Jewish American Heritage Month

Vandalized Capitol Hill synagogue calls for pushback against toxic expression – The Seattle Times

Posted By richards on March 11, 2017

The Seattle synagogue Temple De Hirsch Sinai was vandalized with graffiti saying The Holocaust is fake history. Its rabbi responded: Were not going to allow those who terrorize us to define us.

A synagogue in the Capitol Hill neighborhood was vandalized overnight Thursday with anti-Semitic, Holocaust-denying graffiti, said Rabbi Daniel Weiner of Temple De Hirsch Sinai.

A Seattle police officer discovered the spray-painted message Friday morning on the old sanctuarys facade.

It says, The Holocaust is fake history, Weiner said. The s characters in the graffiti are dollar signs, Weiner said.

It really is a toxic mix of Holocaust denial, the stereotypical charge that Jews are obsessed with money, and the notion coming from the (President Trump) administration that all facts are fungible fake facts, fake history, Weiner said.

Police also investigated a box deemed suspicious because it was found outside a door at the synagogue where deliveries are not made, said Seattle Police Chief Kathleen OToole, who went to the scene. The box contained books that someone had donated to the synagogue, police said.

Shortly after the discovery of the graffiti, a neighbor hung a bedsheet saying Love Wins over the markings, Weiner said.

It was a very sweet gesture and touching, but we took it down I think its extremely important that people see this.

Weiner said the Seattle police are investigating the incident as a hate crime. He said hed been hearing all morning from people who worship at the temple.

People are incredibly hurt and upset. But most of the calls Ive gotten, all of the calls have been supportive, but most have been defiant, he said.

We are going to do our due diligence in terms of security, Weiner said. At the same time, were not going to allow those who terrorize us to define us.

Federal officials have been investigating more than 120 threats since Jan. 9 against Jewish organizations in three dozen states and a rash of vandalism at Jewish cemeteries.

On Feb. 27, a bomb threat forced evacuation of the Stroum Jewish Community Center on Mercer Island.

Seattle Police Department spokesman Patrick Michaud said officers will be patrolling the area around the temple when they have extra time between 911 calls.

Michaud said police did not have a suspect.

Bias incidents have been rising in Seattle since at least 2012, according to Seattle Police Department statistics. Last year, 255 such incidents were reported to police.

Top police officials had met with temple leaders as recently as Wednesday to discuss concerns over hate crimes.

With all thats happening nationally we want people in all of our communities to feel safe, OToole said. Weve been meeting with people of this temple. Weve been meeting with people in mosques around the city we take these cases very seriously.

Weiner said he has been at Temple De Hirsch Sinai for 16 years. He said the synagogue has experienced minor vandalism before and received a threatening phone call after the election.

But, in my time, theres been nothing like this, Weiner said.

Since the election, Weiner said he believes people who were previously marginalized or silenced now feel newly empowered to express hateful sentiments.

The majority of us need to push back against that and convey that America is still America theres no place for hate or tolerance of toxic expression.

Other communities are also being threatened, Weiner said. This is a considerable and conspicuous upsurge in attacks on all vulnerable minority populations, he said.

Weiner said he and other faith leaders had already been scheduled to meet with U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell on Friday afternoon to discuss the rise in hate crimes and possible solutions.

Its a little more imminent and urgent than I had hoped it would be, he said.

Weiner never made it to the meeting. It was announced that he was on his way, but he got news of the suspicious package and had to turn back.

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Capitol Hill Synagogue Vandalized With Alternative Facts – Seattle Weekly

Posted By richards on March 11, 2017

Spray-painted message says The Holocaust is fake history. Its not.

Another day, another hate crime.

A Capitol Hill synagogue has been vandalized with Holocaust-denying graffiti, the Seattle Times reports. Per the Times, Temple De Hirsch Sinai was vandalized on Thursday night with a spray-painted message reading, The Holocaust is fake history, with the s characters as dollar signs (a reference to the anti-Semitic stereotype of Jewish people as being obsessed with money.)

