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ADL Co-Signs Pro-Islamist Letter w/BDS, Iran Lobby and Pro-Hamas Groups – FrontPage Magazine

Posted By on June 22, 2017


FrontPage Magazine
ADL Co-Signs Pro-Islamist Letter w/BDS, Iran Lobby and Pro-Hamas Groups
FrontPage Magazine
The ADL signed on to a Muslim Advocates letter attacking Act for America's anti-Sharia marches. But Act for America, unlike many of the groups that co-signed the letter, is pro-Israel. Meanwhile the ADL's co-signers included CAIR, an Islamist ...
Ex-journalist admits to making Jewish bomb threatsThe Philadelphia Tribune

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ADL Co-Signs Pro-Islamist Letter w/BDS, Iran Lobby and Pro-Hamas Groups - FrontPage Magazine

Fault Lines Episode 11: IfNotNow and Zionism Today – Forward

Posted By on June 21, 2017

The Israeli occupation in the West Bank has polarized the American Jewish community. One demonstration of this fact is in IfNotNow, who has emerged as one of the most influential movements on the Jewish left. Members of IfNotNow are expressing their disdain for Israeli policy by actively pushing American Jews to stop supporting the occupation.

In the 11th episode of Fault Lines first season, Daniel Gordis and Peter Beinart discuss IfNotNow, its protest at AIPAC, and its implication for the future of the American Jewish community. Peter Beinart has written about IfNotNow in the past, from a complimentary and critical perspective, and espouses a generally favorable opinion towards the young group. At the beginning of this podcast, Daniel Gordis calls them naive, and stated that he was infuriated by IfNotNows actions at the AIPAC Policy Conference.

Listen to Fault Lines Season 1, Episode 11 on Spreaker.

While listening along to the podcast, you may be confused about certain points that Gordis and Beinart bring up. IfNotNows website shows their platform, their blog, and their future actions.

Inside of the building that IfNotNow was protesting, AIPAC held their annual policy conference to bring people together to demonstrate the full scale of pro-Israel activism in three powerful days, according to their website.

Ahad Haam and Theodore Herzls battle for Zionism is widely discussed among Zionists. To understand their battle, Mosaic wrote extensively on the approaches to Zionism that each took, and how it affected the current state.

Do you believe the two-state solution is still viable? Let us know in the comments section.

Let the world know what you think about Fault Lines rate our episodes, and share your thoughts in a review on iTunes.

Download episodes here. Subscribe to Fault Lines and listen anytime.

Check out our Fault Lines episode guide here.

Support for Fault Lines comes from Edward Blank, whose generosity makes this program possible, and from readers like you.

The views and opinions expressed in this article are the authors own and do not necessarily reflect those of the Forward.

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Fault Lines Episode 11: IfNotNow and Zionism Today - Forward

I have always had a crush on rabbis. – Tablet Magazine

Posted By on June 21, 2017

I have always had a crush on rabbis.

The first time, it was my own father. As a little boy, I used to lovingly stroke his round face, his beard. I wanted to be like him in ways both ordinary and sublime. If he liked mustard, I liked mustard. If he liked Chevrolets and baseball, I liked them, too. But it extended to his culture and religion: If he spoke Yiddish, then so would I. If he loved the Talmud and the synagogue, I would, too.

My crush on my father has been complexpainful but also rewardingand it has lasted decades longer than any crush should. But it was not the last time I had a crush on a rabbi; I would have many more.

When I was 12, I would occasionally visit one of my close relatives, who was not only a rabbi but a well-known Hasidic rebbe who had grown up in Warsaw. At 87, he was diminutive and modest, but definitely a holy man, steeped in Talmudic study and Hasidic thought. It was as though the soft light of an oil menorah shone on his face. My father told me he was close to God. After the hellish ending of a thousand years of Polish Jewry, he helped to ease a broken people into their new American land with soft hands, soft words, and velvet injunctions.

