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Jewish Journal

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February 26, 2021

Tufts SJP Revokes Impeachment Complaint Against Jewish Student

Leave a Comment / News, United States /

Tufts Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) revoked their impeachment complaint against Jewish student Max Price on February 26.

According to the Louis Brandeis Center for Human Rights, Price was informed about the withdrawn complaint the same day. Price, a member of the Tufts Community Union Judiciary, had been accused of being biased over his involvement with the pro-Israel community. Price had argued that a referendum condemning Israel’s security training program with United States law enforcement was riddled with falsehoods and inaccuracies; since then, Price has alleged that SJP has targeted and harassed him.

“While I am relieved that my Judaism is no longer on trial, this change in course does not absolve SJP of their behavior,” Price said in a statement. “I am disappointed that university administrators failed to intervene, and have not yet reached out to me to address my concerns. Unless Tufts introduces sweeping reforms to combat anti-Semitism, this will happen to somebody else. Now that my position in student government is secure, I look forward to devoting my energy to beating back the rising tides of bigotry and injustice on campus.”

Alyza Lewin, president of the Brandeis Center, also said in a statement, “It is time for the Tufts administration to take concrete steps to end the ongoing marginalization, harassment and discrimination of Jewish students on campus. President [Anthony] Monaco should issue a statement condemning anti-Semitism in all its forms and publicly acknowledge that, for many Tufts students, Zionism is integral to their identity as Jews.”

StandWithUs CEO and co-founder Roz Rothstein said in a statement to the Journal, “We applaud Max Price for standing up to the antisemitism promoted by SJP. Although hate lost today at Tufts, the fact that it was allowed to reach this point is shameful. The Tufts administration must take urgent action to prevent Jewish students from being targeted like this ever again.”

Patrick Collins, Executive Director of Media Relations for Tufts, told the Journal that the complaint had been against the TCUJ as a whole, not against a single student, and that they “take very seriously any concerns raised by students — regardless of their backgrounds and perspectives — of bias, safety, privacy and intimidation, whether by organizations affiliated or unaffiliated with Tufts. We will continue to work closely with our students and university community to foster a productive and safe learning environment for all.”

Price’s impeachment hearing had been scheduled for February 28.

UPDATE:Tufts SJP said in a March 1 statement that they withdrew their complaint against the TCUJ due to “threats to our safety,” including “threats to publish the identities and information of the students who filed the complaint if we pursued this accountability process, subjecting us to online bullying and false accusations in right-wing media.”

“While we are disappointed we will not see accountability through the university due to intimidation tactics and harassment, this will not diminish the voices of the students and organizations who voted yes on the referendum and are organizing for freedom and justice for all,” they added.

Tufts SJP Revokes Impeachment Complaint Against Jewish Student Read More »

What Are We Afraid Of?

Leave a Comment / Editor's Note, Featured /

I remember reading once that if you dig deep enough, the fundamental, most primal human problem is fear. It’s covered up by other emotions, but it’s the root of our problems.

God knows there are plenty of them—fear of failure, fear of rejection, fear of danger, fear of loss, fear of death, and so on. A mystic rabbi once told me that the biggest human fear is the fear that our lives have no meaning.

In any case, fear is pervasive. It’s the all-purpose emotion that is so potent it has the power to debilitate and paralyze us.

During this pandemic year, fear has been especially prevalent, with the obvious focus on fear of death.

But now that the vaccine is showing us a light at the end of the tunnel, I’ve been wondering about the state of our emotions in a post-pandemic world. Once our singular fear of death, which has sucked up so much of our energy, starts to wane, will our other fears burst back to the surface?

Those traditional fears are also part of the “return to normal” so many of us crave. With the fear of the virus greatly reduced, we will be forced to confront them. We may even find that these “normal” fears don’t look or feel the same after this harrowing year.

Indeed, this may be a major silver lining: If there’s one thing the pandemic has taught us, it is that compared to death, all other human problems are secondary.

if our fear of death has gone way down and our appreciation of life has gone way up, maybe we’ll be better equipped to conquer our other fears.

In other words, if our fear of death has gone way down and our appreciation of life has gone way up, maybe we’ll be better equipped to conquer our other fears.

Shabbat shalom.

What Are We Afraid Of? Read More »

Protecting Voters’ Rights: A JDCA Call With Marc Elias

Leave a Comment / News, United States /

In the aftermath of the 2020 election, several state legislatures are pursuing reforms that would add additional barriers to voters. But one expert argues that combatting these threats by passing federal voter protection laws is “better than suing.”

On February 26, the Jewish Democratic Council of America (JDCA) hosted a call titled “Defending Democracy: The Fight Against Voter Suppression” with Marc Elias. Elias is a leading voting rights attorney and recipient of the Ruth Bader Ginsburg Justice Award; in the lead-up to the 2020 election, his firm, Perkins Coie, argued 150 voter disenfranchisement cases. JDCA CEO Halie Soifer moderated the event.

