Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By admin on May 22, 2017

Ashkenazi Hebrew (Hebrew: Hagiyya Ashkenazit, Yiddish: ), is the pronunciation system for Biblical and Mishnaic Hebrew favored for liturgical use and study by Ashkenazi Jewish practice. It survives today as a separate religious dialect within some parts of the Haredi community, even alongside Modern Hebrew in Israel, although its use amongst non-Israeli Ashkenazi Jews has greatly diminished.

As it is used parallel with Modern Hebrew, its phonological differences are clearly recognized:

There are considerable differences between the Lithuanian, Polish (also known as Galician), Hungarian, and German pronunciations.

In addition to geographical differences, there are differences in register between the "natural" pronunciation in general use and the more prescriptive rules advocated by some rabbis and grammarians, particularly for use in reading the Torah. For example:

There have been several theories on the origins of the different Hebrew reading traditions. The basic cleavage is between those who believe that the differences arose in medieval Europe and those who believe that they reflect older differences between the pronunciations of Hebrew and Aramaic current in different parts of the Fertile Crescent, that is to say Judaea, Galilee, Syria, northern Mesopotamia and Babylonia proper. Within the first group of theories, Zimmels believed that the Ashkenazi pronunciation arose in late medieval Europe and that the pronunciation prevailing in France and Germany in the time of the Tosafists was similar to the Sephardic. His evidence for this was the fact that Asher ben Jehiel, a German who became chief rabbi of Toledo, never refers to any difference of pronunciation, though he is normally very sensitive to differences between the two communities.[citation needed]

The difficulty with the second group of theories is that we do not know for certain what the pronunciations of these countries actually were and how far they differed. Since the expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492, if not before, the Sephardic pronunciation of the vowels became standard in all these countries, ironing out any differences that previously existed.[3] This makes it harder to adjudicate between the different theories on the relationship between today's pronunciation systems and those of ancient times.

Leopold Zunz believed that the Ashkenazi pronunciation was derived from that of Palestine in Geonic times (7th11th centuries CE), while the Sephardi pronunciation was derived from that of Babylonia. This theory was supported by the fact that, in some respects, Ashkenazi Hebrew resembles the western dialect of Syriac while Sephardi Hebrew resembles the eastern, e.g. Eastern Syriac Peshitta as against Western Syriac Peshito. Ashkenazi Hebrew in its written form also resembles Palestinian Hebrew in its tendency to male spellings (see Mater lectionis).

Others, including Abraham Zevi Idelsohn, believed that the distinction is more ancient, and represents the distinction between the Judaean and Galilean dialects of Hebrew in Mishnaic times (1st2nd centuries CE), with the Sephardi pronunciation being derived from Judaean and the Ashkenazi from Galilean. This theory is supported by the fact that Ashkenazi Hebrew, like Samaritan Hebrew, has lost the distinct sounds of many of the guttural letters, while there are references in the Talmud to this as a feature of Galilean speech. Idelsohn ascribes the Ashkenazi (and, on his theory, Galilean) pronunciation of kamatz gadol as [o] to the influence of Phoenician: see Canaanite shift.

In the time of the Masoretes (8th10th centuries CE) there were three distinct notations for denoting vowels and other details of pronunciation in Biblical and liturgical texts. One was the Babylonian; another was the Palestinian; the third was the Tiberian, which eventually superseded the other two and is still in use today.

In certain respects the Ashkenazi pronunciation provides a better fit to the Tiberian notation than do the other reading traditions: for example, it distinguishes between pata and qama gadol, and between segol and ere, and does not make the qama symbol do duty for two different sounds. A distinctive variant of the Tiberian notation was in fact used by Ashkenazim, before being superseded by the standard version. On the other hand it is unlikely that in the Tiberian system ere and olam were diphthongs as they are in Ashkenazi Hebrew: they are more likely to have been closed vowels. (On the other hand, these vowels sometimes correspond to diphthongs in Arabic.) For more details of the reconstructed pronunciation underlying the Tiberian notation, see Tiberian vocalization.

In other respects Ashkenazi Hebrew resembles Yemenite Hebrew, which appears to be related to the Babylonian notation. Shared features include the pronunciation of qama gadol as [o] and, in the case of Lithuanian Jews and some but not all Yemenites, of olam as [e]. These features are not found in the Hebrew pronunciation of today's Iraqi Jews, which as explained has been overlaid by Sephardi Hebrew, but are found in some of the Judeo-Aramaic languages of northern Iraq and in some dialects of Syriac.

