It’s extremely loud and dangerously messy, highly disruptive, and grows more expensive every day. You guessed right: it’s a kitchen remodeling project!
Our kitchen was bright and welcoming when we moved to this house nearly twenty-three years ago. Since then, I estimate that I have cooked and served more than 8,300 dinners to family and friends, both the quotidian weekday lasagna as well as multi-course meals for Shabbat and holidays. But as the kitchen aged, I grew impatient with the drawers that usually got stuck on their rails, the oven that considered a 350-degree setting as a suggestion, the recycling pull-out that defiantly rolled open after a firm slam shut, and the cracks in the tile countertops and floor spreading like tributaries. Yet for all that, I felt a sense of loss and even a tremor of disloyalty as I watched those first hammer blows.
Our kids grew up in this home. They ate most of their meals at the kitchen table, joking or bickering, slipping the dog hamburger on the sly and skittering away after dinner, forgetting to clear their plates. The kitchen corkboard featured the kids’ pictures, art projects, invitations, and school flyers.
I had a home office for writing but in the late afternoons, the kitchen was my central command center. It was where I listened, talked to my kids and husband, and dispensed advice as I stirred the minestrone or basted the chicken. It’s where my daughter at age nine, learning to bake, poured an entire cup of instant coffee into a cake batter when the recipe called for one cup of coffee and I laughed so hard that I could not stop and all she could do was beg me not to put it in a column. Honey, I’ve waited long enough.
The kitchen was the room where I gave the most hugs — many of joy and pride, others of fiercely protective, maternal emotional support.
The kitchen was where I heard the hot news of the day, whether the thrill of earning an “A” on a test or the pain of a friend making a thoughtless, cruel remark. As the kids grew into adults, it’s where we talked about their dating experiences and I was discovered as a source of wisdom on these matters. The kitchen was the room where I gave the most hugs — many of joy and pride, others of fiercely protective, maternal emotional support. It’s the room that launched nearly one hundred birthday cakes, baked with love, frosted unevenly, and topped with tiny and colorful lit birthday candles.
Today so much of our society feels fragile, anxious, and insecure. Still, most people recognize the kitchen as a physical space with a spiritual core. Popular home décor and aprons proclaim, “A kitchen is the heart of the home,” and “This kitchen is seasoned with love.” Even slightly subversive mottos such as “If I had to stir it, it’s homemade,” and “The kitchen was clean last week. Sorry you missed it,” underscore the kitchen as a focal point for both physical and emotional nourishment, the place where so many of life’s memorable moments happen, and where the primary cook in the family may sling the hash more out of devotion to family than for the creative rewards of cooking.
Each day I What’sApp our kids pictures of the remodel project, including its unexpected revelations: the back wall had begun to crumble, three layers of previous flooring that had never been removed, and missing support beams above the ceiling in the area where I stood most frequently, chopping and mixing. “You’re lucky that ceiling didn’t fall down,” the contractor said. “So many memories,” one son observed, seeing the kitchen stripped to its bones.
Realizing my old kitchen’s hidden structural weaknesses, it’s easier for me to let go of my emotional attachment to the room that was and allow myself the excitement of the beautiful, new kitchen to come, with a bright new color scheme and an army of gleaming new appliances soon reporting for duty. Still, I will always feel grateful to our old kitchen, the place that for so many years and perhaps more than any other room in the house, felt like home.
Judy Gruen’s latest book is “The Skeptic and the Rabbi: Falling in Love with Faith.”
One verse, five voices. Edited by Salvador Litvak, the Accidental Talmudist
They came to the Valley of Eshkol and they cut a branch with a cluster of grapes. They carried it on a pole between two [people] and [they also took] some pomegranates and figs.
-Num. 13:23
Sarah Pachter Author and Lecturer
Rashi explains that the word “two” refers to two poles which required eight men to carry, whereas the Zohar writes that “the two of them” refers to Yehoshua and Calev.
The Rabeinu Bechaya explains that the other spies were unable to lift this cluster of grapes, whereas Joshua and Calev, alone, managed to easily lift them. What normally required 8 people, Yehoshua and Calev were able to do together. Yehoshua and Calev exhibited unity and camaraderie. This is where their supernatural strength lies.
