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April 18, 2012

Opinion: A man and a book

Leave a Comment / Dennis Prager, Opinion /

Next Tuesday, the culmination of one man’s life and thought will be published.

I am that man. And the book is “Still the Best Hope: Why the World Needs American Values to Triumph” (HarperCollins).

As this is my first book in 12 years, I hope readers will allow me this personal column to explain why I wrote it.

When I was about 11 years old, my family was watching the popular TV documentary show “The Twentieth Century,” narrated by Walter Cronkite. That evening’s subject was Nazism, and when Hitler appeared I asked my parents who he was. “He was a very bad man,” they said. “He killed 6 million Jews.”

That was my first encounter with massive evil, and I was never again to be the same person. I became obsessed with good and evil — specifically why people engage in evil, and how to fight them.

That obsession has never left me. The only change that occurred did so later, in high school, when I broadened my preoccupation to include why people do good and how to make good people. (I knew from Judaism — and had sensed instinctively — that people are not naturally good.)

That hatred of evil led me, as early as my late teenage years, to hate communism as well as Nazism. And because the Nazis had been vanquished years before I was born, I studied and tried to fight communism. I engaged in the former by doing my graduate work in Communist Affairs at the Russian Institute at Columbia University’s School of International Affairs. And I began the fighting part when I was 21: The Israeli government sent me to the Soviet Union to bring Jewish items to Soviet Jews, to learn as much as I could about their situation, and, most important, to bring out names of Jews who wanted to leave and go to Israel.

This preoccupation with good and evil also led me to fall in love with Judaism. I have always regarded Judaism as, more than anything else, preoccupied with goodness. As the Tanakh tells us, “Those who love God must hate evil.” Judaism, almost alone among religions, believes that all of humanity is judged solely by its behavior rather than by its faith.

As it happened, I never found loving God easy (precisely because of how much evil and unjust suffering there is), but hating evil came quite naturally.

That hatred of evil explains nearly every position I take. Perhaps my biggest difference with the left is over this issue. Whereas I believe we humans should be preoccupied with combatting evil (and I believe God, the Bible and Judaism want that as well), the left, from its inception until this moment, has been preoccupied with combatting something else: material inequality.

I have never regarded material inequality — unless arrived at immorally, as it is in much of the Third World — as evil. Regarding people’s material status, two things should disturb us: a lack of opportunity to improve one’s material well-being and a poverty that is so bad that it deprives people of all dignity and hope. Neither condition has been prevalent in American life in my lifetime. On the contrary, America has been the greatest opportunity-giving society ever created.

More than that, I came to realize that I was living in the very country that had best figured out how to make a better world. But it was not until midlife that I came to understand the specific values that lay at the basis of this magnificent American achievement.

Emptying my pockets before going to sleep one night, I looked at the coins in my pocket and saw what I have come to call “The American Trinity”: “Liberty,” “In God We Trust” and “E Pluribus Unum” (“From Many, One”).

No other country has proclaimed these three values as its primary values.

“Liberty” means the individual must be as free as possible. And this is only possible with a government that is as small as possible. Because the bigger the government, the smaller the citizen.

“In God We Trust” means that a good society is only possible when the great majority of its citizens feel morally accountable to a morally demanding and morally judging God. If men are to be free, they must control themselves. And if a moral religion doesn’t control them, the state will end up doing so. That is largely why as America and Europe have become more and more secular, the state has become more and more powerful.

“E Pluribus Unum” means that whatever one’s race or ethnicity, everyone who becomes a citizen of America is to be regarded first and foremost as a fellow American. This explains why America assimilates people of every background more rapidly and successfully than any other country in the world.

These magnificent American values are applicable to virtually every society in the world. They are, I now understand, the solution to the problem of good and evil that has preoccupied me since childhood.

But Americans cannot export values they do not themselves know or believe in. And that is why I have devoted so many years to writing “Still the Best Hope.” Because Abraham Lincoln was right when he said that America is the “last best hope on earth.” It was true in 1862. It is true today.

