Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By admin on August 10, 2017

An architects rendering shows the synagogue building that a Chabad affiliate, Friends of Refugees of Eastern Europe, hopes to build near a popular beach in Sydney, Australia. (Friends of Refugees of Eastern Europe)

SYDNEY (JTA) A Chabad congregation whose bid for a new synagogue building was blocked out of fears that it would become a target for terrorism will resubmit plans to the local municipality.

Leaders of the congregation, known as Friends of Refugees of Eastern Europe, or FREE, met Wednesday with Sydneys Waverley Council to discuss the proposed synagogue and apartments to be built near the popular Bondi Beach.

The congregation made international headlines last week whena zoning courtupheld the councils decision to ban construction of the synagogue in the Sydney suburb of Waverly because it could become the target of a terrorist attack.

Jewish leaders said the decision was anti-Semitic and a sop to terrorists, while the Waverley Council claimed FREE had not adequately addressed security concerns the congregation had raised in its own application.

After Wednesdays meeting, FREE announced they will submit plans for a new development application to build the synagogue in Bondi. The congregation and the council suggested jointly that a proposed weekend protest would be unproductive.

The new development application could be in place as early as December.

Attending Wednesdays meeting were the mayor, the councils acting general manager and senior planning. Representing FREE were Rabbis Yehoram Ulman, Eli Feldman and Eli Schlanger, along with their town planning adviser and architect.

The meeting opened with a prayer led by Feldman, who acknowledged Waverley Councils commitment to and support of the Jewish community.

Waverley Council reaffirmed that a synagogue would normally be permitted at the site under Waverley planning controls and that security issues around other synagogues and Jewish schools had been dealt with quickly and without controversy in the past.

Both parties agreed that courts decision was not prejudicial or terror-related, and that the objections raised in the judgment could be overcome.

FREE officials said they would submit a revised security assessment as part of its new development application.

An independent Waverley Development Assessment Panel will assess the new application.

Ulman welcomed the councils offer to meet again to discuss a new application, and was heartened to hear that a synagogue is an acceptable use for a building on the land.

The meeting today was positive and we look forward to working with Waverley Council to address issues raised in the Land and Environment Court judgement. All going well, we may have development approval in place as soon as December, Ulman said.

Cathy Henderson, Waverley Councils acting general manager, told reporters: We are very pleased that Waverley and FREE have committed to working together constructively. Both parties will follow the legal process for submission and assessment of the new development application and I feel confident that outstanding matters, including security, can be resolved.

Avi Yemini, who was organizing what would have been a protest rally on Aug. 13, accepted the recommendation of both sides to cancel it. I cancelled the rally last name night when I was informed by FREE that an agreement had been reached, Yemini told JTA. Our objective was to ensure the shul was going to be built. It will be.

Vic Alhadeff, CEO of the New South Wales Jewish Board of Deputies, told JTA: It is a positive development that the parties are working together to find a solution, and hopefully they will achieve a mutually satisfactory outcome.

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Sydney synagogue blocked over terror fears will resubmit application - Jewish Telegraphic Agency

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Posted By richards on August 10, 2017

Thursday, August 10, 2017 1:09 p.m. EDT

By Jonathan Stempel

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A Manhattan Jewish congregation known as the oldest in the United States must face a lawsuit claiming it illegally fired a employee after learning she was 19 weeks pregnant when she married, a federal appeals court ruled on Thursday.

The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals revived Alana Shultz's claim that leaders of Congregation Shearith Israel violated her civil rights by ending her 11-year stint as program director, despite trying to reinstate her before the firing took effect.

Shultz said she was fired on July 21, 2015, a day after returning from her honeymoon, during a meeting with synagogue officials who called the firing part of a "restructuring."

Her dismissal was effective on August 15, 2015, but Shultz said the synagogue tried to rescind it 10 days earlier after learning she had hired a lawyer.

A lower court judge said the rescinding meant Shultz had not suffered an "adverse employment action" to support her Title VII claim.

But the appeals court disagreed, saying the initial firing itself constituted the adverse employment action.

It distinguished the case from lesser actions such as placing a counseling letter in an employee's file, or impulsively saying "you're fired" only to backtrack quickly.

