Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By admin on January 16, 2020

Arguably the most brazen example came last month, when Giuliani told New York Magazine that he, a Catholic, is more of a Jew than George Soros, a Holocaust survivor, because Soros doesnt go to church, he doesnt go to religion synagogue and is an enemy of Israel. I heard a similar defense of anti-Semitic critiques of Soros while reporting for my forthcoming book on him; the idea was that calling Soros a puppet master or dabbling in anti-Semitic tropes couldnt possibly have anything to do with the Hungarian-born billionaires Jewish identity, because he isnt religious.

The undercurrent to all of this is that there is a right way and a wrong way to talk about Israel, a right and wrong way to observe or not observe your religion, a right or wrong way to try to hold your own community accountable that, in short, there is a right and a wrong way to be Jewish. If you are not the right sort of Jew, you risk being labeled anti-Semitic or bad for the Jews, a self-hater, a threat to your own community.

There are a few issues with this.

To get the most obvious out of the way: It is not, nor has it ever been, up to Rudy Giuliani to determine who is Jewish.

It is also not up to Ben Shapiro or the Republican Jewish Coalition. Roughly 80 percent of Jewish Americans voted Democratic in the 2018 midterm elections, and their electoral priorities dont make them less Jewish. One might find it reprehensible that Jewish Americans working in the White House are helping an administration that is working to keep out refugees given the long history of Jewish persecution, but it is not for those concerned parties to say that they are somehow less Jewish because they took different lessons from their Jewish upbringing.

Jewish people are not a monolith. We disagree on matters of politics and principle, on whether the left or the right is the greater threat to Jewish people, on the ways in which things can and cannot be done in our name, on the degree to which American Jews should criticize Israel, on the extent to which Jewish Americans need to tackle racism in our own communities, and so on. Some of us are right and some of us are wrong, but all of us are Jewish.

Shapiro was right, in a way, on one thing: None of this is new. Jewish people have been disagreeing over the correct way to be Jewish long before the current era, and to pretend that there has always been a consensus on the extent to which Jewish people should be Zionist is deeply ahistorical. There may be some who argue that the horrific violence committed against Jewish people over the course of the 20th century should have resolved those differences and solidified Zionism as the only path forward, an argument to which one could respond. But it didnt. Soros, for example, came away from his experience of hiding out as a Christian youth during World War II committed to universal human rights, not to Zionism.

That doesnt mean that his wasnt a Jewish experience. As he once told an interviewer: Put yourself in my place. I was facing extermination at the age of 14 because I was Jewish. Wouldnt that make an impression on you? That impression led him to give billions away toward the cause of human rights, including, incidentally, the human rights of Palestinians. There are some who believe he is a bad person for having done so, but, again, it is not for them to decide that hes a bad Jew.

Emily Tamkin is a freelance writer and reporter. She is the author of the forthcoming book The Influence of Soros.

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Posted By admin on January 16, 2020

Dinner, Shabbat service, a Torah reading. In some ways, it was a normal weekend at Temple Beth Israel.

But it was not.The congregation of TBI stepped out of its comfort zone to learn more about the customs and history of Sephardic Judaism, welcoming Rabbi Rifat Sonsino, a Sephardic Jew from Turkey, for its Scholar in Residence program.

Historically, Jewish people have been classified into three main groups. The ancestors of Sephardi Jews came from the Iberian peninsula before leaving for lands such as North Africa and Anatolia in the late 15th century, around the time of the Spanish Reconquista. However, the vast majority of American Jews are considered Ashkenazi, which means their ancestors hail from central and eastern Europe. (The third group is the Mizrahi Jews of the Middle East.) TBI Executive Director Isaac Azerad, who was born in Egypt, said he is the only Sephardic Jew in TBIs congregation.

Rabbi Rifat Sonsino (left) speaks about the conversion to Islam of 17th-century Rabbi Sabbatai Zevi and the subsequent rise of the Sabbatean movement Sunday morning at Temple Beth Israel.

This means that Sonsino essentially had a blank slate with which to teach the congregants. Some of that exposure came through the three presentations Sonsino gave about topics relating to the history of Sephardim as well as differences between Sephardic and Ashkenazi customs and culture. Questions were encouraged and the views of many who had grown up learning about Judaism through the lens of their own personal experiences were challenged.

But it also permeated into the most essential of Jewish traditions, such as the different melodies and intonations Sephardi Jews use when reading the Torah at Shabbat.

And of course, the weekend kicked off Friday night with over 100 people in attendance for a Sephardi-style feast. Those in attendance were also treated to Sephardic music, featuring guitar, harp, finger-cymbals and more, from Juan De la Sierra, who dressed the part in garb that would have been worn by Sephardis in western Turkey about 100 years ago.

Caryl Levin (foreground) enjoys a performance by Sephardi musician Juan De la Sierra on Friday night at Temple Beth Israel.

De la Sierra, who has been performing for about 60 years, played some songs that many in attendance were familiar with, to which they sung along. But he also played songs that were completely foreign to the audience, though he urged them to echo his wailing chorus of Sueos de Espaa (which translates to Dreams of Spain) all the same.

