Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By richards on May 26, 2017

The Ancient Synagogue of Barcelona, also called Sinagoga Major de Barcelona in the regions native Catalan, is on Carrer Marlet, a narrow stone road in the citys old Jewish quarter, the Call (a Catalan word from the Latin callis that means narrow streets).

Although the site is small, easily accessible and lovingly and openly preserved, its history is affectingly complex. I wandered in as a stop along my days mapped-out journeying, and left with a profound sense of both sadness and appreciation for the very troubled history of my people.

One of the worlds oldest synagogues, if not the oldest in Europe, the two-room synagogue dates to the third or fourth century, and was in use until the end of the 14th.

The entryway includes the remnants of a kotel wall, as well as a yartzeit (rememberance) wall, informative signage and souvenirs that benefit the restoration. Admission is 3.5 euros (about $4), and one wishes they could donate 1000 times that amount.

Tours are conducted in the inner sanctuary, which includes a lovely Ark and an ancient Torah, as well as menorahs and a stained glass Judaic star in the rear, outlined by a 12-pointed star that signifies each of the Twelve Tribes. Our guide was from the Associaci Call de Barcelona which was founded in 1997 to support and manage the restoration of the synagogue.

Susie Davidson

Our guide told us that private ceremonies such as bar mitzvahs, bat mitzvahs and weddings are held at the synagogue, but it is not part of the community.

I learned from her that there was a womens section behind our pews that is now a restaurant. It has not been purchased yet, she said.

She explained that the building is one of five synagogues in ancient Barcelona, and that originally, Jews were not allowed to build them any bigger than the largest church in town. According to the Associacis site, the synagogue was significantly expanded during the 13th century.

The site also notes that archaeological investigations have dated the buildings original structure to the third or fourth century, and that in 1400, a Barcelonian named Jaime Colon inherited the tax registers of houses in the Call from his father, Guillem, who had purchased them in 1393. Colon then created a detailed Book of Registers, which, our guide told us, included information on the old Jewish quarter.

In 1987, Catalan historian Jaume Riera y Sans published an article, Catalonia and the Jews, in which he reconstructed the tax collectors 1400 route through the Jewish Quarter, and found that it ended in front of the synagouge.

Consequently, the website chronicles that Associaci founder Miguel Iaffa proved that the buildings wall faced Jerusalem, and that in compliance with Jewish standards, two windows allowed for the passage of light originating in the Holy City. When it was put up for sale in 1995, he purchased it.

According to spokesperson Carmen Kobiakova, Iaffa has died, but his sons are continuing the project that Miguel started. Miguel Iaffa was born in a small village called Mara in Catalonia during the Spanish Civil War and raised in Argentina, so he was a Catalan-Argentinium Jew, Kobiakova wrote in an email.

Kobiakova wrote that they are confident that the ancient synagogue was on that site. There also are Roman numbers on the cornerstone of the wall, which tells us that it dates back to the third or fourth century, back to Roman times, our guide said.

What is certain, in any case, is that the Jews of Barcelona suffered persecution and tragedy. According to our guide, a significant 15-20 percent of the population was Jewish in the 14th century, and greatly contributed to civic life. The synagogue was in the center of Jewish quarter, which she said was not enclosed like a ghetto. Montjuic, (the Jewish Mountain), where many Jewish gravestones were located, still looms above the city.

But regulations were imposed in 1215 that restricted Jewish businesses and increased subservience to Christians, including the wearing of badges.

Then, the Black Plague struck, and 60 percent of the general population died. The Jewish community had fewer victims, due to, as is now suspected, their kosher diet and better hygiene. But the non-Jewish community accused Jews of poisoning the water, and in 1391, the Jewish quarter was burned, and 400 Jews were killed. Many survivors forcibly converted.

A family that lived here for 10 years after the massacre was accused of hiding Jewish practices, our guide said, adding that they all fled to France except for a mother-in-law, who was killed. By 1487, no more Jews were living inside the quarter.

