Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By admin on July 27, 2020

The Iowa agency tasked with advocating for nursing home residents has dramatically scaled back visits to those facilities.

(Photo by Centers for Disease Control and Prevention)

DES MOINES Iowas nursing home inspectors have reported no infection-control issues in some of the facilities with the biggest COVID-19 outbreaks, newly disclosed state records show.

The records indicate more than 2,584 Iowa nursing home residents and workers have been infected with COVID-19, with outbreaks confirmed at one of every six Iowa nursing homes.

There are 20 Iowa homes with current, active COVID-19 outbreaks, the Iowa Department of Public Health says, and they involve roughly 500 infections. An additional 52 homes have been the site of outbreaks now considered resolved.

The Iowa home that has experienced the largest number of infections is the Good Shepherd Health Center in Mason City, home to 179 older Iowans.

At least 108 residents and workers at Good Shepherd have been infected with COVID-19, according to IDPH. But less than four weeks ago, on June 25, state inspectors visited the home and reported it was entirely in compliance with federally recommended practices for responding to COVID-19.

Other Iowa homes where state inspectors recently found no violations of COVID-19 guidelines, despite current, major outbreaks of the virus, include:

Sunny View Care Center in Ankeny, where inspectors found no violations of federal COVID-19 guidelines while on site there earlier this month. Sunny View is home to 71 older Iowans, and is currently the site of an outbreak involving 68 staff and residents.

The Accura Care Center in Ames, where inspectors reported no issues related to COVID-19 guidelines during their June 9 inspection of the home. Accura is currently the site of an outbreak involving 45 staff and residents. The home has 71 residents.

Willow Gardens Care Center in Marion, which was visited by inspectors the week of June 15. The inspectors reported zero violations of the federal COVID guidelines. The facility is home to 65 residents and is now the site of an outbreak involving 38 people.

Grandview Heights Care Center in Marshalltown, the site of a current outbreak involving 33 residents and staff. State inspectors visited the home on June 22 and reported no violations of COVID-19 guidelines.

State inspectors have reported coronavirus-related violations in some of the Iowa homes with confirmed outbreaks. In recent weeks, they have cited Dubuque Specialty Care, the Mitchell Village Care Center in Mitchellville, and the Crystal Heights Care Center in Oskaloosa for violations related to the pandemic. At the Dubuque home, where 11 residents have died of the virus, inspectors said three workers with symptoms of COVID-19 were allowed to work in the home and later tested positive for COVID-19.

The 72 Iowa homes that have experienced outbreaks represent one-sixth of the 439 nursing homes in Iowa. Those facilities have a total capacity of roughly 30,450 beds. The state is not tracking outbreaks in Iowas 384 assisted living centers, which are home to roughly 23,000 older Iowans living in congregate settings.

Some of the data reported by IDPH appears to be either incomplete or outdated. For example, IDPH is still reporting a total of 25 infections at Risen Son Christian Village in Council Bluffs, days after the facility itself announced it had a total of 30 infections and three deaths in the home.

Since the beginning of the pandemic, a total of 434 Iowans in nursing homes have died.

The 20 Iowa homes with current outbreaks, and the total number of staff and residents infected, are:

1. The Good Shepherd Health Center in Mason City (108 cases)

2. Sunny View Care Center in Ankeny (68 cases)

3. Newton Health Care Center in Newton (53 cases)

4. Accura Healthcare in Ames (45 cases)

5. Willow Gardens Care Center in Marion (38 cases)

6. Grandview Heights Care Center in Marshalltown (33 cases)

7. Risen Son Christian Village in Council Bluffs (26 cases)

8. The Touchstone Healthcare Community in Sioux City (20 cases)

9. Solon Nursing Care Center in Solon (17 cases)

10. Karen Acres Health Care Center in Urbandale (16 cases)

11. Sheffield Care Center in Sheffield (15 cases)

12. The Good Samaritan Home in Newell (13 cases)

13. The Good Samaritan home in George (11 cases)

14. Valley Vue Care Center in Armstrong (8 cases)

15. The Good Samaritan home in LeMars (8 cases)

16. Rehabilitation Center of Hampton in Hampton (6 cases)

17. Norwalk Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Norwalk (6 cases)

18. Winslow House Care Center in Marion (5 cases)

19. Parkridge Specialty Care in Pleasant Hill (3 cases)

20. Pearl Valley Rehabilitation and Nursing Center in Gowrie (3 cases)

The 52 Iowa nursing homes that have experienced confirmed outbreaks that have since been resolved, along with their total number of staff and resident infections, are:

1. Pillar of Cedar Valley in Waterloo (59 cases)

2. NewAldaya Lifescapes in Cedar Falls (36 cases)

3. Harmony House Health Care Center in Waterloo (91 cases)

4. Friendship Village Retirement Center in Waterloo (51 cases)

5. Bartels Lutheran Retirement Home in Waverly (31 cases)

6. Pleasant View Home in Kalona (11 cases)

7. The Alverno Senior Care Community in Clinton (3 cases)

8. Granger Nursing & Rehabilitation Center in Granger (56 cases)

9. Arbor Springs in West Des Moines (37 cases)

10. Rowley Memorial Masonic Home in Perry (32 cases)

11. Pearl Valley Rehabilitation and Nursing Center in Perry (11 cases)

12. Edgewood Convalescent Home in Edgewood (10 cases)

13. Azria Health Prairie Ridge in Mediapolis (4 cases)

14. Accura Healthcare in Milford (11 cases)

15. Dubuque Specialty Care in Dubuque (52 cases)

16. Accura Healthcare in Newton (41 cases)

17. Wesley Park Centre in Newton (27 cases)

18. Linn Manor Care Center in Marion (40 cases)

19. ManorCare Health Services in Cedar Rapids (50 cases)

20. Living Center West in Cedar Rapids (82 cases)

21. Cottage Grove Place in Cedar Rapids (6 cases)

22. Heritage Specialty Care in in Cedar Rapids (116 cases)

23. Wapello Specialty Care in Wapello (48 cases)

24. Crystal Heights Care Center in Oskaloosa (79 cases)

25. Accura Healthcare in Marshalltown (58 cases)

26. Iowa Veterans Home in Marshalltown (38 cases)

27. Oakwood Specialty Care in Albia (44 cases)

28. The Good Samaritan home in Villisca (6 cases)

29. Pearl Valley Rehabilitation and Health Care Center in Muscatine (81 cases)

30. Wilton Retirement Community in Wilton (33 cases)

31. Lutheran Living Senior Campus in Muscatine (33 cases)

32. Rehabilitation Center of Des Moines in Des Moines (19 cases)

33. Trinity Center at Luther Park in Des Moines (99 cases)

34. Mill Pond Health Care in Ankeny (7 cases)

35. University Park Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Des Moines (70 cases)

36. Polk City Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Polk City (22 cases)

37. Ramsey Village in Des Moines (14 cases)

38. Fleur Heights Center for Wellness & Rehab Center in Des Moines (45 cases)

39. Calvin Community in Des Moines (24 cases)

40. Altoona Nursing & Rehabilitation Center in Altoona (21 cases)

41. Bishop Drumm Retirement Center in Johnston (103 cases)

42. Mitchell Village Care Center in Mitchellville (35 cases)

43. On With Life in Ankeny (39 cases)

44. Iowa Jewish Senior Life Center in Des Moines (7 cases)

45. St. Francis Manor in Grinnell (74 cases)

46. Bethany Life in Story City (22 cases)

47. Sunnycrest Nursing Center in Dysart (12 cases)

48. Westbrook Acres in Gladbrook (46 cases)

49. Premier Estates in Toledo (52 cases)

50. Vista Woods Care Center in Ottumwa (36 cases)

51. The McCreedy Home in Washington (30 cases)

52. Holy Spirit Retirement Home in Sioux City (28 cases)

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COVID-19 hits one in six Iowa nursing homes but inspectors cite few violations - Le Mars Daily Sentinel

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Posted By admin on July 25, 2020