Dennis Prager’s book “Still the Best Hope: Why the World Needs American Values to Triumph” will be released by HarperCollins on April 24. He will be discussing the book on “Hannity” on Fox News that evening. For more information about related appearances, including one May 1 at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Library, visit this column at jewishjournal.com

Opinion: A man and a book Read More »

Time for a (kosher) hot dog, a beer and dodgers baseball

Leave a Comment / Mobile, News, Sports /

I just attended the Dodgers’ opening day celebration of the 50th anniversary of Dodger Stadium and the wonderful baseball game that followed, a 2-1 thriller marked by excellent pitching, daring base running and a game-winning home run in the bottom of the eighth by Andre Ethier, who knew how to celebrate his 30th birthday.

I was raised in New York with three religions: traditional Judaism, the Democratic Party and the Brooklyn Dodgers. And I knew which of my three religions took priority. We never leafleted on Shabbat, but my father let me leave services during the World Series to report on the score. We could not play our radio or turn on the TV, but we were permitted — encouraged — to ask the score. It was said that the VCR was invented so that traditional Jews could watch a ballgame after Shabbat.

[To sign a petition to bring kosher hot dogs to Dodger Stadium, click here.]

Rarely had a team so deeply reflected the culture of a borough. It was the Brooklyn Dodgers of Jackie Robinson, the first of his race to play in the modern Major Leagues, much as many of the inhabitants of the borough in which he played were the first of their tribe [Jewish, Irish, Italian] or gender to be doing what they were doing, even something as basic as speaking English or graduating high school. Barrierst were being broken all over the place in post-World War II New York, and we all learned that we had to be like Jackie — twice as good, twice as smart, hold our ground and bide our time in order to get ahead. We were taught, “Don’t get mad, get even.” Brooklyn was a borough of people who aspired to something and often fell just a drop short; otherwise they would have lived in Manhattan or moved out to Long Island. Between 1949 and 1953, the Dodgers would have — could have, should have — won five pennants in a row, just like the hated Yankees, if only they had won the last game of the 1950 and 1951 seasons. They were close enough to taste victory.

As Jews, we conclude the Passover Seder and Yom Kippur services with the cry, “Next Year in Jerusalem.” As Dodgers, we ended fall with the chant: “Wait till Next Year!” and welcomed spring with the prayer, “This could be the year.”

Los Angeles’ gain was Brooklyn’s loss. I was 12 when the Dodgers left town; our broken-hearted family was in mourning. I never visited Dodger Stadium as long as the O’Malleys owned the team, and even though my children and grandchildren have become Dodgers fans, I often feel the way Orthodox Jews feel when they enter a Reform synagogue; the words are familiar but the traditions are strange, the pronunciation is different. They are deep and even lovely traditions, but not quite the original.

Fifty-four years have passed since my beloved bums ran out on me. In the interim, I have become a man, a father, even a grandfather. I have loved and fallen out of love, divorced, loved and married again, so I know that as time goes on, one must come to terms with change. I enjoy going to Dodgers games; I can recite the names and basic statistics of the ball players and managers whose numbers line the bleachers’ wall — so can my children and also my grandchildren — as easily as I can recite the relevant information on Kemp and Ethier.

Still, I have one request to make of the team’s new owners, a request that we dared not make a generation ago when many Jews were reluctant to appear “too Jewish.” It is time to start selling kosher hot dogs at Dodger Stadium. Los Angeles is home to the second-largest Jewish community in the country, some 600,000 of us. Both Yankee Stadium and Citi Field serve kosher food in New York. Baltimore’s Camden Yards has a kosher food stand, and kosher food is available at RFK Stadium in Washington, D.C. Boston’s Fenway Park has kosher food, and both the Chicago White Sox and the Cubs accommodate their Jewish patrons. And even smaller markets like Kansas City and Seattle sell kosher food. The Grove shopping mall has a kosher food stand, but not Dodger Stadium. The Dodgers offer Chinese food and Italian food and even “healthy food,” but only once a year when a special appeal is made to the Jewish community are kosher hot dogs available.

We want to feel welcome at the ball park, so here is my appeal to the new owners, who include Stan Kasten and also bear the fabled Guggenheim name: It is time to open up a kosher food stand, something even the fabled Ebbets Field never had.

