Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By simmons on March 3, 2017

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 may come next.

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.

Some fear that 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 Theatre. "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."

This past weekend, more than 100 headstones were discovered toppled or damaged at a Jewish cemetery in Philadelphia. In New York, a Rochester cemetery was targeted this week in the latest in a string of anti-Semitic incidents around the county. Cemetery officials said Thursday at least a dozen grave markers were desecrated.

Jewish community centers and schools in several states also have been targets of recent bomb scares.

On Friday, 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 Company. 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 of 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."

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Posted By admin on March 3, 2017

This month on Brave Little State, the history of Vermonts whiteness both racial and cultural and stories from people of color about what its like to live here.

The question that kicked off our inquiry came from Eva Gumprecht, of Adamant. Eva grew up in New York City. Her neighborhood was a mix of Jewish refugees and Hispanic people growing up, she loved hearing different languages, but she hated the lack of nature and the over-stimulation.

I knew from the beginning of my life that I hated living in cities. I always felt like somehow I'd just been born in the wrong place, she says.

After college, Eva moved out to western Massachusetts, then ended up in Boston, and became a clinical social worker.

And then I just couldn't take it anymore, she says. So about 11 years ago, I moved to Vermont.

Shortly after Eva settled in Adamant, she had a strange experience.

I remember one day we were having a satellite dish installed, and two young men showed up to install it, and they were black. And Id probably been here for about six months then, and I suddenly realized I really hadn't seen anyone black in those six months. And there was just this sense of something missing, something artificial about that.

It may not be a stretch to say that depending on where in Vermont you live, its possible that you also havent seen a person of color in a couple months. As of the 2010 Census, this state was 95.3 percent white, one of the whitest states in the country.

And what Eva Gumprecht wanted to know was: Why?

"Why is Vermont so overwhelmingly white? And how does that affect all of us?" Eva Gumprecht, Adamant

We tried to come at Evas question from two directions: by trying to understand some of the historical, economic and social forces that have shaped Vermonts whiteness over the years, and by interviewing people of color living in Vermont about what its like to be a resident of this state.

(If you're looking for the extended cuts from those interviews, scroll down to find the Soundcloudaudio files.)

But before all that, two quick disclaimers: First, one of the most visible sources of diversity in Vermont is our states refugee population, which is mostly in and around Burlington. But given that refugees dont exactly come to Vermont by choice, we decided to focus on other demographics. Second, it should be noted that any and all white Vermonters were preceded by the original Vermonters, before Vermont was Vermont: Native Americans. We actually devoted an entire episode to Vermonts Abenaki tribes a few months back, so give it a listen if you missed it.

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Push & pull

In terms of immediacy, there isn't an established community of color here in Vermont. And there is a historic reason for that, says C. Winter Han, an associate professor of sociology at Middlebury College and the author of the book Geisha of a Different Kind: Race and Sexuality in Gaysian America. Because clearly there were many places that at one time in history were not very diverse, like Chicago or New York or Philadelphia there really was a time when those cities were almost uniformly white. And yet over time, for different reasons, for different groups, they became much more diverse.

Professor Han says these transformations werent arbitrary.

There is this pattern of migration that most places where people go, they go because there's already an established connection between the place that that is sending migrants and the place that is receiving them.

This theory of immigration is often referred to as push and pull. And if you take the long view of Vermonts history, when it comes to a particular demographic African-Americans there was no "pull" to Vermont. That's according to SamMcReynolds, a professor of sociology and the chair of the Department of Society, Culture and Language at the University of New England,

There were no jobs, there was no African-American history, heritage, culture to attract African-Americans to come to the state to settle, he says.

Its a point of pride for Vermonters that we were the first state to abolish slavery, in 1777. And thats a good thing. But McReynolds says that since Vermont didnt have any big cotton plantations, for example, there was never a big, baseline population of African-Americans in the state.

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My view is that not just for Vermont, for northern New England for New Hampshire and Maine as well that the situation was structured in a way that without large-scale farming, without large-scale industry, without having had a slave population to deal with large-scale farming, there simply wasn't a foundation or a base for drawing people in, McReynolds says.

After the Civil War, former slaves couldnt afford to travel all the way to Vermont to buy land. Of course there were exceptions to this rule, like Alec and Sally Turner, who settled in Grafton in 1873.

The Vermont Folklife Center has an incredible stash of interviews that one of Alec and Sally's children, Daisy Turner, recorded with folklorist Jane Beck in 1983. Daisy was born in 1883, and grew up on the 100-acre farm that her father named Journeys End.

We didnt just come from nothing and nowhere. Weve got a background. And the background you trace back down to the roots, Daisy said in the Peabody-award winning series, Journey's End: The Memories and Traditions of Daisy Turner and her Family.

Brave Little State isVPR'speople-powered journalism podcast. Learn about the show.

But for the most part, when African Americans came north, they went to work in cities, in industrial jobs. And even when Vermonts industries got going, with mills and quarries, black folks were not in the labor pool.

What filled the mills, when they opened, the low-wage labor came from the Irish and the French Canadians,McReynolds says. It was much easier for French Canadians to come across the border from Canada than for an African-American to make his way or her way to Vermont.

Italians were also in the mix and Poles and Swedes they came to Proctor and Barre to work in the marble and granite industries.McReynolds says the presence of immigrants in Vermont, working these kinds of jobs, was one of the reasons that so few black people came here during the Great Migration. This was when 6 million African-Americans moved up out of the South starting around World War I.

So this migration is just phenomenal in number and scale and diversity and range of places, McReynolds says. And it went everywhere but Vermont.

Local business, progressive politics

What about today? In a lot of ways, its still about the economy. C. Winter Han, from Middlebury, says other historically white states are now diversifying because theyre developing new industries that attract new kinds of people. He uses Iowa as an example.

What we're seeing in Iowa is that we're seeing a lot of the meat-packing industry that used to be in the Chicago area and other sort of metropolitan areas, he says. And those types of industries tend to draw, not only do they draw Latino laborers, but they also actively recruit Latino labor.