Throughout the call, Elias explained various barriers to voting. States that are targeting no-excuse absentee voting, he stated, would discourage college-aged student voting. Elias stated that there is tremendous disenfranchisement targeted at younger voters; he cited a recently released report that found that in the 2018 general election, Georgia rejected the ballots of young and minority voters at higher rates than their counterparts. Elias lamented laws that prevent using student IDs to vote but allow hunting licenses to be used as IDs. He also called partisan gerrymandering a “threat” to the consent of the governed. These latest barriers, he argued, feed the lie of fraud in elections.

Elias explained that prior to 2013, two parts of the Voting Rights Act prevented such disenfranchisement. Section 2 of the law is still in place, but the “preclearance” element of Section 5 was overturned by Shelby County v. Holder. Section 5 stated that jurisdictions that have a history of voter discrimination couldn’t change voting laws unless the changes were precleared. Elias said he wanted to reinvigorate Section 5 to add more protection because many of these new laws “look facially neutral, but make no mistake, they are targeted ‘with surgical precision’ to disenfranchise Black voters.”

“Make no mistake, [these laws] are targeted ‘with surgical precision’ to disenfranchise Black voters.”

Although he is prepared to litigate cases against post-Shelby voting laws, Elias argued that passing the John Lewis Voting Rights Act — introduced in the prior session of Congress —could address the gap in protection created by Shelby, thus stopping “the [current disenfranchisement] efforts we are seeing in Georgia.” And the “For the People Act” (H.R. 1) is “the other piece of that equation” that would improve “mechanics of voting in this country.” But the Senate needs to reform the filibuster to secure the passage of these laws, he said.

If those laws fail, Elias argued, litigation is left — although it is “an imperfect tool.” Elias encouraged a “long-term commitment” to voting rights, suggesting, for example, that university alumni networks mobilize to combat student disenfranchisement. State legislatures are “very very sensitive to public pressure campaigns,” he argued, especially because universities are big employers. JDCA also encouraged viewers to get more involved, such as writing to their representatives and urging them to pass H.R. 1.

Protecting Voters’ Rights: A JDCA Call With Marc Elias Read More »

An Amsterdam Museum Holds a Post-Holocaust Purim Relic

Leave a Comment / News, Wires, Worldwide /

(JTA) — When she was 10 years old, Nechama Mayer-Hirsch sat down to make puppets for a Purim spiel and crafted one of the man responsible for her father’s murder.

The puppet version of Adolf Hitler wasn’t Mayer-Hirsch’s favorite from the set she produced for the Purim theater show in 1951. That designation went to Queen Esther, the heroine who foils the planned murder of Persia’s Jews by Haman, an official who ends up getting executed by hanging by his master King Ahasuerus.

But it was the most unusual. Rather than portraying Haman with his trademark three-pointed hat, her puppet had Hitler’s mustache and wore a brown gabardine suit.

“I just figured he needs to be Haman, that this role fits Hitler,” Mayer-Hirsch, a decorated historian who has specialized in documenting Dutch Jewry beyond Amsterdam, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

The puppets joined a storied tradition of fashioning Haman after real-life oppressors that peaked in the immediate postwar years. And seven decades later, Mayer-Hirsch’s childhood work is in the collection of the Jewish Historical Museum of Amsterdam, where curator Peter Buijs says the Hitler puppet is a “unique item” that provides a window into how Holocaust survivors used Hitler imagery to work through their traumas.

Today, many in Europe, and especially Jews, would find it inappropriate to make and display Hitler puppets, Buijs said.

“But in the immediate aftermath of World War II, it was a more natural sentiment, especially for people whose lives were torn apart because of the Nazis,” he added.

Hitler himself suggested that he saw himself in Haman. In a Jan. 30, 1944, radio speech that wrongly identified the Persian king as Jewish, the Fuehrer said that if Nazi Germany did not prevail, “the devastating Jewish Ahasuerus could celebrate the destruction of Europe in a second triumphant Purim festival.”

One striking example of a Purim-related Hitler depiction was documented in 1946 at a displaced persons camp in Landsberg, Germany, near Munich. Not even a year after the Nazis’ defeat, Jewish Holocaust survivors living in Landsberg put on a Purim spiel dramatizing the arrest and execution of Hitler, who had committed suicide 11 months earlier.

That spiel, which was one of numerous Hitler-themed spectacles put on for Purim by Jews in the postwar years, also featured at least one child wearing an oversized concentration camp inmate’s uniform. The child posed for photos smiling next to men dressed up like soldiers who firmly held a refugee portraying Hitler while wearing uniforms and a swastika-shaped necktie.

