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Jewish Journal

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August 2, 2017

Being a Jew is a bargain

Leave a Comment / Rob Eshman /

If you want to be Jewish, money is no object. In fact, it’s a bargain.

It used to be pricey, say, 25 years ago when the postwar heyday of the suburban synagogue coincided with the busing-fueled exodus into private Jewish schools, a family could spend tens of thousands on temple dues, day school tuition and summer camps. Add in the cost of a keeping-up-with-the-Schwartzes bar mitzvah, maybe a trip to Israel, and the surcharge on kosher food and, yes, Jewish life was a financial slog.

But the Lord heard of the cry of Her People, and things changed.

Actually, the credit goes elsewhere: to Jewish institutions themselves, which found ways to make it easier for Jews to afford practicing Judaism; to Jewish groups and individuals who pioneered more accessible avenues into Jewish life; and to the internet, which lowered costs and increased competition, as it has done for everything else.

The result is that if you are an American Jew who wants to participate in Jewish communal life, you have options, lots of them. They may not be free or even cheap, but it is no longer one-high-price-fits-all.

The subject came up after the Los Angeles Times published an op-ed on July 30 titled, “It’s too expensive to be Jewish.” The piece by Leslee Komaiko generated a lot of clicks, controversy and comments. It popped up on numerous Facebook feeds. Alas, it was misleading. 

Based on the author’s personal experience, it failed to take into account what a simple Google search could tell you: If you want to participate meaningfully in Jewish communal life, there now are many low-cost, and in some cases no-cost, ways to do so.

Let’s start with Birthright, the program that offers every Jewish young adult the opportunity to go on a 10-day trip to Israel — for about $250. 

But wait, as the infomercial would say, there’s more. Jewish newspapers online? Free. (And so is the Jewish Journal in print.) High-quality online Jewish education from YIVO? $99. Classic and contemporary Jewish texts online? Free. The internet will continue to open up opportunities for less expensive Jewish learning, digital meetups, even virtual synagogue services.

As for real-world synagogues, there are numerous options ranging from free to low-cost to high-end. 

There are newer congregations with progressive cost models like IKAR, Open Temple, Valley Torah Outreach and Nashuva, and there is Chabad. But also many mainstream synagogues have developed membership models that work for lower income brackets. The Jewish Journal publishes a directory of free High Holy Days services, a list that grows every year. Beyond Los Angeles, any city with a good-size Jewish community has similar programs going on. 

Want summer camp? Scholarships are widely available. Each year, for instance, The Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles holds a Tour de Summer Camp bicycle event (this year it’s on Oct. 29) that helps send over 1,500 kids a year to Jewish summer camp.

A lot of these programs developed in the aftermath of the continuity crisis, when surveys showed a declining Jewish population and participation in Jewish life. Organized Jewry reacted in the way it knows best — full-fledged panic — but out of that came an array of low- or no-cost initiatives to lure people into Jewish life. Still more initiatives came into being after the recession ripped a hole in the cost model of Jewish institutional life — a hole that may never be fully repaired.

The L.A. Times piece focused on the writer’s attempt to arrange for her 12-year-old son’s bar mitzvah lessons. (To the commenters who shamed her for “waiting so long”: Nice going; nothing like derision to draw people into the fold.) Lessons, she said, can cost $80 to $140 per hour.

I don’t think $80 per hour to learn and train for a meaningful rite of passage is outrageous, but it’s possible to spend even less. Some families I know get together and meet on Friday afternoon in one another’s homes, splitting the cost of a freelance rabbi or Jewish educator to teach their children. At nightfall, everyone celebrates Shabbat together. There’s also the “Craigslist” route, with many low-cost tutors online.

Most of the complaints I hear about the high cost of Jewish life revolve around day school. I know, because I used to complain about it, too. Annual tuition at a Jewish day school can top $40,000 for high school. It’s expensive — but so is non-Jewish private school.   

Even so, 50 percent of the students in Jewish day schools in Los Angeles are on some form of financial aid. There are scholarships to make it as affordable as possible — but Jewish day school always will be the top-shelf liquor of Jewish involvement. For Orthodox parents who have larger families and see day school as a necessity, this is a special burden. But for the vast majority of those seeking to engage in Jewish life, it will always be a voluntary sacrifice of some sort.

And that’s the larger point. Things we value — cars, sports camps, pasta at Felix — cost money. At some point, Jewish involvement does require a choice — you’ll need to pay something, which means foregoing something else. But in exchange, you get a sense of meaning, community, comfort, tradition, belonging, intellectual stimulation and good jokes.

Like I said, it’s a bargain.

ROB ESHMAN is publisher and editor-in-chief of TRIBE Media Corp./Jewish Journal. Email
him at robe@jewishjournal.com. You can follow him on Instagram and Twitter @foodaism
and @RobEshman.

Being a Jew is a bargain Read More »

L.A. icon Angelyne is the Jewish daughter of Holocaust survivors

Leave a Comment / Hollywood /

Remember those billboards around Los Angeles in the 1990s sporting a bosomy blonde named Angelyne?  Back in the days before the Kardashians, she was famous for being famous – and for driving her pink Corvette around Los Angeles, eyes often hidden by sunglasses. For decades, her true identity remained unknown.  That’s changed today.  An Aug. 2 story broke in The Hollywood Reporter, in which writer Gary Baum reveals his odyssey tracing Angelyne back to her true roots: as the daughter of Jewish concentration camp survivors named Renee Goldberg.

According to the article, documents prove that she was born in Poland in 1950; her parents had been two of few Jews to survive the Chmielnik ghetto and endured camps including Buchenwald and Bergen-Belsen. They married in a displaced persons camp in Germany soon after the war, and eventually returned to Poland – only to face continuing Polish anti-Semitism. And so they booked tickets on a boat for Israel and settled in the ultra-Orthodox neighborhood of B’nai B’rack. 

By 1959 they had relocated yet again, this time to the Fairfax district, in Los Angeles, where Angelyne’s mother died of cancer when she was 14.  Her father remarried another Holocaust survivor, moved the family to Panorama City and ran a liquor store in Van Nuys.  The young Renee attended Monroe High School, where school photos reveal her to have been a somber red head.

Years later, she would become one of the iconic figures in the popular culture of Los Angeles, even though she would refuse to discuss her origins.

As Baum writes, “Far from the archetypal transplant-with-a-dream, as she has tacitly long alluded, she’s the locally raised daughter of Holocaust survivors, a Jew who has found refuge in shiksa drag. It’s a fascinating, only-in-L.A. story of identity, history and a symbiotic yearning both to be forgotten and to be famous.”

L.A. icon Angelyne is the Jewish daughter of Holocaust survivors Read More »

Faux apologies don’t make amends for big lies from the Davis Imam and Islamic Center

Leave a Comment / Opinion /

Readers of Jewish newspapers and also conservative media outlets—though not the mainstream national press with the belated exception of the Washington Post— have learned something about deplorable story of anti-Semitism by Muslim preachers in the university towns of UC Davis and UC Riverside.

In the pages of the Jewish Journal, Wiesenthal Center Rabbis Abraham Cooper and Yitzchok Adlerstein have urged the Department of Homeland Security to act against the perpetrators of genocidal libels. At Islamic Center in Davis this July, Imam Ammar Shahin delivered two sermons, one of which (translated into English by the Middle East Research Institute MEMRI) reads: “Oh, Allah, liberate the Al-Aqsa mosque from the filth of the Jews. . . . Oh, Allah, count them one by one and annihilate them down to the very last one. . . . Oh Allah, make this happen by our hands. Let us play a part in this. Oh Allah, let us support them in words and in deeds.”

