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Jewish Journal

Connect. Inform. Inspire.

April 2, 2009

COMMUNITY Briefs: Radio Show Suspended, Chabad Vandalized, Wisenthal Expansion Approved

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KPFK Suspends Radio Show for Hate Speech
“La Causa,” a KPFK call-in radio show aimed at Latino audiences has been suspended following an article in the March 20 issue of The Jewish Journal.

The article quoted the host and callers’ consistent criticism of Jews and of Israel; a statement on the KPFK Web site said the show “facilitated hate speech.”

Calling such speech “deplorable and unbefitting of the Pacifica Foundation mission,” the statement added, “We have addressed this matter with the programmer in question as well as countless constituents and have concluded that allowing the broadcast of bigoted and racist content demonstrated a severe lack of judgment on the part of the programmer.”

The show will not come back on the air, the statement says, “unless and until we are 100 percent assured that there will be no repeat airing of any such offending content.”

— Staff Report

Riverside Chabad Vandalized

Swastikas and anti-Semitic graffiti were painted last week on the walls and windows of the Chabad Jewish Community Center of Riverside. “SS” and “88” — two terms popular with white neo-Nazis — were painted above a swastika on one door. Below were the German words “Actung! Juden” — or “Warning! Jews.”

The synagogue and the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) offered a $1,000 reward for information leading to the identification and arrest of the vandals.

“Vandalizing a Jewish house of worship sends a message of hate to the entire Jewish community,” said Alison Mayersohn, ADL senior associate director for the Pacific Southwest region. “A crime such as this doesn’t merely affect one building, but is of concern to the entire community. We thank the Riverside Police Department for their immediate response and thorough investigation.”

The ADL urged anyone with information to contact Riverside Police Department’s Centralized Investigations Division at (951) 353-7100.

— Brad A. Greenberg, Senior Writer

 

Orthodox School Purchases Daniel Murphy Building

Orthodox day school Yeshiva Aharon Yaakov/Ohr Eliyahu has purchased the former Daniel Murphy Catholic High School building on Third Street, near La Brea Avenue, in the heart of the Fairfax district’s Orthodox community.

Rabbi Shlomo Goldberg, Ohr Eliyahu’s principal, confirmed that donors had purchased the building for the school and said details would soon be forthcoming about when the preschool through eighth grade school would move.

Goldberg did not disclose the purchase price for the 60,000-square-foot cluster of buildings. Since the Los Angeles Archdiocese closed the more than 50-year-old Daniel Murphy building in 2008, community members have been speculating which Jewish organization might snatch up the site.

Ohr Eliyahu currently occupies a former Culver City public school on a lush 4-acre campus near Kenneth Hahn State Park, which it purchased for $1.4 million in 1999 after leasing the site for four years. Ohr Eliyahu was founded in the mid-1980s in Venice.

Over the last 25 years, the school has established itself as a strictly Orthodox institution focused on developing strong morals among its nearly 300 students through character development programs, solid academics and artistic expression. Currently several miles from Orthodox neighborhoods, the school prided itself on forging a self-selective parent body.

Goldberg says the move will make the school a more convenient destination for more people, but does not signal any change in the school’s mission. Goldberg says the courtyard at the center of the campus retains the open feel the school has enjoyed.

Daniel Murphy has occupied the site since 1953, and the current buildings, erected in the 1960s, include classrooms, chapels, residential quarters where the nuns lived, a gymnasium and an outdoor yard. Citing declining enrollment at the school, the Archdiocese announced the closure of the 240-student school in Oct. 2007, as part of a large sell-off of properties to help pay a $660 million settlement to victims of clergy abuse.

— Julie Gruenbaum Fax, Senior Writer

 

Wiesenthal Center Expansion Approved

A lengthy and frequently acrimonious dispute between the Simon Wiesenthal Center and its residential neighbors reached a crucial point last week when the Los Angeles Planning Commission approved a somewhat modified expansion plan for the center’s Museum of Tolerance.

After 18 months of proposals, hearings and protests, the commission, by a vote of 8 to 0, on March 26 endorsed the essence of MOT’s expansion project. In doing so, the panel rejected the opinion of senior city planner Jim Tokunaga, who had urged more restrictive conditions.

However, the museum also cut back on some of its original demands. On one particularly contentious point — MOT’s plans to rent its projected new facilities to outside parties and organizations for late evening meetings and social events — the museum agreed to set the curfew at 10 p.m., rather than at midnight. In addition, attendance will be limited to 500 people, rather than the 800 originally requested, but the commission permitted the museum to hold 18 such events a month, rather than the two proposed by Tokunaga. The panel also approved modifications in the size of a buffer zone separating the museum from its neighbors, but at the same time went along with extended hours for museum visitors.

Throughout the protracted dispute, many of the 144 single-family homeowners in the North Beverlywood neighborhood, adjoining the museum on three sides south of Pico Boulevard, had protested that the expansion would further aggravate existing noise, traffic and litter problems from museum visitors and the adjacent Yeshiva of Los Angeles.

Susan Gans, co-chair of HOME (Homeowners Opposed to Museum Expansion), argued that the museum had consistently violated restrictions imposed under its conditional-use permit and could not be trusted to self-enforce any limitations on the current expansion plans. “You can no more trust the Wiesenthal Center to police itself than you would trust Bernie Madoff with your savings, “ Gans said.

Susan Burden, the Wiesenthal Center’s chief financial and administrative officer, struck a more conciliatory tone. “The Museum of Tolerance is very pleased that the City Planning Commission understood our need to expand to meet the growing need for our programs,” Burden said. “We substantially modified our original proposal in response to neighborhood concerns and requests from the City Council office and we believe that the result is a plan that will work for everyone.”

Gans said that her opposition group would appeal the planning commission’s decision to the Los Angeles City Council, and if rejected, would file a lawsuit to stop the expansion project.

— Tom Tugend, Contributing Editor

 

Tarzana Preschool May Close

Unless new donors step up with a generous offer of support, the Eretz Alliance preschool in Tarzana could shutter its doors at the end of the academic year in June. The center, which has funded and shared its Wilbur Avenue campus with the school for 12 years, announced in a January letter to school parents that it could no longer pay to keep the facility open due to hard economic times.

“Gradual decrease in donations, and low tuition for the past few years, created a serious and dangerous situation for the center,” the center’s board members wrote in the letter. They said they wouldn’t be able to keep funding teacher and staff salaries and other expenses needed to keep the school open past this year.