The vandalism comes as some fear a rise in white nationalism in the area. As it happens, on Friday U.S. Rep. Pramila Jayapal, who represents Capitol Hill, introduced a resolution urging the Department of Justice to investigate a series of recent incidents as hate crimes. This includes the recent shooting of a Sikh-American in Kent, in which the shooter reportedly said Go back to your country before pulling the trigger.

In a press release, Jayapal said she was speaking about the resolution on the steps of the U.S. Capitol when she learned about the synagogue vandalism.

We will not be intimidated. Today, I introduced a House resolution calling on the Department of Justice to fully fund hate crime investigations into the rise in attacks on Jewish, Sikh, Indian, and Muslim-Americans and communities of color, Jayapal, who is an immigrant from India, said in a press release.

Speaking to the Times, Rabbi Daniel Weiner compared the graffiti message to the alternative facts coming out of the Trump administration. All facts are fungible, Weiner said of the age of Trump. Fake facts, fake history.

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Capitol Hill Synagogue Vandalized With Alternative Facts - Seattle Weekly

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Not just prayers: synagogues are organizing to fight Trump's agenda – Cleveland Jewish News

Posted By richards on March 11, 2017

NEW YORK The day after the presidential election, as congregants gathered in her Brooklyn synagogue to air their feelings, Rabbi Rachel Timoner was already starting to organize against the incoming administration.

She called her local city councilman, Democrat Brad Lander, and together they organized an activists panel at her congregation, Beth Elohim, to discuss policy changes under President Donald Trump. More than 1,000 people packed the sanctuary for the event.

Four months later, Beth Elohim has been transformed into an activist hub in Brooklyns affluent and historically progressive Park Slope neighborhood. Together with Lander, the synagogue has set up 15 working groups on liberal causes ranging from combating anti-Semitism and Islamophobia to protecting reproductive rights. Ten thousand people are active in the groups, and seven mass meetings of the activists, educating them on issues and teaching organizing tactics, have drawn an average crowd of 1,000.

Our people are awakened, activated, determined, in some cases alarmed, and deeply wanting to be part of preventing harm and healing this country, Timoner said. I have literally hundreds of members who are in acute pain, who are seeing their country become distorted.

Beth Elohim is among several synagogues that have doubled down on political activism since Trumps election. Synagogues are taking on roles usually reserved for nonprofits hiring professional activists, organizing protests, mobilizing congregants to lobby and educating them on immigrant and refugee rights. Several synagogues sent delegations to the Womens March on Washington and its local offshoots in January.

Some of these synagogues dont see the work as partisan, aimed as they are directly at Trumps policies. (Trump himself has called for loosening federal laws that prevent houses of worship from endorsing political candidates.) Others, citing overwhelming demand among their congregants, are less concerned about appearing political. But they all say that regardless of the risks, this is the moment for synagogues to offer their members a chance to engage on issues that matter to them in a Jewish context.

We have Torah, and Torah is very clear that we do not oppress the stranger, that we love our fellow human beings as we love ourselves, Timoner said. What I think it offers to have things like this happen in a synagogue is it provides the moral framework.

Beth Elohim has received a grant to hire a community organizer, a step Manhattans Stephen Wise Free Synagogue is also taking, fueled by more than $100,000 in congregant donations. Stephen Wise is organizing its members into three activist groups on refugees and immigrants; anti-Semitism and Islamophobia; and protecting civil liberties.

Stephen Wise helped raise $20,000 for Jews in Whitefish, Montana, when they were threatened by white supremacists in January. In June, a delegation from the synagogue will travel to Greece and Germany to aid refugees, while educating kids at the synagogue about refugee rights. Ammiel Hirsch, the synagogues rabbi, expects groups to lobby legislators on a range of issues as well.

Judaism is a faith that believes in action, in making the world a better place through policy, Hirsch said. Theres got to be a force of legislation behind it. Otherwise, its just a question of localized humanitarian action, without regard to collective policies that ensure were on a higher moral plane.

Other synagogues have collaborated in interfaith initiatives or served as spaces for activist gatherings. Bnai Jeshurun in Manhattan was the site of a rally that drew thousands before the New York City womens march in January. The synagogue has also set up an action alert list with 200 subscribers to mobilize congregants for protests.

