Crossword Puzzle Answers: March 1, 2013
Crossword Puzzle Answers: March 1, 2013 Read More »
February 27, 2013
Rivers should apologize for Holocaust reference on E! show, ADL says
The Anti-Defamation League called on “Fashion Police” host Joan Rivers to apologize for a Holocaust reference she made on the show.
Rivers on the E! Entertainment Television program of Feb. 25, commenting on a dress worn by German-American supermodel Heidi Klum, said, “The last time a German looked this hot was when they were pushing Jews into the ovens.”
The show has been shown at least four times on the E! network since it first aired. Rivers, who laughed at her own remark, has not spoken of it since.
The ADL in a statement Wednesday called on Rivers, who is Jewish, to apologize for what it called a “vulgar and offensive” remark.
“This remark is so vulgar and offensive to Jews and Holocaust survivors, and indeed to all Americans, that we cannot believe it made it to the airwaves,” said Abraham Foxman, ADL's national director and a Holocaust survivor, in the statement. “Making it worse, not one of her co-hosts made any effort to respond or to condemn this hideous statement, leaving it hanging out there and giving it added legitimacy through their silence. Almost as bad as her original comment is the fact that she sat there doubled over with laughter after saying it.
“It is vulgar and offensive for anybody to use the death of six million Jews and millions of others in the Holocaust to make a joke, but this is especially true for someone who is Jewish and who proudly and publicly wears her Jewishness on her sleeve.”
In a letter to Suzanne Kolb, president of E! Entertainment Television, ADL called on the network to remove the segment from future broadcast and to call on Rivers to issue an apology.
Last year, when protesting Costco’s decision not to sell her book, Rivers compared the company’s policies in selecting books to those of the Nazi regime.
Rivers should apologize for Holocaust reference on E! show, ADL says Read More »
Inclusion: Awarding Success and Documenting the Fight
For many parents of children with special needs the word “inclusion” seems like the elusive pot of gold waiting at the end of a rainbow. You’ve heard it exists, and think it would be great, but haven’t actually ever seen it.
Two different key events that focus on inclusion are taking place in early March, and both deserve our attention.
The first is the 2013 Ruderman Family Foundation Prize in Disability. Now in its second year, the Ruderman Prize is all about celebrating successful inclusion initiatives in Jewish communities around the world, which founder Jay Ruderman hopes will in turn, “spark some new inclusion programs”.
Last year The Ruderman Foundation received over 150 applications representing seven countries, and 10 prizes were awarded at $10,000 each. This year, the Foundation expects to award up to 5 prizes of $50,000 each. Let’s be clear about this –-this is not your usual prospective grant program; instead, it is recognition funding for an existing inclusion program that serves Jewish people with disabilities. Segregated programs that serve only people with disabilities, without any typical participants, are not considered to be inclusive.
“We are trying to show that special needs aren’t just a small niche part of the Jewish community, “ Jay Ruderman told me in a phone interview from Israel. “We need other Jewish funders to be out front in their support of special needs programs.”
One of last year’s award recipients was AKIM, an Israel non-governmental organization founded in 1951 by the parents of intellectually disabled children. When we were in Israel last summer as part of the LA Jewish Federation’s Special Needs Study Mission, we got to see first-hand the program AKIM created with the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) that was awarded a 2012 Ruderman prize for inclusion.
We met a 26-year-old man with Down Syndrome who had been working as a full-time volunteer at an Israeli army base, helping with the inventory of boots and uniforms. Instead of just throwing him into this situation, a whole year was spent getting him, and his soon-to-be-employers, ready, including special transportation training, inter-personal skills as well as training for the soldiers with whom he would work. The commander of the base spoke to us and shared how important that program was to him personally, and to the whole army base.
(Interested non-profits can apply online and applications are due in by March 18.)