Another possibility is that these features were found within an isogloss that included Syria, northern Palestine and northern Mesopotamia but not Judaea or Babylonia proper, and did not coincide exactly with the use of any one notation (and the olam = [e] shift may have applied to a more restricted area than the qama gadol = [o] shift). The Yemenite pronunciation would, on this hypothesis, be derived from that of northern Mesopotamia and the Ashkenazi pronunciation from that of northern Palestine. The Sephardic pronunciation appears to be derived from that of Judaea, as evidenced by its fit to the Palestinian notation.

According to the Maharal of Prague[4] and many other scholars,[5] including Rabbi Yaakov Emden, one of the leading Hebrew grammarians of all time,[6] Ashkenazi Hebrew is the most accurate pronunciation of Hebrew preserved. The reason given is that it preserves distinctions, such as between pata and qama, which are not reflected in the Sephardic and other dialects. Only in the Ashkenazi pronunciation are all seven "nequdot" (the Hebrew vowels of the ancient Tiberian tradition) distinguished: Yemenite, which comes close, does not distinguish pata from segol.

On the other hand, this view does not appear to be supported by any non-Ashkenazi scholars. Some scholars argue in favour of the greater authenticity of the Yemenite pronunciation on the ground that it is the only Hebrew pronunciation to distinguish all the consonants.

Although Modern Hebrew was intended to be based on Mishnaic spelling and Sephardi Hebrew pronunciation, the language as spoken in Israel has adapted to popular Ashkenazi Hebrew phonology in the following respects:

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Ashkenazi Hebrew - Wikipedia

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Posted By admin on May 22, 2017

Students from Hallandale High School in Hallandale Beach and West Broward High School in Pembroke Pines met with Holocaust survivors and Jewish War Veterans for a Jewish American Heritage Month event at the Posnack Jewish Community Center in Davie.

The event, attended by 53 students selected from teachers from both schools, was organized by U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-23) as one of many events taking place in May to commemorate JAHM.

"Jewish American Heritage Month was created to promote the contributions of American Jews to our country. JAHM began with stories of immigrants to our country and we are lucky to have people here today to share those experiences," said Wasserman Schultz in her opening remarks to the students.

"We honor both the Holocaust survivors and Jewish War Veterans in learning of their contributions and to be aware that acts of anti-Semitism are still taking place in our time. The Posnack Jewish Community Center, where we are today, had to be evacuated twice recently."

"This is the second time we are honoring both Holocaust survivors and Jewish War Veterans and we will continue to do so annually as a Jewish American Heritage Month event," said Wasserman Schultz.

Students listened to the testimonies of both survivors and veterans in tables in which survivors and veterans were paired in intimate conversations with the students.

Sharing stories of courage and survival in the Holocaust were survivors Anya Baum, Mary Eckstein, Norman Frajman, Roman Haar, Joseph Henner, Basia McDonnell, Sam Schleider and Fran Zatz.

Jewish War Veterans at the JAHM event were William Bregman, Stephen Moss, Stan Pannaman, Richard Rosensweig and Jack Shifel.

Survivors discussed their experiences as children of many near death experiences and the kindness of strangers who helped them.

"We were all lucky to have survived. None of us could have planned what to do to escape the Holocaust. It was a matter of luck to be alive," said Eckstein.

Veterans discussed their experiences of serving in World War II, the Korean War and the Vietnam War.

"I was lucky not to be in combat in the Vietnam War, but so many of the veterans who came back were and are suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)," said Shifel.

Frajman illustrated his ordeals as a survivor by showing the students his striped jacket issued to him by the Nazis in a concentration camp.

"This jacket is a witness to all the atrocities that took place in the Holocaust," said Frajman, whose mother and sister were murdered along with more than 100 members of his family in the Holocaust.

"There are three words that best describe the era Hell on Earth," said Frajman.

Frajman survived the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, four concentration camps (many as a slave laborer) and a Death March before being liberated by the Russians at age 15.

"I wept in tears immediately at my table after hearing Mr. Frajman's testimonial. It was crazy and so sad. What did he do to go through all the suffering," said 11th grade student Destiny Greggs of Hallandale High.

"I am grateful to have heard his testimony for a day that I will never forget," said Greggs.

"The lessons of the Holocaust must be that we never repeat the same events again," said Henner.

"I learned that the world is not perfect today and maybe never was. We must all strive to work together to make a better world for all of us," said 11th grade student Natalia Amay of West Broward High School.

