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February 12, 2020

The IDF Druze Commander Training Soldiers With Disabilities

Leave a Comment / Israel /

Every day Commander Rami Hassan  drives 90 miles each way from his home in Kfar Yarka in the Galilee to his military base in Yehud near Tel Aviv. But he’s used to it. He’s been in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) for 26 years. 

A member of the Israeli Druze community, Hassan has two great loves: his family and his country. A husband and father of four, Hassan comes from a family dedicated to public and national service. His father served as a border police officer and all of his brothers served in the IDF. 

“I love to give as much as I can, to contribute as much as I can,” he said. “In our culture, we learn from our parents, our cousins. They all do service — a love for the land, for the country.” While Druze make up under 2% of Israel’s population, they are disproportionately found in the army and police forces.

Druze soldiers serve in all-Druze units and in fully integrated units throughout the IDF. When Hassan first heard about the program “Special in Uniform” — an innovative program that integrates youth with disabilities into the IDF — he understood its importance. When the organization reached out to Hassan a few years ago asking him to accept some of their participants, he said he “tried it for a week and it’s [now] been four years.”

Hassan currently has 15 participants in his unit and five have served as full IDF soldiers, rather than as volunteers — a decision he was able to make as their commander. “For me, this is the most important project in my life,” Hassan said. “If they are successful, I am happy.”

“For me, this is the most important project in my life. If they are successful, I am happy.”

Special in Uniform provides young people with disabilities the opportunity to feel like a part of Israeli society. In a country where army service is mandatory for men and women at the age of 18, the army is a cornerstone of Israeli society. Imagine a young man, blind from birth. His father served in the army, his siblings in the army, his cousins, his neighbors. Serving in the army makes him an “insider” as opposed to emphasizing his differences.

Hassan believes that the structure, camaraderie and personal agency are the keys to empowering these young adults who have disabilities. “They wake up at 7, they have somewhere to be at 9, and a lot to do,” he said, adding that they build social skills, gain real work experience, develop personal abilities and build skill sets, all of which hopefully help them integrate into Israeli society and the workforce post-enlistment. 

Hassan shares one of his recruits’ success stories, noting that when the soldier first joined the unit, his verbal communication was severely limited. “He spoke with his hands, and could get a few words out. Now he speaks in full sentences. All of a sudden he had these people around him, different people. Every day we spoke with him. We speak at work, sing at work.”

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The Fist of Evil: S.Y. Agnon Confronts Antisemitism

Leave a Comment / Analysis /

On Nov. 24, 1961, in the shadow of the Adolf Eichmann trial, Israeli newspaper Haaretz published a review of journalist and war correspondent William Shirer’s monumental book “The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany.” Appearing in Haaretz’s widely read culture and literature supplement to its Friday Shabbat edition, the title of the review was “The Fist of Evil.” The reviewer was Israeli author S.Y. Agnon who, five years later in 1966, received the Nobel Prize in literature, becoming Israel’s first Nobel laureate.

What prompted Agnon to take time away from his creative writing to pen a review of Shirer’s book? Was it the atmosphere the Eichmann trial created, which, for the first time in the State of Israel’s young history, gave the chance for Holocaust survivors to openly speak and provide testimony on the horrors of the Shoah? Was it Agnon’s opportunity, through Shirer’s book, to offer personal meditations on the Holocaust, a theme he rarely explored in his own writings?

Whatever Agnon’s motive or intentions were in 1961, what’s fascinating yet disturbing is the continued relevance of Agnon’s book review, 59 years later. In a world plagued by a dangerous resurgence of anti-Semitism, Agnon’s musings on Shirer’s book address today’s society as much as they did in 1961.

Agnon opens his review by stating that Shirer’s book “places before our eyes the horrific events that emerged from one small nation, who in the beginning, we dismissed as if they were no big deal.”

From this frightening insight on the world’s tragic misread of the Nazi party, Agnon continues, “This lack of caution on the part of the world is one of the fatal flaws of the world community. … Shirer exposes us to the many gangs of evil people who behaved with unprecedented evil, and to the many world leaders who, in our naïveté, we thought were leading the world with wisdom. Woe unto such wisdom, and woe unto such leadership.”

This sounds hauntingly familiar. Agnon’s reflections send a chilling reminder that politicians who negotiate with tyrannical regimes, or who minimize the impact of hate speech at rallies or on social media, risk making the same fatal errors as many did before World War II. In Agnon’s grim description of the leaders of that generation, “the world was handed over to fools.”

While praising Shirer’s book for its detailed description of Nazi Germany, Agnon was dismayed by Shirer’s minimal discussion of the Nazis’ Final Solution against the Jews. “I am astonished that the author barely touched upon the great calamity that befell the Jewish people,” wrote Agnon. “We, unfortunately, have experience with writers who tell the history of the world, and advertently or inadvertently leave out the Jews.”

As an example, Agnon cites British historian Herbert Albert Laurens Fisher’s “A History of Europe,” in which he never mentioned the expulsion of the Jews from Spain.