The second event is the national television premiere of the powerful documentary, “Certain Proof” which profiles three youngsters with cerebral palsy whose families near Raleigh, North Carolina, are determined for them to be fully included in public school settings. We watch as Josh, Colin and Kay are continually asked to “prove” that they are academically at grade-level. Even when these students are provided full-time aides, some of the general education teachers are visibly uncomfortable with the students who have disabilities, and on thin pedagogic ice on teaching them.
As a mom of a teen with the same condition, the material presented hit home, hard. When our son first entered the public school system at age 5, it took a lawyer just to keep him in a non-segregated school, let alone a non-segregated classroom. Like the mothers shown in the documentary, I know that more is going on his head then he can express, but we are still working on basic typing skills at age 18.
The director of this award-winning documentary is Ray Ellis. He wrote that when he and his wife, Susan, were first introduced to a local non-profit dedicated to educating children with mobility and communication disabilities their “eyes were opened to an entire world we knew very little about….Our purpose in producing this documentary is to lift the veil of disability, showing these unique and wonderful children in a truer light.
The premiere of “Certain Proof” will be on Sunday, March 3 at 8 pm EST on the Starz and Family Channels. For more information or to order a DVD, go to www.certainproof.com
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Documentary filmmaker has a ‘Hava Nagila’ in her heart
“Hava Nagila” is one of those songs, like “Celebration” and “Auld Lang Syne,” that brings back memories and gets stuck in one’s head. In fact, “Hava Nagila” is so ingrained in American pop culture that many non-Jews can readily identify it, and high-profile non-Jewish recording artists, including Harry Belafonte, Connie Francis and Glen Campbell, count their renditions as a career highlight.
As filmmaker Roberta Grossman discovered, the circumstances that brought “Hava Nagila” to such widespread recognition are complex. With wit and scholarly research, she takes viewers on “Hava Nagila’s” journey, from its semi-tragic origins in the 19th century Ukrainian village of Sadigora to its nearly worldwide renown as a Jewish anthem today, through “Hava Nagila (The Movie).”
Opening in L.A.-area theaters on March 15, there will be a March 7 screening and question-and-answer session with Grossman presented by the L.A. Jewish Film Festival and the Jewish Journal at Laemmle’s Music Hall 3 in Beverly Hills.
[For tickets to the “Hava Nagila” screening, visit Director Roberta Grossman Photo by Robert Zuckerman
But when Grossman’s young daughter asked her to “make a happy film next time,” that led the filmmaker to consider making a substantial but entertaining documentary about “Hava Nagila” as a Jewish cultural milestone.
“While we were making it, I realized those ‘Hava’ moments at events like weddings, bar mitzvahs and other family gatherings stamped my soul,” Grossman recalled. “I did not know what the words meant, or know if it was a written song or traditional hymn. While researching and shooting, we encountered fabulous scholars who studied the origins and impact of ‘Hava Nagila.’ This, in turn, made us realize that the song is a window into more than 150 years of Jewish history, culture and spirituality.”
Grossman and her team found some of the best material for the film by accident. For instance, while shooting footage in Sadigora, Grossman ran into the great-great-great grandson of Rabbi Yisroel Friedman, the Ruzhiner rebbe, who is credited with originating the song as a Chasidic nigun, or wordless melody, in the mid-19th century. (The lyrics were added in 1915 by composer Abraham Zevi Idelsohn.) For more than a year prior to that chance meeting, Grossman had been searching doggedly for a descendant of Friedman to discuss the role of Chasidic life and how it shaped the song’s beginnings.
“My grandmother said the meeting … was bashert, or mean to be,” Grossman said. “Besides the fact that he spoke eloquently about Jews in Sadigora in the 19th century, he had a foot in the non-Chasidic world and graciously allowed us to film and interview him and to use the footage.”
One of the most profound revelations Grossman experienced while making the film came from interviews with klezmer musicians.