I was his named for his father, Alter Yisrael Shimon, who was himself one of the great rebbes of pre-war Poland. Just carrying his name added several inches to my height. I briefly flirted with the idea of dressing the way he didin a kapote and a spodekbut for a young American boy, such a thing would have been preposterous.

When I invited him to my bar mitzvah, this sage from another century said the most thrilling words to me I would ever hear: Vos trakht men, du kenst halten mir avek? What makes you think that you could keep me away?

Other rabbis I had as my teachers were the objects of my intense gaze and inquisitive love. I observed everything about them. Some wore a fedora, a brim-down hat with knaitches, or dimples, in the crown; others wore a brim-up hat with no dimples; some, a homburg. One of my teachers wore a Lithuanian-style kapote with buttons in the backbut they were plain buttons, not the Hasidic-style satin-covered ones. Their shoes: cap-toes, almost never wingtips. On Yom Kippur I would look to see what brand of sneakers they wore. The most pious, aloof from any trend or style, wore plain white Keds.

I first heard the word crush from my older sister, Malka, when I was about 7. She teased: You have a crush on Barbara, one of the neighborhood girls. I had this strangeto me, incomprehensibledesire to be near Barbara. Of course there were physical sensations, too, but what really mystified me was how Barbara got in my head, my mind.

My crushes on rabbis were different from my romantic crushes, like the one I had on Barbara. They were less pungently felt in the body, but they were deeper and longer-lasting.

These men had magic. (They always had something to say, even when there was nothing to say!) They had knowledge. (They positively leapt over the ocean of Talmud and scripture, always ready with the handy allusion or reference.) I had something blessed going with them: I could please them by being a student and wanting to learn, and I could be pleased by them because I allowed them the pleasure of teaching me. To be able to please and to be pleased by someone is the building block of the soul. We held for each other a pleasing mirror. If I was a student, then they were rabbis; if they were rabbis, then I was a student. I had a role in life, and in that role I had the power, in a small way, to bestow a role on them.

***

One of my teachersone of the rabbis I had a crush ontaught me how to write. When he saw that I wasnt paying attention to his Talmudic lectures, instead of rebuking me, he asked me to write them down. I didand I did a terrible job. He went over the work with me many times until he felt that my notes did him justice. Ultimately, he was very pleased, to the extent that he gave me a vigorous bear-hug that I never forgot. Yisrael, he told me, you know how to write. I was pleased, too. I had acquired a new skill. I was in high school, but I knew then that I would become a writerbecause he said so.

I became a scribeor rather, a transcriber; a recorder not only of the rabbis lectures (say, the shav shmaytsas interpretation of Talmudical exegesis) but of the words and movements of the teachers themselves. The role of observer was in my bones from the start, but if that werent enough, the Talmud itself is replete with stories of how one must traipse after the rabbieven to observe him in secret in order to learn how to act and behave. (The Talmud relates that one student sneaked into the privy and another hid under his rabbis bed to see how his teacher made love; when discovered, he said, This [too] is Torah and I must learn it.)

One time late at night when I was 16, in our yeshiva camp, I took a walk. In one of the sheds on the edges of camp, there was a pingpong table, and my rebbe was playing with his friend. They were both brilliant minds who spent all the days of their years in the bais medrash, yet here they were playing pingpong. And they were quite good, smacking the ball back and forth. It was a tied game. My rebbe was a scruffy-looking mana bear, or a werewolf, with the body hair of an Esau but a disposition that was more like the tent-dweller Jacob. At the end of the match, they embraced something fiercea kind of male love that I had never quite seen before. Their embrace was vigorous and tender, forceful, libidinal. Decades later and I can still feel the heat. I was shocked at the rawness, the wildness of their freedom. They thought they were unobserved, yet I observed them. It was a wonderful sight for me to see.