Many parents have agreed to pay higher tuition and raise funds themselves to keep the Conservative, 62-student school open, director Cookie Spancer said. Tuition is on the low end of the scale for similar school programs — $6,300 per year — but many parents have said they would be willing to pay as much as $8,000.

Still, Eretz Cultural Center representatives told Spancer these measures would not be enough, she said. The school building would need major structural repairs to remain open, they said, which family fundraising efforts couldn’t cover.

The center has received several offers of support to keep the school open, Spancer said. An unnamed Orthodox organization came forward but could not reach a deal with the center. A former school mother offered to purchase the school and run it as a for-profit institution at a different location, but zoning issues could prevent the school from using the new site. Spancer said she is now hoping for “a miracle.” In the meantime, she is urging parents to secure spots for their children at other neighborhood Jewish schools and “save themselves” in case the offer falls through.

Some parents said they are having a hard time finding other preschool programs with a comparably close-knit atmosphere.

“This is devastating for us,” said school mother Lobat Abrams, of Tarzana, whose son, Aaron, has one year left before kindergarten. “It’s such a family-oriented place. It breaks my heart that it’s closing.”

Eretz Cultural Center board members could not be reached for further comment.

— Rachel Heller, Contributing Writer

 

Idan Raichel Performs Solo

Idan Raichel, the creative mastermind behind The Idan Raichel Project, made a special solo appearance at Temple Israel of Hollywood on March 30, orchestrated by the Israeli Consulate. The dreadlocked singer-songwriter spoke and performed in front of an audience of approximately 150 day school students as well as 36 girls from the neighboring Aviva Family and Children’s Services Residential Treatment Center. The center provides round-the-clock treatment and assistance to abandoned, neglected, abused and at-risk youth aged 12 to 18.

Raichel, who seemed more bashful in front of this young audience than he had for the near-capacity crowd at the downtown Orpheum Theatre the night before, played snippets of his songs on the piano, but spent much of the time answering questions from the audience about the meaning of his songs, his musical inspirations, Israeli culture and his personal life (“How long did it take you to grow out your hair?” and “Are you a vegetarian?”). The highlight came when a girl requested that Raichel sing “Boi,” adding that they had learned a dance to his song. As Raichel sang one of the hit tracks that catapulted him to the top of the Israeli music scene in 2002, a group of day schoolers surrounded the piano and swayed and turned in a synchronized dance.

“I am so touched,” Raichel told the kids. “It was a great honor to play for you. Thank you.”

— Dikla Kadosh, Contributing Writer

 

Youth Support Maccabees

If you happened to pass by the chic West Hollywood club Guy’s on March 25, you might have heard the rapper Kurupt giving a shout-out to all the “Young Maccabees” in the house, partying to support the “Jewish Olympics.” A stylish, mostly 20-something crowd packed the hotspot for a party to benefit Maccabi World Union (MWU), which sponsors Jewish athletes attending the 18th Maccabiah Games in Israel July 12-23.

In addition to the MWU’s influential Committee of 18, which includes Steve Soboroff, Jamie McCourt and Kirk Douglas, Los Angeles now has a Young Leadership Committee with 20 members and an active board of six. (The other U.S. chapters of the MWU are in Miami and New York.) With 350 attending last week’s event, board co-chair Ari Friedland said, “This was just a warm-up to let people know who we are, what our goals are,” and will be followed by a gala in May.

The event was promoted principally through personal networks on Facebook, as well as a new site called Paperless Post, which hosts both invitations and ticket purchasing. Friedland said he considers Maccabi to be one of the most vital forms of creating Jewish pride and identity.

“It’s non-religious and non-political, so it’s a big unifier,” he said. “And it’s a perfect fusion of the two things many of us were raised loving: Israel and sports.”

The cost is $4,800 to sponsor an athlete who would otherwise not be able to attend the Jewish sport quadrennial, which is tied for the third-largest sporting event in the world, measured by participants. The Maccabi organization hopes that as many as 10,000 athletes will compete. (Although only Jewish athletes are invited globally, all Israeli citizens are eligible, and Israeli Arabs have won medals in past competitions.) About 80 percent of the non-Israeli athletes who will compete have never been to Israel.

The 18th Maccabiah Games will be broadcast for the first time in the U.S., through Jewish Life TV and its major cable partners.

For more information, visit maccabiah.com or maccabiusa.com.

— Daniel Housman, Contributing Writer

 

COMMUNITY Briefs: Radio Show Suspended, Chabad Vandalized, Wisenthal Expansion Approved Read More »

First humans, now trees will text you

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A new device under development in Israel would take some of hassle out of determining if fruit trees or grape vines are getting enough water. The monitor, tapped into a stem, would measure the plant’s electric conductivity, a parameter of water stress. If the stress gets to be too much, the device can send a text message or e-mail to the farmer. And if the plant continues to bake in the sun without water, the device can also turn on the water itself.

The product – created by Israeli researchers Eran Raveh and Arieh Nadler at the Volcani Institute of Agriculture—is still about three or four years from store shelves, reports Karin Kloosterman at Green Prophet/Israel21c.

“We have a water crisis here in Israel and need a way to irrigate more accurately,” says Raveh.

The device, still without a name, will save farmers up to 30 to 40 percent in water use, he calculates. “The idea is that we were trying to find a way to give water more accurately to the trees. Usually [devices today] measure soil water content.”

Measuring tree water content this way, says the plant and soil specialist, is “complicated and takes a lot of time until you get a ‘true’ measurement, because there are many varying parameters involved.”

Cheap, simple, accurate
To get a true estimate of the moisture level in a plant or tree, a farmer must make a grueling check of 26 points in the ground around the plant.

“We’ve found a different way for measuring a tree’s water status: by sticking probes—three simple nails—into the main stem of the tree, we measure electric conductivity of the stem, and analyze the data to tell people if the tree is under good water conditions. It’s important to be able to do this in a simple and cheap way,” says Raveh, who came about the idea by accident: “Our solution is cheap, it can be automated and is very accurate.

“We were doing some other work, and realized that the data that came out of it reflects tree water status,” he says.

This data is the intellectual property that the future company will revolve around. Whether the information collected will be transmitted by SMS, e-mail message, fax, or sent to switch on an automated tap, is a matter of simple programming.

For tomatoes and potatoes too
For now, the team will continue refining the first product, shaped like a small hammer — for trees — and will continue fine-tuning it to apply it in farm produce as well. Raveh envisions the cost will be very affordable for most farmers, about $250 per orchard: only one probe will be needed to reflect the water content in about every 500 trees.