Nonobservant Jews would often stage Hitler-themed Purim spiels, creating an “intersection of secular showmanship and religious ritual,” according to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum.

“In the DP camps, these plays sometimes took the form of revenge fantasies against Adolf Hitler and other Nazi leaders,”  the museum’s website says. “A number of photographs document scenes of Hitler hanging from the gallows, Hitler and Joseph Goebbels as paupers begging in the street, or Hitler burned in effigy.”

One of the most striking syntheses between Purim and the Holocaust was made in 1944 by a Moroccan Jewish teacher and scribe from Casablanca named Prosper Hassine. On a long strip of parchment, he penned a seven-chapter text he titled “The Book of Hitler.” It uses archaic biblical language to chronicle the history of the Holocaust and of North African Jewry in the first half of the 20th century.

The book by Hassine, who immigrated to Israel and whose family donated his book to the Yad Vashem Holocaust museum, does not have a happy end. But it does retell the liberation of Morocco by the Allied forces.

Persecution in Europe may have promoted the Purim story from obscurity to a major holiday in the first place, according to Yuval Malachi, an Israeli historian and owner of the Historia podcast.

“The story of Purim may be rooted in events that happened somewhere in the fourth century BCE, but it remained relatively unknown among Jews until Maimonides issued guidelines about it in the 13th century,” Malachi told JTA, noting it was the first time that a rabbinical figure determined that Jews are supposed to get completely drunk on the holiday.

The story of Purim, recounted in a text called the Book of Esther and believed to have been written somewhere between the third and fifth centuries, “resonated with Diaspora communities that had experienced pogroms and persecution because it’s a story about surviving exactly this sort of hostility.”

The custom of creating Purim effigies is so organic to the holiday that it predates even the tradition of dressing up on Purim, which is widely thought to have emerged sometime before the 15th century in Italy as a Jewish counterpart to the Carnival dress-up traditions in Venice, Rome and beyond.

But Jews had been making puppets and effigies – including of their enemies — for centuries earlier, Malachi said.

“Until recently, dressing up on Purim was an unknown concept in Middle Eastern Jewish communities. But making a puppet of Haman and hanging it on a tree near the synagogue was the holiday’s highlight for centuries in Yemen, for example,” he said.

The puppets would often get burned, “but in Europe this led to hostility from non-Jews who thought the Jews were burning effigies of Christians, so it stopped in Europe,” Malachi said.

In Azerbaijan, couples from the Mountain Jews community had a role-playing tradition around a Purim villain effigy, according to Malachi. While the man was out praying, the woman would paint a face on a wooden log. The man would demand to know who is in his home, the woman would pretend not to have noticed, and the man would tell her the log was the evil Haman and would chop it up and burn it.

A Hitler Purim effigy made its first documented holiday appearance in 1934 at Israel’s main Purim event, the Tel Aviv annual float procession called the Adloyada. (The name is a reference to the Aramaic-language rabbinical commandment in the Talmud that Jews get drunk on Purim “until they can’t tell apart the blessed Mordechai from the accursed Haman.”) The open-mouthed Hitler effigy was depicted riding a tank with guns pointing at terrified children.

After the war, Hitler effigies were burned regularly In Israel and Europe well into the 1970s at traditional bonfires on Lag b’Omer, a holiday that commemorates the end of a plague that killed thousands of an ancient rabbi’s students.

In the predominantly haredi Orthodox community of Antwerp in Belgium, Hitler effigies are still burned today at Lag b’Omer fires. But in most places today, Hitler-related imagery is taboo, and Purim celebrations typically focus on the festive.

This became evident in 2006, when a high school senior from Omer, an affluent suburb of Beersheba, provoked an outcry from Holocaust survivors and others for winning his school’s costume contest for what his critics thought was a Hitler get-up.

Miriam Yahav, a well-known Holocaust survivor from Poland who died in 2018, complained about the costume to the Maariv daily, which ran the story on its front page. She called the costume “unforgivable” and wondered, “as someone who beat Hitler, what is becoming of this society?”

A spokesman for the Omer municipality, Nir Nisim, apologized for the affair, “which regrettably can be misinterpreted to mean that Hitler is a role model.”

The student also apologized. But, he added, he didn’t dress up as Hitler at all, but rather as the caricature of Hitler performed by Charlie Chaplin in his classic 1940 film “The Great Dictator.” (Others have made the same mistake: An American weather forecaster recently had to apologize after she chuckled over a cat named “Kitler” whose picture appeared on air. “I think Kitler kind of looks like Charlie Chaplin here,” she said.)

For her part Mayer-Hirsch, whose Hitler depiction is being preserved for history, said she didn’t recall any angst about including the Nazi leader in Purim celebrations. After being placed with a foster family during the war, she was reunited with her mother, who survived and later remarried.