Its not that I thought these rabbis had an ear to God, but that they explained him, interpreted him. There would be an afterlifethey promised it. There would be a resurrection of the deadthey promised it. To me, they were all of the same personmen always, bearded mostly. They did what rabbis do: They studied, they taught, they gave speeches, they delivered moral verdicts. How do we understand this verse, rabbi? They had an answer even where there was no answer. They didnt invent the Word, but they knew how to interpret the Word. Read it this way; no, read it this way. They had the power to prohibit, to permit, to approve, to disapprove. It is said, Yesh koach byad chachamin laakor davar min HaTorah rabbis can uproot, even un-write what was written in the Torah.

My love affair with rabbis was so great that when I was a teenager, I remember saying to my friends, Im not sure I believe in God, but I do believe in rabbis!

***

It was the famous psychoanalyst D.W. Winnicott who suggested that the mother is the infants mirror and to an extent, the baby mirrors the mother. They see a reflection of themselves. They each have internalized a space for how they look in the eyes of the other. I realized as an adult, when I began to study the great psychoanalytic master, that for many years I had mirrored and mimicked rabbis, their formalities, their archaic and beautiful pronouncements, their sense of (necessary) grandiosity and theatrical flourish as though they had an audience for every utterance.

Over time, I contracted the blessed ills of a normal life, for which there was no remedy. I experienced urgencies, dire urgencies, to begin a search for my own wildness in matters of love, life, and money. My search for my wildness shook up this neat arrangement as dutiful chronicler and copier of the court. Like Jim Casy, the character in The Grapes of Wrath, being all full up with Jesus made me want to figure things out on my own.

Yet I couldnt quite divest myself of my deep and enduring rabbi-crushes. I wanted to be like them even as I had my own urgencies I couldnt ignore. When I ventured out to college and eventually work, I still found myself unconsciously mimicking rabbis. I might make a simple statement, but it would come off rabbinic. I might say stupidly to a girl, If you find yourself amenable to going out on a date with me, I would be pleased to buy you food for supper!

I would cringe as I heard myself say this, knowing that this was rabbinic language. Rabbis may want intimacy, but they create distance with language, as though they live above the tides of human emotion.

For example, years ago, I knocked on the door of my rosh hayeshiva. Instead of saying, I cant talk now; come back later, he said, I am not in a posture of readiness to speak with you, but I do want to speak with you; however, you will find that I am not in the usual habit of being available to speak before 5. Posture of readiness? Usual habit? This was official-speak, the language of eternal contingency, a conflicted intimacy, as if he was narrating his own existence.

Looking back, youthful crushes seemed to have been a shortcut, a kind of quick bridge to another person or emotional destination. They worked at great speed (with or without anyones consent) to attach me to someone or something. As a man in middle-age, I look back approvingly at these dramatic connections with rabbis; vestiges of them still reign, even now.

For example, every evening I am part of a chabura, a study group in Talmud in my neighborhood. On Thursday nights, when our leader, a man of my own age, brings us into the deep waters of rabbinical discussion, suddenly, he is aglow. I watch his face, reflected off the fluorescent bulbs, as he dives down 20,000 leagues to bring up a pearlsomething never-before-said or heard, a khidush. On this beautiful man with his back shaped like a viola or a cello, with his Russian-Jewish eyes, and a forehead like a challah lightly brushed with egg, I have a transitory crush every week. How could you not?

***

As a young child, like many children, I had great religious feeling. I spoke to rabbis and to God. I had one God and I had one father, whom I loved and worshipped. Though these feelings were intenseand probably more intense than most other children experiencedI could not avoid noticing that something was missing. In simple terms, I did not have much of a self. I felt it, though, of course, would not have had the words for it at that time. I must have been aware of this starting at age 7. It would make perfect sense, looking back; that it was precisely then I experienced my first crush on a girl. I needed a connection with a girl to reach places I could not get to through attachment to my father and his rabbinical ways alonethough over a lifetime, each would make the other shine more brightly.

Yet it was my early crush on my father and on other rabbinical figures that made for the better use of my later work at psychoanalysis and healing others. Its raw power brought me to the point of intersection with myself, the other and the unknowable between us. It might easily have expired in the suffering of adult life or died in the dubious march toward worldliness and sophistication. I am thankful that this crush on my father survives, and even today raises me up as a thinking Jewish human being.