But in Vermont?

Even though Vermont is a very rural state and we have farms here, we don't have that type of large factory farms it would not be as cost effective for Vermont farms to recruit Latino labor," Han says.

Some Vermont farms do have workers from Latin America, mostly Mexico but since a lot of those workers are undocumented, theyre limited in how much they can participate in their communities. And in any case, Han says that the kind of ideal of Vermont farming is not factory-size.

If Vermont pushes sort of this idea of small-scale artisan farming, and that sort of reflects Vermont values, right, then that limits the type of people who can come here and work in those types of places, he says.

The same goes for other industries. When Vermont focuses on local, small businesses, those small employers and small shops tend to employ one or two people, as opposed to sort of large-scale employers that may have an easier time recruiting a more diverse workforce.

Professor Han acknowledges that this is a complicated way of thinking about diversity: I'm sure a lot of people would say, Well, it isn't really all that great if we're having people recruiting a diverse workforce only because they can be exploited. Right? That's not really a good thing either.

And Han says this is where Vermonts economy and our progressive politics start to create a kind of awkward dynamic.

It's a very, I guess, emotional issue for a lot of people, in the sense that we're in this situation because in a lot of ways because we are progressive we have these very progressive values about economic fairness and about social justice issues. And unfortunately, those aren't the things that move big populations of people," he says.

So Vermont has this homogeneous workforce, and that means homogenous communities. And for people like Wayne Miller, that means Vermont can feel like dangerous territory.

So, if we have the beginnings of an answer to Evas question, its that a) there have been some large-scale economic forces that have made it difficult for Vermont to attract people of color in any big way, and b) its really hard to live in Vermont and be not white.

But.

But at the same time, though, these were very sort of simple answers, because if we sort of say, Well there are no people of color in Vermont because there is nothing here for them, we have to wonder, well, how come there's white people here?" C. Winter Han asks. "I mean, because the same forces that would have driven people to migrate to a certain place should have also motivated other people to do so as well.

And this is an excellent question, because it takes us from the basics and brings us to the next level of contemplating Vermonts whiteness. How it defines itself and perpetuates itself.

Imaginative geographies of whiteness

In 2006, Robert Vanderbeck wrote a totally fascinating paper called Vermont and the Imaginative Geographies of American Whiteness. Vanderbeck works in the School of Geography at the University of Leeds, in England, but for this research he spent time at the University of Vermont.

In terms of addressing this question about Vermont whiteness, one of the things to keep in mind is that this idea of whiteness is very much kind of a social and cultural construction, Vanderbeck says.

Yankee whiteness

In his paper, Vanderbeck talks about a kind of perceived whiteness in Vermont, particularly in the 19th and 20thcenturies: Yankee whiteness. Its not just a skin color, but a set of connotations.

Ideas of a kind of people who are taciturn who are thrifty people, who are hardworking people, who have this particular attachment to ideas of liberty and democracy and these kinds of things, Vanderbeck says.

Vanderbeck argues that compared to the Southern white, associated with Jim Crow laws and overt racism, the Yankee was considered pretty tame. But in his research he found a different story.

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You know, people of Irish descent, people of Italian descent, of Greek descent, would not have necessarily been kind of embraced within this category of whiteness, he says.

Remember that these were the immigrants who worked in Vermonts mills and quarries. In 1937, an academic named Elin Anderson did some ethnographic research in Burlington for a book calledWe Americans: A study of cleavage in an American city.

She had this great passage from her book where she writes about kind of Yankee perceptions of the city the city of Burlington, Vanderbeck says.

This is what she wrote:

Walking down the streets of Burlington, the visitor sees nothing in the appearance of the citizens to give any impression of cleavages in the community, of barriers separating group from group. On a Saturday night, for example, with doors open until nine or half-past, the citizens of Burlington, the farmers from the country, and visitors from near-by towns, all mingle together In this moment of common activity they all bear the stamp of Americans But to a Yankee farmer they are not all alike. To him Burlington has a lot of foreigners. As he walks along the main street, he looks in vain for a few faces which remind him of the features of Calvin Coolidge.

In a way, this dynamic still exists in Vermont.

I have to say for me, being Jewish and coming here was difficult and it wasn't something I expected, says Eva Gumprecht, this months question-asker, of her experience when she moved to Vermont in 2005.

The first year, I would be talking with people and I would find they weren't looking at my face. And I couldn't figure out for a long time where they were looking. They were looking at my hands. Because I talk with my hands. People Yankees don't do that, she says. And I was used to a certain speed of conversation and a certain passion of conversation which for most of Vermont, I think, is considered over-the-top. And so I would find myself sort of dialing myself back and really trying to fit in.

C. Winter Han, of Middlebury College, shares this anecdote:

I met somebody, and ... he said, Either you're a professor or a doctor. And I said ... 'How do you know? And he sort of said, Well, youre an Asian person in Middlebury. So clearly you're a doctor or a professor. That's the only Asian people who come here.

And then there are stories like Olivia Lapierres.

The narrow definition of Vermonter and Yankee lives on. And according toVanderbeck, thats because it was continually reinforced and perpetuated over the years. Like, with recruitment.

Recruiting white farmers

Around the turn of the 20th century, when there was a bunch of out-migration, with people leaving their farms, there was lots of discussion about who [Vermont] could recruit to work on the farms, Vanderbeck says.

And the preferred farmer, according to Vanderbeck, was of Teutonic origins: German, or Scandinavian.

When you were looking for people to take over abandoned farms, you werent thinking about, you know, trying to recruit the former African-American sharecropper in the U.S. South, but you wanted ... a Swede or Norwegian from Minnesota, for example, Vanderbeck says.

He cites former U.S. Census superintendent Francis Walker, who wrote this in 1882:

(T)he Germans, the Scandinavians, and though in a lesser degree, the Irish and French Canadians, who have made their homes where they are surrounded by the native agriculturalists, have become in a short time almost as good as Yankees as if they had been born upon the hills of Vermont.