“It can work on every stem and doesn’t matter what kind of plant material,” he says. “Olives, palm, banana — at the moment we are working with big trees, but it’s a matter of calibrating [the device] to move it to younger and smaller plants.”

Orchard farmers everywhere, and the planet, will be saying thank you. “In big orchards, water use is a problem,” says Raveh, who estimates that an orchard with thousands of trees could cut its water use by almost half. It could also spare trees and plants from being over-watered.

He doesn’t expect the device will be that useful for the homeowner with a few trees on a lot, because in this case it’s not difficult to see if a tree is water stressed. A “smart” tree that can send text messages, however, could be used a novelty item to entertain and teach the kids about water, plants and the environment.

First humans, now trees will text you Read More »

Israel’s Lieberman questioned by police

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Only in Israel would a political leader be sworn into office one day and questioned by police as part of an investigation into bribery and money laundering the next. So was the case for Avigdor Lieberman, the new foreign minister, today. From a The New York Times article that also discusses that ax murder in the West Bank:

Mr. Lieberman caused an uproar on Wednesday, his first day as foreign minister, declaring in a blunt speech that Israel was not obligated to continue an American-backed peace effort with the Palestinians, started at a conference in Annapolis, Md., in late 2007.

The police spokesman, Micky Rosenfeld, said the interrogation did not come as a surprise, but was coordinated with the incoming minister several days in advance.

Mr. Lieberman is part of the new government led by Benjamin Netanyahu and his conservative Likud Party, which was sworn in late Tuesday. Mr. Lieberman leads the hawkish Yisrael Beiteinu party, an important partner in the governing coalition and the third largest party in Parliament.

Critics of Mr. Lieberman were outraged at the outcome of the recent coalition negotiations that put his Yisrael Beiteinu party in charge of the Ministry of Public Security, which is responsible for the police.

The new public security minister, Yitzhak Aharonovitch, is highly regarded as a former deputy commissioner of the national police. Nevertheless, police officials expressed surprise when Mr. Lieberman, the party chief, took the unusual step of turning up at Mr. Aharonovitch’s inauguration ceremony on Wednesday.

The police have been investigating Mr. Lieberman’s business dealings for 13 years, but he has never been charged. He has frequently railed against the police, accusing them of persecution.

Mr. Aharonovitch said Thursday that he had no intention of intervening in the investigations of public figures. Mr. Lieberman’s office said that he fully cooperated with the police investigators. The police spokesman said that the investigation is continuing, and that Mr. Lieberman would be questioned again.

Here is a link to a story about Lieberman’s comments Wednesday about Israel’s peace policy. After the jump, a critical ad from JStreet:

Israel’s Lieberman questioned by police Read More »

LETTERS: Torah Slam 2, Jewish Education, Israel the Bully, Gaza Symposium

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Torah Slam 2

During the 37 years I have been a member of the Jewish communal service field I have had the opportunity of attending hundreds (and this is not an exaggeration) of programs (“Torah Slam Rabbis Debate,” March 27). Without hesitation, I want you to know that I consider the presentations and dialogue last night among the best I’ve heard — ever.

Educational — inspirational – motivating ….

Y’shar Koach — and thank you!

Paul Jesser

Beverly Hills

After reading Daniel Bouskila’s assertion at the Torah Slam 2 in which he states that in order to be a good Jew one must live in Israel, permit me to point out that unlike real estate where, “location, location, location,” is an essential ingredient, it does not apply to Judaism.

Being a good Jew is truly a complex question but in my opinion easily resolved by not only following halachah but by also conducting oneself in all aspects of life in a manner that brings honor to all Jews wherever one resides.

Jason Levi

Northridge

Jewish Education

Thank you for publishing Mr. Pearl’s thoughts regarding the “New Marranos” (“Our New Marranos,” March 20). The pernicious and institutionalized anti-Zionism on the college campuses and on some of the media appears to be directly related to the lack of Jewish education among school-aged Jewish children. Those who believe that Zionism is the problem appear to be well-educated and well-stationed young adults who are well meaning but clueless that they have revealed their profound ignorance about Jewish history. I realize that many parents cannot afford to provide a Jewish education and that may be part of the reason why Jewish education is erratically distributed in our community. Also, the concept of a “kehillah”- style education for all Jewish children is passé and not vogue in the new humanitarian universal model. That is why I was so heartened to read on page 16 that the Jim Joseph Foundation gave grants to fund Jewish education (“L.A. Receives Emergency Grant to Pay for Jewish Education,” March 20). This is the right direction that we must travel. The Jewish community must be more aggressive in promoting education because the alternative will be more and more people who will identify themselves as Jews but promote and propose anti-Jewish remedies to promote their agenda. It is not too late to try and provide some Jewish education to each Jewish child.

Adriana Burger

via e-mail

Israel the Bully

When I began to read Ms. Eltahawy’s column, I actually felt that maybe this would be an article by a Muslim journalist that would be based upon reason instead of typical hatred against Israel (“Children of the Naksa, Children of Camp David,” March 27). That optimism quickly disappeared when Ms. Eltahawy fired two rockets in one paragraph.

She claims that “Israel often lives up to its reputation as a bully.” Israel the bully; completely surrounded by countries that hate her and wish for her destruction, outnumbered many times by population and area, Israel, who has contributed to the world in the areas of medicine, science and technology, completely disproportionate to her size; Israel the bully. Ms. Eltahawy, no doubt, considers David the bully, and not Goliath.

Her next sentence states, “its disproportionate reaction in Gaza to the Hamas rockets fired at southern Israeli towns.” I had to reread that clause two times to make sure I was reading it correctly. These same rockets, which are aimed, not at military targets, but indiscriminately at civilians, including children and elderly. If Israel had a “disproportionate reaction” to the daily barrage of rockets, maybe it is because Israel was too gentle.

Michael A. Gesas

Beverly Hills

Scholarships

As co-president of the Los Angeles chapter of the America-Israel Cultural Foundation, I would like to thank you for the impressive article that appeared in The Jewish Journal about AICF (“Surviving Bernie
,” March 13).

It is true that not enough people know about AICF and all the work they do in awarding scholarships to students to continue their studies.

Through the many events that AICF has had in the Los Angeles area where we feature AICF recipients, it is amazing how talented these recipients are and how grateful they are to receive these scholarships.  So many have told us that if it weren’t for AICF, they would not have been able to pursue their studies.

