OpinionThe Jewish National EditionPost&Presenting a broad spectrum of Jewish News and Opinions since 1935.

Volume 84, Number 2 • March 7, 2018 • 20 Adar 5778www.jewishpostopinion.com • https://go.usa.gov/xn7ay

Cover Art by Carolyn Frankel (see About the Cover on p. 2)

Masada is about two hours fromKibbutz Ketura but its connections are alot closer. London-born Dr. Sarah Sallon,Director of the Louis Borick NaturalMedicine Research Center at theHadassah Medical Center, Ein Karem,Jerusalem is friends with California-bornbotanist of the Arava Institute forEnvironmental Studies at Kibbutz Ketura,Dr. Elaine Solowey.

According to Dr. Sallon, “in 2005 wewere interested in rejuvenating lost floraof Eretz Yisrael. One of the lost flora is theJudaean date. I was discussing with somescientists about their work, trying to extractDNA from ancient seeds.” She asked, “ifwe had ancient seeds, why couldn’t wegrow them?”

Masada came up in the conversation.The fortress, built by King Herod over2,000 years ago, between 37 and 31 BCE,was home to almost a thousand zealotsuntil the Romans breached the wall in 72CE and found the bodies of the Jews.

From 1963 to 1965, archaeologists Yigal Yadin and Ehud Netzer excavatedMasada and found date palm seeds at the approach to the Northern palace.They became part of the custodianship ofNetzer, stored at Bar Ilan University.

Dr. Sallon had the idea to plant theseeds and see if they would grow.Hadassah asked her what the seeds had to do with them and she replied, “we study natural therapies.”Hadassah agreedto let Dr. Sallon become involved on three conditions – “don’t ask us for money,don’t ask us for anything and don’tembarrass us!”

Dr. Sallon directs a research center whichstudies complementary alternative andintegrated medicine through the MiddleEastern Medicinal Plant Project. Afterlooking at medicine of Tibet, as an intro-duction to the ancient world of traditionalmedicine, they began to look at themedicinal plants of Eretz Yisrael, of whichthere are approximately 2,900 species.

Dr. Sallon asked Professor Netzer if they could have a few seeds, and theywere given five palm seeds. Dr. Sallontook them to her colleague, Dr. Solowey.

Dr. Solowey took three of the 2,000-year-old seeds and planted them in January2005. Other seeds were sent to the

Seen on theIsrael Scene

From Masada toKibbutz Ketura

Methuselah in the Arava Institute researchpark on Kibbutz Ketura. Photo by Dr. Stolowey

(see Kaplan/Israel, page 17)

2 The Jewish Post & Opinion – NAT March 7, 2018

University of Zurich, Switzerland for radiocarbon dating.They were also tested to seeif they were anti-bacterial, anti-viral,anti-cancer, anti-fungal, anti-malaria,anti-oxidant, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s andimmune regulatory.

The date palm was one of the bestmedicinal trees, domesticated over 6,000years ago. It can be male or female,and the babies are dates. Medicine of thedate palm was used for lung disease,colds, heart disease, hair growth and other things.

After eight weeks, in March of 2005, oneseed successfully germinated and wasnamed Methuselah, the biblical personwho was said to have lived 969 years.

Initially, the first leaves had white spotsbecause of a lack of chlorophyll. At 15months, the seedling was transferred to a larger pot. After 26 months, the plantshowed normal development.

Dr. Sallon says it is in the Guiness Bookof Records as the oldest cultivated seed.In 2011, I was permitted to see a still photograph of Methuselah on the computer when its exact location wasbeing kept a secret. At that time, it wastwo meters high (about 6-1/2 feet) and in a “protected quarantine site,”due to itsscientific and financial value.

In April 2011, a white flower appearedon the inner part of the tree, indicatingthat Methuselah was, indeed, male.

On Nov. 24, 2011, the tree was plantedat Kibbutz Ketura, in the presence of theNational President of Hadassah, MarcieNatan, and Lord David Wolfson of England.

Today, Methuselah has a permanenthome in the Arava Institute research parkon Kibbutz Ketura. At the time I wrotethis, there was hope for Methuselah, amale tree, to be bred with a female to produce the same date variety eaten commonly in ancient Judea, where it wasvalued as much for its delicious flavor asfor its medicinal properties.

Solowey continues to work with palmsand has grown other date palms fromancient seeds found in archeological sitesaround the Dead Sea, as well.

Be Like MiriamBy Carolyn Frankel

This art depicting Miriam from thePassover story isfrom the book, BeLike Rachel: Lessonsof Character fromWomen of the Biblewritten and beau-tifully illustrated byCarolyn Frankel.

Frankel, a writerand artist, was anelementary schooleducator teaching through the arts for 38years in the Ohio public schools. Shewrote this book to teach children not onlyabout the Matriarchs of the Bible but as avehicle to teach good character. Shebelieves this is a lifelong task for everyoneand the world is in need ofseeing more examples ofthis now.

In order to achieve“enduring external successwe must continue to builda strong moral core,” shewrites. “I want readers tothink about how they can contribute tosomething larger than themselves, whichcan only come when we answer the ques-tion of what qualities of character each ofus want to work on.”

In the book, Frankel gives backgroundinformation on each biblical woman fol-lowed by helpful lessons one can glean fromthe good character traits they all demon-strated. Then hopefully one will strive toemulate these traits in his or her own life.

Below are the women in the book withthe good character traits they exhibit. Eachwoman is stunningly, artisically portrayedby Frankel helping the reader feel a kinship with her.

Eve – Be Responsible & Accept Consequences;Naamah – Protect the Planet; Sarah –Believe in the Power of Your Dreams; Hagar– Determination; Rebekah – PromiseKeeper; Rachel – Kindness; Leah – Faith;Miriam – Inspiration; The daughters ofZelophehad – Cooperation; Deborah –Leadership; Ruth – Devotion & LoyaltyHannah – Gratitude; and Esther – Courage.

Every classroom should have a copy ofthis book and it also makes a great coffeetable art book, as well. Even though it waswritten for children, adults appreciate themessage this book communicates.

For more details or to purchase thebook, go to her website: carolynfrankel.com, or email: FrankelArts@gmail.com,or on Facebook: facebook.com/AuthorCarolynFrankel AAAA

C. Frankel

About the Cover

BY SYBIL KAPLAN

(see Editorial, page 7)

March 7, 2018 The Jewish Post & Opinion – NAT 3about myself. I wanted to offer him, too,the chance to give something and feelgood about himself.

In the end, he gave me so much – amoment of netzach, of eternity – a momentthat I will never forget. Our souls arewired to give. That’s how the Creator created us. Sometimes the kindest act wecan do is to receive – to allow someoneelse to give to us.

Aryeh Ben David founded and directsAyeka (www.ayeka.org.il) Center for SoulfulEducation.

After the column came out, I saw thefollowing quote by Shlomo Carlebach:“You are not doing a favor to those in need[when you give them charity]; they do youa favor by turning you into a benefactor.”(Found on p. 218 of the book, Kol Chevra:Love & Healing, published on the 22ndanniversary of his yahrzeit.)

This column reminded my niece of astory which is appropriate for this bridaledition. I will tell it as I remember it and notnecessarily as it is written (Talmud Bavli,Shabbos tractate, Page 156, second side).

When Rabbi Akiva was blessed with ababy girl, he was told by an astrologer thatshe would die when she gets married. Asshe grew closer to the age for marriage,he got more and more anxious and keptputting off finding a suitable mate for her.Finally one day he realized he couldn’t waitany longer. He reluctantly found a matchfor her and a ceremony was planned.

On the day of her wedding the bridewas getting ready for the ceremony. Aftershe put on her dress, she was looking for away to keep her hair off her shoulders. Shefound a hair pin and by twisting her hairaround and pulling it up, she was able tokeep her hair up by inserting the pin.

After the wedding, a lovely receptionwas held. At these celebrations, it was thecustom to have a table for poor people tocome and sit for a nice meal. They had alldone this, but a little later the bride lookedover and saw that one poor person hadcome late and no food was left. Shelooked around and saw no one elsenoticed this so she went over herself andmade sure this person had plenty to eat.

That night when she was getting readyfor bed she took the pin out of her hairand was looking for a place to put it down.She saw a hole in the wall so she stuck thepin in it telling herself she would find abetter place for it later. The next morningwhen she pulled the pin out a dead snakewas on the other end.

She was alarmed by this so she went totell her father. He asked her to tell him indetail everything she had done the daybefore. When she told him about feedingthe poor person who came late, he wasvery relieved because charity is one of the

Over winter break, my brotherBenzion’s oldest son and his wife traveledby van for a one day visit from Buffalo,N.Y., with six of their seven children for afamily reunion. See what my brotherwrote about this on page 6. In a conversa-tion with my niece, I told her about thiscolumn below that we had published.

On the Subway by Aryeh Ben DavidI am taking the Broadway #1 train from

Penn Station to Van Cortlandt Park in thelate afternoon. Van Cortlandt Park is thelast stop on the line. About 3 stops fromthe end, everyone in my car exits. I’m leftalone. The door opens from another car.Enters a 30-something year old guy, big,and obviously drunk. I’m at the other endof the car.

He stumbles over to me. I’m getting abit nervous. He’s bigger than me, and I’ma worrying kind of guy. He leans overclose to me, about 5 inches from my ear,and whispers: “Tzedakah. You know whattzedakah is?”

Surprised and amused, I answer “yes.”He waits. I pause. Then I take a dollar

out of my pocket and give it to him. Hebegins to stumble away. I don’t knowwhat happened to me, but I call after him,“Hey. I gave you something. Now you giveme something.”

He looks back at me, not understanding.I say it again,“Give me something.”I call out,“I gave you tzedakah.You give me a blessing.”

He looks puzzled.I say, “I have a kid who just had two

knee operations. Do you have a blessing?”He says, “I bless you that your kid will

be healthy.”Then he takes a step to walk away and

stops. [He] puts his hand on the subwaypole, turns back to me and says, “And I give you a blessing, that whatever happens to your kid, God will give you the strength to handle whatever it is.”

Wow. I was overcome with emotion. Ihad given him a dollar from my pocket.He gave me a blessing from his heart.

The train stopped. We said goodbye toeach other. “Goodbye friend, thank you.”“Goodbye friend, have a good day.”

At the moment, I didn’t know what propelled me to ask him for a blessing.Looking back, I understand it like this:

Asking for something – a cigarette ormoney – can be a very degrading andhumiliating experience. He had given methe chance to be a giving person – to giveto him.

Though I hesitated and didn’t give witha full, open heart or smile, after givingsomething to him – I actually felt good

Editorial Inside this Issue

1389 W 86th St. #160Indianapolis, IN 46260email: jpostopinion@gmail.comphone and fax: (317) 405-8084website: www.jewishpostopinion.compublisher & editor: Jennie Cohengraphic designer: Charlie Bunes

OpinionPost&The Jewish

Jewish News and Opinion since 1935.

virtues that can save one from death. Herlife had been spared.

Then I told my niece her story remindsme of the Unetaneh Tokef prayer from theHigh Holy Day liturgy that says,“On RoshHashanah it is written and on Yom Kippurit is sealed who will live and who will die,

About the Cover ......................................2Sybil Kaplan: (Seen on the Israel Scene)

From Masada to Kibbutz Ketura ........2Jennie Cohen (Editorial) ..........................3Rabbi Moshe ben Asher & Magidah

Khulda bat Sarah (Gather the People)Miraculous manna from heaven........4

Amy Lederman (Jewish Educator) Passover: Faith and Hope ...................5

Rabbi Herbert Horowitz (Maggid)God’s second chance...........................6

Rabbi Benzion Cohen (Chassidic Rabbi)A beautiful story ..................................6

Rabbi Benjamin SendrowFear of God verses in awe of God ....7

Rabbis Dennis & Sandy SassoRevisit purpose of 2nd Amendment ......8

Rabbi Jon Adland (Shabbat Shalom) Terumah, Exodus 25:1–27:19 ................8

Jim Shipley (Shipley Speaks)Therefore, choose life ..........................9

Rabbi Sandy SassoCulture drives sexual harassment .......9

Susan WeintrobPermission to speak...........................10

Melinda Ribner#MeToo.................................................11

Rabbi Irwin Wiener (Wiener’s Wisdom)The past is prologue ..........................11

Olga Gilburd: (Book Excerpt)Happiness The Jewish Way (Chp. 21)....12

Rabbi Israel Zoberman (Opinion)President’s Jerusalem declaration ........13

Miriam Zimmerman: (Holocaust Educator) Calling “to remember” ....................14

Rabbi Elliot B. Gertel: (Media Watch)Jewish Superhero-in-training .........16

Professor Arnold Ages (Book Review)Disarmed ...............................................18

Recipes from A Taste of Pesach 2 .......19Nine Bnei Menashe couples marry ......19BBYO International Convention........20Portman awarded Genesis Prize ........20

4 The Jewish Post & Opinion – NAT March 7, 2018

Manna from heaven – there’s a light-hearted, feel-good film by that name. It’s afable about what happens when a groupof people get a “gift from God” (i.e., afinancial windfall), but many years laterfind out it was simply a loan. On some level,this film implicitly reflects our modernview that miracles, like that of the manna,ought to be unalloyed, ought not to entailany quid quo pro. Windfall, something thatsimply falls out of the wind, is the rightword. We want no obligations – no limitson our freedom to do completely as weplease, no rein on our autonomy – inexchange for any of the gifts we receivefrom the Creator.

If one is living a mostly secular life, it’seasy to trivialize the gift of the mannadescribed in the Torah, to imagine that it’s of a piece with what many regard asbiblical nonsense, the wonders and miracles they find incomprehensible inthe light of history and modern science.

Although this view is seemingly harmless, it’s inherently problematic,even spiritually poisonous, especially forthose who seek in the Torah a vision andpath for their lives.This is true because thetrivialization of any part of the Torah,often from ignorance, has the predictableeffect of incrementally alienating us fromconviction that the Torah has any compelling usefulness as an uplifting lifelong vision and path.

