifted to a Japanese courier at the hotel in lieu of a cash tip. According to the seller, Einstein told the courier at the time, “Maybe if you’re lucky those notes will become much more valuable than just a regular tip.”
The second note written by Einstein sold for $240,000 and reads, “Where there’s a will, there’s a way.”
The former chief rabbi of the United Kingdom told a Washington, D.C., audience Oct. 24 that the rise of nationalism, fake news and an individualistic mindset are tearing at the social fabric of the United States — but he didn’t say who’s at fault.
Lord Rabbi Jonathan Sacks said that Americans are living in “tempestuous times” and that the lack of dialogue between people of different viewpoints has created a “culture of competitive victimhood.”
Lord Rabbi Jonathan Sacks tells an audience at the American Enterprise Institute that America has a “culture of competitive victimhood.” | Photo by Dan Schere
He was in Washington, D.C., to be honored by the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank, at its annual dinner. And although he did not name President Donald Trump as a culprit behind the rise of American nationalism, he gave his audience of 1,600 people a not-so-subtle hint.
“We have seen public discourse diluted by fake news and social media,” he said, noting that “fake news” was the most commonly used term of 2016 according to the Oxford English Dictionary.
Sacks said he spoke with a man in Washington, D.C., a few months ago and asked him what life in America was like. The man replied that it was similar to being a sailor standing on the deck of the Titanic, watching as the ship prepared to collide with the iceberg.
“The man on the ship is holding a glass of whiskey in his hand, and he says, ‘I know I always ask for ice, but this is ridiculous,’” Sacks said.
Sacks also referred to the wave of populism that has swept across Europe, saying that “populist politics are at their worst since the 1930s.”
“We can be patriotic without being nationalistic,” he said.
Sacks appeared to side with American conservatives when he voiced concern that too many Americans have the mindset that government is always the answer.
“We have a culture of grievances that are someone else’s responsibility,” he said. “People begin to think all political problems can be solved by the state.”
Sacks said Americans need to remember the social contract that their country was founded on — that different political parties unite in a bond of loyalty and trust for the greater good of the population.
He received a standing ovation when he said, “Don’t lose the American covenant before it’s too late.”
Daniel Schere is a political reporter for Washington Jewish Week, an affiliated publication of the Jewish Exponent.
Rutgers University’s Prof. Mazen Adi reportedly has deep ties to the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Credit: Kremlin.ru via Wikimedia Commons
UN Watch, an international human rights group, is calling on the U.S. to launch an investigation into Rutgers University’s Prof. Mazen Adi, who has deep ties with the Syrian government and has accused Israel of organ trafficking.
“The U.S. government needs to investigate how a long-time agent of the Syrian regime, close ally of Iran, was granted a visa to work and teach in America,” said Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch.
“It ought to be a matter of profound concern that an American university would allow an apologist for the Syrian regime’s genocide to be a teacher,” he said.
Adi joined Rutgers University as an adjunct professor in 2015. He teaches international criminal law, political science, and United Nations and global policy studies.
According to The Algemeiner, the Rutgers professor has deep ties to the Assad regime, working for the Syrian Foreign Ministry in various roles since 1998, including as a diplomat and legal adviser at Syria’s U.N. Mission from 2007-2014.
Adi has often spoken out in favor of the Assad regime, which has been accused of perpetrating war crimes and crimes against humanity during the Syrian Civil War. The professor also claimed in April 2012 that “international gangs led by some Israeli officials are now trafficking children’s organs.”
“When the United Nations debated Syria’s culpability for bombing its own people, Mazen Adi said that the Syrian authorities ‘upheld all their legal and judicial responsibilities,’” Neuer noted. “He is a liar and an apologist for mass murder.”
Not only was Gal Gadot named GQ’s Woman of the Year, but the Israeli actress, who rocketed to fame in Wonder Woman, is flexing her muscle by reportedly refusing to star in the sequel unless Warner Bros. dumps embattled producer Brett Ratner, Vox.com reported.
Several women have claimed that Ratner sexually assaulted them.
In October, Gadot declined to attend a dinner honoring Ratner where she was supposed to present an award to him.
Miss Israel, Miss Iraq Share Instagram Pose
Adar Gandelsman, who is Miss Israel, and Miss Iraq Sarah Idan posed together on Instagram during the Miss International Beauty Pageant in Tokyo, JTA reported. Each posted the photo to their separate Instagram accounts.
Idan’s caption said, “Peace and Love from Miss Iraq and Miss Israel,” while Gandelsman’s account said, “Get to know, this is Miss Iraq and she’s amazing.”
Both women competed in Las Vegas on Nov. 26 at the Miss Universe competition.
