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Jewish Journal

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April 21, 2016

Sometimes men need a kick in the pants: Early detection of cancer saves lives

Leave a Comment / Opinion /

This post is dedicated to my Aunt Lizzie

In 2013 The National Cancer Institute estimated that more than 14 million people were  living with cancer in the United States.  As a young child I was fortunate enough to hear the word cancer and associate it with nothing more than a foreign disease that was associated with heartache and often death. The disease didn’t affect me or my loved ones in any tangible way in my younger years, as it does many Americans.  As any child growing up in the 21st century would agree, while I did not have direct contact with the disease, I knew what cancer was and I had become quite versed in its implications for human life through all the available awareness campaigns.

Although I was aware of these things, I can attest to the fact that it can be very difficult to grasp the magnitude of the disease or it’s repercussions until it is one of your loved ones being affected by this horrible disease.

As I reflect on the fact that millions of families and individuals are affected by cancer, I am taken back to my childhood.  I was nine years old when my parents told me that my oldest sister was diagnosed with melanoma.  I remember worrying that she wouldn’t survive cancer. My young mind couldn’t quite wrap itself around the fact that my Mary Anne was associated with this disease.  After much assurance from my family that Mary Anne would fight this disease, my faith in her survival was quickly restored.  My sister had an excision of her cancerous cells and lymph nodes on her lower leg.  She boasts an 8 inch scar that carved out nearly half of her calf muscle.  She is a survivor.

Cancer is never something you can anticipate.  Beating it in and of itself is a miracle for any individual.  It is something no family wishes to deal with once, and never twice.  My family, however, has a handful of survivors.  My uncle was recently diagnosed with leukemia, and a few short weeks later my grandmother was diagnosed with breast cancer.  My family can attest to the fact that there is one right way to deal with cancer and that is to fight it!  My uncle is currently going through chemotherapy to treat his stage III leukemia, and my grandmother completed her last round on Christmas.  My grandmother is cancer free, and my uncle is on his way.  

My family has been fortunate enough to have the option to fight this disease.  They went through the necessary tests such as dermatological appointments and yearly mammograms to attempt to protect themselves against having to deal with cancer.  Both my sister and my grandmother are in remission because they took the necessary preventative steps in catching their cancer early!

However, I have also learned through personal experiences that the fight against this disease cannot always be won. My Aunt lost her battle to multiple myeloma last year after fighting the disease and going in and out of remission for over fifteen years.

If I could provide any advice to those 14 million people and their loved ones, it would be to give yourself a chance to fight cancer!  I couldn’t think of a more perfect time to share my family’s story than in April.  

For those of you that don’t know, April is Testicular Cancer Awareness month. Speaking of giving yourself a chance to fight, testicular cancer has a 99% survival rate with early detection! Something as simple as checking yourself for abnormalities can help you not only survive, but also help men catch it in its most curable stages!  

I recently learned that Tommy John, the men’s underwear company, has teamed up with the Testicular Cancer Foundation to help remind men something as simple as checking yourself can help you not only survive, but also catch the disease in it’s most curable stage! They’re even giving out $25 gift cards towards a pair of their men’s underwear to 4 individuals who share their awareness cards on Instagram in April.  So ladies, encourage your loved ones to check and recheck themselves – and men, check yourselves!

Sometimes men need a kick in the pants: Early detection of cancer saves lives Read More »

As Passover approaches, longtime OU kosher supervisor sounds alarm on Manischewitz

Leave a Comment / Holidays, United States /

Three days before the beginning of Passover, Rabbi Yaakov Horowitz, a veteran mashgiach (kosher supervisor) for the Orthodox Union (OU), filed a lawsuit against Manischewitz and the OU, saying he can no longer stand behind the kosher status of the Manischewitz products he has supervised for 20 years, including its Passover matzos.

“I believe this is a breach of public trust. I just couldn’t handle it,” Horowitz told the Journal on April 21, two days after he filed suit in the New York State Supreme Court.