Bnai Jeshurun congregants at the HIAS rally for refugees in February. (Courtesy of Bnai Jeshurun)

For some of these synagogues, the current activism is just an intensification of a historical tilt toward political engagement. Bnai Jeshurun has a longstanding program to aid New York State farmworkers, while Temple Sinai in Washington, D.C., led two trips to aid undocumented immigrants in Texas in 2014 and 2016, before Trumps election.Synagogues nationwide have long been active on Israel policy, and in the 1970s and 1980s, on behalf ofSoviet Jewry.

But some congregants see synagogue-based political action as a step too far. David Horowich, a Reform Jewish businessman from Syracuse who voted for Trump, appreciates Reform Judaisms cultural and communal aspects. But he feels synagogues shouldnt be in the business of political advocacy, because its not always easy to judge whether policies are successful.

I havent been in favor of coming out with statements that are political, because sometimes they can come back and haunt you, Horowich said. Im open to people expressing their opinions, but you have to wait until it all plays out.

For those who oppose him, Trumps policies on refugees and immigration have become a particular focus of synagogue activism. All four religious denominations and several major organizations opposed the first iteration of his immigrationban in January.

In response to Trumps immigration policies, several synagogues have declared themselves sanctuaries for undocumented immigrants. For some synagogues, including Temple Sinai, that means setting aside rooms should undocumented immigrants need a place tolive. Others, like Philadelphias Congregation Beth Zion-Beth Israel, which is exploring becoming a sanctuary,are holding classes for immigrants and others on immigrant and refugee rights.

Our religious tradition teaches about not only welcoming the stranger but not oppressing the stranger, and making sure the most vulnerable in our midst has been protected and cared for, said Temple Sinai Rabbi Jonathan Roos. The level of fear is at a level unseen during the Obama years, even when the level of deportations was high.

The push for synagogue activism appears to be spreading. Timoner has held two conference calls with rabbis interested in Beth Elohims model. And Truah, the rabbinichuman rights group, drew 200 rabbis to a conference in February, called No Time for Neutrality, that ended with 19 rabbis getting arrested during a protest in front of a Trump hotel in New York City.

We have more power, privilege and social capital than weve ever had in this country, said Beth Zion-Beth Israel Rabbi Yosef Goldman.Its an opportunity for us to be vigilant about using our power to defend our own community, but [also] to defend those around us who are more vulnerable than we are.

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This Sephardi studies scholar sees preserving Ladino as an ‘act of resistance’ against Trump – Jewish Telegraphic Agency

Posted By richards on March 11, 2017

Devin Naar says Ladino connects Jews with Latinos and Muslims, two communities he considers marginalized in Trumps America. (Meryl Schenker Photography/The Stroum Center for Jewish Studies at Washington University)

(JTA) One-year-old Vidal doesnt know the significance behind the lullaby his father sings him at bedtime. He knows it helps him fall asleep, but notthat the Ladino song is part of an effort to teach himwhat served asthe lingua franca of Sephardi Jews of the Ottoman Empire for over 500 years.

And he doesnt know that whenhe says his first words, he will join a shrinking cadre of Ladino speakers, most of them elderly, who hold the keys to a culture that is on the brink of extinction.

To lose a language is to lose a world, and were on the cusp of that,his father, Devin Naar, told JTA.

Naar, a professor of Sephardic studies at the University of Washington, is deeply passionate about preserving Ladino which is also known as Judeo-Spanish, Judezmo or Judio the language his grandfathers family spoke in their native Greece. By teaching Vidal Ladino, Naar hopes to fulfill a longtime dream of transmitting itslegacyto his son.

In recent months, theres something else at stake too. The 33-year-old Seattle resident sees the linguistic roots of Ladino, which include Hebrew, Spanish, Turkish and Arabic, as providing a way to connect Jews with Latinos and Muslims.Preserving Ladino is a specific political act of resistance in Trumps America, Naar said.

Its a language of linguistic fusion that is based in Spanish but really brings together a lot of other linguistic elements that I think give it a special resonance, especially in todays world, because it serves as bridge language between different cultures between Jewish culture, between Spanish culture and between the Muslim world, Naar said.

President Donald Trump has signed executive orders to builda wall between the U.S. and Mexico and to banimmigrants from some Muslim majority countries.