A post shared by Miss Universe Israel (@adar_gandelsman) on
Middle Eastern countries haven’t always appreciated such displays.
In 2015, Miss Lebanon Saly Greige was criticized for appearing in a photo that included Miss Israel Doron Matalon. And earlier this year, then-Miss Lebanon Amanda Hanna had her title removed after government officials learned she had visited Israel; Lebanese citizens are prohibited by law to visit Israel.
Marijuana-laced Matzoh Balls Create Stir
Joan Nathan, the so-called Julia Child of Jewish cuisine, raised eyebrows when she infused matzoh balls with marijuana in a cooking demonstration for Viceland’s Bong Appétit program, the New York Post reported.
“It’s supposed to be lighthearted,” said Nathan, who said she’s never smoked marijuana, although she ate it twice. “I don’t think [a little marijuana is] crazy.”
The recipe drew mixed reviews.
“It is a bit sacrilegious,” New Jersey professional chef Sarah Lasry said. “Sabbath is such a high to begin with. … There’s no need to infuse anything with weed.”
“I’m totally into it,” actress Fran Drescher (The Nanny) said. “I’m a big believer [that] cannabis can help every individual.”
Israeli Researchers Tout Poultry Poop as Fuel
Treated poultry excrement converted to combustible solid biomass fuel could replace about 10 percent of the coal used to generate electricity, according to researchers at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU).
“Environmentally safe disposal of poultry excrement has become a significant problem,” the researchers wrote. “Converting poultry waste to solid fuel, a less resource-intensive, renewable energy source, is an environmentally superior alternative that also reduces reliance on fossil fuels.”
Israeli actress Gal Gadot, who rocketed to fame in 2017 by playing the title character in Wonder Woman, ranked as the sixth-most searched person on Google, Google Trends reported.
Gadot also was the third-most searched in Google’s “actors” category.
On less-positive notes for Jews, disgraced American film producer Harvey Weinstein ranked as the fourth-most searched person, while somewhat-disgraced actor and comedian Louis C.K. was the fourth-most searched actor.
Fellowship Brings 5,600 Immigrants to Israel in 2017
The International Fellowship of Christians and Jews said it brought 5,600 immigrants from 27 countries to Israel in 2017, a 25 percent increase from a year ago.
The fellowship works in countries “where the Jewish community is threatened by economic turbulence, rising anti-Semitism or terrorism, and has become the lead aliyah force in nine of those countries.”
About 28,400 immigrants arrived in Israel from around the world in 2017, according to the fellowship. That total included 3,000 from North America and about 1,000 from other English-speaking nations.
Yiddish Version of ‘Fiddler on the Roof’ Planned
The National Yiddish Theater Folksbiene in New York City will produce a Yiddish-language adaptation of beloved musical Fiddler on the Roof, The New York Times reported. Performances are scheduled for July at the Museum of Jewish Heritage.
The production “will be presented in the context of a historical retrospective hypothetically introducing the idea that Sholem Aleichem has been present at the conception of the adaptation of his work for the musical stage,” Christopher Massimine, the Yiddish theater’s chief executive, said in a statement.
Tony Award-winner Sheldon Harnick, who wrote the show’s lyrics, will be a consultant, while Broadway director Jerry Zaks will be an adviser.
Throw Pillow Covers Featuring Holocaust Memorial Cause Stir for German Amazon
Amazon in Germany is being criticized for allowing retailers to sell a throw pillow cover depicting Berlin’s Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, JNS.org reported.
A company called Annyer Willer is selling the pillow cover of the Holocaust memorial for about $16. Amazon’s French and British websites have other retailers selling the pillow cover.
We Stand With Israel’s German branch responded cynically on social media by saying, “Let’s make some profit from the memory of the Holocaust. This is what the Jews would have wanted.”
Several With Area Connections Die in Costa Rica Plane Crash
A University of Pennsylvania student, his family and a family that used to live in Montgomery County were among 12 killed Dec. 31 in a plane crash in Costa Rica, The New York Times and The Philadelphia Inquirer reported.
Penn student William Steinberg from Scarsdale, N.Y., his parents and two brothers were headed to San José when the single-propeller plane crashed soon after taking off.
Also aboard were former Montgomery County residents Leslie Levin Weiss, husband Mitchell Weiss, and children Hannah Mae Weiss and Ari Moses Weiss. The family moved to Florida in 2005.
The wreath left outside the Hyper Cacher kosher supermarket in Paris by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius on Jan. 16, 2015, to pay homage to the Jewish victims of the Islamist terror attack at that site a week earlier. Credit: U.S. Department of State.
A kosher grocery store in a Paris suburb was destroyed in an arson attack on the third anniversary of the deadly Islamic terror attack on the French capital’s Hyper Cacher kosher supermarket.