Despite such precedents, Agnon remained disappointed that Shirer’s lengthy, 1,000-plus-page book made scant mention of the Holocaust. “I wonder how a man like Mr. Shirer, an eyewitness to almost every scene where our troubles originated, did not find it in his heart to discuss in a bit more depth all that befell us at the hands of the Third Reich,” Agnon wrote.

Agnon’s disappointment at Shirer’s near omission of the Holocaust gives us pause for reflection today. In a recent Pew Research Center report titled “What Americans Know About the Holocaust,” 45% of nearly 11,000 Americans surveyed didn’t know the Nazis killed 6 million Jews during World War II. In response to this disturbing statistic, the authors of the Pew report asked an important question: “Are those who underestimate the death toll simply uninformed, or are they Holocaust deniers — people with anti-Semitic views who ‘claim that the Holocaust was invented or exaggerated by Jews as part of a plot to advance Jewish interests?’ ”

While praising William Shirer’s book for its detailed description of Nazi Germany, S.Y. Agnon was dismayed by Shirer’s minimal discussion of the Nazis’ Final Solution against the Jews.

In light of Agnon’s dismay of Shirer’s minimal treatment of the Holocaust, one can pose a deeper version of the Pew report’s question: Which is more disturbing today? Holocaust deniers (whom many people too easily discount as “hatemongers disguised as historians”) or academics, professors and high school teachers who minimize or omit the Holocaust from their books, syllabi or curriculum?

S.Y. Agnon was born Shmuel Yosef Czaczkes in Poland in 1888. He emigrated to the Land of Israel in the early 1900s (where he took his nom de plume, S.Y. Agnon); left in 1913 to live in Berlin; then returned to the Land of Israel in 1924, where he lived the rest of his life. As a Jew who twice left Europe and ultimately escaped the horrors of the Holocaust, Agnon chose to conclude his review of Shirer’s book by recounting some personal experiences from his life in Europe. Here, he turns away from Shirer’s book  and his reflections on world leaders, turning inward to explore the Jewish reaction to anti-Semitism.

“On my way back to Eretz Yisrael towards the end of 1924, I stopped in Vienna to visit Rabbi Tzvi-Peretz Hayot of blessed memory [a renowned rabbi, scholar and Zionist leader]. He invited me to his synagogue and sat me next to him. In his sermon on the evening of Yom Kippur, he predicted all of the awful troubles that would soon befall the Jewish people and the entire world. His descriptions were difficult and gruesome, and as I looked out into the congregation, I saw how displeased they were by his sermon. They looked upon him mockingly for what they felt was his complete misunderstanding of world events. After services, some of the congregants approached the rabbi to complain about his sermon, saying that no amount of Zionist propaganda can justify such words.”

Whatever Agnon’s motive or intentions were in 1961, what’s fascinating yet disturbing is the continued relevance of Agnon’s book review, 59 years later. In a world plagued by a dangerous resurgence of anti-Semitism, Agnon’s musings on Shirer’s book address today’s society as much as they did in 1961.

Agnon turned to Rabbi Hayot and asked him what prompted him to present such a prophecy of doom to his congregation? “I am old, and thus will not live to see any of this,” he answered, “but you will yet see great horrors of the sort that I described in my sermon.”

In relating this experience, Agnon came full circle from earlier in his review when he described Shirer’s book as “concrete illustrations of matters that I wanted to know more about, and on matters that, like all people from my generation, I wanted to ignore.” Alluding to the “it can’t happen here” syndrome that was common among Jews, Agnon remarked that ignoring evil that lurks at our door “is especially a flaw of the Jewish people — a people well versed in such flaws — as we convince ourselves to ignore those who hate and threaten us, and end up being hit and injured by them, sometimes to the point where there is no remedy for the injury.”

This Feb. 17 marks the 50th anniversary of Agnon’s passing. He wrote nine brilliant novels and several volumes of short stories, all of which make for fascinating reading. But as we continue to confront anti-Semitism, this relatively obscure book review by Agnon takes center stage as one of his greatest literary meditations on the Jewish condition — in 1961 and today.

Rabbi Daniel Bouskila is the director of the Sephardic Educational Center and the rabbi of the Westwood Village Synagogue.

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A Screenwriter Remembers Kirk Douglas

Leave a Comment / First Person /

At the beginning of his legendary career, Kirk Douglas, born Issur Danielovitch, was almost typecast as a well-meaning but ineffectual husband, in “The Strange Love of Martha Ivers” (1946) and “A Letter to Three Wives” (1949). His performances in these films are more than competent. But his career really took off when he played bitter, cynical men motivated by rage: “Champion” (1949), “Ace in the Hole,” (1951), “The Bad and the Beautiful,” (1952), “Paths of Glory” (1957), “Spartacus (1960) and his favorite film, “Lonely Are the Brave” (1962).

Douglas was never a conventional leading man. Although handsome as a fairy tale prince, he wielded his masculine beauty like a weapon. There was none of the gruff charm that made Clark Gable the “King of Hollywood”; nor was Douglas an elegant, urbane gentleman like William Powell or Cary Grant.

He excelled at playing, in his own words, “sons of bitches.”