If Trump is interested in building a wall, Judezmo serves as a bridge, and I think that we need bridges such as this in our time, Naarsaid.

Naars grandfather came to the United States with most of his familyin 1924 from Salonica, Greece, in the midst of discriminatory measures being passed against Jews there. Family members left behind later perished inthe Holocaust, along with 95 percent of the citys Jews.

In the U.S., there were other difficulties. Naars grandfather heard anti-Semitic slurs and other insults from bigots who mistook him forSouth American or Middle Eastern.

Speaking Ladino serves as a method of reclaiming that heritage and activating that heritage not only for personal and family reasons but for political reasons, Naar said.

Devin Naars grandfather, far right, in Salonica, Greece, in the early 1920s, before they moved to the U.S. (Courtesy of Naar)

Ladino emerged following the expulsion of Jews from Spain in 1492, when the communitydispersed throughout the Ottoman Empire and came in contact with local languages as well as different Iberian dialects. At its height in the beginning of the 20th century, the languagehad abouthalf a million speakers, Naar estimated.

Estimates of current Ladino speakers vary widely, from between 160,000-300,000 people with some familiarity withthe language to around 50,000-100,000 speakers. Most of the population today is elderly, but there is renewedinterest in the language in some universities in the U.S. and Israel as well asamong Sephardi Jews.

Teaching VidalLadino has its challenges there is no complete English-Ladino dictionary and most speakers are older.Naarwas recently reading Vidal a childrens book about a dinosaur with slippery flippers and found himselfat a loss for how to translate that expression into Ladino. He consulted a scholar in Israel and a local Ladino speaker to get it right.

Its a learning process for me, both speaking to him and recognizing the limits of my vocabulary and trying to expand my vocabulary, Naarsaid.

But he isnt alone. Naar enlisted the help of a Seattle-basedgroup of elderly Ladino speakers, who translated Little Red Riding Hood into the language as a gift to Vidal. And his wife, Andrea, speaks to their sonin a mix of English, Spanish and Ladino.

Rachel Amado Bortnick, the founder of an online community for Ladino speakers, told JTA thatshe had only heard of one other casein the last decade of a child being taught to speak Ladino.

Theres no community that uses it daily its very challenging, to put it mildly, to actually pass on the language in the way that a person like me grew up in, said Bortnick, who learned Ladino as a child in her native Turkey.

Naars interest in the language goes back to his family history. He grew up hearing his grandfather and older relatives speak the language.

But by the time he started college in 2001, he had only learned a few words: greetings, curses, food-related words and liturgical passages. Questions from classmates about his last name, which did not sound like the Ashkenazi Jewish names they were familiar with, motivated him to dig deeper into his heritage.

He started studying Sephardi history and asked his grandfather to teach him Ladino.

A year later, Naar was able to read letters detailing the fate of family members who had perished in Auschwitz. The letters, written in Ladino by a family friend after World War II, had been tucked away in a closet, and some of Naars family members had been unaware of their existence and the details they provided ofthe deaths of family members.

The older generation, they couldnt believe it. They hadnt heard somebody speak like that in years, so that was very powerful for me, Naar said.

Now hes doing his part to pass the language on to the next generation and with it, a set of values.

One of my goals in trying to teach Vidal Ladino would be so that he has a sense of connection and awareness, not only of where he comes from, but also how the culture that he is connected to is connected to many other people, so that if he sees that immigrants in general or Spanish-speaking immigrants or Muslims in America are being maligned, I hope that he would be inspired to stand up.

Devin Naar is reading his son, Vidal, childrens books in Ladino as well as translating books from English into the language. (Courtesy of Naar)

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This Sephardi studies scholar sees preserving Ladino as an 'act of resistance' against Trump - Jewish Telegraphic Agency

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Racism with a kosher seal of approval – Ynetnews

Posted By richards on March 11, 2017

The friends of former Knesset Member Sharon Gal (Yisrael Beytenu), who is currently hanging out at the Big Brother house, sent a helicopter up to the sky with the sign If a Zionist is a racist, Im proud to be racist. It would have been more accurate to write, If being a racist is Zionist, Im proud to be a Zionist, as Gals Zionism is not the fulfillment or the creation of an exemplary Jewish society. Rather, it is mostly about hating Arabs and leftists.