And then came the Inquisition.

The building was used for other purposes until it was rediscovered and restored in the 1990s. We located three of the original five, and this was the only one we could buy back, our guide told us. In my research, I found that King James I is said to have visited the synagogue in 1263 at the end of the Barcelona Disputation, during which enforced debates were held between Dominican Friar Pablo Christiani, who had converted from Judiasm to Christianity, and Rabbi Nahmanides (Moshe Ben Nachman). Although Nahmanides won praise from city leaders for his defense of Jewish texts, the community was ordered to remove any passages deemed offensive from their Talmuds, or they would be burned.

It wasnt easy for Barcelonian Jews, and one marvels at their perseverance, indeed their survival. Thankfully, the Associaci is seeing that their legacy is maintained with dignity.

21 years ago, this was a warehouse, and the synagogue was restored at its original ground level, our guide told us.

According to its site, the Associaci is made up of people of different religious backgrounds, as well as local historians, who are committed to recovering the historic memory of the Jews of Catalonia as well as their Jewish and Catalan legacies.

Supporters and members such as Alex Neish, a Protestant from Scotland who donated his pewter Judaica collection, are donors of the religious items that fill the rooms.

Today, Barcelona has the largest Jewish community in Spain, numbering some 3,500 persons and with four active synagogues two Orthodox (Chabad) and two Reform as well as a day school, an elderly home and a yearly Jewish film festival.

Rabbi Ari Saks of Congregation Beth Mordecai of Perth Amboy, New Jersey was at the synagogue. Its wonderful to visit such a place and hear its story, he said, to remind us that the Jews are an eternal people.

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

The Forward's independent journalism depends on donations from readers like you.

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Posted By richards on May 26, 2017

On the last day of the school year for Solon Chabads Hebrew school, students started setting up exhibit tables to show off the work the students put into creating eight replicas of synagogues from around the world.

Rabbi Zushe Greenberg said the replica project was another installment of a yearly hands-on project series that the schools older division does at the end of each school year. Last years project focused on what Jewish heroes and a wax museum, where students dressed as a Jewish hero and presented research on the person.

Students learned about Jewish communities all around the world and Greenberg said their studies led them to create the replicas. The project was inspired by the Diaspora Museum in Tel Aviv, which produced something similar.

The students were really excited about it and worked in groups of five to seven students, he said. (Each group) voted on a country and then, using their phones, looked for a synagogue that was over 100 years old and still in use.

It was awesome to see which synagogues were chosen, such as the Altneushul in Prague, which is the oldest synagogue in Europe. The oldest synagogue in the U.S. was chosen as well, which is the Touro Synagogue in Rhode Island.

Greenberg said the project took the students about one month to complete. Then, on May 21, the students presented their work to 200 participants and the families in attendance voted on their favorite one. The Altneushul Synagogue won first place.

Our goal was to instill in our children that there are Jews all over the world and wherever they travel, they should seek out the Jewish community and visit, he said. This gives them the feeling of being part of a larger, global Jewish community.

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Synagogue replicas a highlight for students at Solon Chabad - Cleveland Jewish News

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Posted By richards on May 26, 2017

William Hamblin

This is the interior of the Synagogue Church where Jesus may have taught.

One of the most stirring scenes in the New Testament occurs in Luke 4:16-21, which relates that Jesus came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up: and, as his custom was, he went into the synagogue on the sabbath day, and stood up for to read.

"And there was delivered unto him the book of the prophet Esaias (Isaiah). And when he had opened the book, he found the place where it was written,

"The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord.

"And he closed the book, and he gave it again to the minister, and sat down. And the eyes of all them that were in the synagogue were fastened on him. And he began to say unto them, This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears.

Jesus read from what may perhaps have been a slightly different version of what we now know as Isaiah 61:1-2. As was the custom of the day in synagogues, he stood to read the biblical text and then seated himself to comment upon it.