In other words, there was a preference for attracting and assimilating white farmers over black farmers.

Enticing second home-owners

Another demographic that the state tried to attract was the second home-owner but a particular kind of second home-owner. In the 1930s, Vermonts beloved writer and activist Dorothy Canfield Fisher was hired by the Vermont Bureau of Publicity to write an official invitation to potential buyers.

And the invitation was explicitly directed at quote, Those who teach in schools, colleges, and universities, those who are doctors, lawyers, musicians, writers, artists. In a word, those who can earn their living by a professionally-trained use of their brains, Vanderbeck says.

And while so it does not explicitly kind of invoke a notion of whiteness, it was very clear [about] a particular type of person that the state was systematically trying to trying to recruit.

Marketing to tourists

And finally, Vanderbeck says the state sent an almost subliminal message when it marketed itself to tourists.

When I was based at UVM, I spent a lot of time going through Vermont Life magazine, he says. And he noticed this visual pattern.

White faces, and white snow ... white steeples on churches and the so-called white New England village are all kind of packaged together in a way that's made to kind of look and feel kind of natural in a particular way, he says, even that was clearly not kind of anything natural, it was very much a cultural construction.

So beyond economic forces and immigration streams, what weve had in this state is this long-term messaging about what Vermont looks like, and who Vermonters are.

And its really important to remember that this goes for white people, too.

Vermont's multiculturalism

I think fundamentally what we're missing is the multiculturalism that even exists within that word white, says Jude Smith Rachele, the CEO of a consultancy called Abundant Sun, which does diversity and inclusion training for businesses and nonprofits all over the world (including one recently at VPR).

Smith Rachele wants people to be very wary of making assumptions about who white Vermonters are.

I mean, I did one of our unconscious bias workshops just four days ago for one of our clients, and there was this one young man who, you know ... you look at him and he looks just like your typical white Vermonter," Smith Rachele says. "Underneath the surface, he's a Bosnian refugee. [He] didn't have much to say when everybody else was talking about their childhood experiences growing up in Vermont, until he worked with his smaller group of colleagues and he said, 'You know, from from [ages] 0 to 12 ... I grew up during a war ... I spent 3 to 5 living in a basement with no windows.' But you know, he's white. But he's also Muslim. So that's why I cannot and I will not simplify the answer to the question of why is Vermont so white.

That being said, theres misjudging white people, and then theres flat-out racism. So were closing out this months inquiry with a woman whos experienced quite a bit of the latter. Her name is Angela Grenier.

Brave Little State is a production of Vermont Public Radio. We have support from the VPR Journalism Fund.

Our editor is Lynne McCrea and our theme music is by Ty Gibbons. Other music in this episode was used under a Creative Commons license:

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Posted By simmons on March 3, 2017

New York, NY(ENEWSPF)March 2, 2017 The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) has produced an online resource to help parents, families and educators discuss the recent wave of bomb threats and evacuations affecting Jewish Community Centers and day schools with young children and teens.

The ADL resource, Five tips for talking with children about bomb threats at Jewish community centers provides educators, caregivers and family members with tools to help children understand the incidents and to have an open conversation about bias and prejudice that puts the incidents into perspective.

After more than 120 bomb threats against Jewish Community Centers and day schools leading to the evacuation of children and the elderly, anxiety levels are high and children in the affected communities are asking tough questions, said Jonathan A. Greenblatt, ADL CEO. This resource offers practical guidance to parents who need to reassure their children without dismissing valid concerns about the recent series of threats and about rising anti-Semitism more generally.

The online resource was created by anti-bias education experts in ADLs award-winning A WORLD OF DIFFERENCE Institute, which works with educators, parents and caregivers through the Leagues network of 27 regional offices to help young people deal with issues of anti-Semitism and prejudice in their schools and communities.

The five recommended ADL strategies for parents and educators include:

Prepare yourself: Before talking with children or teens, parents are encouraged to feel prepared to discuss the incident and provide enough space and time for children to share feelings and ask questions.

Treat all questions with respect: Its preferable to tell children that you need to think about their questions before answering, rather than ignoring or dismissing a question that makes the parent or caregiver feel uncomfortable or anxious.

Be open to talking about why these incidents take place: Young people wonder why incidents such as bomb threats happen and what motivates people who perpetrate these crimes. These are difficult questions, but the answer is not to respond with stereotypes, assumptions and scapegoating.

Be alert for signs of distress: These can include withdrawal, lack of interest or acting out and fear of attending school or other community activities. Misinformation, rumors and bias can take place on the playground or on a smartphone, so parents and educators are encouraged to gauge what children and teens are hearing from friends and on social media.

Focus on the helpers: Its always useful to highlight for children the people who helped them and their families during those incidents as well as those who supported them afterwards.

The Anti-Defamation League, founded in 1913, is the worlds leading organization fighting anti-Semitism through programs and services that counteract hatred, prejudice and bigotry.

Source: http://www.adl.org

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Posted By richards on March 3, 2017

The election of Donald Trump and the rise of the #JewishResistance movement has led to an amazing outpouring of Torah. My Facebook news feed, in addition to brimming with bad news and outrage, is full of rabbis, rabbinical students, and laypeople sharing texts that speak to the political moment and its attendant moral obligations. These texts are beautiful, powerful, and compelling. They are also entirely drawn from the Tanakh.

The Torah that is present in my life most regularly is not Tanakh but Talmud: Ive been learning daf yomi for a year and a half. Fully half of this time has been spent on the Bavas, the first three tractates of the order of Nezikin, which focus on the laws of damages and ownership. Bava Kama was full of situational humor, and I found that learning Bava Metzia with daf yomis characteristic speed and lack of depth made it mostly a slog. Then, the week after Trumps election, the cycle began Bava Batra.

The opening sugya of Bava Batra, as well as many of the following sugyot, is about walls: where to build them, how to build them, when to build them. In the middle of reading the first mishna, my phone pinged with a New York Times alert: Donald Trump had announced plans to put into motion the construction of the border wall he had advocated during his campaign. I learned the rest of the daf with a sense of urgency the building of walls was a pressing moral issue, and the Gemara had a lot to say about it.