Dave Ramsey, in “Entreleadership,” notes that the Belgian draft horse is capable of pulling eight thousand pounds. If trained together, however, they can pull 32 thousand pounds, four times the weight.
Rabbi Zachariah Wallerstein tells of a wealthy man who owned expensive horses purchased throughout the world. During a trip, two horses and the wagon fell into a ditch. Despite much coercion, neither horse moved.
Another man came by and strapped two donkeys to the wagon. Merely lifting his hand to hit caused the donkeys to mightily pull the wagon out.
He explained, “You bought one horse from Saudi Arabia and another from Egypt. My donkeys were born and raised together, like brothers. Your horse saw that the other one was hit and didn’t care. My donkey saw that I was about to hit the other one, and they both gave their heart to pull it out.”
When the Jewish Nation sees each other as brethren, we can lighten ANY load, no matter how heavy it seems.
David Sacks Podcast weekly about Life @ Spiritual Tools for an Outrageous World
A group of Israelis were eager to get home after a long day’s work, but the last bus for the night was beyond late and they feared they’d be stranded. Suddenly, a bus with a different number drove past. Realizing that this could be their last chance they frantically waved it down. The driver told them that this wasn’t his route and that he could get fired if he took them, but they pleaded with him, and he finally let them on. They thanked him profusely, and then he admitted the truth.
“I was your driver the whole time. But I was so late that I knew when I showed up you were all going to scream at me. So, I changed the number of the bus, and pretended this wasn’t my route. That way instead being angry, you’d be grateful.”
Everything in life depends on how you look at it.
There’s an argument among the Torah commentators regarding the giant fruit that the spies brought back. Was it supposed to be in praise of the Land? Or was it supposed to be proof that the land was inhabited by giants who would devour us?
It’s all in how we see it. If we can trust that Hashem loves us, and that He’s only leading us to good places, we’ll experience even the things we don’t understand in life as blessings.
But if we don’t, the grey areas of life will appear to us as signs pointing to disaster.
The Israelite spies entered the land. There they found abundance or shefa – rich growth. Pomegranates, figs, and grape vines with clusters so big it took two men to carry one cluster of grapes. The image moves us so deeply that it’s the symbol of Israeli tourism today.
Have you ever eaten fresh, ripe, sweet, sun-warmed figs straight from the tree in Israel? Have you seen “fig milk” trickling from the stem when you pick them? Or pomegranates that grow like gems in the summer sun? No wonder there is so much art with pomegranate themes. Have you had fresh grapes dripping with natural sugar, ready to quench your thirst?
But what will the spies do with the gifts of the land? Will they trust? Will they fear? Do they feel entitled, or are they grateful? Will they share? Do they feel worthy?
There’s a story of a man at a table that is laid with a feast, but in his hands are peanuts infested with weevils. He’s holding so tightly to the weevilly peanuts that he has no way to partake of the great feast before him. Undervaluing the good in front of him costs him dearly. If only he would let go of those weevilly peanuts. Do we see the abundance in our lives? Do we understand the source of all the gifts? Are we saying yes to the sweet fruits we’re offered? Are we grateful?
You see what you look for.
Chaya Lester Co-Director of Jerusalem’s Shalev Center for Personal Growth
Here we meet the super-sized-grape-cluster. Famously, it is THE symbol for Israel’s Ministry of Tourism. It symbolizes Israel’s greatness, but also the greatness of the people who already lived here, the giants of lore. It is brought as a sign of the Land’s unconquerability.
Fearsomeness and fruitfulness; it is a symbol of utter contradiction.
The fearful spies said, “We saw there giants … We were in our own eyes as ants … so we were in their eyes.” The people are sent into a frenzy of terror and self-doubt. Caleb and Joshua alone stood firm in their faith of the goodness of the land and the goodness of the people.
Note the name Nahal Eshkol, the Brook of the Cluster. There is a modern Hebrew term, eish eshkolot, a man of clusters. It refers to a jack-of-all-trades. Indeed, survival in this land often demands an ability to patch together a cluster of abilities. I have four different business cards on my refrigerator. Each for the same guy. He’s a carpet cleaner, electrician, social worker and taxi driver. The man’s a creative genius. He’s truly an eish eshkolot … and this country is full of them!
As the spies said themselves, “It is a land that eats up its inhabitants, and all those who dwell there are great.” Yes, admittedly, it is a challenge to live here, but those who do touch greatness.