Wasserman Schultz is credited, along with the late Sen. Arlen Specter, a Republican-turned-Democrat from Pennsylvania and the Jewish Museum of Florida, with founding the annual JAHM celebrations, beginning in 2006.

To learn more about Jewish American Heritage Month, go to http://www.jewishameriicanheritagemonth.us.

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Vets, Holocaust survivors meet students at Jewish American Heritage event - Sun Sentinel

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Posted By simmons on May 22, 2017

They wanted to wake people up. Three men from a small militia group called The Crusaders gathered a stockpile of firearms, ammunition and explosives last year and plotted to load up four vehicles with bombs. Their target was a sprawling apartment complex in Garden City, Kansas, where many Somali immigrants live and pray. The militia members referred to Muslimsas cockroaches, and wanted to kill the men, women and children who called the complex home in a large explosion.

The only good Muslim is a dead Muslim, one of the men had told the others. They were arrested in October before the attack could be carried out.

The incident in Garden City is just one of 150 plots and attacks compiled in A Dark and Constant Rage: 25 Years of Right-Wing Terrorism in the United States, a new report from the Anti-Defamation League provided in advance exclusively to Newsweek. It makes clear that even as political rhetoric and public discourse focus on what the ADL report calls radical Islamic terror, there is a steady stream of violence carried out by right-wing extremists.

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Related: Right-Wing Extremists Are a Bigger Threat to America Than ISIS

The very real specter of radical Islamic terror in the United States has existed alongside an equally serious threat of terror from right-wing extremist groups and individuals, the report says, attributing the lower awareness in part to events that take place outside of large urban centers and often draw less, or less sustained, media coverage. Both movements have generated shooting sprees, bombings, and a wide variety of plots and conspiracies. Both pose threats so significant that to ignore either would be to invite tragedy.

White supremacistssuch as neo-Nazis, Klansmen and racist skinheadsand anti-government extremistswhich include militia groups, sovereign citizens and tax protestershave for decades targeted local, state and national government branches and law enforcement, as well as African-Americans, Hispanics, multiracial couples and families, religious groups such as Jews and Muslims and other targets, the report states.

Together, white supremacists and anti-government extremists account for 85 percent of the plots identified on ADLs list of right-wing terrorism incidents. The remainder can be attributed to anti-abortion, anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant and other extremists. Firearms and explosives were the most common weapons of choice in these attacks, which in total have left 255 people dead and more than 600 others injured.

What you see is that you have a lot of people here who are really willing to cause harm, says Mark Pitcavage, a senior research fellow at the ADLs Center on Extremism and the reports author. His goal was to lay out the facts of modern right-wing terrorism in the U.S.how much of it there is, who is committing it and who they are targeting.

The interior of a mosque located within an apartment complex, which federal authorities allege was to be targeted in a bomb plot by three Kansas men, is seen in Garden City, Kansas, October 14, 2016. Adam Shrimplin/Reuters

Dylann Roofs massacre of nine people at the AME Emanuel Church in Charleston, South Carolina, nearly two years ago on June 17, 2015, is one of the most high-profile incidents on the list, which also includes the movie theater shooting at a screening of Trainwreck in Lafayette, Louisiana, by another white supremacist that same year; the assassination of a physician in Wichita, Kansas, in May 2009 by an anti-abortion extremist and sovereign citizen; the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing by Timothy McVeigh, which killed 168 and injured hundreds of others; and other incidents all over the country.

The report notes a recent uptick that began in 2008, not coincidentally around the time the economy plummeted into a state of crisis and Barack Obama was elected president. It details events as recent as March, when a white supremacist fatally stabbed a black man with a sword in New York City, allegedly a practice run for a series of attacks driven by a long-raging hatred of African-American men.

Extremist movements, I often suggest that theyre the fringe of the fringe in the United States. But we have 350 million people in this country so even the fringe of the fringe is a lot of folks, says Pitcavage, who earned his doctorate in history with a dissertation on the militia in the early U.S. and has been studying right-wing extremism for over two decades. Only a minority of people involved in an extremist movement will ever become violent, [but] that still can produce so many people willing to use violence as a means to an end to achieve their political or social goals.

ADL

The ADL, a nonprofit dedicated to fighting anti-Semitism and all forms of hate, has been looking at violent extremism since the organization was founded in 1913 and especially since the 1930s. Terrorism, as defined by the ADLs Center on Extremism, refers to a pre-planned act or attempted act of significant violence by one or more non-state actors in order to further an ideological, social or religious cause, or to harm perceived opponents of such causes. Domestic terrorism is a subset in which the perpetrators are citizens or permanent residents of the country in which the act takes place, the report explains.