For the Gemara, building a wall is about affirming and strengthening the relationships between neighbors. For much of the first page of Bava Batra, the Gemara litigates if the damage of seeing isnt damage, i.e. if wanting privacy is an adequate reason to require ones neighbor to participate in putting up a wall. The Gemaras initial, primary angle on when and why one could build a wall is interpersonal walls have consequences, the Gemara seems to say. Even if you want a wall just to separate between my plants and yours, it will shape the spaces we live in. Could what we first see as a question of privacy actually be about real harm (one can build a wall in a garden not to ensure privacy but rather to prevent ones neighbor from giving their crops the evil eye)? Do we understand the general public to be a different mass than a series of relationships with individuals? Do we have ultimate rights in our homes, even when that places a burden on others? These issues are about ourselves, our neighbors, and the vast public and perhaps the blurred lines between those categories.

This experience was a rare moment where I felt like the daf was speaking to my life, but it turned out to be one of a series of such moments, so many that it became eerie. A few days later, the Gemara doubled down on the issue of walls; after chastising those who would build a gatehouse to keep the needy out of their courtyards, the text declares that scholars do not need to pay for walls. Their good deeds are their protection walls are a recourse of those without mitzvot.

After polemicizing against the wall, the daf entered the politics on my news feed in a slightly different way. HIAS, the Jewish refugee resettlement and advocacy organization, shared a photograph of a Syrian mother and her children who had been blocked from entering the United States and reuniting with their husband and father by Trumps ban. HIAS worked tirelessly to bring them to the Unites States despite the obstacles, and they succeeded. In their Facebook post sharing the joyful news, they ended with a Talmudic quote: To save one life is to save the world. That quote was from Bava Batra 11, the days daf.

As the news cycle moved on, so did the daf, taking positions first on public education and then on placing toxins near villages. A few weeks ago, daf learners encountered the story of Yehoshua ben Gamla, who instituted teachers in every province and town to make sure that children would be taught regardless of their fathers Torah knowledge. This blatant Talmudic declaration of support for public school systems felt so heavy-handed as to feel parodic as Betsy Devos was confirmed as Education Secretary. Later, a mishna forbade Jews from establishing tanneries and other sources of water contaminants near homes Bava Batra, it seemed, was forcefully objecting to the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline.

While the twenty-four books of the Tanach are a source of tremendous Jewish spiritual bounty, they are merely a fraction of the vast sea of Torah. Our Jewish intellectual heritage is so much more than Biblical. It is in some ways easiest in America, whose religious heritage is deeply Protestant, to reach for the Bible for moral lessons and to religiously motivate our politics. But in an era where so much oppression is effected through practical, legal means school systems, permits, construction projects the Talmud is a powerful resource. The Talmud, Nezikin in particular, offers strong condemnations of the practical actions that contradict attempts to build a just society. In addition, the act of returning uniquely Jewish texts to a public political discourse could be a form of resistance to white supremacy. Our Jewishness should permeate every level of our politics; the Talmud can be the best of that.

Mar 2, 2017Avigayil Halpern

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Posted By richards on March 3, 2017

When the history of Jewish texts comes to be written, Feb. 7, 2017, will likely be regarded as an important turning point.

Why? Heres what happened.

For the first time, the extraordinary Steinsaltz English translation and its interpretation of the Talmud was made available to all. Online. Free. In print, it costs hundreds to buy the Steinsaltz volumes. The Steinsaltz English translation is an up-to-date (some volumes are still to be released) and easily understood aid to Talmud study for English speakers.

But wait, theres more: Multiple commentaries are now just a click or a touch away and the ability to see where biblical texts appear in the Talmud has been added, and so much more. Effectively, the linked, interconnected nature of Jewish texts has now been brought to life online with a dynamism and an immediacy that will change the frame of Jewish learning. The implications for Jewish life going forward will likely be substantial.

To understand the significance of the moment, a little history is in order. Human communications technology began with the invention of pictorial writing, 20,000 to 30,000 years ago. It was the genesis of civilization.

Later, the creation of alphabets around 4,000 years ago gave rise to the potential for literacy, knowledge and citizenship. Hebrew was one of the earliest alphabets, and Jews were the first to insist that the education that alphabets made possible had to permeate every household in society. Over time, the written word became so central to Jews that even our oral transmissions were enshrined on clay or parchment. Texts became our hallmark. What other people insists that a piece of learned writing must be attached to every significant doorpost?

But writing had its limits: Scribal work was laborious and time-consuming. Scrolls were expensive treasures. Hand-written texts were hard to produce, hard to obtain, hard to replicate with precision and hard to preserve.

Only in the middle of the 15th century, with the arrival of the printing press, did texts and books and newspapers truly become available to all. It was a revolution that changed the world. Indeed, the printing press led directly to what Rabbi Jonathan Sacks describes as the collapse of strictly hierarchical societies in which only a few were literate and had access to texts.

The printing press, in short, changed the human landscape not only externally but internally, he wrote. More than any other invention it paved the way for the transition from the medieval to the modern age.

For Jews, the printing press made prayer books and commentaries widely available. It also gave rise to the arrangement of the classic Talmudic page, a unique compilation of texts spanning two millennia that has come to be the core focal point of Jewish learning.

Given this history, it is remarkable to realize that we are now living through the rise of the fourth great transformation in communication technology. The advent of the Internet represents a transition that will have even more profound implications than those initiated by the printing press.

Already in the 1990s, Jewish texts quickly migrated online and static versions of many sources were to be found on multiple websites. But that just mimicked the printed page in a virtual environment.

The game-changer came with the launch of the Sefaria website (and app) in 2013. Sefaria (from the Hebrew root sefer, book) began to collect all the significant Jewish texts in a common format in one searchable location. They started to link the texts, and they opened the site for Jewish educators to create and share instructional worksheets.

