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Jewish Journal

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November 7, 2019

Holocaust Survivor in Italy Needs Security Protection Due to Anti-Semitic Death Threats

Leave a Comment / Online, Worldwide /

An 89-year-old Holocaust survivor residing in Italy reportedly needs police protection because of the volume of death threats she has recently received.

Liliana Segre, who has been a senator-for-life in the Italian parliament since 2018, began receiving as many as 200 threats a day after she introduced a motion for the parliament to establish a committee to fight against hate. The motion was approved over the objections of the right-wing bloc, who argued that such a committee could inhibit freedom of speech.

The Foundation Jewish Contemporary Documentation Center’s Stefano Gatti told CNN, “Every time prominent Jews are at the center of media attention in Italy, they get subjected to online anti-Semitic abuse. The anti-Semitic insults come from far-right circles that have a past, and sometimes present, of violence. It’s part of their radical rightwing code, this pugnacious attitude.”

Israel’s Ambassador to Italy Dror Eydar tweeted, “An 89-year-old survivor under escort symbolizes the danger that the Jewish communities in Europe still are facing today.”

The American Jewish Committee tweeted, “How can this be happening in 2019?”

Former New York Democratic Assemblyman Dov Hikind, who is the president of the Americans Against Antisemitism watchdog, tweeted, “Not only is antisemitism rising but Holocaust survivors are being threatened?! Hate to say we’re back in the 1930s but it’d be wrong to suggest Jews aren’t again becoming the global scapegoats for the world’s ills. This time, however, we will FIGHT BACK!”

According to the BBC, Segre was 13 when she was sent to the Auschwitz camp in 1943; two years later she was transferred to the Ravensbruck camp and then the Malchow camp shortly thereafter. The Soviet Union liberated the Malchow camp later that year. Segre’s father and grandparents were also sent to Auschwitz; they did not survive.

Holocaust Survivor in Italy Needs Security Protection Due to Anti-Semitic Death Threats Read More »

Swastikas Found at Connecticut Elementary School

Leave a Comment / Online, United States /

There were three swastikas found on a wall at a sixth-grade-only school in Glastonbury, Ct. on Nov. 7, the Hartford Courant reports.

The swastikas were etched into an auditorium wall at Gideon Welles School. Principal Kent Hurlburt told community members in an email that the school will use the swastikas as “a teachable moment,” per the Courant. The school is working with the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) to develop a program about tolerance.

“We will do the work needed to instill in our community that this type of incident is not tolerated and will be addressed with education and understanding,” Hurlburt wrote in the email, per the Courant. “We remain constantly committed to our school standards of CARE, RESPECT and RESPONSIBILITY for our students, staff and community.”

ADL Connecticut Assistant Director Andy Friedland told the Courant, “It’s important for schools to step up and challenge this when they happen and reach out to the community… people feel targeted and scared and don’t feel welcome when symbols like this are discovered.”

The Stop Antisemitism.org watchdog tweeted, “Just a week after a #Connecticut #synagogue was evacuated due to a bomb threat, yet ANOTHER school in the state discovers #antisemitic graffiti!”

On Oct. 25, Congregation B’nai Israel in Bridgeport, Ct. received two bomb threats, resulting in the evacuation. The person suspected of making the threats was a Florida man in his 60s; authorities determined there was no threat to the temple.

Other recent instances of swastika graffiti at schools in Connecticut include several swastikas carved on a bathroom stall door at Staples High School in Westport on Sept. 12 and a student used deodorant to draw a swastika at Southington High School in Southington on Sept. 16. There have also been several instances of swastikas at Middlesex Middle School in Darien, as there were multiple swastikas drawn on classroom windows on Sept. 9 at Middlesex Middle School in Darien, another on a bathroom door on Sept. 16 at the same school, and a swastika found drawn on a desk with a pencil eraser on Oct. 28.