Wherever you live, the Biblical life-hack of this verse teaches us that we choose how we view ourselves – like Ants or like Gi’Ants!
“Be strong,” Moses had said. “Take hold of the fruit of the land.” Which the spies did. But after, they returned to the camp and held up the fruit and all the people grew wild with panic.
Remember that this is fruit from a valley. Life that fills the empty space.
Maybe the fruit reminded them too much of themselves. A people blooming into a nation in the desert. Think of yourself. How did you feel the first time life held itself up like that? The fruit you will bear. The people you would love and the things you would accomplish. You were the blossoming valley, the question growing its own answers. The grapes and pomegranates and figs. Weren’t you terrified? Even if what you saw was large and sweet. Even if it fulfilled the oldest promise. Even if the wise had already whispered: This is meant for you, take hold, be strong. *
Eric Cohen, Tikvah Fund’s executive director, opened this year’s Jewish Leadership Conference on June 12 by saying, “Something strange happened on the way to the Museum of Jewish Heritage.”
He didn’t have to elaborate. Tikvah’s guests at Chelsea Piers knew he was referring to the fact that the museum, which had hosted numerous Tikvah events over the years, decided at the last minute to cancel the conference when the directors realized that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis would be one of the 20 speakers. DeSantis, who is overseeing a Jewish renaissance in Florida, didn’t “align with the museum’s values and its message of inclusivity.”
Tikvah’s main mission is teaching young Jews about Jewish history. But the irony of the situation was completely lost on the directors of the museum, which had held numerous events for even anti-Israel politicians. As Cohen and Tikvah Chairman Elliott Abrams wrote in a Wall Street Journal op-ed: “[W]e know things are bad when a Jewish institution — in this case, a museum whose purpose is to keep Jewish heritage alive by remembering the Holocaust — turns on its own and tries to make a virtue of its own intolerance.”
Professor Ruth Wisse (Photo by Sean Smith)
Not to be deterred, Tikvah moved the 5th annual conference to Chelsea Piers. Amidst heavy security, including a NYPD boat that circled the area, and several dozen protestors, more than 700 guests — two times the capacity of the museum’s auditorium — got to hear not only DeSantis, but Ruth Wisse, Rabbi Meir Soloveichik, former Secretary of State Michael Pompeo, and many other eminent speakers.
The protestors, holding signs like “DeSantis is a Tyrant,” shouted obscenities at people entering and leaving the conference. I asked a few of them if they knew what the law that DeSantis signed and has been intentionally misinterpreted to mean “Don’t say gay,” actually proscribed. They did not know. All they knew is that it had become trendy to call the governor homophobic so that’s what they were doing. As Former Israeli Ambassador to the United States Ron Dermer pointed out later in the day: “Why don’t woke protestors ever focus on the fact that Iran hangs gay people from cranes?”
“We believe in the power of ideas to persuade and to have an effect in the world.” —Mosaic editor Jonathan Silver
The entire incident turned out to be a microcosm of today’s political world in general and the Jewish world in particular — and only strengthened the need for Tikvah and the conference. The protestors and slanted media coverage made it an all-day “safe space” for reason, bravery, and pride in Judaism. “We believe in the power of ideas to persuade and to have an effect in the world,” said Mosaic editor Jonathan Silver in his welcoming remarks.
He had been preceded by the singing of the American and Israeli national anthems, which had the effect of cleansing our minds from the toxic scene outside. And offering instead the sustenance of dignity and hope — tikvah.
Another path forward
“We will never step aside in silence when an institution entrusted with the sacred mission of Holocaust memory becomes a petty agent of cancel culture,” said Eric Cohen in his opening remarks. “We will not retreat in silence when a Jewish museum confuses the latest progressive pieties for real Jewish values.”
Eric Cohen told us about the idea of the 614th Jewish commandment, coined by Jewish philosopher Emil Fackenheim: “the obligation to sustain Jewish life into the future, lest we ever give Hitler a posthumous victory.”
Cohen told us about the idea of the 614th Jewish commandment, coined by Jewish philosopher Emil Fackenheim: “the obligation to sustain Jewish life into the future, lest we ever give Hitler a posthumous victory. His point was that we remember the tragedies of the Jewish past by building Jewish schools, advancing Jewish culture, creating Jewish neighborhoods, and defending the Jewish nation.”