Within the kashrut world, and particularly when it comes to Manischewitz, Horowitz is seen as a knowledgeable authority. The OU website’s “Getting to Know Your Matzah” article — which gives the ins and outs of matzah kashrut — was written by Horowitz, and he has been interviewed on numerous occasions by major news outlets as a source for Passover kashrut in general, and Manischewitz specifically.

Since 2014, Manischewitz has been owned by Sankaty Advisors, an arm of the private equity giant Bain Capital. In March 2015, when The New York Times’ “Dealbook” section published an article on Manischewitz’s ownership, it quoted Horowitz praising Sankaty’s executives for having “shown a concern for kosher in a special way.” When contacted on April 21, a spokesperson for Bain Capital referred to the Orthodox Union for comment.

Horowitz now alleges, however, that since 2009, Manischewitz’s 200,000-square-foot plant in Newark, N.J., has intentionally bypassed OU kashrut guidelines on several occasions, and that the OU consistently did not support him when he raised concerns. In his lawsuit, Horowitz says OU personnel told him the OU was “feeling pressure within the kosher food industry” because it had lost some accounts to other kosher certifiers.

Horowitz also alleges that when he told the OU that the Manischewitz president warned him that his “job would be in jeopardy if he did not lower kashrut standards,” the implicit message he received from the OU, his employer, was that he needed to “keep Manischewitz happy.”

Both in the lawsuit and in the interview with the Journal, Horowitz listed specific incidents he thinks the public should be aware of, and he said he left the job in December because he could no longer in good faith stand behind OU’s kashrut seal for Manischewitz.

Manischewitz manufactures hundreds of items year-round, and is a massively popular supplier of Passover items such as matzo, wine, gefilte fish and macaroons.

Manischewitz has not yet responded to a request for comment, but the Orthodox Union released the following statement:

“The allegations in this suspiciously-timed lawsuit are entirely without merit, and we will contest this matter vigorously. We certify that the Kashrut of Manischewitz is today, and has always been, at the highest level. Consumers can confidently rely upon the integrity of the Kashrut this Passover and throughout the year.”

Among the most recent of the alleged kashrut violations is from December 2015, when Horowitz says Manischewitz accidentally ran a non-Passover product on its Passover macaroon line, contaminating the entire line, according to OU standards. Horowitz alleges the plant manager did not tell him or other OU personnel about the contamination, allegedly tried to kasher the equipment himself and then continued production. Horowitz said that when he found out about the issue and reported it, the OU excluded him from its investigation and then concluded everything was fine.

The day after the plant manager had done his own koshering of the line, it caught fire, Horowitz alleges, “because there was chametz residue remaining in the ovens.” Nevertheless, Horowitz says, Manischewitz shipped that line’s macaroons, with OU’s kosher for Passover seal, and OU neither issued a recall or a public alert.

In the suit, Horowitz also says that after 18 years of supervising the silos from where the Passover flour was shipped, that duty was stripped from him. And after receiving one particular 40,000-pound delivery of flour, he had to reject it because the containers the flour was shipped in were wet, a clear Passover violation because once flour and water mix, it must enter the oven after no more than 18 minutes.

“I was being kept in the dark,” Horowitz told the Journal. “I was the guy for 20 years, totally in charge of the entire operation. I was the arbiter. If I didn’t know about something, then there’s something very wrong, because I was hired to be in charge. I’m the one that’s expected to say that it’s kosher.”

Horowitz left the Manischewitz plant in December and has not done kashrut work since. He’s suing the OU and Manischewitz for, among other things, defamation and infliction of emotional distress, which he said resulted in him having to take medical leave, the specifics of which are “stress related.” He’s still employed by the OU but said it stopped paying him one week after he left, and recently stopped paying for his medical insurance.

“[There is] no question that that stress relates to all of the aggravation that I felt that I had to fix what was broken and needed to be addressed,” Horowitz said. When asked why he filed the suit just before Passover, Horowitz said it was his last resort after many attempts of trying to resolve his concerns without going the legal route.