As we are more alienated from thatvision and path, we become ever moredistanced from its elevating purpose – tobring every moment of our day-to-dayexistence in contact with the holiness ofthe Shechinah, making God palpably present in all our earthly affairs – movingus instead closer to the devaluing anddemoralizing effects of secular life. To theextent we become more secularized, ourcapacity to create meaning and fulfillment,to do more than satisfy our sensory andmaterial appetites,diminishes to nothingness.And, most troubling, our inability to guidethe lives of our children towards meaningand fulfillment based on the Torah’s visionand path – an alternative to the popularlyshared conviction that we derive fulfillment

in life from the acquisition of position,prestige, power, possessions, and physique– marks the virtually certain demise oftheir prospects to create and sustain livesof moral spirituality for themselves andfuture generations.

All of which argues for making theinvestment necessary to understand andapply the wisdom of the Torah in all things– and, certainly, nonetheless in the matterof manna from heaven. To do so, however,requires that one jettison the misguidednotion that we should judge the Torah bythe standards and methods of science,because doing so makes no more sensethan to judge science by the Torah’s standards and methods. Were we to take upthe latter cause, we would – nonsensically,to be sure – reject science because it teachesus virtually nothing about justice andcompassion or courage and humility,without which human social life, includingscience, would be no more than pointlesschaos. Science and religion in our view arecompatible, but their usefulness dependsin large measure on comprehending theirunique objectives, methods, and limitations.

What, then, does our religious traditionteach us about the manna from heaven?

The people had experienced theextraordinary crossing of the Reed Sea,which was particularly miraculous, becausetheir arrival at the sea and its openingoccurred simultaneously, allowing them toescape Pharaoh’s army.

It was less than two months since they hadleft Egypt, and they were in the wildernessbetween Elim and Sinai. The food theyhad brought from Egypt was running out.No longer was their sustenance assured,as it had been in Egypt, provided there bymasters who had an interest in their continuous work for the state. Presumably,fear that they would starve in the wildernessdominated their consciousness.

Then God said to Moses: “Look, I amabout to make it rain bread from heavenfor you; the people shall go out each dayand gather the amount for a day, so that Imay test them whether they will walk inMy Teaching or not.”(Exodus 16:4)

Our commentators teach that the mannawas a cake-dough, like fine flour mixedwith honey. The Torah (Numbers 11:7)tells us it was like coriander seed, whichimmediately removes both its characterand means of delivery from the realm of thesupernatural. That is, the wind commonlypicks up seeds and carries them distancesbefore dropping them back to earth. Andsince midbar is not a wilderness or desolateplace per se, but an expanse of uncultivatedland, including grassy pasturage, it couldcertainly serve as a continuing source ofseeds. Moreover, as a single source ofnutrition, seeds have very high food value.So, the miracle is not that the seed-like

manna rained from the sky, but that it continued to do so except for one day inthe week, and that the Israelites werealways at the right place at the right timeto benefit from such an extraordinary gift.

Certainly, if one was entering the desertwith no prospect of a reliable source offood, nutritious seeds falling from heavenwould seem like a gift – so the Hebrewname for manna, man, from the root mem-nun-hey, makes sense, because it’s relatedto mem-nun-chet, a cognate descended fromthe same ancestral root, meaning to givesomething willingly. Incidentally, the womenfirst recognized it as a gift from God.

What does the tradition understand tohave been the “nature”of the gift?

The people received enough each day tosatisfy that day’s needs, and they gatheredit according to the needs of their house-holds. If one tried to gather more than aday’s requirement to keep it for the following day, the surplus putrefied. Onthe sixth day, one could gather a doubleportion, because they could not gather iton the seventh day.

Apart from the obvious purpose of themanna to feed the people, we might ask:What did the manna come to teach thepeople – including us?

The manna confirmed that Moses andAaron had not misled them; by followingtheir lead the people found themselves in theright places at the right times to benefitfrom an unimaginable gift in the wilderness.Ironically, however, the gift of the mannaalso taught kavod Adoshem, the infinitepower and glory of the One mastermindingcreation, and thus that Moses and Aaronwere not essential to the miraculous events.As Rabbi Samson Rafael Hirsch (1808–1888) teaches, the people came to under-stand the manna as a gift from God of thatwhich was due and sufficient to each law-abiding person. In effect, if they followed thelaw, they would miraculously find them-selves at the right places at the right timesto ensure their survival against all odds.

But what might the people think of theGod whose laws, if accepted and followed,would lead to such wondrous outcomes innature, outcomes that would seeminglyoffer assurance, however dim, of their ownfuture history?

Here was a God capable of providingprecisely what they required to fulfill theirdaily food needs, with the ability to deliverevery day the necessities of their continuedexistence. But it was the manna deliveryschedule that revealed the most compellinglessons about their own deliverance in theunseen future. Manna only came on sixdays; there was no manna on the seventhday. As Rabbi Hirsch teaches, that God didnot provide the manna on the seventh dayconfirmed that God gave it as a free-will-gift

BY RABBI MOSHE

BEN ASHER, PH.D.AND MAGIDAH

KHULDA BAT SARAH

Miraculous mannafrom heaven

Gather the People

(see ben Asher/bat Sarah page 5)

March 7, 2018 The Jewish Post & Opinion – NAT 5

JewishEducatorBY AMY HIRSHBERG LEDERMAN

Passover: A Storyof Faith and Hope

I was born and raised in northern NewJersey but haven’t lived there since 1976,when a college degree, combined withwanderlust, led me to Arizona where I’vehappily remained ever since.

I’ve listened to many jokes over theyears about being a “Joisey girl.”I’ve trieddesperately to lose my Jersey accent,although I never quite succeeded as mychildren remind me every time I “tawk”tomy parents on the phone – proving, itseems, that “you can take the girl out ofNew Jersey, but you can’t take the NewJersey out of the girl.

It might appear like a stretch but I thinkthere’s a metaphor here that is instructivewhen thinking about the Passover story.As a leader, Moses was tasked not onlywith taking the Hebrew slaves out ofEgypt but of taking the “Egypt”out of theHebrew slaves. In fact, the Hebrew wordfor Egypt, or Mitzrayim, stems from theroot meaning to bind, shackle, or imprison.

For the Hebrew people, living in Egyptmeant over 400 years of bondage, povertyand powerlessness. The midnight escapemay have been treacherous but the realchallenge was liberating the Hebrew psyche so that generations of slaves couldbecome free-thinking men and women.

Back then, there were no seminars onself-empowerment or self-help websites.Enter Moses, commanded by God, tobecome the first community organizer toinspire independent thinking and action.What tools did Moses have to take the“Egypt” out of the Jewish people? The two key ingredients in the Passover recipeof redemption through Revelation weresimply these: faith and hope.

Perhaps the best “self-help” book of alltimes is what the 600,000 slaves receivedseven weeks after their escape as theystood together for the first time at the foot of Mt. Sinai. In a moment which canonly be described as formative as well astransformative, the Jewish people enteredinto the Covenant with God with the ultimate words of faith: “We will do andwe will understand.”

Those words are the words of a barelyformed, fledgling belief that indicate that aragtag group of ex-slaves could become,as the Torah instructs,“a kingdom of priestsand a holy nation.”They are the words that

suggest that it is often through doing thatwe can acquire a deeper sense of knowing.

In Hebrew, the word for faith is emuna,which means “to believe.” Having faithmeans that we believe and trust that thereis a greater order to the world although wemay not be able to perceive or understandit. Faith can give us a sense of hope in adespairing world; it can help us respond toevents and life circumstances which seemsenseless and unfair – like the death of achild, a horrific accident or an act of terrorism.

Faith is often the portal to hope. It provides an inner buoyancy that keeps us afloat when we are ready to sink. Andhope is what keeps us moving forward.

Hope is what inspired the Hebrewslaves to give up all they knew for the ideathat they could live a better life in thePromised Land. A Midrash teaches us thatwhen the Hebrew women left Egypt, theyleft everything behind except the coppermirrors they had used to entice their husbands to have children. Because thosemirrors represented hope in the future,they were used to create the priestly basinin the Tabernacle. In this way, Passoverteaches us that hope may be the singlegreatest act of defiance against the politicsof powerlessness.

The story of Passover encourages us toexamine two very Jewish values: faith andhope. It teaches us to examine whatenslaves us in our daily lives and gives usthe courage and inspiration to leave thatbehind and move towards something better. And like our ancestors, if we putour faith in that inner voice that guides us along the way we can hope that if wemake the journey, we too, may find ourown “promised land.”

Amy Hirshberg Lederman is an author,Jewish educator, public speaker and attorneywho lives in Tucson. Her columns in the AJPhave won awards from the American JewishPress Association, the Arizona NewspapersAssociation and the Arizona Press Club forexcellence in commentary. Visit her website atamyhirshberglederman.com. AAAA

any other future place of habitation) into aparadise, a return to Gan Eden (Garden ofEden), which they lost through their lossof its moral spirituality.

So, in providing the manna we see aninstance of Adoshem’s wonderworking –the feleh or revelation of God in directingthe laws of nature. While it may arguablybe true that seed falling from the sky isitself not beyond the laws of nature andobservable natural phenomena, that following the laws of God places a peopleat the right locations and right times for 40years to benefit from such gifts we wouldhardly describe as anything but miraculous.It presages all the subsequent history ofthe Jewish people – from the return to the land following the Babylonian exile tothe reestablishment of the state of Israelafter the Holocaust – in which, surely,abandonment of the Torah would haveundermined survival.

We have here a teaching moment showingthe Creator’s free will transforming theworld through the laws of Creation, whichconfirms the power of God over bothnature and history. It was then andremains now a model for humankind. Weare to use our free will, in the image of God,to similarly perform acts that transform theworld, confident that the Law of God connectsto our experience of nature and our history.

The daily miracle of the manna introducedthe people to Shabbat. It was the first in aseries of lessons showing that DivineProvidence continues up to the presentmoment and far into the unseen future, apotentially infinite uplifting and perfectingof humankind’s spiritual and social condi-tion – which requires nothing more for itsfull realization than using the bread we’vereceived as a gift to sustain us in the visionand path of the Torah.

The manna storage container and theluchot (Tablets of the Testimony), kept inone location in the wilderness, serve as acontinuing reminder that God gives us ourdaily ration of what we need to survive –all the means of our sustenance – to sustainus for God’s objectives. From this we maylearn that our possessions – that whichmay serve to fuel our godliness, which inturn is the means of sanctifying our possessions as more than mere materialobjects for our individual gratification –are to further our national mission as amamlechet kohanim (nation of priests) anda goy kadosh (holy nation).

© 2017 Moshe ben Asher & Khulda bat SarahRabbi Moshe ben Asher and Magidah

Khulda bat Sarah are the Co-Directors ofGather the People, a nonprofit organizationthat provides Internet-based resources forcongregational community organizing anddevelopment (www.gatherthepeople.org). AAAA

on the other six days, because it demon-strated that God not only had the powerto start creation, but to stop it as well. So,the sole reason for working on the seventhday ceased – recall that the people learnedabout Shabbat before mattan Torah (givingand receiving of the Torah) – revealing theseventh day not as a burden, but a giftfrom the Creator: six days work would do it –they could rely on God on the seventh day.

By observing God’s law, they couldensure their national deliverance, sincethey could transform the wilderness (or

j i

BEN ASHER/BAT SARAH(continued from page 4)

(see Benzion, page 7)

6 The Jewish Post & Opinion – NAT March 7, 2018

For many years our family has a custom toorganize a family reunion in Bloomington,Ind., during the winter vacation. For methis is a happy occasion, but it involves alot of traveling and effort, as I live in Israel.

This year I was not able to travel, but I didparticipate in the reunion over the phone.Amazing! When I first came to Israel 50 years ago it was very difficult andexpensive to make a phone call to America.Now I just pressed a few buttons, and I wasable to spend a few special hours talkingto my relatives gathered in Bloomington,and it didn’t cost me even one penny! Ipay $8 a month to my cell phone company,and then I can call anywhere in Israel andin 30 other countries and talk as long as Iwant for no additional charge.

In addition, one of my sons, his wife andsix of my grandchildren were at the reunion.They live in Buffalo, NY. They borrowed aminivan to make the 10 hour drive, eventhough the weather was very cold.

Now, I will let my son tell you abouttheir trip:

“Ten minutes before we arrived we got aflat tire. Oy Vey! This was not my van andI could not find where the spare tire washidden. Then some very nice policemenstopped and helped us.

“Finally we arrived. I helped my UncleLarry to put on tefillin, and then put themon myself. Then I had to find a place to fixthe flat tire. The only place that was openthat Sunday, New Year’s Eve, was Walmart.I left them the van to fix, and went shopping.

“While I was doing this my fathercalled, and asked me to put tefillin on withmy cousins.

“Wow! After driving 10 hours andchanging a flat tire in the freezing weather,I was not happy to take on this project. Itold my father that I am sorry, but right nowI am shopping. By the time that I return tothe reunion, the sun will have set, andthen it will be too late to put on tefillin.

“My father asked me to take a break andgo back to help my cousins put on tefillin.Then I could finish shopping. Well, it is amitzvah, a good deed, to honor yourfather. Therefore I should try to fulfill hisrequest. I left my shopping cart and wentover to see if they had finished fixing thevan.The van was fixed! I drove it around tothe food department. There I would checkout, and go back to the reunion.

“I was thinking by the time I waited inline and checked out, it would be too late

BY RABBI BENZION COHEN B.H.

Chassidic Rabbi

A beautiful story

The following article in italics appearedin the Wall Street Journal on Oct. 18, 2017:

Fugitive Hoofs It to Prospect ParkBy Zolan Kanno-Youngs

A runaway calf raced along a Brooklynhighway and into Prospect Park, knocking a toddler out of a stroller before it was captured following a standoff with policeTuesday, authorities said.

The chase began at about 11:25 a.m., whenthe male calf was seen running north on theProspect Expressway between exits 2 and 3,police said.

The bovine ran into a two-year-old girlbeing pushed in a stroller by her mother atProspect Park West and Park Circle, a law-enforcement official said. The child was jolted form the stroller and was treated at thehospital for a cut on her lip, the official said.

The New York Police Department deployedits Emergency Service Unit and officersmounting on horses to Prospect Park afterlearning the calf had entered the area, OfficerArlene Muniz said.