At a meeting on Monday of the Knesset Committee for Immigration, Absorption and Diaspora Affairs, participants bemoaned the condition of world Jewry. The discussion centered on the implementation of a plan approved earlier this month by the Israeli government to protect Jewish communities abroad from extinction.We are swimming against the current, said Diaspora Affairs Ministry Director-General Dvir Kahana, claiming that 80% of Jews outside of Israel live comfortably and feel no connection to their Judaism.Diaspora Affairs Minister Omer Yankelevitch concurred that large segments of our nation are moving away from their Jewish identity and from Israel, warning, We have to wake up before its too late.Aside from the fact that the discussion itself is as old as the hills, and that the plan involves education and outreach not exactly an innovative concept it comes on the heels of reports that the COVID-19 pandemic is spurring many Jews to consider immigrating to Israel. Some are even in the actual process of doing so, though it means entering quarantine for two weeks upon arrival in the Holy Land.So the pandemic may be doing more to encourage aliyah than any educational program requiring multi-millions in taxpayer shekels. And the last thing that Israelis have on their minds at this moment is funding greater competition in the work force. Indeed, the economic pressure felt by those who have lost their jobs, and by small business-owners whose enterprises are in jeopardy as a result of coronavirus closures, is not conducive to a sense of Jewish unity.Israelis are human, after all. Not that theyre acting like it these days, mind you, engaging in violent riots more reminiscent of tantrums than expressions of political malaise. Such mob behavior is something to which American Jews have grown accustomed of late. Yet only those who wish to escape the cancel-culture chaos would consider Israel a welcome alternative.In other words, the Jews who might contemplate relocating to Israel are not in need of programs aimed at keeping them connected to Judaism or the Jewish state. They already possess religious and/or emotional ties to their heritage and homeland.The rest are either radicals who wholeheartedly back the Black Lives Matter agenda to discredit the United States for having been born in sin, or liberal Democrats whose main goal is to defeat US President Donald Trump in November.The former, who support the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, is openly anti-Israel. The latter tend to be critical of the policies of the government headed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and interpret the Mishnaic concept of tikkun olam (repairing the world) as a mission of social, political and environmental justice: to rid the planet of racism, capitalism and fossil fuels.THE IDEA that any sort of Israeli program could bring such people closer to their Judaism and Israel is laughable, particularly since those who do care about being Jewish are livid about the Orthodox rabbinates monopoly on Israels official stream of Judaism.But even Diaspora Jews in the first category those whose connection to Judaism and Israel is unconditional are not quick to pick up and move their families to a foreign country in which their language skills are basic at best, and where the likelihood of their earning a comparable living is slim.Though hundreds of thousands of Israelis have left the Jewish state for greener pastures abroad and have had to undergo the adjustments of language and culture that such a move entails they did so, at least, with an eye toward upward mobility. The same cannot be said of Zionists going in the other direction.Anyone who examines Jewish life in Israel and the Diaspora without taking the importance of financial stability into account is making a grave mistake. Nor should the fact that most Jews outside of Israel live comfortably be viewed as an obstacle to overcome, rather than a blessing to be hailed.Its like believing that the only hope for the preservation of Jewish identity and continuity without drastic action on Israels part is for Jews in secular Western societies to be persecuted and live in poverty. While this is possibly a sad truth, its not a position that an official from the Diaspora Affairs Ministry ought to hold, especially not one angling for a budget.After all, if antisemitism is the solution, Israel can sit back and save its money, since Jew-hatred, like the coronavirus, is spreading exponentially. Not only that; the coronavirus is helping it spread by providing additional ammunition to the already overflowing blood-libel arsenal.The Palestinian Authority is prominent among many disseminators of the lie that Israel has been infecting poor Arabs with the disease. Like the PA and Hamas propagandists in Ramallah and Gaza whose creativity when it comes to portraying Netanyahu and IDF soldiers as Nazis is as explosive as rockets on Israeli civilians the powers-that-be in Tehran took the opportunity of the pandemic to promote the antisemitic arts. In April, for instance, the Iranian Health Ministry sponsored a COVID-19 cartoon competition that produced an array of colorful drawings depicting Jews as corona microbes.Social media, too, is rife with antisemitism. Much of this Jew-bashing is related not to the virus, but to Black Lives Matter. We Jews, it turns out, have a double stain on our souls. Yes, we are guilty of both white privilege and Jewish privilege.Apparently, no amount of self-flagellation or solidarity with the Black Lives Matter platform gives even the most progressive Jews a pass where their innate evil is concerned. Offended Twitter users around the world responded to the #Jewish privilege campaign by posting memes and comments to prove the accusation false. The only problem is that antisemites arent interested in evidence of Jewish innocence.THAT BRINGS us to the most notable aspect of Israels concern about world Jewry, on the one hand, and the spike in global antisemitism, on the other.According to data presented to the Immigration, Absorption and Diaspora Affairs Committee, Israels 6,740,000 Jews make up 45% nearly half of the world total, which stands at 14,410,700. The next largest Jewish population is in North America, where the number is 6,088,000. Europe has 1,072,400; South America is home to 324,000; there are 300,000 in Asia; Australia and New Zealand have 120,000; and 74,000 reside in Africa.These figures reveal, first and foremost, that Israel is the country with the largest Jewish population, which should be cause for celebration, not mourning. They also show that the vast majority of Diaspora Jews are in the United States, where antisemitism may be gaining momentum but is minimal compared to that of Europe.Again, its good news for a people who was nearly wiped out by genocide a mere 75 years ago. Whatever one feels about the danger that assimilation poses to Jewish continuity, though, juxtaposing it with mass murder is immoral.Another picture painted by the statistics illustrates just how irrational antisemitism which the late historian Robert Wistrich called the longest hatred is and always has been. Jews constitute the most minuscule percentage of the worlds population, less than 2/10ths of 1%. The obsession with Jews and the Jewish state, then, makes no sense, especially if the Diaspora is disappearing voluntarily.This is one of the most intriguing features of the antisemitism that became so rampant in Europe before the Holocaust, and which was a main cause of it, Wistrich explained in a 2007 interview in these pages. What turned the antisemitism that had its profane banal explanations, such as economics and social rivalry, into something lethal was precisely the fact that Jews had assimilated so intensely.It was because of this assimilation, he said, that the traditional antisemitism that had been based on religion no longer had the same effect or resonance. Recourse was made, then, to an argument against which there is no defense, namely race. You cannot change your race; even conversion cant help you. A Jew remains a Jew under all circumstances, whether he is baptized, becomes totally assimilated or rejects any residual Jewish identity.Ironically, Wistrich added, The fact that Jews were willing to sacrifice their identity made things even worse. It confirmed in the minds of the antisemites that there was nothing to be valued in Judaism or Jewishness. After all, if these Jews are so eager to abandon it, what value can it have?Yankelevitch can shout all she wants that we have to wake up before its too late, but she would do well to realize that the only ones listening are already out of bed.

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Jewish apathy, Jewish privilege and antisemitism - The Jerusalem Post

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Posted By admin on July 25, 2020

WASHINGTON (JTA) Israels potential annexation of parts of the West Bank may not be a top election issue for American Jews, or even a top issue right now for most Israelis.

But some evangelical Christians in America are hoping to make it an animating issue for evangelical voters in this falls presidential election.

Thats especially true for Mike Evans, the evangelical writer who founded a museum celebrating Christian supporters of Israel, the Friends of Zion Heritage Center in Jerusalem. His Jerusalem Prayer Team Facebook page has more than 73 million followers.

This year, Israel is going to be the number one thing they take into the voting booth, and Ill tell you why, Evans told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency this week. The one thing that unites all evangelicals concerning Israel is Genesis 12:3: I will bless them that bless thee and curse them that curse thee. So Ive got 73 million evangelicals on my Jerusalem Prayer Team Facebook site alone, and I know them. The only thing they believe they can do to get God to bless them is to bless the land of Israel.

The flipside, Evans said, is that if Trump stands in the way of annexation, he could face a backlash from evangelicals at the voting booth.

But exactly how many evangelical voters there are, and how much they are animated by the annexation issue, is unclear.

Gallup citing the proportion of people who answer yes to the question Would you describe yourself as born-again or evangelical? says evangelicals have for decades comprised just over 40 percent of the population. And a 2017 poll commissioned by pro-Israel evangelicals found that the percentage of evangelicals who believe that the establishment of Israel was a fulfillment of prophecy was astronomically high 80 percent.

