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Jewish Journal

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April 13, 2021

Report: Natanz Blast Was Caused By a Remotely Detonated Device

Leave a Comment / Middle East, News, Wires /

(JNS) An explosive device that had been smuggled into the Natanz uranium enrichment facility in Iran was detonated remotely, destroying primary and backup electrical systems, The New York Timesreported on Monday.

The head of the Iranian Parliament’s Energy Committee, Fereydoun Abbasi, seemed to confirm that account when he told Iranian state television on Monday that “the enemy’s plot was very beautiful. I’m looking at it from a scientific point of view. They thought about this and used their experts and planned the explosion so both the central power and the emergency power cable would be damaged.”

Atomic Energy Organization of Iran spokesman Behrouz Kamalvandi said he had fallen into the large hole created by the blast, resulting in multiple injuries.

Reuters also quoted Iranian government spokesman Ali Rabiei as saying that “Sunday’s sabotage occurred in a power cable duct leading to the centrifuge machines. This was not an external attack, and the location of the sabotage has been clearly determined.”

Intelligence officials cited in the Times report estimated that it would take “many months” for Iran to repair the damage.

U.S. officials speaking on background told the Times that they were concerned the attack would “drive the nuclear program more deeply underground, where it would be hard to reach.”

Meanwhile, voices in Iran continued to call for revenge, a day after Iranian officials said the regime would retaliate against Israel. Criticisms have also grown inside Iran over the regime’s inability to safeguard its nuclear site; Natanz was the scene of a previous blast, widely considered to be an act of sabotage, in July 2020.

Eshaq Jahangiri, Iran’s vice president, said it was time to hold those guarding Natanz responsible, describing the attacks as having “catastrophic consequences” for Iran’s reputation, economy and security, the Times said.

Reuters quoted Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif as saying on Tuesday that Israel had made a “very bad gamble” by attacking Natanz, adding that the blast would strengthen Iran’s position in its talks to re-enter the 2015 nuclear deal with world powers.

“Israel played a very bad gamble if it thought that the attack will weaken Iran’s hand in the nuclear talks,” he said during a joint press conference with his Russian counterpart in Tehran.

“What happened in Natanz makes it possible for Iran to legally do whatever it takes to … compensate for this terrorist stupidity,” said Zarif. “I assure you that in near future, the Natanz site will move forward with more advanced centrifuges.”

Iran’s official MEHR news agency said on Tuesday that the country’s Deputy Foreign Minister for Political Affairs, Seyyed Abbas Araghchi, had departed for Vienna to take part in a new round of talks with world powers, indicating that negotiations remained on track to continue despite the blast.

‘Attack is not the end of the nuclear program’

On April 10, a day before the blast at Natanz, Ali-Akbar Salehi, head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, told Iran’s Channel 1 that the Islamic Republic had activated a full chain of 164 IR-6 centrifuges at the site, according to MEMRI.

Salehi added that the facility is scheduled to move deep into the mountains of Natanz by the end of the year. He added that Iran has surpassed a “technological threshold” and can now design centrifuges on its own, without resorting to reverse engineering.

Meanwhile, Maj. Gen. (ret.) Amos Yadlin, a former head of IDF Military Intelligence, tweeted in Hebrew on Tuesday that when Israel takes action in an “enemy land,” it must always consider three central factors: “The expected achievement, the enemy’s response and escalation potential, and the impact on Israel’s relations with its vital ally.”

Yadlin added that “48 hours after the explosion at the electrical system at the Natanz enrichment site, it is clear that the attack is not the end of the nuclear program, unlike the attacks on the reactors in Iraq and Syria. The distributed and ongoing Iranian project requires a lengthy campaign of operations that delay and disrupt it, thereby delaying Iran’s reaching the nuclear threshold.”

Yadlin said that international media reports linking Israel to the attack, as well as “irresponsible leaks from here,” led him to expect a belligerent Iranian response, but added that he believed that “it will be measured, out of a desire to control the escalation.”