By 12:45 p.m., dozens of onlookers surrounded a field in Prospect Park to watchthe police contain the calf.

Instead of rushing to engage the animal,members of the Emergency Service Unit whoare trained to de-escalate tense situationswith suspects, watched as it trotted aroundthe field until about 1:20 p.m.

“They want to make sure it doesn’t get hurtas well,” Officer Muniz said. “It’s a baby.”

The young bull was “in custody” shortlyafter 1:30 p.m., Officer Brian Magoolaghansaid. Authorities said the animal was tranquilized and then put in a horse trailer.

The calf was taken to the Animal Care Centerof New York City facility on Linden Boulevardin East New York, Brooklyn. An ACC spokes-woman said the runaway – now nicknamedJimmy K. – was transferred to SkylandsAnimal Sanctuary & Rescue in New Jersey.

The young calf (bull) was given a secondchance to live in an animal rescue sanctuaryin New Jersey. Once the young bull wastranquilized it couldn’t be slaughtered.

The Torah describes in great detail thefirst generations that walked the earth.The generations from Adam to Noah livedlong lives. By the tenth generation,humankind’s urges were only evil all thedays. “And God reconsidered man on earth,he had heartfelt sadness”.

What did God decide to do? “I will

utterly destroy humanity I have created onthe face of the earth”. “Ki Nechamti, KiAssitm” (“For I have reconsidered havingmade them.”) God then sends a greatflood to destroy all humanity and all livingthings on earth except one family and asampling of all the creatures. Why did hesave this specific family? “Ki NoachMatzah Chen B’Ainai” (“Because onlyNoah finds favor in my eyes”).

Rabbi Emanuel Jakovitz raises a profoundly disturbing question. Was therean admission of failure on God’s part? Thedestruction of the earth challenges morethan God’s justice. It raises the questionconcerning the whole design of theCreator in bringing the universe into existence in the first place.

Our sages, according to Rabbi Jakovitz,connect the rituals of Rosh Chodesh to thisquestion. The major part of the new moonceremony on Rosh Chodesh, the start of thenew month, is the sacrifices that arebrought. The list of sacrifices is found inthe Book of Numbers. They are all calledChatat – sin offerings. One of these sacrifices stands out, “And one young goatfor a sin offering to the Lord”. This sacrificeis the only one that is “unto the Lord”.

Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveichik in his commentary on Numbers explains; “Thesun and moon were to be the same size at creation. Yet, the moon was diminished to asmaller size”. The Rav (Rabbi Soloveichik)explains “the goat sacrifice is an atonementfor God reducing the moon’s size, symbolizingthat God didn’t complete creation”. It seemsthat God requires an atonement on RoshChodesh. On every Rosh Chodesh, we arereminded that something went wrong inthe creation of the world. The lessonhumanity can learn from these two eventsis that we have comfort that even theAlmighty had to start over a second time.

We live in an imperfect world fraught withmistakes both intentional and unintentional.Some mistakes are innocuous and can beoverlooked. Other mistakes take their tollon us personally and leave wreckage in itspath. If God can be given a second chanceto make it right, we must ask for forgivenessand point ourselves in the direction torepair the damage we are responsible for.

It took ten generations from Noah toAbraham for God to give humanity a second chance. His choice was born out in the covenant with Abraham. Humanityneeds to be granted a second chance inthe 21st century to restore trust throughacts of forgiveness, kindness and love.Are we any less worthy of a second chancethan that young bull?

Herbert Horowitz is Rabbi Emeritus ofShore Parkway Jewish Center, Brooklyn, NY.He can be reached at rabhh18@gmail.com. Heis available to serve as a scholar-in-residenceor to officiate at services. AAAA

BY RABBI HERBERT HOROWITZ

God’s second chance

Maggid

March 7, 2018 The Jewish Post & Opinion – NAT 7

Let me share a famous Jewish story withyou. When the great Talmudic sage RabbiYochanan ben Zakkai was dying, his students asked him for a final blessing.He said,“May your fear of God be as greatas your fear of man.” The students wereconfused. “Rabbi, surely you mean mayour fear of man be as great as our fear ofGod.” But Yochanan ben Zakkai said no.“When you are about to do wrong, do younot look to make sure no one is watching?But you forget that God watches all thatyou do.”

The moral of this story, that which maybe more important than doing good in theworld, is preventing evil in the world.Abraham was afraid of evil in a placewhere no one feared God. Yochanan benZakkai knew his students worried moreabout whether a wrongdoing would bewitnessed by another person, not about itbeing seen by God.

So let me ask you a question. Mao wasone of the most heinous people who everlived. He was the cause of the deaths ofbetween 60 and 80 million people, morethan Hitler and Stalin combined. What ifMao, or Hitler, or Stalin believed thatthere was a God who would judge themby their actions and they were afraid ofthat God? What if the parents of these 13children [confined in California] wereafraid the consequences of their actionsbecause they feared God, or if those whomurder schoolchildren in cold bloodfeared God? Fear of God prevents evil.Fear in general prevents wrongdoing.

Why do police patrol the roads? Are therenot signs posted telling us the speed limiton a road? But some people still speed,while others do not speed because theyare afraid of getting a ticket.Yochanan benZakkai was right. Far too many of us fearhuman authorities and do not fear God. Ifmore of us did fear God, there would beless evil in the world. So I have changedmy mind.

Fear of God, not only awe of God and reverence for God and love of God,but fear of God is an important force indecreasing evil in the world. I now echothe sentiment of Rabbi Yochanan benZakkai. May our fear of God be as great asour fear of human authorities.

Rabbi Benjamin Sendrow has been the spiritual leader of Congregation ShaareyTefilla in Carmel, Ind., for seven years. Read more of his writings and listen to his sermons at www.shaareytefilla.org. Followhim on Twitter at twitter.com/CSTRabbi. AAAA

I have no adjectives to describe theintensity of our reactions to the horrificstory that has been in the news of late, thestory of the 13 children who had beenkept in conditions to which none of uswould subject an animal, let alone ahuman being. I have to admit, it has had aprofound effect on me on several levels.One of those levels is how I understand anidea in the Torah.

On Rosh HaShanah, we read the story ofthe binding of Isaac. In that story, an angelsays to Abraham,“Do not raise your handagainst the boy, or do anything to him. Fornow I know that you fear God, since youhave not withheld your son, your favoredone, from Me.” I have never liked thetranslation “fear God.”I did not like the ideathat Abraham was afraid of God; I did notlike the idea that I should be afraid of God.

I preferred to translate the phrase as“…now I know that you are in awe ofGod…”I far preferred the idea of being inawe of God to the idea of being afraid ofGod. I knew I was on solid ground intranslating the Torah that way, because thestandard Biblical Hebrew dictionary used inseminaries offers “reverence”as a possibletranslation for that particular Hebrew word,and one of the best English translations ofthe Torah, the one I think best captures theessence of the Hebrew, translates thisverse using the phrase “in awe of God,”not “fear God.” However, I want toacknowledge that the verse I quoted is thesecond time this phrase appears in theTorah. Let’s take a look at the first time.

The first time it appears is whenAbraham and Sarah were in the city ofGerar, and Abraham told Sarah to pretendto be his sister, not his wife. Why? Becausehe feared for his life. He was afraid thatthe men of Gerar would kill him so thatsomeone else could marry Sarah. AsAbraham explained to Avimelech, theking of Gerar, “I thought,” said Abraham,“surely there is no fear of God in thisplace, and they will kill me because of mywife.” This goes to the heart of my newperspective regarding the fear of God.

Why did I prefer that idea of being in aweof God, or revering God? Because feeling asense of awe about God, because reveringGod, because loving God, can lead us tochesed, to the highest level of kindness onecan imagine. When one loves God, one ismoved to do good in the world. Is thereanything more important than doing goodin the world? There may well be.

Fear of God verses in awe of GodBY RABBI BENJAMIN SENDROW

BENZION(continued from page 6)

to put tefillin on my cousins, but what elsecould I do? Well, Hashem, our G-d, hadother plans for me.

“I went back to where I had left myshopping cart. It had disappeared! Myheart said to me: Hashem wants you to puttefillin on your cousins. Leave everythingand go do these mitzvahs! I quickly lookedaround the whole store, but could not findmy cart. I looked around again. I realizedthat Hashem wanted me to go backalready, to help my cousins to put on tefillin. That is why my shopping cart hadmysteriously disappeared!

“Amazing! I drove back, and three of mycousins put on tefillin!”

What are the lessons that we learn fromthis story? Do mitzvahs! Put on tefillin!Light Shabbos candles! Make people happy!Drive 20 hours to make your uncles, aunts,and cousins happy. (They were so happyto see my children and grandchildren.)

Help your family, friends, readers andwhoever else you can to do more mitzvahs!Every mitzvah that we do brings holinessand happiness into our lives and into ourworld.The time I spend praying is the besttime of every day. I am communicatingand coming closer to our Father, ourCreator. Then I can spend the rest of theday doing His will, His commandments,to make my life better and my part of theworld better. And when my little part ofthe world gets better, then the wholeworld is getting better!

Do your part. Make your life better and make the world better. This will bringus to the time that the world will be completely good.

We are now about to celebrate Pesach,our redemption from Egypt. We wish all ofyou a kosher and happy Pesach. And just asour forefathers were redeemed, so too wehope and pray that Hashem will redeem usalready from our present exile, now! Wewant Moshiach now!

Rabbi Benzion Cohen can be reached byemail at bzioncohen770@gmail.com. AAAA

who will perish by fire and who by water….With Teshuvah (Repentance) and Tefillah(Prayer) and Tzedekah (Righteous Acts) wecan transform the severity of the decree.”

I am thankful for such a meaningfulconversation with family I rarely see andfor so briefly this time!

Jennie Cohen, March 7, 2018 AAAA

EDITORIAL(continued from page 3)

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There have been many attempts tomake sense of the events in Parkland, Fla.The explanations divert attention fromgun ownership to mental illness, violentvideo games and missed warnings.

Then, there is the pious effort to attributethe increase in gun violence to the lack of Bible readings and prayer in the publicschools. IndyStar columnist Gary Varvelclaims that the shootings are, in part, a resultof the Supreme Court decisions of 1962and 1963 that declared school-sponsoredprayer and Bible reading unconstitutional.

If this were the case, we would then expectthe 1950s to have been times reflecting thehigh moral fiber of America. Here is abrief overview that proves the contrary:

In 1955, we were reading the Bible inpublic school when 14-year-old African-American Emmett Till was lynched inMississippi after a white woman falselyaccused him of offending her in her family’s grocery store.

In 1956, children prayed in classroomswhen the largest Ku Klux Klan rally tookplace on Stone Mountain, Ga. One yearlater, the Klan terrorized black bus ridersin Montgomery, Ala., and murdered WillieEdward, Jr.

While children prayed “Thy will bedone,” Sen. Joseph McCarthy blacklistedactors, composers, poets, playwrights andphilosophers, including Leonard Bernstein,Langston Hughes and Albert Einstein.

While children read the Biblical verse,“Love your neighbor as yourself,” the lawallowed gay and lesbian federal employeesto be fired.

Thus, it appears that forced religiousaffirmation in schools does not diminishacts of hate and violence. H. RichardNiebuhr reminded us that “Religionmakes good people better and bad people worse.” It all depends who are itspractitioners and interpreters.

There is one important differencebetween mid-20th century and the early21st century. In 1950 fewer people ownedguns. As of 2017, 42 percent of house-holds in the United States possess at leastone gun. There are today twice as manyguns per capita in America as there werein 1968, more than 300 million in ournation’s homes. This is, on the average,

Revisit purpose ofSecond Amendment

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(see Sassos, page 9)

BY RABBIS

DENNIS C. AND

SANDY E. SASSO

8 The Jewish Post & Opinion – NAT March 7, 2018

Feb. 16, 2018, TerumahExodus 25:1–27:19, 1 Adar 5778

Many of us believe that God existseverywhere. God doesn’t belong to any onereligion, any one country, any particularreligion, or any particular people. There isa verse in our Torah portion this week, afamous verse that is often seen inscribedabove an Ark in a Jewish sanctuary whichreads, “Make Me a sanctuary that I maydwell among them.”Many believe that thismeans literally to build God houses ofworship with sanctuaries.

After the events of the last few days inParkland, Fla., I started thinking aboutanother interpretation of this verse. Maybe,just maybe, God didn’t mean a small,physically limiting space, but maybe Godwanted this whole world to be God’ssanctuary. Maybe, just maybe, God wantedus to create a world that this transcendent,up-in-the-heaven God, could finally comedown to and inhabit. God wasn’t speakingabout my Temple’s sanctuary or my friend’schurch’s sanctuary, but the whole world.

Before God inhabits this earthly sanctuary,we need to do some work. That workincludes figuring out how to make this asafe place for children to learn, people toworship, people to party, people to go towork, or simply people to live. And yes!This means figuring out a better way tolive with guns.

In case you haven’t figured it out, childrenhave died in a place where they learn.People have died where they worship.People have died where they party.People have died where they work.People have died where they live. It isguns doing the murdering.

Not every one of these murderers is

ShabbatShalomBY RABBI JON ADLAND

certifiably mentally ill, though I would liketo think that anyone who takes an AR-15or a handgun and points it at anotherhuman being and pulls the trigger is mentally ill, but it just isn’t so. Yes, thereare knives that kill people and cars that kill people, but it is mainly guns, and thetrigger of all the guns used in murdering is pulled by a human being.

Before God inhabits this earthly sanctuary,we need to do some work. We need themembers of congress to do something to control the easy access to guns. There is a video on Facebook that comes aroundperiodically showing a man walkingthrough an office carrying the type of gunthat existed when the Second Amendmentwas written. He raises the muzzle loaderand shoots. Everyone in the office runsaround screaming. Meanwhile the shooterneeds to reload his gun which just takessome time.

That is the type of gun our foundingfathers knew. They had no idea aboutsemi-automatic rifles that could blastthrough doors like those that were heardin some of the kid’s videos from DouglasHigh School. I heard that there are about8,000,000 of these guns out there, and99.99% will never be pointed at anotherhuman being, but that .01% can kill so manypeople. We need real leaders to make thisearth a safe place and get these guns outof the hands of people who shouldn’t havethem, and we need common sense, gunsafe and secure laws to protect not just ourschool children, but all of us.