Swastikas Found at Connecticut Elementary School Read More »

Not in Our Eyes – A poem for Parsha Lech Lecha

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And Pharaoh’s princes saw her, and they praised her to Pharaoh,
and the woman was taken to the house of Pharaoh.

Powerful men
regarding women
as property.

A husband
goes along with it.
This is how it was.

It took thousands
of years until the
me too collaboration

let them take
their own stories back
Too many years.

Our mother, Sarai,
before she got some
God in her name

passed around the
court in Egypt
like a bauble.

The beauty of our
ancient mother, does
not come from our eyes.

But from the
millions of souls
who set up tents

in all the
familiar places.
Each one

reaching for our
inner Sarah. Hoping
God is still there.

God Wrestler: a poem for every Torah Portion by Rick LupertLos Angeles poet Rick Lupert created the Poetry Super Highway (an online publication and resource for poets), and hosted the Cobalt Cafe weekly poetry reading for almost 21 years. He’s authored 23 collections of poetry, including “God Wrestler: A Poem for Every Torah Portion“, “I’m a Jew, Are You” (Jewish themed poems) and “Feeding Holy Cats” (Poetry written while a staff member on the first Birthright Israel trip), and most recently “Hunka Hunka Howdee!” (Poems written in Memphis, Nashville, and Louisville – Ain’t Got No Press, May 2019) and edited the anthologies “Ekphrastia Gone Wild”, “A Poet’s Haggadah”, and “The Night Goes on All Night.” He writes the daily web comic “Cat and Banana” with fellow Los Angeles poet Brendan Constantine. He’s widely published and reads his poetry wherever they let him.

Not in Our Eyes – A poem for Parsha Lech Lecha Read More »

White Supremacist Flyers, Stickers Found at Two Ohio Universities

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A series of white supremacist flyers and stickers were found on the Ohio State and Ohio Wesleyan University campuses on Nov. 1, the Columbus Dispatch reports.

At Ohio State, an unspecified number of flyers stated, “It’s Okay to Be White,” which has “a long history with the white supremacist movement,” according to a Nov. 7 Anti-Defamation League (ADL) tweet. Ohio State spokesperson Ben Johnson told the Dispatch, “There is no place for hatred at Ohio State or anywhere. We categorically and emphatically reject racism and religious intolerance, and reaffirm our support for diversity, inclusion and respect.”

Flyers with the same phrase were also found on Western Connecticut State University’s campus on Oct. 31.

Also on Nov. 1, the Dispatch reports that 25 stickers advocating for people to join the organization Patriot Front were found at Ohio Wesleyan. Patriot Front is “a white supremacist group formed by disaffected members of another white supremacist group, Vanguard America” that believes that the only real Americans are whites, according to the ADL.

Ohio Wesleyan President Rock Jones said in an email to community members he was “deeply saddened and angry” about the Patriot Front stickers.

“The hate and prejudice expressed by such organizations are absolutely contrary to the values we hold at Ohio Wesleyan University,” Jones said, per the Dispatch. “And the promotion of those ideas on our campus is deeply upsetting — and threatening — to many of us.”

Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt tweeted, “Another incident of white supremacists targeting college campuses to recruit students. Glad some of these campuses are partnering with the FBI to investigate this extremist hate.”

ADL Cleveland also weighed in.

“White supremacy and hate have no place on our college campuses,” they tweeted. “We are here to help campuses across our region and will continue to support students impacted by these hateful messages.”

Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) similarly tweeted, “White supremacy and racism have no place in our society. I’m outraged that this happening on college campuses in our state. Ohio educational institutions should be beacons of hope, community, and inclusion for all.”

White Supremacist Flyers, Stickers Found at Two Ohio Universities Read More »

The Baker: Chapter Six

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PREVIOUSLY: Ernie Feld is a pastry chef whose own life has now sweetness.

Call it the Mystery of Ernie. 

Those who knew him wondered: What had so damaged this complex man? 

They couldn’t understand why this mercurial baker could often be both so warm and gregarious in public and a private tyrant among his own family. 