“At first, I could not understand why they expressed hostility toward the song,” she said. “I eventually realized ‘Hava Nagila,’ for some, represented the disenfranchisement of the old Yiddish klezmer tradition in the way the Hebrew language displaced Yiddish.”
Although Grossman’s next project will focus on the more somber topic of the secret archives of the Warsaw Ghetto, she makes the point that the widespread embrace of “Hava Nagila” in the ’50s and ’60s was ultimately a direct response to the Holocaust along with the determination of a people to endure and carve out a better life.
Even with the exploration of the Warsaw Ghetto in progress, Grossman insists she will return to a cheerful topic. In much the way she did with “Hava Nagila,” she plans to examine the cultural impact of “Fiddler on the Roof,” Norman Jewison’s 1971 film adaptation of the Broadway hit.
Almost like the song that inspired it, “Hava Nagila (The Movie)” has already made a big splash on the film festival circuit both nationally and internationally, including opening the 2012 San Francisco Jewish Film Festival.
“From the first frames on, people were clapping, singing along and laughing,” Grossman said. “There were 1,400 people in the audience at the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival, as well as three more sold-out screenings. Between July 2012 and March 2013, 55 Jewish film festivals included ‘Hava Nagila (The Movie),’ and about half of these had it open or close their program.
“No pun intended, but this film is really hitting a chord with viewers.”
Documentary filmmaker has a ‘Hava Nagila’ in her heart Read More »
How Purim Differs from Halloween
Since costumes are involved in both events, it’s understandable that people who don’t know much about Purim may think it’s like Halloween. So, with Purim happening last weekend, I thought I’d outline some of the ways in which they differ.
First, while Halloween, or “All Hallows Eve” is about scary stuff like ghosts and demons, Purim is a celebration of the story in the Book of Esther. We read this book during the Purim service, and thus retell the tale of how Queen Esther risked her life and saved all the Jews in Persia.
Yes, there are costumes on Purim. There are several theories about why we wear costumes, including the idea that God is not mentioned in the Book of Esther, but is clearly a player in the story. Thus, God was masked, and we mask ourselves on that day.
The mood, though, is not one of scary ghosts and such, but of fun and silliness. The service is filled with alternate music for regular prayers (such as Micha Mocha being sung to a tune from a Broadway show) and alternate, amusing lyrics sung to familiar tunes.
Another way Purim differs from Halloween is that, rather than asking for candy (or anything else), on Purim, we give gifts of sweet things to those in need. For instance, on Purim morning, friends and I greeted families as they arrived to pack mishloach manot bags. These are bags with things like oranges, raisins, and other treats in them. The children decorated the bags, and then after services congregants delivered the bags to people who aren’t as mobile as others, or who might need a pick-me-up for other reasons.
Along those same lines of celebrating while taking care of others, during the reading of the Book of Esther it is traditional to make as much noise as possible to drown out the name of the villain of the story every time his name is mentioned. It’s a clever device, really, because it encourages everyone to listen carefully to the story, and it’s a lot of fun for the kids.
Traditionally, noisemakers called groggers are used. They are usually some kind of ratchet or similar device. Our synagogue, however, has adopted the tradition of having families bring boxes of macaroni and cheese to shake as groggers. Then, after the service, the boxes are dropped into a bin to be picked up by the local food bank. Thus, everyone has a good time, and participates in a mitzvah as well.
So, although Purim may look a bit like Halloween from the outside, on the inside it’s a whole different ballgame.
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February, 27, 2013
The US
Headline: Hagel Approved for Defense in Sharply Split Senate Vote
To Read: Micah Zenko believes that the recent hysteria around sequestration signifies a larger more problematic US tendency to inflate the severity of security threats-
In 1961, President Dwight Eisenhower delivered his military-industrial complex farewell address, calling on Americans to “guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex,” and advocating the forward march “on our charted course toward permanent peace and human betterment.” What was a remarkable speech during the Cold War would be completely unimaginable today from President Obama.