As the founders of Sefaria explained it, Judaisms core texts grew out of millennia-long conversations and arguments across generations. More than a collection of books on a shelf, the Jewish canon is a giant corpus of interconnected texts that speak to each other. Sefaria is making it easier than ever to explore the conversations of the past, while also creating a space for ancient conversations to continue in new ways, with new participants, new questions and new layers of dialogue.

This month, Sefaria became richer and deeper and more significant than ever before. It took Jewish texts to the next level the moment when they began to utilize fully the features of the online environment. Our texts have always operated in a cross-referenced fashion. Now, the hyperlinked technology allows that reality to become apparent and useful in an unprecedented way. Now, textual sharing, collaboration, mobility and availability are becoming universal.

Our scribes and scrolls will always be precious to us. But making the Talmud and the great Jewish sources accessible and translated everywhere at all time, with a facility for instantly searching across sources, is an invaluable leap. There can be little doubt that this is an important turning point indeed.

All Jews should have the Sefaria app on their phone or tablet. Even if consulted infrequently, it should be part of a learned Jewish identity to have all the core Jewish sources at ones fingertips. And together, we can now hold all the centuries of Jewish learning literally in our collective hands.

Rabbi Danny Schiff is the Jewish Community Foundation Scholar at the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh.

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Posted By richards on March 3, 2017

Your Talmudic advice column

Dear Rabbi Zahavy,

Im getting a little dizzy trying to figure out when to schedule my bat mitzvah. My synagogue recommends that both boys and girls celebrate their bar and bat mitzvahs at age 13. Id like to celebrate it when I am 12. I am ready for it. My parents support me. What should I do?

Coming of Age in Clifton

Dear Coming of Age,

Its probable from what you say that the tasks of preparing for the chanting of the Torah and haftarah in the synagogue likely are not what is making you dizzy. Planning and deciding on all the related logistics for your bat mitzvah day are challenges to young and old alike. You appear to be involved in the ordeals of scheduling and negotiations, perhaps with your parents, siblings, and friends, and with the calendars of your synagogue and the demands of caterers, DJs, and wardrobe, just to list the most obvious factors that come into play in approaching a bat mitzvah.

Do not fret. Yes indeed, you can get spun around trying to sort out the best practices and options for our major Jewish rituals and observances. True, many of our religious actions are rigorously defined and there is nothing to think about. But in the case of bat mitzvah, the rules are less clear and hence the choices are more complex.

Why is this ritual different from many of our other rituals? Lets review just a bit of background about the origins of the bar and bat mitzvah, because that will help you understand why the instructions are less well defined for those practices.

Its commonly accepted that the dos and donts of Judaism, the rituals and restrictions, are mandatory for adults and optional for children. By a longstanding convention, the rabbis of the Talmud decided that the automatic age of majority is 13 for boys and 12 for girls. But there is no recorded discussion back in ancient talmudic times of any major public ritual or celebration of this transition.

Lets look for a moment at the larger world, beyond our Jewish communities. Anthropologists call those human activities marking personal life cycle transitions rites of passage. They recognize the four major ones, marking birth, coming of age, marriage, and death.

In many world cultures and religions, there is a fixed set of activities to demonstrate the coming of age passage. In some native American cultures, there is a rite of puberty to mark girls first menstruation, which may occur when they are about 12. In some cultures in Africa and the South Pacific, boys are initiated into manhood by performing acts of bravery, survival, or athleticism. Malaysian Muslim girls recite from the Koran at the mosque at 11 to mark their maturation. That seems somewhat akin to our Jewish bat mitzvah practice.

In the recent past American teens have marked the passage to adulthood more informally, with sweet sixteen parties, with taking their driving tests, and perhaps with getting a new car.

Your dizziness over what to do probably revolves around the two elements of our current bat mitzvah practices. First you need to know when you should have the synagogue part of the rite. Thats for you and your family and community to mark your maturity in religious terms. And second you need to plan for your party, the time that you and your friends get together for a formal social celebration of your coming of age.

As I suggested, itd be easier if the rules were hard and fast, as they are for many of our ritual observances in Judaism. Yes, you have found out that there is more flexibility in the scheduling of a bat mitzvah than you might have expected.

The laws are not so rigid for these mitzvahs partly because the bar mitzvah concept was developed in the middle ages. At that time, it began to be the custom that as soon as a boy turned 13 he was called to the Torah in the synagogue to mark his maturation.

And the bat mitzvah for girls is a later development. Some historians of Judaism trace its origin to American rabbi Mordecai M. Kaplans celebration of the bat mitzvah of his daughter almost a century ago. On March 18, 1922, Judith Kaplan was called to the Torah at the Society for the Advancement of Judaism in Manhattan. In Reform Judaism in Europe and America decades earlier, girls and boys were confirmed in the temple; bar and bat mitzvah milestones were not celebrated.

If you and your family are members of a Conservative synagogue where egalitarianism is an important concern, then the aim sometimes is that boys and girls have equal rights and equal rites and celebrate coming of age at 13. But some Conservative families, as well as Orthodox families who celebrate bat mitzvah, do so at age 12.

This past year I attended my granddaughters bat mitzvah celebration party in Israel, which took place a few weeks before she turned 12 to allow her friends to attend and celebrate with her before the summer school break.

So dizziness at some point becomes a likely possibility when you are trying to please everyone involved, family, friends and community.

My advice dont agonize too long over this. Decide what you want. Listen to what your parents want. Find out what your synagogue wants and offers. Availability there for events may be tightly contested and restricted.

If you cannot get your first choice of a date for your bat mitzvah, be prepared with alternatives. Remember that this should be a joyous occasion, and do not let the constraints of others diminish that happiness.

Indeed, you show your bravery and maturity as a young adult when you manage to navigate through the ordeals and the choppy seas of your bat mitzvah selections and decisions. Mazal tov to you in advance on this important milestone.