Cohen elaborated on the four principles that guide Tikvah:
• The idea of “Jewish exceptionalism”: “The Jewish people best serve the larger cause of humanity when we defend, deepen, and perpetrate the Jewish way of life.”
• Conservative ideas are good for the Jewish people: “Judaism should never be reduced to a modern political platform because the core ideas and practices of Judaism run much deeper than politics alone. The Jew stands with eternity, not merely before the electorate. Yet certain ways of thinking about political life run with rather than against the grain of Jewish teaching and strengthen rather than undermine real Jewish interests.” These include religious freedom, school choice, tradition, and a strong, independent Jewish state.
• Jewish ideas are good for America: “Look around, and it is clear that America could use some Hebraic medicine for our postmodern disorders: the crisis of the family, the search for meaning, the loss of toughness — these are just the kinds of human problems that Abraham and Ruth, David and Esther, Joshua and Devorah address with divine wisdom. The icon of American freedom — the Liberty Bell — is inscribed with words from the Hebrew Bible. And the words themselves — ‘Proclaim Liberty throughout the Land’—come from the book of Leviticus: A reminder that liberty only endures when rooted in a moral foundation. The alternative to virtuous freedom is ‘wokism’: a pseudo-morality that destroys liberty in the name of liberation — and oppresses anyone who dares to dissent. The Torah is a better path to true freedom, and America needs to learn this lesson once again.”
• “Israel has emerged as the moral, political, and military lighthouse of the West.”
“That is why Tikvah’s core mission is education: Immersing talented students in the foundational ideas of Jewish, Zionist, and American civilization; challenging young Jews to see their incredible gifts as a great responsibility; connecting young Jews to opportunities as they advance from middle school to high school to college and beyond. Tikvah believes that the Jewish future will be won classroom by classroom, seminar by seminar, student by student.”
Nearly 100 student leaders and young professionals attended the conference, listening intently and taking notes.
A people, one people
Rabbi Meir Soloveichik was tasked with the eternal question: what leads to Jewish greatness? “At the core of greatness are two questions: Who am I and where am I going?” he told us. “At the core of Jewish greatness: Who are we and where are we going?” To answer the former, Rabbi Soloveichik used the words of Theodore Herzl: “We are a people, one people.”
“It is connection with the Jewish people that above all drives Jewish greatness,” said the rabbi. “Greatness and leadership begin with a feeling of oneness with fellow Jews.”
Second: “The constant crisis of our history was the crucible in which Jewish greatness was forged.” The rabbi quotes Abigail Adams’s famous letter to her son in 1780: “Great necessities call out great virtues.”
Finally, we must learn from the Jewish leaders that have come before us: “Exemplars of Jewish greatness show a path forward — where we are going and how we get there. History is a journey that is impacted by leadership.”
“Jews embody a miraculous tale unlike any other. Our great leaders from the past teach us it’s a privilege and wonder to be part of this people.”
Tikvah and the conference embody what I call rational conservatism — a conservatism based on the same founding principles as classical liberalism but tethered more to tradition.
Rational conservatism
Tikvah and the conference embody what I call rational conservatism — a conservatism based on the same founding principles as classical liberalism but tethered more to Judaic tradition. There was an implicit understanding that extremism and conspiracy theories are as dangerous for Jews as woke ideology.
Rabbi Meir Soloveichik (Photo by Sean Smith)
Yoram Hazony, author of the new book, “Conservatism: A Rediscovery” (Regnery Gateway), and Matthew Continetti, a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, discussed how post-World War II classical liberalism/conservatism had lost its bearings, allowing “woke neo-Marxism,” which is blatantly anti-liberal, to advance so quickly.
“What makes America most distinctive? The founding principles and documents of the founding fathers,” said Continetti. Stripped of religious and family values, “the liberal order has lost its place as the Western way of life,” said Hazony.
The problem, both agreed, is that liberal freedom and equality of the individual expanded until it replaced the founding principles. “But the individual is part of a family, a tribe, a nation—not free of obligations,” said Hazony. “The family is a force of good, descended from Biblical tradition; that’s where ethical problems should be solved.”
“Communal liberty” needs to act as a deterrence for the excesses of individual liberty.