The tolerance for threat inflation in the absence of plausible threats should be questioned and challenged by anyone interested in, or holding a stake in, the future of U.S. foreign policy. It is bizarre and self-defeating that so many people who complain about the erosion of civil liberties at home, continued support for dictatorships abroad, and militarization of foreign policy also allow the world to be so mischaracterized as one of limitless threats and unending instability. Unless you resist the pernicious habit of threat inflation and its attendant costs directly, you will be fighting the controversial strategies and tactics that flow from this flawed diagnosis indefinitely.
Quote: “He's a professional. We're professionals. We've all served together; we've all been through the rough and tumble of politics. Frankly, we're friends. Even those who voted against him would count themselves as friends. Everybody here who has worked with Senator Hagel realizes that he's not the kind of person who carries grudges … I don't see any negative effect on his capability to run the Defense Department”, Senator Carl Levin about Hagel.
Number: 15, the percentage of Turks who have a favorable opinion of the US.
Israel
Headline: Lapid joins Bennett in opposing Hatnua coalition deal
To Read: Alan Dershowitz defends Israel against accusations of 'pinkwashing'-
In Israel, openly gay soldiers have long served in the military and in high positions in both government and the private sector. Gay pride parades are frequent. Israel is, without a doubt, the most gay friendly country in the Middle East and among the most supportive of gay rights anywhere in the world. This, despite efforts by some fundamentalist Jews, Muslims and Christians to ban gay pride parades and legal equality for gays. In contrast to Israel are the West Bank and Gaza, where gays are murdered, tortured and forced to seek asylum—often in Israel. In every Arab and Muslim country, homosexual acts among consenting adults are criminal, often punishable by death. But all this doesn’t matter to the “growing global gay movement” against Israel, which according to The New York Times op ed, regards these positive steps as nothing more than a cover for malevolent Israeli actions.
The pinkwash bigots would apparently prefer to see Israel treat gays the way Israel’s enemies do, because they hate Israel more than they care about gay rights. Nor do these pink anti-Semites speak for the majority of gay people, who appreciate Israel’s positive steps with regard to gay rights, even if they don’t agree with all of Israel’s policies. Decent gay people who have themselves been subjected to stereotyping, recognize bigotry when they see it, even—perhaps especially—among other gay people. That’s why so many prominent gay leaders and public officials have denounced this “pinkwashing” nonsense.
Quote: “There has been no more belligerent cheerleader for the war party against Iran than Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister”, Former British Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw, criticizing Netanyahu in a harsh opinion piece against war with Iran.
Number: $175 million, the amount of foreign aid money Israel will lose if the sequestration will take place.
The Middle East
Headline: Egypt court orders tunnels to Gaza destroyed
Read: Richard Spencer examines the much held assumption that Syria was more secular before the war:
Throughout the conflict, I've read journalists and experts write about the Syria of “before” as a “secular” state, where people weren't particularly religious, where women wandered the streets at night alone, and hipsters drank in western bars and nightclubs. All sects and ethnicities mixed happily. There's a kernel of truth there but it's misleading, and it's aggravated by the fact that the worst offenders, whether pro- or anti-regime, or somewhere in the middle, are often those foreigners who know the country best: after all, they lived and worked, studied Arabic and socialised, largely in smart areas of Aleppo and Damascus where those statements are more likely to be true. Even The Economist, which in the current edition has an excellent and gloomy overview of the mess Syria is in, falls into this trap, talking nostalgically of the time Muslims and Christians lived side by side in peace as church bells and muezzins filled the air over Damascus's Old City. Few of the original protesters were very devout, it says.