The internet and social media have made it far easier to plan and carry out attacks in recent years, helping spread propaganda and extremist ideas quickly and facilitating virtual meetings, plotting and even self-radicalization for lone wolves. The report attributes the rise of the so-called alt-right and the resurgence of the sovereign citizen movement at least in part to the web. The former is only about five years old as a movement, and until this past year, was largely an internet phenomenon, Pitcavage says. But in recent months it has moved into the real world and inevitably we will see more real-world violence.

ADL

The threats of right-wing extremism and extremism inspired by groups like ISIS and al Qaeda, in terms of the number of incidents, people arrested or casualties, have been very comparable in the decade and a half since 9/11, says David Schanzer, a professor at Duke Universitys Sanford School of Public Policy and director of the Triangle Center on Terrorism and Homeland Security. On some measures one is higher and on others its the reverse, he says. In a 2015 report, the Triangle Center found that law enforcement agencies in the United States consider anti-government violent extremists, not radicalized Muslims, to be the most severe threat of political violence that they face. The think tank New America shows that through the end of 2015, the number of people killed in far-right wing attacks in the U.S. since 2002 slightly exceeded those killed in jihadist attacks. That remained true until the Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando, Florida, in June 2016.

Still, in terms of government reaction and the amount of resources we put into it, I think its undeniable that were putting a lot more resources into dealing with Al-Qaeda- and ISIS-inspired extremism here, Schanzer says.

Early on in Donald Trumps presidency, Reuters reported that the new administration planned to revamp a program called Countering Violent Extremism (CVE) to become Countering Islamic Extremism or Countering Radical Islamic Extremism and to focus solely on these types of threats.

I think it would be very unfortunate if we dealt with one side of the problem and not the other. Both are problems that deserve attention, says Schanzer, who also believes that if you dont do both then youre not going to really be able to do either. He explains that if, for example, the Muslim community feels like theyre being discriminated against and singled out because the Trump administration thinks theyre all potential terrorists and isnt willing to deal with thewhite people who are engaging in violent extremism as well, then theyre not going to cooperate with these programs, and therefore theyll fail.

The change would be primarily symbolic, Pitcavage explains, since the majority of CVE efforts under the Obama administration already focused on what he calls Islamic extremism. But it would nevertheless be an important symbolic change, he says.

Theres typically a decrease in far-right extremist activity during Republican administrations, says Daryl Johnson, a former senior domestic terrorism analyst at the Department of Homeland Security and now the owner of DT Analytics. But five months into the new administration, were not seeing a downturn. Johnson predicts that the amount of activity will remain heightened, possibly due to Trumps rhetoric in the political campaign and then his subsequent actions since hes been sworn in, he says. There was a chance these groups could be emboldened further because they feel the current administration would turn a blind eye.

Pitcavage agrees. White supremacists have seemingly been bolstered by Trumps rhetoric on immigrants, Muslims, refugees, Hispanics and other groups, while anti-government extremists are looking for a new place to direct their energies now that the classic presidential target is someone they consider an ally. Though he feels far more comfortable predicting the past than the future, the one thing I can say is I dont think were going to see any significant decrease. So many extremists are energized, he explains. Theyre just looking for some sort of spark.

The Field of Empty Chairs is seen during the 20th Remembrance Ceremony, the anniversary ceremony for victims of the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, at the Oklahoma City National Memorial and Museum in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, April 19, 2015. Nick Oxford/Reuters

In Kansas, Dr. John Birky, a family physician in Garden City who last year founded the nonprofit New Hope Together, focused on serving the health care, language and cultural needs of the local refugee community, said several of his Somali friendssome of whom had family members who had been injured by car bombs in Mogadishuwere incredulous after the terror plot was made public. They had moved to America to get away from terrorists, but suddenly, in rural Kansas, theyd become targets afresh.

I think the whole town was really in shock, he says.

Sister Janice Thome serves with the Dominican Sisters Ministry of Presence in Garden City, working primarily with those in economic distress and occasionally with immigrants and refugees in town. She attended one of the vigils of support held in the days after news of the plot against the Somali community broke. There were more than 100 people there, she estimates, some holding signs about peace, safety and freedom, many shaking hands with their Somali neighbors. Thome says that since the averted disaster, there has been a more intentional welcoming to the Somalis or care for them among people because of them being such a target. If anything it did opposite of what it was supposed to.

But heartwarming responses like one Thome describes have not stymied the continuing threat of right-wing terrorism in the U.S., the ADL report shows.