Douglas, who died at age 103 on Feb. 5 in Beverly Hills, always felt like an outsider. And his fine memoir, “The Ragman’s Son,” published in 1988, touchingly reveals a chronically damaged self-image. The only son of illiterate Jewish Russian immigrants, Douglas was terrified of Herschel, his distant, hard-drinking, often violent father. But, like so many Hollywood stars, Douglas was deeply attached to his gentle, long-suffering mother Bryna. In fact, Douglas named his film company Bryna Productions.

Raised in Amsterdam, N.Y., about 28 miles northwest of Albany, Douglas describes the city as “WASP town.” For traditional Jews from the Ukraine, this new world was blessedly free in spite of the anti-Semitism that was common.

The rage that is at the heart of actor Kirk Douglas has its genesis in his difficult childhood.

In his senior year of high school, young Issur was looking forward to attending the school prom:

… I had never been to a school dance in the evening because I didn’t have the clothes or the money. I was a pretty good dancer, especially with a step called the glide and dip. But senior year, I decided to save up and go to the Senior Prom. It was a big event to me, my first prom.

The rage that is at the heart of actor Kirk Douglas has its genesis in his difficult childhood.

There was a girl, Ann Brown. She was pretty and always wore nice clean dresses. She lived on Market Hill, the rich part of town. I danced with her sometimes during lunch hour. I felt she liked me. I invited her to go with me. She said yes! I was ecstatic, counted my pennies to make sure I had enough for the ticket and a nice corsage. I was going to press my suit carefully.

The next day I came to school very happy. I saw her, my date for the prom, and waved. She didn’t wave back. That’s strange, I thought. I guess she didn’t see me. During lunch hour when people were dancing, I couldn’t quite seem to get her attention. I didn’t understand. I ran up to her and she turned away. Finally, I trapped her in the corridor.

“What’s wrong?”

She started to stutter, then finally said, “I can’t go to the prom with you.”

My heart sank. I was bewildered. She had seemed so happy about it the day before. “Why?”

She wouldn’t answer. I insisted. “Why? Have I done something?”

“No.” Long pause. “My father won’t let me.”

I said, “I’m sure the prom won’t be very late. I’ll get you home whenever he’d like.”

“No, no,” she said. “It’s not that.”

“Well what is it?”

“Because you’re a Jew and your father’s a ragman!” She ran away.

I just stood there with my mouth open. Certainly it was not new to me to be persecuted for being a Jew. But somehow I didn’t associate it with this nice, freshly scrubbed American girl with her well-pressed dresses. I couldn’t believe it. I knew that she came from a wealthy family and her father was a college graduate. I had always thought that people who hated Jews were like my immigrant neighbors who had come from a tough background with no education.

The night of the prom arrived. I had already told many people that I was going, and I was expected to go, because I was on the dance committee. But I didn’t go.

To deal with the pain and rejection, young Issur — already fascinated by the make-believe world of theater — escaped reality by retreating into a protective shell, into comforting dreams and pleasant fantasies.

Thus was born the actor Kirk Douglas.

Rest in peace.

Robert J. Avrech is an American author and screenwriter. This article is reprinted with permission.

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Who Will Write Our History?

Leave a Comment / First Person /

The Polish Jewish magazine Chidusz recently published an article titled “Who Has Written the Jewish History?”  about Polish Wikipedia pages relating the history of Polish Jews. Since my grandmother Joanna was a Holocaust survivor from Lviv (then Lwów) and lost her whole family during World War II, this article caught my attention, motivating me to explore the page “History of Jews in Poland.” 

When it comes to Jews living under the Soviet occupation during World War II, Wikipedia users two quotations about Lviv, referencing negative behavior of Jews; this took up nearly the half the page space. The second bit of information describes how Jews greeted the Bolsheviks entering the city with flowers and “kissing their tanks.” Moreover, the Wikipedia author(s) wrote about the “provocative” attitude of Jews toward Poles, apparently pointing to the fact that Poland did not exist anymore.

These ideas came from a controversial book by Polish American historian Marek Jan Chodakiewicz. They personally affected me. Certainly a few single Jews could have been communists, but not 100,000 inhabitants of the city, nor my grandmother’s family. Not to mention that 99.5% of Jews perished under tragic circumstances during the war.

Michał Bojanowski, editor-in-chief of Chidusz, analyzed the Wikipedia page, starting from World War I, by inspecting the edits and the actions of the main contributors (some of whom mentioned their nationalistic and Catholic views in their profiles). Bojanowski’s article impresses, being an exhaustive documentation of manipulations on the website.

The webpage repeats certain clichés. In the context of rebuilding the Polish state from 1918-1920, it puts an emphasis on Jewish willingness to create an autonomy that supposedly was more important to the Jews than the independence of the Polish state. In the section about anti-Semitism, user Jakubkaja wrote about “voluntary ghettos” — places where Jews isolated themselves from Catholic Poles, implying they did not assimilate on purpose, to preserve their religious and national identities. Jakubkaja also added a comment, based on Paweł Wieczorkiewicz’s thesis, that Jews initiated some anti-Jewish incidents by murdering Poles. An anonymous user later removed this controversial idea.

The section about the Warsaw ghetto uprising in Polish still is illustrated with the Wehrmacht propaganda photo of Jews playing cards.