Elizabeth Oldmixon, a University of North Texas political scientist who studies evangelicals and their relationship to Israel, has estimated that about a third of evangelicals are likely to put Israel policy at the center of their electoral decision-making. (Other issues that drive evangelical voting include abortion rights and religious liberty.)

Oldmixon told Vox in 2018 that a subset of the evangelical community for whom the status of Israel is really, really important because of the way they understand the end of time would constitute about 15 million people.

But many of those voters might have been satisfied by Trumps moves already. Sarah Posner, an author who has written about the evangelicals affinity for Trump, said evangelicals were not likely to be preoccupied with the ins and outs of annexation.

Theyre very happy with the embassy move and are not going to give up on judges and policy they have long sought to enact (here) over annexation, she said. Honestly, I think most evangelicals dont truly understand the annexation issue and were more wowed by something like the embassy move.

Last month two pro-Israel evangelical leaders, Robert Jeffress and Joel Rosenberg, told The New York Times that evangelicals were indifferent to annexation and that they even might turn on Trump if he blesses annexation and it triggers regional turmoil.

I dont see any pickup among evangelical voters for this move, and theres a risk that you could lose some evangelical votes, in the very states where you might be more vulnerable, Rosenberg told the newspaper.

Notably, these figures might be heeding whispered counsel from the Israeli leaders with whom they are close who, despite their public statements, may be eager to avert a drastic step at a time that Israel is coping with a second wave of the coronavirus, and increased tensions with Iran.

But Rosenberg outlined in a detailed paper posted on his website that it was conversations with Palestinian and Arab leaders that had given him the most pause. He wrote that unilateral annexation would heighten instability in the country that evangelicals care so much about.

Now would be a good time to be praying for the peace of Jerusalem and the region, and praying that Israeli and American leaders will have true wisdom at this critical moment, Rosenberg wrote on his website. Please pray for the Palestinian people who are feeling increasingly hopeless and left out of the process and seeing the U.S. and Israel make decisions without them. And pray, too, for the leaders and peoples of the moderate Arab states who are increasingly in favor of peace with Israel and see extraordinary opportunity for enhanced prosperity for all sides if treaties can be signed and trade relationships opened. Strange times in the Epicenter these days.

With both the United States and Israel facing a surge in coronavirus cases, annexation feels far less pressing than it did July 1, the first date that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu could have formally proposed the move. A top Israeli official said this week that issue is landing on the back burner because the United States was paying it little attention.

Still, Evans said his followers, too, would be praying for annexation to move forward, aggrandizing the land under Israels control.

These people are terrified right now, that God is not happy with America, he said. Theyre looking at the riots, theyre looking at the plague of corona, and theyre worried, Is God unhappy, is he cursing us? Theyre not sure, and they want God to bless them.

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Evangelical says nixing West Bank annexation could cost Trump the election - Heritage Florida Jewish News

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Posted By admin on July 25, 2020

Tana GandhiDavid Adjmi, Los Angeles, 2020

To my mothers Syrian Jewish family, I was always half bagel, half baklava, in other words, half Ashkenazi, half Sephardic. Having a J-dub father (a pejorative used to describe an Ashkenazi Jew) was a kind of Scarlet Letter for a community that prides itself on suspicion of outsiders, even other Arab Jews. My mixed background effectively exiled me from their particular diasporan enclave and its nonstop wedding, bar mitzvah, and bris circuit. But the same did not happen to the playwright David Adjmi, who is fully SY (an abbreviation for Syrian, and what the community calls itself) and was raised within the confines of the lettered avenues of Midwood, Brooklyn.

His newly published memoir, Lot Six, as well as his 2009 play Stunning,are testament to a rapturous ability to capture the cadence and idiosyncrasies of a group never previously brought to dramatic life in mainstream culture. With Stunning, for instance, Adjmi tells the story of Lily, a teenage Syrian Jewish bride living in the cloistered Midwood neighborhood, who hires Blanche, a Black academic, as her housekeeper. Their relationship, and subsequent romance, unspool her neophyte perceptions of identity and sexuality. It is this innate dexterity with dialogue and storytelling that has garnered him numerous honors, including a Guggenheim fellowship and the Steinberg Playwright Award; his plays have by now been produced around the world, by companies as diverse and prestigious as the Royal Shakespeare Company and the Steppenwolf Theater group.

As for his memoirs title, it has dual meaning in the Syrian community. It refers to a lexical convention used by businessmen to negotiate with customers, and also code for three, an odd numberodd, as in queer, Adjmi writes in his book. It wasnt just an epithet for a gay personit was a price tag, a declaration of value. And a Lot Six had no value. The identity, if I ever claimed it, would render me worthless.

Lot Six took Adjmi a decade to write, mostly because he wasnt sure he had a story to tell. Prodding from an editor to put more of himself in the book spurred a shift in direction, resulting in a crisp and unbridled narration that spans his childhood, his coming out, and a fraught relationship with a teacher at Juilliard, and finally closes with the debut of Stunning at Lincoln Centers LCT3. Eventually, this Knstlerroman structure started to emerge, and I realized that was the story, he told me via Zoom from his home in Los Angeles. The book was almost like chiropractic work. It was like adjusting the vertebrae to try to actually make a corpus, make my life make sense to me.

Adjmi talked to me about the fluidity of his identity, loneliness as a source of artistic attunement and what representation means for a community so repelled by the idea of exposure. The following is an edited transcript of our conversation.

Marisa Mazria Katz: Lot Six tells the story of an extremely superstitious community that is walled off from the outside world. Was it difficult to find a language to express the contours of this culture to outsiders?

David Adjmi: Part of what Ive been wrestling with over the course of my life is that people, even other Jews, dont really know what I am, or what this little niche is. I was born into a community that is really insular and tiny and had this very tangled history. I dont even totally understand it, and no one really spoke about it to me.

What new pressures did you feel as a writer after being offered such a prestigious book deal?

An editor at HarperCollins had seen Stunning and read an article about meafter which he invited me to write this book. [I thought,] Why? I dont understand. Maybe they thought, Niche identities are hot, thats going to be a big publishing coup for us? I fought them a little and then I thought, OK, well, I can write a book, but it wont be about me, and it wont be about Syrian Jews. Itll be about culture, and Ill write about Heidegger. I thought I wanted to prove to theater people Im smart, I know things; Im not just some garden-variety playwright, I have this whole other life.

At what point did you shift gears and abandon the academic macro-view of culture?

I started with that and then my conscience wouldnt let me just do itit was kind of boring to me in the end to show off that I knew about Heidegger. I thought, Theres no skin in the game, nothing at risk, and nothing for me to learn about myself. I have these gaps and lacunae in my consciousness that I need to fill. I could feel as I was doing it, like, Who am I? What the hell happened to me? I didnt understand.

So I had to talk about this Syrianness. I didnt want to because I thought no one will want to hear about this, or read about it, because its niche and theres no syntax for it in the [wider] culture.

The only mainstream representation of it I have ever seen is through the fashion designer Isaac Mizrahi, also Syrian-Jewish, who discusses it in his memoir, I.M.

Isaac sort of wanted to do what I wanted to do, which was, Ugh, I want to leave this all behind. But of course, its like a Mbius strip, the past and the present, the bands have to meet up at some point. I had to write about it, because I had to understand myself, and I had to find a way to talk about my invisibility within this community that [itself] feels invisible, and these multiple kinds of exile that I experienced growing up, and try to find a way to make myself visible.

But what does that mean? Visible to whom? And under what circumstances? There were moral questions bound up with that. And there were aesthetic questions bound up with it.

The book starts with you as an eight-year-old driving into Manhattan with your mother to see the musical Sweeney Todd. The cityits art and culture, in particulartakes on an almost mythical persona in the book.

When my mother took me on these trips into the city, I just knew that there was something in that environment I wanted to internalize in some way. Maybe it was just very cursory. I mean, I know it was because its so overwhelming; therere all these whirring instruments, people dancing, and restaurants. And it looked so much better than Midwood.

What do you think your mother was trying to impart on these trips?