The reaction of the audience was incredulous at first (compare Matthew 13:54-58; Mark 6:1-6). Was he not a local boy? A rather insignificant one? How had he gained such eloquence, such learning and poise? However, when, as he continued speaking, he pointed to their disbelief and compared it to stories of earlier biblical prophets, their puzzlement turned to anger. In the end, they vainly sought to throw him from a cliff near the town.

Surprisingly, until recent decades little serious archaeology had been done in Nazareth.

Although it is now the largest city in the northern district of Israel and is often regarded as the countrys Arab capital, the town is thought to have been extremely small in Jesuss day, with perhaps only a few hundred inhabitants. To the extent that it had much of an economy while Jesus was living there, employment very likely revolved around construction work in the booming city of Sepphoris, a little less than four miles away (see Sepphoris 'The ornament of the Galilee' published April 29, 2016, on deseretnews.com).

Recently, though, archaeological research has been turning up some very interesting finds in Nazareth, including a first-century home that might just possibly though unprovably be that of the young Jesus himself. After all, there were few houses in the village in his day, and this one seems to have been venerated by early Christians (see Archaeology and the boyhood of Jesus in Nazareth published March 12, 2015, on deseretnews.com).

What, though, of the synagogue in which Jesus made his dramatic announcement? Can it be located? For a town so small, a single synagogue would have been sufficient.

There is, as it happens, a traditional site. The so-called Synagogue Church is a 12th-century Crusader structure located in the area of Nazareths medieval market, just a few minutes walk from the massive modern Roman Catholic Basilica of the Annunciation and directly adjacent to the Greek Catholic Church of the Annunciation. (The Greek Catholics or Melkites own and maintain it, too.) It was built around the same time that the Crusaders replaced the original Byzantine Church of the Annunciation with their own, which was, in its turn, replaced by the beautiful structure dedicated by Pope Paul VI in 1969.

Ancient tradition maintains that the Synagogue Church stands atop the Roman-era synagogue where Jesus worshipped as a young man. In fact, in A.D. 570, the anonymous northern Italian Pilgrim of Piacenza the last western Christian writer to visit Palestine before the Muslim conquest that occurred less than a century later claimed to have seen not only the ancient synagogue itself but the original Bible from which Jesus had read, as well as the bench on which the Savior used to sit as a young man.

But is that tradition old enough? Unfortunately, the Piacenza Pilgrim enjoys a well-earned reputation for exceptional gullibility. Moreover, its very likely that the synagogue of Jesuss time was destroyed in the late 60s A.D., during the first Jewish revolt against Rome though it could have been rebuilt thereafter.

Furthermore, some have argued, the site of the Synagogue Church is outside the boundaries of the tiny ancient town of Nazareth, whereas the synagogue would almost certainly have been located within the village.

Daniel Peterson founded BYU's Middle Eastern Texts Initiative, chairs The Interpreter Foundation and blogs on Patheos. William Hamblin is the author of several books on premodern history. They speak only for themselves.

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Nazareth's 'Synagogue Church' where Jesus may have worshipped as a young man - Deseret News

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Posted By admin on May 26, 2017

The Maimon family of Teaneck was celebrating the bar mitzvah of their eldest son on Parshat Yitro of 5763 (2003). A large crowd had gathered, filling the Aviner basement (which housed Shaarei Orah at the time) to beyond capacity. Among the guests was the venerable Rav Solomon Maimon of Seattle, the great-great-uncle of the bar mitzvah.

Many Sephardic and Ashkenazic family and friends had joined the simcha and all were eagerly awaiting the Torah reading. All was beautiful as we reached the aliyah that contains the Aseret Hadibrot. I alerted and reminded the kahal that Sephardim remain seated for all of Torah, including the Aseret Hadibrot. I noted that it was particularly poignant at this wonderful simcha to remain seated during the reading of the Aseret Hadibrot since the Maimon family takes great pride in their descent from the Rambam. The Rambam, it turns out, adopts a very strong stance against those who stand for the Aseret Hadibrot. Therefore, at the bat mitzva of one of his descendants, I noted that we should be especially careful to honor his ruling.