Later in the day, Amiad Cohen, director general of the Tikvah Fund in Israel, and Simcha Rothman, a member of the Knesset for the Religious Zionist Party, discussed the birth of a new Israeli conservatism.
“A new generation of Israeli conservatism — of Israeli leader — is rising. Israel is a conservative nation that never developed a conservative political movement. We can no longer rely on miracles. We need to become active protagonists in our own story,” said Cohen.
Lacking a constitution, said Rothman, Israel’s courts have engaged in counterproductive judicial activism. “We need this to survive the constant threat of annihilation, to maintain a Jewish democracy with Jewish majority, to be the light unto nations.”
Ideal of the Jewish father
Through the stories of Sholem Aleichem, Ruth Wisse tackled the lost notion of the heroism of Jewish fathers. “As long as Jews remained confident that the Torah is a tree of life to those who cling to it, they fashioned models of courage appropriate to their situation,” Wisse said. But as the Enlightenment began to take hold, the “designated leaders of Diaspora Jewry, many of them dedicated students of Torah, had to decide whether to continue judging the surrounding world by their standards or to start judging the Jews by ‘modern’ or ‘progressive’ standards.”
It took “nerve and resolution to remain a dedicated Jew,” Wisse told us. “Terms like ‘courage’ and ‘heroism’ signify more than just being a mensch. Although being a decent human being is hard enough, heroism means overcoming adversity.”
It took “nerve and resolution to remain a dedicated Jew,” she told us. “Terms like ‘courage’ and ‘heroism’ signify more than just being a mensch. Although being a decent human being is hard enough, heroism means overcoming adversity.”
By 1906, the U.S. was absorbing tens of thousands of Jews every year, mostly single young men. “Practiced in the arts of adaptation, Jews were the fastest among immigrant groups to give up their Yiddish language.” Parents just wanted their children to advance. “By the mid-twentieth century, we were in the Age of the American Jewish Son.”
It’s well past time, Wisse asserted, to return to seeing the Jewish father as the American Jewish hero. “Among Jews everything begins with the family.” We must return to honoring “the paternal image as anchor of our families and our people.”
But “very little in today’s America contributes to strengthening fatherhood and much works against it. It is not easy for young Jewish men in uncertain times to enter voluntarily into marriage with strong-willed Jewish women (are there any other kind)? The Jewish father is expected to provide for his family, to supervise the education of his children, and the more responsibly he does this the more he will be called upon to assume responsibility in other areas of life as well. Yet he who used to be compensated for his effort with a seat at the head of the table is now asked to apologize for that ‘privilege.’”
Paternal heroes “fight and inspire others to fight the most important of all wars — the war of ideas that begins for us at Sinai and continues through the American Constitution and beyond.”
Wisse noted that she was singling out the heroism of the American Jewish father “not to detract from other forms of courage, and other models of excellence, but because it has never been under greater assault … Who is the American Jewish hero? He is all around us — he needs only to be acclaimed.”
A second Munich
In separate sessions, Ambassador Dermer and former Secretary of State Michael Pompeo discussed foreign policy: the Abraham Accords, Iran, China.
Both agreed that the Accords would be expanded. “They will be expanded because they make sense,” said Pompeo. “But Muslim countries need confidence in an American leader to make that happen.” Ambassador Dermer said Saudi Arabia would be next. “The Gulf states are much more concerned with the threat of Iran than with the Palestinians. But the current U.S. policy of appeasing Iran and centralizing the Palestinian issue won’t push the Arab states to join the Accords.”
Dermer called the Iran deal signed in 2015 “a disaster—a second Munich,” referring to the Munich Agreement of 1938, which allowed Germany to annex Czechoslovakia. President Biden, said Dermer, needs to move away from “containing” nuclear Iran and back to “preventing” nuclear Iran. “This Iranian regime is ‘dead serious’ about trying to destroy Israel. But Iran does fear U.S. reprisal.”
Dermer also predicted that in the 21st century, Israel will be the most important ally of the U.S., in terms of security and technology. “We matter to America; we matter to American national security. American and Israeli interests completely align.”
Pompeo warned about the dangers of the Chinese Communist Party, which “has been at war with the U.S. for two decades.” The CCP is more difficult and complex than confronting Russia, because it’s already an internal threat—“they’ve already infiltrated our military and universities.”
