Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By richards on July 25, 2017

GALLOWAY TOWNSHIP Stockton University professor Kerrin Wolf will discuss the school-to-prison pipeline as part of the second Salute to Stockton speaker series.

He will speak 7 p.m. July 28 at Shirat Hayam Synagogue, 700 Swarthmore Ave. in Ventnor.

Wolf, an assistant professor of law, will discuss the treatment of at-risk youth by the education and justice systems that can push young people out of school and into prison.

Research indicates that harsh punishments for misbehaving students had effects on students, including making some more prone to antisocial behavior, Wolf said. The punishments were intended to make schools safer by deterring future misbehavior.

His presentation will also review some schools efforts to end the school-to-prison pipeline by moving away from punitive disciplinary practices and instead approaching student misbehavior from a therapeutic perspective.

The program, held as part of Sabbath services, is open to the public and will include a question-answer session following the presentations.

On Friday, Aug. 11, Beverly Vaughn, professor of music, will host the finale of the series with a program titled: "Timeless Songs of Courage and Hope from Slavery: Our community sings together.

This program will feature several songs and melodies from slavery which helped to provide a much-needed source of personal expression and endurance during the painful experience of slavery, Vaughn said. Yet, in spite of these experiences, one is surprised time after time by the hope and resilience of the words and melodies found in so many examples of this literature. This evening's program will examine these songs in the light of such resiliency and, by so doing, hopefully gain inspiration and courage as we forge into the future.

Rabbi Gordon Geller, a longtime Stockton faculty member, said the talks are always a summer cultural highlight for the congregation and community. Shirat Hayam, which translates as Song of the Sea, was formed when the congregations of Temple Emeth Shalom and Beth Judah merged last year.

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Salute to Stockton lecture series continues at Shirat Hayam ... - Shore News Today

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Posted By simmons on July 25, 2017

Extremist Israeli Jewish MK from the Jewish Home party, Bezalel Smotrich, has called for building a synagogue inside the Al-Aqsa Mosque courtyard, Al-Resalah newspaper reported yesterday.

The Palestinian newspaper said that the Israeli TV Channel 7 reported Smotrich saying that the best Zionist response to the Palestinian rejection to the Israeli measures at Al-Aqsa Mosque is to let them understand that they had paid a high price for their acts.

He said that the best response would be to build a synagogue in the yards of Al-Aqsa Mosque in response to the attack on the settlement of Halamish, where three Israeli settlers were killed.

Read:3 Palestinians, 2 Israeli soldiers killed in clashes in Al-Aqsa

I would set up a synagogue on the Temple Mount today, this morning.

The Zionist response would largely be to make the other side understand and feel that they have lost. They must understand that they gain nothing from terrorism. They are the only ones who will lose, and this will happen on three levels, Smotrich told Arutz Sheva.

If I am the Prime Minister this morning I would close the Temple Mount to Arab prayer and establish a Synagogue for Jews.

Palestinians have been rejecting Israels latest security measures at Al-Aqsa Mosque which include metal detectors and advanced surveillance cameras. The metal detectors were removed late last night however more cameras were setup at the mosque. Mass protests have been held against the latest Israeli policies with occupation forces responding in a heavy handed manner. Seven Palestinians were killed in the ten days since 14 July and 1,090 were injured.

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MK calls for building synagogue in Al-Aqsa - Middle East Monitor

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Posted By richards on July 25, 2017

Woodbury >> Beth El Synagogue welcomes Benjamin Goldberg as student Rabbi for the upcoming year.

Ben Goldberg says he is becoming a rabbi because the most powerful experiences in his life were Jewish ones, and he wants to help others experience that power.

Goldberg is a rising fifth year student in the rabbinical school at the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York. This year he will serve as the rabbi of Beth El Synagogue. Last year he served as the rabbinic intern at Rutgers Hillel and also at Congregation Beth Israel in Scotch Plains, N.J.

Before enrolling at JTS, he studied for a year at the Conservative Yeshiva in Jerusalem. Originally from the Philadelphia suburbs, Ben graduated from Northwestern University in 2012 with a degree in History and Jewish Studies, where he was also the president of Hillel.

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When Goldberg visited Beth El synagogue two months ago, members were enthusiastic and enjoyed participating in the services he led, members said in a release. Rav Ben had a unique ability to immediately engage our religious school students in Jewish learning activities.