My mother wanted two things for me, and they were both opposed. She wanted me to become part of this community and marry a Syrian girl. And then she wanted me to be civilizedto achieve some kind of promise that she felt I hadwhich meant going against her to sort of violate, or transcend, her. So the city was this mediating ombudsman influence. It was almost like a tutor she was sort of hiring for me.

You also talk about experiencing a subsequent period of neglect from your mother and your father, who was traveling a lot for work. What kind of impact do you think that had?

I think loneliness and alienation are reallyI hate to say thisa kind of sustenance for artists and writers. I think most writers I know had very lonely childhoods and that is where they develop their acuity and facility with observation and thinking things through in a very complicated way, in a way that a lot of other kids just dont have time to do.

Its heartbreaking to think about that, but I actually think my time alone as a child encouraged a certain kind of independence and self-reliance. Even though I wasnt really capable of those things, I had to be, and Im certain I parlayed that into my writing.

How did this correspond with your own personal identity?

I didnt go to a school that taught me Syrian history or Arabic. It was an Ashkenazi school. They were, like, Fine, well let you win because we need you to subsidize other peoples tuition, because [in their eyes] Syrian Jews have a lot of money. (Not my family, but a lot of others did.) It seemed to be this strange Devils bargain that this yeshiva had entered into, and we all kind of knew it. We were sort of elided there.

I was very light-skinned. My mothers very light-skinned, everyone in my family has very light skin, we look white. And it wasnt until later in my life when I was like, Wait a minute, who am I? I dont think Im white. Where am I from? Because theyre ahistorical in the micro and the macro, no one sat around saying, This was my story, this happened to me, and this is where you come from.

It was all kind of a wash. I was like, Wait, Im sort of Spanish, sort of Jewish, but Im also an Arab. I think all of these diasporic elements just kind of canceled each other out. I just said, I dont know and Im going to start from scratch.

What would it have meant to you if you claimed the Syrian Sephardic Jewish identity?

I could only do two things: I could have had a jeans company or an electronics company or store. Those are the two things that were offered to me by my dad. I knew I couldnt do those things.

There are also many unwritten rules you have to abide by in order to be a full-fledged member of the community.

It wasnt a cult, but it felt cult-like to me because I had these inborn feelings that were rejecting everything they were trying to instill in me. It was as if I was Teflonthat is, the Lot Six part of me. Its not just about being gay, and this thing that Im born with thats part of me that I cannot exorcise, but its a whole aesthetic sensibility and a moral and aesthetic calculus resistant to being tampered with.

The chapter about your time at Juilliard is hard to read. Your teacher, whom you call Gloria, openly criticizes you in a way that feels unnecessarily painful.

I was so broken down after that program, but I think I was broken down by it because of me. I think that that professor was mirroring something that already existed in me: an insecurity, a self-loathing, and a terror that I had of myself. And, in some ways, I needed to have that exposed and challenged, and it was sort of sink or swim.

Have you had any reactions from your family about the memoir?

My sister read the book and loves it. My brothers havent read it yet. And I told my mother not to read it. She said shes not going to, but I dont know if she will or she wont. She just likes that it is dedicated to her. So I said, Its good. You have a book thats dedicated to you. Put it on your shelf and just look at it.

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'The Sustenance of Loneliness': An Interview with David Adjmi - The New York Review of Books

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Posted By admin on July 25, 2020

Israel's consul-general in New York, Dani Dayan, will complete his four-year term next week and return home to Israel, even though multiple Foreign Ministry sources revealed to The Jerusalem Post that the process of replacing him has not even begun.Three sources confirmed that Foreign Minister Gabi Ashkenazi has not even decided yet whether to appoint a professional diplomat from within the ranks of ministry or an outsider to the key role as the top liaison to the American Jewish leadership, the New York-based media and millions of Jews in five states.The Foreign Ministry's appointments committee will convene next week, but it is the sensitive post as ambassador to Russia that is on the agenda. The committee cannot meet to fill the vacancies in New York, Miami and Ottawa until Ashkenazi makes decisions about what appointments will be political."He is in no hurry," a source close to Ashkenazi who has spoken to him about appointments revealed. "But he will appoint people unquestionably fit for the posts." The coalition agreement gave the Likud the right to appoint the ambassador to the United Nations, United Kingdom, France, Australia and the ambassador in Washington for half the term. Former minister Gilad Erdan will be ambassador to the UN and is set to replace Ron Dermer in Washington in January for 10 months until the post is given to a Blue and White appointee. Settlements Minister Tzipi Hotovely will be ambassador to the UK. Outgoing ambassador to the UN Danny Danon could be sent to Paris or Canberra or come home. The decision has been delayed due to a fight within the World Likud. Blue and White can appoint what remains of the 11 possible political appointments in the Foreign Ministry. One of Blue and White's diplomatic appointments is set to go to Labor, according to an agreement between Labor and Blue and White.But the top post available for Ashkenazi to appoint is in New York. He offered the consul-general post to media strategist Avi Benayahu, who was IDF spokesman when Ashkenazi was IDF chief of staff, as well as one other respected public figure. Both rejected the offer. Benayahu said he did not want to close his company and live far from his granddaughter.A spokesman for Ashkenazi said: "We are currently not dealing with appointments. The minister will deal with all professional appointments necessary and when decided, they will be announced." A spokeswoman for Blue and White said whoever Ashkenazi will select will be a respected professional. Alon Pinkas, a former chief of staff to two foreign ministers who served as consul-general in New York from 2000 to 2004, said the post could be vacant for a month or two, but it should not be abandoned for longer than that."The State of Israel will survive the vacancy during the summer and holidays," Pinkas said. "But if there is a lengthy appointment process and if there is an election and it stays vacant because of political uncertainty, that is a problem. You are leaving the entire engagement with US media, Jewish organization and key politicians to a deputy. If this becomes a prolonged vacancy, it's a big problem."

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NY consul post to be left vacant due to Blue and White indecision - The Jerusalem Post

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Posted By admin on July 25, 2020

In multiple trips between 2013 and 2017, llan Stavans visited and revisited the Jewish communities in some of his favorite countries: Argentina, Spain and Cuba, as well as Mexico, where he was born and raised. He also went to Israel, where many Latin American Jews have made aliyah.

The result was his engaging work of first-person journalism, The Seventh Heaven: Travels Through Jewish Latin America, which this week won the spring 2020 Natan Notable Book Award from the Jewish Book Council. It comes with a $5,000 award.

The peripatetic author, publisher, cultural commentator and professor at Amherst College in Massachusetts had, of course, traveled in Latin America before but not with the intention of chronicling the diverse experiences of Jews living in the far-flung Spanish-speaking world.

One of Stavans inspirations was his reading of a massive study of Jewish communities in the Pale of Settlement before World War I by a Russian Jewish ethnographer who published under the name A. Ansky. By the time this fieldwork was concluded, hundreds of thousands of the Jews hed chronicled had emigrated, their communities decimated by anti-Semitic violence and poverty.

He was right where the action took place, Stavans writes in the introduction to his book. Had he not traveled around, we would have missed a rich multi-faceted description of a people and a civilization which, by 1938, had virtually vanished from the face of the earth.

Over the four years of his immersive wanderings the same amount of time that Ansky took for his tour of Galicia Stavans found Jewish communities both thriving and ghostly. He also found Jews as much shaped by national and Latin American cultures as Sephardic or Ashkenazi Jews had been shaped by countries they lived in centuries ago.

It was in the conversations, perhaps more than the actual places, that I found meaning, Stavans writes. A place is a place is a place But it is the people who make my journey worth the effort Thats what culture is about. And it was this culture that I desperately wanted to capture.

The recognition of Stavans book brings the conversation of Jewish identity outside the borders of North America and Israel, introducing readers to Jewish immigrants, cultures, traditions and communities across Latin America, the JBC said in its July 20 announcement.

Stavans compelling travelogue reminds readers that Jewish stories exist, and flourish, in places and ways far from the narrative that is standard in the minds of many North American Jews.

In a statement acknowledging the award, Stavans underscored this point.