Dear Rabbi Zahavy,

I am a practicing Conservative Jew who was brought up in the Orthodox tradition. Im thinking of buying an aboveground crypt in a Jewish mausoleum so that I can be laid to rest there after I die. It makes sense to me, but I know that it diverges from the age-old Jewish practice to be buried in the ground. What is your advice for me?

Above Ground in Boca

Dear Above Ground,

It sounds to me like you prefer to arrange for a mausoleum, but are willing to go along with the Jewish funeral traditions of in-ground burial.

Thats good. As I noted above for the previous question, there are four essential rites of passage in Judaism. Our marriage and funeral practices are without doubt old and venerable.

Some background related to your question may help you think further about this important end of life choice.

The Rabbinical Assembly of the Conservative movement issued an opinion in 1983 that opened the door to mausoleum use with this somewhat wavering message. It starts: Although there does not seem to be any impediment in Jewish law to using a mausoleum for burial, it should not be encouraged. Indeed, it should be actively discouraged since it is an obvious change from methods universally accepted today and its general publicized approval may create confusion.

Then the opinion continues with permissions and qualifications: While it should be discouraged, we must recognize that it is permitted and that a rabbi may therefore officiate at an interment in a mausoleum. Although a mausoleum is halakhically permissible, certain restrictions applicable to a cemetery should be applied to the mausoleum. The mausoleum should be used exclusively for those of the Jewish faith. If a non-sectarian mausoleum is used, definite and easily recognizable demarcations should be imposed, such as its own central hall and entrance, clearly indicating its Jewish nature.

In contrast, Orthodox practice is clear on this. Chabad for instance has stated an unwavering Orthodox view: Jewish law is unequivocal in establishing absolutely, and uncompromisingly, that the dead must be buried in the earth.

As best as I can tell, Reform Jews have no official objection to mausoleum use.

Given these variations in American Judaism, you should choose with a main principle of Conservative ideology in mind namely do what makes you comfortable within the parameters of what is permissible.

Perhaps you are okay with a mausoleum, but you imagine that your Orthodox relatives would be offended by that choice and would not visit your crypt. If that is important to you, then you ought to choose the most traditional option, in-ground burial.

Meanwhile, I extend to you the traditional hope and blessing that you may live to be 120 years old, giving you plenty of time to mull over your decision.

Tzvee Zahavy received his Ph.D. from Brown University and his rabbinic ordination from Yeshiva University. He is the author of many books about Judaism, including Jewish Magic. The Book of Jewish Prayers in English, Gods Favorite Prayers and Talmudic Advice from Dear Rabbi which includes his past columns from the Jewish Standard and other essays.

The Dear Rabbi Zahavy column offers mindful advice based on talmudic wisdom. It aspires to be equally open and meaningful to all the varieties and denominations of Judaism. You can find it here on the first Friday of the month. Please email your questions to zahavy@gmail.com

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Posted By richards on March 3, 2017

The projectile that slammed into an Indiana synagogue last weekend didnt do much physical damage. A photo of the hole in the glass window of a synagogue classroom shows no more than a pockmark in the glass.

The intent, however, was to terrify, according to the synagogues rabbi. And it comes at a time when incidents targeting minority religions in the small Indiana city of Evansville are on the rise.

Just days earlier, an unidentified man barged into a nearby Islamic center, harassed women preparing food in the centers kitchen and boasted that he had been leaving pork outside centers door.

These things have increased in intensity and frequency, said Dr. Mohammad Hussain, a lay leader at the Islamic Center of Evansville, a city of 100,000 near the borders of Kentucky and Illinois. He said that the incident at the center last week had left members frightened, but that it wasnt the only time in recent months that members of his community have faced harassment. He told the Forward that women have been shouted at outside the center, and that one young law student visiting from out of town was approached at a Wal-Mart and told to go back to your country.

The incidents come as communities across the U.S. and Canada face what seems to be a wave apparent wave of attacks on minority religious sites, including a rash of bomb threats to Jewish centers, a deadly shooting at a mosque in Quebec City, an arson attack on a mosque in Texas, and vandalism at Jewish cemeteries in St. Louis and Pennsylvania.

In Evansville, a few months ago, someone scrawled racist threats on an African-American church across town.

Amid the rash of attacks on minority religious sites, local police have stepped up patrols. Sergeant Jason Collum of the Evansville Police said that officers are now regularly patrolling the citys Jewish cemeteries, something that hadnt previously been a part of their routine.

Evansville is a wonderful community, Hussain said. There is a large majority of people who are very nice and wonderful, and there are obviously some bad apples. Its really hard to tell if this is something thats been done schematically or its just random incidents.

Rabbi Gary Mazo, spiritual leader of Evansvilles Temple Adath Bnai Israel, the synagogue victimized in the recent vandalism, said that the incidents in Evansville were local manifestations of the nationwide trend.

I think its just a product of living in a society where hatred and bigotry have been given a voice thats larger than life, and people feel emboldened and empowered to act on the hatred, the bigotry, he said. Anyone who is a minority religion, culture, ethnicity, is going to wind up on the receiving end. We hoped that nothing like this would ever happen here.

And yet, it has. Religious groups in Evansville, which is also home to two universities, have engaged in robust interfaith dialogue for years. The synagogue and the Islamic center victimized in recent weeks have participated in an ongoing educational and cultural series with a nearby Presbyterian church, called One God One Community.

Now, the pastor of that church, Kevin Flemming of Evansvilles First Presbyterian, said that the religious community is coming together in the wake of the attacks. We have all responded, said Flemming.

In a statement on Thursday, Bishop Charles C. Thompson of the Catholic Diocese of Evansville offered his support to the synagogue. I speak for the Catholic community across Southwest Indiana in condemning this hate crime and all acts like it and in offering prayers for everyone involved, he said.

Mazo said that since the synagogue damage was discovered, non-Jewish clergy friends have dropped by the synagogue every day. He expects a big crowd of non-Jewish supporters for Friday night services this week.

I think this place is going to be packed, he said.

Police say that the incidents remain under investigation. Collum said that initial evidence suggested that the projectile fired at the synagogue was not a bullet, but rather a pellet shot from a bb gun. He said there was no indication that the incidents are connected.