Magnanimous with strangers, yet incapable of showing tenderness to those closest to him.

There was simply no give; no compromise. 

Beneath the bluster, they all believed, there was pronounced emotional damage.

Deep down, there was a man who did not know how to love or be loved — not by his ex-wives and girlfriends, children and even grandchildren.

Was it fallout from a life in the camps? Maybe the ghosts of Nazi occupation, when prisoners suffered torture, starvation and mass extermination? 

Many World War Two survivors returned with grave emotional wounds. Did the indignities of Nazi rule and the years in the the British camp harden Ernie’s spirit, cause him to thumb his nose at the world, even those closest to him?

Or was there another explanation?

Was Ernie always this hard-hearted — a boy whose father died too early, and who rarely found the embrace of his overworked mother? 

Was it precisely that surliness that helped him stand up to face his Nazi — and later his British — overseers?

Was it that arrogance and pluck that helped him survive?

Did the indignities he suffered in the war and afterwards make him draw a line, creating the kitchen as his own personal fortress?

The rest of the world — loved ones included — be damned?

And if so, his family wondered, how hard would it be to shatter this self-made shell? Could he allow those who had never hurt him breach the moat into his kitchen bunker?

With Morde, his son from the first marriage, and Sharon, his daughter from the second, Ernie expressed his emotions through his pastries — like a distant father showing his love with money, gifts or unlimited credit. 

With Ernie it was like this: you may get the cake in the end, just don’t dare get in his way while he’s making it.

They were the myriad faces of Ernie.

For years, he questioned young Morde’s intelligence, embarrassed him in public, but he also made his strudel for his son’s teachers and, much later, even his U.S. Naval commanders, as a way to curry favor for his son.

Once, soon after she had met Morde, his wife Marianne overhead Ernie berating his son for an entire hour on the telephone. 

When the two hung up, Morde noticed her standing there.

“Did you hear that?” he asked embarrassedly.

“Unfortunately,” she said.

“What can I do?” he finally said. “He’s my father.”

His intimidating, infuriating father — one who had never, ever hugged his son, yet was so preoccupied by the young boy’s education that he often came to school and sat right behind him in the classroom, to make sure the teachers were doing their jobs. 

Morde loved Ernie, still called him “Aba,” or Dad, but in adulthood he kept the old man at arm’s length; a weary now-grown son who’d eventually just given up.

Ernie’s daughter Sharon had it worse. 

With Sharon, while Ernie might have bragged about her fortitude and intelligence to bakery customers and others, he never once said as much to her face. 

It was the baffling mystery of Ernie, the secret ingredient to his personality, a brief moment of emotional connection when you least expected it. 

And there was another driving force in his life:

His religion.

It led him to connect with people — even though it might have gone against his nature.

As a boy, Ernie had never fully embraced Judaism, had never wholly identified himself as a Jew. But in a remarkable turn of events, Ernie found the religion of his life, one that helped drive him toward his destiny, often surfacing at the most unexpected moments to sustain him. 

After losing his family — whose only real crime, he would always say, was being Jewish — he joined forces with religious fighters to help create the free state of Israel. 

As a struggling baker in Oakland, Calif., he later relied on Jewish-created loans to see him though.

And in his later years, he became active in his synagogue in Incline Village; serving a president, catering events, even inviting Jewish children into his kitchen to instruct them in the art of baking. 

Maybe that was it, then: baking and Judaism were his secret ingredients. 

But there was something missing.

Ernie was like a cake without frosting, a concoction too bitter to be sweet.

A baker, father, husband, neighbor who lacked the tenderness for those he supposedly loved.

It was a mystery that broke people’s hearts.

NEXT WEEK: A young Ernie escapes his German captors

The Baker: Chapter Six Read More »

German Jewish Man Says He Was Assaulted As Assailant Shouted ‘Free Palestine!’

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A 19-year-old German male said in a Nov. 5 Facebook post that he was assaulted, alleging that his assailant tore off his yarmulke and shouted, “Free Palestine!”