***

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Simon Yisrael Feuerman, a psychotherapist in New Jersey, is director of The New Center for Advanced Psychotherapy Studies. He is also author of the Yiddish novelYankel and Leah.

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I have always had a crush on rabbis. - Tablet Magazine

Curious about Kosher? Head to this synagogue’s barbeque – WLWT Cincinnati

Posted By on June 21, 2017

Curious about Kosher? Head to this synagogue's barbeque

Updated: 11:56 PM EDT Jun 20, 2017

Curious about Kosher? Head to this synagogue's barbeque

WEBVTT MEGAN: HAVE YOU EVER BEENCURIOUS ABOUT KOSHER?THE NORTHERN HILLS SYNAGOGUE ISJOINING US.MATT LEE IS JOINING US.. YOU HAVE BEEN INFORMING ME THELAST FEW MINUTESWE'RE GOING TO START OFF WITHWHAT THIS EVENT IS ALL ABOUT.TELL US ALL ABOUT IT.>> NEXT SUNDAY MORNING FROM 11A.M. TO 3 P.M. AT OUR SYNAGOGUEAT 5714 -- A HALF-MILE WEST OFI-71, WE ARE HAVING THE RIVERCITY KOSHER BARBECUE FESTIVAL.WE WILL HAVE FOUR DIFFERENTKINDS OF BARBECUE MADE WITHBRISKET OR CHICKEN.WE WILL HAVE HOT DOGS FOR THE KIDS AND A VEGETARIAN OPTION.WE'LL HAVE FA FUN ZONE FOR KIDS.WE WILL HAVE DANCING WITH THECINCINNATI -- EASTERN EUROPEANDANCING, ISRAELI DANCING.WE WILL TEACH DANCING AND WEWILL HAVE A BLUE GRASS BAND.AND WE WILL DO SQUARE DANCING.MEGAN: NO DISCRIMINATION IN THISEVENT.>> EVERYONE IS INVITED.THE WHOLE POINT OF THIS EVENT ISTO TEACH OUR COMMUNITY WHATMAKES FOOD KOSHER.MEGAN: WHAT IS IT?>> KOSHER IS DESCRIBED IN THEBIBLE, NOT ACTUALLY CALLEDKOSHER.WHAT WE'VE CALLED IT.THERE IS A LIST OF FOODS YOU CANAND CANNOT EAT AND FOODS YOU CANAND CANNOT EAT TOGETHER.YOU CANNOT EAT DAIRY AND MEATTOGETHER.MEGAN: INTERESTING.>> THAT MEANS EVERY MEAL WE HAVETO CHOOSE WHETHER IT IS MEAT ORDAIRY.IT CREATES A CONNECTION TO GODAT EVERY MEAL.WE MAKE A CHOICE AND IT MAKES USMORE CONSCIOUS THAT WE ARE HOLYPEOPLE.MEGAN: THAT IS INCREDIBLE.YOU'RE ALSO TRYING TO GET PEOPLETO UNDERSTAND YOUR CULTURE.A TOUR WILL BE THERE AS WELL.>> WE WILL GET TOURS OF OURSYNAGOGUE.IF YOU WANT TO SEE WHAT IS INTHE SCROLL THAT WE READ EVERYSATURDAY MORNING.THE WHOLE POINT IS TO MAKE ACONNECTION TO OUR NEIGHBORS.SO, EVEN IF YOU ARE NOT JEWISH.OF ANOTHER RELIGION, PLEASECOME, BECAUSE WE WANT TO BUILDBRIDGES.MEGAN: THANK YOU SO MUCH.THE RIVER CITY KOSHER BARBECUETAKES PLACE NEXT SUNDAY, JUNE 25AT THE NORTHERN HILLS SYNAGOGUE.TO R

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Curious about Kosher? Head to this synagogue's barbeque - WLWT Cincinnati

Cookbook Author Joan Nathan July 11 at Adas Yoshuron Synagogue – Bangor Daily News

Posted By on June 21, 2017

ROCKLAND, Maine Joan Nathan, author of 11 cookbooks and noted food historian, will speak at 6 p.m. Tuesday, July 11, at Adas Yoshuron Synagogue, 50 Willow St. Her talk will be followed by a tasting of foods from her newest cookbook, King Solomons Table.The event is free and open to the public. Books will be available for purchase. Reservations are requestedinfo@adasyoshuron.org;207-594-4523.