I hope that through your very informative article, your readers will understand and support the necessity of keeping AICF alive and thriving.

Renee L. Cherniak

Los Angeles

Gaza Symposium

We consider Chancellor Block’s failure to properly respond to the symposium agenda tantamount to approval of it (“UCLA Symposium on Gaza Ignites Strong Criticism,” Feb. 13). Giving time to Israel studies separately as a discussion is not equivalent to what the Center for Near East Studies allowed to be a subterfuge for propaganda. What good is the Center if when it holds its meetings for discussion, it excludes one of the major players?

We have lived through anti-Semitism, McCarthyism, red baiting and civil rights upheaval. Today there is a wave in academia of professors losing jobs, being denied grants, losing invitations to panels and conferences, and being intimidated by incriminating letters because they speak out on certain subjects. Young Jewish students are unprepared for the “new anti-Semitism” and are fearful of speaking out in classes. We expect everyone in academia to have the right to speak out without fear of retribution. That includes both students and professors. Has academia become a place for the “new Marranos” who have to hide their true identities?

What we expect for the chancellor is a transparent interpretation of the mission of the Center for Near East Studies and how it may better represent all peoples of the region. At the very least, it should be a welcoming and inclusive forum for all students and views.

Marge Schlaifer, Toby Segal,

Nina Fenster-Smylie

Los Angeles

Creative Soul

Craig Taubman is one of the most creative people with whom I have had the privilege of working. He and his company, Craig ‘n Co, produced Shaare Zedek’s celebration in honor of Theodore Bikel’s 80th birthday almost five years ago. He created Jewels of Elul, an outstanding pre-High Holy Day guide — the third edition was sponsored by the American Committee for Shaare Zedek Medical Center in Jerusalem. The ACSZ has supported almost every one of his community efforts, especially the annual Let My People Sing.Last year Craig Taubman publicly apologized for making an error connected to the Faith Jam / Israel 60th anniversary celebration in which he, to get outside involvement, agreed to not include any mention of Israel (see “Man of Joy,” Jewish Journal, Dec. 10, 2008).

This year, I believe he is making even a greater mistake. I am referring to the 2009 Let My People Sing, specifically to the event on April 15, Let My People Eat, which is scheduled to take plane in a non-kosher restaurant.

It is not that I believe that everyone must keep kosher — I don’t — it is that I find it abhorrent that a wonderfully conceived and much needed community-wide program has been placed in a venue that tells a significant and important part of our community to stay away! This is just plain wrong!

I wrote to the head of the JFS to voice my disappointment and requested that they consider changing the venue. This is the response that I received:

“Thank you for your e-mail and I appreciate the point you are making. When JFS sponsors an event we do hold them at kosher facilities. In this case, however, we are the beneficiary of this event and not the sponsor. In this time of great economic uncertainty and increased demand for service we welcome the opportunity to work with a variety of community partners and greatly appreciate Craig’s willingness to help raise funds for critically needed services.” 

I do not find this response acceptable, especially since the contact in the ad is to JFS, thus making them, at least, a co-sponsor.

Please join me in urging the JFS and Craig to change the venue for this function.

Paul Jeser

National Director of Major Gifts — Director, Western Region

American Committee for Shaare Zedek Medical Center in Jerusalem

via e-mail

Questionable Cartoon

With reference to the upset and response to the Oliphant cartoon, I believe it is time that we Jews respond emphatically (“Jewish Groups Call Oliphant Cartoon ‘Anti-Semetic,’” March 26). We should, each of us, notify the newspapers that publish his work, that unless we receive a true apology, we will cancel our subscription to the publishing newspaper. It is time we actively respond and respond dramatically!

Marvin R. Selter

Studio City

Milken JCC

Reminds me of the great fiasco several years ago when the Jewish Federation abandoned the Westside JCC … 

Your report by Contributing Editor Tom Tugend speaks of “both sides” coming together to agree on a plan whereby the Milken JCC can continue to serve the community (“Phoenix Rises — Milken JCC Readies for Big Splash,” March 27). Something is seriously awry when we have two sides — rather than a partnership. The JCC is attempting to fulfill its role in providing a central core for community activities. In my mind, the role of the Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles should be to serve as a partner in this noble endeavor by providing the funds. Isn’t that what it was set up to do? Instead we have the Jewish Federation acting in part at least as a landlord — not a partner in an endeavor to benefit the community.

George Epstein

Los Angeles

Dr. Pearl’s Marranos

Professor Pearl’s article, “Our New Marranos,” would have been better titled “Their New Marranos” (“Our New Marranos,” March 20). He does an injustice to Marranos, possibly because in most of his articles that I have read in the past few years, especially since the atrocious murder of his son Daniel, a reporter for the Wall Street Journal, he seems to me to show himself as a most reasonable, logical man, yet one lacking a sense of the tragic in history, both in general, and in Jewish history. So do those he criticizes as anti-Zionists in last week’s piece, Ehrenreich, who seems on the face of his Op-Ed merely a fool, not to mention an ignorant coward, anxiously driven to separate himself from what he was born into, tragically enough, the Jewish people; and Ms. Roberts, a UCLA student who thinks she can define herself, and/or “ourselves,” meaning Jews, “according to [her] own her beliefs and circumstances.”

Such Jews, and they are legion, Pearl is calling what the Spanish today terms a marrano: “persona maldita o descomulgada” that is, wicked, depraved.” Our historic Marranos were, even if great men of the Catholic hierarchy, or a saint like Teresa D’Avila, always in immediate danger of their lives from the ever-present Inquisition. The last “old Marrano” was burnt at the stake in Lima, Peru, as recently as 1749. There was no self-definition possible even as a Prince of the Church, or for any leading member of the Spanish establishment then. The list of “signs” by which a maid or gardener could denounce a Jew contained simple observations like: If the mistress washes and puts on fresh linen on Friday evening, or changes a shirt for her husband, or lights a candle, she shall be reported. An Ehrenreich or Roberts is not threatened by being put on the rack, not yet, let alone deported and gassed, and in the West, at this point, they are free to speak and publish what is on their minds. But — do they have minds that think clearly? That is Pearl’s true question. It is his basic complaint about their moral irresponsibility, which he terms dishonesty. It is a fatal cowardice. Perfectly understandable: even Freud didn’t wish to flee Vienna as late as 1938.  Talk about denial?