The synagogue is located at 124 South Pomperaug Avenue in Woodbury. For information, call 203-264-4500.

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Woodbury's Beth El Synagogue welcomes student rabbi Benjamin Goldberg - Torrington Register Citizen

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Posted By admin on July 25, 2017

Nate Kleinman, aka Farmer Nate, stands straw-hatted under the fierce sun at an experimental growing field in Salem County.

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The unexceptional-looking expanse of sandy soil lies in the heart of Americas first Jewish agricultural settlement, a hamlet just off Route 55 near Vineland that Russian immigrants fleeing persecution founded as the Alliance Colony in 1882.

More recently, William and Malya Levin, a Brooklyn couple with New Jersey roots and big dreams, have begun to nurture 50 acres along Gershal Avenue in Pittsgrove Township back to productive life. Kleinman seeded two of those acres last spring with a variety of sample crops to figure out what will grow best there.

That little plant is a Guadalupe cucumber, says Kleinman, as the Levins, a group of Allegheny College students and their religious studies professor, several other visitors, and I fruitlessly fan ourselves in the midday heat.

There are Saudi Arabian okra and Cuban tomatoes, Kleinman adds, with a delightful, and contagious, relish.

See that plant that looks like a little corn plant? Thats the sorghum, from South Sudan.

CAMERON B. POLLACK / Staff Photographer

William and Malya Levin at the homestead of the Alliance Colony reboot in Pittsgrove, N.J. The house belonged to his grandparents.

Sorghum, spelt, and tartary buckwheat are among the heritage grains expected to become mainstays of the nonprofit Alliance Community Reboot, or ACRe. The Levins conceived the project in 2014. Last Sunday, the couple, who have spent about $500,000 to acquire property mostly from family members, hired Kleinman and his business partner, Dusty Hinz, to start clearing and cultivating the fields.

Theres a huge unmet demand for heritage grains, for gluten-free grains, says Kleinman, 35, whose deep regard for sorghum is such that his business card features an image of its deep red seed-head against a blue sky.

He and Hinz have been farming in nearby Elmer for more than three years. The two men also are the founders of Philadelphias Experimental Farm Network; it encourages online collaboration among plant breeders, researchers, and others involved in sustainable, community-supported agriculture, farm-to-table, food sovereignty, and similar grassroots initiatives.

I join the group for brunch in a Gershal Avenue house once owned by William Levins grandparents. About a dozen of us share a feast of salads, bagels and a smoked fish platter imported directly from Brooklyn; the talk around the table is all about the possibilities of the project.

Jewish farming is not just touchy-feely hippie B.S., says William, a 45-year-old animator who grew up in Vineland. His great-grandfather Moses Bayuk was a member of one of the 43 original Alliance families.

Farming is a way to create a meaningful, modern-day community, says Malya, 33, ACRes chief counsel and the mother of the couples 21-month-old son, Samuel.

Theres a global movement around agriculture as an expression of Jewish values.

Locally, the Jewish Farm School is incredibly excited about the possibility of a larger-scale Jewish community farm less than an hour from our base in West Philadelphia, says Nati Passow, executive director of the nonprofit educational program.

William and Malya are tied into the contemporary movement, and, through their land and family history, they have the potential to build much stronger bridges between past and present, he says.

The past is still very much in evidence: In June, Ruth Bogutz, of Cherry Hill, helped organize a bus tour of a half-dozen historical Jewish farming communities in South Jersey, including Alliance, Woodbine, and Rosenhayn. About 35 people took the trip.

There were Jewish farming colonies all over the world, and many of them were in the United States, Bogutz says. Alliance was the oldest, and the ones that lasted the longest were in South Jersey.

In the late 19th century, Jews fleeing Russia, many of them urban professionals or merchants, arrived in the United States under the auspices of charitable organizations seeking to save them from annihilation.

They escaped the worst possible life imaginable, and they came here, not knowing how to farm, says Jay H. Greenblatt, a Vineland lawyer who helped establish the Alliance Colony Foundation, and is a descendant of those pioneers.

The immigrants were assisted by nearby farmers, some of them Quakers. They lived in tents at first and ate in a communal kitchen, eventually building a cluster of tiny villages, including Alliance, Norma, and Brotmanville.

CAMERON B. POLLACK / Staff Photographer

Farmer Nate Kleinman shows William Levin and his wife, Malya, test crops growing in an experimental field in Pittsgrove, N.J., where the couple seek to re-establish Jewish agriculture.