“I filed this complaint with great sadness,” Horowitz said. “I have gone way beyond the call of duty trying to get their attention, begging them to address these issues — they and the Manischewitz company. I only went forward with this lawsuit when people that I sent to intercede told me you’re wasting your time.”

Horowitz said he had hoped that those people, who he said are prominent and reputable but that neither he nor his attorney, Arnold Pedowitz, would name, could help resolve Horowitz’s objections to OU’s and Manischewitz’s kashrut standards at the Newark plant.

He declined to answer whether there are any specific Manischewitz products he won’t eat this year for Passover, but said that when he left in December, the degree of the problems in the possible kashrut status of Manischewitz products “was exceedingly severe.”

“To tell you that I know that the things on your plate are no good, I can’t tell you that,” Horowitz said, adding, though, that he also “can’t tell you it is good” since he’s no longer there to supervise.

“The only way I can keep that job is I have a certain amount of certainty that that thing is good. I didn’t have that certainty,” Horowitz said. “I could not in good conscience go into Passover knowing there are people who would look at products and say, ‘If Horowitz says it’s fine, then that’s good enough for me.’ ”

 

As Passover approaches, longtime OU kosher supervisor sounds alarm on Manischewitz Read More »

Passover frenzy grips Jerusalem market

Leave a Comment / Holidays, Israel /

Passover eve, for observant Jews, is the deadline of all deadlines, a day by which all surfaces, all cupboards, all shelves have to be scoured and cleansed of anything that even may allude to a leavened product.

Passover Eve, for many Jews, is the day in which dough becomes kryptonite.

In Jerusalem’s bustling central market, which, apart from the dark uniforms of elite police corps members standing vigilantly by some corners, their hands lightly resting on their weapons, appeared to be unaffected by the violence that has visited this city since October, 2015, an intriguing scent of something burning, maybe something baking, replaced the more common scents of grilled meat and sweet chocolate rugulach.

What was that aroma? It was Biur Chametz, [the destruction of leavened food products] an act described on the website of the Lubavitch movement, an ultra-Orthodox organization, as “Chametz's Final Moments.”

Chametz, a word derived from the Hebrew root of the word “ferment,” is the term used for any leavened product, which is strictly prohibited during the seven days of Passover, a festival commemorating the Jews’ escape from Pharaoh’s Egypt, with nary enough time to bake up a burnt, too-crisp flatbread. [Editor’s note: 18 minutes after water touches grain fermentation sets in and for Passover purposes, the food item become “chametz.”]

“Chametz may be eaten until the fourth hour of the day,” Lubavitch counsels aspiring keepers of the flame. “After that, only foods that are kosher for Passover are eaten… Since even a minute amount of chametz is prohibited, we carefully rinse, brush, and floss our teeth, to ensure that we really have gotten rid of all the chametz within us.”

The souk (shuk, locally) is Ground Zero for Jerusalemite Passover shopping and general holiday preparation, with many of its stalls adorned with seasonal pink garlic, its dark green leaves woven into stands, the heads the size of baseballs.

Basher, the world-famous cheese emporium, has been kosher-for-Passover for a week, replacing the flaky, buttery brioches and crunchy baguettes with French-made “Matsot” [plural of matzah] imported with an eye on the thousands of French immigrants and visitors crowding the markets alleyways.

Every year, Basher mixes up a quarter of a ton of haroset, the sweet paste made of fruits and nuts that is  served at the Passover dinner and represents, in its color and texture, the mortar used by the Israelites when enslaved in Egypt.

David Basher, one of the owners, who is named after his grandfather, who founded the establishment, told The Media Line that his version of haroset, which is composed of dates, walnuts, almonds “and a good amount of wine — actually, several crates of one of Israel’s best wines” — was almost gone. About ten small tubs of it could still be found behind the counter, where they were going for $15 for what appeared to be a few tablespoons. In Basher’s iteration, haroset resembled royal jelly more than grouting.