Report: Natanz Blast Was Caused By a Remotely Detonated Device Read More »

The Offensive First ESMC Draft is Alive and Well — And Jews Need to Unite Against It

Leave a Comment / Commentary, Opinion /

It is no secret that the Jewish community in California is divided over the final version of the legislatively-mandated Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum (ESMC), which was unanimously approved by the State Board of Education last month. Several Jewish organizations, like the Bay Area’s Jewish Community Relations Council, have lauded the SBE-approved ESMC, while other groups, such as AMCHA, my organization, have condemned it. Other groups praised some aspects of the curriculum while raising serious concerns about others.

Anyone familiar with American Jewish communal life knows that disagreements like this are hardly surprising — they are the norm rather than the exception. But what is surprising is when Jewish groups from across the religious and political spectrum actually agree on something. And that is exactly what happened after the release of the appalling first draft of the ESMC in 2019. The entire Jewish community rose up in outrage over the blatantly anti-Semitic and anti-Zionist lessons that it contained, including its explicit promotion of BDS, causing Governor Newsom to vow that the draft would “never see the light of day.”

I raise this exceptional example of Jewish communal unity to remind us that our unity is our strength and to suggest that we’re going to need all the strength we can muster in the days ahead: The rejected first draft of the ESMC may be coming soon to a school district near you.

While the Jewish community was focusing all of its attention on ensuring that the final draft of the Department of Education’s ESMC would be a drastic improvement over the appalling first one, former members of the Advisory Committee responsible for authoring the first draft embarked on their own crusade. The activist-educators of “Save CA Ethnic Studies” lobbied individual school districts to vote on a resolution supporting their rejected curriculum, and more than 20 districts adopted the resolution.

Some of the original drafters even established the Liberated Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum Institute to further promote the main elements of the rejected first draft and offer their educational expertise in implementing the “liberated” curriculum in schools. While the group has not “officially” revealed their final curriculum, their website links to a 19-page Glossary, which essentially reiterates that of the highly controversial original ESMC draft. It includes the first ESMC draft’s definition of “Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS)” as “a global social movement that currently aims to establish freedom for Palestinians living under apartheid conditions,” and it cites “BDS” as an example of a social movement “whose aim is to achieve freedom through equal rights and justice” in the definition of “liberation.”

Meanwhile, a revived bill making ethnic studies a graduation requirement in every California public and charter high school is raising the stakes of the curriculum debate. The original bill was vetoed by Governor Newsom in September 2020 largely because of continuing Jewish anxiety over the not-yet-approved ESMC. Although the revived bill, AB 101, recommends that school districts use the state’s model curriculum as the basis for the required courses, it allows the use of any “locally developed ethnic studies course approved by the governing board of the school district” — even the anti-Jewish one promoted by “Save CA Ethnic Studies.”

These so-called “guardrails” will do nothing to prevent a curriculum based in Critical Ethnic Studies from portraying Jews and Israel in anti-Semitic and anti-Zionist ways.

Despite legislators’ claims that AB 101 prevents courses from promoting “bias, bigotry and discrimination,” this language in the bill is simply a restatement of a state law that has been on the books for decades. As we have already seen from ethnic studies classes taught on the college level, these so-called “guardrails” will do nothing to prevent a curriculum based in Critical Ethnic Studies — whether approved by the SBE or promoted by the Liberated group — from portraying Jews and Israel in anti-Semitic and anti-Zionist ways.

Lest we lull ourselves into believing that there is little danger of school districts opting for the “liberated” curriculum over the state-approved ESMC, it’s important to consider that the California Teachers Association, one of the largest and most powerful teachers’ unions in the country and a proud organizational sponsor of AB 101, publicly supported the first draft of the ESMC, refused to support the final draft and urged teachers to visit the Liberated Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum website “for ideas about K-12 #EthnicStudies curriculum.”

We can agree to disagree about the final, SBE-approved ESMC draft. But let us unite once again around the danger posed by the appalling first draft and the bad-faith actors who are still promoting it — and the very real possibility that such an anti-Semitic curriculum could be forced on our children if AB 101 becomes state law. As before, we must raise our voices loudly, clearly and unanimously — both as organizations and individuals — to demand that California legislators oppose this dangerous bill. The future of our children depends on it.