King Solomons Table,which was released in April, looks at Jewish food from countries all over the world. According to Nathan, King Solomon is reputed to have sent emissaries and traders to all corners of the ancient world. They returned with spices and edibles that Solomons cooks used to prepare food for his table. This book goes to places around the world where Jews have adapted their customs and the foods they brought with them in their travels to their new homes, blending in new local ingredients.

As she does in so many of her books, Nathan tells the reader/cook the story of each recipe; how it was developed, and where it comes from. She will tell some of these stories in her talk, and will consider the role of food in the cultures of the people she visited and with whom she talked and ate.

Nathan earlier books have won a series of awards, among them two James Beard Awards and two IACP awards for Best Cookbook of the Year. Shewas the host of the nationally syndicated PBS television series Jewish Cooking in America with Joan Nathan, and is a frequent contributor toTheNew York Times, Tabletmagazine, and other publications. She received an honorary doctorate from the Spertus Institute of Jewish Culture in Chicago and was Guest Curator of Food Culture USA for the 2005 Smithsonian Folklife Festival.

The tastings after her talk at Adas Yoshuron will include dishes from the Far East, Middle East, Europe and the Americas, prepared by members of the Food in Jewish Culture group at the Synagogue.

This post was contributed by a community member. Submit your news

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Cookbook Author Joan Nathan July 11 at Adas Yoshuron Synagogue - Bangor Daily News

LES Synagogue Destroyed By Fire Might Be Completely Demolished – Patch.com

Posted By on June 21, 2017


Patch.com
LES Synagogue Destroyed By Fire Might Be Completely Demolished
Patch.com
Mendel Greenbaum, the rabbi of the Beth Hamedrash Hagodol Synagogue, is seeking to demolish the remainders of the building, the Lo Down was first to report. The synagogue, located at 60 Norfolk St., had sat vacant and in disrepair for years before a ...

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LES Synagogue Destroyed By Fire Might Be Completely Demolished - Patch.com

Hospitals, synagogue trip over each other in expansion plan – Scranton Times-Tribune

Posted By on June 21, 2017

Commonwealth Healths plans to connect its two Scranton hospitals once included simplifying a long-standing parking arrangement between Moses Taylor Hospital and one of its neighbors.

However, talks of a land swap between Temple Israel of Scranton and its hospital neighbor fell apart when neither could come to an agreement.

Commonwealths plans for major construction enshroud the synagogue, which was built in 1927, at East Gibson Street and Monroe Avenue.

The synagogue also owns 13,000 square feet, or three-tenths of an acre, that compose two parcels on the opposite end of the block at Monroe and Pine Street. Both the hospital and the congregation use it for parking.

Officials with Temple Israel and Moses Taylor Hospital have a long-standing deal, one that predates Commonwealths acquisition of the hospital in 2012.

As part of the deal, the hospital maintains the dirt lot for its staff. The congregation uses it for special events and on weekends.

A deal would have the two swapping property, with the hospital deeding its lot at Monroe and East Gibson, directly in front of the temple.

In turn, the temple would relinquish the unpaved lots on Pine to the hospital.

However, nothing ever came of it.

After several years of discussions with the synagogue regarding the purchase or swap of properties, Commonwealth Health and Temple Israel were unable to reach an agreement, Commonwealth spokeswoman Renita Fennick said in a statement. We have a good working relationship with Temple Israel and synagogue President Lou Nivert and our hope is that we and they will continue to be good neighbors.

Commonwealth Health is planning an $80 million project to consolidate its services between Moses Taylor and nearby Regional Hospital of Scranton, which is two blocks away.