Shultz "had ample time to experience the dislocation of losing her employment at a particularly vulnerable time, undertake the effort of retaining counsel, and inform the congregation that she was going to file suit," Circuit Judge Gerard Lynch wrote.

Lawyers for the congregation had no immediate comment.

"No female employee should have to fear termination because she becomes pregnant," Jeanne Christensen, a lawyer for Shultz, said in an email. "We look forward to vindicating our client's rights."

Founded in 1654, Congregation Shearith Israel is also known as the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue, located on West 70th Street and Central Park West.

Shultz met her future husband in 2008 in an elevator after a charity event. They held a sabbath dinner at the synagogue two days before their wedding. ((https://www.theknot.com/us/alana-shultz-and-slava-rubin-jun-2015))

The plaintiff's law firm, Wigdor LLP, has filed unrelated gender bias, racial bias and retaliation lawsuits on behalf of more than 20 current and former Fox News employees.

The case is Shultz v Congregation Shearith Israel of the City of New York et al, 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, No. 16-3140.

(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by Dan Grebler)

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Woman fired after being pregnant at wedding may sue NYC synagogue - WHTC

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Posted By simmons on August 10, 2017

We are all used to reciting this prayer (Psalm 30) around the time of Baruch Sheamar. The recital of Baruch Sheamar in daily Shacharit is a long-established practice. But when did Psalm 30 enter the daily Shacharit?

If one looks at the classic Geonic sources: Siddur of R. Saadia Gaon and Seder R. Amram Gaon, Psalm 30 is not found in their daily Shacharit. Nor is it found in the daily Shacharit of the classic Ashkenazic and Sephardic sources thereafter: Machzor Vitry, Rambam, Tur and Abudarham.

Many years ago, I began to investigate this issue. It turns out that what is written in many of the standard siddur commentaries (e.g., A. Berliner, I. Jacobson, E. Munk, ArtScroll) is wildly speculative and not correct. I could go through all the wrong ideas but I will spare you.

Eventually, I found some sources that did seem to do proper research and address the issue adequately. The best discussion was in a 19th-century work, Tzelota De-Avraham. Based on this, I gave a lecture with the following explanation. The daily recital of Psalm 30 is mentioned by R. Chayim Vital (1542-1620), the principal disciple of the ARI (R. Isaac Luria.) The discussion is found in R. Vitals work Etz HaChayim. R. Vital explains how Psalm 30 (without the first line, but starting with aromimcha) fits into the Kabbalistic view of Pesukei DZimra in his time. For example, both the first and third sentences of the body of Psalm 30 (aromimcha, and Hashem heelita min sheol nafshi) deal with the theme of raising up. Without going into detail, the theme of raising up was an important one to the ARI and to R. Vital in general, and was appropriate to this part of the davening in particular.

So I thought I was done with the issue of how Psalm 30 entered the daily Shacharit. I believed it was first introduced into the daily Shacharit by the ARI. I also found many siddurim that included a brief note stating that the daily recital of Psalm 30 was first introduced by the ARI.

But it turns out I was wrong. The second part of my story begins with a Rabbi Ari Folger, now chief Rabbi of Vienna, who walked into a Shacharit minyan in Basel, Switzerland, and was surprised that Psalm 30 was not recited. This got him interested in the issue. He researched the issue very thoroughly and posted about it in 2009. He found the recital of Psalm 30 in daily Shacharit in a siddur printed at the end of the 15th century in Lisbon, Portugal. This predated the birth of the ARI. (I later discovered that the scholar Moshe Chalamish also found some early references to the daily recital of Psalm 30 in the Sephardic world. See his Chikrei Kabbalah UTefillah, p. 73. The earliest reference he found was from the 13th century.)

Rabbi Folger explained that when R. Vital was writing his comments on the daily recital of Psalm 30 in Shacharit, he was merely commenting on a siddur from 1524 that followed the Sephardic tradition. He was not necessarily recording a custom of the ARI of reciting it nor was he explicitly advocating that the followers of the ARI in Vitals times change their custom and add Psalm 30 to their daily liturgy. He was just explaining why Psalm 30, found in the daily Shacharit in some Sephardic traditions, would fit with the Kabbalistic ideas of the ARI.