And whats wrong with that, youre wondering. The Arabs are our enemies, and the leftists collaborate with our enemies. I could try to explain what is wrong with that, what is wrong, for example, with an idea of MK Miki Zohar (Likud) that Israel annex the territories and give the Arabs all democratic rights apart from voting. I could try to explain, but it seems that this is the classic case of the luxury restaurant: If you have to ask how much it costs, you cant afford it. If you need an explanation as to what is wrong with Zohars proposal or Gals world view, its unlikely that an explanation would do any good.

The goal of this op-ed is more modestnot to explain what is wrong with racism, but to point out the other places that the legitimization of racism is leading us to. Take, for example, the institutionalized racism in the ultra-Orthodox sector towards Sephardic girls seeking admission into Haredi-Ashkenazi educational institutions.

The students were deemed unfit not because they are Sephardic, but because they are not Ashkenazi (Archive photo: Dudi Vaknin)

Ahead of the previous school year, the candidacy of dozens of girls from Elad, most of whom were of Sephardic descent, was rejected by the Darkei Hanna School and the Ladaat Chokhmah Seminary in the Haredi city, which is located beyond the Green Line. Why were they rejected? Because they are unsuitable. Why are they unsuitable? Thats an excellent question. It has nothing to do with the fact that they are specifically Sephardic. It has more to do with the fact that they are not Ashkenazi.

The students parents petitioned the court. Following the court and Education Ministrys intervention, it was agreed that the Elad Municipality would move to a regional registration method, which would make it difficult to disqualify a student due to the descent of her parents or parents parents. Like the Israeli government, the Elad Municipality made a decision in principle, but failed to actually change the admission system. And the Sephardic candidates wereagaindeemed unfit to be admitted into these prestigious (and completely Ashkenazi) educational institutions.

The parents petitioned the court again, requesting that the municipality be forced to implement the decision it made in the past. The court accepted the petition. Happy ending? Not exactly.

Elad Mayor Israel Porush didnt like the decision. What do I mean by didnt like it? He really didnt like it. He declared that the court ruling contradicts the explicit order of the greatest sages of Israel, may they live long and happily, and we will turn to them to hear what should be done. Social MK Moshe Gafni (United Torah Judaism) even announced that this is a day of disgrace. Have you ever heard such a thing? 100% Kosher Jews seek to practice racism, according to their forefathers finest racist tradition, and the secular state, which is suspected of leftism due to its being secular, is trying to stand in their way? Outrageous!

First of all, we must admit that the Haredi argument is essentially justified. Indeed, traditional Judaism does not believe in equalitynot between Jews and non-Jews, men and women or scholars and the uneducated. The former in each of these three pairs deserve favored treatment. An Arab, even a good Arab, is not a real human being; a woman, even a good woman, is not really a man; and a secular person, even a good secular person, will never be equal to a religious scholar (who is better than the greatest secular scholar, even if he is a complete fool).

The discrimination against Sephardim may not be according to the law of the Bible, but it is definitely prescribed by the rabbis (the greatest sages of Israel, may they live long and happily). And in the new Israel, the secular courts rulings are always conditional, until we find out what the Torah sages have to say.

And what does Minister Aryeh Machluf Deri (Shas) think about it? The minister was deeply offended when artist Yair Garbuz dared to talk about amulet kissers. Racism! And what about Elad? The Shas voters, Deri ruled, have more urgent problems than discrimination. If you are with us in the racism towards Arabs, we will forgive your racism towards Sephardim.

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Surprise! Jews are good at baseball – JNS.org

Posted By richards on March 11, 2017

The Sandy Koufax precedent

On a completely different note, why is this team so good? Arent Jews in the Diaspora supposed to be studious scholars who pore over books all day? So first, a clarification: The fact that a team of American Jews has been winning at an international baseball tournament is surprising because the team doesnt include the most successful Jewish players in Major League Baseballlike Alex Bregman, Ryan Braun and Ian Kinsler. Actually, this Israeli team is just a footnote in the glorious Jewish history of Americas pastime.