Tammi Rossman-Benjamin is the director of AMCHA Initiative, a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to combating anti-Semitism at colleges and universities in the United States. She was a faculty member at the University of California for 20 years.

The Offensive First ESMC Draft is Alive and Well — And Jews Need to Unite Against It Read More »

For Yom Hazikaron, 5 Ways to Stream Israel’s Memorial Day Services from Home

Leave a Comment / Israel, News, Wires /

(JTA) — Yom Hazikaron, Israel’s Memorial Day, begins Tuesday night and lasts until Wednesday night, when the country transitions into Israel’s Independence Day, Yom Haatzmaut.

In Israel, the day is marked with one- and two-minute sirens when the country halts and everyone stands in silence. At night, Israelis attend official memorial services. People traditionally visit the graves of loved ones who died in wars and terror attacks during the day — a custom that was interrupted last year, when the country was in the middle of its first pandemic lockdown.

This year, Israelis are largely able to resume their local traditions for these holidays. Still, a range of programs and memorial services are being streamed, geared toward English-speaking audiences whose ability to travel to Israel has been largely cut off for the last year.

Here are some of the options — from a service that brings together bereaved Israelis and Palestinians to a Jewish study program with participants around the world.

A traditional ceremony, livestreamed
Tuesday, 1 p.m. EDT. Stream here

Masa Israel, an umbrella for long-term programs in Israel, will be streaming a traditional memorial service for English speakers hosted at Latrun, a strategic junction in between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv that saw fighting in Israel’s 1948 War of Independence. The service will begin with the Tuesday night siren and commemorate Israeli victims of terror and war.

A joint Israeli-Palestinian memorial
Tuesday, 1:30 p.m. EDT. Stream here

Unlike most Yom Hazikaron events, this ceremony, organized by Combatants for Peace and the Parents Circle-Families Forum, groups that bring together Israelis and Palestinians, mourns those who have been killed on both sides of the conflict. The groups have held an Israeli-Palestinian Joint Memorial Day Ceremony annually for 16 years; this year’s will be hosted by actor Richard Gere and will feature parents and relatives of Israelis and Palestinians who have been killed.

An international Torah study effort
Tuesday evening to Wednesday. Details here

This project, started 10 years ago by an Israeli army officer and supported by the World Organization of Orthodox Communities and Synagogues, aims to get people to study the Mishnah, a foundational rabbinic legal text, around the world in memory of Israel’s fallen. The multilingual project’s goal is to have someone, somewhere in the world, studying at every moment of Yom Hazikaron.

A concert featuring songs of mourning
Tuesday, 8 p.m. EDT. Details here

The Marlene Meyerson JCC Manhattan is hosting this concert, which features songs written in honor of and by Israeli soldiers who have been killed.

A lecture about one village’s war history
Tuesday, 2 p.m. EDT. Stream here

Hosted by Volunteers for Israel, a nonprofit that brings Jews and non-Jews to work in Israel, often on army bases, this program explores the fate of one Jewish village in the Galilee, Mishmar Hayarden, during Israel’s War of Independence. The program describes the battle as equivalent to Israel’s Alamo.

Bonus: While Israelis are most likely to celebrate Yom Haatzmaut, which begins Wednesday night, with a picnic, a host of live events are also scheduled for Israel’s Independence Day. Check out the listings — which include a craft workshop, cooking class and day of learning — on The Hub, the events directory maintained by My Jewish Learning.

For Yom Hazikaron, 5 Ways to Stream Israel’s Memorial Day Services from Home Read More »

The Silent Beginning of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony

Leave a Comment / Poetry /

Before the four sounds played fortissimo violently
comes a rest, that lasts just an eighth of a beat,
to hear which is quite an impossible feat.

You might see it though, looking into the score,
but if you don’t do this you’ll think that the four
famous sounds the world knows with their da da da DUM
are its opening notes.

No! the first note is dumb,
a silence that cannot be heard, like the one
performed by God all the time, followed by none
of the sounds we can’t hear from Him, unlike those Beet-
hoven helps us to hear, as if telling us fate
is what happens when we aren’t aware it is coming,
since it’s silent, before it starts da da da dumming.