The Promo & Destock store in the Paris suburb of Créteil was completely destroyed by fire Tuesday.
“The damage is believed to be very severe,” prosecutor Laure Beccuau told AFP, adding that investigators did not believe the fire was an accident.
The attack on the store comes just a week after it and another kosher store were defaced with swastikas.
Israel’s Ambassador to France, Aliza Bin Noun, called the fire a “shameful provocation.” The owner of the grocery store, who is a Muslim, said he was sickened by the attack.
“I just feel sick,” the 44-year-old store owner told AFP. “I’m Muslim. I work in a Jewish shop. There is no incompatibility there.”
According to the French anti-Semitism watchdog BNVCA, the attack was intended to “punish” the Muslim owner for his links to the Jewish community.
Estimated at around 500,000 people, France is home to one of Europe’s largest Jewish communities. But thousands of French Jews have emigrated to Israel in recent years due to rising anti-Semitism as well as attacks on Jewish targets and people.
Last April, 65-year-old French Jewish woman Sarah Halimi was beaten to death and thrown off her balcony by 27-year-old Kobili Traoré, a French-Malian Muslim man. The slow investigation and reaction by the French government to the murder drew widespread condemnation within the French media and Jewish community. Eventually, France’s President Emmanuel Macron called for a terrorism investigation five months later and the murder was categorized as an anti-Jewish hate crime.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (right) and President Donald Trump (left) with White House adviser Jared Kushner (center) at the start of a meeting in Jerusalem on May 22, 2017. Credit: Kobi Gideon/GPO.
As the anti-regime protests wind down in Iran, the White House said Jan. 10 that the U.S. is “deeply concerned” about reports that Iranian authorities have arrested thousands of citizens, with some purportedly being tortured or killed.
Meanwhile, the head of the Israeli Mossad intelligence agency, Yossi Cohen, said Jan. 9 that Israel has “eyes and ears” inside Iran and would “be very happy to see a social revolution” in the Islamic Republic.
But could the U.S. and Israel more aggressively promote regime change in Iran through supporting dissident minority groups, including by arming them? That was the recommendation put forth by Prof. Hillel Frisch, an expert on Islamic fundamentalism in the Middle East, in a report published this week for Bar-Ilan University’s Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies.
“In areas inhabited by minorities, such as the Kurds or the Arabs in the country’s southwest, efforts should be expended to conduct guerrilla operations,” wrote Frisch.
“Heating up the country’s periphery, where these minorities live, will do much to reduce the heat on the urban fighters who will carry the brunt of the fighting in meeting the primary strategic goal of the armed conflict — taking over and maintaining their hold on Tehran.”
He argued that the U.S. and Israel “must work around the clock to provide arms and the knowhow to use them to the Iranian protesters,” adding that the arms aid “will have to be buttressed by much tougher sanctions to the point of a blockade on the country’s ports or flight zones.”
In an interview with JNS, Frisch said that “preparing to motivate and realize such developments [towards regime change] must be made independent of how successful the present wave of protests are.”
While the demonstrations have clearly abated “in the face of Iran’s costly imperialist commitments to allies which only drain its resources and come at the expense of the economic welfare of its citizens, one can expect further waves of protest,” he said.
“Like a good surfer, the United States should make sure it does not miss the coming big wave,” Frisch added.
Has nationalism played a role in the protests?
Approximately 90-95 percent of Iranians are Shi’a Muslims, while the rest are Sunni Muslims or followers of other religions, including Zoroastrians, Jews and Christians, according to a 2011 estimate by the CIA World Factbook. Iran’s ethnic minorities are mainly the Azerbaijanis, Kurds, Baluchis, Arabs and Turkmen.
Meir Javedanfar, a lecturer on Iranian politics at Israel’s IDC Herzliya research college, told JNS that he does not see “evidence that any people were using the protests for minority interests.” Rather, he said the Iranian demonstrations have been “framed within the government’s failure to meet [the people’s] needs, not nationalism.”
Asked if, in the event of regime change, there would be a chance for greater autonomy or even independence for parts of Iran with large numbers of minorities, Javedanfar said that “even if there was a different regime, the Iranians are quite nationalistic and would resist breaking apart the country.”
Yet Arif Bawecani, the head of the Iranian Kurdistan Independent Party, said his movement’s “problem with Iranian occupation regime is not just the economy or changing the regime. We have nationality issues. We want the right to self-determination.”
This issue of self-determination would be present even if the current government were overthrown, said Bawecani, an Iranian Kurd originating from what he considers Iranian-occupied territory. He currently resides outside of Iran, but stays in touch with those in the Islamic Republic’s Kurdish region. He noted that anti-government protests were taking place throughout the Kurdish areas of Iran.