Michael Berenbaum is professor of Jewish studies and director of the Sigi Ziering Center for the Study of the Holocaust and Ethics at American Jewish University.

Time for a (kosher) hot dog, a beer and dodgers baseball Read More »

Israel Is Back

Leave a Comment / David Suissa, Is Featured?, Mobile, News, Opinion /

Why would a thriving, diverse and boisterous Jewish community with a large Israeli population forgo an annual festival that celebrates the birth of Israel? As unlikely as it sounds, this is precisely what happened last year: For the first time in more than 20 years, the Israel Independence Day Festival that had become a signature event for our community got canceled.

As much as people had their usual complaints about the festival — too far, too hot, too loud, too cheesy, too Jewish, not Jewish enough — its absence left a big hole in our community. It was the one occasion each year when you could really experience the wild and quirky diversity of the Jewish world in greater Los Angeles.

So, why was it canceled? The official answer is money. The City of Los Angeles, citing budget constraints, decided that the festival needed to cover the costs for police, fire and traffic services, which the city once picked up. And at the same time, some previous backers opted not to make their usual contributions.

If you ask me, though, I think it was about more than money. The festival was getting tired and predictable. It had lost its spark. These days, if you want thousands of people to show up for your event, you’d better make it worth their shlep. Let’s face it: It’s a lot easier to experience a virtual Facebook community in your pajamas — and join fan pages, share photos and YouTube clips and post clever comments — than it is to brave traffic and the heat to show your support for a cause.

And when people do show up, the cool thing now is not to celebrate but to “occupy.” Protesting is so much more dramatic than is just celebrating.

The point is, reviving a tired festival is no easy task. Anyone taking on the challenge would have to give the event a major upgrade — or at least a fresh twist.

Enter Naty Saidoff and the Israeli Leadership Council (ILC).

At a meeting last fall, the ILC board had a difficult debate about whether it would, or could, undertake the huge challenge of helping to resuscitate the festival. Finally, with Saidoff pledging a major financial commitment, the board decided it would seek partners and get behind the project.

Thus began an adrenaline-filled chain of events and strategic partnerships that have led to our own little community miracle: the revival and reincarnation of the Israel Independence Day Festival, which will be held on Sunday, April 29, at Rancho Park in Cheviot Hills.

The festivities will kick off at 9 a.m. with a march from the park down Pico Boulevard to The Museum of Tolerance, then back to the park. Festival activities run from 10 a.m. until 6 p.m. All information, including ticketing, can easily be accessed on the Web site (celebrateisraelfestival.com).

Will this new incarnation of the festival be a hit, and will it create a successful model for future years?

Well, let’s start with the important stuff: parking. According to the organizers, parking will be a lot smoother and easier than at the previous location at Woodley Park in Van Nuys, where I distinctly recall feeling like my ancestors in the Sinai desert as I trekked with my little tribe from the car to the festival grounds.

Beyond the parking, the organizers have taken a whole different approach to the festival experience. Yes, there will be the traditional booths — more than 150 of them, covering the broad spectrum of Jewish life in our community — and there will be plenty of entertainment, headlined by Israeli star Eyal Golan, local star Craig Taubman, television star Monique Benabou (from the show “The Voice”) and, among many others, the klezmex Ellis Island Band from New York (which combines — no joke — klezmer and mariachi).

And yes, there will also be prominent speakers and lots of food venues and plenty of entertainment and rides for the kids.

But beyond all that, here’s what I think is the real innovation this year: themed pavilions.

These pavilions will be little worlds unto themselves that will celebrate different areas of Israeli and Jewish life. You can get specific information on the festival Web site, but just to give you an idea, these are some of the themes that will be explored: the wonders of Israeli technology, the depth and meaning of spirituality, the world of art and sculpture, the mystery of genealogy and, not least, Israeli joie de vivre.

Yes, joie de vivre. The organizers figured that after you celebrate the wonders of Israel, it might be a good idea to celebrate life itself. So, one of the pavilions will be called Café Tel Aviv, which will feature a hummus bar, Israeli DJs and, the organizers promise, a “real Tel Aviv ambiance.”

I asked Saidoff over coffee last week what made him push so hard to help bring back the festival. “We found amazing partners all over the community,” he told me. “We couldn’t have done it otherwise.”