In April 2015, user Mathiasrex created a section about the construction of Jewish autonomy under German occupation and excluded it from the paragraph dealing with the Holocaust. He wrote that the Jewish community “immediately established contact with the German occupation authorities” and started to build autonomies called ghettos. He added pictures illustrating the concept of the autonomies: a banknote from the Łódź ghetto with a menorah, a view of the Warsaw ghetto wall, an announcement by the Jewish ghetto police and a photo of Jews in a nightclub in the Warsaw ghetto. Mathiasrex pasted links to Judenrat, the Jewish ghetto police and the Jewish formations collaborating with Nazi Germany. The text and the title “Jewish autonomies” were deleted in 2018 in another “war of reverts” on Wikipedia; however, the pictures and suggestive links remained. Today, the section about the Warsaw ghetto uprising in Polish still is illustrated with the Wehrmacht propaganda photo of Jews playing cards.

As for Lviv, the place of my grandmother’s happy childhood where she was surrounded by loving extended family, I noticed another sad aspect of these Wikipedia pages. User Mathiasrex introduced a collection of new categories about “inhabitants” of the ghettos, as opposed to the word “inmates” present in the English version. It saddens me to read about the inhabitants of the Lviv ghetto and seeing the list of its famous people. The category describes my family and other Jews from Lviv who were tortured, starved to death and murdered in one of the most hideous acts humankind ever committed.

How much empathy does such description show to the victims of the ghettos?

A “good article” on Wikipedia is nominated and verified by the reviewers. They consider that to be text that is well-written, factually accurate, based on verifiable information and exhibiting a neutral point of view. After the publication of the article in Chidusz, Wikipedia editors opened a discussion on whether the page about the history of Jews in Poland deserved the honor of “good article” it received in 2014.

During the war, Emanuel Ringelblum led the group Oyneg Shabbos in the Warsaw ghetto with the intention of preserving proof of the Jewish fate during World War II. Today, once again, we should ask ourselves: Who will write our history? Who will cultivate the memory of the Polish Jews?

Who will write that my grandmother did not kiss the Soviet tanks?

Agnieszka Michalik is a software architect and holds a master’s degree in computer science. She is a native of Poland who lives in Berlin with her husband and two kids.

Who Will Write Our History? Read More »

Is 2020 Really the Year for America’s First Jewish President?

Leave a Comment / Online /

WASHINGTON (JTA) — Bernie Sanders and Mike Bloomberg have much in common besides running for the Democratic nomination for president: They’re in their upper 70s, had hardscrabble upbringings and have had contentious relations with the party whose endorsement they now seek.

And both are seeking the chance to make history as the first-ever Jewish presidential nominee.

Sanders, the Vermont senator, made a strong bid for the Democratic nomination four years and has sustained his avid supporter base into this campaign. Bloomberg, a billionaire media magnate and former mayor of New York City, is mounting his first drive for national office.

Together they represent the best chance ever for a Jewish American to hold the nation’s highest office. At one point this week FiveThirtyEight, the leading forecaster of presidential politics, gave Sanders a 1 in 2 chance of winning the nomination and Bloomberg a slim chance of his own — meaning that a Jewish candidate was seen as more likely than not to be the ultimate nominee. (The chances have declined since, even though Sanders won the New Hampshire primary on Tuesday.)

The candidates also reflect a tension within the American Jewish community. While most Jewish Americans are Democrats, some are more progressive inheritors of the left-wing activism that characterized early 20th-century Jewish politics. Others, wary of protecting their assets in uncertain times or deeply attached to Israel and the right-wing politics that have prevailed there for a decade, take a more centrist approach. For them, a candidate like Bloomberg is potentially attractive.

The path between now and November is long and winding, and it’s totally possible that neither Sanders nor Bloomberg will ultimately appear on the ballot. But here’s how they could — and why that matters for U.S. Jews.

Sanders’ path to the nomination is clear, if uncertain

The Sanders equation is widely known: Leverage the campaign’s large, committed volunteer base to get out the vote in every primary. Because the elections are no longer winner-takes-all, Sanders can pick up delegates in every primary — and can chip away toward a plurality by the end of the primary season.

He has his eye on California, where voters tend to be progressive. The Golden State looms large because it has the largest delegate take — 416 of the 3,768 delegates who vote in the first round at the convention — and because this year it moved up its primary from June to Super Tuesday, the March 3 date when 16 nominating contests take place.

Walking away from California with a majority of the delegates would deliver momentum to the candidate.

Sanders has visited the state far more than any other candidate, according to the Sacramento Bee. And at least until Bloomberg entered the Democratic race in November, he also was spending more money there than any other White House hopeful.

In past years, it was generally clear by early May who the candidate would be for both parties. In 2020, however, with a crowded Democratic field and the end of winner-take-all primaries, the same timeline might not hold true. That means Sanders and his supporters are under pressure to execute a high-level ground game in every state going forward.

Bloomberg’s path would be eased by Sanders’ success

Bloomberg, who is funding his own campaign, also is making a play for California. He has spent $13 million on advertising there and campaigned in the state while the other candidates focused on the early states once considered critical to securing the nomination: Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada.