At the inaugural Jewish American Heritage Month celebration in May 2010, President Barack Obama remarked, Weve got senators and representatives, weve got Supreme Court justices and successful entrepreneurs, rabbinical scholars, Olympic athletesand Sandy Koufax.

Koufax is widely considered one of the greatest pitchers of all time, Jewish or not. He earned his place in Jewish history, though, thanks to his decision to sit out game one of the 1965 World Series game because it coincided with Yom Kippur. He later won that years World Series with the Los Angeles Dodgers and was named series MVP.

David Trager, a Brooklyn judge who also taught at Tel Aviv University, succinctly explained the meaning of Koufaxs Yom Kippur act. He said, Our parents generation was religious, but they still worked on the Sabbath.In the workshops and even at respectable companies, if you didnt work on Yom Kippur you were fired. Koufax didnt justify his decision with big words about religious faith. He was a completely secular man. He simply said, The Dodgers know I dont work on Yom Kippur. He set the precedent that, like any American, Jews can tell their employers that there are days when they dont work.

But Koufax wasnt the first. Thirty years before him, Detroit Tigers slugger Hank Greenberg also sat out a crucial game on Yom Kippur, at a time when Michigan faced a wave of anti-Semitism that was fanned by industrialist Henry Ford.

Israels sports landscape

American Jews are far better at sports than Israeli Jews. Jewish-American athletes have racked up more than 100 Olympic gold medalsto Israels one gold medal. It isnt about the quality of Jewish life in America. Even the Jews of Hungary won 50 gold medals under terrible anti-Semitism. Rather, an athlete performs well when the athletes in the surrounding environment are highly skilled. No Chinese child plays soccer as well as Argentine children. Similarly, Israel wont produce American-caliber baseball stars.

Yet theres no need to bash the Israeli sports landscape, and no need to slam Israels national soccer or basketball teams for not being as prolific as this newly renowned baseball team. The players that comprise the baseball team hail from a baseball superpower, America, even if they represent a different country at the WBC, Israel, that isnt an athletic superpower of any kind.

The Israeli baseball teams American players, meanwhile, arent likely to become heroes in Israel anytime soon. But due to their achievements on the international stage, the world finally knows that Jews are good at baseball.

This op-ed first appeared in Israel Hayom, whose English-language content is distributed in the U.S. exclusively by JNS.org.

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Weekly roundup of world briefs from JTA – Heritage Florida Jewish News

Posted By richards on March 11, 2017

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Anti-Semitic violence, fear nothing new – NWAOnline

Posted By richards on March 11, 2017

ATLANTA -- Amid a surge of bomb threats and vandalism at Jewish institutions nationwide, members of Atlanta's Jewish community have felt a familiar wave of apprehension about what might come next.

In this Oct. 13, 1958, file photo, authorities investigate the scene of a bomb blast at The Temple on Peachtree Street in Atlanta. If the blast had oc...

Because all of that -- and worse -- has happened in the city before.

Six decades ago, during the turmoil of the Civil Rights era, 50 sticks of dynamite blasted a ragged hole in Atlanta's largest synagogue. A generation earlier, in 1915, Jewish businessman Leo Frank was lynched during a wave of anti-Semitism. A variation on this story was the basis for the 1937 Claude Rains film, They Won't Forget.

Some fear history is once again arcing toward the viperous climate that set the stage for the earlier violence.

"It's heartbreaking to see the attacks and threats and desecration of Jewish cemeteries in recent days," said playwright Jimmy Maize, whose play The Temple Bombing is on stage this month at Atlanta's Alliance Theater. "I have to say that writing this play feels too much like history repeating itself."

His play, which addresses anti-Semitism, fear and courage through the drama of the 1958 explosion, was inspired by a book by Atlanta author Melissa Fay Greene.

"We learned over several decades the power of hate speech," Greene said. "It can lead to people being harmed and killed."

Recently, more than 100 headstoneswere discovered toppled or damaged at a Jewish cemetery in Philadelphia. Jewish community centers and schools in several states also have been targets of recent bomb scares.

On March 3, federal officials said a 31-year-old man is a suspect in at least eight of the threats made against Jewish institutions nationwide, and a bomb threat to New York's Anti-Defamation League.