“I suppose no one objected,” she said, “because I made those puppets with my two stepsisters for the whole family.”

An Amsterdam Museum Holds a Post-Holocaust Purim Relic Read More »

Divisions Caused by the Coronavirus Magnified at Purim

Leave a Comment / Israel, News, Wires /

(The Media Line) For a holiday that extols living together harmoniously, Israelis might be more divided than ever.

Purim, which starts the night of February 25 and extends this year through Sunday in Jerusalem and other Israeli cities, celebrates the protection of the Jewish people from the evil Haman, who plotted to kill the entire community.

Purim also marks the one-year anniversary on the Jewish calendar of the COVID-19 pandemic, where the coronavirus, instead of a young Persian upstart, is the mortal threat. And, now, Israelis possibly are a threat to each other.

Some members of the ultra-Orthodox Haredi community have flouted health regulations due to the coronavirus, holding funerals and weddings with thousands of attendees, often not wearing masks. The ultra-Orthodox make up a disproportionate share of Israel’s cases of the coronavirus, and many Israelis attribute the three national lockdowns in the last year to their noncompliance with the rules. As a result, tensions between the Haredim and the rest of Israel’s Jewish population have reached a boiling point.

Despite the divisions, Yosef Ote, the community rabbi of the Orthodox Hazvi Yisrael Synagogue in Jerusalem, says that four mitzvot, or deeds, affiliated with Purim can help Israelis connect.

“The entire chag [holiday] of Purim, in my opinion, is all about unity and that’s why the four mitzvot are all about caring for one another,” he told The Media Line. This year the Purim holiday lasts for three days in Jerusalem and some other Israeli cities since it begins on Thursday night; the Jewish Sabbath causes some parts of the holiday to be kicked over to Sunday.

Ote explained that Purim starts with the reading of the Book of Esther, the first mitzvah, on Thursday and that Jews give charity to the poor, the second mitzvah, through Friday up until the Jewish Sabbath, or Shabbat. Shabbat is celebrated as usual with the exception of reciting the al-Hanissim prayer about miracles. On Sunday, gifts of food are exchanged between friends and neighbors, which is the third mitzvah. The fourth mitzvah is the holiday meal.

“In a way, we are celebrating Purim three days, and we need that this year with everything that is going on with corona,” Ote said.

He hopes that the holiday will bridge the extensive differences among Israelis, that have become even larger due to the pandemic.

“If we truly in our hearts try to never speak ill of people unless they’re doing something terribly wrong, like putting other people’s lives at risk, but other things that do not have to do with life, just maybe a difference of opinion, [then] we should agree to disagree and not cause hatred,” Ote said.  “And then we leave everything to Hashem [God]. If we truly do our part, then I think we will be a happier nation.”

“Caring for the poor during Purim ensures all Jews can celebrate, not just those who have the ability to financially.”

Ote believes that coalescing can be kickstarted through mitzvot.

This year most Jews cannot go to a synagogue to fulfill the first mitzvah of reading the Book of Esther, called the Megillah, aloud in public. However, virtual celebrations also have brought unity that extends beyond Israel’s borders.

As part of the first Purim under the Abraham Accords, the normalization agreement signed between Israel and two Gulf states as well as two counties in North Africa, the Association of Gulf Jewish Communities will commemorate the beginning of the holiday Thursday night when Dr. Sheikh Khalid bin Khalifa Al Khalifa, chairman of the board of trustees of the Bahrain-based King Hamad Global Center for Peaceful Coexistence, will be the featured speaker.

The second and third mitzvot, giving gifts to the poor and to friends, also serves as an equalizer in the community.

“Caring for the poor during Purim ensures all Jews can celebrate, not just those who have the ability to financially,” Ote said. “Gifts are not just for the poor, but also to make sure our neighbors are together.” The mitzvah to have the company, although not this year due to the pandemic allows people to “celebrate together and be happy and forget all the problems,” he said.

The number of Israelis who are in need of financial assistance has ballooned during the coronavirus crisis.

“Gifts are not just for the poor, but also to make sure our neighbors are together.”

“It’s a tough situation right now in Israel. … The economy is still opening up, but there are still sectors of the economy that are closed and look like they are going to be mostly closed for the foreseeable future,” Joseph Gitler, founder and chairman of Leket, a food rescue organization that fights hunger, told The Media Line.

“Anyone who makes their living in anything connected to tourism and hospitality is really suffering … the unemployment figures, which before corona were at 4%, are now closer to 15%,” he added. “In general, we are trying to expand our operation so that we can offer the same level of service to the newly poor, which we hope are the newly temporary poor. But for the time being, while there is some light at the end of the tunnel, it’s still a faint light.”

As such, Leket has taken on an additional Purim campaign to specifically feed people during the holiday.