Bloomberg is likely pleased to see Sanders take the early lead — the Vermont senator and progressive flag-bearer essentially tied in Iowa with former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg before eking out a victory in New Hampshire. A strong Sanders performance in the early nominating contests will help clear the deck of moderates heading into Super Tuesday, leaving the center lane open to Bloomberg.

Hiz(former)onner has campaigned in all the Super Tuesday states and built up his staff in them, as well as in the states that vote on the two subsequent Tuesdays, before investing in other states. That’s a clear indicator of how much he is investing in being a major force by mid-March.

The goal, according to people familiar with Bloomberg’s strategy, is to amass enough delegates throughout the primary season that he becomes the presumptive centrist. If that happens, and Sanders maintains his grip on the left, the Democratic Party will have to reckon with the identity issue that mirrors the divide within American Jewry: Do we swing left or carve out a middle lane? Bloomberg is banking on Americans making the second choice — and picking him to face off against incumbent Donald Trump in November.

“The results from New Hampshire show that Democrats must urgently consolidate around a candidate who can beat Donald Trump, and Mike Bloomberg is best positioned to build the broad coalition necessary to win in November,” a Bloomberg campaign spokesman told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

What about a contested convention?

According to FiveThirtyEight, there is currently a 1 in 4 chance that no one candidate will win enough delegates through the primary process to guarantee a choice at the Democratic National Convention in Milwaukee in July.

If it comes down to Bloomberg and Sanders, Bloomberg — or more precisely his money — may have the advantage. The 3,979 pledged delegates will be relieved of their pledges after the first round of voting, and they will be joined by 770 or so “superdelegates,” congressional lawmakers and party officials among them.

That’s a crowd that’s ripe for the enticements that Bloomberg has been known to deliver to constituencies that otherwise might be less than charmed by him. Bloomberg is known for his generosity to the campaigns and causes of potential supporters. He also had a record as mayor of using his own money to mute opposition.

As a presidential candidate, Bloomberg has racked up endorsements from African-American lawmakers and mayors — many of them past beneficiaries of his largesse — as a means of blunting his past embrace of discriminatory “stop and frisk” policing. It seems to have worked (and Bloomberg has also apologized for the practice): A Quinnipiac poll shows Bloomberg making headway among African-Americans.

If not now, then … 

Let’s say that by June, Elizabeth Warren, the progressive, is duking it out with Pete Buttigieg, the centrist. Thus no Jewish nominee this year.

But the notion that a Jewish nominee was unelectable (one that Bloomberg once cited to explain why he chose not to run in 2008) has nonetheless been all but erased. Who’s waiting in the wings? Democrats adored Rep. Adam Schiff of California for his role leading the impeachment of Trump, and there was talk on social media of a possible Schiff run for the presidency.

And Trump’s campaign manager, Brad Parscale, has said that the Trumps are set to become a Kennedy-like dynasty.

Say what?

Parscale elaborated at California’s Republican Party convention last August.

“I think you see that from Don Jr. I think you see that from Ivanka. You see it from Jared. You see it from all,” he said.

That would be Trump’s Jewish daughter, Ivanka Trump, and her Jewish husband, Jared Kushner.

Is 2020 Really the Year for America’s First Jewish President? Read More »

What Billy Joel Taught Me About Marriage

Leave a Comment / Columnists /

When I first met my husband, Daniel, he told me that one of his favorite musicians was Billy Joel. 

“Billy Joel? Ugh. Why?”

“How could anyone not like Billy Joel?” he said.

I explained that, sure, I liked a few of Joel’s tunes, but overall, I thought his music was kind of lame. I listened to edgier stuff like 1970s punk rock and the Pixies. 

That didn’t stop Daniel from trying to get me to like Joel. He blared Joel in the house and in the car, singing along to every lyric. I felt like I heard “Vienna” and “Scenes From an Italian Restaurant” and “The Downeaster ‘Alexa’ ” wherever I turned. When one of these songs would begin, I’d let out a loud, “Whyyyyy?” and put on my headphones.  

Once, our friend Genevieve was visiting, and she and Daniel were discussing their love for the “Piano Man.” I chimed in that I didn’t like him.

“What?” Genevieve gasped. “How?”

“I just … don’t.” 

“I think I’ve figured it out,” Daniel said. “You’re not from New York, so you just don’t get it.”

“Or I just have good taste in music.”

Later, Daniel told me he was upset about how I reacted when he listened to Billy Joel. He wanted to be able to enjoy Joel in peace. Joel put him in a good mood.

He explained how Joel’s music reminded him of summers spent fishing on Long Island and the fun times he had as a kid. And Joel inspired him. Like Daniel, he is a Jew from Long Island. They are performers. 

He explained how Joel’s music reminded him of summers spent fishing on Long Island and the fun times he had as a kid. And Joel inspired him. Like Daniel, he is a Jew from Long Island. They are performers. Daniel was proud that a fellow Member of the Tribe from Long Island had hit it so big. It gave him hope and something to aspire to. Joel’s father escaped the Holocaust and moved to Vienna, where Daniel’s grandmother, a Holocaust survivor, is from, so they had that connection. 