The ADL does not believe that a horse race between different types of terrorist threats helps anybody, Pitcavage says. Both domestic Islamic extremism and right-wing extremism are serious, real threats in terms of producing violence and terrorism and to ignore either would be very harmful. It would be to invite catastrophe.

My hope is that with a report like this people can take more seriously the threat of right-wing extremism, he adds, which does not mean they have to take less seriously any other threat.

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Right-Wing and 'Radical Islamic' Terror in the US Are Equally Serious Threats: ADL Report (Exclusive) - Newsweek

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Posted By admin on May 20, 2017

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Visiting Prof. Ruth Gavison speaks in Pick-Staiger Concert Hall on Thursday. Gavison lectured about the Jewish and democratic aspects of Israel.

Allie Goulding/The Daily Northwestern

Allie Goulding/The Daily Northwestern

Visiting Prof. Ruth Gavison speaks in Pick-Staiger Concert Hall on Thursday. Gavison lectured about the Jewish and democratic aspects of Israel.

Erica Snow, Assistant Campus Editor May 19, 2017

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Israel can be both a Jewish and democratic state, visiting Prof. Ruth Gavison said during an event Thursday.

Gavison delivered the annual Philip M. and Ethel Klutznick Lecture in Jewish Civilization, presented by the Crown Family Center for Jewish and Israel Studies and the Jewish United Fund of Metropolitan Chicago. More than 300 people attended the lecture in Pick-Staiger Concert Hall. Gavison has studied human rights as well as religion and politics.

Religious studies Prof. Claire Sufrin introduced Gavison and stressed her speciality in Israeli legal and political issues.

If you Google her name looking for biographical facts, what you get is a series of articles in which she is quoted, representing all of the topics of the day, Sufrin said. Everybody turns to her to get her opinion, so that in it of itself is a biography.

Gavison is one of the founders of the Association for Civil Rights in Israel and a professor emerita of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem Faculty of Law. She said people question if Israel can be both Jewish and democratic while still prioritizing human rights.

She said she disagrees with claims that Israel must choose between its Jewish and democratic identities.

This is a claim that doesnt really actively understand that when a complex society has a vision and the vision has more than one element the relationships between these elements are always relationships of mutual reinforcements and creative tensions, Gavison said.

Gavison described Zionism as a movement to establish a national home for the Jews following years of persecution and discrimination. She said Zionism and democracy are compatible because they stress self-governance.

The United States has strong Christian roots, Gavison said, which disproves the claim that democracies must be religiously neutral and privatize religion.

In a way, the inspiration for both Zionism and all forms of nationalism and democracy are the same source, Gavison said. The source is the wish of a group to have a measure of self-rule, to have a measure of autonomy.

McCormick graduate student Ray Jacobs said she entered the event with an open mind because she tries not to be emotionally connected to the state of Israel as a way to get by.

Jacobs said Gavison was interesting because she studies Israel for a living and isnt originally from the United States.

It was good to get a perspective thats from that place, Jacobs said. A lot of the things that we hear here on campus are from people our age and from here in the U.S.

Gavison ended the talk by discussing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. She said the political question of the future of the occupied territories of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank is one of the most hardest.

Both sides do not seem willing to reach an agreement, Gavison said. Though she hopes for an agreement soon, she said it takes two to tango.

It really is tragic, and as far as Im concerned, Im becoming more pessimistic about it all the time, Gavison said. Im not sure what can be done.

Email: ericasnow2019@u.northwestern.edu Twitter: @ericasnoww

Tags: Allie Goulding, Claire Sufrin, Crown Family Center for Jewish and Israel Studies, Israel, Jewish United Fund of Metropolitan Chicago, Philip M. and Ethel Klutznick Lecture in Jewish Civilization, Pick-Staiger Concert Hall, Ray Jacobs, Ruth Gavison, West Bank, Zionism

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Posted By richards on May 20, 2017

Iran has imposed sanctions on nine American individuals and companies for aiding and abetting the Zionist regimes anti-human crimes in occupied Palestine. The move was apparently made in retaliation for the US imposing new penalties on Iranian individuals.

On Wednesday, the US administration of Donald Trump extended sanctions relief for Iran under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), a nuclear agreement between Tehran and the Group of 5+1 (Russia, China, the US, Britain, France and Germany). However, the US Treasury also announced new sanctions on Iranian individuals and companies; two Iranian defence officials, an Iranian company and members of a China-based network have been targetedfor their alleged support for Irans ballistic missile programme.