Before God inhabits this earthly sanctuary,we need to do some work. We all need totake a breath and begin to ask what kindof world do we want to live in and whatkind of world do we want our children orgrandchildren to grow up in? Just like Ihave so many times, I read the beautifulwords written about those who were murdered. They had hopes and dreamsand talents and families and friends. Oneman with an assault rifle ended all of that.

We will mourn and cry and shake ourfists, but will we get any closer to makingthis a sanctuary for God to dwell upon us?We didn’t after Newtown or Orlando orTexas or Las Vegas. Will Parkland finallybe the place? Or, again, is it just too soonfor us to bring God and create a placewhere God will be able to rest and dwell?

When you light your Shabbat candlesthis week, light one for each of the families in pain and suffering. They needour light. Light the other candle for thosewho can make a difference in this world.We need them now.

Rabbi Jon Adland has been a Reform rabbi for more than 30 years with pulpits inLexington, Ky., Indianapolis, Ind., and currently at Temple Israel in Canton, Ohio.He may be reached at j.adland@gmail.com. AAAA

nearly one gun per each person residing inthe United States. Since 1968 more peoplein the United States (1,516,853) have diedfrom gun-related incidents than have perished (1,396,773) in all American warssince the founding of our nation.

We are a country senselessly submergedin an arsenal of weaponry. Of what necessity and to what good purpose isthis? How long will the political influenceand monetary interest of a death industrydominate American culture and define theSecond Amendment? How many childrenmust die needlessly, heartlessly, and tragically in the classrooms and yards of

March 7, 2018 The Jewish Post & Opinion – NAT 9

SASSOS(continued from page 8)

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the schools to which parents send them tobe educated?

It is time for reasonable people to revisitthe intent and purpose of the SecondAmendment. Assuredly, the real insanityis to believe that our Founders meant it tolegitimize limitless and unhamperedaccess to all kinds of weapons, with itstragic consequences.

Prayer and sympathy will change nothing. We need the concerted effort ofmind and heart of our citizens and electedofficials to recognize that liberty is not liberty if it is not responsive to life and the pursuit of happiness.

Sandy Sasso is senior rabbi emerita ofCongregation Beth-El Zedeck and director ofthe Religion, Spirituality and the ArtsInitiative at Butler University. DennisSasso has been senior rabbi at CongregationBeth-El Zedeck in Indianapolis for 40 years.Reprinted with permission from TheIndianapolis Star March 5, 2018. AAAA

ShipleySpeaksBY JIM SHIPLEY

Therefore, choose lifeHere are some late night thoughts as I

approach my 89th year. God knows (he orshe, assuming of course...) that I am not atheologian, or for that matter – in the eyesof many who are – a religious person. AJew? Oh yes. First and foremost and for atleast the last two thirds of my life.

If I am a Jew, certain things become self-evident. I have a DNA that is consistentwith millions and millions of people bothliving and dead. Many of those dead ofcourse, not of natural causes. I am adescendent of a people who in essenceinvented a belief system which became areligion. I am a minority. I have a respon-sibility to my fellow man – that is to seethat at least in my life to do what I can tosee that each and every human being hasan equal shot at respectability, responsi-bility and success.

As a Jew, I have a DNA that makes itnatural for me to disagree with many, totake every “truth”with a respectively sizedgrain of salt. I don’t believe that Lot’s wifewas turned into a “pillar of salt”– althoughI’ve seen the mythical location of that starkresult of a lady disobeying her husband.

I don’t believe that Methuselah lived900 years. I do believe the earth is at leasta few million years older than we know itto be at this point in our lives. I do believein evolution in almost all its forms.

I believe that any Jew with this DNAknows that in his deep background therewas a personal connection to the State ofIsrael in one of its first two Commonwealths.I believe that if indeed the head of J Streetreally said that if the Jews want to stopAnti-Semitism they should dissolve theState of Israel he should be struck by lightning – but I don’t believe he said it.

I find certain sections of the Torah andthe various religious observances, storiesand philosophies ringing true to me.Thereis a section in the High Holy Day servicesthat tells of God speaking to the Jews. “Iset before you death and life...thereforechoose life...”

That’s an easy one to believe and follow– unless you dig behind the words andseek their true meaning. “Choose Life” –does that mean our own life or the lives ofothers as well?

We are directed to “Choose Life”– and Iinterpret that to mean to choose life overdeath for every human being. Where possible. If it comes to a choice, I am going

to cherish and protect those closest to me.I feel there is a need to develop and distribute life-saving drugs. I appreciatethe amount of time and money spent bypharmaceutical companies to bring a newlife-saving drug to market.

I also believe that our government withour money has a responsibility to keepthose costs “within reason”. Not the company’s – the patients. It is just stupidthat our government is prohibited by itsown doing from negotiating prices for “we the people”.

“Choose life.” It states in the Torah that“he who saves one life it is as if he hassaved the world.”Well, we Jews are famousfor overstatement – but that is a good start.

When Jews are murdered simplybecause they want to live in peace in theirown land I believe that “an eye for an eye”comes into play at that point. As a Jewthrough DNA I know that while I wasborn in Brooklyn I have a stake in Israel.That is not “Dual Loyalty”. I served in thearmed services of the U.S. Our oldest sonserved in the IDF. We spread it around andsalute both flags. Neither of us has evertaken a knee – but we can empathize withthose who have.

I learned how to shoot in the U.S. CoastGuard. The U.S. was at war in Korea. Inever felt I would fire a shot in anger andI didn’t. Our son learned how to shoot inthe IDF and in Lebanon he heard a lot ofshots fired in anger – but it was a war.

I see no reason why a weapon like anAR-15 is allowed to be manufactured forany buyer except the military of the UnitedStates.A magazine holding more than seven

bullets should be illegal. “Hunting andsport”does not mean the rush from firingoff 50 rounds in a row – even at a target.

Jews know all these things if they takethe time to think them through – you do,don’t you?

Jim Shipley has had careers in broadcasting,distribution, advertising, and telecommuni-cations. He began his working life in radio in Philadelphia. He has written his JP&Ocolumn for more than 20 years and is directorof Trading Wise, an international trade andmarketing company in Orlando, Fla. Thiscolumn was submitted on Feb 15, 2018. AAAA

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The increasing number of sexualharassment accusations is shocking |and appalling. Holding perpetratorsaccountable is essential. But what is missing from the conversation is a seriousexamination of the underlying causes ofsexual intimidation and the consequencesof intensified vigilance.

On the one hand, heightened awarenessis beginning to lead to better, safer workenvironments. Women are the beneficiaries.On the other hand, according to a studyby the Center for Work-Life Policy, men arenow more likely to avoid solo interactionswith and mentorship of women.

Women are experiencing a double bind.In the past, to progress in a profession,some women had to endure unwantedsexual advances and stay quiet. Nowsome men have decided to avoid closecontact with women. As the majority ofsenior professionals are male, women arebeing denied the benefit of mentorshipthat leads to career advancement.

The issue is power, who has it and whodoes not. Anna Kirkland, a professor ofWomen’s Studies at the University ofMichigan, stated,“it’s not… that men needto be taught special skills and ways of talking to avoid accusation; it’s that sexualharassment comes from gender inequalityand cultures that support sexism.”

Harassment is bound up with economic,business, media and political hierarchies.There is gender disparity in the halls ofgovernment. In 2017, 104 women serve inCongress, comprising 19.4% of the 535members. Women make up less than 25%of state legislators, 18% of mayors and12% of governors. It matters who gets tomake our laws and set policy.

Having more women in political

BY RABBI SANDY SASSO

Culture drives sexual harassment

(see S.Sasso, page 10)

10 The Jewish Post & Opinion – NAT March 7, 2018

During all my years of public school,I never wrote an essay or assignment on a Jewish topic. While it’s true that fewclassroom opportunities came, I lackedconfidence. There were several Jews in my grade level, but we were clearly a smallminority.

In my senior year of high school, I tooka special Honors Humanities, where thetopics would be “wide ranging.”That andbelonging to a Jewish youth group andspending two summers at a Zionist camphelped me decide – I would write aboutJewish topics in this class.

Our first assignment was on theatre andI picked the Yiddish Theatre. I wrote thepaper and received an A-. My hand wasup for every question and I participatedenthusiastically. I couldn’t wait for thenext topic!

Poetry was the next unit and I wrote downModern Hebrew poetry for my topic. Myteacher, whom I will call Mrs. Hoffman,asked me to see her after class. I walked tothe front of the classroom, smiling at thethought of researching this paper.

“Susan,” Mrs. Hoffman said gently. Mystomach fell. The teacher was not smiling.“I want you to choose the topics you likefor your papers.” I nodded uncertainly.“But I don’t want you to limit your choicesto such a narrow topic.”I felt my face reddenand my hands turn to ice. She meantJewish topics, didn’t she?

My mind flashed back to elementaryschool, when my 6th grade teacher mademe stand in front of the classroom when Ididn’t recite the Lord’s Prayer in our MorningExercises.“Here is the girl who will not saythe Lord’s Prayer,”she announced to the class.I was too humiliated to even tell my parents.

The 5th grade teacher kept me afterschool each time I had Hebrew Schooland the 4th grade teacher didn’t pick anyJewish kids for the coveted CrossingGuards. Christmas caroling each year leftme to decide between caroling and feelinguncomfortable or sitting alone in my class,feeling even worse.

I nodded at Mrs. Hoffman and left without another word. I stopped raisingmy hand in class and wrote my papers onother topics. I graduated high school andspent the summer in Israel, feeling securethere – I could talk about anything Jewishthat I wanted.

In the fall, I began college, led a YoungJudaea group, joined an Israeli studentgroup, majored in English, minored in

BY SUSAN WEINTROB

Hebrew and yet still I did not write anypapers on Jewish topics.

In the summers, I took classes in educationto also receive a teacher’s certification.Graduating early, I needed to studentteach to complete the requirements andsnagged a position in my old high school.

I received a letter from the college withthe name of my supervising teacher: Mrs. Hoffman.

I was determined it would work andapparently so was she. She was the perfectsupervisor – welcoming and supportive,she allowed me to teach what I wanted.None of the content I chose was Jewish.Happy during student teaching, I kept areserve when with her although I figuredshe had forgotten all about that incident.

By the semester’s end, I had fallen inlove with teaching and much had to dowith Mrs. Hoffman, who truly extendedherself. I went to see her that last day, tothank her. She handed me a beautifullywrapped package. I was surprised – usuallythe student teacher gave the supervisorthe present, not the reverse. I carefullyunwrapped what I could feel was a book.

My face must have shown my astonish-ment when I unwrapped the HebrewIlluminated Manuscripts published by theEncyclopedia Judaica in Jerusalem. It wasan expensive book filled with exquisiteMedieval and Renaissance illustrations. Alittle note fell out and I picked it up.

“I hope you enjoy this book and continueyour reading on such a rich subject.Patricia Hoffman.”

Mrs. Hoffman smiled. So she hadremembered.

I don’t know why she said those wordsto me that day after class or even what shehad meant. I had left the classroom without asking her to clarify and withoutsharing what I felt. Both of us should havecleared up the matter.

While we never discussed what hadhappened, her gift was eloquent, clearedthe air, and we both embraced it.

Mrs. Hoffman’s gift changed me. In myfirst teaching position at a large publichigh school, I explained politely to mydepartment chair that I would not put upa Christmas bulletin board, but would behappy to do one on authors we werestudying. In graduate school at Ball StateUniversity in Muncie, Ind., and after as an instructor, I wrote papers and spoke on Israel, Jewish writers and my Jewish experiences. And more than that, I learnedto explain my feelings when confronted withsomething that did not feel right Jewishly.

Today, it seems that my student teachingwith Mrs. Hoffman was bashert, fated. Lifedoesn’t always give us a second chanceand we had a redo, in a sense. When I visited my hometown after that, I stopped

Permissionto speak office not only makes government more

representative of the population, it alsoinfluences priorities. Female legislators are more likely to be actively involved in issues relating to women’s health,reproductive rights, child care and theeconomy. They deliver about 9% morefunding to their districts. They care moreabout policies that support working mothers,many of whom agree that being a mothermakes it harder for career advancement.

There is gender inequity in the workplace.Women earn just 80% of what menreceive in comparable jobs with equalexperience and education. Women aren’texpected to reach equal pay with menuntil 2059; the more conservative estimateis 2119! In the S&P 500 companies, womencurrently hold 5.2% of CEO positions,hold only 21.2% of board seats and occupy26.5% of senior level positions. It matterswho controls the wealth.

In the journalism and the film industrieswe see a similar disparity. In 2016, womencomprised 7% of all directors working onthe top 250 domestic films. While womenhold more than two-thirds of the journalismor communications degrees, the mediaindustry is only one-third female. Men stillreceive 62% of bylines and other credits inprint and online. It matters whose story isbeing told, and who gets to tell it.

We should be shedding a brighter lighton these issues of power imbalance. Theproblem is not just about individual menharassing women; it is about an entire culture. It is about how we define what itmeans to be a man.

Recognition of improper behavior, rulesabout reporting and holding accountablethose who engage in sexual harassmentand abuse are extremely important.

However, for real change to occur, weneed more women in politics drafting legislation, as CEOs of large companies,on the boards of big corporations and withpositions of power in the media. Women’scontrol of their own bodies, equal pay forequal work and policies that supportworking mothers are essential. If we wantto transform what is happening, then wehave to change a culture that privilegesone gender over another.You don’t have tobe a woman to want this to happen; youjust have to be a human being.