But before we parted, he also added: “With everything that’s happening in Israel right now, and with all the pressure the country is under, how could we not do this?”

Saidoff is right: How could we not do this? How could we not celebrate the continuing miracle of Israel’s existence? And how could we not allow for at least one day a year when we could all connect as a community and see each other in real time and in real life?

The Israel festival is back, and for one day at least, Facebook can wait. On April 29, we should all journey to Rancho Park and occupy celebration.

David Suissa is president of TRIBE Media Corp./Jewish Journal and can be reached at davids@jewishjournal.com.

Israel Is Back Read More »

To screen or not to screen

Leave a Comment / Entertainment, Hollywood, Mobile, Mobile Sections, News /

In March, The Los Angeles Jewish Film Festival made headlines because its executive director, Hilary Helstein, had sent a negative e-mail to other festival directors about the documentary “Standing Silent,” which shines a light on sexual abuse by rabbis within the Orthodox community. Controversy erupted when Helstein’s Sept. 6 e-mail was made public, revealing that she had described the film, as seen by her team, as a “witch hunt” and put a “warning sticker” on it for other festivals. 

The film’s producer and director, Scott Rosenfelt (“Home Alone,” “Mystic Pizza”), told The Journal he was livid when he learned about Helstein’s missive just before a “Standing Silent” screening at the Hartford Jewish Film Festival on March 20. A moderator read Helstein’s letter aloud to the audience during the Q-and-A session, following which, Rosenfelt said, “The audience basically gasped.” “Standing Silent” has screened at more than 20 other Jewish films festivals and was profiled in a feature in the Washington Post.

In her e-mail, Helstein told her colleagues that her team had “flat out” rejected the film: “We have a fairly conservative community in L.A. and … our committee felt with a community that reveres it’s [sic] rabbis this was not something they wanted to show.” Helstein went on to say: “I just wanted to put a warning sticker on this one so that you are aware.”

Rosenfelt fired back on March 22 in a scathing e-mail to Helstein, accusing her, among other things, of being “clearly not someone who supports filmmakers.”

In a telephone interview, Rosenfelt acknowledged that his language was “harsh.” But, he said, he was speaking for victims who have had their stories squelched by communities more interested in protecting abusive rabbis. 

Helstein declined to comment on the matter. However, John Fishel, the L.A. festival’s honorary chair, described the controversy as a matter of media “spin out of control, generating a lot of emotion and anger.” He said Rosenfelt’s e-mail presented an unfair portrait of Helstein and the festival, which, he said, “is a very, very good one, and it’s getting better every year.”

Los Angeles is not the only festival in recent years to have to deal with the repercussions of decisions regarding films that can alienate audiences. In 2009, the San Francisco Jewish film festival, the largest in the United States, ignited fierce debate when it screened a documentary about Rachel Corrie, a pro-Palestinian activist killed while acting as a human shield in 2003.

To screen or not to screen Read More »

Palestinian terrorists released in Shalit swap return to terror

Leave a Comment / Israel, News /

Israel’s Shin Bet security service highlighted two Palestinian terrorists released in the swap for Gilad Shalit who have resumed terrorist activity.

One of the terrorists, who was deported to Gaza, wrote guidelines for future abductions, including “The captive should not be hidden in remote locations, caves, or woodland unless it’s a dead body or the captive’s head.” He also tried to recruit young Palestinian residents of the West Bank to kidnap Israelis.

A second terrorist was sentenced to 44 months in prison last month for arms trafficking. He also must serve his prison term for his original offense.

Some 1,077 Palestinians in Israeli jails were released six months ago in a prisoner swap between Israel and Hamas in order to secure the release of Shalit, an Israeli soldier who had been held captive in Gaza for more than five years.

Eight Palestinian prisoners released as part of the swap for Shalit have been arrested again for participating in terrorist activity, Haaretz reported.

Palestinian terrorists released in Shalit swap return to terror Read More »

Choicest of the choice

Leave a Comment / Books, Entertainment, News /

Much has changed in the book business since the Los Angeles Times launched its Festival of Books 17 years ago, but the FOB — as it is fondly known — remains the premier event of the literary calendar for the more than 100,000 readers and writers who never miss it.