George Orwell’s protagonist in 1984,Winston Smith, an independent or secret dissident , is finally called to account for his self-definition, and when the cage-mask containing a starving rat is held to his face, he cries out, “Do it to Julia!” and she is the woman he loves as his very soul, until that moment of truth is thrust at him.

That moment may be presented, the bill to be paid, not at one’s own hour of choice, but at any moment in today’s world. Since it is the fundamental issue here, one should keep in mind the final words of Creon, the new ruler of Thebes, in our most famous Western tragedy, “King Oedipus”:

You still presume to do what pleases you?

You never in your life were free to choose!

In short, the latest lesson of our history, the events and meaning of Shoah, seems already lost on such people, who fail to understand that it is no longer possible for Jews to live, let alone define themselves, in whatever way they wish. Rather, they are defined by those who do not wish them to live at all.

Jascha Kessler

Professor of English & Modern Literature, UCLA

Santa Monica

Anti-Zionists, who in no way demonize Israel,  have every right to be part of the Jewish community. However, the activist among the anti-Zionists who make obscene analogies, promote every kind of libel against Israel, and encourage writers and editors to omit all the key points from textbooks, articles etc. that would make an overwhelming case for the Jewish state have no right to be part of our community. Pearl is wrong in comparing these people to Marranos, they rather compare to Theobald of Cambridge, the 12th century apostate who made up the Blood Libel. Certainly it would be absurd to count him as one of us.

Ronnie Gribler

Los Angeles

Eshman and Pearl

Your March 20 issue contained Rob Eshman’s plea for a Jewish community leader, and Judea Pearl elaborating on anti-Zionist Jews (“Job Opening,” “Our New Marranos”). I believe that these issues are connected. World Jewry is fractured because we are terribly confused by the State of Israel. After 61 years, the “Light unto the Nations” is closer to being a Jewish Republic than a true democracy. Still no constitution, and the ultra-Orthodox are still allowed to judge Jewish legitimacy. As a people, we are so completely divided that even the ultra-Orthodox Sephardics and Ashkenazis attend different schools. We in the Diaspora are torn between the love and need of a Jewish homeland, and embarrassment from bad publicity. People like Bernie Madoff make us question Jewish righteousness. There is also confusion and dissension in our houses of worship. The Union for Reform Judaism has no policy on dietary rules, but my Reform congregation has strict kashrut rules for the premises. Politically conservative Jews have no tolerance for liberal Jews. At one time Jews found common ground on now minor issues such as dealing with quotas in medical schools and getting jobs in the gentile private industry. At this time our future seems unpredictable.

Martin J. Weisman

Westlake Village

Praise for the Journal

I read much of this week’s Jewish Journal and once again I was quite moved (March 20).  Be assured, I am not easily moved or impressed.

I thoroughly enjoyed Jeff Bernhardt’s, “What to Do When the Kid Just Says ‘No!’” about Bar/Bar Mitzvah prep blues.

Then I read David Suissa’s, “Music Man.” Wow!!  That was a powerful and beautiful piece.

I most appreciated Rob Eshman’s, “Job Opening.” While I am not out of work, this does sound like a very intriguing and without a doubt, a challenging job. I do know about challenging jobs, having taught the past twelve years in South (Central) Los Angeles public schools. On top of that, I have been teaching at the middle school level, therefore I can certainly relate to a challenge.

Mr. Eshman stated, “The old ways are gone, and the new ways are yet to be created.” This sounds a bit like an invitation for someone like me who certainly will not follow 3,000+ years of failure, and who demands something new.

I was surprised last May when the annual Israel Festival granted me a booth for my ‘controversial’ organization, The Levite Line (.com), albeit at more than double the normal price. I was also pleasantly surprised to be allowed to present at LimmudLA this year.

So maybe L.A, Jewry is ready for me (or they took advantage of my ability and willingness to pay)? I assure you, my leadership would be a change. For one thing, the Jewish tradition of being the perennial victim will soon come to an end, because I personally refuse to be a victim. This is not sticking-my-head-in-the-sand stubbornness. This is learning from the past (I have an M.A. in History), determining the problems and finding solutions, no matter what they may be. Things can change, things must change, and I for one am without a doubt an agent for such change.

Now if my checkered past can be overlooked, along with a belief that there are answers to ALL questions, then forward we can go. I won’t hold my breath, since I’m not part of the super-wealthy German-Jewish elite stock, but my answer is Hineni — Here I Am.

Richard S. Levik

Los Angeles

THE JEWISH JOURNAL welcomes letters from all readers. Letters should be no more than 200 words and must include a valid name, address and phone number. Letters sent via e-mail must not contain attachments. Pseudonyms and initials will not be used, but names will be withheld on request. We reserve the right to edit all letters. Mail: The Jewish Journal, Letters, 3580 Wilshire Blvd., Suite 1510, Los Angeles, CA 90010; e-mail: letters@jewishjournal.com; or fax: (213) 368-1684.

 

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American Idols

Leave a Comment / Opinion, Rob Eshman /

Last Saturday night, I was at the Honda Center in Anaheim watching Billy Joel in concert. He was banging about the piano, singing his heart out, doing all those great songs about being young and horny and streetwise back in the old Italian neighborhood.

And then, seeing his face up close on the super-sized screen, it suddenly hit me: My God, Billy Joel is such an old Jew.

I’m witnessing this phenomenon everywhere I look in pop culture. At some point, they just can’t hide it any more, can they?

Billy Joel. Bob Dylan. Paul Simon. Gene Simmons. Paul Stanley. Carole King. Donald Fagen. Neil Sedaka. The men and women who made their fame and fortune as young American idols have all slid into AARP-land. I’m not the first to point out they just don’t leap onto the piano anymore without first taking a step up on the piano bench, and they don’t reach the high notes the way they used to — not for long anyway. But there’s something else that changes in them: Their true selves, their Jewish selves, inexorably emerge.

There is no amount of plastic surgery, hair transplants, misleading lyrics or name changes that can keep them from looking like that old relative you see every Passover, the one who always falls asleep sitting up on the couch while the grandkids are racing around looking for the afikomen.

“Did you know Billy Joel is Jewish?” I said to my friend Ed, who was with me at the concert.

He shook his head. “Italian.”

“Look at him,” I said.

He stared for a second, and I could see it hit him too.

Ed wrote the screenplay for “Men in Black,” and it occurred to me these Jews are just like the alien hiding among illegal immigrants in that movie’s opening sequence.

For a second the alien appears normal, but then Tommy Lee Jones makes his true Martian self appear.