The Aseret Hadibrot undoubtedly constitute a cornerstone of Torah. They express the essential message of Torahrespect. The mitzvot contained in the Aseret Hadibrot teach respect for Hashem, for others and ultimately for ourselves as well. It is therefore not surprising that the Mishna in Masechet Tamid records that the Aseret Hadibrot were recited each day in the Beit Hamikdash.

The Gemara in the first perek of Berachot, however, records that Chazal chose not to incorporate the Aseret Hadibrot in the daily tefillah due to concern for misinterpretation. A deviant sect of Judaism aggressively preached that only the Aseret Hadibrot constitutes the revealed word of Hashem. Chazal rejected the idea of reciting the Aseret Hadibrot in our daily tefillah lest the deviant sect cite this practice as evidence for their belief. The Rambam similarly argues against standing only for the Aseret Hadibrot since it strengthens the hand of those who claim that only this portion of the Torah was revealed by Hashem.

There were those Sephardic authorities, such as Maran Hachida, who defended those who stand for the Aseret Hadibrot. He argues that since we read the entire Torah we celebrate each word of the Torah as the word of God. We stand for the Aseret Hadibrot only to reenact the revelation at Har Sinai when, the Torah records, we all stood.

Hacham Ovadia Yosef, however, notes (Teshuvot Yechave Daat 1:29) that had Maran Hachida been aware of the Rambams responsum he never would have defended those who acted against the Rambams ruling. Hacham Ovadia therefore insists that Sephardim must sit during the Aseret Hadibrot in deference to the Rambam.

One exception, writes Hacham Ovadia, is if ones father or rav receives the aliyah in which the Aseret Hadibrot is read. Sephardic custom is for children and talmidim to stand for their father or rav during their aliyah. In such a case, Hacham Ovadia writes, the children and talmidim should rise as the father or rav comes for his aliyah, to clarify that they are standing in honor of their father or rav and not to accord special stature to the Aseret Hadibrot.

While we have deep appreciation for the Aseret Hadibrot, ultimately we love each and every detail in the Torah and treat each pasuk with equal reverence and respect. Just as a responsible parent loves each child equally, we Jews love each part of the Torah equallywith no special preferences for one section over another.

By Rabbi Haim Jachter

Rabbi Haim Jachter is the spiritual leader of Congregation Shaarei Orah, the Sephardic Congregation of Teaneck. He also serves as a Rebbe at Torah Academy of Bergen County and a Dayan on the Beth Din of Elizabeth.

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Standing for the Aseret HaDibrot? Not at a Sephardic Kehilla! - Jewish Link of New Jersey

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Posted By simmons on May 26, 2017

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The files explain that moderators should take down Holocaust denial material in only four of the 14 countries where it is outlawed, reported The Guardian on Wednesday, referencing leaked Facebook training documents. One document says the company does not welcome local law that stands as an obstacle to an open and connected world and will only consider blocking or hiding Holocaust denial messages and photographs if we face the risk of getting blocked in a country or a legal risk.'

Though Facebookstated in the documents that refugees and migrants also will not receive the protections given to other vulnerable groups, the social network has allegedly told moderators to remove dehumanising speech or any calls for violence against refugees.

Content that says migrants should face a firing squad or compares them to animals, criminals or filth also violate its guidelines, explained The Guardian in their report. According to the documents, comments permitted under the policy include ones such as: Islam is a religion of hate. Close the borders to immigrating Muslims until we figure out what the hell is going on; migrants are so filthy; migrants are thieves and robbers; and Mexican immigrants are freeloaders mooching off of tax dollars we dont even have.'

Fuck immigrant and Keep the horny migrant teenagers away from our daughters, are also allegedly allowed on the platform, however it is a violation of the rules on migrants to equate them to other types of criminals, eg rapists, child molesters, murderers or terrorists.'