Eventually, based on the comments of R. Vital, Psalm 30 did make it into the liturgy of nusach HaARI for daily Shacharit, but it seems to have been a slow process. Rabbi Folger notes that the Siddur HaShelah was published in 1717 and this mainstream Kabbalistic siddur did not yet include the recital of Psalm 30 in Shacharit. Of course, it is possible that some Kabbalists were reciting it orally from the time of R. Vital. Also, perhaps it did make it into some Kabbalistic siddurim in R. Vitals lifetime or shortly thereafter, but we do not have evidence for this yet. But its omission as late as 1717 in the Siddur HaShelah is significant.

Once it made it into the Kabbalistic liturgy of daily Shacharit, it later spread to the Ashkenazic liturgy of daily Shacharit. But at present, our first source for its appearance in daily Shacharit in an Ashkenazic siddur is only in the year 1788.

To sum up, Psalm 30 began to make its way into some Sephardic liturgies in the 13th through the 15th centuries for some unknown reason. (Perhaps the reason was based on Kabbalistic ideas but these would be pre-expulsion Kabbalistic ideas, ideas that preceded the ARI.) Based on R. Vitals comments, it eventually made its way into the liturgy of the Kabbalists who followed nusach HaARI. From there it made its way into some, but not all, Ashkenazic communities. For example, the German Jewish community never adopted it. (It is not found in I. Baer, Siddur Avodat Yisrael.) Also, the Vilna Gaon was against its inclusion.

It is significant that the earliest Sephardic and Kabbalistic sources that record the daily recital of Psalm 30 do not include the title line. Their recital started with aromimcha. Many of the conjectures offered to explain Psalm 30s inclusion into the daily Shacharit had focused on the title line: mizmor shir chanukat habayit and postulated some explanation related to the Beit Hamikdash. But the omission of the first line shows that the reason for its original inclusion in the daily liturgy, when we eventually determine it, will relate instead to the body of the Psalm.

Two remaining points: I have only been discussing the recital of Psalm 30 daily. Its recital on Chanukah has earlier sources. Finally, the recital of Psalm 30 in the daily Shacharit is also recorded in the Yemenite tradition. The sources I have seen have not discussed in detail how old this Yemenite tradition is. It may be as old as the Sephardic tradition or even older.

There is an interesting issue with regard to the text of this Psalm. In most editions of the Tanach today, verse 9 reads: eilecha YHVH ekra, ve-el ADNY etchanan. The rest of this chapter has YHVH nine times. But when we look at some editions of the siddur, particularly ones following nusach HaARI, they print YHVH in both parts of verse 9, making a total of 10 YHVH in the chapter. R. Vital had said that the chapter included YHVH 10 times. Presumably, in his time there was such a Tanach text, even though it apparently was not the majority one. One can even find some texts of Tanach today that have YKHK in both parts of verse 9. For example, this is what is printed in the standard one volume Mikraot Gedolot in which the Neviim and Ketuvim are printed together.

A separate issue involving this Psalm is the relation between the title line mizmor shir chanukat ha-bayit le-David and the body of the Psalm, which has nothing to do with any Temple or dedication. I will discuss this in a future column.

By Mitchell First

Mitchell First is a personal injury attorney and Jewish history scholar. His most recent book is Esther Unmasked: Solving Eleven Mysteries of the Jewish Holidays and Liturgy. He can be reached at [emailprotected] He makes sure to recite Psalm 30 daily, despite the mysterious origin of the practice (or perhaps because of it!).

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When Did 'Mizmor Shir Chanukat HaBayit' Enter Daily Shacharit? - Jewish Link of New Jersey

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Posted By richards on August 10, 2017

A view inside the Touro Synagogue in Newport, Rhode Island. (Wikimedia Commons)

(JTA) The congregation that worships in Americas oldest synagogue building will ask for a rehearing of the case that gave control of its pricey artifacts to the buildings historic trustees.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit in Bostonlast week ruledin favor of Manhattans Shearith Israel, the oldest Jewish congregation in the country, giving it control of the 250-year-old Touro Synagogue in Newport, Rhode Island, the religious home of Congregation Jeshuat Israel.

The decision also gave the Manhattan synagogue ownership of $7.4 million silver Torah ornaments called rimonim that the congregation in Newport had hoped to sell to build an endowment.