Atlanta has played a prominent role in American Jewish life since the late 1800s. Jewish immigrants began some of its most successful businesses, according to the Institute of Southern Jewish Life.

Atlanta was at the forefront of the new, industrial South, and many of its factories were Jewish-owned, said Jeremy Katz, archives director at Atlanta's William Breman Jewish Heritage Museum.

Jewish businessmen gained respect and became community leaders. But their success also led to anti-Semitism from Southerners who felt left behind by the changing economy, said Stuart Rockoff, the former historian for the Institute of Southern Jewish Life.

"There was this push and pull, and it was kind of a powder keg that ignited with the Leo Frank case," Katz said. "Before the Frank case, Jews were fairly accepted in the community because social lines were drawn by color of skin rather than religion, so Jews really flourished in the South."

Everything changed on a spring day in 1913, when 13-year-old factory worker Mary Phagan was found strangled in the cellar of Atlanta's National Pencil Co. Frank, the factory's manager, was arrested and put on trial. As newspaper articles inflamed anti-Semitic passions in and around Atlanta, he was convicted and sentenced to death.

Georgia Gov. John Slaton, convinced Frank was innocent, commuted his sentence to life in prison. In August 1915, a mob snatched Frank from the state prison in Milledgeville and drove him to Marietta, where Phagan had lived, and hanged him from an oak tree.

"The Leo Frank case showed that Jews were not immune from that type of violence and discrimination," Rockoff said.

In the following years, many Jews didn't speak of the Frank case.

But by the late 1940s, Rabbi Jacob Rothschild at The Temple in Atlanta had begun speaking out against racial injustice in Atlanta, said his son, William Rothschild. Some believe that made the synagogue a target for extremists.

The bomb exploded about 3:30 a.m. Oct. 12, 1958. A few hours later, during Sunday morning classes, "there would have been hundreds of children in the building," said Peter Berg, now senior rabbi at The Temple. But the children hadn't yet arrived, and no one was injured.

"I remember feeling emptiness," recalls Carol Zaban Cooper of Atlanta, who was 14 when her synagogue was bombed, and went on to become active with the Jewish Federation of Greater Atlanta. "I felt hollow, numb."

Alfred Uhry, author of the play and movie Driving Miss Daisy, attended The Temple as a child and had just moved to New York when it was bombed. He recalls the horror he felt after seeing a photo of the destruction in The New York Times.

"It showed a side of the building blown off, and I had gone to Sunday school there," Uhry said.

A bombing suspect's first trial ended with a hung jury and the second with an acquittal.

Atlanta Mayor William Hartsfield said "every political rabble-rouser is the godfather of these cross burners and dynamiters who sneak about in the dark and give a bad name to the South."

Atlanta Constitution editor Ralph McGill called it a harvest of hate. One day after the blast he wrote, "It is the harvest of defiance of courts and the encouragement of citizens to defy law on the part of many Southern politicians."

"To be sure, none said go bomb a Jewish temple or a school," he added in the Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial. "But let it be understood that when leadership in high places in any degree fails to support constituted authority, it opens the gate to all those who wish to take law into their own hands."

Racial hatred put everyone in danger, McGill wrote.

"When the wolves of hate are loosed on one people, then no one is safe."

Religion on 03/11/2017

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Tetzaveh: Hard Work – Arutz Sheva

Posted By richards on March 10, 2017

Olive oil jar 8,000 years old

Courtesy of the Israel Antiquities Authority

The Reward A little girl complained to her father that her chores are too difficult. The father, a chef, invited her to the kitchen and put up three pots to boil. In the first he placed a potato, in the second an egg and in the third, a coffee bean. Twenty minutes later, he showed his daughter his handiwork. You see, said the father, hard work raises your temperature, but it all depends on how you react. The potato goes in hard, but comes out shriveled and soft. The egg goes in soft, but changes into something brittle and hard. The coffee is unique. It doesnt change. On the contrary, it changes the water to create something better.