Within a generation or two, many of the settlers children had moved on; one of the synagogues was sold to a Christian congregation.

The reboot project is fantastic, says Howard Jaffe, 62, of Pittsgrove. The unofficial caretaker of what is commonly called the Alliance Synagogue, a beautifully restored Gershal Avenue landmark, Jaffe is one of three Jewish farmers still active in the area.

And now theres also Nate, of course, he adds.

A Philly native who got into agriculture through the Occupy and other progressive movements, Kleinman says hes happy to be part of writing the next chapter in the history of the Alliance community and Jewish farming in South Jersey.

Leaving the experimental field, Im chatting with William Levin when he spots a grapevine that was winding up into the trees at the edge of the cultivated area.

When I was a kid, I came here with my dad, who died last year, he says.We picked grapes together.

Kleinman tastes a green grape, says its most likely a Concord variety, and describes it assuper-resilient.

Rather like Alliance may turn out to be.

Published: July 25, 2017 3:01 AM EDT | Updated: July 25, 2017 8:43 AM EDT

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A new generation of Jewish farmers sees a fertile future in South Jersey - Philly.com

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Posted By simmons on July 25, 2017

JERUSALEM (JTA) At least 15 Jewish families moved into a three-story West Bank building whose ownership is in dispute.

The ownership of the Hebron building, which is next to the Cave of the Patriarchs and known as the Machpelah House, is under appeal.

The Israeli armys Civil Administration, which had given the settlers permission to purchase the building, ruled earlier this month that copies of the ownership documents are as good as the originals. The issue has been sent back to the militarys Registration Committee.

A group of settlers claims it purchased the house from its Palestinian owners five years ago; the previous owners now deny the claim.

Israeli soldiers and Border Police surrounded the structure on Tuesday night and were preventing others from entering the building.

The building has been sealed since the evacuation of a dozen families in 2012. Police and soldiers carried out the evacuation on the orders of then-Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein and then-Minister of Defense Ehud Barak.

The new attempt to move into the house follows the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, or UNESCO, passing a Palestinian-led motion calling Hebrons Old City an endangered heritage site in Palestine.

At this time when Jewish blood is being spilled, we call on the government to proudly raise the flag of settlement in the Land of Israel, a spokesman for the families said Tuesday night. In the face of the murder of Jews and national stammering, we demand that the government of Israel allow the families to take up residence at the Machpelah House immediately.

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At least 15 Jewish families move into disputed West Bank building - Jewish Telegraphic Agency

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Posted By admin on July 25, 2017

Menashe Lustig, left, and Ruben Niborski in the film Menashe. (Federica Valabrega/A24)

BOSTON (JTA) With more than a decades worth of experience in the film industry, mostly in documentaries, director Joshua Weinstein has released his first feature-length narrative film.

Whats surprising is that Weinstein, a secular Jew, has made a movie entirely in Yiddish.

Menashe, about Hasidic Jews in the Borough Park section of Brooklyn, is among the first full-length Yiddish language films to hit the big screen in more than 70 years.

I love going into small, closed societies and trying to understand and to represent them, and to tell all sides of their stories the good and the bad with honesty, Weinstein, 34, told JTA recently when he and the films Hasidic star, Menashe Lustig, attended a screening at the Boston International Film Festival.

Though Weinstein knew he wanted to do a film about the Hasidim, he was not sure at the outset about the topic. He began to spend time among them in Brooklyn to gain their trust and become familiar with their world.

You cant cast a film like this in the usual way you put on a yarmulke, hang out and show up every single day, he said. I was researching and meeting people. I was also trying to find actors because you can only make a film if you can cast it.

Lustig said a minor miracle occurred when he and Weinstein crossed paths.

I had been acting very locally in the Hasidic community in a nonprofessional way when Josh approached me after he saw me appear in a short Hasidic commercial, Lustig said. We talked together and he said hed like to make a film with me.

As Weinstein got to know Lustig and began to hear the details of his life, Weinstein realized he had found his story. A recent widower, Lustig had been pressured by his religious community of Skver Hasidim to yield the rearing of his 9-year-old son to others until he remarried.

Menashe tells the story of a 30-something widower and single father, and contrasts the title characters urge toward self-sufficiency with the demands of traditionalism in a small, tightly knit religious community.