Despite the struggling economy, Laeticia Zohar, owner of the Petah Tikva-based The Little Bow Company, which delivers boutique gift boxes throughout Israel, says that she has not noticed a change in demand from last year.

“I don’t see more business, but I also don’t see less,” she told The Media Line. “People are still happy not to go to stores and some people don’t want to deliver it themselves.”

The fourth mitzvah, the holiday meal, is traditionally accompanied by alcohol.

“My opinion is based on Maimonides … to drink a little bit more than you usually do on Shabbat to care a little bit less about the regular everyday problems and be happy with your fellow Jew,” Ote said.

It is a mitzvah to be happy during the whole Hebrew month of Adar in which Purim takes place.

In trying times, Israelis are striving to find happiness where they can. For Israel’s youngsters, Purim marks a welcome coming together, in person, after weeks spent apart.

“We are happier this year because we feel that this is a victory. We didn’t give up,” Hagit Iss, principal of TALI Harei Eilat School, which is located in the southern Israel city and affiliated with the Reform movement, told The Media Line about the school’s February 24 Purim celebrations.

The younger grades returned to school last week after the national lockdown kept them at home for over a month. The fifth and sixth grade returned to in-person classes on Sunday.

“The kids were so happy because they had been stuck at home for so long. It was like a carnival,” Iss said, referring to the outdoor festivities where children donned costumes, a holiday custom.

Still, the holiday required some adjustments during pandemic times.

“We didn’t exchange Mishloach Manot; we couldn’t share food like we do normally.” Iss said, referring to the holiday gifts of food among neighbors and friends.

Instead, the children made gift bags for soldiers and for local hospital staff.

Natalie Halachmi, owner and manager of Natalie’s Nursery in Netanya, said that the infants and pre-schoolers were very happy this Purim, despite the pandemic difficulties.

“When they came back two weeks ago, one of the boys was still talking about Hanukkah,” she told The Media Line. “We did a lot about Hanukkah, we missed Tu B’shvat, we missed Family Day, we missed everything.”

“Usually, I start a month before Purim and I start talking about Megillat Esther [the Book of Esther] and we say Haman and all the kids go ‘boo,’” Halachmi added. “We spent the last two weeks trying to settle everyone and get kids back on schedule, instead of getting ready for chag,” the Hebrew word for holiday.

“I have to say though, we pulled it off,” Halachmi said, adding that all the kids were full of smiles as they showed off their costumes.

Divisions Caused by the Coronavirus Magnified at Purim Read More »

UCSD Student Gov’t Passes IHRA

Leave a Comment / California, News /

The UC San Diego student government passed a resolution on February 24 endorsing the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of anti-Semitism.

The resolution passed unanimously; it had 60 co-sponsors and 10 students spoke in favor of it. No one spoke out against it.

StandWithUs co-founder and CEO Roz Rothstein said in a statement to the Journal, “StandWithUs is so proud of our Emerson Fellow Sivan Barashy, who sponsored the resolution and got all seven UCSD colleges to co-sponsor. She and her fellow Jewish and pro-Israel students spoke at the hearing. We commend them for their efforts to educate their student government and community about antisemitism and the need to define it.  We applaud UCSD’s student government for adopting the IHRA Working Definition of Antisemitism. This is a wonderful step in supporting the Jewish community on campus and combating antisemitism when it occurs.”

The passage of the IHRA resolution comes on the heels of a similar resolution passing the UC Santa Barbara student senate on February 3. The Kentucky General Assembly also passed a resolution endorsing IHRA on February 25.

UCSD Student Gov’t Passes IHRA Read More »

The Bagel Report

Exploring the Rise and Fall of Stan Lee with ‘True Believer’ Author Abraham Riesman

Leave a Comment / Podcasts, The Bagel Report /

Everybody knows Stan Lee, but nobody knows Stan Lee— except people like critically-acclaimed writer Abraham Riesman, who has written a new book about the late Marvel Comics founder. Riesman joins the Bagels to discuss  “True Believer: The Rise and Fall of Stan Lee,” which shatters fans’ assumptions about the life of the man who started out as Stanley Lieber.
Riesman also provides background on comic book fandom and culture, questions Jewish characters in Marvel universe and asks if we go too far in looking for Jewish themes and identity in comic book superheroes and their stories. Later, Esther talks trauma as a crucible for storytelling and Erin reveals a surprising turn in her “WandaVision” fandom.

Relavent Links:
Find his book here.
Follow Riesman on Twitter @abrahamjoseph
Check out his latest WandaVision Recaps here!

Follow Erin, Esther and The Bagel Report on Twitter! 