After hearing the back story, I understood. I worshipped Britney Spears when I was a kid; she helped me get through some rough times. Even though she’s not the best musician, I’ll always defend her. 

In 2017, I bought us tickets to see Joel at Dodger Stadium.  

To my surprise, I had an enjoyable time and I gained respect for Joel. He was nearly 70 years old and performing the heck out of his songs. After that, I liked him even more for wearing a yellow star on stage, proudly proclaiming his Judaism. 

And then, a little while later, something strange happened: I began to love Joel’s music. I don’t know if it was organic or the fact that I thought about my husband and how much I loved him whenever I listened to Joel. Probably a combination of both. 

Billy Joel taught me that whatever is important to my husband should be important to me, too. We don’t have to have the same taste in everything, but we do have to respect each other’s interests, even if we don’t understand them. Joel showed me how to be open-minded when it came to things that my husband liked.  

Daniel certainly understood that. He didn’t complain about my loud music that he disliked. He was patient when I wasn’t being so nice, and put up with my naysayer attitude. 

And with his selfless actions, he taught me an important lesson, too. No matter how different we were, he appreciated me. He respected me. He was always going to be here for me. 

He was telling me, above all, “I love you just the way you are.”

Kylie Ora Lobell is a Journal contributing writer.

What Billy Joel Taught Me About Marriage Read More »

Attacking Israeli Food? Your Racism Is Showing

Leave a Comment / Columnists /

Every Friday, my mother and her 11 brothers and sisters have lunch at my grandmother Hela’s home in Petah Tikva.

There, they find dozens of pots simmering on stoves filled with various dishes that had been prepared with love all day — some even overnight. These Fridays, my grandmother serves her famous kubbah, a Mizrahi dish that takes hours to prepare. Each grandson picks his kubbah’s flavor: okra, pink beets, pumpkin, spicy kubbah and more.

My grandmother always insists on sending my mother home with a bag of homemade hummus, amba (Iraqi spicy mango spread), hard-boiled eggs, fried eggplants and arok, (fried vegetable patties.) On Shabbat morning, we stuff all of these flavors into pita bread, creating a sabich, a traditional Iraqi Jewish sandwich.

My Iraqi mother honors her mother by cooking traditional Iraqi Jewish dishes.
She has this in common with my Tunisian father and his 15 siblings, who also prepare their grandmother’s North African Jewish recipes.

Recently, anti-Israel activists launched a campaign to obliterate my grandmother’s Shabbat lunches. Or so it felt that way.

This attack was in reaction to a post on a website called Hey Alma, which asked people to announce their “unpopular Jewish food opinions.”

“No such thing as Israeli cuisine!” posted one Ashkenazi Jew. “Israeli salad and Israeli couscous aren’t Israeli, they’re Arab foods that have been culturally appropriated,” wrote another Ashkenazi anti-Zionist, receiving more than 1,000 “likes.”

By declaring Israeli cuisine doesn’t exist, these anti-Zionists are stealing Mizrahi recipes and delivering them to regimes that ethnically cleansed us.

Saying Israel has no food or culture is the politically correct way of being racist toward Mizrahim.

After the majority of Mizrahi Jews fled for their lives to escape anti-Semitic regimes throughout the Middle East, they resettled in Israel. We identify our food as Israeli because as members of the Jewish state we can cook it without the fear of being massacred.

Now anti-Zionists proclaim that our cuisine is stolen from the Arab world.

This claim is laughable at its core; the Arab world is an imperial-colonial project designed to erase minorities and their culture in the Middle East and North Africa. The land where my grandmother learned to cook with her grandmother was not Arab — it was once a multi-ethnic state.

But in their quest to strip Israel of its culture, these activists dubbed my grandma’s recipes that she brought from Baghdad as appropriated from the Arab world that butchered her family.

By accusing Mizrahi Jews of cultural appropriation, these extremists essentially deny 53% of Israeli Jews who came to Israel from the Middle East and North Africa, the right to partake in our heritage. It is racism and anti-Semitism for the price of one.

Saying Israel has no food or culture is the politically correct way of being racist toward Mizrahim. These bigots aren’t just stealing our culture, they are claiming we have none.

It’s not the first time Hey Alma contributed, deliberately or not, to this anti-Mizrahi erasure. The website frequently posts about Ashkenazi food and culture but seldom posts about Mizrahim, our food, or our heritage.

The goal of this campaign? Dehumanization. No nation lacks cuisine. Deprive Jews and Israelis of a culture, and you deprive us of our humanity.

Perhaps that is the root of the divide between some American Jews and Israelis: apathy via dehumanization.

American Jews become anti-Zionists because they struggle to empathize with Israelis. They wish we ate bagels and lox instead of hummus and sabich, listened to Barbra Streisand and not Omer Adam. They are alienated by how Israel, unlike most American Jewish spaces, adopts Mizrahi culture. They wish our national language was Yiddish and not Hebrew and Arabic, that we cared more about their interpretation of tikkun olam instead of our survival.