Hussain, meanwhile, said that while he appreciated President Donald Trumps condemnation of anti-Semitic bomb threats and cemetery desacrations. But he said he hoped for more. I think it needs to be much more forceful and much more clear, he said.

Contact Josh Nathan-Kazis at nathankazis@forward.com or on Twitter, @joshnathankazis.

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Posted By richards on March 3, 2017

Synagogue spreads message of hope in response to hate

Updated: 11:05 PM EST Mar 2, 2017

The congregation of Ohev Shalom was joined by people of many synagogues across Central Florida, as well as people who practice other faiths, to answer words of hate with songs of love and joy.

A rise in threats and vandalism at places of peace, Jewish centers and cemeteries, has given way to rising fears of antisemitism across America.

In Central Florida, the Jewish Community Center of Greater Orlando in Maitland was targeted with bomb threats three times in January alone, and other local centers also received threats since then.

That's why Rabbi David Kay opened Ohev Shalom's doors to the public, inviting people to come together with a simple message.

"Answer closed minds with open hearts," Kay said. "The purpose of hiding behind anonymity and threatening people is to disrupt their lives and we are going on with our lives, and more than that, we are enjoying ourselves."

The rabbi said it takes people of all walks of life, standing together, to stomp out hate.

"I remain convinced that the number of people who are of goodwill and have love in their hearts outnumber the haters hundreds to one, thousands to one. We just need some of those folks to stand forward and we will be OK," he said.

WEBVTT >> FOR THE CONGREGATION OF OHEVSHALOM, WORDS OF HATE, AREANSWERED WITH SONGS OF LOVE.KAY, WE'RE NOT GOING TO BEINTIMIDATED.REPORTER: A RISE IN THREATS ANDVANDALISM AT PLACES OF PEACE,JEWISH CENTERS AND CEMETERIES,HAVE GIVEN WAY TO RISING FEARSOF ANTI-SEMITISM ACROSS THECOUNTRY.HERE, IN CENTRAL FLORIDA, THEJEWISH COMMUNITY CENTER OFGREATER ORLANDO IN MAITLAND WASTARGETED WITH BOMBS THREATSTHREE TIMES IN JANUARY ALONE AND OTHER LOCAL CENTERS HAVERECEIVED THREATS SINCE THAT'S WHY RABBI DAVID KABROUGHT HIS CONGREGATIONTOGETHER, WITH A SIMPLE MESSAG>> ANSWER CLOSE MINDS WITH OPENHEARTS.THE PURPOSE OF HIDING BEHINDANONYMITY AND THREATENING PEOPLEIS TO DISRUPT THEIR LIVES, ANDWE ARE GOING ON WITH OUR LIVESAND MORE THAN THAT WE AREENJOYING OURSELVES.REPORTER: THE RABBI TELLS US ITT]HE RABBI TELLS US IT TAKESPEOPLE OF ALL WALKS, STANDINGTOGETHER, TO STOMP OUT HATE.>> I REMAIN CONVICED THAT THENUMBER OF PEOPLE WHO ARE OF GOODWILL AND HAVE LOVE IN THEIRHEARTS OUTNUMBER THE HATERSHUNDREDS TO ONE, THOUSANDS TOONE.WE JUST NEED SOME OF THOSE FOLKSTO STAND FORWARD, AND WE WILL BEOK.REPORTER: MANY PEOPLE FROMSYNOGOGUES ACROSS THE AREA, ANDEVEN PEOPLE FROM DIFFERENTFAITHS, TOOK PART IN THE SERVICEAND RABBI KAY TELLS US LEADERSOF SEVERAL OTHER FAITHS,CHRISTIANS, MUSLIMS, OTHERRELIGIONS, AND PEOPLE WITH NOPARTICULAR FAITH, HAVE REACHED

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Posted By richards on March 3, 2017

Danya Shults Photo by Bridget Badore

Julianne was raised by Catholic and Presbyterian parents, while Jason grew up culturally Jewish. At first, it was simple to mark their different backgrounds. In December, the couple celebrated Christmas with Juliannes relatives and lit a menorah and served latkes at Christmas dinner.

But now that theyre thinking of having kids, the Kanters have started to talk religion more seriously. And they realized they needed a space to learn about Judaism without the expectations that came with joining a synagogue.

To talk about how are we going to incorporate Judaism into our lives what does that mean? What will that look like? Julianne Kanter said. I didnt know enough about it to feel comfortable teaching my kids about it.

Since last year, the Kanters have found Jewish connection through a range of initiatives targeted at intermarried or unaffiliated couples. Last June, they went on a trip with Honeymoon Israel, a Birthright-esque subsidized tour of Israel for newlywed couples with at least one Jewish partner. And in the months since, they have built community at home in Brooklyn through two discussion groups where intermarried couples get together to meet, eat and talk about shared challenges and experiences.

In one group, called the Couples Salon, five to six couples sharea light meal, introduce themselves and drop questions they have prepared in advance into a bowl. A moderator who can also participate picks out a question and the group talks whether about how to deal with familial expectations, how to celebrate holidays or how to share a ritual with your kids. The salons have happened once a month, with different couples, since August.

We wanted the perspective of people who were in similar situations, which the synagogue is not, Jason Kanter said. It was nice to go to a group where everyone was in the same sort of boat. Theres real dialogue rather than someone telling you their opinion of what your situation is.

A growing number of initiatives are giving intermarried couples a Jewish framework disconnected from synagogue services and outside the walls of legacy Jewish institutions. Instead of drawing them to Judaism with a preconceived goal, these programs allow intermarried couples to form community among themselves and on their own terms.

I wanted to find a way to create a space for couples that come from mixed religious backgrounds to ask questions in a safe space, said Danya Shults, who runs the Couples Salons as part of Arq, a Jewish culture group, and organized her fifth salon earlier this month. Im not a synagogue. Im not expecting them to join. Im not expecting them to convert.