As part of the project, Commonwealth will recast Regional with a new main entrance, build a new medical offices building along East Gibson Street and, most notably, connect the two hospitals with a bridge.

Starting in 2012, Commonwealth began snapping up homes and leveling them in the two blocks between its hospitals.

In April, the health system unveiled plans to physically connect the two structures. However, drawings show the synagogues lots and the offices of heart surgeon Dr. Lear Von Koch on Madison Avenue undisturbed.

As part of its legacy agreement, the hospital also will continue to let the congregation use its parking garage during holidays and special events

Temple members worried that Regional would relocate its emergency room entrance near the synagogue, which could be disruptive, especially during services, Nivert said.

Any religious institution that all of the sudden finds itself next to a hospital gets apprehensive because they worry about the traffic and looking for a place to park, he said.

However, emergency entrances will be on Jefferson Avenue, plans show , an equivalent four blocks from the temple.

Like Commonwealth, Nivert said the temple wants to be a good neighbor.

We dont consider them bad neighbors or anything, but we couldnt come to an agreement with them, he said.

Contact the writer:

joconnell@timesshamrock.com;

570-348-9131;

@jon_oc on Twitter

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Hospitals, synagogue trip over each other in expansion plan - Scranton Times-Tribune

Demolition Sought for LES Synagogue; New Oddfellows and Littleneck Locations – Bedford + Bowery

Posted By on June 21, 2017

Lil Nugs

June 20, 2017 By Jenna Marotta

A retired police officer who allegedly shot and killed his Greenpoint Avenue neighbor in March, Gene Barrett, will plead guilty, according to his attorney. [DNA Info]

Norfolk Streets Beth Hamedrash Hagodol Synagogue, the site of a stability-compromising fire five weeks ago, will be demolished if Rabbi Mendel Greenbaum has his way. [The Lo-Down]

Read an update on Market Hall, the 150K-square-foot food hall (and future home of the Essex Street Market) at the now-under-construction Essex Crossing development. [NY Times]

Preview the fare at Cervos, an Iberian eatery opening imminently on Canal Street. [Gothamist]

Oddfellows Ice Cream Co.s nearly-ready Lafayette Street outpost will round out a trio of scoop shops (the others are in Williamsburg and the East Village). [Bowery Boogie]

Meanwhille, the third venture in the Littleneck empire, Littleneck Grand, opens tomorrow in Williamsburg. [Eater NY]

Watch a Crown Heights rat successfully drag a bag of curbside trash behind a gate. [DNA Info]

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Demolition Sought for LES Synagogue; New Oddfellows and Littleneck Locations - Bedford + Bowery

A trove of Nazi-era objects in Argentina stuns investigators – Jewish Telegraphic Agency

Posted By on June 21, 2017

Some of the Nazi-era objects discovered by Argentine police. (Leonardo Kremenchuzky/DAIA)

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (JTA) A cache of 75 original Nazi objects discovered earlier this month by the Argentine Federal Police has been evaluated as unprecedented and the biggest discovery of its type.

The objects, discovered earlier this month in a hidden room of a house in the northern part of the city, included equipment used for Nazi medical experiments during the Holocaust. Theywere analyzed a week ago at Interpol headquarters in Lyon, France, Federal Police Commissioner Marcelo El Haibe told JTA on Monday.

The police found a bust relief of Adolf Hitler, medical devices marked with swastikas used to measure head and body size, Nazi puzzles for children and knives, among other objects.

Among the objects discoveredwas a magnifying glass attached to a photo of Hitler using the magnifying glass.

We checked some marks and characteristics, and it is the same object that Hitler holds in his hands in the photo, El Haibe, a member of Interpol who accompanied the pieces to Lyon, told JTA. Interpol colleagues from Germany, Israel and United States were surprised by the globally unprecedented discovery. No one has a record of this magnitude a discovery of original Nazis objects, and we have started a collaborative process to search the route of the objects to Argentina.