A continuation of Israel’s ‘periphery doctrine’
In the 1950s, David Ben-Gurion developed the “periphery doctrine” — a policy of recruiting non-Arab allies like Iran and Turkey in order to help Israel overcome the Arab world’s hostility towards the Jewish state. In that sense, supporting the U.S. in arming Iranian minorities such as the Kurds would not be an entirely new strategy for Israel. For instance, following the 1979 Islamic Revolution, Israel used Iraqi Kurdistan as a base for the collection of intelligence against Iran.
Israel has been linked with supporting Baluchi fighters in Iran. According to two U.S. intelligence officials quoted in a 2012 article in Foreign Policy, Israeli Mossad agents posed as American spies in order to recruit members of the Jundallah organization who were responsible for terrorist attacks against the Iranian regime.
Further, media reports have raised the possibility that Israel could launch airstrikes against Iranian military sites from bases in Azerbaijan, which shares a border with Iran. There are an estimated 16-25 million Azerbaijani Shi’a Muslims living in Iran.
Steven Spielberg. Credit: Gage Skidmore via Wikimedia Commons.
Steven Spielberg’s latest film, The Post, has been banned in Lebanon due to the famed Jewish-American director’s purported ties with Israel.
A source involved with the international rollout of The Post said the movie “was presented to the Lebanese censorship board, which nixed it, citing a ‘boycott Israel’ list that includes Spielberg due to his Oscar-winning Holocaust film Schindler’s List (the 1993 film shot some scenes in Jerusalem),” according to The Hollywood Reporter.
The Post, which stars Tom Hanks and Meryl Strep, tells the story of The Washington Post’s decision to defy attempts by the U.S. government to suppress reporting on the Pentagon Papers. The film was released in the U.S. on Jan. 12 and was set to be released in Lebanon on Jan. 18.
Earlier this year, Lebanon and Jordan banned the screening of Wonder Woman, which casted Israeli actress Gal Gadot in the lead role, over her service in the Israeli military. Spielberg is not an Israeli citizen, nor has he served in the IDF.
Nevertheless, Spielberg has been supportive of Israel in the past, such as his donation of $1 million to relief efforts in Israel following the 2006 Second Lebanon War with Hezbollah.
Spielberg’s most recent works, including BFG and Bridge of Spies,were both released in Lebanon.
The rail leading to the former Auschwitz II (Birkenau) concentration camp in Poland. Credit: Wikimedia Commons.
The lower house of the Polish Parliament passed a law this week banning the use of the term “Polish concentration camps,” in an attempt to lay blame for the Holocaust squarely on German Nazis and exonerate Poles from being complicit in the crimes that left more than 1 million Polish Jews dead during World War II.
The law’s passage was met with harsh rebuke across the Israeli political spectrum. During his cabinet meeting Sunday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said, “The law is baseless; I strongly oppose it. One cannot change history and the Holocaust cannot be denied.”
Defending the law, Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki posted on Twitter that the Auschwitz concentration camp “is the most bitter lesson on how evil ideologies can lead to hell on Earth. Jews, Poles, and all victims should be guardians of the memory of all who were murdered by German Nazis. Auschwitz-Birkenau is not a Polish name, and ‘Arbeit Macht Frei’ (work will set you free) is not a Polish phrase.”
Morawiecki continued, “A gang of professional thugs enters a two-family house. They kill the first family almost entirely. They kill the parents of the second, torturing the kids. They loot and raze the house. Could one, in good conscience, say that the second family is guilty for the murder of the first?”
Member of Knesset Yair Lapid, leader of the Yesh Atid party, tweeted, “I strongly condemn the new law that was passed in Poland, which attempts to deny the involvement of many Polish citizens in the Holocaust. No Polish law will change history, Poland was complicit in the Holocaust. Hundreds of thousands of Jews were murdered on its soil without them having met any German officer.”
Netanyahu and Morawiecki spoke Sunday evening and “agreed to immediately open a dialogue between staffs of the two countries, in order to try and reach an understanding over the legislation,” according to a statement from Netanyahu’s office.
It is unclear whether the Israeli-Polish talks will lead to any changes in the legislation, which still needs to pass through the Polish Senate before becoming law. A Polish government spokesperson tweeted that the dialogue between the countries “will not concern sovereign decisions of the Polish parliament.”
While much of American and Israeli Jewry view Europe either as a “flyover continent” or as a vast and dangerous pit of anti-Semitism from which all Jews must flee, many overlook the facts and figures that indicate rising numbers of Jews living in relative comfort in many of Europe’s largest cities.