Exploring the Rise and Fall of Stan Lee with ‘True Believer’ Author Abraham Riesman Read More »

Spirits and Scares in ‘The Vigil,’ a Horror Movie with a Hasidic Twist

Leave a Comment / Entertainment, Film /

We’ve seen plenty of Jewish horror movies, mostly having to do with the atrocities of the Holocaust. “The Vigil” has an element of that, too, but it’s mainly a scare-filled psychological thriller steeped in Jewish ritual and lore.  Set in the Brooklyn, N.Y. Orthodox community of Boro Park, it’s about a former Hasid named Yacov (Dave Davis) who, strapped for funds, accepts a rabbi’s request to serve as a shomer, watching over a deceased member of the community overnight. Suffice it to say that it’s a very haunted evening.

Released today for Purim, the movie is the brainchild of producers Raphael Margules and J.D Lifshitz, who grew up Orthodox in New York, and writer director Keith Thomas, who has a Masters in religious education from a rabbinical school. There, having overheard a story about a shomer abruptly leaving a vigil, he was inspired to write the script. Margules and Lifschitz were immediately taken with it.  “J.D. and I were the movie kids in our Orthodox neighborhood on Long Island. We moved to L.A. in 2012 and have made 15 movies to date—action, sci-fi, but predominantly horror,” he said in a Zoom Q&A. “We wanted to make THE Jewish horror movie.” he added, calling everything he’d seen before “ridiculous. This is dripping with authenticity and it’s really terrifying.”

“We wanted to make THE  Jewish horror movie. It’s dripping with authenticity and it’s really terrifying”—Rafael Margules

Executive producer and cast member Malky Goldman (Sheindl in “Unorthodox”), who was raised Orthodox in Jerusalem and grew up speaking Yiddish, coached Davis on the language that makes up 50% of the film’s dialogue. “I grew up around Yiddish but I don’t speak it so it was one of the more difficult things I’ve done in my life. Malky was really instrumental in helping me figure out what I was saying,” Davis said. “It was really an incredible journey and a lot of fun to do. One of the incredible things about this film was the level of detail that was paid. You don’t see it in the movie but the silverware drawer was kosher. The time was taken to do it right.”

Additionally, since most associated with the production are observant Jews, there was kosher catering on set and there was no filming on Shabbos. While 80% of the scenes were shot in an about-to-be renovated house in Brooklyn where the owner had recently died, several sequences were shot outside. “We got permits and shot guerilla style with a very small crew. We wanted it to feel big and lavish even though it was a small, contained movie,” Margules said. “That was the craziest night we’ve ever had on a movie.” Davis recalled that the commotion brought out the curious. “We had hundreds of people asking what was going on in Yiddish and Menashe (Lustig, a Hasidic Jew who plays Reb Shulem) was explaining,” he said.

Davis, Thomas and Margules lost grandparents slightly before, or during, the making of the film, and for Davis, it led to a surreal situation addition to experiencing a loss that paralleled the story. “I was living in Los Angeles at the time but being in New York for filming allowed me to see my grandfather before he passed away and be there for the ceremony when he died. For one scene, I was covered in fake blood, scars and bandages, and we took a break for me to go sit shiva. I showed up like that, in costume, seeing family I hadn’t seen in years,” he recalled. “I got to see everyone and then went right back to set. I think that’s how he would have wanted it.”

The film is “dedicated to all the bubbes and zaydes because the movie kind of pays tribute to that generation of Holocaust survivors,” Margules added. “I always looked at it as a an extremely commercial, accessible mainstream movie, just set in a world you’ve never seen before.”

Another loss was the death of actress Lynn Cohen (“Munich,” “The Hunger Games”), who plays the widow Litvak and passed away in February 2020 following what would be her last role. “She brought so much light and energy and joy to the set, which was not an easy set to be on. It was small, cramped and frightening by design,” Davis said. “It was a privilege to work with her for the short time that we did,” added Margules, who remembered Cohen singing an old European melody as the character, “plugging into her own history.” It was a song her Ukrainian grandmother sang to her when she was a child.

Despite its very specific milieu, language and story, the “Vigil” producers “always looked at it as an extremely commercial accessible mainstream movie, just set in a world you’ve never seen before. We made the movie we wanted to make. It’s not only for Jewish audiences. It was made for a global audience,” Margules said, noting successful releases last summer in Europe and Asia. “It’s really about facing your own heritage, for better or worse. It was never intended to be preachy or offer any resolution. It’s been cool to see that resonate across cultures and ethnicities and languages because it’s a universal theme.”

That said, “It’s also very much about Jewish trauma and experience. The whole weight of the Holocaust and pogroms, anti-Semitic hate crimes, the idea of generational trauma within the Jewish community and experiencing that and coming through that and stepping into daylight in the end was really important,” Margules continued. “We didn’t move to L.A. to make Jewish horror movies, but we made one and it’s by far our favorite thing we’ve ever done. It’s been a long road to get here especially through the pandemic, and we’re really proud of it.”