The whole movie is a 95 percent true story, Lustig said. We just touched it up a little bit.

The film focuses on the decision by the communitys rabbi that Menashe yield the rearing of his son, Rieven, to the family of his late wifes brother. The decision causes Menashe much anguish, which is made considerably worse by his brother-in-laws severe and self-righteous demeanor.

In the eyes of the community Menashe, a grocery clerk, is a schlemiel. He bucks authority but, at the same time, does not carry himself in a way that garners respect. Menashe doesnt want to marry just anyone, however, and he wants to prove he can adequately provide a home for his son.

It is an emotionally true story, Weinstein said. The film expresses how Menashe Lustig actually felt when he went through what he did.

With the exception of a few lines in English and Spanish this is Brooklyn, after all the films dialogue occurs entirely in Yiddish.

The sheer challenge of making a new and unique film about Hasidim in Yiddish was very exciting, Weinstein said.

It was just one of many challenges facing Weinstein.

The production schedule, for example, was frequently thrown off schedule some actors who originally signed up, including Lustig, were pressured by their communities not to participate. Fortunately, Weinstein said his background making documentaries, which often depends on bending to the unexpected, gave him the flexibility to see the process through.

Another challenge: Weinstein doesnt speak Yiddish. And yet, You couldnt really make this film in English, he said. If it werent going to be in Yiddish, then why not just make Home Alone 7? (As it happens, one of the executive producers of Menashe is Chris Columbus, the director of the wildly successful 1990 movie Home Alone.)

Much of the script was written, in English, before filming started, said Weinstein, with translators providing a Yiddish version. Lustig developed some scenes by improvising in English so Weinstein could understand then would translate them into Yiddish. After that, with the help of translators, the dialogue was again reviewed carefully.

The accuracy of the words was not taken lightly. In post-production, a team of translators worked on the subtitles many debates over word choices ensued.

It was almost like translating the Talmud in some way, Weinstein said.

Menashe will be in theaters in New York and Los Angeles on July 28, with a national rollout to follow.

(Charles Munitz publishes the blog Boston Arts Diary.)

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This Yiddish film is a rare look into Hasidic Brooklyn life - Jewish Telegraphic Agency

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Posted By richards on July 25, 2017

Just as smaller animals of a given species generally live longer than their larger cousins, one might expect that taller humans are genetically programmed to sacrifice longevity for height.

But its not that simple.

A major multinational study of 841 men and women from across four populations found lower levels of insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF-1) in men living to age 100 and yet most of them were taller than men in the younger control group.

The apparent explanation for this head-scratcher is that some long-lived men and only men have a genetic mutation that makes their growth hormone receptors more sensitive to the effects of the hormone. The cells absorb less growth hormone, yet protein expression is increased by several times.

This mutation seems to be responsible for their ability to live about 10 years longer than the control group of 70-year-old men without the mutation, even though they have a lower amount of growth hormone and are about 3 centimeters (1.18 inches) taller.

The lead author of the study is Prof. Gil Atzmon of Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York and head of the Laboratory of Genetics and Epigenetics of Aging and Longevity at the University of Haifa. Since 2001, Atzmon has been studying the human genome and its impact on aging and longevity.

Longevity genes

The researchers working with Atzmon looked at four elderly populations: 567 Ashkenazi Jews in the Longevity Genes Project at Einstein, 152 from a study of Amish centenarians, and the rest from an American cardiovascular health study and a French longevity study.

In 2008, the Longevity Genes Project found a genetic mutation in the IGF-1 receptor of some women, though its not the same as the one affecting mens lifespan.

We knew in the past that genetic pathways associated with growth hormone were also associated with longevity and now we have found a specific mutation whose presence or absence is directly related to it, said Atzmon.

This study makes it an established fact that there is a relationship between the function of the growth hormone and longevity. Our current goal is to fully understand the mechanism of the mutation we found to express it, so that we can allow longevity while maintaining quality of life, he added.

The 16 researchers involved the study, published June 16 in Science Advances, are associated with institutions in Israel and France as well as the US states of New York, Maryland, California, Vermont, Massachusetts and Washington.

Clue to longer life

While more research is needed to understand why the receptor mutation affects longevity and why it happens only in men, the study suggests that making a slight change in this specific piece of DNA could possibly make people live longer.

Although the presence of the mutation almost certainly ensured longevity, Atzmon stressed that many other factors affect longevity and that many men without the mutation also live to 100 and older.