Jewish organizations, schools, stores and restaurants that are cropping up, particularly in Austria’s capital of Vienna, indicate the community has experienced enormous growth in waves, as wars and political changes have forced and enabled immigration to the region. On the banks of the Danube canal, the Jewish community in Vienna now houses an estimated 15,000-20,000 Jews, according to Austria’s largest newspaper Der Standard, though the community’s own last census in 2001 counted only 8,000 Jews. After World War II, the number of Jews surviving the war stood at about 8,000, coming down from well over 185,000 before the Nazis came to power in 1938.
Since I was in Vienna with my family visiting relatives during New Jersey’s January “yeshiva break” vacation, I noticed that a viable cross-section of today’s modern Jewish community in Vienna is easily seen by kosher-keeping visitors just by virtue of our daily pursuits. While we primarily visited with family and stopped at sights such as the famed Vienna Opera House, the Musikverein symphony hall, and various palaces and museums, we also, of course, had to eat and drink. Speaking with a shop assistant in Ferszt Vinothek, an entirely kosher wine store, I learned that the store sells a whopping 300-500 bottles of wine each week, depending on whether the store is catering for bar mitzvahs, weddings or engagement parties. The shop is located in Leopoldstadt, also known colloquially as Matzoinsel (Matzo Island), the second district of Vienna, where there has been an active Jewish community since as early as 1194, when Duke Frederick I promoted a Jew to the role of munzmeister (master of the mint).
While the City Temple (Stadttempel) was the only Vienna synagogue to survive Kristallnacht, the growth of local Jewish life today indicates a rebirth of a resilient, traditional and vibrant community.
The Chabad House in Vienna offers coffee and hot chocolate to visitors. Credit: Elizabeth Kratz.
While Austrians and the Austrian government have demonstrated an on-again, off-again relationship with their capital’s Jewish inhabitants, alternately expelling them and warmly welcoming them through the centuries, the community is, for now, on an upswing. Ten or more kosher restaurants now dot the city, with most of them centered in Leopoldstadt, which is also filled with Jewish institutions, including Chabad, Tomchei Schabbos (a charity organization) and the Ronald Lauder Foundation yeshiva. The city’s three largest kosher supermarkets, which carry many fresh and frozen kosher brands, rival any in Israel or the New York metropolitan area. Five kosher bakeries are also located in the district. Delicacies such as Mozart kugel, a uniquely Austrian, round chocolate-dipped treat filled with cake, cream and marzipan, as well as pink rum cakes and wienerbrot (a unique cross between seedless rye bread and sourdough), are available in peak kosher form at Bakerie Ohel Moshe.
A view of the pastry display case at Bakerie Ohel Moshe. Credit: Elizabeth Kratz.
Vienna has also become a popular first stop for American and Israeli Hassidic Jews from Boro Park or Bnei Brak, as they embark on kever (grave) tours of famed rabbis in Hungary, Germany, Czech Republic, Poland and Ukraine. These visitors arrive in Vienna weekly and are hosted once each week at the beginning of their tour in the Alef Alef restaurant. They make use of Vienna’s easy-to-navigate infrastructure, Shabbat-friendly hotels and guesthouses, and excellent array of kosher foods and baked goods to organize, pack and embark on their tours.
The permanent Jewish community in Vienna is comprised of three parts, which also have subgroups. The community is made up of both Ashkenazi and Sephardi Jews from Central Asia, Georgia, Russia, Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, Romania and Israel.
The first is the community of Jewish survivors (and their descendants) of the Holocaust and specifically from European ghettos, most often from Budapest. The Budapest Ghetto was created later than the others, in 1944, and the Jews were not fully deported from there by the time the war ended in 1945. Many young female survivors from Budapest married Jewish men who survived the war and settled in Vienna. While many Jews took the opportunity to leave Europe for America or Israel, some of the individuals who stayed were able to build profitable businesses in the post-war years, many of which focused on Vienna’s textile and fur industries.
The second wave of Jews are primarily Sephardic, Bukharian Jews from Ukraine and the former Soviet Union, who moved to Vienna during the late 1970s and 1980s. Vienna’s first Bukharian synagogue was opened in 1990.
A third wave of Jews are from Israel and America, who have come together to join kollels (institutes for advanced Talmud study) and to staff yeshivas created to educate the Jews coming from the former Soviet Union communities. As this community has grown, it has brought with it a taste of modern Israel.
Without a unified authority in Vienna like America’s Orthodox Union to provide kosher certification, the Israelitische Kultusgemeinde Wien (Jewish community of Vienna), like its counterparts in Britain, Germany and France, provides a hefty list of branded food items available in Austria that are kosher without markings on packages. For their growing number of restaurants and bakeries, Vienna’s kosher-keeping communities have several certifying rabbis.