The 2012 outing will be held April 20-22 on the campus of USC, a venue that was adopted last year after the festival’s many years on the campus of the Trojans’ cross-town rival, UCLA. USC may have seemed a bit distant for Westsiders, but last year’s inaugural outing at the new location turned out to be rich, lively, diverse, accessible and well-attended.

Admission is free, and parking is $10. For tickets and a complete list of events and participants, visit the Festival of Books Web site at events. ” title=”jewishjournal.com/twelvetwelve” target=”_blank”>jewishjournal.com/twelvetwelve and can be reached at books@jewishjournal.com.

Choicest of the choice Read More »

$20 million gift to L.A. Federation is its largest ever

Leave a Comment / California, Is Featured?, Mobile Sections, News /

The Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles has received its largest gift ever — a $20 million bequest from Geri Brawerman to create a scholarship and fellowship program for needy Jewish college students from Los Angeles. Brawerman is a Westwood resident who, along with her late husband, Richard, has long been a major force in funding educational initiatives.

The Geri and Richard Brawerman Leadership Institute each year will fund 10 undergraduates who show both financial need and leadership potential. The students will receive $10,000 a year toward tuition and expenses at a four-year university. Fellows will participate in summer and midyear retreats focused on community service and Jewish values, and will be paired with mentors throughout the school year.

“The idea of this program is to help deserving young people get a quality education, and to do it with a sense of Jewish values and purpose, with the goal of engaging them in the Jewish community when they graduate,” said Jay Sanderson, president and CEO of The Federation.

Federation is currently accepting applicants from students entering college in 2012.  Four students will be accepted for the first year as Federation gradually rolls out the program, eventually hoping to handle 40 students at a time.

This is the largest gift ever promised to The Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles and one of only a few donations of this size to federations across the country. It is among Brawerman’s largest legacy gifts, according to her business manager.

The Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles has long been an important part of the giving portfolio of Geri and Richard Brawerman. Richard Brawerman, who died in May 2009, was an attorney and a captain in the U.S. Army during World War II.  He has two children from a previous marriage, and he and Geri, a hands-on philanthropist who was raised in Chicago, were married for 24 years.

“If Richard were here, he would be thrilled to know that his legacy now includes a program that builds leadership and ensures the Jewish future by both supporting the educational goals of Jewish high school students and giving them the experiences and skills they’ll draw upon as future stewards of Jewish Los Angeles. It is my dream that the students we empower today will lead the community tomorrow,” Brawerman said.

The bulk of the funds are an endowment bequest, payable when Brawerman, who would not disclose her age, dies. But she has put seed money into the Leadership Institute to kick off the program while she can still be involved.

The Brawermans had previously funded a nursing institute at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center and are the named founders at the elementary school at Wilshire Boulevard Temple’s west campus, as well as at the elementary school that opened this fall at the temple’s historic Wilshire Boulevard building. They created an ambulatory care center at City of Hope and have been significant supporters of the Walt Disney Concert Hall at the Los Angeles Music Center, Jewish Free Loan Association and the Los Angeles Jewish Home.

Federation leaders worked with Brawerman for a year to find the intersection of her passions and Federation’s needs, Sanderson said.

“We look to collaborate with our donors and with our agencies,” Sanderson said. “Would we have gone in this direction now, without Geri’s gift? Probably not. Do we want to be going in this direction? Absolutely. This was a collaborative idea based on Federation’s priorities and our donor’s desire.”

Andrew Cushnir, chief program officer at The Federation, notes that the program fits into Federation’s priority areas — caring for Jews in need and ensuring the Jewish future. Federation has already hired a part-time administrator for the program.

A curriculum has not yet been set for the summer and winter seminars, but it will focus on Jewish values. Students are expected to participate in Birthright Israel trips and will also engage in service-learning opportunities in the United States during winter break. The program will also include a summer institute in Israel.

During the school year, students will be paired with local mentors who can teach them effective leadership and guide them through their Jewish journey. Federation plans to nurture a strong alumni network for the Brawerman Leadership Institute.

The scholarships will be need based, and the not-yet-formed selection committee will determine need on a case-by-case basis.