The entire market has been gripped by a frenzy. Some bakeries, for example, one standout, Duvdevan, had just set out mounds of coconut macaroons and chocolate mousse rectangles on what appeared to be sterilized, white display shelves. “We’ve been ready for the past hour,’ one worker told The Media Line, appearing still to be out of breath. On the other side of the spectrum, Marzipan, a favorite bakery of English-speaking Jerusalemites and American tourists was preparing simply to shut down for a week, the requirements of Passover preparations being too onerous to match.

Not everyone was thrilled by the flurry of activity. One woman at the counter of a health food stall with bags of potato and spelt flour, waiting to pay, asked  the cashier with some irritation why the salesman had just informed her “it’s not ‘kosher for Passover,’ but you can get it anyway; also, it doesn’t require nipui,” the sifting demanded by religious law. “Why can’t I get my stuff without getting a religious talking-to?” she asked. The exhausted salesman replied only that most of his customers “are coming in here and making us crazy with all the specific demands.”

Alexander Turner, a man visiting from Oregon, told The Media Line he found “the religious atmosphere to be a bit stifling. “It’s surprising, actually,” he said, mentioning that when at home he attends synagogue services every Sabbath but found “the constant mentions of religious tasks even on radio talk shows oppressive.”

A bit like Christmastime, back home? “Maybe,” he allowed, smiling. “Something like that.”

Yanky Eischler, the owner of one of the market’s most popular coffee spots, Rpasters, was preparing a keg party for Thursday night, “outside, in the alley, to get rid of whatever is left of our beer.”

Beer, while not leavened, is not permitted during Passover under strict orthodox observance because it is the product of fermented grains.

Fermented fruit is accepted, allowing for the consumption of wine during the holiday, most notably the four cups of wine drunk at the Passover Seder, the meal marking the first day of the holiday, which begins on Friday.

Wine was the subject of particular scrutiny by Naftali Magozi, a religious gentleman stocking up on provisions for his family, who pointed at a Passover classic—Papaouchado wine cookies—the lace-like tea biscuits Israelis of all stripes wait for year-round and wagged his finger in a clear “no.”

The wine cookies are as mysterious as they are yearned-for in all weeks other than Passover. Made only of flour, sugar, wine (10%) oil and eggs, they boast the highest grade of kosher-for-Passover certification.

Yet, men like Magozi, unsure that wine, in fact, cannot under any circumstances leaven the wheat flour in the manner that water would, consider them untouchable. “I’d never take that home. I have no idea what they taste like. Never,” he said. “It’s only an Ashkenazi thing.”

Passover frenzy grips Jerusalem market Read More »

Cruz shows off ‘pastrami on rye’ during campaign stop in Indiana

Leave a Comment / Election 2016, United States /

Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz did all the mitzvahs needed to court Jewish voters in the Republican presidential primaries. He spoke at shuls during Shabbos services, printed red yarmulkes for his Jewish supporters, and even tried his shot at “>playbook and ordered a kosher-style “pastrami on rye” during a campaign stop in Indianapolis.

Following a campaign rally, Cruz greeted some 300 supporters at Shapiro’s Delicatessen, a Kosher-style delicatessen that has been serving the Indianapolis community for 110 years, ordered a “pastrami on rye with brown mustard” and showed it off to the press and the crowd, 

Cruz orders a pastrami on rye with brown mustard. Holds it up to the crowd, the crowd cheers. “>April 21, 2016

Cruz shows off ‘pastrami on rye’ during campaign stop in Indiana Read More »

Arab-Israeli lawmaker compares Israel to Nazi Germany

Leave a Comment / Israel /

Arab-Israeli lawmaker Hanin Zoabi declined an invitation to participate in a Holocaust Remembrance Day ceremony, saying that there is an “alarming similarity” between Nazi Germany and current Israeli policies.