Sonsino said he felt it was important for the congregants of TBI to learn about and be exposed to Sephardic Judaism so they can fully understand that Jewish people come from a wide variety of backgrounds and cultures. Sonsino learned that lesson himself when he had to adapt to a new style of worship after traveling from Turkey to Cincinnati to learn at Hebrew Union College while in his 20s.

There is no area in which Sephardic Jews and Ashkenazi Jews did not disagree, Sonsino said. On theology, on religious practices, languages. Primarily language, because Sephardic Jews speak Spanish, Ladino, and Ashkenazi Jews come with Yiddish.

Sonsino said just as the differences between Catholics and Protestants or Shiites and Sunnis make it impossible (among other reasons) to generalize Christians and Muslims, so too there are dangers in generalizing Jews.

People who belong to a certain group sometimes are not aware that there are other ways of practicing Judaism, Sonsino said. And when they experience the other type of Judaism, they tend to say, Well, that's not Judaism. Well, who's to say that? It's important to learn about each other and learn how to respect differences.

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Posted By admin on January 16, 2020

Construction of the new arts center started in October 2018.Photo courtesy of Pozez Jewish Community Center of Northern Virginia.The new Smith-Kogod Cultural Arts Center at the Pozez Jewish Community Center in Fairfax.Photo by Jacqueline Hyman.

The two-story building on Little River Turnpike in Fairfax began as a house in the 1800s. Later it was a school and then became what is now the Pozez Jewish Community Center of Northern Virginia. After the center built its modern facility 31 years ago, the old house sat unused.

But last month, after a renovation and addition, it became The Smith-Kogod Cultural Arts Center.

The feeling of the building was still kept in mind, said Arts and Ideas Director Sarah Berry. They wanted to keep the look and the feel of what that old house was.

With its large glass windows and gray and white paneling, it has a contemporary look while maintaining the feel of a house. The renovations have altered the way people will see the JCC, said Laura Adler, the centers marketing and communications director.

Having that now as a face sitting on Little River Turnpike, as opposed to that dilapidated building its really a moment of pride to be able to show our face to 45,000 people driving by every day, she said. We look contemporary. It just better represents who we are.

Walking into the two-story space, the hardwood floors and natural light make it feel inviting and modern. The building includes a classroom, hardwood floor dance studio, large performance space and a greenroom with couches and candles that performers can use to prepare before events.

The performance spaces ceiling triangulates upward it used to be the attic of the old house. Judaica and works by Jewish artists decorate the walls, and a statue that was commissioned when the main building was built sits outside the new center.

A lot of thought went into the detail of even adorning the space, said Berry. Its just celebrating the Jewish arts.

Executive Director Jeff Dannick, who has a theater background, helped plans become a reality.

He was familiar with the arts and what the need is, so I think thats [what helped drive that], Adler said. Adler said the JCC could not provide specific numbers on the cost of renovating the building.

The arts center is a blank canvas, Berry said, so it can be adapted to any type of event, class or performance. Depending on the size of the performance ensemble, the upstairs performance space can host an audience of 100. Theres professional lighting and sound equipment, and furniture can be brought in for other events.

The dance studio has the exact footprint of the stage in the main buildings auditorium, Berry said. That way, staging and rehearsals can easily move between locations. Dance and yoga classes, which had been meeting in the main building, used the arts center for the first time last week.

School-age kids are kicking off Youth Theater Programming, which took a hiatus for anumber of years. Berry said the main building had gotten so busy that there wasnt room for the youth theater to meet. The spring performance of Peter Pan, Jr. will show in thearts center.

But there can be other uses for the space, too. Shy Ashkenazi, the JCCs shaliach, hosted a Chanukah party in the new building with the Israeli American Council in December. He said it was great to have a fresh, elegant space to host an event.

We served wine in actual wine glasses, and the atmosphere was more of that with nice lighting, putting the shades a little bit down so you dont see the road necessarily, but you get enough of the light outside, Ashkenazi said. So it was it was a fun atmosphere in a new building in a new kind of space thats not the gym or the auditorium here.

He can imagine lectures and discussions happening in the intimate setting, and said being in a new place that doesnt feel like a JCC brings a different atmosphere to it.

First time I saw it, I loved it. I looked and saw theres so much potential, Ashkenazi said. Seeing the potential of freshening up things the crowd is used to having the adults lounge [in the main building, and] everythings very JCC. And [the arts center] is verydifferent than this building.

The arts do get first dibs for using space in the new building. Berry, who oversees arts programming, wants artists of all kinds and levels of ability to get value from the new center. She foresees that the Northern Virginia Jewish Film Festival and other festivals will take place in the arts center.

I really want to see that were creating art here, she said, that were incubating the arts [in Northern Virginia].

Ashkenazi, who is a musician himself, says he wants to take advantage of the space and use it to create.

I have a session that tells about my personal story and the story of Israel in mylife, through music, my music and others, he said. So I would love to perform thatin there.

jhyman@midatlanticmedia.comTwitter: @jacqbh58

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Posted By admin on January 16, 2020

LOS ANGELES (JTA) Over the past century, Jews have endured what filmmaker Yaron Zilberman calls a trilogy of traumas: the Holocaust, the Yom Kippur War and the assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin.