According to El Haibe, who also serves as the chief of the Protection of Cultural Heritage department of the federal police, only a very high level of Nazi officer had access to this quality and quantity of objects, and apparently tried to save the objects when the Nazi regime was failing.

On Monday night, the Argentine Jewish political umbrella DAIA displayed some of the objects at its headquarters in the AMIA Jewish center here. The AMIA building was destroyed in a 1994 terrorist bombing and rebuilt in 1999.

DAIA President Ariel Cohen Sabban praised the police for their work in making the discovery.

From this building we spoke several times about the lack of security in this country, but today its time to recognize the good work done by the police and the Security Ministry, he said. These objects are an irrefutable testimony to the Nazi horror and that Argentina was a refuge for the Nazis.

Among other objects, police found medical devices marked with swastikas. (Leonardo Kremenchuzky/DAIA)

Before receiving an award from DAIA, Security Minister Patricia Bullrich spoke to over 200 attendees crowded in a small room where a sample of the objects were on display. She said her ministry has asked the judge in charge of investigating the discovery that all of the objects be donated to the Holocaust Museum of Buenos Aires, so that all Argentinians and also visitors who come to Buenos Aires can see this shocking collection.

Among the attendees were Germany Embassy officials, judges, intellectuals and businessmen, as well as the Jewish philanthropists Eduardo Elsztain and Marcelo Mindlin, who was named recently the president of the Holocaust Museum of Buenos Aires.

This collection is a great responsibility; we will prepare our site to receive this contribution, Mindlin told JTA. There will be a lot of fanatics that will want to enter, there will be people trying to steal objects, he added, noting that huge security issues must be worked out.

In June 2016, a collector from Argentinapaid$680,000 for a pair of Nazi-owned underpants and other memorabilia.

Its impossible that one collector wouldhave this invaluable amount of original Nazi objects, DAIA vice president Alberto Indij told JTA. These[objects] likely belonged directly to Hitler or Joseph Mengele. Someone escaped with all this objects. There isnt a person that bought all this. No, these were Nazi officers trying to hide and save these objects.

Themagnifying glass and accompanying photo of Hitler were not put on public display, but Indij saw them at Interpol headquarters and confirmed their existence to JTA.

Mengele, a doctor who performed experiments on Jewish prisoners, lived in Argentina for a decade after the war in the same area ofBuenos Aires where the Nazi medical tools were discovered. El Haibe said there could be some link between Mengele and the recently discovered tools.

There are strong coincidences of tools, practices, locations; we are investigating this hypothesis right now, he said. But for sure this did not belong to a low-level Nazi follower. This belongs to a very high-level Nazi official who brought them to Argentina.

Argentina was a refuge for Nazis like Mengele after World War II. Adolf Eichmann was captured in the northern area of Buenos Aires in 1960, and another war criminal, Erich Priebke, also lived there.

A video about the Interpol evaluation, dubbed Operation Near East since many objects of Asian historical significance also were discovered during the raids earlier this month, was released Monday by the Argentine Federal Police.

The objects were found June 9 following a nine-month police investigation. They are in the custody of the justice who is tasked with investigating the find, who has put a gag order on most aspects of the case.

One suspect identified by the police is not in Argentina. There are Argentine and non-Argentine suspects being investigated, but no further details have been provided.Argentina has had an anti-discrimination law on the books since 1988 that covers the possession and sale of such objects.

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A trove of Nazi-era objects in Argentina stuns investigators - Jewish Telegraphic Agency

New Book Explores and Preserves Hasidic Musical Heritage – Algemeiner

Posted By on June 21, 2017

Email a copy of "New Book Explores and Preserves Hasidic Musical Heritage" to a friend

Jewish worshippers at the Breslov Hasidic synagogue in Safed. Photo: Yaakov Naumi / Flash90.

JNS.org You dont haveto be a scholar of Jewish music to enjoy Velvel Pasternaks new book, Behind the Music: Stories, Anecdotes, Articles & Reflections. You just have to be someone who wants to learn about the adventures of the authora man who has done more than anyone else in our time to discover, record and transmit the treasures of Hasidic music.