Latin America has a rich and diverse Jewish history that goes back to the arrival of Columbus fleet in that fateful October of 1492, at a time when Spanish Jews were looking for a safe haven from inquisitorial persecution, he said.

Since then, the whole gamut of Jewish possibilities coexists in the region: Ashkenazim, Sephardim, Mizrahim, conversos, crypto-Jews, gauchos, kabbalists, Yiddishists, Hebraists, secularists, communists, Zionists, anarchists, Bundists, Shoah survivors, war refugees, exiles, messiahnists, Lubavitchers, orthodox, conservatives, reform, reconstructionists, Chabadniks, extremists, anti-Zionists, assimilationists, Israelis, and every type in between, he continued. The world needs to appreciate Latin America as a splendid theater where Jewish culture is reinvented every day in imaginative ways.

The Natan Notable Books committee members noted that they were excited to catalyze conversations about the diversity of the Jewish people, especially at a time when diversity is very much part of public conversation.

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Travelogue of Jewish Latin America wins Natan Notable Book Award - The Jewish News of Northern California

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Posted By admin on July 25, 2020

(JTA) Shootings are up in New York City. So are anti-Semitic incidents. And federal law enforcement is recasting itself as an adversary, not an ally, to local authorities.

That is the climate in which Tali Farhadian Weinstein seeks to become Manhattans top prosecutor.

Farhadian Weinstein, 44, stepped into the citys crowded district attorneys race last week with a vision for progressive prosecution or what she says is applying the office as a lever to both improve public safety and increase equity.

Pursuing cases that dont advance public safety and that might actually perpetuate injustice instead, like racial disparities or criminalized poverty, those are things that we should stand down from, Farhadian Weinstein told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

A former general counsel to the Brooklyn district attorney, Farhadian Weinstein came to the United States as a child from Iran, via Israel, after the Iranian revolution and now lives on the Upper East Side with her husband, hedge fund founder Boaz Weinstein, and their three children. A Rhodes Scholar, her resume includes clerkships with U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day OConnor and others. Former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, with whom Farhadian Weinstein worked at the Department of Justice, narrated a video announcing her campaign. The election is next year.

Farhadian Weinstein said the Trump administrations move to crack down on unrest in cities presents a vexing inversion of the role that that federal law enforcement has traditionally played.

I think its important to remember why the founders thought that the police power and law enforcement of this kind should belong to the states, she said. I think that was so that people themselves could decide in their own communities what laws do we enforce and in what circumstances and I think thats at the heart of what it means to be a progressive prosecutor.

We spoke with Farhadian Weinstein about her vision for the role, what she might do as district attorney to combat anti-Semitism and her very Jewish thesis topic.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

JTA: Youve called yourself a progressive prosecutor. What does that mean to you?

Farhadian Weinstein: Its two things, one is to make sure that at every step of the way were being fair to everybody with whom were interacting, whether they are the defendant or the witness or the victim. And second, and I think this is the more expansive idea, we, progressive prosecutors, have a more meaningful understanding of what public safety is and we have to check ourselves that everything we do advances public safety rather than takes away from it.

It means understanding that incarceration should be a last resort and only used when it advances public safety. Pursuing cases that dont advance public safety and that might actually perpetuate injustice instead, like racial disparities or criminalized poverty, those are things that we should stand down from. And instead we should be using our resources to actually bring the cases that matter and to protect vulnerable people, which is why were in this job to begin with.

What would you say are the cases that matter?

I think that gun violence is obviously on a lot of peoples minds because of what were seeing around New York City. (The city has recorded a spike in shootings, including several of children, in recent weeks.) I think that gender-based violence, which is often really just violence against women, is something we should be investigating and prosecuting more vigorously than we have, and by that I mean sexual assault and domestic violence. The Manhattan district attorneys office has a tradition that goes back to Bob Morgenthau of prosecuting from the streets to the suites, so the cheating and stealing that affects the lives of the people who live here.

Yesterday, Donald Trump spoke with New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and the two reportedly agreed that federal troops would not be sent to New York City. How would you approach the idea of federal troops being sent to New York City as district attorney?

Theres still a lot about this that is unknown and developing and also unprecedented so I think a lot of people are trying to figure out, is this legal? That has to be the first question, and for me, is it advisable, is it good policy, even if it is legal? And I think why its challenging is that its an inversion of how we usually think about why federal forces would go into a city to confront a situation thats being run by state or local officers. This is very much not Little Rock in 1957 or integrating the University of Alabama in 1963 where the feds are the good guys.

I think this is all new, were processing this idea, in blue states in particular, that we now have to push back at the idea that the federal government is bringing justice rather than state and local governments.

When I think about what am I trying to do as a local prosecutor, as Manhattan district attorney, I think its important to remember why the founders thought that the police power and law enforcement of this kind should belong to the states. I think that was so that people themselves could decide in their own communities what laws do we enforce and in what circumstances and I think thats at the heart of what it means to be a progressive prosecutor. Around New York, local prosecutors dont really prosecute misdemeanor simple marijuana possession even though that law is on the books. Theres a reason for the constitutional order that we have.

At the very moment that people are saying we dont have enough trust in law enforcement and there isnt enough accountability when police officers break the law, youre making both of those things worse. And its bad for public safety when people dont trust law enforcement. Its also bad for public safety to pull these people [federal officers] away from their mission.

Where do you come down on the conversation about defunding or reforming the New York Police Department?

Ive said before that I dont particularly care for the word defund the police because I find it inflammatory and not solution-oriented. But I do think its great that we are engaged in the conversation about what we want from law enforcement and how we think the police should be doing what I just described about progressive prosecution to make sure that everything that happens is to further public safety and nothing else.

Its interesting to me because some of the themes that are now being talked about in the context of police reform are things that weve been working on all of these years on the side of prosecution. Minimizing contacts between law enforcement and people and understanding that those are traumatic and should be a last resort, bringing other competencies into the work. In local district attorneys offices, we have social workers, counselors. You dont learn everything you need in order to do that job of delivering public safety to communities from going to law school. And likewise now, were really having this conversation now of who should really respond with the police, instead of the police, whatever the case may be. So I think that the conversation is great and Im quite hopeful about it.

What do you think you can do in furthering that conversation about reform from the perch of the district attorneys office?

Some of that has to come from within the police do not report to the DA; its the mayors responsibility. But we work alongside the police, obviously the police make arrests and we process them. You could use different words to describe that relationship depending on the issue theres negotiation, theres cooperation, theres consultation. So there are pushes and pulls that happen between us in deciding what are the cases we should be bringing and what are the cases we should not be bringing. I also think that DAs in any area of legislation having to do with criminal justice are an important voice and so, for example, a number of the district attorneys in the state and in the city were longtime advocates for repealing 50-a. I was in favor of repeal and Im glad that it happened. (Section 50-a was a rule that kept personnel files for police officers confidential. It was repealed last month by the New York State Legislature.)

Our job is to prosecute everybody without fear or favor, no matter who they are, no matter what uniform they wear. So when police officers break the law, they have to be held accountable just like everybody else. And in Brooklyn, I started our standalone law enforcement accountability bureau and I supervised it. We investigated and prosecuted police officers.

How would you use the role of Manhattan district attorney to fight anti-Semitism in New York City?

It requires a multifaceted response of which law enforcement is one very important part. We have a hate crime statute and I would enforce it vigorously. I was just on the New York State Bar task force on domestic terrorism and hate crimes. We thought about this a lot because there has obviously been such a horrible surge in anti-Semitism in New York City and around the state over the past year.

The statute at this point makes it possible to sentence somebody to some kind of education program as well, and I think thats something that we need to look at a little more closely, whether we could be doing more of that. Because you need to respond to the crime when it happens and you need to also think about what is the root cause, why is this happening, why are people so hateful towards each other, and I think we need to come at it from both ends. District attorneys offices have traditionally taken a role, and I think this is terrific, in going out into communities and talking about the law and the underlying reasons for the law. So theres an education component, too.

Do you have some thoughts about why theres been this uptick in anti-Semitic incidents in New York City in recent years?