Cushnir said the scholarship is intended for those truly in need, and he hopes the $10,000 will open up opportunities that otherwise would have been out of reach.

Among students who qualify in terms of need, the Brawerman Leadership Institute will be looking for students who are Jewishly involved and demonstrate potential for leadership.

Applications are due May 11. For more information, visit $20 million gift to L.A. Federation is its largest ever Read More »

Always remember. Never forget.

Leave a Comment / Blogs /

When reaching the 11th grade here, in Israel, you get a chance to go with your classmates on an eight-day journey to Poland, partially sponsored by school. This journey follows the years of the Holocaust, and is an opportunity for a different way of learning about the worst time of the Jewish people.
It took me a while to decide on whether I want to join this trip or stay home. I always chose to avoid the horrors as much possible, and found the possibility of remaining in my bed during Holocaust Day the best solution.
I boarded the plane in the summer of 2007, along with 120 11th graders from my school and several teachers, feeling like I could have done many better things with myself this week. I started writing a journal, hoping to come to great realization, but found myself being rather cynical at first. This cynicism gradually turned into many serious realizations and ended with great appreciation.
For this year’s Israeli Holocaust Day, which is this mentioned tomorrow, I translated my journal to English for you to read.

________________________________________

After months of preparation and four days of packing, the big day arrived. Considering my endless inner-arguments on whether to go on this journey or stay home, I was expecting to feel excitement, tension or even curiosity, but got nothing.

I am writing to you, dear Diary, from room 214, hoping you could be my writing surface (and a dear friend). I Hope will be able to write everything that I feel, even what I won’t share with my friends. I am going on this eight-day journey on purpose to feel more confident and stronger. This is a journey of self-discovery, while digging deep into our painful history. You have the honor of being the diary of a person who wishes she had someone else’s journal from Poland to read before deciding to go on this trip.
I’m still not sure if I am where I should be right now. Maybe I should’ve stayed home…

Yours truly, searching for meaning,
Noga

________________________________________

Dear Diary,
Today we all received a necklace with a Star of David, and a distinct order to tuck it under our shirts. Signs of Hebrew are forbidden, just in case…I’ve never worn a Star of David necklace, and for my first time- I have to hide it.
This hiding of my nationality felt like the beginning of a meaningful Zionist process, or was it…?! The day started with a visit to a Jewish cemetery, hiding between a shopping center and a McDonald’s branch. The only connection this cemetery had with the Holocaust was a formal tombstone for Yanush Korchack, and another one for a group of unknown men who jumped off a train on their way to a concentration camp and got caught. We all found this visit a bit weird, and I was convinced this is our teachers’ way of easing us into the Holocaust atmosphere. I realized I was wrong when the next stop was an hour at the shopping center.
Next we went to Rapapport monument, where I finally felt something- my stomach growling. From there, we went to an Israeli restaurant for dinner, with menus in Hebrew and Israeli music. What can I say- there’s no place like Poland…

Yours truly, searching for a cornflake that fell on the floor,
Noga.

________________________________________

Dear Diary,
“Quiet, quiet, let’s be silent,
Dead are growing here
They were planted by the tyrant
See their bloom appear.
All the roads lead to Ponar now.
There are no roads back
And our father too has vanished,
And with him our luck.
Still, my child, don’t cry, my jewel
Tears no help commands
Our pain callous people
Never understand
Seas and oceans have their order
Prison also has its border
Our torment is endless
Is endless”
Today I walked in a forest of death. My foot left a print on the ground where bleeding people were dragged, and their screams for help were silenced, swallowed by the tall, dark trees. Back then, those tall trees witnessed what our minds are far from comprehend. Today all they witness are camera flashes and teenagers wearing delegation T-shirts, looking around and trying to understand.
Today, I stood silent as the teacher prayed for those who were buried alive underneath our feet, shaking the ground with a cry for help, which slowly faded away.
Today, I shed a tear while listening to “Angels’ tears” (a famous Israeli song by Yoni Rechter), a cellphone vibration in the background, while angels are watching from high above, whispering the lyrics with us.
Today I lit a candle near a pit hole, where my brothers and sisters were thrown to the chilling howl of drunken Nazi beasts.
Today I lit a small flame as an attempt to memorialize six million.