For a week, we witnessed stonewalling, doubling down, slander of MEMRI as “an extremist driven organization,” hemming and hawing, apologetics, and obfuscation from Imam Shahin and the Davis Islamic Center about whether one Arabic word should be translated as “destroy” rather than “annihilate,” and another Arabic phrase as “defilement of the Jews” rather than “filth of the Jews.”

Syrian-born Sheikh Mahmoud Harmoush of the Riverside Islamic Center remains defiant and unrepentant for propagating the libels that world Jewry is plotting to take over Mecca and Medina and that “a naked woman walking into the holy mosque under the occupation forces, just to insult more and more the psyche, honor, and dignity of the Muslims.” But after a week came an apology of sorts from Imam Shahin (who still hasn’t been fired) and the Davis’ Islamic Center.” It’s very sad to hear that people are taking your words and they are twisting it around, but I know there are people who are out there just waiting for that to make the news. . . . I do understand how my words were hurtful, and I am sorry. . . . I understand that speech like this can encourage others to do hateful and violent acts, for this, I truly apologize,” stated the 31 year-old Egyptian-born, partly American-educated Ammar Shahin who added that “as a young religious leader, this has humbled me.”

Ammar Shahin was born in Cairo, and educated at theAl-Forqan Institute. He came to the U.S.  where he received a B.S. in Computer Engineering before returning to Egypt for advanced study at  Al-Azhar University. Then he began his permanent career at mosques near American college campuses.

Should we take Imam Shahin’s apology and that from the Davis Islamic Center as “case closed” and politely move on? Credulous souls among pro-BDS Jewish activists at UC Davis may accept at face value Imam Shahin apology and decry that “the edited publication of Imam Shahin’s sermon was done with islamophobic intent.” I disagree.

From The Sayings of the Fathers as well as the sayings of the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., we are told that “justice delayed is justice denied.” I would say the same of apologies, reluctantly and ungraciously given. We can learn a lot more by unpacking this faux apology emanating from Davis’ influential Muslim voices.

Another venerable Jewish parable—about how hard it is retract malicious gossip—relates how a rabbi tells the repentant gossiper to take a pillow, cut it open, disperse the feathers from a rooftop into the wind, and then try to collect every feather in order to repair the damage. This parable (popularized in a Hollywood film) may have originated as a cautionary tale about neighborhood gossip, but lying—especially theologically-freighted, politically-fraught publically-disseminated lying—is much more pernicious and prolific than feathers of malice spread from a rooftop.

Here is what Imam Shahin claimed, and the Davis’ Islamic Center embraced before disavowing, in polar opposition to tolerance and truth:

  • Imam Shahin and the Davis Center ignored the murder of two Jewish policemen on Jerusalem’s Temple Mount that ignited the current crisis.
  • Imam Shahin not only called for the annihilation or destruction of Israelis allegedly responsible the Temple Mount crisis, but invoked a genocidal hadith or “Saying of the Prophet” which reads in part: “The Prophet Muhammad said: ‘Judgment Day will not come until the Muslims fight the Jews, and the Jews hide behind stones and trees, and the stones and the trees say: Oh Muslim, oh servant of Allah’ . . . The Prophet Muhammad says that their time will come, the Last Hour will not take place until the Muslims fight the Jews.” This same hadith was quoted as gospel in Joseph Goebbels’ propaganda distributed throughout the Muslim world during World War II by Hitler ally, Jerusalem Grand Mufti (and Yasser Arafat cousin) Mohammed Amin al-Husseini. It also forms a central plank of Hamas’ Founding 1988 Charter.
  • The Davis’ Islamic Center initially issued a highly tendentious statement offering a bowdlerized translation of Imam Shahin’s inflammatory statements. It also misleadingly explaining away Muhammed’s hadith as if it related, not to Jews, but to the final apocalyptic battle of Jesus (Isa in Arabic) against the forces of the Antichrist (Dajjal in Arabic). Conveniently elided over in this apologetic version is the truth that, in anti-Semitic Muslim apocalyptic theology (both Sunni and Shia) the Antichrist-Dajjal leads an army of 70,000 Jews!

In addition to falsely accusing MEMRI of mistranslating Imam Shahin’s sermons, the Davis’ Islamic Center faulted MEMRI for failing to “contextualize” them. Context does indeed matter, but it is precisely the alarming context that the Islamic Center left out. Imam Shahin’s genocidal sermons—far from being isolated aberrations or impromptu emotional outbursts—are entirely consistent with incendiary incitement by Muslim preachers across North America:

  • With a Ph.D. in Islamic Studies from Cairo’s Al-Azhar University and the head of the Fatwa (Islamic opinion) Unit of IslamOnline.net (English website) and the Shari’ah (Islamic Law) consultant of the Shari’ah department of Onislam.net., Dr. Wael Shihab, of the mosque Masjid Toronto declared on YouTube in June, 2016: “O Allah! Count their number; slay them one by one and spare not one of them.”
  • In Montreal in 2016, Jordanian Sheikh Muhammad bin Musa Al-Nasr was served with an arrest warrant for willfully promoting the murder of Jews. The Canadian authorities deemed Al-Nasr’s threats “imminent” enough to warrant immediate action.
  • As far back as the 1990s, Fawaz Damra, former Imam of the Islamic Center of Cleveland (in 2007 he was deported to the West Bank) posed as a promoter of interfaith dialogue even after evidence that he participated in fundraising events for the terrorist group Palestinian Islamic Jihad and a videotape surfacing of the Imam telling Muslims that they should aim “a rifle at the first and last enemy of the Islamic nation, and that is the sons of monkeys and pigs, the Jews.”

These North American rhetorical hate bombs parallel the murderous prayer delivered in 2007 by Acting Speaker of the Palestinian Authority’s Legislative Council Ahmed Bahr, in a packed Palestinian Authority mosque and broadcast on an official PA-controlled television station. Bahr called Jews “the cancerous lump . . .in the heart of the Arab nation,” and predicted that “America is on its way to disappear. America is wallowing [in blood] today in Iraq and Afghanistan. America is defeated and Israel is defeated, and was defeated, in Lebanon and Palestine.” Adopting the open-palmed gesture of Islamic prayer, as did his audience, the PA official intoned: “Allah, take hold of the Jews and their allies, Allah, take hold of the Americans and their allies…. Allah, count them and kill them to the last one and don’t leave even one.” The popular prayer, from Riverside and Davis to Montreal and Toronto to Palestine, that Allah “count their numbers, and kill them all, down to the very last one” derives from a popular du’a or supplementary Muslim prayer of supplication.

At American university campuses like UC Riverside and UC Davis, there is a troubling nexus between what adjacent though unaffiliated Islamic Centers preach and teach and the often intimidating anti-Israel activism of Muslim students.

This past March, the UC Davis Middle East/South Asian Studies and Jewish Studies programs co-hosted a student panel titled “Anti-Semitism and Islamophobia: The Anatomy of Twin Hatreds” in the Student Community Center Multi-Purpose Room. What an admirable event. Unfortunately, just a few months later Imam Shahin delivered his anti-Semitic diatribes next door to the University campus.

We should all join the Los Angeles Times in condemning the woman, caught on CCTV, draping strips of bacon were draped over the Davis’ mosque’s door handles and smashing six windows. But much less attention has been paid to the recent experience of Rabbi Shmary Cohen and his wife, Mendy Cohen, of Chabad in Sacramento who have been subjected to “cars driving by screaming ‘eff you!’.” Rabbi Cohen laments: “This is what we suffered throughout the years. We’re not going to let Davis become like the neighborhoods in Paris where police can’t go.”