Retired U.S. Supreme Court Justice David Souter, who occasionally sits in on cases in the First Circuit and wrote last weeks decision, this week gave the Newport congregation an extension until Sept. 5 to file a rehearing petition at the congregations request, the Associated Press reported.

The case concerns the continued vitality of the congregation that has prayed in that synagogue for well over a hundred years, read the Jeshuat Israel filing, according to the AP.

The historic Touro Synagogue was founded in the 18th century by a Sephardic Jewish community whose numbers declined over the years. Shearith Israel, a Sephardic congregation that was established in 1654 and has worshipped at various sites in Manhattan, has served as trustee of the Touro Synagogue since the early 19thcentury. Jeshuat Israel, founded in 1881 as Ashkenazi immigrants began flooding America from Eastern Europe, has worshipped at Touro for more than a century.

The current dispute began in 2012, when Jeshuat, which still holds regular services at Touro, attempted to sell the silver ornaments to establish an endowment to maintain a rabbi and care for the building, which was designated a national historic site in 1946. Shearith Israel sued to stop the sale and attempted to evict the 120-family congregation from the building.

The rimonim have been on loan from the Touro Synagogue to the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, which had made an offer to purchase them. The museum has since rescinded its offer.

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Newport congregation seeks rehearing in fight over Touro Synagogue ornaments - Jewish Telegraphic Agency

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Posted By richards on August 10, 2017

By Ben Sales, JTA

The story of Americas oldest synagogue, as told by retired Supreme Court Justice David Souter, is the story of American Jewish history.

Touro Synagogue in Newport, Rhode Island, Souter wrote, was built in the 1700s by Sephardic merchants whose community then declined. In the late 1800s, Eastern European Jews arrived in the area, occupied the building and have used it to this day. Since then, heirs of the older Sephardic community have tried to maintain a foothold in the historic synagogue that they consider theirs.

Last Wednesday, Souter awarded a victory to the Sephardim.

Writing an appeals court ruling on a lawsuit over who owns Touro Synagogue, Souter wrote that the building and its centuries-old ritual objects all belong to Congregation Shearith Israel, the historic Sephardic shul on the Upper West Side of Manhattan that is also known as the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue.

The decision reversed an earlier district court decision that gave ownership of the building and the multimillion-dollar artifacts to the group that worships there: the Ashkenazi Congregation Jeshuat Israel.

Its an odd and oddly enduring dispute being played out in an American courtroom. Souters ruling is a primer on nearly 400 years of American Jewish history, and a dispute that touches on historical tensions between Sephardic Jews with roots in Spain, Portugal, North Africa and the Middle East, and Ashkenazi Jews with roots in Eastern Europe.

Touro, built in 1763, has loomed large in American Jewish history. Along with its claim to being the first Jewish building in the country, it also received George Washingtons 1790 letter guaranteeing that the United States gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance.

Shearith Israel, hundreds of miles away, has held title to Touro since the early 1800s, when the shrinking Newport community asked the New York City shul to steward the building and its ritual objects.

Its a fitting relationship: Shearith Israel has a sense of its history as well. Founded in 1654, it bills itself as Americas First Jewish Congregation. (Its current building is its fifth home.) Old-time members still wear top hats, and it still worships in the distinctive Sephardic style passed down from its founders, complete with a cantor in robes and choir. Some Shearith Israel members are descended from the original families that started the congregation four centuries ago.

Jeshuat Israel, founded in 1881 as Ashkenazi immigrants began flooding America from Eastern Europe, has worshipped at Touro for more than a century. For a time, according to Souters ruling, its members occupied the synagogue illegally, praying there even as Shearith Israel sought to keep it closed. Only in 1903, following a court battle, did the two groups sign a contract establishing Shearith Israel as the owner and giving Jeshuat Israel a lease on the building.

According to the terms of the contract, Jeshuat Israel must pray in the Sephardic style despite its Ashkenazi identity.

Seeking to form an endowment, Jeshuat Israel arranged in 2011 to sell a pair of handcrafted, 18th-century silver bulbs, which are used to adorn Torah scrolls, to the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, where they were on loan. But Shearith Israel objected to the $7 million sale, both because Shearith Israel said it owned the ornaments and it claimed the sale violated Jewish law. Jeshuat Israel then sued Shearith Israel, and Shearith Israel countersued both of them seeking legal ownership of the bulbs.