Atzmon is one of the principal researchers in the Longevity Genes Project at Einstein along with Israeli endocrinology specialist Dr. Nir Barzilai.

Their groundbreaking 10-year study of healthy Ashkenazi Jews between the ages of 95 and 112 and their children attempted to understand why humans dont all age at the same rate, and why only one in 10,000 individuals lives to 100.

The centenarians were found to have genetic protective factors (longevity genes) that overcame factors such as diet and lifestyle.

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Mutation explains why some men live to 100 - ISRAEL21c

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Posted By admin on July 25, 2017

The science around the medical benefits of circumcision in the United States is inconclusive, though the American Academy of Pediatrics notes that it can help prevent some sexually transmitted infections like H.I.V., as well as penile cancer and urinary tract infections.

I think there was a time when all American baby boys were circumcised, of all religions, said Rabbi Rick Jacobs, the president of the Union for Reform Judaism, the largest Jewish movement in North America. Now its a choice. Its a decision.

I talk to a lot of families that really struggle with this decision, said Dr. Emily Blake, a New York-based OB/GYN who is also trained as a mohel in the Reform, Conservative and Reconstructionist traditions. She has been performing the bris ceremony since 1990. The questions parents consider range from the practical How much will it hurt? to the existential Will my son even be Jewish?

Ms. Edell, 41, who lives in Brooklyn and works as the executive director of a young feminists group called Spark Movement, is raising her son, Wilder, as a single mother. She described the decision around circumcision as easily the most challenging and stressful one she has made as a parent. (Her son is only 15 months old.) Ms. Edell grew up in an observant Jewish family; she went to a Jewish school and to Jewish summer camp.

I knew that I wanted to raise my child Jewish and in a Jewish home. And yet Im also a feminist and activist, and believe very strongly in the right to your own body, she said.

She decided not to circumcise, a choice she said her parents eventually accepted. Instead she had a gentle bris ceremony with alternative ritual objects: a pomegranate, a gold kiddush cup, and a large ceramic bowl filled with water to wash the babys feet, an ancient act of welcoming the stranger. Ms. Edell cut the pomegranate, a totem of fertility with its plentiful seeds, while her mother held Wilder.

Theres no reliable data on the percentage of American Jewish boys who are circumcised each year. But there are some indicators to suggest why circumcision may be subject to increasing debate: A Pew survey of American Jews in 2013 revealed a significant rise in secular Jews who are marrying outside the faith, and roughly a third of intermarried Jews who are raising children say they arent raising them Jewish. Only 19 percent of American Jews said that observing Jewish law was an essential part of what being Jewish means. (In contrast, 42 percent said having a good sense of humor was essential.)

Theyre inadvertent trailblazers. Theyre certainly pushing the boundary of who can be a Jew, said Rabbi Peter Schweitzer of the City Congregation for Humanistic Judaism in Manhattan. Rabbi Schweitzer does alternative ceremonies for people who choose not circumcise.

Of course, there havent been changes across the board. For Orthodox families, who constitute about 10 percent of the American Jewish population, the traditional bris remains immutable.

You have a boy, you have a bris, said Cantor Philip Sherman, an Orthodox mohel who estimates hes performed more than 21,000 bris ceremonies. Those who choose to opt out dont have a connection to their Jewish heritage.

They dont know how important and significant this is, he said. If they did, they wouldnt take the position theyre taking.

Even for some progressive Jews, circumcising a son and holding a bris remains a quintessential part of being a Jewish parent. Sarah-Kay Lacks, who works at JCC Manhattan and calls her family post-denominational, said her sons bris was a euphoric experience. Others speak about it similarly.

Theres a lot of vulnerability and anxiety after a birth, said Rabbi Jacobs. The bris makes it possible to ritualize that youre part of something larger, youre part of a people past, present and future.

Rabbis and public health experts interviewed said that the great majority of Jewish parents still circumcise, and opting out remains almost taboo in much of the mainstream. A number of parents did not want to speak on the record about their decision, and some rabbis who had done alternative bris ceremonies asked not to be named publicly.

Right now, there is a dont ask/dont tell policy within much of institutional Judaism when it comes to parents skipping circumcision, said Rebecca Wald, the founder of Beyond the Bris, an online community for parents who are questioning circumcision.