The Talmud describes the painstaking process of producing oil for the Temples candelabra. Only the first drop of oil could be used from each olive because only the purest oil was permitted. However, oil used for the meal offerings did not need to be as pure. It was permissible to use the first drop, but not necessary. One was also permitted to use the second or third drop.[1]

Producing a full cup of oil from the first drop is hard work, but good people dont shy away from hard work. It is only through hard work that we find ourselves; that we discover who we really are. It is easier to take the soft path, but the challenging path is more rewarding. The hard path gives us a chance to make something better of ourselves. It allows us to become pure.

A man once asked G-d to tell him his purpose in life. G-d replied that his purpose was to push a mountain. After months of pushing the man complained that it was a fools errand, the mountain had yet to move. G-d explained, I never told you to move the mountain, I only told you to push it. Look at how much stronger you have grown in the past few months as you exercised your muscles and pushed the mountain.

Hard work is not a means to an end. Hard work is the end.

The Talmud teaches us not to believe someone, who claims to have worked hard to no avail. [2] Many have wondered why such a claim isnt believable. Isnt it possible to fail even if we work hard? Some explain that if you failed, you didnt work hard enough. Others say the reason is much simpler. Hard work is its own reward. If you have worked hard, you are already a success. Whether you achieved or failed, you have succeeded.

Runners know that tacking on an extra minute to the end of their run is harder than the entire run put together. Do you know how they know this? Because they have tried it, again and again. If it is so hard, why do they keep doing it? Because they know that this extra minute is worth more in character and muscle building than the entire run put together.

Means and End This raises a question. If hard work is self rewarding, why do we consider the workaholic syndrome unhealthy?

The answer is as direct as it is simple. When work is a means to an end, the hard work has no value in if the end can be achieved without hard work. If the purpose of work is to earn money and one can earn enough without excessively hard work, it is wiser to work less and spend more time with family. The inability to bring oneself to do that is indicative of an obsession or illness.

But hard work that is not a means, but an end to itself, is its own reward. When it comes to Torah and G-dliness, no amount of toil is excessive because the labor is not a means to an end, the toil is its own end. When it comes to earning a living, too much toil is excessive if you can make do with less.

This is the deeper reason for why only the first drop can be used for the candelabra, but that the oil for the meal offerings can be comprised of the second and third drops too. The candelabra represents Torah and Mitzvah and you cant have a connection with G-d until you have paired down your ego and that is achieved through hard work. The harder we work, the more we pair down our ego and the closer we get to G-d. There is therefore no limit on how much hard work is enough.

Meal offerings, which represent our earning capacity and economic abilities dont have to entail hard work. If we can make enough money without working hard, it does us no good to work hard. It is permissible to work hard if it is necessary, but it is unwise to work hard if it is unnecessary. Better to use the extra time for more important things.

Learning and Learning A student once told his teacher that he learned the entire Torah. The teacher congratulated the student, but asked a probing question. I understand that you learned the Torah, but what did you learn from the Torah? What did the Torah teach you?

One can master the entire Torah and fail to be mastered by it. Fail to turn into something better. This is because the student did not apply himself to his studies. He failed to probe the personally relevant meanings and find the self-help techniques embedded in each verse. When I was a child, my teacher told us that one should bend over the Talmud, not let the Talmud bend over him. Dont sit back and tilt the large book toward you. Sit forward and lean into the book.

Leaning into the book means that we mold ourselves to the Torah rather than mold the Torah to us. We humble ourselves and become the Torahs student. We seek to be mastered by the Torah rather than become its master. We work hard and apply ourselves and then the Torah will help us grow.

True Torah scholars are devoted to their studies. Nothing is more important to them. They constantly push themselves to study more, to apply themselves more. Each day a little more than yesterday because as it is with runners, so it is with Torahthe more you push yourself beyond your norm, the more personal barriers you will break and the more you will release your true potential.

We dont emerge from the hard work of Torah study hardened and brittle. We dont emerge from the hard work of Mitzvah observance, broken and soft. We emerge with joy and alacrity prepared to make this world a purer, holier and better place.[3]

[1] Babylonian Talmud,Menachos 86a & 86b.

[2] Babylonian Talmud, Megilah 6b.

[3] This essay is culled from commentary by LTorah Ulmoadim by Rabbi Yosef Zevin on Exodus 27:20.

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Tetzaveh: Hard Work - Arutz Sheva

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