Sandy Sasso is rabbi emeritus ofCongregation Beth-El Zedeck and director ofthe Religion, Spirituality and the ArtsInitiative at Butler University. Reprintedfrom the Indianapolis Star Dec. 5, 2017. AAAA

S.SASSO(continued from page 9)

(see Weintrob, page 11)

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I join with most womenand some men who haveexperienced sexual harass-ment and abuse as well as with manywomen who have experienced abduction,and even violence at the hand of discon-nected, insecure and selfish men who seek power rather than love. I have beenbetrayed by rabbis, supervisors, therapists,so called “orthodox” men on first dateswho I met at synagogue, and by strangerswho lurched at me in the dark or grabbedme in the street, in a subway, even when Iwas wearing my long skirts and dressingmodestly. I could write a book just on thissubject alone. It is a little scary and unset-tling for me to acknowledge this past pub-licly, as I have kept it hidden. But I feel theMe Too campaign has brought us closerand made us realize how widespread thisexperience is. I want to participate in thehealing conversation. May we bring dark-ness to the light.

Unlike the beautiful actresses whoallowed themselves to be exploited andalso exploited their beauty to advancetheir career, most of us did not receive anyexternal benefit from our experiences ofsexual harassment or abuse, no moneynor fame. Not only that, we felt tarnished,disgraced, ashamed, punished for our ownsins, so we kept our experiences hidden.We were wounded, our lives may evenhave been shattered, but we also learnedto draw deeper inside ourselves for healing.We grew spiritually. We became strongerand deeper. We actually became more loving. We became healers. Many of ushave emerged like the phoenix representingthe month of Cheshvan.

In the Torah portion of Noah, we readabout the flood. We are taught that theflood was a result of sexual impropriety.We are also taught that sexual purity creates angels that protect a culture. We allhave to create our internal arcs of prayerand blessing to protect ourselves from thefloods around us. From hurricanes, to fires,to acts of terrorism, we have experiencedmany challenges. Our world is crying outfor healing.

What made this experience with HarveyWeinstein so morally bankrupt is thateveryone knew about it and said nothing.He even had a clause in his contract toprotect him from his actions of sexualabuse. But as repulsive, disgusting andcreepy as Harvey Weinstein is, it nowseems like he is being crucified for the sins of so many others who are unnamed,for the sins of a culture that allowed andencouraged these kinds of experiences totake place. How foolish of Weinstein to

BY MELINDA RIBNER

March 7, 2018 The Jewish Post & Opinion – NAT 11

think that exploiting beautiful womenwould make him feel better about himself.

I end with a quote from my book, TheSecret Legacy of Biblical Women which features a conversation with each Biblicalwoman. This conversation occurs in theMiriam chapter.

“When men are disconnected from God,they dominate and oppress women. Anyman who is truly rooted in God honors andrespects the wisdom of women. How aperson treats a woman or women in generalis a measuring stick of the Godliness of aperson. The laws of Torah were made tosafeguard women from the aggressivenessinherent in the nature of men. Her sanctityas a woman must be protected. When thesanctity of women is violated, the societyis in danger of losing its divine blessing forsustenance and even survival.“

“Women, do not see yourself throughthe lens of weak and insecure men whoare actually afraid of your womanly power.As a woman, you are so beautiful andradiant. You are an embodiment of theShechinah, Never forget that. No one cantake that away from you. You must knowthis as your deepest truth. I strongly recommend that each woman join or forma group with other women who will reflectback to you the beauty and wisdom ofwho you are as a woman. Your strengthlies in community with other women.”

Melinda Ribner L.C.S.W. is also theauthor of Everyday Kabbalah, KabbalahMonth by Month and New Age Judaism,and The Secret Legacy of Biblical Women: Revealing the Divine Feminine.Internationally known for her pioneeringwork in kabbalistic meditation and healing,she is also a spiritual psychotherapist and for more than 30 years has used kabbalisticwisdom as part of treatment. She offers a free

by the high school to see her. Her bookremains in our library, a gift that gave meconfidence and helped me find my voice.

This experience eventually taught mesomething I should have known – that Ididn’t need anyone’s permission to speakor write about who I was, what wasimportant to me or even what made mefeel uncomfortable. I had to discover thisfor myself – how to communicate, notwith silence or anger, but with the passionthat had been inside all along.

I didn’t need permission to speak. Ialready had it.

Susan Weintrob is a retired educator who writes full time in Charleston, S.C. Shecan be reached at srweintrob@gmail.com.She wrote a regular column for The JewishPost & Opinion from 1995–2002. AAAA

WEINTROB(continued from page 10)

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newsletter on meditation, healing, kabbalisticenergies of the months, holidays, and more.www.kabbalahoftheheart.com. AAAA

Wiener’sWisdomBY RABBI IRWIN WIENER, D.D.

The past is prologueIn Shakespeare’s play The Tempest, we

read about intrigue, but with the under-standing that all things happening are aprelude to things that will happen. Perhapsthat is what we are witnessing today as wedisplay a strong sense of xenophobia thathas permeated our society.

We witness daily the savage destructionof human life; the senseless murder ofinnocents because of some misguidedbelief that through this sacrifice, salvationwill be achieved. We are experiencing fear– the fear of total annihilation – a presentday Armageddon beginning in the veryarea scripture tells us will feature thebeginning of the end.

The past has played a significant part inwhat is transpiring today.The philosopher,George Santayana (1863–1952) eloquentlydescribed present day events – “Thosewho cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

The history of our country is replete withincidents that have, as a result, condemnedmany to perish. At the onset and duringWorld War ll, immigration restrictionsresulted in tens of thousands walking intothe fiery furnace of death.This was not thework of a president, but rather the direct resultof the establishment of congressional quotas.

There was an exception. Executive Order9066 issued by President Franklin D.Roosevelt established the interment campsin which Japanese Americans were forcedto reside because they were classified as athreat to the safety of the country.This wasa very difficult time in our history, and Iwould venture a guess that this couldnever occur again.

That is until our present President, ineffect, created a similar environment withhis Executive Order curtailing emigrationfrom various countries considered to support and dispatch terrorists, albeit for a short period of time. The destruction ofthe World Trade Center Towers was theinstrument leading us to this very day.

When things become difficult it is naturalfor those affected to withdraw into a shellof safety. Burying ourselves in an atmos-phere of self-containment seems to be the

(see Wiener, page 13)

#MeToo

12 The Jewish Post & Opinion – NAT March 7, 2018

feel that everything always goes wrongand the universe is conspiring against you,say to yourself, “I am in a bad mood andgetting annoyed at everything.”Or insteadof complaining that someone hurt yourfeelings, realize that you care too muchabout the words or actions of others.

Correlate your reaction with the importance of the situation.Adjust your overly negative reactions to

unpleasant circumstances and interactionswith other people by considering howmuch importance you attach to them. Ifyour car gets scratched or your husbandleaves dirty socks on the floor, weigh howimportant this is and how much negativereaction it warrants. And if you find yourself in a bad a situation that is trulyimportant, ask yourself how helpful ahighly negative reaction would be then.

Stop predicting the future.Sometimes we get upset over small

things because we think they may becomebig things. For example, running late forwork may be not earth shattering in itself,but we get very upset because we think we might get reprimanded or fired. In case like this, it helps to remind ourselvesthat we are just imagining worst-case scenarios for a future that we cannot predict. Stay focused on the present, anddo not make a mountain out of a molehill.

Believe in your power.Finally, do not doubt your ability to make

yourself happy. You live with yourself 24hours a day, and you have tremendouspower to improve your happiness. Be kindto yourself, be positive, and do not let others have more control over yourthoughts than you have.

Praise yourself for every little improve-ment and every little victory, for every timeyou could have slipped into a bad moodbut didn’t.

Repeat this mantra to yourself: “Nothingcan ruin my day without my permission ormake me happy without my blessing. I amcapable. I can control my reactions.”

Olga Gilburd is an author, speaker andblogger on the subject of happiness. Her bookHappiness the Jewish Way was selected fora COJECO BluePrint fellowship. She is alsoa nurse and a cancer survivor. Born inRussia, she lives in Brooklyn, N.Y., with herhusband and two daughters. Olga likes tofigure skate, sing karaoke, crochet, and practice happiness every day.

“The idea of this book was born out of trying to teach my daughters to stay positiveand find joy in everything while familiarizingthem with their Jewish heritage. I looked, butI didn’t expect the Jewish culture to offer alot on the subject of happiness, especially topeople who are not religious”, says theauthor. “But I was amazed by what I foundand how it changed my views on happinessand the Jewish identity.” ~ Olga Gilburd AAAA

Imagine living with a nagger whostresses your inadequacies, diminishesyour strengths, predicts a gloomy future,fills you with worry and anxiety, andpoints out the negative qualities in every-thing you see, experience, and do. He orshe would constantly make you feel miserable and deprived of all enjoyment.On the other hand, someone who alwayssupported you anddirected attentionto all the greatthings that werehappening to youwould make youfeel great.

Indeed, you havesuch a powerfulperson affectingthe quality of yourlife. Allow me tointroduce the master of your happiness,the one who defines how much joy you are allowed in any circumstances andhow happy you are going to be. This person is you.

That is right: your happiness dependscompletely on you. So much so that eventhe Hebrew word for “to pray,”lehitpalel, isa reflexive verb, which means it describesdoing something to the self, not to God.Rabbi David Aaron teaches that we do notpray to inform God of our misfortunes andimplore Him to change the world andmake us happy. Instead, when we pray,we have a chance to change our whole situation by hearing ourselves express our current view of our circumstances andchanging our thoughts about them. Heinstructs us not to ask, “Is God listening to my prayers?”but rather,“Am I listeningto my prayers?”God and fate may arrangefor different circumstances, but they do notarrange our response to these circumstances.Our reactions are totally up to us. In a way,we pray to ourselves, because we are themasters of our happiness.

Hasidic philosophy maintains that every-thing comes from the mind, including allhappiness and suffering. Modern science hasgradually come to a similar conclusion.Psychology demonstrates that the powerof the mind is real and highly effective inchanging our levels of happiness. A study

of the placebo effect in the treatment ofdepression found that when people whowere given “fake” pills not containing atherapeutic substance were convincedthat they were taking real medication,their symptoms improved almost as much as with actual antidepressants. Newphysics experiments are forcing scientiststo acknowledge that consciousness createsreality and we can change our livesthrough the way we observe ourselves and the world.

Psychiatrist Gerald Epstein says that wecan change our minds at will. Just as wedecide what to let into our homes andwhat to keep out, so we can choose whichthoughts to cultivate and which to curtail.

The thoughts we choose have the powerto change the flow of our lives:

Our thoughts shape our actions;Our actions shape our habits;Our habits shape our character;Our character shapes our destiny.You and only you have the power to make

yourself happy, joyful, and content. In anygiven situation, you can choose whetherto be depressed or hopeful, stressed orexcited, sad or content, condescending or encouraging, distracted or mindful.When things don’t go as planned, it is up to you to decide whether to think ofyourself as failing or as gaining valuablelife experience. Choose wisely, becauseyour life depends on it.

PUT IT INTO PRACTICEIt is very liberating to realize that our

happiness does not depend on other people or things, and this realization initself contributes to happiness. Suddenlythe world of happiness is ours to master!But this also means that we have to assumefull responsibility for our happiness or lack thereof. Here are some tips to helpyou take on the role of master of your own happiness:

Assume responsibility.“The girl who can’t dance says the band

can’t play,” observes a Yiddish proverb.Sometimes we too blame outside circum-stances for our shortcomings and emotionalstates. But if you are to successfully masterhappiness, you must shift responsibilityfor your happiness from circumstancesand other people to yourself.To paraphraseanother Yiddish proverb, if you don’t wantto be happy, one excuse is as good asanother. Don’t pin your happiness orunhappiness on the events of the day,your spouse, your coworkers, your kids, orstrangers.You do not have to be a victim ofthe universe’s whims. You are the oneresponsible for your mood.

Every time you catch yourself rationalizingyour bad mood by blaming it on someoutside cause, restate your thought in away that places the responsibility for yourfeelings with you. For example, when you

BY OLGA GILBURD

Happiness TheJewish WayChapter 21. Master of Your Happiness

BookExcerpt

March 7, 2018 The Jewish Post & Opinion – NAT 13

Palestinian education sans honoring itsterrorists and ceasing hatred for Israel is awise prerequisite.

Even Egypt and Jordan who signedpeace treaties with Israel have neglectedto teach their populations basic facts concerning Israel, welcoming its eagerfriendship. In this sacred season of thelights of Chanukah and Christmas, weremember that Jews and Christians are atrisk in the Middle East. Jerusalem and the hills of Judea and Samaria, once the setting for inspiring prophecies, have

RABBI ISRAEL ZOBERMAN

counteracting Iran’s worrisome posture.How is it that the Arabs in general and

the Palestinians in particular “have nevermissed an opportunity to miss an oppor-tunity,” to quote the late Abba Eban,Israel’s eloquent Foreign Minister andstatesman. They unwisely rejected UnitedNations 181 Partition Resolution of Nov.29, 1947, whose 70th anniversary was justcelebrated by the Jewish people and still(!) protested by Palestinians blind to history’s opportunities and facts. ThePalestinian leaders have been lacking thecourage to confront their bitterly dividedpeople with historical truth and realitythat the Jewish state is deeply rooted,longer than anyone else, in its ancestralhomeland. The Holocaust, unfortunately,is not a figment of Zionist imagination assome Palestinian, Arab and Iranian leadersclaim. East Jerusalem and the West Bankwere lost to Jordan in the 1967 Six-DayWar, after King Hussein was warned notto attack Israel.

An active movement to delegitimizeIsrael, perceiving it as a European colonialinvader, is emboldened by the numericaland material influence of the 57 (!)Muslim nation-states, including 22 Arabcountries, all represented in the UnitedNations. Coupled with hypocritical Europe’sfading guilt for the monumental Holocaust,there is a preposterous charge that theIsraeli-Jewish saga has no leg to stand onwith Jerusalem ever a Muslim entity andthe Temple Mount/Noble Sanctuary voidof vital Jewish memories of a great biblicalpast. Totally disregarded are unbrokenJewish presence, millennial prayers andefforts to fully return to the physical andspiritual birthplace of “Zion and Jerusalem.”

It is a non-starter for peaceful coexistenceto reject Jewish peoplehood representedin the Jewish state. Israel has turned into acollective target, being demonized anddehumanized with never-dying anti-Semitism, Western civilization’s oldestdisease that Israel’s rebirth sought to cure. Given that Israel is perhaps the only nation whose very existence is being challenged and living in a hostileenvironment, it is a wonder that Israel created a robust democracy protectinghuman rights in a region abhorring them,rejecting progressive ideas.