The Israeli-American writer, director and producer has spent much of his career exploring these ordeals, and his latest film is no exception.

Incitement focuses on the 1995 shooting of Rabin in Tel Aviv and specifically on the man who pulled the trigger Yigal Amir, the Orthodox child of Yemenite immigrants. It took Zilberman five years to research the path followed by Amir, from ambitious law student to murderer, and another year to put the film together.

The assassination of Rabin is arguably the most traumatic event in the history of Israel, Zilberman, 53, said in an interview. The murder of a Jewish prime minister was impossible to comprehend, and the circumstances leading to it were not, at the time, investigated in full perhaps to avoid a civil war.

The sense of a nation on the precipice is vividly re-created in Incitement, which takes viewers back to the mid-1990s and powerfully dramatizes the deep fissures then opening up over the pursuit of a peace agreement with the Palestinians.

The signing that year of the Oslo II Accord promised to bring the country closer to a peaceful resolution to the conflict. But since the agreement called for the return of some of the land won by Israel during the Six-Day War in 1967, a determined opposition virulently fought against any concession.

As passions intensified, protesters displayed effigies of Rabin in Nazi uniform or as Yasser Arafat, chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization. Rabin, a former general who had engineered the Israeli victory in the 1967 war, was called a traitor at increasingly vitriolic public demonstrations.

The film shows newsreel footage of Benjamin Netanyahu, then a rising young right-wing politician and now prime minister, encouraging the protesters at one such event though not, he insisted later, advocating violence.

On Nov. 4, 1995, at 8:30 p.m. as Rabin left a peace rally in Tel Aviv, Amir emerged from the crowd and pumped two pistol shots into the prime minister. Rabin was rushed to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

Amir is portrayed by Yehuda Nahari Halevi, an actor whose family lived in the same Yemenite neighborhood as Amir and who dominates the screen throughout most of the film. Critics have applauded his performance, but some have observed that his powerful portrayal might elicit the sympathy of the audience, his horrible deed notwithstanding.

That criticism doesnt surprise Zilberman, who co-wrote and directed the film. One reason it took so many years to make the movie was that Zilberman wanted to get into Amirs mind and avoid portraying him as a unidimensional monster.

In Zilbermans retelling, Amirs road perdition is paved with real or perceived personal slights and the misguidance of certain rabbis and even of his own mother.

The former led Amir to conclude that Jewish law permits, and even encourages, the killing of traitors. Amirs mother, in her short turn, drums it into her sons head that he is super-smart and destined for greatness.

On top of all that, his longtime girlfriend Nava (Daniella Kertesz) breaks up with him, leading Amir to conclude that her Ashkenazi family opposed her relationship with a dark-skinned Yemenite.

Just about every review of the film draws a parallel between the popular mood in Israel in the 1990s and the one in the United States today. Variety writes that the films portrayal of a divided democracy, in which provocative language from politicians and the media lead to lethal violence, is hardly a relic of history.

This plot summary sounds as if it could be ripped from recent U.S. headlines, the magazine said.

Zilberman doesnt dispute the parallels. Both Netanyahu and President Donald Trump are cut from the same political cloth and play off the same book and incite their respective bases while frequently pretending that the victim in a given situation is really the criminal, Zilberman said.

In Israel, the film is known by the punchier title Yamim Noraim literally Days of Awe, the collective name for the holidays of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, a period of self-examination and judgment. Incitement was deemed the best motion picture of the year in Israel and became the countrys automatic entrant for the Academy Award for best foreign film, though it didnt make the cut of the final 10.

Zilberman splits his time between New York and Tel Aviv. He is married to the film producer Tamar Sela and the couple have three children.

Incitement was co-written with Ron Leshem and Yair Hizmi. The film opens Jan. 31 in New York City and Feb. 7 in Los Angeles, to be followed by a rollout in other U.S. cities.

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Posted By admin on January 16, 2020

Learning Objectives

This module will update you on the role of genetics in breast and ovarian cancer, including:

Dr Marc Tischkowitz is a reader and consultant in medical genetics at the University of Cambridge and East Anglian Medical Genetic Service

There are a few key questions that can give an idea of whether family history needs to be explored further:

These four questions should identify the need for a more detailed investigation is required. It is crucial to ask about the paternal side. All the main cancer susceptibility genes can be passed on by either sex but as men rarely get breast cancer, the history can appear more distant on the male side. The cancer pattern can be masked if there are lots of males in a family, so it is important to ask about the male/female balance. If a woman has a paternal grandmother, aunt or cousins with breast or ovarian cancer this should be taken as seriously as a positive maternal history. Ask for this information directly, as it is often not volunteered. If I were only allowed one key message in this article, it would be always to ask about paternal history.

BRCA1/BRCA2variants are 10 times more common in those of Ashkenazi Jewish descent, so it is important to ask about this where appropriate.