The Jewish Telegraphic Agency reports that the man, identified as Samuel Kantorovych, wrote he was at the gym when “a guy sneaked up on me from behind, grabbed my head and tore down my Kippah! shouting ‘You dirty Jew!’ and ‘Free Palestine’ he spat on my Kippah and threw it in the garbage!”

The man then allegedly said to Kantorovych, “Do you want me to beat you up? F*ck off you dirty [J]ew!” 

Kantorovych wrote that “an old man stood up and tried to calm the situation down,” but the rest of the onlookers just stood around and watched. The assailant eventually walked away.

Kantorovych wrote that he decided to post what had happened to him because he wanted to show that instances of anti-Semitism can’t be dismissed as outliers.

“I didn’t do anything to this guy except for being [J]ewish!” Kantorovych wrote. “I was born and raised in Germany and I kind of see myself as a part of this country and [its] people! Why can’t I be openly Jewish and go to the same gym as anyone else without fearing for my life?”

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=406127307003181&set=a.406146563667922&type=3&theater

Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt tweeted, “This #antiSemitic incident is disturbing & indicative of the daily reality of #antiSemitism in Germany.”

The Stop Antisemitism.org watchdog similarly tweeted, “We don’t know what’s more horrific- the actual act of a Jewish man having his [kippah] torn off of his head, spat on, and called a ‘Dirty Jew’ OR the fact that a room full of men looked on while it happened and did NOTHING?!”

Germany’s Anti-Semitism Commissioner Felix Klein said in May that he couldn’t “recommend that Jews can wear a kippah everywhere and any time” because of rising anti-Semitism in the country. A day later, Klein reversed course and called for Jews to wear kippot in response to Al-Quds Day, which he described as an event where “people will agitate unbearably against Israel and against Jews.”

German Jewish Man Says He Was Assaulted As Assailant Shouted ‘Free Palestine!’ Read More »

Letters: Ilhan Omar, Importance of Physical Contact, Democratic Party and Israel

Leave a Comment / Letters to the Editor /

The Exceptional Ilhan Omar
Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) is exceptional in so many ways. She wrote an op-ed in The Washington Post condemning the use of sanctions as “ill considered, incoherent and counterproductive.” This is fascinating considering her support of the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement against Israel. Married in her own “faith tradition,” she is undoubtedly against adultery … except when the perpetrator is … Ilhan Omar.
As a member of Congress, she is undoubtedly against immigration fraud and fraudulent use of campaign funds … except when the perpetrator is Ilhan Omar.

Her freedom from close examination of her agenda and from any consequences for her statements and actions is truly exceptional, but then again, the collapse of journalistic standards made her escape from accountability predictable. After all, she is a female Muslim “of color,” so any criticism of her would be Islamophobic.
Julia Lutch, Davis, Calif.

Perpetuating Misinformation About Charlottesville Rally
Why does Halie Soifer continue to posit the canard about the Charlottesville statues-removal demonstration that President Donald Trump favors Nazis and white supremacists? (“JDCA’s Halie Soifer: Trump Out of Touch With Jewish Voters,” Oct. 25.)

That has been debunked and refuted ad infinitum.
Enriqué Gascon, Westside Village

The Importance of Physical Contact
The topic of Tabby Refael’s column in the Oct. 18 issue (“Who Will Hug Me When I’m Old?”) grabbed my attention. Touch has a unique narrative within the disabled community, and being a member of that community, I am compelled to express my thoughts on this topic.

Touch has the power to make me soar. I’m a person who has close, but few, friends. I’m also a person who likes, and sometimes thrives, on being hugged.

However, I also feel more susceptible to the surprise hug. This occurred once and I didn’t even know the person’s name. It felt awkward. Then there was the time a hug would have been appropriate but a handshake is what I got instead. So it’s a touchy thing. You get my drift?
Susan Cohn, Redding. Calif.