What this neglects is that a large part of Syria – largely the parts that have driven the revolution – were not so visible to the outsider. From my experience (even much earlier in the war) of provincial towns and villages, they were often divided by faith, with “shia villages” separate from “Sunni” and “Christian” ones. That doesn't mean they didn't get on, but everyone knew who was who. Likewise, in these places, you certainly don't see young women “hanging out”. A general form of segregation is observed in Sunni areas – male journalists put up in local houses kept well apart from the women – and young men pray diligently and regularly. Moreover, while few talked openly about the sectarian divide before the revolution, that may have been because it was so important, not because it was unimportant…
Quote: “In this round of talks we have witnessed that despite all the attitudes during the last eight months, they tried to get closer to our viewpoints. We believe this is a turning point”, Saeed Jalili, the secretary for Iran's Supreme National Security Council, about the recent round of nuclear talks.
Number: 35, the percentage of Egyptians who are unfamiliar with Egypt's main opposition umbrella group, the National Salvation Front (NSF).
The Jewish World
Headline: Struggle over candidacy for chief rabbi heats up
To Read: Jeffrey Goldberg thinks Purim is a good time to review Iran's (Persia's) hatred of Jews-
Purim seems like the appropriate moment to review some of the Islamic Republic’s Haman-like attacks on Jews and their state over the past year or so. Although Iran’s terrorism- support infrastructure has been preoccupied in Syria — where it is desperately trying to maintain in power the mass murderer Bashar al-Assad, Iran’s only Arab ally of consequence — its Jew-targeting program is still robust.
Quote: “I found these reactions more annoying than MacFarlane’s comments, which varied from the very funny to the remotely funny, but never came close to anti-semitism…Seth MacFarlane was joking. He was poking fun. He was mocking the widespread understanding that Jews are disproportionately represented in the entertainment business. This fact comes as a shock to exactly no one, and the idea that joking about it “feeds” anti-semitism misunderstands both the nature of humor and of anti-semitism…One thing humor does well, even better than press releases, is diffuse prejudice. It does that through mockery, exaggeration and sometimes by just bringing prejudice to light” Jewish Journal editor, Rob Eshman, defending Seth Macfarland against accusations of anti-semitism at the Academy Awards.
Number: 13,000, the number of activists set to participate in the AIPAC conference next week.
February, 27, 2013 Read More »
Netanyahu urges ‘military sanctions’ threat against Iran
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu urged the international community on Wednesday to threaten Iran with “military sanctions,” saying economic measures are failing to curb Tehran's nuclear drive.
“I believe it is incumbent upon the international community to intensify the sanctions and clarify that if Iran continues its program, there will be military sanctions,” Netanyahu said.
He did not, in a statement released by the prime minister's office, specify what military measures he envisages.
“I don't think there are any other means that will make Iran heed the international community's demands,” he said, in his first remarks on the issue after two days of nuclear talks between Tehran and world powers in the Kazakh city of Almaty.
Netanyahu has long said that only a credible military threat, coupled with tough economic sanctions, could dissuade Iran from acquiring what Israel and the West believe is a capability to build atomic weapons.
Iran says it is enriching uranium for peaceful purposes only.
In Almaty, the first negotiations between Iran and six world powers in eight months ended without a breakthrough on Wednesday. They agreed to meet again at expert level in Istanbul next month and resume political talks in Kazakhstan on April 5.
Israel, widely believed to be the Middle East's only nuclear-armed power, has strongly hinted it might attack Iran if diplomacy and sanctions fail to halt its nuclear program.
Netanyahu, setting a “red line” at the United Nations last September, has said Iran could by the middle of this year reach the point where it has enriched enough uranium to move quickly toward building an atomic bomb.