In 2014 at UC Davis, a student who expressed concern about the anti-Semitic banners displayed at a pro-BDS rally was assaulted by a protestor who screamed in his face, “You are racist and you should die in hell.” In 2015, a resolution was sponsored by the Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), which seeks to blackball Jewish students who visit Israel from participating in campus politics, called for the University of California at Davis to divest from “corporations that aid in the Israeli occupation of Palestine and illegal settlements in Palestinian territories, violating both international humanitarian law and international human rights.” The resolution was passed by the Student Senate by a vote of 8-2-2. Protesting that the divestment resolution and how it was ramrodded through was “toxic” and “damaged lives,” Jewish students and their allies staged a walkout. Muslim students shouted “Allahu Akbar” at Jewish students holding Israeli flags and leaving the meeting. The walkout received less attention than UC Davis student senate, Azka Fayyaz, exulting with a Facebook that “Hamas & Sharia law have taken over UC Davis.” At UC Davis, swastikas were found painted on the walls of the Alpha Epsilon Pi fraternity house.

In 2016, The University of California Board of Regents unanimously approved a report condemning anti-Semitism and anti-Semitic forms of anti-Zionism, making UC the first public university system to condemn anti-Semitism since the emergence of the boycott, divest and sanction movement on college campuses. UC Davis Chancellor Linda Katehi and other administrators have condemned BDS resolutions as well as denounced Imam Shahin’s hate-filled sermons. Yet not enough progress has been made on UC campuses and elsewhere curbing what was becoming a tsunami of campus anti-Semitism.

Genocidal incitement by Muslim preachers at Islamic Centers adjoining UC Riverside and UC Davis are not only dangerous in themselves, but feed a toxic campus nexus promoting anti-Semitism usually in the guise of “anti-Zionism.”

Pro forma apologies are not enough. Responsible Muslim leaders, on and off campus, must do more to repudiate those who seek to incite religious war between two of the world’s great faiths. I vote with Congressman Brad Sherman who is demanding that Imam Shahin’s employment be terminated, and that UC Davis bar him and any representative of the Islamic Center of Davis from its campus.

Historian Harold Brackman is a Consultant for the Simon Wiesenthal Center and its Museum of Tolerance.

Faux apologies don’t make amends for big lies from the Davis Imam and Islamic Center Read More »

McMaster pushes Cohen-Watnick, Iran hard-liner, out at National Security Council

Leave a Comment / United States /

H.R. McMaster, President Donald Trump’s national security adviser, removed from the National Security Council Ezra Cohen-Watnick, a controversial aide, in what appeared to be a sweep of Iran hard-liners.

[MORE: Who is Ezra Cohen-Watnick?]

The White House late Wednesday confirmed a report on a conservative news site, Conservative Review, that Cohen-Watnick, the point man for coordination between the NSC and the intelligence community, was gone. It said he would get another job within the administration.

“A different set of experiences is best-suited to carrying that work forward,” a White House official told media, saying Cohen-Watnick would continue to make “many further significant contributions to national security” as part of the Trump administration.

Cohen-Watnick’s removal comes after the revelation by The Atlantic on Wednesday of the dismissal of Rich Higgins, another Iran hawk who was the NSC’s director of strategic planning. Higgins was sacked for circulating a memo in which he alleged that there was a “Maoist” insurgency within and without the government of “globalists and Islamists.”

Also gone is Derek Harvey, who held the Middle East portfolio at the NSC, and who also was an Iran hawk, and who may assume another role in the administration. McMaster tapped Michael Bell, a retired army colonel who has a conventional career portfolio, to replace Harvey.

The removals come as McMaster seeks to consolidate his control of security policy, and remove loyalists to Michael Flynn, Trump’s first national security adviser who left after less than a month because of revelations that he had obscured Russia ties.

Notably, however, all three differ sharply from the relatively moderate Iran policy espoused by McMaster. Last month, McMaster joined Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Defense Secretary James Mattis in persuading Trump to recertify Iran’s compliance with the Iran nuclear deal; Trump had been leaning toward decertification, which could trigger a crisis with U.S. allies who favor the deal, struck by President Barack Obama. The deal trades sanctions relief for a rollback of Iran’s nuclear program.

Within days of the recertification, it was reported that Trump had authorized the establishment of a rival group within the White House, led by his top strategic adviser, Steve Bannon, that would seek a path out of the deal.

McMaster had previously tried to remove Cohen-Watnick from the National Security Council but was overruled by Trump, who heeded interventions on Cohen-Watnick’s behalf by Bannon and Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, who is the senior administration official responsible for Middle East policy.

Cohen-Watnick was at the center of a controversy in March, when it emerged that he and another staffer leaked information to Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, that Nunes and the White House apparently hoped would vindicate Trump’s baseless claim that his predecessor, Barack Obama, had eavesdropped on him.

McMaster pushes Cohen-Watnick, Iran hard-liner, out at National Security Council Read More »

White House aide Stephen Miller doesn’t think the Statue of Liberty has much to do with immigration

Leave a Comment / United States /

Isabel Belarsky arrived in New York in 1930 fleeing anti-Semitic persecution in Russia. Eighty-one years later, she recalled what it was like, as an immigrant, to see the Statue of Liberty as her ship approached New York Harbor.

“It was a wonderful sight,” she told CNN in 2011.
Sorry, Isabel: If you think Lady Liberty was welcoming immigrants like you, the Trump administration thinks you may have have misinterpreted her message.
Explaining President Trump’s immigration policies Wednesday, White House aide Stephen Miller told reporters that the famous pro-immigration poem associated with the Statue of Liberty “doesn’t matter” since it was attached to the site years after the statue was erected.

The poem, “The New Colossus,” was written by the Jewish poet Emma Lazarus in 1883, eight years after construction began on the statue and three years before its dedication. It includes lines long associated with America’s embrace of immigrants: “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.”

When CNN’s Jim Acosta asked Miller whether a new immigration bill favoring English-speaking applicants and vetting potential immigrants according to their skill sets is “keeping with American tradition” and the spirit of the Lazarus poem, Miller said that the poem doesn’t matter since it was “added later” to the statue.

“I don’t want to get off into a whole thing about history here, but the Statue of Liberty is a symbol of liberty and lighting in the world; it’s a symbol of American liberty lighting the world,” Miller argued. “The poem that you’re referring to was added later. It’s not actually part of the Statue of Liberty.”

Although not an immigrant herself, Lazarus, the daughter of a family that traced its roots to America’s first Portuguese Jewish settlers, wrote the poem about the statue and in response to what her biographer, Esther Schor, called the “pain of the world’s exiles.” Although a plaque inscribed with the poem wasn’t placed at the site until 1903 — six years after Lazarus’ death at age 38 — its message and the statue’s orientation near what would become, starting in 1892, the nation’s busiest entry point for new immigrants became inseparable.

“The Statue of Liberty was not conceived and sculpted as a symbol of immigration, but it quickly became so as immigrant ships passed under the torch and the shining face, heading toward Ellis Island,” wrote John T. Cunningham in a history of nearby Ellis Island. “However, it was [Lazarus’s poem] that permanently stamped on Miss Liberty the role of unofficial greeter of incoming immigrants.”

Franklin D. Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson were among the presidents who gave pro-immigration speeches at the base of the statue.

Twitter wasn’t kind to Miller’s appraisal of the poem. “WHAT?!! advisor Stephen Miller says Emma Lazarus poem on Statue of Liberty ‘meaningless.’ Stephen, you are a Statue of Arrogance,” tweeted the Anne Frank Center for Mutual Respect.

https://twitter.com/AnneFrankCenter/status/892830814156836864

Peter Sagal — host of the NPR quiz show “Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me!” — seemed flabbergasted by Miller’s assertion (which, to be fair, is technically true).

And some termed it ironic that Miller’s own great-grandfather, Sam Glosser, immigrated to America from his native Belarus.