I saw it at the Bob Dylan concert in Santa Barbara last summer. He was speeding through his oldies, looking like an unkempt version of your favorite uncle, and his high whine and moan sounded like one continuous “Oyyyyy.”

“Did you notice you say ‘Oy vey?’ a lot more?” someone asked radio icon Howard Stern on his Sirius satellite show last week.

At first Stern denied it. For years his shtick was to tell callers that he wasn’t really Jewish — “I’m only half Jewish,” he insisted over and over, though both of his parents sound like they were made from a Manischewitz mix.

Finally Howard admitted: the older he gets, the more the Yiddish in him comes out.

It happens to them all: the hype and ambition and klieg lights die away. The ancient shtetl genes beat back the miracles of science and the power of diet. Having banked their millions, these icons edge more toward what they really are — what their parents and their parents’ parents really were — and away from what they pretended to be. They find their Jewish voices.

The phenomenon has so many quirky manifestations: Neil Sedaka recorded an all-Yiddish album a couple of years ago. I run into Paul Stanley in shul — the man from KISS, who I last saw 30 years ago in white makeup and S&M garb. I do a double take, and we exchange a “Good Shabbos.”

I see Carole King at a Jewish fundraiser and sit beside her piano as she plays and sings. At his concert earlier this year, Billy Joel complains about schlepping through L.A. traffic — “schlep” is not an Italian verb — then does a two minute lead-in to “Piano Man” that is the kind of concerto his brother, the great classical pianist Alexander Joel, would have played, the kind his father, a refugee from Nazi Germany, would have grown up hearing.

One by one they find their Jewish voice.

One by one, we all do.

Judaism understands this process. It’s right there in the Passover seder, in the characters of the Four Sons. The Wise Son asks what every law of Passover means. The Simple Son asks, “What does any of this mean?” The Wicked Son asks, “What’s this all mean to you?” And there’s also the Son Who Doesn’t Even Know to Ask.

Those Four Sons are, of course, contained within each one of us, depending on the story we’re hearing, depending on the stage of our life. Those who strive for fame and acceptance may start by denying who they are. But once they have it all, the search for something deeper kicks in, and with it the questions: What does it mean? Why are you doing this? What do I even ask?

It’s not linear — Billy Joel will not end life as a Bobover Chasid — but I wish the self-appointed gatekeepers of Judaism, those who constantly drone on about how assimilation is poised to destroy Judaism as we know it — just as it has been poised to do for about 4,000 years or so — would stop and appreciate how powerful this faith, this culture is. Judaism is not something that just comes from outside, from pedantry and persuasion; it cries out from within, it wants to come out.

In his new book “How to Read the Bible,” scholar James L. Kugel points to how even the Bible itself, in the Exodus story, understands this. The Children of Israel escape from Pharaoh’s army, and make it safely to the other side of the Red Sea. There they stop with Moses, their leader, and all together they sing a new song, “Shirat HaYam,” “The Song of the Sea.”

But, Kugel points out, how do they know the words? Even if you assume Moses gets the lyrics and melody straight from God, how did all the Israelites get them too?

The Bible has no answer. But I think I have a clue: It’s a song we are born with, a voice within.

Happy Passover.

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When Israelis were drug lords

Leave a Comment / Uncategorized /

Ten years ago, the Israeli mafia dominated Ecstasy drug trafficking. Lisa Sweetingham unravels the international web in her new book, “Chemical Cowboys,” about which I interviewed her for next week’s Jewish Journal.

What I found most interesting about our discussion of Israelis and Ecstasy was the use of atypical mules for the smuggling of pills cooked in Europe. Sweetingham mentioned “stripper couriers and haredi teens and Midwestern-looking folks.” Wait … haredi teens?

Yep. This in-depth story from the Miami New Times tells a lurid tale. Here’s a shorter explanation from a 2004 expose from Haaretz on kingpin Oded Tuito and the Ecstasy trade:

In addition to the strippers, Tuito also made use of young ultra-Orthodox Jews, whom he recruited by word of mouth in New York yeshivas. He believed—and rightly so, as it turned out—that the U.S. authorities would not suspect yeshiva students dressed in the traditional black garb and therefore would not check their luggage at the airport in New York.

Talk about bad for the Jews.

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Bring a Suitcase to Seder

Leave a Comment / David Suissa, Opinion /

I had no idea I would be attending a seder the other day when I went to The Jewish Federation building to hear Rabbi Ed Feinstein talk about “The Ethics of Exodus.”

But attend a seder I did, only one that was free of food, rituals or prayers.

This seder only served meaning.

Feinstein, the senior rabbi at Valley Beth Shalom in Encino, started by revealing the “empty page” of the haggadah — the fact that it doesn’t answer this critical question: Why is the Exodus the Jewish people’s “master story”? Why pick a story that reminds us how pathetically weak we once were?

For the next hour, the rabbi made the case that pretty much every Jewish ethic is connected to our demeaning and humiliating experience as slaves in Egypt.

The rabbi asked: Why do good? Plato said that if you know good, you will do good. Kant talked about doing good as one’s “duty.” But Judaism, the rabbi explained, is wary of human nature, so it takes a more prudent route to ethical living. You must understand and feel the lessons of goodness in your bones.

And there are no deeper lessons than what’s in the master story of the Exodus that we relive at the seder table — all of them connected in some way to slavery.

Feinstein led with a well-known commandment from Exodus: “You shall not wrong a stranger or oppress him, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt. You shall not ill-treat any widow or orphan.”

Our Torah focuses on strangers, widows and orphans because they are especially vulnerable. Unlike the successful and the powerful who attract attention, the vulnerable only get indifference.

They suffer the worst part of slavery — the sense of being “socially invisible.” That’s why the fundamental Jewish ethic, the rabbi said, is empathy: We are not allowed to relegate any human being to “social invisibility.” We were there, and we should know better.

The rabbi then touched on the human instinct to get revenge. He quoted Exodus: “When you see your enemy’s mule lying under its burden and would refrain from raising it, you must nevertheless raise it with him. You shall not subvert the rights of your needy in their disputes.”

He gave us an example. You have a neighbor who annoys you because he plays his music too loud. One day, you see that his car broke down, and he needs your help. Your first instinct is payback. So why help him? Two obvious reasons: empathy and setting a good example.

But there is another, less obvious reason: to free yourself from being a slave to your primal instincts. The story of the Exodus compels us to ask ourselves: Are we using our freedom to shape our characters, or are we slaves to our worst instincts? By resisting the temptation to take revenge, we free ourselves from our deepest inner slavery.