This motif thus tells us it’s wrong to believe
that what after silence we hear can relieve
that silence we’ve heard, as we do every time
we try in this world to find reason or rhyme.

Gershon Hepner 4/12/21

Eric Banks reviews Matthew Guerrieri’s The First Four Notes, in the 12/22/14 WSJ (“An Opening That Echoes Endlessly”):
………. One key to the Fifth’s own cultural malleability—or ambiguity—is found in those first four measures, a masterstroke of misdirection. We tend to remember the four notes as severe and brooding, with a ponderousness that sits at extreme odds with the allegro con brio marking. That is only one of several conundrums Beethoven presents to the listener off the bat. In fact, we should speak of five notes, since the symphony begins on an eighth rest, with the first note occurring strangely enough on the downbeat, instituting a hair-thin, quick moment of silence to begin the piece.

Gershon Hepner is a poet who has written over 25,000 poems on subjects ranging from music to literature, politics to Torah. He grew up in England and moved to Los Angeles in 1976.  Using his varied interests and experiences, he has authored dozens of papers in medical and academic journals, and authored “Legal Friction: Law, Narrative, and Identity Politics in Biblical Israel.” He can be reached at gershonhepner@gmail.com.

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For Those Who Lost Loved Ones, Israel’s Memorial Day Siren Never Stops

Leave a Comment / Israel, News, Wires /

(The Media Line) At 8 pm, to mark the start of Israel’s Memorial Day for Fallen Soldiers and Victims of Terrorism, a siren sounds for one full minute and the country stops. People get out of their cars, even on highways, and stand in silence; people stop work and silently reflect. After 60 seconds, life resumes.

The next day, bereaved families visit the graves of loved ones at military cemeteries across Israel.

For some, the siren never stops.

“Every time we have a simcha [happy event] …, we remember that Yishai is not with us. All day every day, I see him: I have a picture near my bed, in my wallet, in my office,” Menachem Shechter, who lost his then-21-year-old brother in the South Lebanon conflict in 1996, told The Media Line. “My little boy is called Yishai, and every day when I call my son Yishai, I remember my brother.”

1st Lt. Yishai Shechter. (Courtesy Menachem Shechter)

The Security Zone in Lebanon Campaign, as the 1985-2000 conflict is known in Israel, pitted the South Lebanese Army militia and the Israeli military against Hizbullah.

For Shechter, who served in the South Lebanon Security Zone for five years beginning in 1990, and again as an officer in 1997 and 1998, Memorial Day, which this year begins on the evening of April 13, helps him to remember the nearly 100 people he has lost, either soldiers in his unit, friends, or friends of his brother.

“I do not remember them in the same way I remember my brother every day,” he said.

Each year, Shechter gives lectures to schoolchildren about his brother; this year he did it via Zoom. He said the government’s recent recognition of the Security Zone in Lebanon Campaign as a war, and the decision to award those who served in it a campaign medal, has also helped the healing process.

“I’m very happy the government recognized this war and finally, when people ask me what war my brother died in, I have an answer,” Shechter said. “No, he didn’t die in the First [1982-1985] or Second [2006] Lebanon War, he died in the Security Zone in Lebanon Campaign war. This was very important to me.”

Amnon Harshoshanim, a senior high-tech manager and social entrepreneur, lost his brother Yoav in the South Lebanon Security Zone in 1994. For him, Memorial Day is a chance for other Israelis to feel some part of what the families feel.

“There’s a difference between what those who lost somebody close to them experience and those who haven’t. … Memorial Day is not a unique day for the families,” he told The Media Line. “[For us], every day is Memorial Day. It [the annual commemoration] is for other people to feel with the families and share some of it. For the families, this void can never really be filled.”

Yoav was just 21.

1st Lt. Yoav Harshoshanim. (Courtesy Amnon Harshoshanim)

“Yoav was very idealistic; he believed in what he was doing 100%. … Even as a kid, he wanted to be in the army. When he was 10 years old, Napoleon was his hero,” Harshoshanim said. “We went on a trip for my and my twin sister’s B’nei Mitzvah celebrations to Western Europe and we were in a town in northern Italy where Napoleon had spent the night. He was three years younger than us and wanted to lie in the same bed as Napoleon.