Rather than the Palestinians despairing,a two-state creative solution is withinreach with joint arrangements in Jerusalem,however with a de-militarized Palestinianstate friendly to both Israel and Jordan. Afuture confederation involving Israel,Jordan, and Palestine is not farfetched.Surely both sides can find in their separateand even conflicting narratives meetingpoints and common agendas for anassured bright future, for both peoples aredestined to forever be neighbors.

President Trump’sJerusalem declaration

The Trump Jerusalem Declaration is thefirst recognition by a U.S. President sincethe 1948 establishment of the Jewish Stateof Israel, with President Truman’s support,that Jerusalem is indeed its rightful capital.How ironic and telling that bothPresidents Truman and Trump wereopposed by their State Department whentaking their critical moves. The UnitedStates, the world’s only superpower andIsrael’s major ally, reached out to theworld’s only sovereign Jewish state toassure its questioned authentic narrativeat a time of fateful crossroads in theMiddle East and beyond.

Israel has the anomaly of being powerfulyet vulnerable given its limited geographyand sworn enemies. If Israel’s Jerusalemnarrative were false it might unravel itsbond with the entire Land of Israel. Nowonder that both the Israeli governmentruling coalition and opposition haveapplauded President Trump’s forthrightaction.The Trump Declaration is flexibleenough concerning actual arrangementsyet to be made by the Israelis andPalestinians. In a so far moribund andstagnant Peace Process, Trump’s shufflingof the cards and providing a “realitycheck,”particularly to the Palestinians, willhopefully gather fruitful momentum.Israel knows that its Palestinian problem isnot going away, threatening its Jewish andDemocratic character.The Palestiniansmay finally realize now that time is notnecessarily on their side.

Israel’s past Prime-Ministers Barak andOlmert offered generous concessions that were nonetheless rebuffed by thePalestinians whose expectations arealways higher. The late Prime-MinisterSharon’s painful return of Gaza with aflourishing Israeli community has beenrewarded with Hamas and Islamic Jihadrockets and terror tunnels. Arab leadershave historically paid lip-service to theirPalestinian brethren, while Israel absorbedclose to a million Jewish refugees fromArab lands. The Sunni Arab world is currently preoccupied with an aggressiveShia Iran with nuclear ambition, whosemenacing presence is growing close toIsrael’s borders. Israel, characterized byIran as “little Satan”and the United Statesas “big Satan, “is a credible partner in

WIENER(continued from page 11)

instrument used for self-preservation.We search the newspapers, listen to

the media, and wonder where is the thirdbranch of government? There is an ExecutiveOrder issued by the Executive Branch ofgovernment. There is a Federal Judge whothen established a restraining order. Whereis congress? The third branch of ourrepublic has, over the years, relinquished itsresponsibilities and has become a bickeringand complaining body of insults and tirades.

Congress was established to create laws,the Executive Branch to enforce them,and the Judiciary to determine the consti-tutionality of the law. Therein lies the fundamental safeguard against abuse ofpower. This, in effect, separates us fromthe rest of the world and brings a sense ofbalance and purpose.

We have seen, just a short sevendecades ago how extremism leads to theundermining of the inalienable rightsguaranteed by our Constitution. Millionsof American lives were sacrificed for thisideal and its preservation. Over sixty million people, worldwide, died becausewe lost sight of our responsibility toremain a beacon and a deterrent to thenightmare of human suffering.

The first obligation of our leaders is tosecure the safety of our citizens.The secondis to ensure the viability of our democracy.However, I believe that if we look to thepast as a learning instrument we wouldunderstand that humaneness does notsacrifice our future, and that the oppositewill surely intensify our ignorance for thevalues that united us. We seem to havemade insanity the norm and sanity hasbeen driven from our collective reasoning.

Rabbi Wiener is spiritual leader of the Sun Lakes Jewish Congregation nearPhoenix, Ariz. He welcomes comments at ravyitz @cox.net. He is the author of two books: Living With Faith, and a modern and contemporary interpretation ofthe Passover Haggadah titled, Why is ThisNight Different? AAAA

(see Zoberman, page 15)

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Opinion

14 The Jewish Post & Opinion – NAT March 7, 2018

Hawaii and indirectly, about a mother’sletting go of maternal control, an issueeach mother must confront within herself.As we laughed together, I felt like I was apart of Helen’s inner sanctum, included,wanted, loved.

I steered the conversation back toGermany.“You know how I feel about theGermans,” Helen reminded me gently. Itwas in her 1995memoir, Remember the Holocaust. Arequired text formy Holocaust classat Notre Dame deNamur University,I was embarrassedthat I did notremember.At home,I quickly found therelevant passage inher book.

After liberation, Helen and her sisterEthel, who, together, survived Auschwitzand a death march, found themselves inSusice, in what is now the Czech Republic.The mayor of the town invited the twowomen to the prison, where a young SSofficer languished. “The mayor said thatwe could do anything we wanted to him.He suggested that we could hit him, kickhim, spit on him, abuse him…whateverwe wanted. My sister and I just looked ateach other and we said, ‘No’. Then wewalked out. We had seen enough suffering(Remember the Holocaust, p. 107).”

Helen is on a mission,“trying to preservethe memories and to help protect the worldfrom another holocaust (p. 148).”After herschool presentations, she is often asked bystudents,“Do you hate the Germans?”

“I always answer,‘No, I don’t hate them.I can’t hate a nation. If I did, I would notbe any better than the Nazis were (p. 149).”

I asked Helen what she wanted herlegacy to be.“To let the world know whatthis word means, ‘Holocaust,’ because Ilived it…. I told students from 7th gradeup my experiences. We don’t need wars.Wars haven’t proven a thing, [bringing] moreorphans, widows, and misery…. We haveto learn how to understand each other andto negotiate with each other. It is easier tolove than hate. Hate is destructive to yourown health. This is my theory and what Ihope future generations will learn.”

Helen sighed, but did not seem sorrowful.“I was given two choices,” she explained,“aggressive treatment (for recently diag-nosed stage four cancer) that might havegiven me six more months, or just to ‘fadeaway.’ The treatments would have beenhorrible, and for what? The outcome willbe the same; we know what it is.”

Helen did not want to wait for herfuneral to celebrate her life; she wanted tobe there with friends to share a meal and

hear their memories. On Jan. 14, 2018,she did just that at Mercy High School(“Mercy”) in San Francisco.The high schoolhas been the home of the Helen and JoeFarkas Center for the Study of the Holocaustin Catholic Schools for the last ten years.

Inspired by Helen’s work as a tirelessspeaker throughout the S.F. Bay Area,Mercy instructor Jim McGarry started the Center “to honor Holocaust survivorsand to bring them together with today’sstudents….to educate both students andtheir instructors about social justice andmoral courage.”

Amber told Adrian Schrek of the FarkasCenter Board not to wait until February forthe party. In less than two weeks, Adrian,with the help of the Board, planned a lovelyluncheon and program at Mercy. Seventyof Helen’s nearest and dearest paid tributeto this self-described housewife and mother,whose story touched over 10,000 studentsin the San Francisco Bay Area, as theyraptly listened to her speak.

Decorating the table of Helen’s certificatesand awards from all over the country,was a sculpture by her artist-daughter.Amber’s sculpture is titled,“Remember,”inhomage to her mom’s book. Helen is veryproud of the Center that bears her name.She is also proud of the new “Helen FarkasScholarship,”recently created by the Centerand named in her honor.

In Broad DaylightUnlike Helen, Father Patrick Desbois,

born almost a decade after World War II, didnot experience the Holocaust. His callingderived from the haunting experience ofhis grandfather during World War II, as aFrench soldier imprisoned in a Germancamp in Rawa Ruska, in German-occupiedUkraine. The silence of his beloved grand-father about those years motivated thefuture priest to confront his grandfather,normally the outgoing family comedian.“What did you do at Rawa Ruska? Whydon’t you talk about it?”

HolocaustEducatorBY DR. MIRIAM L. ZIMMERMAN

From Einsatzgruppen to exterminationcamp, Helen Farkas and Father PatrickDesbois share a calling: Zachor (Hebrew) –“Remember!”At age 97, Helen had a lot toremember: the love of her large familygrowing up in Satu Mare, Romania; theghetto, a labor camp, an exterminationcamp, a death march, liberation, communistoppression, escape, liberation once again.

“The feeling of liberation, it’s impossibleto understand…. [there is] no higher feelingof pleasure and hope, to be free from….”Helen’s voice trailed off. Seated in hercomfortable living room in the Magnolia,an assisted living facility in Millbrae, Calif.,on Jan. 11, 2018, we reminisced.

Helen remembered when she first metme, just after myown mother, z”l,passed away, 22years ago. I askedHelen about mydaughter’s recentmove to Munich.Even though I have been overtlysupportive, I amstill “processing” the fact that two of mygrandchildren will grow up in Germanyand speak German like natives. As a survivor, Helen might be able to shed lighton how my own father, z”l, a 1937 German-Jewish refugee, might feel about havinggreat-grandchildren growing up in Germany.

“You are a mother; you cannot tell yourdaughter what to do.”Helen surprised meby speaking mother-to-mother, not as asurvivor to a daughter of a survivor.Her daughter Amber came into the roomjust then, smiling, having overheard us.We talked about Amber’s moving away to

Passionate abouttheir calling – “to remember”

(L-R) Helen, her daughter Amber Aguirre;Amber’s daughter, Kailei Jackson.

(L-R) Mercy student and Farkas CenterBoard member Sydney K., Helen, andwinner of the first Helen FarkasScholarship, Litsy C. Photo courtesy of theFarkas Center.

March 7, 2018 The Jewish Post & Opinion – NAT 15I began with a focused question – why

had he used only the last initial of peopleinterviewed by him and his team? Hereplied that there are strict privacy laws in Europe. In their recorded interviews,many of the villagers often confessed totheir role as enablers of the genocide,even though many times they were “requisitioned” or forced to do so by theNazi’s. He did not want to be vulnerableto a lawsuit by the families.

Knowing that he has expanded hisresearch to encompass other genocides, Iasked what made the Holocaust unique.He replied that there was no reason [inNazi ideology] to let one Jew live; man,woman, or child. He is convinced that ifHitler had won the war, it would haveresulted in the total extermination of theJews. The implication was that other genocides are not so thorough.

Every spring break, the priest takes students from Georgetown University to Eastern Europe. In 2016, it was theUkraine; in 2017, Belarus and Auschwitz;in 2018, Moldavia and Auschwitz. The trip“is life changing for the student. TheJewish students decide to be [more]Jewish. All realize what genocide is.”

His first book, The Holocaust by Bullets,”reads as if the process of finding eye-witnesses to the shootings, discoveringthe mass graves, and documenting thegenocide with archeological evidence, wasunfolding as he wrote it. In Broad Daylightis an update. In the eight years betweenthe copyright dates, his team has learnedhow to locate the remaining few eye-witnesses, to ask the right questions,and how to reassure the witnesses so thata full testimony can be recorded. They perfected their research methodology.

In Broad Daylight consists of fivechronological parts: “The Night Before,”“The Morning,”“The Day,”“The Evening,”“The Day After.” Individual chaptersdescribe a specific task or personnel neededto accomplish the murders. I “heard” thepriest’s anguished voice throughout,juxtaposing the complicity by most villagers with examples of villagers who helped the Jews. “It seemed to meyou were asking the same questionthroughout – why did some of the villagers participate willingly and perhapsvoyeuristically, while some avoided thescene, and a few went home and wept?”

He replied, “I interview in so manycountries.”Tomorrow, he would be goingto Iraq.“Neighbors – the Yazidis – Christiansare being persecuted all over the world.”We were nearing the end of our agreedtime limit. The implication was that thesame dynamic exists across genocides.Some neighbors care, yet others cannotget beyond their own exploitive interest inthe goods and homes of those murdered.

Claudius Desbois finally told his grand-son, “Patrick, we were locked in a campwith nothing to drink, we ate grass anddandelions, but outside the camp, for theothers, it was worse” (In Broad Daylight,p. 7). Unlocking the silence around “theothers”became a calling for the priest. Hediscovered that “the others”were the Jews,gunned down by mobile killing squadsknown as the Einsatzgruppen.

From Paris, Father Desbois graciouslymade time to discuss with me hisnew book, In BroadDaylight: The SecretProcedures Behindthe Holocaust byBullets. In a phoneinterview on Feb.12, I explained thatI taught a courseon the Holocaustin a Catholic uni-versity, and thatwe had met at the San Francisco JewishCommunity Center when he was on aspeaking tour for The Holocaust by Bullets:A Priest’s Journey to Uncover the TruthBehind the Murder of 1.5 Million Jews. Hesaid he remembered me; we both laughed.

Since our first encounter about sevenyears ago, The Holocaust by Bullets becamerequired reading for my course. The textdetails the evolution of the priest’s onsiteresearch into the Einsatzgruppen, whosemurderous rampage began in 1939.

By 1941, the Einsatzgruppen advanceddeep into Soviet territory behind theadvancing front lines of the Wehrmacht(German army), murdering all racial orpolitical enemies of the Third Reich inevery town, village, or hamlet. With the SSin charge and supported by local policeand villagers, the death squads moweddown all men, women, and children sodesignated. Mass graves dug by thetownspeople or by the victims themselvesdot the landscape of Eastern Europe.

It is Fr. Desbois’calling to find every lastunmarked mass grave of these unfortunatevictims, and to document who, how,where, and when these mass murderstook place. His team of 29 has interviewedmore than 5,700 people in 15 years.

“There is always a profit motive” when itcomes to genocide, Fr. Desbois asserted.

I asked about the implications of his workfor today.“It is not only in the U.S. whereantisemitism no longer feels taboo,”he began.“In Iraq, Hitler has a strong presence. Everybookstore has ten books about Hitler.”

Recently, he pointed out to an audiencein Boca Raton, Fla. that they live in an artificial bubble. “If we go on dreaming,we wake up in a nightmare – not only anational one, but a planetary one.