Local sources said that Irans foreign ministry condemned the US Treasurys decision to impose new sanctions. This, it believes, is an attempt to downplay the positive outcomes of extending the JCPOA deal.

Read:US, Iran trade barbs over landmark 2015 nuclear deal

The ministry also announced that it had come up with a plan to retaliate with the sanctions against the individuals and companies. The individuals and entities have a proven record of brazen violation of human rights and international humanitarian law by engagement or direct and indirect aid for the Zionist regimes anti-human crimes in occupied Palestine or in that regimes terrorist measures. The nine also stand accused of involvement in, or aiding and sponsoring, takfiri [ie Jihadist] terrorism and suppression of people in the region, or of engagement in measures against the Islamic Republic of Irans national security.

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Iran imposes sanctions on supporters of Zionism and 'takfiri' groups - Middle East Monitor

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Posted By admin on May 20, 2017

There was a time when nationalism was a movement of the political left. This may be hard to believe these days, with nationalist movements that are often described as "right-wing" shaking up the political scene in country after country. In the United States this takes the form of personalities like Steve Bannon, the avowed white nationalist who is a close adviser to President Donald Trump, and Richard Spencer, the openly racist president of the National Policy Institute, a white nationalist think tank.

According to the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), a non-profit legal advocacy organization that focuses on civil rights, Spencer has described his mission as "sort of white Zionism": that is, the establishment of a "homeland" state for white people. Spencer calls it an Altneuland- an old, new country - the same term that Zionism's founding father Theodor Herzl used to describe the concept of the future state of Israel.

Spencer's views on Israel are not shared by all of the self-described "alt-right."

"This is not new, and also not across board. The 'alt-right' is not a monolith," said Marilyn Mayo, a research fellow at the Anti-Defamation League's Center on Extremism. "There are some white nationalists who support Israel, and they support it for very specific reasons: Because they see it as a nationalist state, and they compare it to a white ethno-state that they want in this country."

Read more: Israeli right-wingers in cabinet push for Jewish state status to be set in stone

Spencer's take on Israel conveniently skips the history of Jews being a dispossessed people. It also misses the fact that Israel is not populated only by Jews. Jonathan Sarna, a professor of American Jewish history at Brandeis University, asserted that any white nationalist's support of Israel was a smoke screen. "These folks are trying to promote an ideology of exclusion against blacks, against Hispanics, against 'the other,'" said Sarna. "And rather than quoting racist ideology, they think that it would be more advantageous of them to cite Israel."

Strange bedfellows

The white nationalists who engage in this kind of dialogue tend to look at Israel as the product of a nationalist movement. "On the one hand, they're promoting this view of Israel, but remaining anti-Semitic," said Mayo. "They still think Jews control the media and the government."

"It's a rhetorical strategy, but were you to probe at it very closely, it would rapidly become clear that their Zionism is a cover for old-fashion racism," Sarna said. "And in a sense, as is so often the case, the extreme left and the extreme right merge: Both believe in a sense that Zionism is racism, but one thinks that's good and one thinks that's bad."

Read more: White pride and prejudice: Why the alt-right has adopted Jane Austen

Mayo said there was limited-to-no reciprocity from the Jewish community toward these white nationalists and did not expect the groups to grow any closer. Case in point: Mort Klein, the president of the right-wing, pro-Israel Zionist Organization of America (ZOA), told DW that any white nationalist support of the Jewish state was "a lie."

"You cannot be anti-Semitic and support Israel. It's a Jewish state," said Klein. "I reject any of these groups who have strong anti-black, anti-Jewish, or otherwise racist ideologies. I reject their support."

When it was mentioned to Klein that these groups supported Israel because it adhered to their idea of an ethno-state, he retorted, "What's ethnocentric about it? Twenty-two percent of the population is Arab. This displays total ignorance about Israel."

An exception to the rule?

In the past, the ZOA has lauded white nationalist Steve Bannon as "the opposite of an anti-Semite," based on the consistently pro-Isarel slant of articles published by Breitbart News during his tenure at the far-right website. Likewise, Shmuley Boteach, a prominent US rabbi and pro-Israel advocate, also defended Bannon to DW, pointing to the founding of Breitbart in part to be an unabashedly pro-Israel platform.

Many have been dismayed by Bannon's prominent position in the White House

Bannon's support for Israel is clear, but his record on Jews is less so. Boteach said Jewish friends told him they were treated well at Breitbart.