Because the bulbs are meant to rest upon a Torah scroll, Shearith Israel asserted, selling them to a secular institution constitutes an unacceptable decline in holiness.

The district court had ruled in Jeshuat Israels favor on the grounds that it occupies the building and that Shearith Israel had failed in its trustee obligations. But Souter reversed the ruling, partially based on the 1903 contract, writing that Shearith Israel is fee owner of the Touro Synagogue building, appurtenances, fixtures, and associated land.

Now, says Gary Naftalis, Jeshuat Israels lawyer, the congregation is reviewing our legal options going forward. Jeshuat Israel could ask the appeals courts full panel of judges to review the ruling, and may petition to have the case heard by the U.S. Supreme Court.

Shearith Israel President Louis Solomon said in a statement that the congregation is gratified by the courts decision and, as a result, has been restored to the position it has held for centuries. The statement added that the congregation hopes to move forward from the court ruling, which enables two great Jewish congregations to regain the harmony that existed between them before this unfortunate episode began five years ago.

But even as Shearith Israel has retained ownership of Americas oldest synagogue, it no longer reflects the community that American Jews have become. The families who founded Americas first Jewish congregations exiles from Spain and Portugal via Amsterdam, London, Brazil and the Caribbean likely would not identify with the largely Ashkenazi American Jewish community of 350 years later.

Even Shearith Israel has gone with the flow, hiring a rabbi from a renowned Ashkenazi rabbinical dynasty, Meir Soloveichik, in 2013.

Still, part of the New York congregations appeal is its anachronism led by a cantor and choir in an era of lay leadership, formal in an era of casual dress, Sephardic in an Ashkenazi-led community. And now, even if it no longer owns the American Jewish present, it can say that it still holds title to the American Jewish past.

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Who owns America's oldest shul? - The Jewish Star

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Posted By simmons on August 10, 2017

PARTICIPANTS IN the annual Hebron march show the flag, with the Tomb of the Patriarchs in the background yesterday. (photo credit:TOVAH LAZAROFF)

As a new immigrant, Yigal Naouri first marched through the streets of Hebron in 1987 with some 500 French Jews in a show of solidarity with the fledgling Jewish community.

Thirty years later, the 49-year-old Jerusalem resident again paraded through Hebron, this time with more than 1,000 French Jews under the hot August sun on Wednesday, and to the beat of loud religious music.

This is the type of event that only the French know how to do, he said, adding that he is proud to have participated with his two teenage children.

The annual parades 30th anniversary took place in the 50th year since the Six Day War, which placed the city under Israeli control.

This year it was organized by a newly created Israeli-French organization called Israel is Forever.

The marchers turned the event into a protest statement against last months World Heritage Committee vote to inscribe the Tomb of the Patriarchs, and Hebrons Old Town surrounding it, to the State of Palestine.

They also wanted to show solidarity with 15 families who illegally moved into a three-story structure called Beit Hamachpela last month.

The families are in the midst of attempting to register their purchase claim with the Civil Administration for Judea and Samaria.

They have asked the government to allow them to remain until they have authenticated the sale and registered the property.

Shlomo Levinger, a spokesman for the 15 families from Beit Hamachpela, recalled how in 1968 his father, Rabbi Moshe Levinger, first tried to bring Jews back to the city they fled in August 1929, after Arab rioters killed 67 people.

We bought Beit Hamachpela, and we will continue to redeem other properties in Hebron, he said.

Coalition chairman David Bitan (Likud), who has thrown his support behind Beit Hamachpela, spoke to the group after the march.

The contemptible decision of UNESCO completely ignored the Jewish peoples historical connection to the city where our forefathers are buried, Bitan said. It reinforces the need and importance of your presence here. There is no more symbolic moment than now to appeal to those of you who have not yet immigrated to Israel, that now is the time to return home, to the only true home of all the Jews.

Yaakov Hagoel, vice chairman of the World Zionist Organization and chairman of World Likud, told The Jerusalem Post that he had come from Netanya to join the group.

These are people who could have been at the beach or in air-conditioned rooms with their iPads, and instead they are marching here with Israeli flags in the midst of Hebron, where it all began for the Jewish people, he said.

