Dear friends,
To celebrate another amazing year at the Jewish Journal, and to thank you for your readership and support, we thought we’d look back on our cover stories of 2022, as we look forward to another year of thoughtful and compelling journalism.
Happy New Year!
Your Jewish Journal team
A 30-Second Look Back: Jewish Journal Covers from 2022 Read More »
The Grove was the place to be in Los Angeles for night three of Hanukkah.
Thousands of revelers showed up to take part in The Village Synagogue’s fourth annual menorah lighting event in the heart of The Grove shopping center.
Even if it wasn’t the busiest shopping week of the year (but it very much was), the crowd would still have been shoulder-to-shoulder. The event was billed as “the largest Hanukkah celebration in California,” and was punctuated with an illustrious cast of talent and speakers.
The event is organized by Rabbi Zalmy Fogelman, who founded The Village Synagogue in 2016, aiming to “bring the joy of tradition, the spirit of community, and the beauty of our heritage to every millennial.”
“Listen closely to the message of the flickering flames and the message the candles are telling you,” Fogelman told the crowd. “Your one teeny flame can light up the darkness. Your courage, your voice, your jewish pride will bring much needed light.”
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Fogelman also gave special thanks to the sponsors, the Caruso Family, the Holocaust museum of Los Angeles, Malibu Beach Inn at Carbon Beach and the Shine a Light on Antisemitism platform. Theirs and other sponsorships kept the event entirely free and open to the public. As a result, night three at The Grove felt much like a small village atmosphere.
Songwriter Nissim Black had the enthusiastic crowd bouncing and singing with every beat. No song got a more rousing response than Black’s hit song, “Hashem Melech 2.0,” released in 2016 with Gad Elbaz. The chorus lyrics, “Hashem Melech, Hashem Malach, Hashem Yimloch Le’olam Vaed” radiated throughout the entire shopping center. Black also played hits, “Victory,” “Adored,” “Higher” and “Fly Away.”
Former Mayoral candidate Rick Caruso, who owns The Grove property, welcomed the massive crowd and wished everyone a Happy Hanukkah.
“I wanted to be here tonight to thank the Jewish community—without the love of the Jewish community, without the light of the Jewish community, the joy, The Grove would not be what it is today.” said Caruso. “I just want to say how very blessed I feel, and I think we all are. Tonight, there are so many people that are going to sleep on the streets that don’t have food on their table, that don’t have shelter. I feel very grateful and I know all of you do too.”
Dr. Hillel Newman, Consul General of Israel in Los Angeles, encouraged the crowd to stick together in the face of antisemitism.
“Just like the Maccabees, so many years ago, we need to stand together united and proud of our identity,” Newman said. “Here we are, proud and united in the face of a different challenge. All we need to do is get together like an evening like this.”
Newly elected Los Angeles City Council Member Katy Yaroslavsky then came to the stage.
“It’s been a hard year for Jews…over the past year, over one in four American Jews has been a victim of antisemitism,” Yaroslavsky said. “But tonight, as we light this exceptional menorah and as the night becomes a little bit brighter than the night before, we’re reminded of unity dispels darkness and hate. “
Yaroslavsky then singled out the work of Shine a Light, a platform that convenes organizations and companies to call out antisemitism. She then introduced the most special guest in attendance: Holocaust survivor Joseph Alexander.
Between 1939 and 1945, the Nazis sent Alexander to twelve different concentration camps in Germany and Poland, including Auschwitz and Dachau. And exactly one month ago, he turned 100 years old.
“Happy Hanukkah, welcome everybody,” Alexander said to the amazed crowd. “It’s a pleasure to see you here. My name is Joe Alexander and I’m a Holocaust survivor from Poland and I survived twelve camps.”
Alexander then introduced TikTok star Montana Tucker, who recently interrupted her usual repertoire of dance videos to release a ten-part documentary of visiting Holocaust sites with her mother Michelle. The videos have been seen millions of times.
“I just want to say it is such an honor to stand here on this stage with this incredible person here— a Holocaust survivor,” Tucker said, gesturing to Alexander. “Both my grandparents are Holocaust survivors. My Zaidy unfortunately passed away at 97 three years ago, but my grandma is still alive at 94 years old. She is a survivor of Auschwitz.”
Tucker continued, “I recently went back to Poland to learn more about the Holocaust and my grandparents’ history. And I filmed a documentary called ‘How to Never Forget’ which is now on my social media. With the rise of antisemitism, we’re all here today to hopefully put an end to it, be the change and bring everyone together and unite everyone no matter what race, religion, ethnicity. We all need to come together.”
Tucker then asked the crowd to sing “Happy Birthday” to the century-old Alexander. The crowd broke out into a joyous mix of “Happy Birthday” and “Yom Huledet Sameach.”
Alexander smiled while standing spryly. Wearing a bright blue necktie, he then removed his suit jacket to reveal a vest, he rolled up the sleeves of his blue button down shirt and reached for a lit tiki-style torch. With a hand from Rabbi Fogelman, Alexander lit the shamash candle on the 10-foot tall menorah.
The crowd cheered in delight as the first candle was lit and the prayer began. Tucker stood nearby filming the moment for her more than 10 million social media followers. She then lit the second candle. Television star Josh Peck waved to the crowd and lit the third candle.
Also spotted amongst the speakers was Emmanuel Acho, a former NFL player and author of the New York Times Bestseller, “Uncomfortable Conversations with a Black Man.” Acho made headlines this past fall for standing up for taking a firm stance against antisemitism across his media platforms, calling out fellow athlete Kyrie Irving.
Nissim Black sang one more song before departing for a red-eye flight back to Israel.
It’s common for Los Angeles locals to recoil at the thought of going to such a busy shopping center at this time of year. As the event concluded and artificial snow rained down, the crowd revelled, knowing that they were just a part of the one of best Hanukkah parties in town.