________________________________________

Dear Diary,
Today I marched into Auschwitz Birkenau, carrying an Israeli flag. I walked on the railroad that carried hundreds of thousands to their death, and waved the flag that those who built this place intended to never exist. It doesn’t matter how I write it, this feeling cannot be described on paper. You have to be there to feel this intense, powerful, complicated feeling. My classmates were really supportive. We marched, hugged together, in a concentration and destruction camp that remained almost the same way as it was 60 years ago. The only difference is that instead of the smell of scorched bodies, there’s the salty smell of tears. There is blue sky instead of no sky. Other than us, there was a church group, led by a priest, who also came to witness the unbelievable. I can’t describe the joy I felt knowing we are not the only ones who care.
We held a short service inside one of the old cabins there. We sat in the dark, quietly, and those of us who wanted to, got up in turn, and read the names of his or her family members who went into one of the “camps” and never came back. One by one, we commemorated by name, those who were stripped from their identities. I was shivering when I read names of relatives I didn’t get to know. “We are only 100 people, and look how many names have been read”, one of my classmates whispered to me. 
One by one, we begin to appreciate what we have. I am very lucky to be here today with my friends.

Yours Truly,
Searching for one truth,
Noga.

________________________________________

Dear Diary,
Somewhere in the town of Lublin, amongst a neighborhood and an enormous field of beautiful flowers, lie the remains of Majdanek Ghetto. We wandered around the ghetto, while following the written story of a than 13 year old girl named Hilena.
Cabins. Lines of Cabins, where many memories are preserved. One of them was filled with an uncountable amount of shoes. I still find it hard to comprehend that in each pair, once walked a person.
We entered gas chambers, where Jews were led into after a proper sterilization. Get the irony, dear diary? The Nazis, who made terrible crimes, murdered, and treated people like they were animals or even less, were actually very neat. Sons of bitches. The walls are colored in Cyclon-B blue, drenched in horror and filled with scratch marks.
My reaction to the crematorium I simply couldn’t contain. The shock was more powerful than the tears that ran out. Here, in those ovens I stand in front of, people were cremated, sometimes alive. From this chimney, the smoke of people came out. Right here, next to the hill of ash we now surround.
Right before I was about to start singing at the service, the tap opened and the tears started running. I stood in front of everybody, trying really hard to sing, while my friend put her arm around me, and saw everybody, every single person that I go to school with- cry. 
It was very cold outside, but no one complained. We won. We are standing here, alive, with a country of our own. We all stood in a circle, holding hands, and feeling like we’ve never felt before.
I am filled with appreciation to my family, to the fat in my body, to the shoes I am wearing. Slowly, everyone is starting to realize what is given to us. I am so lucky to be.

Yours Truly,
After finding everything,
Noga
.

Always remember. Never forget. Read More »

U.S. soldiers grinning for picks with Afghan bomber body parts

Leave a Comment / Uncategorized /

The ” title=”coming for the U.S. military” target=”_blank”>coming for the U.S. military in Afghanistan. (And let’s ” title=”published a bombshell today” target=”_blank”>published a bombshell today: A division of U.S. paratroopers had posed with the dead body parts of bombers in numerous photographs.

The 82nd Airborne Division soldiers arrived at the police station in Afghanistan’s Zabol province in February 2010. They inspected the body parts. Then the mission turned macabre: The paratroopers posed for photos next to Afghan police, grinning while some held — and others squatted beside — the corpse’s severed legs.

A few months later, the same platoon was dispatched to investigate the remains of three insurgents who Afghan police said had accidentally blown themselves up. After obtaining a few fingerprints, they posed next to the remains, again grinning and mugging for photographs.

Two soldiers posed holding a dead man’s hand with the middle finger raised. A soldier leaned over the bearded corpse while clutching the man’s hand. Someone placed an unofficial platoon patch reading “Zombie Hunter” next to other remains and took a picture.

WOW. Macabre really doesn’t seem strong enough. This behavior is just disgusting—wickedness of the deceased aside.