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(JTA) Almost every movie, TV show and other work of art gets put under Twitters sensitive microscope these days. Depictions of Jews in contemporary culture are especially of interest, given the wave of anti-Semitism rising across the country.

So in a sense it might be surprising that Uncut Gems, the critically acclaimed Diamond District thriller starring Adam Sandler that depicts a series of age-old negative tropes about Jews, hasnt been subject to a controversial level of public scrutiny.

Directed by Jewish filmmakers Josh and Benny Safdie, the movie features Sandler as Howard Ratner, a New York City jeweler who juggles a seemingly endless series of bets, hustles, false promises and scams throughout the more than two-hour production.

Howard is a sleazy, greasy, greedy, dishonest businessman who wears his hair slicked back and dons lots of ostentatious jewelry and clothing. Hes obsessed with making money perhaps to a clinical extent and is even shown to have exploited the work of people in Africa (Ethiopian Jews, to be exact).

Sandlers Howard, who another character calls a crazy Jew, is almost a parody of the anti-Semitic caricature that paints Jews as cheap and profit-driven.

Its not as if this is some arthouse film relegated to a few small screens Uncut Gems has made over $40 million at the box office and garnered serious Oscar buzz before this week, when it surprised critics by being shut out of the nomination list.

So why hasnt there been an angry response from Jewish organizations or on social media? And why are Jews some of the films biggest fans?

From left, Benny Safdie, Josh Safdie and Adam Sandler at a screening of Uncut Gems in New York City, Dec. 3, 2019. The film failed to garner any Oscar nominations, surprising many critics. (Mark Sagliocco/Getty Images for The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences)

There are a few possible reasons, including that Sandler, the writers and directors are all Jewish. The Safdies, who are from New York City, said in a New York Times Magazine interview late last year that Sandlers comedy meant a great deal to them when they were young.

But the Jewish factor hasnt completely shielded films from such criticism. When Borat came out, for example, the Anti-Defamation League took Sacha Baron Cohen to task for promoting anti-Semitic stereotypes in a widely seen blockbuster, despite his good intentions.

Sandler has built up a large amount of goodwill among Jewish audiences over the years with his iconic Hanukkah Song and role as an Israeli hairdresser in the 2008 liberal Zionist classic You Dont Mess With the Zohan.

Hes been forward with his Jewishness, too, in a profession where Jewish performers habitually changed their names.Even in his lowbrow comedies, Sandler has played characters with names like Sonny Koufax, Dr. Danny Maccabee, Sandy Wexler, Chuck Levine and Dave Buznik.

In the Times profile, Sandler made a point of taking the reporter to the Hillcrest Country Club, a longtime stronghold for what he called Jewish big shots.

Uncut Gems never shies away from Jewishness. Theres a Passover seder scene, complete with Hebrew prayers. Jewish actress Idina Menzel plays Howards wife, while Judd Hirsch plays his father-in-law. Josh Ostrovsky, the controversial Instagram influencer known as The Fat Jew, has a small role owing to his long friendship with the Safdies.

Idina Menzel in her characters old bat mitzvah dress in Uncut Gems. (Courtesy of A24)

In a Slate interview, the Safdies said the humor of the film is explicitly Jewish.

[T]he early inspirations were these titanic 20th-century Jews, these overachievers, these overcompensators, these guys with interesting perspectives based on that, trying to work their way into society: the Rodney Dangerfields, the Lenny Bruces, the Don Rickles, the Al Goldsteins, Josh Safdie said.

But the main reason Uncut Gems has avoided controversy is likely because of how it approaches and depicts its Jewish protagonist and the larger Jewish world of the Diamond District with a real sense of authenticity.

The culture is not like an Ashkenazi Jewish lawyer from Westchester, Jon Hammer, a former Diamond District worker, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. The character was very accurately portrayed in mannerisms, clothing, jewelry, and even the love of the NBA (a lot of the guys I worked with loved the NBA).

The Safdies are descended from Syrian Sephardic Jews on their fathers side, a specific Jewish demographic that is well represented in the New York jewelry world, in the film and real life. They based the Howard character on both their own father and others in the Diamond District, where he worked in addition to lots of additional research. The Times profile called their script prep work pseudojournalism.

Sandler himself also immersed himself in the Diamond District, meeting and following around real jewelers to craft his character. The final product is a study of a real type of person from a real place that wasnt created to feed into anti-Semitic stereotypes.

In the Slate interview, the Safdies said they were well aware of portraying Jewish stereotypes and put them out there for a reason.

I think what you see in Howard is the long delineation of stereotypes that were forced onto us in the Middle Ages, when the church was created, when Jews were not counted toward population, and their only way in, their only way of accruing status as an individual, as a person who was considered a human being, was through material consumption, Josh Safdie said.

[A]s assimilation has accrued, the foundation, the DNA of the strive has become kind of cartoonized in a weird way. What youre seeing in the film is a parable. What are the ill effects of overcompensation?

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Posted By admin on January 16, 2020

Food coverageis supported by a generous donation from Susan and Moses Libitzky.

Stuart Cristol-Deman is well aware of the commonly held belief that when it comes to drinking alcohol, Jews are not big tipplers compared with some others. He used to fall into that category himself.