In the evening, near the checkpoint by the Tomb of the Patriarchs, border police officers arrested a Palestinian man, 25, who held a knife and whom they feared was about to stab them.

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'French Jews in Hebron best answer to UNESCO' - The Jerusalem Post

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Posted By admin on August 10, 2017

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A bride and her grandfather dance at an ultra-Orthodox wedding in Jerusalem in 2012.

The grand rabbi, or rebbe, of the Boyan sect of ultra-Orthodox Jews is offering $4,000 to anyone who suggests a successful match between older singles in their community, the Israeli news site Arutz Sheva reported Wednesday.

The older designation applies to single men over the age of 23 and single women over the age of 21 often derogatorily referred to as damaged goods.

The rebbe of the Belz Hasidic sect, which numbers over 7,000 families across the world, recently adopted a $1,000 finders fee for matches of older singles as well. The Skver sect, in the U.S., gives $3,000 for similar matches.

The Boyan rebbe, Rabbi Nachum Dov Brayer, announced the new fee at a meeting with the communitys matchmakers in Jerusalem on Monday.

Contact Ari Feldman at feldman@forward.com or on Twitter @aefeldman.

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Ultra-Orthodox Matchmakers Will Get $4000 For Pairing 'Damaged Goods' Over 21 - Forward

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Posted By admin on August 10, 2017

The owner of PokerStars, which recently decided to rebrand itself, is writing a new chapter of the companys history with a more than 200 percent increase in its second quarter net income.

The former Amaya Inc., now called the Stars Group Inc., announced that its net income jumped 213 percent to US$70.5 million in April to June 2017 period compared to US$22.5 million it posted during the same period last year.

Stars Group has made a turnaround this year after a tumultuous 2016 when it is plagued with weak earnings and after its founder David Baazov has been dragged into the insider trading controversy.

To strip off their tainted image, the company decided to drop Amaya and change it to Stars Group, packed their bags to Toronto from Pointe-Claire, Quebec, hired new executives, and expanded its game offerings other than poker.

Rafi Ashkenazi, chief executive officer of Stars Group, pointed out that their gamble is paying-off with more than double income.

Our evolution and transformation into The Stars Group continued as we completed our name change and head office move, while our second quarter saw the strengthening of our core senior management team and continued solid revenue growth led by our real money online casino offering, Ashkenazi said in a statement.

Breaking the Stars Groups data further, it looked like their decision was right to rely less on its poker and expand its offerings. Real-money online poker revenues for the quarter were $202.9 million, or a decrease of approximately 5.9% year-over-year.

The data of its casino and sportsbooks revenues, however, tell a different story. Star Group reported that the combined real-money online casino and sportsbook revenues in the second quarter grew 50.2 percent to $89.6 million.

Total revenues for the quarter increased approximately 6.8% year-over-year. Excluding the impact of year-over-year changes in foreign exchange rates, total revenues for the quarter would have increased by approximately 7.9%.

The company also announced that it estimates 2017 revenue, reported in U.S. currency, will be at the upper-end of its previous range of between $1.2 billion and $1.26 billion.

It also has revised 2017 estimated adjusted earnings range upward to between $413 million and $437 million, from $400 million to $430 million.

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PokerStars owner turns a new leaf with Q2 profit jump - CalvinAyre.com

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Posted By richards on August 10, 2017

The Off-Broadway musical "Amerike - The Golden Land" wraps up its seven-week run on Sunday, August 20.

Having begun performances at The Museum of Jewish Heritage, 36 Batttery Place, on July 4, it will have played 42 performances over seven weeks. The National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene's (NYTF) timely immigration musical opened Off-Broadway - fittingly, in the shadow of the Statue of Liberty - on July 10.

A musical journey through the American immigrant experience from the 1880s until the close of WWII, "Amerike - The Golden Land" depicts the challenges faced by the vast majority of all American immigrants - including poverty, racism and exclusion. But it also clearly illustrates the interesting give-and-take process of cultures from abroad impacting American popular culture.

During the show's run, NYTF hosted the first Immigration Arts Summit in July. Bringing together prominent New York arts organizations that present work inspired by cultures from abroad, the conference resulted in the formation of an Immigrant Arts Coalition.