Mea Shearim Restaurant is a new restaurant serving Asian fusion cuisine. Credit: Elizabeth Kratz.
A young couple, Janet and Izhak Faiziev, own a three-month-old Asian fusion restaurant called Mea Shearim, serving sushi, Chinese food and noodle bowls. The restaurant was recently written up as “koscher, cool und asiatisch” (kosher, cool and Asian) in Wina Magazin, an independent Jewish magazine published in German. The restaurant’s clean lines, ultra-modern design and unique tableware contribute to the hotspot’s modish appeal.
“It was my dream to open a restaurant here where I grew up,” Janet Faiziev told me. She explained that the name of Mea Shearim comes not from the name of the haredi neighborhood in Jerusalem, but from a verse in the Torah (Genesis 26:12) about the patriarch Isaac (her husband’s namesake) that states, “Yitzchak sowed in that land, and in that year he reaped a hundredfold (mea shearim); God had blessed him.”
As this young couple joins a vibrant landscape with at least five kosher restaurants within just a few blocks in the historic Leopoldstadt, it is with cautious optimism that the community continues to grow and support itself. The community is still heavily guarded both by private security forces and the Austrian government, as the Stadttempel was the site of a horrific Palestinian terror attack in 1981 that injured 21 and killed two. Like all Viennese synagogues, the Stadttempel, yeshivas and many institutions are protected by round-the-clock security. Otherwise, the community is as welcoming to its visitors as any other, and kosher food is plentiful and is served to the city’s many visitors with a smile.
Elizabeth Kratz is the associate publisher and editor of The Jewish Link of New Jersey and The Jewish Link of Bronx, Westchester and Connecticut.
Penn Cuts Ties With Steve Wynn Over Sexual Harassment Reports
The University of Pennsylvania announced it was taking several actions to distance itself from alumnus and former trustee Steve Wynn in the wake of multiple allegations of sexual harassment and intimidation.
President Amy Gutmann and Board of Trustees Chair David L. Cohen said in a letter that outdoor plaza Wynn Commons, which was named after the real estate magnate, will have his name removed. In addition, his honorary degree will be revoked and a scholarship fund he established will have his name removed, too.
“Our nation is currently undergoing a profound reckoning regarding the role and extent of sexual misconduct in all areas of our society,” the letter read. “It is incumbent on all of us to address these issues wherever and whenever we find that they affect our extended community.”
Penn also announced it was revoking an honorary degree given to Bill Cosby, also the subject of numerous sexual assault allegations.
Penn Student’s Alleged Killer Belonged to Neo-Nazi Group
Samuel Woodward, who is accused of killing University of Pennsylvania student Blaze Bernstein in Orange County, California, is a neo-Nazi and a member of the Atomwaffen Division fascist group, ProPublica.org reported.
Bernstein, 19, was reported missing while visiting his family over winter break. He was found in a shallow grave in a park, stabbed more than 20 times. He and Woodward, 20, attended the same high school.
Orange County prosecutors said they are considering pursuing the murder as a hate crime since Bernstein was Jewish and openly gay.
The Atomwaffen Division is an armed fascist group that celebrates Charles Manson and Adolf Hitler and seeks to overthrow the U.S. government via terrorism and guerrilla warfare, ProPublica.org said.
Polish Senate Approves Legislation Criminalizing Use of ‘Polish Death Camps’ Term
Polish lawmakers voted in favor of legislation that criminalizes the use of terms including “Polish death camp” to describe camps Nazis set up in the country during World War II, JTA reported.
The law is crafted to show that Nazi Germany was responsible for the crimes against humanity. Those who violate the law could face up to three years in prison.
By a 57-23 vote, the Polish Senate approved the legislation, which already was passed by the lower house of the Polish Parliament. Polish President Andrzej Duda has said he will sign the legislation.
The would-be law has been met with criticism from Israeli lawmakers, scholars, Yad Vashem, the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum and the U.S. State Department, which said it “could undermine free speech and academic discourse.”
Russia Kicks Out ‘Extremist’ US-Born Rabbi Josef Marozof
New York-born Chabad Rabbi Josef Marozof was ordered to leave Russia because the nation’s FS0B security service accused him of involvement in “extremist behavior,” JTA reported. The nature of that behavior was not disclosed.
Marozof lost a Supreme Court appeal and has since departed to the United States with his wife and six Russian-born children. He had denied the charges.
Marozof had worked for Chabad in Ulyanovsk, a city 400 miles east of Moscow, for the past 12 years.
Poland’s President Andrzej Duda. Credit: Lukas Plewnia via Wikimedia Commons.