“The American experiment—it never comes easy,” Pompeo said. “No longer believing in American or Israeli exceptionalism—in being a force for good—that’s also threat,” said Dermer, just as an NYPD security boat with the American flag sailed by.
Leadership matters
The 2022 Herzl Prize for Jewish Leadership went to Tikvah Chairman Roger Hertog (previous recipients include Natan Sharansky, Norman Podhoretz, Ruth Wisse). Also announced was the creation of the Roger and Susan Hertog Scholarship Fund, created by a $1 million matching gift by the Hertogs, for one purpose: intensive educational programs for the most talented high school and college students in America and Israel.
“I was told to focus on a few things and do them well,” Herzog said, upon accepting the award. “Jewish education is the cornerstone of the Tikvah Fund, but leaders matter. And we are here to help build the next generation of Jewish and Zionist leaders.”
And then he cited some startling statistics from a Pew study:
• Only 4/10 Jewish American adults consider Judaism important;
• Only one-quarter have an attachment to Israel.
“The data is even more alarming for younger Jews. Our goal here is to reverse, to moderate, this trend. Only by investing in young Jewish men and women can we make this happen.
Former Israeli Ambassador to the United States Ron Dermer also predicted that in the 21st century, Israel will be the most important ally of the U.S., in terms of security and technology.
In his luncheon address, Tikvah Chairman Elliott Abrams reiterated Herzog’s message: “Tikvah’s mission is to maintain the continuity of the Jewish people. To reach the best of the new generation, to teach them, and to conserve the greatest of their heritage as Jews and Americans.”
But perhaps it was Ambassador Dermer who crystallized the need to educate and build the next generation of Jewish leaders: “Herzl was a man with a plan. But he died at 44 in 1904. Imagine if he had been able to recreate Israel in the 1920s. The Holocaust would not have happened.”
Ideas matter
“I saw that there was a little opposition to me coming here,” said DeSantis, the final speaker. “All I can tell you is this: When the left is having a spasm, that just tells you that in Florida we are winning.”
“We have enacted robust Holocaust education requirements and standards in Florida schools. We enacted a moment of silence required in every school so that students have the opportunity to reflect. We authorized United Hatzalah to be able to provide emergency services and they’re doing a great job in South Florida. In 2019, I led the largest trade mission in the history of the state of Florida, my first one as Governor, and that trade mission was to the state of Israel, and we’ve seen huge benefits from that trip. That’s a pretty good record.”
“Apparently, that’s the type of record that gets you banned from speaking at a Holocaust museum.”
“I’m not going to let some protests deter me from coming to speak in front of a lot of future voters in Florida,” he said, to rousing applause.
DeSantis spoke about the Parental Rights in Education bill, which he signed in March and is at the heart of the controversy. It bans teaching lessons on gender identity and sexual orientation to children in grades K–3.
“Every parent in the state of Florida has a right to send their kid to elementary school without having concepts like woke gender ideology jammed into their curriculum,” DeSantis said.
He also said that children should be able to go to school without teachers “transitioning their kids’ gender to a different gender, giving them a different name, having them wear different clothes without the parents’ knowledge and consent.”
“Parents have a fundamental role” in their kids’ education. There should be “curriculum transparency for parents,” emphasizing that students should focus on basic subjects like math, science, and history.
“We have said that the state of Florida is not going to be overrun by woke ideology. It’s just not going to happen,” DeSantis said. “I think it’s a cancer, I think it will destroy this country if it’s able to get more of a foothold than it already has.”
DeSantis also took issue with Critical Race Theory. “We are not distorting history to advance an ideological agenda. We are not going to teach our kids to hate our country,” he said. “When you stand up for the truth, people understand. Education is not trying to indoctrinate kids.”
DeSantis also singled out the legislation he signed in 2019 to “make sure that institutions like our state universities are treating anti-Semitism the same way they treat racism.”
“Leadership is about standing up for other people before you worry about yourself.”
On the way out, I was again accosted by a bunch of protestors who called me all sorts of names. One guy, who said he was Jewish and gay, realizing that shouting profanities at someone wearing a press badge may not be a good look, tried to calmly explain to me what was wrong with DeSantis. “I was bullied when I was in school,” he told me. I informed him that the law DeSantis signed had nothing to do with gay rights. He then took a different tack, telling me that DeSantis and Florida are antisemitic. I then listed for him all the good that DeSantis has done, and how the Jewish population there had grown exponentially.