"Planning is underway for New York's leading cultural arts organizations to work together under the Immigrant Arts Coalition banner," says NYTF CEO Christopher Massimine. "A network of arts organizations and individual artists, the Coalition will share advocacy, audience development and other resources, and collaborate on shared programming."

Directed by Drama Desk Award-nominee Bryna Wasserman, with movement and staging by Chita Rivera Award nominee Merete Muenter, and music direction and arrangements by Zalmen Mlotek (NYTF's artistic director), this re-conceived 2017 production of Mlotek and Moishe Rosenfeld's "Amerike - The Golden Land" (originally "The Golden Land") set out to make the open-hearted point that the Jewish immigration story stands, fundamentally, for all immigrant communities.

Spanning popular songs from the 1880s to the mid-20th century, "Amerike - The Golden Land" recreates the sights and sounds of New York City as it welcomed waves of Jewish immigrants. The production is presented in an authentic American immigrant Yiddish (that often mixed both languages), supported by English and Russian supertitles.

"Amerike - The Golden Land's" cast of 12 features Glenn Seven Allen; Alexandra Frohlinger; the international klezmer star Daniel Kahn; Dani Marcus; Stephanie Lynne Mason and David Perlman. The show's ensemble includes Maya Jacobson, Alexander Kosmowski, Raquel Nobile, Isabel Nesti, Grant Richards, and Bobby Underwood. Jessica Rose Futran and Christopher Tefft are the designated principal understudies.

The show's popular klezmer band features "Zisl" Slepovitch on reeds; Jordan Hirsch -- trumpet; Katsumi Ferguson -- violin; Dmitry Ishenko -- bass; Daniel Linden -- trombone; Sean Perham -- percussion; Zalmen Mlotek -- piano. Andrew Wheeler is the associate music director. The production design team includes Yael Lubetzky (lighting); Izzy Fields (costumes); Jason Courson (scenic and projection design); Patrick Calhoun (sound design), and Colleen Lynch (props). The production stage manager is Eileen Haggerty.

The Drama Desk-winning NYTF -- now in its 103rd consecutive season (and its third at its new permanent home at the Museum of Jewish Heritage) -- brings a rich cultural heritage to life on stage-one that was nearly destroyed some 75 years ago. NYTF was the associate producer of Broadway's "Indecent," winner of two Tony Awards including direction, which closed on August 6.

Tickets, which are $35 to $60, are on sale now at http://www.nytf.org and by phone at 866-811-4111. For more information call the National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene at 212/213-2120, ext. 206, or visit http://www.nytf.org.

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National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene's AMERIKE - THE GOLDEN LAND to Close This Month - Broadway World

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Posted By richards on August 10, 2017

Rabbi Aaron and Rebbetzin Malkah Rakeffet meet with Rebbetzin Dara Goldschmidt, who heads the Eitz Chayim School in Moscow. Rebbetzin Goldschmidt is the wife of the Chief Rabbi of Moscow.

The Rakeffets enjoy the Torah Mitzion graduation cruise, which was attended by 130 male and female university students in Russia.

Rabbi Aaron Rakeffet and his wife Malkah are no strangers to kiruv in Russia. In fact, in the 1980s, while the Iron Curtain was up, they made multiple trips there on behalf of the Mossad, posing as Americans from Queens and traveling with American passports, even though they had made aliyah many years before, from the Bronx! They, and the 200 others they trained over 10 years, worked to keep the spark of Jewish life alive in synagogues and homes during Communist rule, when Jewish study and observing the mitzvot were strictly prohibited.

Shvut Ami was founded in the aftermath of the fall of the Iron Curtain, to help bring Jewish life back to the country. The Rakeffets were founding board members of the organization and they have been involved ever since. Rabbi Rakeffet is also known by the last name Rakeffett-Rothkoff, after Hebraizing his name upon his aliyah, and is Professor of Rabbinic Literature at Yeshiva Universitys Caroline and Joseph S. Gruss Institute in Jerusalem. He is an extraordinarily well-known scholar, author, biographer and teacher. He was also a student of Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik during the Ravs prime teaching years, and is considered to have been the Ravs first biographer, having written the two-volume series The Rav: The World of Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, among many other books and collections. Rabbi Rakeffets extremely accessible talks and shiurim are among the most downloaded on YUTorah.org.