“The next generation is ready to learnthe Holocaust in a new way; not just theHolocaust, but teach the legacy of theHolocaust. It must be learned. [We canhave] a planet without shootings, help theyoung people heal the planet. [Create]leaders in new directions – teaching theHolocaust is an emergency.”

Fr. Desbois does not have to convinceme. He was speaking days before highschool students from Parkland, Fla.,bussed to the state capitol to lobby politicians on gun control.

I wished him well on his journey andforgot to tell him that I would be adoptinghis excellent new text for my class. We didnot have time to talk about the organizationhe founded in 2004, Yahad – In Unum(Hebrew: Together – Latin: as One), aglobal humanitarian organization “dedicatedto identifying and commemorating thesites of Jewish and Roma mass executionsin Eastern Europe during World War II.”

As I exited from WhatsApp, our channelof communication for a conversationwithout cost to either of us, I realized themany connections between Father Desboisand Helen Farkas. Both felt passionateabout their calling, to teach young peopleabout the Holocaust so that they will

ZOBERMAN(continued from page 13)

ironically and tragically been deprived ofshalom’s universal promise of the divinegifts of genuine peace.

The British Foreign Secretary LordBalfour Declaration on Nov. 2, 1917 (100thAnniversary!) which empowered theZionist movement, is now reinforced byPresident Trump Jerusalem Declaration onDec. 6, 2017. Both declarations arenuanced to allow for compromise by bothsides whose historic kinship, as well asrivalry, cannot be denied.

Rabbi Dr. Israel Zoberman is the found-ing rabbi of Congregation Beth Chaverim inVirginia Beach, and Honorary Senior RabbiScholar at Eastern Shore Chapel EpiscopalChurch. He is past national Interfaith Chairof JCPA (Jewish Council for Public Affairs).Column submitted Dec. 26, 2017. AAAA

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(see Zimmerman, page 16)

Fr. Desbois in front of an Einsatzgruppenexecution site in Eastern Europe.

world. At one point he observes that it isrude for Superheroes to simply vanishwithout a word.

Barry represents in many ways the awkwardness of youth – whether childhood,teenage years, or even one’s 20’s when oneis trying to establish oneself. His “civilian”job in a crime lab is more important to him(and to his incarcerated father) than arethe cover jobs of the other Superheroes tothem. An unabashed nerd, and an earnestone at that, he opens up that he has notquite been able to master the “rhythm”that most people find in their lives. Yet he complains that people are too slow(especially compared with his lighteningspeed) and that brunches are a waste oftime during which one is forced to wait anhour for lunch.The writers knowingly givehim quirks related both to youth and tohis speed or giftedness.

Perhaps the most human of the super-heroes, Barry admits fears along the way.When first recruited, he confesses that heis afraid of guns, bugs, and of formidablytall people. Later, in the face of raging waters,he adds: “Also, one of my fears is drowning.”

Batman advises him to start by savingone person, and not to think. And Barrytakes immediately to spontaneously savinglives – a talent and grace that is clearlywithin him. He is also a bit of an ethicist,worrying about the rightness of exhumingSuperman’s body even as he awkwardlytries to bond with a fellow superhero workingwith him who happens to be African American.

Barry saves civilians with speeding bullet velocity, but Superman is even moreimpressive by pulling entire apartmentbuildings through the air. After some ofthe credits at the end of the film, we catcha glimpse of Barry challenging Supermanto a race. Barry claims that this is “not amacho thing,” just a friendly contest. Butthe point is that Barry is a superhero intraining, and a very focused and dedicatedone at that, and that he needs to be appre-ciated as a work in progress, as a paradigm

MediaWatchBY RABBI ELLIOT B. GERTEL

Justice League’sJewish Superhero-in-training

In Justice League, the Marvel cartoon-based movie, both good and evil super-heroes are after “mother boxes”which canbe misused to “reshape the planet.”Two ofthese three boxes have been sealed andguarded by Amazons and Atlantis folk,and one was buried.The well-produced andcapably acted movie exults in its specialeffects and in its comic book plot and pacing.

The good superheroes, convened by BruceWayne/Batman (Ben Affleck) will decideto use box power to resurrect Supermanso that he can do battle with the box-energized super-villain Steppenwolf.The latter is intent on dominating theworld with the help of bug-like iron warriors. He is violently and sadisticallyseizing the boxes in order to reduce theworld to a hellish state which is his utopia.Steppenwolf seems like an insurmountableenemy. The film is about hope againsthope, or belief against despair.

When Steppenwolf meets the courageousWonder Woman/Diana Prince, played bycharming Israeli actress Gal Gadot, heblurts out: “I don’t believe it. What areyou?”“A believer,”she responds, preparedto defend the world from this would-bedestroyer of her beloved Amazonian heritage. She becomes, in many ways,the moral and spiritual center of the fightfor goodness.

In this film we are introduced to a 20-something young man named Barry Allen(Ezra Miller), also known as “The Flash,”who devotedly visits his dad in prison,convinced that his father was unjustlyprosecuted for murdering Barry’s mother.Barry has a rare gift of speed. When he isrecruited and shown a photograph ofhimself, he jokes about seeing “a veryattractive Jewish boy.”This makes him theonly Jewish Marvel-type superhero characterof which I’m aware, unless one includesMagneto, the Holocaust-survivor-turned-bitter-monster of the X-Men series.

Once recruited, Barry wastes no time.“I’m in,”he says.“I need friends.”Barry islike the Robin of the iconic TV Batmanseries who is in constant wonderment overBatman’s exciting causes and impressivehardware. That sense of wonder keepshim considerate of the civilians of the

16 The Jewish Post & Opinion – NAT March 7, 2018

be equipped to make different choices.Both have spawned organizations that will enlarge and carry on their work. Bothhave written books, which I require for my Holocaust class. Implicit in their message: the legacy of the Holocaust canbe transformative and healing.

The work of each bookend the genocide,1939–1945. Himmler, the number twoNazi, realized the limitations of theEinsatzgruppen. One bullet, one body, asexecuted by the Einsatzgruppen, was fartoo slow and resulted in psychological

distress of the shooters. Evidently, theday-after-day shooting at close range ofdefenseless mothers clutching their children, took a toll on the shooters.

What was needed was a faster processthat provided aesthetic distance for themurderers. Thus, the need for a “FinalSolution,” formalized in January 1942 atthe Wannsee Conference, to speed up theprocess and preserve the psychologicalhealth of the perpetrators.

By the time Helen arrived at Auschwitzon May 24, 1944, the Hungarian genocidewas in full swing. According to the websiteof Yad Vashem, the Israeli institution dedicated to Holocaust research, memory,and education, in just 56 days, the Nazismurdered 440,000 Hungarian Jews atAuschwitz-Birkenau. The Nazis had perfected assembly line techniques ofgenocide and overcame all the obstaclesfaced by the Einsatzgruppen shooters.

I spoke with Helen one more time, onJan. 27; fitting, because that is the date in1945 on which the Russian army liberatedAuschwitz. Helen was no longer able tospeak, but I knew she could hear me. Istroked her forearm, unmarred by tattoos.By the time Helen reached Auschwitz,the Nazis no longer tattooed victims, notwanting to impede the slaughter.

In the adjacent dining area, her daughterAmber and longtime Holocaust educatorLissa Schumann Thiele serenaded us onukulele and guitar. Both had played pro-fessionally in bands.Amber sang an originalsong, accompanied by Lissa. Their upbeat,almost jazzy music elevated our spirits.

Helen had no control over what happenedto her as a young girl in Auschwitz, butshe was leaving this world on her terms.Surrounded by her family and closefriends and infused not by a feeding tube,but by the love of those closest to her,Helen’s departure was of her choosing.Two days later, she was gone. May hermemory be for a blessing.

For a previous article about Helen by thisauthor, browse to jewishpostopinion.com/?p=3453. For more about the FarkasCenter: www.farkascenter.org/. For adescription of Helen’s party, www.jweekly.com/2018/01/17/holocaust-survivor-adds-legacy-early-100th-birthday-s-f/. For Helen’sfinal message to the world: www.youtube.com/watch?v=En9E47BXnw8. To orderHelen’s book: www.farkascenter.org/remember-the-holocaust-by-helen-farkas.To order Fr. Desbois’book: arcadepub.com/arcadepub/arcadepub/titles/12963-9781628728576-in-broad-daylight. For Yahad InUnum, www.yahadinunum.org/.

Dr. Miriam Zimmerman is professoremerita at Notre Dame de Namur University(NDNU) in Belmont, Calif., where she continues to teach the Holocaust course. Shecan be reached at mzimmerman@ndnu.edu. AAAA

ZIMMERMAN(continued from page 15)

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(see Gertel, page 18)

March 7, 2018 The Jewish Post & Opinion – NAT 17

“I’m trying to figure out how to plant anancient date grove,” she says. “And if shecan reach her magical green thumb backinto time and succeed in bringing forth amodern grove of ancient trees, it mightprovide for a unique insight into history.”

“We would know what kind of dates theyate in those days and what they were like,”she says.“That would be very exciting.”

In December (2017), I wrote to Dr.Solowey and asked for an update onMethuseleh and she wrote:

“I attach a picture of Methuseleh. He isa big boy now. He has flowered severaltimes and his pollen is good. I hope tohave some good news about companionsfor him.”

Netanyahu meets the Foreign Press in Jerusalem

Each year the Israel Government Press Office (GPO), from whom we andother foreign correspondents secure ourcredentials, sponsors a New Year’s toastfor the foreign press and the diplomaticcorps and others.

In January, the programwas held at the newlyopened Orient Jerusalemwith appetizers anddrinks, a program and fea-tured speaker, PrimeMinister Netanyahu.

The prime minister opened his remarksasking the foreign correspondents threequestions:

1. How many in that room reported thestory of the father of six, who was brutallymurdered the night before in a drive-byshooting?

He then asked how many of us addedthat Abbas’s government is paying $350million dollars a year to these murderersin Israeli jails and to their families? Veryfew hands went up. He praised the tweetsof US Ambassador David Friedman forarticulating the “unvarnished” truth thatterrorism and the Palestinian reaction to it are the reasons there is no peace. Thekillers were praised by Hamas, and theywill receive financial awards.

The Taylor Force Act, currently in theUS Congress, threatens a dramatic cut in aid to the Palestinian Authority if it continues to compensate families ofPalestinians convicted of murder and terrorism through the “martyrs”fund.

2. The Prime Minister then asked howmany of us did a story about the resolution(the Taylor force Act)? How many of usadded that Israel is investing 15 millionshkalim in health, education and welfareto Palestinians, and that spoken Arabic is now being taught to Israeli school

children. No hands went up.3. The Prime Minister then asked if

our newspapers called Iran’s leadership “moderate” for the past year. No handswent up.“The only way to advance peace,is to advance the truth,”he exclaimed.

When asked by one of the journalist’sabout Israel’s relationship with UNWRA,the Prime Minister said they need toaddress the real needs of real refugees.“UNWRA has the great-great grand-children of refugees listed....There needsto be a conversion of all funds to otheragencies that deal with refugees.” Headded, “If you want to negotiate peace,you’ve got to negotiate.”

40 years since the visit of Anwar SadatLooking back at my stories of November

1977 from my book, Witness to History –Ten Years as a Woman Journalist in Israel, Ifound this passage:

Late November, it happened very quickly.An announcement was made thatEgyptian President Anwar Sadat wascoming to Jerusalem. For the first time in30 years, the head of an Arab countrywould visit Israel and talk face to face onour soil. Witness to the Making of Historyexplained how within 48 hours the entire city of Jerusalem was transformed physically and emotionally.

Stores placed welcome signs in Arabicin their windows, and Jerusalem’s flagmaker worked full speed to provideEgyptian flags to hang side by side onstreets and public buildings. Nearly 2000members of the media, from every cornerof the world, poured into the capital tofind an exceptionally well-organized communications center at the JerusalemTheatre.

Nov. 19, Israelis waited in near-freezingtemperatures at the entrance to Jerusalemand along the route to clap, wave flags andshout welcome. Throughout the visit,Jerusalem traffic was practically at a stand-still, yet Jerusalemites took it in stride if it could mean peace. People walked withtransistor radios at their ears. Childrenwrote essays in school. Israel’s Arabicradio broadcasts went through for the firsttime in 25 years, not jammed by Egypt.

Decorating the Communications Centerwas an exhibit by prominent artists on the

subject of peace, organized by the head of Women’s International ZionistOrganization (WIZO) from Tel Aviv andreported in “WIZO Women Display ‘Art for Peace’”.

Only the top journalists in their fieldswere permitted entry to places whereSadat would visit, so the rest of us wandered around the CommunicationsCenter looking for story ideas. Suddenly,I had an angle. I would find an Egyptianjournalist to interview. He was wearing ared colored tag, distinguished looking,in his 50s or 60s, and he representedEgypt’s major newspaper. He graciouslyconsented to an interview, “Meeting MyFirst Egyptian Journalist”.

A couple of months later, MiltonFirestone (z”l), The Kansas City JewishChronicle editor, wrote that he had been toMorocco and Egypt, attending theChristmas day summit at Ismailia.“Whileat Ismailia, an amazing thing happened.I sat two seats away from the Egyptiancorrespondent whom you interviewed and photographed in Jerusalem. He wasunmistakable from his ‘naturally curlyhair.’ I started to tell him that we ran astory and picture of him, but it got toohectic and I never got to speak to him.However, I would have given a lot at thatpoint to have had with me a copy ofMike’s picture of him in Jerusalem. Hewould probably have dropped over.”

The behind-the-scenes story of theSadat visit was part of a speech given byZev Hefetz, American director of the IsraelGovernment Press Office, before theAssociation of Americans and Canadiansin Israel. The story, “Sadat’s Visit – AParticipant’s Impressions” covered thehectic time between Nov. 12, 1977 whenPresident Sadat said he was prepared toaccept the invitation of Prime MinisterBegin through the visit, Nov. 19–20.

“Reactions of Canadians in Israel toSadat’s Visit” was my story of Toronto-born, Canadian Broadcasting Companyman in Israel, Jim Lederman. Jim was thefirst person to broadcast outside Israel thenews that Sadat was coming on Saturdaynight. Prior to, during, and after the visit,Jim coordinated ten CBC radio and televi-sion people from Canada and London.Compared to American TV network, CBS,which had 160 people in Israel for theevent, what emerged was one of thelongest radio specials Canada had produced. It lasted five hours plus another3-1/2 hours of broadcasts across Canada.