One thing that we have seen in law enforcement is that the internet definitely makes things worse because people can find like minded haters for whatever the target of your hate is and it can fester and foment. Thats something to think about that I think needs a law enforcement response. Why anti-Semitism in particular? its important to say that other kinds of hate have also been on the rise. Weve seen terrible hate towards Asian Americans, particularly tied to COVID, hate crimes against LGBTQ people and hate against African-Americans, all of these things sort of come together, I think.

How do you think about balancing calls for bail reform with the difficulties that has posed in preventing incidents of anti-Semitism in New York City?

The thing about bail reform is its about balancing different values and different concerns. I have largely been an advocate for bail reform, because I think the fundamental goals of bail reform have been right. So I think, first of all, we should always be really careful when were taking somebodys liberty away before trial, before theyve been convicted of anything and in our system theyre presumed innocent, as they should be. I also think its undeniable that over time in New York, Black and brown people in particular and poor people were incarcerated pre-trial at astonishing, shocking and really unacceptable rates. And I should say, in Brooklyn, we had managed to really bring those numbers down before the law changed. And I also find cash bail deeply troubling, the idea that theres a connection between a persons liberty and how much money they have and that there should be a price on liberty at all.

It continues to concern me that New York is the only state that does not allow for dangerousness to be a consideration in deciding what should happen to people before trial. Taking that off the table makes it harder to achieve the kind of balance that youre asking me about, to make sure that in every single case are we putting public safety into that equation.

Do you think the bail reform that was passed in New York State went too far?

The bail reform in both of its iterations is not the ideal situation that Ive described in which you would have eliminated cash bail completely, we still have cash bail for qualifying offenses, but on the other hand allowed for a small number of people to be detained because of dangerousness before trial. I think conceptually, its not the approach I would have taken though it accomplished what it set out to accomplish in part, which is to reduce the number of people held before trial and which I think is a good goal.

What is something about you that people might find surprising?

Ive spent a lot of time in Israel: I have a ton of family there, because many of the Jews of Iran went to Israel at various points and wound up staying. Ive taken my girls to Israel I think three times, and I spent a lot of time in high school when I went on the Bronfman Youth fellowship.

I ended up doing my thesis at Oxford about a certain strand of Israeli literature, the literature of Jews from the Arab world, like A.B. Yehoshua and Sami Michael. Where I grew up was a predominantly Ashkenazi community. Where I went to school, we were among very few families that were not Ashkenazi. My husbands mother was born in the Warsaw Ghetto but she grew up in Israel. So some of it was personal because I was trying to understand the coming together of Ashkenazi and Mizrahi Jews in different places around the world. Id been studying Arabic for some time, and I was interested in the politics of that literature because they were describing a different origin story and a different experience of what it meant to be Israeli.

How does your own story of coming to this country as an immigrant inform the way you would approach the job of district attorney?

Being an immigrant has affected me, its an outlook that stays with you forever and in my case, I think, has helped me do this work because its helped me bring a kind of empathy to this work. Its the commonality of the experience of having been vulnerable, of having come here with an ambition to be free and to live in safety and to understand in a really visceral and personal way what it means to yearn for those things. And those are the very things we are supposed to be delivering in a job like this one, fairness and safety privileges that in other parts of the world, people dont get to experience.

Youre talking about immigrants who are coming here from Central America and South America and who are waiting right now at our borders. I see myself in them.

What do you think about when you hear Donald Trump speaking negatively about immigration and Iran, two different things that you know personally on a different level?

I feel pretty much horrified by anything and everything that he says, the fomenting of hate, the attempts to divide. I think the commonality that I just described is I think very different from the way hes described America coming together.

I think thats also a very Jewish idea to hold onto the fact that all of us were strangers in a strange land at some point and even when youre past that, as I am in many ways now, I think our tradition tells us to remember that because it is a source of empathy and ultimately, justice, to see that in others and to draw on that collective experience even if it was not a personal experience.

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Meet the Iranian-Jewish 'progressive prosecutor' vying to be Manhattan's next district attorney - JTA News - Jewish Telegraphic Agency

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Posted By admin on July 25, 2020

As a reader and as a parent, Im committed to reading diverse books for myself, and also providing diverse books of all kinds to my son. He goes to a Jewish preschool, and while its important to me that he learns about our religion, its also important that he learns that there are many different kinds of JewsI recently attended a panel that talked about racism in the Jewish community, with all of the speakers identifying as Jews of Color, and they mentioned the term Ashkenormative, where the default to being Jewish is always Ashkenazi, or Eastern European, and typically white. And that needs to change.

We have a diverse library of books at home in general, but regarding Judaism and Jewish themes, sometimes these books are harder to findalthough I think thats changing. I still think there is a lack of diversity regarding family structures and disabilities in Jewish books (especially for kids), but I also think this reflects attitudes in the larger Jewish community as wellthere are a lot of conversations to be had, and hopefully change will keep happening.

Here are some great ideas for diverse Jewish childrens and YA books to add to your library. If youre looking for even more diverse books for kids of all ages, check out this post, too.

I dont remember how I first found Aviva on Instagram (@avivabrown.author), but I am so glad I did. Her posts make me smile and laugh, and she writes about being Jewish and Black, being a mom, and so much more. As someone who has a Shabbat-loving little, I knew when I saw that she wrote a book about a little boy with a Shabbat question that we would be getting that book. One of the things I love about this book is the diversity: not only is Ezras family biracial, but the book also shows how people practice Judaism in different ways.

Our family is Ashkenazi Jewish, and when I saw this board book, I knew I wanted my son to read it. He loves Shabbat, and this was a fun and age-appropriate way to introduce him to some Ladino (also known as Judeo-Spanish) while reading about a Sephardic family getting ready for Shabbat.

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Pablo needs to bring something in for International Day at school, and he decides to bring something from his familys bakery. His mom is Mexican and makes empanadas and chango bars, and his father is Jewish and makes challah and bagelsso he decides to share both sides of his family and makes jalapeo bagels to bring in.

My sons class read this for Purim, and this was one instance where I was pleasantly surprised: the main character has two dads, and its treated as simple fact and just part of the story. In this story, Noah loves aliens and wants to dress up as one for Purimbut all his friends are dressing as superheroes. He has to make a decision about fitting in or being his own person.

This delightful book is about a multi-cultural family (Indian and Jewish) who celebrate Hanukkah with traditional Indian foods. They eat dosas instead of latkes, and the reader gets to learn all about how they make the dosas in preparation for the Hanukkah party. When the family gets locked out of their house before the party, Sadie might be the one to save the day.

A companion book to This Is Just a Test (although you dont need to read that book to follow this one), this middle-grade book set in the 1980s follows Lauren and her best friend Tara. Theyve been together in every class before, but not this yearso they both try out for the school play. Tara gets the lead part and Lauren, who is half-Jewish and half-Chinese, is told that she just doesnt look the part of the all-American girl. When she just cant bring herself sing during practice anymore, her role in the play and her friendship with Tara are at risk.

Nevaeh is biracial: she has a Black mom and Jewish dad, and when they divorce, she moves to Harlem with her mom. Because she passes for white, her cousins think she doesnt understand discrimination against the Black community, and her dad decides that when she turns 16, instead of a Sweet 16 party, shes going to be Bat Mitzvahd. Through everything, Nevaeh faces conflict the way she always has: she says nothinguntil she starts falling in love, and when she realizes the different prejudices her family faces every day.

Do you have favorite diverse Jewish childrens or YA books?

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7 Diverse Jewish Childrens and YA Books - Book Riot

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Posted By admin on July 25, 2020

By Joanna OLeary, The Nosher

We could all use a little comfort food right now. And while my regular meal of choice when it comes to eating my feelings is a giant piece of layer cake (crowned with a softball scoop of ice cream for good measure), right now I am craving a big pot of cholent.

For cholent, necessity was the bubbe of invention, this unctuous stew coming into being as the ultimate edible workaround to Jewish laws prohibiting cooking on the Sabbath. Traditionally prepared on Friday afternoon and then left to simmer overnight on a hotplate or slow-cooker.

When it comes to whats in a name, theres some debate. For years, most have considered cholent to be a compound word coming from the French chaud (hot) and lent (slow) or of chaudes lentes (hot lentils). Competing with this definition is also the theory that cholent is Hebraic in origin, coming from she-lan (that rested [overnight]) and referring to the practice of Jews keeping familial pots of cholent in their towns bakers ovens to cook.