A Deeper Look Into Kurdish Factions
Steven D. Smith points out interesting similarities between Jews and Kurds but leaves out important facts (“What Jews and Kurds Have in Common,” Nov. 1).

The Kurds are not monolithic. They were courageous fighters against Isis, no doubt, and some of them espouse democracy, but the PKK is a Maoist-based Kurdish terror group. Moreover, the Kurds have been accused of oppressing the Christian minorities in Syria, Iraq and nearby territories. They are Muslims but follow a rival Sunni Islamic school, the Shafi’i, rather than the normative Sunni Hanafi school of practice, leading to intra-Muslim conflicts. It is a more complicated picture than Smith paints.
Richard Friedman, Culver City

Another Take on Middle East Relations
I think a three-state solution should be tried with the middle and smaller one monitored by the U.N. providing a buffer as well as an opportunity area for synergies between the two sides.
Hal Rothberg, Calabasas

Trump’s Ill-Advised Decision and a Dangerous Domino Effect
After President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey spoke to President Donald Trump, Trump made an inept decision to pull our military forces from northern Syria. This enabled Turkey to invade and attack the Kurds.

Syrian Kurds have been loyal allies of U.S. armed forces since 2015, when they helped to clear ISIS from Syria at a significant cost to themselves. The Turkish invasion and displacement of the Kurds has enabled some ISIS prisoners to escape from prisons guarded by the Kurds, and it appears ISIS could make a comeback in Syria.

Trump’s abandonment of the Kurds led to the signing of a defense pact between the Kurds and President Bashar Assad of Syria. Now Syrian, Iranian and Russian military forces occupy northern Syria.

The president’s abandonment of the Kurds thereby created additional instability in the Middle East, and he enhanced Syrian and Russian status in the region. Other U.S. allies around the world are questioning the trustworthiness of U.S. military alliances under Trump, who tweets uninformed and irrational foreign policy that reveals his lack of knowledge. Trump threatens our national security by creating problems in the world that have far-reaching long-term adverse implications.
Donald Moskowitz, Former Navy enlisted man and officer, Londonderry, N.H. 

Does the Democratic Party Really Stand by Israel?
The decades long loyalty of American Jews to the Democratic Party is puzzling.
A letter in the Journal last week was skeptical of President Donald Trump’s friendship with Israel despite recognition both of Jerusalem as the capital and the annexation of the Golan Heights. His withdrawal of the U.S. from the Iran nuclear deal also is to Israel’s benefit.

Yes, I do believe that abandonment of the Kurds is a mistake and will be dangerous for Israel. I also don’t like friendship with dictators, but the historic World War II alliance with the Soviet Union’s Joseph Stalin is a historical precedent for potential gains from such relationships.

Trump is far from perfect, as are we all.

In 2018, the Pew Research Center reported that “79% of Republicans say they sympathize more with Israelis than the Palestinians compared with just 27% of Democrats.” Shmuel Rosner quoted Danny Ayalon, former deputy foreign minister and Israeli ambassador to the United States, as saying, “There is a major problem with the Democratic Party. It started mainly with President Obama, who thought there should be daylight between the United States and Israel.”

Leaving aside the controversial relationship of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt with the Jews, maybe it’s time to rethink the unquestioning loyalty of pro-Israel American Jews to the Democratic Party.
Donald Kaiserman, Santa Monica

Last week, the Journal printed a letter asserting that the Democratic Party still supports Israel. Although it used to, and many “old school” Democrats still do, the party’s heart and immediate future seem to be more and more defined by young progressives like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) who make no secret of their contempt for Israel. Many progressives believe the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement’s insistence that Israel has no right to exist.

The Democratic Party has changed in the past decade. Many young Democrats now compare Israelis to Nazis, and while college administrators overlook harassment of Jewish students, progressive anti-Semitism grows.
Rueben Gordon, via email

Now it’s your turn. Submit your letters to the editor! Letters should be no more than 200 words and must include a valid name and city. The Journal reserves the right to edit all letters.
letters@jewishjournal.com.