But facts were of no interest to him. Without responding, he turned to the next guest and started shouting profanities. Coverage of the conference by left-leaning outlets was, to use a protestor word, “surreal.” If the law DeSantis signed was even mentioned, the words “some age groups” were used in place of kindergarten to third grade. Worse, some pieces made it sound as though speakers throughout the day voiced homophobic remarks.
There were zero homophobic remarks at the conference.
Ultimately, woke activists seem to have a need to make everything about them. Except Jews are never part of “them.” One sign read: “United Against Racism and Fascism.” It probably didn’t even occur to the protestor to add anti-Semitism.
But woke activists weren’t able to destroy this one conference, which was very much about Jewish pride in our own identity. It was a David vs. Goliath moment in the current culture war.
And David won.
Karen Lehrman Bloch is editor in chief of White Rose Magazine.
Growing up, Rabbi Cantor Alison Wissot had a dream: She wanted to become an actress.
After college, she got to live that dream, spending four years in New York City working in show business. However, it wasn’t what she imagined it was going to be like.
“I wasn’t happy,” she said. “The more I worked as an actress, the less happiness I experienced.”
Wissot returned to Los Angeles, her hometown, to decide what she wanted to do next. She sat down with Cantor Nathan Lam, then of Stephen S. Wise Temple, her childhood synagogue. She’d studied singing with Lam and sang at the bimah at the temple when she was a child.
Lam told Wissot about a cantor’s mission to Israel, and she was intrigued. She went on the 10-day mission, and decided that she wanted to become a cantor.
“My Jewish identity was connected to my family and my synagogue,” she said. “I really needed to go and found out I love theater and acting, but it wasn’t what I was meant to be doing.”
Wissot received joint ordination as both a rabbi and a cantor, and for 17 years, she’s worked at Temple Judea in Tarzana. She also had the opportunity to serve as the cantor at Stephen S. Wise Temple, the place she first engaged with her religion. As a child, she enjoyed going to services there.
“When I was about six years old, there was a Friday night when my parents wouldn’t take me to temple,” she said. “I decided I would pack up my little purse and try to walk from my home in Encino up the hill to Stephen Wise. It didn’t seem that far when we drove. My parents picked me up from the curb and brought me to services.”
To others, Wissot’s enthusiasm was clear. “I was absolutely in love with the services, and [temple] felt like the best place in the world to me,” she said. “I think everyone knew I was headed for some version of the clergy long before I did.”
Hearing Lam’s singing at her synagogue inspired her to use music to help others connect to their Judaism as well.
“Music has a way of communicating things that words cannot. Singing Jewish music does something to people. It makes people feel the depth of their Jewish experience.”
“Music has a way of communicating things that words cannot,” she said. “Singing Jewish music does something to people. It makes people feel the depth of their Jewish experience.”
Wissot believes that Shabbat and all the holidays are theatrical, in a way.
“These are improvisational events in our lives that allow us to touch something that language doesn’t touch,” she said. “That’s why they work. That’s why the Passover seder works, and continues to be celebrated even among people who aren’t involved in their Judaism. With music and theater, I help people open the door and find out things for themselves.”
Music helps Wissot fulfill her goal as a rabbi and cantor, which is to teach the meaningful tradition she has been handed.
“What that means is not to just pass on what’s been passed on to me,” she said. “I respond to the changing needs of our community and hand this precious gift of Judaism to people in a way that reflects who we are today and honors the legacy we carry with us from the past.”
In her job at Temple Judea, Wissot has come full circle: she works with a group of cantors-in-training It allows her to accomplish her mission of bringing Judaism to the next generation.
“They learn all kinds of Jewish music, participate in holidays and get a chance to lead our services and engage with their Judaism,” she said. “So many of those students have gone onto cantorial or rabbinic school or be engaged Jews in their community or our community. It’s very sacred and special to be able to carry that on.”
Fast Takes with Alison Wissot
Jewish Journal: What’s your favorite Jewish food?
Alison Wissot: Sufganiyot. The ones in Israel are just spectacular, but there are some phenomenal ones at Jewish bakeries in LA as well.