Along with dishes from all global Jewry, Mizrahi cuisine is a part of the emerging Israeli cuisine, and that’s a hard fact for anti-Zionists to swallow.

Hen Mazzig is an Israeli writer, speaker and activist. He is a senior fellow at the Tel Aviv Institute. Follow him: @HenMazzig

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State Caucus an Ally for the Jewish Community

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The year 2019 was an extraordinarily productive one for the California Legislative Jewish Caucus. While our caucus is relatively young and still working to establish itself in Sacramento, our membership now includes 16 state legislators who are committed to advancing the Jewish community’s priorities and being a voice for our values in state government.

Last year, the Jewish Caucus prioritized efforts to strengthen and protect the Jewish community. Working together with community organizations, we secured nearly $65 million in the state budget for key priorities, including rebuilding fire-ravaged Jewish summer camps, assisting needy Holocaust survivors, expanding the Los Angeles Museum of the Holocaust and improving security at vulnerable Jewish institutions. We took swift action to force revisions to a draft statewide Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum that was tainted with disturbing anti-Jewish and anti-Israel bias. And we brought a diverse group of 16 legislators — including members of the Latino, black, Asian-Pacific Islander, LGBTQ and women’s caucuses — on a powerful and eye-opening visit to Israel.

We were also pleased to see several of our top legislative priorities signed into law by Gov. Gavin Newsom. These included Assembly Bill 1548 (by Assemblyman Jesse Gabriel), which established the California Nonprofit Security Grant Program to provide assistance to nonprofits at risk of hate-motivated violence, and Senate Bill 652 (by Sen. Ben Allen), which safeguards the right of every Californian to hang a mezuzah at their home or apartment.

At the same time, our caucus also worked to bring Jewish values into the policymaking process. Most notably, we introduced our first-ever Tikkun Olam bill package. These 14 caucus priority bills reflect our commitment to advancing longstanding Jewish values, including tzedek (justice) and ve’ahavta lere’acha kamocha (loving the stranger as yourself). We also organized a joint trip with the Latino Caucus to the California-Mexico border, where we met with asylum-seekers at an ICE detention center and toured Jewish Family Services’ Migrant Family Shelter in San Diego.

We believe that Jewish tradition and the lessons of Jewish history demand that our community have a seat at the table and be actively engaged in the policymaking process.

Underlying all our work was an effort to build bridges with other communities and to increase awareness among fellow lawmakers about Jewish history, culture, traditions and values. We hosted a Purim celebration, a Passover seder, a menorah lighting, meetings with Holocaust survivors and a moving ceremony for Yom HaShoah on the floor of the State Assembly. And we were proud when the governor and leaders from the other caucuses stood with us to request $15 million in state security funding in the wake of the horrific shooting in Poway.

We believe that Jewish tradition and the lessons of Jewish history demand that our community have a seat at the table and be actively engaged in the policymaking process. In the coming year, we are committed to building on our prior work to tackle the deeply troubling rise in anti-Semitism and hate crimes. This will involve strengthening our partnerships and expanding our efforts in a number of key areas, including community security, Holocaust education and hate crimes prevention. We look forward to working closely with Jewish leaders and organizations across the spectrum as we continue to be a voice for our community in Sacramento and throughout California.

State Sen. Ben Allen (D-Santa Monica) and Assemblyman Jesse Gabriel (D-Encino) are chair and vice chair, respectively, of the California Legislative Jewish Caucus. They are both graduates of the Jewish Federation’s New Leaders Project.

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Fight Fire With Fire

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“Kvetching doesn’t do much,” Dov Hikind, a former Democratic New York State assemblyman, told a crowd of Republicans on the Upper West Side of Manhattan last week. “We each need to take action.”

The words Republican and Upper West Side aren’t typically used in the same sentence. But if any Democrat could draw Republicans out of this politically correct ’hood it is Hikind. In the past year, one could be forgiven for forgetting that Hikind, who regularly has taken on New York Mayor Bill de Blasio, activist Linda Sarsour and the congressional “Squad,” is a Democrat.

After serving in the New York Assembly for 35 years, Hikind retired in December 2018, just as anti-Semitism in New York City began to spike. The son of Holocaust survivors, Hikind has been outspoken to the point of brashness about how de Blasio and Gov. Andrew Cuomo have failed the state’s Jewish community. And don’t get him started on New York Sen. Chuck Schumer or Rep. Jerry Nadler. “Why the passivity in defending our people?” was one of the nicer things he said that evening.

He called the lack of condemnation from Democrats for Reps. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) and Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) “deplorable.” “Bad people get away with so much when good people are silent.” 

He saved the worst, though, for Democratic candidate Bernie Sanders, who has called for diverting U.S. aid from Israel to Hamas and has made Sarsour his official campaign surrogate. “With Jews like Sanders, we could end up in gas chambers,” he said.

Hikind’s rhetoric has been called inflammatory, and in any other point in our post-Holocaust history, I might agree. But we’re living in a time when Democrats in Congress regularly perpetuate anti-Semitic tropes and tweet blood libels, and the Democratic establishment —  even Jewish Democrats — say nothing. Groups like AIPAC pander and appease — and the problem continues to get worse.