Letters: Ilhan Omar, Importance of Physical Contact, Democratic Party and Israel Read More »

Israelis Are Using Photos of Greta Thunberg to Shame Each Other Over Plastic Utensils

Leave a Comment / Online /

(JTA) — Israelis who are concerned about a warming climate have a new tactic: using cut-out photos of the prominent teen climate activist Greta Thunberg to shame their colleagues for using plasticware.

In workplaces across Tel Aviv, people are placing pictures of Thunberg, 16, in their kitchen areas next to disposable forks, knives and plates, according to Haaretz reporter Allison Kaplan Sommer.

Global recognition of Thunberg grew in September when she addressed the United Nations Climate Action Summit and spoke of the dangers of the climate crisis. She sailed to the U.S. from her native Sweden instead of flying, to limit her carbon emissions.

One of the photos, showing a visibly angry Thunberg, reads “HOW DARE YOU” — a reference to her U.N. speech, which went viral.

Tel Aviv recently passed a ban on single-use plastics in kindergartens and afternoon childcare facilities.

Israelis Are Using Photos of Greta Thunberg to Shame Each Other Over Plastic Utensils Read More »

Belgian Jewish Baker Launches Europe’s First Mass-Produced Cannabis Bread

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AMSTERDAM (JTA) — Connoisseurs can find a wide range of products containing cannabis in the Netherlands, where it has long been practically legal: Cannabis popsicles, lollipops, chocolate and soap are but a few of the products available for purchase in the Dutch capital.

But don’t expect to have an easy time of it if you’re looking for something to hold your lunchtime turkey slices. For that, you will need to take a trip to neighboring Belgium, where a Jewish baker is about to launch Europe’s first commercial line of cannabis bread.

Cannabread will be available for purchase in Carrefour supermarkets in Brussels and two other Belgian cities later in November, according to a report last month in Vice Belgium. The bread is already on sale in at least one of five Lowy’s bakery shops in Brussels.

Lowy’s owner Charly Lowy said about 15 percent of the dough in Cannabread is made from cannabis seeds, but eating the bread will not get you high. The level of THC, the psychoactive chemical in cannabis, is low, which is also why it can be sold without restrictions in Belgium, where marijuana laws are more restrictive. Cannabread is also certified organic and, according to Lowy, full of minerals, vitamin E, Omega 3 and 6, fibers, carotene and magnesium.

“The bread is intended first and foremost for people who just love bread, and different kinds of it,” Lowy told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “But it’s true that cannabis products are in right now.”

Charly Lowy in Brussels, Belgium. (Courtesy of Lowy)

Boutique bakers in the Netherlands and beyond have occasionally offered cannabis bread in the past, but Lowy is the first to mass produce it, according to media reports.

While not intoxicating, the bread does taste and smell like cannabis, the Vice report said. Which may be why Belgium’s Federal Agency for the Safety of the Food Chain raided the bakery in 2018 and destroyed Lowy’s entire stock of Cannabread, citing the absence of certificates proving it does not get people high.

Lowy is tall and handsome. The Vice writer found him to resemble Don Draper, the lead character portrayed by Jon Hamm in the hit television drama “Mad Men.” And he has a history of baking innovative breads, including one with beer and a purple bread containing wild rice.

His family story is also a common European Jewish tale of success amid adversity. His late father, Otto, fled to Belgium from his native Austria, when it was annexed by Nazi Germany in 1938. After the Nazis invaded Belgium in 1940, Otto went underground. It was then, during the most perilous period of his life, that he met his wife, Hania, a Jewish immigrant from Poland. They wed in 1942 and had three children. Charly is the youngest.

When Otto died in 1980, Charly, who was then studying political science, took over the bakery and massively expanded the family business that his father had established in 1947.

Back then, the bakery’s motto was: “Bread, that’s all.”

No longer.

Belgian Jewish Baker Launches Europe’s First Mass-Produced Cannabis Bread Read More »