“Yoav ended up where he wanted. He wanted to be where the action is and to make an impact,” Harshoshanim said.

He said that Memorial Day has become a happier day to remember Yoav.

“Now what remains are memories and stories for my parents. It’s not necessarily true in every family that [Memorial Day] is a sort of celebration. … My parents lost their son in a heroic way, upholding the values he was raised in,” Harshoshanim said.

Yifat Leshem-Argaman owns Shvilim, a company that gives inspirational lectures to companies and organizations, and Yifat’s Place, a jewelry store in Modiin, a city halfway between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. She agrees with Harshoshanim about Memorial Day.

“It’s more for the people who don’t have it every day; the families feel it every day, all the time,” she told The Media Line.

Yifat Leshem-Argaman. (Courtesy)

Her brother, Moshe Leshem, whom she described as an artist and a gifted guitar player who had the ability to talk to anyone, was killed in 1991, the same year he started studying philosophy at Bar-Ilan University.

Leshem died at the age of 29, in an accident during air force reserve training.

“He and the pilot crashed in the Kinneret [the Sea of Galilee]; they only found his body three days later,” said Leshem-Argaman, who was 25 years old at the time.

Maj. Moshe Leshem. (Courtesy Yifat Leshem-Argaman)

“It was a tragic event in my life. … I fell into an abyss. It took many years until I could rebuild my life on a different path. You have to rebuild your life again with all the sorrow and the family is crushed. The parents are not the same as before. Neither are you,” she said.

She is glad the Defense Ministry now offers psychological help for siblings, which was not the case at the time.

Back then, society saw it this way, Leshem-Argaman said: “They asked how are the parents are doing, but they never asked about the sibling.”

“It’s not only losing your brother, it’s losing your parents. I do give my parents credit though, as they showed us the will to live and they saw our pain, even if they didn’t say it.”

Rebuilding your life after such tragedy takes time, Leshem-Argaman said. “There are two sayings: ‘Time heals everything’ and ‘Time heals nothing.’ The truth is somewhere in the middle.”

Avi Golan, now a civil engineering student at the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa, lost his Uncle Ben 20 years before he was born.

Ben, who was 18 in October 1973, during the Yom Kippur War, was part of Sayeret Shaked, a special forces unit of the Southern Command.

Cpl. Ben Golan. (Courtesy Avi Golan)

He wasn’t supposed to fight because he had an eye problem. Roughly two weeks after Ben switched to an intelligence unit, the war broke out and he went back to his old unit. “A friend hid him on the bus,” Avi said.

Avi’s father was only 15 when his big brother died, and their sister was seven. “Everyone was split apart during those times and dealt with it on their own,” Avi said. “The hardest part for my dad was that he lost his brother, but in a way, he also lost his parents. They weren’t able to function as normal parents because they were so stuck in their loss; they took care of their kids but emotionally they weren’t there.”

Avi said that in a way, “the circle was closed” when he joined the army.

The Shaked unit was shut down around 1980 and then, when the army revived the Givati Brigade, the first battalion was the Shaked Battalion. Then two more were established, including the Tzabar Infantry Battalion, in which Avi served as an officer.

For current soldiers, Memorial Day has taken on a different meaning as a result of army service.

“It really affects me because I think: ‘This could be me,’” a soldier in the West Bank who asked to remain anonymous because he did not have authorization to speak, told The Media Line. “I could be the one they are remembering.”

For Those Who Lost Loved Ones, Israel’s Memorial Day Siren Never Stops Read More »

4 Retirement Risks That Could Undermine Your Careful Planning

Leave a Comment / Finance /

Few things feel better than to finally arrive at retirement confident about all the planning and saving you did. It was decades in the making, but now it’s here.

Unfortunately, you may not be out of the financial woods yet.