"I have close friends who worked for him at Breitbart who said he could not have been more solicitous of their Orthodox Jewish needs, constantly asking them, 'When does Shabbat come in these winter months, what time do you need to leave?' And would always ask them, 'Are we being sensitive enough about Jewish holidays?'"

While many critics have stopped short of accusing Bannon outright of anti-Semitism, the SPLC reported that under Bannon's leadership, the number of anti-Semitic comments in Breitbart's articles increased dramatically.

Boteach remained unmoved. "Who knows about the evils of white supremacists more than Jews?" Boteach asked. "It was white supremacists that enacted the Holocaust. No one should be preaching to the Jewish community about the dangers of white nationalism."

But Boteach was evasive when asked how he felt in general about white nationalists supporting Israel. "We would rather that the supporters of Israel be the most moral people around, of course," he said, criticizing western governments like Sweden for gradually taking more anti-Israel stances in their Mideast policies. "People who believe in human rights, people who affirm Israel's democracy, that's who we wish were our allies."

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Where white nationalists and Zionists meet - Deutsche Welle

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Posted By simmons on May 20, 2017

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Clovis High's Hauss wins B'nai B'rith award Fresno Bee Clovis High School senior Graham Hauss praised his fellow nominees as he accepted the 2017 B'nai B'rith Student Athlete Award on May 15. I'm truly inspired by every one of you, he said in a brief speech after winning the prestigious award. Hauss then ...

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Posted By richards on May 20, 2017

Manvitz, Justin "Judd" Apr 23, 1927 - May 14, 2017 Following his service in the US Navy and the Marine Corps as a Corpsman, during World War II, he attended the University of Nebraska, where he lettered in baseball, and Omaha University , graduating in 1949. He played in the Industrial Baseball League for Shell Oil for two years. In the early 1950's he returned to Omaha and joined the family business, Omaha Compound, which his father founded in 1924. He retired in 2010. During his life he was active as a Mason, Omaha Rotary, B'nai B'rith and had an active interest in Creighton University and the University of Nebraska sports. His parents, David and Eva (Cohn) Manvitz, preceded him in death. He is survived by his wife, Marilyn Phyllis Manvitz; children, Todd (Wendy) Manvitz, Lisa (Kyle) Hutchings; grandchildren, Alissa (Matt) Arbiter, Diana (Jason) Williams, David Manvitz, Steffany, Whittany and Bradley Hutchings, Victoria (Brent) Rice; great grandchildren, Addison and Jackson Wiliams; other loving relatives. SERVICES: Thursday, 11am, at Temple Israel, 13111 Sterling Ridge Drive. Private interment, Beth El Cemetery. In lieu of flowers, Memorials to your favorite charity. John A. Gentleman Mortuaries and Crematory 1010 North 72 Street 402-391-1664 http://www.johnagentleman.com

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Manvitz, Justin "Judd" - Omaha World-Herald

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Posted By simmons on May 20, 2017

(JTA) Two swastikas were painted on the front door of a synagogue in western Ukraine and, in a separate incident, the headstone of a prominent rabbis grave was smashed.

The incident involving the swastikas was discovered last week in Chernivtsi, a city located some 250 miles southwest of Kiev, according to the Euro-Asian Jewish Congress. The local community leaders reported the incident to police and removed the offensive symbols.

Last year, the words death to the Jews were spray-painted on the main synagogue of Chernivtsi. And earlier this month, a monument that was erected last year in memory of Holocaust victims was spray-painted with Nazi slogans and symbols.

Meanwhile, in the town of Storozhynets, which is located 12 miles southwest of Chernivtsi, the headstone was smashed last week at the resting place of Rabbi Yechiel Hager a grandson of Menachem Mendel Hager, the 19th-century founder of the Vizhnitz Hasidic dynasty.

There are no suspects in either case.

The European Jewish Cemeteries Foundation announced Friday that it would rededicate four Jewish cemeteries in western Ukraine next week as part of its multi-phase mission to protect such sites.

The first stage of course is the physical protection through demarcation and fencing, but the long-term protection requires the involvement of local people, most particularly in areas where there are no longer Jewish communities because of the Shoah, the Germany-based foundations chief executive officer, Philip Carmel, wrote in a statement Friday.

His nonprofit foundation has fenced the cemeteries that are due to be rededicated with an initial budget of $1.35 million. It has fenced and protected some 70 burial sites across Eastern Europe in the past two years.

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Swastikas painted on synagogue, rabbi's headstone smashed in ... - Jewish Telegraphic Agency

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Posted By simmons on May 20, 2017

When people die, we say kaddish.