The rabbi and his seder were on a roll. Next, he shared what he called a “beautiful piece of Jewish music” from Deuteronomy: “You shall not take a widow’s garment in pawn.” A desperate, starving widow might offer you her garments so she can buy food, but you are not allowed to accept them. We are not permitted to strip any human being of their dignity, because we were slaves in Egypt, and we should know better.

We were now ready for the pièce de résistance, which can be boiled down to this: We human beings do not own anything.

That lesson was “unpacked” from another section of Deuteronomy: “When you reap the harvest in your field and overlook a sheaf in the field, do not turn back to get it … always remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt.”

The rabbi, who once lived in Texas, did his best imitation of a macho Texas rancher who tells you that everything he owns is his: “This is my ranch, my tools, my cattle, my pickup, doggone it, it’s all mine!”

Well, not if the rancher is a Jew reliving the story of his Exodus and internalizing its message. Ever since Pharaoh “owned” us, the rabbi said, Jews have been extra sensitive to the whole notion of ownership.

The Torah worries that “if a human being can own everything, he can own anything.” After you own the field, the tools and the beast, what’s next? Your wife? Another human?

So you get one pass at “your” field, and anything left is for the “other.” This gives the other the dignity of work, but more importantly, it frees you from the slavery of obsessive ownership — fretting over that last piece of field that you missed and never being happy with your lot.

You can even be a slave to slavery itself. Just look at the greatest salesman of all, Moses, who could only convince 20 percent of his enslaved people to follow him to freedom. It’s the one virtue of being a slave, the rabbi said: You know that tomorrow will be the same as yesterday. As he put it: “Even if a person is broken, it’s the brokenness they know.”

Slavery lurks everywhere.

As our pre-Passover seder of meaning came to a close, one message rose above all: You can’t truly understand the ethics of the Exodus until you first see yourself as one of the slaves in Egypt. Of course, there is one problem with all this: If our actual seders overflow with food and festivities, how are we supposed to feel like slaves?

The rabbi, ever helpful, gave us an idea to add a little Exodus to our seders. Instead of sitting comfortably on a chair, sit on a suitcase — and put everything in that suitcase that you would take if it were “your last night in the desert.”

This is what our ancestors did in their own way. After 40 years of wandering as powerless humans, on their last night of slavery, they gathered their valuables and prepared for the unknown and treacherous world of freedom.

As Rabbi Feinstein brought home in his seder, it’s a world of freedom that is as treacherous today as it ever was.

David Suissa, an advertising executive, is founder of OLAM magazine, Meals4Israel.com and Ads4Israel.com. He can be reached at dsuissa@olam.org.

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That’s Where The Debate Is Going

Leave a Comment / Opinion /

Last week, we and three senior officials of the Jewish Federation met with a senior editor of the Los Angeles Times editorial page. We arranged the meeting to express widespread criticism among members of the Los Angeles Jewish community of editorial decisions by the Times regarding Israel. Specifically, we focused on the newspaper’s decision to publish an opinion piece by Hamas political deputy Mousa Abu Marzook on Jan. 6, during the peak of the Gaza conflict.

In his piece, Marzook dismissed Israel’s response to Hamas’ indiscriminate rocket fire as a “preemptive strike” and “simpl[e] aggression … designed to sow terror and loose anarchy.” In his sole reference to rocket fire from Gaza, Marzook claimed that only one Israeli had been killed in the six months prior to the conflict. The Times later corrected this outright lie. Marzook also slammed calls for Hamas to recognize the right of Israel to exist as “hollow,” given Israel’s “murderous onslaught” and “military occup[ation].”

We asserted that publishing such a piece in the Times lends credibility to the views and actions of Hamas. The editor, however, pointed to the democratic election of Hamas in Gaza and the favorable views of some world leaders toward Hamas, including former President Jimmy Carter. We understand the journalistic obligation to publish a broad spectrum of viewpoints and to let the marketplace of ideas rebut those views that some find pernicious. But, our freedom of speech and freedom of press must be used responsibly. This is especially true given that Hamas’ ultimate aim is the murder of Jews and the destruction of Israel. Disseminating the views of a senior Hamas leader in a mainstream newspaper furthers those objectives.

Our conversation returned often to the larger issue of context. We debated whether the average reader is aware of the founding Charter of Hamas or of Marzook’s terrorist history. The Hamas Charter calls for the “obliteration” of Israel and its replacement with an Islamic state, and quotes from the infamous Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Marzook, meanwhile, is no political official, but a man the United States government indicted as conspiring to fund terrorism and listed as a “Specially Designated Global Terrorist.” The editor noted that the Israeli media prints much more controversial pieces. That argument is, of course, a straw man. Every Israeli reader is aware that Hamas is committed to the death of innocent Jews; Israelis live daily in the shadow of Hamas’ terror. Not all American readers are similarly aware of Hamas’ genocidal goals. Publishing a piece by Marzook with a byline that fails to mention his admitted aim of killing Jews is akin to publishing a piece by former senatorial candidate and former Ku Klux Klan “Grand Wizard” David Duke with a byline that identifies Duke solely as a “political candidate.” Doing so is dishonest and dangerous.

The editor, a thoughtful journalist who to his credit welcomed our meeting, assured us that neither he nor his editorial board treats the decision to publish pieces by Hamas lightly. We discussed the decision by The Washington Post to run an editorial critical of Hamas alongside an opinion piece by Hamas foreign minister and founder, Mahmoud al-Zahar. Whether The Post’s decision was designed to avoid meetings like ours or reflected the newspaper’s desire to make a bold statement about the terrorist organization, it seems unlikely that Hamas would submit any pieces to The Post in the future.

Recently, the Los Angeles Times ran a pair of dueling opinion pieces: “Zionism is the Problem” by Ben Ehrenreich and “Is Anti-Zionism Hate?” by Judea Pearl. We maintained that the editorial decisions of the Times frame debates on important issues — as evidenced by the Ehrenreich and Pearl pieces — and shape how policymakers view those issues. The editor responded that while newspapers may to some extent frame debates, they also follow debates. He then made a startling observation — that whether Israel should continue to exist as a Jewish state or whether Hamas’ grievances are valid and justified … “that’s where the debate is going.”