JJ: How about your favorite Jewish song to sing?
AW: “Al Kol Eleh.” It talks about the bitter and the sweet and having to hold onto both in our lives.
JJ: What would you be if you weren’t a rabbi?
AW: A ski instructor. I got the opportunity to ski on a sabbatical over the last few months. I got offered a job as a ski instructor. I love being on the mountain. Skiing connects me to God in a way that nothing else does.
Jews are getting squeezed from all sides. White supremacists hate us because they think we run the country; the woke hate us because they think we’re the epitome of white privilege. We’re either too white or not white enough. Either way, what ties the haters together is a shared perception that Jews simply have too much power.
We’re too darned successful.
Maybe that’s why it’s counterproductive to play the victim card whenever a Jew is attacked. Who are we kidding? Jews look like the very opposite of victims. That’s not just perception—it’s reality. Whether or not we like to admit it, Jews have long punched above their weight, achieving an extraordinary level of success in their long and often arduous American journey.
The fact that Jew-haters try to turn that success against us is twisted and perverted, but that doesn’t make the success any less real. Trying to counter the hatred with, “Hey, we don’t have that much power!” or “We’re not that white!” or “Look at the rise in antisemitism– we’re victims, too!” is not just useless; it makes us look weak and pathetic.
I’d much rather be envied than pitied.
I’d much rather be envied than pitied.
And don’t kid yourself: Every time we call out another act of antisemitism, we look like whiners. It doesn’t matter if we use aggressive language like “condemning,” “fighting” and “eradicating”—the body language is the same: we’re reacting to the haters. We’re dancing to their tune. They hate, we respond. Rinse, repeat.
The old spin that Jew-hatred is also bad for non-Jews– the “canary in the coal mine” argument– feels like a tired attempt to universalize our beef. For all its merit, it’s too indirect and speculative to have any real impact.
Even the global standard of atrocities—the Holocaust— doesn’t help us fight antisemitism. It buys sympathy for the 6 million who perished, but that singular darkness eight decades ago in another continent is very far removed from today’s America.
When we try to make the Holocaust “relevant” by claiming that, “It can happen again anywhere—even here!” it lacks credibility. We may believe the danger is real, but for the average American, the calls of “never again!” don’t feel real. It simply doesn’t compute that the Holocaust can reproduce itself in the America of Bernie Sanders and Larry David and Sarah Silverman and Chuck Schumer and Ruth Bader Ginsberg and Billy Crystal and the millions of other Jews who permeate every aspect of American society.
As a community, we’d be better off making the Holocaust message, “Look how far we’ve come!” than, “Look how horrible we had it.”
As a community, we’d be better off making the Holocaust message, “Look how far we’ve come!” than, “Look how horrible we had it.”
In short, it’s time to own our success.
Indeed, “Look how far we’ve come” is an ideal rallying cry for owning our success. That won’t just stick it to the haters, it will instill Jewish pride in our people, the kind of pride that comes from genuine accomplishment, from prevailing for millennia against all odds, from “doing” Jewish.
“Doing Jewish” means leaning into our tradition and engaging with its spiritual and intellectual richness, but in America, it also means giving back to the country that’s been so good to us.
Any minority that is struggling can benefit from our experience and know-how. It’s not enough to show compassion for the oppressed; we must help them rise out of victimhood and into a better future. It’s also not enough to lobby the government; we must ask what we can do ourselves.
I have a dear friend, a Reform Jew, who has spent the past few years working in the inner-city teaching kids what they’re not learning in school– financial literacy. From what I hear, the course is changing lives and he’s now expanding it.
There are countless other Jews throughout the country doing similar good deeds and paying it forward. We must honor them and elevate them as Jewish role models who are bringing hope to those who need it most– regardless of race, religion or ethnicity.
I know there’s a justified instinct among many of my friends to make Jew-haters “pay” for any act of hatred. To the extent we can do that, we should, but let’s never forget what we’ve learned the hard way: Jew-hatred ebbs and flows but it never goes away, price or no price.
Let the haters hate us because we’re too successful. While they waste their energy on hate, let’s run with our success. Yes, this is how far we’ve come: Jews have done so well in America that we can now help other Americans succeed as well.
The simple truth is that America is good for the Jews, and the Jews are good for America. Doesn’t that sound better than “Stop hating us?”