In the book, Velvel, as everyone calls him, tells wonderful stories about his experiencesstories that will make you laugh, but also help you understandwhat lies behind some of the songs that you think you already know.

How did Velvel get into the work of transcribing and recording Hasidic music? One day, one of the children of the Bobover Rebbe came home from school singing a niggun (tune). When his father asked him where the niggun came from, the child had no idea it was his grandfathers melody. That was the day when the Bobover Rebbe realized that his familys musical heritage needed to be recorded, or it would disappear. The job fell to Velvel.

June 20, 2017 4:07 pm

Some of Velvels stories are hilarious. Once, while recording a Hasidic song, a religious leader told him not to conduct the singers,since the Hasidim would sing with their eyes closed anyway; they were more concerned with expressing the melodys spiritual meaning than with paying attention to Velvels conducting. The leader also told Velvel that the musicians he had hired to accompany the Hasidim would not be necessary, since the Hasidim would pay no attention to them. Velvel realized he was arguing with an irresistible force, andlet the Hasidim sing without trying to conduct them. Then he dubbed in the musicians playing after the Hasidim left. The recording came out fine.

Velvels first album was a bestsellermuch to his surprise, and to the Hasidims surprise. He went on to publish many more albums, rescuing treasures of Hasidic music that might otherwise have disappeared.

My favorite story from the book relates to the Hasidims request that Velvels recordings be autentic (how the Hasidim pronounced authentic). Velvel had no idea what autentic meant. He gathered a crew of 15 professional cantors to be the choir. The first song he chose was Siman Tov UMazel Tov, which is sung at many Jewish weddings. He dutifully transliterated it, using the Bobover dialect to please the rebbe, who had come along that night to make sure that the recording would be autentic. But when the choir got to the words yihai looneymeaning it will be to us in English and more commonly pronounced by its Hebrew dialect, yehei lanuthey broke up in laughter and could not continue. They toldthe Bobover Rebbe that they could not sing looney without laughing.

The rebbe listened politely and said, Let me tell you a story. He recounted how the cultural ambassador of the Ivory Coast once went to his counterpart, the cultural ambassador of Israel, and suggested a cultural exchange. The two nations could send each other their singers and dancers, but with one condition: The Ivory Coasts dancers would dance naked from here to here, said the African nations envoy, drawing a line from his shoulders to his waist. The Israeli ambassador was shocked, and refused.

The Israeli ambassador offered a compromise: You can wear whatever you want in your own country. But when you land at the airport here, I will be there and I will give you shmattes (rags) that you can put on, and that you can wear while you are in my country. The Ivory Coast ambassador replied that if the dancers were to wear the shmattes, they might be able to dance well, but they would not be authentic.

Then the rebbe told the choir regarding their unwillingness to sing yihay looney in the Bobover pronunciation: If you change the pronunciation of our song, it may sound nice to you, but believe me, it would not be authentic to us. And if the people of the Ivory Coast understand what is authentic, then you should too. That ended the discussion. The cantors sang yihay looney, after all.

The book is full of such stories. It contains fascinating material on some of the songs whose origins you think you know, but dont. For example, do you know why the French national anthem is sung at the grave of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai on Lag BOmer? Do you know where Naomi Shemer got the idea for Jerusalem of Gold? Or where Naftali Herz Imber got the music for Hatikvah, Israels national anthem?

Behind the Music is enriched with some wonderful photographs, and tells readers where to find performances of every song that the author discusses. Even if you think you already know Jewish music, this book is worthwhile for the insights that it provides into the worlds of Hasidim, classic Jewish cantorial music and Yiddish theater. And perhaps most importantly, youll get to know Velvel, the man who recorded a heritage and saved it for a new generation.

Behind the Music: Stories, Anecdotes, Articles & Reflections; by Velvel Pasternak; Tara Publications; May 2017; 229 pages; ISBN-10: 1495098966; ISBN-13: 978-1495098963.

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New Book Explores and Preserves Hasidic Musical Heritage - Algemeiner


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