And if the statue is no longer what Lazarus called the “Mother of Exiles,” someone may want to notify the National Park Service: Its web site refers to Lady Liberty as “The Immigrant’s Statue.”

White House aide Stephen Miller doesn’t think the Statue of Liberty has much to do with immigration Read More »

Moving and Shaking: JFedLA goes to Israel, JVS awards scholarships

Leave a Comment / Community, Los Angeles, Movers & Shakers, Moving & Shaking /

A delegation from The Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles traveled to Israel for the 13th annual Ted z”l and Hedy Orden and Family Entrepreneur of the Year Competition in Tel Aviv.

The July 19 event marked the conclusion of an annual program organized by Unistream, a nonprofit organization that cultivates entrepreneurial skills of Israeli youth in remote areas and from disadvantaged backgrounds.

The Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles has provided more than $1 million to Unistream since 2015.

Becky Sobelman-Stern, Federation’s executive vice president and chief program officer, attended the competition, which showcased 60 business ventures managed by 1,500 teens from all sectors of Israeli society.

The Federation delegation was joined at the event by Rony Zarom, founder and chair of Unistream; Bat-Sheva Moshe, CEO of Unistream; Israeli Knesset member Ofir Akunis; and Aharon Aharon, CEO of the Israeli Innovation Authority.

The competition followed a June 9 visit by Federation CEO and President Jay Sanderson with Unistream participants in the northern coastal town of Akko, one of Unistream’s 13 youth-entrepreneurship centers in Israel. Sanderson announced that the 13 entrepreneurship centers will grow to 50 in the next few years.

Jacqueline Rafii

Jacqueline Rafii has been hired as a cantorial soloist at Shomrei Torah Synagogue while she completes cantorial school at the Academy for Jewish Religion, California.

Her hiring marks the start of a second career. For the past three years, Rafii has practiced entertainment law at Hertz Lichtenstein & Young.

She expressed enthusiasm about leaving behind a law career for the bimah.  “Bittersweet to close one chapter, but beyond excited for this next one,” she said in a June 26 statement.

Rafii joins a clergy team at Shomrei Torah Synagogue, a Conservative synagogue in West Hills, that includes Rabbi Richard Camras and Cantor Ron Snow.

Rafii previously served as a cantorial intern at Sinai Temple from 2014 to 2017 and as a cantorial soloist at Wilshire Boulevard Temple from 2005 to 2017, where she began leading services at age 18. She graduated from UCLA School of Law after completing her undergraduate studies at UCLA, where she served as co-founder and president of Sigma Alpha Epsilon Pi, a Jewish-interest sorority.

This year’s Jewish Vocational Service Scholarship Program recipients come together July 27 at Sinai Temple. Photo by Karina Pires Photography

Both incoming and current college students, along with their families and supporters, gathered July 27 at Sinai Temple for a celebration of the 45th annual Jewish Vocational Service (JVS) Scholarship Program, which awarded nearly $700,000 in scholarships to 220 students.

Undergraduate and graduate students from UCLA, USC, Johns Hopkins University and other schools attended the event to thank JVS, as well as private donors who have partnered with JVS, for helping them pursue their goals in higher education.

The program began at 7 p.m. and featured remarks by the scholarship program committee chairs, Leland Felsenthal and Matthew Paul, who wore JVS baseball caps.

Additional attendees included JVS CEO Alan Levey; JVS Board President Harris Smith; philanthropist Sharon Nazarian, who with her parents, Younes and Soraya Nazarian, have made matching grants to JVS for the past two years to help the organization expand its reach to the Iranian community; and Katherine Moore, vice president of communications at JVS.

Established in 1972, the JVS Scholarship Program serves Jewish students age 16 and older. Since its inception, the program has awarded more than 4,400 scholarships totaling more than $7.8 million.

From left: Former Beverly Hills Mayor Jimmy Delshad; Holocaust survivor David Wiener and his wife, Cheryl; Chaya Block of Aleph Institute and Chabad Residential Treatment Center clinical director Donna Miller attend a discussion at the Chabad Residential Treatment Center. Photo courtesy of Aleph Institute.

Meyer Luskin, a philanthropist who is chairman and CEO of Scope Industries, and Holocaust survivor David Wiener joined men struggling with addiction at the Chabad Residential Treatment Center on June 20 and July 18, respectively, to discuss how they overcame hardships and found success.

Project Tikvah, a program serving young people at risk of incarceration, and the Chabad treatment center co-organized the two events, part of a weekly series featuring motivational speakers who have conquered adversity in their lives.

Wiener spoke of his experiences as a survivor before distributing 30 copies of his memoir, “Nothing to Lose but My Life,” which was published in 2007. Luskin discussed how he rose from humble beginnings to become a successful philanthropist. In 2011, he donated $100 million to UCLA, at the time the second-largest gift in school history.

Those attending included former Beverly Hills Mayor Jimmy Delshad; Chaya Block of the Aleph Institute, which oversees Project Tikvah; and Donna Miller, executive clinical director of the Chabad Residential Treatment Center.

Rabbi Zvi Boyarsky, director of constitutional advocacy at the Aleph Institute and the operator of the organization’s West Coast offices, described the recent discussions as “even more phenomenal than usual.”

Located on Olympic Boulevard in L.A.’s Mid-City neighborhood, the Chabad Residential Treatment Center serves men dealing with abuse issues. The center recently underwent a major renovation and received the Joint Commission’s Gold Seal of Approval for Behavioral Health Care accreditation.

Cancer Free Generation founding board member Kelly Prather (left) and Tower Cancer Research Foundation (TCRF) board member Nancy Mishkin attend “Ante Up!” — the fourth annual TCRF Cancer Free Generation poker tournament. Photo by Vivien Best.

Young adults committed to ending cancer gambled for a more hopeful future on June 3 at the Sofitel Los Angeles at Beverly Hills hotel. The occasion was “Ante Up!” the fourth annual Tower Cancer Research Foundation (TCRF) Cancer Free Generation poker tournament and casino night that raises money for cancer research.

Attendees included Nancy Mishkin, a TCRF board member and chairwoman emeritus at Beit T’Shuvah; Olympic triple jump gold medalist Al Joyner; Cancer Free Generation founding board member Kelly Prather, who at the age of 35 was diagnosed with bilateral breast cancer; Vanessa Marcil, an actress who converted to Judaism; and Polish-American model Joanna Krupa.

“So many people are affected by cancer,” Krupa said. “We need to work together to get rid of this horrible disease.” 

The event featured a Texas Hold’em tournament, blackjack tables and an open bar.

Founded in 1996 by a group of physicians, patients and volunteers, TCRF supports high-impact cancer research and clinical trials. The Los Angeles-based organization, which has raised more than $25 million in the last decade, awards scientific grants and provides support for cancer patients.

Moving & Shaking highlights events, honors and simchas. Got a tip? Email ryant@jewishjournal.com. 

CORRECTION: Rabbi Yael Saidoff is no longer a member of the Shomrei Torah Synagogue clergy team as originally stated in this Moving & Shaking.

Moving and Shaking: JFedLA goes to Israel, JVS awards scholarships Read More »

Who is Ezra Cohen-Watnick, just booted off the NSC?

Leave a Comment / United States /

The New York Times and other news outlets are reporting that Ezra Cohen-Watnick, 31, the senior director for intelligence on the National Security Council (NSC), has been dismissed from the White House.

Watnick, described as a “Trump loyalist,” was brought onto the NSC by former director Mike Flynn. Flynn was fired by the administration after he admitted to hiding his links to Russian and other foreign governments.

Flynn’s successor, National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster, has tried to dismiss Cohen-Watnick before. According to the Conservative Review web site, he was overruled by President Donald Trump and his senior advisors Steve Bannon and Jared Kushner.