The salons began last year, as did Circles of Welcome, a similar initiative by JCC Manhattan, where five to seven intermarried or unaffiliated couple meets monthly, usually in someones home, to learn and talk about Judaism with a rabbi or rabbinical student who serves as mentor. In Northern Californias Bay Area, two somewhat older programs, Jewish Gateways and Building Jewish Bridges, offer group discussions, classes and communal gatherings for intermarried couples.

The programs are at once a reaction to rising intermarriage rates and to the rejection that intermarried couples have long experienced from parts of the Jewish community. While most Jews married since 2000 have wedded non-Jews, the Conservative and Orthodox movements do not sanctionintermarriage, while the Reform movement, the most welcoming to intermarrieds of the three largest Jewish denominations, encourages conversion for the non-Jewish spouse.

Because of the history of interfaith families not being welcomed and not being accepted that has meant, in some instances, for interfaith families that want to experience Jewish life, they have to figure that out using other resources, said Jodi Bromberg, CEO of InterfaithFamily, which provides resources for intermarried couples exploring Jewish life and inclusive Jewish communities.

Often, said Honeymoon Israel co-CEO Avi Rubel, intermarried couples also have friends from a range of backgrounds. So theyre uncomfortable with settings that, by their nature, are not meant for non-Jews.

When it comes to building community and meeting other people, people want to bring their whole selves into something, Rubel said. Which often in America means being inclusive of non-Jews and other friends. When theyre at a Jewish event, they dont want it to feel exclusionary.

Mainstream Jewish organizations have become more supportive of including intermarried families. Several Conservative rabbis have voiced support for performing intermarriages, and the movement is set to allow its congregations to accept intermarried couples as synagogue members. Honeymoon Israel, launched in 2015, is funded by various family foundations and Jewish federations.

But organizers of the independent initiatives, and intermarried couples themselves, say even a welcoming synagogue can still be an intimidating space. The couples may not know the prayers or rituals, may feel uncomfortable with the expectation of becoming members, or may just feel like theyre in the minority.

Its a privilege of inmarried Jews with children in any social circumstance, said Steven M. Cohen, a Jewish social policy professor at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, referring to synagogue membership. The people that fit the demographic of the active group are the people who feel most welcome.

Rabbi Avram Mlotek, a Circles of Welcome mentor and Orthodox rabbi, says his movements staunch opposition to intermarriage doesnt come into play as he teaches couples about Judaism.

Because of my own commitment to my understanding of halacha, there will be areas in which the couples and I will not see eye to eye, he said, using a Hebrew term for Jewish law. But thats like the 10th or 15th conversation. Thats not the first or second or third or even fifth. Theres so much more to learn about them, and for me to be able to share also about myself, before even getting to that point.

That doesnt mean intermarried Jews will remain forever separate, said Rabbi Miriam Farber Wajnberg, who runs Circles of Welcome at the JCC Manhattan. She sees the program as a stepping stone to a time when the larger community is more open to non-Jewish spouses.

We expect and hope that this program wont need to exist in the future, that we wont need to create a special program to help couples get access to Jewish life, she said. It will just be happening automatically.

But Julianne Kanter, who facilitated her own Couples Salon on Feb. 8, isnt sweating over which synagogue to join. She said that for now, she and her husband feel a sense of belonging in the intermarried groups that have formed.

To me, I feel like these are the people who get us, she said. This is our community, and were just really lucky.

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Posted By richards on March 3, 2017

Rabbi Dr. Herbert C. Dobrinsky, Vice President for University Affairs, Co-Founder of Sephardic Studies Programs and Consultant to Jacob E. Safra Institute of Sephardic Studies and all other Sephardic Divisions

Rabbi Moshe Tessone, Director of Sephardic Community Program, YU Jewish Studies Faculty (teaches courses at Yeshiva College and at Stern College for Women), and Faculty at the Philip and Sarah Belz School of Jewish Music (teaches Sephardic Liturgical Music and Cantillation)

Rabbi Eliyahu Ben Haim, Sephardic Rosh Yeshiva Chairholder, Maxwell R. Maybaum Chair in Talmud and Sephardic Halakhic Codes (teaches Talmud class for 20-24 students (majority 65-75% are Sephardim) a leading Sephardic Rabbinic Authority for the Greater Sephardic Community)

Rabbi Abraham Sarfaty, Faculty member of YU's Mazer Yeshiva Program and an assistant to Rosh Kollel, Rabbi Hershel Schachter of the Marcos and Adina Katz Kollel. Also, instructor of Sephardic Halakha and Codes to Maybaum Fellows at RIETS.

Professor Daniel Tsadik, Assistant Professor of Sephardic and Iranian studies at the Bernard Revel Graduate School of Jewish Studies. (Noted scholar of Iranian Jewish Studies and Middle Eastern Countries and Jews Living under Islam). Also teaches undergraduate courses at YC and SCW.

Professor Ronnie Perelis, Chief Rabbi Dr. Isaac Abraham and Jelena (Rachel) Alcalay Assistant Professor of Sephardic Studies at BRGS (teaches Judeo Spanish history and literature, and history of Balkan Jewish Communities)

Rabbi Hayim Angel, Faculty YC, Professor of Bible

Rabbi Dan Cohen, Edmond J. Safra Sephardic S'gan Mashgiach at RIETS.

Rabbi Yosef Yanetz, Shoel UMaishiv, Sephardic Beit Midrash and is a member of the Yadin Yadin Kollel.

Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff, Jewish Studies Faculty, Stern College for Women

Rabbi Richard Hidary, Faculty, Stern College for Women, Assistant Professor of Jewish History

Rabbi Nissim Elnekaveh, Library Consultant on Ladino and Sephardic Materials

Rabbi Steven Schneid, Faculty Belz School of Jewish Music, teaches Safrut (Torah calligraphy according to Sephardic tradition)

Joseph Angel, YC, Assistant Professor of Bible

Rabbi Gideon Shloush, Faculty, Stern College for Women, Adjunct Instructor of Judaic Studies

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