Although the ending is somewhat open-ended, there are no current plans for a sequel. However, “Keith and I have always talked about making a trilogy of Jewish horror movies that would handle different subcultures within Judaism [such as] modern Orthodox,” Margules said. Meanwhile, the two are collaborating on two television shows and have several movies in the works. Thomas will direct the reboot of Stephen King’s ”Firestarter” staring Zac Efron, and Margules’ projects include a movie starring Wynona Ryder with Eli Horowitz directing, a crime thriller with Anna Kendrick, and a horror film called “Barbarian” slated to film this spring in Bulgaria.

Goldman also expects to begin shooting a new project in Europe in May or June, and has written a Yiddish play she hopes to mount online, among other possibilities. Davis has been “getting into painting, carpentry, music—piano and drums, guitar—and writing poetry. I try to keep myself engaged in a way that keeps all my synapses firing and my creativity sparked and keep me interested as a storyteller so when roles come along like this, I can bring something unique to the table,” he said. “Even though it’s been such a difficult time for all of us, it also has allowed a lot of time for new discoveries. It’s been a privilege in a lot of ways. I learned so much about a community that’s a deep part of my heritage that I didn’t know much about going into it. Of course, I want people to be scared and fascinated but I want people to see the reality of it and appreciate the depth of the human experience that the film delves into.”

“I want people to be scared to death and moved emotionally,” Margules similarly stated. “To me, ‘The Vigil’ is a very emotional movie. Jewish audiences, secular or otherwise, have this visceral, emotional reaction to the film. I want to scare the hell out of people, but I also want them to be moved.”

“The Vigil” is available in theaters and On Demand via cable, iTunes, Amazon Prime and other services in advance of its streaming release on Hulu.

Spirits and Scares in ‘The Vigil,’ a Horror Movie with a Hasidic Twist Read More »

Jonah Sanderson Successfully Navigates His Disability, Aims to Make Jewish Community More Inclusive

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Thirty-two-year-old Jonah Sanderson describes himself like a bottle of his favorite single malt scotch. “When you first put your nose to it, the smell is caramel, shoe leather and tar and you think, ‘This is strange, who would drink this?’ But then you sip it and you get to love it. And that’s who I am.”

Those who have met the activist and Los Angeleno know Sanderson is strong-willed and determined. His father told him growing up that he could do anything he wanted in life, he would just have to work harder than the average person.

What people might not know about Sanderson is that he was born with intrauterine growth retardation syndrome. At nine years old he was diagnosed with a non-verbal learning disability, which means that “the right side of my brain works differently and processes information differently than my left side of my brain.” After going to the Los Angeles Regional Center as a child, Sanderson was misdiagnosed with mild mental retardation. For the next 13 years, he failed his classes, dropped out of school and wasn’t able to fully come to terms with the repercussions of his misdiagnoses until he was 17.

Since disabilities are on a spectrum, Sanderson didn’t fit neatly in any specific category. Not having the resources because institutions, educators and community leaders weren’t properly equipped, he wasn’t sure where to turn.

Then at 22, he had an awakening. He decided to invest himself and his time learning about Judaism.

“You don’t have to have a high school education to be part of the Jewish people,” Sanderson said. “I looked every day for a year for a Jewish community that was welcoming and inclusive. I found my mentor and almost a second father to me, Rabbi Yitz Jacobs. He gave me self-confidence. He said to me, ‘You can do anything you want to do. I see you no differently than I see anyone else.”

“You don’t have to have a high school education to be part of the Jewish people.”

Jacobs, who is a rabbi at Aish Los Angeles, took Sanderson under his wing and taught him about Torah, Talmud and Jewish rituals. With his help, Sanderson moved to Israel for two years, studied with Aish, made friends and lived on his own for the first time.

“Jonah is so smart, he is so articulate. There are so many ways he can learn. We just had to work on who he was and how he learns,” Jacobs told the Journal. “He’s overcome so many challenges and used them as opportunities. I’m so proud of him.”

When he returned home, he came back and told his parents he not only wanted to finish school and graduate, but attend college and rabbinical school, no matter what it took.

In 2016 he graduated high school and in 2020 Sanderson graduated college with a BA in criminal justice. In May, he will be the first person with a non-verbal learning disability to receive a master’s degree from the Academy for Jewish Religion California (AJRCA).

When Sanderson enrolled at AJRCA, he had “come to terms with his disability,” but wasn’t very public about it. Though his mild disability wasn’t visible, he went to speak with AJRCA President Rabbi Mel Gottlieb to create a plan for success, since the school never had a reason to modify programs for students with disabilities.