Poland’s President Andrzej Duda on Tuesday signed into a law a controversial bill that makes it a crime for anyone to suggest Polish complicity in the Holocaust.
But reports indicated that Duda will ask Poland’s constitutional court to evaluate the bill, which leaves open the possibility that the law can be amended.
“We hope that within allotted time until the court’s deliberations are concluded, we will manage to agree on changes and corrections,” Israel’s Foreign Ministry stated.
Following the signing of the law, comments denouncing the measure poured in from the U.S. and Israel.
“The United States is disappointed that the President of Poland has signed legislation that would impose criminal penalties for attributing Nazi crimes to the Polish state,” said Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.
The U.S. reaffirmed “that terms like ‘Polish death camps’ are painful and misleading,” but added that “we believe that open debate, scholarship, and education are the best means of countering misleading speech.”
Similarly, the Jerusalem-based Yad Vashem World Holocaust Remembrance Center said it is “unfortunate” that the law was signed.
“These flaws are liable to result in the distortion of history due to the limitations that the law places on public expressions regarding the collaboration of parts of the Polish population — either directly or indirectly — in crimes that took place on their own land during the Holocaust,” Yad Vashem said.
The Simon Wiesenthal Center called the law a “cowardly surrender to the practitioners of extremist politics.”
“Poland has now turned Holocaust distortion into law and joins the ranks of forces who are attempting to evade any historical responsibility for the crimes Holocaust,” said Rabbi Marvin Hier, founder and dean of the Wiesenthal Center, and Rabbi Abraham Cooper, the center’s associate dean.
“It is a sad day for Poland,” said Agnieszka Markiewicz, director of the American Jewish Committee’s Warsaw-based Central Europe office. “It is painful to see Poland, which has made such remarkable strides as a country since the dramatic events of 1989, suddenly in a deep crisis with Israel, a strategic partner; with the Jewish world, which had begun to show so much interest in the country; and, yes, with the United States, an essential ally.”
Former U.S. Rep. and Holocaust survivor Tom Lantos. Credit: Wikimedia Commons.
A statue honoring former U.S. lawmaker and Holocaust survivor Tom Lantos was unveiled in Budapest, Hungary on Thursday.
The Hungarian-born Lantos, who served a Democrat from California in the House of Representatives from 1981 until his death in 2008, was the only Holocaust survivor to ever sit in Congress. He was widely known for his advocacy of democracy, fighting anti-Semitism and standing up for human rights around the world, establishing the bipartisan Congressional Human Rights Caucus in 1983.
“During his whole life, his heart was in Hungary,” said his widow Annette at the ceremony on Thursday, which would have been Lantos’ 90th birthday, the Associated Press reported.
During the Holocaust, Lantos, who was a teenager at the time, was sent to a forced labor camp near Budapest. He eventually escaped the camp, got caught and was severely beaten, but managed to escape again. Eventually Lantos survived the final years of the war at a Budapest safe house established by Swedish diplomat Raul Wallenberg, where he also served in Wallenberg’s anti-Nazi underground network.
“Tom Lantos called on all of us—not just those in government service, but all citizens, all human beings—to show courage in the face of fear, to smooth difficulties and correct mistakes,” said David Kostelancik, the charge d’affaires at the U.S. Embassy in Budapest.
The statue honoring Lantos comes amid a deep discussion and controversy in Hungary over the past year concerning the country’s role in the Holocaust. Last June, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban was widely condemned by Jewish groups for praising World War II-era Hungarian leader and Nazi ally Miklos Horthy. More recently, Hungarian Jewish groups condemned a senior Hungarian politician, Sandor Lezsak, for a planned speech honoring Miklos Horthy on International Holocaust Remembrance Day.
Congregation Ohev Sholom in Washington, DC. Ohev Sholom is one of four Orthodox Union congregations employing female clergy. Credit: Facebook.
The Orthodox Union (OU), after a year of discussions with various stakeholders and in the face of some opposition, has established parameters for a three-year period during which the umbrella body for American Orthodox congregations will work to bring its member synagogues who employ female clergy into compliance with OU standards, which stipulate that a woman cannot serve as a rabbi.
According to a new statement issued by the OU, women can (and already do) work in OU member synagogues in other roles, including as high-level Torah teachers, scholars, yoatzot (family purity advisers), social workers and pastoral counselors; those roles have been expressly delineated in previous OU statements.
While the ordination of female rabbis is accepted by Reform and Conservative Judaism and is not a controversial issue in those movements, the debate on women clergy has long been the source of heated disagreements within the Orthodox community.