In April, a Jewish Journal investigation revealed that Cohen-Watnick’s wife worked on behalf of the Russian government to improve its image in the West.  Eitan Arom reported:

The information comes from an oral history interview of Miller’s mother, Vicki Fraser, by the State Historical Society of Missouri in August 2014 (Fraser was born in St. Louis).

“Her big challenges right now are Ketchum is responsible for providing PR and marketing to try to make Russia look better,” Fraser told the interviewer of her daughter, “which is particularly difficult when they’re invading other countries and when Putin is somewhat out of control.”

The interview was discovered by E. Randol Schoenberg, a Los Angeles-based attorney and genealogy who made a name and fortune by recovering some $300 million worth of paintings pilfered by Nazis in Vienna in a landmark case in 2006.

Even as he reportedly departs, exactly who Cohen-Watnick is remains a Washington, D.C. mystery.  In a lengthy article in the Atlantic, titled, appropriately, “The Mystery of Ezra Cohen-Watnick,” journalist Rosie Gray writes:

Despite his prominent, and apparently quite secure, position in Trump’s NSC, little is known about Cohen-Watnick, who had spent much of his short career as a low-ranking official at the Defense Intelligence Agency. Information about him in publicly available sources is scarce. Few higher-ups from the DIA remember him. Only one picture of him can be found online, a snapshot unearthed by Al-Monitor’s Laura Rozen.

Unlike other White House officials who have become public figures in their own right, Cohen-Watnick never speaks for himself publicly, leaving others to fill the void. Yet he hardly comes into sharper focus when you talk to co-workers, friends, and former colleagues. Ask around about Ezra Cohen-Watnick, and people get defensive. Some profess not to know him, or ask why anyone would want to write about him. Others simply refuse to discuss him.

According to multiple reports, Cohen-Watnick was a “hawk” on Iran working to undo the Iran nuclear deal.

He found himself in the headlines last April when he reportedly provided California Congressman Devin Nunes, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, with information suggesting President Donald Trump was swept up in surveillance by American intelligence agencies.

The leak led to a stall in the intelligence committee’s investigation of ties between Trump associates and Russia. In response to news of the leak, McMaster reportedly sought Cohen-Watnick’s firing then, but Trump intervened personally to save Cohen-Watnick’s job.

The departure marks the White House’s third high profile firing in recent weeks, following the dismissals of spokesman Sean Spicer and Communications Director Anthony Scaramucci.

As to why the sudden dismissal, CNN Senior White House Correspondent Jeff Zeleny tweeted his best guess.

“More McMaster house cleaning at NSC: Ezra Cohen-Watnick-close ally of Bannon and Kushner-is now out as well, WH says tonight,” Zeleny wrote.

Who is Ezra Cohen-Watnick, just booted off the NSC? Read More »

Daily Kickoff: Kushner’s thoughts on ME peace | Gillibrand withdraws support for anti-BDS bill | When Stripe’s founder visited Israel & Ramallah

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TOP QUOTE — Jeffrey Goldberg on why politics has become a form of religion: “Everybody needs religion, it just manifests itself in some way. People need to believe in something larger than themselves, they need to affiliate with something transcendent. I think for Bernie Sanders-type people, I think Bernie Sanders has become a religious figure… Religion came about because humans desired something transcendent, something that would explain mysteries that even science couldn’t explain, something that unifies them against darker, larger forces, and politics plays that role for a lot of people. That’s one of the reasons it gets so personal. That’s one of the reasons that political language becomes so hypermoralized. It’s not that your opponent is wrong, it’s that he’s evil. And that manifests itself on all sides of the political debate.” [RadioAtlantic]

ON THE HILL — Senate Updates the Taylor Force Act — by Aaron Magid: An updated version of the Taylor Force Act was released yesterday, signaling increased momentum towards passing the legislation. Based on the recommendation of Elliott Abrams, the new text contains an exemption for the East Jerusalem Hospital Network. The legislation would also allow continued payments towards Palestinian humanitarian programs as the bill only restricts funding to programs, which “directly benefit the Palestinian Authority.” While some pundits, including former U.S. Ambassador to Israel Daniel Shapiro and former Obama administration official Ilan Goldenberg, proposed inserting a National Security Waiver allowing the president the ability to delay implementation, no such waiver exists in the updated version. The bill also obligates the U.S. Secretary of State to submit a report annually attesting to the Palestinians’ fulfillment of ending the terror payments. [JewishInsider]

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee will meet on Thursday morning for a business meeting to discuss the Taylor Force Act [SFRC]

“The Smart Way to End ‘Pay to Slay’” by David Makovsky, Dennis Ross and Lia Weiner: “Rather than placing the bulk of U.S. aid on the chopping block, legislation must be crafted to incentivize the PA to reform its behavior — not further downgrade its ties with the United States and Israel. This seems to be the sentiment of senior members of Congress on both sides of the aisle… Being smart counts for more than being right. And, the smart approach is one that also recognizes that innocent Palestinians, who have not been able to vote in an election for more than a decade, should not be forced to pay for the mistakes of a government they cannot control.” [ForeignPolicy]

THE ULTIMATE DEAL — Kushner On Middle East Peace: “What Do We Offer That’s Unique? I Don’t Know” by Ashley Feinberg: “On Monday, White House senior adviser Jared Kushner spoke to a group of congressional interns… The speech… offered a rare insight into the man who President Trump has tasked with… creating peace in the Middle East, among other tasks. It’s the latter, though, that’s both the most deeply personal for Kushner (a staunch supporter of Israel) and that prompted him to embark on his longest, most rambling answer during yesterday’s question-and-answer session.”

Highlights — “What I’ve determined from looking at it is that not a whole lot has been accomplished over the last 40 or 50 years we’ve been doing this… We don’t want a history lesson. We’ve read enough books. Let’s focus on how do you come up with a conclusion to the situation… What do we offer that’s unique? I don’t know… We’re trying to work with the parties very quietly to see if there’s a solution. And there may be no solution, but it’s one of the problem sets that the president asked us to focus on.”

Kushner on the Temple Mount Crisis: “There were… two Israeli guards killed at the Temple Mount… so Israelis [unintelligible] putting up metal detectors on the Temple Mount, which is not an irrational thing to do…. So then what happens is they start inciting it. They say look, you know, this is a change to the status quo… And that really incited a lot of tension in the streets… So ultimately we were able to work with them, and we were able to get the Israelis to take down to the different forms of surveillance that the Jordanians were okay with, and we talked with the Palestinians the whole time to try to get their viewpoint on it.” [Wired] • Listen to the full audio here [Wired]

Kushner to interns: “I did a lot of dumb things, I bought a newspaper—which was … very interesting” [Twitter]

“What Kushner’s Leaked Speech Gets Wrong About Mideast Peace” by Aaron David Miller: “For a would-be peacemaker, if you ignore history it will bury you… You don’t need to be a historian to be a successful negotiator, but knowing which gripes matter and which ones don’t is crucial… I was stunned, too, by Kushner’s quip that “not a whole lot has been accomplished over the last 40 or 50 years we’ve been doing this.” Remember the Israeli-Egyptian and Israeli-Jordanian peace treaties? Those weren’t chopped liver…  The only three Americans to ever succeed in Arab-Israeli peacemaking—Kissinger, Carter and Baker—all operated off a pro-Israeli script. But they also were prepared to push the Israelis along with the Arabs. You can’t do Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking without applying ample amounts honey and vinegar. Nobody is going to plant a tree in Israel in honor of Jared Kushner should he succeed—at least not immediately.” [Politico]