In recent years, however, scholars have offered more nuanced explanations, most notably Max Weinrich, who in his landmark History of the Yiddish Language argues that cholent is derived from the Latin present participle calentem (that which is hot) from the Old French chalant, present participle of chalt, from the verb to warm, chaloir.

Cholents disputed etymological history aptly reflects the multiplicity of its manifestations. If youve had one cholent, you definitely havent had them all. Cholent can be generally classified by whether it developed via Sephardi or Ashkenazi schools of cookery, though significant variations exist within those groupings.

Known as chamin or hamin among Sephardi Jews, this form of Shabbat stew is made with chicken and often chickpeas. Two distinctive components of Sephardi cholent are whole vegetables (eggplant, green peppers, tomatoes, and zucchini) stuffed with rice and whole eggs cooked in their shells. Chamin is also often spiced with cumin or hot peppers. Such innovations make for a thicker, toothsome dish with levels of earthy heat.

Other iterations of cholent linked to Sephardi culinary tradition include dafina or adafina (from Arabic tfina, buried), which today is most commonly found in North Africa. Dafina frequently contains potatoes and brisket as its respective featured starch and protein as well as saffron or turmeric, which gives it a dusky orange hue.

Ashkenazi cholent is made more regularly with beef and poultry, specifically helzel, chicken neck skin stuffed flour, chicken or goose fat, fried onions and spices or its cured cousin kishke, a sausage encased in bovine intestine (old-school) or edible synthetic tubing (modern). Barley or wheat grains provide carbohydrate richness.

While all cholents involve some combination of chicken, beef, eggs, grains/potatoes, or vegetables, some versions showcase less traditional ingredients like veal, turkey, or even hot dogs. There are also vegetarian versions of cholent chock full of veggies, beans and other plant-based protein. And chefs have even created more upscale interpretation of the beloved comfort food, like Chef Yehuda Sichels cholent pot pie.

Ready to dig into a hearty bowl? Heres a rundown of some recipes you can try:

An Ashkenazi creation

By Shannon Sarna

This recipe is not mine, but it is a close version of the beloved cholent recipe passed down from my husbands grandmother, Baba Billie Goldberg of blessed memory, to my husband. It is so delicious and I love it, but it wasnt until our wedding day that I was given the keys to the cholent car: My mother-in-law hand-wrote the recipe on a piece of paper and my husband gave it to me after the chuppah. My official welcome into the Goldberg clan was through a beloved family recipe.

Recipes arent always about the food they can also be about history, how our people adapted in the myriad locations they lived as well as the more personal stories of our loved ones. This cholent recipe is both delicious and rich with memory.

Enjoy these easy directions and let us know how your family likes to make cholent we know every family has their precious combination of ingredients and spices that make it just right.

Ingredients

1-1/2 lbs fatty stew meat or flanken

4 to 5 marrow bones

1 whole onion, outer layer peeled

2 large or 4 small Yukon gold or russet potatoes, peeled and cut into chunks

3/4 lb. pearl barley (around 2 cups)

1 cup kidney beans

3 to 4 whole garlic cloves, peeled

1/3 cup ketchup

1 Tbsp. paprika

2 tsp. salt

1 tsp. pepper

1 tsp. garlic powder

1 lb. packaged kishke

3 cups water plus additional water

Variation: Can substitute part of the water with vegetable stock, chicken stock or beer.

Directions

1. While prepping your ingredients, cover barley and kidney beans with 3 to 4 cups hot water. Set aside for 20 minutes.

2. Grease the inside of your slow cooker with cooking spray.

3. Add marrow bones, meat and potatoes to pot. Add onion and garlic cloves. Add barley, beans and the water they soaked in.

4. Mix ketchup, paprika and 2-1/2 cups water (can also use beer or stock) and add to pot. Season with salt, pepper and garlic powder. Mix well.

5. Add kishke on top.

6. Set slow cooker to low and cook overnight. Check in the morning and add additional water or stock if it seems dry.

Dafina, Slow-CookedMoroccan Stew

By Sabrina Ovadia

There is no right or wrong way to make this, and recipes vary from city to city and from family to family. Every Jewish house is distinguished by their dafina and what is included in it. There is even a legend that noble rabbis can sense the peace and holiness of the house from the smell of the dafina.

The most commonly found ingredients are potatoes, sweet potato, chicken, meat, rice, barley, chickpeas and of course, a famous golden brown egg. A lot of recipes call for each item to be placed in individual cooking bags. Everyone adds their personal touch and favorite spices to it; some of the most commonly used spices include paprika, cinnamon, cumin, honey, dates and garlic. I even have a family member who throws in a whole peach, pit and all.

Like the mothers and grandmothers who come before me, I have adapted the recipe handed down to me to my own familys taste and cook the rice separately. It may not look like much but there are few things that warm the soul quite like a hot dafina on a cold winter day, and I invite you to add your own familys take on this beloved dish.

Ingredients

2 lbs. flanken meat, on the bone (flanken is short ribs cut across the bones)

4 pieces of chicken, on the bone

12 large red potatoes, peeled

2 cans of chickpeas, rinsed

4 eggs (in the shell)

4 pitted dates

1 Tbsp. salt

1 tsp. pepper

1 tsp. paprika

1 tsp. cumin

1 tsp. turmeric

1 tsp. of honey

1 tsp. cinnamon

3 to 4 garlic cloves

2 Tbsp. of olive oil

Directions

1. Arrange the chickpeas on the bottom of the crockpot. Add the potatoes around the interior walls of the crockpot. Place the meat, chicken, eggs and pitted dates in the center.

2. Add all of the spices and mix very well but gently as to keep each ingredient in its place. Pour in enough water to cover everything. The top of the water should hit around 1/2 inches above the ingredients.

3. Set the crockpot at a medium temperature and set to cook for 24 hours. On Shabbat, do not add any water, even boiling, to the crockpot.

Latin-Inspired Vegetarian

By Sandy Leibowitz

Even before slow cookers were invented, Jews all around the world were making their slow-cooked meals out of necessity and in observance of Shabbat. And as it turns out, slow-cooked meals over a low flame are also incredibly delicious.

Here, I decided to embrace my South American roots and make a Latin-inspired, vegetarian version of this traditional dish. Not only do these flavors come together beautifully, but you dont have to worry about breaking down any tough meat!

I used ripe (yellow-brown) plantains, batatas (sweet potatoes) and yuca along with a variety of beans which are all starches that come to mind with Latin American cooking. You can certainly use the green plantains; just keep in mind that they take longer to cook. Also, the ripe plantains add a hint of sweetness that works well with the other earthy flavors.

While portobello mushrooms may not be Latin American, I added them for nutrition and a meatier depth of flavor. The squeeze of fresh lime before serving really brightens this dish and brings it to the next level.

Note: The less you cook this dish, the more texture will remain. Cooking longer will decrease the texture but increase the depth of flavor. Substitute parsley for cilantro if youre not a fan of cilantro, but definitely dont leave out the fresh lime, it really ties this dish together and makes it taste authentic.

Ingredients

1 portobello mushroom, diced

4 garlic cloves, minced

1 onion, sliced

1/2 green pepper, sliced

1/2 red pepper, sliced

10.5 oz can of black beans, rinsed

10.5 oz can of garbanzo beans (chickpeas) rinsed

10.5 oz can of red kidney beans, rinsed

1/2 yuca, cut in 2-inch pieces (make sure to remove the fibrous stem that runs inside the center. It looks like a vine.)