A number of risks to your retirement strategy can still lurk, even if you appear to have safely arrived at your post-work destination. Some of the most common ones include:

1) A significant market drop shortly before or early in your retirement. We all know that what the market gives, the market can take away. But a sudden market drop right when you are reaching retirement can be especially devastating. You have less time to make a comeback, especially when you are starting to withdraw from those accounts at the same time the market is giving you fits.

Think of it this way. If you have $1 million and take a 10 percent loss, that’s a $100,000 drop, taking you to $900,000. Now let’s say the market rebounds 10 percent. That means you recover only $90,000 of the $100,000. And if you had withdrawn some of the money to live on, you will recover even less.

One way to at least partially avert this risk is to begin moving some of your portfolio into more conservative investments as you near retirement age. When you were relatively young and in the accumulation phase of investing, you could afford to take some risks. But now your investment strategy needs to focus more on keeping what you have. 

2) Inflation that reduces your spending power over time. Even when it seems like you have enough money in retirement, it’s possible you don’t if you failed to factor in for inflation. Let’s take a look at that $1 million again and say that each year you plan to withdraw 4 percent, or $40,000, for living expenses. That $40,000 won’t have the same spending power in year 10 of retirement as it did in year one. That’s why it’s important to account for inflation as you are creating your financial plan and trying to determine how much money you need for retirement.

3) Unexpected medical and/or long-term care expenses. As you age, health problems can emerge and quickly drain your money as you pay for hospitalizations, expensive prescriptions and numerous visits to specialists. At some point, you could require long-term care, which comes with a staggering price tag. The average cost of a semi-private room in a nursing home is $7,756 a month, according to the Genworth annual cost of care survey. Genworth also reports that seven out of 10 people will require long-term care in their lifetimes. One option for planning for this is to purchase long-term care insurance, but there are other routes to explore as well.

4) Outliving your assets. People are living longer than ever, which is great, but longevity increases the odds that you could outlive your money. If you are calculating that you just need enough money for a 10- or 20-year retirement, you could be in for a surprise. For example, more than one in three 65-year-old women will live to be 90. For 65-year-old men, it’s more than one in five. (Of course, many will live beyond 90, too.) It’s best to expect a long life and plan your finances accordingly.

While all of these factors pose a significant risk to your retirement, a financial professional should be able to help you create a plan to reduce some of your exposure.

Retirement should be a time of enjoyment, not a time to fret over every dollar and how tomorrow could bring unpleasant surprises.

Jim Braun is president of Tri-State Retirement (www.tristateretirement.com).

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The Stinking Rose: The Great Garlic

Leave a Comment / Food /

The day before his bar mitzvah, my brother Rafi had a high fever. To add to the drama of the situation, my uncle Ben’s wedding was mere hours away.

My family, including my grandparents, had flown all the way from Sydney, Australia to celebrate this milestone at the Western Wall in Jerusalem. Uncles and aunts and cousins came from Los Angeles. And invitations with the requisite image of a bar mitzvah boy in a tallit had been sent to our Israeli relatives—great aunts and uncles and many, many cousins. But the star of the show wasn’t up for the performance.

How do you get a sick person well? Quickly?

I remember the stressful strategizing between my mother and my aunts.

My mother decided that the cure was garlic. She crushed 10 cloves of raw garlic, put it in some ground beef and grilled it. My unsuspecting brother ate it.

That night he danced at the wedding. Early the next morning, two Egged buses collected guests from Ramat Gan and Petach Tikva and brought us all to Jerusalem, where we watched Rafi don Tefillin (phylacteries) and chant his Torah portion. Followed by a beautiful lunch at a catering hall and a quick ride on a camel (it was a long time ago!).

In ancient Egypt, the slaves building the Pyramids were fed garlic to make them strong. It is recorded that twice the Nile flooded and ruined the garlic crops, causing the slaves to revolt against their task masters. The Torah records that the Israelites in the desert complained to Moses about the lack of fish and melon, cucumbers, leeks, onion and garlic that they had eaten in Egypt. The Talmud recommended eating garlic for the treatment of infection and other ailments

Hippocrates, the father of Western medicine, prescribed garlic for any number of ailments, including pulmonary complaints. Ancient Greek Olympians were given garlic before their competitions and garlic was fed to soldiers before they marched into battle. The Romans also perceived garlic as an aid to strength, giving it to their soldiers and sailors. Garlic was used to “clean the arteries,” to aid the gastrointestinal tract, to treat animal bites and to alleviate joint disease.