Sybil Kaplan is a foreign correspondentfor North American Jewish newspapers, abook reviewer, compiler and editor of ninekosher cookbooks, restaurant feature writerfor the Israeli website Janglo.net, featurewriter for the website itraveljerusalem.net.She lives in Jerusalem. AAAA

KAPLAN/ISRAEL(continued from page 2)

Egyptian President Anwar Sadat arrives inJerusalem in 1977. Photo by: Reuters/GPO.

B. Netanyahu

18 The Jewish Post & Opinion – NAT March 7, 2018

Disarmed. By Izzy Ezagui. PrometheusBooks. 284 Pages.

This book is confusing, puerile, uneven,exaggerated, chutzpadik, and strident – Iloved it, every blessed moment involved inreading this extraordinary Proust-likejumble of words and ideas associatedmemoir of anIsraeli soldier wholost his left arm ina Hamas mortarshelling a decadeago when he wason duty near Gaza.

The unlikelyprotagonist of thismemorable saga isa Sephardi Jewraised in Florida,Crown Heights(New York) and educated first in a publicschool system and afterword in aLubavitch yeshiva before making Aliyah.His father and mother, whom he idolizesin this book, were complex parents whodecided while Izzy was still very young, tobecome more serious about their Judaism.

This autobiography is among the fewbooks available on the intricacies and detailsof the Israeli army training procedures forinductees into elite units as experiencednot once but twice by author Ezagui andas such provides an introduction to what itreally means to become a member ofZahal – the Israeli Defence Forces. The rigors of that training are equal or superiorto American, British and Canadian SpecialForces cadres.

When Izzy’s tent was shattered by themortar blast suffered by his unitbivouacked near Gaza, the young soldierdid not at first realize what happened tohim, so great was the shock to his nervoussystem. The graphic description he provides of the wreckage to his left arm isnot easy reading because it lies outsideour normal anatomical parameters butIzzy conveys quite adequately the physicaland psychic damage he endured. It tookhours before the extent of his personalcatastrophe was fully known even by him.

His comrades were able, once the dusthad cleared, to transport him to an Israelimedical facility, where doctors used life-saving methods to stabilize the young

Resilience ofinjured IDF soldier

REVIEWED BYPROFESSOR ARNOLD AGES

soldier, along with others who had beeninjured by enemy fire. One of the mostpoignant parts of this journal is Izzy’sattempt to speak to his mother on thetelephone in order to impart the newsabout the loss of his left arm without provoking hysteria on her part.

Part of the treatment the authorreceived from Israel’s medical cadres wereheavy doses of very powerful drugsincluding fentanyl, a narcotic, he notes,which is a hundred times more potent thanmorphine, the first drug administered tohim when the severity of his injury wasrecognized. This is a relevant observationbecause when Izzy Ezagui began to recoverhis sensibilities, he immediately declaredthat he intended to return to his combatunit but soon realized that he would have to go “cold turkey” – the addicts`nightmare – before he could think of re-joining his comrades. This he did bydint of unbelievable discipline aligned toincredible withdrawal suffering.

During this crisis period in his slowrecovery Izzy was confronted by negativeresponses from army doctors, one ofwhom bluntly told him that his conditionprecluded the kind of camaraderie andfraternity among Israeli soldiers whodepend on their peers to help them. Thatkind of subtle yet direct rejection ironicallydetermined Ezagui in his pursuit of hisformer status as a soldier-sharpshooter. Itdid not help that he was continuallyhounded by his “phantom” – the curiousphysiological phenomenon when a severedlimb asserts it presence despite its absenceas an anatomical doppelganger.

In his narrative the author gives us allthe excruciating details of his re-trainingin the army – this time with a limb missing. One of the greatest obstacles he encountered was mounting a wall with a rope anchored to it. In his previousincarnation, he had no problem; this timehe discovered that one arm was insufficientto execute the onerous task. He finallyrealized that the contortionist skill wasrequired to perform the feat and throughthe use of his legs and other body parts hewas able to get over the wall.

He encountered a similar problem withhis rifle. It jammed regularly when he triedto insert the shells into the rifle and over-came his frustration only when he realizedthat he had to dig his weapon into theground anchor it solidly, and then, withone arm, load the instrument! Izzy passedall his re-training requirements and it wasthe doctor who had initially rejected hisattempt to re-join his unit who certifiedhis re-entry into the Israeli army.

This book is a testimony to the resilienceof one human being who beat the oddsand conquered the disability that wouldnormally have sidelined ordinary mortals.

Book Review

Izzy Ezagui is one of the latter but hasbecome a symbol of what the human spirit is capable of accomplishing.

Professor Arnold Ages is “DistinguishedEmeritus Professor” University of Waterloo,Waterloo. Ontario, Canada. AAAA

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pepper, to taste4 (6-ounce) skinless sea bass fillets1 Tablespoon oil1 avocado, diced just before serving4 Tablespoons avocado oil

Preheat oven to 450°F. Using a smallsharp knife, cut off all peel and white pithfrom fruit. Working over a medium bowl,cut between membranes to release segmentsinto bowl. Squeeze juices from membranesinto the bowl; discard membranes. Drainfruit, reserving 1/2 cup fruit juices. Returnthe 1/2 cup of reserved juice to the bowlwith fruit. Season fillets with salt and pepper. Heat oil in a large skillet over highheat. Add fish; cook until golden brownand releases easily from pan, 6–8 minutes.Transfer fish gently to a 9x13”pan, cookedside up. Bake until just opaque in the center, 5–10 minutes. Divide fruit and avocado between individual plates; top eachwith a sea bass fillet. Spoon 2 tablespoonscitrus juices and 1 tablespoon avocado oilover the fish and fruit on each plate.

Enjoy! And Happy Pesach! AAAA

RECIPES(continued from page 19)

GENESIS PRIZE(continued from page 20)

and to the Jewish people. Portmanbecomes the fifth winner of the annual $1million Genesis Prize. She will be honoredat the Genesis Prize Ceremony inJerusalem in June 2018. See more at:www.genesisprize.org. AAAA

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of youthful potential. Is it a special honorshown to him (albeit after some of thefinal credits) that the resurrectedSuperman chooses to literally shoot thebreeze with this young Jewish superhero?

Rabbi Elliot Gertel has been spiritualleader of congregations in New Haven andChicago. He is the author of two books,What Jews Know About Salvation andOver the Top Judaism: Precedents andTrends in the Depiction of Jewish Beliefsand Observances in Film and Television.He has been media critic for The NationalJewish Post & Opinion since 1979. AAAA

GERTEL(continued from page 16)

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March 7, 2018 The Jewish Post & Opinion – NAT 19

Recipes from ATaste of Pesach 2Artscroll/Shaar Press/February 2018

Among the manydelicious recipes inA Taste of Pesach 2are: Duck Crepeswith Apricot Sauce,Marrow Bones overParsley Medley, MatzoKugel, Apple-ApricotKugel , JalapenoSole, Spicy KaniCake, Praline Chicken,Miami Ribs, Brisket in a Bag, Osso Bucco,Doughless Potato Knishes, Ratatouille,Pears in Custard, Snowballs, and MeltedChocolate Cookies. Here’s a couple:

Pastrami Egg Rolls Meat (Yields 18 Egg Rolls)A new way to serve the ubiquitous crepe

that is synonymous with Pesach. Baking ituncovered gives it a real egg roll wrappertexture.

Crepes:8 eggs1 cup potato starch1 cup water1/2 teaspoon saltoil, for fryingFilling:1 Tablespoon oil2 onions, julienned1 (8-oz.) bag shredded green cabbage8 slices pastrami1/2 teaspoon garlic powder

Prepare the crepes: Beat eggs lightly;add remaining ingredients. Don’t overbeat.Heat 1 tablespoon oil in a 10” nonstick frying pan. Pour a scant 3/4 cup batter intohot pan; swirl pan to cover the bottomcompletely. As soon as batter is set, use aspatula to carefully flip over for 15 seconds.Remove from pan. Continue until all batter has been used. You may need to re-grease pan in between crepes.

Prepare the filling: In a large skillet,heat oil. Add julienned onions and (see Recipes, page 18)

shredded cabbage. Sauté until onions aresoft and cabbage is wilted. Add pastramistrips and garlic powder. Sauté 5 minutes,stirring frequently.

Make the egg rolls: Preheat oven to350°F. Line a baking sheet with parchmentpaper. Place 1/3 cup filling at one edge ofa crepe. Fold top and bottom in, then roll,starting from filling. Place seam-sidedown on prepared baking sheet. Repeatwith remaining crepes and filling. Bake,uncovered, for approximately 20 minutesuntil crispy.

Citrus Sea BassPareve (Yields 4 servings)The stunning presentation is part of this

sea bass recipe. When eaten together, thecitrus fruits and avocado complement thesubtle flavors of the fish. The bonus is thatits beauty will surely enhance your Yom Tovtable. Easy to prepare and always gourmet,this is a must on your menu this year.

2 oranges2 pink grapefruitssalt, to taste

j i Nine Bnei Menashe couples (picturedabove), all of whom immigrated to Israelfrom Manipur, India, Nov. 2017, marriedDec. 19, 2017 in a group ceremony atShavei Israel’s absorption center in KfarHasidim under Jewish law in the wake oftheir formal conversion.

The nine couples were among 162 newimmigrants who arrived in Israel inNovember thanks to the Jerusalem-basednonprofit Shavei Israel. They all hail fromthe northeastern Indian state of Manipur,on the border with Burma, and which ishome to the largest concentration of BneiMenashe in India. The new immigrants allplan to settle in Tiberias, Israel, after theyleave Kfar Hasidim.

The Bnei Menashe are descendants ofthe tribe of Manasseh, one of the Ten LostTribes of Israel. They came to Israel thanksto Shavei Israel, which has made thedream of Aliyah possible for over 3,000Bnei Menashe over the last 15 years andplans to bring more members of the community to Israel. Currently there are7,000 Bnei Menashe awaiting their returnto the Jewish homeland.

The brides had their hair and makeup doneand wore traditional white wedding gowns,and some of the grooms wore traditionalsuits with Bnei Menashe tribal designs.

Shavei Israel, founded by Michael Freund,reaches out to and assists “lost Jews”seeking to return to the Jewish people. Itworks with various groups around theworld, such as the Subbotnik Jews of Russiaand the “Hidden Jews”of Poland from thetime of the Holocaust. The organizationalso engages in the absorption of new olimin Israel, including providing assistance withhousing, employment, and professional train-ing. More information: www.shavei.org.AAAA

Nine Bnei Menashe couples marry ingroup ceremony

20 The Jewish Post & Opinion – NAT March 7, 2018

1389 W 86th St. #160Indianapolis, IN 46260

OpinionPost&The Jewish

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INDIANAPOLIS, INPERMIT NO. 1321

85-year-old Holocaust Survivor, Trudy Album (left-front), from New York shared herharrowing tale of survival at Auschwitz and other camps during several programs atBBYO’s International Convention with delegates world-wide, with hopes that the nextgeneration will carry on her story. Photos Credit: Jason Dixson Photography.

2018 Genesis Prize The Genesis Prize Foundation (GPF)

announced in Nov. 2017 that world-renowned actress, director and socialactivist Natalie Portman has been selectedas the 2018 Genesis Prize Laureate.The annual $1 million award honorsextraordinary individuals who serve as aninspiration to the next generation of Jewsthrough their outstanding professionalachievement, commitment to Jewish values

(see Genesis Prize, page 18)

U.S. Ambassador to the U.N., Nikki Haley,addressing the BBYO Convention.

ORLANDO, FL – At a time when youngpeople are socializing more online andinteracting less in person, thousands ofteens converged on here over PresidentsWeekend February 15–19 to strengthen amovement of young Jews. With over 3,000teens from 36 countries, and thousands ofeducators, thought and business leaders,celebrities, political figures and philan-thropists coming together for BBYOInternational Convention (IC), this epicevent offered opportunities for Jewish teensto connect with their peers and considerhow to make the future their own.

The conference showcased the diversityof the BBYO community as delegates traveled from 49 states and for the firsttime, from Australia, China, Colombia,Mexico and Spain, enhancing BBYO’s celebration of Jewish culture. They camefor the celebration of Jewish teen spirit. ICis one of the largest Jewish communalleadership events in North America andthe single-largest gathering of Jewish teenleaders worldwide.

Besides U.S. gymnastic Olympian AlyRaisman, and 31-year-old actor Josh Peckknown from Nickelodeon’s “Drake andJosh”show, several other prominent peoplespoke.Two of those were Mike Signer, whoserved as the mayor of Charlottesville,Va.,during the rally and protests last Augustthat brought white supremacists to theforefront of international attention, andSusan Bro, whose 32-year-old daughterHeather Heyer was killed when a car droveinto the crowd of counter-protestors.

The convention also featured learninglabs, leadership activities, Shabbat andHavdalah celebrations, and entertainmentby Daya and Fetty Wap.

Firsthand accounts from Holocaust survivors reinforced the responsibility ofremembrance, and off-site visits to localnonprofits emphasized the importance ofcommunal involvement for all ages.Teens visited sites that included Clean the World, Emeril Lagasse FoundationKitchen House & Culinary Garden, andthe Renaissance Senior Center. They also

heard from two-time Olympic soccer goldmedalist and LGBTQ activist AbbyWambach, and watched videos sent tothem from Canadian Prime MinisterJustin Trudeau and U.S. Ambassador tothe United Nations Nikki Haley.

But before they got into the bulk of theprogram, a moment of silence was held inmemory of the 17 people – 14 students andthree staff members – killed in the massshooting at Marjory Stoneman DouglasHigh School in Parkland, Fla., some 200miles south of Orlando, on Feb. 14, thefirst day of the conference. AAAA

Declaring “TogetherWe Will,” thousandsof teens gather

U.S. gymnastic's Olympian, Aly Raisman,addressing the BBYO Convention.

Natalie Portman. Photo: Hadas Parush/Flash90.