Read the rest, and see two of the photos, U.S. soldiers grinning for picks with Afghan bomber body parts Read More »

Opinion: Bullying and the house of horrors

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The shocking news came over the Passover holiday. Five young men, all Jews, were found in a basement, bound together nearly naked, covered in welts and smeared with honey, hot sauce and flour. When they were rescued, the victims were shivering and described as having “horrified and fearful looks on their faces.” Where was this house of horrors? Was it an Iraqi torture chamber? A Hamas prison? No, it was Boston, in the house of Alpha Epsilon Pi, a Jewish fraternity at Boston University. The victims, by the way, were only discovered because police were responding to a noise complaint.

There is so much that is unthinkable about this story. The fact that it happened at all is staggering, of course, but that an organization described as a “Jewish fraternity” was responsible is astonishing and beyond unacceptable. (It may have been a “fraternity of Jews” but there is nothing Jewish in such behavior.) It bears mentioning that the national organization of AEPi did close this particular chapter, which had no official affiliation with Boston University. I commend them for taking appropriate action in the wake of such grievous misbehavior.

Many people have overlooked this incident as “just typical college hazing.” Such justification is actually part of the problem. When people can hear of such abuse then shrug their shoulders and say that “boys will be boys,” it demonstrates how much we continue to accept bullying while simultaneously decrying it. Despite some very big news stories of the past year, many people still have goggles on that contextualize bullying solely as larger children taking lunch money from smaller children. Post-Tyler Clementi, the Rutgers University student who was literally bullied to death, we have no excuses not to recognize that bullying comes in many forms.

Yes, bigger children picking on smaller children is a problem but in today’s society, cyberbullying is rampant. Teens and even pre-teens can now bully their peers long-distance and in front of exponentially larger audiences. Hazing is another form of bullying. Our college students may voluntarily pledge fraternities and sororities but what occurs to them in the process often goes far beyond good-natured pranks. Many universities and Greek organizations have adopted strict anti-hazing policies, which is important. These policies, however, are largely ignored by fraternities until something happens that brings such non-compliance to light. In the past year, “something happened” to George Desdunes at Cornell University and to Will Torrance at Vincennes University. In separate incidents, each of these young men was pressured to drink himself to death as part of a fraternity initiation.

Happily, the Boston University incident did not result in any deaths but it is nonetheless tragic, especially for the students traumatized by the experience. That this involved Jews, especially over Passover, is particularly painful in that it goes completely counter to the lessons we are meant to internalize. Look at Moses, the greatest of all prophets, who was selected by God to lead the Jewish people out of Egypt. The Midrash tells us how Moses discovered the burning bush while he was carrying a stray sheep back to the flock. It was not great strength that qualified him as a leader, nor a sharp mind, good looks or personal wealth. It was his great compassion for the smallest and weakest among his charges that made Moses fit to lead the nation. The Moses who threw away life in Pharaoh’s palace and became a fugitive in order to save a fellow Jew from a taskmaster’s beating was best suited to become Moses the Lawgiver.

We have to look out for one another. Along these lines, I applaud BBYO, which recently partnered with The Bully Project, creators of the documentary “Bully,” in order to make this important film available to Jewish teens and their parents nationwide. They have also developed a discussion guide for use in conjunction with the film. This is exactly the kind of sensitivity we need to develop.

NCSY, the youth movement of the Orthodox Union, has long had anti-bullying policies in place. Following the Tyler Clementi tragedy, we composed a formal anti-bullying curriculum that was unveiled and lauded by colleagues at YouthCon, our conference for informal and experiential Jewish educators. I know how strongly those who work with youth feel on this issue, which is why I find it so disheartening to encounter apathy on the part of the general community. The fact that so many people were able to miss this story says volumes.

We must be proactive in educating not only our youth but also adults throughout the Jewish community that bullying comes in many forms. Whether it’s in the hallways of a school, the basement of a frat house or the pews of a synagogue, we must foster an atmosphere of compassion and never tolerate violence, intimidation or other forms of abuse. To paraphrase the great sage Hillel in Pirkei Avot, if we are not for ourselves, who will be for us?

Rabbi Steven Burg is the Orthodox Union Managing Director and International Director of NCSY

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