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More information on The Village Synagogue in West Hollywood can be found on their website: https://www.villagesynagogue.com/
At our house we lit the Chanukah candles and I love how every religion celebrates a festival of lights at this time. We all need HOPE especially when we feel we are alone in the DARKNESS.
Rabbi Yoshi, the head Rabbi at my temple, Stephen Wise, shared these words below from Rabbi Hugo Gryn which he told us, "fill me with hope, especially at this time of year. They were originally shared in 1987 on the BBC's 'The Moral Maze.'" Gryn was born in 1930 in what was then Czechoslovakia. In this piece, entitled "Three Minutes of Hope," Gryn reminds us of just how urgent the lesson of Hanukkah is, now and always. As I light the menorah in my comfortable London home, surrounded by our children, the oldest of whom is getting married tomorrow, I go back to Hanukkah 42 years ago, the bitter, cold winter of 1944, to a miserable Nazi concentration camp called Lieberose in Silesia. From our less-than-meager rations we saved our margarine, from bits of wood carved out bowls for oil lamps, and out of blanket and uniform threads fashioned wicks of a sort. Then on the first night of Hanukkah, in our crowded barrack-room (Block 4 it was), the melted fat in its place, we sang the blessings about God’s miraculous saving power. And then disaster! Margarine does not burn! It just fizzled out. And my anger over precious and seemingly wasted calories, and the less than good-natured teasing of non-Jewish fellow prisoners. Though I was then a middle-aged 14-year-old, I burst into tears. My father, who also saved his rations, and whose idea the celebration was in the first place, and without whose support I would certainly not be alive to tell this tale, tried to comfort me. "You and I," he said, "have seen that it is possible to live as long as three weeks without food. We once lived almost three days without water. But you cannot live properly for three minutes without hope!" Sadly, my father did not survive. He died of starvation and typhoid a few days after our liberation the following May. But my life was blessed by his life and you will understand why, to this day, beyond the theology and the history of the Hanukkah lights, there shines for me an image of love, and always the inextinguishable rays.
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Happy Holidays: Niver’s News: Dec 2022 Read More »
This week, The Washington Post and The Times of Israel reported on a letter signed by more than 300 U.S. rabbis and cantors from the Conservative, Reform and Reconstructionist movements concerning the new Israeli government that was sworn in on Thursday. The open letter expresses its disapproval in particular of the inclusion of two political parties: the Religious Zionist Party and the Otzma Yehudit party. During the campaign leading up to the most recent national election—the fifth in the last four years—these two parties campaigned on regressive platforms. The parties’ policy proposals call for:
These positions reverse core components of a shared Zionist vision dating back more than a century and a half and decades of Israeli precedent. They also undermine some of the basic rights affirmed in Israel’s declaration of independence.
As a lifelong Zionist, and as a citizen of Israel, I am deeply concerned about this new government, the most right-wing in Israel’s history. In addition to the effect of these policy changes on Israeli citizens, Arab and Jewish alike, I am worried about the effect this new Israeli government will have on Israel-Diaspora relations in particular, as well as its effect on opinions and feelings about Israel more broadly, including an erosion of support for Israel among a majority of Americans. Recent surveys demonstrate—especially among Jews under 50 years old—an increasing emotional detachment from Israel and antipathy toward Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s leadership. These surveys were conducted before the formation of this current government.
I’ve heard some American Jews say that if the official policy of the Israeli government is to not accept them as Jews or to deny their sexual or gender identity, well then, they “are done with Israel.” This breaks my heart. I could never be “done” with Israel no matter how problematic I might find its leadership or policies. We are, of course, called the People of Israel—the latest in a long line of those who have struggled with and for sovereign power as a Jewish state.
This year, our educational theme at Wise School is tikvah, hope, and the song we sing that honors this value is based on a verse from Psalm 27 that reminds us that hope requires patience. The root of the word tikvah is related to a word that means “to wait” or “to expect.” Waiting doesn’t mean sitting around and doing nothing. We should act, raise our voices in appropriate and thoughtful ways, and invest our tzedakah dollars in a manner that is consistent with our values, all the while accepting the reality that change takes time, that progress inevitably includes setbacks along the way, and that the only way to realize the world that we dream of is through hard work and persistence.
Following are some ways that I navigate moments like this.
First, rather than disconnecting or distancing myself from Israel, I try to engage more fully by reaching out to my Israeli friends and family to hear their perspectives, to find out how they see the situation from their much more intimate perspective. I ask them how they are responding to the new government and I try to make sure that I am gathering news about Israel from a variety of perspectives.
Second, rather than diminishing my personal Israel-related philanthropy, I am increasing my gifts and focusing them on non-profit organizations that express my values and interests. For the past 30 years, I have served as volunteer executive director of KAVOD, a non-profit tzedakah collective I founded in 1993 while living in Israel. We support a variety of Mitzvah Heroes who embody the value of kavod, the belief that every human being—regardless of their gender, sexuality, race or religion—deserves dignity and respect. Many of the organizations we support are Israel-based.
Third, I remind myself and others that one can be opposed to the leadership of individual politicians or to the policies of a particular party or legislative body without divorcing oneself from a nation or country. There are elected officials in the United States whose leadership I oppose and who advocate for policies I might find repugnant, but this doesn’t cause me to say that I’m “done with America.”
I have shared with you many times the verse from the prophet Zecharia that describes Jews as “prisoners of hope.” I will never give up the hope that Israel might yet become, in the words of the prayer for the State of Israel, which we include in our liturgy each Shabbat, “the beginning of the first flowering of our redemption.”
At the dawn of a new year, I remain hopeful, engaged and—difficult as it sometimes is—patient.
Never Done With Israel Read More »