As a quasi-protected category, they will not have the full protections of our hate speech policy because we want to allow people to have broad discussions on migrants and immigration which is a hot topic in upcoming elections, stated Facebook in their training manual.Countries are not protected people from a country are protected.

Followers of particular religions are also protected, as well as sexual orientations (including asexuals), while political ideologies, politicians, and physical traits are all allowed.

Austria, France, Germany, and Israel are the only countries listed in the documents where moderators should remove Holocaust denial posts, not on grounds of taste, but because the company fears it might get sued.

Charlie Nash is a reporterforBreitbart Tech. You can follow himon Twitter@MrNashingtonorlike his page at Facebook.

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Posted By simmons on May 26, 2017

Earlier this week, The Guardian published leaked Facebook guidelines for moderators charged with deciding whether to take down hateful content from the social media site. Possibly the most controversial revelation is how Facebook determines whether to remove content which denies the Holocaust.

According to the documents, moderators should only take down such content in four of the 14 countries in which Holocaust denial is outlawed: France, Germany, Israel and Austria. Facebook determined that those four countries actually prosecute companies distributing Holocaust denial content.

We believe our geo-blocking policy balances our belief in free expression with the practical need to respect local laws in certain sovereign nations in order to remain unblocked and avoid legal liability, reads the guidelines. We will only use geo-blocking when a country has taken sufficient steps to demonstrate that the local legislation permits censorship in that specific case.

The documents also reveal Facebook changed their policies to allow content containing nude pictures of adults during the Holocaust.

Steven Davidson is an editorial fellow at The Forward.

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Facebook Document Shows Lax Policy On Holocaust Denial - Forward

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Posted By simmons on May 26, 2017

Email a copy of "Report: UK Jewish Leaders Demand Infamous Holocaust Denier David Irvings Books Be Removed From University of Manchester" to a friend

University of Manchester campus. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.

A coalition of the UKs foremostJewish leaders has demanded that Holocaust denier David Irvings books be removed from open access at the University of Manchesters main library,Christian Today reported on Tuesday.

Aletter signedby the Jewish Leadership Council, the Board of Deputies of British Jews, the Holocaust Education Trust, the Union of Jewish Students and the Community Security Trust will reportedly be presented to Manchesters vice chancellor this week, marking a major step of intervention in a saga that has dragged on for some time now.

According to the report, the letter states:

May 26, 2017 2:39 pm

We understand that you have already received multiple complaints regarding these books and are yet to take appropriate measures. David Irving was labelled by a High Court Judge as an antisemitic, racist Holocaust denier in 2000 when he lost his libel case against historian Deborah Lipstadt. Irving was subsequently sentenced to three years in an Austrian prison following speeches in which he referred to the gas chambers fairy tale and called the Holocaust a myth. More recently he spoke at a far-right eventin Londonwhere, according to press reports, Auschwitz was compared to Disneyland and the death of Jo Cox was referred to as cheery news. The fact that his writings can be found on the same shelves as books by legitimate historians is not just an insult to the victims of the Holocaust and their descendants, but also risks these books being endorsed as accurate historical fact.

The push to get books proposingHolocaust denial theories out of open display in main university libraries has been a project ofIrene Lancaster, a Jewish historian at Manchester.

Earlier this year, a college at Cambridge University moved Irvings biography of Winston Churchill to closed access, available now only on demand, following a complaint by Lancaster. The report said other universities also have policies in place banning Irvings works from themain shelves.

Lancaster has reportedly appealed for the intervention at Manchester where the administration has thus far refused to move Irvings books ofthe governments Minister of Universities and Sciences,Jo Johnson, but Lancasterwas told that while the ministryin no way condones such literaturefree speech and academic freedom are fundamental to our higher education system and wider society.

The campaignto relocate David Irvings literature has been advanced in the last month by aformer Archbishop of Canterbury, alocal Labour parliamentarianandthe mayor of Salford (a city near Manchester), according to the report.