“You should all be wearing Stars of David on the streets of New York City. Show the world who you are.”

If there ever was a time for brashness, it’s now: Time to fight fire with fire.

“My parents were guilty,” Hikind told the crowd. “Guilty of being Jews. It didn’t matter what kind of Jew you were: No Jewish blood was to contaminate society.”

Hikind reminded us that the Holocaust started with swastikas on synagogues, attacks on random Jews and blaming the Jews for every problem in society. “How exactly is it different today?” he asked. 

“Let’s not forget that Hitler was democratically elected with full knowledge of who he was,” Hikind said. “ ‘Mein Kampf,’ which outlined his ideas, had already become an international bestseller. 

“But fear is not the answer,” Hikind repeated throughout the evening. The answer is taking action and being proud. “You should all be wearing Stars of David on the streets of New York City. Show the world who you are.”

Hikind, 69, has been a longtime advocate for Jews; he was especially influential in helping to free Soviet Jewry. Last year, he started Americans Against Antisemitism (AAA) because de Blasio had “no plan, no answers, just blamed Trump” for the horrific rise in anti-Semitic assaults.

AAA was established “to bring together a broad cross-section of Americans who are prepared to combat growing antisemitism when and where it’s needed most,” according to its website, adding, “Through engaging educational content and social media communications, AAA is building its partnership network and volunteer base so that we can continue to mobilize activists on the ground to hotspots of antisemitism throughout the country. It’s only through public pressure that change can be effected, and it’s only through unity that we can generate effective pressure.”

Hikind then turned his attention to President Donald Trump. “There has never been a president that’s a better friend of the Jewish people and Israel,” he said. “The most important thing we need to do right now is make sure Trump is re-elected.

“I’m going to be asking Jewish Democrats: Take a vacation from the Democratic Party. We have to make sure he wins again, not because you love him. Because we have no choice.”

Karen Lehrman Bloch is editor-in-chief of yofi magazine.

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I Want A Friday Kind of Love

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This is a Valentine’s Day column about love, flowers and scorn.

I’m not usually one to pry into the private lives of 17th-century English playwrights, but I was shocked to learn William Congreve, the man who wrote the famous line now quoted as “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned,” never married. 

With such powerful insights into a woman’s mind, I half expected Congreve to have had not one, but two or three wives.

What constitutes a “woman scorned”? Popular culture often portrays women who express discontent — from ex-girlfriends to female leaders who call for change — as angry banshees whose emotionality is as ridiculous as it is erratic. But that describes very few women.

I’ve been blessed with a peaceful marriage, but I’ve also seen countless instances in which a wife’s love turned to hate because her husband eroded her affection. It’s one thing to hate a stranger, but it’s much more jarring to resent someone you once loved.

I thought a lot about the concept of a scorned woman the first time I received flowers from a local family-owned company called Shabbat Flowers Club. The simple act of receiving flowers was a reminder of the little things that can make one’s partner feel uplifted and, above all, seen.

To know a woman’s hard work is to see her. And for many Jewish families, to recognize how hard some wives (and husbands) work to prepare for Shabbat is a powerful antidote to marital resentment. The lush weekly bouquets send a message of recognition not only for all the meals I prepare for Shabbat, but for the hundreds of things, many of them unseen, I do as a wife and mother.

Rabbi Dov Heller warned that one of the worst things a man can do is to take a woman for granted.

It’s the best $25 our family spends all week, because it uplifts the woman of the house — who often sets the emotional tone for the entire family.

The best part of receiving the flowers is an accompanying card that reads, “Every woman is a woman of valor,” referencing King Solomon’s song, Eshet Chayil.

Owners Stephan and Rebecca Oliel founded ShabbatFlowersClub.com in 2017 after moving to Los Angeles from France. Stephan was disappointed to find few neighborhood flower shops that offered the beauty, variety and personal touch of florists in Paris, where for 15 years, he owned a large advertising company.

If Shabbat Flowers Club had a second motto, it would be “A woman’s place is on the pedestal.” Stephan even prefers to use the term “eshet chayil” instead of “customer.”

“I love when our kids are delivering the flowers to the eshet chayil,” he said. “We don’t see ourselves as a flower delivery business, but a family service business, because there’s something about receiving flowers that helps build peace in the home.”

The couple’s children, ages 11, 15 and 17, play a role, too. They often deliver bouquets Friday afternoons before Shabbat, and Stephan and Rebecca love that their children can see “a look of joy and gratitude” on recipients’ faces, many of whom receive weekly bouquets from friends. To see a heart soften is a true gift.

Several years ago during Yom Kippur remarks at Aish HaTorah, Rabbi Dov Heller delivered one of the most powerful observations I’ve ever heard about repairing male-female relationships: He warned that one of the worst things a man can do is to take a woman for granted.

I know fresh flowers don’t solve all marital problems, and in many cases, buying flowers is the least a man can do for his wife, but frankly, who cares? There’s something special about receiving flowers, and every loving gesture, including the kind with stems and petals, is like making a deposit in an emotional bank account.

In Rebecca’s words, “When you honor women, everyone blooms.”

Tabby Refael is a Los Angeles-based writer and speaker. 

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