Zoabi was invited to take part in the annual national ceremony for Holocaust Remembrance Day, or Yom Hashoah, which will be held next month at Kibbutz Yad Mordechai in southern Israel.

“You can’t teach the lessons of the Holocaust when you don’t distinguish between the alarming similarity in what is happening today all around us and what happened in Germany in the 1930s,” wrote Zoabi in a letter to organizers of the ceremony, that was leaked to the Israeli media. “And that is where the danger lies: summary executions, detentions without trial, torture, gag orders, persecuting protesters and political activists.”

She said Israel’s teaching of the Holocaust is “selective and manipulative” with the aim “to increase the motivation to defend by humiliating and oppressing the other.”

Zoabi’s office told the Jerusalem Post that it was upset the private letter had been leaked to the media.

Yad Mordechai is named in memory of Mordechai Anielewicz, the first commander of the Jewish Fighting Organization in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.

Zoabi is famously controversial in Israel. In February she was suspended from the Knesset for four months for meeting with families of Palestinians terrorists killed while attacking Israelis, and standing for a moment of silence in their memories.

In November, at speech in Amsterdam at an event commemorating Kristallnacht, Zoabi also equated Israel’s actions against the Palestinians to the violence against Jews that led to the Holocaust.

Arab-Israeli lawmaker compares Israel to Nazi Germany Read More »

23 Jewish activists from Simone Zimmerman’s anti-occupation group arrested at Passover protests

Leave a Comment / United States /

Police arrested 23 activists from an anti-Israeli occupation group at two protests, one at an Anti-Defamation League office and another at an American Israeli Public Affairs Committee headquarters.

Seventeen protestors were arrested in the lobby of the ADL’s headquarters in New York City Wednesday. Six were arrested at AIPAC’s Boston office Tuesday after chaining themselves to a symbolic Passover seder table.

The activists were protesting on behalf of IfNotNow, a group formed in 2014 calling for “the end of the American Jewish community’s support for the occupation.” The group was co-founded by Simone Zimmerman, who was fired by the Bernie Sanders campaign two days after being hired as its Jewish outreach coordinator last week. Zimmerman, a former J Street activist, had called Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a “manipulative asshole” in a Facebook post.

A similar protest was planned for Thursday in San Francisco.

At the New York protest, some 100 protestors held a sign reading “Liberation Passover seder” in the lobby of the building where the ADL is located, the Forward reported. They wore shirts reading “No liberation with occupation” and sang songs in Hebrew.

In Boston, around 75 protestors held a mock seder outside the AIPAC office building. Six who chained themselves to the seder table and refused to leave were arrested.

“The occupation is a daily nightmare for Palestinians who live it and a moral disaster for Jews who support and administer it. This year, we say that nobody can be free while others are oppressed,” IfNotNow said in a press release Wednesday.

In a statement Thursday, ADL CEO Jonathan A. Greenblatt said IfNotNow and the ADL share the same goal of a two-state solution.

“ADL had no role whatsoever in the arrest of the protesters,” Greenblatt said. “The protesters trespassed in the lobby of a private office building in which ADL happens to be one of dozens of tenants.”

“It is unfortunate that [If Not Now] seems to be more interested in spectacles and ultimatums than in discussion and dialogue grappling with the difficult issues involved in achieving peace,” he added.

Former ADL chief Abe Foxman had called for Zimmerman’s firing last week.

“I believe Bernie Sanders needs to fire Simone Zimmerman,” former Anti-Defamation League chief Abe Foxman told Jewish Insider last Thursday. “No amount of word changes can cure her ugly characterization of the Prime Minister of Israel and the Israeli army and people defending themselves.”

23 Jewish activists from Simone Zimmerman’s anti-occupation group arrested at Passover protests Read More »

Tribal Podcast: Yonah Bookstein, Rabbi at Pico Shul, Jewish community activist

Leave a Comment / Judaism, Tribal /