“AJRCA did a mitzvah. They took somebody like me and they allowed me to become a Jewish leader and they let me grow my soul,” he said. “Because they took me, I managed to get three more people with differing disabilities through the door— one with the same  diagnoses as me— and this person is becoming a chaplain.”

Gottlieb said the school was open to adapting its curriculum to make it more inclusive. The whole experience was not only educational and impactful for Sanderson but also for the other rabbinical students, teachers and staff.

“If we were to accept students with disabilities, we had to provide them with support and learn how to educate them in ways that would be user-friendly, without compromising the classroom situation and the expectations to pass the class,” Gottlieb said. “We used it as a challenge for our school to accept differences and to learn greater patience…The term learning disability is broad. We have to educate ourselves that one way of learning doesn’t fit for all… If everyone works together in an understanding manner then progress is made.”

Sanderson was now working with educators to create a plan specifically for him, instead of fitting into a category. Sanderson said while he holds a great deal of respect for the Jewish community, he struggled growing up to find mentors and spaces like AJRCA that were willing to help him succeed and not shut him out. He was kicked out of Jewish day schools, misdiagnosed by local institutions and felt alienated from his community, even when the intentions were meant to be helpful not harmful.

“They might have good intentions, but more often than not these kids are charity cases,” Sanderson said. “You get volunteer hours and volunteer with kids who are atypical but then you’re not friends with them outside of school. You don’t see them in the community, it looks better for the other person. What rabbis need to do and what I hope to do when I get ordained, is to create communities where we are saying, ‘We are going to be inclusive and no person is unlike any other person.’ That is what matters.”

During his time at AJRCA, Sanderson has advocated for social justice causes that are important to him, including fighting for the LGBTQ community, the Black community, minorities and implementing suicide prevention and mental health services in the Jewish community. He has also chosen to add disability activist to his line of work.

“When I came out about my story, several people let me know something similar happened to their child,” Sanderson said.

On Feb. 21, Sanderson and Rabbi Cantor Cheri Weiss, founder of San Diego Outreach Synagogue, hosted a Zoom event that coincided with JDAIM: Jewish Disability Awareness, Acceptance and Inclusion Month. After hearing Sanderson’s story, she wanted him to speak with members of the Southern California Jewish community.

“Jonah wanted to focus on the positive aspects of his story, which is in line with the positive way he approaches life in general,” Weiss said. “He focuses on what he can do rather than what he cannot. In turn, this inspires others who may be facing their own personal challenges. Belief in yourself is the first step to overcoming these challenges. Having people who believe in you is the other part of the equation. Jonah found both.”

Weiss and Sanderson teamed up for the event because they both believe that the Jewish community is responsible for and benefits from welcoming and including people of all backgrounds. Weiss added, “celebrating our diversity makes our Jewish community stronger and more vibrant.”

One of the first people outside of his family Sanderson was able to open up to about his disability was Alisha Pedowitz, California director of Moving Traditions. After meeting at an event about consent following the #MeToo movement for the Jewish Federation, he approached Pedowitz with dozens of questions. Pedowitz, who identifies as a progressive, and Sanderson, who identifies as a “George W. Bush Republican,” didn’t see eye to eye at first. Despite their differences, their friendship blossomed because of their ability to listen and learn from one another. This was especially the case during the 2020 presidential election.

“Something I deeply love and appreciate about Jonah [is] when you have these conversations with him, he really listens and really thinks about it even if it’s counter to his own opinions and perspective,” she said.

After discussing the election at length, Pedowitz helped Sanderson choose to vote for now-President Joe Biden. Pedowitz noted how “life-changing” it has been to witness Sanderson genuinely “want to understand other perspectives and opinions, even though he has strong beliefs of his own. [He] genuinely changes the way he sees things following conversations, and takes ownership of that.”

“Alisha was one of the first people in the Jewish community when I came out [with his disability], to see me as an equal, as a partner,” Sanderson added. “She taught me how to see the God in other people that were different from how I was and to be less black and white. The day I voted for Joe Biden was the best election day since I first voted at 18 and I have her to thank for it.”

While he still has time before AJRCA graduation day, he is already thinking of the next steps and the kind of Jewish professional he wants to be. He sees himself becoming an “egalitarian conservodox rabbi in the pulpit and doing a lot of outreach.” That means continuing advocating for suicide prevention in the Jewish community, advocating for other minorities, confronting injustices and creating spaces where every Jewish person feels seen and respected. He will also do so while not letting his disability define him.

“What happens when you talk about your own learning disability is that many people come out and understand your struggles and they identify with them too,” he said. “Within the last year, I have been vocal about it. There’s a saying from the Talmud which is, ‘If I’m not for myself who will be for me? And being only for myself, what am ‘I’? And if not now, when?’ That saying is my life and I really never wanted to be a leader in this sense but then I thought, I can just be a leader in every sense.”

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