I didnt even drink in college like everyone else, he said.

So perhaps hes a funny candidate to become a certified bourbon steward. And even with that, he still doesnt drink much.

He traces it back to a mind-blowing taste of the spirit, when he sipped from a glass of Jameson Irish Whisky to this day he doesnt know which type while attending a culinary conference in Chicago. Before that, he had only tasted the occasional whiskey sour.

The flavor was so rich, with brown sugar and caramel and vanilla, these rich flavors like from baking, he said. And that sent on me on a journey.

Scotch and bourbon both fall into the greater whiskey category. Scotch comes from Ireland, bourbon from the U.S., often Kentucky.

The certification is offered by the Kentucky-based Stave & Thief Societys Moonshine University, which offers an on-site executive program and a less intensive online course, which is the one he chose.

The online course is just a book and then a test online and you also have to create a flight of three different whiskeys, and you compare and contrast them, writing tasting notes for all of them, he said. He used three California bourbons.

The 50-year-old resident of Moss Beach in San Mateo County says he is one of a handful of bourbon stewards in the Bay Area.

There are about 1,200 certified bourbon stewards now total, which is a lot more than a couple years ago, he said. The certification he got is the only one recognized by the Kentucky Bourbon Association.

The flavor was so rich, with brown sugar and caramel and vanilla. And that sent on me on a journey.

Even though hes certified, theres still much more to learn.

When he started out, Highland Scotches were like a bonfire in my mouth, he said, noting that at first he preferred Irish whisky because it was lighter in weight and often a bit sweet. But studying for the course opened up a whole world of bourbons.

Cristol-Deman offers the occasional bourbon tasting class and home-based cooking classes bagel-making is one of his more popular topics. He is also the cheese buyer for New Leaf Market.

He also considers himself somewhat of an amateur Jewish food historian, a natural combination of his interests.

While I grew up in an Ashkenazi household, my aunt married a Yemenite and Iraqi Jew from Tel Aviv, he said, and he appreciated having a Sephardic connection in the family. Sephardic food is so much better, and they have such a richer history as well, he said.

He grew up in Atlanta in a kosher home and attended Jewish day school for part of his education. He met his wife, Liza, when both were studying abroad at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, and they moved to the Bay Area so she could attend law school at Stanford. Theyve been on the Central Coast now for 21 years and are founding members of the Coastside Jewish Community.

Cristol-Deman spent over a decade as the buyer and manager of Toque Blanche, an upscale kitchen store in Half Moon Bay. When it closed in 2017, he began offering classes on his website before he got his job at New Leaf. Now he offers classes when he can find the time.

While he was always more of a cook than a baker, his quest to make a good bagel came from the absence of anything passable on the coast, he said.

I did a bunch of research, read six or seven recipes, and started tinkering around and combining different things, with the major thing being adding more salt, he said. Thats the thing missing from most bagel recipes, he said, and he should know: Hes a supertaster, or someone who has an unusually sensitive palate.

While at first he was just experimenting for himself and his family, once he had perfected his recipe, Cristol-Deman added bagels to his class list. He believes the more quality bagels there are in the Bay, the better. Theres room enough for all of us, he said.

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Photo by Yossi Hoffman Photography.

When the Conservative movements Rabbinical Assembly was looking for a new chief executive, its search committee outlined the qualities it was looking for in its leader.

We spoke a lot about someone who can honor and validate the different types of rabbis and fields that rabbis work in but who can also kind of be someone who can innovate and do things outside the box, says Rabbi Aderet Drucker, co-director of the Den Collective in Washington and a member of the search committee. You want to have colleagues who are well trained and good scholars and love Judaism, who live Torah in their practice not just preach it.

That description sounded a lot like Jacob Blumenthal, founding rabbi of Shaare Torah in Gaithersburg. And when Blumenthal was hired last April to head the association of the worlds 1,700 Conservative rabbis, it was a time of change for the movement. For Drucker, it was a chance to welcome an old colleague as Conservative rabbis were trying new ways to energize their congregations.

Blumenthal is an innovator, she says. Hes sort of always been an entrepreneurial rabbi.

Other rabbis note his warmth and commitment to the people he works with.

Hes thoughtful, hes original, says Rabbi Aaron Alexander of Adas Israel Congregation in Washington. He cares deeply about Torah and Israel, and he believes that the ideology that drives the movement is well situated to meet the needs of American Jewry.

In his new role, which he assumed in July 2019, Blumenthal says his main purpose is to support and empower rabbis.

Its been, I would say, exciting, overwhelming, a tremendous learning experience and also very inspiring, says Blumenthal, 53.

He wants to create more networking and learning opportunities for rabbis, and says the Rabbinical Assembly will soon pilot a mentorship program.

One of the interesting things we discovered, as we were talking with rabbis, is that in the 21st century, mentorship works in two directions, Blumenthal says.

Older, more experienced rabbis may have tips on working with communities and teaching Torah, but younger rabbis can help with adjusting to new technologies and the changing world.