When a synagogue perishes, we should say kaddish as well.

Those were my thoughts when I heard of the fiery destruction of the historic Beth Hamedrash Hagodol on New Yorks Lower East Side, which occurredlast week.

It gets worse.

Itnow turns out that a teenager has been arrested for arson.

The synagogue dates back to the 1850s, when it was first erected as a Baptist church.

In the 1880s, the building was purchased by the congregation Beth Hamedrash Hagodol, which occupied the space until it closed in 2007 though the religious community that ithousedstill exists, and has been in the process of reviving itself.

In 1967, the building became one of New York Citys earliest designated historic landmarks, because of its special historical and aesthetic interest.

The destruction of any house of worship especially through the willful act of arson should upset us.

But, there is more.

For me, there is a sad poignancy in this act of destruction.

Because I remember one of that synagogues greatest rabbis.

His name was Rabbi Ephraim Oshry.

And, unless you know a lot about the Holocaust and the sacred literature associated with it, you might never have heard of him.

Oshry was born in Kupiskis, Lithuania, and studied at the Slobodka Yeshivah.

During the Nazi occupation of Lithuania, he became the rabbi of the Kaunas (Kovno) ghetto. As part of his duties, he issued responsa answers to questions concerning Jewish practice.

Here is the amazing thing.

When someone asked him a question, he would write the details on scraps of paper, along with the responses he provided. He then hid these papers in cans, whichhe thenburied in the ground.

After the war, Rabbi Oshry unearthed the hidden cans. He painstakingly reviewed each and every question.

Why?

Because when people had asked him the original questions, he had no access to any of his sacred texts. He issued all of his response based simply on his prodigious memory.

After the war, Oshry wanted to check his work. He wanted to be sure that his answers were accurate and truly based on Torah texts.

After the war, Oshry went to Rome. There, in 1945, he founded a yeshiva for young Holocaust survivors.

In 1950, he moved the yeshiva to Montreal.

Then, hemoved it to New York.

In 1952, he became rabbi ofBeth Hamedrash Hagodol.

Sixty-five years later, that shul was in flames.

Why did I admire Rabbi Oshry? And why should you do the same?

Because of the depth, spirituality, and compassion that he offered Jews in the most extreme moments of Jewish history.

Considertwoexamples.

A young boy asked Rabbi Oshry: Even though I am some months away from my thirteenth birthday (the age of bar mitzvah), would you let me put on tefilin?

Here is how Oshry began his answer:

When I fathomed the simple sincerity of this boys request, tears gushed from my eyes. I could not help citing the words of the prophet Jeremiah: Who would grant that my head be water, my eyes a source of tearsfor death has come up in our windows, has entered our houses, to destroy the youth outside, our chosen ones from the streets.

This was his response: Yes, the boy could put on tefilin, even though he was below the age of thirteen.

And why?

New edicts by the German taskmasters were issued against us every day; especially upon Jewish children. Who could assure this boy that he would ever reach the age of 13 to fulfill the mitzvah?

This was why the could not, and should not,wait to don tefilin.

Utter wisdom, and utter compassion.

A second question and much moretroubling.

After the war, a husband reunited with his wife, who had been forcibly separated from him. She had been imprisoned in a concentration camp.

The man discovered that his wife nowborea horrible tattoo, that marked her as having been forced into prostitutionin an SS brothel.

The man asked Rabbi Oshry: was it permissible for him to resume sexual relations with his wife?

Horrible? Yes.How could the husband have even asked that question?

But, here is how Rabbi Oshry answered the question.

The woman had been raped, and therefore, there was certainly no culpability on her part. A womans claim of rape is always to be believed.

But, Oshry went one step further. He said something about the horrible tattoo itself.

There is no need to attempt to efface the tattoo..on the contrary, it should be viewed not as a sign of shame and disgrace, but rather as a sign of honor and strength. This tattoo is a sign that we shall yet see the destruction of those who lost all semblance of humanity, who were like beasts of the forest and ravening wolves

Rabbi Oshry understood the meaning of spiritual heroism.

Remember: he made these decisions not based on the texts that he had at his disposal, because he had none.

Rather, he relied on his memory. He did as well as he could under the circumstances.

I just want the punk who torched that synagogue to know whoitsrabbi had been.

I want that punk to know something of that rabbis teachings a refusal to surrender to hatred and despair.

Maybe that should be hispunishment: learn Hebrew; read Oshrys responsa; translate them.

And learn to live by his words and by his values.

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When a synagogue burns | Religion News Service - Religion News Service

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