Garlic is full of nutrients like Vitamin C, Vitamin b6, manganese, selenium, iron, copper and potassium. Garlic is an indispensable ingredient in practically every recipe in every cuisine. French garlic bread. Italian pasta. Moroccan matbucha. The pungent flavor of garlic is integral to Chinese stews and stir-fried dishes and most other Asian cuisines.

One of my earliest memories is sitting at my grandmother’s kitchen table and peeling whole heads of garlic. She would sauté it with onion as the base of her stews, add it to her chicken soup, infuse it in oil and crush it raw in her salad dressing.

For as long as I can remember, every Friday night my family has a bowl of fresh, crushed garlic doused in olive oil, spooning heaps of it onto our challah. Even the littlest kids love it.

A few years ago, I heard an interview with the Royal Horticulturalist. The final question was “What is your favorite plant?”

He replied “ that is like asking me who is my favorite child. But if I have to answer I would say garlic. It’s antibacterial, anti-fungal and antiviral.”

My husband likes to add “And the reason I love it. It’s antisocial!”

Rachel Sheff and Sharon Gomperts have been friends since high school. They love cooking and sharing recipes. They have collaborated on Sephardic Educational Center projects and community cooking classes. Follow them on Instagram @sephardicspicegirls and on Facebook at Sephardic Spice SEC Food.

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The Candle and the Flag

Leave a Comment / Poetry /

The last vestiges of the memory candles of Holocaust Day
Have barely melted to quiet
And Memorial Day is upon us
In Israel.

How does one explain to an outsider
The tears that you carry in your throat
Throughout this week
As your friends and neighbors post on their Facebook pages
And in WhatsApp messages
Memories of
Their husbands their wives their sons their daughters
Their mothers their fathers their brothers their sisters
Who died in war
In the line of duty
Or at the hands of terrorists

My husband’s cousin
My son’s friend
My friends’ sons

My daughter’s aunt and uncle by marriage
Who have so many children
Named for them
We too have a grandchild in her memory
Rachel Emuna —
Rachel, our matriarch, her great-aunt
And “faith”

I will never forget that naming
I will never forget those tears
Above all, after everything —
Faith
She is a red-headed child filled with spirit
Who does cartwheels through her home
In the Negev

The list goes on and on

Their names swirl and every sentence
Even about something banal
Catches in your throat

Because in Israel
Nothing is banal

When I light Shabbat candles
I see in my mind’s eye
The faces of my children
And my grandchildren
And God has blessed me with many faces to see

But when I light a candle tonight
There will be too many faces to summon
How do I choose?
They are all in my heart.

Their lives do cartwheels through my soul
For they were people filled with joy and a future
And they are the price we have paid

An internet meme
Astonishes in its simplicity and truth:
“We have two Memorial Days in Israel
One to remind us
Of the cost of having a state
And one to remind us
Of the cost of not.”

I reach high and hang the flag from our pergola
It flaps in the breeze, facing our garden
Among the cultured blooms
Are yellow and lavender wildflowers
That die every year, and then return

Tomorrow night we will sequester our tears
Pack them gently away
And join friends and family
In prayer and celebration

Hodu l’Hashem Ki Tov.* 

*Give thanks to the Lord for He is good.
(Psalms 136 and in the Hallel prayer, recited on Yom Ha’atzmaut)

Rosh Hodesh Iyar
April 13, 2021

Toby Klein Greenwald is an award-winning journalist, director of Raise Your Spirits Theatre and editor-in-chief of WholeFamily.com. 