In the 25 years since the curtain came down, Shvut Ami, and its worldwide fundraising partners, which include American Friends of Shvut Ami, headed by Bergenfields Rabbi Dovid Cofnas, have worked intensively to bring Jewish vibrancy and resources back to the former Soviet Union (FSU). While there are many hundreds of thousands of Jews in the FSU, the vast majority of whom are still unaffiliated, the Rakeffets bore witness in their trip last month to what they called a miraculous resurgence of Jewish life in Moscow, a city they last visited in the 1980s. Kosher bakeries, butchers and restaurants are now abundant, Jewish life and learning is progressing for both children and adults. The community is growing and alive with Jewish schools, Jewish weddings, brittot and other Jewish lifecycle events. Today there are 16 shuls in the city of Moscow alone.

Rabbi Rakeffet explained that there are three major kiruv communities working in Moscow: Chabad, under the auspices of Chabad Chief Rabbi Beryl Lazar (working with 60 percent of the affiliated Jews); 10 organizations under the auspices of non-Chabad Chief Rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt that are assisted by Shvut Ami (approximately 30 to 35 percent); and the Bronnaya Synagogue Center under the auspices of Rabbi Yitzchak Kogan (5 to 10 percent).

Shvut Ami trains and places permanent rabbinic staff all over the FSU, and also trains and sends 25 shlichim (emissaries) annually who travel back and forth from Israel. Both groups act as teachers, rabbis and community leaders in whatever capacity required. The organization also provides schools with curricula, answers shailot, provides support to alumni and non-alumni alike and runs teacher-training seminars. We are very proud to be able to say that almost 70 percent of the Russian staff of these 10 organizations were trained by Shvut Ami, said Rabbi Cofnas.

To highlight just two of the 10 organizations: Shvut Amis teachers run Torah study sessions for Torah Mitzions Stars program, which if you look at the picture [on a slide Rabbi Rakeffet was showing], you will see that the students look like every other Jewish boy in any American yeshiva, Rabbi Rakeffet said. He added that many of them have had to go through brit milah as young adults due to the various issues with lineage and the glaring lack of ketubot that Russian Jews have experienced the result of, due to the Iron Curtains restrictions. Shvut Ami also runs a Yeshiva Birthright program to Israel that is designed to inspire future Jewish leaders in the FSU and to encourage aliyah.

Shvut Ami also provides staffing, support and advice to the Eitz Chaim School in Moscow, which has 600 students in K-12. The senior staff includes a non-Jew who makes sure that the schools secular program is up to standard with the Russian secular school system. She has such ahavas yehudi (love for the Jews), you wouldnt believe it, Rabbi Rakeffet said.

Rabbi Rakeffet explained that Shvut Amis efforts are only beginning, and there is an immense need to expand and continue the work. In Moscow alone, where there are 250,000 Jews, only 15,000 to 20,000 Jews are being inspired and educated by all three communities together, accounting for a maximum of eight percent of the population, said Malkah Rakeffet. Now we can start to understand and appreciate why there is a close to 90 percent intermarriage rate. We have to do more. We are running out of time, she said.

Even though the Jews of the FSU are out of sight and out of mind, said Rabbi Cofnas, we have to remember that these are some of the most urgent and critical outreach efforts in the world right now. Ninety-five percent of the Jews that our teachers are educating have intermarried parents, but they have a spark of interest that, with Gods help, we have been able to nurture very successfully.

People sometimes ask me why I spend all my time fighting assimilation and intermarriage in the FSU when there are so many people on our home turf that need help, said Rabbi Cofnas. But the answer is simple. The Jews of the FSU had their heritage ripped away from them and now they want it back. They never had a choice so now we have a responsibility to help them.

Rabbi Rakeffet asked the community to support Shvut Ami with donations so they can continue the critical work that is going on to bring back Jewish souls. For more information or to donate online, click here for Paypal (https://tinyurl.com/yctyk3eg) or please email [emailprotected] or call 201-575-9080.

By Elizabeth Kratz

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Witnessing the Rebirth of Jewish Life in Russia: Rabbi Aaron and Mrs. Rakeffet Speak in Teaneck About Shvut Ami - Jewish Link of New Jersey

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