Last year, an OU rabbinic panel released a 17-page report on women serving as clergy in member synagogues. The panel concluded that it is not permissible under Jewish law for women to serve as rabbis, and that OU member synagogues should continue to not employ women in that position. But in a departure from previous statements, it defined a range of leadership roles that are acceptable for women in synagogue and community life, with the caveat that those positions must be acceptable to the rabbis working inside each specific community.
In the intervening time, the OU, at the rabbinic panel’s suggestion, has established a department of women’s initiatives and hired Dr. Adina Shmidman, rebbetzin (rabbi’s wife) of the Lower Merion Shul in the Philadelphia suburbs, as its director. The department’s areas of focus include defining women’s leadership roles, developing lay leadership and training opportunities, initiating learning groups, promoting and providing opportunities for female scholars to serve as speakers and scholars-in-residence, creating events for young women for Torah and secular learning opportunities, wellness, developing ways for capturing community feedback, and understanding and optimizing synagogue usability.
In the case of four OU member synagogues who employ women in rabbinic capacities—Hebrew Institute of Riverdale in the Bronx, N.Y.; Beth Shalom in Potomac, Md.; B’nai David-Judea in Los Angeles; and Ohev Sholom in Washington, D.C.—the OU explicitly stated it would make no move to eject synagogues or individuals from its network, though all the women in question have received rabbinic degrees from Yeshivat Maharat, Rabbi Avi Weiss’s rabbinic degree-granting seminary for women, which grants a rabbinic degree that is often at odds with the standards of other OU communal and partner institutions.
Allen Fagin, executive vice president of the OU, said the emphasis of the new parameters “is not on this handful of OU shuls [who employ women as clergy], we are talking about less than 1 percent of our shuls. We have said definitively that if you want to be an OU member shul you have to be in compliance with OU rules. There is a narrow exception for a handful of shuls that currently employ female clergy and did so prior to the enunciation of our policy a year ago.”
“With respect to those shuls, we are making clear that the responses of the rabbinic panel are our standards,” he said. “We want to put a process in place to work with those shuls, in the hopes that they will modify their practices so that they will come into compliance with the responses of the rabbinic panel. That will take time; we will work with them for a three-year period. Our fervent hope is that they will come into conformity.”
The OU said in its new statement on the issue, “Each of the four shuls has had female clergy in their employ for a considerable period of time—and certainly well before the issuance of the rabbinic responses and the OU statement. Moreover, we are taught that communal unity and darchei shalom (ways of peace) are significant core Jewish values that must be weighed, advanced and nurtured; in this regard, we were guided by the views expressed by our rabbinic panel…we will not take action with respect to these congregations based on their existing arrangements in the employment of female clergy. This determination is not—and should not be viewed—as an endorsement of such arrangements. To the contrary, we will continue to urge these synagogues to modify their practices out of respect for the guidelines we have adopted.”
The synagogue umbrella organization added, “Our dialogue with these congregations will continue, and we will share with them the alternative approaches we have identified (and will, in the future, continue to identify) to maximize the participation of women within the ranks of synagogue professionals in a manner consistent with the responses of our rabbinic panel.”
Rabbi Shmuel Herzfeld, leader of Washington’s Ohev Sholom, one of the four OU congregations employing female clergy, said he believes the OU “does not get to define what is Orthodox” and called the organization’s latest statement “horrible.”
“These men in the leadership of the OU don’t want to give proper credit and respect to women. When they came to our office, and spoke to the maharats (the designation for women granted by Weiss) and asked them to change their title. The chutzpah. I feel that there is very weak leadership at the helm of this organization,” said Herzfeld.
Regarding his hope for what would happen at the conclusion of the OU’s newly established three-year period for member synagogues with female clergy, Herzfeld said, “They said that they will reevaluate in three years. I pray that in these three years, the OU will be reevaluated, that there will be new leadership that will not be so narrow-minded and shortsighted, and that they can grow and be a more open and inclusive organization.”
Rabbi Steven Pruzansky, leader of Congregation B’nai Yeshurun in Teaneck, N.J., said that it was important for the OU to note that there are synagogue-based roles that can be performed by women and that “the Jewish people lose when we cannot in a formal way access the talents and brains of half our population. But since women cannot, according to halacha (Jewish law), fulfill many important functions of the rabbinate, the ascription of that title and those roles to women serve ultimately to diminish the very essence of the rabbinate.”
“The survival of the mesorah (oral tradition) requires that past and future merge in the present,” added Pruzansky. “That is why radical changes are always spurned. It is why the infiltration of modern cultural norms into a Torah environment is so harmful and those norms are naturally rejected. A Judaism that is unrecognizable to the ‘remnant of the scribes’ is not authentic. We are at an inflection point with this new movement and I hope they (advocates for female clergy) take this guidance to heart.”
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