On forums like Beyond the Bris, in conversations and blog posts, Jewish parents argue against circumcision for both medical and social reasons. Some discuss keeping babies natural bodies intact and raise questions about preventable pain and trauma.

Others see circumcision as an outdated practice. Among liberal Jews who have sought to make other aspects of Judaism more egalitarian, the bris also raises a feminist question: why should the most sacred act of Judaism, the linking of a child to the covenant, apply only to boys?

A variety of alternative ceremonies for girls have blossomed in the Reform movement. Since its a new ritual, theres no standard practice, said Rabbi Jacobs. Some parents wash the baby girls feet as a symbol of sacred welcome; some wrap the baby in a tallit, or prayer shawl; others light a candle, in honor of the new light in the community.

Even secular Jews, who do not keep kosher or go to synagogue, can face a wrenching decision over circumcision.

A 46-year-old father who asked to be identified only as Aaron because he was discussing intimate details about his son said he was surprised by how powerfully he felt about circumcising. Raised in California by a father who was a German Jewish refugee and a feminist Jewish mother, he said he grew up standard American Reform.

For me, this wasnt about a covenant with God, because Im secular, he said. It was really about identification as a Jew, at the most visceral, embodied level.

Aarons wife, who is not Jewish and grew up in a country where circumcision was not the norm, was opposed to it. She did not want to inflict pain on her newborn baby. The decision became the hardest thing my wife and I have ever had to deal with, Aaron said.

Ultimately, eight months into his wifes pregnancy, Aaron agreed not to circumcise their son.

I didnt want it to end our marriage and tear apart our family, he said.

An earlier version of this article misstated the source of a 2014 analysis on circumcision. It was published in the medical journal Mayo Clinic Proceedings but was not conducted by the Mayo Clinic.

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Cutting Out the Bris - New York Times

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Posted By admin on July 25, 2017

For David Schafer, the new managing director of the Maltz Museum of Jewish Heritage in Beachwood, a good exhibit explores a component of the past that causes visitors to think about and discuss its relevance to present day and the future.

He pointed to the recent This Light of Ours: Activist Photographers of the Civil Rights Era, exhibit, which showcased African-Americans fighting for voting and civil rights in the 1960s an example of a historical happening which connects to the present at a time when voting rights are still inaccessible for many.

Each and every day, the museum educates visitors about the past, informs them how it has shaped the present and inspires them to be part of a hopeful future, Schafer said.

Schafer took over in the top-level role at the museum about a month ago a position that was newly created after former Executive Director Ellen Rudolph resigned. Schafer was previously director of development since 2010.

I have incredible colleagues, an incredible board of trustees, and I sometimes pinch myself with realization that I walk through the door everyday in a community thats extraordinary, he said.

Schafer is a graduate of the College of Wooster in Wooster. He then worked for the city of Portland, Ore., for a couple of years and then lived in Israel for two years, after extending a trip that was supposed to last only a couple months.

That kindled the spirit of wanting to connect and work in the Jewish community, said Schafer, a Mayfield Heights resident and member of Park Synagogue in Cleveland Heights and Pepper Pike.

Prior to coming to the museum, Schafer was executive director for 11 years for the Development Corp. of Israel/Israel Bonds and was responsible for operations and campaign results conducted in Ohio and Kentucky.

Schafer said in his new position, he hopes to continue to push boundaries, and for the museum to increase its prominence as a Cleveland cultural institution for tourists and residents to visit and have conversations of consequence. He noted an exhibit that is being developed to immerse people to understand the state of Israel and its people, beyond the politicized lens in which everyone views the state. It will open in June 2018.

Diaspora and the general public likes to package things in black and white terms we will present Israel through an honest and scholarly lens while celebrating the many achievements of a still young and vibrant nation, Schafer said. The takeaway will hopefully be people leave the exhibit with a lot of questions, wanting to seek additional information, and a small goal is some people actually buy a plane ticket to go to Israel.

Schafer and the museums staff also are working toward an upcoming fall exhibit Beyond Chicken Soup: Jews and Medicine in America, that delves into Cleveland-centric figures and developments that fit into a larger story about Jews in medical history.

Moreover, Schafer discussed the museums emphasis on telling a Jewish story within a lens of tolerance, diversity and the greater American story. He said Maltz exhibits and programs seek to discuss adversity felt by anyone including Jews who has ever been an outsider.

Through our exhibitions we are bringing to light peoples biases, conscious and unconscious, he said.