Writing by Jeffrey Heller, Editing by Ori Lewis
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Obituaries: Oct. 21-Dec.12, 2012
Salamon Alaton died Nov. 25 at 98. Survived by daughter Sara (Isaac) Avigdor; sons Kalev (Maria), Saul (Sara); 6 grandchildren; 11 great-grandchildren. Chevra Kadisha
Evelyn Alpert died Dec. 5 at 96. Survived by daughter Michelle Urcis. Malinow and Silverman
Yuri Feldman died Dec. 11 at 64. Survived by wife Galina; daughters Alla (Alex Makh), Irene (Igor) Lapsin; 2 grandchildren. Mount Sinai
Esther Geller died Dec. 7 at 98. Survived by daughters Laura, Miria, Irene, Rochelle; 5 grandchildren; 6 great-grandchildren; 1 great-great-grandchild. Mount Sinai
Makhlyusa Gershkovich died Dec. 10 at 87. Survived by daughter Nataly Gersh; 1 grandchild. Hillside
Enayat Ghodsian died Dec. 3 at 87. Survived by wife Akhtar Gabbay Ghodsian; daughters Edna (Sammy) Kahen, Jilla (Steve) Carpey, Fariba (Nathan) Fischel, Neli (Ramin) Roofian; 10 grandchildren; 2 great-grandchildren. Chevra Kadisha
Irwin Bernard Goldstein died Dec. 9 at 83. Survived by wife Judith; sons Stephen (Jennifer), David Miles (Michelle), Kenneth (Leslie Sands); 6 grandchildren; 2 great-grandchildren; brother Norman (Gigi); sister Dorothy Krieger. Mount Sinai
Milton Gornbein died Nov. 22 at 81. Survived by wife Judy; daughters Sharon, Cindy; sons Howard, Hershel; 13 grandchildren; sister Sarah Horowitz; brother Louis.
Bala Isaacs died Dec. 12 at 94. Survived by daughter Joan; 1 grandchild. Hillside
Mildred Blossom Karpman died Dec. 10 at 90. Survived by daughter Ilene; son Alan (Rochelle); 2 grandchildren; 1 great-grandchild Eva; brother-in-law Harold. Mount Sinai
Ephraim Aaron Lazaroff died Dec. 9 at 90. Survived by daughter Sharon (Richard) Tauber; son David; sister Edith Tannenbaum; nieces; nephews. Mount Sinai
Louis Levine died Dec. 11 at 47. Survived by mother Patsy; sister Jul Vann. Mount Sinai
Louis Lunsky died Dec. 8 at 89. Survived by wife Eugenie; daughters Ann, Laurie; son Benjamin (Maggie); 5 grandchildren. Hillside
Harry Marks died Dec. 12 at 85. Survived by wife Harriett; daughters Donna (Tom) Bonar, Shelly Chandler; son Jerry (Chamuntal); 8 grandchildren; 9 great-grandchildren. Hillside
Florence Markson died Dec. 9 at 84. Survived by husband Leland; daughter Laurie; sons Brett (Rosemary), Bill (Robin); 5 grandchildren. Mount Sinai
Sidney Morhar died Dec. 12 at 97. Survived by daughters Barbara “Bobi” (Jeff Zarrus) Harberson, Marilyn “Mickey” Alper; 2 grandchildren; 2 great-grandchildren. Mount Sinai
Rhea Reta Parker died Dec. 12 at 96. Survived by son Keenan; daughter Joi; 4 grandchildren; 7 great-grandchildren. Hillside
Rose Marie Pauker died Dec. 12 at 90. Survived by daughter Gabrielle (Tony) Nassaney; son Avram; brother Al; 2 grandchildren; 3 great-grandchildren. Hillside
Jeffrey Phelps died Dec. 7 at 53. Survived by daughter Sarah (Josh) Ariza; son Lucas; mother Lyn; brother Steven; aunt Rochelle Abrams. Mount Sinai
Michael Robbins died Dec. 12 at 72. Survived by wife Louise; sons Scott (Shannon), Andrew (Kate); 4 grandchildren; brother Jeff (Nancy); sister Judy (Henry) Wollman. Hillside
David Sokol died Oct. 21 at 91. Survived by daughter Claudine Unterman; son Aaron; 7 grandchildren. Chevra Kadisha
Obituaries: Oct. 21-Dec.12, 2012 Read More »