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Natanz Attack: Threats and Implications

Leave a Comment / Commentary, Featured, Opinion, Rosner's Domain /

The Talks

The April 11 attack on Iran’s main nuclear facility was successful, operationally speaking. The attack took place hours after officials at the Natanz reactor restarted spinning centrifuges that could speed up the production of enriched uranium, the material needed for building a nuclear bomb. After the attack, an “intelligence official” told the New York Times that “it could take at least nine months to restore Natanz’s production.” I’m always suspicious when I see such exact dates. Why nine and not eight? Or ten? Or thirteen? I think what the official really meant to say is that the attack didn’t just cause a minor disruption — it damaged the facility in a way that will take time to restore.

Israel declined to confirm its responsibility for the attack, but it hinted at such a likelihood in every way possible — so much so that now, instead of talking about the attack, pundits are talking about its possible implications for Israel’s war against Iran and what the attack means for the resumption of U.S. nuclear talks with Iran, scheduled for later this week.

Yes, it is clear that the talks will resume, but an attack as massive as this has implications, no matter what the parties say. It could remind the Iranians that their time is not unlimited and that they better strike a deal to prevent more attacks (under the assumption that Israel wouldn’t dare attack Iran when an agreement is in place). It could make the Iranians more belligerent and demand a price for even coming to the table. It could force the hands of Iran’s leaders, who must respond to preserve the dignity of their country, knowing that inciting violence in the region could disrupt the talks.

it is clear that the talks will resume, but an attack as massive as this has implications, no matter what the parties say.

In short: The Iranians will come to the talks this week in a state of mind slightly different than before. They can see that the attack does not change their plans and does not impact their strategy. And yet, it does.

The Politics

So, assuming it’s Israel, as everyone seems to agree, why attack Iran now?

Two options were presented to the public, and a third is missing. The two are:

One — because of the U.S.-Iran talks. This is an attempt by Israel to sabotage the talks and send a message to the United States and other powers that it does not see itself bound by international agreements when its security is at risk. Such an interpretation puts Israel, once again, on a collision course with the United States and the Biden administration. Many critics were quick to note that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is returning to walk on a dangerous path, having done a similar thing when the Obama administration was in power.

Two – because of Israel’s coalition talks. This narrative portrays Netanyahu as a cynical leader who goes as far as putting Israel and its forces at risk to improve his chances to form a coalition or to divert the attention from his ongoing trial. Netanyahu’s former defense minister, Moshe Yaalon, asked the following rhetorical question, “could the public escalation with Iran be connected to the interest of controlling the daily news cycle in the face of the damning court testimonies?” Labor Party Chairwoman Merav Michaeli similarly argued that the prime minister “is cynically exploiting our defense system and abilities for his personal campaign.”

What’s the third option? Israel has been trying to hurt the nuclear facilities for many years. An operational opportunity presented itself after many months of preparations. Israel decided to act. Does this mean it wants to send a message to negotiating teams? Sure. Does this preclude Netanyahu’s political calculations? Not at all. Politicians always weigh the political risks and benefits as part of their broader set of calculations when they implement a policy.

The Leaks

Israel knows how to keep a secret when it wants to keep a secret. This time, it did not make a special effort to keep the attack and its perpetrators anonymous. Why? Again, there are three options. One, because it wanted to send a message and wanted the addressee to know who the messenger was. Two, because Netanyahu wanted to brag for his personal reasons. Three, because someone wasn’t careful and leaked information without thinking about it.

Of these three options, the one concerning Netanyahu’s interests was the one most talked about in Israel. Netanyahu’s rivals, who cannot criticize the operation itself (except for very few who did), criticized the PM and his Byzantine courtyard of aides for making a tense situation worse by talking to the press. Defense Secretary Benny Gantz called for an investigation to uncover who has been leaking classified details on Israeli operations to the media. His request was sent to Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit more as a show of deliberation than a real attempt to have an investigation.

And so, on the eve of Yom HaZikaron, Israel’s memorial day for its fallen soldiers, an exchange takes place that further erodes the confidence Israelis have in their leaders — sending soldiers and agents to battle.

Yes, Iran is a threat that Israel must fight. But if Israelis doubt the motivations of prime ministers as Israel goes to war, that’s also a threat. And it is Netanyahu’s job to defend us from this threat, no less than it is his job to protect us from Iran.

Natanz Attack: Threats and Implications Read More »