The news of Blumenthals hiring was a surprise to Shaare Torah, which he helped found in 1995. He left the congregation without a successor. An interim rabbi is now in place as the synagogue searches for a permanent replacement.

Rabbi Debra Newman Kamin, the Rabbinical Assemblys lay president, says Blumenthal handled the transition into his position beautifully and so skillfully.

Its not only that he understood the organization historically, what we were all those years, but he also had a very intimate knowledge of where we wanted to go, Newman Kamin says. Hes also very wise and very patient and very kind, so things that would maybe agitate someone who was new in the position, hes really able to step back and view it with a great deal of wisdom and kindness.

Blumenthal says he wants find out what rabbis need on an individual level, because every community, whether halfway across the world or in Greater Washington, is unique.

Thats why he visits Jewish communities around the world. He recently returned from the Abayudaya community in Uganda, which is home to about 2,000 Conservative Jews in eight small villages. Hes visited Buenos Aires and Israel, and is planning a route through several United States cities and Toronto.

He asks rabbis, What are you doing that gives you energy? Responses vary from new melodies and new ways of prayer to expanding education and interfaith work.

Its great, we have a lot to learn from each other, he says. I always say, my job is to go where the rabbis are.

Too fast or too slow?

Among the changes the movement is grappling with is how to be welcoming to interfaith families and what the role of a non-Jewish family member should be. Last year, Shaare Torah voted to allow non-Jewish family members to hold leadership positions. The vote was divisive, according to several synagogue members.

Its a move many Conservative congregations are considering. Blumenthal notes that the Rabbinical Assembly is a global organization whose rabbis are free to make the best decisions for themselves and their congregations. Drucker adds that the Conservative movement continues to change.

Our movement is evolving and some may say too fast and some may say too slow, Drucker says, but we are having those conversations.

Blumenthal says conversion and interfaith work have been the most fulfilling aspects of his job as a rabbi.

Youre talking with people who take nothing for granted. And everything they do that relates to Judaism is a conscious choice. Its inspiring to see the choices they make, he says. Those choices to engage in Judaism can be inspiring to our entire community.

In North America, at least, people of many different backgrounds are often part of the same community, Blumenthal says. That means congregations need to be aware of how they involve diverse membership in traditions and life cycle events.

Theyre part of our families. Theyre part of our communities. And we want to welcome them, he says. And I would even say more than welcome them, we want to embrace them.

All of the rabbis interviewed for this story say this is a time of change for the Conservative movement, especially regarding inclusivity and diversity.

I think were all learning and the Conservative movement is learning along with society about what it means to be a diverse community, says Newman Kamin.

A necessary center

At the same time, Newman Kamin and Blumenthal agree that the Conservative movement provides a necessary center point, especially in North America, between the Reform and other movements on the left that do not adhere to Jewish law, and Orthodox communities on the right.

Were in a cultural moment that seems to push people toward the extremes rather than toward the center, but I have a lot of faith that ultimately, its the center that needs to hold, Blumenthal says. And that a healthy society builds strong centrist institutions, and that includes strong centrist religious institutions. Those are spaces that value diversity, that embrace people with lots of different backgrounds and with lots of different ways of accessing Judaism.

Drucker says the conversations happening in the secular world on gender equality and bias training are seeping into the Jewish religious world. There have always been Conservative rabbis committed to social action, she says, but the movement as a whole is now making much bigger strides.

With rising anti-Semitism in the United States, Blumenthal says his outward presentation as a religious Jew hasnt changed. I still wear a kippah wherever I go, he says.

At the same time, he understands that other Jews may feel differently. And the fact that Jews can put their kippah in their pocket means that they need to commit to the struggles of other minorities who dont have the possibility of blending in.

There are other communities, particularly people of color, who deal with hatred and bigotry as well. And dont have the quote, unquote luxury of hiding their identity in ways that Ashkenazi-descended Jews might be able to, Blumenthal says. If nothing else, hopefully [being exposed to anti-Semitism] makes us very sensitive and committed to their struggle, too.

By all indications, the Conservative movement is shrinking in the United States. The 2013 Pew survey found that 18 percent of American Jews identified as Conservative, down from 25 percent in a 2001 study. In 2017, a Public Religion Research Institute survey found that just 14 percent identify as Conservative, and the Pew study found the Conservative movement to have the highest attrition rate of thethree major streams.

But Alexander says theres a growing trend of people needing to feel like theyre part of something bigger than themselves.

There is a large segment of American Jewry that is seeking a grounded, relevant, inclusive and deeply meaningful Judaism that extends far past each persons personal story, he says. What we need is leadership, teachers, layleaders to facilitate those kinds of connections for people in ways that are serious and devoted to the tradition as we understand it and capable of transcending the past while holding firmly to its roots.

In finding ways to engage those Jews, Blumenthal says hes seeing tremendous creativity from rabbis within religious settings. He says their passion and love for Judaism inspires him.

Regarding that engagement, whether it be between congregants or rabbis, the other rabbis who spoke for this article say Blumenthal is a great man for the job.