1/2 batata, cut into medium dice

1 ripe plantain (choose one that is yellowish and has only a few black specks, or choose a green plantain)

1 Tbsp. olive oil

1/4 cup tomato paste

1 tsp. oregano

1/2 tsp. cumin

1 tsp. ground coriander

1/2 tsp. granulated garlic

1/2 tsp. onion powder

1/4 tsp. red pepper flakes (optional)

1 tsp. salt (adjust seasoning as needed)

3 cups of fresh, cold water (it should barely cover your ingredients)

Fresh lime for serving

Cilantro, chopped for garnish

Directions

1. Saute the portobello mushroom in a small saute pan until caramelized well. Add to the bottom of your slow cooker.

2. Layer all the ingredients on top of the mushrooms.

3. Mix the tomato paste, olive oil, spices and water in a bowl and stir well.

4. Pour water and spice mixture over everything inside the slow cooker and combine.

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To cholent (and why you should be eating it)! - The Jewish Star

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Posted By admin on July 25, 2020

Customary as it is to have lectures about Tisha Beav during the nine-day period leading up to the day of mourning that commemorates the destruction of the First and Second Temples, plus special events with moral messages on the actual day, Zoom has given rise to a boom in Tisha Beav lectures and conferences. Some organizations and institutions that never previously paid special attention to Tisha Beav, are getting on the Zoom bandwagon, and many people who were not particularly interested, but who have become Zoom addicted for want of other social outlets, are registering for Tisha Beav-oriented events.

Among the organizations which are dealing with Tisha Beav for the first time is the Herzliya Cultural Group, whose activities take place on Thursday mornings.

As it happened, Jerusalem-based, London-born Rabbi Yaakov Asher Sinclair was available to speak. An internationally known speaker and writer, Sinclairs popularity derives in part from the fact that he wasnt raised religious, and can therefore speak knowledgeably about secular subjects, which he skillfully weaves into his religious lectures. Before settling in Jerusalem in 1987 and immersing himself in Torah studies, Sinclair was deeply entrenched in the entertainment industry and the founder of SARM Studios, the first 24 track recording studio in Europe, where some of the worlds top music makers produced some of their most iconic recordings. These days he is a lecturer in Talmudic logic and philosophy at Jerusalems Ohr Somayach/Tannenbaum College and a senior staff writer of the Torah Internet publications Ohrnet and Torah Weekly. He has also contributed to numerous Jewish print media publications.

Anyone interested in listening to his lecture should contact Werner Bachmann at 054-456-0303.

THE PLANS and activities of many organizations and institutions were indefinitely put on hold due to the coronavirus pandemic. Among them was IBCA, one of the first organizations established after the founding of the state, whose membership is made up of native Israelis, diplomats, politicians and immigrants. IBCA is an acronym for Israel, Britain and the Commonwealth. It has not been the easiest year for the affable, outgoing IBCA chairman Prof. Alex Deutsch, who has been at the helm of the organization since 2014 and will hand over the leadership to his successor at IBCAs annual general meeting on August 3, which for the first time ever will be held on Zoom. Deutsch decided to step down because he thought it was time for a change.

Actually, its more like a rotation, considering that he will be succeeded by Brenda Katten, who was IBCA chair well over a decade ago, and so far, is the only woman to serve in that position.

London-born Katten is familiar to readers of the weekend Jerusalem Post, for which she writes a column

Professionally, she is a relationship and educational counselor, but since girlhood has been engaged in volunteer Zionist organizations, - mostly in leadership positions

She started out as a member of Bnei Akiva and the Federation of Zionist Youth and later joined WIZO (Womens International Zionist Organization). She is a past chairperson of British WIZO and an honorary president of the Zionist Federation of Great Britain and Ireland and of the Bnai Brith Hillel Foundation of Great Britain and Ireland.

Katten and her late husband John, an architect who died last year, relocated to Israel in 1998, and Katten, for whom community work is part of her DNA, immediately threw herself into volunteer organizations, serving inter alia as chairperson of ESRA, the English Speaking Residents Association, chair of Europeans for Israel, chairperson of World WIZOs Public Relations Department, and the executive of the International Council of Jewish Women.

An eloquent speaker, who speaks from both her heart and her mind often without notes, Katten is particularly interested in helping children of Ethiopian background to realize their full potential.

As for IBCA, it was established very soon after the British left Israel because there were people who realized the importance of maintaining and developing contacts and relations with Britain.

Such contacts have always been encouraged by the British Embassy.

Among the various IBCA activities are annual events at the residences of the British ambassador and the Australian ambassador.

Both had been planned for the first half of this year, but had to be canceled due to COVID-19.

However, Deutsch was pleased that an annual IBCA project to send Israeli colorectal surgeons to England for further training was able to proceed. The prestigious Basingstoke course was to have taken place over Purim. When Deutsch explained to the course organizers in England that this would affect Israeli participation, they agreed to bring the course forward by a week, which was fortunate. Had they not done so, the course would have had to be canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

COOPERATION BETWEEN Israel and Liberia was enhanced by the February 2019 official visit to Israel by Liberian President George Weah, who was accompanied by a ministerial delegation that included his foreign minister. Diplomatic relations between Israel and Liberia which were severed during the 1973 Yom Kippur War, were renewed in 1983, but there is no resident Liberian ambassador in Israel, nor is there a resident Israeli ambassador to Liberia. Shani Cooper, who is Israels non-resident ambassador to Liberia, is also ambassador to Ghana, where she resides. Weah recently appointed Israeli lawyer Yoram Rabad as Honorary Consul of Liberia in Israel. The quasi-diplomatic position was approved by Israels Foreign Ministry, and a certificate to that effect, which was signed by President Reuven Rivlin and Foreign Minister Gabi Ashkenazi, was presented to Rabad at a small ceremony at the Foreign Ministry attended by Chief of Protocol Meron Reuben and Anat Schleien, who heads the Africa desk at the Foreign Ministry.

Rabad was a prominent member of the inner circle known as the Ranch Forum, which met regularly at Ariel Sharons Sycamore Farm. In 2004, when Sharon was prime minister, he appointed Rabad to head his negotiating team in coalition talks. Other members of the team included Yaakov Neeman, Eyal Arad, Gideon Saar and Yisrael Maiman. Rabad later helped Tzipi Livni in her failed bid for the premiership.

MOST ENGLISH-language journalists living in Israel, and several living in the US and England have at some stage or another worked as reporters, feature writers, copy editors and section editors at The Jerusalem Post, which for many has been a stepping stone to a broader journalistic career.

Former staff members of the Post either worked, for or are currently working, for Israel Hayom, Haaretz, KAN, i24, Bloomberg, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, the Christian Science Monitor, USA Today, CNN, the London Jewish Chronicle, The Economist, the Independent, the Australian, the Bulletin, Associated Press, Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Reuters and numerous other media outlets.

Among the many journalists who once worked in the old Romema offices of The Jerusalem Post is Tom Gross, a British-born journalist and international affairs commentator who is also a campaigner for human rights, specializing in the Middle East. Gross is now more in the nature of an opinion writer than a news reporter and writes for Israel, Arab, British and American publications, and is a frequent commentator on the BBC and various Middle East networks.

In addition, he monitors Middle East news and sends out a Middle East dispatch list to journalists, politicians and members of think tanks.

Unable to move around as much as he used to before COVID-19 put a blight on travel, Gross decided to do a series of YouTube informal conversations with people such as Nazi hunter Efraim Zuroff; Guardian columnist Jonathan Freedland; former aide to Margaret Thatcher John OSullivan, author, commentator and a senior editor of the National Review David Pryce-Jones; Iranian born screen writer and film director Hossein Amini and several other interesting citizens of the world. The conversations cover an extraordinary broad range of subjects. In Jewish religion it is believed that he who saves a single life saves a whole world. But all of us are part of many worlds, a factor which repeated itself in the various conversations and caused Gross to realize that he too was part of many worlds.

So he put himself into the series as well and in conversation with British classical pianist Paul Lewis, who asks Gross about his own life experiences and views Gross talks about: growing up surrounded by cultural and literary luminaries in London and New York who were the friends and acquaintances of his parents distinguished author and critic John Gross, and his mother Miriam, a literary editor, Sunday brunches with Elvis Presleys songwriter; crossing Checkpoint Charlie into East Berlin with his grandmother during communism; helping the Roma when almost no one else would; his close relationship with his godmother Sonia Orwell (the model for the heroine Julia of her husband George Orwells masterpiece 1984); being in Manhattan on 9/11; the Mideast; the importance and legacy of the Holocaust; and other matters.

greerfc@gmail.com

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Grapevine July 26, 2020: Zooming in on Tisha Beav - The Jerusalem Post

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