“Trump’s plan for Mideast peace fades” by Ben Caspit: “A senior Israeli political figure admitted to Al-Monitor… that, “As of now, Trump’s peace initiative looks like it is completely bogged down.” He added, “The Palestinians have lost trust in the peace negotiations teams. Greenblatt is rapidly approaching the status of persona non grata, just like Ambassador to Israel David Friedman and UN Ambassador Nikki Haley. The president is not involved, and it looks like he has distanced himself considerably from Middle East affairs, particularly given the serious problems he has inside the White House.” …A senior Israeli minister speaking on condition of anonymity added, “The Americans aren’t really a presence here. They let us do whatever we want. They don’t set the tone, and they don’t dictate the agenda.” [Al-Monitor]

DRIVING THE CONVERSATION: Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) withdraws from the Israel Anti Boycott Act — by Jacob Kornbluh and Aaron Magid: Gillibrand asked Sen. Ben Cardin (D-MD) yesterday to remove her name from the anti-BDS legislation following pressure by the ACLU and other liberal advocacy groups. Glen Caplin, a senior advisor to the NY senator told us: Gillibrand “opposes BDS and has a different read of the bill. However, considering there are many people who have a different read of the bill, the bill is ambiguous. She believes it needs to be rewritten and she would support the bill if it were rewritten to specifically address those concerns.”

Sen. Gary Peters (D-MI), a supporter of the bill, told JI’s Aaron Magid, “It’s been pretty much a settled law as far as this is a commercial activity that you can’t be listening to a boycott by Arab countries. So I don’t think it’s a legal issue or a constitutional issue at all. On this matter, I don’t agree with them (ACLU).”

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) said that while he remains a co-sponsor at this time, “there are some issues with the bill that need to be considered and addressed, which I am doing and talking to my colleagues. While we are in the process of negotiations, I am not going to comment further.”

NY Post editorial… “Kirsten Gillibrand’s profile in cowardice: Add New York’s once-moderate Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand to the ever-growing list of Democrats who live in mortal fear of alienating the party’s hard-left base. Or to the ranks of senators who apparently don’t even read the bills they co-sponsor.” [NYPost] 

Sen Ron Wyden (D-Ore) still supports the Israel Anti-Boycott Act, and he says the ACLU has misinterpreted the effect the bill would have on Americans and their ability to protest Israeli policies. “This bill continues to allow anyone to boycott Israeli products or to say they intend to boycott Israeli products,” says Henry Stern, a spokesman for Wyden’s office. “This bill wouldn’t prevent anybody or punish anybody for making those choices. It does nothing to restrict Americans’ speech. This bill doesn’t create any new penalties either—it uses the same language as a 40-year-old law that prevents American commercial activity from participating in concerted boycotts led by foreign governments.” [WWeek]

HILL SUMMER TRAVEL — House Minority Whip Steny H. Hoyer (MD-D) is leading a delegation of 19 House Democrats on a weeklong trip to Israel. The delegation will meet Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, U.S. Ambassador David Friedman and military officials. They will also travel to the West Bank to meet with Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah. The trip is organized by AIPAC’s American Israel Education Foundation.

PROMOTIONS: “Trump’s Peace Envoy Expands His Team” by Amir Tibon: “Victoria Coates, a member of President Trump’s National Security Council, was recently promoted to the position of senior director for international negotiations, in which she will be working under Jason Greenblatt… In recent weeks, the NSC has been in discussions with the State Department over the possibility that a number of diplomats and policy experts from the department would begin working directly for Greenblatt… Greenblatt has relied on the State Department for information, advice and technical arrangements, but the NSC is looking to “staff up” his team.” [Haaretz]

“Military academic Mike Bell promoted to top Middle East adviser on NSC” by Connor O’Brien and Andrew Restuccia: “Retired Army Colonel Michael Bell has been promoted to the top Middle East adviser on the National Security Council, two White House officials said. Bell, who was most recently the NSC director of Persian Gulf affairs, is now the senior director for the Near East. He succeeds Derek Harvey, who was dismissed last week by national security adviser H.R. McMaster.” [Politico]

KELLY’S WHITE HOUSE: “A reset of her own: Ivanka Trump moves forward” by Betsy Klein: “The couple “have a lot of admiration and respect for (John Kelly) and his ability to professionalize the West Wing and are eager to follow his lead,” [a White House] official said. “They want this to work,” the official said… The West Wing shakeup — if it is successful in minimizing damaging leaks and other harmful distractions — presents Trump with the opportunity to turn over a new leaf and set a new narrative focused on her specific priorities and work.” [CNN] 

Politico publishes the transcript of Trump’s recent interview with the Wall Street Journal’s editor-in-chief Gerard Baker — by Josh Dawsey and Hadas Gold: “Ivanka Trump stopped by the Oval Office during the interview, telling Baker she heard he was there and wanted to say hello… “And I liked your editorial today, very nice. (Laughs.)” the transcript quotes Ivanka Trump as saying. “Oh, good, good. Well, you see, you know, my colleagues write those, so they’ll be – they’ll be –” Baker said, likely referring to the editorial section that is separate from the news section at the newspaper, before being cut off by the president. “You did a good job,” Trump said. “Yeah, you really did,” Ivanka Trump added. “Thank you very much. Thank you,” Baker replied. “You did a good job,” Trump continued before referring to Kushner: “He’s a good – he’s a good boy.” “They wrote a very nice editorial, so very good,” Ivanka Trump said.”

POTUS on Russian lawyer meeting: “Look at Jared, everybody – we do appreciate the editorial – but everybody said Jared Kushner. Jared’s a very private person. He doesn’t get out. I mean, maybe it’s good or maybe it’s bad what I do, but at least people know how I feel. Jared’s this really nice, smart guy, who’d love to see peace in the Middle East and in Israel, OK?” [Politico] 

”How will Trump handle the boredom?” by David Suissa: “It will be a battle to watch. On one side, you have a taskmaster who has been given authority to bring order to the castle, and on the other, you have an impulsive boss who loves drama and whose attention span is measured in tweets. The more Kelly succeeds, the more boredom he will bring to the White House. This will force our president to concentrate on things like… policy.” [JewishJournal]

TOP TALKER: “Behind Fox News’ Baseless Seth Rich Story: The Untold Tale” by David Folkenflik: “On April 20, a month before the story ran, [Ed] Butowsky and [Rod] Wheeler — the investor and the investigator — met at the White House with then-press secretary Sean Spicer to brief him on what they were uncovering. The first page of the lawsuit quotes a voicemail and text from Butowsky boasting that Trump himself had reviewed drafts of the Fox News story just before it went to air and was published… On May 14, about 36 hours before Fox News’ story appears, Butowsky leaves a voicemail for Wheeler, saying, “We have the full, uh, attention of the White House on this. And tomorrow, let’s close this deal, whatever we’ve got to do.” … Spicer says he is not aware of any contact, direct or not, between Butowsky and Trump. And Butowsky now tells NPR he has never shared drafts of the story with Trump or his aides — that he was joking with a friend.” [NPR; WashPost]

HEARD YESTERDAY — White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders: “It doesn’t bother me that the Press Secretary would take a meeting with somebody involved in the media about a story. None of that was disclosed. They had a conversation and that was the end of it… The President didn’t have knowledge of this story. The White House didn’t have any involvement in the story.”

IRAN DEAL: “Iran Says New U.S. Sanctions Violate Nuclear Deal” by Rick Gladstone: “Iran said on Tuesday that it had lodged a complaint with the commission that polices possible violations of the Iranian nuclear agreement… The commission includes representatives from all seven countries in the accord… and is coordinated by Federica Mogherini, the European Union’s top foreign policy official.” [NYTimes]

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson explained his position on the Iran deal during the State Department press briefing yesterday: “It is important in my view that we coordinate as much as we can with our European allies and with Russia and China, who are signatories as well, because the greatest pressure we can put to bear on Iran to change behavior is a collective pressure… It’s an agreement that should serve America’s interests first and foremost, and if it doesn’t serve that interest, then why would we maintain it? … I think there are a lot of alternative means with which we use the agreement to advance our policies and the relationship with Iran. And that’s what the conversation generally is around with the President as well, is what are all those options.”