I think his ability to work in what we call in a conventional place for a clergy member but also think about what else we can do outside those walls is a good way to understand the beautiful gift and talent he brings to the Rabbinical Assembly, says Drucker.

And though he misses some aspects of being a pulpit rabbi, like the one-on-one connections with congregants, Blumenthal says he is now working with a congregation of rabbis.

I loved every minute of my pulpit experience, so I definitely miss it. But Im also inspired by what I do, Blumenthal says. Im inspired by [rabbis] every day in my work Its inspiring to see people build those communities and to do it in creative and powerful ways.

jhyman@midatlanticmedia.comTwitter: @jacqbh58

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Gaithersburg's Jacob Blumenthal is leading the world's Conservative rabbis - Washington Jewish Week

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Posted By admin on January 16, 2020

The popular Israeli ritual called submit your election lists ended last night, for the third time in a year.

Thirty worn-out parties, some locked in unhappy alliances, partook again.

Some submitted their names fighting for political survival, some just to have their voice heard for a few minutes, while others joined the party just for fun.

Ever heard of a party called the Pirates? Now you have, and probably for the last time.

There are several of that kind, formed by people now forever entitled to add head of party and candidate in 2020 elections to their bio.

That aside, on both the right and the left there was a real, life-and-death game prior to registration, with fraught unifications and mergers.

It ended at 11.59pm, when short-of-breath party representatives came to register before the doors and the lists closed for good. As of midnight, nothing can be changed.

There is a big difference between the engines of unification on the left and right.

On the right, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu almost single-handedly imposed unions in an attempt to unify the right in one hermetic structure; on the left, unity came by the popular demand of the diminishing lefts supporters.

Ideology? A foreign notion. That is how it looks when the centre left preaches just not Bibi and the right claims only Bibi, as the premier is commonly known.

Survival is the name of the game: Netanyahus personal political survival and the survival of the flagging left as relevant political entity.

To Bibi or not to Bibi, that is the question.

Racism and regret: Palestinians in the Galilee mull voting in Israel

In a cynical political twist, the Palestinian Joint List - the slate whose politicians were recently defined by Netanyahus Facebook page as those who want to annihilate us - has become the exemplary role model.

With the far-right parties taking their unification negotiations to the wire, amid much acrimony, Likud members pointed to the Joint List as a perfect example of political wisdom politicians who managed to unify for their people despite their many differences.

Submission of the lists and the process of registration are much more than just technical steps towards elections in March.

They are in fact a crooked mirror that reflects the image of Israeli society in 2020 - or rather a mirror that reflects the crooked image of Israeli society.

In the midst of political chaos, it is hard to decide what is more telling and more alarming: the newly formed party of Larissa Trimbobler, the wife of Yitzhak Rabins jailed assassin Yigal Amir; or the fact that Netanyahu kept single-handedly plotting ways to bring Meir Kahanes racist disciples onto one of the lists.

Both, by the way, share legal motivation. Trimboblers party agenda is to get a retrial for her husband, as she said upon filing the forms to register her party.

The name she chose for the party is Mishpat Tzedek - Fair Trial in Hebrew.

Facing a raft of corruption charges, Netanyahu, meanwhile, needs one strong national-religious right wing to secure an immunity coalition that can keep him away from the wrath of the law.

He failed to do so in two previous election rounds; the timing is crucial for him.

Until the very last moment before registration closed, he made intense efforts to bringKahanist Otzma Yehudit (Jewish Power) and far-right Jewish Home into a union with Defence Minister Naftali Bennetts New Right.

He even threatened to fire Bennett from the position he coveted for so long, telling him he wont be able to continue as defence minister if he runs on a separate list without full unity on the right.

Netanyahu is afraid that one of his right-wing allies might fall below the electoral threshold and fail to win seats in parliament, with tens of thousands of coveted votes going down the drain - as they did in April and Septembers elections.

At the very last moment, he achieved partial success. The head of Jewish Home, Rabbi Rafi Peretz, caved in under pressure, broke his promise to Otzma Yehudits leader Itamar Ben-Gvir, and joined Bennetts party, leaving the Kahanists alone.

Netanyahu got the larger, reinforced far-right bloc he craved, but Otzma Yehudit is bound not to reach the electoral threshold in March and again waste votes the prime minister desperately needs.

Ben-Gvir, the follower of Kahanes racist ideology, is not necessarily worse than others Bennett chose to warmly embrace.

He is just the only one who chose to decorate his Hebron living room with a picture of Baruch Goldstein, who in 1994 murdered 29 Muslim worshippers in the Ibrahimi Mosque.

Thatsort of display can tarnish the new liberal image Bennett is now trying to create for his far-right party.

In what was presented as an ultimate sacrifice minutes before the list submission deadline, Ben-Gvir offered to remove the photo from his wall. Too late.

Then he insinuated the Ashkenazi national-religious establishment rejected Sephardi, periphery-born members like himself.

One way or another the national-religious bloc is undergoing a major crisis. The lists are just a symptom of a much more severe sickness.

Liberal seems to be a flexible term in 2020 Israel.

Yisrael Beiteinus leader Avigdor Lieberman, who used to say, to the right to me there is only a wall, now promises to keep Israel liberal.