Johnson has previously called on universities to adopt the international definition of antisemitism, which the government officially recognizedin December 2016.

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Posted By simmons on May 26, 2017

Students in the overwhelmingly black and Hispanic school district of Hempstead, New York, on Long Island, may be forgiven this fall if it takes them awhile to get used to their new superintendent a Hasidic Jew who wears a dark coat and hat, sports a beard and has a yarmulke made of velvet.

Shimon Waronker, a 48-year-old veteran educator from New York City, has been appointed superintendent of a school district where few can remember the last time the schools chief was a white person, never mind a man who is a member of the Chabad-Lubavitch sect.

The school district in central Nassau County is 99% black and Latino. It is also one of the most troubled in New York state, with a graduation rate of about 40%. Some 68% of the students are considered economically disadvantaged, and 30% are not proficient in English.

In 2015, the districts Hempstead High School and Alverta B. Gray Schultz Middle School were placed under state receivership. The state can appoint an independent operator to control the schools if they do not show improvement. There are also frequent problems with gangs and drugs.

And even before Waronker takes over there is dissent. At a stormy board meeting in late April, he was appointed superintendent, but by only a 32 margin. Board opponents complained that he did not meet with the community before the vote, and that he has no experience running a large school district. Hempstead has about 8,400 students and is one of the biggest in the state. Waronker is to be paid $265,000 annually, and he will have a four-year contract.

Born in Chile, Waronker came to America speaking only Spanish when he was 11. He settled in Rockville, Maryland, with two siblings and his mother, Ruth Waronker (his father had already died). In the United States, he earned a bachelors degree at the University of Maryland at College Park, served in the Army as an intelligence officer, and later earned a doctorate in education from Harvard.

Over the past few years, Waronker has built a reputation in the education world for turning bad schools into better ones. He is best known for the changes he brought to Jordan L. Mott Junior High School 22 in the South Bronx, once rated one of the 12 most dangerous schools in New York City. Reading and math scores were in the single digits when he came in 2004. They were improved when he left four years later, to the high 30s.

In Hempstead last year, the school board, frustrated with what it saw as years of barely any academic progress, hired an executive search firm to look nationwide for a new superintendent. Waronker was chosen from a field of about 40 candidates. He was eager to accept. Asked the reason for his eagerness, during a May 17 interview with the Forward, he paused for nearly a full moment.

I believe very strongly the children in Hempstead need opportunities, he said in a small office at the New American Academy, in Brooklyn, one of four charter schools he has started in the past few years. He oversees those schools and is now also dean of The Jewish Academy, in Commack, New York, a post he said he will be giving up to devote his full time to Hempstead.

Ive had experience turning around schools like this, Waronker said, referring to the Hempstead district. Ive dealt with the gangs, the low scores. I think I bring a unique skill set.

Waronker offered an example. On his very first day at JHS 22, he was confronted by the spectacle of a police officer in a hallway arresting a student for assault. I cant [say] I wasnt scared, he said. It was really, really a rough place. Waronker, only 5 feet 8 inches tall, with an average build, said he had to stare down angry and sometimes threatening students and parents. His life has been threatened more than once.

He employed some of the tactics he learned in Army intelligence school. He identified the gang leaders and created a student congress, with those leaders at the head; he brought in the New York Police Departments anti-gang squad for talks with students; he sent five gang leaders he could not turn around to other schools. He divided the school into small academies so that groups of teachers could concentrate on manageable clusters of students.

Whether the same tactics can work in Hempstead, a suburban school district with urban troubles, remains to be seen.

He assumed there would be opposition, Johnson said. Johnson had another complaint: Waronker lacks experience running an entire school district. But Johnson said he plans to stand behind Waronker. I hope he does well, said Johnson, a life-long district resident and a onetime Hempstead village police officer. His success is the districts success.

Waronker said it was up to the board, not the community, to decide on a new superintendent. He said he plans to meet with parents, teachers and students this summer. He also said he has dealt with large student bodies, if not entire districts.