“Averting a Third Lebanon War” by Mark Dubowitz and [Rep.] Mike Gallagher: “Sanctions lifted under the Iran nuclear agreement should be restored. Blacklist the Central Bank of Iran and expel Iranian banks from the Swift banking system. Some will worry this financial pressure could put the Iranian nuclear agreement at risk. So be it. This is the price Iran must pay for pushing the region into another bloody confrontation. And if sanctions don’t succeed, Israel should be given the wide berth it needs to address the threat using all means at its disposal.” [WSJ]

Ben Rhodes resurfaces: “If Trump tears up Iran Deal even though Iran is complying, why would China or DPRK think he’d stick to a nuclear deal on Korean Peninsula?” [Twitter]

2018 WATCH: “Want to know if Democrats can take back the House? Keep an eye on this Orange County race” by Amber Phillips: “The Orange County-area seat represented by Rep. Edward R. Royce (R-Calif.) is a typical, affluent suburban Republican district that went for Clinton over President Trump by nearly nine points. That made it one of the most pro-Clinton Republican-held districts in the nation… No surprise then, that Royce, who has been in office for more than two decades, has at least five potential Democratic challengers… Royce is the chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee and… has $3 million cash on hand.” [WashPost] 

BUZZ ON BALFOUR: “Netanyahu’s Former Chief of Staff Ari Harowin Talks to Become State Witness” by Revital Hovel: “Law enforcement authorities are getting close to reaching a state’s witness agreement with Ari Harow, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s former chief of staff. Harow, who was very close to the prime minister, has been linked to two pending investigations against the prime minister.” [Haaretz; Telegraph] • Flashback: Who really is Ari Harow? [JPost]

KAFE KNESSET — Criminal Cucumber Season — by Tal Shalev and JPost’s Lahav Harkov: It is the beginning of what is known in Israel as the “cucumber season,” that time of the summer in which most of the country slows down, as well as the news cycle. But this year, as various police probes involving the PM and his closest confidants advance, it appears the media will have quite enough headlines to keep busy. This afternoon, Sarah Netanyahu is set to arrive at the Lahav 433 (Israel’s version of the FBI) headquarters for another investigation in the “residence affair.” This is the case in which she is suspected of alleged fraud, breach of trust and misuse of public funds for private expenses at the PM’s residence. The police already recommended last year that Sarah Netanyahu be indicted the case. The investigation today is one of the final steps ahead of concluding the case and submitting an official recommendation by the State Prosecutor.

Meanwhile, Balfour’s residents might be concerned about other recent developments, as the state is now engaged in advanced negotiations to turn Ari Harrow, Netanyahu’s former chief of staff, into a state witness… If the law enforcement efforts come to fruition, Harrow will be the second state witness enlisted as part of the ongoing probes into Netanyahu and his associates, following Miki Ganor, the Israeli representative of the ThyssenKrupp ship company, who has signed a deal as part of the submarine affair investigation, aka file 3000, and his testimony is expected to incriminate Netanyahu’s personal lawyer, David Shimron… Netanyahu’s personal media advisor Nir Heffetz issued a response today in which he “reiterates to all of the concerned media outlets that there will be nothing because there was nothing.” However, as the list of former aides and confidants starring in criminal headlines continues to grow longer, Netanyahu sure would be happy to shift the cucumber season agenda far from where it is now. Read today’s entire Kafe Knesset here [JewishInsider]

** Good Wednesday Morning! Enjoying the Daily Kickoff? Please share us with your friends & tell them to sign up at [JI]. Have a tip, scoop, or op-ed? We’d love to hear from you. Anything from hard news and punditry to the lighter stuff, including event coverage, job transitions, or even special birthdays, is much appreciated. Email Editor@JewishInsider.com **

BUSINESS BRIEFS: LogMeIn buys Israeli AI startup for $45M [Bizjournals] • Kushner Companies caught in legal battle with New York restaurant owners [FoxNews] • Jared Kushner stepped down from 266 ‘corporate positions.’ What does that mean? [WashPost] • TPG to Invest in Israeli Cyber Security Firm GuardiCore [Reuters] • High-Profile Lawyers Targeted in Mexico Spyware Scandal Involving Israel-based NGO Group[NYT] • Activist Shareholder Doubles Down Against $7.4 Billion Sabra Merger [SeniorHousing] • Houston-area business leaders — including Fred Zeidman — submit letter in opposition to ‘bathroom bill’ [Chron] • Arianespace, Avio launch 10th Vega rocket, orbit two Israeli-made satellites [SpaceNews] • Israeli taxman seeks $45 million from Coca Cola over royalties: report[Reuters] • Macron Should Call Billionaire Patrick Drahi’s Bluff [Bloomberg] • P&G hits back at Peltz, says investor not entitled to board seat [Reuters]

LongRead: “How Two Brothers Turned Seven Lines of Code Into a $9.2 Billion Startup” by Ashlee Vance: “In May, Patrick [Collison] went on a five-day tour of Israel to meet with investors and young entrepreneurs and tout these products. Much of the trip felt like he was still in Silicon Valley: At Google’s Tel Aviv office, he talked to startup founders amid “Tech It Easy” posters and potted plants with stickers reading “You are outstanding!” Midway through the trip, he went to Ramallah, in the West Bank. About 50 people were at the offices of Leaders, a Palestinian organization that runs the region’s only technology park… During his talk, Patrick explained to [Odeh] Quraan and the others that he could identify with feelings of isolation because of his upbringing in rural Ireland… Audience members told him they were set to deliver a petition with more than 100,000 signatures to PayPal chiding the company for allowing Israeli settlers to use the service but not Palestinians. Patrick countered that Stripe wants to expand its business in Palestine and anywhere else entrepreneurs need help.” [Businessweek] 

“Tales From Inside an Israeli ER” by Matthew Stein: “Dr. Ofer Merin, Shaare Zedek Hospital, Israel… “From a purely medical point of view, treating terror victims is no different than other patients, but there are differences. First, terror victims come to the hospital in a much more critical condition, which means treatment is more urgent…. To make things more complicated, in many of these incidents, we had to treat the terrorist alongside the victims. Sometimes, if their condition is more critical, we’ll operate on the terrorist first. We’re extremely strict with treating patients as patients without judging them, but explaining this to the victims and their families is not easy.”” [Ozy]

“Ex-Trump lawyer, Marvel superhero chairman in epic Palm Beach feud” by Alexandra Clough: “[Marc] Kasowitz is representing Canadian businessman Harold Peerenboom in a years long lawsuit against Isaac Perlmutter, the chairman of Marvel Entertainment and a Trump pal… If Kasowitz feels inclined to hold back against Perl­mutter because of his friendship with Trump, Kasowitz isn’t showing it.” [PalmBeachPost] 

“Booker Doesn’t Regret Fundraising With Jared And Ivanka In 2013, But “Wouldn’t Take A Dime From Them Now” by Katherine Miller: “No,” he told the hosts of BuzzFeed News podcast Another Round on Saturday. “Listen, I wouldn’t take a dime from them now, but this was a time when they were Democrats. I mean, they were supporting Hillary Clinton, uh, and the Kushner family were big New Jersey Democrats, and really helped to fight against Chris Christie and a lot of other folks.” … He said he had not had a conversation with Kushner or Trump “really since the — since well before the election.” “I literally have people saying, ‘I’m unfollowing you on Facebook ’cause you are in league with the Kushners, and the Trumps,’ and I’m like, ‘What planet are you from? Are you listening to the media here?’ I’m leading, in the Senate, criticism of those folks.” [BuzzFeed]  