If that is true, anyone who values Israel as a bastion of freedom and democracy and a historical homeland for the Jewish people should be concerned. That after 60 years and countless wars and conflicts the very right of the Jewish people to peace and autonomy is being revisited reflects an incalculable failure: the failure to stand up effectively to Israel’s critics. Our failure to speak up in a united and consistent fashion enables former American Presidents to label Israel an apartheid state, American diplomats to blast the “dishonor” and “indecency” of the “Israel lobby” when they are passed over for government positions, and the President of the United Nations General Assembly to accuse Israel of “genocide” for defending its citizens from rocket fire.

If indeed newspapers like the Times follow the debate and that is where the debate is going, our community must speak up. If you disagree with something that a newspaper publishes, write a letter to the editor (for the Times, e-mail letters@latimes.com). Submit opinion pieces. Request meetings with newspaper editorial boards. Demand that your elected officials use their positions to frame the debate around legitimate issues. Our silence, especially after a piece like Marzook’s, is deafening.

We are losing the debate and have no one to blame but ourselves.

David Peyman and Sam Yebri are co-founders of the Iranian-Jewish civic action organization “30 Years After” (www.30yearsafter.org). Peyman, a graduate of UCLA and Harvard Law School, and Yebri, a graduate of Yale University and USC Law School, are attorneys in Los Angeles.

That’s Where The Debate Is Going Read More »

Bielski Family, Doc Make ‘Defiance’ Personal

Leave a Comment / Entertainment, Film /

The film “Defiance” told the story of the Bielski brothers, who led a group of partisans in fighting the Nazis and established a self-sustaining Jewish community in the forests of Belarus, but it didn’t show what is ultimately their greatest triumph.

“The Bielski brothers assured the survival in the forests of 1,200 Jewish men, women and children,” said Sharon Rennert. “There are now 15,000 living descendents of these survivors.”

Rennert, a Los Angeles documentary filmmaker, knows the story well. She is the granddaughter of partisan leader Tuvia Bielski (portrayed by actor Daniel Craig in the film), and, together with her mother Ruth Bielski and aunt Brenda Bielski Weisman, she shared some of the family history at American Jewish University last week.

The film brought the story of armed Jewish resistance during World War II to wide popular attention. Before it, individual writers and activists labored largely in obscurity to document the deeds of the partisans and to counter the prevalent picture that all Jews went quietly to their doom.

Now that “Defiance” has left movie theaters, these activists — foremost of which is the Jewish Partisan Educational Foundation (JPEF)— are expanding their efforts to transmit the history and legacy of the fighters to schools and the general public across the country.

Nevertheless, without the movie and its high-powered stars — it was co-written and directed by Edward Zwick and also stars Liev Schreiber — it is unlikely that the intimate recollections of the three Bielski women would have drawn some 400 people to an AJU auditorium for an evening hosted by the Women’s and Holocaust divisions of State of Israel Bonds.

In a plug for the sponsors, moderator Michael Berenbaum, director of AJU’s Sigi Ziering Institute, quipped at the opening that “Most of us would have done better [financially] by investing only in Israel Bonds.”

Berenbaum put the role of the Jewish partisans in perspective by noting that most European resistance movements went into full action only after Germany’s defeat became a certainty. Even ghetto fighters, however heroic, generally rose at the point where they realized they were certain to die at the hands of the Nazis.

The unique achievement of the Bielski Brigade was not only to offer early physical resistance, but also to create a haven in the forest for women, children and the elderly.

The unique aspect of the presentations by the three Bielski descendants was to draw pictures of Tuvia, Zusia, Asael and Aron Bielski as ordinary fathers and grandfathers, whose daring deeds went largely unknown.

Most stories (and movies) end with the young warriors exulting in their victories, just as romances wrap up when boy marries girl, not after 30 years of marriage.

In Tuvia Bielski’s case, after the war he lived first in Romania, then Israel, and finally in the United States, where he worked as a New York trucker and taxi driver.

He never quite assimilated anywhere. Though sought out by survivors who owed their lives to him, he hardly ever mentioned his past to his children and grandchildren.

Granddaughter Sharon, who screened parts of her forthcoming documentary “In Our Hands: A Personal Story of the Bielski Partisans,” showed in the film and recalled in her talk a tall, gentle, elderly man with glasses who never bragged but once told her, “Always stand up for what you know is right.”

Ruth Bielski remembered her father, Tuvia’s, largely unknown involvement in Israel’s 1948 War of Independence and his attempts to feel at home in the new country.

“My father and mother never really allowed themselves to be happy, because they survived,” she said.

In “Defiance,” brothers Tuvia and Zusia (“Zus”) are shown in frequent confrontations, but in reality they lived near each other both in Israel and New York, and their two families maintained close relationships, Ruth Bielski said.

When Tuvia Bielski died in 1987, he was buried at a Long Island cemetery, but his remains were later transferred to Israel and reburied with full military honors.

Well before director Zwick started filming “Defiance,” Mitch Braff, a documentary filmmaker in San Francisco, was startled one day to learn that an old family friend had been a partisan during World War II.

Despite a good Jewish education, Braff had never heard anything about the estimated 20,000 to 30,000 Jewish partisans who fought the Nazis, and he decided to do something about his own and the general ignorance on the subject.

In 2000, he founded the JPEF, which has since produced nine short films, 200 video clips of interviews with surviving partisans and provided speakers to schools and colleges.

He worked closely with Zwick during and following the shooting of “Defiance,” and the two men are collaborating on an ambitious educational classroom program for sixth- to 12th-graders.

Named RESIST, the program is set to kick off in the fall with teacher-training courses at public, private and religious schools, which will incorporate the material in their history and social studies classes.

Currently, Holocaust studies are part of the mandatory school curriculum in California and seven other states.

JPEF collaborated with Clay Frohman, co-screenwriter and co-producer of “Defiance,” in creating the new teacher guide, which does not avoid some of the ethical issues inherent in the partisans’ actions.

At times, the Bielski brothers resorted to stealing, killing and revenge, Frohman noted, adding, “The Jews weren’t always the good guys and the Germans not always the bad guys. In any moment, you could be a good guy or a bad guy. We are all capable of all these things.”

A photo exhibition on the partisans is currently showing in New York throughout April and may come to Los Angeles in the future.

For more information on Rennert’s film and the JPEF, visit this story at jewishjournal.com.

For more information on Rennert’s film, visit www.bielskidocumentary.com.

Additional information on JPEF is available at www.jewishpartisans.org, and the foundation can be contacted at (415) 563-2244, or mitch@jewishpartisans.org.

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