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Schafer to continue to 'push boundaries' at Maltz Museum - Cleveland Jewish News

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Posted By richards on July 25, 2017

Of all the books that I read in high school, the one that moved me the most was Anthony Lewis 1964 bestseller Gideons Trumpet, the story of a destitute Florida prisoner, Clarence Earl Gideon, who became an unlikely hero of American jurisprudence. Gideons appeal of his conviction for the robbery of a pool hall led to the landmark 1963 Supreme Court decision, Gideon v. Wainwright, which mandated that anyone accused of a crime is entitled to legal representation, regardless of ability to pay. The books title is a play on the dramatic scene in the Book of Judges in which Gideon (the son of an idol maker, but a faithful Israelite himself) leads 300 men, armed only with trumpets and torches, to an upset victory against a much larger Midianite army.

I started thinking about the longstanding connection between Jews and trumpets while sitting last month on the roof of the JCC Manhattan listening to a wonderful concert of Sephardic Jewish music. Renowned klezmer trumpeter Frank London performed with the Lev-Yulzari Duo (guitarist Nadav Lev and double bassist Rmy Yulzari) and vocalist Basya Schechter. As the sky began to blush red with sunset, the alluring, unearthly wail of Londons trumpet penetrated the lazy summer air. It was a particular pleasure for me because I have a soft spot for trumpet music; among my favorite musicians are the English trumpeter Alison Balsom, the late French trumpeter Maurice Andr and, of course, the African-American trumpeter Wynton Marsalis.

One of the most iconic synagogue rituals involves blowing a kind of trumpet or bugle, the shofar, to celebrate the High Holidays. The shofar, which was made from the horn of either a ram or ibex (wild goat), is mentioned no fewer than 72 times in the Bible. It was sounded to signal the start of battle, the coronation of kings and the freeing of slaves (and return of other property to its original owners) at the onset of the Jubilee Year. According to the Second Book of Chronicles, the dedication ceremony of Solomons Temple included 120 priests blowing shofars accompanied by singers making shofar-like sounds, creating a fanfare in unison.

The distinction between a shofar and a trumpet is blurry in the Bible, with the two words often used interchangeably. For example, shofars and trumpets seem to have issued the same blasts or calls on Rosh HaShanah. But the long, silver instruments depicted on the Arch of Titus in Rome, showing the booty taken by the Romans when they captured the Temple in the year 70 C.E., are clearly primitive trumpets, more like megaphones than musical instruments.

During the Middle Ages, horns were blown at weddings and funerals, to announce the New Moon and the beginning of the Sabbath, and to mark the expulsion of a heretic from the community. In modern times, blowing the shofar was forbidden at the Western Wall during the British Mandate; the short 2010 documentary film, Echoes of a Shofar, features interviews with six of the men who, upon penalty of imprisonment, bravely smuggled a shofar each year into the Old City and blew it at the end of Yom Kippur.

While we may think of Jewish violinists as particularly illustrious in our own country, American Jews have also distinguished themselves on the trumpet. Harry Aaron Finkelman, better known as Ziggy Elman, was a jazz trumpeter who played with Jewish clarinetist and bandleader Benny Goodman; Elman was part of the band at the legendary Carnegie Hall concert in 1938, which is widely considered the most important jazz recital in history. In a scene in Pete Hamills bestselling 1997 novel Snow in August, about an unlikely friendship between an Irish Catholic boy and an elderly rabbi in the late 1940s in Brooklyn, the boy brings the rabbi a radio and the two listen reverently to Elman performing his signature tune, written with lyricist Johnny Mercer, And the Angels Sing.

Now that I am working as the executive director of a synagogue, one of my tasks is to help find shofar blowers for the holidays. I am always in awe of people who can perform this mitzvah, since I do not know one end of the shofar from the other. Still, we all need to heed the warning of New York Jewish writer Cynthia Ozick in a talk, Toward a New Yiddish, that she delivered in Israel in 1970, which uses the shofar as a metaphor for our connection to Jewish heritage. If we blow into the narrow end of the shofar, we will be heard far, she said. But if we choose to be Mankind rather than Jewish and blow into the wider part, we will not be heard at all; for us America will have been in vain.

Ted Merwin is the executive director of Beth Am Synagogue in inner-city Baltimore. He writes about theater for the paper.

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Horns Of Plenty - Jewish Week

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