“The ‘Rock Star’ Activist Leading the Resistance: The ACLU’s political director and possibly the most powerful Muslim in American politics” by Daniel Malloy: “In 2000 at Harvard, [Faiz] Shakir was co-chair of Islam Awareness Week. The week’s final event, which Shakir says he did not plan or attend, was in coalition with other local colleges and sent proceeds to the Holy Land Foundation, a charity supporting Palestinians. HLF was later shut down by the feds, and its leaders were found guilty of sending money to Hamas. Foes also labeled Shakir an anti-Semite, based mostly on personal tweets by people who worked under him at ThinkProgress. Shakir says the accusations have “no merit,” but they stung. “It cut pretty deeply,” Shakir says. “It’s the type of thing I’ve been working my life against. I was always deeply involved in forging relationships across ethnic and religious differences.” [Ozy] 

“When Progressives Embrace Hate” by Bari Weiss: “It turns out that this “homegirl in a hijab,” as one of many articles about her put it, has a history of disturbing views, as advertised by . . . Linda Sarsour… There’s no doubt that Ms. Sarsour is a regular target of far-right groups, but her experience of that onslaught is what makes her smear all the more troubling… What’s more distressing is that Ms. Sarsour is not the only leader of the women’s movement who harbors such alarming ideas. Largely overlooked have been the similarly outrageous statements of the march’s other organizers… Recall that only a few months ago, Keith Ellison, a man with a long history of defending and working with anti-Semites, was almost made leader of the Democratic National Committee.” [NYTimes] 

TALK OF THE TOWN: “In Borough Park, a Councilman Departs but the Feud Goes On” by Shane Goldmacher: “The battle of Borough Park between Mr. Hikind, a 67-year-old who has been in office since 1983, and Mr. Greenfield, 38, is a classic generational struggle for power in one of the densest concentrations of Orthodox and Hasidic Jewish voters in America… “Complicated,” Mr. Greenfield said. “That’s my word. Complicated.” What exactly set off the dispute during Mr. Greenfield’s brief tenure as Mr. Hikind’s top aide more than a decade ago remains a mystery. Neither man would discuss it. “I really don’t want to talk about that,” Mr. Hikind said. “That’s for the book.” [NYTimes] • Assemblyman Dov Hikind’s son, Yoni, jumps in race for City Councilman David Greenfield’s seat [NYDailyNews]

“Uneasy Welcome as Ultra-Orthodox Jews Extend Beyond New York” by Joseph Berger: “Skyrocketing real estate prices in Brooklyn and Queens are forcing out young ultra-Orthodox families, which are establishing outposts in unexpected places, like Toms River and Jackson Township in New Jersey, the Willowbrook neighborhood on Staten Island and in Bloomingburg, N.Y., in the foothills of the Catskills. The influx, however, has provoked tensions with long-established residents, as the ultra-Orthodox seek to establish a larger footprint for their surging population.” [NYTimes]

“My summer at Morgan State University” by Adam Neuman:“‘Morgan State University?’ My mother had now asked me on three separate occasions if this was officially where I had selected to enroll in coursework during the summer of 2012. I nodded and smiled. From grade school and beyond, the majority of my life experiences were solely centered around Jewish interaction and connection. My exposure to people of various faiths, backgrounds, races, and the other intricacies that made humans, well, human, had remained limited. The notion of veering off of a simpler course startled my mother. It also startled me. But, frankly, I was poorer because of it. My lack of exposure had hindered my mind and my soul. So, yes, yes, and yes were the three responses to my mother.” [BaltimoreSun]

JI reader Josh Hantman emails… “My buddy Dave Kay, a 32 year old British Israeli tour guide, husband and father of an adorable 2 year old, has been fighting stage 4 cancer for the last year. He is a big mensch with a massive heart, and now he needs some help. We’re looking to raise a small amount to help him get the treatment he needs. #SaveDave” [YouCaring]

BIRTHDAYS: Jerusalem born actor, who moved to the US as a child, and has appeared in over 400 TV episodes, Nehemiah Persoff turns 98… Co-founder and chairman of NYC-based real estate development firm, Rockrose Development Corporation, Henry Elghanayan turns 77… Long-time member of Knesset, in the Likud party (1984-2006) and the Yisrael Beiteinu party (2009-2015), he  also held several ministerial posts, Uzi Landau turns 74… Retired colonel in the US Army and a recipient of the Medal of Honor and 7 other medals, he taught at West Point and serves as a military analyst for NBC News and MSNBC, Jack H. Jacobs turns 72… Long-time librarian, now residing in Houston, Irene Seff turns 71… Associate / Executive Director of the National Foundation for Jewish Culture (1978-2006), then Director of HUC-JIR’s Zelikow School of Jewish Nonprofit Management (2007-2015), Richard A. Siegel turns 70… Nationally-syndicated radio talk show host, columnist for the Jewish Journal, author and public speaker, Dennis Pragerturns 69… Op-Ed columnist for the International New York Times, he has worked as a foreign correspondent in fifteen different countries, Roger Cohenturns 62… Democratic member of the US House of Representatives for Nevada’s 3rd congressional district since 2017, she is planning to run  for the US Senate in the 2018 election, Jacklyn Sheryl Rosen turns 60…

Owner of Newton, Massachusetts-based MPG Promotions, Elliot Mael turns 52… ATP professional tennis player (1983 to 1996), who was once ranked sixth best in the world, Aaron Krickstein turns 50… VP of Sales for Hearst Television, Eric J. Meyrowitz turns 47… Former reporter for both the AP and Wall Street Journal, now the DC-based national security reporter for The New York Times, Matthew Rosenberg turns 43… Speechwriter and executive communications program manager at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, Steve Rabin turns 39… CEO of a multi-national toy and gift company, Isaac William (“Zevy”) Wolman… Director of special projects at the DC-based Foundation for Defense of Democracies, Julia Nayfeld Schulman turns 33… Actress best known for her 1999 “Pepsi Girl” role as a 7 year old, and later for subsequent teen roles, Hallie Kate Eisenberg turns 25… VP and General Counsel of Yeshiva University, Andrew ”Avi” Lauer… Harriet Cohen…

Gratuity not included. We love receiving news tips but we also gladly accept tax deductible tips. 100% of your donation will go directly towards improving Jewish Insider. Thanks! [PayPal]

Daily Kickoff: Kushner’s thoughts on ME peace | Gillibrand withdraws support for anti-BDS bill | When Stripe’s founder visited Israel & Ramallah Read More »

stabbing-market

Israeli man stabbed by Palestinian in supermarket

Leave a Comment / Israel /

An Israeli man was seriously wounded in a stabbing by a Palestinian assailant at a supermarket in central Israel in what police say was a nationalistic terror attack.

The victim in the early Wednesday afternoon attack in the central Israeli city of Yavneh is an employee of the supermarket, part of the large Shufersal chain.The assailant, a 19-year-old man from a village near Hebron in the West Bank, was originally identified as a supermarket employee, but security officials later said that he had entered Israel illegally.

The victim, 42, was taken to a hospital in Rehovot, where he is in serious condition with several stab wounds to his  upper body. As of late Wednesday afternoon he remain in surgery with life-threatening injuries.

Civilian bystanders wrestled the attacker,  to the ground. Some then kicked the stabber, Ynet reported. He was turned over to the Israel Security Agency, or Shin Bet, for questioning.

Israeli man stabbed by Palestinian in supermarket Read More »