Joel Klein, a former New York City schools chancellor, is among Waronkers supporters. They met in the early 2000s, when Waronker trained at a leadership academy that then mayor Michael Bloomberg created in order to prepare promising educators to become school principals.

He impressed me immediately, Klein said. He had endless eagerness to learn. He also showed humility and compassion.

Those are traits Waronker said he learned from his mother, who converted to Judaism. Waronker also converted, at the age of 6. He became Hasidic, he said, in his mid-20s, during his Army days. Having had a friend who was Hasidic, Waronker said he came to like the joy with which members of the Chabad worshipped, and the fact that the Chabad encouraged large families. He is a father of six. Either life has meaning or it doesnt, he said of his religious journey. A lot of people go soul-searching. I did, too. I decided I believed in one God.

Frederick Brewington, an attorney in Hempstead and a longtime civil-rights leader on Long Island, said he is hopeful that Waronker will be able to reinvigorate the districts schools.

It doesnt matter that he is different, Brewington said. Hes a leader in a district that needs a leader. Hes come into a situation that has become old and stale. He noted that Waronker could add another level of diversity to the district: We have a chance to become a global village. What a great opportunity.

Contact James Bernstein at feedback@forward.com

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Posted By richards on May 26, 2017

Norman Oppenheimer (Richard Gere) describes himself as a businessman and is always prepared to hand you his card. But he doesnt seem to transact business in an office, and if he has any employees they must all be on vacation.

Walking the streets of New York, and contemplating yet another encounter with power brokers who are barely aware that he exists, Norman appears to be at once purposefully engaged and serenely detached. But hes forever on the lookout for the right opportunity.

That comes along in the form of Micha Eshel (Lior Ashkenazi), a prominent Israeli politician whos clearly in need of a friend and mightily impressed when Norman insists on buying him an outrageously expensive pair of shoes. Their bond promises to finally validate Normans claims to be a man of influence.

But politics can be as tricky as friendships are ephemeral and loyalties can be even trickier. Normans connection with Eshel brings him under the scrutiny of people who may not have the best interests of either at heart. Among them is the sharp-eared Alex (Charlotte Gainsbourg), whom Norman may live to regret engaging in conversation.

Norman has always known just whom to flatter. But does he know whom to trust?

Norman is a cautionary tale about ambition gone awry. Working from his own screenplay, director Joseph Cedar (Footnote) captures the frenetic allure of New York, which emerges as very much a character in its own right. The film is smart about the role of pressing the flesh in a city in which who you know is at least as important as what you know.

And Gere, who gets to the essence of Normans desire to belong to the upper echelons of society, proves to be inspired casting. Its a late-career triumph for an actor whose gifts havent always been appreciated.

Norman may be a mere wannabe, but Norman is a small gem.

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'Norman' is a compelling New York story | Things to Do in Tucson ... - Arizona Daily Star

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Posted By simmons on May 26, 2017

Event in the Senate

'

Congress members from both parties participated in a celebration of Jewish American Heritage Month taking place in the Capitol.

The event Wednesday included remarks by Sen. Sherrod Brown; D-Ohio; Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn.; Sen. Ben Cardin, D-Md.; Sen. Steve Daines, R-Mont.; Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla.; Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore.; Sen. Gary Peters, D-Mich.; Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J.; Sen. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii; Rep. John Faso, R-N.Y.; Rep. Joseph P. Kennedy III, D-Mass.; Rep. Brad Schneider, D-Ill.; as well as the congresswoman who in her first term authored the 2006 law creating Jewish American Heritage month, Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla.

The event, organized by the Friedlander Group, a New York-based PR and lobbying firm, included honors for Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein, who founded the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews; as well as Shani Verschleiser, a child welfare expert; and Sparks, a support organization for women in crisis.

President Barack Obama for several years organized White House receptions marking the heritage month

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Congress marks Jewish Heritage Month - Arutz Sheva

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