Liberal, according to Lieberman, means a government free of Arabs and Orthodox Jews. George Orwell would have a blast serving on the Central Elections Committee in charge of registrating the parties.

So far, the most symbolically important part of the registration process is not what is on the list but rather what is not.

Three letters disappeared this time from the Israeli political scene.

When voters enter the polling booth on 2 March, ballots bearing the three letters that have since 1992 represented Meretz, the only Jewish Zionist-leftist party, will be missing.

Future or funeral? Israel's Labor party could be on the verge of extinction

The Meretz-Labor union will be represented on the voting slips instead by the latter partys traditional letters: Alef, Mem and Tav (or Emet).

It might be more than symbolic. The Israeli Zionist-left is close to extinction. Labor, the party that established the State of Israel, is not from that political strand.

Labor leader Amir Peretz was reluctant to go into this alliance. He was practically forced to, choosing to define it just as a technical bloc. In the process, the unhappy union created many anomalies.

Number two on the list is Orly Levy-Abekasis, who once held the same position on Liebermans list.

Meretz, the one Jewish party that took pride in Jewish-Arab partnership, ended up with their only Arab candidate, Essawi Frej, as number 11 on the list, a spot hardly electable.

Frej is the one who single handedly saved Meretz in the September 2019 elections. He recruited over 40,000 Arab voters, thus allowing the party to reach the electoral threshold.Now he is left behind that very threshold. Personal survival of Meretz leaders tops principle of partnership.

The only optimistic voice on the left comes from former Labor MP Professor Yossi Yonah, a political scientist.

The unions might in fact be a positive phenomenon, he tells Middle East Eye.

They form some rainbow coalitions able to contain a variety of ideas and electorates who can share a common denominator. They came to be out of necessity, but might turn into something organically healthy.

Others commentators have busied themselves by teasing the Election Committee, asking if is ready for the fourth round. They were not necessarily joking.

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Electoral alliances are a game of life and death for Israeli parties - Middle East Eye

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Posted By admin on January 16, 2020

TEL AVIV, Israel, Jan. 14, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Carevature Medical, Inc. announces a new article that has just been published at the International Journal of Spine Surgery, discussing a Modified Transforaminal Thoracic Interbody Fusion Approach.

The authors present a new technique for posterior unilateral thoracic discectomy, facilitated by the Dreal, "a novel, curved, shielded, high-speed device"; Introducing the Dreal ventrally to the dural sac allows removal of calcified and soft disc fragments without relying on forceful manual maneuvers and avoiding manipulation of the spinal cord, resulting in a "safer treatment for thoracic disc herniations, reducing complication rates and improving patient outcome."

The technique was developed by neurosurgeon Ely Ashkenazi, MD, at the Assuta Medical Center (Tel Aviv, Israel) in the past 5 years and has become a standard for treating such pathologies in transforaminal thoracic interbody fusion procedures (TTIF) as described in the article, as well as in more common transforaminal lumbar interbody fusion procedures (TLIF).

Says orthopedic spine surgeon and lead author Michael Millgram, MD: "The Dreal curved high speed drill has proved a valuable addition to my clinical practice. It allows quick and thorough evacuation of disc material in TLIF procedures providing a large clean bony surface for fusion while reducing operating time. My impression is that TLIF procedures performed with the Dreal exhibit a considerably more robust anterior fusion than those procedures where disc space preparation was performed in the standard manual manner."

Dennis Farrell, President for Carevature Medical, Inc. comments: "This article presents one example of how Carevature technology has the potential to reduce the morbidity associated with spinal procedures. Our company is laser focused on improving outcomes through novel technology which is designed to safely, efficiently, and effectively remove pathology while retaining structural anatomy and minimizing the collateral damage often associated with spine surgery. We are committed to modernizing the tools that are available for decompression, many of which have not changed in decades. Carevature continues to research, develop, and launch solutions that advance the art of the decompression through our family of sterile packed, single-use, curved at the tip, shielded, and high speed bone cutting technology, and are looking forward to additional publications that share the benefits of our growing experience in cervical (ACDF, ACCF, and foraminotomy) and lumbar (foraminotomy, osteophyte removal) procedures."

To date, Carevature Medical's Dreal technology has assisted surgeons in over 1,500 cases, both non-fusion and fusion. The company's highly targeted approach has it working with medical systems and surgeons located across the US, in Chicago, Boston, Dallas, southern California, Michigan, North Carolina, and Florida, with plans to expand throughout 2020.

ABOUT CAREVATURE

Carevature Medical Ltd. a privately held medical device company headquartered in Rehovot, Israel, is dedicated to developing advanced orthopedic surgery solutions that minimize trauma, resulting in long-lasting improved patient outcomes.

Media contact:Robert W. Cook, VP Marketing & SalesCarevature Medical, Inc.M: 260-417-1643E: bob@carevature.com

SOURCE Carevature Medical

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A Recent Peer-reviewed Article Reveals a New Spinal Surgery Technique Based on Carevature's Cutting-edge Dreal Technology - PRNewswire

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